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cazimagines · 3 years

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After seeing @toobruhlforschool post the article, I had to translate it!

English translation by google translate below the cut

Daniel Brühl tried for the first time as a director - and he succeeds very well. His debut “next door” (in theaters July 15th) is full of black humor about how embarrassing, tricky and exhausting it can be to be a famous actor. Especially when you meet a neighbor in the corner bar in a Berlin neighborhood, played by Peter Kurth , who obviously hates you. The story is based on Brühl's idea, and very vaguely on his own experiences, from which the writer Daniel Kehlmann draws("Measuring the World") has made a script in which the price of fame is demonstrated with relish. In addition, allusions to Daniel Brühl himself are hidden in the film, who not only directed the film, but also plays the protagonist, a famous actor, in “next door”. Brühl, who last worked in the international Marvel series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” , speaks in an interview about what made him decide to make this story into a film and how to approach such a project.

Interview with Daniel Brühl: About the price of being in public and the success of projects

Mr. Brühl, in your directorial debut you investigate the price a successful actor pays for being in public. Why did you want to do this film?

One topic I've always been interested in is gentrification. The initial spark was an observation I made in Barcelona. That was about ten years ago. I moved to the city for a while. That made me very proud, because I've always felt very connected to Barcelona, I was born there and finally wanted to say: “I'm a Barcelonian now”.

Instead, did you attract attention because the actor Daniel Brühl was recognized?

No, I just acted very silly, always walking through the streets with my key fob to show that I don't live in a hotel, I'm from here now, then I always talked loudly to the people in the market where Street, via FC Barcelona et cetera. Then I always enjoyed going to such a lunch spot and one day there was a crusher in front of me, such a real edge, and looked at me piercingly without blinking. Forever long. Like Clint Eastwood.

Just like in your film a man from the neighborhood, played by Peter Kurth, who takes on an actor who is very similar to you.

Yes, with the man in Barcelona back then, I immediately felt that he couldn't take me. As I sit there with my trolley suitcase, just flown in from Berlin. The jet set that somehow rattles around loudly with the waiters, makes each other mean and wants to please. That totally exposed me. Then my imagination started. I thought it was a scaffolding builder who had been able to look into our apartment from a construction site for months and now wants to confront me with everything he knows about me.

How do you relate this story to gentrification?

There is such a constant feeling that you are not to blame for gentrification but are part of the process. I've been dealing with this since I've lived in Berlin and I noticed it again in Barcelona. Then the mind game started that an actor, someone who is in public, offers a completely different surface to attack.

How do you translate that feeling into a project?

I enjoyed the way such a person was approached in a masochistic way. As he is told, “I found your film poop. I think you shit as an actor. " Then I moved the story to Berlin, the East-West topic was added, but at some point I realized that I couldn't write it alone and approached Daniel Kehlmann. He could do something with it immediately. While we were writing we noticed how much more was there. That was around the time some public careers were collapsing. That was an interesting component, people who outwardly have perfect lives, whose careers are ruined by rumors that come out about them.

Which personalities are you thinking of?

Well, of course the case of Kevin Spacey, the very different case of Harvey Weinstein. There have been many cases, some of them based on real crimes. It became an interesting topic for me because I wanted to play someone who would completely lose himself in his career and then be held up in the mirror.

If so much of you went into the script, why is Daniel Kehlmann the only one who has the credit and you don't?

There are so many Daniels. At some point I just felt uncomfortable reading my name so often. In addition, Daniel Kehlmann did the most on the script. I couldn't have made the film without him. That a Kammerspiel (From what I learnt in my film studies, Kammerspiel is a certain type of German cinema) remains exciting for over 90 minutes depends on the dialogues and they mainly come from him. I was a sparring partner who fed him ideas.

You have had a veritable career as an actor for over 25 years, appearing in blockbusters and playing a leading role in an international Netflix series. Then that's a fundamental step in deciding whether to direct. How do you manage to take such a new path?

You can't take a quick shot. I've been waiting for the right time, but you can't let it pass. That's what happens when you're too scared, too respectful. At some point you have to trust yourself. Now that I've done it for the first time, my humility towards directing is even greater. I consciously wanted to do something small. I would not have believed myself capable of certain other substances. Then I would have the feeling that I am falling out.

How do you know that you are on the right track and that you can get started with a project?

If an idea remains interesting for you after long deliberation and reflection, and does not suddenly become stupid or boring, you can ask yourself whether this idea is reasonable, i.e. whether you trust yourself to implement it. I knew this was a world and that there were characters - I just know my way around that. If you are also lucky enough to be able to set up a good team, then you are on the right track. It is of course a total luxury that someone like Daniel Kehlmann has promised me to write this. Peter Kurth replied with a handwritten letter within 24 hours. We met and hugged in his local pub.

The role actors and actresses play in public is not only the topic of your film, but was also discussed in the course of the #allesdichtmachen campaign, a campaign against the measures taken by the federal government to contain the corona pandemic. Were you also asked about this?

I was actually not asked, but I know many of those involved. I wanted to stay out of this heated Shitstorm number and clarified that privately with those I know. I not only found the action unsuccessful, but also the counter-action excessive and absurd. I can see that in many areas at the moment, how quickly such a thermal rises, which is toxic. That's a bit of the theme of the film.

Then again quickly an easier topic: What is the most absurd thing that has ever happened to you as a public person?

Haha, a scene that also made it into the movie. In Barcelona a couple came up to me in a park, two blondes, with a camera in their hand. It was immediately clear to me that they were Germans and they wanted a photo with me. I instinctively put my arm around the woman. They were Swedes, of course, who didn't recognize me at all, but wanted me to take a photo of them. It was so embarrassing and even more terrible than in the film because then I started to explain in English “You know, I'm a famous actor…” The way they looked at me! Haha, that was one of those moments when you notice how you blush. Well then I think I could tell you about embarrassment for an hour.

#daniel bruehl #daniel bruhl #daniel brühl

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capsized-heart · 4 years

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Lady Liberty and The Captain / Part One

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader, Bucky Barnes x Reader (1940′s Brooklyn AU)

Summary: You are a rising young star and the newest breakout actress in Hollywood’s Golden Age! When war finally descends on the west, your reputation as America’s Sweetheart finds you cast in a promotional picture alongside Captain America himself.

Yet, he looks eerily familiar, like your Stevie from childhood…

Word count: 4.7k+

Warnings: fluff!!

A/N: hello, everyone!!!! I hope you’re staying home, warm, and safe during these crazy times. I’ve been snuggling with my doggie and continuing with my university’s online classes in my final semester..absolutely crazy how things are rn. I hope this new story can help brighten up your day just a little bit.

First of all, I just want to say thank you💖💛for all the love that old and new readers alike have shown this blog recently. I’ve been writing on this platform for a little less than a year and I never thought l’incendie would blow up as much as it has. You guys are amazing. I’m really excited and eager to share new pieces and hope you enjoy the content I have coming! Please don’t hesitate to pop in and say hi, or shoot me a message. I’ve really enjoyed connecting with readers and would love to know your thoughts on my fics, or just to talk about fandom stuff! Timmy included! PAHAHA

So, this chapter is gonna be a part of a mini-series for a 1940′s writing challenge and I’m using the prompt of wartime romance! This will probably be split into two or three parts and I will tag the host as soon as the last chapter goes up, I’ll most likely make a masterlist in the end as well. Reader has a name in this fic, but hopefully the choice of name will make sense later on :D

As always, feel free to drop a ask/message if you’d like a tag in the next update.

ENJOY!

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Film: ‘Apple of Discord’, Lola Swanson’s Dazzling Debut!

By NICHOLAS WATTS September 1, 1943

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The film drama from the original screenplay written and directed by Andrew Campbell opened to a roar of applause and acclaim at the Radio City Music Hall yesterday evening. Apple of Discord is a reimagining of the myth and Plato’s allegory, focusing on the tumultuous, profoundly elegant life of a young noblewoman during the Trojan wars.

The film’s frontrunner and leading lady is Hollywood newcomer, young and fresh-faced Lola Swanson. Swanson’s performance is so thoughtful, so unfaltering, so intelligent and controlled that it is hard to believe this is little Lola’s long awaited motion picture debut. And what a debut this is!

Starring opposite Hollywood veterans Sean Schultz, Kash Dennis, and Gracie Smith, this star-studded cast packs punches and sizzling chemistry and yet, Swanson does not fizzle out but confidently holds her own, demanding your attention in every scene, and rightfully so. Watching Swanson in this picture is watching a major actress in the making.

Born and raised in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen before moving to Brooklyn to pursue acting, some may recognize Lola from her daytime television roles in Insanity and Passion, It’s a Date! and as Jessica in Jessica Davis Returns.

Now we know these roles were preparing Swanson for the debut of the decade.

“APPLE OF DISCORD” is now showing at the Radio City Music Hall and Cinema 2. Tickets at 25 cents. Running time: 139 minutes.

★★★★☆

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APPLE OF DISCORD, written and directed by Andrew Campbell; director of photography, Laszlo Kovacs; edited by John Wright; music by John Barry; released by Universal Pictures.

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The newspaper trembles hard between your fingers, threatening to tear its edges. Pulse pounding, ears ringing. You can’t stop smiling. You feel like crying.

You reread the words again and again, the words written by legendary film critic Nicholas Watts, the man you’ve only dreamed of making an impression on, that he’d someday see you in a picture. And here he’s written a glowing review of your major motion picture debut.

You erupt in a fit of giggles and screams, twirling around the small space of your apartment in a swirl of nightgown, pinned curls. A neighbor, Mr. Krisinski, you think, pounds on your wall to shut you up.

It’s still early morning and you had gone downstairs at first light to buy a paper from a newsboy. Outside your window, the streets of New York already yawn and bustle with morning commute. The movement of people, gleaming automobiles against the red brick buildings and muted gray of Manhattan. Warm sun washes over it all, your heart brimming and full, mirroring the glow of golden dawn.

You feel on top of the world. Maybe you’ll finally make it here.

Your phone rings. You rush over to the mint blue rotary telephone on your bedside table, snatch up the receiver before Mr. Krisinski can break down your door with all the racket you’re making.

“Hello?” You say into the mouthpiece, cradling it between your hands. You feel breathless, high strung and buzzing, like you’d just downed a whole case of Coca-Cola, whirring with the taste of sugar and success, bubbling with starpower. Maybe it’s Kash or Gracie calling to congratulate you. Hell, maybe even President Roosevelt.

“Lola! It’s me. Have you read the paper?” The cool voice of Peggy asks you through the receiver. You quietly laugh at your own fantastical expectations. Of course it’s Peggy. Punctual, collected Peggy.

Peggy Carter is your talent agent and manager at MGM. Peggy had snatched you up while you had been working as a background actress on Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, so hopeful and beholden just to be in the presence of such respected artists, willing to stay the extra hours even after the other girls had gone home when realizing they wouldn’t be seen in the shot. It hadn’t been your first time on a hot set, you were used to the itchy costumes, long hours of endless waiting, and the empty stomachs, but no way you were going to miss a chance to see Ingrid Bergman and Madeleine LeBeau up close.

Back then, only a few years ago yet a lifetime away it seems, Peggy had been a casting assistant, seeing your dedication and marching right up to you between takes to hand you her card. On the back, written in smooth blue ink, a time the next morning for an audition at MGM Studios in downtown New York. Eight o'clock sharp.

You didn’t sleep at all that night after you wrapped.

She’s worked at getting you into audition rooms and meetings for years, pushing you onto writers, production assistants, riggers, directors. She had secured you an audition with Andrew Campbell after “accidentally” leaving your headshot in his mailroom and later calling his assistant with threats of stolen property. MGM’s new fresh face had been penciled in for a side read the following week.

Fierce, ingenious, and your own bright star, you’ve risen through the ranks and fought your way up with Peggy at your side.

“Yeah, Peg. I have it here in front of me. This is...absolutely nuts.”

“Not really, you were brilliant in the picture, darling. But it’s a comfort to know Watts has finally replaced that cotton in his brain with some sense.”

Another laugh from you, twirling the telephone cord around your finger.

“Let me have this one, Peg.”

“If you insist.”

You hear the rustling of newspaper from the other end. You can practically see Peggy sitting at her desk, perusing the paper over a morning cup of coffee, her hair curled, makeup and nails all scarlet red and perfect. The golden placard glittering on the frosted glass of the door.

Margaret Carter, Casting Director.

“I’m calling to tell you about an offer we received this morning from Paramount. I think you should take it.”

That rush of giddiness burns bright again in your veins, pulse skyrocketing.

“Paramount? Geez, what did they say?”

“They want you for a promotional picture that’s being produced by Senator Brandt. Brandt is hoping to boost the homefront’s war bond sales with a little starpower from you and from Captain America. You’ve seen his posters, haven’t you? That costumed bloke?”

You have. Plastered everywhere and looking like an absolute buffoon. Nice physique, though.

The disappointment that settles in your stomach is ugly and cold, like a fruitless pit, hard, rough, a sour taste in your mouth. It’s stupidly childish, yet your own expectations for your first movie, first box office hit, for that very first taste of the promised fame and fortune of success, begin to blink out. Expectations you’ve held on to since you were a little girl, since you realized this is the type of work you want to do for the rest of your life.

You’ve managed to impress Nicholas Watts, the most cynical film critic in all of Hollywood, and this is your big break? A Paramount picture featuring you and a tights-wearing mascot?

Peggy is practically asking you to star alongside Mickey Mouse.

“Is that all they offered?” You respond. You wince at the demanding, ungrateful tone. Afterall, showbiz has hardened you to go after what you want, to take and take because this lifestyle does not guarantee anything. You’re told no more than you are yes, the constant rejection having molded you into a diamond tough girl, glitzy and solid, unbreakable, beautiful.

But how many girls would kill to be in your place?

“The only sensible deal. They also offered you the role of Violet for It’s a Wonderful Life, and Ruthie in The Grapes of Wrath.”

“What?! Peggy, contract me for those instead!”

“Well, I’m not going to. And you listen well as to why.”

You twist your lips together. Peggy’s voice filters clipped and disapproving through the phone line, the way she always gets before she offers you damned good advice.

