#and my grandma was filming the whole thing. fine if i’m prepared for it but i wasn’t

[imaginarypasta]

i’ve complained about it before and the way it’s going, i’ll probably do it again. but i don’t like being recorded in my own home!! like yeah i’ll assert that every time no pause but i will complain about it because tell me why i have to do it soooo often

[goeie-morgen]

Gossip Guy podcast with Willem De Schryver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYjtRYOGS00

translated by @jackfrostsander @bruisingknees @lblogss @yousmina and me :)

-

E: I do have another present for you.

W: Oei oei oei, presents.

E: I do that every week. I give something to my guest of the week.

W: Oei oei oei. Do I slide it?

E: Here in the front is a flap that you have to fold upwards…

[Intro]

E: Wassup people, welcome to a new episode of the Gossip Guy podcast. My name is Ender Scholtens and today I’m here with Willem De Schryver. Everything ok?

W: Sure sure (In Dutch sure is used as a confirmation to a question).

E: Is this your first podcast?

W: Yes, this is my first podcast.

E: Stress?

W: No, it will be fine, right? Relaxed.

E: I don’t know… (laughing). For the people who don’t recognize you, from where could they know you?

W: Hmmm, probably from the youth series WTFOCK where, in the third season, I play the role of Sander.

E: And we are allowed to talk about it in this podcast.

W: Yeah I also heard that. Yes, it’s over.

E: Was it a difficult chapter of your life to close?

W: Yes, I still clearly remember the last moment… Like really the last last scene at the sea… That was an emotional moment because you went through a lot as a group, you did a lot together, and emotional scenes, intimate scenes. But yes, I think, if I speak for the whole group that it was a goodbye to the series but not a goodbye from each other. We still keep in contact. Mainly through WhatsApp.

E: Yeah, the end of the series was beautiful. I sat next to my girlfriend when it just came online. Because there were a few scenes that we hadn’t seen yet and we were just watching them… And we refreshed and the last episode was online… The last piece was online… So, I thought… I really cried… It caused quite some emotions.

W: For many people… Also under the cast and even the extras that were present for that last scene… Even among them. I can remember that they got emotional because it really was over over. I think that we, WTFOCK, have been able to impact a lot of young people in Belgium. So, it’s beautiful… We closed it beautifully…

E: I don’t doubt that. I really liked the end. What is your favorite memory from your whole WTFOCK experience?

W: Hoh, hmmm. Do I have to choose one? Difficult to choose one… I think that the most enjoyable moments… At the end of each series… Almost… We were at the sea or in the Ardennes, as a group, for a vacation. Away together. And those moments… Away with the whole cast and crew… Being away for a whole weekend. And in the evening, talking late into the night and that creates a special connection and I think that, in general, was the most enjoyable… Yes, it affects me… You share, as a young person, a common dream or something we want to realize as an actor to succeed and everyone who works so hard for that… That’s nice to see.

E: I recently talked to Veerle and I know that if she sees Nora, like somewhere, say at a party… Then they stay together for the whole evening… Do you have that? With who did you have the best connection throughout that whole experience?

W: Yes…

E: That doesn’t mean that the rest is not chill or so…

W: No the rest is all stupid… There’s only one person… I hate you all! (joking) No! Yes, hmmm, I think that I definitely have the best connection with Willem. Just because we have been through a lot… I always compare the WTFOCK crew a bit to my own friend group, aside from the cast. I mean, I know to whom I can go for what. I know I can go to some if I feel sad, to talk and I know who I can go to to have a laugh. And who I can go to to have a general chat. And everyone has their qualities or like their own aura around them… Where I love to hang around. So, it differs from person to person. So, it’s hard to choose one person but Willem then in the sense that, if you jump naked together in a swimming pool and if you have intimate scenes together… That creates a connection, of course. So, yes, if I have to choose one person…

E: Is there a barrier that you have to overcome to play such scenes? Because they are very intimate, indeed. And I, personally, couldn’t imagine… I can’t act… But, to empathize with a role… To play such scenes… Is that difficult for you?

W: Huh, yes, that’s a question I get often. I mean like… Yeah and you have to empathize with that character… But yes, you step into that project with a certain professionalism and you say “okay, we are going to create a story and bring it to the public with certain values and that we want to tell something and show something” …So, yes, you don’t really think about it. So, it’s not like I thought “Ooooo, I am kissing with a boy but I am interested in girls”. That was not a problem for me because it really is about telling the story and making that together and if the story requires that then you just completely go for it.

E: That’s cool. What are your future acting ambitions? You now have played in a series, is that something you want to do more in the future or do you like theatre more or movie or…

W: I find it difficult to choose between theatre and film, for example. After WTFOCK I played in Déjà Vu, which you can see on Streamz and later this year on Channel 4… And I study theatre at KASK. And I notice the difference, due to the recordings, I am really in the field and I am busy and I work, while at school I learn new things about theatre… So, in my opinion I have more experience in television work because I actually have done projects for that and I haven’t yet for theatre, which is still school and learning. So, I think it’s currently hard to choose but I think, maybe it’s a cliché answer, but the combination is maybe ideal, of course. But I am still exploring and I will see how it goes…

7:02

E: What is your favorite food?

W: My favorite food?

E: Yes.

W: Hmmmm, in the past I was really a basic guy… Like spaghetti bolognese or so… But now, generally after my exams, I go to a restaurant with my grandma. She always buys. That’s always amazing. I am a fan. And I always take steak tartare with fries. That remains a bit of a guilty pleasure.

E: How long, do you think, would it take you to eat five full plates of spaghetti bolognese?

W: Hoh, hmmm. The thing is, my stomach is rather small…

E: Small?

W: I think that I would have to schedule in… Okay, after a certain time I would have to throw up and then eating further…

E: You’re allowed to take a break. You’re allowed to say… Okay, I take a few days…

W: No, no, not that…

E: You’re going to do it in a day?

W: Look, two plates… Three if I really push…

E: You get preparation time so you know like a week before… So, you can like…

W: Train yourself?

E: Yes, train…

W: Hoh, alee say about four hours…

E: Four hours?! Five plates, he? Like five really big plates…

W: Yeah but yeah, four minutes… I am exaggerating… Let’s say a day… In a day five plates…

E: Ok, that should work. Then you basically have every meal… Breakfast… Lunch… Dinner… and in between… pasta…

W: Pasta as breakfast…

E: One day should definitely be feasible.

W: Yes, indeed.

8:49

E: What is, according to you, the reason you were placed on this planet?

W: Fuck (laughs).

E: Existential crisis, okay? Have you never thought about what the purpose of life is and what…

W: Yes, certainly… Hmmm, I'm someone who worries a lot. When I'm in bed in the evening I start to think about questions like that and then I think “what am I doing? Willem… where do I want to go to and…” Hmmm, why was I put on this planet? Hmmmm… (speechless followed by laughing). This is really bad… It’s like I don’t value myself…

E: Noooo, but I didn’t expect a deep philosophical answer. Well, if you had one… really good but…

W: Okay I’m going to think about my philosophical answer… but no. If you want… No! Yes, now I'm really going to sound philosophical but… (crosstalk) Everyone who is on earth has a certain reason to be here and everyone… I for example have that… I really feel that… I never liked going to school. Especially, in lower and high school. I… I actually, on purpose, put my fingers in my throat in the morning to throw up…

E: Wow, that’s heavy…

W: And then going downstairs to say “papa I’m ill, can I stay home?” I don’t know why but that whole system… Sitting behind a desk all day… And those classes… that was not for me. And then I discovered my passion for acting and discovered that it really suited me. And that’s the thing… A lot of people often ask me like “how did you start?” and “I also would like to do that and where do I start and I have been rejected does that mean I am not good enough?” but I think that sometimes you shouldn’t rush to find your passion. It can take longer then you would like it to take. I think that if you too intensively search for "what am I good at?" and “I have to find something that I am good at” and… For me that’s happened unexpectedly. I did take acting classes on Wednesday afternoons after school and I kind of got into it like that… I think it differs for everyone and that everyone has their own purpose here on earth.

E: And would you say your purpose is acting?

W: Yeah…

E: There isn’t a right answer but how does it feel for you at the moment? Is that the thing you love doing the most or do you see yourself doing for a long time?

W: The thing is… I’m a person who gets tired of things very quickly. I’ve had a lot of hobbies.

E: So maybe next week you want to garden or something?

W: No, no I wouldn’t say that. No the thing is, with acting that isn’t the case. Since I was twelve… well first on amateur level…

E: How old are you now?

W: 19.

E: Oh wow I thought you were my age. 19… damn bro you’re three years younger than me.

W: 2001 represent.

E: That’s literally… you’re the same age as my brother! What the shit. Alright, no okay.

W: In November so almost 2002. I’m really a latecomer.

E: What?! You look like you’re the same age as me and everything.

12:14

W: But that’s honestly – thank you for saying that! I always used to be the “little guy.” None of the girls wanted to be with me cause they just thought I was cute.

E: I see.

W: And they came to me to talk about their love lives.

E: Oh, okay.

W: So I was always that guy who was like: “I’m in love with you.” “Oh, how cute! You’re so cute!” So I was always like: “Okay then, I’m never going to find anyone, I’m always going to stay… short. I’ll be all alone.” And then all of a sudden I –

E: Do you think height matters in regard to your chances with certain… people?

W: At this age I don’t think it does anymore, but I do think that – I think at – I just remember in high school that the romantic idea of what love was supposed to look like was very: a boy and a girl, and the boy has to be taller and stronger and bigger than the girl. But I think that now it’s more… I mean, at my age I’m convinced it’s more fluid than that, and it doesn’t have to be that way. So it doesn’t have to be an issue anymore.

E: But still, when you go on Twitter, short guys are still –

W: Yeah.

E: Totally annihilated.

W: I have notice – I have noticed – Yeah, it’s still… It’s still this… general thing that people get stuck on. Like: “Oh, a short dude. That’s not okay.” Or whatever.

E: Or like the guy has to be taller. But no, we’re – we’re – not… not all relationships… we’re really generalizing here. But I get what you mean.

W: Yeah.

E: No, it’s – I do think it’s still important. I think that when you’re, and this is really harsh, but that a lot of people look at you differently when you’re taller. I have this dude in my friend group, Louis Ledegen, and he’s close to 2 meters tall, and just some girls look at him and they just think that’s so… attractive or whatever. And I just can’t even imagine.

W: I don’t get that either.

E: That that makes them go like: “Wow!”

W: I was in the train just now and this dude walked by me and he was honestly like 2 meters tall and I was just thinking: “When you’re that tall, and you’re with…” I mean, the girl almost has to get on a stepping stool to reach him for a kiss! And girls are like – I mean, I’ve heard before that girls think it’s attractive when a man is really tall.

E: Yeah.

W: And yeah, I don’t know… I don’t totally get it.

E: No.

W: Maybe it’s cause I’m not that tall myself, that I’m like trying to protect myself and be all: “That’s not necessary!”

E: Yeah! If anybody knows the answer, do we, being shorter guys, have less of a chance?

W: Let us know, please.

14:53

E: Please let us know! We need some answers! Now in the show, wtFOCK, your hair’s a different color.

W: Yeah.

E: Yeah. Is that something… So that was actually – it wasn’t really blonde?

W: It was completely bleached.

E: Bleached.

W: It was more to the… But the thing is that they had to do it twice, cause the first time… I got there, for the first table read with the director and Willem [Herbots] and they were like: “Hey, Willem. We wanted to ask you something. We’d like to bleach your hair for the role.”

E: Yeah.

W: And I was like: “… Okay.”

E: Okay.

W: “And why?” No. “Just for the character and stuff.” So I was like: “Okay. That’s fine.” The thing is I had to be at the hairdresser for 4 hours for this.

E: Oh wow, heavy.

W: It was like this and this product, and it had to sit for a long time. It had to be bleached all over. And I got out of there the first time and I was completely yellow – but yellow like an egg.

E: Oh, shit!

W: And I… My mom dropped me off, and I texted her: “I’m done, will you come get me?” And I saw my mom approach and she just passed me by.

E: Oh wow.

W: She didn’t – she almost didn’t recognize me anymore. Like halfway - she was like – and then she was like: “Oh! Willem!” Like she hadn’t seen –

E: Oh shit.

W: That it was me. That I looked completely different. And then I arrived for another table read and Tom [Goris – director] was like: “Yeah… We’re not gonna go this route… This is too yellow.” So then I spent another 4 hours at the hairdresser. After that I had to be there for four hours almost every month. I did think it was cool to have bleached hair, but… You have to be at the hairdresser for so long, so that really wasn’t… my thing. I mean, I had some really cool moments with Mitch [Fabry – hair & make up wtFOCK]. Thanks, Mitch.

E: Would you ever dye your hair again?

W: Uhm.

E: Maybe another color?

W: Yeah, I don’t think so. I’m quite happy with my hair color, actually, I don’t know.

E: Alright.

W: Now it’s also like… Everyone always asks me: “So this is your natural hair color?”

E: Yeah.

W: And then I have to tell them: “Yeah.” And it’s like: “Oh, okay!” It’s this switch. But no, I’m happy with my hair. It’s fine.

17:03

E: I can also tell that you’ve got an earring? You can’t really tell on camera, but –

W: I’ll come a little closer [to the camera]. Yeah, I only got it recently, four weeks or something.

E: Yeah. Was it an impulsive, drunken decision, or something you wanted… for some time?

W: I’ve wanted it for a long time, but I was a little anxious about it like: “It’s not gonna look good on me,” and then after a while, a couple of months ago, I was like: “Fuck it, I’m just gonna do it.” And if it didn’t look good I could still just take it out, so it doesn’t really matter. But all in all I was pretty happy with it. My father, my parents – my mom: “Oh, so nice!!” And it was like – at first they give you a stud and then after four weeks you can change it to a hoop. And I really wanted a hoop, and I even asked the people in the (piercing) shop: “Can’t I please just get a hoop straight away?” And they were like: “No, sorry, it doesn’t work like that. For hygiene reasons that’s not okay.”

E: Okay.

W: But okay, so I had to wait four weeks and then eventually I could change it to the golden hoop. So I get home and the first thing my father said was: “Wow, you look like a douchebag.” That was the first thing out of his mouth, that I looked like a douchebag.

E: Is that the look you were going for?

W: No, not at all! Not at all!

E: I think it looks cool.

W: Thanks.

E: Cause a little while ago I wanted one, and so I put on my girlfriend’s earring – because even if your ear isn’t pierced it sticks a little –

W: Yeah.

E: And so I just put it on there for a day or something, and then I was like: “Okay, that’s quite enough.” I don’t know if I’d want it for longer than that. Recently I’ve been getting into rings and stuff though.

W: I wore rings for a long time, but I don’t have any anymore. I actually want – I like them too. But I have to –

18:47

E: If I’d known, I would’ve brought you a gift!

W: Go shopping. Goddamn!

E: I did bring you another gift though!

W: Another gift? Oei oei oei, gifts!

E: This is something I do every week,  I give my guest of the week something.

W: Oei oei oei. 

E: It’s just…

W: Do I just slide it –

E: There’s a little hatch over here, that you have to lift, and then you can just lift it like that. There we go.

W: There we go.

E: White hairspray.

W: If I’d want to go back to – there we have it. Too good.

E: It can be washed out really easily as well. So this way you don’t have to be at the hairdresser for like four hours. And then when you’re sick of it, you can just get rid of it again!

W: That was the thing… Thank you, by the way.

E: You’re very welcome.

W: Now I can go back – Now I can go back to my past life. No, that was the thing as well. People who – people who - after wtFOCK came online, people really recognized me with the white hair. I mean, it’s pretty noticeable, when I’m walking through Ghent station – if someone with bleached hair. I mean, if you watch the show, I can imagine that when you see someone with bleached hair, you immediately connect the two and think: “Oh, that could be him.” And then you run in to some people who ask for pictures. After that my hair was really short, cause the people from Déja-Vu were like: “We’re not gonna do this, just go back to your natural hair color.” So I cut it all off, and there was this time where… nobody came to talk to me anymore. I was able to just be myself again. It was as if – looking back on it, it was actually really nice that for wtFOCK I was able to completely get into a different character with different hair. And the first time I got rid of the hair I really noticed that was no longer being associated with the character.

E: Hannah Montana vibes! Your hair changes color and nobody knows who you are anymore.

W: “Who are you?”

E: “Who the fuck are you?!”

W: “Does anybody want to take pictures with me? It’s me! It’s me! I swear!”

E: “I’m that dude from wtFOCK! I’m that dude from wtFOCK!”

W: So if people don’t recognize me anymore I can just… *pshhht* in the morning.

E: Exactly! If you want to take some more pictures, you can just…

W: No, no. That’s fine. No, yeah.

E: It’s kind of crazy, actually. Because, honestly? The very first time I saw a flash of you, with this hair color, I also thought: “I recognize you from somewhere…” But I think I’d already gotten in contact with you through social [media] and I didn’t put two and two together that you…

W: Yeah.

E: “Aaah!”

W: “Aaah! You’re that guy!”

E: Yeah, so…

W: But that’s the whole thing. If someone recognizes me, which doesn’t happen that often by the way, it’s always – I think it’s funny to be like: “No, that’s not me.”

E: No.

W: People really start doubting themselves, it’s very: “Uhm, can I ask you a question? Are you that guy from wtFock?” “Me? No.”

E: “No!”

W: “That’s not me.” And people will often be like: “Oh? What? But I recognize you…” That doubt on their faces is pretty funny but yeah, then I tell them it’s me.

E: Just the reaction of someone being like: “Huh, do I know you from somewhere?” “Do you watch porn?”

W: The confrontation.

E: “Oh… qmdkjg.” And it’d be even better if the parents were right there as well. “Argh!”

W: “Yes, Jürgen, care to explain yourself, young man?”

E: No, it’s just funny to joke about. But you’ve never – Do you just get: “Hey, are you that guy from wtFOCK?” Or have people also asked you: “Do I know you from somewhere?” Or: “What do I know you from?”

W: Yeah, it depends. The thing is – I go to school in Ghent and when the [popular place where college students go out] was still open before Covid-19, not that I went there often because I didn’t really like it there –

E: No.

W: - in the sense that the combination of young people who –

E: Watch wtFOCK.

W: - watch wtFOCK and alcohol – and people who’ve had alcohol to drink –

E: And are horny?

W: - their limits or boundaries are just gone. “Oh my god!!! You’re that dude from wtFOCK!! Can I kiss you??” Things like that!

E: Oh, fuck!

W: And I was really like: “Okay…?” I’m just a regular dude and I’m trying – and I actually thought it was less annoying for myself, but I thought it was more disruptive for my friends. Like even when we were just walking down the street, we got recognized a couple of times, and I was just like: I just want to have fun with my friends, and not have to spend too much time thinking. That’s another thing I was subconsciously thinking about. Imagine I drink way too much.

E: Yeah.

W: And I end up in the gutter somewhere, and people start filming that… So yeah, that made… So because of that I spent more time in friends’ dorm rooms just having dorm parties.

E: And since your bleached hair is gone, have you gone to a party?

W: When my bleached hair was gone corona was already a thing so I haven’t been able to enjoy it. But it’s starting to come back [the parties] so that’s nice. I’m looking forward to… tomorrow I’m going-

E: Are you going as well?

W: Are you going to Plein Air by Fuse?

E: Tomorrow I’m going to Jaimie Lee who-

W: …Is going to DJ at three festivals.

E: Yeah at three festivals and I will be backstage I guess.

W: Okay.

E: One of those festivals?

W: Yeah I don’t know. I have tickets for Fuse Open Air in Brussels.

24:19

E: I honestly have no idea where I’m going. Anyway, I’m excited. And I always asked, what’s the first event you went to ever since it’s allowed? Did you go to We Can Dance festival?

W: No I was studying.

E: Was today your last exam or yesterday?

W: Yesterday was my last exam in the morning. I was stressing so much, because I thought I would fail, but eventually I think it went relatively well. If you’re watching professors, let me pass please. No I think it went well.

E: Are you someone who is stress resistant?

W: Uhh no.

E: No?

W: I let it take over my body.

E: You get physically unwell?

W: I will be laying in bed and I’m tossing and turning and sweating. And I think about how I’m not gonna pass tomorrow. And the combination with my worries is really not good. It makes me stay up really late. The thing is with stress resistant, I for example made my own play at high school about a kid with divorced parents for my final work and the whole audience was filled with my family and my parents. That’s pretty confronting to tell a story that’s also a little bit of their life and is pretty personal. I’m always stressed for things like that. Then it’s weird – from the first word I spoke I had a lot of stress and worries and the first sentence that I said was something like “I don’t know what to do”, and then it’s all of a sudden poofff. The train has left.

E: You said you didn’t really know what to do now.

W: That’s the first sentence of the text that I wrote and the moment I said that sentence I thought in my head “the train has left, there’s no way back now” and then the stress disappears automatically. But before the final rehearsal there was a moment that I was moving around heavily and I was throwing with chairs. And afterwards I had to pack moving boxes, which was okay. But from moving around and the combination of stress it made me almost gag in the box from the stress so I almost puked. So at these moments it gets pretty heavy.

E: Did other people notice or were you hiding it?

W: Yeah the final rehearsal was luckily not with an audience, but my teachers were like “Everything alright?” and I was like “Yeah I’m good. It’s a bit much”. But when it comes to stress, a lot of people always say – I’m even a little stressed right now actually.

E: Really?

W: Podcasts, oh no no.

E: Oh shit. You have to be (stressed)

W: A lot of pressure on my shoulder here. No, but a lot of people say that it doesn’t look like that I’m stressed even though I really am dying from all the stress.

E: Only now you can hide it really well. You should become an actor.

W: A lot of people have said that to me often, but it’s not my interest. Also not much work in the field.

E: That too, fuck. Are you someone who constantly pretends like you’re okay?

W: Yes.

E: Even when you have a lot of shit going on in your head and you’re processing other things?

W: I'm one person. One person?

E: "I'm one person" [laughs]

W: I am one person. No, but I'm someone who often keeps their stuff to themselves, so that I can listen to what others need.

28:15

E: That was my next question. You listen more to other people’s problems and you’re the person people come to with their problems?

W: I think, at least I hope, that a lot of my friends do know that they can always come to me for a talk or a phone call. I'm someone that will shove away their happiness for someone else, which isn’t always positive of course.

E: It is a beautiful characteristic, but it shouldn’t take over indeed.

W: In the past it has happened that I was falling apart, but I kept pushing it away, because I wanted to take care of someone else. I noticed this a lot during the divorce of my parents. My parents had a hard time with the divorce and I remember that I came home as a little boy and I saw my mom sitting and I felt the duty to comfort her and to be there for her, even though I was 8 or 9 years old. That’s not something you expect to do or think from an 8 year old. It really broke me and now I can openly speak about it, because I have had enough conversations with my parents about it, about how it was for me. And I made a play about it, as I told earlier, so it’s been a whole process and that has scarred me till at least my 16th. My parents got divorced when I was 5 or 6 years old. It took me a long time to open up because of that. I notice it a lot in previous relationships, that I walk away from fights, because I would find the confrontation too heavy to get into a fight and to discuss. The divorce and fights with my parents scarred me so hard that I didn’t want that again. I wanted everything to be rainbow and sunshine, but life doesn’t work like that. And that was partly a misconception from me, that I thought that a relationship had to be perfect, if there is a fight, then it’s not going well. Now I realize that fights are part of a relationship. And also part of steps you take into accepting each other, listening to each other and understanding each other. It’s needed for a stronger connection. You can’t, well you can, but in my eyes you can’t be with someone for a long time without ever having had a conflict. Even if it’s a discussion, because then you’re adapting too much to the other, and then you say okay, I’m adapting to the demands of her and I suppress my own things or things I want to do, only to avoid the discussion, and that’s something I learned. And that’s how everyone learns their own things along the way.

E: You still see it in the youth, those romantic movies, where everyone is so in love and it always ends with a kiss or something and it’s always good and then you think, this must be the case in real life. Why can’t I find Gabriella Montez for my Troy Bolton. Even though that was a shitty relationship too, they were constantly fighting. No, but that gives a wrong image about relationships and for other things because of movies. And the reality is just different.

32:16

W: Yes. I recently for the first time -this is kinda embarrassing because it’s a must see- watched The Notebook.

E: Me too! What did you think?

W: It has been a few weeks ago. Or a few weeks, maybe 3 or something.

E: I watched it last weekend.

W: I almost cried.

E: Really?

W: I’m a really emotional person. I can really cry. I can really get lost in a movie. “No not the puppy, why?!” Those things, where I think "Willem, act normal". But no it was a beautiful movie.

E: Yeah I have a different opinion, because I just fell asleep. I fell asleep, because it all went so slow, it started so slow. I didn’t even watch the kiss in the rain scene.

W: The moment. It’s in literally every romantic movie. In the rain, it happens everywhere.

Ender: Yeah mate, it’s such a cliché actually, but yeah.

W: I bet you that they’re just standing there with a garden hose.

E: Definitely.

W: It can’t be that they’re waiting, “is it gonna rain today? We need to do that scene now”.

33:27

E: Checking the rain alarm while everyone is inside. There are definitely sprinklers there. It’s in a lot of romantic movies. Now that we’re talking about it, the filming you did with wtFock, you sometimes had scenes outside. Here we have those (light) spots, I assume that you don’t carry them outside. How do you guys do that?

W: Sometimes we do have spots outside, but as long as the light from the sun is okay – with a binocular (telescope), well it’s not a binocular, it’s a round thing you can look through and with it they can determine the brightness of the sun and if the sun is too bright for the lightning they need, then it gets shielded, the same that is in front of your lamps. With that they can dim the lights. Or when there is not enough they use isomo plates, that’s really weird. Sometimes there are really intimate scenes in a series where it looks like it’s really close to the skin of the actors. There is a camera with a plate on it and a stick for the sound above it, it sometimes made it really hard for me to focus, because everyone is sitting there and the director and I’m like “yeah, okay okay”. So it takes a lot to get it all professional.

E: Was there a crazy moment where you forgot your lines? That you’re laying in bed and you’re like “which sentence do I have to say now?”

W: Yeah we’ve definitely had a lot of bloopers. Yeah forgetting lines or.. the thing is, as long as the director doesn’t say cut, you have to keep going. It’s a matter of "how do I improvise myself around this scene to get to the point we actually have to get to", because you have a scene and you have your lines, but if you forget something, then you do know the main lines of where the scene has to go to. You know the scene will end in a kiss or something and these subjects will be spoken about in the conversation, so when you forget your lines, you try to work your way through it as best as possible. And when the director says it wasn’t good, then we’ll do it again. I’ve had a lot of moments where I forgot my lines and I was laying in bed with Willem and we would look at each other and we’d know that I had to say something, but I was stuck, so there would be a 10 seconds silence, hoping for them to say cut. Yeah so those kinds of moments a lot or moments where I… I also had that with Déjà Vu. I remember… by the way it was amazing to work together with such big names as Natali Broods and Koen De Graeve. And Koen, lovely person, was kind of the father figure on set and we had a scene, next to the bed, a quite emotional scene. And the camera was focused on me, close up on my face. And I still remember that, the sound was going, everything, and Koen had just told a joke, or made a face that made me laugh. So, I had to laugh really hard, but I had to act very sad. It was an intense scene of goodbyes. All the time, starting to laugh about everything. I still remember for wtFock we made a video with bloopers and those are very fun to watch back.

37:03

E: Are those bloopers ever published somewhere online?

W: I don’t think so.

E: I think if you’d be able to release them somewhere that a lot of people would be interested in them.

W: Yes, yes. I don’t know why, indeed. The fans would be happy with those.

E: I think a lot of people- because we were just talking about your biggest fan.

W: My biggest-

E: Your grandma.

W: My grandma, yes. Big shout out to my grandma.

E: Do you think she’s watching right now?

W: She’ll definitely watch, I hope so.

E: What’s your grandma’s name?

W: Micheline.

E: Micheline, thank you very much for watching Micheline.

W: Micheline.

E: I appreciate it.

W: Women in power. She deserves a special place. No really, she follows all the fan accounts of wtFock. And then sometimes, or very often, we call and she gives me an update of what’s being said on the internet. Or yes, I also remember, when scenes come out and there’s things being said and she’s like "Willem, is that true, what are they saying?" And I say "Grandma, it’s nothing, it’s all from the show." "Ah okay, okay." So yes, very sweet grandma. She’s like the grandma where everything was allowed. I think that’s the same for everyone. At home, there are a lot of rules, and then you got to sleepover at your grandma’s and it was like: "Oh, I get to stay up later, and she made pudding for me." Her vanilla pudding-

E: That good?

W: Grandma, if you’re seeing this, please make some vanilla pudding when I visit.

E: Dude, everything’s falling out of my pocket.

W: You’re letting everything fall out of your pocket? Maybe you need to buy another pair of pants.

E: The chair is too comfortable that I’m kind of sinking in it, and now I constantly get-

W: The conversation’s too comfortable-

E: It’s just my phone, it’s vibrating, I think it just vibrated out of my pocket. So, silent, great. Eh, what were we talking about? About your grandma.

W: About my grandma.

38:46

E: Now, totally different subject. If you were a fish, what color fish would you be?

