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lurkingshan · 8 months

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A Time Called You: A Great Reminder to Go Watch Someday or One Day

This past weekend Netflix dropped a new kdrama called A Time Called You in its entirety, and I became particularly interested in watching it as soon as I realized what it was: the Korean remake of Someday or One Day I knew had been in the works for awhile. If you’re not familiar, Someday or One Day (SOOD) is a beloved 2019 Taiwanese drama that is widely considered to be among the best dramas the country has ever produced (there is also a 2022 film version of the story, but that’s less relevant to this post). Now, I love Korean dramas, and I know that countries remaking each other’s best shit is very common in the Asian media landscape, but I couldn’t help but feel protective of the original work and a bit resentful of the choice to adapt something that was so original and unique and specific and put that generic kdrama sheen on it. Taiwan has a small film industry, and this is one of its jewels. We didn’t need Korea’s take on it.

And having watched the adaptation in full now, I am feeling pretty justified in that initial feeling. Let me just say upfront: A Time Called You (ATCY) is a perfectly good drama with a solid cast and competent storytelling. Had I seen it absent the knowledge of what it was adapting, I probably would have liked it a lot. But I have already seen and loved Someday or One Day, so I feel compelled to break down why it is the better version of this tale, both for my fellow SOOD devotees who are wondering how this adaptation stacks up and for folks who have only seen the kdrama in the hopes that you’ll decide to watch the original. As usual, I did the most, so reader be advised that this is long (tagging @troubled-mind as promised and @smittenskitten because I saw you were looking for a comparison of the two dramas). TL; DR: if you liked ATCY, or have seen neither version and are wondering which to watch: go find Someday or One Day, because it’s an overall superior and more satisfying execution of the same story.

The Vibe

Let’s start here because it’s the most obvious and immediately striking thing as someone who has seen both versions. SOOD has a bit of a rough and unpolished feel, which makes it feel more grounded in reality (important when you are getting into fantasy elements like time travel but you still want the characters to feel like real people). We open our story in 1998 in a record shop with a young girl playing Last Dance by Wu Bai and China Blue, a 1996 mando pop rock ballad, and thus setting the tone—this will be a somewhat raw and bittersweet story about grief and hurt and longing that will invite us to wallow in our feelings. And that melancholic vibe stays throughout the drama, even in the explicitly happy scenes, because you are always aware that the joy you are seeing has already been lost.

By contrast, ATCY feels… emotionally flat. Don’t get me wrong, it is a very faithful adaptation. The early episodes are practically a shot for shot remake of the original drama. But it’s too polished, too shiny. The filmmaking is bog standard kdrama fare; everything is soft focus and warmly lit and too beautiful and consequently nothing feels real. It feels right in line with the standard aesthetics of recent mainstream Korean dramas, and that choice undermines the emotional weight and grit of this story.

A great example of this can be seen in the way the two dramas handle the iconic scene where our female lead runs in the rain, looking back over her shoulder to smile in delight at the male lead before continuing on her way. This is a moment of realization for him about his feelings for her—one he will later immortalize in a painting that becomes part of the mystery of the past she is trying to unravel. In Someday or One Day, this scene takes place on a regular street, in the utterly mundane surroundings of their everyday lives as they walk home, and she runs down the middle of the road as puddles gather in the uneven pavement; in A Time Called Love, they are in a picturesque park for this scene, surrounded by green and encased within a grove of giant trees, and she runs right down the middle of a tree lane that looks like it came straight out of a fairytale. One story is very much about a love grounded in a reality we can recognize; the other is pure fantasy romance.

The Music

I already mentioned the song that anchors the Taiwanese drama above. Last Dance is hugely important to the story, both thematically and as a plot device, and in its ability to set the mood and tone of the drama.

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The Korean remake similarly uses a real 1996 ballad as its main song and time travel mechanism: With My Tears by Seo Ji Won. And, uh, the vibe is a bit different.

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Discerning listeners might recognize this as one of the many classic love ballads performed by our favorite doctors by day, rock stars by night over on Hospital Playlist. It’s a perfectly fine song. But it sets quite a different tone for our story, doesn’t it? It also is meant to be a song that a teenage boy is hankering to listen to on cassette, and listen, I wasn’t living in Korea in 1996. I have no idea how culturally accurate that may be. I’m sure there were in fact baby Lee Ik Juns running around trying to get their hands on this cheesy love song. But the edgier sound of Last Dance definitely sounds more in line with something the teenage male lead would listen to and what the music is meant to convey. And frankly, since we hear this song about 30 times in the drama, it matters that Last Dance is just an objectively better song.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, because beyond the classic song each version chose to use as its centerpiece, there is also a stark difference in the quality and tone of each drama’s OSTs. Here is a compilation of the Someday or One Day tracks, including the utterly gorgeous main theme by Shi Shi. The music is hugely important in the Taiwanese drama and is used to set the mood as well as emphasize its themes, and the tracks feel specific to this story.

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And here is a compilation of A Time Called You OSTs.

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If you’re familiar with kdrama OSTs, you will recognize most of the artists on here, as well as some new covers of old songs. And again, the vibes are quite different. Whereas SOOD was very intentional and specific in its music choices, ATCY just sounds like every other kdrama. There is nothing on this tracklist that stands out or evokes the kind of feeling that the SOOD tracks do.

The Main Couple

The name and timeline situation in this show makes this section unnecessarily difficult, so let me just make a little reference sheet here:

Someday or One Day

Alice Ke plays Yu Xuan (2019) and Yun Ru (1998)

Greg Hsu plays Quan Sheng (2019) and Zi Wei (1998)

A Time Called You

Jeon Yeo Been plays Jun Hee (2023) and Min Yu (1998)

Ahn Hyo Seop plays Yeun Jun (2023) and Si Heon (1998)

All of the actors here are seasoned and very good at their jobs, so I am not casting shade on any of them—they are executing their performances based on writing and directorial choices. But I cannot deny that the Taiwanese version of these characters are more compelling all around. In SOOD, the main characters have a real spark; despite the melancholic undertone of the story, there are moments of genuine joy and when they connect with each other, you feel why this bond is strong enough for them to find each other through time and despite all the trauma they endure. In ATCY, however, the characterizations are muted.

This is most evident in the difference between Quan Sheng/Zi Wei and Yeon Jun/Si Heon. Greg Hsu plays Zi Wei as magnetic, playful, mischievous, utterly lovable, and very intense about his feelings for his lady. He has a real joie de vivre about him that clearly brightens up Yu Xuan’s life considerably, and his devotion to her is not just shown, but deeply felt. Experiencing their memories, you understand immediately why Yu Xuan can’t move on from his death; he was the joyful, relaxed counterpoint to her more ambitious and serious personality. Si Heon, though? He is a nice dude and a generous partner and he is very good looking. But he doesn’t have the playfulness or the intensity that his Taiwanese counterpart does. His personality is just more moderate all around. One great example of this: upon discovering that he has traveled forward into the body of the person that would become Yu Xuan/Jun Hee’s boyfriend, Zi Wei (in Quan Sheng’s body now, are you still with me?) actively decides to find her, love her, and try to solve this time loop quagmire they are in; Si Heon (in Yeon Jun’s body) waits for a moment of fate to give him a sign, and only makes the decision to pursue Jun Hee after running into her by coincidence.

Similarly, Jun Hee is not quite as spunky and sassy as Yu Xuan and Min Yu is not as dark and awkward as Yun Ru; when Jun Hee travels to the past and takes up residence in Min Yu’s body, the differences between the two characters she is playing are not as evident. In SOOD, I could tell at a glance who is in Yun Ru’s body; in ATCY I need more context to be sure. Where Yun Ru had more of an edge, Min Yu simply reads very shy. It’s not as compelling. One scene that really stands out as an example of this: when Yun Ru is pretending to be Yu Xuan in 1998 and looks in the mirror to practice smiling, it looks downright creepy and sinister; when Min Yu is masquerading as Jun Hee and looks at herself in the mirror, she just looks awed and happy, if a bit awkward. It’s subtle, but it changes the way you feel about the characters.

The difference in Jun Hee and Yeon Jun’s characterization also affects the couple chemistry, which is just not nearly as strong in ATCY. The characters are more muted and thus the expected sparks are more like smoldering embers. The relationship feels cozy and warm and nurturing, but it doesn’t feel vital. It doesn’t feel like the kind of relationship you would fight through time or break the rules of the universe to return to. I recall gasping or crying or laughing out loud throughout SOOD because I was constantly taken aback by Greg Hsu’s arresting presence and the chemistry he and Alice Ke generated was just emotionally riveting. When Yu Xuan told Zi Wei (as Quan Sheng) that they were officially together, that man literally jumped for joy and shouted out his love for her; Si Heon (as Yeon Jun) reacts to the same moment with a quiet smile and a hug. When Zi Wei saw Yu Xuan in Yun Ru’s body again in the finale, he knew instantly that it was her and the smile overtook his face as he reached for her; Si Heon initially called Min Ju’s name before getting closer and taking several beats to realize it was Jun Hee (ruining this iconic moment is perhaps this remake’s greatest sin against romance, my god).

Everything between the couple in SOOD was just more, both in happiness and in despair. I liked Jun Hee and Si Heon, and Ahn Hyo Seop and Jeon Yeo Been are very competent actors whose performances I have loved in other dramas, but they didn’t achieve that level of chemistry here, the writing and directing choices worked against them, and I didn’t feel that same desperation for them to figure this out that I did with Yu Xuan and Zi Wei.

The Story

The Korean version is a very faithful adaptation overall (I haven’t mentioned Jun Jie and In Gyuk because his character and story is more consistent across the two shows), but does make some small tweaks to the story, some of which seem to be out of necessity due to a shorter run time (one episode and a couple hours total less than the Taiwanese original) and some just… because? The shorter amount of story time does lead to them having to cut corners on some aspects of the mythology and time travel lore, making it all a bit less clear for folks who don’t already understand what’s going on, and they put in a few nods to typical kdrama tropes like amusement park dates and hand of fate stuff that we really didn’t need—they are already trapped in a time loop together, we get it!

ATCY also messed with the timelines and ages for reasons I don’t really understand and that don’t really track. In SOOD, Zi Wei traveled forward from 2002 to Quan Sheng’s body in 2010, met Yu Xuan, and then died in 2018. In ATCY, Si Heon traveled forward from 2002 only to 2007 and did not die until 2022—but the relationship dynamics are all the same. It made sense for a young couple who had been together about 7 years and who were in their mid-20s to be having the kind of relationship problems they did—fighting about prioritizing careers and time abroad and whether it was time to get married. But a couple who has been together nearly 15 years? Who are in their mid-30s? They would have already been married probably and had a couple kids to boot. The choice to change the timeline like this had me scratching my head and accomplished nothing for the story.

But neither of those things are the change to the story that is weighing on me most. That occurs in a very small and brief backstory for the real Yeon Jun, where the drama introduces an original character who has no counterpart in SOOD: Tae Ha.

In SOOD, the real Quan Sheng is a closeted gay teenager who meets a tragic end: he confesses to his crush, gets brutally rejected, then gets bullied when the crush tells others about his sexuality, and ultimately decides to walk into the sea in an attempt to end his life, a choice that leaves his body in a coma until Zi Wei’s consciousness takes it over. In ATCY, this backstory changes and Rowoon is brought in for a brief but impactful cameo as Tae Ha, Yeon Jun’s cram school friend. We see that the two have mutual feelings for each other but are both struggling to confess. One day as they are driving together, they finally explicitly acknowledge their feelings, holding hands and smiling at one another—and then immediately get hit by a Truck of Doom (easily one of the most tired kdrama tropes), Tae Ha dying on impact and Yeon Jun ending up in a coma with Si Heon’s consciousness eventually taking over his body like in the original story.

Now on first glance, you might be inclined to give the show some credit for including a new gay character and giving the original Yeon Jun a happier experience with his crush. Explicit gay representation? In a mainstream kdrama? Still very rare and a big deal if done right. But if you think for a moment longer you’ll realize we can’t give the show credit for this, because this is a textbook execution of the Bury Your Gays trope and the narrative punishment that befalls gay characters who act on their attraction. Essentially, what the Korean remake did here was reveal these two characters are gay, killed them both immediately after they decided to pursue a relationship with each other, and then had the het male lead character take over the body of this gay man and use it to enter into a relationship with a woman. Some aspects of this plot were present in the original tale, but this choice to add an additional gay character only to kill him and tie it to their moment of acknowledging their mutual attraction? Made it significantly worse. It was badly done and I will not applaud the drama for representation when they did it in such a cruel way.

