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marauderundercover · 3 years

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Taking Chances Ch. 12: Resting at Home (Alt Prompt: Baking)

AO3

Waking up at five in the morning, feeling like you’re surrounded is disorienting. Waking up with a sore throat and shooting pain in her shoulder was also disorienting. Until she remembered everything from the night before. Adrien was not going to be happy. He’d begged her to tell him if she ended up going on patrol with her father, wanting her to be safe. She didn’t tell him, and now she was certain he was going to be angry. Unless she could get back to the hotel before he woke up. But it was still unlikely that he wouldn’t know. Plagg was a tattle tale. Sighing, she carefully gets out of the bed, maneuvering around her brothers’ sleeping forms on the floor. Walking out of the room, she instantly feels anxious. Deciding a glass of water might calm her down, she heads towards the kitchen.

“I believe you should be resting, Miss Marinette.” Alfred says, making her jump. She winces as her shoulder jostles, trying not to frown at the way Alfred’s lips purse. She knew he was worried. And she knew her family was going to be unbelievably overprotective for the next six months. Or maybe, six years. She’s not exactly sure how protective they actually are.

“I was going to get a glass of water.” She says softly, pointing to her throat. “I was also feeling a little anxious.”

“Very well. I was about to start the preparations for breakfast. If you promise to sit and refrain from straining yourself, you may come with.” He says. She grins, immediately falling into step with the man.

“Could we bake something for everyone for breakfast?” She asks, glancing up at him. “It doesn’t have to be anything too difficult. I mean, I’d prefer to make croissants the first time I bake for them, but there’s not exactly time to do that for breakfast.” She rambles as they walk into the kitchen. Alfred immediately walks over to a cabinet and grabs a glass, filling it with water before handing it to her and raising an eyebrow. She smiles gratefully and sips on the water, relishing in the coolness on her throat.

“I believe our agreement was that you would sit and refrain from straining yourself.” Alfred says, moving around the kitchen with ease. Marinette huffs but plops onto one of the stools.

“It doesn’t have to be anything difficult! It could even be….muffins! Muffins are popular for breakfast here, right?” She suggests, flailing her arms, wincing as she does so. It was going to be annoying remembering that her injury was there this time around. There was no Miraculous Cure when her opponent was just a bad guy, not a Miraculous holder.

“If I allow you to turn on the mixer and place the liners in the tin, will you be satisfied?” Alfred asks with a sigh. Marinette grins and nods. There’s comfortable silence as Alfred moves about the kitchen, measuring out the ingredients.

“Alfred?” She finally asks, glancing at the man who only hums in acknowledgement. “Who is Slade?” She asks. He pauses, the measuring cup positioned over the bowl. He takes a deep breath and dumps the ingredient in before straightening even more.

“He was part of the organization that Master Damian grew up in. He’s always hated both Master Bruce and Master Damian. And now, I imagine, you’re also on his list.” He says calmly, clearly looking at her for some type of reaction.

“So now another villain is after my Miraculous? Joy.” She says sarcastically, pouting as she slumps in her seat. “I was kinda hoping he was just some random guy. Not a legitimate villain.” She adds. Alfred simply shakes his head, sliding the muffin tin and liners towards her.

“I can assure you, Miss Marinette. Between your father and brothers, this man will not succeed in taking your Miraculous. Marinette frowns, hoping the man is right.

---

Sitting straight up in bed, Damian tenses. This was not his bed. Blinking, he looks around the room and lets his shoulders relax slightly. He was in Dupain Cheng’s room, of course. She had been attacked last night- He pauses. He frowns as he looks at her pillows, no sight of her. Leaping over his brothers, he knocks on the door for the bathroom attached to her room.

“Dupain Cheng?” He says lowly, frowning at the lack of a response. He pushes the door open. Empty. So she was missing. She could not have gotten far. And she had to have left of her own volition. No one could have made it past all of his siblings. Leaving the room, he decides his first course of action should be to ask Pennyworth. Judging by the time, he should be in the kitchen. Making his way into the kitchen (his technical ban should not be an issue since he was actively looking for Dupain Cheng), he pauses when he sees the girl he was looking for, slumped onto the island.

“Ah, Master Damian. Breakfast should be ready soon. Would you care to fetch the rest of your siblings?” He asks. Damian frowns, glancing at Dupain Cheng. Was she okay? Should she really be up and running around after yesterday? She might be one of Paris’ heroes, but surely she wasn’t used to being stabbed?

“Very well.” He says, instead of arguing. He would just have to monitor Dupain Cheng from afar. After all, she did take a sword meant for him.

---

Marinette sighs, pushing herself off the counter. She wasn’t sure how serious breakfast was for the family, but she certainly didn’t want to scare anyone with her bedhead. Hopping off the stool, she winces slightly.

“Miss Marinette, I do wish you would refrain from jostling your wounds so much.” Alfred says, a small frown on his face. Mari grins awkwardly.

“Sorry Alfred.” She apologizes before rushing back up the stairs. She glances into several open doors, suddenly wishing she’d counted earlier to know which was hers. She huffs, prepared to give up, when someone clears their throat. She whirls around, raising an eyebrow at Damian.

“That room is yours.” He says simply, pointing at a door. “Everyone has vacated your room in order to get dressed in their own.” He adds, turning around and walking into a room. Well that’s new, she thinks, surprised that he’s still talking to her. Sure they talked briefly last night, but she honestly thought it was a fluke. Not that she minded. She really did want a relationship with all of her siblings. After being an only child for fourteen years, it was amazing to have so many siblings. Sure they didn’t grow up together, but she was certain that they could all become close. Walking into her room, Marinette quickly gets dressed in clothes that had obviously been left in there by Cass, since they were much smaller than anything the boys could have worn. Smiling, she ducks into the bathroom to deal with her bedhead, squeaking in surprise as something flies into her face.

“Tikki?” She says, shocked at the way the Kwami flies at her.

“You could have died! You silly, silly girl! I could have lost you last night, Marinette.” She cries, flying at Marinette’s face and patting her with her tiny paws. And in that moment, Marinette swears her heart breaks.

“Oh, Tikki.” She says softly, bringing her hands up to cradle the trembling Kwami. “I’m okay, I promise. Don’t worry, I was with my family. They wouldn’t let anything happen to me. I’m right here.” She reassures her small friend, wincing as she continues shaking.

“I couldn’t have saved you, Marinette. It wasn’t magic. There would have been no cure. I healed your shoulder as much as I can without disrupting the balance, but it’s still going to take weeks to fully heal.” Tikki says, her big eyes watery.

“I know, Tikki. But I couldn’t just let Damian get hurt. He’s my little brother, whether he likes it or not.” She says, patting her friend’s head gently before moving to her brush.

“But-” Tikki starts, pausing when Marinette turns her full attention back to her.

“But nothing Tikki. I’m okay, you’re okay, and my family is okay. That’s all we can ask for.” She says, going back to her attempts to tame her hair. Her phone, which she had set on the side of the sink, starts buzzing incessantly. Without glancing at the caller ID, she answers.

“Marinette Dupain Cheng, where the hell are you? Plagg says you left late last night and didn’t come back!” The worried voice of Adrien Agreste leaks through the speakers. Oh, right. She forgot to text him. Oops.

Tag list: @maribat-bdbwm @vixen-uchiha @stainedglassm @liquid-luck-00 @jayjayspixiepop @jjmjjktth @mizzy-pop @trippingovermyfeet @queenz-z @thepaceperson @iloontjeboontje @waiting247 @laurcad123 @toodaloo-kangaroo @ritacrow-blog @deathssilentapproach-blog @kittenmywaythrulife @nerd-nowandforever @tazanna-blythe @jaybird-and-co @imarivers8 @when-no-wings-dobroomsticks

#maribat #maribat bruce wayne #maribat bio dad bruce #maribat bio dad! bruce wayne month 2021 #maribat bio dad au #maribat marinette dupain cheng #maribat marinette dupain cheng is ladybird #maribat damian wayne #platonic daminette #mbdbwm2021 #day twelve alt prompt #ao3fic #maribat fic

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anya-chalotra · 4 years

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I've recently been asked by several lovely and curious souls to break down this Witcher set, so I thought I’d go ahead and put together a proper tutorial for everyone. All you need is Photoshop and basic giffing knowledge, preferably using the timeline. This isn't necessarily simple, but I would say it's one of the simpler things I've done—somewhere between easy and medium difficulty, maybe.

I. MAKE YOUR BASE GIF

To start, we’re going to be making our base/background gif, which is 540x540. You can color it any way you’d like, but I picked black and white for that particular set because I didn’t want the final product to be too ‘busy’. I wanted to keep the attention on a pop of color at the center instead, which ended up being the second gif and the text.

As a quick sidenote:

Since the gif is so big, I would recommend using at least 1080p footage. I’d recommend always using 1080p footage regardless, but I wouldn’t call it 100% necessary unless you’re making larger (540px, as opposed to 268px or 177px) gifs.

Keeping in mind that the second gif and text will be going in the center of the gif, you’ll want to align the subject/s accordingly. For example, I kept Geralt and Jaskier and Yennefer mostly to the left or right.

Here is the base gif I'll be using:

And here is a tutorial on how I make my black and white gifs if you’d like to get the same grain effect.

II. MAKE YOUR [SHAPE] GIF

Next is the gif for the shape. Sizing is up to you and ultimately depends on the shape you choose. For me, I know I want an isosceles triangle, so the height of my gif is going to be slightly bigger than the width. My dimensions in the original set were 118x150, so I’ll be making my gif 122x154. You want to oversize here since we’ll be trimming the edges off later on.

After sharpening and coloring, this is what my gif looks like:

III. GROUP YOUR LAYERS

Sounds simple, right? And it is, but it’s as pivotal as it is easy. Maybe it’s dramatic of me to say that I live and breathe by this step, but I kind of do live and breathe by this step. It’s the same technique from this tutorial, and it’s a pivotal step in my blending process also.

Having said that, let’s put all your layers in a group. Do this for both gifs!

CTRL + A or Select > All

Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal Selection

IV. CUT OUT YOUR SHAPE

You can go about this a couple of different ways, but regardless, it’s as simple as editing your layer mask. No, really. It’s why I love grouping layers and slapping a layer mask on. It makes life so much easier in the long run.

➥ PHOTOSHOP’S CUSTOM SHAPE TOOL

The Custom Shape tool on Photoshop has all the basic shapes you need. Triangles, circles (even though you could just use the round selection tool), stars, and even all the playing suits.

Go ahead and pick a shape to add to your canvas if you haven’t already. Don’t worry too much about the dimensions; you can manually input a specific width and height at the top. Rotate it if you need to (I’ll be rotating my triangle 180° so that it’s upside down) or leave it as is, but when you have it sized the way you’d like, center it and then merge it with a new layer. This way, we can right click on the layer thumbnail and select ‘Select Pixels’.

Next, click on the group layer mask. Invert your selection [SHIFT + CTRL + I or Select > Inverse] and then invert that part of the mask [CTRL + I or Image > Adjustments > Inverse]. Your gif should now be shaped accordingly.

➥ B&W TEXTURES AND VECTORS/PNGs

Alternatively, if you don’t want to limit yourself to basic shapes, you can use a texture or png of anything at all. An instrument, a specific symbol, something abstract, maybe even a flower—it can be literally anything, so long as it’s pure black and pure white. (If you aren’t familiar with how layer masks work, white is what shows and black is what’s hidden. Anything in between and what you get is partially or not all the way transparent, which will look wonky when the smaller gif goes on top of the base gif.)

For example, here’s an icon template by @argetnallison:

Select your image (CTRL + A or Select > All) and copy it.

Go back to your gif. Press ALT and click on the group layer mask at the same time. This will pull up your layer mask.

Paste your image onto the layer mask.

Et voila, as the French and magicians and... other various individuals including myself say.

➥ PAINT BRUSHES

If you’re like me and have a bunch of custom brush sets downloaded, brushes are another way to get fun shapes. If you don’t have any downloaded but are interested in trying it out for yourself, DeviantArt and Brusheezy are the best (or at least my favorite) places to look for them.

It’s the same steps as above, but painting instead of pasting.

V. FINISHING TOUCHES

Now that you’re probably sick of me going on and on about shapes this and shapes that—we get it, Ava, there are shapes, get on with it—it’s time to drag the gif shape onto the base.

To center, because I am admittedly border-obsessive when it comes to things being perfectly 100% centered, I set guides [View > New Guide] in the middle. It’s your width and height divided by two, so I have a vertical guide at 270 and a horizontal guide at 270.

For a “3D” (I don’t know what else to call it, other than “well, I just thought it looked neat”) effect, I added a gradient with the same exact layer mask as my gif shape and positioned it underneath and slightly below the gif.

All that’s left is to add text (I wrote a mini tutorial on gradient text here if you’re interested) and we’re finally done!

You can also do this with more than one shape, like here:

Or make the shape full-scale, like here:

Happy editing!

#completeresources #allresources #yeahps #itsphotoshop #resources #tutorials #ps asks #mine*#as always feel free to reach out if any of this is confusing #i'm sleep deprived so i feel like the chances of that are pretty likely

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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alienalgae · 2 years

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TMA music hot takes!

