#first time on any sort of ride since 2019

[mitzis-make-believe-band]

You’ll never leave Bleakstone Manor~

[misanocircuit]

remember his name: a Guido Pini appreciation post.

Firstly, I want to say that I don't mean to put any sort of pression on the kid (who already has it) and also that I am aware of how unpredictable and ruthless Motorsport can be: even if he won't ever reach great achievements, my appreciation for him will still remain as it will his evident talent. But I genuinely believe he will make it.

//

If you follow Moto3 you may have heard of the likes of Filippo Farioli (born 2005) & Luca Lunetta (b. 2006), two very promising young Italian riders who are already showing glimps of talent and giving us Italians hopes of having a bright future ahead in MotoGP.

But have you heard of rising star Guido Pini, who could as well be the Kimi Antonelli of two-wheels? Well – if you haven't – let me present him to you, beginning with a fun fact: his name literally means "I drive pines", which is also his nickname! He is a Scarperia native – basically where Mugello circuit is – and he was born on the 10th of January 2008, making him only 16 y.o. (in 2024); he has an older brother (Diego), a little sister (Mia) and two younger brothers (Lapo & Livio) and his favourite subjects are Maths, Technology and Science.

When he was about 2 and a half he started dreaming of riding a minibike, like his father, but he couldn't even ride his bycicle without little wheels! So, he asked his parents to remove them, allowing him to learn how to properly ride and earn his minibike: his parents didn't have time to teach him so, curiously, he taught himself! And, just like that, his career had started, hopping on a minibike at only 2 years and 8 months old (!), following his family's passion, seeing how also his grandfather and uncles all rode bikes.

In these pics (and in the initial one) you may have noticed how he's using number 93 (currently he's using 94 & 96) and also wearing a Marc Márquez helmet replica with the Ant or Cervera on it, and that's because his racing hero and greatest inspiration is Marc, alongside Casey Stoner: here's a video of MM93 congratulating Guido in 2022 :)

The parallelisms with his idol, Marc, don't end here: in 2023 he announced that he would be represented by SeventyTwo Motorsports, Emilio Alzamora's brand new management agency, also entering in his JuniorGP team, the SeventyTwo Artbox Racing Team, along with Spanish rider Carlos Cano. For the ones who don't know, Emilio has been Marc Márquez manager until 2022, and he had been knowing Marc since he was a child, becoming a fundamental figure in his career and his success.

Having said this, at the moment he's competing in the JuniorGP and Red Bull Rookies Cup (2nd season, finished 11th in 2023), but before talking about the unlucky but amazing beginning of his 2024 season, let's take a quick step back in his career: he started doing serious competitions in 2016, and already in 2017 he finished 2nd at the European Mini Bike Road Racing Junior B Championship; the year after he managed to win the very same Championship in the Junior C category, repeating himself also in the identical Italian Championship. Then, in 2019, he arrived 4th in the Italian MiniGP 50cc Championship, while in 2020 he got 2nd place in the CIV PreMoto3 Championship. In 2021, he was 9th in the same Championship and got a 18th place in his first European Talent Cup season.

Finally, his most important achievement has arrived in 2022, when he won the Hawkers European Talent Cup and then becoming vice-champion of the same series in 2023, while also taking part in the Red Bull Rookies Cup, as already mentioned.

Therefore, 2024 seemed to be a year which would have seen him among the main characters of the Red Bull Rookies Cup, not being a rookie anymore, and also a new challenger in the competitive JuniorGP: sadly, every dream of glory was crashed at the very beginning of the year, with a double injury in two distinct moments and body parts (first the right hand, then the left elbow, both during winter testings), forcing him to not only jump some important tests, but also the first 3 rounds of the Red Bull Rookies Cup and 5 ones of the JuniorGP.

Eventually, he managed to recover as fast as he could, coming back just in time to take part at the JuniorGP Portimão round: he immediately amazed everyone by taking Pole Position for both races, which he finished in an incredible 2nd & 1st place! After just one round, he already finds himself 9th in the Championship standings, despite having missed a consistent portion of it, determined to show how great he really is and aiming to finish the season at least in a dreamy top 3, with only three rounds to go.

This weekend (28-30 July 2024), he will make his comeback in the Red Bull Rookies Cup at Assen, where also MotoGP will race: who knows what the future holds for this fast and hard working rider, who's already showing the antics of a true Champion, considering also his politeness and calmness which stand out in a very hectic environment.

In conclusion, he may be or not be the next Marc Márquez or the Andrea Kimi Antonelli of the two-wheels' world, but what's for sure is that he is called Guido Pini and you may want to remember his name.

If you are interested, go follow and support him on Instagram :) 🌲

[stedefxckingbonnet]

requests info/intro!

hi, everyone!

i thought i'd take a quick second to introduce myself and to also formally open up requests. i'm already working on a few things, but requests really do always help and feel free to submit them at any point--but, we'll get to all of that in a moment!

my name is lavinia, and i am a uni student studying both theatre (dramaturgy specifically) and creative writing! i love to sing, act, write (obviously haha), read (i am a huge fan of classic literature, as well as donna tartt, mona awad, sally rooney, elif bautman, and ottessa moshfegh's works), go to concerts, go to the movies, style/design clothing, paint, collect records/cds, and so much more! this barely scratches the surface really but, if any of you share these interests, always feel free to reach out!

anyhow, as i said, i will officially be opening requests, and at the moment here is the media and the characters i will write for:

Our Flag Means Death

Izzy Hands (my BELOVED)

Ed Teach

Stede Bonnet

Lucius Spriggs

Jim Jimenez

Oluwande

Mary Bonnet

(more available upon request! these were just sort of my first instincts.)

Gilmore Girls

honestly, i'm pretty open to anything unless it's dean. just request and i'll see what i can do!

Gossip Girl

Blair Waldorf

Serena Van der Woodsen

Dan Humphrey

Nate Archibald

Chuck Bass (like sometimes)

Rufus Humphrey

more available upon request.

The Fosters/The Good Trouble

Callie Adams Foster

Mariana Adams Foster

Brandon Foster

Jamie Hunter

Gael Martinez

Dennis Cooper

Malika Williams

more available upon request.

Select Wes Anderson and Tim Burton characters. just ask!

Enola Holmes

Enola Holmes

Tewkesbury

Sherlock Holmes

Little Women (2019)

Jo March

Amy March

Beth March

Meg March

Laurie

Friedrich Bhaer

Star Wars

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Anakin Skywalker

Padmé Amidala

Luke Skywalker

Han Solo

Leia Organa

Kylo Ren

Finn

Poe Dameron

Ahsoka Tano

more available upon request!

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Basically me just saying I'll write Mr. Darcy. but more characters available upon request, of course.

Community

Abed Nadir

Troy Barnes

Annie Edison

Jeff and Britta I'm a little iffy on but with the right request, maybe. don't hesitate to ask!

The OC

Seth Cohen

Ryan Atwood

Summer Roberts

Marissa Cooper

The Umbrella Academy

Klaus

Viktor

Ben

Five

Diego

Allison

Luther is like, not preferred for me but if you feel strongly about him and have a good request, i’ll consider it but don’t get your hopes up too high!

Once Upon a Time

Emma Swan

Regina Mills

Killian Jones

Neal Cassidy

August Booth

Jefferson (The Mad Hatter)

Mulan

Ruby Lucas (Red Riding Hood)

Belle French

Mary Margaret Blanchard (Snow White)

David Nolan (Prince Charming)

Peter Pan

Robin Hood

Any others, feel free to ask! I know I left Mr. Gold (Rumple) off, but that's only because it depends with each request. Also, please specify if you want it to take place in Storybrooke pre or post curse, or in The Enchanted Forest.

Merlin

Merlin

Arthur

Gwen

Morgana

Nimueh

Lancelot

any others, feel free to ask. i am just starting S2, keep that in mind.

The Holdovers

Angus Tully

Dead Poets Society

Todd Anderson

Neil Perry

Knox Overstreet

Charlie Dalton

Steven Meeks

Love Lies Bleeding

Lou Langston

Jackie Cleaver

i'll just start there for now, as honestly it's been a bit since i've written an x reader and i don't want to overwhelm myself much! but please, feel free to request at any time! I will update this frequently, as I am always either getting into new things or remembering things I already love. I am mostly dedicated to OFMD right now, but you may also leave requests for other fandoms and I will keep them on file, or who knows, perhaps even get to them sooner than you may imagine! Have a wonderful day (or night!), and don't forget to request!

yours truly,

lavinia

me filing through all of your requests (hopefully!)

[leomlarson]

LEO LARSON

full name: leonard "leo" michael larson

pronouns & gender: he/him, cis man

birthday & birthplace: february 9, 1996 (28); ann arbor, mi

location: ocean crest apartments

time in aurora bay: since august 2019

sexuality: bisexual

occupation: art teacher at aurora bay high school

@aurorabayaesthetic

about.

leo is a midwestern boy through and through. he was born and raised in ann arbor, michigan (go blue!) and really prides himself on that. he'll go to bat for the midwest any day.

he's the oldest of three, with two younger sisters who he'd literally die for. his extended family on his mom's side is incredibly tight; his mom and all of her siblings actually bought up a lot of the houses in the same little cul-de-sac, so leo grew up seeing his cousins more like his siblings. lots of game day barbecues that spilled out into the street, riding bikes around town, driving around because there was nothing else to do, the whole suburban experience really

his parents split up when he was nine and he has little to no contact with his dad, who moved across the country after the divorce. he loves his mom but she went through a long period of dating bad guys that hasn't really ended, so he definitely has daddy issues

he's loved art for as long as he can remember, and he was always gifted with it. it started with chalk drawings in the driveway and went from there. he went to a progressive, hippy dippy high school in ann arbor that allowed him to specialize and get together a portfolio for college

leo is. not smart lmao. but he is talented, which is what got him into a joint brown university/rhode island school of design program. doing the whole ivy league thing was really not leo's jam. he felt like he was too far from his family and had a hard time fitting in to the kind of upper class vibe at an ivy, but he was able to find his niche and really focus on his work because of it.

after college, a fellowship brought him out to san francisco. he loved sf, but the kind of snobbery that really repulsed him in college just came out in full force when he was trying to break into the art world. the fellowship was supposed to last two years, but he gave it up after one and packed up his whole life to move south to aurora bay

he's been in town for four years now, and during that time he worked on teaching certifications, sort of because he didn't know exactly what else to do. all he wants to do all day is paint, but he developed such an imposter syndrome on top of a distaste for the established art world, so he figured that teaching art would allow him to do what he loves everyday while also giving him a lot of time to work on his own projects

he got a job at aurora bay high school and lives to project the kind of cool, gay, tattooed hippie teacher vibe that his teachers in high school had. he still does his own stuff and shows at local galleries/maintains a website where he sells pieces. he also does murals all over town, in storefronts, on the sides of businesses, for anyone who wants one at affordable prices. he sells handmade jewelry at local artisan markets. he just loves to make art!

leo is a very simple guy. the only things that really get through into his brain are pretty things. flowers, trinkets, etc. his apartment is immaculately designed, he's always looking out for a cute new piece for his mantel.

family.

mother: bridget larson

father: michael larson (estranged)

sisters: daisy larson, emmy larson

tidbits.

he has a dilute tortoiseshell cat named robert, after robert rauschenberg, who he mostly just calls bob

he actually speaks fluent irish but hardly ever has a chance to use it. his mom is a first generation american and her parents were basically irish nationalists who only came to the states because they were so poor in ireland. they were all about keeping the irish language alive, so his whole family spoke irish growing up

he's a bit of a slut! he is ACTIVE on grindr and tinder and all the things. if your character is too, they've probably hooked up

basically, he's just a sunshiny pretty boy

connections

party buds, hopeless wingman case for @heyits-asher

intrigued by, highkey crushin on @paxton-brady

art friends w/ @cherryxkoch, @maura-cortes, @cassidyxcooke

internet turned irl art friends w/ @lennonhansley

past fwb/on weird terms with @dancingdanvers

neighbors who leo drags into impromptu board game/wine/craft nights @emersonxcassidy, @cricketcampbell

went on a few dates with @atticus-cortes before they both accidentally ghosted each other

ex hookup/helped @esmaxdemirci cheat on her husband in sf

friend/former camper of @caleb-majhi

[of-canes-and-manes]

001: Back in the Saddle Again

After years of severe chronic illness, last week I got back on a horse for the first time in over a decade. I found riding to be more doable than I was expecting; it wasn’t easy by any meaning of the word, but it also wasn’t impossible, and even though those seven minutes in the saddle pushed my body to the limit, I would have been able to ride more later in the day if I had had a long enough break.

