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chaozsilhouette · 3 years

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Turbulent Beginnings

This forms the opening act to Macaque’s story, showing just how different his and Wukong’s early lives were and why he took Wukong’s disappearance so hard.

The idea Macaque was born from the wind was inspired by @animemoonprincess. And yes, I am a shameless fan of Macaque originally having white fur. The angst is just too perfect.

Brace yourselves, this isn’t going to be pretty. I am essentially shoving our boy through an emotional meat grinder.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

On a remote island, a day’s travel from China’s eastern shore, a massive hurricane raged as it had since the beginning of this world. The surrounding storms fed into it as its winds carved stone. No life had dared blossom on its soil out of fear of a painful demise. The merciless storm drank deeply of the waters of the sea, draining all aspects of potential and life before casting it aside. Not even curious spirits were spared.

Various deities had wondered why such a storm existed or why the Jade Emperor allowed such a dangerous presence to continue unchecked. Most believed that since the hurricane was stationary and prove no threat to the established order of the world, it was not important.

One day the hurricane vanished. As though it had never existed. Or rather that it had been transformed into something else.

It was the night of a new moon and with the hurricane gone, the island experienced its first cloudless sky. The only one to witness the momentous occasion was a monkie with pure white fur and six ears. Minding his manners, the nameless monkie bowed to the four winds in greeting.

The newborn proceeded to spend his days searching the island for something. Some clue as to the reason behind his birth. He could hear strange voices and words he didn’t understand yet at the same time could. He knew he wasn’t the only creature alive, so why was he alone?

For food, he walked his way through a cave system towards the sea, where he enjoyed the fish that were drawn in through the whirlpools and the mussels that clung to the sharp rocks. He grew to savor the taste of life, even though there was a part of him that craved something different.

Almost forty years passed before he mustered the courage to leave everything he knew to seek out those voices. He gathered all the driftwood and rope that had drifted onshore over the decades, fashioned it into a makeshift raft, and sailed towards the closest source of voices.

His voyage was actually pretty boring once he cleared the whirlpools.

The only exciting part about it was when that strange fish tried to sink his raft. It was bigger than any fish he’d previously seen with a mouth to match. Didn’t mean it survived past the first blow. Taking a bite Macaque wasn’t sure if he liked this fish. The muscles were tough and the flesh was rough on his tongue. He didn’t particularly like the taste. But there was enough to feed him for a full day.

In the end, he chose to eat a third of the fish’s muscles along with its heart before tossing back into the water.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

Docking on dry land was an experience that would haunt him for years.

At first, he was filled with wonder at the sight of buildings and new creatures riding rafts far bigger than his.

When he stepped onto shore the whispers began.

The creatures, who he later learned were called humans, were pointing out his ears. They acknowledged his obvious intelligence. He heard them grip wooden instruments tightly. It was as if they expected him to do something.

No one made a move against him. No one approached him, but he could tell he wasn’t wanted. Everywhere he turned he saw eyes that cursed his every existence.

He didn’t stay in that village for long. In his mind, satisfying his curiosity wasn’t worth being stared at as though he was the source of all evil.

Demon.

That is what they called him. Was that what he was?

He didn’t know, but he didn’t like it.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

He aimlessly wandered the countryside for far too long.

The first act of kindness he received was from a couple who could not have children of their own. He stumbled upon them by accident, but instead of the normal fearful expressions he’d come to expect they greeted him with genuine smiles and an offer to join them for dinner.

They took him in and treated him like family. He became the son they always wanted. They taught him how to properly speak and how to walk comfortably on two limbs. They blessed him with a name.

They were kind and nurturing. In another world, they may have been called bodhisattvas. But sadly, due to them being ordinary mortals, his time with them only lasted four decades.

He buried them with love but grew resentful of his weak emotions.

He learned what it was like to have someone welcome him home after a long day. He learned to savor the taste of a mother’s home-cooked meal. He enjoyed having a father figure who was willing to teach him old military tactics. He experienced friendly competitions to see who could paint the most accurate portrait of a flower they saw earlier that day. It was everything he never knew he craved and then it was gone. Leaving him with an empty home and a broken heart.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

Nearly fifty years later he joined a band of traveling performers.

Their natural oddities allowed them to see who he really was and welcome him into their party. With their compassion, he was granted the opportunity to heal. He learned that despite the group’s large size, very few of them had any direct blood relations. What made them special was how they created their own family and turned what many called strange into something beautiful. Out of respect, he delved into the world of entertainment, found he had a natural talent for it.

When he took the stage people assumed he was in costume, but that didn’t matter. The applause of the audience was a gift he cherished. The sheer passion this family expressed through every second in life warmed his heart beyond words. They were just what he needed to bring him out of his depression.

Alas, it was not meant to stay.

One night their camp was ambushed by a group of demons. They were nothing special, hardly worth mentioning. But for him, back then, it was a fight he never imagined. He could easily handle human bandits, so could his family, but never had he traded blows with a small army of his fellow demons. With the rising of the sun, Macaque stared at the cruelly bright sky covered in blood. All around him bodies lay scattered, life essence soaking into the ground. Despite being tasked with fighting off nearly five dozen demonic opponents he managed to survive with barely a scratch, but he was alone. Again.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

He tried to change things by sticking to his fellow demons. At least they lived longer.

Somehow that ended up with him becoming the apprentice to a demon healer for almost a century. She was a cold-hearted bitch with a heart of gold. Meticulous in her work, masterful in deduction, and short-tempered with the foolish. She gave everything to her practice and expected the same from him. It was bitter work, but he found it fulfilling. The knowledge that he now possessed the ability to restore others to peak condition settled some unknown part of his soul.

Of course, they would have visitors who wished to take advantage of her skills or steal the medicine. Between the two of them, they protected their clinic, but they weren’t always together. While she may try to hide it, she wasn’t the strongest demon out there. Apparently, the entire reason she got into medicine was to uncover why she was so weak. Centuries of research turned up nothing, but it did make her incredibly skilled at using poisons with her knives to compensate.

One day after he returned from gathering ingredients, he pulled back the door to find the shop in disarray, five unknown bodies slowly dying of extensive blood poisoning, and his master bleeding out from her severed arms. She always said she had no intention of entering Naraka alone.

Guess she kept her word.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

The cycle repeated itself over centuries. He would experience a brief window of happiness only for it to be savagely stolen from him, leaving him to mourn and curse his weak heart.

The small glimmers of kindness humanity showed him only made him curse their race even harder when he couldn’t walk into a village without being harassed. The humans who had proven stronger were sadly a rare breed. He was rare to encounter one a century and often they perished at the hands of their kind rather than by demons.

There were times when the ignorance had gotten so bad he’d taken to traveling with a constant glamour, disguising himself as an average human. Whenever he was in the presence of other demons, he allowed his true form to manifest, however, he made it look like he only had a single pair of ears. Standing out was the easiest way to wind up in a complicated situation he had no interest in trying to defuse.

That’s not to say his time was wasted.

Quite the contrary, he had learned much during his travels. He could hardly be compared to the happy young monkie, who was ignorant of the dangers and hardships this world held. In a sad attempt to fill the void, Macaque sought out wisdom and strength. He located masters of both the mystic and martial arts. He may have had to lie about his age, he was becoming quite the accomplished liar, but the results were more than worth it. With every stop, he found himself growing more certain of his strength and his identity.

Eventually, he discovered a strange monastery hidden in a cave in the face of a mountain.

He had never seen anything like it during his travels. But what truly drew his attention was the feeling the temple exuded, every stone exuded a strange aurora. Something powerful dwelled within, powerful yet there was an undeniably human quality to it all.

Hiding beneath his usual glamor, Macaque approached the temple with the desire to discover exactly what was being taught. Before he knew what was happening, he was speaking to the immortal sage who was running the joint. Master Subhuti welcomed him to his home and offered some tea. The disguised monkie was bombarded by dozens of questions, all of which he attempted to answer as though he was a normal human.

The master welcomed him as his newest disciple and showed him his new home. Later he learned the master could see through his disguise and sensed his potential. Apparently, the old immortal believed that the monkie would do well to learn his disciplines and he was fascinated by the monkie’s natural talent.Said something about how with proper guidance only the Buddha would be able to peer past his façade.

The monkie even received a new name to celebrate his rebirth. From that day forward he was Liu’Er Mihou, or the Six-Eared Macaque. He liked it. While he cherished the name his first family gifted him, he felt this was a good sign. A tribute to show that he was a changed monkie.

Regardless, he refused to drop his glamor. He had seen too many demons be cast out and attacked for getting sloppy. The other students were not thrilled about the newcomer showing them up and he wasn’t willing to give them a true reason to despise him. He learned quickly, more so than any other human disciple, but that put him at odds with those who were still struggling after years of training.

Macaque distanced himself from the others. They weren’t that interesting anyway. He didn’t care that they talked about him behind his back or were fully aware he could hear them. He couldn’t risk getting close so soon. He was determined to break the cycle. He didn’t care about immortality. He didn’t care about obtaining power. All he wanted was to end the pain. So far things had been working out in his favor.

Then heshowed up…

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

That trice damned monkie with peach-colored fur and markings like a golden mask. He was so naïve about the world. He treated everything as though it was some exciting game. His upbeat energy made Macaque sick. Some twisted part of him wanted to snap his neck just to end it, but a small part was fascinated by it. The other monkie reminded him of a time he had almost forgotten.

The Monkey King, or Sun Wukong, didn’t bother hiding his true appearance. Truthfully, Macaque wasn’t sure he knew how or that he should. He didn’t seem to notice how other students would keep their distance or how they kept their conversations as brief as possible without crossing the threshold into being considered rude.

He was so earnest and happy, it was painful. The new monkie pestered everyone about everything, it was like dealing with a newborn, but it seemed Macaque was his favorite to bother. The worst part was how he stared at Macaque as though he could peer past his glamour. Although Macaque wasn’t sure if that was truly possible. The Master could, but he dedicated centuries to refine his skills. Wait. How old was this annoyance? Perhaps he could smell he wasn’t like the other disciples.

Either way, he knew it was just a matter of time until the truth got out. He just didn’t expect it to be when he was changing.

Each student was offered a meager room for privacy. They were all the same size and offered little to no space for any customization, but the walls were enchanted to cut out sound whenever the doors were closed.

Behind those flimsy walls was the only time Macaque allowed his glamor to drop. While he valued being cautious, even he couldn’t keep up the glamour indefinitely, much less when he was asleep.

It was in that small space of safety that he discovered he wasn’t alone.

He had just allowed himself to relax when a smiling face covered in peach fuzz was shoved into his own.

“I knew it! You’re like me.” Sun Wukong happily exclaimed, stars practically dancing in his eyes.

“Shut up.” Macaque clamped his hand over the other’s mouth. Checking to ensure no one else was present and the door was shut, he faced the intruder. “Have you told anyone?” He hissed, while berating himself for failing to check the ceiling. You always look up when scanning a room, he knew that.

“Nope. Why are you hiding? You’re beautiful.” The cheerful demon spoke as though they were old friends. His golden eyes took in every hair of his fellow monkie’s true appearance.

“I’m a demon. And there is nothing beautiful about me.” Macaque growled.

“Yes, there is.” Wukong insisted. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you hiding? The Master let me in, I wager he knows about you, so why?”

Sighing, Macaque massaged the bridge of his nose. “I have been hurt enough times to know keeping a low profile is optimal in survival. It is better to keep one’s head down than risk getting called out.” From observation, he knew the newer student wouldn’t leave until he received answers, so the best option was to just give him what he wanted and pray he knew enough to leave.

“That’s no fun.” Wukong stuck his tongue out in distaste. “You shouldn’t have to hide who you are. We were born this way.” He jumped high into the air only to catch himself on his tail with a cheeky grin. “So, they’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Cute speech. But my answer is no. Now leave.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll fix that attitude right up.” Thankfully Wukong left, but not before sending a smile laced with mischief his way. “See you tomorrow.”

Macaque prayed to every deity that would be the end of it. But even he knew it was a futile attempt.

“Do you have a tribe?” Wukong asked, hanging by his tail from Macaque’s favorite tree.

A startled Macaque blinked at the random question. “A what?”

“A tribe. A family. A place to call home?” Wukong asked smoothly even if he wasn’t familiar with the term family until recently he knew it was important.

“Not anymore.” Glaring Macaque returned his focus to his meal.

“Aw.” Wukong knew that look. He had seen plenty of monkeys wear that arura after watching other tribe members die. “Then you should come with me!”

“What?”

“Yeah. You can join my tribe. There are dozens of us back home. Plenty of food and water, you’ll constantly be surrounded by others like us.”

“Other demons?”

“No.” Wukong smiled as though he told a funny joke. “Other monkeys.”

“There is no reason for me to join you.” Macaque stated, wishing he could finish his lunch in peace.

But Wukong wasn’t letting him go that easily. “And there’s no reason for you to refuse.” He stated, ignoring any and all social cues or common sense for respecting personal space.

It went on like that for years. Every day Macaque would awake to find gold eyes staring at him, waiting for his answer to change. Breaks were spent dodging the hyperactive monkie as he tried to eat alone. Training sessions soon found him sparring with the same partner.

The monkie was stubborn no doubt and Macaque feared his actions were slowly breaking down his walls. The pale furred monkie missed having a connection. He adored being able to talk to others, but whenever he opened up he only got hurt.

But maybe, maybe this time could be different…

Wukong was training to obtain immortality. He had already proven to be stronger and more clever than anyone he’d known. The simian showed that he wanted to know him better. He constantly tried to touch his fur, something he called grooming, which felt pretty nice.

Maybe…maybe this time he could truly have a home.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

A streak of light accompanied by a sharp whistle pierced the night sky. For a brief moment, it vanished before exploding in a beautiful display of color and light.

On the monastery’s rooftop, Wukong backflipped in joy at the sight, his golden eyes wide. “Happy New Year!” The monkie cried. In the village below, he could make out dozens of voices echoing the greeting.

It didn’t matter how many times he saw them, fireworks were a sight he always adored. “This has got to be mankind’s greatest invention!” The flowers of fire were simply too beautiful. So unique. Nothing on Flower Fruit Mountain compared to such beauty, it made him thankful he decided to leave.

From the corner of his eye, Wukong noticed that his companion was clutched his ears wincing with every detonation. “You okay, bud?”

“I’m fine. Just loud.” Macaque said. He was truly questioning his sanity by joining Wukong on the roof. Normally he barricaded himself in his room, but his friend was so thrilled about sharing their first New Year together he couldn’t say no.

“Oh.” Somehow the new set of fireworks didn’t look that attractive. “We can go inside if you want.” They were beautiful, but nothing was worth feeling helpless as his friend curled up in pain.

“I’ll be fine. I’m adjusting to the volume. No different than punches that break the sound barrier, right?” Macaque tried flashing a confident grin to varying success.

Wukong suspected that Macaque was lying, but learned enough to know further prying would just cause the other monkie to simply shut out the world. “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”

“You made a persuasive argument.” Anyone who could harass him for nearly five years straight proved their determination.

Wukong playfully stuck his tongue out. “Hehe…Seriously though, I’m happy you chose to be part of my tribe. No one should be alone.”

“Then why have I been for so long.”

“I doubt even Master knows. But you won’t be able to say that anymore.” Wukong wrapped his arms around his best friend. Pulling him close, Wukong faced the fireworks, unconsciously grooming Macaque as he savored every pop of color.

Beneath those gentle digits, Macaque steadied himself against the soothing heartbeat of the one he slowly learned to trust. As the display continued, the pale monkie learned to appreciate the human’s creations. Turns out they weren’t so bad so long as you have the right company.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

“I’m sorry. You’re what?!” Macaque’s response was perfectly justified. There was no way he just heard what he thought he heard.

Wukong flashed a blinding grin. “I’m heading to the Celestial realm. I’ve been given a position in Celestial Bureaucracy.” Not seeing any problems whatsoever.

“Why?” Just why? From everything he heard about those stuck-up deities, they would never hand over a position to anyone without requiring the completion of an impossible task, much less to a demon. Least of all a demon who has done nothing but terrorize others and unleash chaos whenever he went.

“Don’t know. But I got to go right now.” Wukong shrugged as he finished packing. The Gold Star of Venus was waiting just outside the waterfall.

“But what about Flower Fruit Mountain? What about your subjects? What am I supposed to do? How long are you going to be gone?” Macaque fired off a rapid stream of questions. Panic was beginning to take hold.

Wukong, however, was as calm and confident as ever. “Stop worrying so much. Look I’ll be back as soon as I can. Until then you’re in charge.” He finished as though it was obvious.

“Me!” A white tail nearly burst into twice its normal size in shock. “But I have no idea how to run a Court!”

“Neither do I. Not in the traditional sense at least. Look just keep an eye on things. Protect the monkeys from hunters and malicious demons. Sometimes one of the allied demon kings will ask for some help. It’s nothing you haven’t helped me with before. I’ll be back before you know it. I’m sure you’ll be able to handle things until I get back.”

Seeing his companion and good friend growing even more lost, Wukong closed the distance and took his face in both hands. “This is a good thing. If I can make this work, none of us will ever have to worry about being hunted or not having enough food ever again.”

In a snap, Macaque grabbed the king’s arms. “What if I don’t care about any of that? What if I just want you to stay?”

For the first time in their conversation, Wukong’s cocky attitude vanished replaced with a loving smile. Gently prying Macaque’s claws off his shirt, Wukong placed his cheek on a palm as he kissed the knuckles of another. “I can’t. This is too good an opportunity to pass up. This isn’t goodbye. I’ll keep in touch. The time will fly. We’ll make this work. Trust me.”

“Alright, Wukong. I trust you.” Macaque said, ignoring every fiber of his being that screamed this would end poorly.

“If things go wrong, remember I’m just a telepathic call away.” Summoning his cloud, Wukong back flipped onto it with his bag. “Monkey King, out!”

One sonic boom later and he was gone, along with a good chunk of the cave walls.

“Hpmh. That’s my idiot.”

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

How did this happen? How did this happen?!

One moment they were fighting for their lives against the army of the Celestial Realm and the next Macaque bore witness to Wukong being carted away in a diamond snare.

Now as he stared at the charred remains of what once was a growing village of monkeys, Macaque felt something within him change.

For almost two months he had burned in celestial fires. The sounds of the dead and dying rang out, making his namesake almost bleed. He choked on the ashes of the mortal monkeys. The air had a strangely sweet and bitter taste to it.

Macaque lost count of all the times he charged back into the fires to save as many heartbeats as he could. He wasn’t sure but he suspected he blacked out more than once. With every heartbeat that stilled before he could reach them, a part of him followed them into Yama’s realm.

