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sys128 · 2 years

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Senioritis, Productivity with Music, and Ignorance is Bliss

I have been warned of something that is inevitable to form in some student as they enter their last year of high school. I had a teacher call it “senioritis.” (Looking it up, it does seem to be a common term to describe it.) This is characterized by the lack of motivation to do school work once they are nearing the end of high school. From looking this up, they say it extends to college, and even post-graduates! So, us teens are not alone in these situations. I think I am starting to feel a little bit of this myself. At this point, I have already been accepted into college and only have one class to pass, which even then gives easy points, and then I can just move on from high school. Though, there is a rising worry about how my grades will end up being affected if I do start slacking off more than I should.

I believe that taking breaks from work can be a great thing, just so long as it is done in moderation. The problem for me is that once I am on a break, it never seems to end. That, I have found, is probably the worst thing about my productivity: my proneness to extended breaks. When it comes to senioritis, that makes me more of a vulnerable person to target. The only way to defend myself that’s been tried and worked is putting on music.

Music works like magic! If I got stuff playing the background, then I get a lot more done that I could before. There is a strange part to it though, but I think I got that figured out too. What I have noticed is that I get less distracted with certain types of music. I have found a couple of aspects that increase my productivity when I have it playing.

The music has to have little to no vocals. Period. I say little because it can just be short samples like “Hoo!” and “Yeah!” That’s fine, but if there is enough to form a necessary lyrics sheet about it, that is when I call it.

The theme of the mix the music is a part of has to fit in at least decently with the rest of the mix. Some genres are able to do this quite well while others do not. I have found that things like pop are horrible at this, especially because many of the prominent artists have their own singing styles (which also means lyrics. Aaah!!!!!), and sometimes their own ways of making beats. I think it’s mostly their singing though. Since they are extremely popular, you would be BOUND to recognize at least one voice.

I must not recognize who wrote the song, how long it is, or its composition. At all. Despite my attempts to minimize my memory of it, I still did manage to commit some of the songs I have heard to memory, and end up picking out the samples that they used the next time I listened to it. This doesn’t create much distraction, but to have this minimized would be a good practice for me.

For some bonus points, the music also may not be attached to any specific person that was directly involved in the creation of the content or similar content. If you REALLY wanna be hardcore about, you could attempt to remove the idea that people even made that content to begin with, like leaving the content on its own, as if it just materialized one day. I have found that this keeps the magic in things that I enjoy. This stems from what we call “childhood magic,” where mystery seemed to make things more fun and enjoyable. I think this was because ignorance was bliss. This was also probably the reason why childhood was simpler than adulthood is now, but that is beside the point.

This one is also more of a personal preference, but I also want some integral part of the song itself to bring a sense of calmness or peace. Ambience is VERY good, PERFECT even, at bringing this experience. It is able to paint a therapeutic atmosphere for me. Sometimes I will be somewhere in space or in the middle of the ocean. And depending on what else happens in there, someone might be coming out of the water and start spinning around. You know, kind of psychedelic shit. However, that is just listening to the music on its own. I have to do some work here. I have to be engaged in what I am doing.

A lot of these would likely be done consciously at first, but I think it would be best to do these practices for some of the things you enjoy subconsciously. Being aware of the absence of involvement in that thing’s community may bring feelings of isolation. With practice though, it will turn out fine.

Is there a genre of music that I have shown success in by increasing productivity and keeping that sort of “magic” or “mystery” that came from it? Turns out, yes I have! I have successfully done this with Ambient Drum and Bass and sometimes Intelligent Dance Music (especially by Aphex Twin), but more the Ambient Drum and Bass. I like how the music itself is very unchanging and samey. While this is a disadvantage for many listeners, this is actually GREAT for me! It just creates less distractions while I work if it feels like a song is two hours long, but in reality is actually 20 songs. As far as ignorance goes, the only pseudonym that I know from that genre right now is “4AM Breaks” because that is where I get most of the music from, but I plan to try to keep it that way. This is not because I wish to attack any of the artists behind the music… well, whoever they are. In fact, I think they are quite talented. All of them! I just believe that not knowing who made them is just a part of me enjoying the genre.

On the topic of ignoring things leading to happiness, I have also applied a little bit of this to nostalgic aesthetics. I watched a video a while back about an aesthetic in packaging that I seemed to like whenever I was browsing Walmart, especially with cleaning products. They seemed to take me back to when I was in my old town, also exploring Walmart. It also did a nice job at taking me back to my old apartment from before I moved towns. Turns out this aesthetic was called Frutiger Aero/Metro. The only names I can attach to the aesthetic is one, drmr being the guy behind the Wii’s Homebrew theme, and two + three, two friends that just so happen to also like the aesthetic a lot. Just so long as I am not involved in any of the drama that comes from aesthetics, I think the same magic can be felt from when I first experienced it. An interesting side effect that I found is that most people’s views on music that fit the aesthetic are different from mine. There is a wiki page, (below) that lists a lot of music that their community has felt that fit the aesthetic well. I did not agree with a lot of the picks. I find that Trance / Dance music of the time would fit more with the aesthetic, but that’s fine. We all don’t have to experience aesthetics the same way. Fascinatingly, I have also attached the Ambient Drum and Bass thing to it too, which only makes my idea more independent.

So where was I at the beginning of this ramble? … Oh right, senioritis. I guess my initial point is that if I get myself to do it, I can easily rely on Ambient Drum and Bass to get what I need done! I found that this method has worked when working on YouTube stuff before, so I do hope this also works with this stuff.

#status update #text wall #self reflection

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qyllenhaal · 3 years

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Muse

Pairing: Artist!Steve x Reader

Summary: Steve’s an artist, and you’re secretly his muse. 3rd POV. WC: 3.5k

Warnings: smut (18+ only, MDNI), oral (f receiving), unprotected sex. Fluff. Friends to lover.

Steve knew it was a risk to quit his job and focus full-time on being an artist. His boss laughed in his face when he turned in his letter of resignation and asked Steve how much he thought his "little paintings" were going to make him. Steve didn't just face this scrutiny from his boss, but his friends too albeit not as harsh. Many of the people in his life didn't understand his passion for something that might leave him struggling, but Y/n was always there encouraging him.

"You may struggle for a little bit, but I think it's great Steve! Only one day into your new life as an artist and you already seem happier!"

Steve has known Y/n for almost a decade. They met under odd circumstances that some would consider a meet cute. She's still so sweet and bubbly just like she was the day he met her. It wasn't hard for him to fall head-over-heels for her. She always has a kind word and an open ear even during times of distress.

Sometimes he blushes when she gives him a compliment. She claims to not know anything about art, but every time he shows her something new she always has something stark to say that sticks with him. Maybe it's because it's coming from her.

His time spent alone in his studio is sacred. He converted a room in his apartment into a makeshift studio and he finds so much solace in those four walls. He has wanted to dabble in painting live subjects, maybe even a nude model or too, but he found himself getting real shy about it. He'd love to have someone to pose and to capture the way the light perfectly hits their face. That someone he imagined was often Y/n.

He was shocked when she allowed him to make her his subject. It started with him asking to paint a few photos of her she had lying around for "practice." Y/n was more than happy to help her friend Steve, only under the condition that he show her the final product. Steve found no problem in showing off the pastoral setting paintings he created, but it was much more harder to show off paintings of the person he thinks is the most beautiful person in the world.

Just like he couldn't muster up the confidence to ask anyone else to be his model, Steve could never ask Y/n to model for him in person. He found himself becoming too shy whenever the question was on the tip of his tongue. It would be much better if he were here in person with him, but he opted for photos of her clipped to his easel for reference. He'd finish a painting in one day and send her a photo via text of the finished product.

“I really look like that? It's amazing Steve!”

But eventually he ran out of photos. He tried to reuse some old ways and paint in a different style, or play with the colors, but it was beginning to become stale. Steve needed something new, but he didn't want to let go of Y/n as his subject.

"So you need new pictures?"

"Yeah — it's fine if you don't have any more," he tries to play it off as if he doesn't have 10 canvases in his studio of paintings of her that he hasn't shown her.

"We could take some more. Do you still have that digital camera you got a few Christmas' ago?"

"No. I think it got lost when I moved."

"Oh. Well I think Sam has a camera we can borrow. It's one of those fancy ones, right?"

Steve agreed to ask Sam to borrow his camera, but he honestly wishes that he had just bought his own. The amount of teasing he had to endure when he explained to Sam exactly why he needed the camera made his skin heat up. He couldn't stop his cheeks from becoming rosy when Sam asked when is he finally going to tell Y/n how he feels about her. Steve doesn't want to ruin what they have just in case Y/n rejects him. He'd much rather wallow in his school boy crush than put a strain on their friendship.

"How do you want me to pose?"

Y/n sat on the lone couch in Steve's studio room. It wasn't the best quality but it was still useful.

The curtains were drawn to shield the sun that was nearly set. The lighting in the room was dim save for the soft light coming from a small lamp pointed at her. It casted a warm, yellowish light onto her skin. She wore a white dress and kicked her shoes off at the front door.

"Whatever comes natural to you," his voice is weak as he responds. The atmosphere of the room is slightly romantic and he can't shake his nerves. Everything feels extremely intimate.

Y/n is almost as nervous as Steve. She's never modeled for someone and it feels a little bit awkward. She's always comfortable around Steve, but she can't help but get a little nervous when she sees Steve with the camera in his hands.

"You look perfect like that," he compliments the half-asses pose she's doing before snapping the first photo. He looks at the preview before the camera's screen could go dark.

"Let me see." He shows her and she just nods her head, "let me adjust myself," she whispers.

Y/n unbuttons the first two buttons of her dress, exposing more of her chest that only gives a glimpse of her breast. Steve pretended to not notice it as he took another picture of her. Once again Y/n asked to see the photo and looked a little more satisfied with it this time.

"Do you think that I could — nevermind."

"What is it Y/n?" He asks with a soft laugh that makes her want to melt.

"Do you think I could unbutton my dress all the way?" Her voice faltered as she asked. She watched Steve's reaction intently. She hopes the question doesn't make him uncomfortable. "It's just that I was looking up some ideas online so I could prepare and I saw this really pretty picture of this model and she was semi-nude but it was really pretty so I wanted to ask if we could try it," she explained; or perhaps over-explained.

Steve was completely dumbfounded. If Y/n couldn't see it in his dropped jaw, then she can see it in the way he just freezes.

"It's okay if that's too much."

"No! No, it's okay."

Y/n gave him a half smile before she began to unbutton the front of her dress. Steve tried to look away, but how could he not? The more she revealed herself, the easier it was for him to see the swell of her breast. Her skin looks so soft and he feels compelled to reach out and caress her bare skin. But he keeps his hands to himself.

"Is this too much?" The puffy sleeves of her dress were off of her shoulder and her dress was all the way open until the middle of her stomach. It's a lot for him to handle, but he feels blessed to see such a sight.

"No. It's perfect. You're perfect."

Y/n's skin heats up despite the room being cold. She was starting to get a weird feeling in the pit of her stomach. It wasn't a bad one or an uncomfortable feeling, but it was something she wasn't used to.

Now she's half-naked and posing on his couch. The first few photos he took of her like this were awkward as they both had to adjust to Y/n being half-naked.

Steve couldn't ignore the way the cold air made her nipples hard and breast tender. Steve was supposed to be on his best behavior, but he is seconds away from making a stupid mistake with his best friend.

Y/n arches her back which makes her breast jut out at him. Steve pauses to pray that he doesn't get a hard on. He feels a bit like a scumbag for even having this dilemma. It's just his best friend's half-naked body — that looks so soft and tender.

He forced himself to steel his resolve and hurry up and finish the task at hand. He began to treat her more like a model instead of the best friend he has a crush on.

"Try this," he suggests to her to move her body in a different way, which she does, but it's not quite what he wants. He was hesitant to get his hands on her, but he went for it anyway, "a little more like this."

In the process of moving her body, his hand brushed against her nipple. Y/n involuntarily let out a moan which made both of them pause. They looked at each other before Y/n let out a nervous laugh to try to play it off.

"Sorry," Steve apologizes.

"It's okay."

He glosses over what just happened and goes back to moving her body to her liking. He can't get over how good she feels underneath him. The truth is that he was taking his time to be able to have this experience for much longer. He may never have this kind of closeness with her again and he just can't quite let go.

Y/n watches his face as his hands touch her body. He looks so handsome under this lighting and Y/n wonders if she's always felt this way about Steve. For some reason she feels lust swirling inside of her. She hopes she isn't making a mistake when she leans forward and kisses him. Steve freezes under her kiss, stunned by reality, but he lets it happen. Her lips feel so soft against his, just like he always imagined.

She pulls away and places her forehead against his. Steve still has his eyes closed, lost in the dream that is Y/n's closeness.

"You can open your eyes now," she teases him. He obeys her and laughs along with her.

"I've wanted this for so long," he admits.

The revelation is shocking to her. She had no idea he felt this way about her, but now she wonders how much she's been oblivious to.

"Do you want this, Y/n? The last thing I want is for you to feel uncomfortable."

"No, no — I want this Steve. I wanna feel you touching me," her voice became somewhat whiny as desire fueled her.

With her blessing, Steve did not hold back. He kissed her hard, the way he imagined he would always kiss her. Imagine the way his heart nearly stopped when Y/n kissed him back with the same amount of fervor and want. Her hand came up and rested against the stubble on his cheek. They wish they could say their kiss was delicate, but it was not; it was sloppy and their tongues danced with each other.

When Steve pulls away, he's out of breath, but he's happy. The light touches he gave to her body earlier were not a bit rougher. He wants to explore every inch of her body in seconds, but he wants to be patient; he has all night to discover every inch of her.