“Not just Watts is impressed with your work, Lola. You’re finally turning heads and for all good reasons. Anyone can get in front of a camera if they have the right look. But you’ve shown them that you have the look and the raw talent. Critics are saying you’re rivaling Judy Garland, darling. And you’re telling me you want the part of a lousy love interest? A secondary daughter? All because the pictures have big names behind them and people may go see it?

“No,” you mumble.

“No is right. You know better than anyone that people expect young stars to burn out fast so they can take their place. It’s all business. If I put you in for those roles, we’d be playing right into their hand. We’d use up all your potential in one summer. The public would get sick of seeing your face in every big picture. We have to earn their affection, darling. It’s slow and tame and not always glamorous, but this deal is smart.”

You listen, silently.

“Morale is low. War is when people turn to familiar pastimes and simple pleasures. To treat themselves, to take their minds off all the grizzly headlines. Captain America embodies all of that and more. If we take this, I promise you, Lola, that people will remember you as the girl who got them through the darkest times. This will do wonders for your career years down the line. And then, if you still want to play Violet, I’ll phone Frank Capra myself.”

You close your eyes and draw in a breath, a smile tugging at the corners of your mouth.

“Well, it looks like I don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“Wonderful. I’ll phone Paramount now. We’ll be in touch.”

Growing up with poor Irish immigrants for parents, the rare moments you could afford to splurge on luxuries, you spent them at local cinemas and theaters with your brother. Any day was a good one when you and Samuel bought tickets for a noon screening, the cheapest showing of the day, scraping together pocket change to split a popcorn if you were feeling extra special.

And reclining in a nearly empty theater with refreshments and goodies between the two of you, you’d watch the silver screen with hope in your mouth and stars in your eyes. In here, it no longer mattered how little money you had, or the discrimination your family faced, or the war in Europe, or the meager apartment you’d go home to, lucky if the electricity and heating had been paid for. In here, nothing else mattered but the visual stories.

And you realized that you wanted to help tell them. You wanted to be in front of the cameras, to embody characters and personas and let audiences worldwide empathize and identify with your performances.

You’ve loved playing make-believe since you were a little girl, having never really grown out of it. You could do it, you think. Dangerous dreams, perhaps, but what child doesn’t hold this wish within them? To see their name in lights and to be admired and commended, but most of all, to provide for their family?

How hard could it be?

At sixteen, you land your first speaking role. It’s pathetic. You’re working on set as background, per usual, only this time, the director picks you out from the crowd and gives you the line of, “Good morning, sir.” You’re to look off camera as the actor playing Kent entered the scene and you would then say your line.

You’re stupidly excited. Three simple words. You’ll be uncredited, of course, but your face would finally be seen! With butterflies fluttering in your stomach, the scene resets, Kent takes his mark, the cameras roll, and you deliver.

The scene is cut from the final reel.

You pound the pavement. You scour newspapers and flyers for casting calls, you phone agencies and playhouses, you save up to get your picture taken on glossy photo paper. You keep looking. You keep working in background until you can land a steady role.

Then, you finally get one. A miniscule part of a friendly neighborhood girl on a TV drama for CBS. You only have mere minutes of screen time, but the checks that arrive in the mail from Columbia Broadcasting System after your first few episodes air say otherwise.

You open a savings account. You plant your paychecks and watch them grow into a comfortable sum of money. You land another guest starring role for a daytime soap, the secretary of the title character. Combined with your parents’ salaries from your mother’s sewing and your father’s work on the railroads, you become the main breadwinner.

You move your family out of Hell’s Kitchen, out of your cramped, dark apartment. You sign a new lease under your new stage name and move to Brooklyn together.

Brooklyn is slightly cleaner, but the familiar hustle and bustle, the noise of shopkeepers and dialects and children and cars is comforting, grounds you in your roots. When your CBS drama wraps months later with your last check in the mail and you’re looking for your next gig, your brother works odd jobs to help shoulder the burden. Brick laying, chimney sweeping, milk and mail delivering, Samuel becomes no stranger to any and all work, so long as it pays. You become a typist on the side as you wait for auditions and callbacks.

Samuel tells you his aspirations to be a poet, a writer. He hasn’t said a word to your parents, but he shows you the small bound notebook he carries with him, leafing through pages of prose and verse. You encourage him to submit his work to newspapers, publishers. He gives you a shy smile, says he’ll consider it as soon as you get your motion picture debut. You shake on it. Together, your already close bond of brother and sister grows stronger as you each work to support your art.

You’re waiting for Samuel to finish his shift so you can catch a late showing of His Girl Friday, a warm September day when you first meet Bucky Barnes down at the wharfs. He’s tall, lean, and glistening with sweat when he rounds out of the warehouse with an armful of crates and nearly knocks you off the pier.

“Hey, watch it!” he snaps. His eyes flash like the water around you, blue and cold and dangerous. Brown locks curl with perspiration against his forehead, the sleeves of his workshirt rolled up over his shoulders, the exposed skin of his throat and arms flushed and tan.

Embarrassed, you try to steady him, to which he growls in annoyance and spins out of your reach. He makes a great show of bearing the weight himself, grumbling as he sets down his load. You don’t miss the way the muscles in his back flex and dip. It isn’t until he slowly stands back up, wiping his palms on his khakis, that you get a good look at each other.

The hostility in his eyes softens ever so slightly, simmering into a look that cinches your chest tight when his gaze travels shamelessly up from your kitten heels to the curves of your lips and cheek. His breathing is still labored as he surveys you and you can feel heat and color blooming against your skin. When his eyes finally settle on your face, you can’t decide whether you want to slap or kiss him.

“You lost or something, honey?” He asks with a whisper of a smile. He strolls in a lazy half-circle in front of you and moves to go back up the ramp to the warehouse. Then, he pauses and turns back to you.

“Have we met before? I swear I recognize you from somewhere.”

This delights you deliciously, that a handsome young man you’ve met by chance has seen your work. Not glamorous, acclaimed roles by any means, but recognition nonetheless. You bite the inside of your lip to suppress your smile and give him a coy, bashful flutter of your eyelashes.

“If that were the case, I’m sure I’d remember you.”

He grins wolfishly, pleased, and takes a step closer. “Yeah? Think you’ll let me take you out for dinner tonight?”

“She’s got plans with me, Buck.” Samuel’s voice carries across the water. Your brother emerges with wooden boxes and sets them between you and Bucky in a huff, as if he’s implementing a physical barrier, both childish and endearing. Bucky glances at you and Samuel.

“Are you two..?”

“Steady? No. She’s my sister.”

Bucky snorts and his eyes find you again, glittering in the evening light. “You never told me you had a sister, Sammy. And such a looker too..”

“Makes you wonder why I never brought her up,” retorts Samuel and gives him a playful shove, traps him briefly in a headlock. “At least Steve wouldn’t ogle.”

“Stevie would get a nose bleed and pass out.” You hear Bucky grunt back. Samuel moves as if to dump him into the drink and Bucky pinwheels, scrambling. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”

Satisfied, Samuel releases him and socks him in the shoulder for good measure. Bucky stumbles, looking boyish and smooth despite his shirt and hair all disheveled.

You’ve seen his type in casting offices all across New York; bold, alluring, and charismatic. It’s a look and type you’ve longed to act opposite of someday, as all young starlets dream of, but a look that simultaneously sparks the feminine temptation that shivers between your breasts. You wonder if Bucky would look the same in a dark bedroom, with him on top of you and your fingers running over his back…

Bucky grins toothily when he catches you staring and shoots you a wink. None of those movie star hopefuls hold a candle now to his rugged, spirited charm.

Samuel guides you back up the pier so he can punch out his time card and the two of you can be on your way. And as you’re about to set foot on solid ground, you hear Bucky call out to you.

“What’s your name, honey?”

Samuel sighs and shakes his head. “Cripes.” He mutters to himself. Before Samuel can stop you, you laugh and turn back to the water with a fresh and girlish aire, warmth and excitement whispering through your veins, young and naive and sixteen.

“Dolores!” You give him your full name, your real name. For once, you don’t want to be Lola Sparks. You want to be your natural, honest self, the girl who deserves young love and joy and an untroubled adolescence. The sound of your voice rings clear and strong, the diva that you are, and Bucky’s mouth curves upwards.

“See you ‘round, Dot.”

Much to Samuel’s displeasure, you tail your big brother around the docks like a lost pup whenever you have time. And being a C-list actress and a part-time typist, you have plenty of it. You loiter with the excuse of bringing sack lunches, waiting on Samuel and Bucky at the edge of the warehouses. It’s lonesome and bores you to no end being all by yourself, until one afternoon when someone is already waiting at your spot by the pier.

Small, skinny as his own shadow with a fringe of blonde hair, he leans hunkered and folded within himself, timid and seemingly conscious of how he occupies space. His jacket droops over his shoulders, eyes downcast even as you approach. He has a sketchbook in his hands, concentrated as the pencil moves across the page in fast, gentle strokes. You see an impressive likeness of the piers and Bucky’s distant figure in charcoaled lines.

“That’s really something.” You say.

He jolts so hard the paper tears and he crumples it into his fist in a single motion. “Huh?” he answers. When he looks to you, you realize his eyes are a pretty shade of teal. He flushes, petrified, the tips of his ears coloring pink. You feel horrible when he goes to pocket the ball of paper.

“I’m so sorry for scaring you,” you breathe. Gently, you offer your palm to him. “If you’re not keeping it, do you mind if I have it?” You ask softly. A few seconds pass and he shakes his head before placing it in your hand. You unfurl the paper, carefully smooth it out as he watches you from the corner of his eye.

Shyness is a barrier of art you’ve known all too well, from your own experiences in audition rooms to your brother’s reluctance to find a publisher, you understand that sting of insecurity better than anyone. So, you let him watch you as you admire his work, let him know of his talent and let your actions speak for you. You smile and slip the drawing into your purse.

Then, his stomach grumbles audibly, almost comically loud. He folds his arms around his stomach, so tight you’re afraid he’ll snap in half. You quickly reach into one of your paper bags and hand him a sandwich wrapped in cellophane and a can of lemonade.

“Here, let’s trade.”

“That’s awfully kind of you, but I can’t accept..” he starts. The timbre of his voice is surprisingly gallant and sure, pleasant, sweet. You have a gut feeling that the world has been taking advantage of that kindness his whole life, scaring him away from genuine compassion, that everything must have a catch. It makes you press harder.

“I insist. Please. It’s the least I can do for sneaking up on you.” He eyes you warily and again that feeling of regret washes over you. “Consider it payment.” You smile.

Finally, he takes Samuel’s lunch from you and unwraps the sandwich. He eats quickly and quietly, draining the lemonade only minutes later. Perhaps it’s his bony statue, but you feel happy to see this stranger eat.

When he’s finished, he wipes his mouth and turns to you. His lips, pretty, pink, part as if about to speak, yet no words leave him. Instead, he stands frozen with that transfixing blue-green gaze keeping you still, lingering.

That is until a stream of brilliant scarlet red dribbles down his chin and splatters onto his dress shirt. He pinches his nose, doubling forward and his flustered complexion matching the blood spilling from his nostrils.

“You must be Steve,” You laugh lightly and quickly hand him your handkerchief of cream yellow lace and embroidered flowers. You help steady him as he keeps his head tilted down. “Bucky’s told me all about you.”

Steve groans and presses the handkerchief to his face, blushing all the way down to his neck.

Steve returns your handkerchief days later with an embarrassed hush, carefully cleaned and laundered. It smells of lavender and clean linen and the image of him working the fabric between his thin fingers with soap and suds warms your heart.

You tell him it’s his. He blooms and keeps it neatly folded in his breast pocket.

You and Steve quickly grow close in the hours you spend together waiting on Bucky and Samuel. You pack extra lunches for him and sit by the piers chatting, skipping stones as Steve sketches the Brooklyn skyline day in and day out.

“Draw me!” you tease. “Isn’t that the request that all artists want to hear?”

But surprisingly, he does. He always draws you and Bucky and Samuel with striking, intimate familiarity. His sketchbook gradually fills with portraits and pictures of you, sketches that could put your very headshot to shame.

After their usual shifts, the four of you head to the drugstore for your ritual of sodas and sundaes. Two pairs, brother and sister and brothers by blood enjoying a rare wartime treat. With the rations on sugar, it’s a special and memorable circumstance just to be together and sharing something sweet.

It’s there, at your corner booth in Wolfe’s Pharmacy over ice cream, that Bucky opens up a paper for that night’s television network schedule and sees your name.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Dot,” he says. “What do others call you?”

Defeated, you twist your lips, hesitant to break the short spell of normalcy you’ve had with your new friends. Samuel sips at his Coke with a silent grin.

Time for the truth to come out.

“Well, ‘doll’, by Stevie,” you giggle and toe Steve’s foot under the table. Steve shyly shrinks back into his seat. “But CBS calls me Lola.”

Bucky’s jaw drops.

“Get out of here. You’re pulling my leg..”

“I absolutely am not.”

“Sammy, tell me she’s pulling my leg.”

“She’s not.”

Two pairs of brilliant blue eyes dart between you and your brother. Bucky’s face breaks into an open smile, laughing. Steve lurches forward.

“Have you ever met anyone famous?” Steve prods with a hint of that honest, innocent charm.

You wrinkle your nose sheepishly. “Mason Cook?”

“Who?” Bucky asks around a mouthful of sundae.

“Exactly.” Samuel snorts.

“Well, I’m sure he’s very talented.” Says Steve.

You swipe his maraschino cherry and let the stem dangle between your lips. “At least Stevie believes in me.”

“Dot, honey. I saw your pilot episode. If anyone’s a fan, it’s me.” Bucky feigns hurt, hand to his chest.

You stick out your bottom lip before sucking in the stem, working it into a tight knot in your mouth. “Are you still gonna be when your girl is signing autographs with John Wayne?”

You place the knotted stem on your napkin. Bucky nearly chokes.

“I better be.”

Samuel coughs. Steve giggles.

You thank your stars that your secret doesn’t change anything between Steve and Bucky. They treat you just the same; as Samuel’s baby sister who tags along with the boys. The teasing, the fleeting looks all unchanging.

Girls, you’ve unfortunately realized, are catty and mean. You’re competing for roles, after all. But with Bucky and Steve, your first taste of homecoming since moving to Brooklyn, you don’t have to worry about silly competition, or fame, or being the best in the room. They keep you level-headed, reminding you of your girlhood and life’s simple pleasures.

