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sabraeal · 1 year

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If the Mind Is Willing, Chapter 2

[Read on AO3]

A million years ago (2018), I held a raffle to celebrate having 500 followers, and @bubblesthemonsterartist was the winner of the grand prize-- five fics of her choosing. These and the other winners were all supposed to have their fics post in 2019, over the 12 weeks I was taking off after I had my second son. Unfortunately, MANY THINGS OCCURRED, and now I have finally, FINALLY made it through all my backlog to grant Joanna her wishes. And this was her first request, because I left her BOY in the SNOW on her BIRTHDAY 🤣

Gray light filters through her sheer curtains, hesitantly washing over her room as if it would hate to impose. It has none of the determination of the winter sun, muting pastels into something just shy of monochrome, like a reel of film left out of its can to age. It’s...nice. Cozy even; the perfect weather for a day where there’s no classes to rush to nor study sessions to sweat through, no place to go nor person she needs to be. She’s just Chizuru, and for a moment, that’s enough.

It never lasts.

Her phone vibrates across the bedside table, tooting and carrying on until it bumps into the lamp, buzzing angrily at the inconvenience. It’s barely a breath’s worth of fuss, but Chizuru flops over, brushing her fingers over the screen like touch might soothe it. Or at least, she tries-- the sleeve of her sweater’s slumped, making paws where fingers should be.

Chizuru blinks, but sleep clings stubbornly to her lashes, making the world bleary and indistinct. It takes a good rub to get them clear, wool scratching where she can’t shake away her sleeve, and--

And this is Father’s cardigan, the one she’d kept before everything went into storage. He might not be a large man, but it’s too big for her by far; she wears it around the house when she’s got a craving to be cozy, but it’s not meant for bed. Even now it’s knotted up in the blanket, toggles tangled in the crochet, tugging in places never meant to give.

Her hand hovers, a flinch away from one of those knots. “This isn’t my blanket...?”

Not the one she sleeps under, at least. No, this is a throw, one she keeps across the room on her desk chair for when the little space heater beneath it manages to serve better as a footrest. And when she moves it aside--

Oh my, those are her jeans. The same ones from yesterday, along with the worn T-shirt she changed into after Yamazaki--

“Yamazaki,” she gasps, scrambling for the phone. It takes shoving her sleeves up past her elbows, but she scoops it up, cradling it in both her palms. Oh, how she misses her tiny flip phone, even if Shinpachi called it dinosaur technology; at least then she’d been able to hold it and type at the same time. Now she just has to swipe with her thumbs, hoping it’ll rouse enough to show the home screen.

It flickers on, reluctantly informing her that it’s 10:24 am, and she has a blast email from the university, one that reminds the student body to drive safely and make good decisions over break. There’s also a text from Sen, one that starts, busy now but we can drop by after xmas 🎄, and below that--

[Susumu Yamazaki] Arrived at my parents. Hope I didn’t keep you up. Sleep well.

Chizuru groans, forehead dropping to her fists. After that whole production about him checking in, and she couldn’t even do him the favor of staying awake long enough to appreciate it.

[Me] Oh please don’t worry about me!! I fell asleep waiting 😂

It’d be silly to wait for him to reply. Her phone slips from her fingers, cradled by the crochet slung between her legs. If she was asleep before he got in, it would only make sense that he was still--

[Susumu Yamazaki] Must have been pretty tired. I only live 20min out.

[Me] You must have taken longer than that! It’s 20 min under regular driving conditions but there was all that snow

There’s a long pause, long enough that Chizuru pecks out, Right?, fingers hesitating over each letter. Her thumb’s hovering right over SEND when the phone buzzes, screen scrolling up to read:

[Suzumu Yamazaki] Almost called last night but glad I didn’t. Looks like you needed that sleep :)

[Me] Oh no don’t worry!! I wouldn’t have minded!! It would be nice to hear your voice

“Oh!” The phone jolts from her fingers, shock making even the rubber case sear. That’s what she gets for typing too fast for her brain to catch up; sure, it had sounded so nice in her head, but now that it’s out in the cold hard reality of text...

It’s too much. Like she’s trying to-- to--

Susumu Yamazaki is typing...

“Please don’t,” she moans, slapping her hands over her ears. “I didn’t mean it! I mean, I did, but not in a weird way. Ugh.”

The message disappears. No, flickers, on and off, until it finally settles back to a steady, Susumu Yamazaki is typing...

There’s no reason for him to take that long to reply, not unless he’s trying to find a polite way to say, you’re being really weird, or maybe, is there something wrong with you?

She can’t watch. Mercifully, the screen flicks off. It may not change the fact that he’s writing a scathing dissertation about her poor socialization, but at least she doesn’t have to witness it.

It does, however, display, [Hachiro] eta 30min

“Wh-what?”

Her fingers fumble across the screen, never quite managing to slide up enough to get it open, not until she picks it up in one hand and shakes. It shouldn’t work-- percussive maintenance only works on machines with cogs and springs, Saito has told her too many times to count, not computer chips-- and yet, here she sits, staring down at a string of texts timestamped twenty minutes ago.

[Hachiro] good morning chizu! mom has me out running her chores today 😒 but looks like some of them are going to take me past your place maybe if i have time i’ll swing by your place been a while since we’ve been able to hang out 😄 k all done eta 30min

“Oh,” she breathes. “But what am I going to do with Souji?”

When Chizuru had first moved in to the house, hair shorn and clothes baggy, hoping that her compression bra could do the heavy lifting when it came to masculine body shapes, the doorbell had been a stately sort of tune. Bing-bong ding-dong, the mark of a Real Adult entering their home, like Professor Hijikata, or sometimes even Dean Kondo.

Westminster chime, Shinpachi told her, with so much confidence she could only stare. What? I can know stuff. They used it at my school.

Private school. Souji tossed his hair out of his eyes. Fuckin’ prep.

Hey! Shinpachi’s a big guy, only a few inches shy of Harada and twice as wide in the shoulders. But even still, he can shrink so small, folding in on himself like a sulking child. I don’t think there’s any need for-- for hurtful language.

Harada only snorted, Rich kid.

Either way, she’d liked that one. Sure, it went on a little long, and if they got multiple packages in a day the halls started to feel a little cloister-like, as if she’d really been sent away to a nunnery the way Father used to tease. But at least when she answered the door, people looked impressed, or at least impassive.

That is not the chime that rings today, though.

“I didn’t even know they made doorbells with that,” Harada mutters from under his covers as she sprints past, tearing the towel from her head.

They don’t, Chizuru’s pretty sure, but she doesn’t have the breath to reply, or even curse Souji’s ability to turn even the most innocuous objects into landmines. No, she only has enough to manage a shrill, “I’ve got it!” before pounding down the stairs, hoping she can move quicker than Souji’s sense for chaos.

She flings open the door, wet hair stiffening in the cold, and there is Hachiro, perfect as always, a smile already dawning on his handsome face.

“Morning, Chizu.” He lifts a gloved hand, shaking the snow from his lazy curls. “It’s good to--” Hachiro blinks-- “is that ‘Through the Fire and Flames?’“

“Sorry to make you rush.” Hachiro toes off his shoes-- boots, really, by their treads, but they still look nicer than anything else on the tray-- not dripping a single drop of slush onto the floor. “You’re usually such an early riser, I never thought you’d still be...” He hesitates, clearing his throat. “...In bed.”

It’s silly to blush, but she does, ducking her head against her shoulder. “I was, um, up late last night. Not for bad reasons! Just, er, dragged my feet getting to bed.”

“It’s quiet in here today.” He steps up beside her, his elbow giving hers a playful bump. “Are we alone for once?”

“Er...no. Harada’s in bed, last I checked.” She’s not really sure he knows there’s hours before noon, but that’s not what Hachiro’s asking. “And Souji is, um...around, I’m sure. Somewhere.”

His mouth twists, but it smooths to handsomeness so quick it’s barely more than a trick of the eye. “Good thing I brought breakfast, then.”

He holds up a bag, glossy and bright and oh-so pink, the logo cute, if unfamiliar. “Mom had me go into town today, and it took me right past that new pastry place. The one that used to be Mastudaira’s?”

“Ah, that one! It’s...Meiji now?” She pushes up to her toes, peeking through the handles for a glimpse of wax paper and crackled crusts. The reality, however, leaves her disappointed; instead of vanilla cream or cinnamon custard, she just sees...cardboard. Sleek, branded cardboard with pink ribbons wrapped around it, but still, she settles back on her heels underwhelmed. “Let me go get some plates. Maybe even a knife, or um, forks?”

Hachiro’s dimple deepens, smile tugged to one side. “Hands should be fine, Chizu. They’re not that fancy.”

“Oh, er, right.” Her cheeks burn as she pads past him toward the kitchen. “Just plates then.”

She expects him to duck into the parlor; the front one is typically where guests drift toward, the TV and sectional conveying entertainment area without the undeniable frat boy aura of the back parlor’s pool table and darts. But instead, Hachiro follows her into the kitchen, settling the bag on the counter as she drags out her step stool.

The cabinets aren’t terribly high-- if she stands on tip-toe, she can even reach the lower shelf with only the smallest tweak in her shoulder. It’s just that the top one, or well, either of the middle ones--

“Do you want me to get them?” He steps up behind her, close enough that she can feel the chill rolling off his skin, even through his sweater. “I don’t mind, you know. Must have these long arms for a reason.”

“No, no,” she assure him, getting one knee up onto the marble. “I can get them. Please, take a seat. We can--” ah, is it awkward to ask if he want to go to the parlor now that they’re already here? Would that seem pointed, like she’s insinuating he did something wrong, or-- “pick wherever you’d like to sit. I’ll be down in just a moment.”

His jaw sets, the way it used to before he’d start a scrap with one of the neighborhood boys, but instead of resorting to a full nelson to get his way, Hachiro simply steps back with a sigh. “If you say so.”

I’ve been small my whole life, she nearly tells him, I think I know how to manage it by now. It’s the sort of thing nine-year-old Chizuru would have said, puffed up and proud as she pumped higher and higher on the swings. She’d broken her arm jumping off them, fighting back tears as Hachiro ran to get the teacher.

“I’ve been wanting to try this for a while,” she says instead.

He glances up, wide-eyed. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. My dad came out this way for work trips all the time, and he would tell me how delicious their specials were. Linguini and clams. Roasted quail on yam puree. All sorts of stuff.” Her smile twists, wry as she hops down, two plates in hand. “When I first came out here, I thought I could at least save up for a table at Matsudaira’s, even if it was just for myself. I was heartbroken when I saw the empty storefront.”

“I would never have guessed. When we were kids you hated that sort of thing.” His head tilts, curious, watching her beneath heavy lids as she sets the dish in front of him. “Is that something that interests you now?”

“Oh, no.” She hops up onto the stool, feet dangling from the rungs. “I just thought...I don’t know. It’s silly really. I mean, since my dad liked it, I just thought...”

Chizuru’s not good at this, the whole...talking about it thing. Her feelings are so...so vast, like looking out over prairie as the lightning comes down, or an ocean as the storm rises. She’s not like the professor, able to take these things and distill them down to their essence, plastering perfection onto the page for everyone else to consume. They don’t squeeze down into those little boxes, becoming something easy to handle, they’re just--

“It would make you feel like you’re with him.”

Her chin jerks up, meeting his patient smile. “That’s what you mean right? If you could do something he enjoyed so much, it might feel like the distance wasn’t so much.”

Warmth blooms beneath her breast, a heat that scintillates out to her limbs and back, chest squeezing tight. Even sitting there, her skin tingling, she can’t decide whether it’s a good feeling, or...something else. Something complicated.

“Yes. That.” The words leave her on a gasp, a sigh she no longer has the breath for. It’s silly to be so worked up, to care so much about not having to explain, that she sets her hands to work, glossy bag slipping against her fingers. “But then Meiji opened up, and I know it’s not the same thing, not even a little, but...”

“It’s close enough.” The bag’s top clenches shut as he puts his hand over hers, giving her a squeeze she feels down to her toes. One that stops as quickly as it starts; she barely has time to blink before he’s retreated to his side of the table, smile slanted and inscrutable. “Once he’s done with his done with his sabbatical, I’m sure your father would love to go with you.”

There’s something lodged between the muscles of her throat, brittle as a pitted stone and ragged as a sob, and she can’t trust herself to speak around it, not without risking its escape. So she nods instead, the motion doing nothing to knock it loose, only ache.

She tries to grab the boxes, flimsy little things that bend under the weight of her grip, but her fingers keep falling numbly off them, nicking her knuckles on their corners. It’s as if her hands know what to do, but her mind can’t focus on making them do it, at least not with any sort of skill.

“You’ll like what I picked, I think,” Hachiro tells her, lifting up one of the boxes with a delicacy and elegance she could only dream of. “I haven’t seen them around here before. They’re called maritozzi.”

“It...sounds fancy,” she agrees, glancing dubiously down at the package he’s placed in her palms. “It’s not...hard to eat, is it?”

His mouth quirks at a corner, and for a moment, he looks almost as roguish as he had at age ten, just minus the bruises. He’d been chubbier then, all the sweeping curves of his face softened by baby fat and his nanny’s cooking, but beneath that it’s the same bones, the same boy that had cried when a bully pushed him off the jungle gym, and then sat on him a week later when he’d tried to do it to Chizuru.

“Not at all.” His voice is different now, not deep like his father’s but full. Masculine, but pretty enough that the choir director would still compliment him if he ever went back. “They’re deceptively simple, actually.”

She braces herself, pressing at the corners until the paper hinge gives, and then-- “Oh.”

“See?” Hachiro’s too kind to laugh, but she hears the hint of one his his voice as she lifts the little bun from its box, careful to keep cream off her fingers. “Nothing to be worried about.”

There really is nothing strange about them, save that she’s never seen anything quite like them. The roll’s only the size of her palm, split down the middle and filled to the brim with black-flecked whipped cream, smoothed over until it looks natural, as if it were all one piece. “Is that real vanilla?”

His shoulder lifts, casual. “So I would assume.”

She takes a bite, or at least she tries to-- like anything with a filling, she nearly has to unhinge her jaw to keep cream from making a bid for freedom. But that first taste hits her tongue, and oh, it’s so, so good.

“So,” Hachiro hums. “Where is your father now?”

Her mouth is full-- he knows it’s full, he just saw her take a bite-- and yet he’s sitting there so mildly, as if it’s normal to hold a conversation this way, like she might not choke herself trying to swallow enough down to speak. Not that she wants to-- oh no, she needs every second plausible chewing can give her if she wants a believable answer, one that won’t make him give her that look, the one he had the morning he moved away--

“Er...” She takes one last swallow, loud enough that his eyebrows lift at the gulp. “I’m not quite sure! He moves around a lot for his research. I think...the South Pacific right now? His connection’s been iffy since he left the mainland.”

