#still working out her role in things and what she did for a profession but i do know one thing and it’s who she ends up with! ✨😌 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tyrantisterror · 4 months

Text

A Dozen Or So Great Vampire Ladies

Ok, so, on a mostly unrelated post the topic of good vampire ladies came up, and @bisexualdaikaiju suggested/challenged me to do a top 10 vampire women list. As a self-professed lover of vampire women, it felt like a challenge I couldn't back down from. But it is kind of challenging, for two kind of contradictory reasons.

First, while there are MANY female vampires in fiction, most of them feel like afterthoughts, getting far less characterization than their male counterparts, who more often than not are the star villains of the show. When these supporting lady vampires do get something to do, it's generally the same role: make their human lovers sad when they rise from the dead as a monster that has to be killed, an emotional beat that is often undercut by a lot of these vampire women not getting much characterization to endear them to us before they died. Everyone wants to have the Lucy Westerna plot beat from Dracula but they don't want to do the work that Bram did to make Lucy lovable. The lady vamps who get to step out of Lucy's shadow are rare - but that just makes them all the more wonderful.

The second problem is that, since this is an obsession of mine that few seem to share (there are lots of vampire fans, but man do the boy vamps get to hog the spotlight among them), I've done a lot of scattered thinking about it and I just know I'm bound to forget at least one excellent lady vampire character that should be here. And whittling it down to ten, and trying to rank them? That's too hard! My thoughts are too mercurial to do that reliably in a way I don't forget!

So instead here's a list of, like, a dozen or so lady vampires that I think are just fucking stellar, many of which I think break the mold of what pop culture makes us expect lady vampires to be. It is not ranked - I love all these characters more or less equally, and think it's a lot more interesting to see how they take their archetype in different directions than to figure out which one is "best" of the lot.

Carmilla Karnstein

I'm going to start with the most famous literary female vampire, Mircalla Karnstein from Carmilla. I think she might be the first vampire to have an unhealthy obsession with using anagrams of her real name as aliases, though I'm sure now that I've typed that someone will find an earlier example to school me. She's also the one who popularized the idea of lady vampires being extremely sapphic, with an arguably genuine romantic affection for her female victims. She's got well-deserved clout, basically, and like Dracula has been adapted countless times and reinterpreted in some excellent ways. My favorite screen Carmilla is Ingrid Pitt's take, which captures her fierceness, passion, and tragic nature so well.

2. Amy from Fright Night

Ok, we're having one Lucy Westerna knockoff on this list, but as Lucy knockoffs go, Amy is one of the best. It actually helps that she spends 90% of her movie as a human, because we get to know and love her so much before she turns monstrous. And once she does...

youtube

It is pants-shittingly terrifying. I will never stop raving about the vampire designs in this movie - they made their "game faces" so fucking monstrous and I feel like in a better world this would be the standard ever since, especially since they still gave the vampires pathos while making them so ghastly when they've got their feeding faces on.

3. Drusilla

Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a bunch of vampire characters, and to its credit they did a decent job of making the ladies just as distinct as the gents. Harmony and Darla could both have made this list, but my favorite was always Drusilla, who was so traumatized before she became a vampire that it kind of overwhelms the demon spirit inside her. Like, bare minimum thing to make a lady vampire more interesting than 90% of other female vampires in fiction: give her at least one personality trait, preferably an interesting one, outside of being a vampire. Drusilla's fun, and she survives the entire series after dumping her boyfriend to be a single female vampire. Good for her.

4. Ruby from Scary Godmother

Ok look I am a fake Scary Godmother fan but kudos to the artist of the books for making a lady vampire who's very clearly of the nosferatu mold and is also explicitly benign and sweet. A+ vampire lady character design. I hope it doesn't awaken anything in me.

5. Nadja

What We Do in the Shadows is excellent at finding new takes on vampires in general - it even made me actually like Psychic Vampires as a concept, a feat I thought was impossible - but goddamn do I love Nadja specifically. She's got a distinct personality as vampire ladies go, being very confident and self-assured while also being a complete fucking goober (it is a comedy, after all). She's perfectly capable of being terrifying AND hilarious, often at the same time. A vampire girl failure, in the parlance of our site. I love her.

6. Lady Dimitrescu

I know that she's apparently only in a fourth of the game, but it's still pretty great that Resident Evil 8 decided its mascot villain - its equivalent of the Tyrant, G, Nemesis, etc. - would be the hottest woman I've ever seen a milf an 8 foot tall lady vampire. She's not dainty and willowy like most lady vamps in fiction - not an ambush hunter - but rather HUGE and capable of tossing a human around like a rag doll. She's a physical powerhouse and she looks fine feminine while doing it. Despite being an unabashed blood-sucking monster, she still has enough depth and complexity to have important relationships (like a genuine love for her "giant mass of hive mind flies" daughters), and also she gets to have an awesome transformation into a fungal vampire dragon, which is rad as hell. Also goddamn, her fashion sense is immaculate.

7. Hecate from Hellboy

"Hey, she's not a vampire! She's a goddess! That doesn't count!" Fuck you, my list, my rules. Hecate posits herself as the progenitor and mother of vampires, she drinks blood, and her main form in the comic is as a sicknasty lamia version of the iron maiden used by Elizabeth fucking Bathory, if she doesn't count as a vampire, nothing should. She is the concept of a vampire amped up to maximum capacity, a major mythological figure and an awesome villain.

...also I lowkey shipped her and Hellboy when I was a teenager. They could have made it work!

8 - 12. Carmilla and her girl squad from Castlevania

I suppose I could have counted Castlevania's Carmilla as an adaptation of Miss Karnstein - they're both basted out of Styria, both sapphic, and it's clear she's meant to be an adaptation of the former, just as the Dracula of this show is meant to be a take on Bram's famous vampire. But ultimately they're VERY different characters in the grand scheme of things - Castlevania's Carmilla has none of the tenderness and vulnerability of her literary counterpart, instead being full of barely restrained fury. She is an excellent villain, complex enough to be interesting but thoroughly despicable enough to make it VERY satisfying when she bites it.

I also love her girl posse... in concept, at least. They've all got great designs and the groundwork of interesting characters, but of the the three, only Lenore, the waifish redhead, gets to do much of note. The two on the edges kind of just show up for a few scenes and then bail before the plot catches up to them, doing very little of note - though at least the big hunky one gets one of the coolest fight scenes in the whole show.

youtube

Back to Lenore though - she gets a really nice character arc, and manages to become one of the few sympathetic vampires in the series (while still doing a lot of monstrous shit - she is not a defanged vampire by any stretch). I think her death scene is one of the most moving moments in the series finale.

13. Seras Victoria

A good female vampire has at least one non-vampire part of her personality, right? Ok, so, Seras is:

the muscle in almost every scene she is, which is to say, the one absolutely beating the shit out of people while her allies run for cover

the perky henchman/morality pet of one of history's greatest monsters

the sole ray of sunshine in cast of edgy, cigar-chomping grizzled mercnaries and antiheroes she's been pressganged into fighting alongside

the victim of some HIDEOUS trauma even before her vampirization

the protege of a wise master who gets a full hero's journey arc, taking up his mantle at the end of the series

Like, I love her. She's the secret protagonist of Hellsing. She's got layers like an onion. The scene where she killed Zora Blitz reminded me why I love anime.

youtube

(yeah it's the TFS version fuck you)

14. Youko Shiragami

My Monster Secret is not a horror manga. It is a romantic comedy about a bunch of idiots trying to keep painfully obvious secrets hidden and succeeding only because almost everyone around them is as dumb as they are, just in very different ways. It is a manga where an entire chapter can be summarized as "all the characters race to get the last McRib, using their various supernatural abilities to try and cheat their way to the front of the pack." It is one of the funniest and most heart-warming stories I have ever read, one of my favorite romances of all time, and an excellent piece of long form story-telling.

One of the two main characters is Youko Shiragami, a vampire girl who can't let anyone know she's a vampire or else her dad will pull her out of school. She desperately wants to have a normal life with friends and, like, school shenanigans, but her fear of people uncovering her secret and hating her is so immense that she's been isolating herself from everyone, accidentally torturing herself by being close to what she wants but unable to actually have it.

At least, until Kuromine, the other main character of the story, discovers her secret while trying to ask her out on a date. He ends up promising to keep her secret, and the two of them form a real friendship that blossoms into a very sweet romance, where Youko gets to display all her incongruous personality traits that go against what you'd expect of vampires - namely, that she's kind of a ditz, with an unrefined style of speech and a complete inability to be suave and seductive. She's a sweet, flaky goofball with a big heart, who just happens to drink blood and tan really quickly in the sunlight. There is no other vampire like her, and the world is richer for her being in it.

15. Marceline, the Vampire Queen

This list isn't ranked, but if it was, I'd put Marceline at the top. I think she is not only the most unique and deeply characterized lady vampire in fiction, but ranks right up there with Dracula in how she redefines the idea of what a vampire can be. Like, look at the forms she takes!

There are DOZENS of different monstrous shapes Marceline takes during Adventure Time's 9+ seasons of television, and any one of them would be a superb and memorable vampire on its own. And she's ALL of them. Just on a design standpoint, she is a standout. I think only Dracula himself could compete.

youtube

But she also explores what the concept of what a vampire is in ways no other vampire in fiction can, in part because of the unique nature of Adventure Time's setting. In a world where humans are an extreme minority and most people are weird monsters, a vampire isn't that odd, so we get to explore what being a vampire means divorced from the comparison to "normal" human beings. There's the expected tragedy to Marceline, of course - she's a 16 year old who has been stuck in that adolescent state for hundreds of years, and much of her character arc over the show (including the magnificent vampire-centric storyline, "Stakes") focuses on the horror of being stuck in that transitional state, not quite a child but not quite an adult. Marceline struggles to mature, to understand herself and others, and her vampirism both keeps her distant from reaching those goals but also gives her a lot of time to figure out how to approach them when the opportunity arirves. Marceline goes from one of the most immature and selfish characters in the show to perhaps the most emotionally intelligent, blossoming into a sensitive and thoughtful person she could never have been without first becoming a creature that seems so inherently opposed to ever having those traits.

And she did it all in a children's show where she was rarely if ever allowed to actually drink blood - a problem the writers got around by having her suck the red color out of things, which is right up there with the Joker Venom from BTAS in terms of genius ideas spawned by children's show censorship.

Marceline is the GOAT.

#Vampire Ladies #Youtube

169 notes · View notes

queen-of-deans-booty · 26 days

Text

Worth The Wait: Part One

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~900

Warnings: fluff

Request by anon: Hey so every one know that Jensen like Batman, so i have this ideas where the reader is Jensen wife and popular actress who is casted to play Cat woman with Robert Pattinson or other one and the reader never tell Jensen because she want to be a surprise or something like that and she bring him to the premiere where was the Batmobile and him was just fanboy? Fluffy between Jensen and reader

Summary: You've been working on a movie you know Jensen will love to see, so you've managed to keep it from him until the world premiere. Now it's your chance to unveil the surprise.

Square Filled: hereditary for @spnonewordbingo (deleted bingo)

Author’s Note: we're all gonna pretend that the movie Batman v Superman had Catwoman in it. okay? okay.

This all started when your great-grandmother got scouted to be in short films in the early 1900s. Actresses weren't a big thing back then but someone took one look at her and knew she was meant to be on the big screen, whatever that meant back then. She was known all throughout the state as a big-time actress even though all the things she was in were silent films. She had a great facial profile that really embodied everything she was thinking and feeling. She started young but that’s what people did back then. They started their professions at a young age.

When your grandmother was born in 1934, your great-grandmother was already moving on to bigger and better things. She starred in the movie It Happened One Night, The Thin Man, and MGM’s musical/romance adaptation of Cat and the Fiddle. Those were just to name a few. Your grandmother saw what she was doing and wanted to follow in her footsteps, doing everything she could do be in television, the big screen, and in theater.

She got her big break when she got cast in Treasure Island and Fantasia with Disney. She got acting gig after acting gig until she had your mother in 1954. She took a few years off to be with her family but got right back into it. Your mother had a knack for theater and did her time on Broadway more than she did in film. She starred in musicals like Applause, Fiddler on the Roof, Annie, Sweeny Todd, and Grease.

