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spicyveggiesub · 2 years

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Revue Starlight The Movie Veggie Sub V2/WIDESCREEN

Hello! I subbed the Revue Starlight movie back in December (the one that has color coded dialogue) - this is my first post because I was too much of a coward to make an account anywhere then.

To put it simply, I was not satisfied with my original work, which had mistakes from mishearing and also just misinterpreting things. It was rushed for various reasons, and I really regret not being more patient with it. I don’t think the mistranslations impact any plot points of the movie, it’s really more in the specifics, but I misrepresented some things I consider to be important, and for that I am truly very sorry.

After not touching it for 2 months and then working on it in all of my spare time for the past month, I finally!!!! finished the revised version and a widescreen version, since I had originally done it letterboxed. I think the widescreen version is actually more readable, so that’s one more thing to bonk my past self on the head for, but the letterboxed version has its merits too. They can be found on nyaa and anidex like before, and to make sure this appears in the tag, I’ll add links in a reblog!

Now I’m going to ramble a lot about the fixes I made and translation decisions and other things under the cut... it’s going to read like half a callout for myself and half a defense, and half just fun rambling about translation (yes that’s 3 halves) so do with that what you will...!

This is going to be unnecessarily long - so long, in fact, that I am going to divide it into parts. You may be thinking "I don't wanna read all that" so a tldr for you if you are:

1. major changes:

revue of malice -> revue of resentment, fixed lines in futakao conversation towards the end of the revue

a line the giraffe says that is directed to the audience but I misinterpreted

Nana’s line about feeling drunk: sake -> alcohol (this was just stupid of me)

revue of souls -> revue of the soul (yes the the is ugly but necessary)

2. minor changes: really nitpicky stuff and obsessing too much over timing, typesetting

3. this took so long because I actually just fully stopped working on it for 2 months, I had like 0 time due to work and had no motivation, i overshare about the process

okay, time for the longer explanation!!! you don’t have to read this but if you want to witness someone be a little insane then have fun (also, warning for spoilers)!! we’re dropping capitalization now! i know nobody asked for this, but i have to talk a lot about this bc i haven't, really, to anyone. and i think it's kind of fun

first off i want to say... i’m not a professional translator (as of right now at least, who knows this might change in the future, though maybe not for japanese) i’ve never taken translation courses and i’ve only taken like one creative writing course in my life. but i really enjoy linguistics and translating and am always, but especially after subbing this movie, trying to improve myself. generally my principle for translating things is that. Words are just words. personally i think that as long as something makes an equal amount of sense in the target language then all of the information in the source language should be retained as much as possible. of course, with english and japanese being so different, it’s difficult to stick to this. anyway i’m already going off topic, mainly i wanted to say my goal is always to present what MY understanding of the source is in a way that i feel is accurate to the source and would 1. convey the same meaning to an english speaker 2. read well to me as a person who can (to an extent) understand japanese. now let’s get into how i failed here.

PART 1: major changes / decisions

when the giraffe speaks to the audience, saying "it's because of all of you", i misinterpreted it as being about karehika and put "it's because of you two" even though that's not what he said.

this is the WORST mistranslation imo and i lost my shit when i realized, but at least the message isn't entirely lost because right before that he talks about how it's the stage the selfish and greedy audience longs for. i have no idea how tf i ignored that previous line and thought it was about karehika.

i decided to change the title of the futakao revue to "Revue of Resentment".

the original title, "Revue of Malice", i honestly took from the wiki without thinking too hard about the translation of the name that someone else had done, which was stupid of me. I also forgot to translate wagamama highway as selfish highway and just left it as wagamama highway in the subs, so you see.

怨み (urami) generally means "grudge, resentment" in the same way that the more common form for urami, 恨み does, only it's a stronger, more hateful emotion, and not commonly used. it's usually used for a very deep-seated, strong grudge/resentment, or for things that are supernatural, ie. the grudge of a soul.

either way, "malice" doesn't really represent the meaning properly imo, because while resentment is about bearing ill will/bearing malice towards someone, the word by itself doesn't cover the meaning of resentment, at least to me. but i'll admit that it sounds a lot cooler, and i don't think it's too far off, so i think it's fine if people keep referring to the revue as revue of malice. if you take the midpoint between malice and resentment then that's what my understanding of 怨み is.

i also thought about changing it to revue of grudges, but to me that sort of implies actual tangible, countable grudges, which isn't necessarily wrong, but considering the kanji selection it has the vibe of the actual feeling/act of holding a grudge, which in english is only resentment. so that's what i settled on.

i probably won't change what's on the wiki until the official translation for it comes out on starira, and no matter what starira says this is my final decision for my subs.

I changed the final lines to the final line.

i had originally called the karehika revue "the final lines" and made karen say "i have to say them. the final lines", when there was no need to make it plural and makes less sense to make it plural, because the final line is, one final line. i can't say why this happened other than i apparently was not thinking hard enough about it until one day i was

originally what i put for A Beautiful Person, Or Perhaps It Is was "A Beautiful Person, Or Somebody Like That".

i had also taken this from the wiki and thought it was a reasonable interpretation because i didn't know the backstory of how it was genuinely supposed to be cut off at the end (A Beautiful Person, Or Perhaps It Is [A Love Song]). that was my fault for not doing enough research and not looking in the right places to find this out before finishing it, and also a lesson that sometimes trying to extrapolate things from vague grammar is not a good idea

in the scene with the vegetable giraffe, right after junna says "putting an end... to what?", maya says "greedily, ferociously, in order to continue standing on stage, we will go to the next stage."

here i originally made a dumb mistake and thought that when she said 貪欲に、獰猛に it was an extension of junna's line instead of an adverb - like what are we putting an end to (何に？) to greed (貪欲に), to brutality (獰猛に). 🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦

this isn't a mistake but since i am explaining my choices i feel i have to mention - the なんだか強いお酒を飲んだみたい。line (Somehow it feels like... I just drank some strong alcohol.). actually i did make a mistake here and it was calling "sake" "sake" instead of just alcohol, which was really just me being careless.

besides that, there's an issue with this line in that it lacks a subject/identifier. it could be that nana's the one feeling drunk, or that the rest of them seem drunk to her, but there's no way to eliminate a subject in english and have it make sense (Somehow, it feels like strong alcohol was just drunk. <-- ??????? what?? people don't talk like this)

the first time i even heard of this line b4 the bluray was out it appeared to me that it was about nana, and every time i went down a twitter search rabbithole while working on both the original and the revision, it appeared that jp fans took it the same way - i wanted to link this fanart i saw where futaba is drinking w/ nana and makes fun of her for it but i lost it..

i think the whole brushing hair back thing she does it seems to imply it's intended to be more about her, but really it can have a double meaning (i found one or two jp fans talking about this, that at first it seems to be about nana but could also be about the rest of them).

since it the general consensus is that it’s about nana, i stuck with "I".

i also considered removing the “just” because it’s technically not in the original line but it sounds a lot more awkward without it, and adding it doesn’t change the meaning of the line at all in context (like she’s not saying someone drank alcohol before they got on the train or something lmao so)

speaking of this scene, here is a fun jp blog post analyzing it which is pretty parseable even just w/ google translate (it’s less about the actual line, but their theory for the line is that nana was very stimulated from the fight = feels like she had a strong drink): https://note. com/suzumya/n/n7ee2160d039c

revue of resentment:

didn’t you say we were cutting ties? when futaba catches kaoruko after her truck flies off.. originally i just had “did we cut ties?” umm this was just me being dumb. anyway funny line because kaoruko was the one who said they were cutting ties in the first place and then she turns around and asks this to futaba LMAO

towards the end when futaba is saying “this time, it’s my turn to say something selfish. it’s my turn to-” and then kaoruko says “it’s my turn to make you wait”? she’s imitating futaba/predicting what she’s going to say. i.... again, was careless and did not realize this and just had “it’s time for me to wait” (you’d think it’d be easy to catch because she said “atashi” and not “uchi” but well. I was not thinking clearly..)

after she says this, she says “i know that much, okay” basically saying she knows that that has to happen/that futaba was going to say that, but this was one that i misheard and i thought she said わっかてませんや when she said わかってますんや and i put “i dunno about that” which is basically the opposite meaning.. lol

the final line of this revue, i originally had as “guess i can’t win against the selfishness of a kid”. I changed this to “i just can’t win against the selfishness of a kid”. i can see where my past self was coming from with the “guess” to represent the わ but it makes it feel too.. speculative and like she didn’t know? which isn’t really right. I just can’t better portrays the sort of helplessness of it while still being like she’s stating a known fact, i think

this is kind of just a discussion, but i’ve been thinking about how “revue of souls” isn’t entirely accurate to 魂のレヴュー because it’s, a revue of a singular soul. but “revue of soul” doesn’t feel right to me, because... i dunno there’s some sort of rule to these revue of ___ things to me where it’s like the thing has to be a noun that’s either uncountable or plural if it’s countable. to say revue of soul makes me think that it’s like . revue of who is the most soulful or revue of soul music LMFAO so... i think it’s actually just a rule for using (something) of (something), maybe. like... tree of noodles vs tree of noodle. wow every day sentences that have never been spoken before are created

i think it’s more accurate to say “the soul” in this case, actually... but i don’t like putting the in a revue title....... but i think i will change it actually. you’re watching me make this decision live as i write this blog post lmao okay so i changed it to Revue of the Soul. maybe ateam were onto something with putting the Thing first actually. (just kidding i really don’t like that anyway moving on)

other stupid things that i almost forgot to mention in this post bc i changed them so long ago, but they’re in the first version: i wrote “kuro” instead of “clau” for .. some reason, and i wrote “bakkaren” instead of “karenitwit” and i spent some time thinking about alternate ways to localize this but karenitwit ended up being the best option.

PART 2: minor changes (summary, some specific lines i thought were notable, etc)

the minor things were really more minor, enough that i can't actually list everything that i changed. some examples off the top of my head:

i misheard "jesters" as "idiots" in the distant el dorado lines that hikari recited in english. or rather, i couldn't make it out, and i did a twitter search and found jp fans saying it was idiots and went "i guess that makes sense, idiot can kinda mean the same thing as clown", but then later when i looked at the chinese subs they had put "jesters" and i felt like the biggest idiot in the world

i said "stage prop" for 舞台装置, the fake blood in the revue of annihilation, but it really shouldn't have been prop. i changed it to equipment, then waffled on it and changed it to set, then my theater kid friend who speaks jp proofread for me and told me to change it to equipment

when kaoruko tastes the fake blood, she says "it's sweet." i put "it's tasty" - i think i might have thought she said うまい not 甘い and not challenged it

at the seisho fest one of the students talked about making a new cyc (short for cyclorama but nobody calls them that apparently) and i didn't get that

thanks to my theater kid friend i realized i misrepresented the text that hikari gets from the giraffe, where i originally said “the house is already open for entry”. the original here is 小屋入りはもうはじまっています. apparently when i searched 小屋入り the first time i somehow misunderstood what i was reading and i thought it was about the audience entering the theatre, and i went with “the house is open for entry” because i thought hey, the audience section of a theater is called the house so that works out well. but it’s actually basically tech week, where “entering the hut” means to move into and start doing things in the theatre ahead of the first performance. what i ended up going with was “the dry tech is already underway”, which imo is the same amount of jargon-y ambiguity as the original and pretty much the same meaning. Thank you again to my friend

when nana talks to masai + amemiya in the bg of her career interview i misheard what they were saying LOL originally i put that amemiya wasn’t going to hand over the script but she was saying that she WOULD. this + the kaoruko line both being me mishearing something as the negative.. is funny to me.

not a mistake but a defense: in mahiru’s revue intro the first thing she says is 宣誓 which is most commonly translated as I swear/vow/oath but I wanted to stick to the olympic theme and in the olympic oath in english the word “promise” is used, so that’s why i used promise. however, in the original i translated 輝け、私 as “I will shine” but i changed it to "shine, me” because it just doesn’t fully capture the meaning the first way..,, speaking of revue intros i also fixed a small thing each in hikari’s and junna’s but its nbd i think.

when mayakuro are playing shogi at the beginning, maya’s chick gets captured by claudine and it shows that claudine still has 2 chicks on the board, and when claudine calls her weak(/basically saying she sucks at it) maya was like “your chicks look too pitiful for me to...(take them)”. i am very embarrassed to say this took me too long to understand and at first I thought it meant maya’s chick got taken by claudine and then she was saying her chick looked pitiful on claudine’s side...

AIJO KAWAN!!!!!!! again something i didn’t know mostly because i was not paying close enough attention, i only knew of this after i checked the korean subtitles. baby karen wrote her name wrong on her cubby she wrote かわん instead of かれん :’’’)))

changed “pep rally” to “kick-off party”

stuff like this. aside from that, i reworded some more awkward sounding sentences, fixed capitalization (why did i think capitalizing the beginning of every line was a good idea?) doubly made sure all information was kept in the translation, etc.

i added some more onscreen text translation and some more bg conversation lines thanks to the korean subs catching things i couldn’t, and made a few really small changes to the lyrics that i don’t think are worth listing out here

i added watashitachi wa mou butai no ue lyrics to the credits - this is my own translation and i purposefully did it without looking at the one on the wiki by lunaamatista, but they kind of ended up pretty similar, so i thought i should mention that it was not my intention to just steal/reword that translation or anything. the one on the wiki is great and you should go listen to the song and read it there and appreciate all the work luna has done!!!!!

if there are any more mistakes (which i sure hope there aren't bc i have watched this movie so many times now and cross referenced the chinese and korean subs, though the chinese one i looked at had some mistranslations as well imo) i can change them in the sub files, but i won’t be making a new release again.. if you see something you think is worded awkwardly, just know that i probably agonized over it for too long and decided i wanted to word it that way (ie., saying you who ___) also i Know i use too many em dashes and ellipses i’m sorry for that... i think they’re fun

UPDATE thank you @flibbityflob for telling me i messed up the very final on screen text caption because i misread 本日 as 日本 like 100 times in a row apparently . I um. reposted the torrents because it’s been less than 12 hours so. woohoo

also one last thing I guess i can call this a decision i made but mostly i think it’s fun trivia - for karen’s middle school play, i wrote her character’s name as “sara” (it is seira in romaji). the reason i did this is because i found some jp fans talking about how hikari playing “lavinia” when she was 5 and karen playing “sara” in middle school is possibly related and a reference to princess sara, though the spelling is SLIGHTLY diff (セイラ vs セーラ)

PART 3: putting the worst and most annoying last, i apologize and defend myself at the same time. disclaimer: might sound kind of negative as i complain about tiring myself out and stuff, but overall i have SO MUCH fun doing this ok i want to make that clear

first of all: i am truly very sorry. maybe to some (most) people this isn’t a big deal but. i’ve spent most of the time working on this revision miming punching myself in the face every time i read over a translation that i changed, because i remember the original and want to die. but on the other hand, i don't think what’s in the first version is really /that/ bad. i think it's decent, passable i guess, and a lot of the things i changed were minor - the most important lines like the ones in the revues are relatively untouched, bc those are the ones i had already done enough agonizing over to be satisfied with what i had (except the futakao revue). but i am still very ashamed of myself and very sorry that i couldn't do a better job the first time.

this took me (looks at calendar) three and a half months, because first i fixed a lot of the timing issues, which was very tedious and time consuming and mind numbing. then i ran out of motivation for a month and a half bc things got very busy at work and i was in a horrible place health wise and did not have the energy to work on it. and then it was mid March and i took a few weeks to review + fix things over and over bc i only have time to work on this on the weekends and a few hours on weekdays and even then it's hard to find the time and focus to watch a 2 hour movie while agonizing about the translation and timing and make changes...

when i published the original, i was tired of working on it and too impatient and i couldn’t imagine working on it more because i knew things were going to get busier at work for me. every time i thought about the fact that people couldn’t watch and experience The Movie Ever with better understanding, i could not STAND the thought of just letting what i had done sit there on my computer for another week (let alone a whole month) while others couldn’t watch it... so i just released it... i am sorry if this reflects poorly on my character, but it is the truth. i regret not taking like, at least a few more days to proofread more, but at the time it really felt like the only thing i could do.

i also want to say that it was never meant to be a response to the other subs - i was (and generally still am) so distant from most of the fandom that i didn’t even know there were other people subbing the movie. of course i knew that someone somewhere would probably be doing it, but i had no clue until after I posted my own that there were discord-only showings of the other subs or anything (the only reason i am not in the discord is bc i don’t enjoy large discord servers, and i don’t have any opinion on this). i’ll admit i still haven’t looked at the other subs because i didn’t want it to impact my own interpretation as i worked on the revision.

but also... i didn’t plan to sub the movie at all, actually: this is how it happened

i watch the movie on dec 21 (i’m in est so it was dec 21)

i absolutely lose my mind

i think o___o i................. could sub this because i already translated the song lyrics........ and revue intros................ and... isn’t that like... a lot of the movie.... so.......!!!

i spend the next 7 days in a hell of my own creation (barely sleeping and barely working which i could only do bc i work remotely and it was holiday season and all of my coworkers were away but i’m a lowly student coop who doesn’t get PTO)

why did i do this? who asked me to do this? i don’t know. myself i guess.

so it was kind of an impulsive decision made in a vacuum. i don’t want to regret it, it was fun and i learned a lot, but were the mistranslations worth it? i suppose that depends on how much you care about the specifics. i think overall it’s not a big deal but, well (gestures to this whole post).

when i was working on this v2, there were a lot of moments where i thought that i really shouldn't have subbed this in the first place. unfortunately, i am kind of a person who feels compulsed to do Things when i get too excited and that’s why this happened, and there is nothing i can do except move forward, fix things, and try to improve for the next time (yes there is a next time sorry! i'll be stuck here for the forseeable future).

all that's to say if you want to hate me for this, or instead want to hate me for this stupidly longwinded!!! post that’s totally cool. next time, i will try very hard to put out better quality the first time around, and i ask for your understanding. thank you!

#revue starlight #shoujo kageki revue starlight #shojo kageki revue starlight #revue starlight movie #wahoo #stupid analysis

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reanimatedcourier · 4 years

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How to Write Indigenous Characters Without Looking like a Jackass:

Update as of December 26th, 2020: I have added a couple new sections about naming and legal terms, as well as a bit of reading on the Cherokee Princess phenomenon.

Boozhoo (hello) Fallout fandom! I'm a card-carrying Anishinaabe delivering this rough guide about writing Indigenous characters because wow, do I see a lot of shit.

Let's get something out of the way first: Fallout's portrayal of Indigenous people is racist. From a vague definition of "tribal" to the claims of them being "savage" and "uncivilized" mirror real-world stereotypes used to dehumanize us. Fallout New Vegas' narrated intro has Ron Perlman saying Mr. House "rehabilitated" tribals to create New Vegas' Three Families. You know. Rehabilitate. As if we are animals. Top it off with an erasure of Indigenous people in the American Southwest and no real tribe names, and you've got some pretty shitty representation. The absence of Native American as a race option in the GECK isn't too great, given that two Native characters are marked "Caucasian" despite being brown. Butch Deloria is a pretty well-known example of this effect. (Addendum: Indigenous people can have any mix of dominant and recessive traits, as well as present different phenotypes. What bothers me is it doesn't accommodate us or mixed people, which is another post entirely.)

As a precautionary warning: this post and the sources linked will discuss racism and genocide. There will also be discussion of multiple kinds of abuse.

Now, your best approach will be to pick a nation or tribe and research them. However, what follows will be general references.

Terms that may come up in your research include Aboriginal/Native Canadian, American Indian/Native American, Inuit, Métis, and Mestizo. The latter two refer to cultural groups created after the discovery of the so-called New World. (Addendum made September 5th, 2020: Mestizo has negative connotations and originally meant "half breed" so stick with referring to your mixed Latine and Indigenous characters as mixed Indigenous or simply by the name of their people [Maya, Nahua].)

As a note, not every mixed person is Métis or Mestizo. If you are, say, Serbian and Anishinaabe, you would be mixed, but not Métis (the big M is important here, as it refers to a specific culture). Even the most liberal definition caps off at French and British ancestry alongside Indigenous (some say Scottish and English). Mestizo works the same, since it refers to descendants of Spanish conquistadors/settlers and Indigenous people.

Trouble figuring out whose land is where? No problem, check out this map.

Drawing

Don't draw us with red skin. It's offensive and stereotypical.

Tutorial for Native Skintones

Tutorial for Mixed Native Skintones

Why Many Natives Have Long Hair (this would technically fit better under another category, but give your Native men long hair!)

If You're Including Traditional Wear, Research! It's Out There

Languages

Remember, there are a variety of languages spoken by Indigenous people today. No two tribes will speak the same language, though there are some that are close and may have loan words from each other (Cree and Anishinaabemowin come to mind). Make sure your Diné (you may know them as Navajo) character doesn't start dropping Cree words.

Here's a Site With a Map and Voice Clips

Here's an Extensive List of Amerindian Languages

Keep in mind there are some sounds that have no direct English equivalents. But while we're at it, remember a lot of us speak English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese. The languages of the countries that colonized us.

Words in Amerindian languages tend to be longer than English ones and are in the format of prefix + verb + suffix to get concepts across. Gaawiin miskwaasinoon is a complete sentence in Anishinaabemowin, for example (it is not red).

Names

Surprisingly, we don't have names like Passing Dawn or Two-Bears-High-Fiving in real life. A lot of us have, for lack of better phrasing, white people names. We may have family traditions of passing a name down from generation to generation (I am the fourth person in my maternal line to have my middle name), but not everyone is going to do that. If you do opt for a name from a specific tribe, make sure you haven't chosen a last name from another tribe.

Baby name sites aren't reliable, because most of the names on there will be made up by people who aren't Indigenous. That site does list some notable exceptions and debunks misconceptions.

Here's a list of last names from the American census.

Indian Names

You may also hear "spirit names" because that's what they are for. You know the sort of mystical nature-related name getting slapped on an Indigenous character? Let's dive into that for a moment.

The concept of a spirit name seems to have gotten mistranslated at some point in time. It is the name Creator calls you throughout all your time both here and in the spirit world. These names are given (note the word usage) to you in a ceremony performed by an elder. This is not done lightly.

A lot of imitations of this end up sounding strange because they don't follow traditional guidelines. (I realize this has spread out of the original circle, but Fallout fans may recall other characters in Honest Hearts and mods that do this. They have really weird and racist results.)

If you're not Indigenous: don't try this. You will be wrong.

Legal Terms

Now, sometimes the legal term (or terms) for a tribe may not be what they refer to themselves as. A really great example of this would be the Oceti Sakowin and "Sioux". How did that happen, you might be wondering. Smoky Mountain News has an article about this word and others, including the history of these terms.

For the most accurate information, you are best off having your character refer to themselves by the name their nation uses outside of legislation. A band name would be pretty good for this (Oglala Lakota, for example). I personally refer to myself by my band.

Cowboys

And something the Fallout New Vegas fans might be interested in, cowboys! Here's a link to a post with several books about Black and Indigenous cowboys in the Wild West.

Representation: Stereotypes and Critical Thought

Now, you'll need to think critically about why you want to write your Indigenous character a certain way. Here is a comprehensive post about stereotypes versus nuance.

Familiarize yourself with tropes. The Magical Indian is a pretty prominent one, with lots of shaman-type characters in movies and television shows. This post touches on its sister tropes (The Magical Asian and The Magical Negro), but is primarily about the latter.

Say you want to write an Indigenous woman. Awesome! Characters I love to see. Just make sure you're aware of the stereotypes surrounding her and other Women of Color.

Word to the wise: do not make your Indigenous character an alcoholic. "What, so they can't even drink?" You might be asking. That is not what I'm saying. There is a pervasive stereotype about Drunk Indians, painting a reaction to trauma as an inherent genetic failing, as stated in this piece about Indigenous social worker Jessica Elm's research. The same goes for drugs. Ellen Deloria is an example of this stereotype.

Familiarize yourself with and avoid the Noble Savage trope. This was used to dehumanize us and paint us as "childlike" for the sake of a plot device. It unfortunately persists today.

Casinos are one of the few ways for tribes to make money so they can build homes and maintain roads. However, some are planning on diversifying into other business ventures.

There's a stereotype where we all live off government handouts. Buddy, some of these long-term boil water advisories have been in place for over twenty years. The funding allocated to us as a percentage is 0.39%: less than half a percent to fight the coronavirus. They don't give us money.

"But what about people claiming to be descended from a Cherokee princess?" Cherokee don't and never had anything resembling princesses. White southerners made that up prior to the Civil War. As the article mentions, they fancied themselves "defending their lands as the Indians did".

Also, don't make your Indigenous character a cannibal. Cannibalism is a serious taboo in a lot of our cultures, particularly northern ones.

Our lands are not cursed. We don't have a litany of curses to cast on white people in found footage films. Seriously. We have better things to be doing. Why on earth would our ancestors be haunting you when they could be with their families? Very egotistical assumption.

Indigenous Ties and Blood Quantum

Blood quantum is a colonial system that was initially designed to "breed out the Indian" in people. To dilute our bloodlines until we assimilated properly into white society. NPR has an article on it here.

However, this isn't how a vast majority of us define our identities. What makes us Indigenous is our connections (or reconnection) to our families, tribes, bands, clans, and communities.

Blood quantum has also historically been used to exclude Black Natives from tribal enrollment, given that it was first based on appearance. So, if you looked Black and not the image of "Indian" the white census taker had in his brain, you were excluded and so were your descendants.

Here are two tumblrs that talk about Black Indigenous issues and their perspectives. They also talk about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

However, if you aren't Indigenous, don't bring up blood quantum. Don't. This is an issue you should not be speaking about.

Cherokee Princess Myth

"Princess" was not a real position in any tribe. The European idea of monarchy did not suddenly manifest somewhere else. The closest probable approximation may have been the daughter of a chief or other politically prominent person. But princess? No.

Here is an article talking about possible origins of this myth. Several things are of note here: women from other tribes may have bee shoved under this label and the idea of a "Cherokee Princess" had been brought up to explain the sudden appearance of a brown-skinned (read: half Black) family member.

For a somewhat more in depth discussion of why, specifically, this myth gets touted around so often, Timeline has this piece.

Religion

Our religions are closed. We are not going to tell you how we worship. Mostly because every little bit we choose to share gets appropriated. Smudging is the most recent example. If you aren't Indigenous, that's smoke cleansing. Smudging is done in a specific way with ceremonies and prayers.

Now, a lot of us were forcibly converted. Every residential school was run by Christians. So plenty of us are Catholic, Baptist, Anglican, Lutheran, etc. Catholicism in Latin America also has influence from the Indigenous religions in that region.

Having your Indigenous character pray or carry rosaries wouldn't be a bad thing, if that religion was important to them. Even if they are atheist, if they lived outside of a reserve or other Indigenous communities, they might have Christian influences due to its domination of the Western world.

Settler Colonialism and the White Savior Trope

Now we've come to our most painful section yet. Fallout unintentionally has an excellent agent of settler-colonialism, in particular the Western Christian European variety, in Caesar's Legion and Joshua Graham.

(Addendum: Honest Hearts is extremely offensive in its portrayal of Indigenous people, and egregiously shows a white man needing to "civilize" tribals and having to teach them basic skills. These skills include cooking, finding safe water, and defending themselves from other tribes.)

Before we dive in, here is a post explaining the concept of cultural Christianity, if you are unfamiliar with it.

We also need to familiarize ourselves with The White Man's Burden. While the poem was written regarding the American-Philippine war, it still captures the attitudes toward Indigenous folks all over the world at the time.

As this article in Teen Vogue points out, white people like to believe they need to save People of Color. You don't need to. People of Color can save themselves.

Now, cultural Christianity isn't alone on this side of the pond. Writer Teju Cole authored a piece on the White Savior Industrial Complex to describe mission trips undertaken by white missionaries to Africa to feed their egos.