A brief history of my health before I get too ahead of myself:

I’ve been chronically ill since late 2016, when I started working and began needing to sleep upwards of 16 to 18 hours a day to feel rested at all. Over the years I progressively got worse, until summer of 2019 when I had to call out of work more than I could go in and I was either in bed, in the bathroom, or at work. When covid hit in 2020, I went from being able to leave bed for work to only being able to leave bed for the bathroom and the occasional doctor’s appointment, but due to the pandemic, even my appointments stopped before I had any sort of diagnosis besides fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue.

In November 2020 I had a near-death experience that resulted in getting my first ever blood transfusion; then I moved back home to my parents’ farm at the beginning of 2021. At the time it was an admission of defeat, but with the help of my parents, my health has slowly improved over the last two and a half years that I’ve spent on the farm, to the point where not only am I spending all day almost every day anywhere but my bed, I’ve able to leave the house upwards of three times a week and drive myself the majority of those times to boot.

As I’ve improved, I’ve experimented with doing more activity both physical and mental. For the first two years, physical activity was next to impossible and mental activity was all I could handle on a regular basis. Then I was blessed enough to get the first of two gender-affirming surgeries in December 2022, and since then I’ve been finding that while I’m now more physically capable, my mental energy has become unreliable.

While it’s of course a bit of a pain to be unable to read or write consistently, I’ve enjoyed the increased ability to bake, do canning, and get back to playing a musical instrument. This past spring I even planted a garden of pumpkins while learning to find adaptations for the various activities I have an interest in, and next year I’m hoping to plant more than just pumpkins!

I’ve spent the last eight months slowly but surely building up my physical activity to the point where when I had my second surgery in June, I was able to get back to my life with relative ease by mid-July. At this point in time, as long as I’m sitting down I can do whatever I’d like to, within reason, and if I need to walk somewhere, as long as I have my cane and take breaks every five to ten minutes, I can get where I need to go.

And how does this all come back to getting back in the saddle?

I had grown up going to a local stable with my siblings while our mom took lessons and cleaned stalls. My sisters and I were always more into riding than my brothers were, and once I hit puberty I stopped riding altogether as it, like most of my childhood passions, was too much for my dysphoria. Eventually, my sisters also stopped riding, though my mom continued on for years until she and my dad could afford to build a barn behind our house and bring her horses home. Since then, she’s slowly stopped riding as often as my dad’s health declined and our farm grew to include chickens, goats, and geese, but the horses have stayed a part of the daily chores all the while.

After stumbling across the International Gay Rodeo Association (a story for another time), and after realising that I am significantly more physically capable if I just have the right accommodations, I decided it was time to try riding again, just to see if I could do it. My mom was game to help me saddle up, so all we had to do was wait for the weather to cooperate.

I was able to borrow my mom’s tack and her old helmet, and with the help of an overturned bucket, I was up on top of the gentle giant Tiny Tim, a half-draft who gets along with everyone and everything. It’s been a while since he was last ridden; as such he was just as out of shape as I was, and I managed to last longer in our ride than he did!

We walked around the edge of the arena, first in one direction, then the other. My mom made a point to ask who was leading, me or Tim, and unfortunately my answer was a resounding “Tim is!” Then she asked us to do a serpentine across the arena, and I had such difficulty with that that she had to come out to walk with us. By then Tim was ready to be done and I was ready for a break, so I dismounted and led him back to the barn.

All in all, those seven minutes were some of the most wonderful I’ve had in a long time. Going forward, I hope to ride at least once a week for however long I can, and my only goal is to be able to go on trail rides in the future, no matter how long it takes.

May you have a peaceful day.

[croszukis]

i'm tk (she/her) and i'm in my late 20s. if it wasn't obvious yet i'm rpf friendly (pls block tags or even me for your comfort, no hard feelings!)

moonbaths @ ao3

fic tag (finished works / promo)

my gifs

writing tag (talking about wip fics & writing memes)

i like to say i'm a character driven sports fan which means my interest in teams is directly related to at least some interest in the players, i haven't yet formed full fledged ride or die loyalty for a team (sorry?) and mostly care about entertainment than winning/losing.

i first started watching hockey in 2019 and stepped away for a few years, and the 23-24 season is the first one i've followed dedicatedly again since that break.

this year i'm pretty much all in on my love for sidney crosby + evgeni malkin and nick suzuki + his baby habs.

i'm also a fan of rugby union (new zealand mostly) and am actually much more serious about that as a sport lol i don't think there's very much presence here for posts about that, but i'll probably still make them from time to time...

here are my team rankings, if this offers any sort of important insight to me:

[ignrance]

everything  there  is  to  know  about  charlotte  wilson  . 

application :

savannah  smith  .  she  +  her  .  cis  -  woman  .  ›  spotted  at  the  met  steps  ,  charlotte  “charlie”  wilson  ,  most  likely  listening  to  helena  by  my  chemical  romance  with  their  airpods  pro  .  the  twenty  -  six  year  old  gained  quite  a  reputation  ,  known  to  be  -frustrating  yet  +irresistible  to  anyone  who  knows  them  .  you'll  easily  spot  them  when  you  hear  about  the  static  feedback  of  a  microphone  when  you  sing  in  it  a  bit  too  loud  ,  the  clinking  chains  of  a  bike  riding  down  a  hill  at  a  speed  that’s  faster  than  you  anticipated  ,  the  sound  of  conversation  that  hushes  into  faint  murmurs  when  you  walk  into  a  room  &  screaming  into  your  pillow  even  though  no  one’s  around  to  hear  it  anyways  ,  followed  by  dior’s  poison  girl  .  latest  nepoupdates  article  talks  about  another  one  bites  the  dust  :  charlotte  wilson  photographed  still  dressed  in  last  night’s  clothes  and  leaving  yet  another  hotel  room  after  a  long  night  out   ,  but  i  guess  any  reputation  is  good  reputation  .

statistics :

name : charlotte " charlie " evangeline wilson birthday : september 25th birthplace : houston , texas age : twenty - six occupation : singer - songwriter ( hayley williams / paramore cc ) , performer , somewhat of a youtube personality on the side

career :

i  miss  you  by  blink  -  182  cover  ,  video  that  sent  her  soaring  to  virality  ,  uploaded  in  2014 

decode  &  i  caught  myself  ,  debut  ep  ,  released  in  2016 

all  we  know  is  falling  ,  debut  album  ,  released  in  2017 

riot  !  ,  sophomore  album  ,  released  in  2019 

took  a  hiatus  in  2020  to  focus  on  school  for  a  while 

riot  !  tour  from  2021  leading  into  the  first  half  2022 

took  a  break  for  the  second  half  of  2022  and  first  half  of  2023 

currently  writing  /  recording  her  next  album  ,  brand  new  eyes  ,  since  fall  of  last  year  ,  of  which  playing  god  will  be  the  lead  single  (  to  release  some  time  this  spring  ) 

past :

tldr : just a girl having fun , comes from the carter family who are a bunch of tech moguls ( women owned , of course ) and basically her family is split because her mom decided to marry / start a family with a rock star instead of marrying someone of more “ notable “ stature like a CEO or someone like that . charlie has one brother , she herself was an accident but that doesn’t mean they loved her any less , she grew up spending most of her childhood on tour with her dad where she learned to play guitar when she was young and hasn’t really put it down since . started living like a normal person when she was thirteen , went to school did the whole nine yards but when she was sixteen she posted a cover of one of her dad’s songs on her youtube channel and litrally went viral overnight . had a bunch of record deals shoved in her face but didn’t want them because she was young and scared so she just kept making music on her own . went to college , studied finance , got a nine to five and then wanted to rip her hair out so she quit and making music and fucking around became her full time job .

you’re a happy accident , emphasis on both the happy and the accident . your mom comes from tech royalty , CRTR ( pronounced carter ) leading the pack in technological innovation ever since the 80s , a long line of strong smart women that would soon be torn apart only because your mother chose love over money . she falls in love with the man who would become your father ,  a rockstar ( think a travis barker of sorts )  who’s mostly exaggerated reputation was one that precedes him ,  and naturally your grandparents hate him for it . it completely tears apart your family , carter stocks tanking along with the family image when the public comes to find out that one of melissa carter’s darling daughters has gotten herself pregnant before she married , and in turn getting exiled from the  line of succession . 

it’s impossible to not fall in love with music . the first half of your life you grow up in a tour bus , surrounded by lots of love and sounds, earmuffs covering your tiny ears as your watch your dad from the side of the stage . any and all free time spent insufferably banging around on drums , watching your parents and their friends try not to laugh as you force them to listen to the new sequence of arrhythmic patterns you’ve managed to stitch together and call a song . when you’re nine you pick up a guitar for the first time and it just feels . . . right . the strap rests so comfortably around your shoulders  , your fingers so perfectly attuned to the weight of the neck in your hand ⸻ from then ,  you’ve never looked back . free guitar lessons had to be one of your favorite perks that came with having a rockstar for a dad , by the time you’re twelve you have at least half of their ten year discography ingrained into your hand by muscle memory , so much though that sometimes ( but only if you’ve done all your homework and chores AND have been extra nice to your brother ) he lets you come on stage and play it with them . 

at thirteen tour is over , and you and your family have to adjust to living a  ‘ normal life ‘ , you move to LA , close to your dad’s work and far enough away from your mother’s family that you’re not forced into the displeasure of seeing them too often , even if they don’t want to see their daughter they certainly want to see you , likely secretly holding onto hope that you’ll be able to restore integrity to your side of the family ( spoiler alert : that doesn’t end well ) . you’re not sure if you love your grandparents or if you’re simply appreciative of them , their money is part of the reason you get to live the way that  you live , their name plastered along the sides of multiple buildings giving you a free ticket to any prep school you want , any college you want ⸻  any life you want , if you play your cards right . 

you start making your own music when you’re sixteen . it’s nothing crazy , an acoustic song here , a guitar arrangement there , you don’t really mean for it to be another other than a silly way to pass your time until a video of you covering one of your dad’s songs , i miss you ( blink - 182 ) , goes completely viral . it’s kind of scary actually , how your entire life you think you’ve known the music industry inside and out but really you don’t . no one could have prepared you for how many sleazy ceos and producers would come out of the woodworks , trying to poach you for less than you’re worth until your mom takes the liberty as stepping in as your manager . she keeps your head on the ground ,  makes sure you focus on the music ( and school ) before anything else , completely unwilling to let her daughter fall into fame so young . 