She had you in 1989, and you started singing and acting at a very young age. You got into commercials and TV shows from the get-go. Probably because you come from a line of Tony, Oscar, and Emmy winners. You tried not to let your line of succession lead you to getting good parts, but you’ve managed to get a small role in Jurrasic Park as a child, and into much bigger roles in Charlie’s Angels, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Saw I, Avatar, The Hunger Games, and many more.

You worked your ass off to be where you are today, and you’re actually working on putting your own album out because you’re striving to be the first EGOT winner in your family. You’ve gotten one Tony Award, too-many-to-count Oscars, and two Emmy awards.

To think you were the shy theater kid who only sang in front of people if you were starring in a play at school. After graduation, you got into a good acting school even though you didn’t really need it, but you still welcomed the challenge they put you through, even starring in most of the plays there. Now you’re a thirty-five-year-old woman with awards like no other, a husband who is just incredible, and an amazing career that is nowhere close to being done.

Your husband is also an actor, a big one for Supernatural. He’s been nothing short of amazing and you’re so proud of him and his work. It sucked at the beginning of his career since you two barely saw each other but the longer you did this, the more you settled into your own groove. You got to take the time off to be with each other a lot more.

You get to go to conventions with him and he gets to go to movie premieres with you. There is nothing you’d trade for this little life of yours. Speaking of movie premiers, you just got done filming your movie Batman vs Superman where you played Catwoman, but you refused to tell your husband anything about it. He is a big Batman fan, and if you were to surprise him with a Batman premier, he’d go feral. Jensen respected you enough to not go snooping when he knew you wanted this to be a surprise, and his friends respected you enough to not tell him about it.

Jenson has been bouncing in his seat since he entered the limo, and you’ve been watching with a wide smile on your face. When the limo gets to the red carpet, Jensen gasps at seeing everything Batman.

“Surprise! I’m Catwoman!”

“You got to be in a room with Batman?”

You two leave the Limo and smile at the cameras flashing in your face. Jensen doesn’t care if he looks like a little kid, he is going to be excited over anything Batman (even though you’re a tad more of a Marvel girl than DC). You’re trying to get in on one of their projects so fingers crossed! There is a section before the red carpet where people can take pictures with a real-life prop of the Batmobile.

Jensen loses his shit and rushes over with a giant smile on his face. You don’t care if a million people are watching or if it’s just you two, but you’ll always love the way he gets excited over things. He gets his picture taken with the Batmobile alone and then with you, and you pull him off to the side with a smile on your face.

“Is this a good surprise? Was it worth the wait?”

“So worth the wait. This is amazing.” Jensen leans in to kiss you but stops with a gasp. “Is that Michael Keaton?”

Jensen’s favorite Batman is Michael Keaton.

“Yeah, he showed up on set a few times. He’s a nice guy!”

“I’m nervous. Should I go up to him?”

“Yeah. He won’t bite,” you chuckle.

You escort Jensen over to Michael who is more than happy to talk to your husband. He hasn’t been this happy and excited in a while, and you’re glad to be part of it.

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

#jensen ackles #jensen ackles x reader #jensen ackles fic #jensen ackles fanfiction #jensen ackles fanfic #jensen ackles fluff #jensen ackles fiction #jensen ackles fan fiction #jensen ackles fan fic #supernatural #supernatural fic #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural fanfic #supernatural fluff #spn #spn fic #spn fanfiction #spn fanfic #spn fluff

85 notes · View notes

dumborangecat · 8 months

Text

The new episode killed me so now i’m gonna talk about the toxic doomed yuri (Petrigrof)

Okay so the bus scene, omg the bus scene. I’ve seen a few people criticise Simon for not going with Betty, or even considering going with Betty, and while he’s definitely not perfect, that’s not one of the things to criticise him for (stares at the implied professer/student dynamic)

Simon would never have boarded that bus, it’s just now who he is. Simon is calm and collected (pre-iceking ofc), he thinks things out a lot more and doesn’t make those kinds of impulsive decisions like abandoning his current life for 6 whole months on a complete whim. If Betty had maybe mentioned her feelings earlier, and invited him on the trip, I wouldn’t be suprised to see him go on it. But as it was, Simon had only just been presented with the idea that he was even wanted on the trip, and had 0 time to do anything with that. If their roles were reversed, and it was Simons trip, he would have gone and saw Betty again 6 months later.

Meanwhile Betty is much more wild and impulsive, even in her everyday life (as seen when she litterally chucks a can of cherries at simon instead of just handing it to him or having him come get it) her deciding to abandon her trip and stay with Simon is completely within character for her. She makes more decisions that entirely disregard what she wants all for Simons wellbeing, not because he wants her to do that, or is encouraging her to, but because thats who she is!! Her impulsively is only worsened when Simon comes around because now she has someone to throw everything away for! Someone who, for as much as he loves her, is either too dense or too naive to realise that’s what she’s doing! If the roles were reversed, she probably would have boarded that bus with simon, because that’s who she iss!

Simon and Betty were never going to work out well, even without the Mushroom war and Ice King/Golb junk, Betty constantly sacrificing her ambitions for Simon, and Simon never realising thats what she’s doing, was always going to lead them towards an unhealthy relationship, the only reason that never happened was because of all the magic stuff, they just never had enough time together for their unhappy ending to play out like that.

And all that’s not even mentioning their obsession with one another, ep 8 did make it seem almost as if Simon wasn’t as obsessed as Betty was, but he absolutely was, perhaps not at first but he definitely is now. His entire life is in complete shambles without her, if he wanted too Simon could begin his research again and start a new life in ooo, but he can’t because Bettys not there. He’s so hung up on her that even 12 years later he was still trying to bring her back! He loves her just as much she does, they just don’t show it the same way!

(I mentioned Simon not realising that Betty practically throws her whole life away for him, I don’t mean he doesn’t see her impulsive tendencies, he does, and he loves her for them, he just doesn’t realise how damaging they are)

(Not related to my previous points) But also something about that whole flash back seems odd, it feels like the definition of ‘looking at something through rose-tinted glasses’ the question is just whether he was downplaying his own actions, or Bettys. It’s possible we’ll see Bettys POV of how it went down, but honestly I think that would add more confusion to everything, as she also looks back on their relationship through ‘rose-tinted glasses’, so i’d like to see how they show us what really happened.

They make me want to scream, they’re only gonna get sadder next episode and i am not ready

#sorry this is a mess #i still haven’t recovered from the episodes #god they make me sick /pos #adventure time #fionna and cake #simon petrikov #fionna and cake spoilers #betty grof #petrigrof #this makes it sound like i’m criticising betty for being impulsive #i’m absolutely not #all girls deserve to be a little insane somtimes #as a treat

236 notes · View notes

storiesforallfandoms · 1 year

Text

accidental drunk confessions ~ matthew lillard

word count: 2971

request?: yes!

@shinichirosanos

“Can you do a Matthew Lillard x female actress reader imagine where everyone kinda assumes they're dating and maybe they're at the Scream 1996 premiere and during interviews they constantly get questions about what their relationship is, but they deny it all the time and then later that night one of them finally confesses their feelings? 💛”

description: after being questioned about their relationship all the time, one of them lets it slip that they want more than friendship while drunk

pairing: matthew lillard x female!reader

warnings: swearing, alcohol usage

masterlist (one, two, three)

I sighed and splashed a handful of col water on my burning face, not caring about if it ruined my makeup. I knew the night of the premiere was going to be rough, but I really didn’t expect for it to be this rough just from the red carpet.

I was lucky to have gotten cast in my first big film while still very new into my acting career. It was a comedy-horror called Scream, directed by Nightmare on Elm Street director Wes Craven, so it was a pretty big deal. I had auditioned with very little expectations on getting the role since I was a new actress and all. So no one was more surprised than I was when Wes himself called me to tell me I got the role.

It was a dream come true and everyone in the cast was so kind that we became a big friend group very fast.

And then there was Matthew. Sweet, goofy Matthew who always made everyone laugh on set, and who managed to steal my heart from the very first moment I met him.

But dating your co-workers is a big no-no in any profession. Even if the movie ended with Stu seemingly being killed and my character being one of the five survivors, who knew where a potential sequel could lead us? Not to mention the fact that I wasn’t about to mess up my first big gig by risking an awkward work environment after dating - or being rejected by - a co-worker.

All those words to say I was too afraid to ask him out.

The night of the premiere had come before we knew it and I was beyond giddy with excitement...until I got to my first interview of the night and the third question was about Matthew.

“Some have said that you and your co-star, Matthew Lillard, have been very close behind the scenes. Anything going on there between you two?”

The question took me by surprise, but I managed to stumble through an answer confirming that we were just friends and move on to the next interview...

...who asked me the same thing.

As did the next one.

And the next one.

Until I had to make the decision to completely bypass the rest of the red carpet and escape into the venue. That’s how I found myself alone in the bathroom, trying to cool myself down.

A knock came at the locked door. “Occupied!”

“It’s me.”

I unlocked the door and opened it just a crack so I could peer out at Neve. When I saw it was just her, I let her in and quickly locked the door again.

“Are you okay?” she asked. “I saw you basically running off the red carpet.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just overwhelmed,” I said, which wasn’t a total lie.

“Does it have to do with the interviewers asking about you and Matthew?”

I looked at her in disbelief, which caused Neve to chuckle. “I went after you and was asked about it, too. Apparently your potential relationship is a big scoop.”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Why? I’m a nobody. This is my first big acting job.”

“On set romance would be huge for them I guess.” She reached for some paper towels and ran some water over them. “You have mascara running down your face.”

She wiped the black smudges from my cheeks and under my eyes. I mumbled a soft, “Thank you.”

“We gotta get to the premiere. It’s starting soon,” she reminded me

I sighed. “I can’t face Matthew. They definitely asked him the same questions. It’s gonna be awkward.”

“You only have to see him in the movie. Sit between me and Rose, and then hang out with us at the after party. You’ll be fine.”

I smiled and hugged Neve. “You’re such a good friend. “Thank you, Neve.”

It was hard not to glance at Matthew as we entered for the premiere. I kept my eyes trained on the movie screen the entire time, but I was still very aware of his presence. He had sat just behind us with Skeet and Jamie. It took everything in my power not to turn around and look at him or ask him what the interviewers had said to him.

I was glad when the time came around for the after party. I didn’t want to go at first, but now I definitely needed a couple drinks in hopes of forgetting this entire night.

The after party was at Wes’ mansion, which was big enough to hold basically everyone who worked on Scream. Food and drinks were provided and Wes was even offering to let anyone who was drinking stay the night. The party was already in full swing when I arrived. All of the cast were there already and the crew were slowly trickling in. When I walked into the house of course the first person I saw was Matthew.

He had a drink in his hand and was laughing at something one of the crew members had said. Hearing his laugh caused my heart to flip in my chest. I didn’t realize I was just stood in the doorway, staring like a creep, until someone entering basically shoved me out of the way. I stumbled forward, stopping myself from face planting onto the ground. When I managed to stabilize myself, I looked up to see Matthew was now looking at me. My heart started pounding as he turned to approach me.

“Hey,” he said. “What happened to you on the red carpet? I was hoping to see you when I got there.”

“I got a little overwhelmed during the interviews and stuff,” I responded.

Is he going to talk about the interviews? Is he going to bring up what people are apparently saying about us?

“That makes sense. The first red carpet can be hard, especially for a big movie like this.” He threw his arm over my shoulder and pulled my against him. “Just stick with me, kid. I’ll help you through it.”

I found myself speechless, so I just nodded. I let Matthew lead me towards the kitchen for a drink. I let Matthew lead me towards the kitchen for a drink. My original plan of avoiding him the whole night was effectively down the drain the moment he put a drink in my hand. However, my plan to get drunk to forget the night was still very much in play as I made sure my cup stayed full.

I was incredibly drunk when Neve and Rose finally found me lounging on one of Wes’ couches, my legs draped over Matthew’s lap while Skeet was sat opposite of us in a chair.

