#I have more screenshots but photo limit and I was in a hurry
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So Internet Archive has some A-Team comics and the first one I read was just glorious. We have…
B.A. feels immediately off the bat
this fucker looking like Khan
B.A. getting hypnotized again bc planes obvi
Murdock being dramatic as shit about tear gas (which is fair) but everyone else recovers super quick
B.A. DAD LORE
WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS FACE MURDOCK IS MAKING IS
and ofc
#I have more screenshots but photo limit and I was in a hurry#but I NEEDED to share#the a team#the a-team#hannibal smith#ba baracus#hm murdock#templeton peck#amy allen
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I posted 25.803 times in 2022
133 posts created (1%)
25.670 posts reblogged (99%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@purlturtle
@queenofcrabs
@aquitainequeen
@existentialvoidofexistence
@toboldlynerd
I tagged 10.503 of my posts in 2022 (41%)
#x – 527 posts
#goncharov – 443 posts
#esc'22 – 361 posts
#queen dead – 298 posts
#*cue crabs* – 186 posts
#threshold day – 179 posts
#q – 177 posts
#mine – 149 posts
#andromaquynh – 144 posts
#tog art – 141 posts
Longest Tag: 137 characters
#anyway apart from lotr i think any fictional death gets a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's fictional and them not-dying is just as fictional so idc
I gave 1 gift in 2022
🦀
My Top-Posts in 2022:
#5
54 notes – posted 24. Juli 2022
#4
58 notes – posted 2. August 2022
#3
New photo of Cybill Shepherd and Talia Shire as Katya and Sofia in Goncharov (1973) resurfaced! Had the two characters originally been supposed to have a kiss scene that was later cut from the movie?
68 notes – posted 25. November 2022
#2
Ot3 fake-dating fanfic idea:
Your main character has a top secret job that they have to travel a lot for - when asked by their date why they had to leave in a hurry, in a panic they said it's because they're actually poly/ in an open relationship and have to go home to their partner. They don't expect to get a second date after that, but lo and behold actually the date calls back and over time they get into a mostly long-distance relationship - in which the lies about their 'other relationship' quickly pile up...
Now the date wants to meet the other partner, maybe because the main character made them seem much too nice - and now they have to pretend to be in a relationship with their co-worker....
Please @ me if anybody writes this, no matter the fandom!
86 notes – posted 23. January 2022
My #1 of the year 2022
221 notes – posted 18. August 2022
Hol dir deinen Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022 →
~~~~~
Because obvs it doesn't show the full posts, espesh with moodboards, I added screenshots of the actual top posts below, plus some other interesting facts!
What I'd also love to have on the year in review is: what posts did I reblog the most times? What was my longest reply conversation? How many times did I reach post limit, and how often did I change my blog heading/description?
Wbu guys, any more ideas? :D
~
The one-pic previews for the moodboards re also rly pretty xD but here's the real deal
Adsfg that's what happens if the post gets squished small while font size stays the same huh? Well I hope that doesn't happen on many phones without the year in review background... Oh well!
~
My top post results almost got skewed by memeing to 1 thing again! Not as badly as last year with 100% ESC content, but Goncharov definitely made it in xD even though I made most of the posts, all the non Katya/Sofia ones rly, on sideblogs... Thankfully lmao! Also # N°2!!!
Apropos top hashtags, x is my tag to separate rambling from search tags so that's obviously on a lot of posts... & It's cool that Andromaquynh is apparently still my most blogged about, or at least most tagged, ship! Though that it's the only ship in the top 10 is also rather fascinating
& then queen dead - cue crabs! My anti royalty tag combo made it onto the list, in the correct order even xD
And of Course there's threshold day up there as well lmao. Reached post limit for that
~
If you're on mobile and the archive link I put on the '133 posts created' doesn't work, here's one for mobile also including reblog additions and the like, or here's the archive link to copy to your mobile browser:
https://lilolilyr.tumblr.com/archive/2022/12/tagged/my%20post
~
Bc it says, with tags, who you most reblogged from, other ppl then get tagged by these years in review... & I got tagged a lot lmao
Browneyedgenius Frogswithasmallkn1fe Panicatthesocialmedia Banashee Lonely-night Petrichoraflora Purlturtle Falyakonmp3 glassbearclock
Idk whether to be proud or worried that I'm on here too much for my stuff to show up on so many ppls dashs xDxD
& while there are some beloved mutuals and long-time followers on that list, there are also several I've never seen before?? Did they change their urls recently or do they post so little that I never noticed them in my notes even though I'm one of their biggest post suppliers? I may never know xD
Ahh I checked again and @falyakonmp3 @glassbearclock I think I know your sideblogs? TOG fandom for the win :D fits in with that being in my top hashtags twice :) happy you guys enjoy my reblog collection & mayhaps occasional original content!
just one blog mystery left xD frog who are you
Also @purlturtle looks like we reblog a lot from each other! 😄🤗 Mutuals supreme
~
I was gonna say ExcUse YOu tumblr, I gave 2 gifts this year??? Then realized it might have been from a different account
Anyway I gave crabs twice, I wanted to give someone checkmarks for her birthday the second time but that wasn't possible so crabs it was!
I also got a gift once this year, at least I think it was this year? Some months back anyway I got ad-free tumblring for a month!
Anyone want to gift me that again, or crabs for my birthday this weekend? :D
~
That Pikachu ad man made it onto the yir gif is hilarious!
~
& Yes I am back in the country & somewhat back on tumblr, too!
Not too active yet bc uni stuff I need to catch up on, so I'll keep my heading for another week or so, but I'm reachable again 😁
Not that I've been completely out of contact, the Airbnb had wifi and I've uploaded a lot of pics in my insta stories, those who follow me might've seen... But I've been completely off tumblr and discord to enjoy my vacay, even when I did have wifi
#tumblr2022#Jahresrückblick#Mein Tumblr-Jahresrückblick 2022#Dein Tumblr-Jahresrückblick#year in review#my 2022 tumblr year in review#your tumblr year in review#my post#mine#dec'22#15.12.22
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[TRANS] 190711 OnlyU-IU China share fun moments they had with IU and her team on the set of Hotel Del Luna
Our staff members double checked the items before the departure with an anxious heart. Fortunately, we were able to reach the set on time despite the heavy traffic. The food truck, tent, tables and banners were all set up when we arrived at the set. Then, it took us another 40 minutes to prepare all the gifts by putting them carefully in each paper bag and stacking them up on the table beside the buffet tent.
Not too long after we were done with the gift preparations, manager Hanteo approached us, gave us his warm greetings before checking out the buffet tent. As the weather was pretty hot, Hanteo jokingly told us that he would ‘drink’ all the (Ghana) chocolates within the gift bag right away. When going through the other gifts, we especially pointed out that the Voluspa aromatherapy candles were for IU Team, so Hanteo thanked us in Mandarin, saying “xie xie!” as well.
He reminded us that since we would have to wait a little longer, so stay away from the sun in some shade. He also passed on the gifts to director Oh, actor Yeo Jin Goo and IU Team. Later, PD told us we could pass the gift to IU in person in a while.
We gave the staff of Hotel Del Luna the gifts we prepared as they passed by from time to time. During dinner time, some staff came to collect their gifts and we got the HDL team PD to pass on the remaining gifts to other busy staff on the set.
Around 8PM, IU finally appeared in her pony tail, white loose t-shirt and pants. Since the coffee truck was right beside the entrance, so she took lots of proof photos with the help of Hyesun and the new manager (Moon Ji Hwan) first. After greeting us, she expressed her gratitude for the gifts and meal that we prepared, telling us that she would enjoy the meal and asking whether we were hungry as well or not. We still managed to answer her that we were ‘hungry’ though our mind went completely blank at that moment as we were softened by her sweet tender eyes. IU then invited us to join her for dinner.
The HDL team PD also encouraged us to sit beside IU for dinner. Together, we also had Hanteo, Hyeseon and the new manager (Ji Hwan) with us in one table, and thankfully all of them ate a lot. IU seemed to have noticed how nervous we were, so she kept initiating conversation with us. She said, “we (IU Team) are usually quiet whenever we eat, and given the hot weather and packed filming schedules today, so everyone’s still in a daze. Did all of you travel all the way from China? It must have been hard for you guys to be here given the scorching hot weather.” When she was told that some of us would have to catch the early morning flight in a bit, she frowned as pain and sadness clouded her features.
When eating, director Oh came by so IU introduced him to us and we quickly bowed to him. Director Oh was pretty adorable and not all that serious or solemn as he greeted us enthusiastically and expressed his gratitude for our support. He kept the Hotel Del Luna customised towel around his neck all the time, even when he was having his meal.
Seeing how most of them were almost done with eating, we brought out the gifts and explained to them about the Diptyque’s limited edition ‘The Legend of the North’ series’ candles first. IU was touched upon knowing that we chose the candles because it suited Man Wol’s mysterious aura, saying “ah~ because it suits Man Wol!”. She also let out a tiny ‘wow’ when we told her we bought GUCCI’s A Kiss from Violet perfumed oil for her because its violet scented (IU’s favourite). We also let IU have a look at our charity/ donation certificate, telling her that hundreds of Uaenas participated in this donation and some of us visited the institute with some necessities and played with the kids there to which IU replied ‘aigoo’ tsunderely/ proudly and dearly. She also asked about the details and complimented us ‘Hen BBang!’ (so amazing) in Mandarin since one of us personally went to the welfare institute. IU gave us a big thumbs up, saying ‘Zzen Bbang! Xie xie!’ (really amazing! thank you!) when we mentioned about the necessities that we have donated. One of us caught on the right timing of the atmosphere and started applauding, to which IU joined her right away, followed by Hyeseon, Hanteo and all HDL staff from other tables who had no idea of what’s going on. It suddenly turned into an ocean of harmony 😂.
Click here for more details of IU’s birthday gifts (candles and perfumes), fan donation and fansupport by OnlyIUcn.
We also told IU about her super topic ‘#IU’ that has accumulated over 10 billion reads on Weibo recently and she was ultimately shocked. Since she’s not familiar with how weibo functions, so we explained to her that the hashtag is sort of a community on weibo where people could leave their posts, comments, votes and screenshots there to support her. She seemed to have grasped on the super topic concept after going through some of our posts in the hashtag section and showed off the milestone achievement to people around her.
IU: Hey, I achieved 10 billion reads!
Hanteo and Hyeseon: As expected from the scale of mainland China, they don’t just simply go with (small numbers like) ten thousands when it comes to calculations.
We passed the <10 Years of Flower Road> book to IU, sharing with her that C-Uaenas designed, edited and compiled everything about her within this book in celebration of her 10th anniversary. We also tried to find the best printing manufacturer that we could to bring out the best quality of it. As soon as she got the book on hands, she kept gasping in admiration, saying “wow this is truly amazing. This is impressive, OnlyIU’s scale is no joke” as she flipped through the pages slowly. She especially stopped at one of the pages which contained IU Team’s photo, too bad the whole book was written in Chinese so the staff unnie tried to cheer her up by telling her that they could translate right away using mobile apps. All of them joked a few times about looking for someone who knows Mandarin and asked everyone to hurry up and learn the language too.
Click here for some details of the book
IU really likes the calligraphy gift that we gave her so she took a special proof shot with it. Since it’s written in Chinese, she asked us about the meaning of the poem. We were still in a daze at that time so we only explained briefly that it’s a poem about the moon. IU said she would try to look for a professional to interpret it.
Poem: The Moon Festival by Su Shi
When will the moon be clear and bright?
With a cup of wine in my hand, I ask the blue sky.
I don’t know what season it would be in the heavens on this night.
I’d like to ride the wind to fly home.
Yet I fear the crystal and jade mansions are much too high and cold for me.
Dancing with my moon-lit shadow,
It does not seem like the human world.
The moon rounds the red mansion stoops to silk-pad doors,
Shines upon the sleepless Bearing no grudge,
Why does the moon tend to be full when people are apart?
