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mochalate · 19 days

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msby!atsumu x reader || w/c: 1.9k ft. questionable methods of contacting the paparazzi. [<- read intro][ch 2->]

Atsumu’s last elementary school report card— faithfully stored by his mother in a sturdy carton in her closet, along with her other important documents— has near perfect grades, and only one comment from his teacher.

Atsumu chooses to deal with matters, both academic and personal, in an independent and determined manner.

By the time middle school was over, Atsumu hadn’t changed; but the comment sure had.

Atsumu prefers not to ask for assistance even if he is having trouble with his work. I would like to see him asking for help or clarification when required.

Then in highschool, he’d learned how to bite back his pride enough to earn an approving ‘Atsumu is an active participant in his learning’ by the end of his third year.

And now look at him, asking strangers online for help without a second thought. Old Mrs. Yamada from Yako Middle School would be so proud.

Atsumu wonders how she’s doing. He idly types her name into the search bar, and immediately finds an obituary.

He blinks at the pixelated picture of her sweet, smiling, deceased face; and tries to decide if he should take this as a portent regarding the consequences of asking for help, or as a reminder of the relentless march of time.

Time, which you and Osamu were spending together at this very moment.

Atsumu has to resist the urge to bang his head against one of the lockers.

He tries his best not to think about it; but it’s early afternoon, he’s done with practice, the last one in the locker room, and unfortunately, has far too much time to not only think about it, but vividly picture it too. It’s like a goddamn movie in his mind, complete with subtitles.

(They’re hard coded in; because of course, he’s third wheeling so hard in this scenario, he had to resort to watching said movie on the shadiest of websites, battling the pop up ads telling him about the hot singles in his area— just to rub salt in the wound.)

It went like this: you and Osamu are baking a cake together. You tell Osamu he’s got flour on his face, giggling for some reason, and he asks where. So you point to your nose, and he smears some on your face with a grin. Barf.

Oh Osamu, you’re so much more fun than Atsumu, you say, all doe-eyed. Your subtitles are pink. The sweetest thing I’m allowed to make him is sugarless raisin bran cookies.

Yer damn right about that, Osamu replies (looking right at the camera, deadpan), Let’s get married just so we can not invite him to the wedding.

Okay, maybe Osamu wouldn’t go that far.

And maybe it wasn’t fair to hold the raisin bran cookies against you like that. He really did think they were chocolate chip; but in hindsight, it wouldn’t make much sense for his nutritionist to be giving those to him when he was supposed to be on a high-protein diet.

(Sue him, he thought you had enough of a soft spot for him to sneak him a treat.)

Atsumu sighs, and unlocks his phone again to pull up the post from last night. There are a few more replies— some calling it a fake story, a few asking for an update, and one person inexplicably telling him to go no contact with his brother.

Ridiculous. The whole idea was ridiculous; and surely msbygirlie (bless her) would eventually see through his half-assed attempt at disguising who he was.

His index finger hovers over the delete button.

And then his eyes land on that reply he’s been thinking about since last night.

well you don't have to talk to either of them... you said someone took the original photo. maybe they're still stalking?? ask them what they think?

It was insane. He’d be adding fuel to a fire that was dying down. It would drive the publicist crazy.

He wants to do it.

(Fuck, he’s going to do it.)

Atsumu Miya’s Guide to Finding and Trapping Your Local Paparazzi

Set a live trap in the location you expect your target to be.

“Shoyo,” Atsumu calls out, as he spots his wing spiker near the gymnasium exit, “ya free right now?”

Hinata comes to a halt with a little hop, somehow still full of energy despite the full training session. “More or less. Why?”

Why? Because Sakusa would scoff and walk away, stopping only to report his plan to Meian; and because Bokuto would accidentally blab and give him up, probably during a livestream. (She reprimanded them a lot, but really, it was him and Bokuto keeping the publicist employed.)

“I need yer help catching a pest. Want to take a walk with me?”

2. Bait the trap.

Atsumu stops abruptly at the crossroads. He snaps his head toward the convex mirror on the corner just in time to see a nondescript man, with a baseball cap pulled low over his face, ducking into the small general store just behind them. It’s quick— the doors are already propped open since it’s not quite warm enough to justify running the air conditioning.

Perfect.

Hinata nudges his elbow. “Why did we stop? Do you want something to drink?”

Atsumu takes a deep breath. “Do ya trust me, Shoyo?”

He looks perplexed at the question. It’s not an expression that’s often on Hinata’s face, so Atsumu takes a moment to appreciate the novelty.

Of course, it’s gone in a second; replaced with his natural enthusiasm. “Oh, did you want to practice at the park? I see, you wanted to bring me to a different environment because our rapport on the court was—”

Atsumu claps his hands over Hinata’s shoulders, lowering his voice. “If ya trust me, do exactly as I say. Go to the park. Got it? Do not follow me. Go straight to the park.”

“Aren’t you coming with—”

Atsumu fills his lungs with air, and firmly plants his feet on the ground.

(A quick glance in the mirror at the man with the baseball cap. Still there. Good.)

Forgive me, Shoyo.

“GOOD LUCK ON THE DATE!” he says as loudly as he can, before it's shouting.

Hinata goes red, sputtering. “Huh? Date?”

Atsumu claps his shoulders again, and gives him a subtle push. Hinata, still wide-eyed, stumbles along in the direction of the park, glancing back over his shoulder a few times.

3. Wait.

Atsumu jogs the long way around the block to get to the park.

It only takes five minutes of lurking behind a row of vending machines, and feeling a little sorry for Hinata who’s sort of nervously wringing his hands on a bench— he's the only other person in the park at this time on a school day— before the man in the baseball cap shows up.

A camera is slung casually around his neck. The recording light is taped over. He’s so fixated on Hinata, he doesn’t notice Atsumu as he saunters up the path towards the machines.

(Which, all things considered, was quite surprising— Atsumu is not a small man.)

“Hey,” Atsumu says, once Baseball Cap is close enough. “Long time, huh? Two things. One, give me your camera. I know it's recording. And two, I have a few questions.”

4. Dispose of your paparazzi responsibly and ethically.

Fifteen minutes later, Atsumu is no closer to the truth; and is considerably more irritated.

“What am I supposed ta do with that?”

“Is he going to hit me?” Baseball Cap anxiously asks Hinata, “Can you hold my camera if he’s going to hit me?”

“Atsumu wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Hinata assures him.

“I ain’t gonna hit ya, ya scrub! Don’t you go writin’ that up on yer damn blog next.” He pinches his nose, trying to calm himself. “I’m done with ya, go home. But wipe the memory card in front of me first.”

r/relationship_advice • 1 hour ago

u/fattytuna95

UPDATE: I want to ask out my twin brother's girlfriend.

I didn’t want to come back here again, but I don’t know what to do.

Like one of you suggested, I asked the guy who took the picture. You were right. He's been following them.

(Creepy as hell, to be honest, but he didn't seem like a bad dude. And he was pretty skinny. Guess being a privacy invading douche doesn't pay well. I think even my female colleague could take him down if she tried, so that's fine.)

What he told me is this: she stayed overnight at his place twice this week.

Now I know what you're thinking. It's a lost cause. Pack it up and move along. Right?

No.

Here's the thing— I was worried my brother was developing feelings for her, and I still am, but if they were already sleeping together he would have told me. There's something else going on here. I mean on top of the fake dating bullshit.

And for some reason, they're not telling me.

How do I find out what without telling them how I know?

↑ 65 ↓ •••

u/unicornpoodle • 4 minutes ago

wowww

dude, are you sure you want to keep going through with this? There's a lot of things you can unsee but walking in on your brother fucking your crush is probably not one of them...

(and you're a twin to boot! You'd see exactly what could've been. Now that'll mess you up!)

↑ 15 ↓ •••

u/fattytuna95 • 4 minutes ago Shut up!!! I don't want to think about that!!!!!! ↑ 10 ↓ •••

u/guiltyassassin_ • 10 minutes ago

lol I was lowkey joking about asking the guy, didn't think you'd actually do it. good for you. but uh, I might be with poodle on this one. you don't want it to be true, sure. but maybe they just didn't tell you? so it wouldn't be awkward at work?

↑ 12 ↓ •••

u/fattytuna95 • 9 minutes ago I shared a womb with the guy. I'm sure. You're an only child, aren't you? ↑ 12 ↓ •••

u/msbygirlie_13 • 5 minutes ago

This is exciting!! I don't agree with everyone else, I think you should get to the bottom of it!!! Like atsumu said in his volleyball monhtly interview in june '21, the game isn't over until the ball falls to the floor!!!!! the ball is NOT on the floor yet!

maybe you should go over to your brother's apartment and see if there's any evidence.and you should just show up. don't give him any time to clean it. you can do that right???

↑ 12 ↓ •••

u/fattytuna95 • 5 minutes ago Hmm that could work actually. I've been there so much, I'll definitely notice if something's out of place. ↑ 10 ↓ •••

u/unicornpoodle • 3 minutes ago are you saying this because you believe in it, or because you want more update posts? this shit is going to be hilarious ↑ 5 ↓ •••

u/msbygirlie_13 • just now ofc I believe in everything atsumu says, omg!!! he's the best, fattytuna will agree with me. ↑ 1 ↓ •••

Osamu frowns at the cloudy night sky as he pulls the shutters down over Onigiri Miya's window. The moon is hidden, only a hazy hint behind the grey.

"Looks like rain," he comments, glancing over his shoulder. "Sorry I kept ya waitin'. We should've just done it another night."

Behind him, standing under the streetlight, you can already feel the tiny droplets drizzling on your face. But you shake your head. "I can just stay over again. We always end up losing track of time, and your place is closer to work than mine anyway."

The lock in Osamu's hand clatters against the corrugated metal. "Want ta move in and really sell it?"

You roll your eyes. "I would, but we're not a good match. We'd feed each other too much and end up gaining so much weight."

He chuckles. "Hey, at least I can appreciate raisin bran cookies. Ya won't catch me spittin' food outta my mouth."

You laugh at that. It wasn't his fault, you want to say, smiling fondly at the memory. He didn't realise I was joking about it being chocolate chip.

"Hey, Osamu?"

"Yeah?"

"Should we just tell him?"

now what could they be up to? [my other fics->] please leave a like/reblog/reply/send me an ask if you enjoyed! <3 divider @/cafekitsune

#atsumu miya x reader #miya atsumu x reader #atsumu x reader #haikyuu x reader #miya atsumu fluff #my fic

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grunge-mermaid · 11 months

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grunge rewatches midsomer murders pt 1

this was bound to happen. especially after the second use of "cunt-stable" within the first half hour

1x01 The Killings at Badger's Drift

"you've got yourself a right cunt-stable there" beautiful

"you are politically correct as a Nuremberg Rally"

you know what? I chose to rewatch this because it's boring and a good background show but it's off to a real strong start

I know Dennis is either a murderer or gets beheaded (gimme a break it's been 15 years since I've seen this ep) but I'm living for him repeatedly calling a surprisingly homophobic Sgt Troy "cunt-stable"

I completely forgot about the incestuous mother/son dynamic

I really don't remember Troy being such a homophobic sexist dipshit

can i skip to the episode with Orlando Bloom?

ohhh he got his throat slit this ep ok he gets beheaded as another character in a few seasons?

aw man now that the creepy incestuous blackmailers are dead and no one is openly calling Troy a cunt, we're back to just plain boring village gossip

which tbf is why I put this on in the first place but like come on

you can't give me a gay undertaker serving cunt (literally and figuratively) with a totally inappropriate relationship with his nosy neighbour mother who make Gladys Kravitz look like she minds her business

and then just... go back to boring nothingness murders

oh god

late 90s high society wedding

yikes

lord god what are those bridesmaids dresses

are they supposed to be ruched at the back or are they just really poorly made?

oh thank god it was a nightmare

as were those dresses

and those hats

that corpse is breathing pretty deeply fellas you sure she's dead?

Barnaby sure is discussing a lot of details of the case with his family. shouldn't some of this information be confidential?

WHY IS THERE SO MUCH INCEST IN THIS VILLAGE

oh no those actually *are* the bridesmaids dresses

I have 2 questions

1) who in-universe is responsible for dressing the bridesmaids and why do they not own a garment steamer or an iron?

2) who on set is responsible for dressing the actors and why do they not own a garment steamer or an iron?

like holy shit those dresses are wrinkled af

that ending was... well, an ending.

