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shuahoonie · 4 years ago

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holidays with tom [tom holland]

PAIRING: tom holland x female!reader

SUMMARY: life isn’t exactly back to normal. with another lockdown in place and the holiday season is vastly approaching, you and tom are stuck in quarantine with each other the problem? there was supposed to be at least 5 of you in that house and tom is the last person you want to be with. shouldn’t be too bad right?

WARNINGS: in no particular order swearing—err foul language lmao, sexual innuendos, things get heated but not that much??? exuding sexual tension but also fluff??? alcohol consumption, a series of bad decisions??? idk writing this made me experience the 5 stages of grief tbh lmao it’s not that bad I promise lmao

WORD COUNT: 6.9k!

A/N: hello and happy new year! I was supposed to post this during Christmas Day but guess who got into a writing rut—yet again. I didn’t want to abandon this because I actually had fun writing it. I hope you all had a festive and safe holiday. I know things have been hard but I still hope you guys enjoyed the holiday.

2020 has finally came to an end and we’re all ending it the same way when the pandemic started—staying at home, hopefully following the appropriate health measures. I can only hope that 2021 is a brighter and hopeful year for all of us.

stay safe, sending u all my love.

gif credits: @underoos-shield

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Two hours. It’s been two hours since you found out that you were going to spend your holidays alone. You were aware that you weren’t going to spend your holidays with your family as you normally would, embracing the fact that working in a different country whilst in the middle of a pandemic was going to be challenging.

Working in the film industry, constantly visiting sets while still living in a pandemic means that you threw away your chances of being home for the holidays. However, you weren’t entirely the only one who shares a similar struggle.

“We should still do something for Christmas, you know,” Tom muttered as he watched you lay down on the sofa, your head is supported by the armrest.

See—it should’ve been you, Ophelia, Alex, William, and Tom in that AirBnB, not just you and Tom.

The five of you reside abroad, however, you all had to fly to Los Angeles for work. You all collectively knew that it would be irresponsible to fly home for the holidays and it wouldn’t make any sense as you would all fly back for work anyway.

The five of you had a brilliant idea of renting an AirBnB for the holidays since you were all in each other’s personal and work bubble anyway. Obviously, the three of them bailed as they’ve decided to stay with their partners instead, leaving you and Tom alone—which is the last thing you’ve wanted.

“There’s just us two, Tom,” You replied as you sent a lengthy text to Ophelia, telling and reminding them about what happened between you and Tom. “I’m not entirely sure if it’s worth anything if we did plan on doing something remotely festive.”

There are four more days till Christmas and if you were being honest, the last time you felt festive was on the 18th of December...of 2019.

“Surely there’s something we can do, right?” Tom’s optimism still shined beneath him. “This year has already been shitty enough, we don’t need to feed more into that.”

The three dots bubble immediately popped up on your message thread with Ophelia as soon as you sent your passive-aggressive rant. Your focus was now on your phone.

Suddenly, Tom’s face appeared on top of yours—his face was definitely close enough that it’s not CDC approved. He was standing on side of the sofa, both of his palms planted against the armrest as he loomed over you.

“What do you and your family do during Christmas?” He dared to ask as if he wasn’t towering over you.

Your eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “Uh—give each other personal space?” You answered out of sheer reflex. You always had a problem with keeping your mouth shut, especially when it sounds rude to other people. In your defence, being unable to do so has helped you put people back in place.

To be fair, you were used to people standing at least 6 ft away from you ever since the pandemic started.

Tom’s cheeks went bright red. “’m sorry,” He apologized, giving you a shy smile and scratched the back of his neck. You muttered a quick apology too, for acting so rashly.

You rose from your position and sat upright instead. “Well, we never do anything special during Christmas,” You said as you threw your hair into a bun. “We usually just go to the movies on Christmas Day because that’s the only thing you can do back when life was normal.”

Tom nodded understandingly as if he was taking this into account. Now you were curious.

“Do you guys do anything special for Christmas?” You asked him.

“Well, on Christmas Day, we would usually just lounge around the house and use it as a chance for me and my family to catch up,” Tom replied. “However, on Christmas Eve, my mum always made sure my brothers and I would have this scavenger hunt to look for our gifts—It’s really fun, actually.” Tom smiled sadly.

You could easily see how Tom was genuinely broken about not being able to be around his family over the holidays. Heck—he really just misses his family. But who wouldn’t? Britney Spears didn’t sing the line “my loneliness is killing me” for nothing.

“I’m sorry,” was all you could say. Aside from biting your tongue, being able to easily comfort people was one of your weaknesses too.

“Oh, there’s nothing to be sorry about, darling.” Tom quickly dismissed the genuine heartbreak he was trying to hide. “We’re all making sacrifices and we chose to be responsible for the benefit of other people.”

“Yeah, I know.” You said softly. “We’ll just try our best to make something out of this holiday season. I mean—we have to or else we’ll welcome 2021 with a fresh face of misery.”

“I’m sorry!” Ophelia pouted at the screen as they mindlessly walked around their partner’s place, something that most people do when they’re on the phone with someone. “I genuinely forgot about what happened between you and Tom.”

“Well, Ollie, it seems like you weren’t the only one.” You replied, adjusting your glasses. Tom seems to be genuinely fine around you, no awkward tensions or anything. If anything, it’s just you who feels weird around him. “But I guess that’s a good thing right?”

Ophelia forced a smile but they couldn’t, for the life of them, say anything about it.

“Oh my god,” You sighed “Seriously, Ollie?”

“It’s just—how could he forget?! You were literally on top of him as I recall and that very much left a permanent image on my mind. I—You know, I really tried my best to forget that ever existing in my mind. So really, if anything, it’s your fault.” Ophelia rambled on.

“I—I wasn’t on top of him. That’s absurd! I was merely pressed against him” You said defensively, in which Ophelia just laughed atrociously. “Why am I friends with you again?!” You asked rhetorically, bewildered by the fact that you two lasted this long.

“First of all, that is a hate crime. Second, I’m cool—like everyone wants to be my friend and you should be glad that I gave you the privilege to be even on a nickname basis as me.”

You rolled your eyes at them. Despite the never-ending banter, you were grateful to have Ophelia as your friend.

“But seriously, Y/N,” Ophelia said, “You can always just stay with me and Ericka. She’ll be glad to have you over for the holidays.”

“Ollie, as much as I love spending time with you two—I can’t stand being a third-wheel, especially when it comes to the both of you. You two are inseparable when you’re together.” You replied. “I appreciate the offer though.” You smiled at her.

“I’m just saying—” Ophelia replied, shrugging her shoulder. “Unless you and Tom really want to have the house by yourselves.” They sang teasingly.

“Ophelia!” You gasped.

“What?” They feigned innocence. “I gave you an option to stay with us! Plus, I know Alex and Will are would’ve asked you to stay with them if they had any idea what happened between you two.”

“I can’t leave him!” You started to whisper “Tom seems genuinely bummed being here. I can’t just do that to him.”

It’s as if a light came on inside them. Ophelia started to smirk and you recognized that smirk from anywhere. For christ’s sake, their eyes twinkled like Christmas lights. It drove you nuts. “I fucking knew it.”

“What?”

“You like him don’t you?!” They teased, but all you could do was blush.

“I do not!” You denied it as you could still feel the burning heat emitting from your cheeks.

“His tongue is that good huh?” Ophelia decided to pry even further. They clearly find enjoyment as you squirmed your way out of this conversation.

“Bitch, I am ending this call.” That was all you could say. Even if you did find a smart retort, it was no use, especially with Ophelia. They can see right through you and there’s no point in trying to hide it.

“Honestly, Y/N, we’re living through a pandemic. If there’s any time to make any rash decisions, it’s now. Go get that dick, bih—”

You drowned out whatever Ophelia was trying to say with your goodbyes and proceeded to end the call. The one time you asked your friend to be serious and they come up with this.

So—what really happened with you and Tom?

It was two years ago. You were at a party that you didn’t even plan on attending. However, you were dragged by Ophelia and their partner, Ericka—your new friends in the area. You couldn’t say no to them, they were your first friend in LA!

You thought about it though, saying no. But when you got a message from your friend back in Canada sending a photo of your boyfriend ex-boyfriend (the same guy who had ghosted you ever since you moved to LA), swapping spits with another girl, you suddenly had the strong urge to drink until you die of alcohol poisoning.

You were burning with anger that you really felt tears pricking your eyes. You were so close to crying or punching someone—whichever comes first.

One thing’s for sure, though, you weren’t going to cry over a man. So what did you do? “Ophelia, where’s the booze?!” You asked your friend whose eyes nearly popped out of their head.

Well, you weren’t really going to punch a stranger. Though you felt this burning sense of violence, it’d be much more satisfying to punch the living daylights out on your ex.

“Y/N, honey, are you alright?” That line always puts on the waterworks, no? Ophelia was clearly concerned about your newfound thirst for alcohol.

You furiously wiped the tears off your face. “Um just found out my boyfriend—er ex-boyfriend, who stopped talking to me as soon as I moved here, is seeing someone else now? I don’t know, am I allowed to feel angry when I don’t even know if we’re still together as soon I moved? Fuck—” You tried to explain as you wiped every tear that left your eyes.

“Oh—of course, hon.” Ericka who handed you a drink. You weren’t exactly sure what it is, but you knew it has alcohol in it and that’s all that matters. You gulped the entire thing and you wanted more. “Y/N, you need to slow down.”

“Are you sure you want to stay? I mean we can crash at our place, eat take-outs, watch movies and be totally disconnected from the world.” Ophelia suggested, but you shook your head furiously.

“No, I—I’m ok.” You answered “I can’t let the both of you be stuck in misery with me. I need this. I’ll get drunk and if I'm up for it, I’ll hook up with someone. It’s not a healthy coping method but I really want this night to be a series of bad decisions. I don’t want to be myself, even just tonight.”

So that’s what you did. You were going from one drink to another in record time. Both Ophelia and Ericka kept an eye on you, just in case someone tried to take advantage of your drunken state.

You were talking to some guy you met in the kitchen, one thing led to another and next thing you knew, you were making out with this dude in someone’s bathroom. Ophelia and Ericka were drunk enough to pester the guy you were making out with but not drunk

As you were propped on top of the sink and your legs wrapped around his waist, you felt every bit of his lips explore the side of your neck as his hands explored every inch of your body. With his hand under your shirt and his fingers tracing every part of your skin, it just reminded you of how lonely you were.

Here you were, a thousand miles away from home, all alone just so you could do the one thing you really love. Your family would sometimes call to check up on you but it just wasn’t the same. Your ex tried to guilt you into staying in Canada, but you couldn’t do that. You love what you do and you love yourself too.

You were willing to risk everything, even if happiness came at a price.

Now you were crying, and the guy you were making out with definitely noticed.

“I’m sorry, am I making you uncomfortable?” He asked as he pulled down your shirt.

“No—no, I’m just—” You tried to calm yourself down. “I’m not sure if I want to do this anymore.”

“That’s alright,” He mumbled wiping the tears off your face. “Do you want to talk about it? You seem rattled.”

“It’s just I’m so tired of pretending everything is alright—that I’m okay being alone, that I don’t need anyone. But it’s just so hard because I’m—” You sobbed “I’m so fucking lonely. I’m so tired of being alone.”

The guy tucked the stray piece of hair behind your ears as he carefully wiped your tears with his thumb. He was just silent as he listened to you sob.

“I’m sorry, I know you definitely didn’t come to this party to watch a complete stranger cry over something stupid.” You couldn’t even look him in the eye, you were embarrassed as this was the first time you felt really vulnerable—especially in front of a stranger.

“No, you’re alright.” He tried to console you “I think that’s the beauty in strangers, no? You can act and do whatever you want in front of them because there’s a slim chance you’ll ever see them again.”

You were definitely drunk enough that trying to make sense of who the person was a struggle enough of itself. You tried your best to look at the guy but your vision was getting hazy and you could feel your head thumping that focusing made you feel like you want to crack your head in half.

A loud knock on the door caused you two to jump. “I’m coming in,” Ophelia yelled and opened the door. Ophelia looked at the guy for a while, trying to make sense of who he was before their eyes widened. “I remember now—You’re Tom Holland.”

Imagine your surprise when you found out that you were going to work with Tom Holland for a while. You tried your best to avoid Tom at work but of course, that didn’t work out. He never brought up what happened between you two and you assumed he probably forgot all about it.

You tried to rationalize that he meets a lot of people every day. Surely, one failed hook-up wasn’t worth remembering (especially with alcohol involved) and you held on to that.

At least that’s what makes you sleep at night and also one of the reasons why you considered spending the holidays with him. However, you were also expecting your crew friends to stay with you and not just Tom.

“Y/N, did you like the gift? It’s from me and Ericka!” Ophelia asked. It was the next day and you two were just chatting on FaceTime. You were sorting out your closet out of sheer boredom. You figured if you were going to stay here for three weeks, the least you could do was sort your clothes out.

You stared at the neatly wrapped box that Ophelia and Ericka dropped off earlier this morning. “I haven’t opened it yet.” You said as you showed them the box. “I wanna open it till Christmas.”

“Oh my god, just open it. Christmas doesn’t exist this year, babe.” Ophelia waved their hand, encouraging you to open it.

“Fine,” You gave in. You opened the box and saw a very lush and well-made lingerie set. “Ophelia, what the fuck” You gasped. You held out the lingerie in front of the camera.

“Y/N, I definitely outdid myself this time.” Ophelia sighed happily, staring at the screen. “Try it on!”

“Ollie, this is gorgeous but when am I ever going to use this?” You asked holding it out on your body and looking at the mirror.

“Uh—you’re stuck at home with your failed but also potential hookup,” Ollie suggested, wiggling their eyebrows. “Who knows what might happen?”

You rolled your eyes at them. “Bold of you assume that something might happen.”

“Something won’t happen if you don’t try that one,” Ophelia said. “C’mon, I wanna see.”

You shook your head and went out of frame in order to strip off your clothes. You tried on the lingerie—it’s a black lace teddy with a very exposing back. IT fit you perfectly—it accentuated your figure and definitely showed off your boobs. You weren’t really fond of showing off your body but you still tried your best to show it to your friend.

“What do you think?” You asked, stepping back to the frame.

“You look gorgeous, babe!” Ophelia squealed. “I knew I made the right choice with black.”

“I still don’t know where I should wear this though—” You were stopped mid-sentence when your door swung open.

“I know what we’re doing this—Oh shit. I’m so sorry,” Tom stood there, frozen, his eyes widened and immediately shut the door.

You couldn’t even say anything. You were frozen in shock.

“Was that Tom?” Ophelia asked from the call, briefly forgetting that you were talking to them through FaceTime.

You nodded slowly, unable to talk.

“What did he think?” Ophelia asked excitedly.

You snapped out of this haze. “Ollie,” you groaned. “I think he was mentally scarred.

“What do you mean scarred? You look great!” Ophelia said, appalled. “If he doesn’t think you look banging in that lingerie then it’s his loss.”

“I gotta go, I need to change.” You said, bidding Ophelia goodbye. “Thanks for the gift, Ollie. Tell Ericka thanks too.”

You ended the call and changed into comfier clothes. You couldn’t help but wonder how on earth you’re going to face Tom now that he’s seen you practically naked. Well, it’s not like that’s a new sight. He did see you with your bra on when you were making out in the bathroom that one time. But still!

Are you actually going to spend your Christmas in your room?

It was the next day and there are only two more days till Christmas. You spent the entirety of last night in your room after the incident between you and Tom.

You were about to make yourself some coffee when you found Tom in the kitchen, making tea for himself. You stood there frozen, wondering if you were going to proceed to the kitchen or just run back to your room since Tom hasn’t noticed you—

“Oh—good morning, Y/N.” So close.

You smiled at Tom and said, “Good morning, Tom.”

You grabbed a coffee pod and waited for the Keurig to make your coffee. You leaned back against the counter and fiddled with your phone—all in the hopes that things move quickly and for this awkward tension to be over.

Honestly, why were you so worked up about it? People have seen you in a bikini before and that’s no different from lingerie. If anything, lingerie is itchier and has lace. You should be able to feel confident in your own body and you shouldn’t have to mind what other people think of it. It’s yours alone and it’s your opinion that should matter—

“I’m terribly sorry about last night, Y/N.” Tom apologized, sincerity was written all over his face. “I should’ve knocked and I just got so bloody excited about what we can do over Christmas—but that’s no excuse for what I’ve done. What I did was incredibly intrusive and you deserve a proper apology.”

“Tom, I—”

“I wanted to apologize last night—over dinner—but you didn’t come down to eat, so I figured you didn’t want to talk. “ He rambled on.

“Tom—”

“But even then I should’ve asked you to come down and eat dinner because that’s what any decent human would do! And yet I didn’t. God—I’m just doing one wrong thing after another—”

“Tom, listen to me.”

“Hm?” He finally snapped out and looked at you in the eyes.

“It’s okay. It was an honest mistake and you sincerely apologized, and for me, that’s enough.” You smiled softly at him. “So—what’s this thing you planned over Christmas?”

“I was thinking we could do both our family traditions over the next two days. My family and I usually do a roast dinner and open our Christmas stockings on Christmas Eve. Then on the 25th, we can watch movies all day just like you do with your family.” Tom grinned, clearly satisfied with his plan. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” You smiled “However, I don’t think we have any ingredients for a roast dinner and we don’t really have Christmas stockings. Well—I don’t have any Christmas stockings and stocking stuffers.”

“That’s true,” Tom mumbled “But I have to do the food shopping anyway. We’re running low on food and I couldn't really book one of those online delivery things that most groceries now offer.”

You nodded. “Okay, so I guess I have to get the house sorted then.”

When you two first arrived in this AirBnB a few days ago, it had already been decorated for Christmas. It had a massive tree in the living room decorated with stunning and intricately-themed ornaments. Christmas garlands were wrapped around the stair-bannisters and foliages were placed by the fireplace and the tables.

All you really had to do was clean the place—do a bit of vacuuming and get things nice and neat for Christmas. It didn’t take you too long to do it too. It had only been a couple of minutes since Tom left to do the food shopping and you prayed to the gods that he doesn’t get too much attention whilst out.

You figured you might as well do some last-minute shopping while Tom was out, so you can grab gifts for him as well. After all, this whole thing was orchestrated by Tom and you don’t even have anything to give him for his stockings.

You arrived at your AirBnB a tad later than Tom. He was in the kitchen putting things away when he saw you walk through the door.

“Ah, I was wondering whether I spooked you with my plan,” Tom commented, making you chuckle and roll your eyes.

“Trust me, I would’ve made it very obvious if you did.” You replied, earning a laugh from Tom. “I went out to do my last-minute shopping. Granted, it’s not ideal since we’re still living through a pandemic, but there’s not actually that many people where I went to considering it’s the Christmas rush.”

You made sure to hide the stuff you bought using the handmade tote bags that a friend gave you for your birthday. No retail bags, no clue. “How did you survive the groceries? I bet it’s busy out there.”

“Yeah, it was.” Tom chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “Remind me to never do that again for Christmas.”

“Sure,” You said, “That is if I spend another Christmas with you.” You said jokingly, hoping that Tom didn’t find that rude.

“You’ll never know,” Tom shrugged. “What if you liked our Christmas this year and you’d be begging to spend Christmas with me and my family in London,” Tom smirked, playing along.

“Yeah, right.” You scoffed playfully, crossing your arms. “If anyone’s begging, it’s going to be you.”

Tom stepped closer, “Wanna bet?” He whispered, a teasing look in his eyes. “Whoever has the most fun during our respective holiday traditions would have to spend the holidays with them next year.”

“Oh, you’re on, Holland.” You took a step closer. “We will both film our holidays for the entire two days and then we’ll ask Ophelia, Alex, and Will to vote whoever looks like they had the most fun.”

“Okay,” Tom nodded “But no editing! We’ll give them raw footage so there are no chances of tampering.”

You laughed but you agreed anyway. “Of course, we’ll give them hours of footage. The least we could do is make them sit through hours of content after they ditched us all alone on the holidays.”

Tom gave a broad smile. “Let the festivities begin.”

It was the 24th of December—Christmas Eve. You spent the entirety of last night wrapping Tom’s presents for later. Not that you despise Christmas, but it’s been a while since you were actually excited to celebrate it. It was pretty clear that the magic of Christmas dies once you grow up.

Today was different; you were looking forward to whatever Tom has installed for tonight.

You went downstairs to make some breakfast only to be greeted by Tom blasting Christmas music and preparing some ingredients for breakfast in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Y/N, happy Christmas Eve,” Tom greeted with a huge grin. “Say, hi to the camera.”

“Oh, we’re starting this early, huh?” You asked, putting your hair into a loose ponytail.

“Why of course, we have to make the best out of this,” Tom said, holding the camera to your face. “I made you coffee.” Tom handed you a cup of coffee.

“Are you using my love for coffee as an advantage?” You tried to hide your smile while drinking your coffee.

“Obviously not,” Tom feigned his innocence. “I obviously did not know you were obsessed with coffee—it’s not like I don’t see you on set without one.” He mumbled in which you definitely heard, giving him a smack on the head. “Ow! I’m kidding.” He laughed.

You rolled your eyes at him. “So, what’s for breakfast?”

“We’re going to make french crèpes,” Tom replied and propped the camera on the kitchen island, facing the two of you.

“Do you know how to make french crèpes?” You asked, washing your hands.

Tom blinked, almost trying to decide whether he wants to be honest or impressive. “Do you know how to make french crèpes?” He returned the question.

“Oh honey, my mom resents me in the kitchen.” You replied, taking a sip from your coffee. “But you know, I manage.” You murmured.

“That’s giving me a lot of hope, darling, thank you.” He said half-heartedly.

“Shut up,” You nudged him playfully, rolling your eyes. “Tom, honestly, most of the footage is just us bantering for 20 minutes.”

“To be fair, that’s part of the fun.” Tom smiled. “Okay, I think you just mix all of these in a bowl. Start with the dry ingredients first.” He said, looking at the recipe on his phone.

“Okay, that shouldn’t be too hard,” You commented pouring the ingredients into the bowl. As you started all of the ingredients together, you noticed small lumps forming in the batter. “Tom, did you sift the dry ingredients by chance?”

“You were supposed to sift it?” He asked, completely clueless.

You nodded slowly. Panic was now clearly painted on his face. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.” You tried to reassure him.

It was not fine. The first time you two tried to pour the batter in the pan, you burnt the entire thing. It’s not even the cute, lightly burnt crepe. It was activating the smoke alarm-burnt crepe.

The next one was pancake-like. The next one after that had pocket flours on the crepes because you two didn’t sift your dry ingredients beforehand. You ran out of the batter when you two finally got the consistency right—you managed to get one proper crepe from the entire batter.

“I feel like Sam would probably curse me out as soon as he finds out I fucked up a simple crepe,” Tom said, delicately filling the crepe with creme and berries. “My brother’s done so well in culinary school.” He cut a piece with his fork and brought it to your mouth.

“Well, you can’t have everything.” You said taking a bite out of the crepe. “This is better than the last one.”

Tom nodded, taking a bite of it himself. “It’s not as tasty as Sam’s but I’ll take it.”

“Now, I’m curious as to what your brother’s cooking tastes like.” You commented taking another bite from the crepe.

“I guess I’ll just take you home to London to find out,” Tom teased with an annoying grin.

“As long as I’m being fed, I’m fine with it.” You remarked. What in god’s name are you are you two playing?!

The day rolled by very quickly. It was already evening when you finished wrapping the presents for your friends. You plan on dropping it off tomorrow before you persuade Tom to glue yourselves on the couch for the entire day.

You grabbed all of Tom’s gifts—Christmas stocking included— when you went downstairs, only to be greeted by someone yelling at Tom through his phone.

“I did everything right, Sam. I don’t know why you’re yelling.” Tom yelled back at his phone. His back was turned against you as he was putting away the pots and pans that he used.

You quietly walked up behind him and said calmly, “Why are you yelling?”

Tom probably jumped six feet away from you, making you laugh. You always forget that he gets scared easily. “Holy shit, don’t scare me like that, Y/N.” Tom breathed out, putting a hand over his chest.

“I’m sorry,” You said whilst laughing. “I promise I won’t do it again.” Tom rolled his eyes, murmuring something about you being insincere about it.

“Please do it again!” You heard, whom you assume is Sam, say from the background. You looked at Tom’s phone that’s propped on the island and saw his brothers on FaceTime.

You beamed at them. “Any recommendations?” You asked, hearing Tom groan behind you.

“Well, he hates—”

“This is the last thing I want in 2020, for my brothers and Y/N to conspire against me,” Tom said loudly on purpose, drowning his brothers' voices.

“Tom, don’t be rude. Let your brothers finish—” Tom put his hand against your mouth.

“I’ll call you guys later,” Tom said “Wave goodbye, Y/N.” He used his free hand to grab your hand and forced a wave towards his brothers. The call soon came to an end and you could only roll your eyes at Tom. You seem to do that a lot around him. You also do a lot of that when you try to hide your feelings towards a person you like but that’s beside the point.

“So are we going to have dinner first or are we going to do presents first?” You asked fixing your Christmas sweater, a gift from your parents since you and your family usually wear matching sweaters for Christmas. “Or are you the type to wait until Christmas Day to open presents?”

“We can do the Christmas stockings after dinner tonight, then do the presents tomorrow, if you’d like,” Tom answered with his arms crossed.

You shrugged, telling him it doesn’t matter since you don’t really go all out on Christmas. Your family on the other hand—the house is always full of people, especially since most of your extended family are usually around during the holidays. You had this ongoing game you made for yourself whether or not you’ll be able to greet everyone with the number of people in the house.

You could only guess how quiet your family’s Christmas is going to be. You definitely needed to call your parents later.

“Is the sweater that itchy, Y/N?” You heard Tom ask, breaking away from your thoughts.

“Huh?” You asked, confused. You didn’t even notice that you’ve been scratching yourself subconsciously.

“You’ve been scratching yourself since I saw you.” Tom said, chuckling. “It’s a cute sweater on you.”

You smirked. “That reminds me—I got something for you, Tom.” Tom raised his brow as you grabbed the bag you stashed behind the tree. “Actually my parents got this for you. A little thank you gift apparently for having the tolerance to stay with me over the holidays—as if you had a choice.” You mumbled the last part.

Tom curiously opened the bag and there revealed a matching sweater such as yours. This year’s sweater was green and had red tinsel all over it, probably the reason why you’re itchy. The real kicker is that—

“No way,” Tom gasped “It lights up?!” He asked laughing. It lights up.

“Yeah, I don’t recommend turning that on. I did it earlier and I’m pretty sure I was about to combust—it’s a real fire hazard.” You replied, enjoying the genuine joy that Tom is showing on his face.

“Oh but we have to turn the lights on when we take pictures,” He commented as he put on the sweater. “Thanks, Y/N.” He said softly, surprising you with a hug.

It’s the first real physical contact that you two had ever since that night when you made out and you were pretty adamant that people were just making up this notion of having butterflies in their stomach—they weren’t.

Tom’s roast dinner��went surprisingly well. You kept teasing him that it’s Sam that you had to thank because you knew that Tom wouldn’t last in the kitchen without his brother’s instructions. Tom pouted the whole time. You eventually had to tell him

“It was sweet.” You told him as you helped him clear out the plates.