People may have sorrow or joy, be near or far apart,
The moon may be dim or bright, wax or wane,
This has been going on since the beginning of time.
May we all be blessed with longevity though far apart,
We are still able to share the beauty of the moon together.
Even though we are thousands of miles and oceans (Yellow Sea) apart,
nothing can stop us from surrendering our hearts to the full moon (Man Wol)
C-Uaenas present president Jang Man Wol this poem
And may the opening of Hotel Del Luna blossom
*Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula.
*Full Moon is pronounced the same way as Man Wol in both Chinese and Korean.
밝은 달은 어느 때나 떠오를지
술잔을 잡고 하늘에 물어본다.
달 속에 있는 궁궐은
오늘밤은 어느 해인지 모르겠구나.
나는 바람을 타고 돌아가고자 하니
달 속의 궁궐이
높은 곳이라 추위를 견디지 못할까 두려워라.
일어나 춤추니 그림자도 따라 도는데
어찌 인간 세계와 비길 수가 있으랴
달그림자가 붉은 누각 빙 돌며
곱게 조각한 창문에 드리우니
달빛에 비추어져 잠을 이룰 수 없네.
더 이상 번뇌가 있을 수 없는데
무슨 일로 오래도록 이별할 때에 이렇게 둥근가?
인간에겐 슬픔과 기쁨, 이별과 만남이 있고
달은 흐리고 맑고, 둥글고 이지러짐이 있으니
이런 일은 예전부터 완전하기가 어려워라.
다만 바라기는 멀리 떨어져 있는 이가 오래 살아서
천 리 밖에서도 이 밝은 달을 함께 구경했으면.
Note: This is a famous Mid-Autumn lyric written by Sushi(a poet in Song Dynasty) for his brother Zi-you(1039-1112) when the poet was away from the imperial court. According to some commentators, “the palace on high” might allude to the imperial palace and therefore, after reading this lyric, Emperor Song Shen Zong said that Su Shi was loyal.
When IU was giving us her signature as acknowledgement (of the fan support), we noticed that IU’s mandarin pinyin skills were remarkably impressive, she came up with most of the pinyin (as shown in the picture) and kept seeking confirmation from us (just incase she made a mistake). She wanted to write 시원한 여름 (a cool and refreshing summer) so badly because it kind of means “watching horror movies” in Korea too (납량). She wanted to write “we will see each other very soon” so she added “see you soon” in English too. It was obvious that IU urged to write using lots of pinyin but she didn’t have much time since the drama team was rushing to another filming venue already. Nevertheless, she drew a big thumbs up and yummy bowl of rice for us and was eventually made fun by IU Team. They jokingly asked her “what are those?”, making IU shooting daggers at them keke.
“Dear. OnlyU-IU China ♥
Thank you all!!
Well done!! 👍
Yummy 🍚💕 Miss you guys…♥
I love you guys! Stay healthy! - from IU”
“Dear C-uaenas ♥
I miss you all very much
See U soon!
Don’t fall sick...☆
Thank you! 😊 - from IU”
Lastly, we told IU that we would enjoy watching the drama to which she replied “please do enjoy (watch) the show (properly), it’s very interesting.” She kept thanking us a few times in Mandarin after bidding farewell to us too.
The PD came by after that and took the huge IU (with her head facing down) photo away, explaining that he would hang it in the waiting room. We weren’t sure whose waiting room he was referring to since we didn’t dare to question more, so we could only pray and hope earnestly that he’s taking it to IU’s room TT.
Then we sent off the coffee truck & buffet tent owners and bid farewell to the entire crew on the set before leaving. We lost count of how many times we went around the set to bow (give greetings) to make sure we didn’t miss any corner of it.
Despite being short of hands due to some of our members who couldn’t make it last minute, but we are very happy to have completed the fan support, passed IU her gift in person and relayed her greetings and thanks to C-Uaenas safely. We are fully aware that IU made lots of adorable facial expressions and kept a smile on her face all the time because she wanted to express her gratitude towards Uaenas who worked hard together to bring up the fan support to her on the set. Once again, we thank Uaenas who contributed in this fan support. We will continue to give IU the best fan support!
Source: OnlyU-IU 中国首站 @ Weibo
Translated by IUteamstarcandy
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4/15 countdown
Favorite cranky villager?
Bruce / Oswald!
Post your oldest AC screenshot you can find!
I didn’t take screenshots of wild world, and only recently made a few photos for posting later. But I can share my oldest pocket camp screenshot since I try to save all the cute moments! Look at me, doing my best with the little furniture I had at that point. I was so proud.
Least favourite activity?
Uhh.. no idea. I’ve hyped it all at some point. But again, I don’t like fishing or catching bugs in pocket camp. Oh, and the whole flower crossing thing? Never managed to stay with it long enough in any game.
Favourite bug?
Snail! I have pet snails, and I’m excited to have one ingame too. <3
Least favourite bug?
Mole cricket.. it took me days to realize what that sound was.. and MORE days to catch it!
A quarter of the way there! How’s the wait?
Well, this isn’t exactly right for me now, but: I still don’t know if I’ll get the limited edition switch or not, which is a bit annoying. I probably won’t know until the 20th. But I got a few other things already which I’ll share in a later post I guess? Or maybe I did share it already when this goes up, who knows! You. You know. Either way, I may can’t join the fun until a few days after release when I have to buy a regular switch instead, but I’m not that much in a hurry, it’s fine for me.
Favourite fish?
I always enjoyed catching rainbow trouts or seahorses, octopus and frogs too. (Imagine frogs hopping around instead. I’d love that.) Crucian carp gets a honorable mention because I loved the german sentence when I catched it which became something I never forgot. “Now I sit here and listen closely.”
Least favourite fish?
Black bass. HATED the sentence when I catched it. Also a thing I never forgot. It’s like a song that’s stuck in your head, just that I did not like this one at all. Let’s just say bass and ass rhyme in german, too.
Favourite fossil?
Amber. I love gems and stuff, and have quite a few ambers myself. I had ambers with insects in them, too, don’t think I still have them though. The dinosaur egg and Seismosaur deserve a mention, too!
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Chapter 8 The Bell Doesn’t Dismiss You
His eyes, his lips, his hair. Eyes, lips, hair, hips, waist, jawline, neck. He's perfect.
I can feel myself doodling in the corner of my Spanish work. What am I doing? It's just Henry Hidgens. Nerdy theatre guy, Henry Hidgens! Intelligent, funny dork! Nice, attractive, talented, attractive, Henry Hidgens.
He had a nice name. It's nice to say. Henry. Hen-ry, HEN-ry, hen-RY, Hidgens.
Oh Jesus Christ what an I doing? I am straight. Heterosexual! I want to fuck girls not....
Am I straight? Yeah totally. I've had crushes on multiple females. Yeah. Zoey, Charlotte, Fiona, etc. but Henry. Henry Hidgens.
My face heats up.
This is what I should paint. I should put my thoughts on the easel. The only problem is I have no fucking clue how too. If I was talented.
What is happening to me?
"Earth to Ted." The Spanish teacher waves their hand in front of my face.
I snap back to reality. The whole class giggles.
"Tipo de ustedes para unirse a nosotros." She walks back to her podium in front of the class. Yes school work will distract me. I should focus on school, and not anything else. School work.
God his neck and jawline...
Yeah I can't do this. I raise my hand quickly.
"Yes ted?"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Yes." The teacher sighs. I couldn't give a shit though.
I stand up a go straight out of the classroom. I just need to like splash some water in my face or something. That'll work.
I am straight. I know that for a fact. I'm not gay. I'm not. I know that.
I turn the corner and almost run into someone.
Oh god it's him.
"Oh hi Henry!" Wait His face is all pink and the eyeshadow is gone, it looks like it hurts. "What happened to your makeup?" That look really painful.
"I took it off." He tries to pass me, but somethings wrong and I'm not going to let him get away that easily. "It's not a big deal." Of course it's a big deal.
"Yes it is. You seemed so proud of yourself." He really did seem proud of himself. And he looked good. So good. why would he take it off?
"It doesn't matter." He won't make eye contact.
"Yes it does." I put my hand on his shoulder. He whacks it away. Something is wrong. Why isn't he in class? "Where are you going?"
"None of your business." I didn't expect him to say that. He pushes past me and speed walked away.
"Henry..." I go after him. There is something wrong and I want to help him. I don't know why I care so much but I really do.
"Piss off ted." He speeds up more. I want to help. I really do.
"Henr-" I reach out my hand.
"Jesus Christ Ted!" I've never heard him yell before. Well he yelled last fall in the production of The Crucible but this feels different. He hurried away.
It's probably best if I don't go after him. I probably can't help him.
Emma! She can help him. They're really close.
I hurry into the bathroom and take out my phone. I don't have her phone number but I can message her on Instagram.
Ted: Can you check in on Henry?
It takes a couple seconds for her to respond.
Emma: Whats wrong?
Ted: I saw him in the hallway and I think somethings wrong.
Emma: Yeah I'll check in on him.
I realized that I was pacing the bathroom. I know Emma can help him.
Emma: He won't respond
Shit. Shit shit shit shit. He shouldn't be alone right now. Maybe I can ask someone in his 5th period.
Ted: What class does he have this period?
Emma: Theatre
Ted: Do you know anyone in that class?
Emma: I'll text Norah now.
Why am I so nervous? He's seems like such a composed person. I can't imagine what would be wrong.
It's taking fucking forever for her to respond.
Fucking finally. She sends me a screenshot.
Emma: Do you know what's up with Henry?
Norah: He left the classroom to go to the bathroom. When he got back all his makeup was washed off and he asked to go to the nurse. I think he went home.
Emma: Do you know what happened?
Norah: Me and Zoey were talking about Sam and Charlotte. Then Zoey mentioned something about Ted sleeping with Charlotte. Then Henry left.
Emma: ok thanks
What? Sleeping with Charlotte? Why would I sleep with Charlotte? I haven't had a crush on her in like 2 years. She's like my sister now.
Henry was upset. He got upset because he thought I was with Charlotte. What does that mean? Does he...
Ted: I'm not sleeping with Charlotte.
Emma: Don't tell me that tell Henry
Of course Zoey would say something like that. She just wants to make Charlotte look bad. That petty bitch. God I fucking hate her.
Ted: What do I say to him
Emma: I don't fucking know but Zoey's not going to apologize, so you have to
I don't know what to say. I don't think I did anything wrong. If anything that might make him feel worse. I don't know.
Emma: If you hurt him you're dead
What the fuck is going on. I don't know know what's happening. I don't know how to help. I don't even know how I feel. Jesus Christ what is happening.
I wanted to stay away from drama my entire high school career.
I pull up Henry's DMs. If I just say it maybe it'll work out.
Ted: I'm not sleeping with Charlotte
I only have a limited amount of time before the end of the period. He doesn't respond for a while so I should go back to my class.
I wait out the rest of the period in class.
I don't have baseball today so just go home after 5th.
I check the messages again. He hasn't seen it yet. I just wait and wait and wait for him to respond. I feel bad, like really bad.
I check his Instagram. There weren't a bunch of photos of his face. There was one from some smaller theatre production. He's so handsome. I don't know how anything I do could make him feel bad. I feel so bad.
God he's so pretty. That costume makes him look great.
Am I straight?
God damnit he still hasn't responded.
~~~
I'm considering changing the title to Lying, Acting, and Pretending. What do y'all think???
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Cross My Heart
For the Soukoku Trope Bingo, prompt: Office Life. (There’s no office but trust me)
rating: T/M-ish
Words: 10,000
Warnings: talk of difficult first times and hurtful words, Fyodor, mentions of erotic cannibalism. I swear this is a fun fic.
Cross My Heart
Long ago, knowing himself and his sleeping habits more than he liked to admit, Chuuya had set his morning alarm as the most strident and unbearable ringtone available in his cell phone. He had spent about half an hour after buying the device carefully comparing marimba tunes and shrill sirens until he settled for a long, awful note of pure agony. It guaranteed to actually wake him up in time, even at the price of his mood and eardrums.