“Too bad,” he drawls, too mild to be sincere. “I take it that means he won’t be home for Christmas?”

She picks off a piece of roll, dipping it in the cream. “Ah...no. But, um, I think he’s going to call tonight!”

“That’s something.” Mr. Iba used to have a way of saying nothing so nicely it sounded like a judgement, and it’s clear that Hachiro’s inherited his gift. “Do you have anything planned for Christmas Day?”

“N-no.” It hadn’t bothered her, not really, but now that she’s said it out loud it feels...sad. Incomplete. Like watching an orphan in the first act of a holiday film, before Santa or the spirit of Christmas or whatever gets involved. “I’m just staying in, I think.”

His eyebrows lift higher. “Here?”

It’s not until she glances up, trailing an assessing eye over the kitchen’s corners, that she realizes the house is hardly festive. There’s a tree in the front parlor-- it used to be by the side of the highway, growing quite peacefully past the guardrail before Shinpachi and Heisuke had driven by a few weeks ago, pulling over and declaring it the perfect Christmas tree, and chopped it down with a set of hatchets they found under the seat of the SUV. It’s been a funny story to relay to Sen-- it’s only illegal if you get caught, she’d said, but Kiku says they’re stupid-- but when she looks at Hachiro...

Ah, well, the son of a judge may not have the same opinion about it. Nor appreciate their dubiously legal decor.

“It’ll be fun!” Chizuru says instead, forcing a smile onto her face. “Hajime left me his Netflix password, so I have all the Christmas Prince movies right at my fingertips!”

“That sounds like a pretty nice day, actually.” To her surprise, he’s sincere, smiling as he take his own bite of his bun. “Though I don’t think Saito’s going to forgive you for the damage you’ll do to his recommendeds.”

Her mouth twitches behind her napkin. “Don’t worry, he told me I could watch whatever I wanted...as long as I stay on the profile he made for me.”

A grin breaks across his lips, just as mischievous as when he used to pluck his mother’s cookies off the counter. “Oh, I see, you’ve already been quarantined.”

“I prefer to think of it as ‘special accommodations,’“ she informs him, doing a terrible job of hiding her smile. “It’s very kind he offered at all. He denies he even has an account when Souji asks.”

“Who could blame him?” Hachiro rubs his fingers, dislodging crumbs while his good humor smooths to vague distaste. “I shudder to think what might entertain that guy.”

True crime documentaries and Tarantino movies from her experience, but Chizuru doubts that will help her any. Not when his first impression of Souji had been ‘that guy looks like he pulled wings off flies for fun as a kid.’

“Anyway.” Hachiro clears his throat, arms folding stiffly behind his empty plate. How he eats so quickly, she’ll never know; she’s only three bites in and already her stomach is protesting. “I know you have you plans, but my mom wanted me to ask if you’d come over out place for dinner tomorrow. Her and dad are dying for an excuse to see you again.”

“O-oh!” Her cheeks heat, warm enough she’s sure he can see it. “Would they really--? Um...”

It’s been years since she’s seen them; the same with Hachiro until she tripped over him outside Hijikata’s class. But her memories of them, of their kitchen--

It’s like another home, one warmer and more full than her own. There had certainly been weeks where she’d been there more often than her own house. The ones where Father had to work late on his research, leaving her with leftovers-- and her too short to reach the microwave. But it had never occurred to her that she might be anything more than a suffered annoyance, yet one more mouth to feed when they had two growing boys. To be a wanted guest in a home like that...

Her mouth works, and she takes a bite of her pastry, waiting until is sits like lead in her stomach before she says, “I...I couldn’t possibly impose--”

“Of course you can.” He laughs, so easy, so careless, as if it should be obvious. “It’s hardly an imposition when you’re invited. Look, she even put you on my list! Right under dropping off the charity gifts, it says, get Chizuru--”

Her hand flicks up, deflecting the paper he pulls from his pocket. “I believe you,” she squeaks, barely able to look at it. “You don’t have to, um, show me.”

He hesitates, a smirk shoring up one side of his smile as he slips it back in. “All right. But you’ll come, won’t you? I’ll even pick you up.”

“Um...” His offer’s more than tempting, but the thought of showing up in their home empty-handed... “I don’t think--”

“If you’re worrying about gifts, don’t.”

Chizuru jolts in her seat, feet just barely catching her before she can topple out of it. How did he--?

“My mom said to say your presence is present enough. It’s corny, but she means it.” His gaze flicks to hers, too warm to hold, like cider fresh from the pot. “I think so too, if that matters.”

“Oh,” she breathes. It’s all so nice, but it’s also too much, like sticking frostbitten hands right into the fire, and she doesn’t know if she’s warming up or burning--

“You know, Iba, I can tell you hang out with Hijikata.” Souji sweeps into the kitchen like funeral shroud, leaving a pall over the kitchen with nothing more than a drawl. “You both don’t know how to take a hint. And by that I mean, the door is over there.”

“Okita,” Hachiro manages, his smile so saccharine her teeth ache. “I see you’ve decided to make another attempt at human socialization. I applaud your courage.”

When Souji grins it’s all teeth, prowling around until he stands at her shoulder. “Well, you know, I keep telling myself that no matter what I do, I’ll never sound as stupid as you striking out. And then I have all the motivation I need to keep going on.”

“We all have to find inspiration somewhere, even if it’s only from our own imagination.” Hachiro glows with a grace so serene that paintings of saints would patina with envy. “Ah, it seems I didn’t bring enough pastries for all of us. Looks like you’ll have to go figure out something else on your own.”

“It’s okay.” A long fingers reach past her shoulder, plucking the bun off her plate. There’s a soft crackle right above her ear, and oh, she doesn’t need to turn around to know where the crumbs tumbling down her shoulder come from. “I figured something out.”

“That,” Hachiro grits out, his smile finally as strained as his patience, “is for Chizuru.”

Souji’s arm dangles lazily off her shoulder, hand close enough that if he just tensed his fingers enough to curl, he’d brush below her clavicle. It’s...distracting. “She doesn’t seem to mind.”

“I think--”

“So are you actually gonna go to this loser’s house? Hang out with his parents?” Souji snorts, bending close enough for his hair to tickle over her ear. “Food poisoning sounds more fun.”

A breath hisses between Hachiro’s teeth, but still he only says, so calm, “Don’t you have somewhere else you need to be?”

Around the last of her pastry, Souji mumbles an unfortunately clear, “No.” With a swallow, he adds, “I’m having fun right now.”

“Is that so?” Hachiro’s mouth cants to a dangerous angle. “Then maybe you could--”

There is an end to this suggestion, Chizuru can see the way his mouth moves to make it, eyes glinting like a knife beneath the kitchen lights. But it’s impossible to make out what it might be, not with what sounds like a stampede coming down the back stairs.

“Hey, guys anyone seen my shir--” Harada hauls himself up short, nearly clipping his head on the top of the door. “Oh, how you doin’, Iba? Didn’t expect to see you here.”

One arm hooked over the chair back shifts Hachiro’s posture from high alert to casually confident, Souji entirely forgotten. “It was short notice. Sorry for the surprise.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” His giant hand paws at the towel slung around his shoulder, lifting it to dab at his hairline, and-- oh no, he’s not-- he’s--

“Would it kill you to keep your clothes on?” Souji grumbles, slinking from her shoulders to glare from a safe distance like a particularly hostile housecat.

The past three months had exposed her to so much bared boy flesh-- so much she’s sure Shinpachi only begrudgingly tolerates any clothes that aren’t made out of jersey or spandex-- that it’s practically the wallpaper now, utterly unnoticeable unless she’s got her nose pressed to it. But now that Harada is here, strolling through the kitchen, shirtless and dripping right in front of Hachiro, casually advertising her every day, well--

Chizuru can’t blame Souji; she’d like an excuse to slip out of this situation too.

“It might.” Harada scratches at the scar that bisects his stomach, thoughtful. “So does this mean the professor’s coming by too?”

Hachiro laughs, shaking his head, as if just gym shorts were a perfectly normal outfit for a grown man to wear in company. “No, as much as I’d like to see him today, I’m afraid it’s only me. I just stopped in to invite Chizuru to Christmas dinner.”

There’s no reason for it, not at all-- only minutes ago the offer had been as welcome a surprise as it was terrifying-- but now ever muscle stiffens, her knuckles white where they grip the countertop. As if somehow everyone knowing made it-- it--

A coy smirk hovers at the corners of his mouth, a silent tease ready to unravel her. “Oh, that sounds--” Harada glances down at where she sits, and his confusion snuffs his mischief as quick as a match-- “er...nice?”

“You mean stupid,” Souji mutters, but if Hachiro hears him, he doesn’t show it.

“I think so too.” It’s hard to resist when he smiles at her, bright and warm as the best summer day. “My parents will be so happy to see you again.”

“Oh.” Harada’s eyes widen until she can see whites around them. “That’s, uh...I didn’t realize you guys were...serious?”

Chizuru’s hands fly up, waving as if that might help dispel-- er, whatever this is. “Ah! That’s not-- we’re not together. We’re just-- we were neighbors in elementary school. I’ve explained this before...”

“O...kay,” Harada says, just as Souji adds, “See, I told you it was stupid.”

“They haven’t seen her for a long time,” Hachiro explains smoothly, making it all sound so normal, the way she never could. “That’s why they’re so excited.”

“It’s very kind of you to, um, offer, but I don’t--” Guilt’s been nibbling at her since he invited her, but now it takes huge, gulping bites, her confidence as tattered as lettuce left in the crisper. “I mean, do you really think that, er--?”

“Really collecting husbands now, aren’t you, Chizuru?” Souji snorts. “Don’t you already have one stalker that thinks you’re married to him? And now this jackoff’s taking you to meet his parents.”

Hachiro finally turns to him, flushed and out of patience. “Do you have a problem?”

“Yeah, your fa--”

“I--I’m not!” Her hands slap the counter, too loud, but it gets their attention, as little as she likes having it. “I mean, not collecting husbands. No, I mean, I’m not doing that either, but I’m also--” she takes a steeling breath-- “I’m not going. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

Hachiro’s brow knits, the skin there as furrowed as his frown below. “You don’t need to listen to him, Chizuru. There’s nothing wrong about coming over, or weird either. You’re always welcome at our house.”

“I’m not. I mean, I know, I’m not listening to him. It’s just--”

There’s a thousand things she wants to say, a hundred explanations that bloom and rot off the vine. But none of them fit, none of them are what she means. There’s no way to say, it still feels too intimate without implying I don’t want to lead you on, nor I miss my dad without also saying I’m going to waste my life waiting for a phone call.

“I’m not,” she repeats, stronger this time. “Thank you for the invitation, Hachiro, it means a lot to me. But, um, I just finished exams last night, and I’ve really been looking forward to some down time. I just don’t think I’m ready to be good company.”

“You’re always good company,” he tells her, unconvinced. “But if you’re sure...”

“We’ll take good care of her.” Harada slings an arms around her shoulders, squeezing her close enough to catch a whiff of his bodywash. “I promise, no sad Chizuru. And maybe you can stop by again after the holidays and hang. Shinpachi and Saito are gonna be sad they missed you, man.”

Hachiro spares her one last lingering look before he sighs, easing into his laid-back lounge. “Sounds like a good time. Maybe we can even get Toshi in on it...”

He might be on errand for his mom, but Hachiro hardly seems in a hurry when he makes his way to the door, the late afternoon sun already threatening to fall behind the horizon.

“You’ll call me if you change you mind?” he mutters as he zips his coat, sending her a concerned glance. “Really, I’m happy to come out and get you, Any time.”

“R-really!” She pats his shoulder, giving him her best big-girl smile. “I’ll be fine. But thank you. If I do change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.”

His gloved hand lingers on the handle for a long moment before he manages, “Merry Christmas, Chizu.”

“Ah, you too!” He’s nearly got the door shut behind him when she adds, “Tell your parents I said hello!”

It closes with a soft shunk, the cold air displaced with a huff, and she slumps, all the tension gone out of her limbs--

“Wow,” Harada snorts. “You know, I thought Shinpachi could come on a little strong, but that was a whole other weight class. You should have told me he was your ex, I wouldn’t have backed him up.”

“He’s not! He’s just...overprotective.” She’s flushed as she slips past him to the kitchen, desperate to avoid that knowing side-eye. “He used to look out for me when we were small, and then we lost touch, and now...I...I guess he feels like it’s his job to make sure I’m taken care of.”

He nods, arms folding across his chest-- a detail she can note now that he’s put on a shirt. “So he’s making up for lost time.”

It’s weird to think of it like that, like taking care of her might be something to miss, rather just a burden that’s been foisted upon him. “Ah, I...guess, yeah.”

Souji scoffs from his corner, perched up by the sink like a judgemental cat. “Making up for lost blue balls is more like it.”

Harada ignores him, stepping close to put a hand on her shoulder. “You know, if you want to do a Christmas thing, we can just do one here. It may be just the three of us--”

“Count me out.” Souji hops off his perch, clinging to the walls like he expects someone to chase him out with a broom. Or worse, try to pet him. “I don’t do lame ass Christmas stuff.”

“All right.” Harada huffs out a laugh as Souji skulks up the stairs, shaking his head. “Just the two of us then. Maybe we’ll pop some movies on TV, make some popcorn? I can even get some hot chocolate going as long as you don’t mind it coming from a packet.”

He winks, and for a moment, it sounds...so nice. To be able to sit her phone on the arm of the couch and not have to worry about whether she might miss a call, or about whether she’s interrupting by taking it. To have company while she waits, a distraction, something to make her feel less like she’s missing Christmas, and more like something new--

“Mine will be slutty, of course,” he rumbles, so close to her side he nearly looms. There’s a smile when he says it, a twinkle in his eye, and sure it’s supposed to be a joke, but-- but she’s been here long enough to know that friend tends to be a stepping stone to fuckbuddy when it comes to Harada. Not something he plans, but something he falls into; a fiction he fools himself into believing right up until his flavor of the week walks out of his room in his shirt.

Movies and cocoa sounds like the perfect evening with friends, but there’s also something...intimate about it. Two people on that couch, curled up in one corner, sharing heat under the same blanket...Harada might have the best of intentions, but she’s not convinced he knows how to hang out with a girl and not have sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, so to speak, so long as everyone is having a good time. But for Chizuru...

Chizuru can imagine it. She would lay her head on his shoulder-- or rather, somewhere in the vacinity of his shoulder-- letting his hand creep around her rib cage, thumb brushing right below the lower limits of her bra. It would shock her; she’s not the type of girl who lets boys this close, but Harada’s always felt safe, treating her more like a mascot than a woman. She’d look up, confused, and he’d look down, fond, and then he’d lean in, bending down, and down--

and down--

Ah, he’s just...too tall for her. Sen may have told her that was part of the fun when it came to being just a hair below average, but when Chizuru considers the health of his spine--

She turns her head, hiding her grimace. “No, I think I’m-- I’ll be fine on my own.”

