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maizumis · 3 years

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— HAIKYUU BOYS HAVING A TEA PARTY WITH YOUR DAUGHTER

ft. timeskip!miya atsumu, bokuto koutaro, oikawa tooru, kuroo tetsuro, iwaizumi hajime

note: female reader ‼️ watch me write about dad!haikyuu all the moments I didn't have with my own sperm donor

MIYA ATSUMU after a long day at work, you were coming home a little more late than usual and as you were opening the door with a sigh, the first thing you listen is “PEASANT, DO NOT TOUCH THE QWEEN CWON”, yeah that’s definitely your daughter and your pretty sure that the “peasant” is your, oh so-called husband. Curiosity took the best of you, now you were behind your daughter’s door listen carefully what atsumu was saying to her, “WHATYA MEANT PEASANT? I WANNA WEAR A CROWN TOO YA KNOW!” your daughter gasps in disbelieve, “daddy, mom is da queen, I’m da princess and yer the peasant! And clearly, mommy isn’t here so don’t touch her cwon!” One thing you know is that you wouldn’t like to see and hear a screaming match between the peasant and the princess in question, thinking that stepping in is the best option, you said “what’s the matter in here?”, next thing you know, your daughter with his big brown eyes that she got from her father, comes running at you, screaming “momm- I mean queen! Yeah, queen! yer just on time for the tea party, this peasant needs to learn some manners” you picked her up, enjoying the way her little arms go around your neck, “yeah? What did dada do this time?” while her face is on your neck, she tells you with a whisper “psss mom, he is not dad now, remember is tea party time” and now with her voice a little more loud she announces to you what he did “he wanted to use ya cwon! Literally had to scream at him cause of that! Peoples this time are onbelivabol” the las part coming with a sigh, “ugh I now right? Why don’t we teach him some manners then?” After a little thinking, your daughter tells you “uh-huh! Yer right my queen, now I will leave to the bathroom and come back to continue this celebration”. While she leaves, atsumu comes at you with a back hug asking if ya really taking her side? with a low tone, so you replied with “of course I’m taking her side, she’s a child, our child in fact” atsumu looks at you with big eyes and tells you “she is right, people these times are onbelivabol but I still love you my queen”, now facing him, noses and foreheads touching each other you whisper to him “I love you to my peasant” and after a little chuckle you continue “thank you so much for this”.

BOKUTO KOUTAROU he always had tea parties with his daughter on Mondays after his volleyball practice with the MSBY. He couldn’t go to last week's party because of an away game, and he was devasted and promised her little princess that he would get her something. Now he is coming home from the airport with three Elsa dresses, one for his precious child, the other for his precious wife, and the last one for him, it was very difficult to find one of his size cause of his beefy body, but if he promises his little girl something, he is gonna make it without a doubt. “HEY HEY HEY! GUESS WHOS HOME” he screams while putting his suitcase down “HEY HEY HEY DADDY! I MISSED YOU SO MUCH! MOMMY IS MAKING DINNER WHILE I PREPARED OUR SUPER DUPER EXTRA TEA PARTY!!” he picks her up with one arm, making his way to the kitchen to involve you in a hug with the arm he had free “we missed you, kou” snuggling into his neck, and while his arm tightens around you he replies with a soft tone “missed my two girls too, so much” he puts her daughter on the floor again and tells her “missy I have a surprise for our tea party, why don’t you finish the preparations and then mom and I are gonna go there with dinner? Sounds good?” whit a little nod she answers with “yeah dada, that sounds good”. After hearing her enter her room you ask your husband what did he get for her, and when he tells you he didn’t get one, not two but three princess dresses you’re over the moon, the fuck you’re going to do with three dresses? you don’t question him and keep cooking as if you wouldn’t have to put on a frozen show in less than half an hour. “BABY IM COMING TO YOUR ROOM WITH HOT FOOD, BE CAREFULL” the little girl sees you in all your glory, with the most beautiful Elsa dress she ever saw “MAMA, WHY YOU DIDNT TOLD ME ELSA LET YOU BORROW HER DRESS? YOU'RE SO PWETTY!” laughing a little at her comment you decide that it was the best to tell her is a secret between adults, excited to see her reaction when her dad comes to her room with the same dress on him and a little one for her. “IM COMING IN!” your husband yells and your daughter’s eyes are the bigger you ever saw them, running like the flash to steal the dress that was in his dad's hands. “Daddy, that dress is so pwetty on you, and there's one for me! We are all matching! And now we are gonna have our four curse, ugh no, cruse, ump corse, mommy how do I say it?”, “course darling, four meal course. Now dada, why don’t you come to eat with us this fancy dinner?” after nodding and making his way to the both of you, bokuto thinks he is gonna ask for another kid one of these days.

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tripleaxeldiaz · 3 years

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maybe one day i’ll fly next to you

chapter 6/8

read on ao3

start from the beginning

Eddie gets cleared with two weeks to spare, and they celebrate by making out on Buck’s couch for so long it actually starts to hurt.

Buck can admit that as excited as he was to give this thing of theirs a go (“You can call me your boyfriend, Buck, it’s not a bad word”), there was still a part of him that was nervous. Nervous about how it would affect him, would affect both of them, especially now, when they’re physically and emotionally exhausted as they hurtle closer and closer to Beijing. For the first week, Buck kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Eddie to realize this was a mistake and break it off cleanly, before they got in too deep. He knows what a monster he can be when he’s strung out on stress, and only Maddie has ever been able to see past the short words and shorter temper and get him to breathe again.

But one day, after an awful practice that brought the monster out in full force, Eddie found him hiding out in the locker room, fuming by himself and at himself. He didn’t chastise him like he could have (like he should have), didn’t tell him he was overreacting or that he was too much. Instead, he did what had become such a pillar in their friendship: he sat next to Buck and waited. And when all the anger and frustration finally seeped out of him, Eddie was there with a warm, solid, grounding hand to pull him back to his feet and away from the edge he was mentally leaning over. No judgement or invalidation, just genuine empathy.

And that’s all it took for it to slot into place for Buck. That no matter what, they’re friends — best friends — first, and their very unique life paths means they understand each other on a level that no one else can. Being boyfriends just means they get to do more fun things together now, like making out on couches like the real teenagers they never got to be.

The weeks after Eddie’s clean bill of health fly by, and they’re heading to Lake Placid before he knows it. Buck’s excited — he’s always excited for Nats — but he also feels a looming sense of foreboding, like any minute, something is going to go terribly, terribly wrong. The last time he competed here was four seasons ago, when he won his last Nats gold, two weeks before shattering his leg and Olympic dreams in one fell swoop. Who’s to say it won’t happen again? Maybe the universe has decided that the Olympics are not for him, and this weekend will result in a last place finish or another injury or something else that takes everything away from him again.

He feels a warm palm against his and a squeeze, looks up to see Eddie watching him, framed by the snowy mountains whizzing by the bus window. His brow is creased in worry, like he can see the storm starting to swirl in Buck’s head. That worry, the way Eddie knows him, is strangely grounding, pulling him out of his dark cloud enough to actually enjoy the view of upstate New York they have as they make their way to their hotel.

The pre-competition routine is easy, familiar, and Buck lets himself get lost in it, block out any and all doubts that keep trying to sink their claws into him as the weekend gets closer and closer. Eddie’s there every step of the way too, not at all the distraction Buck had been worried about for way too long, but a welcome calm in the clusterfuck of his emotions, something for him to hold onto and gravitate back towards when it all starts to be too much. He can’t believe he survived this season — or any other season — without this to balance him out, but he knows for a fact that he’s never letting it go.

It’s the morning before shorts, and Buck is woken up by obnoxious pounding on their hotel room door. He feels a groan rumble through Eddie’s chest where it’s pressed against his back, smirks as he feels his arms wrap tighter around his waist.

“If we’re quiet enough, maybe they’ll go away,” Eddie whispers.

“Get up losers, we know you can hear us,” Chim yells through the door. Buck throws back the covers, chilly morning air making him even more irritated, and yanks the door open, coming face to face with Chim and May.

“Oh thank god, he’s wearing pants,” May sighs in relief.

Buck squints an eye at her. “It’s 8:00am, what could you possibly want from us this early?”

“It’s team bonding day,” Chim says with a grin. “We’re going to Mirror Lake. Grab Eddie and your skates and meet us at the bus in 15.”

“What if we had our own plans?” Buck asks, crossing his arms. “How do you know we weren’t gonna spend all day in bed having—” A hand clamps over his mouth from behind him before he can finish.

“We’ll see you guys down there,” Eddie says. He shuts the door on them and pinches Buck’s side, turning toward his suitcase to find clothes.

“What?” Buck asks, laughing. “I was gonna say having a movie marathon, you didn’t let me finish.”

That earns him a sweatshirt thrown at his head, but Eddie’s looking at him all fond and soft when he throws it, so Buck’s not complaining.

Mirror Lake is the very definition of “winter wonderland” — the ice seems like it’s never ending, so clean and smooth you almost feel bad skating over it. Mountains and forests surround it on all sides to hide it away from the rest of the world, and Christmas lights are still strung up in the trees and around houses. It’s fairly empty this early, just a small group of kids playing a pickup game of hockey near one of the inns. A dusting of snow covers and muffles everything, bringing a sense of stillness and calm that’s unmatched anywhere else.

Buck takes a deep breath and revels at the bite he feels in his lungs. All the thoughts and voices filling his head finally quiet down, and he can just be here, enjoy this time with his friends without worrying about what’s going to happen tomorrow or next month. He knows it won’t last long, will all come flooding back as soon as they leave the lake, but he’s going to soak it all in while he can.

He’s fallen behind the group a bit as they spread out, taking in the sight of everyone — Maddie and Chim holding hands and matching strokes like always, Hen and May making up some kind of obstacle course, Bobby and Athena lost in deep conversation as they glide. He keeps looking until he spots Eddie, a little ways from the group, moving and spinning to the music only he can hear in his head. He’s as graceful as ever, confident in every movement, but there’s peace in him too — he’s at ease, free from the pressure of competition and perfection that Buck knows rests so heavily on his shoulders. The early morning sun bathes him in golden light, but it’s nothing compared to the smile sent his direction when he catches Buck watching.

He’s so beautiful it actually takes Buck’s breath away.

Eddie makes his way back to him, the light following in his wake. His smile is even brighter up close, but Buck only gets to enjoy it for a moment before he’s being pulled into a kiss so sweet and slow and perfect it makes him dizzy. Eddie pulls away just as quickly as he came in, the smile replaced with a smirk, and Buck barely registers the words “Race ya!” before Eddie’s speeding off to the other side of the lake. He’s stunned for a minute before he pushes off too, catching up with Eddie and doing his best to cut him off the rest of the way. Their laughter echoes off the mountains, surrounding them in their own joy, and Buck for the life of him can’t remember the last time he was this happy.

~~~~~~~~~~

Eddie’s in first and Buck’s closing out the group, because apparently the universe gets a kick out of watching him suffer.

They’ve been in this same situation so many times before, and he used to be able to turn his irritation at another flawless skate from Eddie into determination, propelling his own skating to be as close to perfect as possible. Now, though, he feels...proud. And happy for Eddie, because despite the weeks out and any lingering pain, he was flawless again — everything perfectly landed and rotated, a commanding presence on the ice. It’s a weird feeling, but it’s also nice, especially when Eddie winks at him and mouths good luck as he makes his way to the kiss and cry, and Buck’s whole body fills up with giddy butterflies.

Turns out butterflies work better than anything else for him — he’s 10 points in first place after shorts, and he feels so electric, so on top of the world he doesn’t know what to do with himself.

Until he sees Eddie again on their way to the presser, costume still sticking to him with sweat in all the right places, hair mussed and cheeks rosy.

Then there’s only one thing he wants to do, and he can’t believe he has to be polite to reporters before he can do it.

He manages to be nice and not stare at Eddie the whole time, but he snaps as soon as they get back to their hotel room, pushing Eddie up against the door as it closes and kissing him fast and dirty.

“Is this your way of distracting me so you win tomorrow?” Eddie asks, breathless from the kiss, fingers threading through Buck’s hair as Buck trails kisses down his jaw and neck, pausing only to shove Eddie’s jacket and shirt off so he can get to more skin. He stops again just as he gets to Eddie’s chest, his breath ghosting over a nipple and leaving goosebumps in its wake. Eddie’s pupils are blown wide when he meets his eyes, and the blush on his cheeks and crawling down his chest is so pretty Buck could write sonnets about it.

He smirks, the novelty of the effect he has on Eddie far from wearing off. “Do you want me to stop?”

Eddie shakes his head, cupping Buck’s jaw to pull him back up. “Fuck no, don’t even think about it,” he says before kissing him hard again, tongue licking into his mouth immediately, and Buck can practically taste the quiet, subconscious sounds Eddie makes as his fingers run down his chest and stomach. He quickly thanks whoever made track pants a part of the Team USA uniform before shoving Eddie’s down his thighs and finally getting a hand on his cock, already hard and leaking. Eddie whines as Buck breaks their kiss, but it settles into a sigh as he resumes his trail down his body. Normally he’d spend a lot longer working his mouth over as much of Eddie’s skin as he can reach, relish in the salty sweet taste of it and hit all the places that make Eddie’s hips buck forward without his permission, but he’s only got one goal in mind at the moment. He’ll make it up to Eddie later.

He finally swallows Eddie down, hears a “fuck” and a thump above him as Eddie’s head hits back against the door. He knows exactly what Eddie likes — the first week of their relationship was pretty much dedicated to figuring out all the best ways to make each other fall apart. Eddie gets a hand in his hair again as he hollows out his cheeks and hums, vibrations sending another wave of shivers over Eddie, making his hips rock even more. Buck looks up, and Eddie looks wrecked, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth, head thrown back and neck bared. It’s a miracle, really, that Buck doesn’t come right then and there.

“Christ, Buck, I’m—” Eddie tugs on Buck’s hair in warning, but it just makes Buck go faster, coaxing and coaxing until Eddie’s spilling into his mouth. Buck just barely has time to finish swallowing before he’s being yanked back to his feet and into a searing kiss, Eddie wasting no time in tasting himself on Buck’s tongue. He barely registers where Eddie’s hands are until he feels one wrap around his cock, steady and determined. He’s so keyed up now that it doesn’t take much — a few twists of Eddie’s wrist and a bruise sucked onto the underside of his jaw has him spilling over Eddie’s hand before he knows it.

He presses kisses to every part of Eddie’s face he can reach as he comes down, soaking in the warmth radiating from him, only stopping when Eddie not so discreetly tries to wipe his hand on Buck’s pants.

“Hey!” he cries, laughing at the look on Eddie’s face. “Go wash your hands like a normal person and come meet me in bed.”

“Room service?”

“Duh.” He kisses Eddie’s nose before flopping onto the bed and flipping through movie rentals. The rest of their evening is quiet, full of bad movies and french fries and conversations about everything and nothing, and Buck feels an ease that he never feels the night before free skates. Tomorrow may be make or break for him, for both of them, but in this little cocoon of theirs, his face tucked into Eddie’s neck and Eddie’s arms around him as they drift off to sleep, the worry and nerves and anxiety feel too far away to touch him.

~~~~~~~~~~

The worst part is that he knows it’s a dream.

He knows if he jumps in real life, he’ll always come back down. Maybe not gently and maybe not on his feet, but after half a second of air time, he will touch the ground again.

But now he’s taken off and he just keeps going — it’s completely impossible, but he’s still scared. Scared of the unknown that he’s propelling towards, scared that he can’t control his body or where it’s going, scared that it’s all going to end and there’s nothing he can do about it.

Fear turns to pure terror as his weight shifts of its own accord and starts sending him back to the rink he’s made up in his head. He thinks (hopes) he’ll wake up before he makes impact, but the panic is still clawing at him, sinking into his bones and running all the worst case scenarios though his head. He crashes through the ice but it doesn’t stop — flashes of disappointed faces, snippets of voices tinged with pity for him and the fact that he failed once again. It’s cacophonous and overwhelming, but he catches specific voices — Maddie, Bobby, Eddie — that try to push through, try to pull him out, but it’s not enough. He’s falling into the nothingness of his own failure and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.

He finally wakes up, his skin feels like it’s buzzing, alive with lingering panic. He’s got an arm around Eddie’s waist and his face pressed into the back of his neck, and he takes a minute to breathe him in and get his heart to slow back down. It’s early, barely light out, but Buck slips out of bed, grabs the comforter from the other one, and quietly slides open the balcony door. The snow is just starting to glow from the first rays of sunlight, and everything is quiet, still, a direct contrast with the thoughts and feelings still swirling in Buck. He sits on the little bench facing the surrounding forest, does his best to focus on the chill in the air and the quiet nature sounds around him, tries to shut out everything else and be right where he is.

It takes a while, but it helps.

The sun is fully up by the time he goes back in, and Eddie’s just finishing packing up his skating bag. Buck’s bag, actually. Eddie’s is already set by the door. He feels on the verge of tears again, but not in a bad way.

Eddie turns to him as he slides the door shut. His eyes track everywhere, like he’s cataloging Buck, taking stock before making a move. Buck’s stupidly grateful for it — he feels like one wrong move could send him cracking all over again, and it wouldn’t be Eddie’s fault, but he’d get the brunt of it. But Eddie knows him better than almost anyone, so whatever move he makes will be a good one.

He watches Eddie move slowly toward him and reach for his hand, giving Buck every opportunity to back up and say no. That’s not at all what he wants, so he meets Eddie halfway and laces their fingers together.

“Do you need another minute?” Eddie asks quietly.

Buck shakes his head. “I’m okay. We have to leave soon anyway.”

“Will you believe me if I tell you that everything’s gonna be fine?”

“Probably not.”

Eddie nods. “Okay.” He tugs Buck toward him, gently kisses his forehead, cheek, and lips. “We need to be downstairs in 30 minutes.”

Buck squeezes his hand and heads towards the bathroom. He steps into the shower and tries to convince himself that Eddie’s right.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Channel your nerves, Buck. Everyone here is rooting for you. Show ‘em what you got.”

Buck nods at Bobby before pushing off the boards. He hears On the ice, representing the 118 Skating Club of Los Angeles, Evan Buckley and the applause that follows, but it sounds tinny and far away. He’s trying to channel everything — his nerves, doubts, fear of failure, whatever — and make it work for him, but it’s not as easy today. He feels heavy, like his body isn’t quite in line with his mind and what he needs to be doing, and he knows he’s going to be fighting himself for every element for the next four and a half minutes.

The music starts and he tries to float with it, use it to push through the extra gravity he feels and lift himself up more. He lands his first jump — his triple axel, usually one of his strongest — but feels himself wobble, knows his GOE will be low. He misses the second jump on his first combo and has to mentally comb through his program to figure out where he can tack it onto to make up points. On and on it goes — he doesn’t fall, there’s no monumental breakdown, but he’s subpar, doesn’t meet his own expectations and probably doesn’t meet those of the USFSA. He finishes with the fakest smile he’s ever slapped on his face and all but sprints to the kiss and cry.