Colonialism has always been about the acquisition of wealth. To share a quote from this paper about the ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples: "Negatively, [settler colonialism] strives for the dissolution of native societies. Positively, it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event. In its positive aspect, elimination is an organizing principal of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence. The positive outcomes of the logic of elimination can include officially encouraged miscegenation, the breaking-down of native title into alienable individual freeholds, native citizenship, child abduction, religious conversion, resocialization in total institutions such as missions or boarding schools, and a whole range of cognate biocultural assimilations. All these strategies, including frontier homicide, are characteristic of settler colonialism. Some of them are more controversial in genocide studies than others." (Positive, here, is referring to "benefits" for the colonizers. Indigenous people don't consider colonization beneficial.)

An example of a non-benefit, the Church Rock disaster had Diné children playing in radioactive water so the company involved could avoid bad publicity.

Moving on, don't sterilize your Indigenous people. Sterilization, particularly when it is done without consent, has long been used as a tool by the white system to prevent "undesirables" (read, People of Color and disabled people) from having children. Somehow, as of 2018, it wasn't officially considered a crime.

The goal of colonization was to eliminate us entirely. Millions died because of exposure to European diseases. Settlers used to and still do separate our children from us for reasons so small as having a dirty dish in the sink. You read that right, a single dirty dish in your kitchen sink was enough to get your children taken and adopted out to white families. This information was told to me by an Indigenous social work student whose name I will keep anonymous.

It wasn't until recently they made amendments to the Indian Act that wouldn't automatically render Indigenous women non-status if they married someone not Indigenous. It also took much too long for Indigenous families to take priority in child placement over white ones. Canada used to adopt Indigenous out to white American families. The source for that statement is further down, but adoption has been used as a tool to destroy cultures.

I am also begging you to cast aside whatever colonialist systems have told you about us. We are alive. People with a past, not people of the past, which was wonderfully said here by Frank Waln.

Topics to Avoid if You Aren't Indigenous

Child Separation. Just don't. We deserve to remain with our families and our communities. Let us stay together and be happy that way.

Assimilation schools. Do not bring up a tool for cultural genocide that has left lasting trauma in our communities.

W/ndigos. I don't care that they're in Fallout 76. They shouldn't be. Besides, you never get them right anyway.

Sk/nwalkers. Absolutely do not. Diné stories are not your playthings either.

I've already talked about drugs and alcohol. Do your research with compassion and empathy in mind. Indigenous people have a lot of pain and generational trauma. You will need to be extremely careful having your Indigenous characters use drugs and alcohol. If your character can be reduced to their (possible) substance abuse issues, you need to step back and rework it. As mentioned in Jessica Elm's research, remember that it isn't inherent to us.

For our final note: remember that we're complex, autonomous human beings. Don't use our deaths to further the stories of your white characters. Don't reduce us to some childlike thing that needs to be raised and civilized by white characters. We interact with society a little differently than you do, but we interact nonetheless.

Meegwetch (thank you) for reading! Remember to do your research and portray us well, but also back off when you are told by an Indigenous person.

This may be updated in the future, it depends on what information I come across or, if other Indigenous people are so inclined, what is added to this post.

#fallout 3 #fallout 4 #fallout 76 #fallout new vegas #fallout 1 #fallout 2 #fallout: new vegas #ozhibii'ige

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powered-by-paranoia · 3 years

Text

one more time | Rex

pairing: captain Rex x admiral!reader

summary: you give Rex a wrist-chrono. in reaction, although he seems fine at first, he now constantly avoids you. this somehow leads to the two of you kissing. find out how!

word count: 6241

warnings: none

a/n: I’ve been sitting on this story since December (you can see I had two special occasion attempts to post it), but here it is. finally. again, I tried to keep it gender-neutral, but let me know if I slipped up. Winter Fete is supposed to be something Christmassy or whatever, and Affection Day is... me being shit at coming up with holiday names.

this is kind of a series now I guess, but each fic can be read as a standalone fic (there’s also our fallen heroes and jaig eyes, if you’re thirsty for more. but there’s no smut. not yet. not yet.)

"He had the awkward tenderness of someone who has never been loved and is forced to improvise."

Isabel Allende

An icy shiver ran up your spine as you glanced out the viewport. You were sitting in your office aboard your ship, having just turned around to take your mind off your responsibilities for a few minutes and sip your caf in peace. But the image — that of the lush planet you were stationed above — triggered a flashback you had been trying to fend off these past days. Only it wasn’t a visual flashback, you realized. It was a sentiment that you remembered vividly from when you were a child and your parents had gifted you a trip to Coruscant for Winter Fete.

You remembered the excitement of seeing your home planet from outer space. Your first ever interstellar trip — and to Coruscant, of all places. The festivities, the Winter Fete spirit, they were perhaps still present on Coruscant and on your home planet, but not there. Not in the coolness of space and the warship you commanded. Not among the lifeless bodies you had to wander through only a few days earlier — the bodies recovered from the battle. The bodies someone would have to deliver to worried families.

That cheerfulness now only lived in your memory. You could hardly remember the last Winter Fete you had spent with your family. Or any such holiday, for that matter. But what was easy to recall was the warm feeling you experienced every time you gifted things. The search for the perfect match, the smile on people’s faces as they realize you know them better than they expected. It had always brought you joy to make presents.

But this chain of thoughts now brought back another memory, albeit an awkward one that you wouldn’t admit was slightly painful as well. A recent one. At the start of this campaign, you had gifted Rex a military-style, top-of-the-line wrist chrono, which he had been reluctant to accept at first. After a few jokes on how this could be considered a military offense, and quite some heavy amount of polite convincing, he had eventually taken it and you had even noticed him wearing it later. It warmed your heart. And for a short period of time, you had gotten the chance to relish in the sensation once again. But only for a short period of time.

Because half a day later he had started to avoid you like you’d just been exposed to the Brainworm Rot.

It wasn’t as obvious at first — turning corners the moment you sighted him, pretending to look the other way when you passed by — but soon you just had to admit it to yourself when you spotted him turning one-eighty degrees only to disappear when he must have realized he was walking towards you.

You stared at the darkness of space, lost in thought and bordering on the line of anxiety. There were no answers coming from the darkness, only questions. Had he found out you had re-gifted it? Your mother had originally bought it for you as a Winter Fete present, but you liked your older one better and considered motivation before a battle was a decent enough excuse to offer a present to your favorite Captain. He surely couldn’t blame you for it though, could he? You barely had time to finish your cups of caf most days; how could you possibly find the time to go gift-shopping?

Then again, perhaps he concluded by himself that the gesture was offensive. But back when you gave it to him, he hadn’t seemed the least upset about it. He had even smiled and blushed a little. And if someone had the guts to call you out on your bantha-shit, it was Rex. It was one of the things you valued most about your friendship. You always talked freely, and he would never beat around the bush or keep his opinions for himself, even if they went against yours. Besides that, he always delivered contradictions in such a polite manner that you recognized he had your best interest at heart.

Your thoughts spiraled, and you bore a heavy heart with guilt for putting him in such a delicate position. You had to apologize. But in order to do that, you needed to find him and… not let him escape this time.

***

On their way to the mess hall, Rex had been called out at least three times by Fives and Echo for constantly scanning his surroundings. He had brushed it off by telling them he was preoccupied looking for General Skywalker in case he passed by, so they could have a talk about some mission he wouldn’t elaborate on.

Fives decided to push on and jokingly asked, “You mean the mission in which you got that chrono?”

“I’ve been meaning to ask, Captain. That’s quite a fancy one. I didn’t know you had your eye on the latest tech,” Echo chimed in before he could react.

Rex was now even tenser than before, but he played stupid. “Latest tech? This?” He brought it to his face to pretend to examine it better. “I had no idea.”

“So where did you get it from?” Fives insisted.

Million excuses ran through his mind, and he pretended to study the chrono for a few seconds more to get his thoughts in order. But he settled on the lamest one. “One of the locals gave it to me before the battle. As thanks for showing up, I suppose. I couldn’t really understand the language.”

“Just in time for Affection Day,” Echo teased, and it appeared as if he was twisting the knife. As if he knew.

The idea that you had offered him a gift had been enough to make Rex’s knees weak that day. But after you had left, and he could freely relish in the feeling, a troubling notion had snuck into his mind. He had nothing to give you back. And worse, after realizing that it had been an Affection Day gift, he had done some research to find out what the holiday really meant. That way, he found out it was similar to the Winter Fete season, but mainly practiced between lovers, sometimes really close friends — people exchanged gifts.

Exchanged.

At first, he had thought he would be able to come up with something. At least something symbolic. But he ended up dismissing every idea that popped up, only to end up now, in the last few days before returning to Coruscant, with nothing. He wouldn’t have let that affect him as much if it didn’t draw other, more depressing conclusions he didn’t want to think of at that moment.

Shortly after the three of them found a place to sit and eat in the mess hall, he inwardly cursed.

“I was planning to show you the new weapon upgrades we’re getting, boys. But I forgot my datapad in the room,” he muttered. “I’ll go get it. Hold on.”

***

Rex wouldn’t have the time to register what was happening. As the lights turned on in the barrack, the door shut behind him and there you were — standing next to his bed with his datapad in hand. He looked around. But you were alone.

“I suppose this is what you’re looking for, hm?” you asked, handing him the datapad. He stared at it as if not fully believing it was his. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry. I only want to talk.”

You did nothing to hide hurt in your voice. He took the datapad from your hand and placed it on the side table next to his bunk bed. “You can tell me anything,” he tried to say in a comforting voice, but the guilt slit through.

“Well, to be fair, I am here to listen. I want you to do the talking.”

He paused, but you had the feeling he knew exactly why you were there, and he was trying to waste time. “What about?”

“You’ve been avoiding me. Tell me it’s not just my imagination.”

He feigned confusion. “It is. I guess… we’ve both been quite busy, haven’t we?”

“Captain.” You held your gaze, although he looked away for a second. “You know you can speak freely with me. It’s about the gift, isn’t it? I’m sorry if it offended you or made you uncomfortable, I was only—”

“You didn’t,” he interrupted you, eager to deny it. You could see on his face that he had lowered his defenses. But he wouldn’t crack just yet.

“Then what is it about?”

He shrugged. “I told you. We’ve just been off-sync, I suppose.”

“Yesterday you started walking in the opposite direction as soon as you noticed me.”

“I’d forgotten something in the briefing room. I don’t even recall seeing you yesterday.”

“Like you forgot your datapad in one of the training rooms? You’re distracted. What’s it about then, if it’s not about the gift?”

“I appreciated your gift, Admiral. It’s just that…” he trailed off, but you decided to give him time to find his words. You’d sit there in awkward silence for an entire hour if you had to. “I have nothing to give back.”

You frowned and tilted your head. “Give back? What for?”

Rex brought his hands together, struggling to make the words leave his mouth. “For… Affection Day. Isn’t that the custom? Exchanging gifts?”

You froze, your mouth hanging as you rewinded the past couple of dates. You hadn’t thought of that holiday since you were in middle school and forced to exchange gifts with a random classmate. The timing of your gift had been so poor — no wonder he was avoiding you all through the ship. You panicked.

“What day?” you said, your voice in a higher pitch than usual, then laughed nervously. “I gave it to you as a simple gift from one friend to another. I didn’t take you for someone to care when such a holiday was around.”

He shrugged. “Someone mentioned it a few days before, and I suppose it stuck with me. Still, you made time to get me a gift, while I can’t even think of something you could possibly want of what I can offer.”

You knew exactly what it was, but you also knew better than to throw it in the conversation like that. Instead, you threw in a little sincerity. “I re-gifted it.” His head perked up. “My mother gave it to me a few months ago during Winter Fete. I liked my old one better. I thought you would enjoy this one.”

“I did— I am! But…”

You went on, seeing he didn’t look so relaxed or even convinced, “I did not give it to you expecting something in return, or because of some special occasion. It was just a sympathetic gesture I thought I might as well do for a friend. I’m sorry for the confusion — I shouldn’t have put you into this situation.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Admiral,” he said, but his voice sounded a little more formal than before. As if he had switched back to his default military tone. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have handled it this way.”

“I’ll accept your apology if you accept mine,” you teased.

He smiled.

***

One day after the gift fiasco, you finally reached Coruscant, and it had been the last time you had seen each other. You both had a week of leave to look forward to, but as you bid your farewells prior to landing, neither mentioned it.

Your last day on Coruscant found you cooking yourself dinner. All alone — you watched as the water for the pasta started boiling and tried to remember the last time you had a home-cooked meal. You smiled to yourself as you poured too much pasta into the pot. You could never get it right.

It was a pity you had no one to share it with. Your mind automatically drifted to Rex, as you knew he was probably out with his brothers at 79’s. It was their custom to spend as much time there as possible whenever they were allowed free time. But your smile faltered as you realized — of course they spent their time there. Where else?

***

Back at 79’s, Rex was wondering whether Fives had always been this annoying, or if it was just a result of drinking too much. Didn’t he use to enjoy spending time with them, there? Why was he suddenly the subject of so many mean comments about ruining the mood for everyone? Why couldn’t he just get up from the barstool and have a good time? It was their last evening on Coruscant, and Force knew when they would return. If they would return.

Instead of talking, joking around, or dancing, Rex barely even sipped his drink. He stirred the liquid inside its glass — a half-empty glass of Corellian whiskey.

“Alright Rex, there’s obviously something on your mind,” Fives interrupted his momentum of self-pity for the fifth time that evening. Rex didn’t even bother to roll his eyes or deny it at this point. Echo took a seat next to him on the other side, while Kix stood right behind him, encircling him. The only way he could escape them was by jumping over the bar. It didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“You’ve barely even touched your drink,” Echo chimed in.

Kix reached further, drawing a conclusion. “Which means it’s not something depressing since you would drown yourself in alcohol, but it’s not something exciting either because… you’d celebrate. You’re not angry either, because you wouldn’t have come with us here if you were. You’re confused.”

Rex grunted. “Actually, I might start leaning towards angry soon enough.”

“Come on,” Fives said. “You either join the party or spill it out. And we’ll be able to tell if you’re faking it.”

Kix attempted a less aggressive approach. “We’re all brothers, Rex. We can tell each other anything. Good or bad, we’ll always have your back.”

Rex looked between all three of them, and then at his drink. He downed it before they could say anything more and then sighed loudly. They were right. There was no point in hiding it. Though it was a stupid thing to stress on, perhaps they’d be able to provide a fresh perspective.

“Remember that chrono? The one I told you the locals of that planet gifted me?”

They nodded in unison.

“Well, it wasn’t a gift from the locals. It was from…” he trailed off. Your name got caught in his throat. He felt as if he was about to expose you for acting inappropriately.

“The Admiral!” Fives exclaimed, punching the bar top. “I knew it!”

Rex shushed him, while Echo rolled his eyes.

“So why are you so stressed about it? I’d be honoured!” he continued, now in a lower voice.

“I… I thought it was an Affection Day gift. She made it clear it wasn’t. To cite, she said it ‘was just a sympathetic gesture for a friend’. And that she hadn’t even realized the date matched.”

Fives’ face contorted into a grimace which only served to embarrass him further. “Ouch. Well, at least you made a friend.”

Rex shot him a glare, to which Fives responded by suddenly becoming fascinated with his glass.

“I mean, he’s right. In a way,” Echo said. “But I reckon it’s too much of a coincidence.”

“What is?” Rex asked.

Echo cleared his throat. “The date. I personally don’t believe the Admiral wasn’t aware of the date. And knowing that, why not choose another day for gifting it to avoid confusion? I guess it was on purpose, but since — you know — court-martials exist, the only solution was to brush it off as a friendly gesture.”

Rex wasn’t buying any of it; he had seen the surprise on your face when he had mentioned the date. Kix and Fives, however, were suddenly very intrigued by it.

“He’s right,” Fives said. “I mean, I’ve never seen a higher-up’s face light up that much when talking to some subordinate. Unless they’re delivering some fantastic news,” he added. Rex couldn’t believe they had all simply jumped to that conclusion in such a hurry.

“It’s called being nice. And very… expressive,” he said, dismissing the notion. “I think.”

“Well,” Kix concluded, after exchanging a malicious glance with Fives and Echo. “There’s only one way to find out, right?”

***

You flinched when you first heard the notification that someone was at your door. Not that you were particularly flimsy about visitors, but you were about to sit down and enjoy your own pasta by yourself, and it was rather late. It could mean there was an emergency. You were used to people announcing their visits.

So you brushed off your clothes and rushed to the door, only stopping once in front of the mirror for less than two seconds to make sure your hair looked decent and that you didn’t have any food on your face.

When the door slid to the side, you gaped at what you instantly recognized as Rex’s back. He was already turning to leave, but he heard the door and turned to face you. Flustered, he offered you a weak smile.

You frowned, tilted your head a little and asked, “Did something happen?”

You could see the vigor leaving his body for a second, but he then proceeded to shake his head. “No, Admiral. Not really. I just…”

Eyebrows raised, you wordlessly prompted him to go on. He shook his head again, this time with more vivaciousness.

“Nevermind. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have disturbed you at this hour. I don’t know why I got the idea that—”

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” you blurted out, interrupting him. His features relaxed, but yours tensed up. What were you thinking? He was obviously there because something had happened that he believed you should know about. Perhaps he had heard unpleasant rumours at 79’s.

He hesitated, but you couldn’t even process an excuse to take back your words or undo the awkwardness. But then, he straightened himself and finally answered, “I’d be honored. Do you have any place in mind?”

You smiled faintly. “I meant here, now. I made some pasta.”

***

Rex blinked a few times, dumbfounded by the invitation. It had taken his brothers nearly one hour of convincing to get him to visit you. And he had given in — even with nothing to bring you but his words. Words that he had lost the moment he rung your doorbell, which was the reason he had swiftly decided it was time to leave before you opened the door.

Now, he stood there in full armour, while you were without your uniform — dressed instead in a long, dark, silk robe to contrast with his white duraplast, your hair a wild mess compared to when you were on duty, and your face all natural. And in his eyes, you had never looked more beautiful. Or terrifying.

And you had just invited him in for some homemade pasta.

***

Once inside, you had insisted on him taking off his armour, and he had happily obliged. You figured he would not be comfortable around you in just his blacks, so you offered him a pair of pants he could change in to be more at ease. He walked in while you were arranging the table for two (which hadn’t even been arranged for one — you had been planning to eat while indulging in some holodrama on the sofa).

You moved slowly, but your heart rate could have betrayed you at any moment. Even though he stood still by the doorway, you knew he was looking at you. You felt his eyes follow your movements, yet you were aware that he was most likely just waiting for you to invite him to take a seat. However, you couldn’t focus on anything else but making sure everything was perfect. That you grabbed everything with precision and just the right amount of force. You didn’t want to look clumsy.

Why did you care so much how you looked setting the damn table?

Eventually, you took a step back from the table and gestured towards a seat.

“Are you sure I can’t help with something first?” he asked.

You smiled. “You’re my guest. Make yourself comfortable.”

He hesitatingly drew a chair and sat down, and as you turned around to get the food, you felt his eyes on you again. You feared you would suddenly need a crash course on how to walk. Before sitting down to eat, you pulled out the finest red wine you could find in your cabinet and poured two glasses of it.

The awkwardness lingered on through the first couple of bites. While part of you felt sad that this must have been the first time someone invited him in for a home-cooked meal, there was also nervousness in the air. It was the first time — so it had to be perfect. You had to make it memorable. And you hadn’t exactly prepared the food with guests in mind.

“If you’d like more salt or anything…” you began, gesturing with your fork towards his plate.

He looked up at you, wide-eyed, and then returned to reality. “Oh, no. It’s fine. It’s delicious, actually,” he added the last part as an after-thought, glancing away from you and back into his plate. You realised then that the silence wasn’t caused by him feeling any certain way. He was just too distracted enjoying the food.

You took another bite and decided to pull the band-aid. “So why did you come all this way?” You noticed him pause for a moment. “What was it that you wanted to tell me?”

He took a bite to avoid answering too early. He then took his sweet time chewing it. “It was stupid. I wanted to clarify something, but it was already clearing up as I got here. I had some drinks at 79’s and…”

“And…?”

“What you said about the gift. I kept turning it over in my head.”

Your appetite faltered — not that it managed to grow too much since he had gotten there. Not for the food, at least. But you raised your eyebrows and tilted your head. “What about it?”

“About it being a nice gesture… from a friend to another friend.”

“Well, I assumed it would be a nice gesture,” you explained, playing stupid and purposefully ignoring the last part.

He sighed. “It was, that’s not what I wanted to clarify. It’s…”

You watched him draw in a deep breath, and you realized he wouldn’t continue the explanation. Your shoulders dropping, you let go of the fork and placed both your elbows on the table. “It’s about us being friends. I know.”

Another long moment of silence, where your eyes only met for a split second before you looked away.

“I know it’s not professional. I know I shouldn’t be giving you gifts or inviting you into my apartment to have dinner. If you feel uncomfortable, you can tell me. And I will stop. No hard feelings.”

Lies. You’d omitted that you didn’t really care what you should or should not be doing when it came to him.

“I’m not. In fact, I feel the most comfortable when I am around you, Admiral.”

“Then I see no way our friendship could conflict with our duties. Do you?”

You’d expected a solid ‘no’, or at least a vigorous shake of his head. Instead, he hesitated. Your eyebrows twitched.

“It does, in a way,” he half-heartedly admitted. You weren’t sure you liked where this was going. But he must have noticed your body tensing up, as he quickly added, “Although not in what I would consider a bad way.”

“How so, then?”

“Some days, when I read news of the war on other fronts, the first thing on my mind isn’t ‘How would I have handled this?’, or ‘What can I learn from this?’. The first thing on my mind is you, and how I can’t wait to discuss it with you.” He’d glance around as he spoke, switching from looking at you, to his plate of food, sometimes at yours or at the decor in your kitchen. “There are moments when I am in the middle of the firing zone, and I have to make the decision on whether I should ask for air support. And I find myself secretly wishing you are the one commanding those ships that drop into the atmosphere. Because it means I get to thank you later.”

Your grip tightened around the glass of wine as you brought it to your face and pressed your cheek against it. It was a useless attempt to keep you from blushing, but the coldness grounded you.

“I understand,” you muttered after a few moments of silence. He looked up at you, but you had to avoid it. “When I come up with strategies, I never consider them any good until I pass them through you. I always pay extra attention to what the 501st is up to in briefings. Kriff, my mother got me a chrono and all I could think of was how I was going to gift it to you instead.”

Had you accidentally slipped truth serum into the pasta? What was happening?

You both chuckled nervously at your last confession.

“I have never had the opportunity to call someone a close friend,” you continued, trying to figure out ways to drive the awkwardness away from the conversation. “But I suppose this is what it feels like. I’d rather know I have a friend in you than to be permanently struggling to come up with ways to win the war by myself.”

“Of course you have a friend in me. You will always have.”

While he delivered the line with a smile on his face that you mirrored, a wave of sadness engulfed you. You continued eating, stopping now and then to either comment on rumours and news from the battlefield or on how coincidental it was that both of you had only one day of leave left. Knowing that, you felt as if the Galaxy was prodding you to do something about the craving of your heart, but your mind was quick to quiet that plan. He would have said it by now, wouldn’t he? You had given him all the signs — told him how your thoughts always seemed to lead to him. He would have done something about it, had he thought the same of you.

***

Rex wasn’t sure he could hold the food down for much longer. It wasn’t anything physical — and the taste had been exceptional — but he felt as though there was an ever-growing hole in his stomach that threatened to kick everything else out.

What was he doing? He had come all this way, encouraged by his brothers, to let you know how he felt about you. It was the right thing to do. From there, you would have the power to decide whether you should never speak again, or…

Or what?

What options did he really have, but sit awake at night and think of all the what-ifs? You were an Admiral in the Republic’s Navy, and he was a clone commander. Bred for war. Not for figurative earthquakes in his stomach.

Then you’d said it again, that wretched word. Friend. Close friend — the culmination of what was possible and realistic between the two of you. It was, at its core, bittersweet. He was honoured you considered him a close friend, but ashamed that he wanted more. He was sitting in your home, eating your food, drinking your wine, and he still wasn’t satisfied.

***

It wasn’t hard to revert to a normal dinner conversation after clarifying the matter, but a remnant of doubt still nagged you. Whether he felt the same, Rex didn’t show it.

As you both finished your food, the uncomfortable atmosphere of having left things unsaid grew exponentially. He still had some wine left in his glass, yet you hadn’t touched yours, besides a courteous sip. You didn’t trust yourself that much. Even sober, you could barely hold your feelings in.

The time to clean up the table eventually came, and he had insisted that he could at least bring his own plate to the sink. You let him, but instructed him to leave the glass on the countertop next to it.

Instead of pouring the untouched wine into the sink, you stopped behind him and downed it. He said nothing about it, but looked at you curiously.

“I never said it back,” you commented while placing your empty glass of wine next to his, avoiding his gaze. The gesture brought the two of you even closer.

“Said what back?”

“You told me I would always have a friend in you. I never said you would, too.” You looked up at him and met his confused grimace with a dead-serious gaze. “You have more than a friend in me.”

His grimace faltered, and his gaze matched yours. You’d said it, and this was it. The decision was his. You had both experienced enough awkward moments, one more could hardly make a difference.

But there was nothing awkward about it anymore. Your gaze moved between his lips and his eyes. His did the same. Instead of constantly replaying everything you had ever said to him, your mind was now completely blank, but at peace. You were living every second of that moment. Every heartbeat, every inhale, and every exhale. All you could see was him — his beautiful eyes and his lips that he parted.

You didn’t notice him raising his hand, but you felt it on the back of your neck. His thumb brushed against your ear, but then he broke eye contact for a couple of moments to arrange a strand of hair behind it. You released the breath you hadn’t even realized you had been holding in, and he met your eyes again.

He smiled down at you — sadly, in a way, but in his eyes a glint of hope that you were too familiar with. “Then you can have anything you want in me.”

You brought both your hands to his face, tracing your thumbs along his chin. You kept going until your hands were close to the back of his head, and you pulled him in. He closed his eyes, but you felt his grip on you become weaker. You both had the same voices in your heads, trying to convince you that your actions were wrong. But you wouldn’t let those voices win him over. Your own, you could handle. You had ignored them for so long; they had no effect on you.

As your lips crashed against his, you closed your eyes in reaction to the shivers running down your spine. He hummed softly, and something inside you went wild at the sound. You dug your nails into the back of his head and parted your lips to deepen the kiss.

First, you tasted the wine that lingered on his lips. And then, as he gave in and crashed against your lips, you tasted him. His passion, his fervor, and all the words he had wished to tell you until that moment. All the missed opportunities and all the doubts that now held no meaning anymore. No unspoken words or repressed cravings could bring you down from the high you were experiencing as he let go of his hesitation and leaned into you.

His grip on you grew tighter and his humming against your lips more frequent. You were finally his, fully his, body and soul alike.

When he pulled away, he did so as slowly as possible, as if afraid he would wake up from a dream. You kept your eyes closed until you felt him press his forehead against yours.

Your hands that had, until that point, caressed his skin with desperation — proof of your own patience having been torn to shreds — fell limply at your sides. He ran his fingers through your hair, and you watched him revel in the moment.

Finally, he opened his eyes and whatever glimpse of sadness in them was gone. But in a split second, you could tell there was something on his mind.

“Before you tell me we shouldn’t be doing this,” you breathed, “let’s just do it one more time.”

He didn’t reply, but he moved his hand from the back of your neck to your front, running his thumb across your collarbone, and then back up to cup your cheek.