It’s Harada’s turn to look concerned now. “Are you sure, Chizuru? It’s really no problem for me to--?”

“I’m sure,” she says, firmer, in the same tone her father used to keep inspectors from asking more questions. The last thing she needs is for him to get the idea in his head to why; your height is daunting, is not an answer she want to have to explain, nor is, and I think you’re too experienced to stop at holding hands, too.

“Don’t worry,” she says instead, reaching out to squeeze his arm. “A day by myself is just what I need. Now, what do we want for dinner?”

It’s dark by the time she gets back to her room, her bedside table the only light in the room. She pads over to it, curious, wondering just why she might have left it--

“Oh no,” she gasps, hurrying over. “My phone, I’ve left it here all day!”

Missed texts and university emails stretch across the screen, but she doesn’t spare them a glance, thumb nudging her past every icon until she’s sure-- no voicemail, no missed calls, no emails with greetings from tropical climes. It’s Christmas wherever Father is, but he hasn’t thought of her.

“He’s not up yet,” she tells herself, the sound of the words calming her when thoughts can’t. “There’s lots of time zones in the Pacific. He’s probably just in one that’s still asleep. Waiting for Santa, I bet!”

That gets her to laugh, the strange ache in her chest easing as she settles on the bed, looking through what’s she’s missed. More holiday greetings from Sen and Kimigiku it seems, filled with semi-ironic usage of stickers; a message from Hijikata telling her to take it easy over break, and not to let the boys run her ragged; blast texts from classmates she’s friendly with, impersonal maybe, but Chizuru’s happy to be thought of; and--

[Susumu Yamazaki] I could call now if you like

She blinks, stymied. “Call? Why would he...?”

With a tap the chat unfurls beneath her fingertips. The message its at the bottom of the screen, timestamp that morning, a few minutes after her own text, one that read--

“Oh!” She claps a hand to her cheek, mortified. “Oh my gosh.”

[Me] I’m so sorry!! I didn’t see this until now!! Hachiro sprung a surprise visit on me. I had to get ready quick!! 😱 Well actually I was asleep when he sent the text. 😴 So it wasn’t meant to be a surprise. But it was!! 🤣

She sighs, letting the phone drop to her lap. Yamazaki’s at home with his parents, doing...whatever families do at holidays. It’s too much to hope he’s sitting around, waiting for her text even after she let him sit for a whole day unanswered. It’d be her just deserts to wait for hours, hoping--

[Susumu Yamazaki] That would do it.

She stares, speechless, her thumbs hanging limp on the screen. “Is he really...?”

[Susumu Yamazaki] Iba hasn’t been by in a while. Did you have a good time?

[Me] It was nice to see him! 😄 His parents wanted him to invite me over for Christmas. Hachiro must have told them my dad’s on sabbatical.

[Susumu Yamazaki] Is that were you’ll be tomorrow? That was kind of them.

[Me] Ah no. It felt too weird to see them for such a big event when we haven’t seen each other for like seven years. And plus I don’t have gifts! 😂

[Susumu Yamazaki] Iba’s parents wouldn’t care about something like that. Not if they’re anything like him.

[Me] Ah I didn’t mean to imply they would!! 😧 They definitely wouldn’t!! They’re so kind!! It just...felt rude. And I wanted to wait for my dad to call. So staying in seems like the best option all around.😄

[Susumu Yamazaki] Is there something planned at the house? Never asked you guys, I guess.

[Me] Sanosuke offered to do something festive tomorrow, but Souji isn’t interested.🤭

[Susumu Yamazaki] Okita hasn’t met a positive experience he couldn’t make worse. So what are you doing with Harada?

[Me] Nothing!! 😂 Sano is super nice. He’s just also very...friendly? A little too friendly I guess. I know he didn’t mean anything by it but being alone just the two of us... You know how he is.

[Susumu Yamazaki] lol Didn’t want to tell you what to do. But he has his reputation for a reason. Will you be okay by yourself? Or is it cool to not have plans?

I’m fine!! sits in the box, ready to send, but for once, Chizuru hesitates. It’s easy to give out niceties to Harada or Hachiro-- they want to be assured she’s all right, that they don’t have to worry about her. But Yamazaki has never asked her a question he doesn’t want a real answer to. To give him some stock response...it feels like lying, even if it was to put him at ease.

[Me] A little of both if that makes sense?

There’s no delay before he replies, I don’t want to pry. Do you want to talk about it?

Her fingers squeeze tight around the case, rubber buttons biting into the fleshy bits of her knuckles. She’s not used to doing this, to admitting things aren’t always sunshine, but somehow it’s easier to press the buttons than it is to speak the words, and once she starts it pours out of her, flooding the screen.

[Me] It’s just that Christmas was a big deal with my dad. It’s weird to not do anything for it? But also no one can be my dad? So if I spent it with other people I’d feel like I’d have to prentend it’s just as good. So if I’m by myself there’s no pressure to do that. I can just let it be bad or only okay. No one has to feel like they’re not enough. But also that feels a little lonely? So I don’t know. At least this way I’m the only one who has to worry about it.

The second she finishes, a tidal wave of regret threats to pull her under, to drown her in her own words. What was she thinking, telling him all that? He can’t have possibly wanted--

[Susumu Yamzaki] If you want

Chizuru blinks, eyes fixed to the screen. It’s a mistake, she knows; only half a sentence and there’s a frantic way Susumu Yamazaki is typing keeps showing up on her screen before it disappears once again. But still, she can’t look away, not when she’s pours all her thoughts out like pus from a boil, and his first reaction isn’t, Ew.

[Susumu Yamazaki] Sorry. Cat was helping.

She’s known Yamazaki for three months, and yet that’s the most personal piece of information she’s ever heard about him. She want to ask him all about it, whether it’s male or female, if it’s a calico or a tabby or something else she’s never heard of. Siamese, maybe? She can picture him with one of those.

Her lips clamp together, trying to swallow down a wiry giggle. Yamazaki has a cat. Or at least his parents do. There’s one on him right now, weaving through his arms, trying to get attention as he types. And he’s giving it to her instead.

[Susumu Yamazaki] Anyway. If you get lonely you can call me. I certainly don’t mind that I’m not your dad.

[Me] I’d like that. As long as you don’t mind that I WILL be watching the Christmas Prince and its associated films.

[Susumu Yamazaki] We can watch them together. There’s an app. It will be a relief to have an excuse not to interact with my family for a few hours.

There’s a knot in her throat when she hesitates, slowly typing out, If you don’t mind.

[Susumu Yamazaki] Not at all. I’ve been asked a total of nine times why I’m not going into acupunture. Even the Christmas Prince will be an improvement.

[Me] Okay!! Do you mind waiting a little bit? I’m waiting for my dad to call.

[Susumu Yamazaki] Take as long as you need.

When she wakes up, it’s with a start. The bedside lamp is off-- ah, she doesn’t remember doing that-- and so it’s with her hands that she reaches out, trying to locate rubber corners through her covers.

“I can’t believe I missed it,” she gasps, ragged with frustration. “He finally calls, and I’m not even--”

The screen lights up when she lifts it, but it doesn’t show a call, oh no, but--

[😽] dont say i never get u guys ne thing 🤗

She blinks, kitty face coming into focus. “The house chat?”

[😽] merry xmas u mfs 🎄🎅 www.ujkyo.edu/news dont say i never get u guys ne thing 🤗

#yamachi #hakuouki #my fic #modern au #college au #If the Mind Is Willing #LARP AU #i thought i would be getting to the beginning of the LARP reveal with this chapte #but iba took over for a little while #and then yamazaki and chizuru were being cute #and i can't be held accountable for how these end up at 7K okay #but let me say next chapter will have more LARP reveal than you can shake a stick at #and nagakura in an ugly christmas sweater

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sadnesshotline · 1 year

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Story Simblr Ask Time! 🖋 How long have you been working on your story? What about it are you most proud of? 🖋 Bonus: Have you learned any new skills in order to tell your story?

hiii thank you for this its so fun GRAH ok let's see.. i'm gonna use this as an excuse to outline the sadnesshotline 5 year plan (more like however long it takes me) i'll do them in storyline chronological order hehe

long lost - i've been working on this since HMMM early this year february maybe earlier! it's the story i have the least info and plot for but i do have scenes written out GUH i planned to do it before i retold teoj but i'm not sure i'll ever get to teoj or the ones after if i do that

the end of january - i originally told this story in 2018 and it ended in 2019! featuring poppy as the main character and our loverboy simeon moon at the villain slash mysterious elusive love interest 😌 i am going to reboot this as i feel like i can tell it a lot better and do more justice to a bunch of things, also it was SO DARK when i did it so i might tone some stuff down DFJDHDG BUT IT'LL LOOK WAY BETTER

if you were the moon - this is simeon's story that is meant to come after teoj and i attempted to start it genuinely like 3 times but starting stories is the hardest for me AHAH but it explains like 100% of teoj and ties everything together so it's a necessity except in the first run of all these stories i never did it woops!

he who hesitates - this was originally called city of angels and i renamed it cause i hated that!! so surprise this is the new name of poppy's second gigantic life arc HEHE i've been working on this since 2020, late 2019 i finished teoj and basically started on this straight away and i honestly can't believe it's been 3 years i've been working on it and i haven't actually posted it properly except for the flop first run of it AHAH

and then for gen 2 i honestly cannot go into detail a lot bc SPOILAS but there is the butterfly effect and stage exit in the works of my silly little brain so far hehe

for the thing i'm most proud of, it's definitely the butterfly effect like if i make it that far its gonna be my magnum opus AHAHA, i'm also extremely proud of the original teoj that is my current magnum opus if i'm honest, it looks so ugly in some places and the sims are abysmal but the feeling it gives to me rereading it even now i'm so proud.. and finally if i've learned any new skills literally yes i've been formulating sims stories since i was literally 10 or 11 so i taught myself photoshop since then and stuff like posemaking and renders and all that trash

#thank you sm for this it slayed tremendously #being recognised as a story simblr even when im not like directly posting it was so nice guh #feel free to always ask me whatever xx #sadnesshotline #mailbox #chat

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thetrashsean · 3 years

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“Why wasn’t Life is Strange 2 as popular as the first game?”

A lot of people like myself have wondered what exactly made Life is Strange 2 go so relatively unnoticed compared its predecessor, Life is Strange 1. And when you think about it, you may come up with the few obvious generic answers, such as the lack of Max and Chloe and just the original cast in general. However, I think there was a lot more at play here that prevented Life is Strange 2 from reaching the amount of success/popularity the first game had. So I want to take the time and break down what exactly happened to Life is Strange 2 and the things that hurt the game’s ability to really connect with the audience of LiS1.

Disclaimer: We do NOT know how well Life is Strange 2 was for Dontnod and if it was a success or not. No sales numbers have been given out to the public so there’s no way of knowing for sure how well the game did. What we do know is that LiS2 did not receive the same amount of attention/popularity as the first game. That can’t be denied, it simply didn’t. However, based on the fact that Dontnod have recently announced they are working on six new games at the moment and are now expanding their studio, even if LiS2 was a “flop” it doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect on them (most likely due to the success of Vampyr). Dontnod is going to be fine either way. Another thing I want to mention is that this is not a anti-LiS2 post and that I am a fan of the game. I’d consider myself a pretty big fan actually. I have my problems with the game of course and don’t agree with a lot of the writing decisions but I enjoyed the game very much overall. But for the sake of this post I will try to be as unbiased as possible, giving out only what I’ve observed when it comes to reactions from the fandom on different websites and forums. So with that all being said, let’s dive in to this.

Here I will be listing the many different reasons as to why Life is Strange 2 failed to reach the same amount of popularity as LiS1 or even BtS managed to achieve. This list isn’t in any particular order but some reasons are bigger/more important than others.

For some background, there was a lot of hype going into Life is Strange 2. The teaser trailer for it with the cop car trended at #2 on YouTube, a huge feat for the series. It generated immense amount of views and comments in a short period in time, completely surpassing Before the Storm’s announcement trailer in just a few weeks. So what exactly happened to all that hype? Where did everybody go? Well, let’s break everything down.

1. The lack of Max and Chloe: Yes I said that this list wouldn’t be in any particular order in terms of importance but I think it’s obvious this one is one of, if not the biggest reason as to why LiS2 failed to match LiS1’s popularity. When the protagonists Sean and Daniel were first revealed, the reception was pretty divisive. Specifically, a very vocal part of the community were baffled and disappointed at the lack of Max and Chloe present within the trailer and subsequently the game itself. This instantly turned off a lot of people from the game, as they couldn’t connect with the new characters or simply didn’t want to. At that point in the franchise Max and Chloe as well as the original cast from the first game had been the face of the series for almost three years. It’s understandable why it was hard for people to just…move on. To this day people are still asking for Max and Chloe to return. The Life is Strange subreddit is still dominated with Max and Chloe fanart. Whenever the social media accounts for Life is Strange post anything Max and Chloe related it gets way more attention compared to a post about Sean and Daniel. Whenever a post online goes viral about Life is Strange you can bet it’s most likely about Max and Chloe. Hell the only reason why episode 5 of Life is Strange 2 trended on Tumblr was because of the fucking picture of Max and Chloe. On the releas day of episode 5 of LiS2 the top post on the subreddit was the Max and Chloe picture. It was almost as if that one photo of them completely overshadowed the entire episode. Point is, Life is Strange 2 lost a lot of momentum the moment it was revealed Max and Chloe would not be present. Case closed, let’s move on.

2. The release schedule: Words cannot describe how frustrating the release schedule was for LiS2 when it came to it’s episodes. For those reading this who didn’t follow LiS2 until the game was finished, each episode took around 3-4 months to be released. This was because Dontnod bit off a bit more than they could chew with the road trip story in having to create new locations and character models from scratch. The reason why this wasn’t a problem for LiS1 was because Max was for the most part always in the same locations around the same characters (I’m pretty sure you roam around Chloe’s house like 4 times throughout the season), which made development a lot easier since the devs could just reuse a lot of the assets. Unfortunately, this wasn’t possible for LiS2 due to the nature of it’s story. The wait times between each episode made a lot of people leave the fandom due to loosing interest or simply forgetting about the game altogether. This also impacted youtubers/streamers as many of them either stopped coming back to play the new episodes or they’d not be as connected as they were in the previous episode due to the amount of time that had passed. One of the reasons why LiS1 gained so much popularity was because of youtubers/streamers and how they would bring in their audience and would pretty much make them fans of the series. With quite a handful of youtubers/streamers quitting LiS2, the game was not able to draw in as much of an audience as previous games did. This is how detreminetal the release schedule was for LiS2.