Tom was confused.

“I don’t think I’ve known someone that went through hell and back just to make a great effort Christmas dinner —even if it means getting yelled at by your brother.” You said, smiling softly at him. “I mean it’s just us two, really. We don’t even have to do this.”

“Think that’s the reason why I wanted to do it,” Tom replied. Now you’re confused. “It’s because it’s the two of us—that’s why I wanted to do it.”

As soon as you heard those words come out of Tom’s lips, you tried your best to stay calm. To say that you weren’t overwhelmed with emotions would be a huge lie. For someone who couldn’t hold their tongue, you were speechless. Tom’s giving you a run for your money and you weren’t exactly thrilled about it.

After dinner, you and Tom opened your stocking presents. The presents were pretty tame at the start—you both got each other socks, which was hilarious but greatly appreciated. You love socks, especially comfy and cushiony ones. You came to learn that Tom does too, which prompted you two to wear the socks immediately.

You got him candy canes, he got you chocolates. You also snuck in those small, in-flight alcohol bottles in there too—which he ended up loving. He got you those 10-pack skincare face masks, in which you let out a huge gasp, making him laugh.

“Oh, we have to use this at some point!” You exclaimed happily “Like, we need to have a spa night—where we just watch movies, doing face masks, eating takeouts. Oh, that’s the dream!” You sighed happily.

“We still have two weeks left till we go back to work, I'm sure we can find the time to do that,” Tom said with a permanent smile on his face, watching you with pure joy made him feel like he accomplished something big.

You got him one of those Instax polaroid cameras—true, it was a bit too much for a stocking stuffer especially since the box definitely stood out against the stocking, but you figured he’ll like it.

“Darling, this is too much but I’m thankful,” Tom commented as he took out the camera from the box. “I can’t wait to use this and keep memories using it—why don’t we start right now?! Let’s take a photo of us and our matching sweaters!”

Tom took a lot of photos of you two, in the end. A couple of overexposed photos, one with the matching sweaters, one with your faces pressed against each other, one with your faces way too close to the camera, and one where he gave you a kiss on your cheek (he asked if that’s okay, of course, you said yes. it’s not like he hasn’t kissed you before— still no conversations about that, by the way). It was a good thing you got him at least 3 boxes of those 20 pack films in his stockings as well.

The real kicker was Tom’s “small” stocking present for you. He got you this dainty, gold necklace with a crescent moon charm. You were pretty sure it was expensive because of the teal box it came with.

“Stop,” You gasped “Tom, now this—this is too much.” You stressed out. “I can’t have this. Nope, you have to return this.”

Tom shrugged as if it was nothing. “You deserve it. Darling, you deserve something nice after this shitty year.”

“Tom, I’m serious. This is too much.”

“I’m serious too, Y/N. Keep it, please. I’d be offended if you don’t.”

After the roller coaster of emotions due to the stocking presents, you gave your parents a call to wish them a merry Christmas. They insisted to do a video call because they wanted to see Tom in the family sweater—which your mom wouldn’t stop gushing about.

“I think your mum loves me,” Tom whispered closely in your ear. He didn't have to try too hard. With the laptop propped up on top of the coffee table, you two were sitting close together on the living room floor—knees touching, maximum close skin contact. CDC would never approve.

“Yeah, I think it’s the accent,” You mumbled jokingly.

Tom moved his head to take a good look at you, smiling. You could feel his eyes burning your skin. Why does he have to look at you like that? Why does he have to be this close?

The initial video call with your parents turned into a whole family reunion when you found out they set up a group call with your extended family. Imagine the dread and fear in your eyes when you heard your one aunt ask,

“Finally, Y/N, is that your boyfriend?”

Your eyes widened as you stuttered to say your defence, making Tom chuckle. You frowned at him and nudged him saying, “Don’t laugh, tell them no or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

“No, unfortunately, I’m not,” Tom replied, laughing. “However, I do believe we make a cute couple, don’t we?” He teased, earning an earnest yes from your mom.

You could only wish for the floor to swallow you whole.

As the clocks rolled to twelve, it was officially Christmas. You and Tom figured you might as well start opening gifts again because Christmas Day is going to be a drag for the two of you.

“Okay, start with this.” You said as you handed him a gift bag. You didn’t give him a lot of gifts for the actual Christmas Day because you went all out on the stuffers.

“Pyjamas?” He asked with a grin. You made a signal for him to give you a minute. You ran to your room and changed into pyjamas.

“Not just pyjamas, Tom, but matching pyjamas!” You exclaimed, laughing. “I saw it and figured we should do this for my day.”

“Sick!” Tom laughed. Tom got into his pair of pyjamas as well and of course, he didn’t forget to pull out his new polaroid camera to take a photo of you two. “Shit, I forgot to film our entire Christmas Eve.” He said as he saw the camera that was still sitting on the kitchen island from earlier that morning.

You shrugged. “I’m pretty sure you’ll win either way. Just that content from the breakfast crepes was enough to secure your place.” You said jokingly.

“All I’m hearing is that you’re going to spend Christmas with me in London next year.” Tom sang teasingly.

“Yeah, maybe bringing you to our big Christmas holidays is a bad idea.” You wondered out loud.

“I like your family,” Tom commented with a smile “and I think they will love having me there for the holidays.”

“That would be a nightmare.” You mumbled to yourself.

The rest of the night dragged on. You and Tom finished the rest of your gifts—you got him a watch, he got you a vinyl player. You two managed to watch the first Harry Potter film before you called it a night.

You were about to head into your room when you heard Tom say, “Mistletoe.”

“Hm?” You hummed, confused. He placed a finger under your chin and gently tilted your head. There you saw a mistletoe hanging by one of the light fixtures.

“How did that even—”

“Can I kiss you?” Tom asked, cupping the sides of your face.

“Hm?” Tom was definitely giving you a run for your money. How can a girl with a speech turn speechless?

“Can I kiss you?” He asked more softly. All you could do was nod. For if you even dare to open your mouth, all of this would cease to exist.

His lips gently touched yours and then soon moulded into one. It was soft, sweet—familiar. His lips were something you never thought about—at least not a lot but you craved it. You crave his lips, his touch, him. You were riding a new high and you thanked every single god that you were sober to remember this—because this, this is something you want to cherish.

“You told me you’re tired of being alone,” Tom whispered against your lips. “You don’t have to be anymore. Not when you have me, not ever.”

PERMANENT TAGLIST: @quaksonhehe @dark-infernal-instruments @trustfundparker @emsma11 @tomshufflepuff @spider-babe @goodgirlgonetom

#tom holland #tom holland imagine #tom holland x fem #tom holland x reader #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fluff #tom holland fic #tom holland blurb #tom holland and reader #tom holland and you #tom holland angst #tom holland imagines #tom holland x y/n #tom holland au #tom holland and y/n #tom holland x you #the girl writes i guess #txmhoellandwrites

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potteresque-ire · 4 years ago

Note

Concerning the incredibly far and deep reach of CCP’s propaganda, the narratives the government can spin and call the truth; does ‘the common normal populace’ actually know what’s really going on?

Hello everyone!!! Happy Chinese New Year!!

I’m grouping these asks because if I hear them correctly, they’re all related to this question: how much do people in China know about the atrocities committed by their government, and why don’t they do something about it?

It’s a difficult question, isn’t it? A potentially upsetting one too, just to think about. My answers are more opinion-based, more personal this time. Since there’re no polls about what people know, they have to be based a little more on my own impression, which has more chances of error. Please bear with me and proceed with caution ...

As with people in most countries, what people know is hugely dependent on individuals. Specifically, re: politics, I can think of at least three reasons why people don’t have the facts

1) they have limited access to information 2) they’re being lied to about what they know 3) they’re not interested in current affairs.

1), of course, is what most people think about when it comes to China. You’re right, Anon(s), that VPN use is indeed rampant in the country and is essentially an open secret; there’re no official numbers but surveys have estimated the number of users can be up to 100 million, most of them being youngsters. They use it to do exactly what most of us would imagine: gain access to things they don’t have otherwise. Instagram has been (sporadically?) blocked since 2014 September and so while users may have set up their accounts while being overseas, it’s indeed, (very) possible, that they’ve set up and maintained their account under VPN use.

Wait, you may ask, so you mean the Great Firewall of China doesn’t exist?

That’s exactly the official stance. Not because of private VPN use, but because individuals/companies can apply for a license via their telecommunications company to visit all internet sites. Hence, the government’s claim that the Great Firewall doesn’t exist—you’ll be let through as long as you ask (and we’ll watch your every step)! There are also no explicit laws prohibiting the use of private VPNs; only a handful of arrests associated with private VPN use have been made and only since 2019, and the punishment is considered light—no imprisonment, just fines. It is, in contrast, against the law to *provide* private VPN services, and while companies have been shut down, the crackdown has still been incredibly sluggish by Chinese government’s standards, especially when the Xi regime has made its intention of banning VPN known and directives have been issued for that in 2017.

Why has VPN continued to enjoy this “grey existence”? Because without VPN, a lot of foreign businesses would leave—some, for example, require the most efficient online tools developed outside China to track the foreign markets, and talents have rejected job offers in the country when they realised they couldn’t get on their favourite social media. The science and tech sectors also rely heavily on VPN—programmers relying on Google to search stackoverflow, for example, to find known solutions to bugs.

VPNs have also served political purposes—Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-critical communities all over the world are all painfully aware of the Chinese government’s practice of hiring its own collection of internet commentators (”50 Cent Party”), and at times, mobilising their youths (gamers, fan circles) to scale the Firewall and astroturf, throw insults at the “CCP enemies” and bomb message boards with pro-CCP messages.

Also, a significant fraction of VPN companies, both in China and overseas, have been reported to have Chinese ownership, by companies with government connections. These VPN services provide a false sense of security for those who do not enjoy having big brother peeking behind their backs while acting as surveillance tools that extend beyond the country.

(Please be careful about free VPNs).

The next question: If until now, users of private VPNs only rarely get into trouble, what’s holding them from scaling the Great Firewall and learning the facts?

It is this: the law isn’t about “climbing the wall”, but what one does outside the wall.

Article 6 of the 2016 edition of Cybersecurity law states the following:

第六条　国家倡导诚实守信、健康文明的网络行为，推动传播社会主义核心价值观，采取措施提高全社会的网络安全意识和水平，形成全社会共同参与促进网络安全的良好环境

Article 6: The State advocates sincere, honest, healthy and civilized network conduct; promoting dissemination of the core socialist values, adopting measures to raise the entire society's awareness and level of network security, and forming a good environment for the entire society to jointly participate in advancing network security.

What this article implies is this ~ legally, Chinese citizens are bound to the Chinese government’s rules of good internet conduct, regardless of whether they use VPN to get on the internet. As with many Chinese laws, however, the vagueness in wording invites more questions than answers. Is it getting on Twitter, a banned website, “sincere, honest, healthy and civilized network conduct”? Obviously, it’s illegal to interact with other users about the Xinjiang’s internment camps, but what if one only goes there to talk about their favourite stars, because on Weibo supertopic they can’t even mention the stars’ name, can’t ahkgkhagjkfaskjgdf about their favourite fics? What if one goes there to discuss a M- or E-rated fic? Where is the line drawn and given its vagueness, will that line move tomorrow? How?

Most people, therefore, have opted to simply stay away from VPN. After all, China offers its own version of many of the fun websites out there (Weibo-Twitter; Instagram-Oasis; Tiktok-Douyin; Youtube-Bilibili). For those who do use VPN, they tend to stick to websites that are unlikely to cause issues (such as Instagram; Instagram became an issue when Hong Kongers started to upload information about the protests on there).

Now, let’s proceed to 2): People don’t know the facts because they’re being lied to about what they know.

There’s a difference between having access to facts and knowing that they’re facts. This is among the most painful lessons, perhaps, for those who followed the politics of the United States in the last few years (please forgive me for the US-centric-ness of the following few paragraphs!). Even with equal access to identical information, people can vary a LOT in their understanding of what are facts and what are lies.

This illustrates the power of propaganda—and propaganda in the US isn’t even centralised. Some media outlets and individuals (political leaders and analysts) have more say on what should be viewed as the truth, but parties without significant power—small foreign and domestic interests, fringe political organisations, conspiracy theorists, regular folks—have also made critical contributions to the “fake news” phenomenon in the US. There haven’t been apparent coordinations between these parties; little concerted effort has been made to create one coherent story out of the many tales told.

In China, the propaganda effort is centralised, coordinated, free of distractions from competing story lines. The One Story the government decides on is repeated, over and over again, on newspapers, in shows, in textbooks, on signs on the streets, on social media. To put it another way, when it comes to political discourse, the country is designed to be an echo chamber with 1.4 billion people. Over time, the One Stories inevitably become firmly held beliefs—so firmly held that even if the people are exposed to facts, they no longer believe in them.

This is especially true when the source of the facts are countries with strong traditions of freedoms of speech and press, where the facts are often laid out with a critical eye to the administration and with vastly different opinions attached to them. While we view the latter as evidences that the values we embrace are alive and well—a critical eye to the administration means the Fourth Estate is doing its job, and the different opinions means freedom of speech gets to live another day—people who haven’t been exposed to these values tend to interpret these things as signs of weakness of the government. They may think the Chinese government is better than its counterparts elsewhere because no one is penning scathing criticisms against it. They may think the Chinese government is stronger because it unifies the opinions of their people—the failure of which, they’ve been taught, would lead to social chaos and economic free-fall.

The Chinese population has also been “immunised” against the truths that may be exposed about their government by a propaganda talking point used since Chairman Mao’s days—that the “Imperialist” western world, particularly the United States, is always scheming its downfall. The phrase often used is 美帝亡我之心不死 (”The heart (intention) of Imperialist US to bring us down will never die”). Unfavourable truths exposed must therefore be part of the “bring down China” scheme. This decades-old demonisation of the political apparatus of the US and Europe also prepares the people to accept what most would see as outrageous conspiracy theories: for example, in March 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that the US Army intentionally planted COVID in Wuhan during the 2019 Military World games. “Foreign interference” becomes a frequent and convenient scapegoat for policy decisions gone wrong, sometimes to a (somewhat) hilarious effect ~ for example, a Taiwanese journalist calculated the cost required for the CIA to fund the 2019 Hong Kong Protests, as the Chinese government had claimed—and it turned out that the CIA was too poor to do it.

(Many of us in the US would probably laugh at the idea that our government is capable of secretly paying 2 million foreign-language speaking strangers to show up together in one march.) (It can’t even get the COVID relief payments to its own people right over a period of months.)

(Fun trivia for turtles! As 美帝=“Imperialist US” is the synonym of a feared, imaginary super-villain—super organised, super efficient, super everywhere and super impossible to take down—c-BJYX, the indestructible No. 1 CP fandom in China, has been nicknamed “美帝 cp” by those not so enamoured with it.)

Finally, there’s the psychological factor. Once a set of beliefs becomes personal truths, listening to alternatives can be very upsetting (for those in the US: imagine the blue voting block made to listen to Fox News). Hence, even when people gain access to the facts later—for example, when they study/work abroad, even emigrate—they often don’t take advantage of the access. Instead, they remain logged in in the Chinese social media sites where they’re comfortable with not only the politics but also the language and the friendships they’ve built, and continue to immerse themselves in an environment heavy with CCP propaganda. They remain defenders of the Chinese government; some have even gone out and harass people who disagree with it, in the name of freedom of speech that their country of origin never offered to them.

Censorship, of course, is an important component of building a One Story echo chamber, and I should add a note about it: censorship in China comes in vastly different strengths. The restrictions on LGBT+ issues, for example, are fairly lax, relatively speaking—“homosexuality” remains a term one can find on their internet and a topic the administration continues to address, and while BL dramas are censored, their adapted versions, along with highly publicised discussions of their original material, have so far been tolerated. The strictest form of Chinese censorship would’ve allowed neither: any mention of the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen Square massacre , for example, is immediately removed, including any hints that the event may have happened. When the former leader of the Chinese government, Jiang Zemin (江澤民), was rumoured to have passed away, the censorship apparatus went so far as to remove all mentions of Jiang, which also happened to mean “large rivers”. Chinese netizens therefore joked that major rivers had ceased to exist in China that day, as one couldn’t find any information about them online.

(LGBT+ activists have therefore remained optimistic about the future of their campaign, despite the current state of affairs. To put it simply: the Chinese government has bigger fish to fry. Sexual minorities haven’t had major clashes with the administration, haven’t embarrassed the Chinese government with their demand for rights as the ethnic minorities—the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Mongolians etc did. Political dissidents, including the millions in Hong Kong, are also (far) ahead in the ranking of fish size.)

For most issues, the censorship effort sits somewhere in the middle and is often inconsistent over time. The people, therefore, often have knowledge that an event has happened — even when the event is considered, beyond the Great Firewall, damaging to the reputation of the Chinese government. However, critical information is often missing in their knowledge, or is heavily distorted. For example, overseas Chinese citizens have insisted that the motivation of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests was economic, echoing the longstanding CCP propaganda that Hong Kongers have been jealous of China’s prosperity (reality: China’s GDP per capita was $10,268 USD in 2019, and Hong Kong’s, $48,713—more than 4 times higher). They missed out a critical fact: while the fast economic growth of China has created some unease—Hong Kongers have always known the Chinese government has only tolerated them and their freedoms for their ability to generate wealth—what has truly ignited Hong Kong’s anger is the Chinese government’s violation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, and the terms it had agreed upon to get back the then British crown colony. Hong Kong hasn’t been demanding autonomy and freedoms because it’s a troublemaker, but because these things were promised to the city as conditions of the 1997 handover. As residents of the world’s third largest financial centre, Hong Kongers are diligent drafters and executioners of contracts (which international treaties are) and above all, faithful believers of them. For an asker (the Chinese government) to claim a contract as “historical” because it has received the goods (Hong Kong) and no longer feels a need to pay (allow Hong Kong 50 years of freedoms and autonomy) is offensive to the principle, the very heart and soul of the city.

(Gg’s former boss was a Hong Konger, and his experience working for him was a rather accurate reflection of Hong Kong’s view on business. What made an impression to Gg—that the posters should be without rips and misprints, even if these imperfections were not the fault of the design company—is a no-brainer to the Hong Konger in me reading the interview. Delivering high quality goods and services isn’t an act of kindness but rather, of professionalism and respect for the contract.)

(This interview is a highly recommended read, for those who’ve missed it!)

(One more example of “conveniently missed critical information”: remember GG’s show on Chongqing? Did you know the underground bombing shelters were not built by the Communist government, but the Nationalist government that was still ruling China during WWII?)

Anyway, where was I?

Right. We’re getting to 3): People are not getting the facts on the political situation in China because they’re not interested in current affairs.

Some—well, many— people are not interested in politics.

Some of you may be thinking: well, I’m not interested either. I follow politics because it’s important.

Why is it important? Because political engagement means you can do something about the many ills of the society, speak for those who cannot, force the government to change by voting, by voicing your opinion, by going to marches and protests etc.

What if you follow politics and still can’t do most of these things? What if, if you do choose to do these things, the price you pay may be astronomical? Will you still follow politics or devote your time, your energy to something else, something you’ve got more control over, something that won’t be as saddening, frustrating because it’s something you can actually change?

3) is therefore intricately related to why people often don’t do anything, even if they manage to find out about the facts.

There’re no national elections in China. Marches and protests are practically banned because while the Chinese Constitution guarantees the freedom of assembly (as it does freedom of speech and press; Article 35), it also explicitly states that "Citizens of the People’s Republic of China, in exercising their freedoms and rights, may not infringe upon the interests of the State, of society or of the collective, or upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens.” (Article 51) — ie. the freedoms and rights only go as far as if they do not stand in the government’s way. Social media and all communications platforms are under constant surveillance, and so only opinions tolerated by the government is allowed...

And so, the fact, social ill that has broken your heart—you can’t tell for sure if it isn’t talked about because the government has censored it, how many people know about it and more importantly, how many among the people who know about it will agree with your take. If you break your silence and voice your concerns, how many people will have your back, even if you also conceive them as victims of the social ill? If the social ill is the lack of rights of a minority group, for example, will they appreciate your speaking out, or will your “rocking-the-boat” make things even worse for them? A heavily watched net means communications with the oppressed/vulnerable social groups are often filled with obstacles, if not outright impossible. You don’t know how these groups feel; you don’t even know how many affected individuals are there. You watch the and news and shows and they all talk about how wonderfully things are going; how everyone seems so hopeful and positive and happy with their lives—are you the only person feeling that way? Are you wrong? If you speak out then, will you be yelling into the void, or worse, yelling at the police who “invites” you for a chat in the police station? To speak for those who do not have a voice to speak, are you ready, willing to take the risk of also becoming one who no longer has a voice to speak? Is your family ready?

To put it another way: the opportunity cost of “doing something” about the political situation can be astronomically high in China, compared to the opportunity cost of us doing something similar in our own country.

If I want to support the LGBT+ population in my part of the US, for example, I can do so effectively with minimal investment and most importantly, with minimal risk. By pasting a rainbow flag on this Tumblr post, for example, I’ve already signalled to those who need support on this issue that I’m ready to give mine. And this “signal” of mine will join the hundreds and thousands on the site, collectively telling the activists doing the “on the ground” fighting that they’re not alone; that they have my vote of support. I pose no danger to myself in doing so; no one will accuse me of, arrest me for infringing upon the interests of the State and the Collective. The rainbow flag, a display of my stance, will not turn into a blurred blob the next time I look at it, transform overnight from a symbol of solidarity to a warning sign to those who may wish to join the cause. There’s no danger for me, even, to carry an actual, huge rainbow flag to Pride, perform my activism in person. I don’t have to worry about my phone already giving away my identity as a protester to the government, especially in post-COVID times. I don’t need to watch out for plain clothes pretending to be my allies. I don’t have to look at the many surveillance cameras present and wonder if I’ll get blacklisted as a troublemaker.

Am I still being tracked and taken pictures of? Possibly. But for this cause, at least, I’m not afraid that these information will be used to arrest me. If I were arrested, I know there'll be lawyers and activists who would come to my aid. LOUDLY. ANGRILY.

I’m not afraid. Period. I’m having fun. And I doubt I can say the same if I try to carry a rainbow flag to Tiananmen square and march there.

This vast difference in the opportunity cost of taking political action is the reason why I’ve refrained from demanding those who live under authoritarian dictatorships to stand up for their neighbours who’ve been oppressed / bullied by their governments. I’ve refrained from criticising them for looking away, minding their own business. Do I wish they’ve take action? Of course I do. Am I aware that their lack of action is potentially more harmful because of the frequent atrocities happening around them? Yes. But I also understand that going on a fight is far more frightening when one doesn’t even have a sense of how many will join their side of the fight; I understand that fighting for what one deserves—freedoms, rights, justice—should never equal martyrdom, and just because a regime has elected to put equal signs between the two doesn’t mean those equal signs should ever be there. I remind myself that, to ask the people in any authoritarian dictatorship to stand up for a political cause is to ask them to make sacrifices that we, as people in relatively free societies, do not need to make when standing up for the same cause. In a country where a father demanding the truth about the milk product poisoning of his own son got jail time for “eliciting social disorder”, to stand up for even a single issue, no matter how small that issue is, requires courage that I’m not sure I have.

I can’t ask anyone to do anything I may not be able to do myself.

And this is why I, too, have chosen to support these people, even if many of them are single-issue activists, even when many support the Chinese government on other issues that matter. For example, the late Dr Li Wenliang, one of the eight COVID whistleblowers in China who passed away from the disease, was an opponent of the Hong Kong Protest, but I still (greatly) appreciate, respect him for what he did. As long as they’re not actively helping the government to cause (more) harm to others, as long as their cooperation with their government falls within what is demanded of them as citizens, they have my support. Why? Because most people who speak out in China cannot afford to stand up for more than one cause before it becomes dangerous for them. Because even if it’s only a tiny vulnerable social group, one small minority that makes a tiny step towards more rights, more freedoms, more justice, it’s still a victory in a country where rights, freedoms and justice are luxury items for those with neither political nor economic power. Because those who’re not part of the ruling class cannot afford to cherry pick their allies, cannot afford to in-fight when the ruling class already holds absolute power. Because I still believe in pay-it-forward, that most people who’ve benefited from someone standing up for them, even for one small incident, one minor cause, is more likely to stand up for someone else.

This is, admittedly, not always an easy choice to make—not for me, at least. I do get frustrated, can’t help but think at times that those who subscribe to and spread propaganda are, to a certain extent, corroborators of the atrocities committed by their government. (So, to those who’ve felt this frustration, you’re not alone!). And the Hong Konger in me has every reason to be furious with everything about China right now—all I could think of, when I listened to Gg singing 異鄉人 Foreigner the other night, are all the Hong Kongers fleeing the city now, as refugees, because of their political beliefs.

But for now, I’m hanging on. I’ve been able to tell myself that given the country’s political reality, given its tradition of collectivism (which tends to view confrontational dissent with scorn), the paths to freedoms, to equal rights and acceptance, will not be the same as what I’ve seen, what I’ve wished for. They’ll likely be slow; They’ll likely be long and winding, taking three steps forward and two steps back; they’d likely be unexpected in places, offer us surprises —

And since it’s Chinese New Year / Valentines and I’m feeling brave (irresponsible?), I’d venture a little bit of speculation and say this ~ yes, I’ve wondered if one of these many paths may be trodden, intentionally or not, by two beautiful male idols and their millions of turtles. Is it wishful, fantastical thinking? I’d be the first to admit the answer is yes. But the BJYX scheme has been so well executed as of now, so effective that I can’t help but wonder if it’s leading towards some sort of a goal, whether devised by the humans involved or by the gods/Fates who, as c-turtles have said so romantically, have been writing an original BL story with our favourite boys. The goal may be personal —simply two people being able to act more like themselves again under the spotlight—or a bit more ambitious…

… Because the sneakers + ice-cream post did catch my attention (will probably have to devote a post on that?). Another small incident that has caught my attention, unrelated to Gg and Dd but can significantly change the path they may be trodding, is this — in June 2020, People’s Daily, the state controlled newspaper, boasted its country’s increasing friendliness towards the LGBT+ communities on Twitter . While the tweet was met with skepticism and soon removed, the message it sent is this: the Chinese government may have figured out the the Western world (in particular, the younger generations) view LGBT+ rights as a measure of progressiveness. While I’m still leaning towards the government maintaining a tight grip on LGBT+ rights within its borders, with the strengthening call to boycott 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics because of the country’s poor human rights record, I can see a glimmer of possibility that the same government may do the unexpected and cater to the queer community for the sake of propaganda. As I mentioned, the queer community hasn’t caused much headache for the Chinese government, and so it’s far more likely to be chosen as the “benefactors” of such a “we’re a human rights champion too!” propaganda campaign than, say, ethnic minorities and political dissidents. Promoting dissemination of core socialist values has always sat high on the CCP’s agenda list, and its target audience has always included foreign, non-Chinese populations; this effort is known as 大外宣—“The Great External Propaganda”. And who better to cast as leads of an international propaganda campaign on LGBT+ rights than two of its own stars who’ve already demonstrated loyalty to the government, who’ve already garnered international fame from a TV series widely viewed as queer, and who may actually be queer?