Bucky drives you and Steve around town in the company truck on weekends. Hopscotch and jacks on brick roads and warm nights, watching sunsets until the sky blushes peach and mango yellow at Coney Island.

A Saturday afternoon on Rockaway Beach, a vacation for you all after a draining week of work and auditions when Bucky promises to win you a stuffed bear when he sees you eyeing the one on careful display.

“Buck..Bucky, give it a rest, we can try the next one.” Steve chides.

Another plastic ring pings off the neck of a glass bottle. Bucky curses, rings his hands together and slaps another dollar onto the counter.

You and Steve trade looks. Bucky’s been at it for ten minutes. At this rate, you know you’ll be walking on the train tracks home tonight.

So, you and Steve huddle close and cheer him on. Do it for our doll! says Steve. Finish it so you’ll stop wasting money, you dolt! you cry. Hell, even the vendor finds it humorous and joins in.

And when Bucky wins that grand prize and you’re handed a teddy bear as big as Stevie, you hoist it on your back, careful to not let it touch gravel or dust as the three of you walk in line with the train tracks later that evening.

Paradise, a sheltered haven from the broken landscapes and realities that the European newsreels broadcast home in grim black and white.

True to Bucky’s word, they become your biggest supporters, helping you run lines and monologues and accompanying you to auditions. Bucky’s not bad for a scene partner, and Steve’s awareness of emotion and character motivation is impressive.

The attention you receive from casting directors and auditionees doesn’t hurt your chances either, lanky Steve and smoldering Bucky wishing you luck before stepping into the green room.

You book a drama. Then, a short film. Then another. You call them your lucky charms.

And when your humble little short film “premiers” at the corner cinema, squeezed in between an empty noon showing of a cartoon rerun, Steve and Bucky whoop and holler when your character is shown on screen. They throw popcorn and gumdrops, jostle you by the shoulders. Bucky even runs down the aisle and mimes kissing the projector screen.

“That’s our girl! That’s our Dot!”

The usher threatens to throw you out. Steve tells him you’ve paid good money for your tickets and you’ll stay and watch as long as you please.

The following week, you’re scouted by Peggy Carter.

Your world, your career will never be the same.

#steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers x female reader #steve rogers x you #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x you #captain america x reader #captain america x female reader #captain america x you #winter soldier x reader #winter soldier x female reader #winter soldier x you #steve rogers fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfiction #steve rogers imagine #bucky barnes imagine

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gay-impressionist · 3 years

Note

Hellooo! All the Song Rec questions with 3 please ✨

I guess you understood my not so subtle wish to answer everything so thank you haha 👀😅💕

PS : I don't always have a favorite so I often just chose something I really liked and tried not to put the same artist twice

1. Three songs with the same name

I couldn't find three 😬

Dreaming of you – The Coral

Dreaming of you – L'impératrice

2. A song for when you’re sad

Anyone – Demi Lovato

3. A song for when you’re happy

You Can Never Tell – Chuck Berry

4. The best song to dance to

Les démons de minuit – Image

5. The best song to drive to

Toxic – Britney Spears

6. The best song off your favorite album

Genius – LSD

7. The best song from any soundtrack

Seventeen - Lili Reinhart, Cole Sprouse, Vanessa Morgan, Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale Heathers musical episode)

8. A song for the morning and a song for the night

Morning : Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay – Ottis Redding

Night : Nuit – Requin Chagrin

9. A song that makes you nostalgic

Comme des enfants – Cœur de Pirate

10. The best instrumental song

Suite Bergamasque - Debussy

11. A song from the year you were born

La Tribu de Dana - Manau

12. A song from your favorite solo artist

Good in bed – Dua Lipa

13. A song from your favorite movie

La gloire de mon père – Vladimir Cosma

14. A song starting with the first letter of your name

Let's straighten it out – Latimore

15. A song by your favorite band

Sweet Sun –Milky Chance

16. A song from ten years ago

Over the rainbow - IZ

17. A song that reminds you of winter

Weiße Wand – AnnenMayKantereit

18. A song that reminds you of spring

Kiss in the Shadows – Sweatson Klank

19. A song that reminds you of summer

Chan Chan – Buena Vista Social Club

20. A song that reminds you of fall

California Dreaming – The Mamas & The Papas

(i know it’s supposed to be in winter but it has fall vibes to me)

21. A song for a slow Sunday morning

Charcoal Baby – Blood Orange

22. A song to fall asleep to

could cry just thinkin about you – Troye Sivan

23. A song from 2013

Thrift Shop – Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

24. A song from the 70’s

Soudain il ne reste qu'une chanson – Claude François

25. A song from the 80’s

Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2

26. A song from the 90’s

U Can't Touch This – MC Hammer

27. A song from the 00’s

Dernière danse - Kyo

28. A song that you discovered recently

Noir paradis - Georgio

29. A song you unexpectedly really like

Just because of you (Come on my love) – Eric Filet

= la chanson de Les Bronzés font du ski mdr

30. The best song to sing along to

Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen

31. The best road trip song

La Traversée – Radio Elvis

especially good for train rides

32. Two by an artist who passed away

Wishing well / Come & Go - Juice Wrld

33. Your favorite song from your favorite show

With Love, Vincent – Murray Gold

34. A song that reminds you of a book

Black Beatles (Rae Sremmurd Cover) - Waxx ft. Bleeker

(I listened to that song on repeat when I read Beronica fics a looong time ago, now it always make remind me of those)

35. A song that makes you want to go on an adventure

Into the Unknown – Panic! At The Disco

36. The best cover of a song

Rock El Casbah – Rachid Taha

37. The first three songs that come up when you hit shuffle

Finally – James Arthur

Cuz I Love You – Lizzo

Latch – Disclosure ft. Sam Smith

38. A song from your favorite genre

Sun – Two Door Cinema Club

39. A song with a number in the title

40 Day Dream – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

40. A song with a place in the title

Paris – Brigitte

41. A song with a person’s name in the title

Marcia Baïla – Les Rita Mitsouko

42. A completely ridiculous song

Fous ta cagoule – Fatal Bazooka

43. A song by an artist from a different country than you

Σιγά μην κλάψω, σιγά μη φοβηθώ (I won't cry, I won't be scared) – Killah P, aka a Greek antifascist rapper who was murdered by a neo-nazi in 2013.

Here is a video with the lyrics in the subtitles

44. A song from your childhood

Confessions Nocturnes – Diam's & Vitaa

45. A song that makes you cry

Petit pays – Gaël Faye

About the Burundian civil war and theTutsis genocide. I cried even more after reading his book (I didn’t watch the film tho)

46. A song that reminds you of a vacation you took

Naive – The Kooks

47. A song that reminds you of a friend

Pompeii – Bastille

48. A song for a late night

Saint-Lambert – La Bronze

49. A song that makes you feel better

Mir-e Nowruz (Ramteen Remix) - Ahmad Ali Rezayi

50. Your absolute favorite song (or just right now)

My favorite song ever : Wastin' Time – The Shoes

#THANK YOU SO MUCH #i took me forever but i could ramble about music for hours so idc #ask #music

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thislanguageisunderrated · 4 years

Text

Special 300 followers post: places to visit while in Romania (4/5)

Part 3

25. Vaser Valley Mocănița

Mocănița is a term used for narrow-gauge railways in Romania, operated by steam-powered locomotives. While the tracks originally were meant for cargo and passenger services, today they are used for tourism.

There are many Mocănițas between Bukovina, Maramureș and Transylvania, but the one I will recommed is the Vaser Valley Mocănița in Maramureș. The tracks run from Vișeu de Sus. The main line is 43 km (27 miles) long, from Vișeu de Sus to Comanu, near the Ukrainian border. This trip usually takes 3-4 hours each way. The line is operated by a lot of engines, including Măriuța and Krauss. The trip is beautifully scenic, going slowly through areas populated by deer and bears, though cattle and sheep can be also observed.

26. Bucegi Mountains

The Bucegi Mountains are located in central Romania.

Bucegi is a very popular spot for tourists from all over, in winter because of the ski resorts, and, no matter the time of the year, for the Bucegi Plateau and the natural wonders it possesses. Access to the Plateau is done through a cable car or on foot, if you wish to hike (side note: NEVER EVER accept a ride with minivans from people around the cable car station! they will rip you off and leave you to walk around 1 hour on foot to the Plateau, while the cable car leaves you right there at the destination. Don’t let the queue daunt you, you’ll be better off waiting there). On the Plateau there are two natural monuments you have to see, as they are in walking distance of one another and the cable car station: the Sphynx and the Old women (Sfinxul and Babele). They were formed through natural erosion processes, creating statue-like figures. The next two places to visit are farther away, so I recommend consulting the weather forecast and taking mountain gear with you if you want to visit them: the Caraiman Cross and Omu Peak. The Caraiman Cross is gigantic cross monument, buit on a mountain peak, to honor the Romanian heroes who died during WWI. The Omu Peak is the 6th tallest mountain peak in Romania, standing at an altitude of 2.514 m (8.248 feet) above sealevel. There are signs showing the way for whatever you want to see on the Plateau, so follow them. It is believed that Bucegi is the legendary mountain of Kogainon, the holy mountain of the Dacians, in which Zalmoxis, the head God, resided in a cave.

27. Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History

The Grigore Antipa National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum located in Victory Square, Bucharest, Romania, housing over 2 million pieces in varied collections.

The museum is named after the man who administered it for 51 years, Grigore Antipa, a Romanian Darwinist who is considered to be the first person to modernize the concept of dioramas; emphasizing the 3D aspect, and he was the first to include them in a museum setting (the original dioramas are still visible in the main hall). The museum is the only one to house and display a fully intact skeleton of a Deinotherium Gigantissimum. If you are not interested in natural history, in close proximity there is also the National Geology Museum (which has 80,000 samples of rocks, fossils, and minerals from Romania) and the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant (which is one of Europe's leading museums of popular arts and traditions) and the Victoria Palace (the headquarters of the Romanian Government).

28. Cotroceni Palace

Palatul Cotroceni or Cotroceni Palace is the official residence of the President of Romania, and it also houses the National Cotroceni Museum.

Comprising approximately 20.000 objects, the collection of the Cotroceni National Museum has been continuously enriched through transfers from other institutions and museums and particularly through acquisitions and generous private donations. The collection of the National Cotroceni Museum is divided into the following domains: plastic arts, decorative arts, numismatics, medals, history, archaeology. Visits are made only within a guided tour. There are two types of tours : The "classic" tour takes 60 minutes and includes the first and second floors, while the "complete" tour, which lasts 100 minutes, also include the medieval areas of the Palace, the church and the cellars.

29. The Palace of Culture from Iași

Palatul Culturii or the Palace of Culture is an edifice located in Iași, Romania.

The building served as Administrative and Justice Palace until 1955, when its destination was changed, being assigned to the four museums nowadays united under the name of Moldavia National Museum Complex. Also, the building houses the Cultural Heritage Conservation-Restoration Centre, and hosts various exhibitions and other events. Besides the four museums, The Palace of Culture presents some other attraction points. One of them is the Gothic Room, where can be admired the mosaic that presents a medieval bestiarum. There is also the Voivodes' Room, located at first floor, where there are the portraits of Moldavia's rulers and Romania's kings, starting with Decebalus and Trajan, paintings made by Ștefan Dimitrescu and his students.

30. Scărișoara Cave

Peștera Scărișoara or Scărișoara Cave is one of the biggest ice caves in the Apuseni Mountains of Romania, in a part of Carpathian chain.

It is considered a show cave and one of the natural wonders of Romania. It has also been described as a glacier cave. The cave is located at an altitude of approximately 1,150 m (3,770 ft) above sea level. It is 120 m (390 ft) deep and 720 m (2,360 ft) long. The entrance shaft gives access through metal stairs to a large chamber, the Great Hall. The Great Hall includes an ice cliff nearly 18 m (59 ft) tall, which overlooks a pool called the Pool of Ice.

31. Victory Square from Timișoara

Piața Victoriei or Victory Square is one of the central squares in Timișoara, and a place of great recent historical importance.

Around the square you can find many cultural edifices - the Romanian Opera, the National Theater, the State Hungarian Theater, the State German Theatre, The Orthodox Cathedral, the Capitol, Studio and Timiș cinemas, the Banat Museum and art galleries, as well as many shops. The Opera and the Cathedral sit opposite of eachother. I recommend this place because I consider it to be the place where the idea of a contemporary, free Romania was born. 30 years ago, in 1989, Timișoara became the place where the Revolution started. This Square will forever be the place where the Ceaușescu regime started its downfall, and a place where a great loss of life happened. If you visit, go to the Opera, stand in front of it, facing the Cathedral, and look at the buildings around. Even to this day, they still bear the holes left by bullets.

32. Trajan's Bridge

Podul lui Traian or Trajan's Bridge was a Roman segmental arch bridge, the first bridge to be built over the lower Danube and one of the greatest achievements in Roman architecture.

The bridge was constructed in 105 AD by instruction of Emperor Trajan by Greek architect Apollodorus of Damascus before his Second Dacian War to allow Roman troops to cross the river. Though it was only functional for 165 years, it is often considered to be the longest arch bridge in both total and span length for more than 1,000 years. The wooden superstructure of the bridge was dismantled by Trajan's successor, Hadrian, presumably in order to protect the empire from barbarian invasions from the north. The superstructure was destroyed by fire. Only the entrance pillars are now visible on either bank of the Danube, one in Romania and one in Serbia.

Part 5

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quizmeghan · 4 years

Text

#12

1: when you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? more cereal than milk - nothing worse than soggy cereal.

2: do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a wintery day? love it!

3: what random objects do you use to bookmark your books? it used to be whatever was to hand but now I don’t use them and just remember the page number.

4: how do you take your coffee/tea? I haaaaaate coffee, if I was drinking normal tea (which is rare for me), i’d have it with a little milk and two sugars, but my go-to hot drink these days is lemon and ginger tea.

5: are you self-conscious of your smile? i’m self-conscious about every part of my body.

6: do you keep plants? not even plastic ones.

7: do you name your plants? see above. but if I did have them, i’d definitely name them.

8: what artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? does colouring in count? that or I dabble in writing but i’m not good at that and I haven’t tried it in a really long time.