3. The marketing (or lack thereof): Square Enix really fucked up on this aspect. Due to the ridiculous wait times you would think Square Enix would try and advertise the game heavily when a new episode was about to be released, right? Well they didn’t. Not at all actually. Throughout the games release schedule from September 2018 up to December 2019, I had not seen a single ad for the game. Nothing on YouTube, nothing on reddit or any other websites, it was like Square Enix had completely forgotten about the game’s existence. Now don’t get me wrong, SE did do a few things with LiS2 like starting up the community series on their YouTube channel and also the dev updates that came after episode 1 (that stopped after episode 2 for some reason) but these went relatively unnoticed to people outside of the fandom and did pretty much nothing. I believe SE was trying to wait until the game was fully complete with all of it’s episodes released before actually marketing the game (and they DID start advertising the game after episode 5 came out) but that’s just WAAAY too long to go without any type of advertisement. I understand marketing teams have budgets and what not, but you’re telling me there was no way for SE to market each episode in anyway as they were about to be released? Seems a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?

4. The road trip story: I completely understand why Dontnod wanted to branch out and do something different with the story of Life is Strange 2 and I respect them for stepping out of their comfort zones. However, it can’t be denied that the road trip story where characters are cycled in and out as Sean and Daniel make their way to Mexico was a very…questionable decision. Seeing as how LiS1 was loved for it’s world filled with a reoccurring cast of characters that developed as the story went on, it’s really easy to understand why LiS2 was so off-putting for a lot of fans. It was off-putting for me, even. It just…wasn’t fun having to leave these truly interesting characters behind because the plot demanded it. This left a lot of characters feeling underdeveloped to many people and by the time you meet new characters you already know they’re most likely gonna be gone soon anyways, so it made it even harder to connect with them. Couple this with the fact that LiS2 lacked any type of mystery unlike LiS1, speculation and discussion fizzled out a few weeks after each episode was released. LiS1 kept people speculating and wondering about what would happen next, while LiS2 left a lot of people struggling to care.

5. Politics: Yeeeeaaaaah I think I had to put this somewhere on the list. While many of the people who tease and mock how LiS2 handled its political topics were most likely not fans of the series anyway (the type of people who called LiS1 “Life is Tumblr” and hate Chloe), I do think it’s important to realize that some people just don’t want politics in their games, period. I’ve seen people online come out and say that while they agreed with what the writers were saying when it came to the political topics, it overall still came off very forced and one-sided to them, lacking any type of nuance or subtlety. I could write an entire essay discussing if the politics in LiS2 were handled well and whatnot but this is not that post so I’ll just leave it at that.

6: Lack of a prominent female cast/wlw: This is a bit more tricky to talk about (for the record the person writing this is a black gay guy) but I will try and write about this the best way I can. For many women, specifically queer women, Life is Strange was a series they could expect representation from. Max, Chloe, Rachel, and Steph are all popular characters amongst the fandom and even other wlw ships such as Marshfield, Chasefield, Chaseprice, etc are popular. So when LiS2 was revealed to be about two (hispanic) males, the queer women within the community were understandably upset. It felt like DN were simply throwing away the community that for the most part made up the entire fandom. At the time I simply found the situation ridiculous and overblown as many people were dismissing Sean and Daniel as “generic straight males” (even though it turned out Sean was bisexual in the end) before really getting to know them. However, looking back I totally get why people were upset. A lot of the fanart/fanfiction that was made for the LiS series was mostly created by queer women, so when the franchise pretty much stopped giving them representation, they left in search of other media (like She-Ra, which honestly has better wlw rep anyway). LiS2 is also mostly male dominated in terms of its cast, and features no queer women as well, which is really disappointing in my opinion.

7. Price: This one is pretty simple. When Life is Strange 2 was first released the full season costed $40. This was a pretty big jump in comparison to LiS1’s $20 price tag (original price was $25 however) and BtS’s $16. Obviously people would be more skeptical about buying a sequel that is pretty much double the price of its predecessor and has completely new characters. With the pretty mixed reception from gaming communities I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people saw the price and decided to either watch a playthrough or simply not check out the game at all. With the first episode now free the base price has been lowered to around $30-32 I believe so yeah.

8. Daniel Diaz: Some people just don’t like kids, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people grew easily frustrated with Daniel early on and once he got more irrational and bratty as the story progressed they just stopped playing altogether. Even if you do like kids, or at least don’t mind them like myself, Daniel can still be quite a pain.

9. Not having control of the powers: This one is honestly really disappointing and I know it was to a lot of other people as well. In LiS1 Max had the ability to rewind time and do certain scenarios and conversations over and that basically acted as the more interesting gameplay segments. In LiS2 Sean doesn’t have the power, his brother Daniel does. This leads to the gameplay feeling much more boring and mundane. There are also no interesting puzzles this time around, most likely because Dontnod didn’t know how to implement them without the rewind power so they just…didn’t even attempt to add any. The power itself, telekinesis, is also much less interesting compared to rewinding time, according to a lot of people.

SO YEAH that’s basically it for me. I know this probably came off a bit rambly/incoherent but I tried my best to be as clear as I possibly could. I don’t doubt there are other reasons at play as to why LiS2 failed to meet LiS1’s success (such as liscensed music not being quite as good as LiS1) but I think I hit the main points I believe were key reasons. And the thing is, there isn’t just one main reason why LiS2 didn’t do as well as LiS1. It’s overall very unfortunate so many things went wrong with it that ended up making people lose interest in it. I think the lack of Max and Chloe hurt the game the most right off the bat, but the other reasons just led it to do even worse. Oh well.

I hope any of the people who read this enjoyed it (it was a BITCH to write). I’ve been wanting to get my thoughts down about this for SO long but just never had the motivation/time but I finally did it!

Again, thanks for reading! If you have any disagreements or just thoughts in general don’t be afraid to reply or dm me about it and I’ll be sure to reply! Now back to reblogging Marco posts….

#lis2 #lis #life is strange #life is strange 2 #max caulfield #chloe price #sean diaz #daniel diaz #lis2 spoilers #pricefield #amberprice

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sunflowereveryday · 3 years

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NCT Hollywood

TL:DR: I’m neutral about this new potential sub-unit.

I’m pretty sure a lot of Kpop fans read the news about SM x MGM to create a survival programme to debut NCT Hollywood. I know some of you guys want to burn SM because of that. On the other hand, we’re in the age of globalisation. SM creating a US-based group was going to happen regardless. Honestly, you just have to view NCT like the Avengers, they all have their own stories but when the time is right, they will join forces. Although I’m just a casual listener, seeing NCT grow as a brand is rather interesting and it was really cool to see how NCT 2020 connected the dots between 127, Dream and WayV. Don’t you think it will be interesting to see how SM will market their Japanese unit and USA unit? 127 is literally a Seoul based group whereas, Dream is living in a dreamland and, WayV are time/space travelers.

NCT Hollywood, I think it’s probably connected to their Youtube post, when they were scouting for new trainees. This new show is still in discussion and I doubt it’s going to take place within this year. By the time NCT Hollywood debut, some of the current member’s contracts would probably have expired or some of members would have already enlisted. SM mentioned at start of 2020, SM will debut another boy group by end of 2020, don’t worry about Shotaro and Sungchan. Let’s be honest, NCT Hollywood doesn’t mean NCT or SM will spoon feed them success. They would still need to fight for their success. Similarly when WayV debuted, was WayV spoon fed their success from 127 and Dream? No. They still had to appear on shows, host concerts and fanmeetings to get to where they are at. Sure SM can improve their management with WayV but 1) COVID is still around and 2) I personally don’t think putting them on a Korean TV show would be suitable since they are not K-pop group and the general Korean public are most likely not interested in a Chinese group. Furthermore, the fact that a Korean drama got cancelled due to using Chinese props. Do you think the general public in Korea will be open minded enough to watch a TV show with a Chinese group guest on it? Also, let’s not forget that Kick Back sold 200k+ albums (and trended on various digital platforms) with almost zero promotions during COVID - Not many groups can achieve such sales before COVID.

As a fan from 2nd gen, I do want to highlight the hypocrisy I see within the K-pop fandom. Whenever SM announce a new group, there will always be disagreements and repeating the same narrative ‘SM doesn’t need a new group, they need to focus on xx’ When Red Velvet debuted, fans said SM needs to focus on f(x), when NCT debuted, fans said SM needs to focus on EXO and when Aepsa debuted, fans said SM better not forget Red Velvet. The same narrative is being repeated years after years. Now NCT Hollywood was announced, they haven’t even finalised the line up or finish any form of training, some of you act as if they’re going to drop a debut single next month. Some of you say that SM needs to focus on their current groups, however when WayV debuted, did anyone hate that idea? No, instead we just wanted to see Kun, Lucas and Ten leave SM’s trainee basement. When SM obviously hinted NCT Japan line, did anyone hate that idea? No, we just want to see Shotaro and Sungchan debut in a fix unit. So why is it with NCT Hollywood, you all want SM to only focus on NCT’s current sub-unit and stop their expansion now? WayV debuted 3 years after NCT 127 and Dream, NCT 127 just began touring and Dream went on radio and TV shows here and there, 127 and Dream’s popularity was starting to pick up around 2018-2019 however, we still wanted to see SM debut WayV. And with the current Japan line, I’m sure many of you are still anticipating this sub-unit. So I do think it’s unfair to gun down NCT Hollywood, a sub-unit that’s in works and have yet to debut.

I’m not trying to defend SM’s business decisions or tactics but wanting to suggest another perspective. Because at the end of day, we don’t work for SM, I don’t think it’s fair to always blame everything on SM’s management team. However, please do take this post with a grain of salt. I just staying neutral since 1) I don’t work for SM, 2) how SM runs their business is not something for me to be concerned about and 3) I don’t blame SM for wanting to explore to different markets. You can’t always stay within your comfort zone, from time to to time, you have to challenge yourself.

Lee Soo Man World Domination Fantasy & Politics

I know people are always laughing at Lee Soo Man’s world domination views. But I don’t get what’s there to laugh about. Yes USA is big but I doubt he wants to dominate the entire music industry in USA. He just wants to create a realm where he can generate profit from. If you want to earn more money, you have to source it from other countries. Whilst I understand SM is a small cooperation compared to other global companies but what’s wrong with a small company trying to make it big? I don’t think it’s wrong for Lee Soo Man for wanting to expand their market and push themselves into different regions and territories. As a business, you have to take risk in order to grow. If NCT Hollywood fails, then tough luck. Better luck next time.

In addition, I always wanted to point this out. Why do people always laugh at SM trying to break into the US market? If you see US’s market as an unbreakable and untouchable market, don’t you think this is somehow succumbing to the notion of ‘white supremacy?’ Western companies constantly profit from Asian countries but when Asian countries wants to enter the Western market, it’s automatically viewed as a ‘flop’ or ‘embarrassing.’ I don’t see anyone stopping Sephora from opening stores across China. I don’t see anyone laughing when Pixie Lott made her Japanese debut (Dancing on my own ft GD&TOP). And I don’t see anyone judging Little Mix for collaborating with a J-pop group (Flower). So why is it especially funny that SM wants to debut a USA group? Alternatively, if it’s not succumbing to ‘white supremacy’, don’t you think it’s reiterating idea of ‘white fragility’? To be honest, no one is Asia loses their mind when a Western brands enters the Asian market. - On the contrary, this could be due to the normalisation of Western countries self-inserting themselves into Asia, aka colonisation...- But when an Asian brand approaches the Western market, some of you guys tend to lose your mind and try to protect and reserve the Western market. Are you scared that SM will take over the USA music industry, leaving people jobless? Are you trying to reserve the USA market for white owned companies? Globalisation isn’t about opening McDonald and KFC stores around the world, learning English and making people conform to Western standards and lifestyle. It’s having the world connected despite the geographical distance.

I understand that K-pop fans who listen to K-pop is for its East-Asian aesthetics. On the other hand, there are many people out there who aren’t interested in East-Asian culture and don’t listen to K-pop. For example, when SM debuted WayV, it was to create Chinese pop music for the Chinese market since not everyone in China listens to K-pop. Same goes for NCT Hollywood, it’s SM’s strategy to create pop music for the mass USA market than target a niche audience. I personally do think pop culture in general can easily be adapted and localised. So don’t think of it as LSM destroying K-pop, it’s not like he’s disbanding all his groups for this one USA group. But hey, if everything goes well, this could be an opportunity for some of you to work for SM and fulfill that fantasy of working with Kpop idols. In all honesty, this could be a good social experiment of trying to bridge the cultural differences between the West and the East.

The only thing that bugs me is the survival show, I personally don’t like watching shows where I see a group of aspiring youths completing for one position.

Not gonna lie, I do find the word ‘Hollywood’ extremely cringe worthy.

#mypost #sm #nct #nct hollywood

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nakamina · 5 years

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How similar are Hanyu Yuzuru and Katsuki Yuri? - The Never Ending Debate

Hi all,

Nakamina here again with a long blog post. Now before ya’ll get triggered from this title please read the following.

So about a year ago I made a Yuzu fan video (which you can find below) and I have received many comments since comparing him to Yuri from the anime ‘Yuri!!! on ICE’ (YOI) which is a figure skating themed anime that aired in the fall of 2016.

The kind of comments being:

“Yuzu is the real Yuri!“ (<- pretty much got about 10+ of these)

“He is the inspiration of Yuri”

“He looks so much like Yuri”

“He reminds me of Yuri”

“Yuzuru Hanyu and Javier Fernandes look like Yuri and Viktor!”

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Now, this is really no surprise since I used the anime’s opening song ‘History Maker’ for this video, although the video itself really does not make any reference to the anime. But it got me thinking…how similar/different are they actually??

DISCLAIMER: I would just like to say that this comparison is purely for fun and I am not here to put down Yuzuru Hanyu nor YOI. I became a fan of Yuzu long before YOI came out and I am also a massive anime otaku. So obviously, I support both fandoms and am not here to discredit one or the other. I thought this would be something interesting since so many people point it out and I genuinely want to nut out their differences and similarities in a neutral and unbiased manner for once, since this topic seems to only ever bring in a cat fight between the figure skating fandom and anime fandom… Let’s change that!

Yuzuru Hanyu vs Katsuki Yuri

SIMILARITIES

Race and Cultural Background

I guess this is an inevitable similarity since they come from the same country and culture. Yes, they are both Japanese and have black hair, black eyes, wears glasses…etc the list goes on. I mean Yuzu probably also likes Katsu-don too (maybe). These similarities are applicable to most Japanese men really, and hence why I think this is the main aspect that a lot of people tend to focus and highlight on.

Idolising a Russian Skater

What a lot of the people also point are the two’s idolisation towards a Russian skater. This is also no surprise. When I first saw YOI I too thought that this was very reminiscent of Yuzu’s idolisation towards Evgeni Plushenko. They both grew up watching their Russian idols on TV and consider them as their ultimate inspiration. Yuzu also has formed quite a friendly relationship with Plushenko since, and has even gone far as to use one of his iconic pieces for his 2018-2019 free program - ‘Tribute to Nijinsky’. Much like how Yuri skates to Viktor’s choice of music and choreography, and wears one of his previous costumes for his short program in the anime.

