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#Just Second Generation Korean American Things :)
saintjosie · 6 months
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i’m gonna cave and say one more thing about demilypyro because it irritates me to no end that people are accusing me of lacking reading comprehension when imo the actual issue is a tremendous lack of historical context and how out of touch people are with how absofuckinglutely devastating christianity has been to the modern world, especially for people of color.
But sure, some christians and weirdos online think trans people are icky so it's not real, probably. lol.
THIS is the part of her post i have tremendous issue with. it’s not her coping with humor. and i hope it’s obvious that i think transphobia is bad.
christians have done SO so much more harm than just thinking that queer people are icky. because before colonization happened, queerness was common and accepted, and in many cultures, even revered.
but then guess what, the roman empire happened. and then after the byzantine empire happened.
and then after that the still very much alive institutionalized catholic church rooted it’s cancer in the world.
and then after that, the british, french, spanish, portugese, german, italian, and yes, dutch (being particularly relevant, demilypyro supposedly being from the netherlands) empires happened.
and of course, we now have america.
and thus through conquest, bloodshed, and genocide, white people spread christianity to literally every corner of the world and with it, christian values of homophobia and transphobia.
as a second generation korean immigrant, first generation american, and the eldest child of a pastor, i am directly impacted and incredibly traumatized from white colonialism.
so yeah, it pissed me off more than a little bit how quick people are to accuse me of lacking reading comprehension and jumping to defend someone who made at best, a carelessly offensive and at worst, horrendously privileged comment.
if you don't have to think at least a little bit everyday how horrendously fucked up things are because of christianity, then that is an immense privilege.
i stand by what i said and i hope that more people seek to actively decolonize themselves instead of reveling in passive ignorance.
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yandereworlds · 1 year
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It’s been a long day. || {YANDERE!BUTCHER X READER}
hey everyone! this is dae-hyun’s intro, i hope you guys like it! not a lot of yandere-like behavior {yet} since it’s just the introduction, but i hope it’s interesting anyway LOL
here’s dae-hyun’s bio :3
https://at.tumblr.com/yandereworlds/meet-dae-hyun-hes-korean-american-and-works-as-a/r8aisxxkhw4h
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“Mama, this place smells funny..”
“I know honey, but we’re almost done, okay?” The woman smiled at the child, giving a small laugh to the boy plugging his nose shut with his tiny hands, coiling up into his jacket. The scent of blood, steel and raw meats can be very overwhelming, so nobody could blame him, especially with the loud whirring above them on the ceiling and cases below them. Places like this had a horrendous smell to them and were less cost efficient, you could at least guarantee higher quality products than the average supermarket. It wasn’t dirty here or anything, but the entire aesthetic felt more visceral and gross to most people, but that’s a small price to pay for what they had available.
Crouching down to his level, manicured fingers gently rested on his shoulder, her free hand pointing across the pathway towards the opposite end of the front desk to a small wooden display. “Why don’t you pick a snack from that counter over there?” The boy immediately smiled, hands still covering his nose.
“Okay, mama!” 
“Get something for your brother too, he probably wants one of those meat and cheese things.” 
The child rushed towards the counter, taking in everything there was to offer; which actually wasn’t a lot. Various meat type snacks were obvious choices, and a few packaged treats such as small muffins, sweet rolls and some generic candy options. As the boy looked for something he wanted, his mother studied the meat display-case, her hand over her mouth in thought. Brushing some blonde locks out of her face, the woman looked up at the man behind the counter, who had just finished wrapping up the last item she chose. She was unable to look him in the eye though. That was normal from customers though. 
“I think I’m gonna get some sirloin too..”
“How much?”
It almost sounded like a demand, rather than a question. His voice was low, and gruff. He sounded like he was threatening people half the time he spoke, even if he didn’t mean to. Put off again by his tone, the woman’s eyes flickered away in anxiousness. She didn’t wanna be here any longer than she needed to, just being in this man’s presence made her feel uneasy. At least he hadn’t shown any signs of aggression, but it was the way he looked at everything. The guy looked like a gang member. She chalked it up to maybe he was just having a bad day, and that the sooner she was out of his way he’d feel better. And she’d feel better. 
“Uh, I’m thinking.. twenty ounces.”
With no response, the male takes a few slabs of the meat to weigh it. Little green electronic numbers flashed on the screen above the scale counting it in pounds, soon enough getting to a pound and quarter-pound. Satisfied, the man began wrapping the beef into kraft paper, closing it tightly to ensure the meat would not be contaminated or spoiled. His clear gloves had a little smearing of blood and juice on it, his eyes solely focused on his hands as he worked, never even giving the mother a second glance. In her mind, she never could understand how someone can be just so comfortable touching raw meat. Yeah, she had to when she cooked, but even then she felt it was kind of gross. She couldn’t imagine having a career solely on handling them. It was creepy how unbothered and distant he looked while packaging it. Taking aluminum foil, he finalized his work with one final layer around the raw meat and paper. Once everything was wrapped, he slipped all the different meats into a brown paper bag, the sounds of pitter-patter coming closer.
“I got snacks, mama!”
“Good job, sweetheart! Put it up on the countertop!” 
The child set down two snacks; a meat-n-cheese stick combo, and some gummy bears. Taking off the rubber gloves before dropping them into the wastebasket by his feet, he used some sanitizer and rubbed them between his calloused hands without a word. The air was a bit awkward, the silence causing more awkward tension for the mother and her child to the point the boy used one of his hands to grab ahold of hers, still plugging his nose with the other. The man noticed this, but brushed it off. Grabbing the two items, he punched them into the register in front of him, along with the sirloin and other meats. Once complete, he pressed enter and the total came up on the small electronic screen on the -honestly outdated- machine for checkout. He pushed the snacks towards the edge of the countertop, gesturing for the child to grab them again, before looking back at the woman.
“Total is thirty-one dollars and sixty cents. You can round up to thirty-two if you wish to donate to our Paradise fund. It gives extra money to our local farmers to provide for their animals to ensure they live healthier lives.”
“Sure thing..!” Her voice sounded like she was holding her breath, giving a weak smile.
The blonde reached into her designer purse, digging around for her wallet as her son grabbed at the snacks again. Little brown eyes looked up at the taller male, who was well over twice his size. The man looked down at the child, the natural scowl on his face making the boy shrink back into his mother’s side, gripping onto her jacket. He didn’t mean to scare the kid, but he just couldn’t help how he looked. It’s not like he could just change his face. Though, he really wished he could. When cash was set on the counter, her thin hands immediately coiled back, as if he’d grab her if she lingered too long. Pulling the drawer open more, the man slipped the money into the machine, clicking some more keys until a receipt started coming out of the slot. Ripping it out, he set it inside the bag, wrapping the top in on itself to make a stronger hold than the actual handles, gesturing it towards her with his hand on the bottom of the bag to avoid breakage. The mom took the paper bag from him, almost cringing from how rough his hands felt. Using her free hand, she grabbed onto her child’s small one, making him whine from the smell now being able to reach his nose.
“Have a good rest of your night, ma’am.”
“You too..” She turned, looking down at her son as her smile changed from nervous to actual happiness. “Let’s go, honey. When we get home, do you wanna help mommy prepare dinner too?”
“Yeah! We’re having sgetti right?”
Their voices began to fade as they exited the door, the little bell ringing overhead. “Yep! We’re gonna be making spaghetti. You’re gonna help mama with..-” Her voice disappeared from the room, him watching as she walked into the small parking lot towards her car. It was dark out, she should really be more careful when it’s just her and her kid. Cruel people could take advantage of that. At least he knew they’d be safe on their way out, but nobody really comes by in later hours anyway. But seeing that woman and her son made her think back to his own childhood. Walking towards the snacks counter, he began mindlessly cleaning up after the kid’s aftermath of rummaging. The man knew kids were messy, he understood that, so he couldn’t be mad at him. Plus, it was an easy clean. Nothing to get worked up over, unlike what he saw from employees in other establishments. They’d freak out over the smallest thing, at just a child. He didn’t understand how grown adults could be so frustrated over something like that, especially if the kid didn’t mean to be. His parents never treated him like that.
When did he go out last with his own mother for errands like that? Dae-Hyun couldn’t remember. She died a decade ago by now, but he did remember going on little ‘adventures’ with her. He missed that. He missed when his mom would help him work in the shop, teaching him with a smile on her face. He brushed some black hair out of his eyes.
At least that little boy was still able to do things with his own mother, the man was glad he hadn’t gone through that loss, especially this early in his life. 
Now that he thought of it, after his mom died he never really went out after that. His dad didn’t have the energy or enthusiasm to go out like he did when his mom was alive. Both of them took it pretty hard, so it made sense they weren’t as spontaneous without her. Not to mention, his father wasn’t one to be spontaneous on his own at all really, it was mostly his mom giving them something to do or somewhere to go. Dae-Hyun wasn’t really either, he mostly took after his dad. His dad could barely even keep running the butchery after a few years with her gone, let alone go out. He’d stop showing up as much for work, and would hire people to run it until his son was old enough to take over the family business, and by the time Dae-Hyun could run it all on his own, his dad had stopped showing up at all. He turned everything in his son’s name, living off the profit made from the years prior. His father was lucky though. If he hadn’t promised his mother to continue the business, he would have probably turned down the offer. Yeah, his dad would want Dae-Hyun to keep the family line, but it’s not like he could force him in the end. Dae-Hyun was -in his mothers words-, her ‘little baby butcher’; he’d feel guilty if he let it go. At least the job was fairly easy once he learned the skills, easy money without risk of being fired.
As his thoughts continued to spiral into different directions of his family, he absentmindedly began wiping down the counters. A lot of the time, Dae-Hyun was on auto-pilot, not really putting a lot of thought into what he did, just went through the motions. His extended family was worried about him, but he didn’t mind living this way. Or well, at least he thought. He did what he needed to, and that was life. He’d been doing it for years, and he turned out fine for the most part. He began to wonder how life would have been different if his mom had been around. The black-haired man stared blankly down at the countertop, spraying then rubbing with the rag. He didn’t bother checking the time, or the door. Nobody showed up this late, he had about thirty minutes until he’d close. The only time it would be busy this late is during the holiday season, and it was the middle of May. 
Then, a little bell rang. 
“Hello!”
A little shocked, Dae-Hyun lifted his head, meeting eyes with another customer. He didn’t recognize them. Well, that was new.
“Sorry I’m here so late in the day, but I heard you’d be slower during the night. You’re not closing yet, right? I read on the website you close at ten?”
“Uh..” He blinked a few times quietly, still looking all too intimidating. “Yeah, we’re still open.”
The person gave a relieved sigh, their hand resting on top of their chest. “Good, I was worried.” They gave a gentle laugh, smiling up at him as they approached the counter. “I’ll be quick, okay? I just need to get a few things.”
Dae-Hyun wasn’t used to such gleeful interaction, feeling almost a little off-put by it. “Take your time. You still have a little while.” His scowl remained the same, taking his spray bottle and rag into the drawer, reaching towards the sanitizer again. Giving himself a little to rub between his hands, the other nodded and went off to look around. The male snuck another glance at the customer, trying to get a read on them. They’re definitely new to the shop, he hadn’t seen them before. He watched as they picked an item from the shelf and eyed it. They didn’t look like the type to steal, they wore pretty decently priced clothes and looked well-presented, and their overall stature didn’t imply they were the thieving type. They were pretty cute honestly. Not that it really mattered though. 
“Y’know, I’ve heard good things about this place.” The sudden voice startled Dae-Hyun, quickly looking away so that they didn’t realize he had been staring at them, unintentionally warding them off. “I read online that this was a family thing?” 
The man nodded, resting his hands on the counter. “Yes, it started as my grandfathers.”
The person smiled again, still holding the item in their hand, a sauce bottle. “That’s so cool!” Walking towards the front, their {E/C} eyes met with his deep brown ones. They weren’t looking away, what was up with them? “But..” They gestured at the emptiness behind him, “Are you the only one who works here..?” The man nodded silently, almost looking away from the eye contact himself. It was a weird feeling. They frowned, setting the bottle on top. “Don’t you get lonely?”
Now that was an unexpected question. Most people just got what they needed and left, and any small talk was usually to cut tension, not actively start a conversation. They didn’t seriously worry if a guy like him was lonely, right? His scowl softened a little, tilting his head to the side. He actually felt.. more focused right now. Mostly intrigued by the approach.
“I mean..” He paused, he did feel lonely. But just saying ‘yes’ felt a little undeserved on their end, afterall; they did make the effort to actually converse with him. He kind of felt like he owed more than that. “Yes, but it’s not anything I can’t handle.” He pulled out a brown bag from under the countertop before opening it and setting it down, then pulling out a pair of clear gloves. “Have you decided what you’d like?” Did he always sound this mean? He never really considered it before, why did he only really notice it now? No wonder people looked at him funny. It’s not like he was unaware of how he sounded, but it never really caught his full attention.
“Oh..! Uhm..” They looked down at the glass display, reading off what they wanted. “I was thinking.. Ten pounds ground beef, and just a pound of boneless ribeye.” They pointed at the steak within the case, nodding. “Yep, that’s the one.”
Dae-Hyun nodded, quietly opening the casket. Pulling out the tray of ground beef, he wrapped it in some extra protective layers, setting it inside the bag before grabbing the ribeye. Watching as the man worked, {Y/N} looked up at him. They pursued their lips for a moment, before giving a small laugh. “Y’know, you’re not as scary as I heard you were.”
That caught his attention. He turned a little, meeting eyes with them with a startled look, letting out a quiet ‘what’. 
“Yeah, a bunch of my friends said you had the best meat products but that you were absolutely terrifying.” They let out another playful scoff with a slight shrug, “I mean, I can see why they’d think that, a big hulky guy carrying around bloody meats and cleavers” they leaned over the counter, “But.. I don’t know, you don’t seem all that scary to me.” Being told that he was lonely, made {Y/N} feel a little sympathy for him. That answer alone made him feel a lot more human than what the other people in town said about him. {Y/N} liked to think they’re a lot less judgy than their peers, and wanted to come see for themselves if ‘the scary butcher guy’ was as terrifying as they heard.
Unaware to even respond, Dae-Hyun felt a little pang in his chest. He just.. stared at them. He could feel a little warmth spread across his face, almost sweating. That felt.. Good, but also very intimidating. Intimidating? Since when was he the intimidated one? It felt.. almost terrifying. Catching himself in his trance, the man quickly looked back to the scale, trying to fixate his eyes on it and not retreat back to the customer, muttering an apology. He nodded. “Th.. Thank you.” He swallowed, mind a little aflutter from the comment, almost missing the scale’s number. This was so odd, he’s barely even met this person and he’s already feeling a little anxious. And that smile on their face.. When did he last see someone smile so genuinely at him like that? While wrapping the meat, he snuck a glance at them, noticing they were already reaching into their bag to pull out their wallet. He carefully put the steak into the bag, taking off his gloves and sanitizing again. He really used it too much, it certainly didn’t help the callousness of his hands. Typing away at the register, as {Y/N} tossed a sweet roll on the counter top. He must have been too in his head to even realize they walked over there. Punching in the extra numbers, he turned to them, noticing the debit card in their hand.
“Uh..” He paused, “We only take cash..” 
“Oh! Sorry!” They stuffed the card back, giving an awkward laugh as they looked at the numbers on the screen. Twenty-two dollars, and thirty-seven cents. Pulling out a small wad of cash, they cursed under their breath. “Shit, I don’t have enough right now. Can I put the roll back? Sorry again..” They gave an apologetic smile, scratching their neck.
Giving a little thought, Dae-Hyun sighed. “It’s fine, the roll is on me. Just give me what you have.”
Looking a bit taken back, a brighter smile soon spread across their face. “Really..!?” They handed over the money to his hand, grinning wide. “Thank you..! That’s so sweet of you!” Sweet? He never heard that word to describe him before. But he also hadn’t offered free merchandise before. Slipping all the money into the drawer, a receipt popped out before he tore it and put it in the paper bag. Rolling it, he pressed his hand under as he passed it off, letting them grab the roll with their free hand. Laughing to themselves, {Y/N} adjusted their grip. “See, they don’t know what they’re talking about.” 
They hadn’t made a whole lot of conversation, mostly because he didn’t really allow a whole lot of room for any, but he couldn’t deny it felt kinda good to have someone talk to him like a person for once. And hearing this person defend him almost made him feel.. Happy. It clearly wasn’t everyday someone described him so positively. He almost didn’t want them to leave. Getting out of his thoughts again, he realized the customer already made it to the door. 
“Thank you again! Have a great night!”
Before he could even respond, they were already out the door. He stared at the glass from afar, his chapped lips parting a little. He muttered a small ‘you too’ under his breath. His mind was a little blank now, just standing alone. Dae-Hyun wondered if, or when they’d be back again. They didn’t seem to be scared off or anything.. Then he realized something.
He never even caught their name.
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nanawritesit · 6 months
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SM Entertainment Girl Group Idol AU (fem!reader insert)
feel free to use this for shifting or as a fanfiction backstory! (just tag me if it’s the second one hehe)
disclaimer: the extra info sections aren’t all original ideas, many were found on pinterest/tiktok :) images aren’t mine either
tw: none that i’m aware of
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Group Profile:
Group Name: Etoile (meaning star/ point of a star in French)
Members: 5 (5 points on a star)
Fandom: Starlight
Concept: Ethereal, Cosmic, Elegant
Debut Year: 2017 (between Red Velvet and Aespa)
Debut Song: “Constellations”
Debut Album Title: “5 Makes 1”
B-Sides: “Aries,” “Nebula,” “Orbit,” “Stardust,” and “Pisces”
Fandom/ Lightstick Color: Indigo and White (stars in the night sky)
Group Chant: All: “Twinkle twinkle!” Nabi: “Hi Starlight! It’s…” All: “Etoile!”
Members Profile:
Y/N: Oldest, Center/ Face of the Group, Main Vocalist, Speaks Korean, English, and Chinese
Cho Nabi: Leader, Lead Vocalist, Korean, Speaks Korean, English, Chinese, and Japanese
Marie Tang: Main Dancer, Chinese-American, Speaks Korean, English, and Chinese
Han Iseul: Visual, Lead Dancer, Korean, Speaks Korean
Ikeda Kaori: Maknae, Main Rapper, Japanese, Speaks Korean and Japanese
Extra Info about the Group:
Pre-debut, Etoile released a cover of Girls Generation’s “Genie,” and it blew up so fast that fans couldn’t wait for them to debut
Etoile is known as “the bridge between third and fourth generation” in the kpop community
The members are also known as “the princesses of SM”
Etoile does a lot of variety shows because everyone loves the members’ funny personalities and playful group dynamic
Etoile was featured in a popular kdrama as themselves, though they only had a few lines in a couple episodes, it became a fan favorite and made the ratings sky-rocket
Etoile’s second comeback, “Andromeda,” is said to have one of the most difficult girl group choreographies in kpop. It was also the song that got them their first win
When Etoile got their first win with “Andromeda,” all of the girls were crying hysterically, including Nabi who was supposed to give the speech. She ended up handing the mic to Y/N, who had just been smiling happily the whole time. Y/N pulled Nabi into her arms as she gave the speech, and then the other three girls assembled a group hug around them. It became such a tender moment for Starlights that everyone watching started crying too
Etoile did a collaboration music video with Sailor Moon where all the members got to dress up as the sailor guardians. Y/N was Sailor Moon, Nabi was Sailor Mars, Marie was Sailor Mercury, Iseul was Sailor Venus, and Kaori was Sailor Jupiter
Etoile has their own plushie characters that are put on headbands and other merchandise for Starlight, similar to BT21 and Skzoo. Y/N’s is a white swan, Nabi’s is a blue butterfly, Marie’s is a black cat, Iseul’s is a pink puppy, and Kaori’s is a yellow duck
Etoile did a collab with “rom&nd,” a korean makeup brand, where each member got to create their own shade of lipstick. The five shades the members created sold out in just three minutes.
Etoile performed a cover of EXO’s “Growl” during one of their concerts in male school uniforms, and Starlights were so impressed by how cool and masculine they were
Being sandwiched between the two girl groups, Red Velvet and Aespa are like the older and younger sisters of Etoile (respectively.) The Red Velvet members are always checking in on them and giving them advice, and Etoile does the same thing for Aespa.
Starlight is famous for being one of the most loyal and devoted fandoms. They buy the girls billboards and food trucks for their birthdays, protect them from antis, and offer so much love and support.
The members have their own youtube channel called “Etoile Clubhouse” that they have permission to use freely. They post lots of different content, including challenges, games, song/dance covers, mukbangs, get ready with me/us videos, and q&a’s
Extra Info about Y/N:
Y/N is known as the loving mother of the group, while Nabi is more like a strict dad
Kaori was still in high school when she debuted, and Y/N took care of her like a mother would her daughter. She would wash and iron her uniform, prepare her breakfast and lunch, and help her with her homework every night. Kaori’s mother was so thankful, as she couldn’t do all this for her daughter herself, still living in Japan
While all the girls are close, Nabi and Y/N are best friends, they even have friendship bracelets
While Iseul is the visual because she fits the KBS the best, Y/N is the center/FOTG because her visuals match the group concept the best. She’s known for her “white swan” visuals: ethereal, graceful, and elegant.
Y/N and Iseul were also chosen as members of GOT the Beat
Y/N was the first member to have a solo debut in 2021. Her debut song was fittingly titled “White Swan.” Nabi helped her compose the songs, Marie helped her with the choreography, and Kaori had a rap feature on one of the tracks. Y/N performed it at the MAMA awards, and everyone was singing/dancing along to it so hard they almost forgot about the actual awards show!
Y/N is an ambassador for Dior and Chanel. Many brands were offering her deals after Etoile became popular due to her unique visuals, so she got to choose the ones she liked best
Y/N is known as the “OST Queen” of the group, she has sang many drama OSTs
Y/N’s best friends at the company include Yeri (Red Velvet,) Taeyong (NCT/SuperM,) Karina (Aespa,) and Ten (NCT/SuperM/WayV)
Y/N has had cameos in many different artists’ music videos, including Stray Kids, Enhypen, and NCT Dream
SHINee’s Key dubbed Y/N “SM’s secret weapon”
Y/N was part of a one-time collaboration unit with Dreamcatcher’s Dami, Weki Meki’s Doyeon, IZ*ONE’s Yena, and fromis_9’s Chaeyoung. They released a single called “Wild Mind,” and it was so popular that fans were advocating to start a new group with just these idols!
Y/N once dyed her hair indigo to match the fandom color, and fans started to dye their hair the same color to match her. The shade became known as “Y/N hair” on social media
Y/N and Marie were mentors on a Chinese idol training show, all the girls loved them because they were super helpful without being too tough. It also gained Etoile a lot of Chinese fans
Y/N has very impressive high notes, Starlights have made several youtube compilations with titles like “Y/N obliterating the sound barrier with her high notes for 5 minutes”
Y/N’s nickname from Starlight is “Angel Voice” due to her clear, bright voice
Y/N sang a cover of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” on Etoile Clubhouse, and Starlights tagged Taylor in it so much that she was shown the video in an interview. Taylor responded: “I’ve watched this video so many times! Her voice is so pretty. I met her once in Korea too, she’s so genuine and sweet! I’d love to collab with her, or Etoile as a whole. They seem so fun.”
Y/N was getting a lot of lip-synching rumors, until one day a staff member shared a video of her practicing before a concert with her mic on. It revealed her raw vocal talent and debunked all the rumors.
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I think the proportion of dumb Americans is just higher due to statistics - if there are more people from the US on a website in absolute numbers the probability you run into a stupid person who also happens to be from the US is higher.
Also Tumblr is a US-based website so there's probably some bias there that if you're not from the US and also on Tumblr you are probably more intelligent. Especially for countries that aren't the UK or other native English speaking ones. A person from Japan or Brazil who speaks English as a second language well enough to function on English-speaking tumblr probably knows more about the world around them than the average US-born native english speaker.
No, not really, and this is where you're gonna have to unlearn some things.
There are not more people from the US on this website. People tend to think this because: a) a lot of people speak English as a second, third or even fourth language, and so use it primarily on this site, and because of this b) the number of times I have seen people assume people are automatically from the US is pretty high at this point.
People to this day still think I'm from the US, even though I make it very clear in my bio and when writing here that I'm from the UK. I've had an Irish friend living in Scotland be told her followers thought she was from various parts of the US after one person thought she was from Louisiana. I've seen so many non US users get weird anons telling them 'hey you can't do that in the US' and they're like 'hey not everyone is from the US y'know?'
It's literally no excuse to be like 'well there's more of us here' because the only time I expect that to happen is when I am physically standing on US soil, not on an international website. And it is an international website. It doesn't matter that the servers are in the US or that it's base is in the US. It has an international userbase who use it daily. You simply cannot assume that just because a website has it's base of operations in the US that it is not frequented by users from other nations. That's like saying 'Whatsapp is an American company ergo there will be more Americans using it' because that's just simply not true. There are far more people from outside the US than there are in the US. On the internet you are massively outnumbered, and it's only down to the fact that most of them converse in English for the sake of being able to operate on an Anglocentric site (linguistically) that you don't notice them. If you dig below the surface on tumblr, you can find plenty of people conversing in different languages. The part where Tumblr asks you what language you want Tumblr to be in is there for a reason.
As for the 'well people who know more than one language are smarter' is such a dumb argument. Many people in the US speak more than one language. They speak Spanish, German, Korean, Mandarin, Navajo etc. You cannot write this off as 'well we're dumb, we only speak one language compared to everyone else' because that's simply not true. Speaking more than one language doesn't automatically make you more intelligent either. It helps you in many ways, but it's not an automatic sign of higher intelligence. If this was a problem for people who only speak English, I would expect to see more stupid comments from people in the UK, Australia, New Zealand etc, but I don't. In fact, the Aussies on my political posts yesterday were like 'hell yeah BoJo got ScoMo'd!!' and all they'd done was get up and see the news. I didn't have to explain anything to them.