Nats scores are always inflated, so he doesn’t do bad, but he’s certainly done better. There are three skaters left, including Eddie, and a terrible part of him hopes that the other two eat ice so he can still finish on the podium and salvage his spot in Beijing.

They don’t. Naturally. He sits in the green room as they each have the best skate of their season and leap frog over his score. Eddie’s last to go and he lays it all out there, like he’s already at the Olympics, but Buck’s hardly mad about that. He’s a force, attacking every jump but still keeping a softness in his movements to match Jeff Buckley’s voice. Buck’s got chills up and down his back during his last step sequence and into his final pose, and he knows it’s a gold medal by a mile. And he’s happy for Eddie, ecstatic even, but he also feels his heart break a little bit, because Eddie winning puts him in fourth.

The pewter medal. A stupid consolation prize that only the USFSA gives out. He’s technically still on the podium, but it somehow feels worse than if he’d finish last.

“You had a great Grand Prix this year, that counts for a lot more than Nats,” Eddie says on the ride to the airport the next day. It’s the first time Buck’s let him talk about it without changing the subject or kissing him or literally walking into another room. He’s run out of energy to avoid it anymore.

“They’ll want someone consistent, and that’s clearly not me.”

“You have the second highest overall score in the country this season, fifth in the world. They can’t ignore that.”

Buck shrugs, picks at an errant string on his hoodie to avoid looking Eddie in the eye. He feels lips press to his temple and unconsciously melts, head moving down to rest on Eddie’s shoulder.

“It’ll all work out. We’ll be in Beijing together, I know it.”

Eddie’s always so confident, so sure in his convictions and unwavering in his beliefs. Buck loves him for it but it’s also unnerving, because he wants to believe as hard as Eddie does, but he knows how this goes. He works and works and pushes and pushes but in the end, it’s not far enough. All his hard work, his literal blood sweat and tears, can’t get him that extra inch closer to where he wants to be.

It happened four years ago, and he can feel it happening again. And this time, he won’t be able to blame a broken leg for his failures.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Buck, stop shaking your leg, you’re gonna trigger an earthquake.”

Buck scowls at Chim but stops. It’s been three days since Nats, three days of waiting, knowing that at any minute, the USFSA is going to post their final Olympic team. He’s been on edge for 72 hours because they won’t have an idea it’s happening until it happens, and he thinks he might be starting to go insane.

“It’ll be soon,” Maddie says from where she’s leaning on the boards. They’re all supposed to be warming up, a long day of practice ahead, but they’re congregated around the benches instead, anxiety crackling between all of them like lightning.

He doesn’t even notice his leg starts shaking again until Eddie places a hand on it to stop him.

“Opening ceremonies are in three weeks,” May says as she stretches on the floor. “They’re cutting it awfully close if they don’t announce, like, today.”

Chim groans as he stands up from the bench to join Maddie. “Why is it even taking so long? They’ve seen how the season’s gone so far, there can’t be that much left to deliberate.”

“Do you think they’re actually still deciding, or just waiting because it’s dramatic?” Buck asks.

Eddie snorts. “Probably the latter.”

“Guys!”

They all turn towards the doorway to the locker room, and Buck feels his blood run cold. Hen is there, looking calm as ever on the outside, but he meets her eye, and he knows.

“They just posted the list. Bobby has it up on his computer.”

Chim grabs Maddie’s hand and sprints, and May is hot on their heels. Eddie gets 10 feet in front of him before he realizes Buck hasn’t followed. He’s frozen in place, hands numb, heart beating so hard he’s worried about his ribs. Right now, on the bench, he can convince himself he’s living in a world where his dreams haven’t been crushed, where he still has a chance. Once he takes a step, that all ends.

Eddie comes back for him, grabs both of his hands and waits until Buck meets his eye. When he does, he gives him that small, soft smile Buck knows is just for him, and it feels like he’s saying I believe in you. It’s enough to get him moving.

They catch up with the others just as they get to Bobby’s office, and they jostle and crowd around the desktop, trying to get a clear view. Buck’s thankful for his height and looks over everyone, the world quickly narrowing to just him and the computer screen.

From the top, the list goes men, ladies, pairs, dance, so he starts from the bottom to delay any disappointment.

He feels the tears prick when he sees Chim and Maddie listed, his smile nearly splits his face at May’s name. Eddie was inevitable, but his heart still soars when he sees it written out.

And then.

His name. His name, just above Eddie’s.

Evan Buckley. Right there, clear as day, in Times New Roman font.

He’s glad Chim and May are already crushing him in a hug, because he’s pretty sure his knees have given out.

This is real. This is happening. Eddie is squeezing his hand and Maddie is crying and it’s happening.

They are officially, officially, going to the Olympics.

#buddie #evan buckley #eddie diaz #911 fox #buddie fic #911 fic #LET'S GOOOOO reading this chapter over again made me so excited for y'all to read the last two chapters #also WORLDS IS HAPPENING NEXT WEEK and it DIDN'T GET CANCELLED i'm pumped #fs au #ficcery

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parisrp · 2 years

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un — THE CHARACTER

NAME: Serina Thyssen

AGE: Twenty-Six

BIRTHDAY: February 16, 1995

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cis Female | She/Her

OCCUPATION: Professional Figure Skater

BIRTHPLACE: Daegu, Korea

ARRONDISSEMENT: Palais-Bourbon ( 7th )

LENGTH OF TIME IN PARIS: Newcomer

deux — THEIR STORY

Trigger Warnings: anxiety, shopping addiction

In a way, Serina has never known what it’s like to be alone in this world. She entered it just moments after her twin sister, Willa, both born to a Korean mother and doting German father, it seemed life for the girls was always set to be on the idyllic track. She was told how their mother cried with relief on the day of their Baek-il, how they’d always been surrounded and shrouded with good fortune and love. There was never a day that went by that Serina didn’t recognize the adoration, but a lot of her time and doting went to her sister whom she knew she’d adore with her entire being for however long they would grace the earth. However, even with all of the support and love they’d get, it came with some trials and tribulations. As she entered adolescence, she found herself leaving the home she’d love in Korea and moving right to London. The move was a bit difficult but with Willa by her side, Serina knew she could adjust and they did just that.

Their mother was the very definition of what a tiger mom was, always hammering in that the girls needed to be on top of their game when it came to education, their looks, their mannerisms, perfection was achievable lived in them. It was even better that there were two chances to strike gold. While Willa’s growing pursuits were in the form of ballet and piano, Serina’s was being thrust into picking up french horn and then eventually a pair of ice skates.

The very first time she glided across the ice, Serina felt a world of freedom and absolute control. She found that her favorite time to skate especially was at night when the twinkling lights and sometimes the guide of the stars and the moon were visible. When her instructors let her parents know that Serina could very well see a promising path in the realm of competitive figure skating, her mother didn’t hesitate and with a burning conviction urged her to go for Gold.

Suddenly, everything that was light and free about skating became something that made Serina second guess her steps. Had she landed her jump with enough time to go into a spin? Were her costumes aerodynamic enough to move along with the fluidity of her body? Should she have taken ballet around the same time Willa had started to be a bit more graceful? All of these thoughts consumed Serina until she found she was outperforming her local ice skating guild. Once she got a swing into competitions, she did just as her mother asked, always going for the top and for Gold. Soon enough she’d made enough of a splash to be noticed by renowned coach Brian Orser. After competing in Skate Canada as one of the stops for a ticket to the Grand Prix Final, his team saw the spark in her and knew that if she continued to grow, she could be decorated in all of the Gold medals that the ISU had to offer.

Serina quickly became an overnight sensation after a video of her Junior’s short form routine went viral on Twitter. Soon enough she found support that expanded outside of her family that spanned well around the world twice over. Signing on with Team Brian meant that her home training would always be in Canada. While she’d never minded traveling it was the first time she’d have to be without her family for long stretches of time, this was especially hard when it came to leaving Willa behind in London for months at a time, but it didn’t stop them from FaceTiming, texting day in and day out, and screaming about how their lives were going to elevate from here on out.

With multiple competitions under her belt and three chances to compete in the Olympics, Serina became as decorated as possible, her signature being biting onto a gold medal bar while a crown would be placed on her head. She was carving a path for herself being a new Queen of Ice. On the off months when she wasn’t training, she’d immediately fly back to London to reunite with Willa and their family. With endorsements and physical swag that she would always end up sharing with Willa, Serina had nestled into being a household name for any who loved the art of ice skating as much as she had.

Somehow she’d managed to compete while keeping up with her studies, getting high marks as she’d always promised her mother and even choosing finance as her major for university while Willa chose science. The idyllic track that had been prophesied was now a reality for Serina, and she was even more thrilled to know it would bless Willa who would come into her own with modeling. Soon enough the twins would be heavily sought out for campaigns, both on their successful paths in their own right. While Willa was endorsed by Prada, Serina had Chanel under her belt. Sometimes though, Serina can still feel the pressure and the doubt seeping in her bones, but rather than sit with the voices of doubt, she turned to retail therapy. As much as she was gifted, there was something thrilling about being able to swipe a black card for a new YSL bag, perfume, the latest clothing right off the runaway, and so much more. She doesn’t necessarily consider it to be a problem really, she’d work hard enough for it hadn’t she?

Now, at 26, Serina has relocated once more to have a training base in Paris, something that Team Brian has agreed upon with the added need for her to fly to Canada at a moment's notice if need be. This move to Paris was more of a plea from Willa who wanted the sisters to be together in the capital of fashion, and how could she say no? She’s just won her fourth consecutive gold and title as champion, all eyes are on her to go for her fourth while some think this might be her final year to attain her streak. There are new skaters, much younger, much more lithe, they look up to her but could also easily take her title if she blinks. Serina however, can’t imagine anyone taking her titles or beating her records, it is after all her crown to bear.

trois — THEIR PERSONALITY

+ articulate, motivated, warm

- critical, frivolous, stubborn

PORTRAYED BY JENNY.

#adeline rudolph fc #city rp #oc rp #rpg #lsrpg #c #f #palais-bourbon ( 7th )#serina thyssen #anxiety tw #shopping addiction tw

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makeste · 5 years

Text

BnHA Chapter 243: Happy New Year

Previously on BnHA: The government was all “shit what are we going to do about Shigaraki Tomura and his Actual Fucking Army of villains, oh I know, why don’t we draft some child soldiers” and so they brought back internships and made them mandatory. Class 1-A had the Christmas party to end all Christmas parties, featuring 20 unique custom-tailored Santa costumes, enough chicken to feed Tomura’s entire Actual Fucking Army, and one (1) giant sword that somehow made its way into the hands of Eri, First of Her Name. Tidings of comfort and joy were had by all, and to cap things off, Shouto invited Bakugou (who by the way was having a lot of thoughts about how Best Jeanist asked him to reveal his new hero name the next time they met, because Horikoshi knows what kind of angst I like) and Deku to come intern with him at the motherfucking Endeavor Hero Agency and make everyone’s OT3 dreams come true.

Today on BnHA: Deku visits his mom on New Year’s Eve and the two of them ball out at the Make Me Cry Olympics. There is a whole plotline all about Hawks getting coffee, and I’m trying to figure out if it’s really just coffee or if THE ENTIRE SERIES SECRETLY HINGES ON THIS ONE SCENE omg. The next day at the Endeavor Hero Agency, Endeavor is all, “welcome! fuck you,” which may or may not be setting the tone for this whole arc. There’s a brief flashback to All Might congratulating his sons on their internship and saying foreshadowing things like “your new quirks probably won’t go fucking apeshit again” and “you’re a lot like Endeavor, this internship will be good for you!” Back in the present, Endeavor dramatically leaps over a railing and blasts off to go fight Monk Gyatso with the disaster trio hot on his heels. Hawks then shows up out of nowhere and the text is literally all, “WHAT’S HAWKS DOING HERE?” and seriously though. What are any of us even doing here. This arc has only just started and I already have no idea what’s going on and I fucking love it.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, and added a few ETAs in the process, but aside from that there are no changes.)

loooool

is she going to be all right

-- also! WE’RE GOING TO SEE THE PARENTS AGAIN HOMG YES. HORIKOSHI YOU’RE ON FIRE WEEK AFTER WEEK YOU MAD DOG

(ETA: literally the only way he could end his streak was by going on fucking hiatus. son of a.)

oh shit I forgot that they had the cover and a color page this week! this is great

by the light (ba da dum ba da dum) of the silvery moon (ba da dum ba da dum) I want to spoon -- holy shit, what. do you ever look up the lyrics to a song you vaguely remember from your childhood twenty-five years later in order to make a bizarre joke in a manga recap and you’re like “!!?!?” lol what the fuck. this shit is from 1909. old timey pervs

anyways this may be my favorite Jump cover ever. colors are amazing, art is super cute, it’s the whole package. Aoyama and Iida are killing me. I need that Iida ball in real life, I would seriously pay real money

and now the color spread!

where can I buy that U.A. hoodie. I’m not kidding, I need it in my life. the U.A. logo is great because it doesn’t scream “LOOK AT ME I’M AN ANIME FAN” unless the other person also watches said anime, in which case that’s awesome because the two of you can become best friends and bond over how you’re both nerds with impeccable taste

Kacchan out here holding a fucking root beer like we don’t all know the truth. yeah tough guy you go to bed at eight-thirty and you’re third in your class at the top high school in Japan. but you keep on trying to preserve that image. also this kid is singlehandedly making wifebeaters high fashion I swear to god. it’s a talent

Kirishima looks so good in v-neck shirts yes you go Kiri!

Mina is here!! Mina is part of the main character squad now, everyone! that’s right!! Iida Tenya was booted out after he refused to partake in this photo shoot due to moral outrage over the fact that they’re shooting this at what appears to be a crime scene. a vacuum cleaner was murdered in cold blood omg

Ochako not smiling is such an unusual look for her (and Mina and Kirishima too for that matter) but holy shit. I like it

TODOROKI I’M TRYING TO REACH THROUGH THE COMPUTER SCREEN AND UNBUTTON YOUR TOP BUTTON. HOLY SHIT HOW CAN YOU EVEN BREATHE. RELAX

so the new character book is out October 4, eh? I think we knew this already, but maybe this time the date will actually stick in my mind. anyways, so doing the math, that leaves Kacchan three more chapters (including this one) to reveal his hero name. boy you have a deadline get to work!

YESSSSSSSSSSS

MY NEW YEAR’S ARC MAY NOT BE HAPPENING, BUT AT LEAST WE STILL GET TO SEE THEM RING IN 2217 HOORAY

damn that’s a lot of narration in the first panel

“while accompanied by guards” oh shit. and yet, I get it. I like how they refer to it as “the chain of events that led us to move into the dorms” rather than “that time Bakugou got fucking kidnapped.” they are not letting that happen again. good

IZUMAMA YESSSS

at least he’s being open with her about it! come on Inko, push through this. he’s already got 240 other things he’s still not telling you, don’t give him any more reason to keep being secretive

oh my god now Deku is like “anyways do you remember Eri?” and he’s reaching into his pocket now, holy shit?? WHATEVER HE’S PULLING OUT IS GOING TO BE SO FUCKING CUTE, ISN’T IT

oH MY GOD!!!!!

THIS SON OF A BITCH IS JUST GONNA KEEP ON AMASSING A COLLECTION OF ADORABLE AND HILARIOUS LITTLE KID LETTERS, ISN’T HE. LISTEN HERE DEKU YOU MOTHERFUCKER!! THAT PIC OF “MISTER DEKU” IS -- I’M -- !!!!

“I was hardly able to do anything for her” ?? you SAVED HER LIFE?? you BODYSLAMMED OVERHAUL INTO THE GROUND?? YOU GOT US ALL OUT OF THAT ACCURSED BASEMENT? listen here you modest little shit you need to stop doing this. you even taught her the true meaning of quirks for crying out loud. you are the actual best

god the way he is staring at this letter is giving me too many feels for a Thursday afternoon. these are like Saturday night feels. this manga never goes easy on me

same Inko same

oh my god now Inko is launching into a speech about Deku’s sad childhood I can’t with this, MA’AM PLEASE

“covered in bruises” oh my problematic ship. oh this nuanced manga with its intricate layers of feels. this is the lasagna of mangas

hello page 3 is just one big assault on all my emotions and I would like to report this to someone help I am being besieged

oh my fucking god Midoriya family. I’m trying to process all of this and just!!

like. she’s known all this time how big his heart is and that he doesn’t care about himself and just wants to protect others. but for the longest time he was powerless to do it. but still he kept dreaming and she kept looking on waiting for that day he’d finally give up, ready for his heart to break, bracing herself. and then this miracle happened and he got a quirk and all his hopes came true and he got to go to his dream school, and now he’s training to become a hero just like he always wanted

and everything special she always saw about her boy is shining so brightly now, and everyone can see it, and he’s become so strong. but also he’s growing up so fast. he’s gone from being someone she had to protect to someone who’s strong enough to protect not only her, but everyone. strong enough to carry the world on his shoulders

just. can you even imagine. how much pride she must feel, in addition to the relief she’s expressing now. but also the loneliness of knowing she can’t hold on to her baby boy forever and he’s on the verge of going out into the world and leaving her. in fact he basically already has. anyways I came here today for some Three Musketeers antics and now I’m sitting her with Izumama empty nest feels, what is this

-- yo, what?? he’s starting the internship on New Year’s Fucking Day? U.A. doesn’t fuck around, goddamn

(ETA: seriously, no rest for the weary here. both Endeavor and Hawks are as busy as ever too. poor Hawks, who never wanted to be a hero to begin with, spent New Year’s Eve undercover trying to drown his sorrows in sugary coffee. of course, Jeanist is spending his New Year’s either in hiding or dead, so.)

anyways so he’s bidding his mom goodbye and getting onto a bus, and he’s all bundled up in a scarf but can’t be assed to wear a jacket, apparently. whatever Deku

AHHHH WHAT IS THIS NOW

AND OH MY GOD LOOK WHERE HE IS

THE LEAGUE OF PLIFF’S HEADQUARTERS AT THE OL’ OVERLOOK HOTEL. watch out for the elevators. Toga probably really likes them though

“where did you run off to number 2” um, he’s still a top ranked pro hero? what, do they just expect him to never do his job ever again? even if they think he’s on their side, they must realize that he needs to maintain his so-called cover

anyways, fucking Slidin’ Go is back, guys. when is someone going to punch this slippery bitch in the face

wow he’s seriously chewing Hawks out for flying off without permission. can someone please just deck this mouthbreather already

oh my god

this motherfucker really truly believes he is Hawks’s senpai. imagine having the same power as a fucking banana peel, and being so deluded you actually think you outrank a double agent of indispensable value, who also just so happens to be Dabi’s best friend, and oh yes, THE NUMBER TWO FUCKING HERO. I don’t even know where to begin with you, Slidin’ Go

oh snap but he’s immediately being called out on his BS lol this is great

twenty microdevices?? holy shit. that’s gonna make it really difficult for him to actually report back to the heroes

maybe if the PSC gives him twenty of their own little spy cams. then the only challenge is for him to try and remember which are which

lmao look at this little metaphorical drawing

isn’t this the Hyrule Castle level from Breath of the Wild

anyways don’t mind me, I’m just sitting here trying to figure out if there’s a double meaning to these two panels

is Skeptic just really bad at making small talk, or is there something here that I’m totally missing?? did he witness something during Hawks’s coffee run?