Finally, the fires had died down. They didn’t have anything left to burn.

All around him he saw the pitiful leftovers of what was once a thriving community. He had treated the survivors the best he could, but he lost his medical equipment in the blaze. The only ones he didn’t have to worry about were the monkeys Wukong made immortal, but he did what he could to ease the pain.

But still, he wondered why…why were they staring at him as though they were confused?

Maybe he was overthinking everything. He just worked through 49 days without any sleep. Everything was stable for now. The best course of action was to wash off the ash and get some much-deserved rest.

There was nothing the Celestial Realm could do to Wukong that he couldn’t handle. Besides Macaque didn’t even know how to get there even if he was at full strength. Wukong couldn’t die so it was only a matter of time before someone tripped up allowing him to return home.

He just had to be patient.

Stepping into the clear river, Macaque’s jaw almost dropped as the water around him immediately turned gray. He didn’t realize he was that filthy.

He started scrubbing himself, ducking under the water to ensure he didn’t miss a spot. He had to move a few times due to the sheer amount of shoot and ash that clung to him. The entire cleaning process took a full hour before the water ran clear.

Stepping out, Macaque felt more refreshed than he ever remembered. Shaking to remove as much access water as possible, all the towels were soot so he had to make do, he paused by the waterside to see how much fur he lost. But what he saw met none of his expectations.

Instead of fur that invoked images of the moon, he was cloaked in the color of the darkest ink.

“What happened to me?”

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

Five hundred years.

Five hundred years he searched, for any trace of the legendary Five-Fingered Moutain Buddha used to trap Sun Wukong only to find nothing. Macaque scoured far and wide. Neither the winds nor the shadows could lead him towards his friend.

He picked fights with countless demons who claimed to witness the great Monkey King brought low. It barely took two punches before they broke down crying how it had been nothing but a lie, how they only repeated rumors.

He bargained for any information he could find, but all accounts claimed the mountain didn’t exist. Many refused to answer him on principle of not interfering with the Celestial Realm’s issues. Their last mistake. Others took Wukoong’s punishment as a sign to amass as much power as possible out of fear that they would be targeted next.

Macaque had witnessed the formation of more alliances and territory grabs in the past century than had been recorded in the last thousand years. Demons were becoming more power-hungry and suspicious, which meant even more trouble for the humans. Things were becoming so chaotic, Macaque had to wonder if it was planned.

But he couldn’t dwell on that.

He hadn’t visited Flower Fruit Moutain in years. His clones kept guard, but slowly he was losing the drive to keep replenishing them. The only reason he called that mountain home was because of Wukong. It wasn’t home without him.

But he had to keep looking. Had to keep trying. He would find his friend.

Somehow.

§~~~~§~~~~§~~~~§

He tricked himself into thinking this would be different. That he would no longer be alone. That finally he had found a family he could keep.

He was an idiot!

The truth was he was no different than anyone else. The world was Sun Wukong’s toy chest and Macaque was merely a shiny new trinket to bat around until he grew bored. Seeing him with that group, knowing that he chose them over their past, was too much.

He was sick of being left behind. He had been left alone so many times. What made him think he couldn’t be replaced?

He could have attacked, ripped their precious monk to pieces, he could have...should have...but he was tired.

Returning to Flower Fruit Mountain was a chore, but one he swore he would never complete again. The monkeys questioned his return, asking where their king was and if he’d return soon. Macaque ignored them all. He simply walked to the part of the manor he and Wukong had shared for years, where he had been waiting for his return.

Staring at all the knickknacks and souvenirs they had collected from their adventures, Macaque made up his mind. Grabbing a large sturdy bag, he swiftly packed his essentials. In another, he packed non-perishable goods and water containers.

Stepping out, a flash of something peach-colored caught his eye. Spinning around, hope burning a hole in his chest but his dreams once more were proved false. It was just the special peach tree Wukong had planted from the leftover pit he had saved from his time in the Celestial Realm. Apparently, it had reached maturity and was proudly bearing the first fruit Macaque had seen despite having been planted nearly half a millennia ago.

Macaque wasn’t sure why it was so special, Wukong just winked and said it was a surprise for when they could share a fresh one. Feeling something wet on his arm, Macaque looked down to see his hand stretched towards the tree and the memories he held. Feeling his cheeks, he realized he was crying, which was strange as he didn’t think he had any tears left.

Spurred by longing and spite, Macaque plucked six peaches from the tree and stuffed them into his bag. It wasn’t like Wukong was going to miss them. And he needed the food.

#lego monkie kid au #Vanishing Shadow Au #six eared macaque #liu er mihou #sun wukong #abandonment issues #no communication #angst #white macaque

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cheri-translates · 3 years

Text

Mystery Game Box - Letters

This post contains an introduction on the Mystery Game Box!

Lucien’s letter (by another translator): here

[ KIRO ]

Miss Chips,

The shoot for the MV is over, and I can finally spend time to write you a letter openly.

It seems that many things happened recently. Since I’ve been busy shooting, I haven’t been able to keep you company... I’ve decided to properly compensate my Miss Chips, starting with this letter!

I wonder how your violin practise sessions have been going? In the past, you were always the one accompanying me when I practise. Now, we can work hard together, and I’m filled with motivation no matter how difficult the tune is! I believe that Miss Chips will definitely not have a problem. You’ve improved even faster than I imagined. I’ve already tidied the practise room, and am looking forward to a duet with you~

Oh yes, I’ll tell you a little secret. Actually, there are times when I get nervous on stage. But whenever I find you among the crowd, I’ll feel at ease. I think this method might be able to cure your unease. So this time, I’ve decided to hold a special personal concert. I’ll be the only person involved from the preparation to the performance, and the only audience I'm inviting is you. If there are moments where you need encouragement and motivation, I hope these moments belonging to us will give you strength too.

This letter shall be treated as an invitation card! The custom-made VIP ticket has also been inserted into the letter too. Miss Chips, please check and accept it~

- Kiro

[ Original text ]

薯片小姐：

MV 的拍摄全部结束啦，终于可以光明正大地花时间给你写一封信了。

最近好像发生了很多事情，而我忙着拍摄，都没能好好陪你在身边... 我决定从这封信开始，好好补偿我的薯片小姐！

不知道你的小提琴练习的如何了呢？以前每次都是让你陪着我练习。现在可以和你一起努力，感觉不论多难的曲子都能动力满满了！我相信薯片小姐也一定没问题的。你的进步比我想象中更快。我已经收拾好了排练厅，期待和你的合奏～

对了，偷偷告诉你一个小秘密。其实我在舞台上也会偶尔有紧张的时刻，但每当在人群中找到你的时候，我就会安心下来。我想这个方法也许能治愈你的不安啊。所以这一次，我决定开一场特别的个人演唱会，从筹备到演出都只有我一个人，而我要邀请的观众，也只有你一个。以后如果还有需要加油打气的时刻，希望属于我们的这些时光，也能给你力量。

这封信就作为邀请函了！特制 VIP 门票也夹在信里了。请薯片小姐查收～

周棋洛

[ VICTOR ]

Dummy,

You forgot to tear the memo in your study room again... Even though you chatter away at my ear every day, you still have so many things to say. However, I recall that a certain someone mentioned liking this form of communication. On account of these improvements, I’ll reluctantly satisfy her this once.

The project this time was very ambitious, and I was able to give you more free rein than in the past. Not bad. The pudding you made a few days ago had some improvements, and it’s passable in terms of taste and shape.

I won’t compliment you for no reason. I simply wanted to say that these continuous improvements and changes are things belonging to you. When you feel uneasy, they will be proof to help you distinguish between dreams and reality. Once you’ve thought things through, you wouldn’t doubt our memories.

But I’m guessing that the best method of confirmation for you is through eating. The feast I promised you before is already in preparation. Free up your evening tomorrow, and I’ll give you an opportunity to be completely “at ease”. Despite your slow improvement in cooking your taste in food has gone up very quickly. Since that’s the case, display this strength of yours properly.

From today onwards, the exclusive job of being a taste tester for Souvenir is yours.

- Victor

[ Original text ]

笨蛋：

你家在书里的便笺又忘记撕掉了... 明明每天在我耳边叽叽喳喳，居然还有这么多话可说。不过，我记得某人说过很喜欢这种交流方式，看在这些进步的份上，就勉为其难再满足她一次。

这次规划很有野心，比以往更能放开手脚了，做得不错。前几天做的布丁也频有起色，味道和形状还算有模有样。

我不会无缘无故的夸你，我只想说，这些实实在在的进步和改变都是真正属于你的东西，在感到不安的时候，它们就是帮助你分清楚梦境和现实的证明。如果想清楚了，就不要怀疑我们之间的回忆。

不过我猜，对你来说，确认的最好方式还是靠吃。之前答应你的大餐已经在筹备了，明天把晚上的时间空出来，给你一个彻底“安心”的机会。虽然在烹饪上进步缓慢，但你在吃这方面的品味倒是提升得很快。既然如此，就好好发挥你的这项长处。

从今往后，Souvenir 专属试吃这个职位就是你的了。

李泽言

I’d recommend reading Gavin’s Mystery Box storyline first because references are made to it!

[ GAVIN ]

To the adorable you,

Don’t worry, this is just an ordinary letter.

The reason why I wrote this letter is because I noticed that you’ve been feeling a little uneasy recently due to those two letters. You one asked what you should do if everything that happened between us was a dream. Even though I gave you an answer, you still seemed affected by it. So right now, I want tell you again through a letter.

Everything that happened between us, including our meeting in high school, our reunion in the police station, and all the memories we own now - all these are the most precious moments in my life. If you aren’t able to differentiate between dreams and reality, leave them to me and I’ll distinguish them.

I can still remember how I used to see you reading with your head lowered back then. Actually, I ended up dreaming about you afterwards. You were sitting in the library. When you lifted your head to look at me, your smile was really pretty. It was a really beautiful dream, but I knew that it wasn’t real. You reading Byron’s Poetry Collection halfway, a ginkgo bookmark in between the pages, the post-it notes on the wall of Lynn’s Kitchen - these past regrets formed our truest world.

I walked on this earth and met you. That’s why you can be at ease and give me your hand. I’ll hold onto your hand, and we’ll walk into the future we look forward to most.

- Gavin

[ Original text ]

给可爱的你：

不用担心，这只是一封普通的信。

之所以写这封信，是因为我发现最近因为那两封信，让你的情绪有些不安，之前你问我，如果我们之间发生的一切都是梦，那该什么办。虽然当时我已经告诉过你答案，但你好像仍被这件事所影响，所以现在，我想用书信的方式再告诉你一次。

我们之间的一切，包括高中的相遇，警局的重逢和现在共同拥有的全部回忆，这些都是我此生最宝贵的时光。如果你不能分清哪个是梦，哪个是现实，那就交给我来分辨。

我还记得那个时候看的最多的，就是你低头看书的模样。其实后来，我也曾在梦中梦到过你，你坐在图书馆中，抬头看到我时，笑的很好看，那个梦很美好，但我知道它不是真的。你看到一半的拜伦诗集，夹在其中的银杏书签，林家小馆墙上的便利贴，因为这些遗憾的过往，才构成了我们所处的最真实的世界。

我踏过这个世界，遇见了你，所以放心把手交给我。我会握住你的手，一起走向我们最期待的未来。

白起

#mlqc

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winsmoke · 4 years

Text

𝐋𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐧 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤

You and Yuta have both hit a wall in your respective lives. Loneliness seeks comfort.

⊹ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 2.3k ⊹ 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 english student female y/n x Yuta ⊹ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞 college au, idol au, strangers to lovers au, angst, smut ⊹ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 drinking, kissing, swearing, unprotected doggy position, unprotected reverse cowgirl position, unprotected missionary position ⊹ 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬 disclaimer | masterlist

“Another unfamiliar place with more unfamiliar people,” Yuta murmured to himself while stuffing his slender fingers into the pockets of his straight jacket.

　He had an inexplicable urge to leave his hotel room to wander around the city. Even though he risked a lot of trouble with his managers for a simple stroll, the walk still wasn’t making him feel any better. He had been to New York City several times but it still felt...empty.

The more he traveled around the world with NCT 127, the more he realized how small and insignificant he was - an incredibly stupid mentality to have as an idol. Yuta felt like he was always chasing his next high and lately not much was making the cut.

　Performing, practicing, and simple downtime with his members had initially been so fulfilling. That was when he felt like he had something to work towards. It didn’t feel like he was working at all anymore. He didn’t know if he should be more concerned that it was easy faking stability or that none of his friends could recognize his unease.

Perhaps that’s why you caught his eye so easily.

　While Yuta restricted his insecurities within his body, your vulnerability stretched across your trembling figure. You were speed-walking to Barnes & Noble, desperate for a gentle relief to get you through the night.

　It was your last year at New York University’s aggressively cutthroat creative writing program. The thrilling environment of competitive writing had engaged you for three years but now you just felt burnt out. You did it all… gotten published, received distinguished awards, and had met your favorite authors but now you’re not so sure of yourself. And with your confidence went your writing stamina. So you decided, after re-writing the ending of your final non-fiction story three times, to run away to the bookstore and read stories from your childhood.

It wasn’t in Yuta’s nature to talk to strangers so he curiously traced your steps. He was pleasantly surprised when you led him to a bookstore and even more surprised when you eagerly reached for children’s books. After flipping to the first page of The Rainbow Fish, you looked up at the first person you saw, pointed at the paper, and exclaimed excitedly: “Pictures!”

Having read countless academic papers and various literature throughout the semester without a single picture, seeing such colorful and nostalgic images were putting you in a child-like frenzy.

　Yuta felt his lips twitch uncontrollably. You wore your emotions so shamelessly and he found it to be both terrifying yet charming. You started laughing at yourself, realizing how ridiculous you must look.

“Sorry, I must seem like I’m on acid or shrooms… I swear I’m intelligent,” you mumbled while hungrily paging through the children’s book. Yuta blinked in confusion. He was good at English but he wasn’t sure what “acid” or “shrooms” was.

“I read that when I was a boy,” Yuta said awkwardly, nodding to the book you held. Your ears perked up at his articulation and you looked more closely at the guy standing next to you.

“In what language?” you asked, trying to place his accent.

“Japanese.”

You sat down on the carpeted floor and patted the space next to you.

“Issho ni yomimashou.” Let’s read together.

“Nihongo o shitte imasu ka?” You know Japanese?

“Just basic stuff,” you said shrugging. “Can I practice with you? Like I’ll try to translate the sentences from this story and you’ll tell what I said wrong?”

“Ano… okay?” Umm...

Over the next thirty minutes, Yuta was amazed by how comfortable he had become with you. He hadn’t heard Japanese in months; a strange ache lodged itself in his chest when you spoke it so smoothly. He remembered how anxious he had been when he was learning Korean, but whenever you made a mistake your bit your lip not from embarrassment but frustration. You were so foreign yet familiar.

“Wanna come over to my dorm? The store is gonna close soon and I want to keep practicing with you,” you asked with your most captivating smile. You were always forward with people, especially those you like and he had certainly caught your eye.

“I don’t know your name yet and you’re already inviting me home?” Yuta hid the bubbling feeling in his chest with a satisfied smirk.

“I’m y/n.”

“Yuta.”

“Okay now that we’re no longer strangers, Yuta, would you like to come over?”

“Yeah,” Yuta breathed. He didn’t care about the repercussions, it had been so long since he actually wanted to do something. And right now he wanted more time with you.

While the two of you walked to your dorm, you pointed out your favorite spots and places when you had done some fuck-shit, slipping in and out of English and Japanese. Yuta watched you in amusement, slightly amazed by your brazen tongue and reckless past. He couldn’t quite understand you… you had acted so carelessly before and yet, you always ended your stories by explaining what you had learned. He wasn’t sure if he would call you balanced or chaotic.

Upon unlocking the door to your dorm, your eyes shot to your opened laptop and you remembered the paper you needed to complete. This was your last story before the semester ended, and it had to be spectacular. But the ending was kicking your ass. Your shoulders immediately sagged and you staggered over to your fridge.

“What’s up?” Yuta asked, noticing your deflating figure.

　You grabbed the giant vodka bottle and some cherry soda, your usual liquor and chaser combo. Collapsing onto your bed, you gulped down several mouthfuls of both substances and offered some to Yuta. He mimicked your actions without hesitation.

“I just…am tired of my life,” you said softly.

　Yuta watched as your face crumbled into distress. He set the bottles carefully on the floor and approached your bed steadily.

　You couldn’t read his expression. No one really could.

“I’m sorry,” he confessed in a low tone, “I’m not good at consoling people. Or talking in general.”

You searched his face. Quite possibly the most handsome and emotionless being you had ever laid your eyes on. You noticed before that his face only portrayed happiness or nothing. If he wasn’t smiling, he wasn’t anything. You, on the other hand, oozed an array of emotions.

You crawled to the edge of the bed where Yuta stood. You sat directly in front him with him looking down at you, your noses almost brushing.

“You don’t need to speak,” you whispered.

Yuta’s hands glided to the curve of your hip and held you firmly in place. As soon as you spread your legs to bring his body closer, Yuta’s lips found yours. He tasted like the cherry soda, the smell enveloping your senses.

Yuta pushed your hips back further onto the bed so he could position himself properly in between your thighs. While you continued to explore his mouth, his hands began to roughly grope your thighs through your tights. The thin material felt unusual but alluring against his hands and eventually his nails started to fray the nylon.

“Just take them off already,” you snapped, breaking away from the kiss when you realized what Yuta was doing and that this was your last pair of black tights.

“You look good in them,” Yuta hummed against your neck, licking and kissing below your ear until you were twitching with need.

As soon as he began lifting the edge of his sweater, you slithered out of your clothes while Yuta did the same. You positioned your legs for missionary position but Yuta nudged your hip to indicate his desire for you to flip over.

“Fine,” you grumbled.

　You already knew your thighs would give out in a few minutes but you let your body be maneuvered to his liking. He pulled your hips up so you were on your hands and knees and pushed his cock in your pussy.

“Ummph,” you moaned in satisfaction.

　Yuta pushed your wobbling knees further apart to compensate for his girth, causing you to fall onto your forearms.

You pushed your hips back in time with Yuta’s swift thrusts. Yuta closed his eyes and tensed his muscles, completely surrendering himself to pleasure. The syrupy sounds of his dick slipping in and out of you echoed in your small room.

Although your stamina was quickly depleting, Yuta’s unyielding grip on your hips forced you to continue your movements. Impatient with your decelerating speed, he eventually just held your ass in place to maximize his pace, his balls slapping against your ass with every stroke.