1x02 Written in Blood

ok is this ep gonna go hard like 1x01 or

I do appreciate when murder mysteries tell you who the murderer is right off the bat and the fun is all in seeing how the detectives piece it together

god these houses are so pretty

oh this is a village populated entirely by mediocre writers

I really hope MM is intentionally leaning into the inherent cheesiness of the murder mystery genre and this isn't just low production value

Killmouskie the Russian blue kitten. cute.

wait so what does Liam killing his father have to do with this writing group?

is one of these writers Liam using a fake identity?

wow this guy's one hell of a dick can he get murdered please

I love how this show manages to be so dull but still get you hooked on the village gossip

what's the deal with Max and Gerald? if this isn't Lovers To Enemies I'm gonna be pissed

(I know it won't be this is a show for boring boomers)

FINALLY

a murder that's definitely relevant to the plot

still no hint as to who Liam is or why the cold open

another Very Clearly Breathing corpse come on lads

NOPE THAT IS NOT AN OKAY WAY TO BEHAVE AROUND YOUR UNDERAGE STUDENTS PLEASE GET MURDERED

living for the students giving him shit and laughing at him because he is a fucking creep and deserves it

why can the subtitles not spell Causton correctly or consistently

ok so Gerald is Liam?

that's not what I expected a secretary called "Bouncing Barbara" to look like

ok. so if Max was a therapist before he became a writer, Gerald is actually Liam and was Max's patient after murdering his own father?

idk but it's 50 minutes in and there has been no other mention of Liam since the cold open and I'm all for suspense but come on you've got to at least give me a dot that will be connected in the next hour

FINALLY

JOYCE TO THE RESCUE

only took 60 minutes

I don't know if my theory is completely right yet but I'm definitely not entirely wrong

you know what? it was totally worth the wait

oh look a corpse that isn't visibly breathing wow

ok so not only was I right but Gerald/Liam was also a transvestite and that plot point was treated with more respect & dignity than I'd expect for 25 years ago... until Troy had to open his transphobic mouth

while their methods are ethically questionable, I do enjoy the group of 15-year-olds trying to take down their pervy drama teacher

oh man if this is going to be an eleventh hour AIDS reveal

character's brother who died of a sudden illness in the 80s "knew" the transvestite murder victim

OH HOLY FUCK I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THAT

WHO KEEPS THEIR DEAD BROTHER'S BODY IN A FUCKING BED LIKE IT'S A SHRINE JESUS CHRIST

"hatters are sane compared to Honoria Lyddiard" is one hell of a fucking understatement good lord

oh yep there's the eleventh hour AIDS reveal

not just of the dead brother but she was keeping it from her sister-in-law not to protect her from her husband's cheating but because she was hoping her sister-in-law was HIV+ and going to die soon

yikes

fuck man that episode was a wild ride with one hell of an ending

but did it ever stick it

amazing

1x03 Death of a Hollow Man

creepy choral singing and a licence plate that says "boo"? alright lets buckle up

Salieri, prime, not Sally Arie. Salieri.

they're putting on a production of Amadeus, or is context not enough for you to get the captions correct?

camp gay men being gossipy bitches? yes please

ok now that is what I expected "Bouncing Barbara" to look like

ostrich feather trimmed coat, lots of makeup, bouncy blond curls

of course her name is Kitty

she looks as much like a Kitty as she does a Bouncing Barbara

love it when they find an actor who can hold their breath for a single take as a corpse

STOP BEING SUCH A HOMOPHOBIC DIPSHIT TROY

why are you so uncomfortable just being in the same room as a visibly queer person?

gulping, pulling at your collar

go fuck yourself

you walked into a bookstore and he is trying to sell you a book

he's not even being flirty calm down

oh and now you're surprised at how heartless the deceased's only living relative is? you're not exactly an emblem of compassion yourself

do they only have one lawyer's office set?

ex wife keying the ex husband's new wife's car is some satisfying petty revenge but then discovering the new wife is having an affair? delicious

that fascinator sure is A Choice

actual line: bloody hell caption: oh dear

actual line: I'll frigging kill him caption: I'll fucking kill him

inaccurate captions are amusing for me but this is like an actual accessibility issue

at least the meaning isn't drastically different for those lines but transcribing "can" or "did" when the actual line is "can't" or "didn't" or they can't spell character or place names correctly, it's not great

who is proofreading these

"everyone liked Esslyn"

previous 50 minutes: everyone hates Esslyn and they are right to do so

{duolingo break}

"he wasn't always gay" baby boy. baby boy let me introduce you to the concept of being attracted to more than one gender it will blow your mind

that is some flawless hair and makeup for a supposedly grieving widow less than 24 hours after her husband's murder

ok I gave up on the last 15-20 minutes of that episode, it wasn't as compelling as the previous 2 sorry

1x04 Faithful Unto Death

opening with Morris dancing and a village fete this feels boring

yeah this one's boring

nothing salacious about the village gossip this time

please let there be a twist

I'll just be over here knitting and scrolling pinterest and waiting for this to get interesting

POT BROWNIES

THEY JUST FED THE COPS POT BROWNIES

their "daily bake" amazing

still a boring af episode but thank you Bunny and Elfrida for feeding the cops pot brownies without telling them

I do appreciate the sometimes not at all subtle anti-cop undercurrents

54 minutes for Troy to say something homophobic that's a record

I know I said I was rewatching this because it's boring & good background content but this episode was far more boring than I remember any episode being

but I remember it being like delightfully boring

charmingly boring

not a fucking drudge

and the first 2 episodes went so hard like you can't really compete with incestuous undertakers blackmailing incestuous siblings and dead brother's corpse enshrined in his childhood bedroom like some twisted Edith Finch shit

1x05 Death in Disguise

please god be more interesting than the last episode

sidenote: I really appreciate that streaming services play each story as one episode unlike TVO that played them as 2-parters

"Barnaby investigates a string of deaths at a local New Age commune run by ex-cons"

keywords: Suspense. Drama. Beautiful. Sensual.

I'll give you suspense and beautiful but I'm not sure how I feel about this show being described as "sensual"

buddy. my guy. just because you live a new age commune doesn't mean you have to give up conditioner

he's breathing but is he a corpse yet? or just severely injured?

yep

he dead

and breathing

"light slinking music" A+ description

I do appreciate the overarching message of "just let people be weird, it's fine"

was not expecting scenes of cocaine use

Ken: "Heather honey" Heather: "what?" Ken: "no, it's heather honey" Heather: "oh I just thought you were being affectionate"

what a weird little beekeeping couple they're so cute

this is more intriguing than the last episode but not much to comment on really

I take that back the adorably weird beekeeper couples used to run a brothel

they're still weird and cute

nothing inherently immoral about running a brothel even if it was illegal

especially since they seemed to make a point of profit-sharing with all employees (I'm assuming on top of wages otherwise that would be immoral)

oh so the non-verbal autistic kid miraculously speaks for the first time ever and it just happens to be the one word that's the key to solving the case

so that's season 1. sorry? you're welcome? idk take your pick.

episode 2 was definitely my favourite because what the fuck was that ending. the pacing was perfect, the plot twist was executed beautifully, perfect murder mystery

I'm probably going to do this for at least the next couple of seasons but god help us all if I manage to do the entire fucking series.

#midsomer murders #grunge rewatches midsomer murders #cw murder #cw incest #cw drugs #cw homophobia #(i'm tempted to tag 'period typical homophobia' but is that 'period typical' for late 90s uk i legit do not know)#(if i've missed any legit cw/triggers let me know & I'll add them)#i shit on this show because i love it #long post

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araekniarchive · 3 years

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If you don’t mind me asking, how do you find all these quotes and images and lyrics? You do a really good job at finding ones that fit together perfectly

Oh ty! Generally, I start a web by looking at the work of other web weavers - for example, I'm currently making a web about learning to love yourself, so I whacked 'web weaving, self love' into the tumblr search. How much there is on each one varies from topic to topic, and I've recently started running into my own previous webs doing this, but it often gives me quotes and art to look into further which might well bear fruit. I also often go into the spilled ink tag, which is used for people's original poems and artwork, again with the topic of my web attached.

Next port of call is goodreads, entirely because of the quotes function; although there is a lot of crap irrelevant stuff that comes up - mostly YA novels, fake deep quotes, misattributions - it does have a pretty solid tag function that lets me go through a large catalog very fast, and half the time it'll even tell me which book something is from. If I'm particularly stumped by a topic, I'll often go to TV Tropes which often includes a wide range of examples with quotes and sources under each specific trope, which again gives me some great leads.

All the quotes I have then generally get run through a quick check that they're legit, and not misquotes or misattributions; some I will find that are attributed to the wrong person, but I'll still include them with the correct name. Other times, I can't find a source, or the sources I find aren't definitive - e.g., if the whole internet tells me that somebody called 'Michelle B' wrote a particular quote, but there is no actual original place of 'Michelle B' writing it (and to be honest, I'm not good enough to track down such a vague citation) then there's a non-zero chance that it's a misattribution that's just been repeated so many times that the original source has disappeared, but I will likely include the name anyway, just with (attrib.) next to it, as it's better to do that than slap it with 'unknown' (imo). Sources do sometimes turn up afterward, but generally if I fail to find it on my first search, I won't happen upon it afterwards.

Then, once I'm (relatively) sure who the author of something is, and where it's from, I turn to the Internet Archive. I started using it last year when I was stuck on at home, unable to go to the uni library, and writing my dissertation. It saved my life then, but even though I graduated, I have never gone back to life without it. It's a godsend, a miracle, perhaps the greatest tool you've never heard of. It lets you read books - FOR FREE - legally, as well as listen to audiobooks, look at old web domains, search metadata... it's genuinely amazing and I tell everybody about it. For the webs, I plug in the name of the book/author and 2 out of 3 times, I can find a scanned in copy of the book, which comes with a search function. As in, I can just type in a fragment of the text I'm looking for, and the archive finds exactly which page it's on for me. I then just screenshot the page, paste it onto Paint 3D, and crop it to my desired specifications. For those sources that aren't in the archive, I usually put them into google docs, put them in a nice font and screenshot again, once more turning to my good friend Paint 3D to smarten it up.

If I know of any film or TV shows that touch on the topic, or I think it would be a good addition, I generally look on YouTube for them first (and, you guessed it, screenshot and then move to Paint 3D where I add subtitles manually if they're not already included/look ugly) and if they aren't there I branch out into streaming services and, uh, other sites. That I turn my VPN on for. If I really have no idea what scenes would be relevant, I often look for those really basic, Buzzfeed or Ranker list articles for 'The Best Doomed Romances' or 'Ten Great Sisterly Relationships on Screen' - they're generally scalped from reddit, but they do have some fairly solid recommendations which I can then investigate further. I also do this with songs - there are so many lists of song rankings around - but often you can just search lyrics in Google and they’ll pop up.

There are other steps I use depending on the specific web, but these are pretty much the ones I use every time - I use TinEye and Google Image Reverse Search when I'm trying to find the name of a piece of art or the source of an image, and this often helps me source things that other people have marked as 'unknown'. It doesn't always work, but it gives results more often than not. And, of course, there are things I add that I know about from my own memory - I really should emphasize, however, that in a web of say ten different excerpts, maybe two are ones I know about beforehand. The main process of finding stuff to put in webs is simply searching in the right places, knowing how to spot a promising lead, not giving up, even if you're on like, the fifth page of the goodreads quotes tag and you feel like banging your head against the wall (the best quote is always, always on page six) and referencing as you go.

Web weaving is something I love to do because it's broadened my literary horizons so much, it makes me better at researching, and I find it super satisfying when a web is completed, but it's not something that you can only do if you have super advanced computer programs or technical knowledge or an eidetic memory - this laptop has been on the verge of death for some time, I regularly go to my fifty-nine year old mum for troubleshooting advice, and my memory is absolutely shot to shit. All you really need to do is stick at it, and it comes together.