That very morning, he regretted it more than ever.
Pain started beating at his temples the second the thrice-damned phone screamed at him. He spent a moment struck dumb by it, moaning pitifully, until at last he found the strength to roll to the edge of his mattress and pat blindly around. His finger slipped twice over the screen of his phone before he managed to turn off the alarm and find silence once more. He would have found relief in it if not for the crushing embarrassment that immediately swallowed him.
At least his hangover quickly dissipated it. His dry mouth tasted as if something had died in it; he was certain he could smell beer on his clothes and hair—beer—and so Chuuya painfully tore himself away from the relative warmth of his bed and stepped into his ice-cold apartment. The shivers that struck him when his bare feet touched the floor were almost worse than the nausea.
He turned on the electric heater with some regret, knowing he wouldn't stay long enough to actually enjoy it, and hurried to the bathroom.
"Fuck," he said as the tepid water pouring from the showerhead struggled to warm him up. He punched the tiled wall with weak fists and said again, "Fuck."
He repeated it a good dozen times.
Five agonizing minutes of brushing his teeth into a semblance of freshness and scrubbing his hair clean of spilled booze later, he stumbled out of the stall.
Winter wind slapped harshly at him the second he stepped foot outside his building. He had no appetite for anything not coffee and so did not make his usual stop at Akutagawa's bakery on his way to the office, though he waved at the man when their eyes met through the glass door. Chuuya pulled his beanie down over his damp hair in vain effort to keep warm, cursing himself for forgetting his gloves at home. He could feel his knuckles dry by the second.
"You're late," Kunikida snapped at him when he pushed open the door.
He still handed him a mug full of coffee, though. Chuuya took it with a bit more desperation than he liked to show. "Good morning to you too," he replied. He gulped down a good half of the beverage before adding, "And I'm not late."
"You were supposed to be here at seven-thirty."
"It's seven thirty-five."
"Dostoyevsky doesn't tolerate tardiness—"
"God, please lower your voice," Chuuya moaned, dropping into his desk chair. "My head's about to explode."
Kunikida inhaled almost comically. His voice was nothing short of a shrill when he asked, "Are you hungover?"
"I'm fine," Chuuya mumbled. "Please stop screaming."
"In the name of—I asked you, you, to do this interview because I thought for some foolish reason that you were the only person in this place I could count on for professionalism, and you show up drunk to a meeting with the most influential author in Russia? Should I just close down the newspaper now? Should I resign?"
"Fire me if you want," Chuuya moaned, "but for fuck's sake, stop yelling."
It was futile begging, of course. Chuuya sipped the last of his coffee to the sound of Kunikida waxing poetics about how terribly the interview would go with Chuuya in that state, how Dostoyevsky was known for ruining the careers of journalists he found rude or unkempt, how Chuuya had brought shame not only on himself but on every one of his colleagues with his actions. Any other day Chuuya would have perhaps taken the words to heart—though seven years of working daily with Kunikida had weaned him off of absorbing the man's anxiety like a sponge—but not today.
Today, mortification for what had transpired the night before won over any other shame.
Please let it have been a hallucination, Chuuya thought, face pressed into the rim of his mug to try and drag in every last drop of caffeine. Please let me have dreamed it all up.
Kunikida, the bastard, slapped Chuuya's synopsis down onto the desk as noisily as he could. The ringing ache that the sound brought to Chuuya's forehead was almost enough to make him cry out. "I spent my evening greenlighting this for you, in case you care, you drunkard. You better make Dostoyevsky and the rest of the world believe you're the poster child of abstinence. Otherwise never mind getting fired, I will kill you."
Chuuya massaged his temples and nodded empathetically.
He didn't need to go over the synopsis in detail—he'd written the damn thing, he knew what was in it, and he knew Kunikida would not have made any big amendments. Kunikida had reduced the wordcount for the portrait in order to make more room for the interview, but Chuuya would still have a good three pages of next week's issue to write anyway. The day promised to be absolutely wonderful. He didn't even like Dostoyevsky's damn books.
An hour later found him with a stable enough digestive system to handle solid food. He walked the way back to Akutagawa's bakery for proper breakfast and sat at one of the tables there rather than his office. He'd had enough of Kunikida's I'm Very Disappointed In You glares for the next year.
"Someone overindulged," Akutagawa rasped at him as he brought the mountain of croissants Chuuya had ordered, as well as his second cup of coffee, sweetened this time.
"Shut up and give me my sugar."
"Nice photos, by the way."
Chuuya froze, one third of a croissant halfway to his open mouth. "Thanks," he replied, hoping Akutagawa was speaking of his double-page on the city's underground hip-hop scene and nothing else.
Akutagawa stayed as infuriatingly unreadable as ever. He stuck the bill under Chuuya's croissant-plate and walked back to the counter without another word.
Chuuya checked his phone's gallery under the table the second he was gone, feeling like a piece of gum stretched to the very limit. He found nothing at all past his latest screenshots of Kouyou's Snapchat, yet the fact did little to reassure him.
He still had an hour before his appointment with Dostoyevsky. Despite suffering the worst hangover of the century, Chuuya was confident enough in his preparation for the meeting that he chose to work on his other papers instead. He left the bakery with enough time to walk to the InterContinental Yokohama Grand Hotel, since of course someone like Dostoyevsky would decide to crash there instead of the many more affordable options, and was sorry to discover that his hair was not completely dry yet.
At least the sun was up now. Chuuya warmed himself to it and kept his dry hands in his pockets, bag slung over his shoulder, walking briskly. Seagulls cried along the seashore, flying low over the returned fishing boats in search of leftover catches. Amidst their voices shone those of the fishermen themselves, now done selling the fruit of the night's work and drinking coffee around fire-barrels. Chuuya stopped next to a group of them and asked to take a picture, thinking distantly of writing something for the next morning's edition of the Yokohama Mainichi, who still often accepted extra work from him.
The picture came out wonderfully: five grinning men with sun-tanned skin and rough hands, waving at the objective. He thanked them and gave them his card.
It put him in a better mood. He arrived at the InterContinental with ten minutes to spare. Fresh air, coffee, and conversation had soothed his headache into something more manageable; Chuuya was beginning to believe that perhaps the day would not end up being utter shit, when fate decided to remind him that he was her chewtoy.
"Fancy meeting you here, Chuuya," Dazai said, leaning against the hotel's façade.
Chuuya's headache came back with a vengeance. "Get the fuck out of my sight," he barked.
It didn't matter that his face had turned hotter than lava in the second it took him to appreciate the obscene bend of Dazai's body against the white wall. Insulting Dazai had become more than just habit—it was a safety measure, a defense mechanism. It was survival instinct.
Dazai's smile turned wider. He looked infuriatingly well-rested considering that he couldn't walk in a straight line the last time Chuuya had seen him. "I'm quite well, thank you for asking," he went on, pushing himself off of the wall. The suited man by the hotel's entrance had not stopped staring at him, or at the costly camera strung around his neck that Dazai cared more about than his own dignity. "Please stop leering at me like this, I'll blush."
Chuuya reeled back physically, face burning, rage and embarrassment warring for his attention. "Fuck off," he said between clenched teeth, "you have no business here."
"On the contrary. I heard there was a famous author around, I'd hate not to do my job properly."
"You call what you do a job?"
Was Dazai incapable of smiling without looking like he was eating something deliciously forbidden? He seemed a second away from wetting his lips in lustful appetite. "Let's not get into that again," he replied. "I think we reached quite a satisfactory agreement over the old feud last night, don't you?"
He winked.
Torn between the urge to strangle the man and to vanish on the spot under the assault of the night's memories, Chuuya decided that inaction was the least risky path to pick. He walked past Dazai's lanky body and toward the guard observing them, showing his press card to him. A second of unintelligible mumble later and the guard said, "You can come up," before giving him Dostoyevsky's room number.
Chuuya had been to lavisher hotels than the InterContinental before—the architecture was nice and the view impregnable, but ultimately it was only a four-star—so he lost little time to the familiar squeaky-clean employees and design armchairs populating the lobby. Most of the tenants were only just waking up at this hour; Chuuya waited behind three breakfast trays for the elevators to arrive, hoping they would be spacious enough for him to squeeze in. He didn't fancy having to climb the whole way up.
He did find room, though one of the trays dug painfully into his hipbone. The employee pushing it gave him an apologetic glance. Chuuya smiled quickly at her.
There was no one left but him by the time he reached the highest floors. Chuuya stopped by the fancy mirror stuck in the middle of the hallway to check up on his appearance; his hair had known better days and his lips were chapped, but there wasn't much he could do about that. He fished an elastic band out of the garbage lining his coat pockets and tied his hair up quickly, not bothering to check for chapstick in his bag. He knew where he had left it: on the counter of his kitchen, next to his gloves and sense of self-worth.
He knocked twice on the fine-wood door of Dostoyevsky's suite. At the sound of someone saying, "Enter," in English, he pushed it open.
The suite was as expected: a narrow but long room with wide windows, a ridiculous bed, a living area with comfortable couches and a minibar. The flat screen TV was running some nature documentary or another in low foreign whispers. Russian, Chuuya thought.
He turned his head aside when the screen went black.
"You're punctual," Dostoyevsky said, in Japanese this time. His voice had that odd flatness that many foreigners shared when speaking the language, as if he were talking over a single note. He put the remote down and gestured to the couches, adding, "Thank you for coming."
"Thank you for accepting to meet us," Chuuya replied, bowing quickly. He handed his card to the man, who took it without so much as a glance—odd again, but nothing Chuuya had not seen before while dealing with foreigners. "I'm Nakahara Chuuya of the Weekly Harbor."
"I know. Shall we, then?"
Something about high-rise buildings always distracted Chuuya. Already he could feel his attention slipping from the man himself and veering toward the windows, the expanse of blue sky and even bluer sea. He thought for a second of the men he had met earlier, whose photograph was safely stored inside the camera slung around his shoulder.
"Right," Chuuya said, focusing once more on Dostoyevsky. He wasn't here to daydream. "First off, should we conduct the interview in English, or…?"
"I'm proficient in Japanese," Dostoyevsky replied without a hint of arrogance. Or as though his brand of arrogance were fact, not subjection. "It should be easier for you."
"I speak English," Chuuya retorted.
So far Dostoyevsky's attitude reminded him a bit too strongly of the ulcer in human form he had met minutes ago—his face warmed again at the memory of him, at the flashes of the night past lighting up his mind in languid, warm colors—but at least Dazai had the decency of playing up his arrogance. He was confident, but tiny bit apologetic about it.
It took Chuuya a good second to remember what Dostoyevsky had done to that journalist from Time Magazine he had deemed too rude; he paused in the middle of taking out pen and paper, glancing quickly at the man. There was a faint smile on his almost non-existent lips.
"I apologize," Dostoyevsky said, meeting his eyes. "I didn't mean to insult you. My only thought was that I would greatly enjoy hearing you speak your own language more."
Chuuya stared at him. "Sure," he said at least, not knowing how else to answer. "Do you want to take a look at my questions before we start?"
"No need."
Chuuya's recorder was thankfully still at eighty-three percent of battery—he hadn't thought to check before coming—so he put it on the table without further ado, the extra mic plugged in and turned toward Dostoyevsky.
"I'm here to ask you about your new book, of course," he started, flipping quickly through his exemplary of the book in question. He hadn't liked it, but he liked failing his boss even less, and so many pages were dog-earred or scribbled on. "You were kind enough to give the Harbor your first Japanese interview about it—when did you start writing it?"
"Eight months ago," Dostoyevsky replied.
He sounded expectant. No doubt wanting Chuuya to gasp, or stare at him with wide eyes, or accuse him of lying. While a three-hundred page novel finished in half a year was an impressing feat, however, Chuuya rather thought he must have written twice as much in half as much time every year since he started working.
Novelists really were too full of themselves.
