#twenty-three

[my-burnt-city]

what

THE FUCK

is this

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[kythwena]

A monster. One even worse than me. The Magicians | S03E11: Twenty-Three (2018)

[iuteamstarcandy]

[NEWS] 151023 IU chats with her same age peers.. in ‘A Bunch of Twenty-three’

The dress code for the CHAT-SHOW was ‘flower’ as flipping the number 2 to look like an ‘S’ and adding a ‘3′ to it looked like a flower. The title of the event was also ‘A Bunch of Twenty-three′

“Just writing the number 23, it looks like flower petals. Doesn’t it? Am I the only one that thinks so? It’s in the lyrics for ‘Twenty-three’ too. It goes like ‘a bunch of twenty-three~’. I think the age of 23 is just like a flower.”

“I’m in a really good mood right now. More people are listening to my songs than I thought and I tell them that too. My songs are doing really well. Am I being arrogant right now? It’s the first album I’ve done producing for, so the sense of responsibility I have for it is really different from before. I searched it up at 1am and was like, oh, I made it! I was really thankful. Really, I thought to myself that I have to live as a good person from now on (I guess she means for good karma). I’m being really excited right now, isn’t it?”

“I wrote all the lyrics. There were a lot of things I wanted to say. Also, the topics were not light ones. These are songs that contain some of my serious concerns. Originally I thought of having an ordinary album title like ‘People’. Or ‘Purple’ as an extension from ‘People’. I didn’t want to make it sound so serious for everyone. That’s why I put a layer of protective film on the album title. ‘These are not serious words, but just my idle talk (which is where the ‘CHAT’ in CHAT-SHIRE comes from).’ Like this.”

The title song ‘Twenty-three’ is inspired by the cheshire cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. When Alice gets lost, the cheshire cat appears in front of her and she asks, ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ to which the cheshire cat replies, ‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.’

"I don’t know what’s real, really. An article about me appears on a web portal. On some days, it puts me in a good mood? Uwah, I’m just staying at home, but there’s an article on me? But on some days I think to myself that I just want to hide somewhere. I don’t know for sure what I really want and all I have are short moments. Is it like that for you guys too?”

IU sang ‘Zeze’ for a fan with relationship issues. It’s a song that uses the motif of the main character, Zeze, from ‘My Sweet Orange Tree’, which is about an angelic boy with a gentle heart who is at the same time a devil and incorrigible.

“It’s the most fun song I’ve written. I thought Zeze’s temper was sexy. Despite his two sides, I was supporting Zeze and fell in love with him as I read the novel. I become the Minguinho (tree) and the song contains my message for Zeze. I left a lot of things open to interpretation as I was writing this song, so if you read the lyrics, you’ll find it quite interesting.”

To a fan with family issues, IU said, “I hope you know that you’re being really cool” and sang ‘Red Queen’ to the fan as a gift. This is a song about the Red Queen in ‘Through the Looking Glass’. A woman everyone hates, a story about a time she was pretty. IU got her inspiration from a picture that f(x)’s Sulli drew.

"I went to Sulli’s house to play, saw the picture and thought of the Red Queen so I wrote this song. ‘That woman’ is mentioned a lot in the lyrics, but to everyone a different person would probably come to mind. Although I called her a ‘woman’, you can think of the person as a man too. Actually the lyrics to this song are rather bitter. So I tried to sing it as cunningly as possible. In order for my voice to sound cunning in talking about that woman, people listening to the song might find the woman quite poor thing and take her side. Did I manage to pull off the cunningness well?”

To a fan troubled about career and aspirations, IU sang ‘Knee’. This song was written on a sleepless night because of how much doubt she felt about herself and she missed the times when she lay in her grandmother’s lap and could sleep without any worries.

"I feel the same way. I’m 23 now, but why have I not adapted to life yet? Spending each day clumsily like an amateur. ‘Knee’ is song I love the most on the album. I think it’s the first time I almost felt like crying while recording. I was feeling so sad that I couldn’t take it.”

IU won’t be promoting this album. From November onwards she’ll start her nationwide concert tour. “This year, I was involved in all kinds of activities. Other than for my concert, I think I’ve spent all the rest of my energy. I wouldn’t want the emotions I felt while producing this album to mix with those while doing broadcasts. I just want to end on a happy note. That’s what I wish for.”