“There you are,” Neve said. “I thought you were hanging out with us tonight.”

“Matt found me first,” I slurred. I giggled and added, “Isn’t that ironic?”

Rose and Neve shared a look before Rose said, “Maybe we get you some water and get you home.”

“You guys don’t have to rush off,” Skeet said. “I mean, (Y/N) definitely needs some water, but we can all hang out.”

“I don’t want water,” I whined. “I like being drunk. No feelings when you’re drunk. No thoughts or worries or anything.”

“I’m fourth on you getting water,” Matthew said. “It’ll decrease the intensity of your hangover.”

I looked over at him and sheepishly smiled. I reached out and cupped his face with one hand. “You’re so sweet, looking out for me and shit. No wonder I like you so much.”

Even through my drunken haze I could feel a sense of panic go through the room from everyone besides Matthew. My rush on him was probably the worst kept secret of all time. I had told Rose and Neve about it early on since I viewed them as such close friends, but Skeet and Jamie figured it out on their own. Somehow, Matthew was the only one who was oblivious to my feelings for him.

“Hey (Y/N), maybe it is time to go,” Skeet said.

Matthew was chuckling at what I had said, either ignoring Skeet or not hearing him speak. “I like you too, (Y/N).”

“Yeah but you only like me. I like you. Like, romantically.”

I was pulled off of the couch the second the words were out of my mouth. I drunkenly giggled and waved goodbye to Matthew and Skeet as Neve and Rose quickly carried me towards the exit. My head was swimming from the alcohol so much that not even the fresh air helped to sober me up.

Neve helped me into the backseat of her car, laying me on my side in case I got sick. She and Rose got into the front, rolled down the windows so I had some fresh air blowing in on me, and started up the car.