Even if a website was in an entirely different language, google translate exists. It's not perfect, but you can get the general gist of something. I've been reading news from other countries all day, including on the assassination of the former prime minister in Japan. I don't need another language, or to be 'more intelligent' to do this. All I do is click the 'World' news button on the BBC news' front page and off I go to learn about what's happening. If I need more in depth I'll visit that country's news sites and select the 'English' option (because news sites do display in other languages) or I let my browser translate it.
The reason ESL speakers (and others) know more about the world than USians do is because they actively seek it. The problem here is that USians are incurious about the world, and usually unwilling to learn more unless directly given the information by someone else. Then, when confronted with the problem of that incuriosity they make excuses like this rather than taking accountability for their own self improvement.
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doberbutts · 11 months
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Okay well I watched the first episode of Blood Origin and honestly my thoughts are:
I just don't understand why people are so resistant to changes/new plotlines/some lore breaking of *recent* franchises but gobble it up when it's older. People telling an untold portion of a common tale is well established in storytelling culture. The first example that springs to mind is Lancelot, who straight up does not exist in original Authorian legend and was a FRENCH invention when the myth spread. Nowadays, most casual enjoyers of King Author stuff don't bat an eye to Lancelot's presence. Lancelot, who comes to mind, because Sapkowski writes said Lancelot to be in love with Ciri, and we're totally cool with *that* but not with changes to Sapkowski's work.
It's really telling that there's such a bigoted negative reaction to this because honestly? The black people so far have been BLACK black, darker than me, darker than even my black family sometimes. I'm enjoying seeing melanin in fantasy don't mind me. And the hair on the sisters is excellent, I'm liking the costuming, and I *really* like Eile.
The accents are kind of all over the place. Both as individual characters but also as the actors themselves. Sometimes Fjall goes from generic American accent to some form of fake Irish to ????european???? and back and it's distracting and weird. HOWEVER I do like the Irish and Welsh accents in high born kingdoms, because too often those accents are for commoners and poverty only, and this sort of turns the trope on its head.
I'm not sure how much I like the pan-Asian vibe I'm getting from some of the props and architecture. Some things look vaguely Chinese while others solidly Arabic while others a weird fusion of Indian and Korean and it's just odd to me. At first I thought it was because of clan structures but then I saw that it's just sort of everywhere. I have 0% Asian in me so I'm not really a good authority to speak on it but it's a weird vibe, a little Orientalist to my eyes. I'll freely admit that I like the aesthetic since I was raised pretty pan-African but I recognize that most continentally grouped cultures don't love that and it's mainly the black diaspora that's embraced it because we don't really have much of a choice.
I STILL feel that doing away with this short-season "but the episodes are an hour long!" nonsense would help pacing so much. Literally every time I thought the episode was going to come to an end, it's been roughly at the 20-25 min mark, which a standard TV episode would have been ANYWAY. So there's not really much point to having this be 4 hour-long episodes when it could be done better as 12-15 20 minute episodes... which would be the eqivilant of a short season while 24-32 is a more "standard" season (instead of 8 hour-long episodes). It gives you more time to flesh the characters and plotlines out while also allowing you the chance to trim some of the long-and-boring content people get tired of watching.
I really do feel bitter that the witcher tags continue to be people making racist and misogynistic memes instead of a fandom happily discussing a pretty strong first episode that introduced a billion fantasy characters of color. It really sucks that black people in fantasy is received so poorly when my inner 10 year old is happy to see people who look more like me having fun with the genre. I long for the day when I can exist in a fandom space and happily discuss my favorite black characters without having to justify their existence every 2 seconds.
Oof that CGI is pretty rough though. Which surprises me because the S2 CGI was not this rough so idk what happened here. That monster in the first episode is, uh, bad. And the background in the weird magicky place is also pretty, uh, bad.
I don't understand why the first witcher being an elf would piss Geralt off except maybe because that means Jaskier knows more about witchers than Geralt does? All of Geralt's iterations- the books, the games, the show, the comics- are pretty chill with elves as long as they're pretty chill with him. He only pursues certain elves and elf-blooded mixed race people when they pose a direct threat to him or his loved ones. Same as humans. So I don't really get that line at all unless, as said, it was more a "wow Geralt's gunna be pissed that I know this story and he doesn't"
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mechaknight-98 · 5 months
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Gathering paradise mantle
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After Connor's fated Gathering with Giselle of Aespa or as she liked to be called by him Aeri. their relationship blossomed significantly. Both Professionally and Personally, which is why Connor found himself sitting with her in the general room of SM Entertainment. They had recruited Connor to do some filming with them after a very strong recommendation from Karina. Which is why Connor is in South Korea instead of New York right now. Connor was discussing various scenes for an upcoming music video for the group with the leader who had taken an interest in Connor. While Connor sits with Karina discussing various aspects of filming she broke the flow of conversation to talk detour into something more personal.
“Okay Infinite sounds good, but I have something to ask” Karina says to Connor, when she uses Connor's discord tag Connor knew it was serious/ or personal.
“ Karina we have been through this you can call me Connor in real life, but yeah what’s up?” Connor says and asks in return.
“It’s about Giselle. She has been in distress recently due to some comments on social media.” Connor scratched his head. Mean comments were par the course for any person in the public eye. Seeing his skepticism, and with Karina being the great leader she was handed him a phone with some of the comments. he read them and watched in terror as they went from a little nippy to down right vile. he winced
“See. Someone who isn’t a part of this or her leader needs to talk to her. Maybe a close friend” Karina suggested confidently
he sighs, “I am not good at these types of things. I am much better suited to hyping her up.” is his follow up. Karina holds firm
“Sorry, but you are the oldest you have to take responsibility. Also hyping her up is probably what she needs right now.” Karina says with a sly smile. So he sucks it up.
Later in the day after completing his shoot for Le Sserafim he heads back to the SM building. On his way out Yunjin the Le Sserafim vocalist approaches him. Her bright hair billowing as she saunters over, “Hey Jen. Connor says to her.”
“Hey Connor! how’s my fellow American?” Yunjin aka Jenifer asked
“Oh you know getting busy living before I get busy dying.” Connor responds
“Good, good. Oh by the way we should like totally hang out. You seem cool enough and I need someone who isn’t a part of all this (She gestures around herself.) .Plus I don’t often get the chance to interact with Americans out here so it’s great to see more.” Jen says. Connor laughs
“Jennifer, I am Korean to… you remember that right? Also are you asking me out? Because it sounds like it.” Connor teases while raising an eyebrow.
Jen laughs and says, “who knows maybe.” He responds in kind and goes on his way. He arrives in time just before Aespa leaves for the end of the day. The girls look exhausted, especially Giselle who looks miserable. When Giselle sees Connor her eyes brighten.
“Friday night Magic?” Giselle asks hopeful
Connor nods and Winter sighs relieved. “Ugh you have no idea how annoying she’s been about it. Please take her. Maybe beat her again.” laughs ring out from all present.
“I don’t know she’s gotten a lot better.” Connor quips
“Only because you throw the most insane things at me.” Giselle said.
“You’re lucky you’re playing against me and not my friend Dexter.” Connor chides. Aeri looks at Connor with surprise.
“Oh and what does he play, and why haven’t I?” Aeri inquired
“Some really evil and powerful stuff( Mostly in Temur Connor doesn't mention this but I am because it will be relevant later). Also to answer your second question…he doesn’t really like coming out of his zone, but we may be able coax him out later as he also likes K-pop as well.” Connor explains and replies.
Connor laugh as the duo gets into his car. He is careful to appear extra staff like today because one of the comments read “who is that Dumb looking redhead? Is that her boyfriend.” (Connor has vibrant red hair…again will be relevant later). When they get into the car Connor is silent for a moment as the comments he saw earlier rush through his head along with Karina’s charge to him. He could see Giselle fidget with various parts of her bag while she got in.
“Yo Aeri. Are you okay? I saw some comments the other day that were less than on your recent comeback and wanted to check in make sure you are doing alright.” Connor asks casually
Giselle sighed. “Can we not talk about it?” She asked. Connor nods. he knows from experience that this can’t end well but he let’s it go for the time being. He wanted Aeri to be comfortable. He knows what it was like to have a well-meaning friend pry into your life. He sends a reassuring smile at Aeri and drive to the shop.
When They arrive Aeri smiles weakly, the Talk about her, Her weight her personality finally cracks her and she breaks. before entering Aeri looks at Connor with a serious face. “I can’t do this Connor. Can we do something else tonight?” He nods giving a thumbs up to his friend. She smiles sincerely this time. He takes her to a K-BBQ place that He wants to try. She is elated (I totally get it food is the easiest way to ease the soul.) to get into said Korean BBQ place. Surprise, surprise guess who’s waiting there is Jen and her unnie Sakura. Sakura is the first to notice Connor. Her eyes are always scanning and when she sees him, she squints and then her eyes go wide and she smiles. “Oh Oppa come on over,” Sakura says giddily. Connor smiles and walks over with Aeri. Sakura shakes Yunjin who still hadn’t noticed Connor yet Letting her know their table is ready.
“Hey, Jen. Hey Kkura.” Connor says pleasantly. Jen turns around and her eyes go wide
“Ah whae?” she yells excited. Connor waves and Aeri smiles.
“Ah you just couldn’t stay away from me.” Jen teases. Connor goes to introduce Aeri but Jen says “Dude we totally already know Aeri.” he nods and sits with them.
“you guys came just in time. It was originally supposed to be all five of us but Eunchae, Kazuha, and Chaewon unnie bailed on us.” Jen said as Aeri and Connor nodded and sat with them. Jen looked at Connor with just the happiest smile and brightest eyes, she turned to Aeri and said to her, “Hey Giselle Unnie. You look great today, but if I remember correctly I thought you were supposed to be hanging out with Connor tonight..alone.” Connor notices that Jen is not giving him his proper honorific which is weird since she is doing it for everyone else. he wonders if that’s personal like he has done something to upset her.
“Oh well it’s just a lot going on you know?” before Aeri could continue the waitres came to the table with menus. While Aeri and Jen talk Connor chats to Sakura, and informs her of what’s going on discretely.
She looks at him and then Aeri with wide eyes full of concern. After he finishes she says to him, “Oh don’t worry about it I’ll talk to her.
Connor nods his head and says “Now don’t mention anything directly just try to make her feel comfortable like.” Sakura puts her index finger to his lips.
“Allow me to work my magic.” Sakura says politely. Connor shrugs.
“Ah what are you two whispering about?” Jen says suspicious of the two.
“Oh Oppa and I were just discussing how amazing Giselle’s performances have been. She has been improving so much.” he nods excitedly eager to get the heat off himself. Both Aeri and Jen look at Connor confused. When the waitress rearrives at the table they order. Connor orders with Jen and Aeri with Sakura. He moves after ordering in his seat as he sits across from Sakura who looks around his neck area. “Hey oppa what’s that.” he noticed she was pointing toward his Gingaman tattoo on the right side of his collar that was slightly sticking out. he moves your shirt collar to show Sakura. Sakura looks at it for a moment… Aeri begins to chuckle.
“is that the starbeast sword?”she says between chuckles. Connor nods, and her chuckles grow to full laughs
“I knew I recognized it.” Sakura says with a smile. The two Japanese ladies begin to converse in the original tongue while Connor and Jen look at each other. they both roll their eyes when they hear the word American come from the two of them. Connor turns to Jen but she is watching the two girls talk with interest. so He sat “alone”, waiting for the opportunity to speak again. After about ten minutes order Aeri speaks to you, “Hey Connor why didn’t you make a Korvold paper deck?”
Connor looks at Aeri confused and answers, “I do have a paper Korvold deck.”
Now Aeri looked confused him asking, “then how come I have never seen you play it?”
he claps your hands together, and respond “Well It’s has a lot more bite then Narset Enlightened Exile.” Aeri looks at him confused still.
“What do you mean by more bite?” She asked. This makes Connor realize even for all of her excellent English skills there is some things that don’t translate. Connor tried to figure out how to translate until Jen came to your rescue.
“He means it’s stronger than his other one (she turns to Connor) that is right?” she answers and asks.
Connor’s reply is a simple nod. “in this context I mean it’s less fun to play against, and more geared towards stronger player’s play.” He fully clarifies. Everyone nods to his point, except Sakura who looks at Connor with interest.
Sakura turns to Aeri and asks“Korvold that name sounds familiar. What’s that from?” Aeri explains to her how they both play magic the gathering, and as soon as she says mtg her eyes go wide, and she turns to him. “Oh, Oh, I play that… I played (Sakura snaps her fingers twice for recollection)…
“Arena?” Connor Suggests. Sakura nods
On the phone… yeah I taught Yujin, and Chaewon. She’s really good, and still plays. She would always complain about someone playing Korvold. I stopped playing but I guess she never did.” You look at Sakura confused, and point to Yunjin (Jen) who also looks at her confused. “OH Yujin-ah, not Yunjin-ah.” Sakura clarifies and this brings alacrity to everyone present except Connor who forgot about Izone for a moment.
“Wait how do you know Yujin?” Everyone looks at you for a moment. It still doesn’t click. A few minutes pass and then you remember. “Oh right you used to be in a group together. I completely forgot. Hm that’s weird considering how much my roommate loves Izone. He is actually the one who got me into Magic the Gathering actually. I got him into K-pop.” Connor says. Everyone present begins to laugh.
Sakura looks at Connor intrigued, “Oh what’s your roommate’s name?”
“Oh Dexter but I call him Dex for short” Connor answers. Aeri snaps her fingers in recognition of the name. After that the food arrives and The group eats and converses about various boring topics I won’t go through the tedium of repeating here. (I am trying to keep this somewhat engaging after alll). Afterwards they finish up Connor pays for the meal. (Like a boss)
“Thanks Oppa” Sakura says to Connor and he give her a thumbs up as he leaves with Aeri.
When they arrive at Aespa’s dorm she smiles, and says “thank you Connor. I really appreciate it.”
He says “No worries“ as his going to leave before though can Aeri grabs him.
“Hey Oppa what do you do when you think you’re not good enough?” Aeri asks Connor pleading.
Connor considers her words, he didn’t often falter for confidence (Like the previously mentioned boss he is). So he has to think for a moment then responds. “As much as I want to say just be yourself I can’t bring myself to. When someone tells me I am not enough or that I am not good enough I look at what and where they’re directing it at. If it is something that’s legitimate I work on it. If it’s something not legitimate, or something I don’t care for. I discard the opinion, because for my mental health I have to, otherwise a bunch of people with no stakes in my life will have an unearned say and dictate it.” Aeri looks at Him and smiles.
“Okay I will keep that in mind.” She says as sh smiles and leaves. He drives his little blue rental back to his hotel to get ready to fly back home.
Two weeks later Connor’s back to work filming with Le Sserafim for promotions in the States. The staff and the girls for the most part are kind and gentle people. Connor enjoy working with them. As he is finishing up for day 1 Jen corners him along with Sakura. “Hey you’re pretty good at Magic right?” Jen asks. Connor nod. “Good then can you teach us. Giselle has been trying to get us to learn, because she wants people she can play with besides Yujin, and Sakura doesn’t really remember how to play.” Connor strokes his chin.
“That’s a lot of work. Like a lot of work.” He explains.
The girls smile at him and Jen says, “Well then it’s good we are going to be together for a few weeks.” Connor sighs.
“Okay then, but if we do this… we are doing it my way. Do you understand?” Connor asserts.
Both Kkura and Jen nod.
“Okay well then first things first set aside 250$ each. I want you both to be able to build both fun and functional decks so I need you to do that. I also want you both, if you haven’t already download mtg arena and just play with what they give you. This will be the easiest way to teach the basics, and give you both a net of general play styles you enjoy. Please for the love of God Almighty do not spend any money on the app. You are both too inexperienced to know what’s worth purchasing, and will not have fun in the long haul. please don’t be like me. Dexter tried to warn me but I didn’t listen. Also also I feel like I should mention this check out Dice Try’s youtube channel and watch the videos on shards and wedges it will give you all a very clear view of what each one is about, and potentially what you align with.” Both nodded and left for the day. After that Connor finished packing up all of his cameras, and other film gear and went home.
When he got home you get a discord call from Scorpion-love-00. “Hey Connor I need your help. We need a third for our commander game.” Connor (who hates 3-player games) sighs and respond
“Skippy you know how I feel about three player games.”
Scorpion responds, “I know but we just need a third to change up gameplay, at least for tonight.” this turns out to be untrue as for the next two weeks you are playing arch enemy against Scorpion and her new friend Ujinnie… Sometimes there’s a random 4th that joins. Who’s really good but also kinda of non-verbal (It’s me…I am that person, but I haven’t officially met them yet, but spoilers it’s me… the narrator.) Connor tries not to be annoyed as his off time is becoming dominated by mtg. Eventually, he ropes his roommate; Dexter, an assistant director and cameraman whom he has worked with in the past and who also was a magic savant in his eyes.
this makes the experience more fun for everyone involved. Your friend actually really hit it off with Giselle, and Sakura when she can play as well. Which was funny because were at each other’s throats at first. This would lead to one of the later “game nights” when Connor invites Dex to Help with filming. As he helped you set up the two usual fimmies approached you surprised. “Oh Connor Oppa who is this?” Sakura asked as she approached.
“Oh this is Dexter. My friend who is a director and also a camera guy. He is really good at mtg. We were playing together against Aeri and this girl named Ujinnie Yesterday and it was late so i figured he could help me today.” Connor clarified
Dexter woke up when he heard his name called and very quickly went back to work.
“Wait is he the one who goes by Stealth Dragon Danzo?” Sakura asked
Connor shakes his head
“ah darn. Yunjin-ah it’s not him it’s Dexter.. You should ask him your question.” Connor feels a pang of Jealousy as he watches Jen smile as she goes up to Dexter. Dexter on the other hand is focused on setting up.
“Oh so your Dexter. I have heard a lot about you.”Jen exclaims
Dexter nods and responds skeptically “yeah that’s me. How can I help you?”
“So I love tribal decks and Aeri says you’re scary good at building them”
Dexter looks at Yunjin hesitantly, then looks at Connor for guidance. Connor gives him the thumbs up, and he responds “What tribe were you thinking and how do you want to play it?”
“I want an aggressive angel deck in white red black,” Yunjin responds. Everyone sees Dexter sigh and die a little on the inside before he responds. Connor knew what he’s about to recommend and he knew how much he hated to do so.
“Then you’re probably going to want to run Kaalia of the Vast,” he says dejected. Connor knows that was hard for him because he hated Kaalia so to see him suggest that for Jen mad Connor laugh uncontrollably Envy fading into the back of his mind.
Jen was confused “What’s wrong with Kaalia?” She asked noticing the shift in atmosphere between her friend and his buddy.
“Nothing I just have a personal vendetta since my friend whom, i first played a lot against played her a lot, and well I was not a fan. she is wildly powerful but also super obnoxious.” Dexter responded
Sakura the eldest out of the members of the Korean girl group looked at Dexter and replied “You have a weird idea of obnoxious. Aeri complained so much about your Omnath (locus of the Roil. Sakura doesn’t explain this but for those who are curious it’s The Temur one, and his signature deck) deck.” Connor watches as Dexter laughs, as he finishes setting up he get up to face Kkura.
“Well to be fair her i did beat up on her because she was playing yuriko, but the reason she is probably upset is that she may be an enfranchised player, but she isn't entrenched.” Dexter responds. Connor looks at Dexter disappointed knowing the ensuing conversation that would followed.
“Listen just because you run free mana spells lotuses and og duals does not make you a better player.” Connor say to Dexter
“No what makes me a better player is that I no life this game.” Dexter responded which caused a laugh from all present Except Jen. Jen looked at him with surprise.
“No life the game?” she said with her near trademarked confused face.
“Oh Yunjin-ah he just means that mtg is the only game he really plays.” Sakura responded
“That and Hunt Showdown.” Dexter clarifies. He lifts his sleeve up to show his tattoo from the mentioned game.
“Oh that’s actually really cool.” Jen responds.
Connor smiles as he looks at his friends getting along so well together. after finishing up chatting with the fimmies Connor and Decter went to finish getting ready for the shoot. the shoot proceeds smoothly, and after the shoot you, Dexter , Jen, and Kkura go to hang out.
“So we saved or 250$ Connor.” Jen says Connor after the shoot. Dexter begins to laugh in his seat while Connor is driving. He sighs knowing the two of them are going to have to help them learn the game in earnest.
“Hey before you do this. have you two thought of turning this in content? like youtube videos. I know Sakura has her youtube channel and this could be a funny episode.” Dexter suggested absent-minded Sakura looked at the Native Alaskan and her eyes widened.
A few days later Jen, Aeri, you Dexter, and Sakura were all on the set of Sakura’s youtube (Fearless Kkura, which will become the interchangeable name for her now) channel which for today happened to be a Studio found by Dexter and Connor. Dexter is acting as an assistant director for the episode, but also helping Kkura learn her deck. Kkura is a bit distracted looking at Dexter’s shirt. It was Godzilla Vs. Great Ape Vegeta. “Okay so after you get a good mill chain going you’re going to want to start reanimating your big threats.” he said with a relaxed smile. Connor knows that Dexter loves Le Sserafim (Sakura was his Izone biass) so he is really trying his best here to not fan boy. Despite his worries Connor sees he’s doing well. He’s relaxed. Jen and Aeri sneak up behind him.
“they have really good chemistry, Just like us.” Aeri says. Connor turns around surprised to see his two friends leaning against each other as they watch Dexter and Sakura discus plans.
“Yeah Kkura unnie really likes his vibe.” Jen said with a bit of a laugh.
“Yeah Dexter is a good guy.” Connor say.
“oh that reminds me. How’d you meet him Oppa?” Aeri asks. Connor notices Jen’s confused look at Aeri as she walks back to the table. Again he wonders if you did something to annoy Jen causing her issue with the honoriffics.
“Oh that’s easy we are roommates in college and now kinda permanently. He also helped me get through some really bad times by being like an older brother to me, which is hilarious since he’s younger.” he responded
“Oh how old is he?” Aeri asks.
“he’s Jihoy’s age.” Connor replied
“Oh wow I guess he is an Oppa to. It’s so weird him and Kkura unnie feel younger.” Giselle states
“Well I don’t know Kkura that well but I do know Dexter, and that stems from his immense sincerity. Out of all of the players I know who play mtg I have only seen two that embodies a tri color set up and he is one of them. He plays a lot of simic x color decks but he is Temur through and through in terms of mentality and temperament.” Connor explains
Aeri laughs, “You know I see that. He is so focused and meticulous but also extremely kind hearted and empathetic.”
“Also and you didn’t hear this from me, but his best deck is not Omnath but Maelstrom Wanderer. That deck is nasty to play against.” You add
“Oh really that’s surprising I would have figured it would have been Omnath based off of Yujin’s complaints.” Aeri jokes
“No remember Chulane.. and now I guess Galadriel was that Dragon guy.” Connor responds
“Oh yeah your right. Dexter likes Omnath and Kkura unnie as well. Look at how flustered he’s getting.” Aeri teases Connor’s friend.
Connor and Giselle laugh as you watch your friends interact.
“So I hear you are a Wizone. Who was your bias?” Kkura asked Dexter intently
“Eunbi-noona” Dexter says flatly trying again not to Fanboy too hard
Sakura groans, “Really? Ugh”
“Wait wait wait. Aren’t you going to ask my Le Sserafim Bias?” Dexter responded realizing he made a mistake.
“Oh let me guess Chaewon?”
“While I do think she is cute, nope. It’s Sakura Miyawaki. Maybe you’ve heard of her.” Dexter said teasingly. Sakura began to blush and then lightly hit Dexter’s shoulder.
“We’ll talk after filming” she said with a glare.
Before the episode started Dexter gave everyone super nice alter/proxies made by the online artist “Atomic Ashes” (Author’s note: He is on Instagram and if you need proxies done. They do excellent work) after that he began helping film. Throughout the episode the girls picked Connor’s brain about cards and deck strategies that eventually culminated in them playing a full game with the decks they brought. The decks were Kaalia of the Vast (Jen) Anikthea, hand of Erebos (Aeri), Sidisi, brood tyrant (Kkura) and Connor playing slivers (specifically the first sliver) Connor was borrowing one of Dexter’s decks. They all sat so after the lesson part the game began.
Aeri won the dice roll so she went first. “Okay I will start out with a Plains and pass.” next came Kkura who did forest into sol ring. After that Jen. Jen started with Mountain into sol ring into Rakdos signet. After that Connor played a command tower and suspended a Lotus Bloom and passed the turn. The next turn for everyone was unsubstantial as they mostly played more ramp. Except Connor. You played his first sliver (not his commander called the first sliver but the first numerical sliver of the deck). Oppaline Connor could hear the maniacal laughter from the sideline.
Kkura turned to Dexter and said “Hey? Hey? why the evil laugh.” the cameras turned to Dexter who was working on framing the picture just right. Everyone began to stare at the man until he said
“Has anyone here played against slivers before, or with slivers before?” Dexter asked. When everyone shook their heads he could only laugh more. Eventually the girls ignored him and kept playing the game. On the third turn he was able to play Cloud Shredder sliver and Manaweft. After that Connor passed. Jen suspicious of him due to Dexter’s laughing swung at you with kaalia and brought out Avacyn. he sighed but looked at his hand surprised to see an interesting name that stood out to you on your next turn you would cast that and maybe your commander next. Regardless she finishes her turn and Kkura on her turn makes 3 zombies and gives them flying. Aeri is falling behind but can always be brought back in the game with the proper cards in hand. She does something non-threatening by playing a smothering tithe and passing the turn.
The next turn Connor played wilderness reclamation and sliver hive lord.