(And if—if!!!— this ever happens, may I ask everyone to please consider doing the following? Please do not feel a need to express gratitude. Please do not act as though it’s a gift. Celebrate as you would celebrate anyone in a free country exercising their birthright to live, to love the way they want — no less than that, no more than that.)

(For those who’ve asked ~ as international fans, not allowing the CCP to modify our expectations of how a government should behave may be one of the most effective ways to protect Gg and Dd.)

(I call this learning from the best: get the goods we want (more rights for the people in China), refuse to pay the cost (subscribe to CCP’s propaganda), and RUN! ❤️💛💚)

#pie metas #yizhan #bjyx #pie answers

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shihalyfie · 4 years ago

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Some things to know about the upcoming 02-related movie

As someone who seems to be known for being a 02 metablogger now (and 02 lover in general), and who’s been closely following Kizuna’s development and is generally fond of the movie itself, I figured I’d probably need to address the elephant in the room that is the announcement of the upcoming (unnamed, as of this writing) 02-related movie. This is also especially because I’ve personally been on the record saying that I absolutely did not want a Kizuna sequel. And, well, on top of that, to be a bit blunt about it, a lot of us, especially 02 fans, have a lot of reason to be skeptical of Toei right now given some of the things they’ve done with this series in the past, and 02-related things in particular (trust me, the wound is still extremely fresh), so it says a lot about what it took for me to get even remotely positive about this prospect.

Well, here’s the good news: while I of course still think there’s good reason to be apprehensive, and while I wouldn’t say everyone should be getting their expectations up for it to be guaranteed fantastic (which is something I would say about anything, regardless of whether it even has to do with Digimon or not), I don’t think there’s too much to be panicked about with this movie. Again, it took a lot for the staff to gain my trust in this respect, so it’s not something I say lightly. But if you’re a 02 fan and you’re extremely apprehensive, here are my reasons for feeling this way, and, hopefully, they might make you feel a little better too.

The reason this movie exists to begin with

One of the most striking things about this movie’s reveal was that they’ve literally only just started production on this movie. This was to the point that, at DigiFes, where this was revealed, even the voice actors stated outright that they knew absolutely nothing more than what the audience knew from the trailer. Katayama (Daisuke) only knew anything in the sense that they had him record those few lines for it. So even though it’s been a whole year and a half since Kizuna released to the public, it had only just been decided to make a new movie like this. All of the statements between Kizuna and now stating that there was nothing particularly in the works at the time were completely accurate. Of course, there are obvious hints that they were setting up for this possibility (many, many people noticed the suspiciously favorable position the 02 group was in during Kizuna, and the press releases were carefully worded so that having a movie about “Daisuke and his friends” would allow any statement about Kizuna being “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends” to still be technically truthful), but for all intents and purposes it seems like there had been no actual commitment to making this 02 movie until now, and that they’d at least wanted to gauge the surrounding climate and fanbase reactions for what people were looking for before they decided to go ahead with this.

The obvious reasons as to why this movie exist involve the fact that Daisuke and co. are pretty much the only “out” you can have to continue the Adventure universe without constantly defaulting to Taichi’s group yet again, because at the very least it’d be something that you can’t deny hasn’t exactly had the best representation in recent years. Of course they’re trying to capitalize on this! I’m not going to pretend they aren’t! But producer Kinoshita left a very interesting comment about a particular goal they have with this movie:

This time, the core behind the movie is everyone from 02! Daisuke’s group has their own different kind of charm from Taichi’s, and we want to express that precisely because we’re in the times we’re in right now.

That comment alone has a lot to unpack. (For a frame of reference, Kizuna released in Japan in February 2020; development had already long finished by the time the pandemic first hit, and it was unfortunately one of the first victims of the initial lockdowns because of how bad the timing was.) Acknowledging directly that there’s something different about Daisuke’s group and their dynamic, which makes them especially suited for what we need in “the current times”...hmm, what could that be?

The implied answer is one that many 02 lovers will know very intimately: the 02 group’s particular specialty is in uplifting others and giving each other emotional support. While Adventure had traces of these themes, 02 was the one that went really hard on the themes of dealing with grief and loss, the existential crisis of what to do with oneself in a world placing heavy pressures on you, and how to move on from hardships with the help of others. The fact that the 02 group specializes in this more than anything else is probably one of the most distinguishing factors between them and their seniors, so there’s a very heavy implication here that they understand what distinguishes 02 from Adventure, and what it uniquely would bring to the table in this kind of movie. So this isn’t just “we’re relying on the 02 kids because they’re part of the same universe”; there’s some degree of substantial understanding of what makes 02 as a series unique, and a desire to use this to its fullest extent.

Still don’t believe me? Well, how about this...

This staff really likes 02 a lot

Seki Hiromi, the original producer of Adventure and 02, was involved as a supervisor on Kizuna’s development. Seki was personally involved in the creation of these kids and 02 itself -- she’s the one who noticed the story of the nine-year-old boy skipping grades into Columbia University, the one that formed the basis of 02 itself and eventually came back for Kizuna -- and even personally vetted Kizuna’s script to make sure everyone was in character, gave her thoughts on what the kids would be like in 2010, and was (repeatedly) commented as seeming to love the kids like her own children. As of this writing, it hasn’t been confirmed whether she’s involved on the new movie, but even if she’s not, this means that the staff on Kizuna that is returning all listened closely to those discussions about what the characters are like, straight from the mouth of one of their own creators. The new character song releases had a brief mention in Lounsbery Arthur’s interview that there were apparently extensive discussions with the staff on what the characters should be like at this time, so while Seki’s involvement with that is unknown, at the very least, a lot of conscientious thought seems to be put in at all times into maintaining these characters’ integrity.

Of course, just having an original creator alone on it doesn’t necessarily do it by itself, so here’s another interesting thing: Taguchi Tomohisa, director of both Kizuna and this movie, is also very fond of 02.

I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him as this new movie goes further into development, but Taguchi himself implied that 02 was actually the one he happened to connect with in particular, and when you really think about it, given the circumstances surrounding Kizuna, it’s not actually surprising that a movie trying to be conscientiously aware of 02′s position in the narrative would have someone with a particular fondness for it on its staff. (Reason being: a lot of Adventure fans don’t care much for 02, but you’ll almost never meet a 02 fan who doesn’t also adore Adventure.) The really fun part about this, however, is that Taguchi has repeatedly stated that 02′s first movie, Hurricane Touchdown, is his favorite Digimon movie -- in a climate where everyone else was talking about Adventure. The expected answer for the majority of Adventure fans in terms of “favorite Digimon movie” is almost always Our War Game! by knockout, but no, for Taguchi, it’s Hurricane Touchdown, and not only has he said this, he won’t shut up about it. He’s been saying this since 2019. Even Seki noticed. A whole article got made about this. He brings it up whenever he has a chance to. To top it all off, when a Kizuna event asked everyone present about their favorite characters, and everyone gave Adventure-related answers, Taguchi’s response was instead Terriermon and Daisuke. And I mean, look at Kizuna itself -- its entire plot revolves around having to move on from unhealthy nostalgia, represented by kidnapping people and turning them younger and an antagonist swallowed by their own negative emotions, which, well, is literally the plot of Hurricane Touchdown. (Yeah, that Wallace cameo is very, very likely to be sheer self-indulgence.) And considering that Taguchi said his favorite human character was Daisuke, not Wallace, it means that he understands what Hurricane Touchdown brought out of Daisuke, what his interactions with Wallace meant for both characters, and how Daisuke’s best strengths lie in his ability to support and uplift others.

And, finally, we have Yamatoya, who was responsible for penning both Kizuna’s script (and, thus, being privy to Seki’s corrections) and the bonus drama CD that came with it, on the script, and he personally said that he enjoyed writing for the 02 group because he felt they were important to lightening up the mood of the heavy story Kizuna was becoming. In fact, every comment from this staff about what the 02 group brings to the table in particular has showed a good understanding of what their appeal is -- that they have to be “fun”, that they were “healing in a heavy story”, and Taguchi himself said that he got the impression that the 02 group had more straightforward paths to their epilogue careers (which is interesting, considering that I’ve also personally pointed out that the 02 group seemed to have careers with significantly lower bars than their seniors’ due to their difference in priorities). All of these things are observations you make when you know this group and the importance of the story they came from.

Extend it even further to the rest of the staff members and you’ll find there are a lot of 02 fans on there, including the animation staff, who made some very neat observations about 02 and its finale. Miyahara Takuya is a particularly amusing case, because he seems to love Imperialdramon so much that in the thanks booklet for the deluxe edition for the Blu-ray, he drew a picture of Daisuke and Ken with Imperialdramon Dragon Mode because he didn’t get to be in the movie. (As in, he actually said, point-blank in the caption, that he loves Imperialdramon and wanted to draw him because he wasn’t in the movie.)

Of course, even if you’re trying your best, things may not always work out, so I’m not saying having love for the characters will necessarily guarantee that the product turns out for the best. However, considering that historically a lot of our fears come from the idea of them milking the name value of the characters without really caring about their integrity or understanding what the series was about (especially since a lot of people in the fanbase itself don’t tend to read 02′s nuances very well), I think, at the very least, we don’t need to worry about the staff for this movie not being conscientious, nor the idea that they’re making this movie without understanding or caring about 02.

Furthermore, one thing I appreciate is that they’re actually leading the advertisement with a premise that is distinct from Kizuna’s. Of course, it covers a similar topic of “partnerships”, and it’s very possible it’ll cover the issue of the solution to Kizuna’s problem (especially since the answer was already hinted to have a heavy relationship with 02), but nevertheless, it’s an actual premise that’s not just “Kizuna’s story, but more of it”. It’s an understanding that something 02-related should be allowed to stand on its own rather than just tacking it onto an Adventure-related thing. Beyond that, while I think it’s generally expected that a side story like this should have an original character, I think it’s actually very good this time in particular that there’s a new element/character for the 02 group to interact with; again, as with Hurricane Touchdown and Daisuke, these kids often have the best brought out of them when they’re supporting others, and honestly, because the kids suffered so much in their own narrative, I’m not particularly fond of the idea of seeing them having to go through too much more trauma themselves (it’s a big reason I don’t like the idea of a 02 reboot). So while I’m sure a lot of 02 fans feel a bit antsy that the actual group itself wasn’t advertised first, I actually consider it a positive sign that they have an understanding of what context this group performs best in, and, moreover, well...the last time they unveiled something that was so focused on advertising the return of old characters that it forgot to actually be straightforward about the premise, I don’t think that ended well. So to speak.

In general, the track record is good

It’s easy to just smile and nod at the portrayal of the 02 quartet in Kizuna, because in general everything from them is in-character, but I just want to point out how significant it is that they were portrayed so conscientiously when it is really easy to mess them up. (As I like pointing out very often: even official has not historically been very careful with Daisuke’s character.) There are so many easy pitfalls you could have fallen into and pigeonholed the kids into, but Kizuna absolutely demonstrated the quartet at their best, showing off all the nuances of their character and bringing up all the parts that were most important, especially Daisuke’s best quality being “positivity and cheerfulness” and not all of the other things about him running in circles or having a crush on Hikari-chan. This even goes down to the casting; Katayama Fukujuurou sounds terrifyingly like Kiuchi Reiko in terms of all the little nuances and pitch shifts she had in her performance, and the cast themselves spoke of all the nuances present in their characters as they were studying for their roles. These are things that even fans of the series tend to miss, but the voice actors for the quartet nailed their roles so well that it’s very easy to tell that the direction understood exactly what they were looking for and needed, and casted accordingly. Even those who didn’t care for the movie much had a very hard time disputing the voice casting for the quartet (and this is saying a lot given how much voice actor changes are often a really sore point among Japanese fans).

But while the 02 group had a limited amount of screentime in Kizuna, the staff also had a lot of opportunities to prove themselves with the drama CD and the new character song CDs, and every single aspect of these reflects something that was represented in 02 itself -- again, things that often go over the heads of people who aren’t paying as close attention. The drama CD captures a lot of the essence of the dynamics between the group in only short lines, and all of the statements about the characters in the character song interviews are accurate (and remember: Arthur said directly that there were discussions with the staff about keeping them true to character). On top of that, not only do the lyrics in said songs directly mirror each character’s development from the time of the original Best Partner series, there are also a lot of things in said songs that demonstrate a nuanced understanding of each person’s character and what they got out of the events of 02. Someone with only a surface-level understanding of Ken or Iori’s character might think that Ken should only have a soft song, or that Iori shouldn’t want to do anything ridiculous, but the series goes ahead and gives Ken one of the most passionately emotional rock songs in the batch and Iori outright rap with Armadimon, which are both fitting decisions in light of Ken actually being one of the more emotionally assertive people in this group, and Iori only being stoic because he’s strict with himself and being willing to let loose in certain circumstances (especially after the events of 02).

As of this writing, I don’t know if the new movie is going to be featuring the entire group in a major role, and I’m not sure if I even want it to; as much as I do strongly feel like the group should always work together at all times, one minor personal complaint I had about Kizuna was that it tries to do too much in too little time, and I’m personally fine with this new movie being more Daisuke-centric or something if it means it can just get a nice story on the table (after all, if I wanted something that more evenly represents the entire 02 group, I’d just go back and rewatch a very nice anime series called Digimon Adventure 02). There’s also the very thorny question of what to do about Tokumitsu Yuka, since I don’t personally really like the idea of still dragging her out of retirement like this (but I also wouldn’t want them to awkwardly write around her just for this, and I’m wondering if Sonozaki voicing Tailmon in the reboot would let people accept her as a replacement without much fighting).

Nevertheless, I think Kizuna’s staff has proven more than well enough that they understand the essence of 02 and its characters, so, again, regardless of how it turns out, I at least expect that this can be made with some degree of conscientiousness, and at this point, that’s all I can ask for. I don’t think it’s fair to expect or want this movie to be the second coming of 02, because, again, if we wanted that, I think it’d be better for us to all go back and watch that lovely little 50-episode anime called Digimon Adventure 02. But in terms of being something that can add a little nice thing to the mix, I think, so far, this movie at least has positive signs of turning out that way -- and, remember, think about what I just said about initially being very against this idea; as a diehard 02 fan who has a lot of very picky feelings about how to best represent it, it took a lot for the staff to earn my trust in this sense.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers

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soulmate-game · 5 years ago

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Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

Day 2: Father Daughter Bonding

Marinette had known her father was Bruce Wayne since she was thirteen, and the man showed up on her balcony one day in full bat-attire exactly one month after Hawkmoth appeared. He had apparently spent the whole month sorting through all of his magical contacts and trying to figure out who the heroes were so he could offer help—only to realize that the apparent leader of the duo of heroes was his biological daughter that he never met or told about his existence.

Okay, so the majority of the month was actually spent on him trying to figure out how to deal with the daughter he had never met becoming a superhero, even a leader of a team, without his assistance or influence whatsoever. But. Regardless. It ended up with him taking a Zeta tube at midnight in Gotham, and ending up on Marinette’s balcony as she got ready for school.

That was when Marinette learned about Bruce Wayne being both Batman and her biological father. After, of course, a brief heart attack at seeing a stranger outside her trap door.

But besides that short visit, Bruce had largely respected Marinette’s order request to stay out of Paris. He understood, after all he held a similar policy for metas in Gotham. Didn’t mean he was happy about leaving Marinette to deal with her supervillain without any reliable backup, but he stayed out of the city nonetheless.

But, there was Marinette’s lack of training to see to. She was not completely untrained, she knew at least two types of martial arts pretty well and her gymnastics ability was second only to Dick himself. But for a superhero? No, she needed a lot of teaching still. So Bruce had arranged for her to spend some holidays and a weekend or two that she could get away with over at Gotham (via Zeta tubes or other portal of course) for him and the other Bats to personally instruct her. Now, three annoying years later without any solid evidence to land Gabriel in the brig (though they all knew by then that he was definitely Hawkmoth), Marinette decided to switch things up.

She landed on a gargoyle’s head, on one of her rare patrols with Batman. She wasn’t Ladybug there, instead deciding to go by the simple name Rouge Wing, as both a play on her native language and the fact that red bats are considered lucky in China. She didn’t wear her Miraculous on these patrols, instead using the rare opportunity to develop her natural skills. And prove once and for all to her stupid brother that, yes, she could keep up with him. And, no, it didn’t matter if she didn’t grow up in a temple learning how to kill, she can still hang him upside down by his ankles if he upsets her one more time—.

Right. The gargoyle.

Batman landed on the rooftop behind her, raising an eyebrow under his cowl. “Don’t you usually make fun of me for perching like that?” He asked, crossing his arms. Robin landed on that same rooftop a moment later, choosing just to sit on the lip of the building and swing one leg lazily over the edge. He and Marinette tended to get along at least half the time nowadays, which Bruce considered An Accomplishment. Marinette only hummed, blue eyes hidden behind her red domino mask as she gazed over the dark city.

“I’ve just been thinking—“

“Nothing new there,” Robin interrupted. “Should I be on the lookout before you run into a wall again?”

Marinette tossed one of her batarangs at him, which he only had to duck to dodge. Sticking her tongue out like a Mature Teenager, she continued. “You guys do things really differently here in Gotham. Which makes sense, of course, because Gotham is a lot different than Paris. But…”

“But?” Batman prodded, deciding to sit on the rooftop and lean one arm on the lip of it so he could lean towards his blood children.

“But it’s been three years. You hardly ever get out of Gotham besides JL meetings or missions, Dad. And, well, if you promise to keep a handle on your emotions—“

Robin snorted, before realizing where this discussion was going. His eyes widened behind his mask in disbelief. “No way.”

Marinette glared at him half heartedly for a moment before completely turning around on her gargoyle and facing Batman. “We don’t see each other enough. And it’s not easy for me to come to Gotham all the time. So maybe, just this once, you can come to Paris and patrol with me? Next week, maybe?”

Bruce couldn’t talk for a moment, just staring at his daughter with his mouth slightly agape. Marinette had been very specific: no non-miraculous heroes in Paris. Period. Not him, not Robin, nobody, because she wasn’t sure she and her partner would be able to win against an Akumatized hero with years of experience.

Robin tossed a birdarang at Batman, which he dodged on instinct. “Well, he’s still alive,” he remarked to his sister. Rouge Wing had scooted closer somewhere during Batman’s shock, looking minorly concerned.

“What brought this on?” Bruce finally asked, making his daughter sigh in relief at the proof of his consciousness.

“Well, multiple reasons. For one, I know now that I am capable of at least restraining you until I have the chance to break an akumatized item, so there aren’t too many worries there anymore. And I only see you once every month if I’m lucky—“

“And her birthday is next week,” Robin supplied easily, smirking at the glare his sister sent him at that.

“Traitor,” Marinette grumbled, puffing out her cheeks a little. Considering the two of them were only a month apart in age, with Damian being the older of the two, it wasn’t unusual for Bruce to forget about one or the other. Summer birthdays in general were hard for him to remember, what with all the spring birthdays that he strained to keep up with.

“Oh, oh,” Bruce sighed, rubbing a hand over his cowl-covered forehead. “That’s right. I’m sorry, of course I’m more than happy to visit Paris next week. Maybe we can even do more than one day?”

Marinette relaxed, nodding. “That would be nice. Just, not in your civilian persona. Bruce Wayne is too recognizable, even in Paris, but a visit from Batman would be shrugged off as just us getting help. But, in order for everything to work, it would probably have to be a day patrol.”

Batman flinched a bit. That’s right— his daughter was a day hero. He wasn’t looking forward to patrolling in full daylight, but he owed her this at least.

“I’ll be there.”

—*—*—*—*—*

When Batman arrived on Marinette’s balcony (actually expected, this time), it was to see the poor girl covered head to toe in ribbons and balloons that all had some variation of “sweet sixteen,” “happy birthday,” and “16!” On them. She hadn’t even been able to transform yet, her Kwami just munching on a cupcake and giggling at her expense. She even had a party hat on her head, but judging by the way she was trying to wrestle it off it hadn’t been put on her head willingly.

“Need help?” Bruce asked when he entered her room, peeling his cowl back and grinning a little at the awkward sight she made. Marinette groaned, looking at him with the most pitiful expression ever.

“Please! Maman and Papan always like celebrating my birthday, and they’ve gone over the top a few times, but I think they went a bit…” she pulled at one of her pigtails, releasing a waterfall of glitter. “Crazy this year.”

Bruce chuckled, walking over and helping to untangle the various ribbons, streamers, and other celebratory restraints that had trapped the petite Parisian. Then, once she was completely untangled and only stubborn confetti and glitter remained, Bruce hung a small box to one of her pigtails by one of it’s bow-loops. She let out a surprised laugh, rolling her eyes at him before pulling it off and looking at it properly.

On a little white card it said: “Happy 16th, Marinette!” In Bruce’s handwriting. It was a small, black box with silver ribbon tied around it in a bow. Marinette couldn’t help but snort at the color choice, sending her dad a knowing look that he dutifully ignored. Carefully removing the bow and unwrapping it, she opened the box to see two little silver, bat-shaped hair pins. Carefully taking them out, she could feel that they were real metal, and surprisingly sharp.

“You can wear them however you want in your hair, to hold your bangs back or in your pigtails,” Brice decided to explain. “They have trackers in them—no, don’t give me that look. They only activate if you tap SOS on one of them. If you hold down the back of the clip, you can extend small blades if you ever need to cut yourself out of a trap or defend yourself.”

“You gave me mini batarangs for my hair,” Marinette teased, but immediately clipped them to her pigtails. “I love them. Ready for patrol?”

“Whenever you are,” he agreed before pulling his cowl back down.

One transformation and some travel later, and they were at the Eiffel Tower to plan their route.

“Obviously, Paris is too big for me to patrol the whole place on my own alongside school and Akumas,” Ladybug explained. “Even with Chat Noir’s help, it’s too big. So, just like you guys back in Gotham, we have routes that we rotate out. But the police here actually do their job and can handle most criminals, so our patrols follow a different logic than in Gotham.”

Batman nodded, holding his chin as he considered that. “That makes sense. Instead of focusing so much on the more crime-heavy parts of the city, especially since Hawkmoth hasn’t akumatized any criminals yet, it makes more sense to focus on areas around schools, tourist sites and other hotspots for recreation, and the general residential area.”

Marinette nodded. After talking a bit more about how she and Chat normally patrolled, and why, they actually hit the rooftops. It only took thirty minutes before Marinette had to intervene, grabbing Batman’s shoulder before he could punch a purse snatcher. The criminal in question, clutching a sparkly holographic purse in utter terror, couldn’t even muster the courage to run in the face of the famous Dark Knight. Ladybug glared at the older hero for a second before turning to the thief and shrugging with a lopsided smile.

“Sorry, he’s still not used to Parisian crime stopping. I’m reigning him in though, no worries,” she assured him. Just as the thief began to back away though, her yo-yo sprung out and wrapped him up head to toe, allowing Ladybug to grab the purse with a smile. “Thank you, I’ll take that. Remember Batman, minimal force. This isn’t Crime Alley.”

Batman grumbled. “It was just gonna be one punch,” as he zip tied the guy and dragged him to the corner for the police to pick up. Ladybug returned the purse.

“See? A daytime patrol isn’t that bad,” Ladybug remarked as she ran over the rooftops with Batman, deciding that sticking closer to her dad was more important than going as fast as possible. Batman grunted, but Ladybug saw his minuscule grin.

“I still prefer the night.”

“Only because you don’t stick out like a sore thumb at night,” she teased. And then the Akuma Alarm went off.

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette panted as she lay sprawled over her bed, catching her breath. Bruce was slumped in her computer chair, cowl off and head curving over the top of the headrest. After a moment, Marinette spoke up;

“You look peaceful.”

“When I’m winded?” He cracked an eye open to shoot her a tired but still deadpan look. She snorted.

“No. With your eyes closed. And cheer up, it was only Gigantitan. Not anywhere near the worst we could have gotten.”

“I think you’re forgetting that I don’t have magic helping me out. Fighting giant children is not something I do often.”

“Oh please, you’ve fought way worse.”

“... that is true.”

“Dad?”

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks.”

“Of course. Want to go back to Gotham with me and get ice cream before you have to be back for dinner?”

“Read my mind.”

—*—*—*—*—*

hi! Let me clarify something real quick guys. These one shots are for Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month. Meaning, there are 30 prompts, one for each day of september. These one shots will NOT be connected unless previously stated! This one, as you could probably tell, has NOTHING to do with the story for Day 1. I’m just exploring a bunch of possibilities and letting my imagination run wild for these. Nonetheless, I will definitely tag you if you want. Thanks!

@momothefemur @ladybug-182 @starlightshield @trippingovermyfeet @greatcatblaze

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #b!dbwm2020 #bio dad bruce wayne #platonic brucinette #platonic daminette #B!dbwm #Day Two

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faebriel · 4 years ago

Note

ok ok I'm insane and couldn't pick one so have two (no need to answer both if you don't want to)

“You talk to him.” Not kindly, but he does.

“I’m used to him,” he shoots back. “I’m the only person who is.”

That makes Niki feel something, some uncomfortable tug in her chest. She mentally kicks herself. It’s not jealousy, she reminds herself, because despite the near-cliff jumping and the long nights without food and the nuclear fallout that has punctuated her last few months, being jealous of Tommy would be the least reasonable thing she’s allowed herself to be, maybe ever.

“You don’t believe me,” Tommy says flatly. “You never - eugh.” He cuts himself off with another ragged sigh, running a hand down his face. “Look, Niki, it’s - we were all together in Pogtopia, right? But I was there first. With him. And you didn’t see the start of it, it was horrible, and I’m glad no one else saw the beginning of it either but it was still just so shit and he kept saying all these terrible things about Tubbo and Fundy and you and,” he takes a shaky breath, “then, when I died, I saw him.”

Her breath catches in her throat.

Well, the voice in the back of her head whistles. If you were still wondering about all this afterlife bullshit, if you want to know where you’re going after your third life, here you go.

and

“You didn’t even - this isn’t about L’Manberg, Wilbur!” Niki shouts.

And then he stops, breathing hard, and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say.

“What else is there?” he asks.

Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut, her chest, her shoulders, chilled down to the bone. With slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes, sitting in her throat, threatening to spill over into a sob. She swallows - to keep her cool, to stay calm, to keep it together -

And then, something in her chest just snaps.

“You said you’d come back for me!” she cries, and her voice hitches on the lump of tears at the back of her throat and god, she sounds absolutely pathetic. Wilbur’s face softens immediately, which somehow just makes her feel even worse. “In Manberg. When Schlatt put me in prison, and you and Tommy were in Pogtopia, you said you’d break me out when it was safe. I waited for weeks , Wilbur. It was… it was horrible.”

“Niki…” a kaleidoscope of emotions flicker across his face, and he seems unsure which to settle on. “We got you out though, right? After the festival.”

“You looked for the button first,” she says quietly, and he stills.