“She’s gonna regret that in the morning,” was the last thing I remembered hearing before I passed out.

~~~~~~

And I certainly did regret everything the next morning when I woke up and felt like a million nails had been poured into my head and were shaken up. I tried to open my eyes but still the dull sunlight coming though the curtains caused the headache to be much worse.

I dragged myself out of bed eventually so I could get some water, only to find a half empty glass on my bedside table. I finished the contents of it and continued my pain filled journey to the kitchen, which I knew would also have Aspirin there to take.

When I stepped into my living room, I let out a yelp upon seeing someone asleep on my couch. My outburst caused them to wake with a start.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I wanted to be here when you woke up in case you needed some help with the hangover,” Matthew responded as he groggily sat up.

“Okay, better question: how did you get here? I may not remember a lot about last night, but I do remember that Neve and Rose were the ones who brought me home.”

“When you guys left, I followed because I was worried for you,” he explained. “I caught up before Neve drove away and practically begged her to let me come with you guys.”

I cringed as cloudy memories including Matthew came rushing back. It should’ve been a good sign that I hadn’t weirded him out so much that he didn’t want to be around me, but I knew what came next here. We were going to have “the talk” where he would reject me and I would have to act like I was okay with that as not to ruin our friendship.

I went to the kitchen to get what I had come for before returning to the living room. I popped an Aspirin into my mouth and downed a mouthful of water, then sat down next to Matthew on the couch.

“Alright,” I sighed. “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room then.”

He looked at me in confusion for a moment before realization crossed his face. “Oh...so you do remember...that?”

“Admitting that I have a crush on you? Yeah, I unfortunately remember,” I said. “I did it in the heat of the moment while drunk. I never meant for you to find out about it. I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable, or if it weirds you out. We can both just forget about it and move past the whole ordeal.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked.

I wanted to scream Of course not! I want you to like me back. I want you to kiss me, to hold me, to put your hands on me and call me yours! But I knew that was a bad idea. I had already embarrassed myself enough for one lifetime.

“It’s what’s best for us,” I said. “I don’t want to ruin this friendship.”

“Ruin it how?” he asked.

“By having things be awkward between us because I like you and I know you don’t like me back.”

Matthew looked at me for a moment, looking like he was trying to fight back a smile, before he said, “Can you let me talk before we make this decision?”

I looked at him, curiously, and nodded for him to proceed.

“(Y/N), I’ve had a big, fat crush on you since the moment you walked into the first table read for the movie. You were so timid and shy, but you were also extremely beautiful and when you were reading your lines, I could see you had this confidence in that was so strong for someone who claims to be such a newbie. I don’t know what it was, but all of those things combined just drew me to you. The more I got to know you, the more those feelings I had grew.”

It felt like his words had shut off my brain completely. I had no idea how to respond. I just looked at him, blankly, like a complete idiot. I could see him watching me, waiting for some sort of reaction.

“Really?” I finally asked, but then immediately cringed at my own stupid question.

He chuckled, though. He reached for one of my hands and gave it a small squeeze. “Really.”

“But you never said anything,” I said.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same way.”

I scoffed. “You afraid? You’re like...the opposite of afraid. You were always so confident and fearless both on set and off.”

“Yeah, but not when it came to admitting how I felt about you. No one knew because I was afraid of it getting back to you. I kept it to myself the entire time, which was the hardest thing I ever had to do because whenever I saw you I just wanted to admit everything.”

I let his words soak in for a moment before burying my face in my hands. I couldn’t help but start laughing at the situation, which earned me another confused look from Matthew.

“I got super duper drunk last night because I wanted to forget the interviewers who were asking me if we were in a relationship,” I admitted to him. “I started freaking out because I thought that you were going to feel awkward around me because of what they were saying, so I intended to get drunk, hang out with Neve and Rose, and then make a quick escape home before seeing you.”

“They were asking me about you, too. That’s why I got worried when you left the red carpet and it felt like you were avoiding me. I thought you were avoiding me.”

“I was, but I was doing it because I thought it was going to make things awkward between us!”

We both looked at each other and burst out into laughter realizing how twisted we had the entire situation. All of it could’ve been resolved if we had both just been courageous enough to actually talk about our feelings, but we were both absolutely chickens.

We both leaned back onto the couch as a silence took over. The next question was “where do we go from here?”, but I think we both knew the answer to that without even explicitly asking. I looked over at Matthew and finally gave myself a moment to take him in - while sober anyways. Everything about him was so perfect; perfect skin, perfect blue eyes, perfect messy brown hair, perfect lips that always turned up into a perfect smile.

Perfect lips that I really wanted to kiss.

So, I decided to go for it. No more chickening out, no more excuses. Now that everything was out on the table, I decided to make the first move.

I leaned forward. When Matthew turned to look at me, I quickly attached my lips to his before I could let myself get too scared to do so. It was awkward at first due to how roughly I managed to smash our lips together. But Matthew pulled away and cupped my face in his hands, then leaned forward to kiss me properly.

Just like everything else about him, the kiss was perfect.

I could’ve stayed like that all day. I definitely wanted to. I just wanted to lay on the couch with him and feel his lips on mine and his hands on my face. I’d even be so bold as to take him back to my bedroom if he wanted to come, and we’d never have to leave my bed again if we didn’t want to.

Matthew pulled away first, a big, goofy grin on his face. “That was nice.”

I giggled and buried my head in the crook of his neck. I had managed to forget the pain in my head and the nauseous churning in my stomach for a while, but now it was starting to come back to me and my giggled quickly turned to a groan.

“You poor thing,” Matthew said, putting an arm around me and rubbing my back, soothingly. “Let’s get you back to bed with some water and something very bland so that you can eat but don’t actually throw up.”

“I don’t even think I could eat anything bland,” I admitted. “But I appreciate that you’d want to help me.”

“Of course I want to help you. Can’t let my girl go through this hangover alone.”

Hearing him say the words “my girl” definitely helped me to forget the agony I was in, even if it was just for a quick second.

At least there was one good thing that came out of this whole drunken ordeal, I thought as Matthew helped me to a stand and led me back to my bed.

#matthew lillard #matthew lillard imagine #matthew lillard x reader #imagine #one shot #request #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom

580 notes · View notes

pieroulette · 1 year

Text

AS THE RED SUN BLOOMS

[ 赤い太陽が咲くように ]

CHAPTER 1: 炎 (Flame) — short teaser

2023 | 18+ | SERIES | NISHIMURA RIKI (X READER)

SUMMARY scent of sweetened florals bouncing off the tatami mats, ashes of coals puffing up to the air, and pale pink petals falling down to their glory and onto your shoulder as you were greeted by the servants of the famous Nishimura family—for whom you would start working for their confectionery shop from now on despite language barriers, cultural differences, and social status.

GENRE coming-of-age, historical romance, 18th century Japan/Edo period, slow burn romance, drama, angst, graphic violence, family, reader isn't a Japanese in this story.

WORD COUNT : 1.7k

WARNING FOR (CHAPTER 1) : prostitution (red light district), graphic violence, profanity.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: this is just a warm-up practice for me, since I haven't posted in a long time 😭✋🏻

• bold dialogues means the characters are speaking in Japanese.

2003 [ PRESENT DAY ]

"So, Lia. Who's your role model and why do you want to be like them?" the teacher asked with a hint of enthusiasm in her voice.

The young girl, slightly abashed—spoke in a voice like a whisper. "My role model.. is Grandma."

"What is her profession then? What did she do when she was young?

"S-she's a.." The young girl looked down, fiddling the hem of her sleeves before finally speaking up.

— • —

Yoshiwara District - 1803 [ Edo Period ]

"Bring me the finest lady you ever had here!" the deep voice of a man in a kimono exclaimed amidst the joyous atmosphere in the main quarters.

A high pitched voice of a woman answers back, clearly delighted by the man's call for attention.

"Ah, milord! Which lady would you like for us to bring you for your prosperous day today? I couldn't be any happier to serve you." red lips and flamboyant jewelries adorned the woman's hair, a smile so bright yet so cunning.

With his chin resting on his palms, a lazy look presented on his scarred feature, his right hand raises an index finger gesturing towards the girl from the farthest corner of the room, standing still and obedient; you.

"That young lady, how much is she worth?"

"Ah! Our (Name)-" She looks at you elated as ever, gesturing for you to come forward, "What a perfect timing! She has reached 18 this year, if you want, you could get her for a cheaper price. Yet, I have to inform you that our dear (Name) is unable to speak our language, milord."

"Why so? Hasn't she stayed here for years?"

A smirk blown past the woman's lips after tucking your hair locks behind your ear, revealing your features to the man before you.

"For taming purposes, my lord. A lady of her worth should be able to obey without any difficulties.” the lady suppressed a giggle with an index finger against her red lips, “A yes, a hush with a finger, come here, go there, do this, do that—such simple commands with the help of your finger have no need for her to speak, she must only obey. Likewise, her serving you would be a better way for her to use her mouth in a better use." The woman eventually lets out a dark giggle, brushing her red tinted lips with her dainty finger much to the man's amusement. "Use her as you wish, milord. Should she escape from your hands, no need to break a sweat for no one would help her and she, too, could never utter a word to anyone to understand her."

“She’s perfect to be your one and only doll, sir.” one of your mates came, swaying her hips and hand as she said so.

— • —

"What is this, such a beautiful sweet!"

"Right? It looks like sakura.."

"I heard the Nishimura family is starting to grow in fame because of the delicate sweets they made, plus the competition to make sweets for the royal family are getting closer. I'm definitely sure they could win!"

High pitched voices from afar, laced with definite enthusiasm yet you couldn't understand a thing of the ladies' conversation, making you look like a turtle isolated in your dark shell.

Yet, somehow, the simplicity of this well made sweet in the form of sakura kind of soothes your heart. The pattern has intricate, careful, pushed in curves that resembles a sakura.

You wonder how it tastes, and so you pick the sweet up between the tip of your fingers—placing it onto the tip of your tongue. It's bitterness spike your tongue almost immediately as it touched it, making your eye crinkled and your eyebrows furrowed—yet suddenly the sweetness hits you like waves of the sea washing over your body on the shore.

Like the bitterness of the golden sun setting away from the glory of the sky, only for you to be hit by the epiphany that it will soon rise tomorrow again—akin to the sweetness.

Somehow, somehow, it felt different—you clutched your chest from where your heart let out a tiny rampant of thuds.

Your dark orbs look down to see the folded paper on the wooden platter and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the eccentric look of it. So you leaned forward, picking it up and just as you suspected, it wasn’t a paper used for sweets, almost as if it was a paper used for calligraphy.

Words on paper. Your eyes widened instantly at the realisation.

— • —

"Huh, seems like your eyes had grown somewhat feisty in it? A flame, huh?" He playfully slapped your cheek, as usual.

You opened your mouth, for the first time. "Right, I want to live. That's why."

"What?"

A gut wrenching scream echoes around the quarters—alerting everyone from their respective business. Scattered footsteps approaching from afar and up the hallway—what met their eyes when they frantically slid the door open was you holding the tip of the hairpin against the man’s neck, who was now caged inside your frail arms.

“You- You can’t do that! You can’t do that!”

“Fuck! She won’t understand what we’re saying!”

“Say something!”

“D-darling, hush.” The head of the brothel stuttered, spreading and extending her visibly shakened arms—gesturing for you to come forward, shaking her head slowly, sweat trickling down her powdered cheek and forehead, “That’s n-not right.. Darling!”

A foreboding silence ensues, pushing a magnificent pressure down everyone’s head.

— • —

High above, in the clouds, birds fly so high till they burn their feathers and fly across the blazing rays—signifying the return of the scorching orbs accompanied with the touch of white droplets on your freshly burned hands reaching out for help.

Clouds on the grey sky brought white particles down the ghost quiet town, for people are still in their home asleep. A carriage strolled over at a steady pace across the street. Blooming white consumed the entire pathway, making it difficult for it to pass smoothly—making the old man hissed at the obstacles ahead him.

Yet, his snow-stained feet pauses.

“Am I seeing this right?..” rubbing their eyes and slowly narrowing to the spot of where your unconscious body are laid.

— • —

The massive roof-like mountains adorned with intricate patterns and on its tip rising up akin to a blade, lion statues standing before the gates as if to guard them with their ferocious fangs and the lush garden standing tall, trees so high its branches can be seen behind the gates—as if there were tiny fairies sitting on top of the branches, observing you with lit up orbs.

It gave off absolute serenity as the wind flowed past your hair yet the sight of the sliding door from afar gave you somewhat an uneasy feeling of what is going to happen now in the nearer future.

"I am Yuma." he gestured toward himself. "Yu. Ma. Yuma!"

"Jo! Come on, introduce yourself."

"It's not like she could understand us either."

"Still!"

"This is Jo." Yuma gestured his palms in front of the disinterested tall boy.

"Is she mute or what..?" Sana tilted her head in confusion.

"I don't think that's the case, honestly I had no idea." came Momo who took a bite from the peaches in the basket.

Yuma shaking his head in utter devastation, look over his shoulder only to see a certain someone. "Oh, Taki! Why don't you come over here?"

— • —

You stepped closer to the edge where the breathtaking scene of red fall petals consumed the land, scattering all over the roof and everywhere you could see.

“The current generation of the family now consists of the head, his wife, and their three children.”

It caught your attention, “Three? .. That’s alot.”

“Yes, the eldest daughter, Konon. Graceful and kind, she's the apple of the family's eye. She had a childhood friend who she will marry this fall, not only that, her future husband's family is wealthy enough that it could support the Nishimura's business.”

“Their second daughter and the youngest one is Misola, she turned thirteenth a few months ago. Energetic and beaming as the sun, just like how she should act her age, she often fools around so don't mind it if she randomly comes and pulls her silly pranks on you.”

“I won’t mind.” you said without much thought.

“Finally, their middle child and only son; Riki.” Taki snorted which confused you, “That kid is really tall, and somewhat eccentric than most. Quieter than his siblings, yet he had this humorous vibe that he only shows among those he was close with. Since he's the only son of this family, he's set to inherit this family business."

— • —