9: do you like singing/humming to yourself? always!

10: do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? on my front with one leg propped up at a 90 degree angle hahah.

11: what’s an inner joke you have with your friends? probably just quoting movies alllllll the time.

12: what’s your favorite planet? pluto! i also kinda love Saturn? also quite like Jupiter and Neptune.

13: what’s something that made you smile today? I had to get a bandage over my eye, but to hold it in place properly it was wrapped around my head and I laughed at myself as I was leaving hospital cos I could only imagine what I looked like.

14: if you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? the flat itself? probably very high ceilings as they’re all like that here. I do like the idea of a more modern one that's like, loads of glass everywhere. i’d like a flat to feel quite spacious too.

15: go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! i’m too lazy to google and if I started that I would just read space facts all night, however I do know this one; if you screamed to someone next to you in space they wouldn't be able to hear you, as space is totally silent. you need air to carry sound vibrations, and there’s none of that in space. that’s mind-blowing!

16: what’s your favorite pasta dish? anything with pasta in it really. I am partial to an arrabiata though.

17: what color do you really want to dye your hair? I miss it being purple. i’d like to have gone for some sort of aqua-blue in my younger years, but it’s probably just as well I didn’t - I hardly have any healthy hair left because I dye it so much.

18: tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. I do stupid things all the time so there’s no really good example, but one that springs to mind is when I got my hand trapped in a bus door when I was trying to get off haha.

19: do you keep a journal? what do you write/draw/ in it? no.

20: what’s your favorite eye color? I don’t have a preference.

21: talk about your favorite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. my current favourite bag hasn’t really been to hell and back with me, but it is my newest one and I absolutely adore it. it’s a really nice shade of blue leather and the interior is like a baby pink colour, and it was a Christmas gift, and it goes perfectly with the majority of my outfits.

22: are you a morning person? not really.

23: what’s your favorite thing to do on lazy days where you have 0 obligations? eat and watch Disney or Netflix.

24: is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? yep.

25: what’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? I've never broken into anywhere.

26: what are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? these days it’s just my one pair of skechers that I wore to work all the time. that or I have an older pair of ugg boots that I now use to wear around the house as a form of slippers.

27: what’s your favorite bubblegum flavor? I only really eat chewing gum, and it has to be blue extra!

28: sunrise or sunset? depends on my mood. right now i’d go for sunrise.

29: what’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? on every occasion where I've gotten some good news (both examples here are for when I got accepted into college/uni courses that I've wanted for YEARS), she’s written me out a card - or a page on a notebook and sent a picture - and it has congratulations and little notes of encouragement on them.

30: think of it: have you ever been truly scared? yes.

31: what is your opinion of socks? do you like wearing weird socks? do you sleep with socks? do you confine yourself to white sock hell? really, just talk about socks. ok, here we go. I have many thoughts on this. socks must be worn at ALL TIMES when you are wearing shoes, and the only exception to this rule is if you are wearing flip-flops or something similar (and if that’s the case then your toenails need to be painted, but that’s a whole other story). i’ll NOT have this not wearing socks with trainers rubbish. I don’t really like socks being visible when you’re wearing trainers or boots (unless it’s the cut socks with boots that have the ruffles or something), so I almost exclusively wear those invisible socks. the idea of mixing white/black shoes with the opposite colour socks unsettles me greatly, but if they’re invisible it’s not as big a deal. odd socks didn't bother me when I was younger, but now they’re a giant no from me. and finally, fluffy bed socks are a necessity when you’re in your pj’s or loungewear. they are also the only acceptable socks that you can wear in bed; sometimes I wear them and sometimes I don’t, but I would NEVER wear normal socks to bed. I told you I had many feelings about this hahah.

32: tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with friends. probably just drinking - we don’t tend to stay up that late unless we’re on a night out lol.

33: what’s your fave pastry? ngl, I love croissants.

34: tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. what is it called? what does it look like? do you still keep it? my all-time favourite teddy when I was younger was a postman pat one that my younger sister ‘brought’ me when she was born. there was his black and white cat teddy too but that got lost when we moved house when I was 4. I do still have the postman pat one somewhere, i’m sure my mum kept it. other favourites of mine included a Quasimodo and an esmarelda but I don’t have them anymore.

35: do you like stationary and pretty pens and so on? do you use them often? Y E S. and i’m constantly buying more for college and uni. and i’m about to start teacher training and the stationary part of that job ALONE is enough to make it a dream job.

36: which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? I've been in a real 5sos mood recently if that counts?

37: do you like keeping your room messy or clean? I obviously much prefer it when it’s clean, however it’s the getting to that stage that I hate.

38: tell us about your pet peeves! people who don’t remove the labels from the bottom of their shoes. people who chew loudly or with their mouths opened (SERIOUSLY). those are the first two that came to mind and the thoughts alone are enough to rile me up so i’m gonna stop there haha.

39: what color do you wear the most? black or blue.

40: think of a piece of jewelry you own: what’s it’s story? does it have any meaning to you? my mum and dad bought me a pandora necklace; it’s a long black rope one with a large panda sort of charm/pendant hanging from it. I don’t wear it often. they bought me it when I graduated from uni in Edinburgh, and the panda is relevant because during my time there was the time that the two giant panda’s came to Edinburgh zoo. I always like that story.

41: what’s the last book you remember really, really loving? harry potter was the last one I (re)read (fu jk rowling), and i’m pretty sure the hp books are the only books I've ever reread so i’ll just go for them.

42: do you have a favorite coffee shop? describe it! I don’t drink hot drinks, so no. although there is a starbucks in our local cinema and I always love going in there cos the folk who work there are lovely.

43: who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? myself.

44: when was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? ooft, I don’t think I've ever felt that.

45: do you trust your instincts a lot? yes, they usually tend to be right.

46: tell us the worst pun you can think of. my dad is so bad for these so I should be able to think of something, but nothing’s springing to mind.

47: what food do you think should be banned from the universe? BANANAS. or even better - BANANAS on PIZZA. curse to hell the idiot who came up with that - that fucker should be burned at the stake.

48: what was your biggest fear as a kid? is it the same today? the ocean. and yes. the vastness and darkness of it all actually makes me feel physically sick. even thinking about it now has given me that sort of feeling of PURE DREAD in the pit of my stomach. and also sharks. just a massive nope for me.

49: do you like buying CDs and records? what was the last one you bought? I don’t even have a means of playing cd’s anymore, but the last one I bought was all time low’s new album wake up sunshine, which got delivered a few days ago. I already bought the album on iTunes, but I wanted a physical copy of the cd too.

50: what’s an odd thing you collect? the only thing I collect (now) is concert tickets. before, I literally would keep every cinema ticket ever. I had tickets from films that were out in ‘06.

51: think of a person. what song do you associate with them? I thought of my mum and then I immediately thought of follow the yellow brick road from the wizard of oz because it’s her favourite film.

52: what are your favorite memes of the year so far? all of the memes have been covid-related and they got real old real fast.

53: have you ever watched the rocky horror picture show? heathers? beetlejuice? pulp fiction? what do you think of them? literally, I've seen half of pulp fiction and that’s it.

54: who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? my bestie.

55: what’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? i’d only ever be dramatic in talking hypothetically, so I've never really carried out anything that could prove a point (that I can think of, I may be wrong), but I can get pretty dramatic when ranting so...

56: what are some things you find endearing in people? people’s laughs.

57: go listen to bohemian rhapsody. how did it make you feel? did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? I don’t need to listen to it to know it makes me feel extra haha. and if you don’t dramatically reenact the lyrics, have you even truly listened to the song?

58: who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? why? ok the wine mom could be one of two of my friends, because one really is a mother and could probably do with a few glasses of wine, and the other is just the mother of the group, and the remaining friend is the vodka aunt. and there’s no real reason, she just is the fun aunt who would buy her nieces drink when they’re underaged.

59: what’s your favorite myth? ohhh,that some people think humans and dinosaurs existed at the same time. HOW can that be true? these people blow my mind. also, one that we spoke about recently in college; that there is an autism pandemic. not true, we’ve simply come up with better ways and means of testing and/or diagnosing. many people diagnosed nowadays are adults who were misdiagnosed as children, and that’s a major factor in why there seems to be a spike. just interesting.

60: do you like poetry? what are some of your faves? I don’t really like it.

61: what’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? the stupidest one you’ve ever received? the stupidest one I've ever given wasn’t really stupid but more funny, which was beard baubles for my dad at christmas, and one of the stupidest one I've ever received what a keyring which was one of those balls of fluff, but it had like, a small baby doll’s face in it. it was terrifying.

62: do you drink juice in the morning? which kind? either water or a little diluting juice.

63: are you fussy about your books and music? do you keep them meticulously organized or kinda leave them be? I don’t have many of either, but they’re all alphabetical, by author/artist then by title.

64: what color is the sky where you are right now? practically black as it’s nearly 1am.

65: is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? yeh but that’s a definite no-go.

66: what would your ideal flower crown look like? there’d be some green, yellow, pink/purple, white, maybe blue. some daisy’s would be nice.

67: how do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? depends on the season because if it’s autumn then I like it but if it’s summer then it sucks.

68: what’s winter like where you live? honestly? just the same as literally every other season - in Scotland you get four seasons in a day most days.

69: what are your favorite board games? I used to love this harry potter game I had which was similar to cluedo. anything that’s a quiz I like.

70: have you ever used a ouija board? noooooo and I never will. they’re also legit banned from my house.

71: what’s your favorite kind of tea? lemon and ginger.

72: are you a person who needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? definitely.

73: what are some of your worst habits? being forgetful and clumsy.

74: describe a good friend of yours without using their name or gendered pronouns. uhhh they’re fab and I love them, and physically they have naturally brown hair dyed blonde and blue eyes.

75: tell us about your pets! in my lifetime my family have owened almost 30 pets including budgies, fish, hamsters, cats, dogs, lovebirds and gerbils. I only have one living pet now who is an all black cat. we had a doggo who was the best doggo in all the land and I miss him so much.

76: is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? sleeping.

77: pink or yellow lemonade? i’m partial to some pink lemonade.

78: are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? fanclub. KING BOB!

79: what’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? probably a very nice or thoughtful gift.

80: what color are your bedroom walls? did you choose that color? if so, why? they’re pink, and I have two large mdf boards which are a mint green. and I did choose them, just under a year ago we were decorating the house and I fancied a change. shocked me to my core tbh cos pink is definitely not a colour i’d have thought to pick, but the pink and green match in really well with the grey I have picked out for soft furnishings and my white furniture so i’m happy.

81: describe one of your friend’s eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. i’m not gonna do that i’m so tired.

82: are/were you good in school? I was, I still give myself a complex when there’s even the smallest possibility of rule-breaking.

83: what’s some of your favorite album art? probably an all time low related one?

84: are you planning on getting tattoos? which ones? I have five already, but I have a list of more that I want in my phone. they’re all mostly small ones.

85: do you read comics? what are your faves? I don’t.

86: do you like concept albums? which ones? the only one I think I've ever heard is pink floyd’s the wall, and honestly, i’m not fussed either way. I may have heard more but just don’t know.

87: what are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? high school musical. everyone needs to understand the hype.

88: are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? ...no.

89: are you close to your parents? yeah.

90: talk about your one of you favorite cities. I like venice, London, Edinburgh but also Glasgow. got to have the hometown.

91: where do you plan on traveling this year? literally fuckin’ nowhere except to and from uni. thanks covid for blessing us w your presence.

92: are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? drowns. always drowns.

93: what’s the hairstyle you wear the most? messy bun. i’m lazy. if it’s down though I tend to curl it.

94: who was the last person you know to have a birthday? my friend.

95: what are your plans for this weekend? oh, big plans. i’m gonna paint my nails and help my mum konmari her drawers and wardrobes. big, biiig plans.

96: do you install your computer updates really quickly or do you procrastinate on them a lot? on my last laptop I procrastinated on them so much that they would forcibly shut down my computer and install themselves eventually, to the point where it would take over 7 hours to do it, until I eventually gave up on it. with my new one though I do it right away and it’s done in seconds. believe me; lesson learned.

97: myer briggs type, zodiac sign, and hogwarts house? isfj; aquarius; slytherclaw (I was slytherin for years, and then was resorted as ravenclaw, and now every time I take one of those buzzfeed percentage ones, I get almost 25% per house, so I just chose to combine the two official sortings I got and be done with it).

98: when’s the last time you went hiking? did you enjoy it? wouldn’t say hike really, but last year at least, and I do enjoy that sort of stuff.

99: list some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. safe, six feet under the stars, and weightless, all by all time low, reckless by youmeatsix, December by neck deep.

100: if you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go 5 years into the past, the other 5 years into the future, which one would you press? why? if I went into the past I could fix a couple of monumental mistakes just to see if my theories of how things would have worked out are correct, but if I went into the future i’d with any luck be in my dream job so that’s a tricky one. the way i’m feeling right now i’d lean towards the past.

#12 #quiz #source: tumblr

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butternutsims · 4 years

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Ooooo, I got a bunch of asks for the “hi, I’m not from the US” ask set and the questions and answers are under the cut!

I’m going to answer these in order of questions, thank you to @simvilae, @confusedpasta, @myfawnwy, @renlishsims and those sneaky nonnys ;)

Oh and if anyone isn’t sure where I am from, it’s Australia!

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

This is a clear cut winner, it’s the meat pie, we make it really different from anywhere else in the world. And they are so much better fresh than the frozen ones. Vegemite is second, I don’t eat it on the regular but I don’t mind it.

5. favourite song in your native language?

I’m gonna be super technical here, I am a native English speaker, however the aboriginal people were here first and they are native to this land, so my fave song from an aboriginal artist is ‘Mr La Di Da’ by Baker Boy which he raps in English and Yolŋu Matha. Super fun song.

Most of my fave music is from Aussie artists also. We have the best music, hands down.

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

HAHA. ok I’m gonna be stereotypical. G’day (hello), mate (friend.. or not, depending on the mood and how aggressive you’re feeling, you can “mate” angrily) and arvo (afternoon, most people say it without thinking, for example, ‘Let's go down to the shops this arvo’)

Actually a lot of words we shorten and just add an ‘o’ to the end of it, and that’s our slang in a nutshell.

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

Yeah, when travelling, it’s either UK, New Zealander or South African. Always.