begrudgingly , you promise your family that you’ll get a degree before any of this spirals completely out of your control . you honestly think you might like life better the way that other people do it , go to college , get a job , work that job for fifty years until you retire and spend the rest of your life in a retirement home in the florida keys . a life away from the chaos , a life that was normal . you study finance and economics and college and you’re shockingly pretty good at it , maybe it’s the unpredictability of the stock market that gives you that fix of adrenaline instead of the fast paced life you were born into . you get your degree , get a job at a highrise in manhattan , working nine to five , staring at excel sheets for so long that most days you have a migraine before lunch . is this really what you thought life was supposed to be about ? that doesn’t last much longer than a month , with your father’s help you sign one of the many record deals that’s been shoved in your face over the last few years and you quit your job within the same week . 

throughout the next few years you live life the way you really want . you make music , you stay out late , you party , you drink , you dance , you have fun . you don’t think it’s a bad thing but the media seems to want to jump at the chance to make you some sort of villain , photos of you doing stupid shit constantly plastered over tabloids and gossip websites , even once alleged to be a homewrecker after they catch you trying to sneak out the side door of someone’s house with your clothes on crooked ( he was just a friend but she was definitely feeding into the rumors just for the laugh ) . your music is a hit , first studio album , brand new eyes , climbing the billboard hot 100 where it peaked at 6 on the domestic charts and 2 on the top rock albums chart , solidifying your name and your sound as one of the new up and coming faces of alternative rock . 

misc. info 

she rides her bike everywhere she can , it’s a red beach cruiser with a little basket on the front for all of her Things 

she has a cat!! a russian gray named helena and that is her baby fr 

her signature hair color is RED !!! sometimes it’ll be black or brown but when it’s red that’s how you know something Real is about to happen

[speedytimemachineflower]

october 18th, 2020

You know, life is funny, even at seventeen.

Like I feel like in the past four years of my life so much has happened that I could write forever about it

when I was 14 everything was so simple, everything to me then was about whether the guy in English liked me back, and how I could be prettier, and how to have the most fun, it was before the school was on drugs, before the bitterness of adolescence kicks in and your view of the world is distorted, but also at the same time justified. Back when I had to ask my mom for a ride, and the foundation of my social life was built upon whether my mom was available to drive me.

Im sure I will read this back year after year, as time goes by and giggle at the innocence that is really subjective as you age. However it doesn’t change the fact that I feel any of this.

Maybe I’m writing this as a closure, or a way to organize my thought, or perhaps a letter to my future self reminding me what it was like at this period in my life- I don’t really care, I just wanted to put this on paper, because a part of me breaks at the thought of forgetting it.

“Sweet Jane” by the velvet underground, I saw Miley Cyrus cover it today on youtube, and it reminded me of Tyler and 2018. It made me sad a little bit. There was some sort of aura that year that just felt like things wouldn’t change and that they would last forever, there was this weird certainty about it, I’m not really sure why- maybe thats the innocence of it all. I just remember that song, and it being on the playlist he made me for my birthday that year- I still cannot listen to that song and not get emotional, even two years later. I don’t really know why it makes me so sad, maybe ill find out once I’m done writing this, but it just represents a transition I guess. It represents Tyler and what he means to me in my life. I guess its more about Tyler. The name Tyler will always have this weird connotation for me, it just is so weird. It kinda makes me want to scream thinking about it not going to lie. It makes me more boggled knowing that at one point in my life that energy was worth holding onto. I just feel as if that year and a half, maybe two years 2018/2019 was some sort of time warp, I wasn’t myself then, and I was okay with that. Everything felt off those two years, nothing felt like it was mine, I kept looking outside for myself rather than within. I cannot blame Tyler for me losing my mind, but he still has that connotation. His impact on my life is undeniable, and I forget that more and more, and when I remember that he existed in my life at one point, it blows my mind, and when I realize that he still exists, it blows my mind even more. He just really never felt real, like honestly thats what it is, even when I didn’t like him, something about him seemed like so divine, not fake necessarily but just so like designed.

Its just so sad. I have this bad habit of checking his spotify every few days, I’ve been doing it since freshman year, idk I want to break it, but I also have this morbid curiosity- I guess we all have our vices. Anyways it seems like he’s dating this guy now, and its just funny because I feel like I’m starting a thing with *****- and I hate it- I feel like I’m going to be energetically tied to Tyler forever, i just hate it, I feel like I’m mirroring him all the time somehow, god knows if thats true, but its this complex I have and I hate when little things prove it- basically a Marilyn Monroe complex except with a guy. I wish all the time I could just wake up in a world where he never hurt my feelings as bad as he did- where he wasn’t an asshole, where I didn’t fall in love with him. My ego has never been more sure about something than thinking tyler would be my first boyfriend- I thank god every day for that lesson though- you cannot trust the ego lmao.

Even though all of that shit sucked, I wouldn’t really do anything differently, I’m never going to tell him I loved him, I’m never going to tell him how shitty of a person he is, I’m never going to tell him why I did everything- and I almost did but I’m glad I didn’t. The main lesson was learning about ego and what it is capable of, and honestly, telling him all that shit only satisfies my ego, the only reason I ever wanted to was to get a reaction to “know” that he knows- but he already knows, probably not his ego, but his soul. I know that- I believe I can tell anyone anything through the soul, and I think everyone has the truth deep inside them, but their ego is preventing them from seeing it- like how in summer 2018 I was so sure but it all felt off- I knew, but I didn’t know.

[jmdbjk]

Attention new Armys

It wasn’t THAT long ago that I was new too. I feel the need to reiterate when it comes to Jimin and Jungkook’s relationship, especially since there’s a lot of new Armys trying to soak up all they can: it’s all the consistent little things that just keep adding up, not the quantity of big moments. The big moments are BIG and important, but it’s the small actions and words that make the mountain. 

You will see them interact during live performances or official content like when they record clips for accepting awards and such... their body language “tells” are evident even during those situations, but it is more of the small things that you see in the behind videos and the bombs and the other sources where they are not actually “on-camera” that just confirm that they do things together, they’re connected, they seek each other out, they look at each other for reactions and responses. 

Seems random: Jimin getting a bite of food from JK. See them behind Jin and Yoongi? Add this to the huge pile of “insignificant” moments and the pile becomes very significant and very pointed. And then you start looking for it, and it’s there. All. The. Time. 

And then the many instances of how they speak to each other (their tone of voice), how many times we’re shown that they’ve waited for each other to “go home” wherever that may be for each of them, how much they speak for each other or the things they mention when they do speak about things regarding each other’s habits, likes or dislikes.

And then there is the body language. There are whole university courses on their body language. Not really but as much as we talk about it, there could be. The body language speaks even when their voices do not. This blog post by @stormblessed95 

In that video (from May 2019), the glances, the licking of the lips and the lip biting... those mean significant things and they both did them. In general, we lick our lips when we see things we desire. Generally, lip biting or chewing means stress and uncertainty. (Nowadays, JK has a habit of chewing on his lip ring like a fidget spinner.) I just rewatched that moment in the V Live here at 2:04 in the video. I think JK was holding back something he wanted to say. 

Jimin was saying “I bid you farewell” etc, they say their goodbyes and after this moment, Jimin was appearing to leave the room but we never actually hear any doors...JK turns to the camera, we still hear what sounds like Jimin’s footsteps on the tile floor, then an audible phone notification...then a doorbell and both Jimin and JK saying “what” (I thought Jimin left?). I guess Jimin answers the door?? then Jimin laughing and then Jin and Tae entered the room again....?? It’s all very...I don’t know what’s going on. 

Then Jimin’s moment is at 7:45 in the video:

The scene he is looking at is Jin, Tae and JK play-acting about JK’s suitcase on the floor laid out like a street vendor’s display on a sidewalk and Jin is the one who made the comment about “hey you there, you’re handsome, come over here.” I think after what just transpired with the scolding he got from JK, Jimin was having a hard time tamping down some sort of feelings he was having...just sayin...knowing what I’ve seen to date...just my hunches but now is not a time to discuss that here.

Anyway, I think whatever JK’s plan was for turning on the V Live in the first place got seriously derailed by everyone else. By the end of it, he was pretty much done and was ready for Tae to leave. There was nothing in the body language between JK or Tae that was significant. 

Another topic of huge debate is the car sharing. This recent post by @humblestart1ao3 is a good example of applying real life knowledge to this situation. Many instances of them waiting on each other and riding together, though we’ve also seen they ride with others occasionally. 

The stuff that gets fabricated for the sake of living out some sort of fantasy is out of control and has been since almost the beginning of BTS. But “shipping” happens, its a form of escape and entertainment. If you do not want to see it, simply use the tools in your social media to block users and topics so you never or rarely see them on your feeds and timelines. 

As always, new Armys should seek out original content and try to stay away from fan-edited “feel good” or analysis videos at first. Those are great to watch after you’ve seen some real interactions! Many are very well done and definitely can give you the emotional feelies. And the V Lives are a great source of more candid interactions as well as a good read on their body language. Also watching the Bon Voyage series and In the Soops on Weverse or V Live and Behinds and Bangtan Bombs on BangtanTV on YouTube offer a little more candid content. Watch and make your own conclusions! You will get to know all the members and laugh and have fun the entire time!

[taeescript]

29+1 (Part One)

𝔰𝔶𝔫𝔬𝔭𝔰𝔦𝔰: In which Seokjin is the Devil from The Devil Wears Prada, Taehyung is your work Jesus and Jimin is your handsome successful brother. 

𝔭𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: seokjin x reader (taehyung x reader if you squint real hard) 

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: slice of life; ceo!seokjin (diva!seokjin)

𝔴𝔠: 3.6k

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: heavy use of alcohol as a coping mechanism, a plethora of sarcasm (please don’t be offended) and a sprinkle of softness (is that a warning?). 

𝔞/𝔫: this sat in my unwritten folder since 2017 no lie. I wrote the premise and a singular paragraph at that time, then just gave up. I opened it a few days ago, got inspired again and this word vomit came out (heavily influenced by a midnight Zoom call with my friends). Ngl this was so much fun to write, and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. This will probably be in three parts.  𝔡𝔦𝔰𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔯: I did not know that DailyHive is an actual online news source when writing. This work is purely fictional and has absolutely nothing to do with the real DailyHive. 

part two

Your friends have a saying: After 29, nobody shares their age until they’ve accomplished something. 

In the past, you didn’t understand it. What’s so bad about saying you’re 30 or you’re 32? That’s still a young age! Sure, you’re not exactly in your prime anymore but you’re not old, right?

So, you continue in your own wondrous world of naïveté until that fateful day at your class reunion. You had simply been walking around, minding your own business when you had been stopped by an old colleague.

“Hey, Y/N, right?” she waves you down. 

You smile kindly, not even bothering to try and remember her name (you sucked at names, what could you say). 

“Hey…you!” you chuckle lightly, “How have you been doing?” 

An everyday question leading to catastrophic effects. 

“Oh you know,” she says and rolls her eyes as if you truly did know, “I’ve just been out and about. Did I tell you though? I got married last year!” She holds out her hand in which a giant diamond adorns her finger. “Wow!” you gasp, feigning interest. It’s not that you aren’t happy for her, but you are reminded of just how single you are currently. When was the last time you felt another human’s touch? Does kissing come back as easily as riding a bicycle? “Hey!” she says suddenly, “I’m actually meeting with a couple of friends from our class. You should come join! I’m sure they’d be happy to see you again!” You want to wave her off, but against your better judgment, you find yourself following in her footsteps and listening to her speak about wedding venues and honeymoon destinations.

