#i was able to find myself by zooming in to find my red and blue hair

[gets-eeby-deebied]

couple days late but here’s me at So Much (for) Charlotte lmao

link to the instagram post under the cut

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[positivexcellence]

Catching Up with Gen Padalecki

The run up to the holidays is packed with parties and festive events, gift buying, travel prepping and wrapping up all the loose ends of the year. Add to that running a business and a book club, acting, being a wife (to actor and entrepreneur Jared Padalecki) and mama of three (two boys and a girl), and things are busy for Genevieve Padalecki. We caught up with Gen, and talked about things from family and their new farm to two of her passions, books and towwn. Short for Take Only What You Need, towwn is a site she started with longtime friend Kelly Mickle to help people sustainably win the battle against burnout, both for themselves and the planet, with tips from eco-friendly kitchen swaps and sustainable sandals to self-care.

You’ve lived in Austin for more than 12 years, what advice would you give someone new to Austin? 

Embrace the weird, always say ‘hi’ to your neighbor, don’t judge opinions and views that might differ from yours, rather try to understand where others are coming from.  

What do you love about living in Austin? 

I love the eclectic collaborative community. I've always felt like I could be completely myself here.

What are you most looking forward to this holiday season? 

Family time.  

How are you and your family celebrating the holidays this year? 

We are doing things differently this year and giving our family an adventure.

What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? 

I love all the decorating, crafting, and meal making. I find it therapeutic and I love when my kids propose the activity.

Do you have a recipe you love to make around the holidays? 

We love cooking during the holidays and all the kiddos love to contribute. It can range from a great lasagna to a medium rare steak (cooked by our 10-year-old), to my husband's favorite, tomato soup with grilled cheese croutons.  The holidays are so fun and gathering with friends and family for a meal is the best part.

How long have you had your book club? 

I started my book club when we went into lockdown.  I wanted a way to connect with people and have an outlet.  I reached out asking for a “this or that” book pick for the month and Southern Book Clubs’ Guide to Slaying Vampires was a fan favorite.  Next thing I know Grady Hendrix and I are zooming and chatting about his book.  It’s been a wild couple of years and I am so inspired and feel so incredibly grateful for all the insightful, thoughtful and thought-provoking, stunning and beautiful writers I have been able to meet, converse and collaborate with because of it.

What are some you’d recommend for gifting this year?  

Pony, Red, White and Royal Blue, The Overstory, Tribe, Letters to a Young Athlete, Why We Sleep and Into Thin Air.

How do you consume books? Do you prefer real books, audiobooks, kindle? 

I prefer old-fashioned books I can hold in my hand. There’s something so wonderful about the sensory experience, the weight, the pages in between my fingers, turning a page, the smell of the binding. It just adds to the experience and for me is a delectable rush.  I also love a good audiobook, especially with all the driving I do, but it all depends on the narrator.

What’s new with towwn? 

towwn is growing so quickly and we’re incredibly proud of our community. We just launched our TikTok channel to help spread our anti-perfectionism message about the planet and ourselves to reach new audiences. We’re also building an informative and fun newsletter.

What do you hope to see in the evolution of TOWWN in 2023? 

Our main focus is reaching people who want to find solutions to burnout for themselves and the planet, regardless of background and politics. We’re looking at hosting more events where we can bring people together for these kinds of conversations, curating products to help people solve these challenges. You can learn more on our Instagram @towwn.

You and Jared recently bought a farm…

Yes, we love nature and I’m obsessed with soil health and regenerative farming. I’m hoping we slowly let the land speak to us and thoughtfully nurture biodiversity and tend to the soil as best we can. I’d like to have rotational cover crops as well as grazing animals to contribute to this beautiful symbiotic relationship. It’s also nice having a refuge for our family to get messy and breathe in and get lost in the woods so to speak.

What accomplishment are you most proud of in 2022?

I'm most proud of my family.  They are what I am so grateful for.

You went back to ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ this season in flashbacks, any desire or plans on the horizon to return to more acting? 

Definitely, if it works for our family schedule.  

You and Jared have been married 12 years, any advice on having a marriage with longevity? 

Marriage is the best and most amazing adventure in the world. And like farming, there are some good seasons and not so great ones. Marriage takes a lot of love and nurturing. Throughout our lives we change and evolve into many different people. So, in a partnership, you’re both constantly growing and it’s impossible to always grow together, whether in parallel lines or intertwined at the same time. The best advice that’s been helpful for me is to take time and try and understand where your partner is coming from, and before reacting to anything that maybe feels a bit incendiary or frustrating, give it 24 hours.

What’s something one of your kids did lately that surprised you or made you laugh?  

Well, I'm currently watching my 8-year-old try and tell me U2 is the best band of all time I had no idea he knew U2!  My oldest sang a song in mandarin at a school talent show and my youngest gave her best ‘Hocus Pocus’ rendition dancing on our kitchen table - all in the last 24 hours! I don't know why I'm surprised by their theater bug, but clearly it's shining through.

Quick Fire Questions

Favorite book of 2022: Four Treasures of the Sky by Austin’s own Jenny Tinghui Zhang was outstanding - and it was her debut novel

Last show you binged: House of Dragons & The Bear with Jeremy Allen White

Favorite method of self-care:  Taking a time out for myself and remembering to be kind to myself and set that example.

Favorite restaurant to eat out: Emmer & Rye, Soto, WuChow

Favorite place to order in: Torchys

Go-to cocktail: Extra dirty martini or a good old fashioned beer is really my fav.

If you could have one superpower: To go back in time

[voraciousvore]

The Giant (12/16)

***Contains mouthplay***

------Chapter 12------

When I awakened, I was sore all over, wet, and still fatigued. I groaned, and forced myself up, brushing mud off my pants. The sun was clearly visible in the sky now, and the rain had ceased, but I still shivered from the damp cold. While my current circumstances were not the best, I nevertheless considered myself lucky to be alive and undamaged. I started walking along the road again, careful to stay hidden from the occasional car that drove by.

I wondered how far I had to go. At this size, what was a short drive in a giant car could potentially take days for me to traverse by foot. Days in wet clothes, sleeping on the side of the road, living in fear. I was hungry too. I sighed. As always, I had to be strong.

I wondered if Chester was out looking for me, or if he'd be home when I got there. If I ever made it. He was probably terribly distraught. He had no clue where I was, and couldn't track me due to the rain. Finding me would be nothing short of a miracle. What if he thought I ran away? No, he wouldn't believe that. He might be able to discern with his sensitive nose that I had been taken by force, by that sadistic monster of a man.

I didn't want to be reminded of that. To distract my troubled thoughts, I took in my surroundings. While this world was dangerous to me, it was also strikingly beautiful. I saw a doe with her fawn cross the road. Since I was so tiny, the deer weren't afraid of my presence, and mostly ignored me. I passed through some wildflowers, which leaned over me as tall as human-scale trees and blossomed in all sorts of bright colors. The shadows stretched and deepened as the sun began to dip down towards the horizon behind the trees. The sunset bathed everything in orange and red before fading to a deeper blue. The sun disappeared, to be replaced by the rising yellow moon. Stars unfamiliar to me studded the heavenly firmament like sparkling diamonds.

As I trekked through the darkness of the evening, I saw a pair of large glowing eyes watching me from the woods. The eyes grew closer, unblinking. My heart started to race. A car zoomed by noisily and the eyes vanished. I gripped my chest and let out a shaky breath. I couldn't handle much more of this hell, I really couldn't. I wasn't sure if I could survive the night out here, or another day for that matter.

The traffic of cars had waned with the onset of night, but I noticed one car driving up the road, moving unusually slow. The windows were rolled down. As the car approached, it declined in speed to a crawl. Concerned, I hid in the weeds. The car stopped, and a giant got out on the driver's side. The blinding headlights left the giant in shadow. It couldn't be... my kidnapper? Had he found me? The giant stepped in front of the lights, casting a great shadow over me as he lumbered in my direction. The gigantic silhouette became larger and more menacing as he moved closer, enormous boots crunching on the road.

I wanted to run but my legs felt like they were made of lead. My mouth went dry. For an instant I feared I was going to get stepped on, but the giant stopped in his tracks. He tilted his head down, face still shrouded in darkness hundreds of feet above me.

"Jackie?"

That voice! "Chester!" I yelled. "Chester! Down here!" I ran out from my hiding spot in the vegetation, tears streaming down my face. The giant stooped over and swept me off my feet to his titanic chest.

"Jackie! I've been looking everywhere for you? Where have you been? Are you okay?"

"I-I'm okay, I'm not hurt," I sniffled. "It was horrible. I was so scared." I buried my face in his shirt. He covered me with his warm fingers.

"There, there. You're safe now. I'm here," Chester said gently, brushing me with his hand. "Let's get you home."

He carried me to the car and got in, placing me in his lap. I laid down and wrapped up in his shirt, basking in his warmth. My prayers had been answered. My savior, my love, my protector was here. I fell asleep before we ever made it to the house.

In order to prevent the evil giant from coming back, Chester was far more cautious about locking the doors and windows, both at night and during the day. While the experience had been undeniably horrific and traumatic for me, I did benefit in terms of my magical capabilities. The floodgates had been opened, so to speak, and my abilities had grown exponentially. Conjuring a lightning bolt of the magnitude to incapacitate a giant still drained all my magic for a day or two, but I could still do so reliably.

I was finally able to use blood magic as well. I had not been aware of this development at the time, but when I bit the giant's hand I had ingested a small amount of his blood too. Apparently the blood of a single giant, Chester, had not been enough. I was a little grossed out when I first used the magic successfully, and found myself with blood dripping from my hands. Chester, smelling blood, had been deeply concerned that I had injured myself. However, I ended up being the one disturbed when I learned that Chester liked the taste of the blood. He said it tasted like human blood, exactly like mine would. Sometimes, with him being so sweet and kind, I forgot he was still by nature a ravenous man-eating giant.

Unfortunately, I found manipulating the elemental essence of the magic into a specific spell was more difficult than just manifesting the raw lightning or blood on its own. I knew learning the skills would take time. I was also careful not to deplete my magic to zero, so I would not be left defenseless like before. I decided to focus on the blood magic spells first, since blood magic seemed easier for me to use now that I had overcome the initial barrier. A lot of blood-based spells sounded extremely useful too. In particular, there was a spell to conceal my scent which I urgently wanted to master, for obvious reasons. Other spells included food creation, limited to meat only, healing, and temporary growth.

Once I had recovered my magic from my ordeal, I had quick success with the healing spell, and was able to eliminate the various scrapes and bruises inflicted on my body. The spell to hide my scent was pretty simple too, and didn't require a whole lot of energy. Chester claimed he couldn't smell me at all. He said we could go out together again into town sometime, and I'd be safe, but I was too afraid to go. I wanted to master my spells first, so I could rely on them in case of emergency.

The other spells proved to be more challenging. At first, the meat I spawned with the food spell was tasteless and meager in size. Chester didn't mind though, and wolfed down every crumb, no matter how small, with delight. Gradually I improved, and was capable of manifesting larger and more tender cuts. One time, Chester was lying flat on his back on the couch, watching TV. I was sitting on his chest and got an idea.

"Chester, open your mouth for a minute," I requested sweetly. Chester raised an eyebrow at me but complied. I climbed up on his chin and laid flat on my belly so my top half was dangling over his enormous open mouth. I focused my energy and created a piece of meat, then dropped it into the deep void below. Chester closed his jaws around it and tasted it thoughtfully. This time, he raised both eyebrows in shock.

"Why, that's human meat!" he exclaimed with his mouth full. "It tastes really good too!" I bobbed on his chin as he spoke. He gulped the snack down and opened his maw again expectantly. I dropped another chunk of meat into the great cavern of his mouth. He consumed it with pleasure and opened wide, drooling hungrily.

"Now, Chester, this next piece should be the best yet, but be careful not to swallow it," I whispered. I crawled forward over his lower lip and slid my whole body into his mouth. He closed his jaws gently and cradled me on his huge tongue. As he rolled me around in his mouth, I took off my clothes so he could taste me better. He spit out the clothes and set them aside. Humming in his throat, he played with me on his tongue, teasing me by pushing me to the back of his tongue near his gullet. Then, he ran me over the slippery wall of teeth in his mouth until he had me pressed against his front teeth. He moved the tip of his tongue between my legs and worked some magic of his own. When he was done, he separated his jaws and lifted me out with his muscular tongue, balancing me on the apex above his open lips. With a calculated flick of his tongue he tossed me onto the bridge of his nose. I sat up astride his nose and gazed into his gorgeous green eyes, which were crossed in order to see me. I couldn't help but giggle at the sight, and he laughed too. With the movement of his face, I almost lost my balance and fell backwards into his mouth again, but caught myself instead. Observing my close call, Chester sat up, and this time I did fall off, but he caught me in his large hand. He curled his fingers around me and I hugged one of them in my arms happily.

"You're so much fun, you tasty little snack you," he teased, poking me with one of his other fingers. "I think it's time for us to go take a bath."

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

[upperranktwo]

hi!! my love ilysm- ive been a ghost follower for so long lmao :( but i was wondering how you do manga colorings? like whats ur process of getting a digital picture to color?? asking bc i might want to do smth like that 🥺🥺 love u bye

Hiya!!! My process takes me forever but it's the one that I find works with me the most! I'll do this under a cut because I'll include some images <333 one thing I can say if you do start doing them is just experiment have fun!!!!

Firstly I use Paint Tool Sai to do my colourings <3 when I want to find an image I might type up something like (character name) manga panels, or I'll look on the image section of their wiki. If I have my manga near me then I'll look through and then when I find something I like I'll type up (series name) (chapter) and then look until I find the image I want! Then I save the image and open it up in Sai and then resize it (my sizing is so inconsistent so it changes almost every image....)

Here we have a picture of Douma that I did in Jan! after I've put the image in I'll lower the opacity of it down to around 30%

Then I reline everything! To me it personally makes things look a little more clean and just easier to work with when it comes to actually colouring! Any messy areas I'll clean up when I zoom in after I've added colours!

Then I add my flat colours! I don't always stick to the canon colours for a character, for example Douma's nails are more of a purple colour but I like to colour them black. And he also has some gold to his colour scheme but I changed it to silver since it matches his hair a lot more!

After that I colour the line art. To do this I just lock the layer (so for example if I'm doing the hair I'll find my hair layer and then click preserve opacity and then go over it with the colour I want!) It's during this stage I'm really able to find any line art errors!

Then I like to shade and add any details! I like doing cell shading because it's just easier personally! and I put it anywhere I think it might go! I'm not an artist so I really just guess this part! I like doing stars in the hair and I like to (try) and make things look a little sparkly

Then I add a background and then put an overlay on the top of all the layers. I normally go for a red overlay but I'll sometimes do purple or blue depending on character and vibe I want. Then I add my URL on the top and then save it!!!

