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vanderlustwords · 4 years

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Under the Sheets

(not my gif)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader

Prompt: 9) There’s only one bed, and we sleep as far away as possible from each other but wake up cuddling

Requester: Anonymous

Summary: Bucky spends more time out of his dorm than in it with how much his roommate amorously makes love to his girlfriend. Luckily, his cute across-the-hall neighbor is generous about lending her place to him. Bucky’s unsure if he wants to hug or kiss his roommate for putting him in the situation he is in now.

Note: Thank you for sending this in! :) This trope is the OG.

Count: 3948

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You would say that every meeting you've had with James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes is always a series of unfortunate events.

The first time was when you were locked outside of your dorm room because you're an idiot without a roommate. Since it wasn't your first incident, you were very reluctant to call the campus security guard to let you in. You're pretty sure he hates you.

Luckily, across the hall, you had some new neighbors.

"You must be James-"

"Bucky, please," he offers you an easy, charming smile.

"Bucky, nice to meet you," you smiled back.

You had been standing outside your door for quite sometime when Bucky came back, explaining how Steve was out with his girlfriend. As it would be, Bucky knew how to pick a locked door open. You only got a laugh when you asked him about such questionable skills he had.

The next time you met Bucky was when you spilled your grocery bags all over the floor before entering into your building. Bucky seemed to just arrive home from his afternoon classes.

"This is so embarrassing," you muttered with flushed cheeks as Bucky helped you pick everything up.

"Well, no use crying over spilled milk."

"I haven't bought milk," you joked, causing him to laugh. Bucky had helped you carry your groceries in.

"No roommate?" He looked around the place, seeing how the extra room you had turned into a study room.

"Nope! Well, I mean, I had one earlier in the year, but she moved out after 3 months to transfer to another university. They didn't assign me with anyone else."

"Lucky," Bucky sighed.

"Roommate problems?" You raised your brow. You had come to know that Bucky and Steve have been friends since they were in diapers, now seemingly grown and going to university together too.

It seemed hard to believe the two friends would not like rooming together.

"Not problems, per se," Bucky licked his lips. "Just Steve likes to bring Peggy over a lot, and she stays the night often. I guess her roommate is kind of a psychopath."

You nodded slowly and understandingly. It was probably difficult to get studying done or sleep with hearing your roommate fuck at night.

"Well," you offer him a nervous smile, "you are always welcome here if you need the space to study."

"Thanks, doll."

It seems after that, Bucky took your offer quite seriously. Over the next few weeks, he would show up to your place in the evening needing some quiet to work on his papers and upcoming tests.

You certainly didn't mind the company, sometimes having the place to yourself could be a little lonely when everyone else had their roommates to hang out with.

It was almost kind of nice—an easy friendship brewing between the two of you.

The thought of dating never really crossed your mind because you weren't ignorant of the fact that Bucky was wildly popular across campus. Steve was too, but Peggy Carter was also wildly popular herself, making them a dream couple.

So, all sorts of people were trying to put themselves on Bucky's radar.

And, well, you were just you.

You were just flittering through your university life. You had friends, of course, game nights were on Friday, and went out on the occasional weekend to drink.

Really, the only time you got to spend time with Bucky was within your dorm building.

"I brought takeout!" Bucky holds up thick bags with food. You can smell the contents right away and smile.

"Thai food?" You smile, hopeful, in case you're somehow wrong.

Bucky grins at you as you let him in. He puts the bags on the counter, and you help him take the things out.

"Yeah, I saw you staring at their building while I was on the way to class the other day," he laughs. "How long did you stand there?"

You felt your cheeks warm at being caught by someone.

"Only ten minutes," you mumble.

Bucky licks his tongue against his bottom lip, smiling at you as he takes a seat.

You moan, almost a little inappropriately when you take your first bite.

"God, it's been way too long," you sigh happily as you munch away.

Bucky laughs, "For someone who likes Thai food so much, I don't see you eat it too often."

You shrug. "Thai food is one of those things where there's a lot of dishes that are shared. My friends, unfortunately, don't share my love for Thai food."

"Blasphemous!" Bucky gasps dramatically and jokingly, but you follow along with a firm nod.

"That's what I've been saying!"

Bucky grins. "Alright, how about your boyfriend?"

You roll your head over to Bucky with a look. "I think as often as you spend here, you should know by now I don't have one."

"Just checking," Bucky shrugs. "Any particular reason why?"

You quirk your brow at him. "Well, I'll tell you if you tell me why you haven't got a girl. Lord knows you don't have a shortage of options."

Bucky chuckles as he looks at you, scooping more food into your mouth. His eyes soften for just a moment.

"Just waiting on the right girl is all," he says, looking back at his food when you look up at him.

"Ah, then we're two peas in a pod," you smile, "I'm also waiting for the right person, and unfortunately, the only guys on my roster right now are frat boys."

You scrunch your face a little, and Bucky lets out a burst of laughter at your expression.

"Any particular reason for that?" He asks.

"One of my friends is in a sorority," you sigh. "She thinks she can get me to join if she shoves hot guys my way. I'm actually going to get dragged to a party on Saturday."

"Well," Bucky licks his lip, "is it working?"

"Not even in the slightest," you smirk.

Bucky grins.

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"I don't want to study anymore, my brain is melting," Bucky groans as he leans back against your couch with his head facing the ceiling.

His eyes shut as he tries to make all the words disappear from his head, and you laugh at him.

"It's only been two hours," you point out. "Don't you have a huge test on Saturday afternoon?"

"I can't," Bucky moans dramatically. "I can't anymore. I should accept my inevitable doom and fail."

You roll your eyes with a smile as you lean forward and close his books. "Alright, drama queen. I think you just need a break. Why don't we just put on a movie?"

"Annnnd, now my brain is unmelting," Bucky sits up with an excited twinkle in his eye.

You end up watching three movies, but by the third movie, you fall asleep.

Bucky sits there, eyes drifting to you with ease as the movie plays on.

You snored a little, causing him to smile involuntarily.

Alright, Bucky admits, you were just beyond adorable to him.

But finding the right person also takes time.

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Friday night is game night.

Your friends get much too rowdy as you try to quiet them down, knowing Bucky is probably trying to study across the hall.

One of your friends drinks way too much and ends up passing out on the couch, dead to the world.

"Alright, let's call it a night," you yawn as you stand up and stretch. It's well past 1 AM as your friends get up.

"Should we wake him?" One of your friends asks.

"Nah, just leave him. I don't even know if he will wake up," you and your friends share a quick laugh as they leave your building.

"Don't forget we have the party tomorrow," your friend, Mary Jane, pulls you in for a hug.

"Right," you drawl, "Another attempt to find me a gross, frat boyfriend?"

"I mean, show me another guy on your roster, and I won't try to drag you to these parties," Mary Jane laughs.

You made some noise of agreement as you pat her back before she lets go, walking to the door and giving you a little wave before leaving.

You stretch again before you go to your closet to bring out an extra blanket and set it over your friend. You grab a glass of water and some Advil because you know that poor sucker will feel it tomorrow.

You look in the fridge and groan when you see you've run out of eggs. Typically, you wouldn't mind getting them in the morning, but your friend was someone who needed food immediately when they were hungover. You weren't willing to wake up any earlier to get the eggs in the morning, so you closed the fridge and got ready to head to the 24-hour convenience store down the block.

You were casually scrolling through your phone as you left your apartment. When you opened the door, you could hear some...sounds from Bucky's apartment, and you felt instant pity for the man. You were ready to leave the building when a figure sitting in the lobby scared the shit out of you.

"Holy fuc--Bucky?"

Bucky looked up with slightly bleary eyes, and it looks like he was still studying as he had his textbook in his lap along with his notebook.

"Oh, what are you doing down here?" He asked, sounding rather tired.

"What are you doing down here?" You retorted. "It's almost 2 AM. Don't you have a huge test tomorrow?"

"...Steve and Peggy had a fight..." Bucky pressed his lips together, and you don't need to ask further that the noises you heard earlier were them making up.

You wheedle from foot to foot while you look at Bucky. He looks exhausted, and you feel awful he's been sitting out here for God knows how long.

"How long were you out here for?"

"I don't know," Bucky shrugs, "Couple hours?"

You sigh. "Why didn't you just let me know. You could've come over."

"It was game night for you, wasn't it?" Bucky blinks because he was pretty sure he saw your sorority friend leave about 10 minutes ago.

You let out a pretty deep sigh, holding your hand out in front of him.

He scrunches his brows.

"C'mon," you wiggle your fingers, "come get some eggs with me, and you can crash at my place tonight."

Bucky gives you a light grin as he closes his textbook and grabs your hand as you put very little effort into pulling him up.

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There's a body.

In the place where Bucky thought he was going to sleep.

You don't seem to pay any mind to it as you put the eggs and orange juice away in the fridge.

Bucky is thinking a mile a minute.

The couch was taken, and the extra room you had was turned into a study room.

Was he supposed to sleep on the carpet? Were you going to give him a sleeping bag?

"Hey," Bucky grabs your attention, "Where should I crash?"

You shut the fridge door, running your hand through your hair as you make your way to your room.

"We can just bunk in the same bed," you say with a shrug, and Bucky thinks he might have a heart attack.

"You're okay with that?" Bucky asks slowly.

You shrug again, "Yeah, I bunk with people all the time. Don't you? It's like part of the university experience."

Bucky doesn't know how to say that he's probably doing more than just sleeping when he bunks with someone.

You turn around and lean at your doorframe, quirking your brow with a smirk.

"Don't tell me you aren't enough of an adult to share a bed with me."

Getting a rise out of Bucky seems to work as Bucky stalks into your bedroom.

"I'll show you an adult," he mutters childishly, and you roll your eyes with a smile.

And although Bucky says such big words, he's lying stiff as a board on the bed. He lies as close to the edge as possible without falling with his back turned to you, and you can't help but chuckle a little.

"You can unclench, you know. I hardly doubt you'll get some rest if you lie there like a metal rod," you say, but you're also lying pretty close to the edge with your back turned to him, though not as stiff.

It's silent for a moment, but eventually, you feel the bed shift a little as Bucky relaxes.

It's silent again, and you feel yourself starting to fall asleep.

"Who was that on your couch?" Bucky asks, breaking the silence.

"Hm?" You hum, opening your eyes slightly. "Oh, just a friend. He usually doesn't come to game night, but his boyfriend is visiting back home this weekend. He went a little too hard on the drinks."

"He's gay?"

"Yeah, got a problem?" You ask almost daring Bucky to say he does.

"Definitely not," Bucky smiles.

It's silent again.

"So--"

"Go to sleep, dumbass, you have a test in the morning," you say without opening your eyes. You hear Bucky chuckle softly.

"Goodnight, doll."

"Goodnight," you smile.

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Warm.

Bucky felt warm. Maybe a little too warm.

He hasn't opened his eyes yet, but he can feel sunlight hitting his face and hear the birds chirping outside.

Bucky takes a deep breath in and feels shifting in his arms. He moves a little, pulling the warmth in closer.

He roughly hums in the back of his throat when he feels lips press against his collarbone.

It hits him like a freight train.

Bucky immediately opens his eyes, his body becoming rigid again as you come into view.

What started with the two of you sleeping at the furthest edges of the bed with your backs turned to each other ended up being the very opposite.

Sometime during the middle of the night, the two of you gravitated towards the middle of the bed. You were wrapped up in his arms, head just under his chin. He could feel your breath on the base of this throat, and it was giving him goosebumps.

Your hands were wrapped around his back, gripping his shirt slightly. Bucky couldn't even move too much with your legs intertwined with his. A groan wanted to escape his lips with his thigh wedged between your legs.

Bucky tried to move slowly without waking you.

He really did.

But then you let out a whine, holding him tighter and clenching your legs to lock his thigh in.

"Stop moving," you whined.

God, Bucky doesn't think he'll make it. He's already got morning wood, and this is too much.

He calls your name in an attempt to wake you up.

"Doll, you gotta get up, I have a test soon," he says instead when you hardly react to him calling your name.

This time, you do blearily open your eyes with a huff.

You untangle yourself from him as Bucky lets out a quiet sigh of relief. Sitting up, you let out a yawn and let out a big stretch, your shirt riding a little up as you do.

You look at your clock.

"Alright, there's about an hour before your test. Eat some breakfast before you go."

"It's really fin--"

"Break. fast."

You leave the room, and Bucky is left sitting there by himself. The morning passes quickly as you make breakfast. The sounds nor the smell seem to wake your friend up.

"Good luck on your test!" You smile at him as you make him a breakfast sandwich for him to go.

Bucky smiles back with a 'thanks' before he leaves your place confused.

Did this morning not affect you at all? Did you not see him as a man?

Bucky was distracted during the whole test.

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You held your smile until you heard the footsteps fade from your door.

After that, you nearly screamed. You stalked over to your hungover friend and whipped a pillow into his face.

"Ack!" He wakes up, nearly falling off the couch. He groans instantly when he sees your face.

"I'm so hungover, oh my god," your friend moans.

Your face feels hot as it's flushed in embarrassment. "This is all your fault for drinking too much and crashing on the couch! I should've pushed you onto the floor!"

You let out a groan before you stalked off to the washroom, closing the door.

Your friend sits up, looking at the plate of eggs and bacon on the table.

"What'd I do?"

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The entire day leading up to the party is spent with you trying to contain your embarrassment. You're trying to repress the memory of being pressed up against Bucky and clingy.

You didn't hear from Bucky after his test, and you were much too mortified to say anything, so you hadn't texted him either.

"You look constipated, please take some shots and relax," Mary Jane hands you tequila with a lime slice.

You shoot back the shot without hesitation.

"Alright," Mary Jane whistles, "Do I even want to know what's got your panties in a knot?"

"Nope," you shake your head.

"Alright, fair enough. Get some more drinks and mingle!" Mary Jane turns her attention past you. You look behind and see her current boyfriend, Harry, enter the room with kegs.

You sigh when Mary Jane looks at you with puppy eyes.

"Go," you tell her. She squeals and kisses you on the cheek before rushing off.

You do flitter through the party, catching up with some friends, and getting some drinks.

As embarrassed as you are, the last thing you want is to get sloppy, so you don't overdo it.

But as you already know, luck is never on your side.

Especially when you see Bucky walking into the party. People are getting excited and rushing up to say hi to him because Bucky rarely goes to frat parties.

The two of you lock eyes instantly, and the memory of this morning rushes back, and you wished the ground would open up and swallow you.

'Play it cool,' you tell yourself as you turn back to the group of people you're standing with.

You're not even sure what they've been talking about, and there's no way you could focus on that now.

Bucky doesn't seem to be rushing up to you either. He's drinking a beer with Harry as a crowd surrounds them.

You can see girls in the back looking at him and whispering, and you feel the burn in your gut now for some reason.

God, were you such a cliché that sharing a bed with Bucky actually made you think that way about him?

The night seems to continue on, and even though you keep catching eyes with Bucky, neither of you seems willing to make the first move.

You head over to the bar to get more drinks when someone approaches you and orders you a drink.

You internally groan.

Brock Rumlow.

A real piece of work.

He made it into Theta Chi, well-known to be a troublemaker.

He was known to sleep around and make unwanted advances towards girls and was hardly passing his classes.

Brock had turned his attention to you lately, which you flat out rejected him. It helped that you were friends with Mary Jane, who was dating Harry, the president of Theta Chi, and could tell Brock to back off.

But Brock Rumlow liked to push his boundaries.

"You look pretty good tonight, did you dress pretty for me?" He smirks at you, and you roll your eyes.

"Fuck off, Rumlow. I already told you I'm not interested," you look away, not bothering to take the drink he ordered for you.

"Now don't be like that, you haven't even gotten to know me yet," Brock leans against the counter close to you.

"And as I've explicitly told you, no," you whip your head back and glare at him.

You're about to walk off and see if you could find Mary Jane and Harry when Brock grabs your arm.

"What the fuck-" You start to say when another arm comes into view, grabbing Brock's wrist.

You look over to see Bucky standing there with his lip pressed into a thin line as he grips Brock's wrist hard enough until he lets go.

"Ow--what's your problem, dude?" Brock holds his wrist before shaking the pain off.

"Keep your hands off her," Bucky cocks his brow as he stands in front of you.

"How about you mind your business," Brock glares at him. "What? Are you her boyfriend?"

Bucky is standing so close to you that you can see his muscles tense, and you find yourself wrapping your arms around him from behind.

"Yes," you interrupt as Bucky lifts his arm over you and then around you so that you're tucked by his side. "He is my boyfriend."

You look up with a loving smile, trying to play the part when you find Bucky's steel-blue eyes gazing back at you.

He licks his lips, teeth dragging over his bottom lip, you swear so slowly before he smirks and looks back at Brock.

"So," Bucky keeps smiling, "fuck off."

"You could've just said you had a boyfriend," Brock grumbles at you like it's your fault somehow.

"My girlfriend doesn't have to say anything. Do you need to be taken back to elementary school to understand what 'no' or 'I'm not interested' means?" Bucky cocks his brow, and Brock sneers at him.

He looks like he wants to cause a scene, but Bucky is a well-known guy around campus, even if he's not in a fraternity house. Brock knows nothing good would come from starting a fight with Bucky, and he's already on thin ice with Harry.

And Bucky knows that.

So, he turns to you with a smile.

"C'mon, doll, let's get out of here."

As you get ready to leave, Bucky turns to Brock once more with a steely look on his face.

"Stay the fuck away from my girl."

Bucky actually leads you out of the party, saying a brief goodbye to Harry and Mary Jane, who wiggles her brows at you, and you're so grateful to have left.

The two of you walk silently but slowly back to the apartment, and you've got your arms wrapped around your midsection.

You cough, bringing Bucky's attention to you as you come to a stop under the streetlight.

"Thanks," you say a little awkwardly, "for you know, playing along."

Bucky smiles lightly.

"If those are the kind of guys on your roster, I think you should expand your horizons a little."

"Not all of us can have a guy like you on our list, but I'll take that under advisement."

You laugh, trying to play it off as a joke because even though it was all just pretend for a moment, being pressed up against Bucky as his girlfriend shouldn't have felt as good as it did.

"You can add me to your roster."

The words were said so smoothly you had almost missed it. You turn your head to Bucky, who's standing there with his hands in his pockets.

"What?" You say unsurely, convinced you might've heard him wrong.

"I told you I was waiting for the right girl," Bucky smiles, "I'm waiting for you, doll."

You feel an explosion of butterflies in your stomach, cheeks heating up as you process Bucky's words.

Every meeting you've had with Bucky is a series of unfortunate events.

And perhaps between every moment, while waiting for the right guy to come along, it only took waking up in his arms to realize maybe he was there all along.

#v.myfic #g.fluff #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fluff #avengers imagine #modern avengers au #avengers au #marvel fanfic #marvel imagine

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prettywordsyouleft · 3 years

Text

The Cowboy - Part 11

Summary: Leaving the city for a rural area called Blayne seemed simple enough. Your task was to convince the people to agree with selling their land for a resort redevelopment. But once there, you soon realise that your city ways are entirely different to theirs. Winning their trust was going to take some effort, and when you start to fall for a local cowboy, you wonder if you really needed Blayne more than the city life after all.

Pairing: Jung Jaehyun x female reader

Genre: cowboy au / drama / romance / if you squint there’s some enemies to lovers up in here.

Warnings: Jung Jaehyun is a cowboy, need I say more? (a bit of angst and drama, and it sometimes might feel like you’re reading a Nicolas Sparks book, so I’m told lol) – highly suggestive scene and the angst train is back in action for this part

Word count: 2470

This series will be updated every Thursday and Friday.

Preview | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12

The celebrations continued even once you were back in Blayne. News travelled that Jaehyun had come in fourth with his score at the rodeo, earning him a cash prize and a qualifying ticket. When his truck hurtled down the main street, the evening was brighter than usual.