“You gonna make me do all the work?” Yuta breathed in your ear, pulling your torso up so he could grip your boobs properly. You shivered slightly, impossibly more aroused by the feeling of Yuta’s hardened chest against your back.

“If you don’t plan on cumming while I’m in control don’t ask for me to take over,” you warned, getting your shit together to not stutter.

“Can you make me come?” Yuta challenged, purposefully fingering your clit while continuing to hit you from the back. You rolled your eyes.

“Please. I could make you cum in three minutes tops. You won’t be getting any pretty little moans out of me.”

Yuta groaned and shoved you away. Propping himself on your pillows, he gestured towards his erect dick, still moist from your juices.

“Sit. Impress me,” Yuta instructed.

Eye contact was not the move for tonight. His look infiltrated you further than his dick could, you felt psychologically naked under it.

So you sat facing away from him, with your legs folded on either side of his legs. You nimbly gyrated down on his cock, clapping your cheeks together whenever your thighs needed respite. Yuta reached out to grope your quivering ass but you would stop completely to slap his hands away.

“Fuck,” Yuta moaned, unconsciously rolling his hips up to try to cram himself impossibly deeper. You were not gonna lie, this boy’s dick was stretching you and you had been aching from the beginning but that didn’t matter. You both needed a release and sore thighs weren’t going to stop you.

“Let me be on top,” Yuta growled after you slapped his hands away again.

“Dignity dented? It’s only been a minute,” you huffed out, just barely closing your mouth in time before a moan could escape.

“Kinda hard to pull out if you’re on top of me,” Yuta said in a pleading tone. You could tell he was close.

“I’m on birth control,” you panted.

　Your abdomen was completely tightened, the coil in your stomach beginning to unravel. You blinked rapidly to bat the sweat from your eyes, you were starting to get dizzy from the intense fucking.

“I want to look at you when I come,” Yuta begged.

　He surprised himself with his honesty. This whole time, you two had been avoiding each other’s eyes but now that the climax was drawing near, and your encounter was coming to a close, he wanted to see your face. You slowed down your hips, contemplating whether you should just let him cum down your throat or turn around.

Screw it. You thought and maneuvered your body so you were straddling him properly. You looked down at him, slightly transfixed by his impressive body. It was the first time you two looked at each other naked.

Your hair had fallen out of the ponytail long ago, it circled your flushed face in a way that made you look more captivating to Yuta. He held back the urge to cup your cheeks.

You lowered your body onto his and moved your hips sensuously around Yuta’s dick. You didn’t feel like fucking anymore, you just wanted tender sex to try to elongate this as much as possible. You didn’t want to admit this was a one-night stand and soon he would be gone.

Yuta seemed to understand your thoughts and caressed your body as if you were worth something to him. Even though you both had slowed dramatically, your bodies were ready for relief.

“What if I want to hear your pretty moans,” Yuta whispered, effortlessly flipping you below him. His brown eyes were a pool you were drowning in. You weakly smiled and gave in to his request, allowing your low moans to spill from your lips, but not before you closed your eyes. In return, he whined into your collarbone, licking everything he touched.

His simple grinding had been enough for you both to reach your limits. Before coming, Yuta couldn’t resist one last kiss, this one much rawer than the first. But instead of relief he just felt lonely all over again. Now that it was over, now what?

“I guess you have to go now,” you said, heartache written all over your face. How was it possible that you got so attached to this guy you had just met an hour ago?

Yuta fished his phone out of his jeans pocket and groaned looking at all the missed calls and texts. They were flying out early in the morning for their next tour stop and the managers and members were flipping their shit trying to contact him. But when he looked back at you with an expression that mirrored his feelings, he knew he couldn’t leave without being honest for once.

“I haven’t been this happy in a long time,” Yuta revealed hesitantly. “I-I want – no – need to see you again.”

You licked your lips, deliberating his words. He seemed genuine. You traced his flushed lips with your pointer finger, trying to memorize the sensation.

“I’m an open book,” you smiled widely. “Read me whenever you want.”

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x0401x · 4 years

Text

Given Movie: Anime Eiga Interview

The adult trio of “Given”, Nakazawa Masatomo, Eguchi Takuya and Asanuma Shintarou – finding out about each other’s appeal through proffering a deep love.

The sequel to the TV series that adapted Ms. Kizu Natsuki’s popular BL manga into an anime came in the form of “Given the Movie” and made its appearance in the big screen. Along with sensible expressions of emotion, this series depicts the circumstances of youthful love connected by music, capturing the hearts of the viewers. The movie portrays the “bitter and passionate love” between the band’s “adult members”, Haruki and Akihiko, as well as Akihiko and his ex-boyfriend, the genius violinist Murata Ugetsu, whom he continues to live with even after breaking up. Hence, this time, we have hit up Nakazawa Masatomo, the voice of Haruki, Eguchi Takuya, the voice of Kaji Akihiko, and Asanuma Shintarou, the voice of Ugetsu. What kind of appeal did they sense from one another after co-acting in roles where they had to proffer intense love? We had each of them discuss their thoughts.

Discovering the charm of the characters anew in a movie where the feelings of each accelerate.

——The movie is about the romance between Haruki, Akihiko and Ugetsu. The thoughts that they had been concealing are exposed, so what were your impressions when you read the script?

Nakazawa: In the TV series, Haruki, the character I play, was thinking about “wanting the band to do well” and “what he should do for the band’s sake”, being a “sideline support” for Mafuyu and Ritsuka, together with Akihiko. Haruki and Akihiko are said to be part of the “adult group”, but the two of them have their own ways of thinking - Akihiko is the type that aims for good things by taking action using a detonator. On the other hand, Haruki is always calmly concerning himself with everyone, so that they can do things freely. Both of them listened to Mafuyu’s singing voice, were influenced by it and suffered changes, so I felt from the script that I could get a glimpse at these changes. Regarding Haruki, he started feeling his own loneliness more strongly, and while watching Mafuyu display his musical talent more and more, he also had a complex about being just an ordinary person who liked music a little bit. I felt like we were able to see what Haruki was carrying under the surface.

——Were there any points where you felt the appeal of Haruki and Akihiko all over again?

Nakazawa: There were. Haruki never tells Akihiko that he likes him and does his best to hide it. It’s totally obvious, though... (laughs). Through Haruki, I felt that there are things you convey not with words but with feelings, and on the other hand, there are things that can finally be conveyed when you put them into words.

——Eguchi-san plays the role of Akihiko. Please tell us your impressions of the script.

Eguchi: I had read the original work, so I was looking forward to seeing the hearts of everyone from the “adult group” being moved and them putting an end to things. When I read the script, this is quite obvious, but I had many lines (laughs). Akihiko shows in it a part of himself that he never had until then, so destroying something like a sculpture of Akihiko that the TV series had warmed up was necessary work. Moreover, it was the kind of scrip that allowed for all kinds of fun, such as how long the monologues and narrations should be, so I felt a strong sense of compensation from it. During the recordings, I first tried throwing in what I had come up with. The team makes you want to create something together with them, so I felt like making up my mind and challenging myself. I was very happy to be able to take on the challenge.

——When you threw it in, were you able to see a new side to Akihiko’s appeal?

Eguchi: “So he was THAT compassionate?!” was what I thought. Akihiko is always cool, so I wondered when his emotions would take a swing, but I think this was a sign that he was afraid of “changing the present”. In the movie, I had to carry out the job of Akihiko properly facing all sorts of things and doing a retake on his true feelings. He gave off more of an adult impression until that point, so I think I got to see a more realistic, young part of him.

——Asanuma-san plays the role of Ugetsu, who continues living with Akihiko after breaking up.

Asanuma: There were few episodes in the TV series where Ugetsu showed up, but even in them, there are crucial scenes in which you can get a glimpse that “Ugetsu is this kind of person”. It’s exactly because he is a genius that he acts indifferent about anything other than music, gets fawned on in a genius-like way that makes people think, “If he says so, then there’s no helping it”, and has great interest in people like Mafuyu, whom he feels sympathy for. There’s a scene in the movie where Ugetsu and Mafuyu meet for the first time, and when I read the script, I felt that “Ugetsu approached Mafuyu with honest feelings”. It’s because he has sympathy for Mafuyu that he ends up telling him things that he can’t say to Akihiko face-to-face, such as “I love Akihiko to death”, and shows a side of himself that he usually doesn’t show to other people. It seems he speaks out his feelings when he’s with Mafuyu for some reason, which made me wonder if it isn’t Mafuyu who has the power to make people act like that.

——Ugetsu has a mysterious charm as a character. Was there anything you deemed as important when performing him?

Asanuma: It was my first time taking part in a BL show, but I felt that “Given” is a series that portrays emotions very delicately, down to the details. When performing, it’s exactly because the depictions of emotions are detailed that I make sure not to be “too theatrical”.

Love becomes more complicated as you grow older?

——In the TV series, we were able to see Mafuyu and Ritsuka’s high schooler-like romance, yet the movie is about an “adult love”, where they are “going through unfulfilling and agonizing situations, but no matter what, they like each other”. Was there anything you felt seeing their love?

Asanuma: There are things that we end up complicating precisely because we have accumulated experiences as adults. It’s because we know about all sorts of things that we don’t want to get in the other’s way and feelings of inferiority towards the other are born. When you’re a child, you don’t think much about things such as “pulling away because you think too much about the other person”, for example. There are many things we have to face when we become adults, so we might turn the feeling of “romantic love” around in complicated ways.

Nakazawa: I think “being able to break up once and for all” is important in adult romance as well. Not clashing with each other like, “I can’t do this with you anymore!” and parting ways, but instead ending it with, “If that’s how it is, it might be better for us not to be together anymore” after learning about each other’s circumstances is also a form of love. I think that reflecting about not just the feeling of “love”, but also about what you should do to make the “we can’t be together anymore” that lies ahead into a reality is what adult romance is.

Asanuma: They’re called the “adult group”, but they’re not adults yet. Even I, who am in my 40’s, have yet to come across anything like an “unconditional love”...

Eguchi: I believe this is valid for all kinds of romantic love, but I think it’s about being together with someone because you find that person to be an “irreplaceable existence”. And it’s because they’re irreplaceable that going out with them isn’t the goal, and the couple has to properly face one another. Also, when I looked at their romance, I felt it’s precisely because they like and are close to each other that there are words between them that they can’t say. They might have had a different relationship if they had conveyed those words, but there are words that can’t be conveyed exactly because this possibility exists. I think humans are extremely complex.

“Eguchi-kun is sharp!” – A casting that fit perfectly.

——What kind of appeal did you feel in each other’s acting and personalities through “Given”?

Nakazawa: The way that Asanuma-san bears a “quiet intensity” when playing as Ugetsu is very charming.

Asanuma: For real!?

Eguchi: And you’re also too good at putting on the air of a genius!

Asanuma: It’s only putting on, though. I have to make sure not to take it off too soon (laughs).

Eguchi: It had me thinking, “The way he envelops himself in the air of a genius is just genius!” Asanuma-san can push and pull splendidly. I was thinking, “He’s so awesome” when I watched it.

Asanuma: There are times when I tend to explain things with my voice no matter what. Before, in a different work, the sound director told me, “The animation is already doing the explanation, so you don’t have to try to explain with your voice so much.” In works like this one, where the subtleties of the characters’ hearts are so detailed, I think it’s even more important to bear in mind “not being too theatrical”, without deeming it as an exception just because it’s a BL, but instead seeing it as a love pattern that could happen anywhere and performing naturally.

——What is your impression of Nakazawa-san?

Asanuma: Nakazawa-san is tolerance incarnate! He can be no one but Haruki.

Eguchi: That’s right. He gives off a “mom” vibe (laughs). He’s like that during the recordings too; Nakazawa-san himself is a very soft person.

Asanuma: And although he may disagree, “looking troubled” suits him.

Nakazawa: I disagree!

All three: (Burst into laughter).

Asanuma: Since being troubled suits you, it feels like people gather around you, thinking that they “want to try and give you trouble” without any ill intent.

Nakazawa: That rings a bell (laughs). Indeed, I myself think that I have a Haruki-like side too. I also have a side that accepts basically anyone and any kind of comment... As for Eguchi-kun, if nothing else, he’s sharp! In terms of voice quality, his tone is low-pitched and solid, so the acting that he brings out is extremely sharp. There’s a fineness to it where it acts as a detonator, especially in “Given”, as if it will set fire, to his heart’s contentment, to anything that seems inflammable. He pulls off an acting that has an explosiveness to it, as he takes ahold of the important points while performing in a natural manner, so I have a lot of trust in him.

Asanuma: Eguchi-kun gives off a sense of broad-mindedness and security. Not because his body is big, though (laughs). I feel that he’s something like an emotional bodyguard. It was my first time in a BL series, but when I heard that Eguchi-kun would be the other party, I vaguely thought that “everything will go well”.

Eguchi: Thank you so much!

#given #dailygiven #givendaily #dailyshounenai #fyeahgiven #given movie #nakayama haruki #kaji akihiko #murata ugetsu #eguchi takuya #seiyuu #asanuma shintarou #nakazawa masatomo #my translation #interview #anime eiga

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 5 years

Text

Humans are Space Orcs, “Workout.”

Forgive me for being short today, But I have a Russian test in less than an hour, and it is on numbers which is the most excruciating part of this language lol.

Hope you all have a good day :)

The human pulled to a stop huffing and puffing, hands on his knees as he took in great big breaths. Krill could see ribs through his skin as the great bellows expanded and then contracted. Sweat slicked the skin as the body desperately tried to cool itself.

“Heart rate 165.”

The human straightened himself out coughing once or twice to clear his throat, reaching out and wiping his face with a towel.

He threw the towel over one shoulder and stretched the large muscle groups in his chest, stomach and back pulling tight.

Sunny leaned against the wall just to their right both sets of arms crossed over her chest, “So, what is this supposed to be fore. Is this like a dominance thing or something.”

The human wiped his face again and raised an eyebrow, “IT’s exercises, Sunny. You know so I can be fit enough to pass the UNSC PT exam, or perhaps so that I can do my job better, or maybe because I look better whenI’m more fit.

Sunny turned her head to look at him, her eyes scrunching down a little as Krill went to take notes on a clipboard.

“You mean…. You didn’t just grow to being that size?’

The human glanced down at Krill incredulous, “IS she serious? Do the Drev like, not have to work out?”

Krill shook his head, “Drev do not have subcutaneous fat deposits like humans do. Any acquired deposits are stored below the carapace between the connective tissue, padding them down and giving them more protection.”

Sunny looked between them in confusion, “Wait, hold on…. I’m confused.”

The human towelled off his hair, “I have to work out to look like this sunny. IF i don’t use it, I lose it.”

She turned to look at Krill.

He tucked the holo-pad under one arm, “You see, Sunny. Humans are meant to adapt. They can adapt mentally, and they can adapt physically. The body changes to match the requirements of its environment. Sometimes this takes years to do, for instance if you take a light skinned population of humans and put them somewhere with a lot of sun, and keep that population in complete isolation, after a few generations, the skin will darken to compensate for the increased UV light. However these things happen on a smaller level. The body fluctuates to adapt to the amount of physical work which is required.”

The human nodded, “Exactly. Running strengthens the heart, and it increases the hemoglobin in my blood, so that I can run for a longer time with more oxygen. If I were to stop running, I would loose all of that and have to work back up.”

Sunny stared at him incredulous, “So, you have to force your body to be able to perform correctly. Like, It can’t just DO what it needs to do, but you have to convince it over years of training to be able to do what you want.”

The man shrugged, “Well anything sucks when you phrase it like that.” He turned and motioned them to follow, “Historically, humanity was evolved in an environment with little food. We ate a diet heavy in proteins, fiber, and natural carbs from fruit. Fat is an essential part of a human’s diet, but it is relatively difficult to find in nature because of this, the body adapted to make humans love and crave fatty and sugary foods for energy. Well since well into the twentieth eighteenth century, fatty foods were becoming commonplace, and easy to get our hands on, but the body wasn’t aware of that, so it continued to treat these new fatty foods the way our bodies would have treated them back when we were hunter/gatherers storing every last bit up for use later.”

Sunny followed after in fascination, “I see, so now you have…. Too much of a food that your body craves.”

The human looked over his shoulder, “You got it, and the body doesn’t know when to stop storing fat. It’ll just keep going. So if I were to sit on my ass all day eating chips, I would lose the muscle and I would get bigger as fat deposits were stored up for energy.”

Sunny shrugged, “What is the problem with that?”

The human tapped his chin lightly, “A few things, I guess. For me, at least, if I were to just stop working out, I wouldn’t be able to do my job as well, I wouldn't be able to run as far, or to jump as high, or to lift as much. And lifting myself up in a pullup would be impossible, and considering the amount of times we have all almost fallen off a cliff or had to haul ourselves up rope, you would think that would be a bad idea. Not to mention that the larger you are the harder your heart has to work as the blood supply is forced to expand, and since you aren't working out your heart it gets weaker but has to do more work, which --in turn-- increased the risk of heart issues. Compounding all that I wouldn't be able to sit in a cockpit or pilot a jet properly.”

Sunny shook her head, “That seems like a very… annoying model. You can never just relax. You always have to work to keep your body where it should be. And the amount of self control you have to have….”

The human laughed, “You have no idea how much self control I need when a box of doughnuts gets in my way.” He sighed, “Keeping my abs as been a real struggle, but the UNSC drilled some self discipline into me when I was still young.”

“So you weren't always this big.”

The human snorted, “no not in the slightest. In fact, I was so skinny, you could see my heart beating through my rib cage.

Sunny grimaced.

“Yeah I know, kinda gross. Those are your two directions. If you don’t work out your either super scary skinny, or you get a bit big. If you’re working out right you get muscles.” He turned around flexing proudly for them to outline the lines of his biceps, chest and stomach.

Sunny would have rolled her eyes back into her head, but she supposed, now that she knew he had to work for it, she was at least somewhat proud of him.

“Ok, I have a question then.”

“Shoot.”

“Can you get bigger?”

More laughter, “Oh yeah, totally, but I’m not THAT dedicated.”

They were just coming around a corner when the commander skidded to a halt eye to chest with an absolutely massive human.

Even sunny stepped back in surprise.

This human was large enough to look sunny in the eye, with shoulders about as wide as her, and a chest that looked like it could have benched a small car.

It was almost comical, a moment ago Sunny had assumed that the commander was a large human.

“Wow there big mean. I’’d rather not get steamrolled today, thanks.”

The large human glanced down at the commander.

“Sir.” He grunted before stepping around and walking up the hall.

Sunny watched him go, “What do you have to do to get that big!”

“You practically have to live at the gym.”