Hopefully that was easy to understand!!! I'm thinking of changing my style ever so slightly but this is how I do thing every single time! It takes me a while (like a few hours in total) but that's also because I get distracted easy lol!!! I hope you do delve into manga colouring! I enjoy it so much! I might not be the greatest but I create for myself and I try my best to have fun and that's what matters <3

[tunabuddha]

I’m in Vietnam. It’s the end of the war and there are a lot of people wandering around. I’m not sure what I was doing there. Maybe I was a correspondent or working as a botanist. I was with some people in a big house near the river at the edge of town. Apparently some of us had ordered small microscopes. There was a large overweight woman who seemed to be running the place, I don’t know. She showed me a small green microscope made of plastic that had arrived in the mail and wanted to know if those were the kind we had ordered. I didn’t think so and was looking for the invoice in the packaging. I couldn’t find it. Then I looked in a bag of garbage to see if she had thrown it away. I couldn’t find it. Finally she wanted me to take the garbage out. I took the bag and exited out the side door. I was anxious about going out. There were a lot of people moving around and an expectation of North Vietnamese troops arriving at any time. In any event I was looking for a green dumpster. The next thing I know I was walking down a road with an old peasant woman that was carrying a long plastic bag. She wanted to give the bag to me, but I think she just wanted to carry it for her. Inside the bag was a stack of French press coffee maker filters. We turned off the road and walked along in the forest and heard a car and started to try to find a place to hide. It was a red car and they pulled over and it was some people I knew and so we got in and they drove us back to the house. There was a lot of milling around. I ended up in a room with some women I knew. They were looking for something, I don’t know what. There was a big room in the house and on one wall there were cabinets going all the way to the top of the high ceiling. Somehow I was able to levitate up to one of the cabinets and I opened the door to the cabinet and there was just some junk and some blue socks. I tossed the blue socks down to some below trying to get the attention of the people down below. Like look at me. See what I can do. I can levitate. The next thing I know I’m back down and talking to the woman that owns the house and she mentions she hasn’t had any toast. After that I find myself with two pieces of perfectly made toast drenched in butter. It tasted really good. Then we saw a huge bus going down the highway with high ranking South Vietnamese military and their families. It zoomed by in a direction that felt like the wrong direction. You could see right through the windows of the bus everything that was going on. Then I was in a room, and someone had binoculars and they said they were handing them out for free. I wanted to get some, but they were out except for a large old pair that they said was no good. I tried them out and was able to look into town and see people walking around. I thought that they were really good binoculars but when I lowered them it was no different from my normal vision. Then we were down by the river and large speed boats were coming. They looked like helicopters but were boats. They slowed down and finally stopped on the shore next to the house. I had a bad feeling about it and walked around the other side of the house but by then the troops had jumped out and were passing by me. Then a high ranking South Vietnamese officer followed with his French wife and went into the house. There was some conversation going on about the town, that it was running out of food. So the Vietnamese officer decided to take his boats back down the river to see if he could find some food to bring back to the town.

[s3899602]

Blog #6 - Week 5

Pharos 

I finally found out why some presets don’t go where I want them to. It’s because they actually have a specific place they need to go. I found this out because when I was placing in the audio file it wouldn’t let me just drag and drop it into the timeline, I had to scroll down to ‘Simulation Audio’ and place the music in there. This is the same for some of the presets, they go in the ‘Ceiling’ section right at the bottom. I’m very glad that I figured that out and answered another one of my questions. 

Sound Design

I spent a few hours creating a little draft for the sound design for my ‘running scene’ idea. It was in no way polished but I thought it would give an idea of what I was going for. 

Didn’t work. My original plan, ✨Plan A ✨, was to record the audio myself, but I wanted to have something to show a quick proof of concept so I thought I might as well do it since I had some time. To record original audio, I think a quiet park would be best to record the running, and I will borrow a Zoom H4n to record everything. I’m not going to give up hope quite yet as I think there is something to my idea here, I really think, if done right, I can immerse the audience into a scene and create my heightened experience. But I fear even if I do it right I won’t achieve the feeling I’m going for. Otherwise, Plan B is to create lighting design for a piece of exhilarating music, which I definitely could do, but the problem is I have looked around and can’t find anything I would be interested in creating lighting for. I think I might have attached myself too much to my original idea, but I don’t want to let go yet because I haven’t done all I could do to try and make it work.

Plan B 

Turns out I can record the audio from any song on Spotify by screen recording on my iPad, airdropping to my computer and converting the mp4 file to wav. Easy and helpful, and I will bring my iPad to class in case anyone else needs me to record audio for them or wants me to show them how to do it. I looked up how to do the same thing on a mac and I’m not sure if screen recording works on a macOS like it does on IOS. I also found an extremely helpful website that has almost every game soundtrack that exists. It was super helpful for me when looking for exhilarating songs. Unfortunately, while I did find a few good ones, nothing jumped out at me. Luckily, I was thinking about songs that make me feel exhilarated/excited/energised and I thought about Kingdom Dance by Alan Menken (from Tangled) and how I could do so many different things with the lighting design to push the feeling of exhilaration. I’ll get some opinions when I do a mock up of the lighting to show in week 6. 

Capitol Test #2 

Blue needs to be vibrant to show 

Lights on ceiling cut out weird even though I did a 10s fade 

Ask Ryan what he meant about the light being able to go faster

Top of the arch orange/red with walls yellow 

Sparkle wasn’t working at the top, I need to change to a dark blue. Although Sarah asked for twinkling stars. I'm not completely sure what I should do. I might do a trial for both, but the white was a bit strong so I wonder if I can change the colour to grey to make it less white and more of a subtle sparkle. I will see what I can do with the preset otherwise I'll try it manually. 

Redefining Exhilaration 

Merriam-Webster’s definition of exhilarating is ‘causing great emotional or mental stimulation’ and the example is ‘no recording can capture the exhilarating feeling of being at a live rock concert’. I really need to think about what will make a majority of people feel exhilarated, not just myself. I need to stop thinking too outside the box with how I approach exhilaration, because it’s very formulaic, and if I don’t get it right, no one will feel exhilarated. 

Colours

I think I have figured out how the colours work in the Capitol but it would be helpful to go through them all and get a demonstration of the colours with their RGB values to see what they show up as. 

To-Do

Go out and record running/breathing for the running scene to see if it could possibly work for exhilaration (Plan A) if not, refer to plan B

Create lighting design for Kingdom Dance to see if that could work instead (Plan B)

[definitelynotkatesblog]

Illustrated Man l Spencer Reid Fic

Pairing: Reader x Spencer Reid 

Category: Fluff

Summary: Spencer comes home from a particularly difficult case, and begins to doubt himself. Reader helps him unwind and helps paint a picture of all the great things about him.

A/N: Helloooooooo friends! Yet again, I thought of a single line of dialogue I really wanted to make work so I spit a thousand words around it to bring it to life lol. Anyways! This fic is free of reader pronouns and gender identifiers, so anyone can read this and make the “I”‘a their own ☺️

P.S. I’ll see what I can do about not disappearing again for weeks on end, but I make no promises

Content warning: None! Except Spencer has his shirt off? But that’s it!

WC: 2.4k

The sound of the door clicking shut and Spencer vacating his lungs of all air drew my head up from my book.

“You’re home!” I cheered, closing my book and getting up to greet him.

He lifted his satchel over his head and gave me a small smile that didn’t touch his eyes. I nodded, mostly to myself, knowing that this meant the case was harder than most. On nights like this, Spencer was hard to reach. I padded my way across the living room and wrapped my arms around him like he might slip away if I didn’t hold him tight enough.

I pulled his head down to rest on my shoulder as his arms snaked around me, wrapping himself in me, too. We stayed like that a while until he stood up and cupped my cheeks in his hands, bringing my face up for a kiss.

‘Hi,” he said softly.

I smiled into his palms. “Hi.”

I took his hands in mine and kissed his knuckles, then led him to our bedroom to get him out of his work clothes. I helped him out of his cardigan and dress shirt, then left him to do the rest while I got him some water. When I returned, he was laying face down across the bed in a pair of sweatpants. His head rested on his crossed arms, and turned to face me when I laid next to him on the bed. I propped my head up one arm and gave him a half smile.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

He thought for a moment before giving me a recap of the case, leaving out the gruesome details. I listened and ran my fingers across his back, alternating scratches with swirling patterns on the soft skin. Sometimes my hand would find itself at the nape of his neck and work through the hair there.

As he spoke, his voice became more resolved and tired. He worked so hard, but the things he saw, the things this job had put him through weighed on him. He was strong and incredibly smart, but just because he carried it well didn’t mean the load wasn’t heavy.

I took a deep breath and spoke gently, not wanting to offend him. “Maybe you can take some time off?” I suggested.

He shook his head, his chin brushing his hands folded under his chin.

“The team needs me. These victims and their families need me.”

I bit my tongue. I needed him, too. But this was hardly the time to bring that up.

“But this job,” he paused for a moment before continuing, “It takes pieces of me I can’t get back, and I’m scared all I am is the parts I’ve managed to pick up off of the ground.”

I closed my eyes and wished away the tears forming in my eyes. I heard him take a deep breath but he didn’t say anything else.

“I have an idea. Stay there.”

His head lifted and his eyes followed me around the room to our closet where my painting supplied resided.

“I’m going to paint you.”

“Paint me?”

I turned around, a towel in one hand and my box of paints and brushes in the other. “Yes. You’re gonna lay here and talk to me about anything in the world and I’m going to paint you.”

His eyes scanned the contents of my hands. I could see the gears in his head turning for a moment before he shrugged and gave a small nod.

“Okay.”

I ran a hand through his hair and bent down to kiss his forehead before climbing on the bed and straddling his thighs, setting my supplies on the towel beside us. “Talk to me.”

His head cocked to the side as he contemplated his answer.

“Not about work,” I clarified.

I felt his laugh beneath me. “Okay then, what would you like me to tell you about?”

I tapped my bottom lip with the handle of my paintbrush. “Hmmm. Read any good books lately?”

I could feel his smile without seeing it. If there was one thing Spencer loved more than saving lives and doing crossword puzzles in pen, it was reading. “I revisited some Ray Bradbury on the plane home,” he said.

“Mmm, tell me about it.”

He took a deep breath beneath me and began. “I re-read The Illustrated Man. It’s a compilation of short stories told through interactions between an omniscient narrator and a man covered in tattoos that each tell tales of events that have not happened yet. The tattoos are magic, and they come alive to tell the stories they depict. The stories are mostly science fiction, but have elements of pretty universal truths that Bradbury is famous for addressing.

For example, in one story explores the deep seeded longing of one man to take a trip to outer space. Something that, in this story, is attaintanable. He works his whole life to be able to fulfill this yearning, but he is torn between going or staying with his family, whom he also loves. It begs the question of the existence of duality of desire and duty.

Then, in another, there’s this incessant rain. And this group of men are searching for cover and sunshine, but it’s wearing them down and breaking them. These small raindrops, just water, becomes torture. It’s interesting how something as small as raindrops can break both canyons and men.”

I listen as he tells me about each story behind the man’s tattoos, about how they’re all different but important and lend themselves to portraying the then-futuristic perception world around us. Sometimes, his voice gets sad at the implications of the stories, but other times he seems to appreciate the sentiment behind them.

I dip my brushes and admire the way they drag across his soft skin, leaving a wake of vibrant pigments behind. I hmm and ahhh at appropriate times, partially paying attention but mostly glad that he’s able to enjoy himself and is able to think of something other than the darkness in his world.

We stayed in our respective positions for the better part of an hour- him laying on the bed with his head on his hands while I straddled the back of his thighs, stroking brushes across the lines of his back.

When I’m finally finished, I roll my neck and place my hands on the small of his back, taking a moment to take it in. The idea of creating a universe compelled me; there was so much beauty and so much unknown in the expanse of space. The concept seemed fitting for what I hoped to help him understand. I’d mixed a navy blue paint for a base, and created swirls of light with yellows, creams, and whites to create a brighter contrast and background for the more intricate featured parts. One section had books, a coffee cup, a molecular model I’d hoped was an actual chemical, and a small red apple.

The next was a canyon, modeled after one of the scenic drives we’d taken the last time we visited Vegas to see his mom at her new care facility. We parked at a lookout spot and watched the sun set- gorgeous oranges, yellows, and pinks painted the sky over the rock. It was at that moment I’d never been more jealous of Spencer’s perfect memory.

Another section, closer to the bottom curve of his spine was a silhouette outline of the Christmas card the team had sent out two years ago. Spencer had a copy hanging by a CalTech magnet on the fridge, another on his desk, and a folded and fading copy in his wallet.

He loved that photo – the way it captured their joyous spirits and ability to be carefree despite the things that initially brought them together.

I took a deep breath and playfully patted his bottom. “All done!”

He threw a boyish grin over his shoulder and handed me his phone.

I snapped a few pictures, holding the phone up by my chin to capture the expanse of his back, then a bit closer to the individual parts. I passed the phone back over his shoulder and brought my clasped hands up under my chin. “Okay, so, if you don’t like it, that’s okay you can wash-” I rushed, but stopped short when I felt his breath hitch from underneath me.

He was silent for a moment, staring at the phone in his hand.

I took a deep breath. “Spencer, you contain multitudes. You’re a loving son, an amazing friend, a brilliant profiler, a great cat-sitter, an instant mashed potato extraordinaire, and my favorite boyfriend.”

I dusted an invisible speck of dust off his shoulder before continuing, giving my words a moment to sink in. I needed him to hear me, and to know these truths. “You are so much more than the things you don’t love about yourself. You are more than this job, you are more than the obstacles you’ve had to overcome. They’re a part of who you are, yeah, but they’re not all that you are.”

I shook my head, though he couldn’t see it. The knowledge of the man beneath me not knowing he was deeply loved seemed so wrong.

“You are so incredibly loved, Spencer. The people in your life are so lucky to know you and to be loved by you. Each and every one of your friends is changed and is better for having known you, believe me.”

He was silent for a short while, pinching and zooming in on the screen to see the different parts of him illustrated in his skin. He cleared his throat a few times. Part of me was grateful I couldn’t see his face, and he couldn’t seem mine. Though, I didn’t need to see the way his mind was working to know he was trying to find a flaw in my logic.

The amount of love I had for the man beneath me threatened to spill over in the form of tears.

“Favorite boyfriend?” he asked finally, feigning insult.

I laughed. “So far, yeah.”

I knew that wasn’t the only thing he’d heard, but probably was the only thing he could bring himself to comment on.

I scrambled off of my perch unceremoniously, stretching for a moment before straightening up and offering my hand. He laid with his chin resting on his fists stacked, staring at me for a moment.

“What?” I asked with a small huff.

“Being loved by you is one of the greatest joys of my life.”

I felt my mouth pop open, a bit taken aback at such a bold admission. A sweet smile touched his lips while he watched me try to scoop my heart back into my chest. He climbed off the bed gingerly, careful not to rock the tray of paint and brushes with his long limbs.

His large hand wrapping around mine grounded me from cloud nine and I could feel the smile forming on my lips. I turned and started heading towards the bathroom.

“Come,” I said, pulling him along behind me.

When we arrived in the small room, I halted and spun him so the back of his thighs were resting against the porcelain countertop and I was flush against his front. My hands came to rest on the edges of the countertop, caging him between my arms. I looked up at him, squinting slightly.

“I’d like to take a picture, is that okay?”

I knew Spencer was wary of having his picture taken; most of our pictures together were candids I’d puppy eyed my way into him letting me keep.

He narrowed his eyes back at me. My lower lip made an appearance, coupled with a knitted brow and cautious look from under my lashes.

He laughed and shook his head. “Okay.”

Before he could change his mind, I grabbed my phone and rushed back to my place in front of him, pressing my front to his.

