#a fun song to sing got a very good momentum to it

[ereborne]

Song of the Day: February 18

“This Is Love” by Air Traffic Controller

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

Febuwhump Day 12 -- Semiconsciousness

Four hated the portals.

He hated them for a lot of reasons, a lot of good reasons. It was never fun to be swept off of one’s feet and deposited into a world that wasn’t their own. It separated friends from friends—his heart ached for Shadow—inhabitants of eras from their own timelines, it even stole one of his earrings, one rough morning where they were all stolen directly out of their beds. Sometimes the heroes found themselves dropped into chaotic battlefields, into icy tundra, into the very middle of deep lakes, every time without warning before and usually without a chance to catch a breath afterwards. The portals were uncomfortable, inconvenient, and above all, inconsiderate to those that they ferried from era to era as if they were nothing more than cargo to be taken wherever the whims of the Goddess pleased.

But the headaches that came with them, every blasted time. Oh, the headaches, and the nausea, and the disorientation. That was enough to make Four want to hang up his mantle of hero and go take a long, undisturbed nap, hopefully one that lasted forever. Unfortunately, that nap was not available because he was one of those said heroes, and a hero did not rest until their quest was completed, especially not in an era that wasn’t his own.

Still, it seemed that they had been dropped neither into a battle nor a lake this go around, and the grass upon which he found himself lying was nice, all things considered. Four didn’t remember stepping into the portal, and he didn’t remember stepping out, but the headache brewing behind his eyes and between his temples was testament enough to what had happened. The memory would come later, it always did when he thought about it hard enough. But he’d do so later, when everything wasn’t quite so sunny and swoopy and off balance. Four let out a hiss and threw an arm up over his eyes, shielding them from the brightness of the sky that he knew to be looming overhead. He gripped his fingers into the long strands of grass cushioning his rest, anchoring himself to earth spinning underneath his back—if he got up now, in his untethered state, he almost feared he could be flung off of the surface of the planet itself with the momentum of its rotations, and he’d be lost among the stars, his quest forever unfinished.

That’s a little dramatic, Vio, Four thought to himself. Nevertheless, he didn’t let go of his handholds that kept him anchored to the world itself as his head spun and throbbed and churned.

No, that was his stomach churning. He was going to vomit, Four realized with a start of rising panic. Abandoning his hold of the grass, Four only just managed to prop himself onto an elbow and lean over before his stomach emptied its own contents quite violently. Once the contractions wracking his body and compounding with his aching head to make his body into an unholy roar of pain passed—there went Wild’s rice and mushrooms that he’d made them for breakfast—he reared away from the puddle of sick, groaning.

“Foooour~,” Warrior’s voice drawled in a sing-song tone nearby. “Smithy, how’s it going over there? Don’t tell me these portals still get to you.”

Cheeky bastard. Warrior had never had a problem with the portals, owing to his experience with them in his War of Eras, a few years before he’d met the rest of them, he claimed. Realistically, Four knew it was a blessing that at least one of their members could be expected to be completely level-headed upon stepping out of a portal, no matter how bumpy the ride may have been, so that they were equipped to defend themselves and ready to face whatever threat was on the other side of it; right now, Four wished he could make him experience just a fraction of what it felt like, even if he had to throttle him to get the intended effects.

“Alright, Captain,” Four answered blearily as he pushed himself up onto his elbows with the greatest effort. His eyes streamed from the combination of the bright sun, his still-growing headache, and his earlier vomiting—at the thought his stomach clenched, threatening to go again—so that he was only able to open them in little pathetic slits. “Just dizzy.”

“Wow, it really got you this time,” Warrior laughed. Tall boots stopped in front of Four, just at the edge of his vision. “Can you walk, you think?”

Four took stock of his own condition, considering it. His body existed as one uncoordinated pulse of pain—his head throbbing, his stomach churning, the world still tilting and swooping jerkily beneath him, though it didn’t seem in danger of catapulting him into the stratosphere anymore. “No…” Four began, his tongue heavy with guilt. They’d have to compensate for him, again, like they almost always had to. “I don’t think so, Captain. I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for, dear Smithy, we’ve got you,” Warrior quipped back. Those boots walked away, and Four dropped his head into the cool grass, squeezing his eyes shut, as another wave of nausea and dizziness threatened to consume him. “Everything looks to be safe right now. Twilight, can you carry him?”

A grunted answer, then a shadow fell over Four. Four sighed, bracing himself as best as he could manage, and blindly thrust a hand upwards. What had to be Twilight pulled him up and off of his feet completely—Four pressed his lips together tightly as he fought to breathe through the new wave of nausea that arose from the movement, he would not vomit all over Twilight—and he found himself slung over furry shoulders similar to a baby lamb with a broken leg.

“Thanks…” he mumbled, heat rising in his cheeks, as he tucked his forehead against Twilight’s cloak. Nearly every portal, now, the heroes were forced to compensate for him. While the others’ tolerance had grown better over time, his only seemed to get worse and worse. “I hate this…” The words were already past his lips before he realized that he’d said anything at all.

“Don’tchu worry your pretty lil’ head ‘bout a thing,” Twilight answered affectionately. He tugged Four’s hood down over his face for him, sending the bell at the end of it jingling. It blessedly blocked out the worst of the sun, allowing him to un-squint his eyes at last. “You just get yourself some rest, n’ we’ll find you somewhere to lie down for a bit, yeah?”

That sounded like a good idea, actually. In seconds, Four was out, slumbering uneasily against Twilight’s shoulder as the world rocked in a steady rhythm beneath him, the movement no longer nauseating but instead lulling him to deeper sleep.

Read this on ao3! HCH Febuwhump Day 12 — Semiconscious

Or check out the whole series here! HotCheetoHatred's Febuwhump

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

To the anon who wrote about analyzing and discussing Louis song lyrics in a deeper way, the issue to me is that every single Louis analysis or discussion ends up being seen through the Larry lens. They co-opt every single discussion. All the lyrics have to be fit into the Larry narrative - even if it makes absolutely no sense. His set design and lighting choices and clothing - all must be shoe-horned into his secret signaling about Larry.

I always think about the ridiculous Back to You theory of him supposedly singing “I love him” instead of “it”. First, that song is about an extremely dysfunctional relationship. If you believe in long term Larry love, then that song should make you have doubts. But one little idea that he is singing “him” and the entire song becomes about Larry signaling.

Louis could escape the One Direction lens, he just can’t escape the Larry lens and it’s so sad. He has some of the best written songs of any of the 5.

Louis’ time and craft often go unappreciated, and his team doesn’t bother to make promote beyond the One Direction fanfiction crowd.

Part of the problem is that young audiences no longer have the patience (or capacity) to listen to layered songs. It’s difficult to pick out any popular song that isn’t about gossip or personal trauma… surely there’s more to pop music than sassy clapbacks?

Larries made Habit an uncomfortable concert experience even though the song is mostly an explanation of Louis’ ambivalence toward a solo career. Louis’ reluctance of the facing the stage alone, the explicit comparison of a music career to drug addiction (knowing full well how many musicians succumb to it), and the very mixed feelings toward an audience that both adulates and destroys, this (as Sylvia Plath put it) “peanut-crunching crowd” that treats celebrities like circus acts. All of these contradictions miraculously co-exist in a simple ballad with a one-word title, but the nuance is entirely lost in the screams of “Princess Park,” because (according to Larries) who cares about trauma as long as it’s “gay”?

Back To You is a song about toxic co-dependence, as poisonous and vicious as one can imagine, dressed up in a happy pop tune (later, rock tune). It’s about two people whose relationship has deteriorated so much that they can’t even talk to each other without using the language of physical violence, but they also feel trapped. It’s as much about depressing as it is about love.

But the analysis and appreciation from Louis’ fandom has been driven away by Larries, and by Louis’ team.

There used to be so many smart, articulate Louies in the fandom. When I look at old recommendation posts, the fandom now looks like a graveyard. So many Louies got tired of being bullied or the toxic Larrie atmosphere, or Harries, or waiting for a good team, that they left. There would be good streaming projects and fandom projects to make things fun, lots of art and creative momentum.

[deep-hearts-core]

1996

i'm not reviewing the songs from the prequalifying round here. those will be in a separate post after and not included in my yearly top or average table (just as i don't count the songs from 2020, or ro 2016/ru 2017).

Turkey This rocks - the piano part in the instrumental is super catchy and memorable. And ofc I think Sebnem's voice is great and she has a good, subtle stage presence. The prechorus is a bit of a vibe killer, though, it feels really off and destroys the momentum.

UK Gina G herself is undoubtedly the best thing about this performance. I like to watch her and I like the way she looks in that dress. However, her backup dancers are simply too hype (the routine could have been pared down or eliminated altogether) and whatever camera or lighting effects they were trying to do don't come across well, at least not 25 years later. The song is just ok. A little too frenetic for my liking but not terrible.

Spain That's a pass from me - it's better once the beat kicks in but I'm pretty bored by the whole thing and I don't like his voice.

Portugal This is a hard one. On the one hand, the sections of the song don't cohere, leaving it pretty jumbled-sounding. On the other, I like all of the different sections of it, even though I don't think it works as one piece. So it's good, but also fragmented.

Cyprus He sounds good, but again, I am bored. Ranks above Spain because he just sounds better.

Malta It's a very good song for her. It isn't personally to my taste, though, and more importantly there are moments where she overperforms physically and that affects her singing. But ultimately she looks good and sounds good for most of the song and we have to give her credit for that.

block ranking: Turkey > Portugal > Malta > UK > Cyprus > Spain (this was hard!)

Croatia Those screamed notes my GOD. Just. Frankly startling. Not welcome. Certainly, uh, gives the song a unique character. Ignoring those (hard not to), it's an OK song but she's got so much vibrato. Too much. I don't like it.

Austria Ok, let me get this straight, it's a gospel song sung in Austrian dialect by a guy who sounds like Elvis but just sits at the piano the whole time? Ok! Great! Um, I fucking love this and I think it's a lot of fun but I think it's also performative multiculturalism at its finest and that George sitting at the piano the whole time really detracts from the performance. His backup singers were so much more fun to watch - the male backup singer probably could have performed this as the lead artist and it would have gone better.

Switzerland I am learning why everyone hates ballads.

Greece What I will say is that this year is turning out to have a hard dichotomy between "good songs" and "boring songs" and while this is less boring than the last one it fails to capture my attention. The most memorable thing about it is the photobooth filter.

Estonia Maarja-Liis has a really beautiful voice, but it doesn't match too well with Ivo's, and the song doesn't have as much structure as I want it to. I'm never certain on where the verse is and where the chorus is.

Norway Something funny about her vocal quality on the word "evighet". A little too shrill, she's not exactly on the pitch or there's something wrong with her vowel or I don't know, it just sounds wrong. Anyway this is one of the better ballads, it's beautiful and all, but I /still/ find my thoughts wandering all over the place.

block ranking: Austria > Norway > Estonia > Croatia > Greece > Switzerland

France It's nice but I'm BORED! aGAIN! why is this contest so excruciating every other song. Please god. I wanted this to be good I wanted a good minority language song and then it was not that.

Slovenia This one is ok. She sounds good and there's some interesting chord progression stuff going on.

Netherlands Probably felt a little dated at the time, but here it is a welcome break from the deluge of boredom! There's good vocal match here and they seem comfortable with each other onstage too.

Belgium I'm glad it was another upbeat one but it wasn't the best of the upbeat songs for me tbh. I liked the card visual effect. And the further back I watch the funnier it is for me to see the camera effects like we've been seeing all night here. Poland 2022 did not come out of a vacuum, people!

Ireland It's different from everything else we've seen so far, and Eimear has incredible control over her voice. Her soprano range is light and airy and she makes hitting all those notes seem effortless. I wish there was something more to it, it feels like something is missing. But I am definitely not complaining about its win.

Finland It was okay? Nice guitar. It felt cohesive which is probably the most I can say for it.

block ranking: Ireland > Netherlands > Finland > Belgium > Slovenia > France

Iceland She sings this just fine but I do not really like jazz, sorry Anna

Poland One of the better ballads, it has good movement to it. She sounds very strained vocally though.

B&H This year is going to be so hard to rank because all the ballads are going to blend together and it's going to be awful

Slovakia Gets points above all the other ballads because of how gorgeous this man's voice is.

Sweden This is so unlike what I usually conceive of Sweden sending but I kinda like it. Nice passing tones in the chorus. Idunno.

My top 23 1)Austria 2)UK 3)Turkey 4)Portugal 5)Slovakia 6)Norway 7)Malta 8)Ireland 9)Netherlands 10)Slovenia 11)Sweden 12)Cyprus 13)Estonia 14)Croatia 15)Finland 16)Belgium 17)Greece 18)Switzerland 19)Iceland 20)Spain 21)Poland 22)France 23)B&H

^^ not sure what tf this is. the ranking's a mess, and i'm realizing that i maybe enjoyed, like, four songs out of 23. godddd.

Miscellaneous Thoughts at least these hosts did a good job. they're pretty funny and had good chemistry with each other, and the male host is a really good singer! especially obsessed with him trying to talk to the austrian guy's mom in german and being so utterly confused. i'm also a fan of the green screen scoreboard. all in all i think this was a well-done show, just with shit songs. it's very interesting for me, watching this voting sequence. ireland, about to get their 7th win, soared ahead in the juries very quickly, making the winner fairly obvious from the jump; i imagine that audiences in 1996 felt rather the same way as audiences in 2023 when loreen did the same. it's likely no coincidence that televoting was trialed the next year. i know that the ebu is likewise in discussions about the format and weighting of the juries. and lastly, it's kind of funny how ireland gave their 12 this year to sweden. the country at its peak, about to fall from grace, handing over their 12 to the country that will tie their record. [brb googling who sweden gave their douze to this year] oh, it was finland? in both the juries and the public? hm i guess we better get ready for finnish domination at some point in the next 30 years!

[esotericerise]

𝐈𝐓𝐙𝐘 있지 <𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐄>

Music taste is subjective and my opinions are my own! You do not have to agree with anything that I say.

“put my sneakers on; 하나, 둘, ready, get set, go”

This entire EP is classically ITZY in a tween-ish, speak-sing, polarizing way. 

01. SNEAKERS ☆

The point about this title track being a sneaker advertisement material has already been said and will likely be run into the ground soon enough.

One of my problems with the track is its intensity. After listening to it a few times through, I can say that the song feels flat to me; the attempts to slow down and speed up and add momentum are ineffective. From start to finish, SNEAKERS is running but the path is so flat, it’s a little painful. For a song to stay around the same intensity, it has to be interesting on another front. Take aespa’s Next Level: they play with the idea of song structure and verse. All of the patterns and beat changes, aside from the chorus, are never repeated. It redefines what a song’s structure consists of, while remaining a similar level of intensity throughout the entire piece. Is ITZY playing with anything particularly interesting? No. 

That being said, the girls flow really well on the song and the beat is bouncy and fun.  The prechorus is enjoyable! Though Yuna’s vocal on the final prechorus segment during the bridge is a little painful, every other vocal part is fine. I don’t think I’ll give it a casual listen, though.

02. RAC3R

I do like this one better than SNEAKERS but even with its audibly offensive drop instrumental (à la 4th gen noise music samples) it struggles to do anything inventive or new. That’s okay though! If someone enjoys this and streams or buys it, then it has completed its goal of commercial music. The verses and prechoruses are quite good, a little reminiscent of Bring the Noize by NCT 127 but without its digital feel and enjoyable chorus. I can’t listen to whatever sound that is in the chorus several times over just for the verses though, but if you can, power to you. 

03. WHAT I WANT

This does the 180 degree reversal better than RAC3R does by a long shot. I actually was reminded of CLC’s I Like It a lot with the way it changes from a more hip, dark, trap verse to a lighter, sweeter prechorus, which then returns to its original state. During that prechorus though, I feel like they’re a little out of their comfortable singing range. It’s very girlboss runway VOGUE fashion but also definitely ITZY. 

04. FREE FALL

The verses were fine... but the “weee” is so unserious I don’t know if I can listen to the song with a clear conscience.  The release of the chorus does give the feel of a free fall, especially because of the heaviness of the beat behind the regular verses. I do like the little ITZY chant before the pre-chorus. My mind was blown! By the fact that with their big-budget JYP lyricists, we got a math lyric. I knew we were camping out in the teen sound, but to mention high school math and/or physics? A little too far, in my opinion. 

05. 365

Not even five seconds in and immediately: I know this one. It’s Earthquake by NCT 127. The verses are kinda brain-grating annoying with the metallic, abrasive instrumental. Also, according to Genius, the lyric is “tick-tock, it's time” but in my head, they are referring to the app and I cannot get behind that. This is reinforced by the fact that it is preceded by “Five, five to midnight” and in my head, that’s when teens are stapled to the app. Even without that, I just can’t find the song enjoyable. In the same vein as SNEAKERS, 365 is rather monotone.

06. DOMINO

This song is airy, and reminiscent of a late night summer car drive. Not what I expected from ITZY, even though this song isn’t really that slow or ballad-esque. That being said, nothing about it is very ITZY; it’s generic. Every other song I could probably come to the conclusion through the production that it was made for this group. I can’t say the same for this song. It’s not bad though. 

07. SNEAKERS (Eng. Ver.)

I have the feeling that this song was first written in English. Everything I said about the Korean version applies here. It’s only mildly cringy lyrically, though I wouldn’t listen to it over the Korean version because my lack of understanding allows me to be free of lines like “I'm fly to be straight up” and “Trailer's got you pumped”. (The latter is confusing because what trailers are we referring to? Did you mean trainers? Did you mean the CHECKMATE fake-out teasers?)

Overall, this EP feels like a regression in the quality of ITZY’s music. That take is completely subjective, by the way, but I find that LOCO and its b-sides were enjoyable while still having that ITZY feel to them. This one takes it in a different direction that feels more juvenile than anything else they have come out with and their b-side catalog is still stagnant in quality; that is to say it has one or two good songs for every five. That is not the best ratio. If I had to give SNEAKERS a numerical rating, I’d probably give it a 5/10. Average, at best. For the entire CHECKMATE EP, probably a 4/10 because I only enjoyed 2 b-sides, and even those felt like I was on the struggle bus. 

[weyrwolfen]

Eidola: Chapter 18 - CT-7118 Quad

Rating: T

Characters: Gen, Clone Trooper OCs, Captain Rex, Ahsoka Tano, and other canon members of the 501st/332nd

Warnings: canon-typical violence; references to self-harm, injuries, and substance abuse; PTSD; it’s post-Order 66 and nobody is having a good time (but they’re all working on it)

Summary: The mission was never to bring down the Empire. Not really. The mission was to save every single one of their chipped brothers. But if doing do helped break the Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy? Well, that was just a bonus.

“You’ve got to be kriffing kidding me,” Quad said under his breath.

“Be kind of ironic,” Dive said, throwing the Ballista into another stomach-wrenching swerve to avoid another massive, metal bolt. “If we get taken out by my girl’s namesake.”

“It’s a railgun,” Quad corrected from the co-pilot’s seat. Not that he was about to touch anything on the control panel. The flak was way too hot outside for him to jostle Dive’s elbow.

“Nah, it’s totally a ballista,” Dive said, pulling some kind of stunt which tipped the modified gunship’s nose up, rapidly dropping forward momentum and altitude in a way that made Quad’s guts try to crawl up and out of his mouth. “I mean, look at that thing.”

Sure enough, Dive’s maneuver had put one of the base’s unusual defense systems right in the crosshairs of the Ballista’s main guns. Dive fired at the kriffing massive, belt-fed railgun and then immediately kicked the ship’s sublight thrusters into high gear, not even sticking around to watch the fireworks.

“I will puke on you,” Quad threatened, not for the first time.

“You’re wearing your bucket,” Dive replied, utterly unperturbed.

“I will take it off, specifically to puke on you,” Quad repeated.