You peered curiously at Avery and then at the diner’s lights. “Shouldn’t that be closed by now?”

“They’re waiting for us,” he mentioned with a loose grin, and you blinked blankly. “To celebrate!”

“Oh! Right, of course. Everyone knows you’ve done it.” Glancing over at Jaehyun, who had been mostly silent for the ride home, you gave him a small smile before swallowing down your emotions.

Once you had pulled away from that life-altering kiss, Jaehyun had been taken in one direction and you in the other. He had interviews to do, and people within the circuit to meet with. Although the sun had still been out when he had finished his run, dusk had swooped in and carried it away by the time you were finally loading back up into the truck.

There was so much to talk about with Jaehyun.

“We won’t stay for long,” he announced when he parked the truck into the free spot outside the diner, and a small gasp left you when you found the place bustling with people.

Avery smirked. “We’re a tight-knit community. We celebrate everyone’s successes like this.”

“And everyone’s misfortunes too,” Jaehyun muttered, plastering a smile on his face before opening the door to the truck.

You hesitated to get out, and Jaehyun turned back to look at you questioningly. Rubbing your neck, you pointed awkwardly to the party. “Should I come in or wait out here?”

“Why are you even hesitating? You’re part of this world now.”

Still unconvinced, you took the hand he offered to help you down and then nodded softly, feeling rather subdued despite the happy atmosphere.

The noise once you were all inside increased tenfold, party poppers and streamers going off around you both. Jaehyun laughed and held out his arms to the heavens. “Looks like I’m still pretty decent, huh?!”

And then you lost track of all the conversations that began around you. Jaehyun was proudly talking about his run and Avery had shown everyone the recorded clip of it. You nodded and clapped along when prodded to join in, but remained on the outskirts.

It was foreign for you to see so many people come together like this to support each other. Sure, you had friends and family, but even then, it was never like this. A text to say congratulations when you got a promotion from your parents or some quiet drinks with a few friends to celebrate an award you had received. Nothing as loud as this.

You realised you craved this more than what you had back home. The community here was one that cared about each other. Even if they gossiped endlessly and had no filter at times, each person within the diner cared about the one they sat or stood next to. They had grown together, shared their burdens and prevailed against the odds as one.

It amazed you how much you still had to learn about Blayne even after living here for a couple of months.

“Y/N, did you enjoy the rodeo?” a voice asked, and you turned, smiling warmly at June.

“It was quite the experience.”

“You look rather exhausted.”

You nodded once. “A little.”

“Jaehyun, can you run Y/N home now?”

“Oh no! This is all about him, and I’m fine. Honestly.”

Jaehyun was at your side almost immediately, and he grinned. “I bet this is all too much for Miss City here. Come on. I’ll take you home.”

“But-!” you exclaimed as he gently tugged you out of the seat you had managed to secure earlier, dragging you to the exit with a hasty farewell. He opened the door to the truck and helped you in before rounding the other side and climbing aboard.

You stared at him. “You don’t have to-”

“My Mum is a gem, isn’t she?” he stated with a small smile, waving to those inside the diner. “She always finds ways for me to escape.”

“You mean her coming over to me just now was…?”

Jaehyun grinned. “Thanks for saving my butt tonight. I get really uncomfortable after an hour of being praised. It feels foreign to me.”

“Why? You’re the golden boy. No one can touch the Jung’s.”

Jaehyun smiled sadly as he started down the road. “Attention isn’t something much that I enjoy.”

“It sure looks like you did at the rodeo,” you mentioned, and Jaehyun shook his head, changing gear on the truck before reaching for your hand.

You could tell he had been craving your touch for some time.

“I wanted to have some time with just you earlier than this.”

“It’s okay. It’s not like I need to be anywhere else.”

Jaehyun sighed. “Don’t you have people waiting on you though?”

“People where?”

“Back in the city. Your work colleagues, your friends, your family. They’ll need you.”

“I miss them, for sure. Especially Natty. But it’s not like it is out here. Relationships are different.”

“We’re different?”

“Well I’ve never met a cowboy in the suburbs,” you teased, and Jaehyun chuckled.

“What you said earlier, what we did, I get it was the heat of the moment. A different atmosphere than what we both usually-”

“Are you backing out on me, Mr Cowboy?” you asked firmly, and Jaehyun glanced at you several times before stopping the truck in the middle of the country road.

“I’m giving you an option if you want to take it.”

“Didn’t you give me that once you ducked under the bar and came to my side?”

“You’re serious?”

“You don’t think I could love you already?” you proposed, staring intensely at the man beside you.

Jaehyun opened his mouth to speak, only to close it a moment later. He grinned. “You’ve rendered me speechless.”

“Why? Because you hoped I didn’t?”

“No, I hope you fall madly for me.”

“I’m well on my way,” you confirm, and Jaehyun shook his head incredulously. “What? Has no woman ever told you that they like you?”

“I’ve never felt deserving of it, no.”

“You and that self-worth of yours,” you muttered, reaching over to cup his jaw in your hand. Jaehyun caught your gaze, and you smiled. “I love you.”

“I don’t think that’s ever going to get old to hear.”

“You’ve not said it back once,” you pointed out, and Jaehyun chuckled.

“You’ve been waiting for it, huh?”

“Normally most people describe it as one says I love you, and the next says it back. I’ve seen enough movies about it,” you mentioned as Jaehyun finally started to drive again, soon heading down the start of your driveway.

“Claim? How come you sound as if you haven’t said anything like this before?”

“Because I haven’t,” you confessed, and Jaehyun stared at you then. You darted your gaze to the drive and reached for the steering wheel to balance the truck out. “Would you watch where you’re going?!”

“Would you stop making my heart swell so much?” he breathed, and you chewed on your lip quietly, Jaehyun taking back the wheel and gripped it tightly.

The energy was charged between you by the time he turned off the ignition and opened the squeaky truck door, you soon following him out.

Stretching your fingers out to try and loosen some of the tension coiling up within you, you both walked side by side up the porch and over to your front door.

“Well, if you’re exhausted, I should let you rest,” Jaehyun stated, and you nodded numbly, reaching in your purse for your keys.

“I had a good time. Thanks for taking me.”

“Sleep well, won’t you,” he said as you opened the front door, stepping over the threshold and taking hold of the wooden frame. You turned to glance back at Jaehyun, the deep way he looked at you causing your stomach to flip.

He didn’t move, however, and you slowly moved the door to close it until his hand reached out and stopped it, your heart now pounding with anticipation.

“I’m so in love with you,” he confessed hurriedly, stepping over the doorframe and picking you up in his arms.

You curled your limbs around him effortlessly, kissing him with demand as he shut the door, hands roaming and tugging at the clothes between you both.

It felt like too much effort to follow the path up to the bedroom, Jaehyun acting disorientated as he moved around the place, shedding your upper clothing in the process. Somehow you ended up in the kitchen, a moan leaving you as he propped you down on the countertop, your hands finally ridding him of the singlet that had been under his rodeo shirt.

He equally had removed your bottoms, staring at you in a way that made you feel like the only woman made for him. You embraced him as soon as he was close enough to, and Jaehyun groaned into your ear. “I’ve been in love with you for some time now.”

“It’s not a race. Just because you hold a record around these parts, doesn’t mean you need to prove you beat me to feel something back for you.”

“You’re something else you know that? Who knew you’d come into this town and change everything for me?”

“Whatever happened to the guy who told me I wouldn’t last a month?” you breathed out, arching your back as his mouth trailed from your neck to your chest.

Jaehyun smirked at you then, his hands moving to cup your breasts within them. “You made sure about adapting to this place.”

“It’s not so bad. I mean, sometimes I would kill for the accessibility of the city, and have a Starbucks nearby. The smell sometimes out here is something I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to either.”

“I feel there’s a but attached here,” he mused, reaching up to kiss your lips passionately. It was strange to be having such a conversation with the temperature and physical needs between you increasing.

Yet when you pulled back for more air, you beamed at him. “But I’m falling in love with this place, this town, and your people. I couldn’t imagine my life any other way now.”

The new week began, and you felt as if you were riding along on cloud nine. Everything was beautiful out here. You worked, you explored, and you loved long into the summer nights with Jaehyun. Your riding lessons continued, and now that you had the hang of loping, you would often feel exhilarated riding Roger. You felt free and empowered.

Blayne was more than just a small blip on any map.

Despite it all, you still regarded the reason you came here as a priority. With your plan neatly tucked into your briefcase, and slipping into one of your more casual business attires, you looked into the mirror of the bathroom and smoothed down your hair.

“Today’s the day,” you told your reflection, smiling brightly.

Everything about you felt ready right now. You had all the signatures you had sought out, and word had travelled enough for Mr Jung to reach out for this meeting to happen a day earlier.

Today you would get the piece of land you needed to start the redevelopment.

You drove to the Jung’s homestead with your game face on, your finger tapping on the steering wheel repeatedly. You hummed a tune to yourself and ran through the opening part to your proposal in your head. When you parked the car, you smiled brightly at Avery when you crossed him on the yard, but he didn’t return the gesture quite as genuinely.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” you greeted all the same, and Avery grimaced.

“I think you might need to prepare yourself.”

“Oh, I’m completely ready for this,” you assured him, but Avery shook his head.

“Not for your plan. Listen, Y/N, things have-”

“You’re here,” Mr Jung cut in, and you turned your attention to the elder, nodding confidently at the man. “Come inside.”

Following him in and frowning at Avery’s worried expression, you stopped midway in taking the seat across from Mr Jung’s desk when you noticed Jaehyun sitting in the one next to it. “What are you doing here? I can pitch my idea to your father alone.”

“Pitch your idea?” Mr Jung repeated, laughing hollowly. “I didn’t ask you here today to listen to any nonsense about the resort plans your company has. I have no interest in them.”

“With full respect, Mr Jung, I’ve worked incredibly hard with the people of Blayne to find a happy medium.”

“And just how many of them did you sleep with or was it just my boy here?”

“Dad!”

“No. I want to hear it from her. Was it in the plan you made to sleep with my son to get the land, to trespass onto what can never be yours, and fool this idiot into thinking you could actually have something together?”

You were rendered speechless, your game face falling away and crumbling into a thousand pieces. You tried to say something, anything, to not only prove your sincerity but to defend yourself against his vicious attack.

However, Mr Jung’s tongue wasn’t done yet, and he glared at his son, shaking his head slowly. “I should have left you to die in that fire you started. If this was how you wanted to end Blayne, I’d much rather you have gone up in smokes back then than face you and your betrayal now.”

The information stunned you further, and your head jarringly turned to the man now sobbing in the chair beside you. “You were the one to start the fire?”

“It’s not how you see it!” Jaehyun exclaimed, though to whom, you didn’t quite know.

Regathering yourself, you shook your head. “Mr Jung, please allow me to explain myself, as you requested earlier.”

“You have nothing of worth for me to listen to. I’d like for you to pack your bags and be gone from Blayne before sunset.”

“Excuse me?! Surely I can do something to change your opinion-”

Mr Jung slammed his fist down on the table. “Outsiders like you only cause problems for the people who breathe for this place. Get out and don’t come back.”

Glancing at Jaehyun, who was rocking back and forth in his chair holding his head, and then back at the resolute expression on the owner of this land’s face, you finally allowed your emotions to burst through, choking on the sob that followed.

“I’m so sorry!” you announced before turning for the door and running out it.

_________________

Part 12

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tabloidtoc · 3 years

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Star, May 10

You can buy a brand new copy of this issue without the mailing label for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Meghan Markle having twin girls (oops!)

Page 1: Famous for doing his own stunts, Tom Cruise helicoptered in to the tiny English village of Levisham to film aboard, or rather hanging off of, a vintage train and along for the ride was his Mission: Impossible 7 costar Hayley Atwell, who was spotted running along the top of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway car and while the pair, surrounded by crew and tech experts, were total pros, it's an open secret on set that their romance is going strong and Tom and Hayley hang out non-stop when the cameras are off and are pretty much joined at the hip but not in a showy, PDA way; it's a very discreet thing they've got going on -- off-camera, 58-year-old Tom and 39-year-old Hayley enjoy quiet nights holed up in Tom's London digs, eating meals specially prepared by his private chef and they'll watch movies or read books or just chill out doing their own thing -- chilling out isn't Tom's forte, as audio leaked of him berating the film's crew for violating COVID-19 protocols, but things have calmed down considerably as the spy flick, due in theaters May 2022, closes in on its wrap date, but the ensuing publicity push will put Tom and Hayley's relationship front and center, but don't expect the devoted Scientologist to jump on any couches (a la Katie Holmes) announcing wife No. 4 as Tom has learned the hard way about putting everything out there and getting picked to pieces; this time, it's all about subtlety

Page 2: Contents, Cher got up and personal with the World's Loneliest Elephant Kaavan, who she helped relocate to Cambodia

Page 3: Brie Larson in a swimsuit with butterflies on it during a getaway to Hawaii, with headphones at the ready Brooke Burke was itching to cut a rug with friends before teaching a silent disco cardio party at the Rafi Lounge in Malibu, Maria Shriver and Christina Schwarzenegger enjoyed some quality time on a stroll in L.A., Boy George sporting a bold look on The Jonathan Ross Show in London

Page 4: In a recent interview, AnnaLynne McCord revealed a shocking diagnosis: for years, the 90210 alum has been battling dissociative identity disorder (often erroneously referred to as multiple personality disorder) -- she told Dr. Daniel Amen she is absolutely uninterested in shame about opening up despite the stigma surrounding mental-health issues because that's how we get to the point where we can articulate the nature of these pervasive traumas as horrible as they are -- for her part, the 33-year-old traces back her troubles to sexual abuse she suffered as a child and as had many of the 200,000 people diagnosed with DID each year, she suppressed those horrific memories and it was only within the past few years that they began to resurface, largely after she sought treatment for PTSD related to another sexual assault and she doesn't have any memories of abuse until around 5, then from 5 to 11, she recounts incidents throughout and then, when she was 13, she has a singled-out memory and it was at that age that she developed what doctors call a second personality identity: as Little Ann, the Georgia-born daughter of a pastor said she was balls to the wall, middle fingers to the sky, anarchist from hell who will stab you with the spike ring that she wears and that helped her survive her nightmarish situation -- ironically, acting created the same dynamic, making it sometimes difficult for AnnaLynne to let go of characters she'd played and all of her roles were splits but she didn't even realize she was doing it

Page 5: Jennifer Aniston wasn't exactly touched when Justin Theroux gushed about how much he still loves her in the issue of Esquire -- complaining about feeling like a hermit during the pandemic, 49-year-old Justin nearly got misty discussing FaceTiming and texting his ex, saying he cherishes their friendship and they can not be together and still bring each other joy and he'd be bereft if they weren't still in touch and he'd like to think the same for her -- but 52-year-old Jen, whose love life has been low-key since the pair's 2018 divorce, has stayed on good terms with most of her exes including Brad Pitt but doesn't want anything more than a friendship with Justin and sure, it's flattering but she's just moved on and wishes he would too, and that goes double for some of her friends who griped that Justin tried to milk Jen's connections to further his career -- in the end, Justin needs to know he's got no chance whatsoever of winning Jen back and she doesn't feel anything remotely close to passion for him anymore

* Roseanne Barr showed off her newly svelte frame on Instagram -- back in 1998, she lost 100 lbs after undergoing gastric-bypass surgery, but yo-yo'd over the next decades but now she's determined to keep the weight off by totally changing the way she eats and she's growing her own fruits and vegetables and has a whole new appreciation of food

* Five months after he entered the Federal Correctional Institution, Mossimo Gianulli finished up his stint at his plush Hidden Hills home and now, the 57-year-old, who along with wife Lori Loughlin, pleaded guilty to paying a $500,000 bribe to get their kids into USC, can't wait to get back to normal and his biggest priority, besides spending time with Lori and the girls, is to get out there on the golf course -- the designer, worth a reported $70 million, still has to perform 250 hours of community service while Lori, who finished up her prison stint in December, is chipping away at hers, doling out meals at L.A.'s Project Angel Food -- Lori and Mossimo have resolved not to dwell on the past and they want to move forward with a positive and grateful attitude

Page 6: Fans of Angelina Jolie's stunts in movies like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Mr. & Mrs. Smith are looking forward to her return to the screen as a wildfire fighter in Those Who Wish Me Dead and in the upcoming Marvel flick Eternals but 45-year-old Angie would rather be behind the camera and she explained the real reason behind her comeback is she loves directing, but she had a change in her family situation that's not made it possible for her to direct for a few years and she needed to just do shorter jobs and be home more, so she went back to doing a few acting jobs -- that change in her family situation, of course, is her divorce from Brad Pitt, ongoing since their 2016 split and with no bitter end in sight and it could drag on for years

* Catherine Zeta-Jones says it's no secret her 20-year marriage to 76-year-old Michael Douglas hasn't been easy and it wouldn't be normal if there weren't any ups and downs -- it's another Michael, her Prodigal Son costar Michael Sheen, who has friends whispering as both are Welsh and only a year apart, the two have been having a lot of fun shooting the serial-killer drama and they had never met before the series but they keep discovering how much they have in common -- while Michael, who has been linked with Kate Beckinsale, Rachel McAdams and Sarah Silverman, has been with Anna Lundberg for two years, friends can't help worrying because it's a little to close for comfort

Page 8: Star Shots -- Marlee Matlin kicked back during a portrait session in La Canada Flintridge in California, a loaded-down Irina Shayk in a Victoria's Secret photoshoot in NYC, Gavin Rossdale and his dog Chewy leaving tennis practice in L.A.

Page 9: Kelly Clarkson and her battle advisor Luis Fonsi on The Voice, John Stamos at the drive-in premiere of his new series Big Shot in L.A.

Page 10: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley toting her $3800 Bottega Veneta Shell bag in NYC, Niall Horan and Anne-Marie jumped into a classic Jaguar XK120 for a music video in Essex in England, Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci on the set of House of Gucci on a bicycle in Rome

Page 11: Jay Leno takes a selfie with a fan, Kate Hudson and her daughter Rani busting out some mommy-and-me moves

Page 12: David Beckham filming a commercial for Maserati, Kaley Cuoco working out with ropes, a windswept Olivia Culpo held on tight to pup Oliver while enjoying a sunset ride aboard a boat named after her dog, Miles Teller looked both ways during a cruise in his blue Ford Bronco which is the same car he flipped in a 2016 accident

Page 13: Garrett Hedlund hit the pavement in a jog in Hollywood, Johnny Depp got behind the camera at the photocall for his film Minamata during the Barcelona Film Festival, friendly exes Sara Gilbert and Linda Perry masked up for a walk in L.A.