You had to stand on your toes to reach him and kiss him again. You felt electrified once again, but it lasted for a shorter while this time — he wasn’t reacting to it. Pulling away, you opened your eyes to see him staring down at you. There was a war raging inside him. But you weren’t so sure of your actions anymore, either. You didn’t want your selfishness to break him. It took every ounce of self-control left in you not to beg him to ignore all rules for one night. Your night.

He cupped your other cheek with his free hand and brought your face closer to his.

“One more time,” he repeated, his voice somehow hoarse and soft at the same time. His lips caught yours in a hard kiss. Not as gentle and timid as he had been until then — he had won the battle against those voices. Your hands reached for the seams of his shirt and just as you slipped your fingers underneath them, before you could register what his skin felt like, an alarm pulled you out of it.

Both physically and mentally.

You retracted your hands, and he took a step back, breaking the kiss. You could hear your heart starting to crack.

The alarm was coming from the living room, where he had left his change of clothes. And his comlink.

He looked between you and the direction where it was coming from, as if waiting for your approval to leave. The corner of your mouth twitched into a smile and you gestured with your head in the direction of the living room. As he took the call, you picked a spot on the floor to stare at blankly. You couldn’t hear what he was saying, but you figured out easily what it was about.

A few moments and he appeared at the threshold, fully clad in his armor, his helmet under his arm and a conflicted expression on his face.

“The 501st is being dispatched to Ryloth for an emergency rescue mission,” he explained, and you struggled to offer him a comforting smile. His voice wasn’t soft anymore. It was the tone of a clone commander speaking to his superior.

You made your way towards him and reached out to arrange the collar of his blacks. He had readied himself in such a hurry he hadn’t noticed it getting awkwardly stuck beneath his armor-plate. “Make sure you get some rest on the way there.”

Once you fixed him, you looked up and had to swallow your frustration. He was just as saddened by it as you were, judging by the look on his face. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, but you shook your head.

“You’ll be if you don’t come back in one piece. So make sure you’re well-rested,” you said, ignoring the voice in your head that was raging at whoever needed saving. You started dragging yourself towards the front door of your apartment to walk him out, and he followed.

“I don’t know when I’ll come back. I don’t know when we’re going to see each other again.”

Before pressing the button to open the door, you turned around and pursed your lips. “I understand. But it seems we have kept bumping into each other during this entire war. Perhaps it will stay that way. Perhaps this is where we are meant to be,” you said. “Two entities crossing each other’s paths until it becomes one.”

Your words seemed to bring some comfort to him, at least enough to get him to move again. But before he exited, just as he had walked by you, he stopped once again to look at you, in case it was the last chance he would get. You did the same.

“One more time,” you muttered as you took a wide step towards him. He extended his free arm to wrap it around your waist while yours curled around his neck. And your lips met once again, with the same passion they had the first time.

You didn’t want him to go. You didn’t want it to end. You wanted him to hold you for one minute longer, and then have that minute bleed into an hour, a night, a lifetime. But you had both agreed on it, less than an hour earlier. It wouldn’t affect your duties. Although it already did.

You both ended the kiss with a smile on your faces. He would find his way back to you. This couldn’t be the end of it.

That night, you found the spare clothes you had given him neatly arranged on the sofa. You finished the bottle of wine by yourself and fell asleep dressed in his scent. You would go back to your ship the next day — hoping, as always, that your next campaign would somehow involve the 501st. But knowing now that he shared the same hope as you.

#captain rex x reader #rex x reader #captain rex x you #captain rex reader insert #commander rex x reader

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swiftgronmasterpost · 4 years

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Late Stage Swiftgron Part 1

Update from November 2021 - I really don’t believe much of this is meaningful at all. I don’t think they’re sitting around referencing one another on social media or anything but some of Dianna’s interactions with Karlie are interesting Dianna shows up explicitly in Taylor’s life a couple more times so I’m leaving these sections here.;

From here on out everything but the 2014 AMAs and Dianna’s somewhat shocking appearance at Taylor’s 2019 SNL performance are just odd social media shenanigans (or subtweets) between the two, and Taylor appearing to release at least one more song about Dianna (Babe in 2018) (and let’s be honest you can make a strong argument for The 1 being about Dianna as well other post 1989 songs.)

Some of this might be complete crack or coincidence but as you all know I want this to be the most thorough Swiftgron document possible.

If anything it proves they both certainly still have similar interests and they really do seem to be in touch.

There are some interactions claimed by others to be Swiftgron related that I’m not going to include because they’re just a bit too reachy for me (though I completely support the theorizing!) but in general, if I personally can see the hint of a Swiftgron connection, I’m going to include it here. Draw your own conclusions and take everything, particularly the alleged subtweets/social media shenanigans, with a grain of salt.

And yes there’s tons of Kaylor and other Gaylor/Gaygron content that will be left out of this segment because this masterpost is focused on Swiftgron. Someday it would be cool to make a giant masterpost/timeline that documents all of it, but for now it’s just going to be Swiftgron stuff. August 26, 2014 - Dianna tweets, and then deletes “Withdrawals, clearly…we had fun.”

There’s no screen shot of this tweet but some retweets/responses of it remain:

If Dianna is indeed referencing the song Clean (in which their relationship is compared to an addiction hence, “withdrawals” from it) then Taylor would have had to give her advanced knowledge of the song since 1989 did not come out until October 2014.

Taylor did claim she ran 1989 by the muse that inspired it and they were both in LA in late August 2014. Maybe this is when.

November 1, 2014 - Taylor posts about Clean

November 19, 2014 - The 2014 AMAs Kaylorgron Explosion Extravaganza:

Taylor, Karlie, and Dianna are at the event. Taylor and Karlie are clearly on a date and Dianna is there to present Sam Smith’s performance of I’m not the only one. Dianna seems a bit out of her element/gloomy when interviewed on the red carpet and Taylor flexes Karlie hard, dancing with her throughout the night and even sitting on her lap during an interview.

Click here for photos, video, gifs, and a live L chat reaction to the night.

December 28, 2014 - The writer for the tv show The Originals, Carina Mackenzie, tweeted that 1989 was about Dianna:

It’s of course notable that someone in the industry is “confirming” Swiftgron on main (particularly before gaylor went mainstream with Kaylor being so obvious in 2015/2016) however what’s even more interesting and notable about this tweet is that an actor named Michael Trevino was on the show The Originals and he dated Jenna Ushkowitz from 2011-2014.

Not only that but Michael was at Dianna’s 26th birthday when Taylor was in attendance as well.

It’s possible that Michael witnessed Swiftgron in real life and spilled a bit to the writer of the TV show he was on.

January 5, 2015 - Taylor likes a Swiftgron related post on Tumblr of Dianna saying she’d go on the road with Taylor and carry her bags at the Giffoni Film Festival in 2012:

February 9, 2015 - Style is released as a single

February 13, 2015 - The Kaylor “Best Friends” on a road trip Vogue Spread comes out. You’re probably familiar with it but if you aren’t google it. It’s incredibly romantic and pda filled.

The Style music video is released on this day as well.

We don’t have to go through the whole video but one egg I just have to note is the cave pictured in the MV is in Morocco the same country Dianna seemed to flee to after Swiftgron was outed:

February 14, 2015 - Dianna tweets 143 remember those days (for some reason it has not been deleted) seemingly in response to the Kaylor vogue shoot:

143 is a code that means “I love you” that originated from Mister Rogers. Both Taylor and Dianna have publicly shown that they are fans of his. Taylor has even made certain songs 3 minutes and 41 seconds long seemingly referring to this number and wore a Mister Rogers pin on a jacket for a photoshoot once.

Here’s a bit more in depth analysis on the significance of the 143 post.

This tweet is how we know that it is 100% in Dianna’s character to occasionally subtweet Taylor and why a lot of this social media analysis has been done.

February 16, 2015 - Just two days later Dianna attends a fashion show in which Karlie walks and is noted to “have kept a smirk on her face” during. Dianna doesn’t clap at the end of the show and looks miserable in photos of the event:

February 17, 2015 - Taylor releases Wonderland

I’m going to pause here and discuss the song Wonderland for a brief moment because it is some of the most incredibly airtight evidence for Swiftgron available.

Dianna’s favorite book of all time is Alice in Wonderland. She brought it up in interviews all the time, tweeted about it, auctioned off a signed copy of it for charity, her private Tumblr and instagram account are called whosirmesir which is a reference to it, her private Tumblr is filled with reblogs about Alice, and her public Tumblr was called fell down the rabbit hole.

So the fact that Taylor writes an entire song describing a relationship through the lens of and packing full of references to Alice in Wonderland is incredibly interesting.

Let’s take a look at some of these lyrics:

Flashing lights and we, took a wrong turn and we Fell down the rabbit hole (literally Dianna’s tumblr name and url)

Didn't you flash your green eyes at me (Dianna is famous for her beautiful almost hypnotic green eyes and yes they are green)

Haven't you heard what becomes of curious minds (queer coded)

Too in love to think straight (queer coded)

But there were strangers watching And whispers turned to talking And talking turned to screams (seems to reference when they were outed) You searched the world for something else (Dianna very publicly went travelling around the world right after April 2013 when they seem to break up)

Taylor literally put Dianna’s Tumblr URL in the song. Frankly I’m kind of shocked she released this song at all it is so obviously and clearly about Dianna. Truly a Swiftgron anthem!

Back to the timeline...

March 8, 2015 - Taylor posts Flamingos for her dad’s birthday:

The caption was “Happy Birthday, Dad. Thanks for all the unconditional love, sarcastic comments, and interesting Christmas presents.”

May 1, 2015 - Dianna posts a flamingo for her birthday (post is now deleted):

The caption was “This is 29. Spoiled rotten. Funny enough, at work they were painting the hallways white and the roses (hallway doors) red, then I actually went to Wonderland (@AliceUnderLdn) and came home to a surprise flamingo. Here we go. Another year around the sun…feeling lucky and loved and loved and lucky.”

Taylor also gave Emily, another rumored ex, a flamingo bandana for her birthday. i also think it’s odd that Dianna mentions Wonderland specifically in the post.

January 15, 2016 - Dianna’s engagement to Winston is announced and Kaylors notice Taylor is liking sad posts on Tumblr including several posts related to Clean:

November 7, 2016 - Lorde’s birthday party where Kaylor is together in public for the last time for 20 months.

January 5, 2017 - Claire (who is still very close with Taylor) comments on one of Dianna’s Instagram posts):

March 2, 2017 - Dianna posts her James Dean inStyle UK photo to Instagram:

This is actually the second time she has posted this as a throwback photo. She also posted it on February 4, 2016 with simply the caption “TBT” and did not include the “rebel without a clue” bit which is a reference to James Dean (Rebel Without a Cause). She’s never posted the same TBT photo twice before or after this (as of the writing of this post in October 2020).

It I may be permitted to go real far out on a limb here it’s almost as if she wanted people to connect that photo of her in the UK InStyle magazine to James Dean. James Dean is of course the way Taylor describes her lover in the song Style.

At any rate it’s very odd that it’s the only photo she’s posted twice whether it’s related to Taylor or not.

April 25, 2017 - Fans notice Dianna is having her script tattoo removed:

This is significant because a part of the tattoo was dedicated to Alice in Wonderland - it said “We’re all mad here”

Tattoo removal is a years long process:

So it’s possible she started getting it removed around the time that Wonderland came out.

It’s also possible part of the tattoo was dedicated to Lea (the part that said “here I am”) so this whole removal situation is very interesting.

In 2019 she was still getting it removed and commented this at a Cafe Carlyle session:

"i was like i don't know i wanna explain all my tattoos or the one that i'm getting removed on my side...you know you're like...WHATEVER we're stopping we're moving on"

February 13, 2018 - Dianna attends the Carolina Herrera fashion show, so does Karlie. Dianna is introduced to Karlie by Derek Blasberg and very audibly calls Karlie “gorgeoouusss” as they meet.

Kayda play “Gorgeous” by Taylor Swift.

vimeo

Click here to keep reading!

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the-bejeesus · 3 years

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To Those Who Say “I’m not gonna catch up on One Piece until it’s finished. Why would I watch/read 1000+ episodes/chapters when I don’t even get to know how the story ends?”

Now for the past few years, when I came across somebody who said this, my rebute would be something like “Well the series is great already. It doesn’t really matter if I don’t know how it ends, because the journey itself is enjoyable.” or “Man if that’s your excuse, who you gonna explain why you read/watch stuff like Berserk, Hunter X Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and My Hero Academia? Newsflash, they aren’t done yet.” But it came across my mind that I can now apply a completely different approach:

“If you start watching/reading at this pace right now, it will be over by the time you catch up.”

If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll know that for awhile now Oda has been saying that he plans to end the series in just 5-4 years. Now he’s made lots of claims in the past that turned out to be ridiculous. However, many One Piece researchers have compiled his claims and found out that they only get more accurate as time goes on, with the most ridiculous claims being found to be myths. And with the most recent claims of ending the series in less than 5 years, even his editors who are usually skeptical have started to trust that he can do this. After all, he has officially set there to be only one more saga (which isn’t necessarily one arc, but it’s either going to be 1-2 major arcs or an anthology of 5-6 shorter arcs). And now that we can trust this claim, we can essentially extrapolate how many chapters/episodes are left and what pace we have to binge to catch up at just the right time.

If you plan to read the manga (black and white):

The manga in black in white is a perfectly fine way to enjoy One Piece. It’s what Oda draws, it’s how he intends it to be viewed, and best of all, it will be the first version of publication to finish.

Out of the 1223 weeks since the first chapter published in July 19, 1997, 1000 chapters have published, meaning on average he publishes 42 chapters per year, or in other words, there are only 10 hiatuses per year (including holidays where WSJ does not publish). Now if I wanted to be more accurate, I’d only look at the chapters published this year, to exclude outliers like how he had no hiatuses for the first 200 chapters, or how he had a 4-week hiatus during the timeskip, but 2020 has been a bit crazy, so we’re not doing that for this or any of the others.

Going off of this, the final chapter would be chapter 1212 in December 28, 2025 (yes, the 28th would be a Sunday again.) So here’s how you’d calculate the pace in which you need to read One Piece, and really this is how we’ll calculate it for every version)

Now I know math is boring, but the reason I’m showing this to you is because the amount of weeks until One Piece ends will vary based on when you start this binge. Chances are you aren’t going to start the day you see this post, and there’s an even greater chance you won’t see this post the day it’s posted. For every example I’m going to assume you started binging on December 28, 2020. Now let’s try to use it for this example.

And there’s your answer, just read 4-5 chapters per week. By the end, One Piece should be nearly over or have very recently ended. To put that into a different perspective, you could purchase and read just two volumes per month and you’ll be at prime pace. Or you could read one chapter every day, but only on weekdays. If you want to, you can see this calculation in action in graph form.

While this is a very rudimentary graph, it’s a basic visualization of what we’re calculating here. We’re calculating what speed we need to binge to catch up at exactly the right moment. I say exact, but ultimately no one can predict how many chapters there will be exactly, nor how many hiatuses Oda will go on during it. It will be important, as you’re nearing the end, to find a spoiler-free way to keep up on how close One Piece is to ending. To know whether you ought to speed up or slow down.

If you plan to watch the anime (subtitled):

For years now people have hated on the anime “terrible animation!” “terrible pacing” but at the end of the day, it’s the more popular version. Or the more viewed version I should say. And personally, I think that once you acknowledge its problems and learn how to deal with them, it’s a perfectly fine experience. There’s enough good voice acting and enough good storytelling that you’re easily able to ignore the problems. Plus, the animation has substantially improved since Wano.

Now for this we’re going to have to change a lot of variables to get this right. We’re going to have to adjust when publication started, and recalculate when One Piece will end by looking at how slowly the anime adapts the manga, and how behind it is. The anime aired on October 20, 1999, and has aired 956 episodes since then. This means on average they air 44.9 episodes per year, meaning there is pretty much only 7 breaks the entire year. With these 956 episodes, they have adapted 955 chapters, making the pace almost exactly one chapter per episode. However this is really inaccurate, considering all the better-paced arcs earlier on in the story. Looking solely at episodes 2012 and onwards, the anime adapts at a pace of 0.65 chapters/episode.

Knowing that there are roughly 212 chapters left, and Toei adapts at 0.65 chapters per episode, we can assume that there are going to be roughly 324 episodes left. That sounds like too many, but keep in mind that there will be several, several instances where the manga will be on hiatus whereas the anime will keep on airing. Knowing there are approximately 324 episodes left, and that the anime only takes about 7 breaks a year, we can assume that it will take 7 years, or 374.49 weeks before the anime will end. So now we have the information we need to do the math again.

x = 1280/374.49

x = 3.417 episodes/week.

It may seem like a more relaxed binge, since you get a whole 2 extra years to binge, and you only have to do 3-4 episodes per week, compared to the 4-5 chapters. But keep in mind that these episodes are 24 minutes each. Still not at all bad, but you will be spending more time on it overall.

If you plan to watch One Pace:

One Pace is a fan project that edits the anime so that filler and padding is cut, other edits will be made to make the anime more manga-accurate, such as reorganizing scenes, or adding title cards where absent. Originally only used by a niche number of One Piece fans, One Pace has grown in popularity, and has tried to improve its quality to accommodate more fans, such as making their episodes Dual Audio (meaning you can switch between the dub and original Japanese audio tracks), and including Spanish subtitles.

You’d think we’d have to adjust for when One Pace began, how slowly One Pace catches up, and the works, but there’s not much to calculate. Fortunately for us, no matter how far behind One Pace is on editing the current arc, they always like to wrap things up just a few weeks within when an arc ended, if not the very same week. So really all we have to calculate is how many One Pace episodes there will be by the end of all this, so that we know how many you’ll need to watch per week.

Looking solely at what they’ve covered so far, One Pace has taken 573 episodes and condensed it down to 259 episodes. That’s a pace of 2.21 anime episodes/ paced episode. Earlier we calculated that there would be 324 episodes of the anime left, making for 1280 episodes total. This would mean that there would be around 578 One Pace episodes by the end. And One Pace would probably wrap up in, let’s say 376 weeks, because as I said, they’ll probably finish editing the final arc a week or two after the last episode airs.

x = 578/376

x = 1.53 episodes per week

Now that’s a relaxed pace. 1-2 episodes per week? That’s so slow, I’m not even sure if I’ll remember what I watched last week next time I watch some episodes. The only problem is some of the pre-timeskip still haven’t been edited. They’ll probably be done by the time they finish the final arc, but that’s not gonna work out fast enough. You’ll hit your first roadblock about 7 weeks in when you need to watch the Baratie arc and it’s not done. And don’t even get me started on how many arcs aren’t done in dub or Spanish sub yet. Hopefully you could just switch to the anime or manga when you hit these arcs, readjusting how many episodes/chapters you need to watch/read when you do. But that’s a bit of an excessive amount of math for something that’s supposed to be fun. So yeah, if you’re still convinced you shouldn’t get into One Piece until it’s ended, maybe this is the option for you.

If you plan to read the manga (Colored):

Since 2012, Shueisha has made a colorization of One Piece. It’s not a fan coloring, it’s as official as it gets. Many consider the color schemes portrayed in this version as the most canon, as the majority are pulled straight from whatever colored illustrations of Oda’s they can find. And quite frankly it makes the manga at least 10 times more beautiful. It’s especially great if you have trouble interpreting dense, small black and white panels.

This one is a doozy. You’d think all I gotta do is calculate how far behind the colored manga usually and just adjust from there, right? Wrong. Because how far behind the colored manga is, or how frequently they release volumes in full color, is one of the most inconsistent things I have ever seen. You wanna see what I’m talking about? This is how they’ve chosen to release each volume since 2012:

Volume 1-12: July 15, 2012

Volume 13-23: September 28, 2012

Volume 24-63: December 4, 2012

Volume 64-65: April 4, 2013

Volume 66-68: December 20, 2013

Volume 69-70: August 25, 2014

Volume 71-72: September 16, 2015

Volume 73-75: October 4, 2016

Volume 76: December 2, 2016

Volume 77: March 3, 2017

Volume 78: July 2, 2017

Volume 79: September 4, 2017

Volume 80: December 4, 2017

Volume 81-82: March 3, 2018

Volume 83: October 4, 2018

Volume 84-86: August 2, 2019

Volume 87-92: September 16, 2020

How I am supposed to find out how long it will take for Shueisha to colorize the final volume of One Piece is beyond me. I guess the first step would be to look at how far behind the manga each release was on average, but I’m going to ignore all the ones before 2013, because those were clearly just Shueisha catching up really fast cause they just started and didn’t want to be dozens of volumes behind forever. So of the 14 publications between 2013 and now, on average the last chapter of the last volume they colored was 97.78 weeks after that chapter had published in Weekly Shonen Jump. This means that if the final chapter of One Piece is chapter 1212 on December 28, 2025, then you can expect the final colored volume to publish November 14, 2027.

x = 1212/359

x = 3.37 chapters/week

So if you prefer the manga but don’t want to read 5 chapters every week for 5 years, this might be a better option for ya. But yea, I have no doubt my prediction is at least a little off for this one.

If you plan to watch the anime (dubbed):

Unlike the 4KidsTV and Odex dubs of One Piece, the FUNimation dub is a perfect way to enjoy One Piece. The DVDs come with enjoyable commentary and a marathon mode, great for binging.

FUNimation’s releases of the dub are inconsistent, although not nearly as erratic as the colored manga release. However, there was recently a 2-year hiatus we only just got out of. Since Episode 1′s dub in May 27, 2008, the dub has gotten as far as Episode 614. But that’s only looking at the DVD releases. If you’re willing to stream on FUNimationnow, the dub is as far as 641, and if you’re willing to digitally purchase it from an e-shop such as the Microsoft store, it goes all the way to Episode 654. With that being said, that would mean that on average, FUNimation dubs 1.004 episodes per week. Although if we go back to before the two-year hiatus so as to exclude it from the average, it’s actually 1.10 episodes per week. Not a huge difference, actually. And then if we look solely after the two-year hiatus, it’s actually 2.25 episodes per week, which is insanely faster. It’s hard to tell what the future of the dub will be. I can’t assume they’ll go this fast forever, so I’m just going to take the average of all 3 and say it’s 1.45 episodes per week. Don’t know if that’s the best mathematical approach, but the number seems about right.

So knowing that the dub is at Episode 654 and looking at our previous guesstimation that the anime will be 1280 episodes long, we can predict that it will take 431 weeks before the dub catches up and ends. That would be in 2029! Sounds quick at first until you notice it’s 4 years behind!

x = 1280/431

x = 2.96 episodes per week

Looks like it’s almost exactly 3 episodes per week. Not as much less of a workload as I expected, compared to catching up to the sub. You know, I figured those 4 extra years would make you binge a lot slower.

Final Thoughts:

There’s a lot of my math that was estimation, approximations, extrapolations. Feel free to correct me or fact check me, especially if you plan on using this. I figured this would be a fun thought excercise. There’s also a lot of smaller variables I simply didn’t want to take into account because of how long this is already. For example, reading the black and white manga. The calculation can vary slightly depending on if you read it the day it’s published (which I assume would have to be a fanscan unless you can read Japanese), reading the weekly publication legally on Viz.com, waiting for the physical volume release. The dub can also vary depending on whether you buy from Microsoft, wait for the FUNimationnow release, wait for the DVDs, or wait for the Collection sets. So feel free to take this into account.

#One Piece #OP #ワンピース #Wan Pīsu #anime #manga #FUNimation #dub #One Pace

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rivalsforlife · 3 years

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AA7 Speculation Post: 2021 Edition

So I did one of these back in August, claiming that it was likely we’d get an AA7 announcement sometime in September for the Tokyo Game Show. Obviously it was wrong. So I am doing ANOTHER ONE, because I apparently like publicly being proven wrong?

This will be shorter than the last one because I exhausted most of my material on the first one, and also there’s less material. There is, however, SOME new stuff we’ve learned since August. ... And I was going to make a post in November but completely forgot, so consider this a starting point for the year. I’ll be covering the leaks, in general terms, and theorizing when we will be getting announcements/releases.

The rest will be under the cut so as not to burden everyone with my ramblings.

The Capcom Leaks

First things first, a disclaimer: this information was leaked through a hack which was highly illegal and compromised the personal information of many former and current Capcom employees, and therefore, I do not condone the methods through which this information was obtained and will not provide any guidance as to how to obtain this information, nor have I sought it out myself. However, I will still talk about then in general terms, because the information is out there already, and the information I am discussing will not compromise any personal information.

In summary: early this November, the hacker group Ragnar Locker managed to hack into Capcom’s databases somehow and retrieved 1 TB of information from the company; this includes a bit of information on ace attorney, which was leaked in mid-November after the group demanded a ransom and, presumably, Capcom didn’t pay up.

The two major ace attorney reveals that came from this are as follows: the announcement of a DGS/DGS2 port for the nintendo switch, steam, and ps4 with an English translation, and a calendar for the development and release of this port along with... ace attorney 7.

It’s highly likely that this information was real, given the level detail and the fact that Capcom confirmed some of their information was leaked, essentially confirming that AA7 either is or once was in development -- more news about this than we’ve had in a long time! But what does it mean and when can we expect it? Let’s take a closer look at the calendar.

The Calendar

Unfortunately, this little thing happened in between the creation of this calendar and it being leaked, called “a global pandemic” or something like that, so this calendar is almost certainly behind.

But what did it say? I lost track of the original, but I did find a roughly translated version someone made (from this post which summarizes some of the stuff in the leaks):

So... what does this mean? First, let’s remember two things: one, this calendar was made pre-COVID and things were definitely pushed back. And two, the Japanese fiscal year starts April 1st, meaning that FY2021 starts in April. This means that as of writing this, we are technically in FY2020 Q4 - where, if we were on track, would be nearing the end of DGS1&2 port production and midway through AA7′s production. (We are almost definitely not on track.)

The pandemic started hitting Japan around April 2020, I believe, so that would be in FY2020 Q1. The DGS ports seem fairly unaffected, considering it’s later in production, and also, the DGS games are already complete, so most of the work would be on translating and adapting the games for modern consoles, rather than starting completely at scratch like AA7. AA7 is a little trickier: it was still in the prototype/pre-production stage, most likely, when the pandemic hit. I’m not tooootally sure what that means because I’m not a game developer, but it’s quite possible that this meant it took a serious hit. Given that there didn’t seem to be a lot of other AA7 data leaked, including in a large schedule of releases for Capcom later, there is the possibility that AA7 ended up being scrapped owing to the pandemic or other extenuating circumstances... but I don’t believe that’s likely, with the 20th anniversary coming up. We’ll see.

Another thing of note is that the name “AA7″ is temporary. Here in the English-speaking world that isn’t a big deal because all the AA games have random titles (like “Justice for All” and “Trials and Tribulations”...) but in Japan, they’re referred to simply with their numbers (GS2, GS3, etc. standing for Gyakuten Saiban 2, Gyakuten Saiban 3). The fact that “Gyakuten Saiban 7″ is a temporary name could possibly mean that what we are getting is not another mainline game.

However, again, there’s not really anything to support either of these things. I’m just bringing up random possibilities to cover my bases; but personally I think it’s likely that it is another mainline game, and that it is still in development. If we hear absolutely nothing about AA7 for all of 2021, though... then perhaps not.

Now... obviously, this calendar was pushed back. If we’re in 2020Q4 right now, then by the calendar DGS1&2 is hypothetically going to be released in about three-six months, and there has been absolutely no word on that so far. If this calendar were still being followed, we’d have AA7 on sale in Q3 of 2021 -- meaning October-December 2021, possibly in October for the 20th anniversary of the series, which would be super cool. ... but I doubt that will happen now.

So then, when are we getting the games?

I haven’t seen actual evidence of it, but rumour is that they’re pushing back DGS1&2 for a July release and an April announcement, giving three months between announcement - release. This is a shorter period than the most recent trilogy switch/ps4/pc/xbox release, which was announced in September 2018 and released February 2019 in Japan, a five month waiting period.