"Touch me right here, Steve."

Y/n places his hands on her breast with his thumbs in reach of her nipples. Steve's thumb runs across her taut nipples which makes her sigh. "You like that?" He asks with a bit more confidence. She nods her head and her approval emboldens him. “Good.”

His lips ghost across the skin on her neck before he places a wet kiss against the skin on her throat. He can feel her breath hitch every time he places a tender kiss on her flesh. She smells like lavender and it makes him feel dizzy. He keeps playing with her nipples as he begins to suck on her neck. Y/n wants to just lay there and take in the feeling of him spoiling her, but she also wants to hear him moan. She strokes the bulge in his pants with her knee and she feels him groan against her skin. He lightly grinds himself against her knee to relieve all of the tension that built up inside of him. Neither of them are sure who wants who more, but it doesn’t matter to either of them. Knowing that this is an equal exchange of love and lust is enough for the two of them.

“Oh god Steve,” Y/n coos when he sucks on the most sensitive part of her neck. They’ve only just begun, but he makes her feel so good. A part of her is wishing that she had discovered Steve’s crush on her a long time ago, but she has him now and that’s all that matters.

“I wanna make you feel good,” he says against her skin, “I wanna make you cum.”

Y/n can’t help but moan at his confession. She can already imagine how it would feel to have him between her legs.

“Please Steve!”

Steve sits up just to push her dress up. The cotton panties she wears has a pink bow sewn onto it and he finds it adorable. He glances back up at her and he notices that she’s looking away from him. She’s now feeling bashful knowing that he’s going to see her completely naked even though she wants all of this and more. “It’s okay, pretty girl,” Steve pacifies her by slowly stroking her outer thigh. She finally looks at him, her pupils wide with lust. She almost sighs in content when he starts to slide her panties down. The cool air of the rooms only heats her up once it hits her hot sex.

“My god,” Steve whispers to himself. She looks so pretty, but she’s absolutely messy between her legs. She places her foot on the back of his couch to spread herself wider for him. “Good girl.”

Steve lowers himself between her legs and just stares at her for a moment. He wants to remember this for the rest of his life just in case this is the last time something like this happens between the two of them. He would be crushed if Y/n asked to just continue on as friend’s after this, but he would be eternally grateful that she granted him this opportunity. All he wants to do is make her feel good; his pleasure will follow suit, but it’s all about her.

One of his fingers runs along the edge of her folds. Y/n whimpers at the delicate way he treats her body. She feels so lucky to have someone so kind and sweet like Steve. He touches her with care, and love is in every stroke. “You’re so perfect,” he says before kissing her inner thigh. Every part of her body is sensitive but somehow she is able to withstand it all.

The first lick to her pussy overblows both of their senses. She’s sweet like honey and juicy like a peach. Steve’s first instinct is to groan against her pussy which sends vibration throughout her entire body. She feels like she’s on fire as all of the blood in her body goes straight to her sensitive nub. His tongue focuses on her clit and she’s in heaven. Steve’s tongue moves with so much skill and precision, but most importantly, passion. Steve treats her like he truly wants her, and Y/n can’t help but fall for him at this moment.

“You taste so good,” he coos against her slick.

The way he paws at her body while licking her pussy makes her feel like she’s being worshiped. Tears well in her eyes the harder he sucks at her clit. She hopes his neighbors’ aren’t home because they’d probably be annoyed at the loud sounds of her cries of pleasure. He has her on the edge and it just takes him rolling her nipples with his fingers that finally push her over.

“Don’t stop, don’t stop!”

Her cries are so angelic to him. And as much as he wants to keep licking her out, Steve needs to be inside of her so bad. He tames himself and pulls his mouth away from her to pull himself out of his pants. His incredibly hard, the head of his cock an angry red as it leaks pre-cum. “This is what you do to me,” his words are haunting. Y/n whines and wiggles her hips from being so impatient.

Steve lowers himself and presses the head of her cock at her opening. She’s so slippery that he pushes into her with ease. His cock is so big that she inhales sharply as she takes all of him inside of her. Her walls are like silk around him.

“So tight baby — oh god.”

Steve feels like he’s going to explode already. Her pussy is squeezing him and she looks up at him with wide eyes as she takes his cock like a good girl. It is the hardest task he’s ever faced in his life to not cum already. She just feels so good.

“Are you okay?” He asks sweetly before dipping his head to kiss her forehead.

She nods her head, “yes, Steve…feels so good,” she manages to speak coherently.

Her legs were thrown over his legs which allows him to fuck deeper into her. She looks so beautiful underneath him. Steve wants to feel her cum on his cock so bad. She flutters around him when he pulls out of her only to push back in seconds later.

Steve can only control himself for so long before he’s pounding into her. The cry of his name on her lips is so saccharine that it gives him a sweet tooth. He sucks on the skin of her neck to satisfy that need while Y/n places her hand on the back of his head as she moans for him.

“I’m gonna cum Steve! You’re going to make me cum!”

The ridges of his cock feels so good inside of her, but what really does it for her is how the head of his cock is kissing her cervix. The stretch of his cock is such a delicious burn that she wants him inside forever. With his face planted in her neck, lips kissing at her skin, Y/n is completely enamored with the way Steve consumes all of her. She is his just as much as he is her.

He feels her sex squeeze him one more time before she’s cumming all around him. She clings to him as her orgasm ravages through her. Steve fucks her through it before reluctantly pulling out of her. Her jerks himself off until he’s cumming all over her pretty tits, painting her body like she’s one of the world’s most precious masterpieces.

The two are completely spent as their limbs dangle off of his couch. Y/n’s heart is full feeling his cum cooling on her chest. She dips a finger in his spent and sucks it off, savoring his taste since she didn’t get a chance to go down on him. Steve almost passes out at the sight.

“You’re crushing my legs Steve,” she laughs warmly. He rolls off of her and off of the couch entirely.

Steve grabs a towel and starts t0 clean up her chest. He remembers what they were supposed to be accomplishing, but after what just happened between the two of them, Steve is certain he won’t be anxious about asking her to be his model again.

“So, where do we go from here?”

The question catches him off guard. He slowly wipes away his cum with the damp towel from her chest. As much as finding the answer to this question is hard, he is happy that she asked it because it means that she’s giving him a chance.

“I don’t want this to be the last time we do this,” Steve admits. He’s quickly become addicted to the way their foreheads pressed together; it just feels so intimate. “I love you too much for this to be the last time we ever spend like this together.”

As much as tonight has been shocking to her after the revelation of Steve proving to her that he loves her, she’s only overwhelmed with positive emotions.

“Then let’s not let this be the last time,” she whispers against his lips.

A wave of relief washes over Steve as he just lays there against, their bare bodies pressed against each other as if this is always how it should’ve been. His only hope is that they can stay like this forever.

#steve rogers #artist!steve #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers smut #fic #Chris Evans #chris evans characters #mcu #mcu fanfic #mcu smut #stever rogers fanfic #steve rogers x you #steve rogers x y/n

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wintermelonbear · 3 years

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Artistry

Pairing: Damian Al-Ghul Wayne/Marinette Dupain-Cheng

Trope/s: Childhood Friends, No Powers AU

Summary: A story in which two seemingly dissimilar eight-year-olds build bonds through their love for martial arts. Written for the MGI Trope Tussle 2021.

Words: 4808

Damian and Marinette first met when they were 8 at his mother’s Wushu studio. At first glance they were an unlikely duo, before meeting in martial arts class their social circles ran entirely parallel with one another with Damian attending a private school that was a feeder for Gotham academy and Marinette attending a public elementary local to her, but they truly brought out the best in each other.

Damian had grown up inside his mother’s studio, working day in and day out from the tender age of 3 to improve his weaponry and martial arts skill. His mother and father, divorced but trying their best to co-parent for his sake, each preached to him about the importance of self-discipline and concentration. When his mother and her father, Ras himself a master martial artist, had competed in Wushu they were national champions. As a third-generation practitioner of Wushu, Damian had a lot riding on his shoulders.

Marinette’s mother had practiced Wushu as a child in China. When she first arrived in France she found herself disappointed that there were no local Chinese martial arts centers, let alone Wushu training centers. Sabine always thought it would be a passion she could pass down to her future child, but there was only so much she could teach on her own. However, as fate would have it, after a falling out with Tom’s father Roland the Dupain-Chengs found themselves in a city not too far from Gotham, New Jersey. Sabine was pleasantly surprised to find that the martial arts scene was much more alive there than it had been in Paris. However, between the bakery and her young daughter Sabine had little time to spend practicing martial arts. It wasn’t until Marinette’s kindergarten teacher suggested that Marinette be enrolled in a sport to better her hand-eye coordination that Sabine finally put her daughter into formal martial arts courses.

At first, everything was fine until it became apparent that Marinette was progressing much faster than her peers, despite her typical clumsiness she was surprisingly adept at martial arts. Sabine wasn’t entirely surprised as while Wushu was difficult to teach within the confined space they had at home, she still took the time to practice Tai Chi with her daughter on the weekends, providing Marinette with martial arts fundamentals and self-discipline. With Marinette’s slight inclination for martial arts paired with her hard work she was outperforming her classmates and even some of the older kids at the studio she went to. Eventually, Marinette found herself ostracized by her peers, but her teachers at the studio refused to advance her because they had an in-house rule where children could not be advanced more than two years past their age group. Tom and Sabine knew that pulling Marinette out of the sport entirely was off the table, the pure joy that spread across her face every time she mastered a new trick was proof enough that she was in love with the sport. So they set off to find a new studio to train at, where Marinette’s needs as a budding martial artist would be met. After looking around for a while, they decided to give Talia’s Wushu academy a try despite it being a little over a 30-minute drive from their house.

In regards to the first year of their friendship, Marinette would describe it as very professional, and almost nothing more. It took a while for Damian to become more cordial with her. When asked, Marinette would say “Damian didn’t like me, but he tolerated me enough as a partner because there was only so much practice he could have done alone.”

At first, Damian did not like Marinette at all, in fact, maybe he even hated her. When he first met her, Damian thought she was like every other “talented” kid that came into his mother’s studio, only to realize talent alone would get you nowhere in the sport of Wushu. On her first day, she immediately took up the spot next to him at the front and center of the class and offered him a warm smile, “Hello my name is Marinette, I’m new here.” Damian returned her greeting with a harsh tut of his tongue and the turn of his head, he was there to train, not to make friends. Marinette’s expression was aghast, but she quickly recovered and mumbled a soft “okay not talkative then…this is going great….” Damian suppressed an eye roll, simply because he knew his mother would not tolerate that in her classroom.

Against every one of Damian’s expectations, Marinette proved herself to be a hard-working individual. Eventually, after seeing her work on her technique and tricks after class during open gym hours, seeing that she wasn’t relying purely on natural ability and truly was putting in the effort to become a better martial artist, he began to tolerate her. The first time he returned her daily “Hello” with the nod of his head Marinette’s facial expression went from neutral to shocked to absolutely beaming. Damian simply raised his eyebrow and continued with his pre-class warmup.

Over time Marinette had grown a deep respect for Damian; she wished he was a bit friendlier, but despite their rough start Marinette realized early on that, while gruff and unfriendly, Damian was kind in his own way. He always pointed out when someone’s technique was wrong so that they wouldn’t hurt themselves, he always helped bandage someone up when they were hurt, and he always stayed after class to help his mom clean up. Most people would think he did it out of obligation or his mother’s demands, but Marinette loves people watching, and even after just a few months Marinette has observed that Talia would rather Damian use the time to better himself and will insist that she, or one of their workers, handle the menial tasks.

It was not until Damian saw Marinette work through her struggles that he gained respect for her. While Wushu is a largely performative sport where everyone’s moves are choreographed, Talia wanted to ensure everyone was also learning basic self-defense resulting in regularly held sparring sessions at the end of class. Marinette was a great performer, she was highly expressive and could easily recall choreography, but she had minimal exposure to actual sparring and her reflexes were not as sharp and trained like the others. She managed to win against her opponents in the first few classes by utilizing her creativity, but eventually, her lack of experience caught up with her and in her third month at the studio, she began her losing streak. Looking at her lose to her opponents time and time again he couldn’t help but wonder to himself, “will you still be here tomorrow?” Growing up in the studio, Damian knew that most of the people who were considered to be “gifted” had a tendency to drop out the moment things no longer came naturally to them, they grew frustrated with themselves and then with the sport. At this point, he figured he was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, the stage was set for her to become the most prevalent figure in his life.

Despite being in the same classes for over 3 months Damian and Marinette had never sparred. It was actually quite odd that they hadn’t yet sparred, the pairings for the most part were random. Talia reasoned that with the right circumstances even someone who seems weak could win; it was important to never underestimate an opponent and lower your guard. After bowing to one another their eyes met. If you asked them as adults they would unabashedly say that they love the other’s eyes, it was like staring at the calm before a storm. Their eyes were clear, fierce, and piercing. Despite being clearly disadvantaged Marinette showed no fear. She met his first few strikes blow for blow and even managed to evade a few of his strikes with a few unique tumbling passes – something Damian noted that she excelled in. He could tell she has been studying him, observing his strike patterns from his previous matches. Rather than reacting to his strikes, she was anticipating them – a smart move considering her reflexes were lacking. Unfortunately for Marinette, this meant that one unanticipated fake was all it took to defeat her.

That night during open gym hours Marinette approached Damian on her own for the first time. “There is only so much I can practice on my own, please train with me.”

“Why would I do that?” Damian held his face firm, his mouth in a thin line and his eyebrow slightly quirked.