Page 14: 2021 ACMs -- country celebrates its best in Nashville -- Elle King and Miranda Lambert kicked off the 56th Academy of Country Music Awards by rolling up in a hot ride before performing, Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, co-host Keith Urban

Page 15: Maren Morris and Ryan Hurd performed together, Carrie Underwood

Page 16: Margot Robbie inline skating during a beach day in Malibu, Kate Beckinsale carrying her two cats and her dog as she tried to read, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend and their daughter Luna took a silly mid-game family selfie while playing Hedbanz

Page 18: Normal or Not Normal? A sleepy George Stephanopoulos was caught yawning on the Good Morning America set -- normal, Emily Blunt kicked back a little too much at The Jonathan Ross Show -- not normal

Page 19: With a $1400 rainbow Gucci sweater wrapped around her shoulders Selling Sunset's pregnant Christine Quinn with her dogs in L.A. -- normal, Chelsea Handler works out with her dog on her back -- not normal, Zach Braff stuck his tongue out as he took a silly selfie filming the Cheaper by the Dozen reboot -- not normal

Page 22: Fashion -- stars shine in metallic frocks -- Becky G, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Karen Gillan

Page 23: Miranda Lambert, Cynthia Erivo, Renee Zellweger

Page 26: Travis Barker didn't hold back in his birthday tribute to girlfriend Kourtney Kardashian -- sharing a series of sexy shots with 42-year-old Kourtney, including a NSFW video of Kourtney sucking his thumb and the rocker's risque pics quickly went viral, as did Kourt's TMI essay posted to her health and wellness site Poosh titled "Rough Sex: Love It or Leave It?" -- definitely leave it, if it were up to the pair's kids; 17-year-old Landon and 15-year-old Alabama, who are 45-year-old Travis' children with ex-wife Shanna Moakler, are mortified by their dad's behavior and like most teenagers, the two are active on social media and can't avoid the new couple's loved-up posts and Travis' kids are happy that he's happy, but the PDA is weird and takes some getting used to, while Travis' stepdaughter Atiana De La Hoya, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a problem as the 22-year-old posted a heart-eyes emoji -- as for spending time with Mason, 11, Penelope, 8, and 6-year-old Reign, Kourt's kids with ex Scott Disick, the pair try to restrain themselves but still the lovebirds are happily oblivious and have a hard time toning it down and Kourt and Travis are just being themselves and going with the flow; they're in love and want the world to know it

Page 27: After 10 months of dating Australian model Vanessa Valladares, Zac Efron is officially back on the market -- 33-year-old Zac called it off with the 25-year-old after things got too serious, too soon and they spent every moment together and it was too claustrophobic for him, as Vanessa, who quit her job and gave up everything to be with Zac, became a fixture on set as he worked on Down to Earth with Zac Efron and he felt guilty that she was giving up her dreams and aspirations to be with him -- despite their split, Zac, who had put his L.A. home on the market and extended his stay in Australia after meeting Vanessa, has no plans to rush back to the States because he has made a lot of friends there and feels at home

* Like many planning their vows during the pandemic, Scarlett Johansson and Colin Jost had to get strategic when it came to their big day -- Scarlett said they wanted it to feel like it had an intentional intimacy as opposed to being something that felt like they were restricted by all these things -- the intimate and small event the pair threw was at their $4 million Palisades, N.Y. home in October and the ultra-private pair kept their guests safe, and the guest list was tiny and it was understated but lovely, just what they wanted -- now Scarlett and Colin have settled in to married life and Scarlett and Colin both like to steer clear of the spotlight which makes them perfectly suited for each other

* Vanessa Hudgens revealed the surprising way she was introduced to boyfriend Cole Tucker, who she's been dating since November -- 32-year-old Vanessa and 24-year-old Cole met on a Zoom meditation group and Vanessa admits that the Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop is just perfect for her and Vanessa and Cole, who debuted their romance on Valentine's Day, moved their budding friendship offline after feeling sparks via the virtual meeting app and they started communicating on their own and found out they have a lot in common -- now Vanessa, who dated Austin Butler for nine years before their 2020 split, is zooming ahead and she doesn't want to rush or jinx things, but she's saying Cole could be The One

Page 28: Cover Story -- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle: Twin Girls -- it was a somber, but loving occasion as the royal family celebrated the life of Prince Philip and amid the pomp and truly touching moments, like Queen Elizabeth sitting frail and alone, viewers waited to see what would happen when Harry and Prince William reunited for the first time since Harry and Meghan stepped down from senior royal duties in March 2020 and just weeks after their bombshell TV interview rocked the monarchy and tensions had been running high before the funeral, but everything went better than expected as William and Harry bonded and united in grief at the loss of their beloved grandfather, the estranged siblings along with William's wife Duchess Kate Middleton, waved away their waiting cars, opting to walk the half-mile from St. George's Chapel to Windsor Castle together and the trio chatted easily as they strolled -- back home in Montecito, Harry has been by pregnant Meghan's side around the clock making sure she takes it easy and the couple are in full-blown prep mode and Harry has been helping baby-proof their mansion and designing the nursery and Harry's been on his hands and knees making the house baby-friendly and he's got the latest, state-of-the-art safety devices installed around the pool -- Harry's promising visit with the royal family has given him one less thing to worry about, but still he and members of The Firm will always have different perspectives and after dismissing William and dad Prince Charles as trapped by the monarchy, Harry was persuaded by Kate to take the first step and she went up to Harry to suggest he have a heart-to-heart with William and their father, then she stepped back; Harry felt nostalgic being back home and it's a work in progress -- Harry made headway with his grandmother as well as he and Queen Elizabeth had a private meeting and spoke for three hours and seeing Harry's face made her smile again and Harry loves his grandmother very much and he's promised to bring his kids back to England later this year and he wants the Queen to spend quality time with them

Page 31: The Home Birth Brigade -- Who needs hospitals? These fearless celebrity moms opted to welcome their babies in the comfort of their own homes -- Ashley Graham, Eva Amurri, Hilary Duff, Gisele Bundchen, Gigi Hadid

Page 32: Kim Kardashian: Billionaire Bachelorette -- months after officially filing for divorce Kanye West, Kim is majorly ready to mingle -- Kanye's miffed that fans think he's the one who got dumped when he simply let her file first

Page 34: Not Boyfriend Material -- celebs share tales of dates gone bad, and guys who definitely didn't deserve a second chance -- Patricia Arquette, Mindy Kaling, Jenny Slate

Page 35: Awkwafina, Emma Watson, Kelly Clarkson

Page 36: For Mom -- for Mother's Day, express gratitude to the No. 1 lady in your life with the perfect gift -- Naomi Watts cofounded the ONDA Mama Box

Page 40: Entertainment

Page 48: Parting Shot -- in honor of Earth Day, Alison Brie kicked off the second year of the Planet Oat Project by planting trees at Rancho Sierra Vista -- the 38-year-old also took to Instagram to bring awareness to the wildlife restoration initiative, noting that a startling three million acres of trees in California have been destroyed by recent wildfires

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kazarinn · 4 years

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Roundup of all the things I’ve translated within the last month

Those who have been following me for a while might know that the last month saw me be very unusually prolific with translation (especially Digimon-related ones), to unprecedented extents. I'll be very honest about the fact that it's because of the current quarantine, which has left me with not a lot to do and a sense of boredom that translation somehow happens to satiate a bit ^^;; That said, the very large number of translations I'd been posting has caused things to get a bit buried, and has made things easily missable, so I've decided to make a bit of a roundup post summarizing everything I've done in the last month.

Of course, there's probably still more to come in the near future -- I have two books (the Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia and the Gakken Digimon Adventure tri. Memorial Book) hopefully coming in the mail soon, and I still have some stuff lying around I might take up if my mood warms up to it, but since I've finally cleared up a ton of the backlog I felt I should take a breather to summarize stuff. (Although, every time I say I've cleared the backlog, suddenly more interesting things pop up...^^;;)

Digimon Adventure, Adventure 02, Tamers, Frontier

Digimon Adventure 02 Drama CD "Armor Evolution to the Unknown" I will be honest in that this is actually my favorite thing to have translated in this past month. Actually, fiction translation has a higher level of difficulty for me than things like interviews -- because I want to be careful with what real people have said, I tend to be less stringent about rewording things, whereas with fiction I hold myself to a higher standard to make things flow well. But that's actually what makes it so much fun, because I can challenge myself to play with wording and broaden my horizons, and moreover Adventure 02 has a ton of characters, and it's really fun to try and make unique "voices" for all of them. That said, translating this was a bit of a wake-up call, because the sheer amount of pop culture references (to things made before I was even born, at that) and wordplay everywhere led me to the very harsh realization of why so few people have attempted to translate this drama CD into so few languages over the past two decades ^^;; I give my thanks to the anonymous Japanese commenters on Nico Nico Douga who pointed out many of the really old and obscure pop culture references, and I ended up spending several hours on Japanese Wikipedia looking up things like said old anime and British punk rock artists. I might not have gotten everything, and I'm sure there are people out there who probably would have been able to pull it off better than I did, but it ultimately became a test of my abilities as a translator, and if it's fun and entertaining and enjoyable, then that alone makes me satisfied. But I think this will be the last time (at least for a while) that I try translating something audio-only with no transcript -- my hearing is not that great, not even in English ^^;;

The Mystery of the American Box Bug A story from Adventure and Adventure 02 director Hiroyuki Kakudou that has some very tangential (at best) relation to Digimon, but is amusing nevertheless.

Digimon Adventure Character Complete File -- Future Encyclopedia Little "dialogue" snippets from an Adventure/Adventure 02-related book, checking in on the kids-turned-adults during the time of Adventure 02's epilogue. I actually translated this a long time ago, but I lost the transcript for it and I'm pretty sure (given how long ago it was) it was probably pretty embarrassing by my current standards, so I went ahead and did this over again. There are some other things in this book that are interesting and/or amusing, like further background info on the kids' family lives and room layouts, so if I have some spare time I might do some of those in the future, although naturally doing the entire book would probably be practically impossible.

Digimon Series Memorial Book: Digimon Animation Chronicle — Special interview with Hiromi Seki, Hiroyuki Kakudou, and Yukio Kaizawa An interview with some perennial Digimon staff members about Adventure through Frontier (and a bit of X-Evolution). We've had no shortage of these kinds of interviews over the years, but this one happens to summarize a lot of things that used to be considered "obscure" in the Digimon fanbase outside Japan, even though this book (and thus this interview) is one of the most prominent resources for diehard Digimon fans out there. Also, Frontier-related development info tends to be somewhat rare, so it's nice to hear about it. The Digimon Official Super Encyclopedia that I'm hoping to get my hands on soon allegedly has a similar interview with the same three people. I don't know specifics about it yet, but I'm informed that it mostly covers similar territory to this one, but also allegedly has some very fascinating details that weren't in this, so I'm looking forward to that as well.

Message from Digimon Adventure producer Hiromi Seki, to Toshiko Fujita Posted by Adventure producer Hiromi Seki to the LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna Twitter on February 8, 2019, right before the 49th day (last day of mourning, in Japanese tradition) after Taichi Yagami voice actress Toshiko Fujita's passing.

Mimi Tachikawa and Lilimon Posted by Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou on his blog, talking about the intent behind Mimi Tachikawa's character and her corresponding track in the drama CD Digimon Adventure: Two-and-a-Half Year Break.

Digimon Adventure tri.

On Creation and Production for “Super Evolution Stage: Digimon Adventure tri.” A post by Director Kenichi Tani about his work on the Adventure tri. stage play. Despite technically being under Adventure tri. branding, the stage play actually has surprisingly little in common with the Adventure tri. anime in terms of both content and production background, and moreover Digimon hasn't had a lot of contact with the stage medium all that much, so I thought it'd be interesting to translate something about its production, especially since this tends to be a lesser talked-about part of the franchise.

October/November 2018 Gashapon Blog interviews with Kenji Watanabe This is actually two interviews, one where Digimon franchise creator and character designer Kenji Watanabe talks about design for a Digimon gachapon set, and one where he talks about Adventure tri.'s Omegamon Merciful Mode, but I'm categorizing it under the Adventure tri. section because I figure the vast majority of readers will be reading the interview for the latter.

Digimon Adventure tri. voice actor comments (Part 1: Reunion | Part 2: Determination | Part 3: Confession | Part 4: Loss | Part 5: Coexistence | Part 6: Our Future) A series of voice actor comments that were posted to the official website prior to each Adventure tri. movie being released. I'd actually had it on the brain to try my hand at these when they were first posted, but various circumstances happened and I never got around to it, until now. In retrospect, though, I think it turned out for the better that I didn't attempt them on the spot. Adventure tri.-related interviews tend to be much more difficult to translate than most Digimon-related ones, and although there are a few reasons why, the biggest one is that, during its run, it had a very tight spoiler embargo, resulting in a lot of vague language being used, and so when you translate from a language like Japanese -- where having proper context can be life or death -- not knowing the original context behind what was being said can throw the end result into completely incorrect and misleading interpretations. While I was working on these, I did actually end up having to pull up the movies again and reference what scenes were being referred to multiple times just so I could phrase the sentence correctly, so yeah, I think it did ultimately work out. Incidentally, this is also the first direct Adventure tri. production-related thing I've translated since 2016 (mainly due to the expenses incurred by importing magazines and my difficulty with translating print media at the time). Looking back at it, I'm honestly kind of ashamed at my own inexperience from back then, but sadly, I don't have the original magazines anymore, so I can't do much to fix it, and so I'm kind of glad to have these as my sort of attempt at "redeeming myself".

Digimon Adventure tri. — Yoshimasa Hosoya interview on “To Me” Also from the official website, discussing voice actor Yoshimasa Hosoya's involvement with the ending theme song from part 3 (Confession), "To Me".

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna

Anime! Anime! interview series (Director Tomohisa Taguchi interview | Natsuki Hanae and Chika Sakamoto interview | 02 human cast voice actor interview | 02 Digimon cast voice actor interview | Producer Yousuke Kinoshita and supervisor Hiromi Seki interview) I didn't actually know this was a series until very recently, so you'll have to forgive me for translating these out of order. Technically, all of these were posted in February to March 2020, after the movie was released in Japan, but it's pretty much spoiler-free. It's got a huge amount of development and background info behind LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna, so I recommend them as reading for anyone interested in seeing the movie.

"In regards to the new Digimon project" Otherwise known as "what happened when Hiroyuki Kakudou accidentally revealed that they were making another Digimon Adventure-related movie". Since the news that original Adventure director was recusing from LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna due to some kind of creative difference over lore ended up naturally being a hot topic, I felt like having a proper translation of his statement on the matter would be a useful thing to have. Despite technically being LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna-related, it also has a transcription of his tweets regarding Adventure/Adventure 02 background lore along with some surprising production details, so it may interest fans of the original series as well.

Digimon Continues to be Loved Thanks to its Creator’s Commitment — With Digimon Character Designer Kenji Watanabe An Asahi &M article (sort of a half-interview) with Kenji Watanabe over his involvement in LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna, which, unusually for a Digimon anime work, actually had him directly involved in production from beginning to end. I put this on the post already, but this article gets a lot dangerously closer to outright spoilers than you'd expect for this kind of material, so if you're particularly keen on going into the movie "completely clean", best to maybe avoid this one until you've seen the movie.

Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna — Website messages from Hiromi Seki and Yousuke Kinoshita It's just a short greeting message on the official website. I wanted to translate it mainly because it's not on the official English site.

Animage Plus interviews with Yousuke Kinoshita Also something I'd wanted to translate for a while but never got around to (until now). A triple set of interviews with LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna producer Yousuke Kinoshita, who also talks about Adventure's 20th anniversary and the "Memorial Story" short story collection crowdfund.

Digimon Adventure:

Interviews with Yabuno Tenya and Atsuhiro Tomioka (Part 1: V-Jump Web | Part 2: Digimon Web) A two-part interview (each part on different websites) with Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 artist Yabuno Tenya and Digimon Adventure: lead writer Atsuhiro Tomioka, discussing their respective works and Adventure:'s surprising relation to V-Tamer.

Digimon Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou’s initial comments on the Digimon Adventure: reboot A triple set of blog posts from original Digimon Adventure director Hiroyuki Kakudou about the Adventure: reboot and what relation it has to him and the original Adventure (along with some fun trivia about the latter). I figured some people out there might be curious about what the original Adventure director thought about Toei rebooting his series.

Digimon games

Explore the Secrets of Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode’s Evolution! Interview with Habu and Tomono Decode is rather inaccessible to the West right now (being unlocalized, and on the region-locked 3DS at that), so the idea of translating too many things relevant to it is pretty low-priority to me at the moment, but it's still a game of significant interest to the Digimon fanbase outside Japan, and is also notable as one of the first major titles spearheaded by Digimon game producer Kazumasa Habu, so I felt that there'd be quite a few people interested in this one.

Interview with Producer Habu of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory: Highlights and Future Prospects A 4Gamer interview that I'd wanted to translate since I'd first read it, but never got around to. Incidentally, I decided to go back and make some revisions to the wording for the Famitsu interviews I translated for the original game. They were some of the first things I ever translated, and it...kind of shows. ^^;; Normally I don't like to lock myself into a habit of constantly going back and revising old work, as doing so tends to be a bit of a black hole, but since the original Cyber Sleuth is still quite the hot topic among the fanbase right now (and especially with Complete Edition being recently released), I thought it might be worth it this time.

Famitsu.com interview with Kazumasa Habu on Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory Another Hacker's Memory interview, a bit less detailed than the above but still fairly informative.

Other

Iwata Asks #14: Hatsune Miku and Future Stars: Project mirai Somehow this ended up the only non-Digimon thing on the list ^^;; The version of this game that eventually did make it to the West (Project Mirai DX) is so different from the original game that it meant this Iwata Asks was never officially translated, so I thought it'd be worth taking a shot at this one. I don't have any plans to translate any other Iwata Asks at the moment, mainly because it requires me to have more than a passing knowledge of how each game works for proper context, but I hope you can at least enjoy this one.

#Digimon #Digimon Adventure #Digimon Adventure 02 #Digimon Adventure tri #Digimon Adventure LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna #Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth #Hacker's Memory #Digimon Adventure Reboot #Digimon Adventure V Tamer 01 #Digimon World Re:Digitize #Digimon Tamers #Digimon Frontier #Vocaloid #Project Mirai

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popwasabi · 4 years

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Lockdown Lookback: Catching up on the past months’ Pop Culture

Aaaaannnd we’re back!

It’s amazing what a little pandemic can do to shake you out of your creative cobwebs but if we’re all going to die, I want to make sure all my pop cultural hot takes are up to date at least.

Many of us are already on lockdown and many major movies including “007,” “Black Widow” and ummm I guess “Mulan” are all getting pushed to the backburner as no one is leaving their God damn homes unless they’re told to!

(Didn’t realize the thing I wish I had more of in the apocalypse would be sweatpants...)

But there’s still plenty to talk about from the previous months and other hot topics I have been meaning to write about but just hadn’t found the time or energy for. Life has been hard I think for just about all of us these days thanks in no small part to this pandemic. For me personally, I’ve had two different vacations canceled because of the virus and currently working understaffed at my job which is considered essential. Not to mention my therapist is on call only at this time and both my martial arts schools have been suspended, so I can neither talk nor punch my feelings out of my system.

So, I might be just a LITTLE on edge at the moment.

(My internal monologue for most of these past few weeks, more broadly years...)

Anyways, I digress, you come here because you like to read my highly unprofessional takes on pop culture and genuinely to those who have cheered me on from the beginning thanks, you guys are my prime motivators. But anyways let’s talk about all the shit I was supposed to write about these last two and a half months.

“Birds of Prey” was a hot, but needed, mess

Earlier last month I got to see the sort of sequel to the much-maligned “Suicide Squad” in “Birds of Prey and the…waaaay too long of a title for me write here.” I had cautious optimism for it because it looked strange and off the beaten path of most comic book movies and seemed to promise at the very least a fun time at the theater but it’s still also a DCEU movie so the floor was pretty low on its possible quality as well.

In the end, the movie is kind of bit of everything; the best and worst parts of the DCEU.

In terms of the good, it’s definitely outside the box, a sort of fem Deadpool first person story as told frenetically by Harley herself. Margot Robbie is, of course, still quite great at this role and you can tell she’s having a blast as this character. The humor is mostly good and visually the bright colors and cinematography pops on each screen and on that front there isn’t much to complain about.

But as a DCEU movie it does suffer from some narrative imbalance partially due to it’s psycho storyteller but mostly, and more than likely, due to corporate editing that probably axed an entire dance number that I was honestly looking forward to from the trailers.

(Seriously, I actually wanted to see the full unedited version of whatever hell this ended up being.)

It’s definitely in the “could’ve been better” camp of comic book movies but you know what? I’m still glad it exists. You know why? Because comic book movies dominate our blockbuster culture right now and if the genre wants to survive, at least artistically, it needs some outside the box films like this. I HATED “Joker” but I appreciate that it opened the door for stranger, more unique takes on a genre that is getting increasingly more stale. This movie falls into that unique category too.