(ETA: this seriously reads to me as some kind of coded threat, but it makes no sense given the rest of the conversation. he goes on and on about how useful Hawks will be in helping them spy on the heroes, but then calls attention to him sneaking out to buy a single can of coffee. in conclusion I am probably overthinking this way too much, but it’s odd. maybe he really is just trying to be nice and coming off as weird and creepy.)

now we’re flashing back to Hawks’s last report to the PSC

if this is after he met up with Dabi then why does he still have the bag? WHEN WILL THIS STOP HAUNTING ME. I’M SO TIRED OF WAKING UP AT NIGHT IN A COLD SWEAT ONLY TO SEE HAWK’S BACKPACK STANDING THERE RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED, WATCHING

-- SDLKGHSLDKHFL

lmao this scared the shit out of me. Enji what the fuck

yesssss it’s mah boisssss

wow, he’s pretty weirdly enthused about the whole thing, huh? I expected him to bitch about it more. since Shouto basically offered his friends the gig all on his own without any consultation whatsoever. that’s called nepotism Shouto but it’s okay I forgive you

anyways. so are the Endeavor offices located in THE FUTURE. or what. is this Epcot

DKFJWELKFJL

LOL THAT’S MORE LIKE IT. FOR A MOMENT I THOUGHT WE HAD SLIPPED INTO SOME WEIRD ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

hahaha exactly

well I’m glad I’m not going crazy, at any rate. anyways though, Endeavor trying his best to be a good dad and caving in to his son’s ridiculous demands because he’s trying to make up for TWO DECADES OF BEING COMPLETE GARBAGE is pleasing to me as always. deal with it Endeav

HE SAID DEAL WITH IT!!

oh my god Katsuki is saying something holy shit, the next few panels will set the stage for what could be the sleeper hit character dynamic of the year. ghghkghhhhhh

( ⁰ o ⁰ )

oh my god

(ETA: Katsuki I have written whole essays about how perceptive you are and then you just. sob. now that he’s finally starting to ease up on the whole Angry Asshole thing, his inner dumbass is really shining through.)

YES HE IS AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO, YOUR BOURGEOIS SON HAS FALLEN IN WITH THIS CHURLISH ROUGHNECK FROM THE HOOD, DIE MAD ABOUT IT!!

lmaooo

that mental image omfg. HE WILL PUT UP WITH THIS SUFFERING IN ORDER TO GET CLOSER TO HIS GOAL. what a sacrifice. the pros outweighed the cons. it’s logic. I can’t, I

and Endeavor being so fucking mad that Shouto picked this asshole to be his new best friend sob. YOU CAN’T STOP THEIR BROMANCE IT IS UNFOLDING BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES

anyways I love everything and I’m all set for the mentoring to begin. bring it onnnn

so now Deku is being surprisingly earnest and thanking Endeavor for accepting them into his agency

and we’re getting our first glimpse of Deku’s Upgraded Feelings About Endeavor oooooh juicy

Deku is so good at seeing into people’s hearts. and so forgiving. we already knew he was -- the inciting event that led to the whole fucking series wouldn’t have even happened if he wasn’t -- but I’m honestly still so impressed every time I see it

(ETA: and also, this means that he still went and told him off during the sports festival even though he was scared of him. kid is the fucking role model to end all role models.)

also I’m already sensing that this chapter (and indeed, this entire arc) is going to prompt more Discourse up in the ol’ fandom. that’s going to be fun. anyways, I’ve already essayed more than once regarding Endeavor’s redemption arc, so I’m not going to spend too much time hashing out the same old points. but basically my stance is I’m fine with it. I think it’s good to show that people can change no matter how far they’ve gone down the wrong path. it may not be easy, but if they’re genuinely remorseful, and if the desire is there, then why not? I’m not gonna get up in arms because someone is trying to become a better person. the alternative is that they stay terrible, and that doesn’t help anyone

anyway, so now we’re flashing back to what appears to be a conversation with All Might, and oh my god

but you guys. listen. Katsuki is there, again. they’re not even discussing OFA this time and he’s still there! elbowed his way into this mentorship like the determined little shit he is, and now he’s not leaving and you all just have to deal with it. oh my god it’s everything I ever wanted, someone please pinch me is this real??

lol and now they are discussing OFA, but that’s okay. it’s only natural that would also be on the agenda

really, All Might?

you consider that “just fine”? that bloop? just as planned?? I know you love your son, but maybe consider raising the bar for him just a little bit. he is capable of so much more, and now of all times is not the time to go easy on him

and he’s still talking about the SIXQUIRKS as though unlocking more of them right now would be a bad thing. I really think this is the wrong approach. maybe I just want to see Deku go buck wild and fucking lose it though, idk

Katsuki has no patience for this either

“I don’t doubt it.” please Deku we’re not worthy of you and your wholesomeness. and he’s so sincere, too?? how does Kacchan continuously absorb all of this shameless admiration and affection day after day, week after week. how is he not humbled by it

anyways time to shut up about that though because All Might is now mentoring Bakugou directly and this requires my full fucking attention

yessss let the character development commence! I’m so excited ddhkshl

and now we’re back in the present and the conversation is taking a very interesting turn!

YES! HE DID! DO YOU REMEMBER? YOU WEREN’T REALLY PAYING ATTENTION BEFORE BECAUSE YOU WERE STILL IN ASSHOLE MODE. what do you have to say about it now?

...

mysterious

what

(ETA: “is he always like this?”)

lol what

hahaha. this arc is off to a fucking hysterical start

oh snap y’all look at this

100% chance Deku is right fucking behind him lol. probably they all are

YEP

BITCH, WHO THE FUCK DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DEALING WITH. YOU THOUGHT THESE WERE JUST ANY OLD INTERNS?? FUCK YOU, THESE ARE PREMIUM, CLUB-LEVEL, OCEAN VIEW INTERNS, YOU UNAPPRECIATIVE LOUT. YOU INGRATE

lol but he’s not missing a beat though, and he’s ordering them to stay behind and watch him oh shit. what is even going on

now we’re cutting to some fucking yogi bobbing around town in a lotus position screaming about a divine revelation he received from fucking space. okay

AHHH WHAT

HAWKS IS ALREADY GETTING IN ON THE ACTION, JESUS CHRIST. DOES THIS FUCKER EVER PUT ON THE BRAKES?? THIS ARC IS LIKE TWELVE DIFFERENT PLOTLINES INTERSECTING ALL AT ONCE AND I CAN BARELY KEEP UP. THIS SHIT IS A TRAINWRECK WAITING TO HAPPEN AND I’M STANDING HERE MESMERIZED

BUT!!!

cue Celine Dion’s “All by Myself” while I fall down dramatically nooooo. the lord giveth and he taketh away. YOU OPENED A DOOR AND CLOSED THE WINDOW YOU BASTARD sob why

well shit. and that means that Katsuki has only one chapter left to reveal his hero name, too. (ETA: keeping track of the important things here lol.) and somehow I don’t see that happening unless the focus of the next chapter takes a very dramatic shift, since we seem to be launching into full plot mode before any of us even have our seatbelts on. not that I’m complaining about that because sdkljk

anyways. see y’all in two weeks I guess. the My Plots Academia arc sure is off to a crazy fucking start

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georgipopovich-voiceblog · 4 years

Note

Writing prompt - Serik and Georgi verse: Baby Sergei's first skating competition

“There’s no pressure.” Georgi hushes softly, his hands adjusting each part of the little blue costume on his son, to straighten, to move, to make sure it’s not coming apart. He didn’t sew it himself, he merely helped pick it out, but, he knows that feeling before the competition. “Just having fun, okay, baby?”

“Gosha.” Serik whispers, as he gently bounces in place, for the sake of their six month old daughter in her carrier, who lays against his chest. “You’re smothering.”

“A-tch-tch-tch!” He tuts at his husband, before turning back to the squirming boy. “Sometimes it’s a bit scary, but, if you start to feel nervous at all, at any time, just remember we are right there, watching, and so proud of you.”

“Moooooommm.....” A whine escapes Sergei, as he leans down to put back a ruffle that Georgi had straightened in a way he didn’t care for. “Can I go now...?” The six year old adjusts the blades on his shoulder, having wished he was wearing them by now.

Georgi’s fretting seems to have taken a bit of time doing this same lecture, repeatedly, as his blue eyes search for anything he may have missed. Despite decades of experience in competition, this is his first year as a parent on the sidelines, watching his little boy go through on his own. Of course, children competitions aren’t as cutthroat, as the Olympic games he’s attended, but... he remembers his first time.

As wonderful as that moment he steps on the ice feels in his heart, he remembers the tingle of anxiety that tickled his skin. He forgets sometimes that Sergei is constantly growing, not always at their side, and becoming an entirely new person on his own. His independence will never feel completely natural, after the first few years of his young life was spent held most hours of the day with loving arms. It’s natural, to want to step away once in a while, and while Georgi never expected to be a helicopter parent, here he was, wanting one more picture, one more hug, one more smooch.

“Sergoya, do your best.” Serik gently pats his back, affectionately, and gently ushers him with his big hand, while the other snakes around Georgi’s shoulder. He knows, if he doesn’t, that the omega will quickly rush off after him to get a hug in. “Tell Kolya to make sure you tied your laces properly when you go on.”

Sergei nearly hops in place, as he’s given the go ahead, and he scurries away, his footsteps thundering, as kids do. He towers over most kids his age, and his black hair, combed, was still a mess of curls that can be seen even as he rushes over to the performance section. Parents, in order to keep them from being just like Georgi, have their own seating, away from where the coaches await their students.

“Bah..... I love you, Sergei!”

“Bye mom! Bye dad!” He calls from afar, lit up like a christmas tree, in his sparkling suit, and with his sweet, contagious smile.

He sighs softly, and clasps his hands together on his chest, watching him go. “....We didn’-”

“No, we didn’t pressure him.” Serik responds, quickly. He doesn’t normally interrupt, but, he has answered this question half a dozen times since this morning. “He wants to be just like Uncle Yura.”

“Mmm......I know..... I hope not too much. As much as I love Yuri, he can... push himself harder than he pushes others.”

The alpha gently pulls him towards their seating, to help force Georgi’s eyes away from their first born’s trajectory. They should find their seats, and get comfortable. Speaking of comfort, he knows distracting Georgi will help him from fretting over the small things. He nudges softly. “Can you get her headphones?”

“Right!” The omega sighs, and swings the backpack to sit against one of the nearby benches. By now, they’ve become experts at finding whatever they need in their baby bags, barely needing to peek in to manage. The sound cancelling headphones are good for these competitions, they used them for Sergei once or twice when he was young, if they were out supporting the skating rink and cheering on. He slept so well with it before, so perhaps their little girl will have similar results. He reaches up, to gently settle them around her head, only getting a miniature wiggle out of her, before she’s back asleep. There’s a sigh of relief, before he zips up the bag, and clears his throat loudly beside her. Nothing.

“There.” Serik simply responds, and takes the baby bag from Georgi, to settle at their feet. “Better?”

Georgi nods, and crosses his arms again, looking over to the children, who each eagerly begin to pull numbers from a hat, to decide their order. Sergei’s first one. God, he wishes he was taking a picture of that. “..... I know, I’m being really overly mom-ish. I’m in new territory, can you blame me?”

“Viktor and Yuuri went through it too. I don’t blame you.” Serik nods softly, still softly bouncing with his hands settled around the carrier.

“I just want him to look back on this and... be so incredibly happy.”

“He will, or he won’t.” Serik shrugs. “But, that’s not up to us.”

Right, his intelligent husband speaks again. That stoic man knows best. Enough so, that it calms him in situations like this. It’s almost infuriating how right he can be sometimes. As he looks up, he notes Sergei at the front of the line, mouthing words to Yuri, who pats his back, and even laughs beside him. “...Serik, Sergei’s first in the lineup.”

“Hm?” He leans forward, to see what Georgi looks at. Their boy is handing off the blade guards, to get ready for the warm up skate. “So he is.”

Sergei, beaming bright as ever rushes onto the ice, followed by a beeline of other young kids, some strangers, some his very best friends from the rink, all beginning their own little warm up. He’s not the show-off kind of kid, however, the way he skates backwards, and even does a gentle twirl, Georgi can sense the competition feels like an actual competition to him. His shoulders gently lighten up, as he looks along at the other kids, all who seem to be laughing, and even high-fiving as they pass each other. Just like regular practice, in fancier clothes. “He looks.... really calm.”

“Mmhm.”

“Even though he’s going first.”

“Bad...?”

“No, no, no. It’s good.” He nods, looking at ease, as he watches him swoop beside their area. “I... could learn a thing or two from him. I gotta remember this is a kids competition, not.... the Olympics.”

The edge of the alpha’s mouth twitches in a short smile, as though he’d meant to say it before Georgi came to the conclusion. “Better...?”

“.... Better.”

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margridarnauds · 5 years

Note

the takarazuka production of 1789 please ✨

BABY MUSICAL. BABY PRODUCTION. WHICH I NEED TO WATCH AGAIN SOON BECAUSE I *MISS* IT.

So, this is definitely one of those things that I don’t think I can conceivably put ALL my thoughts into in one place, because it’s a LOT. This was definitely the production that got me back into the saddle after my 1789 phase when I was a teenager (You know. Back in my Ronan/Olympe 5ever days.), it was the one that got me into writing fanfiction, it was the one that made me dip a toe into Takarazuka. I love Toho very, very deeply, I still have a LOT of affection towards the French even if I relentlessly make fun of it every chance I get, but the Zuka really is IT.

There’s a lot of things that we kind of take for granted that the Zuka KICKED INTO GEAR by basically scrapping all but the most basic elements of the story and building around it. Evil!Artois? A fully sympathetic Antoinette? Solène having more than 10-15 minutes of screen time in a two hour musical? An expanded look at Ronan’s relationship with the revolutionaries? Olympe with a gun? Olympe in a soldier’s costume? The added Peyronan content? LUCILE? (Like, don’t get me wrong, I criticize it as well, but like. It did a LOT)

There are some things that I’ll never be 100% HAPPY with, while also acknowledging that they HAD to do some things to suit Zuka’s tastes. Am I necessarily HAPPY with the domestication of Solène? Or Camille taking Je Veux le Monde? (Though I personally think that Toho handled it WORSE in the sense that we’re forced to see her “apologize” to the poor, aggrieved bakers for....doing pretty much. Exactly what Ronan had done. In the first act.) Or the forced Ronan/Olympe kiss? (Or any Ronan/Olympe kiss? Or the concept of Ronan/Olympe in canon in general, which I manage to block out of my mind?) Not REALLY. But with MOST of those things, I can also understand why they did them. It’s kind of a matter for me of...if I want to see a western production, the French is right there and Parrot!Laz’s arms are wide open. But if I want to see a Zuka production, then I have to accept that I’m playing by their rules. I mean. I CAN complain. But it’s unlikely to go anywhere because I’m not exactly the target audience.

Ryuu Masaki is still, to this day, my ultimate favorite Ronan, with Teppei Koike coming VERY close. Both of them have similar takes on the role, with Ronan being less an Alpha Male-esque figure with some toxic masculinity issues and more a dumbass little twink shit who ends up getting himself into Lazare’s bedroom situations that he can’t easily get out of but who CARES for people, even though he still has some issues when it comes to being an 18th century male. (See: Solène.) She has a bit of a problem actually seeming like she’s in PAIN when Laz tortures him, but. You know what? That’s actually for the best. There’s this wonderful, naive “I’M IN LOVE AND I CAN TAKE ON THE WORLD” feeling to her Tomber dans sans yeux that gives me feels because I stan a dumbass puppy.

Which, tbh, is important. There NEEDS to be that spark to Ronan, that idealism, that life that also exists outside the bitterness. He’s PISSED, but a decent part of it is that he believes that things could be so much better. You need to be thinking at the end “Damn, if he’d lived in a different world, he had so much to live for.” Especially since I tend to estimate him at being no more than about ~22. Which seems old when you’re 17 and watching the French but then when you’re standing at the edge of 21, it starts to look a lot younger. He makes dumbass decisions because he never had the time to learn from them.

It’s so FUNNY seeing the concept drawings though because you can SEE how the concept artist was imagining Ronan and then Masao came in and did her Thing on the role. And tbh? It’s much better for it. That and knowing that someone actually PLANNED OUT the yellow jacket.

Likewise, Chapi as Marie Antoinette is still probably my ultimate favorite take on the role. MA isn’t really an EASY role to pull off, because an actress has to sell both Act 1 AND Act 2 Antoinette, charting that development to her inevitable fate, as well as obviously being able to sing the Hell out of the role. And her domestication, but THAT’S another rant. And Chapi SOLD it, both in terms of her acting and in terms of her singing. She really, really sells the party girl from the 1st act to the grieving mother and then the dignified, doomed queen. It’s funny because, looking at the Toho, I do think that Masao actually took a few cues from Chapi when it came time for her to don the fluffy dress.

On the subject of Iconic Characters...it PAINS me, given what’s come out, but Magee’s Laz really is an Iconic take on the role. I’m not going to say that I’m ever going to be 100% behind Villain!Laz as a concept; a part of me always favors him being portrayed as a much more gray figure, ala the French but...well. It’s one of those things that I can’t really hold against it because 1789′s always HAD a villain problem, and Laz being a straight up villain (Well...insofar as any part of Laz can be described as “straight), DOES pair nicely against Artois, as the two of them essentially become the embodiment of the darker side of the Ancien Régime while Louis, Marie, and Olympe form the brighter side that simply turned a blind eye to the dark. (Do I think that’s what they were REALLY going for? Maybe not, but it’s what I’m going for.)

And it also leads to a fantastic villain combo of Laz being Ronan’s primary villain/Artois being Olympe’s. (This wasn’t AS much of an Olympe-centered production as, say, the French or the Toho, the system being what it is, but it still packed a lot in there. This particular show was REALLY good at being an ensemble production and giving everyone a chance to show off.) And Magee’s take in particular is absolutely BRUTAL, haughty, cold, with a temper that flares up when he’s defied, but with something slick about it as well. He’s an aristocrat, with the mannerisms that you’d expect from it, but he’s also an officer, and he’s one who can force his way either with words or with force. And Masao and Magee had PHENOMENAL chemistry. There are a few moments here or there where you can almost SEE something work beneath the surface before it’s smothered, and then he doubles down on the brutality, possibly to convince himself just as much as the audience. He’s completely unrepentant and has no redeeming qualities, but my GOD is it compelling. I can’t say that she’s my FAVORITE take on the role, not anymore, but her take on the role was definitely what made me really start to focus on Laz as a character.

