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wizkiddx · 3 years

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unusable faces

i have exams hence why i needed to write something exceptionally cringe :)

PSA: this is completely inspired from one of my fave writers own blurb @blissfulparker --> completely recommend u go read hers its much better than anything i could ever write!!!! (and just her whole account) = link

Summary: pure exhaustion and mutual pining, Tom Holland x actress!reader

^(just thought this was cute, doesn't really fit aha but full credit to op!!)

A scheduling nightmare would be putting it lightly. Perhaps almost unavoidable but that didn’t make it any less of a hellish form a torture. Harry had very helpfully said it actually was a form of torture, that is sleep deprivation. Y/n loved her job - it was all she’d ever really wanted - yet that thought was quickly becoming not enough to get her through the day. Not when it felt like an interrogation tactic used by the CIA.

To give a quick timeline of the past few days may give a little context:

Thursday - filming the fight scene all day plus an evening-turned-half-the-night-shoot due to some technically difficulties delaying the process.

Friday - flying to New York while doing read throughs of scenes for the next few days; followed immediately by getting glammed and filming the tonight show with Fallon; then a dash across town to the late late show with James Corden; then straight back on a flight to Atlanta that landed at stupid o’clock in the morning

Saturday - a full day of shooting in a mock grand central station set

The press trip to NY had been unplanned… to say the least. But the star of their studios other new release had taken ill - meaning they had slots booked on some of the biggest talk shows in America that would just be abandoned (angering the shows bookers too). It was a waste of perfectly good promo time and since the studio had their two other stars together doing a block of reshoots - it wasn’t a conversation. Much more a call demanding the two of them to be on the plane.

Normally this wouldn’t be such an unmanageable ask either, except the reshoot block was really rather time pressured. You see, the promo tour wasn’t far from beginning meaning they really needed the final film in the can. So really it was a bit of a mess. Just to free up that single day the two were in New York the whole schedule had had to be rejigged - in doing so they’d lost a rare day off too. It was just typical.

The joys of success hey?

Well, that’s at least what Y/n was making herself think whilst her incredibly talented SFX artist was in the process of crafting a deep wound onto her upper arm. The reason why she would be ‘dripping with blood’ whilst at a train station was beyond Y/n to be honest - she hadn’t been allowed to read a lot of the script so even now as filming was drawing to a close, the story arc of the movie she was headlining was still a little ‘fuzzy’.

“So I watched your ‘spill your guts’ thing on YouTube” Ellie giggled whilst reaching over for more prosthetic putty- a technical term apparently

“I’m glad one of us enjoyed the experience” Y/n replied with a sigh, rolling her eyes at the mischievous smirk on her face - no doubt Ellie took great joy out of seeing her suffer through eating a thousand year old egg. Which Y/n swore the taste of was still in her mouth… and it seemed as though it’d never leave.

“Oh don’t worry darling I did too” Nelli called over from the next chair along, where she was doing Tom’s makeup for the day of shoots. “Between that and the animals on Fallon, you made a hell of a lot of people laugh last night” Tom’s artist was referencing the fact one of Jimmys other guests was a zookeeper, so at the end of the interview he had you and Tom join in trying not to scream at the snakes and spiders.

“You mean laugh at us?”

“Well of course darling!” Nelli exclaimed back in an overdramatic bronx accent making all three of the women burst out laughing, Ellie’s unceremonious snorts echoing through the trailer only egged them all on more.

Tom in response, who had otherwise been absent from conversation for the majority of the morning, exclaimed a curse and jumped up in his chair. While you and Ellie collected yourself, Nelli apologised to him.

“Oh sorry love, I’m interrupting your snooze with my uncontrollable comedic gift” She spoke sweetly, even if still taking the moment to flaunt to the other women, as she squeezed his shoulder compassionately.

“No no” Tom waved off her apology, attempting to rub his eye before Nelli swatted his arm away - a stern look for the risk of ruining all her hard work she’d put into making his face look half presentable.

“I’m impressed you can sleep while they poke you with all these er instruments” Y/n added in, having only just realised Tom had been in a light sleep for god knows how long they’d been in that chair. It did seem a bit unlikely, being able to fall asleep as you were dabbed, prodded and brushed.

“Maybe you should try though Y/n… your purple eye bags are proving a struggle even for me” Ellie quipped back, now it was Y/n’s turn to give the stern look. Tom took the explain though, shutting her off from whatever kindly meant insult she was about to throw back at her friend.

“No normally never, I just….” He was cut off by an ear splitting yawn, appearing almost powerful enough to crack his jaw - which would be a disaster, for no one should ruin such a beautiful and sharp jaw line. “…uh-sorry. I just think I ended up taking my NyQuil and DayQuil the wrong way round in the madness of yesterday.” Only Tom, the poor kid often seemed to lacking in any form of common sense - even if those closest to him knew just how intellectual and passionate he could be about the right topic. Affectionately, Nelli scalded his idiocy by jokingly swatting his head with a little tut.

“I can’t believe your still standing then! I’m barely alive and I don’t have any sedatives in my system.” It was true, Y/n was at that stage where every part of her body felt ridiculously heavy… eyes included … eyes especially.

“But I did sleep on the jet back while your stupid self was studying the script!” Tom replied with a pretty inarguable point - at the time he knew her actions were stupid; when their flight took off at 11 PM he was certain that the most valuable asset to his ability to act in the reshoots today would be sleep - rather than character development. And he’d tried to convince Y/n that briefly, but gave up. She was bloody stubborn when she wanted to be.

“Stop competing about who has it worse cos I think it’s me and Nell”Ellie announced - making Nelli agree empathically with her coworker, nodding her head as she looked first to Y/n in her chair then back at Tom.

“Yeh because we have to deal with your unusable faces!!”

After much sarcasm thrown back and fourth, the trailer slowly ebbed it’s way back into serenity and peace as both artists focused on their work. Once Nelli was done she excused herself, Tom staying in the chair in favour of studying (more like staring blankly) at the dialogue for this mornings scenes. His pretence didn’t last long though and while Ellie was busy adding the final touches of fake blood to the now almost completely believable gash that she’d crafted on Y/n’s arm - Y/n had her attention focused the opposite way.

At poor little Tom. He looked so childlike, his slightly puffy eyes looked as if they had weights tied to them - they way he was having fight against gravity to flutter his eyes open, before loosing the next second only for the process to repeat as they dragged downwards. The broad muscles of his neck occasionally seemed to occasionally let up a little, letting his head tilt slowly at first until it gathered enough momentum to throw him off balance. The then sudden movement of his head unconsciously pulling itself back in line caused his eyes to bolt open prior to the whole cycle repeating again. All Y/n wanted to do was let him lay down someone, her heart feeling a tug in her chest just seeing him like that.

Ellie proclaimed her completion of the wound, leaning back to admire her work before looking to get an affirming nod from Y/n. Yet instead, she was too preoccupied gazing at the boy slouched across from them. “Someone seems a little distracted.” Ellie smirked, finally garnering Y/n’s attention, only feeling more and more smug watching a light tint appear on the actors cheeks.

“I-well-no… we need to go.” Y/n ignored her words as though nothing had happened, instead rushing off the chair to get Tom out the chair and onto the awaiting set. They had places to be.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||| (bcos im lazy)

Honestly when the director, Ed, called for lunch break, it was pretty apparent to be purely as a compassionate gesture to Y/n and Tom. Both of them had tried so hard this morning to fully commit, even so they’d both been almost completely useless. Y/n kept missing cues whilst all Tom’s actions and lines where slow, dragged out and at times completely prompted from someone behind the cameras.

So when the lunch break was called there was only one thing on Y/n’s mind and what sandwich was available in the mess tent was not it. Still standing on the set next to her fake holdall bag she looked toward Tom, who was pulling himself up to standing from the train station bench - the pace of his movement making him look more like an old man.

“You good?” His answer was predictable.

“I’m so fucking shattered”

Tom swore he’d never heard anything sweeter come out of Y/n’s pink lips than her next statement.

“C’mon I know somewhere we can lie down.”

Without any sort of thought Tom blindly agreed, nodding as he took her outstretched hand in his. The gesture in itself brought a fresh wave of comfort to his aching limbs and as his feet stumbled to catchup with her slight head start he leant the majority of his weight into their connected hands.

Neither would admit it but they were ‘a thing’… whatever the hell that meant. It was clear as day to everyone and anyone that worked closely to the two but neither of them had ever broached the topic with each other. They’d worked on a few films together over the years; each time they got closer and closer to the point any job without the other simply wasn’t as good. It was scary though, especially for two actors in the prime of their careers. If they weren’t working the same film they’d likely be the opposite side of the world to each other most of the time - quality time together would be few and far between, Really their jobs didn’t suit dating at all, yet it would be perhaps easier if one half of it worked a ‘normal’ job. Something with consistency, a regular structure. A level of dependability that neither Y/n nor Tom could offer to the other.

So it was terrifying, acknowledging the growth in their magnetic attraction to each other. Both were acutely aware that doing that, confronting their feelings, would most likely signal the beginning of the end.

Although none of this stoped Y/n from returning the gesture, tilting her shoulder into Tom’s left side as they took slow steps through and then out the set building. She steered the two past the hair and makeup trailer and round into a store and extra equipment trailer. Tom tilted his head as she climbed the stairs whilst beckoning for him to follow - it didn’t seem like the most obvious choice. Rolling her eyes, Y/n explained.

“It’s where all the blankets and coats and kept for the raining scenes plusssss no one will disturb us in here.” Again Tom was not in a position to disagree, eyes drooping as his shoulders sagged to the floor. Right now he’d take anything.

So he climbed up the stairs and shut the door behind him, just as Y/n flipped the light on. She was right, it was well equipped and with an almost mountainous supply of red blankets that normally the crew and extra would all be wrapped up in after the freezing rain scenes with all the ‘waterfall machines’ as Y/n called them. However it was also um…. It was cosy. “Oh I don’t think I realised how small it was” She chuckled lightly, since now the door was closed her back was pressed up against the far wall of cabinets and still her front was mere millimetres from Tom.

“I…I don’t mind… if-if you don’t?”

“I’m too tired to care” She giggled in response, and Tom , now with her seal of approval, immediately started ransacking the piled shelves for all their worth creating a floor carpeted in the pale red of the blankets, in an attempt to make it more cosy. Joining in, it was almost remarkable how quickly their bodies suddenly agreed to move, with the new promise of rest mere moments away.

Once the trailer was fully drowned, Tom kicked off his costume shoes and threw his jacket off - it haphazardly landing by the doorway. Y/n copied him, leaving her stood up whilst he had the advantaged of already settling down on the floor, her standing and looking down at him.