When we English-speaking players will get the duology is unknown, too -- the trilogy rereleases took a month and a half before they were released in English, despite already having been translated and the original released in Japan coming with an English language option. (No idea what was up with that!) The duology released in Japan reportedly will have an English option from the outset, though the English released version will not have the Japanese option because of copyright issues surrounding Sherlock Holmes -- sorry, I mean, Herlock Sholmes. Still, we should expect a few months following the Japanese release before we are able to play it ourselves. Same goes with the hypothetical AA7, which seems to typically be around three months following the Japanese release for an English release.

As for when we can expect AA7′s announcement... to the extent of my knowledge, the shortest announcement-release period for a game was Spirit of Justice, announced in September 2015 and released in Japan in June 2016, a period of nine months. Usually it takes longer. Assuming that there’s still that six-month gap between the DGS duology release and the AA7 release, we could hypothetically have AA7 in early 2022, pushed back a quarter, and if the announcement comes nine months ahead... it lines up pretty nicely with an April announcement. If we’re having a DGS announcement in April as rumoured, it would make sense to tie in the AA7 announcement to that as well.

How will they be announced? ... I’m not sure. TGS back in September would have been the most opportune time for an announcement, but I have the feeling that owing to our good friend the pandemic, they didn’t have enough to show for either the ports or AA7 back then and so opted not to show anything. If these games are for the Switch, they could be announced in a Nintendo Direct. Or they could be announced in a Famitsu magazine with trailers released later outside of any other event. Honestly I don’t really know for this part.

Overall, though? This is the upcoming 20th anniversary of the series. I’d be surprised if we ended up not getting anything. Despite the pandemic likely pushing everything back, I think it’s highly likely we’ll get some big ace attorney news soon, even if it’s not quite in time for the anniversary -- of course, the safety and health of the employees comes first, so a bit of a delay will be just fine.

TL;DR: I’m theorizing we’ll have DGS port/ AA7 announcements around this April, with DGS being released around July and AA7 being released late 2021/early 2022, with a few months delay for the English versions.

#ace attorney #aa7 speculation #this one's short but once we get an idea on concept I plan to go wild on theorizing

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thevictorianghost · 3 years

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A look back at 2020 - and a thank you to the Zutara fandom

Okay.

So.

I’ve never done this before. I know 2020 has been… a year. To say the least. A messy, sad, hell of a year. I’m not saying my 2020 was perfect. There were many events that were supposed to happen but got cancelled because of COVID. But if you could believe it, 2019 was so much worse for me, especially creative-wise. So I decided to make this post about how my 2020 went, because it went a lot better than 2019!

Never again, 2019. Never again.

Also if you feel like you haven’t been creative or haven’t had the energy to do everything you wanted to do, please don’t take this post as a “haha I did so much better than you guys!” Because that is ABSOLUTELY NOT what I want to achieve. I just want to give myself a pat on the back. Honestly, I think what really helped this year was when I got into a slump for one type of creative endeavour, I jumped to the next. I set myself to start something and finished it. Then, if I felt burnt out about that thing? Like writing a fic? I got into cosplay. Or video editing. Or something else. And then I came back to writing. It was really fun to learn new things and to do multiple kinds of projects through the year!

The Zutara fandom thank you letter is at the end, so if you want to skip my ramblings, you can find the title below!

So anyway. Here goes!

Video editing:

It’s not that well-known on my Tumblr, but I have a Youtube channel! I made myself a video editing challenge back in January - and I crushed it! Back in 2019, I quit video editing for many months because I didn’t have the motivation to continue doing so. But then in December last year, I found a BUNCH of my old (and I mean, VERY old) videos I’d made as a kid. And it re-invigorated my love for video editing because I realized how far I’d come and that I wanted to do it more! So I told myself: one video a month. Twelve in one year. That’s it. Do that. And I ended up making TWENTY videos this year! I’m so proud of myself!

I even made MORE than twenty videos. A few of these just aren’t published. I made a few more “educational” videos because I’m considering making a brand new Youtube channel dedicated to History and pop culture! I don’t know if it’ll end up being… you know… a thing, but hey! Why not?

I also made some unpublished short edits for a possible Instagram account I’d like to create, too! All for Titanic. An example of those short videos can be found here! Again, I don’t know if that Instagram account will end up being… a thing… but I have faith!

Cosplay:

I got back into cosplay this year! And I learned new skills thanks to it! I learned how to work with EVA foam to create my own Blue Spirit mask (using this tutorial!). There’s a few projects currently on the backburner, but I’m sure I’ll come back to them eventually!

I also learned recently how to sew a pair of opera gloves (because haha, fuck you if you want to buy any that aren’t in size small!) for a Rose Dewitt-Bukater cosplay with my sewing machine I bought way back in like… March… but was honestly too afraid to use. But I did it! I pushed through my fear and I did it! I’ve been practicing more and more with my sewing machine as I repurpose old clothes for my cosplay. And it’s going great!

Writing:

I got back into fanfic! I hadn’t written ANYTHING fanfic related in a while, especially not multi-chapter fics. But this year, I finished THREE novel-length fanfictions. My fanfics The Prince’s Bride, my Star Wars/The Princess Bride AU, and Never Let Me Go, my Avatar: The Last Airbender/Titanic AU, are currently all published on AO3! I haven’t been much in the Star Wars fandom since writing The Prince’s Bride, but I did meet @stressedinadress with who I talk about Star Wars and anything in particular! Thank you for being my friend!

My other novel-length fic, All roads lead to Paris, a Miraculous Ladybug/A Monster in Paris/Ratatouille crossover fic is currently being uploaded every Wednesdays! I’ve also written a Titanic/The Great Gatsby crossover one-shot called Make it count; Meet me at the clock that had been living in my brain for years but I’d never had the guts to write it. But then I did!

I’m especially proud of Never Let Me Go. Not that I’m not proud of my other fics, but this one in particular has a very special place in my heart. It’s the longest story I’ve EVER written and made me love Titanic all over again. Zuko and Katara were the perfect characters to be cast as Jack and Rose. I got back into drawing entirely thanks to this fic. I’d been telling myself “I can’t draw to save my life” for YEARS but then I decided to try again and I’m much better than I was back then! I’m so humbled by all the comments, all the bookmarks, the kudos and the love this story has received. We’ve JUST REACHED 5000 HITS!! Before the end of the year!! That’s so AWESOME!!

I’m tentatively coming back to original fiction after writing a lot of fanfic, especially a Greek Mythology retelling (which is, you know, fanfiction but with stories that don’t have copyrights!). I think writing fanfiction really helped me figure out what I love about writing and has helped me tremendously in creating my own style and voice. It’s been an incredible journey and yes, my Greek Mythology retelling was inspired by a Zutara Greek Mythology AU! So you know, I’m staying on-brand! haha

I’m also currently working on another ATLA fic, heavily inspired by my “what I would have wanted for LOK” post you can find here. It’s going to be much, MUCH shorter than Never Let Me Go, but it’s already longer than Not Like Everyone Else, so I’m really happy with this one. A bunch of bite-sized chapters in the POVs of all these lovely characters after the War and my take on where they should have ended up - and the world.

Zutara:

And finally, but certainly not the least, I got back into the Zutara fandom and really contributed! I made metas I’m really proud of (like this one on Katara’s abandonment issues you can find here!). I wrote the aforementioned fanfic Never Let Me Go. I even made a video about Zutara after my latest rewatch of ATLA (you can watch ZUTARA | Zuko x Katara - BATTLESHIPS here!).

I also made friends along the way! @darkcrowprincess, @harharj, @angelsabloom and, more recently, @heavensweetheart. I wanted to thank you for putting up with my weird rants and obsessions! :)

We’re all such a lovely bunch and don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere! I want to thank, especially, @firelxdykatara, @antarcticasx, @my-bated-breath, @peartarts, @pineapple-frenzy and @hayleynfoster for your metas, fics, art, etc.! You’ve been making my 2020 better. This isn’t an exhaustive list, so if I’ve forgotten someone, I’m so sorry!

Also I hope everyone who have been harassed recently, like @babytreehugger, knows that we’re all standing behind you and supporting you.

This is a really special fandom indeed. It took me years before I could rewatch ATLA knowing Zutara wasn’t endgame, but even if it hurts that they’re not canon, we have countless fics, art, poems, animatics, even published authors whose books are basically Zutara AUs! As stated by those same authors! Isn’t that amazing?? WE HAVE A STAR!! WE HAVE A FRICKING STAR!!! Has anyone forgotten that??

And look. I’ve been, for the past few years, in the Star Wars fandom. I’ve been in many different fandoms over the years. It’s been… rough. But I’ve never seen such an encouraging, loving, compassionate fandom. I know it can be difficult outside of our fandom, especially with people fighting on Twitter and Instagram and even on Tumblr with people harassing others. But this fandom, fifteen years later, is so smart, so kind, so positive and so inspiring.

If you’ve been reading up ‘till now, thank you!

Also: You can do whatever you set your mind to! I believe in you! Go do the thing if you want to! And never forget to be kind to yourself.

Happy holidays! Let’s hope (fingers crossed!) that 2021 will be a better year.

thevictorianghost

#me #zutara #zuko #katara #motivation #happy holidays #year recap #i dont know how to tag this #2020 was a heck of a year #im glad its over #but it also wasnt all that bad #so i decided to post this

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jawritter · 4 years

Text

Prank Gone Wrong

A/N: This was a private request from my sister. So you guys don’t crucify me upside down lol. This was originally posted on wattpad, and someone who wished to remain anon asked me to bring it over here. So be nice lol. As always all mistakes are mine! Feedback is golden! Hope you all enjoy this one. I was nervous about writing it.

**Disclaimer!** This is a complete and total work of fiction. I don’t believe Jared would ever do something like this!! LOL Even though Misha may beg to differ.....

Warnings: SMUT, unprotected smut, drugged!jensen, jared being an asswhole on accident. (kinda), language, exaggerated effects of a drug, hint at reader with body image issues (very brief), male masterbations (also brief). Shifting viewpoints. I think/hope that’s everything.

Pairing: Jensen x Jared, Jensen x reader, Dean x Cherry (reader’s character), Richard Speight x reader, Richard Speight x Jensen, Misha x Reader, Jared x Reader, Jared x Misha.

Word Count: 5103

Want more? Check out my masterlist!

****MASTERLIST****

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Jensen's POV:

"Jensen, JENSEN!" Mikaela screamed at him. Making him jump in his seat.

"Sorry." He said, Settling back down in the makeup chair. Turning his head for her like she wanted so that she could even out the base coat of makeup she was applying to his face.

"You feeling okay? You're really zoned out this morning."

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine, just tired I guess." Jensen said. Knowing that was an absolute lie. He wasn't tired at all. In fact he'd never felt more awake in his life.

Today was the day he'd been nervous about since he found out about it. The sex scene between "Cherry," Dean's new love interests.. And Dean. And Cherry just happened to also be Richard's niece y/n.

See Jensen has had a secret crush on y/n since she started working for the show four weeks ago. He'd been separated from Danneel for six months now. The only ones on the set that knew that was Jared. So there was no way that Jensen could ask y/n out even though he really wanted to. He had to wait for things to become public, and he didn't want to do that until the divorce was finalized.

Now here he was, going to have to preform a sex scene with the woman that he can't seem to get out of his head. While everyone, except Jared, thinks that he's still in love with Danneel.

"Morning sexy!!" Jared said, flopping down in the makeup chair next to him. Handing him a cup of coffee that he gladly accepted.

"Thank you!! I was running late this morning, and didn't get go by and grab myself any."

"So you ready for today's scene with y/n?" Jared said wiggling his eyebrows at his friend. Watching him intently as he took a deep swing from his coffee.

"Yea, guess as I'll ever be... "

"Okay Jensen your done!" Mikaela said. Ushering him out of the trailer door. He was running late to the costume trailer as well, so he downed the rest of his coffee, and bolted for the door. Glad to be away from Jared and the conversation at hand. He did not want to discuss today's scene with anyone. He just wanted to get it over with. He definitely didn't want to admit he was fighting everything in him that was excited to see her underneath him, even if it was just pretend.

Jared's POV:

Jared rushed out of the makeup trailer headed toward the costume trailer. Seeing Misha coming out of it already in full Castiel mode.

"Misha you coming to watch Jensen and y/n's scene today?" He asked. Making only two short strides of his long legs in order to catch up with the shorter man.

"I don't know, should I? My coverage isn't until once they're done with you in the bunker library." Misha said. Looking up from his script he was reading when Jared had caught up with him.

" Well you might want to, it might get... Interesting..." Jared said. Almost bouncing on the balls of his feet with glee.

"What did you do Jared?" Misha said. Looking at the overly tall man, concerned, but grateful for once It was Jensen and y/n who were in the line of fire and not Misha himself.

"Well. I was at my uncle's house on the brake, and while I was snooping in his guest bathroom I found some Viagra shots. So.. .I kind of stole one of them... Anyway, I knew Jay and y/n had this scene today, and was running late. So I got him a cup of coffee and brought it to the makeup trailer for him. With the Viagra shot mixed in it..."

Jared was grinning like a criminal that had just pulled off the greatest bank robbery in human history. Misha stood there with his jaw on the ground, caught somewhere between amusement, and concern for Jensen.

"Well did... I'm... Oh my god Jared... Did he drink it?" Misha said. Concern growing, but amusement winning out in the end. He did make a mental note NEVER to accept coffee from Jared ever again...

"Yep downed it before he left the makeup trailer. Come on, it's going to take them about an hour to set up. So it should be good and in his system by the time they get down to business." Jared said taking off toward the costume trailer to hurry and get changed into Sam's outfit. This may be the greatest prank he's pulled yet!!

Your POV:

You were having one of those days.. Nothing was going right. You spilled your coffee this morning before you got to finish it. Cliff was late getting you and Jensen to set, you both lived in the same apartment complex while filming in Vancouver, so you usually just car pooled with them, it was just easier.

Even though you guys were already running late, traffic kept you even later, like the whole universe was trying to cosmically get you back for having a huge crush on this extremely handsome and extremely married man that was sitting next to you.

You where nervous about the sex scene today. No matter how many of them you did, they were always awkward. Add in the major crush you had on your costar, and that made it even more awkward.

Jensen must have been nervous, because he wasn't his normal talkative self on the way into the studio.

It was an hour worth of hair and makeup for you, then to your trailer to change into your nude underwear and robe to head to set. It was also December in Vancouver, which made that a very cold walk.

By the time you got to set that morning. Everyone was there and in place. Jensen was standing off in the corner talking to the director, you took your place already in the bed. For this scene your character Cherry was supposed to be sleeping, and Dean comes into her to.. Well You know... After an extra difficult hunt and your characters argument that you filmed yesterday were Dean had admitted his feelings for Cherry, but ran out of the bunker before she could respond to him.

Stripping your robe you get under the sheets and turn on your side as directed by Eric. Your uncle Richard comes over and kneels down on the side of the bed to talk to you.

"How are you feeling kid, are you sure you're okay with this?"

"I'm a big girl Richard. I think I can handle a little sex scene." You tell him. Trying to downplay your nerves a little.

"Okay, Okay," He said. Throwing his hands up in mock surrender. "You know what's going to happen, Jensen's going to come through the door, stand next to your bed. The coverage is going to be on a sleeping Cherry, Dean will then strip down and slip into the bed with you. That's where we're going to start the fun stuff. Now we haven't scripted this scene. Because no matter how much we've tried we can't make it look real on paper, so we're going to have Jensen adlib it. Just follow his lead. If at any moment you feel awkward or uncomfortable, just let us know and we'll reset and start over again. Okay."

"Okay." You said. Feeling a little information overload, but you should be used to that by now.

"Okay." He said, Standing up as they brought the lights down on set. "Jensen's a professional, don't worry." He said winking at you and making his way over to his directors chair while you tried your damndest to calm down your racing heart rate.

Jensen's POV:

Jensen stood off to the side of the set, letting you get comfortable and covered before he made his way to his mark. Trying his hardest to keep his mind on the upcoming task at hand. To do this with as few takes as possible.

He felt funny, but attributed it to his nerves, and tried to shake it off. Looking over to the side of him behind the camera he saw Jared and Misha standing off to the side by the PA's whispering to each other. Probably going to try and find a reason to make fun of him after this scene is over. Great more pressure.

Jensen adjusted his stance uncomfortably as the lights came down and they called the markers in place. The commands started to come out. Y/n adjusted in the bed and smiled at him. A smile that nearly knocked the breath out of him. The only problem is it seemed to show off her cleavage in the brief moment that she turned toward him.

"Quiet on set!!"

Fuck he was already getting hard, and he hadn't even gotten to the bed yet were she was laying. What the fuck was wrong with him? He tried to low key adjust himself to make himself more comfortable, and hide the fact that he was already having some problems. He'd never done this before. His heart rate quickened.

"Action."

Your POV:

As soon as they called action your eyes closed and you started to put on the presumption that Cherry was asleep. Waiting for Dean to come through the door with battered breath. You never get tired of watching Jensen play Dean. Jensen was sexy to begin with, but when he put on his bad ass hunter act it just did all sorts of things to you that you weren't ready to admit yet.

You could hear the door shut to Cherry's room, you could also hear your heart beating in your ears, but you tried to ignore it. Keeping focused on keeping your breaths even, like you would if you were really sleeping.

You could feel Jensen's presents behind you. Even though your eyes were closed. Hearing Dean's clothes hit the floor as he made quick work of them.

You felt the bed dip as his weight came down behind you, his lips finding your throat. You knew that there was no script to this, and that he was just winging it. So you lay there. Playing off the fact that he hadn't woken her up yet.

His lips ghosted over your throat to the pulse points behind your ears and you couldn't stop the shiver that went down your back.

"Cut!!!"

"Okay guys great so far. I don't think he needs to do that again. The next time it cuts to you guys your already going to be deep in the act. So... Let's start from there. Since this isn't scripted this might have to be done a few times. You guys good so far?" Richard called out from his directors chair.

"Yea, let's just do it." Jensen said, his voice was a little more strained than normal. He must be nervous too.

"Okay you guys get in position and Jensen nod when you're ready."

Jensen adjusted himself to be hovering over you. Trying his best to keep staring at the wall, and not you lying underneath him.

To say that the man was breathtaking was an understatement. A light sheen of sweat already coating his chest. You wondered if they sprayed him before he got into the bed. Why would he already be sweating? Jay wasn't really a sweater. Not that you'd ever noticed anyway.

Finally looking down at you when he'd positioned himself between your legs, trying hard not to touch you with his body. He supported his weight on his arms, and knees.

"You okay?" He asked. Looking down at you finally.

"Yeah I'm good, you?" You were starting to feel a little concerned about him. He wasn't acting like his normal joking Jensen at all. It worried you.

"I'm fine sweetheart don't worry about me." He said, winking at you. Trying to make light of an awkward situation. Even though you had nude underwear on, you couldn't help but feel exposed to him, and you couldn't help but feel self conscious about the parts of your body that you weren't necessarily happy with.

Jensen looked over to Richard and nodded to him. Then the two of you lay there waiting on the words action!

Jensen had his eyes closed and was taking deep breaths above you.

"Quiet on Set, ready, and action!!"

As soon as the words were called Jensen's mouth crashed into yours. Knocking the wind out of you. My god the man was a good kisser.

His lips brushed lightly over your own. That's when you felt him start to move his body above your own, careful not to touch his hips to yours, and keep you covered from the other eyes in the room.

"Cut!!"

Jensen's head connected to your shoulder and he growled in frustration. "What now Rich?"

Richard took a tentative step toward the two of you. Jensen still holding his body above your own.

"I'm sorry Jensen, It just didn't look real, your holding your body too high above hers, you're going to have to have a little contact with each other. You've done this before Jensen. What's wrong today?"

Jensen took a deep breath, looking from Richard to you. "I just don't want to make y/n feel uncomfortable." He said, keeping his eyes focused on the bed comforter. It was starting to make you feel even more self conscious. Did he not feel attracted to you at all? Did you disgust him so much that he didn't want to even pretend to have sex with you?

Quickly you shoved the feels down, you had to get through this scene. He said he just didn't want to make you uncomfortable. He was trying to show you a little respect, and keeping his eyes deviated form you until absolutely necessary y/n quite being so self conscious!! Jensen is your friend!

"Y/n I don't mean to sound crude, but your niece, and I know you can handle it. I've seen you at parties, we're not that far apart in age, I'm sure you're not a virgin." Your eyes narrowed at him, silently daring him not to go too far here.

Richard threw his hands up in surrender, and stepped back a step. "All I'm saying is I don't think he'd make you that uncomfortable if his hips ground into you a little. Hell you both have underwear on. It's not like you're really touching each other."

Rolling your eyes at him and fighting the urge to throw a pillow at his face. "No Richard, it won't make me uncomfortable. Now can we get this done!'

"Fine, Okay guys here we go!" Richard said running back to his seat. "Action."

Again Jensen's mouth found yours. Slow, but gaining momentum. He ran his hand down your side that the camera was covered on and you couldn't help the small gasp that left your lips or the involuntary shiver that ran down your spine at his touch.

What you didn't expect was his tongue to run across your lip. Maybe it was an accident. Was he really going to break that rule? Not that you'd mind, but It just didn't seem like Jensen.

Until you felt it again. This time you give him entrance, and he moans so lowly into your mouth that the camera's wouldn't be able to catch it. The sound is going directly to your core. Soaking your thin layer of panties.

With that his hips came down fully against yours. Grinding into you once. Something felt off, but you couldn't put your finger on it. His hips came down to yours again as his mouth made its way down your throat. This time you felt him.

Was he seriously fully erected right now?

He started picking up his pace. Almost rutting into you now. Little moans fall from his lips.

"Cut!! JENSEN!!" As soon as his name was called. He flew out of the bed. His back to you and his hands in his hair. God his back was sexy, but you could tell there was something wrong.

"Richard I need a few minutes!!" He called over his shoulder not turning around. Jared and Misha burst into a hysterical fit of laughter as Jensen through his robe over his shoulders and almost ran off the set.

"Okay everybody take 30." Richard said. Grabbing your robe you threw it over your shoulders before Jared and Misha made their way over to where you were standing. Jared was laughing so hard he could hardly breath.

"It's not funny Jared. I think something is wrong with Jensen." You tell him as soon as he gets an ear shot. He couldn't respond only doubling over in laughter.

"Oh yea there's something wrong with him alright." Misha said wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "It's hard to do a sex scene when your horny as fuck."

With that Jared fell down on the ground on his back rolling. You resisted the urge to hit Misha in the face.

"What is that supposed to mean?" You asked. You weren't about to tell them what you felt, or what Jensen was doing right before the director called cut, because that wasn't Jensen you knew it. They'd done something to him.

"I mean Jared here slipped him liquid Viagra in his coffee this morning in the makeup trailer. He's not quite thinking with his upstairs brain at the moment."

Running your hands over your face as Jared got to his feel heaving with laughter, trying to catch his breath.

"Looks like he ran off to his trailer to try and get ahold of Danneel." Misha said doubling over in his own fit of laughter. Jared on the other hand froze. Not laughing anymore.

"Oh fuck I forgot." He said, Looking between the two of you.

"Forgot what?" You said. Fighting the urge to go find a step ladder so that you could slap him in the face without having to jump.

"You guys got to promise not to tell this to anybody, but him and Danni are getting a divorce."

Misha, no longer laughing, turned and faced Jared. "So you mean he's got no one to help him out there, and he's going to basically be stuck with a minimum four hour erection. Jared that's not funny."

"I fucking forgot okay, I knew he had a crush on y/n, he was nervous about the scene today, I just wanted to fuck with him. I didn't think that far ahead. He should be able to just beat it off he'll be fine."

You stood there in stunned silence. "He's got a crush on me?" You said. Looking between the two men.

They both stopped and looked at you. Jared visibly kicked himself for this prank that had gone very wrong, very quickly.

"Jared you got to go tell him what you did! He's probably freaking the fuck out right now" You tell him. Jared nodes at you, and runs off toward Jensen's trailer. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. He felt horrible, but it was too late to take it back now.

You stood there for a moment weighing your options.

Finally you made up your mind.

"Misha go tell Richard we're going to need a lot longer than 30, and that he should go ahead and just do yours and Jared's coverage, me and Jensen can resume after lunch." You said, stalking your way toward Jensen's trailer.

Misha watched you go. He couldn't help the smirk that spread across his face as realization hit him of where you were going, and just what you had planned to do.

Maybe this prank hadn't gone so wrong after all.

Jensen's POV:

"YOU FUCKING What?!?!" To say that Jensen was livid was an understatement. "What the fuck am I going to do now Jared?!" Pacing back and forth across the trailer. He was frustrated, hornier than he'd ever been in his life, and annoyed beyond belief because of the combination of the two. He was also on the verge of panic. He'd never taken anything like this before, so he had no idea how it was going to react to him, he was only about an hour and a half into its effects.

"Jensen I'm so fucking sorry, I wasn't thinking about you not having anyone.... to.... you know..." Jensen narrowed his eyes at him in a death glare. Jared threw his arms up, and backed up a few steps.

"Well guess who gets to explain to Richard why I can't do this scene today?" Jensen says, voice filled with humorless venom.

Jared looked at the ground, and nodded before looking back up at Jensen who's face and neck was slightly red in the tent. Palming himself through his robes subconsciously. Not looking at Jared at all anymore. Just leaning against the wall with his eyes shut next to the bedroom of the trailer.

"Maybe I should take you to the hospital?" Jared asked sheepishly. Jensen through his hand up to shut him up. It was getting harder to concentrate.

"Jared I'm not going to the hospital for this, you've lost your fucking mind."

"Well if you can't get your... self... under control there you may have to."

"Jared get the fuck out."

"But.."

Jensen said nothing just pointed to the front door. Jared nodded and walked out the door. Jensen flopped down on the small couch where he kept his pillow for napping during takes.

Grabbing a bottle of lotion from the table that y/n had left in there when she was there yesterday running lines with him. The thought of her made him ache even more. His mind is unable to focus on anything but her, and what she'd feel like wrapped around him.

Groaning and running his hand down his face, he pulled his robe open, and freed himself from his boxers. Putting a generous amount of lotion in his hand, then began to stroke his aching length. Getting desperate to find some relief.

He'd only pumped himself about twice when there was another knock on his door. Fuck this was literally going to kill, or Jared, he wasn't sure yet.

Your POV:

Reaching Jensen's trailer you still your nerves, reach up and knock on the door.... Nothing. Clif's SUV was still in the parking lot, so you knew he was still here. Just not answering the door.

Reaching up you knock again a little louder.

"Go away Jared!!" Finally came the muffled response through the trailer door.

Taking a deep breath, and thanking God that he hadn't had some massive reaction, or had a heart attack from the medication you steel your nerves. 'You can do this.'

"Jensen let me in please." You yell back through the door. Silence for a moment, Just as you were about to pick the lock you heard his voice a little closer to the door.

"Y/n go away, you don't want to see me right now."

"Jensen please! I know what Jared did to you! Misha is talking to Richard right now! Let me in!"

Silence.

"Don't make me pick the lock Jensen."

More silence.

Just as you were about to pull the hairpin out of your pock to pick the lock on his trailer door, playing a hunter on TV had taught you how to pick a lock pretty well, you heard the latch unlock on the trailer.

Opening the door yourself you see Jensen leaning against the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen section of the trailer.

His face and neck were red, he had a light sheen of sweat still on his face. His breathing was a little heavier than normal. You could only see him from the chest down, seeing as he was standing behind the bar.

"Are they going to cancel the scene for the rest of the day?" He asked. His voice is rough and low. The sound alone sends shock waves through your body. Landing somewhere in your core.

"Yeah, we're off the hook until lunchtime." You tell him reaching over and locking the door behind you. His eyes following your every movement. "Jared and Misha are going to go ahead and shoot their coverage, that should give us about three hours for you to recover."