I snaked my arms around his torso so our chests were together while his back bearing my painting faced the mirror. My arms poking out from between his arm and torso space made him look like an alien, but placing one hand on his hip while the other held my phone gave the pose a more artistic feel.

I snapped a few pictures, messing with the lighting and exposure, playing with shadows from the vanity and positioning him every which way. Every once in a while, I’d pull my arms from him and show him a few shots I liked but they never felt like the one.

He smiled and nodded encouragingly, taking my direction to tilt this way or arch his shoulder that way. I started to feel for him, we’d been there for 15 minutes at least.

I pouted and let my head fall back dramatically. “I give up,” I whined.

He gave a small smile and leaned down to kiss me. I met his lips with a smile of my own before resting my head against his chest.

“Try one more time,” he encouraged.

I nodded and wrapped my arms around him again. I poked my head out so it was just visible behind his arm, resting my chin on his bicep as I focused my phone camera to capture the two of us and my work on his back.

“Smile,” I said before snapping a few shots. Spencer’s body shook with his laugh as he leaned down to press a kiss to the top of my head. My thumb grazed the shutter button, capturing the moment.

It was perfect.

His back was illuminated perfectly by the soft glow of the vanity mirror lighting, the muscles in his back tensed when he bent down, creating dips and curves that separated the focus points brilliantly. My hand wasn’t posed, just gently resting on his hip, a soft touch that lent itself perfectly to the lightness of the moment.

I pulled myself from around him and held the phone between us. His hand found the small of my back and he pulled me closer to him, sealing our lips together. Our lips were unhurried, enjoying the softness of the moment and the love between us. His free hand cupped my cheek as we broke apart. His eyes bore into mine, both pairs slightly glossy.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

I nodded and buried my head into his chest so he wouldn’t see the fresh tears springing in my eyes. His arms wrapped around me as he pressed more kisses to the top of my head.

——

Let’s talk about it!

[path-of-my-childhood]

‘Willow’ Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto Didn’t Know Taylor Swift Had a New Album, Either

By: Claire Shaffer for Rolling Stone Date: December 14th 2020

When award-winning cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto started working on the video for “Willow” with Taylor Swift in November, he didn’t know that it was a part of her new surprise album, Evermore.

“I thought maybe it was a video for the previous album. I didn’t even know what the song was at our first meeting.”

Prieto wasn’t the only one in the dark about the new record; Swift dropped Evermore last week with a very similar rollout to her previous LP Folklore, complete with a self-directed music video released at midnight along with the album: “Willow.” The video serves as a narrative continuation of the story in the “Cardigan” music video — which Prieto also worked on — featuring a ton of visual references to tracks from Folklore.

As with the “Cardigan” video, Swift, Prieto and the production team not only had to keep the shoot under wraps, but also find innovative ways to film the project under Covid-19 safety protocols without endangering the lives of the crew. Prieto spoke to Rolling Stone about the production this time around, and how the team brought Swift’s witchy vision for “Willow” to life.

How did the “Willow” shoot differ from “Cardigan”? It looks like you guys were able to have other actors on set this time around, but how did that change the safety measures you had to follow?

It was still very, very strict. A big part of it was the whole testing protocols, which we also did last time. But when we were doing this video, we knew more [about the virus], and the safety guidelines were more specific. We followed the same ones the DGA has done, that my union Local 600 has done, SAG — they’ve all put in place these protocols that we did follow, and were very careful about it.

For instance, in the scene with the choreography around the tree and the clearing, you know, with a sort of dance around these magical orbs, there was a limit on how many actors and dancers we could have there. That was created by visual effects, actually — they added in more dancers. I think the actual number was 10 dancers when we were filming, and they all have masks on, actually. We can’t see their faces, and that’s partly because they have masks.

There’s only really one moment, in the cabin, where she’s in close contact with [another actor], with the man that she’s been missing at all these different moments. But, of course, both were tested, and they’d only take off their masks in the moment where we’re actually shooting. Everyone else would always wear masks on. And similar to last time, anybody who was in the immediate vicinity of the scene had to have a red wristband — it was all color-coded, in terms of who could be close to the scene and the actors. And certainly, it was very important to have not only a mask, but a face shield whenever we were anywhere close to Taylor or any of the other actors or dancers.

I still used the remote camera on a crane, so there wasn’t even a camera operator close to anybody. We were still following all the guidelines very closely, but now, it felt more relaxed in the sense that we have more information. We could just follow all these protocols. And we knew that we’d be safe because it was all pretty strict.

You mentioned last time that communication could sometimes be difficult on the “Cardigan” set because everyone had to kind of yell at each other or point to things since they couldn’t get in close proximity. Was Taylor able to be more hands-on in her directing this time around, like she was while you were shooting the music video for “The Man?”

That was still was the case — especially when you have a mask and a face shield, and you’re six feet away, you have to be a little louder to be heard. So we did maintain that protocol. But she was still very involved. I would stay at my monitor at the DIT [digital imaging technician] station, because it was the best image, but everyone would all be kind of looking at it from a distance, from six feet away.

But there was one moment that was unforgettable. And she actually has mentioned it, which was, just as we were starting to film on November 7th, we got the news of the election result. We were both looking at the monitor at the DIT station, and she got a text alert or something like that. Obviously, at that moment, we were all working on the video, but in the back of our minds we’re all like, OK, what’s gonna happen? And she was the only one who could actually look at her phone, because in fact, everybody had to relinquish their phones in the beginning so that nobody would take photos of anything, except for a few people like myself, who could sometimes use our phone to take a photograph as reference. And I was only using it very, very sporadically for that sort of thing.

So Taylor ended up being the messenger for the election results on set.

Exactly. So, she’s next to me — six feet away, but she was next to me. And she got this text, and she showed it to me. So I learned of the result from her at that moment, and what I told her was, “I will never forget this moment,” both because it’s such a historically important moment and because she was the one who showed me this information, you know. That was pretty special. Yeah. I felt like celebrating and doing a little dance, but I didn’t — we’re professionals and we’re working and also, I wanted to be respectful of anybody who had voted differently. But it was a very incredible moment, and just the beginning of a three-day shoot that turned out to be an adventure.

This video makes so many references to songs on Folklore and older songs from Taylor’s discography, both obvious and hidden. How did she lay out her vision to you?

The first meeting was talking about the story and the ideas. I still didn’t know the song, but the first thing was figuring out that it’s a continuation of the previous one we did together. At that moment, she was still kind of developing her ideas and trying to figure out exactly what was going to happen — for example, the ending wasn’t quite clear yet. She knew that she wanted to finish again in the cabin and that [the man] would be there, right. But during that meeting, we decided to have them both leave the cabin. That was an idea that came to us as we were talking as a team.

And then we went back and forth — at first she thought it should be night outside because it’s always been night, and then she changed her mind and said it should be daytime, so we were like, OK, what does it look like out there? Is it just the limbo? And then Ethan Tobin, our production designer, said it should be this sort of autumn forest. She was very much appreciative of that and really listened to everybody’s ideas.

There was also discussion about that moment in the clearing, about whether it should be a bonfire or not. First of all, with production, we would have had to shoot it outside and that would have been very complicated. But also she felt that, even with special effects, it was not a good thing to show with all the wildfires going on in California. So she came up with the concept of some type of orbs, something more magical, and Ethan Tobin came up with a bunch of different reference photos for that. That was the way we developed these concepts — even with the willow tree, Ethan sent some images and ideas, and one of them had these magenta leaves on the ground, which was weird and magical. Taylor and I loved that. It was that kind of back-and-forth in the pre-production phase, before we even heard the music.

It’s amazing how you were able to pull this off under such complicated circumstances — communicating back-and-forth over Zoom, and then with the actual video shoot itself.

It’s pretty tricky to get such a complicated and really technically challenging shoot off the ground, but we planned it all beforehand. Ethan Tobin was working with his art director Simon Morgan on designing the sets over Zoom. So, it was all overhead plans, and then you have to go to the set and map it out. For that clearing scene, for instance, Simon Morgan and myself, and my gaffer Manny Tapia and my key grip Donald Reynolds, we went to the soundstage first and taped the space in the center where the magic orbs would be. And then we measured the distance to the background with the blue screen, and taped where all the trees would be, and then figured out where all the lighting would be for there and the carnival set — everything had to be very, very precise, and the distance had to all be worked out. It really helped when we were actually shooting, because it went very smoothly. So, that’s how we made it.

[nhlandotherimagines]

Family isn’t Always Blood-Part 3

Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 4 |

Summary: will it be a boy? A girl? Will Kinsey and Elias be able to plan a wedding while expecting? Guess you’ll have to find out.

Author’s Notes: This took me WAY too long I’m sorry! Let me know what you think though? Was it what you expected? Was it bad? Good? I’d love to hear from you :)

Word Count: approx. 4.5k

Warnings: The usual really. Lots of crying (both happy and sad tears), pregnancy, absent parents, strong language, nothing too crazy though. Let me know if there is anything I should add here please

3…

2…

1!

Elias’ fingers find the zipper on the garment bag, and I place my hand gently over his. His hand shakes under mine, and although I know it’s mostly excitement, I can tell he's nervous as we slowly pull down the zipper together.

As the garment bag falls away, my heart stops. There is no way this is happening, not right now! Elias’ hand drops from mine as he steps back slightly, as the people around me seem to let out a collective gasp. Tears burn my eyes, and before I can stop them, they’re falling down my face. This is NOT what I expected.

“Kinsey?” Elias’ voice is nervous, likely because I’ve yet to react to the scene in front of me. The jersey was not pink, or blue. In fact it wasn’t even a jersey at all. In place of the jersey we had all been anticipating, was a white onesie with red lettering across the front. 

My hands at some point made their way to my face as I’m now using them to hold in the ugly sobs wracking my body. The tears in my eyes blurring the words in front of me, but it doesn’t matter, because I’ll never forget them. I’ll never unsee them. The five words that changed my life. 

WILL YOU MARRY MY DADDY?

“Baby, turn around. Please?” Elias' voice is gentle when he speaks, but it sounds loud in the intense silence that has settled over everyone.

I slowly turn around, my knees feel weak, my vision is blurred, and my entire body is trembling. It’s a miracle I’m still standing, and even breathing for that matter. When I’ve finally turned around completely, my whole world stops. Elias slowly drops down on one knee, and as he looks up at me with those beautiful blue eyes no one else is here. It’s just him and I at this moment. A nervous smile on his face as he slowly pulls open the velvet box I hadn’t even noticed until now, I lose it. I collapse to my knees in front of him, arms wrapping tightly around his neck and as I cry into his shoulder.

“Last time I checked I’m the only one supposed to be on their knee for this.” Elias chuckles, and the room around us does the same, reminding me we aren’t alone. I lean back to look at him, but don’t let go. His face is blotchy, and his eyes are bloodshot as tears stream silently down his face. “Kins, you amaze me more and more each day. You’re an amazing woman, girlfriend, mother, and there is absolutely no question that you’d make the best wife. So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to make you mine. Kinsey Waters, will you marry me?”

“R-really?” The word is choked out in between breaths, as I search his face for hesitation.

“Yes!” He chuckles, lifting the ring up in front of my face. He shakes it teasingly, eyebrows raising as if to say ‘would I be lying?’.

“Yes.” The word tumbles past my lips, and I can’t stop it. Not that I want to. “Oh my god! Yes!” The squeal that escapes me is quickly drowned out by the cheers surrounding me, as I gather Elias’ face in my hands and crash my lips to his.

I cling to Elias like I don’t want to let go, grasping at his shirt, his hair, anything to ground myself. The kiss, the moment, this man; it’s all so overwhelming. I never want it to end. 

As it turns out, not everyone is on board with that. “Okay! Okay! That’s enough, can we please find out about the baby. There will be time to fornicate after we’re all gone!” Brock yells from behind the camera, as more laughter fills the apartment.

Elias groans in response, but pulls away. I smile brightly as he slips the ring onto my finger, and for the first time I actually look at the ring. It’s simple, not too flashy, and yet I know if I saw the receipt I’d likely vomit at the price tag. It’s elegant. It’s everything I’ve ever dreamed of and so much more. “It’s perfect.” I breathe out, and Elias chuckles. Bringing my hand to his lips he places a gentle kiss to my knuckles before rising to his feet, helping me off the floor in the process.

“Please tell me you have the actual jersey somewhere.” I giggle, catching Brock tapping his foot impatiently out of the corner of my eye.

“I do, one sec!” Elias quickly leaves the room, and I’m immediately swarmed by the other WAGs and Brock. Brock is quick to zoom in on the ring with the camera, as he makes commentary that is definitely not needed, but something Elias and I will both enjoy when we watch the recording back later.

“Okay! ” Elias announces, as he makes his way back into the room. “Are you ready for the real thing?” He’s now holding an identical garment bag to the one we had unzipped minutes prior, and I can’t help but wonder just how difficult this whole surprise was to pull off.

Elias removes the first hanger from the stall, and replaces it with the new garment bag. He motions me over, a large grin on his face, as everyone goes back to where they had previously been standing.

Elias’ hand finds mine again, as we both grip the tiny zipper. It feels different this time. Maybe it’s the ring sitting on my finger, or maybe it’s just the adrenaline coursing through my veins. As the countdown begins around us for the second time today, I become more and more impatient.

3…

2…

1! 

My stomach flutters, and I can’t bring myself to look as Elias’ hand moves with my own to pull down the zipper. Instead I watch him. His eyes bright as they seemingly shimmer with excitement. He’s so beautiful, and he’s mine. My fiancé, and the father of my child. The new weight on my ring finger, and my round stomach physical proof of just that. 

Almost instantaneously, I feel his hand fall from mine and it finds his face, along with the other. He falls again to one knee, but this time he cries into his hands as everyone around us erupts into cheers. The moment feels absolutely surreal, and overwhelming, and I have yet to even look at the tiny jersey in the garment bag. It doesn’t feel like it matters, not in this moment anyway. The only things that matter are that we are happy, life is good, it’s pink, and we are a family. It’s pink.

Immediately my eyes snap back to the now open garment bag that my eyes had previously skipped over. The tiny jersey hanging before me was a tiny replica of the one I was wearing. It’s pink alright. It’s a girl.

As I turn back to Elias, his arms wrap around my waist as he begins whispering against my stomach. Again, all of his words muttered in Swedish. All I can make out is ‘I love you”, and ‘my girls’, and even without understanding any of the other words, my heart swells and tears wet my cheeks again.

I card my fingers through his hair, the beautiful ring standing out even more against the blonde. Cameras and flashes, along with many cheers and exclamations of ‘I knew it!’, fill both the room and my heart. This is it, the family I’ve always craved. Although it may not be conventional, it’s mine. 

———

The movie Elias is playing on the tv does little to hold my attention. Not even because it’s bad, in fact it’s one of my favourites, but my head is all over the place today. 

“Everything okay love?” Elias asks, eyebrows furrowed in worry when I look at him. I nod, but it’s evidently not enough for him to believe me. “Talk to me Kins.” He continues, pressing pause on the movie, removing my only form of distraction.

“She doesn’t have a name.” I’m deflecting, and Elias knows it. Instead of pressing the issue further though, he smiles sweetly over at me. I’m stretched out comfortably across the majority of the couch, my legs draping across his lap. His hand lightly rubs my thigh in comfort. 