The Ending

SOOD ends on a hopeful but somewhat ambiguous note, with Yu Xuan in 2020 finding a way to go back and save Yun Ru (and Jun Jie by extension) and then breaking the time loop, sacrificing her relationship with Zi Wei in the process even as it breaks her heart (because the only way for them to meet and fall in love in 2010 was to stay in the loop). She sacrifices their romance, and all their memories together, because it’s the right thing to do—she inadvertently destroyed Yun Ru’s life with her time traveling, and she couldn’t live with that knowing there was a way to fix it. We are left with a broken time loop, original teen Zi Wei meeting child Yu Xuan again in 1998, and the hope that they will find a way to make their fates align again and be together without time travel complications. It’s just the right bittersweet touch to end the story on; their previous relationship was lost and their sacrifice was real, but there is hope for another version of a happy life together, someday.

By contrast, ATCY goes for a more explicit happy ending: Jun Hee makes the same choice to go back and save Min Ju, and to break the time loop and sacrifice her relationship with Si Heon, but in ATCY we then jump forward to 2011 to a happy epilogue to see Si Heon and Jun Hee meet as adults. And look, I love a happy ending! But what I said above about the sacrifice Yu Xuan and Zi Wei made in SOOD really resonating because of its bittersweet ending? That’s absent here, because ATCY decided they needed to put a bow on it and reassure us they would get back together. ATCY was just never willing to let us stay in the grief or commit to the darker and sadder aspects of this story, and as a result, the whole thing loses some of its impact.

#someday or one day #a time called you #tw drama #kdrama #long post #why yes i did write a 3k word post for the ten people on this website who care about both these dramas #shan shouts into the void

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digitalgate02 · 6 months

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The UPDATED (OG) Adventure universe’s Partnership double year math count

Updated Digimon Adventure OG Timeline’s Partnership Math Count List

Not particularly spoilers from the movie, just stuff stated by the official timeline from the pre-release stream for the movie in Japan (Oct 26)

Early 80s - Oikawa Yukio & Hida Hiroki make the first contact with the Digital World, befriend Pipimon (no partnerships)

1995 - Hikari and Taichi find a Koromon egg* (no partnerships)

1996 - 2 (Rui; someone else gets a digimon later in that year*)

1997 - 4 (Menoa)

1998 - 8 (Possibly the previous 5 mentioned from Adv’99 anime/novels)

1999 - 16 (Adv Eight, Meiko*)

2000 - 32 (Ken*)

2001 - 64 (Michael)

2002 - 128 (Daisuke, Miyako, Iori)

2003 - 256

2004 - 512

2005 - 1,024

2006 - 2,048

2007 - 4,096

2008 - 8,192

2009 - 16,384

2010 - 32,768

2011 - 65,536

2012 - 131,072

2013 - 262,144

2014 - 524,288

2015 - 1.048,576

2016 - 2.097,152

2017 - 4.194,304

2018 - 8.388,608

2019 - 16.777,216

2020 - 33.554,432

2021 - 67.108,864

2022 - 134.217,728

2023 - 268.435,456

2024 - 536.870,912

2025 - 1.073.741,824

2026 - 2.147.483,648

2027 - 4.294.967,296

2028 (02 Epilogue) - 8.589.934,592

↓ Original notes + "Why there's still no retcon of the lore" below ↓

First, the OG notes from the outdated post:

→ This count is not about “which was the very first digimon-human contact”, and yes about people with a digivice. Because if we were going to count who was the first human to have contact with a digimon, it’s actually two and they’re Oikawa Yukio and Iori’s dad, Hida Hiroki.

→ I’m ignoring all the inconsistencies with other material (WS & ▽) because they seem to not match well with the original count. So, in this case, Ken’s statement in the anime (Aug 2000) is the one to be accounted for here. I don’t know if Ryo counts as Chosen (possibly yes, judging by 02 flashbacks) but I’m not sure where to place him here.

→ I’m only adding Michael to the count, even if he’s not a main character and yes a side character, because 02 ep 14 had this statement regarding him. And I like Michael too so, let me have him there :V

→ Menoa states in the movie she met Morphomon when she was nine, and according to the Dash X novel version, she’s the same age as Taichi. Which means she became a Chosen in 1997.

→ I couldn’t think of how to include Maki & Daigo’s group in this because ▽ contradicts with the original lore’s math – The fact the Pt4 book released with the movie on Japanese theaters state them being in Elementary School the time they went to their adventure in the DW, and later the confession scene means they’re in University/College makes them possibly been Chosen Children way before 1995, and I’d take it granted that they were chosen by someone else IF weren’t for the Homeostasis being involved in the scene and the digivice being way too modern for that time (it was basically Taichi group’s model. If you look at Rui’s digivice in the leaked footage from DigiFes2022, his model seems to be different and an older version)

→ That said, Meiko is the only character in ▽ that does not fall into contradiction with the math count. Because in 1999 there was not only Taichi’s group, but also other 8 non-featured Chosen according to Kakudou’s notes. So we can consider Meiko one of those other 8 children.

→ When it comes to Wallace, I prefer to think he is game in the original math – Taichi and Hikari met that Koromon in 95, but they had no digivice until 1999. Which means it can be possible that Wallace had encountered Gummy-Choco’s egg before 1995 and only became an official Chosen Child later.

Now, the new notes:

→ To avoid spoiling any detail about the movie itself, I’ll make sure to tell you they might have changed how the math works only. It’s not like, “everyone gets a digimon at the same time” but rather… “A X number of people get partnered with a digimon in different periods of a year” – Which means yes, you can still count Rui and Ukkomon as the origins of the Digimon partnership, but that later in the same year someone else (or, say, Wallace in the main timeline) got a partner months later.

→ That said, I’m opting to update this list and work within the idea that various sources of partnership (Homeostasis, Holy Beasts, etc) can be counted in the math. Remember – Homeostasis (not referred to as this in the OG series but yes in the novels) had selected Taichi & co., but the Holy Beasts chose Dai-Miya-Iori. And some other entity probably chose Ken in August 2000. This could explain why there’s a higher number of partnerships happening at the same time in Adv’99 and 02.

→ As I mentioned before, and indirectly supported by the staff (check the official timeline at the top of the list), ▽ has violated the lore to the point it goes in direct conflict with the new 02 movie and the entire timeline. So I guess it’s better to consider ▽ as its own timeline/Alternate universe than forcing it into the main timeline.

→ That said, and since Meiko does exist in Kizuna/main timeline, I suppose Maki and Daigo also do exist, and maybe they got their “ages” retconned and down to something suitable to the universe’s math count. They can still be part of the previous five kids mentioned in Adv’99 anime/novels, but they are probably around their teen years, or even early 20s instead, not fully adults working for the government I suppose. Or alternatively, just not Chosen yet. Pick your favorite route, Maki/Daigo fans!!

→ Yes, the Koromon from the very first movie IS NOT THE SAME PARTNERED WITH TAICHI. This never was confirmed, and was just fandom's theory. Considering how ▽ also made this mistake and possibly was one of the lore's violation, I prefer to believe this means it's not the same Koromon/Agumon partnered with Taichi in Adv'99.

#digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digifood for thought #kizuna spoilers #02tb spoilers #ni's digitheories

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momo-t-daye · 2 months

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Momo's Snapedom AU Ask Game!

I do love how the Snapedom has folks who write extensive meta with citations and how the Snapedom has oodles of people making a delightful diversity of AUs that gnaw on the bones of the canon narrative skeleton to cook up a more satisfying story-soup! So I thought it might be fun to put together a few questions for an ask game (after all, the fun part of fandom is interacting with other fans):

Do you have a name and/or a tag and/or a master post for your AU (so I can peruse your blog and admire your creativity)?

What is the premise of your AU (one sentence summary, tropes, your big “What-if” question, etc.!)?

Can you describe your AU badly? (Because I do love hilariously misleading but not actually inaccurate descriptions of stories)

What your favorite thing about your AU? (Does it make you cackle with glee or do you break your own heart?)

What are the major divergence points in your AU?

Is there any part of the canon narrative you really like to build off of or interrogate with your AU?

Are there themes or motifs or specific concepts in your AU that you hope people will notice? (Do you want to give hints about your masterful foreshadowing or chat about your extensive world building? Should we all grab a floriography dictionary when flowers are mentioned?)

What are some key life moments in your AU!Snape’s life that differ from canon!Snape’s life?

How and why does your AU!Snape differ from the canon!Snape?

Would your AU!Snape want to trade places with canon!Snape (and vice versa!)? Why?

Do you know if Severus going to escape the gravitational pull of the canon narrative/fate in your AU?

Do you think any other characters are going to escape the gravitational pull of their canon narrative/fate in your AU? If so, can any of that extra AU!velocity be attributed to Severus’ actions?

What era does your AU primarily take place in (is it focused on part of the canon timeline? Is the canon timeline adjusted a few years one way or another? Or are you playing with a futuristic sci-fi AU or a historical AU or something else entirely? Maybe you have a 1998!Snape dealing with life in 1942 or some other combination?)

What is his childhood and/or family life like in your AU? Is it better than his canon life starting out in Cokeworth?

Does Lily exist in your AU? Are Severus and Lily friends in your AU?

Do any of the Marauders exist in your AU? What role do they play in your AU Severus’ life?

Do the Malfoys exist in your AU? How do they interact with your version of Severus?

Does Voldemort exist in your AU? Does Severus join his cause at any point in your AU?

Does Dumbledore exist in your AU? What role does he play in Severus’ life in your AU?

Does Harry Potter exist in your AU? How does he interact with Severus in your AU?

Is there another canon character that plays a major role in your AU!Snape’s life? What role do they play and how does it differ from their canon relationship with Snape?

Is an Original Character a major feature and player in your AU? Who are they? What role do they play AU!Severus’ life? How do they interact with any other canon characters in your story?

Does Severus have a significant other (or others) in your AU?

Does Severus have children in your AU?

Is Severus Snape the Hogwarts Potions Master in your AU? If not, what is he doing instead?

Does Severus have any major interests (mycology, astronomy, sci-fi, baking elaborate puff pastries, art forgery, etc.) in your AU that we never got to see canon!Snape indulge in? Do these interests play a major narrative role?

Do you have a snippet of prose (or an art piece or a list of headcanons) from your AU that you particularly enjoy and want to share?

Free space! Any other questions folks want to ask?

#Severus Snape #Snapedom #snape fandom #snape community #prosnape #ask game #My questions are going to come from the main blog because I'm not tech savvy and didn't quite grasp what a sideblog was...#Canon is a scaffold and fanon is a funhouse mirror and I'd love to see what you're reflecting on!

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sutekiniichan · 9 months

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What's with the secrecy regarding Trigun Stampede's version of Augusta?

Of all the official things Studio Orange has put out regarding Trigun Stampede, the one that keeps turning around in my mind is the 'File Corrupt' page detailing some of the cities, and the fact that Augusta's entry is completely blacked out. You can't make out anything about the place at all.

This indicates that there is something about Augusta that they really don't want us to know anything about. While this also applies to May City which is also mysteriously completely blacked out, Augusta stands out to me more for a particular reason. The first thing I think about when I see the name Augusta, is that in the 1998 anime, Augusta was the site of the Fifth Moon incident. In contrast, in the Trigun manga, the Fifth Moon actually happened in Jeneora Rock, and it was also the site where Knives was revived after he spent time recovering from July. It is also the audience's first proper introduction to Knives. In Trigun Stampede, Jeneora Rock was instead used as the starting point of the show, where it still serves the purpose of introducing the audience to Knives. But that means that Jeneora Rock is unlikely to be the place that Knives is using as his hideaway to recover after July went kaboom this time. Meanwhile, the Fifth Moon is also yet to happen. In fact, it remains to be seen if it will even happen at all in Trigun Stampede. But whether it happens or not, Knives has to recover from July somehow, somewhere. Will Augusta this time be used as the site of Knives's recovery? Will it once more be used as the site of the Fifth Moon Incident? Or does Studio Orange have other plans for the place entirely?

Interestingly, Octoburn is the most readable entry. That is particularly interesting given that in the manga, it was the site of the final arc of the story. For some reason, Studio Orange finds it less dire to hide information about Octoburn, while they are being extremely secretive about Augusta (and May).

#Trigun Stampede #Trigun #Tristamp #Trigun speculation #Tristamp spoilers #Trigun spoilers #trigun commentary #obviously we won't get any answers until we get more of the show #but I wanted to write this out because it's been driving me crazy #STUDIO ORANGE WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING

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violetfaust · 1 year

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For my own sanity

I'm trying to put together a list of the various versions of Goncharov (1973) screened throughout the last fifty years.