Inspired by this post because tumblr wouldn’t let me put so much text in the tags. I hope you like this, I’ve already got Part 2 in my drafts, let me know if I should drop it 👀✨

- first off tma soundtrack is by Florence and The Machine, especially season five, it just fits (please listen to Seven Devils n stuff)

- Jon is very much not out of his college alt/emo phase

- he's a tired antisocial thirty-year-old and you can't convince me he doesn't wear platform boots or eyeliner to work sometimes; from season three on he just doesn't give a fuck and goes full edgy bitch

- honestly he listens to alt rock, punk, metal, garage and whatever is FAST and ANGRY because it helps him deal with his emotions and ease the overwhelming stress (I may or may not be projecting here) also bc he’s cool like that

- Lady Parts’ greatest fan and supporter, I will die on this hill

- Martin!!! ❤💕 he's got a very good and chill taste

- he enjoys brit rock/pop bands like Oasis, U2, early Coldplay when they used to be good and perhaps The Kooks

- he also likes these long ambient/lofi playlists and that's very cool of him

- ✨Polish Martin projecting✨ he def jams to some Polish rock classics; Strachy na Lachy, Lady Pank and Myslovitz are all on his playlist along with Rojek's entire first album

- Daisy listens to dad rock on the car radio

- Basira's a music nerd, her knowledge is extensive, her taste is undeniably the best out of them all idiots and she gives the best music recs

- her favourite genres are swing and blues, but she appreciates a little bit of like jazz-/trip-hop and chill electronic sounds

- Elias has the worst fucking taste imaginable

- his favourite band are the Beatles and it's truly unbelievable because how can the All-Knowing Eye not Know what normal music is

- Helen and Michael always have some music playing in the corridors, but it's so weird, distorted and generally fucked up that people assume it's just the sound of The Spiral

- actually it's a compilation of Pink Floyd guitar solos

#sincere apologies for hating on the beatles but only to my friend @rock-n-roll-fantasy and no one else #the magnus archives #the magnus pod #tma #tma headcanons #tma au #tma/we are lady parts crossover pleeeeeeeaaaase #we are lady parts #music #blorbo from my shows #headcanon #tw swearing

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thran-duils · 3 years

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Lost in Zero Gravity (P.24, FINAL)

Title: Lost In Zero Gravity (Part Twenty Four, FINAL) Summary: Fem!Reader x Mob Boss!Tony Stark x Mob Boss!Steve Rogers. Reader is a call girl who runs high end parties. She catches the attention of Tony Stark who invites her back to his room with his friend. She might have performed too well because she becomes their new favorite play toy and they don’t like to share. Words: 2,768 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Smut, prostitution, infidelity, angst, domestic violence, stalking, possessive behavior, drug use

Author’s Note: This took a couple more days than I planned. I had started writing and got to like 1,200 words and then I was like mhm... abandoned that doc and started another. I was grappling between two different paths and I went with the happier one. We’ve had enough angst!

Part Twenty Three || Masterpost (mobile) || Fanfic masterpost

ALT ending (not complete, will not be completed)

Balancing the bowl on your stomach, you laid back eating grapes in silence. You were alone in the apartment. Again. Tony had been acting more distant now that you were really starting to show as you came into your sixth month. It smaller things at first, like you caught him staring at your protruding stomach and he looked away quickly when he noticed you saw or sex being from behind more often than not now. But now it was apparent something was wrong. He slept at home half the week now.

It should not be a shock; he had voiced his opposition to the whole thing from the start and you knew that is what was driving the wedge.

The grapes were doing little to satisfy your craving for French fries. You had just had some yesterday and you were trying to be good today. It was proving to be very difficult when you could just have them delivered and Wylan could bring them up for you.

As if on cue, the apartment door open and the smell of fried food hit your nostrils. You moved the bowl and sat up with some difficulty, spotting Tony walking towards the kitchen with a bag. Your mouth was already watering.

He tossed a look over his shoulder and asked, “Still having the craving?” He took in the look on your face and he cracked a smile. “Looks like it. I see I’ve brought you over to the dark side with it being a comfort food.”

“I don’t want this to last,” you said as you stood up, leaving the grapes behind on the coffee table. “I’ll be hundred pounds heavier if it keeps up.”

You sat down at the table, thankful that you had ordered the pillow covers for the chairs; they were far more forgiving on your backside than the plain hardwood. Tony placed a plate in front of you and handed you the ketchup and mustard before going back for his plate. He sat back down at the table in the chair across the table and began to eat.

Silence fell over the table as you ate some of the fries, paying more attention to them than the burger.

After a little while, you could not stand it anymore and you had to ask.

“Are... are we okay?”

Tony stopped eating and looked up at you with a concerned look. He placed his burger down and gave you his full attention. “What do you mean?”

“You seem… off. You have seemed off. The last couple of months. Like you kind of don’t want to touch me.”

He sighed, rubbing at his face. He looked like he was gathering his thoughts and you stayed quiet.

“It bothers me.” You looked at him expectantly, wanting him to say more when he paused. “You’re pregnant, for one. It’s a... thing for me. Just thinking about the baby in there and my dick around it.” You did your best to not crack at that, even the slightest of smirks. You wanted him to explain himself and not interrupt. “But you’re also pregnant with Steve’s kid. It... it makes me uncomfortable.” He paused and chewed on his bottom lip before meeting your eyes. “I don’t like watching him watch you. At the appointments I mean. He’s just... I know how he is and it’s not a good look that he’s giving you. And he’s so touchy feely about it and it makes me angry. Yeah. It makes me angry. That’s it. I hate it. I hate what he did. And he still wins and gets what he wants.”

“He doesn’t have to suffer through any of it and meanwhile you’re over here with body aches and looking down the barrel of the gun of childbirth. And it stresses me out because Steve told me he wanted to be there at the hospital, and I don’t think he should be in the room with you. He doesn’t deserve to be. Because I was done dealing with him after I learned what he had done.” He hesitated and saw you were still listening with rapt attention. He swallowed sharply before his eyes softened and he said calmer, “And it made me angry you gave him this satisfaction. Rewarded him for his behavior in a way. I wish you would have listened to me and just let me pay him out so this wouldn’t be a thing. And now we both have to deal with.”

You were quiet, staring down at your hands.

“I... I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I think about it too. He didn’t even ask if he could touch me when I was on the table the first appointment, he just did it. And I didn’t make a scene. And he just ran with that as permission for whenever he was around me in the room at the appointments, he could touch me however. And still, I didn’t cause a scene because there was a nurse or a doctor in there all the time, and he seemed to know them all, and I didn’t want to have any bad blood with them myself. Just for the baby’s sake. I might not be keeping them but this whole thing isn’t their fault and I want them to have good treatment.”

“And as far as you paying him out… I didn’t want you to do that. I wanted it to be me. I wanted him to get that payment from me so he couldn’t write it off as someone else just taking care of me. And not take me seriously when I said I wanted to be done. It means more coming from me. It sucks, this whole thing is not a cakewalk. But, I think it’ll be worth it in the end. I didn’t have control of the situation at the beginning, but I do now. I made the decision.”

Tony was letting what you said sink in. He grabbed a fry and ate it slowly, looking lost in thought. He finally leaned back and met your eyes again.

“I get that,” he said sounding sincere. “It always means more if you’re the one that made the effort. Not just for them but for you.” He nodded and then said, “And I’m sorry for making you feel lonely.”

Trying to joke, you said, “I’ve got Luna.”

“I hope I’m not that easily replaced.”

“No. You’re not.”

He smirked briefly before saying, “Only three more months.”

“Or less.”

“Or less. Way to be hopeful.”

<><><>

You had had false contractions before, but these were stronger. And they were going on for longer than they had before. Gritting your teeth, you wobbled to the door and opened it.

“Terrence!” you called down the hallway. He was there quickly, and you leaned against the doorframe. “It’s bad.”

“What’s bad?” He asked sounding worried.

“The contractions. They’re longer and hurt. I think it’s time!”

“Let me call Tony.”

He whipped out his cell phone and dialed. He was speaking to him quickly. “Hey, Y/N says she thinks it’s time? I’m not sure. She said they’re longer and hurt more?” You gasped as you felt a pop internally and then wetness. You grasped at your crotch and felt dampness. Terrence had followed your hand and he looked slightly more pale. “Anddddd, I think her water just broke. Do you want me to take her?”

<><><>

A soft cry greeted you as you woke up. When they had brought you into the room, you had fallen asleep almost immediately, exhausted. How long had you been sleeping? You turned your head to the right seeing the baby next to your bed, fussing weakly. There was a nurse there and she noticed you were awake.

“Perfect timing, momma. I think he’s hungry.”

“It’s still here?”

“Yes?” The nurse said looking completely confused by your reaction and probably more so that you called him ‘it’. She watched you closely, looking suspicious.

Clearing your throat, you adjusted in the bed and asked, trying to sound calm, “Has... has the father come yet?”

The nurse shot a look in the corner, looking even more confused than before. You did not have time to follow her gaze before Tony’s voice sounded, “I only texted him five minutes ago.”

He was sitting on the built-in bench along the window. You had not even noticed him, all your focus on the small life next to you.

“He’s probably trying to get away from whatever he’s doing and get through traffic,” Tony continued.

So, Tony had not called Steve while it was happening. You had been in labor for five hours. Steve was not going to be happy that Tony had not contacted him, and he had missed the birth while Tony had been there instead. But you were relieved that Steve had not simply blown it off; when you had been in the delivery room, the thought had flashed through your mind.

The nurse raised up your bed and helped you open your gown. She adjusted a pillow to rest on your stomach and went back to grab him. You were hesitant but you held out your arms all the same, taking him gently from the nurse. She helped push his blanket so he was bare against you. You were trying to not be stiff feeling the contact.

“A little closer. The skin-on-skin contact is good,” the nurse encouraged.

Doing as she said, you forced yourself to relax more. His mouth was wet, and you shivered, causing the nurse to chuckle softly, saying to not worry, you would get used to that.

No you wouldn’t, you thought instead of saying it out loud.

Your finger traced along his cheek as he sucked, his little hand resting on your breast next to his mouth. He was calm now, serene in his eating.

“Looks like you’re a natural,” the nurse commented happily. “Be thankful for that!”

“He’s fine, then?” you asked her, looking up.

She nodded, “Healthy as can be.”

“Good,” you said quietly, looking back down at him. You searched his small face, trying to see any part of Steve. The nose maybe, but it was a little wide. His eyes had not been open long enough for you to see and you were not going to disturb him, choosing to keep him comfortable as he fed.

<><><>

You were woken again when you heard people speaking. Blinking awake, your vision cleared to Steve and Tony talking in low voices by the door.

“You fucking prick,” Steve was saying, sounding pissed. “I told you—”

“I was a little preoccupied as you can imagine,” Tony retorted quietly.

Steve spotted you were awake over Tony’s shoulder, and he sucked his teeth before clearing his throat. Snapping his head back to Tony, he said in a dangerous voice, “I’d like the room. If you can find it in yourself to back off for just a while.”

Tony looked over his shoulder, seeing you watching, and sighed before walking back over and grabbing his coat, sunglasses, and phone. He leaned over you and said, “I’ll be back.” He gave you a quick peck on the top of the head before moving past Steve, the two of them sharing a cold look.

Steve walked further into the room, and you were fixated on him for a moment before you turned your attention towards where the baby was sleeping. He approached and looked down at them, a small smile painted on his lips. Reaching out, he touched their cheek, his smile growing.

“Look at him,” Steve said quietly. “Perfect as can be.” He met your eyes and asked, “No complications?” You shook your head. “Good. And he fed?” You nodded again. “Look at you. Perfect as can be too. Though I am not surprised about that.”

Always with the flattery.

He collapsed into the chair beside the little bed and yours. He looked disappointed when he said, “I wanted to be here.”

“Sorry,” you apologized. “I was a little busy.”

“I’m not blaming you. I should’ve known Tony would be an ass about it. Always has to get a jab in. This one was taking it a little too far but I’m just glad everything went okay and you’re alright.”

“I was surprised he was still here when I woke up afterwards,” you told him honestly.

Steve told you, “I’ll take him when you are ready to discharge. It would look odd for me to take him before. Would raise a lot of questions that I don’t feel like getting into with the hospital.” That made enough sense to you. “Plus, let him get as much milk as he can from you before he switches over to formula and my wife’s. I’m worried he won’t take to hers but maybe he won’t be picky.”

He had never told you the specifics about what was going on with her child and you had not asked. You were sure you did not want to know.

“Well, he latches well enough to me. I hope she doesn’t have any trouble,” you said sincerely. Steve was watching you intently and you asked slowly, “What?”

His voice was soft, “Don’t you want to know what his name is?”

“No,” you told him sharply.

“Don’t want to get attached? I know a name can do that.”

“I don’t want to know,” you repeated firmly.

Steve looked sour for a brief moment before he remarked, “I’ll fill the paperwork out then, so you don’t have to see it. Have they dropped it off yet? The birth certificate paperwork, I mean.” You shrugged and he said, “I guess I’ll have to ask one of the nurses when they come in.”

“I’ll be staying here,” he continued on. “Just to make sure I get that paperwork and I’m here when you discharge. Won’t be leaving that up to Tony again. Unlike him, I’ll text him when you’re ready to go so he’s here to get you and you aren’t stranded here upon discharge. I’d take you myself, but Cecile is going to come to be able to go home with me and… the baby.” He had almost slipped up and you had a feeling he had done it on purpose.

He sat forward again, pulling the little bed closer to him, peering over at the little bundle.

“You did good, dove,” he murmured, his eyes fixated on his son. “I never doubted you for a second.”

<><><>

You stood up from the wheelchair and stood up, stretching a little. “Now that that’s over,” you muttered as Tony opened the passenger door. You had been annoyed they had insisted that you had to take a wheelchair out of the hospital. You had been in there for two days and you just wanted to walk more than just around your room, although that had not been recommended. You needed to take it easy while your body healed.

Steve’s voice sounded from behind you, and you turned your head, seeing him walking out with a woman. Your eyes snapped down to the bundle in her arms, seeing the little boy she was cradling. As if she sensed you, she looked over, locking eyes. You saw her eyes flick to Tony and you saw in real time the realization wash over her features before her eyes snapped back to you.

“Come on, Y/N,” Tony said at the same time as you tore your gaze away from her. His hand was around you, guiding you into the car.

The door closed behind you, and you waited for him to get inside. He was quiet when he did, pushing the start button on the car.

You snuck a glance in the side mirror and saw they were gone, and you breathed a sigh of relief.

“Could’ve done without that,” you exhaled.

“I’m sure she could have too,” Tony replied as he pulled away from the curb.

The city passed by as he weaved in and out of traffic. Your hands rested in your lap, watching the buildings go by. Your hand slipped up and you felt a small pang of loss at the flat abdomen you were greeted with. Your fingers flexed in, trying to force yourself to remember this is what normal was.

You startled slightly, pulled from your thoughts as Tony’s fingers slipped around yours, coming in between yours and your stomach. He closed his grip, holding your hand tight, bringing it back down to your thigh. He was quiet but he squeezed your hand reassuringly.

