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secretgamergirl · 9 months

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All the seriously queer stuff in the back half of Sailor Moon

In case it wasn't obvious when I released a little mini-RPG a few months ago where you basically play as the villains, I've been gradually making my way through the entire run of Sailor Moon for the past year or so. Specifically I'm watching the 2014 Viz dub that covers all 200 episodes, trying to be as faithful as they can with it. It's been a really interesting experience, since I absolutely watched the old DiC dub back in the day, saw a fansub of one of the movies around the same time, and heard plenty of things about the missing seasons (particularly the infamous "cousins" thing from the Cloverway dub) over the years, and now I have all the context. And the context gets really shockingly overtly queer, turns out!

So first, let's just all get on the same page with the English language localizations of Sailor Moon over the years. Back in the 90s, Sailor Moon aired… well everywhere, with the English language version being a dub from DiC, which I will go to my grave defending as probably the best dub of anything I can think of. Fantastic casting all around, changes to the soundtrack that were actually for the better (keeping all the melodies but recording new versions that… aren't optimized to sound show-perfect when recreated by the cheapest sound generators one can shove in a toy, plus some original songs shoved into a few episodes). They did make some edits/cuts, but pretty minor ones, especially compared to the complete reworkings most anime of the era went through when coming to American TV, and I'm still not used to Luna not being prissy and British here.

That dub only lasted up through the second season. Past that, there was a dub of seasons 3 and 4 from Cloverway, which had some really questionable performances, and is where the infamous "they're cousins" bit came in. This also aired on TV in some places, but didn't have nearly the same omnipresent distribution as the DiC seasons (… and now I'm feeling old as I ponder whether to explain how local TV affiliates did their own thing back in the broadcast days). Then in the early 2000s there was a DVD release from Pioneer with cut/uncut versions of everything, apparently, which may or may not have recycled those dubs. I don't really have the energy to track that down, specifically. Anyway all the rights expired, gathered dust forever, then Viz picked it up and did this new faithful localization, and it took me about a decade to spot it on a streaming service.

So we've got 5 seasons, 200 episodes total, and a hell of a lot of formulaic structuring here. Every season (or half a season) we've got some main villain with an evil plan we may or may not get any details on, and some small number of underlings who then take their 5-10 episode long turns pursuing their goal in a way that inevitably generates monsters of the week, and meanwhile every season we have another conflict on the good guy side where someone is trying to locate some special person and ignoring the 50 or so obvious signs which main cast member it is while the audience gets frustrated. Oh and each individual episode has the same rigid structure of everyone getting caught up in some wacky teen trend, then there's a monster, they transform and fight a bit to no real end, then Sailor Moon gets around to using a finisher because that's literally the only thing actually capable of ending a fight. Honestly it's less "formulaic TV writing" and more like some sort of daily meditation. No way in hell I'd be able to sit through all of it if I had to look at the screen the whole time. This is background viewing while I work. Oh and I'm assuming everyone has at least enough passing familiarity to understand that if I say the name of a planet I'm talking about a teenage girl who's the reincarnation of some sorta magical girl/sentai squad member.

Season 1 has pretty gay vibes in places, but MOSTLY there's plausible deniability for all of it. We spend about half the season just establishing the characters of Moon Mercury and Mars, then quickly bringing in Jupiter and playing it up like a big shocking reveal for Venus. There's also a bunch of relationship drama between Moon, Tuxedo Mask, and the guy who runs the local arcade that she has a crush on and spends a while thinking is actually Tuxedo Mask instead of his actual identity of uh… a college-aged guy we're saying is the destined love interest of this 14-year old girl he's frankly pretty abusive towards. So, a lot of straight nonsense there. Meanwhile the evil queen's got these 4 generals, two of them are plainly dating, and no matter how you slice it, that's pretty overtly queer, but there's a valid argument to have over how we actually should slice it.

I was aware at the time that the DiC dub just ran with Zoicite here being a woman, making this a straight relationship, and I kinda figured they did a bit of tweaking and editing to hide that this was actually one of those bishonen types who were popular at the time who happened to be gay. Honestly though, watching it through a modern lens, it is REALLY hard to not just see a woman here, even when we're throwing he/him pronouns around. Like, if I'm handling a new dub, I'm just going to say Zoicite is a trans girl, who I'm at least headcanoning as being out for years, on HRT, and at that point where she can put on a suit designed for a man and nah that's a woman wearing a suit. Kinda just wraps around and makes me appreciate the old dub's handling more than the new one.

Season 2 (or R) doesn't really give us anything to work with, if I'm honest. There's probably some gals-being-pals energy amongst the main cast here and there. That's kind of always low-key present, especially with Jupiter, who has the whole big tough girl who wears long skirts thing sorta gay energy, and I want to say she ends up going to a dance with Mercury somewhere early on because one of them can't find a date otherwise.

But, we've got this filler arc with two dark elves in a tree who just kinda both hit on everyone of the opposite gender while the main cast sits in a holding pattern, then we get a proper villain squad not really getting enough spotlight time to have much of anything going on, and this whole weird thing where Moon and Mask's annoying toddler comes back from the future to… brainwash Moon's parents into thinking she's their daughter, and then she gets turned into an evil adult, and there's this whole bit about her having some sort of grim reaper/time guardian as a nanny (this is Pluto, the outer planets really have different things going on)… but again, mostly straight/cis flavored nonsense.

Then suddenly here comes season 3 (or S, pronounced "Super" which makes things real confusing), from a director who would later go on to create Utena, and in addition to just being the single best season of the series for a number of other reasons, everyone is canonically into girls now! It's shockingly overt about establishing that too, and reiterating the point several times.

It all gets started with Uranus and Neptune showing up. We kind of have this three faction conflict this season, where there's a proper main villain and squad of monster making minions, but then there's also this overtly queer power couple whose goal is basically to check out the "pure hearts" monsters of the week keep ripping out of people because they need to check them for these three macguffins they need to… reform the holy grail of all things to give to their leader they're too oblivious to know is actually Moon.

More importantly though, aside from making it abundantly clear that these two are banging every night, they have this very open relationship where Neptune is more than cool with Uranus hooking up with any given girl she's inclined to, and/or grabbing gals for threeways. And like, this isn't me taking a broad interpretation of things, it's weird how directly they just come out and say this. The other thing we have going on is that Uranus is just, like, the butchest of the butch.

Literally everyone just assumes she's a guy when they first meet, and quite a few people go into serious denial when corrected on the matter. And she kinda tends to react to all the misgendering with the sort of bemused nonchalance that makes it pretty easy to read her as actually being nonbinary. I swear there's an episode where she clarifies she's not a guy with that particular sort of emphasis suggesting that doesn't necessarily narrow things down to just "girl," too. And apparently Crystal actually DOES bite the bullet and flat out state she's nonbinary (or at least "both male and female"). That's cool, but there is no way in hell I'm going to sit through Crystal.

Anyway, point is, everybody wants to hook up with Uranus. Everyone. There's a whole episode where the power couple straight up takes Jupiter out on a date, the rest start gossiping about her being out on a date with two girls, everyone starts off shocked, then someone clarifies who it's with and everyone's like "oh, well yeah then I'd take them up on that too," with a little extra push back from Mars before she gets called out as trying to stay in the closet when she's clearly got a stash of photos of hot girls in suits.

This of course really makes me wonder about that Cloverleaf dub and why they went with that whole "cousins" thing to avoid addressing the overt queerness here, instead of taking the same approach DiC did of just making Uranus a guy. This would technically introduce the problem of having a guy in a miniskirt for fight scenes, but, eh, that'd be easier to edit around than you'd think. Uranus generally enters a fight scene pre-transformed firing an attack off from offscreen, arguing with the core cast a little, and leaving. Attacks are stock animation you can drop in anywhere, so that much is easy enough to chop out or replace with Neptune's attack. I don't know how one would even begin to cut around all the overt gay stuff though.

Nothing especially queer going on with the evil side of things. The villains are kind of amazing but too career oriented for relationships. I guess just for the sake of giving full context for the seasons most people haven't seen and fill in the obvious hole in the roster I can mention the eventual deal that the little goth girl Chibi-Usa spends the season hanging out with turns out to be the main villain's daughter, Sailor Saturn, and kind of the antichrist? Like I said, the outer planets aren't just cast expansions, they really have their own stuff going on. She also dies and reincarnates, doing so the long way where she sits the next season out being just a baby, which once again begs the question of whether when everyone dies at the end of the first season they just kinda magically come back to life with missing memories just as a temporary thing for a filler arc to play with or they really dd all reincarnate and have new families a decade and change later. Weird that that never got firmly pinned down.