“Promises, promises,” his pilot said in a light, sing-song before slamming the ship’s yoke forward and sending them all into a twisting dive.

“Somebody want to tell us what’s going on up there?” Recoil asked over the Raiders’ open comm line. His voice sounded more than a little strained.

“Railguns,” Quad replied on the same channel. “All along the cliffs surrounding the base.”

He didn’t add that they’d already seen those things rip the engines out of one of the Mandalorians’ fighter/transports. He’d caught a glimpse of armored figures streaming out of the fatally damaged ship before it hit the ground, jetpacks carrying them to safety, but it couldn’t have been the ship’s entire contingent.

Captain Rex was on one of those ships. Quad didn’t mention that either. Worrying wouldn’t help his team.

One of the Reapers’ ships had followed the Kom’rks down, landing in the base’s central courtyard in something that might, generously, be called a controlled skid.

That had been about the same time when Quad had ordered the Convor to hang back and had given Dive permission to, quote, ‘Go nuts.’

It was the right call.

Quad was regretting every moment of it.

The sound Dive made, when he strafed past the next railgun, had no business coming out of a grown-shebs clone’s mouth.

“Did you seriously just go ‘Wee’?” Quad asked, holding onto the armrests of the co-pilots chair like his life depended on it.

It didn’t. No kriffing chair was going to keep him in one piece if Dive splattered them across the cliff face.

“Yeah, I did,” Dive crowed.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.” The Ballista swooped to dodge another incoming bolt. “You love me.”

“I really don’t.”

“Oh, come on! This is fun!”

“It’s really not.”

“Killjoy.”

Quad pried one hand free of his armrest long enough to flash Dive a very rude hand gesture.

His pilot just laughed as they plummeted once again towards the rocky surface of this Force-cursed moon.

A black streak cut across the Ballista’s field of view, firing into a large rectangular cavern which had been cut into the canyon wall. That would be Commander Tano, in the Imperial interceptor they’d ‘borrowed’ from the Wadj base. As Dive tore past, Quad had just enough time to see a crude hanger bay and a burning ship, too cobbled together and disreputable-looking to be anything except a pirate vessel. Dive was bearing down on another railgun emplacement.

It seemed like two other Kom’rks had gotten the same idea as Dive. Plumes of smoke were starting to rise from different points along the canyon’s steep walls, and the incoming fire had noticeably lessened.

Not that Dive was toning down his evasive maneuvers any. Shebs.

“Commander Tano’s torn up the hanger bay pretty good,” Dive said, obviously relaying a message from the pilots’ dedicated channel. “She’s giving the others the all clear for landing.”

“Good,” Quad said, swallowing down bile as the Ballista finally, finally leveled out into something resembling a sane glide path. “Get us on the ground too.”

He’d mostly gotten back in control of his stomach when Dive touched them down, light as a feather. Karking shabuir. Pilots were all crazy.

From the comm chatter, Jesse’s Reapers were already inside the base. Captain Rex was also safely out of his ship and already engaging the enemy, using one of their salvaged jetpacks to drop in on some kind of top-floor command station along with Kryze and about half of her Mandalorians.

Quad has his advance team form up on the far side of the still-smoldering Kom’rk, using the downed ship as concealment while they waited for the others to land. Their filters took care of the air quality issue from the smoke, but visibility wasn’t ideal. Quad still ordered his men to fan out and keep eyes on the courtyard as best they could, providing limited coverage for the teams who had yet to land.

The main courtyard wasn’t big enough to accommodate more than one ship at a time, not with a stretch of perimeter wall blasted across half of the open space and two downed craft junking up the rest. Dive had taken off the second the last of them had cleared the ramp. He was up there right now alongside Commander Tano, making sure their airspace stayed clear. Trip’s Jekai was just landing, but Quad also spotted another Kom’rk, settling down on the far side of what remained of the base’s outer wall.

Some di’kut leaned out of one of the upper story windows and started firing at the Jekai. Recoil put an abrupt end to that.

“This door’s locked,” Psy said, off to Chat’s left. “Code pad access.”

“Chat, see what you can make of it,” Quad said, punching one of the buttons on his vambrace to hail his second squad of Raiders. “Cling, Rasp, where are you in line?”

“We’re up next,” Cling answered, coolly professional. That didn’t tell Quad much, he’d seen the pilot maintain an air of calm precision while his ship was literally disintegrating around his ears.

“Nothing much to report up here,” Rasp added over the same channel. “It looks like most of the excitement is ground-level at this point.”

“Good,” Quad said, tracking Trip’s team’s progress. Their pilot, Talon, had angled the Jekai against the wall, dropping their ramp right up against the entrance the other Raider team had claimed. There was a slight distortion in the air around the ship, a ripple in the air which suggested that the forward shields were still fully engaged, providing the ground team with all possible cover. “Good,” Quad repeated, more than half to himself. “Get dirtside soonest.” He swapped back over to his squad’s channel and continued, “Chat, how’s the door coming?”

Chat was down on one knee in front of the door in question, blaster slung across his back. He had a crude spike already in place in the locking mechanism and was typing away at his synched datapad. “Soon,” he grunted, monosyllabic as usual.

None of the base’s other doors had been secured like this, which suggested the pirates wanted to keep whatever or whoever was inside secure. Seemed promising.

The Jekai took off in a billow dust and debris which temporarily messed with Quad’s targeting and visual settings. Cling and the Convor were already hovering beyond the collapsed section of wall, waiting their turn. Nobody was currently taking pot shots at the ships from the windows, which made Quad suspect that the pirates inside were more concerned with the clones already inside the structure.

A line of text, tagged with Captain Rex’s designation number, flashed up in Quad’s HUD, stubbornly sitting in the command chat until he could read and dismiss it. ‘Mandalorians securing upper floors and perimeter. All clone units continue engaging ground level entry points.’

Well, that made things easy enough. Quad dismissed the message.

“Done,” Chat said, rising to his feet and unslinging his blaster. Quad glanced over just long enough to confirm that the spike was indeed now flashing green.

An icon flashed in Quad’s HUD, a ping from Trip, requesting contact as soon as it could be done safely. No time like the present. He punched a few buttons on his vambrace and opened up yet another comm line.

“Quad here,” he said.

Trip’s designation number immediately popped up at the bottom of his HUD. “Confirmed chipped and collared slaves present,” the other Reaper lead reported, cutting straight to the chase. “We’re setting up jammers in a large storage room, just inside our point of entry. Have you synched up with the command map yet?”

“Not yet, still waiting on the pilots to get their osik in order.”

“Right, the location’s flagged whenever you join,” Trip said, and then sighed loud and long enough that it was picked up by his helmet’s internal comms. “Assign someone to scanner duty, the Reapers are stunning everybody and letting us sort them out.”

Karking Reapers. No finesse at all.

“Figures,” Quad grumbled. “We’ll deal.”

It wasn’t the worst news. The chances any of the pirates were feeling suicidal enough to just start activating their slaves’ chip detonators within the walls of their own compound were slim. Still, Quad didn’t like the extra hanging variable in an active firefight.

Quad caught sight of the promised Mandalorian teams moving through the rubble of the collapsed perimeter wall, right as the Convor was landing. Like Talon before him, Cling angled the ship as best he could, dropping the ramp as close to the sheltering wall of the courtyard and the door where Quad and his strike team were waiting, while not actually dumping out Rasp’s squad right on top of the wreckage of the first Kom’rk.

“Alright Raiders, form up on me,” Quad said, signaling for Chat to open the door on his count. He finally pulled up the command map and a web of trails blinked into existence in his field of view, tracing the paths his fellow team leaders had taken. That is, were taking, considering that Jesse’s icon was tearing down an unexplored path at the moment, adding a new, arcing line to the simplified map. As promised, Trip’s icon for the safe room he’d established was just across the courtyard, easy enough to locate once it became needed.

Quad snugged the butt of his blaster rifle against his shoulder. “Recoil, flash grenade. Chat, open the door on my count. Let’s get this clusterkriff on the road.”

“Contact,” Quad announced over his team’s direct channel, back pressed against the curving stone of the hallway.

Blaster shots, red and sizzling, zinged past his position, slamming into the opposite wall with a shower of dislodged rock shards.

“Who’s still got flash grenades?” he asked. They’d started running low a while back, and by now their stock was getting downright grim.

“I’ve got one left,” Blinks said.

“Same,” Alt added.

Typical. Quad had left both of them one hallway back to guard the noncombatants they’d been gathering since their last run back to Trip’s saferoom.

“Alt, bring yours up here,” Quad said,

Kibble had been working on a reusable flash grenade. He’d said something about new lenses improving light output when they’d deployed to Wadj.

But Kibble had taken an unlucky blaster round, and none of the rest of them could make heads or tails of the notes he’d left behind.

Another burst of blaster fire tore past his position, sending shards of rock flying in all directions. If the blasts hadn’t been enough to drag Quad’s mind back on task, the clatter of dislodged, superheated debris against his plastoid certainly did the trick.

What a di’kutla waste of charges.

The pirates were yelling now, a string of insults and dire threats and implications about the clones’ mothers which, given their parentage, Quad found relentlessly amusing. He just tipped his bucket against the wall and let the noise wash over him, finger tracing the rim of the trigger guard as he waited.

A solid clack against Quad’s shoulder drew his attention to Canvas and the flash grenade he was offering. Alt must have just passed it up the line of brothers in the hallway. Quad shifted his blaster rifle to one hand and accepted it.

He palmed the grenade and glanced again at the cratered wall and blaster scoring. The cluster of shots were mostly positioned pretty high up, basically head-height for a clone. Stupid target selection, especially when partnered with the less-than-expert aim most of the pirates had been exhibiting. Center of mass would have been a lot more effective, but he wasn’t exactly going to complain.

“Keep low,” he told his team. “On my count. Three,” he thumbed up the activator on the grenade.

“Two,” he waited a heartbeat and then turned to throw the grenade down the hall. One of their targets shouted in alarm.

“Flash grenade out,” he dropped back behind cover and turned his head aside, waiting for the flash. It came, along with a loud bang and even more shouts.

“Move!”

Quad pivoted back out into the hallway, staying low and bringing his blaster up as he moved. There were six sentients, each reeling from the flash grenade to one extent or another. One, a Trandoshan, must have had the presence of mind to protect his eyes at least a little, because he had retained enough vision to lift his blaster and aim at Quad.

Three blaster shots slammed into him, only one of which had come from Quad himself.

Selecting his remaining targets felt automatic, like stepping through the room-clearing sims back on Kamino. Assess the threats and neutralize them in descending order of priority.

The tall, near-human sentient on the far left was wearing some kind of helmet. It might have light-filtering capabilities. Better not to risk it. One. Two. Three.

The gray-skinned woman’s blaster was mostly pointed in their direction, even if she wasn’t actively aiming it, so she was next. One. Two. Three.

The heavily-bandaged human man was backing into the open doorway behind the group, groping awkwardly for cover. One. Two. Three.

The others… well, Quad’s brothers had assessed their priority differently.

Quad rose most of the way from his low crouch, but his blaster remained trained on the open door, watching for new threats. The next steps of their playbook required essentially no explanation. He had taken point, so his squad would advance. Rasp was in reserve, so he would check to make sure the first wave of targets had been fully neutralized. So, once it seemed like no new targets were going to present themselves, Quad held up the hand gesture to advance, picking his steps carefully through the tangle of bodies in front of the door.

The next room had the look and feel of an improvised medical facility. Quad registered the cots, the neat shelves of supplies, even as he swept the room’s corners, searching for additional targets, but finding none. There were additional doors opening off of that central hub.

Quad split his team again, setting Chat, Recoil, and Synch to keep the room secure while Quad himself took everyone else to check the satellite doors one by one.

The first room contained rows and rows of poorly-stocked shelves, but no sentients.

The second looked like a surgical room, white tiled and clean enough to feel entirely out of place in comparison to the rest of the base. It was empty of additional targets as well.

The third broke the trend.

An androgynous sentient whose species Quad did not immediately recognize stood in the middle of the cot-lined recovery room, four slender arms twisted together with both pairs of hands fisted and pressed against the synthetic fabric tunic which covered their narrow chest. Their body language seemed more resigned than fearful, eyes resolutely closed and flattened, almost reptilian features slack. There was a bulky, metal collar around the being’s throat.

A slave collar.

A near-human man stood behind them, one hand gripping the back of the slave’s neck, just above the collar. In the other hand, he held a surgical blade into the collar’s lock, the threat plain.

Quad and his brothers had alternated, cutting left and right as they’d entered the room. Canvas had gone right, Blinks had followed Quad to the left when the pirate spoke. Quad’s blaster never left the pair positioned in the middle of the room, assessing.

“One more step and I’ll blow us all sky high,” the pirate growled.

Dramatic.

Quad did stop though, making the abrupt mental shift from room-clearing protocols to high-value hostage protocols. His thumb flicked his blaster’s settings from fire to stun.

His team followed his lead.

“Here’s how this is going to go,” the pirate, the slaver, was saying, voice harsh with threat and anger covering for obvious fear. “You’re going to back out of the room, slowly.”

Quad edged slowly to the side, trying to get a better vantage. In the periphery of his HUD, he could see Canvas doing the same, but the pirate was doing too good of a job keeping his head down. Quad couldn’t get a clear shot. A stunning blast would probably take both sentients out, but one wrong twitch would send the pirate’s scalpel far enough into the collar’s locking mechanism to activate its failsafe. He’d rather not risk it.

“You sure you want to take yourself out like that?” Quad asked, trying to draw the man’s attention his way, clearing the way for Canvas to keep circling their target.

“If I’m dead already, I might as well take you out with me.”

Well, that did complicate matters.

“Are you listening to me, kronging Imp boot-lickers?” the pirate said in a harsh grate. The scalpel dug just a bit deeper between the collar’s jointed sections. The slave barely reacted; they just took a long, shivery breath, eyes still firmly shut.

Under other circumstances, expressing that kind of hatred for the Empire would have earned the pirate some points with Quad. Not here, not now. “I’m listening,” he said, shifting his blaster to one hand in something resembling a placating gesture, but which really freed up one hand to flash a series of quick ‘Advance when clear,’ signs in Canvas’s direction. At the responding ‘affirmative’ gesture, Quad took one step back, intentionally bumping into the shelving behind him with a clatter of armor against plasteel.

The pirate shifted, obviously trying to get an angle where he could see what Quad was doing without actually exposing himself to blaster fire.

Eyes on me, shabuir.

The pirate’s grip relaxed just a little, scalpel retreating in response to Quad’s seeming capitulation.

Quad took another step back towards the door, letting his awkwardly extended blaster rifle catch some of the metal cannisters which lined the shelves. Two of them fell to the floor with a crash.

The pirate jerked, blade jerking hard against the slave’s throat, eliciting a short, choked-off gasp of pain.

But Quad’s gamble had worked. Canvas used the distraction as intended, taking two quick steps to his right and dropping the pirate with a single, well-placed shot to the side of the natborn’s head.

“Clear,” Canvas said, as the rest of the brothers lowered their blasters.

Force, what a mess. Droids at least died neatly.

The mostly-headless body slumped, knife and captive abruptly freed from its grip.

Quad was also moving, darting forward to check on the slave, whose knees had buckled at their abrupt release. The being’s eyes opened wide, solid black and featureless in a way that reminded Quad of the Kaminoans. They took a deep, gasping breath as Quad eased them down into a kneeling posture. One four-fingered hand was pressed against the wounds to their neck.

“Let me see that,” Quad said, meaning it kindly, but the words came out sounding harsher than intended. He wasn’t any good at this part, dealing with shocky civilians. That had always been Hook’s job.

But Hook was dead too, and there was a literal waitlist for even semi-trained medics. Quad was just going to have to make do.

“Force, you’re bad at this,” Blinks said from behind Quad’s shoulder.

“What?” Quad snapped, annoyed by the comment. Annoyed that it was correct, if the blankly guarded expression on the hostage’s face was any indicator. He did move though, when Blinks kicked at him lightly with the side of his greave. “Fine,” he said, pushing himself up from his awkward, half-kneeling position.

“Hi, I’m Blinks,” his brother said, pulling off his helmet and smiling a little as he dropped into an easy crouch. “Do you mind if I take a look at your neck?”

And just like that, the kneeling sentient took a deep breath, mouth relaxing from its rigid line just enough to reveal multiple rows of narrow, needle-like teeth, and nodded.

Quad swallowed down a rejoinder which would, no doubt, have been caustic enough to spook the civilian again and instead turned his attention to the rest of the room.

Canvas was standing over the downed pirate, keeping a watchful eye over the proceedings. He had already kicked the blade away from the man’s hand, standard protocol even if it was pretty karking obvious that such a move was entirely unnecessary. An extensive bacta bandage had been very professionally affixed around the man’s unmoving chest, wasted effort on someone’s part now.

The situation seemed well in hand, so Quad signed for Canvas to keep an eye on things and then ducked out into the central recovery room. Rasp and his squad were already inside, and the final door Quad’s team had yet to check stood open, suggesting their backup squad had handled that as well.

Except Rasp was hovering worriedly over Chat. Before Quad could ask, his second excused himself and came over to make his report.

“There were two pirates hiding in that last room,” Rasp said in a low voice, clearly not wanting his words to carry far. “One of them managed to get the drop of Chat and pulled his helmet off before we could get a clear shot. He’s uninjured, as best I can tell, but he’s acting… drugged.”

Kriff. Okay.

“Did you see anything?” Quad asked, concerned. “Any obvious delivery device?”

“Not exactly, but the pirate licked him,” Rasp said, sounding concerned and more than a little disgusted. “Our best working explanation is venom of some kind. He’s looking pretty rough.”

“Kark,” Quad muttered. “Show me.”

Rasp led the way over to the cot where Chat was, in all fairness, starting to look pretty green and very out of it. He was wheezing in a shallow way that Quad distinctly did not like and his pupils were blown concerningly wide. Quad silently gripped his brother’s shoulder and then gestured for Rasp to continue.

The last room contained more shelving, including one which had been ripped from its supports and was tilting precariously into the space, and a large, medical-grade incinerator. That was no doubt going to get some significant use in the near future.

To dispose of the two karking slavers whose corpses were laid out in the middle of the floor, for example.

“That one,” Rasp said, pointing to the one on the right. The being was short, less than half the height of a standard clone, and squatty with bright yellow and black blotches coloring their exposed skin. “Do you recognize the species?”

Kriff. “No,” Quad admitted. Apparently it was the day for it. There were millions of sentient species in the galaxy, and all the flash training in the world wouldn’t make each and every single one of them stick.

“Kriff,” Rasp said, echoing Quad’s thoughts out loud. “This looks like some kind of a med center,” he pointed out. “Maybe they’ve got some kind of antivenom?”

“Go look, and I’ll see if I can get Kix in on a consult,” Quad said, sending out a priority request to the command channel.

He didn’t have long to wait.

Designation numbers popped up in his HUD, Trip and Captain Rex first, then Jesse, then Ridge joined the channel.

“What’s the situation, Quad?” Captain Rex said, in lieu of waiting for everyone else to chime in.

“We’ve just taken whatever passes for a medical facility in this skug hole,” Quad said, going ahead and pulling up the command map to flag his current position.

“Is it secure enough for us to start using it?” Jesse cut in, sounding very tense. “I’ve got a seriously injured trooper here.”

“We’ve got one too,” Ridge said, and Quad thought he could hear blaster fire in the background when the other Reaper spoke.

“One collared slave on site, but that’s the only current threat,” Quad said, checking Jesse’s and Ridge’s relative positions on the map. “We’ve got an injured trooper here too. If we’re not needed elsewhere, I can hold our current position and keep the area secure for use.”

“Do that,” Captain Rex said. “Everyone start transferring your injured to Quad’s position. Jesse, will this free you back up to provide Ridge with support?”

There was only a short pause before Jesse replied, “Yes.”

“Good,” the Captain continued. “Quad, expect half a dozen Mandalorian patients soon. Anything else?”