Marinette’s eyes steeled over with conviction. “Did you know that every time you get up from xie bu you duck your chin down in your struggle to regain balance? It’s obvious you’re trying to shift your center of gravity. Instead, try leaning on your front leg from the beginning. The first few times you try this method, you should put a ball between your chin and neck to keep your head held up until you get used to it.”

“How did you–?”

“Notice? I love observing others, I can help you. There’s only so much we can practice on our own. I need help with my reflexes and you need someone who can review your performances. We can’t do this alone. You don’t have to like me, you just have to work with me. What do you say? Deal?”

“Tch. Deal.”

At first, their conversations mainly consisted of Marinette’s one-sided chatter during their warm-up, breaks, and cool-down stretches. It took a while for Marinette to get Damian to open up, but once she found the right topics she found that he was strongly opinionated about almost everything and shared quite a few hobbies with her. While Wushu was the common interest that brought them together, they were much more alike than they thought. They both enjoyed art, video games, and superhero shows to name a few common interests. Damian would say he would want to be a hero without any powers, someone who relies on their own skill to punish evil-doers. Marinette on the other hand would love to be a magical girl who could save others without causing too much damage. After hotly debating the topic of normal heroes and powered heroes, Damian and Marinette came to an agreement that both sides had their own set of struggles and perks.

Damian and Marinette found themselves spending more time with each other both inside and outside of the studio. After arguing over which type of paint was superior, Marinette was team watercolor because of its varied use, relative cheapness to oil paints, and blendability where Damian was a more traditional artist who believed that the blending capabilities of oil paint were just as good, if not better, and their longevity was worth the cost, the two decided to settle it with a paint off. Art sessions quickly became a biweekly tradition between the two, whenever the Gotham botanical garden would have a new exhibit Marinette would insist they go to sketch the flora. Damian quickly found that Marinette was almost as passionate about plants as he was about animals, with the way she flitted about the garden he couldn’t help but wonder if she had been something like a ladybug in her past life. There were also plenty of weekends spent sketching Damian’s pets, though Marinette would note that no drawings could capture what good boys Titus, Alfred the Cat, Jerry the Turkey, and Bat Cow were.

Together they found new ways to integrate Wushu into their hobbies, Marinette had plenty of friends at school who loved art and plenty of friends who did Wushu at the same center, but Damian was the only one she shared nearly all her passions with.

With their art, they began making flyers and posters for the studio, and banners to cheer on their classmates at competitions – Damian would argue he only did this because it would increase morale, which in turn would produce better results for the studio. Marinette struggled with the posters at first as a lot of proposed designs incorporated traditional Chinese characters, she couldn’t even write in Pinyin! Tom and Sabine had prioritized teaching Marinette about her French roots, in the event that one day they decided to move back to France, and neglected teaching her much about Chinese heritage. Marinette still learned basic conversational phrases: yes, no, please, thank you, and familial titles, but she was nowhere near conversational or fluent. After realizing Marinette did not know how to speak Mandarin Damian made it his personal goal to make her at least conversational before they would begin to travel internationally for competitions. Many of the major Wushu competitions took place in China and if Marinette was going to be his partner in the couples division he was going to make sure she was able to converse with any interviewers they may meet, and that if she were to end up lost – he swears Marinette was born without a sense of direction – that she could find her way back to him or their hotel. He hoped that while working on the banners he could work in a few lessons on traditional Chinese characters and simplified Chinese characters so that Marinette could at least read signs. Apart from art, reenacting scenes from video game cutscenes and superhero movies became one of their favorite activities, it became a way to train while still having plenty of fun. Sometimes after mastering a new move-in Ultimate Mecha Strike, they would break out the crash mats to test if the moves in the game were actually physically possible.

Even the hobbies Damian didn’t share with Marinette he was willing to partake in, and the fact that he was trying meant the world to Marinette. Damian was rarely physically affectionate in the first few years of their friendship, and it was even rarer for him to vocalize his emotions, and so Marinette quickly learned that Damian had a tendency to express himself through his actions. A lot of people failed to see how warm and loving Damian truly was, but Marinette saw it in how he interacted with everyone. For example, when Damian’s eldest brother opened up an acrobatics and gymnastics center Damian immediately volunteered to design and paint a mural on the outside that would more easily catch attention, Marinette watched him alter the design day and night and sort through hundreds of color palettes to ensure the pairing was just right. She saw his kindness through his interactions with his family and hers, the painting of her mom and dad baking, a gift from Damian for their 20th anniversary, hung up in the living room was more physical proof of it. When Marinette began sewing he proudly wore her designs and when she began to take commissions, he always kept her business card on his body in the event someone asked about his apparel.

One of Marinette’s fondest memories with Damian was when they decided to host a bake sale to offset the cost of international travel for the competition team. It was near the Mid-Autumn festival so Marinette and her parents decided to make mooncakes. Damian had some experience in the kitchen helping his mother make baozi and baklava, but he definitely wasn’t as experienced as Marinette who grew up in a bakery, yet he still came over to help them with the first few test batches and to help design packaging. Watching him carefully weigh out the ingredients her parents listed and chat about his favorite flavors with her parents in French filled her with so much warmth. The kitchen was filled with banter as a discourse between traditional baked mooncakes and skin mooncakes arose. Marinette and Sabine preferred snow skin mooncakes, the chewiness pairs well with pastes like red bean and taro, where Damian and Tom were strongly on the side of the more traditionally baked mooncake, arguing that the crumble of the pastry paired with fillings like salted egg and lotus paste was clearly superior. Marinette was unsurprised that Damian was strongly advocating for traditional flavors, but her father? The same man who made mustard macarons? It wasn’t until Marinette suggested thousand-layer mooncakes were simply croissants with a pasty filling that everyone else was willing to set aside their different preferences to unite against her. While the thousand layer mooncakes and traditional mooncakes baked, and the snow skin mooncakes steamed Marinette and Damian got to work on the packaging. In order to reduce cost, they had ordered plain packaging and planned to carve potato stamps with Mid-Autumn festival motifs: the moon, rabbits, flowers, fans, and lanterns. Despite having seen how proficient Damian was with a blade in training, Marinette was pleasantly surprised, if not downright awed, by Damian’s precision with a knife. By the time Marinette had finished carving out one flower Damian had finished three lantern carvings. After finishing stamping the final package Marinette daringly pressed the still paint-laden potato stamp onto Damian’s cheek which quickly devolved into a paint fight. The picture of Damian and Marinette covered head to two in paint was proudly pinned at the top of her corkboard, Marinette would never forget the sound of the kitchen filled with laughter that day.

Damian’s parents were extremely supportive of this arrangement. Talia thought it was a great opportunity, open gym hours were busy and she couldn’t give all her attention to Damian, having a training partner could really help him grow. If they got along well they could even enter paired events together! Bruce was enthralled that his son found someone to spend time with other than his friend Clark’s son, Jon. Jon and Damian were great friends, but Jon lived in Metropolis and so the boys rarely saw each other outside of business galas and Skype calls. It was nice knowing his son had someone he could spend time with in person, Bruce was concerned that Damian’s interpersonal growth would be stunted by his lack of interaction with his classmates at school. To see his son being a kid, laughing freely, filled him with great joy, he knew that being the son of a billionaire and a top-notch martial artist had put a lot of pressure on Damian’s shoulders, but he never knew what he could do to help his son. Seeing the walls in Damian’s room at the manor fill up with pictures of him and Marinette smiling, Damian smiling, made Bruce figure that everything was going to be okay.

Sabine and Tom grew to love Damian like their own son with the more time he spent at each other’s houses. At first, they were a bit skeptical, they didn’t quite understand what their daughter saw in the boy, but they trusted her judgment and boy are they glad they did. Damian was like a missing piece of their family, despite his hard exterior, the boy was extremely loyal and caring, they could always count on him to have Marinette’s back. Sabine especially had a soft spot for him after watching him correct Marinette’s brush strokes on the banners, teaching her the differences between what she wrote and what he was writing. The two watched their daughter give herself wholly to this boy, and in return, he gave himself back to her and that was all they could’ve ever wanted for Marinette, to love and be loved.

As they grew older they shared more than just common interests: their dreams, their fears, and the pressure they faced from their families. Marinette knew what she wanted for herself – something Damian was envious of. When they were 11 to offset the competition costs, Marinette’s mother began designing and sewing their competition outfits. Once Marinette saw what her mother was doing she wanted to help, and she ended up falling in love with fashion design. From the age of 13 and onward Marinette designed all of her own stage wear, as well as Damian’s. Sabine would joke that with such a talented daughter it’s a shame they didn’t stay in Paris. Damian wouldn’t admit it – Marinette would – but the thought of possibly never meeting Marinette made him feel uncomfortably empty; he wonders how he bore with that feeling before becoming close with Marinette. Damian wasn’t sure what he wanted for himself, he would love to take over his mother’s Wushu studio, maybe even expand it, but he was always raised with the expectation that one day he would inherit his father’s corporation. Despite loving both options, loving both his parents, there was also a part of him that wanted something that was completely Damian, he had already spent so much of his life living in the shadow of his parents. It wasn’t until high school that Damian opened up to Marinette about this, as the time to make decisions grew closer Damian naturally grew more anxious about his future. Marinette rarely gets the chance to comfort Damian, oftentimes he bottles his emotions up until they’re ready to burst, and even then Marinette has to slowly coax him into talking about them, even if it is with his brothers and not her, she just wants him to feel safe with his own emotions. The first time Damian opened up to her about the pressure he felt as his parent’s only biological son she immediately swept him into her arms, stroking his hair she began to tell him about how loved he was. She told him “Damian I love you, your family loves you, my family loves you. I just want you to know how loved you are. I speak not only for myself, but for everyone who loves you when I say this, do what makes you happy. Your parents will be happy as long as you are, they trust that they raised you to make good decisions for yourself. Even if you don’t know what it is that makes you happy yet, don’t be afraid to explore your options; I’ll be right here by your side and I’m going to support you no matter what. You’ve told me before that even if you inherit the studio Maya would co-own it with you, or even if you inherit your father’s business you would be working alongside your brothers. You are not alone, the world is not riding on solely your shoulders.” Damian was completely silent, if not for the wetness on her shoulder and his grip tightening around her, Marinette would figure he was unphased. Marinette has known that she loves this boy, far past the platonic love she just expressed, but for Damian, it was at this moment that he realized that not only was he loved, but he was in love with Marinette.

“WELCOME TO THE WORLD WUSHU CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019 LIVE FROM GOTHAM, NEW JERSEY” roared overhead on the speakers.

Damian and Marinette were standing in a hall away from the main room where other contestants were preparing themselves both appearance-wise and physically. Marinette herself was fixing the crown braid in her hair. The women’s event would take place in the morning to late afternoon, where the men’s event in the evening giving Damian ample time before he needs to warm up to support Marinette. He gave Marinette’s ensemble a once over and with his cheeks tinged red he muttered “I like your costume, you look really cute”, quickly averting his gaze.

Marinette immediately flushed, almost as red as the silken top that adorned her torso, and brought the hands that were adjusting her braids down to her hips and leaned forward, exclaiming in a hushed shout as to not disturb the other competitors warming up, “Damian Al-Ghul Wayne, are you making fun of me? I just want to make sure that any pictures taken do not make me look like a hot mess. Could you imagine what could happen if Audrey Bourgeois sees pictures of me completely frumpled looking and cancels my apprenticeship?? Oh my God and then Parson’s will find out and rescind me and then I won’t be able to visit you at NYU!” Marinette’s hands now rested on her cheeks smearing away her perfectly placed blush. How Marinette managed to go from disgruntled to spiraling in less than a minute is still a mystery that still eludes Damian after years of friendship, but it was his duty to calm her down. He understands her nerves, they had spent the last few years dominating the juniors division and as they entered the senior division there was a lot of pressure for them to win there too. Unfortunately, for every person who wanted them to win, another five were praying for them to slip up, but now is not the time to be overcome by nerves, her turn would come soon and she cannot afford to be overwhelmed by nerves.

Damian fully grasped her wrists pulling her hands away from her face, “Marinette, genuinely you look stunning”. After that comment, Damian noted to himself that it seems like there was no more need for the blush she applied anyways. With the soft tut of his tongue, he smoothed out the harsh lines of her smeared blush using the pad of his thumb. He whispered, just loud enough for her to hear, “Don’t worry too much about your hair and makeup, the most important thing is your form”. Marinette leaned into his touch and gave a small nod, calming down from her spiraling thoughts, he always knew how to ground her.

“Contestant number 54 you’re up next!”

“That’s you; you might want to fix up your makeup real quick, but everything is going to be fine.” He handed her a bag with her cosmetics and a wipe and quickly clapped his hands around her shoulders to guide her to the main stage so she could focus on herself.

Fixing her makeup Marinette shot him a cheeky grin, “wish me luck?”

“You don’t need luck. Marinette you have the skill, you know that.”

“Next up is Marinette Dupain-Cheng from New Jersey, USA! She is definitely a fan favorite to win today on the Women’s Taolu floor. She is internationally known for competing not only in the women’s division but also in the couples’ scene. She’s been training for the individual event from the age of six and for the partner event from the age of nine with her studio mate Damian Al-Ghul Wayne, who is predicted to win the Men’s Taolu event. While we do not have a couples’ Wushu competition here, since turning 18 they have been dominating the senior international couples’ Wushu scene and have gone undefeated.”

Taking off her team jacket, with a quick nod to her parents, Talia, and of course, Damian Marinette strode to the center stage. Damian would never grow sick of watching her transform on stage, it was strikingly similar to the magical girl shows she had been obsessed with as a child. The moment Marinette stepped onto the mat her whole demeanor changed. Her back straightened up, her head would be held high, and most of all, the look in her eyes was filled with inextinguishable fire.