#asks and answers #the process #i know that sounds incredibly pretentious i do but i want to have a tag for posts about it so people can find them

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mostlymovieswithmax · 3 years

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Movies I watched in May

Sadly, I kind of skipped writing a post for April. It was a mad month with so much going on: lots of emails sent and lots of stress. I started a new job so I’m getting to grips with that... and even then, I still watched a bunch of movies. But this is about what I watched in May and, yeah… still a bunch. So if you’re looking to get into some other movies - possibly some you’ve thought about watching but didn’t know what they were like, or maybe like the look of something you’ve never heard of - then this may help! So here’s every film I watched from the 1st to the 31st of May 2021 Tenet (2020) - 8/10 This was my third time watching Christopher Nolan’s most Christopher Nolan movie ever and it makes no sense but I still love it. The spectacle of it all is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen. I had also watched it four days prior to this watch also, only this time I had enabled audio description for the visually impaired, thinking it would make it funny… It didn’t.

Nomadland (2020) - 6/10 Chloé Zhao’s new movie got a lot of awards attention. Everyone was hyped for this and when it got put out on Disney+ I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. Seeing these real nomads certainly gave the film an authenticity, along with McDormand’s ever-praisable acting. But generally I found it quite underwhelming and lacking a lot in its pacing. Nomadland surely has its moments of captivating cinematography and enticing commentary on the culture of these people, but it felt like it went on forever without any kind of forward direction or goal. The Prince of Egypt (1998) - 6/10 I reviewed this on my podcast, The Sunday Movie Marathon. For what it is, it’s pretty fun but nowhere near as good as some of the best DreamWorks movies.

Chinatown (1974) - 8/10 What a fantastic and wonderfully unpredictable mystery crime film! I regret to say I’ve not seen many Jack Nicholson performances but he steals the show. Despite Polanski’s infamy, it’d be a lie to claim this wasn’t truly masterful. Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) - 8/10 Admittedly I was half asleep as I curled up on the sofa to watch this again on a whim. I watched this with someone who demanded the dubbed version over the subtitled version and while I objected heavily, I knew I’d seen the movie before so it didn’t matter too much. That person also fell asleep about 20 minutes in, so how pointless an argument it was. Howl’s Moving Castle boasts superb animation, the likes of which I’ve only come to expect of Miyazaki. The story is so unique and the colours are absolutely gorgeous. This may not be my favourite from the legendary director but there’s no denying its splendour.

Bāhubali: The Beginning (2015) - 3/10 The next morning I watched some absolute trash. This crazy, over the top Indian movie is hilarious and I could perhaps recommend it if it weren’t so long. That being said, Bāhubali was not a dumpster fire; it has a lot of good-looking visual effects and it’s easy to see the ambition for this epic story, it just doesn’t come together. There’s fun to be had with how the main character is basically the strongest man in the world and yet still comes across as just a lucky dumbass, along with all the dancing that makes no sense but is still entertaining to watch. Seven Samurai (1954) - 10/10 If it wasn’t obvious already, Seven Samurai is a masterpiece. I reviewed this on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, so more thoughts can be found there. Red Road (2006) - 6/10 Another recommendation on episode 30 of the podcast. Red Road really captures the authentic British working class experience. Before Sunrise (1995) - 10/10 One of the best romances put to film. The first in Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy is undoubtedly my favourite, despite its counterparts being almost equally as good. It tells the story of a young couple travelling through Europe, who happen to meet on a train and spend the day together. It is gloriously shot on location in Vienna and features some of the most interesting dialogue I’ve ever seen put to film. Heartbreakingly beautiful.

Tokyo Story (1953) - 9/10 This Japanese classic - along with being visually and sonically masterful - is a lot about appreciating the people in your life and taking the time to show them that you love them. It’s about knowing it’s never too late to rekindle old relationships if you truly want to, which is something I’ve been able to relate to in recent years. It broke my heart in two. Tokyo Story will make you want to call your mother. Before Sunset (2004) - 10/10 Almost a decade after Sunrise, Sunset carries a sombre yet relieving feeling. Again, the performances from Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke take me away, evoking nostalgic feelings as they stroll through the contemporary Parisian streets. There is no regret in me for buying the Criterion blu-ray boxset for this trilogy. Before Midnight (2013) - 10/10 Here, Linklater cements this trilogy as one of the best in film history. It’s certainly not the ending I expected, yet it’s an ending I appreciate endlessly. Because it doesn’t really end. Midnight shows the troubling times of a strained relationship; one that has endured so long and despite initially feeling almost dreamlike in how idealistically that first encounter was portrayed, the cracks appear as the film forces you to come to terms with the fact that fairy-tale romances just don’t exist. Relationships require effort and sacrifice and sometimes the ones that truly work are those that endure through all the rough patches to emerge stronger. The Holy Mountain (1973) - 10/10 Jodorowsky’s masterpiece is absolute insanity. I talked more about it on The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) - 10/10 Another watch for Grand Budapest because I bought the Criterion blu-ray. As unalterably perfect as ever. Blue Jay (2016) - 6/10 Rather good up to a point. My co-hosts and I did not agree on how good this movie was, which is a discussion you can listen to on my podcast. Shadow and Bone: The Afterparty (2021) - 3/10 For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed the first season of Shadow and Bone, which is why I wanted to see what ‘The Afterparty’ was about. This could have been a lot better and much less annoying if all those terrible comedians weren’t hosting and telling bad jokes. I don’t want to see Fortune Feimster attempt to tell a joke about oiling her body as the cast of the show sit awkwardly in their homes over Zoom. If it had simply been a half hour, 45 minute chat with the cast and crew about how they made the show and their thoughts on it, a lot of embarrassment and time-wasting could have been spared. Wadjda (2012) - 6/10 Another recommendation discussed at length on The Sunday Movie Marathon. Wadjda was pretty interesting from a cultural perspective but largely familiar in terms of story structure.

Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 2/10 A truly terrible movie with maybe one or two scenes that stop it from being a complete catastrophe. Tom Green tried to create something that almost holds a middle finger to everyone who watches it and to some that could be a fun experience, but to me it just came across as utterly irritating. It’s simply a bunch of scenes threaded together with an incredibly loose plot. He wears the skin of a dead deer, smacks a disabled woman over and over again on the legs to turn her on, and he swings a newborn baby around a hospital room by its umbilical cord (that part was actually pretty funny). I cannot believe I watched this again, although I think I repressed a lot of it since having seen it for the first time around five years ago. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 - (2011) I have to say, these movies seem to get better with each instalment. They’re still not very good though. That being said, I’m amazed at how many times I’ve watched each of the Twilight movies at this point. This time around, I watched Breaking Dawn - Part 1 with a YMS commentary track on YouTube and that made the experience a lot more entertaining. Otherwise, this film is super dumb but pretty entertaining. I would recommend watching these movies with friends. Solaris (1972) - 8/10 Andrei Tarkovsky’s grand sci-fi epic about the emotional crises of a crew on the space station orbiting the fictional planet Solaris is much as strange and creepy as you might expect from the master Russian auter. I had wanted to watch this for a while so I bought the Criterion blu-ray and it’s just stunning. It’s clear to see the 2001: A Space Odyssey inspiration but Solaris is quite a different beast entirely. Jaws (1975) - 4/10 I really tried to get into this classic movie, but Jaws exhibits basically everything I don’t like about Steven Spielberg’s directing. For sure, the effects are crazily good but the story itself is poorly handled and largely uninteresting. It was just a massive slog to get through.

Darkman (1990) - 6/10 Sam Raimi’s superhero movie is so much fun, albeit massively stupid. Further discussion on Darkman can be found on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995) - 1/10 Abysmal. I forgot the movie as I watched it. This was part of a marathon my friends and I did for episode 32 of our podcast. Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996) - 1/10 Perhaps this trilogy is not so great after all. Only marginally better than Darkman II but still pretty terrible. More thoughts on episode 32 of my podcast. F For Fake (1973) - 8/10 Rewatching this proved to be a worthwhile decision. Albeit slightly boring, there’s no denying how crazy the story of this documentary about art forgers is. The standout however, is the director himself. Orson Welles makes a lot of this film about himself and how hot his girlfriend is and it is hilarious.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021) - 4/10 More style over substance, Sony’s new animated adventure wants so much to be in trend with the current internet culture but it simply doesn’t understand what it’s emulating. There’s a nyan cat reference, for crying out loud. For every joke that works, there are about ten more that do not and were it not for the wonderful animation, it simply wouldn’t be getting so much praise. Taxi Driver (1976) - 10/10 The first movie I’ve seen in a cinema since 2020 and damn it was good to be back! I’ve already reviewed Taxi Driver in my March wrap-up but seeing it in the cinema was a real treat. Irreversible (2002) - 8/10 One of the most viscerally horrendous experiences I’ve ever had while watching a movie. I cannot believe a friend of mine gave me the DVD to watch. More thoughts on episode 32 of The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast. Don’t watch it with the family. The Golden Compass (2007) - 1/10 I had no recollection of this being as bad as it is. The Golden Compass is the definition of a factory mandated movie. Nothing it does on its own is worth any kind of merit. I would say, if you wanted an experience like what this tries to communicate, a better option by far is the BBC series, His Dark Materials. More of my thoughts can be found in the review I wrote on Letterboxd.

Antichrist (2009) - 8/10 Lars von Trier is nothing if not provocative and I can understand why someone would not like Antichrist, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. After watching it, I wrote a slightly disjointed summary of my interpretations of this highly metaphorical movie in the group chat, so fair warning for a bit of spoilers and graphic descriptions: It's like, the patriarchy, man! Oppression! Men are the rational thinkers with big brains and the women just cry and be emotional. So she's seen as crazy when she's smashing his cock and driving a drill through his leg to keep him weighted down. Like, how does he like it, ya know? So then she mutilates herself like she did with him and now they're both wounded, but the animals crowd around her (and the crow that he couldn't kill because it's Mother nature, not Father nature, duh). Then he kills her, even though she could've killed him loads of times but didn't. So it's like "haha big win for the man who was subjected to such horrific torture. Victory!" And then all the women with no faces come out of the woods because it's like a constant cycle. Manchester By The Sea (2016) - 6/10 Great performances in this super sad movie. I can’t say I got too much out of it though. Roar (1981) - 9/10 Watching Roar again was still as terrifying an experience as the first time. If you want to watch something that’s loose on plot with poor acting but with real big cats getting in the way of production and physically attacking people, look no further. This is the scariest movie I’ve ever seen because it’s all basically real. Cannot recommend it enough. Eyes Without A Face (1960) - 8/10 I’m glad I checked this old French movie out again. There’s a lot to marvel at in so many aspects, what with the premise itself - a mad surgeon taking the faces from unsuspecting women and transplanting them onto another - being incredibly unique for the time. Short, sweet and entertaining!

Se7en (1995) - 10/10 The first in a David Fincher marathon we did for The Sunday Movie Marathon, episode 33. Zodiac (2007) - 10/10 Second in the marathon, as it was getting late, we decided to watch half that evening and the last half on the following evening. Zodiac is a brilliant movie and you can hear more of my thoughts on the podcast (though I apologise; my audio is not the best in this episode). Gone Girl (2014) - 10/10 My favourite Fincher movie. More insights into this masterpiece in episode 33 of the podcast. Friends: The Reunion (2021) - 6/10 It was heartwarming to see the old actors for this great show together again. I talked about the Friends reunion film at length in episode 33 of my podcast.

Wolfwalkers (2020) - 10/10 I reviewed this in an earlier post but would like to reiterate just how wonderful Wolfwalkers is. If you get the chance, please see it in the cinema. I couldn’t stop crying from how beautiful it was. Raya and The Last Dragon (2021) - 6/10 After watching Wolfwalkers, I decided I didn’t want to go home. So I had lunch in town and booked a ticket for Disney’s Raya and The Last Dragon. A child was coughing directly behind me the entire time. Again, I reviewed this in an earlier post but generally it was decent but I have so many problems with the execution. The Princess Bride (1987) - 9/10 Clearly I underrated this the last time I watched it. The Princess Bride is warm and hilarious with some delightfully memorable characters. A real classic!

The Invisible Kid (1988) - 1/10 About as good as you’d expect a movie with that name to be, The Invisible Kid was a pick for The Sunday Movie Marathon podcast, the discussion for which you can listen to in episode 34. Babel (2006) - 9/10 The same night that I watched The Invisible Kid, I watched a masterful and dour drama from the director of Birdman and The Revenant. Babel calls back to an earlier movie of Iñárritu’s, called Amores Perros and as I was informed while we watched this for the podcast, it turns out Babel is part of a trilogy alongside the aforementioned film. More thoughts in episode 34 of the podcast. Snake Eyes (1998) - 1/10 After feeling thoroughly emotionally wiped out after Babel, we immediately watched another recommendation for the podcast: Snake Eyes, starring Nicolas Cage. This was a truly underwhelming experience and for more of a breakdown into what makes this movie so bad, you can listen to us talk about it on the podcast.

