uncrowned princess

Aphrodite: the bruises of love bites left by lovers on necks and thighs; smudged lipstick from hasty kisses; blood red roses with their sharp thorns still intact; the way you hug someone you love when you reunite after a lengthy separation

Apollo: polished instruments gleaming, held like the most precious of jewels by their owners; a sunny day with a clear blue sky where there are no clouds in sight; the rough script of poems penned out on scraps of paper or napkins before they’re forgotten; when music is so loud that you feel it reverberating in your bones; the pale lines of fading scars

Ares: the hands of a fighter, short finger nails and bloodied knuckles; split lips that have scabbed over; the smooth and intricate lines of old weapons you see mounted on museum walls; deep trenches dug out from the earth; the way barbed wire contrasts against whatever it surrounds

Artemis: loose braids with wild flowers slipped in; the majesty of tall trees stretching up endlessly towards the heavens; the wide and captivating eyes of wild deer; cloudy nights where the moon is just barely peeking through; the colorful fletching of arrows drawn back to rest upon cheeks and along jaws

Athena: the straight and steady way a soldier stands at attention; fingertips smudged with ink; a stack of books to read piled on the floor or a nightstand; eyes gleaming with the glow of new ideas; the quiet and contemplative aura of museums and libraries

Demeter: the way sunlight catches dust motes in the air through the gaps in the leaves of the trees; the feeling of life you get from standing in the middle of an orchard with bees buzzing around you; crocuses and snowdrops peeking through the last dredges of winter’s snow

Hades: the bleached bones of animals in the forest when moss has begun to engulf them; the way that graveyard angels look like they’re weeping in the rain; the solemn aura of old churches, citadels, synagogues, temples, and mosques

Hephaestus: the pleasure of holding something you’ve created in your palms; the soft glow of heated metal; the intricate beauty of cogs and gears fitting together precisely and working in tandem; the smooth and polished surfaces of high-rise business buildings

Hera: the lacy white of flowing wedding gowns; the way a couple’s hands look clasped together; pairs of old wedding rings that are scratched from years of use; the feeling of surrealism that comes from looking at old family portraits; getting used to sharing a space with someone else and then seeing the mannerisms you’ve unknowingly adopted from them

Hermes: the way that the low beam headlights of a car touch the roads that stretch ever onwards at night; old maps yellowed at the corners from their age; the way that things rush past when you look out the window of a car or train; quick hands slipping deftly into pockets and taking what they find

Hestia: the light and protection of street lights in an otherwise dark city; the warmth of your bed on cold winter mornings; the heat of a fire as you sit around it with people you love; the comfort of a home-cooked meal

Poseidon: the way light looks when you’re seeing it shine down from deep underwater; the effervescent colors of cresting waves; the eery beauty of shipwrecks; the ripples created when you trail your fingertips through still waters; dust clouds kicked up by the passing of strong hooves

BTS x Hogwarts [1/∞]

「based on Namjoon’s sorting - © twt: itsryangel」

MFS was so excited over this one. Must be an honour to be invited to be a guest for these famous comedians, eh?

Disclaimer: I did this with a lot of help from FujiTV onscreen captions and Google speech capture technology wherever possible. My ears can’t do this 100% on their own LOL. Not to mention listening to this a countless number of times! Hundreds! I also rephrased things liberally here and there. The photo collages only serve as a summary. Surely a lot of things were misheard too. Sorry for all the mistakes and fails 🙈 . Here, I picked some parts of the lively conversation and left out the rest that I’m so hopeless at. Words in italic or bracket are my own addition. I also selected some Japanese words to remember and left out the ones I’m not ready for. Sorry it makes things look messy.

A bit of background…..

DOWNTOWN is a popular Japanese comedy duo from Hyogo consisting of members Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masatoshi Hamada. So, this means, they use a lot of Kansai-ben. I can’t even pass standard Japanese, let alone Kansai dialect LOL.

MY FIRST STORY held a lottery for Fan Club members to attend the recording at FUJI TV, Odaiba City on 23 Sept 2019. I didn’t apply because I knew I would not be able to understand things on the spot. Not to mention I had no money to go anyway 😂. Congrats to those who got picked to go!