W: A fish?

E: Which color do you identify most with?

W: Eh.

E: And you’re a fish too of course.

W: Identify with which color. The thing is, I’m in the scouts. And in the Jins, that’s the last year before you become a leader, we were given a color totem, and the whole group decided on a color that fits you.

E: All right.

W: And mine was mango orange.

E: Wow, that’s cool.

W: Yeah, I thought it was cool too. And it means, if I have to think back, mango has quite a hard peel, relatively, but the fruit itself is quite soft. And that refers to my personality. I’m someone that lets people in fast, around me, but in the beginning, suspicion is a little strong, but kind of like, testing. Let’s say that. But once- From the outside I might look a bit hard. A lot of people say that when I have my straight face-

E: Resting bitch face.

W: That I’m angry. I was once told on the subway by a dude, and I was just listening to music, staring in the distance, and I think, suddenly a dude comes up to me, in French: "C’est quoi ton problème, heh, tu regardes come ça, c’est quoi ton problème." And I was like: "I’m sorry". Apparently, I was looking in his direction with my-

E: Bitch face.

W: Bitch face. He must have thought I was looking for problems. So yeah, that’s why the mango, a little hard on the outside, but once you get to know me better, a soft, sweet boy. So that’s why, orange. So, an orange fish then.

E: A little bit of Nemo vibes.

W: Yes, Nemo then. But let’s, what’s that theory. Did you hear that?

E: Theory?

W: About Nemo.

E: What’s the theory?

W: Haven’t you heard that? I keep seeing that online. I’m having a crisis. So the thing is, your childhood will get ruined.

E: Fuck man.

W: The thing is-

E: But there really are, no keep going, I have something I want to say afterwards.

W: The thing is, I’ve heard, that Nemo is Latin for nobody, and that the father is imagining that he still has an egg left, but that that fish doesn’t actually exist.

E: Oh fuck.

W: And that Dory joins him, and he sees, we’re actually not looking for anyone, but because he has memory issues, he constantly forgets that they’re not looking for anyone. So, they’re actually looking for nobody. And I saw that online and I was like.

E: Damn, so all the eggs are eaten, but he imagines that someone still has to be there.

W: Yes, something to keep living for.

E: Fuck man, that’s very brutal. That’s very fucked up.

W: Sorry to everyone for who Nemo is ruined now.

E: There’s a similar theory about Phineas and Ferb, and then Candice, their sister, is based on a true story about a girl that lost her brothers and still imagines that they're still doing stuff in the garden. And she keeps telling her mom: "Look, look, they are still here, they’re doing that." And that the mom says: "They’re not there." And that’s why she can never see that. You get it? Brutal right?

W: My whole childhood is ruined. Fucking hell.

E: That’s going to be the title of this podcast.

W: Childhood ruined.

E: We’re ruining your childhood.

42:17

W: We’re ruining your childhood. No but that’s good because, thankfully, I have a half-sister, but I say sister because I think half-sister is an ugly word, of seven years old. She thinks she’s 16. She’s a real diva.

E: Oh wow, okay.

W: She’s very, I’ll tell you a story later, but the thing is, I experience all those things with her again. In the beginning it was like, turning the tv on, Bumba, again. And I could secretly watch with her without feeling guilty. I was like, I’m watching Bumba and secretly I’m enjoying it, but sssh, I’m just watching it with my sister.

E: That exactly.

W: And now it’s Ketnet, like Hoodie, those series that she’s watching. And yes, I notice that because of all the technology today, she has an iPad, she’s on YouTube, she’s watching those self-made crafts.

E: 7 years old?

W: 7 years old, yes.

E: Wow.

W: She watches those- where people are playing with Barbies and they make a little play with them online on YouTube and they do stuff. Yes, a tablet. She has an iPad that’s bigger than her head. That makes me think- well, an iPad is usually bigger than everyone’s head. Or well, almost.

E: Not if you have a mini of course.

W: Her head isn’t that big.

E: Okay.

W: She’s on it a lot though. But she’s a real diva. I think the best story I have, there’s multiple. I remember the story, we were sitting at the table and she was having another moment of "I’m the princess, and everyone can leave because I do what I want and fuck you all". But the thing is, there’s five kids at home. I have a brother and two stepbrothers. So, she has four brothers, and she knows very well that she has four brothers. And that makes her feel even more like she’s the princess at home. So, we were sitting at the table. And she kept staring at my dad like this while throwing her cutlery on the ground. Like "what are you going to do". And my dad was like: "Liv," because her name is Liv by the way, "stop that."

E: That wasn’t nice of Liv. (Liv sounds the same as lief which means nice in Dutch.)

W: No. Not nice of-

E: Haha. Sorry.

W: Badam pam ts. Can’t we put that under here. Yes.

E: No, sorry, keep going.

W: So, he was like: "Liv, stop that, stop that." He started to get annoyed, because she kept going. "Liv, what is so hard to understand about no." And then it got silent at the table so I thought, okay, it’s done. The o.

E: Oh wow.

W: 7 years old and she drops that.

E: Oh wow.

W: And I thought, okay.

E: Damn bro.

W: The o. That she even dares to say that. Yeah, and she has those moments. She was sitting at the table, with her mask on, eating. So, she pulled her mask down to eat, and then she was chewing with her mask on. And then I asked: "Liv, why are you wearing your mask?" "Yes, you came back from Ghent, you’re not in my bubble."

E: Okay, okay.

W: So, then I said: "Okay, that’s fine." It’s crazy how that goes around among young children. Because my sister came back home from school crying once. And I asked her: ‘Liv, what’s wrong?’ "Yes, my friends didn’t let me play with them." So, I was like: "Why?" "Margot says I’m not allowed in her bubble."

E: Oh wow.

W: See, that’s becoming the new- we played with Pokémon cards on the playground and now it’s about playing games in bubbles because it’s so-

E: Damn.

W: Yes, you’re only allowed to have four people in your bubble so we don’t play with more than four.

E: Oh wow.

W: So I found that kind of crazy, or confronting that it made me think like, even at such a young age it has an impact. And I know that the-

E: That it leaves an impression.

W: Yes, and I know that my dad-

E: It’s sad that children have to think about it.

W: Yes, exactly.

E: Well, it’s not that- everyone should think about it of course.

W: Yes, yes, of course. It’s also that I know the way my dad feels about raising, that he tells Liv straight up about things that are happening in the world. He doesn’t make things seem nicer, or saying, eh, yes, no, but that’s- The classic story of how babies are made, with the cauliflowers, and what not.

E: I also just think-

W: How am I going to explain that to my kids?

E: If you don’t make it a taboo to start with, is it that bad? It’s just- it’s just. Oh well, that’s a whole other conversation.

W: Yes, no, definitely.

E: But straight up just telling what’s going on to your kids. I think I would prefer that to making up a story about the flowers and the bees.

W: Yes, yes.

E: Because the story about the flowers and the bees, I don’t even know how you actually- pollinating and stuff, is that what that means?

W: You do it like this, pollinating.

E: Yes, no, exactly.

W: Yes, but well, children, that’s still a long time from now.

E: Do you want kids, you think, later?

W: Yes, please.

E: Do you think you would be a good father?

W: I hope I would be a good father. Despite my parents’ divorce, I really do… I do look up to my parents. I’m proud of the way they raised me. So yeah if I would be a good father… sometimes, but maybe that’s the age, kids frustrate me. I’m a leader in the scouts for the Welpen and Welpen -great guys- but they can also be annoying and say “I’m not participating” and “that’s a stupid game, can we do something else?” and I’m like “we invest so much time in this and so much preparation, please participate” so sometimes that bothers me. But I would prefer not to have just one (child). Certainly more than one because… are you an only child?

E: No I have a little brother.

W: Yeah only child… with all due respect to people who are only children but sometimes I think… for example, I’m very happy that I have a brother. Not that it wouldn’t be fun without a brother per se, but I don’t know, the contact I have with my brother is nice.

E: The thing is, you don’t know what you’re missing so it’s hard to miss it I guess. But I do think that my brother has been a great added value to my life.

W: Yeah, yeah.

E: In the same way, I never really had grandparents. They all died before I was born and the grandfather I did have was quite old when I was actually aware that I had a grandfather. So I’ve never really had the grandparents experience that you see with family gatherings and stuff. But I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything but I still know how much other people benefit from having grandparents. Also what you just said about how often you call each other and stuff. I think that’s the same with being an only child. If you don’t have any brothers or sisters, you don’t know what it’s like to have that, what you’re missing. But if you do have it, it’s an added value I think.

W: Yes, exactly. No that’s true. My brother is very helpful to me now. I know that I can count on him.

E: Older or younger by the way?

W: Older.

E: A lot older?

W: 21.

E: 21.

W: Oh boy I had to think about how old my brother is. Embarrassing. Love you man. No but we had - maybe you had that too – but when we were younger, we really fought.

E: Physical?

W: Real fighting. Yeah, it’s has now gotten much better. I think we understand each other a lot better, but it used to be real… we had Catch WW on the Wii and we reenacted that on the couch so that was… “In the right corner Ramy Stereo” and we were bare-chested and both had one boxing glove on and fighting each other until one of us cried, bled or gave up. Usually it was me.

E: That’s just the fate of the little brother.

W: I always went… I’ve never admitted that actually, [whispers] it’s a confession. I’ve never admitted it, but afterwards I always went to my parents and cried “Kwinten hurt me”.

E: That’s really… that’s the moment, you feel it coming and you think “ah fuck no, if I hit again it’s probably over but I want to…” [cross-talk] “no no no don’t tell mom! Don’t tell mom!” I think I was a pretty nice big brother. We often did shit together. We were at home playing on the couch together and Olaf bumps into a large box that was standing there and the box, bigger than Olaf back then, fell down on his hand.

W: Oh shit.

E: So Olaf broke his hand. And I thought “I made him jump over those chairs” and then you have to say “sorry sorry don’t tell them, don’t tell them!” but yeah if your hand is fucking broken, you’re not gonna stop crying because your big brother says “don’t cry”. Yeah, that are…

W: Yes, but the relationship [between Willem and his brother] has improved. Okay we still have our discussions but... I think moments like when we’ve both been to a pub or something and we come home at the same time and we’re always hungry and standing in the kitchen making sandwiches. Those are great moments. I don’t necessarily need to have emotionally heavy of deep conversations with my brother to know that he’s there and that I can have a good time with him. So I think that’s the added value of having a brother or brothers in general.

E: Do you guys also have a specific sense of humor? Or like those moments when the two of you are laughing and your parents or people around you think “what the fuck is going on?”

W: Yeah we speak some slang to each other for fun. Like “stu stu” and [my slang knowledge is very limited so I have no idea what he’s saying here lol], those kinds of things. Typical slang from Brussels and Leuven. It’s funny because my parents are always like “why are you talking to each other like that?” and recently, I was leaving and my mom said “stu stu!” so they are adopting those words and then my brother and I can’t stop laughing.

E: Also if your mom suddenly says “are we going to chill later?” and I’m like [laughing] “what? Mom!”

W: “Okay??”

E: It’s kind of cute. Yeah it’s fun. And what are… I almost want to go deep like…

W: That’s okay.

E: Is there a particular interaction or experience you’ve had with your brother that sums up your relationship right now? Or are those the moments when you’re laughing and eating at night? It doesn’t have to be a super deep or emotional moment.

W: I think it’s an accumulation of those moments and emotional moments too. For example, after it was over with my ex. I was really down back then, it hit me pretty hard. Those are the moments when I can walk into my brother’s room in the middle of the night and he’s there for me. I know that dude is always going to be there when something’s wrong, no matter how much we argue or how much we shit at each other. I just know, and I hope he does too, that I can call him 24/7, walk into his room 24/7 and he will be there or ready to listen. I think that’s just something… the fact that we know that about each other, that creates that bond. And the thing is, if only he would do his best and go to work, earn real money… because we went on holiday together and he still hasn’t… he still has some work to do but we’ve already planned something. I’m really looking forward to it. We’re planning to go surfing in Portugal together. Those are moments I just know I can go somewhere with him and have the time of my life without-

E: …That you can remember for the rest of your life what you did together.

W: Yeah, absolutely. Those moments that I want to cherish or want to keep or experience.

E: My little brother is also just the most annoying dude on this planet who I love the most.

W: Exactly that combination. Annoying, but you love them.

E: Of course. The cameras are back on. That means we’ve been at it for over 50 minutes.

W: 50 minutes? It feels like we’re chatting for 20 minutes.

E: Exactly.

W: Pleasant.

E: That’s good. If it’s pleasant and the stress is gone.

W: Do you actually like me? “No I hate you. We’re going to finish. It has been good.”

55:29

E: No we’re not going to finish yet, but before we do, is there anything you’d like to send out into the world before we finish? On average there are 10 to 50 people watching. Is there anything you want to say to them?

W: To the 10 to 50 people?

E: Yes.

W: 10 to 50 people, you are awesome. No, what I’m saying… maybe a little deep but it doesn’t matter. Very often in your life you are going to encounter that you run into a wall, that you’re going to have setbacks, that you think “I don’t want to anymore, I can’t to this anymore, life is all one big shit show” but I think that there is a certain… at least I believe that – everyone has their own opinion of course- that a certain path has been mapped out for everyone. Not necessarily that things are set in stone but there is a road that you are going to take and that road is going to have curves, is going to have hills, is going to have valleys, is going to have everything. Maybe it’s a gravel path, maybe rocks you stumble over but -it sounds a bit stupid- put on your best walking shoes and just walk that path the best way you can. Just try to live life with complete joy and euphoria because you’re 100% worth it. No matter what other people say or think about your ideology or style or way of life. Everyone is entitled to it or should be given the opportunity to be appreciated for who they are. I think that’s something we do too little in this society, but yeah.

E: Just don’t be too hard on yourself in the end?

W: Yeah, don’t be too hard on yourself. A lot of people blame themselves too much. Or “oh I’m like that and I don’t fit in because of that” or something. Then I think: so be it.

E: Do you sometimes feel that you should do more or have achieved more at this age? Of course you’re already doing a lot of cool shit but social media, I know there is a highlight reel of all people’s achievements and that sometimes it’s very difficult to filter between what is real and how much is that person actually sitting on the couch doing nothing. Do you sometimes feel that because of social media of because of your environment or I don’t know, that you’re not doing enough?

W: Gosh, sometimes I think my life is too full.

E: Too full?

W: Not that I’m saying “oh I have so many things to do” but I’m like... I’m letting that grow organically or so.

E: Not putting too much pressure on yourself?

W: Not putting too much pressure on yourself. I’m doing a course now that I’d like to finish because I’ve had those two projects and there are friends of mine who say “why are you still studying? You’ve had your opportunity, you’re going to get new opportunities right?” and I say “hey! I’m also only 19”. Sometimes I think “fuck Willem you should have achieved more already” but I also think I’m only 19. There was a conversation at school… I really think that’s one of the added values of the course. We receive an observation report twice a year, 5 pages where the teacher writes about you and how they see you, what they think about you, what your qualities are, what you still need to work on. It’s always spot on. So strange how they can just see right through you, even though I sometimes try to hide it. Yeah, where was I going with this… we had subsequent conversation about it and I said to my teacher “sometimes I feel like I’m too young for this course” that I have too little life experience. There are people in my class who are in their 20s or older, who have already studied something else before this, have read a lot more, seen a lot more than me, a lot more experience and I think “fuck, I don’t have anything”. People talk about certain topics and I don’t follow at all. I mentioned that I felt too young and she [the teacher] said “you’re young, but that also has its advantages. Your youthfulness can actually be an interesting tool in this course and look at it from a different perspective”. So I’m convinced: don’t be too hard on yourself, don’t think “whew, I’m already 20 and I haven’t achieved anything yet” so to speak. I even saw a video recently where… “if you don’t make it in your 20s, you might make it in your 30s and if you don’t make it in your 30s, you might make it in your 40s”. There are so many… there really are a lot of people… people often forget that there are people who only find out what they want to do or discover their passion later in life.

E: And also just… I think it’s so ridiculous that you set certain goals for a certain age or something. That it’s so expected that by 18 you must have completed high school and by 25 you must have had your first job interview, by 28/30 you must have a house and a serious relationship where you’re committed to for the rest of your life and by 40 you must have already had a promotion, that you can provide for yourself and fix your pension. All those fucking predetermined milestones. I think that’s kind of bullshit, you know?

W: Absolutely.

E: If that were the case, then I should graduate in a few years so to speak while I’m clearly not studying here because I have – fuck normally I have a re-exam today. And here we are.

W: Here we are.

E: I knew I was doing this but I mean that’s just… there’s so much time. I’m 22 now and I’m doing some shit, if I go nuts now or people don’t want to listen to this podcast anymore, don’t want to see what I do online, okay then I have to look elsewhere. But I did this and I went for it and I tried. I’m 22. Even if I go nuts now and it’s all gone, I’m only 22. There are still so many ways it could go. A lot of people don’t have a job at 22. If I started looking for a new job or something now, hopefully I’ll have one by 25. Then it’s still okay because I’m only 25. I don’t know, I always find that… I could go on for a long time about this. I think those predetermined milestones/goals of things that you must have achieved by a certain age, I just think it’s bullshit.

W: I sometimes make the comparison that people too often see life as the sports world. Football players who are good until 35 and then they are done. As if you must have already performed before that age. That’s not how it works. You really have all the time and you really don’t have to stress. I also notice that many people… you mentioned re-exams. That people say “fuck I have re-exams, oh no I’m not going to pass, oh no you have extra…” chill. You do your best, but suppose you have to repeat a year, that’s not a disaster either, is it?

E: What I also think is crazy is how many people have studied law and you eventually hear that they ended up in a marketing agency because they found it much more interesting. When I talk to some people who… I was seeing a social media manager recently [laughs] “seeing”, I was talking to him.

W: “seeing” okay [laughs].

E: I was talking to him.

W: [joking] Ender has something to say.

E: And I asked “what did you study?” and he said biochemistry. “How the fuck did you end up here?” Him: “uh yeah that just wasn’t the right fit for me. I have a master’s degree but I started working here because I found it much more interesting”. I thought: why am I pretending that the degree I’m trying to get is going to determine the rest of my life, you know?

W: Absolutely.

E: If there are so many people now… because he was only 28 or something. So I thought “aah okay so you’ve been studying biochemistry for so many years and now you’re here – I don’t know if I’m talking about the correct position – but now you’re just sitting here making content. Cool. But why do I attach so much importance to that one direction I’m studying right now that doesn’t even have anything to do with media or anything. I mean I’m very interested in media, I’m studying economics. Which is also interesting, but that’s not what I see myself doing in the coming years.

W: Yeah, yeah.

E: Anyway enough about me. Do you think you could win in a fight against a cow?

W: [laughs] I really like that. You can switch to totally different shit like that. Like before you suddenly asked what color fish do you want to be. Okay. That’s nice. Win… I’ve heard if you knock over a cow it dies. That it has a heart attack then. We don’t want to kill cows okay!

E: And purely hypothetical, you’re just standing in a kind of meadow so it’s not super big so you can’t go in all directions. There is a limited domain. You come face to face with that cow and you have to begin. No weapons. You’re standing there and the cow stands there and you both know you’re going to fight.

W: It knows that too?

E: It knows that too.

W: [makes mooing noises] okay ca va.

E: It’s not a bull but it does have horns so in fact it would-

W: I would shit my pants. I’d give up already. I would lie on the ground, come on. Really crazy, I saw Jackass recently. Those guys, that Wee Man, who was in that link with the bull and he’s being catapulted, so to speak.

E: I don’t understand how those guys aren’t all dead yet.

W: Yeah they are really crazy.

E: There was also a rumor that Wee Man died from a bowling ball during… but apparently that wasn’t true.

W: I don’t know.

E: Fucked up shit. Would you win against a cow?

W: Would I win against a cow? No, I wouldn’t win against a cow. I don’t think I would win against a cow.

E: I think I would. I think just like with a bull I would try to jump out of the way like that and once you’re on the side it’s just a matter of pushing. If what you said is true, it’s game over when it’s down and you know, that’s your tactic.

W: But the thing is, a cow is heavy, isn’t it?

E: True.

W: You can’t just push it over like that, can you?

E: Sure, but it’s a matter of life or death, isn’t it? The adrenaline rush. You have to image, a cow just comes running towards you. The adrenaline that goes through your body. You shouldn’t underestimate the power you have then.

W: Just find the best patch of grass and when it’s there, sneaky knife in the back. No, now people are going to think I’m that kind of person.

E: That you’re just a snake.

W: Snake. Definitely and I admit it. No, that would be fucked up.

E: I’m going to do one more thing that’s important. I’m going to find a Twitter shout out and in the meantime, I already asked you what your message is to the world and that was a beautiful message. Got something more banal that you’d like to share? Something that you want to share from your social media or something?

W: What do you mean from social media?

E: Where they can follow you. You can say something if you have a really good video that you want to share. “Check me everywhere”.

W: No I don’t have… people should do what they feel like doing. Do you think I’m cool, do you think I’m fun, follow me on Insta. No really doesn’t matter. Doesn’t really matter.

E: Alright, I’m just going to scroll and you say stop. I’ll go back and forth and you have to say “yes that’s the one who gets to have this week’s shout out”.

W: Exciting huh. Stop.

E: [reads twitter account] M. Verschuren.

W: M. Verscheure.

E: Is that…

W: [reads quote] “If you were never sad, you wouldn’t know you could be happy”.

E: Wow. Damn bro.

W: I’m going to edit my quote.

E: “If you were never sad, you wouldn’t know you could be happy”. Wow. If you didn’t have shitty days, you wouldn’t know what the best days of your life were.

W: Exactly. But what if you get stuck in your shitty days for the rest of your life?

E: That won’t happen. That’s my biggest fear.

W: Me too.

E: Looking back at your life and thinking-

W: …Fuck I’ve never been there again.

E: …That’s where I peeked. Hope that doesn’t happen. Anyway M. Verscheure thank you very much for listening, I really appreciate it. You as well, I think?

W: Absolutely, absolutely. How much were you going to pay me?

E: 50 euro.

W: Then I’ll come… awesome. Super cool.

E: Thank you so much to everyone who listened. I appreciate it. If you want to hear more you can always subscribe to this channel. It’s also good for my ego. I’ll just put your Instagram link in the description, for people who are interested. Okay, that was it.

W: Thanks, it was fun.

E: There’s an audio only episode on Spotify every Sunday and the video comes out on Monday. That’s it. See you next Monday. Or Sunday. Peace.

[lizacstuff]

Liza that 3rd fragman 👀 "if I was born a 100 times I'd fall in love with you everytime" Eda saying this is their last obstacle and nothing can separate them, serkan's "I'll be right back, close your eyes I'm here" If this isn't all a red flag for shits about to hit the fan then I don't know what is LOL (but also how cute to Edser look and them telling each other they love each other very much 😭😭😭)

That fragman is both the SWEETEST and the MOST OMINOUS thing I’ve ever seen. ALL AT ONCE.  

Friends... we’re gonna go through some things.  That being said, everything is going to be great. These writers have been solid so far, and I have faith they have come up with something really interesting to increase the longevity of this show. And I don’t know about you, but I’m prepared to go through some things if it means keeping Eda and Serkan for longer.  (I heart them)

This show is about Eda and Serkan and their love story, at it’s core it’s a comedy, it will all lead to happy things, but... yeah, buckle up! 

I have a lot of asks both about the fragman and last ep, so I’m going to answer a bunch under the cut. 

Anonymous said: The fandom theories about episode 28 have gotten so wild that I literally think the most shocking thing would be if they actually got married and were not separated (emotionally or physically). What if the earlier painful episodes were to make us believe that things couldn't possibly go right in 28 and it's a reverse psychology trick?

You could be right!  I like your thinking. I checked on twitter and I had to back away slowly. The juvenile temper tantrums were too much for me today.  

Look, I think it’s clear something big is coming. It has to, there has to be something that shakes up the show. Some of the theories are more upsetting and catastrophic than others, but the writers won’t do anything that dings either character or their love for one another.  Whatever happens will showcase the connection between these two and the chemistry between the actors, that’s the point of everything, and anything that does those things is gonna be a-okay with me. 

@jan31​ Hi Liza. Do you think we are going to see the wedding in 28 or they will leave it on a cliffhanger for next week. Lots of theories going round mainly cos of Neslihan saying new dimensions coming in episode 29, which could just mean married life etc. I have seen suggestions of memory loss, it's all a dream since episode one. I would personally love Eda to wake up like in episode one but for it to be a total turn around and she is the boss and Serkan the employee. Eda being robot yildiz appeals to me!!! I know it will never happen but leave me here with my dreams!!

I started the day at 90% sure they’ll be married in 28/29, but now I’m down to like 30% that they’ll get married in these episodes. I really, really want them to get married before whatever happens happens, because every scenario I can think of for this reset or starting again, seems like it would be better if they were married.  

However, the shooting spoilers from today, make me question that. Namely the videos where Hande appears to still be wearing the ring on her right hand. We shall see, that could be for many reasons. 

Honestly, though, I wouldn’t hate a memory loss storyline. Seeing one of them (and Serkan’s line in the trailer makes it seem like it might be him) lose their memory and have to fall in love all over again? There are worse fates for a shipper than getting to experience that all again but in a different way.  

Anonymous said: Your response to the fandom drama anon was so good, it's exactly how I feel. While I don't know what the old posts that were like are (that's shady as fuck) I did see all the other drama go down and wow. The actresses def need to stay in their lane and some of the fans, hoooo boy, it's obvious they're young based off their reactions alone. Had to unfollow some people once I realized what they were like. Also some of the IRL shipping reminded me of col*fer stuff, reading into everything and blowing it out of proportion (which then gets picked up by paps....). But you're right in that at least the show related drama is tame compared to OUAT. But still, people being too careless even while they know the paps see everything and harass Kerem and hande (omg did you see the video of hande the other day stopped in the van and she looked so overwhelmed 😔)

You’re referencing this post here about yesterday’s drama. 

Today Neslihan made it worse by addressing everything and claiming she didn’t like all those Hande-bashing posts because... wait for it... she was HACKED. Oy. Hackers got in and went back two years to like gross posts about Hande? Sure, Jan. While I don’t believe that for a second, I guess that at least gives her cover with Hande so they can all pretend it’s true and move on so it’s not awkward on set.  But, yikes, she needs to consult a publicist, she took a narrative that was circulating in certain circles in fandom and made sure all her followers were aware. Not very savvy. 

As for the paps coming after Hande, yes I did see her in the car, she did look overwhelmed. Back off vultures!!! That’s why I think Kerem sometimes throws himself to the wolves so that doesn’t happen. She always handles them like a pro, but you can tell she’d rather be anywhere else on earth than talking to them. 

The pap stuff is worse than I’ve seen before, they’re like vultures circling for any conjecture (sometimes made up out of thin air) they can turn into a question and blame fans. OUAT actors dealt with nothing like this. Also I can’t believe they never ask about the show. Like after last week? They could legit ask about the sex scene which probably would have given them some angle on the actors that they wanted, (especially since it was too hot for Turkish TV) but they let that pass them by, and instead asked the same questions about being together that they never answer. Dumbasses. They are not only awful people, they are awful at their jobs. 

In Van, the paps pay off crew members for info, they always know more than fans. Also I don’t remember stars of my shows getting this level of tabloid attention before. Except for on Riverdale, Lili and Cole generated that level of interest, and while I didn’t pay terribly close attention to them, I feel like they rarely talked to the paps, were just photographed. Also I don’t suspected the CW of calling the paps on them, but I suspect either the network or production company of sometimes calling them on Hande and Kerem. 

Anonymous said: Do you think it’s weird that they didn’t touch the kidnapping at all in either trailer? They might not have filmed it in time for the 1st one but certainly the 2nd. And I’m definitely not complaining about the ones we got because its like a fairytale but the kidnapping was the cliffhanger...? 🧐 I think they should’ve just left the princes storyline at “he went back to his country” but then they didn’t so......

If they’d left his story at just going back to his country, then the Prince really wouldn’t have served his purpose. He was brought on to cause some sort of trouble, so they probably need him to cause the trouble before he goes, lets hope it ends with this kidnapping!

And to answer your question, yes, I do think it’s weird that neither trailer touched on it. On any other show I’d think it was a huge red flag, but on this show maybe not as much because  a) there’s obviously a lot of romance in this episode, it’s not crazy that they are focusing on that to draw people in with the promos  b) this show likes to do cliffhangers that end up being no big deal, that happens a lot.  

Who knows it could turn out to be a big deal that shapes the rest of the episode in some unexpected way (Eda’s captured the whole episode and she’s dreaming about wedding prep, or... who knows) but I think it’s more likely that they resolve in the first 5-10 minutes and then move on.  Since we know from the summary (not that I trust those) that Serkan goes on the bachelor weekend, it feels like the Prince is taken care of prior to that. I don’t think he’d leave her alone for a second if there was a chance the Prince was still a threat. Perhaps Babaanne is pissed he tried to kidnap Eda and tells them she’ll handle it herself???