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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 06 part two

(Masterpost)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Bathing Boy Beauties

So, now we and Wei Wuxian get to see Lan Wangji with his shirt off. Eventually Lan Wangji will realize that his brother set this up, and will think of some way to get back at him, possibly by spending three years being stubborn in a cave or maybe by chopping an arm off of someone his brother cares about.

This is A+ Yibo fanservice but it's also a male-male version of a trope that's ubiquitous in c-drama, in which the male lead takes a bath and the female lead sees him. The purpose of the scene is almost always so a woman can look a man’s body over and decide, not to put too fine a point on it, whether she wants to fuck him.

Examples:

The Pillow Book - “Which part of Shen Ye is better than me?”

Women’s sexual agency is not often at the forefront in c-dramas, but the bathtub scenes are an acknowledgement of the female gaze, and of male objects of desire being subject to evaluation & approval.

Tientsin Mystic is a show with a lot of muscley swimming in it, In case you’re looking for your next Netflix show.

As a CGI artist I have to mention that water does not reflect or refract 100% of light. If you look at a naked dingle-having person in a bathtub full of clear water you will definitely be able to see their dingle. But C-drama water is magic and nothing is visible below the waterline, to the point that Bai Yu is modestly covering his thoracic surgery scar chest in Detective L while leaving his lower half uncovered.

Note: that caption isn’t fake; she is really saying this on her way out the door, after having a long chat with him in the bathroom. You can find the whole series on YouTube.

Seen in this context, The Untamed’s two bathing scenes are saying quite a lot. Wei Wuxian, being a boy, doesn’t display any female-encoded shyness or modesty, but he and his sword pause for a moment of admiration.

(more after the cut!)

16 years later, Lan Wangji will sit quietly in this pool and let Wei Wuxian examine his wet body thoroughly from multiple angles, in a more prolonged invocation of this C-drama mating ritual.

Carrying on - was Xiao Zhan supposed to kick his boot in the water like that? Because if not, he rolls with it like a champ.

Wei Wuxian starts trying to be direct with Lan Wangji, giving him the worst, most neg-filled compliment ever, bless his heart.

Then he says that there are benefits to being his friend, and starts taking off his clothes.

Wei Wuxian here takes his first step into the bold new world of respecting Lan Wangji’s boundaries, asking Lan Wangji to stay and saying he will keep his clothes on.

Lan Wangji actually does stay, so he's apparently not too angry with Wei Wuxian about the drinking. Wei Wuxian invites him to visit Lotus Pier sometime (see my gifset here), but the promise of lotus pods doesn’t impress him. Then Wei Wuxian tries to tell him that the Yunmeng chicks really knock me out, they leave the rest behind. This also doesn’t impress him.

You could read this macking-on-ladies talk as a sign that Wei Wuxian is oblivious to LWJ's feelings for him. But I read it as a bisexual boy being horny on main with a boy he likes, not understanding yet that some boys don’t share all of his turn-ons.

Lan Wangji is sort of mildly startled when Wei Wuxian disappears under the water. His eye makeup is good here, isn’t it?.

Ice Cave

They end up in an ice cave and both spend the rest of the episode showing how good they look with wet hair.

When the guqin starts attacking, Lan Wangji is only mildly perturbed about Wei Wuxian getting his shit rocked over and over.

Eventually he sends Bichen to protect his very bedraggled date. Lan Wangji’s sword is faster than the speed of a very slow sound wave.

Beauty's where you find it not just where you bump and grind it

Gusuship Down

I feel like there are a couple of things in this show that are so problematic the fandom has silently agreed to never discuss them. Well, I’m here to talk about this one:

There are rabbits in this ice cave and they are wearing headbands. HEADbands. On RABBits.

EXCELLENT FUCKING QUESTION, LAN WANGJI

*deep breath*

Are these rabbits lineal Lan descendants? Who makes the headbands? How do they stay on because “headband” here means “glowing cloud on forehead” without any actual band. When rabbit babies are born, how do they stay safe while they’re waiting for someone to make them baby-sized headbands? Do these rabbits adhere to the other 3499 Lan Clan principles or just the headband one? Is any ol' rabbit allowed to touch a rabbit’s headband or is it limited to parents and significant others and is that even relevant when presumably these bunnies are all fucking each other like...bunnies?

The characters are like “oh, the rabbits are wearing headbands; killer guqin problem solved.” And then they move right the fuck along with their lives and the rabbit headbands are never seen or discussed again and I just want a hit of whatever the author or creative team was smoking when they came up with this whole idea.

Headband Sharing

When Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to hand over his headband, Lan Wangji understands his entire rabbit-based thought process without asking

Gen-X Joke Alert

Wei Wuxian is awfully impressed by this sword-recall trick, considering that he did it himself when they went to the lake.

I see you know your way around a sheath

Killer Guqin

When they approach the guqin I hope that the subtitles are mistranslated, because Wei Wuxian keeps promising not to touch it and then says he can't look at it without touching it. I'm not going to touch it, I just need to touch it.

Lan Wangji is going to teach Wei Wuxian some goddamn boundaries no matter how many times he has to make him fondle his sword.

Nothing suggestive here

Lan Wangji sits down to play the guqin and immediately goes off into the ether where there are seagull noises and plenty of fans. This is either a state of pure bliss, or he just really likes seagulls.

Did Lan Wangji just have a stealth orgasm?

Speaking of getting off, get your ass off of my desk

The Yin Iron

Lan Wangji does some spirit whispering, and suddenly the cave starts yelling at them. A bunch of clans are chanting in unison about a plan, which is the cultivator version of a battle cry.

Lancestor Lan Yi shows up. She is elegant and has a combination of sweetness and gravity that is similar to Lan Xichen’s. And none of Lan Qiren’s douchiness.

Search Party

Lan Qiren is worried and Lan Xichen is worried and they have sent people to look for the boys. It's really too bad nobody around here knows magic.

All these powerful cultivators search for missing people by running around outdoors yelling for them.

Yanli is excused from PE class because she’s not feeling well, so she sits on a rock in the woods instead of, you know, staying home in the first place. She gets bored sitting down and unwisely decides to walk two or three steps. Xuan Lu, seen here competing in a gymnastics event, gamely pretends she can’t climb a small rock.

Yanli falls into Jin Zixuan's arms and they gaze at each other for a long heterosexual moment.

No homosexual explanation possible

This means two things: 1. he isn't looking very hard for her brother if he's hanging out here catching wobbly girls 2. soulful longing looks from him ain't shit, because he's going to dump her in the next episode.

Lanny Granny

Lan Wangji intros himself to Lan Yi and does a full prostrate bow. Wei Wuxian does a standing bow since he's not a descendant, just a future in-law.

No I mean come on, HEADBANDS

Lan Gran explains the entire history of the yin iron. It's bad, it's full of resentful energy, no-one should use it. She’s going to dump it on a couple of 16 year old boys, one of whom has a woody for using resentful energy, because it’s destiny and her battery is about to run out.

Props to the Prop Department; this thing does look pretty cool

Xue Chonghai was the most problematic cultivator back in the old days. He killed a lot of dudes and fed their resentment to...a turtle? To the disk? I don’t know; I literally am unable to pay attention when anyone is explaining the intricacies of the unobtanium Yin Iron.

Anyway there’s a disk and it’s soaked up a lot of resentment.

Using it makes people evil. Well except..clearly this dude started off evil, yeah? If he was feeding people to his turtle.

Side effects may include: being fucking crazy

Here Wei Wuxian brings out his "resentful energy is awesome" theory and has an experienced grown-up grand master tell him that she also thought this, and has spent 100 years locked in a cave with headband-wearing rabbits because she was super fucking wrong. Does this deter him? ...nope

Baoshan Sanren

Now she name checks Baoshan Sanren, and Wei Wuxian has a big reaction and Lan Wangji has a big noticing of Wei Wuxian’s reaction. He’s very attuned to Wei Wuxian’s emotional state, in the moments where WWX lets his actual feelings show through the sass and swagger.

Lan Gran talks about her search for the Yin iron, and Lan Wangji wisely says, if you can't neutralize it, why look for it? And she says, I was filled with hubris just like ya boi Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji points out the exact same shit he will later point out to Wei Wuxian.

So now we have a parallel in which Lan Yi is just like Wei Wuxian and Baoshan Sanren is just like Lan Wangji, yeah? Which is kind of sweet; it shows how these types are drawn together and how your clan doesn't determine your personality. Also it shows how the Lan clan has room for an unorthodox clan leader. Also it shows how the Yin Iron causes some really bad breakups.

These boys are standing on snow barefoot which has got to take a pretty high cultivation level. Look how short Lan Wangji is without his stilettos, aww.

Flashback to Baoshan Sanren, just long enough to appreciate how beautiful she is.

Did OP give up on recoloring that flashback-blue-hazed image and just start fucking around with random filters? Yes she did.

We also get to see that Lan Yi and Lan Wangji have more common than just guqin, because they both like to solve problems by kicking them.

So after breaking up with her girlfriend, Lan Gran became invisible in this cave for 100 years while trying to contain the Yin iron and put headbands on rabbits.

Soundtrack: Vogue by Madonna Writing prompt: Watership Down rabbits meet Lan rabbits

Bonus extended bath clip:

Bai Yu, Detective L

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #wangxian #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #the untamed stills #chen qing ling #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #cdrama #tw:cussing #more cussing than usual #that is #this is so long I can no longer edit it to fix my typos #even in html editor it won't save #good lord #must have fewer thoughts from now on #if you make it to the end there's a bonus bath gif

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princessjungeun · 3 years

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Night In Paris: Chaeryeong x Reader

A/N: i’m getting back into writing these kinds of request so im a lil rusty. Please be nice lmao

You and Chaeryeong had been anticipating the senior class trip for the past four years. Every year, each language department school took their senior classes on a trip to either Shanghai, Tokyo, Barcelona, or Paris. Both you and Chaeryeong had dreamed of visiting Paris since you met back in 6th grade. When you two heard about the language program at your high school, you both knew that you’d have to enroll in French.

Unlike you, Chaeryeong was god awful at French despite placing in the highest class and carrying an A+ all year. Well technically she wasn’t bad at writing or understanding, she just sucked at speaking it. You however were practically fluent, all thanks to changing the language for the subtitles on Netflix.

The class had spent half of the day completing tasks that the teacher prepared like ordering food in French, asking for directions, and making small talk with strangers. There were also a few presentations given on history of the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower which you all would be visiting tomorrow.

Dinner had ended an hour ago and you all were free to wander around the hotel as you pleased. Your roommates (and two best friends), Ryujin and Hyunjin, were downstairs in the pool while you and Chaeryeong lounged around in bed.

You nudged her gently, “hey do you wanna do something fun?”

She could tell by the stupid smirk on your face that it was probably going to involve breaking a rule, almost all of your plans did. Your girlfriend asked, “what do you have in mind?”

You leaned forward, your lips inches apart before whispering, “you’ll just have to trust me hmm?” You poked her nose and got up, putting on your shoes and grabbing your backpack.

Chaeryeong tied her shoe laces and grabbed her phone and wallet before standing by the door, watching you leave a note for your roommmates. It read in messy handwriting: We snuck out, cover for us. - Y/N & Chae <3

You left it on their shared bed and grabbed the room key before opening the door and making a run for the elevator. When you two got to the lobby, you noticed a chaperone sitting downstairs on a couch, flipping through a magazine. It was clear she was put on door duty to make sure no students were going to do exactly what you and your girlfriend were planning, sneaking out.

Chaeryeong whispered, “It’s Mrs. Han. What do we do? If she catches us we will be in so much-”

You clapped your hand over her mouth, “Just be cool, don’t draw attention towards us. We are simply going to walk out.”

Chaeryeong always admired how rebellious and fearless you were. No matter the situation you were so calm, cool, and collected. Not to mention it took a lot to fluster you when you were caught in a situation, it was like you always had a plan B ready to go.

You started walking, Chaeryeong held her breath as she followed you closely, slipping her hand into yours. You ran your thumb over the top of her hand, making it outside undetected by the chaperone or anyone else.