It was going to be okay, you told yourself.

~~~

Forever tags: @coconutqueen21 @undecidedsworld

Fic tags: @icant-hangout-imdrumming @oceaniamaddness @multifandom-superlover @imsonick @holl2712 @here4thefanfics @agustdowney @fanofalltheficsx @buttercandy16 @last-saturday-night @woohoney

#tony stark x reader #steve rogers x reader #dark tony stark #dark steve rogers #dark marvel #my shit

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magnus-the-maqnificent · 3 years

Text

Let’s analyse - the fight against Abaddon

Brought to you by that one anon on @khaleesiofalicante ‘s blog that’s been driving me crazy. They clearly don’t seem to get the gist of the scene, so here I am... *sigh*

Oh, and I am once again asking y’all to learn and develop critical reading skills asksdgfhh

This is gonna get really long, so I’m gonna put it under a cut. Ciao! (Also, I’ve added alt text to all the images, so don’t worry about that!)

I’m gonna focus mainly on Alec in this analysis, on what this fight meant for his character development, and whether or not it determines his worth as a warrior.

First let’s review - what happened before the fight took place?

Let’s start with the confrontation scene between Alec and Clary. Specifically this part, where Clary’s anger gets out of hand and she lashes out at Alec;

However, if you look back to what Jace actually said...

Jace only said that Alec has never killed a demon, and not that he was ‘too afraid’ to do it. It was Clary, unfortunately, two twisted his words. *sigh* anger brings out the worst of people, huh?

However, at this point, the damage has been done, and Alec believes that Jace thinks he’s a coward or something, because he’s never killed a demon. Which plays right into his insecurities of not being a good enough shadowhunter. And the morning before they go to Dorothea’s house, this happens -

From Jace’s point of view, he only spoke the words out of mild frustration over why Alec, his parabatai, wasn’t supporting him, and clearly meant them as a way to convince Alec to come along. He didn’t meant it maliciously. However, to Alec, who’s probably been stewing over what Clary said to him a while ago, it’s only a confirmation that what she said was true, that Jace thinks he’s too afraid to fight demons/forsaken.

Misunderstandings are a bitch.

After that comes this,

I’m including this scene here for two reasons - one, there’s clearly some tension between Jace and Alec, and two, Alec is clearly shown in an archer’s getup, with a quiver of arrows strapped to his back, and a leather bracer on his arm.

But then, we get to this scene, right before they go to Dorothea’s and after they check the demonic activity levels,

Alec ditches his bow and arrow at the last minute in favour of a feather staff.

Why? Because he knows there’s low demonic activity, and therefore low risks of facing demons and/or forsaken.

Because at this point, he wants to prove to Jace (and Clary) that he’s not afraid of killing demons.

At this point you might be thinking, What? That’s so stupid? If he wants to prove he’s a good warrior, he should do it when there’s high stakes. This just proves he’s a coward and a bad warrior!

Wrong, wrong and wrong.

Alec initially has his bow and arrow, when they’re expecting more trouble while fetching the cup. But when he finds out that there’s little to no risk of coming across demons and forsaken, he switches to the feather staff, because he’s thought this through. In a high stakes battle, switching from high-range-defence (which Alec specialises in) to low-range-offence, could be a serious liability and could result in Jace and Isabelle getting hurt with no one to watch their backs. Alec weighs the risks of him switching fighting styles against the stakes of the fight they’re going into, and only when he knows that the stakes are very low, and that Jace and Isabelle won’t be getting hurt that he decides to take up low-range-offence. Like he says to Isabelle, he knows what he’s doing.

Even when his feelings are hurt and he wants badly to prove that he isn’t afraid, he still puts the safety of his siblings first, which is... maybe the opposite of selfish. The irony.

So, yeah. Once Alec knows that his siblings won’t get hurt in his quest for bravery, the mission, for him, becomes all about him trying to prove to Jace (and Clary) that he can be a brave, badass warrior who kills stuff, too. Note how his behaviour changes abruptly in this scene. (“Let’s kick some demon butt!” the second hand embarrassment omg)

And also in this scene:

Alec is generally very goal oriented. Like we see in future books, for missions like these, Alec always focuses on the final goal (retrieving items or rescuing people, etc.) and the demons/forsaken/cult members/whatever he’s fighting on the way becomes secondary to him. Yet here we see that he seems to be equally prioritising retrieving the cup and fighting forsaken, while even Jace is indifferent to the forsaken. Because like I said, at this point he only wants to prove that he’s not afraid.

Now onto the actual fight scene....

All three of them - Jace, Isabelle and Alec, were expecting low demonic activity and low risks. No one expected a fucking greater demon to pop out of nowhere. To them, it’s like... in terms of a video game, playing until level 15 and then jumping to level 95 or something. All three of them are clueless.

And at this point, if you’re holding only Alec at fault for being clueless, when all three siblings are scared shitless (yes, including Jace. It’s canon that he uses humour in a fight when he thinks he’s going to die.)... you’re the one holding gay characters to a much higher standard than the straight ones. Stop doing that, dumbass.

Now, at this point, Alec is in a fix. He’s set his mind on proving to Jace that he can be a brave warrior too, but now he has to protect his siblings too. Except he’s already ditched his bow and arrows, which means there’s no going back. He has no choice but to go on low-range-offence.

So, he does both.

He gets in between Jace and the demon, effectively preventing Jace from getting hit, and strikes at the demon at the same time, injuring it. Basically, Alec tried to hit two birds with one stone, with a weapon he wasn’t as familiar with as he was with the bow. From his point of view, it was foolish - like we see in the graphic novel.

Except... that was a pretty brave thing. He charged in front of a greater demon even though he was clearly afraid of it, for Jace. His fear wasn’t greater than his instinct to protect, even if the need to prove himself was still there in his mind. In the end, Alec was brave. (But at this point, Alec probably thinks that fearlessness and bravery are the same thing, and it may not be until the third book that he realises the difference).

You know Magnus says ‘I think you were I injured in an act of bravery’ or something like that in the graphic novel? Bitch was right. (Damn, now I wonder just how much Alec needed to hear that).

And now, enter Simon

Yes, what Simon did was amazing - but can it really compare to Alec’s archery skills? Now, what Simon did was more endowed in strategy than skill. He knew about the skylight, knew that sunlight is harmful to demons, and utilised that knowledge to his advantage. But the skylight, in an earlier page is described as a single wide pane of glass. Now, you tell me, what’s easier - shattering a pane of glass, or killing a level 95 boss with weapons?

And... why do people feel the need to point out that Simon killed the demon while Alec specifically couldn’t? Why don’t I see people comparing Isabelle and Jace to Simon? Why the gay shadowhunter vs the straight mundane? Why not straight shadowhunter vs straight mundane? Why are you holding Alec to such high standards and say nothing about how Jace, the greatest warrior of his time, couldn’t kill a demon while a mundane could? Double standards, that’s why.

And now for our grand finale-

At this point, Alec doesn’t know the full extent of what really happened. It’s unclear how much he’s processed, but it’s clear he remembers until the point he attacked the demon. He was unconscious for a while, so he may not have witnessed Simon’s entrance. It’s pretty hard to say. But this scene here just goes to prove my earlier point once again - he just wanted to prove to Jace (and Clary) that he was a brave warrior, that he could kill demons too. And now, in his mind, he did kill a demon. He’s proven himself, even if he’s gravely injured now.

(Someone give him a damn hug omg)((Also bless Clary for coming around and being an Angel))

And the rest... well, you know.

Actually, you know what? Thank you, you mean ass anon. You helped me understand my favourite character a little better. I’m only realising now just how much Alec’s arc in the first three books revolves around the idea of fearlessness and bravery. Maybe that’ll be an analysis for another day.

Goodbye for now! And pay attention in English class, folks! Especially the reading comprehension stuff!

#this took me TWO HOURS #AKSJSKSKSKKS #IM BEGGING Y’ALL TO RB AJSJSKSKKSKS #tsc #alec lightwood #tmi #cob #laks analyses #city of bones #jace herondale #jace wayland #isabelle lightwood #clary fairchild #simon lewis

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jq37 · 3 years

Note

Maybe I'm also being animal racist, but a current guess I have for oMaM is that the rabbit Sly saw at the docks was actually the newspaper photographer who seems to be spending a lot of energy documenting Sly's movements at this party, and the bad lighting/state of intoxicated introspection led Syl to make a wrong assumption. (Also did you ever watch Hoodwinked? Spoilers: the reporter bunny did it)

lol hey guys. So I've been fairly MIA the past couple of weeks due to my job trying to actively murder me but I wanted to pop in for a hot second to talk about where we are theory-wise at this point in the season.

First of all, to address the actual ask, I feel like Brennan must have known Longfoot would be suspicious due to ~animal racism~ and put him in as a red herring and now we have even more info to back that up.

I suspect that what's going on with the stuff in the manor is a version of the Pepper's ghost illusion which involves mirrors to do ghostly projections and look pretty darn good for an effect that was invented hundreds of years ago. If you've ever ridden Haunted Mansion at Disney, that's the effect they use to do the waltzing ghosts (fun fact, because the effect mirrors the objects it's used on and the Imagineers forgot to take that into account, all of the female ghosts are leading in the dance!) But that's just fluff, let's talk plot.

So last week's ep threw a LOT of suspicion on Sly with him literally being painted at the villain and Grant doing absolutely nothing to defend himself. And, I'll admit, it would be pretty delicious to not only have Sly foreshadow it earlier with his coy, "Why yes, it also could have been me," and also that Grant himself would have [REDACTED] Rekha a SECOND TIME (watch the Murder Mystery ep of Game Changers if you don't know what I mean--it's my fave ep). But I talked it over with my watch buddy @camwritery and I don't think Sly is actually a baddie. I think this is a double double cross (Lol a cross from Mr. Cross). Here's my thought process.

(1) Yes there's that stack of letters Daisy found in Sly's hand but those easily could have been forged. I'd like Buck to take a look at those since he has that rogue handwriting checking ability.

(2) Squire Badger specially said something was coming to F Sly up and Sly could tell he wasn't the mastermind. Fletcher would make the most sense as to who the mastermind actually is. Like, it wouldn't be so much a twist to the audience but it would be a big ass twist to the CHARACTERS who thought he was fully dead (for the most part) and I feel like that matters more than "subverting expectations" or whatever. It's possible we find out it's actually another party guest I guess (or more likely, that some number of them are involved as accomplices) but Brennan said last week we've met all the characters and it's too late to introduce a new person at this point. And Fletcher is such a through line in Sly and Daisy's stories, it would be weird to not go for the payoff.

(3) So Fletcher is alive. We know this. What would a dead but not dead criminal mastermind want? To ruin his arch nemesis, obv. So, how do you do that? Maybe you fake the death of some mouse to create an unsolvable murder to drive him crazy? And then maybe you work with the person who the fake murder pissed off (because of Sly's inability to "solve" it) to ruin Sly because that guy hates Sly now? And maybe you involve some element of faking deaths in your plan because a faked death is what was central to the original plot that made Sly's reputation and ruined your family? That's so convoluted but this is a guy who handcuffed himself to his enemy and jumped off a waterfall. He's clearly a drama queen and he has nothing but time.

(4) I think Sly has figured this out to some degree and he's decided that letting himself get captured is the best option for him at the moment. Like, he didn't protest at all. Which, yes, checks out to his laidback, posh casual persona but I think he knows that if anything happens to anyone while he's locked up then it casts suspicion on someone besides him or it means the "murders" have to stop because no one will kill anyone while he's not active as a possible suspect due to literally not being able to murder anyone. Speaking of--

(5) Yeah, I don't believe these are murders. All those dead bodies from the list? Badgers, corvids, horned animals. That's the badger fam and their spouses. And the one guy we "knew" was dead also doesn't seem to be dead (which Brennan seeded from the start with Conor's widow hearing his voice which seems possible if she lives so close and he was alive this whole time). I guess framing Sly for a full family murder or something was the plan? But that doesn't quite check out because presumably they'd un-die at some point and I feel like they wouldn't want to live under assumed identities in animal Bavaria or something. I know news doesn't travel fast w/o the internet but they're prominent people. News would spread I assume. Maybe the death faking was to make Sly believe he was crazy? Or to believe in ghosts? Messing with a genius's mind is I'm sure one of the worst things you can do. There's also Buck's Frankenstein theory which is a little out there but they were trying crazy stuff with electricity and dead bodies back in the day. Kind of a wild pull but cam sent me this about a Dr. Squires from the same-ish time period shocking someone back to life. It would be wild and now we have some alt explanations for the electricity but gotta explore all options. And this would Constance to call her dad a madman, lol.

(6) Grant/Sly has a lot more info than us with all those maddening redacted texts so it's very likely he has some long game happening we know nothing about. I wondered if he might have known about Fletcher for a while--when Daisy revealed he was alive he was surprised but I don't remember if he was surprised that he was alive or if it was ambiguous and it might just be that he didn't tell her. I assumed he didn't know at all (because I feel like that's what Brennan narrated in episode 1) but I need to go back and check.

(7) At the end of the day, D20 is a show that rewards love and friendship over betrayal and the like. This very much could be the first season with a real betrayal but I'm kinda skeptical. Sly could just be a big faker but he seems genuine to me. Also, what would his motive even be here? This doesn't seem like his style and I don't know why he'd do this.

(8) Lars failed their check on purpose and Ian saw full puppydog earnestness. Sly if you've been a bad guy this whole time and Lars didn't know, bitch I'll kill you

(9) Not really on topic but I want to note, Daisy's find of that second trick portrait makes me thing my theory was correct and there's a third somewhere. I wonder where.

(10) Even less on topic but the "Show Her Your Butt 2: Electric Boogaloo" sequence last week made me spit soda everywhere and I think that should be acknowledged.

#mice and murder #mice and murder spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #d20 #asks #madamxpresident

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shirtlesssammy · 4 years

Text

15x18: Despair

Then:

The entire fandom preparing for this episode

Now:

We literally start off right where we left off last week. Jack is a ticking time bomb. Sam hauls his nephew/son into the war room. Team Free Will freak out and try to come up with a plan. Jack wants to get far away from them. “Don’t let me hurt you.” AGGHH. We’re fine. It’s only 2 minutes into the episode, WE’RE FINE. Dean insists that they’re not giving up on him, and we love a good 180.

Billie pops up and tells them all that she can’t stop what’s happening to Jack, but she can help.

She sends him to the Empty where he promptly explodes.

Billie explains to the trio that the Empty was the only place/entity that could absorb that kind of power. Jack could survive --and the Empty could survive, but it won’t be happy. Billie points out that the Empty will want her, but can’t get to Earth without being summoned (coolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcoolcool).

Billie wants God’s book back from Sam. Sam Fucking Winchester confronts Billie about her end game plans of restoring order --and sending all of them back to their death. Billie tells Sam that if they want Jack back, he’ll give her the book.

JACK’S ALIVE!