“Actually yes, but just for Jesse,” Quad said before everyone started to log out. Sure enough, the channel started to empty out almost immediately. “Any chance you could patch me through to Kix?”

“He’s a little occupied at the moment,” Jesse replied grimly, but then added, “What’s the problem?”

“One of my men has had an incident with a potentially venomous sentient,” Quad said, walking back to the door where he could get eyes on Chat. His brother was looking truly out of it by now, and both Whirl and Strill were hovering nearby, body language bleeding concern, even under their buckets. “Yellow and black? Bipedal, built like a blob?”

“Hold on,” Jesse said, going silent for a moment, but the line stayed open. “Bite or sting?”

“Uh, we think he was only exposed to saliva,” Quad said, catching Strill’s attention and signing ‘Confirmation, query.’

Strill nodded, fingers signing a redundant ‘Affirmative.’

“What does the mouth look like?”

“Wide?” Quad said, glancing back at the corpse in question. He couldn’t see very well from this angle, but that sounded right. He hadn’t spotted any protruding teeth or anything.

“But no proboscis?”

“No.”

Another pause.

“Kix says you need Blatoid antivenom, and a type three sedative.”

Quad had never even heard of such a thing in his basic first aid modules. “Is that going to be in a standard medic’s kit?” he asked, uncertain of how to proceed.

Silence, then, “No, but look around. If they had a Blatoid on base, they probably stocked some specialty meds.”

“Right,” Quad said, thinking about the sparsely stocked shelves and the generally slapped together appearance of the entire space. “We’ll keep an eye out for your trooper.”

“Thanks, brother,” Jesse said, and then the line went dead.

Quad found Rasp in the half-empty storeroom and passed along Kix’s instructions. Apparently there were plenty of sedatives, but nothing resembling antivenom. Quad sent his second to organizing their teams to secure the hallways surrounding their current position and kept looking.

The main room only had a few carts and shelves, but Quad set Synch and Boots to searching the space anyway. Then he returned to the back room, where Blinks had seemingly applied a bacta patch to the slave’s injured throat and was now doing… something to their collar. Canvas hovered nervously over the both of them.

“What the kriff are you doing?” Quad asked, because it looked like Blinks had half-dismantled the slave collar and was hooking up wires to some of the device’s internal workings.

Which, in Quad’s professional opinion, seemed like a really bad idea.

“Frag taught me his trick for getting these things off faster,” Blinks said distractedly, focusing instead on the highly finicky, highly explosive device he was currently dismantling.

“Frag,” Quad repeated. “Trip’s new kid?”

“Yeah.”

“The one who earned his name by fumbling a practice grenade and taking out his squad leader in his first training sim?”

That got Blinks to pause. “Yeah?” he repeated, but this time the word was drawn out and a little unsure. “Whatever, it works. The kid keeps a couple on base to practice on.”

Quad just stared.

“They don’t have active explosives in them anymore,” Blinks said defensively, plugging another wire into place.

Force. Right. “Try not to blow up this section of the base,” Quad finally said caustically. “We’ve got injured brothers incoming. Canvas, help me look for Blatoid antivenom.”

“Look on the far left shelf along the back wall, third shelf down,” an unexpected voice said.

Quad looked down to find the still-collared slave looking up at him. Their huge, black eyes really did remind him of the Kaminoans, but that vague feeling of irrational unease wasn’t enough to discount their words. He signaled for Canvas to check the shelf they had indicated.

“Are you a medic?” Quad asked, making what he thought was a fairly safe logical leap.

“I was a surgical intern,” the being admitted, holding very still as Blinks worked. Their voice was even and shockingly calm, given the situation. “Before I was taken,” they amended, gesturing towards their throat and the collar Blinks was still manipulating.

“Found it,” Canvas said, striding back over and offering Quad a small bottle containing a small quantity of pink-tinted liquid.

Quad took it and read the label.

Blatoid Antivenom

Oxy metab only

48 ppp, 10 d/gabs

Store at 20-22 C, 1-1.5 atm

GPSC 16-18-2XLD58

Nothing about the dose. Nothing about how it was administered, unless those abbreviations meant something Quad didn’t recognize. Great.

“The hypospray injectors are outside, in one of the rolling carts,” the being added, accurately reading Quad’s indecision with annoying accuracy.

“Got it,” Blinks announced, inserting one of the probes on his multitool into the locking mechanism on the collar and giving it a sharp, shebs-puckering twist.

Quad… might have made a sound. He thought he could be forgiven for that momentary lapse of composure. Just… what the kark?

But sure enough, the collar just popped open in Blinks’ hands. Without exploding.

The slave, the natborn surgical intern, let out a long, shivery breath of obvious relief.

“You got a name?” Quad asked.

They looked up at him again, largely expressionless face framing eyes like empty pits, and said, “Mel.” Their voice was incongruously pleasant.

Quad tamped down his instinctive suspicion and offered the being, Mel, a hand up. “Care to show me those hypospray injectors, Mel?”

“Of course,” Mel said with a deferential nod which Quad still wasn’t sure he trusted.

Kix was going to be here soon, so he could actually administer the dose. Hopefully.

Except they walked back out of the back room and into chaos.

Four brothers were heaving a fifth onto one of the cots, stretcher and all. Kix was with them, obviously directing traffic while Quad’s men were mostly pressed against the walls, trying to stay out of his way.

There was a lot of blood. A lot.

A hypospray injector was pushed into his cuirass. He looked down and fumbled the device, taken aback at the sudden, sharp expression on Mel’s previously placid face.

“Surgical suite on your right,” she yelled at Kix, whose head whipped up to see who was speaking. “It’ll prompt you for species and weight when you insert the vial,” she said to Quad. Ordered Quad, if their tone was anything to go by.

And then she was rushing forward, eyes focused on the injured trooper.

“Slug thrower?” she asked Kix, who was bristling enough to give even Quad pause.

But the medic did answer, and there was something sharp and assessing about his tone. “Yes, single slug, through and through back to front.”

“You used standard coagulant synth-foam?”

Kix’s shoulders relaxed all at once. “With a bacta suspension. You said you have a surgical room?”

“Yes, this way,” Mel replied. “I’m out of human-standard plasma,” they said, sounding momentarily concerned.

Kix gestured for the four Reapers to pick up the corners of their improvised stretcher and follow her. “You’ve got a room full of matching donors,” he said wryly.

“You’re all…?” Mel started to ask, but then stopped, head cocked consideringly. “Ah, of course. This way.”

And then the seven of them disappeared through the side door, leaving the room in stunned, awkward silence.

There really was a lot of blood just all over the place, including boot prints coming in and out of the hallway, and they had more patients incoming.

“Boots, Synch, did you find any cleaning supplies?” Quad asked, trying to figure out how the injector worked. It wasn’t the same design as the G.A.R. models, but surely the principle was the same.

“Uh, yeah,” Boots answered, pointing to a little alcove in one of the back corners of the room. “There’s a sanitation droid in a charging station over there.”

“We’ve got more like that on their way,” Quad said, walking over to the bed where Chat was now laying flat. “Fire it up and see about wiping down that cot with a sterilizing agent.”

Ah, right, if he depressed the tab on the back, the whole thing folded open to accept a standard vial. Quad slid the vial in place and clicked the housing closed again. The screen popped up with a prompt for the patient’s weight, but there wasn’t a keypad to enter it.

And Chat was looking even worse, eyes unfocused and breath coming in short, shallow pants.

Quad stabbed one of the buttons on his vambrace, sending one last call out to Trip.

The other Raider lead answered almost immediately. “Trip here.”

“If you could spare him, we could really use Lighter in here,” Quad admitted, because not killing his brothers was parsecs more important than his karking pride.

“He’s already en route,” Trip said. “Should be arriving at your location any minute now.”

Thank kriff.

“We’ll keep watch for him,” Quad said and cut the line again. “Did Rasp give you two the sedatives?” he asked Strill and Whirl, who were still hovering around Chat’s cot.

“Yeah,” Whirl said, reaching for one of the pouches on his belt. “Here.”

It was another vial. Of course it was.

Giving up all other pretense, Quad just went to the main door, opened it to the hallway beyond, and waited.

When Lighter appeared a few minutes later, as promised, Quad just shoved the hypospray device and the extra vial in the medic’s hands and said, “Chat was exposed to Blatoid saliva. The antivenom is in the injector and here is a type three sedative, as per Kix’s instructions.”

Lighter looked at him, looked at the injector with it’s still-blinking prompt, and then looked at something beyond Quad’s shoulder. From the unbroken stream of curses and complaints which had just started up, it sounded like Canvas and Blinks had decided to take that exact moment to try to wrestle the pirate’s headless corpse out of the back room.

“Where’s Kix?” Lighter asked, clearly taking a moment to just process the scene.

“Surgery,” Quad said, turning to point at the correct door. And yeah, there were Canvas and Blinks, lugging their gory burden and leaving a fresh trail of red right through the center of the room. The small, beeping sanitation droid was fighting a losing battle against the mess.

“And where are they taking the corpse?” Lighter said, sounding more resigned than anything.

“Medical incinerator,” Quad said, pivoting to point at that door as well, backing his men on this, no matter how bad the situation currently looked. And it did look pretty bad.

“Force kriff me,” Lighter said under his breath. “Just, get out of the way.”

Ridge showed up in the medical center with two natborns in tow. That wasn’t exactly unexpected. Kix and Mel had both transitioned from treating the injured to working on removing slave chips maybe an hour ago.

Except these natborns apparently weren’t newly freed slaves, nor were they the clones’ Mandalorian allies.

“Hostages?” Quad asked in a private channel while Lighter got the two arranged on neighboring cots.

“Apparently,” Ridge replied darkly. “Bo-Katan’s people found records of their ransom demands encrypted in the base’s command terminals. The woman’s some kind of aid worker. The man designs transport ships for one of the Corellian companies.”

“Are there more?” Quad asked. The natborns were both human, both battered and filthy. The man, the ship designer, immediately laid down with a groan, but the woman remained upright, cradling what looked like a broken arm against her chest.

“Just one,” Ridge admitted. “An Imperial Navy officer. He didn’t like Jesse’s paint job much.”

He didn’t elaborate.

He didn’t need to. A clone wearing the Republic cog? The Imp had probably burst a blood vessel in his eye screaming about that.

And Quad knew how the Reapers dealt with Imperial witnesses.

“Did these two see him too?”

Ridge shook his head slightly in negation. “He’s removed himself off to Kryze’s cruiser with the Commander, just in case.”

That was probably smart.

“Just, tell your men to watch their words around them,” Ridge continued, sounding a little grim. “Even more than usual.”

Quad was sure the angle of his bucket conveyed every inch of his defensive annoyance with that comment. “They’ll follow protocol.”

And they would, even though their protocols had changed and tightened after the odd run-in with Alderaanian guards Trip had reported. The adjustments were easy enough to remember. If asked, everything was classified. Everything.

Who were they? Classified.

Who was their commanding officer? Classified.

Where were they based? Classified.

Favorite food? Classified.

“I wasn’t questioning their competence,” Ridge said, tension making his tone sharp. “But this is different.”

“Because they aren’t slaves,” Quad said dryly.

“Because none of the higher ups in the Empire pay any mind to slaves,” Ridge corrected.

Quad hated to admit it, but Ridge had a point. “So why are we risking it?”

The ‘Why didn’t you kill them too?’ went unsaid, but given the way Ridge was looking at him, it hadn’t gone unheard.

“Because I still have to be able to look myself in the mirror every morning.”

Quad’s nod was at least as much acknowledgement as apology.

The woman must have felt their eyes on her, even through their buckets, because she looked up, observing them as closely as they were her. She was human, petite and pale, with a coil of long, dark hair woven up into a braided crown which had, admittedly, seen better days.

“You said the man was from Corellia?” Quad said, just fishing for confirmation.

Ridge nodded.

“Where’s she from?” Quad asked.

Ridge didn’t answer immediately, but he eventually said, “She’s been careful not to say, but her ransom demand was sent to a humanitarian agency. It’s based on Coruscant, but it has bases all around the Core.”

Kriff. This was risky. But the alternatives were worse.

AN: Other chapters are available here.

Dividers by freesia-writes using helmets by lornaka. More designs available here.

[youngshiney]

how i would run sm: Red Velvet edition

back to the series with the next logical group, Red Velvet. sm's first group after Exo and my ult girl group, similarly under a cut as per last post

triple debut (2014-2015): so to start, i actually dont mind Happiness as RV's debut and that its ot4. Yeri was really young, so i wouldnt really change those first two eras (Be Natural is my beloved but its a single and a remake so it doesnt count as their first cb in my eyes). what i would change is the schedules and some promo.

firstly, like Exo i think RV would have benefited from some sort of webtoon or lore comic starting at the second debut for ICC bc thats when we start to get hints that something in Cake Land isnt right. i have a lot of thoughts on RV lore/storyline which we will cover in the upcoming kwangya post (after nct and aespa posts bc they are integral to my version of kwangya).

second, Seulgi should have solo debuted in 2015 between Dumb Dumb and the lesbian christmas song (Wish Tree was iconic and we love Lee Jooyoung). shes been RV's ace since pre-debut, everyone knew and loved her and acknowledged her talents, and she was in multiple mvs of her sunbaes (Henry's Fantastic was the best). Seulgi being the first solo RV member feels right in every way, and while it would be very different than what we got for 28 Reasons, i think that might be partially a good thing.

the start of the success era (2016-2017): Russian Roulette was perfect and i have nothing to say about it. The only thing I would have done differently for them in 2016 was pushed for more solo/unit content, like station songs, vlogs, arts and crafts vids? like just stuff where theyre having fun and hanging out with no pressure. the main 2017 change tho is Joy solo debut. sm is so fucking stupid for NOT capitalizing on the attention Joy got from The Liar and His Lover, a show all about how perfect and amazing she is as a singer! like have her prepare and record between Red Flavor and Peek a Boo and have Peek a Boo pushed back a week or two. the concerts were a good idea, but they really should have capitalized on Joy's performance more. im still annoyed she hasnt properly debuted especially bc clips of her singing from TLAHL was what made me look into RV in the first place and why Joy is my girl ult of ults

Bad Boy (2018): id push Bad Boy back a little bc the time between PaB and BB feels too short, especially going by my plan. other than that, no major notes since the eras were pretty good and the concerts were a good idea. maybe a bit more of a rest after RBB bc of the short turn around time between that and the Japan cb + NA tour

ReVe Fest pt.1 (2019): the Ellie Goulding collab was amazing. ReVe Fest day 1 was a mess, and i say that as a Zimzalabim supporter. the styling was horrific and it all needs to go, the mv should have been more circusy and less performance vid imo, and the song is fine but maybe a less chanty chorus? ReVe Fest day 2 was good and idk why people hate Umpah Umpah bc it was cute and summery like it should have been. and then the Finale, Psycho was one of the best eras taken from us too quickly. i mean the only thing to change is to stop wendy from falling bc that killed the whole momentum and their careers for a hot minute.

the hiatus (2020): now to be clear, i am not blaming wendy for her injury or suggesting she should have come back early. its good she rested and healed properly and came back slowly to make sure everything was okay. every idol should do that. that being said, we should have gotten an ot4 album even if it was just a mini. the girls basically did nothing for a whole year waiting for her and it really did hurt them/their momentum. they should have had more solo content through the year alongside the like two group things, then Seulrene debut in june like originally planned, and then and ot4 album in fall or winter.

back on track? (2021): ot5 being at smtown was great and got everyone hyped to see the group after a full year of hiatus and they teased a cb at the performance. and then wendy killed the hype by doing her solo debut 4 months later with a ballady slow song. and she had the audacity to be like "omg i feel so bad for making everyone wait and then doing a solo" like girl wtf?? anyway gripes about her aside. Queendom was cute, but it felt lackluster after the long wait and felt more like a b-side than a title. also the mv/concepts teased all this magic and powers and a whole universe only to give us literally nothing after the first minute. why were they in a post office when the teasers were about the antique shop?? i would have changed the mv a lot to either expand on the magic or fit the teasers better.

ReVe Fest pt.2 (2022): sm cancelled the concert (rightly) bc the girls got covid but then never rescheduled bc there were "no venues open" even tho the same thing happened to dream and they got rescheduled in like two weeks so what the fuck is that about? um anyway they should have done a concert after Feel My Rhythm but also not named it ReVe Fest bc theres no point and they arent connected. ALSO FMR was beautiful and all but what happened to the ballet concept which wasnt in the mv and why did they not expand on the weird half story with Dark Queen Seulgi and the garden etc? also also FMR felt like a b-side too which was disappointing especially after queendom. and im skipping ahead to birthday bc that was actually the biggest let down of the year. the concept/teaser photos had literally nothing to do with the mv or song, the song itself was easily their worst title and did not sound good in any way, the mv styling wasnt great for pretty much everyone, the cake ver selling out before preorders even ended and before they showed us what it was/what was in it was super annoying. birthday is the biggest let down era imo and ESPECIALLY after the beauty of Wildside. Wildside was the only release in 2022 for RV that i actually 100% enjoyed from the style to the mv to the song to the plot in the mv. like it was perfect and exactly what we should have gotten as a Korean title and era. i would have absolutely done something similar for birthday, especially with the grunge outfits/concept

future plans/ideas: Yeri and Irene solo debuts, Seulrene cb, Joy actual debut this time, more solo schedules especially for the actresses, more Yeri vlogs, Seulgi cb with a better song, my highly indulgent KaiJoyYuta trio, an even more indulgent trio of Seulgi/BoA/Yunho, i think thats all i have off the top of my head.

next week nct u and the way nct overall would function before we get into the actual units

[bukojuiice]

ʚ Going to Universal Studios Japan with them (ft. Izuku, Katsuki, Shoto, Denki, Eijirou, Shinsou and Dabi) ɞ *‧.₊˚*੭

—  @bukojuiice’s 720+ followers gift! thank you so so much for supporting my works!  ♡ ily all i never would have thought i would reach this milestone 🥺

—  uni student! izuku, katsuki, shoto, eijirou, denki, shinsou and evil turned good! dabi x reader headcanons ♡

 — To further elaborate, this is a Dabi that turned Good for his bby bro because I know that this is physically impossible in the manga and i found it hard to play around with a cute and fluffy set of hcs within a villain context. so pls let me have a good Dabi just this one time qwq

— if you like to see more from me, i have an ongoing bakugo x fem reader! smau called cuddle buddy! read it here!  for my bnha masterlist check it out here!  ♡

— please reblog, reply and leave like if you enjoyed! it means a lot! c:

—  all universal studios japan photos are taken by me. Most of these headcanons are also based on my experience in Universal Studios Japan!  (๑•͈ᴗ•͈)

—  content warning: slight innuendo/sexual content, strong language and mention of Endeavor

— summary: You spend a wonderful day in one of the most happiest places on earth with your just as wonderful significant other. 

—  You and Izuku stroll through Hogsmeade of the newly opened Hogwarts area of the Park. Your hand in his and your arms interlocked.

—  Izuku would geek out. As in geek out. He very much loved Harry Potter growing up and being able to go to USJ was a dream come true.

—  “It’s LeviOSA not LeviOSAR.” You continue to make Harry Potter jokes and Izuku was loving every minute of it. He could not stop laughing.

— You loved seeing his laugh as it made your heart feel all fluffy inside. God. why must this boy be so cute?

—  Izuku is just as big of a Potterhead as you. The two of you took the Hogwarts House test online and Izuku was sorted into Gryffindor whilst you were sorted into Slytherin. Two complete opposites yet you guys were the most adorkable couple ever. 

— Even the amusement park goers (the couples in particular) couldn’t help but turn their eyes to the two of you. 

—  The two of you are wearing matching Hogwarts robes, earning compliments from the staff giggling about how cute the two of you are! 

— YOU GUYS WERE MOST PROBABLY THE CUTEST COUPLE IN THE AMUSEMENT PARK!?? 