Chaeryeong let out a deep breath, “okay now what?”

You told her, “we have fun! Come on.”

The two of you made your way down the sidewalks, passing locals and tourists who were heading home or towards their hotels for the night before the sun set. The warm summer heat made the air thicker than usual, but it wasn’t completely unpleasant like it had been earlier in the day.

You noticed a bakery that you’d passed in the morning when you all were heading to the hotel on the first day. You’d made a mental note to visit it, especially after Hyunjin looked up reviews and found out they had good bread.

Lightly, you pulled at Chaeryeong’s arm, “come on, in here.” You stepped inside the small bakery to find an array of breads and pastries. It was clear they’d been busy all day because a few things were completely bought out. You told your girlfriend, “pick whatever you want.”

Her eyes widened as she looked closer at everything, she settled on a chocolate pastry and you got a fruit one. Before you left you remembered Hyunjin and Ryujin, so you got Hyunjin a loaf of bread and Ryujin a pain au chocolat.

As you finished paying you asked the employee politely in French, “excuse me how do we get to the Eiffel Tower from here?”

They replied, “if you want to walk, it’s down this street here, then take a left and go all the way down that street as well. It will be right there. But if you want to take a taxi, you can just tell them Eiffel Tower and they can get you there.”

You thanked the woman before taking your goods and leaving, tucking them inside your backpack carefully. Chaeryeong asked, “what were you two talking about?”

You laughed, “you know...things.”

She groaned and pushed your shoulder, making you dramatically hold your shoulder and groan in fake pain. You decided a cab would be better just so that you could get there before sundown. The entire ride Chaeryeong tried to get you to talk but it was no use because your lips were sealed.

When you all were dropped off she asked, “why are we here? We’re coming back tomorrow.”

You told her, “yeah with our classmates, goofy best friends, and the overprotective chaperones that won’t let us hold hands for longer than three seconds and remind us “six inches for the lord” whenever we’re close. I wanted to bring you here, just as us two, not a group.”

Chaeryeong’s face flushed pink upon the sincerity of your comment, she covered her face with her hands, “how are you so good at that?”

You sat down as you told her, “it’s what I do best, now come on.” You patted the grass next to you, pulling out your pastries from your bag as well. She took hers and took a picture of it before eating it. You couldn’t help but laugh when her eyes lit up and she did a little dance at how good it was. The two of you ended up sharing both while enjoying the scenery in front of you as the sun dipped below the horizon.

Chaeryeong shyly moved closer to you, prompting you to wrap your arm around her shoulder. She leaned into you, a soft smile creeping onto your face as she toyed with the hem of your shirt.

Your girlfriend played with your fingers as she asked, “you know this is something I’ve always wanted to do?”

You responded, “what?”

She replied, “going to Paris with you.”

Although you knew why, you wanted to hear her say it herself, you asked “why?”

A shy smile crept onto her face as her face blushed red, “You know, going to the City of Love with the girl I love...”

You pulled away from her, your heart beating faster with every passing second. Most times you were calm when she said things like this, but in the moment you couldn’t be more flustered.

She sincerely told you, “I love you Y/N.”

With all the confidence you could muster, attempting to keep you cool girl façade up, you asked, “you know there’s one thing I wanted to do with you while we’re here and I haven't gotten the chance until now.”

She furrowed her brow, you moved closer until your lips were just barely touching, “this.” You pressed your lips against hers, your hand slipping behind the back of her head, fingers lacing in her silky hair.

You could feel her smile against your lips before she pulled away, with the same sincerity, you replied, “I love you too Chae.”

#kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #itzy masterlist #itzy scenarios #itzy imagines

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rovelae · 3 years

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Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He really wishes Shuichi was here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Like a killing game.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Um… Kokichi?”

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

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

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

“It’s about Kaito.”

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

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

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

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

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

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

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

Was that a lie?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Huh…?”

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

So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s a lie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I love you.

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

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

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

Which do you think?

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

“How did you know?” he finally croaks.

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

Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But still….

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

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

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

Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

“I promise, Kokichi.”

…

“Kiss me again,” he says. “Please?”

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

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

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

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

Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

“Trust me,” he murmurs.

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

Trustworthy….

“I do trust you,” he realizes.

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

And that’s a wrap!

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

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

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

Until next time!

#Rov talks #Hologram #Saiouma #Oumasai #Behind the scenes #Director's cut #Fanfic review

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thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years

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Let’s talk: Grievances and Cuteness - BTS on You Quiz on the Block

by Admin 1

Today BTS were guests on You Quiz on the Block, a very popular Korean variety show on tvN, and it was a wonderful mix of fun and hilarious, but also serious, vulnerable and honest. Seeing as we don’t have subtitles yet, merely the things our marvelous translator ARMYs managed to translate for us—the episode was 100 minutes long so there was a lot going on and being said—I don’t want to get into detail in this post and instead will wait with that until we have subs and I’ll be able to sit down and watch it properly again, focus on things that stick out to me and I would want to talk about. So that I can do their words justice.

Instead I want to use this post to air some of my grievances, directed at fellow ARMY, “ARMY” and shippers, as well as just gush a little about a few cute moments. The more serious things will be in a different post sometime soon. I hope that’s okay.

Grievances

What is the point of Bangtan going on a show like this, especially one that is broadcast on national TV and very popular with the general public? It’s to share not only their funny side but also their honest and genuine one, share stories that, though some we’ve heard before as ARMY, they’re things the general public doesn’t necessarily know. The point of them sharing vulnerable moments and memories with us is to simply be honest and transparent, something they’ve always highlighted as important to them.

What is the part we play in this, what is it that we should do? We are simply supposed to listen, understand the things they are telling us, put things into perspective so we know what they felt in certain moments and periods of their lives, understand that they’re human too with struggles, fears and sadness, and we should cherish the fact that they tell us any of it at all. They could just as well only show up whenever there’s a new album and comeback and then disappear again, share nothing personal at all and put on entirely fake personas. But they don’t. And we should be grateful for that and happy because of it.

Now, the reason why I even wanted to write this in the first place is this:

Many, and I mean many have decided that instead of doing what I’ve highlighted a moment ago, a far better course of action would be to twist their words, manipulate them, use them to victimize the members (and especially Seokjin), and try to overanalyze them in favor of their desired narratives and especially their ships, even if whatever was being said had absolutely nothing to do with any ship at all.

Before the episode even finished airing, solos/mantis were already up in arms “crying” about mistreatment and victimizing Seokjin because *insert demands they have no right to make at all* and when Seokjin, bless him, was on weverse, he actually replied to a post where he basically said that parts of what he said were too sad/depressing, so he simply asked the You Quiz staff to cut them out, which would explain why he seemed to have “less to say” during his interview section with Yoongi. Did that help? Of course not. Even though it showed not only that he did say more, that he likely said more vulnerable things, but also that he made the decision for himself that he did not want to share that yet, because he’s not ready for it or because he came to the conclusion that he simply doesn’t want to period, and that his wish for them to cut it out was met. Even though it wasn’t BH controlled content, but You Quiz.

More below the cut:

What does this tell us? The members have control over what is aired and what is not. If they feel something is too personal or would come across wrong, they can voice objection and chances are their words will be met and followed. They aren’t victims in need of saving, aren’t helpless boys with no idea what they’re doing. They are serious musicians, respected and treated well. This is a good thing and I’m glad he told us that, even if many don’t want to hear it and immediately claimed that “oh yeah BH told him to shut us up”. The mental gymnastics some are willing to do to make things fit their agenda truly baffles me sometimes.

On the other hand, I’ve seen shippers try to twist words or put others into the members mouths to push their agenda, and we’ve even had one or two asks being sent to us basically sadly wondering if maybe Tae isn’t who we thought he is for Jimin, and neither is Hobi, because of something Jimin said. Even though the thing Jimin said had quite literally nothing to do with either Tae or Hobi. In a way, I get where such vminnies are coming from, as vminnies we would love to just hear vmin talk about each other all day because it’s cute and we love their bond and stories, but it’s not like we didn’t get that. Because we did. Unprompted. Jimin mentioned Tae during their trio interview and told a story, even if we’ve heard it before to a certain degree. And yet it still wasn’t enough? Like come on, please don’t do this. Don’t reduce everything the members do and say to just ship related and non-ship related (thus uninteresting) statements and actions, as though the latter is worth less.

Here is the moment in question:

The way I see it, the only thing we should take away from this is that despite these very human fears and struggles, wonderings if people only care about Jimin because he is BTS Jimin and not Park Jimin, he still had and has good people in his life that’ll remind him that he is appreciated and loved for who he is, and not just for his celebrity status. Friends even outside of Bangtan. Why do we have to take something so incredibly personal, this moment of vulnerability from Jimin, and try to overanalyze it? To twist it to fit a ship? Regardless which one. Or to twist it to fit some kind of narrative, whatever one it may be? Please don’t do that.

Sure, Admin 2 noticed his use of ‘chingu’ when talking about this friend that told him that, and sure it reminded me of what Jimin said to Tae in the FESTA 2020 Rolling Paper, but neither Admin 2 nor I will go and claim that oh he must’ve been talking about Tae but didn’t want to use his name to avoid XYZ because we are not in his head and, at the end of the day, it’s irrelevant who exactly said that to him. That wasn’t the point of that story. Like at all. So why are some people disregarding the point in favor of speculations? Why are some completely ignoring his words, downplaying them as just potential ship material instead of appreciating the fact that he told us that at all?

It’s unfair toward Jimin, and the other members as well when they tell similar stories. Their lives aren’t fictional stories that revolve around romance. They are real people with real lives and more friends than just their fellow members and that’s a good thing since it surely gives them the opportunity to feel less isolated, cut off from the world by nature of their occupation and status. Besides, in the past Tae said something similar as well, how he used to be a social butterfly and make friends easily wherever they went but eventually he understood that people didn’t really care about Kim Taehyung and instead just wanted to know BTS V and be able to use that to brag, so he stopped being so outgoing. And we’ve also seen Jimin talk about cutting out friends in the past if they said something negative about Bangtan, then, a few years later, saying that he’s grown more as a person and learned to not allow these things to affect him as much, to surround himself with genuine people.

So, in light of what he said in that segment, we should be happy for him. And that’s it.

We also saw people use what Tae said about his dad to push the he must be 100% heterosexual because he said he wants to be a dad narrative which, where do I even start. Perhaps with the fact that this statement relies on a mistranslation? Because he didn’t say he wants to be a dad but that he wants to be a person like his dad, that’s his dream. Perhaps with the blatant homophobia this statement is laced in? The disregard for how queer people can also want to have kids, be parents, just like anyone else? Perhaps with how these things oddly seem to just be done to Tae and Namjoon, and especially Tae to use it for ship purposes?

Instead of jumping to conclusions, overanalyzing stories we are not supposed to analyze but instead to simply appreciate, please wait until we’ll have the full episode with subtitles (even though from the past we know that some of it may be simplified so reading what our translators wrote is also a good thing to get the whole picture) and even then, just enjoy their silliness and listen to their words of honesty. Listen to the fact that their fame was and continues to be a heavy weight on their shoulders, how instead of becoming cocky assholes they remained humble and genuine because that’s the kind of people they are and want to be, listen to what they want you to hear and now what you want to hear.

Also, to shippers—this isn’t the place to look for ship content of any kind, for some romantic confessions or whatever, because this was about Bangtan as seven members and their stories of the last ten and a half years since Namjoon joined BH and the idea for BTS was started.

Cute and silly things

Now that that's done, let’s talk about some fun and cute things to lighten the mood, shall we?

One of my favorite moments was when the MIC DROP ARMY came in as a surprise for the members, her confidence was off the charts and the guys looked so genuinely happy. After all it’s been so many months since they’ve last seen ARMY! And I’m so glad she was such a wonderful representative for us all, how she didn’t react with fear or shyness, didn’t scream or cry, but instead did her thing like a Queen. And the way the members reacted when she sent them a finger heart during one of the dances? Absolutely adorable!

Also, she truly must’ve saved some kind of nation, or maybe two, in her past life since she also was gifted a chicken leg pillow by Tae. He’s just so kind and lovely.