11. favourite native writer/poet?

ooooooo, good one! Mem Fox is probably the one that sticks out in my mind, her kids books are just amazing, mostly based around Australian native animals, but she wrote a book a few years ago called ‘I’m Australian Too’, which explains how different cultures are part of Australia to kids!

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

Superstitions I can’t think of any, all the ones I can think of are Italian because part of my family immigrated from there. Traditions.. maybe grabbing a Bunnings sausage every time you go there because they are the best?

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

Our most famous Australian shows are Home & Away and Neighbours.. so the answer is no, most of it is trash. Some movies are okay.

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

G’DAY MATE, HOW ABOUT I CHUCK ANOTHER SHRIMP ON THE BAAAAAAAARRRRRRBIE!!!

If you say this in the mirror 3 times on Australia Day, the ghost of Paul Hogan is said to appear behind you... Oh wait, that’s a superstition I guess!?

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

I hate when people have asked me if I ride a kangaroo around. I try telling them it’s only when my car is at the mechanics but they still think it’s my main mode of transportation.

The thing about the deadly animals.. all true.

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

Yeah! We learn about it all in school, at least the English side of it, and to a point the Aboriginal side. I find the Aboriginal history much more rich and important to learn about.

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language? .

My English is okie dokie. I would love to learn some Aboriginal. I am also very horrible at languages, it was never my strong suit.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

Oooof... this is a tough question.

We are super resilient people, we don’t give up, we go out and do something about it. And we are not silent.

What I hate are the people that are the opposite of this. They point their fingers and take advantage of situations, or they are silent and let things just happen. These are for the most part Boomers and politicians

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?

BEER.

Not Fosters!! We actually don’t drink Fosters here.. ever. Fosters is an exported beer from here for everyone else to enjoy.

We make good craft beers, and good wines too!

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country?

For me personally, I was born here for a reason so there’s no changing that.

HOWEVER, I am part Canadian, I am a dual citizen so my heart belongs there too and that would be my other choice of place to be born. But I am first and foremost an Australian.

#butternutsims replies #oooo this was fun

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citizenscreen · 4 years

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It’s been the practice here to honor notable film-related anniversaries at the onset of every year – Looking back to move forward, if you will. This year there is particular excitement across social media because 2020 brings with it echoes of a century ago, the decade called The Roaring Twenties when youth threw caution to the wind and enjoyed life to its fullest. It was an era of economic prosperity and interesting (to say the least) social and artistic changes, an era of happenings and creativity. Some of that is reflected in films depicting the Roaring Twenties, which – luckily for us – happens to be this month’s theme on TCM.

In all pictures about the Roaring Twenties you’re likely to see the Flapper, perhaps the most familiar symbol of the era. The Flapper helped the decade retain a certain “feel,” one of partying and promiscuity with distinct style and energy. In movie terms you might look to Colleen Moore and Clara Bow to get a sense of what the Flapper was like.

Colleen Moore

Clara Bow

While the flapper enjoyed life throughout the decade, she gained considerable freedoms in 1920. On August 18 of that year the 19th Amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote. Due to the great economy at the time, millions of women worked in white-collar jobs and could afford to contribute in ways they previously could not. The increased availability of birth-control devices allowed for more personal choice and advances in technology helped the effort as well. Many homes in America, especially in the industrialized cities, were now powered by electricity, and effort-saving devices such as refrigerators, washing machines, irons, and vacuum cleaners, most of which were used by women, made life much easier as well.

Other inventions that came to be in 1920 include the hair dryer, invented by a women who inserted a hose in the exhaust of a vacuum cleaner. Brilliant! The traffic light was also born that year thanks to police officer William Potts who used red, amber, and green lights and $37 worth of wire to make his traffic light in Detroit, Michigan. The Band-Aid was invented by a man called Earle Dickson for his wife Josephine who cut herself often. The final invention worth noting was the automobile with the combustion, probably the most popular invention in the 1920s, which facilitated the Flapper lifestyle and led to many new jobs. The popular, reliable, and inexpensive Ford Model T made it all possible – and made it in the movies.

Harold Lloyd in GET OUT AND GET UNDER 1920

Stan Laurel in a Ford Model T 1920, which appeared in several Laurel and Hardy movies

While previously mentioned freedoms were expanded, others were curtailed in 1920. The most famous being the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1919, but put into effect in 2020. The Federal Volstead Act, formally the National Prohibition Act, established to carry out the intent of the 18th Amendment, banned the manufacture and sale of “intoxicating liquors,” and at 12 A.M. on January 16, 1920, the Act closed every tavern, bar and saloon in the United States. Tragic as that may seem to some, there was plenty of booze to go around thanks to unseemly types who took control of underground “wet” businesses.

Hollywood’s fascination with Prohibition and the times during which it took place have resulted in fantastic film offerings through the decades. Sam Mendes’ Road to Perdition (2002) is one example of a great modern film dealing with the subject. But I am here for the classics and suggest you revisit the following to get a sense of how colorful the world was during the Prohibition era:

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Another right was curtailed on June 13, 1920 when the US Post Office stated that children could not be sent by parcel post. Various instances of this occurrence made the law a necessity.

More interesting facts about 1920:

The average life span in the United States that year was about fifty-four years.

The top ten toys of the 1920s were:

Teddy bears

Erector sets

Lionel trains

Lincoln Logs

Raggedy Ann

Radio Flyer Wagon

Tinker Toys

Crayons

Tin toys

Tiddlywinks

On January 29, 1920 Walt Disney started work as an artist with KC Slide Co. for $40 a week.

On May 1, 1920 legendary slugger Babe Ruth hit his 50th career home run, his first for the NY Yankees in a 6-0 win over the Boston Red Sox. How sweet it was.

On May 16 Joan of Arc (Jeanne D’arc c. 1412 – May 30, 1431) was canonized a saint. Her life has inspired numerous films starting as early as 1900 with Georges Méliès’ Joan of Arc. I must admit I’ve only seen two films on this topic, but can recommend both: Carl Theodor Dreyer’s deeply affecting The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Victor Fleming’s visually appealing Joan of Arc (1948).

On June 2 the Pulitzer prize for Drama was awarded to Eugene O’Neill for Beyond the Horizon.

On July 29 rebel leader Pancho Villa surrendered to Mexican authorities. As it turns out Villa who had an interesting connection to movies as this Smithsonian Magazine article explains.

On November 2, 1920 the first commercially licensed radio broadcast was heard, from KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first broadcast was live results of the presidential election, a transmission of breaking news that was new and unprecedented. The impact of the medium of radio and the importance of this 1920 event cannot be overstated.

1920 in Hollywood

By the early 1920s, the film industry had made its (more or less) permanent move to Hollywood from the East Coast. The face of American cinema was transformed. Hollywood was now the world’s film capital producing virtually all films shown in the United States and 80 percent of the revenue from films shown abroad. Many American towns had a movie theater with over 20,000 movie houses operating in the U.S. by that year. Most Americans went to see the movies at least once a week. The movie industry became a big business. And Hollywood’s position only got stronger as many of Europe’s most talented movie players arrived.

By the end of the decade, the movies claimed to be the nation’s fifth largest industry, attracting 83 cents out of every dollar Americans spent on amusement. It’s only natural then that through this journey Hollywood also became the ideal of many things in the audience’s eyes. In particular the movies excelled at extravagance, fun, and glamour – and they were the primary distraction through tough times. Here’s more…

In 1920, Metro Pictures Corporation (with its already-acquired Goldwyn Pictures Corporation) was purchased by early theater exhibitor Marcus Loew of Loew’s Inc. In another acquisition, Loew merged his Metro-Goldwyn production company with Louis B. Mayer Pictures.

In 1920 C.B.C. Film Sales Corporation was founded in 1920 by brothers Jack and Harry Cohn, and Joseph Brandt. C.B.C. was renamed Columbia in 1924.

On March 28, 1920 the wedding of the century took place when Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford joined in matrimony. Fairbanks bought a lodge for his new bride and it was named Pickfair, a place that soon became the social center of Hollywood. In June 1920 the couple joined fellow newlyweds Frances Marion and Fred Thomson on a European honeymoon.

On April 3, 1920 F. Scott Fitzgerald wed novelist Zelda Sayre at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

Director John Ford wed Mary Smith in 1920.

Charlie Chaplin discovered Jackie Coogan and chose him to play The Kid released in 1921.

Alice Guy, the world’s first female filmmaker and a key figure in the development of narrative film, directed her final film, the feature-length Tarnished Reputations (1920).

Born in 1920

I am astounded by the talent born in 1920. Expect major centennial celebrations for these important people who have given us so much joy through film and television.

Vincent Gardenia

Constance Moore

DeForest Kelley

Federico Fellini

Delbert Mann

James Doohan

Toshiro Mifune

Jack Webb

Denver Pyle

Peggy Lee

Yul Brynner

Maureen O’Hara

Shelley Winters

Ray Bradbury

Jack Warden

Mickey Rooney

William Conrad

Walter Matthau

Laraine Day

Montgomery Clift

Merlina Mercouri

Hy Averback

Nanette Fabray

Gene Tierney

Ricardo Montalban

Noel Neill

Virginia Mayo

Frances Gifford

Jack Lord

Tony Randall

Ray Harryhausen

Deaths in 1920

1920 is relatively early in the life of the movies so it’s not surprising only one stood out as notable…and particularly sad. On or about September 10 of that year actor Olive Thomas ingested bi-chloride of mercury from a French-labeled bottle in a darkened bathroom, believing it to be another medication. Found unconscious, she died five days later. The death made worldwide headlines. Olive was only 25 when she died.

With Olive’s death came a flood of stories linking her to alcohol and drug use and to sexual promiscuity. The evils of “movie people” were spotlighted along with her death by moralists everywhere. Regardless of the circumstances, which I believe have never come to light, this was the tragic death of a 25-year-old woman. Olive was survived by her husband Jack Pickford who was with her in Paris when the tragedy occurred. You can read more about the life and death of Olive Thomas at Silents are Golden.

Olive Thomas c. 1919

Among the notables who made their film debuts in 1920…

Mary Astor made her film debut by way of an uncredited part in Buster Keaton’s The Scarecrow

Madge Bellamy made her debut in Edward José’s The Riddle: Woman.

Charles Boyer in Marcel L’Herbier’s L’homme de Large

Greta Garbo in Ragnar Ring’s How Not to Dress, which according to the New York Times obituary is a short sponsored by the department story where Greta worked as a sales clerk.

Alfred Hitchcock – Hitchcock submitted a portfolio of title cards for The Sorrows of Satan and The Great Day and is hired by Famous Players-Lasky British Producers Limited. (Hitchcock.zone)

Barbara La Marr , the girl who was too beautiful caught everyone’s attention when she co-starred with Douglas Fairbanks in The Nut in 1921, but she made her debut the year prior in Bertram Bracken’s Harriet and the Piper.

Victor McLaglen in A. E. Coleby’s The Call of the Road (1920) he gets a starring role right off the bat as a gambler-turned-boxer.

Nita Naldi – the story goes that her dancing was spotted by John Barrymore, who obtained her debut role for her in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920).

Claude Rains – we see him for a brief moment at the end of the film, but it’s a brilliant turn he delivers in his formal film debut as James Whale’s The Invisible Man in 1933, but as is news to me at this writing, Rains appeared in Fred Goodwins’ Build Thy House in 1920.

Notable Film Releases

Germany’s silent landmark classic, director Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari was released in the US in 1920.

Douglas Fairbanks’ first swashbuckler, Fred Niblo’s The Mark of Zorro (1920).

Buster Keaton made his first solo film appearance in the comedy short One Week (1920), after co-starring with Roscoe Arbuckle for the three previous years.

Legendary Broadway stage star John Barrymore appeared in the adapted Robert Louis Stevenson tale-horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920) directed by John. S. Robertson.

Ernst Lubitsch’s Passion was released in the U.S. bringing attention to Polish actress Pola Negri.

Way Down East, a romantic drama directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish was a top grossing movie of the year.

Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton released several shorts each that are worth watching so check out their filmographies and get to it. Roscoe Arbuckle had a slow year given his star status in 1920, but that would all fall apart in 1921 following the Virginia Rappe scandal.

Harry Millarde’s Over the Hill to the Poorhouse or just Over the Hill starring Mary Carr was one of the top grossing films of the decade.

Paul Powell’s Pollyanna starring Mary Pickford was popular despite both screenwriter Frances Marion and Mary Pickford not liking it.

Shipwrecked Among Cannibals, a travelogue/documentary directed by William F. Adler, was the first Universal film to gross $1,000,000.

Cecil B. DeMille’s Something to Think About starring Elliott Dexter, Gloria Swanson and Monte Blue was popular with audiences.

Top Money-making actors

According to Quigley Polls from results of 1919 film releases.

Wallace Reid

Marguerite Clark

Charles Ray

Douglas Fairbanks

Mary Miles Minter

Mary Pickford

Clara Kimball Young

William S. Hart

Norma Talmadge

Theda Bara

Theda Bara in THE LIGHT 1919

◊

I hope you enjoyed these hundred-year-old highlights. I look forward to what I hope will be a stellar, enjoyable year of blogging and wish you and yours the very best. Now, in 1920s lingo, “Go chase yourself!”

HAPPY NEW YEAR…1920, A Centennial Celebration It's been the practice here to honor notable film-related anniversaries at the onset of every year - Looking back to move forward, if you will.

#1920 Centennial #1920 in Hollywood #1920 in Movies #Happy New Year

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mezzomercury · 5 years

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Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue Chapter Four: Thank God It’s Christmas

A/N: I know it’s not close to Christmas at all, but I thought it would be cute to have something centered around it.

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: Pregnancy, brief mention of alcohol, near panic attack

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December 25, 1985

The Garden Lodge

London. United Kingdom

Christmas Day at the Garden Lodge was always a day of elaborate gifts, celebrations, and all around merriment, but this year’s holiday was particularly special for a number of reasons: The first reason was that it was Freddie and Jim’s first Christmas with their new surrogate mother-turned-friend Nadia, who had been living with them since the beginning of the third trimester of her pregnancy. The second, since Nadia was Jewish, was that this would be her first real Christmas, previously spending the day with her family by going to the cinema since the theaters were almost always empty on this particular day of the year. The third and final reason that made this year’s holiday so special was that it would be Freddie and Jim’s final one before their daughter was born next month, January 23rd, as predicted by their doctor. The couple did everything they could to make Nadia feel welcome in their home, as they insisted she live with them, arguing that she was far too pregnant to be living on her own as she normally had been before. While she didn’t want to cause any inconvenience to them or bother them in any way, she agreed to stay at the Garden Lodge up until the baby arrived, knowing that they were nervous fathers-to-be and they genuinely cared about her well-being.