“Oh my god!” another female voice filters in.

The “couple of friends” this old classmate had mentioned is in fact a fairly impressive size of twenty. This is also the third time the wedding announcement has been made. 

“Last year?” the female continues, “Weren’t you young?”

Yes, you want to respond. Yes she was young. A full 365 days younger than she is now.

Your classmate, Sooyoung (or Kiko as she insists going by now) titters in front of you. “I mean, you can sort of say I’m a late bloomer. I got married when I was 31.”

Her words unintentionally cut into you. Here you are at 29 without a beau in sight. You take a fast swig of your beer and end up hitting the empty glass with a clink to your teeth. Nobody notices.

“Enough about me, however, how about you?”

“I started my own business actually. It’s been doing really well and it’s been a crazy mind. Imagine me, my own boss at only 33!”

You nervously join them when they suddenly laugh together.  

“Hi, can I get another pint please? Actually add a tequila shot to that,” you whisper the last part to the waitress you had just stopped.

And that was how the rest of the night went. People asking one another what they had accomplished. Any moment in time after 30 would not be mentioned until somebody travelled to Uganda to build houses at 31 or another gave birth at the same age. Below 30, anything would be attributed to luck or in your case…

“What are you doing currently?” somebody asks you, “The little baby of our class.”

Swallowing your third tequila shot of the night, you wonder for the umpteenth time how you had become a part of this giant sharing circle. You wonder if it’s a blessing or a curse that you had graduated a little early and thus was younger than most of your peers.

“Well,” you start, “I’m currently working at DailyHive.”

“Ohh!” a man gushes. You recognize him as the once-upon-a-time science partner you used to cheat notes off of. “I use DailyHive nearly as much as Instagram these days. You guys cover everything from news to sports to fashion.”

You shrug. “Yeah. It’s, uh… it’s a pretty big company!”

“What are you doing there?”

Kiko-ex-Sooyoung hits the man teasingly on the shoulder. “Y/N is probably the Director of Marketing or something. Remember how she used to spend all class doodling in her notebook?”

“Or sleeping!” someone quips.

You don’t join in when they all laugh.

“I’m…an intern,” you say with as much pride as you can in a group of established professionals ranging from dermatologists to that one guy who had flown around the world as a TedTalk guest speaker.

A hushed silence befalls everyone.

“That’s…cool!” the same man encourages you, “Interns are totally rad! Everyone wants an intern spot these days.”

His girlfriend pats your arm, almost empathetically. “Yeah. I know a bunch of people who first start off as interns and then they shoot up the ladder quick enough. As long as you’re no longer an intern at 30, you’re golden!”

Once again, the entire group laughs as if she has said the most hilarious of jokes.

She composes herself and says to you, “Because after that, you should have accomplished something.”

Her words still ring in your ears as you sit at your desk this morning.

Yeah…something. All you need to do is accomplish something in the next three months before you are officially, 29 + 1.

Your fingers tap against your thighs silently while you observe the current debate that is occurring in the conference room. You barely have time to sweep the falling hair back behind your ear as your fingers ferociously fly across the keyboard to keep in track with the meeting.

Fei is arguing that the implement of a new search word system would boost users while Daniel says that it is a waste of resources. Instead, everything should be put into updating the entire system as a whole. You have long since lost track of their words as neither pertain to what you do as an intern.

“Enough,” the CEO of DailyHive holds up a hand. His one word causes the entire room to hush over – truly, the words of a god.

And that might as well be what he is. With his hair swept back and a lone tendril curling perfectly above his brow, Kim Seokjin is legitimately a walking god. Off his broad shoulders hang an expensive white linen suit bought with his pocket change and your yearly salary. A pair of sunglasses hangs in the V of the collared shirt dipping low enough to blur the lines between being fashionably professional and just downright sexy.

The snap of his fingers brings you back to the present.

He dramatically rolls his eyes and accepts that you are an incompetent minute-taker.  

“I have to remember that the world just doesn’t move as fast as I do.”  

                                                            - Quote: Rolling Stones 2019 Kim Seokjin.

Now if only he’d remember he had once said that.

He points at each of them with one finger, then swipes to the left. “Both of you, solve this outside. I don’t want to hear your voices any longer. You two from the marketing team, Ungroomed Stache and Acne Chin, create me a report if we are to implement Ms. Song’s idea. The two of you from…” he takes a pause here clearly having forgotten who his employees are, “The two of you do the same thing but for Mr. Hwang.”

The pair from accounting open their mouth to protest that they are in charge of only numbers, but they are ignored.

“All of you out now. Except you,” he points his finger directly at you, “Stay.”

Nobody utters a single word until they have all left and you are left alone with him. Standing before him with your hands folded nicely in front of you, you blink and wait.

He stares right back at you, picks up his coffee mug and drops it. The clatter of ceramic smashing against the ground causes a pause in the loud buzz outside the room. You know everybody’s focus has been shifted into the room.

“Do you want to kill me?” he drawls.

You take a long inhale. “No,” you say.

“No?” he repeats the word, “Well I think you do. Did you check this coffee before you brought it to me? I tasted cinnamon in it. You know how I’m allergic to cinnamon. Get me a new cup. And this mess, get somebody to clean it. I don’t want the smell of coffee in this room when I have my next meeting here in twenty. I’m taking a smoke a break.”

He stands up and brushes past you without saying anything else.

Nobody can be allergic to cinnamon. Besides if he had actually tasted cinnamon and was that sensitive, he would be dead. And good riddance to that.

Of course, you say none of this and wordlessly begin to pick up the broken ceramic pieces of the dead mug. The bustling outside the meeting room has returned back to its normal state of chaos. Seeing the ugly stain of coffee on the once pristine carpet causes you to swear beneath your breath.

“Who the fuck is allergic to cinnamon?” a new voice says, sliding up beside you.  

The second god in DailyHive; the much nicer and evidently preferred Kim; Taehyung takes the mug pieces from you and drops it into the garbage bin.

Blessed with not only intelligence but devilishly model-like features, he is your desk buddy in the small space allotted for interns and your sole friend in the company.

“Tae,” you sigh with exasperation upon seeing your lifesaver, “What am I going to do about this stain? He’s going to return in fifteen and there’s no way I can get a coffee stain out of this expensive-ass carpet.”

Taehyung taps a long finger to his lips, leaves the room briefly, and returns with a roll of Bounty sheets and a can of Febreze. He promptly blots as much of the coffee off from the carpet then proceeds to pull the meeting table.

“C’mon, Y/N, don’t just stand there. Help me! Time is of the essence!”

You laugh and join him in moving the table so that one of the legs cover the stain 80% of the way. Once he is satisfied, he takes the Febreze and sprays until the whole room smells like “Hawaiian Aloha”.

“You’re welcome.” He gives an extravagant bow, the motion popping open the top button of his shirt to expose a surprisingly chiseled chest.

Fei returns back into the room holding a phone to her ear and a clipboard in her left hand. “What the hell? It smells like a Bath & Body Works in here. Intern, aren’t you supposed to be filing or something? Stop standing around and be useful.” She grips Taehyung’s arm and drags him out of the room. “Button up. This is a professional workplace.”

You give him a tiny wave as Taehyung is steered away by his girlfriend and back to the cubicles.

Taehyung may be your saviour at work, but outside, it cannot be denied that your brother is the true Fountain of Life.

A week has passed since the coffee incident (you suspect a cleaning personnel had found the stain and cleaned up after your improv as aforementioned stain can no longer be found), but Jimin still brings it up.

“I still can’t believe that he said he was allergic to cinnamon. I’ve never heard of such bullshit before,” your brother says over the phone. You can practically hear his eyeroll from across the world.

As a renowned ophthalmologist, you have not seen Jimin for close to a year as he has been initiating his new clinic, a flying eye hospital.

“You should hear his Starbucks order. I always feel like I’m ready to launch my next EP whenever I’m at the counter,” you say.

Jimin laughs. There is the muffled sounds of voices as his never-ending flow of patients have arrived for the day.

“I shouldn’t keep you,” you say upon hearing that, “You’re probably really busy.”

“No,” he says, “I’ve got a few minutes if you’ve got a few. I miss talking to my baby sister.”

“I’m not a baby anymore, Jiminie,” you say using the nickname he hated.

“Oh that’s right. Your birthday’s in a little under three months, right? My baby sister is turning the big three-oh.”

“God, don’t remind me.”

“Want me to come visit you?”

You contemplate the idea once, having not seen Jimin in quite a while.

“Only if you have time. But I feel like Mom and Dad would probably want to see you more. Speaking of which, um… How are Mom and Dad?”

“They’re good. I hear Dad is finally going to retire this year. He’s giving his practice to Kibum, you remember him? Mom will probably start pestering us about what to do for his retirement party.”

There is a pause.

“You know, it wouldn’t hurt to say hi to them once in a while.”

You sigh. “And say what? Hey, it’s me. The child that ran away from home at 18? Yeah, I’m not a doctor like everybody else in the family but a 29 year old intern at a popular app company. Whassuuup?”

“Y/N, that’s not what I – ”

“It’s okay, Jimin. I’ve come to accept that not everybody is cut out to be a doctor. I just wish Mom and Dad could realize that.”

Jimin sighs on your behalf. There is the sound of a crying child coming through the earphone. “Well, your contract expires a few weeks after your birthday, right? Who knows, you might be the next Mark Zuckerberg.”

He has never explicitly inquired about your life plan and you know this is as much as he is willing to push without asking, “What’s next after this intern hiccup?” At least he had the decency to compare you to a controversial Internet entrepreneur.

The child is crying much louder now.

“Again with my birthday. But I’ll let you know,” is the only reply you can come up with at the moment. “Okay, brother, go forth and heal the blind. I bless thee in the name of the Holy Spirit, Son and Ghost.”

There is true laughter that rings from Jimin as he ends the call. “It’s Father, Son and Holy Ghost you dweeb. I love you sis.”

“You too.” You hang up first before he can add anything else.

With that, you enter into the 7am Starbucks queue and prepare yourself in running the first single of your long overdue EP.

Seokjin leans back in his chair, watching you from inside his office. Today he has chosen a black turtleneck and a brazen maroon-nearly purple suit jacket to complete the outfit. For once, there is an empty mug of coffee beside him and his morning headache has been appeased.

He knew he had given you an impossible task.

“Compile all the troubleshooting errors we have received since the launch of DailyHive. Organize it in a manner that allows me to identify the most prominent problem. Run it through whomever you please before giving it to me. I don’t need to waste my time correcting your mistakes.”

There is an amused smile that bubbles beneath his otherwise stoic features. He cannot deny that there is, might he dare say, a cute quality about you as you manually scan through the received concerns on your laptop dating back to the initial beta tests – the ones that were lost in a data crash and only backed up with unintelligible scribblings of previous interns.

The moment you had been introduced as the new intern, you had caught his eye. You are exquisitely mundane, and perhaps the reason you had even caught him the first time was due to solely to the fact that you were older than most interns – himself even. Nevertheless, you continue to present him small surprises in your tenacity and capability to tackle challenges.

“Mr. Kim.”

His intercom comes alive with the voice of his secretary.

Seokjin’s eyes do not leave you as he answers.

“Mr. Hwang is on line two. Would you like me to defer him to a later time if you are currently busy?”