"That's impressive," he said blankly, eager to get the ego-stroking over and done with. "I'm sure you've already read all about how well-received it's been this week alone. Several critics all over the world have it pegged as Booker Prize material. What do you think about that?"
"I wonder if it would be remiss of me to say I don't care for such things."
"You don't care about the Booker Prize," Chuuya repeated a tad dryly.
"I'm afraid not."
"So you wrote this book in English and not Russian, for the first time in your career, for no reason at all."
"I wouldn't go that far," Dostoyevsky said with all the airs of a teacher indulging a rowdy student—Chuuya felt himself tense up the way he did whenever Dazai had the gall to insult his intelligence, except that none of the conflicted arousal he felt around Dazai followed. "My reasons were purely artistic. I felt that I had reached the limit of my abilities in Russian; I wanted to shape my words in a different way."
"Your last book disappointed a lot of people," Chuuya acquiesced, watching his notes without seeing them, his pen tapping lightly on his notebook. "So you agree with the critics about reaching your limits."
"I disappointed myself more than anyone else with Crime and Punishment," Dostoyevsky replied. "Perhaps I relied too much on previous successes and did not give it my best. I felt that I had to come back to the basics afterward—to strip myself down to the bone, if you will, and try and create newness after being rid of the old."
That was more humility than Chuuya expected, even as wrought in heavy-handed metaphors as it was. "Well, it looks like you did a great job," he said more kindly, "considering I haven't read a single literature column not singing your praise in the past few days."
"You flatter me."
I do not, Chuuya thought, writing down Dostoyevsky's words in quick notes. He usually enjoyed literature columns. He'd have to wait until the Cannibalism hype was gone to enjoy them again.
"Let's talk about Cannibalism, then," he went on, glancing at his questions. He had ended up skipping over the one about Crime and Punishment being so bad that its author had apparently received letters asking him to pay back his readers in actual money, but he could still mention that in an editorial somewhere if need be. Maybe even in Dazai's dishrag of a magazine. "The least I can say about it is that it's vastly different from your previous works. You usually veer toward sociology in your novels, anthropology even, but this one is all about psychology and base individual desires. Why?"
That part was the easiest. One thing about novelists was that they never failed to talk for hours on end about their own works, no matter how unsuccessful. Chuuya contented himself with nodding and humming at the appropriate times, putting down quick-worded notes with one hand and tapping on the arm of the couch with the other as Dostoyevsky spoke of catharsis and inhumanity and the true shape of the soul. This was why Chuuya generally avoided pseudo-psychology in novels and preferred it in raw, poetic form—it felt less like their authors relished in misery than they tried to expose it, to shine a lamp around until something shone back.
With the way Dostoyevsky spoke of his two main characters, it felt positively voyeuristic. Chuuya asked a few other questions, about mundane life things, about stylistic choices in specific excerpts, about inspirations and dislikes. He took pictures. He scratched notes down until his fingers stained with ink.
"Aren't you afraid of backlash?" Chuuya asked about half an hour later, once the man was done prosing. He had to bite back an unfortunate yawn—he had mastered the art of retaining a blank face when he did it. "You're famous over the world, but Russia isn't the safest place to be writing anything not heterosexual at the moment."
"I admit that was one of my reasons for picking English when the story revealed itself to me," Dostoyevsky replied. "I knew I would have an easier time getting published in Great Britain this time. But no, I don't fear backlash. I technically did not break the law, and if I were to be sued or attacked for my work, I could just leave."
Chuuya thought of the many people who couldn't leave. "Right," he said, keeping his voice even. "What about backlash not related to Russia, then. What about backlash from readers."
"I don't expect bigots to understand—"
"I'm not talking about homophobes."
Dostoyevsky marked a pause. "Ah," he let out. "You've heard about that."
Chuuya didn't tell him that he had no need to hear anything. "The sexual aspect of Cannibalism is evident," he said, looking down at his question list, which nowhere featured what he had just asked. "But you didn't make your characters lovers. You made them enemies, and wrote a story twisted beyond measure—they literally end up eating each other."
Dostoyevsky seemed oddly calm considering his reputation with journalists who antagonized him. He hadn't let go of his half-smile, or of his piercing yet bored gaze. His eyes reflected the sky outside in purplish tints.
"I take it you didn't enjoy the book, then," he said. He seemed amused.
"I didn't say that," Chuuya replied, his brain going overdrive in search of how to save face. "Like you said, I've only been reading blogs and such. They were, uh, vocal about their dislike—I thought it might be interesting to bring it up—"
"You are mistaken if you think that I wrote a twisted story."
Chuuya's pen stopped tapping his paper. He stared at Dostoyevsky with disbelief hung from his tongue and asked, "How so?"
"It is true that there is no small amount of violence in the imagery I used," Dostoyevsky answered. Chuuya hadn't noticed before just how close to him the man had sat, preferring the other side of the couch to the armchair opposite him. Their legs knocked together lightly when he shifted on his behind. "But I never aimed to write anything but love. A passionate, all-encompassing sort of love."
"They eat each other."
"Isn't it fascinating?"
"Fasci—"
Chuuya found himself wordless. Cannibalism was the first of Dostoyevsky's books he read from end to end—the others he had tried and found mind-numbingly dry, regardless of their value from a social or scientific point of view—and he couldn't remember spending a more awkward time reading anything. It wasn't just that the imagery was violent, that the gore and erotica in it were conjoined to the point of being indiscernible; he had read and enjoyed such books before. He had enjoyed such poetry.
But Dostoyevsky hadn't made him feel love. Obsession and lust and the cruel, ardent desire to own and control, yes, but not love. The two heroes had simply hated each other so much that they went mad with it.
"Have you never felt such a thing—" Chuuya jumped at the sound of Dostoyevsky's voice so close to him and realized that the man had shifted even closer, his words now soft enough to feel like a breeze by Chuuya's temple—"a love so complete, so painful… It is more than obsession, more than simple anger. It is the purest and rawest form of love: it consumes you, and makes you want to consume it back."
Chuuya shuddered. "I've never felt anything like it. It sounds horrifying."
"That's a shame."
"What?"
Dostoyevsky was definitely getting closer. Chuuya started getting cross-eyed trying to meet his stare and opted to look somewhere above his ear instead. Shivers erupted up his spine. Suspicion simmered in his belly. When Dostoyevsky's fingers touched his shoulder lightly, Chuuya felt as though spiders were crawling there.
"I think you would look beautiful like this, Nakahara Chuuya," he murmured.
Chuuya's brain froze. He didn't move at all as Dostoyevsky's hand ran from one shoulder to the next, stroking a line of bare skin at the base of Chuuya's nape before his whole arm rested around him.
No way, Chuuya thought.
No way, he thought, and yet there it was, Dostoyevsky's hand massaging his shoulder and their thighs knocking together as he made his move in the most ridiculously creepy way—Hell, Chuuya had looked less like an idiot the night before with his entire self soaked in wine and beer—
The door rang before he could get his bearings back and slap Dostoyevsky's face with his own three-hundred pages of shitty gore porn. This time it was Dostoyevsky's turn to stop in his tracks. Chuuya saw irritation flash over his face in the most evident show of actual emotion the man had demonstrated so far, and wasn't that telling.
"You should get that," Chuuya said, not trying very hard to hide his relief. He wasn't sure how Kunikida would have reacted to I accidentally knocked out the world-famous author you worked so hard to get an exclusive interview of. "Might be important."
Thankfully, Dostoyevsky complied. His face returned to its apparently usual state of mild self-jerking amusement, though perhaps less easily than before. At least he didn't try to do something stupid like try and kiss Chuuya after being refused. Never mind Kunikida's reaction; Chuuya would rather avoid the pain of pressing charges against a celebrity for assault.
He worked frantically at recovering his composure while Dostoyevsky made his way to the door. Part of him wanted to bash his own head in, part of him was still busy crying out from his hangover, and part of him found the situation so ridiculous that he almost wanted to laugh. Almost.
As if to prove to him once more that yes, things could always get worse, the door opened to none other than Dazai.
"Mr Dostoyevsky!" Dazai exclaimed in his poorest version of English, arms open as if to hug the man, stepping into the room without waiting for invitation. "I have to say, it is so, so delightful to meet you at last."
"Who are you," Dostoyevsky said, loud but level, at the same time as Chuuya groaned audibly.
"And if that isn't my least favorite kid-sized reporter—"
"I will make you swallow your camera if you say another word, Dazai," Chuuya snapped in Japanese.
He had hoped to say it quickly enough for the foreign Dostoyevsky not to pick up on it, but he had obviously failed. "Dazai?" the man repeated with recognition in his voice. Chuuya rubbed his face tiredly. "As in Dazai Osamu, the paparazzi?"
"I prefer calling it 'investigative journalism'."
"And I would prefer if you didn't barge in on my interviews!" Chuuya yelled, standing up from the couch. "What the fuck is wrong with you? Did you forget about the part where you're supposed to stay outside people's homes and at least pretend you're not grossly invading their privacy?"
"I take it you two know each other," Dostoyevsky drawled, and he didn't sound amused anymore.
"Oh, Chuuya and I go way back," Dazai replied.
He strolled through the room as if he owned the place, aiming straight for Chuuya's side and leaning against the back of the couch, completely at ease. He shot Chuuya a quick smile.
"We went to school together, you see," he added. "Chuuya's never forgiven me for having better grades."
"I find that hard to believe," Dostoyevsky commented.
"Because it isn't true," Chuuya interjected. "Now get the hell out of here, Dazai."
"But I came to fetch you! Kyouka-chan said that Atsushi-kun told her that Gin-chan texted him that Akutagawa desperately needs you."
"What—wait. Akutagawa?"
Dazai nodded, falsely somber. "Akutagawa."
Chuuya glanced at Dostoyevsky. He would have liked to jump on any excuse to leave even if it weren't Akutagawa—he did not feel like suffering a repeat of Dostoyevsky talking murder at him while trying to make a move—but if Akutagawa really needed him, then he had no qualms whatsoever.
"I'm sorry," Chuuya said, bowing briefly to Dostoyevsky, "both for Dazai being here and for cutting our meeting short. I know Akutagawa—if he needs me, then it must be important."
There was a brief silence. Dostoyevsky hadn't moved when Chuuya straightened up; his odd-colored eyes roamed over Chuuya's face briefly before his answered, static, "No need to apologize. I hope you have enough to write your paper."
"I do, thank you."
"Be sure to send it to my agent when it comes out."
Chuuya nodded, uninterested in prolonging his stay any further. He grabbed his bag with one hand, Dazai's arm with other, and walked out of the room. He felt Dostoyevsky's eyes on him until the door closed between them.
He dropped Dazai's arm as soon as that was done.
"I'm certain there was a bodyguard here when I came in," he said, hurrying to the elevator.
"Oh, Ivan?" Dazai was walking close behind him, close enough for his toes to knock into Chuuya's heels every other step. Probably on purpose too. "We're fast friends now. Unfortunately it seems I put laxatives instead of sugar into his coffee when he asked me to get him one."
"You're disgusting."
"And yet so clever."
"Does Akutagawa actually need me for anything?" Chuuya asked, suddenly realizing how stupid he had been. Akutagawa didn't need to go through anyone else to call him, let alone Dazai. "Don't answer that. Of course he doesn't."
Chuuya felt something hard press into the side of his arm. Dazai took his pen back once he had Chuuya's attention—or maybe once he was sure that poking him with it would bruise—and smiled at him more sweetly. "You looked a bit cornered in there," he said. "I thought you might want to take a break."
Chuuya stared at him. Dazai stared back, grinning. He couldn't quite keep the horror out of his voice as he asked, "I looked cornered?"
The elevator chose this moment to arrive with a soft sound. Dazai strolled into its golden cage with his hands in his pockets, relaxed as ever, that annoyingly handsome smile still twisting his features.
"Oh no you don't," Chuuya said as Dazai took out his phone and made as if to check up his social media—all of which Chuuya had blocked years ago. He snatched the device from him. "What do you mean I looked cornered?" he asked.