“Well did you have any in mind?” I shake my head stretching my hands over my growing bump, my ring on full display. Elias clears his throat, and I can tell he wants to say something, but he looks nervous. “What about your mom?”

“What about her?” My response is unnecessarily rude, but his question caught me completely off guard. He’s been trying for months to get me to talk about her, and I’ve successfully shut him down every time.

“Did you maybe want to incorporate her name?” His eyes refuse to meet my own, instead they stay fixed on his fingers that are busying themselves with the hem of my sweats. The scoff that leaves my mouth is dramatic, sure, but I’m beyond pissed he’d even make that suggestion.

“Why would I? She’s done nothing for me.” 

Elias’ face falls, and his eyes meet mine. The look of pity he sends me would normally make me feel better, but today it makes me even more angry. “I’m sorry, I just thought-“

“Yeah well you thought wrong didn’t you!” I snap, cutting him off as I rise to my feet. I stand up too quickly, and immediately I feel light headed. My knees buckle a bit, and my vision goes fuzzy momentarily. Elias is quick to his feet, hands finding my waist to steady me. 

Once my vision is back, and I feel steady again, I push away from Elias. He calls after me, but I just keep walking. 

It’s not his fault, and I’m being dramatic. As soon as I step into our shared room, I know I’m out of line. It’s embarrassing, my whole life is. How can I tell someone, like Elias, who loves their mom dearly, that when I think of the woman who gave birth to me, the thoughts aren’t pleasant. Very little about my childhood was. Yes, I sound ungrateful, and to a degree I am. There were always good times, always. However it’s hard to look back fondly on those times, when almost all of them are plagued with heartbreak or disappointment in some form or another. 

As I close the bedroom door behind me angrily, I pull off my sweats and crawl into the empty bed. Though I’ve slept without Elias many nights given his schedule, the bed has never felt so lonely. Tears soak my pillowcase, but my body barely even reacts. No dramatic sobbing, or trembling. I just lay here, numb, tears flowing steadily.

After what felt like forever, but was likely only a few minutes, the bedroom door creaks open. I don’t dare to acknowledge Elias as he closes the door behind him quietly. I lay silently, my back to him, as he removes his shirt. The covers pull back, and I feel the bed dip as he climbs in behind me.

We both lay there silently for a moment, neither of us moving. Only a few inches separate us, but they feel like miles. I can’t take the silence, or the fact that I can practically hear the gears turning in my fiancé’s head.

“I’m sorry.” I mumble, sniffling slightly. Elias lets out a breath, before wrapping himself around me. He places a gentle kiss to my head, letting his hand travel under my shirt to rest on my bare stomach.

“Me too.” He whispers into my hair. “I should’ve known, I just thought because it was a tradition, that maybe you’d want to. I didn’t mean to upset you Kins. I’m really sorry.” His voice shakes a little, but he takes a breath again to steady himself before adding, “I love you.”

Before I can even respond to him, it hits me. I sit up quickly, and Elias’ arm falls into my lap. He pushes himself up on his elbows, eyes widening with concern. “Adeline.”

“What?” He is obviously confused, and I can’t blame him. I just ignored his entire apology to blurt out some random name.

“Adeline Irene Pettersson. Addy for short.” I pause, suddenly feeling embarrassed by my wave of excitement. “I don’t know. What do you think?” I pray the nerves aren’t apparent in my voice. Picking a name for a person is a big deal, it has to be perfect.

“Adeline.” Elias repeats the name out loud thoughtfully. The name rolls off of his tongue beautifully, and I can’t fight the smile growing on my face. “Kinsey, I think it’s perfect.”

Elias rolls onto my legs, his face resting just in front of my stomach. I lean back, and run a hand through his hair. 

Placing soft kisses to my stomach, Elias once again whispers to the baby. “Adeline, you have the most amazing momma. She loves you so much. Probably more than she loves me, and that’s a lot.” I can’t help but giggle softly at his words, despite the tears in my eyes. “You’re so loved, and we cannot wait to meet you.”

I smile down at Elias, a single tear slipping down my face. He returns the smile, but it quickly falls as my eyes widen in shock. “She’s kicking!” I practically scream, grabbing Elias’ wrist, bringing his hand over to where I had just felt our daughter kick. He waits hopefully for more movement. 

Moments pass, and still nothing. “C’mon Addy, do it for daddy.” I plead, my heart breaking at the disappointment on Elias’ face.

As if she had actually understood the task she’d been given, the baby kicks even harder than before. Her foot jams hard into my stomach, right against her father’s waiting palm. The feeling, although still relatively new for me, was an entirely new experience for him. His eyes nearly pop out of his head, jaw practically hitting the floor. 

“A daddy’s girl already?” I giggle, another tear slipping down my cheek. “There is no hope for me now.”

Elias shakes his head, and glances up at me briefly. His eyes find mine for just a second, with a smile on his face he looks back at my stomach. “You’re not going to be a daddy’s girl or a momma’s girl are you Addy?” He whispers, as the baby kicks again as if in response to his question. “You’re gonna be your own girl. Strong and independent, just like your momma.”

Elias fell asleep like that a while later. Head resting on my hip, a hand on my stomach, while my hands threaded through his soft hair. Life is good. I have a family now, and I would do anything for either of them. “I will make sure you never question my love for you both. No one deserves that.” I whisper before drifting to sleep myself.

———

“Shit!” Something hitting the floor loudly, followed immediately by Elias cursing wakes me. I’m quickly on my feet and rushing down the hall. I had been asleep on the couch, having passed out while reading some parenting book. So, when I round the corner into our bedroom, I’m confused to find it lacking my fiancé’s presence.

“Elias? Where are you?” I call out, fear lacing my words. 

“I’m in here sweetheart.” He calls back. I follow his voice further down the hall to the guest room.

As I reach the doorway of the guest room, the scene in front of me has a giggle bubbling up my throat. Elias is on the floor, surrounded by various tools and wooden pieces, a frustrated, and thoroughly exhausted look painting his face. “Everything okay in here?”

“Wha- oh yeah.” He huffs, tucking a pencil behind his ear. He’s holding two identical pieces of wood in either hand, letting out another noise of frustration. 

“Whatcha doing?” I place the back of my hand over my mouth trying to suppress my laughter, though my smile is audible in my words.

“Well.” He groans, placing both pieces down before pulling himself to his feet. “The plan was to have the crib together before you woke up from your nap.” He walks to me placing his hands softly on my hips. “Though, as you can see, that hasn’t happened.”

“Well the instructions can’t be that confusing are they?” I smile, and his face falls slightly. “You did use the instructions. Right?” Elias’ cheeks darken, and his eyes fall to his feet. 

“I thought I could do it on my own.” He mumbles, and there is no stopping my laugh now. He frowns in embarrassment, as I do my best to catch my breath. 

“Babe! The instructions don’t do it for you, they are a guideline for you to do it. On your own.” I explain shaking my head with a giggle, and pushing past him into the room. I quickly find the instructions crumpled into a ball on the floor. I unfold it, and read through it quickly. 

“Well?” His voice hopeful, as he watches me inspect the now crinkled paper. 

“Yeah I have no idea.” I sigh, leaning against the wall. “Time to call in the boys I think.”

———

“Who thought it was wise to let the three of you do this?” I giggle, placing three beer down on the dresser.

“You?” Quinn answers, eyebrows furrowed in confusion while Elias sends me a glare. 

“Oh right. Well I’ll just blame my poor judgement on the pregnancy.” 

Elias is obviously getting quite flustered about the whole process. He curses in Swedish, while poor Quinn sits beside him looking scared for his life. Brock finally finishes screwing two pieces together, and beams over at me before grabbing a beer. “Thanks Kins!”

“You’re very welcome Brock.” I place a hand on my stomach and make a point of talking dramatically. “See Addy? That’s why uncle Brock is our favourite.” 

“Addy?” Quinn and Brock both ask in unison. 

“Adeline. Addy for short.” Elias explains, with a smile bright enough to blind someone.

“What do you guys think?” I ask, pulling my lip between my teeth. Sure, we don’t need anyone’s approval, but their opinions are very important to both Elias and myself.

“It’s cute!” Quinn smiles at me.

“Cute?” Brock sends Quinn a look I could only describe as a mix between shock and disappointment. My heart rate increases. Great Brock hates it! “It's absolutely beautiful!”

The sigh of relief that leaves my body has all three men laughing. I can’t help but join in, as the three of them begin bickering over the next step in the crib building process. They are always so chaotic, and yet I love every second of the chaos. This baby will likely learn all kinds of trouble from Brock and Quinn, but I certainly wouldn’t want it any other way.

———

As my pregnancy progresses, Elias becomes more and more doting almost daily. Not letting me lift anything bigger than a book, tying my shoes, helping me get dressed, you name it and he’s done it. Honestly, it’s become slightly annoying. On nights like this though, I truly appreciate it. 

Elias sits on one end of the couch, as I lay across its length, my feet in his lap. He rubs the balls of my feet, as I write in the wedding planner he’d purchased not long after our engagement. He smiles softly at me, as I chew the end of my pen deep in thought as I stare at the guest list. 

“How many groomsmen do you want?” The question falls past my lips as he reaches over to pull the pen from between my teeth.

“Well, definitely I’d want my brother as my best man, and probably three more guys. To keep it even just how you like it.” Elias winks, nudging my leg with a chuckle. I roll my eyes, but smile anyway, because he’s absolutely right. Even numbers are always nice.

“Okay.” Four people is reasonable, but now I have to find a maid of honour and three bridesmaids. That shouldn’t be hard, but I have no idea who to ask. Holly for sure was a given, but beyond her I wouldn’t even know where to start. 

“Are we inviting your parents?” Elias’ question comes entirely out of left field, and it feels like someone punched me in the throat. Were we? Do I want to? Should I? They only know about Elias from a singular instagram post. They don’t even know about the baby. 

Elias must see the gears in my head turning, because he sends me a soft smile. “Why don’t we make invitations for them, and you can decide later if you want to send them or not? No need to let it stress you out too much babe.”

Reluctantly I agree. Would I regret not inviting them? Would I regret inviting them?

———

I’ve spent the last week making the invitations, painting each by hand. Was it crazy to do? Yes absolutely. I know that, but I want them to be personal.

“Have you even moved since I left?” Elias’ voice startles me. He left some time ago for his morning practice, at that point I had already been up working on them for an hour. He chuckles as I shrug, and places a kiss to my temple. “You’re crazy.”

“And yet, you’re going to marry me.” I tease, sticking my tongue out at him. 

He places a sweet kiss to my lips, pulling away with a smirk. “Who told you that?” 

Rolling my eyes, I shove a hand playfully into his chest. “Well you don’t have to, but if I just spent a whole week making these invitations and there isn’t going to be a wedding,” I pause sending him a ‘threatening’ glare. “You better run Pettersson.”

Throwing his head back, Elias laughs heartily. Hand clutching his stomach, as he struggles to catch his breath. “You’re adorable.” He manages to get out between laughs.

“Great, so you’ll drop these off at the post office on your way to the rink later.” Punctuating my request with a wink. 

A groan leaves my body as I pull myself from the chair at the kitchen table. Elias is quickly by my side in aid, no longer laughing. His face twists in concern, hands finding my hips. “Don’t worry babe, I’ll drop them off. Now come nap with me?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead he wraps a hand softly around my wrist, pulling me gently in the direction of our bedroom. 

I can’t argue. Instead I follow him, body aching from how I’d been sitting at the table all morning. Elias carefully pulls back the covers, rearranging my pillows, and strips down to just his sweats. I quietly thank him as I attempt to get comfortable, something that’s become increasingly more difficult as of late. 

Climbing in behind me, Elias pulls me into his side and places a hand gently across my growing bump. “You going to let Momma rest Addy?” He asks softly, eyes already closing. I watch him closely, and a small smile forms on his face as he rubs gentle circles on my stomach.

“You know watching someone sleep is kind of weird.” His voice is gravely and my face flushes in embarrassment.

“I wasn’t-“

“Mhm.” His lips quirk up into a smirk, eyes not opening once. “Get some rest babe.”

“Fine.” I grumble, placing my head on his chest. His breathing evens out, and his heart beat is steady in my ear. I place a hand on his chest, curling into his side the best I can given the fact my stomach is in the way. My fingers lazily trace patterns across his bare chest, eyes beginning to feel heavy.

“Love you Kins.” Elias’ voice is low, and I can hear how tired he is.

“Love you too Lias.”

It’s not long before Elias is snoring quietly beneath me. Everything feels so right, here in his arms. Like nothing bad could happen. With the feeling of ease settling into my bones, it isn’t long before I’m falling asleep too.

———

Somehow I managed to sleep through Elias getting up and getting ready. When I finally wake up, he is long gone. 

Picking up my phone, my face lights up at the message displayed on my screen.

Elias❤️: I let you sleep. You needed it. Don’t worry though, the invitations were mailed. There is some pizza in the fridge for you if you want it. See you tonight xx

I respond with a quick thank you text, making sure to wish him luck with his game. Grabbing some pizza I settle into the sofa, and turn the game on. 

Watching Elias play hockey always manages to put a smile on my face. He’s so incredibly talented, and extremely humble. It’s one of the many things I love about him. 

No matter how important hockey is to him though, he always makes sure I know that our family is more important. Always. It’s the reassurance I never knew I needed, but Elias has always made sure it’s there without being asked.

———

Lazy Sundays have become somewhat routine for Elias and I. We wake up, Elias works out while I write, we eat breakfast together, and we spend the rest of the day working on our own things. Today has gone a lot like that. 

Currently I’m editing some of my writings while Elias scrolls through Instagram from his spot beside me. Aside from the clicking of my keyboard as I type, and an occasional chuckle from Elias, the room is peaceful. That is until there is a knock on the door. “Babe can you answer that please?” 

Elias hums in response, pulling himself from the couch. We aren’t expecting anyone, but it’s not uncommon for one of the boys to drop in, or to have someone trying to sell us something on a Sunday. So much to my surprise it’s a woman’s voice at the door, asking for me specifically. “Is Kinsey here?”

Elias walks back into the living room, a look of confusion on his face. “There is someone at the door for you babe?” His statement sounds more like a question, and has my heart rate increasing. Who could be at the door looking for me? What happened?

Setting my laptop on the coffee table, I pull myself awkwardly from the couch. I take a moment to adjust my tshirt and fix my hair before rounding the corner. The figure standing in the doorway, has me stopping dead in my tracks. My face pales, as my body goes rigid. This must be some sick joke.

Grasped in her hand is an envelope. One I recognize well, because I had sealed it weeks ago. I knew making that invite was a bad idea. 

“Mom?”

———

Another cliff hanger? Why not? Let me know what you think! Part 4 is going to take some time, but I will get it out eventually I promise!

Tagging: @anastasiyaigorevnadobrodevskaya @heatherawoowoo @dripkingpetey @ya-pucking-nerd @jonnytoews19

[gesternchen]

Just randomly reviewing scenes from the movies no one remembers now. This week: Avatar (2009).