“Hey what does that card do?” Kkura asked. You handed it to her “Slivers you control are indestructible.” She turned to her friends and the cameras to show off the card. Dexter now extremely dialed in stayed focus on getting great shots and was dead quiet. He gave you a look nod and a wicked smile. “Hey Dexter, what does Indestructible mean?” Kkura asked. Dexter came from the side lines as Kkura dragged him on screen. Connor sighed knowing that Dexter enjoyed being behind the camera because he didn’t like how he looked.
“Oh so….It means that creature destroying effects like combat, and effects that would destroy creatures don’t” he explained.
“and all of his creatures have it?” Jen asked. Dexter nodded as he went back out of frame.
“Only Slivers…so yes.” Dexter explained
After that the game became more tense for Connor as the girls began to target him extremely hard… well they tried. It was fine though because all they could do was hit the non creatures. The tipping point came when Yunjin played Merciless Eviction. She wished to wrath the board but Connor had tricks up his sleeve, he cast Teferi’s protection which got groans out of a few present but not everyone.(Those who didn’t groan hadn’t seen the card before.) After that the game was pretty much over. Connor was able to beat down Jen and Aeri but Kkura came in with a clutch play of toxic deluge ending his army faster than she could rebuild. Jen won after this using an insane top deck of Primeval’s glorious rebirth. (which I am not sure to this day was scripted or not) After the game Kkura the rest of the group said their goodbyes before wrapping for the day. Jen and Aeri approached Connor after filming.
“that was fun.” Aeri said to Connor. Connor nods as she cuddles up to him. Jen tenses up a bit which Aeri, and Connor notice. Before that can be addressed Kkura and Dexter arrive. He begins by loading up the van they were all in. when he’s done he hops in.
“Okay we’re all packed up and ready to go Connor.” Connor nods at Dexter, and starts the van. Aeri sits next to Connor in the front row while taking selfies, getting you in a couple when the car stops. Dexter reclines his seat exhausted from filming.
Jen excited went “woo Let’s party” , and everyone laughed. It was then that the girls noticed Dexter’s Ogher Calibur tattoo. They look at it in surprise.
“It’s just like yours Connor.” Aeri squealed
“Oh yeah Connor and I got them a while back to be matching.” Dexter explained, and as he did Connor watched the girls eyes go wide in the rear-view mirror. They turn Connor and Dexter who already know what they’re going to ask.
“We should all get matching tattoos.” Jen says jubilant.
“Yeah and they should be wedge themed” Aeri said
They looked at Connor and Dexter before determining wedges.
Jen was the first to plan it. “Mardu for me obviously. Kkura gets Sultai, and Abzan for Aeri, but what of our two architects. They helped us build and streamline our decks so well.” They all looked at you Except Kkura who was looking at Dexter he was trying to go back to sleep.
“Jeskai for Connor” she said. Aeri nodded as she snapped her fingers.
“Definitely.” Aeri and Kkura agreed.
“So that leaves the ferocious temur to our ferocious Dexter.” Jen said. The girls agree and started looking for tattoo parlors. There was one right next to a karaoke hall. So they figured got from tattoos to Karaoke. all arrived at the tattoo parlor Dexter was roused awake by Jen. He looked and was confused.
“Wait why are we at Mason’s spot?” Connor gave him a surprised look. Mason did his other that was on the other side of his collarbone across from the Ogher calibur. Mason chuckled when he saw everyone.
“I should have known it was Connor and Dexter.” Mason said with a smile
“I have no idea what’s going on.” Dexter responded
“I see that you look tired. Get some good shots today?” Mason asked
Dexter nodded.
“So who’s first?” Mason asked The girls pushed Dexter to the front. “where do you want it Boss?”
“What is it?” Dexter asked Mason to show him the image. Dexter sighed and turned to them all. He pointed at Connor, and scowled. “You put them up to this didn’t you?” Connor shook your head and Dexter shrugged. “Well then just on the back of my neck right at the collar line.”
Mason nodded and got his stuff ready. when he was done the girls saved Yunjin who was tall enough to see it had him sit down. The girls marveled at it. At one point as everyone watched Connor swears he saw it move. Yunjin, Giselle and Connor all look at each other and in that Kkura goes next. She solidifies the placement of the tattoos by getting hers in the same place. Jen groans, “Ah Wae Kkura unnie why did you get yours there?”
“They’re supposed to match right?” Kkura questioned. when she finished. After that she went to sit down in Dexter’s lap. She looked incredibly comfortable and small there Connor observed. Connor was next as he goes up Kkura spoke up. “thanks again Connor Oppa, and Dexter Oppa for helping us.” Dexter has spaced out as usual, leaving Connor to be the only present one.
“you’re welcome Kkura.” hey says smiling
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bluezey · 5 months
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It's November 1st here in America which means, if you don't celebrate Dia Muertos, you are definitely forgetting Thanksgiving exists and prepping for Christmas 🤣😅
But as I still can't get Elemental out of my head, it has me thinking of how the holidays will affect Wade and Ember. I mean Ember is a second generation immigrant with an importance to family fire traditions, and Wade is the innocently ignorant city guy. What if they ended up celebrating two separate holidays?
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Like, Wade's family celebrates Christmas with maybe a little Kwanzaa thrown in there, and there's lots of water and ice involved. While Ember's family celebrates a cross between Yule and an Asian holiday... I'm not sure which one 😅 I did some quick google search and the closest holidays I can find is Chuseok (a Korean harvest festival) and Diwali (a Hindu festival of lights) but those holidays take place in autumn. I'm sure if I keep looking I'll find an Asian holiday that can be mixed with fire themes
I mean I'm sure they'll figure out how to celebrate both, but it may cause a bit of a shake up or rift at first, but maybe that's me and my Christian and American experience with the war on Christmas talking. What do you guys think about this idea? Or, just, Wade and Ember celebrating the holidays, that's gotta be a sweet thing to think about
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cutiedwaekki · 8 months
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CHERRY ON TOP
where when Felix go so oftenly in that restaurant more for the cute waiter than the food
This is my first smut ever 😭 although I'm still quite uncomfortable have I wanted to try my hand at writing so I hope you like it <3
Thing to get first :
• the restaurant is inspired by American dinners in the 50s but the fic is happening in today's world
Now enjoy this will be my last fic before i go on vacation 🫶
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It was late, around 9:30 p.m., and Felix was out walking the streets of Sydney. He wasn't looking for any particular place after all, at that hour, everything was almost closed except for a few restaurants and entertainment venues.
In the distance, he could see the Luna Park funfair, which you had to take the ferry to get to. He liked the aesthetics of this amusement park; in fact, Felix loved things that had an old-fashioned aesthetic, as if evoking a good memory.
So when on his walk he came across a rather atypical restaurant, his gaze went to it, as did his eyes. The pink neon lights clearly read "Dwaekki's Dinner" and the exterior had a 50s American restaurant vibe.
Without hesitation, Felix entered and was greeted by the muted sound of Elvis Presley's "Blue Suede Shoes" jukebox as he surveyed the interior, which seemed to be typical of the restaurant seen in the movies. Even the waiters were dressed in pink roller skates and uniforms.
No sooner had he entered than a waitress approached him.
-"Welcome to Dwaekki's Dinner, take a seat, one of my colleagues will serve you", she smiled broadly before rolling away.
Felix simply shrugged and moved to a table in the corner. He put down his jacket and turned off the music on his phone before glancing at the menu.
It was classic: burger, fries, chicken nugget, soda... but one offer caught his eye.
Indeed, the prices were low, but in the menu proposal he could see
"EXCEPTIONAL OFFER! FOR 20 AUD ENJOY YOUR MENU WITH THE WAITRESS OF YOUR CHOICE".
Felix chuckled, so this restaurant was a kind of hooters? It's true that judging by the waitresses' rather sugestive outfits, he felt foolish for not having understood earlier.
-"May I take your order, sir?" asked a waiter whose accent made it clear he wasn't from around here.
Felix turned his attention to him, detailing him for a long second. Curly brown hair with a small red bow on his head. Round, plump cheeks. He was quite chubby and his uniform gave a good view of his generous thighs trapped in those leather shorts, while the white shirt emphasized his bulging belly.
It's ... totally his type.
-"S-Sir? Is everything all right?"
- "Oh yes ... yes very good ... um I'll take ... your special offer" he said, pointing to the box showing the menu and spending it with a waiter of his choice.
The waiter nod then take a note of this on his pad, a little unsettled by his counterpart's deep voice: "And ... who do you want to spend it with? We have Alice , Mary , Ruby ..."
- "You"
The boy then gasped "Me?"
- "Yes you ... well unless you don't want to of course I don't force you"
The brunette blushed slightly, although the pink neon lights made it easy to see his embarrassment "non it's fine , I'll bring you your order."
-"Thank you. By the way, what's your name?
-"L-Lewis"
Felix wasn't convinced, and when Lewis tried to leave, Felix caught up with him: "Tell me the truth, it'll be our secret".
-My name is quite hard to pronounce... I'm Korean".
Felix's eyes widened as he better understood the strange accent he possessed. To put the boy more at ease, he decided to change the language from English to Korean.
-"I'm Korean too, my name's Yongbok but just call me Felix".
"Lewis" seemed to sigh almost as relieve as he seems a little more in cinfident with Felix.
-"Really? You speak English so well though!"
Felix chuckled, "That's because my parents are Korean, but I've lived in Sydney since I was born."
-"Oh I see, I'll go and get your order and be right back".
- "Hey" interrupted Felix again "you never told me your name".
- "Oh... Changbin ... Seo Changbin" he said shyly.
Felix smiled before letting him leave with a wink.
Changbin returned a few minutes later with his menu in a tray as he moved along on his rollerblades.
-"And here's your order" he said with a smile, happy to be speaking his native language with a local.
Felix thanked him and was then surprised by the size of the burger, which was truly imposing, even though it only consisted of steak, cheese, tomato, salt and onions (in short, the basics).
- "Since we're insoiring from America's restaurant, the boss decided that the portions would be imposing too" Changbin remarked with a chuckle.
- "Oh, I understand better! Thanks for keeping me company, feel free to eat if you like".
- "Oh, I wouldn't dare, it's your meal after all"
- "I'm not that hungry, so eat with me" he said, moving his tray towards the waiter who hesitantly took a fry ... then a second ... and then he was unstoppable
The two began to chat, talking about each other, their lives and everything.
Changbin tell how he was a music student who, thanks to a scholarship, had gone to study in Sydney. The restaurant was run by his uncle, who decided to offer him a job to help pay the bills (which meant he was the only boy waiter among all the girls).
Felix then also told him about his life. As an art student, he loved movies from an early age, and wanted to make his own one day.
Changbin, amusingly, offered to be the main actor, which made Felix laugh. It had been a long time since he hadn't laughed like that.
But the interesting detail was that Felix had barely eaten a few fries and tasted a bite of his burger, leaving everything for Changbin, including his Large soda.
The poor waiter had an full stomach and was leaning against the back of his seat, rubbing his belly. A very exciting sight for Felix.
-"Sorry, I must look like a pig ... but I just don't want to resist this food, you know? I remember, when I came here I was pretty fit, but with college and work I spent most of my time here and ... i got a bit oit lf shaoe but i start to like it " he said, reaching out to shake one of his love handles.
Felix bit his lip at the sight, what a delicious treat for the eyes and he felt he was going to end up in an erection if he continue like that.
-"No, don't say that... you're very handsome ... and attractive" but Felix stopped and placed his hands in front of his mouth, ashamed of what he had just revealed.
Changbin was quite surprised and the blush on his face was quite noticeable, but he was pretty charmed by this reveal from the Australian. After all, Felix was a very attractive young man with a deep voice that almost made him glap. So if the youngest was attracted to him, it would be the most beautiful compliment in the world.
-"I... I'd better go," said Changbin as he try to get up on his feet.
"-Did I offend you? I'm sorry hyung , I didn't mean to."
But Changbin turned his face to Felix's, anchoring his gaze in his as a mischievous smile grew on his lips "I'm off in 30 minutes ... if you're interested".
Felix said nothing, but silently nodded. Tiut two venakt to accept without any word the continuation of their evening.
And as soon as Changbin had finished, Felix left and offered to take the oldest home with him. They walked silently through the streets of Sydney. It was winter, so there were few people out, apart from the bars that stayed open until late.
They didn't talk, just enjoyed the silence until they reached the brunette's apartement.
-"Well... this is my place".
Felix gave a slight grin without adding anything more.
The two of them looked at each other in silence, not knowing what would become of this night.
Until Changbin dared to ask "Do you... want to come in and drink something inside?"
It was an invitation I couldn't refuse. He entered calmly and, once the door was closed, asked "Shall I kiss you?"
The brunette was surprised by this sudden courage but nodded. The kiss was short and quite shy but the second one came to make the kiss better than he had already done it. and so the kisses began to follow one another
And so it was, until the blond man bent the wall and kissed the back of his neck, while the brunette let out a few moans.
But Felix's kisses spread a little further down to the oldest's collarbones. He paused for a moment to see if Changbin really wanted to continue. He even asked, "Do you give me your consent? As Changbin took of emotion make a strange noice who sounde like a moan although it meant yes.
Then, like a gentleman, Felix led him to his room, following the brunette's instructions between their kiss. Once the bed was in sight, he placed him on it and looked at him with amusement.
-If I'd known this offer included hook up with the waiter, I'd have come before now".
- "It's only for a handful of clients"
Felix smiled proudly before languorously kissing the brunette "I hope I'm the only one then" before marking the oldest with hickeys on the back of his neck. Soon his shirt was off, revealing his plump body, his breasts and, above all, his round belly.
- "And to think it's your body, now with me I'll make you bigger, is that what you want?"
Changbin moaned again then spread his thighs
-"Oh, does that turn you on? You want me to fuck you and tell you how much your body turns me on? That I'd come back day after day to watch you get fatter?"
Again a groan was heard, and the brunette's nascent erection made it clear that he was eager to the idea.
-"Tell me how much you weigh, so I can see if your body can support all that fat" Felix now had the brunette's ass in front of him, which he'd already seen in the past. The trousers and underwear were soon removed by Felix, who, unlike Changbin, still had his boxers on. Une slapped the brunette's ass and squeezed his hand to tighten the graisdeuse part "i love it but i can make it fatter" he said before finally removing his underwear.
Changbin made a moaning mess , which earned him the title of pig, given the fact that he barely spoke or only when Felix asked for his consent.
-"'I'm so impotient , i just need to ruin you" he said hoarsely as he took two of his fingers and soaked them in saliva before thrusting them into the brunette's hole. The poor moaned in a high-pitched way as Felix tried to widen his turn by making various movement while covering Changbin with teasings like "You're huge and yet you're so tight " but he didn't forget also to cover him with softer words even xompliment like "You're such a good boy" "you're pretty it hurts".
Changbin seemed to be living in another world, and no words came out of his mouth, preferring instead to yelp and beg.
-In the drawer ... quick" Changbin mentioned, leaving Felix curious as he opened the drawer and came across a box of condoms, which Changbin seemed to be prepared for! He took one of the condoms and slipped it on. The best was about to begin.
So when Felix finally decided to stick his penis in his hole, his voice was so high-pitched that even the blond was surprised. Fortunately, the acoustic foam glued all aroung the brunette's bedroom was here to mask their obscene noises , although he used it definitively to record songs, for being fucked it was perfect too!
So the back-and-forth began, slow at first to allow Changbin to get used to it, but as time went by, the more Felix picked up the pace. He himself began to talk less, preferring to devote his energy to his movement while panting.
Changbin would let out loud, high-pitched whimpers that by now he was sure to have a sore throat.
This went on for some time before Felix managed to get to his climax tiut like Changbin. And then, at different intervals, they ejaculated with a rippling groan that would definitely wake up a neighbor.
Felix withdrew, discarded the cappote and hovered over Changbin. They both caught their breath, embracing each other.
-"Do you often fuck your customers?" asked Feoix curiously.
- "Only the ones who find him attractive" teased Changbin with a wink
Felix chuckled, even though the bed was soiled he wanted to postpone cleaning until the next day so he could fall asleep in his arms.
So they two fell asleep from exhaustion, proving that the evening had been extremely useful.
𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑⋆·˚ ༘ *
But Felix had kept his word, and so he returned every evening at the same time, and they shared a menu... Well, sharing was more Changbin's mealbthan other thing.
Over time, they got to know each other and became close friends. From that heated evening, they would sometimes sleep together again, or Felix would offer Changbin a blowjob during his shift in the toilet cabins .
Maks the two of them began to develop a real mutual attraction that became naturally tactile between them. Felix would his cheek and peck at it to kiss it. Changbin would sit by his side and let the Australian feed him.
A real little couple, although they never officially said so. Maybe they'd just have to wait for the day when Changbin would be the ideal boydy type of Felix had since the day one of their meeting.
A day when the brunette would be so tight in his outfit that Felix wouldn't be able to resist ...
𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑⋆·˚ ༘ *
This evening was just like any other, Felix would come in, sit at his table and wait for Changbin. He could see him in the distance on his roller skates, the oldest had grown a lot over the months. His belly had become so massive that it began to hang out of his shirt, creating a wide space where his belly could be seen between the buttons. His shorts were crushing his poor honey-colored thighs, which had been carrying his weight for too long. And his now big breasts became so large that even some waitresses began to envy him.
-"Lixie ... you're here" declared Changbin as he approached him more slowly than before, after the poor man had weighed in at over 132 kilos, he was officially obese and still loved his plump, round body.
Felix also loved his body. He loved to grab his ass and say "it's now so fat now thanks to me".
The two had fallen so deeply for each other that they hadn't stopped seeing each other every day without missing a single evening. . We'll bet it was due to sex they loved each other's presence more than just kissing to the point of losing their voices.
-"hey beauty! Looks like someone's been eating well lately" he teased, caressing his chubby cheek playfully.
-"I have a secret admirer who likes to feed me" he retorted amused.
The two of them were so complicent that everyone could see that their relationship was so fused and unique that no one could boast of having the same one.
So Changbin took his usual order and added a few cheeseburgers and a large slice of cheesecake. What was it? It was for him after all.
Then he returned a few minutes later, surprising Felix with all the food.
-"Is it for me? He said with a twinkle in his eye, leaving Changbin to giggle.
The blond chuckled too before adding "My Changbinnie is finally becoming a big little pig , your shirt isn't going to hold on for long you know? "
Changbin (who had already started to eat a cheeseburger) shrugged his shoulders before leaning closer to Felix and whispering a few words that no one but him could hear.
"I've already holed my shorts down my ass. "
Felix blushed when he wanted to see, but Changbin's reddened cheeks stopped him.
-And otherwise what's up in life?" Asked the brunette as he continued to eat.
To be honest, that's all he ever did, and since he'd become so heavy, his uncle preferred to limit his work, which meant he did worked less but ate more.
In any case, he was sure to eat enough to keep his shirts buttonbeven more tighter.
Felix was overjoyed, the brunette was already eating without stopping and didn't need any help, but above all he'd seen the button on his shirt disapear to leave an place fold on his growing body, and Chanbgin didn't even seem to react to it.
This was too much for Felix, who decided to kiss the brunette full on the lips, not caring that there were other people around, or that carless whisper was playing in the background or that the brunette had the sweet taste of chesecake in his mouth.
His eyes were open to their situation. He wanted Changbin more than anything else, he needed him in the morning when he woke up, at noon to send him pick up line that would make him blush and at night to treat him to food and sleep next to him with his Chanbin sized pillow.
-"Be mine please", he declared, looking him straight in the eye.
Changbin was confuse by all this but couldn't help smiling broadly and replied "yes I do, I want to be yours as much as you will be mine".
So the new couple held hands for the first time in as they were finally together while they were in a lovey dovey bubble that no one could interompre.
Not even Chanhbin's shirt where the buttons popped off one by one exposing his belly to everyone's view
𖤐⭒๋࣭ ⭑⋆·˚ ༘ *
-"Come and dance Binnie!
- "No, I'm too full, I can't make it"
- "Come on it's for you boyfriend" begged as Felix pouting
Changbin finally decided to accept. Today was a rest day but they were still here at Dwaekki's dinner, mostly for their chea food and this jukebox playing old classic music.
Felix was in a mood for dancing even if Changbin only know to shake his whole body when he waled, but in fact he didn't know how to dance very well
But for Felix, he'd make an exception: when his hands rested on his body, he couldn't stretch out fully in his arms ariund him , je did make a thing in his heart as he smilled even more
If it wasn't love that changbin felt then I don't know
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vstrcl · 4 months
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HARU LEE / COSMIC. ASTRAL PROJECTION.
001.  GENERAL
name:  Haru Lee nicknames:  Ru ( like rue ) age: 30 date of birth:  March 4th, 1993 zodiac:  Pisces place of birth : New Haven, Connecticut current residence:  New York gender:  Cis Woman pronouns:  She/Her sexuality:  Bisexual occupation:  Ballet Teaching Assistant
faceclaim: Kang Seulgi height : 5' 3" tattoos:  None piercings:  Ears ( earlobes ) distinguishing features:  Jet black hair and sharp eyes positive traits: Diligence & affable negative traits:  Insecure & pessimistic likes:  Lo-fi & 80's synthwave music dislikes:  Bugs/insects fears:  making mistakes hobbies:  anything distracting: watching shows/movies, blasting music through her headphones at dangerous volumes habits:   listening to the sounds of rain/storms to help her sleep
002.  EXTRA ORDINARY
tw: head injuries, mention of medical procedures
haru was performing in a competition in a group of four. she still can't recall how exactly it happened. she was doing a turn she had done a thousand times, and the next thing she knew she was falling off the stage. when her family and friends retell the story they all talk about the sickening sound of her head hitting the floor. how it thundered over the music still playing.
there were complications. her brain had swelled, and surgery was required. her mom was horrible at recounting the events but the gist is she was put into a medically induced coma and they weren't sure if/when she would wake up. she was in it for 9 months because her mom had refused to give up.
one of the few things she remembers were instances of sort of out-of-body experiences. she could see her hospital room where her mom would be by her bedside or a nurse would be checking on her. then those out-of-body experiences continued when she was able to return home and sleep in her own bed. but they were a little different.
it often happened while she was asleep. she had never been able to lucid dream before but after looking online that's what she chalked it up to be. though when it extended past people in her vicinity she became suspicious.
NOW, she can easily put herself into a trance when she wants to astral project.
it will still happen when she is asleep, even when she doesn't want it to. although her physical body is "resting," she will feel tired when it happens during the night.
Things she can't do yet:
project for longer than three hours before she begins feeling negative effects (fatigue, migraines, unable to focus)
project while conscious
interact with physical objects while projecting
shield/protect her body while away from it
Things she can do:
plant ideas/suggestions in others' heads while in astral form through a whisper that the other can't actually hear
interact with non-corporeal beings (in astral form)
choose whether or not she wants to be seen by others in her astral form
project anywhere of her choosing
truthfully, she doesn't think much of her power. she can't imagine herself using it for some greater good or evil. so she is just doing what she wants with it and actively trying to learn more about it/ how she can control it; to what end? she doesn't know yet.
codename COSMIC was given to her by her friend with vague descriptions about space and traveling the cosmos in her astral form with metaphors that didn't make sense. haru thought it was silly and rolled her eyes any time she was called that, but it's pretty, so it grew on her. she doesn't mind being called 'cosmic', but she prefers her real name
003.  EXTRA
Haru is a second-generation Korean-American. Her Korean is good but not enough to escape some criticism from her grandparents for not being fluent.
She moved to New York a few years ago to further her career in ballet. She has been dancing since she was five.
Haru lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment. Her parents will still help her financially even though she never really asked them to (but she's still gonna take it)
Her older sister is deceased. She died while Haru had been in a coma. They were very close.
She has not performed since the accident out of fear something bad will happen. So, she chose to help teach kids ballet instead.
Wanted connection - her bestie that gave her a codename. Gender doesn't matter. Close in age to Haru ~30-35.
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artemx746 · 3 months
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•Nakamura Eita [he hated his American name] was strange and unsociable, but he was loved.
•He died when Ethan was 9, so he had a lot of memories of him and it seems his grandfather was fond of him.
•His grandfather loved his family, but was estranged from it - Ethan's grandmother, a second-generation Korean immigrant, never asked for her husband's attention or forced him to devote time to their son. Ethan was still amazed that they actually had a baby.
•His grandfather had the best car workshop in their tiny town in Arizona. Even people from big cities came to the Nakamura family workshop.
•His grandfather never refused to help. If he was called to subdue or help do something, he almost silently came and helped without asking for anything in return.
•He always wore long-sleeved shirts, even in the unbearable dry heat. Neither Ethan nor his father had seen his bare hands.
•His grandfather behaved very strangely with Ethan himself.
•He was gentle with him, held him in his arms, carried him on his back, hugged him, talked to Ethan about everything, even about things that His grandfather couldn't understand, such as butterflies and types of clouds.
•His grandfather knew Morse code, but refused to teach it to Ethan or even his father.
•When his grandfather was dying quietly and peacefully painlessly, at least in appearance, he called Ethan to his bed and literally said, "This scum loves tragedy, - you will not fight off her tenacious paws, being my grandson, and when... you will meet him, you will understand everything yourself, just love him and be with him to the last, never leave him, it will only hurt you both."
•He then said that he loved them all, his wife, son and grandson, Although he could not overcome his pain and asked them to convey these words to them.
•When Ethan left the room, his grandfather tapped something with his fingers on his bedside table.
• In 6 years, Alabaster Torrington will translate for him this "I love you, Jim" means it.
Nakamura Eita, - son of Vulcan, honored veteran legionnaire of the second cohort.
okay first of all fuck u anon /j
Legacy of Vulcan Ethan legacy of Vulcan Ethan legacy of Vulcan Ethan legacy of Vulcan Ethan legacy of Vulcan Ethan
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nanimonasho · 11 months
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First, WOW. You are so talented. I love seeing your illustrations when they appear on my dashboard. Second, I just wanted to say that it took me a second to realize you were Japanese. I didn't know MASH was known outside of the United States. I think I met one British MASH fan a few years ago, and was surprised If you don't mind me asking, how did you get into MASH?