By the end of the event after getting changed Marinette and Damian were making their way to his car. Once Damian turned 16 and got his license, it became a tradition for them to go out for a celebratory meal together without their parents. “Marinette!” Damian heard a voice call out, Agreste he noted in his head. Marinette had met Agreste and Tsurugi while vacationing in Paris. While they weren’t the worst, in fact, Tsurugi was typically pleasant company, Damian was in no mood to socialize after the several rounds of interviews he had to endure after winning first place in Men’s Taolu. Many of the interviewers failed to understand that while yes, he had more opportunities to train as he is a third-generation Wushu champion, it was his hard work that got him to where he was, not his genetics.

Seeing Damian continue on to his car, not wanting to keep him waiting, Marinette quickly bid them farewell with a promise to see them tomorrow. “Hey wait for me!” Marinette called out, running after Damian. Despite his pride usually preventing him from heeding to his peers’ commands, Damian stopped in his tracks, his breath shallow and wondering why Marinette’s voice still makes his heartthrob despite having heard it call out to him for over 10 years. Feeling her hands latch around his arm gave him a sense of comfort. Her grip was strong and steady, yet still gentle. He couldn’t help but envision his hand in hers instead of his arm. The bouquet and hand-painted card in his car were waiting to see if she felt the same.

#Maribat #MGI Trope Tussle 2021 #Daminette #Damian x Marinette #please send help idk how to write #if by any chance Issa is reading this ILY #Team Childhood Friends

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aerequets · 3 years

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can you give me some webtoon recommendations? name some of your favorites! :)

i am here to answer folks 😎

all of these webtoons can be found on webtoons.com! I'm not sure about the whole daily pass thing they've got going on (which sucks tbh) but like,,, you could probably find it online illegally. NOT THAT I CONDONE ILLEGAL ACTIVITY HAHAHAHA ᵖˢˢᵗ ⁱᶠ ʸᵒᵘ ˡᵒᵒᵏ ⁱᵗ'ˢ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ

I'll split these up between completed and in progress :) most are still in progress though

COMPLETED

1) Gourmet Hound (166 chapters)

this is like, my all time favorite webtoon. it follows Lucy and her quest to find all the chefs that left her favorite restaurant, Dimanche! it’s a really heartfelt story and the food illustrations make you really hungry, so make sure you have a snack before you sit down to read it. each character’s name is also food-related, so that’s pretty cool too! and the diversity in this webtoon is AMAZING. it’s the only webtoon i’ve ever read that has a hijabi character in the main cast. the development is done really well and it explores themes of loving and letting go. all in all, it has a bit of everything. i personally love food-related things, and this centers around it, so i was set LOL

(also a bonus is that this webtoon has NOT succumbed to daily pass hell, so you can binge read the whole thing. legally.)

2) Hooky (200 chapters)

if you like stories of witches, this is the one! the summary and beginning chapters are deceptively lighthearted. DO NOT BE FOOLED! the story really develops further on and explores numerous conflicts, a big one being (if i remember correctly) witch vs. nonwitch. if you like to see struggles between two sides, not a good-and-evil but just people-who-want-the-best-for-themselves-and-their-loved-ones type of thing, this is good for that. also, sibling love! the two main characters are Dani and Dorian, and while there is someee romance, i like how this story centers around the siblings first and foremost. ALSO THE ART??? I LOVE HOW THE AUTHOR DRAWS SETTINGS SO MUCH and am unabashedly jealous because i am completely incapable of doing so just like,,,, even if the story doesn’t pull you in, you can at least stare at each panel for long stretches of time.

(unfortunately succumbed to daily pass, but you can read it on mangaowl or manganelo!)

3) Spirit Fingers (167 chapters)

aww, this one is cute. Amy is 18 and lacking in self confidence (her family definitely doesn’t help). but HEY she joins a wacky art club!! without her parents knowing!! HECK YEAH!! unfortunately it takes more than joining an art club for her to learn to love herself (it is a long journey after all!). i love this webtoon because it explores the problems of multiple people, not just amy: her high achieving brothers, her mother who had to give up her dream, the different members in the art club, Amy’s girl friends. the art is unique and has a cool watercolor-y texture! and the main couple is just adorable, too. if you’re an artist especially, i recommend this because that’s a big theme and you get to see these characters expand their art styles! which is very cool!

(you can read this one fully on 1stkissmanga)

now here’s where the majority of my recs are:

IN PROGRESS (all can be read on webtoon.com)

1) The Makeup Remover (currently 71 chapters)

i look forward to this every tuesday and friday because oh man!!!!!!!!! idk about you guys, but i am thinking about beauty standards A Large Amount of the time, especially when i consume media. and this webtoon is all about beauty standards (specifically in Korea, but still applicable like. everywhere). Main character Yeseul ends up having to partake in this beauty competition and, with her experiences through it, she begins seeing makeup and beauty standards for the huge role they play in society. i said it already but i LOVE LOVE LOVE this webtoon because it really challenges you as a reader to think about your own perspectives. why do we find the things/people beautiful that we do? what shapes our perception? how much of it is marketing, and how much of it shows in our daily lives? what assumptions do you make about people based on how they look? AGHH im sounding like an essay prompt instead of a reviewer but man. if you like webtoons that examine society through a critical lens (gosh i sound like an english teacher), this is the one.

2) Odd Girl out (currently 261 chapters; on season 2)

okay, first and foremost: if you’re NOT into long winded drama, this probably isn’t it for you. i will admit im not a fan of long problems that get dragged out, especially in a school setting, but i did keep reading this webtoon and i am glad that i did! the character development here is amazing and ONE CRUCIAL THING is that the whole first season (which is many, many chapters. at least over 100) focuses on the friendship between our main 4 girls. if you don’t wanna wait for a romance storyline (which comes in season 2), then you’ve gotta have the patience of a saint. i loved this though because lots of romance webtoons cast friendships aside or use them to further the romantic plot. platonic relationships are great to read about and this one does it masterfully! main character nari is resilient and emotionally strong, and it’s great to see her ruin her enemies

3) Cursed Princess Club (currently 110 chapters; on break before the final season)

this is another one about beauty and societal expectations, but in a fantasy setting! it’s really funny and the cast of characters is heartwarming. Gwen is a princess, but she doesn’t look like the typical princess. she accidentally stumbles upon the Cursed Princess Club, which is exactly what it sounds like: a club for princesses that have been cursed and are trying to find their self worth despite not being conventional princesses! now that i think about it, this is like a lighthearted mixture of Makeup Remover and Spirit Fingers. although while i do say “lighthearted”, this webtoon has its fair share of mysteries and exploration of deeper topics. but its funny throughout

4) Brass & Sass (currently 83 chapters)

ahh this one is really cute and the art is cute, too! i also like how this has a diverse cast. high schooler Camilla kinda sucks at band, but dangit if she’s not passionate. Victor is some type of musical prodigy but he’s a brass-hole (hahaha get it. no that’s not original i ripped it from the summary). now i KNOW I KNOW, the whole “perky girl and asshole guy” is so overplayed BUT DON’T FRET! this isn’t the type of story where the girl “fixes” the guy, or where the guy is an asshole to everyone except the girl. believe me, the character development and relationship development in this story is SPLENDID. there’s no real antagonist. it’s just a bunch of high schoolers trying their best to make themselves and everyone else happy, and that’s hard! the story is carried more by the characters than by the plot, but it works well in this case since the characters are strong and each one has a presence.

5) Surviving Romance (currently 10 chapters)

this one is relatively new compared to my other recs but it’s by the author of the Makeup Remover so yaknow i had to hop on it. BUT IT IS VERY DIFFERENT! first off, it’s a horror, so keep that in mind. the best way i can describe it is a mixture of the standard “girl falls into a story” genre, Groundhog Day, and zombies. Yeah. Bascially, Chaerin is our main girl and she’s in a romance story that’s she’s read a bajillion times, so she knows the day has come for her male lead to confess his love! except he doesn’t! because he becomes a zombie instead! hahaha well that sucks! it’s only got 10 chapters but i am very into it, and it seems to be taking an emphasis on platonic relationships, so i am very closely watching 👁👁

6) The Witch and the Bull (currently 60 chapters)

another witch story! and the art is GORGEOUS. more witch + nonwitch conflict, too! our main dude, Tan, is the royal advisor and he’s hella bigoted against witches. our main girl, Aro, happens to be a witch. and Tan needs her help to make him into a human again (because he got turned into a bull. that is worth mentioning). this is a very barebones summary and there’s a lot more that goes on, but that’s the general gist of the beginning!

ANYWAYS. this got very long, predictably, and i rambled for each title, predictably. i’ve got more that i’m reading, but i really like these 9! i also made comments on the art for a lot of them, which might not matter to some people, but i feel like my art was very impacted by each webtoon i read. if you’re an artist i recommend finding a webtoon you like and studying the art; try implementing parts you like into your own style!

anyways, i am FINALLY done talking. bye yall

#webtoons #my recs

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justasimplesinner · 3 years

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YEEAAAH REQUESTS OPEN do you have any hcs of ak Eddie and year one Jon with an artistic s/o? Bonus if they do graffiti 😎

Arkham Knight!Eddie with an artist hcs:

when he was younger, Edward kind of enjoyed art. but independent art. art with a hidden meaning. art that made you think when you looked at it, that entranced you and made you wonder what was the reason for making this piece, what's the message that the artist wanted to convey. he knew a lot of classical art and the greatest artists of all time but that doesn't mean he enjoyed their art. finding out about all the things the "greatest painters to ever live" did really prevented him from enjoying their works. there's not many people that know about the shit Picasso has done, but he's one of them and it always makes him research the artists he stumbles upon. only Van Gogh was legit. and he's not fond of most modern art either. even if it has no meaning, it'd be great if the art depicted at least something. he doesn't really like people painting a few dots and lines and calling it spiritual art, he thinks it's lazy and clashes with his logic

he's on the fence when it comes to graffiti. if it's for sending a message and making a difference, he's able to appreciate it, but if it's just mindless spray-painting, he isn't the biggest fan. sometimes, it doesn't look half-bad, but there are buildings ruined by bad graffiti and he hates looking at it. however, he's kind of an graffit artist himself, even if he doesn't realise it/doesn't wanna admit it. i mean, c'mon, he painted half the city with green paint and most of it was question marks or insults towards Batman. but your spray-painting skills really came in handy when it comes to that. you've offered to help him with painting his locations and at first, he was neutral towards it, just letting you do whatever you want, but soon enough, it turned out ot be the most fun he had in years. he would've never thought that running around and spraying walls with his partner would be so enjoyable. you were so creative too! it was amazing. and he loved when you climbed up onto his shoulders to spray paint higher points because you refused to use a ladder when he was right there. he genuinely hasn't laughed this hard with anyone ever, it's honestly one of his favourite memories with you

he doesn't mind going to art galleries with you if you like it, but just so you know, he's doing it just to shit on most artists. not because of their art, but because of the kind of person they were. no, he's definitely not doing this to make you happy and spend some quality time with you while showing off his knowledge. no, why would you think that

he fucking loves sculpting though. he loved it since he was a kid and laid his hands on plasticine for the first time. if you like to play around with clay, he's fucking got you. there's so many possibilities! he could do anything! shaping clay or making pots or whatever with you makes him so incredibly happy it's ricidulous. he enjoys it way too much. no one should be this happy about having their arms in clay up to the elbows, and yet here he is

he's honestly willing to try a lot of things with you. despite being very critical, he does enjoy art now and then. he enjoys spending time with you while doing something creative. it allows him to let his mind loose and just create shit. his hands are really skilled and steady, so he's not half-bad at it either! and maybe he won't admit that out loud, but he wouldn't mind you teaching him more things or new techniques. every time you two make art together, it's like he turns into a child again. he can't explain it, but it makes him so happy. he lacked such entertainment and encouragement as a child, and now you're making up for it and he couldn't've been happier

Year One!Jon with an artist hcs:

Jon's relationship with art is complicated. as a kid, the only paintings he's seen were the ones in Granny's house, and he hated them. they either depicted biblical scenes or Granny and her ancestors, and he had to learn all about them. Granny had a lot of morbid art hung in the corridor leading to his room and it always reminded him how sinners go to hell. he wasn't allowed to make art himself outside of school either. he kind of enjoyed it, but other kids often ruined his works and that's where his distaste started. when he grew up and was finally free of the horrible woman, Jon wanted to try a lot of new things and one of them was visiting an art gallery, but it all felt... pompous. the people there were vain and shallow, and he didn't quite see the art for it's meaning but for it's worth. he saw art galleries as places people went to to show off their wealth, and that art was an entertainment only for the upper class. that made his distaste grow

you made him realised that he didn't really hate art, he just had bad experiences with it. it's not about the art but the way it's showcased and the way people treat it. and that's when he started truly appreciating it. when he watched you work, he didn't see all the pompous people. when you explained your works to him, he didn't feel the same dread and disgust he felt at the paintings in his childhood home. when you encouraged him to paint, you let him go wild, didn't give him strict instructions like his school's art teacher and didn't criticise what he did like his classmates. you made him realise that he didn't need experience and skill because art isn't supposed to look nice, it's supposed to mean something, make you feel something. he still doesn't indulge too often, but you made him see why people made art and even showed him how therapeutic it can be

he enjoys listening to you talk about art, and is amazed when you specifically look for things that'd suit his own tastes and introduce him to new artists. he likes sculptures and paintings that fuck with your mind, sometimes even straight out gore and horror, and you always go out of your way to make sure he has a chance to interact with such art, be it an art show or a book about a certain artist. you acknowledge what he likes and you don't criticize him for it, instead encouraging him to pursue it

when it comes to graffiti, he always associated it with the bad kids. the ones that steal lunch money and fuck shit up. as he grew, he realised it was actually more of social rejects, the rebels, the people he always wanted to hang out with because he thought they'd understand him. he's on the fence, because on one hand, it's just kids letting loose, but on the other, it sometimes ruins the architecture and he hates how some buildings look. but he understands the need to disrespect your surroundings when you're constantly disrespected by your environment too. so he certainly won't stop you from doing it. and he maybe kinda sorta dreamed of spray painting an abandoned building as a kid. and you maybe kinda sorta can make those childish dreams come true. he won't ask though. you gotta offer that yourself

he may not be an art conessieur, but you taught him how to appreciate art, you taught him how to make art. he doesn't indulge you often, he'd prefer it if you just worked on your thing while he worked on his/read a book in the same room, but sometimes he gets the weird urge to just... paint with you. one time you made him paint with his hands and maybe he didn't enjoy it as much as his younger self would have, but he did feel his inner child come to life at that moment. he honestly got more paint on himself and you than the canvas, but he had fun. he genuinely had fun. he was allowed to have fun now. he could let loose. nobody held him back. you only encouraged him, and it made him fall in love with you more every day

#edward nigma #edward nygma #riddle #the riddler #arkhamverse #batman arkham knight #jonathan crane #scarecrow #the scarecrow #batman year one #year one #my writing #headcannons #i guess some fluff #maybe a sprinkle of angst #its mostly just me rambling incoherently #anonymous #i hate this and love it at the same time

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pascalina · 3 years

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The brothers' movie

11/07/2015

They don't use the same last name, but they are siblings. Pedro Pascal (40) the Chilean actor who starred in Game of Thrones and now has a starring role in the Netflix series Narcos, uses his mother's surname because it is easier to pronounce in English. 17 years younger, Lucas Balmaceda Pascal (23), also an actor, debuted in Los 80 and today stars in the TVN series Juana Brava. Here, both talk for the first time about their relationship, their love for cinema and their mutual admiration.