They turned the corner walking into a large room, with strange machines of unknown use.

ANd in here there were humans of all sizes and shapes, but most of them absolutely massive. Those who lacked height, did not lack muscle.

Male humans, female humans, all of the above.

A tiny female human stood at one of these machines carrying a bar on her shoulders with enough weight that sunny assumed it might crush her. Instead she squatted down to the floor and stood back up.

The captain blinked, “Holy shit.” He motioned towards her, “She squats more than me by the way. You see these guys are insane. I work out to maintain, these guys do it because its their hobby.”

Krill floated upwards to whisper in sunny’s ear, “For the muscle to enlarge, the fibers must tear open, and then the body comes back and repairs the tear to withstand the pressures that tore it in the first place.

Sunny stared at Krill incredulously, “So you're telling me, they just…. Tear themselves apart to get like that.”

The Commander left them standing in place walking over to the wall and jumping upwards, catching his hands around a black bar welded to the wall, the muscles in his back, just below the shoulder blades flexed as he pulled himself upwards, the muscles in his shoulder blades rolling under the skin.

They continued to watch as the commander did his set, a little bit of everything for demonstration purposes. Getting off one of the leg machines, one of these large female humans walked past sitting where he had just sat reaching out pulling out the peg and and bringing the weight almost to the bottom of the plates.

The commander leaned in, “See her, she could probably crush your skull using just her legs.” He sighed, “Man, I only WISH I could be that badass.” He looked up at sunny, “Sometimes I come here just to knock myself down a peg.”

Across the room, one of these massive humans was hauling a huge bar lined with weight on either side up over his head like it was nothing.

“You see that, that would probably invert my spine if I tried to do it.” “Must you be so graphic?” Krill wondered

“Yeah, because that’s how much of a wuss I am.”

Looking around, Sunny wasn’t convinced entirely of his status as a wuss. He had all the requisite muscle groups of, even the largest humans, and more than some. There were great swatches of the human population who,even here, were missing some things.

A few of the humans had large arms, ut small legs, small legs, but large arms, no chest, or chest and no abdominal muscles.

Yes sure, he may have been smaller than their largest, but he WAS well rounded arms, chest, stomach, legs, back and shoulders.

She found herself surprised at the smug satisfaction in comparing her human to the other humans.

Sure her human couldn’t bench THAT much, but he also had better legs, so there.

“You ok, Sunny?”

She turned her head to look at him.

“Just thinking.” She said

He shrugged at her and returned to his work.

It’s hard to be a human.

They have to work for everything they have, especially when it comes to their body.

484 notes · View notes

writer-akihiko · 4 years

Text

Chapter 2 - Hanging Out [STARISH]

Chapter 3 →

Otoya Ittoki

You were with ST☆RISH in their studio, coming up with their new song. Masato decided that everyone should take a break, so he, Tokiya and Syo went out to get some food for everyone.

Ren and Cecil had a costume fitting, so they went with Haruka. That left you, Otoya and Natsuki in the studio. Natsuki went ahead and took a nap on one of the couches.

Things between you and Otoya were... awkward to say the least. After completely being frozen on first contact, you didn't strike up any conversation with Otoya.

You decided to relax yourself by fidgeting with your laptop. You played around with one of the downloaded songs you had.

"That sounds great YN-san!" Otoya complimented.

"A-Ah, thanks..."

Otoya then proceeded to sing along.

"Your voice is nice Otoya-san, I'm glad I'm working with you," You complimented back. Internally, you were having a mini panic. I just complimented a guy... Your face turned red at the thought.

"Really?!" Otoya said. "I... was never that confident about how my voice sounded!"

"Trust me, it's great! Better than mine..." You said sheepishly.

Otoya asked, "Do you sing YN-san?" You shook your head. It was one of the reasons you decided to become a DJ anyway. You could make good music, but never have a voice for it.

"Then do you play any instruments YN-san?"

You nodded. "I play the [instrument]."

"Then we can do a duet together! Wait here, I'll get my guitar!" He says. He ran out, and quickly came back with an acoustic guitar.

Since your instrument was in the room as well, you went to it and Otoya struck up a chord. You knew this song. It was one of your compositions. You played along to him.

"I'm sorry about what happened earlier," he confessed.

"Don't be," you said. "I was just extremely shy. It's not a good thing really..."

"Eh? But you were really cute YN-san!"

"Really... Cute..."

Your whole face reddened to the tips of your ears. You stopped and froze like a statue in place.

"Oh no I've done it again!"

"Otoya?" Cecil says as he walks in. "What did youー"

Haruka exclaimed, "YN! Oh no, come back to me!!"

Let's just say that things continued to be awkward between you two.

Masato Hijirikawa

After finally getting a break well-earned from your senpais, you met up with Masato to show him around.

"Hey Prince Charming!" You waved over to him. He came to you with his group of friends.

"So you guys are from Saotome Arts?" You said after introductions. Masato nodded.

"Thank you for showing us around."

"No sweat. Least I could do for beating you in basketball."

A few of his friends snickered at what you said. "Stop that!" Masato says to his friends.

"What do you guys want to see first?" You said. The red-haired boy named Otoya said he wants to meet the football team.

"Sure! They're near the food stalls so we can grab a bite as well," You led them ahead to the wonderful walkway of street food.

His friends went along and left Masato with you to find a bench to sit on. He's a little stiff... you thought. I know how to get him to relax...

Once you two found a table, you went to a friend of yours on the track team. She was handling a yakisoba stall.

"Hey! Mina, add a little kick in it alright?" You reminded her. Mina nodded. You came back to his friends. You took a seat next to Haruka and handed Masato his extra 'kicked up' yakisoba.

"The best yakisoba of this academy!" You said proudly. You watched as he took a bite. He coughed, begging Tokiya for water.

You casually ate yours, pretending that you could handle the spice. "Wanna swap?"

"Please..."

"Okay, glad to see you're not so stiff anymore!" You smiled at him. You could handle your spice, so you were fine.

"You sure have the appetite YN-san," he commented.

"Are you saying something about my weight?!" You mockingly said. You laughed when he made such an apologetic face. "Sorry, you're just fun to tease Prince Charming. Your face gets all red and you just stand there..."

"I-I deny your accusation!" He said.

"You're doing it again! Also, what do you expect? I played at least 3 hours’ worth of game back there. Of course I need some compensation," You said. "Anyway, don't be so stiff! It's a festival after all!"

You left since you needed to go back to the club.

"She's interesting..."

Natsuki Shinomiya

He had come to the café again, but this time he was alone. He brought stacks of books and folders along as well.

You noticed he bought a lot of sugar filled treats today. He had his cell phone close by and was texting whenever he had a puzzled expression.

Since the shop was empty during the evening, you decided to get yourself a warm muffin and sit across from him.

"Natsuki-san?" You said, trying to catch his attention. "Are you okay?"

He continued writing.

"Exam week?"

He nodded.

You were about to leave, thinking it would be better for him to concentrate without you bothering him.

"AHHHH I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS!!"

"Natsuki-san?"

"YN-senpai, I don't like this! Masa keeps scolding me when I ask for advice! He also talks in a language I don't understand."

"U-Uh... What subject are you learning?"

"Math..."

You pitied the teenage boy. You took a look at his notes. His handwriting... was something. It was quite cute actually.

"I think I can help," You said. You rushed to the apartment you lived with your uncle upstairs and looked through your shelves. You took out a (f/c) translucent folder.

You returned to Natsuki. You handed him the folder.

"What's this?"

"My notes from high school. I didn't have time to clean out my books, so I still have them. You can use them," You explained. "I have no need for them anyway."

"Elizabeth!" He yelled and hugged you.

"Natsuki-san, that's not my name."

"Ah sorry!" He quickly released you and skimmed your notes. "Your little doodles are really cute!"

You blushed at the comment he gave you.

"YOSH! I CAN DO IT!"

"I knew so," You said, applauding him.

You allowed him to study until...

"YN-senpai, I don't know how to solve this question..."

Ren Jinguji

You were navigating through troublesome Tokyo with your cousin. She brought the idol group she is working with since they too had some errands.

Haruka left you and Ren alone since she decided to go to the bathroom.

Ren, curious, decided to play 20 questions with you.

"So fairyー"

"I am not a fairy."

"Sorry, YN-san. So... what's your favourite food?"

"(F/f)."

"Favourite colour?"

"(F/c)."

Ren paused as he was thinking about another question. Unbothered, you asked him one since he was taking a while.

"Is there a purpose asking me all these questions?"

He coughed, "Well, to get to know you better."

"Then may I propose that we do something productive while asking them?"

"What do you suggest?" Ren asked, intrigued by your statement.

"A shogi match." You showed him your portable shogi board.

He led you to a park where there was a bench. You sat on opposite ends, the shogi board in between.

He started to ask the questions again, halfway through the game. "You surprise me, YN-san."

You eliminated one of his kyosha. Placing his piece on your side platform, you commented, "How so? The fact that I captured your kyosha or was it something I said?"

"Something you said," He clarified. "I first thought you were... a tsundere of sorts. But then throughout this trip, I found that you simply speak your mind and are open-minded as well. However, you rarely speak. Even if you do so, it's barely a few words."

You snickered. "You are observant, Jinguji-san," You said, moving your piece. "However, not observant enough."

He glanced at the board.

"Checkmate."

Cecil Aijima

You were at your rehearsal in the auditorium. With your fellow classmates, you were practicing the steps for a dance sequence.

Of course, it was a classical dance. Which you often struggled with. Your senpai ーwho was also your dance partner ー was noticing that you couldn't keep up and asked for a break.

"We'll rehearse again after a 15-minute break. Prepare for the next scene as well," He told the crew.

You plopped on the ground with your head hung low. "I just can't get it right..."

"Hey Goddess YN!" Cecil called to you. He was watching you the whole time. You forgot that tiny detail. You waved back, getting off the stage. You were slightly embarrassed at the nickname as some of your peers stared at him.

"You don't have to call me that Aijima-san," You told him.

He held out his hand to you.

"Huh?"

"Allow me to dance with a goddess," He sweetly said.

"Sure... I guess..." His smooth talking seriously caught you off and you couldn't respond properly.

He then positioned himself in the exact same dance as you were practicing just now.

You were assuming he did not know the steps and began to lead him. Once you had finished half of the steps, Cecil lifted you up and twirled you around.

"Cecil! What are you doing!"

"Hey Leader-san!" Cecil yelled to your senior. "YN can do it!"

"W-Waitー"

Your senpai was speculating the entire scene. "Your friend is actually right... You're actually better at leading! I apologise for never noticing LN-san."

After your break was over, your senior made changes to the dance breaks. Finally when rehearsal was over and everyone had left, Cecil was still hanging around.

"Cecil, I want to thank you for your help today," You bowed to him. "I would've never figured it out..."

"It's nothing really! You can get up ー I was just serving a goddess, that is all!" He said, winking.

You laughed. "You never really stop it with the goddess thing, do you?" You noticed Cecil twirling around the stage.

"Hey Cecil, I can teach you some of the routines in the play. How about it?" His eyes sparkled when you told him. "Really? I can? You're too kind! Your performances are really enchanting to watch!"

You and Cecil spent the entirety of the afternoon learning the dance. Cecil made a few jokes here and there, making you crack up. Soon, it was time for you go. "I have dinner with friends," You told him. "If I ever meet you at the twins' studio, let's hang out!"

"Sure thing..."

You closed the door.

"My goddess..." His voice echoed through the empty auditorium.

Syo Kurusu

You and Syo had grown immensely close after the shooting. Syo admired your hidden strength and you admired his determination. Weeks went by, and you went back to your shrine duties and Syo to his idol work.

You had to admit, more visitors started to come due to ST☆RISH's new release. Oh, the power of fame.

One particular day, you were about to close the shrine and a man in a suit carrying a briefcase walked up to the gate, approaching you.

"Sorry, we don't accept salesmen," You said, about to shut the door.

"Wait!" The man called out. "I'm a TV producer and after ST☆RISH's music video, I hope I can film a short variety show here!"

"What?"

"It's a short promotional show about their new album. This place was recommended by Haruka."

"Nanami?"

"Yes."

You let the businessman in and called for your cousins. As your cousins were discussing regulations with the man, you decided to call Nanami.

"Did you recommend the shrine to Mr. Kagurazaka?"

"Yes. Well, not really... Syo actually said it. I had to say it in place of the group. He said since we filmed here, why not promote here?"

After much discussion with Mr. Kagurazaka, the shrine once again welcomed ST☆RISH.

You were in no contact with Syo most of the recording. You didn't make an appearance in the show as well, for privacy's sake. You did see him once in a while.

You had finished your duties early and decided to get some archery practice in. You weren't a big fan of kendo, so you settled for traditional archery.

"You're really good!"

You yelped in surprise and turned around. Syo was watching you. You prayed that it wouldn't be for the whole time.

"Kurusu-san! You surprised me. Please don’t do that..." You said to him. He was wearing a casual yukata, most likely from just shooting the show.

"I didn't mean to! I mean I didn't want to disturb you, but you were so focused, and I didn't want to bother you, but I still wanted to talk to youー"

You smiled. "I get it. Nice to see you too.”

You two caught up which somehow eventually led to Syo wanting to try out archery. You agreed and took out another set for him.

"Don't shake. Try to steady yourself," You said, straightening his arms.

"Okay."

Syo released the arrow which landed on... a black.

"It's okay Syo! You can try again!"

You stood behind him and adjusted his arms behind him. "I can't see the target since you're taller than me..."

"I'll try my best!" He said. His voice sounded a little nervous.

He shot the arrow. It landed on a red.

"That's a good score!" You congratulated him. "Hey Syo..."

"Hmm?"

"Your face is a little red. Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah. It's nothing! I should... go now. Masato's gonna kill me so... bye!"

"Um... Bye!"

Well, he's still an odd boy. Nonetheless you still quite liked him.

Tokiya Ichinose

You two walked around the convention and talked about the mangas you have similar interests with.

His other idol friends were dragged around by Natsuki, who wanted to check out the Piyo-chan booth. You pitied the boy in the fedora who was especially victimised.

After a tiring walk around the tables and booths of the convention, Tokiya suggested that you two went outside for some fresh air.

"To be frank, I also wanted to ask your permission for a picture or two..." He sheepishly said. "I didn't ask before since the others were around."

"Ah! Send me a copy of it too!" You said. "I'd like to rest for a bit though. We can take the photo near the fountain outside!"

He nodded in agreement. You two sat near a bench which was close to the other cosplayers who were posing in front of their photographers. Tokiya volunteered to get some drinks. You gave him some cash for your drink.

"Excuse me Miss, can I take a photo of you?" A man asked.

You agreed, thinking nothing of it. From the distance, you saw Tokiya. He was coming closer to the scene. However, when he was right behind the photographer, he snatched the camera away.

"Tokiya-san! What are you doing?!"

"Saving you," He said. He passed you the camera. This man had taken panty shots of you!

The other photographers and cosplayers nearby heard the commotion.

A camera man spoke up, "Apologise! It's people like you that give us a bad rep!"

"Yeah! Apologise!" A cosplayer shouted. Many joined in asking the harasser to apologise. Before he could, the security had noticed the noise and came over. He took away the man and the camera.

"Thanks," You said. "You really are like an ikemen!"

His cheeks reddened at the nickname.

"Wait!"

You whipped out your pen and notebook. "An ikemen character in the fantasy series. One who doesn't look for trouble and just gets by his own way, with his good looks!"

You scribbled away and Tokiya was confused. "Sorry," You said. "I get too excited when I get inspiration for a story."

"A character... based on me?"

"Yeah! You were really cool back there." You commented. "So how about that picture?"

You two sat near the fountain and posed.

Click!

"Hey Tokiya-san, see you at school!" You waved at him, as you had to go back to your crew.

He waved back.

"Sure thing, my writer," He whispered to himself.

Chapter 3 →

#uta no prince sama #utapri boyfriend scenarios #utapri ren #utapri natsuki #utapri syo #utapri otoya #utapri masato #utapri tokiya #tokiya ichinose #ren jinguji #uta no prince-sama #masato hijirikawa #otoya ittoki #syo kurusu #natuski shinomiya #utapri cecil #cecil aijima

27 notes · View notes

bpro-cardstories · 4 years

Text

Goshi Kaneshiro SSR

2019 ー Live Street Show [路上ライブ]

“Yeah. …… I’m always serious about my work. Even if I die, I won’t compromise when it comes to music. It’s myself who knows best that this feeling is genuine.”

『Event: Hit and Run! Super Rookies (17th - 29th September 2019)』

Part 1

THRIVE are practicing for the upcoming baseball match against the professionals.

Yuta: ‘Gochin, nice pitch! You’re also already perfect in using the curves and straights!’

Goshi: ‘Yeah.’

Yuta: ‘Isn’t it time for you to rest your shoulders? Kenken, it’s your turn to practice batting ~!’

Kento: ‘Already? Isn’t it too early?’

Yuta: ‘It’s not! Come on, stand up, stand up ~!’

Tsubasa: ‘You did well, Kaneshiro-san. Please use this towel. I also have this drink for you.’

Goshi: ‘Aa, thanks.’

Tsubasa: ‘Fufu, I was a little worried when I first heard that everyone was not very familiar with baseball but… there was no need to. Kaneshiro-san too, and the other members as well are very good at it, not only experienced players can see it.’

Goshi: ‘.... Is that so?’

Yuta: ‘Kenken, how about doing the bunt* with all your might during practice! Swing the bat!’

Kento: ‘I refuse. I noticed that this form doesn’t disturb my bangs. Above all, it’s one that makes the hand of the opponent feel shaken, right.’

Yuta: ‘That might be true! But we’re practicing to hit a home run right now ~!!’

Observing the scene in front of him, Goshi doubts Tsubasa’s words from earlier.

Goshi: ‘....You still think like that?’

Tsubasa: ‘I-Including now! It is possible for you to be able to play properly!’

Her honest words of encouragement make Goshi chuckle a bit.

Goshi: ‘Ha, how so? But never did I think to play baseball. If it wasn’t for work I wouldn’t ever have tried it, I guess.’

Tsubasa: ‘That might be true. Baseball tournaments between non-professional teams or grass-lot baseball** are both basically like professional ones, I think.’

Goshi: ‘You’re right.’

Tsubasa: ‘.... So, how is it?’

Goshi: ‘Hm? What do you mean?’

Tsubasa: ‘Baseball. As expected, it is quite difficult to practice between other jobs, right.’

Goshi: ‘That’s true. But… it’s surprisingly not bad. I feel like both my body and head are always using different parts. Or rather…. It’s more fun than I thought….’