Wow!
Thank you for your message!
It's a lot of fun to draw MASH fan art, so I'm glad you said that!
Yes, I'm Japanese and I live in Japan now. Unfortunately, I can't watch MASH in this country.
But I heard that it was broadcast with Japanese subtitles in the past. ( I wanted to see it...!)
In Japan, I think only a few people know the TV version of MASH. I think it's about people who are older and interested in overseas dramas(or cultures). I've never seen anyone in the younger generation like me (I'm 27 years old). The movie version is better known than the TV version.
In such an environment, the reason why I knew about MASH is, of course, because I was using this “tumblr”!
I originally liked American and British comedy movies and TV shows from the 70s and 90s, so I started using tumblr to get that information.
I think it was an old comedy TV relation, MASH images and gifs were on my dashboard. I didn't care about anything at that time.
It's a funny story, but at that time (couple years ago), I was just addicted to SNL and I was watching a video about “Back to the Future Auditions”, sketch of some imitations. Then, my favorite actor Bill Hader was imitating Alan Alda, and I didn't know who is Alan Alda at that time, but I was somewhat curious about it. It was highly praised that how perfect that imitation was.
But I noticed it after that. He's the one who always flows to my dashboard!
Then, I looked for MASH videos, and unfortunately I couldn't find the main part, but I was able to see various scenes in fragments, so I became a fan at a tremendous speed from there.
There was another funny story. Yes, I watched SNL often, so I looked at the image of Trapper and I thought, “Wow, is this Will Ferrell!? No way. The times are different, aren't they?" I also made a stupid mistake. I don't understand when I think about it now.
Anyway, I can't help wondering what kind of drama it is, so I immediately imported a DVD or signed up for Hulu and watched whole episodes.
But there were no Japanese subtitles, so I’m not sure if I had understand the details. But even if I didn't understand the words, I laughed and cried a lot, so I think it's a really wonderful TV show. I strongly wish this drama would be broadcast in Japan as well. I think it can be accepted in this era.
I can't put it into words well how I think about the background of the Korean War and the Vietnam War, but I think such severe things, such as the pessimistic view of the world drifting throughout this story and the mental states of the characters who have to live in extreme conditions, touched my heart. Of course, there's also a queer atmosphere, and I love that so much.
If we can watch mash now in Japan, I'm sure we’ll make a very big fandom like "Good Omens", "Our Flag Means Death" and "What we do in the shadows"!
These TVs are also very popular in Japan, and you can find a lot of wonderful fan art.
Anyway, how much my spirit was saved thanks to MASH! I'm surprised that I keep drawing so much fan art about one TV show. Thank you so much for seeing.
Omg, I've never told anyone how much I love MASH before, so I'm very excited now!
I'm sorry for my poor English, but thank you for reading this!
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freemindedspirit · 2 years
Note
Hlo there!Can you do reading abt who in bts is a feminist?
SO BEFORE STARTING THIS READING A FEW THINGS I WANT YALL TO BE AWARE OF.
It’s extremely easy to judge someone political engagement when they come from a different country than yourself especially when you’re like, American or Western European and the people you are asking about are Korean, which is still a pretty traditional country when it comes to gender roles.When I read for people, I always try to take into account how their upbringing was different from mine, and try to approach things with curiosity and compassion rather than a “holier than thou” mentality, which truly helps no one.I’m not saying we shouldn’t call them out if they do or sa something sexist, but first of all don’t come at me or at them because of this and second of all check yourself before trying to get other people’s ass.Is the action you’re taking truly helping the cause or are you performing activism just to be proud of yourself and shit on someone else ?
PS: (if you’re unaware of all the backlash openly feminists peopel get in South Korea I beg of you to read upon it before even daring to continue reading this post, because it is I think necessary to know that to truly understanding South Korean feminism and how it became how it is today.
With that in mind, I’ll be using a pendulum and my intuition for this.
As usual, for entertainment purposes only.
Who in BTS considers himself a feminist ?
Namjoon :He strongly affirms himself as a feminist and will not back down despite backlash.He’s aware he lost a lot of ARMYs’ trust because of the mistakes of his younger years, and he’s genuinely sorry and trying to do better, and making tremendous progress at that.He’s so much more aware than he used to be, and a part of him still feels guilty he didn’t know any better.There’s also a small part of him though that’s afraid of crossing the line between “using his privilege to speak out” and “speaking over women”.He’s however certain that he educated himself enough to be able to tell the difference to make sure it doesn’t happen, or is able to fix it if it does.
Seokjin:The pendulum strongly said yes, but I’m getting a bit of “he’s confused but he got the spirit” energy.I think he does considers himself a feminist, but he may feel like he “doesn’t deserve the title” in some way?Likes he’s very aware he hasn’t figured it all out and still needs education, he feels like he needs a lot of education actually but I don’t think he’s that far ?Theres just a lot of self doubt in general wether he’s doing the right thing or not, bu he’s overall very willing to work on it and listen and learn more.
Yoongi :Tbh I almost feel like he was a tiny bit offended that I asked 💀A huge YES again.The respect of humans right, equality and open mindedness have always been part of his value system.I think he had had some personal, up close experiences dealing with toxic masculinity early on in his life and it caused him to question things such a gender roles and gender inequality pretty early on.However he’s still a human being who makes mistakes, but he’s always extents determined to fix them and do better and better and educate himself and others.He might actually have been educating the other members for a long time?Even before debut I’m feeling ?Obviously he isn’t and never was a perfect person who was always able to tell when he said something wrong but I’m really getting the idea he’s quite knowledgeable.
Hoseok: yes again.I’m kinda getting that feminism specifically isn’t his number one priority, but he quite aware of te concept of intersectionality and enjoy learning a lot about it, how being part of certain minorities affect someone’s quality of life,traumas, how they can be put in danger.Don’t kill me but I’m having the feeling that right now he wants to learn a lot about the LGBTQ+ community, it’s history and how it came to being, especially because it’s not talked about at all in South Korea or barely.I think experiencing racism, xenophobia and homophobia ( yes calling BTS gay because they wear make up is homophobia, you don’t need to actually be gay to experience it) opened his eyes to a whole lot of things when BTS started to go big all over the world around 2016-2017.I keep seeing him stumbling upon an ARMY calling him a twink on Twitter then him looking it up an laughing to himself.I don’t actually know how much he can understand English this may not have ever been a true moment but I think it speaks to how curious and open he has become to how diverse can people lives be.
Park Jimin:Another confused but happy to learn boy.I think for him it’s more about internal work than external education.His deep compassion and need to see justice makes him an obvious support to the feminist cause, but he has some internal issues to deal with, linked to toxic masculinity, toxic expectations of himself as a man, gender expression.He also has made tremendous progress in that field but I feel like he’s still unsure of himself, he still catches himself going back to his old beliefs about what kind of person a man should be and suddenly he’s afraid he hasn’t made any progress and is spiraling in self doubt.Somebody tell this man it’s okay to fall sometimes, even if you know better,omg gonna cry he’s genuinely afraid that he may not be doing enough😭buddy you’re light years ahead of most men we know, we all raised our standards thanks to you.
Taehyung:A big yes again.Most definitely identify as a feminist, but he’s still a traditional, family man.Even though he’s feminist he still wants to find someday that family woman who will give him his big family five kids two dogs a pretty picket fence and who will love and cherish him and their kids and be happy being a mother.He will be an extremely involved dad and will expect the same of his spouse.I vote him most likely to rely on his fortune to be a stay at home dad and his spouse also staying at home for some time .He’s perfectly aware though that’s not every woman wants that, and just wants everyone to be able to pursue what they truly want without others butting in thinking they know more than them what’s good for them.Really “live your life the way you want it and mind your business” mindset
Jungkook:heard a “YEAAAAAH” even before grabbing my pendulum .I think he’s emotionally very invested in it ?I think when it comes to the women in his life he’s always ready to help, like making sure someone gets home safe, talking with you on the phone if you’re walking at night in a scary street, calling out creeps and sexual harassment.He may not be that involved like in terms of donations to feminist associations and shit, but on the personal level he kinda uses his privilege.height and muscles to his advantage 💀Like I can see him standing up between an old guy who was whistling at middle schoolers in uniforms very unhappy until the middle schoolers were far enough and explaining calmly to the old guy that he’s being a creepy pedophile and it’s in his best interest to never do that again.In terms of toxic or healthy masculinity I think he’s pretty healthy, but he enjoys being this like, softball baby star candy who looks like he could kill you.He also still has a hard time being completely open with his emotions but it’s more his personality and “I’m only feel pain when hyung is in pain” mindset.
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msfbgraves · 10 months
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What mental health issues do you think Terry has? Not to trivialize/make fun of people with actual issues. I’m just curious. So many people say he’s a psychopath. I’ve also heard people say he is Bipolar, a Narcissist. Even has Anti-social Personality Disorder, depression.
Nonnie, I am not a psychiatrist, and as such unqualified to diagnose anyone. I'm a historian.
Now, historians are pretty good at saying: "In these circumstances, people are likely to do X, because that's what they have done the last 20 times this happened."
Terry is part Jewish it seems, going by Cobra Kai, and given his age, his parents will have been through WW II. Which means there is colossal trauma there, especially for the Jewish parent. Given his last name, Silver, a likely anglicised version of "Silber" which you can find in many traditionally Jewish surnames, his father is the most likely candidate.
Terry's family is wealthy, yet Terry served in Vietnam. That is weird. Especially since he would have likely been headed to college and exempt from the draft. Why then did he enlist? When his father is Jewish and lived through WWII, and he did not flee Hitler (probably not because 1938-1968 is often too short a time to establish the connections you need to build not only a business but the kind of business empire that would be hung up on legacy, another one of Terry's fixations) then it's likely that his father served in the US Army. And where? Well, Terry is obsessed with Asia, not Europe, and hates the Japanese enough to be very crudely racist to Mr. Miyagi, so my guess is the Pacific. Dad served in Asia, he'll serve in Asia. Only that his Dad would have been thought a war hero, and he, a 'Nam vet, a morally corrupt loser.
The whole Cobra Kai "No Mercy" schtick could have been not so much a Vietnam thing but a second generation WWII trauma because of a too close encounter with the Japanese imperial Army and their attitude to POW's. No mercy indeed. Yes maybe Terry got it from Captain Turner, but that doesn't negate this theory. Maybe Turner served in the Pacific too. Note that what he teaches is Korean. The Koreans also suffered terribly under the Japanese invasion of their country.
Oh, and to add to generational trauma. If Terry's mother is not Jewish, that would not help because Jewish fathers who lived through WW II very often had issues with that, even when they themselves of course chose to marry gentile women, likely for protection from antisemitism. Notice again that his surname, if Jewish, has likely been anglicised.
Terry's nickname for Daniel, the constantly referenced "Danny boy", hints at Irish-American heritage on his mother's side. Very probably Catholic. And that, too, was not mainstream growing up in the 1950's. So Terry's a double outsider with a likely traumatised father, a desire to prove himself so great he enlisted at the end of a war that was already going badly, a war trauma all of his own with intrusive memories, a fondness for alcohol and drugs, which could be self-medication, he's also likely into boys and, later in life, he feels that he needs to hide behind a façade, again likely because of an intense fear of persecution. I mean he devises his own philosophy on how to, as quickly as possible, incapacitate enemies. "Strike first", if fighting is inevitable, right? And it is, in his worldview.
Also he gets off on causing people pain, either himself or by proxy. He wants people to experience fear and pain, maybe in a perverse desire to connect. War vets, be it WWI or later, often talk about an intense disconnect to people who have not been through crippling pain and fear. So if he wants to get close to people, he needs to make sure they can relate to him, yeah? How does he do that? By inflicting pain and fear. On Daniel. On his Cobra Kai 'children'.
And that, I think, is What Is Wrong with Terry Silver.
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chocolatemilk139 · 2 years
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the do or die part
reader x mingyu
summary: There are only a few things Actor Kim Mingyu really has to worry about: 1. Making sure Soonyoung doesn’t murder the writer with a set prop 2. Making sure his manager doesn’t murder HIM with a set prop 3. Making sure a serial killer doesn’t murder them all. Seungcheol would argue it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever cross a serial killer, ever, but the FBI’s crime stats would beg to differ. He could prove it with the right book research. He’s definitely going to the bookstore every day instead of memorizing lines for research purposes only and NOT because he wants to kiss the owner. Definitely not that.
genre: fluff, barely-there-angst, actor au, non idol au, bookstores, mingyu being great at acting but terrible at flirting
warnings: no actual serial killer, tiny angst?, mingyu probably needs a therapist (but he’s okay guys), fear of heights
word count: 16.2k
a/n: hi! Accidentally found this sitting in my docs half-finished and decided to gift it to my bff for her birthday! Told from Mingyu’s perspective because it was a little too fun to write that way. Anyways I hope you enjoy reading this mess <3
——————
don’t read the last page (i want your midnights)
Of all the places to film a romcom they chose the one seaside town without a consistent weather pattern, right next to the sea but not the beach, and filled with those small town personalities that despise anything that causes a disturbance to their generations of peace and quiet. What else could be more of a disturbance than having a 300 person crew park their lives in your town for a whole month of filming and take up the one usable paved road for 12 hours of filming what would only be about 30 minutes of usable footage. Mingyu would hate himself if the roles were reversed. It’s why he doesn’t do anything but smile and apologize again (in that really small voice he shrinks into frequently) when the barista gives him nothing but a glare of murderous intent after he knocks over the tip jar in an attempt to take his latte. He wonders if she would appreciate him handing her a list of tips to get away with his murder (complete with his hotel room number for easy access). He’s listened to enough CrimeJunkies to be confident he could come up with a pretty foolproof plan. Seungcheol would say something like that is just another side effect of the Self-Sacrificing Kim Mingyu Need to Throw Himself Off a Cliff to Get People to Like Him. What’s wrong with seeking approval, hyung? He’s an actor for a reason, for God’s sake.
“And you probably only became an actor for that reason,” Soonyoung points out. Mingyu throws the straw wrapper (paper straw, because he’s not some monster) at his face because even if it’s mostly true, he doesn’t need his lifelong leech of a best friend to point it out.
“All I want is to be in a movie with some crime and a serial killer,” Mingyu sighs (half of what Soonyoung says doesn’t deign a proper response), “Is that too much to ask?”
“Apparently,” Soonyoung snorts. “Why don’t you plan something useful like how to murder Mr. Jeon?”
“It’s not his fault really,” Mingyu says, immediately on the defensive, “he’s just the writer, he doesn’t have a huge say on who they hire for the movie.” It’s not entirely true, but he knew that sucking up to Wonwoo maybe wasn’t the best shot at getting cast for his new (CRIME!) piece he’s working on. Wonwoo is still nice though, buys Mingyu’s morning coffee to replace the original one he inevitably spills and/or loses, and he’s still working on something he’s written. A Korean-American romcom, of course, painfully devoid of serial killers. He should be thankful to be the second male lead, he can finally add in another donation.
Soonyoung lets out a long, exasperated sigh (as he’s wont to do with any mention of Jeon Wonwoo, Wonwoo Jeon whatsoever). “Fine, fine, if you want to defend that scumbag of a man I won’t stop you. But if he even speaks to me after living off your cooking for two months and still not giving you that role I promise to take a knife–”
Mingyu immediately shoves the bagel into Soonyoung’s mouth. “If you say any more I no longer have deniability in court.”
In between coughing and glaring at Mingyu he rolls his eyes.
. . .
They wind up back at set, inevitably, because there is no such thing as a real break. Unless you are Jeonghan. He finds him sleeping in a foldable chair behind one of the food trucks that Leigh ordered. His female co-star is in the middle of some familial drama scene between her and her mother (he can hear the shouting across the street which he assumes is the goal). If anything this is less a romcom than an exploration of the Korean American woman’s identity from the point of view of an aspiring lawyer in a small town. But it’s easier to say romcom.
Mingyu shoves Jeonghan’s shoulder lightly to wake him and is faced with the groggy glare of his manager.
“Is someone dying?” he asks gruffly. Mingyu merely smiles.
“No, but the director said I have to be ready to go in thirty minutes for the next scene,” he says lightly.
“Did you read your lines?” Jeonghan asks, eyes already fluttering shut. Mingyu hums. “Okay, well, you are a big boy, you can find your way to the makeup and hair trailer,” he replies, patting Mingyu’s knee softly before leaning back further into his chair. Mingyu huffs but leaves him be. Logically he could hire a more…enthusiastic manager, but at this point it would be a waste. And he can’t exactly say he doesn’t mind someone not controlling every aspect of his life. Jeonghan said he used to work for a kpop group in Seoul before they disbanded and it was the worst, most stressful six months of his life. Somehow that translated to him becoming the most lackadaisical manager Mingyu had ever met. Still, he gets the contracts signed and somewhere underneath his disinterested persona, Mingyu knows he genuinely cares. Somehow.
Dokyeom and Minghao are already in the trailer with brushes in their hands when Mingyu knocks. Minghao pulls him into the chair with a “You’re late,” and Dokyeom moves over to the clothes rack, shifting through the shirts.
“Nice to see you guys too,” Mingyu sing-songs.
“Hi,” Minghao scowls. “DK, hand me the one with 43 on the side.”
“What’s this scene, again?” Dokyeom asks even as he hands one of the palettes to Minghao.
“Taking Lee and her grandma out for lunch,” Mingyu offers with a grin.
Minghao snorts. “You’re lucky you are supposed to look like a borderline farmhand half the time. Does your character even have a solid job?”
“Uh, resident handyman?”
“Anything that gives him an excuse to take off his shirt,” Minghao says, then, “Get him the blue flannel.”
Dokyeom holds it up from the rack and Mingyu catches a glimpse in the mirror. “Oo, can I–”
Minghao cuts him off with a brush to his throat. “If you don’t hand that to me within thirty seconds after the director ends scene I will skewer you.”
Mingyu merely grins and nods, compliant as always. Dokyeom laments the great fall of the cashmere sweater of ’21 to Mingyu’s turkey sandwich. When he’s free to go (when they can hear Director Han screaming his name across set) he manages to knock over the bucket of brushes on one of the counters and bends to help them pick it up. Minghao waves him and his apologies off with a reassuring smile and a snide remark about how he can’t let Mingyu get yelled at again, even if Director Han still loves him. He does memorize his lines the best.
. . .
have i known you 20 seconds (or 20 years?)
The next day he is off because, according to Director Han, Leigh wasn’t Tiffany Lee enough in the previous day’s footage and they needed to reshoot most of the family interactions. Needless to say, Leigh looked ready to murder someone over breakfast so Mingyu steered in the opposite direction to let Seungkwan (the actual male lead, the one Tiffany will end up with when the credits roll) handle that. Leigh seemed to like Seungkwan more than him anyways. He finds Soonyoung at the coffee shop again, sans most of the crew at this hour of the day. It didn’t stop the barista from sending death glares again.
Soonyoung already has a latte waiting for him and is ready to pounce before Mingyu manages to properly sit down.
“In the many hours I have had to myself, alone, as a stunt director in a movie that literally doesn’t have any stunts, I have stumbled upon a treasure trove–”
“Please don’t tell me you robbed a bank because you were bored.”
“--That holds all you may ever desire. Mainly books on really randomly specific topics.”
“Please don’t tell me they have a tiger section.”
Soonyoung’s grin turns practically feral. “Oh but they do!” he giggles. Then he pauses for a minute to add, “But they also have a whole section for true crime psychopath stuff you have an unnatural obsession with.”
Mingyu already has his wallet in his hands when he grabs Soonyoung’s arm to drag him out of the cafe. “Let’s go.”
. . .
Soonyoung babbles as he leads them down a few side streets that are too close for anything besides pedestrian traffic, and largely devoid of pedestrians at this time of day. The townspeople seem to really be leaning into this “avoiding outsiders as much as possible” gig. Or maybe they don’t have many errands to run at 10:40 on a Tuesday at a…hardware store…a fish place?...and a bookstore.
He only knows it’s a bookstore because 1. Soonyoung stops abruptly and spreads his arms out proudly declaring “This is the bookstore!” and 2. The small glimpse he gets of the front windows only shows even, carefully stacked and lined colorful book spines. It makes him practically giddy, with this little anticipation tingling the bottom of his feet and he hasn’t even stepped inside yet. The sign above it reads 105 North Tower and he’s sure it’s one of those insignificant literary references that Seungcheol would berate him for not catching. He should take him here sometime.
“It’s so quaint,” he hears himself gush. He means it as the highest compliment.
Soonyoung rolls his eyes and drags him through the front door (it has a goddamned bell!) and Mingyu is so distracted practically swirling around, looking at all the shelves, with their variations in color. There’s a system here, and most shelves have pretty little calligraphy signs of different topics. It’s not chaotic like most small bookstores–there’s a meticulous air to everything–but Mingyu absolutely adores it.
“You’re back,” an unfamiliar voice says and Mingyu startledly swings to see someone behind the counter. They are the only one in the shop–apparently the owner (they are always the owners in this small of a town). They don’t have the customer service smile, in fact, they look pretty unapproachable (like most people in this town) but not entirely unkind. They are pretty, shorter than him (but so is everyone else) and have this baseball cap on and gray cardigan and the same meticulous put-togetherness of the rest of the shop.
“Yeah, I brought my friend here,” Soonyoung says cheerily. If Mingyu knows him he probably spent all of yesterday chatting up the owner-bookkeeper, establishing some sort of friendship even if it was one-sided. The bookkeeper hums, glances at Mingyu (who tried to give his friendliest smile) and returns to the book with some level of disinterest. “Let me know if you need anything,” they say, looking back down. Mingyu mentally runs through the list of things Seungcheol liked to drill into him, like how it probably had nothing to do with them disliking Mingyu personally after seeing him for 2.5 seconds, and you should always read the best possible interpretation of someone’s actions. He swears Seungcheol learned that from some teaching module, but it works so he sticks to it.
“Don’t break anything,” Soonyoung says, already tugging him through the aisles again. (Just who do his friends think he is? Some sort of robot dog on wheels they can drag anywhere they like? A short montage burst of every time he lets them get away with it flashes through his mind as the answer.)
“I’m not gonna break anything,” he protests, trying to read the signs they pass as they go further to the back of the store. The calligraphy is gorgeous, and the font is altered on each one slightly to match the topic. It’s obvious they were done by hand in the “this is too meticulous and careful to have been done by anything but a full, feeling human heart” kind of way. Gardening has flowers blooming between the open spaces of the loops. Mystery’s letters are blockish with empty spaces contrasting with the black background. Caring for Dogs has its own section (“As it should,” Mingyu mutters) and the A and O have been turned into paw prints. Soonyoung drags them to the tiger section first and he admires the stripes the letters turn into with little orange accents. Soonyoung has already started pulling out a book that looks like just a bunch of Bengal tiger photos before he even bothers pointing Mingyu in the direction of those alleged books of interest.
The True Crime placard is stylized like the familiar TOP SECRET font complete with a little magnifying glass by the last E and it makes Mingyu laugh so much he snaps a picture. This section is far enough in the back corner to not have to mind how affronted the owner might seem at something like this. He wasn’t even really sure if the bookkeeper had made them herself or got someone else to. She didn’t seem like the type.
There were the staples of Ted Bundy and the Zodiac Killer (to be expected) but also some on the Hillside Strangler, the Austin Yogurt Shop Killer, and a whole series on the Green River Killer.
But there’s also Last Call by Elon Green and a whole shelf just on missing persons cases. It’s this one he settles on, and thumbs the spines until pulling out a couple to check the blurbs. He accumulates a stack and finally when his knees hurt he sees the bean bag against the wall. He carries his books and finally plops down, opening the first book on Alissa Turney. Distantly, he sets a mental reminder to call Devin and see how he’s doing these days.
Time seems sluggish in the way that in this corner it’s hard to tell if it’s moving or not. The twilight of not having anything to do and about to be called back to set. It passes, somehow, because eventually Soonyoung comes to find him and let him know he has to go back and approve some stunt equipment they are using for a night scene and (in his words) “make sure they don’t impale themselves on something metal.” Mingyu waves goodbye without looking up (they are already discussing possible perpetrators, he should have brought his notebook to trace out connections) before he remembers that he should probably thank his friend. He’s already gone by then.
A text from Jeonghan saying he bought dinner is what finally pulls him from the chair and up to the front desk, still clutching his stack of books. The bookkeeper is still there, except this time they’re busy clacking away at their desk computer. They still don’t look up until Mingyu sets the books down on the counter and clears his throat. Bookkeeper finally looks up with a borderline scowl. This close, Mingyu sees the way their short hair is tucked behind their ears and under the cap and when Bookkeeper raises an eyebrow, clearly disturbed, he can’t help but find them a bit cute. Mingyu must be going insane from the seawater.
“Hi,” he begins, almost squeakily. “I actually wanted to ask you a question. Or a favor really.”
Bookkeeper surveys him once again and lets out a barely imperceptible sigh. “Believe it or not the ‘I forgot my wallet’ excuse has been used before and it won’t work on me.”
Mingyu blinks at them once, twice, before it clicks and he practically guffaws. “Oh no, I have money! I usually forget my wallet but then Soonyoung started stealing it so I had to be more careful about that.” Bookkeeper looks unimpressed but Mingyu feels himself pressing onward. Or at least the words shoveling to the front of his mouth without a filter like basic human interaction protocol. He scrambles to pull out his wallet for proof. “But anyways,” he chuckles, “I was actually just thinking about if it might be possible for you to like, keep these books here? At the store? After I pay for them of course.”
“Like, hold them for you?” Bookkeeper offers skeptically.
“Yeah, you see,” Mingyu begins, “my manager kinda put me on a ban from reading—“
For once it seems to crack something like a smile on Bookkeeper’s face and there’s amusement in her voice when they repeat “A ban on reading?”