— LIKE YES TWO SOFT CUTIES AND IN HOGWARTS ROBES OF ALL MATCHING OUTFITS THEY COULD HAVE WORN?? COUPLE GOALS

—  You were originally going to hang out with the entire Dekusquad but ofc your friends just decided to play matchmaker and instead collectively backed out and said they were busy bc of uni (obvs a lie)

—  You wonder why they would play matchmaker when the you and Izuku were already together in the first place and they know that very well HSKHSHSKHS 

—  anyways ochaco, tsuyu, shoto and tenya are very supportive wbk

—  Izuku just wanted this day to be very special and to be between the two of you only. 

—  “Izu-kun! Let’s try out the Butterbeer and see if it tastes just as good as the books and movies make them to be!” You point to a food stall that sells the famous beverage seen in the series, with both alcoholic and non-alcoholic kinds.

—  “Of course (Y/N)!-chan Anything for you!” He says sweetly and gingerly hands the money to the food vendor. 

— For fun and because why the hecc not, you decided to order the alcoholic variant of the drink whilst Izuku had purchased the non-alcoholic one.

—  In turn, you ended up becoming a little bit tipsy as the two of you enter the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride.

—  Izuku stares in awe as the waiting line makes you go through the interior of Hogwarts Castle. Both you and Izuku couldn’t help but just stare in amazement. 

—  You smile at the sight of your cute freckled boyfriend admiring the view and the area before him. It was as if he was transported into the actual world of Harry Potter and you couldn’t help but feel the overwhelming emotions he was feeling right now. 

—  The two of you hold hands during the entire attraction as both of you are seated in a 3-seater ride. T’was cute uwu

—  Albeit the fact that you were a little bit tipsy, the entire 4-D ride was magnificent as it literally took you through every adventure Harry Potter and the rest of the cast had experienced. 

— It was probably one of the best rides you’ve been to tbh??

— “The Dementors were so creeeeeeepy.” Izuku shuddered, rubbing his arm. “”They looked so real!” He turns to you, wonder and amazement plastered all over his face.

—  “THE WORST THING ABOUT PRISON WAS THE DEMENTORSSSS.” You howled, your voice practically echoing around the exit area. 

—  “IZUkU!!! I LOAF YOUUUUUUU SOW MUCHHHHHIE.”

—  Midoriya knew that you got a bit tipsy due to the butterbeer, as soon as he had noticed the body language you were showing, he supports your weight by holding you tightky and then slowly take you to the cafe near the entrance that served hot coffee.

—  Thankfully, you were able to sober up so that the two of you could go around the rest of the park before the Night show took place in Hogwarts Castle. 

—  “You know, I’m so lucky to have you (Y/N)-chan. Just like how lucky Ron is to have Hermione.” He plants a kiss on your forehead, he firmly holds you as the evening light show of Hogwarts Castle begins. 

—  “You’re overreacting Izu-kun. I’m not as smart as Hermione.” You shake your head, trying to avoid eye contact as he just made another cheesy Harry Potter Joke. “More like I’m the Ron to your Hermione. I mess up sometimes yet you’re always there for me to help me up when I’m down.” 

—  “Then I guess we don’t have to compare ourselves to Ron and Hermione then. Because I wouldn’t have a life like this with you any other way. I love you (Y/N)-chan.”

—  “I love you too Izu-kun.” 

—  An array of colorful fireworks pop in the sky and the both of you look deep into each other’s eyes, holding each other tightly til the festivities end.

— The two of you arrived at Universal Studios Japan earlier than most people. Bakugo always wanted to be first in line even though the two of you had fast passes to specific rides. He just rolls like that.

—  You forced him to wear matching matching elmo and cookie monster headbands with you. You were wearing the Elmo one and he was wearing the Cookie monster design.

  —  He’d spoil you soooooooo bad like he’d be grumpy at first and refuse to buy you this cute little souvenir item you’d probably never use, but he’d still spoil the heck out of you. Just as long as it was mildly reasonable.

—  He was all for thrill rides. As long as he got to show off how bad-ass and brave he is to you. That was until you discovered one of the Jurassic Park rides in the park and HOO BOY...

  —  You were internally squealing at the sight of him wearing the cookie monster that your brain just?? kinda stopped?? You secretly take a pic of your explosive boyfie and then change his contact name to Cookie Monster.

—  You first enter the Jurassic Park area at the insistence of Kirishima, Kaminari, Mina and Sero whomst you were supposedly going to meet after 2 hours

— As you roam around, there’s awkward silence between the two of you until you begin to obnoxiously sing the theme song of the series to try and annoy Bakugo, “TENENENEN TENENENENEN TENENENEN”

—‘’(Y/N) Geez, could you stop singing that stupid song? It fucking annoys me.’’

—‘’No way we’re riding that shitty fucking water ride. I will not get wet today.”

— “Oh really? What if you get wet in different ways?”

—He smirks at you, taking your hand and rubbing your thumb, “Let’s see when we get home.’’

— “OH WAIT BUT FIRST LET’S SHARE A TURKEY LEG!’’ You point to a nearby food stall, selling turkey legs for 980 yen. 

— Katsuki begrudgingly follows you to the stall and buys a turkey leg for the two of you to share. 

—You were deep in thought. Fantasizing if you could eat the Turkey Leg with Katsuki “Lady and Tramp” style. 

— Much to your dismay, Katsuki had finished the Turkey Leg before you could get another bite. You pout and cross your arms, yet he doesn’t notice you silently shooting daggers at him.

— You then quickly forget about the Turkey Leg as soon as the Flying Dinosaur attraction hovered above you. The amusing screams of the people riding it could be heard as it passed at a speed you could have never imagined.

—  ‘’Suki-kun!! Let’s ride that next!’’

— ‘’We just ATE. Are you fucking serious right now?’’

—  ‘’Or are you too chicken?’’ You tease him playfully. ‘’Hmm… Looks like eating the entire turkey leg turned you into a chicken now didn’t it?’’

—  ‘’Fine. Fuck this.’’ He tilts his head, gesturing you to follow suit. ‘’Let’s get into the fast pass line.’’

— You get on the ride and see up close the details of the dinosaur as it’s positioned upright for you two to get on. You take your seats and are instructed to strap yourselves in the seat. 

— You get a wonderful view of the sea as the ride continues to ascend, going up and down, at high speeds. You begin to scream your heart out, the adrenaline rushing through you. Bakugo tries to put up a face, not wanting to scream and show any weakness. You look at him again as the ride arrives at a downwards slope, creating a momentum before it descends again at high speed.

— The ride begins to move, positioning itself like a pterodactyl would. You take Bakugo’s hand and give it a tight squeeze. You look at him for comfort and he nods at you lovingly. You were at ease albeit the fact that the two of you are about to experience one of the most terrifying amusement park rides ever.

The two of you are then positioned to be dangling in mid-air, the safety strap from a while ago being the only thing holding you in place. 

—  ‘’(Y/N)! I LOVE YOU!’’ He screams his lungs out as the ride passes through the ocean again, giving you a clear view of the sea surrounding the wonderful prefecture of Osaka.

—  You smile cheekily and begin to scream from the top of your lungs too. ‘’I LOVE YOU TOO KATSUKI!’’

—  ‘’Did you really mean that I love you?’’ You ask him. Your adrenaline is still pumping you up.

— ‘’Of course I did you nerd. I had to get it out of my chest.’’ He says, avoiding eye contact, scratching the back of his neck.

—  The ride then ends abruptly and you could never feel more grateful. You could practically kiss the floor as your legs shaked once you got off. Katsuki supports you with his arm around yours and the two of you get off the ride.

—  ‘’I want to hear you say that again.’’ You poke his cheek but he doesn’t move an inch.

—  ‘’Come on. We have to go look for Kirishima in the others.’’

—  ‘’One more time Suki-kun! Please?’’ You look at him with your most dramatic puppy eyes and he couldn’t help but give in.

—  ‘’Fine.’’ He says grumpily. ‘’I love you.’’

—  ‘’I love you too. Let’s never ride that again.’’

— ‘’Agreed.’’

— Shoto made sure that he would make the most of the time with you before the two of you go back to University. Booking the most luxurious hotel available, fine dining every single night you were in Osaka and going on private local tours and taking high-end trips to Nara and Kyoto.  

— He’s spoiling you so so so bad and as much as you didn’t want Shoto to spend too much, he kept on insisting. 

— This is also why he decided your trip near your birthday so that in a sense, this is his birthday surprise for you too!

— He wanted to go all out just for you. 

— You feel like you’re in Cloud 9 every time you’re with Shoto. How much more when you’re going on an extra special trip with him? 

— “This Eren Jeager’s voice sounds familiar. It’s as if we have the same voice.” Todoroki looks at the screen perplexed, putting on the 4-D Glasses and making sure you were already comfortable on your seat.

— ‘’I know right. You’re hotter of course.’’ You whisper, giving him a peck on the cheek.

— Attack on Titan is your all time favorite anime ever.

— Shoto wasn’t too well-versed in anime, so him bringing you to USJ is one of the best things he could ever do for you.

— Especially since the park had a limited time Attack on Titan 4-D Attraction!!

— YOU KNEW you had to go there and it was also a perfect opportunity for you to bond with Shoto

— As long as you were happy and he could support you with your interests, he was happy too.

— Being able to go on the Attack on Titan 4D Ride was a dream come true.

— You brought Shoto to the souvenir shop first and bought matching headbands for the two of you.

— You were wearing a headband that had two little chibi Levis on each side whilst Shoto had little chibi Erens on his uwu

— He’d be spoiling you so so much !!! Any souvenir item you’d set your eyes on, he’d immediately buy it for you!! 

— Before you can even say no, he’s already bought it using his luxurious black credit card. YOUR BOYFIE WAS RICH OFC I MEAN WHAT WOULD YOU EXPECT!?

—  "That was amazing." Todoroki says in awe, still trying to process the thrill he had just experienced. "I wonder what would happen if titans started appearing all of a sudden?"

—  "Let's say a smol titan appears right now. I wonder if you could pierce it with your ice?" You tilt your head, beginning to think about unrealistic scenarios. "Anywhooo, shall we go to the next ride on our list? It's called Hollywood Dream!"

—  "Let's gooooo~" He hums monotonously, earning giggles from you. He wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you close as you walk side by side. 

— “Okay... so there are two variants to this ride. There’s one that goes in reverse and the other one goes so high up that we have an overview of the whole park.” You go through a brochure that you picked up at the entrance.

 — “Whichever one you’re more comfortable with (Y/N).” 

—  “Let’s go on the one where we can see our hotel because of how high it is!”

—  “OKAY NVM THIS WAS A BAD IDEA.” You say as the rollercoaster begins to reach it’s momentum, the ride going higher and higher.  Until you can see your hotel and every recognizable landmark from afar. 

—  Shoto then clasps your hand, giving it a tight squeeze. “It’s okay (Y/N). I’m right here. Just hold my hand okay?” 

—  You nod slowly, taking a deep breath. You close your eyes and feel a fell swoop on your stomach as the wind passes through your face.

—  Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling begins to play as the rollercoaster begins to descend from roaring heights. They purposefully attached speakers to the ride so that the park goers would feel hyped up and excited instead of being terrified of how high up they are. 

—  Shoto’s hands are still intertwined with yours. You weren’t letting go. 

—  The screams of everyone else in the ride grows louder and louder and you can’t help but sing to the song instead.

—  “I GET THIS FEELINGGG INSIDE MY BONES! IT GOES ELECTRIC, WAVEY WHEN I TURN IT ONN.” You began to sing, raising your arms up high as you slowly begin to enjoy the ride. 

—  Shoto who was sitting on the end yet is still able to keep his calm composure, turns to you, and a small smile flashes on his face when he sees you channel your nervousness through singing. 

—  He begin to sing along with you too! AAAHHH WHAT A CUTIE

—  “All through my city, all through my home, We're flying up, no ceiling, when we in our zone.” He continues. You look at him and ease up a little bit once you see his handsome face and comfortable presence beside you.

— And before you knew it, the ride came to a stop. It was finally over. You take a deep breath and Shoto helps you out of your seat.

— “I got that sunshine in my pocket! Got that good song in my feet. I feel that hot blood in my body when it drops!” You and Shoto begin to duet to the pop and colorful song. You begin to fully enjoy the ride, barely even noticing the ride making sharp and fast turns as it continues to go up and down. 

— “I might have hated it at first but that was exhilarating.” 

— “I knew you could do it.” He says proudly, planting a kiss on your forehead. “You are the bravest person I know after all.” 

— “I wouldn’t have overcome my fears if it weren’t for you though.” You scrunch your nose, and hold on to Shoto’s arm. Your heart still beating so fast. “Thank you for being my safe space Shoto. I’m always at peace whenever I’m with you. Thank you for always being my comfort person.”

— “Of course (Y/N). Why wouldn’t I be?” He tilts his head, clueless. “Are you game enough to ride the reversed one this time?”

— “Of course I am!” 

— He chuckles, “That’s my love. If you feel like you can’t do it, Just know that I’m always here to support you.” 

— The first attractions on your list were the water rides. More specifically the Jurassic Park Water Ride and the JAWS ride. 

— You and Kirishima would try every ride in the park if you could. He loved to try and experience new things especially if he’s able to do them with you!

— Kiri is a very very fun person and would always be game with anything tbh!!

— You’re wearing matching dinosaur hats with Kirishima!!

— ‘’RAWR!’’ You make cutesy dinosaur gestures at your boyfriend, jumping around in your place. ‘’Can you believe we’re finally here in USJ!?’’ He blushes profusely, pecking your cheek. 

—  ‘’I can’t believe it too.’’ He chuckles then pauses for a moment before...

— ‘’RAWR!’’ He says back, his hands forming into claws, his cute mouth open wide and his sharp shark teeth very much visible. You giggle at his returned gesture, finding it more cuter than you should.

— ‘’(Y/N) you’re adorable! You know that right?’’ He laughs and continues to hold you tightly.

— ‘’Pshh of course I do! I have an equally adorable boyfriend too!’’ You look up at him, beaming.

— The two of you then jump in your place in unison, both mimicking each other’s cute ‘’RAWR!’’ and hand gestures as Kirishima pulls you into a hug.

— ‘’Don’t forget manly!’’ He winks and grabs your hand, taking you to the Jurassic Park Water ride.

— “I actually find it smart that we go on the water rides first so that we can just change clothes immediately after. Good thinkening Kiri!” You remark, patting him on the head.

— THINKENING??? THINKENING??? Eijirou could not think straight right now because of how cute you are

— ANYWAY HE WASNT GOING TO LOOK OR ANYTHING KIRISHIMA IS A GENTLEMAN HE IS NOT A BAD BOI WHO WILL GIVE IN TO TEMPATION!!

— You looked so excited to go on the rides and he couldn’t be happier seeing you like this 

— IT ALSO DIDNT HELP THAT YOU WERE WEARING A WHITE SHIRT SO IF YOU DID GET WET THEN 👁👄👁

— The ride begins and the all too familiar theme song of the series begins to play as the gates to the Jurassic Park opens as the water ride begins to move

— Although the ride was very predictable, and you knew the surprise at the end was the T-rex trying to jumpscare you as the ride falls down a high incline, splashing all of the people on the ride. 

— Kirishima still looked like he had lots of fun. 

— He turns to you, a huge cheeky smile plastered upon his face as he tries to dry his clothes. “That was fun!” 

— The ride may seem calm at first, but then the T-Rex begins to secretly appear around the forest-ish area surrounding the water ride. 

— “It was!” You smiled back. You look down on your shirt innocently. “I didn’t expect that I’d get this wet so I thought wearing a white shirt would be-”

— “LET’S BUY YOU A JURASSIC PARK SHIRT IN THE SOUVENIR SHOP OKAY!? SO THAT YOU WON’T WASTE YOUR OTHER CLOTHES AND YOU CAN CHANGE IN THEM FOR THE JAWS RIDE INSTEAD.” Eijirou stands up so suddenly from the boat. He takes you by the hand without shooting you another glance as not to show how flustered he was. 

— “Okay then...” You reply, as Kirishima whisks you away, leading you to the souvenir shop just outside of the attraction.

— Kirishima breathes a sigh of relief as he sees you exit the comfort room. 

— He calls you over, “(Y/N)! While you were changing your clothes, I went back to the souvenir shop and realized that they were actually couple shirts!

— We are so Adora-saurable! was written on both of your shirts along wtih a cute dinosaur couple print on them.

— “Funny how you were able to find a Dinosaur pun on the word adorable! What a coincidence!” You giggle, poking Kirishima’s cheek. “I think we had enough of dinosaurs for now. Shall we check out the other rides?”

— “Right beside ya!” Kiri flashes you his signature smile, taking your hand in his again, swinging it back and forth as the two of you continue to your next destination. 

— The way you scolded him was more in a joking way though!!

— You guys arrive a bit late because Kaminari ended up sleeping through his alarm 🙃

— When the two of you met up at the entrance you scolded him so bad because you practically lost two hours and HNGGGGG

— All he could do was hug you tightly from behind and say “gomen!” “gomen!” over and over again

— you were loving every second of it!!!! denki was being super cute and you couldn’t help but just go uwu

— BUT THEN YOU SCOLDING HIM  DIDN’T REALLY MATTER BC YOU GUYS HAD FAST PASSES

— YOU DO BE FLEXING YOUR FAST PASSES THO

— THE TWO OF YOU FELT LIKE RICH KIDS FLEXING YOUR GUCCI FLIPFLOPS WHEN IN FACT YOU WERE FLEXING YOUR FAST PASSES

— OK SO you and Kaminari decided to go to the Despicable Me/Minions area first not just for the memes but also because it was the most popular attraction this season.

— You also wanted to get on the rides there first since it takes 2 hours before you can even get in

— YOU HAVE MATCHING MINION POPCORN BUCKETS WITH HIMM!!

— The design of yours was a cute little minion holding a teddy bear whilst his was a special Christmas reindeer edition.

—  “(Y/N)-chan! Look at the line! Should we line up and take a picture with the Minions!?” He points to a meet and greet line for the yellow mascots

—  You weren’t exactly the biggest fan of these abominations but facebook mom memes aside, Denki looked super super excited and you didn’t want to ruin a great start to a perfect day so you just went with it.

—  The staff attendants thought Kaminari looked super excited like cute little sparky puppy seeing the minions so they gave you cute minion button pins!!

— The Despical Me Area pretty much played Happy by Pharell Williams non-stop as people stroll around so you and Denki couldn’t help but dance along to it.

—  It didn’t matter if people looked at the two of you weirdly either!! Just being with denki and being chaotic with him is one of the best feelings ever and he feels the same way too

— You guys did all kinds of funky dances til the two of you got exhausted and decided to try out the other rides. 

— There were also carnival game stands and Kaminari ended up winning you the exact same unicorn stuff toy seen in the Despical Me movies.

— Cotton Candy, Gumballs, Skittes, anything remotely sweet being sold on the stalls, you tried all of them.

— “IT’S SO FLUFFFFFY!!!” You imitate one of the cute characters from the movie, hugging the stuffed toy to your chest. “Thank you Kami-kun! I will cherish this forever!”

— Kaminari grins widely, “I know you aren’t too fond of the Minions but thank you for still going with me to this area first.” You can see the emotion and the appreciation in his eyes. 

— “OMG DENKI OFC! WHY WOULD I NOT ENJOY THIS!?” You say incredulously. “I had such an amazing time! Minions and their annoying voices aside. I always have the best time when I’m with you!”

— Crocodile tears start to form on Denki’s eyes as he pulls you into a hug. “AAAAAAAHH (Y/N)-CHAN I LOVE YOUUUUUUUUU. THANK YOU FOR BEARING WITH ME. I’M DOING THIS FOR THE MEMES.” 

— You giggle, patting Kaminari on the back. “It’s alright alright. I love you too! But this time you have to compensate by going on a horror ride with me okay?”

— “Ahahahahahaha what?”