It’s not like everyone forgot James Cameron’s Avatar. Since we’re still getting some footage from behind the scenes of the sequel and news about the cast, at least someone takes pains to remind themselves of this cinematic experience from the year of 2009. It’s already been 84 (just kidding, 11) years and I’m still looking forward to at least watching the teaser (fun fact: I was 11 when Avatar came out, I’m 22 now). I even bought the Darkhorse comic book on Tsu’Tey’s backstory to, you know, investigate one of my favorite characters a little bit better (spoiler: the backstory wasn’t very much eventful but I noticed a nice detail there which I may talk about briefly a bit later).

Throughout the years Avatar has received a lot of backlash and more or less justified criticism, mainly for the plot and its problematic packaging. I believe, it depends on the perspective one watches a movie from. Of course, I wouldn’t call it an absolute gem of exciting storytelling, even though I truly enjoy it, as in majority its twists are undeniably predictable. However, I always disagreed with people saying relations in Avatar aren’t deep at all. Well, romance between Jake and Neytiri, which, let’s be honest, except for the scene of telling the truth, went too smoothly, and this is why I strongly believe clash of interests is inevitable in sequels. Their interaction remained the key one for the whole movie, and nothing is bad about that, people enjoy a nice lovestory, so do I. But 11 years after I’d like to focus on the disturbing conflict everyone prefers to ignore for some reason when recalling Avatar. For me it’s always been Jake versus Colonel Quaritch.

You guys may have already guessed which scenes I wanna talk about. Those really important ones that I consider climactic to the pace of narration. And what is more about them, they give us crucial details in character development and actors’ play to think through. The main message: Quaritch knew it was coming.

Let me firstly touch upon the scene of short conversation between Jake and Quaritch prior to Sully presumably leaving Pandora. While Jake is awating Quaritch in a large empty hall, he hardly seems to be calm about the talk, every nerve in his body is trembling, but why?

The way Jake’s drumming his fingers on the table makes me wonder if he’s okay.

Then Colonel enters the hall, grabs a chair and reminds that it had been more than two weeks since he got the latest report on how the misson was going. He knows, Sully is questioning reality, and no, he’s not ‘doubting his resolve’. He knows, the right moment to ‘terminate the mission’ is missed. He knows, he lost Jake. He knows, he’s talking to the deserter. Yet Quaritch speaks indifferent. He praises Jake’s effort and rewards him for that. With real legs he promised to him when they first talked. Quaritch hoped they’d trigger the realization in Jake. Which doesn’t happen. How sad he looks when Jake openly refuses to accept the reward.

In just one sequence Stephen’s face demonstrates the shift of all four feelings Quaritch goes through: dissatisfaction, melancholy, shame, disgust.

Quaritch sensed the moment when Jake expressed superiority to the mankind. Jake grasped that Quaritch knew everything, he played with fire, and that’s why he felt anxiety. And it lasted all the way until Quaritch stepped back for leaving the hall. But did Colonel really surrender? I doubt that.

The tension between them both feels electric, so it’s explainable why Jake’s transient smile is so awkward. Sam then heavily staring straight at Colonel's back suggests that up until now Jake regarded Quaritch as his enemy. The enemy he knew he would not be able to defeat.

I remember when watching this scene, I couldn’t get myself the answer to one question. The question was: which report did Quaritch refer to? ‘That report from two weeks ago’, but such information wasn’t satisfactory for me. To be honest, this small discovery became the actual reason why I decided to type this study. Let’s assume that this particular report which Quaritch mentioned was the videolog where Jake confessed that Omaticaya wouldn’t leave the Hometree. Here’s why.

The general audience is used to perceiving Quaritch as a cruel short-tempered military man who just waits for the starting pistol’s shot to destroy everything in sight. Again, nothing is wrong about this, the fact that his character was simply meant to be a generic personification of such type doesn’t leave us with any alternative impression of him. Let’s say, if he was given the order to ignite the operation of the Hometree’s destruction to screw the tribe out of the site, he would absolutely go for it (and so he does). He’s a man of his word after all. Let’s also say, if he was pissed off by Jake’s betrayal, he would transport himself to the mountain site in a blink of an eye, turn off the link and put Jake in jail right after the talk in the hall. Instead, Quaritch decided to wait and give Jake the last chance. Jake preffered unearthly wings to those more tangible, so Quaritch chose not to cut them so abruptly.

We’re moving to the next scene, taking place right before a toned down fight between Tsu’Tey and Jake (I’m saying so, because it’s actually one of the deleted scenes that got edited out of the final cut, and believe me, the pressure between two rivals there is way too intense). Quaritch is watching the record of Jake destroying bulldozer’s lenses with a stone. After that Jake’s face is zoomed and we watch Selfridge get frustrated, Quaritch looks pretty annoyed as well but doesn’t seem to be much surprised. What he’s feeling, is bitter disappointment in himself and knowing that he totally failed to persuade Jake to change his mind.

Just observe Stephen Lang’s performance here. He absolutely nails cold-eyed look, the fire burning slow inside of him is so palpable, and guess what, in a flash he flies off the handle.

Now, shall we check the ultimate scene, preceding the destruction of the Hometree. Though Grace versus Parker juxtaposition is central to this scene, the last time Quaritch confronting Jake face to face in his human body is essential to consider for making things clear.

When it comes to revealing to Selfridge the vainness of further negotiations with Omaticaya, isn’t it just interesting how fast Quaritch manages to find the correct videolog? It literally takes him not more than a couple of swipes to produce the proof. Here is why: he’s already watched the record and is completely aware of the Jake’s values having deteriorated.

You can tell, Jake knew he was under control, but he would rather like to ingnore this fact. His pathetic glance at Quaritch, who’s almost impending above his head, causes to think Jake would guess that Colonel could have watched this videolog. Rather, it was a mutual secret between the two of them until a turning point. But the moment of truth came, and Jake didn’t change his mind. Quaritch made sure of that and finally it was his time to triumph.

So how was it even possible to assume Quaritch may have watched the videolog I’ve been talking about for so long? Well, my explanation may be too easy to believe, but still: we can tell by Jake’s appearance and the date of the record that it is the vlog we need.

This telltale videolog was recorded 16 minutes after the another one, when Jake says that he’s uncertain, who he is anymore (LST abbreviation stands for Local Standard Time). Jake might have suddenly felt depressed and hopeless and got back to the camera while being too emotionally instable, and so must have forgotten to delete the final record.

I have one more note for you. If you check the videolog library Quaritch is swiping through, you’ll see that the latest important record, which he actually needs, is made in the interior of the mountain site block and dates back to August, 13. Other recent vlogs’ covers look nothing like Site 26 sequence. Jake may not have done any of these records at the mountain site. I still wonder though where those three or four ensuing videologs were recorded, the location seems to be red lighted, which means it isn’t blue lighting at Site 26. I may even assume he recorded some pieces at Hell’s Gate. Why would I think so? Probably because in those two scenes (dialog with Quaritch and confession at Parker’s office) Jake looks ten times better than before, he gained some weight at least and doesn’t resemble a living sceleton.

Selfridge gave Jake an hour to relocate the tribe, while gunships led by Colonel’s Dragon were already on full alert. Quaritch had no doubt that Jake’s peacekeeping mission would fail. He knew it from the beginning. Hence he sounds so sarcastic seeing Sully’s avatar tied.

Now Quaritch sipping his villain’s morning coffee tasting like fresh genocide doesn’t feel so cringy: he’s celebrating his victory over Jake (still I should agree with critisism on this point, it really is a stupid cliche and wasn’t intended to carry a deep meaning).

Now I should admit, it’s been a long journey to run this investigation and bring it to light by finally posting it. It took me around a day to collect my thoughts and express them by means of more or less readable English. Just would like to make a little side note: English is not my native, so I promise I did my best! Thanks to James Cameron for making a movie, which woke me up in the middle of the night to start reflecting, and to all the fans out there who still exist and remember this movie and so can read this essay. @avatarmovies I found your blog not so long ago and you guys say you enjoy headcanons (and movie reviews probably?..), so it would be nice if you reblogged this but I’m not insisting!!

[shefanispeculator]

I'm slightly disappointed to log onto Zoom and find Gwen Stefani in Los Angeles. I wanted to see the ranch. Stefani spent most of the pandemic in Oklahoma with her fiancé and fellow The Voice coach Blake Shelton, with whom she has recently collaborated on a string of country radio hits, alongside a kitsch Christmas song. For a ska-pop superstar, it's a pivot, but Stefani and Shelton are cute together — picture-perfect in their opposite attraction.

Country Gwen exists, her urban counterpart assures me, but on this particular MacBook she's nowhere to be seen. I'm not sure what crude regional stereotypes I was expecting (Stefani spitting sunflower seeds? Shelton line dancing in the background?) but I get Californian sunshine instead, illuminating a version of Stefani more familiar from my teenage years, when Love. Angel. Music. Baby and its follow-up The Sweet Escape spawned millions of fans, haters and imitators. She's platinum blonde, red lipsticked and wearing a black-and-white outfit that matches the decor. The checkerboard pattern can be traced back to an even earlier era, when Stefani and her No Doubt bandmates were '80s teenagers obsessed with two-tone acts like Madness and The Specials.

Cowboy boots wouldn't fit this picture, and nor would Stefani's glitzy showgirl outfits from The Voice, where she just wrapped another season as a celebrity coach. As she prepares to release her fourth solo record, and enters the fifth decade of an extraordinarily successful music career, Gwen Stefani is re-re-branding as... Gwen Stefani.

Top: Local Boogeyman, Pants: GCDS, Shoes: Valentino, Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own, Engagement ring: Gwen's own

"But what is that?" Stefani asks with seriousness, as we consider the possibility of some essential, inherent Gwen. "Everyone's interpretation of what I am and how I sing, I mean, that's what this era is about for me."

Said era kicked off late last year, with the music video for "Let Me Reintroduce Myself." It saw Stefani playfully revisit the wardrobes of album cycles past, from the ab-bearing tomboy tank tops of "Hollaback Girl" to the club kid blue hair mascara of '90s No Doubt. Her Harajuku Girls also make a return. The entire visual is a huge flex, not only for the sheer volume of iconic career moments recreated in dutiful detail, but the fact Stefani can still fit into the clothes originally worn during all of them. She looks eerily the same, frighteningly good, ageing in reverse at the same pace as her frequent collaborator Pharrell.

"It's really a blessing to be able to have such a long career, where there really is nothing to prove anymore."

Pop stars are expected to be young forever, in looks but also in their capacity to innovate new trends. Which makes the nostalgic music video a curious choice. Doesn't Stefani know by now that the cardinal rule of pop is to avoid repeating yourself? That even the hottest artists in the world are basically required by law to create completely new eras from scratch every six months in order to appease fans and maintain maximum TikTok-ready relevance?

Of course she does, but that doesn't mean she has to participate. Stefani isn't trying to chase down her contemporaries, despite clearly possessing the physical fitness required. "It's really a blessing to be able to have such a long career, where there really is nothing to prove anymore," she says. "It's a different energy. You know, it's really just about doing it to do it, as opposed to trying to make a statement or make a mark."

Corset: Ronald van der Kemp, Bracelets: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Engagement ring: Gwen's own

Even the Saweetie remix of her latest single "Slow Clap" happened on a whim, after the younger artist happened to post a video of herself vibing to Stefani's 2004 single "Luxurious" on Instagram Stories. They knocked out the song and accompanying video in a day. Neither seems bothered by the Old Navy meme. "It was just this little video that we did on the fly," Stefani says. "It just happened. It just feels good to put new stuff out there."

Stefani completed a two-year Vegas greatest hits residency in 2019, which gave her a sense of perspective on her own legacy. "You make a new record because that's what is exciting for you," she says. "But people really just want to hear the records after a while that were the backdrop to their lives, a 'Don't Speak' or a 'Just a Girl' or a 'Hollaback Girl,' or whatever it was for them. So, you know, it's hard — you can only be new when you're new, and that's just the truth, and I know that."

She says she was pleasantly surprised that "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" charted at all, and that she only found out it did when Shelton walked into the kitchen to show her the iTunes numbers. "I burst out crying with joy, because it was like, 'Whoa, really?' I think I'd set myself up to be quite realistic about where I'm at."

Stefani, endlessly polite and self-deprecating in conversation, which on her end mostly consists of endearingly earnest run-on monologues, says she still has "tons" of insecurities. I get the impression she has been trying harder to give herself credit lately. She recalls recently hearing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on the car radio and finding herself in awe of the song's timeless catchiness.

Suit: Balmain, Earrings and choker: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own

"But then I started thinking," she says, in a goofy Cher Horowitz tone. "Like, I have a few of those myself." She talks of this realization as a genuine breakthrough, which is a little worrying for a woman who has sold 40 million records. No shit, she has a "few of those." More of them than Lauper, actually.

More new music is coming along slowly, but I've caught Stefani on a day when the horizon looks closer than usual, and while things haven't quite fallen into place yet, she's feeling more confident that they eventually will. "I'm at the end," she declares. "The idea of going for a session and not being with my kids or the idea of taking time away from Blake doesn't fuel my fire like it did two months ago. I need to decide, wrap it up, put out the project."

Crucially, there's no rush. The album will simply arrive sometime this year, tracklist and title currently undecided.

"You're talking to me at a weird transitional time," Stefani says repeatedly throughout our conversation, which sometimes takes on the cathartic tone of therapy. But having time in the first place is a new feeling.

Bracelet and choker: Dana Kemp (The Residency Experience), Obsession necklace: Lidow Archive, Gold necklaces: Gwen's own, Clothing: Blumarine, Boots: Philipp Plein

NO DOUBT WERE A BAND for nine years before getting on the radio. Enough time for Stefani and bassist Tony Kanal to be in a long term relationship then break up and write a whole hit album about it. All of the Fleetwood Mac drama was resolved pre-fame, which enabled the group to capitalize on the surprise success of Tragic Kingdom singles like "Don't Speak" and "Just a Girl" with a world tour that lasted almost three years. Three more albums followed, and Stefani has reinforced her household name status in every decade since, launching a solo career and multiple fashion lines while never totally cutting the cord from her original musical project.

In other words, record executives have been dictating Stefani's schedule since the mid-'90s. She even sings about it on Love. Angel. Music. Baby opener "What You Waiting For," in which her biological clock ticks like a metronome. Interscope Co-Founder Jimmy Iovine, who discovered No Doubt and continued to work with Stefani on her solo output, was quick to point out that his client's prime childbearing years were also her last opportunity to cross over into pop stardom. And after her first record went number one, it only made sense to lay down some new tracks straight away.

"Whether or not I get the response that I would hope to get — because that's what I'm used to, because I'm so damn spoiled and I've tasted the blood of success — I still got to do the creative journey."

"I had the baby, the first one, and it was only like eight weeks after I had him, that Jimmy was calling me saying, you've got to go in the studio with Akon," Stefani recalls cheerfully. "Like, Akon wants to work with you. Like, no, I'm nursing my baby. But then I couldn't say no." And then? "We wrote 'Sweet Escape.'" And then? "I went on a world tour." And then? "In the month that I got home from that one hundred and whatever shows it was, I got pregnant with Zuma. So then that was that." (It wasn't. Admittedly: "Then it was like, No Doubt, let's do another record.")

Things are different now: "You can just drop singles and you don't have to put a record out. But if you want to put a record out, you can work on it slowly." But even as she talks of slowing down, speculating that she might not even go on tour after the pandemic ends, in the next sentence Stefani's back to admitting that there's more work to be done, that she wants to write a couple more songs for her new record, "just to make sure."

Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience) Choker: Chanel, Necklaces: Gwen's own, Gloves: Laurel DeWitt, Top: Local Boogeyman

"The creation is the thing that fuels me so much," she says. "Whether or not I get the response that I would hope to get — because that's what I'm used to, because I'm so damn spoiled and I've tasted the blood of success — I still got to do the creative journey."

Like any good lyricist, she reaches out to her listener, hoping to convey a more universal point. "It's just probably the same for you as a writer," she guesses. "You know, it's the anticipation. You're in it now. You're getting the information. This is what you live for. You're doing the interview and then you're going to write it. And that's going to be the challenge."

GWEN STEFANI WAS PUTTING out diary entry pop when Olivia Rodrigo was still in diapers and Taylor Swift was but a humble Pennsylvania Christmas tree heiress. She struggles to pen lyrics that aren't confessional ("I'm not a creative writer when it comes to like, 'Oh, let's just write a sad song about something that didn't happen to me'"), and occasionally re-traumatizes herself when performing old hits. Return of Saturn deep cut "Dark Blue" triggers "crazy, just horrible" recollections of a past relationship. Even "Don't Speak" felt emotional onstage in Vegas.

But after releasing an excruciating divorce album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like, in 2016, Stefani is back to writing happy songs only. She's getting married, after all. She won't be releasing any of her trademark breakup anthems anytime soon. "Girl," she laughs, "I think I've had my fair share."

Bow: Laurel DeWitt, Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Bracelets: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Shirt: Vintage Archive, Dress: Erdem, Tights: Capezio, Shoes: Marc Jacobs (Lidow Archive)

Stefani and Shelton's relationship has puzzled some fans. Shelton, a country radio phenomenon, never endorsed Trump in the 2016 election, but he did come close. Earlier this year, he was criticized for releasing a song called "Minimum Wage," about finding small joys during periods of economic struggle, at the peak of a recession.

Is Gwen Stefani a Republican now? She's not offended by the question, or really anything I have to ask. She has been famous for so long that she expects and even embraces scrutiny. "If you're going to be a star, that's what you get," she says. "You know what I mean? You get what you get, and you don't get upset, at all."

As for her politics, it's read-between-the-lines."I can see how people would be curious, but I think it's pretty obvious who I am," she says. "I've been around forever. I started my band because we were really influenced by ska, which was a movement that happened in the late '70s, and it was really all about people coming together. The first song I ever wrote was a song called 'Different People,' which was on the Obama playlist, you know, a song about everyone being different and being the same and loving each other. The very first song I wrote."

One of very few multi-racial bands playing stadium shows for hoardes of American teenangers in the 1990s, No Doubt did very literally embody those second-wave ska principles of inclusion. Stefani even wore bindis and saris on stage as a symbol of cultural exchange with Kanal, who is Indian-American, briefly kickstarting a white girl facial jewelry trend that it's safe to say would not fly in 2021.

Rings (left): Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience)

"The Specials and The Selecter and all those groups, and what they were doing in the late '70s was this whole kind of anti-racism, we come together, Black and white ska movement," Stefani elaborates on the band's founding principles. "And we were sort of echoing that in the '80s when we did it, we were like the third generation of ska."

Ska she's always happy to discuss, but Stefani was brought up to keep her electoral preferences personal, and that rule has held for her entire career. "The whole point of voting, is you have this personal space to feel how you feel," she explains. "I use my platform to share my life story and to engage with people and to exchange whatever gift I was giving. I'm not a political science major. I am not that person. Everyone knows that. So why would I even talk about it?"

"I don't need to go on Instagram and say 'girl power.' I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me."

It never has been. Looking back, it's weird that "Just a Girl" is so integral to Gwen Stefani's brand. She's never written anything else with remotely the same message, and or publicly identified as a feminist. To Stefani, it's just a song about growing up, and "all of a sudden you realize your gender." It wasn't meant as a protest or anthem: in fact, being her breakout hit, she didn't think anyone other than her bandmates and some local fans would ever hear it.

"I don't even know if I knew what feminist at that time was," she says. "I was very sheltered growing up with my family. I wasn't political. I wasn't angry." Even now: "I don't need to go on Instagram and say 'girl power.' I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me. Stop talking about it and stop trying to bully everybody about it. Just do it. And that's how I feel like I've lived my life."

WHEN STEFANI WAS GROWING up in 1970s Anaheim, her father got a job doing market research for Yamaha, which required frequent business trips to Japan. He'd bring home Sanrio toys, as well as anecdotes about the Tokyo district of Harajuku, where teenagers were dressing like Elvis, and "taking all these American things and making them Japanese." His daughter was entranced. "He would be telling me these things my whole life, like my whole life. I had a deep fascination."

So when No Doubt played Japan in 1996, Stefani describes, "It was a pretty big deal for me." The tour was the first time she'd traveled outside of the United states, save one trip to Italy when she was 21. "I just was inspired," she recalls. "It's a world away. And at that time it was even further, because you couldn't see it on the internet. I don't think a younger generation can even imagine what it's like to not have access to the world."

From then on, Japan became one of Stefani's biggest career motivations, especially when it came to her solo albums. If she could just write more hits, she'd get to tour there again, see the street style, visit the vintage stores. "If you read the actual lyrics [in 'What You Waiting For?'], it talks about being a fan of Japan and how if I do good, I get to go back there," she says.

In the meantime, she decided she'd bring Japan to Los Angeles. "I never got to have dancers with No Doubt. I never got to change costumes. I never got to do all of those fun girl things that I always love to do. So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love. Those are my homies. That's where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku."

Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience, Gold Necklaces: Gwen's own, Top: Local Boogeyman, Pants: GCDS, Shoes: Valentino

Dancers Maya Chino ("Love"), Jennifer Kita ("Angel"), Rino Nakasone ("Music") and Mayuko Kitayama ("Baby") would go on to accompany Stefani for her next two album cycles, dancing on stage and in her videos while also making silent, but very well-dressed, awards show appearances. Kita, who'd grown up in LA, visited Japan for the first time on Stefani's tour.

In a 2006 interview with Blender magazine, comedian Margaret Cho compared the Harajuku Girls to a minstrel show. The backlash against them has been consistent ever since. Stefani, to this day, disagrees.

"If we didn't buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn't have so much beauty, you know?" she says. "We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more."

Hello Kitty merch was harder to come by when she was a kid, but in other ways, life felt easier. "I think that we grew up in a time where we didn't have so many rules. We didn't have to follow a narrative that was being edited for us through social media, we just had so much more freedom."

Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own, Dress: GCDS, Shirt: Faith Connexion, Tights: Capezio, Shoes: Marc Jacobs (Lidow Archive)

Stefani's penchant for rule breaking has always been apparent in her music as much as her aesthetic. Genre-wise, she's a randomista. The chart success of No Doubt's bouncing ska beats felt like an accidental post-grunge-era glitch in the matrix, and it's insane to this day that one of Stefani's biggest solo hits samples "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, by way of '90s British dancehall duo Louchie Lou & Michie One. That another, "Wind It Up," features earnest Sound of Music yodeling.

"I just make up whatever comes out," Stefani says of her songwriting process. "I don't even know where it comes from. I feel like it just comes from the source. It's not trained, and it's not perfect, it's just real."

She looks back on the Love.Angel.Music.Baby era as unusually experimental and artistically fulfilling. "It was just a really incredible time, and a very creative time. I feel like it was just a really creative project."

STEFANI VIEWS HER CAREER success as mostly a matter of luck. Pop stardom is God-given and mysterious."Because the fact I made it, it doesn't make any sense," she reflects. "It's written in the stars. You know what I'm saying? I'm not the most talented. I'm not the most pretty. I'm not the most smart. None of those things. But I made it, right?"

Clothing: Blumarine, Bracelet and choker: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Obsession necklace: Lidow Archive, Gold necklaces: Gwen's Own

Every week on The Voice she watches objectively gifted musicians fail at becoming artists. "I watched people that went through that without seeing their faces, without knowing what color they are. And I chose the ones that pulled my heartstrings. And even though they were so talented, none of them have had careers. It's made me look at myself and even feel even more amazed by the fact that anyone cared or cares."

If all of this is actually so out of her control, then Stefani feels safe stepping back a little bit. "I don't have that fuel in me like I used to, because I already won," she says. And now she has other victories in mind. "Being a good human, a good mother. I want to have a good marriage. I want to be a good wife. I want to win at finding peace. I want to win at finding other hobbies that I'm good at."

But at the same time? "If I'm inspired, I'm going to try to do something with that inspiration." That's the most fun part: whatever else comes after has always been an amazing bonus.

The "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" era, whatever form it may eventually take, isn't a desperate grab at former glory. It's Stefani refusing to evolve for the sake of it. She's poking fun at the whole idea of having to compete with past personas alongside current ones, while acknowledging the fact she's grateful to still be in the game at all.

"You don't know what you're doing," she says, somehow both confident and resigned. "You're a cartoon of yourself at this point, and you don't know what people are thinking. They're wondering, what? Why are you still here? And I'm like, I don't know. They said I could be here. So I'm here!"

Photography: Jamie Nelson Styling: Nicola Formichetti Hair: Sami Knight Makeup: Michael Anthony Nails: Carolyn Orellana Wardrobe director: Marta Del Rio Production: Katrina Kudlick Digitatech: Sean MacGillivray Logo design: Luca Devinu Story: Kat Gillespie

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

[bananaofswifts]

When award-winning cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto started working on the video for “Willow” with Taylor Swift in November, he didn’t know that it was a part of her new surprise album, Evermore.

“I thought maybe it was a video for the previous album,” he tells Rolling Stone. “I didn’t even know what the song was at our first meeting.”

Prieto wasn’t the only one in the dark about the new record; Swift dropped Evermore last week with a very similar rollout to her previous LP Folklore, complete with a self-directed music video released at midnight along with the album: “Willow.” The video serves as a narrative continuation of the story in the “Cardigan” music video — which Prieto also worked on — featuring a ton of visual references to tracks from Folklore.

“Willow” starts off in the same cabin where the “Cardigan” video left off, and Swift is once again beckoned to go inside her magical, time-and-space-traveling piano. She follows a golden string (referencing the Folklore song “Invisible String”) and arrives at an autumnal forest clearing under a willow tree, where she sees the reflection of a man (played by her tour dancer Taeok Lee) and a woman in a moonlit pool. The string later leads her to a scene from her childhood, a carnival tent party where she performs inside a glass box, and a wintery seance in the middle of the forest. Eventually, the string leads her back to the cabin where she reunites with Lee.

As with the “Cardigan” video, Swift, Prieto and the production team not only had to keep the shoot under wraps, but also find innovative ways to film the project under Covid-19 safety protocols without endangering the lives of the crew. Prieto spoke to Rolling Stone about the production this time around, and how the team brought Swift’s witchy vision for “Willow” to life.

How did the “Willow” shoot differ from “Cardigan”? It looks like you guys were able to have other actors on set this time around, but how did that change the safety measures you had to follow?

It was still very, very strict. A big part of it was the whole testing protocols, which we also did last time. But when we were doing this video, we knew more [about the virus], and the safety guidelines were more specific. We followed the same ones the DGA has done, that my union Local 600 has done, SAG — they’ve all put in place these protocols that we did follow, and were very careful about it.

For instance, in the scene with the choreography around the tree and the clearing, you know, with a sort of dance around these magical orbs, there was a limit on how many actors and dancers we could have there. That was created by visual effects, actually — they added in more dancers. I think the actual number was 10 dancers when we were filming, and they all have masks on, actually. We can’t see their faces, and that’s partly because they have masks.

There’s only really one moment, in the cabin, where she’s in close contact with [another actor], with the man that she’s been missing at all these different moments. But, of course, both were tested, and they’d only take off their masks in the moment where we’re actually shooting. Everyone else would always wear masks on. And similar to last time, anybody who was in the immediate vicinity of the scene had to have a red wristband — it was all color-coded, in terms of who could be close to the scene and the actors. And certainly, it was very important to have not only a mask, but a face shield whenever we were anywhere close to Taylor or any of the other actors or dancers.

I still used the remote camera on a crane, so there wasn’t even a camera operator close to anybody. We were still following all the guidelines very closely, but now, it felt more relaxed in the sense that we have more information. We could just follow all these protocols. And we knew that we’d be safe because it was all pretty strict.

You mentioned last time that communication could sometimes be difficult on the “Cardigan” set because everyone had to kind of yell at each other or point to things since they couldn’t get in close proximity. Was Taylor able to be more hands-on in her directing this time around, like she was while you were shooting the music video for “The Man?”

That was still was the case — especially when you have a mask and a face shield, and you’re six feet away, you have to be a little louder to be heard. So we did maintain that protocol. But she was still very involved. I would stay at my monitor at the DIT [digital imaging technician] station, because it was the best image, but everyone would all be kind of looking at it from a distance, from six feet away.

But there was one moment that was unforgettable. And she actually has mentioned it, which was, just as we were starting to film on November 7th, we got the news of the election result. We were both looking at the monitor at the DIT station, and she got a text alert or something like that. Obviously, at that moment, we were all working on the video, but in the back of our minds we’re all like, OK, what’s gonna happen? And she was the only one who could actually look at her phone, because in fact, everybody had to relinquish their phones in the beginning so that nobody would take photos of anything, except for a few people like myself, who could sometimes use our phone to take a photograph as reference. And I was only using it very, very sporadically for that sort of thing.

So Taylor ended up being the messenger for the election results on set.

Exactly. So, she’s next to me — six feet away, but she was next to me. And she got this text, and she showed it to me. So I learned of the result from her at that moment, and what I told her was, “I will never forget this moment,” both because it’s such a historically important moment and because she was the one who showed me this information, you know. That was pretty special. Yeah. I felt like celebrating and doing a little dance, but I didn’t — we’re professionals and we’re working and also, I wanted to be respectful of anybody who had voted differently. But it was a very incredible moment, and just the beginning of a three-day shoot that turned out to be an adventure.

This video makes so many references to songs on Folklore and older songs from Taylor’s discography, both obvious and hidden. How did she lay out her vision to you?

The first meeting was talking about the story and the ideas. I still didn’t know the song, but the first thing was figuring out that it’s a continuation of the previous one we did together. At that moment, she was still kind of developing her ideas and trying to figure out exactly what was going to happen — for example, the ending wasn’t quite clear yet. She knew that she wanted to finish again in the cabin and that [the man] would be there, right. But during that meeting, we decided to have them both leave the cabin. That was an idea that came to us as we were talking as a team.

And then we went back and forth — at first she thought it should be night outside because it’s always been night, and then she changed her mind and said it should be daytime, so we were like, OK, what does it look like out there? Is it just the limbo? And then Ethan Tobman, our production designer, said it should be this sort of autumn forest. She was very much appreciative of that and really listened to everybody’s ideas.

There was also discussion about that moment in the clearing, about whether it should be a bonfire or not. First of all, with production, we would have had to shoot it outside and that would have been very complicated. But also she felt that, even with special effects, it was not a good thing to show with all the wildfires going on in California. So she came up with the concept of some type of orbs, something more magical, and Ethan Tobman came up with a bunch of different reference photos for that. That was the way we developed these concepts — even with the willow tree, Ethan sent some images and ideas, and one of them had these magenta leaves on the ground, which was weird and magical. Taylor and I loved that. It was that kind of back-and-forth in the pre-production phase, before we even heard the music.