Tsubasa: ‘I see…! I’m glad to hear that, to be honest, I wouldn’t know what to do if it had turned into a burden for you….’

Goshi: ‘It’s not really a matter you should be worried about. After all, whether it’s hard or not, I will give it my all if it’s work.’

Goshi: ‘But this time… I feel like I was reminded of something that I started to forget.’

Tsubasa: ‘Something you started to forget?’

Goshi: ‘Yeah. How should I put it, it’s the attitude towards jumping into an unknown world and challenging it boldly… To keep growing, you absolutely can’t lose this feeling. But…when you get desperate, you forget even such a thing.’

Goshi: ‘.... I, too, need to pay more attention to other things from now on.’ ___________

After the short but serious talk THRIVE heads to their next job, to the radio station.

Kento: ‘Today’s theme was 『THRIVE members’ favourites』so it says, we first went with one song.’

Yuta: ‘It was super cool right from the intro~! As expected of Gochin’s favourite song. It’s the one that I can hear in the morning coming from your room, right?’

Goshi: ‘Yeah, I’m often using it instead of the alarm clock now. It’s good to get yourself started. To reach the top with just your singing and a guitar, I’m overwhelmed by such skill and strength.’

Kento: ‘If I’m not mistaken, he was a street musician. He was scouted by someone from a recording company who stopped in front of him. It was his major debut, no?’

Goshi: ‘Right. From the start, it seems to be quite the famous home then, huh. I also heard that his voice was slow***.’

Goshi: ‘Hearing that, I’m a bit frustrated, to be honest. Talent and effort alone take time.’

Yuta: ‘Yes yes, even if you can make and sing a cool song, there’s still luck and timing ~’

Yuta: ‘But to have someone find him was amazing!! Speaking of which, where’s his hometown?’

Goshi: ‘It’s Fukuoka.’

Yuta: ‘Hee~! Then should we go to the place where he’s singing!?’

This was something he was not supposed to talk about. But Yuta hasn't noticed yet. He keeps talking.

Kento: ‘Eh? …. Hey, Yutaーー’

Yuta: ‘Ehehe, baseball, ramen, pilgrimage…..! I’m excited to visit Fukuoka but I added another one~ ♪.’

Goshi: ‘You….. Didn’t we tell you to not speak about it again.’

Yuta: ‘Huuh?....... Ahh!!!’

Goshi: ‘Geez…..’

Yuta: ‘Hyahー, I’m so sorry! Please cut that scene just now out, dear staff.’

Goshi: ‘Are you an idiot? It’s a live broadcast!’

Yuta: ‘Wahwah, you’re right!’

To change the topic, Kento suggests with a smile to move on.

Kento: ‘Alright, let’s all forget what was just said.’

Kento: ‘Should I let you listen to my favourite song, hm? I like that its lyrics capture my feelings for all you sweet girls. So carefully listen to the song and take in my feelings, okay?’ ___________

Tsubasa: ‘ーーThank you for the live broadcast, everyone!’

Yuta: ‘Thanks, Tsubasa-chan~! About earlier, I’m sorry!! Tsubasa-chan won’t get angry, right!?’

Tsubasa: ‘Fufu, no I won’t. Because it was not talked about in detail.’

Yuta: ‘Really!? I’m relieved~.......!’

Tsubasa: ‘Ah….. Speaking of which, it is about the talk about Fukuoka. I was contacted earlier. It was decided that Kaneshiro-san’s and Aizome-san’s stay as well will be extended.’

Goshi: ‘Why’s that so? …… Don’t tell me we also have to practice making ramen.’

Kento: ‘Eh, is that true? No way, I don’t need to wear a towel around my head, right?’

Tsubasa: ‘No, it is a different matter. Requests for shootings and interviews came in for both Kaneshiro-san and Aizome-san. Some local magazines like to put together a special feature.’

Kento: ‘Aah, I see.’

Tsubasa: ‘It seems that the shooting will happen early in the morning on the day after the baseball match. The schedule will be quite hard but I am hoping for your cooperation.’

Goshi: ‘Understood.’

Kento: ‘I’m also counting on you, Tsubasa.’

Part 2

ーThe day of the interviews and photoshoot.ー

Tsubasa: ‘ーーThis will be all for the photoshoot at this location. Next is the still photoshoot near the live house. Afterwards, you will have a talk with its owner.’

Goshi: ‘Okay.’

Kento (grinning): ‘..... Goshi, you seem awfully happy?’

Goshi (smiling): ‘Of course I am. You don’t know that but the live house we’ll go to now is a sacred place for music lovers. The top artists always mention this place first when they’re in magazines or the TV, even now.’

Kento (rolls his eyes): Uwah, look at the high tension…..’

Goshi (annoyed): ‘What? It’s because you brought up the topic! Don’t play dumb!’

(Fufu, Kaneshiro-san really likes the music. When he looks so happy, compared to his usual appearance, it even makes me smile.) ___________

ーIn the live house.ー

Kento: ‘Hee….. That’s some amazing collection of signs. And only from top-notch celebrities. There’s also a sign from the person, the radio talked about the other day.’

Goshi: ‘Yeah…..’

Kento: ‘...... Are you stargazing?’

Goshi: ‘No, that’s not itーー Wait a minute. Wow….. For real, the whole band is coming here.’

Goshi: ‘This one here…..’

Goshi (shocked): ‘Artists that haven’t performed in Japan yet are coming here!? No way…..!’

Kento: ‘Tsubasa, look at the excited figure next to you. Since it’s happening, don’t you think it would be better to record it. If you show it to them when they’re acting normal, it certainly will be amusing.’

Tsubasa: ‘Fufu, you’re right. You don’t often see this juvenile Kaneshiro-san.’

Goshi: ‘Oi, don’t treat me like a kid.’

Tsubasa: ‘I-I am sorry……!’

Kento: ‘Hey, she was right, so stop picking a quarrel with her. That was scary, right, Tsubasa.’

Goshi: ‘Right back at you, stop taking advantage of Sumisora and make her do stuff.’

Kento (teasing): ‘What, did Goshi want to chat with Tsubasa some more, as well?’

Goshi: ‘What?’

Tsubasa: ‘Y-You two….. Ah right, there is a matter concerning an inquiry prior to now.’

Goshi: ‘...... What is it?’

Tsubasa: ‘It seems that the store’s owner’s passion and the depth of his knowledge for music is famous and that many artists come here to listen to his talks. However, no matter how famous one is, if there is no appointment, then it looks like he will be denied serving customers…..’

Kento: ‘Why is that so?’

Tsubasa: ‘It seems that the owner’s most important matter is to support young musicians. Giving the artists who are performing near the street a stage to stand on without compensation, or upon finding a talented one making contact with someone related to music…..’

Tsubasa: ‘Because at times with such an arrangement, it will be given priority. Because, by no means, does he want to slow down the young ones who are taking on『A new challenge』.’

Kento: ‘Hee….. Very cool.’

Goshi: ‘Yeah…… Human beings can easily be swayed by fame and money. Not everyone can do it. It’s an honour to hear it from such a person.’

Tsubasa: ‘I agree, I also like to let you learn from him.’

Staff: ‘The equipment preparation is done! Kaneshiro-san, Aizome-san, let’s start!’

Kento: ‘Yes. We’ll be in your care.’ ___

Goshi: ‘.......『A new challenge』, huh.’

Tsubasa: ‘Kaneshiro-san?’

Goshi: ‘...... Yeah, I’m going now.’ ___________

ーIn THRIVE’s hotel room.ー

A knock on the door.

Yuta: ‘Yes, who is it?’

Tsubasa: ‘I am sorry, to come so late in the night….. Sumisora here. I have something to talk about regarding the schedule tomorrow.’

Yuta: ‘Eh? Tsubasa-chan? W-Wait a minute, okay!?’

Tsubasa: ‘......? Yuta-kun?’

Yuta: ‘Fuuh…… Sorry for making you wait, Tsubasa-chan! Here, come in!’

Tsubasa: ‘I am sorry, did I perhaps interrupt you at something…..?’

Yuta: ‘No No No, not at all!!’

Tsubasa: ‘Sweat….. Was it dance practice?’

Yuta: ‘Ah~ ….. Yep! Something like that! More importantly, what’s about the schedule?’

Tsubasa: ‘Oh, it’s about Kaneshiro-san and Aizome-san’s schedule….. Where are they?’

Yuta: ‘Eh? Usually, they’re outside….. Could it possibly be that they went out without telling Tsubasa-chan!?’

Tsubasa: ‘Y-Yes……’

Yuta: ‘Waah, I thought they certainly let you know properly, so I didn’t stop them….. I’m so sorry!! I’ll try to contact them on LINE, wait a minute!’

Part 3

Yuta: ‘Ah, a reply from Kenken!’

Tsubasa: ‘I’m glad…. I wonder where they are now?’

Yuta: ‘Ehm…… Yep, it must be the usual…..’

Tsubasa: ‘Eh?’

Yuta: ‘No, anyway, he said he’ll come back. It looks like he’s not too far away.’

Tsubasa: ‘That is reassuring to hear. And, Kaneshiro-san…..’

Yuta: ‘No, Gochin didn’t reply. Where did he go? He also didn’t read my message at all…..’

Tsubasa: ‘I see….. If that is the case, then I will go look around a bit nearby.’

Yuta: ‘Eh? It’s going to be dangerous when you go out at this hour all alone! I’m going, too!’

Tsubasa: ‘It will be fine. I will not go too far since I am not familiar with the surroundings here. Besides, it will be troublesome if you miss each other.’

Yuta: ‘But…..’

Tsubasa: ‘Should Kaneshiro-san come back, I would be thankful, if you contact me immediately. Could I ask you for this favour?’

Yuta (worried): ‘Tsubasa-chan……. Alright, leave it to me! But, you really need to be careful! Absolutely not get involved with weird people!’

Tsubasa: ‘I understood. I will be going now.’ ___________

Tsubasa: ‘....... He’s not here as well, huh.’

(Kaneshiro-san, he can’t be found at all…. Where in the world could he be. I haven’t heard of a friend he has here. A place he would go to, perhaps the place near the photoshoot today?)

(Or, a place that’s related to musicーー)

Tsubasa: ‘Oh…. The sound of a guitar?’

Tsubasa: ‘I remember, there are many street musicians around here. I wonder if Kaneshiro-san’s favourite artists also performed in this kind of place…..’

Music: ~~~♪♪

(A comfortable tone colour…..)

Music: ~~~♪♪

(The singing voice is amazing as well…..)

Tsubasa: ‘...... Eh? This voice…..’

???: ‘...... Thank you very much.’

Tsubasa: ‘Eh……!?’

Goshi: ‘Ah? ……. Damn.’

Tsubasa: ‘K-Kaneshiro-san! What are you doing!?’

Part 4

Goshi: ‘Hey, keep your voice down…..!’

Tsubasa: ‘I-I am sorry….. But, what are you doing in such a place…..’

Goshi: ‘What I’m doing, you say….. You’ll understand by seeing it, right. I’m giving a street performance.’

Tsubasa: ‘Saying it so easily….. But wait please, where is the guitar from?’

Goshi: ‘That’s….. The master of the store from today lent it to me. When he said, if you have something you absolutely want to do, take it.’

Tsubasa: ‘Something you want to do….. Is it a street live?’

Goshi: ‘Yeah.’

Goshi: ‘Well….. Sorry for doing so without telling you.’

Tsubasa: ‘That is true. you neither contacted nor read the messages….. I was very worried.’

Goshi (sighs): ‘I said, I’m sorry, didn’t I. About that….. Sorry.’

Tsubasa: ‘Kaneshiro-san….. Because you are safe, it’s fine. However, why all of the sudden…..’

Goshi: ‘Why did I want to sing here, you mean?’

Tsubasa: ‘Yes. Even though you have a lot of places where you can sing.’

Goshi: ‘That’s…… I, too, wanted to try out the challenge in this city. Standing here, with just my own will, in this place.’

Goshi: ‘At that time….. Do you remember what we talked about when I practiced baseball? I said that I want to, even more, shift my focus on other things.’

Tsubasa: ‘Of course. Not wanting to forget the feeling of jumping into an unknown world.’

Goshi: ‘Yeah. …… I’m always serious about my work. Even if I die, I won’t compromise when it comes to music. It’s myself who knows best that this feeling is genuine.’

Goshi: ‘But, it’s not that I think this alone is enough. Obsessing too much over your own tone, causes you to lose your flexibility. As a result, if you limit this expression, it’ll come to nothing. This is why I wanted to jump into a new world here and see something for myself that I can’t see.’

Tsubasa: ‘..... I’m very grateful that you talked to me. I was able to somehow understand the reason why Kaneshiro-san wants to sing in this place. So…… Were you able to see it? Something new…..’

Goshi (sighs): ‘....... I wonder. To be honest, I don’t understand it. But it certainly made sense.’

Goshi (smiles): ‘Since there are a lot of drunkards here, nobody noticed, that means I completely lack the skill as an idol. That’s the sole thing I noticed. Though, there were also people who stopped and listened to my music even if they didn’t know me.’

Goshi: ‘That’s enough for now.’

Tsubasa: ‘........’

(...... When I think about the various dangers, he really needs to pay attention properly….. But, when he shows such a fulfilling expression, I can’t say anything.)

Goshi: ‘..... What’s wrong, Sumisora.’

Tsubasa: ‘No….. Should there be something you want to do, I would be grateful if you tell me in a few words from now on. I will do my best to support you.’

Goshi (smiles): ‘...... Okay. Thanks.’

Goshi: ‘Alright, I’m going to put away my things, so wait for a minーー’

???: ‘Eh~! You’re going already~? Mister, won’t you please play another cool song?’

Goshi (surprised): ‘Ah……?’

Part 5

Goshi: ‘...... You two…..’

Kento: ‘You seem to be doing quite some enjoyable thing, Goshi.’

Yuta (blushes): I became a fan of you, mister~! I want to hear more!! Encore! Encore!!’

Goshi: ‘Don’t joke with me, shut it!’

Tsubasa: ‘Why are you here, you two……’

Yuta: ‘When I was able to meet up with Kenken safely, I left Gochin a note and went to look for Tsubasa-chan.’

Kento: ‘Leaving a cute girl behind in the city night, you can’t do that.’

Tsubasa: ‘You are right….. I am sorry to have worried you.’

Kento: ‘No, to begin with, it’s our fault, we need to apologize.’

Yuta (grins): ‘Exactly.’

Kento: ‘...... But I’m glad we found Tsubasa right away. I also could see that Goshi was in his springtime of life all alone.’

Yuta: ‘True, true! It was the opposite atmosphere from hiding your face and looking down!’

Goshi: ‘You lot, you’re totally making fun of me, right….. Geez, enough with that. Let’s get going.’

Yuta: ‘Waah, wait, wait! I really meant it with the encore earlier! It’s such a rare opportunity, I genuinely want to hear Gochin’s song!’

Yuta (smiles): ‘Idol Goshi is cool, too. But street musician Goshi is shining incredibly as well. ♪ That’s why, as a guest, I want to listen to your singing.’

Goshi (surprised): ‘Ashu……’

Kento: ‘Yeah. Now that Yuta said that, just do one song. If you like, I’ll give you 1000¥.’

Goshi: ‘No, thanks! And what’s with the arrogant attitude!’

Yuta: ‘Anyways, I want to hear Gochin’s song~! Until you won’t let me listen to it, I won’t move.’

Goshi: ‘Come again?’

Kento (winks): ‘Don’t waste time. Besides, Goshi also wants to sing more, yes?’

Goshi (sighs): ‘..... Tch. Good grief, I don’t have a choice. Only one song.’

Yuta: ‘Yay~!!’

Goshi: ‘..... Is that fine, Sumisora?’

Tsubasa: ‘Y-Yes. There are almost no people around anymore….. If it’s only for a bit.’

Goshi: ‘Then……’

The sound of Goshi’s guitar and his singing go through the street.

Yuta: ‘Waah……! When you listen to music in the midst of the city, it sounds different than usual! Very cool…..!’

Kento: ‘.........’

(As I thought, Kaneshiro-san’s music has amazing strength. I feel that both the tone of the guitar and the words directly resonate with usーー)

Goshi: ‘...... Fuuh.’

Yuta: ‘........’

Kento: ‘........’

Goshi: ‘...... What.’

Yuta: ‘....... I’m moved.’

Goshi (surprised): ‘Hah?’

Yuta: ‘I was so moved! You, aren’t you interested in the entertainment world!? I’ll definitely make you a star.’

Kento: ‘Ah, a scout appeared, Goshi. Isn’t that your chance for a major debut?’

Goshi: ‘Shut up! Don’t do that stupid imitation. Geez, it’s fine now. It’s the end, you hear. I’ll go return the guitar, so go back without me.’

Yuta: ‘Okay! Thanks, Gochin~! It really, absolutely was a wonderful performance!!’

Kento (teases): ‘When you go back and get lost, it will trouble Tsubasa, you know.’

Goshi: ‘You don’t need to remind me. Just go.’

Yuta: ‘Then see you back at the hotel~♪. Let’s go, Tsubasa-chan.’

Tsubasa: ‘Yes.’

Goshi: ‘..... Oi, Sumisora.’

Tsubasa: ‘......? How can I help.’

Goshi: ‘Don’t tell Yashamaru-san about today.’

Tsubasa: ‘E-Ehm, that is……’

To persuade her, Goshi closes their distance and asks her once again with a smile.

Goshi: ‘It’s a secret just between us. Understood?’

Tsubasa: ‘Uh…….’

Goshi: ‘If you did, then get going. See you later.’

END ___________________________

*Bunt: A bunt is a baseball technique in baseball or fastpitch baseball. To bunt, the batter loosely holds the bat in front of home plate and intentionally taps the ball into play. [Source: Wikipedia]

**Grass-lot baseball: Probably the same thing as sand-lot baseball. It refers to pick up games. It refers to games as simple as you and 7 of your neighbors with four guys on each team. [Source: Yahoo Answers]

***T/N: I honestly have no idea what the sentence means, I’m sorry. This is me guessing here based on words I could understand.

#b project #b-project #goshi kaneshiro #thrive #myps #card:2019

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southeastasianists · 4 years

Link

'Usually I can earn between Rp.300,000 and Rp.800,000 (A$31 to $83) a night, just for one performance. Nowadays, since I live with my sister and have no wages, I help in her warung to show my gratitude,’ says Singgih via Whatsapp. In addition to assisting at the roadside warung in Parung, West Java, Singgih also uses his Instagram account to help his sister sell her homemade rengginang, a kind of traditional cracker. The government’s restrictions on movement and activities in response to COVID-19 have been in place since April. Fortunately, Singgih’s sister’s warung has remained open, but for musicians and other arts industry workers like him, the story is one of uncertainty and a daily struggle to survive.