Miya Rurika’s Artois is phenomenal. Like, there are two things that I think most people walk away from this musical remembering: Maniaque, for obvious reasons, and Je Suis un Dieu. Because it’s a HELL of a villain song and you can practically see Artois (and Miya as well tbh) having the time of her life loudly proclaiming himself as a God on stage. The entire sequence is just...gorgeously done and wonderfully goth with the church backdrop and the smoke lifting up from the aphrodisiacs. And it goes from a song sung by the comedy relief in Olympe’s creepy furry sex dream to being a pretty chilling villain song in its own right. And Miya Rurika is PHENOMENAL at facial expressions, which leads to some truly fantastic moments like when Olympe finally pulls the gun on him, where there’s that sudden moment where he’s truly face to face with his own mortality for the first time. (ALSO. BABY ASAMI JUN IN THE SHINKO. EVIL BABY.) Also, even though obviously “Predatory Evil Bisexual” isn’t...STELLAR from a rep standpoint, I do appreciate Artois hitting on Fersen and Necker as well. Because what a thot. I was so disappointed when Toho ruined my Nartois dreams.

Tbh, Saotome Wakaba’s Olympe is probably the single most influential Olympe as far as how I write her. She didn’t have AS much to do as, say, her Toho or her French counterpart, all of her solos were taken away and given to other characters, but she still shone. Wakaba has this fantastic ability to look like she’s dying on the inside, and even though we make fun of it a little whenever a Ronan/Olympe scene comes on #Mood Wakaba, #Mood, she does a fantastic job of having that distinctive little tightening of the lips from time to time, where it’s like there’s a hundred things she wants to say but she can’t because it’s too dangerous and she knows her place. Her Olympe, possibly more than any of the others (Though I suspect that Nene Yumesaki took a few cues from her in the Toho), is someone who is basically split into two between the acting that she has to do to survive palace life and what she actually feels, and she uses her mind to work her way out of complicated situations that require tact and lethal politeness.

Solène doesn’t have all that much to do so I’m not going to DWELL on her too much, but I really love both of the actresses who played her. Harune Aki’s take on the role in particular is GUT WRENCHING during La Nuit M’Appelle, and one thing that I’ll ALWAYS love about this production is Ronan trying to initiate that hug. Like, I can understand how people complain about it centering Ronan (Though. He IS our protagonist. Like, love him or hate him, Ronan Mazurier is very much our protagonist and it’s a Top Star world), in a scene that’s supposed to be SOLÈNE’S, but, at the same time, it’s a fantastic moment for Ronan realizing EXACTLY how badly he fucked up but not being able to do anything about it. Because it’s too late for that, there’s always going to be that little bruise between the two of them. And you’ve got Solène LOOKING RONAN IN THE FACE when she sings about how she was “abandoned by [her] brother.” Possibly more than any single production that came before or after it, this is Solène CONFRONTING Ronan for what he did, and it’s sad and it’s gut wrenching but there’s also an odd sense of power that comes with it as well. And I do appreciate that this version DID give us the Mazurier Sibs Reunion albeit via forcing respectability on Solène which...see above. Not what **I** would have done, but I’m not Zuka, I don’t have their cultural context, and I don’t have to create for their audience. Basically, ANY Mazurier Sibs content is good content, because that was something that was a huge hole in the French production.

Also not to be gay on main but Harune Aki is GORGEOUS.

...I said i wouldn’t dwell too much and then one long-ass paragraph later...

I love the Revolutionary Bros as well, but I don’t TEND to focus on them the same, so I’m going to lightly skip in the interest of preserving space. As much as I can preserve space on ANYTHING.

One thing that I really, really liked with this production was how they utilized music that had been cut. Pour un Nouveau Monde is FANTASTIC, and tbh it’s a little bone-chilling when Artois takes control of the song, as you see who’s REALLY pulling the strings of the meeting. I LOVE the Toho puppets, but I also like Civics Lessons With Uncle Artois. And it also replaced the non-musical scene from the French that...well...I’m not going to say that NO ONE likes it, because some people do, I’m sure. But in years of either streaming or attending streams, I’ve never really heard anyone say they LIKE it and many, many groans. Likewise for “ Les mots qu'on ne dit pas” which...tbh...I STILL love as an Act 1 finale. I really like how they bring all the main cast on stage in that one, the way that we go through all the central character’s arcs, and, of course, Peyronan being paired together.

Don’t mind me, I’m appreciating the masterful choreography.

Also I REALLY love the use of the turn table during Pour la Peine, I think that it did a really good job of showing off the cast as they put in their bit of the song, and Laz SEEMING (?) to turn away at the end never ceases to break me on multiple levels. Like, it really IS everyone who’s been involved in this playing their part, from the lowest class in society to the highest, villains and heroes, ALL of them saying that they changed history, and that’s something that I STILL think about regularly. It’s not AS dark as Toho!1789, because...Toho, but it’s still is a Lot for me to think about.

tl;dr: It’s really kind of impossible for me to talk about how MUCH I love this production, because how DO you really concisely talk about something that’s kind of defined my fandom experience for the last two years (and, really, my fandom experience in general, since I didn’t PUBLISH fanfiction before it, and my publishing fanfic in the first place was because [1] I had a GRE the next day and I finally had something I was terrified of more than a bad review and [2] There was so little fanfic in English that I basically put on my Artois hat and was like “THEY HAVE TO LIKE IT ONE WAY OR ANOTHER), but this really is my baby. My precious child. My precious, ridiculous trainwreck of a child that I will defend until my last breath even if I routinely forget that my self indulgent AU isn’t canon. It really probably saved my ass in the last stage of my undergrad because I would be FREAKING OUT on my Capstone Project and then I could turn this on and be like, “Ah. This is nice. Happy Calming Feel Good Musical. Oh no, Ronan got shot. Oh well. REVUE TIME.”

#1789 les amants de la bastille #this is such a rant #circecular

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scandinaviacroatiaengbergs · 5 years

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Saturday in Lillehammer!

On Saturday morning, we tried to be out the door of the Oslo apartment by around 8:30 in the morning, so that we could get to Lillehammer by 11:00 a.m., so Eric could do his packet pick-up for his race: the Berkenbeinerlopet Half Marathon. We managed to come pretty close to that departure time. Not too long after we left Oslo, there were some bathroom needs and our car also needed gas. So, we stopped, used the facilities, and filled up the car, and it cost $80 to put ¾ of a tank of gas in the car! We knew it would be expensive, but this was kind of a reckoning. Eric was trying to get just the bare minimum to get by, to get the car to and from Lillehammer, and then back to Gothenburg, for the car to get on the boat and be shipped back to the U.S. Eric asked, “Did Volvo tell us a bare minimum amount of gas we had to have in the car to put it on the boat?” And they hadn’t, so bare minimum it was. So, we made our way north to Lillehammer and we were driving past what we later learned was the largest lake in Norway, and it was so beautiful. The countryside there was so gorgeous. There was, as I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of highway construction, so that slowed us down a bit. Once we got to the check-in area for the Birken Run Festival, Eric said he was actually getting nervous. There were sooooo many people there. The woman manning (womanning? managing? womanaging?) the parking lot took pity on us because we had no cash, so she let us go in, park, and then hang out with Eric until the race started. It was quite warm, like in the high 70s or low 80s, and as we were waiting on the other side of the barrier before the start, we were talking of the two of the race staff members and they told Eric, “be ready for mud!” They were really nice. One of them, the older one, had a son currently studying in the U.S. (in Pennsylvania) on a Rotary International exchange program. Our friend Ryley mention that a few of Roar’s relatives are doing that now too – and that we should totally consider it when the kids get older, since Rowan and Cece both have declared that they want to live in Norway (I am not honestly sure how they’d handle the darkness in winter, but perhaps when they’re teenagers, we can find out, if they do such program. Anyway, a long time off . . .) The other race staff guy told the kids and I some things to do nearby while the race was underway, like the Maihaugen, which is a museum that shows what life was like in Norway through the ages, and has reenactments, etc. Turns out we didn’t have time for much in our two hours, though we went over to the Maihaugen, which shared a facility with the Postal Museum and the Olympic Museum. And we had lunch in their café. We also saw some really nicely dressed wedding guests arriving for a wedding that was going to be on those museum grounds somewhere. At least one of them was wearing the Norwegian national costume (which I’ve seen Ryley’s daughter in, in photos) and we saw a few people on the street in Oslo wearing it, going somewhere in a hurry on Friday evening, and Ryley speculated that those people were probably heading to a wedding, because people often wear that then, or when acting in some official capacity, like to had out awards. So, we did see more women in the national costume, three of them to be exact, at the awards ceremony at the Birken Run Festival. They were accompanied by a super funny dad-and-son, or grandad-and-grandson, music duo who played classics for awards ceremonies like “We are the Champions” and the Rocky theme, on a keyboard (dad) and drums (son). Anyway, while Eric was running we also went down to Lillehammer’s town center and the main street, and there was some festival going on there too. We went into a drug store and a thrift store and almost got ice cream, but didn’t. The thrift store was nice, and I had wanted to go into a few on this trip, and haven’t had time. The one in Lillehammer had a few casseroles from the 80s that were the milk-glass base with decals, like Pryex, but not as nice-looking. There was a set of tea cups and a platter by Turi Design, which I have a few pieces of in a different pattern. So, we left the thrift store empty-handed, but it was nice to pop in for a minute. It was so difficult getting parking to go meet Eric after the race, but after driving around a while, I lucked out, someone was leaving, and we parked half on the sidewalk like hundreds of others, and went in to Haakons Hall and met him. The end of the race was at the base of the ski jump facility, which was used during the Olympics. It is really staggering to see from the ground! The people who were arriving after finishing race were covered in mud, from the knees down, and I saw people in long lines to get hosed off. We met up with Eric, checked out his certificate of completion, ate some chips that he’d been given, and then walked around a bit more, and then got back to the car and made for heading out of town, pretty quickly. It was just so busy there and really pretty hot. So, we found a place on that huge lake (Mjøsa), as we left the central city area, where Eric could jump in the lake. And we came across a family from Romania and two women from Oslo who were doing the same thing (well, the Romanians were just sunning, but the Norwegians were planning to hop in the lake, too). So, the kids got all suited up, too, water wings and all, and they went out on the dock (after talking to a local who said this was a totally legit place to swim and he had earlier in the day). Eric hopped in, swam out just barely, and then came back, declaring that that might’ve been the coldest water he’s been in, colder that the Irish Sea and colder than in Iceland or the Baltics. He said it was probably in the 50s and actually hurt his feet and legs. But, the kids wanted to give it a try! Both actually got in. Rowan only for a few seconds, not even a long enough plunge to get up to his neck wet, and Cece got all the way wet and was crying for the seconds it took to get back to the dock but that transformed into laughing as she was climbing out, accompanied by declarations that it wasn’t really cold at all. The kids both slept for part of the ride home, Cece for more time than Rowan, but they both got some good Zs in. Ryley texted me while we were en route to say they were firing up the grill and we were welcome over, but we were still a few hours away, but it turned out that we *did* go over there, grilled some salmon and veggies, and the kids got to play some more. After we parked down their street, right in front of the Meny grocery store, Eric took the kids right over, so Rowan could get his tree-climbing immediately out of his system and get the picture he didn’t get to have the previous time, and so by the time I got there after buying salmon and potatoes, he’d already come down from the tree, much to my relief. We were not sure how much it would cost to buy salmon, since Norwegian prices are notoriously high, but when I did the conversation, it was $12 for four fillets, so I thought that was pretty reasonable. It was farmed salmon, but the farms are in the cold Nordic waters off of the Bergen side, though Ryley and Roar told us prices were expected to rise because a lot of those farms had just been besieged by red tide, and that was really tanking their whole crop of salmon. But, anyway, the salmon we bought was delicious and the time we had with Ryley and Roar visiting, while the kids got alllll of their energy out playing, was really nice. Such a highlight of our Scandinavian adventure.

We got home after 9 p.m. and tried to get the kids right to bed, but again, it took some doing. We did one more load of laundry, so I stayed up while that washed (so I could hang it) and so I finally got to sleep around midnight, but by doing that, I got to see the beautiful pink sky over the building behind our apartment building, with the stones on the top of their chimneys (a phenomenon that we’ve tried to find the reason for, and it might have something to do with Norse trolls).

The next morning we would be leaving Oslo, waaaaa!

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grimimic-blog · 6 years

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The story I made for the game collaboration between me and https://urg-urg-urg.tumblr.com/

Halloween 12 all-stars at the Olympic games team racing, featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series and Knuckles

AKA A huge Hallows eve!

It was no secret to feyfolk that humans were boring. Nearly void of magic, Nowhere near as attractive as elves, all they ever wanted to talk about was taxes and back pain, and even a starving hill ogre wouldn't eat one because they tasted so awful! Truly the worst species on the planet, but something Gong had overheard earlier in the week while visiting a human tavern had caught the little goblins ears. Human holidays were strange and foreign to many feyfolk. It didn't make much sense to pick an arbitrary day to be wear green and binge drink to Gong. She already did that just about everyday, but this "Halloween" had her full attention. "Fizzy hurry up I don't want to miss all the free shit!" Gong yelled in the direction of her closet. A light thump and some obscured insults preceding the purple fairy fluttering from behind the corner. "Hey you're the one that said we had to "Dress up to get free candy"! I'm just trying to make sure I look good. What happens if I meet a hot guy while we're out!?" "Don't kid yourself Fizz, we both know if you set yourself up for failure you're just going to get drunk and crawl in bed with me again after I fall asleep." "S-shut up! That was one time and I was because I was cold! Just get in here and help pick out something for us to wear!"

the girl's shared closet was surprisingly spacious, but that had a lot to do with all small the girls were themselves. Outfits lined the walls, Hanging from hooks and sitting neatly folded on shelves, but where soon to be scattered on the floor as their owners tried to find the perfect style for the nights festivities. A pair of cocktail dress's that happened to be the nicest thing either of them had ever pull from a dumpster, Some comfy pajamas, A pair of thigh high boots that were actually just regular boots on a normal sized person, and an invisibility cloak that made itself invisible when worn rather than the subject wearing it all lay in a pile on the ground before the girls had picked their outfits for the night. A simple cloth vest skirt combo for Gong, and a long silken dress for Fizzy.

The streets were dimly lit by orange glow of nearby lamp posts. The sounds of screaming children dressed in caricatures costumes of feyfolk that Fizzy and Gong would have found rather insulting if either of them had focused on anything other than their fantasies of what an entire night of free candy would be like. A fantasy that was about to be rudely interrupted by what appeared to be two disheveled, and slightly bloated werecats with plastic ears and tails. "Aayyyy whha-WHAT are you kiz gona do wihou a canny bags!!" Asked the first woman at a volume louder than needed. "Ignore her please. She's had a little too much partying tonight" Said the second stranger, as her friend finished the liquor bottle she was holding. Popping the strained button on her small shorts in the process. "Naht the only one am I!" her overly intoxicated friend replied before giving her soberish friend a hardy slap to the gut that sent the small mound into a sloshing fit. "Alright you're going to home to bed! Stop bothering these Girls." She said before both werecates walked off into the night. "Gong. That woman said something about a candy bag. All of these kids have candy bags! You didn't say anything about needing bags to get free candy!" "Relax Fizz. The bags can't be that important right? Even if they are we could totally kick the crap out of one of these kids, they're only like five years old, and I brought my brass knuckles." "Fine whatever. I still think there's got to be some kind of catch. No one give things away without making you pay for it". The first house of the night was an unremarkable little thing painted white with green shutters. On the porch sat an older looking man dressed as some sort of vampire farmer who called out to the mas they approached. "Ohh aren't you a cute one! What are you supposed to be one of those pocketmans?" "I'm a goblin, and my friend is a fairy" Gong replied. "Oh you kids and your youth! Here you go. A candy corn on the cob for you, and one for you're little birdy there too".

"Now I know why we needed bags" Sneered Fizz as she crammed another head-sized piece of candy corn into her mouth. The purple sprite's middle pushing more, and more outward with each swallow. "We'll be fine." Replied Gong. "We can just eat whatever candy we get as we're walking. It's not like every human is going to give out weird stuff like this right?" "Yeah, yeah. Just make sure you spit everything with me fifty fifty alright?" You're like a fifth of my size Fizz! it already looks like you swallowed a tennis ball, and I don't plan on rolling your fat butt all the way home!" "you're one to talk. I'm pretty sure I heard you pop a seam a few minuets ago." The purple pixie punctuated her point with a firm slap to her companions rounded belly. The girl's conversation was cut abruptly short when Gong nearly tripped over the steps leading to the second house of the night. A modest purple building decorated in little ghosts and uncarved pumpkins. The two girls were about to knock when the door burst open and a particularity unspooky spirit stepped out. "Hey there kiddos! You two sure are in for a treat!" Piped the cheery little ghost. "Dude we're like 26" Replied the deadpan Fizzy. "That's alright! You girls can still have a taste of what's under my sheet!" "I'm calling the cops." "My apple pies are famous around here, but not very good for Halloween; Until this year anyway! I've combined apple pie and caramel apples into the ultimate confection!" Cheered the man in the ghost costume as he pulled two caramel covered disks on sticks from under his sheet, and handed them over.

"These are pretty good you know?" Gong said with her mouth still half full. "Kind of hard to eat, but still good". If Fizzy had been listening she didn't or more likely couldn't answer, but being submerged in a pie near the size of your whole body will do that. The difficulty of trying to carry and eat an entire pie on nothing but a cheap craft stick had forced the short sweeties to rest at a picnic table not far down the street. Each bite forced Gong's belly out farther and farther. Straining her clothes, and forcing her legs apart to make room for it's gravid shape. By the time the last bite of thick caramel and flaky apple pie passed her lips the green girl could have easily been mistaken for some near the end of pregnancy; But goblins may as well have been giants compared to fairies, and the effects of the confection were far more pronounced on Fizzy. The candy corn had already left her more than a little bloated, but as the purple pixie slowly ate her way past the hard caramel shell and into the center of the apple pie her belly had ballooned to dramatic levels. Her clothing stood no chance of containing the beast known as the faerie's gut. She laid prone in the pie tin on her basketball of a belly, naked from the waist down, trying with all her might to force any crumb withing reach into her mouth. "Uhh Fizzy any particular reason you aren't wearing underpants?" "Were you not paying attention earlier? What If I meet a stud while we're out? Panties would only get in the way." "Oh right. I forgot that purple balloons were every man's dream girl." Snided Gong. "Anyway, let's get going. the night isn't over yet, and we've got houses to hit."

Gong rang the doorbell of the third house. clutching her heavy, heaving tummy. If she let go her balance was at risk, and the mental image of an watermelon explosion was one she had to shake away more than a few times. The trudge to the third house was made that much longer by her slow, exaggerated, waddling. Each step a miniature battle with her own full tummy. A purple blimp of a pixie bobbing and swayed as she floated behind her. Her own belly nearly scraping on the ground until a flurry of flapping wins sent her back into the air. The door creaked open. A green sheet that looked distinctively like the ghosts from the earlyer houses poked it's head out the door, googly eyes bouncing wildly. "Who daressss enter the lair of the sneeeeeek?" Hissed the man in very ghost looking "snake" costume. "Nice costume... Dig the color." Gong weezed between breaths. Carrying the extra weight of her turgid gut had left more tired than she realized. "Thankssss friend! I made it myssssself!" Fizzy who's wings were already tired of holding her massive body in air chose to interrupt the two green revelers conversation. "Trick or treat! Now just give us whatever weird candy you've got back there and let us go". If plastic googly eyes could look confused the snake would have looked shockingly bewildered. "There's no weird candy here friends. Just some gummies I'm afraid." Fizz and Gong let out a collective sigh of relief, but apparently it had been too soon as seconds later both of them were nearly knocked over by the enormous gelatinous treats tossed to them by the man in the snake costume. An impressive feat seeing as the costume possessed no arms. "There you go girls, gummy pythons! Hope they're good, I made them myself!"