The space between the two opposing shelving units was not close spacious enough for two people to lie down whilst keeping a respectable level of personal space. Suddenly feeling a wave of awkwardness, Y/n stayed standing, wringing her hands slightly - whilst fairly certain Tom could hear her heart running at 100 mph.

“You er… gonna stay there or?” Tom, contrary to popular belief, wasn’t a complete idiot - he could see she was suddenly self conscious. He got it too - they’d never crossed this boundary of choosing to cuddle into each other. It had happened once of twice accidentally over there 2 years of knowing each other. Both of those times it was completely accidental, falling asleep watching a movie with a safe distance of space b between the two, only to find hours later their bodies almost completely intwined. Tom would be lying if he said that his heart didnt skip a beat when he had awoken to Y/n’s soft and gently breath fanning into his neck. He’d loved it, but understood that was unconsciously breaking down part of the wall they’d both been the constructors of.

For fear of getting hurt.

So now, as Y/n awkwardly bent down and lay on her side, he thought it was imperative to make her feel comfortable. Naturally then, his arm slid round her shoulders and pulled her down toward his chest, releasing a little breath as he felt her relax, her legs slowly wrapping round one of his.

“This okay?” He murmured, now into the crown of her head as she lay half on her side half on his chest. In reply she nodded into him and Tom couldn’t help but grin- unbeknownst to him but Y/n was doing the exact same thing.

The peace lasted all of 3 seconds until she groaned again.

“What?” Tom enquired as she wriggled out his hold and stood up. Instead of replying though she just leant over and flicked the one harsh light bulb off making Tom chuckle as she fumbled her way back onto the padded floor in the darkness, earning a few grunts from both as she accidentally kicked Tom’s thighs or banged her head on one of the now empty shelves. Fumbling her way back into a comfortable position, occasionally cursing when she stubbed her toe- or Tom did when she accidentally elbowed him in the ribs.

“Comfy?” Tom asked a little sarkily as he squeezed her a little more into his side.

“Mhmmmm… I’m gonna sleep for 100 years”

“Yeh me… me too”

And with that they both almost instantly and in complete unison sagged into each other and the blankets - the pent up stress and tension of the past few days ebbing away.

What the pair had neglected to remember was that sleeping for 100 years wasn’t really an option. The whole crew of 50 people, who wanted to restart filming after 45 minutes, had not been told about Y/n’s little hiding place. The pair were so completely safe in their own little cocoon of comfort they were completely oblivious to their teams calling there names more and more frantically. Completely oblivious to the game of hide and seek the situation had descended into, completely oblivious to Harrys natural annoyance as the director asked him for the whereabouts of the two stars - as though Harry was childminder to the pair of them.

It was Nelli who found them first. She’d and Ellie and Tom’s manager had all been recruited by Harry as part of the man hunt. Both girls, having seen first hand the state of the two this morning, were fairly certain they’d both crashed out somewhere. So Nelli, already with a sneaking suspicion, opened the door gently, her figure blocking the majority of the light from seeping through to the dimly lit inside. The sight she was met with had her actually pouting at the cuteness - and yes its a cringey word but also the only one appropriate.

Between bedding down and barely an hour later the two had managed to become impossibly tighter pressed to each other. Y/n’s face was pressed into the crook of Tom’s neck and his arms seemed to have pulled her on-top of him almost completely. Her left leg was hooked under his right, which was then sandwiched by his left too. They both looked so pure and innocent and god did Nelli know they both needed any extra time they could get.

Nelli cared a lot about Tom, she’d been working with him from the beginning, from the child star days to now. She cared about him like her very annoying surrogate son and she wanted to see him looked after. She also so completely wanted the two stars to stop pining after each other. Because frankly it was getting a little frustrating for everyone else.

So she chose to tactically forget about her discovery, sneaking a photo on the sly before silently pulling the door closed and leaving them to their sleep.

#tom holland #tom holland fluff #tom holland x reader #tom holland x famous!reader #tom holland x actress!reader #fluff

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yourfavouritetragedy · 3 years

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I was adding onto the DSMP Actor AU post, but it turned into Wilbur musician AU, haha rip me, and I only know SBI anyways so here’s a separate post. (It goes back to actor AU at the end.) It’s hypothetically still in the same universe though, and obviously inspired by it. If anything’s phrased weirdly, it’s cuz this was originally an addition to that.

tbh I kinda adhered to their IRL careers too much compared to the OP but whatever it’s fine.

Also frick the “Dream SMP” for not having a better title lmaooo

Wilbur is an indie artist really on the come up

Your City Gave Me Asthma was pretty good for a first release, popular with both new fans and fans of his acting.

He had starred in a short mystery/thriller-ish series that started off disguised as a normal sitcom: Chilly in Lincolnshire {Editor Wilbur ARG}

It had a prominent release because of Jack Massey’s involvement and previous fame, but production was abruptly scrapped before it tied everything up with a bow on top, so to speak. It’s still unclear if this was actually planned in order to tell the story the way they way wanted.

Even before that, critics had mixed reviews, either applauding the storytelling and acting or calling it “irrationally confusing, an amateurish attempt to box unconventional storytelling into a conventional medium.”

Also SootHouse was a sitcom that achieved a cult following during the two seasons it ran before cancellation. Either you’re a fan or you’re never heard of it, and people constantly forget Wilbur was in it.

(He was a few other old shows on his resume too. Wilbur always focuses on the newest project, so everyone always forgets about what he was in before.)

Maybe I Was Boring EP was initially just bonus tracks on his website, but his fans liked it so much he gave it a wider release

In between, he had a few comedy songs go viral on youtube. Everybody was so confused when they realized it was the same Wilbur as musician/actor Wilbur. He laughed about it in an interview, saying “How many Wilburs do you know?”

That’s when it came out that “Wilbur Soot” was actually a stage name. (”Ha, fair, only one.” “Make that zero-- my name’s not really Wilbur.”)

He kinda disappeared after that?? Didn’t do anything, really inactive on social media. It was semi-confirmed that he was both working on his mental health and prepping some stuff (music, auditions).

But anyways he just released a series of singles, combined into Digital Love {E-girl trilogy}-- he’s transformed his image yet again, but this time he does take ownership of all his past ventures.

The release of Digital Love bridges the end of SMP Earth and the beginning Dream SMP.

But before that there was MCC and the other stuff.

They are shows where celebrities team up do stuff-- you know the type

but Minecraft Monday is still inexplicably Minecraft Monday. Some Youtuber just managed to get all these up and coming celebrities to play a Minecraft tournament.

And that’s where the Sleepy Bois (minus Tommy) met IRL so that’s where they meet here.

SMP Earth, like Minecraft Manhunts, is also a former show they were on. I’m going to call it World Domination. Don’t @ me; I know that’s trash lol.

They and the Dream Team met up because of their shared fanbases and were even talking a crossover, but it didn’t really work that well for the stories so they scrapped it

They make a non-canon cross over episode anyways {no IRL equivalent, I think}

Everybody loves the cons. Everytime there’s a con, five friendships are made and eight ideas are created.

Techno backstory time

He’s done a lot of long running, though not exactly popular, serials and sitcoms: Blitz, Survival Games, and Sky Wars.

Winstreak: 1000 {Bed Wars 1000 winstreak} was so popular they made a second season, but it never got as big as the first. He worked nearly exclusively with Hypixel Studios.

He was doing lots of random content for their new Sky World universe {Skyblock} -- the small studio was big on experimentation -- , when a fictional documentary, The Great Potato War, went proper viral.

They made two sequels WHILE he was doing those celebrity team challenge shows and then World Domination, and they were actually good sequels.

Got a reputation for being shallow and a sell-out, but he makes a joke of it so much he gets away with it and constantly self-promos.

Also a kinda scary to work with for the first time because of how single-minded he can get, but once you realize how socially awkward he is it’s okay.

Now that’s he’s in a lot of stuff with worldbuilding, he practically has the wikis memorized.

Tommy mainly did limited series and movies before World Domination, where he met the SBI.

He’d had been a fan of Wilbur for a while, and was super star-struck at first, but got over it really quickly in his Tommy style

He still is a total fanboy at concerts and whenever a new music video drops. “I’m friends with the guy! I know him, Wilbur Soot!” “Tommy, you’re famous too.” “Yeah, cuz I’m practically in the video!” “No--”

Wilbur takes Tommy to one of his concerts and he’s so hyped the entire time, especially to go behind the scenes and on the stage.

Sometimes he gets stressed about the pressure of being a child star, but Techno, Philza, and Wilbur promise to stand by him and they make him feel protected

One time Wilbur’s drunk and almost hands Tommy a drink before swearing and going, “You’re a bloody child! You can’t have that! God, what would Philza think?” Tommy’s not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Philza laughs at the story and actually lets Tommy try a little in a more controlled, responsible situation. Tommy texts his mum first, and then hates the drink anyways. (”This is rubbish! I am a man, but I’m not drinking this!” Techno: “Alcohol is disappointing. I drink orphan’s tears instead.” “Techno WHAT--”)

Philza had been the star of a zombie apocalypse show: Golden Core

He did canonically die to a child zombie in the movie version. Yes, they made a movie version of the TV show, because the Golden Core franchise actually has had many other shows {other hardcore series}.

Everybody tries to get the child zombie props near him because of that (they’re puppets)

He’s done a lot of other things, like in the original actor AU post, but none of them came close in popularity.

He gives the rest of the SBI the knowledge he’s gained from being in the biz for so long.

There’s also a running joke about SBI meaning “Spy Boys Incorporated” and them starring in a comedy spy movie

The fans would very much actually like this to happen. There’s so many fanons for it (maybe I’ll write one....)

Back to the DSMP. Maybe I’ll call it Dreamland or smth.

Wilbur constantly asks Tommy if he’s okay after any difficult scenes

Especially when they were hanging out together a lot in the exile arc.

All the brother scenes were cut because Wilbur kept breaking down and crying in them.

Sometimes people actually ask Techno and Tommy if they’re actually brothers. Tommy tries to go along with it half the time on the basis of “it’s be funny,” so there’s a subset of casual fans that genuinely don’t know.

After Alivebur was killed off, Wilbur was going to leave the show to concentrate on his music

But he missed the SMP and hanging so much that he just showed up on set one day saying “I’m a ghost now,” and everyone just rolled with it

Alivebur was so popular that, seeing that Wilbur was willing, they decided to bring him back for Season 3. He’s been avoiding doing heavy scenes, but he still seems really invested and like he wants to come back to the show.