White strips wrapped around cut hands and fingers, reaching up to touch the dangling purple florals. Silky black hair with blonde highlights reaching down his neck—blending with the sun rays, robe like coal with an inner white shirt, and a muted blue hakama. Hanafuda earrings, adorned with round red sun with rays swaying along the wind.

"Riki."

"Yeah?" yawning with arms stretched upward, the young man turned with features beaming as the sun, lips pulling up in the brightest smile as he walks forward with the glowing purple wisterias brushing against his face.

"You're neglecting your studies, again."

"Um, did I?" The young boy mumbled, avoiding the intimidating gaze of the older man. "O-oh! I heard there are new apprentices and servants set for the shop, our job is gonna get easier from now on!"

"Quit slacking for once, Riki."

"Yeah, yeah." Riki rolled his eyes, “By the way, how long would it take before we get home though?”

“Judging by the weather, it would take us three months at best.” the middle-aged servant answered, “It will be summer by the time we arrive, milord.”

A long deep sigh emits by the younger boy, “That sure takes long, ah. I just want to slip in to my futons, already.”

“Well, that’s what you deserved for annoying the master."

— • —

With the folded paper on your palms, you look up to the red sun blazing against the freezing winter rain.

"You see, learning how to make wagashi is only for the apprentices.."

You nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"You, as a mere servant, and even more so—as a new one, are quite hasty and too fast to request for something so bold. The master said so." Taki shrugged, "But he didn't say no. He said.. that you have to do your work first."

Your dark orbs sparked as the sun rays from the sky blended with it.

“He would ask his son to teach you and the rest of the apprentices instead, for the sole purpose of evaluating his skills and to train him further.” Taki raised his index finger, swaying it.

"How long.. would it take?"

"Summer, the master's son will be back by summer. Till then, be patient."

"Right, I'll be patient." you nodded in an enthusiastic manner.

"By the way.." you look up to Taki with curiosity adorning his features, "May I ask why do you want to learn how to make wagashi?"

— • —

[ CHAPTER 炎

1: (Flame) ]

— • —

🏵️ AS THE RED SUN BLOOMS MASTERLIST

#enha #enhypen #enhypen x reader #enha imagines #enha x reader #enhypen oneshots #enhypen scenarios #enha fanfic #enhypen x female reader #niki x reader #enha niki #enhypen niki #nishimura niki #enhypen riki #riki fluff #enhypen imagines #enhypen fanfiction

109 notes · View notes

batmanisagatewaydrug · 5 months

Text

reading update: november 2023

hiiiii, sorry I'm late! I know we're a week past November now, but I've been busy! and struggling to pull my mental health out of an absolute crevasse! I think I've mostly made it at this point, but unfortunately my month of seasonal affective woe did leave me with a pretty paltry reading list for the month of November :/

not that I have a quota to hit, but I'm getting back into reading with a PASSION now and I'm hoping to get a few more really great novels in before the year ends!

what have I been reading?

Exquisite Corpse (published as Poppy Z. Brite, currently known as William Martin, 1996) - man, you guys know how I love a fucked up little story about some nasty freaks? this is a FUCKED UP story about the NASTIEST freaks. gay serial killer Andrew escapes a life sentence in England by faking his own death and flees to America, where he lands in New Orleans and promptly meets a man named Jay, who is - holy shit, what are the odds? ALSO a gay serial killer! they get along like a house on fire, setting their sights immediately on a beautiful young runaway drug deal name Tran who has his sights set on Jay. but Trans' ex-boyfriend, Luke, a bitter writer turned pirate DJ dying of AIDS, is also up in the mix, complicating things for everyone. the tone is unrelentingly gruesome but beautifully written and frequently funnier than should be possible. certainly not a book for everyone, with about every possible trigger warning on the table, but god. WHAT a ride. I savored every second.

Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity (Devon Price, 2022) - any hype you've heard about this book is absolutely worth it. Price is really exemplifying the excellence that comes from in-group writing, the magic that happens when people with firsthand experience living a life outside The Norm infiltrates academia and get the credentials to be recognized as the experts they are. I can't speak to the experience of reading this book as an autistic person, but as someone who's often the token allistic among my friends it clarified things that I had never even thought to wonder about with straightforward, accessible style and firsthand understanding. also, hey, it's so cool to see a book just straight-up advocating for autistic people to get more autistic and worry less about appeasing the allistic people around them. Dr. Price writes great advice, and I strongly recommend checking out this book and more of his work here. reading this also made me absolutely feral to check out Price's first book, Laziness Does Not Exist, so expect notes on that soon!

Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture (Sara Petersen, 2023) - listen, we can be honest here: that title is too long. but the read is worth it, even if I do have some mixed feelings about Petersen's messaging. she's not a momfluencer, but she is a mom who has been and still is very invested in momfluencers, letting that fascination fuel this book's creation. I found Petersen a bit too quick to come to the defense of influencing as a profession, which could grate. yes, women influencers are often the targets of a particular hostility that certainly stems from misogyny. yes, it certainly is true that being a full-time Instagram poster on top of raising living human children requires a lot of time and effort, which I guess does make it a "real job". but there are lots of "real jobs" that I disrespect on principle, and influencers are certainly on the list. Petersen has analysis on the stark hegemony of momfluencers, particularly the insidious white supremacy that controls which mothers are seen as aspirational, and she's certainly not lacking in self-reflection about the role momfluencers have played in her own parenting decisions, but it would have been nice to see more pushback on the concept of influencers existing at all, not just creating space for more diverse moms to take up the title. having said that: the chapter in which Petersen reflects on her own mother's lifelong dissatisfaction and grapples with learning to see her mother as a person, rather than just a perfectly happy crafty homemaker, was one of the most riveting things I've ever read and attacked me right in my own maternal baggage. she's a chatty writer who sometimes pulls back the conversational curtain to say the most haunting shit you've ever read in your life, particularly if you're like me and regard motherhood as a sort of horror movie scenario.

Unfortunately Yours (Tessa Bailey, 2023) - god, more like UNFORTUNATELY THIS BOOK, am I right? Unfortunately Yours was November's romance novel, which I finally got around to reading after it was gifted to me this summer by my housemate who clearly hates me. I already bitched about it at length in this month's hater roundup over on my Patreon, but god. jesus christ. I've had a lot of fun reading romance novels that are pretty charmingly crappy, but Bailey just fucking sucks. this book has it all: incessant references to the size difference between our hulking he-man protag and his itty bitty love interest, WEIRD gender dynamics, the most half-assed alleged "enemies-to-lovers" I've ever seen (they just kind of don't get along, it's nothing), convoluted fake marriage, "witty" "banter" that really reads like Bailey has never heard two clever or funny people talk to each other before and has to guess, and some viscerally upsetting sex scenes including one that takes place IN THE MIDDLE OF A FLASH FLOOD. also, the male protag is a war criminal. nobody ever shuts up about how he's an ex-Navy SEAL, but they never seem to want to talk about what SEALs actually do. might be kind of a boner killer.

what am I reading now?

The Bandit Queens (Parini Shroff, 2023) - I started this novel a couple days ago and I'm absolutely devouring it; I've got about 100 pages left and cannot wait to see how the story resolves. it's tremendous fun but also hits on emotional depths that I didn't expect going into a black comedy about rural Indian women killing their husbands! I'm very excited to finish it up and talk about it in my next recap; I think it's one of my favorite novels of the year for sure.

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror (edited by Jordan Peele, 2023) - I meant to read this for October but oops, there were too many holds at the library! regardless, the stories have been nothing but bangers so far.

Small Game (Blair Braverman, 2022) - I haven't started this novel yet, but it's been on my list for a while and after listening to several of Braverman's guest episodes on You're Wrong About in a row, I had to check it out. her episode on the Flight 571 crash in the Andes almost had me in tears; cannot recommend it enough.

#bookblr #reading updates

33 notes · View notes

rickie-the-storyteller · 13 days

Text

Writing Share Tag!

Thanks for the tag, @theeccentricraven!!

Rules: Share some of your writing.

I want to share an excerpt from a brand new project I've been working on. It has no official title right now, but it's a teen romcom sort of thing, so let's just call it "Untitled Teen Romcom" lol.

Chapter 1 of Untitled Teen Romcom:

She and I actually go way back - she’s been in my life since primary school. I have known her since I was 5. Like it or not, she has always been there. So maybe her presence just takes me back to when I was a dumb 5-year-old chump.

She was the very first girl to ever break my heart.

What do I mean by that? Well, long story… It all started about 10 years ago. Flashback!

[ABOUT 10 YEARS AGO - ZEKE’S RECEPTION CLASS, TUESDAY, 2ND JUNE, 2009]

It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. Proposal day. I had been planning it for weeks, conferring with my best mates on all the finer details.

Sebastian was in charge of rounding up the rest of the reception class to be my "guests'' (whatever that means… I think I just wanted to have witnesses for some reason. Five-year-old Zeke just did everything loudly. I went out of my way to draw attention to myself back then. Thankfully, I have grown up since. Mostly). Jacob's job was to distract Miss Jackson so she wouldn't interrupt (he’s the king of distraction. Always has been, and likely always will be. Nobody beats him at wasting everyone’s time. Even the people he claims to like. Like me. He’s great, though - don’t get me wrong. A world-class procrastinator, but also one of the funniest people I know). Even bossy little Eshe Brown had a role - making sure Hope looked extra pretty that day (actually, her real job was to distract her until I was ready to come out to reveal my big surprise. The thing with Eshe, though, is that she’ll look for any excuse to give someone a makeover).

This was it - the moment I'd been practising in the mirror every night for weeks. I had my speech scripted in my head. I had it all meticulously planned out - get down on one knee, profess my deep admiration for Hope Kamani's unparalleled beauty, and pop the question for her to be my betrothed. Yep, you heard me correctly… I was going to ask Hope to marry me.

Well...in the way that a 5-year-old asks someone to "marry" them anyway. But in my mind, this was deadly serious business. I think it was just a matter of wanting to finally do something about it after spending so long keeping it to myself. After months and months of admiring the beautiful Hope Kamani from afar, I was finally going to profess my undying love for her and ask her for the privilege of being hers. Tell her that I loved everything about her, that she made me the happiest kid in our class, that I thought about her every single day, and that I wanted to make her happy too (I can’t believe I still remember that part of the script…). Simple enough, right?

She caught my eye right from the start, with her bright, friendly smile and her shining dark hair styled in braided pigtails (that was her signature look back then. Right now, it’s single box braids with blue hair extensions). To me, she was the most beautiful girl in our whole class. Maybe even the entire universe! That is honestly how I felt about her at the time (5-year-old me was so dumb, good grief). She had to be my bride. I had to win her over somehow… no matter what. Even if it meant humiliating myself in front of all of our friends with a heartfelt, soppy speech. I was willing to put myself out there. I was willing to do that for her. She meant that much to me.

“Now’s the time,” Seb whispered to me once everyone was settled for lunch. Everything was perfectly in place.

Go time. It’s now or never…

I fixed up my posture and puffed out my chest, trying to seem bigger and braver than I actually felt. Channelling every ounce of bravado and charisma my little body could muster (I believe I was trying my best to exude the confidence and manliness of one of those grizzled bachelor fellows proposing to his one true love... At least that's what I'd seen on the telly at the time. My mother was into that sort of thing back then), I took a deep, fortifying breath and strode over to where Hope was sitting with a bunch of other girls. I then awkwardly cleared my throat to gain their attention.

“Oh, hi Ezekiel,” Eshe greeted me a little too loudly. She was clearly nervous on my behalf. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey,” I replied with the same level of clumsiness. Trying to pull myself together for the big part, I pushed past the shyness that was slowly beginning to creep in, before continuing. “I have something important that I need to say.”

They were listening. She was listening.

"Hope Kamani," I proclaimed in my loudest, deepest and most mature and serious-sounding voice possible (which still came out an octave higher than intended). "You are the prettiest girl in our whole class. Actually, the prettiest girl in the entire world! At least, as far as I know.”

At that, a quiet smattering of "oooooh" sounds rippled around the room (because at this point, I had gotten the attention of the entire class). I noticed Hope's eyes widened in surprise, her mouth forming a little 'o' shape as she looked around at her equally rapt audience of classmates.

I went on with my passionate speech, unable to fight the big old grin spreading across my face at this next bit.

"And I don’t just mean that you look pretty. You do, but you are also funny, smart, so very nice, and just… really, really cool. I love you, Hope. I can't help but love you!" I grabbed her little hand in both of mine.

Here goes nothing…

“So… will you mar--”

I couldn’t even finish the sentence. You know why? Because I was rudely cut off. The bloody sound of Hope’s high pitched, piercing laughter cut me off like a harsh knife. The raucous peal of Hope's laughter drowned out all the words I was meant to say next, sending my soaring confidence into a spiralling freefall. "HAHAHA! Oh my days, Ezekiel! You're TOO funny!" She doubled over, not even trying to suppress the obnoxiously loud uproar, hands clutching her stomach as tear-inducing cackles of mirth poured out of her mouth.

That wasn’t meant to happen…

At this point, most of my fellow classmates joined in on the laughter. I felt my face begin to hot up in humiliation. Crestfallen, I opened and closed my mouth uselessly, trying to get another word in. I briefly glanced at Eshe, and she looked even more uncomfortable than she was at the start… Disappointed, too. And slightly apologetic. I looked across the room to where Sebastian and I were sitting, I saw that he was still there, but he didn’t look too happy at how things turned out. Even he knew this plan had backfired spectacularly. I desperately tried to regain control of this spiralling situation I’d suddenly found myself in.

"B-but I'm being serious!" I sputtered helplessly, my voice cracking with hurt and embarrassment as I fought back pitiful tears. That horrible sound only intensified from there.

Her mocking laughter reached fever pitch, each explosive bray beginning to feel like a physical blow. My vision began blurring as the salty tears escaped, the shame pouring over my face and burning my cheeks. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I pivoted on one foot and bolted out of the cafeteria, hoping my sudden retreat would spare me from further ridicule. But there was no escaping that awful noise. The sound of cruel mirth pouring out of that dreaded room. The mortification was too much for my fragile 5-year-old ego to bear. I hid by the coat pegs right outside our classroom. When I knew that I was finally alone, the dam broke. Broken sobs started coming out, wracking my tiny frame as the echoes of merciless cackles coming from the cafeteria chased after me, haunting my every step.