Bit by chewy bit the gelatinous reptiles were forced into the already packed stomachs of the minuscule monsters as they approached the fourth, and last house on the street. "Ugghh... I swear he must have used a real snake to make molds for these" Fizzy groaned. "I can see the scale prints". "How are we supposed to eat these anyway! One of these is as long as my whole body!" Gong added. "You just gotta slurp it down girl! You've had boyfriends before haven't you?" Fizzy punctuated her insult by taking a large gulp from the tail end of her gummy snake. "Hey Fizz maybe you should be more careful? You might choke....Or explode." Gong said between bites of her own sugary treat. "you're already looking kinda fat honestly. I was only kidding about the whole rolling you home thing earlier... Are you listening Fizz?" Fizzy unfortunately was not listening as she was far too preoccupied with choking on the massive sugar serpent that currently clogging her windpipe. "Oh my Gods Fizz! Don't worry I-I'll help you! Don't die!" Gong tried every idea she could think of but Fizzy's tiny body made the Heimlich impossible, and the gummy was wedged far too deep in the fairie's bulbous tummy to be dislodged by pulling on it. "Ok. Ok. Think Gong. You can do this." The Goblin muttered to her self, voice seeped in panic. "Ohh I really sorry about this Fizzy. Just hold on I've got another idea." Fizzy wasn't even given a chance to reply before Gong seized the end of the gummy snake and pushed it deeper into her gullet. Slowly the candy serpent was forced into the faerie's stomach. The already strained clothing stretched thinner as seams and stitches popped one by one. Both girls silently hoping they wouldn't be joining them in a similar fashion. As the last of the gummy was crammed down her throat Fizzy fell to the ground. Wings no longer able to lift her boulder of a belly. The impact being the final straw for her poor clothing before the tortured garment released its death knell as it torn to shreds. Fizzy was now nude, and grounded by a belly several times larger than her own body, but she was alive, and the sugary serpent was finally slain. "Oh-oh hell Gong! I though I was gonna die!" Fizzy wheezed out between gasping breaths. "do you still want to go to the next house, or should just head home, so you can rest?" Asked Gong. "No no I still want to keep going. There's only one house left on this street, but I...." "But what? "Do you feel sick? Did you hurt yourself?" Gong's voice was beginning to take on it's previous worried tone. "I can't move... My belly is too heavy..." "I told you this was going to happen! Splitting everything fifty fifty was a stupid idea from the start." "Well we wouldn't have had to eat everything while walking if SOMEONE had remember to bring treat bags!" "Fine I'll carry your fat butt around until we get home! Just let me finish my own gummy first." "I'm not fat. I'm full. there's a difference." The fairy mumbled to herself, as her friend resumed eating the candy snake hanging from around her neck. Choosing to take bites proved to be a much better strategy on Gong's part than swallowing the entire sucrose reptile whole, but it was also much slower. Bite after bite the gummy shrank, and Gong's belly grew. The fabric of her clothing pulled tighter and tighter, threatening to tear any second and leave her as exposed as her purple companion. As the last bit of gummy passed her green lips, Gong took notice of the effects it had on her stomach. The gigantic green orb had ballooned to the size of roughly half her body. Cramming it full with a gummy almost the same length as the goblin was tall may have been a bad idea. No it DEFIANTLY was a bad idea, but there was no way Gong would ever waste free candy!

"Ohh hell... This. This is heavy." "see not so easy is it!" Chided the bloated fairy. Her smirk would have left much more of an impact if not for her own leviathan middle. Gong struggled to lift her huge friend into her arms. A slip of her hand eliciting a sharp gasp from the massive Fizzy. "Watch where you grabbing Gong!" "Ha ha. Whoops." Gong responded. Her face red with embarrassment, as she finally succeeded in hoisting Fizzy over her head, and started the long trudge down the street.

Thud, creak, thud, creak. Heavy footsteps pounded against aged wood. The combined weight of the two girls was less than that of a large human, but that didn't stop Gong from having a miniature panic attack as each step groaned in their wake. She laid Fizzy down near the doorstep, making sure the overstuffed fairy wouldn't tip over, and rang the bell. Inside the house hurried footsteps responded to the noise. "Like just a sec! I Need *hic* to get my costume on!" For a moment they considered walking away. Cutting their losses and going home unexploded was by no means a bad idea, but as the door swung open, and and the smell of sugary treats floated out, that thought, and really any common sense warning the two girls about the repercussions of expanding their already massive waistlines was immediately dashed. "Like *hic* sorry about that. Can't hand out candy with out my costume now can I?" Just like the last three houses the owner was dressed in her own variation of a ghost costume, but unlike the others she seemed sort of lumpy around the middle, and Gong swore she could hear the woman emitting a noise that sounded remarkably like faint static.

"Please lady! Just please don't give us anything weird! I can't take anymore. I'm so big already." Groaned The massive Fizz. "Ohh man kid, *urp* like what the hell is wrong with your weird purple dog?" "She's fine don't worry about it. Just tell me you don't have anything on a cob, or a stick, or that you made out of snakes?" "Sorry I don't have any of those. All Ive got is some bags of these fizzy rocks, but they're like old and stuff, so they kind of melted into fizzy boulders." Answered the ghost lady, who pulled two large bags of the candy off the table next to her. They tore into the bags immediately. The woman in the ghost costume hadn't lied when she said the candies had melted together. Large crystalline chunks of candy as large as Gong's head had formed in each bag. Fizzy was devouring mouthfuls of of the hard treat, Seeming to have forgotten the incident with the gummy snake already. Gong ate at a slightly slower, but still noticeably ravenous speed. Half because she wanted this all to be over so she could lay her tired belly to bed, and half because she was too greedy to resist the the gift of free candy. "Ugghh what is this stuff?! My mouth feels all weird, and tingly!" Fizzy whined. "You got anything to drink back there lady?" "Nothing except some orange soda, and I like *hic* totally don't recommend it. "Come on lady we haven't had anything to drink all night. We're dying over here." "Wait here. Said the ghost. After a brief moment she returned from the kitchen with a six pack of orange soda that she handed over to Gong. The first can quenched their thirsts. The second was for fun. The last was because they were both too gluttonous to stop. "I feel- *urp* I feel funny. Fizzy griped. "Aww is *hic* Fizzy felling fizzy?" Gong joked. Oblivious to the fact that both of them were slowly growing rounder. "This *hic* isn't funny Gong! Look at us! We're blowing up!" "I like did try to warn you" Said the woman as she removed her costume. Putting her own bloated stomach on full display. "I've been bloated all night. Those fizzy rocks take forever to dissolve when they get old. "Fizz we need to go now! My belly is *urp* too big! It's getting hard to move!" Gong panicked as the seams of her clothing fought against the inflating green orb inside them. She grabbed Fizzy and waddled away from the house as quickly as her heavy body would allow. Within moments the sound of ripping fabric announced that her clothing had just lost the war against her still inflating gut.

Gong heaved her back into the purple boulder. It rolled slowly, but steadily in the direction of their home. Halloween had not been kind to the goblin nor the fairy. As the last light on the last porch went off signaling the end of the night's celebration both of them were left stark naked, with heavy intensely full bellies, each nearly the same size as Gong was tall. "I was kidding when I said I didn't want to roll you home earlier." I didn't think it was going to be an issue. Gong grunted, as she rolled her friend home. "Maybe your psychic?" Fizzy said. her voice thick with sarcasm. "Can you tell what number I'm thinking of right now?" "No, but I bet it's smaller than your current weight." Gong shot back. "Alright funny girl. Just watch where you going ok? You pushed me into some trash and now I've there's a restaurant flyer stuck to my boobs. What the hell even is a "thanksgiving" about?" "Sorry Fizz. I'll peel it off when we get home. I'm sure it's nothing interesting anyway. You know humans are boring.

THE END

#my stuff #colab #my buddies #my words

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mpmwrites · 6 years

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Thirteen

So @swota and I decided that we’d Take a HAnkvin prompt and I’d write Fluff and they’d write angst for it! Prompt from @beggars-blog for a seasonally scared Gavin! Here we go! Rated T for swearing and fake gore!

He hadn't been in a haunted house since he was a teenager. It wasn't that he was scared. He just figured, haunted houses were just college kids that took a temp job and dressed up in creepy costumes. All they did was jump out and scream at people or make startling noises and that wasn't really scary. Anyone would be scared if you startled them with unnecessarily loud noises. He wasn't gonna shell out the twenty bucks to walk through a dark building with cheesy props for fifteen minutes. Especially when, more often than not, you could even know what's coming based on some inevitable teenage blonde chick screaming her head off at every single scare.

So when Hank said they were going, obviously he gave a slow nod and a "Yeah, sounds fun." over his latte. Because it was Hank, and he wasn't about to sound like a cynical little bitch about some charity event the state police were doing. Cut to dinner on the patio at Chipotle when Gavin finally started to think about the evening's plans. Hank had not only invited him out, which wasn't really something they did, but had invited him to a function at others at the precinct would be going to.

Call him cliché, but going on a date to a haunted house was kind of a cliché move to get your date to be all over you.

Maybe he was thinking too far into it. It wasn't like he could back out anyway. Hank wanted to go and he had no real reason not to other than the fact that he'd probably leave in a bad mood of get thrown out for decking some asshole that screamed a little too close to him. Hank would find that funny, he thought.

That was not what happened.

The whole thing wasn't bad. It was a special cops-only night, so it was most people that he had at least the one thing in common with. Socializing before hand with old buddies of Hank's didn't hurt too much; they arrived about thirty minutes before they were allowed to line up and enter. Some teenager handed him an information pamphlet that he glanced over. Warnings about strobe effects and loud noises, don't touch the actors and they won't touch you, etc. On the back there was a promotional image titled "Triskaidekaphobia: Fear of the Number 13" with a list of fears below it. Hospitals, Death, Zombies, Torture, Blood, Clowns, Dolls, Darkness, Nightmares, Snakes, Spiders, Closed Spaces, Heights.

So that was what he was in for; it didn't seem so bad on paper. Maybe he wasn't so keen on hospitals, but it wasn't like he was afraid of them. Sure, dolls and clowns were creepy but, once again, what's an underpaid teenager yelling in his face really gonna accomplish? Closed spaces he'd never really liked, but it's not like they were gonna shove him in a closet and leave him there. As far as heights went, who wasn't afraid of heights? Were they gonna try to dangle him off a cliff? He was doubtful at best. He told Hank so.

"I don't know, it's for charity. I think for the special olympics." Hank shrugged, "Fowler made me come when I started becoming a shut-in…" Hank attempted without going into detail, "Now I'm just expected. It's usually not too bad. See some old friends, do some good in the world, scream a couple of times without looking crazy." It was nearing their turn to enter. Hank shook hands warmly with the officer wearing a police academy hoodie that reflected Hank's own and clicker-counting the participants. Their hands separated, but Hank's quietly found Gavin's and led the younger man inside. Gavin probably turned the shade of the blood on the walls of the first room. Because, Hank had not only taken him to an event with colleagues, but had bought him dinner first and was now nonchalantly holding his hand in front of all of them. Gavin wasn't thick, he knew that Hank wasn't ashamed of him, it was just that he didn't really think it was anyone's business. They stayed strictly in the friendly and platonic realms when outside of their homes, and they were both more than okay with that.

Until that night, apparently.

Unless, Gavin figured, unless Hank thought he might be scared. Maybe the whole event was more than it put off; after all, Hank had attended for the past several years. Maybe it was just dark inside and he thought they might get separated easily. Gavin didn't comment on the contact, just pulled on a façade of relative indifference

The walls of the first room had dimly-lit pastel wallpaper with generic looking sconces that flickered irregularly, and in the center of the room was a secondhand hospital bed with a young woman on it, her intestines artificially falling out of her abdomen as she writhed and screamed. Hank offered an amused smile as they and a few other patrons followed the path around the outside of the room. Suddenly, from a dark corner a chainsaw whirred to life noisily and a surgeon lurched toward the guests threateningly. Gavin scrambled slightly at the perceived threat, but the surgeon pulled away from the crowd and swing the chainsaw around to the girl and brought it down near the foot of the bed. The machine hit the mattress, but left no impact as they filed out of the room.

"Not scary, huh?" Hank offered, not letting go of the detective.

"Yeah, tell me that someone coming at you with a tool that could maim you wouldn't make you jump." Gavin snarked back. They entered the next room, which was more of a wide hallway, where a body lay in a casket against a wall of flowers. The body suddenly reaching for them was expected; the screaming actor hidden among the flowers they did not. Gavin cursed and suddenly was clinging to Hank's arm, which made Hank laugh heartily. Gavin glared at him. "Screw you."

"There's nothing wrong with being scared. That's the point, Reed."

"Anybody would be scared if someone jumped at them and screamed in their face when they weren't expecting it."He fumed, Hank lacing their fingers again as they stepped into the next room: a suburban home with the dad laying dead-eyed on the couch. His face was covered in fake blood. From behind a curtain, mom lurched toward him and started shambling toward him, dropping to her knees and fake feasting on his arm. "Haven't we moved past the zombie fad, like, 20 years ago?" Gavin rolled his eyes. At least the room passed without him embarrassing himself further. He pulled his hand away from Hank's, "I don't need you to hold my hand, I'm not scared." he insisted icily.

"Gavin, I wasn't…" Hank didn't pursue the subject, just offered a apologetic half smile. "Sorry." He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and lead on. Through the torture and blood rooms they stayed silent, unphased by the fake gore surrounding them. The masks of clowns covered the walls of the sixth room, fog machines making it difficult to navigate combined with the rainbow sheets hanging around. it only took the first squeaky horn right behind Gavin's ear to have him stumbling toward Hank. He couldn't see much of anything, but was aware that there was a vague path through the room, and he could hear footsteps of the clowns attempting to sneak up around them with those god-awful horns. He grabbed a fistful of the back of Hank's shirt to guide him through, the oddly sweet scent of the artificial fog making him want to cough it out of his lungs. As they neared the exit, he let go of the fabric and straightened, shaking his head at being so tense.

And then the fucking clown was in front of his face, separating him from Hank with its distorted mask and blood red smile around sharp fake teeth. He froze on the spot, just short of running straight into the actor. He stared them down, the knowledge that it was another cop under there helping to ease his anxiety. The clown slowly lifted the horn and honked it right over his shoulder, cackling maniacally before bouncing away. He breathed a sigh of relief and hastened out the door to catch up with Hank.

The dolls in the next room also lined the walls, but there was a chair in the middle of the blacklit room. The ventriloquist dummies eyes and cracks on the porcelain heads of baby dolls glowed eerily as an actress sat in the chair, taking with one of the dummies. She wasn't talking for the dummy though, the voice was coming from a speaker that echoed around the room. It wasn't so bad, until both the girl and the dummy snapped their heads up unnaturally to stare at them, slowly revolving their heads to watch as they walked by. It was creepy, and Gavin scowled at them before looking away.

Through the darkness room (which was just a winding hallway with literally no light) they had to run their hand along the wall so they didn't get lost, as per a speaker giving directions in a raspy whispered voice. It wasn't awful until the pathway sloped downward and then became soft, causing the person behind Gavin to trip and knocking him into Hank face first. The nightmare room wasn't much, just projections of shadows in the woods and a man pretending to have an awful night's sleep. Beneath the bed another actor dressed as a monster would shake the bed to startle people as they walked by. The hall that held snakes and spiders were mostly just uncomfortable; clichéd fake noises playing as they walked though hanging rubber snakes and cobwebs, featuring a giant furry spider attached to one of the walls at the end.

A young woman grimaced and squealed behind Gavin as they navigated around the spider and then turned a corner. He tried to recall what was supposed to come next, because for the most part he was just ready to be done. It wasn't long before he found out. There was a loud, tinny nose over the sound of a motor running. It sounded like a engine powered vacuum. Before them was a hallway that had air-filled chambers on the sides, so that people had to push through the tunnel airbags. Gavin stopped in his tracks.

Closed Spaces.

People behind them were making vague noises of dissent at not moving, and Hank frowned at Gavin in confusion. Gavin seemed to overcome his initial wariness and stepped out of the way, letting people walk past him. When Hank realized he wasn't coming he turned back to the younger officer's side. "What, did you leave the oven on or something?" he joked.

"Hank I can't walk through that." He admitted quietly, not meeting the other's gaze. Hanks brows furrowed quickly at the younger's tone.

"Gav, I don't think there's another way to go. You have to, or we go all the way back." He offered, looking around for help. Gavin looked back at the tunnel and swallowed.

It wasn't a closet. He just had to walk straight through and he'd come out the other side. Some irrational voice inside of him insisted that it could be a dead end and he'd be stuck in there.

"I'll walk with you okay? You can close your eyes if it helps." Hank insisted helplessly. His tone mustered Gavin's courage, his pride not wanting Hank's effort to go to waste and wanting to prove that he wasn't that kid that got abused in foster care as a grown teenager. Hank pulled off his own hoodie and put it over Gavin's head, letting Gavin negotiate the arms while he arranged the hood low over Gavin's eyes. "It's just air and a couple of bed sheets. Can't hurt you." He walked in front of Gavin, holding on to Gavin's wrist to guide him, and then they entered. The gentle but insistent pressure on Gavin's shoulders was enough that he couldn't pretend to be anywhere else, and he walked so close to Hank that he kicked at Hank's heels with each step. The smell of Hank on the sweater he was nearly drowning in made him think of the comforter on Hank's bed and he tried to think of that instead of this hell he felt like he was in. He was going to come out the other side. Hank would make sure of it.

He craved fresh air but was rewarded with none as Hank dragged him away from the polyester walls of the tunnel. Gavin let his back hit the black painted ply board wall of the maze and tried to focus on the semi-open space around him. They were still inside the building. Hank stood in front of him, shielding Gavin from view of the other cops passing by. "You alright?" he offered. Gavin rubbed his eyes to alleviate some of the stress just before his name was called,

"The hell are you doing here, Reed?" It was Tina and her husband, holding hands and smiling.

"Literally hell." He groaned, blinking at her. She looked confused for a moment, then looked to the tunnel behind her,

"Oh god I'm so sorry. I would have warned you." She cooed, rubbing his shoulder. "You did it though."

"I did." He offered warily. "With Hank." He pushed himself away from the wall and pushed the sleeves of the sweater up to his elbows. Tina looked between them and offered an indulgent smile for Gavin, then a look of gratitude to Hank. Hank shrugged it off. The moment grew awkward in its silence, so Tina broke the tense air with a smile,

"Well, one room left I guess. Seeya after? We should get drinks."