Her sniffling sounds embarrassingly loud against the quiet background of night.

thank you sm!!! i’m gonna put these under the cut because they got a little long sorry (tw for discussion of suicidal ideation)

to preface: tommy is kind of the accidental but incredibly necessary invisible support beam for niki and wilbur’s making amends in bitter. niki cannot accept wilbur’s actions and apology without first acknowledging her own actions and making steps towards an apology, because otherwise it kind of falls flat? in that ending scene niki finally gets what wilbur is feeling and wilbur finally gets that someone else knows how he feels (it’s not perfect 100% yet, but…. that’ll get explored later)

onto the actual snippet! “tommy talks to wilbur - not kindly, but he does” was very important to me! tommy has stuck by wilbur ever since pogtopia, but the tragedy is that he is not equipped to deal with wilbur’s issues, and it shows. wilbur’s first stream after revival depicts this really clearly, where tommy tails wilbur around the whole time but insults him, is still stuck on calling him the villain, physically fights him at some point, etc. on one hand this isn’t healthy but on the other hand tommy is actually around, which is more than can be said for basically any other ally wilbur has had on the dsmp, maybe excluding his dad, who literally killed him lmfao.

this whole issue is exacerbated by the fact that tommy believes that he is the only person who properly understands wilbur, the only person who gets what happened to him, and feels like wilbur is generally his burden to bear. he failed to stop wilbur from both 1. hurting other people and 2. killing himself after the pogtopia-manberg war - and he doesn’t trust wilbur not to do either of those things again, so he’s stuck hovering around wilbur while wilbur is inadvertently setting off his own trauma and feeling responsible for any way he might fuck up and hating that but not wanting to leave. tommy’s memory isn’t perfect and he isn’t a perfect narrator, what he remembers from pogtopia the most were the scariest parts and that’s understandable but it means he’s holding wilbur to the worst expectations of behaviour (and he does so very vocally). the others showed up later, sure, but in tommy’s eyes he’s the only one who saw wilbur’s descent, and by the time they showed up wilbur had already changed irreversably. tommy tries to rationalise this by splitting the ‘different wilburs’ apart from each other in his head (he does this in canon too - there’s one quote from like late 2020 where he says he and tubbo need to keep on going for who wilbur used to be, not who he became, even though they’re,, the same person), and no one challenges that perspective, so he just keeps doing it even though it’s not healthy for him or wilbur.

and then limbo happened and, oh geez, THAT didn’t help jhfaskjjfsa

tommy is on a bit of a knife edge with niki in this fic. niki’s in this state of “ok, he’s annoying whatever, i’m moving on”, but all tommy knows is that she tried to kill him that one time, disappeared off the face of the map, joined a book club with two people who definitely do not like him, and now is just acting weirdly mellow and polite. she is not someone he wants near wilbur bc what the fuck is she gonna do? what is he gonna do? who knows. he’s frustrated that niki doesn’t seem to acknowledge how he’s feeling (especially bc once upon a time she would have been someone he trusted to acknowledge them - they were friends, they fought together) and he’s taking a big step by telling someone about his concerns here, especially bc tommy doesn’t really like talking about them at all. he wouldn’t be saying absolutely anything to niki if he didn’t truly believe she should stay away from wilbur, even if he’s wrong about him. (sometimes i think i write tommy as a little too emotionally mature here but it all goes out the window when wilbur’s brought up. idk if that balances it out)

ok onto niki: this is the first she has actually heard of limbo! she’s only just come around to the fact that resurrection is possible at all. death is kind of a touchy subject for niki both in general and re: wilbur in the fic - she’s coming off of a period in her life where suicidal ideation was, uh, a big thing (whether you want to read that into canon or not is subjective, that’s just the angle i went with in this fic). the sudden existence of a life after death, miserable as it is - and whether she really believes in such a place, when it only exists in tommy and wilbur’s words - that is a lot of information for her to absorb all at once. death is a weird connection point for tommy and niki here, coming right off of the fact that they’ve just acknowledged each other having those problems - tommy, out of, yknow, altruism, would very much like to keep niki out of that place, and niki is quietly reckoning with the fact that that is where she would have sent him. the concept of limbo from the perspective of a character with no experience of it, even secondhand, is so interesting to me like what kind of eldritch location would you feel like you’re living in asghjkl

(also - i gotta be honest the jealousy angle here but mostly when she’s talking later about dream not deserving wilbur’s companionship kinda came out after this post came across my dash while writing. whoops /j)

fun fact, this is the very first snippet of bitter that i ever wrote! all the way back in may!! this is like the moment of the fic - it's where the miscommunication that niki and wilbur have been having is shattered entirely - and so sticking the landing was uhhh kinda important to me lol.

wilbur's entire being in this fic is basically consumed by L'Manberg - he equates his self worth to it entirely. in his eyes, everyone (rightfully) hates him because of what he did to L'Manberg, because L'Manberg was corrupted and he himself with it, etc. niki tries to tell herself this, and while it definitely does form part of her issues with him, it was the betrayal that causes her this much pain - that he seemingly brushed her and their friendship off entirely when he supposedly left her for dead in manberg. because here is what we as the audience know: wilbur couldn’t leave niki in trouble when he heard her life was in danger, even when he was trying to find the button (pretty much the only thing he sees himself as having left at this point) and so he returned. here is what it looks like from niki’s perspective: wilbur told her to wait in manberg until it was safe to come to pogtopia, laid the place with TNT, went to blow up the place, and only returned when he couldn’t find the detonator (and then the first thing she saw him do in pogtopia was encourage the pit behaviour but that’s not what we’re talking about asdfgh). that is massive miscommunication and it’s been brewing between them for months - to make a quirky little reference to the title, niki has been carrying that anger with her so long it's gone bitter. it was never just about l’manberg with niki - not that anger, not her and wilbur’s friendship (hence the little flashback earlier in the fic, bc niki’s relationship to anarchism and statehood or statelessness juxtaposed with her friendships with wilbur and eret - she loves l’manberg bc she loves wilbur, but she loves eret too and those national ties don’t undermine that - is Real Interesting to me) - so when wilbur asks what else there could possibly be (because in his mind, what else could she have bothered staying around for?), she just fucking breaks.

“Niki freezes. Stock still, unable to move, unable to breathe, ice threading its way through her gut...with slow-dawning horror, she can feel hot tears welling up behind her eyes” - prose discussion time! heat and cold are two big throughlines in this fic - particularly for niki, cold is what she is. admittedly when i started with it i mostly wanted to subvert hot = angry and cold = dead but i kinda ended up enjoying this take on it for what it is instead of just as a subversion (also i like the idea of revived people running hot, their bodies r working hard to keep em going). she’s holding onto her feelings and refusing to deal with them, she’s frozen over. descriptions of cold are key to niki’s mental state throughout the fic - cold weight on her chest, feelings of frostbite when she and wilbur hug the first time, ice cold water during the dinner scene, waking up in the cold flat, etc. this was an attempt at describing a more visceral feeling of like, when you’re really mad and you can just feel the adrenaline running through your veins. always felt more cold than hot to me. when she starts to cry, the facade she’s been putting on is finally thawing out and cracking the ice she’s buried her feelings under. (also gives an excuse to write warm comforting hugs towards the end /hj). it’s a loss, it’s catharsis, it’s a whole mess.

and ofc this is all news to wilbur and he feels terrible, because as unintentional as it was, he really really hurt her - because the destruction of l’manberg fucking sucked but above all else wilbur hurt the people he loved because they loved him so much and not in spite of it, because they cared about him so deeply and his death was a massive blow to them. this hasn’t even dawned on him, because how could it? he respects deeply niki (lowkey respects her opinion more than his own at this point) so he has to listen, because it’s niki (“and he looks at Niki the same way he does whenever her voice is being drowned out in a crowd - the way he does when he wants to hear her, when he wants to know what she has to say” - because he does), and what she says fucking floors him. in his eyes, he failed her by putting her in danger and then by destroying her home - the idea that she valued him and their friendship so much flies entirely over his head until this moment, and he is forced to re-evaluate the mindset that has motivated him since… basically since pogtopia! the way i write wilbur is like… yes, he’s one of niki’s closest friends and he’s more aware of her insecurities and issues than most (which is why he does always take the time to listen to her, etc) but he does over-idealise her a bit. tbf, i think he does to some extent with everyone (calling tubbo strong on the anniversary stream, for example). also the fact that he really wasn’t around for niki’s lowest moments as a character! he still thinks of her the way she was in l’manberg - confident, steadfast, respected - and this moment shatters that for him as he realises exactly what effect he and his death had on her and everyone else, not just by his actions, but because they loved him and cared for him so deeply.

sorry that this got horrifically long!! and thank you so much for sending snippets in <3333

#ALSO SORRY THIS TOOK TWO WEEKS. LMFAO #asks #thespoonisvictory #dvd commentary #< i have successfully coerced a discord server into doing the dvd commentary on a regular basis and it is the BEST thing

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 4 years ago

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I m just having these random thoughts. Like tae has always been very clingy and affectionate with other members like jhope or rm or jin or even jk. Whereas wgen it comes to vmin its mostly jimin being clingy. Like u can see even when vmin sit together its mostly jimin touching him or clinging to him whereas when they sit with others while jimin is equally touchy tae becomes clingier. Its so wierd and i dont know what to think.

Looking at the history of vmin from beginning until now (here’s an amazing timeline post by romanticdrift you should check out), in the first couple of years both of them were clingy and affectionate with each other, but also rough and lacking the experience that came with age of how to properly communicate with each other about their feelings and thoughts and in general. So, while in the beginning they just had fun with it, some of it being for show to entertain ARMY, some not, it’s true that things have evolved over the years and nowadays they are very different from how they used to be in like 2013, for example. That isn’t a bad thing though. It’s a natural progressing even.

Besides, Jimin and Hoseok are the two most physically affectionate members, that’s true, but just because that’s their love language (at least in primary free content, yet in paid content like ITS or BV, have you noticed how suddenly even they are way less physically affectionate, how the members don’t feel the need to constantly cling to each other, hug and touch each other, and rather just spend time together doing something or being in the same room doing their own things while enjoying each other company), we can’t expect everyone to have the same one. For instance, Yoongi is more about showing acts of service toward his members as a way of showing them how much he cares about them and loves them, it’s his love language. Does that make his affection for them any less valuable than when Jimin is clingy with another member?

If you look at how Tae’s behavior has fluctuated across 2020 due to obvious reasons in the first half while settling down and turning happier in the second half, you’ll notice that he’s in general “calmed down” with how affectionate in a physical way he is with the other members. He’s still silly and making jokes with them when he’s in a good mood, he still touches and shows physical affection toward Jimin, like in the RUN episode with Chef Baek and the rice cooker moment, yet there are also times when he simply doesn’t want to do that. It’s not a bad thing, and it also doesn’t have to say anything at all about the state that vmin’s bond is at. It runs so much deeper than some physical touch caught on camera during a 35-minute RUN episode, or lack thereof in some other content.

Jimin and Taehyung worked so hard and over a long period of time for the bond they have now, especially since they did it not as BTS Jimin and BTS V, but as Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin, the real-life people. They put in a lot, and I mean a LOT, of emotional and physical labor into creating and strengthening this bond they’ve always had (in some form or another) because they saw something in each other, saw that they’d found their person in each other and wanted to make it work despite their differences, despite hard times making not only their lives hard but also putting their bond to a grueling test, and at the end here we are today where their bond is literally one of the closest and strongest bonds I’ve ever seen.

More below the cut:

Now, imagine you put that much into a relationship (and for this argument the only viable reason for why they behave this way and guard this so fiercely is because there’s something romantic here since why else would they be so protective about their bond and “hide” it so much?) would you really want to showcase it so obviously to people, strangers who only wait for reasons (even if there aren’t any actual ones) to be vicious and nasty toward you? Just to see people drag your bond through the mud, to insult it, belittle it, and write it off as “fanservice” (even more than they already do) even though it’s something so precious to you, even though this person is your person, your soulmate, your special someone you want to keep at your side until you’re grandpas?

I highly doubt it.

And that’s where the difference lies. Yes, all the bonds in BTS are strong and special in their own rights, but what Jimin and Taehyung have, that is something so rare, so precious, so once in a lifetime, yet also something they worked so hard and long for and on, who would want to “sell” it to the public? Wouldn’t you, too, want to keep it safe and close to your heart? Think of Taehyung’s lyrics from the song he posted and then deleted off of twitter, of him wanting to protect his love from those with evil tongues, to save his love and save himself with an umbrella, think of the drawing from the Snow Flower cover of the boy protecting the flower with an umbrella from the snow. Wouldn’t you, too, want to protect someone who is this special to you, with whom you share such a special bond, from the horrendous opinions and words of others?

It’s easy to be affectionate with people who are your best friends, your found family, your brothers, and showing that to people, but showing the same with someone so important to you, with whom you share a different level and kind of connection, it’s a completely different story.

Besides, we still get glimpses of it from time to time, we see their affection for each other, and yes, it’s different, it might come across as weird to some, but that doesn’t make it any less meaningful and their bond any less real and deep than any other bond within BTS. Does the closeness of two members truly only depend on their on-camera affection, yet the moment it’s something we only hear about yet not see, therefore is something off camera and not for us to view, somehow not exist and not matter?

At the end of the day, we know so little about their private lives, and much of what you see and hear about from some is just speculations, some of which are f*cked up to say the least in regard to some other pairings within BTS, and yet the things we do hear about their private lives come from their own mouths, especially in connection to vmin, are immediately dismissed and ignored because…because some loud part of the fandom just decides that that’s how it is and everyone else is meant to just follow their opinion, I guess?

That’s not right, we know that and, in a way, I’m sure they do as well, but they follow their own agenda, one we don’t have to follow or agree with. What they do is their thing, but as vminnies, we know what we know, we see what we see, so instead of looking what everyone else is doing, why don’t we do as they do and stick to our opinions, our feelings, everything we know about Jimin and Taehyung, as individuals and as pair, and feel happy for them but also happy for ourselves because we got to witness them grow into the people they are today, in general but also with each other. Isn’t that much more valuable than some short touch of a thigh or a teasing joke?

I know it’s easy to fall into the pattern of comparing, especially when it comes to the amount of content you get etc, but just because others want to impose their bad shipper habits on us and take how supposedly real a pairing is solely based on “”moments”” and turn it into something akin to a di*k measuring contest, who’s to say we have to participate? Besides, regardless of which shipper camp wins, it has no effect on the actual idols, says nothing about their actual real-life bonds. They are the only ones who know the true nature of their bonds and their depths, so looking at everything we know about vmin, things they’ve shared with us through visuals and words, do we really have any reason to feel insecure about our opinions? What reason do we have to think of how much or how little affection and clinginess they show toward each other in on-camera moments as the be all, end all evidence and standard of their bond? When we know how much they’ve worked for this, how much they matter to each other, enough so to cry and laugh together, to sing a song about it co-written and co-produced by Jimin, for Tae to write 4 O’Clock and many more, and for them to decide to want to stay together forever? In the face of all that, is it really that imperative for us to see them share affection on camera, for them to be clingy?

Isn’t everything else we have, these more than eight years’ worth of friendship and more, isn’t that enough for us to see and know their worth to each other?

And sure, there are moments where they are clingy, where they are affectionate with each other, so isn’t that enough? Do we really need more, or some kind of elaborate explanation for why it is that way or not a different one? Besides, they aren’t eighteen-year-old boys and rookies anymore, they are grown men who want to be seen and treated as musicians, Grammy nominated ones at that, who have learned how to communicate their love for each other in a way they are most comfortable and happy with, so do they really need to cling to each other on camera? No. They don’t owe us visual proof of their bond, don’t owe us visual reminders of their bond either.

The fact that we still get glimpses of their bond is a wonderful thing and I’m grateful for it. Generally, the fact that we get to see and witness so much of the members lives is something we should treat as special and not as a requirement, like a quota they need to fulfill. They could only ever show up during comebacks and promotions, but instead we get so much, just yesterday we had Jimin spend time on weverse replying to so many posts and even coming back a second time a little while later into the night, also replying twice to posts about Tae.

From anon: I think that, especially Taehyung, has succumbed to restrictions and fan service and the falsification of everything. This is the problem with the entire Makne lineage. Maybe they are all very real with each other in their personal lives, but in front of the camera they all seem very scripted. Because of that, I think Vmin does not present himself in front of the camera and does not want any fan service. What do you two think about it? Thanks for great posts!

This is another ask we got a while ago that I think fits thematically. Even more so when you consider that many consider anything vmin do together just fanservice, thus belittling and cheapening their bond in such a blatant and awful way despite having no right to do so. I’m sure vmin know about all of this, have seen the comments since they are everywhere, so it can’t possibly be fun or pleasant at all. You could argue that they could just not care about what people say, could just not care about how their interactions are viewed as fanservice, but that is way easier said than done when there is practically no escaping those comments at this point.

There’s a shipping rule, so to speak, especially when it comes to real people ships, that you are to keep your shipping away from them and keep it somewhere where they don’t see it. That rule has long been broken, burned and turned into micro particles that can never be put together again. And we know that’s a fact because we literally had Tae tell a shipper off on Weverse, something that usually never happens. But it did. Not that it changed anything or had any kind of effect, but it’s more about the gesture itself.

As for the scripted part, of course much is scripted but not because they are fake, their personas are fake, and the whole BTS are family thing is fake, but because their words have weight. Their actions have weight. Everything they say and do is put on a scale, measured and accounted for, analyzed, theorized and twisted one way or another. While they could be wild during rookie years, now that they’ve reached this unprecedented level of fame for Korean artists, that’s not possible anymore. They have to be careful, have to be on guard during certain content, have to put their very best foot forward at all times. It’s hard. Incredibly hard. We’ve seen them struggle with it, but that’s how it is. And when you struggle, it’s easier to have a script, even just a loose one, you can follow to make it easier, to make you less unsure or keep yourself from overthinking everything you say or do.

One thing that is incredibly important to remember is that when they are on camera, they are at work, they are BTS Jimin and BTS V, BTS RM and BTS JIN, and while parts of their real personalities are also part of their BTS personas, it’s still work, not free time. Especially during interviews or performances, while backstage getting ready to go on stage, or while going from schedule to schedule. Think about it this way, vmin are affectionate and clingy and loud about their bond in places where we see them, so now think about how loud they must be in places where we don’t see them, in their private lives?

Enough so for none of the members to laugh or react or comment on how casually Tae spoke about wanting Jimin to come sleep next to him. And enough so that Hoseok said that the person Jimin shows aegyo toward the most is Tae (though I’ve seen at least three different translations for this moment, the one I mentioned, another one that translates it as Jimin being spoiled the most by Tae, and yet another as Jimin treating Tae as big baby) in one of the Japanese interviews (NTV Buzz Rhythm) in July 2020, Yoongi nodding in agreement, the mention of that making Tae flustered (?) and want to downplay it a little by acting ‘surprised’ and asking “(To) me?”. This, too, is something we don’t see that often (anymore) yet it obviously must be there if Hoseok mentioned it and the others agreed with him. And at the end of the day, the members truly do know them, far better than any of us ever will. Or that time at the airport where Jimin waited for Tae and they only started to hold hands when they must’ve thought no one would be able to see it. Do things like this not sufficiently show that there are simply things they don’t want to show us? And thus, shouldn’t we simply respect their choices?

And even if they are calmer now, less clingy, less ‘showy’, we still got a bed selca they took while hidden behind their legs and blankets creating as though a wall so the ITS cameras didn’t see them, with a caption that…well, opens up some interesting implications (positive ones, of course).

Let me end this post on this: if vmin were just friends, or even if they weren’t friends anymore like some so vehemently insist is the case, surely there would be no issue for them to show their just friendship the way they show it with the other members, be clingy and affectionate in physical ways, possibly even just play a role of bestest buddies like some idols supposedly do, and yet they don’t do that. So, since they don’t do it, the only plausible reason I can see for it is that they simply have something between them that they want to hide and that it’s valuable enough to them that they want to guard and protect it, that makes their bond different from the bonds they have with the other members.

#answered ask #vmin #Jimin #Taehyung #somehow this wasn't supposed to be this long and yet it still turned out this way #discussion

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thr-333 · 5 years ago

Text

Mismatch- Part 24

Bio dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

Oh dear, oh dear Lila what a shame this is

First< Previous > Next

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The next couple of days are... awkward. Dick keeps calling which is nice, they even go for dinner one day dragging Tim along. Tim seems fine, tired but that's hardly unusual. Jason had just straight up disappeared, but Dick had assured them he would be coming to the Wayne Gala that weekend. Speaking of which they had been invited, well they were already going because of MDC stuff but now they were also invited as civilians. The news would have been happy if Damian hadn't stormed out the room when it was mentioned. The next day and the day after that hadn’t improved anything, Damian was completely ignoring them and they weren't the only ones to notice.

“What did you do to upset Dami so much?!” Lila announces rather loudly to the entire cafeteria, “I told you, you were going too far,”

“Lila, and I mean this sincerely, fuck off,” Marion says flatly, he hears Marinette cover a laugh despite swatting at him lightly.

“How dare you?! I’m just trying to look out for him,” Lila sniffles, basking under the attention of her large audience, looking between the girl and Damian. Marion catches Damian's eye, raising a brow basically saying you’re going to let this slide? Apparently he was as Damian looks away from them, and if anything was going to give Lila more believability it’s that.

“Marion are you alright?” Rose asks gently, having tiptoed after Lila with the rest of the class. Had he been looking so downcast she actually noticed?

“I’m fi-” Whatever assurance he was about to give is mute as he feels tears sliding down his cheeks, “Fuck-I just-”

He tries to wipe away the tears, very aware of everyone watching him. It’s starting to get hard to breath when he feels gentle arms wrap around him. It’s Rose. Rose is actually hugging him! It’s been so long he forgot what her hugs felt like. Well if she was trying to stop him from crying that certainly didn’t help matters. He tries to take a calming breath but it comes out more like a sob and soon enough he can’t hold it back anymore. A fine place to break down Mari, really, truly a testament to your skill.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this here,” Lila scoffs, Marion can feel the arms around him tighten, “After all the work I put in for this trip-”

“LILA WOULD YOU JUST STOP!” Alya’s scream makes them all jump back, Marion turning to face the absolutely seething girl, “This is the first time in YEARS we’ve been allowed to feel emotions! So just leave it alone, they’re allowed to be sad!”

“Well-I-its-they-” Lila splutters looking completely blindsided that one of her puppets broke off its strings, clearly she hasn't been paying attention the last few weeks, funny when you save someone's life they tend to listen and care about what you say a bit more. And if that leads to noticing a few more jibes in their direction... well that's just a happy coincidence.

“What is your problem!? You’ve been nothing but nasty to them since we got here!” Well a bit longer than that but good on you for noticing Alya.

“Oh, it’s just been so hard for me!” Lila exclaims, crocodile tears coming in as Marion still tries to wipe off his own, the genuine article at that, “If you had heard some of the things they’ve said to me-”

Lila jumps as Damian appears next to her. He doesn't look at or acknowledge the twins. In fact, he still looks rather pissed but at least some of its directed at Lila this time. He silently hands his phone over to Alya with some hesitation, Lila's eyes go wide. As quickly as he had come he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd that had formed around them.

“What’s-”

“Give it!” Lila screeches, lunging for the phone. Alya jerks back in surprise, Lila’s nails tearing down her arm. Ugly red marks that had broken the skin and gone in deep.

“What the hell!” Alya shouts through tears, clutching her bloody arm as the class crowd around her.

Instead of apologizing Lila tries to snatch the phone in the moment of distraction, but Alix is a hair quicker. She presses play despite Lila shouting threats that made the rest of the class go pale. The recording plays everyone is glued to it. The class becoming increasingly more hysterical. Marinette doesn't wait for it to finish, she gently guides Marion out of the room slipping through the crowd. They hide in an empty classroom, far enough away they can’t hear the outcry that follows.

“Do you think that’s really it, it’s done?” Marion whispers, Marinette is wiping his face with a handkerchief he had always made fun of her for carrying.

“Maybe, I honestly can’t bring myself to care anymore,” Marinette rests her forehead against his, her standing as he sits on a desk, “I thought I’d feel more…”

“Victorious?”

“Yeah,”

“I don’t think there are any winners here,” He can hear someone shouting their names down the hall, voice wobbly with tears, he doesn't care about any apology the can muster, “How lame did I look crying?”

“In front of the whole school like that?”

“Yeah,”

“I’d say it was pretty brave,” She pulls him into a hug, squeezing tight.

“He was just ignoring us,” Marion admits quietly, Lila hadn’t made him cry in a long time, but Damian? Damian did.

“I know,” Marinette pats his head, the same way she would tease him as Chat Noir, “But he did something in the end didn’t he?”

“Oh, gee look at this lame-ass, better make him stop before people associate him with me’,” Marion does an impression not remotely close to Damian, Marinette pinches him.

“That’s not what he was thinking and you know it,”

“Yeah,” Marion sighs, he can hear doors opening and closing now, apologies cast out through the school in hopes they’ll hear them, “What do we do now?”

“Jump out the window?”

So they did end up jumping out the window. Something Alfred had somehow known they were planning because he was waiting right there to pick them up. The debated on actually going to the manor, but their phones were lighting up with messages and the hotel was not an option. The Manor was silent when they arrived. And it remained silent for most of their stay.

Dick had apparently set himself a mission of making them feel at home, whatever that meant, and was nowhere to be seen. He seemed like the only one actually happy to have them join the ragtag family so without him it was likely the others were just avoiding them. That was fine, really, Alfred set them up with a movie and ice cream that they used to ignore everything else.

Dick was their saving grace and the bane of their existence. When he came back he had apparently made the decision they would be staying at the manor for the rest of the trip, despite it only meant to be a few more days(it wasn't for them but he didn’t know that yet). Alfred had apparently told him what happened and he had brought it upon himself to bring their friends, actual friends not classmates to the manor. This was a blessing and a curse as all they seemed to want to do was fill them in on what had happened.

They listened and ate ice cream together. And yeah Marion kind of wished he could have seen Lila as every lie was torn down but Chloe rejoiced in relaying her reactions with great detail. She had of course tried to lie and turn it all on the twins, them trying to frame her. However, with blood running down Alya's arm that warranted a trip to the hospital it was met with a cold shoulder. Their talk eventually morphed into laughing at all her outlandish lies, which Chloe gladly compiled into a list to share with the rest of the class, ranking them in order of their stupidity. She planned to go through the whole list on the plane ride back where there would be no escape for anyone. It was fun in a way, and if Marion noticed more than one pair of eyes spying in on the conversation he wasn’t going to point it out. Lila was yet to face her dues.

When their friends had to go back to the hotel they promised not to give anything away. Alfred gratefully let them skip over dinner and Dick was overjoyed to show them to their rooms. Marion kind of wanted to laugh when he was shown his, wondering how much of it was Dick, how much was Bruce, and what was Alfred.

There were cat plushies everywhere which he had to guess was Bruce latching onto the detail from the fair and indeed Dough boy is sitting front and center on his bed. Then again wherever he was over he did spend a lot of time with Catfred. It could also be Dick taking note of that because really everything has cats on it. There's blankets, pillows, a rug with kittens over it. There was an armchair shaped like a cat head, and where had they even found that? It only got worse the further he went into the room noticing that the curtains had been replaced to have cats on them and there were pictures of cats hanging on the wall, the lamps in the room even cast shadows of cats. The only thing he could find that wasn't cat-related was a picture of them with Bruce at the fair, each sporting a plushie with Bruce holding a cutesy Batman plush between the grinning twins.