"I mean literally. Had you up against the side of the couch, didn't he?" Dazai clicked his tongue in pity. "Classic move, but a little old-fashioned."
"How the fuck do you—"
Chuuya reeled back; Dazai had suddenly raised a fist to his face, and for a second he had the absurd thought that the idiot would try to punch him, before he blinked and realized that Dazai was holding something.
He took it from him, ignoring his own blush when their fingers touched. It was a tiny object, spherical and shiny, with only a tiny On/Off button on one of its ends… "Is that a camera?"
"One of Kajii's latest inventions," Dazai said, plucking it out of Chuuya's hand. He slipped it inside his coat pocket. "Remote controlled, including moving around in any direction. You'd be hard-pressed to find something smaller or more mobile. I was watching your interview with Dostoyevsky live, just had to slip it under the door and let it do its work."
"I don't know if I should be impressed or terrified that a rag like Port Mag has Kajii working for it," Chuuya muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Also, great, you saw me almost get felt up by that creep. Today just keeps getting better and better."
"I won't tell anyone that you like skinny Russians with greasy hair, I promise."
"Fuck off. You dated that weird sociology chick for half of our senior year, you don't get to say shit about me or my tastes."
Chuuya did not think about how much of that year he had spent drinking himself into oblivion or sleeping his way through the rare gay, bi, or fucking curious guys of their university. He did not.
Their elevator stayed empty but for the two of them until they reached ground level. Chuuya blinked when the sun hit his eyes through the bright lobby; he walked out after Dazai, keeping some distance between them just for the hell of it. Fewer room service employees were around now, and more clients had come down from their rooms to enjoy the lobby, to look at the several restaurant cards, to book sports equipment. Chuuya and Dazai had to squeeze closer together to slip out into the street; a woman carrying her own height in shopping bags was coming in.
Chuuya rummaged through his pockets until he found the very bottom of a bag of tobacco, some cigarette paper, and his last two filters. He sat down onto the edge of the sidewalk. "I'm going home, and I'm going to sleep until I either die or hunger wakes me up," he declared, before putting one of the filters between his lips. His last sheet of paper was crumpled, but it would have to do.
"Sounds like a plan," Dazai replied from above him.
"And then I'm going to write the most scathing portrait of Dostoyevsky ever printed and sold. I'm going to make him miss when Crime and Punishment came out."
"I rather thought this was one of his least awful works, actually."
Chuuya, tongue still out from licking the paper close, looked up. Dazai was staring down at him with another one of his best smiles. Fighting off the blood immediately flooding his face, he took his tongue back and asked, "You read this guy?"
"Sometimes. Stalking—I mean, investigating celebrities is very tiring work, you know. Most of them have such boring lives, it takes days or weeks for anything interesting to happen." Dazai's tone turned plaintive; Chuuya rolled his eyes. "It's always good to have a book on hand during the long hours."
"I can't fucking believe you decided to do that with your life," Chuuya groaned. His lighter took a few tries to work, but the wait was worth it for the first inhale. Shivers crawled up his scalp. "Mister straight As," he added, exhaling smoke with each word. "Did his senior internship at the Mainichi Shinbun and ended up writing about idols dating in secret. Your creative writing pal must be so proud."
"I'll have you know Odasaku always reads my articles, thank you very much. It's Ango who's ashamed to be in my presence."
"Right, spectacles was the business student, not Oda."
"You have such good memory for such a tiny person."
Chuuya gave Dazai the finger and tried not to notice how happy he felt at the sound of his laughter.
It was hard not to think of the unthinkable, though. With his work for the day mostly done and no one around him aside from Dazai and a few passersby, his mind strayed to more visions of the previous evening. His fingers clenched around his own thighs with the memory of touching another's. He once more felt the shame of letting go of his hard-earned composure for a moment of weakness.
"Why are you here," Chuuya asked without looking up. His cigarette was already half-consumed; he took another drag anyway, trying to make the best of it. "You've already got your dirt on Dostoyevsky, and on me, by the way. No need to rub it in."
Instead of responding, Dazai said, "The only issue with such a small camera is that there's no way for it to catch sound as well. Kajii said he's still working on creating a mic powerful and small enough for that."
"I don't give a shit what Kajii's camera can and can't do, Dazai. I'm not a stalker."
"I meant that until I came in and actually heard you talk to Dostoyevsky, I had no idea if you wanted to kiss him back." Chuuya choked in the middle of his inhale. Smoke burned his throat and scratched his lungs, and he coughed loudly into his hand. He almost missed what Dazai said next: "I could only see about half of your left side. All I saw was that guy eyeing you like a piece of meat and putting an arm around you before I rang the bell."
"You think I'd want to kiss him?" Chuuya protested, strangled.
"I thought I wasn't allowed to comment on your tastes, Chuuya," Dazai replied innocently.
"Ugh." Chuuya choked out his cigarette, too disgusted to enjoy the last of it. He rose to his feet with another grunt. "Well, thanks for ringing. I definitely was considering knocking him out with his stupid book."
"I think that's the most use one can make of Cannibalism," Dazai mused, stroking his chin. "What terrible prose."
"I don't want to hear that from someone who unironically wrote the phrase 'sweet nectar of life' in an econ midterm."
"Really, you remember things too well."
Chuuya smiled a little quickly, a little sadly. Only when it's you, he thought. "I should get going," he said, patting his bag. "Need to give Kunikida a copy of those before he starts digging his own grave in despair."
"Wait, Chuuya."
He tried to tell himself not to listen. He tried to make himself ignore Dazai and walk away. But the sound of his name in Dazai's mouth, in Dazai's voice, was as always too compelling to resist. Chuuya turned around slowly, one hand wound around the strap of his bag tightly enough to hurt.
Dazai hadn't moved. He still wore that smile, the one Chuuya had dreaded and longed for in equal measures through years of knowing him. It softened the line of his jaw; it creased the corners of his eyes.
"We should probably talk," he said, oddly gentle. As if trying not to scare off a wild animal. "About what happened last night."
"Nothing happened last night," Chuuya replied immediately.
His heart had frozen solid in his chest and all the air in his lungs seemed to have turned to glass, but he still answered. He still kept his voice even. He had prepared for this, he told himself, the day he walked up to Dazai with his heart full of wonder.
"Well, thankfully we were in no state to have sex, but—"
Something in Chuuya broke down in exhaustion. "Look, Dazai," he interrupted. Unable to look him in the eye, he turned his head aside and stared at the gleaming ocean. "I know you think you're so hot and everything, but please. I was drunk, I got lonely, and you were there." He swallowed and continued in the same tone: "Don't embarrass yourself more than you do on a daily basis."
There. That should do it. Dazai had never reacted well to being rejected. It didn't matter that he had never been interested in Chuuya in the first place, his pride wouldn't allow it. Better things go this way than the other way around, with Chuuya having to hear him spell the many ways they were destined for failure or incompatible sexually or any other bullshit excuse Dazai used to give the partners he dumped.
But Dazai did not rise in offense. He did not laugh cruelly or make fun of Chuuya's height, or clothes, or general state of being alive and around him. He hummed softly and said, "That's not what I remember you telling me."
Chuuya ground his teeth together. "I didn't know what I was saying," he lied, "I was wasted. I would've told a potted plant I was in love with it if it agreed to sleep with me."
"That's too bad."
Chuuya had not expected that.
He dared not move as Dazai approached. He dared not speak when Dazai wrapped one loose arm around his shoulders. What he felt then had nothing at all that he could compare to, no instance of attraction that he could use as basis for how to proceed. His back prickled with goosebumps not at all owed to the cold; his nape turned rock solid, his shoulder-line tense as a steel cable, when Dazai's chin rested above his head.
"I was thinking," Dazai went on, apparently unbothered by the fact that Chuuya was having a stroke right against him, "maybe we could go get lunch together and talk for a bit, if you have time."
"If I have time," Chuuya said blankly. His lips were very close to Dazai's collar.
"Yes. Right now. You and me. No wine because I'm still hammered, but next time, maybe."
"… Next time?"
Dazai laughed. He leaned back to look down at Chuuya, and with the hand he did not have gently squeezing Chuuya's shoulder, he flicked Chuuya's nose.
"Fuck you!" Chuuya roared reflexively, slapping Dazai's fingers away. "What the hell was that for?"
"I'd like you to regain the use of your remaining neuron, please."
Chuuya rubbed his nose and glared at him. He knew his horrid blush was probably ruining the effect, but it was a matter of principles. "I'm listening," he spat out.
"Good," Dazai replied, "because I do so hate trying to plan dates with someone who's too busy getting lost in my beautiful face to respond."
"I was not getting lost in—date." Chuuya swallowed; his hand lowered. "Date?" he said again.
"Date," Dazai parroted. "If you want to let me show you more than some awkward public fumbling, of course, but if you like that better…"
His voice dripped with sarcasm. Chuuya knew the sound of it by heart; he knew, also, that Dazai used sarcasm as both sword and shield. There was no irony to be found in the dip of his smile, though. There was no lie hidden in the touch of his hand against Chuuya's shoulder, no cruelty in his dark eyes.
"You're not messing with me," Chuuya said in wonder.
Dazai's smile twisted at the corners, turning self-deprecating. "I'm not," he replied.
Promise, Chuuya wanted to say, like the child he had once been. Cross my heart.
He had spent too long watching Dazai, close and far, to hope for such a thing.
"Dazai…"
Dazai took his hand back. Chuuya had not prepared for how cold his neck would feel without it. "I can't," he said, forcing every word past the ugly despair unfurling in his throat. "If you're just looking for a quick fuck then I'm not—"
"I'm not looking for sex," Dazai cut in. "I'm not, Chuuya."
Chuuya wondered what it said about him that he was as ready to believe him now as he had been ten years ago, high off of his first kiss and ready to entrust the world to the boy with honeyed words. Dazai must be able to read him now as easily as he did then; he must be laughing, in some dark part of himself, at the naïve idiot in front of him who thought a kiss was a promise.
It all came down to whether Chuuya was ready to trust him again, in the end.
"Just lunch," he said tentatively.
"Just lunch," Dazai replied. "For now."
"If you—"
"You'll kill me and make sure no one finds enough pieces of my body to glue back together. I know."
Chuuya huffed, fighting off a smile. "As long as you know," he mumbled.
Dazai's fingers were warm against his, soft despite the biting cold and his own lack of gloves. Chuuya made such a comment out loud to mask just how red the contact had made him; Dazai laughed and talked about the special hand lotion Kajii had created because he was so tired of hearing Higuchi complain about dry skin.
They walked together into the late morning hours, attracting looks here and there that neither felt like acknowledging.
There was warmth to be found there, in the middle of winter, like a fist-sized sun following them everywhere their linked hands went. There was a promise.
ten years ago
Chuuya fell in love with his lips pressed to another boy's, in the middle of the loudest house party he had ever gone to, one hand holding a half-full can of beer and the other lost into silky black hair.
He lost his virginity in the guest room of a classmate whose name he couldn't remember; he followed the guidance given to him, gorged himself on chuckles and shared breaths and slow, roaming hands. He felt discomfort and he felt pleasure. He lay naked under the thin body of another classmate, unable to keep his hands from touching and touching and touching long after the deed was done and the boy with black hair had fallen asleep by his side.
He was giddy. He was happier than he had ever been. He repeated the boy's name in his head until all other thoughts were drowned: Dazai, Dazai, Dazai.
"Dazai", he whispered in the stained bed, watching streetlight stripe the ceiling through the cracked blinds darkening the window.
Dazai, he thought, imagining sitting by the dark-haired boy in class and holding his hand under the desk. He pictured them as seniors waiting for graduation, as young men in a small house, as old men in a big one; he saw them stroll the eras of life hand in hand, until they could one day close their eyes and say, "I have loved and been loved."
Dazai, his heart sang, thinking of soft lips giving hard kisses, of a sweet voice saying sweet things, of a boy's hands on him and in him, squeezing him to orgasm as one squeezed the very soul.