You start to undo your robe and slip it from your shoulders as you are talking. Your eyes never leave Jensen. He reaches down, obviously palming himself behind the counter. "Y/n... You don't have to do this....."

Deliberately walking around the counter to him. His robe open, His chest showing bare for you to see. His black boxers barely cover his swollen length. Walking up to him you run your hand down his chest. A shiver visibly runs through him, and he leans himself into your touch.

"Let me help you Jay, Jared already told Misha and myself that you don't have anyone that can help you. You don't want to end up in the hospital."

Leaning his head down on your shoulder for a moment. Taking a deep breath before wrapping his arms around your waist.

"Y/n I don't want you to do this because you feel sorry for me." He said, not looking at you, just pulling you closer to him. Your chest now against his. His breathing is getting deeper.

"Jensen I would do this regardless if Jared drugged your ass or not. Have you seen you lately?" You say jokingly. Trying to make light of his situation.

Grabbing his hand you pull him toward the open door of the bedroom of his trailer. He follows you silently without a fuss. Pulling the bedroom door shut behind the two of you.

You lay down on the bed and back yourself up against the headboard with Jensen hot on your heels. His eyes lust blown. Deciding it was no use to fight it. If he didn't do something to get himself off he was going to lose his fucking mind.

Crashing his lips into your his kissed you deep, fully of passion and need. His tongue sliding easily into your lips. Expertly gliding over your own. A moan rose low in your throat, and that spurred him on.

Making his way down your jaw line, to your pulse points on your neck, nipping and marking the skin there as he went.

Reaching around behind you, you arched your back so that he could quickly unlatch your bra. Jerking it away and throwing it across the small room. Taking a moment to look down over you exposed chest. Gently running his fingers between your cleavage as he admired you. Outside your breast. From one to the other before leaning down and gently sucking on each nipple. Making them stand on end for him. Your body arching into his, sucking in a deep breath.

He hissed as your body pressed against him. Ripping your panties off, and throwing them across the room with your bra before removing his boxer. He quickly lined himself up with you. Slipping just the tip inside your already dripping core.

"You sure baby? I don't want to do this if you don't want to. I'll just go to the ER if it gets worse."

Putting your lips to his to silence his worrying, you run your fingers through his short hair as your mouth moves smoothly with his.

Deliberately he slides himself fully into you with one swift thrust. Both of you groaning as he fills and stretches you in a way no man has ever. Visibly shaking as he holds himself still, giving you a moment to adjust to him. Kissing you deeply before pulling himself almost all the way out, and sliding back in.

The sensation of his manhood dragging along the inside of your walls was almost enough to send you over the edge right there. You dig your nails into his shoulders and arching your back into him as he finds a steady rhythm. Both of you are touching and feeling all of each other that you could reach. He kept his body pressed close to yours. His hips hitting your clit just right every time he slid himself home.

Over and over again he repeated his steady rhythm, not faulting once. Building you higher and higher. The coil winding tighter and tighter in your belly.

"Jensen.. Fuck.... I'm close..." With that you were thrown over the edge walls tightening around his pulsing length. Grunting loudly he worked you at a steady pace through your high. Picking up the pace casing his own.

Slamming his hips into you faster until he was pounding into you at a punishing pace. Then starting to falter his body jerked above you and inside of you as he spilled seed deep inside of you. Moaning loudly into your shoulder. Slowly trusting himself into you as he road out his own high. Finally stilling inside of you.

Rolling you both over to your sides before pulling out of you. Kissing you a lot calmer now. Sweeter. Taking his time exploring your mouth, you hands tracing the outline of the curves in your body that you honestly hated. He treated it like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

You don't know how long the two of you laid there. Just holding each other as your hearts went back to a normal pace.

"How are you feeling now?" You asked him quietly as he ran his fingers through your hair. Peppering you with little kisses.

He shrugged.

"Don't know, ask me again in about 15 minutes. They say that shit he gave me last up to four hours. I still have almost three hours to go...."

"Well.... we're just going to stay here and take care of you until you feel better. Good practice for the scene today..."

Giggle a little with you he pressed his forehead to yours. Taking a deep breath.

"Y/n... I'm a pretty fuck up person. I'm not walking out of that marriage completely fine, but if you will have me, I really don't want this to be just a fling because Jared is a jackass."

You felt your heart flutter in your chest. You couldn't help the stupid smile that spread across your face as you brushed your lips over his soft pink ones.

"I think I can handle whatever you have to dish out Ackles."

"Well in that case remind me to thank Jared for being a fucking asshole and drugging my ass." He said with a laugh. You could feel his body already responding to you as he quickly began to harden again.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to send him a fucking thank you card."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tag List:

@deanwanddamons @imabitch4jensen @rvgrsbrns @bi-danvers0 @onethirstyunicorn @i-love-superhero @akshi8278

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antzonian · 3 years

Text

Tendi’s first Christmas.

I tried my best at getting their personalities right, hope you enjoy, it’s my first Lower Decks fic!

Stardate... erm... well it’s December 24th on Earth. On board the USS Cerritos, Tendi, Boimler, Mariner and Rutherford get their assignments, Boimler looks at his PADD and sees that he has decorating duty in the Conference room. Boimler: Huh, I get to decorate the Conference room today. Mariner: And I get to store cargo... ugh so boring! Rutherford: I’m repairing stuff in the Repair-Bay. Tendi: And I’m going to help Dr. T’ana with cleaning the Medical Utensils! Good luck with your assignments! Tendi runs off to the Sick-Bay. Rutherford: Okie Dokie! Boimler: will do! Mariner: see ya lates!

Later on, When her assignment was done, Tendi notices colored Tinsel decorating the corridor, her eyes lit up at the sight. Tendi: Woah, what is this stuff!? I’ve got to ask my friends about this! Tendi runs into the Repair-Bay waving her arms excitedly.

Tendi: Guys Guys! I just saw the most amazing thing! It was all shiny and colorful and its the most wondrous thing I’ve ever saw! Rutherford slides out from under one of the machines he’s repairing with Boimler handing him the tools, Mariner, with her feet on the desk holding a Hyperspanner turns her head smiling.

Mariner: Was it hanging in the corridors? Tendi: YES! Mariner: That’s Tinsel, baby girl! Tendi: ooh, what’s it for? I like how it shines! Rutherford: It’s decoration for the Earth Holiday, Christmas. Tendi: And what’s Christmas about? Boimler: well originally it was about a demigod and still is to some people, but the main thing is that family and friends come together. Mariner: And we get to have huge parties with Presents and drinking and there’s games, it’s awesome! Tendi: wow! I’m liking this Holiday already! Its way better than the Holidays back on Orion. Mariner: Boring shit, right? Tendi: Yeah, The main one has us silently stand around a painted Rock for an hour. Boimler: That is pretty boring, I’ll admit. Mariner: says Mr. Boring himself. Boimler: I am not!

Tendi turns to Rutherford wondering why he hasn’t said anything as Mariner messes around with Boimler giving him a noogie. Tendi: Are you okay Rutherford? You’re quiet today. Rutherford: I’m fine Just a little focussed on repairing this Replicator. Mariner checks her PADD Mariner: Hey, the Conference room is empty, let’s sneak in and have a little fun! Rutherford: Oh Tendi, you haven’t seen the Tree yet. Tendi: There’s a Tree in the Conference Room? Rutherford: Yeah, we have it up every Christmas. Boimler: We aren’t sneaking into the Conference Room, we’ll get into trouble! Mariner: aww c’mon Boimler, Race ya! Mariner starts running, everyone chases after her except for Boimler who follows after them while grumbling to himself.

Mariner races her friends into the Conference Room, luckily no-one else were there, Boimler catches up to them. Boimler: We shouldn’t be here, we’re gonna get in trouble for this! Tendi gazes at the decorated Tree standing at the end of the room. Tendi: wow, it’s so pretty! Rutherford: I knew you’d like it. Boimler: you guys do know there’s one being put up in the Mess Hall right?

Mariner points at the Mistletoe hanging from the ceiling while looking at both Rutherford and Tendi who’re under it. Mariner: Hey guys look! Mistletoe! you two should kiss. Boimler: They don’t have to if they don’t want to, let’s leave now before we get... Mariner: Kiss, KISS!! Boimler: Don’t force them Mariner! Mariner: shut up Boimler. Tendi looks up at Rutherford nervously, he looks at her back blushing. Tendi: should we? I thought it was just for decoration. Rutherford: well.... it is Tradition to kiss under the Mistletoe so... Mariner: Do it! Boimler rolls his eyes at Mariner, Rutherford bends down to reach her lips and both of them kiss, they blush afterwards, then Mariner pushes Rutherford out the way. Mariner: okay, my turn! Mariner bends Tendi over, gives her a big kiss which almost made her lose balance, Marner finishes and Tendi starts giggling. Tendi: Oh Mariner! Boimler: Mariner, That was Rude! First you force them to kiss, then you push Rutherford out the way to snog Tendi! Mariner turns to Rutherford. Mariner: Yeah... sorry Bro. Rutherford: It’s fine.

Just then, Captain Freeman comes into the room. Cpt. Freeman: What are you four doing in here?! Why aren’t you at your posts? Boimler: AGH SORRY CAP’N! I’LL BE THERE RIGHT AWAY! Boimler runs to where he supposed to be in panic. Mariner: ah, typical Boimler.. Tendi and Rutherford follow him while apologizing too. Cpt. Freeman: Mariner? Mariner: what? I was just showing them the decorations, you don’t have to be a bossy jerk mom. Cpt. Freeman: If you don’t straighten up young lady, you won’t be joining in this year’s Christmas party! Now get back to your post Ensign! Mariner: alright, alright! seesh! Mariner walks out of the room sticking her togue out blowing a silent raspberry for her mother who only saw the back of her head.

The Day arrives and Tendi is the first one up, excited for her first Christmas on the Cerritos. Tendi: It’s Christmas! Happy Christmas Rutherford! Rutherford: Merry Christmas Tendi! Tendi: Merry Christmas Boimler and Mariner! Boimler: Seasons greetings Tendi. Mariner: aww yeah! We’re gonna have a great time! Tendi bounces up and down like a kid waiting to open presents. Tendi: what do we do first? aaah I can’t wait to spend my first Christmas with you guys!

Boimler looks out the window, outside the Cerritos is Docked at a Starbase. Boimler: Well first, we need to get dressed, don’t want to walk around in our Underwear, Then go have Breakfast, since it is the most important meal of the day. Mariner: And since we have no assignments, we’ll go have fun in the Holodeck! Rutherford: We could have a snowball fight in the Andoria Snowfield program. Tendi: Snowball fight? We fight on Christmas? Mariner: Don’t worry T. it’s harmless fun! You’ll enjoy it. Boimler: Well I’m out, maybe I’ll help the Commanders wrap gifts in the cargo bay while you’re in the Holodeck. Mariner talks under her breath. Mariner: What a Wuss. Boimler: I heard that.

After Breakfast, Rutherford, Tendi and Mariner, all dressed up in warm gear are ready to have fun enter the Holodeck, Rutherford starts the Program. Rutherford: Computer, Load Andoria Snowfield. Computer: Loading. A Snowfield on Andoria appears around the trio, complete with ringed gas-giant that it orbits. Mariner starts rolling up a Snowball in front of Tendi who watches. Mariner: This is how we Snowball fight Tendi, Hey Rutherford, THINK FAST! Mariner throws the Snowball at Rutherford who ducks out of the way. Rutherford: Ha ha! Tendi gets the idea of how a Snowball fight works. Tendi: ooh, I get it now, can I try? Mariner gestures to Tendi to build a Snowball, Rutherford Smiles, She picks up the Snowball and turns to Mariner. Tendi: Here Mariner, watch out! Mariner lets herself get hit, laughing as the snow hits her arm. Mariner: aaah shit, ya got me! hahaha! Tendi: Heheh, this is fun! The trio continue having their snowball fight until they’re all covered in snow. Mariner: ah that was great! C’mon, drinks are on me! Tendi giggles as they leave the Holodeck, the Snow disappears as they enter the corridor.

later at the Bar, Tendi, Mariner and Rutherford sit together drinking their festive themed Synthehol drinks, Boimler walks in. Mariner: oh hey Boims, how was your boring stint on the Bridge? Boimler: a disaster, While trying to wrap the gifts the Tape dispenser malfunctioned and the Tape got everywhere, Dr. T’ana wouldn’t stop swearing at us. Tendi: oh, is everyone alright? Boimler: Yeah, Shax got the Dispenser working after hitting it really hard. Rutherford: And what of the dispensed Tape? Boimler: I had to take it all to the recycler. Tendi sees a bit of tape stuck on Boimler’s back, she takes it off. Tendi: Sooo what’s next for today? Boimler: I think we watch some classic Christmas films from the 20th to early 21st century. Mariner: oh show her Home Alone! That one’s hilarious! Boimler: Naw, I think maybe one of the thousands of Christmas Carol adaptations. Both Mariner and Boimler argue over which movie Tendi should watch, Tendi looks at them in thought, Rutherford turns to ask her. Rutherford: Which one would you chose Tendi? Tendi: I think I’ll go with the Christmas Carol one, it does have Christmas in the title. Both Boimler and Mariner stop arguing upon hearing Tendi’s decission. Boimler: Booyah! She chose my suggestion! in you’re face Mariner! Mariner frowns as Boimler points at her while doing a little dance. Mariner: Okay, You don’t have to rub it in...

a few hours later after watching an adaptation of A Christmas Carol, (you choose which) Tendi walks out of the Viewing room with a smile on her face. Rutherford: So Tendi, did you like it? Tendi: No I didn’t.... I LOVED IT! Tendi waves her arms above her head, telling Rutherford her favourite parts. Boimler: And you said that she wouldn’t like it, I guess you owe me a drink! Mariner grumbles to herself. Mariner: FINE. Tendi: I feel sorry for Tiny Tim and his family, I’m glad that Scrooge had a change of heart and gave them the best Christmas they can ask for! Rutherford: Okie Dokie! Glad you’ve enjoyed it!

Mariner: oh hey, who’s up for some Karaoke? Mariner gets onto the stage followed by the others, Jingle Bells appears on the screen, she starts singing but ignores the lyrics. Mariner: Jingle bells BOIMBLER SMELLS! Boimler: HEY! Mariner: The Tribbles had multiplied! Boimler: Sing it properly! Rutherford: I had fun in a Snowball fight! Boimler: you too Rutherford!? Tendi: In a one Hor-say open sle-ay! Boimler: come on! Tendi almost sang the right lyrics! Mariner: Oh lighten up Boims! it’s Christmas! Boimler: oh.... alright. Boimler gets on stage and joins in the Karaoke.

#star trek lower decks #lower decks #ensign tendi #ensign rutherford #ensign boimler #ensign mariner #Captain Carol Freeman #D'vana Tendi #samanthan rutherford #brad boimler #beckett mariner

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averyonelovesjack · 4 years

Text

cost of friendship III ~ daniel seavey

requested: yes

hiii can we please please please have another part to parties and the cost of friendship? love love love your writing!

hey hon just requesting a third part to 'cost of friendship' with dani whenever you have the time, thanks love

Hey! I hope things are going okay! I was reading your imagines and I'm a big fan of your works! I was just wondering if you were going to post a part 3 to "cost of friendship"? Just curious :) I understand if you discontinued it/you're on a break.

summary: six months into the relationship and just in time for the holidays, daniel and y/n recognize the difficulty in spending the holidays away from each other and have to determine if it’s worth breaking the secret.

warning(s): cursing

disclaimer: i use christmas and thanksgiving as plot points in this story because it fit better with the way i wanted the story to go, but feel free to replace them with any other holidays you celebrate!!

word count: 2740

author’s note: accidentally posted this, unedited, last night with no word count and the author’s note that i wrote in december of last year when i originally made the draft and didn’t write a single word of this story:) so now that it actually makes sense to post this, here is part three to cost of friendship! thanks for all these requests even tho they were clearly from a long time ago since cost of friendship II came out TWO YEARS AGO in september. welp hope this was worth the wait lol enjoy:))

read these first: part one, part two

six months with daniel went by really quickly. the summer was honestly a lot of fun. i could spent hours at the boys’ house and nothing was suspicious about it. i grew a lot closer with them all because we spent so much time together, and it wasn’t weird for me to hang out there, and i could see daniel whenever i wanted. we really got to know each other during the summer months. i had known daniel for a while now, but getting to know him on a relationship level was really nice.

summer ended pretty quickly though and then fall came. i was back in school. i didn’t think it would be hard to see him since i was still in the ending months of school when we started dating. i think that going from so much time together over the summer to only seeing each other a few hours a week was a really hard adjustment.

we promised we’d never let our schedules be a problem, but managing a full time student’s schedule and a singer’s schedule is really difficult. i had classes monday through friday, and any time i wasn’t in class, i was doing homework. that left my only free time during the week to be late at night. so we hung out late at night, but by the time we saw each other we were usually too exhausted to really do anything other than lay around and watch a show or talk for a little bit. weekends were usually better for me, but daniel had a crazy schedule that usually had studio time incorporated on the weekend.

we still made effort to see each other all the time we could, but it wasn’t easy. i think that probably plays into my current nerves. it’s early november and the stress of the holiday season had already gotten to me.

as a kid, the holiday season was the absolute best. thanksgiving meant seeing all of my family, including my cousins who were really close in age to me. and then the stretch between thanksgiving and christmas was my absolute favorite. it was filled with christmas music, christmas decorations, buying gifts, giving gifts, getting gifts, and again, seeing family. and don’t even get me started on new years. as a kid, staying up late was the absolute best thing. the sparking cider and noise makers were all the rave.

as a much older college student now though, it was a lot less fun. the holiday season meant figuring out plans and traveling home to see my family and not knowing which part of my family was actually gonna be available. it meant buying actual meaningful or useful gifts and then figuring out how to get them home. there was still the music and the lights, but i had no time to meaninglessly drive around los angeles and see the lights or spend hours around a fireplace watching christmas movies. i didn’t even have a fireplace to begin with.

the holiday season was also much more confusing this year because i had daniel. i’ve never even had a boyfriend during the holiday season, let alone a secret boyfriend. most of the things we went out and did we could pass off as just things we’re doing as close friends, but the holidays were different. friends don’t ditch the holidays with their family just to hang out with their friends family. i don’t even know if daniel and i are at the level in our relationship, and then even if we were, i couldn’t do anything about it because keeping our relationship a secret meant not being able to do the explicitly for couples holiday stuff.

as much as i think daniel and i are ready for the family stage in our relationship, neither of us have really talked about it because there’s not really much room to do it anyways. i’ve met daniel’s siblings and parents before, but never as anything more than a friend because it was too risky to tell anyone. and daniel’s never had an excuse to come meet my family since they aren’t just down the road like his.

the secret relationship really damaged my normal holiday mood and it honestly stressed me out. i have to book my plane home soon and to do that meant that there really was no chance that i’d spend the holidays with daniel. even with us only being together half a year, daniel meant so much to me. in every other relationship i’d been in, it felt like i was waiting for the relationship to end or i at least knew that it wasn’t going to last. it was different with daniel though and that was really hard since we couldn’t even tell anyone about it.

tonight is a friday and i had finally finished my work for the week. i was invited to a party, but i didn’t really feel like going since i was pretty tired from the week and i wasn’t in a party mood. daniel texted me soon after and asked if i wanted to come over. i wasn’t really in a socialization mood, but since it was just daniel and i haven’t seen him much recently, i said yes. he even said he would pick me up which made it ten times easier to say yes because he knows i don’t like taking ubers alone and i don’t have access to a car.

daniel picked me up at about 7. i didn’t feel like getting ready so i just wore my grey sweatpants and wdw tee that daniel had gotten me for free. daniel never seemed to mind my lazy outfits and i knew as soon as we got back he would change out of his jeans too.

“hi love, how was your day?” daniel asks as soon as i get in the car. i felt a little emotionally exhausted, but so happy to see daniel. the car was like our safe space because no one was around to walk in on us and we didn’t have to hide our feelings and actions.

“exhausting, but better now that i’m seeing you.” i admit.

“at least it’s the weekend now.” daniel says. “and i went to the studio a little early today so that we won’t have to go in this weekend and i can spend more time with you.”

“really?” i ask, that news brightening my day a little. “i was just about to ask how studio was today?”

“it was good. we worked on a new christmas song today when we were finished. i don’t know if we’ll ever release it but it was a lot of fun. i’m sure you’d love it.”

“you know how i feel about christmas music.” i grin. maybe a little daniel written christmas music will brighten my spirit in these next coming weeks.

“speaking of, i feel like you haven’t played any christmas music. i swear i barely knew you this time last year as compared to now but i knew how much you loved christmas music. i feel like you played it as soon as halloween was over.” daniel mentions and as much as i wanted to hold it back and not say anything, i felt too tired to not.

“i haven’t really been in the christmas spirit.” i admit with a sigh that i knew daniel would read through.

“i know the holiday season is hard. it’s been on my mind a lot too and i was hoping it wasn’t adding to your stress, but i should’ve said something sooner because i knew it would.” daniel says, looking over and gently ok in a hand on mine.

“it’s okay.” i say. “i probably wouldn’t have even admitted it until we got to a night like tonight where i’m honestly too tired to pretend i’m not stressed.”

“i’m sorry, love. do you want to talk about it?” daniel asks.

“it’s okay, i don’t even know what to say because we can’t even do anything about it.” i answer. “and i don’t want to stress you out with all of my little annoyances and sad things.”

“i know that the last few months haven’t been easy.” daniel starts, deciding for us both that nothing i could say would be too much for us. “with our schedules and then keeping it a secret.”

“it’s just-” i don’t even know where to start because i know when i’ll do i’ll either inevitably cry out of stress or sound angry with him when i’m not, i’m just annoyed at our situation. “it really sucks that i can’t spend any of the holidays with you and i fucking hate that because i love the holiday season and the spirit and i’m avoiding it because i don’t want to feel sad about us not being together for the holidays. and i love you. i love you so much and i want you to meet my family because i know they’ll love you, but it would be way too obvious for you to fly home with me for the holidays and there’s really no hiding that so i know it makes no sense to even think about that because it just makes me sad.”

“i love you too, y/n.” daniel says, still processing everything. “i didn’t know you wanted me to meet your family yet. i would love to, but i didn’t want to bring it up until you were ready.”

“are you kidding?” i laugh a little bit, looking over at him as he parked the car in the driveway but neither of us moved. “daniel, of course i want you to meet my family. i know they’ll love you because you’re you. god, ever since i told my sisters i have a boyfriend they’ve been begging me to tell them who so that they could meet you. i don’t know, the holidays have always just been about being with family for my family, and i’m sure yours too. you’re such an important part of my life now and i wish i could share you with them. it’s whatever, though. we shouldn’t talk about it because i know that it’s not possible.”

“what about thanksgiving with my family and christmas with yours?” daniel says and my heart skips a beat. “and then we can figure out new years later. i know you have to go home for christmas because you’ll get kicked out of dorms, and as much as i would love for you to just stay with us, i’m sure you want to go home and see your family.”

“daniel, as lovely as that sounds, you know how suspicious it would be for me to stay here for thanksgiving and for you to fly home with me? i don’t think even we would be able to keep that a secret.”

“fuck the secret, then, y/n.” he blurts out. “y/n, i don’t see us ending ever, and definitely not anytime soon and it’s not like we’re gonna keep this a secret forever. fuck the secret. corbyn was right, okay, the boys are gonna be happy for us. it’s not like they haven’t picked up on us being close these last few months and keeping this secret isn’t worth us being apart for the next few months, okay? it’s hard enough to spend only a few hours together a week, i don’t want to be away from you for all of thanksgiving and christmas too.”

“fuck the secret.” i say, with a smile forming on my face. “are we really doing this?”

“i see no better time than now, y/n.” daniel leans over the console to kiss my lips softly. “wanna go tell the boys now?”

“let’s do it.” i unbuckle my seatbelt with a weight lifted off of my shoulders. daniel and i meet in front of the car, our hands interlocking as we walked into the house as a non-secret couple for the first time.

the boys were all sitting in the living room and a movie was playing with all of the lights out. they all look over as daniel closes the door and the two of us walk over to them.

“y/n? what are you doing here? daniel didn’t tell us he was bringing you over.” zach says. “of course he just wants to hog you again.”

“do you guys wanna pause the movie for a second? we have some important news.” daniel says and we separate hands as to not give it away just yet.

“fucking finally.” jonah says.

“what?” i ask, wondering what he meant.

“i mean, i don’t want to be the one to say it and ruin it for you two, but i mean, come on, we’ve been waiting months for you to admit to it. so get on with it.” jonah gestures for us to continue. guess we weren’t as great secret keepers as we thought.

“y/n and i have been dating for about six months and kept it a secret from everyone.” daniel says and then takes my hand in his and pulls me closer so that i’m in his arms.

“SIX.” zach yells. “i knew there were vibes between you two but you guys are good. six months??”

“not that good.” corbyn mumbles, which causes the other three to look at him.

“you bitch!” jack then exclaims. “you knew? and you didn’t give me my damn money??”

“it’s their fault, they told me not to say anything!” corbyn defends, pointing a finger at the two of us. “i was not supposed to find out. i wish i didn’t, this was a lot of stress i didn’t need.”

“i would like my twenty bucks now, thank you very much.” jack says and corbyn quickly throws a twenty dollar bill at him.

“this is so unfair.” the ninteen year old looks at the rest of us. “jack gets twenty bucks, corbyn gets stress relief, daniel gets a girlfriend and it’s y/n. what do i get? i want something!”

“zach, i didn’t get anything from this either.” jonah reminds.

“shut up. you have a girlfriend.” zach screeches in his jokingly angry voice. “god, i’m so lonely.”

“i have a couple sisters, if you want.” i laugh a little. “you’d have to come home for christmas with danny and i, though.”

“and you’re leaving us for christmas? gosh damnit y/n, why can’t you guys stay with me for christmas?” zach exclaims, which makes us all laugh a little bit. i wasn’t sure how everyone was going to react, but this was a pretty funny one from zach.

“i hate to break it to you bud, but we’re, uh, all going home for christmas. we do every year.” jack sets a hand on his bandmates shoulder. “i’m pretty sure y/n would rather spend christmas with her boyfriend and her family than you, no offense.”

“what the fuck, y/n. you don’t wanna spend christmas with me?”

i’m laughing too much at this interaction to answer before jack.

“to be clear though, zach, i would choose to spend christmas with you.”

“well we have y/n for thanksgiving. we’re gonna see my family, so we’ll still be in la and can hang out. have our own little friendsgiving.” daniel suggests.

“no no no, i’m too lonely for friendsgiving.” zach expresses, deciding to be unhappy with everything we say just for the comedy of it. “i’m too single. you’re all in relationships, i can’t be the only lonely one.”

“um, bro, i too am single.” jack looks at him funny.

“okay, well yeah, but you have a child.”

“yes, a child who lives in hawaii. i’ll be your friendsgiving date.” jack offers.

“really? you meant it?” zach faked being emotional and jonah looks at them, then back at us with a funny look.

“well, now that we’ve dealt with... that, i just want to say we’re all really happy for you two.” jonah starts. “not that this is surprising to any of us, because there has been way too much sexual tension since we’ve all been friends for this to not have happened, but i’m very happy you decided to tell us.”

“are you guys gonna go public? like tell management?” corbyn asks.

daniel then looks at me a little nervously and then back at the guys, “yeah that’s the next thing we have to figure out.”

lovely.