Singgih, 29, is originally from Grobogan in Central Java. After graduating from the prestigious Indonesian Institute of the Arts (Institut Seni Indonesia, ISI) in Surakarta, Singgih has worked as a pengrawit or gamelan musician in Jakarta. He says before COVID-19 art performances were held in Jakarta each Saturday and Sunday, day and night. But now, ‘during social restrictions, all my job offers have been canceled or postponed. Until when, I don’t know.’

The art of playing gamelan instruments is called karawitan. The term comes from the Javanese word rawit which means intricate or finely worked. According to scholars, the music also matches this description. It is argued that the gamelan orchestra uses a more complex system than western music. The music produced by the gamelan orchestra is built from elaborate components, including both loud and soft instruments. One of the soft instruments, which adds melodic layers, is the singers’ voices. Karawitan divide the singing parts into the male singing, called gerongan, and the female singing, called sindenan.

Prior to COVID-19, the Javanese arts, especially karawitan, were flourishing in Jakarta, where the majority of residents are Javanese, and there was high demand for traditional musical performance to accompany slametan (blessing events). For Javanese, slametan are held to celebrate weddings, birthdays, circumcisions, the inauguration of a new house or building and commemoration days, among other events. Those who can afford to will rent a full gamelan orchestra and karawitan group to play. At the top end of the price scale, hosts may hold a wayangan: a performance of Javanese shadow puppets accompanied by a large karawitan group.

Who are the musicians making up Jakarta’s gamelan ensembles? Most pengrawit and pesinden (female singers) come from Yogyakarta, Central Java and East Java. Some graduated from an SMKI (Sekolah Menengah Karawitan Indonesia, vocational high schools for traditional arts), others from ISI like Singgih. However, the majority of pengrawit and pesinden in Jakarta are in fact self-taught. ‘Graduating from ISI doesn’t guarantee that a person can play gamelan properly,’ says Warsiah, a 50-year-old pesinden who lives in Kramat Jati, East Jakarta. ‘It takes a lifetime of learning and commitment to be a skilled artist.’

Warsiah came to Jakarta from Wonogiri in Central Java when she was just 16. She first worked selling jamu (a traditional herbal beverage) and did not begin to learn karawitan until she was in her thirties. ‘The pengrawit who heard me singing for the first time told me that my voice matched with the sound of gamelan. I felt encouraged. That’s when I began to learn properly,’ said Warsiah. She regularly attended karawitan rehearsals in Tanjung Duren, Ciledug, and Bekasi. Five years after her first encounter with gamelan, she took her first job as a pesinden.

Warsinah explained that becoming a pesinden meant she was able to leave her job as jamu seller. ‘I remember – it was the 2000s and I was booked as a pesinden every Saturday and Sunday. Imagine this! In the morning I would sing in a slametan event. Then I would go to a wedding ceremony. At night I was hired to accompany wayangan performances. I no longer had time for my business,’ says Warsiah, laughing with joy.

Pesinden are paid more than pengrawit. In recent years, for one karawitan performance in Jakarta, Warsiah is paid between Rp.700,000 and Rp.1 million. When accompanying an all-night wayangan performance, Warsiah earns Rp.1 million. This is different in her hometown. ‘Ten years ago, in my village in Wonogiri, a pesinden could be paid Rp.150,000 even for accompanying a wayangan performance from dusk till dawn.’

Singgih also thinks that his earnings in Jakarta are comparatively good. ‘Imagine this,’ he says. ‘For accompanying an all-night wayangan performance in Central Java, I get Rp.250,000 – if the event is big and the puppeteers are well known. In Jakarta, for the same effort, I can get Rp.500,000 – that’s the minimum fee for pengrawit accompanying a wayangan in Jakarta! So, I just worked on weekends and I could rest on weekdays.’ PSBB

On 10 April, the Jakarta governor Anies Baswedan issued social distancing regulations for an initial period of two weeks. The large-scale social restrictions, or PSBB, were then extended into June. Violations of PSBB carry penalties, including for not wearing face masks in public spaces.

With restrictions on social and cultural activities, the possibility of being paid to perform on stage disappeared overnight. Even before the regulation was introduced, Singgih and Warsinah were already seeing many social and cultural events being canceled or postponed. In addition to performing, both also teach karawitan, earning an additional monthly salary, but during PSBB art studios and universities where they normally teach have also been closed. Soft instruments in the gamelan ensemble / Rahmadi Fajar Himawan

‘I am kind of grateful that all of this [PSBB] happened during Ramadan,’ Singgih reflected. Ramadan ran from 23 April to 23 May this year, and karawitan and wayangan performances are not usually held during this time. Some slametan, such as weddings, are never held during Ramadan out of respect for those who fast. ‘It’s like a coincidence, right?’ Making a living

In April, Joko Widodo announced that the annual mass exodus (mudik) during Ramadan was banned. This meant Warsiah and Singgih, like millions of other Jakartans not native to the city, were unable to celebrate Eid in their hometown. Normally at this time, with performances not allowed during Ramadan, they would return home and gather with family, and after Eid, go back immediately to Jakarta to take up opportunities for work. This year, unable to perform or return to their hometowns, musicians like Warsiah and Singgih have stayed in Jakarta where they are doing whatever they can do to survive.

Warsiah started making jamu again. She charges Rp.10,000 per bottle and promotes it through social media. ‘It’s not bad – it supports me,’ she says. Warsinah has a mushroom farm near her house in Kramat Jati and also an egg farm at her family home in Wonogiri. Though her farms are not large, she feels lucky to be able to support herself during PSBB. ‘But I can’t go to my hometown to celebrate Eid,’ she says.

Some, like Warsiah, make food or beverages or do sewing to make a living and they use social media such as Facebook or Whatsapp to promote their goods. Others like Singgih, rely on the support of their family and work in the family business.

In April, the Ministry of Education and Culture launched a program called Pendataan Pekerja Seni Terdampak COVID-19 (Register of Arts Workers Impacted by COVID-19). The ministry’s stated aim was to make an inventory of arts workers financially impacted by the pandemic. With the data collected, they would aim to distribute donations to those who had lost income. No specific amount of compensation was announced. A similar program was also launched by the City of Jakarta’s Department of Culture, called Pendataan Pekerja Seni di Jakarta yang Terdampak Secara Ekonomi Akibat COVID-19 (Register of Arts Workers in Jakarta Economically Impacted by COVID-19).

There are currently three options for government assistance for musicians like Warsinah and Singgih. Besides the compensation payments, the ministry aims to include musicians in existing social programs, namely Program Keluarga Harapan (Family Hope Program) or Kartu Prakerja (Pre-Employment Card). The ministry is also encouraging any arts workers ineligible for both those programs to perform through online platforms, including its own newly established Budayasaya. Although it is still early days, it does appear that artists who already have a high profile are making good use of online platforms like this. However, it is less clear if they will benefit performers and musicians like Warsinah and Singgih who are less well-known.

The Ministry of Culture and Education created the Budayasaya platform on Youtube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, to broadcast arts performances.

As their incomes are less than the limit of Rp.10 million per month, Warsiah and Singgih hope they will be eligible for inclusion in these existing social safety net programs. However, there is another potential hurdle: to be classified as an arts worker, you must not have received income from non-arts-related work. Ironically, this may yet prevent musicians from receiving government assistance as they have needed to use their non-arts skills to survive this far.

On 26 May, the Ministry of Education and Culture finally distributed payments, called PL2B, to those arts workers deemed eligible who had registered back in April. Each successful applicant received Rp.1 million as a one-off payment upon completion of documents required by the ministry. The City of Jakarta’s Department of Culture distributed similar payments in early May.

Like more than 40,000 other arts workers who registered with the ministry by the deadline, Singgih put a great deal of hope in the government programs. I contacted him again in late May via WhatsApp to ask how his application went. He was not one of the lucky ones. His application for compensation was rejected. ‘But PSBB will end soon, right?’ he asked me hopefully. I asked him what he would do if PSBB was extended further. ‘Actually, I have no idea,’ he told me. ‘For now, I hope all of this is stopped immediately.’

#arts #indonesia #gamelan #javanese arts #music

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defdaily · 4 years

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[TRANSLATION] NYLON Korea Magazine November 2015 issue x GOT7 JB

You mentioned you used to be a rebel?

JB: From before I was a trainee, I liked dancing. I wanted to be a dancer and I wanted to be a b-boy. With the advice of people around me, I went for the audition without much consideration and managed to get through, and, by luck, got first place. I lived through practicing and rather than being thankful, I was stubborn in not wanting to be a dance-type performance singer. I also skipped lost of vocal lessons. (Laughs) And then, I listened to some music and suddenly wanted to become good at singing. I looked at myself and realized that I lacked in so many areas. From then on, I stopped dancing and focused on practicing my singing.

What music was it?

JB: It was D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar. It was the type of music that really stood out to me and to be that goos at singing (referring to D’Angelo) was something I though to be impossible from the beginning. I wanted to have a voice that’s “sticky” and seductive like that.

Is that why you became less rebellious?

JB: My personality is not the type that doesn’t listen to other people’s opinions or thoughts. If there is something I want, I’m the type to become stubborn. Now, I’ve really cut down on just doing whatever I want. Up until I was a high school students, I was really irresponsible. Even though I’m not a grown-up yet, at I turned twenty and became and adult (legally, in this context), I feel a strong need to become more responsible. So I try and be careful with my words and actions. At our company, if there is clashing opinions, I don’t just say “I am definitely no doing that,” but I share my opinion in a civil manner.

Do you get “autumn fever”? (Asking if he’s affected in any way by autumn)

JB: I used to think that I don’t, but then when the seasons change from summer to autumn, and then from autumn to winter, I feel that I’m sensitive to the dropping temperatures of the air. I get distracted, and I also think more. [Because] that kind of air is something that always comes around once a year. As I take in that air, I think about the things that happened the previous year during the same season. There are times hone I feel a sense of longing, or sometimes I will reflect. Just because it’s autumn doesn’t mean that I feel lonely.

Then, are you the type that eats well? Or the type that likes to read?

JB: Not just because it’s autumn now, but I like both (eating and reading). I like Korean food and going around searching for good Korean restaurants. As for books… I like crime fiction and self-development/inspirational books. I find profound ones so-so.

So do you find self-development/inspirational books helpful?

JB: Honestly, I don’t find them to be very helpful. (Laughs) Even though you can’t become someone notable/famous just by reading books, after I read them, it becomes like a trigger for me to look back on what I’ve done.

It hasn’t been long since Just Right was released and now you guys are back with Mad.

JB: We started preparing when Just Right promotions were about to end. We recorded and practiced our choreography simultaneously. The concepts for Just Right was very clearly defined, and the concept for If You Do is also very clearly defined, so we really wanted to quickly show a completely different image.

Do you enjoy being busy?

JB: Its not good to rest too much, It’s not about being anxious when we’re resting (i.e. not doing anything), but that if we rest too much, we let go of our thoughts. After resting, we need that driving force to trigger us to move. That’s why we have to properly adjust ourselves.

What’s something that makes you “move”? (i.e. inspires him, keeps him moving forward, etc.)

JB: Even though this is something obvious, it’s the wish for many people to listen to and like our music. Even though it’s important that people like our music, how much I am able to properly show is important as well.

What do you do when you rest?

JB: When I have time on my hands, I practice my singing and write songs in my work space. Sometimes I go to the Han River and enjoy the wind or sometimes I go to a cafe to meet a certain hyung who, music-wise, matches well with me and we just listen to music and chit-chat. That’s all.

When is the time for you to just go out and play as much as you want?

JB: In front of our dorm, there are lots of famous clubs. When I see the people who gather in from of the clubs on Fridays, there are times when I too want to go out and play/enjoy myself. However… I’m not too sure. The same goes for playing… it seems we need to have various experiences so as to not have any regrets, but right now for me, making music and signing is more enjoyable, and I’m more comfortable with it.

Ah yes, congratulations. You guys won first place for the first time, right?

JB: We were really so happy. I though that I would shed tears if we won first place. Even though winning first place isn’t important, it’s not something we can excluded from our desire for results. I thought that the feeling we’ll get when we won would be like compensation for all the hard work we’ve put in so far. However, at that moment we were so shocked, the only thing we could do was say thank you. I spent [the] entire day (he means the night they won) on cloud nine, but then when I opened my eyes the next morning, I ate to the realization. From now on we have to work even harder.

[Translator note: When he said “I thought that the feeling we’ll get when we won would be like compensation for that the hard work we’ve put tin so far, it sounds a little underwhelming, but no. He means that he thought they would be overcome with so much emotion that amounts to how much they’ve worked thus far, but in the end they were just shocked and in some much disbelief that they couldn’t really feel much.]

Did you guys have a party?

JB: As we had a schedule the next day, we immediately went back to our dorm and slept. The members and myself. We were in such disbelief that we had blank expressions on our faces as we sat in the car on the way home. (Laughs) [Because] we are still in the midst of promotions, we said we’ll complete it (promotions) and then have the party after that.

Is it going to be very elaborate and grand?

JB: The party? Actually, when we say we’re having a party, we just go to the meat restaurant to grilled eat meat. (Laughs) I don’r know much about playing, so I’m not sure what there is for us to do. Something like getting a hotel room and having fun with the members? We will probably go eat meat and then go to the Han River to enjoy the breeze (in the end).

Just Right [has a] cute image. If You Do [has a] manly image. Which one are you more similar to?

JB: If my face is expressionless, I appear extremely fierce. Then when I smile, I appear gentle, It’s hard for me to be cute. I find it hard to adjust myself as I’m not sure how far I should go (how cute he should try to be). When I want to appear cite, I have to let go of myself (pride/ego). (Laughs) Anyway, I’m more comfortable being expressionless.

When you are Lim Jaebeom and when you are JB… is there a clear division?

JB: I am only JB on stage. Even after getting my makeup done and putting on my stage outfits, I am Im Jaebum right up to the moment I go up on stage. Besides the time I’m on stage signing and dancing, I’m just an ordinary person who does not worry at all about have to put on a “concept” or having to appear cool.

Amongst the members, is there anyone you want to live as of a day?

JB: I think my current self is just right. That doesn’t mean that I would hate to swap lives with anyone for a day. It’s because I’m satisfied with myself and am not curious about anything else.

Flowers and a disco ball (props for the photoshoot). Which suits you more?

JB: Flowers. They’re more animal-like, and even though there are times I have burning passion, I’m usually meek/gentle.

[Translator note: When he said “animal-like,” he meant that flowers are more natural, soft, etc.]

Translated by @yerines_

#got7 #GOT7 JB #GOT7 JAEBEOM #GOT7 INTERVIEW #GOT7 TRANS #JB INTERVIEW #JB TRANS #JAEBEOM INTERVIEW TRANS #DEFDAILYinterview

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un4kaustralia-blog · 5 years

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Our Government is broken

So I think most people agree that there is not a lot of good stuff going on in the world today. Lots of things that don’t work properly, lots of governments that seem unable to do the basics, lots of misinformation and lots of priorities that are just screwed up.

It got me thinking. If I could make big changes in Australia right now what would they be?

Part of me thought about structural changes, policy changes, fixing immigration, working on indigenous rights, domestic violence, minimum wage, climate change, education reform, higher education reform, health funding, infrastructure policy, taxation, energy pricing and so many others.

Then I thought, what the underlying things that have caused us to get into this situation. I am not deluded to believe that the past was better than know, but in some ways we have gone off the rails. Not necessarily compared to the past, but certainly when compared global metrics. We used to be better by a lot of global comparisons, compared to where we are know.

So want went wrong? What would I fix?

I came up with 1 thing to fix and 2 areas to focus on. The first thing we fix is our democracy. It seems obvious, but we need to fix the way our government’s, at all levels, make decisions.

We do that by doing 2 things:

We get the vested interests out of the Executive, so our politicians make decisions based on data and good advice, and

We build capability in our public service, so they can provide high quality advice.

Basically, we need evidence based and data driven decisions.

So what does it mean and how do we do it?

Well we all know that politicians make lots of decisions that shape our country. At the moment almost everyone involved, and especially the big parties are so detached from reality and so influenced by donors, or donors dressed up at stakeholders that they cant make an honest evaluation or decision about anything.

Currently politicians are influenced by the people that contribute to their parties, by the industries set up that provide jobs to former politicians, by lobbyists and any vested interest with money. The reality is that if this behaviour was occurring in a third world country, we would criticise them for cronyism and corruption. Here we regulate it, make lobbyists complete declarations and release data about election contributions. None of these things change the fact that out politicians listen to the people that pay them money. Instead of listening to the smartest people, the best advice, and the data that should support good decisions.

So step one, has to be about getting the representative part of our democracy sorted.

What does this look like? This means banning all lobbyists and banning funding for political parties and election campaigns. It means that instead of elections being about which party has more money, we need a contest based on ideas, policies, leadership and capability. So it means taxpayer funding all elements of election. So that all candidates get the same amount of money to spend. Yes there can be variation to compensate for larger parties economies of scale. That would mean no more people get to influence politicians based on money. Instead politicians have to actually make decisions based on evidence and data and good judgement instead of the slanted advice they get from paid interests.

Yes it will come at a cost. But the reality is that this cost will be an outstanding investment in improving our government. I will be honest, I would not be upset if we paid our politicians more money to attract and retain the best possible candidates.

I realise that there is some complexity to working this out, but you have to start with a goal. The goal is, get all of the private money out of government decision making.

Second. Build a public sector that can actually provide full and frank advice. Based on world best practice, evidence based policy and data driven decision making. This means a hell of a lot less consultants and a much much better management within the public sector.

At the moment, most politicians and in fact most of the public don’t believe anything that a public servant says, but will believe whatever a consultant spins. We hear that consultants give us good advice, but most are driven by financial goals. Their focus is often on what advice will make the best profit for the business, rather than best for public interest. In recent years, there has been a proliferation of organisations that specialise in providing advice to governments, about how to do government stuff. Maybe a better option would be to insource that capability, invest in it, grow it and become the best providers of good advice about whatever topic is required internally. This is like every other business in the world – they went through a rash of outsourcing and bunch have then had to bring back in, the things that they are supposed to be good at.

At the moment we pay public servants, to organise consultants to give us advice.

Imagine if we could get the best advice, directly from the public servants.