Mingyu is already blushing, he can feel it in the heat in his neck, because obviously there isn’t a moment of peace when he’s not embarrassing himself. “He thinks I get distracted easily with my true crime hobbies and I can’t be ‘in the right mindset’ for a romcom if I’m reading too much serial killer stuff, whatever that means.”
The silence falls between them again and it’s easy to slip back into overthinking, watching the way Bookkeeper taps their fingers on the edge of the counter silently thinking. The way they finally pauses and huffs out some air upwards with resignation and it’s so—
“I’ll keep them behind the counter,” they say in an even quieter voice and it makes Mingyu’s heart do weird things like beat irregularly (and he’s not even freaking out at the edge of a second floor balcony!) Bookkeeper is already picking up the first book and scanning it.
“Thank you so much,” Mingyu breathes out, “I honestly don’t know how to repay you. Except by, you know, paying for the books but also if you wanted to charge me for keeping them in your space you probably could and I wouldn’t really mind—“ The look the bookkeeper gives him shuts him up immediately and he grins before blurting out, “I’m Mingyu by the way!“
Bookkeeper (now he swears that’s not the correct title) looks up at him warily (or wearily, the expression was a toss up) and gives the slightest sigh. “Yn,” they say. Finally. Mingyu knows he’s beaming.
“Pretty,” he blurts out before realizing what he said and wanting to die. He has enough experience in this field to know how to cover though and immediately points to the one of the nearest bookshelf placards. “All the calligraphy signs and everything are really pretty, I mean. They look handmade. Did you do them?”
When he turns back there is something close to pink on Bookkeeper’s face and they clear their throat. “My brother did,” they say. Yn opens a drawer and pulls out some twine thread and Mingyu watches in adoration when they use it to tie around the stack of books, crossed on both sides and tied up at the top in a ribbon like a gift box. “It saves plastic bags,” Bookkeeper–Yn—says when they sees Mingyu staring. Mingyu merely nods. He can hear Soonyoung snorting in his head. Wow, is environmental consciousness hot now? Yes, quite frankly, Soonyoung. You wouldn’t know since you practically live off plastic utensils like a heathen.
There’s a beat of silence while Mingyu racks his head for whatever he was supposed to be doing. It’s slipped his mind completely.
“Don’t you have to be on set?” Yn asks, amusement slipping into their voice.
“How’d you know I worked on set?”
Yn laughs then, something loud and honest and God, I thought it couldn’t get worse but it just does. “You’re an idiot,” they say simply, but for some reason it doesn’t sting. It helps that he’s called that all the time. “Are you some random side character or what?”
Mingyu has an initial urge to lie and just go along with that before having a vivid flashforward montage of a series of misunderstandings that would lead to Yn inexplicably hating him. He opts for sheepish, rubbing his neck as he admits. “I’m actually one of the leads. Second lead. Not lead-lead.”
Yn snorts. “Makes sense.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Yn rolls their eyes and then nods to the phone in his hands. “Think you got a call there.”
Indeed, Jeonghan’s caller ID is glaring back up at him and he scrambles to pick it up. He’s already outside the door (the bell rang again!) before he remembers and opens the door again to stick his head through and yell a little unnecessarily, “Thank you so much, Yn!”
The Bookkeeper looks startled for a minute but before Mingyu turns around he catches a glimpse through the glass door of an amused smile even as she shakes her head. Mingyu counts it as a win.
“Yn? Who the heck is Yn?”
“Oh, Jeonghan hyung, I forgot you were there.”
“Why do you sound suspicious? What were you doing that you sound guilty for?”
Mingyu sends silent thanks that Jeonghan can’t see the red in his face now and channels every acting lesson into calming his voice. It’s excellent practice trying to deceive his manager, and nearly impossible. “Guilty?” he laughs, “I was just at a store, lounging around you know.”
“Uh huh, sure sure,” Jeonghan drawls on the other end of the line, “You better get back to this hotel room in less than three minutes. That’s the time limit on my self-restraint for not eating all this food myself. And also the time limit for when your brother will inevitably call and question how terrible I’m doing on a job he volunteered me for.”
“I’ll be right there!” Mingyu replies cheerfully, always heading down the little shortcut between buildings he had discovered in the town that purposefully goes around the current filming site. The one key to keeping a day off a day off was to make sure Director Han never saw your face. The “hotel” is more of an old mansion repurposed into some sort of pseudo hostel and most of the actors and directors from various sections fill up all the available rooms. The rest of the crew has to drive twenty minutes to and from the nearest Hilton each work day.
He greets Joshua and Jun, the owners at the front desk (who are kinder than most, but he assumes since they are also sleeping here every night they want to furnish hospitable relations), and then heads up the wide staircase to find his room. He has to open it with an actual key, not just a card, but he always insists that’s part of the character of the place.
Jeonghan has two pimple patches on his chin and a fork midway to his mouth when Mingyu opens the door. A quick scan assures him his manager has only made a slight dent, and there’s still enough for him to eat without being famished.
“Cheol’s on the line,” he huffs, motioning to the phone on the coffee table before continuing to shove his face with linguini.
“Hyung!” Mingyu greets cheerfully, plopping onto the couch beside Jeonghan. “How are you? How are your kids?”
“Still evil and devious little creatures,” Seungcheol laughs. “But they seem to be liking Hamlet, surprisingly. How is the filming? Is Jeonghan taking care of you?”
Jeonghan, at the mention of his name, grabs a slice of garlic bread and shoves it into Mingyu’s open mouth. Mingyu tries not to choke but assures his brother everything is fine when he catches his breath. “He’s the best manager in the whole world,” Mingyu says through a mouthful of the pasta, “absolutely nothing to worry about.”
“Good,” Seungcheol replies. “I’m going to try to visit one of these weekends since your set is only thirty minutes away. One of the weekends I’m not drowning in grades to submit.”
“Aw, you really don’t have to!”
Jeonghan snorts beside him. “It’s not for you. He found out that his favorite cinematographer is on this project.”
“Hey!”
“I’ll tell her you said hi,” Mingyu snickers.
“Hey! Mingyu!”
He hangs up the phone before his brother can say anything, and it earns a sound of amusement from Jeonghan.
“Ugh, why does filming take so long?” he groans, leaning back further into the couch.
“You’re not even the one doing the acting. All you do is sleep all day.”
Jeonghan ignores him. “Come be a manager for my little brother, he said. It will be fun, he said.”
“You could always quit and become a florist.”
Jeonghan makes a choking noise. “So who’s Yn?” he asks suddenly.
Mingyu brushes him off. “Just someone in town I was talking to.”
“Like ‘talking to’ or talking to?”
“Like they literally own a store and are legally required to speak to me so I can pay them money.”
“Aw. You should get out and date more, go find yourself a nice girl or guy. Let the paparazzi trail you,” Jeonghan says, “Your career is so squeaky clean and devoid of controversies it’s almost sickening.”
“Hyung, are you telling me to like, purposefully go out and have a scandal?” Mingyu sputters, “Aren’t you supposed to be telling me the opposite? As my manager?”
Jeonghan shrugs. “I was promised fun with this job. Nothing is fun right now.”
Mingyu rolls his eyes once more before getting up to throw away the trash. Jeonghan still hands him the script for tomorrow’s scenes (complete with highlights and notes) but is already under the covers of his own bed before Mingyu can get sappy and thank him. Drats, he knows him too well. Mingyu lets it go though, and turns off most of the lights before settling in his twin bed that smells like sea salt (the hotel went the full seaside-beach theme). He uses a small reading light shaped like a leaf that Soonyoung gave him for his birthday and in between memorizing formulates a little schedule of when he can escape the set to go visit the bookstore again. It’s for the actual books, he falls asleep telling himself.
. . .
the only thing we share (is this small town)
When he finally gets a chance to escape (he has to bribe Seungkwan with a bakery smuggle later that night if he swears he never saw him leave behind the trailers), he goes to the bookstore. Logically. He still paid for those books, it’s not too early to go back. There’s a moment he considers getting Soonyoung but he sees him on the verge of yelling in the Director’s face about safety protocol for this one scene where Tiffany climbs a tree. It’s better to abandon him than get caught up in a mess like that again.
The bell over the door is like a soundtrack to the slow motion movie that his life has become when Mingyu makes it to 105 North Tower just to have the breath knocked out of him. It must be the early morning light from the windows framing Yn’s face in just the right way, making them glow even though Yn probably would have still been pretty in a pitch black room (he needs to work on that metaphor). Or maybe it’s the fact that Yn has a large box in hand and they’re standing on a step stool unloading books because they’re too short to reach the top shelves. When Yn turns they throw a twisted type of unsure grin at Mingyu like they weren’t expecting him but are already thinking of a million ways to make fun of him. Or torture him. All of this is a bit convoluted for his heart’s health. The scowl Yn quickly recovers isn’t enough to hide the fact that they were smiling when they first spotted Mingyu. Mingyu should know; he has 20/20 vision.
“Hi Yn,” he finally says, easy publicity smile plastered on his face.
“Hi,” Yn replies. They are stacking the books neatly onto the top shelf of new arrivals. “You came back.”
Mingyu nods. “For the books.”
Yn smirks like they know he’s lying but Mingyu is probably projecting, again. “Give me a sec.”
Mingyu says “Of course” and then tries to seem like he’s interested in the shelf of Western fantasy novels because he’s not sure what he’s really supposed to do with his hands or how to not actively stare at the Bookkeeper (It’s been one day!). He hears when Yn gets off the stepstool and tosses the empty cardboard box to the side, and turns around when he thinks she’s behind the counter. There’s rustling around and then Yn sets the stack of books on the counter and pushes them towards him.
“Is it weird to stay in here and read?”
Yn shrugs. “Customers like to. There’s a reason there are chairs everywhere.”
“Ah,” Mingyu nods, “thank you.” Because he’s not sure what else to add. He makes it back to the True Crime corner and its purple bean bag again. It’s comfortable and every so often he can hear Yn shifting around, arranging shelves and unboxing shipments. It’s still muted, like they’re trying to be more quiet knowing that someone else is here. Mingyu smiles to himself, and tries to actually read. Which is what he came to do.
It’s at least an hour or two later when his back is sore enough that he figures he should get up and leave. A text from Soonyoung comes asking where he is, followed by the assurance that he would meet him there and yes, Mingyu can use his backpack to smuggle the contraband books back onto set without Jeonghan noticing. It’s a deal, so Mingyu picks up two more titles to buy at the counter. Soonyoung needs the workout anyway.
Yn is typing away at their computer, again, and pretends not to notice Mingyu until he sets the books on the counter again, one stack for those already bought (the twine tied into a poor imitation of the bow it was yesterday, he’s not good at tying bows, okay) and one for the new ones. Yn reads the titles and then looks back at him with an eyebrow raised.
“Do you only read about murder and serial killers and missing persons?”
“Well, it’s like a main interest of mine. I like reading about real cases. Cold cases especially. The serial killers and just kinda a part of that.”
“You know it makes you look more and more like a serial killer yourself.”
Mingyu sputters. “What? No, I like, actually like to help on cold cases. You know, like, I’m friends with this detective, okay? And there’s a lot you can do as a regular person just scouring databases and really boring online stuff that’s really helpful to the cases but, once again, very boring to most people.”
“Hm, some killers actually like to associate themselves with law enforcement in order to make them less of a suspect, or maybe just to get the thrill of being close to being caught but never being suspected.”
“Aw come on! Just let me explain how I got into this…topic in the first place, okay?” Mingyu insists, still laughing.
Yn eyes him suspiciously but there’s a playfulness there. “Hm, yes, please tell me exactly how you aren’t a serial killer by sounding exactly like how a serial killer would try to explain himself.”
“Oh my gosh,” Mingyu groans. “I took forensic science in high school, okay? And we had a detective come in and talk to us about his job and he showed us some really gross pictures–”
“And that was when you realized you actually wanted to kill someone.”
“--What? No!”
Yn giggles then but waves him on. “Continue, Mr. Serial Killer.”
Mingyu rolls his eyes but presses forward. “He was a cold case detective and so he talked to us for a while about this one specific case he has been working on for years and they were close to finding the perpetrator, hopefully, through some of that online DNA tracing. You know, like the ancestry.com databases and stuff? Well, I became kinda invested in it and bugged him until he let me help. It’s a lot of volunteer work, actually. Just diving into online archives and tracing matches. I was helping him when they cracked that case actually,” he adds, suddenly feeling shy. He looks anywhere but at Yn who is finally not teasing him anymore, but that only lasts for so long, and when he looks back the bookkeeper has their head tilted and they’re giving Mingyu this unreadable look.
“So when you are not making millions of dollars being a top-billed actor,” Yn finally says, “you are actually a helpless nerd who scours internet databases for DNA matches for cold cases.”
“I’m not famous, I’m like a B-list actor,” Mingyu protests feebly. He doesn’t even make that much. He can feel his own skin on his face heating up to melting point and he’s not sure the color is any less incriminating.
“So how’d you get into reading?”
Yn laughs something a little bitter then, but worn down, like they’re settled in the distaste. “I used to hate it actually, but there’s not much better to do when you are stuck with a full leg cast for nine weeks. I thought I’d go insane with nothing to do so I read. Anything that was in my mom’s library actually, which meant a ton of Austen and Dickens and Dumas. Old dead English people.”
Mingyu laughs along with them, even though it feels like he’s stumbled on something still sore. He doesn’t ask more about the broken leg, it seems like a can of worms he doesn’t even have the right to approach as a perfect stranger.
“Why do you have a whole section for true crime if you think it’s weird then?” True crime is familiar, a safe topic to steer back to.
Yn lets out a deep exhale, their cheeks puffing in thought. They look at Mingyu somberly. “Actually, there’s a reason for that, you know.”
Mingyu immediately lets his teasing topple away into something more serious. “What’s that?” he asks, in a bit of reverent quiet voice.
Yn sighs and looks out the window and then back at Mingyu like they’re debating something. Then they leans forward across the counter. Mingyu has to channel all his thinking off the way Yn’s face is suddenly so close to his and their eyes have this drowning effect if you look directly in them for too long, in favor of how serious Yn says the next words. “There was actually a string of murders about eight years ago,” Yn finally breathes out.
Mingyu pulls back–from shock at the words, not an internal fear that’s he going to suddenly lean forward and kiss her without warning. “Seriously?” he breathes out.
Yn nods. “Everyone said there’s a serial killer but he’s never been caught.”
“Oh my God.”
They sigh again, looking back down at the desk. “It’s really scary actually. I think there was a murder a few years ago the police can’t explain and everyone thinks he’s still out there, looking for his next victim.”
Mingyu inhales a sharp breath. “Is he—oh my God, like, there’s really a killer in this town? And the victims—and the police and—oh my God.”
Then Mingyu sees it: the amusement in Yn’s face that’s not anywhere near their lips but practically glimmering in their eyes. He can feel the scowl coming. “You—” He hears Yn break before he sees them, cackling laughter and chuckles that they can’t hold back.
Mingyu pushes away from the counter to stalk off back to his corner away from Yn’s excessive amusement at how gullible he is. His intention is petty and a bit childish but at least it would prove some point, but he doesn’t get far enough to execute it. Somewhere between walking and turning around his shoulder rams into the end display of one of the shelves where a stack of copies of someone’s self-help book had been arranged neatly in order. Mingyu manages to destroy that in three seconds. Loudly.
There’s silence for the pass of a heartbeat before Mingyu even dares to look up and meet Yn’s eyes, wide and so amused, if not a bit shocked.
“That wasn’t the plan.”
That does it for Yn, and they have to lean against the counter with one hand while the other holds their stomach and they laugh. Directly in Mingyu’s face. So loudly and openly their eyes shut and–is Yn crying?
Mingyu huffs out a few times but the smile is unavoidable, especially when Yn’s laugh sounds like this. Yes he can feel the spines of several books digging into his ankles where they fell but he can’t stop staring and smiling. Like someone stole a sample from a heaven soundtrack and put it on loop and–oh. He might be crushing on someone he’s only known for two days. Soonyoung would lose it over this. You always fall way too easily. He doesn’t care though, not now. Instead, he crosses his arms and tries to appear bitter (it’s not working when all Yn does is continue to laugh at him).
He lets Yn continue to laugh even when he huffs and bends down to start picking up the books. He hears the laughter taper down a little bit when Yn finally comes around the counter to help him.
“You’re extremely talented,” they say (gosh, when did their voice get so close and how much longer can he keep staring at the ground to avoid looking up at them in a daze?) “much more in entertainment than acting.”
Mingyu scoffs at that and stands up straight. “Is that just from my horrible first, second and third impressions or have you actually seen anything I’ve acted in?”
Yn stands up straight and maybe he’s a little obsessed with the way they barely reach his shoulders. Yn navigates around him to set the books on the stool and then to fix the shelf itself. “I haven’t seen anything with you in it yet, but you do attract a certain amount of attention.”
“Haha,” Mingyu says blandly. Except when Yn looks back at him their smile is just so sweet. His mind starts spiraling reflexively. “Wait, you’re not going to ban me from coming to your store ever again for destroying property, right? I can pay compensation for it if you really need me too—“
“Mingyu,” Yn laughs, “It’s fine. No permanent harm done. I feel like if I ban you from here I might be held liable for the deterioration of your mental health.”
He doesn’t know how to explain how happy that makes him. The fact that a cute Bookkeeper in a seaside town is letting him come back again. The fact that he wants to make a million excuses to keep coming back.
. . .
the rest of the world was black and white (we were in screaming color)
Soonyoung insists on coming with him, presumably because he’s physically close to murdering Director Han with his bare hands if he doesn’t get a mental break. Seungkwan handed him a note through one of their side characters (Tiffany’s little brother), asking for a specific book and of course Mingyu cheerfully takes it as a God-given burden [excuse] to talk to Yn again.
“You seem to be frequenting this establishment frequently,” Soonyoung says not-so-slyly.
“Don’t say a word.” Mingyu glares. Because they are like two feet away from 105 North Tower and there are plenty of other, more appropriate times to embarrass him to death. Probably as far away from Yn and their pretty eyes as he can get.
Soonyoung pulls a dramatic shoulder shrug. “I see nothing, say nothing. Nihil agio.”
Mingyu scrunches his nose. “I don’t think that’s the right Latin.” Except even if he’s bickering with his best friend he’s still nice enough to hold the door open for him and let him step in first. He regrets it when he steps in afterwards and almost topples over Soonyoung because he freezes within two steps, unmoving.
“What are you—“
“Jeon,” Soonyoung says lowly.
Mingyu glances over his friend’s shoulder to see Wonwoo sitting at the counter with a cup of coffee, apparently comfortably conversing with Bookkeeper. He ignores murderous Soonyoung and waves. “Hi Wonwoo!”
“Hi Mingyu,” Wonwoo says cheerfully, waving back, “Hi Soonyoung!”
Soonyoung groans. “Jeon,” he says, “I see you are ruining local air quality in my one place of respite as well. Also, hi Yn.”
Wonwoo’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion while Yn pulls an amused face.
“I’ll be with my soulmate,” Soonyoung says, looking pointedly at Mingyu before stalking through the shelves.
“Bye Soonyoung,” Wonwoo says cheerfully. Soonyoung doesn’t have to turn around to throw up his middle finger. Wonwoo’s face turns confused to Mingyu. “Do you get the feeling that Soonyoung doesn’t like me that much?”
Mingyu chokes on a bit of air before composing himself and giving a consoling smile (coupled with a pat on Wonwoo’s shoulder). “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you,” he says, “you should go try to make him like you a bit more though. Maybe try to share some interests to strengthen your friendship?”
Wonwoo nods like he’s just been granted some divine instruction. “Sharing interests,” he repeats quietly. The wheels are visibly grinding inside his head.
“He’s in the tiger section,” Mingyu offers with a smile. Wonwoo immediately thanks him and disappears off to find his future best friend.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Yn snickers from behind the counter.
Mingyu shrugs with a smirk. “If Soonyoung hasn’t murdered him yet, I’m sure Wonwoo can survive.”
“That’s not very reassuring for my carpet.”
He laughs. Then he thinks. Finally, blurts out, (with nothing like nonchalance) “How do you know Wonwoo though?”
When Yn looks up at him over her up cup of coffee he’s only a tad distracted by how lovely their eyelashes are, the way they frame their chocolate eyes. “We grew up together,” Yn says, an amused tilt to their voice, “he used to live here, you know.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Yn laughs, but it doesn’t sound unkind, “did you come here for more serial killer books or with the goal of trying to convince me you are not a serial killer?”
He scrambles for the slip of paper he definitely put in one of these jacket pockets (somehow what makes the jean jacket a designer is how many false and real pockets it can fit). “Aha! I actually came to find this. For a friend.”
Yn takes the slip of paper and reads the title. Then Yn clicks on their computer, chewing their lips in contemplation. “I don’t have it in the store but I can get it in just a couple days, would that be okay?”
“That’d be perfect!” He says. Because that’s another perfectly valid excuse to return again, to strengthen their friendship of course. He desperately wants to be friends with them.
They clack some more on their keyboard, presumably placing the order, and when they blink back up at Mingyu they look hesitant for the first time. Or maybe concerned. “The order is placed,” Yn says carefully, “and it should be here around Thursday or Friday. It might be easier to let you know if I had your number.” Their cheeks are really red too, it must be the heat getting to them. “So you can know as soon as it’s delivered.”
“Oh, yeah sure!” Mingyu says, quickly fumbling for his phone to hold it out for them. Yn takes it and their hands brush. There’s no electric shock but there might as well be from how Mingyu freezes. It’s the onslaught of thoughts about how soft their hands are and how he might want to hold them and never let go. It takes two seconds for Yn to input their contact and call their own phone.
“What are you saving my contact as?” He asks, seeing a glimpse of the screen. The grin YN gives him is a bit mischievous as they tap away and then turn the phone towards him. He only gets a second to read, “Definitely Not a Serial Killer Mingyu.”
He huffs out a frustrated breath of air. “Glad to see you enjoy messing with me just as much as everyone else.”
“It’s fun, you’re easy to mess with.”
Mingyu hums and taps on their simple contact name “Yn” to edit it to “Bookkeeper” before showing it to them.
“That’s definitely not my job title but okay,” Yn laughs.
“I thought you usually sent order information through email,” Wonwoo says, appearing from nowhere. A partial question, a partial way to make Yn turn a shade redder.
“I don’t use my email,” Mingyu blurts. Not a perfect lie, but he really doesn’t. Jeonghan reads and sends all his emails.
Wonwoo shrugs. Soonyoung is calling him from the door, complaining loudly about the decrepit status of their society’s morals. He really needs to stop by the coffee shop and get him one of those special edition smoothies to cool off before they get back on set.
Still, it doesn’t stop him from turning around at the door and giving Yn an unrestrained, beaming smile. “See you later, Yn!”
Their grin is a little crooked, shy, but it’s there and that’s enough for now.
. . .
no body (no crime)
Is it flirting if he texts them every chance he’s free on set? Is it the content or the frequency that matters in these situations? Because Yn’s talking about this neighborhood cat that lives around the business street and everyone takes turns feeding and it’s not exactly flirting but they’ve also been consistently messaging back and forth for a couple days. He kind of wants to pull out his phone and text them now, except that he’s at an actual cast dinner and it’s late enough in the night that it would cross some unsaid line they’ve set up.
He’s drawn out of his thoughts by the sound of someone else yelling drunkenly, another exhortation to drink as much as they can. Mingyu frowns down at the beer in front of his plate. The food is good. The fact that his director is breathing down his neck insisting they all get ridiculously drunk when he would rather do anything else is not.
He would prefer Jeonghan to be here, but unfortunately his manager was stuck with the rest of the crew eating whatever fast food they could order en masse to the hotel. No, this was for the “main cast” and directors. Which basically meant that Director Han was being a hierarchical jerk, which Mingyu did not like at all.
He’s squished in between Seungkwan and Dino, their head cinematographer (super young but he already had a ton of movies on his resume so people worshipped him like a prodigy, in general he was also pleasant to hang out with so Mingyu also worshipped him, mostly for social reasons). Soonyoung is MIA, though from the texts Mingyu had glanced at earlier, he was invited but feigned sickness to stay as far away from the Director and Jeon as much as possible. Wonwoo was all the way on the other end of the table where the director and Leigh were sitting.
“If he gives another toast just to make us all drink together one more time, I swear,” Seungkwan mutters beside him, making a face at the alcohol Director Han is dumping into Leigh’s cup on the other end of the table. Wonwoo gently dissuades him to stop and hands Leigh a cup of water.
Mingyu barely touched his alcohol and he was no longer hungry for anything on the table, but he chews extra slowly on the fries just so he has something keeping him occupied and out of too much attention.
One of the senior actors, Harold, played a kindhearted small business owner who helped Leigh with timely and sage advice in her time of need. In real life, Harold was bitter most of the time and snobbish to most of the actors on set, including Mingyu. Which he didn’t quite understand because they barely had two scenes together and he had avoided him most other times. Still, Mingyu must have been doing something wrong because Harold is sitting directly across from him and the one time he laughs a little too loudly at a joke Dino makes about Minghao, he feels the full force of the old man’s wrath.
“Can’t they get more mature actors to fulfill the parts these days?” He remarks too loudly, overtly scornful. “I swear they just pick anybody with a nice body these days and no talent.”
Maybe Mingyu could have brushed it off and cried about it later if the whole table hadn’t stopped, if Director Han hadn’t heard and laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “You know we appreciate Mingyu for his wonderful appearance on camera, but he also knows his lines, so I have to forgive him for other inadequacies.”
“Anybody can memorize a couple lines,” Harold scoffs. “Talent is what’s missing from the kids these days.”
“Hey,” Seungkwan snaps. He looks about ready to pop and maybe start screaming at a senior actor for something that doesn’t really matter and really shouldn’t be made into a big deal, so Mingyu grabs his arm and shakes his rapidly.
“It’s fine, just leave it,” Mingyu says quietly.