"A drink sounds awesome." Gavin conceded, smiling as the married couple went on ahead. Gavin joined the slowly moving line toward the last room, the door with a curtain covering it, letting out a bout of cool light as each person passed though. Hank queued behind him and let his hands rest on Gavin's waist

"I didn't think you were scared. I just wanted to hold your hand." He admitted in an offhand kind of way, like it wasn't important. Gavin craned his neck to look up at Hank,

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Hank nodded, "If I knew you were gonna hate it I wouldn't have made you come. We could've watched a movie instead."

"You didn't make me come." Gavin shrugged. "You asked me on a date and I agreed." Their turn was fast approaching.

"I never called it a date." Hank reminded him as Gavin pulled the sheet open to go inside. No wonder people were moving so slowly. The small room was only eight or so feet deep, but the path across was a one foot wide plank that people were balancing on. Fear of Heights. As Gavin waited his turn to cross, he looked around the room. It was an illusion of a deep gap, albeit a convincing one. The "plank" they were to walk across wobbled just slightly with each weight shift, but it wasn't quite over a long fall. On either side of the plank there were mirrors reflecting an image from the ceiling that was made to look like a hole. While he was quite aware that it was an illusion, he still found it difficult to feel secure on the pathway.

Hank entered behind him and grabbed for his hand, "What the fuck?" he barked, looking straight down. It was Hank's turn to be afraid, his fear preventing him from noticing the illusion.

"It's not real." Gavin reminded him, holding Hank's hand, "Look it's just an illusion. You can't fall." Still, Hank hesitated before moving toward the younger. Gavin watched him totter on the platform, unsure with each step. It seemed silly to him, but he'd also nearly just had a panic attack while Hank watched. He reached his other hand, "It's only two more steps." he assured as Hank watched his feet warily. "You gonna let a couple of mirrors show you up?" He taunted with a smirk. Finally, they reached the end and stepped back out into the late afternoon sun.

Gavin breathed in deep as the state officers thanked them for coming. He was suddenly very aware that he was still draped in Hank's hoodie as they ambled back toward the area in front of the attraction in search of Tina. Gavin made to pull out of it as they walked and tried to pass it back over to Hank. "You can hold on to it." Hank offered, and Gavin stopped in his tracks.

"Why?" He questioned, still holding out the Garment.

"If you want to wear it, you can hang on to it. I don't mind seeing it on you. You wear it at home often enough." He pushed it back toward the brunette.

"Hank Anderson, this isn't an old movie. You can't ask me to go steady just by letting me wear your letterman jacket." Gavin defied with a shit-eating grin.

"You think I want to go steady with you?" Hank asked, and, yeah, at that point they were both a little too stubborn to have a serious conversation about this.

"I mean, you did hold my hand and take me on a date to a place I was pretty much guaranteed to be pretty close and personal." Gavin batted his eyelashes for extra sarcasm, but Hank didn't see, because he was kissing Gavin, right there, in front of at least fifty other police officers. Many of them that they knew personally. Good god, come Monday everyone would know.

So make sure you go check out @swota‘s companion piece here!

My prompt box is always open!

#hankvin #hank x gavin #detroit become human #fanfiction #prompts

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Warrior Season 2 Episode 4 Review: If You Don’t See Blood, You Didn’t Come to Play

https://ift.tt/3on4MrO

This Warrior review contains spoilers.

Warrior Season 2 Episode 4

The title of this episode comes from Sophie’s (Celine Buckens) date. Spencer (Russell Crous) comes from the upper class and he’s trying to court Sophie in an upper-class way, but she’s is having none of that. She brings him to the Banshee to slam some drinks, and coyly asks him about his athleticism. Spencer says he plays rugby and Sophie feigns being impressed by the roughness of the sport, egging him to say, “If you don’t see blood, you didn’t come to play.” Then she takes him to the back-alley bare-knuckle matches behind the Banshee, to show him some fresh blood. It’s one of only two scenes that get bloody in this episode, that that’s just not enough.

This episode, like the previous one, fails to deliver much Kung Fu action. There’s a central street demo, which will be discussed later, and two fights: the first being this bare-knuckle match and the second being towards the end of the episode. Not one of the lead actors shows any Kung Fu fighting.

Lee (Tom Weston-Jones) punches O’Hara (Kieran Bew) when he discovers he’s been working for the Fung Hai for months. It’s right after O’Hara gets his wife (who is terribly upset about having to kill someone, even though it was self-defense) and kids out of San Francisco in the wake of the previous episode’s attack. But it’s just a punch, not a flying kick or even some Kung Fu fist combination. A Kung Fu attack would not have been appropriate coming from Lee, but this show is coming from Bruce Lee, so copious Kung Fu is expected. In fact, it is demanded, especially from a cast with such martial firepower.

Andrew Koji (Ah Sahm), Olivia Cheng (Ah Toy), Jason Tobin (Young Jun), and Dianne Doan (Mai Ling) have all demonstrated they can handle a decent Kung Fu fight. Joe Taslim (Li Yong) and Dustin Nguyen (Zing) are veteran action stars with several exemplary martial arts films already under their belts. Hong (Chen Tang) and Lai (Jenny Umbhau) have shown their skills too and fans are eager to see more of them. Sure, sure, drama is important for context but let these actors fight. Unleash them. Bruce Lee fans want Kung Fu. We want blood.

A Chinese Laundry and Some Street Kung Fu

Li Yong brings Mai Ling to a Chinese laundry looking for a loan (as if taking a loan from a Tong is ever that good of an idea). Mai Ling buys out the laundry as a safety net, a legal business for when the Tongs go sour. Li Yong, still suspicious of the intentions of his boss and lover, says “We are warriors, not washers.”

It’s another nod to history. That old stereotype of the Chinese laundry comes from this period when Warrior is set. Racism drove Chinese immigrants into the laundry business. Laundry work was demanding manual labor prior to washing machines but was deemed unmanly by Westerners.

However, even this lowly avenue of employment was inevitably sullied by racial injustice. In 1880, San Francisco had some 320 laundries, two thirds of which were Chinese run. The city approved an ordinance that laundries in wooden buildings required a permit. No permits were granted to any Chinese. Only one non-Chinese owner was denied. Two years later, the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed further oppressing the Chinese. This point in history has been looming large as an imminent threat in Warrior with several mentions of it from Buckley (Langely Kirkwood) and the Mayor (Christian McKay).

After buying out the laundry, Mai Ling and Ah Toy cross paths at a Kung Fu street demo. It’s the only Kung Fu in this episode. Kung Fu masters have worked as street buskers for centuries, so Warrior makes another solid historical nod.

Movies

The Shaolin Temple Movies: The Series That Launched Jet Li’s Career

By Craig Lines

However ironically, the demo is from a monk-like character clad in white robes doing a modern Wushu staff form. While the skyward shot of the monk doing a slow-motion barrel-roll framed by the Chinatown alley roofs is stylish, monks generally don’t wear white. A shaven pate implies that this is a Buddhist monk and their robes are traditionally saffron or grey. In Chinese culture, white is a funerary color.

To really nitpick the scene, modern Wushu didn’t exist back then. It’s modern. This is the style that Jet Li does, an acrobatic sport that China has been pushing to get into the Olympics. The earliest date for the creation of modern Wushu would be the founding of the People’s Republic of China in in 1949. Nevertheless, if that’s all the Kung Fu this episode is going to show, it just must be appreciated for what it is.

Mai Ling and Ah Toy have their own little showdown, a duel of fashion. Season 2 continues to amplify the costumes of both actresses. While everyone else is period, they’ve earned elaborate steampunk attire. It’s a Chinatown standoff and Mai Ling gets Ah Toy to bow to her. A Kung Fu duel might have been nice here but inappropriate to the storyline as Ah Toy is keeping her skills covert.

Back at the brothel, Nellie (Miranda Raison) visits Ah Toy to pick up one of the women to take to her vineyard sanctuary in Sonoma. She invites Ah Toy to visit on the next morning (presumably the next episode). In the days of Warrior, a trip to Sonoma would have taken a long time. Today, it’s a six-hour trip one-way by bike (the closest analog to the speed of a horse-drawn carriage on a maps app) and that’s using the Golden Gate Bridge.

However, the Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t open until 1937, decades after when Warrior is set. Without the bridges, a traveler from SF to Sonoma would have to take the long way around the bay. Even a ferry would take a long time. It’s more nitpicking but for anyone in the SF Bay Area, it sticks out as painfully inaccurate.

It’s Hard to Be a Cop in Chinatown

As the police arm up to take revenge on the Fung Hai after their attack on O’Hara’s home, Chao (Hoon Lee) cuts with a plan. He tells O’Hara that the Fung Hai is anticipating reprisal and have set a trap and that Zing is in hiding. Chao asks O’Hara to get the cops to stand down for two days so he can set up a counter trap. In exchange, Chao wants his stock of police-confiscated weapons returned. O’Hara complies.

This doesn’t go down well at City Hall where Buckley continues to stoke anti-Chinese sentiment. In a nod to today’s politics, the Mayor offers O’Hara his “thoughts and prayers” and respects O’Hara’s request for more time, despite Buckley’s protests. The Mayor calls him out on it and the two start to oppose each other politically.

Later, Lee visits Ah Toy’s place. He finds relief to his chronic pain in her opium den and Chao, watchful as always, spies this. Chao pulls Ah Toy to enlist her in his plan, taking Ah Toy’s sword to plant on Zing. This will implicate him as the swordsman murderer, removing any suspicion off Ah Toy and putting Zing on the run. It’s a promising plan for future episodes.

Sibling Rivalry Gets Explosive

Back at the mayoral mansion, Blake tries to pull the cable car contract from Mercer Steel. Historically, the cable cars were developed by several competing private companies so the mayoral office probably wouldn’t be holding those steel contracts, but that’s more nitpicking. Fortunately, Penny (Joanna Vanderham) lawyered up and informs her husband that the city is contractually bound to pay even more if they break the contract.

Penny’s bad night continues when she gets in it with her sister. After Sophie ditched Spencer, she hooked up with Leary for some Skinemax action.

Warrior, Snake Eyes, and What’s Next for Andrew Koji

By Gene Ching

Afterwards, Sophie sees Leary distributing soup for the hungry, and is swayed to his cause. She notices that Mercer Steel is not on Leary’s terrorist bombing target map. Leary says it’s because he knows Penny has hired protection, but Sophie hopes that it is for her sake. When Sophie returns to the mayoral mansion, she confronts Penny about hiring Chinese instead of Irish. Still fuming over her confrontation with Blake, she yells at Sophie pointing out how entitled she is.

Sophie runs to Leary and tells him about a secret tunnel into Mercer Steel. She leads Leary’s terrorist cell into the factory, but the Hop Wei discover them, and a fight ensues. It’s a dark warehouse fight, brutish and shadowy, but Leary and his squad are not Kung Fu fighters and the Hop Wei hatchet men are nameless thugs who are just there to die at the hands of the Irish.

It’s another disappointing fight scene, one that could be seen in any action show, not worthy of the Bruce Lee legacy. However, the mission is successful. Leary blows up Mercer Steel and Sophie goes home to Penny, wracked with guilt for what she has done. As a concluding scene, it sets up next episode where the repercussions will come to light.

The Way of the Dragon

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Despite the lack of Kung Fu, this episode has one good nod to Bruce Lee. In an earlier scene, one of the hatchet men ridicules Hong for being homosexual as the Hop Wei Tong men have breakfast. Hong has plenty of witty comebacks, but Young Jun comes to his defense. He joins in with the chiding to get close to Hong’s unsuspecting detractor, and then slams his head into the table. The whole Tong jumps out of their chairs, but Ah Sahm checks them by wagging his finger. It’s a distinctively Bruce Lee gesture, just like what he did to the Mob Boss in The Way of the Dragon.

Warrior has been good about dropping such clever Easter eggs, subtle homages that only true Bruce fans notice. But if Warrior really wants to keep those fans happy, for the next episode, show more Kung Fu. Show more blood.

The post Warrior Season 2 Episode 4 Review: If You Don’t See Blood, You Didn’t Come to Play appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2Tmf51a

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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fangirlandiknowit101 · 7 years

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To celebrate one year of Yuri!!! on Ice, I rewrote the beginning of Lessons in Love from Viktor’s point of view! I wanted to do something more spectacular but since I’m down with a cold... oh well. Made this header just for fun a couple days ago to go with it. Yoi didn’t necessarily change my life, but it did change my fandom life a lot so thank you Yuuri and Viktor, for being the best two people in love that I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing! I waited for the first episode to air since the trailer was released, already having decided that this would become my new fandom. I certainly wasn’t disappointed! Thank you yoi for a wonderful fandom experience, and thank you to everyone reading my stories, it means a lot<333 I hope you like this tiny little something! (灬ºωº灬)♡

Viktor groans, waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. He’s not a fan of leaving Yura alone, and now he is very much alone in a huge ice skating arena, filled with strangers. Hopefully everyone is busy enough watching the competition that they won’t notice his son. Hopefully all the sweet-looking Japanese women surrounding their seats are just as sweet as they look.

He crosses the street, following a wave of people. Carefully tucked into his messenger bag is the gift that Yura had picked out for his recently discovered figure skating idol, the one he’d almost thrown a fit over Viktor forgetting to bring. There was only one choice – run over to the hotel and pick it up.

Luckily the hotel is close, and Viktor speed walks towards the park behind the arena. His son absolutely adores one of the Japanese skaters, and Viktor has already promised to order posters as soon as there are any on sites that aren’t complete Japanese gibberish to him. Perhaps he’ll have to try and buy some photos and order them as posters himself.

The gift is for this Japanese Yuuri, a name twin doing his first senior competition in the international circuit, here at the Four Continents. Everything Viktor knows about figure skating he’s learnt in the past few weeks, determined since the moment Yura stepped off the ice for the first time and declared that it was the only thing he ever wanted to do again, ever.

He almost misses the man pacing back and forth in the park, lost in thoughts of the look of pure, unprecedented happiness on Yura’s small face when Viktor had presented him with a pair of his very own skates.

Is that?

The man has dark hair falling into his eyes, and an official sports jacket showing his belonging to Japan. His face is mostly hidden behind glasses, nose tucked into the collar of his jacket, fingers tugging at his sleeves as he walks a circle around the small fountain at the center of the park.

“Yuuri Katsuki?” he asks, because there are only so many Japanese skaters there, and surely he can’t be entirely off the mark.

Not when he’s watched Yuuri’s Junior Worlds programs at least a hundred times in the past week alone. Yuuri – for he really suspects it’s Yuuri now – stops, frozen like a statue.

“You are the figure skater Yuuri Katsuki, right?”

Maybe he’s butchering the name terribly, between his Russian accent and general lack of knowledge of anything Japanese. He smiles, hoping Yuuri won’t take offense.

“Y-yes,” Yuuri eventually replies, cheeks reddening adorably.

“Fantastic!”

Viktor beams, unable to believe his luck. If Yuri knew what he missed out on he probably wouldn’t have insisted on staying to watch the first few skaters that Viktor will miss.

“My son is a huge fan of yours! His name’s Yuri too, so he was really happy when he found out you were competing! Oh, let me show you a picture!”

Excited, Viktor closes the small distance between them and whips out his phone, immediately opening his photos. Yuuri looks a little dazed, blinking doe-eyed at him. Up close, he’s even cuter than he is on Viktor’s computer screen.

Of course, Viktor’s interest is purely for the benefit of his son. It wouldn’t do if he found an idol to look up to if said idol wasn’t a cute sort of person!

“He’s seven, so he hasn’t really started competing yet, but it’s his dream to win the Olympics!” He laughs quietly, scrolling through pictures while Yuuri politely nods. “He’s so determined, my Yuri. Watched all the competitors and already decided that you’ll win!”

“Me?”

Yuuri looks shocked, as if he wasn’t described as Japans’s future ace! If possible he looks even more adorable, hands pressed over his mouth, so sweet and unassuming. Viktor couldn’t be more pleased with Yuri’s choice in role model.

“Oh, you know how kids are. He even made a sign so he can cheer for you! But it’s your debut, right? Good luck!”

When Yuuri only stares at him, Viktor wonders if he went too far. Maybe Yuuri doesn’t like talking to fans? Maybe Viktor interrupted some important pre-competition routine… Then again, Yuuri doesn’t look annoyed, merely stunned.

“I almost forgot!” He claps his hands together, remembering the Makkachin replica hiding in his bag. “We noticed you didn’t have a proper napkin holder when you competed in Japan, and we were going to throw it to you on the ice after your short program, but if you don’t mind?”

He digs through his bag, wondering if Yura would kill him for giving it to Yuuri like this, when he isn’t even there. Then again, this way it’s certain that Yuuri will see it. From what he’s seen, skaters don’t pick up everything thrown on the ice for them, so the chances that Yuuri would have held on to their gift in particular are slim.

“You don’t have to use it or anything, but Yuri would be so happy if you’d accept it! It looks just like our dog Makkachin, and he always brings good luck so I hope this one will do the same for you!”

Trying not to look like the overeager parent he is, he holds the napkin holder out for Yuuri, who takes it after a moment of hesitation. For some reason, he looks a little teary-eyed, biting at his lower lip.

“Thank you,” he breathes, flushing fire truck red when Viktor allows his smile to broaden again.

“We’ll cheer for you, so do your best out there!”

Viktor can’t help the wink he adds, trying to keep things light because Yuuri seriously looks like he might start bawling any minute now. It’s probably better to leave, before he makes things awkward for Yuuri.

He smiles again, Yuuri staring down at the Makkachin lookalike like he can’t believe something like a poodle napkin holder could exist in real life, and then slowly turns around to leave. He hoists his bag higher up his shoulder, wondering if it would have been possible to ask for a picture or if that would have been rude, because surely Yura won’t believe him when he retells the event.

“Wait, what’s your name?”

Viktor pauses, turning around in surprise at Yuuri’s shouted question. He hadn’t thought Yuuri would care, but the earnest look on the skater’s face tilts his lips up at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, it’s Viktor. Viktor Nikiforov. Nice to meet you!”

He raises his hand in greeting, heart skipping a beat at the way Yuuri’s face lights up with his reply. Wow, how old is Yuuri anyway? Definitely too young for him. Good thing Viktor will only follow his career for the sake of his son.

It’s a relief to find Yuri safely in his seat, eyes glued to the current skater on the ice. There are only 20 of them in the men’s division, Yuuri going out as starting number 12.

“Which one is this?” he asks Yuri, who shushes him first.

“Fifth skater,” is all he says, waving the printed starting order they’d brought. “Where’s Makkachin?”

“I’ll tell you during the break,” Viktor whispers back, both of them politely applauding as the skater from Australia finishes.

When Yuri finds out he’s first enraged, then jealous, then in awe that Yuuri had accepted their gift.

“He’s so cool,” he sighs wistfully, and Viktor pets his hair.

“I’m sure you can meet him sometime,” he says.

Yuuri does rather well in the short program, but the highlight of Viktor’s day – hell, the highlight of his year – is when Yura spots the fluffy poodle napkin holder Yuuri brings with him to the kiss and cry.

It almost lets him forget how much they’re struggling with life in general.

“He’s in eighth place,” Yura tells him seriously as they return to the hotel much later. “He can still win.”