The four-and-a-half-hour film festival cut that even Scorsese felt was a rough draft

The US theatrical release in 1973

The 1973 European theatrical release with its extra half hour of footage

The 1973 Latin American dub with its extra half hour of different footage

The so-called Secret Reels that producer Domenico Procacci the Elder (not to be confused with the unrelated Italian filmmaker Domenic Procacci the Younger, who has only been active since the late 80s) used to screen at his fantastic, legendary drug-fueled parties in the 70s--these seem to be (at least one of) the source(s) of the deleted Goronchov/Andrey sex scene

The 1980 director's cut

The 1980s Soviet bootleg (which became so popular that it led to the 1993 re-envisioning)

Matteo's own controversial "Writer's Cut" (particularly complicated because apparently he never stopped editing and re-editing to fully achieve his personal vision--every time he screened the movie after 1975, privately or publicly, it had at least some minor differences and often incredibly large ones, with entire character arcs added or lost). At least one of these, my own personal favorite with the deleted second epilogue, was copied and got into general circulation on college campuses and whatnot

Also probably based on one of Matteo's cuts, the "Underground" cuts that were the basis of the Queer improv parties dating back at least to 1982

The first VHS release

The rare Betamax release with the extra Patchka scene

The post-Soviet edit 1993 "modernization" re-envisioning Gonchorov/Katya's backstory that was most Millennials' introduction to the movie

The butchered 90s broadcast TV airings (both of which cut vital plot points--such as Ice Pick Joe's lobotomy backstory--and were likely the reason an entire generation lost interest in the film)

The 1998 25th-anniversary director's cut (the one that The New Yorker famously panned with "It seems that Scorsese has forgotten his own movie")

The 40th-anniversary DVD release with six hours of additional footage

The recent gorgeously digitized Blu-ray release that included the nine-hour supercut and "Making Of" documentary (and probably inspired the Gonchorov renaissance)

The eagerly awaited upcoming 50th-anniversary Criterion edition that's rumored to incorporate the "Lost Reels" that Matteo, Scorsese, Al Pacino, and second assistant editor Mariana Lyudmila Manuali had kept private, as well as the distinct four hours of Patchka footage that the cinematographer filmed whenever he got bored.

And, of course, the crowdsourced Internet project to recover the "definitive" Gonchorov, incorporating most of the known footage as well as new home-filmed snippets from the private collections of minor players like Lynda Carter (in her first screen role as Dancer #2) and Henry Winkler (the busboy)--currently running twelve hours

Am I missing anything?

(Note: This list intentionally excludes the probably apocryphal student project that reframed the entire film from Valery's point of view--even if it actually exists and uses original footage, it can only be considered an homage to the full film and not an actual variant.)

#goncharov (1973)#goncharov 1973 #katya goncharova #andrey daddano #mario ambrosini #ice pick joe #valery michailov #sofia #patchka #unreality #op #martin scorsese #gonchposting

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luthwhore · 10 months

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I want to preface this by saying that I haven't read every comic in which Lex has ever appeared, and most of what I've read has been from the last two decades or from the Bronze Age; I am still working my way through most of his post-crisis/pre-flashpoint content.

These are also recommended based on how much I personally enjoyed them, so there is a bit of subjectivity here. However, if I think a comic is particularly important to Lex’s canon and/or objectively well-written, I will try to make note of it, even if it doesn’t suit my own tastes.

Stuff listed as “further reading” is content I have more mixed feelings about or that features Lex less prominently, but still think is worth a read if you want to dig a little deeper.

There are a few things I recommend avoiding unless you really, really want to read it for historical reasons (often because the comics include triggering content), and I've tried to make note of these as well.

⭐️ = most important for current continuity 💜 = personal favorites

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid ⭐️

Generally considered the definitive retelling of the Superman origin story, and the comic that reintroduced the idea of Clark Kent and Lex Luthor growing up together in Smallville to the mainline canon after it was written out during Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Further Reading

↳ Superman: Secret Origin (alternate telling from Birthright) ↳ Action Comics Special #1 - "The Last Will & Testament of Lex Luthor" ↳ Superman: American Alien (Superman origin story that actively contradicts Superman: Birthright, but has some fun Lex moments)

Lex Luthor: A Celebration of 75 Years 💜

Not a single comic, but rather a historical account of Lex through the ages. Rather than featuring entire arcs, it tends to feature a single issue that showcases the Lex of each era, so it's a good read to figure out what versions of Lex you personally enjoy. Some of the stories in this collection are included elsewhere on this list.

JLA: Rock of Ages by Grant Morrison (JLA 1998 #10-#15)

Lex and the Injustice Gang take on the Justice League! I really like Lex's characterization here because it really shows how Lex thinks, and it does a great job showing that despite being a villain, Lex does have standards and tries to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

Salvation Run by Bill Willingham & Lilah Sturges 💜

A villain vs villain story, featuring most of the DCU's villains being stranded off-world together and comparing Lex's style of leadership with the Joker's. Probably one of the best examples I've ever read of exactly how competent Lex is, and seeing him go head-to-head with the Joker is a delight.

Superman: The Black Ring by Paul Cornell (Action Comics #890-#900)

Might be a little hard to follow if you're not familiar with Green Lantern lore, but the arc does a great job with balancing Lex being villainous with still feeling fun and flawed and human. Not a lot of interaction with Superman until the very end, but there is a lot of Lois in this one. (Sort of. You'll see.)

Further Reading

↳ President Luthor: Secret Files and Origins ↳ Superman's Nemesis Lex Luthor ↳ Lex Luthor: Man of Steel ↳ Superman: Last Son ↳ Superman: Unchained

Forever Evil by Geoff Johns ⭐️

The start of Lex's "hero" arc, which spans from the end of n52 until 2018. Functions as a bit of a reset for his character and sets the tone for everything from here on in Lex’s continuity. It gives some insight into Lex’s relationship with Lena post-reboot, and has a very sweet take on his relationship with Bizarro.

Justice League (2011) by Geoff Johns ⭐️ (Lex appears in #30-52, though you can start at #24 if you’re interested in the setup for Forever Evil)

Follows up on the events in Forever Evil and kickstarts Lex’s several years’ long time as a formal part of the Justice League. I really enjoy his dynamics with each of the Trinity here, particularly with Diana. I would recommend the Darkseid War arc in particular (especially if you’re a Clex shipper), but the whole thing is enjoyable. Lena also appears here! Read Justice League: The Darkseid War - Lex Luthor between #45 and #46.

Action Comics: Path of Doom & Men of Steel, by Dan Jurgens ⭐️ (#957-962, #967-970)

Continues on with the “Super-Lex” arc teased at the end of the previous Justice League arc. This is also where Jon Kent (Clark & Lois’s son) is introduced. There’s a lot more Clark & Lex interaction here than most of the other comics in Lex’s hero era, and you do get the sense that he is genuinely trying to do the right thing, even if his motivations for doing so are a bit…self-centered.

Superman: Imperius Lex, by Patrick Gleason & Peter Tomasi ⭐️ (#33-36)

The end of the Super-Lex arc, though not technically the end of Lex’s time as a hero. Make sure to read the n52 Justice League: Darkseid War arc first, since it references the events heavily. Great Clark & Lex content, including a scene of them being stranded on a red sun planet together.

Justice League: No Justice, by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, & Joshua Williamson

The official end to Lex being a hero and a member of the Justice League, as well as the setup for the Legion of Doom & Year of the Villain arcs. Imo, his reason for becoming a villain again is pretty contrived and frustrating, but it does set up what will end up becoming a very important dynamic between Lex and the Martian Manhunter in the next arc.

Further Reading

↳ Action Comics #23.1 - Bizarro ↳ Action Comics #23.3 - Lex Luthor ↳ Superwoman (2016) #1 - #8

⚠️ Note: Superwoman (2016) issues #1-8 feature both Lex and Lena and follow up on what was set up in Forever Evil and Justice League (2012), but the writing around Lena’s disability is extremely ableist. It does feature a lot of Lena and expands more on the backstory set up in Forever Evil, and there are a few good character moments for Lex, but Lena's treatment is pretty bad, so read with caution. ⚠️

Justice League (2018) by Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV (#1-39)

Lex’s return to classic villainy, along with the Legion of Doom. The arc is a little weird in places and I’m not crazy about some of the choices made, but his dynamic with the other villains is fun, and I enjoy his relationship with the Martian Manhunter. I personally like both Snyder and Tynion as writers enough to power through the general weirdness of this arc, but your mileage may vary. It’s pretty dense and hard to follow at times and I felt like it didn’t really hit its stride until about issue #8, so you might need to power through a bit at the beginning.

Year of the Villain: Hell Arisen by James Tynion IV

Follows up the “Year of the Villain” plot set up in Justice League. It’s weird as hell but it does have some good character moments for him, and more importantly, features the conclusion of the arc.

Further Reading

↳ Justice League Annual #1 ↳ DC’s Year of the Villain Special #1 ↳ Year of the Villain: Lex Luthor 💜 (Features an alternate universe where Lex is married to that universe's Kal-el. No, really.) ↳ Dark Nights: Death Metal ↳ Action Comics #1000 (special anthology issue)

Superman: Son of Kal-El (Annual #1) by Tom Taylor

I don’t have strong enough feelings about Lex in Son of Kal-El for me to recommend the whole series for him alone, but his interactions with both Clark and Jon in the annual are very enjoyable. (If you like the annual and you enjoy Jon, Lex is a recurring character in SoKE, and the series is a pretty quick read.)

Batman: The Abyss, by Joshua Williamson 💜 (Batman (2016) #118-121)

Technically a Batman story, but a very short one. Superman is currently off-world, so naturally Lex needs to find another hero to menace. Williamson is the current writer on the mainline Superman book and imo he is THE best Lex writer at DC. He really captures the way Lex earnestly views himself as a hero while doing the most unhinged bullshit you have ever seen. Worth a read if only to watch Lex take Bruce on the worst date of his life.

Action Comics #1050, by Joshua Williamson, Philip Kennedy Johnson, & Tom Taylor ⭐️

Provides context for the current Superman run. You could technically skip it, but with Williamson as a co-writer, I have no idea why you would want to. Lex is truly a mess in the most enjoyable way here.

Superman (2023), by Joshua Williamson ⭐️

The holy grail, the crown jewel, THE comic to read if you’re a Lex fan. The comic is only a few issues in as of writing this list, but Williamson really hits the perfect balance of making Lex funny and charming while still kind of being an asshole. (Updates monthly, though July-August won’t have new issues while the Knight Terrors arc is coming out.)

Further Reading

↳ Superman: Son of Kal-El ↳ Superman: Kal-El Returns ↳ Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen (2019) ↳ Lazarus Planet: Assault on Krypton ↳ Action Comics: The Rise of Metallo

The Last Days of Lex Luthor, by Mark Waid 💜

Written by the same author as Superman: Birthright. This comic is a Black Label comic, which means it’s not part of the mainline continuity and is more “adult oriented” than the mainstream books, so the writer has significantly more freedom and it shouldn’t take a lot of prior knowledge. In this comic, Lex is dying, and Superman is trying to find a way to save him. (The comic will be 3 issues long, released every other month.) I would strongly recommend reading Superman: Birthright first, though it's not mandatory.

Smallville: Season 11, by Bryan Q Miller 💜

The S11 comic is a little bloated with random cameos from other DC characters and the art is pretty inconsistent at times, but there are some really nice moments in it if you want more Smallville Lex. You can skip the Titans & Lantern arcs if you’re not interested in the extended Smallville universe, but the rest of the comic features Lex pretty heavily. Prepare yourself to cry over Otis. If you read nothing else, read Smallville: Alien, particularly if you're a Clex shipper.

Batman: Last Knight on Earth, by Scott Snyder 💜

A post-apocalyptic/dystopian future story, following Batman as he attempts to make his way back to Gotham. Lex only appears in issue #2, but Scott Snyder really loves his villains unhinged and psychosexually obsessed with their heroes. Lex’s fate in this might make you tear up. ⚠�� Character death warning. ⚠️

Clark & Lex: A Young Superman Graphic Novel, by Brendan Reichs

Young Clark Kent enters a competition to win an internship at Luthorcorp, where he meets and befriends a young Lex Luthor. Heavy Smallville influence is present here! This novel is marketed as the first in a series, so we'll hopefully see more in the future.

Further Reading

↳ All-Star Superman (widely considered one of the best Superman stories ever written, but I would not recommend if you’re new to Superman) ↳ DC Bombshells ↳ Injustice: Gods Among Us / Injustice 2 / Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent (would not recommend these if you’re new to DC)

Prior to the changes made to Lex's lore in the wake of "Crisis on Infinite Earths", Lex had been a mad scientist first and foremost, and had generally been portrayed as fairly human and flawed. This version of Lex grew up in Smallville alongside Clark Kent, though in the 80s and beyond this would be written in and out of his continuity several times.