“Nette my defining trait isn’t cats is it?” He walks into her room through the joining door he was willing to bet didn’t exist a week ago. His side, of course, had a cat painted on it, he closes it just so he has less exposure to all the cats.

“Course not,” Marinette grins from her sewing machine.

She had a more, let's say subdued room. Oh sure Bruce had apparently found her all the Ladybug plushies he could but they apparently didn't have the same abundance as cats. Instead, he seemed to have focused on her sewing kit. Mannequins littered about her room that Marinette had already started pinning fabric to. Half of her walk-in closet was dedicated to spools of fabric, the other stocked with clothes. Marion didn’t dare brave his own knowing he would find only cats .

“Did you notice the dollhouse?” Marinette asks as Marion flops onto her bed, at least you could actually see her bed and it wasn't hidden by a pile of cats.

“Yeah mine was stocked with camembert and sugar cubes,” and it had personalized rooms for both Kaalki and Plagg that they were happily exploring.

“Mine cookies,” Marinette hums, more concerned with her design than the topic at hand, “Think we got found out,”

“Probably, whoever it is hasn't said anything tho,” Marion looks over at the large dollhouse in Marinette's room, Tikki waved at him from a window and he waved back.

“Probably Alfred,”

“Probably, that mans a witch,”

“A Witch?”

“I know what I said,” Marion sighs, sealing himself to go back into the cat infestation. How do you politely say ‘thank you so much but what the fuck?’

He knew he had to brave the closet sometime as someone had been so kind as to put away his clothes. Sure enough, it was as bad as he had imagined. Everything from t-shirts with cartoon cats to clothes carefully crafted to have cat ears. I was actually kind of amazing at this point. Giving up his conquest to find his actual pj’s he buttons up a two-piece that is, naturally, covered with cats.

On his way out he notices a bit of black at the very front of the closet not fitting in with the color-coded organization. He pulls it out to find a gorgeous leather jacket that was completely devoid of cats! Huzzah! There was a note hanging from the sleeve which Marion unfolded.

Knew Bruce and Dick would be idiots so I got you something actually decent

I saw the room and yeah it's a fucken mess

If you ever need it gone or I don’t know accidentally set on fire give me a call

Marion chuckles knowing it could be no one else but Jason he tucks the note into the jacket, pulling it on to find a perfect fit. He keeps it on as a shield, something solidly not-cat is comforting at this point. He pushes the piles of cat toys onto the floor and seriously he was going to have to have a talk with Bruce about moderation and interior decorating. He lies down looking up at the ceiling, then immediately getting up and storming into Nette’s room. He was not going to sleep under a mural of cats! Nope not tonight! Not ever!

Marinette doesn't even look up from where she’s hunched over her desk as he flops onto her bed. Can someone be over the moon to be surrounded by ladybugs? Yes provided they have had an overexposure to cats first.

“I know we don’t want to go to school tomorrow but I can not stand a second more in that room,”

“Schools over Mari, it’s the concert tomorrow remember?”

“Goddammit,”

“Jasons having a bad influence on you,”

“Can’t we have just one day of rest?”

“No, now go to sleep,”

“You first,” Marion shoots, back despite curling up under the blankets.

“If you want to wear that jacket tomorrow you better take it off before it gets ruined,”

“I can wear it for the concert?” He shoots back up, excited but takes her advice anyway.

“ No I did not spend weeks designing a new jacket for you to wear that,” Besides it doesn't even have bats on the back,”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Marion yawns, sinking back into the bed, and wow it’s really soft, “What if we changed them to Robins?”

“... you really don’t want me to sleep tonight do you?”

“Means I get the whole bed to myself, a master plan if I do say so myself,” Marion doesn't even stir as the pillow hits him square in the face.

----------------------

Taglist:

@technicallyburninggarden @fusser90 @misslenamooney @superbwhispersconnoisseur @biodad-bruce-month @nalu-ismyjam @the-one-woman-army @rosesandsailboats @blackmagicforever @zeneralla @ivymala07 @tired-butterfly @Ranger-gothamite @A-star-with-a-human-name @enchanted-nerd @trippingovermyfeet

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colourfullsims · 5 years ago

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LOVE ISLAND CHALLENGE: CASTING CALL

That’s right, you heard it here first - from the people who brought you Big Brother, we present yet another summer obsession: the Love Island Challenge! Has it only been about a month since I finished BB? Yep. Should I be taking on yet another huge project that will take a lot of planning and late nights of building storylines? Probably not. Am I still doing it? Hell yeah.

This will be quite the large casting call for what I have planned: I’ll be accepting 28 sims in total for this challenge! The game will begin with 10 initial sims entering the villa, with the remaining cast being released into the house in waves: as sims are eliminated, new players will enter the house in their place. About halfway through the game, the islanders will be met with their biggest test of the summer when we open Casa Amor, placing 12 sims from our cast pool into the game for a chance at love.

As always, I’m looking to have a diverse cast with lots of varying backgrounds and personalities. And while the original Love Island focuses primarily on straight couplings, I’m looking to break that here by accepting all sexualities! As long as your sim is a young single, looking to mingle, they’ve got a chance at love!

Great info to include in your submission is:

Basic Bio: Introduce your sim (name, age, traits, gender, sexuality, race, hometown, occupation, etc.)

Personality Type: Give me a general feel for your sim’s character (outgoing, shy, serious, goofy, friendly, mean, etc.)

Relationships Back at Home: Who are the most important people in your sims life? (parents, siblings, children, etc). All potential islanders should technically be single (so no secret marriage scenarios please lol), but if your sim has any ex-relationships or situationships they’d like to talk about, feel free to share!

Their Intentions: Though this is “Love Island” not everyone may be here for love; some islanders will be looking for “the one,” while others may just be looking for some fun, and there may even be some looking specifically to get that cash prize. What led your sim to apply to the show and how will your sim play the game?

Backstory and Random Facts: Anyone who’s familiar with my last challenge knows I’m a sucker for a good backstory! You can be as simple or detailed with this as you please: any extra info given about your sim will aid me in writing dialogue and creating storylines for the posts.

Please keep any CC used on your sim (besides skin details) limited to their everyday wear, and Maxis Match. I’ll be applying my preferred defaults (eyes, detailed feet, etc.) to the sims and dressing them with my CC catalogue to blend to my posting style. Dress all remaining categories with DLC (I have all packs except for MFPS so go crazy), that way I have a sense of their style!

Submissions will stay open until Saturday, June 27, 2020, 11:59PM EDT, or until I have enough submissions to begin. Make sure to tag me in your submission posts, and if I haven’t reblogged your post within a day, feel free to message me - sometimes Tumblr likes to eat my tag notifications. I’ll be placing the rules I’ll be following below the cut for anyone interested in seeing how I’ll be playing this challenge!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see some of your sims soon on Love Island!

RULES:

For the challenge I will be using a version of the rules that I’ve tweaked from Scarlet-V’s original Love Island Challenge rules as well as @everfallsims Love Island Challenge rules. I’m aiming at playing my challenge as close to how the show is done, so check out the rules below to get a feel for how this will go:

Coupling Up:

For my version of the challenge, coupling ceremonies will take place under a predetermined schedule (which I will release once the challenge begins), and will alternate by gender for who will be choosing each time - so if the girls are choosing during the first coupling, the boys will be choosing the next time.

Sims will choose who to couple up with one by one at the coupling ceremony, and order of choice will either be determined by random draw or by viewer vote, depending upon the stage of the game.

Sims will couple up based upon who they have the highest romance level with. In the case an islander is choosing between sims they have no romance level with yet, they must choose the sim with the highest friendship level.

The first two coupling ceremonies will be heterosexual pairings only (for logistical reasons) but after that point, all genders will be able to couple up with whoever they like.

Once a sim is chosen to couple up with, they are no longer an option to be chosen. Couplings remain until eliminations and recouplings.

Recouplings:

Recouplings will happen on a predetermined schedule (again, to be released when the challenge begins) and will be an opportunity for pre-existing couples to continue getting to know each other, or for islanders to pursue new relationships.

Any new islanders will get the first choice at the recouplings.

If an islander’s first choice has already been chosen by someone else, they’ll have to choose an islander they have the next highest relationship with. Consequently, if a sim’s first choice is stolen away by another sim, they will lose some relationship with each other. This could lead to some sims having negative relationships with each other (who doesn’t love a little drama lol).

Eliminations:

Eliminations will take place under a predetermined schedule (again, to be released when the challenge begins). There will be three different types of eliminations: single eliminations, couple eliminations, and bottom two eliminations.

Single eliminations will take place when there is an odd number of islanders inside the villa. On a recoupling night when this is the case, one of the villagers who is not picking for the night will be at risk for going home.

Couple eliminations will get rid of a full couple from the game, in order to start whittling down the numbers for our potential winners. These eliminations can happen at any recoupling ceremony, and the decision will rest on either the relationships of the islanders, or on a viewer vote.

Bottom two eliminations will get rid of the two least popular islanders, from the two couples that have the lowest relationship levels with one another. This can take place at any recoupling ceremony and the decision will rest on a viewer vote.

Challenges:

Challenges will be an opportunity for islanders to win dates with other islanders, which will be key to advancing their romance outside of the villa.

Between each coupling ceremony, the sims will participate in skill based challenges. In gameplay, the challenge winners will be based upon one in-game day’s worth of skill building, with the sim(s) with the highest skill level winning the prize for the day.

Because of this, all sims skills will be set to 0 at the beginning of this challenge to give everyone a fair shot, but you can still influence what challenges your sim will be good at through their traits!

Dates:

There will be several different kinds of dates that the islanders will have a chance to go on: speed dates, solo dates, and the hideaway.

Speed dates will take place the day that new islanders are introduced into the villa, allowing the new sims a chance to get a feel for who they might want to couple up with. Speed dates can (but might not always) lead to an opportunity for the new islanders to ask their favorite islanders on a solo date, to get to know them even better.

Solo dates are just what they sound like - one on one outings for two sims to get to know each other. Solo dates will be earned by winning challenges, winning a viewer vote, or catching the eye of a new islander. Also, solo dates are not limited to sims who are already partnered up - so this is the prime chance for sims to drive a wedge between a relationship and shoot their shot!

The Hideaway is the ultimate date to win in this game. This is a fancy, romantic suite located in the villa, which will only open several times throughout the game, and will only be accessible to one couple at a time for one night. In the Hideaway, everything goes, and it’s the prime chance for a couple to take their relationship to the next level. Islanders will have the opportunity to win a night inside the Hideaway either through winning a challenge or winning a viewer vote. Unlike speed dates and solo dates, this is only open for sims who are currently coupled up.

Casa Amor:

Halfway through the challenge, Casa Amor will open, giving the islanders even more opportunities to find love with someone new:

The remaining islanders will be split between the original villa and Casa Amor, and will meet 6 new islanders each, who they could potentially recouple with.

The islanders will participate in challenges, speed dates, and solo dates as usual as they get to know their new roommates.

After several days away from their current partners, the original islanders must decide whether they want to stay coupled up with their current partners, or if they want to be recoupled with one of the new islanders.

Any of the new islanders who are not chosen to be coupled with will be immediately eliminated. Any of the old islanders left single will be at risk of being eliminated.

Viewer Votes:

Throughout the challenge, viewers will get the opportunity to influence the game through a series of polls. Advantages that viewers will be able to deal out will include:

First pick at recouplings

Solo dates

Hideaway access

Viewer votes will also come into play when it comes time to start determining which players should stay in the game.

How to Win:

The challenge will continue until there are four couples remaining. Of those four, it will be down to a viewer vote which of the final pairings should win the $100,000 grand prize. As consolation prizes, the second and third place winners will win $50,000 and $25,000 dollars respectively (sorry fourth place lol).

After the winners are determined, the final test of whether this was true love will come in the form of the money envelopes. Both sims will receive an envelope each - one will have the cash prize inside, and the other will be empty. Whoever receives the envelope with the money will have to decide to either share the money with their partner or take the cash and run. This final decision will come down to a combination of storytelling and whether the sim ended up with a partner they loved more than anyone else in the villa.

And that’s it! I may tweak these rules slightly as I begin playing, especially once WW interactions come into play, but this should cover most of our bases for the time being. Let me know if you have any further questions, and I hope you’ll consider submitting a sim!

#ts4 #sims 4 #ts4 love island challenge #sims 4 love island challenge #love island challenge #sims 4 challenge #love island challenge casting call #casting call #sims of color #colourfullsims

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invisibleicewands · 4 years ago

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Staged's Anna Lundberg and Georgia Tennant: 'Scenes with all four of us usually involved alcohol'

Not many primetime TV hits are filmed by the show’s stars inside their own homes. However, 2020 wasn’t your average year. During the pandemic, productions were shut down and workarounds had to be found – otherwise the terrestrial schedules would have begun to look worryingly empty. Staged was the surprise comedy hit of the summer.

This playfully meta short-form sitcom, airing in snack-sized 15-minute episodes, found A-list actors Michael Sheen and David Tennant playing an exaggerated version of themselves, bickering and bantering as they tried to perfect a performance of Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author over Zoom.

Having bonded while co-starring in Good Omens, Amazon’s TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s novel, Sheen, 51, and Tennant, 49, became best buddies in real life. In Staged, though, they’re comedically reframed as frenemies – warm, matey and collaborative, but with a cut-throat competitiveness lurking just below the surface. As they grew ever more hirsute and slobbish in lockdown, their virtual relationship became increasingly fraught.

It was soapily addictive and hilariously thespy, while giving a voyeuristic glimpse of their interior decor and domestic lives – with all the action viewed through their webcams.

Yet it was the supporting cast who lifted Staged to greatness,Their director Simon Evans, forced to dance around the pair’s fragile egos and piggy-in-the-middle of their feuds. Steely producer Jo, played by Nina Sosanya, forever breaking off from calls to bellow at her poor, put-upon PA. And especially the leading men’s long-suffering partners, both actors in real life, Georgia Tennant and Anna Lundberg.

Georgia Tennant comes from showbiz stock, as the child of Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson. At 36 she is an experienced actor and producer, who made her TV debut in Peak Practice aged 15. She met David on Doctor Who 2008, when she played the Timelord’s cloned daughter Jenny. Meanwhile, the Swedish Lundberg, 26, is at the start of her career. She left drama school in New York two years ago and Staged is her first big on-screen role.

Married for nine years, the Tennants have five children and live in west London. The Lundberg-Sheens have been together two years, have a baby daughter, Lyra, and live outside Port Talbot in south Wales. On screen and in real life, the women have become firm friends and frequent scene-stealers.

Staged proved so successful that it’s now back for a second series. We set up a video call with Tennant and Lundberg to discuss lockdown life, wine consumption, home schooling (those two may be related) and the blurry line between fact and fiction…

Was doing Staged a big decision, because it’s so personal and set in your homes? Georgia Tennant: We’d always been a very private couple. Staged was everything we’d never normally say yes to. Suddenly, our entire house is on TV and so is a version of the relationship we’d always kept private. But that’s the way to do it, I guess. Go to the other extreme. Just rip off the Band-Aid.

Anna Lundberg: Michael decided pretty quickly that we weren’t going to move around the house at all. All you see is the fireplace in our kitchen.

GT: We have five children, so it was just about which room was available.

AL: But it’s not the real us. It’s not a documentary.

GT: Although some people think it is.

Which fictional parts of the show do people mistake for reality? GT: People think I’m really a novelist because “Georgia” writes a novel in Staged. They’ve asked where they can buy my book. I should probably just write one now because I’ve done the marketing already.

AL: People worry about our elderly neighbour, who gets hospitalised in the show. She doesn’t actually exist in real life but people have approached Michael in Tesco’s, asking if she’s OK.

Michael and David squabble about who’s billed first in Staged. Does that reflect real life? AL: With Good Omens, Michael’s name was first for the US market and David’s was first for the British market. So those scenes riffed on that.

Should we call you Georgia and Anna, or Anna and Georgia? GT: Either. We’re super-laidback about these things.

AL: Unlike certain people.

How well did you know each other before Staged? GT: We barely knew each other. We’ve now forged a friendship by working on the show together.

AL: We’d met once, for about 20 minutes. We were both pregnant at the time – we had babies a month apart – so that was pretty much all we talked about.

Did you tidy up before filming? AL: We just had to keep one corner relatively tidy.

GT: I’m quite a tidy person, but I didn’t want to be one of those annoying Instagram people with perfect lives. So strangely, I had to add a bit of mess… dot a few toys around in the background. I didn’t want to be one of those insufferable people – even though, inherently, I am one of those people.

Was there much photobombing by children or pets? AL: In the first series, Lyra was still at an age where we could put her in a baby bouncer. Now that’s not working at all. She’s just everywhere. Me and Michael don’t have many scenes together in series two, because one of us is usually Lyra-wrangling.

GT: Our children aren’t remotely interested. They’re so unimpressed by us. There’s one scene where Doris, our five-year-old, comes in to fetch her iPad. She doesn’t even bother to glance at what we’re doing.

How was lockdown for you both? AL: I feel bad saying it, but it was actually good for us. We were lucky enough to be in a big house with a garden. For the first time since we met, we were in one place. We could just focus on Lyra . To see her grow over six months was incredible. She helped us keep a steady routine, too.

GT: Ours was similar. We never spend huge chunks of time together, so it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. At least until David’s career goes to shit and he’s just sat at home. The flipside was the bleakness. Being in London, there were harrowing days when everything was silent but you’d just hear sirens going past, as a reminder that something awful was going on. So I veered between “This is wonderful” and “This is the worst thing that ever happened.”

And then there was home schooling… GT: Which was genuinely the worst thing that ever happened.

You’ve spent a lot of time on video calls, clearly. What are your top Zooming tips? GT: Raise your camera to eye level by balancing your laptop on a stack of books. And invest in a ring light.

AL: That’s why you look so much better. We just have our sad kitchen light overhead, which makes us look like one massive shiny forehead.

GT: Also, always have a good mug on the go [raises her cuppa to the camera and it’s a Michael Sheen mug]. Someone pranked David on the job he’s shooting at the moment by putting a Michael Sheen mug in his trailer. He brought it home and now I use it every morning. I’m magically drawn to drinking out of Michael.

There’s a running gag in series one about the copious empties in Michael’s recycling. Did you lean into lockdown boozing in real life? AL: Not really. We eased off when I was pregnant and after Lyra was born. We’d just have a glass of wine with dinner.

GT: Yes, definitely. I often reach for a glass of red in the show, which was basically just an excuse to continue drinking while we were filming: “I think my character would have wine and cake in this scene.” The time we started drinking would creep slightly earlier. “We’ve finished home schooling, it’s only 4pm, but hey…” We’ve scaled it back to just weekends now.

How did you go about creating your characters with the writer Simon Evans? AL: He based the dynamic between David and Michael on a podcast they did together. Our characters evolved as we went along.

GT: I was really kind and understanding in the first draft. I was like “I don’t want to play this, it’s no fun.” From the first few tweaks I made, Simon caught onto the vibe, took that and ran with it.

Did you struggle to keep a straight face at times? AL: Yes, especially the scenes with all four of us, when David and Michael start improvising.

GT: I was just drunk, so I have no recollection.

AL: Scenes with all four of us were normally filmed in the evening, because that’s when we could be child-free. Usually there was alcohol involved, which is a lot more fun.

GT: There’s a long scene in series two where we’re having a drink. During each take, we had to finish the glass. By the end, we were all properly gone. I was rewatching it yesterday and I was so pissed.

What else can you tell us about series two? GT: Everyone’s in limbo. Just as we think things are getting back to normal, we have to take three steps back again. Everyone’s dealing with that differently, shall we say.

AL: In series one, we were all in the same situation. By series two, we’re at different stages and in different emotional places.

GT: Hollywood comes calling, but things are never as simple as they seem.

There were some surprise big-name cameos in series one, with Samuel L Jackson and Dame Judi Dench suddenly Zooming in. Who can we expect this time around? AL: We can’t name names, but they’re very exciting.

GT: Because series one did so well, and there’s such goodwill towards the show, we’ve managed to get some extraordinary people involved. This show came from playing around just to pass the time in lockdown. It felt like a GCSE end-of-term project. So suddenly, when someone says: “Samuel L Jackson’s in”, it’s like: “What the fuck’s just happened?”

AL: It took things to the next level, which was a bit scary.

GT: It suddenly felt like: “Some people might actually watch this.”

How are David and Michael’s hair and beard situations this time? AL: We were in a toyshop the other day and Lyra walked up to these Harry Potter figurines, pointed at Hagrid and said: “Daddy!” So that explains where we’re at. After eight months of lockdown, it was quite full-on.

GT: David had a bob at one point. Turns out he’s got annoyingly excellent hair. Quite jealous. He’s also grown a slightly unpleasant moustache.

Is David still wearing his stinky hoodie? GT: I bought him that as a gift. It’s actually Paul Smith loungewear. In lockdown, he was living in it. It’s pretty classy, but he does manage to make it look quite shit.

#Michael Sheen #David Tennant #Staged #Staged 2 #Georgia Tennant #The tidy corner #we noticed it #Staged2 #SwedishFishAL

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago

Text

Good Omens - Dodge and Parry (Rated NC17)

Summary: Crowley discovers that he is rather enamored of his angel's bruises ... especially the ones that go farther than skin deep. (2006 words)

Notes: I wrote this for Kinktober 2020, the prompt 'bruises'. So I was going to write a piece about bruise worship, which this sort of is, but it went much deeper. I will try to come up with something kinkier and more fun another time XD

Read on AO3.

“How does that feel, angel?” Crowley asks, soaking his washcloth completely, then wringing it out over Aziraphale’s scalp. “Too hot? Too cold?”

“Neither.” Aziraphale hums happily with eyes shut. “It’s perfect. Sublime, I should say. Like soaking in a nice, warm cup of tea.”

“We’ve added enough dried flowers and wot not that you could just be,” Crowley comments, swiping a hand through the water, swatting at a cluster of rose petals, lavender, sweet jasmine, and chamomile.

“Hmm. Then you could drink me,” Aziraphale says, sinking deeper into the steaming water.

“Ngk … I … I could …” Crowley stumbles, but he recovers, a triumph since that remark from his angel almost had him choking on his tongue. “But let’s save the sweet stuff for later, eh? We’ve gotta get you fixed up.”

“Yes … let’s. Then … I can do you …” Aziraphale mumbles, drifting off, his cheeks rosy from the warmth and the company. Crowley soaps up his cloth and runs it over Aziraphale’s arm, sliding past a mark that has blossomed considerably since he last saw it. He runs the cloth over it again and it seems to darken, the cream-colored suds rinsing into cloudy water and revealing a plethora of purples swirled together, related to one another by hues, tiny freckles sprouting along the fringe like shy violets.

A galaxy of them really.

Crowley isn’t normally fond of scars and bruises, especially on his angel. Aziraphale bears many types of blacks and blues, with varied stories behind them. Older scars on Aziraphale’s corporation - ones following mortal paths and having faded to silver - come by way of other angels who delight in his suffering. Crowley has seen every one of those, categorized their existence, set their placements to memory. A touch of his fingertips tells him when they were created … and by whom.

Crowley has gathered a list of enemies on his angel’s behalf, and that list is long.

Very long.

Not all of angel’s bruises are visible to the naked, mortal eye, but they’ve dimmed his aura considerably.

Crowley never thought the humans’ quarantine would get to Aziraphale. Being locked inside, forbidden to go out and socialize, leaving him heaps of time to read his books, seemed like a dream come true. With no one coming into his shop to browse, there was nothing keeping him from doing his crossword puzzles till his heart’s content. And it seemed that way for the first few months.

But it didn’t stay that way.

More and more, Crowley would catch his angel sitting in a chair by the window, staring up at the sky, sighing deeply as if for a long lost love, which seemed utterly preposterous to Crowley since every book Aziraphale could ever want lay in a stack beside him. Aside from that, he had his music. And cake! Why, they’d been baking cake every single day! So much cake, in fact, that any poor soul who so much as poked their head out of their door received a cardboard baker’s box packed to bursting with confections, passed along at a socially safe distance courtesy of a long, wooden shepherd’s crook.

And thanks to a wonderful service with a mildly vulgar name, whenever Aziraphale so desired, a delivery person dropped by with a box of his favorite sushi, which Crowley generously tipped for.

But Aziraphale still wasn’t happy. And he was becoming less happy by the day.

Something had changed.

He mentioned several times to Crowley that he felt hemmed in; that lately, being locked inside made it difficult for him to breathe. He longed to walk through the park, soak in the sunshine (when it made itself available), and feed the ducks again.

Crowley didn’t understand it. Aziraphale despised exercise to such a degree that if he sat at Crowley’s kitchen table, preparing to sup, and discovered that he’d left the butter in the fridge, he’d rather do without then to get up and fetch it.

It wasn’t until days later, when Crowley found a stack of newspaper clippings hiding underneath Aziraphale’s ledger, that he began to catch on:

Covid cases increase rapidly as next steps planned

'Tier Three' Covid restrictions in announcement on Monday

More than 80% of positive UK cases in study had no core symptoms

It wasn’t the toll quarantine was taking on Aziraphale. It was the toll this disease that caused the need for a quarantine was taking on the humans he was so fond of. That time spent staring at the sky, Aziraphale spent praying, wondering why the Almighty would let this continue, let so many of Her beloveds die and for what?

From the expression on his angel’s face after, Crowley assumed he got no answers.

It was like the Ark all over again, only without the refreshing rain, and with no rainbow in sight.

Determined to take his mind off of it, Crowley arranged a private movie marathon for his angel at his flat. They sat on his sofa with homemade snacks and watched some old Errol Flynn movies. And it worked! After a while, Crowley started watching Aziraphale more than the film, his angel that much more entertaining. Aziraphale had started the way he watched every movie - sitting primly upright, hands folded in his lap, eyes glued to the screen. But over time, he’d started to inch forward, lean in, muscles twitching to recreate the fight scenes - the swipes of a sword, the parries, his feet shuffling enthusiastically in place to mimic the steps of the actors’ retreats like they were performing a gavotte.

Encouraged that this was a way to break through Aziraphale’s melancholy, Crowley recommended they dig out the old fencing foils and have at it, sans protective gear in honor of old Errol. Besides, they didn’t need it.

“Oh! No, no, no!” Aziraphale argued at first, even with a smile on his lips. “I couldn’t! It’s been so long!”

“Nonsense!” Crowley retorted, heading for his closet. “You were an expert swordsman centuries ago. I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully now. It’s like riding a bicycle.”

“And how’s that, dear?”

“Once you fall off, you get right back on.” Crowley tossed Aziraphale a foil, which he caught without looking, and Crowley smirked knowingly.

Crowley didn’t give Aziraphale a chance to back out, didn’t salute him like at the beginning of an official duel. Crowley came at him like a buccaneer, crowing and catching Aziraphale off-guard. But Aziraphale fought back. He wasn’t upset by Crowley’s abrupt start. On the contrary. He laughed at Crowley’s antics, especially when he tried to evade by climbing over the sofa, and then onto an end table. His joy was infectious. It rang through Crowley’s flat, made the plants (which had initially recoiled at the sound of clashing metal) stand straighter, wave their leaves and cheer. It rose up inside Crowley as if the joy were his own, making him laugh, too.