——————————————

MFS the “handsome"band?

Hitoshi Matsumoto: You guys are kinda like “Visual Kei”.

Hiro: (surprised) Really??

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Very handsome*.

* Not sure if he mentioned someone’s name or what with it.

Masatoshi Hamada: EH? (…looking at Hiro’s face…)

Everyone: (laughs)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: But I’m sorry ok (…putting his hand on Nob…), you are the least popular, I understand that*.

* Oh my God, that’s brutal (but I’m still laughing). Sorry Nob.

Everyone: (laughs hysterically)   Nob: (smiles and nods*)

* Aww…. Nob is so gentle & accepting. It’s not like he’s ugly though. Far from it. Especially if you’ve seen him in person. But it’s hard not to look super “unpretty” when sitting next to pretty boys like Hiro, Teru and Kid'z.

Masatoshi Hamada:   But first, they debuted seven years ago.

Hitoshi Matsumoto:  Since we know nothing about it, were you guys already this good-looking from the band’s formation time?

MFS members: (… err… how to answer this one?…)

Hiro: (…awkwardly..) I guess so. Maybe.

Masatoshi Hamada: Any huge place you guys want to perform in*?

* Actually I’m not really sure what he said. Just guessing ….haha.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (putting his hand on Nob again) Any problem with him*?

* Kinda like any problem with having a not-so-handsome guy in a band of handsome guys? OMG, brutal LOL

Everyone: (laughs)

Nob: (..somewhat startled…. what, me?)

Hiro: (raises his hand and laughs) No, no. We’re not that kind of band. He’s fine.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (nudging Nob) Don’t take it to heart, eh? Don’t take it to heart *.

* Not sure if that’s what he meant. Just guessing … huhu.

Everyone: (laughs)

——————————————

Hiro is such a chatterbox, they think he should just enter a grand competition

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (to Hiro) You’re such a talker*! (pretending to look annoyed) Are you going on R-1 Grand Prix or what!

* 喋り達者 / shaberitachisha (?) / master talker, chatterbox

Everybody: (laughs)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: I can’t even talk at all (when Hiro talks)!

Hiro: (laughs) No, no! I’m not going on R-1!

*R-1 Grand Prix is a popular competition where entertainers compete with each other making jokes or whatever funny things to win the title of champion.

* LOL Do you think Hiro talks too much?

——————————————

The Downtown guys know Hiro’s parents very well and are particularly good friends with Mama Mori

Masatoshi Hamada & Hitoshi Matsumoto: (bowing to Hiro in respect to Mama Mori) Send our regards to your mother.

Hiro: (bowing back) Thank you.

* Mama Mori did background narration for the comedy duo for many many years.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: I’ve been to your father’s concerts too.

Hiro: Ah, thank you so much (bowing to Matsumoto-san)

* Sorry, I don’t really understand everything else 😕. Matsumoto-san also mimicked Papa Mori’s onstage self-introduction but I couldn’t capture what was the joke… huhu 🙈.

——————————————

MFS team’s penchant for pranks & Nob’s heart of gold

Masatoshi Hamada: You guys like pranks very much, don’t you?

Hiro: We are mischievous with each other, either with the members or the staff. We do some light-hearted* “hidden camera” thingy. Playful**. Playing stuff on each other (laughs)

* 軽い / かるい / karui / light

* *遊び心 / あそびごころ / asobigokoro / playful

Masatoshi Hamada: (pointing at Kid'z and Nob) It was labour intensive* on you two.

* 骨 / ほね / hone / labourous

* 粗大な / そだいな / sodaina / grand

Kid'z & Nob: (smiling & nodding together)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Well, keep telling. About the after party and all.

Masatoshi Hamada: You did that in Taiwan!

Everyone: (watching clips of Kid'z and Nob being pranked)

* ネタバラシ / netabarashi / spoiler

Masatoshi Hamada: (patting Nob) That’s horrible, ne~? Did you feel it was really serious, that being overseas?

Nob: Well, I didn’t know a word (of Chinese). So, I was like, “Could I have brought this powder with me or what?” (gesturing being shown a packet of powder with his hands).