It’s amazing how you were able to pull this off under such complicated circumstances — communicating back-and-forth over Zoom, and then with the actual video shoot itself.

It’s pretty tricky to get such a complicated and really technically challenging shoot off the ground, but we planned it all beforehand. Ethan Tobman was working with his art director Simon Morgan on designing the sets over Zoom. So, it was all overhead plans, and then you have to go to the set and map it out. For that clearing scene, for instance, Simon Morgan and myself, and my gaffer Manny Tapia and my key grip Donald Reynolds, we went to the soundstage first and taped the space in the center where the magic orbs would be. And then we measured the distance to the background with the blue screen, and taped where all the trees would be, and then figured out where all the lighting would be for there and the carnival set — everything had to be very, very precise, and the distance had to all be worked out. It really helped when we were actually shooting, because it went very smoothly. So, that’s how we made it.

[waystobuild-blog]

Spare Room?

Hey everybody. Last year, I had worked on the Sonic Zine @stayhomesonic which was a fanzine that would be sold to fans each with pieces of art and writing about the pandemic, with the proceeds going towards Doctor’s Without Borders in the end. $612 was raised and it was great to take part in such a nice cause.

Now that the zine has been finished, I am able to post my piece to social medias which I am doing so now. Rather than something soft or emotional, I decided to go a little more comical with these characters while also going into the importance of staying home and social distancing.

Spare Room?

 With a global pandemic going on, everybody was asked to stay inside their homes. This was a good thing, it kept people safe. But if you were a guy that didn’t really have a house and just kinda camped out wherever you stopped running, then you were in for a problem. Unfortunately for Sonic the Hedgehog, that was his predicament.

He now stood in the Mystic Ruins outside of Tails’ lab where he hoped that he could crash until this whole thing blew over.

Tails arrived at the door decked out in a hazmat suit that even covered his namesakes.

“Hey, bud!” Sonic smiled and waved at him.

“Sonic, it’s good to see you!” The fox grinned.

Sonic was quick to go in for a hug, but Tails was quick to duck away. “Sorry, Sonic. No touching. You know how it is right now.”

The hedgehog sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. “Sorry, Sorry. Forgot.”

“It’s all good. So what brings you by these parts?”

“Well, everybody’s been told to go inside for this whole virus thing, and I don’t really have a house so I’m like ‘Why not bunk with the best little bro in the whole world?’ y’know?”

“Sonic that’s great and I’d love to have you.”

“Perfect!” He beamed as he began to make his way towards the door.

But for the first time in a long time, Tails was faster than him as he quickly produced a remote control with a single red button on it and stepped back into the house.

Suddenly, metal bars appeared in front of him as warning sirens went off all around. Sonic was quick to cover his ears as he watched his friend’s shack basically become Fort Knox in a matter of seconds.

“Sorry, Sonic. I’d love to have you but I just can’t. I’m busy trying to find a cure so it’s not safe here.”

“They’re trusting an 8 year old to find a cure for a worldwide pandemic?”

“Yes and they pay me handsomely. Good luck trying to find a place to stay, I gotta get back to work.”

Sonic waved him off before leaving.

If Tails wasn’t gonna let him stay then who would? He wondered as he ran off.

However, quickly he found himself in Station Square and that’s when he realized that he knew someone that would have to let him in.

It wasn’t long before Sonic stood outside of an apartment and rang the doorbell, giving off his best winning smile.

When the door opened, Amy Rose stood before him, wearing her usual outfit but a facemask as well.

“Sonic!” She cried. “It’s good to see you!”

“Hey, Ames. Good to see you too.”

Sonic reached out for a hug, but Amy was quick to back away. “No, no mister, you know the rules. Keep a safe distance.”

“Aw, come on, it’s just one hug.”

“Sure first it’s one hug and then it’s one kiss and then it’s one virus.” Amy shook her head. “We’re not in good times right now.”

Sonic chuckled. “Who are you and what have you done with Amy Rose?”

Amy swiped her hand around and laughed with him. “Oh, stop. But seriously, what brings you by?’

“Well, with this whole virus thing going around I’ve been looking for a place to stay, so I thought Amy will definitely let me-”

“No.”

“Stay and so I’m just gonna go in and- wait, did you say no?”

Amy gave a placate smile and shook her head “Same thing, Sonic. Any other day, I’d love to have you over, but right now it’s just not a good idea.”

Sonic sighed at this but nodded in understanding.

Amy quickly closed her door and Sonic was left to find someone else to bunk with.

First Tails and now Amy. This was proving to be a lot harder than he thought. He thought he was a shoe in to get inside Amy’s apartment but the girl was far more serious than he initially thought she would be. Part of him was proud of her for sticking to her guns and staying safe, but another part of him just wanted a bed to sleep in for once.

Who else did he know that actually had some sort of roof over their head could he go to?

And then it clicked. While definitely not ideal, he supposed he could give them a try.

Sonic raced off from Station Square and shortly arrived in Westopolis where he went to a specific high rise apartment complex to find Team Dark.

Team Dark, having more government funds than they knew what to do with lived incredibly comfy in what was more or less a penthouse and they were 100% fine with that. It was a bit too stuffy and fancy for Sonic’s tastes, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Sonic’s eyes widened in shock when he went to the top floor of the building and found steel plating surrounding the entrance to their apartment.

Sonic looked confused at this as he walked over to ring the doorbell.

But as soon as he placed a finger on it, alarms began to blare causing the hedgehog to instinctively jump into a battle pose.

But no danger came.

Instead, a massive screen flared to life and there stood the face of E123 Omega. “Who dares violate the safety of Rouge?!”

“Omega?” Sonic looked confusedly.

“Sonic the Hedgehog how dare you try to infiltrate our place of dwelling during the infection?! Please vacate the premises immediately or lethal force will be taken!”

Suddenly a comically large laser gun appeared from next to the panel and pointed dangerously at the hedgehog.

“Woah, woah, woah!” A sharp voice came from offscreen. “Omega, put those away right now!”

“But Rouge, he-”

“We do not vaporize our friends, Omega!” Rouge shouted.

If Sonic wasn’t mistaken he thought he had heard the robot groan but the laser was in fact put away.

In a few short moments the camera was turned in a new direction and he could see Rouge the bat lying lazily on the couch wearing a bathrobe and slippers, a magazine discarded at her side.

“Hey, Big Blue.” She waved. “Sorry about Omega, he’s gotten a little extreme when it comes to the virus.”

“A little? Dude tried to blast me!”

“And I would do it again.”

Rouge rolled her eyes at this. “Omega put the place on lockdown as soon as news broke out and won’t allow me to leave the house. I don’t really care though so I’ve just made myself comfortable.”

“Okay… what about Shads?”

“Shadow?” She snickered. “As soon as he heard, he didn’t even bother with me or Omega, he just used his Chaos Control and left. Who knows where he is?”

“Knowing him, he probably thinks he can’t be infected or something and is off trying to figure out how he can punch the virus.”

Rouge simply shrugged.

“Anyway, you gonna let me stay?”

Rouge shrugged. “I’d love to… But I am 100% sure Omega will vaporize you…”

“I will!”

“And I just can’t stop him.”

Sonic sighed. “Alright, thanks.”

Sonic ran off yet again, trying to find where exactly he could go but to no avail. He had friends all over the world and yet, none of them were taking him. He tried the Chaotix, he tried Professor Pickle, he even considered Omochao but then realized nothing was worth that hell.

But soon, he ran into someone that actually wanted him.

If only he could say the same about them.

“Hello, Sonic!”

Sonic stopped his running nearly tripping over his own feet with how sudden the gravelly voice had come out at him.

He looked up to the source of the voice and saw a floating screen before him and on that screen was none other than Doctor Eggman himself, giving him a big cheeky smile. The doctor wasn’t looking to good, he was covered in a blanket, his face redder than usual, his usually bushy moustache drooped down low.

“Sonic!” He announced. “I hear you are looking for a place to stay!”

“Pass.” Sonic tried to run away but the same floating screen was quick to have two robot arms extend from it and grab the hedgehog.

“Now hold on there, Sonic. I would like to extend an olive branch to you. With these trying times, we all need to stick together and I happen to know that you need a roof over your head. So, stay with me and we’ll make great company!”

Sonic let himself go from where the arms were holding him. “You’re sick, Eggman.”

Eggman violently coughed at that. “N-n-no, of course not. I am of perfect health.”

“I meant you’re messed up but yeah, that too.”

Eggman frowned at that. “Wait, I promise that no harm will come to you.”

“Is that right?”

“But of course.”

“In that case…”

“Chaos Control!”

Sonic and Eggman both looked up in shock to see none other than Shadow the Hedgehog drop down and dropkick Eggman’s screen, causing it to break.

“I- okay, I wasn’t expecting that, Shadow.”

Shadow rose from where he was crouched down on the ground and glared at the hedgehog.

“So… since you’re here, I was wondering if I could bunk it in wherever you were hiding out an-”

“Absolutely not!” Shadow roared. “After Rouge called me on my communicator, she informed me of your little crusade to find a roommate. So I’m telling you here and now, stay away from space. If I hear you so much as step one foot off the planet, then I will not hesitate to-”

“Woha, wait, space? I didn’t even know that…” And then it clicked. “You’re hiding out on the Ark aren’t you?”

Shadow’s eyes widened in shock and he quickly tried to cover himself. “I- I- I- cannot confirm or deny that… I- I have to go. Uh… Chaos Control!”

Sonic sighed at this, being left all alone with flaming pile of machinery.

After trying all his friends he was left in complete isolation. What was he to do now that he had nowhere to stay, nowhere to run to… He was all alone.

But it was those thoughts of loneliness, isolation that made him realize that he had one friend that he had completely forgotten to ask and zoomed off.

It wasn’t long before he arrived at his destination. Lush greenery surrounded him, birds were singing, nature was alive and well, standing amongst it all was a great big altar where a massive green gem of power could be seen radiating a comforting energy that rolled over him in waves.

Leaning against the same gem was none other than the Emerald Guardian himself, Knuckles the Echidna and as soon as Sonic stepped foot on the Altar, he cracked open an eye and looked over at his visitor.

“Sonic.”

“Hey, buddy. It’s good to see ya!” He sheepishly waved.

“What are you doing on my island?”

“Well… ya see, there’s this whole virus thing going on and…”

“Virus? What virus?”

Sonic stood there in stunned disbelief for a moment, staring at the echidna in complete befuddlement as Knuckles looked at him expectantly.

He just shrugged. “Forget about it. Anyway, you mind if I crash on Angel Island for a while?”

Knuckles put a hand to his chin in thought for a moment. “Eh, sure. Just stay away from the Master Emerald and me for that matter.”

“Works for me.” Sonic shrugged as he left to jog a few laps around the island, finally having a place to stay during this pandemic.

[moons-and-stars-and-shit]

Hi hi can i request a cake with haikyuu bois??

Pronouns, sexuality: she/her, straight

Appearance: 160cm, dark dirty blonde hair with black roots and I wear a black glasses, love wearing skirts and dresses, eyes colour is really really dark brown which only noticeable if that person is standing 1cm in front of me

Mbti, horoscope: ISFP-T, pisces

Personality: cold to new people but wild and weird around close friends, always act tough and bottle up my feelings but actually very sensitive and cry baby, independent hence I'm always too afraid to ask for help, stubborn and determined, kinda bit tsundere but can get very very clingy in a relationship, hot-headed/short-tempered, don't do well in stressful situation and will try to run away from it but I'm trying to change that, get shy and awkward and cringe at myself easily even if it's just me having a music jamming session all by myself

Hobbies: listen to songs, play video games or watch esport tournaments or pro players stream, sometimes shopping cuz i like fashion related stuffs

Random facts: very picky eater, always rage in video games and scream at my teammate who ruin my game but not to my friends, have a very cliche dream of visiting Musee de Louvre, MOMA, and the Van Gogh Museum in Netherlands, have a weird habit of crunching ice lmaoo

Values I look for in a partner: loyalty, sweet and caring, protective/dominance, able to accpet every part of me because I tend to change myself in a relationship if that means they will like me more

Thank you for answering my request!

🍰 for @lhlj

Romantic Matchup

Bokuto Koutarou

How yall met

you were a third year who had just decided to become a volleyball manager

So he knew you on that level

But he never actually KNEW you

You always seemed too blunt to conversate with

And you never really asked for help with anything

So he just never really made the effort to talk to you

Then one day he walked into practice and saw you talking to akaashi

Wait....

Were you smiling?

Omg your laughing now?????

Now that he thinks about it he has never seen you laugh before

After you left he ran up to akaashi

“Akaashi how did you get y/n to talk to you”

Akaashi looked at him like he just asked if the sky was blue

‘Oh you won't believe it, it's almost like i went up to her and just said some words” 😐

We stan sassy akaashi

No way it had always been that easy to talk to you

Right?

He decided to test his theory when he saw you struggling to grab the net from the storage closet

“Hey y/n you need some help there?”

Oh hey bokuto yeah if you could help that would be great”

Omg

It really HAD been that easy to talk to you

If he'd known how easy it was he would've tried befriending you MONTHS ago!

Well there's no time like the present am i right

He was shocked to see how differently you acted around people you're comfortable with

He always took you as a bit of a shy person

But turns out your even goofier than he was

And you were actually a really interesting person

Like he never knew that you wanted to go to the Netherlands!

And you were just so cool,and funny,and kind and-

Bokuto-san, you have a crush on them”

Huh?

No way

You were just his friend!

His really pretty friend that he couldn't stop thinking about`

Omg he had a crush on you…

It took him a couple of weeks to find the courage to tell you how he felt

Then one day he offered to walk you home after practice because he wanted to talk to you

So you agreed and started walking

Bokuto seemed off to say the least

Actually now that you think about it

He's been acting pretty weird for about a month or so

“Hey Bo you doing alr-”

“I have a crush on you y/n”

After he registered what he just said his face turned DARK red

“Ok gotta go bye”

“Wait Bo, i like you too”

I beg your pardon

You?

Liked him back?

Omg he could not be happier!

When you walked into the gym hand and hand the next day the whole team was just like

Omg about time 🙄

What they love about you

He loves how independent you are

He truly believes you can do whatever you put your mind to

However

He does wish you weren't so hesitant to ask for help when you really needed it

He's your boyfriend now!

If you ever need ANYTHING he'll be there for you

So pls pls pls ask him for help when you need it

He loves that your a dreamer

After you told him about your dream to visit places in the Netherlands

Bb boy started saving any extra cash he got in a jar

He will save up for YEARS if it means he can make your dream come true

Omg he LOVES how clingy you can get

We all know this boys love language is physical touch

So whenever you want to cuddle he literally ZOOMS to get pillows blankets and snacks

Yalls cuddle sessions are *chefs kiss*

Favorite things to do together

Honestly he just loves to spend time with you

So anything

Literally anything

You wanna play videogames all day? Bet

You wanna go to the mall all day and shop? Where's his wallet

You just wanna stay home and chill all day? Great! Anything for you

Random Hc

This man SPOILS. YOU. ROTTEN

If you so much as make the COMMENT about liking something in the store

Expect it to be in your hands the very next day

He actually was able to save up enough money to take you on your dream trip

You guys both went the summer after you graduated

One time he saw you just eating ice

And he was like “ooh let me try”

The second he put it in his mouth “ouch that's too cold :((((“

Yall have karaoke nights

It's basically you just putting songs on a speaker and jamming out while cooking dinner or sum

Astrology

Pisces + Virgo

Compatibility 88%

Virgo and Pisces represent the axis of the exaltation and fall of both Venus and Mercury.