(Also, to all the faux-intellectuals and alt-right nerds making a culture war out of “Sonic” vs “Birds of Prey” *kindly* reevaluate your lives please...)

We’re at the point now where comic book movies should be getting weirder, not more formulaic, and that means swinging for the fences even if a couple don’t quite make it out of the ballpark. If it takes a few not so stellar takes on the genre for Hollywood to greenlight a truly fantastic one I’m all for it.

In any case “Birds of Prey” doesn’t quite end nor continue the DCEU’s recent hot streak but it is enjoyable enough to where I would be more than open to a sequel. It’s worth a watch.

The Mandalorian and The Witcher: Two shows about violent mercenaries and fatherhood

Both these shows are old news at this point, but I did want to talk a little about both for a bit if you would have me.

First, “The Mandalorian” which was Disney+’s flagship production to begin its streaming chapter late last year is definitely a more than welcome addition to the galaxy far, far away. It’s pretty easy to feel fairly jaded about Star Wars these days given how flat the new trilogy ended but for what it’s worth “The Mandalorian” was a good mix of nostalgia bait and something new and interesting for fans to chew on. Its production value is obviously top-notch, no doubt because of all the Disney money pumped into it, it’s well-acted and thrilling and fun from start to finish. It plays heavily on the genres that influenced the series, primarily westerns and old samurai flicks, and fans of those will certainly enjoy the homages to them all.

The series was something of a coming out party for Deborah Chow who directed two of the season 1’s best episodes. Her steady hand, eye for details and tributes to Asian cinema throughout really gave the series an extra kick at times and showed how Star Wars can evolve still. Chow is set to helm the upcoming “Kenobi” series and one can only hope that she *really* leans into the samurai genre for that show.

(Hopefully, there are some “Yojimbo” vibes in there somewhere...)

The Mandalorian’s best and worst parts though are its semi episodic nature making each episode easy to digest as a one-off but also lacking some narrative tension between each. It plays kind of like a Saturday Morning cartoon to both its benefit and detriment with bite-size easy to digest plots and dialogue for the viewers but not offering a ton of depth beyond that.

The Mandalorian himself is also kind of a Gary Stu. His armor is basically impenetrable and far and away the best killer onscreen typically, making more than a few action scenes lack real stakes and tension. Baby Yoda certainly helps at times to make him more vulnerable and puts him in precarious positions plenty of times but outside a few moments (mainly episode 2 and to a lesser extend the final episode) he’s just a little too overpowered to be a more interesting character.

But this show and frankly the Star Wars series as a whole is meant for kids, no matter what the neckbeards try to tell you (violence =/= adult), and that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. Plenty of kids productions can be both great and even sophisticated and while I wouldn’t say “The Mandalorian” is either of those it’s a good and fun kids show for the fans.

(And yes I’m aware that the books, some comics, and games have touched on more adult stuff, you weirdos. But how would you describe the overall tone and presumptive audience of the movies and TV series as a whole, guys??)

As far as “The Witcher” goes it also has a bit of an episodic style to it as well with an overarching, albeit, convoluted story that runs parallel to it. The first 3-4ish episodes can be classified as a quasi “Game of Thrones” clone leaning perhaps a little too heavily into the tropes of that series. Once the series finally starts leaning into its real identity, a dry-witted hack and slash fantasy, the series is much more consistent both tonally and narratively.

Henry Cavil is solid as Geralt of Rivia and the supporting cast of Joey Batey as Jaskier, Freya Allen as Ciri and even more so Anya Chalotra as Yennefer are all great in their respective roles delivering some great moments throughout the season.

(And lest you forget this earworm...)

“The Witcher’s” early season struggles keep it from being as tonally or narratively consistent as “The Mandalorian” but where the monster slayer beats the bounty hunter is that it has overall more compelling drama and has more to say, leaning much more heavily into the thematic greys of the plot. There are tons of problems with “The Witcher” on a story-telling level but you can definitely say it cares more about adding some depth in between the more pulpy aspects of the story which is something you can’t say as much for in “The Mandalorian.”

Of course, I’m partially overselling “The Witcher” a bit here, it’s not anywhere near “Game of Thrones” best (yet at least), and on the flipside one could argue that “The Mandalorian’s” more subtle sense of story-telling does its themes better. But when it comes down to these two shows you get somewhat similar story-telling ideas, mostly involving both characters and their smaller counterparts, in two very different genres with equally diverging conclusions to their respective seasons.

(🎵 Toss an “Oof” to your Witcher...🎵)

All in all, they’re both good and worth a watch and I think they deserve a chance to evolve and hopefully showcase more of what they have to offer moving forward.

“Parasite” wins Best Picture! Many people have some hot takes, including the president...

Last month one of my favorite films of 2019 “Parasite” won Best Picture at the Oscars. It’s a movie that is becoming increasingly relevant as elites and celebrities alike are getting front of the line testing despite being asymptomatic in the middle of pandemic and think they can assuage our concerns and dread by poorly singing “Imagine” together within the comfort of their McMansions.

It’s about as a good time as any to revisit this movie, I mean where else are you going to go during this timeline, and at a later date I’ll write something more extensive about it eventually (hopefully) but first here’s a helpful video on one particular thing that came out after director Bong Joon Ho took home the night’s top honors:

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“Cats” is still a fever dream of madness

Back in late December, I watched “Cats” for science, as I had AMC A-List and a friend crazy enough to join me. I figured it would be bonkers and unlike anything I had seen before in the worst way but even then, I don’t think I was truly prepared for what I ended up seeing that fateful night.

I remember quite vividly going to the bar inside the theater and ordering a stiff drink beforehand to numb the pain and the bartender asking “So what are y’all watching tonight?” and beginning to laugh manically like an insane asylum patient at the innocuousness of the question. Walking into the theater was like that feeling you get before getting on a particularly scary-looking rollercoaster at Six Flags but instead of the pre-ride jitters eventually subsiding to the eventual fun and joy of the ride, only a deep sense of existential dread built up and sustained itself through what felt like six hours of the most baffling thing put to screen in front of my eyes ever.

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(The music that played in my head as I exited the theater...)

Have any of you watched the Stanley Kubrick movie “Eyes Wide Shut” before? You know the scene when Tom Cruise is walking around in his mask observing the strange occult sex orgy going on around him at the mansion? That’s kind of what “Cats” felt like except way more terrifying, somehow MORE sexual, and definitely crazier.

(Is...this some type of...intepretative dance to summon an eldritch horror??)

There’s a voyeuristic terror that comes from sitting in that theater room as you watch bipedal humanoid looking felines dance to confusing songs about “Jelicle” cats (whatever the fuck that means) and all other manner of things that should NOT take human form throughout it’s near-endless runtime. A lot was made about Rebel Wilson and the disgusting roach people she consumes but NO ONE warned me about the frankly HORRIFYING mice children in the same scene!

(I am not perusing the internet to find that image again for y’all. I have enough nightmares each night...)

The saddest thing about the whole movie is everyone, save for Ian Mckellen who seemed to be acting as if a gun was pointing at him offscreen and Judi Dench who looked 100 percent like a geriatric in her digi fur, was giving the movie their fullest effort in what can only be described as a Titanic-sized level of hubris by all parties involved. This movie really needed a “Chaostician” involved in evaluating the production for studio heads and shareholders because there were definitely NOT enough people on this project wondering whether or not this film SHOULD exist...

(Dr. Ian Malcolm coming to Universal Pictures to access the film.)

What has “Cats” wrought upon this world? The universe has been clearly out of balance since this movie came out and while I’m not saying it’s director Tom Hooper’s fault, I’m not saying it isn’t either.

“Cats” is one of those things, much like The Matrix that cannot be simply described but must be seen to believe. It’s one of the worst things I have ever seen onscreen but with the right group of people and a few stiff drinks it’s certainly an experience you won’t forget. Consider it for your next Google Hangout during this apocalypse.

Anyways, that about wraps up my thoughts on the last few months. Going to try to be more consistent going forward especially given how much more time I have now to write, for better and worse. But more importantly, just want to say stay safe y’all. It’s going to be a process to get through this and while things are more likely to get worse before they get better there will be a day when this all ends and some normalcy may yet return to our life but in order for us to get there we need to remain vigilant.

So stay at home, wash your hands, and if you want to watch movies just order it online for now and we’ll just wait until aaaallll this blows over…hopefully.

Don’t panic...

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book-and-music-lover · 3 years

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11 and 15 for identity asks :)

Okay I’d first like to apologize for taking so long to get to this, I had to think hard about these questions and I wanted to answer them honestly and thoroughly! Hope this answers them well :)

11. Describe your ideal day.

Oh man....probably one where I get to see a couple of my favorite people and maybe we browse shelves at a bookstore for a while before just sitting and reading, occasionally talking to each other. It would be comfortably warm out and sunny so we’re able to walk around outside for a bit. Then we’d find a place with good food, or maybe a recipe that sounds good and go home and cook it ourselves, then watch a good movie all relaxed and happy. Yeah, that sounds so nice.

15. Five most influential books over your lifetime.

*immediately forgets every book I’ve ever read* .....ngl I’m drawing a blank so I’m gonna go with maybe my favorites over my lifetime? Those count as influential, right?

1. Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series by Michelle Paver. I read this series when I was pretty young and I think I picked up the first book because it had Wolf in the title (the first books name is Wolf Brother) because wolves are my favorite animal and I’ve literally never forgotten about this series. It fueled my love for wolves and also magic in a sense, and how nature itself is magic and how little we truly appreciate it.

2. Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson. Lol I guess it’s remember-my-fave-books-from-childhood time. Tho I read these through the course of several years. Absolutely adored these books. Disneyland (the park in California) means a lot to me, genuinely a lot. Brings me so much happiness every time I’m there and it’s not because of the park itself so much as the people I’ve spent time with at the park. Like I feel so good when I’m there because there’s only ever been positive memories associated with going there so I just love it. So a story that makes Disney come alive at night?? Sign me UP. Holograms and Disney villains and cool characters? 10/10

3. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I actually first listened to the first half of the first book on a road trip with my dad, he’d gotten it from the library and we started listening to it together. He kinda lost interest but I wanted to keep reading so I found the book at the library and finished reading it and boy did I fall in love. The whole theme of it all and all the accurate history? Genuinely taught me SO much, especially the second book. Made me appreciate just how hard historians work as well as the scholars who dissect works written centuries ago so we can more accurately parse out what happened and I just...ugh it’s so cool.

4. Emily Dickinson. Literally anything by Emily Dickinson. This is pretty recent, within the last year I’d say. I started watching that show Dickinson and was like: wait.....she’s actually super interesting wtf was I lied to in high school about her?? *spoiler alert, I was* and so now I’m reading all about her poems and letters written to Sue and the drama with Mabel Loomis Todd and she’s just. SO interesting. I’m now reading a biography about her this month to learn even more and I’m genuinely excited.

5. Secrets For the Mad by dodie. Dodie in general has just been a hugely influential person in my life but this book I read when I was coming to terms with the fact I’m not straight, and it really helped me through the process? Like the book wasn’t even about a lot of being lgbt but it had a sense of confidence that I wanted to embody and also told me that I’m okay to not know yet who I am, who I want to be, what I like. I preordered the book and got it soon as it came out and devoured it.

#ask games #answered asks #I didn’t forget about this I promise I just had to really think abt it before answering!

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morgannalefey · 3 years

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Homes, relationships, realtors

These are a series of anonymous questions I was asked and I'm endeavoring to answer them. I am not a concise writer. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.

Step 1: Start Your Research Early. Step 2: Determine How Much House You Can Afford. Step 3: Get Prequalified and Preapproved for credit for Your Mortgage. Step 4: Find the Right Real Estate Agent. Step 5: Shop for Your Home and Make an Offer. Step 6: Get a Home Inspection. Step 7: Work on home loan with bank lender Step 8: Get home appraised Step 9: Complete paperwork and close the deal ?

How were you able to learn what the homeownership steps entailed and how did you vet the realtor, home inspector, home appraiser, and lender, if you used them? How did you ensure the people whose help you enlisted were legit and were going to do right by you?

How did you find out what the paperwork/legal aspect of marriage was going to entail (research so far has given me a few different answers)? There was a lot I either didn’t know or didn’t understand - you need to get your ring appraised and added to your insurance (what kind of insurance), for example? You need to change how your tax filings and paperwork in general, especially if you choose to change your last name, etc. I’m scared of missing an item and running into some obstacle😫

How do you also ensure that your name and/or your spouse’s name is on the deed and stays there? I’ve come across TOO many stories about one party thinking their name was on the deed only to find out it either wasn’t or it was removed. Or one party dying and the remaining party finding out the place wasn’t on their name or was removed. Or, one party kicking the other out and not being able to advocate for themselves because their name, come to find out, isn’t on the deed😳😞 How do you avoid all that (besides vetting your potential SO properly lol)

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The first thing I want to say is I am NOT a financial advisor or a counselor/therapist. I am not a lawyer. I am a 55 year old database developer (in 2020) and have bought several houses and been with/married to the same person for 32 years. Prior to this person, I played a very large field of folks, and was in a lot of short-term relationships. The longest relationship I'd been in by the time we met was 10 months and it ended very badly. I'm not an expert, I'm just old and experienced. Another thing I am is frugal. While I'm being detailed, I'm also bi, cis, childless-by-choice, mostly-abled, and white. I can't speak directly to the experiences that marginalized folks (especially those with multiple marginalizations) have had.

I'll talk about the relationship stuff first 'cos that'll be the shorter answer. I met my spouse in an online space for roleplaying gamers back in 1988 (before the internet existed there were dialup networks, I was on those basically from 1983 on). The beginning of our relationship was a shared interest in roleplaying games. We also found similar tastes in books. Over time we discovered other shared interests, or got each other interested in the things we cared about. We both love being in the woods, and the natural world. We care deeply about the environment. We have always been in agreement politically. At first we were on opposite ends of religious matters, and neither of us tried to change the other in that regard. Eventually we grew together on that. We both knew from the outset that we wanted to travel the world together.

There have been stumbles. Bad ones. We are able to hurt each other more than any other human on the planet, and we're aware of that. We try not to, but sometimes we just, do. Then we talk about it. We've been in therapy to work things out several times, and have learned techniques for working through our problems. The thread running through all of this is we were committed to making it work, to working through, to not giving up.

We have woven our lives together into a fabric that works for us. This takes trial and error. It takes being willing to make mistakes and, more importantly, forgive those mistakes. It requires you to learn from your mistakes and to do personal work. You have to be willing to change the things about yourself that need changing. Certainly some things are deeply embedded. Those things you need to learn work arounds for. It's especially difficult to figure out which things are too deeply embedded to be changed, and which are mostly habits you can retrain. Ideally they'll be supporting you through this work, and doing their own work along similar lines. If things work out, you're both growing as more emotionally mature individuals who bring things to the relationship that help sustain it through the hard times.

It helps that I am good at things he's not, and vice versa. We have a decent division of labor (both emotional and household). We give each other space to enjoy our different interests, too. I love movies of all sorts, but he's mostly fond of SF and action movies. We will watch those things together, and I watch my romcoms and historical dramas on my own while he's doing his stuff.

Sometimes it's a choice you have to make every day, to stay together. Sometimes it is effortless. Still, it always takes time to build shared experiences. To build traditions. To figure out how you fit together. This is time well-spent, even if you discover that you just don't fit together and you can't make it work. This prepares you for your next opportunity to explore with another person.

Now on to home ownership.

tl;dr is we did research into mortgages and closing costs and everything to do with buying a house before we bought one using various resources (mostly at libraries, this was in the dark ages when we bought our first house)

We were living in Juneau, AK when we got to the point that we had enough stable income to start talking about owning a home. This got us talking about the future, and our plans. Specifically we talked about what it would be like when we were finally able to travel like we wanted. We realized that if we were still in Juneau, all of our travel plans would be doubled in cost because just getting out of Juneau is a trip in itself. We decided (not just for that reason, but a lot of other ones, as well) that we wanted to move and we would buy a house somewhere else.

For a lot of people the answer of "where" is obvious but it wasn't for us. We made a list of qualities for where we wanted to live.

Inside the US

Low population growth

Not on the west coast

Not in the south

Within a day's easy drive to the ocean

At least four distinct seasons

There were other criteria we had on the list, but those were the ones that narrowed our search down to Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Then we spoke with work friends who had lived in all three states. They heartily recommended Vermont over the other two for a few good reasons. We both wanted to work for the state so we researched where most of the state jobs were located. That placed us in central Vermont.

Deciding where you want to own a home isn't just about what you can afford, but where you want to live. There's a lot you can change about a home once you buy it, but you can't change the location. When you buy a home you're putting yourself into a place that it's not going to be a simple matter to leave if you decide you want to later. It's not impossible, but depending on where you buy, it can be very difficult to sell again. Deciding where you are going to focus your home search is part of the research you want to do.

Figuring out how much house you can afford is a complicated thing. The financial institutions will encourage you to buy the maximum amount of house you can afford based on your income, a snapshot of your debt load, and your credit rating. That's all well and good, but you also need to take into account your actual lifestyle. If you never were interested in cooking, then it's a waste of money to buy a home with a big ole "professional" kitchen because it's all shiney and cool. You could buy a less expensive home with a smaller, more functional kitchen suitable for the lunchables you "prepare" on the daily, and put that extra money into something else.

Figure out what things you must have, that if a house doesn't have it, you're not going to buy it. For some people that's X bathrooms. For others it's lots of inside storage. Make actual lists of these things that you keep handy so you can just check for them when you're doing your search. Divide the list up into "must have" vs "nice to have" vs "I wouldn't pay more for this but if it's there it could be a tie breaker". The list may change as you start looking over listings, and that's fine. It helps you figure out what is really important to you.

Financial institutions. I... hate... banks. I haven't done my financial transactions with a bank (generally speaking) for over thirty years. Credit unions are the financial institution to work with. Of course, that is something to take with a grain of salt because there are some horrific credit unions with shitty customer service and nasty fees all over, too. If you can get into a state credit union (in Vermont anyone who lives in Vermont or works for the state can join the Vermont State Employees Credit Union) do it. There's typically a minimum deposit required in one account (for my credit union I have to keep $25 in a savings account). When you're looking at financial institutions to finance through, do your research of course, but include credit unions in your research. Look for first time home buyer programs (there are federal programs for this, as well). Look for low interest rates. The blog you should be looking into is Bitches Get Riches for more specifics on this. Their information is way more up to date and helpful regarding interest and mortgages and stuff.

You're going to need money to pay the closing costs. That is money that you pay over and above the mortgage. You will need money to put a deposit down on whatever house you want to buy. The deposit tells the seller you're really interested. If they decide to accept the offer from someone else, you will get the desposit back. If they accept your offer, the deposit goes towards purchase/closing costs. You will need money for the appraisal, an inspection (do not buy a home without an inspection, if they won't let you do an inspection, run), and a title search. These are all over and above closing costs. How much you can expect to pay is variable and something else to research. You will also need a down payment. If you can't put 20% of the purchase price in as a down payment, you will also need to buy private mortgage insurance. That cost typically gets rolled into your monthly mortgage payment. You will also need homeowners insurance.

Once you've worked these things out, you're ready to really dig into the listings. This used to be a whole lot more complicated than it is now. The MLS used to only be available to realtors, but that has changed. Most realtors will list houses online in a searchable place (the best places to do searches varies by region, in New England, I would look on the NNEREN website (Northern New England Real Estate Network). In other areas Zillow might be the best place to look. It really depends on what the standard for local realtors is where you want to buy.

The great thing about online searching is you can plug things in, make notes, save favorites, and build lists of features, or things you care about. There's typically photos of the property that get you started, as well. Because of these online tools, you don't really need a realtor to represent you in the sale. You can contact the realtor representing the seller if you want to see a property.