* 粉 / kona / powder

Everyone: (laughs) 

* Both Matsumoto-san and Hamada-san couldn’t believe what they heard.

Masatoshi Hamada: (walking up to Nob and tapping his body)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (reaching for Nob too & repeatedly slamming his hand up & down) Then you (should) just clearly* DENY** it!

* 明確 / めいかく / meikaku / clear, firm, solid, assure, precise

**  否定する / hitei suru / deny

Nob: (looking blurred & clueless)

Everyone: (laughs)

Hiro: (astonished at how goody-two-shoes Nob can be) You don’t say, “Could this be my powder?” in that situation!! You didn’t bring that, right?! 

Everyone: (laughs)

Hiro: In order to do that hidden camera prank, we firstly had to go on a special* trip to Taiwan. Then we had to add one Live performance to it too.

＊わざわざ / waza waza / specially, doing something specially rather than incidentally

Hitoshi Matsumoto: So, you did not do that onwards from that Taiwan live show?

Hiro: Yup, it was the other way round.

Audience: Eh??!!

Masatoshi Hamada:  (referring to the clip) That (felt like) half a year…

Hitoshi Matsumoto:  (…looking at Nob…) Dang! THAT entire time you were getting nothing BUT scolded* (by those actors?)?

* 恨まれる / uramareru / get scolded, get cursed ~ from the word 恨む / uramu

Everyone: (laughs)

Nob: (smiling and shaking his head)

* OMG, Nob is unbelievably nice! He’s not bitter at all.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: You’re the stuff for Wednesday’s Downtown*! (laughs)

* Wednesday’s Downtown is their famous comedy show.

——————————————

Why Teru was never picked for pranks?

Masatoshi Hamada: (puts hand on Teru) You are the only one who has never been pranked?

Teru: Yes, that’s right. I don’t know, (…looking at Hiro….) do you hate* me or something?

* Aww 😍…. so all this time, Teru actually feels being left out by Hiro 😮? He was like, Hiro, why you never want to pick me 😕? 

嫌わる / kirawareru / be hated ~ from the word  嫌う / kirau / hate, dislike

Hiro: No, no! The thing is, if it’s him (….pointing at Teru…), it wouldn’t be as funny.

Everyone: (laughs)

Masatoshi Hamada: How is that?

Hiro: He’s like (…still pointing at Teru …), whatever that’s happening*, he is unperturbed most of the time **.

* 起きる / おきる / okiru / get up, rise, occur, takes place

** 動じる / どうじる / doujiru / move, shift, motion

Teru: (laughs)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Aah you know, my eyes can see around and filter out for certain* who’s funny and who’s not.

* 確かに / tashikani / certainly, surely

Note: I only guessed the rest of his sentence LOL

Everyone: Ok (…. anticipating Matsumoto-san’s verdict….)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (…looking at Teru “scanning” him with a very serious face…) This one so totally NOT funny.

Teru: (…covers his face in embarrassment…)

* Spot on 😄! Teru oh Teru. When he tries to be funny, he just becomes corny & awkward instead. Strangely, when he’s not trying to be, that’s when he’s accidentally downright hilarious 😂

Everyone: (laughs)

Hiro: You may stop it right there * (laughs).

* Haha, so, it basically just stops there with Teru. Pranks may not work well on him because of his non-reaction to abnormal situations 😄.  But a true bromance story 😍. Hiro spared you all these times because he knew your character so well, Teru 🤗❤️💕.

* Aww… Teru was so embarrassed to be branded unfunny 😄.

——————————————

I don’t fully understand the joke where they asked Teru if he had some prank ideas on Hiro 🙈😭

*Disclaimer: Below is my best guess.

Masatoshi Hamada: (putting hand on Teru) How about your own?

Hiro: (realizing Hamada-san’s intention) For me?

Teru: (scratching his head) Hmm

Audience: Aaahhh!!

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (to Kid’z & Nob) Do you have something good for (prank) ideas?