Anyway though season 4 (AKA Super S, which is pronounced "Supers" and now you see why I prefer just numbers)… sucks and you should skip it. No sense of stakes, no real character work, non-threatening villain, shockingly dull monster designs, no outer planets, an ending that just drags on for what feels like forever and has no payoff. The only things it has in its favor are the inherent absurdity that people are wondering if Chibi-Usa is like full-on dating Pegasus (yes, the horse) and Fish's Eye.

So we have two different miniboss squads this season, the latter of which is a quartet of permanent-child acrobats working for the impressively titled if boring in practice Dead Moon Circus, preceded by three animals-turned-into-humans-by-a-witch with a weird What-you-originally-were's Eye naming scheme. Two of them are just dull slutty guys, but Fish's Eye is plainly and overtly a trans woman, and gets something of an arc about being willing to give up her own humanity for the greater good. It's a shame she's stuck in the practically unwatchable season, but at least she's on the REALLY short list of major villains who gets to have a happy ending. Usually even when someone has a nice redemption arc with the power of love and friendship they still get bumped off by another villain.

Different localizations have done different things with her. Some go "crossdressing gay guy" some just say she's a woman and leave her transness out of it. The 2014 localizaton is pretty unambiguous about though, so, that's really nice. Casting could be better, but still.

Then finally we come to season 5 (Sailor Stars), which I think is even more queer than season 3 was, which is really saying something, and was also directed by someone who would go on to helm another girly show with a serious case of The Genders, Ouran High School Host Club. Structurally it's a bit weird, because the first few episodes are just straight up taking a mulligan on the terrible finale of season 4, this time with the outers in (Saturn hyper-ages back to her standard 10 or whatever and gets a bunch of inexplicable knowledge and memories which is cool but never really paid off), the main villain doing something, and as a shocking rarity for the series, this whole mini-arc where characters are broken into pairs of one inner one outer and get to bounce off each other in a way the series frustratingly usually never does.

More importantly though, at least for this post's purposes, basically the first scene of the season is Uranus and Neptune having a flirty exchange ending with something along the lines of "let's save the pillow talk for when we're actually in bed together later tonight," which sort of sets the tone for just how blatantly these two are talking about their extremely active sex life in no uncertain terms, out in public. Some of the other characters are a bit weirded out by their complete lack of filter, but hey whatever.

The real proper start of the season though has our core cast finally starting high school, once again reminding us that everyone is at LEAST 4 years younger than everything about their designs, interests, and handling of responsibilities would indicate. This also reminds us how deeply creepy the Moon/Tuxedo Mask relationship is, but fortunately he hops a plain to America and is straight up out this season, and as an added bonus Chibi-Moon finally goes back to the future. Before you get too excited she IS shortly replaced with an even younger, barely verbal new mystery gremlin called Chibi-Chibi whose existence nobody can account for, but at least she's actually cute and not akin to the baby from Dinosaurs. More importantly though, as the girls enter high school they end up in a class with the titular Sailor Stars, AKA The Three Lights, AKA Fighter Maker and Healer, a popular boy band who are also a new mysterious set of Sailors with what I assume are intentionally quite confusing gender shenanigans in play.

Normally, they are hot lanky boys, boastful about their masculinity to the point of it bordering on misogyny, but also super super femme, with earings, hair down to their ankles, and very noticeably female VAs in both Japanese and English. Then when there's a fight they're very plainly hot lanky girls in bikinis and one of them has an attack shouting "Star Gentle Uterus!" before hitting a monster with a glob of liquid to a disgusted reaction. And their transformation sequences (and bikinis, and some shirtless scenes) make it absolutely crystal clear that yeah there is some magical reconfiguring of their bodies when making the switch. The show pointedly avoids elaborating on what the deal is past that in terms of which they form they started with/feel more comfortable in/why they switch it up/etc. which would normally frustrate me as one of those Schroedinger's Queer Rep situations, but I very much get the impression that we're going for intentional confusion and ambiguity in service to a general message that if you're into someone you shouldn't have hangups about their gender or what it says about your own sexuality and just kind of accept your feelings and them as a person and I am pretty OK with that.

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The cast is too. Mercury Mars Jupiter Venus and for good measure Luna all kinda spent the entire season fixating on how to hook up with any/all of The Three Lights, meanwhile at basically any moment there isn't a fight scene or some plot exposition happening, Fighter is VERY ACTIVELY pursuing Moon in a sexual fashion, with pretty overtly stated tension before damn near every commercial break over whether this is going to be the scene where Sailor Moon gets absolutely railed by this maybe-genderfluid pop star from another world. And I have to just say as a brief aside that while we obviously never go there, I kinda wish we did? Tuxedo Mask is WAY too old to be dating someone Moon's age, even if we do the thing where we just add 4 to everyone's stated age. Plus he kinda treats her like absolute garbage for the whole show, and even when they're in a more wholesome mode the whole thing feels toxic and messed up. Meanwhile Fighter here is literally the same age, clearly into her, and beyond the one character flaw, an actual decent person. Though again, really damn forward. Still beats the hell out of the guy in college dating a middle schooler, and kinda flirting with his own prepubescent future-daughter.

There's also this huge confrontational thing between Fighter and Uranus, where it's slightly unclear if Uranus is being protective of Moon, violently jealous because Neptune is totally and surprisingly overtly open to hooking up with anyone from this boy band too, or just kinda trying to defend her position as the hot androgynous badass who swept into town with the intent of hooking up with every girl in the zip code eventually. Meanwhile Fighter thinks Uranus is a kind of toxic macho dude and really questions the whole "she's not a guy" thing, which is, you know, interesting. Pluto never really weighs in on this because… Pluto kinda lives outside of time and space and has maybe 8 minutes of real screen time in the entirety of the show.

Past that, we've got a bunch of other gay stuff too! We're back to cranking the general queer energy of the core cast up past the point of plausible deniability with regards to each other and a random girl trying to pass along a love letter with some confusion as to who it's for. It also bears mention that when the full deal of the new characters and their gender flipping comes to light, Jupiter makes an active point of making it clear that she is still 100% down and like, hey, I already knew you were the least conflicted of the bunch about how bi you all are, but I appreciate the active refutation of transphobia is still cool. We've got an honestly adorable pair of villains where one is frankly such a bimbo she's completely incapable of doing the evil general thing on her own or preparing her own food, and her hyper-competent girlfriend helping her out while also having to come up with cover stories because they're supposed to be pitted against each other. They'd definitely get a nice happy ending in one of the even numbered seasons, especially once it's made clear that they're very much being coerced into the evil stuff/taking things down from the inside, but… yeah this season ends up going super dark.

I don't want to totally get into how absolutely pitch dark the big 8-part series finale gets and spoil the hell out of it since if it wasn't clear, the odd numbered seasons are all really good stuff you should watch on your own, plus this one has a bunch of genuine twists, but I have to get into some of it in my mission of explaining how gay it all is. Consider yourself warned.

As happens kind of a lot in Sailor Moon finales, the bulk of the season 1 cast gets killed off once the main villain steps in to start getting her hands dirty, but here it's early enough on in the arc for Moon to really process it and give it the weight that maybe it'll actually stick this time. In particular of course she's worked up about Tuxedo Mask turning out to have died off camera at the start of the season (the impression to that point being that he's too distracted with a trip to America to check his messages or maybe just straight up ghosted her), but then almost as broken up over losing Mars, because yeah, those two in particular actually end up with a surprising amount of low key romantic tension between them by the end of things.

Then once it's time to get the outer planets off the table, all four of them end up in a no-win situation against the villain, who does that villain thing of of offering them a choice of just being killed and having their souls ripped out to be made into new stars (this is kind of her whole thing, see), OR if anyone's up for it, they can switch sides, still get their souls ripped out to be made into stars, but given funky magic bracelets that allow them to stay alive, just, you know, corrupted by evil and acting as her new villain squad. It's actually established right before the last one gets vaporized that all her original henchgals are in fact the Sailors of other planets she forced into the same deal just before the last one gets vaporized for failure, making it that much tragic in retrospect that the cute competence-disparity couple didn't make it.

Anyway, Uranus and Neptune actually take the deal. Like, zero hesitation. Part of it is eventually explained as Uranus having enough faith that she's too into her girlfriend to be fully corrupted and might get a chance to sucker punch the villain with her own soul extractors (which she IS it just doesn't work), and failing that Moon'll probably swing some kinda deus machina (which is an admittedly safe bet, honestly). But another part of it really is just "yeah screw it, if I still get to be with my girlfriend I'll take being evil over being dead" and they really do go through with it and promptly murder their oldest friend and a very young girl. Don't let anyone tell you Sailor Moon is one of those power of love and friendship always triumphs sorta shows. I don't know that the power of love and friendship even ties the scoreboard if we tally things up over the whole series. Oh and the final final final showdown has a nude Sailor Moon with angel wings just trying to hug it out with the main villain, which I guess could also maybe be read as a bit queer.