The winter holiday celebrations at the Mercury-Hutton household commenced two weeks ago. This was a bit earlier than usual, for Freddie and Jim tried to make Nadia feel more at home by celebrating Hanukkah, much to her surprise and appreciation. On the first night, Nadia came home after a full day of teaching private lessons to the sight of Phoebe and Jim trying their best at cooking a chicken tagine along with sfenj (traditional Moroccan Hanukkah doughnuts), and a bronze, antique menorah she had never seen before placed in the center of the table. She chuckled upon noticing it, knowing that it’s traditionally supposed to be placed by a window, but the effort that her four new housemates had gone through was nothing short of impressive. Due to her out of control hormones all thanks to pregnancy, she then broke down crying. Jim, who was within earshot of the scene, immediately ran to her side, concerned that she was upset by it or she didn’t like it.

“Of course I love it. It’s just…...no one has never been this kind to me before,” she choked out in between sobs, “Thank you, all of you. I’m truly blessed that the four of you are in my life.”

The rest of the night was spent with Nadia showing Freddie, Jim, Phoebe, and Joe her family’s Hanukkah traditions, eating an exquisite Moroccan dinner, exchanging gifts, and sitting around by the fireplace having fun conversation. The quintet carried on like this for the next seven nights, truly enjoying a holiday that the majority of them had never celebrated before.

Now it was Christmas, a holiday that Freddie did not skimp out on with any expenses or details. Although it wasn’t a wild party like he typically threw per se, he still planned a celebration as if the Garden Lodge were Buckingham Palace. The family of five had just finished opening gifts by the tree, and were now doing last minute preparations before guests arrived. It wouldn’t be a particularly large affair, just the other members of Queen, their families, Miami, Mary and her new boyfriend, and Freddie’s younger sister Kashmira. Still, Freddie decorated the house from head to toe, wanting it to be an extravagant day, even though it would be more family-oriented.

Nadia was currently sitting on the chaise lounge in the drawing room, as instructed by Freddie, who nearly had a heart attack upon witnessing her try to help Joe in tidying up.

“The baby will slip out of you and onto the floor if you’re not careful, darling!” Freddie playfully scolded her as he practically scooped her up in his arms and brought her to the chaise.

The singer was evidently in full-blown panic mode since Nadia started her ninth and final month of pregnancy. She could tell by his crazed look in his eyes that he hadn’t slept at all the previous night, but he was still as chipper and excited for the festivities as ever. As she sat down and watched the commotion going through the house, she involuntarily rested a hand on her belly, trying to calm the restless baby inside her. Her mind wandered off to what the house would be like a year from now. There would be a little eleven-month-old girl crawling, maybe even walking around then, no doubt receiving grandiose gifts from her fathers for her first Christmas. It was hard to believe that this is what the near future had in store, but that little girl would be here in a few weeks, whether everyone was ready or not.

Upon getting lost in her imagination, Nadia suddenly pondered a big question that never crossed her mind before: What about me? Where will I be a year from now? She hadn’t really thought ahead about what she will do after she gives birth. Of course, she would still perform and teach privately, and even had a couple of auditions lined up not too long after her due date. She even had an audition last month to play in the pit orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The poor woman went to her audition, eight months pregnant and carrying a cello on her back, nearly fainting after having to climb up only two flights of stairs. The audition itself was fine, but she wouldn’t hear from them for a while, and she figured that it was most likely that they wouldn’t offer her a position, or if they did, it would be out of pity due to her condition. That’s not how she wanted to get ahead in her career. The main thing Nadia was thinking about when she had the question What about me? was in regards to the friendships she had made over the past nine months. Although she was their surrogate, Freddie and Jim had grown so near and dear to her, and the feeling was absolutely mutual. In the beginning of this whole adventure, Nadia promised herself that she wouldn’t become emotionally attached, neither to the baby or to the couple that she was carrying it for. That, however, became increasingly difficult to live up to, as Freddie and Jim treated her like total royalty and their friendship seemed to become closer and closer as days went by. She’d like to think that even if circumstances had been different, they still would have a very special bond, baby or not. Alas, she had to remind herself that she was just providing them with a service, and she’d most likely have to pick up her life where she left off once she gave birth, living as though the past nine months never happened.

Nadia’s endless thoughts were interrupted when Phoebe came to the chaise and sat down beside her, offering her a cup of herbal tea, which she graciously accepted. She continued watching Freddie scramble around, frustrating himself further and further over the most minute details.

“Does he act like this every year?” she asked Phoebe as she sipped her tea. The question caused him to chuckle,

“Yes, but this is the most panicked I’ve seen him since I’ve known him,” he paused before looking at her, “I think it’s because it’s technically your first Christmas, and he wants to make sure it’s extra special for you.”

This caused Nadia to sigh, surprisingly enough, as she was still thinking about her future.

“And probably my last.” she muttered under her breath.

She wasn’t quite sure if Phoebe had heard her, as he got up and took back her cup once she was done with it. Tiffany, one of Freddie and Jim’s many cats, pounced up onto the spot where Phoebe previously had been sitting, and crawled over onto Nadia’s lap, subtly guarding the tiny human growing inside her womb. Nadia spent the next couple of minutes scratching behind the cat’s furry ears before cooing,

“You’re already very protective of your little sister, aren’t you girl?”

Tiffany, of course, couldn’t respond verbally, but started purring as if she understood.

Whilst Nadia was lost in thought again, this time stroking Tiffany on her lap in a semi-hypnotic pattern, Freddie pranced up to her, accidentally startling the poor woman.

“Sorry, darling. It’s just me!” Laughing as she yelped, he handed her a delicately wrapped box, “I had this upstairs and somehow I forgot to put it under the tree. It’s another gift from Jim and me.”

Nadia studied the elegant wrapping paper and the fine ribbon before Freddie requested with impatient excitement,

“Go ahead, open it!”

Carefully unwrapping the box and opening it, she gasped as soon as she caught a glimpse of what was inside. She carefully pulled the fabric out of the package to reveal a floor-length, red velvet gown with long sleeves. Her jaw felt completely unhinged from her body and her eyes were permanently wide. It took her a couple seconds before she could find the right words to say.

“Freddie, this is way too beautiful beyond words. I don’t know if I can accept this.”

“Nonsense, darling!” scoffed Freddie, “My daughter’s mum should have the absolute best of everything. I got it from Princess Di’s personal designer. Like I said, you deserve the best.”

He seemed to ramble on, wanting to convince Nadia to accept the gift. As he kept listing the multiple reasons why she deserved it at a rapid fire speed, she suddenly cut him off,

“Thank you so much, Fred. You and Jim have been way too kind to me.”

He smiled as he watched her hug the dress close to her before saying,

“Try it on, lovie. What else were you planning on wearing today?”

She looked up at him in question, not before looking down at her midsection, noticing how much it looked like she was hiding a watermelon under her jumper.

“Will it even fit me?” she asked him, earning a chuckle from him in response,

“Of course it will, darling. I made sure of it.”

She rose up to her feet with Freddie’s assistance and went into her bedroom to try on the dress, feeling nervous about how it would look on her.

As Nadia emerged from her bedroom to reveal her new outfit that fit and suited her perfectly, Freddie and Jim stood at her doorway and cheered as they saw how stunning she looked in it, showering her in endless compliments.

“I told you she’d look breathtaking in it, Jim dear, didn’t I?” Freddie asked his husband.

“Yes, yes, dear, but I already knew she would. She looks beautiful as always.” Jim answered.

Blushing and yet still self-conscious about her ever changing figure, Nadia asked them,

“Are you sure I don’t look like a beached whale?” to which Freddie scoffed and replied,

“Not at all, darling. You are a fierce tigress, and don’t you ever think otherwise.” as he approached her, kissing her cheek and placing a hand on her belly. “The little cub seems to think so, too.” he chortled, referring to their baby who had not stopped tossing and turning in her confined space since earlier this morning.

“I think she’s excited. She’s been sticking her feet in my rib cage all day and won’t stop.” Nadia told the couple, both of them smiling in response.

Before she knew it, they whisked her away back into her bedroom to help with her hair and makeup, something she didn’t even think about doing on account of how exhausted she was, leaving Phoebe and Joe to do the rest of the grunt work around the house.

Almost immediately after Freddie and Jim were finished with pampering their surrogate, the doorbell rang, and upon Phoebe answering it, everyone who was invited seemed to pour into the Garden Lodge in seemingly all at once. The trio in Nadia’s bedroom ran to the entrance and exchanged greetings, hugs, and kisses en masse with all of their guests. Nadia was rather overwhelmed, but was saved by Phoebe, who somehow managed to find her in the sea of people and have her sit back in the living room.

“Don’t worry, they’ll all come to you.” he whispered to her as he helped her sit down, hoping that for Freddie and Jim’s sake she wouldn’t leave that spot too often.

Just like he said, everyone seemed to eventually gravitate towards the expectant mother, bombarding her with questions about how she and the baby were faring, complimenting her on her new dress, and offering any sort of help that she may need to get through the day. Little Joshua Deacon, Deaky and Veronica’s youngest child at two years old, immediately hugged his former nanny as tightly as he could and plopped down onto her lap, having no intention of detaching himself from her anytime soon.

The party seemed to go by in a blur to Nadia, who more or less remained seated on the chaise the entire time, with the exception of getting up to pee, something that happened quite often. Everyone in the house would not let her stand up, especially Freddie and Jim, who insisted that they bring everything to her. It was slightly irritating, but she appreciated that so many people were concerned for her. The only time that Nadia got up other than to pee was when Freddie wanted to take a photograph of her and Dominique, Roger’s long-time partner, together comparing their baby bumps. Dominique was of course pregnant with her and Roger’s second child, but was only about four months along, making Nadia feel gigantic when she stood next to the considerably petite woman. Other than that, she observed Freddie gradually becoming piss-drunk from eggnog, several children running around chasing the cats while a couple others gathered around her to poke and prod at her tummy, asking a lot of questions about their new “cousin;” Kash, Freddie’s sister, and Mary assigned themselves the task of helping Nadia with anything she needed, especially bringing over food and water from the kitchen. At one point, Deaky and Miami herded all the children together into the living room to present Father Christmas, although really Jim in disguise, who gave the little ones an endless amount of gifts. This part of the celebration called for a lot of photo opportunities, including one with an incredibly drunk Roger sitting on Santa Jim’s lap, much to the latter’s discomfort. The festivities seemed to wrap up rather late in the evening, when Freddie gathered everyone around the piano to sing Christmas songs together. Most of the adults were quite tipsy by then, and would occasionally have difficulty remembering some of the words to some of the more easier songs. Nadia wasn’t all too familiar with any of the carols, so she watched in amusement at the chaotic scene in front of her. Jim sat next to her during all of this, letting her rest her head on his shoulder, though he was still dressed up as Father Christmas. Before any of the children got too tired, Brian did the annual tradition of reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas to them beside the tree, with Jim helping before he pretended to depart for the North Pole, meaning change back into his regular clothes.

It was now eleven o’clock at night, and the majority of guests had already departed, the only who stayed behind was Kash, as she would stay the night here out of her brother’s concern for her safety. She had already retired to one of the guest rooms, admittedly having had too much wine during the party. Phoebe and Joe had finally finished cleaning up after the party and were on the sofa sharing a bottle of much-deserved port. Nadia and Jim were both sitting side by side on the other sofa. Last but certainly not least there was Freddie, who was now close to crashing from a combination of tiredness and intoxication, splayed out across both of their laps, laughing hysterically at some wiseacre remark made by Joe, though Nadia didn’t remember what it was. Freddie seemed to calm down as she gently scratched the back of his neck, sighing contently as he looked up at her glowing face.

“You have no idea how beautiful you are, darling.” Freddie managed to slur, making the woman blush furiously.

“No really, I mean it. I really hope that Liza looks like you. And perhaps Jim, of course.” he remarked, bringing one hand to her belly.

Jim looked on and leaned over to give his husband a kiss. Witnessing such a tender moment between the two made Nadia tear up instantaneously. Damn these hormones, she thought to herself before the couple before her were concerned by her perceived sadness.

“You two are going to be the most perfect fathers.” she sobbed, trying to wipe away her tears.

Jim then gave her a big bear hug and muttered,

“I’m glad you think so. As you can tell, we’re getting rather nervous.”

Nadia nodded and chuckled, glancing over at Freddie, whose mood drastically changed, seemingly remembering that he would become a father in just a few short weeks.

Without warning, Freddie sprung up and started pacing nervously, as though he was trying to gather his scattered thoughts. Due to the fact that he was still quite drunk, he stumbled around a bit, trying to keep his balance even though his head was spinning. Nadia didn’t really know what had gotten into him; nevertheless she tried to get up to comfort him, but Jim motioned her to stay seated and got up instead, approaching his husband and taking both of his hands in his own. She couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, but saw that Jim was whispering something inaudible to her in Freddie’s ear, which made him relax a bit more and kiss the Irishman in gratitude. Not wanting to interrupt the moment between the two, she leaned back into the sofa, still watching to make sure everything was alright. The room was now almost dead silent, save for whatever Jim was whispering to Freddie. Phoebe and Joe had paused whatever they were conversing about to look on as well, but they knew that this was just Jim helping Freddie prevent an unanticipated anxiety attack. Joe caught Nadia’s eye from across the room and nodded to her in reassurance, silently telling her that everything was fine, as she had never seen Freddie in such a state before.

This went on for about ten minutes or so, and Freddie eventually went back to his normal self, sitting back down in emotional exhaustion. Nadia, who was next to him, gestured him to lie back down with his head in her lap, which he accepted the invitation for, resting his head on the curve of her massive baby bump and lightly stroking it once he got comfortable. Jim sat down next to the two and put a blanket over Freddie, knowing there was a high possibility of him falling asleep there soon. As he took deep breaths through his nose and out of his mouth, Freddie continued rubbing Nadia’s belly as if he were in a trance, knowing that feeling his daughter move around beneath his hand would soothe him a bit.