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born in Chile, but a few months later he had to go into exile with his parents and his older sister, Javiera, to Denmark. It was the end of 1975. Thanks to the Rockefeller scholarship granted for his father, the doctor José Balmaceda Riera, a year later they moved to the United States: first they lived in San Antonio, Texas. Life there was just beginning and it was not easy.

Seventeen years later, in 1992, Lucas Balmaceda was born in Orange County, California, into the comfort of a family that was financially in its prime. His dad was at the peak of his career: as a fertility specialist and director of one of the University of California's reproductive health centers. But suddenly they moved back to Chile when Lucas was three years old and his brother Nicolas was eight. The two older ones stayed there. Pedro was already studying drama at Orange County High School of the Arts. Then he went to New York to study theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

After a couple of small appearances in TV series, in 2014 he took the big leap in his career: he played Prince Oberyn in Game of Thrones, which made him world famous. Today, he has a starring role in the series Narcos. He is also filming a movie with Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe.

Fame came early for Lucas. After leaving Saint George High School in 2010, he studied theater at the Universidad Católica, and he began to shine: in year fourth, he starred in the theater play "La noche obstinada", by choreographer Pablo Rotemberg, and got a role in the successful television series Los 80 and today, in his last year, he is the co-star of Juana Brava, the new TVN nighttime series.

Scene one:

Lucas appears in Pedro's life

P: "I was 17 when Lucas was born. He was a baby when I left to go to university. I remember my first visit back and Lucas, who was not even two years old, was already the owner of the house. I remember those looks, wanting to tell me: 'I don't know who you are, but this is my house, mate.

To this day I have never seen that personality in another child. It was fascinating to see that wit in someone so small. Since he was a kid he had that fierce intelligence... The four siblings, Javiera, the eldest and the queen of the family; Nicolas, the doctor; Lucas and I are like a compact and consistent unit. I can't imagine life without them".

L: "Pedro was studying at the university in New York when I was born. When he went home for vacations to see the family, as I didn't know him, I thought: 'who is this guest, who is this weirdo who kisses my mother? She's mine!'. Back in Chile, every year Pedro came to visit us. It was the most entertaining thing in the world for me. He was much older and he would come with all the coolness, with all the culture of cinema, with horror movies that were not available here. Then we would watch them and play them out, we would do sketches. We would play that Pedro was a murderous monster and we would escape from him. We were each a character. He was very funny, he did voices, he impersonated people. He gets mad when I tell him, but I've always found that he has a Jim Carrey thing about him, he manages to make some impressive faces. When he came on, I couldn't stop watching him, he was too entertaining. We are all big movie buffs thanks to my dad. When I was three years old, he took my brothers and me to see Batman. I remember crying hysterically. I was very young, sensitive, and being in the cinema was like entering to another reality: loud noises, giant screen. I didn't understand anything.

Scene two

Transplanted

P: "What's Chilean about me and what's gringo about me is a very interesting question, because I don't think even at 40 years old I've been able to figure it out. I was raised and educated in the United States and socialized a lot with American pop culture, but Chilean pride has always been unwavering. My parents were exiled for eight years. So our visits to Chile were regular. My whole life I have lived in the United States and my whole life I have visited my relatives in Chile. However, since my siblings were raised in Chile, my connection to the country is much stronger today and it is something I am grateful for. Something that happens to me a lot is that when I say I've been in the U.S. my whole life, they say, "Well, you're a gringo then! And after a conversation in my fluent Spanish with a clear Chilean accent that same person turns around and says: I've been listening to you, you're Chilean!

L: "I am Chilean because I lived and grew up here since I was three years old, but at the same time I have a cultural disconnection: my parents lived 25 years in the United States, my brothers are gringos. My visual culture is super gringo, the TV shows I watched when I was a kid or the movies I watch to this day I understand them from that place: as an American. More than being born in the United States, I feel it's because of my family's background".

SCENE THREE:

The performance

P: "There were good years and bad years (when I started my acting career in the United States). Many years I was a waiter to supplement my income. But from a very young age I was auditioning for professional jobs. In my late twenties my career in the theater was relatively consistent. Then, when opportunities in television arose, I was consolidating and it became much easier to pay my expenses. I think that struggle, going through those situations, empowers you a lot and it's one of the things I'm enormously grateful for. And Game of Thrones was an incredible gift. It's the best role I've ever played and they're the best people I've ever worked with."

L: "It's Pedro's fault that I wanted to be an actor. But when I told him I wanted to study theater it was hard for him, more than anything, because he cares about me and studying theater is hard. You have to be very wise and have a super high self-esteem to take care of yourself. Pedro went through many things. If there is an actor who doesn't have contacts in the United States, it's him. Everything he has achieved is because of his work. That's why when people ask me why I don't go to the U.S., it's a resounding no. Being Pedro Pascal's little brother is not going to get me around the corner; I would have to be Tom Cruise's twin to achieve anything. Even so, Pedro had many failed career starts. In 2011, for example, he was offered a starring role in a series called Wonder Woman and it was eventually canceled. That's why, when Games of Thrones came up, I was like, wow! We were all freaking out, because Games of Thrones is like a worldwide trending topic. All the episodes he was in, we were all watching them together at my house, eating pizza or sushi."

SCENE FOUR:

Mutual lessons

P: "I try not to get too involved in anything Lucas does or how he does it. He has single-handedly created each of his experiences and is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. He loves his work and is continually developing his skills for television and theater, and eventually film. He executes like a real artist and, to be honest, it is more common for me to learn something from him than for him to learn something from me. I mean that very sincerely. Lucas reminds me to work hard and keeps me inspired. When I saw him in Los 80 I was incredibly proud, but not surprised. I was seeing something I had always known. The only advice I've given him is to not be such a workaholic, to take care of himself and to be proud of what he's accomplished and what he still has yet to accomplish. Deep down, I'm always going to be the protective big brother."

L: "Pedro is an object of admiration for me. What he says is law for me. Sometimes I ask him: 'Pedro, did you see that movie?' and he says: 'Yes, I didn't like it'. I tell him: 'Oh, I didn't like it either'. The nice thing about our relationship is that it happens so sporadically, once or twice a year, that the moments when we see each other are very intense. We either fight a lot or we love each other too much, but it's always like a story, like a movie. While he's there and I'm here, we talk a lot on WhatsApp and Facebook".

P: "With Lucas we always keep each other up to date on what movies to watch, what TV shows are good. I bug him all the time asking him about what's going on in his life and I'm always asking him about his perspective on things. Despite being away from each other for a long time, Lucas and I are very close and always have been. I see Lucas at the beginning of an amazing career, with an unwavering curiosity and passion. I love it when he confides in me about things he is enjoying or situations he is dealing with."

L: "I've never seen Pedro in theater, but I've been told he's tremendous. On camera, I find that he has a very intense look. He also has, and in that we are very similar, a very strong visual culture, the fact that we have always liked horror movies. He plays characters that hide something, dark characters. A great strength is that he is very sensual, he knows how to handle himself well from seduction".

P: "Lucas is brave, he's fearless. There's nothing he's not willing to try, he's never going to give up on a challenge, he's never going to leave something halfway, no matter what that means to him. Lucas is unstoppable.

Link interview

#pedro pascal #lux pascal #siblings

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willthewize · 2 years

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[JOSHUA BASSETT, CIS MALE, HE/HIM] who’s that? oh it’s [WILLIAM “WILL” BYERS]. i hear they’re [EIGHTEEN] and are known as [THE CLERIC] around [RADIOSHACK]. they’re also a [FRESHMAN] at [HAWKINS COMMUNITY COLLEGE]. they’re known to be [ARTISTIC & CLEVER] and [SENSITIVE & RETICENT]. some people say they remind them of [WELL-USED CRAYONS, FLANNEL SHIRTS & HANDMADE MIXTAPES ].

Full Name: William Jacob Byers Nicknames: Will, Will the Wise, Zombie Boy, the Cleric Age: 18 Birthday: March 22 Orientation: Gay (closeted. technically. like, the closet door is wide open and everyone can see him in there but he just hasn’t come out?) Occupation: RadioShack employee, community college freshman Aspirations: Comic book artist

HEADCANONS:

Will has always known that he wasn’t straight, but growing up in the environment that he did—with his father calling him homophobic slurs for the slightest infraction against this masculine ideal—made it necessary to suppress and ignore his sexual identity as long as possible. (He’s always been great at hiding.) Of course, Joyce and Jonathan have always been so gentle and accepting of him with regards to every facet of his being; at this point he’s pretty sure they’ve always known on some level as well, and love him just the same…In fact, it seems everyone has been aware of the unspoken truth, from his dad to his grade-school bullies, that Will Byers was “different,” but it seemed like he could hold onto some sense of normalcy and quell the fear of being cast out from an unacceptably society by simply not speaking about it. The more time passes, the more he comes into his own, however, the more ready he is to accept himself and the fact of the matter is—Will Byers is gay.

He grew out of his famous childhood bowl-cut some time in high school—meaning that he finally stopped letting his mom cut his hair and saved up enough money from working part-time jobs (as soon as he was able) to go to a cheap barber. At first he buzzed it all off, just for the freedom, but apart from not getting recognized as “Zombie Boy” so much after that, it didn’t really suit his taste either. Now he just keeps it at a manageable length and doesn’t tie much of his identity to his sense of style—hair and clothing included. A lot more of his true self can be seen and understood through his art and his favorite songs; music has been such an important part of his life since his brother introduced him to the classics.

It’s a bit weird to be back in Hawkins when the Byers family had moved across the country for a fresh start, but…stranger things have happened. Honestly, it seems as if the supernatural experiences they’ve gone through were inescapable however far they fled and all roads lead back to home—so if trouble is going to follow them wherever they go, Will is happy to stay here and be back around his friends. But hopefully now that everything has finally settled down, the adventures are done for good…he much prefers to keep them to a fictional, D&D campaign level.

Will is the kind of person who surprises everyone when he curses even though he’s pretty sure he does it often enough not to warrant such a reaction every time it happens. Maybe it’s that people still see him as kind of a baby, despite the fact that he survived the Upside Down for a week, possession by an eldritch abomination from another dimension, and other horrors most kids only have to worry about in nightmares. With his childhood interrupted and so much trauma to unpack, he did try to cling onto his youth as long as possible and no one can blame him for that, although now that he’s officially an “adult” and going into college, he is conflicted between wanting to be taken seriously and wanting to hold onto whatever innocence he has left as long as possible.

#bth:intro

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natromanxoff · 3 years

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Record Mirror (July 14, 1979): 119/?

THE QUEEN BACKLASH ENDS HERE

WITHOUT DOUBT Queen are among that elite number of bands universally hated by the rock press.

The rancour is, make no mistake, mutual which is understandable. If you find yourself on the receiving end of an inveterate dislike at the outset of your career and watch it being nurtured and carefully cultivated over the next six years you’re bound to retaliate.

Queen’s hatred manifests itself by their continued habit of ignoring the music press i.e. refusing to give interviews. There is the occasional token “chat”, pointless as it is innocuous, but in the main it amounts to a blanket “No.”

One of the last interviews Freddie Mercury gave was the last nail in the perspex coffin. Under a headline which boldly asked ‘Is This Man A Prat?’ the king of the leotards was demolished by one of the old school Queen haters and Freddie obviously came to the conclusion, in its wake, that interviews in future would be both superfluous (he was popular enough) and detrimental.

The curtain, velvet naturally, closed.

Roger Taylor, a little wary, a little weary, sits stiffly in an armchair. The juggernauts rattling the Chelsea Street outside create a sonorous buzz bomb hum in the room.

You expect a member of Queen to look elegant. In fact Roger is only wearing a wine colour mohair jacket, black shirt and blue jeans.