Anonymous said: Semiha not being in the promo is highkey suspicious. The actress is promoting the episode lol. She's about to Evil Queen this wedding ceremony but you know what, I'm fine with whatever she has planned if they end up married at the end of the day. What's funny is that since a lot of fans these days will assume that there will be shocking negative plot twists, not actually having one here would be a plot twist so I hope the writers keep them together for whatever's next haha

You’re not wrong, at this point, having this wedding take place would be a shocking twist for all of us!  As for Semiha... hmmm... it will be interesting to see what her reaction is to Eda being kidnapped by her pick of suitor. Serkan Bolat might be the son of the man indirectly responsible for her parents death, but he would never hurt her. Take note, Grandbag!  

Anonymous said: Do you mind sharing your speculative scenarios?

After the trailer today, I don’t know if I can even remember some of them. 

Memory loss

Grandma forces Serkan to choose between Eda and his company/wealth,  he chooses Eda and they start over from scratch with nothing

Time jump

AU starting over, showing a different path they might have taken together

Dream

These actors playing different characters in a new story

I don’t think the last three are likely, but they did spring to mind after some of Neslihan’s teases. 

Anonymous said: So this show doesn't get like fantastic ratings (it actually seems to be on the lower end compared to all other dizis airing) but the social media engagement is off the charts. Why is that?!? Is the show just extraordinarily popular internationally? or that this is a "shipping" show? I'm floored by the numbers - its like no other show/fandom is even trying

The ratings were terrific during the summer. But to your point, it has a huge fandom both in Turkey and internationally, but it’s worth noting that most of those charts you see where it beats every other show in every imaginable social metric is just for Turkey.  

It’s one of those lightning in a bottle situations where you get the right property and the right actors together at the right time and magic happens.  And, for sure, the number one reason is the shipping. Shipping drives fandom engagement, and a fantastic ship with a juicy, fun, tropey love story is what this show offers. It also offers up two extremely attractive, talented, likeable leads with off-the-charts chemistry (plus the added speculation about an off-camera relationship that has intrigued more than a few fans, tabloids and gossip sites and fueled interest) who have done a good job of building the fanbase through their social media engagement. Plus the timing is part of it as well. I don’t know about you, but this show hit the spot during this pandemic and the horror of 2020. We all needed this escape. 

Anonymous said:Do you think something happened in the writers room after the backlash of 25 and fan disappointment after Ayse's announcement? I feel like a switch flipped and now we're in fanficland with how much good content we've gotten in these last two episodes. Like I thought maybe they should wrap up the series soon before the characters got completely off the tracks but they may be finding their groove now and I'm interested to see what their next twist is after they can write out Balca/Seymen.

I don’t know about a switch flip, this show has been fanfic land since the first episode!  The tropes! That is how I described it to multiple people when I first started watching: an AU fanfic come to life.

As for the writing changes, no, I don’t think backlash after 25 affected 26 or 27, because 26 was already 90% shot, and 27 already written. However, I assume they themselves could tell that 25 got just too dark and had strayed pretty far from the DNA of the series. While I didn’t think it was bad, it was not fun to watch and this show ought to be fun to watch. 

Let’s hope, however, that the backlash affects future episodes in that they know what works... and what doesn’t.  The last two episodes definitely felt reminiscent of the first batch of episodes. Light, funny, romantic. If they can keep that tone... I’ll be thrilled.

Anonymous said: i didn't realize how much i missed "together" edser until watching 27.. it's been so long since they were "officially" together and we also had such few episodes of it.. ppl have been comparing it to 12 and while in some ways i agree, edser are always so different here than they were there. 12 was them navigating their new relationship.. they were more shy and finding their footing.. here they are very much established, as they should be after knowing their love for so long in comparison to 12!

Yes, it was lovely. You know I’ve preached a lot about how even though Eda and Serkan were broken up, they’ve still been together all this time. And it’s true, but there is something about them truly being together that is magical. We never got enough of that the first time around (a writing mistake in my opinion) and they’re so good together it’s lovely to watch. 

Anonymous said: Serkan not asking for help from Balca when asking his team for help with the marriage gifts preparations and refusing her offer of help when she asked made me so happy. Good job Serkan! He's learning! She's not trustworthy!

Yes, that was a good moment. And he was eyeing her very warily when she offered. The thing I don’t understand is how has no one caught on that she’s working with Babaanne? That entire office is filled with nosy people, has no one remarked on the number of times Balca has gone up to the office or they’ve disappeared for lunch at the same time? Come on Leyla! Come on Melo! Notice these things!  

Anonymous said: Fingers crossed that we finally make progress towards getting rid of Seiman & Balca now that all the girls were drugged and Eda was put in the car in the last episode. Unless Seiman has a change of heart and takes Eda back inside before anyone wakes & the guys get there then the show has to address it. Although I do not think Balca is going to back down unless Serkan straight up tells her he has zero interest in her and never will. Totally fine if that happens in the next episode.

Will Balca backdown even if she’s humiliated like that? She’s so delusional I’m not sure. What I am sure is that she’s dangerous. This came in before we saw the other two fragmans that have no mention of the kidnapping. Hard to picture how that is so easily resolved. Unless she frees herself (which seems unlikely in her groggy state) or maybe Melo’s future boyfriend is able to stop it before they get far?  Or I don’t know. I just know that I want to see Serkan lose his mind and all the other characters see Serkan lose his mind and then I want it to be over. LOL.

Anonymous said: As much as I am loving everything Edser, I cannot wait for Seiman, Balca and Grandma to be gone. And I am even more annoyed to think that the show might try to redeem all 3 characters. All 3 of them are truly awful people and no need to waste air time trying to make the audience think any different. Just my opinion...🤷🏻‍♀️. Show please finally expose those 3 for the psychos they are and get rid of them.

Bye bitches!  I don’t think there’s any redemption for Balca and Seiman. They both have poisoned/dosed people, hard to come back from that.  And there is no need to redeem them because neither is compelling enough to be a long-term character. But maybe Granny, we probably will see a redemption arc for her. 

Anonymous said: i know you were worried a few weeks ago that with ayse leaving as writer, we probably wouldn't have the same sort of comedy as previous episodes... but istg the whole kiz isteme scene, especially with chef alex, had me almost crying with laughter. especially when serkan off the cuff just goes "well if that's an option..." to everyone misunderstanding alex "wanting" ayfer for 2 nights and then eda ready to beat him with the flowers he bought her... comedic gold lmao.

SO GOOD! I was thrilled to see that sort of comedy, the sort of comedy we’d come to expect, from these writers. I think it bodes very well indeed!  

That scene was amazing. I know Neslihan said that much of it was improvised. Probably that line from Serkan (since Serkan is SO out-of-his-mind in love I’m not sure he could even joke about having Eda only two nights a week! LOL) was improv from Kerem, and Aydan asking about the other nights, and Seyfi bringing up the weekend. And Eda’s very Hande-esque “Ser-KAN.” 

I just love rewatching that scene and checking out everyone who is breaking character and just losing it. Cagri most of all. He’s blurred aback there but you can see Ferit spends the whole time laughing or trying to stifle a laugh. Reminds me of Cagri in the scene in 18 when they’re watching the security footage he was losing it in that scene as well. 

Anonymous said: i'm scared - I think they are really about to give us all of these happy EdSer scenes only to have something happen RIGHT before the wedding ceremony due to Babaanne. Based on the last episode, I don't think there's any chance of a breakup (knock on wood) but what if Serkan gets arrested, goes to jail for 2 years, and we get a time jump?

This was sent before the last two teasers, so yes I think something is gonna happen. We shall see!  I don’t really think Serkan going to jail for 2 years is in the cards, at least I hope not!  Besides if Babaanne did that she would have no hopes of ever reconciling with Eda, so that seems unlikely she’d follow through and leave him there for so long a time. 

Anonymous said: With the last week's sex scene, they did a lot of fade outs but the scene was basically still there so it wasn't much wasted effort for the actors. But for what they're teasing in episode 28 - idk how they can get away with showing them in the shower at all if Serkan lifting Eda with her clothes on had required blurring? Is Eda dropping her robe even pushing it? It's intriguing indeed.

Great questions. We’re 36 hours from finding out (well I'm longer than that because I wait for the English subs, hee hee) All I know is I want to see these scenes.. one way or another! 

[mostlycompetentwriter]

“Blessings”- A Domesticated Drabble

F/M Pairing: Y/N X Bang Chan (Stray Kids)

Word Count: 4K

Warnings: Language...I guess?

Genre: Married Life AU, Parent AU

Note: This was a request from an anonymous user so I can’t tag them but here ya go!

I should have known better because it was one of those days teetering over the boundary of too perfect. I woke up next to Chan in bed, his hospital pager eerily silent, feeling as though I had been asleep for years. My body felt great, the sheets bundled around my waist because I was a notoriously bad bed partner, pulling the blankets further and further away from Chan as I sought additional warmth. But Chan didn’t seem to care, wearing nothing but boxer shorts as he remained statuesque-still with the heavy promise of a rare morning where he could sleep-in. I decided to leave Chan alone while I prepared breakfast, catching the attention of a still-groggy Felix who walked into the room with heavy eyes, grabbing a piece of toast before struggling back to his room. It was almost too peaceful, cooking alone in the kitchen with the company of my thoughts.

I fixed myself an omelet because I was feeling especially cheerful, flipping the eggs as the ingredients provided an alluring smell. Taking a seat at the counter, I started eating while scanning through my phone, excited to see a few promising emails swimming through the promotions tab. “Yogurt,” I murmured quietly, suddenly filled with an odd craving for the frozen treat.

Yet, just as quickly, my stomach suddenly started churning uncomfortably as if deciding that breakfast was a really bad idea. A wave of nausea washed over me like a profound warning before I was rushing to the bathroom. I tried to be as quiet as possible when I closed the door, dropping to my knees to empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet, groaning as I tasted the foul substance on my tongue. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been so sick, and I pressed my cheek against the cool surface of the floor, sweat pooling above my upper lip.

“Sweetie?” I heard Chan’s voice somewhere through my disoriented haze. “Are you okay?”

I swiped a hand across my face, flushing the toilet before pulling myself up against the sink. “I’m fine,” I tried to assure him, grimacing as I reached for my toothpaste.

“Are you sure?” Chan insisted and that’s when I knew that he must have heard my unfortunate bout of sickness. More than likely, every doctor instinct ingrained in him was demanding to assess my condition courtesy of endless training in college.

“I promise,” I said, closing my eyes against another passing pain of abdominal discomfort. 

“I’ll use Felix’s bathroom,” he said kindly and I thanked every possible deity for the inclusion of Chan in my life because he always understood when it was best to leave me alone.

“How about this one?” Minho asked loudly, holding up the pregnancy test for everyone in the whole damn store to see.

“You idiot,” I hissed at him, snatching the offending object away. “I don’t need everyone in here knowing!”

“Congratulations,” an elderly woman said to Minho, offering him a pat on the shoulder and a wink in my direction.

“We’re both excited,” Minho said to the woman before I dragged him further away since he insisted on embarrassing me.

“I hate you right now,” I said, slamming a few different tests on the counter, waiting for the cashier to process my order. 

“You definitely have the mood swing thing,” Minho commented.

“And you definitely have the asshole thing.”

“Why do we even have to do this?” Minho asked. “I’m sure Chan can just run some stupid tests or something.”

“Home tests are better for me right now,” I said, handing the cashier my debit card. “And Chan is a general doctor. I would set up an appointment with the OBGYN.”

“Are you planning to set up an appointment without him?” Minho asked with a gasp. “Can you film his reaction when he finds out?”

“I’m not trying to keep anything from him,” I snapped. “I need to be sure first before I go telling Chan that he knocked me up.”

“It’s not surprising, Y/N,” Minho said. “You told me that you stopped using Condoms, so what the hell did you expect?”

“It felt better that way,” I whined, snatching the grocery bag from the innocent cashier who was watching us with trepidation.

“Bad things always feel better for you,” Minho said, reaching into his jacket for a box of cigarettes. “See?”

“At least pregnancy won’t murder my lungs.”

“Yeah? But you’ll feel like shit,” Minho argued like the supportive best friend that he was. “Swollen feet, morning sickness, and carrying around an extra ten pounds? I’d rather lose my lungs.”

“Remind me again why I decided to call you this morning,” I lamented. 

“Because you weren’t going to ask Felix to shop pregnancy tests with you and Chan was unavailable?”

“That’s right,” I nodded, pausing next to my car. After my corvette was totally wrecked a year ago, Chan had decided that small cars just weren’t safe enough. This is why my ass had to drive around a Sienna Minivan now despite my protests.

“The Grandma car could use a fresh coat of paint,” Minho snickered and I sighed as I observed my bloated reflection in the side view mirror.

I held the pregnancy test up high, trying to catch it just right in the dim light of the bathroom. “Five minutes,” I murmured, re-checking the box to make sure I had read the instructions correctly. “What the fuck am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Are you almost done?” I heard Minho’s voice from outside. “God, it can’t possibly take this long.”

“Will you come in?” I asked nervously because I was starting to really hate the fact that my urine on a stick was somehow supposed to determine a very important yes or no question.

“You’re still not pissing in there, are you?”

“Minho,” I snapped through the door. “Just get your ass inside!”

He twisted the doorknob, hesitantly looking inside to meet my glare. “Sorry,” he whispered, opening the door fully to join me. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” I said, trying to hand him the test but he quickly threw his hands up. 

“Didn’t you pee on that?”

“Grow the hell up,” I said, slamming the stick onto the counter. “It’s supposed to show a blue stripe if I’m pregnant.”

“So if there’s nothing, then we’re good?” he asked, squinting down at the device like he was suddenly far-sighted.

“Not necessarily,” I said, handing him the box. “Red if not pregnant.”

“But there’s nothing.”

“Thank you, asshole,” I grumbled. “Why do you think I brought you in?”

“You’re always dragging me into your problems, Y/N,” Minho said, shaking his head. “Just take another one I guess.”

I let out a groan. “I can’t spend all day taking pregnancy tests!”

“Is that so? Well, I could be with my girlfriend right now if I wasn't here with you,” Minho pointed out.

“Fine,” I muttered, grabbing a different test box.

After a series of failed observations, including an unfortunate incident in which Minho knocked a test into the toilet, we finally got a reading on a particularly expensive offering. “Pregnant,” Minho declared, glancing at me nervously. “Are you okay?”

“One more,” I insisted, but Minho reached out for my hand.

“Just go get tested, Y/N,” he said. “This will literally drive you insane.”

I whined at his words. “I don’t want to be pregnant right now, Minho. Chan and I haven’t planned for this!”

“Aren’t most pregnancies unplanned?” he grunted, swearing when I threw an empty test box at him. 

“They don’t have to be unplanned! A lot of couples talk about this with each other.”

“Wasn’t there an inherent agreement when you decided to let Chan fuck you raw?”

“You know what? Stop talking,” I said, shoving him out of the bathroom. “Go home to your girlfriend.”

“Call the doctor,” Minho retorted right before I slammed the door in his face.

The OBGYN office was way too bright. I squinted against the Halogen nightmare while fidgeting anxiously on the table, holding onto the hem of the oversized hospital gown they had loaned me to wear. A smaller cart sat next to bed offering a variety of dangerous tools that looked like they were meant for a serial killer’s house as opposed to a friendly office.

“Y/N?” an older woman greeted me, opening the door before locking it behind her. “How are you today?”

“I’m fine,” I said nervously, resisting the urge to jump out the window.

“Just relax,” the doctor said, scanning over a chart. “This is for pregnancy confirmation, then?”

“A possible pregnancy confirmation,” I said, and the doctor chuckled.

“I take it that this was unplanned?”

“Very much so.”

“Is that why the father is missing?”

I took a moment to glower at the doctor. “The father is missing because I don’t know if he’s actually a father yet. My husband works long hours at the ER. I didn’t want to bring him here if this turned out to be nothing.”

“Based on the symptoms you’ve described,” the doctor carried on as if ignoring my last rant. “And the home pregnancy test results, I don’t think you should expect negative lab work.”

I bit my lower lip, struggling to keep myself in check. In actuality, I wanted to scream at the nurse that she was definitely wrong because I did not want to be pregnant right now. “That’s why I’m here.”

The doctor nodded. “Go ahead and lean back, this shouldn’t take long.”

“Will it hurt?” I asked with a wince, slowly easing myself against the pillows.

“You shouldn’t feeling any pain,” the doctor replied, negotiating her stool to situate herself right between my open thighs. I had to force myself not to cover my exposed vagina, deciding that the doctor should spend no more than five minutes down there before I was forced to intervene. “Pull up your shirt for me,” she said, selecting one of the wands situated next to my bed.

I glanced at it suspiciously. “Is that going...inside?”

“It’s for your stomach,” she said, jerking an overhanging screen to eye-level. “I’m going to use a very small amount of what might look like jelly. It might feel cold on your skin.”

This warning still didn’t stop me from jerking in surprise when she placed the wand on my stomach, rubbing it over my skin with precision. “This is interesting.”

The doctor grinned. “After this, I’m going to need a urine sample as well.”

“Okay,” I managed, watching the screen with careful eyes, searching for any signs that there was something growing inside of me.

A few moments later she pulled back, removing her gloves with a snap. “All done.”

“Just like that?” I asked incredulously.

She offered me a smile. “That’s it.” 

“Holy shit,” I cursed, accepting the paper towels to swipe across the mess on my stomach.

“For your urine sample,” she said, offering me a sterile cup. 

I accepted it with a sigh. “How long will it take to get the results?”

“Not long,” she promised me with a wink.

I retreated into the adjoining bathroom after downing a few cups of water, waiting until I could finally accommodate her request before re-entering the room. “Here,” I said, offering her the sample.

“Great!” she chirped. “Your results will be ready shortly.”

I watched her leave before fanning a hand across my stomach. “Why did you choose now of all times?”

Silence greeted my words and I worriedly played with my wedding band while I waited impatiently for the doctor to return. In moments like this, I really missed having Chan at my side because he always knew the best ways to calm me down. Without his familiar presence, I was left succumbing to all of my nervous ticks including that nasty habit of picking at the skin around my cuticles. 

“Now I need a manicure,” I sighed, startling when the door abruptly opened to welcome my doctor back inside.

“Congratulations, Y/N,” she said, offering me a manila folder. “You’re pregnant. The scans are available for you inside that packet.”

The heavy revelation slowly settled in as my stomach churned uncomfortably.

“You’re quiet today,” Felix remarked, watching me over his bowl of popcorn. I couldn’t even remember what movie we had been watching.

“Tired,” I grumbled.

“I thought you had the afternoon off,” Felix scoffed. “Is it that hard answering phone calls?”

I glared at him. “Maybe it is.”

Felix held up his hands defensively, fingers glistening with a mixture of salt and butter. “Sorry for asking.”

In actuality, I couldn’t stop thinking about the scans sitting on top of the counter. There were a million different scenarios running around my head as I envisioned Chan’s reaction to the news. At this point, it was inevitable that I told him, no more hiding behind Minho as we experimented hopelessly with a bunch of stupid pregnancy tests. I had the confirmation in several successive scans and my heart was beating at an irregular pace against my chest.

Chan had called earlier to tell me that he was on his way home and I had immediately panicked. I had nothing prepared to say to him, except something stupid along the lines of “You see? This is what happens when you stop wearing condoms.” Then, I could shove those scans at his chest and hide away in my bedroom for the rest of the night.

But all rational thought completely failed me when I heard Chan’s key turning in the lock. “He’s home now,” Felix remarked, wiping his nasty hands on his jeans. “Maybe Chan can order us takeout.”

I slowly exhaled, watching my husband walk into the living room. “What have you guys been up to?”

I froze in place while Felix complained about the lack of suitable groceries in the refrigerator. “I ate a TV dinner for lunch, Chan,” Felix whined.

My husband rolled his eyes affectionately, glancing at me with concern. “Y/N?”

“I’m okay,” I assured him quickly, nervously wringing my hands together. “Can I show you something in the kitchen?”

“What did you break this time?” Chan joked, but his smile was gone as soon as he noticed my expression. “It’s never good when you look at me like that.”

“It’s...something,” I offered, leading a ponderous Chan into the kitchen with a nosy Felix trailing behind. I carefully picked up the scans from the table. “Chan,” I exhaled, gazing into his understanding eyes filled with adoration. But words were suddenly impossible and instead I shoved the manila folder at him. “Here.”

“What is it?” he asked with a trace of amusement, flipping open the cover to look at the first scan.

“It’s supposed to be a baby,” I replied, suddenly aware of Felix joining us in the kitchen.

“A baby?” Chan repeated, looking up at me with wide eyes. “Our baby?”

I nodded slowly. “I had a scan today.”

“We’re pregnant?” Chan asked, his smile growing wider with every subsequent confirmation. “We made a baby?”

“The sperm was good,” Felix nodded solemnly, taking the scans from an overjoyed Chan.

“Are you serious, Y/N?” he asked.

“I went to the doctor today,” I said. “The tests were all positive.”

“Why aren’t you more excited?” he asked, pulling me into his arms with careful consideration for my stomach.

I relaxed in his hold. “I’m nervous, Channie. Don’t you feel the same way?”

“Well, of course, I’m nervous,” Chan said, studying me carefully. “This is a big deal.”

I took in a deep breath. “We didn’t plan for this.”

“I know we didn’t,” Chan said, “but we should have anticipated the risks of dropping the condoms.”

“I hated those fuckers,” I complained. “Your cock feels better without them.”

Chan pulled me closer. “What did you expect, Y/N?”

“Married bliss for the rest of our lives?”

He chuckled. “Why can’t we have that with a kid?”

“Kids get in the way,” I said. “My parents had to send me to my neighbor's house just so that they could have quick sex every once in a while.”

“You’re worried that we won’t have sex anymore?” Chan asked in that ridiculous way of his that let me know I was being irrational.

“No,” I groaned, burying my face against the fabric of his t-shirt. “I’m worried that I’ll fuck everything up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do I honestly look like I could be a mother?” I asked, stepping out of his arms. “How do you even take care of a baby?”

Chan sighed, reaching out for my hand which I tentatively allowed him to hold. “Sweetie, we’ll learn these things together. You act like you’re all alone and that’s not true at all. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“You’re not scared?” I asked, brushing my thumb across his hand.

“Of course I am,” he nodded. “But I’m also really excited. I think that’s how most new parents feel regardless of whether or not they planned for a baby.”

I didn’t know what to say, but I could always find solace in his eyes. At least until Felix ruined the moment. “You totally knocked her up, bro!”

Chan sighed, glancing over his shoulder. “That’s not helpful, Felix.”

“Sorry,” Felix mouthed, taking the scans into the dining room. Meanwhile, I simply allowed Chan to maintain his familiar grip on my hand because there was no better feeling in the entire world.

Nine months progressed at the slowest possible pace as if the conspiring universe was determined I should suffer from every possible pregnancy symptom imaginable. I was beginning to think I was doomed to suffer, complaining to Chan until he finally forced me to revisit my OBGYN. “The sickness is really bad,” he explained to my doctor while I just groaned on the bed.

“Let’s have a look,” my doctor suggested leading to the unanticipated revelation that I was carrying not one, but two kids inside of me.

“Twins?” Chan gasped, clapping his hands together like he had just won the jackpot lottery. Meanwhile, I suddenly lost all motivation to even move from my spot on the examination table. Apparently, pregnancy symptoms were more severe when carrying multiple children, and I had just about reached my breaking point until one glorious day when my water broke while I was beating the shit out of Felix at MarioKart.

“That’s gross, Y/N,” Felix complained until I threw my phone at him and demanded he call Chan.

By the time my husband got home, I had finished ordering Felix around, demanding he pack my bags for me until there were two suitcases instead of one. “Are you going on vacation, sweetie?” Chan asked to which I offered him my most wilting glare yet. His face immediately paled. “Right, let’s get you to the hospital.”

I was practically numb with pain by the time we were finally checked-in, leaving me groaning on a hospital bed while my idiotic doctor explained that I wasn’t dilated enough. “How the hell is that possible?” I growled.

“What about an Epidural?” he suggested.

“She doesn’t want that,” Chan insisted until I reached out to firmly crush his hand beneath mine.

“I do want that!” I snapped. “And I want it right now before I die!”

“Of course! Whatever you want, sweetie,” Chan assured me, fleeing my hospital room like he had just seen a ghost.

I tried to lean back in the bed, growing more and more irritated with the endless contractions. My doctor insisted that I wasn’t ready, but I would hate to see how much worse this could possibly get. In the meantime, Chan returned only moments later with Jisung faithfully by his side. “No,” I snarled, pointing at Jisung. “Do not let him anywhere near me with needles.”

Graciously, Chan knew better than to object to my vicious demands. 

“Oh fuck,” I sighed in relief when the pain slowly started to ease. “This is amazing.”

Chan grinned from his seat next to me. “Do you feel better now?”

“I feel like I’m in one of those Willie Wonka cartoons,” I said. “Channie, I think this is what Heaven is like.”

Chan seemed amused by my reaction. “Was it really that bad, sweetie?”

“I think the kids were trying to split me open,” I told him. “My entire body was at their mercy.”

“I don’t think it’s their fault,” Chan teased. “After all, it’s just your body’s way of preparing itself.”

“Those women in the movies are fucking liars, Chan,” I said. “Pregnancy is not fun and I don’t recommend it to anyone. 0 out of 5 stars.”

Chan couldn’t hold back his laughter, leaning forward to brush a few strands of sweat-caked hair out of my eyes. “It’ll be over soon, sweetie. Then, we can finally meet our twins.”

“I expect two Mozarts, Chan,” I said. “For all this pain and suffering, I want two child prodigies who can grow up and make us lots of money.”

“Are you telling me that you’ve been incubating our retirement fund?”

“Hell yes.”

The doctor’s arrival disrupted our moment. “Shall we try pushing now?”

“Please,” I practically begged him, more than ready to do whatever it might take to end this unnecessary suffering.

“Remember your breathing,” the doctor reminded me and I quickly sought Chan’s hand, gripping it tightly between sweaty fingers. Chan was always strong, but apparently, even he found his limits when his wife was steadily crushing his hand. “Sweetie, it hurts,” Chan said, but didn’t try to pull away when I only gripped even tighter, screaming out through clenched teeth.

And several hours later, I was completely spent, breathing hard as the room filled with the sounds of distinct crying. “Congratulations, Y/N,” the doctor said, but I was already falling asleep, too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

I was still tired, despite my two-night stay at the hospital, coming home surrounded by people who insisted they needed to be involved in some capacity. Chan helped me walk to our bedroom, hand wrapped securely around my waist. Meanwhile, someone had decided it was a good idea for Han Jisung to manage both baby carriers while Felix slowly drug my bags across the floor, complaining about their weight. “They’re so cute!” Jisung squealed, bouncing the carriers with far too much enthusiasm.

I gripped tightly to Chan’s collar. “Please save my children from Jisung.”

Chan nodded, eyes perfectly serious as he adjusted my blankets. “Give me a minute, sweetie, I’ll be right back.”

I groaned, reluctantly allowing him to leave the room. Of course, the pain was absolutely worth it because when I finally woke up, I was greeted to the sight of two adorable tiny babies looking up at me with wide, curious eyes. “I did this?” I immediately questioned which Chan found amusing.

“Good job, sweetie,” he said, pressing a tender kiss to my forehead.

“I guess you helped too,” I grumbled in return.

I was drawn out of my memory by the sudden appearance of Felix who wore a bright smile. “Jisung is offended that you don’t trust him.”

“I’m just being protective,” I said. “You have to take certain precautions when it involves Jisung.”

“Well, I think we might go out later,” Felix mused, lingering by the doorway. “Are you still out of it?”

“It’s not so bad now,” I reassured him. “I did just push two kids out of my vagina.”

“Don’t need the visual,” Felix shuddered, moving out of the way for Chan who walked into the room with both baby carriers in hand.

“Jisung had to go back to the hospital anyway,” Chan said. “I’ll put the twins down in their room.”

“Okay,” I agreed, eyes following the carriers until they disappeared from sight. 

“How can you already be whipped?” Felix asked. “I’ve never seen you this way.”

“My maternal instincts, I guess,” I offered in return, drowsiness slowly summoning a new urge to bury my face in the pillows.

Felix seemed to notice my dilemma. “Next time we play MarioKart, you can’t interrupt the game in the middle of a round.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

In the background, I could hear Felix talking to Chan before my husband was sitting next to me on the bed. “Try to get some sleep, sweetie,” he encouraged me, but I was already one step ahead of him.

Later that night, after several wonderful naps, I convinced Chan to help me walk to the twins’ room. “Just for a little while,” I pouted at him because Chan could never resist me.

“Alright,” he agreed. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

I stuck my tongue out at him while accepting his outstretched hand. “I probably won’t break.”

“It’s my job to protect you,” Chan said, ushering me close to his side as we slowly made the arduous trek to the bedroom at the end of the hallway. Eventually, when they were older, we planned to give them their own rooms. However, for the time being, I knew it would make things a lot easier if we could take care of them at the same time.

“Did Felix go out earlier?” I asked Chan as we passed by his room.

“He went out with Hyunjin and Jisung.”

“That’s a very dangerous combination,” I said.

“They know how to stay out of trouble,” Chan said, but I was already reminding my husband to call Felix later just in case Hyunjin tried to convince them to go to a strip club downtown.