So yeah. Sailor Moon. When you don't have a puritanical edit, it's queer as hell. Everyone's bi or non-binary-and-sapphic. Several different flavors of trans rep. Goes out on a note of not getting hung up on gender. All of this in a roughly 30 year old series now, aimed at young impressionable girls. … actually for that matter it's also a show aimed at girls with really powerfully horny monster girl designs all over the place. Possibly relevant.

Oh yeah, and maybe consider throwing me some money via Patreon? I can't actually cover next month's rent as things stand.

#sailor moon #queer #gay #lesbian #trans #nonbinary #genderfluid #positive representation #for real though it's really messed up that Sailor Aluminum Siren and Sailor Iron Crow in particular stay dead they deserved better #Youtube

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squish--squash · 2 years

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Oh my fucking GOD I AM SO HAPPY RN

so there's been this song stuck in my head off and on for months now, and it was a song I used to love and listen to YEARS AGO but lost and forgot about (I accidentally wrote a lot, so the rest of this post is under the cut)

but the thing was I couldn't remember the song at ALL except for a few lines of the chorus, but even then it was so few words and every time I tried looking it up it would spit out very generic songs because all I remembered were the words "and in my dreams". I did also remember that the voice singing the song was female, and I could hum the melody of the chorus too.

and so the earworm came back to me an hour ago and I literally stopped what I was doing (writing) and threw myself into trying to find the song I ended up looking on some websites that pull up songs containing lyrics that you type, but I wasn't getting results from "and in my dreams" because that's such a common phrase in so many songs however, as the months passed and I kept replaying that earworm in my head to see if it would help me remember more of the song,

I was struggling so hard to remember tho. I could have sworn the chorus ended with "you're always in my dreams" or "you're only in my dreams" so that's what I kept leading with, because a lot of searches focus on the chorus and I thought it would be the best help. ironically, it didn't help at all, because that wasn't how the chorus actually ended...

deciding search engines weren't going to help I scrapped google entirely, and turn to websites designed to help people to find songs by typing lyrics. I decide to try what I know I remember from the beginning of the chorus, and try "and in my dreams". No luck. I try "in my dreams I" because it felt like the next word in the chorus were "I see". No luck (because it wasn't). I'm grasping at fucking STRAWS at this point but I'm not giving up because I really want to find that song.

I was even tempted to make a post seeing if y'all could help me out, but knew I'd been too impatient to wait for replies and I only get a couple notes on these original posts if they're not fandom-related, so I just continued looking by myself.

eventually, I start focussing on a part of the chorus that was a little different than the beginning of the chorus. It had the same tempo, but the words were sung shorter since more of them were said. Surely, if I could remember one or two of those words vaguely enough, it could help. I keep running my memory of the song over and over until... I finally remember something! It's vague and blurry, but a phrase becomes a little clearer, and I'm able to make out something along the lines of "into unknown, infinite skies"

and so I go the song finder I'm currently skimming through, and type: "unknown infinite skies". I let the searches load- the results have song names, artists, and a section of lyrics that contain the searched lyrics. I look at the first result. nothing.

then I look at the second result. "In My Dreams" by Tonight Alive. I reread the title and band. I reread it again because something's tugging on the back of my mind, because there's something familiar about the name of that band.

I look at the section of lyrics that were brought up with the result. "And we stand on the edge, catching our breath, touching the sky. Whispering warm, kiss the unknown, infinite night. I can see beyond this place..." I read those words, and as I do, I instinctively start to read them to the beat and melody and tempo of the song BECAUSE THAT'S IT THAT'S THE SONG I FUCKING FOUND IT

and so now I'm looping the song on youtube and relishing in the triumph of finally finding that song after so long, and it's just as good of a song as I remember

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asteriuszenith · 2 years

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Encanto has so much subtle and not so subtle messages about intergenerational trauma and how it affects families and at the end, the movie basically tells you outright that in order for a family to heal from that EVERYBODY has to put in the work and take the steps of truly supporting each other, acknowledging the hurts that they have all suffered from one another and from the past, and the fact that the first step of healing is that Abuela finally acknowledges that the hurt of the past has led her to hurting the people that she loves and yes, she might have had good intentions but the way she did it was so stifling to the point that it's basically stopping their family from growing.

It's just... So good.

And the message of how sometimes you have to shatter the foundation by acknowledging the cracks in it and fully rebuilding it from the roots of it all in order to actually heal and it's not just a one person task because the message "All of You" literally talks about how everybody has to help each other if we want to build a better foundation and reading between the lines and the flowery images, you know that they've probably had bad days and stuff but they're trying to do better by each other.

Just... The representation of Casita as the family because that's always been a part of like... Family oriented cultures (I'm filipino but the house/home is basically a familiar metaphor for how it's also a symbol of the family). Mirabel talking about how she loves the Casita that they all rebuilt together and Abuela acknowledging that it's not perfect like their family but in a way, it's perfect that way because what family isn't a little messy sometimes?

I just have so much thoughts about this movie. The way all of the songs were joined together into one beautiful song at the end as if finally, their melodies, the family's melody, is finally flowing with each other.

I just love this movie guys.

#encanto

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fayeimara · 3 years

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Miya Atsumu || Solita

*Song Scenario | Inspired by Solita by PRETTYMUCH*

PAIRING. Miya Atsumu x you

GENRE. Fluff; A little angst, if you squint?

WARNINGS. Incredibly suggestive, probably sexual innuendos and references, swearing, implications of drinking, angst.. (from my perspective, which probably means nothing because I think I can't handle writing it)

The lavish, vast pool glitters under the sun, surface disturbed by the partygoers splashing around in the water without a care in the world. Atsumu stands at the edge, quickly checking over the various faces but doesn't find you or his brother among them.

"She's not inside." Suna's voice comes from behind him and he looks back to see the middle blocker walking back up to him. His usually neutral expression is disturbed with just the slightest indent between his eyebrow and before Atsumu looks away he catches the slightest twitch in his jaw.

So he's a little worried too. They both know trouble always finds you if you don't find it first. And at a party of this scale, it's an inevitability.

How did they manage to lose you already? You'd all only been here about twenty minutes when Atsumu and Suna decide to refresh your group's drinks and left you with Osamu but the both of you aren't anywhere to be seen now.

Backing away from the pool, Atsumu looks over past the green metal fence that blocks off the pool and its surrounding stone patio from the manicured lawn, crowded with people dancing to the music blasting from speakers that surround the entire backyard.

They'll have to wade in there but it's just as likely he and Suna might miss you entirely if you're in that crush of people. Where's twin telepathy when he needs it?

Suna's already headed over, deciding to try his luck and probably because they have to do something since neither you or 'Samu have answered the multiple texts they've sent asking for your location in this overcrowded fucking mansion.

The only concern is if they're wasting time by looking for you out here, but there's no way you would be inside, in one of the rooms, right? No, not unless you were in real trouble and 'Samu definitely wouldn't let anything happen to you.

So Atsumu follows after his teammate and pushes past the creaky gate to move onto the grassy area of the large backyard. Suna's already found Aran, at the edge of the crowd, and Atsumu walks up to hear him ask if he's seen either you or Osamu.

"Sure, just a couple minutes ago," The tall ace responds, "They should be hear somewhere."

And with that, he salutes them with his drink and moves away towards the set of double doors that lead into the kitchen of the house.

"Do you want to take the left while I go in from the right? Text once we find them?" Suna offers, already starting to head over to one side of the large crowd.

But Atsumu stops him with a hand to his shoulder, "Nah, I think we should just go through the middle. If she's in there, that's where she'll be."

Suna smirks and doesn't respond, knowing 'Tsumu's most likely correct. This time it's Suna following Atsumu as they wade into the mess of swaying bodies, thankfully, not as tightly packed as they would be in a different setting.

It doesn't take them long now, with the confirmation that you're here, to finally catch sight of you. You are, in fact, dead center of the crowd and steadily holding the attention of many as you sway slowly to the music.

As soon as his eyes land on you, Atsumu feels a burn take root and start to grow in his chest. It's not exactly the way your hips move, seductively swinging to the beat, or your arms held in the air as you dance enticingly to the melody, locks of your hair softly flying with your moves and the breeze. It's not even that it's his brother you're with, standing there like an enraptured guardian, holding both your drinks and watching over you while you dance with one of your friends.

What completely combusts Atsumu is that as you dance so prettily, the center of fucking attention with your unconscious sensuality, you're doing so in what is unmistakably his jacket, the material shifting with and sliding over your body, almost covering the racy black bikini you're wearing.

You're dancing there among everyone, yet somehow looking like his personal, intimate show, in the jacket he gave you to wear when you were slightly chilly after a quick dip in the pool but that you'd ended up just holding in your hand instead while you asked him to go grab you a new drink.