Seokjin cannot help but sigh. Hwang Junho, his co-founder, while a genius in international business is also a notorious chatterbox and gossip. There is seldom a reason for Junho to call him except to relay the cover titles of E!Magazine.

“Did he mention a reason for calling?” Seokjin inquires.

His secretary seems to be reading from a note. “He says it’s to do with the company. Something he read from Cosmopolitan this morning.”

So not E! but another sister celebrity gossip blog. He checks his watch and duly notes that he certainly has no meetings scheduled until later in the afternoon where your report would be needed to run a preliminary analysis.

“Sir?”

“Yes, put him through. But tell him I’ve got only five minutes, so he’s better give me the Cliffnotes version,” Seokjin sighs again.

Before he can be connected, Seokjin quickly says, “What’s the name of that intern again?”

“Who?” his secretary asks, “We’ve hired four since the beginning of the year.”

“The one who keeps wanting to poison me.”

“I’m sorry, Sir?” she sounds concerned.

“The one who keeps forgetting that I despise cinnamon.”

There is no response.

“The older one. Spilled coffee a while ago but still has enough coordination to pull together a decent report.”

“Ah,” she says.

He waits patiently as she searches through the database, eventually giving him your name. He gives a slight pause and then says, “Good. Now patch me with Junho.”

There is a momentary buzz as the call becomes connected in which Seokjin turns over the syllables of your name wordlessly.

“Mr. Kim. The man of the hour. How are you, my brother?” Junho’s baritone fills the office in a manner of seconds.

Despite the little annoying quirks, Seokjin cannot help but smile when hearing the voice of his best friend.

“You’ve got three minutes, Junho.”

Junho grumbles. “That’s not my fault. You were the one still on the line with your secretary. Is it still Yerin? ‘Cuz I won’t blame you if that’s the case. Did I catch you doing some naughty phone sex during office hours?”

“Two.”

“Holy hell. Fine. It’s always business with you. That’s why the tabloids are always writing you as an uptight asshole.”

This shifts Seokjin’s attention to the phone. His name is seldomly mentioned except for the features in business columns. He prefers to stay out of the limelight.

“What?”

“Put your name on Google.”

Seokjin does as he is told.

There are millions of results, but the first few pages share the same headline. He clicks on the first one with a grimace.

“Kim Seokjin. Mr. Worldwide Handsome as noted by his fans, has recently sparked Internet outrage.”

A quick skim of the otherwise trashy article brought to the surface a summary: his last dating scandal had ended badly and the repercussions of blowing off a famous celebrity’s daughter had finally caught up with him. The Internet was calling him arrogant, narrow-minded, and even greedy. “The young Chief Executive Officer of booming social media app DailyHive has been accused of using his relationship with actress XYZ to further his own business. Once he gained recognition from aforementioned relationship, he has cold-heartedly cast her away to pursue his next.” “You’re calling me for this bullshit?” Seokjin scoffs. Junho tuts his tongue loudly. “This is not bullshit. It’s affecting the image of your company. Do you think people want to download and support an app that is run by somebody who is being called cruel and dishonest? You’ve got to address this soon before it gets out of control. You’re lucky I have alerts set for these type of things. I caught it for you just in the nick of time.” Seokjin inhales deeply. “You’re also lucky that I’ve got the perfect solution in mind.” “That is?” “The Silver Gala,” Junho references the prestigious event. The Silver Gala is hosted annually and attended by the largest celebrities as well as other wealthy investors and guests. Those in the social circle shared between Seokjin and Junho often yearned for tickets to attend events such as this, as they serve as excellent networking opportunities. Besides the above, such events are circled by reporters and writers of gossip columns to get the exclusive scoop on any eyebrow-raising rumours. “The solution lies in such an event,” Junho continues, “You know how many people will be there. All you’ve got to do is show up with your average girl-next-door type and it’ll show how you’re actually really humble and down to earth. Kim Seokjin is perfectly capable of dating like any regular human being. He doesn’t use “love” or whatever to further his business. Love is the connection between two souls; two individuals who – ” “Beep. Your time has run out Junho. I’ve got another meeting scheduled right this moment,” Seokjin interrupts. “Dude, seriously. Think about it. You could bring Yerin. Everbody loves a good CEO and his secretary affair. And if that’s too juicy for you, I can introduce you to some girls. Or maybe we could go back to our university days and hit a bar, y’know?” Junho tries his best to persuade. “Fuck!” you swear beneath your breath right as you walk into Kim Seokjin’s office. His door had been open and, in your excitement to show your completed report, you had dropped all the loose papers on the ground. Four hours of organization gone, just like that. You hope that at least Seokjin hasn’t heard or noticed you as he had been engrossed in his phone call. Seokjin had in fact noticed you. He can’t help himself but follow the curvature of your bare shoulder as your bangs escape the hold of your scrunchie and sweep across your skin. “Don’t worry, Junho, I’ve just thought about it,” he says with a smile.

[mstrchu]

Ok so do you know the White Horse the Tang Sanzang ride on from Journey to the West? He's exactly called The White Dragon Horse (hope I got that right). Why is there the word "Dragon" in the title?

Well that's because his true title and real name are the West Sea Third Prince Ao Lie, yes he's Ao Bing's Cousin,yes he's a dragon prince of the sea royal family and he can transform into a horse apparently

This is uncertain due to many versions but yeah that's the gist of it

Also Ao Lie is literally the White Horse Prince OMG-

I wonder if we would see him in New Gods Nezha Reborn though

Another thing: Wonder how the rest of the sea dragon family in the last three directions thought about East Sea Dragon King being this evil CEO guy lol. That man has many versions and in Nezha Reborn, he's the worst I've seen so far

pre-emptive apologies for this rambling ☠️ i sincerely hope i dont come off as like. utterly insufferable

i know of ao lie! honestly props to him for being so cool about being a horse 95% of the time because if i went from being a dragon to being an animal that couldn't lie on its side for more than like 45 minutes without suffocating i would not have handled it as graciously as he did. also if we had a nickel for every time a dragon king's third prince that's commonly depicted as a white/silver dragon befell some disaster or disgrace we would have 2 nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice..

i'm also not sure if the dragon kings are brothers in the regular sense or just brothers in the way that they all sort of belong to the same.. clan (? for a lack of a better word) but it is funny to think of ao lie and ao bing as cousins svdsjkndv especially since ao bing would have died before the events of jttw but in more recent adaptations if ao bing survived (a la 2019) or came back (a la 2021) i think it would open a door of very funny possibilities.. i think i've read a few nzr fics where it's kind of a touchy subject for ao bing bc ao run will not stop bragging about his son at family gatherings ☠️

unless he pulled a sun wukong, i don't think we'll be seeing ao lie in new gods :( but i would love to be wrong..

(on a side note, if they're going to be featuring more people from fsyy, i would love to see their take on huang tianhua, leizhen zi, ji fa, and jiang ziya ;-;)

based on ao guang's menacing monologue to ao bing (lol) the dragon kings seem to have a somewhat tense relationship with a lot of past baggage, but it's not so bad that they didn't put it aside to help ao guang get revenge on nezha 3000 years ago ovo i've also been assuming that the other 3 families mentioned in nezha reborn (li/shun/song) belong to the other 3 dragon kings, and if so then ao bing and the yecha's comments about them when they first appear makes it sound like they've all got a really intense rivalry going on about control over their cities which makes me think the other 3 ALSO have CEO mob boss vibes?! but they don't have the same resources or the iron-grip control that ao guang has, and so ao guang is still the Big Boss in the family.. so i guess i would say that their thoughts are that they wish they could do it like him!!

what i would also love to know is what ao jia and ao yi and/or other siblings have been doing this whole time or at least what the public thinks they've been doing?? ao bing is publicly acknowledged in "modern day" donghai as the san gongzi so.. there has to be at least 2 other older gongzis out there... maybe kasha knows what the goss is..

also ur so right. 1979 ao guang may have been eating children but 2021 ao guang invented capitalism which is way worse 😔

holy shit sorry circling back to ao lie again he's kind of funky isn't he!! i don't know jttw as well, only from like cultural/childhood stuff, but iirc he did turn back into his human and dragon forms a few times when he felt like he needed to, which kind of makes it seem like he could have done that at any time and he was just. choosing to be a horse. which is dalfkdnvlknva because i feel there were quite a few times in jttw where it would have been helpful for him to be a dragon and/or person instead of a horse. also the song about him slaps.

[ellipuukangas]

Going through my timeline from 2019 before I got contacted by Ferly to draw Dark Song for SSO. The year before I had started riding and drawing horses again, after a 15 year break. And it was the best decision I could’ve made.

I don’t talk about this often, but there was a gap of around 2 years when I didn’t draw much at all. The reason for this was relentless harassing and bullying that I was subject to both online and irl. It was in 2009 when I moved to UK and stopped drawing completely because of it.

I picked it up again in 2011 and worked hard in the hopes someone would notice. All my applications for any sort of grants, sponsors, agents and affiliation programs got either rejected or ignored. It was demoralising. I had an on off relationship with art and I hated doing Tistow at times and at times I felt mad for picking it up from where I left off.

2018 I started riding again.

It started with Wizard. A Welsh D gelding that I went to see and who week later got sold. The whole thing fell flat. But I kept trying. I found other horses and made friends to help them with theirs. The same thing happened with my art, I kept trying. Horses helped.

There were Tink and Dolly, there was Manny and Sunny. Lots of foals.

There was Jack and his horses in Tistow. Then there was Gracie. I loaned her for two years and she was the closest I came to owning a horse.

The whole time I worked on odd jobs, indie comic projects (that I loved and still do), a horrendous IT job and trying to push Tistow out there at the same time, desperately hoping someone would hire me to work on comics for them long term and trying to pay my bills at the same time. Then in 2019, I got a message from Ferly asking me if I’d like to work on a project for Star Stable. I went to meet the team in December the same year and I’ve not been happier since.

I got to draw Dark Song, I’ve been given the opportunity to work with writers on short comics, I’ve been able to even write my own and draw horses and comics as my dayjob. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’ve gone from an anxious, miserable, depressed mess to a much more confident, happy, hopeful mess.

I’ve heard some folk say they think I -got- lucky in landing such a fantastic opportunity, that I don’t deserve it or that my work isn’t good enough, not interesting enough. I’ve heard it all before and it used to shatter my confidence completely.

Put it this way, I missed the first messages from Ferly because my email address got borked and nearly missed out on working for SSO at all. Huge thank you to them for reaching out to me via a different channel much later to try again.

The really unfair thing about this industry is, some of it still comes down to luck. It took me nearly 10 years to get to the point where I am now. It’s hard, it’s demoralising, it’s heartbreaking. But it also lifts your spirits and spurs you on to continue.

Anger is also an excellent tool to harness when things feel particularly hard.

But don’t take it out on other people. Pick up a pen and draw or write.

Harness your fury, make your own luck. You’ll get there.

[sitp-recs]

(Perfect artwork for Modern Love, by @cambiodipolvere)

Today is the day of one of my favorite people! And I totally resent @tackytigerfic and Starry for almost sharing the same birthday, god the STRESS 😂 Tacky is my first and closest fandom friend. We clicked together so fast and easy that sometimes it feels like I’ve known her all my life, like we’re two dog moms living in the same neighborhood who happen to read fic in their free time. Despite our conflicting time zones and crazy schedules we manage to chat every other day, tagging and sending each other all kinds of stuff, coming together to cry scream about a brilliant fic we’ve just read or shaking our heads in embarrassment at every other unnecessary bullshit post. Tacky’s bright and wise energy uplifts my spirit even on my moody days, and makes me grateful for her friendship and for this fandom life. Okay so this got long and I had to put the rest under the cut:

It’s such a lovely and precious thing, to have someone with whom you can share every single thought that crosses your mind, your scariest, most embarrassing, petty or disturbing idea, without fear of being shamed or judged by it. I trust Tacky with all my heart to hear me out, share a joke or a piece of advice, even on the (rare) occasions when we don’t get the same perspective - that doesn’t happen often when it comes to Drarry, as we are taste twins!