“Here we go,” Chan said, nudging open the door with his foot, leading me inside as we navigated the darkened space. Chan kept a firm grip around my waist as we both looked down into their cribs. I remember when we first set up the beds when Chan kept screaming at Felix and Jisung because they couldn’t figure out the instructions. Eventually, I called over Minho and his friend Seungmin who were more adept at solving the complicated steps.

“We did it,” Chan whispered, sweet voice soothing in my ear.

I looked down at my twins and felt a burst of pride. “Yeah, we’re pretty fucking cool, right?”

“The coolest,” Chan agreed, leaning down for a kiss which I was more than willing to reciprocate.

[orwocolor]

saturday mornings with borhap boys in bed

AN: As always, the rest of the boys are under the cut. Enjoy and don’t forget to comment :)

Gwilym

a loud beeping noise startles you

your body jerks up, and with your eyes still closed, your hand shoots to an alarm clock sitting on your bedside table, snoozing the alarm as quickly as possible

you groan and burrow back into duvets

you scoot over to gwilym who’s lying right next to you

although he’s still half asleep, he opens his arms wide and let you snuggle into him

he encircles his arms around you, pulling you as close as possible

you take a deep breath through your nose, and breathe in his scent

you nuzzle the crook of his neck, his beard scratching lightly against your forehead

he starts weaving his fingers in your hair but soon enough, his arm grows heavy on you and he’s back in deep slumber

and you desire nothing else and so you soon follow him

but as it usually it, five minutes later, the sound of the alarm clock pierces through your bedroom

this time, it’s gwil who reaches over you and dismisses the alarm completely

you roll on your back and rub your eyes

“I think we should get up,” you say, sheer reluctance apparent in your groan

“er, what about no,” gwil answers and moves to lie on top of you, pressing his ear against your chest, listening to your heartbeat

and also holding you in bed, and not letting you go

“come on” you insist, and give him a weak push, since your heart’s not in it

you feel like it is you whom you try to convince to get up rather than gwilym

“five more minutes” he whispers into your skin and slides down his hand to caress your side

“what about the kids?” you ask

“they’re fast asleep, it’s middle of the night”

“it’s light outside”

“irrelevant,” he says resolutely and pulls you closer to him

you move to rise up but he holds you still “come on, stay here”

“if I stay here, will you fix the dripping tap that you said you would fix about a week ago? I mean, I can fix it myself but where’s the fun in that,” you grin, “and besides, you promised”

he hides a chuckle into your chest and places a delicate kiss there “okay, I’ll do it”

“promise? for real this time?”

he huffs and raises on his elbows to look into your eyes

he licks his fingers and lifts them up “promise, scout’s honour”

“and you’re gonna do it first thing in the morning?” you smile at him

“I’m gonna do other things first” his eyebrows wiggle and you can’t help but kiss him

“but before I’m gonna get to it,” he continues when your lips finally part “let’s go back to sleep”

Joe

you slowly open your eyes and look around your bedroom

you blink a few times, still getting accustomed to the light streaming down on you through a window

a quiet groan leaves your mouth and you stretch your body, feeling all sorts of good

you blush as you remember the last night and hide your grin into a pillow

“joe” you whisper as you turn around but his side of the bed is empty

“joe?” you say again, a bit louder and your fingers grazes the cold sheets

that’s when you hear a crash and loud “damn it!” coming from the kitchen

okay good, he’s alive and at home

he also probably just broke something but hopefully he’s not hurt

“joe?” you yell, way too reluctant to get out of the bed

his head pokes into the bedroom and he gives you a smile, looking out of breath

“good morning, love, hope you slept well” he says quickly “erm, the bowl with those little pink roses... that wasn’t, I mean isn’t precious, is it?”

“no, it wasn’t and that’s your only luck, sir” you point your finger at him in mocked annoyance

“great! stay exactly where you are, I’ll be right back!” the last words are muffled by the closed door, since he’s already gone before he can finish the sentence

you fall back and pull the duvet to your nose, trying to stay warm

it takes a few minutes before joe enters your bedroom again, a bed tray in his hands

“oh my god, that smells delicious” you start salivating from the scent only and you even haven’t had a bite

“only the best for my best” joe places the tray across your legs and you sit up properly

“that was cheesy af, but you’ve brought me food, so you’re forgiven” you plant a quick kiss on his cheek as he plops down next to you, still wearing his pyjamas, and you dive into your breakfast

there’s everything, coffee, juice, pancakes, syrup, red fruit, yoghurt, toasts, gummy bears

wait, gummy bears?

you pick up the bowl with them and raise your eyebrows, pointedly looking at joe

he just shrugs “breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it has to be as nutritious as possible”

“right” you say slowly and do not further comment on it

“hey!” you yell when joe grabs a few blueberries “you thief! that’s my breakfast”

“soon, we’re gonna share everything you know? in good times and bad, in sickness and health and all that stuff? as my wife-to-be you shouldn’t mind sharing your breakfast with me” he gives you a big goofy smile

you return it, but he doesn’t notice as you stealthily take a few gummy bears into your hand

you toss them at him a burst in laughter when you see his surprised expression

“ah, you’re so gonna pay for that!” he says and grabs a handful of gummy bears as well, with a mischievous look in his face

Ben

when you wake up, it’s still quite early as you can’t see the sun yet

but you can tell it’s almost the crack of dawn

you groan in pain the moment you straighten your leg as you stretch and you get a cramp into it from sleeping curled up in a ball the whole night

you grit your teeth and force yourself to keep it stretched, although it hurts so much

after a little while, the pain dissipates and you calm down

there’s no need to look around, since you already know that you’re alone in bed

it’s not so long ago since you moved into ben’s place

and it didn’t take you much time to realise that your mornings were going to be a solitary affair

unless he’s working, he starts his day with a morning jog, getting up when you’re still deep in slumber

at first, you were confused and worried by his absence but you got used to it by now

you grab the book on your bedside table and start browsing through it to find the part where you finished the last time

immersed in the story, you hear a key turning in the lock of the front door and barking

“quiet, girl, we don’t want to wake up y/n” he yell-whispers to frankie

you can hear her paws patting against the wooden floor in the living room as she runs around the house

“no, frankie, no!”

she barges into the bedroom and jumps on the bed, immediately coming for your face as she gives it a proper lick in greetings

“and good morning to you, too!” you scratch the area behind her ears and she grumbles appreciatively

ben’s at her heels and rushes after her

“frankie! down!”

you give her a hug, not letting her go and planting a kiss on her head

“it’s fine, I’ve been up already” you nod towards the book that’s lying open on the bed next to you

“oh, okay” ben gives you a smile which you reciprocate

you finally take him in and you like what you see

he’s out of breath, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and dripping down the sides of his head, a black t-shirt snuggly hugging his torso, earphones swinging against his chest, and his grey sweatpants sagged down on his hips

you bite your bottom lip and the movement doesn’t go unnoticed

he clears his throat and darts his eyes down to the floor "I’m gonna get a shower”

“you forgot something” you say and he looks you in the eyes, confused

“did I?”

“uh-huh” you tap your lips and give him a cheeky smile

he releases a relieved sigh and stalks over to you, covering your lips with his

“good morning, love” he whispers against your mouth

“good morning” you answer, a smile audible in your voice, happy that he’s back home

he leans further down and kisses you again, his tongue sliding against yours

“stop it!” you say with laughter when your lips part “you’re all sweaty and you’re squishing poor frankie”

she’s still nestled in your lap and gives him an annoyed look

“sorry girl” he apologises and pets her head

she licks his palm - apology accepted

“and what about me? I won’t get an apology? your sweat is everywhere!”

“I saw you ogling me, love, and well, now you’ve got a reason to join me in the shower”

Rami

you emerge from dreams slowly and gradually

first you feel the light kiss of sun on your eyelids and you smile sleepily

when you finally open your eyes, you find out the source of light is not the sun but a lamp sat on one of the bedside tables, the one on the opposite side of the bed

it takes you a moment to come back to earth and differentiate between your dreams and reality

you stir and hide a yawn into your palm

“good morning, my love”

rami’s voice is soft and tender and he leans down to kiss your temple

he sits in your bed, his back against the headboard

“morning” you respond and take a deep breath through your nose

you raise your eyes and gaze at him

he’s reading a script, always the perfectionist he is

the filming starts on monday and he wants to be prepared as much as he can be

the light coming from the lamp illuminates the other side of his face that is turned away from you

the glow makes him look almost angel-like

“what time is it?” you ask, still feeling a bit groggy

he turns to his bedside table

“half past seven” he answers

after a single beat you realise you were supposed to get up early and get your children prepared for a weekend at their grandma’s

“crap, the kids, I forgot”

you almost jump out of the bed but rami is quick to stop you

“no, no, don’t worry, all’s done, my mum’s already left with them” he explains

“wait, what?” your brain just can’t start functioning properly and you feel even more disoriented

“I woke them up, dragged them out of their beds, prepared breakfast, packed their bags, made them put their clothes on, that took as long as any other morning, which means forever, then I had to change said, since he put on his shirt the wrong side out and he put his shoes on the wrong feet” he chuckles at the last bit

“you should have woken me up” you say sincerely and lift your head to caress his face

“I know you didn’t get that much of sleep” he answers and puts the script on the bed “I heard you sneaking out of our bedroom when the storm began, I know you went to their room and stayed there for some time”

“you know how much thunders frighten them” you offer as an explanation and look down on your hands in your lap

“I know, and I love you so much for everything you do” he notices how your hands fidget, so he takes them into his and presses kisses on them

“so” you start slowly “the kids are gone?”

“uh-huh”

“and they’re not gonna return anytime soon?”

“uh-huh”

“and we’re alone?”

“uh-huh”

you cock an eyebrow and wait for the penny to drop

his face lightens up in understanding and he kisses you on your lips

and it’s a hell of a kiss

[people-likeflowers]

On to the sequel

A/N: Heey! I’m back. As I said before, english is not my native language, therefore if there is something wrong. I’m sorry. Also, this is a work of complete fiction and I don’t have anything against any one that is mentioned in this one shoot. Hope you enjoy! 

Mwah!

Summary: An AU where your best friend Noen Eubanks has to leave to achieve his dream but neither of them know that there are still things left to be said. 

Warnings: Angst, Fluff. 

Song: The Story - Conan Gray

You were in a crossroad. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen him. What would happen if you took this decision? What would happen if everything went wrong? How would you end up feeling? Probably worst that when he went away. But you were sure of something, the feelings that you two had, had been real. Only that, in those times, you didn't know what you wanted. Your careers were blurring any other life goal. Either way, right now, distance in time allowed you to comprehend that he, surely felt the same way as you.

Flashback:

- So, with Abby… what are you going to do? – you asked while you got comfortable in the little bed of your college dorm.

- Sincerely, I don't have an idea. It’s like… I can't make up my mind, I don't understand a thing of what’s going on. I know, that whenever I see her, I feel something, but I can’t seem to find the time to spend together. When I’m studying, I don't think of anything else rather that what I am doing. And…

- And… that makes you doubt your feelings even more. – You finished his phrase. This kind of things used to happen, you connected on a different level. Sometimes with only a look you would know what the other was feeling.

- Exactly – he said with sorrow – either way I think you are not much better. – Really you could read each other thoughts.

- No. You are right. But it’s similar to what it's going on with you. – At that moment you didn’t have a clue of what you were feeling. You thought it was the stress of the classes or that sometimes loneliness affected you a little too much. – Lately I feel like there’s a void in the center of my chest, but I can’t figure out where is it coming from. Although when I’m planning a shoot or something. Everything disappears.

Eventually you found the meaning behind that void, and he found the reason he wasn’t thinking a lot about his girlfriend. Nevertheless, by the time you two figured out your feelings, it was practically your graduation day. When both paths were about to separate for an indeterminate time. An indeterminate time that was almost three years without seeing each other. You used to hear stories from mutual friends, and you used to follow him on his social media. Although, when Benji and Jeyjey, visited him in Los Angeles, you asked them nicely that, they didn't tell you much about Noen. This made them cut their trip in a thirty minutes story. You still felt some sorrow when his name appeared somewhere.

You took your suitcase from the highest part of your wardrobe, and let it fall into the bed, open. Looked at it for a minute. You were frenetic. And your heart was beating fast.

Flashback

You were at Syd’s house, having dinner for the last time. You all used to had this tradition that on the third Sunday of the month you got together in his house to talk about your lives, prepare some weird dish and if it arouses, watch a film. But this was your last dinner being in college. It was a bittersweet situation.

You and Noen agreed on preparing an Indian recipe. You had found it the day that you had skipped class because you two still were hangover from last night and your stomachs were claiming for food constantly. That day you found this itty-bitty restaurant that belonged to a family in which their grandma still cooked their traditional dishes. One thing leads to the other and you ended up talking with said woman, who kindly told you all her culinary secrets.

You had decided to kick out every one of the kitchen and put on your speaker for cooking to the rhythm of the music. The chicken was being boiled and the sauce, which had some strange yellow color, was getting warmed. When, a song with a sweet slow melody started to sound. You were surprised and decided to quickly change it. Noen had recently ended his relationship with Abby. They were in good terms, but, even so, you knew he wasn’t fine.

He saw how you reacted and reached fast for you. In an impulsive gesture he took your hand and looking you straight in the eyes, said:

-Leave it - you didn't know what to do. You pursed your lips and went back to your last position. Leaned in the kitchen island, paying attention on how the food was being cooked. But this time, something had changed. Suddenly, you were aware about your body, you felt how Noen’s warmth was all over your side, his skin was soft, cold and hot at the same time. There was silence while you two heard the lyrics of the song. It was talking to you.

'Cause they loved one other

But never discovered

'Cause they were too afraid

Having time for the food to be done, they decided to sit on the floor. You two felt safer that way.

- How are you? - you asked without looking at him in the eyes. Unexpectedly the loose thread of your pants was the closest to a life saver that you had. And you hung to it so you wouldn't have to look at Noen.

- I’ve been better. But… I feel like it was what it had to do; you know? I didn't love her. And with the fact that I must go to the other side of the world, it wasn’t going to work. - the silence came back again, and a little sound escaped from your insides. Making Noen look at you. You were crying, you knew that you would miss him. A few days ago, you realized one thing that changed your whole world. You loved him. And that thing that burned sometimes was what you felt for him. You couldn't stop and the knot on your throat hurt you. - Oh, no. - both moved so you could face each other, you ended in between his legs. He looked at you with sad eyes. And started to dry your tears with his thumb. It made you cry even more. You felt thankful for the loud music, no one else could listen to you cry. He gently kissed your forehead and with both hands he pulled you closer to his shoulder. - we’ll be in touch. You don't have to worry about that. - he was trying really hard to say all these sweet things to calm you down but in your head the words, “but I love you”, “it’s never going to be enough”, repeated time after time. You felt as if these words could escape your mouth. You had to say something but without scaring him.

- But it won't be enough, I think I’m going to lose you and there will be this big hole in my life. - it was everything you could get out of your chest despite the pain you felt on your throat.

- I know, but we’ll try to make it work. I don't want to lose you either, you know how important you are to me. - then again, he took your face in his hands and joined your foreheads. His thumbs caressing your cheeks instinctively. Trying to calm you two down.

You couldn’t believe that you hadn’t seen it at that moment. His gestures were so intimate. How was it possible that you didn’t have the courage to tell him your feelings. Though, thinking about it now, you didn't know if you had it. But something had changed, everything in your body was asking for it and you had made you decide.

You went around in your little apartment, putting close attention to not forget anything. You did it fast, you didn’t want any intrusive thought around your head. Because it may make you stay.

The cold hit you in the face and in an instinctive act you closed the neck of your coat. Raised your hand to call a taxi, you were so engrossed in your thoughts that you hadn’t noticed that it was snowing. Your shoes were not made for this weather.

When you got in the taxi, you told him to go to the airport while you texted Benji, asking him for the address of Noen. He answered with interrogation signs but then sent it. You entered to Tiktok again. You couldn’t believe that he still remembered. Or that he had even been aware of it too, that time you were cooking. In the video you could see him singing the words: 'Cause they loved one other. But never discovered. Cause they were too afraid. Of what they'd say. Moved to different states.”  While he did different moves and looked at the camera.

But that he had chosen that song wasn’t the only thing that had made you took the decision, but the fact that in the caption he had written: Missing a special someone. "I wonder if she's alright"

Flashback:

That morning you had woken up with a terrible nauseous feeling and there was no way you could stop them. Your strength was on the floor. You even noticed that you had a fever at some point. But you were sure of one thing, and that was that nothing was going to stop you from saying goodbye at the airport to your best friend. That's why that day you had only taken some tea and some light cookies. Nothing else.

When the boys came to pick you up, so you could all go together to see him off, they looked at you hastily, a worried face. They asked you if you were all right and if you really felt like going. To what you didn't say anything and made them get out of your house. The ride in the car made you feel even worse and a tingling sensation consumed your skin. And that feeling kept on going until you saw him, with his suitcase in his right hand waiting for it to be dispatched. And as always, his green Minecraft bag on his back with his neck pillow. You couldn't take it anymore but you either couldn't start bereaved crying right there in front of everyone. You wouldn't do that to Noen. Wouldn't make him leave with that anguish. This moment was going to change his life and you had to be happy for him. And. You Had. To. Be. Happy. For. Him.

However, you were not the one who broke down and went running to your arms when he had finished what he had to do. But him. When he finished his business with his suitcase, he went directly to you, he squeezed you in his arms trying to hide in your neck.

Which you started to feel wet. It was an intimate experience in one of the most public places of all. "Shh, Shh", you couldn't stop saying it while you brushed his scalp.

- That's it. That's it. You must go. It for a greater good. Everything will be all right - you tried to calm him down, when you didn't have the strength to do it. You didn't know where these words were coming from.

- But I don't know if this is what I want. I will be missing something. - now you were the one who joined your foreheads and who started to caress his cheeks. You noticed how his tears made them more slippery.

- No. That's not going to happen. Because with what you are, you are enough. You will be able to defeat everything you'll face and more. - your words were real. Of that you were sure.

- Its… you don't get it. I'm going to miss my special someone. We have never been this apart. - we both were still with our eyes clothed.

- Noen - a wail almost gets out of you, but you had stopped it. Looking at him straight in the eyes you said - You must go. - it was an order. You understood what he meant, but it wasn't the right moment. He needed to achieve his dream. You two hugged one more time and let it go. Then Noen went and said goodbye to his other friends. You withdrew back from the group.

When you saw him disappear in the gates of the airport, you couldn't hold it anymore and run to the closest trash. There you let go every single word you would never say to him.

You were in front of his apartment. It was still nighttime and the area that he lived gave you some chills. You didn’t felt like you had the courage to do it, but you were going to anyway. That video had not been random, and neither were the words that he had chosen. You couldn't take it any longer with just a video call. You needed to take a chance, at least this time. Your phone wouldn't stop vibrating and you knew perfectly who it was. But if you answered, you would back down. You were shivering, it could be as much from the frigid cold as from the nerves.

You rang the bell and said: “Oh, and I'm afraid that's just the way the world Works. But I think that it could work for you and me. Just wait and see… It's not the end of the story”

- Noen, it's me. I'm freezing. I came for you.

[nitewrighter]

Symmarah fam 16

16. Sledding

The Boys are about... 8 here.

---

Every year, Satya liked to think she had prepared for the cold. She was mentally prepared for the cold, certainly, but now she stood, a column wrapped in flannel and a down duffel coat, topped off with a ridiculous pom-pom toque, feeling diamond dust contracting her lungs and wondering how she managed to marry a Canadian. A Canadian who made a point of wintering in Canada. The boys were doing all right. The boys were having a blast. Of course the boys were having a blast. They could play with harmless hard-light projectiles (which Jack had the gall to call “hard light nerf darts”) at home, but there was clearly a visceral satisfaction in pelting each other with snowballs while Pharah busied herself with... shaping a giant, semi-phallic lump of snow, apparently. 

Ana was off sitting on a boulder with a convenient windbreak of pines, a thermos of spiced tea, and what Satya assumed was the unconquerable body heat of Reinhardt looming over her as Sam occupied himself with attempting to catch every moment of Samir and Rajeev’s snowball fight on holovid.

“What are you making, by the way?” said Satya, glancing over at Pharah.

“You mean you can’t tell?” said Pharah, sticking some long pine needles in the top of the narrow pile of snow, “It’s you!”

Satya’s eyes widened, “That’s... me?”

The now-apparently a snowman was roughly as narrow a column as Satya, with pine needle hair and two triangular chunks of ice on either side of its ‘head.’

“Well you were standing so still--okay, maybe vibrating a little--”

“It’s cold--” said Satya

“But I wanted to capture this moment,” said Pharah, doing her best to make a framing motion with her mittened hands. 

“And...you gave me... pointed ears?”

“That’s your visor,” said Pharah.

“I’m not wearing my visor,” said Satya.

“But the visor is your thing,” said Pharah.

Satya just snorted. “Well, if we’re doing portraits of each other...” she said, pulling the mitten off of her prosthetic. Truth be told she already had a stencil pre-programmed in her prosthetic’s core memory from a handful of beach trips, but she tweaked it from time to time. It actually functioned like an old sand mold. Split in half, it was only a matter of scooping the two halves of it under the snow, then bringing them together. With an upward gesture of the arms and pressing her palms toward each other, the two molds met and Satya held them in position for nearly a minute, before dematerializing the hard-light to reveal a snow-sculpture of Pharah in her full Raptora armor.

“...Show-off,” said Pharah.

“Hard-light,” said Satya, with a smirk.

The head fell off of Pharah’s snow sculpture counterpart and Pharah burst out laughing.

“That was the snow’s fault, not mine,” said Satya, bringing her arms tight around herself.

“It’s perfect,” said Pharah, kissing her temple and then playing with her hair before a shriek from the boys suddenly alerted them both. They both looked up to see Rajeev flat on his back in the snow, and both Sam and Samir stooped over him. 

“Is he all right?” said Satya, rushing over.

“He’s fine,” said Sam, “But... Samir here’s definitely got his Grandma’s aim.”

“That’s not my fault, by the way!” Ana called over from her and Reinhardt’s grove of pines. 

Pharah looked down to see a splotch of the pink-red of snowball impact on Rajeev’s forehead and scattered chunks of packed snow and powder dotting his long dark hair as it haloed around his head. Rajeev groaned.

“Wow...” said Pharah, “Headshot.”

“Fareeha!” Satya said sharply.

“I’m sorry!” Samir said on reflex but Rajeev sat up, rubbing his forehead.

“Owww...” said Rajeev. He suddenly flinched hard. “Oh--It’s down my shirt! It’s down my shirt!” he said, feeling at the back of his down jacket.

“Brutal...” said Sam.

“We’re calling a truce on the snowball fight,” said Pharah, flatly.

“Aw, come on! I’m okay! I have a hard head!” said Rajeev. 

“Truce, and that’s final,” said Pharah sternly, and Rajeev frowned.

“Truce,” Rajeev sullenly stuck out a mittened hand to Samir.

“Truce,” said Samir, shaking Rajeev’s hand.

“Would it console you if we found an activity that didn’t involve hurling balls of ice at each other?” said Satya, materializing a toboggan out of hard light.

Both Samir and Rajeev’s eyes widened.

---

“...we didn’t have to do this,” said Satya, looking down the hill as as she felt Pharah’s arms around her waist and wrapped her own arms around Rajeev.

“Samir’s going to crash us,” said Rajeev.

“I’m not going to crash us!” said Samir.

“These things don’t steer very well anyway,” said Pharah, “Samir’s just up front because he’s the smallest.”

“I’m not the smallest! Rajeev and I are the same size!” said Samir.

Everyone in the family knew that Rajeev had a good inch and a half on Samir but no one was really willing to argue about it at the top of a sledding hill.

“We’re going to be fine,” said Pharah, “Boots in, Amari Clan.”

Samir, Rajeev, and Satya all brought their boots to the interior of the toboggan. 

“On three,” said Pharah, “One, two--” she brought her boots in and gravity swiftly did the rest, “THREEEEE!!!”

“NOT ONE TWO THREE GO!?” Samir shouted over the the rush and scrape of toboggan on snow. 

“IT’S OKAY! JUST KEEP US STRAIGHT!” Pharah called back as all four of them painfully made a short bump over a snow drift but were no less slowed down.

Sam was filming the whole thing, of course, and they rushed right past him, both twins whooping and screaming and Satya practically burying her face in Rajeev’s hair to keep from panicking at how fast they were going.

“MOM!” Samir called.

“WHAT?!” both Satya and Pharah shouted at the same time.

“TREE!” blurted out Samir. Sure enough, right in their path was a large pine. Pharah reacted quickly, lugging one leg out of the toboggan and digging it hard into the snow, forcing them to shift a hard right, practically drifting sideways, and slow them down. The slowdown was only marginal though, the one thing that brought them to a stop was a large column of snow that exploded into powder and tumbled down as soon as they smacked into it. 

A few seconds passed, everyone’s panting fogging white into the icy air and the sound of their own breaths being muted by the snow.

“We could have died!” said Rajeev, dramatically throwing his arms up as Samir pretty much collapsed out of the sled.

“We wouldn’t have died,” said Pharah, clumsily getting up out of the sled and bending and extending her leg to make sure she hadn’t pulled a muscle, “We just--” her eyes suddenly widened and she dropped to her knees in horror, picking up a chunk of triangular ice and then seeing bits of pine needles scattered in the snow. “We killed Snow-Satya!”

“What?!” said both the twins, horrified.

Satya just breathed a sigh of relief that they were all all right and let herself flob back in the toboggan, dematerializing it with a wave of her hand and letting herself sink into the snow. “So dramatic...” she sighed, staring at the blue winter sky.

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Chapter 2-Sugo!

Hi babes! Enjoy-to my loves, thanks for the love! @dirtystyles and @bleedinglove4h long live tripod writing! There’s a light at the end of the hallway!

What the fuck!" She knew her voice went shrill, but, other than her best friend's baby, she hadn't been puked on since college. The baby puke was a nearly pleasant experience. Kind of smelled sweet. When she mentioned this in a manner suggesting she was gross, her friend nodded and said- "it's cuz she's breast fed." Like that was common knowledge.

Harry's puke smelled, not sweet. It was a lot closer to that time in college. The smell. Not the circumstances.

In college, she was also drunk, and it was on her arm while she was doing that thing women did in bathrooms and making best friends. When she had tried to gather up the stranger-friend's hair, the sick had got onto her arm. But her arms were washable and waterproof.

Her new trainers, that she had treated herself to after she endured that long interview with Vanity Fair, were not waterproof and she doubted they were washable. She'd have to try. She really liked them, and they were a splurge, she'd spent her 30's living off her income and not daddy's money. These were money from an interview her publicist had insisted on that she knew she would loathe. Ada didn't have bad blood with the Tally chap. But she didn't like the tone he took, just a little condescending, with his other female subjects. He was a mansplainer. Plus, he ghosted her friend Isabelle after a hookup years ago. But Ada held grudges. Over her friends, she held grudges.

She might hold a grudge over her Gucci shoes.

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" Her star was mumbling and on the floor with a towel he'd produced like a magician. And he had made it up to her mid calves. Splash. Great. This was weird. Luckily she had a suitcase. It was... her head swiveled around. Right by her.

"It's alright. I have clothes in my bag. I can go change." She reached down and touched his shoulder to get his attention. He seemed single minded in his cleaning mission, until she touched him. When he looked up, all Ada could think about was the smooth lakebed she'd learned to fly planes over. It had been a latent passion since. The weightlessness of flight. She hadn't been back to that smooth stretch of land since. Except in her dreams.

She had no idea why his face evoked that.

Ada realized they were still locked in the stare off. She blinked and it ended.

Harry's litany continued. "I'm so sorry about your shoes. They look new. I really like them. I might get them for myself. Maybe we can go, while they are setting up at the shrine today. I think there is one nearby, a couple actually. I would love to replace them. God, I'm so sorry. They just kept toasting last night, and I thought I'd be ok, my stomach, it's been a long time since I felt this bad in the morning... but I'd heard you were going to make it today, and you can't call off sick when your movie is starting and your new director will be there. And well, I was excited to meet you- if I'm honest. I have a lot of questions."

Ada needed to stop this, she wasn't flying, she was late, felt jet lag coming on and she was covered in puke. His puke, and he was still talking. She interrupted him. "It's fine. I can buy my own shoes." Though not Gucci this time. "Stand up. We have work to do. I'm gonna go change."

When Ada walked away, summarily dismissing Harry, and with a tone that didn't seem to be really forgiving, he was left holding the bag. The bag was actually a towel, and the towel was covered in puke. That did not go any of the ways he had prepared for it in his mind.

He knew that he was more than excited to meet her. He had spent last night, before karaoke and all the alcohol, brushing up on all things Ada Scott. He had committed a lot of it to memory when he had fallen in love with Wildflower. But he wanted to be her fan. He was hopeful she would not be one of his fans. That fear still simmered on the back of his brain. Well, his whole brain felt simmered.

What was that? Her face, god, she had a hell of a face. He'd gotten flustered. Well, more flustered. When she touched his shoulder and he'd felt that zap he hadn't felt but twice. Zander and, god, he couldn't compare her to Taylor. Fuck.