Torn between dragging you away from the beautiful spectacle you're making for all the undeserving fuckers to see but not wanting the incredible dream to end, Atsumu watches a little longer. He watches until the song spirals up higher and higher and with every rise he feels like he's falling deeper instead.

A brush against his arm brings him back to the reality of the crowd, but it's only Suna, passing by and moving toward you with a piercing look in his narrow eyes. Before Atsumu can even register what he's doing, he grabs his friend's elbow, yanking him to a sudden stop.

"What're ya doin'?"

Those piercing eyes turn his way, with firm intensity, and the fox-eyed boy responds, "I'm getting some dirt off of a jewel."

"Don't ya fucking dare."

"You're going to want to let go off me before I deck you."

"So what," Atsumu raises an eyebrow, "You're gonna go over and forcibly remove the clothes off a girl?"

With his hand still on Suna's tense arm, Atsumu can literally feel when his friend decides to back down and continues through to the kill, "Yeah, that'll go over real well, especially with her, don't ya think?"

Eyes narrowed on him, Suna bites out a low, angry, "Fuck." before turning away and shoving back through the crowd until it's swallowed him up.

Yeah, he wouldn't want to watch you dance in Suna's jacket either, if the positions were reversed. But you're not wearing the middle blocker's name right now, you're wearing his. And it looks divine on you, as if both he and his name were made simply for you to exist and finally own them.

Atsumu turns back to watch you, moving ever so slightly closer, mesmerized by your movements but even more so by the thought of you being his. He's trapped in the suggestion of the moment, watching you and dreaming, until your eyes open again, only this time on a twirl that ends directly facing him, and your gaze catches immediately on his.

He watches as your eyes widen in surprise for a split second before delight pulls your lips into a wide, joyful grin. He feels like he's been pierced through the heart and he only wants to dig the arrow in deeper. He wants to grab you and take you away from all the eyes watching you and he wants to parade you around in his jacket for everyone to see.

What he does instead is walk up to you, eyes never leaving yours once, with a wide, happy grin on his own face. As he nears, he watches your left hand trace a sensuous path down over your other arm still up in the air, stroking through your hair before brushing briefly and every so lightly against your neck, only to stretch out to him, him. He reaches out when he's finally standing just in front of you, to connect his hand to yours, and gently pulls it to rest on his chest before sliding it up to the side of, and then around, his neck, pulling you flush against him in the process.

All the while, you keep dancing, even as your other hand flutters down from it's summit in the air, landing gently to brush down the back of his hair, before meeting the first and intertwining together at his neck. You keep your eyes and smile on him as he slowly matches your pace and rhythm, moving both with and against you. His own eyes burn back into yours, even his smile scorches, more a smirk now as his hands slide down your arms, leaving a trail of heat in their wake, moving further still until you feel the material around you shift and then his hands are like hot brands, under the jacket you're wearing, on your bare waist.

Your heartbeat picks up, more than it already had when you opened your eyes to see him watching you with that familiar possessive, covetous look on his face. You feel like you're burning while electric currents simultaneously race through you. The music sounds hollow, as if you might faint, so you get closer still and tighten your fingers together briefly in reassurance that you're okay, before loosening your grip again.

Neither of you have looked away since the moment you first caught and held his eyes. It's incredibly overwhelming, this awareness, the delicate bubble you're in with him. And it lasts for an eternal moment, forever seared in your memory.

Atsumu still watches, as you finally break your gaze to close your eyes. Even still, he can see the smile on your face, a small, delicate echo of the happy grin he first received when you saw him. He looks at you, the entirety of his world, and thinks of everything he could and wants to be for you.

It's in that moment he decides that the things holding him back from making this dream his eternal reality don't matter. Dancing together with you amidst the moving crowd, with the sun streaming down on the two of you and the beat of the music wrapping you together in this intimate embrace, Miya Atsumu knows beyond a shadow of doubt, that if you decide to give him even the slightest chance, he'll forever be yours.

Meant to Be Masterlist .. if anyone cares about what fic this scenario might end up a part of...

A/N (moved from above) : So... I planned and started writing this as a Haikyuu scenario unrelated to my SMAU series, instead as part of a bunch of fandom scenarios I have planned inspired by certain songs on my playlist. I also planned and started writing this with a completely different idea for direction it was supposed to go, to a completely different ending. Now...

I'm literally heartbroken because I'm conflicted with what to do with this scenario... do I add it to MTB (it can fit for Pt 2 with some edits) or leave it as an unrelated short scenario? If it's a separate scenario (I do also have a 2nd part / continuation already planned btw) then... do I keep it just an Atsumu scenario (which was unplanned, he wasn't supposed to get so.. close with reader when he found her :/) and let my heart stay broken for the rest of my life, or just decide to make it poly too because it's easier to let everyone have reciprocated love than experiencing the secondhand angst for Suna and Osamu? Like... I don't think it's a secret that Suna comes just before the Miyas' for me but, it's like, just barely sometimes :'( Can I do this to my baby??? Maybe I should just do the same scenario but with different endings for each of them so you can... pick your character/ending??? They can all be happy in their own parallel universes? I want to have a good cry... Atsumu baby, why did you put me in this situation??

Anyways, if I haven't ruined it for you by now, please read and let me know your opinion(s). Please.

A/N.. again (If you ended up reading this garbage) : So this is not the edited version, please don't lynch me over any mistakes or choices. I might come back to edit or even completely overhaul this. I'm literally posting it to get an opinion from an incredible, life-saving, heart-repairing friend.

@delusivist

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who-ever-said-i-was-nice · 3 years

Note

OH MY GOD THOSE LEO SHORTS WERE PERFECTION!!!!!! 😍😍😍 a bouquet of potatoes loooooool I was HOWLING 😂😂😂 your Leonardo is so on point I literally cannot - this is exactly how I picture him! Thank you so much you beautiful human 😊❤ I'm so so sorry but I love your writing so much can I make another request? the suitors comforting an mc whose social anxiety flares up while they're out in town/having a panic attack? If you don't feel like it or aren't comfortable with it that's 100% alright 💖

I’m sooooooooo sorry for making you wait this long. i feel like I’m going o be apologizing for all eternity. I am really happy you like my work. ahahhhaha I try. XD Anyhoooo of course I will make this. I can honestly write about anything, if I’m writing ,even if the thought would bother me in real life, it seems so much more acceptable. idk is it just me. Maybe it’s because I get to control the events. Yeah so I will stop wasting your time and I will get into it. Also I would like to say that I have never had a panic attack. I’m writing this from the information I got from my friends who had experienced this. So if this is not accurate pls don’t come for me.

Warnings: Panic attacks pretty self-explanatory since it’s in the asks but I’ll put it here just in case

Comte

So you were walking with are friendly neighborhood gentleman

it was pretty ok since most of the road was pretty empty

but when you turned the corner you suddenly found yourself in the most crowded road there could possibly be

you kept brushing shoulders with random people and you felt like everything was closing onto you

you breathing sped up and yet no matter how much air you breathed in it felt like your lungs where hollow

you staggered and leaned into Comte

he noticed you where in distress and immediately pulled you aside

he sat on a bench and pulled you into his lap

he gently stroked your hair and whispered soothing words in your ear until you calmed down

The next ones are in the following location: a very, very crowded street, during a festival

Leonardo

You were just about half way into your outing when Leo noticed you where acting a bit strange

He quickly caught on when you started breathing rapidly tho

Internally he’s like oh shit oh shit but he’s actually super chill about it

Like Comte he will pull you aside and sit you down on a bench

He however, places his two hands right next to you, blocking the view and caging you in between his arms

He smiles down at you softly and caresses your hair until your breathing becomes regular again

Arthur

Ahahahahahahhahahhaha he’s dead

When he sees you he immediately knows

I mean he’s a doctor, come on

He pulls you aside as quickly as humanly or vampirely possible

He will twirl you into an empty alley and pull you into a tight hug, while peppering your face with kisses

He will whisper sweet nothings into your ear and will tell you that everything will be alright

He holds you like this for a long time and even after you’re ok he doesn’t want to let you go

Theo

Poor boy almost had a heart attack

He will immediately notice

He’s not sure exactly what’s going on but that does not stop him from pulling you away to a quiet part of the street and hugging you saying something like “It’s alright Y/N. I got you.”