Then we had the members play a game of trying to guess a song merely by the first second (I think) and then having to sing it, though who sang which part didn’t follow the actual order in the song but was chosen by someone off screen which meant that, for example, Tae was doing one of the rap line verses as well as singing Jimin’s part in another, Hobi showed off his vocal skills, and of course, the highlight, Namjoon singing a part from Spring Day. Even though we know Namjoon’s skills when it comes to singing are not the greatest, which I mean in a very loving way, no tea no shade, and yet he still went for it. It was hilarious and cute and showed that he is willing to be silly even if others might laugh at his expense.

Sometime after the episode aired Namjoon actually came onto Weverse to talk about the episode and, among other things, apologized for not singing Seokjin’s guide all that well. One thing I’d like to point out is how, originally, he wrote Jinhyung but then changed it to Seokjinie hyung, which is just a small and precious little detail:

Another cute moment was during ‘dance mafia’ when Tae turned to Jimin to ask him if they did well and Jimin replied that yes, he did well (both using this adorably soft tone with each other), they also hugged for a moment while smiling brightly. See, I said not to look for ship moments, but this is just cute regardless if you ship vmin or not. Admin 2 though would like to comment on how they could’ve given us that hug from a camera that’s a little further away so we could have a more proper look, or a longer shot of it, please?

Honestly that game was hilarious and the members who were mafia did a wonderful job tricking the others, particularly JK was fantastic at it since the second time around no one suspected him at all. Also, the fluffy ear muffs with cat (?) ears on them were adorable. At the end of the segment they were all supposed to strike a pose but Tae didn’t manage to put his ear muffs back on, so they fell to the ground and so Jimin lightly hit/caressed his chest and turned toward the MCs to ask if they could try again so that Tae could look good in it as well.

Actually, speaking of adorable in regard to Jimin, when they were introduced at the beginning of the show as RM-jagi-nim, jagi-nim being the name used for all the guests on the show and also the name on the necklace (given to guests who are fans of the show by the producers) Jimin showed off on weverse in his selcas, Jimin corrected the MC that it’s not Jimin-jagi-nim but Mini-jagi-nim which just…my heart. Too cute.

Lastly, I want to mention how all of them were asked what the first sentence would be if their lives were a book and their answers were just so very…them.

Namjoon: Predictions in life often turn out to be wrong

Tae: I’m a chameleon

Hobi: Dear, people who’ve helped to lead me here

Yoongi: You lived life to the fullest/hard/well

Seokjin: Dope, worldwide class!

Jimin: What kind of life do you want to live?

Jungkook: Hello?

Overall it was an amazing episode that was so fun to watch even without really being able to understand any of what was being said. Still the members genuine personalities shone through brightly and I’m glad they had fun and felt comfortable, especially since it’s been a while since they were last on Korean variety shows and some of their past experiences were…not great. I can’t wait to watch it again once we have subs and to write a more proper post about it then. I hope you didn’t mind this more…serious and “angry” post and understand where I’m coming from with my complaints, but also that you enjoyed the cute moments I highlighted.

#BTS #BTS You quiz on the block #Namjoon #Seokjin #Yoongi #Hoseok #Jimin #Taehyung #Jungkook #vmin

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chalkrevelations · 3 years

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Huh.

Well, this is not the next episode reaction you were expecting, but a while back, in the middle of the night, while I was ready to cry from working on a pharmacology paper, out of nowhere, Youtube threw up Street Dance of China S3 Ep1 at me. And yeah. I am, admittedly, f’kn weak for a dance show. (There are enough SYTYCD episode reax on my old Livejournal that I feel there’s no point denying this.)

So – no, actually, wait. FIRST of all, I do NOT believe the “towel vote” we ended up being given for the opening routines from the four captains. That was the most blatant bit of bullshit chicanery I’ve seen in my LIFE, and I say this as a person with a ton of SYTYCD episode reax on my old Livejournal, and I also say this not because Wang Yibo ended up last (well, not entirely), but because I saw Wallace Chung’s routine. As someone closer in age to him than to the other three captains, I have to give him props for trying, but come on, man. The critique that Yibo got from random contestants – if the subtitles are to be believed, so I realize this needs a grain of salt - basically boiled down to “it was too good for the stage lighting.” :hands: Also, I saw your face at the reveal, Wallace, and you were as shocked as I was. No way you got more towels/votes than Wang Yibo. Not unless there’s some super wild undercurrent of nostalgia propping you up, which, I guess could happen, because literally all I know about pop culture in China, current or otherwise, is filtered through Tumblr and Youtube, both notoriously suspect, but … anyway. There’s got to be a TON of behind-the-scenes manipulation going on for Yibo to be rock-bottom with last pick of teams but then also to end up with THAT pool of possibles. Are you kidding me with this?

ANYWAY, what I wanted to say is that I actually really like Wang Yibo here, and it’s not just because he’s the only captain I have even a sliver of familiarity with, and it’s not just because Lan Wangji was banging Wei Wuxian. I do realize all of this is influenced by whatever edit they’ve decided to give a particular captain or contestant, but I’m impressed with the way Yibo immediately starts team building by getting his group into a warmup, getting them dancing together, getting them dancing with him before they have to worry about dancing for him. (I mean, come on, Jackson Wang. The way to get people to stop being nervous is not to say “Stop being nervous! It will make you fuck up!”) The way Yibo immediately recognized and responded to his group’s concerns about that one dude copying someone else’s routine probably also bought him a lot of return investment. He’s dressed to work it, in his sweats and his flannel (what IS that fake-leather TAC vest and random leg holster-looking thing, Jackson Wang?). He’s convincing me he really loves to dance, he can’t hold still while he watches the contestants, he’s wandering over into other captains’ turf when it sounds like there’s a dancer performing who he might like to see, he’s being the best Yibo he can be, and I’m grooving along, wind in my hair, totally down for this ride. He’s also adorable at the beginning when all the other captains are like, my goal for this season is to slaughter the competition and dance on their graves! And he’s like, well, I’d like to … make some friends? And learn some new stuff? I don’t know if the perpetual Humble Student schtick is natural or persona, or whether it’s general or specific to dancing, but it’s working for you, my dude. This is also made better (read: ironic), by the fact that it’s immediately before the towel reveal, when he flips over to utter disbelief and gets all sulky for a while over the “fact” that his dance routine got the least votes.

Also, OH WAIT. This is where that clip of Yibo dancing with his crew ALL OVER HIM came from that I saw floating around a few months ago, isn’t it? You’re telling me those guys had never danced together before and had like, three minutes to throw together that routine? I’m even more impressed than before. Meanwhile, the towels symbolize courage and challenge, Mr. Emcee? OK, fine, cheesy reality show blah blah whatever. Can we get to the dancing now?

I’m going to put the rest of this behind a cut, because it got super long, because it turns out, when you watch in 5-minute increments, it takes two and a half weeks to get through a single episode, but you actually can see and have opinions on all 5,328 contestants, plus every single one of the captains’ battles. Meanwhile, I’m trying to convince myself this is not going to be another series of episode reactions, but 1) I do have the benefit of not having a ton of hometown media giving me a next-day play-by-play, so even though this is six months old, everything’s a surprise; 2) I am, admittedly, f’kn weak for a dance show; and 3) it’s easy to watch in 5-minute increments between researching drug interactions in hypothetical hypertensive patients with stable ischemic heart disease, erectile dysfunction, and seasonal allergies. So, I guess we’ll see. It’ll be slow going, though, because I don’t ever have two and half hours to sit down and watch an ep cover-to-cover – if it happens, it will likely keep happening in 5-minute increments. Meanwhile, there is a metric shit-ton of nattering below the cut, so caveat lector. No, seriously, I kept adding to this little by little until it became a monster. Hashtag long post (remorseful).

OK, I am generally out of my depth here, as this is not at all my area of dance not-really-expertise, but some reactions:

Team Wang Yibo: I can see why he didn’t want to choose between Colin and Dian Men – Colin might have been a touch better technically and a better showman, but Dian Men didn’t seem to have a single wasted move – but, also, my dude. Yibo. You maybe should look a little bit less stunned and overwhelmed by the mere presence of Colin, it’s giving me ideas about your taste in men. Continuing with the powerhouses, I probably shouldn’t even attempt to critique Klash, but I did feel like he was a bit stiff in some of his footwork; that final V kick, though, shit, that’s what having that kind of upper-body strength is for. Bouboo … I mean, excellent flexibility and control, of course, but mainly I’m just terribly amused that Yibo got last pick of teams but somehow ended up with the guy who’s literal world champion, and who’s just as useful for getting into the other captains’ heads – without even trying – as he is for his talent. And then there’s a montage of Yibo giving out towel after towel after towel, and my dude, you cannot keep up this pace. There are still too many dancers to see, and you don’t have that many towels. AAANNNND Towel Battle #1 (See Footnote 1).

Team Jackson Wang: I do like Gai Gai, although that may be influenced by the fact she’s working in the twilight area between hip-hop and contemporary that I have more familiarity with - but also, I suspect she’s pretty good in her genre. I thought Xiao Jie was inconsistent and didn’t stick the landing on his initial attempt, so I have to give you that hesitation, Jackson, even though you’ve somehow ended up the villain in my inner narrative for this show, for no particular reason I can yet discern. Maybe it’s that you’re the direct competition for Yibo’s team in the towel battles. Good enough. Anyway, Xiao Jie definitely stepped up his game for the battle with Bingo, so I can kind of see why both of them got a towel, but we’re not even halfway through this, and most of y’all are giving away towels like you have an endless supply. Yang Kai is a fucking menace with fantastic musicality, and I’m just gonna say it and take the fallout - I think he gave a better performance first time out of the gate than any of Yibo’s powerhouses did. Whatever power Klash has got, whatever skill Bouboo has got, Yang Kai feels more explosive and engaging, at least in these initial showings. He’s going to be one to beat, I’d hug him too, if he was on my team and was going to help me WIN. Yibo’s probably lucky that happened during his little stroll over to check out the competition, so that he can see they’re definitely competitive and be prepared for it. Also, Jackson, I have to admit - that face you made when Chao really kicked in? That was the same face I made, because wt actual f, you have a literal secret weapon – secret because he CAME FROM NOWHERE and NO ONE EVEN KNOWS him, how is that even possible, how did he get that good – fluid, creative, controlled, incredible musicality - without anyone having any idea who he even is? And then there’s a montage of Jackson just giving out towel after towel after towel, and my dude, you need to slow down. You can’t just be like, “THEY LOVE DANCE WITH ALL OF THEIR WHOLE HEARTS!!!!1111!!!!11!” I get it, but everyone there loves dance with all of their whole hearts, and there are not enough towels to send all of them on to the next round. ANNNND, Towel Battle #1 (See Footnote 1).

Team Lay Zhang: lol at how diplomatic you’re being, Lay Zhang – your team’s fierce roar startled you, OK. At this point, I suspect you’re the street most likely to have a knife fight break out before this is all over. I do like Alex, I think he’s got a lot of interesting, super-clean details in his moves, and he’s engaging - I cannot BELIEVE you made him battle that dude whose moves were so mushy, Lay Zhang, it leaves me doubting your ability to judge this thing. At first I thought maybe you were just looking for an excuse because you wanted to see Alex freestyle, but then you actually said something about both dancers being equal, and my estimation of you plummeted, and also sadly, my sound dropped out for the actual battle, including the part where the clearly inferior dancer fell over and then accidentally POPPED ALEX ONE IN THE EYE, and I TOLD YOU SO. I do agree it’s a good idea to make dancers in the same genre do some battling, so you can kind of plan out your towels and put together a team with broad strengths, instead of giving out towels like you’re making it rain for the first 20 contestants, and then you have 1,375 more people to get through, with 3 towels left, as EVERYONE ELSE seems to be doing, so it’s nice that at least one of you guys is thinking – if not actually acting - strategically. That was clearly not even a contest, though, GIVE ALEX HIS TOWEL and send him to the next round. Xiao Bao is hilarious, with his concern that his team captain, who’s into krump, which is “beating,” isn’t going to appreciate his waacking, which is “slapping.” I also don’t know a whole lot about waacking, so thanks for the primer, Xiao Bao, and don’t worry, your performance is just as engaging for those of us who don’t know what we’re watching as you are generally. You deserve that towel for your ability to interact with and engage your audience, alone. Lingo is a good solid performance, although he’s got his team captain strategizing edited over some of it, and here’s the thing: we are 1:56:00 into this, at this point, with another half hour to go, and all of you are starting to disappear into the sea of dancers who are very good at what you do, but at generally the same level? Anyway, Lingo, I approve of your ability to interact with your audience (read: your captain) to ensure engagement, too, so keep that up. Annnd, we actually haven’t seen that much of you guys, but it’s time for Towel Battle #2 (See Footnote 2).