Wilbur talks with Techno about writing and lore a lot

it’s one the few times Wilbur actually seems like the older one

Wilbur attempted to get a D&D group going in the cast, but the show was already close enough, with the amount of improvisation they can get by with

Tommy’s Pigstep cover happened, but the background was Philza clapping barely in time with just Wilbur on bass instead (and of course Techno’s “BAHP”s)

It was a charity stream. They had put on their costumes (clothes only) for a previous goal.

This one was simply called “We rap.”

Some people were almost disappointed that Tommy was the only one actually rapping, but he was so funny it made up for it.

Okay I spent the whole morning on this and it got way too long but I think I’m finally out of ideas. sorry haha hope you enjoyed! ^_^

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xialing-tenrings · 3 years

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What We Know About the Character: Shang-Chi + some speculation about the events

Shang-Chi (played by Simu Liu) is the main character of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. GET READY FOR A LONG POST ABOUT WHAT WE KNOW AND WHAT WE DONT KNOW ABOUT HIM

EVENTS IN HIS LIFE/TIMELINE

-Born to Jiang Li and Wenwu, leader of the Ten Rings organization, aka the Mandarin. He has an estranged sister named Xialing. We don't know if she's younger or older.

-In the trailers, we hear Wenwu say he gave Shang-Chi "ten years to live [his] life" and we see him being happy being friends with Katy and Jon Jon and using the name Shaun according to his name tag and working as a hotel valet. This movie likely takes place in 2023-2024, similar to other films and shows that have been released recently, so that means Shang-Chi likely began living in San Francisco (we saw the Golden Gate Bridge in the trailers) in 2013-2014. After this is when the movie takes place.

-Prior to this, he was trained to be an assassin at a very young age for his father. (I couldn't find the age of the actor, Jayden Tianyi Zhang, but I would guess maybe 5-7ish?) It appears that Wenwu directed his training, though Death Dealer, one of the warriors of the Ten Rings, was his mentor and trained him more personally.

-During this time while being trained, Wenwu also demonstrated his power and his penchant for murder with the rings, as it seems. As the user of the ten rings (the maybe-magical weapons). In the trailers, we see a young Shang-Chi witnessing his father in fights and likely teaching him about the Ten Rings (organization), likely how to rule it someday.

-At some point, Xialing, his sister, leaves him and their family, assumably cutting contact. Judging from their fight in the fight ring in the trailers, there is some kind of bad blood between them. Probably a sibling rivalry, though with more to it, maybe a certain event. However, they later team up (discuss it later in the post).

-Wenwu wants Shang-Chi to take his place by his side, according to the trailers.

-It seems like Razor Fist is sent to attack Shang-Chi on a bus (maybe one of many places), kickstarting the events of the movie. He is said to be a mercenary sent to kill Shang-Chi. I think this happens in the beginning because one of the promos has Katy saying "and a guy with a machete for a hand just attacked our bus" in an incredulous tone, so this is before Shang-Chi's identity is revealed to her.

-"I trained you so the most dangerous people in the world couldn't kill you...glad I was right" is said from Wenwu to Shang-Chi in the trailers. Because of this, I think there's a possibility that Razor Fist may have actually been sent by Wenwu to test/retrieve him. Also see the gif above from when Shang-Chi exits the helicopter with his dad. Razor Fist is behind him and clearly not attacking him.

-At some point, Shang-Chi end up in some sort of fight club with Katy (Jon Jon might be there too, I think he's in the background of a shot from the Most Likely Featurette at 0:29). Abomination and Wong are there too, but we haven't seen Shang-Chi interact with them. Shang-Chi is set to fight Xialing, and we can assume this is the first time they've seen each other in a while.

-I think they make up very soon after. Also from the same featurette, we see a shot of Katy telling Xialing "you're like, such a badass, everything you do is like so cool" with both of them wearing the same outfits as the organized fight scene.

-From then on, Shang-Chi, Katy, and Xialing are presented as a trio (they also are in the featurette as the primary trio who save the world). They eventually meet up with Wenwu as guests, it seems. We see them sitting together with him and arguments between Shang-Chi and Wenwu (Shang-Chi: "you're just a criminal who murders people." Wenwu: "be careful how you speak to me, boy" at a table).

-It becomes very clear that Shang-Chi hates Wenwu and everything he stands for. After Wenwu realizes Shang-Chi doesn't want to be an assassin, I guess that then they start fighting over ownership of the ten rings (weapon) and possibly the destruction of the Ten Rings (organization). We see tug-of-war between the two for ownership of the rings.

-At some point, Shang-Chi meets a dragon and something akin to a civil war breaks out, where he and Xialing and Katy (who may or may not also have a secret identity) are fighting together.

-Also at some point, Shang-Chi is in a fight with Death Dealer. I would guess this is towards the beginning, as it seems like they're4 still in San Francisco, but idk

-At another point, Shang-Chi meet up with Jiang Nan, who is the guardian of some mythical city. My guess is that they visit her for advice or info

-Shang-Chi, Xialing, and Katy save the world. From what exactly, something to do with Wenwu and the ten rings (weapon), but we don't know exactly.

PERSONALITY / ABILITIES

-Master martial artist and generally a good fighter. What more is there to say?

-I guess he knows how to use the ten rings (weapons) and can use their magic?

-Awkwafina says he (and Xialing) have superhero genetics, so maybe he also has a little something going on there

-A classic snarky Marvel protagonist who likes to say wElL lEt'S gO bIg BoY and could maybe talk his way out of a fight

-Not as likely to get into a fight as Xialing

-Could survive a zombie apocalypse, or at least stay alive a while

-Probably wouldn't fall for a phone scammer

-Would maybe, possibly, potentially order coffee in more than five words

-Enjoys saving the world ig

anywho, get ready for this movie!! I'm excited.

Feel free to add on/tell me to add on something :) I'll be making something similar for other major characters in this movie:

Katy

Xialing

#u guys really need to hype up this movie #shang chi #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #xialing #wenwu #simu liu #meng’er zhang #awkwafina #death dealer #marvel #mcu #marvel studios #marvel phase four #marvel phase 4 #mcu phase 4 #shang-chi #razor fist

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theydontknowaboutusimagines · 3 years

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Valentine’s Day Surprise - Harry Styles Mini Series (Part 1)

*Companion to This Christmas

You sat in front of your computer bundled up in your favorite hoodie and blanket combination. You made yourself some hot chocolate that you sipped on as you went over the changes you needed to make in your book. Your latest draft was back from your beta readers and now it was time to write yet another draft.

It was in the dead of winter in London and it was currently snowing outside of your window. You would be much warmer if you were sitting away from the window, but you had to have a window view when you were writing. Plus, the snow was so pretty. You would always be a lot warmer if you weren’t lonely in the house, knowing your boyfriend was thousands of miles away in sunny California.

Yep, that’s right, you and Harry were still together. Not that you doubted you would be, but it still felt weird to say. You weren’t living together yet, you still had your flat, while he had his massive home. But you did spend a lot of your time at his house or vice versa. Except the last few weeks since he’s been gone for work.

You missed him, a lot, and it’s really been the first time you two have been away from the other since you got back into each other’s lives last Christmas. But he had a movie to shoot, along with various other things he had to do and you had a book to work on.

Speaking of said book, you had spent nearly the entire day typing away and making the changes that were suggested. Even though the book was still not the best yet, it was without a doubt going to be your favorite book you’ve written thus far. And that had everything to do with the meaning behind it.

It was about two friends falling in love during the holiday season, which is exactly what happened with you and Harry. Granted, you two were already in love, but it took some reconnection to finally get you two to express your feelings to the other. You knew when the book would be released and you were being interviewed about it, someone would ask you where you got the idea or inspiration for it and you would have to tell them.

You wouldn’t tell them details or anything, not that anyone even knew you and Harry were together. Not really anyway. The two of you hadn’t really been spotted out together and even if you have, everyone knows your history of being friends, so the whole dating rumors haven’t really been sparked quite yet.

You were fine with that for the time being. You knew how things got, at least from an outside view, whenever he was dating someone, so the longer you could avoid that the better. But you knew one day, it would come out and hopefully knowing the history you have with Harry will make it not as bad.

Your neck was starting to hurt and your head was throbbing from looking at the screen all day. So, you decided to call it day and resume again tomorrow. You were halfway through with the revisions, which wasn’t normal for you, knowing you had just finished a draft not too long ago. But that’s what happens when you’re really passionate and don’t have distractions around.

You shut your computer and headed over to the couch in the living area, plopping down right onto the cushions. You stretched out and closed your eyes for a bit, trying to give them a rest. In that moment, you wished Harry was there because you needed a serious massage of your neck and shoulders.

After laying there for a few moments, you slowly started to drift off asleep, when your phone rang. You groaned, debating on letting it go to voicemail or answering it. However, when you glanced over and saw Harry’s photo, you decided on the latter.

You clicked on the green button and soon Harry’s face was looking back at you.

“Hey, baby,” he smiled.

“Hi,” you yawned, sitting up at a better angle.

“Were you sleeping? Is this a bad time?” He asked, eyebrows furrowing.

“No, I was just resting my eyes,” you said. “Too much screen time today.”

“Remember, you’re supposed to look 20 feet away every twenty minutes for twenty seconds,” he said.

You rolled your eyes, “I don’t have time for that.”

“You do,” he laughed. “Just set a timer on your phone or something.”

“Easier said than done,” you said. “You know if I’m in the zone, it’s hard to stop until I’m at a stopping point.”

“Well, then don’t complain if you’re not going to do it,” he smirked.

You rolled your eyes again, “I wouldn’t have to worry about it, if I had someone here to rub my shoulders.”

“You better be talking about me and not just any someone,” he raised an eyebrow.

“Of course, I don’t want random people touching me,” you shuddered.

He laughed.

“But seriously, how much longer till your back?” You asked.

He sighed, running his hand through his hair, “A few more weeks, at the least... another month or so, at the most.”

“I thought you were almost finished,” you said.

“We are, but then there’s some reshoots and some stuff we’re doing for promo,” he said. “Plus, I’ve got some meetings out here for the next album.”

“So, then I guess this means we won’t be together for Valentine’s Day,” you whispered.

“Not in person, no,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, love.”

“No, it’s fine,” you sighed. “I mean... it’s not that big of a deal. Its not really genuine holiday and I’ve never really cared about celebrating it before... but like I don’t know, I just thought maybe it would be fun. Plus, I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” he said. “I promise we’ll figure it out, okay? We can facetime or zoom. Watch some romcoms and eat chocolates.... maybe have some fun on camera,” he smirked.

“You wish,” you scoffed. “I don’t trust technology that much. I don’t need someone hacking in and starting an Only Fans with my pictures!”

“Have you been watching Catfish again?” He asked.