These can be a little campy and goofy at times, since the comics were still being marketed toward children and were largely episodic, but there are some truly excellent bits of characterization for Lex within the pre-crisis canon, and it really is a treasure trove of Clex content if you're into that.

How Luthor Met Superboy, by Jerry Siegel (Adventure Comics #271)

The original story of Lex and Superboy (Clark) meeting for the first time. Eventually retooled slightly for Elliot Maggin's "The Luthor Nobody Knows" and then massively overhauled for Superman: Birthright, but this is the original, and while a bit corny and dated, some parts of it still hold up!

The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman, by Edmund Hamilton (Superman #164)

Lex and Superman face off on a red sun planet in an attempt to prove once and for all which of the two of them is stronger. The start of the short "Lexor" arc wherein becomes a hero on another planet.

Luthor Unleashed!, by Cary Bates 💜 (Action Comics #544)

The conclusion of the Lexor arc (mentioned above). Lex has a wife and child on Lexor, and considers that he might even be able to let himself be truly happy there. Unfortunately for him, his obsession with Superman wins out.

The Luthor Nobody Knows, by Elliot S! Maggin 💜 (Superman #292)

This story is somewhat of a retelling of "How Luthor Met Superboy", but told via flashback from the perspective of Superman. It's a bit more introspective than the original Silver Age story, with Clark reminiscing on his relationship with Lex.

The Einstein Connection, by Elliot S! Maggin 💜 (Superman #416)

Long before Smallville decided to make Lex an Alexander the Great fanboy, pre-crisis Lex uphold Albert Einstein as one of his heroes. A great character study on pre-crisis Lex, and in general a great example of the more "frenemy"-esque dynamic that Maggin wrote Clark and Lex with.

The Ghost of Superman Future, by Elliot S! Maggin (Superman #416)

A story set in the far future, with an elderly Superman recounting his life, including his friendship with Lex Luthor and all of its many ups and downs and complications. Contains the first-ever reference to the idea of Lexcorp, though it would not be fully incorporated into the mainline canon until post-crisis when Byrne revamped the character. ** If you like this story, I would strongly recommend reading Elliot S! Maggin's short story "Luthor's Gift", as it delves further into the dynamic between Clark, Lex, and Lois and presents a very bittersweet story of the end of Lex and Lois's lives. **

Further Reading

↳ Luthor -- Super-Hero! (Superman #168) ↳ Lex Luthor -- Super Scalp-hunter! (Superman #282) ↳ The Parasite's Power Play (Superman #286) ↳ Seven-foot-two... and Still Growing! (Superman #302) ↳ Welcome to Luthorcon III! (DC Comics Presents: Annual #4)

There are some I would personally recommend only reading for historical purposes, as they do not have a lot of connection to Lex's current characterization and have largely been retconned. These contain some pretty triggering content and I will try to warn for it where appropriate.

Superman (1986) and The Man of Steel (1986) by John Byrne

John Byrne was tasked with rebooting the Superman franchise after Crisis on Infinite Earths and made a lot of sweeping changes to the Superman lore at the time. One of the changes made was to switch Lex from a mad scientist who grew up in Smallville and was friends with Clark Kent as a child to a corrupt billionaire who grew up in Metropolis. A lot of the emotional complexity and depth of the pre-crisis version of Lex was stripped away into making him more unambiguously villainous. The Lex of the Byrne era is... to put it delicately, very predatory and abusive to the women in his life. John Byrne is also a far-right conservative and his politics in general bleed through a lot into his work, so I don't recommend it on... pretty much any level.

Lex Luthor: An Unauthorized Biography by James D. Hudnall

This comic contains Lex's Metropolis-based origin story, which would be his accepted origin from Crisis on Infinite Earths through the publication of Superman: Birthright. On top of lacking most of the aspects of Lex that most people who like him actually appreciate, this comic continues the Byrne-era trend of Lex being sexually predatory and physically abusive to the women in his life. You've been warned.

#lex luthor #dc #dc comics #comic recs #reading list #will probably add things to this later

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saintsenara · 28 days

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Oh, and kind of a follow up but, thoughts on Harry/Ginny/Voldemort or even just Ginnymort?

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

now, i'll admit to being quite fond of a bit of tominny [or, to give it its proper name, gin and tonic] but i think the more interesting thing to do here is to take you specifically asking about hinnymort and ginnymort seriously and assume that we're talking about the adult lord voldemort. no nose and all.

because i regret to say that how ginny would interact with this version of voldemort is something i spend a disturbingly large amount of time thinking about. and this is largely because i think it's really fascinating that she's the only person in canon [other than hagrid and myrtle, neither of whom the narrative particularly cares about] whose torture comes at the hands of tom riddle in young and pretty form and whose hatred of voldemort is - therefore - not hatred of the horrifying voldemort who brought the country to its knees in the 1970s and is determined to do it again, but of someone she considered her best friend in the world.

i'm always really struck by harry's insistence when breaking up with ginny at the end of half-blood prince that he's afraid she's at risk from voldemort if they stay together, because this is one of the only examples prior to deathly hallows of him demonstrably thinking of tom riddle and lord voldemort as a single continuation of the same person. in both chamber of secrets and half-blood prince, harry - however begrudgingly - is interested in and sympathises with [and, let's be real, fancies...] the teenage voldemort. his sympathy vanishes when voldemort comes for his job interview with dumbledore - that is, when he begins to look like his adult self, who harry is only afraid of and enraged by.

i think something really interesting can be done with that in terms of thinking about how harry's fear of the voldemort ginny's at risk from doesn't square with her own experience. harry's trying to keep her safe from the eldritch monster; ginny finds him considerably less scary than the beautiful boy who was her best friend.

and there is also the fact that there seems to be no evidence that the non-diary voldemort actually knows who ginny is. one of the things which really stands out in the first chapters of deathly hallows is just how wrong harry is about needing to go it alone for his friends' own protection: nagini has evidently not been briefed to expect hermione in godric's hollow; ron isn't identified by the snatchers who capture him after he leaves the horcrux hunt; and the vast majority of the order, including the adult weasleys, are free to continue working until at least april 1998.

and so i think it's quite interesting to think about how ginny is probably going to be less bothered by finding herself entangled with the adult voldemort - after all, he's so obviously evil that there's none of the wheedling his way into her trust which got her into such trouble with tom. she can just go with the flow...

and - of course - this experience would be very different from how harry's going to react to finding himself as the third in this triad. i actually think ginny would find it easier to talk to a voldemort she never felt any inclination to trust. harry very much would not. his interest lies with the young voldemort, who he can convince himself might be salvageable. i don't think he's rushing home from the ministry for cuddles on the sofa...

what does voldemort get out of the arrangement? apart from the opportunity to live rent-free in grimmauld place and leech off harry's riches, that is...

well, his whole.... vibe with harry is obvious, and he does have a canonical fondness for bolshy women with great hair...

but i think it's also arguable that ginny also possesses lots of qualities he canonically values - above all, the fact that she clearly has a bit of a vindictive streak. i am absolutely certain that diary!tom plays on this in order to make her all the more vulnerable to manipulation surrounding the basilisk's attacks [i.e. reminding her that she was complaining about how annoying she finds justin finch-fletchley the day before he's petrified, convincing her that she's the person responsible] and i am also certain that the secrets he uses to strengthen himself are her most violent and unpleasant ones.

bellatrix's capacity for casual cruelty is clearly one of the things voldemort particularly likes about her - and, indeed, there are more similarities between hinny and bellamort in canon that i imagine was jkr's intention [she never gave up on voldemort either!]. i actually think you can write yourself fairly plausibly into a scenario in which voldemort becomes quite fond of ginny, and ginny becomes reasonably happy to listen to him complain about harry's taste in interior design and how everyone who works for the ministry is insufferable.

harry's getting through it by screaming into a pillow at regular intervals. and - y'know - because of the whole soulmates thing.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #ginnymort #hinnymort #harry potter #tom riddle #lord voldemort #ginny weasley

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bijouxcarys · 3 months

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Cherry Lips (Robert Plant x fem!OC)

Masterlist

Summary: Our unnamed fem!OC pokes the lion and faces the consequences. 1998 Robert.

Note: This started off as a "short fic," but has turned out a hefty 3.4k words yikes.

Tags: @callmethehunter @m-faithfull @whothefuckisanja @celestial-dragoness @ourshadowstallerthanoursoul @angrychicksposts @firethatgrewsolow @brownskinsugarplum76 @chromations

She knew she’d fucked up. God, she knew it. But in her defence, Robert was being a dick.

She was right there, following him around like a lost puppy—for him, to support him, but no… the Golden God he’d firmly insisted was locked away in a glass box was still there. 18 years. 18 years of trying to get as far away from that strange young lad who wore jeans too tight and too low, and wailed whatever nonsense overtook him in the moment. Yet, there he was. Bright as day. In the heart of Italy. Playing the same old game.

Girls still flocked. How could they not? He was gorgeous, despite his rapidly approaching 50th birthday. And it didn’t matter to her that she was 25 years his junior. Because she saw him for everything he was; not what he used to be.

The only problem? His weakness. The feminine energy that ran potent everywhere he went. The soul of a woman, if you may…

It was almost as if he’d forgotten that she was there as other girls of her age, give or take a few years, stood small and flustered in the presence of the once untouchable Robert Plant. Like Adam at the mercy of a cobra, he shamelessly chomped away at the apple dangling before his eyes, bypassing the security of his Eve.

It didn’t matter how often she’d hear the endearing pet names of “honey,” “darlin’,” “baby,” or “love”; they’d become mere lyrics to a song now. He sang them to thousands, night after night—wailed them through the ridges of a record in the homes of millions around the world.

They meant nothing.

Romanticisation. Just like the country they’d inhabited for the past 15 hours, the career of a rockstar was marred by an idealistic fantasy. They don’t tell you about the inferiority, the frugality. The way other girls would stare you down, head to toe, silently creating their own version of your story. The mind games that meticulously waltzed in ricochets between both parties. It was inescapable. Inevitable. Impossible to avoid.

But whilst Robert graciously played the part, sending his signature smirk in the direction of every pretty young thing that came his way, he only saw her. She was the only one, and had been for almost a year. He’d hoped that she knew that by now. Alas, he wasn’t an idiot. It didn’t take an expert to notice the way she’d become increasingly restless when playing her own role of Observing Woman. And there had been many to do so over the years.

Robert expected this attitude from her. He knew it made her feel useless. But he’d explained to her time and time again that it was part of the gig. His job. The way he kept up appearances. Without struggle, she understood that, entirely.

Unfortunately, Robert made the mistake of assuming her understanding meant she liked it.

Typically, she’d be able to get through a press event with him, or any other encounter they’d have with a flock or two of excited girls, with minimal irritation. But tonight, it was a little too much. Too great to completely ignore.

Robert was particularly enjoying the attention that day as he and Jimmy went through their regularly scheduled interviews that they would have much preferred to pass up on. Unlike every other time, where he’d send her playful winks and reassuring smiles, he hadn’t looked at her once. Hell, even Jimmy had acknowledged her presence more than Robert had done.

This time, it was a cute little redhead with big green eyes and a freckled complexion that had become the centre of his immersion. The total opposite of what she was. Redhead was withdrawn, timid, soft spoken, whilst she stood above the average female height, with a gaze that could slice a ruby in half. It was what attracted Robert to her in the first place. A straight-talking, relentlessly loyal, dark-featured Femme Fatale that he loved to overpower in the bedroom and steal the power she possessed otherwise.

The pair’s dynamic was a tantalising switch from what Robert was used to from his female companions. Between the sheets, it was a struggle for dominance, but a struggle they wouldn’t trade for anything. Either way, it always ended up with her legs over his shoulders, hips pummelling away at her like he’d never get to again. And more often than not, she’d wear his hand as her own personalised necklace, encouraging him to squeeze around the expanse of her throat with each thrust of his cock.

And that was how she liked it, and how Robert knew she kept him in a very special place in her heart.

Nobody could overpower her, unless that somebody was him.

Which was why, as he finally cast a glance in the direction of his beloved, he felt every vein in his body pulsate with emotions akin to jealousy. There she was. Tall in her platform stilettos and delicate fingers pushing a stray curl of dark hair from Jimmy’s forehead as she spoke so casually with him.