Team Wallace Chung: I’m glad Su Lian Ya insisted on performing, I thought she started off slow but warmed up, and that ending was creepily fantastic and had me spontaneously grinning at the screen in delight. Then we lose sight of this group for a really long time, actually. We go back to find Wallace putting through a couple of urban dancers who we barely see, but who apparently claim to have some choreography experience, and he really likes that. TI shows up, and they’re solid, but honestly, not as good in this performance as they were in some of the stock footage the show threw up to introduce them, but Wallace remains super-excited about the idea of choreography and sends at least choreographer Zhang Jiang Peng through to the next round. And then, we really haven’t seen that much of you guys, either, which maybe doesn’t bode well, but it’s time for Towel Battle #2 (See Footnote 2).

FOOTNOTE 1, aka TOWEL BATTLE ONE, Team Yibo vs. Team Jackson, 3V3 freestyle: First of all, I have to say, I love Yibo - Mr. I Just Wanna Make Some Friends And Have Some Fun - being all, “I have three crappy white towels I’m stuck with for coming in last place that I can’t use to send dancers to the next round and that I DO NOT DESERVE, and I am getting BACK the colorful towels that ARE RIGHTFULLY MINE. I am coming for whoever is in my way.” Team Yibo is Bouboo, Klash, Dian Men, and OK, given what we’ve seen so far, that’s the safe choice, but honestly, I think we’re just taking some things for granted right now, and I’m not sure they actually have given the best performances so far. Yeah, I said it. Team Jackson is Yang Kai, Chao, and Xiao Jie, and … ok, on that last one, I think you probably could have substituted Bingo, but all right. Yang Kai is a definite yes. Chao will be great if he can stay out of his own head and not psych himself out, but given what we’ve seen so far, he’s an obvious pick. First round, Yang Kai vs. Klash, and Yang Kai is still a fucking menace, with super lines. Klash definitely stepped up his game for the battle, and I can’t get over the upper body strength he’s got, to get that kind of airy bounce in his moves, but to be honest, I can’t even be mad the first round went to Yang Kai and Team Jackson. Second round, Yang Kai is still … y’all, the beautiful lines from this guy in his poses, I can’t get over them, but I think he doesn’t have the stamina, his footwork is getting sloppy. Bouboo also steps up his game for an actual battle, his fluidity and control is amazing, and yeah, round to Team Yibo. Round three, Xiao Jie gives it a decent effort, but the polish isn’t there; meanwhile Bouboo is still in champion mode, and I was kind of surprised this was a split vote and went to another round. Xiao Jie absolutely surprised me, coming back stronger on his second try, although I suppose a more familiar genre helped, but Bouboo continues in champion mode. Round four, Chao looks like he’s going to throw up right before he steps out there, and then as soon as the music starts, it’s like, he doesn’t even think. The music just moves him. I feel like his dance vocabulary is more limited than Bouboo’s, though, and Bouboo’s flow is amazing at this point, so I feel like the judges just want to drag this out and see more dancing when we go to one more round. Strong effort all around, but yeah, round four and two towels to Team Yibo. I can’t really complain about that. I do feel like Yibo’s powerhouses have been holding back until now, though, and I’m not sure how I feel about THAT.

FOOTNOTE 2, aka TOWEL BATTLE TWO, Team Zhang vs. Team Wallace, 3V3 w/ captain: lol, Team Zhang really wants someone to pick the Sailor Moon song because they know Xiao Bao and his waacking will tear it up. Anyway, Team Zhang includes Lingo and Xiao Bao, who does not get his Sailor Moon song and continues to be hilarious in his disbelief about being chosen to participate in this battle, when he’s not looking almost as sick as Chao from Team Jackson before HIS performance. Team Wallace includes Su Lian Ya – and honestly, despite how I’m getting ready to bag on him for the entire rest of this battle recap, I like that Wallace put one of his female dancers up there for the battle - and some dude named Ba that they haven’t given us any footage of, up ‘til now, at least that I can remember and who I … don’t even know has been formally given a towel and sent on to the next round, yet? Oh wait, he must have, because there’s talk in the pause for choreography about somehow using the towels during the battle. Wallace relies on Su Lian Ya and Zhang Jiang Peng to choose Ba, and then Ba ends up choreographing a lot of the performance, at least from the edit we see. I continue to feel you may be in over your head, Wallace. This feeling … is not assuaged by your performance in the first round, which is fine, but not really up to the level of almost anyone whose name I’ve bolded so far in this entire recap. Also, using the towels was a cute idea, but it doesn’t translate well, and Team Wallace has a lot of wasted time throwing the towels around instead of actually. You know. Dancing. Lingo gets a credible solo during Team Zhang’s performance, and even though Xiao Bao is clearly lost during a good bit of his backup dancer duties, he manages not to throw up, which – given this team’s general skill level – should be enough to give them the first round, EXCEPT SOMEHOW Team Wallace gets the point from the judges, who then try to justify this inexplicable decision by saying Team Wallace had better interaction, I guess because of the hot mess with throwing the towels around, but adding that Team Zhang was more scattered, which what? More scattered than the hot mess with the towels? I’m not buying this. I can’t tell if they’re propping up Wallace or fucking with Lay Zhang’s head, but I’m having bad acid flashbacks to the many and varied ways dance show judges will try to gaslight you, telling you that things you just saw with your very own eyes did not actually happen when it’s right there! On camera! Visible, despite whatever edit bs you’re pulling! ANYWAY, they’re definitely managing to fuck with not only Lay Zhang’s head, but Xiao Bao’s, and Xiao Bao still doesn’t seem to have his choreography down, but they manage to pull it together enough to take the second round, which to be honest is kind of a muddled mess on everyone’s part. The only one who really stands out to me on this go’round is Su Lian Ya, but OK, Team Zhang might have had it slightly more together as a unit. And then, yeah, OK, I think they were fucking with Lay Zhang’s head, because we then find out that, holy shit, the song the show powers-that-be chose for the tie-breaking third round is that gd Sailor Moon song, and we can all see the writing on the wall. Poor Team Wallace is no match for Xiao Bao, who frankly, carries this entire round on his shoulders without breaking a sweat and barely needs any backup dancers to do it. There’s some ridiculously dramatic reveal of scoring, with the judges dragging out their decisions like this was any actual contest - I’m beginning to suspect that some of them grew up with Wallace Chung posters on their bedroom walls - but finally, round and towel to Team Zhang.

Cut to a little bit of Next Time On, and wow, the first two-and-a-half-hour episode is over, and we aren’t finished with the initial round yet. It’s gonna be Christmas before I make it halfway through this season.

#street dance of china #sdoc episode reax #should i put yibo in the tags for this?#sure #i guess #wang yibo #anyone else?

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true-autistic-tales · 2 years

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welcommee back to my review and ranking of my forever slowly dying hyperfixation, ive left a link on the top to the previous post incase this is your first time seeing this, but anyhooo onto the first half of season 3 under da cut >:D

forced family fun part 1

the hecks go camping, hijinks ensue while also being partly a flashback episode. i enjoy brick and mike bonding while fishing, it's cute. even ray romano makes an appearance at the end and almost entirely throughout the next part. also i found an error with the subtitles, when brick and mike go fishing, brick says:

"my pole is all bendy."

but the subtitles put it as:

"m pole is all bendy."

forced family fun part 2

i love how they make jokes of nicky, ray romano, and frankie, patricia heaton, cuz they were also on everybody loves raymond together, also playing as a married couple with two sons and one daughter. when i first watched this though i was very confused why this nicky dude was in it but now since im cultured, aka watched 2 seasons of everybody loves raymond, i understand. i love how axl angrily trots off to his tent, it's hilarious. i kinda love nicky, he's a funnyman, also ive noticed how many depressing characters are in this show like they all got problems. good episode, above the first half.

hecking order

after countless annoyances by sue, axl decides to get his revenge by suggesting sue should try out for swimming which is on the other side of their campus, while brick has issues with his new teacher even though his teacher is really cool. the ending was very sweet, good episode, above forced family fun part 2. off topic but i just want to note while in writing this one of my besties is explaining chuck e cheese lore to me.

"may i be excused to go step in front of a moving train?"

"it's a family dinner, stuff with the rest of us."

major changes

after frankie accidentally eats axl's toenails while trying to watch wheel of fortune, frankie leaves the hecks, never to be seen again. this episode foreshadows pam staggs, who we seem later in... season 9. see? this is how you do a somewhat funny mental breakdown, especially when it shows frankie in the car, even more of a reason to hate the royal wedding. good episode, above forced family fun part 2.

the test

brick gets harassed by a bully, sue tries out to be a cheerleader, and axl attempts to do his psats. brick "getting out" of the trash is hilarious. i love how they forshadow really weird things like axl's dragon dream being his collage's mascot later. brick is such a smart kid, i love when he explains why bullies bully and how mike starts actually thinking about it, he's a smartass. good episode, above hecking order.

"oh, the bully might be winning right now, but my time will come. [whispering] time will come."

bad choices

axl fakes being sick so he doesn't have to do a test, sue and brad start a play and brick quotes shakespeare. my bobby apears for a bit to suggest frankie to hickory arms, a place he also lives in... with his mom, and is it only me or does his outfit in this episode reminds me a lot of shaggy? frankie being impressed by the most basic of shit at hickory arms is funny but also kinda depressing. i adore the don't text and drive song from sue and brad, it's always amazing even after countless rewatches. i love this episode, it's so good, the top of the list.

"that's democracy in action, jackson!"

halloween 2

sue grows up for a halloween party, brick and frankie got trick-or-treating with his support group, while axl, sean and darrin also go trick-or-treating for a money scam. i adore the ax-men in this episode, they're literally ed, edd n eddy with their level of scams. i also really love the scenes with brick's support group, it's fun as hell. i absolutely love how mike still isn't ready for sue to grow up, and tries to tell her how he feels but fails constantly. another really great halloween episode, top of the list.

heck's best thing

a recuiter for east Indiana state comes to interview axl while sue and brick accidentally gets aunt edie's phone. this weird obsession sue and brick get over this one jesus lighter is humorous. also bob randomly apears again for frankie to vent to while he's trying to put something up for ehlert which just shows how smol he is, i love my short boy. good episode, above hecking order.

"what would jesus lighter say?"

the play

mike grounds axl for being an idiot, brick and rusty bond after rusty stood him up, while frankie, sue and bob try out for a wizard of oz play. i adore all scenes at the play, maybe only because of bob but still- i love the scene where rusty just lets brick drive his automobile, dude, i love rusty, he's absolutely hilarious. great episode, above the test.

"dad let us drive, we turned out okay."

"you wanna rephrase that?"

"okay, uh, dad let we drive, us turned out okay."

thanksgiving 3

the hecks stay over to frankie's family side's place for thanksgiving. axl basically faceplants when it comes to flirting with the registrar girl and it's hilarious, i love it, especially when mike tries to teach axl how to flirt only to look like such a creep. i don't personally like the scene with frankie and janet fighting, it's a bit too realistic for my taste but other than that, good episode, below major changes.

a christmas gift

after frankie sends out an drunken invitation, the hecks with a bunch of other random people celebrate christmas eve while brick becomes an atheist after finally reading the bible and sue tries to stop him. i really really enjoy all the scenes with reverend timtom, he's so unbelievably cool. i absolutely love loVE LOVE all the scenes with axl and bob, how bob processes the fact that axl calls him bro once and then thinks that they're besties, i love him so much, i love him so so unbelievably much, i would say more but then this would turn into a fictional other gushing post instead of a somewhat in depth ranking post. great episode, above the play.

"[screams quietly]"

year of the hecks

for the new year frankie suggests that everyone should make a new year resolution for each other. i love brad becoming a wrestler, im not even surprised because wrestling is probably the most gayest sport i can imagine, that's not an insult. also in this the wrestlerettes become a thing, i love how they just completely block the view of the actual wrestling. mike trying to smile reminds me of those "cursed images" of weird cats smiling. rereading this i realize how much of a boomer i sounded, i am 15 im not out of touch yet- i love ashley wyman, she's a phineas and ferb stan. axl handing in his late homework thingy and being asked to spell "there" is very hilarious. i absolutely love when frankie and brick hang out at ehlert motors and actually start to bond, it's very nice even if frankie accidentally leaves him at work. another really great episode, above the play.

ranks so far

this season so far has been good, not much else to say, just hopefully the stream will keep on going for this like it has done for the past two.