Sad to part with the fans, she said she would create such opportunities for them again. IU went down from the stage and took a group photo with the audience and promised to post it on her Instagram.

“I’ve got to go and work now. Today was really fun. It’s such a pity, I find it a pity too. Two of my ex-classmates are here. You guys are my true friends. I really really had fun and thank you for coming. Get home safely. It’s a burning Friday, so go have fun somewhere. Don’t just go straight home. Annyeong~”

Source: Newsis

Translated by squishy with love

[dlthedescent]

TWENTY-THREE: THE GLORY DEAD DAYS

Crane was all too cautious.

Almost at a snail pace. Every instinct in him, even the beast, ushered him to leave. But he swallowed his fear and tailed after the spirited woman inside.

The monsters, the brethren that would have welcomed the feral side of him with open arms, had scattered off. A few stragglers stayed, maybe once the previous visitors of the stadium.

One got in Jack’s way. But she gave it the boot. The brunette was on a mission, too engrossed to get to her goal.

“I knew it’d be terrible inside but I didn’t think it’d get this bad,” Jack exclaimed. She picked up a fallen signboard and placed it upright to read a poster. Torn, but she could make out the event’s title. “Unfortunate.”

“That’s what happens when you have a pandemic.”

“You should have seen this place back in the days. They held judo tournaments yearly.” 

Jack then glanced to one large lobby.

“You know.” She pointed two fingers in that direction. “There used to be this tacky piece of 'modern art' in this foyer.” And off she went, at the beat of her drum. “Guess they removed it.”

“Jack.” Again, that fell on deaf ears. Crane grimaced at this sudden persistence - like trying to keep track of a child in a mall. Which had a few infected still present but that was beside the point. 

He might as well entertain the idea. Whatever Jack’s goal was, it couldn’t be bad. Questionable, but nothing over the top.

“Ah. Here we are.” Crane’s feet froze up at the sudden familiarity he found himself looking at the hall Jack wandered into. He had gone down this way last night, didn’t he?

The section they came across was small - the architecture structured for any visitor to see it right after the main entrance and before the sports halls. Pedestals had been smashed down and its contents either stolen or broken on the floor. One wall depicted a record of history about the Sports Palace before another showed gold-plated nameplates. Some fallen off, some ruined by humidity and others gone missing. 

“The Hall of Fame.” Jack particularly danced her way over the broken glass before turning back to the stunned Hunter. 

Didn’t look like a hall of fame, Crane thought to himself.

“Ok,” she suddenly said it as if being caught in a white lie before Crane could call her out. “It’s not really. Just a fancy place to advertise the athletes. Everyone else calls it that.”

Despite her smile, he could tell it had weathered down like the pictures on the wall. 

“Everything’s sodding wet though... I believe Romola’s trophy was on this pedestal.”

The glass had been smashed down, the very item inside stolen. And above it was the poster of that said boxer. The face ripped off from a man in a frozen pose, his boxing gloves ready to punch upwards. No idea who he was since Crane never had an interest on the kickboxing world to begin with. And no doubt, that same man was either dead or out of the country when this happened.

“This hall still has its charm. The best people have their names put up here,” Jack continued to sell. “And if they’re real good, their posters stay up. Like this one.”

One poster was too eye-catching for Crane not to miss it. It was one of the biggest, particularly gloating with vicious pride. Printed was the same woman who stood beside him, the same brunette he saw in the dream. Right to every eerie detail: the short hair, the light clothes and the branded gloves. But instead of the cold, deathly air of defeat, she stood forth with a posture that screamed she was hungry for the fight.

Maddening green eyes and a wide toothy grin tossed right back at the viewer. Like a rabid wolf ready to sink her teeth down. The image particularly exhumed an aura that couldn’t be challenged. The fans, bypassers and any Martial arts fighter couldn't stand against the Wild Dog.

“I started kickboxing as a hobby. Then Mert, my trainer then, told me I should enter the Global Athletic Games,” Jack droned. “Nine years of professional combat sports. Four years as world champion. Undefeated for twenty-four rounds.”

She glanced back, maybe expecting to see a stupefied look or an irritated frown out of the Freakazoid. Funny how days ago, reading the emotions off a sentient infected’s face seemed impossible. But it ended up entertaining her with how animated he’s been.

“I could go on.”

Crane’s attentive eyes narrowed at the cheeky tone. Both parties, however, didn’t provoke the other - his patience wasn’t tested and Jack was all too absorbed in her past.