He could see it in the way she smiled at Jimmy. The proximity that bordered on too close. The way the guitarist fell so receptive to her silky tone, eyes unashamedly taking in every movement and curve of her cherry-stained lips as she talked.

This was no accident, though. She knew exactly what she was doing. The sideways look she gave Robert was a dead giveaway, and she was stunned to see he was actually looking back. Got him.

With a restrained smirk, she flipped her hair behind her shoulder and continued her conversation with Jimmy, inching closer to him with brave intention.

That was all it took for Robert to cut the interviews short, call a car, and drag his lover back to the hotel they were staying at. She remained steel-gazed the whole time, refusing to give him the satisfaction of breaking her that easily. In fact, as soon as the door shut behind them, she made a beeline for the bathroom, Robert following irritatingly close.

“Can’t even go to the bathroom without you lurking,” she passively hummed, leaning over the counter to double check her makeup was still intact.

“What the fuck was that?” Robert snapped.

She looked at him through the reflection of the mirror, the familiar clenching in the pit of her stomach at the sight of Robert’s perfectly ageing features lit up by the small room’s restrictive lighting. Like Michael the Fallen Angel: pure until pushed. Adam had become the cobra, the apple devoured and rotten in the grounds of his gallant love. And he had his sights set on his Eve.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Robert,” she sighed.

“God, you can be so insufferable.”

“Coming from everyone’s favourite Golden God,” she breathed, exaggerating the candour of thousands of girls.

“Excuse me?” Robert’s brows narrowed, casting an intimidating shadow over his eyes.

“Come off it, Robert…” She rolled her eyes, turning to leave the bathroom, but was instantly stilled by a large, strong hand wrapping around her arm. She successfully repressed the smile that wanted to plaster her face, and simply lifted her gaze to meet his. Their faces were dangerously close, and the distant buzz of the bathroom’s ventilation system became the soundtrack to an intense stand-off between two wild beasts on the precipice of destruction.

Taking a deep breath, she continued to look up at him, refusing to speak first. Though she wasn’t sure how long she could keep it up. The close proximity and the enclosed surroundings made it difficult to keep from squeezing her thighs together. She cursed Robert mentally as he closed the bathroom door behind him, all whilst maintaining ardent eye contact.

“I think the door’s supposed to go the other way if you wish to leave, my love,” she provoked, her voice dropping to a sultry whisper.

Eyes, usually a beautiful pool of blue, darkened—with lust, frustration, carnal desire. He knew she was pushing him. He’d just have to navigate the pull in response. He came closer to her, breath mixing with hers as he made out he was going to kiss her, only to stop mere centimetres from her lips to hum lowly.

“You’ve got a right mouth on you today.” He almost spoke through his teeth, jaw clenched.

She pursed her cherry lips, challenging her older lover. “Do I?” she asked with a perfectly arched eyebrow. The grip on her arm tightened, and led her to stand directly in front of him. Her eyes remained fixed on his. “Are you just gonna stare at me?”

Within a blink of an eye, both of Robert’s hands had a hold of each side of her head, thumbs resting on her cheeks and fingers threading into her hair. He held her close to him, forcing her to tilt her head further up. She was breaking him. Bit by bit. The sudden move of dominance succeeded in weakening her resolve by an iota, and her eyes began their impulsive hooding.

Robert’s eyes darted around her entire face, taking in every curve, dip, and feature. She was otherworldly to him. An audacious succubus sent to test him in every aspect of his life. And she was all his. To do with whatever he pleased. No matter how much of a fight she put up, he’d win. Or rather, she allowed him to win.

“I really love that colour on you,” he murmured, admiring her characteristic choice of lipstick.

A satisfied smirk found its way onto her lips, enjoying the compliment, despite the current situation. She was human, after all. That, and it reminded her that he wasn’t truly angry at her, and that this was all part of the larger game their relationship had become.

“Do you?” she whispered, taking on a more timid cadence.

“Mhm.” He nodded, running a thumb delicately over her lower lip. He tugged at it, watching as its plumpness bounced back against her teeth. “But, you know…” he sighed. “As much as I love it on your lips, I think I’d rather see it around my cock, don’t you?”

There it was. The break. The moment she’d been craving. As a hand lowered to possessively wrap around her neck, she swallowed under its mighty grip, and found herself falling deeper under the control Robert enforced.

But not entirely. Not yet. Just a little extra push…

“Really?” She tilted her head to the side as much as she could in his grasp. “Because judging by your distractions, I half-expected to be leaving it on Jimm–” She gasped under her breath as she was shoved down onto her knees.

“No more about Jimmy fucking Page,” he spat, letting go of her throat and moving his hands to the belt on his leather-effect trousers. “You want to be a little slut and blow every rockstar you come across, be my guest…” He let the words hang in the air as he swiftly pulled his belt from the loops around his hips. “But whilst you’re with me,” he threw the belt to the side, the metal buckle clanging against the porcelain of the bathtub beside them, “it’s only me.” He gripped her face with one hand, making her look up at him instead of where the belt had landed. “Understood?”

She huffed, rolling her eyes. “I’m not the one that needs reminding of loyalty, Mr. Plant.”

Done with her backchat, he roughly shoved her face back. She caught herself on her hands behind her, her core fluttering with anticipation.

“Enough with the talking,” he firmly demanded, “You want to use your fucking mouth so much? Is that what it is?” She parted her lips to answer, but he cut her off. “I said enough with the talking,” he growled. She sighed, clenching her jaw. She hadn’t even noticed through the back and forth, that Robert had shimmied his trousers and underwear down enough to relieve his hardened cock from its confines.

Gaze meeting it, any trace of disobedience withered down to a shrub. Her breath was shaky, her mouth on the verge of watering, and her eyes glimmered with want as she looked back up at Robert.

“I don’t know what you’re gawking at, little girl, it isn’t gunna suck itself, is it?” He glared at her, before grabbing a fistful of her hair, and dragging her closer until it was impossible to avoid taking him into her mouth. Not that she didn’t want to—she was ravenous for it.

Robert made it a chore for her to efficiently take him, with how close he had her held against him. She had to move at an awkward angle to even access the red hot tip, but she achieved it with much humiliation at her struggle. He let out a heavy breath, head resting back against the door as his little succubus got to work, mouth scorching and tight, just like her cunt. As badly as he wanted to throw her onto the bed metres away from them, and devour every drop of her sweetness until she cried for him to stop, she needed this stern reminder. Wanted it, even.

“That’s it, darlin’...” he groaned, pulling at her hair and then pushing against her head, building up a rhythm that satisfied. She breathed out of her nose, hands flying to his thighs for any ounce of stability.

Minutes into the act, and she could already catch glimpses of her lipstick transferring halfway down his thick shaft, veins painted with a cherry crimson.

“I know you can do better than that.”

His gruff words encouraged her, and her nails dug into his firm thighs as a small indication of the microscopic ounce of resilience that still sat below the surface. In response, his hand twisted harshly in her hair, pulling a cry from the back of her throat that only served to translate as vibrations against him.

With another tantalising grunt, he brought her head precariously closer, leaving her with no other choice than to force the expanse of his cock further into her mouth, the tip beginning to prod at her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut briefly, winded by the sudden gesture.

“Awh, what’s wrong, baby?” Robert cooed condescendingly down at her, taking a sick pride in her labour. Teeth baring down on his lip, he reaped the benefits of his young lover’s mouth as it stretched so deliciously around his cock. Already there were tears forming at the corners of her smoky eyes. Fuck, that’s gonna look so good running down her face…

She unwillingly let out a struggled whimper, trying her best to relax her throat, knowing there was still more to receive.

“I thought you enjoyed using your mouth,” he scoffed.

He kept his comments to himself as he formed a steady pace with his hips, holding her head in place. She was certain her underwear was drenched by now. Having Robert’s warm, salty skin take residence on every taste bud available was sometimes too much for her cunt to handle. Especially when she knew the chances of getting immediate relief after the fact were short.

Soon enough, her nose was snug against the mass of hair that laid at the base of this God’s aphrodisiac appendage, the natural scent of him grounding her in the moment. She somehow willed her throat to relax enough to allow the slick and weeping tip to glide as far back as it needed as she fit every inch of him into her mouth.

Overcome with the desire to pleasure him, she hollowed her cheeks and sucked harder at him every time he withdrew his hips. Her lipstick was smudged, for sure. Tears had fallen, and she could only imagine how she looked for him at that moment.

“So pretty, baby…” he moaned. At one point, he ceased his thrusts, pulling her back to get a real good look at her fucked-out face. “Look at the state of you… you’re really enjoying this, aren’t you, darlin’?” he asked with a crude swipe of his thumb across her chin, effectively smearing lipstick and saliva across her cheek in a further act of degradation.

Her vision remained blurred, and she felt borderline breathless. She didn’t even fully comprehend his question. And he loved it. What he could do to her…

“Aren’t you?” he pushed.

With wide, reddened eyes, she gazed up at him and meekly nodded. Wrong answer.

“Speak, darlin’, you’ve been so good at that today.”

“Yes…” she choked out, leaning her head back into his hand, completely submitting to him in every way. She didn’t care that her knees began bearing the burden of the cold, hard tiles in this hotel bathroom. It was for him. All for him.

“Yes, what?”

God, she needed him so bad…

“…Daddy...”

“That’s better,” he nodded his head once, taking his cock in one of his hands. He lewdly dragged his tip along her lips, the precum coating the sensitive flesh. “Wish I had that camera right now, baby… you look so pretty like this. So obedient. All fucked out…”

Her eyebrows furrowed needily, her lips parting to allow her tongue to flick against the head of his cock. Maintaining eye contact, she circled around the bulbous area, applying pressure against the underside.

“My talented little thing…” he hummed, beads of sweat adhering stray curls to his forehead. “Keep going, baby… keep taking me in that pretty mouth of yours…”

Unable to challenge him any further, she abided by the rules of their dynamic.

Sloppily, lazily, yet eagerly, she bobbed her head up and down Robert’s cock, eyes fixed on him from below. His eyes fluttered shut, and his mouth hung open, head pressing back against the door.

Witnessing his pleasure set a fire deep within her, and she sped up her movements, hand gripping firmly at his base. Whenever she’d pull back to spit messily over his erection, a thick rope of her saliva followed suit. It made her moan. Clench around nothing. Her clit throbbed. Her nipples hardened under her blouse. Every sense tingled. All because of him.

She needed all of him. To make him come undone—erupt. Needed it so bad…

“Fuck, don’t stop, baby,” Robert breathed, once again taking her hair into his hand, guiding her up and down his length. Her free hand came up to massage his tight, full balls. “Fuck! Yes… so, so good…” he hissed, composure slowly crumbling. “Daddy’s gunna cum right down that throat, little girl…” he rambled, teeth clenched, before he yanked her back, running his own hand along his length rapidly.

She was forced to watch, the beautiful combination of red and purple tinting the head of his cock. “Please…” she whimpered, batting her teary eyes at him. “Please, Daddy…”

Holding her head back, he leaned over her. “Open up, baby.” She did. Tongue stuck out. Waiting for his load. “My good little girl.” He let out a guttural moan, hips thrusting into his own fist, before the hot spurts shot out onto her tongue, some landing on her cheek, and some dripping down onto her chin.

She waited patiently until he had completely milked himself to move from her position, merely acting as a receptacle. Eventually, Robert regained his bearings and gruffly ordered her to swallow everything. To clean her own face up, and to not leave a single drop.

With his granted permission, she was finally allowed to stand back up. Her knees were weak, and had to rely on Robert to help her steady herself. As she cleaned her face up at the sink, he kept his head resting on her shoulder, tucked away and in the process of calming, and his hand held gently onto her waist.

“C’mere, honey,” Robert softly said, bringing her into his arms. He planted a kiss on her forehead and held her tightly to him. “‘M sorry for ignoring you, darlin’.”

She inhaled deeply, her face fitting perfectly against his chest. “It’s okay…” she mumbled.

Robert pulled his head back and stared down at her bare face, lips now natural and swollen from her Goddess duties. “You’re so special to me,” he whispered.

Smiling softly at him, she sighed contently. “I know.”

They shared a passionate kiss, solidifying their eccentric love for one another, and the thrill of the game.

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bleach-boyz · 8 months

Text

Chapter 3: Poo Diving

prev. // next

In the weeks following the party, you and Dico slowly got more furniture, and soon your apartment was almost resembling one that real adults would live in. Almost.

That apartment became one of the most common places to go for hangouts due to almost everyone else still living with their parents. You’d occasionally host parties there too, but you’d insist on moving all the breakable furniture to yours and Dico’s rooms before people got there.