Petty, petty, sullen Sam brings Billie the book, but throws it on the table instead of handing it to her, and we love him and his insolent little heart.

She grabs the book and starts to open it. Cas wonders what she’s doing.

She tells them that God’s book has a new ending. Dean’s done and wants Jack back.

Meanwhile, the Empty recorpealizes and is D O N E. She drags Jack to her and just as she’s about to HURT HIM, he disappears.

He’s home, but Billie claims him. Dean doesn’t like that idea so he grabs Death’s scythe before she can ditch the bunker with the kid. He slices her arm and she sends him flying. Billie disappears without the book, her scythe, or Jack.

Later, the Brothers Winchester take a moment in the library. Dean apologizes for pulling a gun on Sam.

(Listen, if we’re going full Bicon clown with Dean these next couple of weeks, this shot reminds me SO MUCH of the shot of James Dean from Giant.)

He also breaks down that Chuck is probably now all powerful, they’re on Billie’s hit list, Jack’s powerless, and Michael’s in the wind. They toast to their impossible odds.

*Charlie and her cute GF Alert*

Stevie, the cutie from episode 3 is making perfect scrambled eggs for Charlie, and I’m dying inside. Charlie suggests a hunter’s date, and they smile and ARE CUTE, and I’m dying inside. The eggs are perfect, but this story isn't. Stevie just poofs away before Charlie’s eyes.

Cut to Dean and Sam checking out Charlie’s place to piece together what happened. Charlie tells the brothers that she didn’t see or feel anything before Stevie disappeared.

Outside, Cas waits with Jack. Cas asks how Jack is doing.

Jack feels “strange”. He doesn’t know how to feel now that he’s not needed for the big plan. Cas assures him that he wasn’t there to get absolution from the Winchesters. “We don’t care about you because you’re useful or you fit into some grand design. We care about you because you’re you.” BRB CRYING.

Jack is crying, I’m crying, and the world is crumbling. Jack is scared, and Cas, gripping his son’s shoulder, tells him that he’s scared too.

Inside, the brothers tell Charlie that they think that Billie’s killing people that shouldn’t be on Earth. Charlie gets upset and admits that she promised herself that she wouldn’t do “the love thing” again. Sam gets a call from Bobby. More people are disappearing. Dean points out that no one is safe.

Sam instantly thinks of Eileen AND WE HAVE EMOTIONS. They take off to find Eileen.

Sam texts Eileen as they drive, but doesn’t tell her what’s up. Sam watches the dots...until they disappear. Hahahahahahah, NOPE.

They get to Eileen’s place and find her purse and phone on the sidewalk.

She’s gone. “If I let myself go there, I’ll lose my mind.” AND WE’RE RIGHT THERE WITH YOU SAMMY.

Sam activates action mode. He tells the others that they need to protect the other hunters from Alt World. Dean tells Sam that he should do this, but he’s going to make Billie pay. “I’ll go with you, Dean,” Cas volunteers. OF COURSE.

We jump to a close up on Donna and her fabulous D-TRAIN license plate. Readers, I love her. She talks to Sam over the phone. She’s found a silo they can ward up and hide out in while Dean and Cas try to take out Billie. When Sam hangs up, he notices that Jack’s looking unrooted and gives him a job to do. Jack “has to drive” so that Sam can do work. Jack scooches over to the driver’s seat, ready to do something at last. Readers, I love Sam.

Dean and Cas arrive at the bunker and make plans to barge into Billie’s library. Dean plans to trash the place like a particularly unruly raccoon who breaks into a kitchen, until Billie arrives to stop them. He grabs Death’s scythe and they’re off.

When Sam and Jack arrive at the silo, Donna tells Sam that she’s there for him - whatever he needs.

The hunter network is on high alert, and Bobby’s got his AU crew holed away in the silo already. Charlie pulls up, transformed from her sunset bright t-shirt into apocalypse world Charlie again.

Sam joins the crew in the warehouse and reconnects with Bobby, who immediately informs him that Sam’s the boss of the operation. When Bobby told the hunters that Sam wanted them to head to the silo, “they came running, no hesitation.” ….Excuse me, I have something in my eye. They’ve warded the whole silo with every warding they can throw at it, and Sam’s using one of Rowena’s spells (EXCUSE ME, I HAVE SOMETHING IN MY EYE) to bolster the strength of the sigils.

Jack and Donna are painting sigils together, when Jack notices a plant. She recommends pulling it to protect the warding, but when Jack extends his hand it withers and dies.

Dean and Cas creep into the library, where Billie stands waiting for them. Dean tells her that they’re after her because she’s been killing off his friends. Her only reply is, “Interesting.”

Dean jabs Billie in her wounded shoulder, and the pain is high enough that Dean can get the upper hand. She holds the scythe at bay with just her hand, and Dean orders her to call off the hits. Billie laughs right in his face. She’s not killing anyone! Dean’s little papercut to her shoulder is enough to kill her, so her only plan at this point is to kill herself a Winchester and go out in a blaze of vengeance.

Sam powers up the warding in the silo, ready to defend against Billie. Meanwhile, Billie thinks Chuck’s the likely one who’s been disappearing people. Quickly enough, a little girl is the first to disappear. As her family breaks down into full freak-out mode, all the hunters hiding out in the silo flash away. ALL OF THEM.

Hey, if I have to suffer, you have to suffer.

Sam, Jack, and Donna can only watch this with horror and then Donna looks down at her hands. She smokes out too. NOOOOOOOOOO!

Billie power-smacks Dean across the room. It’s vengeance time! As much as I don’t want Those Two Idiots™ to die, it is lovely to see Billie storm around in battle-Death mode.

Dean and Cas race into the bunker without a plan, Billie in pursuit. It’s only moments before Dean is buckling. As he collapses, we reveal Billie on the balcony. I do love how this is framed!

She’s clutching Dean’s heart in her grip and pursues them through the bunker. “I’ve got you,” Cas tells Dean as he supports him. HELP, I’ve been murdered by emotion!

Cas directs them to the dungeon, grabs Dean’s pocket knife from his back pocket (I’m FINE, btw), and slices his hand. Quickly, he wards the door with a sigil, and Dean recovers instantly.

That is, he recovers physically. Emotionally, he is in ROUGH SHAPE. While Billie pounds away at the sigil, Dean realizes that they’re trapped. He blames himself - he was angry and needed something to kill and that’s ALL HE KNOWS HOW TO DO. f r o w n y f a c e

Dean’s in a pretty bad headspace. He thinks Billie’s going to break in and kill Cas, then himself, and then EVERYBODY ELSE. He apologizes, while Cas puts his strategic commander-of-garrisons brain to work. There is ONE thing that Billie’s afraid of.

Readers, it was at this point that Boris and I were shouting our usual gleeful shit at the TV. Things like, “Lay one on him, Cas, and the Empty can come!” And then CAS SAYS, “I made a deal.”

“Kiss ‘im,” I murmur while wondering WHAAAAAAT IS HAPPENING when Cas brings up the “moment of true happiness” requirement. At this point, I’m thinking they’re in the dungeon and it’s full of spellwork supplies probably. So, like, I guess they’ll light some quick candles and summon the Empty?

We fall silent as Cas starts talking about FEELINGS. “The one thing I want, it’s something I know I can’t have.” He says this RIGHT TO DEAN’S FACE. RIGHT IN OUR FACES. “Happiness isn’t in the having. It’s in just being. It’s in just saying it.”

We stop breathing.

And then Cas murders us forever when he shifts to talking about Dean. He knows Dean sees himself as a killer, a “blunt instrument.” But Cas sees him differently, and his way is true: Dean cares more than anyone Cas has ever met. He’s powered by love and not anger. “You’re the most caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know. Ever since we met. Ever since I pulled you outta Hell, knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam. I cared about Jack. I cared about the whole world because of you. You changed me, Dean.”

Cas is crying and we are murdered dead in our beds by this show.

Dean thinks it sounds like goodbye. “That’s because it is,” Cas tells him. And then he follows up with one last thing. “I love you.”

And...it’s there. The love we’ve seen in his eyes for eleven seasons is there, out loud, and centered on Dean. We joke a lot at ShirtlessSammy about the need to just KISS ALREADY but this flayed us in the way a kiss could never do. It heightens everything. Castiel’s care for Dean, his loyalty and friendship now have a new layer - that of textual, unrequited love. We’ve obviously been personally clinging to the destiel train car for quite some time, but laying out Castiel’s feelings and saying it’s enough for him to acknowledge them out loud is SO POWERFUL. As a love story, it’s tragic beauty. As a personal coming out story, it’s just BEAUTY.

For HARD TO PROCESS Science:

With this dropped between them, Dean can read the writing on the wall. “Don’t do this, Cas,” he begs. Immediately, gooey sounds begin to squish out from the brick wall behind Dean.

The empty swirls in, and Billie breaks through the door at last. Cas grasps Dean by the shoulder. “Goodbye, Dean,” he says, hurling him away from the twin threats.

In an instant, the Empty advances, swallowing Cas and Billie and retreating back into the wall without so much as a howdy. (Please join me for a displeased hiss at Billie’s apparent demise.)

Sam and Jack emerge from the silo, shocked. Sam tries calling Dean, while Jack looks around. Jack wonders if it was just the people in the silo who disappeared.

The camera POV pans out to abandoned playground equipment, still-spinning bicycle wheels, and cars left behind on the road. It’s the end of the world, and suddenly the world feels too big. Too lonely.

We cut to Dean. He’s on the floor in the same place Castiel threw him. His phone rings. It’s Sam. Dean stares at it, before dropping it to the floor. He pulls himself inward, and the episode ends on the sounds of choked sobbing.

Boris and I are monsters, as WE end the episode entirely too jubilant for words. Here’s to being right! Readers, while Boris can’t fully hope for a happy ending (gotta protect that heart), Natasha has zero doubts. We’re getting them back, damn it! And love’s gonna light the way.

Never Gonna Quote Me Away (From You!):

I don’t wanna hurt you. Don’t let me hurt you.

To somehow

I wanted to make things right. And now I don’t know why I’m here

Let’s go reap a reaper

I brought a bucket

I guess this is the part where I say, “Hello, boys”

It’s you, Dean. It’s always been you. Death defying. Rule breaking. You are everything I live to set right. To put down. To tame. You are human disorder incarnate

You think that hate and anger - that’s what drives you. It’s not. Everyone who knows you sees it. Everything you have ever done - the good and the bad - you have done for love.

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serendipitoustae · 3 years

Text

What Your Father Says

pairing : alt band! taehyung x reader

genre : college au, established reationship, fluff, implications of smut but not that explicit

word count : 7.8k

summary: your father doesn’t want you to be with taehyung but you simply do not care

a/n: loosely inspired by the vamps song because all i could think about whilst listening to it was rebellious teen romance.

“That ridiculous band have been wreaking havoc again” your dad sighed as he looked at the local paper whilst you ate your bowl of cookie crisp cereal. “Says here that they spray painted the local skate park before having a bonfire on the premises all for a silly little music video” he continued shaking his head.

“They were getting permission to do it” you told him before realising what you’d said “I mean I assume they did because they used to always ask before they did things for videos” you quickly added

Your boyfriend Taehyung was part of the local rock band that the majority of adults over 40 absolutely despised. They hated their style, their music and most importantly the so called trouble they caused in the name of art. Your dad had never been a fan of Taehyung no matter how polite he was whenever he came to your house. A couple months ago after you helped the band set off a load of fireworks in a car park, your dad forced you to break up with him. He didn’t want his precious little girl involved in that kind of thing. You’d never understood why he cared who you were with, he never cared about your life at all. He rarely even asked how your day was but to avoid arguments and tension in the house you “broke up” with Taehyung. As far as your dad knew you had no contact with him at all but of course you did. You weren’t going to break up with the boy you loved because your dad didn’t like him. Your mother knew you were still with him, she’d always loved Taehyung and was outraged when your dad suggested you broke up with him. She often covers for you when you go out with Tae and says you’re studying at a friend’s or simply that you’re ‘out’ because your dad really didn’t care that much about your whereabouts.

“I bet you’re glad you’re not involved with those trouble makers any more” your dad said as he turned the page of the newspaper

“Yeah I’m really glad” you said in a blunt tone before your phone went off

From: Mik

outside angel x

You’d changed Taehyung’s name in your phone to ‘Mik’, his last name backwards, so that if your dad saw your phone he wouldn’t know you were still with him. You looked out of the window and saw Jungkook’s truck on your drive way, Jungkook was the bands lead singer and despite being the youngest he was often the designated driver. Taehyung used to always drive you to college but since you ‘split up’ he’s been riding with JK so your dad didn’t recognise the car.

“Namjoon’s here I’ll see you later” you said

You always used your best friend Namjoon as a cover up for anytime you were going out with the band. Your dad loved Namjoon and often asked why you’d chosen to date Taehyung over him as he was so intelligent and sensible.

“Bye, send Namjoon my regards” your dad said not looking up from the paper as you left

“I will” you said as you walked out of the front door.

You opened the back door of JK’s truck and were instantly met with the sound of ‘something in the way’ by Nirvana one of the band’s biggest inspirations. Taehyung was sat in the back behind JK just in case your dad ever happened to look in the car. He didn’t actually know what the other band member’s faces looked like so if he saw JK you’d be able to lie about who he was.

“Hey baby” Taehyung grinned as he pressed a kiss to your lips the second you were sat next to him. You brought your hand up to cup his face as he nestled his ring cluttered hand in your hair and deepened the kiss

“Ugh! Guys come on it’s not even 9 am it’s too early for your pda” JK groaned from the driver seat next to Yoongi, the bands bass player.

“You’re just jealous you’ve not got a girl as hot as mine” Taehyung smirked as he wiped the remnants of your lip balm from around his mouth “is that strawberry flavoured?” he asked licking his lips to which you nodded “it’s nice” he said pressing another kiss to your lips. This one a lot shorter lived than the other.

“Can we just get to college before they fuck in the backseat” Yoongi groaned causing you and Taehyung to laugh.

The drive to college was fairly uneventful other than the boys talking about the big show they were playing at the end of the week. It was their biggest show yet and there would be a tonne of record labels scouting for new talent so to say they were nervous was an understatement.

“My dad heard about what you guys did at the skate park” you said

“Let me guess he said ‘aren’t you glad you aren’t with that absolute rapscallion Kim Taehyung anymore’” he said mimicking your dad with a pretty spot on impression

“Yeah pretty much” you laughed “you guys did get permission though right?”

“Of course we did, they said they’re thinking of demolishing the skate park soon so we’d be doing them a favour” JK explained.

When you got to college JK and Yoongi went straight to their music class but Taehyung walked you to your lesson as he always did even if it made him late.

“I’m perfectly capable of getting to class by myself you’re going to be late” you told him as you walked up the stairs to the art department

“It’s a music class, the teachers don’t give a shit about us so it doesn’t matter” he replied as you got to your class door

“If you get in trouble don’t blame me” you said

“I would never” he said as he pulled you into a quick kiss, you went to pull away as you knew your whole class was probably watching but he followed your lips and held you there for a bit longer

“I don’t think my whole class needs to see that” you laughed as you pushed his chest away from you

“Sorry that strawberry lip balm just tastes really good” he smiled licking his lips

“You can have it if you like it that much” you told him

“No it tastes better this way” he said quickly kissing you again

“Bye Tae” you said as you rolled your eyes and walked into your class.

Your lesson was off to an extremely boring start. There was only so long you could listen to your teacher talk about colour theory before you were ready do a Van Gogh and cut your ear off.

“I wish we could just get on and do some painting already” Namjoon whispered from his seat next to you, you agreed as you doodled on the page you were meant to be taking notes on. Even though he complained about it you could see Namjoon’s page was full of notes written in green biro.