Teru: (pointing to Kid’z, Nob & himself) The three of us are setting it up*. (nodding)**

* 仕掛ける / shikakeru / set up

** Does that mean “Yes, we’re thinking of pranking Hiro” 😍 ?

Hiro: (wide-eyed & taken aback by Teru’s answer) Holy cow! !

Masatoshi Hamada: Ah, good (….making a hand gesture as if putting something into something else….)*

* Don’t know the words he said here. Sorry 🙈.

Hiro: That’s not even a hidden camera thing!

Everyone: (laughs)

Masatoshi Hamada: You 3 guys can (shackle) him down and ….

Hiro: (looking at Hamada-san) That’s not even…!

Nob: (pretending to …hmm…. pour water onto something?)

Hiro: Normally I would already be complaining*!

* 訴えます / uttaemasu / complain

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Maybe make it like Masako-chan’s* hair or something (gesturing 2 pointy things on his head).

* If Matsumoto-san meant Masako-chan as Mama Mori, then I guess he was saying to tie Hiro’s hair into two girly piggy tails like his mother likes to do during her comedy skits as まーちゃん (Maa-chan).

Everyone: (hysterically laughs)

Hiro: (waving his hand & shaking his head) Ehh! How are you even going to get close to doing that?!!*

* Lets’s take Matsumoto-san’s suggestion LOL 😂 😂 😂

* Hiroki, you cunning little one! You’re so NOT wiggling your way out of this LOL

——————————————

How was that, my fellow MFS fans? I hope the rough idea is there even if I couldn’t get the thing 100% right.

Help and corrections are very much welcomed. Hehe!

Would love to hear your feedback about this talk. Do you think MFS is visually pleasing to the eye? Does Hiro talk too much? Do you feel Teru has no funny bones? Do you want to see Hiro getting pranked?

LY concert VCR filming: Yeontan cut!

Hey, my friend is selling two seated MFS tickets for their tour final at Saitama. If you're interested, contact her today!! (Like really, today. She hasn't paid for the tickets yet and the deadline for payment is today)

Awkward moonchild sulking cause his cute little peanut doesn’t want tomatoes. 10/10 would buy him a tomato

He protecc, he attacc, but most importantly he let her ride on his bacc. 15/10 most precious thing I’ve ever seen

Innocent bean excited for advice. 11/10 would protect with my life

9/10 for effort, rating would drastically improve if the same thing was done with the waifu

He sad. 100/10 would hug for days

Sulking on a bridge, knees weak, arms are heavy, Sakura’s spaghetti. 18/10 I laughed

Best line in the show, 30/10 but doing the waifu fist clench lifts the rating to 100/10

Clutching the family photo while talking to the waifu. 500/10 all I ever wanted

Supportive papa smile, rating meter was broken by my screaming. Would have been a solid 1000/10

baking cookies

hand-written letters

giving them warm hugs

knitting sweaters

remembering smol details about them

calling them in other cute ways (i.e: bumble bee)

sending virtual kisses

carefully listening to whatever they’re saying

appreciating even their flaws

writing cute poems for them

conversing through exchanging of notes

suggesting cute music

purchasing a random souvenir

spontaneously making cute collages

smiling at them

sending them cute dog pictures

Inej always seemed to be at quidditch practice

When Kaz wanted to study potions with her, she had to practice a new formation with the team

When he wanted to sneak out to Hogsmeade, she had to go over strategy in the common room

And even when it’s the middle of the night and he wanted to share some stolen sweets with her, she’s away at top secret night flying practice

He comes to a conclusion: Nikolai Lantsov, the golden boy, is hogging Inej and preventing Kaz from spending any time with her

Internally, he knows Nikolai and Inej’s relationship isn’t like that

Especially because Nikolai would never cheat on Zoya because he loved her very much but also because she would hex him oblivion if such a thing happened

Sometimes Sasuke can be such an asshole, but I just can’t help but love him for it! This page in particular has always been one of my favourite Sasuke troll moments. I don’t think it’ll ever not make me chuckle!:

He literally gave absolutely no fucks, lol. It sounds so cold, but I just can’t help but find it funny. I mean, there Naruto is, desperately pleading for him to reconsider his decision to defect from Konoha, while mentioning the lengths that he and his friends had gone to, all for the sake of bringing him back to the village, and Sasuke’s response? “Good for them!”. Such a troll XD, he probably said that whilst thinking this to himself:

But despite his usual blunt and cold demeanor, we all know that the real Sasuke is just a big softy at heart :D and there were small glimpses of his true nature at certain points during the story:

So regardless of whether his bluntness was genuine:

Or whenever it was an act:

I was never mad or angry at Sasuke, because not only did I find his blunt and unequivocal behaviour rather amusing at times, but also because I knew that this side of Sasuke was essentially just the tough exterior, and so I was simply anticipating the moment when Hagoromo’s hope would become a reality:

The casual reader tends to overlook the myriad of very subtle examples that illustrate Sasuke’s true nature, which is one of the biggest reasons why it’s so easy to hate on him; because the vast majority of his affection is very, very subtle. This is particularly true for during the war, where it’s very easy to just believe that Sasuke was simply being an asshole all the way through. But then panels like these get forgotten about:

Where Sasuke tries to hide the fact that he told Sakura not to let her guard down. Oh Sasuke, you big tsundere :) It must have been really difficult for him to have thought that the only way to achieve his goal was to make everyone hate him, and in the process, cause Sakura to have expressions such as this because she thought he truly didn’t care:

I guess in that case he was doing his job of acting like a douchebag rather well :D And it was all for the sake of an interesting and understandable ideal, which unfortunately had a very melancholic method of attaining it:

However, as we all predicted, his eyes were opened, his shackles were broken, and the big softy that had been encased in a shell of hatred since the slaughter of his clan, was finally able to fully surface! The real Sasuke:

If only Karin were there to witness those smiles… (Lol)

And it was showcased again during his apology to Sakura. The way he looks down after Sakura had initially rebuffed him, I felt it was rather significant. After years of Sakura constantly worrying about whether Sasuke cared at all for her or not, and after such a long time of his words having a huge impact on her, now the roles had reversed; now it was Sasuke’s turn to worry about what she thought of him, and now it was her words that were toying with his emotions:

But he persisted, and almost as if she was slyly taking advantage of the situation, Sakura didn’t let Sasuke off the hook that easily; she made sure that he clearly spelled out what she’s wanted to hear for so many years :P

But we all knew she’d forgive him, she’s a kind and loving girl after all, and it would have made little sense to spend the entirety of Part 2 fighting to save the guy you love from the darkness, only to shun him once you finally achieved that goal. 

Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi were all so happy and relieved, because they knew that the innocent, carefree little boy from days gone by had finally returned :)

So without further ado, I’ll leave you all with a message that has been relevant to me since the very first time I laid my eyes on this lovable little potato:

Happy to help! This connects with my hogwarts au for zoyalai!

Kaz and Inej are both in Slytherin, Nina, Jesper, and Kuwei are in Gryffindor, Wylan’s in Ravenclaw, and Matthias is in Hufflepuff

Matthias is the best Quidditch player out of them, he’s a beater for his house team. 

He transferred in from Durmstrang during their third year due to some kind of hazing incident

The other students in his house don’t really know how they feel about him at first, but then Nina takes him under her wing

Nina’s part mermaid, so she gets what it feels like to be treated differently

In her spare time, she TAs for the charms professor partly because she’s sort of a prodigy, and partly because the younger students love her

Wylan is a potions genius 

He makes a tidy profit around every exam date as the entire grade is dependent on his Invigoration Draught

Jesper, on the other hand, is kind of a jack of all trades, master of none

He’s pretty good at dueling and defense against dark arts, and just about anything the professors can throw at him

He’s always wearing the most ridiculous outfits under his robes

Inej is Slytherin’s seeker, known for her impossibly tight maneuvers that more often than not, led to a Slytherin victory

Since Slytherin doesn’t have a spare seeker, she has to spend a lot of time at practice and Kaz kind of gets jealous of how much time Nikolai gets to spend with her

Kaz is the school’s source of anything you can think of- student secrets, muggle candy, illegal potion ingredients, you name it, he can get it

He really plays up the whole cripple act to get other students to underestimate him, but he’s secretly one of the best defense against the dark arts students