“Yes, but I’m using it for research for another novel idea I have,” you defended.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he joked.

“Anyway,” you said. “I guess us having a little virtual date wouldn’t be a horrible option. It would be better than not doing anything at all.”

“Then it’s settled,” he smiled. “We’ll come up with something fun to do and pick a time that works with the time zones and it’ll be as perfect as it can be, okay?”

“Okay,” you nodded.

“Great, I just wanted to check in and tell you I love and miss you,” he said. “So, I’ll let you get back to resting your eyes and watching Catfish.”

“Ha, ha,” you said. “But I love and miss you, too.”

“Good,” he smiled. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, see you later,” you smiled, blowing him a kiss before hanging up the phone.

You sighed, placing the phone down as the realization of Harry not being coming home for another few weeks hit you. You knew this would happened. It’s what has happened throughout your entire friendship, but you thought you had grown and it wouldn’t hurt as much.

But you were wrong. It did hurt knowing you two wouldn’t be together for Valentine’s Day. Even though you never cared about the holiday before, this year felt different. You wanted it to be this amazing and special day spent with the man you loved. The man you had waited years to finally be with, but now it was going to happen through a screen and him miles away.

Harry felt bad the second he ended the FaceTime call with you. Even though you had put on a smile, he knew you well enough that you were disappointed. Him not being around was part of the reason why your friendship ended the first go around and he made it his mission to never let your relationship end because of that.

He loved you. You are his person and he just got you back into his life. He didn’t want the possibility of you leaving it to ever cross your mind. He had to come up with something to make sure he was there with you. Valentine’s Day was in a little over a week, surely that would give him enough time to figure out a plan.

“Harold, hello,” a voice called out from behind him.

“Oh, what?” He asked turning around to see his manager waving his hands around.

“What’s got you out of it?” Jeff asked.

“I uh... I just finished talking with Y/N,” he sighed. “I told her I wasn’t sure when I’ll be back... and she mentioned missing out on Valentine’s Day...”

“Well, I mean it is just Valentine’s Day,” he pointed out. “Many people don’t do anything on the actual day anymore anyway.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Harry shook his head. “You’ve been in a relationship for years. This is our first one and Y/N... she’s not normally someone who falls into the whole Valentine’s Day thing... but I could tell she ws looking forward to doing something.”

“Why can’t she just come here, then?” Jeff suggested. “Her schedule is a little easier to move around right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asked.

“I didn’t mean it to come out like it sounded,” he said. “I just meant that what you’re working on has to be done here in LA... she’s working on something that she just needs wifi and a laptop... that can be done anywhere.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one gone... I shouldn’t have to make her uproot her work,” Harry said.

“Look, do what you want to do, but I’m telling you there’s hardly anytime to travel to London and back with your schedule the way it is,” he said.

“Gee, you’re a wonderful help,” Harry rolled his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Jeff responded, holding his up.

“I told her I’m going to figure something out and I will,” he said. “If I have to move or postpone things around, I will. Y/N’s important to me and being with her will always be my priority over a meeting that can be an email or postponed to a later date.”

“I get that, Harry,” he said. “But you can’t always be the one who does that or else you’re going to end up being resentful.”

“You know, I thought you were happy Y/N and I were together, but now it seems a lot like you wish I was single,” Harry snapped.

“I didn’t say that,” Jeff said. “I just know how you are, H. At the beginning of a relationship, you’re doing everything to make it work, and eventually you get tried of it and things go south. I know how much you love, Y/N and I don’t want to see it end because I don’t know if you could come back from that.”

“I’m so confused right now,” Harry said. “You don’t want me to change my schedule around to go see my girlfriend because you’re afraid I’ll be doing too much and eventually I’ll break it off?”

“Just think about it,” Jeff said. “If you do this for Valentine’s Day, then what if she expects it any other time. Will she ever be the person who changes her schedule around for you, or will it always be you because you have the most on your plate.”

“Y/N isn’t like that,” he said. “She’s not even asking me to do this.”

“No yet, at least,” he said. “But once she realizes that you can...”

“No, I done listening to this,” Harry said. “You know one day, I’m going to get married, right? And I’m going to have kids, right? So eventually, yeah, I’m going to have to change my scheduled or not do things because I need to be with my family.”

“Exactly, so why waste opportunities now?” Jeff asked.

“Because opportunities will always be there to take, Y/N may not be,” Harry said before grabbing his things and walking out the door.

Sooo... what do you think? It’s been a while since I’ve felt like writing... so hopefully it isn’t too bad.

#Harry Styles Imagines #Harry Styles Fanfiction #Harry Styles Fan fic

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cantquitu · 4 years

Note

Is there any way you can quickly recap Eroda? I’m lost...haven’t had time to keep up. Also, if the consensus is that it’s Harry PR driven, what’s the point? Ty for your time.

I'm not the best person to recap it cos I'm not really interested in it beyond it being A Thing Harry's Doing. Like, I'm interested in how it culminates - I can't wait! - and I'm interested in the fact that he's doing a clever online campaign and pissing off gamers. But the individual quirky clues etc don't interest me. I just want to see the short film/video/whatever it is. So this is a basic overview-

So a dude on Twitter (possibly/probably a plant) saw online tourism ads for the island of Eroda. And when he looked into it he found the island didn't exist. He wrote a Twitter thread about it that went viral. Gamers were convinced it was promo for some alternative reality game so they got really into it.

The ad itself is cheap and the voiceover is badly written and vague, and it was pretty obvious that this was a fictional location. The website for Eroda says copyright 2004 but was only registered last month. It is also cheap and badly written (purposefully, quirkily badly written. Like it's clear the copy was there to drop clues). The location photos are a composite of places in Denmark and Norway ...but mostly from a village in Scotland where Harry was seen filming.

Harry fans scoured the website for clues such as mentions of streets called "Golden" and "Cherry". There was a line about the local youths having really quirky hairstyles which we'd seen on Harry's shoot. And lots of mentions of fish and fishing.

Then Visit Eroda social media sites popped up and it was clear that plants had been tweeting about it over the previous few days - weird and odd references to being stuck on the island and not being able to leave. Locals from the real village Harry filmed in were involved. There were references to Dec 12 & 13.

Of course Harries started tweeting too, so then there were hundreds of tweets and it was hard to know which had been planted. Were the Visit Eroda people playing with Harries who thought it was Harry by planting clues, or was it all a Harry campaign to begin with? This question made a lot of precious gamers very upset which is quite amusing.

Quickly people started seeing Visit Eroda ads online on their social media. This campaign clearly had money behind it. Brochures were spotted in NY. Merch went online. But then someone checked Facebook's ad tracking info (On FB you can click "why am i seeing this ad? and it tells you why you were targeted). It said it was because they'd visited Harry's website. The advertiser would have needed access to the code of hstyles.co.uk to link the ads, so the game was up. It was Harry.

And then yesterday evening (while i was in the pub) a new fake Twitter "leaked" a a DM that a "friend" sent them of a bad video from a cinema in a remote Scottish village (...which I'm pretty sure doesn't have a cinema, and anyway it looked like a screening room...) The video was supposedly of a cinema ad/trailer played before a movie. It's a clip of Harry on the island that appears to be from a short film.

So, here we are. Harry has made some sort of short film or extended music video about a boy on this weird island of Eroda, and no doubt it'll be released soon. The viral campaign is to build intrigue and I guess just do something creative, arty and unexpected to promote the album. It's pretty fuckin' cool.

#eroda

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haus-of-wu · 4 years

Text

in celebration of zhoumi’s starry night being released,

buckle in kids, here’s the crash course to super junior M (cue airhorns)

SJM (M standing for Mandarin) was formed in 2008, and was SM’s first group to directly target the Chinese(-speaking) market. Similar to the way other Korean artists had made debuts in Japan and released Japanese content, SM wanted to do the same but in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other Chinese-speaking markets. (yum capitalism)

If Super Junior’s original rotating/graduation concept was the predecessor to NCT, Super Junior M was the precursor to SM’s younger Chinese-facing groups, EXO-M and WayV. The key difference I’d point out is that SJM is perhaps the most intentionally multilingual in terms of their track releases; they always record a Korean version of their mini album title track, and Perfection also had a Japanese version. Meanwhile, EXO-M was separate from EXO-K at the beginning because they had two distinct groups of 6 promoting the same song in two different languages, while WayV only (so far) releases in Mandarin (barring the English version of Love Talk).

The original lineup consisted of Hangeng, Zhoumi, Siwon, Donghae, Ryeowook, Kyuhyun, and Henry. After Hangeng left SJ/SM, they added in Eunhyuk and Sungmin to round the group out to 8 members.

There was a ton of controversy surrounding the addition of Zhoumi and Henry, because they were not part of the original 12-13 members (RIP kyuhyun for not being part of Twins/Knockout LMAO) that made up Super Junior. K-ELFs were worried that adding new members would take the spotlight away from current members and hurt the group as a whole. This “conflict” was handled very poorly, which lead to SM drawing a line between Super Junior and Super Junior M membership. Zhoumi and Henry were officially confirmed to be SJM-only members, and would never promote with SJ proper.

Video/track list for the uninitiated, and for those looking for a trip down memory lane (I’ve mostly picked live performances bc the MVs and lyric vids are fairly easy to find) below the cut!

SJM’s discography mostly falls into two easily distinguishable buckets: the SJ funky sound (think Sorry Sorry, Bonamana, Mr. Simple, Sexy Free & Single), and (Chinese) ballads.

I was also noticing while compiling their signature songs that SJM’s lyric content is generally heavily centered around love and relationships

Super Girl

youtube

You’re my super girl, I’m your super man

He can’t see your beauty, the magic hidden behind your ordinary appearance

I’d do anything for you

If he says he likes you, he would wait on you even if he’s busy

(TLDR SJM said dump your subpar man who doesn’t give you the time of day)

Their OG title track that made me fall in love with them go feral in 2008 - it’s a bop. This video also gives us leader/center Hangeng.

(this is also the song Donghae was singing during that one clip where suju pretends to forget how super clap goes)

If you watch the MV, you get SNSD’s Jessica making a cameo appearance in the house party scenes.

Perfection

youtube

It won’t do to be too rushed, love with shatter under (brute) force It won’t do to go too slow, so I’ll move at your speed

Just for you, I constantly give and I give Is it right for me to love you like this?

My heart keeps pounding, I want to see you My heart keeps pounding, I like you My heart keeps pounding, it’s all you My heart keeps pounding, I love you

Tell me you miss me Tell me you love me

I really have to thank Perfection for giving us the longest all-English rap in Super Junior history...even if the SM English is quite c r i n g e (it didn’t hit me till recently that Suju’s love for singing “boom” and “clap” started with Perfection)

something about this title track also makes me go feral (is it minor key? is it the ending verse/breakdown?)