— Endeavor had sponsored your trip and all expenses to ~try~ and start to mend his broken relationship with his son, although you refused at first, Toya did not. When he went to visit his mother and Enji was there to visit too, He got the money from him, ignored him, and flipped him off (aka gave him the bad finger) before leaving.

His three other siblings were in on this trip too. However, Toya wanted your trip to Universal Studios Japan between the two of you ONLY. His siblings went on a different day.

— He wasn’t the biggest fan of matching outfits or any accessories with you like any couple would and you didn’t want to pry on that. He really wasn’t the type of person to do that to begin with.

— And although on the inside he does feel a bit sorry about not being able to be cutesy with you it just really wasn’t his thing. 

The two of you would most probably make out in a secluded area in the Hogsmeade area that is barely noticed by any other park goers. How daring and how secsy

 ‘’Seriously? Snoopy and Hello Kitty? THIS is the area you want to go in first?’’

—‘’Come on! It’s not everyday you get to loosen up like this. Why not try out the kiddie rides first? Besides, I want to see how long you can last without taking the cuteness anymore.”

— The staff sees you enter the Snoopy and Woodstock ride and couldn’t help but ask a very imprudent question. “The two of you look like such a cute couple! I bet your child is just as precious!”

—“Excuse me… what?” You ask, your eyes widen. “We’re not-”

—“The kid is on it’s way. We’ll have one soon once we return here.” Toya says casually, sending you a flirtatious wink and you feel flushed and slightly embarrassed.

—“Jeeeeeeeeeez. Did you really have to say that?” You try to avoid contact with him so he wouldn’t see the embarrassment or rather the arousal present all over your face.

—“What? It’s true.” He smirks, taking your hand. “Do you not want anything to happen between us?” He teases again.

—“NO NO NO NO ITS NOT THAT.” You yelp in embarrassment, your eyes still cast down on the ground.

—You notice him kneeling down and before you could even react, instead of facing the ground, you were staring down at your boyfriend’s handsome face instead. 

—“Come on… I thought we were going to the Hello Kitty ride next?

— “Oh yeah right! That ahahaha let’s go!” You look up again before he could see your face looking like a tomato.

— You couldn’t help but be flustered by his words time and time again. This time though there was no point in hiding it. He got to you.

— He grabs you by the waist, and whispers into your ear, “Besides, I’m saving matching outfits with you once we bring our child here in the future. We would be the cutest fucking family out there.”

— You’ve already been dating for a year?? and your heart still flutters every time?? anything remotely romantic comes out of his mouth???

— HE WAS SUCH  FLIRT OH LORD AND YOU JUST SWOON AND FALL FOR HIM EVEN MORE 

— The other couples for some reason never thought of going on the cutesy rides, so as soon as they saw you and Toya going on them, the line for most of the rides got even longer.

— Toya might be lowkey an edgelord  but you guys became trendsetters in a span of an hour!! 

— OK BUT SPEAKING OF EDGELORD... DABI AS AN E-BOY HURRRRRRRRR YOU MAY OR MAY NOT BE MANIFESTING YOUR BOYFRIEND TO SUDDENLY BE IN E-BOY CLOTHES ON THE SPOT TOTALLY NOT NOPE NOPE NOPE NEVER 

— He still looked hot just wearing a plain dark hoodie but you still couldn’t get the thought of Toya wearing those fits out of your head.

— “Earth to (Y/N)? You’re spacing out again.” He waves a hand in front of your face and you snap back to reality. “We’ve rode every attraction here. I think we should go check out the other rides? The Jaws one next please. I can’t stand all this cute sparkly cuteness anymore.”

—  “AHAH! YOU FINALLY SNAPPED!” You laugh, acting as if you finally got back at Toya for making you such a blushing and stuttering mess just a few minutes ago. Dabi shrugs it off however. 

— “OKIE! Now that I got out of my system, let’s continue to go around shall we?” You huff and pace off to the next ride that you wanted to go on.

— Toya shakes his head and smirks, following you to wherever you were going to take him next. That didn’t stop him from teasing you every few minutes though.

— The two of you did come back to USJ, but only a few days later to accompany Shoto since Fuyumi and Natsuo had to take the train home due to having to attend important matters.

— The same park attendant who complimented you and Dabi was managing the Snoopy ride again. She recognizes the two of you instantly and waves. “Oooh! I didn’t think the two of you would come back again so early! Is this the cute child you were talking about?”

— You and Toya collectively facepalm whilst Shoto looks at the staff with a very puzzled look.

— Hopefully, the next time you come back, you finally have a happy family with Toya and you can finally show off to that sassy ol’ attendant that you have a cute little kid with you to go on rides with.

—This is officially your 7th date with Shinsou. 

— Although the two of you are already official, you can’t help but feel and notice how cold and distant he is to you still. As if he hasn’t exactly opened up to you.

—  And you didn’t want to end this day without seeing him loosen up and open his shell.

 —  You wanted a relationship with Shinsou in where the two of you could talk to each other about your own problems and help each other out. 

— That was the ideal relationship after all, and you knew for a fact that you could have something special like this with Shinsou. 

—  He did confess to you through a love poem and if that isn’t the most romantic thing ever, then I don’t know what is. 

—  You wanted to be his comfort person after all. Just as he is with you although I think he doesn’t know that yet exactly. 

—  “SOU-KUNNNN you know what else we can do?” 

—  “...What?”

—  “Let’s go on all the boring rides!!” You take his hand and start running to the next attraction. 

—  “T-that’s not actually a bad idea. Let’s go.” He mutters, albeit shy at the touch of your hands at first, he grows comfortable after a few minutes with your hand intertwined with his. 

—  SHINSOU IS SO TOUCH-STARVED AND YOU CAN’T WAIT TIL YOU GIVE HIM ALL THE HUGS AND KITHES IMAGINABLE LATER THAT NIGHT

— It was the middle of the afternoon and the park was less busier than usual, which meant all the time for you and Shinsou to try out every exhilarating ride the park had to offer. 

—  The only ones left were more performance-based attractions where you would be watching a live musical or play. One of those being a Terminator based ride. 

—  The concept of a Terminator live-action retelling was pretty cool but certainly not you or Shinsou’s cup of tea either. However, it was your goal with him to try out every ride in the park. So, eh why not?

—  The two of you sit in the front seat, making Shinsou within range of the stage actors to be affected by his quirk. 

—  “Don’t try to make them do anything bad okay?” You whisper to him. “This live show does look boring and really needs to liven up a little.

—  “I won’t do that of course. Let’s just make this show more entertaining.” 

— He then uses his quirk on the stage actors, making them do fun and entertaining dances. 

— The audience burst out into laughter as Shinsou had unintentionally made a twist to the musical playing before you. 

— “Of course not! You made that Terminator Musical much better! I bet they took notes and try to switch up the acting and the cheesiness for the next show!” 

— “Hopefully they will. Because the show was boring as hell.” He deadpans, putting his hands in his pockets. 

— Everyone in the theatre left in good spirits. 

— He stops in his tracks and looks at you. How lucky he was to have someone like you in his life.

— “Thank you for today too (Y/N). I really enjoy spending time with you like this.” He looks away, yet fails to hide his flustered face. 

— “You’re welcome!” You lean in and tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. 

—  Despite how cold and straightforward he may be sometimes, you never complained. You accepted him for who he was and who he is. 

— The two of you take the train ride home in peace and solace knowing that slowly but surely, Shinsou becomes more and more comfortable with you and you can’t wait for the time he finally opens up and bears his heart to you. 

Thank you for reading ♡

-Fin 

[clusterbuck]

tread lightly on my ground

2.1k, rated E, complete read it on ao3 expansion of this prompt drabble!

extremely soft smut, that's all there is to it folks

Eddie’s always known he tends to overthink things, but he’s never resented this fact about himself as much as he does right now. He can’t even remember how long he’s dreamed of a situation like this—Buck, hovering shirtless above him, sucking a mark into his skin somewhere in the vicinity of his left nipple; an empty house, a guaranteed night of no interruptions, the air electric with the knowledge of what’s about to happen—but now that it’s here, Eddie can’t get out of his own head.

His every nerve ending is alive, on fire, begging him to give in to the overwhelming flood of sensations running through him, but the voice in the back of his head won’t let him. The one that keeps saying what if, what if, what if.

There are a million different questions, but really it all comes down to one: what if he is not enough?

Buck’s face appears above him, eyebrows quirked in question. “Hey,” he says. “I can hear you thinking up here. You good?”

“I’m—” Eddie starts, and then sighs. “No.”

“Do you want to stop?” Buck asks.

“No,” Eddie says again, and tilts his head back to look at the ceiling. Maybe it’ll be easier to say it out loud, he thinks, if he isn’t looking directly at Buck. “I want this—god, Buck, you have no idea how much I want this.”

“I feel like I have some idea,” Buck says, and shifts his hips against Eddie’s with a smirk. The contact sends sparks down Eddie’s spine, and Buck grins at the noise he lets out.

“Yeah, okay,” Eddie allows, and huffs half a laugh. “It’s just—I’ve never, with a man—what if—”

“Eddie," Buck says, something like reverence in his voice. Reverence that Eddie isn’t all that sure he’s earned. “I know. I know exactly how much you’ve done. I was there. Look, this is just another step, okay? It’s not a test. I’m not—you know I don’t expect you to be anything but yourself, right?”

“But what if—”

“No, Eddie, there’s no what ifs. God, it’s an honour just to know you like this.”

Eddie pokes at Buck’s shoulder. “That’s the cheesiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Doesn’t make it less true,” Buck shrugs. “I mean it. How many people have you let see you like this?”

“Not many,” Eddie says, and then: “Just one.” It doesn’t need to be said; they both know who he’s talking about.

“Exactly,” Buck says. “I don’t need you to be some kind of, I don’t know, sexual prodigy. I just need you to trust me.”

“You know I do,” Eddie says immediately, reaching up to cup Buck’s face.

“Yeah, I know you do,” Buck agrees easily. “We can figure out the rest together.” Then he grins. “That’s the fun part, anyway.”

“I trust you,” Eddie says again, and pulls Buck closer to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I love you.” A kiss to his forehead, where his birthmark meets his eyebrow. Eddie swallows. “I want you.”

“Have I got good news for you,” Buck says with an exaggerated eyebrow raise.

Eddie groans. “Will you just shut up and kiss me?”

“You only ever have to ask,” Buck says, and closes the distance between them.

The kiss is slow and lingering, sweet like honey spreading through his veins. Like Buck is reassuring him with his actions as well as his words.

And on any other day, Eddie would be happy to spend hours like this with Buck, trading unhurried kisses back and forth without a care in the world. But there is a need humming under his skin, one that’s only grown stronger with every passing moment since they dropped Christopher off at Hen and Karen’s for a sleepover with Denny and ducked Hen’s knowing grin on the way out.

A need that is steadily eclipsing everything else. His insecurities fade into the background, until all that’s left is his unwavering faith in Buck, and his unrelenting need for more. More contact, more movement, more friction. More Buck.

But Buck seems determined to take it slow. It would be sweet, if it wasn’t so infuriating.

So Eddie takes matters into his own hands.

Buck lets out a surprised noise when Eddie starts rolling them over, but by the time Eddie settles above him, Buck is grinning up at him. “I see how it is,” Buck says, and Eddie kisses him to shut him up.

He pulls back and moves to kiss Buck’s jaw. Buck tries to chase him, but Eddie moves out of the way, shifting down a little so he can nip at Buck’s collarbone. Then it’s his nipple, the side of his ribcage, the soft spot below his sternum, a slow, meandering path to his goal.

Buck melts into his touch and reaches out, resting his hand on Eddie’s shoulder like he just wants another point of contact. Eddie kisses Buck’s hip and hums into his skin, following the line of his hipbone until he reaches his waistband.

Briefly, he’s tempted to take his time, to draw it out until Buck is writhing and begging below him. But he’s not sure his own patience would last that long, so instead he makes quick work of Buck’s remaining clothing and winks at Buck before he drops his head to take Buck in his mouth.

This part is familiar to him by now. They haven’t been able to snatch much alone time since they finally found their way to each other, but it’s been enough that he’s grown accustomed to the thrilling weight of Buck on his tongue, to the way his mouth stretches around him, to the flash of pride he gets from Buck’s breathless gasps of pleasure.

Eddie could happily spend hours coaxing these sounds from Buck, getting to know his every contour, but it feels like he’s barely gotten started before Buck’s gently guiding his head back.

“Don’t want to end this party before it starts,” Buck says with a laugh once their faces are level again. “You’re getting good at that.”

“I’m very motivated,” Eddie says with a wink, and Buck pulls him in for a kiss.

“How do you want to do this?” Buck asks, and some of Eddie’s nerves come flooding back. Because this part isn’t familiar. This is the part he doesn’t know how to do.

“I want—” he starts, and swallows. “I want you to—” He knows exactly what he wants. He just doesn’t know how to get the words out. “I want to know what it feels like,” he settles on.

Buck grins, like he’s delighted by this turn of events, and the look on his face turns devious. “Use your words,” he practically sing-songs. “You know what they say, if you can’t talk about it…”

“Jesus, Buck,” Eddie groans. “I want you to fuck me.”

“God, yes,” Buck says, in a low voice that goes directly to Eddie’s dick.

Buck taps Eddie’s shoulder and he rolls over obligingly, off of Buck and onto the bed next to him. Buck tugs his sweatpants off and his dick springs out, and Eddie smirks when he sees Buck eyeing it appreciatively.

Eddie isn’t quite sure what to expect and it has him on edge, his every nerve on high alert. Buck puts a hand on his leg and he jolts, and Buck frowns.

“If you want to do this, you have to relax,” he says.

“I know,” Eddie says, eyes closing in frustration.

There’s a shuffling noise, and then Buck is draped across his chest, pressing his lips to the underside of Eddie’s jaw. “Hey,” he murmurs. “Trust me.”

“Always.”

Buck sits up, and this time Eddie doesn't jolt when Buck spreads his legs. He does shudder when Buck trails his fingers carefully down his inner thigh, but he thinks he can probably be excused for that.

Buck takes his time with the teasing before he ever even reaches for the lube, studiously avoiding everywhere Eddie needs to be touched. He’s just about to beg Buck to get a move on when he hears the sound of the lube bottle opening.

Buck touches him so carefully, so gently it takes his breath away, even as sparks sing up his spine at the slightest contact. He’s tried touching himself, once or twice, to see how it might feel, but those efforts never came close to this.

It never came close to the feeling of Buck’s eyes on him as he slides a finger into him, with so much care Eddie feels like he might come apart at the seams, unravel into nothing.

“That was easier than I expected,” Buck says, slowly moving his hand. “Have you been practicing?”

“Tried it—ah—once or twice,” Eddie mutters.

“Did you think about me?” Buck asks, grinning.

“Yeah,” Eddie gasps out, barely getting the word out around a moan when Buck brushes up against the edge of his prostate. “I’m always thinking about you,” he says, and Buck leans up to kiss him.

“Tell me what you thought about,” Buck says.

“This,” Eddie says. “Your hand—” he cuts himself off with a groan as Buck adds another finger. He can feel the stretch, now, but it’s buried under layers and layers of other feelings, pleasure and love and excitement.

“Yeah?” Buck asks. “Just my hand?” He keeps moving.

“Also—your mouth,” Eddie manages, and swears when Buck ducks his head to lick a stripe up the underside of his cock.

“Like that?” Buck asks.

“Yeah,” Eddie says on a sigh.

“When you thought about me, did it feel like this?” Buck asks, and if Eddie had the brain capacity he would wonder at how measured and casual Buck’s tone is.

But he doesn’t have the brain capacity, and all he can do is moan out a no, and then moan again as Buck adds a third finger.

“Good,” Buck says, still keeping up his slow momentum. “I like that I’m the only one that makes you feel like this.”

“Only you,” Eddie promises.

Buck pulls his hand all the way out, and Eddie whines, trying to follow the movement with his hips.

“What do you think?” Buck asks. “Ready?”

“Buck,” Eddie grits out. “Please.”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got you,” Buck says. He stretches out next to Eddie, and Eddie is just about to question what on earth Buck thinks he’s doing when Buck pulls him closer, arranging them so his back is to Buck’s chest. Buck lifts his leg, and Eddie only understands what’s happening as Buck slides into him.

He doesn’t understand it so much as he feels it. He’s surrounded by Buck on all sides—Buck’s chest to his back, Buck’s legs framing his, Buck’s arm around him, Buck’s lips at the place his neck meets his shoulder. Buck inside of him, filling him up.

To his surprise, Eddie feels tears pricking at the back of his eyes. He can’t remember ever feeling this cared for, this safe, this loved.

He also feels like he might lose his mind if Buck doesn’t start moving soon. He shifts his hips against Buck’s, impatient, and Buck laughs softly in his ear.

“Give it a second to adjust,” he says. “Trust me.”

Buck’s thumb brushes against the still-pink scar of his newest bullet wound, and Eddie shivers. Buck leaves a kiss behind his ear, at the corner of his jaw, the side of his neck.

Several quiet eternities pass between heartbeats as they lie there, and Eddie gets so accustomed to it he barely notices when Buck starts moving. Slowly, at first, tiny shifts that build into a steady rhythm. It washes over Eddie like a tidal wave, inevitable and inexorable, a wave that keeps building and building until it has no choice but to crash through him.

Eddie gasps and grabs at Buck’s hand. He needs the extra point of contact to keep him tethered to reality, so the quiet force of his orgasm doesn’t wash him back out to sea with it.

Buck clings to his hand just as tightly, and Eddie feels him tense behind him, face buried in the back of Eddie’s neck. Buck comes as quietly as he had, like there’s something about the moment that doesn’t bear interrupting with any unnecessary sounds.

Slowly, Buck relaxes against Eddie again, tightening his grip. Eddie leans back into him, turning his head to look at the ceiling since he can’t quite turn far enough to see Buck.

“Is it always like that?” he asks.

“No,” Buck says, and kisses his cheek. “Only with you.”

[multimetaverse]

HSMTMTS 2x09 Review

Spring Break was a bit of an odd ep but helped move some key plots forward. Let’s dig in!

Well people can no longer claim that Portwell is one sided. We finally got Gina’s pov and she starts off the ep uncertain whether the shift in their relationship means that EJ likes her but by the end of the ep she seems sure of herself and that EJ likes her back. I liked that she didn’t try to pretend that nothing had changed or that she hadn’t noticed potential signs that EJ might like her; it always sucks when tv characters act like idiots. 

Perhaps the most important reveal of this ep was that Gina has a much older estranged brother who left her and her mom many years ago. That certainly makes her backstory more tragic and is definite set up for her brother to eventually return.

The writers continue to give Portwell great tropes, capping this ep off with an airport rom-com trope that also calls back to EJ getting Gina the place ticket so she could come back in S1. Not only did Gina keep EJ’s Duke sweatshirt but she altered it to fit her better which is both sweet and bold in the assumption that it was hers to keep. Gina got her sign when not only did EJ show up to drive Gina home and take her luggage but he brought her the granola bar that she had wanted but forgot to pack. I wonder if her posting on her story that she was ubering home after her flight was cancelled was intended to see if EJ would show up since the camera focused on her posting it. Also sweet that she’s taken to calling EJ, ‘ Eej’. 

EJ’s opening was good, shows a lot of his character growth from the selfish guy he was in S1 and how he’s learned to value other people which of course leads into his feelings for Gina. We got another great use of the camera as character tonight when Gina was laughing after her facetime call with EJ until she realized that the camera was on her. 

Jack was a lot of fun. Though he didn’t really change Gina’s mind over anything like the ep description said he would.  Seemed like Gina was largely over Ricky and wondering about EJ at the beginning and the end solidified her feelings for EJ but Jack didn’t really play a role in that, it’s not like he encouraged Gina to reach out to EJ or anything. There’s a vague sense in which Jack being nomadic linked him to Ricky’s unreliability in Gina’s eyes with her craving stability but that’s a stretch. Jack mentioned that the second most dangerous part of a plane ride is when the plane takes off, a hint to the blossoming Portwell relationship where in order to take off one or both of them has to risk a confession even though they could be turned down.