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shihalyfie · 4 years

Text

Shihanne’s Kizuna FAQ

Since Kizuna is finally becoming gradually more accessible to English-speakers online, I’ve decided to put together a quick FAQ for those who are not sure about watching the movie or are (understandably) apprehensive about anything about it, especially due to recent events in the franchise and occasional fanbase misinformation. This is not meant to convince anyone towards or against watching the movie as much as it’s just meant to clarify some questions for anyone who might be unsure about watching it, such as how relevant it is to tri. or how canon-compliant it is, etc.

This is meant to be as spoiler-free as possible, although due to the nature of the movie’s contents, I will ultimately have to make minor hints or references to minor plot details. I’ve done my best to keep it to a minimum, but the references to what happens in the story increase progressively as we go further into the post, so feel free to stop reading as soon as you like.

Is Kizuna a sequel to tri.? Are they related?

They are not related. Other than Kizuna being set five years after 2005, there is no relation, not on a story or creative level at all -- the themes, writing style, everything is different. Even the staff is different -- of the tri. staff, the only ones carried over are the voice cast, Producer Kinoshita Yousuke (who was only on Parts 5 and 6, at that, and had no involvement in tri.’s story at all), and some music staff members (AiM, Miyazaki Ayumi) that were also on the original series. Everyone else is either from the original series (original series producer Seki Hiromi, writer Yamatoya Akatsuki) or new staff that self-identifies as Digimon fans.

Notably, Producer Seki was pretty unsubtle about finding certain things about tri. to be unsatisfying, to the point that she openly admitted that certain things in Kizuna were made in direct response to it, so that probably lends a lot to why the creative process behind Kizuna was so diametrically opposite.

What do you need to have seen so far to understand the movie? Do you need to have seen tri.?

You do not have to have seen tri.; it’s effectively irrelevant to Kizuna whatsoever in both theme and story.

I generally recommend having seen Adventure, 02, and their four movies (Digimon Adventure, Our War Game!, Hurricane Touchdown, and Diablomon Strikes Back). Even then, if you’re missing some stuff, the story doesn’t rely on their events so much that it’ll confuse you if you haven’t seen it, and in fact it’s mostly its own story; it’s just that the emotional resonance hits best when you’ve seen what’s happened in the prior works, and its core themes have a lot to do with what was established in Adventure, 02, and its worldbuilding.

Surprisingly, despite being Adventure-centric, I’d say it actually has deeper relevance to the events and themes of 02 than it does Adventure, although that’s just my personal impression. (That’s still “deeper“, in the comparative sense; it most certainly has strong ties to both, and part of it being more 02-relevant is also simply due to the logical nature of it being set in this point in timeline, where 02 is a closer temporal reference point and also has an epilogue that this movie is building up to.)

Are the characterizations consistent with Adventure and 02?

Yes! Very much so! There are a few differences, but they’re all things you can chalk up to how someone would naturally get older and more mature, and even if you personally don’t care for certain developments, they’re still logical extensions of what they might be like as per their character arcs. For the record, making sure the characters felt like themselves seems to have been a pretty big priority for the staff:

Before the preliminary meeting for the script, [Producer Seki] told us, “I haven’t finished reading it, so I’ll be there later,” and then she arrived sometime after the meeting had already started, and said things like, “no, Taichi feels wrong here. He wouldn’t say something like this.”

Producer Seki was personally involved in the creation of all twelve kids and their partners, so it’s safe to say she is probably one of the people you can reliably trust most to understand them. (During the production of the original series, she was also well-known for being the one who pushed for portrayal of their personal home lives and family backgrounds.)

The 02 quartet (Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) is portrayed in line with their Japanese version characterizations, so if you watched 02 with the American English dub (which at times took some pretty massive liberties with some of them), there may be some differences.

How much of the cast gets to play a major role in it?

I’ll be frank about the fact that this is mainly a Taichi and Yamato movie (to be fair, it’s not like they hid this fact in advertising). That said, a surprising amount of attention is given to the 02 quartet, and there’s a bit of attention on Koushirou, but the protagonists are most certainly Taichi and Yamato. Mind you, this is in terms of story, not, say, making everyone randomly weak in battle for no good reason; Taichi and Yamato are the “protagonists” of this movie (similar to Our War Game!).

Sora also gets a bit of focus in the short side story “To Sora”, and there’s also a planned upcoming one with Jou (public release details are still unclear, but most certainly expected by the Memorial Story project in December). The accompanying drama CD that came with the deluxe version of the Blu-ray is also centered around the 02 main cast.

What’s with the whole thing about a novel?

There were two official novelizations of the movie, the Dash X Bunko version and the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version. I recommend them as reading for anyone who’s watched the movie; the Dash X has some extra scenes that weren’t in the movie and clarifies a few things, while the Shueisha Mirai clarifies some of the core themes and background points that were a little more obscure in the movie itself.

However, since the movie is first and foremost a visual medium, I do not think that either serve as effective replacements for the movie itself, nor, conversely, that the movie itself is particularly incomplete without them, but rather that, since there are a lot of intricate nuances behind the themes of the movie, they may benefit from some extra clarification. The novels by themselves omit a lot of visual details that enhance the presentation of the movie and make its intended themes much clearer, and since this is a movie that relies more on emotional resonance and feelings moreso than it does events on paper, I don’t think the novels alone constitute an accurate reflection of it.

What was that whole thing about the movie not being compliant with Kakudou lore? Is the 02 epilogue still canon?

The issue most likely has to do with the movie’s premise about partners disappearing when you become an adult. Director Kakudou (original director of Adventure and 02) clarified himself that the “lore inconsistency” had to do with underlying lore that wasn’t depicted directly in the TV series, so it’s not something major like the epilogue (which definitely was depicted on-screen).

His relevant posting is to do with the theory of Digimon being manifested as part of the soul, so my personal guess is that he wasn’t quite on board with the slightly different take the movie had on such a detailed and absolute matter. (He did, however, gracefully invite people to enjoy the movie regardless, so take that as you will.)

Another thing that he mentioned in his detailed posting is that he felt that it would be impossible to reconcile the lore for the TV series and the occasionally contradictory lore from movies 2-4 (Our War Game! through DSB), to the point the original plan for the third Adventure series was shelved partially due to that. Without saying too much, Kizuna does (latently, but nevertheless) involve references to the movies in question, so that probably also contributed to the issue.

For the most part, though, the movie itself doesn’t actually violate that much of the underlying lore for Adventure and 02; it’s compliant with even the background details of his concept (the Chosen Children number tallying over 30,000 by the time of 2010 is consistent with the doubling-every-year principle), and, without spoiling too much, there’s multiple indications in the movie of that whole thing about “partners disappearing when you become an adult” actually being more of a deceptive premise than press made it seem.

As for the epilogue...official press and staff have practically whacked you over the head with a statement that the 02 epilogue still holds and that this movie leads up to it. (Need proof? Here, and here, and here, and here, and here, and about half a million other places in press and press releases; warning that these links are spoilery.) The last one has a pretty clear statement, too:

This is not a movie meant to change the world’s timeline, but rather made to be a connecting story that happened within those 25 years, and we consider it to be a story that expands the world of Digimon.

Producer Seki herself was infamously the one who put her foot down when people asked her about epilogue-related questions in V-Jump, so we’re talking about staff with a history of having no intention of going against the epilogue. This is also consistent with the fact the movie itself constantly drops epilogue and latter-half 02 references (the increasing number of Chosen Children, the kids’ career paths being clear lead-ups to the events of the epilogue).

For all it’s worth, it’s important to remember that the concept of the epilogue ever potentially being retconned has always been purely fanbase invention (and especially Western fanbase, at that). At no point has official staff ever made an indication that they had any intent to go against it (even the tri. staff, of all people, made a huge point of claiming they would still be going with it). Kizuna is not a movie that really holds your hand nor caters to what the fanbase wants, so the best way to enjoy and understand it is going in with the understanding that the epilogue applies by default, rather than considering it to have been written with any possibility of it not applying.

In addition, the actual core theme of the movie itself is very dependent on the assumption that the epilogue holds in mind (which really should be the case, considering that the epilogue was literally right there on screen, no matter how controversial it may have been), and having that assumption allows for a much better understanding of said themes.

Are Takeru and Hikari still involved with the 02 kids?

The events of the movie engineer a situation where the other four end up working as a quartet, but not in a sense where they’ve split or become distant from Takeru and Hikari (rather the contrary, in fact). The circumstances alone go a lot towards explaining why they’re working separately at the time (much like Diablomon Strikes Back), and the drama CD included with the special edition of the Blu-ray confirms that the situation in the movie is purely due to its individual circumstances, and in all other scenarios, they’re still regularly in contact and very close with each other. It’s not played in a way that feels contrary to their known relationship, and, without going into too much detail, there are certain depictions within the movie that reflect them as being part of a “younger group set” with the other four.

Beyond that, a large amount of promotional material classifies Takeru and Hikari as being with the 02 group instead of the Adventure one (for instance, this piece of Ani On Station art).

Is there romance or clear romance baiting in the movie?

No. The movie also happens to be extremely fast-paced (it tries to get a lot of major content out of the way in only 95 minutes, and does not let up even once), so it’s executed in a way in which it’s completely understandable that the topic or depiction would not even be brought up front-and-center, and it comes off as pretty natural in that respect. Quite simply, it feels that even if any of the characters are romantically involved or dating, they’re more than capable of putting the issue aside for the 95 minutes of bigger priorities this movie spans.

For those who are interested in this topic in terms of epilogue compliance (i.e. the two canon confirmed married couples Yamato/Sora and Ken/Miyako), the depictions of the respective characters’ relationships are done in a tasteful way such that, even in the lack of clear depictions of romance, there is minor evidence that the epilogue outcome was on the staff’s minds when writing them, and there’s no awkwardness about it. Or, in other words, where they are now seems completely feasible and natural based on what we know about where they were as of 02 and where we know they’ll end up; there isn’t anything in-your-face about it, but some things might stick out to the particularly perceptive person looking out for it.

Is tri. canon to Kizuna?

Hoo boy, that sure is a question. The answer is...yes and no.

There is a veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery brief, borderline blink-and-you’ll-miss-it clear reference to tri.’s central character Mochizuki Meiko and her partner, Meicoomon. (It has no real relevance to the story whatsoever.) There are things you may consider references, like Yamato being into motorbikes or Koushirou being in company business, but that’s if you really squint. Otherwise, there are no other conclusive references to any of the events from the tri. anime series. In addition, Kizuna very much prioritizes compliance with Adventure and 02, and, when faced with a plot, lore, or characterization point where it has to decide between Adventure/02 compliance or tri. compliance, it absolutely prioritizes the former, even if that means posing a direct contradiction to tri. (a good example being its portrayal of Digimon and Digimon partnerships as something that’s been a naturally increasing part of life since 1995, in stark contrast to tri. having Digimon be seen as unidentified mysterious entities all the way in 2005).

I wouldn’t say Kizuna retcons tri., but it seems to handle it in a way similar to what I call “M03 status” (M03 being previously Adventure/02′s most infamously difficult-to-rationalize entity in canon, especially when it has its own sequel in the form of The Door to Summer) -- it doesn’t go out of its way to reject anything as much as it encourages you to not think too hard about it, and prioritizes compliance with the original series when push comes to shove. Since there’s nothing really contradictory about the idea that “a girl named Mochizuki Meiko with a partner Meicoomon exists” (just like how there’s nothing contradictory about the idea that “a boy named Wallace exists and Daisuke and his friends met him in the US once”), I would say that if you do want to think about it too hard, it’s possible for some of the events of tri. to have happened, but not in the exact way they were presented in the actual real-life anime series.

Although it may seem like a cop-out to some, personally, I feel that the contradictions (especially the lore and timeline-related ones) between Adventure/02 and tri. are so huge in number and significant that it would be impossible for a 95-minute movie to maintain its integrity as a creative work while trying to resolve that laundry list of issues, and overall the movie does give off the impression of being “fun and emotional” more than anything, so it does feel like about the most practical decision they could have feasibly made.

Is it a perfect movie?

No!

Like with any work, there are things you might criticize, or that your personal taste might not match up well with. I mentioned earlier that the movie itself actually is closer in thematic line with 02 than it is Adventure, so people hoping for Adventure reference overdose or Digital World specific lore might be a bit disappointed in this respect (it focuses a bit more on the human growth and drama angle than the Digimon lore and coolness angle, although that’s not to say it completely neglects it whatsoever). There are some writing nitpicks I would say were endemic to the original series as well (some very vital thematic elements are a bit too subtle for their own good, to the point the novels and staff interviews feel a bit more necessary than they should be), and if your favorite character didn’t get a lot of spotlight in this movie, that might be a bit disappointing.

But don’t get me wrong: I don’t say any of this to harp on the movie, but mainly because I think it’s unfair to have unrealistic expectations of it. This is a single movie that’s meant to be fun and enjoyable more than anything else, and to make you think about the themes it has to say. I would not think of it as a full series nor something meant to fulfill the role of a full series, but rather a single movie -- much like Our War Game!, which is a fun and enjoyable movie but by no means a comprehensive series-scale entity -- that’s meant to entertain you and give you lots of emotions and make you think about things in the span of 95 minutes.

If anything, it is a movie definitely made with a lot of heart and passion by its staff, who clearly put a lot of love and effort and respect for the original Adventure/02 (yes, both) into it and wanted to say something emotionally moving. For all intents and purposes, both Adventure and 02 were the same way -- not necessarily free of writing problems, but full of a ton of love, passion, and soul -- and so I think it is a movie very true to the original series in this way.

#digimon #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #shihameta

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darlingsdevil · 4 years

Text

The Ballads of Rebirth (Arthur Morgan x Reader)

Chapter 17: Epilogue

Masterlist

Tag list: @rollyjogerjones

A/N: This is it. This is the end. I wrote a little message for all of you to read, it would mean a lot if you did.

When I began this story a few days after Christmas, I wrote it on a whim. The story brewed in my mind for perhaps a max week before I began writing it. The original idea was inspired a lot by Big Fish the Musical, the musical I was in, in early December. I remember I used to write day after day and could get a chapter up daily, until around the sixth or seventh chapter. I can’t quite tell you how I did it, but I know if I hadn’t gotten that far so quickly, I would have never finished this story, it would have been added to my never ending pile of unfinished WIP’s. The Ballads of Rebirth was supposed to go in an entirely different direction that I had planned, Lee and Arthur’s feud was supposed to be way worse and bitter, and would have ended up with Arthur beating up Lee. Lee was supposed to be much more of an antagonist in the final chapters, a way worse of a person, but I couldn’t do it to him. In many ways, he was flawed, he was selfish at times and quick to judge, but he was still loving and goofy. I know people were not going to like him, they were rooting for Arthur after all. But I still love Lee, he was my first official rdr2 oc, my first fully fleshed out character. Quite frankly, I didn’t really ‘know’ who he was until I continued writing it, I had no personality built out for him until I began writing, and I just chose what felt right. That’s what happens with a lot of my stories, I write what feels right (which usually leads to plot holes because I don’t write shit down). But regardless, I love Lee, and I hope you’re satisfied with the ending I gave him.

There were a few times that I thought about giving up, that my story was absolute shit, that my plot holes were too confusing and my narrative was weak, and I was close to quitting. Until people began asking me when the new chapters would be out, what would happen next. While the numbers may be small, the dedication is what kept me going. And yeah, maybe my story isn’t the biggest rdr2 fic, maybe it’s not talked about in discord servers, but I don’t care, all that matters is that the fans that have stayed have shown me that I should continue writing, that there are people rooting for this story. I know, my story is full of plot holes, I know people don’t like Lee (which I’ll forever be bitter about), I know my story has grammatical errors, I know maybe I shouldn’t have killed off Mahala, I know there’s a lot I could have done, but there’s a lot I still did. As much as I think my story is weak, I’m still proud of the fact that I made it, that it is my own, that I created it and stuck through.

Sometimes, it’s not about what you could have done, it’s what you did. And that’s more valuable in many ways. Creating anything is powerful, and The Ballads of Rebirth taught me that.

So thank you, to every commentator, every person who left a like or kudo, every person who left an ask in my inbox, and especially everyone who complimented my writing style (which is apparently unique? and also these comments are a huge ego boost to me so if I’m cocky, it’s those peoples fault). Thank you for sticking with me, and I hope you enjoyed what I made.

I know I did.

••

Here Are Some Songs That Inspired This Story

1. Setting Sun - Lord Huron (Main inspiration)

2. Prologue - Starry (What I consider to be the main theme)

3. Sunlight and Storms - Starry (Inspiration for Lee and Reader’s relationship)

4. The Road - Starry (yeah.. I know there’s lots of Starry, but regardless, Arthur’s arc inspiration)

5. After The War - Stars (wow lots of star-esque things, Epilogue inspiration, I recommend listening to it while reading this)

•••

PS. The AU ending will be posted with the main story, as I realized many of you may not see it otherwise.

•••

Time passed quickly and solemnly. Life was peaceful and quiet. And you loved every second of it. After you and Arthur had left Richfield in search of the life you had lost, you and your husband had found it with Charles, in a small cottage down the road from him. Charles was happy to see you and Arthur returned to him.

And life was quiet, for a long time it was. You heard nothing of Micah and Dutch, the Pinkerton’s had stopped searching, it seemed the outlaw way had died out long ago too. You were scared Arthur or you would somehow slip back into it. you would blink and suddenly be pulled back into the life you so desperately tried to avoid, but the pull never came. The older you got, the lesser and lesser that percentage became.

The people of Wapiti had long since moved. You visited Mahala’s grave frequently, and thanked her for bringing Arthur back to you. You were sure you would have liked her.

You thanked Charles too, for being quick to find him. It was strange to think that without Charles’ swift action, Arthur would not be here today. Instead, you would be visiting his grave instead of Mahala’s.

John was exceptionally pleased to hear Arthur was still alive. Abigail wrote frequently to you for many years, you missed her dearly, but you had faith you would be reunited once more.

“Honey?” You called out to the doorway behind you.

“G’morning. I got what you asked me to pick up,” Arthur replied. You looked over your shoulder and smiled at him. He placed the box down at the table.

“Thank you. Breakfast is almost ready,” You said, scrambling some eggs on top of the stove. Arthur came up behind you and wrapped his arms around your waist.

“Someone’s touchy today,” You laughed, shaking your head.

“Missed you.” He nuzzled his face into your neck.

“You were gone for a day.”

“I’m not allowed to miss my dear wife?” He pretended to sound hurt.

“Not when you’re distracting me,” You replied nonchalantly, continuing to prepare the omelettes.

Arthur laughed heartily in your ear. “I give up then,” he said, removing his hold from your waist and putting his hands up in defeat.

“It’s almost ready, sit down.” You put the finishing touches on the omelettes and put them on plates. Arthur sat down at the small table while you fetched some forks. You stared through the window while your hands grabbed two forks, seeing the daffodils on the window, Arthur had bought for you a few days earlier.

You walked over to the table and set down the two plates, taking a seat across from Arthur. He grabbed at the plate hungrily and began to eat.

“You sure are hungry.”

“Starvin’. Been a day since I’ve had your lovely cooking,” Arthur smiled at you. You picked up your fork as well and began to eat.

“I forgot the coffee, hold on.” You realized after a few moments and walked over to the countertop to fetch the pot of coffee, pouring two cups for Arthur and you. You made yours how you liked it, and brought cream and sugar over to Arthur.

“Thank you,” He replied to the gesture, grabbing his cup. He put in a few spoonfuls of sugar and some cream, always the one with the sweet tooth.

You sipped your coffee while you ate your breakfast, glancing out towards the front windows. It was a nice day out, clear of clouds with a nice breeze. The garden still needed tending to, but at least later you could sit on the porch with Arthur.

“I invited Charles over for dinner tonight, by the way. I’m making roast beef and potatoes, and maybe an apple pie, I haven’t decided yet,” You shrugged.

“Make blueberry.” Arthur replied, picking up a newspaper from yesterday that was on the table.

“Blueberries aren’t in season.”

“Okay, then raspberry.”

“Not in season either.”

“Really? Well shit. Apple will have to do then.”

“You don’t like my apple pies?”

“What? No, I do! You just make them a lot. I feel like we’re having them every week,” Arthur laughed nervously.

You pretended to glare at him, “Then I’ll never make another apple pie again. You’re getting pie with no filling in all of them now.”

“Now I didn’t say that! I’m just saying, you make apple pies a lot, I like variety sometimes.”

“You lived with the gang for 20 years and ate the same stew for every meal but you’re complaining about me making apple pie once a week?” You raised your eyebrow at him.

“That’s why I like variety now. Couldn’t have it for so long, that once I get it I’ll never go back to eating the same thing.”

“Mhm.” You dragged out the sound, nodding sarcastically.

You stared at Arthur, he stared at you, a slight smile on his lips. “Just admit you don’t like my apple pies.”

“Would it make you happy if I said that?”

“No. Yes. Maybe. I don’t know!”

“Listen, I like your apple pies, honestly. I just like some variety, that’s all,” He said, attempting to quell your fake anger.

“I’m never making an apple pie ever again,” You replied dramatically, slumping onto the table, reaching your hands out to hold his.

Arthur chucked at your dramatics.

“Just eat your omelette.”

•••

You thought of Lee frequently. Not that you yearned for him, or missed him, you simply wondered how he was doing. And in a way, he had heard your thoughts, after about two years of silence from him, Lee sent a letter.

“You have a letter,” Arthur had said one night when he came back from town, placing the letter on the table in front of you.

“Who’s it from?”

“Lee.”

“Lee sent me a letter?” You asked in disbelief, grabbing the envelope and examining the name on the front. Leroy Rinascita. Clear as day.

(Y/N),

It’s been quite some time since you left Richfield. I hope this letter finds you well. I took a chance and sent a letter to Valentine, a city Arthur had mentioned to me before, so if I don’t hear from you, I assume you’re somewhere else off in the country.

I hope you’re pleased with the choices you made. How is Arthur, by the way? I know we started off on the wrong foot (for good reason) but overall I found him to be a good, kind man. I can tell Arthur makes a good husband. I pray he’s not too angry with how I acted earlier towards him, water under the bridge, right?

I apologize for not sending a letter sooner, or perhaps I’m sorry for even writing this, in case you find this letter strange. I just wanted to know how you are doing. I’m doing well too. I’ve found someone as well who I enjoy very much, they live with me now. I guess you can say we got married, about two months ago actually. It wasn’t a conventional marriage of course. You actually already met them. I’m not sure you would expect who, but for the sake of prying eyes, I won’t reveal who they are in this letter. Other than marriage, life’s been pretty normal. The general store is doing well, there’s some new projects in the city too. A new candy store opened by the pier after the old one unfortunately burned down a few months after you had left. Richfield is bigger now, I feel like it’ll never stop growing. More and more people show up everyday. I barely even know the neighbors names these days.

As for my father, I’m pleased to say he’s still kicking. Somehow, the cancer went away, I couldn’t tell you how, the doctors can’t either. I’m really grateful for you convincing him to stay alive, to stay for me.

Your locket is still with me, I found an old family photo of my father, my mother and Anastasia as a newborn. It was strange to see my mother’s face after so many years, I had nearly forgotten it. I have an older photo of Anastasia too on the other side, my partner isn’t in the locket, only because I see them daily. I don’t need to be reminded that I love them.

But enough talk of me, how are you doing? I know it’s been a while, but I still care about you, and hope to know you’re doing well. Give Arthur a hello for me as well.

Regards,

Lee

You were happy to know Lee still cared, in some horrible nightmare you imagined that he despised you, that you were simply a dark phase in his life. And you were even happier that Lee had found someone and was truly living the life he had wanted. In a way, you were the same as him, both yearning for peace and quiet.

“Lee’s been doing well. I’m glad he sent this letter, he says hello to you, Arthur,” You told him, setting the letter down on the table.

“Good. I’m glad Lee’s doing okay.”

“Yeah, me too.”

•••

Even though Beecher’s Hope had many people living off its land, it did not feel crowded. Perhaps it was the sky that made it feel that way, the sky was endless, and when you and your family worked underneath it, it did not feel so small. The sky was infinite.

“Jack, will you go get Anne for me? She’s out by the chicken coop,” You had told the teenager.

“Sure thing, Aunt (Y/N),” He replied, walking towards the front door to fetch Anne for dinner. Although the Marston and Morgan houses were separate, the two families had practically lived in both. Jack was eating over for dinner, John and Abigail claiming you as his babysitter. Not that he needed one — or perhaps Uncle did.

“Arthur? Will you set the table for me, please? I have to go get Anne washed up once Jack brings her in,” You called out to Arthur behind you.

“Sure.” Arthur responded, he picked up the dishes next to you and began placing them on the table.

As you finished up cooking, you heard the shrill voice of Anne calling out to you. You immediately swiveled around as her tiny legs bounced up to you.

“There’s my little one!” You said joyously, she wrapped her arms around your leg and giggled. She was a near carbon copy of Arthur. She had his nose, his eyes, his mouth shape, but she had your hair and complexion. Regardless of who she looked more like — she was yours.

“Mama! I brought you a feather from the chicken coop!” She reached into her tiny dress pocket and pulled out a white feather. It was bigger and heavier than a chicken feather, you wondered what type of bird it was.

“Sorry, Uncle Arthur, she kind of made a mess in the chicken coop,” You heard Jack say to Arthur.

“You did? Oh thank you, sweetie.” You beamed at her, she watched you take it with big proud eyes. You placed the feather in your pocket, it’s long feathers sticking out.

“You’re welcome, mama.” You noticed the dirt on her face and on her knees as she said that. You scooped her up in your arms and took her into the bathroom to wash up.

You set her down next to the sink and began washing her knees with a wet washcloth.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?” You hummed, continuing to scrub the dirt off her knees.

“When is the baby coming?”

“Not for a couple more months.”

“Daddy thinks it’ll be a boy,” She told you matter of factly.

“Daddy thinks lots of things.”

“He told me he’s sure about this one.”

“When did daddy say that?” You asked, dipping the washcloth under the water, beginning to wipe the dirt off her cute face.

“Today. He told me while we were looking for flowers for you.”

“Okay, well, what else did he say?”

“He said he wants to name the baby Henry Hosea.”

You blinked at the name. Henry Hosea did sound nice. After all, Hosea was technically your adoptive father, as well as Arthur’s. Neither of you had really ever brought him up, avoiding that painful topic entirely. And Anne knew nothing of your past occupations, it was a story for another time, when she was older.

“I like the name Hosea,” Anne responded after being met by your silence.

“It’s a nice name,” Your voice nearly breaking. You subdued the tears in your eyes, after all that conversation was for another time.

When you finished cleaning Anne up, you brought her to dinner and sat her down next to Jack. You brought the food out to the table, making sure to put the apple pie right in front of Arthur.

•••

In many ways, time had been kind to you. It had been patient and nurturing, time allowed you a second chance at life.

It had given you the life you had wanted, one full of peace, love and family. Your life was quiet at Beecher’s Hope, filled with no revenge story. Time had dragged out your lesson for many years, but now you were reaping the fruits of your labor.

So now, as you cradle your newborn son, watching Anne and Arthur play in the field, her giggles dancing over the grass. You thank time for being there for you. For giving you what you wanted, for letting you learn to grow. For giving you a family. For returning Arthur to you.

In many ways you were thankful, thankful for the lessons you had learned, thankful for the house you lived in, thankful for the food on your table. Thankful for Mahala, thankful for Lee, thankful for Anne, thankful for Arthur and thankful for your son, Henry Hosea.

A cool breeze swept over the field, causing the grass and flowers to dance in the wind. Anne began to pretend she was a bird and Arthur raced around trying to catch her, both laughing in unison.

You looked down at your newborn son, his eyes closed over his resting face.

“One day I’ll tell you where your name comes from. I’ll tell you all about the life your daddy and I lived. And I’ll tell you about the life I had after that, and I’ll tell you about why I’ll never go back to either. One day I’ll tell you all about it,” You said quietly to your son, a promise to him and time, and no one else.