Breakdown

youtube

My cold front breaks down for you All of my (facial) expressions reveal the way I worship you

Even if I’m covered in scars, I won’t mind if it’s for you

Maybe you think I’m too crazy (yeah you can call me crazy) In fact, I also agree with this (but I can’t stop loving you)

I specifically picked this performance because it’s the only one where they switched it up and sung the Korean verses with the Chinese chorus (VALID! because honestly...if you look up any of the Korean versions of their songs...they are very obviously subpar because the flow of the phonemes is clunky)

Swing

youtube

The general gist of the lyrics is a “cheer up, you can power through” message that’s fairly similar to Mr. Simple

The latest hit from SJM, all the way back from 2014, because SJM literally has not had a comeback since before Label SJ was an entity.

Even though it’s not my favorite track, Swing is important bc it was the first comeback they had a slew of Korean promos for (music shows, radio slots, variety show appearances), and they also placed first in China’s first ever music show broadcast.

Blue Tomorrow

youtube

By tomorrow, you will have left my side By tomorrow, I’ll be wishing on shooting stars alone Just like the ending of a movie

SJM also released a decent number of very on-brand love ballads. Blue Tomorrow is that lovely bittersweet breakup ballad you didn’t know you needed.

My Love for You

It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, baby I’d give you whatever you’d want Wipe away your tears, the sky would never be dark I’d be by your side everyday

An A+ sappy ballad, 10/10 would listen to again (i’ve run out of video embeds so i’ll leave it to you to find)

#super junior #super junior m #suju #cpop #hangeng #zhoumi #siwon #donghae #ryeowook #kyuhyun #henry #sungmin #eunhyuk #kylie speaks #suju crash courses

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asbcblog · 3 years

Text

TOP SONGS OF 2020 WRITE UP!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6WDeuRMOV8neAhU2zd193d?si=lZ9gDIp0TsCCEOeCS7_QGw

1. I remember everything - John Prine

I was going to write an incredibly earnest and long review of this song that outlined just how much John Prine meant to me. I can’t really do it and I think this song probably says enough alone. With only a few chords he always manages to express all the little things that make love what it is, all different kinds of love. Long lasting, short moments, love with places, sounds, going places and staying home, endless family ties, and the often fragile but in the end tenable love between all human beings in the face of catastrophe. The pandemic stole a lot of things from a lot of people this year, including John Prine, but he will remain one of the greatest songwriters of all time and his songs will live on forever.

2. Dream Palette - Yves Tumor

I can’t drive but let’s pretend I’m driving, I’m in LA and it’s night time or something, my elbow’s out the window, don’t know why I’m wearing sunglasses, this song comes on the radio, I’m the coolest person alive.

3. Boylife in EU- Yung Lean

Not to repeat my review of Garden but when the chorus comes I feel like I’m on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and im screaming but this time its because of a no-deal Brexit.

4. Garden- Joseph Futak

My review was already used as part of Joe’s promo campaign and it said: “feel like im on top of a really big hill and its pouring it down with rain and I’m screaming when the drums come in x x”

5. Circle the Drain- Soccer Mommy

I like this song because I too, am often alone in my room, and I have also become obsessed with subtle breakbeats to an extent where people around me have become very bored of the subject.

6. The Brothers William Said- The Innocence Mission

I listened to this song over and over when I was travelling round London in January just after my birthday, it felt like I’d been listening to it for years, like it was in a movie I’d forgotten. It felt at the time like I was saying a lot of goodbyes, recognising that things weren’t really like they used to be.

7. On the Floor- Perfume Genius

Say it with me ladies: I CROSS OUT HIS NAME ON THE PAGE!!!!

8. Shameika- Fiona Apple

She may not believe it but I bet Fiona Apple looked tough with a riding crop.

9. Song for Our Daughter- Laura Marling

Everything about this is fantastic, mellow and bright at the same time. Every part is brought forward individually and no part of this song gets left behind. A stunning vocal from Laura Marling and purposeful lyrics set to a cinematically emotive instrumental. Pure magic as always.

10. Building site outside- Piglet

Not going to lie, I was in a very vulnerable emotional state when I listened to this song for the first time, but I think that makes it no less powerful and just, sad. The lyric ‘she smiled at me so much last time’ is just so simple and devastating that you forget this would’ve been on every indie film soundtrack from 2000-2008 if Piglet was an industry plant.

11. I wonder- Shamir

One word: EPIC

12. Crimson Tide- Destroyer

Listened to this every time I came on my period this year.

13. In the Dining Room - Joe Pera talks with you

Adam showed me Joe Pera when I really felt incredibly sad at the very beginning of this year. It’s a show that’s made me feel good, no matter the circumstances. This moment in the show made me smile, and I love hearing Gene come in a bit too early.

14. Stupid Love- Lady Gaga

Shakin my little booty in the kitchen to this x

15. Might bang, might not- Little Simz

Livid we didn’t all get to go to End of the Road and see all the hot dad’s loving Little Simz.

16. Fire- Waxahatchee

A truly insane vocal. I listened to this song on my way to work almost every day from September to December and fantasised singing back up at some kind of outdoor gig in the summer and it made everything significantly less bleak.

17. Hannah Sun- Lomelda

This song is too nice and genuine for me to say anything other than, “really lovely song :)”.

18. Scroll of Sorrow- Machine Girl, guayaba

Listened to this a lot this year while sitting on my kitchen floor staring into an empty oven, wondering if I was ever going to go to a party again.

19. Build a nest- Jeff and Ruby Parker

Have put this on in the flat because the guitar solo reminds me of everything my dad listens to at home. A really great piece of music that kicks off a really exciting album.

20. Kiss me thru the phone- That Kid

Ned said yesterday that he thought it was funny how much the original of this song is so foundational to hyper pop and I agree. Also I’ve started saying ‘Bitch’ like That Kid does every time I stub my toe.

21. Cuckoo- Sam Amidon

I am punting down a creek, looking in the branches that hang over the water for the bird that shall lead me to my next clue.

22. Places/ Plans- Skullcrusher

Used this song to comfort myself in moments where I also just don’t understand why I’m not famous.

23. Sweetjoy- Jam City

Finally….. HAIM for dudes.

24. Clean Living- Slow Weather

I saw someone listening to this on the side of my Spotify so I decided to give it a go and it was a fantastic decision. It’s mental that half of this song is an outro.

25. Summer All Over- Blake Mills

Along with the music video visuals and the dampened piano tone, this wins the competition for least summer-y song with the actual word summer in the title.

26. Ready Cheeky Pretty- CHAI

All of my joy this year has been brought to me by CHAI. I have nothing negative to say about CHAI. If you have anything negative to say about CHAI you’re gonna have to go through me.

27. Diaphanous- Land of Talk

This band was recommended to me by a guy I was trying to flirt with at rough trade east but everything closed before I could impress him by saying ‘I think they’re really cool’.

28. Anything - Adrianne Lenker

Anyone who has ever attempted to write a song with me knows how much I simply love rhyming. Seriously though, every thing rhymes, brilliant stuff. (It’s also such a brilliantly full and constant song that still manages to move and remain exciting from start to finish. I imagine this is partially due to Adrianne Lenker’s almost nursery rhyme- esque structure and also due to her beautifully colloquial approach to family dynamics.)

29. Blow- Dj Gigola, Kev Koko

This song makes me wish I was Jason Bourne- just wanna jump really far while something explodes behind me.

30. Money Can’t Buy- Yaeji, Nappy Nina

‘Well I’ll buy some Yaeji tickets, they’re for NOVEMBER, there’s NO WAY they’re gonna get cancelled’.

31. Only the Truth- Johanna Warren

When I first listened to this song I felt like I was floating in the ocean looking up at the stars as the drums came in on ‘what more can I do’. An incredibly beautiful and careful song.

32. Gasoline- Haim

2020 could probably be summarised with the phrase ‘WHY AM I NO LONGER IN CALIFORNIA? WHY DID I LEAVE CALIFORNIA?’ And this song is the 3 minutes 13 seconds seconds of escapism I needed to not topple into a full spiral.

33. Mapuu - Ic3peak

No one can convince me that Ic3peak are real people. They are a collective made up of child ghosts.

34. Don’t Worry- Bladee

Whenever I have an anxiety attack in the night I wake up and see Bladee’s ghost of the future over my bed, he says ‘Don’t worry’ and mumbles for a bit as I fall back into a peaceful sleep.

35. The biggest tits in history- The magnetic fields

The most relatable magnetic fields song imo.

36. Sand Castle- nijuu

Yujin is a genius and my answer is yes, I do want to just walk for a while.

37. Curl Up- Darren Hayman

Ned reminded me how much I used to love Darren Hayman, and both of them have been a pretty big part of my year.

38. When Will Death Come- Sarah Mary Chadwick

‘Wow, mental voice’ - Ned, while doing the washing up.

39. Dear Dad - Sylvie Wiley

‘But I didn’t cry, you’d be proud’ Sylvie, I’m weeping forever.

40. 34+35- Ariana Grande

Hehehehehehehehehe

41. Garden Song- Phoebe Bridgers

Phoebe Bridgers is a pretty unparalleled lyricist and this song feels like a disconnected series of thoughts that somehow all make sense together and come to create something that doesn’t build, but all just kind of sits? What I’m trying to say is that I don’t really know what she’s talking about but like, I get it.

42. Ringtone (remix) - 100 gecs, Charli xcx, Kero Kero Bonito, Rico Nasty,

I love the way it sounds like everyone got just one take and had to improvise all the lyrics but it still bangs.

43. Changer- Andy Shauf

Thank you lord for another album about a smaller than average man overthinking all of his social interactions with lots of lovely clarinet parts.

44. What’s your pleasure - Jessie Ware

My pleasure jessie? Probably just sitting by the fire with a tough crossword and a glass of merlot x

45. Slime- Shygirl

Shygirl’s series of singles this year made me even more livid that I had to take out my eyebrow piercing for my new job this year.

46. Sears Tower- Salem

Perfect halloween release.

47. Title track- happyness

Ned turned to me and said: ‘so is their new thing that they sound like Elliot Smith’ and I said: ‘and that’s a bad thing?’

48. Cross-sound ferry (walk on ticket) - Hamilton Leithauser

Have found unbelievable joy in chopping veg and shouting GREEEEEEEN PORT, NEEEEEEWWWW YOOORK alone in my kitchen.

49. Lowswimmer- Hailaker

I’ve loved hearing Jemima’s voice when I haven’t got to see her much this year. I normally take the piss out of the Hambledon line but I haven’t seen that this year really either. I guess we find sentimentality in strange places.