Once you had finally got on with some painting your phone sounded from the pocket of your denim jacket.

“Phones on silent please” your tutor said, you knew it was Tae texting you because your phone was on silent but you had it on the setting so it would go off no matter what if it was him.

From: Mik

can you come outside please x

You looked up at the window of your class and saw Tae looking at you with his big puppy dog eyes. Despite the majority of your friends not caring for the school system at all you were somewhat of a goody two shoes. Tae was well aware of this so you knew he’d only want to get you out of class if he really needed to.

“Can I go to the toilet please sir?” you asked, your teacher said yes without even looking in your direction. You quickly left the class as you wanted to be out of class for as short a time as possible.

“I’m so so sorry I didn’t want to pull you out of class but I need to calm down because if I ditch again I’ll get expelled and I can’t get expell-“ Taehyung rambled before you interrupted

“Babe it’s okay what’s wrong?” you asked as the two of you began walking out of the art building

“So you know we’ve got that massive show on Friday, we wanted to practise for that in our lesson because obviously that’s our priority right now” Taehyung started as you entered the smoker’s area and he sat on one of the tables pulling out a box of cigarettes.

“Our teacher said we had to learn some shitty pop riff instead and obviously we should get an exception because we’re the only people in the class that actually give a shit about music but no, apparently they don’t give a shit about the biggest opportunity of our lives” he continued as he lit a cigarette with the lighter you’d painted for him and pressed it past his lips. The lighter had your own take on Van Gogh’s starry night as you knew Tae loved that painting. You’d done it so the moon was the Nirvana smiley face and you still remember the smile on Tae’s face when he’d received it for his birthday. After blowing out the smoke carefully to avoid getting any in your face he began speaking again.

“I refused to do the task and explained to the teacher why but she didn’t seem to care so she kicked me out for being disrespectful” he said taking another drag of the cigarette.

You felt bad for him, you really did. He’d gained such an awful reputation as a student for speaking out against the system. He hated being told what to do with an absolute passion. Obviously he listened to his teachers, but sometimes he just didn’t think they were fair and more often than not he was right. You stepped closer to him and rested your hands in the traffic light red hair at the back of his head, careful not to loosen his bandanna. You felt his entire body relax under your fingertips.

“I know you’re stressed about the show but I promise you could do it tonight and absolutely smash it so not much more practise is needed. I know it’s unfair and stupid that they won’t let you practise in your lesson but you’ve just got to suck it up, I know that isn’t what you want to hear but you know your parents will stop you from playing the show completely if you get in anymore trouble with school” you told him as you continued to play with his hair.

He sighed as he put his cigarette out in the ash tray beside him.

“I love you” he muttered as he dropped his head to rest on your chest “I’m sorry you have to put up with my bullshit”

You pressed a kiss to his head before pulling him up by a hand on his jaw so he’d look at you

“It’s not bullshit you’re passionate about your music and your teacher should understand that , I love you too please don’t think you’re something I have to put up with helping you is what I’m here for” you smiled

“Thank you, can you come over tonight please?” he asked

You knew you’d have to tell your mother in advance so she could make up a lie to your father as to why you weren’t home.

“Of course I can I’ve gotta get back to lesson are you gonna be okay?”

He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you into a tight embrace

“Yeah I feel a lot calmer now sorry for keeping you from your lesson” he said as he released you

“Stop apologising I’m here for you okay?” you told him once again holding his face so his dark eyes were looking in yours

“Okay” he grinned before pressing a kiss to your lips

“I’ll see you later” you said walking back to into the art department.

“Was I gone for suspiciously long?” you asked Namjoon as you carried on with your painting

“No not really, is Tae okay?” Namjoon asked obviously having seen him outside before you left

“Yeah he just needed calming down but he’s okay now” you said

“You’re really good for him you know he’s been so much calmer since you two got together”

Namjoon and Taehyung were neighbours so they grew up together and were still best friends now. That’s how you’d met Taehyung in the first place.

“What’s that noise?” you asked Namjoon as you sat at his dining table studying

“Oh it’s Taehyung and his band” Namjoon told you.

You’d seen Taehyung around as you spent a lot of time at Namjoon’s so it was inevitable you’d see him every so often. You’d never really spoken to him though oddly. You were quite happy about that fact though, he was extremely attractive so much so that it intimidated you slightly.

“They sound good” you said

“We could go watch them rehearse if you wanted? I think we’ve earned a study break” he smiled as he closed his textbook and removed his glasses.

You loved the sound of whatever they were playing but you weren’t sure if you’d be able to cope watching Taehyung playing drums and actually being in his company.

“No it’s okay I’m sure they don’t want us intruding” you said

“Oh come on I know you’re just scared because you think Tae’s hot” Namjoon laughed

You looked at him with wide eyes and furrowed brows.

“Did you think I didn’t know? You think I don’t see you staring at him through the window every time he gets home” Namjoon chuckled

“Okay fine let’s go then” you said as you stood up pulling your oversized Kurt Cobain t-shirt down as you did so.

You and Namjoon walked over to Taehyung’s garage and Namjoon let himself in as you assumed he’d done hundreds of times before

“Hey guys this is Y/N she thought you guys sounded cool is it okay if we watch you rehearse for a bit?” he asked.

The garage was painted a dark blue and covered in old rock band posters, it actually looked quite similar to your bedroom. Once you’d taken in your surroundings you looked at the three boys before you. The guitar playing lead singer was smiling at you as was the bass player, it was the sort of smile that made you feel like they knew something you didn’t. You looked at Taehyung as he was sat behind his drum kit running his hands through his dark hair as he shot you a small smile.

“Yeah that’s fine” Taehyung said as he twisted his red drum stick round in between his fingers.

Namjoon introduced you to all the boys properly and Yoongi told you he liked your outfit even though it was simply just a long t shirt with some fishnet tights. You sat on the sofa opposite their set up and watched them perform a cover of ‘Paradise city’ by Guns ‘n’ Roses. You were surprised that you’d never been friends with any of the band considering their style and music taste was very similar to your own.

After that day you realised Taehyung wasn’t nearly as intimidating as you thought he was. He was actually really sweet which most people wouldn’t assume from his leather jackets and the multiple metal hoops in his ears.

It took around a month after officially meeting for you and Taehyung to get together. All the boys had said from the second you met it was obvious you two would get together as you were just perfect for each other.

When your lesson had finished and you were off to lunch you and Namjoon met the band at their usual table. Once you were sat down you texted your mum telling her you’d be going round Tae’s tonight.

“Would you be able to sleepover tonight?” Tae asked as he rested his arm on the back of your chair.

Sleepovers with Taehyung were always harder to get away with. Your father wouldn’t allow you to sleep round a boy’s house not even Namjoon’s and unfortunately you had no girl friends that you were close enough to that they would lie for you.

“I don’t know I’ll have to think of some sort of excuse” You told him

“I was thinking we should all get new piercings so we look cooler for the show” JK announced

“Yes I am up for that idea” you answered knowing the statement didn’t include you but you would love to see your boyfriend with more piercings. He already had loads in his ears and one in his tongue that he got done when you got your nose pierced. You still remember the horror on your dads face when you came home with studs on either side of your nose. That was probably the start of his hatred for Taehyung.

“What would you like me to get?” Taehyung said as he faced you. He was so open to things like tattoos and piercings and didn’t really make a big deal out of them.

“A nose ring maybe?” you suggested excitedly

“Okay gorgeous, do you wanna go after college?” he asked to which you nodded.

“I was thinking of getting my eyebrow pierced” Yoongi said

“Okay great I’ll get my nose done too” JK said

“Are you gonna join us?” Taehyung asked Namjoon

“I’d pass out if I even saw a needle so I think I’ll just go home” he said

Namjoon was very different to the rest of you, he had completely different style and completely different music taste but you were still all great friends which you couldn’t be happier about.

Once you’d finished college for the day all of you minus Namjoon piled into JK’s truck and made your way to the piercing shop. It wasn’t the most amazing place but it was cheap and you didn’t have to make appointments.

Yoongi and JK went in to get their piercings first as you went in two at a time.

“I’m gutted we can’t even post a cute photo of us having almost matching piercings after I get it done” Taehyung said as you sat on the black leather sofa in the shop.

The chances of your father seeing anything you or Taehyung posted on social media were low but not zero so just to be safe you hadn’t posted anything accept for on your private stories.

“We can take some and put them up in your room maybe” you suggested

In the year and a bit that you two had been together Taehyung had made a photo wall of the two of you above his bed. There was photos from your dates, from his gigs and just stupid little selfies you’d taken together. You wished you could do the same in your room.

“You ready?” the piercing woman asked Tae as she came out with Yoongi and JK. Taehyung nodded and you both inspected the boys’ piercings before going into the room.

Taehyung laid on the chair like he’s done several times before and you sat in the chair opposite. You watched as the needle went through his nose cringing as you remembered exactly what that felt like. Despite his eyes watering slightly due to the pressure on his nose he was fine. After thanking the woman he came over to you standing close to you so you could see the piercing.

“It looks so good” you smiled

You both left the room before joining the other boys. They all had a proper look at each other’s piercings smiling as they did so.

“We’re gonna look so cool at the show” JK said everyone instantly agreeing.

JK dropped you and Taehyung back at Taehyung’s house and you were still thinking of a way to stay the night without your dad finding out where you were.

“Dad I’m home” Taehyung called as you both walked through the door

Taehyung’s dad came to meet you at the door quickly noticing the piercing

“Oh nice piercing, loving the outfit Y/n” he smiled

You’d always adored Taehyung’s dad, he was always so complimentary and supportive of you that it made up for what you lacked from your own father.

You and Taehyung went upstairs and you laid on his bed as he hung his jacket up on his door. He came and laid next to you before pulling out his phone to take photos of the two of you. You did multiple poses making sure you could see his new piercing. He also did a little video because he loved being able to take screenshots from them to have genuine photos of the two of you smiling together. Once he’d edited the brightness and vibrancy of the images he sent them to his Polaroid printer that he had. Once they’d printed he grabbed the ball of blue tack from his bedside table and added them to the photo wall.

“I’m so jealous of this wall” you told him as he laid back down with you

“Why don’t you just tell your dad we’re still together? I treat you well I’m polite I don’t see his problem” He said as he fiddled with your fingers that were rested on his chest

“I know it’s just that he thinks you’re a bad influence and think you’re the reason I dress like in his words ‘a groupie’ and the reason I got my nose pierced” you explained causing him to scoff

“You dressed like that before we even met properly and you’ve always wanted a nose piercing, it’s not like I’ve impacted your life badly your grades are still perfect and the only time I’ve got you in trouble was when I snuck us into that pool that one time” he said

You could feel his frustration through the way he was speaking and how he sighed after each sentence.

“Babe you don’t have to tell me I know , I just don’t want the argument with him and I don’t want him being an asshole to you” you told him you know your dad would eventually get over it but it would just cause a lot of problems in the house and there didn’t need to be anymore.

“Last time I checked we’re planning our lives together you’re gonna have to tell him at some point you’re almost eighteen he can’t control who you’re with” Tae said sitting up which made you fall to the mattress as you’d been laying half on his chest.

“Why are you blaming me?” you asked as he pulled his bandana off and ran his fingers through his hair.

“I’m not” he muttered

“Well it sure sounds like it” you told him

“I just don’t understand when you’re planning to tell him , he can’t really do anything about it and if he kicks you out or something you can just live here” he exclaimed

You sat up and looked at him. He was deliberately avoiding your gaze and you rolled your eyes at him.

“Well maybe if you didn’t have such an awful reputation then he wouldn’t want me to date Namjoon so bad” you said

You knew it was a low blow and something Tae often got jealous over but you couldn’t believe he was blaming you for your father’s disapproval.

“If it makes your life easier go fucking date him then! You know all the shit your dads heard about me is just rumours” he yelled instantly turning to you as he stopped.

“I’m so sorry babe” he said, he’d always had a rule that he’d never yell at you. There wasn’t a specific personal reason for you it just didn’t sit right with him. “It’s just so frustrating I treat you like a fucking princess and I still can’t get his approval because of things other people have said about me”

You didn’t mind that he’d yelled at you, you found the situation frustrating but it must’ve been even worse for him. Your dad used to somewhat like him but the bigger the band got the more rumours about him spread and eventually your dad didn’t care about the whole year he’d already got to know Taehyung.

“It’s okay I get it I’m sorry about the Namjoon comment you know I’d never want to be with anyone but you” you told him

He sighed and wrapped his arm around you

“It’s not okay I should never raise my voice at you I’m not mad at you I’m just mad at the situation” he said before kissing your head.

“I’ll see if I can talk to him at some point soon” you said

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m pressuring as long as I can be with you I don’t care” he said before pressing his lips to yours.

You gently moved your weight forward so he was laying down and your position was more comfortable. His hand gripped your hair as his tongue moved against yours the metal of his tongue piercing creating an icy contrast to the warmth of your mouths. He hummed slightly into the kiss as your hands travelled under his ‘Children of Bodom’ t-shirt. He sat up slightly, assisting you in pulling the shirt over his head before laying back down and pulling you further up his lap. You could feel the cold metal of his rings on your skin as his hand ran underneath the skirt you were wearing. It was then that your phone rang causing the two of you to groan at the interruption. Sitting up, still on his lap, you leaned over and grabbed your phone seeing it was your mum before answering it.

“Hello?” you said sounding more breathless than you’d hoped

“Hi sweetie there’s not a way I can convince your dad to let you stay out for the night especially as it’s a school night, he’s home late from work tomorrow so Tae’s free to come round here I’ll leave the house to you two” your mum said

“Okay thanks what time do you want me home?” you asked

“Eight pm latest”

“Okay see you then”

You hung up before tossing your phone on the bed next to you

“Take it you can’t stay” Tae mumbled against your neck as he pressed kissed up to your jaw

“No I’ve got to be home for eight but dad’s out all day tomorrow so you can come to mine” you told him as you tangled your fingers in his hair and leaned your head to the side giving him more access to your neck.

“Ooh sneaking about now are we?” he said as he trailed kisses back down to your collar bone “that’s hot”

You laughed at his words softly before you felt him bite lightly at your neck

“You can’t leave marks remember” you reminded him

“Not in visible places” he smirked as he undid the zip at the back of your skirt.