It can be tiring, looking at houses. Doing research. It takes time. If you can't, or don't want to do this, then you can get yourself a buyer's realtor. Their job will be to take the criteria for what you're looking for and find houses that might work for you. They present you with the options, and will arrange for a viewing if you like any that you're seeing. This has the benefit of reducing how much research you have to do personally, but it does mean that they get a cut of the final sale (but it also means you have a realtor on -your- side in the negotiations, though they're not allowed to influence you on certain things like what price to offer). Because they get a cut, some sellers won't work with buyer realtors.

The snarky answer about how you find a realtor you can trust is "you really don't". Realtors are all about closing house sales with the least amount of effort on their part possible. That is their job. That is how they earn their money. Every time they have to do something for you, it reduces the value of the commission they make off the sale. Some realtors resent this, others don't care and just see it as part of doing business. Some of them are really friendly, and love their job and love helping people find homes. Others are snotty nozzles. But they are all trying to sell you the most expensive house they can get you to fall in love with. They will regularly try to go $10-20K over your stated "highest cost" on the assumption that you won't really mind having to pay "just a LITTLE bit more" on your mortgage payment to have whatever feature they're trying to convince you that you really want.

Don't fall for this. Stand fast on your financial limits. Remember that increased purchase price means increased closing costs. Find a realtor that doesn't make you want to shower after you talk to them, and who will take your calls or answer your emails. If they won't communicate the way that works best for you, find another one. There is always another one who has a different style. It's OK to shop for realtors.

Different regions have different rules about real estate. Spend some time looking into your state's rules. Like in Vermont, you have to get a radon test. Some things are national, but a lot are regional. There are SO many guides online these days it should be possible for you to find one fairly local to help you be sure you're doing everything you need to. Your state might even have an agency for helping first time buyers.

Ensuring folks are legit: Find out what licensing requirements there are in your state. Realtors have to take tests and get licensed to sell within their area. This is something they should be proud to display in their office because it's not a simple test they have to take. Appraisers typically need a license, too. To get a title search done you need an attorney, they also have professional oversight. An attorney might ask for an initial low deposit (they have to pay for copies in town offices) but most of these professionals won't ask for payment in advance. If they do, be wary. Ask around to see if that's usual in your area. They usually bill for their services after they've provided their report here. Try talking to a variety of people about what realtor they have used, or what appraiser. Ask for referrals from folks you know (coworkers, friends, family of coworkers, etc). You can also search online for reviews of services and see the bad experiences folks have had (most folks only complain about bad service, so take those with a grain of salt).

In the end, you're buying a service, and the person performing the service should be doing their job. If you find out that they didn't, because they are licensed (and possibly insured), you will probably have recourse. Obviously it's better to avoid that because it's a painful thing. But sometimes that's just how things shake out.

I have to say that I've never considered a situation where my name might have been removed from my deed without my knowledge. I suppose if I were worried, I'd set up a reminder to check on it occasionally, like checking on my credit rating from time to time. I mean, to remove you without your knowledge requires forging documents. I know that this sort of thing happens, but... there's only so much you can do to protect yourself if someone is intent on breaking the law in some way. So, I guess, really pay attention to red flags when you're starting a relationship. Don't assume they will change if they're engaging in concerning behaviors.

Phew, the tax stuff is a whole other thing. It's usually worth working with a tax preparer the first year you're filing after buying a house. They can go over all the paperwork with you, so you understand it. Property taxes are so local that you really need to research it based on where you’re buying.

We have a specific amount on our homeowner's insurance that covers "household item loss" up to a certain amount of money, and we specify how much. We have a LOT of computer equipment, so ours is fairly high. If I were to lose a ring, it'd be covered under that. My engagement ring was a $50 cubic zirconia. Our wedding rings were a few hundred. Our computer stuff is way more valuable monetarily.

About all the things relating to marriage and how it entwines lives legally: that's like a dissertation for another day. :) There are huge articles out there talking about all the things that getting married means from a legal stand point. It varies by state and even city. It matters if it's a same-sex marriage or not, as well (it shouldn't but some places have "civil unions" which aren't always the same legal thing as hetero marriages).

If you're still here, wow. I'm impressed. I'm happy to answer questions. Maybe consider me like an elderly queer aunt who doesn't mind talking a lot. I hope this helps you.

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sophrosinn · 4 years

Text

the (un)lucky ones

story description:

“the story’s great, but I think it would be better if the story ended like this”

Affronted at the audacity of the comment, she furiously replies, “then write your own story, asshole!”

word count: 2,048

a/n: happiest solar anniversary to one of my best girls @vanaera! thank you for being the bestest friend a girl could ever ask for. this short story, which is loosely based irl, serves as my gift to you. i hope you’ll like it!

shout-out to @senfleurs for being the best gal and helping me out with this. she even stepped up and edited this omg, and i cannot stress how much I’m thankful, lol especially she made sure that I get to finish this on time

—

In retrospect, she knows better than to let some dumb comment, especially from someone on the Internet, rile her up this much. Even her followers tell her as much: it’s unwarranted, insensitive even. One of her followers, hippopopo tries to take it a step further, justifying by saying, verbatim: It’s her story anyway!!! So only she knows how the story should end best, okay! 😤😠💢

(in actuality, she has qualms about that, mostly because she had read some books which she thought didn’t end well. but that would take time to unpack and this story isn’t about that, no. she’s flattered at the support, nonetheless.)

And yet, there she is at 8 in the morning, her fingers furiously gliding across her keyboard as she writes a spite-filled story in response. Oftentimes, her muse for writing comes from movies she watched with her family, or from songs she heard on Korean dramas, or those meet-cute scenarios she gushed about with her best friends. This time, however, spite’s her main gal.

She finishes at 10. Later at 4 in the afternoon, she posts it. About an hour later, she doesn’t even try to contain the smirk lighting up her face when a familiar notification pops up.

—

The story starts with an inconspicuous like from a user named agust-d five months ago. Back then, she thought nothing of it. A day later, agust-d comments on a story from her drabble series. Since then, every day without fail, agust-d leaves a small token of their appreciation for her works; brief, concise comments such as, “nice job on the flower descriptions,” or “i liked it.”

Belatedly, she wonders if agust-d is a person of few words, because why else would they leave comments with only six words or less, even on her works with over 30k words? Don’t get her wrong, of course she’s eternally grateful for all the support she receives from her affectionate dears. But sometimes, especially on days her self-confidence plummets and she’s in need of reassurance, she ponders if all her efforts are for naught. (of course not, never, she gently reminds herself.)

And each day, she resists the growing urge to reply: don’t you have anything more to say!!! (but alas, she isn’t a rude person—unless provoked—she can’t so she settles with letting her mind wander.)

Three months of this and she finally caves in. With her interest piqued, she browses through agust-d’s posts. After two hours, she learns that agust-d goes by suga online. Coincidentally, Suga is a male student at the same university she’s currently attending. For a moment, she briefly considers a possibility—what are the chances that they’ve met, have fallen into step alongside each other, have passed by him in the large hallways, or have shared her table with him at the library during exam season? The possibility of knowing someone without actually knowing them?

(that’s the funny thing about the online world, she supposes. you may know all that matters about someone: their likes, dislikes, kinks, fears, and horrid taste in music, absolutely everything except that one thing that matters the most: their names.)

Suga, she eventually learns, is not a man of few words. In truth, he’s got a few words too many to say about a diverse range of controversial topics. In his words, his passion burns bright and clear, but for her, he doesn’t shine any brighter than when he talks about music. It shows in his blog, which consists of a myriad of album reviews across different genres (fascinating, she notes, their music interests align as well).

Occasionally, he posts his renditions of some popular rap music, and as sporadic as this happens, she admits that his covers are her favorite part of his blog. And naturally, she refuses to acknowledge that it has everything to do with her fascination with deep, raspy voices, which, (un)fortunately for her, Suga undoubtedly has.

After some serious debating with herself, she decides to not follow him back. But she makes sure to check his profile every other day for no real reason, really, her soul wallowing in denial. In her defense, when did anyone need a reason to stalk someone?

And so, it begins, her fascination with this stranger on the other side of the screen. Never in her whole life did she imagine herself harboring a (teeny-tiny, infinitesimal) crush towards someone on the Internet. Certainly, she knows there’s always a one-in-a-thousand chance that it happens in real life, it’s just that out of all the 7 billion people in the world, she wasn’t expecting herself to be the (un)lucky one.

—

The fateful day begins like any other. She wakes up to a brand new day, at 7 am, and like clockwork, she begins to stretch atop her pink yoga mat. Halfway through her workout, her phone pings with a new notification. Immediately, her phone screen lights up: agust-d has left a comment on your work!

Her traitorous heart skips a beat in the utmost display of betrayal. It’s Suga!

Ever since she scrolled through his blog two months ago, she has been exchanging messages with Suga. Her covert mission to surreptitiously listen to his song covers ends miserably when she accidentally double-clicks on a post he made two years ago. A string of expletives followed as she stared agonizingly at the post. She attempts to remove her blunder, but soon accepts defeat as it doesn’t even take a full minute until she receives a message notification from Suga. The internal debate resumes as her finger clumsily hovers on the computer mouse and she hesitantly clicks. From thereon, the rest, as they say, is history.

She ends up following his account the day after.

Although, if she were being truthful, all they’ve been sending back and forth are pleasantries. Suga seems hellbent on keeping the conversations polite and distant. She doesn’t understand, it’s not like she’s flirting with him! All she just wants is a compelling conversation with someone (because the Lord knows how much she needs an intellectual to talk to; and suga seems like an intellectual, if his posts are anything to go by).

She unlocks her phone and throws herself onto her bed. Normally, her lips quirk up automatically in response to seeing his name pop on her notifications, but it is not the case for this time. Instead, a frown mars her forehead as she reads his comment.

agust-d: the story’s great, but I think it would be better if the story ended like this

For a moment, she can’t believe her eyes. She blinks a few more times in the hope that her eyes were just playing tricks on her. Nada, it remains the same.

If there’s one thing to know about her, it’s that she meticulously plans out every detail in her stories. She even spends weeks to outline a draft, and even then, it must be decent enough before she puts it in writing. Publishing her works online, for all the world to see, still intimidates her even after all this time. Not knowing how people will respond to her works frightens her, but what is life without a little fear?

In addition, she’s receptive to constructive criticisms, but criticisms that come from those she looks up to? It’s a bitter pill to swallow sometimes. Suga—he’s become one of those people, and seeing his comment really hurt. She turns her phone off and does her chores for the time being. The moment she logs back in, she is taken aback by the multitude of comments expressing the same sentiment.

bubbleboy: “Yeah, I agree, I think it would be best if the story ended in this manner.”

She can’t help but feel the bubble of anger gradually rising. Another even started with,

orange-gloss: “No offense, but the ending being suggested by others is kinda good.”

The audacity and the entitlement in this comment! Asking her to not be offended when it is within her right to take offense is absolutely laughable. Furthermore, who are you to even tell me how I should react?

When she reaches the 20th comment, she explodes. The next two hours find her furiously typing out a decent response disguised as a story, albeit with passive-aggressiveness, addressed to all of the comments, but primarily to the one left by Suga. She talks to the rude commenters with the sweet addition of a phrasing 101 lesson. In her contained rage, she ends with the note: remember, it doesn’t hurt to be nice, and if you have qualms about how I ended my own story, do me and yourself a favor and write your own story!

She makes up her mind to take some time off her blog for a while. But after a familiar notification pops up at 5 PM, she resists the urge to run away and instead, opts to open the messages he sent.

agust-d: i’ll admit, the way I said it was rude

agust-d: but I stand with what I said

agust-d: you should consider the possibility as well

seen

(In hindsight, she realizes that, for once, Suga’s comment surpasses 25 words.)

—

After the whole debacle with the barrage of rude comments and her consequent outburst, everything has never been the same. Understandably, some of her fans have left since then, but the majority stayed with her and for that, she’s eternally grateful. Although she still publishes her stories and interacts with her followers, a certain emptiness fills her at times.

A part of her thinks it has a lot to do with Suga, who she doesn’t talk to anymore. She… doesn’t know how to respond to him after her outburst. In a span of a moment, she manages to both defend her honor and drag agust-d through the mud, which was never her intention to begin with. Okay, well, maybe just a little bit. But she’s hurt, so it only makes sense to retaliate.

If only she could easily strike back in her current situation.

Unbeknownst to her, someone with the handle void-mayo tags her on a malicious post the night before, calling her out for being fake. Apparently, she’s a ‘copycat writer wanna-be with no real ideas of her own.’

She only discovers it when her followers start sending her messages of reassurance and appreciation. Of course, she checks the post at once, reading carefully and taking in everything that was written. (Shit, at least I have a better username, she muses). And not for the first time, she feels hurt, uneasy, and anxious at the same time. Void-mayo is already an established writer, with years of exposure under her belt and a large army of rabid fans at her disposal. Meanwhile, she’s just started her writing blog. And although she’s diligent, thorough, and ensures that each of her stories has its own personality and flavor, most of void-mayo’s fans wouldn’t care. She can’t risk losing her credibility over a baseless accusation such as this!

And with that, she feels anger bubbling from the pit of her stomach. She doesn’t get the purpose behind the destructive post. She gets humiliated, her reputation tarnished, and worse just because she had written a similar scene with an ice cream . It certainly doesn’t help that others are quick to join in calling her names and ‘cancelling her’ without even bothering to check the facts.

And as she contemplates on how to proceed with such a delicate situation, her dashboard refreshes. At the top, she notices that agust-d reblogs void-mayo’s post with the addition of his response and for once, the word count exceeds 100.

—

In a roundabout way of saying sorry and expressing her gratitude, she proceeds to write the ending Suga requested. And illuminated by the dim light of her laptop screen, she can begrudgingly admit that he does have a point; his version of the ending does make sense.

—

fin.

—

omake

agust-d: so am i forgiven yet?

you: i don’t know

you: maybe you’ll have to make it up to me

you: and get me some coffee first?

you: 😉

—

a/n pt. 2: happiest birthday to you again! i’m so grateful to have met you in this lifetime. truly, like you’re the best. even if your internet connection’s always shitty, you always find ways to join our chats and discord parties. just thank you, for all the countless laughs that i’ve had with (and because of) you, for the counsel with my writing, and for the stories and advice you’ve willingly shared with us. here’s to our three years of friendship and counting! i love you so much! enjoy this day and stay safe!

p.s. keep rocking and keep writing! we’ll always be here with you! muah! ❤️❤️❤️

p.p.s. hihi 🦆🍄

#birthday fic #for #vanaera #this is the first fic i've finished writing #my own fic #omg #also #all the uns in this fic are for comedic relief #esp void-mayo #from stardew valley #bts #min yoongi #fic

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saltyfilmmajor · 4 years

Note

3, 8, 11, 15, 17, 19, 29, 32, 34, 39, 40 for the birthday asks (happy birthday!!! 🎉🎂🎉🎂🎉)

3. rant. just do it

Mission Impossible as a franchise is emblematic of the global shift in the perception of how a government functions in relation to its own citizens, more specifically in an American/ western context. At the End of the Cold War, the spy genre as a whole begins to be self-reflexive: particularly with its villains, indicating that a greater trend within the spy genre is working through the political turmoil following the post-cold war world and then later 9/11. Contrast with how the Original TV series reinforced the American ideology, of getting involved in other countries' affairs by force in order to profit politically or financially. The Spy Genre as a whole gets written off as schlocky popular media, however, genre films have always done much to work through social anxiety (See: Historical Drama or Science Fiction). The Spy Genre, therefore, is very much just as much about the tropes as it is as working through the west’s trauma with the weaponization of the state to further its own interests

8. how many accounts do you follow?

Exactly 300

11. what unusual talent do you have?

Making people laugh with the Serious bullshit I say. If I make an intentional joke it doesn’t work.

15. what’s a question do you constantly get asked?

What can you do with your film degree?/So do you want to make movies?

17. google the top song from the year you were born

I get some contradicting answers, so I’ll just sight one of the top hits: Allstar by Smash Mouth

19. what’s your favorite teacher you’ve ever had?

Dave, My film Mom. I sat in a class today and realized, I had actually learned what he wanted me to learn and was able to bring it up in the relevant discussion. I genuinely respect him and I’m glad to have been able to take so many classes with him, he was always very passionate about the material.

29. what quote or inspirational setting do you think is bs?

Pull Yourself by the bootstraps. Like no, maybe ask for help? Or More accurately Let people who aren’t in the best situation be able to ask for help. People who say pull yourself by the bootstrap lack empathy and I hate hearing it.

32. how old do you get mistaken for?

I get mistaken for a teenager a lot. the youngest I got was 13 when I was in Walmart about 2 months ago

34. do you like your Hogwarts house or do you wish you were a different one?

I’m good with Hufflepuff, I think I’d fit in quite well

39. describe your aesthetic

somewhere between Soft Humanities Queer and Leather Jacket Bisexual. Those are the most extreme ends of my aesthetic choices, anyway.

40. answer with one of your ‘school memes’ (inside jokes you have with your class/grade) with no explanation:

Aggressive Coyote

unusual(ish) asks

#Emily #Birthday Asks #Thanks For These Fam #boasamishipper #Nancy's Inbox

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hotniatheron · 4 years

Photo

Thought I’d do this since my book tastes changed so much this decade

My top books (that I read) of the decade, in no particular order:

1. The Things They carried Tim O’Brien 2. Beloved - Toni Morrison (not pictured bc I let my mom borrow my copy) 3. Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer 4. Less - Andrew Sean Greer 5. Fish in Exile - Vi Khi Nao 6. The Association of Small Bombs - Karan Mahajan 7. The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller 8. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe - Benjamin Alire Sáenz 9. Kartography - Kamila Shamsie 10 Wildwood Dancing - Juliet Marillier 11. Death Watch (The Undertaker Trilogy) - Ari Berk 12. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeos - Ocean Vuong 13. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark - Michelle McNamara

Bonus: The Percy Jackson Series by Rick Riordan because I was 14 at the start of this decade and OBSESSED

Tag Meme answers:

1) I definitely....read less and less the older I got. I used to be able to sit for hours and read. I’d read 3 books in a week. I’d read whole series in a month. But I also had less responsibilities and no job so I think that contributed. I also read more singular novels and less series. 2) I like stories about people learning how to exist with the flaws within themselves. I love odd characters and characters who never quite say what they’re thinking. I love characters who are smart and are not afraid to show it. I love characters who are kind but also self protective. I also love stories about family drama because I can relate lol. 3) I would like to read MORE OFTEN, but also examine what I read more. These days I just read and forget a lot. I want stuff to stick with me more. 4) Mr. Jonathan Safran Foer.....always manages to write in a way that sticks in my head. I think he’s influenced my writing more than anyone else. But also I read Toni Morrison in highschool and I have a very special place in my heart for her. 5) Does Black Sails count? Probably not. I’d say Gone Girl bc I didn’t really like the book but I DO like rewatching that movie, and I saw it for the first time in college with my roommate and had NO idea what it was about and I still laugh about that memory.

#end of year book tag #long post #book recs #end of decade

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itsclydebitches · 5 years

Text

RWBY Recaps: The Shining Beacon Part 2

I miss RWBY. Specifically, I miss early RWBY when there was less drama (not really but let me pretend), so let’s head on back to Volume 1.

In our opening scene of Episode 3, Ruby and Jaune have managed to find the hall where the rest of the newbies are meeting and honestly? I’m super proud of them for it. These are the two fools who will later argue over who had the map while wandering around the wilds of Remnant. Baby leaders managing to find the rest of their flock? Great job. Well done. Mama’s proud.

This little time skip raises some questions though. Did they ever find the Beacon cafeteria? What else did they chat about the rest of the day? Yang makes it sound like they’ve been gone a number of hours and I for one would love to know what awkward Ruby and even-more-awkward Jaune got up to during that time.