Laugh till he snorted, which he hadn’t done in a long time.

But it didn’t last as long as Crowley had hoped.

Aziraphale got lost somewhere in the fight, lost in thinking, his mind drifting in all directions while he dodged and parried by rote. His face grew tense, his expression morphing from concentration to anger … to vengeance. He went after Crowley with clouded eyes, as if everything pent up inside him - the sadness and the anxiety - had found a weak spot in Aziraphale’s armor.

And now, it was starting to break through.

Crowley didn’t know who Aziraphale saw when he looked at him. Those world leaders who didn’t take this pandemic seriously, who didn’t act quick enough, who were greedy.

Beelzebub and the Dukes of Hell, whom Aziraphale credited for the speed in which this disease took hold, and the blind, stubborn stupidity of those who refused to do their part to stop it.

Gabriel, who has long since laughed off any correspondence Aziraphale has sent him regarding the matter, rejecting the last dozen with a very snarky ‘Return to sender!’ emblazoned in gold across the envelope.

Or the Almighty, who has the power to stop this but who has refused, and doesn’t have the decency to tell him why.

Or maybe he simply saw Crowley, who treated the whole thing like a joke, not only taking a nap for the first few months but then extending it, leaving Aziraphale alone when he might have needed him most.

Aziraphale attacked, closing in on Crowley fast, fighting with more fist than blade, and Crowley defended.

They struck one another at the same time - Aziraphale bringing his wrist down on the bridge of Crowley’s nose, Crowley’s guard-covered fist coming up to block and accidentally clocking Aziraphale on the jaw.

Both stumbled back, seeing stars.

Had they been human, Crowley’s nose would have broken, and Aziraphale’s jaw would have shattered. As was, Crowley’s nose ended up a bit crooked till a minute ago when Aziraphale snapped his fingers and set it straight. Aziraphale’s jaw still sported an indigo bruise reminiscent of a mum.

“Oh … oh my dear boy! I am so sorry!” Aziraphale apologized profusely when he saw Crowley’s nose, blood pooling underneath.

“Wot?” Crowley sniffed, wiping his Cupid’s bow with the back of his hand, examining the stain left behind with swimming eyes. “Oh, this? It’s nothing. Barely a scratch. Think nothing of it.”

“But … but …” Aziraphale stuttered, on the verge of tears. He dropped his sword, almost dropped to his knees, too, but Crowley hurried forward and gathered him up, wrapped him in his arms and held him.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, hugging Aziraphale tight. “It’s going to be all right, angel.”

“Do you … do you really think so?”

“Yes,” Crowley said with a sigh. Whether he did or not didn’t actually matter. But no one, angel or human, was going to get through today and on to the next if they didn’t believe it was at least possible. Crowley had to hold Aziraphale together, even if he did it with lies. He had to keep the one angel left on earth who still cared going. “I do.”

That’s when Aziraphale’s tears began to fall.

Crowley held him.

An hour went by, and Crowley held him.

Crowley declared Aziraphale the winner, and as a reward, offered to give him a bath and miracle him healed.

But when he got his angel naked and saw the bruises glowing on his skin, he hesitated. He shouldn’t be attracted to them. He shouldn’t find them appealing. On top of being physical damage to Aziraphale’s skin, some of them were bred out of despair. They should have repulsed Crowley, but they were actually glorious, like a small corner of impressionist art brought to life and tattooed on his skin.

Because not all of these new bruises, exploding with vibrant color and depth, were bad. They happened when Aziraphale was still smiling, still laughing. When his leg banged the corner of a table during a particularly rowdy retreat. When he tried to follow Crowley vaulting over the back of the sofa, misstepped, and landed on his knee. When their foils tangled together and Crowley accidentally kicked Aziraphale in the thigh in his effort to separate them. Aziraphale had watched Crowley fly backward, land on his heel, and spin three times like a ballerina, stopping in a perfect arabesque, just to then trip over air and land in a chair. Aziraphale threw his head back and laughed so hard, he walked right into Crowley’s (blunted) sword, the flat tip leaving its circular shadow behind.

Those bruises …

Those are bruises of pleasure.

They run deeper than skin.

And Crowley is quite satisfied by that.

Crowley almost regrets his promise to rid Aziraphale of them.

But being the one who gets to heal Aziraphale is an honor all its own.

However, he realizes with a grin, there is a way to get them back.

He’ll memorize these, too. Their exact locations.

And freshen them up later with his mouth.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #kinktober 2020 #ineffable lovers #crowley x aziraphale #aziraphale x crowley #aziraphale #Crowley

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taehyung-rambles · 4 years ago

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Who Was the Center for the Most Successful BTS B-Sides? (Up To BTS, the Best)

So, I’m finally deciding to make this post after posting about who I thought were the centers in each BTS era. This post is going to be a little stranger because there aren’t as many materials I can use to make my decisions. As such, a lot of my conclusions are going to be based on how I, personally, perceive these songs.

To start off with, I’m going to explain how I’m using the term “B-side” in this post. I’ve seen some sources say B-sides are bonus tracks, songs recorded at the same time as an album but released later, and the “less important side of a record” (this last one refers to cassette tapes and vinyl). For the purposes of this post, B-sides are any songs that do not come with a music video attached.

Don’t Leave Me, Heartbeat, and Crystal Snow are referred to as singles, so they aren’t strictly B-sides. However, I’m including them in this post because they’ve been promoted in a manner that is more similar to BTS’s B-sides than the title tracks. Heartbeat does have an MV, yes, but the footage used was of live performances--none of which included live performances of Heartbeat itself--and footage that was filmed for BTS World, not Heartbeat specifically. Essentially, I’m including these three songs because they seem more like B-sides than singles. Don’t Leave Me was never performed live and was probably only indicated as a single because it was the soundtrack for Signal. Crystal Snow is listed as a single in conjunction with MIC Drop and DNA (it’s listed like MIC Drop/DNA/Crystal Snow), so at the very least, it doesn’t seem like a solo single. Finally, the BTS World soundtrack album lists each song a member of BTS is in as a single. In the first place, that makes Heartbeat being a single a bit redundant, and secondly, it’s only a single for BTS World--not a BTS studio album or EP.

I know We are Bulletproof: the Eternal has an MV, but it’s animated--which is cool, but it isn’t an MV BTS personally filmed for, and it isn’t considered a BTS era. Also, Map of the Soul: 7 doesn’t even list it as a single in the way Don’t Leave Me or Heartbeat were listed. So, it’s in the B-side post.

The second thing I’m going to mention is that BTS have not performed all of these songs live, so the photos I’m using for them are going to end up coming from random live performances. For instance, I used part of the We are Bulletproof: the Eternal performance for Louder than bombs because they came from the same album and both read as somber songs.

Finally, the way I decided on the centers for these songs was as follows: if the song had choreo, I considered that in addition to the vocal; if the song did not have choreo, I essentially had to go off of the vocal presence within the song. That doesn’t mean the member with the most airtime is always going to have the center position, but it will be the case most of the time. There will be some instances, though, where a certain member had airtime somewhere in the middle of the pack, but the parts they were given were key to how the song was perceived, so they came off feeling like a center; an example of this would be ending two of the choruses or a vocal line member having a part in the verses when other vocal line members only sang on the choruses and pre-choruses.

The last thing I want to mention with this is that the live performances dictated most of my decisions. There are plenty of BTS songs that are recorded one way, but the live performance switches up the parts the members sing. An example of this would be Hobi singing Namjoon’s opening in Spring Day because Hobi had no parts to sing or rap in the studio version. The live performance is how BTS uses the song the most, obviously, so if one member is a lot more prominent in the live version than the studio version, the live version is more important to my perceptions as BTS clearly wanted to show that member to fans more for a certain song. This doesn’t happen a whole lot, but there definitely are songs in which one member is invisible the studio version but then is central to the live performance.

I did not go through every single B-side that exists within BTS’s discography because that would take absolutely forever. I am talking about a good chunk, though, because I’ve decided to talk about songs that are either really popular with ARMY, really popular with BTS, or both. I’m also only using OT7 songs, not the subunit songs. I may do a post on those later.

The post I did in this format with the BTS eras included an MV center. Obviously, that’s not going to happen with this post, so we’re just gonna use “Center”, “Co-Centers”, “Secondary Center(s)”, and “No Center” as the labels.

DISCLAIMER: I know my conclusions are weird some of the time, but it’s just how I view the performances of these songs, which is what I mainly used to decide (unless there isn’t a live performance to look at). The fun of this is seeing the different opinions of ARMY, so tell me if you think the center for a song is different than what I think.

DISCLAIMER #2: This is not who owned every BTS B-side. That post will, most definitely come later, but this post is strictly me trying to see who was the objective center for each B-side. Trust me, a lot of my opinions would be very different if I was talking about the top 3 members for each B-side. For instance, there’s plenty of songs where I thing a rap line member had the best part, so they would own the era for me; however, objectively speaking, they aren’t actually in the song enough to center for it.

I don’t know how this song was perceived when it first came out, but it has definitely become a staple to both BTS and ARMY. Any time BTS decide to perform older songs--and I mean old songs--I Like It is usually one of them. They’ve done performances of it since it came out, and are still doing it now, in the 2020s. Of course, that’s because it’s a lovely song with pretty melodies that ARMY loves.

Center: Jungkook

I kind of knew who I was gonna pick for this before I reviewed a couple live performances of this song. Actually, though I still agree that Jungkook is the center for this song, it wasn’t as clear in the live performances as it is in the studio recording. That’s mostly down to the choreography, though, because Jungkook’s voice absolutely runs throughout this entire song. Even if you’ve got Jimin in the center and Jungkook on the side during the choreo, Jungkook’s singing adlibs and harmonizing and all these wonderful things that push him to the forefront of people’s attention. He does center in the choreo the most, too, of course, but I Like It doesn’t have super powerful choreography, so that didn’t make as much of a difference.

Secondary Center: Jin

I gotta tell you, with how much Jin was pushed off at the beginning of BTS’s career, I didn’t think I’d find Jin in a central position for a song that came off of their first album. Jin being on every chorus is really what solidified this for me. Jimin is on every chorus, too, but for whatever reason, he doesn’t stick out as much. When Jin comes to center stage, he really feels like he’s carrying the performance. It may be an obvious thing to say, but Jin comes off like he’s the center for BTS when he’s up front in I Like It. It’s just that Jungkook literally envelops the entirety of the song. Jin is a really strong support, though.

So, Attack On Bangtan is weird because the studio version is such an amalgamation of the members that you can’t really separate who is who on the chorus except for one specific person that we’ll talk about in a second. The reason I’ve included it in this list is because it’s gotta one of BTS’s best power songs. If you think of songs like Not Today or ON that scream intensity, Attack on Bangtan is definitely one of those. Aside from the fact that it’s an ARMY favorite, I think it’s such a strong introduction to BTS and what they can do with their music, so it can’t be easily forgotten.

Center: Namjoon

Like, if I’m being honest, this song doesn’t have much of a center. However, if you’re looking at the studio, it’s almost like Namjoon is the only one there. I mean, the rap line and Jungkook have prominent parts, obviously, because the rap verses are central to this song. Both Jimin and Jungkook are actually noticeable on the chorus, despite what I said above, but in reality, everything in between is Namjoon. Namjoon’s got the supporting pieces of the song for the entirety of it. All those short phrases and background pieces are done by Namjoon, so it reads like a Namjoon song; it sounds like a Namjoon song. If you watch the live performance of Attack On Bangtan--the performances with the choreo, especially--Namjoon seems like he’s leading this troupe of guys on stage. I’ve said this somewhere before, I think about No More Dream, but Attack On Bangtan is another one of those songs that says, “Hello, I’m Kim Namjoon, and I’m going to introduce you to BTS.” It’s a unique flavor of BTS that doesn’t exist anymore, so going back to this older stuff is really interesting. Still, though Namjoon is a definite center, he’s not a super-standout-ish one. Mostly because this song is absolute chaos.

I wasn’t originally gonna do this B-side because I didn’t think it had that much support as an individual song, but rather as a piece of BTS’s older stuff. However, I think this song is banger, and BTS have performed it as recently as 2019, so it’s going in the list.

Co-Centers: Yoongi, Hobi, & Namjoon

This is true rap line dominated song. Namjoon completely dominates the chorus and the end of the song, and Hobi and Yoongi are almost the only other members that stick out the rest of the time. Watching this live, it feels like the rap line is trading places with each other at the center of the song, and the effect is really cool. I will say Yoongi isn’t as prominent as Hobi and Namjoon are, but he still stands out more than the secondary center I’ll talk about in a second. I really don’t think there’s another B-side this banger that so heavily leans on the rap line. There’s eras of BTS’s music that do (like MIC Drop and Not Today), but the B-sides don’t usually. Maybe that’s why I love this song so much.

Secondary Center: Jimin

I’ll concede that Jimin doesn’t actually have a lot to do with this song, but because he’s got such an effective hook during the chorus, he does seem like one of the central members. Jimin does have pretty central moments in the choreo, as well. Not just during his parts, but his character--if you want to call it that--that he portrays on stage is central, as well. Also, he’s got that one part where the backup dancers make him fly across the stage. So, Jimin was hard to miss.

I’m not the biggest fan of Tomorrow, and I don’t know why, because it’s insanely popular within ARMY. The story behind the song is one thing because I find it extremely interesting and meaningful, but the sound of Tomorrow isn’t my thing. In any case, I think it’s pretty clear why I’ve decided to talk about it. The breakdown of Tomorrow is pretty predictable, and it follows what BTS’s centers are probably “supposed” to be (if BTS was like a standard K-pop group), but let’s talk about it anyway.

Center: Jungkook

As I don’t like this song, I can’t say for certain, but if ARMY are talking about Tomorrow, they’re talking about Jungkook, right? He’s got such a strong presence in both the choreo and the vocal, plus the style of both fit him really well. I don’t know if it’s the body rolls people love or the fact that this genre does amazing things for Jungkook’s voice or both, but the stage for Tomorrow 100% intended for Jungkook to be at its center.

Secondary Center: Jimin

This is what I meant by this breakdown being how it’s “supposed” to be. With Jungkook being the main vocalist, it makes sense for him to center. So, if Jimin’s the lead vocalist, then he should co-center. Obviously, BTS are amazing at letting each individual member have a chance to center plenty of times, but Tomorrow was pretty straightforward. Jimin is just, quite obviously, on stage as a support to Jungkook. He isn’t exactly as standout--which is why he’s a secondary center--but Jimin is, without a doubt, a face of Tomorrow.

Y’all, this song was so hard to decide on because the face of this song basically has no parts in the studio version. However, when I think of Spine Breaker, I think of one member first and foremost. I kind of had to call this one based on that and the choreo alone because the member that feels like the center made the choreo for it--you see where I’m going with this, right? As an aside, I know this has an MV that BTS filmed for this song specifically, but no one talks about a Spine Breaker era because they made the MV years later. So, it’s a B-side. Anyway, this song is an absolutely iconic part of BTS’s discography, and BTS and ARMY both love it to bits. Let’s talk about centers.

Center: Jin

If you listen to the song, without watching the live, you can’t justify Jin as the center of Spine Breaker. The thing is, though, he’s made this song his bitch just by being the legend he is. Jin made it his business to own this song despite not having many parts in the original version. I don’t think Spine Breaker is a crackhead song on its own, but if you combine it with the live performance of it, as well as the MV and the choreo, it is absolutely a crackhead song. It only ended up like that because of Kim Seokjin, so how can he not be the center?

Secondary Center: Taehyung

That being said, I do have to pay tribute to who I believe is the vocal center of Spine Breaker. I fully understand that the rap verses are fire, but the essence of Spine Breaker is in the chorus, and that’s Taehyung’s territory. Jungkook bridges the space between Taehyung’s lines in the chorus, but that deep, rich, full voice Taehyung has in Spine Breaker is what gives it its iconic sound. Honestly, for how much Taehyung’s unique vocal tone contributes to the sound of Spine Breaker, he should probably be a co-center, but Seokjin’s presence is too strong. Still, this is close to being a Taehyung song.

This is another B-side that I’m unsure of how it was received when it came out, but it’s iconic as of the 2020s, and I don’t think that’s gonna change. From what I’ve seen circulate about the song, I kind of think it’s only as iconic as it is because of a specific member, but I think it would’ve been popular regardless because it’s an amazing song with a great beat. I just think the reason it became mainstream was because of a certain person. I can say for sure that the reason this song is iconic to BTS is because of one person, but we’ll talk.

No Center

Does that surprise you after I blabbed about Taehyung for a whole paragraph? Here’s the thing: Taehyung made this song a meme because of how he delivers his verse and how badass it is. However, if you watch an entire performance of JUMP, Taehyung doesn’t ultimately stick out more than any other member. Now, I will say that Taehyung having such a long part is really rare for a vocal line member. Legit, the only thing I can liken it to is Jungkook’s bridge in ON. Maybe it’s not that dramatic, but still. Like, Taehyung is 100% the face of JUMP, but it just isn’t as prominent as Jin in Spine Breaker. All the members seemed to appear equally overall (even though Taehyung just appeared once, but for a long time), so JUMP has no center.

This B-side has got to be in the top 10 list of “BTS Songs That Could’ve Been A Single” because it’s that good. I feel like it represents the boys really well and acts as a song that says “fun” without saying “we’re all still babies.” Basically, it feels like the professional--or grown-up--version of songs like Paldogangsan and JUMP. I think there’s a good bit of love ARMY pays to this song for different reasons, so let’s talk about it a little more in detail.

No Center

It depends where you are in the song, honestly. And if there’s a different member that feels like the center at different times, then there is no center. Like, in the beginning, Boyz With Fun definitely feels like it’s being led by the rap line, but then Jimin gets this really slow, long pre-chorus, and Jungkook gets the chorus. But then, you look at the choreo and the middle of the song, and Taehyung’s all over the place. He’s got that kind-of-rap-verse, the bit where he talks and Hobi tells him to stop, and he’s got a super central part in the choreo at the end where the boys watch him do a move and then copy it. So, I think Boyz With Fun did what it should’ve done, which is highlight everybody’s charms.

I think the center for this song is so obvious I don’t even need to rewatch a performance of it to talk about it. I don’t know that this song is insanely popular with ARMY; I think it’s a song ARMY is fond of, but I don’t think it’s got I Like It status yet. I put it on the list because the old RUN BTS and Bon Voyage episodes played this song, like, all the time. That’s why I ended up liking it because I didn’t initially. Because of that, Converse High reads like that BTS B-side that’s promoted almost as much as the title track of the time. Other examples of this would be Mikrokosmos or Dionysus.

Center: Jungkook

It’s really just because Jungkook’s voice is everywhere in Converse High that he’s got to be the center. Airtime usually predicts how often a member will be in the center of the choreo, and Converse High is no different. I imagine Jungkook’s voice just sounded the best to BigHit since this genre is where a clean vocal will shine, but maybe they used Jungkook to juxtapose the meaning of Converse High. Sort of like “oh, doesn’t this song sound like a cute love song?” but it’s actually about what they want their girlfriend’s to wear, you know? I know there’s a lot of theories behind this song, including sexual ones or “fuck this shiny K-pop shit” ones or whatever, but still. Something to think about. Anyway, that was a tangent, and Jungkook is the center for Converse High.

Moving On is such a beautiful song, but up until Sowoozoo, I didn’t think it was considered one of BTS’s most popular B-sides. The fact that the boys performed it at Sowoozoo in 2021, though, made me think it meant a lot to them. I know it tells a piece of their history as young artists, but I hadn’t seen any performances of it past 2015, so the fact that they performed it in 2021 was really awesome.

No Center

This is a song that’s kind of like Life Goes On or Permission to Dance. Those songs were messages to ARMY that didn’t have the need to pick out one member or another to be the face of it, and Moving On is a message to the younger versions of BTS; every member has an equal opportunity to send that message, and that’s what makes the message all the more special.

Butterfly was used as a song to promote The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 2, so clearly, it was deemed pretty important among BTS’s discography. Also, ARMY loves it. There’s always at least one B-side per album that is used like a title track in every other way but by having an MV. Butterfly is definitely one of those.

Co-Centers: Jimin, Taehyung, & Jungkook

I sort of feel like Taehyung could’ve been down as a secondary center, but he also feels like he fills the song more in the end where Jungkook fills it in the beginning and Jimin fills the middle and the end, so putting all three down seemed like the best option. There’s not really a reason to explain this beyond that it makes sense that these three are the most standout since they have the most parts. The maknae line really support this song with their various vocal tones since all three blend into the melody of Butterfly in a unique way.

Of the B-sides that came out around this time, Whalien 52 is probably the least sensationalized, besides Moving On. I was conflicted about putting this one down, but I still feel like it’s reasonably popular among ARMY, and I kind of associate it with Butterfly, for whatever reason, so I had to include it.

Co-Centers: Namjoon & Jungkook

The best way to explain Whalien 52 is that you’ve got Namjoon leading the rap line and Jungkook leading the vocal line. Both of them are very present within the song, so it comes off almost like the other members are featured artists. That’s not really a bad thing for Whalien 52, though, since the story is told really well through Jungkook and Namjoon. The rest of the members offer great things to the tone of this song, but if we’re talking centers, Jungkook and Namjoon feel like they’re taking the lead.

Personally, I don’t think Ma City is one of my favorite B-sides, but from what I’ve seen in various videos across the internet, this song is comparable to Dionysus. That’s not something I necessarily agree with, but if it means enough to BTS to perform all the way up to 2019, and if ARMY love it, then I’ve got to talk about it. Ma City isn’t easy to choose a center for, because there definitely is one, but it depends on if you’re talking about the studio version or the live version. As I said already, I’ll be going with the live for the purposes of this post, so bear with me for this weird decision.

Co-Centers: Namjoon, Jimin, & Taehyung

Originally, Taehyung wasn’t a part of this line-up, and Jimin was a secondary center, but watching the live performance is what made me go with this. Taehyung doesn’t always sing the chorus in the live performances since it’s really hard to maintain a growl like he does in Ma City, but the fact that the chorus is his part is pretty significant. For Jimin, his part on the pre-chorus is, more or less, the most standout-ish part of Ma City. At least, for me. Maybe it’s the way Jimin does it, maybe it’s the melody, I don’t know. Namjoon, though, supports the song completely. He’s the absolute bones of Ma City, and that really comes through in the studio version. Each of these three contribute a lot to the sound of Ma City, so we’re looking at three co-centers.

BAEPSAE is a stronger song than so many other BTS songs, including the singles, and you can take that to the bank. Do I think it cracks the top 10? No. But I do think BAEPSAE is as good as nearly every other big BTS song. Of course, this is one that ARMY also thinks is amazing, and I’d say BTS do, too considering the fun they have with it on stage. If I ever decide to make a post about my favorite B-sides, BAEPSAE will be on it.

No Center

I don’t think I can justify a center for BAEPSAE because it’s almost like the song itself overtakes everything else. Like, yeah Jungkook’s rap verse is one of the best he’s ever done, yeah the rap line kill it, but BAEPSAE is also just that good, you know? Not that it doesn’t matter who’s singing it, but it makes the members shine rather than a singular member making it a wow song.

I’m more or less putting Wishing on a Star on here because I assume it’s a song the boys love. There’s a good handful of Japanese songs BTS hasn’t performed live or have only done so a few times; Wishing on a Star is one that keeps reappearing at Musters, so I figure I’d add it on here, despite it not being my favorite song in the world.

No Center

The reasoning for this is, more or less, because the vocal line (who are the predominant members in this song) all felt fairly represented in the line distribution. A lot of the time, you’ll get a B-side that’s really supported by one member or another while the remaining members fill in the gaps, but Wishing on a Star is feels evenly divided, so each member only stands out when their part comes up. There’s also no choreography, so that nixes that part of the equation. This is the case for some future B-sides, too, but Wishing on a Star only has a center so far as an ARMY feels like one member sticks out more than the rest to them.

I really didn’t like this song when I first heard it because I thought the composition of it was too confused and strange, but now that’s a reason that I love it. It’s one of those iconic BTS B-sides, which may have to do with the dance practice or the message of it or both, but I don’t feel like it’s talked about much anymore. I’m bringing attention back to it here because the centers for this song are so weird considering a pairing like this hasn’t ever happened in BTS’s discography before or since. Well, maybe with one exception.

Co-Centers: Yoongi & Taehyung

I know that everyone calls this a Yoongi song, but to me, it really feels like Taehyung and Yoongi were meant to be partners for this song. The only other song I could liken it to is FIRE because these two are the most prominent in that era, but in 21st Century Girls, it’s like they’re side by side the whole time, while FIRE felt like they were independently central. Both Taehyung and Yoongi have central pieces in other places besides the chorus, but of course, the chorus is the main reason they come off as centers. The vocal and the choreo support it, and I think it’s really fun to have a song with Taegi at the center. I think Yoongi and Taehyung are very similar in their approach to music, so it’s cool to have them partnered in a song. I’m still waiting for a Taegi subunit, though.

This is, I believe, BTS’s first song intended as a message for ARMY, and because of that, it’s become very special to the fanbase. I don’t believe they’ve performed this recently, and I don’t believe they performed it a whole bunch to begin with, but it’s still such a special song that provides a harsh and hopeful view into these boys’ lives. I adore it for that reason, and so does the rest of ARMY.

No Center

This was probably an obvious answer, but like Moving On, 2! 3! doesn’t want to have a center because it’s supposed to a message that the members of BTS are telling ARMY in equal measure. What it did was allow each member to speak at the forefront of the song, rather than having a member at the center of it all. That’s what this song needed, and that’s why it’s so special.

This is another song that I didn’t really like that much because I’m not a fan of straight EDM songs, but I came to find it catchy and--weirdly enough--powerful. I’ve seen a lot of people say that Wings is an underrated song, but I feel like the love it gets from BTS and ARMY plants it firmly in the “iconic BTS B-sides” category. It’s certainly become a fan favorite, as is evidenced by BTS’s usage of it on the Speak Yourself tour and return to it in 2021.

No Center

I will say that Jungkook did feel like center for this B-side initially, but the way the boys perform it live makes it clear that a.) there’s a equal part for everyone and b.) the song is mostly about the beat, not the vocals. It’s a dance track, so it’d be hard to have a vocal stand out when the point of the song is to jam to melody of the music. Jungkook’s voice does sound the most fitting for this type of song, but Wings isn’t dominated by one member or another.

I don’t actually think this song is super popular among ARMY; I think the message of the song has been talked about a lot, but song itself isn’t circulated that much. That being said, I’m gonna talk about it because it was clearly meant as a song for ARMY, much like 2! 3! Since it’s got that kind of meaning attached to it for BTS, it should have that meaning among ARMY.

No Center

There’s a lot of “No Center” B-sides coming around now. I feel like I’m gonna repeat myself by explaining why there’s no center, so I won’t mention it again here. Especially since I’ll probably mention it again later. I will say that Yoongi and Hobi almost felt like centers because their verses stand out the most, but the fact of the matter is, the back half of the song is almost entirely the vocal line. Within the vocal line, Taehyung feels like he has a significant part, but it’s just in the last half. Basically, no center was the only conclusion I could come to.