“Babe”

“Babe!”

You stirred at the mellifluous sound of your boyfriend’s voice

“What?” you groaned as you snuggled deeper into the warmth of his bare chest

“It’s almost eight I’ve gotta get you home” he said

“I wanna stay here” you whined still half asleep

“I want you to as well but you can’t” he said as he got out of bed gathering both of your clothes and underwear before dropping them in a messy pile on the bed “You gonna be able to walk?” he smirked as you did up the clasp on your bra.

“Don’t flatter yourself” you replied

“Excuse me” he grinned in false offence causing you to laugh

Once you were both dressed and you’d made yourself look presentable, he drove you home stopping a road before your street so your dad wouldn’t see.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, I love you” you said pressing a kiss to his lips

“I love you too” he told you as you got out of his car.

“I’m home” you said as you entered the dining room to see your parents

“Hi sweetie did you have a good time at Namjoon’s?” your mum asked

“Yeah it was great” you said

“Why does he never come in to say hello?” your dad asked

You look at your mum quickly “Uhm he’s a busy guy these days lots of studying to do” you lied as best you could

“he used to always come in when he dropped you home, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re secretly still dating Taehyung behind my back” he chuckled causing you and your mum to let out nervous laughs

“No never, I’d honestly forgotten about Taehyung until you mentioned him” you lied as if you hadn’t been laying naked in bed with the boy less than twenty minutes ago

“That’s what I like to hear” your dad said

You quickly exited the room and went to the bathroom before turning on the shower as you hadn’t had a chance to have one at Tae’s.

Once you’d finished and were in your pyjamas back in your bedroom you checked your phone.

From: Mik

my bed smells like you come back please i miss you

To: Mik

trust me i wish i could, almost thought my dad was onto us a second ago

You explained what your dad had said and discussed whether or not you thought your dad knew. You two had been so careful that there’s no way he could know and it’s not like your dad was that clued up about your life so you were pretty sure you were in the clear.

“Okay I’m going to be out as long as you want me out for later” Your mum said the next morning as she came into your room “I’ll tell your dad to let you know when he’s on his way home you’ve got to make sure you leave no proof of Taehyung being here though” she continued

It was risky sneaking Tae into your house whilst your dad was at work. You’d never done that since you “broke up” but you thought if you were careful it would be fine.

“Get him to come in the back door so that the neighbours are less likely to see, I’ll unlock it on my way out” Your mother added

“Okay I will” you told her before she left the house

Text From: Mik

house empty?

Text To: Mik

yep, come in the back door x

You had a couple hours until you had to be at college so you were hoping you’d be able to get some more sleep in whilst Tae was there. Within ten minutes you heard the back door open and footsteps coming up the stairs.

“Morning beautiful” Tae smiled as he entered your room instantly pulling his shoes off and climbing under the sheets next to you. His cold body sliced through the warmth you’d previously been surrounded by as he wrapped his arms around you.

“You’re freezing” You whined despite curling into his chest

“Would you rather I wasn’t here?” he said

“Of course not” you replied as his hands began playing with your hair.

You laid in silence for a while, simply enjoying the comfort of a sleepy morning together that you hadn’t been able to have for a while. When you were allowed to be together he’d stayed most nights and if he didn’t it was likely you were at his. You’d spend every morning wrapped in each other’s warmth having nonsensical half asleep conversations.

“I’ve missed this” he muttered into your hair but you had already fallen back to sleep.

You were wrenched out of what was a seemingly pleasant dream by the screeching of your alarm. Tae’s arms tightened around you as you rolled over in his embrace to turn the alarm off. You managed to sit up out of Tae’s arms slightly deciding that as he was already dressed he didn’t need to be woken up yet.

As you sat next to him you took the time to fully take in his appearance. The slow rise and fall of his chest signified his relaxed state as did the way his thick lashes that were smothered with eyeliner sat upon the flawless skin of his cheeks. His red hair that was once flat against his forehead was now sticking up in the air exposing the slit he’d shaved into his eyebrow a couple weeks ago. You were flooded with a sudden rush of adoration for the boy lying next to you, you never got to properly relax and appreciate him for what he was as you were always worried about getting home and making up excuses these days. He groaned slightly as he rolled over, his arms wrapping around the duvet you were previously laying under. You’d always found it endearing that the Kim Taehyung most people were intimidated by had to cuddle something in order to sleep, whether it be a pillow, a teddy or ,his preferred option, you.

“Stop staring at me you weirdo” he grumbled as his puffy eyes opened and met yours

“Is it wrong for me to appreciate how beautiful my boyfriend is?” you asked

“When you’re denying him morning cuddles it is” he said through a yawn as he made grabby hands at you

“I’ve gotta shower and get ready” you told him before ruffling his hair and getting out of bed

“Can I join?” he asked smirking at you

“No you cannot you can get me an outfit ready though” you laughed before heading to the bathroom.

Once you’d showered and put clean underwear on you walked back into your room and saw Tae sat at your vanity table his hair now a lot neater than when you’d left him.

“I chose the AC/DC t shirt and your red skirt” he said as he quickly stood up to grab the clothes “I was thinking you could where the long sleeved fishnet thing you wear sometimes with your red boots maybe to match the skirt” he said as he looked up at you with his pouty lips and wide eyes showing you he wasn’t sure if he’d chosen well.

“Yeah that sounds great” You smiled walking to your draw to pick out your fishnet top.

“You look so hot in that” he muttered as you pulled the fishnet shirt over your head “Shame JK’s getting us in ten minutes”

You rolled your eyes at him and the way he was like most boys constantly thinking about one thing.

“Don’t forget we’ve got all afternoon once we’re back” You reminded him

“How could I forget? My favourite person all to myself with no interruptions, it’s a dream come true” He grinned as he pulled you into him by your waist and pressed his lips to yours

“I’m starting to remember-“you said into the kiss “why we were late all the time when you’d stay here” you smiled as your arms wrapped around his neck

“That’s young love for you” he grinned as his hands began trailing down south

“Go downstairs so I can get ready with no distractions please” you said as you took his hands off of you

He feigned offence as he looked at you

“The one time your boyfriends here with you in the morning and you’re telling him to leave? The audacity” he said

You giggled at his expression

“You know I take ages to get ready even without distractions and you said it yourself JK is gonna be here soon so please”

“What if I don’t want to?” he challenged as he stepped closer so he was towering above you face inches away from your own

“What if I make it up to you later?” You shot back raising your eyebrow at him looking him up and down for extra effect

“Done!” he said before leaving the room

After being only slightly late to college you were in your usual spot next to Namjoon.

“Are you sure sneaking Tae into your house is the best idea?” he asked as he mixed his water colours

“My dad’s at work all day and my mum has left us the house so what can go wrong?” you asked

As much as you loved him, Namjoon didn’t have a rebellious bone in his body and would often make you think through your antics properly before you did them. You weren’t particularly rebellious apart from dating a boy your Father hates and consistently lying to him so that you can go and see said boy.

“What if your dad comes home early or what if one of the neighbours sees and tells him?” Namjoon said

“He’s going to text me when he’s on his way home and Tae’s going to go in the back door so the neighbours probably won’t see” you assured him

“Okay let me know if you need me to cover for you at all for any reason” he said

No matter how much he disagreed with your actions he’d always be there to help you if you needed it and for that you were eternally grateful.

Once you finished college you got JK to drop you home, you went in the front whilst he drove round the back to drop Tae off. You dropped your bag and walked through the house to open the door for Tae.

The second the door was open his hands were on you as were his lips. You stumbled backwards into your living room as Tae walked forwards, his lips still feverishly attached to yours.

“What’s the rush? We’ve got all afternoon” you asked as he started trailing his lips down your neck

“We never get to be this alone, I’m making the most of it” he mumbled as his lips reconnected with yours your dark lipstick now smeared all around his mouth. He continued walking the two of you backwards before grabbing the back of your thighs and pulling you up to wrap your legs around his waist. Taehyung carried you through the house for a second before pushing you up against the wall simultaneously pushing himself into you causing the both of you to groan slightly.

“As much as I love this just go to my room already” you said moving your lips only millimetres away from his to speak.

“What’s the rush? We’ve got all afternoon” he smirked mocking you

“Shut up” you rolled your eyes

“Gladly” he said as he reconnected your lips and began blindly walking to your bedroom.

Once you were there he dropped you onto your bed before taking his shirt and jeans off and climbing on top of you. You’d already taken your shirt off so he instantly placed his hands under your skirt and began pulling your underwear down with one hand whilst the other held your face. Seconds after you’d put your lips back on his you heard the front door open. Tae pulled back and you stared at each other with a similar look of horror.

“Y/n?” Your dad called

“I thought he was working late?” Tae whisper shouted

“He was supposed to be!” you replied as you quickly got up throwing your shirt back on and checking yourself in the mirror. You quickly grabbed a makeup wipe to get rid of the lipstick on your chin and neck.

“Y/n are you home?” your dad’s voice sounded again

“Yeah I thought you were uh working late?” You said as you made your way downstairs

Your dad was in the living room placing down his brief case and loosening his tie when you walked in

“I was meant to be but my meeting got cancelled, I was going to text you but my phones dead” he explained

Your mind was running a million miles an hour trying to work out a way to get Tae out of your house without your dad seeing.

“When you didn’t answer and I saw the back door was open I thought someone had broken in” your dad laughed causing you to laugh in return

“Sorry I had my headphones in” You lied avoiding eye contact with him. As you did so you noticed a pair of shoes by the still open back door. Tae’s shoes. How did you not even realise he’d taken them off? Anyone that had ever met Tae could recognise those shoes as his anywhere as they were covered in little doodles he’d designed. Your father was yet to see them but there was no way you could discretely hide a pair of size 10 Doc Martens.

“Would you mind getting me a beer?” your dad asked you as he sat down on the sofa

“Yeah of course” you said but you didn’t want to leave the room because you knew your dad would see Tae’s shoes if he wasn’t distracted by conversation. As you grabbed a beer from the fridge and were making your way back to the living room you heard your dad yell your name.

“Where is he?” your dad said as he met you in the kitchen

“Who?” you said knowing there was no point lying but not knowing what else to say

“Don’t play dumb with me Taehyung’s here his shoes are by the back door, god I thought he’d be smarter than to leave evidence of him being here right in the living room” he scoffed

“In his defence you weren’t meant to be home for hours” you said knowing it would just make the situation worse

“He’s upstairs isn’t he?” your dad asked despite knowing the answer and already heading upstairs

“Dad wait!” you called rushing after him, oh how you hoped Tae had put his clothes back on and wiped his face before your dad found him.

You trailed behind as your dad opened your bedroom door and saw Tae sat on your bed. You let out a sigh of relief as he was now fully clothed. “What are you doing in my house?!” Your father said causing Tae to jump to his feet “Dad it was my idea don’t be mad at him” you tried as you stood between them both but your dad dismissed you completely “She’s lying sir it was my idea I’m so sorry” Tae said You snapped your head towards him a his words “What are you doing!” you exclaimed at him “Dad I promise you it was my idea he’s just trying to protect me” you said turning back in your dad’s direction. “I don’t care whose idea it was I want him out now!” Your father shouted pointing at your door. Tae looked at you with an apologetic look on his face before walking towards your door. “Tae stop” you said causing him to look back at you “Dad what’s your problem?” “What do you mean? Isn’t obvious? Look at him!” Your dad exclaimed gesturing towards Tae “He looked like that when you knew we were together so what’s happened to make you hate him so much?” You asked as Tae made his way too your side Your dad sighed and sat down on the chair of your vanity table “For starter’s he didn’t have red hair and a nose piercing when I knew, I just don’t want my daughter involved in the antics him and those boys get up to” he explained His words made absolutely no sense to you and you were about to voice that when Tae spoke up “Sir if you don’t mind me saying the things the papers write about us and our music videos we always get permission for everything we do, we’d never do anything against the law and if we did I wouldn’t involve Y/n” Taehyung explained “I understand you’re protective of her as any father would be but I can confidently say I treat her perfectly and have given you no reason to think I don’t” he finished Your dad looked up at him and shook his head “I never said you don’t treat her well I know you do, but I also know what it’s like being in a rock band it starts out harmless and legal but the bigger you get the worse it gets and before you know it you’re all drug addicts and alcoholics and I just don’t want her getting caught up in that like I did” he said You never knew your dad had been in a band. You’d never think he’d ever have the guts to do something like that, he’s always been so sophisticated and quite frankly up himself as far as you were concerned. “How have I never heard about you being in a band?” You asked “Because it’s not a time I’m proud of and I wanted you to think better of me” he admitted causing you to laugh “I’d have thought better of you if you’d told me” “Well now you know , Taehyung I never asked for you two to split up as a personal thing I’m just afraid you’ll get into things like I did” You father said looking at Taehyung without disgust for the first time in a while. “You know how headstrong and stubborn she is she’d never do something out of peer pressure and would probably be the one stopping us from doing anything like that” Tae laughed smiling at you “I know you’d rather her be with someone like Namjoon I’m aware I’m not good enough for her but by some miracle she thinks I am so would there be any hope at all of you letting us be together?” Tae asked “Honestly I always knew she’d end up with someone a bit different and alternative and if you continue to treat her well and promise you won’t get her involved in anything bad then I suppose you can stay together” Your dad smiled “Seriously?” you asked making him nod

“Thank you! I promise I swear on my life and hers I will never involve her in anything bad” Taehyung grinned at him

“Thank you dad” you smiled as Tae pulled you into his arms

“This door stays open though!” Your dad said as he left the room.

“I can’t believe that was so easy I should’ve snuck you in weeks ago!” You said

“I told you if we just spoke to him it would turn out okay” Tae said

“so where were we?” he added as he kissed you running his hands under the hem of your shirt.

“We weren’t anywhere, not with my dad right downstairs” you laughed as he continued to trail his hands under your shirt

“That’s definitely not stopped you before”

33 notes · View notes

fatoujallovv · 4 years

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so here’s my disclaimer: I hardly know what I'm doing. This is my glued together homemade giffing method that I’ve created over months of just random experimentation and bits and pieces from all kinds of tutorials. there are probably better or more correct ways to do a lot of these things! this also isn’t a completely universal tutorial, some of the specifics are geared towards giffing skam, specifically skam france.

I gif in photoshop cc 2020 on a macbook. Some things like keyboard shortcuts and little things about the photoshop interface will probably vary if you are on a pc/ other version of photoshop!