And in the end there was a man and a woman, and a daughter and a son, living to the world, thankful for every moment they get to spend with each other.

And Mother Nature rejoiced, for the man on the mountain and the woman in the city had found each other.

••• The End •••

#arthur morgan x reader #the ballads of rebirth #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2

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unicornsandphoenix · 4 years

Text

Hey fam 💕

I know it has been forever since I actually posted something....but here is something?

Shout out to @spinnersendslytherin for throwing some really sweet fics my way when I was having a bad day. I promised you a drabble that you could prompt, and I am so so sorry it took me literally two entire (3 entire?) months to come back to you with this, but I really hope you enjoy my first jump back into the fandom!

Paring: Drarry

Tropes: Oblivious Harry

Word Count: ~1700

October

Harry squinted, and rubbed at a smudge on the window.

“Mate, don’t tell me you’re looking at Malfoy again.”

Harry jumped a little and sheepishly adjusted his glasses. “I don’t know what it is, Ron, I just feel as if I need to keep an eye out for him. He’s always alone, and he hates the forbidden forest, why is he even going in there?”

Ron flipped a page of the comic book Harry had brought for him at the beginning of term. The fact that the main character could fly on demand without a broom psyched him out a little, but he seemed like a good enough bloke, and the drawings held his interest.

“Why don’t you walk with him then?”

Harry glanced back. “We aren’t friends. Besides, maybe he wants to be alone.”

Ron snorted, but didn’t look up from a particularly nice looking drawing of the superhero in some tight latex. “Yeah, sure, mate. Maybe he really wants to just be left alone. In the forbidden forest. The worst place on Earth.”

---

November

Harry was frantically scrabbling to swing his robes on without dropping his bag or tripping over the moving stairs when his wand conveniently dropped out of his pocket and rolled down the steps and off of the staircase in mid-swing.

“Fuck!” He swore, and glanced over the bannister, only to see his wand flying back up to him and smack him in the face.

“Ow,” Harry said, fumbling with the wand until he caught it between his two palms. “What,” he continued, staring straight at it.

“You should keep a better eye on your possessions, Potter,” A voice said from somewhere above him. Not that it was a mystery voice. Oh no. Harry was all too familiar with this lazy cadence and posh accent. “You never know what could happen.”

Harry glanced up, but couldn’t see against the light coming from above.

“You’re going to miss your staircase if you don’t get moving, Potter.”

“Malfoy, I--” Harry started.

“Don’t mention it, Potter.”

It didn’t occur to him at the time that this had meant that Malfoy had Harry’s schedule memorized. But then again, Harry was oblivious to quite a lot.

---

December

Something wet hit Harry’s cheek.

“Harry! Pay attention to us! We’re neeeeedy!”

Harry rubbed the potato off of his cheek and pushed Seamus’ shoulder. “Sorry, mate, what were you saying?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Listen, Harry, I know I’m one to talk but how long is it gonna take you to realize?”

“Realize what?” Harry asked, but he was already preoccupied with looking back over to the Slytherin table, and a small pile of wrapping paper starting to build up on the floor. “He’s smiling,” Harry said to himself.

Dean raised his eyebrows at Seamus. Seamus rolled his eyes and readied a spoonful of potatoes.

---

January

Hermione poked Harry’s thigh. They were all sitting in a circle, and she was laying down with her head in Pansy’s lap as Blaise, Ron, and Draco argued over the origin of some ridiculous pure blooded tradition of putting a dragon scale in your drink at New Year’s for good luck. Hermione, interested in how red Ron’s face could turn and how fast Blaise’s leg could bounce, thought she would keep the origins of the dragon’s scale (or should she say, mermaid’s scale) to herself.

“You’re staring again,” she whispered. She felt Pansy tug at her hair playfully, and looked to see a small smirk on her face.

“I don’t stare.” Harry was pouting. Hermione turned her attention back on him.

“Why don’t you just go for it? I’m sure it would end well. I have insider information, you know.” She wiggled down further into Pansy’s lap.

Harry shot her a confused look. “Hermione, really, you aren’t good at being cryptic. What are you on about?”

“Oh, I think it’s fairly obvious what she’s talking about, Harry,” Luna breezed, sitting down next to Harry in a puff of yellow and lilac skirts.

“Luna? What--”

“You like him, Harry.” Luna said, looking over to the arguing boys. Draco was gaining an interesting color to his face, Hermione noted, and he seemed to be refusing to glance in their direction.

“What! Sh! What are you--I-I would--what are you trying to imply here?” Harry said, running his hands over his jeans and through his hair.

Luna just looked at him. “I think, Harry, if you didn’t already know and it wasn’t true, you wouldn’t be getting so worked up over it.”

Harry slumped, dumbfounded. “Oh,” he said, and stared straight ahead. Hermione giggled.

---

February

“You’ve been acting weird.”

Harry dropped his broom cleaning supplies all over the floor. “I--what--no, I haven't!” He sputtered, bending down to pick up Miraculous Marcle’s Polishing Potion from the floor. That is, until a black leather shoe, shined to perfection stepped on it first. Harry gulped, face turning red, and looked up at Draco.

Draco took his foot of the bottle, and shuffled a little, in a very uncharacteristically Draco move. “Look, Harry, it’s not as if I don’t appreciate you letting me be a part of your friend group, and if you feel like you’ve done enough, I understand, but--”

“No!” Harry burst out, and Draco looked up startled. “No, I mean I don’t feel that way! I like hanging out with you, I do! I just felt...maybe I was getting a little bit clingy,” Harry ended weakly with a hand on the back of his neck, and eyes focused anywhere but on Draco.

Draco swatted him.

“Ow!” Harry said, looking up and rubbing his arm.

“Idiot!” Draco said, and straightened his robes. “We are friends, now, Potter. Stop ignoring me. It won’t do. I have grown too accustomed to your oafishness to have you distance yourself now.” With that, he turned on his heel and was off.

Harry’s eyes drifted a little lower. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe I am fucked.”

---

Valentine’s Day

Everything was going wrong for Harry today.

His alarm hadn’t woken him up in time for him to set up for that evening, let alone eat breakfast, and the outfit he had laid out last night (and had started planning a full bloody week ago), he found under a pile of cat hair, with pulled yarn from the hems.

To make matters worse, he had absolutely made a fool out of himself when he spilled pumpkin juice over himself seeing how good Draco was looking that day during lunch. And then, and then, Draco had used the anonymous letter in the shape of a heart Harry had sent to him to mop him up. Laughing. When Harry had asked him if he had read the note first, Draco had had a strained smile and said it didn’t matter, that it was probably just someone setting up to prank him.

Fuck.

Harry had skipped dinner to finish preparations, and he wasn’t even sure how he was going to get Draco to follow him to the Herbology greenhouses if he thought someone who hated him was going to be there.

Sighing, Harry lit the last orb and sent it floating into the center of the room, and started the treck back up to the eighth year dorms.

On his way, and in his hurry, Harry crashed into someone. Someone who smelled very nice. Someone who looked very nice. Someone who Harry thought was very nice. Fuck.

“Draco! Shit! I’m so sorry!”

Draco straightened with a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Harry! I--you weren’t at dinner.”

“No, I, er, needed to do something,” Harry said, fumbling.

“Oh,” Draco seemed to retreat a little, and took his hand off of Harry’s shoulder. “Are you going to be like the rest of our friends on dates and leave me alone on Valentine’s day, too?” His chuckle seemed forced, and he seemed to only hear what he had said after it had already come out of his mouth. He winced.

“Um, no, actually,” Harry said, taking a deep breath. “I was actually hoping you might was to follow me somewhere?”

Draco glanced up, surprised. “Me? I--Sure. Where are we going?”

Harry’s lips turned up in the corner in a half smile, and he shrugged a little. “I was thinking it could be a surprise?”

Draco was smiling hesitantly, and Harry’s heart spun a little. Maybe not quite everything was going wrong today.

Harry paused with his hand on the door handle, and stole a peak at Draco out of the corner of his eye.

Draco seemed nervous. He was fiddling with the buttons of his shirt, and kept glancing behind him, as if he was expecting someone to pop up and scare them.

Harry almost palmed his forehead.

“Harry, maybe we should--” Harry cut Draco off before he could continue.

“Sorry, sorry. I should have said, I--that it. Um.” Harry released the door handle and scratched his head. “It was--it was me.”

Draco shot him a look, one eye brow raised.

“I, uh, I sent you the letter today,” Harry mumbled.

Draco’s brows rose, and his mouth formed an O. “You! But, you, I?” Draco ended hopelessly.

Harry gave him a sheepish smile. “Here, just....” Harry swung the door open and watched as Draco’s tension melted off his body and a smile appeared on his face.

“Oh, Harry,” He said. The greenhouse was decked in golden orbs floating at different heights, gently rocking off of each other and shedding light on a small picnic blanket bedecked with a couple of loose flowers and some chocolates.

Harry’s hands were shaking, and he looked down again. “I know it’s, well, yeah. And I know you might not, but Hermione said--” Harry was cut off with a gentle squeeze of his hands in Draco’s, and it gave him just enough courage to look into grey eyes.

“I’ve been waiting for you to catch up, Harry,” Draco said, leaning in. “I was almost afraid I had gotten it all wrong.”

“No,” Harry said, drawn into Draco like he had his own gravitational field. “I’m just a little slow.”

But slow was good, he thought, as lips met his. Slow was very good.

#hahaha this is so late this isn't even funny #but it's here!#I'm kinda back!#Thank you so so much spinnersendslytherin #For real #drarry #drarry squad #Phia writes #Phia speaks #oblivious!harry #kinda like several one shots leading to a happy ending?#multiple pov wow maybe I should look over this again #whelp #here goes nothing!

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thesunnyshow · 4 years

Text

Name: Juliet

Writing Blog URL(s): @wonderlustlucas

Nationality: American

Languages: English, beginner level French, teeny tiny bit of Korean

Star Sign: Virgo

MBTI: ISFJ-T

Favorite color: Pastel yellow

Favorite food: My mom’s Sunday gravy

Favorite movie: Howl’s Moving Castle (The Lion King is a close second though)

Favorite ice cream flavor: Specifically Turkey Hill’s Double Dunker (get it— it’s so good)

Favorite animal: Humpback whale

Go-to karaoke song: She’s Kinda Hot by 5 Seconds of Summer

Dream job (whether you have a job or not): Neurosurgeon! Or a Twitch streamer HAHA

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? Ahhh probably coffee, I love tea but I need my coffee </3

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose? Shapeshifting! Clearly the superior superpower I don’t take constructive criticism.

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? This is weirdly specific, but I would love to be in Scotland during the 1700’s. Alternatively, the 1980’s.

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? 100%. I know everything happens for a reason but getting a redo and being able to fix all the big mistakes I made would be pretty nice.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? One horse-sized chicken! 100 tiny horses would be crazy tiring.

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? I would probably be the gay side character that gives good emotional advice but is hella lonely LMAO

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? Yes, both!

What are some small things that make your day better? Driving with the windows down and music blasting, picking up coffee, playing video games, & talking to my internet friends on Discord.

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? I discovered my love for writing through Warrior Cats roleplay😭

What fandom(s) do you write for? Right now, only Kpop, but I wouldn’t mind writing for 5SOS or some of my other fandoms!

When did you post your first piece? On WattPad, December 2015. On Tumblr, April 2018 :)

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I write everything! Fluff/smut/crack is my favorite and slight angst (usually just slow burn though cus I’m soft).

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? Again, I write anything and everything! Currently, second or third person reader inserts are my main style, but I also do ships and would love to write more OCs.

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? Before Tumblr, I was on WattPad for different fandoms but eventually fell off. Then, when I got into Kpop in 2017, I found that urge to write again and decided to move to Tumblr since WattPad was becoming… weird. Plus Tumblr was a better fit for me!

What inspires you to write? To be completely honest, it’s the little things throughout the day that inspire me. For example, “Honey” was inspired by me not being able to open my locker in high school. “I Hemoglobin You” was based off my friend giving me a head rub while I was donating blood. Kpop idols just so happen to be my muses that I like to put into random moments of inspiration!

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? High school or college AUs are my favorite, along with some good ol’ friends to lovers slow burn. Angst isn’t my forte so I usually just stick to fluff, smut, and some crack. I haven’t written any but fantasy AUs are some of my favorites too! (RIP to my League of Legends AU that I started and haven’t touched in months.)

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? Just like other fanfiction authors inspire me, I hope some of my work inspires others. Considering fanfiction is free, there is so much out there to read and when I find a good story that inspires ME to write better, I’d love for my writing to do the same.

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? 3 options: 1) Skip that scene and jump ahead to one I’m excited to write; 2) Erase what part I’m on and completely redo it; or 3) Drop it. The majority of my works usually take a few months to write as I will completely stop working on it until I find the right inspiration again.

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? “Four” is definitely my favorite work. It’s one of my longer pieces and there was a lot of raw emotion in there on my end. I love the relationship between Hyunjin and the reader and especially love the ending. “Greatest Gift” for Chanyeol is my most successful, and one of my other favorites!

Who is your favorite person to write about? Easily Hwang Hyunjin. It’s so easy to place him in any of my works, and sometimes it’s a struggle to NOT write him. It sounds stupid but sometimes I really feel like I “know” him so being able to describe him physically and mentally is easy for me.

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? Yes and no. Yes, because most of the time, fanfiction is totally original as well and requires just as much thought as a 400,000 word novel. No, because fanfiction uses a specific person as a muse.

What do you think makes a good story? Detail and realistic dialogue! Of course, everyone has their own style of writing, but detail is especially important to me. Sure, you can have a great plot, but having concise, detailed writing to get immersed into makes a story so much better. I also find realistic dialogue to be a big deal— I hate when teenage characters are speaking in deep analogies because, if we’re being honest, my daily language is 95% just “Bruh.” If you’re like me, I’d actually prefer realistic dialogue over anything else.

What is your writing process like? Process… yikes. Sometimes… I have a random thought and then I’m like… hell yeah let’s write that. I actually have no process. I don’t outline, I just start writing and keep writing until I’m finished. Then I’ll read it all over to make edits, then I’ll use the Read Aloud feature to catch any mistakes I missed, then I’ll run it through Grammarly before posting!

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? Hm, maybe? In the future, possibly, but as of right now I wouldn’t use any of my fics to do so.

What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? Oh, gosh, tropes. Gotta love them. Friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, stuck together (AKA forced to share a bed), and fake relationships are my favorites. They may be corny, but I also love truth or dare or 7 minutes in heaven games in fics cus… they’re just classics. Also love fics with a popular x shy pairing. I can’t say I dislike many tropes, but I definitely have a love/hate relationship with vampire and werewolf tropes because of how romanticized they are.

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? Hm, to be completely honest, only a little bit? I mainly write for myself, it’s like a guilty pleasure to just get all my thoughts and desires out, and then I just so happen to make it public on Tumblr. Nevertheless, receiving comments and asks actually make my day, and sometimes I still struggle to wrap my mind around people enjoying my writing! So, thank you to everyone who has ever left me a kind message, I truly appreciate it ♥

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? Getting involved! I think one of the best ways to grow is to join networks, which not only gives you the opportunity to share your work on a greater scale, but also allows you to make connections. Like real life, making connections and making friendships with other writers can play a huge role in growing as a writer and growing your account.

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Yes :( As someone who’s involved with other fandoms, I’ve heard the way some people think of fanfiction and it’s really sad. People do not know how much goes into writing and just see it as cringey and disgusting when it’s just… not.

Do you think art can be a medium for change? Yes! In all its forms, art is something a creator can use to influence their audience (in a good way, hopefully).

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? Like I said in #40, I mainly write for myself. Even when I’m writing a request, chances are if I like the request enough I’m going to create a story out of it that fits my personal desires the most.

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? No! However, I’d still consider myself a small account and do not have TOO many works posted. But so far, I don’t think I’ve faced this problem :)

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? Only a few! My best friend Maggie is on Tumblr with me and only 2 of my other pals know I write fanfiction.

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? How much I love each and every one of them for supporting me and sticking around even when I won’t post for months🥺❤️

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? Don’t psych yourself out! In the time I’ve spent on Tumblr, I’ve never received any substantial hate. My main advice is don’t write fanfiction to get popular on the app, write fanfiction because you love to write and love your muses!

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? No, as much as Tumblr can be annoying at times, I love the people I’ve met and the content I’ve found and wouldn’t have wanted to use any other platform.

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? @pinktea99 — Mo, you’ve been around since the beginning honestly, and without you I wouldn’t have been able to come out of my shell! Thank you for all your love & support & for being my SF9 buddy❤️

Pick a quote to end your interview with:

“Like mate, stop procrastinating.” — 3RACHA

BONUS ROUND: K-POP CONFIDENTIAL

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thebookofus-depravity · 4 years

Text

Skinny Bone Jones

Chapter 1

Chapter 2 coming soon!

9k words

This is my baby Park Jaehyung and an AU in which y’all are dealing with the coronavirus together in LA. Jae grew up with Y/N and you were childhood friends. You stayed close but haven’t seen each other in ages. Now you’re both back.

Teeth rotting fluff, possible smut in future chapters (lets see if I have the balls to post it), Y/N has a strong proclivity for a certain guitarists hands. And honestly, who can blame her? TW: Confrontation with a nasty old ex, Coronavirus, Quarantine, overbearing parents.

...

This fucking sucks.

Closing your laptop, and shoving it off of your lap to the side of your bed, you are struck by exactly how warm the underside of your Netflix Machine was in contrast to the chilly room. Well, 3 hours of To Catch a Predator in, and sure, your old 2011 Dell dinosaur is going to be a little mad at you. I've got to do something today. Anything.

Week 3 of your quarantine is coming to a close and on this breezy LA Thurs-Fri-Turday (who the hell knows anymore) you can feel the last tendrils of your sanity escaping with the setting sun. It just doesn't stop setting. And rising. And setting. And rising. Tortuously slow some days and before you can even get out of bed the next. Not that you get out of bed much.

Alright. That's it. I'm gonna do something. I have to. It's time to make some art, bake some cookies, go for a run, tell someone around me how much I value them, topple the patriarchy. I am going to get up and do something with my life and damned if I get in my own way again. I am unstoppable. I am formidable. I am inevitable.

Rising from your rumpled bed clothes with the steadfastness of a slightly anemic Viking (whoa I’m woozy, I shouldn't have stood up so fast. Shit, when's the last time I ate?) you cross to the large bay window that faces the street. You throw your curtains open, ready to face the day, only to be faced with… stars starting to twinkle at you out of the inky blackness. Dammit. I'm gonna have to defeat systemic oppression tomorrow.

Squinting from behind your glasses, you see that the stars are not stars at all but helicopters blinking down at you. You haven't seen real stars since your trip to Big Sur last summer. Although you moved to LA when you were 7, you have vague recollections of the Korea that you loved as a young child. Your parents had picked up and moved to the States after years of struggling through VISA's and citizenship red tape. Your mom and dad had originally meant to get married and have you in the US. The land of opportunity.

You now chafed slightly under that blanket of opportunity as you are far too aware of the responsibility you have been given to make the absolute most of it. From the ripe old age of 8 you had been conditioned to follow your dreams to their fullest. As long as those dreams were to become a doctor, lawyer, or marry a CEO. Your parents cared about you greatly and you knew that. They only want security for you, happiness comes from security. Now 25, you can't quite remember the last time their overbearing nature had been quite this...potent. You were in your final year of medical school at USC and there was nowhere to run. It was time for you to begin your foray into the 'real world' of residency. The same post-undergrad 'real world' that you had watched all of your non-premed friends crash land into. They had all distanced themselves from you, both figuratively and literally; intentionally and inadvertently. Divorced, Beheaded, Died: Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. You had watched you friends get married, have kids, sabotage marriages, buy houses, do well, do poorly. And here you were in some kind of bubble both safe and isolated from all of the uncertainty beyond the classroom.

Jokes on you, Jessica, now we're all screwed, you find yourself thinking for the upteenth time over the past month. You had been watching the Coronavirus since December and knew exactly what was to come. You did all that you were capable of as a not-quite certified medical professional and tried to convince people of the reality of the threat, convince them not to panic, and to exercise a reasonable level of preparedness. Well, that didn't work. You found yourself sunk into a deep well of frustration and futility at the action and inaction that was being exhibited throughout the States. For the first weeks of quarantine you found yourself glued to your phone, helplessly watching the tragedy unfold and the stupidity that was ensuing. By week 2 your empathy had burnt out and you knew you couldn't watch that world anymore. K-drama's it is. After completely obliterating Crash Landing on You, Itaewon Class, and rewatching Descendants of the Sun for the eighth time just because it's so. damn. cute!, your parents started to get a little concerned.

Your stomach growled and you realize you, in fact, haven't eaten since early this morning. As you consider what the consequences of emerging from your cave of a bedroom might have, you resign yourself. Five minutes later you are hovering in the kitchen with a bowl of leftover whateverthefuck in hand, you turn to see both of your parents at the bar stools staring at you with a look of concern that you haven't seen in years. Shit, I keep forgetting, they think I'm functional. Your parents had shipped you off to Health Careers College Prep school, a boarding school in Sacramento, when you were 16. Upon graduation there with your high school diploma, nurses aid, and dental hygienist's certificates, you immediately started at USC premed. You hadn't lived at home since your Jonas Brother's phase. As much as your parents loved you, they didn't really know you. This had been overwhelmingly obvious when the USC campus closed and you returned home to open arms and your bedroom frozen in the clutches of 2009. Your parents had welcomed you home with tearful hugs and a new gift for your room. I know how much you love that Kevin- boy. And your room is so old. Come. Come. Already wary and wondering who the hell is Kevin? you allowed yourself to be led to your old room and set your bags down with a deadened thump. You tried so hard not to laugh, You really did. They're trying so hard. But like, Where did they even find this monstrosity? You had been staring up at the largest poster of Kevin Jonas that you had ever seen every night for 3 weeks and it was starting to get to you.

Regardless of the decor (purple fuzzy lamp shade included), there were so many parts of living at home that were so foreign to you. Although everything was completely the same, you were worlds different and it was disorienting. Your bed seemed smaller, the walls shorter, the colors dimmer. Everything that made that house your home was still there, only you had changed. It was like you were in a coma and had just woken up, the rest of the world unchanged but with 10 more years under your belt. Your therapist would tell you that you were reverting into a childlike state because of trauma and surroundings. Hush, Mollie, I don't need that right now. I need food.

Food was honestly what was keeping you sane and civil. Your parents own a pho shop just down the street that was still taking carry out and delivery orders for pho, crawfish, whatever they had lying around. You had been helping out in the kitchen and with deliveries since you had been home. As freeing as the drives have been, you really come alive in the kitchen. You had been watching your mom make pho and dumplings for years and although she sent kimchi to your apartment every month or so, you missed your moms cooking. And her kitchen. You immediately took to cooking just like you had when you moved off of USC campus and into an apartment with some friends. You had 12 burners! That all worked! A convection oven! Two of them! Kitchen Aid's! You had no problem opening up shop at 8am every morning to prep the dough and get the stock boiling and all of the other things that her mother and father had been doing for the past 20 years.

Returning to your room after rinsing out your bowl and chopsticks, and exchanging goodnight's with your parents you sit on your bed and tell yourself to go to bed. You have to be up at 7am for the kitchen. You need to chop scallions for the pork and chive dumplings so it has time to coagulate. Come on, Go to bed. No phone. It was a pitiful attempt, really. You had been pulling med-school grade all-nighters since your junior year of high school and nothing was stopping you now. Turning on your side for easy access to your charger, you plug your phone and coast through Instagram, Youtube, Twitter, Tinder for an indeterminate amount of time before your eyes start to get heavy. Instagram was just filled with all of your peers from USC recklessly meeting up with friends for picnics and drives and all of the other things they thought they were free to do because they were young and healthy and beautiful. Fuck off. Youtube provided a lovely escape from the actual outside. Mikey Chen showed you around TaiPei's street food scene, Binging with Babish gave you a new hand pulled noodle recipe to try, Bon Appetit made you glad you weren't Claire Saffitz. Tinder was a joke but an adequately funny one. Instead of your bog standard USC fuckboi's you were able to talk to fuckboi's from Korea, Dubai, Indonesia, Guatemala, Brazil. How fun. You had downloaded it 6 months prior after yet another guy in your department was just 'too busy, i'm sorry' to make the date that you had planned. You generally tried to avoid Twitter as it was just an echo chamber of panic and 24 hour news cycles and didn't do much for your anxiety. See, Mollie? I'm being smart.

You flick open the little bird app and scroll for just a minute. A particular notification picques your attention. Jae tweeted. Well, Day6 tweeted, but we all know who runs their twitter. Your throat tightens with nerves as the post loads. You worry about him more than you'd like to admit but with tours cancelled and travel suspended, you know how hard it can be for people whose livelihoods revolve around entertainment and travel. The post loads and you let out a sigh of relief to see Jae surrounded by his band mates and smiling. Brian starts speaking Korean and delivers his message about their newly acquired tiktok. Brian gestures for Jae to speak and Jae delivers the same message in English. Ah, he went back to blonde. It looks good on him. Wait is he- oh god, he's wearing a crossbody fanny pack. Jae, you're old. Stop. Shifting to get more comfortable, you let the video loop a few times before closing the app. Jae's okay. You roll over onto your side and set your phone to the side. Jae's voice echoes through your ears for the next few minutes but you resolve yourself against it. I'm not getting fucking tiktok. I'm a grown ass woman. That app is for 12 year olds. And Jae. Resolved, you burrow into your Jonas brothers duvet cover for the night.

Sweating and on the verge of tears, you wake with a start. The dream was already slipping from your consciousness with a blessed haste but the uneasy feeling that the nightmare gave you seemed to coat the inside of your skull and taint it's entire contents. A thin light filters through your still open window and your eyes creak open. Morning? Sure, why not? Rolling over, you flick open your phone and are greeted by an all too unfamiliar, 5:17am. It's too damn early. Even for you. You still have an hour or so to kill before you have to get up but you didn't fancy the idea of trying to go back to sleep after that dream. Propping yourself up on a few of the approximately 67 pillows that litter your twin sized bed, you open your phone. 3 new emails from USC congratulating you on your graduation and asking for some documentation of something or another or evaluation of some class you hadn't thought of in weeks. Skip. 2 emails from residencies that you had applied to before the coronavirus urging you to reapply in the fall. Great. You couldn't even bring yourself to feign concern over the missed opportunity. 1 email from Twitter informing you that Jae had tweeted. Again. You follow the link to another video of his side project EaJ. You had been following his new releases and you were surprised by the tenderness and vulnerability that they showed. He was always such a funny guy, it was the only side that he really showed much to the media. Sure, fans got glimpses at concerts, but not many knew just how deep the well ran in that man.

Today's Tuesday, apparently. The next episode of How Did I Get Here? comes out today. I'll have something to listen to while I food prep. You never admitted to yourself how pleased you were when he started the podcast. You missed hearing his voice on a regular basis. Hollered up into your window, whispered between giggles in the back-most church pew, hurled across crowded hallways. Of course, the voice was different than it is now. Pocked by pubescence and the LA accent, you remember a far squeakier Jae. He was the first person you met when you moved into the neighborhood at 7 years old. He was 9 so of course, he took it upon himself to show you exactly where you could and couldn't go and what taco trucks would give out fare for free to little kids on weekends. You remember those years fondly as finally having the big brother you never had. Skinny Bone Jones, you called him. He stood up for you when the kids in middle school called you smelly for bringing kimchi in your lunch. He called you smelly just for being you. He was well liked in school and by extension so were you. You had the cool big brother. You were more than happy to play second fiddle and be his backup. Tagging along to parties, helping him record his yellow post-it note covers on Youtube, letting him know when his hair looked stupid.