Tis the realm of fics though, not canon. Instead we get another shot of RWBY’s infamous shadow people with Yang standing out like the goddamn sun.

Who could the main character possibly be??

Beats me. What a gosh darn difficult question.

Yang: Ruby! I saved you a spot.

Are... are there spots, Yang? You’re all standing in a giant auditorium. If Ruby comes to stand beside you is another student gonna throw a fit about it? I mean real talk, I went to watch the changing of the guard while spending a month in London and let me tell you, there were people who guarded their spots like a pissed off bird guarding her eggs. (For the record you couldn’t even see anything. This was just human prickliness at its finest). So who knows, maybe Yang knows precisely what she’s doing.

Ruby abandons Jaune to join her, which on the one hand is kinda mean—you can’t invite your new friend to stand around with you?—but Ruby does say she’ll “see [him] after the ceremony,” so that’s nice and all. I know my anxious ass would have been thrilled to hear someone making future plans like that, even if it’s mostly just a nicety. Making new friends is hard.

Of course, Jaune doesn’t make that job any easier on himself. I’ve written before about his Nice Guy tendencies in the early volumes and they come back in full force here. He bemoans Ruby’s leave, asking himself where he’ll find “another nice, quirky girl to talk to?” It’s an easy introduction for Pyrrha, revealing her behind Jaune and quite obviously setting her up as that “nice, quirky” girl who he’ll become closest to as the episodes progress, but jeez, Manic Pixy Girl assumptions abound. Especially given the fact that Jaune/Pyrrha became canon in Volume 3. Obviously Pyrrha will be written with great depth as RWBY continues, but it does rankle a bit to have her introduced as a Ruby stand-in, someone positioned as a way of fulfilling Jaune’s ridiculous “needs.” I’m glad this is undermined later when she takes initiative towards him, i.e. saving him during initiation and angling to be his partner. Her interest is clear even if at that point Jaune will take anyone pretty: Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha herself.

But I digress.

Ruby gives her whole spiel about meeting Weiss and Yang’s response is, “Yikes. Meltdown already?” heavily implying that she expected Ruby to have a “meltdown” at this school, just not so soon. Which—iffy terminology aside—isn’t at all surprising. RWBY does an excellent job of setting up Ruby’s nerves, from her “bee’s knees” comment to her eagerness in showing Weiss exactly what she’s capable of. The girl is desperate for validation—as is the whole RWBYJNPR gang, in their own ways—and a lot of that comes out as anxious, social awkwardness. If Ruby was at all inclined towards “meltdowns” at Signal then I’d say she did a damn good job holding herself together through everything that happened at Beacon. Granted, being put in a position of power will help with that, at least on a surface level. To semi-quote Oz, how can you expect others to put forth their best if you’re not constantly doing the same? Ruby has the veneer of self-control down now because she had to for her team... which makes me anticipate her inevitable breaking point all the more. We saw in Volume Six how close Ruby got to dropping her ‘I’m an endlessly put together leader’ persona with Qrow drinking himself to oblivion, but she never quite got there. I’m waiting (hoping really) that Ruby’s long-established anxiety will finally be addressed, what with Yang having made good headway in that department and all the shit they’ve gone through adding up to a very justified breakdown.

Let the poor girl really falter for once and let the rest of the group grapple with that. Everyone deserves it.

I’m jumping six volumes ahead though. Here and now Ruby is still telling Yang all about her horrible encounter, segueing into how she “just wanted her to stop yelling” which of course is the perfect moment for Weiss to sneak up behind her with a loud “YOU!” (Jaune’s comment linking to Pyrrha; Ruby’s comment linking to Weiss—RT enjoys writing these little bridges, particularly for introducing new characters).

I love this moment simply for how much it tells us about Weiss. Largely in retrospect. Because while her trailer song is definitely on the nose in some respects—“I’m the loneliest of all”—it’s not until later on that we realize exactly how abusive Weiss’ family is and how isolated she’s been for the whole of her upbringing. This girl has absolutely no experience interacting with people outside of the Schnee/everyone else hierarchy (note in a moment how she assumes that Ruby will want to “make it up to [her]”) so if you’re suddenly surrounded by people for the first time who aren’t fawning over your name and money and dust connections... what do you? How do you get some vaguely positive attention? Oh okay, guess I’ll force it! Here Weiss is claiming that she never wants Ruby to speak to her again, but she’s the one who barged in on their conversation and loudly drawing attention to herself. Weiss is starved for healthy validation while simultaneously stuck in the behavior she’s been taught: asking for attention solely by trying to show off— here’s a rambling summary of the Schnee Dust Company’s disclaimer look at what a good puppet I am—or by insulting others. Weiss mocks Ruby’s genuine offer to buy school supplies together but then doesn’t move away from her and Yang once the announcements start. She doesn’t know how to say ‘yes’ to any offers of friendship, but she also doesn’t want to say ‘no.’

Interestingly, that moment also tells us a fair bit about Ruby. Not just by re-emphasizing how kind she is by extending the offer to start this relationship over, but also adding weight to the headcanon that Ruby is neurodivergent. Weiss’ heavy sarcasm about how they can “go shopping, paint our nails, and talk about cute boys” goes right over Ruby’s head. She responds with a “Wow! Really?” similar to the “...can you?” heard right before she attacks the Nevermore during initiation. Ruby has a history of not just being awkward but missing a lot of ‘normal’ social cues as well.

The girls’ bonding is interrupted when Ozpin begins his speech and boy oh boy do I love this moment too. Anyone who reads my metas knows that I’m a firm defender of our disaster headmaster, especially after volume 6, and looking back this scene is the PERFECT example of how RT tries to make Ozpin seem shady... while really failing to accomplish that. Obscuring eyes/the whole face is a super easy way to tell the viewer that this is an Untrustworthy Character. See: every horror movie where the villain’s face is obscured by shadows, our own dear Adam who keeps his face hidden with a mask, etc. It serves to dehumanize the character, keeping us from seeing some of the most expressive parts of their bodies, and equates one thing they’re hiding—such as a deformity. Yay ableism! /s—with other things they’re keeping from the heroes; secrets, sinister intentions, and the like. The primary exception to this are characters who wear masks for defined and morally acceptable reasons. i.e. superheroes who need to keep their secret identities intact and, notably, aren’t withholding that information from the viewer. We as the audience usually know who they are and thus aren’t inclined to distrust the character based on secret-keeping.

Awesome superpowers aside, Ozpin doesn’t fit within the mold of superhero, so all of this reads as pretty damning:

Like holy shit, friends. With the exception of one moment,

notably when Ozpin informs them that “knowledge will only carry you so far,” the cinematography goes out of its way to hide his eyes, if not his entire face. Oz comes across as super shady here, compounded by the close up and centered shot of Ruby’s silver eyes to contrast. Compounded further by the exchange Ruby and Yang have afterwards about how he seemed “kind of off”—an exchange that doesn’t precisely fit with in-world logic (how does Yang know what Ozpin is normally like?), but serves as a clear message to the viewer: Something is UP with this guy.

The problem? This isn’t Ozpin’s introduction.

Imagine a series where in Episode One we only hear about a powerful Beacon headmaster. Someone who bends the rules and let’s Ruby in two years early for reasons unknown. Then by Episode Three we see this guy almost insulting the new group of students (Yang’s eyes narrow when Ozpin says he sees only “wasted energy in need of purpose”) and the entire time the camera refuses to give us a good look at him. That would have set up a character who is legitimately creepy. Someone we know instinctively might not really be on our side.

Instead our introduction to Ozpin is this.

He’s smiling and charming and legitimately kind. He listens to why Ruby wants to come to Beacon before making his decision (aka establishing her agency here). He shares a fond “Aww, you know I’m gonna get what I want” look with Glynda. He brings cookies, for god’s sake. Ozpin’s supposed shadiness falls completely flat here because we’ve already developed positive feelings for him, notably while he was with our protagonist and his BFF headmistress. The intimacy in Episode One implies that this is the “real” Ozpin, whereas a formal speech in front of (from the audience’s perspective) a literally faceless mass sets this up as a “fake” Ozpin, one that comes out when he feels the needs to be stern with incoming students. Or, based on information we learn later, when he’s pulling from another personality.

All of which isn’t a criticism of RT’s writing. Rather, given what we now know definitively from Volume Six, I don’t think they were invested in making Ozpin into a legitimately shady character. What RWBY is invested in is poking at or outright dismantling a lot of tropes and conventions, which is essentially what they did here. “You EXPECT the secretive, powerful headmaster to be a morally gray kind of guy... so we’re just not even gonna go there. Not really.”

But back to the actual plot. Jaune ends the scene by sliding up and announcing that he’s a natural blonde, another excellent example of precisely the thing women aren’t looking for in a guy. He knows Ruby now so it’s totally cool for him to re-join her, but using that as an excuse to start talking about his looks? Nah. Remember folks, women generally like it when you treat them as more than just a romantic and/or sexual conquest!

But enough about Jaune. We cut to that night where all the newbie students—way more than we’ll actually see throughout the rest of the series—are crowded together in Beacon’s hall, which from a world building perspective is a really great choice. I love what it says about Beacon as an institution: We’re not giving you rooms yet because we believe that most of you will fail the initiation (or at least that’s the impression they want to give the students). There’s a sense of ‘roughing it’ with simple mats and no personal space, the sort of things they’d have to get used to if they’re out traveling as huntsmen later in life. The overall emphasis on community and team work. Like the teams of four, Beacon is invested in setting up situations where the students are forced to work with one another. Particularly with those they might otherwise avoid.

That’s precisely the sort of interaction we get in a moment, but first: a tangent. Okay. So in previous metas—mostly Volume Six stuff—I’ve gotten a lot of pushback for my use of the term “kids” to describe the RWBY gang. Which I get. Post-Beacon most of them are legally adults by our standards and they’re certainly doing Adult Things nowadays. I do think there’s a lot of interesting nuances here—the fact that our protagonist and arguably most significant character plot-wise (Oscar) are both still underage, asking whether Remnant even views age in the same way we do, whether hitting the magical age of 18 suddenly gives you any more insight or maturity than you had at 17 or 16, acknowledging that they were never meant to be out in the world fighting this war and making these decisions yet, so we shouldn’t conflate traumatic necessity with emotional growth—but for the most part fans don’t want to grapple with those sorts of questions. There’s a knee-jerk reaction (particularly from those who are around the group’s age) of, “Most of them are 18. They’re not kids so stop acting like they are.” RWBY has raised a lot of questions for me regarding how I balance “Kids/teens/young adults are people with agency and more maturity than people tend to give them credit for” with “I remember how much of a kid I still was at 18 and know precisely how much I’ve grown in the decade since. I was not an adult then, no matter what the law said.” It’s a matter of acknowledging generational experience without turning into one of those, “Bah! Kids don’t know what the hell they’re talking about” curmudgeons. I’m an adult with a father who dismisses everything I say because he’s got—and will always have—50+ years on me. I’m well aware that it sucks.

Why am I bringing all this up again? Because this scene is just so kid-ish. It’s wonderfully young and carefree! Ruby is writing a letter to her friends in cutesy grimm PJs. Yang slides over with a comment about how it’s just like a sleepover. They acknowledge that Tai would not be pleased with all the boys around while Yang ogles the shirtless guys and Jaune wanders around in a footed one piece. This entire scene has a distinctly middle school or early high-school vibe. Not that adults don’t hang out and chat in super comfy PJs—we totally do—but rather that viewers know how scenes like these are coded. They’re supposed to look young here and even though experience has most certainly aged them, even though about two years have passed since this moment... that’s still only two years. I have a difficult time accepting that we should now view the group’s decisions as irrevocably Adult and Mature (cough-airship-cough) when such a short time ago they weren’t either of these things. And they weren’t meant to be those things. Not yet. I wish that these later Volumes of RWBY were more interested in exploring the concept of (yes) kids forced into the role of adults, as opposed to trying desperately to pretend that they’re adults already with a more worthwhile voice than people with 10, 20, or in Ozpin’s case, a 1,000 years more experience than them.

Anyway. Enough ranting for one recap.

Ruby shares her fears about not making any friends and Yang has her “You’ve just made one friend and one enemy!” line before giving her little sis a legitimate pep-talk. She explains that there are friends all around Ruby, “you just haven’t met them yet.” A near identical perspective to what we heard from Jaune last episode. Which is hilarious given that ten seconds ago Yang was pseudo-insulting the guy.

Seriously though, how is there not more Jaune-Yang interaction in canon? They’re got so much more in common than just blonde hair and anger management issues.

Cue another segue. Right after Yang finishes talking about future friends Ruby catches a sound off screen and we get our first look at Blake since the courtyard.

Yang quite literally drags Ruby over and it is an excellent display of siblings being siblings.

Blake recognizes Ruby as “the girl who exploded” and honestly I’m sad that this didn’t become a moniker for her in the same way “vomit boy” did for Jaune. Nothing like being defined by your embarrassing moments and ridiculous habits to encourage true bonding! My BFF calls me Trout and I call her Hunter and no, I will not expand on the ridiculousness that was my middle school years.

I mean, Ruby starts to tell Blake that she can call her crater face before realizing that this might not be the best idea. The girl is awkward af and I love her.

Yang: What are you doing??

Ruby: I don’t know help me!

God they’re so fucking relatable.

Yang manages to get Blake’s name out of her and then makes the mistake of commenting on her bow. Granted, Blake doesn’t show any overt signs of discomfort here—that would have been too obvious even by RWBY’s standards—but looking back we can assume that any conversation veering towards the one thing she wants to hide wouldn’t exactly endear her to these girls. Blake gets pretty rude by saying that she’ll continue to enjoy her book just as soon as they leave. Yang gets ruder by announcing, right next to Blake, that she’s a “lost cause.”

The book is Ruby’s in though. Now it’s less small talk and more legit interest as she asks what Blake is reading. The fandom has acknowledge to death the “It’s about a man with two souls, fighting for control” line and how that obviously relates to the Ozpin-Oscar situation, but beyond that I’m interested in the fact that we never learn the title of this book. Normally that wouldn’t mean much (only so much world building you can do and book titles aren’t necessarily the sort of thing RT wants to waste time on), except that Ruby specifically asks for it and Blake delves straight into the summary. I wonder if perhaps this specific text will show up again in future volumes. I don’t have any real evidence for the hunch, just the fact that we now know Ozpin has put stories out into the world that relate to his situation, namely The Maidens fairy tale. I have to wonder if perhaps other lives of his created art as a way of coping with their situation—unknowingly truthful accounts that people like Blake read, oblivious to the ways that this fiction might be setting them up to be more empathetic towards the same situation in real life. It just stands out to me that we’re not given a title or author here; that Blake was one of the ones to learn about Ozpin’s immortality off screen (denying us her initial reaction); that comparatively she was one of the more sympathetic during that awful moment out in the snow. It would be awesome if the “lol Blake is a nerd who sometimes reads porn” aspect of her personality actually sets her up to be one of the more understanding people in Volume 7.

Basically, please give me super nerd Blake who starts warming back up to Ozpin because she finds out he’s authored a bunch of her favorite books lol. Or at the very least she realizes that she’s now living the stories she’s long adored; she’s been given the opportunity to extend real support to someone so very like the characters she’s felt for all these years...

RWBY does love its meta.

Ruby admits to loving books too, particularly the fantastical stories that Yang used to read her. Blake is far more pessimistic.

Blake: Hoping you’ll live happily ever after?

Ruby: I’m hoping we all will.

Hello, conflict of the entire series. As well as many fans’ hope for how it will all turn out. I’m personally not at all interested in a 7+ year investment with this cast only to watch them end on a bleak, or even bittersweet note. Despite what some might claim nowadays, happy endings are far from overrated. Given the state of the world, happy endings are radical.

Blake tells Ruby that her dreams are “Very ambitious for a child,” one of the very few indicators we’ve gotten (along with Weiss’ “Aren’t you a little young to be here?”) that the rest of the students recognize on sight that Ruby is younger than them. I’ve literally never heard one child refer to another, same-age acquaintance as “child.” Especially not when they’re hinting strongly that they’re being naive.

Yang is SUPER proud of that optimism though and starts a tackle hug that leads to them fighting cartoon style, complete with stars, cat noises, and dust clouds. The racket of course brings Weiss over. And by “of course” I mean “Oh look, another excuse she can use to go talk to the only people she knows here.”

We get another handful of great lines—Ruby has known Weiss a day but she was “always on [her] side,” Weiss exclaims that Ruby is “a hazard to [her] health”—but the episode is basically over. Blake blows out her candles and that’s that.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe I just wrote nearly four thousand words on a six minute episode. I’m gonna go re-think my life choices.

Minor Things of Note

“You’re lucky we weren’t blown off the side of the cliff!” Hey there, episode four foreshadowing! Also, Weiss, you guys are nowhere near a cliff. You’re so dramatic.

You can really see the difference in their expressions when Oz gives his speech. Ruby and Yang looked pumped and joyous. Weiss is anxious and unsure.

Still super interested in Ozpin actually using his cane as he leaves the stage. Probably just a random animation choice before they worked out all his character kinks, but if we imagine that his host was currently speaking maybe that’s a quirk specific to him.

We never again hear about “the gang back at Signal” that Ruby is writing to. Just like we never see the friends Yang apparently entered Beacon with (and weren’t meant to given that they were also shadow people). Not that RWBY needs any more characters to keep track of, but from an in-world perspective it is a little strange that they were supposedly super close to all these people and then just... never mention them again lol.

#rwby #rwby recaps #mymetas #the shining beacon pt. 2

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prettywordsyouleft · 5 years

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Too Good To Be Wrong - Part 7

Summary: No matter how much you tried, you couldn’t resist Park Chanyeol, even if you knew it would test everything that you thought family stood for.

Genre: childhood friends & “siblings” to lovers au / forbidden romance / older woman - younger man au

Characters: Park Chanyeol x female reader

A/N: This is a series about falling in love with your “brother” Chanyeol - your family took him in when you were younger. It will contain mature content in later parts, but for the majority of the story it’s about reconnecting as adults and discovering feelings for each other.

I am expecting Too Good to be Wrong to be around 10 parts long, but this could change depending on how the story progresses in further parts.

Too Good To Be Wrong will be posted every Tuesday at 10am NZST.

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

There was one anniversary each year where, whether you were busy with work or not, you had always gone home for. Even though you could escape returning home for a few of the holidays due to the distance between Seoul and your hometown, and the inconvenience it would have on travelling back in time for work, this was one date that no excuse could ever justify skipping it. Not that you actually would want to.

This year, you would be travelling back with Chanyeol to pay respects to his parents’ death together. He had grown louder over the last week, doing more activities when he was home with you to keep himself occupied. It surprised you how alike he still was to when you both lived together all those years ago. You would never forget how many movie marathons you had endured or the endless hours spent in an arcade just to keep him distracted enough from the impending date on the calendar. Not that it really worked, but you would humour him every single time, knowing you would be lost without your own parents like he was.

Nothing much had changed now either.

“Let’s watch all the Iron Man movies back to back,” Chanyeol suggested over the weekend and you nodded happily, even laughing when he called you the Pepper Potts to his Tony Stark. And then when that was over, he had been up all night playing Fortnite, not coming to bed until you woke up at three in the morning and felt that his space in your bed was still cold and empty. You pulled yourself up and padded out into the living room.

“Chan, come to bed,” you called out to him sleepily, his eyes darting from the screen momentarily to yours. You moved over to his place on the sofa and sighed. “It’s time for bed, actually it’s way past your bedtime.”

“Ah, I have just-”

“No now. Tomorrow we have to drive back home. And whilst I can do that for us, you still need some rest.”

“Right… right.”

You could see the reluctance clear in him even as an adult. You often forgot how much he adored his parents. You obviously knew he did, it was a given for most children to love those who brought them into this world. But it had been so easy for Chanyeol to slip into your family dynamics and how natural the relationship was between him and your parents often blurred the lines in your head. You knew there was a time before he lived with you, but it had been so long ago it was easy to feel as if it had always been like this.