When Chuuya woke up in the morning, Dazai was gone.
It did not take long for Chuuya to find him again. They shared many classes, after all, and he could never forget the face of the one who had upturned his entire world in the space of an hour. He had not thought anything of Dazai before that house party; now Dazai was all he could think of.
The unraveling of Chuuya's brand new world went a little like this:
"Hello," a word, spoken with more timidity than Chuuya had ever felt or expressed. Four times that shyness could perhaps approach the amount of love he also poured into it.
"Who are you again," an answer shaped like a question, the breaking of a promise that Chuuya realized to late he had been the only one to make.
A needle in his eye.
Chuuya's love was a weapon, and that day, in that noisy hallway, Dazai took it by the pommel and stabbed it into his heart. He laughed when he seemed to remember; laughed when he seemed to understand. With each shake of his shoulders, with each pitiful glance shot at Chuuya by Dazai's friends standing behind him, Chuuya felt his love bleed him of a little more faith.
"You know what," Chuuya said with what was always left to children once faith was taken from them—lies: "You're not really that much of a looker when I'm sober. You were right to leave, I might've puked on you."
Dazai's laughter abated. His cruel smile was so strange, so different from the bright-eyed pleasure he had shown that night with his lips pressed to Chuuya's lips. "Really," he said. "The way you were acting, I thought you might want to go again in the morning, but you're way too much work for way too little benefit, you know. I didn't feel like giving my energy for such a mediocre lay a second time."
Chuuya would spend many months after that day hearing those words ring through his head. It would take him even longer to heal from them in full; to stop feeling as if his pleasure had to be earned whereas his partners' was owed. But Chuuya couldn't know. He couldn't realize, past the immediacy of his embarrassment, of his shame, that he had been hurt more than superficially. So Chuuya reacted the only way he knew how.
Firstly, he said, "I still got you to fuck me, didn't I," and ripped a smile out of Dazai's friends, earning his first victory.
Secondly, he swore to himself that he would never trust Dazai again. That he would make Dazai his enemy and nothing else for as long as he lived.
And as the months went by, so went his hurt, until one morning he woke up feeling less burdened by it. Until one day he could sleep with someone else and not remember with aching shame what he could've done, should've done, to make it better for Dazai. To make it so Dazai would want to stay.
He antagonized Dazai in and out of class. He allowed the rest of their peers to think it a game of sorts between them, a way of friendship perhaps, in any case a source of entertainment. He saw Dazai's initial affront melt into habit; he wished his own feelings could know such fading out.
Chuuya fashioned himself Dazai's enemy because he couldn't be his love. And as the years unfolded and each new hand in Dazai's hand made his own ache, Chuuya learned that love, unlike shame, never quite vanished. That it always left an outline of itself, like washed-out ink on paper.
ten hours ago
"I think you've had enough," Dazai said, and suddenly his hand was between the rim of Chuuya's glass and Chuuya's lips—an unbreakable barrier of flesh.
Were he more aware of himself and his decade-old resolutions, Chuuya would have simply leaned back in his chair and insulted Dazai. Instead he allowed his lips to touch the skin of Dazai's hand for longer than necessary, not wary enough of the confused glance Dazai gave him.
He leaned back in his chair. He waited until the world stopped turning quite so much. Then he grinned at Dazai and replied, "Fuck you."
"Always so polite," Dazai sighed, "it's a wonder anyone hired you after college, you know."
"It's a wonder your stupid ass still knows how to process thoughts with the garbage you write," Chuuya retorted.
"I'm the most successful journalist of PM! People love my articles."
"People would smear their faces with pig shit if we told them it has anti-aging properties."
"That's a good idea, actually."
At this point Chuuya couldn't remember why he was at this bar, or why Dazai was with him, any more than he could remember the number of refills he had ordered. Something vague about Akutagawa and Atsushi—a party—an engagement, maybe. He would remember in the morning. He just knew that he needed to be sad before he could allow himself to be glad.
At least until Dazai had walked in and greeted him with the usual insults, and Chuuya had realized that being mad was just as good an alternative. Especially in such company.
It had been a few years since he and Dazai drank together. Chuuya tended to avoid drinking around him even back in school for fear of what he could do or say, but now the risks were minimal, he thought. He only saw Dazai once every other month or so when their jobs happened to make them cross paths. He hadn't had a conversation longer than a few seconds with him in recent memory.
Surely there was no risk now.
"Easy," Dazai said, long after cutting off his life supply of booze.
Chuuya had felt steady enough to walk on his own and promptly fallen down the second his feet tried to hold his own weight. Dazai hadn't quite managed to catch him, but at least he was helping him up, and Chuuya felt no need at all to resist leaning into the opening of his arms.
Dazai steadied him step by step toward the door, quickly murmuring to the bartender that Chuuya would definitely be back to pay the bill, yes, he would make sure of it.
"Fuck the bill," Chuuya bellowed.
Several people in various stages of inebriation answered him with cheers.
Pressed as he was against Dazai's chest, he could feel each breath, each word. Dazai laughed from deep down his torso; Chuuya felt it between his shoulder blades and laughed in turn.
"I drank twice as much as you did and I'm still gonna have to walk you home, aren't I," Dazai declared, frog-marching him toward the exit.
"Sucks to be you."
"You have no idea. I'm stuck with a short redhead and it's not even a hot one."
Chuuya groaned. "Fuck off," he said, "you weren't saying that when you met me."
There was a brief pause. Dazai's torso was very still against Chuuya's back.
"Come on," he said at last. "Let's get you a taxi or something."
Things, as they were wont to, did not go according to plan.
Dazai made a valiant effort to appear composed until they reached the exit, but he did drink twice as much as Chuuya, different alcohol tolerances notwithstanding. He was in no state to walk a straight line on his own, let alone carry Chuuya's slumped body along. They knocked into a couch by the front door that had earlier been occupied by a group of college-aged kids, and while Chuuya's fall was somewhat cushioned by Dazai's own body, Dazai had no such protection.
"Fuck," he grunted.
Chuuya's blood ran molten at the sound of it. "You just swore," he said, turning around and digging one painful elbow into Dazai's soft belly. "You said fuck!"
"It happens," Dazai replied, slightly winded. He pushed Chuuya's elbow aside. "Did you think I never swore?"
"I don't know. I just thought you always spoke asshole, which is a fancy language with no swear words."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment."
Dazai laughed again. Chuuya watched him do it without so much as a smile of his own. He had forgotten just how much of his time in school he had spent waiting for that laughter; how many hours he had spent spying over books and computer screens for a hint, a trace, of the smiles Dazai had once given him.
Dazai's voice died out when Chuuya touched his face. He seemed suddenly so much somber. Chuuya's fingers traced the line of his jaw as lightly as they could.
"I like your laugh," he said.
It seemed like the most natural thing to admit.
"You do?"
Chuuya bit his lip. "I don't know why it has to be you," he said. "Every time I think, 'this is it, I'm over it', and then you reappear into my life and fuck it all up again. It's like you're designed to be a nuisance."
"While I'm flattered to hear it, I don't really know what you're talking about," Dazai commented, smiling lopsidedly.
"Shut up," Chuuya replied. He tapped one of Dazai's cheeks as patronizingly as he could; it dimpled under his skin as Dazai smiled again, and Chuuya felt his own humor vanish. "It's just always been you, Dazai, even when there was someone else. You've been so unfair to so many people and you don't even know it."
"Chuuya—"
"Hush," Chuuya cut in, "you talk to much."
He dug his fingers into Dazai's hair and kissed him.
It felt so right. So good. Despite everything, the years and the hurt and the shame, Chuuya had never enjoyed kissing anyone as much as he enjoyed kissing Dazai. He didn't try to deepen it, aware on some plane of consciousness that Dazai was a little surprised. There were still tears in his eyes when he pulled away anyway. One of them fell on Dazai's cheek, and Chuuya wiped it away with his thumb.
"You are such an asshole," he told Dazai, whose wide eyes now stared at him with an emotion Chuuya had no strength to analyze. He barely noticed that one of Dazai's hands had grabbed his hip. "You broke my heart, you know. Sure, I probably needed the lesson, but did you have to be such a dick about it?"
The hand at Chuuya's hip tightened its hold. "I'm sorry," Dazai said.
Chuuya laughed. "You're not," he replied, "but that's fine. It was a long time ago anyway."
"I—"
Dazai never finished his sentence, though Chuuya waited him out as if to say, You see. I was right.
There was no one around them. The couch they had fallen next to was hidden in an alcove of the bar, far from prying eyes. The sounds of laughter and clinking glass still reached them, but Chuuya heard it all as if through a thick wall. His eyes were on Dazai; his ears tuned to Dazai's breathing; his fingers stuck to his skin as if melted into it.
He stroked Dazai's forehead, his nose, his lips. He cupped his palm around the full of Dazai's cheek, scratched at the hair behind his ear. All that time Dazai himself was wordless, his bright eyes meeting Chuuya's like two glowing beacons.
"I loved you," Chuuya said, "and you broke my heart."
Dazai breathed in, out, in again. Chuuya felt warm air slither in-between his fingers—heavy, damp, dried with wine and whisky.
How he wanted to kiss him again.
Did you know it was my first time? Chuuya wanted to ask. Do you know how long I spent afterward watching you and imagining you always kissing me, always making love to me, until we grew old and wrinkled?
He didn't ask, because he knew. He knew that Dazai had known. He knew that Dazai knew now from the regret in his eyes and the hand squeezing Chuuya's hip; and he knew that Dazai had no better way of handling rejection now than he did ten years prior.
So Chuuya chose to tell Dazai something he didn't know. He said, "I'm still in love with you."
Dazai opened his mouth, but Chuuya put the flat of his palm over it to silence him.
"I never stopped being in love with you," he continued, heedless of the heat gathering in his eyes. "Not for one second since you kissed me for the first time."
Dazai couldn't speak with Chuuya's hand over his mouth, but his eyes spoke for him: That's impossible.
"Is it?" Chuuya laughed. "I was a stupid kid, eighteen years old and never so much as held hands with anyone, and suddenly you were right there. Confident and hot and you picked me, you kissed me and took me to bed and made me forget how afraid I was." Dazai's free hand wrapped itself around Chuuya's wrist; Chuuya sighed and leaned down until their foreheads touched. "That shit lasts, Dazai. You don't even realize how good you were to me that night, or how much it fucking hurt to hear you tell me I wasn't good to you."
Dazai pulled Chuuya's hand away. "I lied," he said almost breathlessly. "That day, I don't remember what I said to you exactly, but I know it was a lie, Chuuya, you were never bad—"
"I know," Chuuya said, smiling. "I just didn't know back then."
Chuuya hadn't yearned to see Dazai express regrets. That wish had been too far buried under his own shame. In the time it took him to understand that he had nothing to be ashamed of in the first place, any desire to see Dazai repent felt too exhausting to consider. Chuuya ached now at the sight of it. He watched regret color Dazai's own face and found no catharsis, no closure, of any kind. He pressed their lips together again more out of desire to stop watching than anything else, and this time Dazai wasn't caught by surprise.
There was a hand in Chuuya's hair, a tongue on his lips, a knee between his own; Dazai leaned up and into him, tilting his head to press further in. Chuuya didn't think for one second of refusing him. He didn't think at all, really, except to realize that the furnace inside his belly was not the fruit of illness or injury.
He moaned into the kiss. He panted through his nose over Dazai's burning face, both hands framing him as if scared of letting go. He felt Dazai's fingers tugging at his hair almost feverishly—felt his knee press up between Chuuya's thigh and his hand slip beneath wool and cotton to find bare, hot skin. Dazai trailed his fingers up Chuuya's ribcage; Chuuya bit his lip and pulled away, only to find solace at the crook of his neck, against his beating pulse.
"Love you," he said. "You stupid, brilliant, utter dick of a man."
Dazai's pulse sped up under his mouth. His breathing stilled. Chuuya closed his eyes and said it again.