“I’m sorry if I worried you, darling.” He said to Nadia after a while, “It’s just becoming more real, you know?”

She nodded in acknowledgement.

“I know. I’m doing fine, but I think the little Eliza’s got the hiccups. She was awfully concerned there.” she quipped as she felt sporadic little flutters coming from her womb.

Freddie chuckled and moved in closer to speak to her bump, all while in constant amazement,

“There there, little love. It’s alright, Daddy’s here. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

He placed a gentle kiss on her belly, something he had never done before, but it certainly wasn’t unwelcome. Nadia ran her fingers through his hair as he yawned.

“She’s so lucky to have you as her dad,” she added before looking up at Jim next to them, “and you as her Papa.”

“And we’re infinitely lucky to have you, dear.”

Jim reciprocated the compliment and watched as his husband started to drift off.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get up before he falls asleep completely and uses you as a pillow?” he asked, getting up about to wake up his fading husband. “

No, I’ll be fine.” Nadia assured him.

Jim shrugged in response before kissing Nadia’s temple and leaving the room to feed the cats.

“Happy Christmas, dear.” he whispered before sauntering off.

Now it was just Nadia and Freddie alone by the fireplace, as Phoebe and Joe had left go go outside for a smoke a while ago. Freddie was fast asleep already. It was amusing to Nadia how energetic he usually was, but now he slept like a baby in her lap. She took a moment to look over at the elegant Christmas tree a few feet away, and then at the roaring fireplace. Feeling content and without worry, Nadia looked down at her belly and started rubbing it involuntarily.

And to think that little baby would take her first steps in this very room in exactly a year from this day…

****************

Permanent Tag List: @siriuslovesmarlene, @r-ahh-mi, @unknownauthor, @yousaycoke-isaycaine, @ramibaby, @rami-malek-trash, @britishmoonchild, @onexlittlespark, @rami-hoe, @xtrashmammalstefx, @wanderlustnightwanderer

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dailytomlinson · 5 years

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Louis Tomlinson may be one-fifth of one of the biggest boybands in the world, but there's so much more to know about the singer than the fact he was in One Direction. Now that he's getting on with his solo music career - AND just dropped his amazing new single 'Two Of Us', Louis is a major household name across the world.

Here's everything you need to know about Louis Tomlinson:

1) Louis’s middle name is William.

2) Louis Tomlinson was born on Christmas Eve in 1991.

3) Louis is the oldest member of One Direction. He’s 13 months older than second eldest Zayn Malik.

Check out One Direction through the years: View Gallery 11 photos 1 / 11 One Direction © Shutterstock One Direction auditioning on The X Factor One Direction formed on The X Factor in 2010. All five members auditioned as individual contestants and were put together as a group by Simon Cowell.

4) Louis Tomlinson's star sign is Capricorn. Apparently, typical Capricorns live by the motto, ‘Slow, steady and win the race.’

5) Louis was brought up in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Other famous people who hail from the town include Jeremy Clarkson, Kevin Keegan and Brian Blessed!

Jeremy Clarkson JEREMY CLARKSON AND BRIAN BLESSED © SHUTTERSTOCK 6) Louis once said that he is a big fan of girls who eat carrots!

7) If Louis had a superpower, he would be able to fly.

8) Louis’s favourite band is The Fray.

9) Louis’s favourite song of all time is ‘Look After You’ by The Fray.

10) Louis’s celebrity crush is Natalie Portman and his man crush is Robbie Williams - who he recently sat next to on The X Factor judging panel.

11) He also once said that Robbie is his biggest role model, telling Metro Radio "I’ve got a massive musical icon and that’s Robbie Williams. We actually got to sing with him on The X Factor and it was absolutely amazing."

X Factor ROBBIE WILLIAMS, AYDA FIELD, LOUIS TOMLINSON AND SIMON COWELL © SHUTTERSTOCK 12) Louis has approximately 1 minute and 30 seconds of solos on ‘Up All Night’ – the second least behind Niall Horan.

13) Louis auditioned on The X Factor by singing a version of Plain White T’s ‘Hey There Delilah’. He got a clean sweep of yeses from the judges.

14) Louis's parents are Johannah Deakin and Troy Austin. They split up when Louis was young, and he eventually took on his stepfather Mark Tomlinson’s surname. Johannah sadly passed away in 2016, Louis paid tribute to his mum on the anniversary of her passing.

15) Louis has five younger half-sisters - one on his father's side (Georgia), and four on his mother's side (Charlotte, Félicité, and twins Daisy and Phoebe).

16) When he was just 11-years-old, Louis had a role as an extra on ITV drama_**_ Fat Friends. His newborn sisters Daisy and Phoebe starred as babies on the show.

17) Spurred on by his appearance on Fat Friends, Louis attended acting school in his spare time and eventually had small parts in 2006 ITV drama If I Had You! and Waterloo Road.

18) When he first auditioned for The X Factor, Louis was a sixth form student at Hall Cross School in Doncaster.

19) Louis also attended The Hayfield School in Doncaster, but dropped out when he failed his first year of A-levels.

20) Louis had a number of part-time jobs before The X Factor, including working at a local cinema and as a hospitality waiter at Doncaster Rovers Football Club.

21) As a student, Louis played the lead role of Danny Zuko in a high school production of Grease. He says playing the part gave him the confidence to audition for The X Factor.

22) When he was younger, Louis wanted to work on a farm.

23) Louis would love to copy Michael Jackson and have a pet monkey. He said, "I'd like to adopt a chimpanzee and build an eternal friendship, that would be amazing."

24) Louis’s favourite colour is dark red.

25) Louis is a big fan of Las Vegas rockers The Killers. After seeing them perform at V Festival, he tweeted, "Watching Mr Brightside live last night was unbelievable. LOVED The Killers!!"

Louis Tomlinson ✔ @Louis_Tomlinson Watching Mr Brightside live last night was unbelievable. LOVED The Killers !!

22.8K 6:09 PM - Aug 20, 2012 Twitter Ads info and privacy 30.4K people are talking about this 26) Louis suffers from a ringing noise in his right ear. Although yet to be officially diagnosed it’s thought it could be tinnitus which can lead to deafness if untreated. He once said, "I am going slightly deaf in my right ear. It’s tinnitus, something like that," before joking that it was because of screaming fans.

27) According to his bandmates, Louis has the smelliest feet in One Direction! Niall once said, "Louis wears plimsolls with no socks so his feet get very sweaty and the sweat is captured. If we are on a bus or something and he takes them off we all pretty much start gagging."

28) Louis was given a telling off by police when filming the ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ video Los Angeles in July 2011 for his erratic driving. Afterwards, he explained, "I got pulled over by the US police. They thought I was all over the place. The officer goes, 'Listen, man, I can shut this thing down if you carry on driving like this. You're driving like a maniac.' And I was like, 'Man, put the gun down. I don't want no trouble.'"

WATCH: One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful (Official Video)

29) Louis says that he and his 1D bandmates are like brothers. Admitting that they occasionally bicker, Louis told Digital Spy, "Because we're around each other so often it's like arguing with your siblings. You fall out with them, go away and have a bit of a paddy, then come back and get over it."

30) Just like Zayn and Harry Styles, Louis supports Manchester United Football Club.

31) Louis’s favourite track on ‘Up All Night’ is the Ed Sheeran-penned track ‘Moments’. The track appears on the deluxe version of the record.

32) If Louis could give anyone a tip when auditioning for The X Factor it would be "just be yourself and really try and get your personality through in your song choice and interview."

33) Louis once owned a Porsche Boxster and sold it on eBay in 2012 for £30,000.

34) When Zayn’s ex-girlfriend Rebecca Ferguson took to Twitter to complain about being overworked by her management, Louis had very little sympathy! He wrote in a now-deleted tweet, '@RebeccaFMusic Success is impossible without proper hard work.'

Rebecca Ferguson REBECCA FERGUSON © SHUTTERSTOCK 35) Louis loves to party! He once told TOTP magazine, "To be honest, I’m sure the majority of 20-year-olds go out and party. I’m not going to feel oppressed."

36) Louis is a giver and not a taker. In fact, there’s nothing he enjoys more than giving his friends and family presents. His late mum Johannah once told Sugarscape, "He’s not a materialistic person himself, but he likes to give people things. He spoils me and the girls and he's happiest doing that."

37) Louis once said that he likes snuggling up in bed with one of the One Directioners... HARRY! He said, "A few weeks ago I made a cup of tea, then went and got in bed with Harry and we watched a show called something like The Top 50 Boybands Of All Time." Nice!

38) Apparently, Louis has revealed that his least favourite food is baked beans.

39) Louis once said his favourite country is France.

40) Louis is an avid fan of surfing. In fact, he loves the beach so much he says he’d like to get married on one.

41) It takes over 30 minutes for Louis to get his hair ready in the morning.

42) Louis admits he’s a really bad cook. Despite this, he appeared alongside Harry in a cooking segment on This Morning in September 2011.

43) One of Louis's favourite mottos is, "Live life for the moment because everything else is uncertain."

44) The two traits Louis looks for in a girl are confidence and a good sense of humour.

45) In 2011, his mum Johannah and stepdad Mark split up. Speaking about his mum, Louis said, "It must be so much harder for her because I’m living this fantastic life and being so busy every day whereas she’s still in the old life I was in but without me... It must be really difficult for her not to get upset."

46) Louis’s pet hate is when people chew their food too loudly.

47) Louis has size 10 feet.

48) A man who works in the music industry once tried to have a snog with Louis! "It was a press guy.... he just started going in for a kiss!" said Louis.

49) Louis loves Marmite and has big dollops of it on his toast.

50) Louis admits that he’s a messy person. In fact, he hasn’t met anyone who’s messier than him!

51) Louis is pretty decent on the piano and he loves to play ‘Mr Brightside’ by The Killers.

52) Louis says he’ll "never get used to" the adoration he receives from fans. He once said, "At the end of the day we’re doing something that we really love and to be appreciated for that is really nice."

53) Louis’s favourite TV shows are Misfits and One Tree Hill.

54) If Louis wasn’t a multi-million selling pop megastar, he reckons he’d be training to be a drama teacher.

55) If Louis could visit any planet it would be... Narnia. Erm, it’s a fictional place Louis!!

56) Louis hates rumours, especially when they involve Harry and himself. In a Tumblr interview he explained, "Me and Harry are best friends, people look into our every move. It is actually affecting the way me and Harry are in public, We want to joke around but there seems to be a different rumour every time we do anything."

Louis Tomlinson LOUIS AND HARRY SINGING TOGETHER IN 2015

57) Louis is prone to sleepwalking and once tried to get into Niall’s bed!

58) Louis once said that if a movie was made about his life, he’d like Leonardo DiCaprio to play him.

59) The first time Louis ever spoke to Harry was in the toilet at The X Factor auditions in Manchester.

60) Louis is a big fan of silly string! He’s sprayed it on stage at gigs, press conferences and even at a security guard who refused to let him speak to fans.

61) When he was 14, Louis played lead guitar in a band called The Rogue with his schoolmates.

62) When One Direction formed, Louis’s big ambition was to go "straight to the top." Proof that dreams come true!

63) In August 2012, Tulisa prank called Louis during a live webchat. When Louis answered she spoke to him in a Donald Duck voice in front of thousands of viewers. The N-Dubz star tweeted afterwards, 'soz babe we had 2 get ya! Thanks 4 being a laugh n entertaining us!'

Tulisa ✔ @officialtulisa @Louis_Tomlinson soz babe we had 2 get ya! Thanks 4 being a laugh n entertaining us!

266 8:23 PM - Aug 5, 2012 Twitter Ads info and privacy 579 people are talking about this 64) Louis was fined £80 for speeding on the way to V Festival in 2012. It’s reported that he was going 48mph in a 40mph zone. He’ll also get three points on his licence. Ouch!

65) Despite having smelly feet, Louis is a big fan of shoes! His favourite types are chinos and Toms.

66) Another of his favourite mottos is "live fast, have fun & be a bit mischievous."

67) If Louis was Simon Cowell for the day, he says he’d go on a date with Susan Boyle.

After his successful stint on last year's The X Factor, Louis delighted his fans in March when he dropped his amazing new single 'Two Of Us'.

The song, which is adored by fans, is a tribute to Louis' late mum Johannah Deakin. Johannah left behind seven children, including Louis, at the end of 2016, when she lost her battle with an aggressive form of leukaemia at the age of just 42.

Louis' track 'Two Of Us' features the lyrics, "I know you'll be looking down, swear I'm gonna make you proud. I'll be living one life for the two of us."

The article was followed by a tweet:

#tow of us #two of us promo #louis tomlinson #harry styles #070319 #metro #press

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nafjoaolampreia · 5 years

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10 Times When History Repeated Itself but No One Realized It

Scientists say that history goes in circles. So the events we observe now, have already appeared in the past and are likely to come up in the future. This theory is known as historical recurrence.

1. Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations

Even though there is almost a century between the 2 crimes (1865 and 1963), scientists and others interested in this have found a number of similarities. Both presidents were killed by a gunshot to the head. The killings were in public, for Lincoln it happened in the Ford Theatre and for Kennedy it happened in a car. Interestingly, Kennedy took his last trip in a Lincoln limousine.

Both shootings happened on a Friday. Both killings are believed to have had a political undertone. In both cases the alleged criminal (a solo gunman) was caught and their name was released. The conspiracy theories around these 2 assassinations never stop growing and developing.

2. 2 remarkable Queens, Victoria and Elizabeth II

The British often compare these 2 queens. The first similarity is their remarkably long reign. Victoria ruled for over 63 years and was the longest reigning British monarch before September 2015, when Elizabeth II broke her record. Despite their long reign, both ladies are known for their interest in modern technologies.

Both become queens at an early age, Victoria 18 and Elizabeth 25. Both were happily married for a long time and both had more than one child. They are said to have been strict mothers and the actual heads of their families.

Both queens were once attacked by a gunman during a ride near Buckingham palace. And on a lighter note, both queens absolutely enjoy the love and respect of their nation.