Until moments like these, where he looked scared to face the past and tried to avoid it. Your heart broke when Chanyeol looked up at you with round eyes and you reached for him, wrapping yourself around him and cradling his head to your chest. You stroked his hair and you were certain you could hear muffled sniffles coming from within your embrace. When you finally pulled away, a watery smile graced his lips and he nodded.

“Let’s go to bed.”

The trip back home was quiet. Thankfully from his lack of sleep last night, Chanyeol had slept for most of it, giving you the chance to focus on all you had to today. Your mother had rung to tell you about some ingredients she needed you to bring home for the offering and you knew you would be needed in the kitchen to help prepare some of the food as well. Your family was always sombre today, not just for Chanyeol’s sake. Your parents had lost their most cherished friends that day as well.

When Chanyeol stirred from his slumber you were almost home and he cleared his throat quietly. “Let’s go to the crematorium first.”

After parking the car, you both silently went into the building, purchasing a small bouquet of flowers to stick on the front of their plot which Chanyeol placed on as soon as you stood in front of them. You smiled at the photos inside the case, remembering how you had seen their own smiles so often in person. You couldn’t help but feel a little emotional, especially when Chanyeol started to tremble beside you.

“Hi, Mum and Dad, it’s your son here,” he greeted and you bit at your lip to prevent your emotions from spilling down your cheeks. “It’s been a while. Your son got a really good job and is living well in the city. Though I still check on the parents you left me with too, don’t worry. They’ve raised me well.”

You couldn’t stop the tears now and looked down at your feet.

“Ah, I wanted to introduce you to someone!” Chanyeol said hoarsely after babbling on about his life recently, and suddenly he sounded happier as he spoke. “My girlfriend is here to greet you both. You’ll be proud to know I’m with Y/N now, right? We’ve been together for four months and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. You always told me to stick to my dreams, and this one finally came true.”

You glanced up through the stream of your emotions, watching as Chanyeol grinned at the photo in the case as if he could feel his parents’ happiness about your relationship. You turned and looked at them, bowing lightly.” Hello mother, father. It’s been a long time.”

You didn’t spend too much more time in the crematorium, your emotions affecting both of you. Chanyeol slipped his hand into yours and you walked back to the car swinging your hands lightly. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“Thank you for being like every k-drama out there and introducing me to your parents,” you admitted with a small laugh. “I always thought those scenes were so silly but now, I understand the impact it can have.”

“I always wanted to bring you in front of them that way. My Dad knew I liked you as a kid and always told me that one day you would look at me differently. I guess he was right.”

“I still see you as the Chanyeol I’ve known my whole life, you know.”

He grinned. “But somehow you fell in love with me.”

“I guess I did.” You both smiled at each other and then you hugged him once you arrived at the car. “This feels nice. Being introduced as your girlfriend to someone I know.”

You hadn’t realised how much you had longed for such a thing. You weren’t exactly secretive in Seoul about your relationship; no one knew that you had grown up under one roof there. But with not telling your parents, well, you hadn’t realised it was something you yearned for.

Or that Chanyeol felt that way too. “One set of parents down, another to go.”

“What?” You glanced up at him, perplexed. Sure, it felt nice, but there was no way you were actually telling your parents. You could imagine the dramatic reaction of your mother immediately.

“We need to tell our parents about us.”

“No, we don’t.” Pulling away from the embrace, you unlocked Chanyeol’s car and climbed in. He sighed and walked around to the other side of the vehicle and sat down heavily. He was confused by your reaction. “Our parents will kill us.”

“So you plan on dating me on the sly forever?”

“Can’t we?”

Chanyeol looked at you incredulously. “What about when we get engaged? Do you plan on having them turn up on the day of our wedding and tell them then that we fell in love? Or worse, are we eloping so they can’t stop us?!”

“We’re getting married?” you asked softly and Chanyeol groaned loudly in response. “Chan, come on, like you said to your parents just now, we’ve only been dating for four months. It’s hardly time to consider everything like that.”

Even though now you were imagining yourself walking down the aisle to him, as he looked dashing in a tuxedo. You weren’t prepared to admit that you had thought of this countless of times recently without his prompting.

“I’ve considered everything like that with you.”

“Really?” you asked, the hurt evident in his eyes. Just how often would you be faced with that look, knowing Chanyeol had loved you for such a long time? You were forever playing catch up and it felt unfair when his emotions overwhelmed you.

Sighing heavily, you decided telling him wouldn’t be such a problem. “Well, maybe I have too. But we have all the time in the world to-”

“My parents would often say that,” he interjected, smiling wistfully. Chanyeol looked over at you. “We will need to tell them, Y/N.”

You reluctantly agreed. “When the time is right.”

_________________

Part 8

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smoochcal · 5 years

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numb without you (part two)

a/n: this is part two (2/???) of numb without you!! please refer to part one to follow the timeline correctly. I really haven’t written something along the lines of this in a very long time, so I am very thankful for every single one of you that have read, liked and reblogged this series already. feel free to message me about any blurbs you want me to write or talk about on here :) with that being said please enjoy part two of numb without you

pairing: readerxluke (and calum lmao)

word count: 2.3k

summary: three months down the road from the night you spent with luke and calum at the club and you have to figure out what to do / movie night with luke

playlist: numb without you by the maine & intoxicated by the cab

rating: PG-13

warnings: swearing, mention of a hookup, mention of blood

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Y/N’s POV:

You inhale and exhale slowly, trying to focus on everything but what you are currently buying at the drug store around the corner from your place. This is the absolute last place you wanted to be. Nothing against the drug store, you have spent many late nights grabbing last minute snacks and groceries you had either forgotten at the store previously or things here and there that were more convenient to pick up there. You feel your cheeks get warm the minute you put your item on the counter. The elder woman checking you out gives you a look of disappointment that you try not to take to heart considering that she probably had kids at an age much younger than you are right now. You give her the money for the box and head back home to take the test.

As you sit on the floor of your bathroom with the door locked you sigh trying to remember exactly how you got here. It’s been about three months since your drunken hookup with Calum occurred and since then you have missed your period twice. This normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but you are always regular like down to the hour and you thought skipping one was abnormal let alone two. And if we’re being honest, you were scared shitless. You’re hardly 22, you can’t be a mom. You aren’t ready for that responsibility; you killed your last goldfish within the span of a week last year.

But maybe you don’t have to worry about this all just yet. The timer on your phone reads that you have a minute and a half left until you can check the pregnancy test that is resting on your bathroom counter next to the sink. Maybe you’re just under a lot of stress and that is what is causing your periods to be extremely late. I mean you have been under a lot of stress at your job. You have had about fifteen manuscripts sitting on your desk at work since the beginning of this week. You have been busting your ass to get them done in time, working late every day hoping that you wouldn’t have to take any of them home with you for the weekend so your edits can be done and on your boss’s desk bright and early Monday morning. It’s Thursday evening now and the thought of trying to get things done is sitting heavily on your shoulders. Just as your mind starts to drift off to other things the timer on your phone goes off indicating that it is time to check the test.

Positive.

You blink a couple times, quickly trying to keep the tears forming in the brim of your eyes away from your line of sight. You’re pregnant. You can’t even begin to comprehend the little lines staring back at you. There are two other tests in the box. You quickly unwrap them and go to take them both. This can’t be happening. It has to be a false positive. Those happen, right? What are you going to tell your mom? She already thinks it’s a bad idea for you to be living in a small apartment in the middle of LA by yourself. You can’t expect her to be overjoyed that you are going to have a baby out of wedlock. You set the timer on your phone again, which is a seemingly difficult task considering you are now shaking.

You wait the few minutes until both tests are ready. This wait seems longer than the last, fear boiling inside of you causing you to worry ten times more than you previously were. This can’t be happening. It was one night, one mistake.

The timer goes off for a second time and you slowly get up off your bathroom floor and check the other two tests.

Positive.

Fuck.

What are you going to do?

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{three hours later}

Your phone rings. You hate yourself for picking “Intoxicated” by The Cab as your ringtone as you glance at the Caller ID. Quickly you wipe your tears and clear your throat and answer the phone.

“Hello?” you choke out, your emotions not doing the best job at hiding themselves in your tone.

“Y/N, what’s up? Why do you sound like you’ve been crying?” Luke asks concerningly.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” you respond quickly, hoping he would change the subject before more tears spill out.

“If you say so…anyway I was calling to ask if you wanted to have a movie night tonight, but if it’s a bad time I can let you go…” he replies tentatively.

“No no you can come over it’s fine,” you say hoping this conversation will end sooner than it started.

“Okay, I’ll be there in 10,” he says quickly before hanging up.

You sigh the second he hangs up. You don’t want anything to seem out of the ordinary, so you quickly compose yourself. A few deep breaths seem to do the trick for the time being. You grab the tests from your bathroom counter and throw them away in the trash can, putting some toilet paper in the bin to cover them up. As you finally exit the bathroom you take another deep breath, holding back the tears that are threatening to spill onto your cheeks purely because of the stress you are now under.

You tidy up your place as fast as you can, knowing Luke could knock on your door at any minute. You don’t worry about what movie you will watch or how he is going to try to pry this secret out of you, you only focus on the then and now in order to keep your composure. Just as you fold the last blanket and set it on top of the couch, you hear a knock on your front door. You know it is Luke by the way he knocks, softly 3 times, and you open the door without even looking at who is behind it. Luke smiles as soon as he lays his soft blue eyes on you. He follows you to the kitchen where you went to find some snacks to make when he picks you up and spins you around throwing you over his shoulder.

“Luke!” you exclaim, laughing ever so slightly, “put me downnnnn.”

“Fine, but only because you asked OH so nicely,” Luke responds sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he puts you down, plopping on the nearest chair as he watches you move about the kitchen.

You look through your cupboards and refrigerator and finally decide on making some nachos for the two of you to share. You grab the ingredients and all the things you know he likes on his nachos; I mean the two of you are best friends after all, and you throw your masterpiece into the microwave to heat up. Luke seems to have a careful eye on you particularly tonight and you can’t tell if it is due to the conversation the two of you had on the phone earlier or if it was because of something else. Maybe he has always looked at you this way, but now you are extra paranoid because of the new information you found out in the bathroom a few hours prior to his arrival.

When the nachos are ready you grab the plate and a couple of napkins and sit on the couch as Luke paws through your extensive movie collection. You swear he is taking his sweet time picking a movie when he finally decides on one of your favorite comedic dramas, Life as We Know It. He puts the DVD into the DVD player, grabs the remotes and finds a blanket before sitting next to you. He covers both of your legs with the blanket and presses play while grabbing a nacho from the plate in your hands. And if everything hadn’t crashed and burned earlier today, all would seem right in the world.

About an hour into the movie Luke asks you to pause it because he has to use the bathroom, you think nothing of it knowing he has a tiny bladder and a short attention span and normally can’t sit through a two hour movie without asking you to stop it at least one. You finish the last of the nachos and get up to put the dish in the sink and grab a water for you and your apparently already overhydrated friend. You and Luke both get back to the couch at the same time and you get settled back where you were. Just as you are about to press play on the remote, Luke looks at you quizzically, causing you to wonder what is on his mind.

“Well are you going to say something or are you just going to give me that dumbass look you wear so well?” you ask as he continues to stare at you.

Luke sighs before speaking, “I mean… do you want to tell me why I found this empty box of pregnancy tests on the floor next to the toilet?”

You look at him like a deer caught in headlights. How could you be so stupid as to leaving the box in the bathroom? What are you going to tell him, the truth? That you had sex with his best friend over three months ago and now you’re 99% positive that you are pregnant with said friend’s child? This is too much for just another movie night.

You begin to form the words you want to say when Luke goes on, “Not to mention the three positive pregnancy tests in your trash poorly hidden under some wadded-up toilet paper. I knew you were hiding something but this? This is a lot, Y/N. When did this happen? Why did this happen? Who’s the father? Does he know yet? Does your mom know yet? What are you going to do?”

“Well,” you start taking a deep breath knowing you don’t have a lot of the answers he’s looking for, “if you’re asking what’s up, apparently I’m pregnant which I only found out a few hours ago. I didn’t necessarily want to hide it from you, but I barely have an explanation for all of this myself let alone an explanation for someone else. I’m assuming this happened a few months ago. Fun fact I haven’t been bleeding like I’m supposed to, and I know you hate when I mention all that girlie stuff but it’s true. I was drunk when this hookup happened and you’re going to hate me even more when I tell you all the details. The father does not know yet and neither does my mother. Honestly you’re the only one besides myself that knows right now and I’m scared out of my fucking mind.”

Luke opens his mouth lie he is about to say something then closes it as he continues to think. You take this opportunity to just bite the bullet and tell him what really happened.

“Remember that night where we all went out to that club you like? Me, you, the guys, their girlfriends and the few strays they must have conjured up along the way? I really didn’t want to go out that night, but I owed you one, so I went. The club was not my scene at all. Too loud, too many people, not enough air circulating around the dancefloor. I stepped out to catch my breath and found Calum smoking outside. We got to talking, and you know how much he gets under my skin sometimes. This time was different though, it was more playful, which made it easier to have a real conversation with him. We talked and one thing led to another and I woke up the next morning with only his ratty drop-dead t-shirt on while sleeping in a unfamiliar yet familiar enough bed. And all I can say now is that I’m sorry. I’m really fucking sorry, Luke. I know he is one of your best friends and I’m one of your best friends. I wasn’t thinking and I lied to you saying I took an uber home and got there not even twenty minutes after stepping out of the club. God, I’m so sorry.” You burst into tears towards the last sentence you spoke, knowing this is the worst you have ever hurt him.

“How could you?” He softly asked as he slowly got up from the couch grabbing his wallet, phone and keys heading out of your apartment. You could tell how broken he was, finally comprehending the madness.

The minute he walked out of your apartment it was like a bomb just exploded in your own living room. The blanket only covering half of your body, the remotes sprawled out on the cushion where he was sitting just a moment ago. Your life is slowly falling apart right before your own two eyes and there is nothing you can do about it except cry. The tears flow and flow, creating a damp spot on the blanket below you. Your sobs echoing throughout the otherwise silent apartment. You want to call Luke; you want to call your best friend and ask him to come back just to hold you and tell you everything is okay. But you shouldn’t and you won’t. You have hurt him enough for today. Instead you allow the sobs to take over your body, feeling completely and utterly lost.

And just when you think you could not cry another tear, Intoxicated plays quietly from your phone perched on the other end of the couch. You grab it quickly praying that it was Luke calling to say he is outside your door waiting to come back in and be there for you. You check the caller ID and see that it is not who you expected it to be, not in the slightest. Your phone read one name that hurt so much you could hardly stand it.

Calum.

#luke #Luke hemmings #Luke hemmings blurb #Luke hemmings imagine #luke blurb #Luke imagine #5sos blurb #5sos imagine #lukehemmings #Luke hemmings fluff #5sos fluff #numb without you #jules writes #calum hood #5sos #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer imagine #5 seconds of summer blurb #best friend!luke

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thekaijudude · 5 years

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A Deeper Look: Insights for a possible Titus and Fuma Spin-off

So some backstory about this topic of discussion before I actually get into it. I've been floating the possibility of Titus and Fuma having a possible spin-off ever since we knew that Taiga was gonna have PE as a form, which I also did so after we got confirmation on the UGF airing details as well as TS

Now firstly, a few reasons why I think a Titus and Fuma spin-off is likely,

1. They're not just 'extra' ultra characters like Grigio

And the last example we had was Victory, whom we all know Ultra Fight Victory is a thing

2. Titus and Fuma aren't receiving any upgrade forms for the Taiga Series

Not sure it'll be much of a 'Tri-Squad' anymore if TS power creeps all of them

3. The fishy airing period of UGF

Kinda touched on this before but I'll reiterate some important points to note here

So UGF will have 13 episodes with the first episode starting on 29 Sept, which means that it'll end on 22 Dec, literally before the week of the last episode of Taiga

And such spin-offs are usually held during the 3 month 'gap-period' between the end of an Ultra series and the subsequent movie

This means that perhaps there's OTHER plans to include another spin-off during that gap period

4. Tri-Squad Voice Drama episode 8 Details

a) Hints of a PE form

b) The Title of the episode

So to refresh on the important context here,

1. Ai knows of the existence of ALL of the Ultras within Hiro

She literally even managed to describe how they looked

2. She has better control of her psychic powers

Which means that she can easily replicate the process of granting the other 2 of the Ultras a PE form via the same process as Taiga

3. In Titus' explanation, he did not mention any form of limitations the upgrade process had

4. Ai, at the end of the episode, has said that she will from then on use her powers to help others in need

Thus setting up the background rationale for any of Ai's involvement with the Ultras if they face another foe in the spin-off in which even TS might not be able to handle

Having a PE form for both Titus and Fuma doesn't seem far-fetched at all considering the context of the PE form itself

Not to mention several hints that TsuPro has thrown at us that I laid out above,

But if the spin-off(s) are gonna be a thing during the gap period, we would definitely see official leaks in the month of October, so we'll see

#ultraman #ultraman taiga

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potterheads23 · 6 years

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35 Things You Might Not Know About Harry Potter

1. ROWLING AND HARRY SHARE A BIRTHDAY.

They both blow out candles on July 31 (happy birthday, JKR!). And that’s not the only influence Rowling had on her characters: She’s said that Hermione is a bit like her when she was younger, and her favorite animal is an otter—which is, of course, Hermione’s patronus. Plus, both Dumbledore and Rowling like sherbet lemons (Rowling said that the wizard’s “got good taste”).

2. SHE INVENTED THE NAMES OF THE HOGWARTS HOUSES ON THE BACK OF A BARF BAG.

In 2000, Scholastic gave schoolchildren across the U.S. the opportunity to ask Rowling questions about Harry Potter. When one student asked her, “What made you think of the people's names and dormitories at Hogwarts?” Rowling responded, “I invented the names of the Houses on the back of an airplane sick bag! This is true. I love inventing names, but I also collect unusual names, so that I can look through my notebook and choose one that suits a new character.”

3. EARLY ON, ROWLING WROTE A SKETCH OF THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE FINAL BOOK.

Rowling calls the idea that she had the first chapter of Deathly Hallowswritten and locked away in the safe “rubbish.” But there was a small element of truth to it: “I had, very early on—but not the first day or anything, probably within the first year of writing—I wrote a sketch for what I thought the final chapter would be,” she told Harry Potter's big screen portrayer, Daniel Radcliffe, in an interview for the Deathly Hallows Part 2 DVD extra features. “I always knew—and this was from really early on—that I was working toward the point where Hagrid carried Harry, alive but supposedly dead, out of the forest, always. I knew we were always working towards a final battle at Hogwarts, I knew that Harry would walk to his death, I planned the ghosts—for want of a better word—coming back, that they would walk with him into the forest, we would all believe he was walking to his death, and he would emerge in Hagrid’s arms.”

And that mental image is what kept Hagrid alive, despite the fact that he “would have been a natural to kill in some ways,” Rowling said. “But because I always cleaved to this mental image of Hagrid being the one carrying Harry out … That was so perfect for me, because it was Hagrid who and took him into the world, and Hagrid who would bring him back … That’s where we were always going. Hagrid was never in danger.”

4. THE DEMENTORS ARE BASED ON ROWLING’S STRUGGLE WITH DEPRESSION AFTER HER MOTHER’S DEATH.

Rowling’s mother, who had multiple sclerosis, died in 1990, after which Rowling suffered a period of depression. She would use the experience to characterize the Harry Potter’s dementors, creepy creatures that feed on human emotion. “It's so difficult to describe [depression] to someone who's never been there, because it's not sadness," Rowling told Oprah Winfrey. “I know sadness. Sadness is to cry and to feel. But it's that cold absence of feeling—that really hollowed-out feeling. That's what Dementors are.”