“Good times. Good times,” she murmured before walking away to the next wall of posters. Absentmindedly, Crane followed along with this entourage.

“Ah. There she is.”

Crane stopped in his tracks, at first shocked at seeing what Jack pointed. That the picture didn’t distort into a horrifying version right in front of him.

And in awe that he was staring at the poster of Jade Aldemir in a fighting stance. Alive, with a fiery look of determination in her.

Almost as if she had come back as a ghost to him.

“The Scorpion,” Jack cheered. 

Crane reeled back to have a second to himself. 

You mean to tell me I got frightened by a poster?

He couldn't believe it - how last night could have turned into a nightmare for him… To be scared of a picture of Jade. Looking back, that foreboding feeling of her eyes loomed back at Crane. Like the worn piece of paper judged him on the spot.

Of all the past choices he’s made…

“Have you heard? Youngest kickboxer in the country when she first started. Rose up to the top faster than any rookie in the world,” Jack suddenly droned on, giving a side of herself Crane hadn’t expected. “...She was one tough cookie.”

Crane was both surprised and puzzled when his eyes fell on Jack. Because she gazed at the picture with a smile, not the wide grin or the cocky one. But the soft one with a slight difference.

As if she held great respect for the person in the picture. A nostalgic glance.

“2011, July. Hottest day of the year,” Jack droned with her palms out to the poster, before pointing down a corridor. All the way near the main entrance. “We had the tournament in that hall.”

The way she pointed turned out to be the way he had bolted down out of sheer terror. With everything lit up now, he could spot the broken door to one of the bigger martial arts halls. 

And off Jack went again.

“Jade had already beaten a few big names before me,” she continued. “The Oni. Irmak 'Steadfast’. The War Machine... That woman was a force to be reckoned with.”

Instead of telling Jack to stop this pointless wandering, asking her to turn back, Crane found himself tailing slowly after hr. Out of frightful curiosity. A smoldering, creeping sensation snaked its way inside of him. He understood now. The dreams weren’t his mind playing tricks on him.

Jack knew Jade and Rahim long before the outbreak happened.

Inside the hall was no different than anywhere else in the building - minus the stragglers. In the centre of the empty seats stood the fighting ring, one side of the ropes torn down.

“I was…on that side,” she pointed to one corner before climbing up and gesturing a palm to the other side. “And she was over there.”

Crane glanced to the corner, almost picturing the younger version of Jade from his dreams standing right there. As if she was alive today. He could imagine it; Practising her punches, getting ready for the big day. The biggest fight as Jack claimed and all the stakes out, the young kickboxer was ready.

Now that corner was empty.

“You should have seen this place. Locals called it the biggest fight in Scanderoon. Full house.”

Jack raised her arms to the empty audience and spun on her heel.

“The crowd was so loud my ears were buzzing.” Jack went on to imitate two soft cheers, her hands enclosed around her mouth. “They all wanted my head.”

She mimicked her thumb across her throat before letting out a whimsical, wicked laugh that trailed off softly.  

“I've never backed out of a fight once. I had my title on the line. Among other things.”

Crane could only imagine. A hotshot like Jack couldn’t call it quits and let someone take her glory. She was that arrogant - the storytelling kinda did grind into him. That snotty smirk rubbed Crane the wrong way.

"Jade had to come at me strong." Already, Jack held her fists up and swung a few good shadow pitches. Enough strength in each punch, even if she was ghost-boxing. The charade manifested enough of the legendary Wild Dog's presence on the other end of the ring.

"But I couldn't make it easy for her. She had to prove to me she could do it. The spotlight isn't just about being glamorous. It's actually bloody tedious to maintain too."

Ok, he understood. Could she move on?

“But I sure showed them,” she chimed confidently, a boost of her ego.

“I get it.” With how much gloating Jack loved to do, he could already see how it played out. “You came out on top and stayed a champion. Hurrah.”

“Oh, no. I actually lost that match.”

The response was too chirpy, completely the opposite of what he had thought. Jack, with that unbreakable smirk, glanced back at Freakazoid’s shocked gaze.

So she climbed out of the ring and said it again.

“I lost to Jade Aldemir.”

Story continues on at these links: FFN and AO3.

[pointyearsuniverse]

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[livinonthehedge]

You are not gonna cock out on me. I'd say pussy, but let's be honest. Which one is tougher?

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