This ep might seem a bit weird in hindsight. The zoom parts probably won’t age well and five years from now people might be wondering why they had Gina hang out with a manic pixie dream boy of sorts for an ep.

The path is clear for canon Portwell in the finale with EJ being Gina’s second chance at romance and her first kiss since they clearly telegraphed it out of nowhere. I’ve been impressed with the great work the writers have been doing since 2x05 to build up Portwell as a ship but also work on Gina and EJ as individual characters; they’ve been the highlight of the season so far. 

There was discourse this past week over how well or poorly Portwell has been set up. Objectively very few ships on this show get much in the way of set up or consistent writing. Redlyn and Kowie had barely any set up before getting together. Seblos had none (though in fairness that was due to Disney restrictions) and Miss Jenn and Mike Bowen didn’t have much set up either. Rini did get lots of development in S1 but that’s because they had already dated and were the main ship of the show. The show’s not really about slow burns, if Jenzzara canons in the finale they’ll count and if Rina ever got together they’d also count but neither of those ships have gotten consistent development with Mazzara not being in several eps and Gina and Ricky not even interacting for the past 3 eps. 

Is Portwell a slowburn? In a sense since they did feature quite a bit in each other’s S1 plot lines and even had a fake dating plot but it is true that they were platonic and not that close in S1 so it’s a wash. There was clear set up for romantic Portwell in 1x10 with team wonderstudies and Gina staring at EJ (which interestingly enough looked more like set up for Gina to pine over EJ). I think the main problem is that even though we saw Gina and EJ hanging out in the background we didn’t get any scenes of substance between them until 2x05. It was a mistake and there should have been some scene, like EJ and Gina commiserating in 2x03 over being single on Valentine’s Day or something like that. Hell there was even that still from 2x01 of EJ and Gina looking at each other at the piano while they were in the frame between Ricky and Nini singing and having a moment  which would have been good foreshadowing but that shot wasn’t in the ep.

Whether Tim just really wanted Portwell to be a surprise in 2x05 as a mid-season twist to throw the audience off of what looked like a Rini/Rina triangle or he was unsure as to whether he wanted to go with Portwell or if he just planned it out poorly we may never know. Regardless they’ve had great writing for 4 eps in a row now which puts them slightly ahead of the 3 eps in a row of development Rina got in S1. I’m sure if someone added up their screen time they’d find that Portwell has more screen time this season than Kowie and more screen time than Redlyn or Seblos  got in S1. 

Caswell cousins was fun and Ashlyn did in fact paint EJ’s nails. 

Set up for Seblos drama next week, it’s refreshing to see Seb being jealous over Carlos flirting with other boys that’s definitely not something you see on Disney shows.

Ricky got some healing done with his mom. Enough to cover their issues? No but this is probably the best this show is capable of. There was a brief mention of therapy sandwiched between other options which sounds more like checking off a box then setting up Ricky actually going to therapy. I noticed Lynne was smiling at odd times like when she told Ricky she knew about his breakup with Nini; whether that was poor directing or acting I don’t know. Who knows if we’ll see Lynne again. As an aside still so wild that Tim named Lynne who’s been a kinda shitty mom after his own mom who he seems to be fairly close with.

Really liked You ain’t seen nothin as a song but not a fan of the Tiktok style vid. I’ll level with you wildcats, I’m too old to really get Tiktok, it just seems like a crappy version of Vine to me. Let you go was good, seemed better fitted for Joshua Bassett’s voice than some of his previous songs. A big sign that they’re not circling back to Rini for a long time for sure. Though on that note we got a bit of a hint that Ricky was Nini’s muse which may one day come back as a way to help bring them back together. 

Looking Ahead:

If there’s only 3 weeks left till the Menkies, with only 2 weeks left for rehearsal due to spring break, it’s hard to see East High winning unless North High is disqualified or has to withdraw. 

Lily is in a promo photo so she’s likely the unexpected facetime Ricky gets which is what I had theorized. Also makes it much more likely that she’s the party crasher Ricky re-evaluates in the finale though what Tim actually wants to do with those two I do not know.

There’s little point in bringing back the Valentine’s chocolate since there’s no real stakes. Rini are already broken up, Gina hasn’t spoken to Ricky since 2x06, and it’s not like Nini and Gina were ever close so even if they stopped talking to each other it wouldn’t really affect the show in any way. 

Seems pretty likely that Second Chances refers to Gina realizing that her first try with Ricky failed but her second chance with EJ won’t and that leads to her sharing her truth and cue the Portwell confession and kiss, perhaps with an assist on EJ’s end from Mazzara. We’ve gone well past the point where Portwell can be brushed off as just a plot device to help Rina but Tim is playing with fire by getting the audience so on board with Portwell if he’s once again going to have EJ lose a girl he likes to Ricky in S3.

Gina certainly needs to talk with Ricky and I do think that happens in ep 11 or 12 and leaves them on better terms. As I mentioned last week, if Tim was smart he’d slam the door on Rina if he’s going with canon Portwell or vice versa. If he wants Rina to be a slow burn he’s really botched the writing this season, it’s been too one sided and too angsty to sustain any kind of momentum or audience interest. They haven’t even interacted for 3 eps now and not only has it not affected the show but it’s inarguably made Gina’s story line much better.  Again I don’t think he’s smart enough to not try and do Portwell and then later Rina but he’s accidentally set up the Rina story line to quite easily slam the door permanently on them by having their conversation be closure for Gina who’s moved on and an apology from Ricky who never liked her back as much as Gina liked him.

Not looking forward to seeing Nini basically live out Olivia Rodrigo’s life in future seasons

Curious to see Carlos’ apology song to Seb. Ricky helping him with it is a great way to help start redeeming Ricky’s character in the audiences eye’s. According to Matt there is a bit of a Ricky/EJ rivalry this season and if it’s really happening the sleepover would be a good place to do it though I hope it’s not about Gina. 

Until next week wildcats.

[rovelae]

Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

           Today marks exactly one year since I posted arguably my most popular fic. “Hologram” is a postgame Saiouma one-shot about escapism, loneliness, and running away from the past. I put a lot of myself into this fic and I’m blown away by all the love it’s received, not only on AO3 but in Discord servers and other social media. All that excitement made me keep thinking about it, so I thought I’d share a (very self-indulgent) behind-the-scenes of sorts about how I wrote it, as well as what I think of the story.

           This essay will contain spoilers for the whole fic, so if you’d like to read it first, you can find it here. Of course, if the tags scare you off, that’s valid, but you might want to skip this post too since I’ll be quoting it throughout (so, just to be safe, expect the warnings I’ve posted on AO3 to apply here too).

           If you’re a Lorde fan you’ll recognize the lyrics in the fic summary – “Nothing’s wrong when nothing’s true,” from “Buzzcut Season.” The inspiration for this fic came to me while I was on my way to an early shift at work, and I needed a good song in my head to give me the will to live for the next eight hours. Not sure why I chose that song in particular, but maybe part of it is because I like imagining stories to go along with the songs I listen to, like AMVs playing in my head, and I’d never been able to pin down exactly what this song reminded me of.

           The mood of the music is really what compelled me – there’s something lonely about it, and the lyrics sound like the singer’s trying to convince herself that everything’s okay even when all evidence points otherwise. There are “explosions on TV”, and “The men up on the news / They try to tell us all that we will lose,” but “we live beside the pool / Where everything is good.” Despite everything going wrong, despite the notes of fear creeping into the pre-chorus, the character will “play along… in a hologram with you” and “never go home again.”

           From there, it was an easy jump to “postgame Saiou” and that was that.

             There’s a cloud of seagulls hovering in the air around him, and a dozen or so more standing just out of reach, staring him down with beady black eyes. Kokichi takes a slice of bread from the loaf he’s holding and tosses it to one of the birds, watches it catch it and stumble under the weight, watches its head bob as it tries to swallow the whole thing at once. It gets remarkably far before four other birds descend on it, shrieking wildly.

           “Mine, mine, mine,” he mumbles into his folded arms, wondering if Shuichi would get the reference.

           He really wishes Shuichi was here.

           Kokichi upends the rest of the loaf of bread onto the sidewalk and laughs at the resulting chaos until his chest aches.

             To start off, I wanted to create the same lonely mood from “Buzzcut Season” in Kokichi’s simulation. He’s not exactly trapped there, but he’s refusing to leave, because as long as he’s on the fake Jabberwock Island, he can pretend the killing game never happened. The trade-off to that escapism is that the only people he can talk to are the NPCs, who aren’t complex enough to be remotely interesting to him, and Usami, who… well, tries her best, but is more of an informational / moderation program and can’t offer him what a therapist could.

           The only thing Kokichi has to look forward to is Shuichi, who he’s convinced is an extremely lifelike computer program rather than the real thing, because the real Shuichi would definitely hate him for everything that happened during the killing game. He’s so locked into this line of logic that he doesn’t let himself consider that Shuichi has forgiven him – he doesn’t even have a good answer for why the Future Foundation wouldn’t just keep the supposed Shuichi AI on indefinitely, believing it’s their way of baiting him into leaving the simulation.

           It’s not a healthy or sustainable lifestyle in the slightest, but Kokichi stubbornly refuses to do anything but wander the islands aimlessly, passing the time with ice cream and feeding seagulls until the next time he can see Shuichi.

             He dreams that DICE is here in the simulation with him, smiling and carefree as they explore the weird music venue. One of them has gotten the karaoke machine working, and another found a box of kazoos and maracas in the back room. Kokichi already pities anyone unfortunate enough to walk by the building tonight.

           “Not going to sing, Joker?” one of his DICE asks (over the sound of their youngest member shrieking through seven kazoos at once), sitting on the bench next to him.

           “Some games are more fun to watch than play,” he answers, leaning back on his hands and sighing.

           “Like a killing game.”

           The warm dream-atmosphere turns cold then, and Kokichi’s head snaps over to look at him—but his brother is gone and Kaito’s looking back at him instead, blood in his teeth and face ashen pale.

           “You... we don’t have to do this, man,” Kaito says, but it’s a lie and they both know it, and he doesn’t want to look behind him because he knows the machine’s looming over him with its unyielding steel and slow slow slow descent—

           “You’re not real,” he snaps at dream-Kaito, who doesn’t respond except to lift him up again. “Nothing’s real, none of—PUT ME DOWN! LET GO OF ME! DON’T PUT ME BACK IN THERE!”

           “Death is more mercy than you deserve,” Kaito says, and Kokichi claws and bites and kicks his way out of Kaito’s grasp like a wild animal, only to end up in front of a prison cell full of—

           DICE, his beloved DICE, trapped and hurt and afraid, bloodied and beaten and helpless.

           “Why didn’t you save us, boss?” says his second-in-command, clutching the bars with bleeding hands. “Why didn’t you do more? Now we’re all dead and it’s because of you.”

             Moments like this are my reference to Buzzcut Season’s pre-chorus, where the not-okay starts to creep into the illusion. Despite Kokichi’s valiant efforts to forget, he’s still dealing with the aftermath of seeing his family hurt and in danger, watching his friends die, orchestrating the deaths of two of them, being killed himself— and then being told every bit of it was made up to entertain an audience who sees nothing wrong with that picture. Running away is not the way to heal from trauma, and one day soon it’s all bound to come crashing down around him.

             “Do you know what this … island paradise represents, Kokichi?” [Hinata] asks, and Kokichi’s really not in the mood for a lecture but he continues anyway. “Jabberwock Island … was the setting for the fiftieth season of Danganronpa. The golden anniversary, they called it. It was my season.”

           Kokichi hunches over, hugging his arms over his torso and stifiling a scream. He does not want to think about this right now—

           “They wanted it to be the best season of all, which, unfortunately for us, meant it was also the bloodiest,” Hinata says. “Twice as many participants, deadly traps hidden across each of the islands— they even changed the way the motives worked, like when they told Fuyuhiko to cut out his own eye so Peko could have a quick death instead of suffering for days.”

           “Do I look like your therapist, porcupine-head?” Kokichi hisses. A sharp pain is pounding into his skull, and there’s a bitter, metallic taste at the back of his throat. A taste like poison and blood.

           “There was so much going on that the simulation malfunctioned,” Hinata says. “When people died, their Ultimate talents downloaded themselves into me. I’m told that the stress of so many personality grafts came close to liquefying my frontal lobe. I’m lucky I woke up at all… especially considering more than half of the others didn’t.”

           “Why are you telling me this?” Kokichi grates out through the static building in his head. If he opens his eyes, will he see the beach or the dull chrome of the machine closing in on him?

           “Because I know how much you want to forget about what happened,” Hinata says. “Believe me, I get it.”

           ….

           “These things that happened to us… we can’t erase them, no matter how much we want to. Some things have to be remembered.”

             I’d mostly like to leave Hajime’s season up to interpretation, but there are a couple things I wanted to say about it. I imagine Danganronpa is like the Hunger Games in that it’d go all out for big anniversaries. So, there were twice as many participants for the Jabberwock Island beatdown that was probably subtitled “Bloodbath Bay” or something equally appealing. The game’s formula changed from a focus on the mystery and the trials to “look at all these kids massacring each other a la Lord of the Flies,” and since the VR system wasn’t equipped to handle that many people and their deaths, it malfunctioned, giving Hajime way too many Ultimate talents and putting half the cast into comas from which they never woke up.

           Viewers either absolutely loved or absolutely hated this season, depending on whether they were DR fans because of the “blood n’ guts” factor or the “mystery and psychological thriller” aspect. Team Danganronpa faced quite a bit of backlash for actually causing the real-life deaths of half its participants, but were able to weasel their way out of serious legal repercussions because of the waivers the participants had signed beforehand (plus a lot of bribery and falling back on their longstanding popularity). So, the cast of Season 50 failed to end the killing game, but helped provide great evidence for the “Danganronpa is morally wrong” argument.

           Hajime works as a victim liaison for the Future Foundation and has been trying to take down Danganronpa since he got out of it. He’s like that in a few of my fics, actually; I like the idea of Hajime acting as a big brother of sorts to the V3 cast. It’s especially entertaining to imagine his interactions with Kokichi— though maybe not so much in Hologram, since to Kokichi he’s a representation of the past he’s trying so desperately to forget and the future he refuses to acknowledge.

             “SHUT UP!” He launches himself at Hinata, his hands wrapping around the other man’s throat as he uses his momentum to slam him to the ground. “SHUT! UP!”

           “Ko— ghk—” Hinata coughs, eyes wide with surprise, but aside from moving his hands up to grip Kokichi’s wrists, he doesn’t seem all that worried about fighting back.

           The thought only fuels Kokichi’s rage until he’s choking Hinata so hard his knuckles are white. “If you want me out of this simulation so badly, you can kill me,” he snarls. “I’m never waking up! I’m never leaving, do you UNDERSTAND ME?”

           Hinata grimaces, the outline of his avatar flickering, but he still doesn’t struggle, and Kokichi hates him all the more for it, despises him with a seething malice that festers low in his stomach. He wonders distantly if he’d actually kill this man in real life. Or if he’d be able to stop himself, feeling like this.

             Kokichi’s breakdown here is more out of fear than anger. Like I mentioned, Kokichi sees Hajime as another piece of what’s hurt him, and no matter how Hajime tries to help, Kokichi will always remember Danganronpa whenever he sees him.

             Warm yellow-orange light casts a relaxed, cozy glow over the dining hall. It’s an ambience compounded by the flickering candles on the table, which seems overly idyllic, but Kokichi will let it slide because of the adorable way Shuichi flushed when he noticed them as they sat down. Well, if he’s being honest, everything about Shuichi right now is adorable, from the way his hair keeps falling into his eyes to the way he’s nervously fiddling wth his chopsticks. Kokichi wishes he could keep staring at him forever.

           Ah, not… not in a weird way, though, just… because Shuichi’s beautiful, and when Kokichi looks at him he can forget everything bad that’s ever happened, can create some new and brighter world to exist in.

             This is an idea I wish I’d had room to explore a bit more in the story— that is, just how far Kokichi will go to pretend everything’s fine. I thought about making him border on delusional, like having him talk to people who aren’t there or forget what’s actually happening around him because he’s so lost in his fiction-within-a-fiction. It would have creeped Shuichi out a whole lot.

           Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for that past the plot I’d already nailed down, so I focused on his loneliness and escapism instead. I do touch on it later in this scene, though— the couple paragraphs where he slips into fantasizing about being a phantom thief having a surreptitious meeting with his detective under the not-so-subtle supervision of his DICE. There would have been a lot more of that if I’d gone with the ‘delusion’ stylistic choice, to the point where even the readers would be confused about what’s real. Maybe I’ll look into writing something similar in a future story.

             Eventually, Shuichi sets down his bowl and looks away with a little sigh, and Kokichi clenches his teeth because that’s the sigh he does when it’s time for that conversation.

           “Um… Kokichi?”

           Kokichi’s only response is to exhale the breath he’d been holding in a quiet hiss.

           “I-I know you don’t want to, but… but I really need to talk to you about something,” Shuichi says. “Please?”

           “My Mr. Detective can talk about whatever he’d like!” Kokichi says with a lilt to his tone that makes it sound more sarcastic than he wants it to. He takes the last bite of curry and wishes that it burns hot enough to hurt.

           “It’s about Kaito.”

             This more serious part of the date scene is meant to reflect the little bridge in “Buzzcut Season”:

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

           It’s a part of the song that sounds especially bittersweet to me, a bit of self-awareness between the insistence that everything’s okay.

           Really all I think I managed was to reference it when Kokichi’s internal dialogue comments on his drink being “so sweet it tastes burnt” and then later not tasting like anything. But hopefully the mood’s still there.

             “Tell him… that I have nothing against him,” he says.

           “That’s … not a lie?” Shuichi presses.

           Kokichi shakes his head idly, still not raising his gaze. “I wanted to wreck the killing game and he wanted to save his friend. We both got what we wanted. I’d say the end more than justifies the means.”

           Was that a lie?

           (I don’t want to die Shuichi I’m sorry I’m sorry save me Shuichi please I’m sorry ithurtsmakeitstop—)

           His fingers tighten into clawlike shapes, nails digging sharply into his forearms.

             I really don’t think Kokichi would have anything against Kaito, even if here he’s not being completely honest with how much he’s affected by what happened. It wouldn’t make sense to him to hate Kaito for something he himself proposed, but I think there’d still be a subconscious barrier between them. Too much history.

             “Don’t go, Shuichi, I’m so sorry, I— that was so dumb, what I said, please don’t be sad anymore.” He’s not sure if he can’t breathe because of the exertion of running or because of the hysteria boiling over in his head. “Please don’t go, I didn’t mean to hurt you— please don’t leave, Shuichi, I’m so sorry.”

           “Oh, Kokichi….” Shuichi’s tone is strange, soft and pitying, like he sees something Kokichi doesn’t, and he shakes his head slowly as more tears follow the paths of the others.

           Kokichi goes to his knees, ready to grovel if that’s what it takes, but Shuichi follows him down, closing his other hand over Kokichi’s, and then they’re both crying and he doesn’t know why, and all he can do is repeat a mantra of I’m sorry and hold on as tight as he can.

           It’s horrible. Shuichi’s horrible. Shuichi’s wonderful, and kind and lovely and perfect and Kokichi hates him, Kokichi adores him, and it doesn’t matter because Shuichi’s not actually here but Kokichi doesn’t want to be alone, just let me pretend some more, please, please let me have this—

           “I’ll… I’ll stay,” Shuichi says at last. “I can stay a while longer.”

           You shouldn’t, Kokichi wants to say, but his mouth won’t obey him. You shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to. I don’t deserve having you here. I’m not worth your mercy.

           But there on the bridge, crying tears of relief, he soaks up as much mercy as he can get and hopes it’s enough to drown him.