He used you name OH MAH GAWD

No I’m kidding sort of

He will hold you close with your ear pressed up against his chest, allowing you to hear his heartbeat

After you calm down he’ll kiss the top of your head chuckling “ My silly little Hondjie”

Vincent

Heart attack nr.2

He will immediately pull you aside and will ask you what’s wrong

And that would be cute and all

If you could actually answer

Poor boy has no idea what the heck is going on

In the end he will hug you and start to cry and beg you to stay with him

When you recover and realize that the love of your life, this sweet baby angel little boy is crying, you instantly feel guilty

You explain to him that it’s ok and this happens sometimes when there is a big crowd

This little bean thought you were dying

He will get it once you explain it to him tho

Dazai

He knew what’s going on

He scooped you up and took you to a quiet corner and squatted down in front of you patting your head gently and smiling reassuringly

He places your hand on his heart and whispers

“ Can you feel that Y/n? That heart beats for you. Let it sooth you in your time of need.”

Smooth motherfucker

You calm down and you look at his still smiling face

Even though he smiles you can still see the worry in his eyes

He pulls you close

“Are you feeling better Toshiko-san?”

Mozart

This boi…... nope nope nope

He can’t handle this

As soon as he sees you hyperventilating he panics as well

On the inside

On the outside he seems super calm about it

He leads you away from the crowd and sits you down on a bench

He rests your head on his shoulder and starts humming a soft melody

His angelic voice calms you down and you look up at him and give him a grateful smile

He returns it and takes your hand in his and you just sit there in a comfortable silence

Isaac

Unlike Mozart this baby would be losing it

He has no idea what’s happening

He quickly pulls you aside

He’s awkwardly patting your back and praying you’ll be ok

When you calm down he will pull you into a tight hug and tell you never to scare him like this again

Since then the two of you have never been seen on an overcrowded street

Not that Isaac minds

Jean

When he notices he scoops you up and hurries to a secluded area

He lets you lean against a wall but your knees buckle and you slide to the ground

He kneels before you and cups your cheek staring at you intently

You slowly start to calm down and Jean is hesitant at first, but then a pulls you into a hug letting your head rest right above his heart

When you calm down completely and try to get up since you have to keep going Jean refuses to let you go

You scared the ever loving daylights out of him

So you two end up sitting there and honestly it turned out to be much better this way

Napoleon

He immediately notices that something is off

He looks down at you, huddling into his side, and realizes what’s going on

He picks you up bridal style and runs for the nearest deserted area

Once he’s there he drops down to the ground and hugs you close, rocking you slightly

Slowly you start to calm down

You look up at the former emperor and you are surprised to see tears glistening in his eyes

He never wants to see you hurt and seeing you like this made him feel terrible and like the worst lover ever

He pulls you even closer

“ I swore to protect you nunuche, I’m sorry.”

You’re quite shocked

You cradle is cheek and the give him a sweet kiss reassuring him that it is not his fault

Sebastian

Being from the 21st century he is sort of familiar with the symptoms of a panic attack

So when he notices the change in your behaviour, he knows

He gently guides you to the side of the road and sits you down on a bench

He sits next to you and holds your hands drawing soothing circles on them

when you calm down you look at him gratefully

and he

FLICKS YOUR FOREHEAD

But then he kisses you so I guess it wasn’t that bad after all

William

He is ready to stab whoever upset you

Then he realizes he would probably need to annihilate an entire street worth of people and ain’t nobody got time for that

He takes your hand and leads you to an empty bench far away from the crowded street

He strokes your hair and whispers sweet words in your ear

You calm down and he gives you a charming smile

You practically throw yourself at him and hug him tight while thanking him

That little gesture made him the happiest made on earth

#Ikemen Vampire #cybird ikemen #ikemen vampire mozart #ikemen vampire napoleon #ikemen vampire isaac #ikemen vampire shakespeare #ikemen vampire leonardo #ikemen vampire theo #ikemen vampire vincent #ikemen vampire comte #ikemen vampire dazai #ikemen vampire sebastian #ikemen vampire jean #ikemen vampire arthur

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loverofallthingssmart · 3 years

Note

3, 4, 11, & 37?

hi anon! thanks for the ask!

3. Are there any fics that inspired you to write what you do?

literally all my friends’ writing. i can’t even name one cause they all helped

like i think i started thinking about writing around sort of may? 2020 but i was too scared to actually write and like ‘what if i butcher the characterization’, ‘what if i can’t write this or this’ and so on and so on

and then when i saw the AMAZING talent that went into fics on tumblr, i was like hey why don’t you at least give it a try and here we are <3

and also not a fic but @marellinh-week-2020 was the reason i wrote my first fic ever, a marellinh aquarium date <3

4. Link your three favorite fics right now.

my fave fics at the moment are haha....not kotlc at the moment im so sorry (and only 3??? you’re making me?? an indecisive person choose??) okay ill try....

(in no particular order)

this wonderful horse girls hekster au by lynn, @cadence-talle which is just soooo sweet i smiled the whole time reading this

“and who remembers those that live on?“ by cath, @eating-mooncakes which is the best way for my heart to hurt thank you for the tears and the smile throughout <3

and finally not kotlc but everyone should go read this actually: my birthday gift from sim @piratewwx because it features wen qing, my favorite character ever in sim’s pirate au <333...i will never forget how wonderful this fic is like i just WOW

yes maybe the last two are semi biased but it’s okay 😌

11. How do you come up with your fic titles?

haha bestie i don't even know.

like i think a lot of them are song titles (like uh “he likes boys... ” “tumhe jo maine dekha, tumhe jo maine jaana”, “falling doesn't feel so bad (when i know you've fallen this way too)”, “darling, you're the one i want” ) that are usually used like after when im posting it because i can’t think of anything else

but some are just lines i come up with either before or during the writing process (”ready, set, ace! “, “oblivious to its passing”, “the familiar melody (of your hands in mine)”) which i searched up so many times to make sure my brain actually thought of that lmaoo

37. Give an update on your current WIP - if you don’t have one, give a sneak peek at a title or idea that you have and would like to write.

okay not technically an update since i haven’t really started writing chapter 4 of the linhiana tennis au... BUT have some out of context outline notes from my planning doc <3

[text id: “She concentrates and boom (which is in all caps) okay thats all i have. /end text id]

also:

[text id: “god they're so stupid.)” /end id]

which gives you a little insight on how my planning goes (i swear its super organized and semi-serious but like)

send me fic writer asks!

#ask me anything #e attempts to words on paper #this took SO long idek why im sorry anon thank you for being patient #writing asks #ask game #long post #2 am ramblings

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hobie-brown · 2 years

Text

I posted 12,588 times in 2021

298 posts created (2%)

12290 posts reblogged (98%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 41.2 posts.

I added 300 tags in 2021

#my art - 180 posts

#rotbtd - 27 posts

#kingdom hearts - 15 posts

#yeah - 13 posts

#abt me - 13 posts

#miraculous ladybug - 11 posts

#prev tags - 11 posts

#god - 11 posts

#:^] - 10 posts

#literally - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#and i think hobie would definitely win from a sheer logistics standpoint but morally hed like. feel like he'd think fighting me was below hi

My Top Posts in 2021

still thinking about the Mitchells vs the machines and how they could have done what so many films and shows do with their autistic-coded characters where theres some arc where Aaron outgrows his love of dinosaurs or there's a journey in which he's mocked for them or its wholly a bad thing or or or and no! Aaron is never punished for his special interest and the jokes surrounding it aren't to mock Aaron or his behavior, they're made with an affection for his passion and his devotion! like!! augh!!

93 notes • Posted 2021-05-08 00:11:02 GMT

whore girlboss manipulative guillermo behavior is so iconic and personally i love it very much but i’d very much like to indulge in the idea that memo reverts back to being a flustered mess once nandermo actually...is established and the switch in nandor’s head that goes from emotionally repressed to horny/overbearing is flipped. like. as soon as they are officially boyfriends, nandor the relentless and canonly romantically clingy woulld want to be all over guillermo and as affectionate with him as vampire-ly possible 24/7 and its so much different and better than what guillermo used to embarrasingly daydream about but its also way too much for him all at once. kisses and hugs and and and. ....and guillermo is still grappling with his catholic guilt and recent understanding of how he feels for nandor, specifically. the most intimacy he’s ever gotten with someone is holding a girl’s hand during summer camp when he was eleven, and he’s not even into girls. so here’s the love of his life trying to pamper him all the time with all this touching, and nandor’s kind of shit at picking up on boundaries and just a little selfish when it comes to his own wants and how touch-starved he is. poor memo is just so overwhelmed. instead of lingering touches and brushing nandor’s hair and clothing him under the pretense of work and familiar buisness its just straight up explicitly romantic and he’s never kissed someone before and nandor is just too much for him. all this to say he’d pass out the first time Nandor touches his face to bring him in for a kiss and all of the vampires would make fun of him for years.

and then once he regains his confidence he reminds them all that Nandor cried for like three weeks straight because of it.