this is very long and very unprofessional, but I hope there is something in here that someone will find helpful!

we’ll be going from this:

to this:

up to date as of October 25, 2020

downloading clips

selecting what part you’re going to gif

cropping

my action for resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening

coloring

exporting and setting the delay

tldr tips

1. downloading clips

4k video downloader (which you can get for mac or pc here) is great for things posted to youtube, especially from skam france because all the clips are on their youtube with no weird geoblocks or anything! it’s really easy, you just have to open the clip in youtube, copy the link, and go into the program and hit paste link. I like to put on smart mode first and set the destination folder so all my clips go into the place I want.

There is a 30 video per day download limit, so if you’re thinking you really want to gif lots of stuff from the show, and want a big chunk or a full season it’s definitely worth hunting for a mega or google drive with full episodes to download because it’s just less hassle! I might come back to this post later and compile a list of all of those, but for now if you type “[remake] no subs google drive” or “[remake] no subs mega” into a google search, you’ll probably find something! the all of skam website has no subs for several remakes, but not all!

If you don’t have enough space on your computer to be keeping full seasons, I know there are methods to get screencaps without having to download (generally for giffing movies and regular tv I think this is a common method), but I’ve never done it so I’ll redirect you to this tutorial that explains it! you should probably just go there for the whole thing tbh it’s much more coherent than this, but I digress.

2. selecting the piece of the video you want to gif

now that you’ve got your episode or clip you’ll want to just open it in photoshop! if you go the screen capping route the way to do that is a bit wonky, so you can keep following the tutorial I linked above and join back in here at coloring if you like!

if the timeline at the bottom doesn’t pop up automatically you can go to window > timeline and turn it on! now you can use the scrubber bar thing to find the moment you want to gif!

The advantage of this over screen capping is you can scrub with more precision. the arrows circled in blue below let you jump only one frame, where in screen capping I'm pretty sure you can only go by ten second or one minute intervals.

I usually drag the scrubber as close as I can to the start of the shot/moment I want to use, fiddle with the arrows circled in blue below to jump forward or back one frame at a time until I'm at the first frame I want. I move the left grey handle to the scrubber and then I hit the play button and let the whole shot/moment play. Pause and repeat the shuffling with the arrows until you’ve landed on the last frame you want to use and move the other grey handle.

the moment you want to use should be between your handles (it’ll look like what I have circled in red), and if you hit play, you should see the thing you want to gif playing on loop above the timeline. the speed will probably be weird, but we’ll deal with that at the end.

now I recommend doing command or control + s to save your gif as a psd (photoshop document). this is a working, editable file which means if photoshop crashes you can open your file right back up and keep working as long as you’re hitting command or control + s at regular intervals as you work. later we’ll go through exporting in gif format that can actually be uploaded to tumblr.

3. cropping

next I crop out any logos or black space at the top and bottom. Just click on the crop tool on the lefthand side of the screen, drag the edges and hit enter when you’re done. you can of course crop out more than just that, but regardless of what you crop out, now is the time to do it.

you can set an aspect ratio for your crop at the top of the screen if you’d like to be positive that all the gifs in your set will be the same:

4. my trusty action: resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening with one click

Now is when I use an action I made that does all the resizing, converts to a smart object, and sharpens. I’ll take you through the steps so you can conceptually get what’s going on, but I highly recommend using the actions window to record your process as you follow along so you have this action as well. It easily shaves at least 5-10 minutes off of the whole process, and these steps will be the same every time.

here’s how you make an action: go to window > action and open the action panel. click the plus symbol to start recording a new action:

in the window that pops up, give it a name and hit record:

now just continue with the steps below, and it will save them!

first you flatten frames to clips (I think it says flatten to layers on older versions of photoshop). this is in the menu at the top right corner of your timeline:

next you convert to frame animation by clicking on the symbol in the bottom left, circled in red:

if there is more than one thing in the frame animation, delete the extra one. you don’t need to keep the last one but it won’t let you remove it until there are other frames in there. also go into your layers and delete video group 1 and its contents. don’t ask me why these steps are necessary, I don’t really know, but I’ve noticed it sometimes gets wonky if you don’t do this:

now you want to make frames from layers and delete that first frame that was there before:

then we return to the timeline:

use command + option + a (control + alt + a for pc I'm pretty sure) to select all layers and then right click within your layers window and select convert to smart object. It’s important to convert to smart object after you go back to the timeline, or the gif won’t move:

next I resize. gifs for tumblr should be 540 pixels wide. for recording your action you should just go into image > image size and only change the width to 540 in case you ever have gifs cropped to different aspect ratios. don’t touch the height, let constrain proportions figure it out!

now, here’s what our base gif looks like, no sharpening, no coloring:

now to sharpen. go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. this is up to personal preference, but my go to settings are:

this is what we have after sharpening:

now is when you can stop recording your action.

just press the stop button in the action window:

this action is pretty much universal and after I select the moment the gif will be and crop however I want, I use it on every gif I make! so although this initial setup is tedious, now you’ll never have to do these steps again, and the process is magically much quicker.

5. it’s time to jump into coloring!

I typically start with exposure and sometimes some brightness/contrast. with really dark gifs like this, you kind of have to make it worse before you make it better. I did this:

now the gif looks like this:

we have some static and some ugly bits, and this is where selective color comes in to fix it! boost blacks like this:

and now your gif looks like this:

the skin tone is looking a little sickly and weird, so I go into the yellows and reds in my selective color layer to fix it! I also messed with the greens here because I didn't want color in the background (that part is totally optional and just up to your preference):

now we have this:

to really take the color 100% out of the background, I did one more separate selective color layer for cyan (again, I just felt like it but this is optional!):

and now the finished gif:

there’s lots of fun extra things you can add like text and tints and overlays and all that I won’t get into, but feel free to reach out for help on those types of things!

this gif was certainly not the most complicated to color. some ridonkulously dark clips (*cough cough* vendredi 20h27 *cough cough*) take tons and tons more effort than this and a lot of the time you’ll want to use color balance layers and vibrance layers and all of that to mess with your coloring.

with all of this coloring business, I really just learned by doing. I don’t know all the technical purposes of each type of adjustment layer, and I tend to stay away from curves just because I find them confusing and annoying. The bottom line is that you should always experiment and find out whatever coloring works for you and run with it! I’m sure every gif maker you talk to does things at least a little differently!

I highly recommend taking the time to go through all the types of adjustment layers and just move the sliders around to see what they do! That’s honestly one of the best ways to learn and decide what you like!

6. now to export and adjust the delay!

the keyboard shortcut for exporting on mac is command + option + shift + s, control + alt + shift + s for pc, otherwise you can go to file > export > save for web

my settings are here:

the settings only need to be configured once! otherwise just hit save and follow the pop ups to choose where to save and what name you want to give your gif. Since you saved as a psd way back, that will be the name it’s automatically given, but call it whatever you want!

then I adjust my delay by opening the gif I just exported (not the psd, the .gif file) and using one of my delay actions. I’ve made an action for each delay between 0.05 (real time) and 0.08 (really slow mo for certain super short shots, typically for more ~artsy~ sets).

all my action does is select all frames:

adjust the delay (which will differ based on whether you want them slowed down and by how much):

for reference, this is a 0.05 delay:

and this is a 0.08 delay

now you just export the same way you did before!

remember if you’re recording this as an action, you don’t want to touch the file name, just say yes when it asks if you want to replace the file. if you always save your gifs to the same place, your action will now enable you to override any gif with the incorrect delay with the correct one with one click!

7. tldr: the main tips

for downloading 4k video downloader works well for non geoblocked youtube videos, the all of skam website is another place you can look to download with no subs, here’s the screen capping method if you don’t want to download

The main way I combat dark lighting is to bump exposure to the right, gamma correction to the left, and then enhance black in a selective color layer. The amount of these three adjustments will vary gif to gif. I know lots of people use curves, but I find them really confusing for some reason, so this is my method! As my graphics teacher likes to say: there are always at least 3 different ways to reach the same result!

there’s a little bit of additional coloring on this one, but here’s another before and after example so you can get an idea of how those steps get you a better lit result without making the lighter parts super over exposed:

besides those three steps, you have free rein to use the other selective color channels, as well as color balance, vibrance, hue/saturation, etc. to restore color that was lost or to change the colors altogether! mess around with it and have fun experimenting!

7a. bonus coloring tip:

sometimes you can make use of selective color to completely alter an isolated color in your gif. You can get very adventurous with this, but here's a simple example of changing blue tones to teal (I got away with these gifs being longer because they were in rows of two in the set I posted them in. I'm too lazy to trim frames so I can put them here at 540 px without going over the 10mb limit so just ignore the quality ok):

7b. actions, actions, actions!

if you find yourself doing a certain thing over and over, always record it as an action. the amount of time they will save you is honestly really impressive.

You can duplicate actions, so, for example, if you have different sharpening preferences for different shows or scenes, you can duplicate your gif process action and go into the steps, double click smart sharpen, and alter it however you want!

This could also be good to do for the different widths for tumblr if you ever do sets with rows of two or three! Duplicate actions is also how I made my actions that set delay at 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, and 0.08!

when in doubt, always make an action! it’s worth minimizing the tedious bits of the process as much as possible so you can focus on the fun part of seeing your awesome gifs come to life! any little task you find yourself doing often, make an action!

and for now that’s all I have. if any of this made no sense, if you want to suggest a correction or addition I could make, if you’re ever curious how I did something on any gifs I post, or if you have any other sort of questions, feel free to send me an ask or a dm! if I can’t answer your questions I’ll be happy to try to direct you to someone who can or a tutorial to help! again, I'm no expert, not even close, but I hope at least one person will find one thing in this mess that helps.

#this got . so long omg #mystuff #mytutorial #gif tutorial #tutorial #resources #fellow gif making peeps feel free to correct me or give input on how to improve or add to this tutorial!

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shemakesmusic-uk · 3 years

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youtube

Wallice has shared her subversive new single 'Hey Michael'. 'Hey Michael' amplifies her blood-thirsty nature, a revenge anthem that finds Wallice turning into a worse villain than her erstwhile love interest. A song about toxic tendencies and how they manifest in our lives, 'Hey Michael' twists and turns around American Psycho imagery. Wallice labels "a revenge anthem for anyone who has encountered a gaslighting, manipulative person. It’s what I wish I would have said to all the ‘Michael’s’ I have met in my life. It can be substituted by many names, we all know or have met a ‘Michael’ though. Somehow the world revolves around them and they just can’t catch a break, because they never do anything wrong and it’s usually your fault. You should have listened to your gut instinct and swiped left on this Michael. This isn’t a man-hating song, it’s just something many people can relate to. Sometimes it’s embarrassing to admit just how bad a friend, date, or romantic partner was and a lot of the time, I would just smile and laugh off stupid remarks but when I think back, I wish I had told them off. But at the same time, my persona in the song is not the best person either. I literally say: I think I want to start a fight, which one is your girlfriend? The whole song is funny because I am so focused on how shitty Michael is that I don’t even think about how shitty I might be as well." Directed by Phil Stillwell, the video takes place at a house party, with Wallice interacting with various 'Michaels' before her behaviour spirals into something much, much worse. [via Clash]

youtube

In the same vein as Massive Attack’s suburban groove and social commentary in the mid 90’s, KITA have captured the rhythm and heartbeat of suburban Pōneke; a city abuzz with a vibrant music and dramatic performance scene in their brand new track and official video, ‘Private Lives’. Weaving together elements of vintage rock, pop and soul, and warm hints of synth, KITA have created a skin-prickling piece of magic with ‘Private Lives’, a deeply beautiful track penned in 2020’s lockdown, that delves into the unknown of what happens when the blinds are shut – the parts of life that are unseen by others. "Standing from my kitchen window during lockdown in Aotearoa, sinister thoughts entered my mind about what could be happening behind closed doors for people”, says front-woman Nikita 雅涵 Tu- Bryant. The video tells the story of a father and daughter’s relationship amongst snapshots of everyday life and its monotonous anonymity, while things aren’t always what they appear on the surface. Late at night the father can finally reveal his true self, adorning makeup and sequins, only to be spied by his daughter. The two then share a special moment of dressing up and dancing together, a true celebration of individuality, self-love and the beauty of self-expression.

youtube

'Just Chemistry' is the third single from Dance Lessons, a London-based, female-fronted and produced trio, creating what they define as Serrated Pop. 'Just Chemistry' is a delicate hymn to the unspoken. Dance Lessons return with their signature sound – minimal production, sleek vocals and intricate arrangements. Ann says: “'Just Chemistry' is about the over-complication of our relationships. It’s about the things that are left unsaid in-between the awkward text messages and conversations, and how the absence of knowing can be misinterpreted as doubt. Last year was a difficult one. For a long time, I felt at the mercy of my emotions. I doubted where things were going. I lived in the future and found it hard to commit to the present. But these moments of not knowing can be equally thrilling and beautiful. And that’s what the song is about: finding beauty in the unspoken. In most cases, it’s chemistry that makes us fall in love. Things end, all is temporary. Let’s not go to war with one another over it.” Nat says on the video: “A friend told us about this weird and wonderful house in North London that feels a little like stepping into an acid trip. We obviously wanted to check it out. It’s completely surreal, all over the place (in a great way) and generally eclectic, which felt inherently us. We instantly wanted to do something there and asked the owner for permission to shoot a music video. We filmed during lockdown and were let loose embracing all the oddness of it. Ann also designed and created the outfit she wears in the video, something she does with most of her wardrobe. It was shot, directed and edited by our hugely talented friends Ben Hanson and Simon Frost from Borderland Studios.”