“Mhm,” Viktor says, quick to connect to the hotel wifi and search for articles or comments about Yuuri’s performance.

There’s not a lot in English, so they settle for re-watching his program since Viktor recorded it with his phone. The next day is the ladies free skate and the pair skate, and they manage a bit of sightseeing in Taipei as well. Yura gets easily overwhelmed, though, and with things still a little shaky between them Viktor opts for dinner at the hotel.

The men’s free skate is… both fantastic and a little disappointing.

“They should have given Yuuri more points,” Yura grumbles once the price ceremony is underway, with Yuuri ending up in eleventh place. “He was much better than the others!”

Viktor, who knows nothing about scoring in figure skating but who also knows that it’s better to just agree, spends the waiting time wondering if Yuuri should really be wearing something as flattering as his free skate costume at the tender age of nineteen. He carries it well, no doubt, but even Yuuri looked slightly self conscious as he glided onto the ice for his turn. There were others with worse outfits though – in both the fashion sense and the propriety sense – but Viktor has to wonder if he’s starting to get old.

When they stand among the crowd waiting for a glimpse of the skaters as they leave the arena, he puts Yuri on his shoulders and pretends he isn’t heavy. He doesn’t expect anything – but Yuuri sees them when he passes, smiles when Yura starts waving like crazy and holds up tiny Makkachin in greeting.

“Let’s give him a thumbs-up!” Viktor tells his son, grinning as they do while Yuuri tries not to be swept up by the current of officials walking with the skaters, ultimately losing to the crowd and the looks from his coach.

“Papa,” Yuri says as he puts him down, Yuuri sadly out of sight. “We have to cheer for him at every competition.”

And Viktor, weak for the times that Yuri calls him Papa, weak for a figure skater from Japan with the sweetest smile he’s ever seen–

All he can do is say yes.

#fangirlandiknowit update #yuri on ice #viktuuri #dunno what to tag but anyway #happy one year anniversary!!!#this will probably be included in the fic at some point

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taeguboi · 7 years

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Hello! I saw that you are doing written ships and I was wondering if you can do mine with BTS! If you don’t mind! :) I can’t mask my feelings well and people can read me easily. I’m usually described as a shy and demure individual but once you get to know me I am bright, intelligent, quirky, joyful, & fun. My hobbies include drawing, listening to music, reading manga (Japanese comics), watch anime, swimming, and driving around. I am also a very open-minded individual as well.

I don’t wear too much makeup even on special occasions and I always give everything an 110% :) My fashion is very simple but when I go out with friends I dress up more fashionably! I can get along with people and I always like to help them out if needed. I usually also have a mild temper and I have a very easygoing and quiet personality Because of my shy personality I can be socially awkward at first. I also blush really easily if I get nervous and shy and then I start to stutter a lot. I also get mistaken for having a cold personality when I don’t. I also have long wavy brown hair and a baby face known amongst my friends. Big brown eyes, long eyelashes, and I have a fit body.

I am half Chinese, latina, and quarter french (European descendent) I’m also afraid of bugs and love boba. Former junior Olympic athlete for swimming and swimming for 7 years with 1 or two records at a community college for a high school swim meet. I hate being a burden and say sorry a lot. I am also an INFJ and I like to cosplay and play video games like final fantasy, kingdom hearts, resident evil, metal gear solid, and devil may cry etc. As well as I have the tendency of being too nice and not looking for myself like putting others before my needs and my friends always tell me to take care of myself as well and smile more often.

In my group of friends, I’m usually the little sister despite being older than some of the friends, I’m usually protected or taken care of. I also make puns that are corny and bad haha. I am also humble and modest, I do not give myself enough credit for what I do and when ppl give me compliments I try to look for something even if I do not know the person and I tend to get flustered, shy, awkward, and quiet about it. I don’t really like being in the spotlight that much or gain attention, but my friends and from my observations they told me that I have this aura that attracts people even though I am not being an attention freak etc. My friends usually describe me as that i am similar to these characters personality wise: Yuna Final Fantasy X, Mikasa Ackerman Attack on Titan, Haruhi Fujioka ouran high school, and Touka Tokyo ghoul :-)

Hey there! I ship you with

Jimin

Jimin would always look after you 24/7, even when he can’t be around! He would relate to and understand you when you criticize yourself and try to find an improvement in something you’ve exceeded at.

Jimin would first notice you when you’re out with your friends, let’s say at a summer party at a friend of a friend’s, and he’d just be minding his own business really, jabbering away to V, not really noticing any of the girls there as none seem to be his type... until he spots a girl who is well dressed, but not over or under dressed, and isn’t caked in makeup.

V wouldn’t notice until the end of the evening, just as you’re leaving and Jimin’s gaze is stuck on you and your friends, that Jimin’s mind has been wandering to the stranger from across the garden with the long wavy brown hair, and as soon as V catches on, he’d be bugging Jimin to go talk to you, but Jimin would feel too shy after seeing you being so laid-back and open around your friends, mistaking this to be the full side of your personality, and so he lets it slide and you go home, unknowing.

However, just a few months later, there’s a happening Halloween party that everyon has to go to, and you decide to embrace the occassion and cosplay one of your favourite video game characters. This time, Jimin is with Jungkook and it’s actually the younger who notices you first, like “Woah hyung, look how cool that girl’s costume is!,” drawing his attention to you once again and even after a few months having passed by, he instantly recognises you as that girl he liked from the other party.

Similarly to you, I feel Jimin would get flustered and blush easily, and so Jungkook would instantly catch on what is going on in Jimin’s mind -- “Hyung, go talk to her!” and Jimin would hesitate until Jungkook gives him some lecture about living in the moment and not letting opportunities for something good slip by.

So then he would finally approach you once the friend you’re with has just gone to the loo or something, and he’d be trying to think of what to say on his way to you and panicking with something cliche and typical like “great party, huh?” to which you would perhaps be more flustered than he is and your personality would probably change quite fast which he would simultaneously find both adorable and a relief [the latter because he was so nervous about this].

A bond forms from there as the whereabouts of Jungkook and your friend become unknown for the most of the event [you can choose whether thats’s a coincidence or not haha,] and you guys would just end up chatting the night away, gradually becoming more and more comfortable around each other, enough to make lame jokes and debate about topics thst scarcely matter but it begins to mean something to the both of you because there is an obvious chemistry and you both have really taken a liking to each other...

It would go from there really, seeing more of him often and the two of you getting to know each other better to the point that he could confidently confess to you since your feelings about him aren’t being masked very well. He would probably confess at another party/event to make the evening memorable and also because he’s probably into a few cliches like “third time lucky” and this would be the third party he has been at at the same time as you.

A relationship of you and Jimin I feel would be quite pure in the sense that he would constantly make sure you’re recieving compliments an you would return them but both of you would be in denial like “nah, I’m not talented” and “stop, you’re way better than me at...” and people would be like “just stop being so humble all the time already!” because you’re the most talented couple they know with Jimin being a top dancer and you being a top athlete.

You would probably somehow get each other into one another’s interests, so you would take Jimin to a swim session and he would invite you down to the dance studio one day to teach you some moves, and days like these can be quite draining on your bodies, so at the end, you’d suggest to each other, things to watch and do to chilll out and become immersed in each other’s worlds as he tries out an anime you like followed by watching a film of his choosing.

You guys would be quite humble collectively, always complimenting each other and choosing the other’s feelings over your own. You guys would be the one couple everyone goes to when they’re having their own problems in romance as the two of you are both smart, open-minded individuals who can see all side of a sotory and make sure everyone’s feelings are taken into consideration when making a decision.

So although you guys are both quite athletic and fit, on the outside, on the inside, you guys are the fluffiest people your friends will ever know!

#bts ships #BTS request #bts scenarios #jimin #park jimin #bts jimin #jimin imagine #jimin scenario #submission

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creme13rulee · 7 years

Text

Deep Within My Bones Ch.3- The Kiss

AU. Viktor wins another gold at the Olympics, and attends the Paralympics as another duty as the King of Ice Skating. Having lost his inspiration and heart, Viktor did not expect to find love in what he sees as the perfect man. Yuuri, after losing his legs, lost his chance to compete on the same ice as his idol. When the world seems to fall into place, what else can be taken away from them?

The neon sign glowed blue into the cold night air. Viktor could see his breathe fog and drift up into the light. He had used Christophe as an excuse, telling himself that he needed to let his friend socialize for a little longer. Long enough for Viktor to get another drink, steel his nerve…and order a car to the restaurant. It wasn’t that far, but wasn’t about to trek through the packed snow and cold. He would appear warm, every hair in place. Perfect.

For Yuuri.

His own Yuri had left with Yakov earlier. The boy was too old for a curfew, but he had probably worked out some excuse to get out of it.

Probably blaming it on Viktor.

They hadn’t spoken since they watched this new Yuuri skate on the ice.

Cristophe pushed open the door, gently waving backwards, shooing Viktor inside. It was almost as dark as the outside, most of the lighting warm candlelight. The walls were dark wood, and the warmth was a welcome relief. Even though lately Viktor preferred going out and feeling the sting of the cold.

The cold immediately melted away at the sight of him.

He was smiling, his ears and nose still red from the cold. And perhaps the glasses of champagne he had gulped down less than an hour before. When was the last time Viktor had seen a smile reach someones eyes? When had one of those smiles been directed at him? After 5 gold medals.. no, after 3, the smiles had become more forced on either end. There were only so many records you could break until you went from groundbreaker to someone to break down. His stomach filled with longing, heavy and burning. He had barely talked to this boy, but he wanted the smile to be for him. Not for someone who he had easy crushed in the semi-finals.

Where was this coming from?

Phichit was the reason why he was here. The Thai skater was a friend, not an enemy. He had to remember this. Said man raised a hand, greeting them. Yuuri turned, following Phichits gaze, his doe-like eyes widening. Viktor felt his pulse quicken. But Yuuri didn’t run. Perhaps it was the extra alcohol, or the fact that the seating was benches and kept him from moving quickly.

It didn’t matter.

Viktor easily slid on his smile, moving before he quickly overtook Chris.

“Sorry to make you wait.” Viktor offered a sad nod toward Phichit, who wasn’t even looking at him. He was watching Yuuri, who stared as Viktor sat beside him, starry-eyed and agape.

He looked even more perfect up close. The way his eyebrows arched perfectly. His jaw line, how his inky black hair feathered around his ear.

But most of all, the grace and strength he held, while also looking like he could be easily crushed in a cold hand.

Viktor had been watching too many Harlequin romance movies.

“No worries, we just got here, right Yuuri?” Phichit barely contained his smirk, which was good, because everyone was watching Viktor and Yuuri.

“Right, Yuuri.” Yuri echoed dreamily, still staring agape at Viktor. He grew pinker when the king of ice laughed, radiating the flirt he was famous with the press for.

A waitress stopped by with a basket of warm buttery bread. Viktor watched as Yuuri woozily doled out a soft roll to each of their plates before his own. He could feel the English he wanted to speak slipping through his fingers like a fine sand. The words fell faster the longer he watched the skater beside him close his eyes, his dark and thick eyelashes against his cheek as he sunk his teeth into the bread.

He had been watching way, way too many movies.

“Thank you for coming out. Yuuri’s a big fan. We didn’t know you were coming out for the Paralympic games.” Phichit interjected after a period of quiet that Viktor had felt perfectly fine with.

“I didn’t know either. It was a last minute decision. But I’m glad I came.”

Apparently it hadn’t been last minute, but Yakov knew better than to ask (or tell) Viktor anything on the eve of a competition.

“I am too.” Yuuri said softly, rolling the remainder of the bread between his fingers. “I wish I had been able to do better. I was distracted.”

Distracting, more like it. Viktor tried to keep his thoughts to holier territory.

“I think it was beautiful.” Viktor murmured, and he hit the target. Yuuri jolted like an arrow had hit his heart, the remaining bread between his fingers squished into a pancake as red overtook the sweet mans face.

“Not as much as you. Y—y-your….oh…” Yuuri stammered, trailing off. It was Viktors turn to be stabbed in the heart. But he had no idea if it was Cupid’s arrow or just the feeling of no longer numbing himself to his heart.

Phichit dropped the menu from his hands onto the table to hide his own snicker. Yuuri looked up from his lap, back to his best friend. “Oh… order.” Words were coming hard to him, too.

“I already told the waitress to give us the special.” Pichit smiled. “I didn’t want a repeat of what happened on Monday!” The easy smile came back to Yuuri’s face, and the two friends laughed with such ease that Viktor felt lonely. Chris tilted his head to the side, showing enough curiosity to continue the conversation.

“Oh! Me and Yuuri went out for lunch, but we didn’t charge our phones! They died right as we got there, and we couldn’t use any of our apps ! We spent an hour trying to figure out what to eat before Yuuri remembered how to say breakfast!”

“I don’t know what we ate, but it was really good.” Yuuri murmured, his accent thicker than it had been several drinks ago.

“So since then, we decided to leave the menu to the chef.” Phichit said confidently. Yuuri yawned adorably. The six hour time difference wasn’t as bad as the time difference between home and Detroit… But the warm bread, and the warmth sat beside him (and maybe the champagne) was making it harder to adjust. Even with sleeping until the hour before practice.

The technique was flawless. Viktor had the best food he had in a while, warm meat on fresh greens. The wine pairing was phenomenal. He felt sated enough to conduct the usual interview: how was Sochi, how did it feel to have gold again.

“What’s next?” Phichit asked, and Viktor knew he expected “Worlds” or some other simple answer.

But nothing came.

Just as it had since Viktor had bottled up the last few drops left in his desiccated soul into Stammi Vicino.

What was next?

“Yuutopia.” Yuuri murmured sleepily, his head heavy on his hand. He looked ready to fall asleep at the table, but he kept his eyes dutifully on whoever was talking.

“Yuutopia?” Viktor repeated. He flipped through the dictionary in his head, but came up short. It wasn’t English.

“My parents hot springs. I haven’t been home since Obon. “ Yuuri said in the same sleepy tone.

Viktor couldn’t bear it. He scooted closer, enough that their thights touched on the dark wooden bench. He didn’t notice.

“You should visit. Japanese hot springs are the best.” He said it so dreamily, that Viktor immediately considered pulling out his phone and checking ticket prices.

“You’ll get to see Vicchan again, too.” Pichit said, moving the remaining food around on his plate. Figuring out which filter that would best show off this meal would have to wait.

“Vicchan…” Yuuri cooed softly, the starry-eyed doe look returning to his face. Viktor frowned. He had heard it before, but it was before the translator had arrived to assist his interview with Skate Japan and Shoujo Shuukan.

“Mari-nee-chan sent me this picture.” Yuuri said with the same soft coo, pulling out his own phone and unlocking it. He went into his library, mostly selfies of Yuuri and Phichit, as well as some of the other skaters Viktor had seen earlier that day. He watched as the Yuuri tapped, pulling up a photo of a miniature Makkachin, dressed up in a weird set of jeans-for-dogs and a black vneck tee. It looked more couture than the clothing Viktor had in his own closet, which would definitely not fit Makkachin.

“He’s adorable.” Viktor cooed, and Yuuri immediately scrolled through a long row of pictures, the dog taking up most of his camera roll.

“I miss him. He is the cutest thing in the world.” Yuuri said, staring at the phone with heavy eyelids and a soft smile.

“Vicchan, right?”

“Mhmm. I named him after my favorite skater.” He scrolled to a picture of the dog in a bee costume.

Viktor nearly spit.

“Favorite skater?”

“Viktor Nikiforov.” Yuuri said. Viktor noticed that Yuuri had slumped over, and his arm and side were now against his own. Viktor glanced up to see Chris’ hand pressed to his mouth, stifling laughter that threatened to bubble out.

This was actually going pretty well.

“I happen to have the same name.” Viktor said. What else could he say?

“’n look exack-a-ly like him.” Yuuri said, turning his beautiful smile up to him.

Viktor wanted to see this smile more.

“What if your favorite skater showed up to your hot springs?”

“That’da only happen in dreams.” Yuuri’s tone alluded that he was ridiculous, that it was a joke that it would ever happen. But… was it really that impossible?

Was he really that untouchable? Here he was, draped over him, their thighs against each other, a thousand smiles and looks and accidentally-on-purpose touches of the hand… and Viktor Nikiforov was still strictly in the dream land?

Was this the only thing that would be a surprise?

The bill came, and Viktor took it and slid his card under the clip. It would be the best rubles he had ever spent. (Except for Makkachin’s adoption fee.)

“We should get going, there are more events tomorrow…” Phichit said, watching Yuuri fighting to keep his eyes open, his cheek against Viktors arm. Chris played the traitor, standing up first, forcing Viktor to use his time wisely. He pulled away, but Yuuri sunk closer to him.

“Oh great… We left the chair at the hotel…” Phichit said, his perfectly laid plans fraying at the edges.

“The wheelchair?” He had forgotten about it. The fact that this boy had something about him that kept him from competing in the main Olympics.

“How did he…?” The words left Viktor’s lips before he meant them too. He moved carefully, extracting himself from Yuuri’s weight until we has able to get his feet underneath him.

“He walked in, but if he can’t sit, he can’t walk, and if you’re not careful you could hurt him.” Phichit worried his bottom lip. He and his best friend were close to the same height, so a few tipsy nights hadn’t been much of a problem. But that had been in Detroit in the summer, not Sochi in the middle of winter.

The problem solved itself, Viktor sliding his arms around Yuuri’s back and under his knees. Where he expected hard muscle with the soft give of flesh, he was pinched with hard plastic. Though the rest of him drooped, his feet remained straight, his slacks riding up to a skeleton of titanium ankles.

Oh.

“Here,” Phichit said, stepping around the table and grabbing the bottom of the dress shoes, unceremoniously pulling them

And the rest of Yuuri’s leg

Off.

The pant legs below Yuri’s knees deflated, but Viktor no longer had to worry about kicking other restaurant patrons in the head.

“That will make it easier to fit in the car.” Phichit said, tucking the legs under his arm. He obviously knew what was going on and had no issue whatsoever. Christopher knew too. Or he was just cool and didn’t feel like the worlds eyes were upon them.

God smiled upon them, and they happened to stay at the same hotel near the Olympic Oval. Phichit called a car home, the only one smart enough to keep a battery reserve on his smart phone. Viktor, the tallest, was tasked the keeper of Yuuri. In the lobby, Phichit dug out and set the sleeping man’s wallet into his lap, as Viktor held him like a bride over the threshold.

“Thanks. I owe you.” Phichit said, before following Chris up to the fifth floor. Viktor rode alone in the elevator… well, with Yuuri, late enough that the halls were quiet. There was only the hum of the elevator pulling upward, and the soft, even breathing of the silver medalist nestled against his chest.

He somehow managed to unlock the door, thanking all the corporations in Russia that it was a touch-card and not a key. He jostled Yuuri slightly, searching for a light switch on the wall. His arms were tiring, even during the break in the car. Why on earth was he up so high? All the accessible rooms were usually at the bottom floors in order to save costs on ordering evacuation equipment. That was if this hotel was even accessible. It never occurred to him before.