Hometown Support

This is probably a less obvious one but in YOI there is a decent sense of “Jimoto ai” - hometown love. There are a number of scenes where it depicts the support Yuri receives from his home town. As many would know Yuzu also receives a lot of support from his hometown in Sendai/Miyagi, and Yuzu himself has also raised many funds for the recovery from the 2011 earthquake. They are both from different prefectures, but their love for their hometown are quite alike.

Relationship with Family

With all that being said, I think the most noteworthy thing the two have in common is their family bond. Yuri is shown to have a strong relationship with his family, and from what I know Yuzu also does with his family, notably his mother. Family & love is a reoccurring theme in YOI. Yuri’s quote from ep 4: “...my family never treated me like a weakling. They all had faith that I’d keep growing as a person, and they never stepped over the line.”. Yuzu has also stated in an interview after his second Olympic win that the people he feels the most gratitude towards is his family, for their unconditional support throughout his whole skating career. I personally think this is the most significant alikeness between the two that a lot of people seem to undermine. Yuri’s family has unconditionally loved and believed in him (as quoted from the anime), which I think is very similar to that of Yuzu’s relationship with his family.

DIFFERENCES

Track Record

In terms of track record, the two are quite different. Yes, the two are Japan National Champions but when speaking at an international level the differences are apparent. Yuri is more of a late bloomer as a competitive skater while Yuzu is very much an early bloomer. Yuri first medalled at the GPF at age 24 (Re YOI ep12), whereas Yuzu first medalled at the GPF at the age of 17. Also, Yuri first qualified for the GPF at age 23 (Re YOI ep1) while Yuzu first qualified for the GPF at age 16. By the age of 23 Yuzu has also won numerous other international titles such as 2x World Championship golds, 4x GPF golds and 2x Olympic golds. So there are some stark differences in terms of their career progression. Now I know the Olympics and Worlds were not mentioned in the anime; however, judging from the whole tone of the anime and what was heard from Yuri’s monologues, the likelihood of him winning one of these titles in the past is very low. Although I would say Yuri winning the 4CC (Four Continents Championships) is a possibility.

Side note: Actually looking into their track records has made me realise how rapid and incredible Yuzu’s achievements were… no wonder he is called a living legend. Yuri’s track record by all means is very impressive as well, as it is a lot more than what most figure skaters can ever achieve in their life time.

Personality

Another major difference is their personality. Yes, they are both very competitive and hate to lose, but from what I have seen Yuri easily gets anxious and lacks confidence. We can see that from the way he desperately avoids to even listen to the other performances in episode 7 in order to calm his nerves. Of course this gradually changes in Yuri, and we see that he learns to handle the pressure better in competitions. As for Yuzu, he lives off pressure and gets motivated the more his competitors do well. Yuzu has stated that his “ideal” way of winning is for him to defeat the other competitors when they are are at their best.

Skating skills/style

Yuzu, at this point in time, can jump the quad salchow, quad toe-loop, quad loop & quad lutz. Yuri is able to do the quad salchow, quad toe loop and…the quad flip, which just happens to be the one quadruple jump (excluding the axel) that Yuzu cannot do. Interesting aye?

Also, Yuzu is very much an all rounded skater, and has been for the majority of his senior career. He is well renowned for possessing great artistry and technical skills that are on par with each other. Whereas Yuri’s strength leans more towards the components/artistic side of skating (Refer to YOI ep 4). Yuri is very expressive in the way that he performs and interprets music quite well, but he has the tendency to flop when it comes to his jumps. However, this too gradually changes following Viktor’s coaching as he starts to polish up Yuri’s skills in other areas too.

New York Times Article on Yuzuru Hanyu:

Body Type, Physical Condition

Yuri, in the anime, is very susceptible to binge eat and gains weight easily. His love for food, especially Katsu-don, is clearly depicted in the anime, and it’s apparent that the act of eating brings him joy. Yuzu on the other hand really has no interest in eating, and suffers from the total opposite concern of being unable to gain weight.

Another stark difference is their stamina. Yuri’s stamina has always been one of his strengths; whereas Yuzu suffers from asthma and has struggled with stamina especially during his early senior years.

Final Verdict/Thoughts

So I think we can see that Yuzu and Yuri are somewhat similar in terms of race, background and upbringing, but are quite different in terms of personality, skating skills/style and track record.

I like to actually think that bits of Yuzu’s traits are shown through not just Yuri but multiple characters in YOI. He has the charisma of Viktor, drive of Yurio and love/affection of Yuri. Just like how we see bits of Yuzu in lot of these characters, the character of Yuri was inspired by various iconic skaters; noteworthy ones being Machida Tatsuki and Takahashi Daisuke.

Many people worked hard to create this anime, just like how Yuzu has worked his butt off to get to where he is now. I think it is okay for people to compare the two, just as long as you respect and acknowledge the fact that Yuri is his own character and Yuzu is his own person. I think it is great that a lot of people found out about Yuzu and Figure Skating through this anime. I’m also sure that there are people who got into YOI as they were initially part of the figure skating fandom or were Yuzu fans (like myself!).

I sincerely hope people have not been offended by this blog. I tried being objective as possible. Adios until my next post!

#hanyu yuzuru #viktor nikiforov #yuzuru hanyu #yuzu #anime #yuuri katsuki #yoi #yuri on ice #yuuri on ice #figure skating #ice skating #hanyu #katsuki yuuri #羽生結弦 #勝生勇利

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hayesit · 4 years

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matt’s 2019 year in review

here it is! and it’s late because i had other/better things to do (and procrastinating), was recovering from hangovers (also procrastinating), and recovering from being sick (procrastinating).

i’ve been doing these year in review posts since 2016, so here is my fourth installment. every year i look back through my google calendar, my camera roll, and my bullet journal as a gratitude exercise and to chart my own development as an adult.

here is my spotify wrapped 2019!

the beginning of this year was off to a good start: i met two friends that i know through the internet! i met my friend riley when she visited boston (i met her through a mutual friend and through overwatch league twitter) and my friend jimmy that i’ve known for…. 6 or 7 years (?!) through tumblr and designed the logo for me and alex’s late podcast, hardly tea, may she rest in peace.

i moved dorm rooms in between the fall and spring semester, and once again i was not happy with where i lived. i lived with 4 rando’s that i was placed with and the 5 of us barely even talked with each other. my direct roommate i saw for only two weeks, and for the nights he slept over in the bed (that he was paying room and board for) and had the worst snoring humanly possible that not even earplugs could kill (video below). i hardly slept while he was there and roamed the halls of riverview suites like a ghost due to the anxiety i felt about my lack of sleep (we love a vicious circle)! he disappeared after those two weeks without notice and i lived in fear of him returning for the rest of the semester (which he didn’t), but returned to my normal sleep schedule.

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that semester was my first semester of full-time grad school. i got a poor grade on an assignment that had a note from the professor that said she knew i could do better and it hit me how much different grad school is from undergrad and how much more effort and dedication it requires. after crying in my professor’s office, my work ethic has improved since then, but it’s not anywhere near where i’d like it to be (more on that later).

now to more positive things for the spring semester: i met some friends that semester both ~on and offline~ that made the semester far more bearable AND i did however truly pop off in every last one of my powerpoint presentations for class. i looooove making powerpoints and just fuckin telling jokes about my research topic and have ppl tell me that they are looking forward to my presentation & that i should teach college classes :)!

me and 4 friends had a social group in which we’d drink and play board games and forget about the board game and drunkenly talk shit called cabam after all our first initials! i always looked forward to that and dug the group chemistry a lot.

during this semester i grew a “ beard “, otherwise known as i chose not to shave just to “ see what would happen “ (praythatitfilledin). sorry about that!

the overwatch league was something that i had to look forward to watch every week and i had my experience enhanced through sideshow and avast’s unofficial companion streams, which guaranteed lots of laughs. i have bought tickets to two boston home games in 2020 which i am very excited about! analysts have predicted boston to be in 20th place this year (there are 20 teams) but i’m still excited for the 2020 season anyway!!

i can’t have a year-in-review of 2019 without mentioning game of thrones. due to the show’s final season being undeniably weak, i enjoyed the camaraderie with the other people that watched thrones during those six weeks. i haven’t thought about the show or its universe for quite a while, unfortunately. i truly was quite into the world of westeros, but the weakness of the end of the story cheapened the journey of each of the characters, in a way. such a shame.

while i got my diploma in december 2018, i walked across the stage of umass lowell’s tsongas arena with my bachelor of arts in psychology (and minor in theatre arts). it wasn’t as emotional or triumphant of an experience and just felt weird, considering i had already gotten my diploma and was going to remain in the clutches of rowdy the riverhawk as i am staying for my masters degree in applied behavior analysis/autism studies. i brought a ceramic monkey to graduation. it didn’t have any symbolism, but i just wanted to see if they’d stop me (which they didn’t)

this summer was better than most summers of mine go, i hung out with alex nearly every weekend, got my very first iphone, and got a data plan. the combination of these three things got me back into playing pokemon go, an unexpectedly fun pastime! went on lots of walks!

my favorite day of summer was going to a lake with alex and our friend gianna, who i grew closer to after meeting her during macbeth last year. fond 2019 memories with gianna include: doing simulation patients with her, watching movies with her and alex, and the halloween party. what a great gd person and a great gd friend! big fan and eternally rooting for her.

fire emblem: three houses came out on the switch in august and is, without a doubt, my game of the year. there’s truly so much to love about the game: the world, the characters, new changes made to the series, things that were gone but returned, interesting micromanaging, and best of all, how huge my brain feels when playing it.

i got a 6-week summer job as a paraprofessional at an extended-school-year program for children with developmental disabilities at a preschool in haverhill which taught me a lot of lessons, such as: i hate cleaning shit off of children.

then i had feelings that didn’t make much sense for about a month! whoops!

my full-time job i currently have is working at my old high school as a behavior specialist. i provide consultation and work on programs to lead to more appropriate behavior in students, primarily ones with developmental disabilities. so far it’s been fairly rewarding, some days are more challenging than others, some days are a lot of sitting in meetings, and some days are a lot of running around. some days there is not much to do at all, which has its obvious upsides and downsides. working at the high school isn’t something that i want to do forever, but it’s a good place to start with. i’m definitely learning a lot and there are a lot of benefits to working here. sometimes i can work on my grad school work (which is all online until the 2020 summer semester) which is definitely huge. and my commute is either a 15 minute walk or 3 minutes if my mom drives me!

a ~complex~ thing about working in my hometown is that it makes the most financial sense to live at home because it’s so close to work. this is my first time living at home full-time since high school and i’m not enjoying that part too much. most weekends i visit alex in lowell, but being stuck at home with no car (going to retake the license test in the spring when the ice melts!) and having to go to bed so early definitely hurts. sure, i have what is likely the lowest amount of expenses i’ll ever have in my life (no car-related payments, no rent, no groceries), but i feel landlocked. i feel like a teenager with minimal freedom, which is in part because my mom doesn’t quite understand yet that i’m a 22 year-old that should have a lot more freedom than i do now. the most i really do on weekdays after work gets out (2:30p) is go to savers with my mom if it’s tuesday (senior citizen day), maybe go for a walk if it’s nice out (which for most of the school year, it isn’t), or be on the computer watching bon appetit videos and playing overwatch, fire emblem, or pokemon, eat a bland dinner at 6, go to bed at around 9:30. sad! truly not a situation that i want to be trapped in that much that much longer!

i think the best and most important part of this year was becoming closer with alex. as i mentioned before, we see each other most weekends, to our great benefit. our living situations have flip-flopped, with me living at home and alex living in an apartment near campus, which in both similar and different ways have taken their respective tolls on us. having each other while going through changes and stagnations in our lives has been immeasurably important. thank you alex for providing a place to be myself other than my own head. thank you for being my best friend.

now i come to the thing that i’m most excited about for 2020. not 2 suck my own horn but i have cobbled together a fuckin dream team of five friends (me, alex, chris, kelly, and molly). the two times we have all gotten together it has been so satisfying in such a wonderful and otherworldly way that i am filled to the brim of happiness being around them. the craziest thing is that i met chris and kelly through twitter! TWITTER. and they’re real-ass people and my real-ass friends! i haven’t been so pleased with something in my life like this for so long and it feels so good to have adult friends that i have chosen rather than friends by circumstance. it’s truly a crime that we can’t see each other more often, but we already have a day picked out for the next time we all do something together. feeling emotional writing this paragraph bc i love me gd friends so much!

there is a lot of uncertainty about this new year for me. i sure as fuck don’t want to live at home more than i have to but don’t know where to go, my practicum class starts for me this summer which means i’ll most likely have to change jobs (fine by me, but will be exhausting), i recently began my search for therapists and hope to find one soon to help me ~unpack things~, my thesis begins in the fall semester and i don’t know what to do for it, and i’m not 100% dead-set on working in special education. it’s been hard transitioning from living on campus and going to school full-time to the life i have now.

#year in review #personal

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hatari-translations · 5 years

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Have you watched Eurovision before this year? If you have, what is your favorite Icelandic contestant besides Hatari?

Anon, there is not a child in Iceland who does not pay attention to Eurovision. There are disgruntled adults who hate it, of course, but kids? You will be so left out at school if you don’t follow Eurovision. Even the disgruntled adults have to live with the entirety of Icelandic society revolving around Eurovision while it’s on. There is, at a good approximation, no such thing as an Icelander who just hasn’t watched Eurovision before. :P

I’m generally more of a rock sort of person and don’t take Eurovision very seriously, but I can appreciate a solid melody pretty much wherever it is to be found. The first Eurovision that I remember at all (very vaguely, I fell asleep) was in 1997, but I pretty much only heard Iceland’s entry that one time and only remembered a tiny bit of it. 1998 we didn’t participate, but 1999, the first time I actually paid attention while we took part, was Selma with All Out of Luck, which was a pretty catchy song and got second place and it was very exciting for my nine-year-old self and we were all very annoyed with Sweden for winning with a much worse, very annoying song (in our extremely unbiased opinion, of course).

As a relatively uncritical kid hearing the songs a lot, I went on to like basically all our entries up through 2005. I could still today sing at least the chorus of all of them, even 2004′s Heaven which was a ballad that nobody liked or remembered. I remember distinctly that at the time I liked 2005′s If I Had Your Love more than All Out of Luck and was pretty baffled when it didn’t qualify, but today I don’t like it as much (the opening is great, the main part of it is a bit generic).