3. Women warriors, Joan of Arc and Emilia Plater

These 2 young ladies led parts of their national armies and fought the enemy for the independence of their motherlands. Joan of Arc was a hero of the French struggle against the British empire in the 1420s. Emilia Plater led Polish troops against the Russian Empire during the uprising of 1830.

Both women were first rejected by army officials and had to try hard to get in the military. Both came from noble, but not super-rich families. Both wore male clothes to be an active part of the fighting. Also, both were an important motivating role for troops and were considered a symbol of the rebellion.

Unfortunately, both heroines died young. They have been commemorated by their nations and are even remembered today.

4. Josef Stalin and Genghis Khan

These 2 well-known men ruled the largest countries of their times, the USSR and the Mongol Kingdom. Both Josef Stalin and Genghis Khan were known for their cruelty and at the same time initiated significant reforms in their countries. Under Kahn’s rule the territories of the Mongol empire imposed a legal code (for the very first time), named Yassa.

Their personal life holds a number of similarities as well. Both spent their childhood in poverty and experienced the early death of their father. Both men took a pseudonym, describing their specific features: Stalin meaning “man of steel and Genghis Khan meaning “the great ruler.” Both lived a long life, more than 60 years, and were married several times.

Finally, the death of both rulers are full of rumors, mysteries, and conspiracy theories.

5. Napoleon and Charles XIV John of Sweden

If you consider someone an inspiration, you might try repeating their life story. Jean Bernadotte was born to a middle-class family and reached his top career point through army service. At the beginning, he was a fan of another talented military man, Napoleon Bonaparte, who was also self-made. Later on they both became friends for a while.

Both men reached top governmental positions without being royal by birth or blood. Napoleon became the French emperor after a revolution. Bernadotte was adopted by a Swedish king and ended up Charles XIV John, a king of Sweden. Both rulers introduced important reforms and changes in their countries and started a new dynasty.

6. The Titanic and The Vasa tragedies

Many people around the world recall the Titanic as a ship that sank during her maiden voyage. However, if they are Swedish, they’d definitely remember the Vasa. The fact that they sank is only one of a number of similarities between these 2 catastrophes.

In both cases the sinking was allegedly caused by construction issues. The issues were believed to have been because of the ships’ modernity and size. Also, both ships sank in good weather conditions and the deaths of the passengers were caused by the lack of safety boats and a poorly organized rescue process.

By the way, both ships were filled with very festive passengers who were relaxed and celebrating and both tragedies were a huge shock as there was so much excitement centered around these ships.

7. The Great Depression and The Great Recession

The Great Depression and the Great Recession are the 2 biggest economic downfalls of their time. Both crises began in the U.S. and later spread to the rest of the world. They caused a great number of problems in different spheres internationally (like the tension between Greece and the EU, or the rise of the Nazi regime).

In the 1920s stock market imploded due to the massive sales of overpriced shares which caused the Great Depression in 1929. The Great Recession is attributed to the high-risk loan (aka, mortgage) crisis. The Depression happened so long ago that there has been more than enough time to analyze it. Yet historians and economists alike are still asking new questions.

The study of the Great Recession is ongoing and will need much more time to be properly analyzed.

8. The mysteries of the Dyatlov Pass and Andrée’s Arctic balloon expeditions

In 1959 a group of students traveled to the Ural mountains (USSR) for a 2-week expedition and they never returned. Another group, who were led by S.S. Andree (Sweden), was trying to reach the North Pole in 1897, only to die on the way.

It’s likely that the members of these 2 expeditions had never even heard about each other and it’s the mysterious deaths of the expeditions’ members that unite these 2 stories. Both groups consisted of amateurs but despite that they were very well-prepared. They carried enough warm clothes, matches, etc. to survive for a long time.

The weather conditions were reported to be suitable for the journeys. Scientists and amateurs are still studying photos, DNA samples, and other materials searching for the cause of these tragedies.

9.The Erdington Murders

2 20-year-old women were murdered in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, England on the 27th of May at night. Mary Ashford and Barbara Forrest had both been drowned at a local pool. Both bodies had bruises, showed signs of rape, and both girls had been out dancing the previous night.

The only difference is that there are 157 years between these cases. Mary was murdered in 1817 and Barbara in 1974. In both cases the investigators never found the murderer, even though there were many suspects who were released by the court due to a lack of evidence.

The siblings of both victims tried to appeal the court decision and failed and the mysteries are still well-remembered in the neighborhood.

10. Chaplin and Distracted Boyfriend

A meme known as Distracted Boyfriend appeared on the internet in the 2010s. It is believed to have first been introduced on Facebook by an unknown user. The image shows a young man turning to look at another woman while holding hands with his girlfriend. This situation often appears today in real life and it also happened in the Chaplin-era of cinema.

A poster from 1922 shows a Charlie Chaplin film called “Pay Day” that looks incredibly close to this meme. We can see the main hero, his wife, and the lady attracting his attention. Obviously this was long before the internet era, but the similarity is striking!

https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/10-times-when-history-repeated-itself-but-no-one-realized-it-you-might-want-to-check-your-textbooks-after-reading-this-567010/

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sleemo · 6 years

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Daisy Ridley: How to survive Star Wars

— The Telegraph | Dec 8, 2017

Almost two years ago to the day, Daisy Ridley was propelled into the stratosphere via the Millennium Falcon. One minute she was a little-known actress from London who had had a bit part in Casualty and the dubious honour of being cut from an Inbetweeners movie, the next action figures were being created in her likeness.

As Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ridley wowed audiences with her punchy portrayal of a scavenger who discovers that she in fact has mighty powers – the force is strong with her, if you will.

The film ended with her seeking out Luke Skywalker and presenting him with his father’s lightsaber. Are the two related? Is Rey Darth Vader’s granddaughter? So many questions, so little chance of anyone being able to answer them before Christmas 2019, when the last of the current crop of Star Wars movies is due to be released.

So we come to The Last Jedi, episode eight of the franchise and the reason that we find ourselves in a galaxy far, far away – or at the very least, a hotel room in Los Angeles. When we meet, Ridley can’t tell me anything about it – partly because then, she’d probably have to kill me, partly because she hasn’t actually seen it herself.

It has been directed by Rian Johnson, who worked on Breaking Bad and, Ridley says, ‘is far more secretive than JJ Abrams, who directed episode seven. But what I can tell you is that [the film] picks up right where we left off, and what Rian and I were discussing is that it’s not always a good idea to meet your heroes, because occasionally it doesn’t work out. And it may do. I’m not saying that it’s all awful between Luke and Rey. But Luke is not expecting Rey, and his reception is perhaps not what she thought it would be. She looks at him like a myth, but they actually have to communicate – and it’s not this mystical thing that’s away from her and up in the clouds, it’s this thing that is happening right here. There’s a threat, obviously, but also there’s room for both of them to grow. So now she actually gets a chance to ask herself questions like, “Why is it that I’m here, what is it that I’m doing, and where am I going to end up?’”

These are questions that most of us ask ourselves at some point in our lives. For Ridley, who is just 25, they came up a little sooner than usual due to the avalanche of exposure that comes with being in a film franchise so huge that it has spawned its own religion (people are now allowed to choose ‘Jedi’ when asked their faith on the census). She had therapy for six months last year, once filming had wrapped on The Last Jedi.

‘I have always suffered with anxiety since I was a teenager, I should have done it way before, but I suddenly realised how good it is to talk about this stuff. Going through the whole thing with the same group of people is wonderful, but also occasionally it’s really good to step away [from the cast and crew of Star Wars] and actually really process what went on, and how I felt in it all.’

Ridley made the decision to leave Instagram last year, after posting a picture of herself at the 2016 Teen Choice Awards, accompanied by a caption in tribute to people lost to gun violence. She was targeted by trolls; a shame, given that she had previously shared honest posts about her battle with endometriosis (which has had since she was 15) and the acne she suffers as a result.

‘[After the Teen Choice Awards post] suddenly people were not very nice. I had put on weight after finishing filming, and I thought, why do I have to be slender to have the views I have? For three days I was shell-shocked. It was the most rude awakening to what the internet could be. So I came off, because I just thought my soul was more important. As I’m in more films and everything gets more public, I savour the private stuff more.’

She tells me that she also read a report linking teenage anxiety with Instagram. ‘I suddenly thought, what world are we living in, where we are affected by things that are edited online? I’m pretty solid in myself, but my confidence was ruined. It was really unhealthy. I’ve felt so much happier since I came off [social media].’

Ridley worries about the need for online validation. ‘Everything is for someone else now. How we look on our holiday has become for someone else. It’s really nice to have stuff that’s just for you, that you can do and go home and say, “Hey Mum, this, this and this happened, I still have pictures to show you, but I can also tell you the story and it will be a wonderful, personal thing I’m sharing with you.”’

She describes 2016 as a ‘total head-f—’. Why? ‘The film coming out and seeing people’s reactions and freaking out a bit and hearing people talking about whether you did a good job in it.’ But she got great reviews, I say. ‘But I didn’t see that, so it’s also sort of reconciling what other people are seeing and you’re not, and then realising that it’s OK not to see that.’

Ridley says that her sudden fame was hard for others, too. ‘I know it was really difficult for my mum. I mean, it’s difficult for someone’s youngest child to suddenly be this thing that people are claiming parts of. Sometimes I’ve felt like I was limiting myself in [talking about] the good or bad things, because I never wanted to seem ungrateful – what I am getting to do is extraordinary. But it’s also not easy all the time.’

Daisy Ridley was born in London in April 1992, the youngest of three daughters. Her mother works in communications for a bank, while her father is a photographer; Daisy attended the Tring Park School for Performing Arts in Hertfordshire, where she specialised in musical theatre, but she has said that she never had a burning desire to act.

She credits a drama teacher with being the first person who made her think she could do it as a profession; after leaving school, she started a degree in classical civilisation at Birkbeck, University of London but dropped out to pursue acting.

There were small TV roles in Silent Witness, Toast of London and Mr Selfridge, but when Ridley heard that JJ Abrams was seeing unknowns for the next episode of Star Wars, she lobbied her agent to get her an audition – the films have a rich history of turning nobodies into somebodies (not least Harrison Ford), and Abrams was keen to stick with that tradition.

Five meetings with Abrams later, she landed the role of the girl from nowhere thrust into the centre of the Star Wars universe. Ridley says that in Rey, there is a lot she can relate to. She remembers meeting the late Carrie Fisher for the first time at a dinner before shooting started on The Force Awakens.

‘All the men were on one side of the table, and she said to me, “Come and join the oestro-fest!” And she was wonderful. The Leia thing… I mean, yes I did look up to [that]. But, to me, it was much more that Carrie didn’t shrink from everything that she was and everything that this is too. She owned it. She knew what Star Wars was in her life, and what it had done for her. She was just incredible.’

Fisher advised Ridley to ‘fight against being the slave girl’, in reference to the gold bikini Leia famously wore in Return of the Jedi. ‘But what is amazing is that I didn’t have to fight against anything. I thought it was a super-cool role because Rey wasn’t making choices because she was a girl, she was just making choices because that’s what people have to do.’

When we meet, Ridley is wearing a Roland Mouret dress with Jimmy Choo heels. ‘I’m so scruffy usually,’ she says. ‘My goal in life is to be really elegant and smart. My sister says, “Dais! Stop buying men’s jumpers then!” But I love a man’s jumper.’

How much has life changed since Star Wars? ‘Well that’s the thing. I don’t know if it has.’ She is aware how ridiculous this sounds; what she means is that she tries not to let success go to her head. ‘Career-wise it’s changed everything. There’s no way I would have recorded with Barbra Streisand [on her album Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway] had I not met her through JJ.’

She has recently been in cinemas as Mary Debenham in Murder on the Orient Express, ‘and there’s no way I would have been able to do that because Ken [Sir Kenneth Branagh, who directed the film] may not have seen me. So that stuff is different. But life stuff is… I don’t know. I hope I’m smarter than I was and make better decisions, but I think it’s pretty similar.’

She catches the cynical look on my face.

‘Obviously I am living a different [life] to the one I was before, but I still live in the same place [London], my family are still my favourite people, my friends are the same, I still go on the Tube.’ Does she get recognised? ‘Not really. Everyone has their own stuff going on, they’re going to work, they’re living their lives.’

Ridley adds that she’s not sure what it is that everyone assumes she should be doing – perhaps living in a gold palace, I suggest?

‘Yeah. I don’t think people necessarily actually think that, it’s just a thing that once you get into conversation with someone, they realise that you still have to buy friggin’ tampons. My friend texted me the other day to say that her sister had seen me getting my eyebrows threaded in Superdrug for £3.50. And you know how they do it in the middle of the shop. She was like “Dais! Go somewhere else!” But I won’t because Superdrug is the best place.’

Today Ridley’s modus operandi is to look after herself and try to stay as calm as possible. ‘Reading a book or running a bath – that to me is self-care, because you get a moment to be tranquil and listen to your own music.’

She recently finished playing the title role of Ophelia in a new film that tells the story of Hamlet through the eyes of the tragic heroine, also starring Naomi Watts and Clive Owen, due for release next year. She says, ‘I worked pretty much every day for eight weeks. What I needed to do was go home and sleep. And that is self-care too, deciding what I need right now.’

In her spare time, Ridley does Pilates and then she likes to ‘sit on the sofa. I don’t drink very much, but last week I was back for three days so I went to the pub with a smattering of my friends and my parents and sisters and we had a little drink and made merry. Also, I love washing. People take the piss out of me – on a day off I’m like “leave me alone with my detergent”. Nothing is sweeter to me than being in my flat and hearing the washing machine go.’ She laughs.

After Ophelia, there’s Chaos Walking, an adaptation of the young adult novel by Patrick Ness. She has just been signed by Netflix to star in a superhero comedy alongside Josh Gad, and of course there is the ninth (and final, for now) instalment of Star Wars.

What then? ‘Well, I just want to keep working with people who give me as much joy as the people I’ve got to work with so far. Just that. That is what I want.’ She pauses, smiles. ‘And also to be able to continue to have a voice. To be able to take a month off if nothing right comes along. That would be wonderful.’

Star Wars: The Last Jedi is released on 14 December.

— The Telegraph

#i forgot to post this #q #uploads #interview #daisy ridley #rey #star wars #the last jedi #the force awakens #tfa #tlj #cast #rian johnson #carrie fisher #jj abrams #*#long post

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