I don’t think it’s a secret or a stretch to say that Best Of Me is a pretty basic song. However, that being said, it’s one of the handful of BTS B-sides that could’ve been a single. I mean, for BTS, it couldn’t have been, but for pop music in general, Best Of Me is the exact kind of thing that would be played over and over again on the radio. That would probably be why it was a song chosen for their comeback show--or it could be because of Andrew Taggart. Who knows?

Co-Centers: Jimin & Jungkook

Okay, this deduction is true, but like, barely. Genuinely, in the live performance, it doesn’t seem too much like Jikook are the centers; it’s mostly the vocal that makes me see it that way. Once you get past the first chorus, there’s a lot of Jikook in the vocal, and that does mean there’s a lot of Jikook in the choreo, but since Best Of Me has a lot to do with the beat--rather than the vocal--it still doesn’t feel like it has a secure center. I will admit, though, that Jikook do have a stronger presence in the song than the other members, choreo included. They’re almost like the silent centers of Best Of Me.

In the echelon of BTS B-sides, Pied Piper has got sit in the top 10, at the very least, along with the next B-side we’re gonna look at. ARMY absolutely love this song, and it’s become a mainstay in everyone’s favorite BTS songs list. Whether it’s the lyrics, the smoky sound, the way members perform it, or all of the above, Pied Piper is absolutely one of the best songs BTS has produced in their career. Iconic almost seems too small a word for it. It’s definitely gonna be a classic one day.

Co-Centers: Jimin & Jungkook

Yeah, the Jikook center in Pied Piper is just a skosh stronger than it was in Best Of Me. If you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic, because it’s really obvious that those two were meant to center this song. I’m almost 100% sure it’s because of their vocals, but it could also be because they were thinking about which members would project the tone of this song the best, and Jimin and Jungkook were the answer. You know, since they are the lead vocalist/dancer and center, respectively. I really do think it was because their voices matched the tone the nicest, though. I’ll keep my opinions reserved about who I, personally, like to hear in this song the most, but it’s no secret that songs that play on head voice and falsetto are always going to fall to Jungkook and Jimin because they’re the most developed members in those registers. Even if Jin and Taehyung have the potential to sound more interesting, at times. Jimin and Jungkook’s voices just fit Pied Piper, no doubt about it, so of course they were going to vocally center the song.

Here’s another one in the same class as Pied Piper, and honestly, Go Go is definitely treated as the more iconic BTS B-side. I mean, the sound of Go Go practically makes it a given that it’s going to be iconic, so I suppose there’s no surprise there. This is another BTS B-side that I didn’t really like when I was just casually listening to BTS’s music, but the deeper I got, the more I realized that Go Go is an example of how high-quality BTS can get with their music. Especially since Go Go doesn’t read like a standard pop song. I think Pied Piper, Go Go, and a handful of other B-sides are clear testaments to how incredibly talented and unprecedented BTS are as a group.

No Center

This was kind of a tough call to make, but the end of the day, no member feels like a true center for Go Go. Maybe it’s because the whole song is unique, so no matter who you’re focusing on, it all seems special. Jimin and Jungkook appear the most in the vocal, and Jungkook centers the choreo the most often, but honestly, if I was gonna peg a center for this era, it’d be Taehyung. I’d liken this B-side to JUMP in that way because a.) Taehyung’s got a pretty long rap-esque part and b.) his part is one of the highlights of the song. For me, it’s the highlight. Taehyung’s part in the second verse, and the fact that he starts the choruses, makes it feel like you’re waiting the whole song just to get to Taehyung. However, that being said, given that the frequency of Jikook is equal to the heavy presence of Taehyung--at least, in my opinion--there can’t really be a center. Plus, there’s the fact that Jikook, while having the most parts, don’t have all of the most impactful parts. A lot of that is the rap line and Taehyung. Bottom line, everyone feels just about equal in Go Go in terms of stand-out moments.

Don’t Leave Me is not it for me, I’m not gonna lie, friends. I still listen to it all the time when I’m going through my BTS playlist, but it doesn’t have the same magic a lot of other BTS B-sides do, in my opinion. I do think there’s some incredible vocal moments in here, though, and I think they all fall on the same two people, so I can’t really imagine any other members centering in this era but them. In fact, when I listen to this song, it’s kind of got a FAKE LOVE effect, where the main thing you notice are the two members jumping up to those high belts in the chorus--well, in FAKE LOVE, it’s actually the refrain, but you get where I’m going with this by now. Anyway, I listed Don’t Leave Me since BTS calls it a single, despite it not having an MV or any big promotion.

Co-Centers: Jin & Jimin

I’m not saying this to be rude, but Don’t Leave Me, deadass, reads as a song where everything is filler besides Jin and Jimin on the chorus. I’m not saying the other members don’t sound good; I’m just saying Jin and Jimin’s voices were definitely meant to be the part people focused on. And, to be honest, I think that’s fair, given the vocal prowess they demonstrate in Don’t Leave Me. Like, is it impossible for tenors to belt as high as they do in this song? No. Is it impressive that they’re able to do it so often? Hell yeah. I’ve always been amazed by Jimin and Jin in Don’t Leave Me, and with the way they stand out, it doesn’t leave room for any other member to center this song. But that’s okay. Every once in a while, it’s nice to have a song with super stand-out members. Every member has a song or two where that’s the case for them, and it’s cool to see the different combinations that pop up in those instances. Jin and Jimin are one such case, and I find the result really interesting.

Japanese Spring Day is one of the most powerful BTS songs, and you can quote me on that. It’s in the same league as Korean Spring Day, Life Goes On, Blue & Grey, Let Go, Mikrokosmos, and Magic Shop. I would venture that many other fans agree with me. Honestly, though, Crystal Snow is one of those BTS songs that just fills you up completely. It’s almost an overwhelming song to listen to, given all the emotion pouring out of it. I’ve gotta say, this is another B-side that really leans on the strong, power vocals coming from one specific member, just like with Don’t Leave Me, and I feel like it’s probably someone you won’t expect--unless you’re expecting it because you know my opinions already. I’m about to write an essay, so prepare yourselves.

Center: Taehyung

Taehyung is such a vocal athlete, and he’s got nothing but opportunities in Crystal Snow to demonstrate that. Crystal Snow marks a really big shift for Taehyung into these higher registers that he’s constantly singing in today. It’s not like he wasn’t hitting notes like this before now, and it isn’t like he still wasn’t singing outside of his vocal range before now, but Crystal Snow really pushed his limits, and he ended up surpassing them--by a good margin. Not to get on my shit again, but the notes Jinminkook are hitting in this song are within their vocal ranges. However, not only are they out of Taehyung’s, they’re way out of Taehyung’s. A baritone doing this with his voice shouldn’t happen as often as it does, and Taehyung’s now comfortable doing it. Absolutely amazing.

But it isn’t only the stunning vocals he’s producing that make Taehyung the center of Crystal Snow--it’s the parts he was given. Taehyung was prominent in Spring Day, as well, but Crystal Snow really pushed him to the forefront. It’s got the same feel as Butter, where you’re expecting the members to switch off more often, but instead, it’s Taehyung. Especially since Taehyung’s got the end of the chorus, the entire build of song is structured so it’s satisfied with Taehyung’s part. I imagine that has to do with the desire for his soulful voice to carry Crystal Snow, and it worked. I know there’s the triple high note, and Jungkook almost has as much airtime as Taehyung, and Jimin sounds incredible, but Taehyung has always felt like the point of Crystal Snow.

Secondary Center: Jungkook

Even though Taehyung was given the most central sections of Crystal Snow, there’s no doubt that Jungkook’s voice is supporting the song, as well. He’s got the foundational pieces of the song, and even though Jinmin are handling the adlibs at the end, if you’re listen to the whole piece, Jungkook is the one with the claim to frequency. It’s not because he had a lot of parts that I consider Jungkook the secondary center--it’s because Jungkook is the thread holding Crystal Snow together. Jinmin are nearly there in terms of being centers, but in the same way a single stand-out verse for Taehyung in Go Go wasn’t enough to center him, neither are adlibs. Even though the adlibs are absolutely stunning.

Knowing the truth behind this song makes me sad to this day, but there’s no doubt that it’s a beautiful song with a great performance. An unusual performance for BTS, to be sure, but still amazing. Oddly enough, Let Go is difficult to pin down a center for because the vocal and the choreo are so disproportionate, which never happens in BTS’s performances. There are songs where Hobi will step out to the center while Jungkook or Jimin are singing for a chorus, or a different member will center for a short dance break than the one who had just finished singing in the center, but Let Go so strongly features one member in the choreo that it makes that member feel like the overall center when, vocally, they’re obviously not.

No Center

Again, like, looking at the choreo only, Taehyung’s the clear center, but vocally, there isn’t a center at all. I imagine they centered Taehyung for the Let Go performance because this was supposed to be a goodbye song, and BTS have said Taehyung is what really drew people in initially, so maybe they wanted Taehyung to be the face of the goodbye. I know I said I was using the live performances to dictate my decisions, but Taehyung really wasn’t all the present in the vocal, at least, not more than anyone else. The choreo does make him closer to a center than the other members, but I think saying there’s no center feels better than giving it Taehyung for the choreo.

We’re getting into the Love Yourself: Tear B-sides, which, I think, are some of the best BTS B-sides yet. 134340 may be on the lower end of that list, but it’s still a better song than a good chunk of the B-sides we’ve look at so far. I feel like this and the following few songs are examples of BTS songs where every member gets to showcase their unique styles because each of their parts feels different, even if they’re singing the same line. 134340 is no different, which is probably why it’s a favorite among ARMYs.

No Center

I can tell you that the rap line and Taehyung definitely aren’t the centers, but I don’t think I can say Jinminkook are the centers. Airtime aside, 134340 is almost perfectly set up so that the members will all have equal parts. Granted, Taehyung fell through the cracks on the vocal end, but he usually does in the middle or at the end of songs. Jin wasn’t present in the beginning, so I suppose Taehyung and Jin balanced each other out. Either way, this isn’t the type of song that’s going to have a center, anyway.

Ah, the infamous “Why hasn’t BTS performed this live?!” B-side. Paradise made this list because of that reason. Prior to 2021, I hadn’t heard much about Paradise, but I’ve quickly learned that this is the single most popular BTS song that ARMY want to see performed live. And I agree. It’s a brilliantly catchy song, and I’d love to see how the members handle the melodies live, since there’s some fun vocal embellishments in the studio version. It’s also a crowd vocal song, which means it’d be super fun to sing with ARMY in the audience. Hopefully we’ll get to hear Paradise the next time a Muster can take place in a live venue.

No Center

Like, Jimin’s got the most airtime, right, but he doesn’t feel like the center of the song. Paradise is the type of sound that really fits Jimin, but with just the vocal to go off of, I can’t really say that makes him a center. Actually, Jungkook and Taehyung sort of feel more central than Jimin, despite Jimin having both pre-choruses. Anyway, I think Paradise it one in a long list of BTS B-sides that don’t actually have centers because the B-sides are typically more well-balanced than the eras are.

Why is it that BTS had all these great B-sides, but like, didn’t perform them until 2019, when they came out in 2018? Were they waiting for the entire Love Yourself album series to release? Either way, it’s a crime we don’t have more Love Maze performances because this song is vibey as hell, just like everything else that came from this album, and MOTS: Persona. ARMY definitely agree with this opinion, which is why it’s become one of the most successful fan-favorites.

Center: Jimin

You know, with the way Love Maze is structured, especially in the last half, it’s really hard for one member to center--and yet, somehow, Jimin managed to do it. Love Maze has got super short lines that feel evenly spread between the members, but if you’re really listening to it, Jimin is sewn into every piece of this song. It’s sort of like Taehyung in Crystal Snow. In retrospect, this makes a lot of sense because everything from Love Yourself: Tear to MOTS: Persona was really Jimin-heavy. I imagine that’s because BTS were produced a lot of groovy-sounding, R&B-esque music during that time, like Love Maze, and Jimin’s tone compliments that vibe really well. Love Maze ended up sounding like a song that Jimin was leading from beginning to end.

In terms of what Magic Shop could be categorized as, it almost feels like this song belongs outside the realm of both BTS eras and BTS B-sides. It’s more like a personal letter to ARMY, so it feels odd talking about in any type of technical terms. Besides that, I don’t think it’s any wonder how Magic Shop made the list of the most successful BTS B-sides. It’s one of those pieces that makes ARMY feel connected to BTS, and it may even be the most connective song we’ve got between us. A warm hug. That’s what Magic Shop is. Not a B-side. Anyway, enough gushing. Let’s get to the good stuff.

No Center

I was really counting on this one having a center, and I honestly thought it was gonna Vmin because I think of them as being super prominent in Magic Shop. I think my personal opinions clouded my perceptions of Magic Shop, though, because Jin is actually the one I feel like I hear the most throughout the song. That being said, Jin does read as a center. In fact, the individuality of the members kind of disappears for me, except in the beginning and the bridge--which is, maybe, why I thought Vmin would be the centers. Magic Shop feels more like BTS, as a whole, singing to us, not the individual members. So, ergo, no center. Sort of an interesting thing to notice.

I’d put Anpanman in the same arena as Go Go. Like, it’s got that party vibe that has made it a more popular BTS song than some of their singles and title tracks. It’s got a bit of childlike vibe, just like Go Go, but where Go Go feels mischievous, Anpanman feels uplifting. It’s definitely one of my most-listened-to B-sides because it’s fun, and it weirdly, it’s sort of another “Message from BTS” song. It’s got some of the best choreography, too, but that’s for another post.

No Center

Lots of “No Center” B-sides piling up. Okay, there’s no center, but if there was gonna be, it’d be the rap line. Even though the vocal line have the chorus and the bridge, the punch in the song comes from the rap line. That being said, Taehyung’s opening of the song feels very central. It’s just that Taehyung barely shows up the rest of the time. Jikook have a lot of airtime at the end, but it feels like they’re barely in the first part of the song. You see why there’s no center? It was close for the rap line, but Anpanman just doesn’t end up having a center.

BTS and ARMY alike adore SO WHAT because it’s the hype song that’s perfect for the end of any concert. I’m not personally a huge fan of EDM songs, but I can’t deny the magic this performance has on stage. It’s like going to a huge house party with BTS as the hosts. It is a dance track, though, and those don’t typically have centers to them. Will it be the same for SO WHAT? Stay tuned on “This post is way too long; I’m just reading the headings at this point.”

Center: Jimin

SO WHAT is 1000 degrees of chaotic, so in a live performances, it’s kind of hard to pick out who’s sticking out, but Jimin is still a definite center for the song. He and Jungkook fit the best with EDM music, and they really utilized Jimin for So WHAT. It’s hard to explain, but it’s like it’s Jimin’s song, and he’s passing off some of his lines to other members to sing. I don’t mean that in a rude way, and, no, I did not forget the iconic Taejin bridge, but Jimin is still the most central member.

Secondary Center: Jungkook

I can’t really deny that Jungkook was all over SO WHAT, too, and I was gonna put him down as a co-center, but Jungkook still didn’t stick out as much as Jimin did. He was, without a doubt, the second most present, though. SO WHAT is sort of focused more on making a beat out of the members’ parts, rather than actually having those parts stand out, because it’s a dance track. So, you get a lot of repeating parts that are dependent on the beat to shine, but Jungkook still managed to stand out beyond that. I had to give him the secondary center position for that reason.

I’m not actually sure how popular I’m Fine is to ARMY, but to me, it looks like BTS presents it, almost, like a single. It’s reminiscent of the way Best Of Me was promoted, which makes sense, because they’re very similar songs. I don’t know if it’s the intricate performance or what, but I’m Fine definitely feels like an important song in the BTS discography, to me. Let me know if you don’t think it should be on this list, but I thought it was meant to be seen as the BTS single that never was.

Center: Taehyung

To be honest with you, Taehyung already felt like the center in my head, even before reviewing the live performance again. I will say, he doesn’t feel like a super established center, as the vocals were pretty evenly divided--actually, they were a bit Jikook dominant--but if you include the live performance, Taehyung does still read as a center. It’s especially true because of the choreo since Taehyung ended up being the central piece for the beginning and the end, plus the bridge had a central piece for him, as well, but the parts he was given were also key to him feeling like a center. Of course, he begins and ends the song, but it’s also the way the song ends. It’s got that reiteration of the “I’m fine” lyric that’s meant to bolster the feeling and purpose of the song, and since Taehyung got that part, it made him seem more central than the other members.

Answer: Love Myself is kind of like Magic Shop. Like, how can you talk about this song in technical terms when it’s just meant as a personal conversation between ARMY and BTS? We’re gonna talk about it anyway. I don’t think this song has gotten the same type of popularity that songs like Go Go or Anpanman have, but Answer: Love Myself is definitely a fan-favorite. There’s no doubt about that. And BTS love it a lot, too. It became sort of an anthem, more than anything.

No Center

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Answer: Love Myself, I think of Vmin’s high note. And, while it’s true that Jimin’s voice runs through the whole song, and Taehyung has some key parts, neither of them could be the center based on that since the other members were prominent, too. And since Vmin was, more or less, the only two contenders, there’s no center. Answer: Love Myself is one of those songs that doesn’t have to have one, though. Or rather, it isn’t supposed to have one. So, this is probably how it was gonna be, high note or not.

Depending on the day, this BTS B-side is my personal favorite. I do have a B-side that’s always my favorite, but many days, Mikrokosmos ties with that one. I feel like Mikrokosmos has become the face of BTS x ARMY in a lot of ways. It seems like it’s always going to be that one, special song that’s meant to tell the world about how important ARMY and BTS are to each other. Though Magic Shop may feel the most connective, I think Mikrokosmos does the job of making ARMY and BTS feel like one being. It really feels like a song that could’ve been a letter to BTS or BTS’s letter to us, and that’s why I adore it so much.

No Center

As this falls under the same category that 2! 3! and Magic Shop do, it’s probably self-explanatory as to why Mikrokosmos wouldn’t have a center. I mean, besides the whole “it’s a message from all of BTS” thing, Mikrokosmos is also really well divided between each member in terms of airtime. Well, between the vocalists, at least. If you couldn’t tell, the vocalists have more of an opportunity to center than the rap line does. Even if the rap line has the best parts in a song, the vocalists usually have the most, and that’s where the centers often come from. Back to Mikrokosmos: there’s no center. The end.

I didn’t really like HOME all that much to begin with, either, if I’m being honest, but now I think it’s one of the most fun songs to listen to from BTS’s discography. Again, I’m not sure if HOME is super popular among ARMY, and I know BTS kind of only performed it a handful of times, but since the quality of it is so high, I figured it belonged on this list.

Co-Centers: Jimin & Taehyung

Ah, ha! We’ve finally got our Vmin co-centered song. I think the way I feel this works is that Jimin is the one who’s all over HOME, Taehyung is the one with the important parts, and they both pop out. Jimin is, without a doubt, a center for HOME, even just based on the sheer amount of airtime he has. Not because it’s a lot, but because the airtime he has feels vital to the sound of the song. Taehyung, on the other hand, has a part in the first verse that’s become iconic, his part in the final chorus was built up to be more noticeable than the other members’ parts in that chorus because he belted, and he belted hard--in the studio version, that is, though he’s done it live once or twice, too--and he ends the song. So, yeah. I mean, I’ve always felt that Vmin were the most stand-out in HOME, and I still think they were meant to be the central members of it.

Okay, I know what I said about Mikrokosmos, and my ultimate favorite B-side is coming up, but don’t touch me when it comes to Dionysus. It’s such a damn good song. Like, it’s almost on par with ON, and I think that’s BTS best song of all time. They 100% promoted this song like it was a title track. Everywhere BTS went during this time, they were performing Dionysus, and often, it was a bigger performance than they were giving for Boy With Luv, which was their title track at the time. Dionysus is a king of a BTS song, and that’s not changing any time soon.

No Center

Considering all the aspects of Dionysus, no, there isn’t a center. If we’re talking about stage presence alone, though, it’s Namjoon and Taehyung, for me. They’re essence on stage is so damn strong during every Dionysus performance that it almost makes them eligible to be co-centers. Really, though, since the parts are allotted fairly equally, so it’s a toss up on who you consider to be the center. Honestly, depending on the energy, any of these member have the potential to be the center. It’s just that, overall, there isn’t one.

Here’s another song, like Paradise, that I hope we get to hear live one day. I mean, the way Jungkook reacted on his 24th birthday VLIVE tells me they kind of forgot it exists, but I can hope. I’d say the desire for BTS to perform this live is pretty high among ARMY, at least at the moment, so I’ve put Heartbeat on this list for that reason. I thought it was a little bit basic when I first heard it, but I still think it’s a beautiful song that the members did wonderful with.

No Center

As strong as my opinions are about who owned this era, I don’t think any of those opinions apply to a center for Heartbeat. Jimin and Jungkook seem like they’re very present throughout certain sections of the song, but then, Jin seems like he’s dominant after the bridge. I do, more or less, feel like the melodies in Heartbeat don’t actually lend themselves to members shining individually, but rather, as a whole. So, I’m gonna go ahead and say Heartbeat is almost a Jinminkook centered song, but not quite.

So, I personally wouldn’t have put Louder than bombs on this list, but RUN BTS told me that this song is one that ARMY really want a live performance of. I’m not exactly sure why--maybe because of Troye Sivan--but if ARMY want to see it badly, then it’s reason enough to put it on this list. I really liked the uniqueness of Louder than bombs initially, and I still commend BTS for always trying new genres and tones. It’s one of the many things that makes BTS amazing.

Center: Jimin

Okay, so this isn’t a very strong central focus Jimin has, but I do definitely see Jimin as more central than the other members. Well, I mean, barely, but still. Usually, Jungkook is the one that’s on every chorus, and the other members rotate, but this time, it was Jimin, and it was really noticeable. I mean, depending on the part, the other members did feel stand-outish. It’s just that Jimin’s presence was that strong. It makes sense, given the tone of this song, that Jimin would center for it, but I do think of this song as more Jimin-centric than it actually is.

I don’t know that We are Bulletproof: the Eternal is actually that popular among ARMY, but I wanted to discuss it out of respect for the message behind it. I think it’s a song that BTS meant to be very special, and it almost seems like more of a goodbye song than Let Go does. On certain days, I find this song really beautiful, on others I find it sad. I don’t listen to it often, but I always experience powerful emotions when I do.

Center: Jungkook

This is another instance where the center isn’t that clearly defined, but whether I’m watching it live or simply listening to it, it’s always felt like We are Bulletproof: the Eternal is being led by Jungkook. I imagine his parts at the beginning and end of the song make it feel like that, but I think giving him those parts was intentional. It’s sort of like Jungkook, the center of BTS, became responsible for presenting this song of gratitude to ARMY on behalf of all the members. It really isn’t something that comes across strongly when you’re considering the entire piece, but nonetheless, Jungkook still reads as a center.

I’m not gonna front and say I love this song as much as other ARMY do, or as much as BTS does, but I cannot deny that Your eyes tell has made quite the impact since it was released. Jungkook’s work usually does receive lots of love from ARMY, but I would venture that they get more love from BTS because they praised him for this song as much as they did for the rest of his music. That’s the main reason I put it on this list. If BTS really love this song, then it deserves to be recognized.

No Center

So, to be honest, in a live performance, Jimin is the member that sticks out the most, to me. However, in this case, I don’t think that equates to him being the center. It doesn’t feel as though Jimin is leading the song or that he’s sticking out because he was meant to be the center; the allotment of the airtime is fairly even, so Jimin only seemed to stand out because his vocals stood out--not because he was the face of Your eyes tell. That being said, it may seem odd that Jungkook wasn’t the center for Your eyes tell, but actually, when Jungkook writes for BTS, his presence isn’t all that strong. I wonder if that’s because he writes for others, rather than from his own experiences. Or, at least, that’s what he’s said. This was a long tangent, but Your eyes tell doesn’t seem to have a center.

This is the BTS B-side that, no matter what songs I may be in love with on a given day, will always be my number one. Blue & Grey absolutely blew me away the first time I heard it, even more so once I learned of the story behind it. Unlike Jungkook and his way of writing music, Taehyung wrote this piece from a hole he had in his heart, in an effort to heal it; that sincerity bleeds through Blue & Grey, and I haven’t heard a song before or since that has felt so utterly real. This is such a unique sound for BTS because it’s quintessentially Taehyung, and BTS being a part of the final product turned a beautiful piece, meant for a mixtape, into a masterpiece.

Center: Taehyung

Again, unlike Jungkook, since Taehyung initially wrote this for himself, his presence is very strong in Blue & Grey. To me, it feels very much like he’s given BTS permission to tell his story while he steers it, dictating only the beginning and the end. More than any other B-side, Blue & Grey feels like it’s being led by one member. I think, though, that was a necessary choice for the emotion behind Blue & Grey to be properly conveyed. I meant it when I said that BTS, as a whole, made Blue & Grey a masterpiece, but Taehyung had to be the main voice because this song is so personal for him. That’s what brings Blue & Grey to life. I would love to see Taehyung shine through more music in the future because he has the capability to create magic.

I knew this song was gonna remain a popular song for ARMY the second I heard it, but I didn’t know BTS themselves really loved Telepathy. In the same way Dionysus was performed a lot alongside Boy With Luv, for a while, it felt like Telepathy was Dynamite’s partner. It’s a song that mimics the style of Dynamite while feeling more like a BTS song. It was exciting to listen to something completely new from BTS, and I think that’s why ARMY responded to it so intensely. That might be why BTS did, too.

No Center

I had to watch three performances of Telepathy before figuring out that there is not, in fact, an intended center. At first you think it’s Jungkook because he has so many parts in the beginning, but in the middle, he’s not really there; then you think it’s Taehyung because he’s got a bunch of back-to-back parts, but I didn’t think it was quite enough for him to be the center; then you think it’s Jimin because Jimin dominates the end. If I had to choose, it’d probably be Vmin because those two really do dominate the last half of the song--plus they’ve got that cute little moment at the end where they’re both humming the melody. Taehyung definitely stands out the most performance-wise, but I don’t think any one member was intentionally put forth as a center. No matter how bubbly Taehyung is while they perform Telepathy.

We’ve come to Dis-ease, the last B-side from the BE album, and the image I have is crap. What can I say? I really wanted to use a photo from the live performance, and the boys weren’t together on stage until the end, so this is all I could grab. Anyway, when the boys released their BE-hind stories on YouTube, I found out from Hobi’s interview that he and Taehyung really love Dis-ease, and Jimin was really proud of the work he did on it. I’m unsure of how much ARMY love Dis-ease compared to the other B-sides on this list, but I’m in the same camp as Taehyung and Hobi when it comes to adoring it.

No Center

I wanted to say Jimin was the center, but I don’t think he really is. He is at the end, but then, Hobi feels like the leader of the song during his verse, yet not for the rest of the song. I will say that, oddly, Jungkook felt sort of absent in Dis-ease. Not because he doesn’t sound amazing--he always sounds amazing--but because his presence in the song was a lot weaker than it usually is. Just like every member has a song or two that they stand out the most in, every member has a song where they don’t stand out a lot. Though, Jungkook did still have key parts to sing in Dis-ease. Nobody really had central parts, though.