At that moment, I felt so small and stupid, like everyone was laughing at how pathetic I was for thinking a girl like Hope could ever want someone like me. I now refer to that feeling as “Kamani-ness.”

I cried for quite a while… right until I had no tears left. My face felt flooded with scorching embarrassment so intense I thought I might faint. What did I do wrong? Nothing went how I scripted it. Nothing went according to plan at all! This...this wasn't at all how I'd imagined it playing out. Where was the breathless joy? The teary acceptance of my gallant proposal? The swell of music and admiring applause?! Or at the very least, some basic dignity and respect. Like, she didn’t have to say yes to me. But there was no need to be that mean about it!

END OF EXCERPT.

Hope you guys enjoyed! I know it's a bit long lol. But I wanted to give the full flashback! I'm quite proud of it.

It leads to a full-on rivalry between the two kids... it's a lot of fun. They're sort of frenemies (like, they don't like each other, but they don't hate each other either. Plus, they're always hanging out. By choice).

Tagging these folks to go next if they wish: @mysticstarlightduck, @mjparkerwriting, @clairelsonao3, @gummybugg, @leisoree, @isabellebissonrouthier, @fire-but-ashes-too, @winterandwords, @kaylinalexanderbooks, @sam-glade, @toribookworm22, @sleepyowlwrites, @dragonedged-if, @yourlocalcryptidinthewoods, @soph1333, @janec23, @jay-avian, @fayeiswriting, @rbbess110, @pb-dot, and @the-stray-storyteller.

#rickie-the-storyteller #writerblr #writing #tags #writeblr tag games #writing share tag #untitled teen romcom

8 notes · View notes

denimbex1986 · 3 months

Text

'Many queer people, who grew up in the homophobic 80s, in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic, today struggle with trauma from childhood, believes British star director.

And Andrew Haigh knows what he's talking about, because he himself is part of that generation.

- Even though we have moved on in life, many people carry with them bad memories from childhood and adolescence, says Haigh in an exclusive interview with NRK.

For the personal film he is currently working on, "All of Us Strangers", he has brought in big stars such as Paul Mescal ("Normal people"), Andrew Scott ("Fleabag"), Claire Foy ("The Crown") and Jamie Bell ("Billy Elliot").

Haigh's previous film "45 Years" garnered Oscar nominations. "All of Us Strangers" has received a total of 6 Bafta nominations, Britain's answer to the Oscars.

In the film, the lonely gay man Adam, played by Andrew Scott, lives in an almost empty block of flats in London. One evening he meets Harry, played by Paul Mescal, who also lives in the empty block. As the love relationship between the two develops, Adam becomes preoccupied with memories from the past.

He returned to the town he grew up in, and found his parents living in their childhood home, just as they did before they died suddenly 30 years earlier when Adam was only 12.

Adam gets the opportunity to have the difficult conversations with his parents that he never had or dared to have before they died in a car accident.

- I would be stupid if I said no to this role

In contrast to Adam, Harry stands out as a confident gay man who is confident in his own orientation. But that's only on the outside.

- I have a deep interest in the form of masculinity, the modern man who on the surface looks like everything is fine. Harry is similar to something I have experienced, and I see him in my veins and in people I know. He was a character I felt I could add weight to, Paul Mescal told NRK.

For Claire Foy, known to many as the young Queen Elizabeth II in "The Crown", there was no doubt that she would say yes to the role.

- I think that the older I get and the more I work in this profession, I will do things that I care about, and that I hope others will care about. I would be very stupid if I said no to this role, says The Crown star to NRK.

Director Andrew Haigh is himself part of the generation of queers who grew up in the 80s, and wanted to make a personal story about growing up queer at that time.

The film "All of US Strangers" is partly based on the 1987 book "Strangers" by the Japanese author Taichi Yamada and partly on the director's own story.

- Things are so much better now for most of us, but we still harbor feelings and trauma from growing up. These feelings are with us in the decisions we make in life, and can lead to us setting boundaries for ourselves, says Haigh, who believes it is important to cultivate that feeling a few times.

- Missed this film as a teenager

Director Andrew Haigh has a wish that not only adults, but also 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds should see the film. He thinks it would have made a big difference if he himself had seen this film as a teenager.

- Sometimes a film can have the ability to convey the difficulty of an experience, whether it is grief, a strange upbringing or whatever it may be. As a teenager, through a film like this, you can gain an understanding of what is challenging about being gay, while also seeing that it is possible to work through the difficulties.

Paul Mescal received a Bafta nomination for his role in the film. So did Claire Foy. She is happy about the nomination, although the real barometer of success for her is people's reaction to the film.

- Nominations and awards are absolutely fantastic, and especially for independent films like this that stand out and attract attention to get people to go and see them. At the same time, I quite sincerely believe that if people come up to you in the street and say that what you do means something, then it doesn't get any better than that, says Foy.

Director Andrew Haigh told NRK that he has experienced an absolutely enormous response to the film. People of all ages, both queer and straight, get in touch to tell stories from their own lives, about the loss of parents, loved ones and the like.

- The film seems to have resonated with them on a sort of universal level, and that means a lot, says Haigh.'

#Andrew Haigh #Andrew Scott #Claire Foy #The Crown #Jamie Bell #Billy Elliot #Fleabag #Paul Mescal #Normal People #All of Us Strangers #Taichi Yamada #Strangers #45 Years #Oscars #BAFTAs

4 notes · View notes

thegayhimbo · 1 year

Text

Favorite Moments in True Blood Season 5:

1.) Pam's backstory. This is one of the few changes I actually preferred. The way Eric turned Pam in the books is something that never sat right with me since Pam never really got a choice about becoming a vampire. In the show, there was a choice for her, and it's one that made sense. I thought Pam's backstory as a prostitute went a long way's towards explaining a lot of things about her character. It explained why she's closed off from other people, why she's into her looks (since she was in a profession where she had to look pretty in order to survive), why she's so devoted to Eric since he's the one who rescued her from a horrific fate when he could have left her behind, and why she has such contempt for Bill since she remembers him and Lorena as the ones who were defiling the girls that worked in her brothel. It was an interesting backstory that fleshed out her character.

2.) Pam and Tara's relationship. I thought this was some nice character development for Pam where she took on the role of a maker and learned to care for someone else outside of herself and Eric. One of my favorite moments in the series is when she takes the fall for Tara murdering Elijah so that the Authority doesn't lock Tara up. Likewise, I thought Tara's story about becoming a newborn vampire was interesting. She had always hated vampires, so it was interesting seeing her come to terms becoming the thing she once dreaded and learning to be okay with it. I still admire Tara for her loyalty towards those she cares about, and that even as a newborn vampire, she cares deeply about not draining and killing people for fun.

3.) Sam and Luna's relationship. I still argue that Sam was better off with Luna since both of them were shapeshifters and it felt more like an equal relationship. It was fun watching them take on the Hate Group that was targeting them (Luna beating the shit out of Sweeite was a delight), and infiltrating the Authority to rescue Emma. I'm not a huge fan of Sam's character, but I found him interesting to watch when he was paired with Luna. I wish there had been more of this relationship.

4.) Sookie and Jason getting more bonding moments. It was nice seeing the two of them interact. Jason making breakfast for Sookie in bed. Sookie comforting a crying Jason when Hoyt left. Both of them looking out for each other. I didn't even mind their interactions with the faeries. I still think it was nice seeing Jason and the faeries go to bat for Sookie when Russell and Steve went after her. Speaking of which.........

5.) Russell Edgington. Russell was fun in season 5 for me. His relationship with Steve. His condescending attitude towards Salome and Nora. His rivalry with Eric. His mockery of Lilith. He had some great lines and great moments. I still love when he gets fed up with the Authority, gives them a "Reason You Suck" speech, and then just leaves to go do his own thing.

6.) Andy and Holly's relationship. It's a small element, but I liked seeing this relationship develop. It's probably one of the few healthy relationships on the show, and it was nice seeing some character development from Andy.

7.) The overarching theme for the season. While I agree that not every storyline in season 5 was good (*cough* Hoyt joining a hate group *cough*) I did like that they felt connected by an overarching theme about a forthcoming conflict and how the demons of the past (both literal and metaphorical) were coming back to haunt the characters. I also appreciated the themes about the dangers of extremism, and how each of these characters were lost and were trying to define who they were in spite of the things that had happened to them. Again, YMMV on how effective some of these stories were, but I would argue they at least felt connected by that theme compared to other seasons.

8.) Seeing a more heroic side to Eric. Say what you will about how the Authority arc was handled, but I enjoyed seeing a more noble and heroic side to Eric. I liked how in spite of not being a mainstreamer, he made it clear that he was fine tolerating humans so long as they didn't cause problems for vampires. I liked how he didn't kiss up to the Authority when both Roman and Salome were in charge, and that even though he was a vampire, there were at least certain boundaries he wasn't willing to cross. It made me respect him a lot as a character.

9.) Jason's backstory and his talk with Jessica after the experience with his teacher. This will probably be a controversial one, but I thought what they did with Jason's teacher was a heartbreaking moment. I like that the show made it clear that what his teacher did to him when he was a teenager was rape, and that it didn't try to play it for laughs. I've seen this happen before on other TV shows where Male Rape by a woman either gets brushed under the rug, or it's treated like the guy got lucky, which disgusts me. Thankfully, they didn't do that here. It also went some ways in explaining why Jason tied sex with his self-worth, and how he had subconsciously internalized that trauma from all those years ago without realizing it. It still remains one of Ryan Kwanten's best acting moments IMO. I also liked that conversation he has with Jessica later where she initially wanted to have sex with him, but once she realizes he's in a lot of pain from what happened, she opts to talk with him instead. It's the moment that made me realize there was a possibility of them being friends.

So in spite of how controversial season 5 is, these are a few elements I liked. There's more, but I don't think this season is as deserving of the hate it gets.

#true blood #eric northman #jason stackhouse #jessica hamby #andy bellefleur #holly cleary #pamela swynford de beaufort #tara thornton #sookie stackhouse #sam merlotte #luna garza #russell edgington #true blood season 5 #tgh opinions

18 notes · View notes

erstwhilesparrow · 10 months

Text

sparrow's short story and poetry recs (incomplete)

@desultorydenouement requested some recommendations for [generally stuff i've read that inspires / influences my writing]. i don't know if these all fit that requirement exactly, but. i sure do think about these ones a lot. here you go, hope you enjoy!

poetry:

Per Fumum by Jamaal May - My father was an astronomer / for forty minutes in a row / the first time a bus took us so far / from streetlights he could point out constellations / that may or may not have been Draco, / Orion, Aquila, or Crux. Sometimes I still catch myself using the phrasing of "[someone] was [a role / profession] for [some number of units of time] in a row" in my own writing. I like... the idea of curiosity / wonder / experimentation as something that puts you in a tradition of all the scientists and thinkers that have come before you.

Evolution by Linda Bierds - You know that feeling when it occurs to you for maybe the first time ever that hey, you're an adult now and you can decide what to do about your [fashion / food / leisure time] and you pick something you like that you wouldn't have tried to pick before and now that thing is special to you specifically? This poem is that, for poetry, for me. Alan Turing, and life, and all the dark mares on their dark shadows.

A Toast To The Alchemists by Laura Gilpin - Look, I like when people do poetry about science, and I love love love talking / thinking about the history of science, I don't know what to tell you. Last stanza makes me vaguely achy.

The Fish by Marianne Moore - If I had to pick a favourite poem ever, it'd be this one. First learned about it How to Read Poetry Like a Professor by Thomas Foster and it fills me with delight. I like how it looks on the page, I like its rhyme scheme, I like its language and imagery, I like the whole act of digging around in it. Did one of my favourite high school presentations on this poem.

NUMBERS by Mary Cornish - A joy to read out loud. I said this to a friend of mine and she immediately called me and demanded I read it to her and it was delightful! Highly recommended experience. It's... fun! Playful. Appreciative of something I think we are not appreciative of enough.

Rick Deckard Comes Home by Kanami Ayau - Even if this poem was just the phrase 'syncopated two-step dog-tag paramour' I would still love it. Have you ever heard anything condensed so perfectly well? Can you hear the drumbeat of it? I will never stop thinking about this.

Second Street Drifting by Austin Walker - You may have noticed this link takes you to a wiki page. I'm cheating with this one because the poem is from a podcast (Friends at the Table) and the podcast, really, is the thing that's a huge inspiration / influence for me, but this poem on its own, too: perfect. It is delicious to read out loud and delicious to hear read out loud -- Austin savours every syllable in his reading, and it is completely justified.

Catastrophe is Next to Godliness by Franny Choi - Lord, I confess I want the clarity of catastrophe but not the catastrophe. Just. Yeah. Big fan of Franny Choi in full generality. More of their work here!

Beautiful Short Loser by Ocean Vuong - Joy? Gender? Brilliance and confidence and that one interview he gave where he was like, and this is paraphrasing badly, "I insist on being a man and on using he/him specifically to complicate what those things can / should mean" ?

The Melancholy of Mechagirl by Catherynne M. Valente - Part of a collection of poems and short stories by the same name. I love this poem; it is fun and bright and touches things I care about (mechs, bodies, sci-fi concerned with the individual and the personal). The short stories I don't tend to feel as strongly about but some of them are stick-in-your-brain-for-days-after great. Recommend taking a look at the whole book!

I can't pick a Mary Oliver one. I simply cannot do it. But read her poems. They're excellent.

short stories:

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges - I love weird architecture. I love buildings and structures that make no fucking sense. I love infinity. I love finding horror or wonder or despair or meaning in those things. This story is about more than that, but mostly it's about an infinite library that our narrator moves through and describes to us. Don't ask me why it's on genius dot com of all places.

I Am In Eskew Episode 1: Correspondence - This is cheating because it's a podcast transcript. It's not cheating because this first episode is entirely stand-alone, really excellent, and caters to (almost) all of the interests I like to talk about on Tumblr: architectural horror, unusual intimacies, meat, locations that are alive and have a lot of feelings about you. A man named David, a relatively recent arrival in the city of Eskew, chases down the source(s) of a series of bizarre exchanges in the correspondences section of the local paper.