Yes this is going to mean that we need to pay public servants properly, change the way they are managed to be performance based and provide proper reward for responsibility. It also means setting up mechanisms to make sure that public servants are evaluating best practice, drawing on real world evidence and relying on data to make decisions. So that means empowering an Audit Office to regularly check key areas of decision making across government for performance and outcomes. They need to be reviewing to see if the right decision was made, the right way and a good outcome was achieved. And they need to report it to the public. Now a good decision, made on good data, with good evidence can still generate a poor outcome. But need to be a learning experience. The current audit office looks at a very small area of financial reporting. This needs to be expanded to ask and answer the big questions – like are we getting the best advice, why did projects fail, did we learn from them.

Currently it is all about outsourcing and getting paid advice. Which means that by definition you are paying for someone else’s profit. In the past this was because the public sector was badly managed and inefficient. So fix that. Fix the inefficiency within the public sector. Change the culture, change the rules, build capability, attract the best and brightest, become an employer of choice. It happens in other parts of the world. Here, in many areas the public sector is treated and even acts like a sheltered workshop. Why not, actually invest and make it the shining light?

Reality is this will require a major shakeup of every element of the public service – it’s structure, governance and processes. But the focus needs to be on investing properly in government officers and establishing mechanisms where they are evaluated for performance and rewarded for success. It also means monitoring and reducing the use of consultants. Instead the people of Australia need well educated professional public servants that are working hard to find the best solution possible.

So that is my idea of a start. Governments that make better decisions. By removing money from the politicians and by empowering the public service and establishing proper transparency at the bureaucracy layer, maybe we can get some better advice and some better decisions.

In my mind you have to start with the foundations.

Then when it comes to how you fix all of the other problems? You get the best people available (they should be in the public service) and you get advice based on data, evidence and best practice. Then you let the politicians make a decision. And you report to the public what was the advice, what was the decision and what was the outcome. Simple.

So that is my thinking about what to do first. Then you can start on all of the other big issues that need to be addressed. Many of these are going to take a long time because they are major reforms that will impact lots of people. But if you don’t start fixing things, it never gets any better:

Water Policy. Price it properly. Stop making it a huge subsidy to try and win rural seats. Our reality is that we have water in only a few areas of this country. Stop trying to grow things in places there isn’t water. Look at the science and proper economics. Price water properly and subsidise transparently. Otherwise people vote on water policy without really understanding what is going on. As a nation we have spent billions in recent years in water infrastructure without even attempting to factor that into pricing. No, this doesn’t mean jack up the price. It means understand the real price and then subsidise transparently, so that people understand the reality of the issue. We grow the wrong things in the wrong places. We value large areas of lawn more than they cost to deliver.

Transport policy in cities that is based around policy first rather than trying to engineer solutions to poor policy decisions. This has never worked and is what makes our cities housing so unaffordable

Capitalism. Our capitalism is broken, badly and desperately needs a fix. Some argue through it away, but evidence shows it to be the best we have and for a long time it did a good job. But since Thatcher and Reagan things fundamentally changed. We need to fix our capitalism

Outsourcing and asset selling. This is about accounting treatments, cash grabs and power plays for politicians and their future employers. Reality is that some of the assets and outsourcing that has been done, should be brought back inhouse or nationalised. Stop listening to vested interests and focus on best outcomes at the best price.

Affordable Housing – unfortunately our entire economy, banking sector, city planning and transport planning is all geared specifically to drive up house prices. There are some fundamental issues that need to be addressed, and more subsidised housing options will never ever work. You actually need to fix the way our cities work and our capitalism and then the banking sector with change and prices will become manageable.

Taxation policy that is actually based on principles of fairness and everyone paying their fair share. Not letting off the top end of town.

Superannuation. Lift it to 12.5% as a minimum and get profit takers out of the industry.

States. Do we even need them? Bigger Councils with more authority and a national government that is dispersed in its service delivery. Yes this means changing the constitution. But we just gotta bite the bullet on that one.

Social welfare should not be about demoralising people and whipping bludgers. It should be a proper safety net, with checks and balances to stop misuse and programs to train and retrain people with modern skillsets (see Higher education as part of that)

Republic. Of course we should become a republic. Yes we can stay in the Commonwealth and win the Commonwealth games. Yes the royals will still come and visit.

Public delivery of government services. In general this occurs because the government does a poor job at managing service delivery. So they give it to the private sector because they can do it cheaper. What this actually means is that government are bad at managing things. But they shouldn’t be. Invest in a good public service, hold the individuals to account, reward effort and performance, and there is no fundamental reason why it cant work. In fact there are very fundamental reasons, and global experience to back it up, that the public sector can do it better than the private sector when they are well managed.

Private healthcare is a joke., Name any other sort of insurance where I can pay huge premium and get back such a pittance in return. The regulation needs to be recast to allow the industry to actually compete in the areas that it can, instead of trying to fully replace free healthcare.

Prison system that is based on evidence based solutions to agreed societal goals. Prison is about reforming offenders and keeping society safe. Not the current model that trains better criminals and makes private companies wealthy.

Pension. The age pension needs to be enough to live on. It provides an anti-destitution entitlement for all Australians and needs to be lifted to provide that. It needs to be augmented with an ageing population levy to fund it as people continue to live longer

Nitrogen. Apply a substantial luxury tax for all non-essential uses of nitrogen and encourage international action on managing recreational use of nitrogen. There is a looming shortage of nitrogen that needs to be managed.

NDIS. Keep it but do it smarter. At the moment the chopping and changing between service providers is creating a race to the bottom in terms of quality in many areas. And inequality and inconsistency is creating major issues.

Judicial review that moves beyond the old adversarial of the past. The truth and the best for our society should not be based on the quality of the legal representative you can afford

Indigenous policy that sets a proper treaty and constitutional recognition as a starting point. Addresses foundational issues of access and equity and embeds the indigenous heritage of our nation in every part of our public life. Not because we feel guilt, but because it is something that every Australian should feel proud of.

Immigration policy that is humane and acknowledges our role as a wealthy nation with opportunity and obligations

Higher education – Completely resetting the higher education sector. The model has hardly changed in over 400 years. I refuse to believe it is the best option. Having separate universities and vocational training is a joke. Teach people skills, give them knowledge, teach them to research, these are all overlapping activities.

Healthcare. The foundations of the system are wrong. To start with you cant have States and Fed each funding different bits. It drives perverse outcomes. So go back to basics on structure. Role of GPs, access to specialists, community care models all need to be recast from a patient centric model

Private health insurance. Is just driving the wrong behaviours at the moment. Needs to be rebuilt from a very different paradigm.

Government agencies. Why do we have so many of them other than to create fiefdoms for power hungry bureaucrats. Private sector companies can function with hundreds of thousands employees across hugely diver businesses all over the world. And yet to run one State government we need 30 different and separate businesses. Each with their own inefficiencies and different processes, different IT, different systems, different offices, different employment conditions, different letterheads and corporate logos, different websites. That is silly

GOCs – these are just gravy trains for ex-politicians and their mates. Make every part of government run like proper business, yes you can have social businesses and then there is no need to create an artificial separation with lots of extra expenses of board members. Just have sensible governance of key government assets by experienced and capable senior managers.

Gender discrepancy. Yes we need to fix pay inequity. Yes we need to do more about balancing gender roles in families and the community. Iceland are better at it. Let’s look to how they do it. The Rwanda model occurred after a genocide, but some of their policies are worth looking at.

Energy policy that is based on leading science and economic opportunity rather than vested interested and structural shackles of the past. This means breaking down the manufactured markets that exist currently, simplify regulation and remove implicit subsidy

Education - Stop teaching to test and encourage proper creative problem solving and fostering life long learning in schools.

Drugs. We lost the war. Now we need harm minimisation and we need to look at policies of social inclusion. Criminalisation of drugs, doesn’t stop them. Social exclusion causes drug and addiction issue. Address those and the problem goes away. Plenty of global evidence on that one, just have to stop using American tv cop shows as the basis of our policy research

Defence - Base our Defence policy on the requirements of a modern multicultural multilateral nation, rather than being US focuses and buying lots of expensive toys that we don’t really need

Creative arts policies that start at school and encourage all Australian to participate and interact with the arts

Cities policy that focuses on making efficient cities rather than happy property developers and investors. This mean making them sustainable, properly structured and scalable.

Australia Day. Yes it should be moved. It isn’t the day Australia as a nation was created but does carry a heap of negative connotations. Australia as a nation came into effect 1 Jan, which isn’t a great day for another public holiday. You could make Australia Day the day we become a republic. Change the constitution, get rid of the old elements of federation, they have served us well, but need to be replaced. Keep the States, but get rid of the State governments, remove the Queen and become a proud republic. Built on a fantastic, multicultural history but ready to face the world anew. Vote for that. And then have a public holiday on the Republic of Australia day.

Alcohol fueled violence. Yes we need to change the culture of drinking. But young people are already doing this. Reality is that the bans, lockouts, etc generally do not work and have been shown not to work. There are better policy options ot there. Use them.

So a bunch of these ideas are going to upset some people. And I am not wedded to any of them. They are a starting point. And in line with the comments above, need to be developed in detail by the best and brightest.

So that is my first step. I would welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Jim

#auspol qldpol

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elizascharlesdanceblog · 5 years

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CD - A Remarkable Man

Charles Dance on making Godzilla: 'The catering was sensational!'

Ryan Gilbey

Freed from Game of Thrones and waging eco-terror in the new monster flick, cinema’s go-to bad aristo talks about turning down 007 and paparazzi ambushes.

Charles Dance is 15 minutes late. “London, yer know?” says the 72-year-old actor through a mouthful of pastry. His friends call him “Charlie” and Americans call him “Chuck”, though for his mother there was never any ambiguity. “‘His name’s Charles,’ she’d say. She ’ad a few ideas above ’er station.” The voice is rougher and more gor-blimey than the one to which audiences are accustomed, as well as friendlier and less imposing. His thinning hair, formerly red and now sand-coloured, is swept back, and he is wearing a blue short-sleeved shirt over a white T-shirt. The silver bracelet halfway up his forearm could pass for memorabilia from Game of Thrones, in which he played Tywin Lannister, shot by his own son with a crossbow while on the loo.

Any confusion between the upper-class roles in which Dance has specialised throughout his 35-year film and television career, and the man he really is – the working-class son of a mother who was in service from the age of 13 – was cleared up long ago. But that hasn’t stopped him playing commanders and archbishops, monsignors and monarchs. He will soon be seen in the third series of The Crown as Lord Mountbatten, while in the new blockbuster Godzilla: King of the Monsters he reprises the aristocratic menace routine that has kept him in fancy silver clasps since the days of starring opposite Eddie Murphy in The Golden Child and Arnold Schwarzenegger in Last Action Hero.

Godzilla takes place mostly in darkened rooms or during inclement weather. Major characters drift through the film, their storylines petering out arbitrarily. I couldn’t make head nor scaly tail of it. And Dance? “I had difficulty staying awake,” he jokes, as though imitating an old duffer who’s wandered into a multiplex by mistake. Then he reverts to normal volume: “No, I didn’t say that! I mean, it’s spectacular.” He plays a former British colonel turned eco-terrorist who has a vested interest in facilitating Godzilla’s reign. Before he says a word in the film, he has already shot someone in the head and is thereafter restricted to the odd line and the occasional scowl. Was his performance cut? His laugh is booming and good-natured. “I keep hearing that! ‘I wish there was more of you.’ It’s what was offered. I just like working. Unless it’s complete and utter crap. I’ve got somepride.” There were clear compensations in this case. “The catering was sensational,” he says.

And, as he points out, it has been a while since he did a mega-budget movie. After all, Godzilla couldn’t be more different from Happy New Year, Colin Burstead, Ben Wheatley’s family-get-together film for the BBC in which he played the cross-dressing widower Uncle Bertie without a hint of camp. “Ten days we shot that in. Handheld cameras, communal green room. SAS film-making.” The character’s sartorial preferences were Dance’s idea. “I told Ben: ‘Ever since his wife died, I think Bertie’s worn women’s clothes. He’s been doing it so long, the family accept it.’ He turns up in his modestly heeled shoes and a bit of cashmere, his twin set and pearls.”

I remind him that the role marked his third foray into women’s fashion. “Riiiight,” he says suspiciously. Well, there was Ali G Indahouse, in which he writhed around at Sacha Baron Cohen’s behest in a red rubber micro skirt, thigh-high leather boots, leopardskin crop-top and drop earrings. He rolls his eyes. “Ah yes. The director said: ‘We’ve had an idea for the ending.’ I was kind of forced into that.

”And for one scene in White Mischief, the 1987 drama about the amoral British upper-class in Kenya during the second world war, the toffs interrupt their routine of polo and wife-swapping for a cross-dressing party. “Joss Ackland was there in bombazine and a tiara. I had on a mid-blue chiffon affair. Then Greta Scacchi comes out looking gob-smackingly gorgeous in this jacket with nothing underneath. Joss said, ‘This is all wrong. We should be going to each other’s wardrobe and just putting on whatever fits.’ He stormed off to complain to the director and I went with him. There’s Joss with his handbag on his arm, me standing there in me gear. I thought, ‘Here we are, expecting to be taken seriously …’

”White Mischief was pivotal for him, cementing his image as a sexy but faintly cold-blooded member of the ruling class. The ITV end-of-the-Raj drama The Jewel in the Crown had already made him a sensation three years earlier. The Sun called him “Dishy Dance” and the People claimed he had given up jogging because of the women flinging themselves under his running shoes on Hampstead Heath. Not that he was in danger of having his head turned – he had been “shlepping around the provinces” in theatre for nearly a decade before that big break, which didn’t happen until his late 30s.

And he was married with two children, so the tabloids weren’t interested in his love life until he split from his wife in 2004 and began dating much younger women. (He had a daughter with one of them, Eleanor Boorman, seven years ago.) Getting tailed by photographers in his 50s and 60s was no fun. “I was going to a shrink for a while and I got papped coming out of there. Pain in the arse. Lowest of the low.”

He was more prepared for the fuss over Jewel than he would have been if he had played James Bond, a part he was invited to test for – and refused – in 1986. “I think I’d have fucked it up. It might’ve gone to my head a bit. When Jewel happened, you couldn’t open a paper without reading about me. I was ‘the thinking woman’s crumpet’. But Bond would’ve been much bigger. I might’ve blown it.” He’s been eyeing the names currently in the frame. “Young Richard Madden is pretty good. Or James Norton. I think Daniel’s been fantastic. What he lacks in the wit of Roger Moore he makes up for in a sense of danger.”

Walking on set on his first day, he wore a T-shirt that read: 'I’m Cheaper Than Alan Rickman'

Without the slightest prompting, he identifies White Mischief as the fork in the road: the moment when he could have pushed his career to the next level, but didn’t. It was in 1988 that Michael Caine said: “Charles Dance is the one. Why? Because he wants it.” Caine approached him in a restaurant: “He told me, ‘I’ve got money on you. Don’t let me down.’ I thought: ‘Fucking hell, that’s nice.’” But Dance himself isn’t sure he ever really did want it – whatever “it” was. “Maybe if I’d had more cardinal ambition. I mean, I’m ambitious, but I don’t tread over people. And sometimes I just don’t feel like it. I thought: ‘No, I don’t want to go off to LA and sit in endless bloody meetings. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.’ I’m a bit like that.

”Then there was the competition. “Jeremy Irons was, and still is, a few feet ahead of me. Who else? Alan Rickman, bless him.” The shallowness of the casting pool was vividly brought home when he received the script for Last Action Hero. “I get to my character’s entrance and it says: ‘The door opens and there stands Alan Rickman.’” Still, he was a good sport about it. Walking on set on his first day, Dance wore a T-shirt that read: “I’m Cheaper Than Alan Rickman.”

It has been a career with obvious highlights: he was the only person to sleep with Ripley in the Alien series (in David Fincher’s Alien 3), played the director DW Griffith for the Taviani brothers in Good Morning, Babylon, and was part of the flawless ensemble in Gosford Park. On the other hand, he was in the medieval stoner romp Your Highness and was recently seen licking Luke Evans with a long, leathery grey tongue in Dracula Untold. He has done Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Who Do You Think You Are?, where he met the South African great-niece and the three great-great-nephews he never knew he had. He read solemnly from Fifty Shades of Grey and Mel B’s autobiography on The Big Fat Quiz of the Year to much comic effect, and is in the forthcoming Kingsman prequel.

But a significant part of his acting range is currently being neglected. When I asked earlier why he hadn’t yet written an autobiography, his response was humorously gruff: “Who wants to read another book by an actor?” The question of what is missing from the scripts he gets offered prompts an altogether gentler, more ruminative answer. “I’d like to properly front something,” he says softly, his hearty manner replaced by a note of introspection. “If anyone was brave enough to do a remake of Death in Venice, that would be ideal. I notice I tend to be brought in to give a bit of weight to something, you know? Maybe I should be more choosy. I’d just like to be fronting things a bit more than I am.”

source: TheGuardian

#CD #charles dance #a remarkable man #interview #the guardian #30 May #2019

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radioactivepeasant · 6 years

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Fic Prompts: Folklore Friday

This is one that I am actually positive I’ve posted before. But I just went all the way through my Folklore Friday tag on both desktop and mobile and didn’t see it anywhere. Those two places had also disorganized things a bit despite me searching under “/chrono”, so I’m gonna chalk it up to Tumblr Glitches Again. But I really sort of liked that particular Folklore Friday, so I’m reposting my own work XD

There are, of course, myriad stories of young maidens, usually of noble birth, who find themselves unwillingly betrothed to some prince or other that they’ve never met and have no intention of marrying. Most of those stories didn’t involve the maiden in question being “rescued” from a bumbling but well-meaning bandit (no, really. She was doing her best.) by a pair of somewhat suspicious looking individuals in the livery of said prince. Katya had read a few stories, heard more of them in the shop where she worked, and had a pretty good idea of what kind of nonsense to prepare for.

So when the guard and his sister, also a guard, all but dragged Katya into a manor and hastily shoved a beautiful gown at her, she made certain to slip the letter opener carelessly left on the vanity up her sleeve. And when they pushed her into a grand audience chamber she did her best to remember the manners her grandmother once taught her. And when they announced her to a bored-looking, richly dressed man in his forties, she prepared to tell him in no uncertain terms that she expected a carriage home and monetary compensation for mental anguish and kidnapping.

The prince beat her to it.

“Who is this?” he asked with a suspicious expression.

“Your highness, you said you were lonely,” the overly ambitious guard said, “Begging your pardon, we thought we’d seek out a bride for your highness.”

“The young lady comes from landed gentry, your highness,” added the guard’s sister, “We rescued her from bandits along the road!”

The prince inhaled sharply through his nose, covered his face, and let it out slowly.