That time it was partly because he was star struck.

Was he star struck? Had he done too good a job last week when he'd fallen in to his YouTube hole and made himself an actual fanatic.

His fans made more sense when he thought about that word.

No, he was excited, impressed by her, like he was with Chris, before they went out on the boats.

But, god, he wished he had puked on his first day of Dunkirk now, like Fionn, maybe then he would not have done that on her.

On Ada.

God, his shoulder had tingled, like his lip before a cold sore and started downing lysine, so he'd looked up, and there she was. All full lipped and big eyed. And her skin. God her skin was the color of the way his mom liked her tea. A splash of milk. And as unrippled as the surface while she waited to drink it. His mum always said, "that's how I cultivate patience. No unnecessary blowing, it will be ready for me when I'm ready for it." And she'd talk and listen then take a sip, while the surface of her tea remained perfect and placid.

He did not feel placid. He felt a cousin of the feeling, looking at her. It felt like when he'd get home and if it was early enough he would take the walk across the fields he'd done all the life on the way to the square. Calm, with familiar smells, and warm.

God, he felt really warm. And then he'd realized he'd puked all over this woman making him tingle and have little mental forays to his happy places.

"Fuck!" Harry muttered. And then he saw the AP. "Have you seen Jeffrey?"

It took him a while to find Jeffrey. And it took longer for Jeff to calm him down.

"I ruined her shoes, nice ones, and every chance I had at impressing her!" Both of his hands were in his hair in his little trailer, tiny by comparison to his old one. They were all pretty small. Japanized, double the convenience, half the space.

His manager was leaning against a counter with his arms crossed and a wry look on his face.

"This is a crisis, Jeffrey! Help me!"

At that, Jeff let loose the sound his smile had forecast and belly laughed. "Man, you are knotted up! Did she not fall for the Styles' charm man?"

"What charm? I puked, a lot, on her Gucci shoes, and then I tried to clean her and talked faster than I ever have on my life. And she walked away, didn't really accept my apology. How am I ever gonna impress her now?"

"Act good." Jeff suggested blandly. He had faith in Harry's ability, even to come back and charm the hell outta Ada after, well, that. Jeff bit his lip.

"Stop laughing at me." Harry rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'm just mad I missed the show. You must have been freaking out!"

"I'm still freaking out- what do we do? How do I impress her now?" His long fingers were all splayed helplessly in Jeff's direction.

Jeff's brow furrowed. The answer seemed fairly obvious. Harry could come back from this, it sucked, but it wasn't like he ran over her dog. He would just do well on set, make amends, and all would be well. Harry being a drama queen, which he wasn't, usually. Unless, oh, this was funny.

"I have an idea. In the meantime - act good."

But Harry couldn't. They were starting with one of the prince by day scenes. All perfection and manners and exacting rules. It should have been so easy, he wasn't even sure if it be could called acting for him. He had so many days where he had to go to some amazing place and rather than explore it and let his wonderment take the wheel, he was being filmed and dissected. Like Henry, his character. Harry understood this character. It should have been a breeze.

Additionally, Harry and his costar has built a rapport already, last night - they'd sang 'I Got You Babe' - Harry even let him be Cher, and it had been such a good time, that they'd done 'You're The One That I Want' from Grease. He'd got to be Olivia Newton John, complete with shoulder shimmies and see-saw dancing.

Those shots were probably when the world had gotten wobbly.

In any case, he'd follow Yuki anywhere, just the way Henry would follow Akio. It should be easy to have the unspoken dialogue this scene called for.

They were at the Meiji shrine and, in the movie, Henry was having to take a very controlled tour, but there was a wedding party waiting and he mostly wanted to hurry over to where they were waving at him to appear in their pictures. But he wasn't allowed to. He also wasn't allowed to take selfies with anyone, ever. His mother's rule that was his grandma's rule. Not even of himself with the Harajuku girls passing by outside. Henry was supposed to look at his longingly.

Harry wanted to do all those things too. And he called his own shots. He'd done several of them when they were setting up the scene. He had taken a picture with an incandescent bride who shouted "Hari! Hari!" To get his attention.

It was her day, he couldn't deny her. And the Harajuku girls, there were groups of them. He asked one about her coat. That was what he wanted to do after they cut, shop. Luckily the night time rebel scene was set for tonight, with Akio taking Henry all through the wildest shops and filling up a phones worth of crazy selfies. Even a few polaroids. Akio gave Henry his dreams.

The location would also let Harry have his fun.

So Harry would get to do some of those things, while waiting for his scenes. Making movies was a lot of waiting.

It was funny how spot on the movie set ups were. He supposed that was the point. The way the original was both a celebration of Rome and set the agenda for tourists years after, this one should too. He hoped.

If he could get his shit together.

"Cut! Again!" Ada yelled. And called an assistant over. He heard her ask for the biggest matcha she could find. Her energy must be flagging. He'd have to tell her about astaxanthin. That always helped him with focus and energy when he was jet lagged. He walked over to mention it.

"Ad-" he started

"Harry, do you need a break?"

They'd really just started, he felt fine. The puking had actually helped. He was a little ashamed to say.

He was still really embarrassed. And he was a bit distracted.

"Um, no. I, I think I'm ok I feel, like, better?" He tried to smile, and Ada's face remained blank. "Why, um, does it seem like I need one, I mean a break?"

Ada sighed. Then looked at him square in the face. It stole his breath. Who did her eyebrows? They were very symmetrical. If she did them herself, that said a lot about her.

"Harry? Are you listening to me?" This was the second time he had just zoned out on her while she was talking to him. Earlier when she was talking to him about how to set up the scene and she'd asked his motivation. She'd been really happy with where his head was at. But when she started talking about blocking and eye lines, admittedly, the boring stuff, she'd totally lost his attention. He maintained eye contact, but floated away. Lots of eye contact. His were a really brilliant green. She had always envied colored eyes. Hers were really dark brown. Not like his. But this time he wasn't looking at her eyes.

This time he was looking at her, forehead maybe? "I need you to be a little more present in the scene. Like if you are trying to show how Henry is going through the motions, ok- let's talk about that. But earlier you were saying you saw him as a professional and you thought that he would look engaged, but be looking around, missed chances. I'm getting blank detachment from you instead."

"I'm sorry, what?" He shook his head. He almost asked her about her eyebrows. He looked down and she had on converse now. He was really more of a vans guy. "During next set up do you want to go over to Gucci and get new shoes?"

Ada must have lost the plot. "Harry, we aren't going to get to any other set ups, and I'm seriously concerned about the night shoot schedule. I need you engaged. Have you decided to go another way, like Henry looking checked out?"

"What?" The way he dropped the t in that word was kind of cute, but that needed to be a note- he better not do that as Henry, RP and all that.

"I'm asking you about the character. I'm not getting the vision you had talked to me about, I'm kinda getting you distracted and hungover. Which you may very well be- but I need you to 'act' like you aren't." Her face was a question she figured that she could make it a statement.

"I am?" He shook his head and his curls spun out of place. Great now they needed a touch up, but before she could say a thing, Ayae, Harry stylist was on her way over. Well his people were on it. Jeff especially. Is that why he had such a good rep? Because he had good people. His rep was why she had agreed. Part of why. And that she had heard he was charming. Maybe people equated clueless with charming.

She did not.

She nodded. But figured the sandwich method was in need. It had worked great with Layla, h newborn actress on Wildfire. It was effective. Ada always wished her dad knew it. She'd throw him a bone. "I loved where your head was at earlier! Can we get back there."

"Yeah, Yeah, Sorry Ada. I'm a little......" he searched for the word "off, today, from last night, and the extremely wrong foot I got off on, well, I puked on this morning." He grinned his best- let the dimples pop- hoped they were a secret weapon for real.

"Yeah." Ada found herself smiling along with him. She would go along with him, if she could get some of that on film. She was feeling like they were all in trouble if she couldn't get him to do it more. She put her hand on his shoulder and he preened. Ok- he liked affirmation and praise. She could work with that.

And then he went back on and nailed it one take. More of that and she wouldn't feel quite so much like she had gambled her whole career on junk bonds.

The camera loved him. The crew seemed to too. This would be ok. She hoped.

During the break, while everybody was lounging in catering except those who were needed to get ready for the shopping scene set up. "Hey Ada." She liked Jeff's voice, that it sounded like her hometown and was lighter than you'd expect with his name and money. He was lighter than you'd expect.

"Hey Jeff. You liking Tokyo?" She loved it here, felt like her eyes were in cultural candyland the first trip and every one after.

" Yeah, I always like it here. Not like Harry likes it. I thought he was gonna have a coronary when this script was rumored. He wanted it so bad." He laughed. "I was almost afraid that he wouldn't get it optioned, and then I was afraid he would."

"Do you always try to give him what he wants?" She thought this was a strange thing for a manager to say. It was usually making your clients do something good for their career they didn't want to, or making them think they wanted to in the first place.

"Well," Jeff scratched the back of his neck. "I think I kinda do, but what he wants is usually a pretty amazing thing, ya know." he cocked his head to the side, "that's actually why I wanted to say hi, to thank you, for signing on. Harry was dead set on you. He loved Wildflower. Like I could recite it from how often he watched it. When my dad offered to call your dad, when we hadn't called back, I was embarrassed to say ok, but I had to get this done."

"Oh, yeah dad tracked me down, but no thanks needed, it's not a favor. I hadn't had time to really consider. Luckily I'd already read it over, or I might have said no. Since he seemed keen to impress Irving. But, I think it's an opportunity, and well, really, all I want is Harry to earn it. To do something unexpected and do it well. So, let's hope the boy has the goods."

"He does, Ada. Promise - he's such a hard worker.

Ada hoped Jeff wasn't victim to Harry's charm, or whatever people seemed to think he had.

He had better have it, more than once a day. Dammit, this was gonna be a long shoot. Her forehead was creased thinking of it.

When 1 am hit, and the scene was not done, she knew he was a hard worker, but she doubted the goods.

"Harry?" She was dead on her feet, they should have been home 3 hours ago.

She should have let the ap look, she was terrified to see the daily's. She hated to start behind.

"Yeah." His voice wasn't sharp, but defeated, like Waterloo in his words.

"Can you tell me what's up, man? Are you uncomfortable with the hand holding or the flirting?" He looked very confused.

"With-" he gestured to Yuki. "No."

"The fans outside?" That has also been an issue. The crowd kept growing.

"A little, but that's gonna keep happening." He said it matter of fact, with apology in it, like mary poppin's sugar spoon. "I just, I feel so foggy and distracted. And then I feel guilty keeping everybody here all day, and then it just gets worse." He sighed.

She could work with that. At least it was because he cared too much, not that he didn't give a fuck. "Do you like holding hands?" She stuck her hand out.

His dog like head tilt was cute. "Yeah -I like most affection." He took her hand and she watched the tension go out of him. Ok - he was a dog person. Not just praise, more touch.

"It's ok," she squeezed. "Harry. Nobody minds doing their jobs, but they want to go home. Let's give that to them. Henry has to hold Akio's hand, because he just has to and hopes they don't get caught, but also hopes they do. Can you relate?"

He squeezed her hand and nodded. Looked more sure and less like his head was in the descending fog. "And he likes this place, loves it and is interested. Feel the same?"

"Yeah, this is my favorite shop here I've been in." He gestured around to the eclectic mix of handicrafts, and anime and wild clothes. "I wish I had time to dig through."

"Ok, then you barely have to act!" Ada smiled like she had slept in the last two days.

"Well, I hope I have to act a bit. Or we are all in trouble. I don't want everyday to be like today." He shrugged and pursed his lips to the side.

Neither did she. God she hoped he got better. Pulling teeth everyday was not her favorite, or she would have been a dentist.

He nailed the next take. They were only there another hour.

The Gucci shoes that had been delivered to her room made her smile to herself.

As did the dailies. Most of the takes were horrible. But when he hit it, it was a home run.

"Harry Styles- the Babe Ruth of acting." She laughed to herself.

Harry was smiling to himself the next morning, looking forward to the day, to Ada's face and making her smile again, the way she had on the way off set. Maybe she'd hold his hand if needed.

His smile fell when he popped back to change into his fancy get up after hair and makeup.

The Gucci bag, tied shut on top, was on the stairs, unopened.

[1dimagineclub]

Liam Imagine

** IMAGINE REQUEST: Hi love your account!!! I was wondering if u could make a one shot with Liam. Um… I guess the scenario could be in which Liam meets your family for the first time…your whole family.**

“Family Matters“ 

When Liam Payne looks at you with those eyes so big and hopeful, it’s hard to turn down anything he’s asking you.  

He’d figured out that it was easy to get you to say yes to a lot of things if he just looked at you like that—calling in sick to work, having a movie night at home instead of going out (even though you’d had your outfit planned since two days ago), and, probably your least favorite, letting him decide where to eat for dinner.  Again.

That isn’t to say you don’t have your own little ways of getting him to agree to things; a bat of your eyelashes, a pout of your lips, or, when desperate times call for desperate measures, a low cut top that reveals just enough skin when you bend over to innocently pick up the remote that you’d “accidently” dropped in front of him.  He was onto you and your little tricks.

That was just how your relationship had always been. So when Liam had looked up from his phone at you last week with a beaming smile and those damn eyes, you’d braced yourself for the worst.

Before you even let him talk, you sighed, mumbling out a quick, “What do you want now?”

He had laughed and rolled his eyes at you. “Nothing, nothing.  I just got a text from your mum.”

You remember your heart had stopped beating. What the hell did that mean? Liam and your mom got on like best friends from the minute he’d first met her.  It was a relief at first, but undeniably annoying when he came over because they would just talk and talk and talk for what felt like hours. One thing you’d always admired about Liam, however, was the way he was able to absolutely destroy you in your bedroom to the point where your legs were still shaking and you struggled to walk, and then five minutes later you’d find him exchanging health food recipes with your mother in the kitchen, with her none the wiser about what had just transpired. He was irritatingly charming with everyone he encountered, of that much you were very sure.  Still, you couldn’t get over the fact that he and your mom were actually… friends?  Did they text often?

He must’ve noticed the look on your face because he chuckled again.  You asked, “What did she have to say?”

“She invited me to your “family reunion” next Friday.  Thinks its time I meet everyone.”

You’d panicked.  Immediately you let out a loud string of “no’s” and shook your head.  He only continued to laugh, waiting until you were done to ask why you were so against it.  “You ashamed of me or sumfin?”

“No,” you’d replied back, because that was in fact the opposite of what you were. You weren’t ashamed of anyone in this equation actually.  It was just that your family was so big and crazy and… loud.  They were loud as hell when you were all together, and what if that turned Liam off to the idea of combining your families one day?

Although, you had known that this day would come. If you ever wanted to marry Liam, you knew he was going to have to meet your family eventually.  However, you’d just hoped it would be much further down the line at like, the wedding.  Or even after the wedding.  Or maybe never.

You loved Liam.  You loved your family.  You’d just never really imagined them altogether in one room.

Of course he kept pushing the issue, asking why you didn’t want him there.  So when you reluctantly responded and told him the truth—that you were scared he would hate them—he only smiled and pulled you into his chest.

“M’not gonna hate ‘em.  I could never.  They made you.”  You could see the cogs turning in his head at that last sentence.  “Well… I mean, they didn’t make you. Your mum and dad did.  But they made your mum and dad so I guess relatively they made you.  And they make you happy.  They’re a part of you.”  He’d paused only briefly to kiss the crown of your head.  “And anyway, they love you.  And I love you.  So we already have something in common, yeah?  We’ll get along fine.”

And when you’d turned your head to look up at him, he was looking at you with those damn stupid eyes.  You were struck for a moment, because it looked genuine.  Like he actually really wanted to meet your family. He was being so nice, and you knew he was right, plus those stupid, stupid eyes….

“Alright fine,” you’d huffed out.  “You can come to my family reunion.” He beamed like you’d never seen before, and although the soft kisses he peppered all over your face in gratitude should’ve made you feel better, they only made you more scared.

Today, you’re in the kitchen helping prepare side dishes with all the women and female cousins.  The men are out back drinking and barbecuing, and the kids are running around chasing one another. Liam is going to arrive at any minute and you could not be more terrified.

Everyone had been teasing you all day long.  You’d taken their comments in stride, of course, but it was nerve-wracking.  Like being interrogated. You knew it was out of love for you (and out of sheer excitement at the fact that a celebrity was coming over and could potentially be joining the family one day?), but you sincerely hoped that the comments would stop once he arrived.

“Does he make a lot of money?”  

“How serious is the relationship?”  

“Didn’t they just release a new album?” 

“I like that one song… what is it called?  ‘Things That Make You Beautiful?’” 

“How did you two meet? You weren’t a groupie, were you?  Those are just awful.”  

“I once camped out in the lobby of Bon Jovi’s hotel for a whole night before they told me he wasn’t actually there.  Tragic.” The questions, comments, and stories (that admittedly make you giggle) just keep coming, and you answer them as best as you can.  “We’re fairly serious about the relationship.” 

“It’s called ‘What Makes You Beautiful’, grandma.”  

“No, I was not a groupie.”  

It isn’t until your mother pokes her head out from behind the refrigerator and holds out a bottle of barbecue sauce that the questions finally seem to die down.  “Will you take this out to your dad, please?”

You agree, because it gives you something to do while you wait for Liam to arrive. He’d told you he was running a little bit late but that he would be there as soon as he could.  It wasn’t a problem, but it did make you more anxious.

You push open the door to the yard and it’s a completely different atmosphere.  The heat is sweltering—the kind of hot air that makes it uncomfortable to breathe. The condensation on the side of the cold beer bottles matches the sweat dripping from your little cousins as they chase each other around and it grosses you out.   You wrinkle up your nose absentmindedly and try not to think about how bad it’s gonna smell in your house later when everyone comes inside.  

Your dad stands by the grill, laughing and talking with his brother in law and someone else, and he’s poking something around on the fire.  He raises the beer bottle to his lips and sees you instantly.  He reaches out a hand for the barbecue sauce.  “Hey, (Y/N).  I was just about to go get that.  You read my mind.”

The minute you approach him, you see who this “someone else” is.  You had no idea he’d even arrived yet but there he is—Liam in all his tall, gangly glory.  He smiles at you.  “Hi, babe!” He reaches out an arm to pull you into his side for a hug.

“Hey!” He can instantly sense your confusion as he presses his lips to your forehead.

“Sorry I didn’t text ya,” he says. “I got here and the party was started.  I was gonna come find ya.”

Your dad beams at you.  “(Y/N), I was just introducing Liam to everyone.  We were having a very manly talk.”

Liam snorts. “Manly indeed.”  He turns to you, a gleam in his eye.  “I didn’t know your family was into classic old films.”

You giggle. “Do you know who my parents are?  Of course they are.”

He smiles, and then suddenly makes a face. “Oh! Almost forgot.”  He walks over to the little coffee table on your porch and picks up a bottle of wine.  “This is for your mum.  Where’s she at?”

“She’s inside.  Here, I’ll take it!”  That was just like Liam.  Always so sweet.  Always thinking of everyone else.

“No, no, it’s good. Let me!  I wanna see her.  And meet everyone else.”  He raises a hand in your father’s direction.  “Nice talking to you.  We’ll run into each other later I’m sure.”  

“Yeah definitely!”  Liam turns to go into the house, keeping a hand on your back. Force of habit, you suppose, that he has to be touching you every time he’s in public.  It isn’t something he realizes he does, you think. Once, you’d asked him about it because you had assumed it was a nervous habit. You thought he just wanted to be touching you because secretly he didn’t like crowds all that much.  (Not a very far off guess either.  Crowds had never been his favorite things, you’d learned.) But he said it was just to keep you two together, and to show you off proudly. To tell the world “She’s mine” and all that.  Of course, after that sweet confession was made he just had to throw in a dirty joke about touching you in other ways under the table later that night, and you’d blushed and slapped his arm even though you’d actually wanted him to…

But that’s beside the point.

You turn to glance at your father one last time before disappearing into the house, and he flashes you a thumbs up and a nod. Internally, you breathe out a sigh of relief.  Liam had made a good impression on these people at least.

As soon as you and Liam enter the house, everyone goes silent.  The older women stare at you expectantly, with the corners of their lips turned up in a way that tells Liam they were just talking about him.  Your Aunt Susan lets out a quiet giggle that does not go unnoticed.  Your seventeen- year-old cousin Nicole (coincidentally a Niall girl since day one) straightens up in her seat, nervously stroking her hair.

Liam clears his throat, and you realize you’ve been holding your breath.  “Hello, everyone.  I’m Liam.”

And then they go right back to talking—everyone at once.  It doesn’t so much sound like individual voices as much as one giant buzzing noise.  

And for some reason, though you’ll never know how he manages to do it, Liam answers everyone’s questions.  

“Yes ma’am.”  

“It’s nice to meet you, too.”  

“No, I’ve never heard of that.”  

“I’m 25.” 

“We met through a friend.”  You stand there awe-stricken at the fact that your boyfriend is juggling all of these people and talking to them all at once.  It’s like any other performance for him, and he does it so damn well that you can’t help but beam proudly at him.

“This one can’t stop talking about you!” your grandma says, nodding her head in your direction.  Instantly, your cheeks go crimson because why in God’s name is that a necessary thing to say?   Okay, sure, maybe you did talk about him a lot but it was only when someone else brought him up first or when you had a funny story to tell that just so happened to involve him.  Or when someone asked you a question about him.  Or when he had done something so damn sweet you just had to tell someone before your insides burst.  Or when—

Your aunt cuts off your thoughts.  “Oh gosh, isn’t that the truth?  You must be pretty good to this girl.”

You can literally feel Liam’s gaze on your face and it actually burns. His dimple is deep enough to get lost in and you have to resist the urge to poke it like you normally do. You roll your eyes a bit, chewing on the inside of your lip and hoping someone says something else.

“Yeah?” Liam asks, not looking away from you. “Well she’s good to me.  M’crazy about her.”

Your breath hitches in your throat as the women all coo and “aw” at frequency only dolphins could hear.  You let out a nervous giggle and you know that Liam senses what you’re feeling.   He’s too much of a little shit to do anything about it though, because he likes seeing you all giggly and nervous and red.  Says it’s “damn cute” and wants you to stay that way forever.  

Your mom comes to your rescue even though she’s completely oblivious to your embarrassment.  “What’s this?”  She reaches down to Liam’s free hand and takes the bottle of wine from it.

“Oh, s’for you.  Sorry for showin’ up late.  And sorry for not bringing more.”

“You didn’t have to bring it at all!” your mom says. “But you know I will never turn down wine.  Thank you, Liam.”

He nods.  “Of course.”  He glances down at you with a smug smile that says ‘See? Everything is fine.’  You shake your head at him, amazed at what a charming little cheese-ball he can be. Then again, there was rarely ever a time that he wasn’t being a charming little cheese-ball.  This family reunion was no exception.

It doesn’t take much longer until Liam is chatting up a storm with everyone.  They all seem to have settled down with their teasing, which is wonderful.  In fact, they seem to have almost forgotten that you’re even there all together.  You watch from your seat at the counter beside your cousin as Liam buzzes around, comparing recipes and telling jokes and stories and laughing as if he has been apart of this family his whole life.  He only briefly glances over his shoulder at you every now and again to smile or wink, and your heart flutters with pride at how good he’s being.  Not that you weren’t expecting him to be good. But this, you were not expecting.

This cheerful guy who knows everything about baking the cake for after dinner (he did, after all, use to work in a bakery.  He’d mentioned that three times now).   This guy who told stories that had the whole room hanging on every word he spoke while he carefully stirred around the mashed potatoes so your mom wouldn’t have to.  This guy who talked about you like you were God’s gift to the earth, and listened intently to every story from your childhood—even if you’d rather it not be shared with him.  You could not love him any more than you did in this moment.

You’re almost disappointed when your dad pops in from the backyard and shouts, “Sorry to bother you, but can I steal Liam for a minute?”

“He was just getting to the good part of the story!” your aunt calls back, and Liam chuckles.

“I’m sorry,” Liam says.  He puts his hand up as if swearing an oath. “I promise I’ll finish it later.  I’m all yours once he’s done with me”

He turns to go, but not without stopping at your seat and pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead.   With a sweet smile, he disappears out the door on the heels of your father.

As soon as the door closes behind him, you can feel everyone’s eyes on you.  You don’t even want to turn to look at them, but you have nowhere else to look.  So you sigh and look first at your mother, hoping that she’ll sense that you don’t want to be bombarded with more questions and comments.

It doesn’t work.  Your grandma is the first to speak.   “Oh my goodness, I think he is just lovely.”  Which is a relief but at the same time, doesn’t mean much coming from the woman who’s told every boy you’ve known in your lifetime to “take care of my grandbaby or I’ll kill you.”  Hell, she’d even threatened the guy who played your stage husband in your high school play.   A kind gesture, yes, but an aggravating one to say the least. Liam was bound to get the threatening speech by the end of the night.

“I agree,” your aunt chimes in.  “And you can see how much he loves you.”

Your cousin, Sara lets out all the air she’s been holding in her lungs for the past fifteen minutes.  “Oh my GOD, he’s cute,” she says, and it’s the first time you’ve heard her talk since she got here.  “Seriously, he’s even better in person.”

You giggle.  “Thank you, guys.  I know it really means a lot to him that you wanted him here.“  You reach for your glass of water because you hadn’t realized that all those nerves were making you thirsty.

“Of course!” your aunt replies.  “Why wouldn’t we?”

Another aunt who, admittedly, you don’t know the name of (she was someone’s like, third wife or something who no one actually really knew anything about other than she was loud and proud and here in your kitchen) wiggles her eyebrows.  “Yeah, especially if he’s gonna be part of the family one day.  Do we hear wedding bells in the very near future?”

You nearly choke on your water, and you let out a little sputtering cough.  “Uh… that’s not… I mean, we haven’t really… he’s only 25… I—” You aren’t quite how to answer this question in front of a room full of gossipy ladies.  Sure they had your best interest at heart, and they were only trying to make fun conversation, but you and Liam are so young for God’s sake.  You knew you wanted to marry him, but in the very near future? Couldn’t you at least, like, graduate college first?

Your mom senses your distress and laughs lightly. “Let’s not push it, Denise.”  Denise.  That’s her name.  Dammit Denise. “She’s so young and we’re just happy she finally found someone.”

“True,” your grandma speaks up.  “We all thought she was going to be single forever.” They all giggle, and you let out a nervous little giggle as well.  What was that supposed to mean?

You are literally saved by the bell when the oven timer beeps, signaling it’s just about time to eat.  The ladies abandon all gossip and teasing remarks and bustle around once more to get everything together.  Ten minutes later, you find yourself seated beside Liam on the couch with a plate overflowing with food. Dinner is fantastic, of course, and many adults are enjoying Liam’s bottle of wine. Liam is still talking and laughing with ease, and it’s amazing how easily he is flowing from one topic to the next.  Needless to say, he fits into this family far better than you could’ve ever hoped.

After dinner, when everyone is sitting with droopy eyes and full tummies, a small crowd slowly migrates out to the backyard. Liam, you’re assuming, is apart of that crowd because, once you come back from dropping your dish off in the sink, he’s disappeared.  You don’t know whether to be happy or upset.  You’d invited Liam to this as your sort of “date” and yet you’d hardly gotten to spend any time with him.  Which was fine, because at least you knew everyone liked him.  But between the women needing your assistance and the men talking to him about… well, everything, you’ve barely been able to say more than two sentences to him.

When the dishes are washed and everyone is settled once more, you take the opportunity to go find him.  It doesn’t take long once you step outside.  Though the sun is setting, the air is still hot. The men and a few of their wives are sitting around the porch drinking various alcoholic beverages and talking about work.  They all greet you cheerfully, but don’t really deter from their conversation.  

You step off of your porch and onto the grass where the little kids are still playing.  And there, you see him.  Running around and giggling just like he’s one of them.   He’s tied his hair up into a bun at the back of his head, but he didn’t use as much care as he normally does because a few strands whip at his cheeks as he runs. His laugh echoes and mixes in with the younger children’s and the sounds are so adorable they make you want to explode.  

They seem to be playing a game of tag, with Liam being “it.”  You know he’s taking it easy on them because his long legs could move him much faster than he’s currently running.  And because you know that he could take one step in their four steps.   Finally, he catches up to your four-year-old cousin Hannah and, in one swift motion, scoops her up in his arms.  He spins her around and yells like a monster, with her squealing and giggling like a crazy person.  It’s all too damn cute; Liam with children has always been one of your weaknesses that he’s never known about.  It makes you realize what a great father he’s going to be someday, and GOD how you hope it’ll be your kids he’s fathering.

He sees you mid spin and laughs, slowing down. It takes him a minute to get his balance and to get his brain to stop spinning, but once he seems steady on his feet again, he puts Hannah back on the ground and walks to you with a smile on his face.   He glances over his shoulder at the little kids, who now all seem disappointed that their new “cousin Liam” (as you’d later learn was what they were so affectionately calling him) was done playing. “Gimme a sec.”  He smiles back at you.  “Hi, my love.”