98 notes • Posted 2021-10-06 01:06:44 GMT

mitchells vs the machines has it all. an entire family of autistics with special interests. deep-seated fear for data harvesting and smart technology. working class family that LOOKS like a working class family. eric andre. weird-ass queer film student. some of the best stylistic 3D animation I’ve seen since into the spider-verse, two robots who call themselves beautiful baby boys. EVERYTHING

105 notes • Posted 2021-05-04 03:51:12 GMT

i rewatched wwdits and i realize i have a very specific type of favorite character

192 notes • Posted 2021-09-19 04:03:05 GMT

*pulls out a flute* yea im working on my melody of vector to the heavens and the other promise

1182 notes • Posted 2021-06-15 15:39:31 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #this is cringe

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cosmojjong · 3 years

Note

Pentagon, wjsn and red velvet (so you have something to do and occupy your mind ❤️)

thank you so much love ❤️ i wasn’t home so i couldn’t reply straightaway!

pentagon

do i already stan them? YES | only for the music | attempting to | no

if i’m familiar with them

my bias + bias wrecker*: changgu is my bias and shinwon is testing me <3

first time i heard of them: debut day! their mv link ended up on my tl

when i became a fan: definitely right after debut, i spent at least 2 good months listening to gorilla and cyfi, my bestfriend then probably hated all my pentagon ranting lmao

favorite (and least favorite) title track: favorite will probably always be like this, it helped me so so much. and for least favorite (if that’s how i can put it) is can you feel it and that’s mostly because i listened to it too much then and also bc they didn’t have much creative control over it

favorite (and least favorite) b-side: this is so hard i literally love all pentagon songs.... favorite bside is maybe.. alien or the black hall? and nah i can’t choose a least favorite bside because there’s no bad song

favorite (and least favorite) mv: favorite mv is happiness mv! free ot9 serotonin! least favorite mv is.. gorilla.. like listen i know it was something big for my universe journey but cube could’ve done better

favorite (and least favorite) album: favorite album is 100% ‘genie:us’! love or take may be a close second, or we:th. don’t have a least favorite mini sorry im a sucker for their music

a concept i wished they’d try*: LITERALLY all my friends know i’ve wanted them to go band for the longest time ever. i know they’ve done something here and there especially with do or not but i know they’d pull off a proper one so well, they can play a bunch of instruments too pleaseeee

what i like most about them*: their genuineness and uniqueness in and with everything they do. the type of passion and sincerity they share with their music, with their words, with their simple existence are one of a kind - not something you’d find anywhere.

wjsn

do i already stan them? yes | only for the music | attempting to | no (highlighting both because i am not sure which category i fit into lol)

if i’m familiar with them

my bias + bias wrecker*: don't think i have a bias or bias wrecker they're all great 😭

first time i heard of them: when secret mv dropped! i watched catch me mv right after cause i was curious

when i became a fan: again im not a (proper) fan but yeah hdjd ive been casually listening to their releases

*i’ll choose only favorites because i can’t remember all songs help especially bsides

favorite (and least favorite) title track: uhhh favorite title track is definitely dreams come true, it reminds me of two special people in my life and how lucky i feel to have met them - the lyrics and the melody are so precious

favorite (and least favorite) b-side: favorite bside is either closer to you or don’t touch - however i don’t have all songs in mind so i may be forgetting something

favorite (and least favorite) mv: favorite mv is secret mv!

favorite (and least favorite) album: can’t choose this one oops i know their discography but idk all songs well so i’m not able to decide;;

a concept i wished they’d try*: wjsn the black did it hehe i wouldn’t change their concepts as a whole

what i like most about them*: their dream-like concepts and their execution of them - i really love dream pop so there’s that

red velvet

do i already stan them? yes | only for the music | attempting to | no (same thing as for wjsn, except for the fact that i followed and kept up with red velvet much more in the past!)

if i’m familiar with them

my bias + bias wrecker*: yeri + joy

first time i heard of them: a friend mentioned them to me in high school but ice cream cake was the first song i listened to later in time

when i became a fan: 2016, i was so into them and they were one of the first ggs i liked after 2ne1

favorite (and least favorite) title track: favorite title track is ‘one of these nights’, it’s funny ‘cause i didn’t even like it at first but then i loved it so much... least favorite title track idk

favorite (and least favorite) b-side: favorite bside has to be body talk (omg it used to be all i listened to lmao) and least favorite bside idk :( it’s been a while since i relistened djhd

favorite (and least favorite) mv: favorite mv is bad boy! not sure about least favorite mv because almost all their mvs are colorful and i crave colorful things for some serotonin

favorite (and least favorite) album: i have two favorites! perfect velvet and the perfect red velvet! least favorite album is maybe.. russian roulette? admittedly i used to obsess over certain eps and forgot the rest

a concept i wished they’d try*: not sure because they’ve tried a lot of things but something similar to psycho or one of these nights

what i like most about them*: i think red velvet have their own color that you can recognize but can’t put into words, i think that’s their charm imo

#ask #quercusrobur

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rixxy8173571m3w1p3 · 6 years

Text

September Song (2/3)

I’m sorry @kitten-wrath that this took so long, but I do hope you like it. @hoodoo12 @xerxezra thanks for brainstorming with me. Also, Ice Cream Rick belongs @porkchop-ao3. References to the flowers can be found here (The Language Of Flowers) and pizza rolls here (Sick Day)

Also, special thanks go to @her-victori for reading a majority of my fics in a short span of time. You Rock! As well to random anons who leave me sweet words in my ask box.

If you haven't read the first part of this fic then here's the link. (Read Part1 Here)

In this fic the reader tries to be more reserved and mature for Rick, but what will he think?

______

Chapter 2: These Precious Days

The mom and pop ice cream parlor which could be found at the edge of town offered over twenty flavors and twice as many topping options. Rick thought you'd prefer this quiet atmosphere over the crowd that would've surrounded Ice Cream Ricks truck in the Citadel; he was right. Though it really was a shame since Ice Cream Rick was actually pretty nice. After ordering, you two sat by the window with the best view of a lonely backroad and a white GMC truck.

“I-I-I like that you went for the rainbow jimmies.” Rick commented as he popped a mini gummy bear into his mouth.

“Hmm? Yeah, I like the texture.”

Which was true, but it wasn't the whole truth. You loved sprinkles on just about any dessert they could be placed on. They were fun, colorful, and your dad's favorite topping. They reminded you of good times. You continued. “And they're a classic. Wouldn't you agree?”

“I-I do. Would you say that y-your favorite flavor?”

Savoring the flavor of your chocolate ice cream, you nodded. “Yeah.”

Smiling softly, he seemed to be ruminating on this information, before storing it away and eating a spoonful of his pistachio ice cream. After a little while, he managed to get a bit of it on the side of his mouth, which made you giggle. And because old habits die hard, you picked up a napkin and wiped his face clean. Under your fingertips, his skin had that masculine roughness that came from constant shaving. Of course, you were familiar with it, but these slight reminders that came about by chance never failed to amaze you.

However, you were quick to pull your hand back because he wasn't a fan of public displays of affection, though it seemed to have the opposite effect, with him reaching out and placing your hand back on his cheek, and leaning into it. “I'm glad y-you were able to come with me today.”

Seeing as the shop owner was in the back room, you relaxed a little. “I am too.”

Rick was always a little funny when he got sentimental, which was why it didn't surprise you too much when his eyes bore through you as he said. “Me encanta estar c-contigo.”

“Rick,” you began, wanting to let this facade go and declare every single word of affection your heart felt inclined to say, but just as soon as you thought you were going to crack, you restrained yourself, and simply said. “your ice cream is going to melt.”

Several beats of silence passed, and he acknowledged what you had said, but he went on. “You - I-I sometimes wish I could carry you in my pocket, and have you look after me all the time, but th-that's silly isn't it? It's not realistic, and that w-would be selfish.”

“If it's you, then I don't think it is. While it wouldn't necessarily be practical to miniaturize me and carry me around, isn't the beauty of a relationship knowing that you're always on someone's mind and that they are out there somewhere caring and thinking about you?”

“Certainly, but what I-I meant to say is that it'd be nice if this was our life. If I could keep y-you and if you and me ugh - all th-the time…we - if we….” he faltered, fixing his eyes on something else in the room.

“You don't mean eating ice cream do you?”

With a sigh, he relinquished the hold he had on your hand, “N-no.” and continued to eat his ice cream; resigned, and slightly embarrassed. You couldn't help but feel a slight disappointment. It's not like he wanted to say the magic words. Right?

________

After ice cream, you two visited the bookstore on the corner of Kinder St and Lavue Ave; which had not only a coffee shop but a toy store connected to it. As soon as one entered into it, you were met with the latest best sellers, books on travel and wellness, as well as souvenirs; it was one of few places that didn't bother you if it was cramped. To your left next to the window were those mint boxes which said Adventure Awaits, and it filled you with gladness as picked one up; thinking of little things you'd put in it after all the mints were gone. For his part, Zeta-7 seemed to know exactly what he was going for, disappearing in the back where all the used books were. Not knowing whether to follow or look around, you just did as you pleased.