In 2006, we sent satirical Ali G-esque horrifically obnoxious troll character Silvía Nótt, played by Ágústa Eva Erlendsdóttir, and I loved it. Her song cheerfully featured lyrics such as “Congratulations, Iceland, that I was born here”, “I’m Silvía Nótt and you’re rooting for me” and “I know I’ll win the fucking final, all the other songs have lost” (using “fokkins”, as in an actual derivative of English ‘fucking’, in Eurovision), ridiculous gratuitous English, and the act delightfully mocked the sexualized presentation of Eurovision songs and featured surly sunglasses-and-suits-wearing backup dancers who dramatically pull off their pants at the climax and it’s like the best thing I’ve ever seen. Buuuuuut the English translation of the song and the actual presentation in Eurovision was kind of disappointing and a lot less funny than the Icelandic version, and also literally nobody in Europe seemed to actually pick up on the bit where she was a satirical character and just took her to be an actual horrifically obnoxious diva, so that was kind of a big flop. (I linked the Icelandic final above.)

In the years after that I started to pay less attention to Eurovision, although I have usually watched the actual contest. I think I may have missed 2012, 2015 and 2016 entirely, because I don’t remember those entries at allllll. I enjoyed 2007 and 2013 and still remembered them, though they don’t stand out as special favorites. (I like that 2013 was actually performed in Icelandic! We’ve been straight English ever since they first allowed singing in not-your-official-language, except for 2013 and now 2019.) Is It True? from 2009 was a song that I genuinely really liked, though, and it was fun to see it get second place. Unpopularly, I haaaaated the 2008 entry, This Is My Life, which was quite popular in Iceland and by some of our biggest Eurovision enthusiasts and everyone was convinced it was going to win. Somehow this song is just anti-catchy to me. Like, I heard it at least twenty times on the radio each time not realizing it was the Eurovision song because I didn’t actually recognize it until the chorus went “This is my life”, and promptly went on to entirely forget about every part of it other than that singular line every time. I just listened to it again and still just didn’t really recognize it at all, apart from the feeling of instant annoyance. The entire country was so outraged when we didn’t get through the semifinals but I felt very vindicated. I also loathed Paper in 2017, for similar reasons. Rooting against your country is fun!

Like a lot of people, I strongly preferred the quirky, adorkable, catchy Hvað með það? over the entry we actually sent in 2018.

But then, of course, there was Hatari, and it was very honestly the hardest I’ve ever rooted for Iceland.

I can’t not mention a couple from before my day, though. Probably the most enduring song Iceland ever sent to Eurovision is Nína, from 1991. It’s a genuine classic in Iceland, everyone knows it and can sing along, and I think it’s a really good song with a very catchy and satisfying melody. But also, I am firm in my opinion that our first ever Eurovision entry, Gleðibankinn from 1986, is genuinely pretty great. When I heard it for the very first time as a kid I was like “Oh, I love this actually, this is better than the song we’re sending now, why don’t we send this every year” and I still just think it’s super catchy and well constructed. I could’ve sung this entire song to you after hearing it twice, extremely unlike most of our later entries. Like, it’s one of those rare songs where the main verse is just as catchy and memorable as the chorus (I actually like it better)! My impression is it’s generally regarded as just the nostalgic endearingly 80s first effort, and nobody else seems to think it’s 100% genuinely one of the best songs we ever sent to Eurovision, so I guess I’m just weird, but I guess I will take on the burden of being Tumblr’s #1 Gleðibankinn stan.

#eurovision #asks #asks: iceland #long post #I'm sorry anon I didn't mean to write you a Ph.D. thesis #I hope some of you enjoy this anyway #Anonymous

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petersshirts · 5 years

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New Years Eve | tom holland

pairing: tom holland x reader

summary: you have a big night out planned on new years eve, but when you get sick, your roommate decides to have a little party, just the two of you

warnings: none

words: 2,2 k of coughs, hidden feelings and kisses

A/N: Since this is the last day of 2018, I wanted to post a little fluff for you guys to make you smile and end this year with a good thought! If you’re already in 2019, I wish you a happy new year and to the once who are still in 2018, I hope you will celebrate with your loved ones and have a wonderful start into 2019! I love you all a lot and I’m so happy that you like my stuff and I would love some feedback! xx

„Hey Y/N, do you know where my…?“ Tom walked into your bedroom to hopefully get your help for his search for his tie, but when he saw your form covered in blankets, he stopped. You slowly opened your eyes at his voice, trying to find out what time it was. Tom furrowed his brows and walked even closer, noticing that you were really pale and sweat was rolling down your forehead.

„Are you okay?“ Tom mumbled worried, not really understanding what was going on. For the last few days, you had been completely fine, but at this moment, you looked really sick. Worry started to cloud his mind and he sat down on the side of the bed and stroked your hand to get your attention.

„Hm, I don’t feel so good.“ you groaned, your throat hurting by talking only a few words. Your head was aching from the pain and you were shivering, indicating that you were getting a fever. „Oh Boo,“ Tom mumbled, pushing all his questions in the back of his mind, pouting up to you. You managed to send him a small smile but when you remembered that you had big plans for tonight, a frown replaced the grin.

Tom had talked about this night for the last two weeks and you knew how much this meant to your roommate. It was New Years’ Eve and Tom got an invitation to a fancy dinner from the Russo brothers with a big After Party to celebrate the New Year. He had asked you to be his plus one and you had happily agreed, knowing how much this meant to him. And for the last two weeks, he didn’t stop talking about this night. A lot of the Avengers cast was also attending and Tom was so excited for you to meet them all.

But now here you were, on the one day you couldn’t be sick, and you felt like you couldn’t even get out of the bed. You were so tired and just wanted to go back to your dreams and sleep the sickness away. And avoid Toms’ sad eyes that watched you curiously.

„Can I get you anything? Maybe a camomile tea and some painkillers?“ You just nodded and smiled at him, not knowing how you deserved such a nice best friend. Tom just nodded and left the room on the mission to find everything that could help you feel better. When he came back, with a huge tray with a mug, some chocolate and tablets, the tension as thick in the room. Both of you knew that you needed to talk about tonight, but you just didn’t want to take all his happiness away.

He watched you while you took the painkillers and sipped on your tea, trying to find the right words. „So, you don’t think you can go tonight, do you?“ His words were quiet, scared that you would think he would be angry that you couldn’t go. You frowned and looked at him, a tear threatening to fall. „I’m sorry, T.“ you croaked, „I’m too sick for going out but you will have a nice time without me, I hope Anthony and Sebastian won’t hit you too hard.“ Tom let out a laugh but shook his head, not ready for those two men to tease him all night long.

He had never thought about going to this alone - he wanted you by his side, smiling and shaking hands and talk easily to strangers you had only seen on the tv screen. Tom had always been the more shy one and with you, it always seemed so easy with you. But when you were not going, what would he do? Just stand in a corner and wait till the night was over? And who would he hug at midnight? For the last few years, there had always been you by his side when you counted down the seconds to the new year. And without you, it was just not the right start. Especially because he kinda planned to kiss you at 0:00, but he obviously couldn’t do that now.

„I’m staying here with you.“ The words left his mouth before his mind could process what he was doing. But he knew that it was right; he would much rather spend this night in bed with you than alone in a fancy restaurant with people he liked but just wasn’t that close to. Your eyes widened, clueless why he didn’t want to go to the event he had been talking about for two weeks. This was his work, his life and you were just his sick roommate.

„No, no! You wanted to go so badly to this, please don’t stay at home because of me!“ Tom grinned and shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t even feel sad that he was staying here with you. You were a much better company, sick or not.

„I wanted to go because I was going with you. And without you, everything is just boring,“ he mumbled shyly, showing a bit more of what he was feeling. His heart was beating quicker when you looked into his eye, trying to find out what he was trying to tell you. But Tom just smiled and stood up. „I’m gonna text Robert and tell him that we’re not coming. And after that, do you wanna watch Spider-Man?“ He sent you a cheeky grin and you just shook your head, used to him always wanting to watch his own movie.

Since it was only the afternoon, the two of you watched a few movies in your bed and ordered take-out. Tom completely forgot about the planned evening and the upcoming new year; if you were by his side, he didn’t care about anything else. But sometimes he wished, that you could be more than best friends and roommates. He was just way too scared of rejection to say anything. All he did was stare at you when you were not looking, admiring you doing literally anything.

But being here for you at this moment was enough. Caring for you and making noodle soup always got him that smile of yours and with that, he felt content. As long as you were happy while not feeling your best, he was happy too.

At 9 pm, when another movie ended, Tom watched you trying to keep your eyes open. He chuckled, causing you to look up at him with furrowed eyebrows.

„What is it?“ you mumbled and pouted. Tom shook his head, trying to get it out of his head how much he wanted to kiss you. „Do you think that you can make it till midnight?“ You rolled your eyes, hating his teasing. „Yes of course!“ Tom laughed again, not sure if you would really make it. But it didn’t seem that important anymore.

Everyone always talked about how the new year would bring something better. But if Tom was honest, he had everything he wanted. He had a job he loved, awesome friends, and most importantly, he had you as his roommate and best friend. yes, he hoped that there would maybe be more between you in the next year, but he didn’t feel desperate. As long as you smiled at him and teased him like always, he was fine.

You fell asleep at 11 pm. Tom just grinned but didn’t dare to wake you up. The fever was still there and you were exhausted; he didn’t want to be the one to get you out of your sleep just to watch some fireworks out of the window and wish yourself a new year.

But when it came close to midnight, it felt a bit weird to Tom. He could hear the people outside on the street, getting the firework and the champagne ready while he was just sitting in your bed, watching another episode of Brooklyn-99. You were sleeping peacefully so he got up and walked to the living room to watch the firework from the window not to disturb you. he could wish himself a happy new year, that was something, right?

While he waited for the clock to strike 12, a weird feeling settled in his stomach. He didn’t regret not going to the dinner, but he also didn’t feel completely happy, all alone while you were sleeping. It was sad - he was 23, in the blooming year of his life and in the biggest night of the year where everyone celebrated, old and young, he was all alone in front of his window, waiting for the fireworks of other people.

Suddenly, fireworks started to erupt in the sky, indicating that the new year had begun. Tom just watched the colours in awe, feeling like a small kid again. But he was interrupted when he heard shuffling behind him and a small „Happy New Year, Tom.“

Tom turned around to see you slowly walk towards him covered in a big fluffy blanket. Your eyes looked tired but you smiled nonetheless. When you stood in front of him, Tom pulled you in a tight hug, despite your protest of getting him sick. Your scent was so familiar to him and he closed his eyes, wishing he could stay like this forever.

„I told you I could stay up.“ you grinned at him when Tom pulled back. His eyes wandered to your lips for a moment but he quickly averted his eyes back to yours, just smiling at your words. He hooked an arm around your shoulder and turned you towards the window so you could also watch the fireworks. The both of you just stood there for a few minutes, completely silent and just dwelling in your own thoughts.

„Thank you for staying here with me, T.“ you spoke up after a few minutes. You gazed up to him and smiled, trying to show him how much it meant to you. „No problem. I bet that the Pizza was way better than the five-course-dinner.“ You knew that he was just teasing you, but a guilty feeling settled in your stomach. You knew that you couldn’t change anything about your sickness, but you would have loved to meet all the people Tom worked with. And you also loved seeing him so happy.

You nudged his shoulder and just watched him, the slope of his nose, the way his curly strands of hair flopped on his forehead. He was so beautiful you sometimes wondered why there was still no girl by his side. But you also weren’t so sure what you would do if there was another girl in this apartment, taking your Tom away from you.

You had never really thought about your feelings for Tom, even though your heart fluttered every time you saw him. But he was your best friend and roommate - it would be very awkward if you would admit your feelings to him. It would end in big chaos, leaving the two of you as strangers.

The two of you had moved closer in the past minutes without realising, eyes fixated on each other. The thoughts of pushing your feelings away completely vanished and the need to kiss him grew bigger. And suddenly, his lips were on yours.

Tom moaned at the contact and softly pulled you closer. Your arms wandered to his neck and your lips moved softly, nothing too fiery, but wonderful. it felt like really coming home - like there had always been something right in front of you that you just couldn’t grasp. And now it was finally right in front of you.

You pulled back after a few seconds, realising that you were still sick and you had most likely infected him now too. „You’re gonna get sick,“ you mumbled hesitantly, even though you wished you could feel those lips on yours all over again.

Toms’ heart was beating out of his chest, not believing that he had finally kissed you. And when he saw that small smile on yours, he knew that you had liked it too. That maybe you liked him too?

„Hm, I don’t care,“ he mumbled back and with that, he kissed you again, trying to put all his feelings in that one kiss to show you that there was much more coming for the two of you in 2019.

Please let me know what you think!!

Permanent Taglist and my lovely mutuals:

@smexylemony // @ive-got-more-wit // @lou-la-lou // @loxbbg // @seanna313 // @underoos-shield // @hollandfieldblurbs // @supernatural-strangerthings-1980 // @ixchel-9275 // @thejourneyneverendsx // @sideeffectsofyou // @teenwolfbitches2 // @mywinterwolf // @alex--awesome--22 // @wronglanemendes // @keithseabrook27 // @tomshufflepuff // @peterpumpkinparker // @underoos-shield // @mr-delmar // @twilightparker // @h-osterfield // @revengingbarnes // @moonkissedtom // @curlytoms // @holland-peters // @fratboievans // @rainbow-marvel // @spiderrrling // @buckysbeardliness // @hollandroos

#TOM #tom holland #actors #tom stanley holland #tom holland imagines #tom holland imagine #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #petersshirts

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gilbertbeilshit · 5 years

Text

Supplemental Information: HaKokhav HaBa L’Tumblrvizion 2019

Howdy fellas. This is just a (more) casual post regarding the points breakdown and some of my thoughts on the songs and how things went for my @tmblrvision national final.

The Breakdown

Here is the link to the spreadsheet where I kept a running tab of the points. As it’s already been said, 20 votes were cast, and the winner changed by the last 6 votes or so. Carakukly actually was solidly in the lead by 20 points or so until several votes came in giving A-WA top points and Carakukly less.

Stephane Legar was the only act to not receive a single 12 points, but he managed to earn 3rd place by earning 5 10 points and being in the top 4 of 13 votes. Sarit Hadad and Offer Nissim earned 6 10 points, the most of any act, but only avoided the bottom 4 10 times, dropping their average.

The most controversial acts were Static and Ben El, and Nathan Goshen. Both earned 4 12 points, the most behind A-WA’s 5, but Nathan Goshen earned 4 1 points, while Static and Ben El earned 5. However, Nathan Goshen was more consistently middling with the votes, while Static and Ben El often were either in the top 3 or 2 or the bottom 3 or 2, ending up in their tie.

Elai Botner and Aviv Alush were the only act to not make it to the 100 point mark, mainly due to the fact that they were in the bottom 4 of a whopping 15 votes. IMRI, who finished 7th, was in a similar position by coming bottom 4 with 10 votes, albeit he started strong.