He apologises for being a little late and explains how he went to the wrong address. Roger seems to be the only member of Queen left who is prepared, albeit rarely, to open his mouth in the presence of a hack. A question springs to mind . . . why?

“We all sat around a table before I flew over from Munich to discuss the press situation and we agreed I should be the one to represent the band. Freddie is very uncompromising and refuses to have much to do with journalists.

“Obviously, he’s had a few raw deals with them in the past,” observes Taylor.

Roger himself has a rather low view of the music press.

“Most of it is rubbish. There was something I liked recently, a piece on Malcolm McLaren, but in the main I think I’m the only one of Queen to actually read the music papers.”

Why does he think the band are systemically slagged?

“I think it’s because Queen have always come across as being a rather confident band. We seemed, to other people at least, to be very sure of ourselves. I think the press may have misconstrued the confidence, mistaking it for a form of arrogance. Hence they became wary of our motives which bred a dislike for our music.”

Now that’s what I call a neat conclusion.

At the risk of being sent to Coventry by my colleagues I’d like, if I may, to come clean. I love Queen (you’re fired, Ed).

I think it all began with a simple pre-packed but indisposable line – “Dynamite with a laser beam” and has continued uninterrupted (despite the occasional flaw) right through to ‘Queen Live Killers’.

A combination of reasons, Freddie Mercury’s lascivious lisp – the most attractive intonation known to man . . . Brian May’s reel ‘em off rococo riffs that would, in his capable hands, transform the theme music for ‘Waggoners’ Walk’ into a meisterwork . . . John Deacon’s almost stoic stance, incongruous yet integral . . . Roger Taylor’s intense power, so unexpected from one so slight . . . the ability to go over the top without failing into the trap of caricature . . . a desire to give the punters what they want without pandering . . . that cast iron confidence . . . those nine glorious winter weeks of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which kept the cold away from my soul . . .

Yes, I love Queen.

Roger explains the story behind ‘Killers’ which features just about every Queen classic which ever found its way into a silk lined memory bank.

“We always knew that one day we would make a live album. I think it was well planned. About 90 per cent of our last European tour was recorded on a mobile unit and we then spent weeks sitting through the songs in the studio.

“The result is a 100 per cent LIVE album. Nothing has been touched up in the process of selection, I think that’s pretty rare these days. Many ‘live’ albums are tampered with.”

The choice of single is unusual – ‘Love Of My Life’. “It’s not so unusual when you hear the way it came out. The song seems to have such a wide appeal. Everywhere we go the reaction to it is the same. The audience are just bursting to sing along.”

The result is Queen’s best single since ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ (that was their LAST one crawler, ED)

As I mentioned earlier the band are currently residing in Munich where they are “experimenting” in the studio.

“We are recording in a totally different way for us,” says Roger who speaks with a delicate London accent only typical of cockneys with dramatic training and David Essex.

“Every time we entered a studio in the past we had a good idea of what we were going to do. This time we started from scratch and the result is amazing. The music is nothing like anything we’ve done before, I guess you could say it’s much simpler.”

And this novel approach to their music also extends to their shows. On their next British tour – in the late Autumn – the band will be playing much smaller venues than they are accustomed to.

“In London for example we went to play to audiences of about two or three thousand in different areas. I think it’s much fairer to the fans.”

But won’t this affect their stage show which is after all a crucial factor for any powerpomp outfit?

“Not really. We will just scale down the show accordingly. Besides,” he says taking another bite out of the biscuit, “we haven’t used dry ice in years.”

The monkey on Queen’s back, as corpulent and cantankerous as ever, has been put there by those who firmly believe the band can never emulate past achievements. Roger is cognizant of its presence but refuses to unpeel its bananas.

“That all began after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. When it stayed at number one all those weeks we were kindly informed that we would never be able to make another single to rival it both artistically and from the point of view of sales.

“Yet ‘We Are The Champions’ sold a great deal more and has since become the biggest selling single in the entire history of Elektra Asylum – our label in the States.

“We don’t do the amazingly complex things any more because we’ve moved on from that. We concentrate on the music we are doing now and we intend to do it the best we can, it’s ridiculous looking behind and and what you’ve done.

“There’s nothing like going back on the road to re-unite the bond between the four personalities and strengthening our belief in the band. We are a real working unit and, in my experience of the music business, one of the most democratic bands around today.”

A statement like that cries out to be expounded.

“People think every member of all the bands, not naming any names, are treated equally that is get the same money as their colleagues. That’s rubbish. In many bands there are a couple of guys that get all the money. The rest are on wages. Queen share the profits equally.”

And they don’t have a manager taking his cut either, John Reid departed a couple of years back and now the band themselves make all the major policy decisions. Why did they decide to dispense with the services of a manager?

“Basically because we were fed up with giving other people money. Y’know it never ceases to amaze me how naive those guys are in bands who have just had their first hit. After all this time I’ve forgotten just how naive we must have been at the beginning.

“I mean, everything seems so great when you get into the charts for the first time. You’re living on cloud nine and nothing else matters. But in truth that hit means absolutely nothing. So few people achieve any amount of financial success in this business.

“Oh, you think, you’re really living . . . for a while. Somebody gets you a flat in Chelsea and it’s all free. But one day the rent stops being paid for you and you realise you’re skint.

“Since John Reid has gone the four of us have always made a point of discussing everything together. We have various people working for us but all the important decisions are made by us alone. That way we get freedom of choice – and financial independence.”

My attention is suddenly diverted.

“FORTY-LOVE!” Wimbledon, the Persil White opiate for the hoi polloi squashed in a strawberry crush wrings out its perspiring petticoats on the TV in the next room. Roger’s girlfriend, an extremely attractive French girl called Dominique, is engrossed. The couple have lived together for two years. Crippled old marriage questions permeate the air.

“I don’t believe in marriage,” says Roger. “It’s simply a contract and the fewer contracts I enter into the better. If you get on well with someone then there isn’t any harm in living with that person – but marriage is something else again.”

They live in a six bedroomed Victorian house just outside London, which is set in 20 acres. Roger has a “tiny” town house in Barnes as well. What’s it like having a bank full of money at the age of 29?

“I don’t hide away from life. Queen have never been one of those ‘being grabbed in the street’ type bands. It may happen when the four of us are together – but when we are out alone we are seldom bothered. That gives me the opportunity to enjoy myself. I go to clubs a lot. I like having a good time. I don’t think you could describe any of the band as leading sheltered lives.

“But I have completely lost touch with how much things cost. When you find yourself living in hotels for so long you never really deal in money as such. Everything is available whenever you want it – but you never see the cash actually being handed over.

“I’ve forgotten what it was like to be penniless which Queen were for years. I guess that must happen to many successful rock bands.”

Another thing that happens to many successful rock bands – they quit the country. But not Queen it appears.

“We have always based ourselves in England and I see no reason why we shouldn’t continue to do so. We could leave at any time but we choose to stay. People believe we are tax exiles because we spend a lot of the time out of the country recording in studios all over Europe and touring.”

And what will happen when the band finally trudge wearily down the road leading to that ivory strewn elephants’ graveyard . . . ?

“I know it’s bound to happen one day. I suppose I’d take a long, long holiday . . . and then make a solo album.”

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #dominique beyrand #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #record mirror #record mirror july 1979 #queen scans

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verycharismaticdragon · 3 years

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on the addition of shixiongdi relation in SHL

A lot has been said on SHL’s addition of shixiong/shidi relationship between the main couple, probably because of it being one of the most obvious and plot-influential changes the adaptation made. The opinions on it range from overwhelmingly positive to upset and disappointed; so as a preface, I want to say that this small analysis is not me trying to tell you how to feel, but rather just organizing my own thoughts and feelings on the subject. Maybe some of my musings will resonate with you, maybe not – just treat this as an opinion piece. Disagreeing with meta is just as valuable a mode of digesting it as agreeing with it, after all!

So, here’s how my experience with the addition went: despite finishing the novel way before I got anywhere close to the reveal in the show, when I initially learned about the addition (from spoilers), I wasn’t at all upset about it – I understood, or thought I understood, where it was coming from. However, after finishing the show, I found myself discontented with it.

To figure out what exactly changed my mind, I’m going to organize my thoughts the following way: start with the positives, then continue into things I'm neutral on, and then see what is left for the negative category.

(continuing under cut)

The Good

So the thing I appreciate about the addition of shixiongdi relation, and the reason I was initially completely okay with the change, is of course the way it created plausible deniability that helped the show pass c/nsorship. It allowed SHL to portray an extremely intimate and tactile relationship – while not actually adding anything that would be a detriment to romantic reading. @/hunxi-guilai already wrote about it better than I ever could (second half of the post is about SHL specifically), so I’m not going into further detail. Just going to say that in this sense, the idea is quite brilliant.

Intermission

Before I go into the next section, I want to address a certain take going around the fandom: that SHL’s addition of shixiongdi relationship makes Wen Kexing’s decision to follow Zishu in the beginning more logical than it is in the novel, since in the show it is based on him recognizing their school's qinggong. Thing is, every iteration of this take I’ve seen operates on a wrong premise: taking novel Wen Kexing on his word that he is following Zishu because of his ~beautiful shoulderblades~. I have a post that goes into more detail, but in short: he isn't. He realized that Zhou Zishu is an expert martial artist, because Zhou Zishu had listened in on him and Gu Xiang across a busy street, and became suspicious. He thus followed Zishu to figure out his identity and whether he is participating in the hunt for Lapis Armor – in other words, whether or not Zhou Zishu is a threat to his revenge plan.

So both Wen Kexings have completely reasonable motives for following Zhou Zishu, while the flirting is initially just a cover. The only thing shixiongdi relation does in the show is provide a c/nsorship-passing explanation for Wen Kexing’s insistence that Zhou Zishu has to be good-looking: he is already almost sure that ‘Zhou Xu’ is his long-lost sect brother ‘Zhou Zishu’, and so knows more or less what he should look like under the mask. Again, works to help the show with plausible deniability, which is great! But on the whole, it isn't more logical than the novel's version – just different.

The Neutral

Human mind resists change, so sometimes we think something is bad just because it diverges from what we're used to. With this section, I want to make sure I'm not condemning perfectly sensible decisions just because they contradict the novel's setup.

To properly explain my thoughts on the matter, I need to step back from shixiongdi plotline for a moment and outline the bigger picture.

Aside from specific plot points and arcs, SHL made several changes to the source material on a structural level. I already wrote about the different ways in which the two approach the past, as well as the secondary plotline from the novel becoming the main plot of the show; there are also thematic differences (very shortly: the show does not engage with, and sometimes actively contradicts, several of the themes set up in the novel; it instead creates its own thematic framework, which also isn’t backwards compatible) and the shift in approach to genre (TYK subverts wuxia conventions while SHL pays homage to them). All of those changes work to create two very different stories; which one is “better” truly just comes down to personal preference.

I, for one, prefer the novel's choices; but there's a reason this section is titled 'neutral'. You see, after putting a finger on those structural changes, I realized they weren’t a deal-breaker for my enjoyment; while they were a bit confusing when watching, I have a rough guess on why they were made, and also probably wouldn’t be put out by them alone. In other words, I’m not into them, but I’m not against them either.

So, back to shixiongdi plotline: while it wouldn’t really fit with the novel’s structure, it very much does fit with the show’s.

Main characters having a past connection would make no sense in the novel, with its focus on freeing yourself from your past (by blood if you have to), but it becomes a centerpiece in the show, which focuses on rebuilding the past better. The show creates many connections that didn’t exist in the novel (to give some examples, in TYK, neither Wen Kexing’s parents nor Zhou Zishu’s shifu are part of Rong Xuan’s friend circle, Scorpion isn’t Zhao Jing’s adopted son, and Liu Qianqiao is not one of the Ghosts), which I think is due to both the new set of themes and the genre shift – and, again, WenZhou being sect brothers fits right in with that tangle of past debts and gratitudes and para-familial relations.

And, yes, this is very different from the novel – the line that describes the main family there is “sworn ties between the great houses were no more than lies and treachery, and yet, strangers who met by chance could survive by leaning on each other”, and Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing, and Zhang Chengling are all indeed complete strangers to each other who were brought together by mere coincidence, – but the addition is internally consistent with the story the show was intent on telling.

In that way, shixiongdi thing is but a part of a bigger package; and since I’ve already determined the whole doesn’t bother me that much, logically the small part of it shouldn’t either.

But there’s still a certain element of shixiongdi dynamic in the show that I simply can’t make peace with – one that doesn't follow from those global changes. So we come to—

The Upsetting.

What sets this element apart from the fairly massive overhaul outlined in previous section is that, while both end up contradicting things set up by the novel, for this one I couldn’t find a single plausible reason – not one that’d hold up to a moment’s examination. Changes in adaptation are par the course – the shift between media types alone ensures the adaptation can’t be 1:1 – but if they aren’t made thoughtfully and with regard to source material, then is it still an adaptation? May as well change up all the names and make it an original… To be clear, I’m not saying SHL is that far away from its source material; this is just to explain why baseless changes grate in a way reasonable ones don’t.

The thing about setting up a shixiong-shidi relationship is that it inherently creates an order of seniority. One is an elder, the other is a junior, and that, in the setting-implied Confucian society, comes with specific – different – obligations on both sides. On this base level, it seems impossible to reconcile with the novel’s dynamic, which emphasizes WenZhou seeing each other as equals; but taking into account the genre in which the show operates... Fictional martial sibling pairs have been throwing wrenches into the supposed dynamic for ages, to the point that however you spin a shixiongdi story, someone’s probably done it before.