Seungkwan glares at him. “But they—“
“Come on, Mingyu! Lighten up the mood and take a shot!” Director Han yells, reaching over the table. Mingyu tries to hide his grimace, but his cheeks are hot with shame and he wants to be anywhere but here. Leigh is looking at him, overly concerned and Wonwoo looks ready to protest but Mingyu’s already been too much of an inconvenience for everyone. So he reaches for the glass and throws the shot back without hesitation, hating the burn in his throat and eyes and the way he just wants to get out.
Director Han cackles and makes most of the table cheer loudly. Mingyu sits back down, counts to seven, leans over to Seungkwan and tells him he’s gonna slip out back to the hotel.
“Are you okay?” Seungkwan asks at the same time Dino leans to ask the same thing. He’s an actor for goodness sake, no matter how untalented, so of course he throws his best smile and assures them that he’s just a little tired and Jeonghan is picking him up, a pitiful lie.
Thankfully, they let him go after he promises to text Seungkwan when he gets back, and he slips out the restaurant front door trying to ignore old man Harold’s glares. It’s only when he stands out on the empty street that he remembers he left his jacket inside. Well, walking—wandering—is the best option to preserve body heat. Unless there are really serial killers roaming about here. Then again, he thinks he’ll be safe enough with his ridiculous height and unhelpful arms.
He should have expected his feet to betray him in this way and lead him exactly here. Except he barely has time to connect how he ended up at the bookstore before Yn looks up from where they have a key in the lock of the front door. Yn stops, looks up at him, surprised.
“Mingyu?”
He scrambles for some excuse because he barely had enough time to put on his actor smile and he’s sure he looks absolutely miserable right now (since that’s how he feels) and he really doesn’t want Yn to see him miserable for a stupid reason like people saying things at a work dinner and he showed up when they’re already closing and probably doesn’t even want to see him right now. “Oh sorry,” he says eventually. “I thought you were open later.”
Yn stops, their hand still on the door and gives him this look like they’re trying to measure all of Mingyu in teaspoons. Yn pockets the keys and shakes their head. “I’m not closing for the night,” they reply, “I was just stepping out to get a bite from the corner store. Do you want to come with me? I can come back and unlock the doors.”
It’s an olive branch of sorts, probably the most open Yn has ever been to him and all he can find to do is nod and let Yn lead him down the street. He has an internal panic of trying to remember how to walk next to someone he has the tiniest crush on without being weird and settles for trying to hunch his shoulders with his hands in his pockets. Yn doesn’t seem that bothered and walks easily, familiarly down the street.
“My friend owns the shop,” they say eventually, breaking the silence. Awkwardly. Which Mingyu realizes is weird because in their few interactions he’s never been the quiet one and now Yn is here trying to make up for that, talk because they know he doesn’t really want to. It’s melted-candy sweet.
“Oh really?” He manages out.
They nod and point to the one store lit up on the corner. “His family ran it and he took it over and now he’s trying to do something with it because he wants to do music full time.” Yn holds the door open for him once they get there, and maybe he forgets it’s weird to stare at an acquaintance because their smile is small but glowing in this weird convenience store light. He almost stumbles inside but catches himself and ignores how Yn laughs lightly behind him.
“Hey Jihoon,” Yn says. That’s when Mingyu notices the guy behind the counter, with his laptop up and headphones, who barely looks up when Yn greets him but does a double take when he sees Mingyu.
“Who’s this?” He asks, squinting at Mingyu, and maybe now he can see why the two of them are friends. Or maybe that’s the brisk blunt attitude of everyone in this town.
“A friend,” Yn replies, “Mingyu this is Jihoon.”
“You’re working on the movie?” Jihoon asks, but he doesn’t seem antagonistic, maybe a little curious. So Mingyu tries a smile and nods. “Cool,” Jihoon says and apparently that’s all because he goes back to his computer immediately.
“Do you want anything?” Yn asks him, already wandering through the aisles. He spots the top of their head over a shelf of chips.
“I ate just a little bit ago.”
“Pick out something to drink then,” Yn says. “And don’t say no, just say you’ll owe me a favor later.”
For some weird reason that’s the thing that makes him crack a smile, a real one, for the first time in hours. He just heads over to the refrigerated section and pulls out a lemonade before Yn can change their mind. He sets it on the counter with the rest of their scavenging and Jihoon scans all the items before he frowns at Yn. “Aren’t you going home?”
Yn stops for a second, eyes darting to Mingyu and then back at Jihoon. “No,” they say, “I’m going back to open back up the shop. Like usual.”
Jihoon blinks at them for a second, hums and then pushes the card reader towards them as a sign to pay. He waits until he hands back the receipt to say, “Have fun,” so seriously it sounds like a threat. Mingyu doesn’t try to read into it much, childhood friends have weird ways of communication all time. (He should know, Soonyoung has been stuck around him for too long.)
Yn turns on most of the soft yellow lights when they get back, but not all of them, and pulls a high stool from one of the aisles to the front of the counter. Yn goes back around and sits in their usual spot, then gives Mingyu a look until he realizes the first chair was for him and sits down. It’s a bottle of convenience store lemonade and a bag of gummy worms, not a date.
It doesn’t make him any less nervous. It may have to do with the fact that Yn looks really pretty and wears baseball caps all the time. They open a drawer and pull out a deck of cards with a red swirl design.
“Do you know how to play anything?” Yn asks, already shuffling them with a practiced ease. It’s a little mesmerizing seeing them fold the cards together, form a bridge and split the deck to do it again.
“Go fish?”
Yn snorts at him. “Here. I’ll show you how to play butterfingers. It’s fast paced.”
Mingyu just nods while they start to set down the cards. Five down, one up, one up five more down. Then Yn splits the rest of the cards between the two of them. “Okay,” they point to the large deck face down on Mingyu’s side, “these are your cards and you have to get rid of them as quickly as possible.”
“As quickly as possible?”
“Yep. You can only have seven cards in hand at one point though, and you have to put them down in one of these piles in ascending or descending order and…”
He doesn’t quite catch all the rules until they are actually playing, and by then it’s a flurry of fingers, and once Yn starts giggling in between telling him all the things he can’t do, they can’t stop. He doesn’t want them to.
Yn wins the first round, unsurprisingly, and Mingyu still has at least twenty cards in his deck. The second and third time they play, he gets into it enough to get close to them, both of them yelling in frustration when they only have a few cards left. He only wins the fourth time, and with that Yn insists they have had enough and he lets them take the cards back only a little disappointed.
“I used to do boxing,” Yn says apropos of nothing. Mingyu almost chokes on his drink. Now he’s thinking about Yn punching someone and is ashamed to say it’s kind of hot. (Soonyoung would take this moment to scream in Mingyu’s ear that he’s screwed.)
“Oh really?” Mingyu says, wide-eyed (except he doesn’t want to seem too surprised and offend them or not surprised at all and thus not interested—maybe Jeonghan is right when he says he should interact with people more outside of filming scenes.)
They nod though. “I went to college on a scholarship for it and was going to all these championships—you know nothing about boxing do you?”
Mingyu ducks his head, laughing, “I know nothing about sports in general, you know. Forensic science detective nerd.”
Yn clicks their tongue in fake disappointment. “Nerd indeed. For your simpleton mind to understand, I was really good at it, and I really liked to do it. Jihoon used to do it too, but he wasn’t as good as me,” they say, adding a wink.
“Wow, so humble,” Mingyu jokes.
“I was good, and I loved it and I thought that’s all I ever wanted to do. And then…”
And Mingyu waits because he thinks he knows where this story goes, and Yn has the same distant look in their eyes as the other day talking about reading books in lieu of being able to do anything else.
Yn exhales and taps the counter. “And then,” they start again lightly, “I got in a wreck and totally messed up my left leg and my arm and I went through rehab but by then I would hurt myself more if I kept up boxing so I had to give it up.” They flourish jazz hands, “Now I’m here with a tiny bookstore and a dude who probably should be asleep right now.”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
They flush. “Because you looked all…sad and I’m not good at cheering up people.”
“So you tried to cheer me up by telling me your tragic life story.”
“Yes,” they deadpan, “so you could see how miserable I am and realize you are fine compared to me.”
Mingyu chokes on his laughter. Yn throws a gummy worm at him.
“But seriously,” they say after a moment, “I was trying to tell you that it’s going to be okay.” Yn waves their hands around for a second, grasping for the words. “Whatever has got you down, you can come back from it.”
Mingyu stares down at his drink, fiddling with the loose label. “Did you ever have people doubt if you were actually talented and then feel like you have to do something to prove yourself but you’ve already been working so hard you don’t know what else you can do to prove you can do it?” Which, objectively is a lot to say to a somewhat-acquaintance, somewhat-friend who you find cute, but for once Mingyu is just glad to have it off his chest. Glad because Yn doesn’t seem weirded out and merely leans back in their chair, thoughtful for a moment.
“I think that…” Yn finally begins, “whoever told you that is an idiot.”
It’s hard not to laugh at that, the way they say it so bluntly and seriously and simply. He can’t stop laughing actually, leaning against the counter to catch his breath because his stomach hurts so much and Yn is laughing with him, all their teeth showing and it’s so cute he doesn’t really know what to do and he’s struck by the fact that it’s been less than a week and—dang. He really likes them.
. . .
i don't wanna think of anything else (now that i thought of you)
Logically, the next step in realizing your crush is turning into something more substantial like liking them, would be to ask them out. Except Mingyu never thinks of things like this simply.
For one, Yn owns a bookstore that they work at all day, and going on a date would probably be really inconvenient for their schedule and thus instead of something nice, Mingyu would just be an obstruction to their daily life. Maybe they’d only go out with him because they seem to be really nice like that (opposed to their cold, disinterested exterior, which—God—is another reason he really likes them.)
For another, he’s Mingyu. He’s broken their bookshelf and intruded in their life and he’s technically a part of the huge obnoxious film crew that has invaded their pleasant hometown. He also almost cried in front of them (he’s pretty sure Yn could tell). Overall, he doesn't have a lot going for him when it comes to someone who has been nothing but cool. And cute. And really a lot more out together than him.
And maybe he’s overthinking too much, staring at his cup of coffee intensely enough to garner concern because someone clears their throat above him and he finds Jun, hotel owner #2 there, looking vaguely concerned. It’s offset by his bright pink apron and pig-shaped oven mitt on one hand. He was obviously the one serving breakfast this morning except it’s 12:32pm and most people have already gone. Except for Mingyu (apparently.)
“Hey, do you want any extra English muffins?” Jun asks, smiling eagerly.
“Um, do I have to pay extra?” He asks hesitantly.
“Nah, I have a lot of brunch leftovers,” Jun says. And then he turns around and disappears into the kitchen before Mingyu can formulate a response. He comes back a few minutes later with a plate of toasted English muffins, carefully topped with butter and raspberry jelly. He sets the plate down and then claims the seat across from Mingyu without asking. Which he doesn’t mind, it was nice enough to give him free toast.
“This is really good,” Mingyu says through a mouthful.
Jun’s eyes sparkle. “Thank you. I made them myself.”
Mingyu hums and takes another bite, trying to figure out if Jun wants to talk to him or just stare at him while he eats.
He’s saved by Jun pulling out his phone and tapping rapidly before turning the screen to him. “Do you want to see my new baby?” He asks, even though he’s already shoving the phone in Mingyu’s face.
There’s a cute close up photo of a calico cat on screen black patch of fur over the left eye and orange over the right. Mingyu coos immediately. Jun practically beams.
“Her name is Bohemian Rhapsody,” Jun says. “Or just Rhapsody. Joshua is fighting me about it.”
“She’s so cute,” Mingyu says still smiling while Jun scrolls through more photos.
“She’s a rescue actually. I drove like two hours to the shelter after I saw a video of her and I just wanted her to like me so bad.”
“But she did, didn’t she?”
Jun’s smile grows impossibly warmer. “She did. I almost didn’t go see her though.”
“Why not?” Mingyu asks. (He’s almost abandoned his toast now.)
Jun shrugs. “I guess I was scared, because what if I drove all that way with all the love in my heart and the cat didn’t even like me enough? Then I wouldn’t even know how to start to adopt her. It was impulsive too. We’d have to figure out how to keep a cat around the hotel and dealing with customers and everything.”
Mingyu hums in understanding. “What made you decide to go in the end?”
“Joshua told me to,” Jun snorts, laughing. “But also I told myself if it’s something real, we can work out everything, but I shouldn’t ever let myself regret letting someone go before I even get to find out.”
Mingyu nods slowly as the words sink it. Ironically, he can’t tell if they are talking about a cat anymore. Jun looks curiously at him before finally getting up from the table.
“You seem happier now,” he decides, “I’ll bring Rhapsody around sometime if you’d like to see her.”
“Thanks, I’d love that,” Mingyu says genuinely.
And maybe he thinks about Jun’s weird words of wisdom for too long, through several scenes he has to shoot and all the way up until he’s back in the hotel room eating take out with Jeonghan and Dino.
“I’m gonna go ask them out,” he declares. Jeonghan barely looks up from his burger.
“Finally,” he mutters.
Dino blinks owlishly. “Who?”
“Yn,” Mingyu grins, “I’m gonna ask them out.”
“Ah,” Dino nods slowly. Then he stops again. “Wait who?”
“His bookstore lover,” Jeonghan says through his mouthful of food.
“I don’t remember telling you that.”
“You didn’t have to,” Jeonghan says, “Soonyoung wouldn’t shut up. He keeps more tabs on you than I have the energy to.”
Dino snorts. “That sounds kind of excessive. Anyways, how are you going to ask them out?”
Mingyu opens his mouth before he realizes that he has no clue. He can’t exactly waltz up to the bookstore and declare his love for them, then Yn might actually be convinced he’s a serial killer/stalker. He has to be smooth but romantic, neither of which come naturally to him. He has to do something they’ll like but he’s not even fully sure what they like besides boxing and books, but isn’t that the point of asking them out in the first place? Hey, I’d like to get dinner with you to get to know you better, with the hopes of knowing you enough to know if you’ll kiss back if I kiss you? When did dating become so complex (he has a non answer for that, except Soonyoung snarkily replying that he’s never even properly dated anyone before.)
Dino pats his shoulder consolingly. Apparently his inner turmoil is outwardly obvious again. “Take your time there, bud.”
. . .
something gave you the nerve (to touch my hand)
“Didn’t you buy this book before?” Yn begins tentatively. When Mingyu twirls around to face them they’re holding up a book on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women. Crap. There goes his attempt at nonchalance and smoothness.
“I actually don’t need to buy any of those books,” he blurts out.
Yn smirks and looks down at the stack. “Sense and Sensibility, How to Raise Your Pet Turtle, The Ultimate Collection of Ted Bundy Articles, and Crime and Punishment,” they read off, “yeah I think I could tell you picked up some random choices.”
He’s already blushing but this is good. This makes him commit to his choices. “I actually came here for something else…”
Yn raises one eyebrow. “Did you come to just give me more books to put back on the shelves or because I have such an enthralling personality?” They joke.
“I came to see you,” he says. But of course, he’s doing this all wrong, because Yn freezes head-to-toe, staring down at the counter. Like Cheol always says, at this point it’s all or nothing. He takes a deep breath. “Which is weird because it hasn’t been that long since we’ve known each other but I think I really like you and I want to go on a date with you and get to know you more, and I don’t really do that with anyone. I haven’t wanted to as much as I have since I met you.”
There’s this terribly awkward silence in the store for a minute that leaves Mingyu regretting every life choice that ever led him to this point, starting from when he first dropped out of college because of a casting call.
“Will it scare you away if I say I know I like you?”
Yn bites back a smile. “Not exactly. Does that mean you want to go on a date or something?”
“One date at first,” Mingyu says, “and then as many as you’ll agree to go on with me after that.”
Yn spins in their chair back to their computer, tapping away at their keyboard but Mingyu can tell they’re nervous by the way they keep messing up and hitting the backspace like they can’t type anything right. In their defense, he’s pretty sure he can’t even read words properly in this state.
“Okay,” Yn finally says.
Mingyu inhales sharply. “Okay? Like yes? That easily?”
Yn laughs at him. “What’d you think I was going to say?”
“I thought you’d at least make me clean the whole store to earn your affection or something,” Mingyu says. “I kind of have been panicking over this for enough hours that my brain came up with plenty of terrible scenarios.”
Yn rolls their eyes at him, but their smile is so pretty it’s distracting. “Where are you taking me on the first date?”
“I will admit I didn’t think that far ahead. But I have tonight off. Unless you are busy. Then we could do it some other time. Or never if you change your mind.”
“Tonight is good, Mingyu,” Yn says, “I’ll pick the place. You pick me up here at seven.”
It’s perfect, he can feel his excitement betraying him in the way he’s grinning like an idiot. “Seven is good. Seven is great. I’m perfectly free at seven.”
Maybe he has to leave and maybe Yn’s laugh is a soundtrack on repeat in his head for the rest of the afternoon until he sees them again.
He is dangerous close to showing up in a tuxedo before Jeonghan and Soonyoung talk him down from it. Somehow Minghao shows up to their hotel room an hour before he’s supposed to meet Yn with a suitcase and a frown that says he knows all the horrible fashion decisions Mingyu would make on his own.
“I was called for an emergency situation,” he says solemnly.
“It was getting desperate,” Jeonghan says from the couch, “he was trying to put on zebra print.”
Minghao looks physically sick for a moment before gathering himself. “Okay, who are you trying to impress? What are they like?”
“Short,” Mingyu blurts out, before hurriedly adding, “super sweet but acts like they’re mean but also they’re kind of nerdy and they used to do boxing and they wears baseball caps all the time.”
“I can…manage with that,” Minghao says carefully, already unzipping his case and sorting through some of the clothes. It doesn’t take him to wind up with an outfit that looks just the right mix of fancy and casual to not send Yn running. Which, at this point he’s still confused as to why they haven’t run away yet (his brain unhelpfully supplies that there’s still time for that to happen.)
“You should get going,” Jeonghan says, “don’t do anything stupid, but if you do make sure it’s on camera.”
“Always so encouraging and heartwarming,” Mingyu calls back to him. Minghao actually manages a decently comforting smile at the door.
Soonyoung tackles him into a hug and gives him a genuine grin. “Relax and have some fun, Mingyu,” he says, “you deserve it.”
He gives him a tight-lipped smile because he’s starting to get paranoid about time and nonexistent traffic. “I’ll try.” God, he already feels sick from nerves.
The nerves slush around in a toxic mess inside his stomach all the way through his brisk walk (not running because if he shows up to their door sweating like a dog there’s no way this date won’t go wrong). But Yn must have some magic in them, because the moment he sees them, leaning against their storefront in a green cardigan and floral pants, the nerves dissolve away.
(He jogs the rest of the way to them, because they are running late already and not because he’s that excited to see them.)
“Hi Yn,” he breathes out when he stops in front of them. Yn lost the baseball cap for the occasion and their bangs are out across their forehead when they smiles back up at him.
“Hi Mingyu,” Yn says, trying to sound bored. They push off of the glass door and start walking, “you like fish don’t you?”
He’d like to know if Yn knew he actually loved fish or if they were just saying it because of the coastal town setting. Still he follows after them and says he does. Then he can’t help but start to tell Yn how his older brother Seungcheol hates fish and once he pranked him by putting sardines in his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Which, Yn insists sounds terrible, but then they tell him about their brother Vernon and how they once gave him a cup of iced soy sauce instead of an Americano.
Yn takes him to a smaller restaurant down the street where the owner welcomes them familiarly (and throws intrigued glances at Mingyu.) Yn doesn’t pay attention, and tells Mingyu to tell them more about how he started acting while they order some dishes he doesn’t catch the name of.
It’s not a very interesting story, he finds himself saying each time before he starts another long narrative he gets too caught up in the retelling of. But Yn just smiles each time and listens to him. He gets them to talk too (when his cheeks overheat from how much they just…stare at him) and is rewarded with several tales of Wonwoo and Jihoon’s high school antics.
Maybe they sit there for two hours and don’t notice it. Maybe Mingyu wants to kiss them even more.
“Can we do this again?” He blurts out, after the owner comes back with the third refill of their drinks.
Yn immediately glances down and Mingyu is forced to think that he’s done it again—went and ruined a perfectly good thing. But then Yn looks up again, serious, and doesn’t give him a chance to overthink when they look at him like that. Like they see him.
“I’m scared, you know,” Yn says quietly, “because I don’t want to like you this much if you are going to leave in a few weeks and never come back. I don’t want a summer love or anything like that, but I don’t want to be the one who holds you back from your movie star dreams.” They say it with a bit of weak sarcasm but the genuine fear leaks through, Mingyu can tell.
Impulsiveness be damned, he reaches across the table and gently takes Yn’s hand into his own.
“I’m scared too,” he admits, “but I don’t want to give up on something before it starts because of that. If we…if we like each other than we can figure things out. I don’t have to give up on my dreams, but I also don’t have to stay in the same place.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he begins, “that we should just keep going on dates, and figure it out as we go. Is that too stupid?”
Yn squeezes his hand back once before they smile. “It sounds nice.”
. . .
call my bluff (call you babe)
There’s a fair that comes to the town in the middle of fall, and happens to coincide with their filming schedule perfectly enough that Director Han already decided long ago they need to get some key scenes there. Mingyu is only scheduled for a scene the first half of the first day and the rest are scenes between Seungkwan and Leigh’s characters, finally starting to come to terms with their obvious romantic feelings. So of course he mentions this to Yn, oh-so-inconspicuously, and they take it with a grin and a bored question of “Do you want to hang out there after you are finished filming?” And of course, Mingyu eagerly agrees (it’s a wonderful idea, he should have thought of it himself.) “I haven’t been on the Ferris wheel in forever,” Yn mentions casually, which Mingyu already understands is the closest they’ll get to admitting that they really want to ride the Ferris wheel. Well, Mingyu can figure out how to grant that wish.
If only he weren’t dreadfully scared of heights.
Jeonghan, for the first time in the three years Mingyu has known him, looks furious. Like, borderline about to throw someone out the window furious. It makes Mingyu take a step back even though he’s not even the point of this anger.
“Him going on the Ferris Wheel was never part of the script,” he says sternly, “in fact, from my own recollections, one of the stipulations in the contract was that he not be forced to perform any extensive height stunts. And you want him to film a scene on the top of a 212 foot ferris wheel that you just threw into the script last minute? The answer is no.”
Han is red in the face, puffing out his cheeks as he spits out his next words. “Things change during filming all the time, and right now it is the best opinion to capture the emotion and feeling of the scene. Are we supposed to throw art to the wall because one actor cannot suck it up for a single, essential scene?”
Mingyu’s brain flips to white noise, blocking out whatever Jeonghan starts snapping back, about to bite or attack Director Han with his bare hands. The rest of the crew is standing around, unable to even continue their jobs because Mingyu is deathly terrified of going on one of the most harmless rides in existence. Leigh even looks frustrated with him, standing to the side with her arms crossed and glaring at Director Han. It really is all his fault. He’s once again managed to become the most annoying, bothersome person on set just because he can’t suck it up like the director said.
What’s worse: if he can’t do it now, he won’t be able to do it later for Yn either.
He grabs Jeonghan’s arm to stop him and his manager swings to look at him. “I’ll do it,” he barely manages out. His throat suddenly feels so dry. “I’ll do the scene, it’s fine.”
Jeonghan’s face contorts through several emotions, all of them in the range of unrestrained fury. “No, Mingyu you don’t have to—“
Director Han practically cheers. “He said he could do it! Since your actor agreed we can actually get to work. Everyone get to their places!”
Jeonghan opens his mouth to yell again but Mingyu grips his arm and shakes his head again. “It’s fine.”
He stares down Mingyu for a heartbeat. Two. “Fine,” he says, shaking off Mingyu’s grip and walking away. Somehow, that makes him feel the most empty and desperate.
He has to do it now.
He is instructed to get into one of the carts with Leigh and two cameramen while a kid who probably isn’t more than seventeen operates the whole machine that could snap and crush them to death. Maybe he could still get out if he just—except now Leigh is sitting beside him and the older cameramen was helping the kid close their little gate and lock it shut. A thin metal gate is all that’s standing between him and certain death. At this point he’d take his chances with a serial killer.
He tries to stare at the bottom of their little cart, but that doesn’t do any good when the bottom is grated metal and he can see through it, down to the rapidly distancing ground. And it shakes. Nothing is stable and he’s going to die in less than four minutes. Logically, he knows people ride this everyday and don’t die. Mingyu-ly he can’t think straight when the panic is crawling up his throat with each second they get higher into the air.
“You should just try to channel that fear into nervous jitters for the date,” Leigh offers, with genuinely the best intent, but all Mingyu does is give a tight-lipped smile because that advice genuinely sucks.
They are halfway up in the air (Mingyu assumes) when his idiot brain decides to revolt against him and convinces him it’s a good idea to look over the edge of the cart. In the distance (barely a few inches away from him) Leigh is going over their lines and how to run the scene but Mingyu can’t think. His knuckles are white, gripping the edge of their bench, and the only thing he can consciously feel is the cool metal digging into his palms and his stomach being twisted, chewed up and strung out on repeat.
He looks over the edge and his vision goes blurry. There’s not even enough oxygen up here to breathe and he’s underwater he’s—
Perfectly screwed the moment he has enough sense to comprehend his vision is blurring in, black creeping in from the edges.
He wakes up still in the cart, which immediately scratches off the possibility of him waking up from a dream. It only takes him a few seconds to realize what happened, but by then Jeonghan is beside him, patting his face softly and more than a little panicked, asking if he’s okay.
Mingyu’s throat is a little dry, but he nods. “I’m good.”
“You are so not good, Mingyu, you idiot!” Okay, that voice doesn’t make sense because why would Seungcheol be here? Yet when he turns his head, his brother is there, looking more ticked than usual. Great.
That’s when he hears someone else yelling on set and possibly Director Han freaking out in response (“I didn’t think he’d almost die!”).