It was a small, single room; the only thing touched in the room was the bed. The expensive water laid untouched, even the complimentary pillow mint was uneaten. Viktor carefully set Yuri on the bed, in the middle of the nest of blankets. He paused, before reaching out to loosen this strange, perfect man’s tie. His eyelids fluttered open, and he stared up at Viktor.

His very core tugged him downward, harder than gravity. He wanted those eyes locked on him, to see what they did when given more pleasure than just a good meal and drink.

But he had just carried him, this boy drunk enough to spill his heart but not tie his idols name to the body beside him. He could not tarnish this image by taking what he could not get a clear answer to.

So instead he leaned down, kissing his forehead sweetly.

“Spokushki, Yuuri.”

#viktuuri #victuuri #yoi #yuri on ice #yoi fic #yoi fanfic #yuri on ice fanfic

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petrichorate · 7 years

Text

The Bell Jar: Thoughts

The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)

The Bell Jar was a beautiful, clear novel. The whole time, I felt very close to the main character, Esther. Even while Esther sat steeped in depression, Sylvia Plath’s writing made me feel like Esther was the sane one in the book; her breakdown seems completely understandable, compared to fatuous demeanors and inconsequential mannerisms of everyone else in her world.

I loved the style of the writing—simple, lucid, embedded with the most beautiful and effortless descriptions that made me think, “Yes, that feels real.”

Here are some passages that particularly struck me:

On expectations and feeling very numb in the middle of a chaotic life: “Look what can happen in this country, they’d say. A girl lives in some out-of-the-way town for nineteen years, so poor she can’t afford a magazine, and then she gets a scholarship to college and wins a prize here and a prize there and ends up steering New York like her own private car. Only I wasn’t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been excited the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn’t get myself to react. (I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo).”

On ordering alcohol: “I thought I might make a fool of myself by saying I’d have it with ice or soda or gin or anything. I’d seen a vodka ad once, just a glass full of vodka standing in the middle of a snowdrift in a blue light and the vodka looked clear and pure as water, so I thought having vodka plain must be all right. My dream was someday ordering a drink and finding out it tasted wonderful.”

On looking during crucial situations: “I liked looking on at other people in crucial situations. If there was a road accident or a street fight or a baby pickled in a laboratory jar for me to look at, I’d stop and look so hard I never forgot it. I certainly learned a lot of things I never would have learned otherwise this way, and even when they surprised me or made me sick I never let on, but pretended that’s the way I knew things were all the time.”

On third wheeling: “The two of them didn’t even stop jitterbugging during the intervals. I felt myself shrinking to a small black dot against all those red and white rugs and that pine paneling. I felt like a hole in the ground. There is something demoralizing about watching two people get more and more crazy about each other, especially when you are the only extra person in the room.”

On silence in New York City: “By standing at the left side of the window and laying my cheek to the woodwork, I could see downtown to where the UN balanced itself in the dark, like a weird green Martian honeycomb. I could see the moving red and white lights along the drive and the lights of the bridges whose names I didn’t know. The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence. I knew perfectly well the cars were making a noise, and the people in them and behind the lit windows of the buildings were making a noise, and the river was making a noise, but I couldn’t hear a thing. The city hung in my window, flat as a poster, glittering and blinking, but it might just as well not have been there at all, for the good it did me.”

On hot baths: “There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: ‘I’ll go take a hot bath.’”

On physics class: “Botany was fine, because I loved cutting up leaves and putting them under the microscope and drawing diagrams of bread mold and the odd, heart-shaped leaf in the sex cycle of the fern, it seemed so real to me. The day I went into physics class it was death. A short dark man with a high, lisping voice, named Mr. Manzi, stood in front of the class in a tight blue suit holding a little wooden ball. He put the ball on a steep grooved slide and let it run down to the bottom. Then he started talking about let a equal acceleration and let t equal time and suddenly he was scribbling letters and numbers and equals signs all over the blackboard and my mind went dead.”

An interesting take on colors in Technicolor movies: “I hate Technicolor. Everybody in a Technicolor movie seems to feel obliged to wear a lurid costume in each new scene and to stand around like a clotheshorse with a lot of very green trees or very yellow wheat or very blue ocean rolling away for miles and miles in every direction.”

On solid floors: “I listened with interest. The floor seemed wonderfully solid. It was comforting to know I had fallen and could fall no farther.”

On expectations and disappointment: “I went cold with envy. I had never been to Yale, and Yale was the place all the seniors in my house liked to go best on weekends. I decided to expect nothing from Buddy Willard. If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”

On childbirth and men: “Later Buddy told me the woman was on a drug that would make her forget she’d had any pain and that when she swore and groaned she really didn’t know what she was doing because she was in a kind of twilight sleep. I thought it sounded just like the sort of drug a man would invent. Here was a woman in terrible pain, obviously feeling every bit of it or she wouldn’t groan like that, and she would go straight home and start another baby, because the drug would make her forget how bad the pain had been, when all the time, in some secret part of her, that long, blind, doorless and windowless corridor of pain was waiting to open up and shut her in again.”

The fig tree passage on indecision: “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

On the ordinariness that comes after love: “I thought if only I had a keen, shapely bone structure to my face or could discuss politics shrewdly or was a famous writer Constantin might find me interesting enough to sleep with. And then I wondered if as soon as he came to like me he would sink into ordinariness, and if as soon as he came to love me I would find fault after fault, the way I did with Buddy Willard and the boys before him. The same thing happened over and over: I would catch sight of some flawless man off in the distance, but as soon as he moved closer I immediately saw he wouldn’t do at all. That’s one of the reasons I never wanted to get married. The last thing I wanted was infinite security and to be the place an arrow shoots off from. I wanted change and excitement and to shoot off in all directions myself, like the colored arrows from a Fourth of July rocket.”

On married life: “I tried to imagine what it would be like if Constantin were my husband. It would mean getting up at seven and cooking him eggs and bacon and toast and coffee and dawdling about in my nightgown and curlers after he’d left for work to wash up the dirty plates and make the bed, and then when he came home after a lively, fascinating day he’d expect a big dinner, and I’d spend the evening washing up even more dirty plates till I fell into bed, utterly exhausted.”

On dating versus marriage: “And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard’s kitchen mat. Hadn’t my own mother told me that as soon as she and my father left Reno on their honeymoon—my father had been married before, so he needed a divorce—my father said to her, ‘Whew, that’s a relief, now we can stop pretending and be ourselves’?—and from that day on my mother never had a minute’s peace.”

On having someone’s hand run through your hair: “He didn’t answer but reached over and put his hand at the root of my hair and ran his fingers out slowly to the tip ends like a comb. A little electric shock flared through me and I sat quite still. Ever since I was small I loved feeling somebody comb my hair. It made me go all sleepy and peaceful.”

Esther’s mom’s response to Esther’s depression: “‘I’m through with that Doctor Gordon,’ I said, after we had left Dodo and her black station wagon behind the pines. ‘You can call him up and tell him I’m not coming next week.’ My mother smiled. ‘I knew my baby wasn’t like that.’ I looked at her. ‘Like what?’ ‘Like those awful people. Those awful dead people at that hospital.’ She paused. ‘I knew you’d decide to be all right again.’”

On snapping and getting annoyed at friends: “Being with Jody and Mark and Cal was beginning to weigh on my nerves, like a dull wooden block on the strings of a piano. I was afraid that at any moment my control would snap, and I would start babbling about how I couldn’t read and couldn’t write and how I must be just about the only person who had stayed awake for a solid month without dropping dead of exhaustion.”

On the difficulty of appreciating anything when you’re depressed: “I knew I should be grateful to Mrs. Guinea, only I couldn’t feel a thing. If Mrs. Guinea had given me a ticket to Europe, or a round-the-world cruise, it wouldn’t have made one scrap of difference to me, because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.”

A beautiful description of morning time: “I woke warm and placid in my white cocoon. A shaft of pale, wintry sunlight dazzled the mirror and the glasses on the bureau and the metal doorknobs. From across the hall came the early-morning clatter of the maids in the kitchen, preparing the breakfast trays.”

A nice description about snow clearing away calendars: “A fresh fall of snow blanketed the asylum grounds—not a Christmas sprinkle, but a man-high January deluge, the sort that snuffs out schools and offices and churches, and leaves, for a day or more, a pure, blank sheet in place of memo pads, date books and calendars.”

On how expressions can change because of experiences: “‘I’ve been wondering... I mean, I thought you might be able to tell me something.’ Buddy met my eyes and I saw, for the first time, how he had changed. Instead of the old, sure smile that flashed on easily and frequently as a photographer’s bulb, his face was grave, even tentative—the face of a man who often does not get what he wants.”

#reading list #books #sylvia plath #the bell jar

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kjweldon · 7 years

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2017

It was the death of Prince that established 2016 as the worst year ever. The one-two punch of David Bowie and Alan Rickman had been bad, but no worse than any other year. But in April, Americans decided collectively that the year was a disaster. That was before Donald Trump won first the nomination and then, unthinkably, the presidency. Before Leonard Cohen died. And Gwen Ifill. And Gene Wilder. A nation shellshocked by the election faced the end of the year with grim humor. Pinterest filled up with instructions for making dumpster fire ornaments. The tired jokes made the rounds: protect Betty White. Take Ruth Bader Ginsburg to an undisclosed location until the year ends. Die, 2016, die.

Then Christmas week took Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Debbie Reynolds. The jokes turned to a solemn and miserable silence. For every person who complained about the horror of 2016 on Facebook, there was a commenter ready to point out that arbitrary periods of time could not be evil. The data scientists threw their hats in the ring, pointing out that indeed, the number of A- and B-list celebrity deaths this year were indeed a bit higher than usual, and the average age lower. Or, perhaps, that the number of deaths was normal, and only the clustering was odd. No matter. No one was listening to the numbers guys anyway. People were too busy reposting memes, creating memorial playlists for holiday parties, rewatching Harry Potter and Star Wars and Singin’ in the Rain.

And then New Year’s came and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Other than a few people who believed deeply in unlucky numbers and astrology, no one really believed it was the year responsible for all the death. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that no one wanted to admit, even to themselves, that they had started to become superstitious about 2016. Still, despite the coming inauguration, there was a sense on January 1, 2017, that the long battle had ended, and the world was turning toward morning.

Then Elton John’s airplane crashed. January 2. With the New Year’s holiday on a Sunday, many people had Monday off. They hadn’t even returned to work yet, and another death.

The next day it was LeBron James in a car accident and Michael Phelps of an aneurysm.

That was a bit of a change-up. Most of the 2016 deaths had come from the world of music or film. Sports figures had to this point largely been spared, with the notable exception of Mohammed Ali. But he was long past of the peak of his fame, and his death hadn’t registered as much more than extra ballast to the misery of the year. But now 2017 was starting with two athletes, still young. Guys who had ignored all the fuss thus far were glued to ESPN watching tributes.

Two days passed before the next victim: Sarah Michelle Gellar. Gen X and the Millennials held planned costumed vigils, but the day after her skiing accident, Johnny Depp overdosed, so Jack Sparrow and Edward Scissorhands stood beside Buffy. A few Princess Leias and Snapes inevitably showed up, sparking a national debate over the what it meant to appropriate a memorial. Facebook became the nation’s site of mourning.

Then J.K. Rowling had a stroke, and the whole world keened in grief.

Now the conspiracy theorists came out in full force. Donald Trump, said a commentator on DailyKos, was killing off his competitors for fame. No, argued Alex Jones, it was ISIS, bent on destroying the dominant Western culture. A strange new sexually-transmitted disease caused disorientation, clumsiness, heart failure. A serial killer. A gang of serial killers. Ancient curses. Brand new curses. Desperate for a rational explanation, producers of morning shows booked doctors to talk about the dangers of stress in contemporary life. Celebrities, whose lives were even more stressful than average people, were the first to show the effects of 24/7 social media, lack of sleep, pressure. Surely that was all.

The data scientists were on TV as well, trying to explain that outliers were indeed part of a normal distribution, that some periods would have more celebrity deaths than others. If they were heard at all, it wasn’t for long.. First came the fashion show that killed seventeen major actors, including four People’s Choice winners, in a fire set by Karl Lagerfeld’s cigarette. Then the entire Douglas clan suffered a brutal food poisoning incident at a family function, and only Catherine Zeta Jones survived. Between these two incidents, only three days apart, Anthony Bourdain died of eating improperly prepared pufferfish, the Property Brothers were crushed in a roof collapse, Mick Jagger ODed on prescription pills, Aretha Franklin broke her neck falling down a flight of stairs, and Anderson Cooper was shot in Syria.

Rumors started to fly that the Oscars would be bombed - by ISIS, by neo-Nazis, by Russians, by the Church of Scientology. So few invitations were accepted that fashion designers and drivers were offered spaces. Those who showed included the very old and brave and the very young and ambitious. Maggie Smith accepted her award with a sly look to the camera, a smile, and a slow slump onto the stage. The cause of death was described by her physician as “a terminal case of knowing how to make an exit.”

People put out its first memorial edition that was neither focused on a single celebrity nor published at year’s end. The editors demurred when questioned about plans, but the new People Remembered began to appear biweekly. The New York Times fought the trend for three more months, then began including a memorial insert monthly, which came to be known as the Dead Society Page.

The poster on DailyKos found his beliefs about Trump's involvement rejected by the the community, so he took his theories to his own site. Trump: Celebrity Serial Killer developed a huge following. Trump threatened to sue, but nothing came of it. He may have been too busy on Twitter, discounting the ideas that the most famous were dying first. “Such sad news, but glad the really big celebrities untouched. #MAGA.” “Created task force to determine why famous musicians and actors dying at such rate. Glad whatever is happening doesn’t affect leaders!”

The dead had indeed not yet included any politicians of note. But then Cory Booker helped an elderly woman out of a burning building and was overcome by smoke inhalation. Two days later, talking to a group of schoolchildren, Al Franken pretended to fall off the Senate balcony, losing his balance and landing headfirst on Booker’s chair. Just one week after that, Hillary Clinton contracted a new and deadly form of bird flu when in Singapore for a Clinton Foundation-sponsored Summit on Women’s Health and died within days.

The series of tributes to fallen Democrats pushed Trump over the edge. At 2 AM the night of Clinton’s funeral, he tweeted out comments about how the country was “purging the losers.” Unfortunately, his tweets crossposted with announcements of the deaths of Garth Brooks and Danica Patrick. The faith of his base was shaken for the first time, and former fans gathered across the South and the Rust Belt to burn their red caps and copies of Art of the Deal. The great raging bonfires themselves claimed several lives, but none famous, so no one noticed.

B-list actors at first saw opportunity in the loss of more famous competition, but after 27 Oscar winners died in May alone, ambition became overcome by fear. Casting agents found their calls unreturned. Some of the A-list believed there was no avoiding the inevitable. Meryl Streep and Drew Barrymore joked on Colbert that there was no chance of them becoming less famous overnight, so why hide? All three were killed in a gas explosion backstage. The photo of the two women laughing together while Colbert looked on appeared on the front page of two hundred newspapers.

After that, booking late night shows became nearly impossible. The A list thought they were tempting fate; the B list didn’t want to become any more famous than they were. Even the least famous among the famous began to shirk the limelight, as if the very act of being seen on television or quoted in the newspaper might draw death. Producers found themselves rejected by professors, first term Congressmen, mayors of minor cities, athletes in the lesser Olympic sports, and Broadway actors who were not Lin-Manuel Miranda (electrocuted when a hairdryer fell in the tub).

Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell devoted a special episode of This American Life to the celebrity death problem, in which they agreed that it was a good thing that NPR-famous didn’t count. Ira was found drowned in a hotel swimming pool later that week. Vowell locked herself in her bedroom, which she described later in her book Accidental Survivor as going “full Brian Wilson.”

On FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver concluded that greater fame increased risk and calculated a celebrity’s odds of dying based on a formula that included the number of TV appearances over the last five years, number of awards received, and box-office, ratings, or album sales figures, and meme presence. He claimed that he skipped politicians and others because he lacked good comparative data, but the other political bloggers accused him of fearing Trump’s response if the president either topped the list of the doomed or didn’t rank high enough. The List became a touchstone. At grim parties, the famous compared their scores. The country watched nervously as the top twenty died off within two months.

The religious blamed sinful Hollywood lifestyles. Churchgoing increased, as did sales of lucky charms and protective candles and incense. A Pew Research Center poll determined that fully seventy percent of the public believed that the deaths were a punishment, but the country was divided on what it was being punished for. About half believed it was abortion and gay marriage, the other half believed it was the results of the 2016 election. Both sides held vigils - in some places, nightly. A few fanatics hoped the right sacrifice would stop the epidemic and took matters into their own hands. The assassination attempts on Paul Ryan and Pope Francis were unsuccessful, but RuPaul and Keith Richards were both killed.

Richards’ death ended what had become a booming business in death-betting. The odds against him had been so high the bookies lost their shirts. But gambling in all forms increased as people began to lose their faith in randomness, in probability, in chance.

David Brooks wrote a column blaming everything on a lack of bipartisanship, and at last his utterings were considered inane enough to get him fired. Inevitably, people joked that this was one good thing to result from all this tragedy, but now, in September, with more than six hundred celebrity deaths since January 1 by the Washington Post’s estimation, even gallows humor had lost its savor.

The CDC had been unable to determine any common thread among the deaths besides fame. Their only response was a public health campaign on preventing heart diseases and avoiding household accidents. Ads ran in Variety and mass emails were sent to members of the Actor’s Guild and the American Federation of Musicians reminding them about taking their meds, scheduling preventive screenings, keeping fresh batteries in their smoke detectors.

The task force Trump had ordered never actually met, a fact revealed in Mother Jones and reported for two days on the major networks before George Takei, Betty White, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Beyonce and Jay Z, Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, and Taylor Swift all died on the same day. Under pressure from members of Congress, who had been fielding unprecedented calls and letters from constituents looking for days in memoriam for each lost celebrity in turn, Trump called for a national day of mourning. Kellyanne Conway emphasized in the announcement that all government employees would still be expected to work.

The country took a day to grieve. In every city and town, at national parks, along rural highways, Americans took to the streets to mourn. They sang, held hands, carried photos and banners with the names of the fallen. And they wept. They wept for their idols. They wept for the songs that would never be written and the stories that would never be told. They wept for the people they were when they first danced to their favorite song, voted for someone they really believed in, watched their team win the championship, fell in love with a stranger on a screen. They wept for their own lost ones, so irretrievably gone, their lives undocumented, unfilmed, their deaths uncelebrated, barely remembered outside their families, their loves. They wept for their mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, friends and lovers who never made the team, wrote the hit, got the role, won the race, whose dreams were so long lost they were unknown, forgotten. They wept for the America they had once believed they were. The nation cried until it had no more tears, and then went back to their homes, where they sat in quiet, the television and the internet and even their cell phones off.

And then it was over. Two days passed, three, a week. No deaths of note. The following week Danny Bonaduce was stabbed by a prostitute, and headlines screamed “Not Over Yet?” but there was agreement that this seemed less an aberration than a return to normality. People Remembered stopped production. Trump threatened a military attack on China. And the networks and magazines and websites began planning their 2017 retrospectives, a review of the worst year ever.

#worstyearever

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