You’d planned to invite your downstairs neighbors again to the next party you’d thrown, but in the weeks leading up to it, you’d noticed a woman entering and exiting their apartment almost every day. Dico later found out after talking to the other neighbor that the one you’d slept with had a girlfriend, and that was the woman who was there all the time. You felt so ashamed and annoyed by this that the next day you waited outside for the woman to show up so you could tell her what happened. Needless to say, you never interacted with that guy again beyond an awkward pass on your way in or out of the apartment building.

You begged Dico not to tell the guys about that whole situation, but the group wasn’t very good at keeping their lips sealed over another person’s embarrassment. The crew teased you for a while, but soon everyone forgot about it. There was always something new to make fun of someone for.

The rest of 96’ and 97’ was mainly just a blur of partying and the same shit y’all always got up to. You’d finished a full year at West Chester University and immediately decided to drop out, not finding any fulfillment in your time there. You didn’t aspire to be a doctor or lawyer or anything that required a degree; you were totally fine having a day job and spending the rest of your time having fun with your friends. Your parents didn’t really care either, because you were making enough from the record store job to support yourself, and they trusted your judgment, which you were extremely grateful for.

1998 was the year that things started ramping up for the crew because that was the year that Jess officially formed his band, CKY. A new member of the band and friend group was a guy named Chad, whom you actually started dating after hanging out for a few weeks. He was six years older than you, which was a little weird at first, but you clicked really well. Plus, you’d never had a serious partner before, so you thought you might as well try it out. The boys would occasionally ask you inappropriate questions about your sex life because they couldn’t help themselves, but surprisingly, they mostly left you alone about it. It was just the new normal.

In terms of everyone else’s relationships, that same year Bam started dating Jenn, who you got along with easily. Jenn had actually been a friend of your older brother’s back when they were in high school, so you recognized her immediately when you first met. The two of you would go out to dinner or the movies every now and then to have a more normal, chill night without the boys. The rest of the crew were just sort of in and out of random relationships, none of which were particularly noteworthy.

Bam had also decided to take on an extremely ambitious project in 98’, which was to make a film compiled of the crew’s skate tricks and stunts while featuring CKY’s music. It was basically just a longer version of the videos you all had been making for years, and you spent a large chunk of your free time helping film and edit material for the project. You made it into the film a few times, including a stunt where you skated down a tiny half pipe straight into a brick wall, but admittedly you liked working behind the scenes a little bit more. You particularly liked sitting with Bam at his desk, going through hours of footage, and helping him execute his fast-paced editing style that would become unique to all his future videos and films.

It was the first CKY film’s release in early 1999 that really ushered you and the crew into a new, crazy chapter of your life. Instead of just being stared at on occasion in West Chester, people were starting to come up and talk to you all at random places and even buy you drinks. The popularity of the film, in combination with Bam’s steadily rising level of fame as a skater, also meant that he was getting sponsorship offers and calls from all sorts of people wanting to work with him. But it was after the more widespread release and popularity of CKY2K the next year that he was approached for MTV’s Jackass.

After Bam had been flown out to LA and talked to the creators behind the show, it was no question that you’d all be participating in its making. Bam had explained that it was being made by people who worked at Big Brother Magazine, which you were all already familiar with and fans of ever since Bam had been featured in it for his skating. That, combined with the fact that you’d be getting paid not only with money but with exposure, was enough to get you on board. You’d made an okay amount from CKY2K’s sales, and MTV wasn’t exactly promising to pay you much, but getting money and recognition for the thing you enjoyed doing the most was all anyone could really ask for. Bam was the only one who was really getting paid good money, but that didn’t really bother you; his fame made him a lot more important to the project.

The commitment to the show meant that you all had to make a ton of content quickly, which was different from how it was in the past when you’d just film whenever you wanted. It was the pressure that came from knowing you were about to be seen by such a large audience that drove everyone to come up with and participate in the most gruesome and disgusting stunts any of you had ever done.

The most memorable day of shooting for you was for a stunt called "Poo Diving" in which Ryan would be swimming in a pool of sewage and shit at a treatment plant.

You wake up with a raging headache and an overwhelming feeling of nausea. You groan and look at the clock to see that it’s already the afternoon, and you and Dico had to be at Bam’s house in an hour to film.

Yesterday, you and Chad had broken up, and you’d spent the night getting drunk in an attempt to feel better about it. You two hadn’t been spending enough time with each other lately, with him touring with CKY and you now working on the show. You’d just drifted apart, and although you both agreed to end it on good terms, you couldn’t help but feel a bit upset. After all, you'd been together for almost two years.

Your hangover in combination with your grief would have probably resulted in you staying home on any other day, but today was the first day you’d be filming with the camera crew from LA, including the creator Jeff Tremaine. Also, you knew you would never forgive yourself if you missed seeing Ryan swim around in liquid shit, so you down a few ibuprofen and get ready for the day.

You roll up with Dico at Bam’s house an hour later, and based on all the cars in the driveway, you can assume everyone else is already there. You two walk through the front door and see Bam, Ape, and a few other strangers who you assume are the LA crew standing in the kitchen.

"Well, look who’s here!" Ape says and pulls you into a hug.

"Hey Ape." You hug her back and then turn to the unknown people.

"I’m Jeff. This is Trip," Jeff says as he points to the guy next to him and shakes your hand very professionally.

You get introduced to everyone, and soon after, Ryan shows up, acting way too enthusiastic for someone who was about to do what he had to do.

"Excited for the air time?" You ask him as you buckle your seatbelt for the ride over to the treatment plant.

"Damn right."

Once you get there, Ryan strips down to his underwear, and the boys start taping the fabric to his legs so that no sewage can get into his ass. It’s very legit.

"So he just has no problem doing something like this?" Jeff asks you.

"Well, some people lose their dignity, and some are born without it." You respond, and Jeff laughs.

Ryan puts on his floaty and positions himself above the sewage.

"Don’t forget your snorkel buddy." Dico says to Ryan and tosses it to him.

"Right, that was almost a disaster." Ryan sighs as he puts on the snorkel.

As soon as Jeff makes sure all the cameras are good to go Ryan jumps into the tank, much to the disgust of everyone else around him. After a few seconds, he pulls himself out, and Bam informs him that they didn’t get the shot and he has to do it again. You hold back a laugh, knowing there’s no way they didn’t get the shot the first time, and watch as Ryan jumps back in for a second time.

After he gets out for the second time, Ryan runs around, trying to smear some of the sewage on anyone close by. He nearly grabs you, but you manage to dodge him quick enough, so he sets his sights on Bam instead. The smell of shit and sewage coming off his body combined with the nausea you were already feeling from your hangover causes you to dry heave, and unfortunately, someone on the crew catches it on camera.

Bam soon sprays Ryan down with a hose, getting most of but not all of the sewage off of him. On the car ride back to Bam’s house, you roll the windows down all the way to try and minimize the smell that was still coming off of Ryan.

"It’s kind of an improvement on how you usually smell." Dico teases.

Once you get back to the house, Ryan presents himself to a horrified April, who insists that he must eat the dinner that she made for everyone outside. You watch her take a plate of food out to Ryan, who is sitting on the side of the road with a tiny table in front of him, and you laugh at the absurdity.

You have a good time at dinner, telling funny stories and cracking jokes with everyone, but you decide to cut out right after and head to the local bar. Thanks to the fun you had with everyone, you are feeling a little better than you did yesterday, but you still want some time alone to indulge in self-pity.

After you have a few drinks, you step out for a cigarette, and it is then that you see Ryan, Dico, and a couple members of the camera crew get out of Ryan’s car. They walk up to you, and you’re immediately hit with the overwhelming smell of perfume that Ryan had clearly doused himself with in order to try and mask the shit smell.

You cough slightly. "I think a shower might have been more effective."

Ryan shrugs his shoulders and pulls out a cigarette from his own pack.

"We’re gonna get a round." Dico says as he and the other dudes they showed up with head inside the bar.

"I heard about you and Chad." Ryan says after a few moments of silence. You sigh.

"Yeah.. what are ya gonna do?" You say and take a long drag from your cigarette.

"Well, I’m here for you if you like—need to talk or whatever." Ryan says, and you smile a little.

"I’m sorry it’s hard to pay attention to anything you’re saying when you reek of poop, Ape’s perfume, and now cigarettes." You joke, and Ryan scoffs.

"Hey! I’m trying to be genuine over here, so you better cherish it." He says, and you laugh.

"I know. Thank you. I appreciate it." You reply. "How are things going with you romantically?"

"Well… I’m not sure we need to get into all that." He says.

"So, unsuccessful?"

"Definitely."

"What happened to that girl that you brought to the last CKY show here?" You ask.

"We’re on a break right now; I’m pretty sure she was cheating on me with her ex." He says and shakes his head.

"Oh shit, I think I remember Dico telling me about that. I’m sorry, man." You say and go to put a comforting hand on Ryan’s shoulder before remembering where he was a few hours ago and retracting it.

"It‘s all good; I only broke like three pieces of furniture raging about it. And I don’t know; I’m supposed to get dinner with her this week, so we’ll see." He explains.

"Well, good luck, I guess." You say and put out your cigarette on the wall behind you. A few quiet seconds follow, where you can tell Ryan is debating saying something, and you cross your arms, wondering what it could possibly be.

"You know, a few years back, when you and Dico first got that apartment, I had a bit of a crush on you." Ryan finally admits, and you raise your eyebrows in disbelief.

"Oh really? Why didn’t you ever say anything?" You ask.

"Well, I was gonna try to put the moves on you at your housewarming party, but then you disappeared with your neighbor, and after that, I just assumed you weren’t interested." He says and then stamps out his own cigarette.

"Hmm.." You think back to that time, which was now almost four years ago. You’d admittedly never thought of Ryan in that way, but you honestly might’ve said yes if he’d asked you out. You obviously got along really well, and you had kind of noticed him slowly getting cuter as he got older.

"Why are you telling me this now?" You decide to ask. It’s not that you don’t appreciate the honesty, but you are desperately hoping that Ryan isn’t bringing this up to try to make a pass at you the day after you got out of a long-term relationship. You don't know if you'd be able to handle it.

"I don’t know; I think it’s a bit funny now, I guess. It was so long ago, I thought you might get a kick out of it." He smiles, but you’re not entirely convinced by his answer.

"Yeah," you say, feeling a bit awkward and weirdly nervous for a moment before deciding to try and crack a joke. "Wait, so you were gonna put the moves on me? What moves do you even have?" You tease.

"Oh, come on, I have moves; watch." He says and puts his arm against the wall behind you so that his face is close to yours and he’s blocking you in. You might have blushed if it weren’t for the horrible smell that wafted toward you when he got closer. You duck under his arm and head to the entrance of the bar.

"The move you need to make is towards a shower." You say and signal for him to follow you. He rolls his eyes and comes with you, and you spend the rest of the night drinking and laughing with the others inside.

During the following days, your mind would occasionally drift to Ryan’s confession, and you’d ponder why he’d decided to tell you about it then. Maybe he really just thought it was funny, and the intention was sincerely to make you laugh, but the tone in which he said it just felt a little off. You thought you’d detected some longing or something.

A week passed, and you’d decided to believe that you were just overthinking it after finding out from Dico that Ryan’s dinner with his ex resulted in them getting back together.

Regardless, though, the conversation made you reflect on your entire friendship with Ryan. It was weird; you hadn’t really noticed how much care and attention he’d been providing you with since the beginning. It made you feel like a bad friend for not appreciating him, and it also brought up some other, more confusing feelings. You didn’t think you could say you’d become attracted to him, but you could say that you’d maybe developed more of an affinity for him.

It made you want to pay more attention.

———————

Actually driving myself crazy trying to keep this is accurate as possible to the real life timeline of events- sorry if I mess anything up. There was just so much going on lol.

Thanks again to everyone who is reading 🙏 I feel bad that I can’t follow people back or engage as much as I want to because this is a secondary blog 😢 but know that I appreciate it soooooo much hehe.

#ryan dunn #bam margera #brandon dicamillo #chris raab #cky #cky crew #jackass #jess margera #cky imagine #viva la bam #cky x reader #rake yohn #my fic

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princesssarisa · 29 days

Note

This… out of curiosity

Do you also know the different names meanings of Sleeping Beauty?

Aurora (Tchaikovsky's ballet and the Disney version): "Dawn."

Briar Rose (her pseudonym in the Disney version, her real name in some other adaptations): Self-evident; inspired by the German "Dornröschen" ("little briar rose"), her name in the Grimms' version.

Röschen (Humperdinck's opera): "Little rose."

Ruusunen (the 1949 Finnish film, and Finnish retellings in general): "Little rose."