“The ambulance is coming,” Jeonghan tells him, “we are taking you to the hospital.”
“Oh my God, Mingyu, are you okay?” Leigh asks. It’s already starting to get annoying the amount of times he’s being asked this.
He sits up, slowly because he feels lightheaded and hot and freezing cold at the same time. “Hospital? I’m fine,” he says quickly. His head is throbbing but honestly if it gets them to stop he doesn’t need to mention it.
“For the love of God shut up and let the EMTs take you to the emergency or so help me I will murder you myself, Kim Mingyu,” Seungcheol threatens.
Mingyu nods quickly and leans back into the cart bench. At least they are on solid ground again.
The EMTs come, someone waves a flashlight in his eyes, and Jeonghan threatens him until he gets on the stretcher to be wheeled into the ambulance. Right before the doors close him in with his fuming older brother and manager, he catches sight of Soonyoung still yelling at Director Han, and just a little bit away, Wonwoo standing next to Yn and—crap, he had to wind up fainting in front of literally everyone in his entire life he cares about, all at once.
“How’d you even get here?” He asks Seungcheol carefully.
“I was coming to give you a surprise visit,” Seungcheol says, “not to have a heart attack seeing you almost die.”
“I didn’t almost die,” Mingyu attempts.
“Not a word, Mingyu,” Jeonghan threatens. “I’m going to sue that idiot Han so far into the ground he won’t even be able to breathe the same air as us humans anymore.” The EMT worker casually taking Mingyu’s blood looked a bit concerned at those words and Mingyu smiles apologetically.
“Yn saw me, didn’t they?” Mingyu asks in a small voice.
Jeonghan sighs. “Hang on.” He pulls out his phone and starts calling someone. “Soonyoung? Get Yn to the hospital no matter what you do…yes he’s still alive, it’s literally five minutes away.”
Mingyu groans and leans back into the stretcher. “This is already in the top three most embarrassing days of my life.”
Seungcheol pats his knee finally, his only sign of comfort.
. . .
when i fold (you see the best in me)
They take his blood, run tests, ask him a dozen questions and finally decide that he’s perfectly fine, except for some slight bruising on the side of his head where he banged it against the cart when passing out. Still not hard enough to give permanent damage, apparently.
Seungcheol takes advantage of the fact that Mingyu is stuck in an emergency room bed for the next few hours to pester him about Yn, since the only news he’s heard is whatever Jeonghan has heard from Soonyoung (which are really inconsistent and hardly accurate exaggerations). So he tells him, a little bit too much, about how Yn has the prettiest smile and eyes and they give him these warm fuzzy feelings inside but the absolute worst part of it is that he thinks he might have ruined it all because he didn’t think.
“You didn’t ruin anything, Mingyu,” Seungcheol says, “you made everyone terrified because you have a bunch of people who care about you. Maybe they need a little time to gather their thoughts, but if they stop seeing you because of something like this then…I would have to think they’re not good enough for you. But don’t jump to conclusions first.”
And he can’t really argue with that logic (which is infuriating because he’s 88% sure Cheol was using his “comforting teacher” voice on him and it worked) so he just says okay.
Soonyoung shows up a little later, already in tears, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that Wonwoo also comes into the room showing no signs of physical harm.
“We are friends now,” Wonwoo explains, after Soonyoung is assured for the fifth time that Mingyu is alive and not facing terminal illness.
“I threatened him to call Yn and tell them the hospital room number,” Soonyoung says, “now we are on a truce.”
Wonwoo blinks. “He threatened to let a set prop collapse on me and make it look like an accident if I didn’t call them. But I also drove him here.”
That makes Mingyu laugh for the first time of the day. “Do you still think Wonwoo is evil?” He asks Soonyoung.
He glares at Wonwoo. “He is not supposed to be nice to me, it’s ruining my strong bitter well-established hatred of him and everything he stands for. He won’t even let you get cast in his stupid crime movie when that’s all you want.”
Wonwoo twists his eyebrows together, looking back at Mingyu (who is actively trying to shrink down into invisibility). “You want to be in that movie?”
Mingyu opens his mouth to explain, or maybe make up some fumbling excuse, but Soonyoung swings his head to Wonwoo, mouth gaping open and snapping shut a few times before he manages to get the words out, “Yes? That’s why he’s been sucking up to you? Why he kept baking you stuff and talking about death and crime scenes and everything for months?”
“Oh,” Wonwoo hums, “I didn’t know you wanted to be in the movie. You never said anything. If you had asked I would have put you on. You’re a good actor, I just thought you’d be too busy with your romcom stuff.”
Mingyu bites his cheek at the compliment and tries not to break down because something he really had dreamed about for years was within his reach the whole time.
Soonyoung beats him to it, immediately bursting into tears, gross and snotty. “You’re so stupid, Mingyu!” He says through his sobs. “You are so stupidly nice and don’t know how to say no to people!”
“I’m sorry,” Mingyu mumbles, patting Soonyoung’s back.
“Stop saying sorry! Just stand up for yourself!”
Sure, his brother and best friend have said those words several times before in a few variations. Including, but not limited to: “don’t let people run over you,” “stay kind but don’t let them take advantage of it,” and “say no when you want to.” He’s said he’s listened to them, but if fainting on a Ferris wheel is anything to go by, he really hasn’t. The trouble with Kim Mingyu in one step: being too much of a pushover for his own good.
From what Jeonghan tells him later, Director Han insisted on him being admitted for at least one night, likely to cover up the workman’s comp issues that will inevitably ensue. Seungcheol tries to sleep there with him, but Mingyu pulls several cards to get Jeonghan to drag him back to the hotel, if only to have some time to himself. He definitely use the time alone to slip into paranoid thoughts about how Yn didn’t come at all the first day.
That’s probably why he’s convinced it’s just a dream when he wakes up past eleven and visiting hours have already started because Yn is sitting in the one chair in the room with their knees pulled up to their chest, nose in a book.
They glance over the page and almost drops the book in shock when they meet Mingyu’s eyes, cursing. He can’t stop from laughing at them, just a little bit. (Side effect of the giddy satisfaction of seeing them in person.)
Yn exhales in exasperation. “You drool in your sleep.”
He panics when he wipes his mouth—then glares at them again when they laugh because nothing is there. “You’re here,” he says intelligently.
Yn just sets their book on the bedside table (Northanger Abbey) and pulls a large reusable grocery bag from where it was leaning against their chair. Yn hands him a teddy bear from the top, and then maneuvers a brown box carefully out of the bottom. “I didn’t come yesterday,” they say quietly, “because 1. I kind of freaked out and 2. I went to my brother’s to get his help to bake you a cake and then greatly miscalculated the time it would take me and missed visiting hours.”
When Un opens the box on the table, there’s a small orange icing cake with white lettering saying Get Well Soon, Mingyu! with a cute Ferris wheel drawing on the bottom he wants to laugh at but he’s already getting choked up. Because they came, they wanted to come, and they spent their time actually baking him something silly and sweet. If not morbidly hilarious.
“You made that for me?” He asks quietly.
“No, for the other cute guy who bothers me at my shop for dates and then makes me worried sick about him because he fainted while filming named Mingyu.”
He laughs, finally, a little wetly. “I’m sorry,” he says quickly, “that was really embarrassing. I didn’t mean to worry everyone so much. I knew I was terrified of heights and that it wouldn’t end well but…you said you wanted to go on it for our date and I figured I could try to get over my fear before then but…you saw how that ended up.”
When he looks back up at them, their lips are pressed together and they stare at him for a few uncomfortable minutes before asking. “You wanted to conquer your debilitating fear of heights just because I mentioned in passing that I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel?”
“No?” He tries hesitantly, “Maybe? Yes?”
Yn sighs, exasperated. He shuts his eyes for a minute, but then feels them sitting down on the edge of the bed. His eyes jerk open the moment they tangle their hand with his.
“You’re really sweet, it’s honestly scary,” they admit softly, “and I know I already like you. A lot. Irreparably so. So I’d appreciate it if you want to be my boyfriend, that you try to avoid scaring me to death on our dates from now on.”
His head is swirling from a single, weighty word and he can’t stop his face from making a happy, grinning expression. He still tries to joke to cover up how unbelievably happy he is right now. “So you’re saying I can scare you to death when we are not on a date.”
“I’ll genuinely murder you, Kim Mingyu,” Yn says (threat offset by their soft smile.)
Later, after Yn forces him to try the cake (it’s carrot cake, entirely too delicious just to eat one slice of), Yn pauses and gives him this look that he’s beginning to recognize as a sign they’re about to be dramatically serious. “Mingyu, I want you to know even if you break my heart, I trust you.”
Gut-punch. It’s simple and yet he kind of wants to get on one knee and offer to buy them a house or at least as many books as they want but none of that is as immediate as the blood-burning urge to lean forward that he finally gives into. Slow, so that she can back away if she wants to, but Yn has the prettiest eyes and they just get closer and she’s the one who puts a hand on the back of his neck to pull him closer for that final, universe-shattering collision.
Simply: it’s sweet. Not just because of the cake, but because he’s never felt this happy being kissed by someone in his life.
He’s embarrassingly breathless when he speaks again. “Yn,” he says, “I promise you that I can’t promise not to break your heart, but I will stay with you. I’ll be there for you as much as I can and I’ll love you with everything I have. I’ll trust you and you’ll trust me and we will talk about things and most of all, I’ll do everything I can so we can be happy. Together.”
Yn smirks. “Good. If you promised not to break my heart I was gonna just break up with you right here.”
. . .
my time, my wine, my spirit, my trust (trying to find a part of me you didn’t take up)
“Are you…nervous right now?”
Mingyu stops momentarily rocking back and forth on his feet to grin back at Yn, frozen with their key in the door handle. “Meeting the fish is the most important step in a relationship, you know?”
Yn scoffs at him, loudly. “You literally meet up with my brother every weekend.”
“Vernon is a better best friend than my actual best friend,” he says, “but you’ll break up with me if your fish don’t like me, won’t you?”
Yn punches his arm for that but they open the door and let him inside, shoes off by the door. With the lights on, the apartment looks pretty much the same as their bookstore, if not with more photos stuck to every open vertical surface. Yn tells him to make himself at home and he can’t help but smile when he spots the jacket he bought them laying on the back of her couch, a picture of their pizza dinner taped above a light switch, and it’s weird how he feels welcomed in a place because there are some pieces of familiarity slipping into it already.
“They are here,” Yn says, standing over by a small table on the other side of the room. The fish tank takes up the whole table and glows green from the back light. They wait until he has his face practically pressed to the glass to point to the two black moor goldfish. “That’s Blue and that’s Red. You forget which one is which and—“
“And I kiss you to make up for it because that’s an impossible challenge,” he supplies. Yn laughs (a win for now).
He invites himself into their kitchen to cook dinner, and it’s sweet until Mingyu trips on thin air and pulls Yn down with him.
“I was breaking your fall,” he manages out.
Yn looks thoroughly unimpressed from where they’re lying on top of his chest, but they don’t make a move to push off his arms wrapped securely around them. They just…stay there and cross their arms so their chin is resting on them, looking down at Mingyu with this ridiculous grin on their face.
“You going to move?” Mingyu asks, amused.
“Nah,” Yn huffs, “I’m settled here.”
Two fish, three more free months until he’s supposed to start filming for Wonwoo’s crime movie as a detective no one believes, four thousand ways he can think about Yn in one single day. It’s simple because they are still figuring things out but the constant is that they like spending time with one another (the kissing is just a mutual benefit, Yn insists). All Mingyu knows is that they read too many books and like to make jokes about his height, and maybe…
Maybe this is a dream he can get used to letting himself live.
75 notes · View notes
dreamofsiyeon · 1 year
Text
Return of A Member
Dreamcatcher x Reader
General Fic (No Romance or Anything)
Summary: The 8th member of Dreamcatcher joins just in time for the release of "What."
Words: 3.7k
A/N: I wrote this in roughly one and a half hours. I'm 90% sure this was a wild hyperfixation. It doesn't have much of a plot, but enjoy.
When Dreamcatcher made a comeback with their newest song, “What,” with a new member, the fanbase erupted into pure chaos.
You laid in bed, nestled in your mountain of blankets, on your phone the night the first Teaser Images for “What” came out, scrolling through the comments. The sound of laughter floated through the closed bedroom door and light leaked into the room through the small crack at the bottom of the door.
The rest of the group was piled into the living room. They had said they were going to find a movie to watch, but it sounded like things had devolved from there. You weren’t surprised. It happened quite often. Often enough that you and your introvert self knew that you would be better off retreating to your room instead of joining them. Besides, even if you had stayed, you probably wouldn’t have understood much of what they said. 
Your understanding of Korean was better than it had been a few years ago, but it still had a long way to go before you could call yourself fluent. You could read mostly everything, you could follow conversations relatively easily, and your pronunciation was good enough, but you still found it difficult to understand anything when words were interspersed with laughs and the occasional scream of delight. 
You enjoyed the time alone in your room, anyway. You had a good hour of two alone before Dami came in to get ready for bed.
Just as you had expected, the comments were flooded with questions and speculations about you. It was quite a shame, honestly, how little attention was being put on your fellow members, but they had all known what would happen. 
Since the announcement of you joining Dreamcatcher had been released two weeks earlier, the whole fandom had been in an uproar. 
They knew your stage name, Hyeon—a name you picked from a list the company had presented to you because, apparently, having a very, very American name as your idol name wasn’t recommended. They had series of selfies that you’d taken and posted on all the official Dreamcatcher social media accounts under the careful guidance of one of the many managers working for the group. They knew that you were to be a main vocalist beside Siyeon. They knew that you were Korean-American. But that was about it.
The comment section of those posts had been filled with what you could only describe as chaos. 
Half of the comments had been about how excited they were to see what you could do and what you were capable of and the other half had been full of anger at the company bringing a foreigner into a perfectly good group.
You hadn’t been surprised of the comments then, and you certainly weren’t surprised about them now.
You read through the comments, your eyes lingering on the particularly foul ones.
There was an overwhelming amount of people complaining about how “unnecessary” it was to bring you into the group. They already had a main vocalist, they didn’t need another one. Seven was a good number and bringing it up to eight only made the choreos and the positioning weird and uneven. 
Those, you could understand. They were logical complaints that came from a logical source. 
Siyeon was a fabulous vocalist, the best you’d ever heard. Listening to her sing during recordings and hearing her voice occasionally float through the dorm was like entering a dream world. It was heavenly. You weren’t on her level, yet the company thought that you were, and decided that the group would benefit from having you as the second main vocalist. You weren’t about to argue with your employers. 
The choreography of “What” had many, many moments where they were asymmetrical in their positions and where one person had to be positioned behind another. It annoyed you to no end, especially when you were placed in front of one of your group members. Having an even number of members in a group was messy, even when it was like that from debut.
Then there was the illogical responses that couldn’t be called anything but insults. 
There were comments where people were calling you ugly, saying that your visuals weren’t up to par with the rest of the group. There were ones that said you were a horrible singer and dancer, all based on the fact that you were half-American, despite the fact that they’d neither heard you sing or seen you dance. 
You tried to ignore those comments, but it was hard. Even though you knew they would come, even though you had prepared yourself, that didn’t stop them from hitting you hard and deep.
Of course, there were nice comments. And those nice comments were really, really nice. They warmed your heart and brought a wide grin to your lips. 
They praised your visuals and talked how excited they were to see the new addition to the group. They were ready and eager to see what kind of future this would bring. They wanted to see what type of interactions you would have with their biases. They wanted to know who you would room with, who you had the best charisma with. 
Then there was the American fans that filled the comments with how excited they were to have an American in their favorite group. They practically screamed in joy at the prospect that the group would have someone that spoke fluent English.
The love was just as loud as the hate, but you couldn’t deny that the sting of the hate hit deeper than the warmth of the love.
You looked at the time on your phone—12:42—and let out a strangled sigh.
You’d been doom-scrolling for a good hour, skimming through comments and following replies full of hateful words. Tears stung in your eyes and pain hung heavy in your chest. 
You knew that indulging the haters and reading through the comments was no good. JiU, the group leader, had advised you to stick away from the comments for that very reason, but you hadn’t listened like the fool you were. You should’ve listened to her advice. She was older, and wiser, and had been in the industry longer than you had. She was the leader for very good reason. 
The door to the bedroom eased open, allowing the room to be bathed in the yellow glow of the lights. Dami stepped into the room and quickly closed the door behind herself.
You dropped your phone on the bed beside you which was quickly swallowed up by blankets and sat up in bed. You reached over and flicked on the light that sat on the table beside your bed so that Dami could see as she made her way across the bedroom.
She was dressed in light gray pajamas, with her hair done back in a braid. Her phone was clutched in her hand. She settled onto the bed that sat across from yours.
Dami didn’t say anything. She merely offered you a smile and laid down in bed to scroll on her phone. 
A moment passed before you turned the light off and turned around in bed to face the wall. You scoured for your phone in the sea of blankets and pulled it out. You made sure to keep the brightness of your phone down and tucked into a place that wouldn’t bother Dami’s eyes as you scrolled through Instagram. 
It was only a few minutes before your attention was turned back to the unending stream of comments. A new one was posted every minute. Thankfully, it had calmed down and a lot of the comments were turning into a torrent of compliments for your fellow members.
It was nearly 2:00 in the morning before you were able to pull your attention away from your phone and finally get to sleep.
☽☆☾
The next morning you were too busy to check the comments.
You got up at 8:30 with a grand total of 5 hours of asleep and had to take the speediest shower possible in order to have time to eat a breakfast and get to the gym to meet with your personal trainer by 9:00.
The company had you meeting with a personal trainer for an hour a day to help you work on the muscles and cardio that you needed to carry through with all the upcoming choreos. They wanted you singing live when you made your debut appearance on your first stage. After all, you were a main vocalist. If you couldn’t keep a steady voice throughout the performance, you hardly deserved the title. You had to at least match Siyeon in endurance, and that was no easy task.
The other members had gotten to that place through their training period and had been able to stay there since debut. Your training had ended at the same time as theirs but instead of debuting alongside them, you’d been drawn back to America by your father’s death. 
You’d thought it had been the end of your career. Your group, the people that were supposed to be your family, had debuted without you. They were carrying on with their careers, reaching the heights that you had spent so many years of working to achieve. You watched every one of their stages and vlogs and did your best to drop in to every live. 
You had given up on the rigorous exercise and training routine you’d been put on. You kept your love of singing, taking one vocal class a week. You never lost your joy for dance, but there was only so much two open classes a week could do.
When you got a call from Happyface Entertainment a year after you’d practically given up on your dream, you were shocked, to say the least.
They brought you to Korea as fast they could and put you on an intense training schedule from the moment you landed, much of it which you still stuck to even after four months of being in the country. An hour of exercise with a personal trainer in the morning, two hours of private dance lessons followed by lunch then three hours of vocal lessons, an hour of Korean lessons, dinner with the rest of the group, then an additional four hours of dance practice with the group. It was usually well past 10:00 before you got back to the dorm.
Even with all the work you put in, the company still wanted you to lose the weight you had gained during the year-long hiatus from training. You lost five of the twenty pounds you had gained without really trying, just from shifting to a highly active lifestyle, but you refused to actively lose weight. With the support of the rest of the group, management had dropped it. You liked your body too much to put yourself through that process for the second time.
Lunch came and you found a quiet restaurant on a street that brought you from the gym to your dance lessons. You spent a majority of the hour walking to the restaurant (your managers had offered to drive you, but you preferred the time in the fresh air that came with walking) and answering texts from your group members.
Dami asked you if you’d seen where she’d set her phone charger which she found before you could get to respond. Gahyeon sent you a picture of a bird she’d seen on her way to her dance lessons. Siyeon sent the picture of you from the first Teaser Image, a comment saying “She’s so pretty <3 <3” highlighted underneath it. And JiU asked if you would be able make it to dinner with the rest of the group that night, which you said you would try your hardest.
You still hadn’t gotten used to being around so many people, especially ones as loud and as joyous as your group was. You were used to your quiet home back in America where you lived and dined alone.
Even with the four months you’d been in Korea, you’d only had a few dozen dinners with the rest of the group. The first month, you had been completely isolated, thanks to the fact that the group was busy with their current comeback “You and I.” They hadn’t had much time to really talk to you in between your own training schedule and the never-ending schedule that came with a comeback.
The distance had been a blessing in disguise. It gave you the time and space you needed to reacquaint yourself with life in Korea and life as a kpop idol. You got to meet your group mates on your terms and as you felt comfortable.
You’d been practically thrown into the group when they started working on their next comeback, your debut. 
You went from seeing glimpses of them in the dorm and falling asleep with only a few words said to Dami to keep the awkwardness away to spending hours upon hours with them in recording studios and styling appointments and concept photos and dance practice. The transition had been rough, leading you to go practically mute as you focused every ounce of energy on your work and performing your best.
Your group had tried their hardest to break your shell from the moment they’d met you. In the practice room when you were taking a break, they would huddle in little groups to chat and drink water or have snacks. They would always invite you to join them, though often refused, using your break time to get back the energy you needed to continue on with dancing. 
In the end, it was Dami who broke you first. That mostly had to do with the fact that you shared a room with her and there was no avoiding her presence. That and the fact that she was the calmest out of them all. She matched your energy levels more than the rest of the group did.
That didn’t mean that the others didn’t find a way in. They were ruthless in their dedication to befriend you. And considering you lived in the same house as them and spent five hours a day, at least, in their company, that wasn’t too difficult of a mission. Their charisma was irresistible. 
You’d grown close to Siyeon not long after Dami, thanks to the hours in the recording studio you’d spent together. The company wanted to make sure you could easily play off her voice and be able to harmonize with her on command. It was a bit of learning curve, especially since Siyeon’s voice was impossible to match, but Siyeon was patient. She filled the long sessions with smiles and laughs and kept you hyped up. You still had quite a ways to go before you could get perfectly in-sync with her, but the company was satisfied enough with your progress that they declared you ready for the comeback.
The relationship with the rest of the group had come slowly. You were still just acquaintances with most of the group. You’d only a handful of conversations with them, all of which were quite pleasant. You had all of their numbers and they had yours, so most of your communication with them came in form of texts interspersed throughout the day. You liked it that way. You weren’t pushed into conversations you weren’t ready for and you were still able to make a connection with your new family.
Just as you were finishing lunch, you got a message from your manager saying that they wanted you to skip out on your Korean lessons and head back to the dorm to join a vlive with JiU and Yoohyeon. They wanted you to speak with your fans a little and hopefully grow yourself more support.
After lunch, you continued on with your vocal lessons before being picked up in a car and brought back to the dorms.
Your chest fluttered with nerves and you tapped your fingers on your thighs. 
You’d seen and heard your members going on vlive multiple times over the last four months. Then, you had been told to stay quiet and keep as far away from them as possible to avoid the fans picking up on your presence. Now, being encouraged to join one of the vlives had you shaking with nervousness.
It would be all right. You would be with JiU and Yoohyeon and if you faltered at all, they would be there to fill the silence and help you through it. 
Besides, this was a huge milestone. Your first vlive, your first greetings to the fans, your first interaction with your fans. You just hoped that the comments kept clear of the hate you’d gotten used to finding in all your previous appearances.
You arrived at the dorm and before you had even closed the front door, you heard the sound of laughter coming from one of the bedrooms—JiU’s room which she shared with Siyeon.
You took in a deep breath and made your way to the kitchen. You grabbed a bottle of water and sipped at it, embracing the way the cold ran down your throat. You enjoyed the small break, using it to center your emotions and steady yourself.
This was what you had spent so long training for. This was what those hundreds of hours worth of vocal training and dance lessons was bringing you to. You were finally living your dream. All your hard work was paying off. It was time you got to enjoy the bright, exciting parts instead of simply pushing through all the difficult grueling aspects. 
You set the water down on the counter and started walking towards the bedroom, following the voices.
As you approached, you made out the sound of Yoohyeon reading out a comment, “What spoilers can you give us?” A moment later, she answered with a laugh in her voice, “Nothing! You guys should know that by now.”
JiU added, “The next Teaser Image is coming out in an hour. That’s your spoiler.”
You got to the open door of the room and paused in the threshold to see Yoohyeon nodding in agreement. “Just nine more days! You’re even getting a trailer tomorrow.”
They sat on JiU’s bed, their backs up against the wall. Yoohyeon’s phone was placed precariously on the side table that had been moved to sit in front of the bed, propped up by stacks of creams and lotions. You were sure that one wrong move would have the whole thing toppling to the ground.
Yoohyeon leaned forward to read the comments on the tiny phone screen and JiU looked up, her eyes landing on you.
Her smile grew wide. JiU held her hand out towards you and said, “Come. Come say hello.”
Despite the wave of anxiety that overtook you at the prospect of being on the live, you gave her a smile and walked across the room and took her hand. She practically pulled you onto the bed and you, not so gracefully, fell onto the bed beside her. The pile of blankets helped to soften your fall. JiU placed her hand lightly on your shoulder and pulled you in close so that you would fit in the frame, which caused Yoohyeon to be pushed out of frame. It didn’t seem like she minded all that much.
You looked straight at the camera—not the screen, but the camera to ensure that you were making eye contact with the fans watching—and smiled. You gave a small smile and waved. “Hello.”
The one word held too much of your American accent and not enough of the Korean accent you’d spent so many hours trying to perfect, but you tried not to react to it. You had still pronounced correctly, it was just very obvious that you weren’t a native, or even fluent, speaker. You blamed the mistake on your nerves. Neither JiU or Yoohyeon showed a reaction to slip up even though you knew they noticed it. There was no way they couldn’t have. Anyone who knew Korean would’ve noticed.
That wasn’t a great first impression, but you supposed you would just have to deal with it. You had at least twenty minutes of company-ordered time on the vlive. That had to be long enough to leave the fans with a good impression.