When he reaches you, he takes both of your hands in his and pulls you into him for a quick kiss, earning a chorus of “eeeewwwww” from the little kids. You giggle into the kiss, but don’t pay attention to them.  When you pull away, you speak.  “Looks like you’re a hit.”

“Yeah, they won’t let me go,” he chuckles.  “But I love it.  I’m having fun.  Just miss bein’ around you.”

“My whole family loves you, Liam.  I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

“Yeah, well, I love them just as much.”  Before any other words can be exchanged, one of the little monsters— Hannah’s six-year-old brother Josh— runs up and leaps up onto Liam’s back, causing him to emit a loud “oof” and almost topple over. He regains himself quickly, hopping a bit to adjust the kid on his back, before chuckling.  “Heeeey. What are you doing?”

“Play with us!” Josh yells, kicking his legs a bit and almost hitting you.

You giggle and take a step back as Liam attempts to stop his kicking.  “I will, I will! Just have to talk to (Y/N) for a bit, yeah? I miss her.”

“Don’t you guys live together?” comes another raspy little voice.  Your other baby cousins—Dalton, Lea, Callie, and Hannah—have all appeared at Liam’s feet, blinking up at you with big wide eyes.

You and Liam exchange a glance before you speak. “Not… really. I have my own apartment and so does Liam.  We just… hang out a lot.”

“You guys are dating, right?” It’s Lea, the ever-shy one with the cutest little lisp, who speaks.  

You smile, reaching down to brush her hair behind her ear.  “Yes ma’am.”

“Yuuuuck,” Josh groans.  

“It’s not yucky!” Hannah shouts back.  “It’s nice.”  She blinks up at you.  “Do you guys like… kiss and stuff?”

It’s an innocent question but your cheeks still go a bit red.  You look at Liam, who’s wearing a tongue-in-cheek smirk and looking everywhere but your eyes.  You let out a puff of air.  “Uh…”

“No,” Liam says, very seriously all of a sudden. “Of course not.  Don’t you know that girls have cooties?”

“Cooties aren’t real,” says Callie. She always has been the practical one of the family, even when she was a baby.  Now, at eight, you can see she hasn’t changed.

Liam doesn’t budge.  “Are too,” he retorts.

“Nuh uh.”

“Yes huh.”

“Nuh UH!”

You giggle, and little Hannah cuts off their argument.  “Cooties aren’t real because mommy and daddy kiss each other and they don’t have cooties.”

“That’s because they’re married, Hannah.” Liam sounds like he’s given this some thought, and you laugh at his serious tone.  “You can only kiss when you’re married.”

“Nuh UH! I just saw you and (Y/N) kiss!”

Lea gasps.  “Are you and (Y/N) getting married?”

You and Liam look at each other, wanting so badly for the other to say something that’ll get them off this subject.  “Uh,” Liam laughs.  “Probably someday.”

“Really?!”

All three little girls look up at you with the widest eyes you’ve ever seen, and you furrow your eyebrows. It’s your turn to say something.  “Um.  I mean… yeah.  Probably.  Someday. Not like, soon or anything but—“

“Can I be the flower girl?” Callie asks.

“You’re too old to be the flower girl,” Lea says.

“Nuh uh, flower girls can be whatever age they want to be, huh (Y/N)?”

“What about the ring bear?” asks Josh, squirming around excitedly on Liam’s back.

“Can I be the ring bear?”

“I wanna be the ring bear!” Dalton yells.

“It’s ring bearer, guys,” Callie says with a roll of her eyes.

While all the little kids discuss your future wedding, you notice Liam hasn’t taken his eyes off of you.  You blink nervously for a moment before offering him an apologetic smile.

His nose wrinkles up and suddenly he’s squatting down to put Josh on the ground. He’s eye level with all of them now. “You guys can be whatever you want to be,” he says.  “Hey, we’ll even let you plan the wedding, yeah?  But I have to tell you, that day won’t be for a while.  Don’t get all excited now.”

“Do you love (Y/N)?” Lea asks, batting her long eyelashes at Liam.

Liam smiles up at you with his lips pressed tightly together.  He nods. “I do.”

The three little girls immediately let out a chorus of sighs.  “How romantic,” Hannah says, and you giggle because at four-years-old, “romantic” is probably the biggest vocabulary word she knows how to use.

Liam stands up, his knees popping a bit until he’s once again towering over you. “(Y/N), I have to use the little boy’s room,” he says quietly. You giggle, taking his hand.  

“Right on,” you mumble back.  You turn to the kids once again.  “Listen, we’ll be right back, okay?”

They shout back their approval and you lead Liam up to the house.  The people on the porch greet Liam enthusiastically but still never deter from their conversation, much to Liam’s liking.  Apparently, no one had left him alone all day so he hadn’t even had time to ask where the bathroom was.  Your poor little social butterfly.

You lead him through the house, dodging in and out of people and their conversations.  The poor thing feels almost guilty that he can’t stop to talk to them all.  But at this point he feels like his bladder is a ticking time bomb that can’t wait much longer, something he announces to you as you pull him through the living room.  You let out another giggle and a “ew, Liam” before approaching the guest bathroom towards the front of the house.

To your dismay, the minute you knock on the closed door, you hear a voice from inside call out, “Just a minute!”  

You turn to your boyfriend.  “Think you can wait a minute?”  He shakes his head, eyes wide and you roll your eyes.  “You’re really gonna make me do this?”

“Do what?” he asks, but you don’t answer him. You’re already pulling him up the stairs behind you in the direction you’d hoped you’d never have to take him… your childhood bedroom.

It wasn’t that there was anything particularly terrible about it.  It was just that the last time you’d lived here was in high school.  All through college you either lived on campus or in your own apartment, so clearly this place hasn’t been updated in quite some time.

You reach the closed door (second on the left) and let out a sigh.  “Liam before you go in here just know that… I haven’t been up here in awhile.  So it’s probably… embarrassing… and—“

“(Y/N), I love you.  I really do.  But if I don’t get to the bathroom in the next ten seconds I am going to actually explode.”

You giggle, pushing open the door and letting him inside.  He runs immediately to the tiny bathroom connected to your bedroom and closes the door. Meanwhile, you step into the room and take this time to really admire it.  You close the door behind you so no one knows you’re up here and thinks they can use this bathroom (it is still, technically your room and is therefore off limits).  

The room is exactly how you remembered it. When you’d lived here in high school, you didn’t really care what you had in here.  Posters of bands hang all over the walls, your stuffed animals line the shelves above your old twin size bed, and there, poorly hidden by a chair, is the stain from the time you’d snuck a bottle of wine up here with your friends and accidentally spilled it all over the carpet.  You giggle at the memory.  It had been so serious to you back then.

You sit on the edge of the bed, but soon give in to your temptation and allow yourself to lie backwards. You’re so tired. All the tension from being so nervous all day has really gathered in your shoulders, and God a massage would feel so good. (Perhaps something to bring up tonight when you get to Liam’s, you think.) You’ve been on your feet all day, and you hadn’t even realized they were hurting until right now. You’re about to close your eyes when you realize what you’re looking at.

On the ceiling hangs a poster of Zac Efron in his High School Musical era and you actually laugh out loud.  Why had you put that up there?

About a minute later, Liam comes out of the bedroom to find you lying there and he smiles to himself.  He looks around the room, too, taking in the pieces of your past like its some big secret you’d kept hidden away this whole time. Technically, you had kept it hidden away.  

He comes and towers over you and you smile up at him.  He’s not looking at you, however.  He’s instead looking up to where your eyes just were moments ago.  His eyebrow quirks up as his hand comes to absentmindedly stroke his chin.  After a moment of silent observation, he nods.  “He’s cute.”

You giggle, sitting up.  “What can I say?  I’ve always had good taste in men.”

He laughs, plopping down beside you on the bed and cupping a hand behind your neck to bring your face closer.  Without any type of warning, he presses a soft, deep, still smiley kiss to your lips, and after a few moments of him sucking on your bottom lip, you sigh into his mouth.  This was exactly what you needed right now.  

He pulls away, smiling at you.  “I love you, (Y/N).  And I love your family a lot.  All of ‘em.”

You bite at your lip, wanting to shout for joy. “Seriously?”

He nods.  “Seriously.  I could not be happier to be here with you right now.”   He presses another quick kiss to your lips before continuing. “Although… it has been kinda tough being away from you all day.”

“I know,” you say, looking down.  “I’m sorry.”

“No, no! No need to be sorry.   Your family is great.  Talking to them is great. I’m not complaining. “  He smirks suddenly, the infamous dimple making its appearance. “Plus, I get you all to myself tonight when we leave.”  He leans forward to kiss along your jawline.

You turn your head, granting him easier access to your neck.  You can’t help it.  You let out a hum of contentment as his lips travel lower, and it takes everything in you not to allow your now fluttering eyelashes to close.  “Well,” you say quietly,  “you have me all to yourself right now.”

You can feel the smirk deepen against your neck. “That I do,” he says, immediately followed by another kiss.  “But. I don’t want to keep you from your family.”  His lips are now fastened to your collarbone, making it clear that yes, actually, he does want to keep you from your family.

You turn your head and push your forehead to his. “They’re not gonna mind.  They don’t even notice we’re gone.”

It doesn’t take any more than that.   Immediately, he pushes you back on the bed. It’s a bit of an awkward shuffle, but the two of you manage to crawl higher up on the bed so that you aren’t hanging off the edge.  (Well, Liam will be hanging off the edge regardless.  It was so damn tiny.)

The bed creaks loudly under you, but neither of you seem to mind.  You’re too busy trying not to just lose all control to rip his clothes off, and he’s too busy letting his lips get lost in the dip between your neck and your shoulder.  Clearly he’d been waiting for this all day.

Your skirt has ridden completely up, and Liam uses that to his advantage.  While one hand fumbles with the buttons at the top of your dress, the other hand reaches down to your thigh.  He rubs lightly up and down, going higher each time like the little tease he is. You shift a bit so that maybe he’ll get the hint, but all you get in response is another creak of the bed.

This time Liam laughs, though he never removes his lips from your neck.  “Loud bed,” he muses.  “Have to be more careful.”  You feel almost paralyzed underneath him because what he’s doing feels so damn good, and he hasn’t even kissed anywhere lower than your chest yet. He shifts so that he’s basically on top of you and begins grinding his hips against yours. The ever-growing bulge is hitting just where you want it to and fuck it feels so good you want to cry out.  

Your nose wrinkles up as you smile, a soft moan just on the verge of escaping.  “God, Liam,” you speak in a near whisper.  “Fuck.”

“M’not even doing anything yet,” he teases, because that stupid boy knows damn well what he’s doing to you. He reaches down to rub over the fabric of your underwear and you’re about to curse again, when a knock comes at the door.

You both instantly freeze, locking eyes in sheer panic.  When a soft little “Liam?” is heard in none other than Hannah’s voice, you let out a breath.

“Um, he’s in the bathroom,” you call out, still frozen.

“(Y/N)?” asks Hannah, more confused now.  “Are you guys both in there?”  She jiggles the doorknob and you thank God in heaven that you’d locked it.

“Um, yeah,” you say.  “Only because… I had to… show him where it was.”

An evil little grin spreads across Liam’s face suddenly and he ducks his head to fasten his lips to your neck once more.

“Liam,” you hiss.

Hannah continues outside the door.  “How much longer do you think he’s gonna be?”

“Um,” you say, and Liam literally snorts because your voice cracks when he bites down.  “I’m not really sure, sweetie.  Probably not that much longer.”

“Oh….” Hannah says.  “Well, okay.  I’m just gonna wait for him out here then.”

“NO,” you yell out, almost too quickly.  It’s partly because of Hannah’s declaration of her patience, but mostly because Liam has now moved your bra and is kissing your exposed breast and holy shit, what is it that he’s trying to do here?  

The bed creaks and Hannah speaks again.  “Was that the bed?”

Liam laughs quietly once again, and you know he’s doing this purely for his own entertainment.  “N-No,” you stutter.  “It wasn’t.”

“It sounded like a bed.”  The doorknob jiggles again.  “Why is the door locked?”

You let out an exasperated sigh as Liam sucks lightly at the skin of your chest. “Sweetheart, please.  Can you just go back out and play again?  Liam will be back in a little bit.”

“How long is a little bit?”

Liam sighs, pulling away and smiling apologetically. “This is pointless. My people need me,” he whispers, kissing lightly at your nose before crawling off the bed.

“Wait,” you hiss out quietly.  “You’re just gonna… leave me here?  You’re not even gonna finish what you started?”

“Who are you talking to?” Hannah calls.

Liam clears his throat.  “It’s me, love. Hold on. I’m coming.”

You raise your eyebrow, clearly a little bit ticked.  “Well, you could be coming if we weren’t being cock-blocked by a four-year-old.”

Liam laughs. “Cheeky.”  He reaches down to—ehem—adjust himself before going to quickly wash his hands and fix his hair in the mirror. “Like you said,” he says quietly before opening the door.  “I’ll have you all to myself tonight when we get back to my place, yeah?”  He gives you a quick wink before opening the door and slipping out into the hallway.

He closes the door behind him, which gives you enough time to straighten up a bit and saves you from having to look your cousin in the eye while your skirt was halfway off.  When you do finally decide to leave the room, Liam and Hannah are long gone.  Dammit.

You rejoin your mother and the other women in the living room, and you’re glad no one questions it further when you tell them you just had to show him where the upstairs bathroom is.  Out of the window you can see him sitting on the porch, little Hannah curled up on his lap.  One of his hands strokes lazily through her curls while the other holds a beer bottle that someone (probably your dad) had given him.  You let out a sigh.  He was right.   You would finally get to be alone with him for the whole night as soon as you left here. You could stand a few more hours without him.

Those few hours go by slow as molasses until finally, the crowd has significantly shrunk in size.  You and Liam make the decision to leave and after saying your goodbyes to everyone left at the party, you climb into his car.

There are a few moments of silence as he pulls out of your driveway and onto the road.  Probably because you’re shocked at how well that went.  You glance over at Liam who’s completely focused on the road, and you can’t help but feel your heart swell with pride.  You ‘re so damn lucky.

Liam smiles, but doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “What?” he asks.

You reach up to poke the dimple, something you’d been resisting all night.  “Nothing. Just… proud of you.  Proud that you’re mine.”  You adjust your seatbelt to lean across the center console and press a kiss to his cheek.  “You did so good today.”

This time, he does steal a quick glance at you before speaking.  “I said it a million times and I’ll say it a million more: I love your family.  I wanna be around ‘em all the time.  When’s the next family reunion?”

You giggle.  “Well the family reunion thing usually happens once every summer, so, unfortunately, you’ll have to wait.  But every year for Christmas we do something with Hannah’s family.”

Liam’s eyebrows quirk up at this.  “Yeah?  I love that little girl.”

You giggle.  “She loves you, too.  We’ve never seen her warm up to someone so quickly before.”

“When we’re married, let’s have a little girl just like her.”  

Your heart actually stops right then and there at his use of the world “when.”  He wants it to happen just as much as badly as you do, and he wants to have a little girl with you.  You bite at your lip, trying to find the right thing to say back to that, but all you can come up with is a quiet “Okay.”

He smiles at you, reaching over to place a hand on your thigh.  “I love you, (Y/N).  I really mean that.  I love you. And I love your family.  And I really hope to spend the rest of my life with you.  And with your family.”

You giggle.  “I love you, too, Liam.  And they love you.  I can’t tell you how huge that is.”

Instead of speaking, Liam takes your hand in his and brings it up to his lips to kiss.   It feels like everything he meant to say was in that kiss, and if you thought you couldn’t be more in love with him than you were earlier, you were definitely wrong.  

You think back to what your Aunt Denise said about marriage and how nervous it had made you, but now… well, it just seemed silly. It wasn’t nerve-wracking at all really. It was so simple. So obvious.  Of course you want to marry Liam.  Even if you are young, you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s the one you want to spend the rest of your life with.

You also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are the luckiest girl on the planet, and you could not be happier to be his.

[enbouton]

Better Call Saul Rewatch, Part 2/30: I’m A Lawyer, Not A Criminal

Mijo (Season 1, Episode 2)

Written by Vince Gilligan & Peter Gould / Directed by Michelle MacLaren

Breaking Bad liked to juxtapose food preparation with menace (particularly where Gus was concerned), but after some extreme close-ups on blood-red peppers and some vivid sound design, we pull out and see that Tuco’s just, well, cooking. In an apron, in his grandma’s kitchen. (Raymond Cruz gives more nuance to Tuco here than he had the chance to in Breaking Bad. He’s not quite as quick to anger, which actually makes him scarier, since you don’t know when he’s going to strike.)

Aside, this is such a Breaking Bad frame:

Mrs. Salamanca arrives with Cal and Lars in tow, fretting about the accident; Tuco reassures her and sends her upstairs, ominously adding “turn up the volume real loud so you can hear it”. I love the twins’ complete obliviousness to the danger they’re in. Even when Tuco pointedly asks them if the cops are coming, they don’t get it; they’re still yammering about “dollar amounts” when he picks up his abuelita’s cane.

The first half of this episode is harrowing. A situation Jimmy thought he could micromanage has spiralled out of control, and he looks sick with fear throughout, face contorting, hands trembling. He does a good job of talking Tuco down at first, only for it all to collapse like a house of cards when Lars yells that the scam was his idea. This brings us to a classic set-piece:

The desert! I missed you.

It’s a good choice not to show Nacho taking in the information about Craig and Betsy and the money they stole; it keeps our attention locked to Jimmy’s perspective. All we need to learn about Nacho at this point is that he’s smarter and more level-headed than his boss.

This scene is where we see that Jimmy really is a good advocate at a fundamental level. He reads Tuco well enough to know how to appeal to him; he deploys truths and untruths selectively for the greatest effect. When Tuco won’t budge on the issue of the twins’ punishment, he starts bargaining: what’s proportionate? What’s fair?

Giving Jimmy credit for arguing on behalf of Cal and Lars after he himself is set free would be setting the bar low, but it does demonstrate qualities that Saul Goodman must have buried pretty deep. He saves the twins’ lives, and he looks utterly disgusted with himself when he and Tuco shake hands on their “sentence”.

The whole leg-breaking/breadsticks sequence is... a lot. You get momentarily distracted by the sight of Jimmy’s maybe-date (it made me wonder about his and Kim’s past relationship; there’s obviously something between them, but he’s flirting with someone else; did they just fool around a few times, or did they actually date and then break up?) and then the snapping starts and ugh it’s just awful. Kudos to the sound design department. Please never repeat this.

It’s poignant that Jimmy, traumatised and blind drunk, ends up seeking shelter at his prickly brother’s house. Chuck seems to experience pain in his right arm just after Jimmy passes out on the couch, right before he thinks to look for Jimmy’s phone. This is an early hint at the true source of his symptoms: if it were really the electromagnetic fields, he’d have reacted as soon as Jimmy crossed the threshold, but he seems fine until he appreciates what a sorry state Jimmy is in.

The next morning, we get to see Chuck’s house in daylight for the first time. In general, the interplay of light and shadow in Chuck’s house is managed beautifully. Draped in a space blanket, Chuck passive-aggressively informs Jimmy that he’s out of milk, and then beautifully pretends not to have read the urgent care bill that fell out of Jimmy’s pocket. The whole “take off the space blanket” back-and-forth that ensues is just so well written and acted, in such an unflashy way. Underneath Jimmy’s hungover frustration is the fear that he is the reason Chuck is under the space blanket:

Jimmy: Hey, Chuck, listen. I— I know how this looks. I’m down to my last dime, and suddenly I’m paying for broken legs. But it’s not that, I swear. This represents a good thing, ultimately.

Chuck: Okay.

Jimmy: I’m not backsliding. This isn’t Slippin’ Jimmy.

Chuck: Fine.

Jimmy: Take off the space blanket, will you, please, Chuck?

Chuck: It helps.

Jimmy: Take off the space blanket. I didn’t do anything wrong.

Chuck: It has nothing to do with that. It was your phone.

Jimmy: Take off the space blanket.

Chuck: Why?

Jimmy: Take off the space blanket, Chuck. Come on. Take off the blanket.

Begrudgingly, Chuck takes it off. Jimmy goes out to find his phone, and Chuck wraps himself back up again.

Another montage! I love this one, it’s so snappy. The Baroque music is something we wouldn’t have heard on Breaking Bad. We get to see Jimmy wheeling and dealing with DDA Bill “Petty With A Prior” Oakley, subsisting on vending-machine coffee, and exchanging glances with Kim. The shot where Jimmy meets a client, walks into one courtroom, and emerges from another door with a different client is almost balletic, and the sequence of cuts between arguments in different cases (improvised by Bob Odenkirk) is especially good. Just as he did at HHM and the nail salon, he engages with the people around him, giving coffee to a deputy outside the courtroom. His suits, shirts and ties are notably subdued; James M. McGill isn’t flashy, after all.

The show takes its time integrating Mike within the plot, which is good. They could have gone full fanservice from the start, but they don’t. (The audio description track on Netflix just calls him “the parking attendant” for the first few episodes until someone finally uses his name.) You do wonder why, after the third or fourth time Mike makes Jimmy go back for more stickers, he doesn’t start double-checking his validation with the clerk. Maybe he did offscreen and she wouldn’t budge.

The sequence where Jimmy gets into his office, checks for messages, unfolds his bed, pours himself a drink and settles back before being disturbed is one of the quiet, carefully observed scenes that BCS does so well. Nothing dramatic is happening, it’s just a guy coming home from work and making himself comfortable.

The exchange in which Nacho asks Jimmy to help him rip off the Kettlemans would do little but move the plot forward were it not for Nacho’s uncomfortably accurate reading of Jimmy. Much as he protests, much as he insists that he’s sticking to the straight and narrow, much as he pretends to be only temporarily based in Mrs. Nguyen’s back room, he is seen through.

One of the tragedies of Jimmy McGill’s life is that no matter what he does, people keep telling him who and what he is and always will be: Slippin’ Jimmy, a conman, a criminal. Another one is that he keeps on proving them right.

Misc.

“Judge’s gotta see your mother. … Well, do you know anybody who looks like her? … No, an uncle won’t do it.”

Hello and goodbye to Jimmy’s shortest-lived alter ego, Special Agent Jeffrey A. Steele, FBI. I wonder if we’ll ever see him again?

This is so far the only episode of BCS directed by Michelle MacLaren, who directed some of my favourite Breaking Bad eps (Salud, Madrigal, Buried) including such #iconic scenes as the poolside cartel massacre. 

Timeframe: May 25 to maybe June 5, 2002; the urgent care receipt is dated May 25th, and Jimmy wears at least nine different ties in the courthouse montage, suggesting at least two weeks of work.

The parking lot is the one at the end of 1st Street, behind the Albuquerque Convention Center; it’s not actually attached to any of the courthouses, but it is very close to them. (NB: whenever I cite a location, credit should go to Marc Valdez, who has catalogued pretty much every site used in filming BrBa and BCS on his blog.)

Music

“Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Juan García Esquivel (1958), during the bar scene

Vivaldi’s Concerto for Strings in G Major, RV 151 (Concerto alla rustica), first movement, during the court montage

References

The Code of Hammurabi: a Babylonian legal code dating back to 1754 BCE that codified the principle of retaliatory justice. Law #196 states “if a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out” (source).

“Title 21, Schedule II through V, including Part B” refers to the United States Code Controlled Substances Act.

“It’s showtime, folks” is from All That Jazz (1979). Context, from Shmoop:

Joe Gideon is a chain-smoking, pill-popping workaholic by day and playboy by night. As a famous choreographer-director, he is physically burning out. Every morning he greets his hungover, bloodshot image in the bathroom mirror with, "It's showtime, folks!"

< PREVIOUS EPISODE: UNO > NEXT EPISODE: NACHO

[confinedsoul]

Comfort Escape II

(disclaimer: SUPER LONG STORY TIME)

Hey y'all

So I just ditch this page after I finish the challenge. Haha it’s so me I’ll tell you. Setelah gue bebas dari suatu tanggung jawab, I tend to procrastinate to start another one because I feel like I need a break. I actually already came up with another challenge idea that will make me preoccupied for the next 30 days. But before that, I need to prepare myself because I alone have a very high expectation for myself and it’s not that rare for me to be disappointed by that. You see I tend to blame myself for everything because of my own expectations but I can help to set the bar that high because that is the only thing that can push me forward and thrive in life.

Anyway, a lot of things happened after I started this page. As time went by I had a lot of disagreements with my mom and brother, which made me overthink a lot and I ended up going to a psychiatrist, oh and I’ve been sleeping a lot, like too much. My grandma now lives with us which is a good thing because if anything happens, I go to her and ease up my mind looking for mental support hehe. The thing about writing, gue masih mencoba untuk bisa seperti dulu lagi dimana gue melarikan diri lewat tulisan tapi susah ya ceu. I mean segimana keras gue mencoba untuk nulis lagi tuh rasanya ada yang menghalangi aja gitu kan. Belakangan gue kalau ada apa-apa cuma diem aja dikamar, tiduran, bengong, atau ya tidur sekalian. Gitu deh pokoknya.

Gue mau story time dulu nih. Dulu waktu SMA, sekolah gue ngadain kompetisi dan semacam pensi gitu terus ada kompetisi film pendek yang dulu gue lupa antara jurinya atau pesertanya itu Aulion. Kalau gak salah awalnya peserta, terus tahun berikutnya jadi juri. Dia top banget sih pada waktu itu, sampai sekarang gue masih selalu kagum sama karya-karya dia di youtube. Terus ada film pendek yang ikut kompetisi itu judulnya Borderline. Gue lupa ini dari sekolah mana tapi mereka jadi peserta di tahun itu. Awalnya gue gak ngerti ini apa sih maksudnya, ceritanya agak gak jelas dan gue kayak ini kenapa begini cowoknya. Turns out, it’s about Borderline Personality Disorder. Gue dulu gak begitu banyak baca tentang ini, karena jaman gue SMA dulu, pengetahuan dan awareness on mental health issue itu belum setinggi sekarang. Gue baru benar-benar mencari tahu dan aware tentang mental health waktu gue akhirnya merasakan hal itu sendiri di masa-masa kuliah gue.

Gue pernah sekali self diagnosed, dari beberapa event yang terjadi dan gue rasakan terus gue cocoklogi dengan gejala dan ciri-ciri dari beberapa gangguan mental yang gue temukan di internet. Sebenarnya itu jadi salah satu batu loncatan buat gue untuk bertanya ke orang yang lebih ahli karena dari beberapa tes online yang gue ambil dan konsul online lewat aplikasi memang disarankan untuk konsul langsung ke dokter atau psikolog. Lagipula at that time, the only reason that makes sense about my condition is only that diagnosis I made for myself. Turns out it’s a lot bigger than I expected. Dulu gue mengira gue hanya depressed karena skripsi gak kelar-kelar dan gue merasa gak punya teman jadi gue mengalihkan hal itu dengan makan yang banyak, minum alkohol setiap hari, belanja sampai duit gue habis, dan pada akhirnya mencoba bunuh diri. Gue bertindak terlalu impulsif and doing things that will risk my wellbeing for weeks and weeks after that I just bundled up in my bed doing nothing but regretting my life decisions. Kalau dipikir sekarang, dulu gue benar-benar menghabiskan hampir 2 tahun disana doing nothing but that. Makanya akhirnya gue konsul ke dokter.

After several appointments, diagnosa dokter adalah Affective Bipolar Disorder dan gue menjalani pengobatan dan terapi psikologis sejak saat itu. I’m actually getting a lot better. Setelah 1 tahun lebih akhirnya gue punya mood yang lebih stabil. Gue gak gampang sedih dan overthink, tapi gue juga gak gampang berperilaku impulsif dan overly happy sampai terlalu hyper like I used to be. Gue merasa fine-fine aja. Memang gue kadang gak bisa menahan ledakan emosi kayak marah, sedih, senang, atau segala jenis emosi lain tapi menurut gue yang disetujui dokter gue waktu itu adalah it’s just a part of me that I have to embrace. Adalah hal yang wajar kalau kita merasa marah dan kecewa kalau ada hal yang gak kita suka, memang gue orangnya begitu dan yang perlu gue lakukan adalah gimana gue bisa mengontrol diri gue dengan baik. I swear to you I became a lot docile after that.

Gue gak pernah sekalipun memakai kondisi kesehatan mental gue as an excuse for my wrongdoing. Gak ding, bohong haha. Sometimes I just wish that people would understand me and my actions and how I hold back this whole time because of my mental conditions. Gue pengen dimengerti gitu loh. Tapi gue selalu berfikir gimana kalau sebenarnya orang lain juga punya masalah sendiri dan dia harus keep up sama gue yang begini which make them decided to keep distance from me because I’m such a toxic person. My mood swing is no joke. I’m afraid that they will leave me alone, that could be my family, friends, loved ones, anyone. I’m afraid they’d give up on me and leave and to be frank I’ve done anything for them to not leave me, making myself pathetic, doing everything they like, and anything else you named it. Ngerti gak? I have a fear of abandonment. Kenapa sekarang gue bisa ngomong kayak gitu? Last week I went to the doctor and he said that I might have a Borderline Personality Disorder this whole time and my previous doctors seem to overlook it because the Bipolar episode was more severe back then.