And again, and again, and again.
now
"By the way," Chuuya said halfway to the nearest affordable restaurant. His hand was still comfortably caught in Dazai's, and his face had yet to turn a color other than pink. "You didn't happen to send anything to Akutagawa last night, did you."
"You mean the selfies I took while you were drooling all over my face? They're in my Instagram story."
"I will fucking end you."
#bsd#bungou stray dogs#nakahara chuuya#dazai osamu#soukoku#fic: cross my heart#soukoku trope bingo 2018
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ENTM Tumblr Cycle 10 Round Seven Results
Hi folks! Last week we sent our models out into some bad weather. This round presents some unusual challenges, specifically capturing the environment and balancing dimmer lighting against the gloomy background.
While all the models emerged from this round slightly damp (or dry if they were smart enough to get out of the rain), the model whose photo most captured the hearts and minds of our voters this round was:
Odharnait “Ona” Greene
Congratulations! Rongi Pongi was so impressed with this picture that he said it will inspire a future round of ENTM called “Doors.” The judges and community agreed that this shot was lovely and a fantastic use of the watercolor filter to brighten the stormy night.
We have one more week in Tumblr Cycle 10. In the meantime, ENTM Instagram Cycle 1 is in Week 2 and community voting will begin shortly! Please visit our Instagram Page for more information.
Also the October Haukke Manner challenge will be closing at 10 PM Eastern TODAY (Oct 24th) so hurry up and get your entry in for a chance to win a minion from the Mogstation.
Our judges have feedback for our models after the cut.
Judge Kai
Adam: This is a nice shot. It looks like you're trying to outrace the coming storm and reach a safe haven before getting drenched. You did a good job with the lighting, and used the surrounding area to your advantage! It was a very smart decision to have those glowing flowers in the shot and surrounding you. I can believe that the light that is hitting you is coming from them, and that is why the area (and you) are brighter, despite the darkness that seems to be engulfing the area. There are only two things I can think to suggest. The first is I wish you were just a little closer in this image so we could see you better. Which also leads to my second. I might have gone for a slightly lighter outfit, color wise. Because the image, and the background, is so dark a lot of those black tones start to blend in with what's behind you. Overall, you did a great job!
James: First off, I don't know if you did this on purpose, but I find it very amusing and great timing that it looks as if the lightning is coming right down to touch your hand. Moving on from that, this is an image that, to me, seems to hold sadness or loss in it. It's like the rain is reminding you of something from the past, and it's very lovely is a melancholy sort of way. You definitely pop against the darker background, sticking with the blonds, white and lighter grays are helping you a lot in this image. The lighting is very good as well, but I am wondering what the source of the light is? Perhaps a lightning bolt? While the lighting is well done, it just seems a bit overlit for not having a light source in the area. I think you could have pulled back just a bit, and still gotten away with this image. Other than that, I think you did a very good job!
Ni'ko: I am going to assume, from the way that you look in this image, you're the type of cat that doesn't like to get wet. Well, I don't blame you and that doesn't look like the type of storm I would want to be hanging out in either. Overall this is a good image. The lighting is believable for the time of day. It could be a fire burning just out of view, and it's casting its light on you. I also like the outfit that you picked for a few reasons. It matches the surroundings very well and seeing that this is a darker image, your skin tone pops. The dark purple of the swimming trunks is a good pick, it stands out from the neutral earthy tones around you and gives something that draws the eye to you. The pose is a little awkward as if someone caught you in mid-run, and you're leaving a lot up to the viewer in this instance with the story you're trying to convey but overall you did a good job!
Judge Vederah
Cowbot: There's a really great, almost ominous feeling to this screenshot. Positioning of your character to the object he's looking at is spot on and helps bring the eye across the entire image. Only issue I have is this image reads way to dark. I think if a bit more lighting was used then your character wouldn't blend into the background as much, and we'd be able to more clearly see the rain effect. That detail was almost completely lost with how dark this picture was.
Ona: This is, in my opinion, the best use of a gpose filter I've seen in this entire competition. I love how the water color effect really amplifies the rain effect in the background. I also really appreciate how the cool and warm tones of this image come together in this shot. The only thing I could think of to change is possibly a very small light used to the characters right- the only downside of the watercolor filter is it blurs a lot of the smaller details. Here it cast a very dark shadow on her scales, losing the definition in her face.
Wren: This shot reminds me of the scene from the original, cartoon Snow White as she's making her way through the haunted forest. I just love how innocent and genuinely frightened your character looks against such a foreboding backdrop. Lighting is the only issue I have here. The background on the right portion of the screen is so dark that just reads as empty space. I think if you had upped the intensity of the lighting on that half of the image just a touch, it would've popped those details in the foreground.
Judge M’Telihgo
Nadede - I like this. I love how you stand out against the background. I also like the umbral static weather effect very much. I enjoyed playing with different settings and see how images turned out. Have you ever done that? It could be fun. I do wonder what you are looking at while doing your chakra, you seem so intent on it. I think the bright colors of your armbands and your pants pop against your pale skin. Which leads to my only real criticism of this picture and is minor. While your top has some color in it, I think it blends into you a little, not too much but another color may have been better. Still, you look awesome!
Chee – I love the background. I like dark colors and things that seem kind of spooky, and this has that for me. I approve of the location. For all of that, I like it very much. Your outfit in a lighter blue makes you stand out against your very dark background and I think the colors suit you well. There is one thing that makes it so that I cannot enjoy this picture as much as I would like to. I’m not sure what happened, but there is a ghosting around your face as if you were caught between frames of an animation where it is starting to draw in the next one. Sadly, that blur makes it so that looking at it for more than a moment makes my eyes water. It’s a shame too since I really like it overall.
Lantis – Ooh. I do like this spot for exactly this reason. FIGHT!! Anyway, there is a negative though when doing this at night. Dead space. I see where your addition of the sakura effect may have been used to try and counter this and it does help. I also think that a little different timing of your sparring partner would really make this pop much more. As it is right now, you are in action and your partner is looking away, at their shoes. If you could have caught it where they are looking at you, it would definitely sell the action seen much more like they are trying to parry your blow by timing their draw. Adventure on the high seas! Kind of anyway. I still give you credit for catching the lightning bolt just right, I’ve done it and I found it to be a chore. Well done!
Judge Kusuh
Azalea: I'm a huge fan of the overall "mood" of the picture- a paladin standing in a dark storm; did they recently fail a mission? Are they brooding? Is this where the orchestra swells to give a tearful moment? As I've said before, when I'm left thinking about the possibilities behind an image, it's a good sign! This may be one of my favorite pictures from you so far. The setting, the use of the pencil filter to add more of a "rain" effect, and the overall pose show me that you've given some real thought to everything that goes into this picture. The frame choice is also something I love, but it also comes with this one small critique: when you use this frame, you are using it to trick the viewer into seeing three separate pictures in a single shot. When you have parts of yourself spilling over into the other two frames, this kills the illusion and just leaves the picture looking disjointed. My advice for a picture like this would be to play with your zoom and pose options so that you can fit yourself into a single frame! You're improving every week, I can't wait to see what comes next!
Haila: You have a wonderful sense of visual flow going on in this picture. At first glance, I can easily follow from the spark in the top left corner, down the spear, to your face, and then follow your eyes to your fingers and then off the right side of the image. The choice of color (and the limit of color) were also a smart choice here; the limited palette really adds a sense of impact. Something to think about: This is more on the side of a "high fashion" shot as opposed to a story shot. Don't get me wrong, I very much like both kinds, but one of the things I've seen many ENTM models get pointed out (myself included) is when a shot lacks a story. Your shots in the past have always been a mix of both fashion and story, and this one feels like it shoots straight to the side of fashion. Once again, this isn't really a bad thing, but it's something I want you to be aware of as you plan your final shots in the upcoming weeks. Excellent work so far!
Judge Rongi
Lily: With this shot, I think you found a really great lighting that makes your character look gorgeous. You could crop out this whole shot and just have it on you, shoulders up, and it'd be a beautiful head shot. The shot itself fits the theme of the week, but I wish it had a little more oomph! to it. I have "Summertime Sadness" stuck in my head now thanks to you though. Haha. I would have loved to see more posing, a stronger background choice, and a clear reason for why you are standing in the rain.
Rymm: These colors are everything. Great choice in gear. I love that the backshot is 3/4 of the way so we can still see a bit of your face. I wish we could see more, but its just enough to not be a backshot dead on. I usually would be against a solid black background, but using the lightning and your outfit colors to pop out like that is amazing. Had you been wearing all black, this wouldn't have worked at all. I love the pose of both you and the lightning. It creates a really interested shape in the middle, like dancing.
Ysildor: You are going to get electrocuted waving that pick around like that! I love the idea as it beckons to Thor's hammer. I wonder if you had tried or could use an hammer instead. The background has those nice buildings in it that creates a line across the image that leads the viewer straight to you. And then we follow your shape up in to the sky and back down with the lighting. Really well done composition wise.
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Lenovo Tab 4 8 Review: Affordable And Functional
Lenovo's Tab 4 arrangement of tablets was acquainted with us back amid Mobile World Congress prior this year, and amid the occasion we didn't get the opportunity to invest excessively energy with the models in the lineup, however we got to deal with them for a bit. Presently, we've really been spending about the most recent week or so with the Lenovo Tab 4 8, the littler tablet in the arrangement, and have possessed the capacity to look at what it brings to the table, how it runs and performs different assignments, and simply get the general feel of what it resembles to hold this gadget for a stretched out timeframe to perceive how agreeable it is. While we loved what we saw at first in the start of the year, having somewhat more time with the gadget has allowed us to investigate it, and show signs of improvement point of view of regardless of whether it's justified regardless of your well deserved cash. We should investigate the Lenovo Tab 4 8 together and perceive how it stacks up as a portable figuring gadget.
Specs
While Lenovo makes some entirely capable gadgets both in the tablet advertise and in the handset showcase, the Tab 4 8 isn't one of those gadgets, in any event not as in it looks at to gadgets which somebody would consider first when solicited to think from a capable tablet. All things considered, the Tab 4 8 is likely sufficiently effective for specific buyers. Much like the name suggests, the Lenovo Tab 4 8 accompanies a 8-inch measure show with a 1280 x 800 determination, and it utilizes a LCD board so it's anything but difficult to see in coordinate daylight however it won't be as brilliant as an AMOLED or OLED board. Over the show it's working with a 2-megapixel forward looking camera that can be utilized for video talk and selfies, and on the back it's working with a 5-megapixel camera for fundamental photographs, however it's essential to remember this is a tablet, and is both not the perfect size for a cell phone when taking pictures, and it doesn't have the most astounding quality sensor so pictures aren't generally a driving element for this gadget, yet it has a camera if you need to take a photo and this is the thing that you have accessible.
Within the Tab 4 8 is controlled by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor, combined with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of interior storage room, which isn't really a great deal nowadays with regards to capacity, however it does likewise bolster expandable capacity by means of microSD card openings on the off chance that you happen to require more space than what's accessible installed. One truly decent thing about the tablet is that it has double speakers, and that as well as they're fueled by Dolby Atmos innovation and they're forward looking, which made for a truly decent involvement in the sound division, yet we'll get into that later. For network, the tablet bolsters Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, and in conclusion it comes running on Android 7.1 Nougat and for charging and information exchange it utilizes small scale USB, and is fueled by a 4,850mAh battery to prop it up for the duration of the day.
In The Box
There's very little in the case here with the Tab 4 8 as you simply get the tablet itself, the charging link, and the divider connector and also a snappy begin control. It's a truly essential offering yet you get all that you require truly, and the bundling is good which doesn't generally have any effect on the tablet itself or how it capacities, however it is a piece of the experience and decent bundling certainly improves the experience that much.