You settled on the bed beside JiU as she introduced you, “This is our new member, Hyeon. Say hello!”
You watched the comments as they filled with hello’s and excitement. You picked out one of the comments which read, “Her accent is so cute!” and you couldn’t help your smile. That was better than the response you had expected.
Yoohyeon reached forward and moved her phone that in a place that captured all of them at once, though she still had to squeeze in close to JiU to made sure she fit.
JiU pulled out her phone and opened the vlive on her phone and angled it towards you so that you could better read the comments. The first one that caught your eye was an English one that read, “I have no idea what’s happening, but I’m so happy to see Hyeon. Pls say something in English.”
You had no idea how to respond to that so you stayed quiet, but you smiled, a happiness filling you at the idea that you did, in fact, have English fans.
Yoohyeon read out a comment, “Isn’t it weird having two main vocalists.” 
A moment passed where Yoohyeon hummed out an “uhh,” looking for an answer. You answered before either of them could find an answer. “This group is full of main vocalists. The only difference is they gave me the title.”
Thankfully, you were able to bring your Koren accent back. JiU smiled and nodded, satisfied with the answer.
You kept reading through the comments as JiU and Yoohyeon answered ones directed at them. There was a lapse of silence and read a question in English, “When did you first go to Korea?” Only after you had read through it, did you speak it out loud. Both JiU and Yoohyeon turned their attention to you. “Well,” you said hesitantly. “I first came when I was 8 with my family. Then I came four years ago for training.”
A comment came up, “So you trained for 4 years?”
You read it out then said, “No. I trained for three years, took a year-long break, and now I’m here.”
Yoohyeon said in English, “We’re happy to have you.”
103 notes · View notes
duhragonball · 1 year
Text
Dragon Ball: Evolution (USA, 2009)
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The Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy comes to a close with “Dragon Ball: Evolution”.  Regardless of which movie is your favorite, I think it’s fair to say that DBE was easily the most disappointing.  “Fight/Win” and “Magic Begins” were unofficial, low-budget movies from the early 1990′s, while “Evolution” was produced by 20th Century Fox.  They spent seven years and 30 million dollars on this turkey. And they had actually gone to the trouble to acquire the legal rights to make the movie.  And yet...
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The movie ended up being a critical and commercial flop.  In the fandom, “Dragon Ball: Evolution” has become a byword for failure.  Even Akira Toriyama expressed disappointment with the film, which is pretty rare for him. 
For my part, I was kind of intrigued when the movie came out in 2009, and I had some hopes that it might lead to big things for the franchise.  And I remember it being okay when I saw it, but I was quick to notice that there weren’t many people in the theater that day. 
I didn’t really get mad about the movie until I saw the 2011 Thor movie, which proved that a big studio could have done a better job adapting a superhero fantasy world.  Believe it or not, there was a time when live-action adaptations of comic books were just expected to suck.   The studio would just change a bunch of shit for no good reason or to make the movie cheaper and easier to film, and if you didn’t like it then you just didn’t understand movies or something.  The idea that the movie people needed to understand the comic didn’t really gain traction until the first X-Men film came out in 2000, and even then, it was understood that the movies were under no obligation to get it right, or even try to get it right. 
So I graded DBE on a curve back then, and as the MCU Phase 1 movies started to premiere, I got more and more irritated at Fox for failing to recognize the moment.  And now, 14 years later, I’m watching DBE for the second time ever and wondering why I ever thought it was okay.  It’s a terrible movie, with only occasional flashes of appreciation for the source material.  In hindsight, I realize now that I only enjoyed DBE as much as I did because of wishful thinking.  I just really wanted to like it, and I so managed to convince myself that I didn’t hate it.
But now?   Yeah, I hate it.  This movie sucks ass.  Let’s dive in.
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We open with exposition, which is generally a bad sign for movies like these.  For one thing, they go over this information several times throughout the movie, so there’s absolutely no reason to spell it out at the very beginning. 
So, like the Korean and Taiwanese live action films, this one also dares to retell the story of the first Dragon Ball hunt.  Goku meets Bulma and they search for the seven Dragon Balls, but this is 2009, and that trick has been done several times already.  A timeline...
1984-1985: Chapters 1-23 of the Dragon Ball manga.
1986: Episodes 1-13 of the Dragon Ball anime.
1986: Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies
1990: Dragon Ball: Fight, Son Goku! Win, Son Goku!
1991: Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins
1996: Dragon Ball: The Path to Power
2009: Dragon Ball: Evolution
Even if the audience wanted to see this again, it still would have been a bad idea, simply because of how many times it had been done before.  More importantly, this was an American movie, made primarily to attract business from American fans, most of whom were introduced to the franchise through Dragon Ball Z, not the Pilaf Saga.  Fans didn’t want to see Master Roshi and Mai, they wanted Vegeta and Frieza and Super Saiyans.  This is probably why Fox put Piccolo in the role of the lead villain.   Let’s face it, it just makes sense.  Korea and Taiwan stuck to Emperor Pilaf, but they ended up turning Pilaf into some overpowered badass.  You might as well swap him out for Piccolo, a villain who actually fills that role. 
And also, DBE was meant to serve as the first installment of a trilogy.  This was all the rage back in the late 2000′s, as movie studios deluded themselves into thinking they could turn any movie into three movies just by wishing for it really hard.   Terminator 4, 5, and 6 were each supposed to reboot the Terminator franchise, but none of them made enough money to pull it off, so they ended up becoming a trilogy of failed trilogies. 
So rather than having Piccolo and Vegeta fighting Frieza, like everyone probably wanted, this movie tries to take it slow, introducing Piccolo first, in order to set up Vegeta in the next movie.  Only there would be no next movie, so in hindsight they really would have been better off putting their best foot forward instead of holding back. 
Anyway, let’s get on with this.  So in this movie, Piccolo is basically the same as King Piccolo from the manga, except he tried to conquer the Earth 2000 years ago, instead of a few centuries ago.  He was defeated and sealed away by a powerful technique called the Mafuba, and in the events of this movie, he escapes and plots his revenge.  But he wasn’t alone back in the olden days...
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And this right here is where the movie fucked up.  Piccolo’s sidekick villain is simply an ape-like creature named “Oozaru”.  So any fans watching this thing will immediately see the twist coming.  I suppose general audiences might not pick up on this, but come on. Oozaru is presented as Piccolo’s “disciple”, but he wasn’t captured like Piccolo was.  Instead he simply... “disappeared”.  This is undoubtedly meant to set up the Saiyans in the sequel, but there would never be a sequel.
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So we move on to the present day, where Gohan is teaching is adoptive grandson Goku.  Goku looks like Frodo Baggins accidentally wandered into the wrong movie.  DBE Goku resembles a lot of other movie characters from around this period.  Frodo, Edward Cullen, Tobey McGuire Spider-Man.  I could probably keep going, but the one guy he really doesn’t resemble is Goku. 
Gohan defeats him in a sparring contest, and Goku is too frustrated with his social life to learn anything.  The kids at school bully him, and he can’t fight back because Gohan made him promise not to use his power.  Goku seems to understand this, but he’s also frustrated that he doesn’t know how to do anything else.  This movie tries to force Goku to fit into some sort of classic secret identity trope, where he has great power but he mustn’t reveal it.  In ‘09, I accepted this as a new take on the character.  In 2023, I’ve pretty much abandoned DC and Marvel superhero comics altogether, and I can see now how stupid this was.  It’s like doing a Bugs Bunny movie and making him act like Mickey Mouse.  It’s not going to impress Mickey Mouse fans.  All it does is expose your inability to understand the classic character you have. 
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They wanted Goku to be Spider-Man so badly, or maybe Harry Potter.  And I’m like, fuck Spider-Man and Harry Potter.  Give us Goku, you cretins!
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Or... yeah, the Twilight connection is really starting to seem more apparent to me.  Everything in this movie is blue or orange and it pisses me off. 
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So Goku’s in high school and the teacher is explaining what a solar eclipse is, which reminds me way too much of Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four movie, where a college professor literally explains the cosmic MacGuffin that gives the FF their powers.  And Goku’s too busy crushing on his classmate, Chi-Chi.  He hallucinates her in a field of flowers, eating strawberries, which is kind of like... not exactly horny, but hornier than Goku needs to be, if that makes any sense.  Chi-Chi really doesn’t serve any purpose in this movie, except to be a love interest for Goku, which he doesn’t really need because there’s enough going on here as it is.  So Chi-Chi just sort of exists in the film, liking Goku for no particular reason and being this hot chick.  It’s dumb.
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Then the teacher calls on Goku and asks him what their ancestors would say about a solar eclipse, and Goku stammers some crap about how the Earth was nearly conquered by the Namekians during an eclipse thousands of years ago.  Everyone laughs at him, but I don’t understand what the hell this movie is trying to establish here.  On the one hand, there’s all this secret lore about Piccolo and Oozaru nearly conquering the world, but on the other hand wouldn’t everyone kind of know about that?  I mean, there would be historical accounts of this terrible battle, right?  It would have altered the course of history, but these high school scenes make it look like the world is basically the same as our world. 
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Later, Goku sees Chi-Chi struggling with the lock on her locker, and her homework assignment is trapped inside.  So Goku uses The Force his ki to open all the lockers.  This impresses Chi-Chi, who already knows about ki.  Meanwhile, I’m confused.  At the beginning of the movie, Gohan told Goku to use his ki, and he couldn’t do anything with it.  So why did he even try it here?  Maybe his boner for Chi-Chi unleashed his hidden potential?
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Chi-Chi invites him to a party at her house, and he ditches his grandfather’s humble birthday celebration to attend.  Oh, right, it’s Goku’s 18th birthday, by the way.  The bullies from school try to intimidate Goku, but he stands his ground and defeats them by dodging all their attacks and getting them to defeat themselves.  It’s actually pretty true to Goku’s style in mismatches like this, and I’d give it a little credit, except it’s too similar to gags used in the Spider-Man and Superman films.  One thing that bothers me here: the bullies are using like kicks and flips and shit.  They seem pretty skilled in martial arts themselves.  Not on Goku’s level, obviously, but they’re not just stock football players or whatever.  It’s another example of this world being sort of a half-inch removed from reality.  It can’t decide if it wants to be the real world or a fantasy world like the one in the source material. 
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Meanwhile, Piccolo and Mai barge into Gohan’s house and kill him.  They came looking for his Dragon Ball, but don’t realize that Gohan gave it to Goku that morning as a birthday present.  Goku took it with him to the party, so it’s not here. 
Okay, so let’s talk about the bad guys.  Mai is basically Mai from the Pilaf gang, but she works for Piccolo here.  She has a hole in her costume, which... I mean I’m not complaining, but I’m starting to see that this movie really uses eye candy as a crutch.  Like, Rey’s pretty good looking in the Star Wars movies, but there’s so much other cool shit happening in those things that it’s not the main thing.  Here, just about all you have to occupy your attention in DBE is ogling Chi-Chi, Mai, and Bulma. 
Piccolo absolutely sucks.  James Marsters wanted this role because he was such a huge fan of the franchise, and I always felt kind of bad for him because he seemed really excited at the prospect of playing Piccolo in the sequels, only for this movie to turn into such a huge flop.  I guess there’s a non-zero chance he’s reading this, so I don’t want to be too hard on him, but there’s just nothing to this character.  He just glowers menacingly, destroys a place, then collects the Dragon Ball and leaves.  He pops up briefly throughout the movie just to remind us that he’s doing stuff, but most of what we know about him comes from other characters talking about him.  He’s mad about being sealed away for 2000 years, but we never learn how he got unsealed.  For that matter, we never learn why he wants the Dragon Balls.  He seems to want to wish for world conquest, but he was doing pretty well on that front 2000 years ago.
Also, we never learn how he knows where the Dragon Balls are.  It’s like how Baby from GT knew where to send his lackeys.  We see Piccolo destroy a Japanese village and then Mai goes down to fetch the Dragon Ball from some lady, and it’s like she knew exactly where to go.  But here, they show up looking for Gohan’s Ball, and it’s like they knew it used to be here, but they don’t know where it’s gone?
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Back at Chi-Chi’s place, Goku’s Spider-Sense is tingling, so he runs back home to check on his grandfather and finds him buried under the house.  He pulls him out the wreckage, where Gohan tells him to find all the Dragon Balls to stop Piccolo, and reminds him to “have faith in who you are.”  That’s like the moral of this movie.  That and “the first rule is that there are no rules”.  Just hackey drivel presented like some profound wisdom.  Also, there’s a poem about the Dragon Balls, like the verses etched in the One Ring from Lord of the Rings.  Then Gohan dies of terminal cliche and Goku buries him in a shallow grave.
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The next day, Bulma breaks into the house... Well, I guess that’s a relative term, since the house is already half-destroyed.  She accuses Goku of stealing her “promethium orb”, because she tracked it to this house.  Goku realizes she’s talking about the Dragon Balls, and when he shows her his Four-Star Ball, she understands that it’s not the same as the Five-Star one she lost.
Okay, so a couple of things.  First, if Bulma has a Dragon Radar in this story, why is she just now learning that there’s more than one of these things?  Second, after Goku tells her about the Dragon Balls, she just drops the whole “promethium orb” thing.  That seems kind of weird, since she had this whole thing planned where she was going to use them as an unlimited power source.  I can’t see her abandoning the name she came up with. 
Anyway, Bulma is easily the best character in this movie.  She’s not quite authentic to the original character, but she’s constantly pointing guns at people and growling thinly veiled threats.  It’s sort of a half-Bulma, with all the badass two-fisted scientist stuff, but none of the flirty, bratty stuff.
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Also, I have to give her credit for the one (1) streak of blue hair, which is more than the other live-action Bulmas ever got.  Seriously though, this is like a symbol of the entire movie.  They wanted to put Bulma in this thing, but they stopped short of giving her all-blue hair.  Like, which is it? Do you want Bulma or not?  And if the answer is no, then why are you doing a Dragon Ball movie in the first place?
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So before Gohan died, he told Goku to seek out Master Roshi at Paozu.  As it turns out, Paozu is a big city, and Roshi’s house is located on a weird little island in the middle of a lake in the middle of the city. 
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Roshi is played by Chow Yun-fat, which was probably a big “get” for the studio.  He’s also the worst live-action Roshi I’ve seen, and I wasn’t very impressed by the others.  This is just Chow Yun-fat screwing around in a Dragon Ball movie.  He doesn’t have the turtle shell on his back, which isn’t much of a surprise, but he also lacks the beard, sunglasses, and bald head.  He has a waifu cartoon on his shirt, and Bulma finds a bikini magazine in his stuff, and that’s about as pervy as he ever gets.  Seriously, Goku is a bigger horndog in this movie than Roshi. 
And I’m not that fussed about this, since I’m not a big fan of Roshi’s to begin with, but it’s weird to me how all three live-action adaptations went out of their way to include Roshi, but refused to go all-in on the portrayal.  Like, if you don’t want a problematic sex-pest in your movie, I totally understand, but the solution is not to tone down the character.  Now you still have the character in your movie, but you’ve stripped away the only personality he had.
The solution should have been just to do a different story, one without Master Roshi.  Just have Chow Yun-fat play some other character, like the Supreme Kai or whatever else you want.  But if he’s not gonna ogle girls and wear sunglasses and have a bald head, what’s the point of calling it Roshi?
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Anyway, Roshi also has a Dragon Ball, and he fills in the others on the whole deal with Piccolo and the eclipse, and whatever else.  There’s a lot of mysticism thrown around with this plot, where I can’t tell if Piccolo’s return was just a quirk of fate or some fufilment of an ancient prophecy or something.  Also, every time Goku touches a new Dragon Ball, he has visions of the future. 
Roshi’s plan is to train Goku to defeat Piccolo, and to track down the Dragon Balls before Piccolo can get them all.  To do that, he takes Goku to some “secret” training ground, but it turns out to be full of kids beating the shit out of each other as they prepare for a martial arts tournament.  Goku runs into Chi-Chi there, and she reveals to him that she’s a martial artist, but none of the others at home know. I don’t understand what the point is to any of this.
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So the good guys move on to a different, more secluded training ground.  On the way, Bulma drives into a hole, and this turns out to be a trap laid by Yamcha.  He offers to help them out, but only in exchange for payment.  This seems like a really dumb trap now that I think about it.  I mean, how long did it take him to dig this hole?  And he just assumes someone will drive into it, and that they’ll be rich enough to make this worth the trouble he went to.  I mean, past a point, it’d be simpler to just get a job, right?  Or at least go rob people in a big city, like a regular criminal.
They sit in the hole well into the night, and Roshi tells the story of Piccolo and Oozaru.  He warns that the coming eclipse will bring forth Oozaru, which is why they have to stop Piccolo before that happens.  Why? Isn’t Piccolo strong enough on his own?  The implication is that Oozaru is like his trump card or something, but I don’t buy that.  He killed Gohan effortlessly, and no one else has displayed any greater ability. 
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Yamcha thinks the story is dumb, but he has to sit here and wait for them to pay him before he can move on.  Then Roshi just jumps out of the hole and offers him a deal.   If he could do that the whole time, then why did he wait so long to do it? 
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Meanwhile, Mai has been following the good guys, and she reports back to Piccolo that Roshi is training Goku to oppose him.  Piccolo then has blood drawn from his arms, which he uses to bring life to... whatever these things are.   They’re like the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers, only even shittier.
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Goku just tosses their bodies in lava, and uses them as a bridge to reach the next Dragon Ball.  Don’t ask how we ended up in a lava floe.  Anyway, when he touches the next Ball, he has visions of Oozaru killing the others, so he resolves to defeat Oozaru, and Roshi starts to lose confidence in their plan.  They won’t have time to track down the remaining Dragon Balls before the eclipse, so he heads for Toisan to consult with someone else for Plan B.
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That someone is Sifu Norris, played by Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters movies.  A lot of geek journalist sites said that Hudson would be playing Mutai-Itoh, the master who trained Roshi and developed the Mafuba technique that defeated Piccolo in the original manga.  But the character’s name in ths movie is Sifu Norris, and while Roshi bows to him in deference, it’s not clear that Norris was Roshi’s teacher.  And he couldn’t have invented the Mafuba in this world, not unless he’s 2000+ years old. 
Anyway, Roshi never took the poem about the Dragon Balls seriously until now, when the signs are finally starting to come true.  So he apologizes for his doubts, and asks Norris to help him prepare another vessel for the Mafuba.  Roshi plans to seal up Piccolo all over again, at the cost of his own life. 
See, here’s why this doesn’t work properly.  In the original story, Roshi told the other characters all about Piccolo’s original attack on the world, and how his old master sacrificed his own life to seal Piccolo away.  That was important, because you need that established up front.  That way, when Roshi begins planning to use the Mafuba himself later on, the audience knows exactly what it means, and how desperate the situation is.  The audience also understands how Roshi would know the technique, as he was one of the only living witnesses to have seen the technique used.
But in DBE, we don’t get that.  We’re only told that the Mafuba is a technique that sealed Piccolo away.  We don’t find out that it kills the user until this scene, when Roshi and Norris say so.  Roshi says he’s the only one who can do it, but we never find out why.  When would he have learned the Mafuba?  Why would he have learned it?  He was never worried about Piccolo until a few days ago.  He certainly never saw it used the first time around, because it was before his time.  And why can’t Sifu Norris use it instead?  He seems more experienced in this sort of thing. 
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Meanwhile, Goku meets with Chi-Chi at the Toisan tournament, while Bulma and Yamcha commiserate over the upcoming end of the world.  There is zero chemistry between these two, and Bulma says she likes bad men, so she’s already preparing to dump him for Vegeta, and they haven’t even introduced him yet.
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Roshi shows Goku how to do the Kamehameha, and Goku says that he’s heard of the technique, but Gohan never taught him because he wasn’t ready.  Roshi says that Goku still isn’t ready, but he has to learn it anyway because they’re almost out of time.   Well if he’s not ready, then what good does it do to teach him?  This movie really can’t make up it’s mind about Goku’s ability.  We’ve already seen him use ki powers, even when the movie insists that he has no aptitude for this. 
As he struggles to light torches with his ki, Chi-Chi shows up and basically offers to make out with him if he does a good job.  That’s the other weird thing about this movie, it keeps presenting this notion that romantic intimacy makes you better at fireball karate.  I mean, that sounds awesome, actually, but it’s not Dragon Ball.
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Later, Bulma finds Chi-Chi in Goku’s room, and she thinks they’re having sex, except Goku’s not in there, and Chi-Chi’s doing exercises somewhere else.  Turns out Mai disguised herself as Chi-Chi.  At the Toisan tournament, she was in a match with Chi-Chi, and managed to get a drop of her blood, which she somehow used to shapeshift into her?  I mean, that’s fine, I can believe Piccolo has special magic that lets Mai do that sort of thing, but I feel like they should have explained it in greater detail.   Anyway, Goku finds the two Chi-Chi’s fighting, and he beats the wrong one, and Mai shoots him.
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Goku has a near death experience where Gohan tells him to believe in himself or some shit, while Roshi uses a Kamehameha to revive him.  Uh, okay?
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So the bad guys have all the Dragon Balls, which normally means they’ve already made their wish, but in this movie there’s still time, because you have to take the Balls to the Dragon Temple to summon Shenron.  So Yamcha drives the gang over there, and partway into the trip he just reveals that his truck can fly like the DeLorean in Back to the Future II.  So why didn’t he do that before?
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The bad guys are already at the Temple, so I’m not sure what the point was of making this like a chase or anything.  Fortunately for the good guys, it seems to take a long time for Shenron to get summoned. Roshi tries to use the Mafuba, but Piccolo shoots a ki blast at him and destroys the magic pot?  Yeah, let’s go with that.
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So all this wild shit is going on and Goku’s just been putting on his costume the whole time.  It looks like ass, but it’s a huge improvement over the street clothes he’s been wearing through 80% of this movie.  He goes to confront Piccolo and threatens to defeat him and Oozaru, but Piccolo calmly explains that Goku is Oozaru.  Or rather, he’ll become Oozaru when the eclipse happens.
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This is really the closest Piccolo gets to any meaningful characterization.  He doesn’t develop his personality, and we learn nothing about him or his connection to Oozaru or Goku, but at least he gets to talk to another character besides Mai. 
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So the eclipse happens and Goku transforms into... a slightly taller, hairier ape-man.  Why the hell did Piccolo need this to happen?  He explains that Goku was sent to Earth in a meteor to hid among humanity until his 18th birthday, when Piccolo would be ready to use him again.  So how long has Piccolo been planning all of this?  Again, we never learn how he got out of the seal from before, so we don’t know how long he’s been loose, or what arrangements he’s been making.  But apparently he had a space baby sent to Earth in preparation for this day. 
Also, what is the connection between Goku and the Oozaru from 2000 years ago?  The movie seems to imply that they’re the same character, but how does that work? They keep saying Goku’s 18, so is he the second Oozaru?  What happened to the first one?
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I mean, you have this mysterious figure baked into the lore of this movie, directly connected with Goku, but separated by a vast gulf of time.  It’s almost like...
No. 
No. 
No, we’re not doing this. 
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So anyway... Roshi tries the Mafuba and gets his ass kicked, and then Oozaru goes to choke Roshi out, but Roshi somehow gets through to Goku, who then... wills himself back to normal?  Piccolo can’t believe it, and Goku just repeats the line from the start of the movie, when Gohan told him “there are no rules”.  So I guess there’s no point in asking how Goku’s clothes were restored to normal, then.
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So they fight, and it looks like crap, and Goku says some nonsense about how he has to be Goku and Oozaru and believe in himself, and I guess that was what had been holding him back.  All this time, he couldn’t properly focus his ki because he didn’t know his true nature, but now he understands what he is so he can do it?  Anyway he shoots a Kamehameha, and it’s dumb as hell.  The poses are all wrong, and then he leaps forward while he shoots it, like he wants to punch Piccolo as he shoots him. 
I mean, how did they manage to fuck up the Kamehameha?  They made it the climax of this movie, and it’s like no one involved in this production had ever seen the movie before.  Either that, or they studied the anime intensively, only to brainstorm ways to “improve” it. 
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So Piccolo’s defeated, and Roshi’s dead.  Bulma says she wishes that it didn’t end this way, and Goku’s like “Oh yeah, that Dragon who grants wishes.” 
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So they summon Shenron at the temple and holy shit this is bad.  This was the best dragon they could come up with?
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So Roshi’s alive again, and Bulma says they have to re-collect the Dragon Balls, but Goku has one more piece of business to take care of.  He goes back to Toisan to meet Chi-Chi and apologize for beating her up before, and she says she let him hit her, so they decide they need to fight to see who’s really better at fighting, as this is the only way their relationship can move forward.  And that’s kind of cute, I guess, but it reminds me too much of the ending of Rocky III.  Also, “The Magic Begins” had a similar ending, but with Yamcha instead of Chi-Chi. 
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And then there’s a mid-credits scene where some lady is nursing someone back to health and the guy rolls over and it’s Piccolo.  This was really stupid because they dragged out this reveal like it was some sort of shock.  Meanwhile, everyone knew Piccolo would survive, since he would have been needed in a sequel.  Also, they show him still in one-piece after Goku defeated him, so it’s not like this is a huge twist or anything.  
But, of course, there would be no sequel, so this was the last we saw of DBE Piccolo. 
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This movie was a real garbage heap of a film, but there was one positive development that came from it.  Akira Toriyama really didn’t like how this movie turned out, and this probably had a lot to do with him getting involved with the production of Battle of Gods around 2012.  And that movie turned out to be a big success, in part because of Toriyama’s efforts, and this led to the Dragon Ball rennaissance we’re in today.  Dragon Ball Super has been a mixed bag in my opinion, but the movies have been great, and even the worst of Super is still miles ahead of “Dragon Ball: Evolution.”
And... yeah, that’s all I got.  So ends the Gaijin Live-Action Trilogy.  I’ll leave you with the highlight of the series: Puar smoking a cigarette.
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