The Narrative Implications of Your Untimely Death by Isabel J. Kim - Judging by where I remember seeing your username around, you will also care about this. Get fucked up about characters that know they are characters with me. Get fucked up about people who are constantly putting on a performance, forever aware of where the audience is and what they might inflict on you, intentionally or not. (Second person POV story about someone signing on to a reality TV show and trying to play the part just the right way to get to leave.)

Exhalation by Ted Chiang - A thoughtful, melancholy, wonderful exploration of a different world, where people explode into showers of gold when they die, and the narrator learns about and comes to terms with how utterly temporary and completely doomed their people are. Makes me sad, but in a slow and gentle way, you know?

A Guide for Working Breeds by Vina Jie-Min Prasad - Two robots become friends by bonding over the following: dogs, killing, and the horrors of capitalism. Very sweet, very [sunshine x storm cloud] pair of characters. I feel fondly about it and managed to make me very sad by shuffling some numbers around in a list of unread notifications. (Also, I've found Tor.com has a lot of cool SFF stuff in general?)

A Very Special Pigeon by Cao Wenxuan, translated by Helen Wang - Pigeons. Friendship. Something complicated and difficult to describe but nevertheless recognizably sad. Reading this definitely Did Something to my writing style, but it's hard to tell what. Two boys somewhere in China are joined by the fact of pigeons, and the racing thereof.

Alien Hand Syndrome (Nth Street) by Molly Ofgeography - Utterly charming. When I say I want to write characters that are strange and specific and charming and alive, I mean like this. Cavendish Grotto (what a name, right!!) does not control his left hand; it does what it will. Cavendish Grotto lives his life.

[“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully.] by inkskinned - Written for a prompt, about how someone with a fairly mediocre superpower gets to be considered one of the top ten most powerful superheros. There's plenty of stuff on Tumblr that's in this wheelhouse or adjacent to it that I also really enjoy, but this is one of the first I read and it still sticks in my brain.

The Magician's Apprentice by Tasmyn Muir - Power and hunger and eating people. Welcome to All Of My Interests. A magician teaches his apprentice the utterly laborious art of performing magic. It's horrifying, it's glorious.

The Hydraulic Emperor by Arkady Martine - That vaguely sick feeling of trying to tally up some numbers and realizing, as you redo the calculations with increasing desperation, that it doesn't add up, that you're going to fall short? You can assume I'm being metaphorical or literal, but this story is like that. It's gorgeous, it's terrific, it's about how much you are willing to give up and for what. (It's about a collector on the hunt for a film that is effectively lost media. To win access to a print of it, they go to an auction where people are made to sacrifice irreplaceable parts of themselves or of history.)

Sestu Hunts the Last Deer in Heaven by M. H. Cheung - This one just feels good to read? Wild and lovely. It doesn't feel like it tries very hard or wants very much to explain itself, just drags you into its world and makes you keep up. I think the title gives you enough of a premise. I couldn't offer anything better, sorry.

A Farce to Suit the New Girl by Rebecca Fraimow - A new girl joins a Yiddish theatre troupe travelling through Russia right after the Tsar has been killed. (I don't know / recall which Tsar.) Everyone's trying to get through in one piece and help each other out, and everyone is so insistently themselves in a way I wish I could do more.

Texts from the Ghost War by Alex Yuschik - There's a war, because there are ghosts. People fight them in mechs. One of those mech pilots accidentally strikes up a friendship with a prince. This story is the development of that relationship, as told through texts. Describing it as sweet feels insufficient, though it is that. I like when things are true in SFF worlds without trying to explain themselves, I think.

L'Esprit de L'Escalier by Catherynne M. Valente - I did just say I am not particularly taken by some of her short stories. HOWEVER. THIS ONE IS VERY GOOD. Orpheus succeeds in getting Eurydice back. This is what happens after, and it sucks massively for everyone involved. Graphic depictions of decomposing bodies, which is both content warning, and reason I am so admiring of it.

[A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river.] by sadoeuphemist - I think about this one frequently. The scorpion and the frog, across many iterations.

#sparrowsong #fic recs tag #<- yes i know these aren't fics i just want to have these saved somewhere findable #i'm calling this incomplete because i'm sure i'm gonna go to bed tonight and #stare at the ceiling for several hours going 'aw wait fuck i forgot my favourite one aw fuck oh no'#i feel like this way this post is written is itself telling about my writing-related interests.#went back to count how many stories that was and yelled 'FIFTEEN??' out loud #anyway. hope this is both readable and useful!#if some of these annotations are nonsense i am so so sleepy you have to forgive me #i definitely was planning on doing something else this evening.#but i've lost all trains of though to this. oh well!

3 notes · View notes

putschki1969 · 2 years

Photo

Hikaru’s 1st Stage Play 「GOOD LUCK YOUR MEMORIES：Re」 First Reaction

OH MY GOD! This was surprisingly good (and heart-wrenching)! I really love the premise of this story. After watching it once I am still a little confused about a few details but I’m pretty sure I understood 90% of it. The production is simple but very effective and they did a great job recording the whole thing. I was worried it would be mostly bad audio, a ton of shaky cam and wide shots where you could barely make out anything. Super glad to have been proven wrong. And let me tell you, Hikaru’s acting is top-notch, I am so impressed. I mean, I had utmost faith in my queen of drama but I couldn’t quite envision how it would turn out. Her role isn’t too challenging I suppose but she does have a few big scenes which she absolutely nails! Her final scene with Takuma and Yui is utterly heartbreaking, Hikaru literally made me cry.

On a random side note, I cannot believe we are getting some full-on yuri action here🤩🤗. I think it was Hikaru’s manager who said that this isn’t really yuri despite what it may look like but you know what they say, if it walks like a duck...😂 For anyone who is getting their panties in a twist due to the implied inc*est, don’t worry, they aren’t really sisters.

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

GAIA Crew’s stage play 「GOOD LUCK YOUR MEMORIES：Re」starring Hikaru as one of the key characters is currently being broadcast on Confetti Streaming Theater!

[Viewing method] You need to register a Confetti account for free before you can purchase a streaming ticket. A Japanese address is required in the registration form but I think you can just use something random. I was able to buy a ticket with my overseas credit card. I went for the “A Team” version because I wanted to save some money. I doubt Hikaru’s performance will be much different in the other version and it’s not like I have any favourite actors in A or B team XD After having purchased a ticket, please access the “viewing URL” (A Team | B Team | A&B Team) on the ticket page during the streaming period and log in with your Confetti member ID and password. You can enjoy the stream during the limited period. Not sure how much you will be supporting Hikaru herself by buying a ticket but I’d like to emphasise the importance of showing the creators that there is a demand for streams like this. If you have the means, be sure to get a ticket!! This way, we can hopefully ensure that there will be a broadcast for Hikaru’s 2nd stage play as well.

Streaming period 2022/6/4 19:00 ～ 6/11 23:59

Streaming platform Confetti Streaming Theater

Streaming ticket prices A Team 3,000円 B Team 3,000円 A&B Team 6,000円

Ticket sales period 2022/5/28 18:00 ～ 6/11 19:59

•❅──────✧❅✦❅✧──────❅•

Detailed Summary (beware of spoilers): “I will surely return to collect my reward - your memories!” Takuma - a run-of-the-mill private investigator, Seiji - a nerdy officer of an anti crime unit and Kosuke - a wannabe gangster. Three men that have been close friends since their school days. Despite their conflicting professions, they promised they would never interfere with each other’s work and have thus remained close. This changes when a mysterious woman named Shizuku (=Hikaru) suddenly appears on the scene. Wanting to escape her current life, Shizuku has chosen to run away but she is being chased by her older sister Itsuki. The men step in to help her and decide to take her under their wing. For the first time in her life, she experiences friendship and kindness, especially during her interactions with Takuma’s assistant Yui. After a while, the three friends find out about Shizuku’s special abilities. Everyone who enters a contract with her may go back in time to change a moment they regret. Initially, the men do not believe her story but when both Kosuke and Seiji find themselves in a predicament, they are willing to make a pact with Shizuku. Her powers turn out to be in fact genuine and both men manage to change a past event in their favour. However, in the wake of doing so, they are unknowingly breaking the rule of never interfering with each other’s work. Soon they become top dog in their respective professions. Eventually, Takuma learns that the price of using Shizuku’s ability is a gradual memory loss. Not only that, their existence also starts disappearing from loved ones’ memories. Basically, the course of history is changed. The only one who remains mysteriously unaffected by all of this is Takuma. As memories are lost, personality slowly changes and humanity is stripped away, the two men become corrupted. This results in a lethal showdown between the yakuza and the anti-crime-force that threatens to destroy the entire city. As Takuma watches the drama unfold he wants to protect his friends, discover the secrets behind Shizuku’s abilities and reveal the true motives of the mysterious Itsuki. Alas, he is powerless in the face of organised crime and ultimately cannot stop his former friends from killing each other and taking several people with them. Shizuku is heartbroken to witness how her actions have indirectly caused so much pain and death.She feels like she has no other choice but to kill her sister Itsuki in order to put a stop to this endless suffering. However, before Shizuku can finish the deed, Itsuki manages to fatally wound her younger sister. With her final breath, Shizuku makes a pact with Takuma. Lives are restored, the trajectories of Seiji’s and Kosuke’s careers are completely changed leading to a happy and fruitful life for both of them. The price that needs to be paid - the erasure of Takuma’s existence from people’s minds. Takuma being an anomaly, is able to keep his memories but he is now living together with Shizuku in another dimension where they have been forgotten by everyone they have come to love. Only small traces of memory remain...

#kalafina #gifs #my gifs #gifset #hikaru #hikaru//#trigger #Good Luck Your Memories:Re #ofc I will eventually share my video #report #review #why is hikaru's team not promoting this?!

47 notes · View notes

sasaleleselfships · 1 year

Text

I HAVE NOT FINISHED SEASON THREE MY INTERNET DIED I AM WORKING ON IT

Courtney “Court” Deeba Soar

Court serves as what the Secret Society initially branded as, ‘The First One’-… The first immortal, that is. Born in the late winter of the year fourteen eighty-five, Courtney Hatchett grew up in a world that had no time for magic, or any faith outside of most Christian dialects. She was brought up, initially, as a church lady raised by a nun and the pastor before eventually growing up and realizing how little she cared for the role she was being indoctrinated into participating in. Maybe it was the scars she was born with or maybe even the fire she felt in her veins when she looked at the men with swords and stones, but she would grow to have none of it.

Running away was only the first part of her discovery of self, and nearly dying at sea after stowing away on her brother’s ship had been the second. Somehow, in the vanity of it all, the waves crashing against the shore and the blood rushing in her ears, she survived. This would’ve be fortunate had it not been the year it was, from here on out she to be was painted as a witch, and the people she crossed paths with were more than ready to villainies her for the mantle of it. There’s a saying, that you ultimately become what the world expects of you. Maybe that’s what saved her, feeling the fire coax her body thought the flames did nothing to subdue her as she was only released from the ropes holding her to the pyre. Of course that’s when it would happen, the recollection, and the reclamation.

Devoted now only to the ‘Great Dying’ or who is known known as Anubis, Court came the be a fully realized priestess of the ‘half-life’ and the self appointed Mother of Loss. She traveled for years before ending up in modern times as a writer and as a botanist with several degrees, something she wouldn’t have dreamed up until the recent years. She wanders for years doing things relatively forgettable, before landing a position as house mother at the Anubis House.

It was there did Court begin the see the signs she had been issues to expect for years now; What was to be the chosen one.

Trivia;

Court’s eyes are considered special for her title, and is often regarded as the ‘enchanter’ in older texts-… yes, older texts. With this in mind she still has to fully master the abilities her deity grants, due to this it is uncommon to see her without her shades on.

While a practicing witch, it is uncommon to see the house mother working with covens as she prefers the solitude her own profession offers her. Court classifies loosely as an eclectic divination witch.

During her years alive, Court bore three children each with subtle abilities of their own. The most notable being Lowel, her eldest son with the ability to predict future events at random.

Court was (involuntarily)made the center of a cult regarding the old gods at some point, being forced to use her abilities as favor under the assumption the ancient ones would bring her to salvation. This did not end well for anyone.

Yes, she is married to Victor(eventually).

#sorry this is so sloppily written #house of anubis #alternate reality #court soar #the first one #original female character #oc #my writing #hoa

2 notes · View notes

twilightguardian · 1 year

Note

You do not lose Blake as a character if you take out the white fang. She’s not a character with the white fang. If you take out the white fang then Blake has more of a reason to join beacon than… some weird sense of trying to make up for nothing. Have her want to be a huntsmen because there is racism and she wants to prove a point or make a point. The white fang doesn’t have to exist if racism exists, because them existing did absolutely nothing for Blake as s character or the story. In fact, it only made her worse. For someone trying to fix the story, there’s a real lack of imagination going on.

Further, putting Adam in the white fang makes the white fang bad. It does not matter if it’s a rogue section, it’s still part of the white fang and makes them wrong. Making Adam want to commit genocide isn’t fixing his character or the white fang, it’s just make him even worse, and the white fang even dumber, because instead of taking the idea that Adam was forced into working with cinder and fixing that, instead you make Adam even worse with no fix to it. He’s just bad because he’s bad. There is no justifying anything he does. He does not have a point. You just made him evil to be evil.

You do not lose Blake as a character if you take out the white fang. She’s not a character with the white fang.

She was a character whose entire life was about the White Fang for the purposes of equality. Blake left because the White Fang no longer aligned with her ideals but she still got defensive whenever someone (Weiss) slagged off the organization because even though she left, she still considered herself White Fang. They were family to her.

Have her want to be a huntsmen because there is racism and she wants to prove a point or make a point.

You’re one of those people who liked Amazon Cinderella, aren’t you...

What point would be made?

Beacon, and the profession of huntsmen to a larger extent does not discriminate against faunus. Faunus are allowed to attend the schooling, obtain their licenses and become huntsmen. So what point would be made? That she can attend, as a faunus, a school that already allows faunus? Congratulations?

In the same sense that Amazella was tedious because it hamfisted a message as though it was some revolutionary concept (and as though better, stronger, more badass Cinderellas didn’t exist. Watch Ever After); this would also feel like a message that is several decades out of date.