And so it stayed until Jae actually made it on KPop Star. As much as you loved him, you didn't think he would ACTUALLY make it. Sure, he could sing. He had a beautiful voice but that wasn't enough. The boy danced like a drunk chicken and was 6ft tall and 120lbs soaking wet. He didn't even know Korean. What was he thinking? He was thinking he was going to prove you wrong. And he did. You watched as Skinny Bone Jones transformed into Park Jaehyung with a perfect balance of immense pride and terror. You knew you wouldn't lose your friend entirely but during his trainee days he had very limited access to the outside world, and you just weren't a priority. Honestly, you would've been offended if you had been. He has a mom, dad, an older sister, bandmates, college. It only makes sense that the steady stream of communication turned into a trickle. It wasn't until Every Day6 that you were more of an insistent presence in his life. You burrowed your way back into his inbox with the tenacity of the annoying little sister that you were. You were worried. You watched him on After School Club and in the deluge of content that Day6 was serving their slowly growing fanbase. He looked tired. You once again rekindled your relationship but it was different now. Instead of you leaning on him for social support, you became his confidant. He was struggling. Burnt out, and questioning so many things, he didn't want to go to his bandmates because he didn't want them to worry. His parents would pull him immediately if they knew exactly how rough his condition was, his 'friends' from college had proved fake. He now had Alpha Phi Omega blocked because they wouldn't stop asking for favors: Day6 tickets, Twice merch, Got7 tickets. He felt alone but you reached out and he was able to lean on you. The trials passed and he was happier than ever and Day6's growing popularity meant good things for his lobster funds.

You stayed in contact over the years and shared with each other the going on's of your lives. You had even managed to go to the Gravity World Tour date in LA. Jae got you backstage and you were able to meet the rest of his bandmates that you had heard so much about. It was an act of God that you managed to keep your composure. I mean sure, he's just Jae but you're still backstage at a concert for the first time! Your cheeks still redden when you remember how Jae caught you ogling at YoungK. Heart in your throat, and voice barely above a whisper YoungK had walked directly over to you and asked what you were doing backstage. After a solid 15 seconds of pointing listlessly at your Press badge and making just the strangest of noises that were meant to approximate speech, Jae finally caught wind and rushed over, knocking your sense back into you and introducing you to the members.

Oh! Y/N! It's so nice to finally meet you! Jae talks about you all the time, I'm so glad you were able to make it! Your cheeks inexplicably reddened further to a violent shade of pink but the boys slowly defanged themselves in your mind. They're truly lovely people and you're glad Jae has them. That being said, you still can't quiiiite look Brian in the eyes and Jae thinks it's hilarious.

The Gravity tour feels like ages ago as you shrug on some jeans and a tee shirt for your walk to the shop. August 2019 at the Novo may have only been 8 months ago but it seems like a different reality. The Novo will be closed for the forseeable future and concerts are cancelled. That stings but not as much as the radio silence from Jae. First it was his tour schedule that rendered communication difficult and now the virus. You know he's busy and it's been a weird few months for the entertainment industry, but a 'Hey I'm alive.' would be nice. From his podcasts and twitter you've been able to keep some thread attached but you feel it stretching thin as the months stretch on. You really don't want to be annoying. You're sick of feeling like a fan. Yeah, you support Jae and Day6 and would call yourself a MyDay, but that's not all you are. You know him. You dragged him through the mud when he convinced you to try sledding down a muddy hill on a trash can lid. You set up his camcorder for his covers when he still had that stupid swoopy hair. You posed as his angry girlfriend when a crazy fan wouldn't leave him alone. You're starting to feel like just a fan and not a friend and it's only exacerbated by the glee that you feel when you get the notification from dive studios that How Did I Get Here? has updated. I miss my friend.

Not bothering to flip the sign on the front door from closed to open, you shoulder open the front door of the shop after fumbling with the keys. Tying an apron securely around your waist, and flicking on your noise cancelling headphones to a comforting thrum, you wash your hands and begin to chop the largest pile of scallions you've ever seen. Crunching through the pile, you start Jae's podcast and everything is gone but him. You can almost imagine him in the room with you, perched on the counter talking your ear off about the Mandela effect or how weird elbows are or something equally as ridiculous. Today he's talking about soul mates. As you listen to him joke and banter and pontificate, your eyes well up. It's just the scallions. You know damn well it's only partially the scallions. You miss Jae. And you're in the middle of a pandemic. And your family barely knows you. And you're not sure if you even want to be a pediatric oncologist. Fuck. Jae's words turn into white noise in your ears as you toss your headphones to the side and place the knife on the butchers block, perhaps more aggressively than necessary. You pause the podcast and let yourself sit in the feeling. You're lonely and sad. See Mollie? I'm letting myself feel things. Making room for every emotion. You cast your mind around and recall all of the little wounds that prick a little too deep today. You feel a squeeze in your abdomen and your eyes shoot open wide. Shit, my period. I've got to be PMSing. Even Jae recognized the trend in your emotions before you did. The week before your period, you were notoriously mushy and weepy and indulgent. Well, that's one mystery solved. I'll be okay. Mollie's voice echoed through your brain with her familiar argument that hormones only heighten the emotional distress, not fabricate it. These feelings are valid and aren't fake just because you're hormonal. You steadfastly ignore that point, wipe your eyes, and pull your headphones back on. You finish up the pile of scallions and a few other morning chores before the podcast ends. It's Jae's sign off that sends the bowl of mandu filling that you were holding clattering to the floor. "I'm coming to you from my childhood home, so if the audio is a little finnicky… blame Byron." Jae's home.

…

After sweeping up a pound of pork, beef, mirin, soy sauce, and chives and disposing of it, you stare at your phone- hands shaking slightly. Jae. What the fuck. You rip off your apron and your mind races. Should I call him? Should I go see him? I can’t believe he’s right here. 2 houses down. Fuck. Your rational brain knows that it’s okay to feel excited about Jae being home. But the sneaky little bitch that lives in the back of your brain is telling you that if he wanted to hear from you, he would’ve called. You feel a little bit of yourself fragment at that, but you push it to the side. You open up your phone and slide over to his contact in your phone. What greets you is your last text conversation.

Jae: I’m so glad you had fun, Y/N! But if you ever look at Brian like that again, I might have to put a ban on you at our concerts. His head was way too big.

Y/N: Look at him like what?! I didn’t do anything and you know it!

Jae: Of course you’re didn‘t. You totally weren’t drooling over my bassist.

Y/N: Fuck off.

Jae: Gladly, love. ;)

8 months ago. Sure you’d DM’d quite a bit since then and called a few times. But it just seemed so sparse. You don’t want him to just humor you. You’re an adult and perfectly capable of being alone. You’re not going to text him just yet.

You finish up your morning chores and head back to your house, pausing for perhaps just a little too long in front of the sandstone house with the tan shutters and shoes out front. You knew that house so well. You knew how much weight the tree outside the upstairs bedroom window could hold. You knew where the kimchi refrigerator was tucked away in a back corner of the garage. You knew there was a blonde boy in there that you wanted nothing more than to run inside and get a hug from.

You shower and let the hot water run over you, hoping it will relax the knotted up muscles in your back. It’s not like I can go see him anyway. We’re in quarantine. He probably just got back to LA and just hasn’t gotten the chance to-. You run the same conversation over and over in your head until you can’t take it anymore. You need someone else’s voice in your head. Curling into your covers, you sigh and go to the App Store. A few short minutes later and you hate yourself more than you ever have. Tiktok. Here we go. You watch the video of Day6 introducing themselves to the social networking platform once, twice, three times until your eyes start to ache. All of a sudden you’re met with a new post that pings up. Your breath catches in your throat as you see Jae standing in his living room, attempting to keep up with Amber Liu’s dance challenge. You can’t help but giggle as he flails to the left, to the right, oversized black hoodie always falling into his face. BM would be proud. Express not impress. You find yourself shocked at the weight that he’s gained. He looks healthy and happy. You remember the conversations in middle school about how much he hated being skinny. The evenings in the weight room in high school. Failed doctors appointments. He looked good before but you see that in recent months his chest has been swelling and not just with pride. His shoulders sit a little bit broader than you ever remember in the past and you’re happy for him. Good for you, Jae.

You like the tiktok and let it loop a few more times before sighing heavily and opening your messaging app.

Y/N: I got TikTok for you, ya little shit.

You chuckle but leave the text unsent. You’ll think of something better later. You toss your phone to the side in the face of the mountain of laundry on your bed that needs to be taken care of. As you hang the last of your shirts, your phone pings. You pick it up to a notification from Jae.

Skinny Bone Jones: Language!

Skinny Bone Jones: Do you think Amber approves?

You feel a flare of indignation wash through your limbs at the mention. Apparently it had sent. Oh well. As the thrill of a reply ebbs out of you, it is replaced by a rising indignation. How dare you?! Not tell me you’re in town and pretend like you didn’t?! Really?!

Y/N: I don’t really care what Amber thinks.

Maybe that was a little snippy. You love Amber, truly. But how can he have time for TikTok but not me?

Skinny Bone Jones: Yeah? Do you still care what I think?

Your heart catches in your throat. So he’s caught on that you’re pissed.

Skinny Bone Jones: Y/N, can I call you?

You swipe up to the phone icon and call him on auto pilot. Talk to me, Jae.

“Y/N?” you hear Jae’s voice.

“Jae.” Your voice comes out whispier than you meant it to. You try again.

“Jae! How are you?”

“Oh, y’know, just got off a plane that smelled like bleach and got to my house that isn’t really my house anymore, left my guitar to be sanitized, was “strongly encouraged” to make a TikTok by my company, and then got my head bit off by my best friend. Just quarantine things.” There is a touch of acid in his voice but Jae mostly sounds tired. Your empathy comes surging back and you sigh.

“I’m sorry Jae. I just- I didn’t know you were in town until I listened to your podcast this morning. I was a little hurt that you didn’t call or anything.”

“Look, kid. I just got home. I’m a diva. You know I require at least an 18 hour period of naps and boba to function properly. I’m a KPop Star now.” You laugh at the callback to your irate spiel a few years ago about how fame had changed him and he was a diva and just ‘wasn’t the Jae you knew’ anymore. It wasn’t his fault he was allergic to everything and turned down all of your food suggestions.

“Jae, you’ve been a diva since day one.” You quip back, tension resolving as you fall back into a familiar playful banter.

“And don’t you forget it, Y/N.” There's a slight pause before Jae continues,

“This diva is really sorry he didn’t call you. It’s just been a lot the last few days. The tour just got cancelled. And our album comes out in a few days. Our team has been going crazy trying to figure out how we’re supposed to publicize in this climate and I just-“

“Jae. Chill. When I preordered mine last week, it was the most popular album on the site. It’s gonna sell. Don’t worry too much.” There’s a beat of silence in which you can hear the air whoosh out of Jae’s lungs.

“You-You preordered Demon?” Jae sounds shocked but endeared at your admission and you laugh.

“Of course? I’m really pumped to hear that sexy, soothing voice of Wonpil’s. Maybe I’ll even get a Dowoon photo card this time! I keep getting Jae ones in my other albums and I give them to my little cousin.” This isn’t entirely true. You have 3 of Young K, 2 of Dowoon, and 1 each of Wonpil and Sungjin. You’ve been waiting for a Jae photocard for ages. You would die before you told him that, though.

“You little shit. If you don’t want to see my face, why are you following Day6 on TikTok?” Jae ribs back.

“Brian. Duh. He’s fine as hell.”

“Yah! Haven’t you found a boring ass Orthopedic surgeon or some shit, yet? Why do you have to terrorize me like this?”

“Why? Haven’t you found a Twice member that’ll marry you yet, Skinny Bone Jones?”

“I’ll have you know, I gained 10 pounds the past 8 weeks! I’ll be big as BM soon!” You can picture the expression of childlike pride in his face even if you can’t see it.

“You look really good, Jae. I’m proud of you. You’ve been working really hard.” The sudden sincerity catches the both of you off guard and you clear your throat.

“Thanks, Y/N. That means a lot.” A comfortable silence is followed by a lengthy conversation recounting the previous weeks, the various states of the other members, your own eviction from college, and the status of the shop.

“You know, Y/N, if you or your family need anything I’m more than happy to help. I mean I know how hard it can-“ You cut him off before he can go any further.

“We’re okay Jae, honest. I know you’d be good for it but we don’t need anything right now. Business is good at the pho shop and we’re okay.”

“Okay, okay. Just know I’m here.”

“I mean NOW I do, no thanks to youuu,” you wheedle, whining about his failure to let you know he was in town.

“Come on, Y/N, I said I was sorry!” He laughs but you can hear the desperation of sincerity in his voice.

“I know, Jae. I’m just kidding. I just really missed you.”

“I missed you too Y/N.”

You get off the phone upon the realization that you needed to go to the shop and prep for the dinner deliveries. Sometimes you abhorred that you were “essential”. You run downstairs and tell your parents the good news about Jae and inform them you’ll be back soon.

“I know you’re excited, Y/N, but remember we can’t be going and visiting people like that. Only essential work.” You roll your eyes slightly but assure them that you know. As if you hadn’t been telling them the same thing for weeks. I had to convince you not to go play mahjong in the park, eomma. You might be excited, but you’re not stupid.

You had just started filling the mandu when you hear the bell over the door chime. Pardon me, are you stupid? We've been closed for weeks, why do you think it would be okay to just walk in? You wipe your hands on your apron and start to walk to the counter.

"Hello? I'm sorry, we're only open for call-in deliveries." You round the corner and lift your head from your hands to see the form of the gangliest, tallest, loveliest man you've ever seen in your life.

"Special delivery." Jae remarks smoothly, arms open wide in invitation and head cocked to the side as if he was bracing himself for the crash landing that was to come.

"Jae!" you yell, and launch yourself from behind the counter and into his arms. His arms fold around you and everything else melts away. Your face burrows against his chest and you inhale. He smells like home and cinnamon. You can feel tears welling up in your eyes with the tide of emotions that wash over you. Jae's hand cups the back of your head into him and he hugs you just as tightly as you hug him. You press yourself into him with everything you have and in the deafening silence and warmth all that you can think is I love you.

"Y/N" He whispers, not loosening his grip on you.

"Mmph." you respond weakly.

"My shirt's wet." You jump back from him a bit and see that he's correct. Your eyes are leaking. All over his white shirt. Oops.

"Oh! I'm-I'm sorry." You laugh a bit and swipe at your eyes before patting at his shirt in futility.

"It's okay, love. Come here." He welcomes you back into his arms and you wrap your arms over his neck this time.

"I missed you." You whisper, voice cracking a bit.

"I know you did." You jump back from him. Bitch.

"Hush. I missed you too, you idiot. Why else would I be standing here right now?"

You cast your eyes around in a panic. He's here. He's right here. In the store. Here. He shouldn't be here. He should be in quarantine with his family. You're unessential to him.

Sensing the realization in your eyes, he pushes past you, walking to the back and puts on the latex gloves hidden behind the counter.

"I figured it was about time to get a 'real job' like everyone keeps telling me to." He smiles smugly and picks up the knife to start chopping the bok choy. You stand there in shock for one second, two seconds, three seconds until you realize he’s about to cut his fingers off.

“Jae! Stop!”

“Look, Y/N, I don’t care what you say, I’m going to do this. I want to help. And I’ll be damned if I’m not allowed to see you in the time I’m finally here-“

“No, Jae. Stop. I know I can’t argue with you. I’d be thrilled if you’d work with me. But Brian is gonna kill me if I let you cut your damn hands off.”

“I… what?”

“You’re a guitarist Jae. We can’t have you cutting off your pretty little fingers. And if you keep chopping it like that, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

Jae looks down at his hands and stretches his fingers wide as if considering them for the first time.

“Pretty?”

You roll your eyes, but unbidden, your eyes are still trained on his hands. They really are pretty.

“Just. Let me show you.” You show him how to tuck his knuckles up against the blade and chop in smooth rocking motions so as not to take off his fingertips.

You work in relative silence for the next hour, packaging meals and portioning combos as your mom and dad peek in and out to pick up the orders. You can feel a warmth flowing through you as you take in your surroundings. The loneliness of the past weeks leeches out of you and dissipates into the warm atmosphere, homey smells, and murmur of conversation. It’s almost as if your limbs wake up bit by bit, like a tree waking up after a long frigid winter. You feel yourself stretch and shine and the bubbles of contentment flow through you. By the time the last combo is out the door, you find it really difficult to take the smile of your face.

Jae seemed to be in the same boat. On more than one occasion you caught him staring at you. Every time you caught him he just shook his head and laughed in that infuriating way of his. But you really couldn’t be irritated at him. It was impossible. He was your happy fairy, even if you wanted to kick him in the shins every two minutes for saying something dumb. Mom and dad said goodnight to Jae in the same way they have been since he was 10. “Tell Mrs.Park I say hello and don’t be a stranger.” Right after they leave and you’re washing the last dish, while Jae sits on the counter telling you about production for Day6’s new album, the phone rings. Before you can tell Jae not to answer it, he’s already taking the man's order. Fine. One more can't hurt. You weren’t anxious to end this day and return to bed alone, so you welcome the post-closing distraction. Cobbling together a plate from the leftovers you were about to bring home, you grab your keys and beckon Jae to follow you.

“No need to bug mom and dad, we can take this one.”

As you walk outside toward where your little yellow bug is parked, you feel Jae move behind you. You can feel his body close to yours and you stiffen instinctually. You’re not used to skinship anymore and you can feel the blood in your veins carbonate as Jae’s breath ghosts across the back of your neck. You stop dead in your tracks, eyes wide, flush creeping up your neck as you feel his hands- those damn hands- ghost along the side of your left arm. You squeak when his fingers brush against the back of your hand, lacing his fingers with yours. Your world spins. Fuck is he holding my hand? Do I want this to happen? He’s so close to me. Can he hear my heartbeat?

“Jae-“ you begin to say, with absolutely no idea as to where the statement would go after.

Luckily you don’t have to think of any sort of decisive move because Jae immediately snatches the keys from your now limp left hand with a cackle, running ahead to the car.

“I’m driving!” You little fucking- oooh!

You’re thankful for the cool evening breeze and dim street lights or you were sure to get a ribbing for the blazing red cheeks that you were sporting. You climb into the passenger's seat with the food on your lap and do your best to sink into invisibility. It doesn’t work. You’re convinced that he can hear your brain jackhammering away at the night's events.

Did I want that to happen? Did that happen? He was so close to me. He felt so warm and the way he touched me. Running your hands over your arm, you could feel his touch like it had raced a burning path down your whole left side. Do I… like Jae?

You glance over at him now and again as he puts the car in drive and begins the route to the destination. Jae, of course, is jabbering away about how everything has changed since he’s been gone and, “Omigod, is that ANOTHER pinkberry?” You find yourself nodding along passively while actively trying to figure out what the hell was going on in your brain. Much like his podcast, his voice became white noise by which you asked yourself questions you weren’t sure you wanted the answers to. Of course I love him. But do I like, like him? Never in your life have you felt more like a horny, confused teenager but as you glance over and watch Jae with one hand on the steering wheel, wind blowing through his hair, you know one thing for sure- Jae isn’t a kid anymore. And he isn’t your brother.

It isn’t until you pull into a neighborhood about 10 minutes later that you remember that you’re here on a delivery. Yanking yourself from your reverie, but with unease still firmly lodged in your thoughts, you address the task at hand.

“Jae, where are we?”

“Uhhhh, 3051 Driver Rd.”

Driver Road. You know this neighborhood but you can’t quite place where. If your previous safari into your possible romantic interest in Jae wasn’t jarring enough, you feel panic rising through your system like so much bile. Why do I know this neighborhood? Jae, unaware of any turmoil on your part, pulls up to the house in question and when your headlights wash over the yard your heart sinks into your throat. You’re going to be sick. 3051 Driver Rd. This is where Sean lives.

You had met Sean Avery in your sophomore year of premed and had fallen head over heels in love with him. He was tall, attractive, ambitious, and he wanted you. You were star struck. It wasn’t until a year of ‘dating’ later that you unearthed the whole messy truth of his long string of side pieces and general douchebaggery. If that wasn’t enough, in the past year you heard the report of him almost catching a case with a high school senior in the area. You knew now that he was nothing but a predator and a coward. You had managed to avoid him since your explosive breakup but now it seemed you had very little choice.

“Sean fucking Avery” you seethe in the seat next to Jae.

“What did he do to you?” Jae asked, taken aback by your sudden vitriol.

“Shit, that wasn’t in my head was it?” Jae laughs a bit but sobers up quickly at your expression.

“Y/N you look really pale, are you okay? I don’t know your history with this guy but hey, you don’t have to deliver this. I’ll do it. Don’t you worry, love.” Jae places his hand on the top of your head and ruffles your hair a bit in an attempt to be comforting. The attempt helped. Your heart pricks up a bit at Jae’s term of endearment but it feels more deadened than it should. You’re sick of feeling like this. Of letting Sean steal your joy from you. It’s been too long for that shit. Pulling yourself together a bit, you shake yourself out of your head and steel yourself.

“No, Jae, I’ve got this.” Jae looks at you with slight concern but shrugs nonetheless.

“Alright, well, I’m going with you okay? This dude really must’ve done a number on you if this is your response. And I’d like to see the bastard.” Jae’s eyes glinted with something dangerous that you’ve never seen in him before and it causes the same fire in you to spark. Let’s do this.

With Jae by your side, you march up to the door with the delivery order and set it on the front steps. The doorbell is deafening in the still night and you have to remind yourself to breathe. You jump as the door swings wide and a pathetic looking man sporting a robe and a beer belly peeks from the inside. All of the breath that had been waiting in your lungs released and you feel your head go a little bit light with the realization that this was the man that you were in love with. 7 years later, gone was the debonair gentleman who could sweep you off your feet. In his stead stood a balding, fat, stiff man in boxers and a moth eaten robe. He grunts in acknowledgment of the presence of other humans but it’s obvious that the Neanderthal hasn’t recognized you. He retrieves his food and goes fumbling in his robe pocket for his wallet. He fishes out a card and hands it to you. You take it from him and process the payment.

Declined.

“Sorry, Sean, your card- it declined.”

He huffs and makes a sound in the back of his throat that you can only describe as gross as you hand it back to him.

“It what!? What do you mean declined?” He stumbles forward a few steps and you automatically flinch backward into Jae. Jae’s hand comes up to your shoulder to ground you, a reminder that he’s still there. Sean’s movement wafts a smell of body odor and brown liquor. He always was a mean drunk. You decide to cut your losses while you can and keep the transaction as minimal as possible. No games.

“Your card, Sean, it declined. Do you have an alternate form of payment?” Sean whips open his wallet and roots around for a minute before retrieving a few crumpled up bills. He extends the cash but before you can swap his card for cash, his arm whips back. Looking at you sideways, suspicion drips from his slurred speech,

“How do you know my name?”

Shit. Fuck. Dammit.

You watch helplessly as the cogs turn in his inebriated brain and recognition washes over his face.

“Y/N! It’s you! What do you want from me now, bitch? Trying to take my money now too? Get out of here!” His voice steadily rises in volume and you can feel the walls of your panic closing in on you. Suddenly Jae steps in front of you, arm outstretched to the belligerent man.

“You’re talking to me now. You’re done with her.” Jae holds himself with a confidence that you had only seen from him onstage.

“Just pay for the food and we’ll be going.”

“And who the fuck are you?” Sean spits back, as if Jae were something distasteful that he had found on the bottom of his shoe.

“I’m Jae. Y/N’s boyfriend. Now I’d really love to take Y/N home tonight before it gets too much later. So if you can just pay for your meal, we’ll get going.”

Sean crumples up the bills and throws it into Jae’s chest.

“Good luck with that bitch, kid. You’re gonna need it.” And with that he retreats inside and slams the door shut behind him.

Jae immediately rushes to your side and wraps you in a big hug. Although similar in mechanics to the hug earlier that day, this one was far different in intent. You could feel it in his soul, that hug was meant to squeeze all of the fragmented pieces of you back together again and hold them until they stuck. You can feel your heartbeat slowing to match his and your breathing slowly regulates.

Mollie is gonna have a lot of fun with this one.

Jae escorts you back to the car and there’s a thick silence that you can’t quite bring yourself to cut as he puts the car into drive. You know he is forming his own story of what happened between you and Sean in his head and you can’t tell if that’s better or worse than just reliving it and telling him the whole story- cops and testifying and court and all.

Once out of the neighborhood, Jae heaves a sigh and chuckles a bit.

“Well he seemed lovely.”

“Uh huh. He’s a real peach.”

Jae looks over at you with an expression of dual concern and amused what-the-fucker-y. Did that really just happen?

There is a beat of silence and solid eye contact before you both start cracking up. Unable to restrain yourself any further, you both dissolve into a kind of healing, deep belly laughter that shakes the entire car. Pulling up to your house, Jae throws the car into park and then turns to face you.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, you know? It’s not my business. You’re my business. But asshats like him aren't. Just that I’m around to keep them away from you.”

You sigh deeply, still recovering from the laugh attack, before giving him a brief bulleted list of the sheer shenanigans that Sean had pulled on you all those years ago. You watched as Jae’s face contorted over the course of the story, hardening into yet another study in fierceness that you were yet to see from him.

“I really am okay, though Jae. He had me pretty fucked up for a little bit but honest, I’m okay. I did the therapy, I fought my battles. I just hadn’t done the last closure step of actually looking him in the eye and saying goodbye and good riddance. And I probably never would’ve if it weren’t for tonight.” You reach out and grab his hand instinctively.

“Thank you, Jae. I really appreciate you doing that with me. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“You would’ve gotten your ass handed to you is what you would’ve done.” Jae states, deadpan.

“Jaeee!” You laugh, hitting him on the arm.

“Oh, so now you can throw a punch? Okaaay, nice.” This little shit.

Banter aside, Jae takes the key out of the ignition and gathers his things to get out of the car. As he closes the door, you hear him mutter “You need to pick better guys. You’re too great to end up with someone like that.”

You don’t have any kind of answer to that, but you feel a lightness in your chest as his eyes burn into you. Jae walks you to your front door and all you can hear in your head is an echo of Jae’s declaration of “I’m Jae, Y/N’s boyfriend.” Is that what I want?

You end up at your front door far too soon and the twinkling of the helicopters in the sky signals to you that it’s more than time for Jae to go home. Your heart sinks into your stomach at the thought of him leaving and you inwardly groan.

Jae gives you one last hug goodnight and you know before he even releases you that this isn’t enough. Not even nearly. Your feelings, whatever they may be: love, like, general affection, haven’t been correctly quantified and expressed. This has been the best day you’ve had in months, and he was the deciding factor. You were grateful to have him there on your front door step, in his arms. But maybe, just maybe, if you’re able to express to him exactly how you feel about him in this moment, he’ll be able to help you out and translate exactly what this feeling means for your future together. Without thinking about it too much, you retreat from the hug and angle your face up to his so that your noses are almost touching. You sit like this for just a second. That sickening second that would allow him to retreat and tell you you’re an idiot for even thinking it. But he doesn’t retreat. Instead, your lips are brushing against one another in just the barest of whispers of a kiss. His lips are so soft. It’s over in an instant and as the chilly night air cuts between the two of you, you are all too aware of how disproportionately warm your face and neck have become. You smile up at Jae and he carries a similar, if not slightly more shocked, half smile.

As if reading one another’s minds, you both understand that it’s wise to let one another think about the night's proceedings before any further rash decisions are made. In an attempt to preserve the spell of the night sky and the kiss and the chirping cicadas, neither of you say another word to one another but instead exchange content smiles that convey more than a goodnight ever could. With a slight bow of his head and a glide of his hand down the length of your arm, Jae walks backwards down your front steps and slips into the night, shaking his head slightly, trying and failing to conceal his smile. You watch him from the porch as he skips up to his house, before slipping into the warmth of your own home.

...

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