This makes them partners with greatest challenges and the greatest potential for love in the entire zodiac.

They need to find a fine balance of rationality and emotions, each one individually and together through their relationship.

In many cases this is not a couple that will last very long, as their mutable quality makes them changeable enough to disregard the entire relationship quickly if they aren’t satisfied.

They need to realize that perfection they seek might not be presented in the form they expect. If they stay together for long enough to understand the benefits of their contact, they might discover that the love between them is the only true love they could find in this lifetime.

Overall Aesthetic

Surreal Dreamer

Songs-

Sunflower (Rez Orange County)

3 am (HONNE)

Little talks (Of Monsters and Men)

Out of my league (Fitz and the Tantrums)

[kay-kaylen]

Comparison of OPs

So... I don’t know if anyone noticed, I’m sure a fair few have, but Fugou Keiji’s Opening has changed. The visuals are different with episode 1, and the other episodes.

So I took it upon myself to screenshot and compare every single difference between the OPs.

I had to pause it scene by scene and I literally wanna die now.

Here y’all go.

For the sake of simplicity, I’ll be calling the scenes in the OP of episode one the ‘old’ OP, and the scenes for the rest of the episodes the ‘new’ OP. Cool? Cool.

Alright so first difference right off the bat is the brief flash where Daisuke is taking off his tie. Hot I know, but the old scene is way more clear and yellow (probably to signify gold and money and stuff I dunno) While the new one is much darker and almost appears foggy, which is interesting.

This is the same for this shot of Daisuke, Haru and Suzue all standing in a room together. Older OP is way more yellow while the newer one has its colour more washed out (Could be symbolic of how the show slowly gets darker and darker as it goes on)

Next is the first shots we have of both Daisuke tilting his head up towards the camera, and Haru looking down towards the camera. In the old OP, the scene was waaaay more blue, while the new one has the colours all washed out and is darker and more silvery, and the shadow fighting (or dancing I guess) in the background is switched from black to white.

Next is Suzue, and this was probably the most obvious change to me. When I saw the new OP, she was the thing that tipped me off that something was different.

In the old OP, She’s fully coloured in with skin and everything and you can’t tell me that this ISN’T Suzue. Pink collar, gold bands, black silky long hair, this. Girl. Is. Suzue. Whereas you might’ve been able to squeeze in an excuse with the new OP, where her skin has turned black and her hair is white. She’s also wearing a more hot pink lingerie rather than the purple one from before.

The background has also changed. Previously, she had the gold and black tinted background like coins were raining down on her, but in the new OP, it’s changed to a plain pink background with an orange circle around her that almost appears like a spotlight (Maybe this means we’re supposed to pay more attention to her as she’s in the spotlight, or that she’s being watched somehow and someone else is watching her) and she’s moved more to the left in the newer version when we see her holding the wrench.

We have ANOTHER scene that’s almost the same except it’s been washed out and Daisuke is slightly more purple and has a yellow tie or something underneath. Again, the dancing figure is switched from black to white.

A thing that I’m noticing besides the washed out colours is how there’s an emphasis on that spotlight on the person dancing in the background. I think this is Daisuke, and if I had to guess, this spotlight represents that he’s being watched. But I’ll get more into analyzing this kind of thing in another post.

The next difference is again, another huge one that sent off my alarm bells that something was different in the OP. In the old version, the background was shaded magenta and every character was just black. However, in the new OP, the background is white and there’s a much stronger contrast with it and the black silhouettes and we can clearly see that Daisuke’s shadow is red instead of a very dark purple-almost black colour.

This scene probably has the MOST symbolism in the entire OP, but I’m going to hold my tongue and save it for another day.

When you pause and compare everything frame by frame, there is a LOT of difference. Just take these three shots that flash by in seconds. The gold on the watch is less detailed in the new version and the background is lighter, but we see the shadow more clearly. The silhouette in the glass is red instead of being a normal grey/black and the whole shot appears duller. Daisuke’s tie and suit also changed to suit the OP it comes from and the shadow casted on the bathtub is green instead of black.

Next is the scene with that lady and Daisuke. In the old OP, she’s been coloured in and more clearly defined and we can clearly see the lasers around Daisuke, who is watching her. In the new one, she’s been tinted to show more black and gold, like how Suzue was earlier and the lasers around Daisuke are not as clearly defined, but we can still SEE them if we look closely. He also has a shadow and the scene just overall looks far more grim and less bling.

Small detail in this one but it’s still a change so I have to put it in. In the old OP, right before Daisuke lights his cigarette, he’s already coloured yellow. However, in the new OP, he’s a dark blue and only goes yellow after he lights his cigarette.

I think it’s pretty neat even though it’s a small change because it gives more of the effect of the room being lighted up with the flame of the cigarette as compared to the old OP.

There’s a change that comes much later in the OP as compared to everything before now, and it’s very subtle but brings about a lot of symbolism. 

In the old OP when we see Daisuke’s feet walking ahead, Haru’s isn’t there and only shows up in front of Daisuke when the whole division is shown walking together. But in the new OP, he DOES show up walking and keeping pace with Daisuke, and it looks more like he’d overtaken him as we zoom out rather than already being in front of Daisuke as with the old OP. I also find it kind of funny how Teppei and Shinnosuke’s feet are behind Daisuke for some reason. Maybe they’ll play a bigger role later? Who knows.

We get a brief shot of a woman right after this, and in the old OP, she was shown with a lot of gold and bling with a shadow, but in the new OP, she’s completely pastel and doesn’t even have the lipstick. To be completely honest, I can’t tell who this is. She has dark hair in both versions of the OP and it could be Suzue, but it could also just as likely be the woman from before or someone else entirely. I can’t tell. Her face makes it so I can’t tell how old she is, and she’s wearing different jewelry to what we’ve seen with Suzue and the woman from before have.

Next is another big shot (heh) that made me think that ‘okay the OP’s different’, and it’s the second round of Daisuke and Haru both tilting their heads to look at the camera. In the old OP, the background is black with golden moving specks that look like coins raining down. However, in the new OP, the background is completely white and they both seem to fade away or smudge.

Next we get the same bright to dull shot of the room (without Haru this time) Old OP is brighter and more yellow, new OP is more washed out.

The final difference is the shot of Suzue again with the knife, but this time, the only change is the background and her position. She’s been shaded in black, even in the old OP, and her lingerie changed to pink to match the new OP. It’s almost completely the same except for the background and how she’s been shifted to the left in the new version.

Aaaaand that’s a wrap. WHEW this actually took me way longer than I thought it would. There are a LOT of differences I hadn’t noticed until I examined everything frame by frame. It’s WILD.

So yeah, let me know what y’all think and whether I missed anything. 

Bye!

[incorrect-spiderson]

for the prompts, can i have peter and shuri or michelle (whichever you prefer) babysit Morgan?

Ao3 Link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25350943

The Babysitters

Okay this took way too long but here you go lovie💕

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Peter I’m not sending you to purgatory, I’m just asking you to babysit Morgan.”

The teenager groans and slumps over the side of the couch. “It might as well be the same thing!”, he whines, tossing his hands in the air. “I’ve watched Nemo at least twelve times this week!”

Tony rolls his eyes as he adjusts his tie. “She’s your sister Pete, and she’s six. Plus you’re the only one she’ll listen to besides The Wiggles.”

Peter huffs and adjusts his totally not pouty position. But after a second of thought he smiles. “Well then, I have one condition.”

Tony cocks and eyebrow and looks at his son through the mirror. “You have conditions for babysitting your sister now?”

“No, condition. One.”

“Mhm, and that would be...?”

“I want Shuri to come over.”

Tony turns to eye his son and gives him a smirk. “You want me to let you have a girl over? While you’re home alone with your sister?”

Peter’s face turns at least six different colors of red and screws up into the most disgusted look Tony could imagaine. “Dad- no that’s- ew stop it no Shuri is one of my best friends that’s just- you’re nasty.”

Tony laughs as he turns back to the mirror. “I know I know kiddo. Of course you can. Just be careful with that Trek teleporter thing that she made. I don’t want to get a call and find out that Morgan is in Siberia.”

Peter’s look of disgust instantly transforms into a smile as he stands up and hugs his dad. “Thanks dad! But uh.. shouldn’t you be going? I think moms been waiting in the car for like.. ten minutes.”

Tony’s expression turns from one of love to one of fear. He quickly adjusts the sleeve over his robotic arm and races towards the door mumbling something about thinking she was upstairs. He swipes his phone from the counter and opens the door. “Love you bambino! Tell Mo I love her!” He calls, then shuts the door and races off to the car.

Peter chuckles as he hears the car start up then zoom off towards the city. He turns and makes his way to the garage, slipping his phone out of his pocket to quickly message Shuri.

——————————————————————————

spooderpete: Beam yourself up

shuriken: Why?

spooderpete: Babysitting Morgan, Dad said you could come over.

shuriken: Omw Scotty

——————————————————————————

Peter puts his phone back in his pocket and flips on the lights in the garage. He makes his way down to the Trek Pad and switches it on. The device starts glowing in bright blue pulses, then it suddenly turns a deep purple. Then in the blink of an eye Shuri is standing before him.

Peter laughs. “Well, it works!”

Shuri scoffs, stepping off of the device and lightly slapping his arm. “Did you think it might not work? I built it! Of course it would work!”

“I mean if we go back to last week...”

“Last week does not count! Do you know how hard it is to create a small black hole?”

“Yes because I tried it with you.”

“I- shut up. Where’s your sista?”

Peter rolls his eyes. “She’s upstairs in her room, but you’re avoiding-”

Shuri sticks her finger in his face. “Not another word from you or I will beam myself back to Wakanda. I have something for her to see.”

The girl walks into the house and heads towards the stairs. Peter hurriedly follows as he closes up the garage. By the time he gets up the stairs, Shuri is already in Morgan’s room. He gently pushes open the door and is instantly met with the upside down face of a six year old girl.

“Hi petey!”, Morgan squeals. She gives him an upside down hug around the neck and giggles, “I’m just like you now!”

When his sister releases him she realizes that Shuri, who is also upside down, is standing behind her. Both girls are wearing glowing bands around their shoes and heads. The older girl smiles. “What? Now we can all hang out.”

Peter finally recovers from the shock of seeing an upside down child and joins them on the ceiling. “So... whats going on up here ladies.”

Morgan giggles. “We’re gonna have an Avengers Meeting!”

Shuri takes on a serious look and nods. “What are we battling today Morgan?”

The little girl gets serious as well. “From now on you call me Admiral Stark. We have to fight the evil fluff monsters from a parasail universe.”

Peter leans over and whispers in her ear. The girl sighs and rolls her eyes. “That’s what I said! Parasail!”

Peter sticks his hands up in defeat. “Okay okay! But Admiral Stark we’re going to need reinforcements. The evil fluff monsters are dangerous.”

Morgan thinks for a minute then nods. “You’re right Spiderman. Bring me to the ground! I need to go get the others!”

She reaches out for peter to grab her so he takes her by the arm pits and flips her over so she lands on the ground softly. Both teens watch upside down as she sprints off down the hall.

They did in silence for a moment before they both laugh. “Your sister is very imaginative. I figured she would like my Spider-bands.”

Peter raises a brow. “So how’d you make those? Are the headbands to keep the blood from rushing to your head?”

“Yes! It’s a very intricate process and it makes us able to-”

Morgan come sprinting back into the room with two arms full of action figures, dolls, and tape. Peter lifts her back onto the ceiling and makes sure the Spider-bands stick before releasing her. She crawls back over to her spot and sits criss-cross. They spend the next few minutes taping the dolls and action figures to the ceiling. Once the last doll is secure, Morgan starts ‘the meeting’.

“Spiderman, Shuri, I want you to meet the other Avengers.”

Morgan points to an Ironman figure with a tutu. “That’s Irondad.” She then point to a figure of Thor. “Thunder Poptart.” Then two stuffed birds. “Hawkeye and Pidgeon” A Barbie doll with red hair colored on by a marker. “Tasha”. Then a Cap figure. “And that’s Captain Assho-”

“MORGAN” Peter screeches before she can finish. “Do you know what dad would say if he heard you say that?”

The girl ponders for a second then smiles. “Dads not here so it doesn’t matter.”

Peter opens his mouth to protest, then shuts it with a sigh. “Whatever, just say butthead.”

Shuri giggles to the side and he rolls his eyes.

The ‘battle’ starts and soon enough there’s action figures and stuffed animals flying across the room. The game lasts about 30 minutes before Morgan grows bored and hungry.

Just as she makes Irondad punch the evil teddy bear she sighs. Dropping her toys to the ground she lets gravity make her arms sway above her head. “I’m hungry Petey... and I wanna watch a movie.”

Peter chuckles and lowers himself to the ground. “Yeah I figured Momo. Let’s get you down then you, me, and Shuri can go eat some pizza and watch a movie.”

Shuri flips down second and deactivates her devices. Both teens help Morgan off the ceiling and onto her bed. They all head down the stairs, Shuri and Morgan go into the kitchen to make the frozen pizza while Peter sets up the Netflix and gets out the blankets.

The three kids settle down on the couch. Morgan lays on the left, Peter sits in the middle, and Shuri lays to the right. They flip through multiple movies until Morgan, thankfully, picks Frozen II instead of Nemo. Peter gets up to get the pizza and drinks, then they start the movie.

They spend the rest of the night singing along to the movie, eating pizza, and eventually sleeping. Peter picks up his sleeping sister and carries her upstairs to her room. After he tucks her in he goes back downstairs to help Shuri clean up.

The teens pick up the left over pizza and plates. After they finish, they spend the rest of the night talking and coming up with tech designs. Shuri is in the middle of explaining a new gadget design when her kimoyo beads start glowing.

Shuri slumps into the couch. “I am guessing this is my brotha. I should go. Are we meeting next week?”

Peter sits up and stretches. “Oh yeah definitely. We have to build that real life Millennium Falcon.”

Shuri stands and walks towards the garage. “Of course! See you next week Peterman!” She throws up a peace sign and then leaves.

Peter sighs and lays back on the couch. Soon enough he’s drifting off. He barely even hears the door open and his parents lay a blanket over him. He smiles and lets himself drift off to into a peaceful sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bonus:

Tony walks up stairs carefully so he doesn’t wake up his little girl. As he steps into her room he realizes that something.. isn’t quite right. He doesn’t have Peter’s spider sense but he has a dad sense.

And something is wrong. He swings the door open, searching for any threat. Then he hears it. A slight creaking, or even... peeling noise. He can’t tell where it comes from. But suddenly, it hits him.

Literally.

The Captain America figure falls off the ceiling and lands on Tony’s head. In a moment of fury he yells, “DAMN YOU CAPTAIN ASSHOLE!”

He spins when he hears a gasp. Morgan is sitting up right in her bed with a hand over her mouth. With a smile she says, “It’s okay daddy I won’t tell mom.”