50. XS - Rina Sawayama

This song made me feel very decadent on those days where I didn’t wash.

51. Emily- Clem Snide

Let’s be more kind and brave in the face of it all.

52. Building a fire- Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy

P.O.V you’re doing bushcraft in the garden with your husband Bonnie Prince Billy and he’s here to protect you.

53. Asexual Wellbeing- Okay Kaya

This song absolutely bangs but I am truly bewildered by the way they singled out the line ‘if they could put a pulse into a spinach leaf, can they turn the two of us into a tree?’ in the production as if that was a true piece of genius. As I say great tune tho.

54. Anthems- Charli xcx

The soundtrack to couch to 5k

55. Never Better- Kitty Fitz

A SE London queen bringing us huge pop tunes in 2020. So so excited to see what 2021 brings us from Kitty, she’s gonna be a real force!

56. Deep in Love- Bonny Light Horsemen

This is such a delightful song which (mainly due to the time I actually got around to listening to the whole record) for me really rang in the spring. A beautifully recorded testament to the feeling of love getting stronger meaning you have a lot more to lose.

57. Malibu- Kim Petras

My song of the summer, made me feel like I was at the beach when really I was in Lewisham.

58. Like I’m Winning it- Girlpool

I’m so delighted that the turn girlpool have made this year is towards dramatic goth music with breakbeats. Their voices both sound amazing and they look simply incredible.

59. Azad- Frazey Ford

I have no idea what she’s saying as always but I love it.

60. Helio- Charlotte Dos Santos

I’m literally so excited for what Charlotte Dos Santos is gonna put out next. The production is fantastic and her aesthetics are flawless.

61. Lost in the Country- Trace Mountains

‘I checked my email twice as I cried’. Safe to say we’ve all been there this year amirite girlies x

62. Unfold You- Rostam

I hated this at first, I thought, what’s this lo-fi beats to study to shit, but it’s now my classic ‘I’m just gonna pop to the shops, anyone want anything? x’ song. Huge.

63. Oh Yeah- A.G cook

One of 2020s realisations is that me and A.G Cook kind of look like we could be cousins.

64. Can’t cool me down- Car Seat Headrest

I would like to personally thank will Toledo for giving me a tune that got me off my ass when I was too warm to do exercise this summer.

65. Take back the radio- Katy J Paerson

In love with Katy J Pearson’s voice and the way this song builds. Just pretty flawless and feel good in my opinion. I think she’s such an exciting new artist who’s gonna be around for a very very long time.

66. Good Woman- The Staves

‘I’m a good woman’… speak for yourselves.

67. A Little Love- Jack Francis

Feel like I’ve been singing this song for about 5 years! It’s amazing and I’m so excited about what Jack’s going to bring out in 2021, he’s a genius and also the nicest man on the planet.

68. Lullaby No.4 - Snailbeach

This song makes me feel like I’m being hypnotised on a haunted carousel in a very relaxing way.

69. Boyfriend in every city- Roma Radz

Sucks that she can’t see any of her boyfriends cos of covid :(

70. Jaja ding dong- Will Ferrell

Get back in there and play Jaja Ding Dong !!!!

71. Highway- Jonatan leandoer96

Man, would be pretty sick to have 20 boys outside the club but alas the clubs are dead and I’ve only regularly texted about 4 people this year.

72. De nadie- Kali Uchis

Felt v sexy listening to this for the first time in a Morley’s in Honor Oak.

73. Weird Fishes- Lianne La Havas

This album was a pretty triumphant return for Lianna La Havas and me teenage self simply couldn’t be happier.

74. Micro Creature- Aya Gloomy

Love that despite everything about this song telling me otherwise, that the artwork for this single looks like Aya Gloomy is just chilling in the fields by my family home in Hampshire.

75. Si Ella Sale- Bad Bunny

Better get on the duolingo now if I’m gonna know what this guy’s saying at Porto next year.

76. Through my sails- Mountain Man

Truly gentle reimagining of an already incredibly beautiful song, mountain man make every word seem new!

77.Christmas Day (get me outta this funk) - Baggio and Blue 5 Years- Bath days

In joint 77th place are two banging Christmas songs that have soundtracked a pretty bleak Christmas period and have made me feel pretty joyous in their ways, despite one literally being called Blue Five Years.

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pennylanefics · 5 years

Text

Sick and Clingy - Taron Egerton

a/n: this is a result of me needing to release my feels for Taron 😂 my first imagine about him, hope you enjoy!!

•••

This morning, Taron woke up with a cold. Thankfully, he is in between projects, so he has a lot of time to rest and relax before he has to leave again. Rocketman has just been released, and promo interviews, premieres, parties, everything was over now. Except for the last meetings that were scheduled to talk about the world’s reactions and reviews about the film. He has been home the past couple of days, but those days of course consisted of said meetings.

But today, he had nothing planned. He promised to spend all day laying around with you, watching movies, making love, cuddling close to each other, eating take out. That all went out the window when he slept in, missing both breakfast and lunch. You had made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, but was saddened when Taron didn’t join you. You brushed it off, knowing he’s been under a lot of stress and pressure due to the release of Rocketman.

You started to grow worried when he was still sleeping at twelve forty-five in the afternoon. So, you made him some tea and brought it up to your shared room. When you stepped inside, you noticed he wasn’t in bed anymore. Your eyebrows furrowed, but you relaxed when you heard the toilet in the bathroom flush. Sitting on the bed, you waited for him to return, but the door stayed shut.

Sighing quietly, you stand and make your way over to the door, knocking quietly.

“Taron? Are you alright?” You ask your boyfriend. Still, no response from him, but there is a sound of gagging. You immediately know what’s wrong and throw the door open. There, Taron is sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, leaning over into the seat, throwing up.

“Baby,” you whisper, taking a seat next to his shaking body and rubbing his back soothingly. He doesn’t look up from the bowl, instead lets out a soft cry.

“Love, get out. This is disgusting,” he groans as another wave of nausea hits him, his body jerking forward as he releases the very little contents of his stomach.

“Are you okay? Well, obviously you aren’t, but what’s wrong? Is it jetlag? Did you eat something? A hangover?” He shakes his head at every one of your suggestions. You are now confused as to why he is randomly throwing up.

“I feel awful. Everything hurts, my head, my body, my throat, I feel cold. I just wanna sleep. I know we had a lazy day planned today, but I don’t even think I can focus on a movie.” You continue to rub Taron’s back as he continues to get sick.

“It’s alright, Taron. I don’t mind. I want you to feel better, and if that means sleeping all day, then I’m happy to do so,” you tell him. He shakes his head again and turns slightly towards you.

“I don’t want you around me today. I don’t want you to get sick, love,” he says. You chuckle and run your hand through his tousled hair.

“That’s not gonna happen, bub. I’m not leaving you alone. I will go to the store and get you some medicine and some things to make you feel better, but if you think that I’m going to stay in the living room while you’re in our room, in pain and sick. I may get whatever you have, but I don’t care. I want to take care of you,” you say to him quietly.

His body lurches forward once more before he flushes the toilet again. He finally sits away and leans against you. You press the back of your hand against his forehead and quietly gasp at how warm he is.

“Taron, you’re burning up!” He groans and closes his eyes, cuddling closer into you.

“I wanna lay back down,” he whimpers, a few tears falling from his eyes.

“Are you done?” You ask, referring to him getting sick.

“I think so.” You help him stand up and brush his teeth, well, you let him lean against you for support, considering how weak he felt. Once he was done, he slowly trudged back to bed and crawled under the covers.

“I’m going to the store to get some medicine and soup. I’ll be back in half an hour or so, yeah?” He nods and huddles under the comforter.

“You can’t be bundling up like that, Taron. You’re going to make your fever worse. I know you’re cold, but you need to break your fever.” He moans loudly and complains about your request.

“Just hurry please?” You nod and press a soft kiss to his forehead, gathering your purse and leaving for the store.

—

You returned at the time you said you would, it took you about half an hour to shop for what you needed for Taron. You got him a can of his favorite soup to eat when he didn’t feel good, a box of tea he drinks when his throat hurts, some medicine, and a few snacks he likes, just so he can have something light to eat if he wasn’t going to eat a full meal.

You walked through the door quietly and saw him sitting on the couch. Your eyebrows furrowed, remembering he didn’t want to move from your bed, but you walked over to him.

“I thought you were staying in bed all day?” You ask, sitting next to him. You bring your hand up to his forehead and feel that he is still warm, although much less than he was before you left.

“I did. But I got lonely because your pillow smells like you,” he explains in a strained voice. Your heart soars and melts at his words; he always gets very clingy and needy when he is sick, but you don’t mind.

“Well, do you want me to make you some soup and tea?” You ask, holding up the bag. He nods and reaches for it, wanting to see what you got.

“Take some medicine now, and you should feel better in a while.” He does so, opening the box and pouring the correct amount of liquid in the tiny bottle. You walk into the kitchen and pull out a pot to begin making the soup. Taron continued to watch some show that played on the TV, cuddled up under a blanket.

“Okay, here’s your soup, and let me go get your tea,” you say as you walk into the living room with a steaming bowl of soup. You set it on the coffee table and help Taron sit up to eat it. You quickly run back and get his cup of tea, returning with it in a second.

“Thank you, darling. I appreciate it,” Taron thanks you as you take a seat next to him.

“No problem, Taron. I’d do anything for you, you know that.” He smiles and begins to eat his food. You can tell he feels better, but he still looks sickly. As he slowly eats, you two converse quietly about the show that’s on.

“Can we go lay down, love?” Taron asks, leaning against your body. He had thankfully eaten the entire bowl of soup. You chuckle and let out a quiet, ‘yes’, standing up to wash the dishes.

“Go upstairs, I’ll be there in a minute.” Taron carefully stands and wobbles up the stairs towards your room. You clean the dishes and fill a glass with water, then quietly ascend the stairs and walk into your room.

“Come cuddle,” Taron whines out when he sees you. You chuckle and set the glass on his nightstand.

“Let me get changed into something more comfortable,” you tell him. He huffs dramatically and clutches your pillow in his arms, nuzzling his face against it.

“You are so dramatic when you’re sick,” you joke.

“Am not!” He defends.

“So are!” You finish slipping into one of his t-shirts and a pair of shorts, and finally slide under the covers with your sick, over-dramatic boyfriend. He immediately moves his body next to yours, setting your pillow back behind you. You wrap your arms around his tense body, one hand resting on his back, the other tangled in his hair. You scratch your nails against his scalp, which causes him to moan out in pleasure; he is pretty much putty in your hands when you do that.