12. forced family fun part 1

11. forced family fun part 2

10. thanksgiving 3

9. major changes

8. hecking order

7. heck's best thing

6. the test

5. the play

4. year of the hecks

3. a christmas gift

2. bad choices

1. halloween 2

#the middle #ranking

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golffitz-blog · 3 years

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L’Etang review

Mental crash test

Status: 08/13/2021 | Reading time: 3 minutes

Stefan Grund

From Stefan Grund

editor

Concentrated performers: Ruth Vega Fernandez (left) and Adèle Haenel

Source: Estelle Hanania

Successful theater experiment: Adèle Haenel and Ruth Vega Fernandez play “Der Teich” by Robert Walser, directed by Gisèle Vienne. Here, dolls come to life and people are lit up like mannequins.

The white room on the stage, open at the top and front, is not reminiscent of a laboratory, although there is a bed there. Two mannequins lie in it, as if they were resting from standing, four more are grouped around relaxed when the lights go on and loud techno music is played.

Now a very exciting, highly concentrated experiment begins in the theater laboratory. A man, perhaps a decorator, perhaps a stage worker, carries out one doll after another. Then two actresses enter the stage in hall K2 at the summer festival on Kampnagel in slow motion like animated puppets: Adèle Haenel and Ruth Vega Fernandez.

What both actresses in the experimental set-up by director Gisèle Vienne deliver as psychological crash test dummies in the following hour and a half is an overwhelming, exhilarating performance based on Robert Walser's text “Der Teich”. You play the dialect text of the German-Swiss poet in French, German and English subtitles are displayed.

Walser wrote the text for his sister, who only found it in the estate. He tells the story of the young Fritz, who fakes his death by drowning in the pond, because he feels unloved. Now he will watch the reactions of others to his death from a safe hiding place.

The children feel unloved and suffer from violence

Adèle Haenel speaks and plays next to Fritz, his siblings Paul and Klara alternating, which sounds like a composed self-talk. She often monologues as Fritz in his desperation, literally falling to the ground under the psychological burden. Ruth Vega Fernandez embodies both parents, and she also occasionally discusses with herself.

The violence that children suffer from when they breathe, stammer, explain, justify, is constantly palpable in this text. Director Vienne leaves nothing to chance in her experiment, while dying makes hidden levels of reality visible, audible and tangible, or reveals them as psychological crash test dummies through dying actresses.

Language malt, movement speaks

All design elements that dominate the game serve the purpose of empathically reaching the core of the invisible personal, private, through abstraction. In addition to the music by Stephen F. O’Malley and Francois J. Bonnet, the lighting design by Yves Godin creates atmospherically dense worlds. Vienne's choreography, which slows down movements and makes background noises audible when speaking, such as smacking or choking, reveals the soul.

Everything is broken down into characters in this complex arrangement in several levels, whereby the framework is retained. In it language becomes an act of speech, the act of study of movement. Even dying shadows shed new light on the people Vienne puts in the shop window. Walser's text also ends with a volte. Perhaps Fritz was only dreaming and the pond is actually nothing more than an ink stain.

#l’etang #adele haenel #ruth vega fernandez #gisele vienne #puppets #am I loved #Stefan grind #crash test #an overwhelming #exhilarating #overwhelming #theatre #emotional #dramatic #Robert wasler

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uncertaininnit · 3 years

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@businessbois

fuck it, you told me i could send you ideas and until i figure out how to make comps on this chromebook, eat them. swallow my comp ideas whole, and choose which to digest. very tommy centric, i have my priorities. also i provide examples if that helps.

Tommyinnit/whoever edits his video not knowing how to spell touché. It the subtitles on his videos, he always spells it ‘too shay’, which makes me want to cry. I can remember at least one specific example, in his minecraft tools irl video, when he was fighting tubbo in the second half of the video. Also this:

Tommy and tubbo using each other’s real names. this one is a given, just tommy calling tubbo ‘toby’ and tubbo calling tommy ‘tom’. i saw a clip of tommy refering to tubbo as toby in a phil stream from like maybe a week ago? no, it was either the day before or the day after mcc13, and tommy was talking to phil and tubbo. and tommy goes ‘how’s your day been, toby?’ and a couple minutes later they leave to play some other game together. and then i was watching old tommy videos earlier, and in his fake joining SMPLive video,he trolled Tubbo a lot (who was very small) and the first time he walked up to Tubbo Tubbo just goes ‘oh look, it’s tom.’ there are obv other examples but thats all i can think of

tommy and Tubbo being soft, like, out of roleplay. like just them being chill. this usually results from tommy being tired or whatever, but it’s sweet

just bench scenes. all of em. or at least a lot of them. the sentimental value that bench holds to tommy is incredible and makes me hurt

good old wilby and tommy talking each other up outside of stream, you know the drill

people making fun of tommy for being hella rich cause youtube and still buying cheap stuff in public (eboys podcast, and that one time maybe 2? 3? days ago when tommy hosted wilbur and stuck around with him and they just chilled and chatted)

wilbur simping for george. i remember him just generally simping in mcc12, and when he and ninja were being introduced he was like of george is GORGEOUS and stuff.

tommy shipping dnf. dream rider trident, the birthday book he got from ponk for ‘dream george gay comp’, when ninja married george tommy made several comments about how dream would feel, being a flower girl)

tommy shipping niki and wilbur. just- all the time. that one time when wilbur gave her blue and she gave bread, im sure you’ve seen the clip cause ive seen it lots. and then on his stream from the exile arc when he was talking to niki and he asked who she would watch for mcc and shes like ‘i always watch Will’ and he was just kinda like ‘ofc’. and just general other times

um, i K N O W i had more but can’t think. anyway, this is a LOT, you can tell just how much i want to make comps. if you like any of these you are welcome, i am truely the greatest.

#if you dont see this i will be mad #i spent time on this shit dude #mcyt #dream smp #dreamsmp

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balticprincess · 3 years

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Crash landing on you - perfect for K-drama-beginners. Just watch out - it‘s addictive

I may not be the target audience, but this has really got me. After watching it for the 3rd time back to back (with 16 episodes that are about 70 -90 minutes it’s ok, I guess, when finishing it, I want to see the start again) I now need to put some thoughts down.

Why do I (and apparently millions of others) love it so much?

It‘s funny, tragic, super romantic and suspenseful. The actors are great, not only the main couple Ri Jeong Hyeok ans Yoon Se-Ri as star crossed lovers, but also the second couple, which is even more star-crossed and one half of it is for a lot of episodes hopelessly tied and in love with the elusive RJH. Also the supporting actors are great, especially the band of brothers from Company 5, who do everything to help their leader and YSR. The villain is great and so vile, you hate him - until you see him in the Behind the Scenes-vids, where he is most charming.

It‘s a bit like fanfiction in a series: found family, vile brothers, destiny, star-crossed lovers, fake fiancee, reversed makeover, sleeping in one bed, all the tropes are there, but never blatant, but lovely and well executed. A lot of people who watched it say it’s also enemies to lovers, but I seriously doubt that, seeing Captain Ri‘s face at the end of the first episode. It’s more like love at first sight, smitten and whipped.

While he is a kind of super-hero („Do you think you‘re in the Avengers“) he also has flaws, is sometimes jealous, easily flustered by Se-Ri and exasperated by the whole set up. Still, he does everything for her to make her feel better and to help her escape to the south. He is an ace at fighting, can cook, is a very quick thinker, a good shot, plays the piano and is endearingly truthful (most of the time). Not to say extremely easy on the eye. She, and that is very important in my pov, is no damsel in distress. She is, actually, but she does not act like it. Being a very successful ceo, she takes the North and its people in her stride and instead of whining, heats water and helps poor kids. She cries sometimes when she is overwhelmed, which is a totally normal reaction in my opinion, making her relatable. She is beautiful and successful, he is super handsome and from an upperclass family, but both are supremely unhappy before she literally falls down on him. How they are helping each other is one of the main attractions for me. F.ex. After Se-Ris first really bad meeting with the villain and him coming to the rescue, he asks her if she is allright and not hurt. You can really see how much that surprises her, which is in turn heart-wrenching. He doesn‘t talk much, but one of his catchphrases is: „I am alright“ - which is mostly untrue, whether he stands on a mine, was shot or beaten or impending doom is coming at him. She calls him out for that, which is lovely. Both actors are nearing 40, although they look impossibly younger, but for me, being ever so slightly over 40 it was great that this was not a series with CEOs that look as if they are still in High school.

The Chemistry between the leads is so amazing that one comment said that it could light up North Korea for real. I‘d say it’s not chemistry anymore, it’s Physics, waiting for the inevitable chain reaction/explosion. Captain Ri aka Hyun Bin and Yoon Se-Ri aka Son Ye Jin started dating IRL after the show (or long before, who knows) and are still going strong. That’s really romantic, especially if you watch the BTS. 🔥🔥💥

If you are not interested in history: skip this! Another point in this far too long post is that I asked myself why I could relate to these main characters who are so different from me, being a tall, sturdy blond highschool-headmistress. My husband is a pianist, but that is not it. But I lived long enough to still remember the iron curtain slashing through my country. Not to liken the then existing GDR with NK, but while we West-Germans were allowed to visit in the East, different from the Koreas, the East-Germans were not allowed to come to West-Germany. I had friends in the GDR near Dresden. My parents met them in Hungary and I was pen-friends their daughter. It was super difficult to go to Dresden, but we could meet in Berlin where it was easier to cross the border. In 1986 we met for the first time in person. I was ateeneager on a classtrip. My teacher brought me to the border in Friedrichstraße Railway station, called „Palace of tears“ by the locals. I crossed the border on foot and was in a different county and world in the same city. The cars, how the people dressed, the shops - it was strange, old fashioned and for my 20 years backwards. But the people where lovely. We met like a blind date, they were carrying a white rose. The banners seen in CLOY promoting communism and heralding the states own greatness were everywhere. When they brought me back to the eastern entrance of the railway station I had to cross, I knew why this was called Palace of tears. We cried, everyone there who had to let go family or friends to the west cried. It was heartwrenching. Unification 3 years later was a wonder I had never expected. Never. So, although our situation was not as bad as Se-Ris who knows she cannot visit NK, it is still very relatable. It wasn‘t the 38th parallel but still a nearly impenetrable wall. One of my highschool friends was in love with *drumroll for cloy-watchers* a cellist from the GDR. He was devastated to leave her at the border when we left east-berlin. Our poor teacher - I off to meet unknown people (with a permission slip from my parents but still, no phones etc) and Frank off to meet his gf at the suburbs of east Berlin. But we both came back unscathed. They got married after unification btw.

My favourite scene: Very difficult to choose, the whole set up in Pjöngyang possibly, their argument about destiny, his jealousy and him telling her to stay in his sight and 2 seconds later him being so ashamed to have said that. Also: the scene with Daddy Ri.

Strange things that happened after watching: I really want a Range Rover, preferably red. I own a cloy t-shirt and watched all behind the scenes-vids multiple time.

Why I am so late watching it: the subtitles. Apart from Shtisel, which I love, I watch English dubbed (I am German) all the time. We are used to dubbing here. What can I say: it took me 10 minutes to forget that.

For my fellow Miss Fishers murder mysteries/Phrack-lovers: I know nothing can compare the Phryne and Jack. But: The extremely dashing Captain Ri has a lot of Jack Robinson vibes going on. Dealing with trauma, being honest and respectful, accepting and encouraging the woman he loves, being so handsome and dependable. He also does not talk much but has very speaking eyes. And while Se-Ri accepts more help than Phryne does she is also a badass woman in her own right who dresses sharply and is self-sufficient and smart. CLOY is very romantic though, you can‘t really say it is a slow-burn, the aforementioned chain-reaction happens very fast. The whole thing is quite chaste, but in my mind a lot happens after the camera roll stopped...The OST is beautiful and I listen to it all the time.

Give it a try and see if you are not hooked at the end of the first episode like I was... #fighting!

#crash landing on you #kdrama #hyun bin #yoon se ri #son ye jin #ri jeong hyeok #miss fisher's murder mysteries #cloy #mfmm #personal

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