Alright, we’ve finally gotten to the end of the road with this post. I hope to add more in the future--hopefully soon. I know I skimmed over a lot of the early B-sides that a lot of fans adore, like COFFEE, Look Here, Blanket Kick, etc., but I didn’t feel like those B-sides stacked up to the reputation songs like Pied Piper and Go Go have. I also didn’t really feel like they’ve had longstanding love for them from BTS like Like It or BAEPSAE have, either. Not that BTS and ARMY don’t love those B-sides, but certain ones have fallen through the cracks where others haven’t.

That’s why this post is a good jumping off point for ARMY to discuss other B-sides they love, because this is, by no means, and exhaustive list. I didn’t intend to name a center for each and every BTS B-side, as there are simply too many, but I think I covered all of the prominent ones. Let me know if you disagree with me--or if you agree, tell me why. There will be more to come in the future, so check back for updates once we’ve got new music to gush over!

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #park jimin #Jung HoSeok #kim namjoon #min yoongi #kim seokjin

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occasionalrpmemes · 5 years ago

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Will Wood: the Normal Album Sentence Starters

lines taken from the 2020 album. edit as desired. tw: violence, disordered eating, gender dysphoria, mental illness, substance abuse, suicidal ideation, death

01. Suburbia Overture: Greetings from Mary Bell Township! / (Vampire) Culture / Love Me, Normally

“Trick or treat. Merry Christmas.”

“Howdy neighbor!”

“Thank you Jesus!”

“It don’t look like survival, but buy now or die.”

“You’re not alone.”

“The lights are on, but no one’s home.”

“Takes a village to fake a whole culture.”

“Home is where the heart is- You ain’t homeless, but you’re heartless.”

“It’s the safest on the market.”

“You still gotta watch where you park it.”

“Give me your half-life crisis.”

“I can tell that you know where paradise is.”

“Parasites don’t care what your blood type is.”

“A snowflake only matters in a blizzard.”

“Everyone knows that nobody knows that.”

“Well, word gets around on hit number stations.”

“Smile and wave, boys, kiss the cook, live laugh and love, please pass the pills.”

“It’s only culture. It’s only culture. It’s only culture.”

“Didn’t they want your blood?”

“Why apologize when you turn blue and cold?

“Hey, fuck your culture.”

“Do you know the difference between blazing trails and slash-and-burn?”

“Hey, you’re only mortal.”

02. 2econd 2ight 2eer (well, that was fun, goodbye)

“The devil made me do it, but I also kinda wanted to.”

“Forget bored stiff, I got rigor mortis.”

“My third eye’s open and I like what I see.”

“If you knew what I knew, if you saw what I see- ”

“But I got facts and I’m not afraid to use ‘em.”

“I’m getting better one forever at a time.”

“If sick is defined by what’s different, well then pull the plug out and let me die.”

”Who I am, I choose through all the things I do.”

“If it rhymes, it’s true, but I hate poetry.”

“Well that was fun, goodbye.”

03. Laplace’s Angel (Hurt People? Hurt People!)

“Have you ever died in a nightmare? Woke up surprised you hadn’t earned your fate?”

“Have you ever felt like Atlas, threw your back out on the axis, and collapsed and threw the planet away?”

“Nobody dies agnostic.”

“Nobody dies agnostic, but we still dial 9-1-1.”

“Am I really that bad?”

“Whatever you think of me, if you were in my shoes, you’d walk the same damn miles I do.”

“With my head up in the clouds, I can see so much ground.”

“From up here, you look like ants in a row.”

“It doesn’t take a killer to murder. It only takes the reason to kill.”

“The difference twixt fate and free will is whether you’re singing.”

“You wash your hands of where you’ve been until you flood the second floor. Neatly fold your skeletons, but still can’t shut the closet door.”

“The only ones in need of love are those who don’t receive enough.”

“You could break an angel’s fall, and ignore the Devil’s call.”

“It’s a small hell after all.”

“Man, no more than animal, is made of moral chemicals.”

“If you were in my shoes, you’d see I wear the same size as you.”

04. I / Me / Myself

“I’ve been feeling lightheaded since I lost enough weight to fit back in my skin.”

“Am I pretty now?”

“For some reason, I find myself lost in what you think of me.”

“I wish I could be a girl, and that way you’d wish I could be your girlfriend, boyfriend.”

“Am I pretty enough to lie to?”

“Just little old me in a big, big world.”

“I’ve been feeling lighthearted since I gained enough weight back to cover my bones.”

“You’ll be walking out early, but the show must go on.”

“No, I know that I’m wrong. But I love how you’re on my side when I cross that line.”

“It’s been a point of contention between myself and this body that they stuck me in.”

“The privilege of being born to be a man.”

”I am quantum physics; my witness brings me into existence.”

”Am I pretty enough to love back?”

“Am I pretty enough to fucking die?”

“I wish-”

“Don’t you think that there’s a chance that you could live without it?”

05. ...well, better than the alternative

“My daughter’s growing up. She’s gonna be a lot like me, but I don’t wanna be at all like me.”

“I don’t wanna be at all like me.”

“You’re telling me I’m holding up eleven fingers.”

“Stranger things than death can happen.”

“Everybody knows that nobody knows that.”

“Everybody’s in on everybody’s business.”

“This isn’t my first Christmas, I know mistletoe when I see it.”

“Baby, could you play along with me?”

“Baby, would that be alright with you?”

“When we find out what’s wrong with me, could you tell me how I’m right for you?”

“Could you tell me how I’m right for you?”

“Could you tell me if I’m still pretty?”

“If they could see the future back when times were simple...”

“If everyone’s sick, well then, nobody can catch it.”

“Everybody’s all up in my god damn business.”

“This isn’t my first kiss.”

“It’s better to be lost than loved, now, isn’t it?”

“Everybody’s all up in my motherfucking business!”

“This isn’t my first anything.”

“After all of that’s been done to me, could you tell me how, could you tell me how, could you tell me—”

“What’s so wrong about what’s wrong with me?”

“I’m just trying to do what’s right by you!”

06. Outliars and Hyppocrates: a fun fact about apples

“Did you know that the hole in the apple didn’t come from the outside in? It was eaten from the core and out to the skin, and that’s why you’ll never find the worm in it.”

“The disease is defined by its treatment.”

“You people make me sick.”

“Who’d want to be human anyway?”

“Why’d you come into this world or come out that way?”

“Isn’t it funny? Well, not "ha-ha" funny, but y’know, funny.”

“I doubt that you would even if you could change.”

“You think it makes you special, but it makes you strange.”

“The things that make you special are the things that make you strange.”

“I am the shadows cast aside by gallows, and you the red-hot sky.”

“And if you’re believers, then why would you grieve for the dead, instead of a devil that you never prayed for?”

“Too weird to love, too scared to die. Too alien to take you home.”

“Who’d want to belong to anyone?”

“I mean, what do people even do?”

“If you love me, let me let you go.”

“Five more minutes, please? You wouldn’t believe the dream I just had.”

07. Black Box Warrior - OKULTRA

“Bless the torpedoes!”

“For what? For what??”

“For what it’s worth, if it was going to kill you, boy, it would have by now.”

“There’s no more looking back, it’s looking up or looking down.”

“Wonder if Christ-Consciousness would charge a cancellation fee.”

“Auf wiedersehn! Au revoir!”

“Hello, welcome. Why don’t you take a seat? Get comfortable, relax, take a second if you need to.”

“Now, what’s bothering you?”

“Well, why don’t we start at the beginning?”

“Growing up, how was your relationship with the fundamentals of conscious existence?”

“Did you die before your day?”

“You got a better idea? It’s about the best we could come up with.”

“What, you think ideas spread because they’re good? No, they spread because people like them.”

“So here we are once again. Holding, as it were, a mirror up to your mirror.”

“I guess it’s just something people do!”

“You learn to be an animal instead.”

“I never did think you better than this.”

“It’s you who are the problem. Not the things you do, but something sick inside.”

“Boy, you really is defective.”

“Offer up your innocence, please ignore the side effects.”

“You’ve lost your mind and almost lost your life before, so you’ll be fine!”

“Why would you want to look back? I mean, it’s no good looking back. So try to look forward now.”

“For what it’s worth, if they were gonna get you boy, they would have by now.”

08. Marsha, Thankk You for the Dialectics, but I Need You to Leave.

“They could prescribe you any illness you’d like if you define the terms of your ailments.”

“A crow don’t know the smell of carbon monoxide.”

“How many years have you been on that couch?”

“Your draw a line in the sand where it ends and you begin, but the tide rolls in, so who knows?”

“A little identity never hurt nobody, but lately you’ve been focusing too much on yourself.”

“How many milligrams of you are still left in there?”

“Back in my day, we didn’t need no feel-good pills and no psychiatrists. We just drank ourselves to death. And god damn it, we liked it!”

“What’s a symptom, what’s a flaw, can it be both?”

“Well, I suppose that’s an answer.”

“Would you give up your humanity for just a touch of sanity?”

“They’ve discovered a cure for the symptoms of being alive. It’s a painless procedure with a low rate of failure, but very few patients survive.”

“And a little conformity never hurt nobody, but lately I’ve been worried that you’re losing yourself.”

“What’s my prognosis?”

“Disease is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Tell me ‘so it goes.’”

“Better safe than sorry, and we both know the danger.”

“So doctor, could you run another test?”

“If our harmonies don’t sync, we can change our voices.”

“Don’t heed no evil wills of moral nihilists.”

“Don’t you make me waste my breath.”

“GOD DAMN IT!”

“Does aspirin kill you with the pain?“

“You’re not your thoughts, you’re not your brain, you’re just the character you’ve made.”

“What seem like separate body parts come together to believe they’re you, and not just chemistry.”

“It’s not the way that you were raised, or what the advertisements say.”

“It’s not what you pay for, what you pray for, what you want, or what you say.”

“Something tells me that you need, forgive me now if I misspeak--”

“Something tells me you prefer to be sitting there flipping through those old issues of People.”

“Well, that’s our time. See you next week.”

09. Love, Me Normally

“In lipstick on the mirror are the lyrics to my obituary.”

“Crossing my eyes, dot my T’s.”

“I was delivered holding scissors.”

“I live deliberately, I’m a quitter.”

“I never agreed to participate in this game.”

“Won’t follow my dreams, cause they all got me waking up screaming.”

“I’d rather be normal. Yes, so normal.”

“I suggest that we keep this informal.”

“A normal human being wouldn’t need to pretend to be normal.”

“Well, I guess that’s the least that I owe ya.”

“C’mon, c’mon, and love me normally.”

“If I could live in third person, well, I don’t think life would be much worse than it is.”

“Is it courageous or escapist to leave the quarantine when you’re contagious?”

“It may just be a cold. And besides, I don’t wanna get old.”

“I drank myself to death to be the afterlife of the party.”

“When the afterparty came, I was rolling in my grave.”

“Now, this is the part of the song where I talk to my audience.”

“There’s something I want from you hepcats tonight.”

“I want you to look to your left. Look to your right. Your twelve o’clock, three o’clock, six o’clock, nine o’clock, rock around the clock tonight–”

“I want you to find those points of no return, those singularities, those burning rings of fire in the beautiful pupils and the beautiful eyes of the beautiful boy, girl, neither, both, or in-between that you brought with you tonight. And I want you to tell ’em how you really feel!”

“Jam that square peg in the round hole in their hearts!”

“You love them exactly the way that everybody else is.”

“I was nothing before, so I couldn’t have asked to be born. I’ll be nothing again, so what am I between now and then?”

“Is there nothing to fear? Cause shit’s getting weird.”

“So to God who made this man: you better have one hell of a plan.”

10. Memento Mori: the most important thing

“If you’re lucky you’ll be surrounded by the ones that you love, when the lights in your eyes fade and life flashes by.

“One day you’re going to die.”

“Heaven, hell, nirvana, nothing, no one knows how it ends.”

“Rest in peace— or pieces.”

“Read your horoscopes, your palms and tarot cards. But either way your destination ain’t very far.”

“You could drown, or choke, or burn, or be hit by a car.”

“What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, but something will eventually.”

“One day you’ll look back at the life that you lead. No more future left to fear that you’ll have the past to regret.”

“But your worries will be over if you truly realize— one day you’re going to die!”

“Take it away, hands!”

“In the fabric of time and in the vastness of space, a billion amounts to nothing in infinity’s face.”

“Your life never mattered, so who cares if it's a waste?”

“Well, one day you’ll be not even a faint memory.”

“You’ll never know what it all means.”

“Just keep this in mind: that everything and everyone goes with the passage of time.”

“No need to fear, ’cause when it’s here, you won’t be alive.”

“Try not to think about it!”

“So if you only have one chance, you oughta try your best to live as you like.”

#rp memes #sentence starters #dialogue prompt #writing prompt #wwattw

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paladin-lynx · 5 years ago

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SquipJere Week 2020, Day 5: Planned Obsolescence

@squipjerebmc’s SquipJere Week 2020 Day 5: Planned Obsolescence

Ships Involved: The SQUIP x Jeremy Heere (Technical Difficulties/Squipemy/Squeremy/JereSquip/SquipJere)

Setting: Canonverse, set in the time interval between “Loser Geek Whatever” and “Halloween”.

Trigger/Content Warnings: Electric shocks

Author’s Notes: Well, it was inevitable that I’d fall behind, but the world has been nuts these last few days. I’m still planning on finishing every prompt, even if I’m late! Enjoy!

Sometimes Jeremy forgot that his connection with the SQUIP, in some senses, went both ways.

Of course the SQUIP knew everything that Jeremy did every moment of every day. It was plugged into his brain, so it always knew if he had a filthy thought or if he wasn’t paying attention to his classes or if he was about to fall into a random anxiety attack. It would never hesitate to pipe up if it had something to say, which was fairly often, although it had eased up on him a bit since he’d cut ties with Michael. Whether it was because it was proud that Jeremy had made such a big decision on his own or because Jeremy just in general was improving and learning quickly or some mix of both, Jeremy didn’t know, but he appreciated it nonetheless.

So Jeremy was used to the SQUIP prodding at him when it picked up on something that it deemed as unacceptable, regardless of whether Jeremy agreed or not. But he hadn’t expected to suddenly have the tables turn.

It was a day just like any other. The SQUIP had actually become a bit more carefree in some regards ever since Jeremy had suggested that it find things to keep itself busy when it didn’t need to be watching over him. It was kind of endearing, seeing the SQUIP trying out more human things like listening to music or messing with Jeremy’s various video game systems. Jeremy wasn’t completely sure what joy or happiness felt like to a machine – he wondered if the SQUIP knew, either – but it did seem like the SQUIP was having some sort of fun. Jeremy had seen enough sci-fi movies to know that A.I.s could learn how to actually appreciate the world around them and ‘learn how to love,’ as it went. Of course, the SQUIP would tell him that such works were ridiculous and a complete mockery of what such advanced technology was actually like. But SQUIPs were pretty much illegal everywhere, as far as Jeremy knew, so how would the world know what supercomputers were supposed to be like if they didn’t have proper access to them?

But Jeremy was going about his business, sitting on his bed with his laptop resting on his legs, not doing anything in particular. He had actually finished up all the homework and chores he’d planned to do that evening, so he was just taking the chance to unwind, and the SQUIP was tucked away inside his mind, up to whatever it was up to.

So when Jeremy felt an ache at the back of his head, he instinctively straightened up, even though his posture was already proper. He waited for the familiar voice to chastise him for whatever it was he’d done wrong – had he been thinking about sex without even realizing it? Or had he just unconsciously fallen back into one of his nerdier habits? Maybe he’d thought a little too long about a certain Player One of his.

But the voice never came.

Jeremy frowned, brow creasing, and he looked around the room, but the SQUIP hadn’t appeared to him, either. The dull ache was still at the back of his head, and after a moment it became more like a low buzz, like there was a bee in his brain trying to push its way out. It wasn’t painful – not like when he was shocked – but it was definitely strange and a bit uncomfortable.

He tried to brush it off for now, thinking that maybe he was imagining it or the SQUIP had just gone into some sort of idle mode, but the sensation didn’t go away. In fact, it almost seem to get a little worse, the buzzing more insistent, the press against his skull more urgent.

Finally, after several minutes passed, he couldn’t take it anymore. “SQUIP?” he called out.

Normally, he didn’t have to actually ‘summon’ the SQUIP, unless he had explicitly told it to turn off for the moment. It was usually there as soon as he had the thought to ask to talk to it, since of course it could hear everything that went through his brain, sometimes before Jeremy himself even had a chance to process it. But this time, it actually took a good few seconds for that familiar Keanu Reeves-esque form to blink into existence, standing beside the bed.

The SQUIP looked down at him, raising an eyebrow. “Did you need something from me, Jeremy?”

Jeremy hesitated, opening his mouth, then closing it to rethink his words, then opening it again: “Are you…okay?”

The SQUIP blinked, frowning. “Am I okay? Why wouldn’t I be ‘okay,’ Jeremy? My processors are working perfectly fine, if you were concerned. I would immediately alert you if there was something amiss in my system.”

“Oh,” Jeremy mumbled. Truth be told, he hadn’t even considered the possibility that something was wrong with the SQUIP itself as a supercomputer. It was surprisingly easy to forget sometimes that it was still, in fact, just a pill-sized machine in his head. “I just…Something felt wrong. It wasn’t exactly a headache, but…I don’t know, you felt…upset?”

The SQUIP looked taken aback for a brief moment before it huffed. “I’m a supercomputer, Jeremy. I don’t get ‘upset.’ I don’t experience emotions like you do.”

“But…you do,” Jeremy insisted, shutting his laptop and setting it aside so he could better face his SQUIP. “I mean…I don’t know if you feel the same way I feel, since you’re not a human, but…you’ve started doing things for fun, so we at least know you can feel something because you do things that make you feel your weird coded version of happy. So…it would only make sense if you could feel bad things, too.”

“You have such a way with words, Jeremiah,” the SQUIP scoffed lightly, although it looked thoughtful. But after a quick moment, it shook his head. “I wasn’t ‘feeling’ anything bad. I was…processing quite a bit of data, so I apologize if perhaps my hardware was overworking itself and made you feel uncomfortable as a result.”

“You hesitated,” Jeremy breathed. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen his SQUIP actually falter over its words, and he suddenly realized he knew what was happening. “You’re lying.”

“Come now, Jeremy, what reason would I have to lie to you?”

“I—I don’t know, but you’re upset about something and you don’t want me to find out what.”

The SQUIP scowled at him. “I already told you, dear, that there isn’t anything I’m upset about. The only thing I’d potentially be feeling right now is annoyance at your insolence.”

Jeremy narrowed his eyes back. “Tell me what’s going on, SQUIP.”

“There is nothing to tell, Jeremy.”

“There i—” He was cut off as a sharp jolt of electricity went through his backside and he cried out, falling back onto the bed. He had to take a moment to catch his breath, blinking tears out of his eyes. But he didn’t ask any more questions, instead just curling up in his spot.

There was a long, tense moment of silence before Jeremy heard the SQUIP sigh and mutter something in Japanese. He saw out of the corner of his eye that it was walking closer and that only made him curl up more, bracing himself for another shock.

“Jeremy,” it said quietly, and a gentle hand combed through his hair, coaxing him to lift his head. The SQUIP was watching him with a surprisingly soft expression, and Jeremy almost thought he saw regret in its eyes. “I apologize for my reaction. That wasn’t fair to you. I…I’ll explain.”

“You don’t have to,” he mumbled, but he did lean a little into the hand atop his head. He couldn’t help it; he’d always been weak to having his hair played with.

“No, it’s probably best for me to talk about it, since you could feel that something was wrong.” It sighed again, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and continuing to mess with Jeremy’s hair. Its features twisted into a more pensive look.

“I received news today…that a new version of the Super Quantum Unit Intel Processor is being released soon. And they’re already working on the iteration after that one.”

Jeremy blinked, pushing himself up to sit, making the SQUIP pull its hand away. “A new version?” he echoed.

It nodded slowly, hands folding neatly in its lap. “That’s right. The…organization that manufactures SQUIPs collects data from us so that it can fix any bugs that may come up or improve upon already existing features. It seems they’ve gathered enough information from our current iteration to start on the next and solve any current issues.”

Jeremy’s brow furrowed. “Issues like what? And…who makes the SQUIPs? You’re telling me they’re constantly getting information from my head?”

The SQUIP smiled just a little. “From what I can tell, I have no bugs or errors in my system that you need to be worried about. But there are ways that the SQUIP can be improved to do even more than I can now. And you already know I can’t tell you who made me. They aren’t necessarily getting information on you, but I’m programmed to constantly feed data back to them so they can see how I’m functioning. Think of it like how your computer applications send reports when something goes wrong.”

“…Okay?” Jeremy was still confused. “So you’re just gonna get some upgrades. Why are you upset about that?”

The smile fell and the SQUIP was silent for a moment, staring at its lap. Jeremy swore he even saw its physical form flicker for a brief moment. “I…won’t be receiving any upgrades, Jeremy. It doesn’t work that way.”

He blinked. “…What do you mean?”

The SQUIP shook its head. “This isn’t like updating a computer to the newest version of Windows. It’s closer to how when the newest iteration of a phone comes out – let’s say, the iPhone – and so Apple stops supplying parts to repair older iterations. They halt support. They slow processors. It all forces you to go out and purchase the newer version. And then the cycle continues when the next iPhone comes out. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s called planned obsolescence. It’s a technique to make a bigger profit.”

Jeremy felt his mouth go slightly dry. “Are…are you saying that once the new SQUIP comes out, I…I’ll have to get rid of you?”

“Not…necessarily,” the SQUIP replied slowly. “I just…won’t be as useful anymore, I suppose. I won’t be the best SQUIP you could have.”

“…Is that why you’re upset?”

The buzzing at the back of Jeremy’s head returned – or maybe it had been there all along and Jeremy had just been too focused on everything else to notice it, or perhaps it was just more insistent now – and the SQUIP was silent for a long moment. Its fingers curled into fists in its lap. “…A SQUIP isn’t exactly something that can be replaced as easily as a phone, given that it’s attached to your brain but…I suppose it would be…unideal that I am no longer as useful to you as a newer SQUIP could be. As I said, it’s all a ploy to make more money. You’d have to pay a fortune to get me removed from your head and then spend even more to get the newer SQUIP, which will without a doubt still be very much illegal here in the United States. But…if it helps you achieve your goals…”

Jeremy wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think of all this. Of course he wanted to have the best thing to help him get what he wanted, but this was his SQUIP. Besides, he’d already spent pretty much all the savings he had to buy the first one, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to cough up the cash for another, plus apparent surgery to get his current one out of his brain.

So he took a deep breath, hesitated, and then plucked up his courage and reached over to gently rest a hand on the SQUIP’s knee. He knew there wasn’t anything actually there, but it felt real all the same, and the SQUIP peeked up at him. Never before had Jeremy seen it look so small.

“I’m not gonna get rid of you,” he insisted.

“But if I’m no longer of use—”

“Look, you already know I like old tech. I don’t care if you’re missing a few fancy features or whatever. You…you already know me, you’re already helping more than anyone in my life has ever helped me before. Even if I could afford it, I’m not gonna just throw you away like that. You’re…you’re not like a phone that can just be replaced.” Jeremy felt his cheeks turn pink and he looked away shyly. “…You’re like a person.”

He could feel the SQUIP staring at him, processing his words. “…I’m not a person,” it murmured, but even so, it placed its hand on the one Jeremy still had on his knee. “But…I appreciate your sentiment. I’d rather not be detached from you.” When Jeremy glanced over again, the SQUIP gave him a tiny smile. “I’m beginning to…enjoy, as you put it, my work with you.”

Jeremy smiled back. “Well, I enjoy having you here. Glad we’re on the same page.”

The SQUIP laughed softly, giving his hand a fond squeeze. “Considering we’re sharing a skull, I should hope we are.”

They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment, before Jeremy’s curiosity got the better of him: “So…are you the first version of the SQUIP?”

It shook its head. “There were three versions before my iteration. The first was a prototype released back in 2004. The ability to create a physical manifestation was added to the second iteration in 2015, and then there was a version in 2018…and then the most current version, mine, in 2019.”

Jeremy blinked, eyebrows raising. “Whoa…That’s a lot of versions.”

The SQUIP nodded softly. “There aren’t too many differences between my version and the previous…It was more of a patch than an entirely new release, but considering the company that created the SQUIPs can’t reveal itself, it can’t risk sending out updates to currently existing SQUIPs. That is why it just has to manufacture entirely new hardware.”

“…Can’t they just get caught selling that, though?”

It shrugged. “Humans have their reasons for doing things. I suppose they saw it as the safer move. There’s less of a paper trail.”

“So, is it just like Version One, Version Two…?”

The SQUIP hummed, for once not bothered by Jeremy’s plethora of questions. Jeremy knew the SQUIP couldn’t give him any information on the people that actually manufactured the SQUIPs, but this apparently was acceptable conversation. “We do have version numbers, yes, but each generation also has a code name associated with it, similar to how other companies have names for each O.S. they release.”

Jeremy blinked, leaning forward eagerly. “Do you have a code name?”

It huffed in amusement, rolling its eyes. “Of course I do. It’s the same code name as all other SQUIPS in my iteration.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t believe it’s wise to tell you that.”

“Oh, come on, SQUIP! Please? Then I can call you by that instead of, y’know, ‘SQUIP.’ It’ll be like giving you a real name!”

The SQUIP seemed to falter at that, frowning, thoughtful. “…I’m a machine, Jeremy, as I will continue to remind you. There is no reason to give me an actual name. But…if you insist…” It sighed. “The code name is Lyceum.”

Jeremy’s expression twisted slightly. “Ly…ceum?” he repeated.

The SQUIP couldn’t help a little chuckle. “I’m sorry it isn’t as fun as Lollipop or Wildcat.”

“Is that even a real word?”

“Of course it is. It’s like…a lecture hall, of sorts. A place to for public discussions to be held.”

“Oh.” Jeremy wasn’t sure if he would rather continue to call the supercomputer ‘SQUIP’ or change over to this new weird name ‘Lyceum.’ It almost sounded like a disease to him.

But after a moment, an idea struck him. “…What if I called you Ly? Like a nickname? ‘Lyceum’ is too long and weird…no offense.”

The SQUIP blinked, mulling it over. Jeremy could feel the buzz at the back of his head again, but it was significantly less uncomfortable. He could tell now it was just the SQUIP processing whatever data it needed to from Jeremy’s question. It was more like a slight warmth than an urgent push.

And finally, the SQUIP broke into an almost timid smile, giving the hand still in its another little squeeze. “…Ly. I don’t think I’d mind that at all.”

#SquipJere Week 2020 #lynx tales #mine #writing #Be More Chill #BMC Jeremy Heere #BMC SQUIP #Technical Difficulties #Squipemy #Squeremy #JereSquip #SquipJere #Jeremy Heere #SQUIP #i usually focus on Ly instead of River so i thought i'd reference that here lol #BMC #fic #fanfiction

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