             I wanted to create a contrast between them that highlights just how the isolation and trauma Kokichi’s experiencing has affected him. He has an almost unhealthy reliance on Shuichi as “the only thing that makes this world bearable,” and panics when faced with the prospect of being alone again so soon. Part of why Shuichi’s crying is because he’s realized the extent of Kokichi’s desperation. It’s not that he thinks Kokichi’s apology is insincere, but that he’s hardly heard him apologize for anything before, so Kokichi going this far has him realizing how bad things really are.

             The door rumbles and slides open when they approach, revealing the bright light of the log-out point that took Shuichi away every time, that would wake Kokichi up in his real body if he walked into it. Shuichi stops just a step away from it, biting his lip as if searching for something to say, but before he can find it, Kokichi reaches out to tug at his sleeve.

           “Shuichi?” he says, distant as the waves on the beach that he can still hear if he listens closely enough. Shuichi turns back toward him. “Before you go, can I be selfish one more time?”

           “Huh…?”

           Shuichi doesn’t move when Kokichi steps closer, reaches up to ghost his fingertips over Shuichi’s jaw and around the back of his neck. He lets Kokichi tilt his head downward, lets him hover inches away, close enough to feel their breath mingle in the night air. Kokichi pauses there to give him the chance to pull away. He doesn’t.

           So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

             That last line is a ZEUGMA! It’s a literary device where one word refers to two more in a different way. A popular example is the hyenas’ line “Our teeth and ambitions are bared” from The Lion King. It’s my favorite grammatical trick and I’d love to see more of it in fanfic.

             Slowly, he slides his hand down to Shuichi’s shoulder, using it as leverage to push himself away. That hurts even more. He can’t seem to open his eyes, and he feels so weakened, breathless, fragile. Cracked open, hollowed out.

           When he finally does open his eyes, Shuichi’s are wide with some mix of astonishment and a dozen other emotions. Kokichi bows his head, taking a deep breath to ground himself. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I just wanted to know.”

           “Kokichi,” Shuichi breathes, like a bullet through his heart.

           “Goodbye, Shuichi,” Kokichi says, and shoves him into the light.

           Shuichi’s little yelp of surprise cuts off abruptly as he falls through the door, vanishing into the glow, and all too soon, Kokichi’s alone again in a dream that suddenly seems far too vast. Alone, with the faintest taste of Shuichi’s lips still lingering on his own.

           And he thinks, It was enough just to know you.

           It’s a lie.

             Nothing to say here except that this is my favorite scene and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

             Fake sun rises over fake ocean, fake seagulls glide through fake sky while fake wind tousles fake palm fronds. Kokichi lies on his stomach in the fake grass and talks to his fake family in the fake notebook. Gives them fake names and runs through everything he remembers about them. Apologizes, over and over, wishes he could hug each of them goodbye one last time. Wonders if it would be more painful to die or to never have existed at all.

           He leaves the notebook of his memories on the seat of one of the Ferris wheel cars on the fourth island, because one time he promised them they’d steal the London Eye together.

           He buys a can of fake soda from the fake convenience store on the first island and sits on the fake beach watching the fake waves. Wonders when he’d hit the end of the simulation if he started swimming, or if he’d drown first.

           White sand, blue sea, bluer sky. Washed out, like an amateur watercolor painting.

           He opens the soda can and raises it to his mouth, but … even the thought of drinking it makes him sick to his stomach. He sets it down in the sand and flicks it over, watching the bubbly liquid run down and sink into the sand. The color’s all wrong, like blood streaked against a metal floor.

           He walks the fake streets of the fifth island, passing fake skyscrapers and fake commuters and their fake conversations, until he finally stops outside the factory he’s never been able to bring himself to go into. Smells like oil, and metal and machines and he can hear the sounds and he’s immediately back in the hangar, dizzy on adrenaline and desperation and leaning heavily on Kaito so he doesn’t keel over and die then and there. Kaito says something about how maybe he should sit down for a minute, and Kokichi didn’t agree back then but he does now, goes down on all fours and dry heaves.

           When his vision solidifies and he can stop gasping for breath, he sits up and presses his back against the factory wall, covering his ears and hiding his face in his knees. Tries to convince himself not to imagine Shuichi’s there with him, holding his hand again, promising everything’s going to be okay.

           “I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you anymore,” or maybe, “Breathe with me, it’ll be over soon. You’re safe now.”

           I love you.

           He laughs until there’s nothing left in his lungs. He called these little daydreams obsession, before, but now they just seem sick and insane.

             I wanted to indicate throughout this scene that Kokichi’s gotten substantially worse. Instead of halfheartedly interacting with the NPCs or finding something to spend time doing, he’s aimlessly wandering the islands, focused on how fake all of it is. Not even talking to his sketches of DICE can make him feel better. The suicidal ideation starts to slip in even if he doesn’t realize it— a fixation on wondering what death is like, purposefully triggering himself by walking by the factory….

           The thing I want to talk about most though is the italicized I love you. I left it outside of quotation marks and dialogue tags on purpose because I wanted it to be ambiguous as to who’s saying it. If it’s Kokichi’s line, it’s sudden and almost out of place, like he couldn’t hold back from thinking it anymore. But it could be Shuichi saying it, too. Since it’s outside quotation marks, unlike the previous dream-Shuichi lines, it’s more vague, almost a whisper in Kokichi’s thoughts— like he can barely bring himself to imagine it and even feels guilty doing so, because there’s no way it could possibly be real.

           Which do you think?

           Eh, I don’t have an answer. When I hear it in my head, they say it at the same time.

             “How did you know?” he finally croaks.

           Shuichi’s breathing still sounds shaky, too. “Because you said ‘goodbye,’” he says.

           Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

           “You never say goodbye,” Shuichi says, rubbing his sleeve over his eyes. “It’s always….”

           “‘See you later,’” Kokichi finishes for him. Despite himself, a tiny huff of astonished laughter escapes him. “I didn’t even know, not until a couple of hours ago. And you figured it all out from one word?”

           Shuichi bites his lip at that. “You kissed me,” he says.

           Kokichi’s stomach twists and he looks away. “I said I was sorry—”

           “No.” Shuichi squeezes his hand into a fist and lets it fall to thump against Kokichi’s chest, like he’s trying to knock some sense into him. “It was so honest, and vulnerable, and… and I know how much you hate showing how you really feel.” Another tiny sob catches in his throat. “And so it felt like … like something you’d do if you weren’t going to s-see me again.”

           “Shuichi….” Kokichi trails off as Shuichi muffles his cries in his hand again. He’s so breathtakingly smart. There’s no one else in the world who thinks that way, no one else who could possibly be that attentive and that clever. Not a programmer, not a team of shrinks… how can an AI manage it? How is it that Shuichi always manages to take him by surprise? How can he see straight through him when he least expects it?

           Kokichi’s hand reaches up to Shuichi’s cheek. Reverently traces the path of the tears falling down it.

           “I wish you were real,” he confesses in a whisper.

             Kokichi’s stubborn. So, so stubborn. And he’s not used to being cared about, if the way he does everything by himself is any indication. So it makes sense to me that he’ll refuse to believe anything good can happen to him even in the face of convincing evidence. He’s pretty self-hating for someone so arrogant.

             Kokichi’s weak, deep down to his core, weak for this man. Already knows he’d do anything for him, and the thought is terrifying—that one person could have that much power over him, even if he doesn’t realize it.

           But what if he has realized it? Couldn’t this all be an elaborate ruse, a lie he knew Kokichi would be so desperate to believe that he wouldn’t bother questioning it?

           …Shuichi’s never hurt him, though. Only that one time, when he really deserved it. Shuichi wouldn’t … betray him, even for what he thinks is Kokichi’s own good. They’re… different from each other, that way.

           But still….

           “I’m so scared, Shuichi.” It’s barely a whisper. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

           “You won’t be.” It’s so hard to be skeptical, lost in his eyes. “I’ll be right there with you, for as long as you want. I won’t let you feel like this anymore.”

           Promise me, he wants to blurt out. Promise you’ll stay. Promise me you’ll never leave me, Shuichi, he wants to demand, but that’s wrong, that’s manipulative and selfish and everything he doesn’t want to be for Shuichi anymore.

           Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

           “I promise, Kokichi.”

…        

           “Kiss me again,” he says. “Please?”

           Shuichi leans in close, then pauses, his brow furrowing the way it does when he catches him in a lie.

           “I’ll kiss you again in the real world,” Shuichi says. “Okay?”

           Kokichi shakes his head. “Shuichi, please.” Please, I don’t think I can do this. Please, I don’t want to wake up to a lie. Please, one last kiss for me to remember in case it was all fake.

           Shuichi reaches out to tilt his chin up and Kokichi closes his eyes, savoring every second, burning it into his memory.

           Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

           “Trust me,” he murmurs.        

           Kokichi’s eyes flutter back open, searching his face. Shifting him around on the white board in his head, seeing what categories he fits into this time. Weird, of course. Suspicious, maybe not. Trustworthy?

           Trustworthy….

           “I do trust you,” he realizes.

             Kokichi’s still hesitant to accept all of this— Shuichi kissing him didn’t magically fix everything. He’ll still doubt all the way to the log-out point, but at least now he realizes that this simulation is only hurting him— that if things are to get better they’re going to have to change, too. He’s got a long way to go before he’s all right, but he’s not going to have to face it alone anymore.

             And that’s a wrap!

           Once again, I’m really proud of this story, and I feel like I grew as a writer because of it. There are a few things I would change if I wrote it again, but for all its flaws it’s still my baby and I like how it turned out.

           Thanks again for all your support for “Hologram,” and thanks even more if you actually waded through all this nonsense of a director’s cut. It’s a huge confidence-boost to think that people liked what I wrote, and even wanted to hear what I had to say about it. If there’s any interest, I’d love to review some of my other fics here, or theorize or brainstorm or whatever else  you’re into. (Ask me what Byakuya’s Thing is in my superhero AU, I dare you 😉)

           I do have a WIP in my folder of bits and pieces currently titled “boy finally gets that kiss”, and it’s a post-Hologram scene from Shuichi’s point of view to just sorta… tie it all together, have them talk things over again… and kiss, of course. We’ll see if anything comes out of that.

           Until next time!

[sungie]

yang jeongin ; the sea

- - -

“let’s make a sandcastle together!” you offer to jeongin, as the two of you sit on the sand and watch the lazy flock of seagulls fly overhead

jeongin’s still munching on his pastry, which he didn’t share with you,  because he’s mean

you work at a bakery and everytime jeongin comes over, you give him bread wrapped in pretty packaging, or tiny fruit tarts, or cups of coffee, and sometimes if he comes in at closing hours, you’ll let him take home some of the extra warm foods like curry pan or croquette

you’ve earned quite a reputation among jeongin’s friends for being the best, because sometimes jeongin will give them some pastries if he’s feeling generous

today was another day where you brought jeongin some of his favorite that was leftover, but apparently you’ve over assumed his kindness yet again, because he won’t budge :(

“sandcastle?” you ask again, because you think jeongin hasn’t heard you

but instead, jeongin laughs at you and reaches over to poke you in the cheek, “i don’t wanna build a sandcastle with you” 

“ugh.  you’re such a tsundere”

jeongin just raises his eyebrows and smiles sweetly at you while he eats another bite of his pastry that he hides from your grabby hands, “no <3”

first of all, you don’t know how it’s possible to say that in words, but jeongin does it

what jeongin wants, jeongin gets

you laugh and push him over, deciding to make your own sandcastle 

and as you do, you passionately explain to jeongin as you’re running back and forth from sand to water, that everyone thinks he’s such a baby and that he’s so sweet.  and you’re like ?? sorry what ?? my best friend won’t take my love, won’t share the food that i gave him, and he’s so mean to me hggh

jeongin listens to you in amusement.  you’re passing him back and forth and your voice will cut off, so all he’ll hear is different parts of your sentences.  but to be fair, you do look really invested in what you’re saying 

all he chooses to hear, though, is “tsundere”, “sweet”, “love”, and “mean”

“so you love me?” jeongin teases, as you pause by his spot to try your luck for a spare piece of pastry, “i can’t help being so attractive” 

oh my god

that being said, jeongin really loves annoying you because he thinks you look cute when you get flustered 

but he eventually decides to join you by the edge of the sand near the water because it’s boring without you.  and then, because you ask him to, he starts looking for shells

jeongin finds one buried beneath the sand.  it’s really small, but it’s cream and has a spiral 

jeongin actually finds a lot of shells 

maybe this is his hidden talent.  jeongin, why did you become an idol when you could’ve been a shell finder, please sort out your priorities

finally, you both end up with a big sand castle which comes with a moat, shells, and everything

a wave comes and knocks it over just as you’re about to leave :( but it’s okay because it was fun, and you and jeongin got to dip your feet in the water which felt really nice

it’s starting to get a little dark, now, the sky turns pink and orange, and the bright, opalescent lights from the pier flicker on 

jeongin bumps his shoulder against yours, and you bump him back, and the two of you can’t stop smiling 

you decide to buy yourself a churro because you’re craving something sweet, and the churros are really good at this one vendor

jeongin decides to get one too, but as soon as you reach the front, he puts his hands on your shoulders and gently, but firmly, wheels you out of line and buys yours for you 

and you did, to your credit, try to fight him and buy it, but you’re also really touched

you give him the biggest smile after he hands you your churro, “innie, you’re turning soft”

jeongin’s so blushy.  he can’t look you in the eyes for a few moments 

so he just laughs at you and tries to push you away, but you’re not having it

later, the two of you are eating your churros and walking around the pier 

you happen to peer at his phone to ask him to send you the selfie you both took, and then you catch a glimpse of his lockscreen

it’s really cute, actually, and it makes you stifle a laugh because it’s a photo of you hugging jeongin and jeongin pretending to be really mad about it 

and it’s funny because you swore he was really annoyed, but in the picture he looks so smiley, and soft, and happy 

“can you send me this picture, too?” 

jeongin sees what you’re looking at, and he nods, but you can tell he’s a little flustered 

i guess he didn’t expect you to see it?

jeongin and you have days like this where the two of you explore the city, or the beach, or other cool, hip areas after you get out of work on friday’s

and it’s just so beautiful because all the lights turn on, and for a moment, it’s like nothing else exists: just you and jeongin

jeongin likes to tease you a lot 

but it’s always playful, and he makes you smile like no one else

whenever you two hang out, there’s always so much laughter

tonight, though, jeongin’s teasing isn’t really the type that makes you feel lowkey roasted, it’s more the type of teasing that makes you feel soft and a little flustered

um ,,

is jeongin flirting?

but then, before you can contemplate it further, he switches it up again because he sees a funny looking blob and true to his normal teasing, points to it and says, “look, that’s you” 

you whack him in the arm because what the hell so mean :’((

since you both really like being edgy, you’ll both make a point to walk or run on the curb with windmill arms, or reach a lamppost and swing around until you’re both breathless and momentum spins you away, or just running around the area if it’s empty, and the air that will rush into your faces feels so cool and crisp, and for a moment, you feel like everything will be okay 

on the way back home, jeongin always walks you back to the bakery or your apartment, whichever you need to stop at

he says it’s because he likes spending time with you, but you also know it’s because he likes making sure you’re safe and feel comfortable, and because he worries

“jeongin, can you sing me a song?” you murmur into his ear as the two of you are walking 

you don’t really know why you asked, you just really felt like hearing him sing for some reason.  jeongin’s voice is really pretty, and you don’t know, maybe you’re just a little sad that you both have to go home and wait for next friday to have a night like this 

surprisingly jeongin doesn’t resist?  he doesn’t put up any fight or tease you about it, he just smiles at you and does what you ask 

his voice is so pretty in person 

when you lace your arm with his and lean your head against his shoulder, you can hear the laugh in his voice and the way his tone brightens as his smile widens 

jeongin pauses to look at you again when the scenery and buildings start to get a little more familiar, “i wish these nights lasted forever.”

“i thought you didn’t like hanging out with me,” you tease

“i don’t,” jeongin says simply, “i just like your food”

and then after dodging your half-hearted hair ruffles, he shakes his head and shrugs.  “no, i love hanging out with you.  can you just ... promise me we’ll always have this?”

you’re confused

because you don’t really understand why he’s so concerned about this 

but you nod and smile at him.  “promise”

jeongin looks very relieved 

and just before you reach your apartment, jeongin tugs on your hand and drops a shell into your palms

it’s that one shell from before, the cream one with the spiral. and as you look closer, there’s a little tinge of rose pink on the inside, and it feels so smooth

“i had fun today,” jeongin says, and he smiles at you impishly. “bye” 

you feel so soft, because jeongin’s always so sweet to you 

and you don’t think twice before you’re running over to him and giving him the biggest hug 

that’s when you hear it.  you freeze, clutching the shell so tightly in your palm

“i like you so much”

and really, you don’t think jeongin means to say it at all, because the way he breathed out those words was so quiet and filled with awe, and if you’re being even more honest, he sounded really small and ... sad

“what?”

when jeongin realizes what he’s said, he immediately panics and flushes

he starts stumbling over his words and is so mortified.  he starts apologizing and tries to disappear in his stance, a really sad frown crossing his features

but you just step forward and cradle his face in your palms, and you’re sure your eyes are heart eyes

“i like you too, jeongin. so much.”

and the gentle smile that slowly starts to tug at jeongin’s lips is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen

- - 

continue on your journey?

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

Louis at KISS 103.7 (Chattanooga part 4)

What is your favorite tattoo, and why?

I have a funny relationship with my tattoos. I like them all, but I don’t really look at them that often.  i’ll go with this skull.

Is that the first one you saw?

I suppose so. None of them really have any special meaning. There’s a couple that do but [garbled.] (just about a good time?)

I wanna know about your tic-tax-toe board. Are we going to be playing tic-tac-toe? 

I mean, I always win, that’s why it’s tattooed! Random one, I don’t know why I got it but it’s on my skin now, forever.

What is your motivation every day to write music?

I think the fans, I think the fans. But also the fact that I feel like I still have so much more to achieve. you know, I feel like I’m finally getting some momentum in my career now. So that’s a good feeling. There was a long time in my career where I had to pick myself up and feel like I was going again. Whereas at the moment, I kind of feel like momentum, so I’m just rolling with it.

Your favorite song on the album?

It’s a song called Silver Tongues. Nobody’s heard it yet, and nobody will hear it until the album comes out. I’m not gonna put it on any of these listening parties or anything like that we’re doing. The reason it’s my favorite song is that I just have a really, really good feeling about performing it live. It’s going to be exciting, live. 

What is your favorite part about the writing process?

The very best bit is the tour shows, And watching the songs come to life. Especially because this album was written with the intention of trying to create good live moments. I really enjoy the songwriting part of it, but there is an element of— not that’s been stressful, but you know what you want the song to sound like, so you have to get to that end goal. Vocally, it’s always pretty fun, because you know you’ve written the song, and you can just enjoy singing it then.

When you start to sing, would you say that your song changes a little bit, or that it stays the same?

I normally pretty much stays the same, because we can be quite meticulous with a specific lyric or a specific melody. By the time I get into a vocal booth, it’s pretty much a finished song.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

[thesuitelife547]

CNU “My songs match B1A4 completely…I can’t imagine anyone else singing them” [ARTICLE TRANS]

Here’s the translation to the recent interview that CNU did. You can definitely tell that they thought long and hard about what direction they want B1A4 to go in as a “new group” and you can also kind of see how he’s very sort of future facing in regard to the group. But, I hope you enjoy reading!

- Marisa

Part 1

Part 2

[t/n: I combined the two parts of the interview since the intros are the same for both parts]

The third person for this [I-Mind] is CNU (30, real name Shin Dongwoo) of boy group B1A4. CNU is the eldest and is in charge of vocals and dance in the 11-year group, B1A4. Additionally, he directs and makes music within the group as a ‘Composition Idol.’