youtube

Returning with her first offering of the year, North London’s rising star Laurel Smith is ready to reveal her anticipated new single, ‘Out the Cage’ accompanied by an action packed and thrilling cinematic style music video directed by Jeremie Brivet and Jai Garcha. Sticking to her winning recipe of moody, dark, electro-pop production paired with effortlessly edgy tales of narrative lyricism, ‘Out the Cage’ is the next huge single from the young, innovative artist that is sure to follow the same trajectory of success as its predecessor, ‘Game Over’ released late last year. A songwriter and recording artist, Laurel Smith has been writing songs since the age of sixteen. With each single she’s released, Laurel has continued to adapt her sound and aesthetic, consistently honing her craft and evolving her brand. She has carefully carved out her place in an ever crowded industry and proceeds to turn heads at every corner. “‘Out The Cage’ is a song about breaking out from your constraints, both physical and mental. Although it can be interpreted in any way, when I wrote it I created a story around a bored housewife, falling out of love with her husband, she fantasises about tying him up and leaving him to be a badass assassin in a video game type world, roaming the city at night and living a life of unpredictability and excitement”.

youtube

Hailing from the Philippines, singer-songwriter Laica is coming off a breakout 2020. Now the 21-year-old is gearing up for the release of her debut album I’m so fine at being lonely. The first single off the project, 'love u lately' is here, accompanied by a music video directed by Cooper Leith. 'Love u lately' is a relatable and infectious track. The song revolves around dating, understanding mixed signals, and the confusion that surrounds that world. Lyrically, Laica walks us through her experiences here, voicing her thoughts and frustrations about someone who she just can't seem to read right. Production-wise, the track is carried by a pulsing synth and a groovy bass. Together, the track feels upbeat. The vibe created by the production stands in contrast with the more emotional lyrics, making the track complex and interesting. The music video takes the concept of 'love u lately' to the extreme, in a fun and playful way. Laica is seen capturing her dream boy and attempting to use witchcraft to finally win him over. The video has a very DIY feel, which could serve to add to the reliability of the track. It’s a great extension of the track and taps into everyone’s most fantasy-driven realities. [via Earmilk]

youtube

At first, Emily C Browning wasn't sure what to think. Spurned, rejected, and cast aside, she was angry, furious, and - at times - utterly bereft. Usually she'd utilise songwriting as a vessel for her emotions, but when she was so conflicted, and feeling so negative, that it just didn't enter her mind. The Christchurch, New Zealand artist needed to take a step back, and when she located some perspective, she was ready to act. New single 'I Wasn't Into You Anyway' is a soaring slice of revenge, one that finds Emily C Browning taking full control of her music. Her first solo production credit, its reminiscent of those surging, empowering Maggie Rogers bops, while also containing similar DNA to Sharon Van Etten's work. Lyrically, it's absolutely her own creation, with Emily leaning on those often-hidden feelings. She comments... "Everyday for a month I wrote in my journal: I want to write a song about feeling rejected. But I couldn’t figure out how to keep it light and funny, it can be quite a painful topic and I didn’t want to sound too heavy. But I kept working on it everyday and came up with this song. I then spent another month recording it, trying to capture a sound that stayed upbeat and playful. I put so much time and energy into the song that I ended up completely forgetting about the person who rejected me in the first place (honest, I swear)." [via Clash]

youtube

Alt-pop force Holly Humberstone returns with new single 'Haunted House'. The songwriter's potent debut EP Falling Asleep At The Wheel was a sensation, racking up more than 100 million global streams. A bona fide phenomenon, Holly returns with a single that displays a more nuanced, reflective side to her work. 'Haunted House' digs into childhood, and looks at the way memory can frame the way we construct our identities. She comments: "I wrote this song about the old and characterful house I grew up in. The house is such a huge part of who I am and our family. With my sisters and I moving out and living separate lives, coming home feels very comforting and one of the only things keeping us all connected." Playing with concrete imagery and no small degree of invention, 'Haunted House' connects art to life in an enchanting fashion. She adds: "The house is almost falling down around us now though, and we’ve realised that pretty soon we’ll be forced to leave. There’s a cellar full of meat hooks and a climate so damp mushrooms grow out of the walls. Loads of people have probably died here in the past but I’ve always felt really safe. It’s like a seventh family member. It’s part of me." [via Clash]

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In 2019, the Boston-born and Brooklyn-based indie rock album Crumb released their debut album Jinx. Crumb haven’t yet announced plans to follow that album up, but they’re definitely working towards something. Last month, the band came out with a one-off single called 'Trophy.' Now, they’ve followed that one with two new tracks, and they’re both winners. The new songs 'BNR' and 'Balloon' both fit nicely into Crumb’s comfort zone. The band’s sound is a rich, sophisticated take on psychedelia, with blissed-out lead vocals from Lila Ramani and with some great funky drum action. The band co-produced both songs with Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado, who’s done great recent work with people like Father John Misty and Weyes Blood and the Killers and who knows how to make oblique ’70s-style pop sound good. But Crumb themselves deserve a ton of credit for coming up with a sound this layered and weird. They’re the rare circa-2021 band who might remind you of Broadcast. In a press release, Ramani says, “‘BNR’ is an ode to my favorite colors. I had a weird obsession with those colors in winter 2018-2019 and felt like they would follow me around everywhere I went." 'BNR' also has a cool music video. Director Joe Mischo starts the clip off as a hallucinatory reverie, but he turns it sharply towards horror at the end. [via Stereogum]

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Last year, Limerick poet/musician Sinead O’Brien released her debut EP, Drowning In Blessings. It was a unique work, a handful of songs featuring O’Brien’s sing-speak over spindly, post-punk guitars. It garnered O’Brien a bit of buzz overseas, and it left you wondering where she might take her music from there. Now, O’Brien’s back with a new song called 'Kid Stuff.' “‘Kid Stuff’ shows up all different tones on different days,” O’Brien said in a statement. “There’s something alive in it which cannot be caught or told. It is direct but complex; it contains chapters. This feels like our purest and most succinct expression yet.” Like Drowning In Blessings, 'Kid Stuff' found O’Brien working with Speedy Wunderground mastermind Dan Carey. Musically, it hints at a level up moment for O’Brien. There was something alluring and jagged about Drowning In Blessings, but 'Kid Stuff' places her usual approach over a song that is surprisingly groovy — maybe even a little danceable. It comes with a video directed by Saskia Dixie. [via Stereogum]

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Das Beat are made up of German actress and vocalist Eddie Rabenberger and Agor of Blue Hawaii. The pair have just shared their first single 'Bubble' online now and are set to release their debut EP Identität on June 4 via Arbutus Records. Born in Berlin during 2020’s legendary lockdown, Das Beat seeks to blast both boredom and boundary. Dabbling in German New Wave, Italo Disco, Indie & Dance, their sound is unified by vocals from Eddie Rabenberger, sung in German and English. Amidst playful lyrics one finds a strong underlying pulse (das “beat”), pinning down the duo’s meandering atmospherics, dreamy synths, guitars and percussion. The duo is half-Canadian and half-German. Agor (of Blue Hawaii), moved to Berlin from Montreal in 2018. Eddie is a theatre actress originally hailing from a small town in Bavaria. Together they find a strange but alluring symbiosis - like Giorgio Moroder meets Nico, or Gina X Performance meets The Prodigy.

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St. Vincent has fully embraced the ’70s aesthetic for her retro-sounding new record, Daddy’s Home. Now, she’s diving headlong into the animation styles of the era with the video for 'The Melting of the Sun'. Presented as a “betamax deluxe release” rip from “Candy’s Music Video Archives,” the clip blends live action shots of St. Vincent herself with the wavy, intermittent animation frames any Schoolhouse Rock student is familiar with. The psychedelic lines fit a song called 'The Melting of the Sun' perfectly, as do the drawings of the legends mentioned in the song’s lyrics like Nina Simone, Joni Mitchell, and Tori Amos. St. Vincent co-directed the clip with Bill Benz, while Chris McD provided the animation. [via Consequence]

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Bay Area slowcore trio Sour Widows have released a new single, 'Bathroom Stall,' from their forthcoming EP Crossing Over, which they announced last month with its title track. The song’s build-up is subtle and poignant like Sufjan Stevens, but Maia Sinaiko’s evocative, sweeping vocals are one-of-a-kind, and the lyrics are graphic and tragic: “Do you remember it like I do?/ Your lips turned blue I had my fingers in your mouth/ And I couldn’t get them out.” Sinaiko said of the song: "This song is about a relationship I had with someone who struggled with addiction, who very tragically passed away three years ago while we were together. It’s about some moments we shared, and how it feels to walk around carrying that person and those experiences with me while the world stays normal. I wrote the song because I wanted to preserve and document what happened to me. to write out the scary stuff and just let it sit there forever. I think its funny that its called 'Bathroom Stall' and that it has that image in it: the song goes from heavy and dark to ordinary and totally pedestrian in a sentence, which feels absurd. And that’s kind of what it’s like to grieve. That’s kind of what’s hard to explain about grief, how absurd it is. Part of you goes to a different planet and part of you stays walking around like an alien on Earth, going to the bathroom and looking at the moon and shit." [via Stereogum]

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As JUNO-nominated singer Kandle Osborne prepares to launch her new project, Set The Fire this spring, she shares the album’s third single, 'Misty Morning.' From being penned on a napkin while abroad to a Vancouver studio, 'Misty Morning' is a sonic journey that echoes soulful vulnerability and an honest reflection of realizing true love. For the video, Kandle reconnects with 'Honey Trap' director, Brandon William Fletcher, to create classic 40s noir-inspired cine-magic, filmed along the Vancouver coastline and within the lush landscape of Stanley Park. Kandle says: “‘Misty Morning’ is my first real love song, captured on a napkin while in Ischia, Italy when I was truly happy. My songwriting usually comes from a place of turmoil and catharsis, but this was simply a snapshot of a perfect, vulnerable moment. In recording it, I wanted to hide behind lush orchestration, but my producer/ best friend Michael Rendall had other ideas. He wanted to strip it down to just piano & a single vocal to take me out of my comfort zone and re-capture the open-hearted feelings I had while writing it. The song and the recording both hold for me a time when I dropped my guard for pure authentic love in spite of all my flaws and failures. In that moment, I felt my true value as a whole person for the first time.”

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On 'Vertigo,' Alice Merton’s first single of 2021, the 27-year-old describes the long road from uncertainty back to self-confidence. It emphasizes the unrest that seizes her again and again, the thought: “Why can’t I just let it go?” These contradicting thoughts and emotions that are so familiar to all of us sum up to an overwhelmingly positive effect - 'Vertigo' leaves you empowered rather than anxious: A powerful indie pop arrangement with distorted guitars, plus Alice Merton’s crystal-clear voice. The result is reminiscent of the British Invasion, with no air of self-doubt. With its energetic live qualities, 'Vertigo' feeds an appetite for summer festivals and concerts that will definitely return at some point. Largely responsible for this is the Canadian producer Koz, a multiple Grammy nominee, who has worked with Dua Lipa ('Physical') among others. Here, too, he adds on to what has already made Alice Merton stand out from the crowd in the past - her classic pop appeal - with an uncompromising and indie attitude. This enables Alice to take another big step: She equally encourages a shaken generation and herself that there will be easy summers again. That you can dance again and lie in each other's arms. That it is absolutely fine to have many facets, to not always be clear, and that strength and weakness are not mutually exclusive.

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Canadian artist Olivia Lunny's new release 'Sad To See You Happy' is a shamelessly poppy track centering an acutely relatable break-up narrative. The Canadian artist follows up her breakthrough success with a bouncy cut to soundtrack 2021’s long-awaited spring. There's a relatable tale of break-up at the heart of the gloriously poppy new single, belied by percussive instrumentation that creates a warm, nostalgic feel. [via Line Of Best Fit]

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After sharing the single last month, Charlotte Adigéry is now revealing the brand new video for ‘Bear With Me (and I’ll stand bare before you)’. The first new music since her 2019 debut EP Zandoli, Charlotte says of the video, “The video is about being confined thus confronted to the way we live. The cruel irony of having the privilege of standing still, questioning and observing my life in all safety while others are fighting for theirs. On the other hand, the video is about trying to stay sane while feeling that the walls are closing in on you. Embracing boredom and finding joy in the little things in life.” Director Alice Kunisue adds, “When I listened to Charlotte’s song and what it meant for her and Bolis, I wanted the video to visually encapsulate that feeling of being stuck inside and confronted to our deeper selves while paradoxically sensing the chaos going on in the outside world without being able to do anything about it. Choosing to film an apartment room from one single angle was a way to reflect that narrowness of thought that we all experienced, but also a constraint that allowed us to explore and develop visual ideas within a narrow system, in a way having to think only inside the box, which artistically was a fun challenge.” [via DIY]

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Millie Turner has shared a video for ‘Concrete Tragedy’. It’s a cut from her upcoming mini-album Eye Of The Storm, set for release on May 16, which also features a rework of breakout song ‘(Breathe) Underwater’. “This video is a visual representation of dancing on your own,” she says of the clip. “Combining the many parts of who we are when we’re by ourselves, I wanted it to feel like you’re entering a world of imagination that comes alive when we express ourselves.” [via Dork]

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Doja Cat and SZA have come together for a new single called 'Kiss Me More.' When the song was announced Wednesday night, the internet flipped out, which is to be expected with these two — especially Doja Cat, who is regularly going viral these days for all kinds of reasons. When it comes to collaborations, she always finds the best people. That includes Saweetie, who appeared on Doja’s recent 'Best Friend' but then claimed that it was released against her wishes. Given SZA’s long history of public frustration over TDE Records holding back her new album, she is probably happy to have any new music out. Despite recent single 'Good Days' hitting the top 10, her restless fanbase is still awaiting a follow-up to 2017’s iconic Ctrl. 'Kiss Me More' is the first single from Doja’s new album Planet Her, scheduled for release this summer. It returns to the disco vibes of Doja’s #1 hit 'Say So,' this time with no apparent resemblance to any Skylar Spence song. [via Stereogum]

#videos of the week #wallice #kita #dance lessons #laurel smith #laica #emily c. browning #holly humberstone #crumb #st. vincent #sour widows #kandle #alice merton #olivia lunny #charlotte adigery #millie turner #doja cat #sza

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