Equipment And Design
With regards to the fabricate nature of the equipment utilized, Lenovo certainly assembled a strong tablet. It feels great when holding it, it doesn't feel shoddy in the smallest and it's general agreeable to hold for broadened timeframes. It looks pleasant as well and in spite of the fact that it doesn't generally look premium, the plan isn't awful. You can disclose to it's a tablet that is promoted at the lower end, however not badly. It's extremely characteristic of the look and feel of Amazon's latest Fire tablets in this size. Not the most a la mode but rather despite everything it looks decent and feels well-made. For me, the best piece of the outline was the delicate touch back that has a slight grasp to it which made it simpler to hold for more, and this was particularly imperative in the event that I was playing a diversion or something for a hour or two as the gadget like some other cell phone or tablet can get somewhat warm under substantial utilize, and that tends to make your palms a smidgen sweat-soaked.
This wasn't an issue much gratitude to the back covering. To the extent whatever remains of the outline and position of the equipment, both the power secure and the volume and down catches sit on the correct side, while a little tab on the left side towards to the best end has the Lenovo logo, yet this isn't only a place for the logo as this is likewise where the microSD card opening is. The two forward looking speakers sit at the best and base closures, with the charging port on the best side of the gadget notwithstanding a 3.5mm sound port for earphones.
Execution
Having a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 processor within and only 2GB of RAM makes it quite obvious this isn't intended to be a powerhouse tablet, and in the event that we were utilizing it in that capacity then that may turn into an issue however we didn't generally keep running into a lot of an issue with slack or stammering. There was maybe a couple times where it appeared to hang up a tad when running a diversion and after that pulling out to open up numerous different applications that could be named an overwhelming channel on the assets, yet generally there weren't any issues. One thing to remember is that Lenovo didn't manufacture this to be a powerhouse tablet implied for the do-all in a hurry overwhelming client who needs to multitask constant, while likewise playing the most requesting top of the line diversions.
That doesn't implied that it can't play any top of the line amusements whatsoever or that it can't multitask by any means, however it will have its cutoff points, and this will be more obvious when taking a gander at some of its benchmark scores. Generally however, anybody taking a gander at the Tab 4 8 for a standard tablet with light utilize, say for some web perusing, some online networking, some perusing, recordings all over and the intermittent amusement, this will hold up pleasantly as it can do those things fine and dandy, you just might not have any desire to do them at the same time for quite a long time at any given moment before taking a break or the execution may endure a bit.
Show
This isn't the best show on the planet, and particularly so on a show estimate this enormous contrasted with a cell phone with a 5-inch or 5.5-inch screen in the spending level, yet frankly the show truly isn't too awful and keeping in mind that not the most honed, it filled its need for each errand I utilized it for. The individuals who are sticklers for having the most keen designs with the most clear hues and the best lucidity for amusements, or truly anything, might need to look somewhere else, yet that aside the screen is unquestionably acceptable for diversions, recordings and whatever else. It gets bounty splendid and has nice survey points, and shading proliferation is quite great as well, however it could be a tiny bit better. At the cost however, Lenovo has made utilization of a better than average screen and this is conceivable in substantial part on the grounds that respectable boards aren't as costly as they used to be.
Battery Life
It's been a while since I utilized a tablet, yet it felt like the battery ought to have endured longer than it did here. At that point I looked again at the extent of the show and the measure of the battery limit and to be very legitimate I think Lenovo has made a decent showing with regards to in the battery office. It could simply be better, yet for a 8-inch tablet with just a 4,850mAh battery inside, I could get around 10 hours of battery life out of this gadget for screen-on time, and I could take a decent couple of days before expecting to connect it back to. Generally speaking, you shouldn't be baffled by battery life here as it was really great particularly for the size. What's more is that numerous customers wouldn't utilize the tablet each and every day for more than a couple of hours on end, so for a lot of clients the battery will last a long time in case you're simply lifting it up to use all over.
Benchmarks
This is a territory where the Tab 4 8 didn't do as such hot, however you need to recall that Lenovo didn't make this to smash benchmarks. It comes in at a value purpose of just shy of $130 and it has a passage level processor with just 2GB of RAM. Benchmarks additionally don't mean the world as despite the fact that the Tab 4 8 didn't get the best scores, it functioned truly well and the execution was better than average. In case you're intrigued you can see the aftereffects of the benchmarks in the exhibition of pictures just beneath, which will have screenshots from running the tablet through AnTuTu, Geekbench 4, and 3DMark for the designs.
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Inspirational People
Aida Hubanic
Monday morning at Laurea Otaniemi started out with an inspirational and emotional presentation of Aida Hubanic and her life story all the way from Sarajevo. It was all about world of marketing and technology and “unshakable possibilities and self-management”. She had participated in this revolutionary Game Jam and won the 1st prize, an awarded trip to Barcelona, via educational games application idea! Her idea, Hungry cells, to help children to make healthier choices in life via virtual games, was interesting and really uplifted her uniqueness to create games, even though she stated that this is not an area she is actually interested at all. Talk about stepping away from comfort zones! I do agree with her mindset, how using bloggers is nowadays an effective way of marketing or promoting things and how developing an idea into potentially innovative solution around specific themes are truly what creative business is all about. I remember our self-management virtual course last semester, it was filled with very beneficial links and inspirational reading which I think Aida’s story would fit perfectly. Without a doubt one of the best courses I have taken in Laurea, for I love independent reading and writing. Self-management is important, that was something that her presentation was giving answers to.
There was one Powerpoint slide about motivational killers; negative mind set and comparing yourself to others, these are in my opinion the most common ones. When Aida talked about brainstorming, I also came to think of great memories from our project to Citycon where teams gathered together to find some useful, innovative ideas and even the sky wasn’t the limit to the creativeness shared in the class. The importance of great pitching is also a talent that one can practice to master. I was overwhelmed with happiness when me and my fellow classmate Oliver won the best pitch of one of our teamwork project; before this successful three minutes’ performance I thought we had enough material for a gag reel, but that was obviously essential, to be able to perform a quality show in a strict schedule. Turns out if Aida Hubanic is an inspiration seeker, she has all the potential in the world of being an inspiration herself, so many thoughts raised during her presentation.
Here’s a link to her story told by APU magazine.
Sani Leino
On Wednesday, me and my fellow classmates attended Easyfairs Shop eCommerce 2017 trade and it was all about networking and learning. We were in a bit hurry to get to listen one of the best Finnish performers, Sani Leino, Sales and Marketing specialist from ThingLink, talking about “Chats, Social Media and VR – the marketplace for the future”. He talked about how the chat-like social medias will be on the rise the fastest (e.g. We Chat in Asia), how 83% of the information shared online is eventually private and introduced us an application called Franz. I installed it and oh, how much easier my SoMe usage has become. I use chats (WhatsApp and Messenger) quite a lot myself, it’s so easy via the internet connection instead of just regular messages. Sani made it clear that Artificial Intelligence and bots will be hot topic in the future businesses, as they already are. For example, an eService called KIKKA from Lassila&Tikanoja helps customers to decide where to put their waste, if hesitating. Awesome way of bringing the service straight to customers when in need. KLM on the other hand is taking things to a whole other level when it’s now possible to have your flight tickets and check-in done in Messenger. I have only experienced chatting with Norwegian staff online, and for a moment it felt surreal, that if I have any questions about my flights or anything, there’s an actual person online to answer to me right away.
A great example also was Lemonade, insurance company, that will give you the insurance money in 3 minutes’ time, after you send a video call in their application to tell what’s wrong. It’s so common to break your phone’s screen that OP Pohjola for example doesn’t even require too much to prove that to be true. Tiitus – The tinder-like way for finding a job was also presented, very informative description of their services and I instantly linked other tinder-like applications in my mind to get a better picture. For example, Finnish innovative application called IVALO, is about swiping left and right for Finnish clothing and accessories. I had the opportunity to talk to the creators in Slush and they have found a perfect solution for all the shop-a-holics out there, also supporting local small companies to stand up even greater. Their next goal is to conquer the Spanish markets, best of luck with their assertive business development!
Leino made great explanations of AR, VR and mixed reality definitions and their importance. Voice controlled effective working and how the world around you will turn into user interface were really interesting! Future teaching possibilities in schools and universities are endless if you take a look at the AR glasses only. For medical students around the world to be able to study in a whole other level or for the history teacher to re-create historical platforms for students, or in the court room to have the possibility to see the evidence and the actions take place, to add 1 + 1 in a case with multiple stories that differ. Of course, there was a small sample of an option that ThingLink offers; if you have taken a 360-photo and 10minutes time, you are capable of creating your own online shop. A small shoutout for Mr. Leino’s new book, “Viiden tähden asiakaskokemus” (A five-star customer experience) that will definitely be something to seek inspiration from when available in stores, especially if the ultimate customer service is something one graves to master.
Here is a link to Medium, find out more about digital marketing and social media trends
Here is a short video of whale hologram to represent the Augmented Reality Leino had a screenshot of in his presentation.
Jonas Heinonen & Tom Backman
These performers (CEO and co-founder) were presenting us Boomerang distribution company. This was very informative for our project for SSM/Lisäduuni is kind of alike. Boomerang is a distribution company, that takes care of the import, customers and warehousing to name a few. They have spread their business around Nordic countries all the way to European and US markets, based in Tallinn. Their statistics stated that the US has the largest number of customers, following Sweden, South-Korea etc. Their aim is to cut the number of manual points and via Unifaun it is possible to bind it all together. Notable customers they have are are BlackEye clip-on optical lens, Swedish fashion company and Nelly.com (3 million return items per year gets through) and Sudio-named high end electronics company. Boomerang connects distribution route daily from Tallinn to Helsinki. B2B and B2C play a vital role in this simple, yet clever company.
Not to blow pass my love for food, I decided to check the Fastfood & Café area as well. It was easy to attend, since I was in the company of my male classmates who also happen to be fond of food;)
Me and fellow digital bloggers (Ilari and Ville) sharing some tastings:
Me and other notable digibloggers, Joel and Sten, exploring Messukeskus
Kateline Porritt & Tuure Parkkinen
These performances are related to digital business in the matter of digitalization as a hot potato also in the restaurant business. Kateline Porritt is a Food and Beverage Trends Writer for thefoodpeople, who talked about the trends occurring in restaurant business. “In a world of increasing overload of information and rapidly changing and demanding consumer behaviors & attitudes it’s increasingly complex to stay relevant to today’s customer.” According to a little research on my own, there will be: more delivery services and high-tech cooking equipment, increasing popularity of probiotics and minerals, vivid colors (matcha buns, algae lattes, black bread!) and exotic flavors all around, more importance on food delivery access, embracing the plant based and vegan eating, non-alcoholic offering and reusing food waste to create new dishes.
The last one brings me to Tuure Parkkinen, CEO and Founder of ResQ Club Oy. It is an application that allows you to purchase and pick up food from listed restaurants and cafés near you, in ridiculously low prices after lunch hour. I have installed it and it has been the savior for many hungry evenings. Edible food does not end up in trash and all due to technology, I get a low-price quality food to go! Fantastic! Besides these two notable performances, there were numerous of stands that we visited and tasted their delicious foods and beverages. My favorite restaurateur Richard McCormick was also performing but I was at the eCommerce stage, too bad!
This is a screen capture of the application Resque Club.
The thing that caught my eye was the Touch & Collect -option in the Easyfairs entrance pass. I managed to gather all the info from my day just touching the reader sign in my pass, green light is on and one can hear a “beep”. After the fair, I got an email about all the interesting companies, that I clicked my pass by. Talk about digiservices!
After the eCommerce fair I went to Hard Rock Café to an event called “Somedrinkit” and spent 2 hours socializing and networking with the legal field experts. I attended the Legal Design Summit few months ago, and this was great continuance for broadening my knowledge in the future of combining design and legal matter.
Next week I will be attending Helsinki Megaspeaker Event, where I’m looking forward to meet JT Foxx, an entrepreneur who’s newest passion is his work with various children’s hospitals. Very much into charity work myself, ready to get inspired! I’m going to end my blog with a quote from him; “--Everything in life happens because you took action.--”
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