Tacky my darling, you’re such a good person, and such an incredible friend. Thank you for introducing me to this lovely community, for being my safe haven and your unique self, with so many qualities I admire and feel inspired by: kind, witty, earnest, wise, and so very human. I love your humour and empathy, and your chill yet no-nonsense personality; I love your talent and how articulated you are; I love your passion for Drarry, and how you let this emotion inform the way you navigate the fandom and create for it. And god, but you’ve been creating some of the most beautiful content I’ve seen in these recent years! I’m permanently in awe of your ability to write Drarry in any shape, format or length, transforming even the most ordinary moment into an extraordinary and meaningful piece of character or relationship development. You know how you mentioned yesterday that some authors change the way you feel about a ship in a deep, definitive way? Well, you are that author for me. Your works made me fall in love with M-rated contemplative romance, and also allowed me to fall in love with Harry in a way I never thought it was possible before.

Some people - myself included - got to know you through the fun and intriguing A Lick and a Promise, others through the atmospheric and sensitive Modern Love, others through your contemplative and heartbreaking short form. Each story has its merits and purpose, and all of them share a Tacky trademark: the heartkick factor! Your talent has no limits and goes across different genres and tropes, that you explore with a bold twist full of personality and heart. And even more impressive is your consistency at always raising the bar - every new fic of yours becomes an instant fave and makes me think “wow I thought Tacky couldn’t get better yet here we are”. Seeing how your writing evolves as you find your narrative voice is a beautiful and humbling experience, I feel so lucky!

I’m really grateful for being active in the fandom at this moment in time, because that allows me to read and engage with your brilliant work, and to have you as a dear friend. I can’t wait to see what comes out of your beautiful brain next. It was an impossible job choosing a single fic to rec today, so I decided to do a belated Tacky reclist! Naturally these are my personal and biased must-reads, and I urge everyone to go check these beauties right now. Feel free to include your own favorites too, and don’t forget to leave them some appreciation.

Happy happy birthday my darling Tacky! This fandom life wouldn’t be the same without you. I hope you have the amazing day you deserve!

Between the Power Lines (2020, M, 3.2k)

The road trip fic you didn’t know you needed. I got utterly immersed in the heartbreaking quietness of this, feeling like a witness to an ordinary yet poignant love story. Such tender intimacy, such character development, such lovely American aesthetics with barely any dialogue. This is, IMO, the fic that reveals Tacky’s triumph in storytelling.

Even the Night (2020, M, 3.4k)

This fic has a surreal atmosphere, those Midsummer vibes unbelievably sexy and intoxicating linked to the sensorial experience of fumbling together in the night. Masterclass in tension building, a silky and languid dream-like affair.

Aim for my Heart (2021, M, 3.4k) - Harry/Draco/Ron

One of the most sensitive and stunning portraits I’ve ever seen of a poly/triad relationship, this fic packs so much character and longing! It’s a privilege to watch Ron and Draco’s tentative dynamics through the smitten eyes of the one person that loves them like no one else: Harry.

The Long Fall (2021, M, 3.6k)

I can’t even write about this tender domesticity without getting a lump in my throat. Best opening scene I’ve read in years, and a refreshing way to approach both mpreg and parenthood, painfully honest and lovely. This became an immediate comfort read for me, and it’s probably one of the fics I revisit the most.

Mortal Frame (2021, M, 6.6k)

This thrilling, fast-paced spy story left me breathless since the first paragraph, gods what an immersive ride! I’m so here for Drarry on the run, sharp and urgent with danger but mellowed by the silent trust and tender intimacy only Tacky can master. Major bonus points for the brilliant take on the Horcrux hunt plot line!

Last Offices (2020, M, 6.7k)

Oh, this fic 💔 I tend to avoid MCD but there’s something so deeply fascinating about body washing rituals that I caught myself mesmerized by this. I just couldn’t put it down, so emotionally compromised I felt. There’s a sort of strange comfort in the heartbreak of doing one last act of service out of devotion to someone. This fic inspired so many difficult but lovely feelings in me, and one of them was hope. Only Tacky could possibly achieve that!

Our Little Life (2020, M, 7.2k)

Inventive and singular, this story hit me straight on the solar plexus and left me speechless as I saw the (clever, magical and bittersweet) plot unravel. Such a fabulous take on alternate universes and all the angst potential behind it. Come and bask in the yearning melancholia of a short yet intricate and perfectly executed plot.

And One to Play (2019, E, 21k)

What a fun and delightful fic, I can’t have enough of pining Harry losing all sense of propriety when faced with a hot, competent and pragmatic Draco. This has fab dynamics, unhinged protectiveness, even more unhinged attraction between two idiots who can’t keep their hands off each other. A must-read for any Auror partners fan!

A Lick and a Promise (2019, E, 55k)

Hot, BAMF Professors carefully balancing a fuck buddies situation while solving a Hogwarts mystery, do we need anything else? I certainly do not. This fic is so fun and intriguing and immersive, with amazing supportive cast and a delicious get together feat secret shagging and oblivious pining. Love it!

Modern Love (2020, E, 61k)

My favorite read of 2020, this fic is a love letter to Drarry and will always hold a piece of my soul. Sensitive, wistful, tenderly aching and so very romantic, this is a Muggle Draco triumph with a superb Harry, exquisite slow burn and a side of suds comfort. I promise it will be impossible to listen to Bowie again without thinking of this love story.

Bonus: five stunning drabbles!

Something in the Way (2021, T, 119 words)

“Up,” he said, and Draco, sick with love, raised his arms above his head and allowed Potter to slide the jumper on him, big hands stroking it flat over Draco’s stomach until they both shivered.

Stir-Up Sunday (2020, M, 300 words)

“I want you always,” he said, tugging again on the fine curling length of it. “Is it okay to say that?”

Whalebone Arch (2021, M, 722 words)

“Are you still not talking to me?” Draco steered Harry towards the crisps. “Do I have to suck you off in the loo to cheer you up?”

Semiplume (2021, T, 923 words)

“Did you know,” Harry murmured, and he put his arms around Draco, fearless. “I’d be your mate. If you needed a mate, I mean.”

Relic Radiation (2021, M, 927 words)

“You’ll kill me,” Harry said, and Draco turned his face towards the darkened sky, lunar pale, his profile some stupid unearthly thing—a flaring blazar, a supernova—in the light from the kitchen window.

[only-johnny-deppp]

“Whatever I’ve gone through, I’ve gone through. But, ultimately, this particular arena of my life has been so absurd...” 

 Johnny Depp’s NEW INTERVIEW!

Last saturday, August 14, The UK Times, released a new interview with Johnny for the Sunday Times section. It was realized sometime earlier this month, in London, probably on the same day he and Andrew Levitas were recording for the Q&A for the “Minamata” release in UK. This is Johnny’s first interview since the UK trials in London last year, and released three years after Johnny’s major interview for the British GQ Magazine. Here Johnny and Andrew Levitas speaks about “Minamata”, his future as actor and a thing or two about his personal life, although he cannot talk about the court case.

For those who couldn’t read yet, here is the FULL interview:  Enjoy.

***

“I’M BEING BOYCOTTED BY HOLLYWOOD”

Johnny Depp has a new film out this week. In the opening scene his character, the real-life photographer W Eugene Smith, says, “I’m done. I’m tired. My body is older than I am. I’m always in goddam pain. I can’t trust my f***ing dick any more. Constantly in a foul mood. Even the drugs bore me.”

I ask Depp if Smith’s despair resonated with him. Depp stops. Rocks back and forth. “That’s interesting,” he replies with painful hesitation.

“I didn’t approach playing Smith in that way… Although you bring your toolbox to work and use what is available. Having experienced...” He stops again. Depp takes any questions that might refer to his calamitous libel case last year slowly, in a mumbly, croaking drawl. “A surreal five years…”

In the film Smith needs to revive his reputation. In real life Depp’s task is even more daunting. Thanks to the judgment, everyone can call him a “wife-beater”. Now he must convince a Hollywood still convulsed by #MeToo that he’s not toxic — and that any attempt to rebuild his career is a risk worth taking. This is Depp’s first interview since the case.

We are speaking over Zoom, Depp in his London home, in front of a gold-framed painting. The 58-year-old is wearing a lot of clothes. Earrings. Floppy hat. Sunglasses. Bandana. Scarf. Checked shirt over a T-shirt with an indiscernible slogan. If you saw him on the Tube*, you might think he was off to work at the London Dungeon*, to play most of the characters.

PS. For those who are not familiar with British words: * Tube = British slang for London Underground, the subway trains. * London Dungeon = is a walk-through experience that recreates scenes from London's scary history in a mixture of live actors, special effects and rides.

Depp resumes, talking in broken sentences about the new film, Minamata, in which Smith, via Life magazine, exposes the brutal mercury poisoning of Japanese villagers in the early 1970s.

“How do we do this?” he asks rhetorically, meaning how to speak about the elephant in the Zoom. “Well, there’s no way one can’t recognise the absurdity of the mathematics.” He grins. “If you know what I mean?” No. “Absurdity of media mathematics.” He talks in riddles. “Whatever I’ve gone through, I’ve gone through. But, ultimately, this particular arena of my life has been so absurd...”

He trails off again. He is holding a big brown roll-up of some sort. “What the people in Minamata dealt with? People who suffered with Covid? A lot of people lost lives. Children sick...Ill. Ultimately, in answer to your question? Yeah, you use what you’ve got. But what I’ve been through? That’s like getting scratched by a kitten. Comparatively.”

Last July, I went to the High Court in London to watch Depp on another screen — a video from the socially distanced court where the Hollywood star was losing a libel action against The Sun after it called him a “wife-beater”. It was the grottiest showbiz trial of the century. There were photos of the actor passed out in a foetal slump, socks on show. One lengthy exchange involved faeces. Another urination, inside or outside a house, after a violent night with his ex-wife Amber Heard.

This had all been going on for a while. In 2016 Heard applied for a temporary restraining order against him. The couple had long endured a narcotic, booze-filled, childish relationship, but that does not matter — 12 incidents levelled against Depp were proved, said the judge, and abuse is abuse, regardless of how badly they both behaved. Depp wanted to appeal, but the court said no. Next April in the US he has a $50 million defamation case against Heard relating to an opinion piece she wrote about being the victim of domestic abuse. It may be his last roll of the dice.

In the 1990s Depp was a sensitive heart-throb. Cooler than DiCaprio, edgier than Pitt. In this past year he has been stripped of his status and dignity. On day three of the trial Sasha Wass QC, representing The Sun, asked Depp about daubing a penis on a painting. He could not remember. “That would be quite a big thing, painting a penis on a picture?”  Wass asked. “Quite a big thing?” Depp asked.

It was a well-delivered line, but Depp was on show. Performing. Now he is more timid, less lucid. His people say he cannot talk about the court case given the looming US trial, yet it hangs over everything. The director of Minamata, Andrew Levitas, is also on our call — as a pub trivia aside, Levitas is married to the Welsh singer Katherine Jenkins.