Then it hit me like a lightning bolt sent from Olympus. Dari situ gue mikir, kenapa gue gak kepikiran tentang hal itu ya? Selama ini gue pikir gak mungkin punya gangguan mental lebih dari satu pada waktu yang sama. Dari situ terus mulai lah gue cari-cari tentang BPD dan menonton beberapa video untuk edukasi diri. It scares me really. Mungkin ini yang selama ini gue rasakan tapi entah kenapa dokter gue dulu gak pernah melihat hal ini padahal sebenarnya kalau gue ingat lebih nyata terjadi. Gimana dulu gue bersikap sangat pathetic pada teman-teman gue dengan tujuan they take pity of me and stay by my side yang malah berujung they talk shit about me behind my back tanpa coba mengerti gue. Maybe you could imagine how I felt back then, tapi gue mikir daripada gue yang ditinggal lebih baik gue yang meninggalkan mereka duluan, and I left. I left that circle and refused to join them unless a person personally asked me to join.

Have you ever felt guilty after venting up your anger to someone else? Sewajarnya pasti lah ya, tapi mungkin ada juga yang ngerasa lega atau malah satisfy karena udah bisa menyampaikan isi pikiran mereka. But have you ever felt afraid and guilty that you start to think that this person, whoever you vent your anger to, will eventually be tired of you and leave you because you just hurt their feelings several times at that? I do everytime. Like I said, my mood swing is no joke. I get agitated over the smallest thing and snap if I ever feel upset over anything. But less than 5 minutes after that, I get excited and happy after I read comics and forget I ever felt upset before. Dating a person like me will be like riding a roller coaster everyday. Bayangin dulu gue dekat dengan satu cowok yang keep up sama personality gue yang begini selama 2 tahun lebih dan dulu gue gak tau kalau gue mungkin punya BPD. Gue benar-benar takut dia ninggalin gue karena gue hanya selingkuhan dia. We’re happy at times but at some points I frustrated the hell out of him, guilt trip him, playing victims, doing all things he asked me to, even though I love him with all my heart not rarely I demand for more attention and support, I also buy things for him and pay for his meals and expenses hanya agar supaya dia puas dengan gue dan gak ninggalin gue. I want him to be with me, mau gue tetap jadi selingkuhan dia atau tetap jadi teman pokoknya dia gak kemana-mana. But after all that I’ve done in the end he still left me. I hate him even now but looking back, I deserve his hate too.

I know that I’m a very toxic person and that it would be hard for people to keep up with me but I want everyone to know that I’m trying my best to control myself so that nobody ever feels offended and would eventually leave me. Sebisa mungkin gue melakukan hal apapun yang membuat orang lain nyaman dengan gue. You could say that I’m a people pleaser, walaupun ada beberapa hal yang memang kalau gue gak mau dan gak suka, gue akan langsung bilang ke mereka sambil memutar otak gimana biar orang lain tetap puas dengan jalan tengah. Kayak misalkan di rumah gue sendiri, gak jarang ada perbedaan pendapat antara Bapak, Ibu, dan Mas yang kadang malah bikin suasana rumah jadi gak enak. Jujur gue selalu takut kalau akan ada saatnya, ada yang gak bisa tahan lagi dan akhirnya memutuskan untuk keluar dari rumah. Untuk mencegah hal itu terjadi gue menjadi penengah untuk ketiganya dengan berpikir netral dan mencari jalan tengah untuk masalah yang ada. It has always been like that since a long time. Paling terasa adalah waktu kakak gue mau menikah dan sekarang-sekarang ini setelah Bapak gak ada. Sometimes I can control my mood better jadi gue bisa menjadi penengah yang adil dan menyelesaikan masalah dengan damai but some other times I can’t take it anymore and just blow up. It happens on a daily basis. Capek gak sih? Gue jujur capek kayak gini terus dan kenapa gue baru tau sekarang kalau gue kemungkinan besar memang punya BPD.

Terus gue juga baru nyadar kalau semua OC atau tokoh-tokoh dalam cerita gue itu punya kehidupan dan situasi yang sebenernya gue inginkan. I’d like to imagine that they are actually me in another life as I have several universes for my own story. There’s time when I even make it sound that I have another personality karena gue pengen banget membuang kehidupan gue yang sekarang. Ada waktu dimana gue gak mau pakai nama asli gue dan memilih untuk pakai nama dari karakter fiksi yang gue buat, terus gue bersikap benar-benar seperti karakter itu waktu gue kuliah dulu. Gue juga pernah menjadikan mereka pelarian gue dengan membangun imajinasi bahwa gue adalah mereka dan imajinasi itu jadi comfort zone untuk gue. Hari ini gue mau jadi si A ah, terus gue membangun setting tempat, waktu, dan kejadian di otak gue and actually act it out as if it was all real and not in my imagination. Strangely it does make me feel a lot better. Weird and stupid I know, but if it worked then it’s not that stupid. Well maybe just a little.

I know that tumblr might not be suitable for this kind of post but I’m not actually looking for a reader, you see I’m just pouring all my thoughts and this is what I call comfort writing. I find writing this on a laptop is much more efficient and convenient than in a book. I mean at least my hand isn’t weary. It’s just my writing style to imagine that there’s actually people who read my writings. When in real life, the only person that ever reads my writings is only my father. If you happen to see this and actually read the whole post until this paragraph then you have my greatest gratitude and might as well interact with me or something, I’m a lonely person you see I might need your company :)

By the way, I decided to start a new challenge on Monday. Gonna prepare a lot and it will be a little bit different from before. Hehe please help me expect a lot from myself.

Jadi, sampai jumpa di tulisan lainnya!

[autumn-in-phandom]

“Did Dan get TOO TAN?”

(Sept 19th 2017 Dan liveshow timestamps)  

0:03 After an awkward pause and salute: “Hello cyber friends” (instant regret and reflection)

0:29 (Dear god, don’t grab your laptop by the screen like that Dan.)

0:44 Grimace #1

1:06 No Dan, you do not look *atol* different. That tweet, title and pic are all just clickbait.

1:10 (Bronze my ass.)

1:19 Hitting us with that meme.

1:25 (Didn’t need to be in your face thanks. Teasing angles?)

1:36 “Never say Trumpy ever again, in any circumstance.”

1:45 Lovely pores and freckles.

2:00 Obviously everyone subscribes to YouTubers for their freckle content.

2:30 Livestreams are “a mistake” because of the chat clinging on to one thing and spamming it.

2:40 No probing or questioning at airport, big grin.

3:01 “The broadband is terrible but the 4G is great.” Okay…

3:17 “The toasty Dan experience”, orangish filter.

3:26 Double rhyme: “I guess that’s a rhyme, yeah that’s fine” (okay it’s a slant rhyme)

3:47 “Buttered crumpet Daniel.”

4:02 “Went to an island in the Mediterranean.” (This is exactly the answer I expected and quite frankly the only one he should give.)

4:09 “Literally did nothing for about six days, it was great.”

4:15 ‘I am Pilgrim’ book recommended by his mum.

4:30 Tricked into reading 900 page book.

5:00 Holiday was incredibly relaxing.

5:10 “Ordeal” getting there, delayed flight, three hours “traumatizing”

5:22 “Haha long boye” “literally, shins driving into my chest, bleeding” alright hyperbolic humor Dan. “Tough.”

5:38 “Violated” on flight by guy’s elbows, “no respect for personal space”, “fully leaning into me”, “didn’t even care”, “honestly an icon for all of us.” (Was it Phil?)

6:03 3 am, old driver, mini bus, cliff roads, did pre-ritual preparing for death.

7:00 “So much yogurt”, doesn’t know why.

7:05 “Assaggetti” tweet, we can shame him, “has the worst sense of humor in the world”, check it out and unsubscribe, doesn’t remember the language (Italian), apologizes, “constantly problematic”.

7:55 “Got that D from the S up above” (vitamin D, or Phil…)

8:16 Phil came on the holiday in case anyone didn’t know.

8:18 “He went from like glass to pale ivory, which is good”, “Phil is someome who erupts in freckles whenever he goes outside, so it’s hard to tell if he tans or if your eyes are just kinda like drawing the dots between the space all the freckles are, if you know what I’m saying.” (Wow, I… I’d like to think you mean what I know, but I’m not sure. Wow.)

8:37 Someone in the chat: “Nice Ursa Major on that cheek boy”. Turn, pose, laugh.

8:41 “The Bigger Dipper of my self esteem.”

8:53 Good day: watched Bake Off and answered emails, “thrilling”.

9:13 Tumblr likes, fan art, “beautiful to celebrate the great people.”

9:43 “The internet is not here”, laughs, sighs, apologizes.

9:55 Some peer pressure advice.

10:25 Had to check what his video title is.

10:35 I don’t know why he bothers to ask if we watched either.

10:55 Accept that he does things by his British calendar.

11:11 Why he didn’t he talk about uni stories when it was happening. Ashamed? Yeah, processing turmoil at the time.

11:55 Now shares traumatizing, terrifying, shameful, embarrassing stories straight away.

12:15 Rowing club guy AU… (not what I was thinking)

12:46 Laundry story: Phil was nice, Dan didn’t ask, *literally* ordered a cab, turned up with suitcase, Phil assumed he dropped out and was moving in, “I’ve had a day and I’m going to wash my socks in your washing machine.”

13:13 “If you struggle to function as a person-” (I really wish he had finished this sentence)

13:15 Asda sponsor for crying in the cheese aisle?

13:23 Pasta burn shaming (were you just never in the kitchen with your mum Dan?)

13:36 Dropping laptop so much recently.

14:00 Never taught cooking, laundry, accounting.

14:18 “No one told me shit!” (in Dan’s face again).

14:33 “What happens when I’m 23?! How do I do a tax?!”

14:54 It was ravioli (pretty sure the instructions mentioned water Dan…)

15:15 Thick as in stupid, not thicc fat booty.

15:30 “Look Fatima, we all have different life experiences, okay?” (lol)

15:36 “Ravioli ravioli, give me the death I deserveioli.” Relates.

15:45 Rihanna livestream, forehead fetishist? Wouldn’t mind if anyone leaves for that.  

16:08 Not up on BTS, DNA.

16:33 Shames Eden for “let me see that pastussy” comment, “leave.”

16:45 “Love on the Brain”. He really loves Rihanna, amazing, blessing, doesn’t give a shit, casual, informal, etc. “Bitch Better Have My Money.”

17:25 Is sure BTS video with be “pure and beautiful”, expects “softly applied eyeshadow and very fluffy hair”, he’s sure he’ll enjoy.

17:38 Maybe new gaming video/livestream tomorrow.

17:45 Overcooked, ironic kitchen fire, foreshadowing.

18:08 Wasn’t sure if he should get into Chinese guy story again, but he has to.

18:13 Deep breath: “It was 4 am, I’d been you know, well hydrated that evening, but I decided I needed another drink” go into the kitchen, everyone else was asleep, guy had a whole chicken, with neck and feet, fine but surprising, tiniest pair of white y-fronts, hacked head off and made eye contact, just couldn’t, usually would awaken some kink in him…

19:39 Pool pic, shout out to friend, no consent, relaxing, absorbing sun like a lizard, *basking*, fell asleep, lucky it was a pool and he didn’t drift out to sea, sun stroke vid reference, “the bad tan”.

21:08 People saying “trying to be cute”, the double chins (really?!)

21:21 The least Dan-like photo.

21:33 Thought it would ruin his Instagram aesthetic.

22:10 Lack of other content: relaxing, reading,

22:24 Took a couple other photos, sunset selfie, “no one’s going to take a photo of me” (what the hell happened to your personal photographer?) but then people came (please post, please!)

23:40 Bake off is his life, “Noel Feilding is a national treasure”, caramel was torture while hungry, faves are Liam and not!Val (what did he whisper about Liam? Really wanted him to be…?)

24:30 *Maybe* Halloween Baking, they don’t think that far ahead about anything.

24:48 Phil’s role in Dan’s video, mugging scene took nine takes, afraid to punch him. Outtakes please!

26:03 (grimace #2) “Hello Grandma, my name is Daniel, I’m a wholesome person, that’s a very great influence”

26:16 Wachowski films

26:23 Dan floating in donut plushies would be very challenging.

26:33 Dan flips a bit at the idea that’s it’s weird to like people who don’t know who you are. Uses Ed Sheeran as example.

26:55 Scrolls past person who said they feel better when they have a dream about Dan and Phil.

27:17 Cared more about YouTube than university socializing and class, Pom Bear Massacre reference, made Tumblr account.

29:09 Chapped lips, season changed the moment he stepped off the plane.

29:42 “Okay Universe, I know I can be a bit of a downer, sometimes.”

29:51 Haley Barry Storm powers

30:08 Yes the furry blanket comes out, polyester, sad pimp, Marks & Spencer.

31:06 Ready for everything seasonal, autumnal Yankee Candle range, not haute, but fun themes.

31:31 Frisbee laptop across the room on to the bed, missed.

31:46 Candle haul, yes it is content we need right now!

32:26 Furry invasion on Splatoon, scaley, yiffing proposition, “this is a family game”, not shaming just concerned for kids, though it is hentai-esque…

33:27 Sonic: 2010 reminiscing, formatting of boxes.

34:04 Was stupid side kick, Phil being good, Dan trying to be helpful, actual just a cheerleader, Phil was disgusting, doesn’t know if Phil even knew what he was saying (of course he did).

34:38 Didn’t know uni vid was trending

34:52 Reflection (I think that’s the piano nook)

35:00 Weird because of swearing, someone at YT didn’t watch the vid, “Ah, keep doing that, don’t watch my videos, just know that I’m a good person…”

35:25 “I make great friendly content.” (grimace #3)

35:30 Explains why trending isn’t automatic. Yes, think of the children.

36:05 “But hey, I’m not bad, everything’s fine”.

36:45 “People of all genders do and don’t wear makeup”.

37:10 (I’m pretty sure that the no candles with birds is because of the fumes.)

37:25 What is with the nose touching when confirming Spooky Week? “Next video (nose touch) soon, don’t worry”…?

38:28 “Fans of everything are annoying, that’s just what happens when people are enthusiastic about stuff.”

39:19 Dan doesn’t get annoyed by different fandoms. Says more about the people being annoyed, part of their own insecurity, their lack of community, togetherness, celebration, shared experiences, jealous or sad, or maybe everyone just everyone’s annoying.

39:56 Dream Daddy: so dangerous saying Dilddy. Dan likes Damien, great taste, immaculate presentation, probably not Dilddy’s romantic soulmate.

40:31 Dan is in like ten fandoms (makes a face).

40:45 Chat: “Will Phil become a furry, what’s your fursona?” Dan: “Is it time to go?”

40:55 Has never thought about it, promises he’ll get on it soon, he knows what the internet wants from him.

41:31 Chat full of fursona suggestions. He’s going to start crying.

41:52 “A llama fucking hell.” “Look at the time.”

42:01 Going to go into a (not disturbing) hole later looking into axoltl fur suits.

42:24 Elf on a shelf meme, was going to post a Dan one, “old meme!” (Still don’t need to be up in your face Daniel.)

43:27 Really wants to go see IT, needs to see Mother.

44:04 Shut up! American Horror Story, makes him happy. Loves Sarah Paulson (is his life), feels represented by a lesbian with anxiety. Evan Peters is great, looks gross, or great depending.

45:25 His fursona should be a big bear, I agree. What a reaction.

45:46 Left comb on holiday, looks like a bush.

46:13 (grimace #4 at group chat names.)

46:20 “What is wrong with all of you?”

46:22 Glosses over diet ask. Indeed.

46:26 “Don’t call me Uncle Dan when we’re talking about fursonas.”

46:36 “If you live in Australia vote for marriage equality, we don’t need to have this conversation.” “Come on, come on Australia, sort your shit out.”

47:03 Going to “innocently Google things that are fine”.

47:22 “Me and Phil would love to come to Russia”.

47:27 Limitations of TATINOF.

47:44 Watch uni vid: “Don’t take it too seriously. Remember that most of the time I’m just trying to be funny, and if you ever want like my real feelings or opinions, just think about whatever the opposite of what I’m saying is, and that’s usually how to get to the sincere heart of whatever Dan’s talking about.”

48:13 “Stay calm, ask some senpais for some life advice and think carefully about what your fursona should be.”

[ywally-blog]

My heart beats a pang of loneliness. I can’t let go that I feel alone, and I think I know why I feel so, very alone. Just today I went to work: working, interacting with other people. Talking to customers, interacting with coworkers, and sharing about your week are all things that shouldn’t leave me feeling isolated. I am given a choice between choosing how fast I want to do my job and how often I want to spend more time talking to other people. Several beverages have to be prepared quickly, but there’s always to ask about Mike’s day and ask him what he’s doing later tonight with his girlfriend. Or to talk about the newest game trending. After decluttering my closet, my phone rung and alarmed me that my next work shift would start in an hour. I have work today? I thought today was my day off.  Boy, I was wrong. 

I was looking forward to spending this afternoon and evening with my boyfriend. I told him this week that I had Saturday off, but looking at my schedule for actually this week, I was scheduled to work from noon to five o’clock. 

Hey babe, I texted him. I asked him if he was available this evening to hang out after work. 

Lol, what?, he replied. 

Great. I’ll see you later tonight, I replied. He replied sending me photos and videos of some of the things that happened at the birthday party that he was attending. 

I was dreading my work shift. I just wanted to get over it and have the rest of day to myself. I was also looking forward to networking after decluttering my closet instead. I had the whole “day off” plan planned. I think after the lack of progress of getting my book of business going, I was disappointed in going to work any more. I hate it when people ask how things are going with my book of business (career). Just leave me alone, I’m still trying to figure it out. Efforts are made, but it’s not completely up to me whether a lead will return a respond. 

Why do you have to be an insurance agent? Ouch! For a guy who security, your next best options wasn’t all very rosy either. 

Maybe you should look for other work. Ouch! I wished you were more proud of me trying to pursue lucrative dreams. You wanted a son who was going to make a lot of money. (But then again, you’re the one who told me to quit working at the coffee shop that pays $13.40 an hour at the time to work at Church’s Chicken for minimum wage -- $12 an hour -- as a full time fry cook. Did you think assembler was any better?) Let the dreaming be up to me. 

There is so much opposing energy I can handle at once! (By the way, my mom’s a Taurus and I’m a Gemini, and this season Tauruses and Geminis are not looking hot together relationship-wise.) 

After work, I called him through the phone. 

“Hey. What’s up?” I asked. 

“Hi, babe.” he replied. 

I asked him again to see if was available this evening. He said he would call me back when he’s done with his niece’s birthday party. He was in the process of getting a new cellphone, and he’ll be back at his niece’s house to celebrate. So, I went home. I killed four hours by studying Cambodian, grocery shopping, folding my laundry, and watching the moving Minority Report. 

Earlier, while I was studying Cambodian, my mom had one of those homophobic conversations with me. She’s just begging that I wouldn’t be kissing any men. Of course, I’m usually in denial about my sexuality. Why? Because there’s a stronghold with my parents about homosexuality being a sin, and there’s not other course of action but to pray the demons away. Next best scenario, I have this hunch, I would be kicked out. Being twenty four without a career, it’s a risky endeavor that I’m not prepared for yet. This happens often. She knows, but I’m not giving it to her. 

Towards the end of the film, and right about when I was finished organizing my laundry (clothes), I texted my boyfriend, Hey, Larry. You never called. My phone rings a minute later. 

The first call, I can hear him through the phone, but he can’t hear me. So, I hung up in attempts to call him again. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey...”

He apologizes, because he was busy preparing, celebrating, and helping the host (his grandma) putting it together. He apologizes multiple times. I was mostly speechless. He’d forgotten about me, forgotten about my text, forgotten about my calls, and forgotten about ever inaccurately mentioning that Saturday was my off day. I was appalled and speechless. 

I just through another mental battle with my mom about my sexuality, and the last thing I need is to be left alone in my own home without comfort. That’s why I’m still a bit upset from all this. I needed relief from my day with somebody I cared. 

I thought maybe I relied on other too much for emotional comfort. I don’t have many friends anymore. With the friends that I have tried to befriend in the last few years, I have not felt strongly a bond that made me feel confident that the relationship was legit. I have sacrificed too much of my time for a shitty job, and now it’s too later to realize benefits of socializing with others. 

Sometimes, the best person to deal with their owns struggles is the individual. Maybe it’s my depression talking. I don’t know, I can’t tell the difference sometimes. 

I told Larry that I wished he would have said that he couldn’t spend time with me tonight then to keep me waiting -- to keep me anticipating. That’s mostly what I’ve said, he kept apologizing. 

What about tomorrow?

Tomorrow I plan on seeing some realtors to try to get home leads. Then, I have work at 2:30, and I will not be home until 8 tomorrow evening. 

I just don’t want to depend on people on my happiness very much. I’ve been feeling very lonely today, and my mother over-bearing presence to attempt to control my sexuality was not helping. But, I’m in a relationship. I’m a Gemini who deserves some honesty or transparency from my boyfriend. i told him it was fine. I hung up the phone after we said goodnight a couple of times. I had him hung up. I’m still trying not to be bothered by it, but all the feelings have the been alleviated. It’s like an untreated wound: open to discussion, but nothing has been done to heal it. Maybe talking about did some healing. I don’t know, because obviously my mother was the salt, and it’s still stinging. Ouch. 

[wannabephilosopherking]

Letter to grandma

I know you'll be gone in December. You’ll be off to an acre of land west of Las Vegas that you and grandpa bought decades ago. A house is being prepared for you there. Your husband’s mind left him too soon. Nevada’s solitude will be your refuge from my autistic screeching, outbursts, and long winded word salad tirades where I talk to the air in front of me, argue with the air in front of me and try to recite my litany of hate, my death threats and rape threats against the smart, the rich, the pretty. 

I wish I could be kinder to you before we part ways. 

It will all be over soon. I’m sorry I dragged you, among other innocents, into my hellish whirlwind. Whenever it would settle, it was clear nothing was behind it. No method to the madness. No genius there to mistake it for.

You deserved better.

Don't think I don't sometimes remember the time when you were second on the roller coaster and sat next to me. Mom was behind us. It was my first ride at Disneyland and it was Space Mountain.

Don't think I forgot the walks around the block we would call fabulous trips when they were building the big wall outside our yard on Salt Lake Boulevard.

But that was a long time ago. There are new wars being waged. I have to fight them if I wish to avoid ending up an average person.

I know it is selfish beyond measure to subject my family to torture in order to protect my ability to recast the shape of the mirrors around me so that they reflect back to my eyes a perfect person with a brilliant mind.

I consider this an ultimate freedom. We all deserve it and it’s one worth dying to keep.

Psychologists sadly disagree. They have infiltrated the government and established an institution of mind control. They’ve written into their bible (the DSM) words for my beliefs. They call them narcissistic and they call me a psychopath.

Since they cannot break me in a shrink’s office like they do with most of us, they've chosen to harass me, to destroy me with the might of a surveillance grid, the algorithms and lifeless code that computers run at a National Security Agency data center.

I decided a long time ago I never wanted the responsibility of raising children or caring for a family. I was sure it would free up time and resources I’d need to chase a higher vision. I’d read the literary classics. I’d learn all I needed so I could be what I wanted to be. I’d forestall having to cede the promise of a brighter future to another generation.

Somehow, I feel this is at the core of the government's war against me. They don't want me learning the culture of elites, mingling with leaders. They don't want me communicating effectively, sharing my unconventional approaches to life, my unusual views, my criticisms of this structure into which each of us was born.

We are born into it against our will. Once you realize it, that’s when it’s too late to find the exits.

I have a feeling my bargain— and I have no qualms about some calling it a bargain with the devil— involves my shutting up, letting the world be as it is so that I might die off some day and be lowered into a pit on a hillside. I’ll return to the earth in a simple pine coffin. I’ll be lowered into a Tomb of the Unknowns for people who dared to listen to Robert Frost and actually go down a road not taken instead of merely letting their eyes glaze over each time a high school valedictorian weaved the line, rather clumsily, into a fine little speech.

Someone told me once that maybe my grandmother's highest concern for me was the prospect I might never be "gainfully employed."

I saw you sitting there on the couch. You looked out the window toward yellow streetlights that shone on a damp Kuhio Avenue. I imagine this place has changed so much no one would recognize it from 8mm film reels.

I was a little afraid you were afraid.

Like architecture and cobblestone sidewalks change, so does our world, and so do the minds of each member of the next generation and the next.

It's difficult for me to explain even to my contemporaries. They too don't truly understand.

But it's even harder to make myself clear to your generation. 

I don't mean to say I demand anyone accept me or tolerate me or celebrate me. I just want you to know that one thing you and I might have in common is this fear.

I know all about looking through family photo albums. I was taught tattered, fading pictures could be good in video productions. I remember looking through a blue book underneath the television often. That was our family photo album.

I saw kids playing in yards and people gathered in living rooms and I saw people on their wedding days. There were brides in bright white dresses. There were grooms in tuxedos. Many of the tuxedos hit my eyes as silly. Leisure suit comes to mind. But back then, they were in style.

I've always laughed at marriage and family. Likewise, I was amused in 2013 when the state’s legislature convened a special session. They set in motion a whole week of testimony and speeches so they could legalize gay marriage.

There was one thing that always struck me about their struggle if you permit me to use the word struggle. I wondered if some of the gay couples had given thought to how their fathers and mothers would feel about tacking a picture of two women in wedding dresses or two men in fine tuxedos into a family photo album.

But progress happened. By now, their pictures have been added to the photo albums. Even some of the most reluctant parents have accepted that though love had been given a different face, it was still love.

In the case of my generation, and in the case of the real outliers among them like me, our parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles might find it hard to accept that we too have given love a new face. We’ve decided to take neither brides nor grooms, and instead spend our lifetimes married to our ideal selves, to flawless portraits we commission of our likeness.

We try to manifest perfection into our flawed worlds.

The evil psychologists might say otherwise, but my relationship, my love— while not without its challenges— has rewards. You might recognize a few. Among them are romance, my connection to generativity, and a kind of creativity on a plane higher than bearing children.

[blapis-blazuli]

Just curious- what are some of your favorite things about Tamatoa?

Hoo boy, I’ve been thinking about this for a while, so this will be long and somewhat spoilers-y, so I hope you’re prepared for an info-dump. Also, apologies if I get sidetracked a bit. There’s a lot.

I think what initially drew me to Tamatoa was how out-of-place he seemed with the rest of the movie at first. Everyone else is either a human (or at least humanoid) or a non-speaking creature, and then here’s this giant talking crab monster with a song that doesn’t fit in with the rest of the soundtrack (that’s not to say that it’s a bad song though; I love it in every language I’ve heard it in so far), and with a voice that (at least I thought) had a more obvious accent than everyone else’s. It wasn’t enough to distract me from the rest of the movie, which is a good thing, but by the time the credits came up (along with his post-credits bit) I had to know what was up with him. (Aside from the whole “my fave is a crab” deal; I’ve had a love for decapods ever since Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald gave us Corphish, and I’d already picked out coconut crabs as a favorite because of Crabrawler, so that part at least made sense to me.) I ended up looking up his song on YouTube and listened to it again, only since this was an almost three-and-a-half-minute thing I could re-watch as much as I wanted which meant I could pay more attention to this part specifically and hopefully figure out exactly what it was about him in particular that fascinated me so much.

One of those things was that, looking at some of what he does during his song, he must’ve been a challenge to animate properly, namely with the coloration of his claws. It took me a long time to figure out that his claws seemingly turning into different colors wasn’t because of some kind of inconsistency, but rather because the lighting in relation to where he was in the area and which position he was in regarding the light source was effecting their coloration. (It is a cool touch, but for me it makes it hard to figure out what color they should be when it comes to making fanart of him with his claws.) There are other small details I noticed about his appearance, like how he has scratches at the “ends” of his claws, but I think the more subtle details I picked up on were the ones for his eyes. Like, one pupil is bigger than the other (makes sense given who he was based on/inspired by), his eye stalks can move independently from each other in a non-synchronized way, and how his eyelids have a small, raised edge on them. Another, more obvious fun thing would probably have to be some of the screenshots of him (especially regarding his facial expressions, a lot of which feature those distinct teeth of his), they’re just…

(See what I mean about the claw colors?)

They’re just so fun to look at! His Disney wiki page says that the animators had fun working on him, and I feel like those expressions show it. I think whoever’s decision it was to not give him a face that’s more accurate to what an actual coconut crab’s looks like in favor of one somewhat more identical to Sebastian’s made a good call.