“You feeling any better?” You whisper against his forehead. He shakes his head as much as he can, and cuddles closer to you. He was practically laying on top of you, but you didn’t care.

“Get some sleep, yeah? Take a nap and I’ll wake you up when it’s time for dinner.” And with that, Taron is fast asleep. You watch a movie quietly on the TV in your room, and make sure Taron stays asleep.

You check your phone about a couple hours later, a movie and a half later, and see that it’s close to five at night. Taron had moved to lay on his side next to you, so you slowly slid your hands up his back to wake him..

“Taron, honey,” you whisper against his shoulder. He groans and huddles further beneath the comforter. You shake him, but that only makes him whimper and cry. You feel bad, not knowing that moving him just a little would hurt him.

“I’m sorry, baby. But you should eat something, get some more food in your system.” He shakes his head against your pillow and moans again.

“Come on, Taron. You can go right back to sleeping, but eat something first.” Finally, and against his better judgement, he steadily sat up, rubbing his eyes of sleep. You stayed right next to him, making sure he wasn’t going to fall over or pass out.

“You feeling better?” You ask. He sighs deeply and thinks for a moment.

“Not really. I honestly feel worse. Should’ve just stayed awake,” he murmurs. His voice sounds much more hoarse and his nose sounds a bit stuffed.

“I’m sorry. I thought sleeping would make you feel better,” you apologize, seeing as you were the one to make him take a nap.

“It’s not your fault, darling. Sleeping sickness off for me doesn’t ever do much,” he explains. You grab his hand and help him down the stairs, into the kitchen.

“Do you want a grilled cheese?” You question as he sits at the table, slumping down and setting his head on his crossed arms. You chose to make some anyway because it sounded good to you.

“Here you are, bub,” you say as you set a plate in front of him. He sits up, his face looks very flushed and he still doesn’t look well; he honestly looks much worse.

“Maybe if you eat something, you’ll feel better,” you suggest. He nods and picks up one half of the sandwich, taking a well-sized bite before setting it back down. You smile softly and reach over to stroke his forearm.

“I hate seeing you like this, Taron. Is there anything I can do to help you feel better?” He shrugs and takes another bite.

“Just cuddle with me and I’ll be fine, yeah?” He finally cracks a smile for the first time today. You grin wider and agree to his offer.

After you two finish eating, Taron having only hate a half of the full sandwich, he takes a shower, of course asking you to join him, explaining that he feels too weak to even wash his hair; you knew he was being serious, though.

So, you help Taron wash himself, which was harder than you thought would be, considering he decided to lean himself against you the entire time. This resulted in you becoming a bit agitated with him, but you couldn’t stay too mad.

Once you two were dried off and dressed comfortably once again, you cuddled up in bed in the same position as when Taron fell asleep.

“You wanna watch a movie until we fall asleep?” You quietly ask him.

“I have a headache, just want to rest,” he mutters against your neck. You sigh and decide to watch Bridesmaids, considering you’ve seen it many times and could watch it with the volume really low, as to not bother Taron.

After the movie was over, Taron had yet to fall asleep. He was rolling over every other minute, and no matter what, he couldn’t get comfortable. He would often curl up in a fetal position and clutch his stomach.

“You want another cup of te-“ Before you could even finish your question, Taron jumped up from the bed and ran to the bathroom. You sigh and lean back, closing your eyes as you listen to him empty his stomach into the toilet. You gave him room for a couple minutes before making your way into the bathroom.

“I’m sorry, love. I know you probably didn’t want to deal with me getting sick and I know you wanted to just talk and catch up and cuddle but-“

“Taron, it’s fine. We have a while before your next project starts up, a few days of you being sick isn’t going to upset me, I promise.” He nods along as he listens to your words, but soon leans forward once more towards the toilet.

“I’m gonna go make you another cup of tea and get you some crackers,” you tell him, standing to head downstairs quickly.

Once his tea is made, you grab a sleeve of standard crackers and slowly walk back to your room.

“Here you are, hun,” you say quietly. He thanks you and takes a long sip, grabbing the food from you after.

“I promise as soon as I feel better and up for it, I’m going to make love to you all day and all night. I miss your body, the way it feels against mine, the way your lips wr-“

“I see you’re feeling a little better,” you chuckle at Taron’s sudden horny thoughts. He laughs lightly and nods.

“Just a little. I’m gonna try and get some sleep now,” he says. You nod and let him cuddle up against you. He rests his head on your shoulder, resting on hand on your thigh, rubbing soft circles. You fall asleep quickly, exhausted from taking care of your sick boyfriend, but sleep isn’t that easy for him.

You are on your side, facing the wall, when you hear a loud groan and the bed shake due to Taron plopping against it, frustrated.

“Tar? What’s wrong?” You ask in a sleep-filled voice. He sighs deeply and quietly apologizes.

“I can’t fall asleep,” he says. You open your eyes and roll over to face him. You grab his cheek and softly stroke your thumb against his pink skin.

“Why not?”

“I can’t get comfortable, and my head is just aching. I can’t take any more medicine because I just took painkillers for my headache.” You nod against your pillow and trail your hand up to his hair.

“What can I do to help?” You wonder. You begin to scratch your nails on his scalp, starting from his forehead to the back of his neck, then from his temple to the side of his neck. He hummed in satisfaction, closing his eyes as he focused on your touch.

“Tell me about why you chose to become a screenwriter?” He asks. You laugh and take a deep breath before beginning.

“I’ve loved telling stories since I was young. I was always making up scenarios in my head, and when I got older, I ended up translating those into actual stories. I’ve also always loved movies, and I wanted to work in that industry. So, I chose to combine them both and become a screenwriter,” you explain briefly. There was a lot more to the story, but you were too tired to go into every little detail. Taron nods against your hand, his eyes remaining shut.

“Can you sing to me?” He requests.

“Of course,” you respond. Your hand continues threading through his hair as you begin to sing Your Song. It was a special song for the both of you, and it had unanimously became ‘your song’, no pun intended.

As you continue on with the song, Taron’s breathing slowed down as he finally fell into a deep sleep for the first time today.

“Goodnight, bub. I love you,” you whisper against his forehead before pressing a soft kiss to his skin. You pull him into your arms and soon fall asleep right after.

•••

permanent taglist: @stfxlou @onexlittlespark @babebenhardy (wasn’t sure if you guys are interested in Taron, but i have you for my permanent tag list!! if you don’t want to be tagged in any fics that aren’t Ben related, just let me know!! :))

#taron egerton #taron egerton x reader #taron egerton imagines #taron x reader #taron imagines #imagines #fanfiction #fanfic

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transboygenius · 4 years

Text

Season 4 promo

After overcoming some abuse, anxiety, and depression issues, I FINALLY have it finished.

Three months ago, a huge ceremony took place for the graduation of Lindbergh's fifth grade students. All children were dressed in caps and gowns, receiving their diploma one by one. Cindy earned an academic award along with her diploma. Fortunately, for Jimmy, he earned quite some more, which made him fall over with all that weight. Cindy looked over to him in envy, while Nick helped him pick up some of those awards. Miss Fowl was crying tears of freedom, for she was finally free from Sheen's shenanigans. While the ceremony was still going on, Jimmy gave an inspirational speech about what he learned. Not just about geometry, history, or science, but socialization, and how it changed him. He even gave a sincere shoutout to Nick.

Cindy watched in all bitterness. She was upset. Was it because Jimmy managed to outdo her achievements? Yes. Was it because she still misses him in her life? Also yes. She still loves him, but she is also jealous of him. Why can't she just be one of those? Despite that her and Jimmy vowed to each other that they would be friends instead, she could never move on from him. Ever since him and Nick escaped fron the medieval century, he has redeemed himself from his arrogant and egotistic ways, putting friendship before science. Cindy doesn't get it. She has tried for months to bring him into common sense, even tried beating it out of him, and he does it for some kid he used to have minimal interactions with.

Not only that, but they also became really close friends after that time warp trip. Something about their relationship really made Cindy feel envious. They're always happy with each other, as well as supportive. Even when they find something either of them disagree on, they still search for a way to cooperate. Also, the way Jimmy's always bedazzled by Nick brings her with a lot of questions. Why doesn't he ever look at me like that? Compared to his friendship with Carl and Sheen, he definitely had some "weird" subtext going on with Nick. Cindy lost two goals in this year. While in her gloomy state, her mother began to comfort her. Or at least that's what she thought.

"Oh, don't let the agony of defeat weigh you down, Cynthia! This is only the beginning! That big headed whippy dip may have won the battle, but I guarantee you will win the war! We'll just have to try HARDER this time! I'll help you, and make sure you stay on track!" "Gee. Thanks, Mom. I really appreciate that." "Anything to bring the Vortex image up!"

...........................

It was another fun summer vacation for children, especially for Jimmy and his gang, along with Nick. Sometimes they would go off into far adventures. Sometimes Jimmy would give a new experiment to present. Sometimes they would do normal summer activities such as going to the beach, or Retroland. Or sometimes they would lie around at home all day like couch potatoes. Nick has never had such a productive summer before! He was so happy, he even did his chores whenever he was told to. Well, occasionally. While everyone was making the most of their vacation, Cindy would continue researching and studying until her brain melts.

Most of Nick's summer days were spent with Jimmy, because of course. He spent some time with Libby, since they surprisingly had a lot in common. He at least put his best to hang out with Carl. Even though Nick doesn't consider Sheen much as a friend, Sheen can't help but get a little clingy over a new amigop. Just for Jimmy, he tolerated all of his actions, even when he starts to infodump about how much he knows about Ultralord. When Nick feels he isn't doing a good job being pal-friendly to Jimmy's two comrades, he cooks them up lunch, takes special recipe requests, and gave free cooking lessons. He'd cook for Libby too, only to test out new vegetarian recipes. The only member of the squad Nick interacted with the least would be Cindy.

After three months of summer, it eventually went down to a bummer. When the first back-to-school commercial airs, every child is met with horror. Speaking of which, on the third of August, it was time to face a new beginning. Goodbye Elementary School, and hello to Middle School. Nick was gazing into the mirror, grooming his curtain cut with care. Although he's not popular anymore, keeping his own hair perfect has become a habbit to him. He also decided to try a new casual, comfortable wardrobe: white long sleeved shirt, blue t-shirt over it, teared loose jeans, and purple converse. The ring around his neck never left him. After he finished admiring his own reflection, he took his backpack and ran towards the door.

"Nick, would you like me to drive you there?" Shouted his mom from another room. "It's cool, Mom! I'll just take my scooter!" Replied Nick. "Well, you better not be late on your first day! Love you, honey!" “Love you too, Mom."

.....................