Past the Keychain holder, above the box of mini hands, you found a Mister Rogers mug. You loved that wholesome old man who used to teach lessons and play with puppets on PBS; Rick reminded you of him too. On the label, it said that when you added hot water to the mug, Mister Rogers would change from a suit jacket into his cardigan. Seeing as Zeta-7 hadn't returned yet, you decided to buy it and continued to look around until he soon returned with an older book in hand. “I-I-I hope I hadn't kept you waiting long.”

Facing the bookshelf, pulling out books that you were mildly interested in, you answered. “I knew you would show up eventually.”

Noticing the stack of books you had, he asked sweetly. “M-m-mi corazón, do you want me t-to hold those books for you? They look a-a little heavy.”

You weren't sure how long you could keep up this facade of being mature and not melting into a puddle everytime he said things like that, with him being as darling as he was. Nonetheless, you nodded and he lightened the burden on your arms.

“Wow,” he brightened. “I-I didn't know you liked Alexandre Dumas.” And picking out another book, he wondered. “Have y-you ever read this?”

“The Man In the Iron Mask? No,” you admitted sadly. “but when I was in high school I did read about a third of The Count of Monte Cristo. I even have a postcard that my old English teacher sent me from Europe that had a picture of one of the buildings that was used in the movie.”

“That's s-s-so cool. Do - do you enjoy classic literature?”

Wholeheartedly, you replied. “Isn't it the best kind?”

“I-I-I don't know,” he softened. “but I don't know what I'd do without them.”

You thought of his home library then, with its eclectic mixture of languages, colors, and topics, and it made you feel warm in your soul. “If your home library tells me anything, it's that you have a healthy appetite for books.”

He glanced at your lips after you said this, but made no attempt to follow whatever thought which might've come to mind. Instead, you two carried on a lengthy discussion on books, how many were a social commentary of the time period, and how they influenced the world you lived in. For once you didn't have to pretend you knew something you didn't, cause you did know. Quite intimately in fact. And within the small spaces between shelves and bodies, where you'd normally feel claustrophobic, you were safe amongst all the friends you had yet to meet amongst the pages, and with Zeta-7 whose warm words and tall body shielded you from the curious eyes of the cashier.

_______________

A stack of books sat quietly in the back seat of his car. Crickets chirped, and there were random feral cats here and there, but there was only you and him as far as you were concerned. September Song by Willie Nelson played on the car radio as he led you into a natural waltz next to the town lake, and moonlight reflected in his eyes. If you hadn't been so afraid of drowning, maybe you would've preferred to dance on the dock, but like this, it felt right.

Oh, it's a long long while

From May to December

But the days grow short

When you reach September

When the autumn weather

Turns leaves to flame

One hasn't got time

For the waiting game

With your head resting on his chest, he hummed along to the melody. More than once you heard a sniffle but assumed it was just Zeta-7 caught up in the moment again.

Oh the days dwindle down

To a precious few. ..

September, November. ..

And these few precious days

I'll spend with you.

These precious days

I'll spend with you.

You thought every day spent with him was precious, and you had to admit that you weren't sure at the beginning of your relationship if it would've worked out, but you were glad that the both of you took a chance, and had been pleasantly surprised ever since. And after all this time, now that it was the fall again, you wondered what the next year and the year after that would be like; the possibilities are endless. However, your train of thought was broken when Zeta-7 stopped dancing and stood there; covering his face, wanting to disappear.

“Rick?”

“I'm - I'm sorry, but I-I-I-I can't do this.”

“Can't do what?”

“I-I-I can't pretend that everything's o-okay. Something's th-the matter isn't it?”

“No there isn't.” you denied.

“Then why are y-y-you so quiet? Are w-we breaking up? Are you - are you leaving me?”

You literally wanted to smack yourself for being such an idiot. “No! Why would you think that?”

Using his phone, he paused the music and passed a hand through his hair in an attempt to calm himself. “Y-y-you haven't been yourself all evening. I thought for a moment that maybe th-things were alright back in the bookstore, but you - I know y-you were holding back. I know how much you love books, and writing is y-y-y-your passion, but you were hesitant in sharing your opinions on either subject. M-mi corazón,” he pleaded, the lines about his forehead and mouth deepening. “please b-be honest with me. Is this it?”

“No, it's not.”

Your plan, which you thought has been working went horribly wrong. So much for trying to act like an adult for once. Man, you only wanted to entice him, which you somewhat succeeded, but because of your stupid games, you'd led him to believe that you were unsatisfied with your relationship. If anything, you were unsatisfied with how you handled this. “Believe me Ricky, you haven't done anything wrong. In fact,” you sighed, your chest aching from the bloom of anxiety. “you've only been sweet and charming. But I….oh, I was only trying to impress you.”

“Huh? Wh-what?”

“Exactly. Whatever I thought I'd accomplish, it…..I only managed to mess it up. Again. You probably wouldn't get it,” Or maybe he would, but you weren't feeling like yourself. “but sometimes I feel like all you did was pull me out of my little bubble so I could wreak havoc. I'm not any different from hundreds of other versions of me, am I? Cause, if I'm like them, then how did I end up with you? How did I get so lucky to be with someone so wonderful? I hope they are happy because I am with you.”

With a hand pressed over his heart, a single tear made its way down his cheek. “M-me too. I'm so happy with you.”

“Somehow, despite all my inadequacies, you want me. I mean, is it stupid to believe that I just wanted to be different from all those other copies? That I just wanted you to think I was mature?”

Zeta-7 looked at you with a wistful hope in his eyes.“No, it's - it's not stupid. You - you did that f-for me?”

“Who else dear honey man of mine? Maybe it can't be helped and I'll just be what I am,” you confessed. “but for a moment I wanted to be different. So I gave myself the look and didn't overreact. And most of all, kept my mouth shut so you wouldn't get bored of my rambling. I know I talk too much.”

“N-no, that's not - have I led you t-to believe you weren't good enough?”

“Not on purpose, but I can't help but feel that way sometimes. We both know I'm not that special. I mean, the only impressive thing I've ever done is eat 37 pizza rolls, and not kill the flowers you gave me. I'm so sorry,” you cried, “I'm sorry you got stuck with an idiot.”

He pulled you in for a tight embrace, smoothing out your hair. “D-don't ever say that.” he cooed. “You're - you're clever, lovely, and always give me something t-t-to smile about.”

“Anyone can do that.”

Pulling back a little, he gave your shoulder a squeeze and softened. “N-no, not at all. Y-you give away dreams, smiles, and kindness. You're reliable, and I-I can trust you. And there is no one in the universe th-that could compare t-to you when it comes to being the perfect woman. If anything, I'm th-the defect here.”

“No, you're perfect Ricky.”

Placing a lock of hair behind your ear, he continued. “I'm glad y-you think so, but this isn't a-about me. You - you dressed up today, in a-a elegant dress that I'd n-never seen before,” and pressing a kiss behind your ear, he whispered with a little gleam of pride in his eyes.. “wearing the perfume I-I-I made you. Smelling like a-a dream.”

Again, how anyone considered this charmer a doofus you'd never know. “I had been saving it for a special occasion.”

“Everyday with you is - is special.”

“Oh Rick. That's…thank you.”

Pointing at your feet, “And I noticed that you're closer t-t-to my height today, but your feet must be hurting by now. Would y-you like to take them off?”

Oh, your feet were screaming. And now that you weren't pretending, you slipped out of your shoes which made you lose about four inches. Picking up your shoes and shoes and dusting them off, he continued. “That must feel better. I-I-I had to wear heels for a case once. It ugh - it's not practical when y-y-you have to run.”

“Right? I don't see how other women do it, cause I can't. I'm not even sure why I own them. I should just burn those things.”

You'd say it was half relief, half joy that made him laugh wholeheartedly at this, and you didn't see how it could be so funny. You poked him and pouted, and he delighted in this. “See?” he chuckled, looking at you in that funny way he did from time to time.

“See what?”

“This. This is th-the girl I fell in love with,” he stated matter of factly. “the one who likes t-to be comfortable, speaks her mind and prefers those jeans with th-the rip on the side. Not to mention those graphic t-shirts. Or cute pj's.”

Your breath caught a little at this confession. How could the smartest man in the universe adore an impertinent person like you? Maybe the same way you could love the smartest man; you just do. In your girlish voice, you said. “I only wanted you to be proud of me.”

Holding you a fraction tighter, he pressed a light kiss to your temple and chuckled sweetly. “Y-you already do princess. Today y-you made an effort for me, and that's impressive, but honestly, I want you t-t-to be comfortable and dress up how y-you like. You as yourself is what impresses me, because you have s-s-so much spirit, and I - that's what makes y-you gorgeous.”