In other words, there’s no hard and fast rule saying that a shixiongdi pair has to consist of a responsible and caring senior and a troublemaker junior in need of guidance. So SHL’s decision to portray WenZhou as such isn’t necessitated by the addition of shixiongdi dynamic; sticking closer to the novel’s characterization and dynamic would make them only slightly less typical as a shixiongdi pair, but it wouldn’t even feel like a subversion or anything. And I don’t really see this portrayal as important to the show’s thematic framework either – not in any way that couldn’t be achieved just as fine without it. In fact, the only reason I can see for it is to facilitate the, well, whole mess that was the last four episodes.

But before I get into that, let me address something else: I do understand that it’s possible the senior-junior aspect of the dynamic seemed fairly minor to some, maybe most, viewers. The reason it feels glaringly obvious to me is because it goes against something directly established in the novel.

You see, while novel WenZhou are not sect-siblings, at a certain point there is a comparison made between Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu’s shidi Jiuxiao. Except it is immediately shot down by Zhou Zishu: how could they be compared? Jiuxiao “was just a kid”, while Wen Kexing “knows what he needs to do”.

Novel Zhou Zishu sees Wen Kexing as his equal – an adult who can make his own decisions. After the final battle, Zhou Zishu even asks Wen Kexing whether he wants to be saved before treating his injuries – no matter how it’d hurt Zhou Zishu himself, to lose someone who made him want to live again, he is just that willing to respect Wen Kexing’s choice.

This respect towards one’s decisions, however, does not extend to his shidi: in Qi Ye, Zhou Zishu sends Liang Jiuxiao out of the soon-to-be besieged capital against his will. To him, Jiuxiao is a child he’s responsible for, and as an elder, he makes the decision for him – on assumption that he knows better.

In that way, SHL Zishu’s treatment of Wen Kexing is actually closer to how novel Zishu treats Jiuxiao: for example, SHL!Zishu’s decision to drug Wen Kexing to sleep while he goes off to die fighting Prince Jin's forces – despite knowing Wen Kexing would rather go with him, even if that meant death – prioritizes someone’s safety over their wishes in the exact same way sending Jiuxiao out of the capital did. And with the way the two relationships are contrasted in the novel, it really drives home that the show's dynamic is that of a senior and a junior rather than two equals.

But you may ask: doesn’t this mean that the shift in Zishu’s characterization is simply due to him ‘acting like a shixiong’ towards Wen Kexing? Isn’t this exactly the kind of reason that would justify the change? And, look, if Zhou Zishu’s behavior was the only thing that changed, I’d... probably still be a little miffed that he treats his romantic partner in a way that his novel counterpart categorizes as treating someone like a kid, but – I’d consider the choice understandable, if not one I’d personally make.

Except that still leaves changes in Wen Kexing’s portrayal, the impulsivity and lack of understanding of consequences and sometimes outright dumbness that have nothing to do with his novel counterpart. The only purpose those seem to serve is creating a dynamic of Zhou Zishu constantly having to ‘manage’ Wen Kexing and take responsibility for his actions – and don’t get me started on ‘guiding him back to the righteous path’, as I’ve said before, moral discrepancy between the two was also invented by SHL for no good reason, – casting Wen Kexing in a role of troublemaker junior.

Again, it is not as if such dynamic is inherent and immutable for shixiongdi relationship, and it runs counter to the way the relationship is established in the novel. The only reason I can see for forcing a senior-junior dynamic in this way is to set up the characterization groundwork for all the misunderstandings in the final episodes.

Wen Kexing hiding things from Zishu in a way that badly backfires, then later missing all signs of his distress, and finally sacrificing himself as a way to take responsibility for his actions but without bearing uncomfortable consequences such as having to own up for his mistakes – all of this could only work off the previously established ‘reckless, careless problem child’ portrayal.

On the other side, Zhou Zishu not assuming even for a moment that Wen Kexing knows what he’s doing during the standoff in episode 32, then hiding his shortened lifespan, then drugging Wen Kexing and going off to die on his own also would not make sense if Zhou Zishu considered Wen Kexing his equal and trusted him to make his own choices.

So, pushing the senior-junior angle helps to make the finale's characterization consistent with the rest of the show. But should it be counted as a good reason? Even among show-only fans, many were discontented with the last few episodes, to say nothing of us novel fans.

There are rumors going around that the whole mess in the finale was to create a c/nsorship-mandated bad ending; I don't know how true those might be. Wasn't there a less convoluted way to bad end the show though, one that didn't require turning the novel’s dynamic into something it explicitly wasn’t?

I mean, the simplest TYK-based BE I can think of would be to just cut to the credits before Zhou Zishu wakes up from his post-nail removal three-month coma. That’s it! If you wanna twist the knife, have Wen Kexing sit by the bed, desperately calling him and receiving no response; show that day after day is passing; you can even work in Wen Kexing’s hair turning white, implying he has greyed from worry and grief... Roll the credits without resolving it, and you get a perfectly gut-punching sad BE. Which also seamlessly transitions into the novel’s actual HE, and you can trust the novel-readers to let everyone else know that. And this is just me throwing out the first idea that came up; surely people who work within the system and know it better could find even more ways to pass the requirement without sacrificing characterization?

Considering everything outlined above, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that forcing a senior-junior angle for SHL’s shixiongdi dynamic was completely unnecessary. And with the way it overwrote the dynamic the novel set up, of equals who respect each other’s choices… yeah, it’s no wonder something bothered me. It wasn't the addition of the shixiongdi relation itself; it was just this one aspect of characterization that was taken too far.

––––––

- TYK/SHL comparisons masterpost -

#tyk shl comparisons #word of honor meta #tian ya ke meta #word of honor #woh #shan he ling #shl #tian ya ke #tyk #faraway wanderers

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pochiperpe90 · 4 years

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[L’Officiel Hommes] Luca Marinelli, rising star of Italian cinema

To win his first film role, Luca Marinelli agreed to put on sixteen kilos. For the second, he had to shave his whole body and learn to walk in heels more than eight inches high.

"If I believe in the part, there is nothing I'm not willing to do," says the twenty-six-year-old protagonist of ‘The Solitude of Prime Numbers’, the film by Saverio Costanzo presented at last year's edition of the Venice Film Festival.

To play the role of a boy devoured by guilt due to an accident that happened to his sister, Marinelli did not hesitate to ruin his athletic physique by gorging himself on fats and carbohydrates, and giving up any activity for three months. As soon as he could, he started running again to lose the extra pounds. Between football and swimming he has always been used to playing sports. But the forced immobility had atrophied his muscles, and at the end of the first runs he ended up vomiting his soul from the effort. After a month of intense exercise, however, he had already lost the extra pounds.

"Changing your body makes you feel more vulnerable and you become prey to irrational fears: when I was fat I was afraid of dying every time I took the stairs, when I was hairless I was afraid that my eyebrows would never grow back," says the actor while he eats a salad sitting at the bar of the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan. "But it's always a very interesting experience", he continues, absently stroking the hairs on his forearm, still growing since the end of the shooting of “L’ultimo terrestre”, a film that will be released next year by Gipi, an Italian illustrator making his debut behind the movie camera. It’s a love story set against the backdrop of an invasion of extraterrestrials, in which Marinelli plays the role of a transvestite friend of the protagonist. To prepare for the part, the actor watched dozens of crossdresser and transgender footage and had to practice for hours walking with extravagant stilts instead of shoes.

“I was told that, as a woman, I move well and I'm quite beautiful. In short, the experience gave me a certain satisfaction”, he jokes, winking with gray-blue eyes.

Compared to the film debut of ‘Solitude of Prime Numbers’, this new film offers him a smaller role and visibility. But Marinelli is not concerned about this. He knows he was very lucky to end on the red carpet of one of the most important festivals in the world with the first film. And he would almost feel calmer if his career were to continue more gradually.

"It was so lightning fast that I was not prepared. Venice was a wonderful experience but I was in panic. In the evening I came home with a terrible headache, I felt like I had two tight screws in my skull. I almost felt at fault to start out so great. And now I'm happy to start again slowly”.

Marinelli finished high school in 2006 and three years later graduated from the Silvio D'Amico Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome. Before being chosen by Costanzo for the feature film that gave him notoriety with the public, he had already played several roles in the theater with directors such as Carlo Cecchi and Michele Monetta. His father, actor and film voice actor, tried to introduce him to the world of entertainment as a child, without achieving great results. He had made him voice the voices of Tip and Tap, the grandchildren of Mickey Mouse from the cartoons, and had offered him some amateur roles. Despite being fascinated by the profession, however, the son didn’t feel cut out to be an actor.

“As a child I was shy. I liked being the center of attention, but only with people I had a lot of confidence with. More than being observed, I was interested in observing the lives of others. Not the present ones, but the past ones”.

After high school, Marinelli enrolled in the faculty of archeology in Rome. But after two months in which he attended only lessons that had nothing to do with his course, he realized that the university wasn’t for him and threw himself into acting, overcoming the fears he carried within him since he was a child. Even today, however, it retains some of that shyness. To the point that, whenever he is about to go on stage, he has to resort to small exorcising rites to reduce tension and cancel thoughts. And when we ask him how it feels to tell a complete stranger about himself, he confesses to being a little nervous.

"This is my second interview. From the first, I came out as some kind of psycho. I hope this time it goes better”, he jokes.

He has pain in his neck from a fall that occurred a few days earlier and moves his torso in a slightly stiffly way. He jumped on the ball and crashed to the ground during a game of "calciotto", the eight-a-side football that is popular in Rome, the city where he was born and raised. Every time he turns his head he makes a grimace of pain. Apart from that, Marinelli seems to be quite at ease, and does not resort to clichés. Nor does he try to hide behind sophisticated characters: he wears a blue shirt, military green trousers and brown jacket, in a style that he simply defines "for men", made up of garments unearthed among vintage shops and thrift stalls rather than in the boutiques of the big names. He loves to run around with his bike, although he admits that the longest trip he has done was from Rome to Fregene with a friend. And as soon as he has a free moment he takes his dog Nonò, a foundling dachshund who also follows him on tour, and takes him around the capital for long walks in the company of Sandy, the dog who lives in his parents' house.

Even though he’s aware of the difficulties and uncertainties he risks facing in his profession, he speaks of his dreams with passion and without anguish. He would like to pursue a project as a director and is enthusiastic about the collaboration with Cecchi in “Sogno di una notte di mezza estate”, a piece with which he will tour Italy between November and February.

"I know that being an actor is a job with a very high risk of failure and depression, but for the moment I try to live this lucky moment to the fullest."

Marinelli is not religious, but he’s particularly fascinated by the figure of Christ. He loves reading books and watching films that tell the Nazarene in his human dimension (from the Gospel according to Matthew by Pasolini to Scorsese's Last Temptation of Christ), because when he sees a miracle he feels the "smell of burning" and is immediately distracted.

"The story of Jesus, understood as a simple person, is a proof of the wonderful things that man is capable of. And studying it helps to understand how far we live from the example that has been given to us".

Among the dreams in the drawer, remains to work with Eimuntas Nekrošius, the Lithuanian theater director who recently staged Albert Camus' Caligula in Rome. And with Pedro Almodovar, the master of Spanish cinema whose language he knows well. In fact, Marinelli's father spent his childhood in Argentina and passed on to his son his love for Spanish, which Luca speaks with a slight South American inflection.

Of course, the situation in Italy for novice actors is not reassuring. Most of his fellow academics are still looking for work. The lucky ones earn a few euros by acting in the theater or making fiction which is exhausting for the body and demoralizing for the spirit. The others are making a living with alternative uses waiting to be discovered.

“I'm working, but not because I'm the best of those who came out of my class. Luck matters a lot. In Italy the environment is closed and there is little money. Abroad, however, it seems that this art is much more accessible".

His response is interrupted by a strange sigh that sounds like a whale song. It’s the ringtone of his cell phone, a reconstruction of the original music used in the Greek tragedy. Marinelli doesn’t respond, but begins to show signs of unease. He noted that the Palazzo della Triennale hosts an exhibition of Pasolini's portraits that he would like to see. He has little time left, but he adores the poet and insists on entering.

Inside the exhibition, observe the black and white photos taken by Dino Pedriali in 1975 which show the artist reading in his villa in Chia, writing on an Olivetti 22 and walking on a bridge in Sabaudia with his hair down from the wind. Then he stops in front of a photo of Pasolini naked, portrayed in his bedroom.

"What a fascinating man, in this image he reminds me of the bad lieutenant in Abel Ferrara's film," he says as he heads towards the exit. Then, unexpectedly, he turns to his interviewer and asks him with the relieved tone of someone who knows he has completed a business: "Prof, how did the exam go?".

“I'd give you a nice twenty-eight”, we reply according to the game.

"Okay, I accept it".

L’Officiel Hommes

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)

#Luca Marinelli #interview #english translation #english #mine #l'ultimo terrestre #la solitudine dei numeri primi #2011 #magazine #L’Officiel Hommes #Roberta

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byulsgrease · 3 years

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i rlly liked your "what are the chances" fic, and i just want to request something similar with the reader being a "hero" typa concept! Could you write a idol!hwasa x reader, and in there hwasa gets swarmed by paps and starts to struggle or panic, but the reader (who hwasa knows) just happens to be there at right place/time and takes care of her during and afterwards at the comfort of hwasas home?

o thanks anon! what are the chances truly came out of nowhere so it's a relief you enjoyed 🥺 so sorry this took me a while, my brain got a bit stuck at first on where to go with this one but I hope you like it

it's been a long time

(hwasa x gender neutral reader, ~1.3k words)

cw: food mention (are we surprised?)

a/n: the more I write the more I realize how much my own experiences influence my ideas? obviously it makes sense but just interesting that one could probably figure out a good bit about me if they knew where to look

A soft rain falls from the blanket of gray clouds above your head as you exit the 7-11 with a bottle of chilsung cider and a shiny plastic-wrapped inkigayo sandwich, your default lazy day dinner. The hood on your windbreaker comes back up to shield your hair from the rain. You're about to turn on your heel to head home but a swarm of people out of the corner of your eye turns your head toward it.