 CNU started by writing lyrics for the title song of B1A4’s second mini album ‘Beautiful Target’ and then composed the ending track ‘Seoul’ on their second full length album ‘Who Am I.’ Since then, he’s made songs in various genres and has showcased a broad spectrum of music from the emotional ‘Drive,’ ‘Call Me’ that has a trendy beat, and even the intense ‘Nightmare.’

 CNU, who has been recognized for his composing ability, earnestly participated in the production of B1A4’s fourth full studio album ‘Origine’ that was released in October of last year. About the album CNU said, “I think that this album will influence the next 10 or 20 years and we tried to do music that utilized our strengths.” As a result, CNU’s name was listed in the credits of 8 of the 12 songs on the fourth full length album including the title song ‘Like A Movie.’ Thanks to that, the group’s identity was able to be in the song and even their musical maturity could be higher.

 What will the future musical direction of B1A4 be? CNU has said that he wanted B1A4 to not be confined within a mold in regard to music and that even if they receive negative comments, he wants to do various things sincerely saying that he wants to create “music that listeners can look forward to.” He was also determined when he said, “I will work harder with the sense of duty that even with music, it’s not just to let the public know but also so that it can be recorded on one page of K-Pop.”

 News1 met with CNU, a ‘Composition Idol’ that is full of musical greed.

It’s nice to meet you. Please introduce yourself. I’m also curious about your recent situation

I’m CNU, the eldest in B1A4 and I’m also in charge of the mother role. We made a comeback two months after I was discharged in August and we also had a concert in December. (Smile) I’m glad that we were able to do that as soon as I was discharged because it was my goal to release an album.

 If you were to introduce a representative song of B1A4 as a Composition Idol?

I think it would be ‘Like A Movie,’ which is the title song of our fourth full length album that we released last October. It’s the title track of an album that we released after such a long time and I’m fond of it because it seems to fit with our situation.

 I’m curious about your style of working

I tend to worry a lot when I wrote about songs so it’s a kind of progressive and aggressive style. It’s hard but it’s also fun to make songs.

How did you first start composing?

I believed that there were a lot of things boiling inside of me and at first, the way to express those things was through song and dance. Then while completely working on the stage, I gradually had the desire to write songs so I tried to write lyrics. The first time I wrote lyrics was for the title song ‘Beautiful Target’ on our second mini album. I wrote the chorus and my part for the song. That then became my momentum and I thought that I wanted to continue writing songs. So by the second or third year, I bought equipment with my own money and started composing.

 What was the first song you worked hard on?

That would be the song ‘Seoul’ that appeared as the last track on our second full length album ‘Who Am I.’ At that time I didn’t think like “I have to write a song!” It was a song that I was able to comfortably write without any expectations. It’s a side track that I wrote while thinking “Should I try to make one?” It’s a song that contains what I felt after coming to Seoul. Because all of the members are from the countryside, the city of Seoul has a different meaning to us. [t/n: in case anyone might not know, the countryside in this context is just referring to anyone that’s not from Seoul] The song details my honest feelings about how I felt when I came to Seoul to become a trainee and anyone that has lived in a foreign country will agree. It’s a place where I met my members when I had no one else to lean on and it’s a place where I was able to meet the fans after I debuted. It holds the message that in this cold city I only have the members and fans to lean on.

 Since you didn’t specialize in it, you must’ve struggled and had difficulties while working

[t/n: specialize as in I’m assuming be formally trained in composing]

In the beginning it was really frustrating but I fortunately have a lot of good people around me. Artist Jooyoung is my good friend from my hometown. When I was making ‘Seoul,’ I asked him a lot of questions about music. At that time he told me about what kind of equipment I should buy and he taught me a lot about how to do the beats. I learned while doing that. Jooyoung and I were in a band club together in high school and the two of us promised to do a collaboration if we both succeeded in Seoul. (Smile) Later, I worked together with Jooyoung and his close friend Gureum to create ‘Drunk on Music’ and ‘Drive’ amongst others.

You must’ve been really proud when your own self-made compositions were included in B1A4 albums

I really was. It was a time when I was into mannerisms. I had doubts about myself as a member of B1A4 wondering, “Am I doing well?” Although I was working hard since our debut, I wanted to be of more help to the team. I then did some composing and created some results. Thankfully the reactions of the members and the company was good and it was able to be put on an album. I really liked it back then.

 Did you want to formally study composing afterwards?

Personally, I don’t think that the concept of learning art is established. Rather than studying about it, I think that you should share and empathize. It’s about a person who has experienced many things letting the one who hasn’t know the way. I have seen how a lot of composers have written their songs, but eventually I did what it was that I wanted to do. Their way isn’t mine. You can receive some sort of influence, but you have to create the result in your own style. When people listen to the songs that I’ve written so far, they say “This is CNU’s style.” I tried to make my own path very clear.

When listening to the songs you made such as ‘Seoul,’ ‘Drive,’ ‘Nightmare,’ and ‘Sparkling,’ the genres and colors are all different. I can feel that you have a desire to create a variety of music

I didn’t intentionally attempt multiple genres, but I just made the music that I like and it could have been felt as being varied. Personally, ‘Nightmare,’ that was on our third full length album ‘Good Timing’ was a challenge for me as well. Who would’ve thought that B1A4 would do music that had a reggae beat? It was a style that I definitely wanted to try at least once and thankfully everyone liked it after I made it. I do have a greed and desire to broaden the spectrum with a variety of music.

What would you say is the biggest feature or differentiated color of music that you’ve made?

That it seems like music that has been specially made for B1A4. That’s also the part that I consider the most important when writing a song. I always worry about how I should incorporate the member’s voices into a song. I can’t imagine other people singing it because it completely matches with our tone. That’s why I don’t even think about giving songs to others.

Up until now you’ve only participated in the side tracks, but starting from your fourth full length album ‘Origine,’ you’ve become more proactive in creating songs. You participated in 8 of the songs and even made the title song therefore I’m curious about the process

It’s an album that took 3 years, from before I went to the army until it got released. The original goal was to announce it before my enlistment, but it took a long time because I went earlier than expected. I prepared the album all the way until I went to the army. I thought about it every day. When I was on vacation I wrote songs in the studio with a friend named Wooram and then I’d return and when I was on vacation again, I’d record. That’s the way I worked on it. I even asked the members to write songs and participate in creating the album. Personally, it was important because I thought about the album as something that will influence the next 10, 20 years of B1A4 so I thought about the direction. After thinking about it, we tried various things by using our strength as an ever-changing group. Even while feeling the weight of the year, we made a lot of effort for different music that will be further anticipated in the future. [t/n: I’m pretty sure the year that they’re talking about is the year that they became 3]

 In the process of creating the album, was there no difference in opinion from Sandeul or Gongchan?

It matched well with the members. Although there were times when our opinions were slightly different, our desired directions and flows were the same. And because the company also agreed with our opinions, we were able to work while receiving more strength.

Out of the many songs, is there a reason why the title should have been ‘Like A Movie?’

Since it had been a while, I thought about songs that had our existing color and ones that had a different color and I felt like ‘Like A Movie’ seemed like the best in terms of B1A4’s new direction. Honestly, ‘Like A Movie’ is a dynamically composed song that has a melody line and no rap. Not having a rap is a big change in regard to idol music. Because we can’t help but think about that year, there is a sense of that weight but since we wanted to express B1A4’s unique charm, we made a new attempt. I don’t have any regrets because we gave forth all of our efforts. (Smile)

 What is the most memorable compliment you have ever received for your songs?

In my final months of the military, I completed ‘Like A Movie’ and played it for the members. After I had come back, I had asked the president, executives, and successors to take a listen to it. When the song was over, all of them said that it was awesome. The successors may not be very objective (Smile) but I still can’t forget that expression. And I asked for a professional evaluation from the military band and was proud when they said that the rhythm and melody line was good. Even the boss praised me saying that it was really good and I gained strength from that.

What would be the song that became a turning point for Composition Idol CNU?

It would be the fan song ‘A Day of Love’ that I made before I enlisted. It contains the message that I want to convey to the fans without being convoluted. Just like how BANA always think about B1A4, we also expressed our feelings of always thinking about the fans when we’re eating, when the wind blows, and in every moment of our daily lives. It’s a song that was made with honesty.

 Out of all of the songs you’ve worked on, what is the song that you like the most?

The song that I’m most fond of always changes but right now it’s one of Sandeul’s solo songs, ‘Oblique Line.’ It’s a song that contains the feelings that I had during various changes. I had written it before joining the military and I had given it to him because when he listened to it, he said he really liked it and wanted it.

With the fourth full length album you decided to do music that was different from the usual music B1A4 released thus far. What kind of songs do you want to do in the future?

I hope that B1A4 is a group that doesn’t become confined to a mold. It’s my goal to make music that is unpredictable and causes future anticipation of “What kind of songs will they release?” I want to try an unlimited amount of various things and even if there is a negative reaction and we get scolded [t/n: scolded from the public], I have a big desire to try just that.

 Do you have an artist that you wish to collaborate with?

There is an artist that I really wanted to collaborate with, but we collaborated on our fourth full length album. That would be Bibi who participated in my solo song ‘Zero Gravity.’ When I was in the military, I listened to their music and wanted to work with them so I asked for her to feature in my solo song and thankfully that worked out. When we went to record, I’m very thankful that Tiger JK-sunbae and Biji-sunbae gave all sorts of advice and I fell for both of them. Besides for BiBi, if there’s an opportunity, I’d like to collaborate with my role model, Taeyang-sunbae.

There’s not many Composition Idols in today’s idols. Is there someone’s songs that you want to compliment?

It would be ONF’s MK. When MK makes a song, he works really hard on it. Before, when ONF received a vacation, MK didn’t go and rest, but he stayed at the company to work. When I saw that, I felt his passion.

 Please express your determination for future activities as a singer and composer

When I first said that I wanted to become a singer it was because I was simply thought that singing and dancing on stage was fascinating and cool therefore I set my mind on only becoming that. However, if you now ask me about what energizes me to make music, the answer would be BANA. Because the fans are there, I’m motivated and receive strength when I’m working or try to make music. I’m very thankful for that. I also try to be careful as I think that the activities that we do can have an affect on many people. I will work harder with the sense of duty that even with music, it’s not just to let the public know but also so that it can be recorded on one page of K-Pop.

[fyexo]

201130 Kai is ready to take on the new decade

Nearly a decade since he was introduced as the first member of Korean band EXO, and a year since the formation of supergroup SuperM, Kai is ready to step into 2021 with his debut solo mini album.

“I think fashion is a way to show your personality,” offers Kai, Esquire Singapore’s December cover star and arguably the most popular member of one of South Korea’s best-selling music groups, EXO. “With clothes you can show who you are—fashion is the simplest and probably the coolest way to express yourself.” While he admits to favouring a more classic style than  the fall/winter runway looks of Gucci , for whom he’s an ambassador, showcased on these pages, in his day-to-day life, he believes that fashion is transformative, and it’s his personal style—“sometimes bold, sometimes more simple”—that has led to his name on the top of international best-dressed lists. “I think it’s important to dress according to your situation, so when I’m standing on stage or taking pictures I really can be bold, like with these looks, and feel good about myself.”

At 26, Kai has been in the public eye for nearly half of his life,  having been the first EXO member to be formally introduced to the public back in 2011 . And since, there’s been seven studio albums (and four live) and some 52 music videos, though this doesn’t take into account his additional creative output with SuperM, a supergroup in which Kai joins six more talents from three of SM Entertainment’s other male bands—Shinee, NCT 127 and WayV—and with whom he released a studio album this September. “A lot has happened,” says the performer humbly. “It has been a long time and a lot of work—a lot of work indeed—but my heart is in it just as it was at the start. It was fun back at the beginning and still is.”

While the output is significant, Kai’s happiness stems from the fact that, quite simply, and as corny as it may sound, he is doing what he loves and has always done, even as Kim Jong-in, his name by birth. “I’ve loved dancing since I was very young,” he explains. “My father always said that even if it was raining or snowing, or even when I was meant to have days off, I always wanted to dance, and when I was in school my friends recorded videos of me dancing in the street.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that he’s not impacted by the pressure. “I cry when I’m having a hard time, and lean on my family and friends,” Kai explains. Eking out time for life outside of work has been key to finding mental balance. “I’m almost always with family or friends when I’m not working, and I like spending time alone, too. On days off I still exercise, I still practise singing and dancing, but I also watch TV, build Lego, read books… I like fantasy, mystery and comics. Whenever I go to the airport I’ve got a book in my hand. It’s important to me to have some separation between work and my family life, because if you focus too much on work when you’re not working, it can stress you out and make you come to dislike it. I don’t want that.”

Earlier this week, Kai released his debut (and much-awaited) solo mini album: a project comprising six tracks including the title track 'Mmmh', an R&B pop song with an addictive melody. Having racked up close to 9 million views on YouTube within a day of its release, there’s no denying that he’s entering the new decade with as much momentum that’s seen him propelled to global superstardom. “At the beginning of my career my image was very much that of a boy, but I think it’s time to show a more mature character now,” he offers. “I don’t believe I have had my heyday—I try not to get caught up in that. I am working hard towards the next stage. The goals will always be different, but in the end I’m doing the work that I love and maintaining my best physical and mental health.”

Interview by Hyunyu Kim Photographs by Jungwook Mok Styling by Donghui Ko

Source: Esquire Singapore

[queenofimagines]

Shorty

Request: “Can I request one where reader is a total goth/metal head and a new avenger? She’s also on the short side so the guys like to tease her. She takes them to a rob zombie concert one night and they’re totally shocked their tiny little rocker can handle herself in the mosh pit with 6-7 ft tall guys.”

Warnings: None

y’all !!! sorry i’ve been absent lately, school just started and it is kicking my ass. I do have a couple of pics in the works though sooooooo you guys will soon get some content I promise! thank you guys for being so patient ❤️❤️

You weren’t exactly what most would expect when thinking of an Avenger. No one was saying that you had to look bright eyed and righteous, after all the Avenger’s didn’t need another Captain America, but when Tony brought you in as the newest member of the team alongside Peter Parker, your new coworkers didn’t really know how to take it.

When you and Peter first walked into the Avenger’s common room, the rest of the team knew better than to show their shock. They greeted you as they greeted Peter but seeing you, a barely 5 foot teen clad all in black with high rise platforms next to their little spiderling who was the exact opposite of you left them scratching their heads, wondering why Tony thought the team needed two kids from such opposite ends of the spectrum. Before any of you knew it, however, both you and Peter had become the babies of the group, you more so than Peter on account of the fact that you didn’t have any powers. The Avengers had nicknamed you “Shorty”, much to your chagrin. It definitely wasn’t a nickname you were fond of but it seemed the more you got riled up over it the more fuel they had to use it, so after months of constant teasing you finally accepted your role as “Shorty”.

You were smart, smarter than anyone your age should be. Your intelligence almost rivaled that of Tony’s so when an article was published in the New York Times stating exactly that he was quick to offer you an internship much like Peter’s. You jumped at the opportunity right away, having always been a fan of Tony’s, and soon found yourself immersed in the very chaotic world of the Avengers. Since you didn’t really take on a combative role and thus didn’t get as much practice protecting yourself as Peter did, the Avengers felt like you needed to be supervised at all times, especially if you were to ever join them on missions. You were glad for the protection, never really being one for violence, but at times it felt like too much. Even on your walk to school you had Peter supervising you, despite the fact that you lived nowhere near each other. “Team bonding” Tony had called it, but you knew that was just a cover. You also knew, though, that the Avengers had become your family and that they wee just worried about you, so a quick talk about boundaries went a long say to fix the issue, although that didn’t stop the team from worrying about you.

When you first joined you had expected that there would be little to no downtime, but what you got was almost the exact opposite. While the Avengers did embark on missions more often than not they also spent an alarming amount of time just surveilling New York City and the world for discrepancies that could possibly indicate an Avengers level threat. For a busy body like you surveillance was absolute torture and you had been trying for the last week to get your teammates to take a break from the monotonous routine that you all had fallen into.

“Come on! All I’m asking is that we all go out and do something for fun.” You pleaded.

“No Shorty, we need to be ready if anything happens. And besides, if we leave we won’t know if anything is wrong.” Steve responded.

“That’s literally why FRIDAY exists. If anything happens, FRIDAY will alert Tony. I can program that in like 2 seconds.” You raised your eyebrows, waiting for someone to fight you on it. You knew they didn’t really want to go out, but you also knew that it would be good for them. Lately they all had adopted a pessimistic attitude because they had consistently been surrounded by the evil that exists in the world.

“What would we even do?” Natasha asked, already caving.

“I’m glad you asked.” You grinned, quickly pulling out a set of tickets from your bag and passing them out to each of the Avengers.

“Rob Zombie?” Tony read. “Is he like a singer or something?”

“Yeah! He’s my favorite, actually. I mean I’ve been apart of this team for a while now but I haven’t really told you much about me so... I figured a good place to start would be to go see one of my favorite people.” You gave the team your best puppy dog eyes.

“Well... I guess a concert could be fun.” Steve spoke up. The rest of the Avengers agreed while you did a little happy dance.

“Great! Go get ready cause we leave in an hour.” With a few incredulous yells, the Avengers started scrambling to get ready and an hour later you were all piled in the back of your grandmothers old van making your way to the concert venue. Along the way, you were warning the rest of the Avengers about what to expect. You had gotten floor seats, meaning that the Avengers would be introduced to the world of moshing and you were all but certain that none the Avengers had been exposed to anything quite like it.

When you arrived at the venue, you were giddy with excitement. Of course, a small crowed had formed around you with fans asking for pictures and autographs but luckily, everyone seemed a bit more excited for the concert than your arrival. People soon began filing in as soon as the doors opened and you all quickly found your seats, although you warned them that soon you’d all be out of them. The lights dimmed and you, along with the thousands of other fans in the stadium, began to scream, the volume only getting louder when Rob Zombie entered the stage. You were lost in your own world, jumping and singing along. Without even realizing it, you had slowly migrated closer to the stage. The rest of the Avengers were slowly starting to warm up to the music too, dancing as best they could to the songs they didn’t really know yet. Soon, though, Natasha had quickly realized that you were nowhere to be seen.

“Uh... guys? Where’s Y/N?” She asked. The Avengers looked through the cloud but found that you were nowhere in sight. Panic slowly rose within the group as they started to fan out to find you.

“Alright just stay calm! No need to get your panties in a twist, Y/N’s been lost in some big crowds before. Remember last Christmas at the shopping mall? She was able to find us, no biggie. This is just a concert, how much different could it be?” Just then a mosh had begun to form in the middle of the floor, the Avengers scrambling to get to the outer edges while some unfortunate members were knocked over by the plethora of bodies bumping into each other.

“There!” Thor yelled, pointing at you in the middle of the mosh pit. Instantly, the team tried to make their way towards you.

“Wait, wait, wait, look.” Peter said, holding everyone back. The team hesitated, ignoring their better judgment in order to do as Peter said. What they saw was something truly amazing. There you were, in the middle of the mosh pit, using what little momentum you had to smash into the 6 foot bodies that surrounded you, even hitting some people hard enough to cause them to stumble. The Avengers were impressed, to say the least, that their Shorty could hold her own in a place where the Avengers could barely do so. Deciding it was time to stop worrying about you, the team decided to try to enjoy themselves, even if Rob Zombie wasn’t their preferred genre of music. By the end of the night, everyone had found that the night had been a success, Steve even coming to the surprising conclusion that he would like to attend another Rob Zombie concert and buy some of his albums. You were more than happy that the team had enjoyed their time at the concert and that you were the one to have brought them there.

"If you guys liked that so much, next time we should try slamdancing!” You offered excitedly.

“Oh no no no, my old bones can’t take that kind of battering again.” Tony said.

“Tony, you literally fight people.”

“Yeah well, they usually don’t give me a heart attack in the process.” He looked pointedly at you, gently nudging your shoulder as you made your way back to the car.

“Fine, but I’m declaring that we have to have mandatory nights out at least once a month.”