This time you didn't even try to hide your blush.

“Oh Rick, hearing you say that really does make me feel silly. Why did I do this to myself? What was I thinking?”

“I believe y-you're still trying to figure it all out like the rest of us, and I can't get mad at you for th-that because you're wonderfully human. You had good intentions, and th-that's what counts.”

“Can you forgive me?”

“I al-already have.”

TBC

#doofus rick #doofus rick x reader #rick sanchez x reader #j19z7 #rick j19z7 #rnm fanfic #my writing #my works

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sftswigan · 4 years

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Manchester gutter punks, The Battery Farm, talk to us about horrific crime inspiring a song and how they just had to form this band...

We’ve got frontman/guitarist Ben from the band.

Alright Ben, can you tell us about the band. Who plays what and how the band got together?

Hallo! We are The Battery Farm, four gutter bastards from Manchester playing gnarly, seething punk rock music.

Ben Corry on Vocals and Guitar, Dominic Corry on Guitar, Paul Worrall on Bass, Sam Parkinson on Drums. Me and Dom formed this band from the ashes of a band we'd previously been in together for 8 years. At the point we formed The Battery Farm we were in a low place, feeling like failures, feeling defeated by this thing that we'd built for years just imploding, feeling angry and scared and hopeless at the utter state of the world. We basically decided to do this in the pub one night when we felt like we had absolutely nothing to lose. It was formed as a desperate reaction to two lives and minds spiralling out of control in a hostile, hateful world.

That must have been tough but, seems like it’s worked out well and the band from what I can tell is going from strength to strength. How soon did you find the remaining members, Paul and Sam? What have they brought to the band?

It has actually. Helpfully, it was a fertile environment from which to create. The first wave of songs - stuff like I Am a Man - are the purest distillation of that sense of lashing out, that sense of desperation we were feeling at the time.

We found Paul pretty much straight away. I'd known him for years through Manchester's Fringe theatre scene, having been in a couple of plays with him. He'd come to see me in a play, I knew he was a musician as well as an actor (although I don't think I'd grasped just how good he is), so I asked if he fancied playing bass for our new band. Sam we actually didn't know before the band, and it took a little longer to get him in. He works for the same company i do and I'd heard he was a drummer, so I got his contact details, asked him if he fancied coming for a rehearsal with us. It all clicked, and the rest is history.

Paul and Sam bring a massive amount to the band. They lift the songs me and Dom write and add a very particular combination of power and melody which you'll be hard pressed to come by very often. They're fucking ace and they know what is good for the song. No ego, no fucking about. They know what's important.

Sounds like you needed that new band to form quickly and to find drummer and bassist when you did you was very fortunate. I watched an interview of you and Dom recently and you talked about inspiration for songwriting and I was interested in where 97/91 came from. When it comes to writing where do you first look to for ideas?

Yeah we did, finding a drummer was comparitively difficult and I think if we'd have really struggled then we honestly would have just given up on it. 97/91 came about after I read an article about the murder of Suzanne Capper in Moston, north Manchester, which is where me and Dom grew up. I'm not going to go into details but if you look it up you'll see that it's the most horrific thing you've ever read. It stuck with me for weeks afterwards, and part of that was because I knew the streets where it had taken place and the community in which it had taken place. The houses it happened in - numbers 97 and 91 - are still there to this day. I got to thinking about why I reacted so viscerally to that story in particular; atrocities happen every day and we don't bat an eyelid, not really. It had such an impact because I was so familiar with the setting, so familiar with the type of person involved. It was too real. 97/91 explores the idea that we make a trade-off in our lives, one which enables cognitive dissonance that shields us from the impact the mass, relentless violence of the world. It also means that when something evil happens in a familiar setting the impact is much greater.

How can it only be real when you can see it? 97/91 isn't necessarily about the Capper murder itself, but the murder is a jumping off point to explore the faustian pact at the heart of the human condition, the one that keeps us sane but also ebbs away at our souls.

Our ideas just literally come from trying to explain our perspective on the world, we don't necessarily make a conscious effort to look in one place for ideas. We just write about whatever moves us. That can be mental illness, corrupt political systems, or the fact that I've never been to Gorton, which is literally the title of one of our new songs.

I find reading about crime stories really interesting, it’s madness what goes on in this world! This is one I’m not aware of but this must have been difficult to write about with it being so close to home? I love the anger and aggression in your music and lyrics.

You mentioned being an actor earlier, do you think this has an influence on your performance as a front man?

Yeah I went through a short phase of listening to true crime podcasts earlier this year but i had to stop bec it was all too grim. It was difficult to explore the ideas that particular incident led me onto but the endgame wasn't to just write about the murder itself, so I suppose keeping that in mind kept my head clear and made things easier.

Honestly, i try to keep any ideas of acting and theatre separate from the band. The actor thing can be frustrating at times because people conflate that with what I do in the band and think that everything must be a performance of some kind, which it isn't. The whole idea of putting The Battery Farm together was that it could give us an outlet to express ourselves honestly, and to me the stuff I do as a frontman is just an honest reaction to what I'm singing and what it makes me feel. I try not to overthink that aspect of it because I feel like to do so would water it down. It needs to be raw, it needs to be stark, it needs to be reality. If it's an actor's performance I'm not really getting anything out of it.

It’s amazing how reading/listening to one can lead on to another one. But yeah hard to shake off once you’ve learned about them.

You’re performance on stage seems very honest and I love to see in a frontman.

Moving on to the music scene...Manchester in particular is buzzing at the minute. Did the band find it easy to slot in? What’s been your favourite gig up to now?

We did actually. We knew a couple of people anyway from being in previous bands but until now I'd always found the Manchester scene a little unfriendly. It's totally different now. Not only is it overflowing with incredible, original, exciting new bands but it's also full of amazing people, and in the year we've been gigging we've made some wonderful friends. There's a proper sense of inclusivity and community, a lack of ego and aloofness that wasn't there before.

My favourite, and I think the others would agree with me, is our first headline set which was at The Peer Hat last November. It was an Abattoir Blues night and they're always amazing. The venue was packed to capacity and the atmosphere was electric. It was the kind of big, simmering sweatbox that seems impossible to imagine in the current climate. I want every gig we play to be like that one.

Yeah it’s great to see bands appreciating each other’s music and plugging their stuff on social media etc. I love going to Manchester for a gig. It’s a great time for guitar music in the UK at the minute with bands like Idles, Fontaines DC and Sports Team doing really well. And also The Blinders bringing album 2 out very soon!

That gig sounds like a great night!

When all this is over and we get some normality back...what are the bands plans?

Well, we're heading into the studio later this summer to begin work on... something. Beyond that it's hard to say because like everyone else we can't really make plans at the moment. Like everyone else we're pretty much having to make it up as we go along. We do have gigs booked for November and December but whether they'll happen or not remains up to fate. Everything going to plan, we may be in for an exciting end to the year. Maybe.

Gonna be very exciting for all bands and music once gigs/recording etc can happen again isn’t it.

Got so many new bands I want to see. Have you discovered any new bands during lockdown? If not, what have you been listening to?

Lockdown's actually been really fruitful in terms of new bands releasing amazing stuff. I've been listening to a lot of Tinfoils recently, they're a delight! Also been loving new stuff from Cold Water Swimmers, The Red Stains, Richard Carlson Band, The Maitlands, loads of stuff. I've also recently discovered John Shuttleworth, a comedy singer from Sheffield who does weird Phoenix Club-type songs about stuff like margerine and vans. I love stuff like that, real end of the pier nonsense.

I love Tinfoils and down to have them on here in Wigan but then lockdown came. The other bands I’m aware of too but not the solo artists you’ve mentioned.

Yeah Tinfoils are great. John Shuttleworth has been around for years i think. I can imagine he won't be to everyone's taste. Richard Carlson Band are actually named after the actor Richard Carlson, who was in The Creatire From the Black Lagoon. There is no Richard Carlson in that band! They're absolutely ace, they released their debut single a few weeks ago and I've had it on repeat.

I’ll be sure to listen to your recommendations, love finding new music to listen to.

We’re coming to the end of the interview now, I’ve just got a couple of questions. You’ll get two options, you pick one answer...

Winter or summer?

Sex Pistols or The Clash?

Roast dinner or Chinese?

Film or Book?

Winter

The Clash

Roast Dinner

Book

Thanks for having me! Hopefully see you soon

Thanks Ben for taking the time to chat to us. Hopefully we’ll cross paths at a gig soon.

If you want to listen to the band please go and follow them on social media and their music is on Spotify etc.

youtube

#Batteryfarm #97/91 #Manchester #Punk #SFTSWIGAN #Youtube

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