The two men clearly get on. “With regards to journalism, it was important for us to put across in the film the power of truth,” Levitas says. Depp nods. “The responsibility of journalists to look after citizens of the world. [Our film] coincided with the moment important publications had to put Raquel Welch on a cover to get enough eyeballs to sell enough ads in order to put something meaningful inside. A result of that is clickbait — it’s destroying the purpose of journalism,” Levitas continues.

“You said it beautifully,” says Depp, one of the world’s most pinned-up men, who built a career on magazine covers. “I couldn’t say it better than that.”

Last month Levitas wrote to MGM, which bought Minamata for the US market but decided not to release it. He accused MGM of being concerned that “the personal issues of an actor in the film could reflect negatively upon them”. Then the letter got really strong. Levitas accused MGM of failing in its “moral obligation” to release the film and said it needed to explain to the victims “why you think an actor’s personal life is more important than their dead children”. He then attached Smith’s photos of ghastly deformities that shocked the world 50 years ago.

“It’s important that the movie gets seen and supported,” Levitas says. “And if I get an inkling it’s not going to be, it’s my responsibility to say so. Where it goes from there? I don’t know. But we have responsibility to these victims . . .”

You can see why he’s passionate. The film is good. MGM bought the film because it is good. Depp is good too. He disappears into the role, far from his more recent pantomime parts. It’s being released worldwide, just not in the actor’s homeland.

Depp, who also produced the film, interrupts. “We looked these people in the eyeballs and promised we would not be exploitative. That the film would be respectful. I believe that we’ve kept our end of the bargain, but those who came in later should also maintain theirs.”

“Some films touch people,” he adds. “And this affects those in Minamata and people who experience similar things. And for anything…” He pauses, as he does. “For Hollywood’s boycott of, erm, me? One man, one actor in an unpleasant and messy situation, over the last number of years?” He trails off. “But, you know, I’m moving towards where I need to go to make all that…” Again, he trails off. “To bring things to light.”

The fact, as I think Depp knows, is that for his career, the court that matters is not one of law, but public opinion. On social media, where a lot of minds are made up, Depp’s good reputation will always outweigh the bad, thanks to his frequently blinkered fans.

Outside the High Court, as Heard arrived, I saw Natasha, 30, yell: “Get hit by a truck, Amber!” She is extreme, but the persistent way his fans demand that others think their idol is a saint shows a career revival will happen. After all, most filmgoers do not follow his private life at all. To them, he is Jack Sparrow, Edward Scissorhands. To them, he is a star — and a star can take an awful lot of heat before it burns out.

“They have always been my employers,” Depp says of his fans. “They are all our employers. They buy tickets, merchandise. They made all of those studios rich, but they forgot that a long time ago. I certainly haven’t. I’m proud of these people, because of what they are trying to say, which is the truth. The truth they’re trying to get out since it doesn’t in more mainstream publications. It’s a long road that sometimes gets clunky. Sometimes just plain stupid. But they stayed on the ride with me and it’s for them I will fight. Always, to the end. Whatever it may be.”

Depp will talk like this for ever — about his “truth”. Minamata is the last film Depp has listed on the industry site IMDb, where actors usually have half a dozen in development. So, yes, fans of the actor can see Depp in a new role now — it is a return, but is it a relaunch? The film was finished in 2019, way before last year’s court case. Is that it? His last film? He thinks and looks off to his bookshelves, at biographies of Betjeman and Olivier.

“Er...no,” he says, eventually. “No. No. Actually, I look forward to the next few films I make to be my first films, in a way. Because once you’ve...Well, look. The way they wrote it in The Wizard of Oz is that when you see behind the curtain, it’s not him. When you see behind the curtain, there’s a whole lot of motherf***ers squished into one spot. All praying that you don’t look at them. And notice them.”

I would ask him to explain, but I am not sure he is an explainer. Watch this space, I guess, but he is already taking a first step back. After we speak, it is announced Depp is getting the coveted Donostia award at the San Sebastian Film Festival next month. Some people are just too famous to fail.

~ Interview by Jonathan Dean, in London, for The Times UK (released on August 14, 2021)

[rivalsforlife]

AA7 Speculation Post: One Year Later

here we go again.

A year and a day ago, I made a speculation post about if/when we’d ever be seeing AA7. Obviously, my claim that AA7 would be announced in September 2020 did not turn out to be true, but later that year we did get a leaked calendar containing information on the new ports for Chronicles, and also plans for a new aa7, which I summarized in this post.

Now that we have Chronicles we can verify that the leaks contained legitimate information (as if a statement from Capcom saying they were hacked wasn’t legitimate enough). So that leaves us with one key question: is AA7 still happening? If so, when can we expect it? As well, what other information from the leaked calendar can we consider, especially with early sales data on Chronicles? In addition, what are the implications of this new survey on Chronicles from Capcom?

All of that will be discussed under the cut so that this doesn’t take up too much space.

Revisiting The Calendar

Once again, here is a rough translation of the calendar that was present in the leaks:

As a note, in this post, I’ll be referring to our new games as “Chronicles” to prevent this from being blocked by people avoiding spoilers.

So: this original calendar, generated before the pandemic, had Chronicles releasing in Q1 of FY2021 - and it’s also important to note that in Japan, each fiscal year starts in April 1st, so FY2021 is actually April-June 2021. This shows that Chronicles was pushed back about a quarter from their expected release date. However, Chronicles was a port of already existing games, therefore somewhat less work was needed on them - upscaling models and textures, adding in some new features like autoplay and story mode, and of course, the English translation and voicework were needed, which is still a lot of course, but less compared to development on an entirely new game. In addition to that, the pandemic hit AA7 in its early development stage, assuming this schedule was still being followed by the time the pandemic hit. That could cause more delays than expected.

So the original plan was for AA7 to be released in Q3 of 2021, which corresponds to October-December, aligning with the 20th anniversary of the series in October. While it’s a desirable goal, it’s quite likely the pandemic pushed it back at least a quarter, if not more, if not cancelled it entirely. ... haha.

We’ll only know the fate of AA7 for certain when it’s announced. Which it is possible it may never be. However, I have two theories for, if AA7 is getting an announcement, when it will be:

1) Sometime during September 2021, either in the leadup to or during Tokyo Game Show this year. These are for the same reasons as I outlined in my initial speculation post. It’s a popular time for Ace Attorney game announcements, after all. TGS, according to what I can find, will be held online this year from September 30th to October 3rd. If Capcom announces AA7 earlier in September through Famitsu, like they did with AA6 for example, then we can expect to get some information during TGS... 

2) Sometime during a 20th Anniversary Event, possibly in October 2021. I’m assuming AA is planning something for the 20th anniversary - Chronicles wasn’t really marketed as a 20th anniversary release, for instance. If they can’t release a new game for the 20th anniversary (which at this rate, seems unlikely, as we’re about two months out from that with no word about it) then an announcement would be just as good at generating hype for it.

Naturally, if we reach this time next year with absolutely no news on AA7, it’s probably safe to say it’s been cancelled or at least delayed so severely that anything we currently know about it isn’t worth much.

There’s one more point of interest on the calendar: reconsidering the porting of 456. I feel that this depends heavily on how well the Chronicles ports are doing; if it’s not financially viable to keep porting games, then why bother? So, let’s take a look at that.

The Success of Chronicles

As I write this, it’s about two and a half weeks since the release of Chronicles worldwide. So... how did the games do? It’s a bit hard to tell, especially as I am not a game marketer and don’t know the expectations for Chronicles. What is obvious is that, if Chronicles does much better than expected, porting 456 and possibly even the investigations games seems likely. (If Chronicles, indeed, does especially well in the West, than a porting of the investigations games and localization of investigations 2 after ten years could very well be possible.) If Chronicles does absolutely terribly, it damages the chances of porting, and possibly of continuing the series. If it does terribly especially in the West, where the games are essentially new, it could damage the chances of any new games being localized at all.

So, a lot is riding on this, and I don’t know enough to tell how well it did. Here’s what I have found, however:

Nintendo Enthusiast reports on Famitsu sales of Switch games, and overall thinks it’s not doing so great. Chronicles ranks third on the list of Switch sales in its first week, with 14,460 units sold, over 4000 less than NEO: The World Ends With You, which was released on July 27th. Keep in mind that Chronicles was released in Japan on July 29th, which is two days later, and that these are only Japanese sales (where they’ve had Chronicles for years on both mobile and 3DS) and only Switch sales, where NEO:TWEWY is currently only available on Switch and PS4 (Chronicles has the additional platform of Steam, where there could be many more sales). In the next week, Chronicles ranked 22 overall, with NEO:TWEWY at 23, though of course they’re still a little less than 4000 units behind NEO:TWEWY overall. Slightly closing the gap, I guess.  

How about overseas data, then? ... It’s hard to tell. I can find this report from gamespot which discusses the top 20 games sold in the US in July, and Chronicles is not on the list, while NEO:TWEWY is at 16. However, they don’t give any number for the units sold, and it seems that they aren’t considering digital sales for a lot of them, so it’s hard to tell how much of a hit that is.

However, let’s go back to Japanese sales for a bit, and look at the 2019 Trilogy re-release for a comparison against Chronicles. Allegedly, combined Switch and PS4 sales in the first week of the trilogy’s release only amounted to about 8000 units, a little more than half that of Chronicles’ Switch sales. It’s also important to note that the 2019 trilogy ended up being the only ace attorney game to sell over a million copies. Ace Attorney is not a big series; I’m sure Capcom takes this into account when considering sales data, especially for ports. If Chronicles does end up doing better than the trilogy overall, it’s definitely looking good for ports and especially so for Chronicles.

However, there’s more to this than just sales data.

The Survey

Capcom now has a user survey for Chronicles, which you can answer even if you’re partway through the first game. I believe it’s only open until September 30 2021, so if you think you can finish the game before then, I’d recommend filling it out once you’re done so that you can give the best feedback.

It asks you a bunch of questions like what platform you bought it on, why you bought it, your expectations, and all sorts of detailed questions on the various mechanics, difficulty and enjoyment of the trials and investigations, satisfaction of visuals, plot, characters, music, and even free response sections for what you liked and disliked about the game. It’s a very detailed survey that’s pretty long but I think is worth filling out. At the end they ask you to fill out some demographic questions (such as age, gender (male, female, other), country, what kind of things you like to spend money on, and what kind of games you like, what platforms you have to play games on). But what’s possibly the most interesting question is this:

“If a new [Chronicles] game is released in the future, do you think you would buy it?”

This means that, depending on the answers to the survey, they could very well decide to work on a third game to Chronicles.

This has huge implications for the future of the series. I’ll probably make a separate post on plot-related stuff later, but for now... let’s talk about logistics.

In my initial AA7 speculation post I said I highly doubted that they would ever make another Chronicles game. I also said that they probably never would be localized, so, guess who’s a clown now. 

Right now the AA series is in a bit of a dry period, with no new games having been released in the last four years. As well, with Yamazaki (the director of the investigations games and AA5/6) having left Capcom, the next director of the mainline games is completely unknown. As described in this video, the main reason Chronicles ever came about was because Capcom went ahead with mainline AA5 before Takumi could come back from the Layton crossover. Now, since 2017, we don’t really know what Takumi is working on. It’s possible he’s gone back to mainline to work on AA7 (though of course, there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that he has, so definitely don’t take that as any sort of confirmation).