The world of Remnant in Fixing is a place that still has racial issues. But places like Vale and Vacuo, both in Fixing and canon, are not places for grand statements like that and it would come off as empty. If you’re suggesting that Vale should just arbitrarily be made more racist so that you can get this moment in, why? And wouldn’t that make more of a reason for the White Fang to exist?

Blake in Fixing didn’t go to Beacon to make up for something. She went to find herself and think about her role and her place in the world. A different setting with doing unrelated things can put things into perspective.

The white fang doesn’t have to exist if racism exists, because them existing did absolutely nothing for Blake as s character or the story. In fact, it only made her worse. For someone trying to fix the story, there’s a real lack of imagination going on.

It really baffles me that no one seems to understand the concept of wanting to stick to canon as closely as possible.

Like think of it this way... Raymond is refurbishing a car. It’s a junker, but it’s about 60 years old and it will look cool when it’s done. The point of many people who do restorations is to do their best to keep the thing with its original parts as much as possible. Sometimes a part is so damaged that it needs to be switched out, there’s no helping it. But if something at all can be done to save it, it will be done.

You just say scrap anything that looks very rusted or damaged and replace it. That’s not restoration that’s refurbishing.

Refurbishing is not bad, it’s just not what Raymond’s goal is.

And a movement meant to advocate for less racism doesn’t need to exist if racism exists? Then... what do you think the White Fang is for, exactly? What do you think its purpose is? We know the writers butchered it by making them Team Rocket Gunts but that’s their utilization in the story, not their intended goals. The point is that if the White Fang was handled so poorly that it did nothing for Blake’s character, it gets polished up until it does.

For someone who accuses another of lack of imagination, there’s sure a lack of brainpower going on to understand this difference, which imagination also requires.

Further, putting Adam in the white fang makes the white fang bad.

No it does not.

It does not matter if it’s a rogue section, it’s still part of the white fang and makes them wrong.

Your uncle commits grand theft auto we’re going to arrest you as well because the entire Surname family must be bad.

That’s the logic you’re working with here. Guilt By Association.

Making Adam want to commit genocide isn’t fixing his character or the white fang, it’s just make him even worse, and the white fang even dumber, because instead of taking the idea that Adam was forced into working with cinder and fixing that, instead you make Adam even worse with no fix to it.

Define ‘worse’.

The issue with responding to this ask is that I don’t have any understanding of where you’re coming from other than some vague notion that you don’t like what Fixing has done to Adam. I don’t know what ‘worse’ is because I don’t have any grounds for what ‘better’ is. These are meaningless terms until you define the ballpark of what they mean outside of some foggy, arbitrary idea of good and bad.

There are many ways to going about ‘fixing’ a character up, and many people have different ideas on how to do it, and many different ways to tackle the problem from.

For Adam, some people might want to focus on restoring him to their initial idea of him as some morally gray mild antagonist who still fights for what he believes in. Some other people might focus less on the justice aspect and focus purely on him being an abusive ex. The former is what Raymond does.

But even then there are so many routes one can take with him. Make him a heroic figure who gets in the main characters’ way. Or a misguided character who ultimately still wants to do the right thing. What Raymond is doing is balancing out all of Adam’s disparate traits and came up with a solution to try and make him as coherent as possible while still retaining everything about him in canon. That he’s an extremist who wants results regardless of the cost, and his anger and sadness and feelings of loss and betrayal for things that he holds so dearly slowly degrade his mental soundness.

He’s just bad because he’s bad.

If you think he’s bad for the sake of it in Fixing, then you haven’t paid attention and that isn’t anyone’s fault but your own.

There is no justifying anything he does.

No. There is no justifying acts of terrorism and violence. These are not justifiable acts. No one is justifying Adam’s actions. They’re explanations to his motivations and whether you can see the road his thought process goes down is what should be discussed. Not that he should go down a different road, or you don’t like the road. Note that understanding isn’t the same as agreeing with it. It’s comprehending the actions that led up to his decision-making and whether or not it makes sense.

You just kinda repeat yourself at the end there, as though repetition of a meaningless point makes it more correct.

I’m not saying your interpretation of things isn’t valid. But if you’re going to judge something, then there should be an understanding of that thing.

There was a guy a couple of years ago in the server who said he hated Squid Game. He said it was shallow and didn’t do a good job of conveying the themes of Human Condition in the show and it boiled down instead to ‘Rich people bad’. People pointed out that, well, no shit it didn’t have much to say on the human condition because the theme was Capitalism Bad. Rich people and capitalism aren’t synonymous, but they are bedfellows.

If you’re going to make a judgement on something outside of personal like or dislike, and not be dismissed, the judgement has to be made on whether what the media was trying to do succeeded or failed. You could say that, broadly, not understanding the themes and character arcs can be a criticism, though it’s impossible for everyone around the world to universally understand something. There’s always going to be someone who doesn’t get it, and that’s fine.

The argument with the guy was a long one, and I wasn’t really involved, but it was an interesting one nonetheless. Because if you’re talking with someone who fundamentally doesn’t understand the themes, but is adamant that the themes are something else, you’re not going to have a productive conversation. If he saw Squid Game as a commentary on capitalism, or switched gears after being corrected, he could discuss how well or poorly the show accomplished its goal of capitalism commentary.

I hope this is a good example of why I’m a bit dismissive of the idea that Adam is just ‘bad’ in Fixing. You can still understand what Raymond is trying to do with him and still dislike it, and that’s fine. But I think ignoring what is there to blanket the discussion helps no one.

#rwde #rwby #fixing rwby #frwby #anonymous #sorry this took a while

2 notes · View notes

creativeskullcreations · 2 years

Text

Once Again, Another Strip Club AU Submission (This time with a few changes to uniform))

So I know I said I would do the origin thing for my au next, and I will!

…

BUUUUUT I need to iron out some [[LORE]] and change some things. So I’m gonna do that first, then do the origin story.

So let’s make some more details and changes shall we?

(Once again, feel free to comment. Important stuff in Italic.)

Commentary!

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

Imma make changes to outfits first

Uzi’s stripper outfit now consists of a leather body harness, a leather choker with a metal skull, an apron, and a maid cap, all complemented with a dash of dark purple

V’s stripper outfit is now combined with her dominatrix outfit. She wears a leather lingerie connected by two leather lines that make a V, and when working with a patron, also wears a utility belt that has all the tools she needs for her...work ;)

N’s stripper outfit is mostly the same, but with some changes, His net shirt covers the upper half of his torso, leaving his belly bare, and wears leather briefs. It also has blue and orange colors thrown into the mix, with the net shirt being orange and the briefs being blue

I like the new outfits. Very unique.

Uzi, N and V’s stage personas are the same. But I’m gonna go into further detail about them, if only a little

For starters, their stage personas are basically sexualized caricatures of themselves, and acts as an excuse for them being absolutely shameless and sex-driven when it comes to their…work ;)

I just realized I used the "...work;)" thing twice shit. Well, whatever.

ANYWAYS

Uzi’s stage persona, Rae, is a submissive slut that likes it rough, and can go for hours when it comes to sex. Uzi ecnompasses her desire for endless sex, as well as her submission kink If ya want someone that’s okay with anything and can be fucked for hours and still be happy, Rae’s your gal

V’s persona, Viki, is the dominatrix type that loves to see someone submit to her and beg for pleasure. Viki also encompasses V’s more sadistic side, which leads to some…intense sessions with clients/patrons. If you want to be stepped on and have your insides feel like they’ve been strung like an electric guitar, Viki’s more than happy to do so

N’s stage persona, Niki, is still an upbeat flirty fellow who’s good with his hands and smug when it comes to sex. Niki encompasses N’s flirtiness and smugness when it comes to the act, as well as his gentle nature when it comes to aftercare. If you’re looking for someone that’ll give you a chance to know what heaven feels like, Niki’s the choice for you

Uzi, N and V’s dance styles are the same. I’m not gonna change them they’re good as is

That’s enough changes, now onto DETAILS!!

I do like all the changes though. They fit better now, I think.

Uzi, N and V share an apartment owned by the club. A big apartment too. It’s on the same property as the club so the employees are close to work

Uzi N and V do a lot of things during the day. Most of the time they have fun with each other until work starts, but sometimes they’ll go out on a date, walk around Haven, watch a movie, or just be in each other’s company

J has a shotgun underneath her bar table in case anyone brings a gun into the club, though she’s sometimes tempted to use it on people who hit on her

I'm imagining her pulling it out, but just smacking them with it. She has enough guns installed in her that it works better as a club.

I mentioned that Uzi, N and V are into role playing. I will also add that the other brothel staff get in on it as well and usually ends up with an orgy

In this au, instead of being sent to kill the worker drones, disassembly drones acted as security on Copper 9 for the high ranking employees. They also acted as enforcers to make sure the workers did their job, though they didn’t enjoy it. After the meltdown occurred, the Disassembly Drones quickly left their old profession behind, and helped the worker drones build up their society. Although there was some mistrust on both sides for a while, the two drone lines managed to find peace between them. Keep this in mind for the origin story, by the way

Oooo interesting! I like this backstory.

Thad, while not in the poly per say, is dating V. Sometimes they’ll go out together, have a drink, and sometimes V will bring Thad back to her shared apartment with Uzi and N

Thad usually comes to the Silver Strip to watch V’s performances. It gets him in the mood when she wants to…relax, with him afterwards ;)

Thad is the only person that V will let take the charge. If anyone else tries to be in charge, she’ll rearrange their insides so thoroughly that their core is in their pelvis and their voice box in their spine.

Thad/V for the win! Though I know it's not gonna be canon, they do make a cute couple. :D

Uzi, N and V get a lot of patrons during their shifts. How many exactly is anyone’s guess

N’s experience when it comes to sex is second only to S, who’s considered the best fuck in all of Haven. And yes, J does like to brag about how she’s dating her

In this au, instead of sending death robots, JC Jenson decides to put a laser grid around Copper 9 to prevent the drones from getting off world. The drones on the surface don’t mind much, and the drones in Haven even less so. Mainly because even if no one can get out, no one can get in either

Y'know, a laser grid is probably cheaper, let's be honest. Though they'd probably send someone out to maintain it every now and then.

Hmmm. That gives me an idea...

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

Aaaaaand that's the end of this submission. I'm going to make Maia angst next.

Maia! Yes I want the angst!

Till then!

#submission #dark anon #murder drones #strip club au #non osha compliant

6 notes · View notes

littlespoonevan · 2 years

Note

Hello Ciara!!! I come to you looking for your wisdom bc, honestly, you actually helped before :)) so, i was offered a job promotion, as team coordinator, for the team I'm working in rn, at first i said no bc the manager is not what you wish to be, she's not the best manger 🙃 but now they asked again bc they don't have that many options and like, on one hand I'm thinking F the manager, maybe they'll change her soon, whatever, but at the same time, i tend to be such an anxious person and what if i can't handle it, what if i break down in a meeting and start crying in front of everyone???

But, uhm, I'm also considering accepting the offer bc of how scared i am? Push myself despite being afrain, and, what if it works? And then, i want to do it to understand what I'm capable of bc i keep saying that I'm not good at what i do, I'm just bluffing and hope it works out and nobody notices - which to some extent i know it's not true (gotta love the imposter syndrome on this one)

God, i wish to just be like one of those confident people that just go like, Yeah sure LET'S GOOOO!!!!

Also, i did not know you were watching stranger things!!!!

hey bud!! first of all, congratulations on the offer!! 🎉 but ahh that is a very tough situation - it's so frustrating just how much a manager/boss can negatively impact your experience of a job :/ especially when this should be an exciting moment for you!

i think there's two aspects you need to consider:

to what extent will you have to work with this manager?? is this literally someone you'll have to interact with and take orders from every single day or are they just the person in charge of your section/team? how likely do you think it is that they'll get to you/upset you? (especially if you’re interacting with them on a regular basis)

how worth it is the promotion? like, taking your manager out of it, is this a good career move and opportunity for you??? do you like the idea of the work? is it better pay??? to what extent do the pros outweigh the cons, y'know?

what i will say is that in my own experience and in that of my friends', no job is worth being treated badly by your superiors no matter how much you love it. before i had my current job i was working somewhere else for placement during my masters but the management was awful. like genuinely, absolutely terrible and treated us like we were worthless. in my case, i was doing the exact same profession in both instances so it wasn't hard for me to leave and go somewhere else. a friend of mine still works there but he was always able to shake off the issues we experienced in a way myself and our other friend couldn't so it never really got to him.

similarly my best friend loves her job as a vocation but has complained about her place of work for five years straight. and it all comes down to her management and the way the staff is treated. i've given up telling her to quit bc it’s clear she probably won’t since it’s one of the only places she can do the job she wants to do but i’m pretty sure she hasn’t been happy there a single day since 2017 and i know that’s taken a toll on her mental health

i honestly commend you for wanting to push through your anxiety to challenge yourself and take the job and i definitely don’t want to discourage you!! because like you said, it might be fine and you might be so much more capable at handling it than you even realise right now. and what a wonderful thing that would be to discover! i think the best thing i could say if you do want to take it is consider your escape route. if you take the offer and you don’t like it or your manager is really getting to you, what are your options??? is this contract based where you’d have to fulfill the role for a certain period of time or could you leave at any stage? is going back to your old position an option?

ultimately, just remember choosing it doesn’t mean you have to do it forever and that there’s nothing wrong with putting your mental health first if you need to. but also! if you decide to go for it, i have every faith and confidence in you that you’ll be amazing!!

i hope this was helpful in some way sjdafh let me know how it goes!! i’m rooting for you 💖

#anon #asks #also yes lol i am v much a stranger things fan!!#it took me ages to getting around to watching s4 vol 1 bc i was v busy and it was so Long so i had it blacklisted for like 3 weeks before i #watched it #conversely i was able to watch vol 2 straight away hence all the posts askjdf

3 notes · View notes