Rosalinde (the 1971 German film and the 2008 Märchenperlen adaptation): "Gentle horse" or "beautiful rose."

Růženka (Jak se budí pricezny and other Czech adaptations): "Little rose."

Rosebud (the 1987 Cannon Movie Tales version): Self-evident.

Rosita (the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child): "Little rose."

Felicity (1997 Jetlag version): "Happiness."

Kindra (the 1998 animated series The Legend of Sleeping Beauty): A form of Kendra, meaning "bold power" or "royal power."

Myrose (the 2009 Sechs auf einen Streich adaptation): If we assume it's derived from English, then it must mean "my rose."

Obviously, "rose" names, particularly meaning "little rose," are the most popular.

#sleeping beauty #fairy tale #name meanings

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weaselandfriends · 7 months

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So you are going to make a fanfic about Pokemon, huh.

Are you a pokemon fan? Or you known about the franchise enough? or is a case of you, waking up one day and thinking:" I'm going to make a Pokemon Fan-Fic!" And started to consume media from it in order to make a story?

I was a child in 1998.

During that initial invasion of Pokemon into the West, when Pokemon was far more than simply the "most profitable media property in the world" that it is today, when it was a tidal wave phenomenon that swept away an entire continent, I was something of a Pokemaniac. I had Blue Version, Red Version, Yellow Version, Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Puzzle League, Hey You Pikachu. I had (and still have) every single card from the first three TGC sets, included the oh-so-vaunted holographic Charizard card. I had Pokemon figurines, I had toy Poke Balls, I had Pokemon stickers, I had Pokemon stamps, I had Pokemon clothes, I had Pokemon strategy guides, I had Pokemon choose your own adventure novels. I had the then-complete runs of both Pokemon Adventures and Electric Tale of Pikachu (I vastly preferred the latter). I would wake up early every day to watch the Pokemon anime on TV. I went to Pokemon The First Movie opening day and remember walking into a theater packed to the brim only to hear a man scream—to my delight and assuredly my mother's horror—"SEATS IN THE FRONT ROW!"

Of course, it's been 25 years since 1998. I've played most of the mainline games since then (GSC, RSE, DPP, SuMo, and recently SV). I've seen a few of the endless array of movies. For some reason I watched the entire SuMo anime. So yeah, I still like Pokemon.

Is it my favorite thing ever? No. The unfortunate reality is the games are pretty formulaic and often have questionable design choices. It's not like Mario or Zelda, other nostalgic Nintendo series, where the devs put their heart and soul into each new mainline installment.

But the fundamentally fascinating elements of its world continue to interest me. I've always seen the Pokemon world as a near-future nigh-utopia, clean and neat and orderly, with large swaths of the population free to pursue their hobbies rather than slave away at some useless job. I've always wanted to delve into such a world narratively, as opposed to the endless dystopias that seem to clog contemporary fiction.

Chicago was written as a kind of critical response to To the Stars, which is a utopian story that glosses over the steps taken to reach utopia. I wanted to peer more deeply at how a world akin to that in To the Stars might actually be created, the kind of political turmoil and upheaval required to eventually integrate the panacea to mankind's ill—magic—into functional society. A Pokemon story would instead be about the utopia itself. What does it mean for society that children are not simply allowed but encouraged to leave home at 10 to pursue a vague, unstructured path to become what is basically a competitive sports athlete? What has had to happen to society for such a thing to be not simply okay, but preferred? And what does it mean for that society's future development, especially considering a world where rapid evolution of generally symbiotic non-human creatures is possible? And why, in this peaceful and low-scarcity world, are there so many insane doomsday death cults essentially seeking to usher in the apocalypse?

There are two works of literature that particularly influenced the direction of my idea for a Pokemon fanfic. The first is Eyeless in Gaza (unfortunately topical title) by Aldous Huxley of Brave New World fame. Gaza is a mostly autobiographical story touching on a variety of topics, and one chapter near its end involves the main character traveling to Central America, where he meets a strange, idealistic man named Dr. Miller. Dr. Miller espouses many ideas about anthropology, especially ones critical of or antithetical to British imperialist pseudo-scientific anthropology: "An anthropologist is a person who studies men," he says, "but you prefer to deal with bugs. I'd call you an entomologist [...] the only remedy is for the bug-hunter to throw his bayonets away and treat the bugs as though they were human beings." But the most interesting thing he talks about, the thing that has stuck with me more than anything else in the otherwise mediocre novel, is soccer.

"But [football is] the greatest English contribution to civilization," said the doctor. "Much more important than parliamentary government, or steam engines, or Newton's Principia. More important even than English poetry. Poetry can never be a substitute for war and murder. Whereas games can be. A complete and genuine substitute."

Dr. Miller envisions a world where competitive sports replace the destructive and combative elements of humanity; he teaches soccer to small Mexican tribes as a way to settle their differences instead of war. What does a utopian society look like that has replaced conflict with competitive sport at a grand, worldwide scale? In our world, the Olympics are often spoken of in similar terms, but Pokemon appears to have actually accomplished this lofty goal, to the point that becoming a trainer at 10 is more important than standard education. By setting my fanfic at a prestigious, global tournament, I become perfectly posed to explore this question...

The other point of inspiration comes from Underground, Haruki Murakami's nonfiction account of the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks committed by the cult Aum Shinrikyo. The book contains numerous interviews with both survivors of the attacks themselves and former members of the cult, and ends with Murakami's essay on how the Japanese social psyche allowed this event to occur. Describing the cult members he interviewed, he says:

To all of them I posed the same question, that is, whether they regretted having joined Aum. Almost everyone answered: "No, I have no regrets. I don't think those years were wasted." Why is that? The answer is simple—because in Aum they found a purity of purpose they could not find in ordinary society.

This idea of "purity of purpose unfound in ordinary society," what does that mean in a society like Pokemon's? In a utopian society, where nearly all needs are met? Where sports replaces conflict?

Anyway, I've started to veer off topic, so I'll cut it short there. I'm incredibly excited for this project, so I hope all of you decide to give it a read when I finish!

#writing #bavitz #pokemon #eyeless in gaza #underground

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hjemne · 6 months

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Ilsa, I’ve seen you posting a lot of Trigun and well I’m intrigued by it, to say the least. But just for giggles, would you try to convince me why should I watch it? 😆🤚🏻

AHHHHH!

I didn't think Trigun was going to worm its way into my brain so much but here we are. There is so much to love about it and I adore so many of the characters for a billion different ways. The character type of someone who is made into a killing machine and then is slowly convinced to accept love and forgiveness is my favourite and is all over trigun. So many characters see themselves as monstrous but choose to do what they see as right for the sake of / with the help of their friends. There are moments of silliness and of tragedy, all with an incredibly interesting setting which slowly gets revealed.

Because of the recent release of Trigun Stampede, the community is really active rn (esp on Tumblr!) and it's really cool to see so many incredible fanarts, comics, fanfics and discussions being made. It's very fun to be part of a very active fandom, but also one that is 25 years old and has fanworks that are older than I am.

I really love it, and I would recommend it, but unfortunately I also have some caveats which I gotta mention.

What you gotta know before getting into Trigun is that there are 4 different canon versions and each one has its problems. I wish I could recommend X version as the definitive and best, but that just doesn't exist which is very annoying.

1) Trigun Maximum: the manga

Good: incredible nuances to characters like Wolfwood, Knives, Livio/Razlo. Vashwood subtext is off the charts and their dynamic is incredibly fascinating and central. This is the most detailed and complex story of Trigun and has lots of themes, characters and plot points that don't exist in other versions. Has elements of sexism and sexual violence, but (imo) to show how shitty the world is, rather than to revel in the misogyny. The tone is tragic, with equal mix of hope and pain.

Bad: the female characters of Meryl and Milly get massively sidelined in comparison to their depictions elsewhere. It's a very long manga and has (imo) pacing issues that limit the impact of emotional moments. The art style is beautiful, but notoriously difficult to follow, especially in the many long fight scenes (particularly bad in volume 5). There's lots of disagreement about 'correct' translations and it can be hard to tell which character is doing/saying/thinking what at points which can make it confusing and frustrating to read at times.

Overall: 7/10, I would recommend but maybe not as your first bit of exposure to Trugun

2) 1998 anime Trigun

Good: the silliest of Triguns with some great voice acting. The friendships between Vash, Milly, Meryl and Wolfwood are very sweet and engaging (although it would have been nice to see more of the four of them together). It's a fun overview of the Trigun story and has a very entertaining mix of comedy and serious emotional moments. Lots of hijinks and lots of fights. Milly and Meryl are core characters and get time to shine (it is impossible not to love Milly). This is personal preference but the animation style is kinda goofy in the way it changes styles to exaggerate characters' feelings which I love. The first 12 ISH episodes are very Saturday morning cartoon vibes without being too inane and childish.

Bad: because it only had the first couple of volumes of the manga to adapt from, the mid-season tone shift and later fights feel rushed, a little confusing and ultimately lead to a less satisfying conclusion than in trimax. The misogyny is noticeable, especially in the first couple of episodes, though is limited to a couple of comments in some episodes and doesn't (I think) make it unwatchable. The antagonists are rushed through and it's hard to work out who the 'main' villain is. Tone change is quite abrupt. Wolfwood is a less developed character with a less intense (back)story, Livio/Razlo doesn't exist at all etc

Overall: 7/10, this is what I'd recommend you start with. It has pacing issues and uncomfortable sexist comments, but I think they're outweighed by the strengths of the main casts relationships and the pure entertainment value of it. Not the most satisfying ending, but they were constrained so :/

3) Badlands Rumble (film)

Good: animation is SO crisp. Wolfwood is at maximum chest exposure and actually his character is pretty interesting here. Milly and Meryl are back, but in limited roles. Some interesting world building and Vash and Wolfwood go thru their divorce arc TM which is dumb and funny and angsty.

Bad: Wolfwood is far too pale. The first half an hour is made almost unwatchable by the decision to make sexism and sexual harrassement a way to pad out the runtime. Vash is such a creep it just makes for uncomfortable watching.

4/10 don't watch if you're not already invested, and honestly do yourself a favour by watching the opening scene, then skipping to the 30 min ish mark and watch knowing that Vash has some very tough dried meat in his front coat pocket.

4) Trigun Stampede anime

Good: really cool 3D animation and music. Has Wolfwood's manga backstory and some manga characters like Livio and Crimsonnail, but with very different characterisations. I really liked the episode looking at the childhood of two orphans and how their love for each other was manipulated against them both. Much bigger focus on Knives than the original and more elaboration of his motivations and plans. Zazie is SO much better here than in the original anime. No uncomfortable sexism yay!

Bad: I... don't like tristamp very much. The characters are watered down from their manga versions and Knives is just kinda evil because he was en evil child, rather than the much more nuanced version in trimax. Milly doesn't exist (yet) and they added in a new character Roberto whose role in the story is (or at least was to me) obvious if you know the basics of the hero's journey structure. Everyone has been twinkified and Wolfwood doesn't even have his tits out smh. Vash just comes across as having less agency and his motivations feel weak. I really just dont like a lot of the character decision here BUT to be fair, that's because I'm comparing them to the manga. But also, a main plot point is someone taking over his brother's body so that his sisters can get pregnant and it definitely still feels weird in context. The focus on the two brothers makes other dynamics a little weaker, and has led to a lot of incest-y fandom things which is ehh.

5.5/10 there are some things it does very well and it's very popular for a reason but I personally think the characterisations are disappointing. It's trying to strike a weird balance between being its own, new thing and also nostalgia for original elements, leading to some questionable pacing and plot choices. It doesn't even have Midvalley the Hornfreak.

I would love to be able to talk about Trigun with you and be passionate about the elements of it I love, but also I don't want to recommend it without giving you a fair picture of the parts I'm more critical about. I genuinely love the world building and characters, which are expressed best in the less accessible form of the manga but are also found in the animes. What I'd recommend is watching the original anime first, but also you might need to give it the benefit of the doubt for the first couple episodes which is where the dodgy 90s sexism is most obvious. I'd be super interested in hearing your thoughts and reactions to it if you did watch it, and also please bear in mind that my complaints about tristamp are personal and there are many who love that version so don't take my negativity as fact.

#asks #sorry that got LONG #YOU SHOULD WATCH IT #I REALLY LOVE IT #its just not perfect #trigun #trigun maximum #trigun stampede

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scotianostra · 8 months

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Happy Birthday, ex manager and partner of Elton John, John Reid, who was born September 9th, 1949 in Paisley.

The son of a welder and a shop worker, he reportedly attended Stow College in Glasgow for a short time before striking out for London in 1967. At age 18 Reid entered the music business as a promoter for EMI. Remarkably by age 19 he was managing the Tamla Motown label for the U.K., and it was at a company Christmas party that 21-year-old Reid met 23-year-old John.