Another thing I’ve found is that, story and character-wise, I don’t think he’s entirely as insignificant as some people say he is. Not only because he serves as something of an obstacle that Moana and Maui need to overcome in order to move the plot forward, but because we do find out a little more about this movie’s take on Maui through him. We find out Maui is an inspiration to not only humans but other sentient non-human creatures as well, and more importantly we find out about Maui’s more secret past, which not only does Tamatoa know, but he uses in order to make Maui feel weak and exposed, possibly in an attempt to get back at him for tearing one of his legs off all those years ago. Given that he knows about this, it’s entirely possible that he knows Maui more personally than anybody else in the film does, which leaves one to wonder what their past history with each other was like before the leg thing happened. Something else he seems to be good at is knowing how to try and get under other people’s skin with what little knowledge he’s given from others since it seemed like he might’ve been trying to get to Moana by bringing up her grandmother and (correctly) guessing what she told her, and then immediately following it up with telling her that her grandmother was wrong. Either that, or he knows what Moana’s grandmother said because that’s what his own grandmother told him, but he doesn’t care much for what the elders had to say given how callously he brought up how he ate his own grandma. Speaking of character comparisons, in a way, Tamatoa can also be seen as a foil to Maui: they’re both strong, vain when it comes to their physical appearances (Maui with his tattoos and Tamatoa with the acquired treasures on his shell), but Maui does what he does in order to make others happy and feel good about what he’s done for them, while Tamatoa seems to do what he does to make others fear him and feel good about his status of power over them. I think Tamatoa also kinda serves to show that if you do things out of pure vanity and don’t show any genuine care for others, things will ultimately not go your way since, out of all the characters in the movie, he’s the only one who gets a truly unhappy ending. If this movie didn’t already have a more dangerous antagonist in it, I think he has the potential make-up of an interesting main villain, but I won’t complain about what we ended up with; he’s just threatening and entertaining enough for my tastes.

With all that being said, the one major thing I thought of right away was that there was something about his voice that I really liked. I’ve had a soft spot for certain voices for a long time now, but I’m usually bad on picking up on “new” voices where I don’t know who voices them, if that makes sense. Since the official video lists his voice actor, Jemaine Clement, before the name of the song and the movie, I looked him up and both read and watched a few things about him, those mostly being interviews he did regarding Moana, where I found out a few more things:

Clement’s accent isn’t just something he made up for the movie like I first thought it was (in my defense, I don’t know many people from New Zealand), and I found it really adorable the first time I heard it?

Clement is bi-racial, with his maternal half being Maori, which is probably part of how he got picked for this role (the most notable parts of voice cast are of Polynesian descent, minus Alan Tudyk, the voice of Heihei, the rooster who doesn’t actually have lines). Apparently this isn’t common knowledge though, given how many people were and still are confused by why he was in it?

Clement was told to do his David Bowie impression for this part since that was a thing he did in his two-man band Flight of the Conchords (which took me until just recently to realize that’s a pun), even though that wasn’t what he was expecting to do when he first got the part.

This isn’t the first time I’ve heard Clement sing, since a couple different internet reviewers I’ve seen have used a couple clips from the Flight of the Conchords series in their reviews before, and because of one YouTube commercial that was played in front of videos for a while. This isn’t even the first animated movie character I’ve heard him voice, said character being Nigel from Rio. (And no, I don’t count Jerry the Minion from the first Despicable Me movie; nobody should.)

Clement was very surprised when he found out how many people love and relate to Tamatoa. He seems fine with it though, which is nice.

IthinkImightkindasortahaveaslightcrushonhimnowI’msoverysorry

That led to me wanting to find out more of whatever was going on behind the scenes with Tamatoa, and I found more than I was expecting for a character with overall very little screentime. The things I found?

Early on in the development process he was intended to be a headless giant, which would be both closer to a traditional creature from Polynesian mythology and fit his name more since Tamatoa means “warrior”. I’m not sure when they decided to change him to a crab, but I guess I can maybe understand why? Still, kinda interesting.

Upon hearing that Clement was chosen for the part, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote “Shiny” with his David Bowie impression in mind, hence a huge part of how Tamatoa turned out to be what he’s like in the movie (which explains the different-sized pupil thing I mentioned earlier).

Clement was nervous about performing “Shiny”, which gave me an even better appreciation for Auli’i Cravalho (Moana’s voice actress), since if the guy who’s sung for years was nervous about the one song he was given, then I can only imagine how much pressure she must’ve been under with the songs she had to perform, especially since she’s a young newcomer.

Tamatoa is secretly insecure about himself, which was vaguely hinted at in the last line he has in the movie itself (with him lying defenseless on his back and pouting as he weakly asks “Did you like the song?”), but possibly could’ve been a little more apparent had some of his material not been cut out of the movie. Some of the lyrics from the demo version of “Shiny” that didn’t make the final cut were “it’s never enough/love yourself, get your armor up/they can’t see your heart is a vacancy,” which were supposed to be belittling Maui for wanting the humans’ approval so much, but given how similar he and Maui are and how differently the lyrics I bolded and italicized are delivered in comparison to the rest of the song’s demo, it sounds like they easily could’ve doubled as Tamatoa briefly lapsing into talking about himself again and/or having a moment of genuine pity for Maui. The former possibility would suggest that the reason he collects so much bright junk to put onto his shell (outside of it being an easy way to attract prey) would be to make himself seem more visually interesting to others, meaning he does care what others think of him. The latter would suggest that, while he clearly no longer looks up to Maui as he once did, he still has some basic sympathy for him.

Speaking of cut material, there was an interview where Clement talked about how he improvised a couple things going off the whole “I ate my grandma” line. One improvised part he talked about was how he made up a long apology for eating his grandma which somehow left him in tears, and another where Tamatoa admitted that he was only joking about eating his grandma and how he would never do that. I really hope to hear this and whatever else didn’t make it into the film one day, because I really want to know if it sounds anything like it does in my imagination. He also mentioned how he wished that Tamatoa had some more self-realization, and I kinda feel the same way, honestly.

People relate to him because they too want to be appealing but feel like on the inside “they’re actually just a crab”. I feel he’s relatable because he acts like he’s a tough guy who doesn’t really care about others, but he secretly does seek others’ approval of the things that he does.

In short, there’s a lot more that I like about him than I first thought, and thus I have a lot of favorite things about him. He’s just lots of fun for me to think about.

[youremyonlyhope]

The Force Awakens

Almost 4 years ago, I started my Star Wars rewatch by watching the original series in preparation to watch the Force Awakens. Then I rewatched the prequels before The Last Jedi. And now I’m seeing Rise of Skywalker on Sunday, so it’s time to rewatch the 2 other sequels.

I’ve rewatched the Force Awakens a couple of times since I first saw it, so it should still be fresh in my mind. As for the Last Jedi, I have not been able to bring myself to watch that one because of the ending. Not because I hated it, I loved it, but because it hurts.

Also, this gives me a distraction so I don’t get spoiled for Rise of Skywalker. Again. Can’t believe I’ve been spoiled twice already in just 2 days... luckily it was the same spoiler twice. One that was vague and I hoped it wasn’t right, but then the other one was a gif of the scene so now I know it’s true. Ugh...

This is super long and I apologize in advance.

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...” I didn’t see the Force Awakens in theaters. I saw it at home nearly a year later (after getting spoiled for all major plot points during that year). So I can’t IMAGINE the pure joy that people felt when they got to see the opening title crawl for the first time in 10 years. I wish I had seen it in theaters. Ok. I don’t like that I can’t pause Disney+ with the spacebar like other streaming sites let me... or maybe it’s just my computer. ANYWAY. I forgot that the opening crawl literally says “Skywalker, the last Jedi” in it, accidentally telling us the title of the next movie. Yeah so I can already tell I’ll be pausing every like 2 seconds. But I love this opening shot of a ship blocking out a MOON. Oh and NOW the spacebar works to pause. One of those stormtroopers is Finn. Awww. BB8! I didn’t realize he’s (they’re?) the first character we see (that we know is an important character since at this point we don’t really know which stormtrooper is Finn). Poe! Giving a message to a droid... so I know we like to think of Poe as the Han of the sequel trio... but honestly he’s the Leia. Yeah I mean... a friend (or at least co-worker) smearing their blood on your face with their hand as they die is definitely traumatizing enough to make you rethink your life. Finn, I don’t blame you. I started this scene like “Oh we’re gonna get the Knights of Ren and Kylo freezing the blaster ray using the Force” then I got so into the scene that I forgot Kylo was going to show up at all.

It’s not a Star Wars rewatch if my grandma doesn’t call and interrupt at least once. This time it was right as Kylo came out of the ship.

Kylo’s powerful. I’ll give him that. Holding that blaster ray for as long as he's about to. I love Poe looking back at it. Poe’s first lines to Kylo are joking about who gets to talk first, when Kylo’s literally still holding a blaster ray in midair and knows Poe has the map he wants. And people say “General Hugs” during a battle was out of character. GENERAL PHASMA! GWENDOLINE MY QUEEN! Poor baby Finn. [BB8 moans softly] BB8 NO DON’T CRY. Oh poor Finn. But yay first time we see his face! It just hit me that now I’m the same age/older than John and Daisy when they filmed this... great.... AND REY! I remember when we first saw footage of her climbing around, I said to my dad “I think that’s supposed to be Han and Leia’s daughter.” So far I’m wrong. I’ve been holding out hope for years that maybe just maybe there will be a twist and I’m right. I’m fine with her parents being nobodies, but I kind of want to be right. I’m probably not. The scale of that ship behind her... The shot of her speeding across the desert has such... original trilogy vibes. It never registered to me that Rey has some wilting flowers. That brings new meaning to the “so much green” scene later... Awwww the practical effect bread... Ok. I’m being nit picky, but they drained it just a split second too early. If it’d drained just a millisecond later, it would have been perfectly timed with the inflation of the bread. But that’s just me nitpicking for no reason. It’s an impressive effect. “Classified? Me too. Big secret.” LOL even at the time I knew the fandom was making a big fuss about that line for nothing. Too on the nose for it to truly be a big secret she’s keeping from the world. I figured she meant it was a big secret to her. Of course... then people got mad that they wasted their time analyzing that... it’s their own fault really. I forgot that they actually eventually get the location of the map out of Poe. Oh and hi General Hugs! “This is a rescue. I’m helping you escape.” Yep Poe is Leia. She was initially being rescued, but then ends up having to help rescue her rescuer(s) while they’re trying to rescue her. “Because it’s the right thing to do.” If Finn was raised as a stormtrooper, even just to work in sanitation, he wouldn’t necessarily have a moral compass since he wouldn’t know what’s right... at this point I think he just knows he doesn’t like killing... Like how Zuko didn’t realize he wasn’t good because he was taught something else was good. (YES. Finn is closer to Zuko) “You need a pilot” “I need a pilot” Ok see so it’s not necessarily what’s right, but he knows this is how he can get out. Sorta selfish, but not really. Oooooh yeah! It’s Thomas Brodie-Sangster! Forgot he was in this. Wilhelm Scream! Poe naming Finn. Aww. Ok see. How does Kylo know Finn’s identification? Did he ask Phasma “who was the one with the blood on his helmet?” right after they got back on the ship? Because otherwise, he’d have no way to tell them apart in that moment, I don’t think they have their names on their armor unless I never noticed, and even then Kylo would be too far away to read it. There’s a picture of little baby Finn... he was so young when the First Order took him (I assume they took him, I’d hate it if his parents sent him there) OH WOW. ANOTHER WOMAN! Oh and it’s whats-her-face, she was in Deathly Hallows Part 1. (IMDB says Kate Fleetwood) See, back in the day the Empire had no women in their ranks. This is the only thing the First Order is doing right, equal opportunity to be a space Nazi. I forgot that the wreckage gets sucked into the sand... that sucks. Here’s where Poe would have died if Oscar hadn’t been so charismatic. Also, do we ever find out how he survived this? I forgot about the explosion afterwards that just adds insult to injury. Was that necessary? Was that supposed to be funny? If it was, why are people criticizing the Last Jedi’s humor if this moment tries to make us laugh at a character dying... I hope that wasn’t meant to be funny... My poor baby... stranded on a strange desert planet... alone... with the First Order looking for him... I love this giant hippo thing. I want one.

Whiny fanboys: Rey’s a Mary Sue! She can’t know how to fight already! Rey: *Been fighting creeps at the market since she was born*

And I love how she caught Finn. Oh nooo BB8 no don’t cry! Finn, babe, why would you just tell Rey about the map!? Babe! I get that you want to seem reliable and credible, but baby! No! The way Rey was sort of horrified by Finn holding her hand... makes me really wonder what she’s been through. “Stop taking my hand!” Aww and how she offers her hand to him. “The garbage will do” Oh how I wish I hadn’t been spoiled that that was the Millennium Falcon reveal. But that line did create a meme so that’s fun. Wow the Millennium Falcon has been through a LOT. That dramatic zoom in as they fly into the ship (I’m sorry, I do not have ship names memorized) was very Torchwood. The sudden, almost shaky and unnecessary zoom. That upside down shot though. Amazing. And also terrifying. “You’re ok. He’s with the Resistance” *BB8 gives Finn a pointed look* I am DEAD. Oh and the Powerpoint style transitions between scenes. Very necessary. Vital to every Star Wars movie. Kylo. You’re like 30. You should not still have temper tantrums. Grow up. Awww BB8. The internal battle. Followed by the thumbs up. Adorable. Literally for a second I was like “How could the First Order override the controls of the Millennium - HAN!!!!” HAN AND CHEWIE!!!!! I will never forget watching the Force Awakens trailer for the first time with my dad, and nearly sobbing over “Chewie... we’re home.” Also what the hell, Chewie has been through SO MUCH and he’s STILL around! He was protecting Yoda in Revenge of the Sith! And then ends up enslaved and being fed people before Han meets him in Solo!?!?!? What?!?!?!? AND had a whole family before all of that!?!??!?!?!?

Also, watching Solo and realizing that Chewie’s been forced to eat people literally shattered my heart into a billion pieces. I wanted to cry seeing him covered in that mud and trying to kill Han.

Aww, Han and Chewie know the hiding places. I’m not even a third of the way through and I’ve written way too much.

Finn: Han Solo, the Rebellion general? Rey: No, the smuggler! Finn: Wasn’t he a war hero? Chewie: *Grunts and shrugs ‘I don’t know’*

That says so much about all of their characters. Oh god the 12 parsecs thing. I was legitimately MAD when I was watching Solo and realized that they had actually figured out a way to make the 12 parsecs thing make sense. That they actually solved and fixed George Lucas’ mistake, when he was literally just trying to find a cool word and didn’t care about the actual meaning. I am still so angry they managed to fix it in a way that made sense. I started raging once I realized that they were doing it. Awww Han in the cockpit. Ok Finn there you go again, telling everyone about the map to Luke. You’re lucky that Han’s one of the few people it’s good to tell. It could have gone so wrong with Rey. That subtle Binary Sunset piercing my heart. Hey it’s that kid from that Eaters of Light episode of Doctor Who. And when I watched that episode I was like hey it’s that kid from the Force Awakens. He looks familiar to me, but those are the only two things I’ve seen him in. “I got a bad feeling about this” He said the thing! Yeah the Rathtars are gross. Aww and he grabbed her hand again to run. I just noticed that they made the camera lens blurry on the edge, like some of the goo got on it. “That was lucky.” Rey’s so modest. I forgot that they hyperspeeded through the Rathtar... also did that happen in the original series too or am I just remembering it wrong? Anyway, Admiral Holdo did it best. 2nd mention of the last Jedi. Also, LOL remember when everyone was theorizing who Snoke was? My favorite theory was that he was Mace Windu. That was a WILD conspiracy theory. “In the hands of your father... Han Solo.” Oh the dramatic reveal. Awww BB8 running away from Chewie’s roar. Awwww the hologram game! And it’s still stop motion! “It’s true. The Force. The Jedi. All of it.” I forget what video I was watching, but they pointed out that this was Han’s arc. Learning to believe in the Force. I guess in that way, he has a satisfying ending. “I didn’t know there was this much green in the whole galaxy” I remember people saying that Han’s face is basically him thinking ‘...oh no... looks like I gotta adopt this kid.’

...It’s hitting me that we’re going to see Leia in this movie... and I’m gonna be emotional...

...AM I JUST NOW REALIZING THAT CHEWIE’S STRAP OVER HIS CHEST IS A STRAP TO A BAG? I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST TO HOLD AMMO OR SOMETHING?!?!? I’ve been a Star Wars fan for HOW many years and I’m just noticing this?!!? Also, in an alternate universe, Han survives and Rey goes off with him and Chewie and they have smuggling adventures and everyone’s happy and alive. Catina music by Lin Manuel! Yay! WOLFMAN! THEY PUT THE WOLFMAN IN THIS! WOW. Look at them shading George Lucas’s rerelease edits. ...Ok so Maz is definitely Force sensitive if she knew Han was there right away, right? Also, Maz is an example of how before Rose Tico and whoever Naomi plays in RoS (I will not google her character name because I know I will get spoiled), we very rarely see AND hear women of color, we get just one or the other. They’re either in the background with no lines or playing a character that isn’t a human if they have lines. The only exception coming to mind is the Queen of Naboo who took over after Padme, Jamillia. Ok I forgot that the lady who rats them out to the First Order actually gets a line and isn’t painted green, so good for her! I love her costume too. Too bad she’s evil.

See. We hear the breathing of Vader, because Ani is so done with his idiot grandson worshipping him that he’s sighing in defeat in the afterlife. Ani needs to Force Ghost himself over to Kylo and be like “DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN I THREW A SITH LORD DOWN A HOLE THAT IT MEANT I WAS TURNING AGAINST THE DARK SIDE? DID THAT GO OVER YOUR HEAD? DID MY ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC GO OVER YOUR HEAD??” Please, what I want most from the Rise of Skywalker (besides making sure Leia gets the proper send off she deserves) is Hayden coming back as a Force Ghost and knocking some sense into Kylo.

Oh Finn. The captions tell us who was talking during the vision... and there WAS a lot of Obi-Wan dialogue... Also poor Rey. She probably definitely remembers her parents, but just blocked it out. Now. If after the endless lines of soldiers, the podium with a giant red and black flag behind it, and the arms rising up still make the space Nazi thing go over your head... then we just can’t help you anymore. HEY! WAS THAT WHATSHERFACE?!? Ghost from Ant-Man and the Wasp? Was that her? Yes! IMDB says it was Hannah John-Kamen! Look at you girl! Too bad you’re evil too. Ok. I will admit that I blanked out for General Hugs’ speech because who wants to listen to a space Nazi. But, has the Star Destroyer been mentioned before this point in the movie? Because I literally can’t remember. If Hugs said it then I probably let my mind wander. Oh and I do appreciate these two dudes who were like “Yeah sure Finn, come with us, work for a bit, and we’ll help you get far away” and were going to let Finn come along with them. They seem nice. Also. Here’s the girl who’s not Freema Ageman. Not every black girl is Martha Jones. The entire internet was like “Martha was in Star Wars!” then I watched the movie and I was like “...that literally was not Freema what are you all on about?” IMDB says she’s Maisie Richardson-Sellers, she’s also in Legends of Tomorrow, which is something I do hope to watch one day. So good for her. The ion engines sounded like the TARDIS for a split second and I was VERY confused. “How did you get that?” “A good question for another time.” Ok JJ you gotta stop with all these unanswered questions that you pose. I get that that’s your thing. And that you have some term for it. But there’s too many now. This one better get answered in Rise of Skywalker. That behind the back shot though. I’m convinced Han’s Force sensitive too. Not even convinced, I think it’s canon. LOL remember when everyone named that stormtrooper who recognized Finn TR-8R.

Finn: *Manages to function using a lightsaber even though he’s only trained with blasters* Fanboys: *Silence* Rey: *Fights with a lightsaber well since she’s fought with sticks her whole life and it’s a similar concept* Fanboys: MARY SUE! SHE CAN’T BE THAT GOOD THAT FAST!

Oh my god it’s the Resistance FINALLY. POE!!!! Yes, I did just scream “Poe!!” out loud. Now, I’m not sure where these forest scenes were filmed, but if you told me the same forest where half of Merlin’s forest scenes were filmed then I would not be shocked. Merlin had some scenes in a similarly narrow trench/valley/pathway/thing. No but seriously, yes the plants look like they’re more tropical than whatever forest Merlin filmed in in the UK, but the trench looks so similar. Oh god the second we saw Leia I froze. And then Leia’s Theme played and I had a sad smile. And then C-3PO popped up and I laughed. Awwww. I love C-3PO so much. There’s so much that body language can convey. Oh no. While watching Finn and Poe reunite, I suddenly remembered that fanedit that put Helpless from Hamilton as the background of the scene. And i laughed. Oh 2015. When all we cared about was Star Wars and Hamilton. That lip bite. Oscar stop it. Billie Lourd! So I’ve realized over the years that R2D2 kind of sucks. Not that I don’t love him. But he spends the entire original trilogy lying by omission, when he could have just told them everything he knew from the prequels (since he WITNESSED everything and didn’t have his memory erased like 3PO did). And now, he just sits back while everyone scrambles to find Luke and does nothing, WHEN HE HAS THE ANSWER. Yes. I get that it’s deeper than that. But still. It’s funny to think that R2 just wants to sit back and watch the drama unfold while not telling anyone that Vader is Luke’s dad or that he has Luke’s map. (Unless I’m remembering it incorrectly and R2 doesn’t have it. If that’s the case R2 gets a pass this one time.) [It wasn’t the case, R2 doesn’t get a pass] “It is very doubtful that R2 would have the rest of the map in his backup data.” C-3PO are you sure? Because I’m not. I think low-power mode means R2 wants to relax and watch the soap opera that is Star Wars unfold. “There’s still light in him, I know it.” For your sake Leia, I hope there is too. But Kylo is going to need a hell of a redemption arc in tRoS. See, and I can’t remember when I found this out, but the ashes that he puts his helmet in are the ashes of people he’s killed. Kylo Ren SAVES the ashes. He has a TUB of them in his office. What is WRONG with him!??! Yeah so him reading her mind about the ocean was just plain creepy. I just... don’t understand Reylo shippers. “You. You’re afraid... that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.” And he’s right to be afraid! Ani eventually had the strength to turn himself around! Kylo Ren could never! I won’t believe it till I see it! And even then I might not believe it! I think that people forget that Kylo’s supposed to be like 30 years old. I will say that Adam plays the role in this first movie like Kylo’s very young with a hint of a tiny possibility that he feels like he’s in over his head. Really he only plays it that way when the helmet’s off. So I get that he seems younger, but Adam was like 30 when he filmed this too. So why do so many fans coddle Kylo when he’s a grown man? A grown man who’s killing people. After a certain point, you can’t blame Luke or his parents or Snoke... if the guy is literally worshipping his grandfather and ignoring the fact that even Ani turned back to the light side... then the guy has issues. Rey failed twice before getting the Jedi mind trick right. Also, I love that Daisy’s face kind of sorta softened with less fear before she said the command and got it right. I’ve seen the scene of the stormtroopers literally going “Nope” and turning away from Kylo’s tantrum many times over the years, but I didn’t realize that Kylo screams “GUARDS” as he does it until I saw the caption just now. So not only are the stormtroopers like “I don’t want to get into that” they’re like “Let’s act like we didn’t hear him scream for us and let someone else get into that.” Which is even more hilarious. Ok it’s Starkiller not Star Destroyer. Whatever. I was close. But I knew that Luke’s last name was originally Starkiller, so I honestly should have guessed Starkiller in the first place. Whatever. Hey Admiral Akbar! The guy talking about the thermal oscillator looks familiar... was he in Night Shift... IMDB says he’s Ken Leung and yes he was in the Night Shift! Good for him! Awww that was the last time Han and Leia ever saw each other... “That’s not how the Force works.” The captions are telling me that the stormtroopers Rey is hiding from are just talking about how much their new weapons suck. That’s hilarious. “Is there a garbage shoot? Trash compactor?” Oh Han, I see what you did there. Wow, I didn’t notice that the walls of the base are rock, that it’s literally built INTO the planet. Awwwww Finn gave Rey his jacket! I was thinking she must be cold in just a t-shirt after living in a desert. Because I rewatched the last half of RotJ after Force Awakens, I was able to realize that this scene of Han and Chewie planting the bombs was a reference to RotJ, but only because of watching Force Awakens earlier that day. Really, I should have gotten the reference the other way around. “We’ll meet back here.” NOOOOO BUT YOU WON’T. THIS IS THE LAST TIME! Wait, did we not know his name was Ben before this? Was that the moment we all realized he was named after Obi-Wan? (Also, never really got that since Han and Leia knew Obi-Wan for only a couple of days at most... but whatever) Chewie keep going! Keep going and planting bombs while they’re distracted by Han! Come on! Ok I wanted to mention it earlier, but there was a lightbeam hitting Kylo when Snoke’s hologram disappeared, and that was after Snoke told him to be careful of going back to the light. Now as Han walks towards Kylo, there’s another lightbeam. It’s all very literal, but still. I like it. UH OH. I forgot about the light from the sun going away. Now Kylo’s literally in the darkness. We’re getting super literal now. (Also, I now realize that Poe’s line of “As long as we have the light we have a chance” was also a on-the-nose reference to light vs. dark and not just exposition about stopping the Starkiller, though it was also exposition.) I like to think that Han sorta knew that Kylo would kill him, and that he hoped it would eventually lead him to the light in some way and be worth it. But wow seeing Han fall hurts. OH AND LEIA. I FORGOT ABOUT LEIA KNOWING IMMEDIATELY AND JUST SINKING DOWN. OH I HURT. See. Finn’s literally just using a lightsaber like any other sword. Just hit your target with it. Because anyone can do that. Yes Rey! Summon that lightsaber! Earn that Binary Sunset! Trench run. Because Star Wars. Ok I gotta replay all of that because I was too busy getting lost in my mind about something and got distracted. Why is the Starkiller base falling apart? Ok got it, Poe hit a bunch of stuff that exploded. Cool.

Ok see. Some of the fans think fighting with a lightsaber is like a integral part of being one with the Force and being a Jedi. But literally, you just need to know is how to fight with a sword or a stick and you can fight with a lightsaber. The Force just means you’re better at predicting your opponent’s next moves, sensing the danger, knowing the best move to make, etc. That’s why Rey started winning against Kylo when he said “Join me and let me teach you the ways of the Force.” Before that, she’s just fighting like she would with her stick and all that’s doing is helping her survive and keep Kylo at bay, but she’s not winning. Being reminded that she’s Force sensitive let her tap into that and start incorporating that into the fight. Now she’s using the skills she already has, and using the Force to help her predict Kylo’s moves. She’s not magically good at using a lightsaber, she just already had skills that were easily transferable to a lightsaber and using the Force to enhance it.

I don’t think we’ve lost any arms yet in this movie, besides C-3PO off-screen.

OH. AND SNOKE SAYS KYLO NEEDS TO COMPLETE HIS TRAINING! He’s not even a full Sith Lord yet! He’s still being trained! So no, Rey did not just defeat a powerful Sith Lord, she defeated a Sith Lord in training. And she barely defeated him, he was already injured, she just fought hard enough to bring him to the ground. Then the ground literally separated them. Basically, I’m tired of people being mad that Rey has skills, she already had them. Plus, she’s not magically the most powerful Jedi ever like Ani was, she’s just strong. So go critique Ani for being literal space Jesus.

Oh Chewie. He’s alone saving Finn and Rey. My heart is breaking. All teams, Poe? You mean you and the other two who are left? Ok fine, there are a couple more X-Wings behind the Millennium Falcon. You and the other 6 who are left. Playing the Love Theme one last time. I am hurting. OH. NOW YOU WAKE UP, R2D2? NOW YOU WAKE UP? AFTER HAN DIES, YOU WAKE UP? Aww BB8′s like “Dad! Give me the map! I wanna put the puzzle together!” So I was right to be mad at R2D2. Literally sitting back, watching the drama, then at the end is like “Oh by the way, I have all the rest of the information you needed.” (Yes, I realize that I guess we’re supposed to infer that he spent all those years in low power mode trying to find the map, but whatever.) “May the Force be with you.” Oh Leia. Oh Carrie. Oh R2D2 NOW you’re excited. If you wanted to see Luke so bad, you should have found the map faster. You just know Luke knew they were coming, so he was like “Let me get my cloak out and stand on the highest point all mysteriously.” since he too lives for the drama (as we saw from all the flips in RotJ). Oh I love that ending so much. Some people think Last Jedi ruins the suspense of the ending. I love it. I love that Luke takes a minute to just stare at Rey and the lightsaber before deciding to chuck it over a cliff.

I’m watching the credits, and I noticed that Harrison gets first billing. I literally just said out loud “Why does Harri- ok no fine actually” since I realized this was his last Star Wars movie, so give him first billing. He deserves it.

So that’s the Force Awakens. Very enjoyable. I forget where I heard/read this, but the Force Awakens and Rogue One are like Star Wars comfort food. Super full of nostalgia.

And I do agree at least to an extent. Especially since the Force Awakens is like A New Hope all over again. A droid with a special message. Evil character with a spherical base that destroys planets. The evil Empire’s gone, but the evil First Order has taken over. And the Rebels are now the Resistance and are not that much better off than they were before.

But I LIVE for the nostalgia. Throughout the entirety of the prequels, I said that the best moments were the callbacks/references to the original series. The sequels do that better, so I really enjoy them.

Also I don’t actually hate R2D2. But the theory/idea that R2 is secretly a horrible person because of the fact he seems to know everything but never actually tell anyone what he knows is hilarious to me. And I never realized how well the Force Awakens fits into that theory. So it’s super funny to me.

Now hopefully, I can watch all of The Last Jedi tomorrow. I have a bit of a day... and this rewatch took like 4 hours since I literally paused every 2 seconds to write something. For the Last Jedi, I need to try to write less so I can pause less and finish the movie.