Squinting, it dawns on you: Oh... it's her.

Ahn Hyejin - or Hwasa, as most of your friends now called her. Weird to see her here, you knew her essentially a lifetime ago. Hyejin and Wheein in middle school were some of the nicest classmates around, despite the fact that they were picked on a ton. But you weren't super popular either so you usually found solace in talking to them, even if just in passing. Sometimes regret crosses your mind during their promotions. Could you have stood up for them back then? But they seem to be doing well, and the past is the past. Mamamoo's doing great. You long ago gave up pursuing music professionally after realizing you didn't have the means, so a hobby it became, but it meant a lot to see how far your fellow classmates had come to make their dreams come true.

The 10 minutes of your own internal existential reckoning really only takes about 10 seconds. You tread closer to the swarm as an endless number of camera shutters simultaneously create a loud flurry of clicks. A cacophony of voices renders you unable to make out whatever they're badgering her about, but she looks visibly agitated. Closer now, she wears that same expression she used to - when people in middle school endlessly mocked her for her body or not looking "Korean enough". That feeling of a lump in your throat where your words get caught and you can't tell whether a cry or yell will emerge when your mouth opens. Maybe she's changed less than I thought. Well, time to stand up to all those people I never did back when we were kids.

"Hyejin!" you whisper-yell. By some miracle your voice cuts through the noise as her head whips around to face you. You falter a bit when confusion leaps to her face - her not remembering your face didn't exactly cross your mind before approaching her. But desperation wins out as she takes your outstretched hand, mind racing, and bolts out from the crowd of cameras. There'll probably be a Dispatch article about this later.

With no bulky camera gear or bag to speak of, losing the crowd proves to be surprisingly easy. Slowing to a stop, you pause to take down your hood and unzip your jacket, an uncomfortable sweat forming on your back from the exertion. I should really start exercising again.

"Sorry," you nearly pant, a bit winded. "I'm not even sure if you remember wh—"

"Wait, I do!" she exclaims incredulously. "Holy crap, how long has it been?"

"A looong time. Sorry for sneaking up on you like that, but you wanted to get out of there, right?"

The hand not holding her purse runs itself through her hair as she sighs. "Yeah, absolutely. People think artists are perfect and will answer any call of the press on a whim, so this happens a lot more than I'd like it to. It’s just one of those days."

“I’m sure,” You're shifting weight from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do or say. It's a stretch to even claim to know her. "Um... were you headed somewhere? I could walk you, if you want— but no pressure!" Please. Get a hold of yourself.

The corner of her mouth turns up and she turns the proposition over in her head for maybe 2 seconds. "Sure, you can walk me home. I'll be more ready to run this time if they come back for us."

"This'll probably turn into a bigger story than whatever they were pestering you about, won't it...?" your tone apologetic.

She waves you off reassuringly. "Yeah, but that's tomorrow. Point is you got me out of there today, on a day where I didn't want to do... all that," her hand waving in the general direction from which you came. "Let's go."

~~~~~

It took everything in you to not say anything weird about how her place in real life looked so much like it did on I Live Alone. Can't be out here admitting I'm a fan.

She dropped her bag in the doorway and took a seat on the floor in front of her tv, running her hands through hair. Hesitating to follow her lead, a little overwhelmed from taking in her space, you ask, "Did you want some water or a snack?"

"Oh shit, sorry. Terrible host here, I should be asking you that."

The sandwich plastic crinkles in your fidgety hands, realizing you're still clutching it alongside your now luke-warm bottle of chilsung. "Wanna split these? Chilsung might need some ice, though." Your hands raise up the convenience store fare. "And don't worry about it, seriously. Relax - it's not every day you have someone to talk to after an ordeal like that."

"I have my members."

"Right, and where are they right now?" you posed, butt finally finding the floor in a spot next to her as she gets up to grab ice.

"Okay, okay, fine. What've you been up to since middle school anyway? It's obvious that you know what I've been up to - you could've caught some flies in your mouth with how low your jaw dropped when you walked in here," a small chuckle leaving her as you shielded your eyes. Caught.

"Mm, not much. Moved back in with my parents after getting a business degree and I have a typical 9 - 5. Or, well. 9 to 'whenever work is over', so basically never."

Sitting back down beside you and twisting the cap off the chilsung, she tilted her head at you. "Didn't you say back in the day you wanted to be a cellist?"

You sigh, resignation palpable. "Yeah, stupid kid dreams. There was no way I could afford to get through formal training and cross my fingers hoping for someone to give me a chance. You're financially in the red for essentially that entire time - I couldn't do that to my parents. But I'm really glad you and Wheein got to where you wanted to be," your tone brightening before taking a sip,

She smiles close-lipped, pensive. "Middle school feels like forever ago. Couldn't do it without her, that's for sure."

"It was meant to be, that she didn't debut with Moonbyul and all that," not caring anymore about exposing yourself after getting called out. "We've all got our own paths - it's inspiring to see you two walking down it together."

"I think you know full well that it's not quite that simple," she countered, her gaze coming to rest on you. "But, who says you have to stay on the path? RBW has an in-house string department, you know." Your head whips around to stare at her incredulously, blinking. What did she just say?

"You don't mean... um... I only play cello for fun now," excuses pour out but your mind soars at the hypothetical. You could leave business behind and at least be doing something you'd legitimately never tire of, even if the awful work-life balance remains.

She waves you off again. "Oh please. One thing I for sure remember is that you were always too modest for your own good. But I'm serious, if it's what you want." The ballooning feeling in your chest gives way to silent tears of joy streaming down your face.

You blubber, "Yes. Absolutely. Even if it doesn't—" She cuts you off with a hand on your shoulder and a dead-on look in the eye, her other hand already clutching her phone to make the call.

"It will."

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yukipri · 4 years

Text

On what her crew wants to see Mer!Luffy wear:

In response to an ask from @sideeffectsofwriting:

1) What do each crew members or even others like seeing Luffy wearing? Or want her to dress up in?

Thanks so much again for sending this in! Here’s the thoughts of some of the crew, up to around Alabasta:

Ace: Honestly doesn’t usually think too much about clothing for Luffy, since he knows she doesn’t care about it much. Ace likes accessorizing, but knows from experience that Luffy is very prone to breaking/losing most things she can wear. It’s only after he sees Luffy try on his necklace, and sees Nami pick out clothes for Luffy in Ace’s colors that he thinks...Oh, oh, that’s actually really nice...He kinda doesn’t know how to put it into words though and feels weirdly confused/embarrassed when he thinks about it, so he mostly just shrugs. (everyone else on the crew: you’re feeling possessive, that’s what that feeling is, Ace)

Sabo: Unashamed and very open about liking it when Luffy wears his clothes. She’s basically swimming in his tunic, and it reeks “Boyfriend Shirt,” which he’s very proud of (Ace looks painfully interested in this look, and Sabo sighs and explains to his brother that in order to experience the Boyfriend Shirt, Ace must, in fact, first have a shirt for Lu to wear). He likes her in most other things too, from her usual vest to the cute and/or sometimes sexy things Nami picks out, but Sabo admits to being partial to wearing matching things. He’s the type to very proudly wear matching couple outfits (of course he’ll get one for Ace too, the three of them must do everything together after all), and he drinks the tears of jealous rivals with his tea.

Thatch: He kinda feels lame having an answer like this, when honestly Luffy’s cute in everything, she’s kinda his definition of cute...but since this is specifically asking for a preference: he likes seeing her in bikini tops. She’s a mermaid after all, can’t really wear much on the bottom, and there’s something exceptionally romantic about her wearing something that sings to the more traditional “Mermaid” aesthetic, and it’s a nice gap from her usual outfits. So many cute bras out there to compliment her gorgeous crimson tail, and lovingly embrace her lovely assets...He would also be very, very interested in seeing her in something a little more mature like lingerie but knows Ace would have his head so is wisely keeping his mouth shut.

Deuce: He’d say he doesn’t care, but that’s a cop out so...he’s gonna say it makes him feel weirdly more aware of her when she’s wearing more normal, concealing clothes, like a shirt. Maybe because he’s used to Whitebeard’s nurses being all over him, but the usual “sexy ladies” look doesn’t really do much for him, and he also kinda shrugs off visible cleavage like Lu’s regular very open vest. But there’s something about seeing her in a casual shirt, looking like a normal girl and not an extremely powerful pirate, the hint of her body through the way it stretches the fabric that...well. Ace, stop glaring.

Zoro: He likes how Luffy looks after a victorious battle. He always feels this feral pride when he sees her as the dust settles, her clothes ripped, shallow cuts and bruises visible on her bared skin, muscles shifting with restless energy as she comes down from an adrenaline high despite her eyes still being alert. It reminds him why he chose to follow her, and it’s hot. (Sanji: that isn’t a clothing preference!!!)

Sanji: Sanji wants to say a lot of things here, because he has a lot of thoughts about how adorable Luffy would look in a variety of things, including but not limited to a bikini (what, that’s already been said?!), a maid outfit, a school girl uniform, a dancer outfit, a wedding dress--but, because he’s never had the honor of seeing any of those...he admits he has a weak spot for seeing Luffy in clothes stained by food that Sanji cooked. Which, okay, objectively he knows that it’s pretty nasty, but she’s such a messy eater and...it makes him feel sickeningly warm inside, to see all this evidence of how much she enjoyed his work, and then being able to get close to tenderly wipe it clean, all while she looks content and full...

Nami: In a crew full of uncivilized men, and poor Luffy who grew up surrounded by them, of course Nami has to take it upon herself to introduce her to fashion. And of course Nami thinks Luffy should wear what she wants! But, her captain’s apparently never worn a bra, and doesn’t know anything about having proper support for her chest, and okay fine she’s rubber so maybe she doesn’t need it but...Nami doesn’t so much have a particular type of clothing she wants to see Luffy wear, but she DOES very much enjoy when Luffy wears things that Nami’s picked out for her, because Nami puts a lot of thought into what things she knows Luffy would look amazing in, and what she hopes Luffy will also find comfortable enough to wear. Nami likes it when she sees Luffy look jaw-dropping gorgeous because it’s what Nami coordinated for her, and yes there is a lot of undeniable very personal possessiveness, but also, gentlemen, she’ll take those tips now thank you...

Usopp: He was going to say he strongly prefers to pass on this question, as he only ever Looks Very Respectfully and look ok he doesn’t want reason for the Terrifying Big Brothers give him Scary Glares...but actually, y’know what, he does having something he thinks Lu looks really great in. He drew and designed the ASL Pirates jolly roger, y’know? And Luffy once casually mentioned that she really likes it, and it makes her feel so awesome and proud of her crew, and it’d be cool to see it on other things too...so the next island they stopped at, Usopp grabbed some fabric paint, and whipped up a shirt with the jolly roger and a few little artistic details. And Luffy’s face when he handed it to her, and she tried it on...That’s a good memory, one that he doubts he’ll ever forget.

Chopper: Chopper’s still learning about merfolk, and he knows frustratingly little about them and is constantly pushing himself to learn more so his lack of knowledge never ends up putting him in a situation where he can’t properly treat Luffy. But one thing he’s always so worried about, is how cold Luffy gets. He already feels kinda concerned for humans in general, they’re all so hairless! But Luffy gets especially cold, and seems to be partially cold blooded and gets chilled super easily when she’s not active and, as a mammal with a very thick and warm coat, Chopper’s always so worried that she’ll get too cold, especially when she sleeps. So it really reassures him when he sees her bundled up in something thick and fluffy, like a fur coat, because she seems like she could really use it.

Koala: Koala would love to see Luffy wearing some more traditional Fishman Island outfits. Koala knows Luffy knows basically nothing about her heritage, and doesn’t want to force it on her but--Fishman Island is so incredibly dear to Koala, and she knows how beautiful and vibrant the culture is. She knows Luffy would look stunning in mermaid dancer outfits, mermaid prayer outfits, mermaid formalwear, anything and everything that was specifically designed for her people...and not just the feminine things too! Luffy would look amazing in fishman karate gear just as much. It’s a mix of both Koala really, really appreciating the aesthetic mental image, but also the representation of Luffy learning more about Fishman Island.

Vivi: Vivi knows very specifically what she ideally would like to see Luffy wear, because she gave it to her already. Or rather, she put it inside Sabo’s bag the night before the ASL pirates fled Alabasta, with a note that it’s for Luffy, fully aware that the more careful older brother would hold on to it for her until there’s an appropriate occasion. It’s a traditional Alabasta outfit--specifically, a royal one. In fact, pulled from Vivi’s own wardrobe, and she knows it’s only meant to be worn by royalty, but she wanted Luffy to have it, and knows her father would support her, after all Luffy and their crew did for Alabasta. It’s an outfit not unlike the one Vivi wore when she waved at the crew as they disappeared--but in crimson and gold, with hues of rose, and Vivi couldn’t help but associate it with Luffy. She knows Luffy will look amazing in it, and knows that the world will know that Luffy has Alabasta’s support should she ever choose to wear it in public.

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~This ask has been added to the Mermaid AU Text Headcanons Compilation post~

#YukiPri replies #OnePieceMermaidAU #One Piece Mermaid AU #genderbend #text headcanons #longpost #long post #sideeffectsofwriting #See even my answer to this part alone got so long it needs to go under a cut ^ ^;;;;#and it's not even the full final crew...

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