However, if we do get a Chronicles 3, it’s quite likely Takumi would return to work on that, as he directed the previous two games. In addition, if Chronicles ends up being such a success to completely eclipse mainline (from what I’ve heard, though I have no serious proof, Resolve is considered as highly rated as T&T by many Japanese fans) then the series could permanently go down the road of writing more Chronicles games, leaving mainline stagnant (which, let’s be real, it’s already stagnating). The success of that is uncertain considering how neatly our current Chronicles duology wraps up, but... we’ll have to see how things unfold in the future.

For now, I highly recommend filling out the survey to give your input to the series’ future directions. Maybe mention that you want localized investigations 2 somewhere in the free response section because uhh I forgot to do it in mine. do that for me.

TL;DR

Main takeaways from this post are:

- I personally expect an AA7 announcement either during TGS or a 20th anniversary event

- If Chronicles does extremely well, then 456 ports are likely to happen, and I personally speculate investigations ports (along with localized investigations 2) will as well.

- Fill out this Chronicles survey before September 30th to give your input on the games and possibly the future direction of the series. I recommend completing the games before you do, but if you think you won’t before September 30th, you can fill it out at any time.

- We Very Well May Get Another Chronicles Game. Who saw that coming. Not me.

Thanks if you read through all of this, let’s hope September/October doesn’t leave me looking like a fool again.

[puccbunni]

“Friends” Pt.3

|Auston Matthews | Maple Leafs |

{ Ruin The Friendship - Demi Lovato }

Soo I decided to make “FRIENDS” into a series! So I kinda split the last chapter in two so this picks up from the same night, which happens to be in mid January.

Also the time line is set during the 2019/20 season because that’s when I started writing it (I know it has taken me forever to decide to make this a series!!!) because of this there are relationships in the series that have since ended (ie Kappy and Paige) that I have chosen to keep for the time being. Also COVID isn’t a thing in this story it just didn’t work with the timeline I have planned out.

If you have any questions about the series ask away, 

If you haven’t read parts 1 or part 2 go check them out cutiepies xoxo

Same old warnings

Swearing

Smut

Enjoy xx

When the Uber pulled up outside of Austons building you couldn’t bring yourself to look at the Uber driver in the eyes as you sheepishly slid from the backseat, you mumbled a quick thank you in his direction. As he pulled away a notification dinged on Austons phone.

“Well there goes my rating.” He laughs as he shows you the one star the driver had given the pair of you. You both start laughing as you walk into the building side by side. You cross your arms against your chest so they weren’t swinging awkwardly by your side and so Auston wouldn’t feel obligated to hold your hand, cause you had decided that that ventured too far outside of the friend zone.

The elevator ride was quiet as an old women had decided to jump in with you, which after your little stunt in the Uber seemed to probably be a good thing as you were pretty sure the two of you had done enough indecent things in public for one night. As you reach Austons floor the doors open and he fishes his keys out of his pockets and unlocks and holds the door open for you.

“Do you want a drink or anything?” Auston asks kicking his shoes off by the door.

“Yeah actually water would be great.” You say removing your jacket and shoes.

You follow Auston into his kitchen and actually take in his condo in for the first time, considering the last time you were here you were a little more preoccupied with getting to the bedroom. The kitchen, living and dining are all open into one large space with most of the furniture facing towards the floor to ceiling windows with a view of the beautiful Toronto city skyline that lights up his condo enough that Auston hasn’t needed to turn on a light yet.

“Great view.” You say as Auston hands you a glass of water, you take it from him placing your bag on the counter of the island in the middle of the kitchen.

You take a long sip from the glass.

“Soo.” You say placing the glass down next to your bag.

“Soo.” Auston repeats leaning against the bench top opposite you.

“Maybe we should set some ground rules, you know so we are on the same page.” You suggest.

“You really gonna be taking the fun out of this aren’t you.” Auston laughs.

“Shut up.” You roll your eyes at him. “look we probably don’t need them but at least this way we won’t get confused and we know where we stand, okay?”

“Okay, what rules do you have in mind?” He says pushing of the bench and closing the gap between you resting his hands on your hips.

“No feelings, just sex.” You say.

“I agree, next one.” He says slowly lifting your dress up your thighs and placing a kiss on your sweet spot.

“That’s means no snuggling and no staying.” Your dress inching closer and closer to your core.

“Okay but you don’t have to just leave straight away.” Your brows frown together as your dress is pulled up over your ass.

You grab his hands to stop them from bunching your dress any higher.

“You want me to stay after?”

“Why not friends have sleepovers.” Auston says.

“Well I don’t particularly want to stay after sex, I think that’s kinda... I don’t know.. like intimate.” You shrug

“So let me get this straight, sex we can do but sleeping next to each other in the same bed that’s too intimate?” Auston asks raising an eyebrow.

“It’s different okay.” You roll your eyes.

“You really don’t want to stay?” He asks pushing you slowly back into the counter. You shake your head.

“Fine, I’ll agree.”

“Thank you.” You sigh letting go of his hands and Auston starts lifting your dress again.

“Protection?” He asks he hands pulling the dress up to the small of your waist.

“I am on birth control, but we should use condoms too, I mean we aren’t exclusive.” You shrug running your hands up his muscular arms, wrapping them around his neck.

“Deal, next?” He asks lifting you up onto his kitchen island.

“We stay friends, after this ends, we stay friends okay?” You ask as Auston pulls your dress completely off. He looks you in the eyes and you see nothing but sincerity.

“Of course Y/N.” He leans in resting his hands on either side of you on the counter, his lips brushing yours gently.

“Anything you wanna add?” You ask.

“Not a rule but a question, do we want to tell people?”

“I mean I am okay with it being between you and me, are you?” You say as you lightly press your lips to his.

“Yeah I am. But what about your friend from the bar?” He asks.

“I’ll handle her.” You say.

He leans in and kisses you his hands going to the small of your back and yours tangle into the curls at the nape of his neck.

“Now that’s sorted, are you going to let me fuck you?” He asks pulling way.

“Well since you asked so nicely.” You laugh as he reattaches his lips to yours.

Auston used his body to step in between your legs, you run your hands down the front of his chest to the hem of his shirt, pulling the material up over his head as you break the kiss. You let your hands run overs his shoulders and back to his neck bringing him back into you, your lips drop to his jaw lightly kissing the stubble as you work your way back along to his full lips. Auston brings his hands from the small of your back up to unclasp your bra and pulling the fabric down your arms and once you are free of the fabric he envelopes your breast in his large calloused hands squeezing gently as you break the kiss to moan, throwing your head back. Austons lips attack your neck as he circles one of his thumbs around your stiffened nipple before taking in between his index finger and thumb.

He flattens his palm against your chest, pushing you down against the island, the cold marble causing goosebumps to erupt all across your skin.

Austons mouth continues its assault south. Kissing down between the valley of your breast, his fingers loop into the lace covering you core and he pulls it down your legs as his lips suck and lightly bite down your torso leaving marks in their wake. Auston stands between your legs raking his eyes hungrily up and down your naked body, normally you would be trying to somewhat cover yourself up while feelings of self consciousness bubble to the surface. But under Austons gaze you felt alive and desired and you loved it.

“God. Perfect.” He growls staring at your dripping heat.

He runs two of his fingers through your folds teasing your entrance before moving just a little higher to the bundle of nerves that made your back arch when he made contact. A soft moan escaped your lips as his fingers continued there assault on your clit.

“Aus please.” You moan.

“What do you need baby.”

You needed more, although you adored the way his fingers made you feel, you had already experienced them tonight and you were a lot more interested in what else Auston had to offer.

You pushed yourself of the island grabbing hold of Austons wrist and removing his fingers from your slick heat. He raised his eyebrow at you questioning your actions but before he could ask you slide off the bench top and spun Auston around so his back was against the island. You attached your lips to his neck nipping and biting softly at the flesh under your lips before caressing the light marks you had left with your tongue as your hands fell to his belt, unbuckling it and pulling it completely out of the belt loops tossing it somewhere in the kitchen. You started to kissed a little lower down his neck to his collarbone giving it the same treatment. His hands were greedily kneading the flesh of your ass as his head lulled forward, his lips ghosting past your ear as a deep guttural groan emanated from the back of his throat as your fingers popped open the button of his jeans, unzipping them slowly adding pressure as you felt his member growing harder under your touch.

You kiss further down his chest before you’re sliding onto your knees between his legs pulling his jeans down past his knees, you take him in your hand from beneath the restraining fabric of his briefs. He takes your hair into both of his hands, creating a makeshift ponytail. You lean forward, swirling your tongue around the head of his swollen cock and he groans quietly, subconsciously pulling your head closer to him. You stroke him slowly, licking his tip teasingly his thighs are flexing underneath your finger as the hand that isn’t wrapped around him runs up and down the muscles slowly and he begins to grow more frustrated the longer you continue, so you look up at him and take him into your mouth all the way. He maintains eye contact with you, gently pushing your head down a little further.

“Fuck,” He moans when you swallow around him. You start to bob your head up and down, dropping your other hand down to his thigh nails digging into his tan skin as you allow him to take control with his hand in your hair. You gag a few times still adjusting to his size when he hits the back of your throat, but it’s nothing you can’t take so you try to go deeper. Your nose brushes against his pubic bone for just a second, his hand still pressing against your head until you gag a little louder and he pulls you off of him slightly, with your lips still wrapped around him you still haven’t broken eye contact with him.

“God you have no idea how hot you look right now.” He says through labored breaths.

You giggle around him, you bob your head faster, the room filling with the filthy sound of your lips around him slurping and gagging as he pushes further down your throat. Suddenly his fist clench at the root of your scalp pulling you off of him completely. His fingers untangle from your hair and slide around to the front of your neck squeezing slightly as he uses his grip to help you back up to your feet.

“I need to be inside of you.” He growls pulling your face to his and as your lips meet its full of lust and hunger.

You pull away and reach behind Auston for your bag on the island, you feel his palm caress over your bare ass before he pulls back and spanks you harshly your hips thrusting forward into the bench top. You unzip your bag and unceremoniously empty out the entire contents across the bench in search of the small foil packet you so desperately needed. Finding it you hand it back to Auston with your back still to him, hoping that he would understand.

“Planning on get some tonight huh.” Auston teases ripping the foil open with his teeth.

“Mmmhmm but I had to settle for you.” You laughed.

“Is that so.”

Before you could even respond he had slammed into you from behind, a breathy scream falling from your lips as your hips rutted forward from the impact into the bench and you knew you were going to have bruises there in the morning. Auston stilled behind you for a moment spreading your legs further open with his foot as his hands found home on your hips, he pulled back until only his tip remained before using his grip on your hips to guide you back along his member. You moaned at how full he made you feel, he set a hard and steady pace with his tip grazing your g spot every time he thrust in. Your hands were struggling to find something to hold onto as your arms were to short to reach any of the other sides of the island, Auston noticed this and harshly grabbed your arms and pulled them behind your back, holding your two wrist in one of his large hands as the other snaked around to your clit rubbing harsh circles.

“Aus fuck, please.” You gasped out in pleasure as your orgasm began to build.

“You close baby.” He groaned rubbing faster on your clit. “I can feel how close you are.”

Your legs were shaking as you were so close to your high.

“Cum for me baby.” Austons thrust we’re growing sloppy and you knew that neither of you were going to last much longer.

“Cum on my fucking cock.”

You were ashamed to admit that that was all it took for you to completely unravel around him, Auston fucked you through your high and a few sloppy thrust later he emptied into the condom inside of you.