My Thoughts

Here is my personal ranking and opinions:

12: Static and Ben El - Gumigam: I have been obsessed with this song since I first heard it driving around Tel Aviv in an Uber. I listen to it all the time, I force Molly to listen to it all the time when we’re driving, I’m out here like גומיגם שוקובו מה קרה. It just slaps, y’all. I’m kinda disappointed it didn’t do very well, but it’s definitely one of those “you either love it or hate it on the first listen” kind of songs. I was like “wtf is this” when I first heard it, but fortunately I decided to shazam it and now here I am, a Static and Ben El clown.

10: Stephane Legar - Comme ci Comme ça: I was so shocked when I first heard this, I thought he was French. I found this on a top Israeli songs of 2018 (that aren’t Netta’s or Omer Adam’s) article and I looked him up. Yep, he’s born and raised Israeli to Togolese parents, which explains why he speaks French fluently. That aside, the song is incredibly catchy and fun, and I’m glad it made it to 3rd.

8: A-WA - Mudbira: A deserved winner. I was worried this wasn’t going to do well for the reasons people give for not liking Pali się or Samo Shampioni, and it was controversial to an extent. However, it goes to show that I know nothing about what folks like or will vote for. Fun fact: I was originally torn between Mudbira and Hana Mash Hu al Yaman, but ended up going for Mudbira because I thought more people would like it.

6: Carakukly - Catching (Oy Oy Oy): I first heard this sitting in an Uber on the way back from one of the semis while we were in Tel Aviv. It was the first song I shazamed while I was there specifically to build this national final, and it’s a good thing I did. It’s very catchy, modern, and enjoyable; it’s no wonder it was winning for a good minute there.

4: Elai Botner and Aviv Alush - The closest to you: I quite like this song; it’s a fun sort of summer beach time-road trip rock. I found it on the same article that I found Comme ci Comme ça. I’m kinda sad it came last, but not surprised, and something has to come last (I’m just glad it wasn’t Gumigam lol).

3: IMRI - Imrico: I’m glad IMRI’s back out there making music, and Imrico is a fun lil tune if I do say so myself. It’s nice, but I don’t feel strongly enough about it to put it any higher, unfortunately.

2: Sarit Hadad x Offer Nissim - SHUFUNI: It’s pretty good and it has a cool kinda sound to it, but my issue with Imrico also applies here: I don’t like it more than the other songs to put it above them. I can see why others like it though.

1: Nathan Goshen - I miss you: Like I said about The closest to you, something has to come last. I miss you isn’t bad or boring by any means, but I personally find it the least interesting of the 8 songs. I was surprised to see how many 12 points it received, but again, what do I know about what people will go for?

Extra Credits

Before signups, I had 11 songs in my Israeli national final playlist, but I thought 11 was too many since I prefer less to more. Rather than cut songs myself, I asked three individuals, who will remain anonymous (unless they would like to make their involvement public), to sift through my playlist and pick 3 songs to delete and then explain why those 3. After considering their inputs, I ended up cutting these 3 songs:

Dennis Lloyd - GFY

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Amir ve Ben - Loop

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and... Netta - Nana Banana

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Why?

GFY: 2 of the 3 recommended cutting it because they believed it would be unpopular with the audience or that it didn’t really work for them. 1 of them straight up hated it.

Loop: 2 of the 3 recommended cutting it simply because it was boring.

Nana Banana: 2 of the 3 recommended cutting it because they were concerned that it would take the national final by storm and blow everything out of the water because it’s Netta and then flop in the contest, because it’s Netta, she won last year, you have 2 former ESC artists why aren’t you more creative in choosing artists, etc. This was different from the first 2 because, rather than it would be unlikable, it would be controversial and would ultimately work against itself.

I ended up agreeing to cut these songs because 1) 2 of 3 people agreed that each song in question should be cut, which I found compelling, 2) I thought their reasons were sound, and 3) I was more willing to cut these songs than any of the 8 I have now.

Songs that were recommended to be cut, but ultimately stayed:

Elai Botner and Aviv Alush - The closest to you

IMRI - Imrico

A-WA - Mudbira (lol)

Do you think it was a good call to cut these songs? Would you have preferred they stayed in? Would you have cut any songs at all, replaced some or all of the cut songs with 1, 2, or 3 of the songs that stayed in, or cut more songs in general?

That’s all I have for now, if you want to DM me on Discord to talk more about this, feel free.

#tumblrvision 2019

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borisbubbles · 5 years

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2010s Eurovision: 380-376

380. Lighthouse X - “Soldiers of love” Denmark 2016

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No words shall be wasted on this empty, offensively generic song. There’s another “Soldiers of love” out there. Watch that one instead, because it’s infinitely better than this one.

379. Cascada - “Glorious” Germany 2013

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I’m surprised Cascada don’t rank lower for me because I used to VISCERALLY hate “Glorious” since release for being a shameless “Euphoria” Rip-off, while also possessing NONE of the traits that made Euphoria great (artistry, emotional tension, avant garde beat, excellent choreography, universal hit potential). Even after all those years, “Glorious” is still terrible! Horrible live voice, hollow melody, uninspired act, Germany’s fetish for Mediocre White Women at its finest! EVACUATE THE FUCKING DANCEFLOOR.

Having said that, I mostly hated the Cascada fans though, who accused EMMELIE of copying “Euphoria” (oh the fuckin’ IRONY) and since they’ve since dumped Natalie Hurler in Whateverstan after she flopped, so is it time for me to put her at the spot of my ranking where I retire my pet hates once I’m done raining hellfire and brimstone on them. 🤗

378. Demy - “This is love” Greece 2017

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[2017 Review Here]

Oh look, it’s another of my pet hates!!! In this case though, there is SOME silver lining in that *the entrie 2017 cast* in Kyiv hated Demy for no apparent reason and it’s so hilarious. Remember this?

It even spread to mainland Greece where her entire career just DIED after Eurovision lmfao <3 However, all that drama makes her song easier to stomach because Jesus fuck this just a rearranged “Glorious” with a lot of Uncanny Valleyness blended into the mix (Demy looks like a BratZ doll to me?). Stop trivializing romance and compassion through cheap-ass songs, dammit!

PS: I would advise against ever pausing the live performance, at any point through the song. It will give you night terrors. Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!

377. Jessica Mauboy - “We got love” Australia 2018

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[2018 Review Here]

Oh dear what to even add about Jessica specifically here, since her flaws I’ve already explained in other entries: Basic Bitch song, generic forgettable hollow message about ~love&peace~, complete failure at getting it across because the Aussie delegation *forgot* to cue in their own entrant on what the plan was, uninspired Sabotage Baptiste staging, etc. There’s nothing NEW to write here and that’s probably why the entire Jessican’t Maubore experience sucks: She just repeats the many inaccuracies and BorisBubbles pet peeves of those who came before her. Get this bland wench OFF my screen!

376. Tamta - “Replay” Cyprus 2019

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GOD SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THIS. I actually made a tally (lol) and it’s too long to recap here, but I count about ~35 different individual items that SUCK. I’ll stick to the most poignant ones (while shoehorning as many of the small ones) the most important of which is of course FUEGO CLONE!! Actually lol, I wish “Replay” were even remotely like “Fuego”. It is very transparent in its intentions to capitalize on Eleni’s success, yes, but “Replay” sounds like a Margaret discography track, which is even WORSE *and* shamelessly rips off MARUV styling and staging concept *and* then proceeds to meander through the motions with manufactured sexual tension without any satisfying climax or end. For a song called “Replay” it has zero replay value.

Poignant flaw #2 is the story told here. Now, I’m all about Tamtararam getting it if she’s tired of being lonely, especially since she’s old enough in Tamta years to be a grandmother/shitsing her body, but not a single woman is happy with being called at 2 am in the fucking morning for some casual hankypanky unless she’s either a sex worker or a vampire. The styling (wet hair look, Pennywise-like make-up, VA-JEWELLERY) further accentuates the general, female-objectifying slutpop vibe being emulated here. Poignant flaw #3 is... well the Sabotage Baptiste. CALLED it that Luca was her protégé this year and she would pass off the most unimaginative staging ideas to Tamta. The Broken White + Lavender colour scheme made "Replay” look like a frozen yoghurt commercial and ALL of the uninspired ‘special effects’ were predictable seconds before they happened. Most of them were also seizure-inducing. Por ejemplo, ¿qué es eso?

(BACKROLLS??? -- Alyssa Edwards -- BorisBubbles) This entry was BAD and it should feel BAD.

#Eurovision #Eurovision Song Contest #Denmark #Germany #Greece #Australia #Cyprus #Lighthouse X #Soldiers of love #Cascada #Glorious #Demy #This is love #Jessica Mauboy #We Got Love #Tamta #Replay

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thefirstcourtesan · 5 years

Note

The quality has really changed though. There are more books out now that are completely garbage than it was when they first started.

There are also a lot more books. They are releasing a new series every month right now.

2018 had PM, BB, VoS, AME, D&D, AtV, HSS:CA, BSC, ILB, TE, ACoR, and TH:M

For me there is a mix of books in my top ten, in my bottom ten and in the middle (meh). Pretty decent mix. 3 I loved, 3 I liked but did not loved, 2 I hated and 4 I was indifferent too.

AtV was the only obvious flop here though I think a couple of others did not do well financially.

So far 2019 has RoD, OH, PTR, WT, NB, Platinum, Sunkissed, BP

Again, a mix, 2 I loved/love, 2 I really like and then the rest were ok. I didn’t hate any of them though (thoguh PTR was boring).

PtR was pretty bad and again there are a few series that seem to have not made as much money as they should have.

So it’s comparable to last year and going further than that is harder because there used to be mroe sequels and now they are releasing more and more new series. But looking at it this way, they seem to be on par content wise.

But is also subjective because with the exception of very few books, people aren’t going to agree what is good or not (and even the most hated books have people who love them and the most popular books have people who hate them). Every member of this fandom is going to have their own list of best and worst books.

#ask #long post

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blurhawaii · 5 years

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Yuletide 2019

dear yuletide writer,

hello and happy yuletide! this is my fifth year taking part and my longest letter yet so i’m just going to jump right in. the suggestions are guidelines. if you’ve got a great idea, go for it. i only ask that you steer clear of my dislikes.

feel free to go through my tumblr for each of these fandoms. i should have tags for them, tho your mileage may vary. i might even have more stuff on my side blog: here. likes:

dysfunctional relationships eg. codependency, messed up father/son dynamics, enemies to lovers, power imbalances.

found family

big loyalty kink. love it when trust is earned and kept.

praise kink

vulnerability in men

open and honest communication between partners

i love ot3s. it’s the journey of them getting together and making it work that interests me the most. or how an established pair goes about bringing in a third person.

stories set in canon. or a divergence of canon.

dark/bleak fics. don’t be afraid to drag characters through the mud. happy endings are welcome but i like the struggle.

i’m fine with anything from gen to porn but would be happiest with something in the middle. i love first times.

canon typical violence is fine and to be expected from some of my choices of fandoms.

detective stories/film noir

magical realism/cosmic horror. weird hints of it in an otherwise normal universe

redemption arcs

characters and relationships are more important than plot for me

dislikes:

AUs that are completely disconnected from canon e.g. coffee shop AUs.

established relationships

crossovers

genderbending

feminisation of male characters

fics that are entirely fluff

A/B/O fics

PWP

mpreg

scat/watersports

first person fics (i have no problem with second person fics tho if you think that could work. they really wow me when done well.)

The Departed (2006) *Billy Costigan *Sean Dignam

one of my favourite films ever. i request it every year so you can't really go wrong with this as i am thirsty for anything. most of my love is for dignam and his tough love attitude towards his job and the undercovers he's responsible for. it's obvious he cares, i don't think you could do a job like that and not care, but those rare and few moments when he softens around billy --we need you, pal-- that's what i would like to see more of. i have written a couple of departed fics myself, centred around costigan/dignam, but in all honesty, i would be happy with anything involving them both. shipping is preferred but whatever you are comfortable with is fine. due to the nature of the film, i am perfectly comfortable with violence and the screwed up relationship they are bound to have. the friction born of the situation vs the fact that they need each other to get through this is what i am all about.

codependency, power imbalances and enemies to lovers tropes are abound here.

fics where billy lives are my usual go-to. the survivability of being shot in the head, that kind of stuff can be hand waved away in fic, and i'd love something that explores the angst of billy's ‘where the hell were you when i needed you’ reaction towards dignam following that ending.

or a canon divergence fic with their totally antagonistic relationship being front and centre. i just ask that there be an underlying level of affection, no matter how buried. when billy is undercover, there’s a special kind of relationship that comes with dignam and queenan being the only people he can talk to.

something i’ve never seen for this but would actually love: a time loop/groundhog day fic

Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)

*Sarah Harding *Ian Malcolm *Nick Van Owen

i originally wasn’t going to ask for this again this year (i was lucky enough to get treated with a fic a couple of years ago) but then someone other than myself nominated nick van owen which surprised and delighted me and i figured why the hell not.

my passion here is the ot3 potential. i view these three in the same way i view the trio in the first film, meaning i see them as three people who have bonded over a traumatic experience and come out of it forever linked in some way. they spend the entire film looking out for each other and keeping each other safe, and they all separately take care of ian’s daughter at one point and i am fascinated by this and how that could continue in the future. (in fact, i love stories where adults treat kids like adults, not talking down to them–see any shane black film.) i’m looking for an actual relationship between them but would be happy with anything that showcased a connection with every side of this triangle.

anything post-film with them dealing or not dealing with what happened would be amazing. there are quite a few fics based around this idea for the first film’s trio, i’d love to see something like that for these three. (i’ve always been kind of bitter about the way nick just disappears for the last act but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that’s what fics are for, i guess.)

i don’t like the jurassic world films but i’m fine with fics that take that future into account. a lot of the trauma for these characters comes from the idea that the parks still exist and continue to fuck people up.