5. SHE CREATED QUIDDITCH AFTER A FIGHT WITH HER BOYFRIEND.

“If you want to create a game like Quidditch, what you have to do is have an enormous argument with your then-boyfriend,” Rowling said in 2003. “You walk out of the house, you sit down in a pub, and you invent Quidditch. And I don't really know what the connection is between the row and Quidditch except that Quidditch is quite a violent game and maybe in my deepest, darkest soul I would quite like to see him hit by a bludger.”

6. THE WIZARDING WORLD’S PLANTS COME FROM A REAL BOOK.

“I used to collect names of plants that sounded witchy,” she told 60 Minutes, “and then I found this, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and it was the answer to my every prayer: flax weed, toadflax, fleawort, Gout-wort, grommel, knotgrass, Mugwort." The book was penned in the 17th century by English botanist and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper; you can read it here.

7. A PROPOSED TITLE FOR THE AMERICAN VERSION OF PHILOSOPHER’S STONE WAS HARRY POTTER AND THE SCHOOL OF MAGIC.

Rowling turned that down, saying, according to American publisher Arthur Levine, “No—that doesn’t feel right to me … What if we called it the Sorcerer’s Stone?” (The French edition, Levine points out in J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography, is called Harry Potter a L'ecole Des Sorciers.)

8. ROWLING MADE COMPLICATED OUTLINES FOR THE BOOKS.

You can see a partial outline for Order of the Phoenix above. The outline has chapter titles, a general outline of the plot, and then more specific plot points for certain characters. (Based on this outline, it looks like Rowling thought about calling Dolores Umbridge Elvira Umbridge instead!)

9. ARTHUR WEASLEY WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE.

In a battle between good and evil this epic, not everyone would make it through alive—that would have led to “very fluffy, cozy books,” she told Meredith Vieira. “You know, suddenly I [would be] halfway through Goblet of Fire and suddenly everyone would just have a really great life and … the plot would go AWOL.”

Which is not to say that Rowling knew exactly who was on the chopping block. She thought about killing Arthur Weasley after he’s attacked by Nagini in Order of the Phoenix, but instead opted to save him, partly because “there were very few good fathers in the book. In fact, you could make a very good case for Arthur Weasley being the only good father in the whole series.” (She also “seriously considered” killing Ron, then thought better of it.)

Instead, Lupin—a character she had no intention of killing when she began the books—and Tonks died during the final Battle of Hogwarts. “I wanted there to be an echo of what happened to Harry just to show the absolute evil of what Voldemort's doing,” she said. “I think one of the most devastating things about war is the children left behind. As happened in the first war when Harry's left behind, I wanted us to see another child left behind. And it made it very poignant that it was [Lupin and Tonks's] newborn son.”

10. TO KEEP DEATHLY HALLOWS FROM LEAKING EARLY, BLOOMSBURY GAVE IT CODENAMES.

You probably wouldn’t have been so interested in reading Edinburgh Potmakers or The Life and Times of Clara Rose Lovett: An Epic Novel Covering Many Generations.

11. HALEY JOEL OSMENT COULD HAVE PLAYED HARRY.

When Steven Spielberg was attached to direct the film adaptation, he wanted Sixth Sense star Haley Joel Osment to play Harry. But the director eventually left over a creative clash with Rowling, and new director Chris Columbus had to find his star. Some 300 kids tested for Harry Potter over a period of seven months; Jonathan Lipnicki (Jerry McGuire) even expressed interest. “There were times when we felt we would never find an individual who embodied the complex spirit and depth of Harry,” Columbus said.

Then, one night, Heyman went to the theater with screenwriter SteveKloves (who ended up penning all but one of the Potter scripts). “There sitting behind me was this boy with these big blue eyes. It was Dan Radcliffe,” he told HeroComplex in 2009. “I remember my first impressions: He was curious and funny and so energetic. There was real generosity too, and sweetness. But at the same time he was really voracious and with hunger for knowledge of whatever kind.” He persuaded Radcliffe’s parents to let their son audition, and the rest is history.

12. RUPERT GRINT’S AUDITION WAS UNUSUAL.

Nine-year-old Emma Watson’s first audition for the role of Hermione took place in her school gym; she auditioned a total of eight times. Grint, then 10, sent in a video audition, and went in a rather unusual direction: “I found out that you could audition by sending a picture of yourself and some information to Newsround,” he said in 2002. “I did my own video with me, first of all, pretending to be my drama teacher who unfortunately was a girl and then I did a rap of how I wanted to be Ron and then I made my own script thing up and sent it off.”

He had some competition, though: Tom Felton auditioned for both Ron and Harry before ultimately being cast as Draco Malfoy.

13. THERE’S A VERY GOOD REASON HARRY’S EYES AREN’T GREEN IN THE MOVIES.

In the books, Harry’s eyes are described as “bright green”—but Radcliffe’s are blue. When Sorcerer’s Stone was in pre-production, Heyman called Rowling and told her their options: They’d tried green contacts; they could also trying making Radcliffe’s eyes green in post-production. How important was it, he wondered, for Harry’s eyes to be green?

Rowling said that the only thing that was really important was that Harry's eyes looked like his mother’s eyes, so whoever played Lily Potter would need to have some resemblance to Radcliffe. This was a relief for Radcliffe, who had an an extremely adverse reaction to the contacts. (He was also allergic to the glasses, which made him break out in acne.)

14. THE BROOMS USED IN THE SERIES AREN’T REGULAR BROOMS.

They were made by modeler Pierre Bohanna using aircraft-grade titanium. “People think of them as a prop the kids are carrying around, but in reality, they have to sit on them,” Eddie Newquist, chief creative officer of the firm Global Entertainment Services, which puts on Harry Potter: The Exhibition, told Popular Mechanics. “They have to be mounted onto motion-control bases for green-screen shots and special-effects shots, so they have to be very thin and incredibly durable. Most of these kids weighed 80 pounds, 90 pounds [at the beginning]. Now they're all adults, so they're up over 120, 130 pounds, and you have to really make sure your brooms can withstand that.”

15. THE ROLE OF PEEVES WAS CAST AND FILMED—THEN CUT.

British comedian Rik Mayall was cast as Hogwarts’s prank-happy poltergeist in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He showed up and shot the scenes, which were later cut when director Chris Columbus decided he didn’t like the look of the ghost. Mayall described the experience in a 2011 interview:

I got sent off the set because every time I tried to do a bit of acting, all the lads who were playing the school kids kept getting the giggles, they kept corpsing, so they threw me off.

Well, they asked me to do it with my back to them and they still laughed. So they asked me to do it around the other side of the cathedral and shout my lines, but they still laughed so they said they’d do my lines with someone else. So then I did a little bit of filming, then I went home and I got the money. That’s significant. Then a month later, they said: ‘Er, Rik, we’re sorry about this, but you’re not in the film. We’ve cut you out of the film.’ … But I still got the money. So that is the most exciting film I’ve ever been in, because I got the oodle and I wasn’t in it. Fantastic.

He didn’t tell his kids his part had been cut, though, and when they went to see it, “they came back and they said: ‘Bloody good make up. You didn’t look like yourself at all dad,’” Mayall said. “They thought I was playing Hagrid, Robbie Coltrane’s part.”

16. THE ACTRESS WHO PLAYED MOANING MYRTLE WAS MUCH OLDER THAN A STUDENT.

Shirley Henderson was 36 when she played the bathroom-haunting ghost of a 14-year-old student who was killed by a basilisk’s stare in Chamber of Secrets. Playing a ghost was tougher than playing a real person, she told the BBC, “because of all the technical stuff it involved. I had to be strapped up to this harness so it looked as if I was flying and so I could be pushed through the air and twisted and turned over and over again. It's physically very tiring on your body. It also requires a lot of concentration, because there's all kinds of people shouting stuff like 'Turn, do this, look at this' so they can do all their stuff with the computer effects while I'm trying to act it out. But once you block all that out, it's great fun. Really good fun.”

17. PRISONER OF AZKABAN DIRECTOR ALFONSO Cuarón ASKED THE TRIO TO WRITE ESSAYS ABOUT THEIR CHARACTERS.

Alfonso Cuarón wanted Watson, Radcliffe, and Grint to write essays about their characters from a first person point of view. According to Heyman, “they all responded very much in character … Dan wrote a page, Emma wrote 10 and Rupert didn't deliver anything.” Grint told Entertainment Weekly, “I didn't do mine, because I didn't think Ron would. Or that was my excuse. At the time, I was actually quite busy with the real schoolwork involved with my exams, and I just didn't do it. But in the end, it felt right because that's what Ron would have done.”

18. ROWLING SHOT DOWN ONE OF Cuarón’S IDEAS.

Rowling wasn’t precious about all of the details of her books (see: Harry’s eye color). “Inevitably, you have to depart from the strict storyline of the books,” she told Radcliffe. “The books are simply too long to make into very faithful films.” But that didn’t mean she’d let everything slide: “Sometimes I would dig my heels in on the funniest things,” she said. “I’d say yeah, change the costume, that’s not a problem … And then all of a sudden I’d say, ‘Why would they do that spell? They wouldn’t do that there.’”

Take, for example, one shot that Cuarón wrote into Prisoner of Azkaban, which Rowling called “rather bizarre.” “I think Flitwick was conducting, and there were miniature people in an orchestra inside something,” she told Radcliffe. “I said to him, but why? I know it’s visually exciting, but part of what I think fans really enjoyed about the literary world is that there was a logic that underpinned it. There was always a logic to the magic, however strange it became. And I know it’s intriguing to go through the mouth of whatever it was and see these little people, but why have they done it? For you to film it, that’s just what it feels like. Normally, with the magic, there’s a point. So we had a bit of discussion.”

19. ROWLING TIPPED ALAN RICKMAN OFF TO SNAPE’S MOTIVATIONS.

“I told him really early on that Snape had been in love with Lily, that’s why he hated James, that’s why he projected this amount of dislike onto Harry,” Rowling told Radcliffe. “So he knew that. Then you told me that he’d been saying … ‘I just don’t think Snape would do that, given what I know.’” She laughed, continuing, “And I thought, ‘Alan, are you really milking this now?’”

She also tipped Radcliffe off to Harry’s (partial) fate after seeing him in Equus. Radcliffe asked her, point blank: “Do I die?”

“You get a death scene,” Rowling told him.

“I saw you double-take,” Rowling said. “Neal, my husband, afterward, said, ‘What did Dan ask you?’ And I said ‘He wanted to know if he’s going to die.’” When he asked what she’d said, Rowling told him, “I’m not telling you!” Though her husband was tipped off to Dumbledore's fate ahead of time, Rowling kept Harry’s ultimate fate a secret till the end.

20. THE ACTORS COULDN’T PLAY CONTACT SPORTS.

Instead, they played golf. ''[At Leavesden Studios], Rupert Grint and my brother [James] and I would hang out at the driving range downstairs quite a bit,” Oliver Phelps, who played George Weasley, told EW. “I mean, I say driving range, but it was a mat and a 150-yard cone at the other end. Golf was one of the only sports we were allowed to do in our contract because it was relatively quite safe. We couldn't do any contact sports.”

21. THE MOVIES FEATURED SOME HIGH TECH VISUAL EFFECTS …

Visual effects artists were tasked with bringing many of the fantastic magical elements of Harry Potter to life, including everything from fire-breathing dragons and club-swinging giants to zombie-like Inferi and Voldemort’s snake-like face (which was created by using practical makeup and digitally removing Ralph Fiennes’s nose). One of their most challenging sequences came early in Deathly Hallows, when members of the Order of the Phoenix arrive at Privet Drive to whisk Harry away to a safe spot. Multiple Harrys, Mad-Eye Moody says, will confuse the Death Eaters on their trail—so some of the wizards chug Polyjuice Potion and transform into Harry.

The transformation was tough for visual effects artists to pull off. "We needed to have a little bit of the attributes of Harry, and a little bit of the attributes of whoever we started with—George, Fred, Ron, Hermione," Nicolas Aithadi, VFX supervisor at Moving Picture Company, told Popular Mechanics. "The tricky part is you have to be able to read the Harry part and the George part. What we keep from each of these characters has to be perfect." They accomplished it by coating the actors’ faces in UV paint, then having them make faces in the Mova Contour Reality Capture system, which has 29 cameras and can capture 50,000 points of information, creating a 3D mesh cloud they could use as a basis for the transforming faces.

According to Phelps, it was completely different than anything they’d ever done before. “There are probably 30 different facial expressions they tried to get you to do,” he told Popular Mechanics. “I never realized how wide I could open my mouth until we did that scene, so that was quite cool.” Because of the UV paint, the VFX artists had one piece of advice, Phelps said: “They were quite keen to say, ‘Just don't go to any nightclubs tonight, because you'll look like a floating head.’”

22. … BUT NOT ALL THE EFFECTS WERE COMPUTER GENERATED.

Animatronics were made for the actors to interact with on set, including baby mandrakes, Hedwig, the Monster Book of Monsters, and Buckbeak, which was used on-set for close ups. “He could stare at you, his eyes could follow you, he could bow, and every one of his feathers was dyed and put in by hand,” Newquist told PopMech. “There are tens of thousands of them, and they look absolutely gorgeous.”Other creatures were built to give the animators reference for lighting, like the giant Jack-in-the-Box from Prisoner of Azkaban and house elf Kreacher.

23. THE FILM’S MAKEUP ARTISTS APPLIED THE LIGHTNING BOLT SCAR MANY, MANY TIMES OVER THE COURSE OF EIGHT FILMS.

Five thousand eight hundred times, to be exact. In our 2014 interview with Radcliffe, he told us, “The lightning scar, on the first two films, we essentially painted it on, and after that we used Pros-Aide, which was like a glue [to put it on]. It was very simple.” The scar was applied to his face 2,000 times; the rest went on film and stunt doubles. Radcliffe also went through 160 pairs of Harry’s round-frame glasses.

24. HELENA BONHAM CARTER KEPT HER BELLATRIX TEETH.

“I loved my [fake] teeth!” the actress told EW. “I kept them because they're not going to fit anybody else. I keep them in a blue plastic thing in the bathroom and bring them out when I miss [Bellatrix].’”

25. THERE COULD HAVE BEEN AN OFFICIAL HARRY POTTER MUSICAL.

Rowling has turned down a lot of proposed Harry Potter ideas—including, she told Winfrey, a musical that Michael Jackson wanted to do. Earlier this year, Rowling announced that she’s working with a team to bring a new Harry Potter story to the stage; Harry Potter and the Cursed Childwill hit the West End in 2016.

26. DUMBLEDORE WAS GAY.

In 2007, when asked by a fan whether or not Hogwarts’s favorite headmaster had ever been in love, Rowling responded, “I always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” She revealed that he had fallen in love with Grindelwald, “and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was.”

Rowling said she found the reaction to the news very interesting. “To me it was not a big deal,” she told Radcliffe. “This is a very old man who has a very terrible job to do. And his gayness is not really relevant. Very relevant to him as a character, because I always saw him as a very lonely character. And I think that there is in fact a hint of it in [Deathly Hallows] because of the relationship he has with Grindelwald. He fell very hard for this boy ... And don’t you think it was perfect that Dumbledore, who is always the great champion of love … his one great experience of love was utterly tragic.”

This led to one very necessary tweak to the Half-Blood Prince script. “In an early draft of that script, Dumbledore said to Harry … ‘I remember a young woman with eyes of flashing whatever, raven-haired…’ and I read this and I scribbled on my copy of the script, ‘Steve, Dumbledore is gay,’ shoved it up the table,” she said. “And Steve [said,] ‘Oh.’ So that’s why that line didn’t make the film.”

27. ROWLING ACKNOWLEDGED THAT A HARRY/HERMIONE PAIRING MIGHT HAVE WORKED.

In an interview with Emma Watson for Wonderland magazine in 2014, Rowling said that “I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment,” saying that they ended up together “for reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it … The attraction itself is plausible but the combative side of it … I’m not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility.”

She noted that “in some ways Hermione and Harry are a better fit,” and that she felt that “quite strongly” when she wrote a particular scene in Deathly Hallows, where Harry and Hermione are in the tent. “I hadn’t told [Steve] Kloves that and when he wrote the script he felt exactly the same thing at exactly the same point,” she said.

28. BACK IN THE DAY, THE MALFOYS HUNG OUT WITH RICH MUGGLES.

“Until the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692, the Malfoy family was active within high-born Muggle circles, and it is said that their fervent opposition to the imposition of the Statute was due, in part, to the fact that they would have to withdraw from this enjoyable sphere of social life,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. In fact, one Malfoy might have had designs on the British Throne: “There is ample evidence to suggest that the first Lucius Malfoy was an unsuccessful aspirant to the hand of Elizabeth I, and some wizarding historians allege that the Queen's subsequent opposition to marriage was due to a jinx placed upon her by the thwarted Malfoy,” Rowling writes. The Malfoys gave up their Muggle fraternizing when the Ministry of Magic, “the new heart of power,” was founded.

29. MOANING MYRTLE HAS AN INTERESTING INSPIRATION.

Rowling wrote on Pottermore that the whiny, bathroom-dwelling ghost was inspired by “the frequent presence of a crying girl in communal bathrooms, especially at the parties and discos of my youth. This does not seem to happen in male bathrooms, so I enjoyed placing Harry and Ron in such uncomfortable and unfamiliar territory in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

30. MUGGLES CAN’T MAKE POTIONS.

And that’s because you can’t make potions without wands. “Merely adding dead flies and asphodel to a pot hanging over a fire will give you nothing but nasty-tasting, not to mention poisonous, soup,” Rowling wrote on Pottermore. Though her least favorite subject in school was Chemistry, she admitted that “I always enjoyed creating potions in the books, and researching ingredients for them. Many of the components of the various draughts and libations that Harry creates for Snape exist (or were once believed to exist) and have (or were believed to have) the properties I gave them.”

31. ROWLING’S EDUCATION CAME IN HANDY.

At university, she minored in Classics, and she put that education to good use, peppering the books with Latin. “It just amused me, the idea that wizards would still be using Latin as a living language, although it is, as scholars of Latin will know,” she said in 2000. “I take great liberties with the language for spells. I see it as a kind of mutation that the wizards are using.” Expelliarmus, for example, combines expellere, meaning “drive out” or “expel,” with arma, meaning “weapon,” and knocks weapons from an enemy’s hands. Incendio, which lights a fire, comes from incendiarius, or “fire-raising.” And Hogwarts’s motto is Draco Dormiens Numquam Titillandus—“Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon.”

32. THERE WAS ONE HARRY POTTER QUESTION ROWLING FEARED THE MOST.

It was “What was Dumbledore's wand made of?”

“That would have been quite a telling question,” Rowling told Time. “Because I had this elder thing in my mind, cause elder has this association in folklore, it's the death tree. I thought, ‘What am I going to say?’” Thankfully, no one ever asked.

33. STEPHEN KING THOUGHT DOLORES UMBRIDGE WAS A GREAT VILLAIN.

In his review of Order of the Phoenix for Entertainment Weekly, King said, “The gently smiling Dolores Umbridge, with her girlish voice, toadlike face, and clutching, stubby fingers, is the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter” [PDF].

34. YOU CAN SPOT A CRUMPLE-HORNED SNORKACK IN THE WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER ...

It’s on the second story of the Magical Menagerie. Luna’s father, Xenophilius Lovegood, claimed it was a real creature, but it was never found. Rowling said that Luna, who became a naturalist, had to eventually “accept that her father might have made that one up.”

35. … AS WELL AS ARTHUR WEASLEY’S FLYING CAR.

The flying Ford Anglia—which Harry and Ron flew into the Whomping Willow and later saved them from Acromantulas in the books—can be found in line for the Dragon Challenge roller coaster, just over the bridge and before entering the castle.

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