Their professional partnership would last 28 years with Reid being present for John’s career hitting stratospheric heights, often as his personal life hit deep lows due to the performer’s alcohol and drug use, marriage and divorce to Renate Blauel the forging and continuation of his partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin lawsuits, and loves lost and found.

In an interview with The Daily Record Reid later said “When I met Elton, I didn’t even realize his potential, I’ve never claimed to have discovered him. In fact, when he suggested I should manage him, I wasn’t enthusiastic.” When Reid accepted the job of becoming John’s manager at Dick James Music, the couple were already living together.

In anther interview he says Elton was his first love and vice versa John also revealed he was “a virgin until then. I was desperate to be loved, desperate to have a tactile relationship.”

Their relationship as lovers lasted from 1970 until 1975. It was one of the most prolific music periods for John as he delivered numerous international hits including “Your Song,” “Daniel,” “Candle in the Wind,” and “Rocket Man.” His persona on- and off-stage grew and his outfits became more flamboyant. “The vast leaps in style were exhausting,” Reid has said of the period. “He would go out one day with brown hair and return the next with pink.”

According to Reid, the relationship ended because Elton had “never had a sexual adolescence. He needed to go off and play the field, which he did with gusto… There were no dramas.”

Reid would remain in John’s life – and as his business manager – until 1998. Over the decades the two became wealthy due to John’s recording and touring successes. Both men spent big on sports cars, yachts, jewellery, and property, with Reid reportedly owning multiple homes at one point. Reid managed Queen from 1975 to 1978, as well as other acts including Bros, Kiki Dee, Lionel Richie, Billy Connelly, and Michael Flatley.

Like John, Reid would struggle with drugs and alcohol and in 1991 checked into the same recovery clinic John had stayed at when he got sober in 1990. “Elton called me regularly. He was a tower of strength,” Reid told the Daily Record. But unlike John, Reid would relapse and continue to struggle with alcohol.

Professionally, their relationship ended in 1998, the same year John’s auditors discovered a reported £20 million gap in his accounts. Two years later they would be facing each other in court, this time on opposing sides with John suing accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Andrew Haydon, director of John Reid Enterprises, claiming negligence and breach of duty. “I trusted him,” John said of Reid in court. “I never thought he would betray me but he has betrayed me.” The singer had already been paid over 3 million pound by Reid in an out of court settlement by the time it reached court.

Reid continued in the music business until reportedly retiring in 1999, a year after divesting himself of an art collection allegedly worth £2 million. He was a judge on the Australian version of The X Factor in 2005 and has since lived a quiet life out of the public eye.

“I’m fond of Elton and proud of the work we did together,” Reid is reported to have said in the mid-2010s. “One day I’ll bump into him and there may be hugs and kisses. Or maybe not.”

There is no shortage of controversy in his life either and Reid has been known to have a violent side, one particularly powerful scene in Rocketman features an enraged Reid hitting John after the singer showed up late to a performance. While no evidence corroborates that this moment actually took place, Reid’s temper was a real-life problem. In a 1974 Rolling Stone magazine article, a former employee describes the manager as “diminutive, but he’s a killer. He’ll punch anyone.” The characterization seems reinforced by a long list of notable incidents.Reid once threw a glass of champagne at a man for not having enough liquor at a reception for John, he slapped a female journalist who reportedly called him a “poof," he was charged with assault in New Zealand after beating and kicking a journalist, he was arrested in San Francisco after hitting a hotel doorman with his cane while waiting for a car and he allegedly beat another journalist the day after John’s 1984 wedding to Renate Blauel in Sydney, where Reid was the best man. “They’re isolated incidents,” the manager once said of his outbursts. “I don’t make excuses, I’m not particularly proud of it, but any time anything like this has happened, it’s been in defence of Elton or Bernie’s not for personal reasons.”

To me an isolated incident is that, when there are several incidents it means he has a violent nature, Queen drummer Roger Taylor said of Reid in the 2011 Queen documentary Days of Our Lives. “He was very fiery and very feisty, but so were we.” However Veteran British singer-songwriter Mike Batt defended Reid in an interview after the release of Rocketman saying the depiction was especially callous, and that the "portrayal as an uncaring sex-god manipulator is weapons-grade character assassination.”

His current whereabouts are unknown, though reports list him as living in Australia or London.

Reid was portrayed by Irish actor Aidan Gillen in the Film Bohemian Rhapsody and in Rocketman by Scottish actor Richard Madden.

#scotland #scottish #music manager #elton john #freddie mercury

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meara-eldestofthemall · 6 months

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Simple enough question ahoy;

What are each of the Batfam’s favorite Godzilla movies, both Toho and Monsterverse?

Oooh, thank for the excellent ask! I will take any chance I can get to use my abundant, yet useless, knowledge of Godzilla. My apologies upfront. I can a little... pedantic about these things.

Bruce - He loves the Millennium era movies, particularly Godzilla vs Mech-Godzilla (1999).

There’s one specific line you can only get in the dubbed version, “Too many meetings can change a man’s destiny”. It’s a motto inscribed in Bruce’s heart. He loves to mumble it to Alfred as he heads out the Wayne Enterprises for a Board Meeting.

Dick & Tim - These two are on the same page and adore the campiness, bad dubbing and dreadful special effects of the Showa Era. 1969′s All Monsters Attack is their favorite for sheer over-the-top lunacy.

There’s Daddy Godzilla, kid Minizilla, some strange Japanese child in shorts with an overactive imagination and (wait for it) bank robbers. Tim has been known to get laughing so hard he snorts Zesti through his nose when Dick starts inserting his own dialogue or singing love songs to various Kaiju.

Jason - He will always default to 1998′s Godzilla done by Roland Emmerich.

It’s partly because he knows everyone else hates the movie. Jason gets a big kick out seeing New York City thoroughly trashed - especially Madison Square Garden. Seeing the home of the hated Knicks go up in flames never fails to make him smile.

Cassandra - At first she was confused about cheering for a large bizarre lizard who caused more property damage than Bane on a bender but eventually warmed up to the big green guy. She is currently enamored of the Reiwa era film, Shin Godzilla (2106).

She likes the fourth evolution where he can shoot lasers from his mouth, spines and tail all at once. It’s very efficient. And pretty.

Damian - Dami considered himself a Godzilla purist, so nothing but the original Godzilla (1954) will do for him.

He appreciates the subtle cinematography and the idea of Godzilla representing the atomic bomb. Although he’d never admit it, Damian does get a kick out of seeing Godzilla rise from Tokyo Bay to level the city.

Stephanie hates everything about the movies. Tim once dragged her to a retro film festive that showed all the Toho movies. In order. For two full days. Just the sound of Godzilla’s roar is enough to make her run for hills.

Barbara likes the modern Legendary movies best, particularly Godzilla King of The Monsters (2019).

Why? Because as a college student she spent one miserable summer in Boston going to seminar at Boston University. She lived in a cramped, un-airconditioned dorm room that smelled like feet. Watching Godzilla, King Ghidora, Mothra and Rodan level a good swath of the city feel a little bit like karma for her. She’s been known to cackle in an unhinged manner when Fenway Park gets stomped. Dick finds it vaguely unsettling.

Duke - He’s not really up to date on all of the various versions of Gojira, but he’s let himself be talked into going to the midnight premiere of Godzilla Minus One when it comes out in December.

Dick and Tim are planning to do cosplay, so Duke isn’t quite sure what he’s gotten himself into.

#tim drake #dick grayson #bruce wayne #jason todd #damian wayne #duke thomas #barbara gordon #Godzilla

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usafphantom2 · 3 months

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Ethiopia receives two ex-Indian Su-30K fighter jets from Russia 🇷🇺

Derived from the Su-27UB, these Su-30K fighters represent a transitional model of the Indian version of the Su-30MKI, manufactured by the Irkutsk Aviation Plant in Russia. (Picture source: Telegram)

Friday, 19 January 2024 13:14

As reported on Russian social media on January 17, 2024, the Ethiopian Air Force has received two Su-30K fighter jets, raising questions and interest due to the history and background of these aircraft. These aircraft were originally part of a batch of 18 fighters previously used by the Indian Air Force, and this acquisition by Ethiopia had not been disclosed earlier.

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Ezoic

Ethiopia Su 30 925 001Derived from the Su-27UB, these Su-30K fighters represent a transitional model of the Indian version of the Su-30MKI, manufactured by the Irkutsk Aviation Plant in Russia. (Picture source: Telegram)

Ezoic

The origins of these aircraft can be traced back to the production of 18 Su-30K fighters at the Irkutsk Aviation Plant in Russia, which were initially intended for delivery to India under the Su-30MKI program, based on agreements reached in 1996 and 1998. Between 1997 and 1999, the Indian Air Force received these Su-30K aircraft. However, a significant development occurred in December 2005 when an agreement led to their return to the Russian manufacturer in exchange for the supply of 18 new Su-30MKI fighters to India.

EzoicFollowing their return, these aircraft were transported to Belarus, specifically the 558th Aviation Repair Plant in Baranovichi, for storage and potential modernization. In 2013, all the aircraft from this batch underwent repairs and upgrades in Belarus, and in 2017, Angola acquired 12 of these Su-30Ks, leaving the remaining six without designated buyers. Despite reports of Ethiopia's interest in purchasing these remaining aircraft, there has been no official confirmation of the contract, leaving questions about the fate of the four additional Su-30Ks in storage.

The unveiling of the acquisition of these first-generation Su-30K fighters by Ethiopia took place on January 16, 2024. The aircraft now bears Ethiopian tail numbers "2401" and "2402," as seen in photographs. These aircraft originally served as Su-30Ks in the Indian Air Force and have apparently undergone various transformations since their return from India.

Derived from the Su-27UB, these Su-30K fighters represent a transitional model of the Indian version of the Su-30MKI, manufactured by the Irkutsk Aviation Plant in Russia. In contrast to the more advanced Indian Su-30MKI, the Su-30K lacks an open architecture for avionics, necessitating the placement of new equipment in external containers due to limited internal volume.

While details regarding the modifications and capabilities of the aircraft that underwent upgrades in Belarus remain undisclosed, it is worth noting that Ethiopia already possesses a substantial inventory of Soviet and Russian-made military equipment, including 11 single-seat Su-27S/SK fighters and 2 double-seat Su-27UBs.

Ethiopia's acquisition of these Su-30K fighter jets comes at a time when Russian weapon exports face increasing challenges due to American restrictions under the CAATSA law and other sanctions. Such deals may assist Russia in filling gaps in its export revenue, particularly with alternative buyers, such as Iran or financially stable African nations, in mind.

The Su-30K is an export variant of the Sukhoi Su-30, a twin-engine, two-seat fighter aircraft developed by Russia's Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. The Su-30 is designed for all-weather, air-to-air, and air interdiction missions. Originally, the Su-30 project evolved from the Sukhoi Su-27 family and was renamed from the Su-27PU to Su-30 in 1996. The Su-30 has been developed in various versions, including export variants, to meet the requirements of different countries.

It is equipped with in-flight refueling capabilities and a GPS and GLONASS satellite navigation system. Notably, it lacks the front horizontal tail found in later versions of the Su-30. Its combat capabilities include the ability to engage air targets with short-range R-73 missiles, as well as high-precision missile weapons such as the X-29 and X-31 series, which can be used against both ground and naval targets at distances of up to 250 km. The Su-30K can also utilize long-range television-guided missiles like the Kh-59M, along with adjustable aerial bombs such as the KAB-500 and KAB-1500.

Ezoic

One of the key features of the Su-30 is its high maneuverability, aided by thrust vectoring control and a digital fly-by-wire system, allowing it to perform advanced maneuvers like the Pugachev's Cobra and tailslide. Some versions include canards for enhanced maneuverability and control, although this adds some drag and slightly reduces maximum speed.

The Su-30 is powered by two Saturn AL-31F after-burning low-bypass turbofan engines, providing it with a maximum speed of Mach 2 and a range of up to 3,000 kilometers. The aircraft can carry a variety of weapons, including air-to-air missiles, air-to-surface missiles, anti-ship missiles, anti-radiation missiles, and various bombs. It is armed with a 30 mm autocannon.

The aircraft is equipped with advanced avionics, including radar systems like Bars N011M and Myech, as well as electro-optical targeting systems, helmet-mounted display systems, and radar warning receivers. Finally, the Su-30 is widely used by various countries, including Russia, Algeria, Vietnam, and India, and it continues to be in service and production.

@AirRecognition via X

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