Godless (TV 2017)

*Roy Goode *Bill McNue *Alice Fletcher

i’m a massive fan of westerns. the harsh way of life, the violence, the isolation, drawn out revenge plots, the murkiness of good vs evil or sheriff vs anti-hero, the importance of honour and heroism and how that differs for men and women, especially in this universe with its town full of widows. having said all that, i’m still very much a sucker for cool cowboys in a shallow female way.

as you’ve probably already gathered my favourite thing is turning every love triangle into an ot3. so i’d love a fic post canon where roy comes back after realising found family is just as important as real family despite frank’s influence. i imagine bill would try to do the gentlemanly/self depreciating thing of bowing out and letting roy and alice be together but i’d love for alice to actually get a say in this where she wasn’t allowed in the show. however you jigsaw them together my main thing is that bill doesn’t get left out.

i feel the roy/bill aspect in particular could be explored a lot more. i love that they don’t hate each on sight. they learn mutual respect and then smoothly move around each other during the gunfight at the end. (bill’s deteriorating eyesight side plot also fascinates me, how it goes with his loss of purpose -”losing his shadow”- and comes back when teaming up with roy to defend the town. maybe there’s a fic possibility where it flares up again due to his insecurity of roy coming between him and alice. either way, the hints of magical realism here and with frank’s repeated insistence that he’s seen his death and this ain’t it are great and i wouldn’t mind seeing more of that.)

the usual ideas of western masculinity get all twisted around when roy and bill are in the presence of alice and they both seem kind of subby towards her, which yes please. the way alice kisses the scar she gave roy and the fact that he simply lets her is *chef kiss* because i also love the parallel that bill got shot in the hip trying to get revenge for alice. they all have scars that tie them together.

i’m actually very okay with letting them be soft with each other after all of their tragedy.

honest communication between partners could work wonders here.

Barry (TV 2018)

*Barry Berkman *Monroe Fuches

i expected to like this show. dark comedy, depressed hitman, henry winkler, it’s a perfect combination of things. i didn’t expect to get obsessed with barry’s obvious fucked up father-figure hangups. but hey ho, i was pleasantly surprised.

pretty much every one of barry’s relationships in this show has an element of fucked-upness but the barry/fuches one is by far the worst. it’s codependent, it’s manipulative, it’s a little abusive, the power is constantly flip-flopping and most importantly there’s the father/son dynamic that could so easily tip over into something sexual. it’s everything i love. any time fuches calls barry “his boy” it kills me. and i am fascinated by the way barry can go from needy and touch starved to a rampaging killer hunting fuches down by the end and still have that dynamic going strong.

the parallels between them and the barry/gene cousineau relationship, which is fucked up too just in a very different way, are great. love the jealousy it brings and i would even be into a fic set post the season 2 ending, if you could find a way to swing that. though, while i like a little darkness, i would still rather see them fall back into old unhealthy habits than kill each other.

any kind of prequel fic would be amazing too.

and just to be clear i’m more than okay with a sexual relationship between these two but if you don’t want to write it that’s fine. I’d just like all the other aspects of their shitty relationship delved into.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

*Bud White *Ed Exley

pretty much all of my bullet pointed likes come into play here. i’ve nominated two characters but i’d be happy with almost any combination of the characters available in the tagset as long as exley is involved in some way.

ships i like: bud/exley, exley/vincennes, bud/exley/lynn

but if we matched purely on both bud and exley then:

i love the opposites attract partnership bud and exley have and i like that they both seem angry at their attraction to each other. hate-sex with reluctant feelings? always good. i'd love anything that deals with their perceived difference in intellect and/or education. bud being turned-on by exley's smarts, exley realizing how much he's underestimated bud, them being mutually impressed by each other.

if you choose to go down the ot3 route then:

i love fics where exley shows up in arizona and they fall into weird domesticity. i love seeing how three people--especially three people who aren't used to the idea of poly relationships--work their way towards realizing and accepting what they want.

and while i’m not sure what you could do with this knowledge, i’d just like to add that i’ve read the book and i’m somewhat obsessed with the existence of dream-a-dreamland in general. if you could incorporate that in any way i’d be hugely impressed.

POKEMON Detective Pikachu (2019)

*Harry Goodman *Hide Yoshida

this is totally a last minute request that i’ve edited in but is by no means less wanted than the others. i watched this film back when it came out and was honestly surprised by how much i enjoyed it. i’m a massive pokemon fan and have been since i got my pokemon red when i was seven years old and, let me tell you, getting to see all those growlithes waddling about the real world was like a childhood dream come true.

i had a good time and i moved on.

a few days ago i stumbled on a piece of art : here : and it was like the little goblin that is my brain just sat up straight. the very concept of these characters together had never crossed my mind before that but then suddenly the desire for this just casually strolled through my entire headspace, turning on every light as it went.

i love detective stories, i love cop partnerships, i love hot single dads who happen to be cops with cute little pokemon cop partners. i love that harry is kind of a shitty father but he’s now trying his best. i love that hide had nothing but praise and respect for harry when he meets with tim and that he knew things like tim wanting to be a pokemon trainer when he was younger (meaning he and harry had talked about stuff like this.) i love that hide inexplicably has a spare key to harry’s apartment in his desk drawer. i love how absolutely certain hide was in saying harry loved his son more than anything in the world.

there’s history there is what i’m saying, and i’d love to know more about it.

anything set pre-film would be cool. loose cannon harry throwing his whole being into his job to deal with the loss of his wife and his fractured relationship with his son. hide the tired lieutenant trying to rein him in, quietly talking about tim together, keeping him grounded and safe. all up until he can’t, that is. (great angst potential with hide genuinely believing harry is dead.)

anything set post-film would be even better. harry struggling to find balance between being a father and a cop. probably doing a shitty job at it in the beginning. hide trying to help. would love for tim to be an actual presence (outsider POV could be amazing here.)

may sound strange but my favourite thing that used to happen in digimon a lot is when characters would interact with each other digimon partner. i would be massively into a fic about the two of them growing closer through each other’s pokemon partner.

thank you writer and best of luck.

#yuletide #yuletide 2019

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eurosong · 5 years

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Undo my ESC - 2019, SF1

Hello there, folks, and welcome to the first part of Undo my ESC, where I take a look at the field this year and, for each country, make a feasible change – as small as, for example, minor tinkerings with the staging, or as big as a different song completely winning a national final. It’s all light-hearted and just my opinion, of course. Allons-y... Cyprus: We start off completely in the deep end. I loathe “Fuego”, and this repackaged Fue2.0 is no better and is indeed perhaps worse to me given that I hate desperate attempts to catch lightning in the same jar. I also find Tamta a very unsympathetic character. I don’t know what I’d do to improve this, other than replace the internal selection with a national final with some songs actually in Greek and with local character. Montenegro: Things do not improve... but at least the solution is easier! Montenegro had a decent national final in which literally any other song would have been a better choice. I particularly liked “Nevinost”, and so did the unfortunately out-voted expert jury, so would be tempted to give D mol’s ticket to Tel Aviv to its artist, Ivana Popović, instead. I do find D mol to be sweet kids though, so the other part of me would be sad to rob them of their time in the limelight and would instead have taken the 90s throwback and bizarre random background sound elements out of their song, replaced the score with one that emphasised the traditional musical elements, and kept the lyrics in Montenegrin.

Finland: Three strikes and I am almost out. I really struggle with the new UMK format – I understand the logic behind it, just as I did when it was a thing in the UK in the early 90s, but I think it only really works if an artist has a wide-ranging repertoire. If not, then you end up with 3 samey songs that only appeal to people who like the music styles that artist makes. I’m not an EDM fan and I would have taken the relative flop of Saara Aalto last year as indication to return to a multi-artist UMK. Plenty of artists from previous years who could be worth a spot in one such.

Poland: I was disappointed by the disappearance of Poland’s national final, but I can’t say I was too surprised after a few underperforming years. I have to commend the Polish broadcasters for going for something popular within their own country, without being overly preöccupied as to how it would play outwith their borders. Pali się is one of those entries that I don’t like much but which I respect. My changes would be to remove the pointless English intro and outro, which, if one were not paying attention, one might not notice actually being in English. I’d also try to make the song a little less linear, as the song feels mostly confined to one pace.

Slovenia: Finally, we come to a country where I can change next to nothing. Many people I know were disappointed that “Kaos” was not elected as the Slovenes’ song. Whilst I found it an earworm, I really didn’t like her haughty, “I’m only in EMA to promote my new disc” attitude – and I really preferred the delectable, contemplative and intimate “Sebi.” It’s pure elegance in simplicity, and I wouldn’t need to change a thing.

Czechia: I appreciate the Czechs’ creätive way of bypassing the expenses of a traditional national final – whilst still giving fans a choice – by holding their selection online. Really cute this year was the way they tried to equalise differences in funding by making the candidates’ official video be a low-budget affair filmed in their flats. I liked quite a few songs of their selection, with the eventual winner, “Friend of a friend”, middle of my rankings. I would, of course, opt for my #1 of the NF to win instead, the delightful slice of “Bohemiana del Rey” style that was “True Colours.”

Hungary: Hungary’s A Dal has the cachet to attract a number of returning artists, so it was not surprising that, eventually, it would be won by someone who’d triumphed before – and I’m delighted it was Joci Papái, one of the biggest revelations of the Hungarian NFs for me. Yet, as is often the case with folk coming back to take a second bite of the cherry, the sophomore effort comes short of the first – “Az én apám” is lovely, touching, but lacks the bite and edge that “Origo” had. I might have JP come second and hopefully return for a second victory in 2020/1 with something a bit stronger, and send in his place the soaring but melancholic “Madár, repülj”.

Belarus: Life is too short to do some things, and whilst I try to listen to pretty much every national final song, one of the things life is too short for is intensively following the Belarusian national finals with their hundred-odd auditions. I saw a few, though, and they were a rum lot. Musically, Aura’s touching “Čaravala” was probably the best of those I heard – but was also strangely won over by the unpretentious, fun ode to tubers that was “Potato, aka Buľba” and depending on my mood, I might give it the nod either.

Serbia: Beovizija had a great lineüp yet again, and there were a number of songs I would have been happy to have gotten the win, including the eventual winner, but also those of Saška Janks, Extra Nena and Ivana Vladović. The latter’s beautiful “Moja bol”, with strings to die for, was my favourite on the night, but in retrospect, I’m not sure I’d replace the equally stunning “Kruna.” I’d be tempted to send it in its acoustic version though, where Nevena’s lovely voice stands out even better.

Belgium: Ô, Belgium. I adored “City Lights”, and so my expectations were really high. This is nice enough, but a bit beige, and doesn’t quite deliver, especially the way the enjoyably tense verses lead to an anticlimactically limp chorus. I’d change that with something that actually feels like a pay off to the verses and the Walloons would have a better shot of shining again.

Georgia: I have to say that, once again, I find myself being one of the few people I know who has some love for Georgia. Whilst it wasn’t truly my cup of tea, I appreciated and enjoyed Iriao’s song last year on some level, and the same is true of Oto’s – he has a powerful voice and it’s a strong, if rather unsettling song. I think, though, that I prefer the darkly ethereal Sevdisperi zgva, which sounds like what I imagine would result if Björk were tasked to write a Bond tune.

Australia: After a few years of rumours, Oz finally jumped on the national final train, and, credit where it is due, it was one of the most intriguing national finals of the year. It was as if SBS had decided to atone for its aggressively MOR pop picks of previous years by actually showcasing some musical diversity. Unlike a lot of folk, I don’t dislike “Zero gravity” – it has a meaningful lyrical background and some quirky charm. But there’s no question about whether I would replace it and with what. I still get chills every time I listen to “2000 and Whatever” – the sheer, irrepressible burst of positive energy and the power of its “kulila miranyi” still give me goosebumps. Damn straight one of the best song of the entire year.

Iceland: Given the amount of hype Hatari have received – and how fans flooded videos of its competitors with comments about how they shouldn’t “fuck up” by picking them instead – I may be one of the very few who would change the result there. Yet, I almost definitely would, even though I typically like lesser-heard genres at Eurovision and like the heavier, industrial musical style. And yet, I find this quite trying. It seems like a very knowing, art school student pastiche and I’m not here for their “above the contest” feel or the BDSM gimmickry. I’d be tempted to replace this with the low-key but lovely “Hvað ef ég get ekki elskað”, or to at least pare back the OTT disdainful irony.

Estonia: It feels almost like another era when I was a firm exponent of the idea of Eesti being Beesti. Three years of immense disappointments will quench that type of fire. Whilst leaving behind the stunning Spirit Animal in 2017 and opting for a generic poperatic vocal exercise in 2018 were excruciating, this might be the biggest let down yet – a land of so many talented musicians having to rely on an Avicii pastiche sang with no small difficulty by a reedy-voiced Swede. I found Eesti Laul very slim pickings this year, and found the other two frontrunners to be rather bland too – even the delightful Sandra Nurmsalu came with a tune that, whilst pleasant, sounded less nomadic epic and more toilet tissue commercial backing track. I would have gone for Kadiah’s delicate “Believe” as my pick instead.

Portugal: FdC was once again one of the best national finals, and the one for whose result I was perhaps most anxious. There were a few songs I really liked, like “Pugna”, “Mais brilhante...” and “Inércia”, but when the dust settled, there was only one song I wanted to see winning – “Telemóveis,” of course, which I was delighted to see prevail. I have some real worries about the bizarre staging distracting from the message and emotional power of the song, though. There’s so much going on, and it might be enough to push people from being entranced to being weirded out. I’d get rid of the spoons, sort out the clothes and try to make things impressive without being so extra.

Greece: I actually really like Greece this year, even if I’m still pissed off at what they did to “Don’t forget the sun” in their dubiously axed national final last year. Her voice is beautiful, the music is uplifting and anthemic, the æsthetic is curious and a bit culty, but at least memorable. The one thing I don’t like? The lyrics, which sound like a bunch of motivational Instagram quote clichés loosely knitted together. Sing something actually meaningful, preferably in Greek.

San Marino: Lord, I’m not going to start because if I do, I shan’t stop. All I’ll say is that San Marino’s “troll nation” status is wearing thin for me. Unbelievably, hundreds of talented people came out in numbers last year willing to represent them, and yet they went with a song written supposedly in 5 minutes but probably in half that. I’d have invited Sara de Blue back instead to make up for the bizarre fiasco that was last year’s 1in360. And the automatic qualifiers:

France: If France’s national delegation aren’t rethinking their voting system after this year, then they ought to be. It’s the opposite of Sweden, where the juries really have the power and the televote is scattered – all you need is a frenzied following to overturn a low jury placement. I liked a great number of Destination Eurovision’s selection this year. I would have taken pretty much ány single one of them over the snivelling, bombastic, self-aggrandising drivel that is Roi. With regards to what to send in its place, I’m torn between the powerful “Là haut”; the adorably, quintessentially French “Allez leur dire”; or the energetic, indefatigable earworm that was “On cherche encore”.

Israel: Boy howdy, Israel sure want to do their level best to avoid fluking a 1979 and winning on home ground, eh? I heard there were many big names who sent songs in, though I’m unsure if any of them would have helped to make the stormy Kobi seem more sympathetic. I think I would have opted to let Ketreyah perform for the hosts instead.

Spain: After a great national final last year, I was really disappointed with the subpar quality of the so-called eurotemazos which were anything but. Miki’s song was the best of a bad lot and at least he didn’t have the hideously negative attitude some of the other people, who seemed surprised and aghast that the winner of a contest related to Eurovision could end up performing there. I’d try to give Miki a song that matched his energy with at least a bit more lyrical depth.

Join me in some days when I evaluate what I would change with SF2!

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