“Did you, at any point, hear me specifically say I was looking for a bride, Alfrid?” he asked, a little too calmly.

“Well, er, no not specifically,” the guard cleared his throat awkwardly.

“No. Because I didn’t.” The prince shook his head in dismay. “Good heavens, man, even if I were looking for a wife, I’d be looking for a lady my own age! This poor girl is-” he paused and frowned deeper. “Actually, how old is she? How old are you, young lady?”

The guard’s sister hemmed and hawed. “Er, I’m not sure, your highness…we…didn’t ask?”

Quite frankly, the pair had been very caught up in the idea of their own cleverness and how fairytales seemed to work, and hadn’t stopped to think anything through. And now they weren’t sure what to say for themselves. So Katya took the opportunity to answer for them.

“I’m nineteen! And very very displeased!” She snapped.

“With good reason!” the prince yelped, properly horrified. “Stars above, did these two idiots kidnap you, or was there really a bandit?”

“They did kidnap me, and there was a bandit. But she wasn’t doing any harm,” Katya answered.

The prince groaned and motioned for his personal bodyguard to come close. “Linus, old friend,” he whispered, “Do we have a dungeon we can put Alfrid and Elfrid into until we sort this out?”

“No, your highness, we converted it into storage space for your late mother, remember?”

The prince shrugged. “That’ll do. Lock them in with twenty-nine years of outdated Christmas decorations while I call for the legal advisors.”

“But we were only trying to help!” Alfrid protested.

“You said you were lonely, your highness!” added Elfrid.

Not for the first time, Prince Rupert raised his eyes heavenward and wondered just how in the world Alfrid and Elfrid had convinced his staff to hire them. This was far, far worse than the time they went about trying to confiscate the magical animals generally associated with the cross-country quests of young lads, claiming they were bolstering the manor’s defenses. Which, of course, they didn’t have the power to do anyway, being that they were just guards and not part of Prince Rupert’s law enforcement detail.

“I said I was lonely because I was trying to rationalize the purchase of another dog!” he said through gritted teeth. “And I was talking to Linus, so why you thought it had anything to do with you is beyond me!”

Then, too annoyed to continue, he turned his attention back to Katya, who was now more amused than angry. At least it had been a misunderstanding. One she fully expected to be compensated for, of course, but better than the prince being complicit.

“I’m so awfully sorry, my dear,” the prince sighed. “You’ll be pressing charges, of course?” Somehow this sounded more like a statement than a question. “And would you like a chair? Legal is all the way in the North Wing and it might take them a little while to get here.”

A chair was found, and the two guards taken to the “storage cells”, and Katya found herself in a conversation with the prince about pets as though this were an everyday occurrence.

“What kind of dogs do you keep, your highness?” Katya asked.

“Leopold, my wolfhound. It’s just the one dog thus far; since I don’t hunt I’m trying to convince myself that I have a reason to buy another.”

Katya tilted her head. “But…you’re a prince. You don’t have to have a reason to buy a dog. It isn’t as though you can’t afford its room and board, after all.”

Prince Rupert’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said quietly. Then he laughed. “I fell into this position quite by accident, you know. Quests and prophecies and all that. Been a Prince some thirty years now and I still budget things I probably don’t need to budget.”

He reached over to shake Katya’s hand, which startled her a bit, and he beamed. “Just as soon as we finish with legal and all, I’m getting three dogs!” he said in a conspiratorial tone. He grimaced. “I wonder if I can train them to sniff out ambitious nincompoops? I’d really like to avoid repeat performances of today. You’re a charming young lady, but I suspect today has been a colossal waste of your time.”

“It has indeed, your highness,” Katya agreed. This was turning out much better than anticipated! It was always nice to discover that one’s local mysterious-ruler-in-the-forest was a reasonable sort of person.

“Will you require a carriage home?” Linus asked helpfully.

Katya almost answered yes, then thought better of it. “Actually, I think I’ll take the path I was on when those guards nabbed me. They chucked the bandit into the bushes, you see, and I think I’d like to check on her.”

“As you wish,” the prince nodded cheerfully as his legal team finally arrived. “Does two sacks of silver sound fair?”

It most certainly did!

“Can I keep the dress?” Katya asked as an afterthought.

Prince Rupert shrugged. “I didn’t even know we had it. And it isn’t as though it’s doing anyone any good in a wardrobe here. Do what you want with it!”

Well, Katya decided the day hadn’t been a total loss after all, and decided that when she returned home she would do something to dispel those persistent rumors of wicked old rulers that clung like cobwebs and tradition.

Of course, when she did get back to the village, with the bandit in tow, she discovered slight chaos caused by a clockmaker, an enchanted tree, and a thoroughly unsettling puppet, and her plans got the slightest bit delayed. But that is another story.

#folklore friday #re-upload of an older one that i think tumblr ate #fairytale #fairytales #original story #Prince Rupert needs a vacation guys #he just wants to buy a dog and go exploring. he didn't ask for crazy marriage schemes #in which certain tropes are pushed to the side or subverted #i just really like the idea of a former dungeon that now holds 29 years worth of outdated Christmas decorations #i don't remember what i did with the bandit. i hope she's okay #fic prompts #writing prompts #original characters

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doodledialogue · 5 years

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Interview series - What after B.Arch? #16

Interviewee: Ar. Valentin Gheorghian Post-graduation: Masters in Architecture | Gheorghe Asachi Technical University of Iași, Romania

What prompted you to take up Architecture? I wanted to become an Architect ever since we had a school assignment in 4th grade at a subject called “technology” when we had to draw our “ideal house” for us and our family. I loved that assignment so much, took a long time to do it properly, and with excellent results – that then and there I decided this is what I would like to do for a living and started to buy architecture magazines/ magazines with houses.

Tell us about studying Master of Architecture at TUIASI. In Romania architecture studies comprise of 6 years and result in gaining both degrees: Bachelor’s and Master’s. One cannot do just the first one – the first one is meaningless. You are not considered a graduate before you finish year 6, pass all your exams and pass the Graduation/ Degree project (final project, 6 month long).

After graduating Year 4, you continue with Year 5 – which is – in theory – already “Master” level – but nothing changes – it’s a continuous 6 year study cycle, no interruptions, same school, same teachers, same colleagues – only different subjects (more advanced), more projects and more complex projects.

Tell us about the application process. There is no “application process” in the way it’s understood in the UK – one has to pass a gruelling admission exam at one of only 6 universities in the country that have Architecture departments. For that 5-6 hour exam, students train – via private tutoring – for at least a year – because the examination requires excellent hand drafting skills, technical drafting skills and advance descriptive geometry – none of which is being taught in high-schools; in that lies the need to take on private tutoring.

One should start with the application process for 2 years in advance.

What preparation did you do before starting the program? There were 10 days of intensive drawing courses – both technical and hand drafting – organised by the university just before the admission’s exam. These were good and useful for someone who already knew what they were doing – but pointless for someone who didn’t have a clue. Students take a minimum of 1 year of difficult private tutoring (with a lot of homework) to get to the drawing (both technical and freehand) skill level required to pass the admission examination.

In terms of pre-reading for the program– I’ve always enjoyed reading about architecture and buildings – but especially about historical buildings/ cities and the history of architecture.

Did you speak to any alumni/professors of the program? I hadn’t met any architecture students or young architects before joining the program – and it would have been extremely useful to gain some insights and tips & tricks and the subtleties of the university. Had only met old architects/ teachers – the ones with whom I did private tutoring to prepare for my admission exam.

Did you have to give any entrance tests? How did you plan for them? The 6 years integrated study program has a 5/6h entry examination testing freehand drawing, technical drawing and mathematical/ geometry skills. One trains in private for at least 1 year for these.

How long was your program? 6 years – October 1st 2007 – October 2013. There is no flexibility regarding fall/spring semesters.

Did you have post-study plans in mind when you took it up? Just went with the flow. Now, however, I am planning to do a PhD in a related field and go into teaching at an Architecture University - because I am astonished about the low wages in the Architecture field - as opposed to other skilled careers - and I would do this as a way to supplement my income. I love teaching as well and I think it would be an excellent for for me - but the main reason is the financial one.

Did you have to apply for a visa? Non-applicable – neither in my home country of Romania (where the bulk of the program took place) – nor during the time spent abroad – which was all spent inside the EU – thus not requiring visa.

How was the experience at the school? Very difficult yet very rewarding at the same time. Longer hours, more courses, more seminars, more projects and more time spent on projects – than any other university that I know of. Less time for socializing and leisure activities than any other students. Longer academic year: from the 1st of October – start of the academic year – until mid-July (end of “practical training” week/ weeks)

How was the teaching and learning environment at your school? Every class (year of study) had their own classroom - 6 years of study – 6 classrooms. There were roughly 50 people per year of study/ class – but never would everyone show up (except perhaps some exams) – so everyone could fit in. Apart from these 6 classrooms – there were 2 multi-function rooms/ projection rooms, amphitheatre type (although not sloped) for projections and special presentations, and an IT lab with computers. That’s it – those were all the available spaces (small school, intimate, student-oriented).

Classical style of teaching – you go in class – just like during high-school – and the teacher teaches for 2h their subject – with either a 10min break between classes, or a small 5min cigarette break mid-way. Most difficult or practical subjects also had “seminars” same duration, same location – during which we would do exercises and problem solving

The frequency of the classes depended on the year of study. The busiest teaching schedule was in year 1 – and decreased progressively towards year 6 – when there are no taught classes at all (only non-supervised individual work on the final project, “degree project” and on the Dissertation – at the same time). Year 1: 6-8hours of classes per day, every day. Year 5: about 3-4hours per day. Year 6: 0. The decrease in number of taught hours was compensated by an increase in number of projects (like “homework”): in year 1 students only had to work on projects in the main school subject, “architectural design” (counting for half of all study credits). This grew up to year 5 – when there were projects to be worked on at home for at least 10 school subjects, such as: urban planning, interior design, special structures, construction materials, and so on.

There was no time for other things – not even a shade of social life. Architecture life occupies ALL your time, at least during uni.

Tell us more about the mentors. One would meet mentors/ teachers/ assistants whenever one could find them around the school or in their office – in years 1-5. There was no formality in the method used to meet with them, no “appointments”, nothing like that. In year 6 – final year – it would be even easier – one would have personal contacts for one’s degree/ final project mentor, as well as a few others with whom one would have a close collaboration for their final project – such as a structural engineer/ structures professor. These meetings would either take place somewhere in the university – or at that teacher’s private practice – most if not all of them also had their private practices and would be project architects on their own. Despite this ease in meeting and approaching – there was and is a much higher degree of formality in addressing/ interacting with teachers – as compared to the

UK or the west. One would NEVER address a teacher/ tutor/ assistant by their first name, for example; that would be a sign of huge disrespect.

Did your institute have any support system for international students? Any incoming international students would come through the Erasmus program, and would stay for half a year, usually in years 3 or 4. There were very few of these – maybe 2-3 per academic year – due to the fact that Romanian architecture and architecture education is completely unknown internationally.

As a general rule – these internationals would live like princes – would enjoy a much easier life than locals/ regulars. The teachers were way more lenient towards them – on one hand – so they would get high marks regardless of their academic performance, and on the other hand – they always had money. Erasmus scholarships barely cover half of one’s living costs in a country such as France (where I had studied as an Erasmus student) – but are way more than needed in a cheap country such as Romania – so sweet life!

Were you involved in research projects while studying? I was involved in all research projects, volunteering activities, publications, work camps and anything related to the subject, both internally and abroad – as visible from my CV. Those abroad were taking place in either English or French. I’ve never seen/met any students from the UK taking part in any of these – thus gaining the impression that UK students are very inward-looking – as opposed to EU students who are very open-minded and open and international and love foreign exchange programs and so on.

Tell us about your time abroad? My 6 month Erasmus program was spent in ENSAP [École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et de Paysage] Lille, France - and I lived on campus through the duration of the exchange.

It was a brutally difficult program - not because of the academic level, which wasn’t any higher than back in Romania - but because of the density of classes, amount of project work outside of hours spent in uni, and the (lack of) dedication of my teammates (all projects were done in teams). I regret not having more fun and a social life during my Eramsus - such as most of my friends had - those who went to different countries and destinations - but there was nothing I could do about it.

Could you tell us in brief what your thesis/dissertation/final project was about? My thesis/ dissertation was about gentrification and urban regeneration – with case studies of several post-industrial global cities: Paris, Brussels, Sao Paulo, Shanghai and Detroit; contemporary urban challenges – in very different political/ social/ economical contexts. Differences, similarities, solutions. My final project was an Immigrants Integration Centre in central Paris – combining urban regeneration of a brownfield (urban planning part) with architectural design of 9 individual buildings – a small “city within a city”

The dialogue with my supervisor went smooth and on friendly terms – one chooses their supervisor based on one’s previous grades – and as I finished years 1-5 3rd in my generation (3rd highest score) I could obviously choose whichever tutor I wanted – and chose the one that I had the best relationship with.

What were the frequency, duration and structure of the meetings with supervisor?

All of this was flexible and down to our own (me and the tutor’s) preferences, schedules and available times. Usually we would meet either in my tutor’s practice or at university, for a couple of hours, every 2 weeks or so, and go through the work. Sometimes I would send the latest over email the day before – just to give them the chance to take a look and make some notes – but this wasn’t always possible.

What challenges did you encounter?

The scale of my project and complexity and limited time. I practically managed to finish a volume of work 5 times greater than most of my peers. Practically in 6 months’ time, I did my urban planning dissertation project (a 65-page theoretical analysis, on the subject mentioned above), the urban design of my site, and the full architectural design of 9 large buildings, plus the presentations and graphics of all the aforementioned.

How did you manage the finances? There is NO tuition fee – Education is completely free in Romania – for all levels all the way up to PhD. One only needs to cover for living expenses. My parents covered my living expenses – which – in Iasi, Romania – amounted to less than 200GBP/ month. For example: monthly rent in student dorm: about 50 GBP- all expenses included (heating, electricity, broadband, and so on); local transport card – unlimited travel – 1 month – about 5GBP (yes, five, I am not missing a zero or two J). Some people worked part time/ full time to cover for some/ all of their living expenses. Given the fact that school work required at least 70 hours per week (total - both “home” and “in class”) meant that those who worked were not very good students, and usually missed/ skipped class.

Did you volunteer/work part-time job/intern while studying?

I did only a short stint just before year 6 in a small architectural practice in a small city. It is compulsory to work for 3 months in a supervised way in a practice – and submit reports of what exactly you have been doing there – to be accepted to begin your final/ graduation project and dissertation. I got the job through an older friend’s recommendation – she had already been working there.

How did you choose your accommodation?

I chose a student residence on the university campus. In year 1 nobody is allowed to choose – one is simply allocated a place in a student residence in the campus – if one doesn’t wish to live elsewhere (rent out) – but after graduating year 1 – places are given based on the student’s past performance and grades – and one is allowed to choose. Based on my marks – I always finished among the top 5 people from my class – I always chose what I wanted….though there wasn’t much difference between residences. The ”commute” was a 20min walk – from campus to the Architecture School (all classes and exams took place in the same building – the architecture school building – up to year 5; in years 5 and 6 one might have to do some assignments in a few other buildings – all actually closer than the architecture building)

I considered several factors such as campus student life, proximity and contact with colleagues, proximity to the university, proximity to the shopping mall (there was 1 shopping mall in the city – right there next to campus), social contacts, costs – much lower than renting out while choosing my accommodation.

Did you travel while studying? I had never visited another country before university. By the end of university, I had travelled to over 20 European countries, mostly for studying their culture, architecture and history. Did a 6 month long Erasmus exchange program in France (at ENSAP Lille), an international volunteer restoration work camp in St. Tropez (France) as well as summer universities and specialization courses every summer during my studies – such as at the Bauhaus Architecture school in Dessau, Germany.

How do you think the Master’s degree helped you? By allowing me to be a registered Architect in the UK, EU and RO. Without it I could have only worked as a “draftsperson”

Did the city you studied in play a major role during your study? Yes it did – Iași is a great city to study in – perfect size for a university city (a third of the city is student-population), cheap, interesting, cultural, laid-back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ia%C8%99i

Could you tell us about your current work and future plans? I’m working as an Architect and BIM specialist in central London. Depending on the economic prospects in Britain after Brexit – I might move back to France. It was a gamble moving here – having to choose between Paris and London – between the Euro and the Pound Stirling – and the balance tipped in favour of the UK because the GBP was a more valuable currency at the time. Right after the Brexit vote, the Pound dropped by 20% in value – on international markets. What can I say? Very bad timing…my reasons for being here (and not elsewhere) keep disappearing.

Looking back was there anything you would have done differently? I really wish I had worked less and had more fun. I could have had a similar result by working smarter but less – and having more fun. I’d always been afraid to not be a workaholic and go above and beyond. Too bad.

What message would you like to give those planning their post-graduate studies? Think about actual job prospects and the career you want to pursue – and study the market; plan accordingly. Work smart, don’t work more! Have fun – in a smart way – these years are never coming back! Social interaction will never be as easy and with so many opportunities ever again – take full advantage of this! It’s all downhill after graduation – in terms of social life ☺ Seriously, no kidding…

Presenting our team's project at EBEC [European Best Engineering Competition] Romania & Republic of Moldova - National Stage

Presenting our team's project - and winning first place - at SUC 12 [Summer University Carinthia] - Villach, Austria

Architect's chat at Bauhaus Summer University, Dessau, Germany

Presenting a school project in front of the Dean of Harvard Universty - Graduate School of Architecture and Design

Specialization course in Kosice, Slovakia - international team

Year 1 - working in the studio - hand drafting

Year 1 or 2: working in the university student dorm

With colleagues from uni

Exploring Luxembourg's contemporary architecture - European Quarter

Study trip in Venice for the Architecture Biennale

#Architecture #architecture students #romania #masters in architecture #iași #whatafterbarch #architect #Architects

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gloverguthrie4-blog · 6 years

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The Calorie Fiasco.

Sticking around a bit much longer on the story, I review my youth as well as the technique I grew up eating. I was actually somewhat breast-fed yet with severe excema was actually offered goats' milk, soya milk and all form of traits suggested by Mum's physician. Shedding that much weight that rapidly normally isn't well-balanced and absolutely difficult, yet if you want to bring in that your target, go all out! All my shakes are actually made along with the Weight Watchers healthy smoothie combines, but they may just be actually changed out with a revelation from protein grain from the exact same taste. Burning an extra 500 calories a day without remuneration leads to equally much fat loss as cutting FIVE HUNDRED fats a day. Perform this as well as you'll keep a good body weight despite having a naturally sluggish metabolic rate. 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