So on the scooter ride to school, he met with a few friends on the way. Libby and Cindy took the bus, but he only waved to Libby. Sheen was passing by in his dad's car, constantly trying to get Nick's attention while Nick did his best to ignore him. Then came Bolbi on a unicyc- Wait a minute, he's not a friend. Lastly, up in the sky, there was Jimmy in his hovercar, greeting Nick from above. Then there was Carl in the backseat, catching the breeze in his face, then a splattered bug. All of the squad met at the front entrance of Gelaway's Middle School. Even though summer was over, some were eagar to move to a new school level where they'll no longer be regarded as little kids.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh... Can't believe we're in middle school now! The place where practices to being a teenager begins! Pretty soon we'll be driving in our parents' cars, and attending R-rated movies!" Cooed Libby. "I can't wait to wear body jewelry!" Said Carl. "Sooooooooo, looks like this is a new stage in our growing life. It feels like only yesterday we were doing show 'n tell, and macaroni art. Now there's... ...here. Wow." Spoke Nick.

Jimmy gave his tall buddy a light nudge on the shoulder, then grinned at him.

"Shall we... ...go inside now?" Asked Jimmy. “YES, LET'S GO INSIDE NOW! I've been surrounded by babies for too long! PEAK OF ADULTHOOD, HERE I COME!" Shouted Sheen, then dashed on ahead.

The rest of the gang followed behind. When they made it inside, it felt like opening a door to a whole new world. The inside was full of older and maturer kids, all in a different multicultural range. Most of them were just fooling around on their phones. Libby had her eyes on a couple of teens playing music and then dancing to it. Sheen had his eyes on a couple of dudes having a casual conversation about science fiction. Carl had his eyes on... ...a Llama Lovers club? Nick had his eyes on something that made him wanna act fast. He quickly hid behind a really tall, blocky kid while the gang continued to chat amongst themselves.

A trio walked down the hall, in an intimating fashion. The lead of the trio was a blonde boy who wore fingerless gloves, a snapback, baggy pants, sneakers, and a t-shirt that had a ravenous spike collared bulldog on it. Not to mention he had a (fake) tattoo on his left arm that read "Beast." He appeared to look the most intimating, and seemed to be at Nick's height. The kid on his left was a lanky boy, who wore a red and yellow tank top, with matching shorts, plain white sneakers, and his hair was braided. He was the tallest, and looked like a friendly kid at heart. The last one was a short redhead with a fringe hairstyle. He wore a blue sweatshirt, long jeans, and a pair of crocs. The boy was the shortest of the bunch, but still a little taller than Jimmy, and he looked like he was trying way too hard to be intimating.

The three happened to be approaching the gang, and then the short one tripped.

"AARON!" Shouted the blonde lead. “Uh, uh- Sorry, chief!" The redhead soon got back up to his feet.

The front blonde kid then snapped his fingers to get everyone's attention. As he did, he gazed down upon Jimmy.

"Well, looks like we have some new fish in this joint! Hey squirt, you must be Neutron!" “Uhhhh... The pleasure is-" “I'm not done talking yet, nerd! *AHEM*"

The blonde grabbed Jimmy by his hair, and lifted him up to make direct eye contact.

"You and I will be getting to know each other very well."

He then released and just dropped Jimmy, leaving his soft served ice cream hair now out of shape. The gang just stood in silence as they waited for this blonde kid to say something else.

"What? I'm done talking!" Said the blonde. “Who are you jerks, anyways?" Asked Cindy. "Ah, I'm glad you asked, doll! They call me 'Tony!' You BETTER remember that! You are prohibited to call me anything else besides 'Tony!' Understand, huh?" "Chief?" Asked the short redhead. "YOU WERE EVEN LISTENING- Oh. Whaddya want, Aaron?” “I thought you were done talking.” “UGHHHH-“ “And don’t we get an introduction?" "*Sigh* And this is my crew, Mike and Aaron. Call them anything you want, I'm sure they don't mind." "I'm Mike, btw." The tall kid declared. "Coooool! A real school gang! Do you guys have a super cool gang name??" Asked Sheen. “Of course we do, needle-neck! Otherwise we wouldn't be a gang! It may sound simple, but it still manages to strike fear into the weaks' hearts. We call ourselves: Tony Mike n Aaron!" "Oh. Well, it sure is easy to remember." "Dang straight! And you better not forget! As for you, nerd. I'll be seeing you around soon."

With business now done, Tony turned the opposite direction and walked away. Mike fixed Jimmy's hair before catching up with Tony. Aaron just continued to stare at the squad aggressively, trying not to give away a blink. Eventually, he had to stop when Tony called him up. As soon as they were gone, Nick came out of hiding, and got back in place like he never left. And it's a good thing the gang hasn't noticed, otherwise he'd make himself look like a wuss. He was in no mood to deal with those three right now.

"Uhhhh, Jimmy. Shouldn't we be collecting our schedules?" Nick tried to change the subject. "Huh? Oh YEAH! C'mon, team! We don't wanna make a bad impression by being tardy on our first day!"

.........................

Homeroom was with English class. The teacher was a man who looked like he hasn't gotten enough sleep, and talked in a stoic monotone voice. His expression was blank.

"Welcome, class. My name is Mr. Nite. Here we will be learning the art of literature English and how it will build up your doctoral level. Also for other stuff that's very important in the future, bluhblubbluhbluh. Now, can each student stand up from their desk one at a time, and present themselves to me?" “Salutations! My name is Cynthia Vort-" "That will do for now. Thank you all for giving me the chance to know each and every one of you. Now, to start the day, please turn to page 13 in the textbook in front of you. We will be going through Sonata For Harp And Bicycle. When you are finished, there are questions you shall answer at the end of the story. You are also proposed to write a five paragraph summary for Sonata For Harp And Bicycle. We will be reviewing the story tomorrow, write an essay report on the author's background, taking notes on what you learned, and then comes the big test on Friday. Begin now."

Mr. Nite slumped his head down on his desk to take a nap. All the students hesitated for a moment, before opening their textbooks. First day of middle school, and already their week is busy. Well, first day of school is not supposed to be a party. Carl and Sheen went through at least one page. They both started to get a migraine from all the big fancy vocabulary they're never used to, not even when hanging around with Jimmy for years.

.............................

The other classes were just as bizarre and stressful. In music class, the teacher was a grown man with a purple dyed mohawk, visor sunglasses, and other stereotypical attire from the 1980s, also talking in outdated slang. His name was Mr. Beatz. He played his guitar, loud enough to sting the students' ears, and break windows. Libby seemed to be the only one taking a liking to him. They're first assignment was to recreate they're own cover of Do Re Me. He didn't feel like starting with something simple, since "That's so early 2000s."

In home economics class, the teacher was a plain lady who wore chef attire. She also appeared to act like two characters in one. One minute, she's a sweet housewife gently instructing the basics to culinary skills, then the next she turns into a strict food teacher with the cooking arts of a five-star chef, also bearing a British accent. Her name was Mrs. Rosemerry. Their first assignment was to fix up something without a recipe. Lucky for Nick, he could easily survive.

In P.E. class, their coach was some buff, toned women. Right before anyone could introduce themselves, she blew on her whistle and started the first assignment: Run fifty laps around the field. Anyone who gives up, or pukes, has to do a hundred pushups. Her name was Ms. Barbell, by the way.

............................

Everyone became quite exhausted from this long first day. They didn't expect middle school to be quite a challenge. Then again, nobody said growing up was easy. To add insult to injury, all of them had homework. Homework on the first day. Feels like being punished for no reason. Thank goodness lunch has arrived. The squad took their trays and waited in line to be served. Nick, however, brought his own lunch, but he made sure to reserve a table for his friends. Then, Carl and Sheen came in contact with the lunch lady. She looked nothing like a stereotypical lunch lady. In fact, this dollface sweetheart looked like someone who walked out of their dreams. The two boys couldn't help but gaze upon her remarkable beauty. They eventually snapped out of it when she scooped some unidentified glop onto their trays. She was attractive, but not her cooking.

The squad all sat at the table Nick held for them. None of them ate. They just stared at the mystery glop on their trays. Carl gave a taste. It was so revolting, even he couldn't work it down. Libby felt there was meat products cooked into the stuff, so she refused to touch it. Nick, about the only kid at the table who packed something edible, looked at the poor, hungry boy genius. Caring for his best friend, he offered him half of his lunch on a napkin. Then, he started getting hungry stares from Carl and Sheen. He knew that giving Jimmy some of his own lunch would give them the wrong idea that he's just giving out free eats, but he would never let the little guy starve like that. They were drooling down on the table, begging Nick with big, gapping eyes.

"Please, Nick. I gotta keep my blood sugar up." Whined Sheen. "(You say that like it's a bad thing)"

Nick wasn't feeling any sorry for them, but the only way they'd leave him alone is that he gives them what they want. So, he put out his lunchbox and told them to take a little. The two boys helped themselves, feasting greedily like a bunch of animals. After they were done, they wiped off their faces clean with napkins, then slid the lunchbox back to Nick. There was nothing left for him but an empty milk bottle, which had a big mark bitten out of it.

"Thank you very much! Now how am I gonna keep my blood sugar up?" Said frustrated Nick. "Hey, lighten your mood, gang! Sure, the classes are pushy, the teachers are looney, and the food here stinks! Quite literally, too. But, at least there's some good to come out of this!" Exclaimed Sheen. "Like WHAT?” "Recess! GERONIMO!"

Sheen flew towards the door that's suppose to lead to the playground. He crashed with a loud thud, then Jimmy came up to point out the the print on the door says “Pull.” Unfortunately, all he found were students lounging outside; Enjoying their packed lunches, gossiping with each other, reading, or being on their phones and tablets.

"Whoops! This isn't the playground!"

All the outside students overheard Sheen's statement. Some got up from their sitting positions to give him a taste of reality.

"Sounds like you're new around here." "Sorry, we don't have any of that 'little kid' stuff anymore." "No teeter-totter, no slides, no monkey bars, *Sighs* no swings." "Welcome to phase one of growing up. ...sir."

Now this has gone too far. First all this work, no edible nourishment, and now they can't have the one escapism that helped them pull through elementary school.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The others then met with Sheen outside, surprised themselves to find no recess playground. Just big kids doing "big kid" things. Sheen crawled on his knees and begged to Jimmy.

"Jimmy, could you invent something that would shrink down ages? The peak of adulthood is scary!" "C'mon now, Sheen. An age reversal process isn't gonna fix anything."

Nick then separated the Ultralord fanboy from his short friend, giving him some comfort.

"Don't worry about that, little bud. Sure, this first year has gone through a rocky start, and it'll probably get much worse in the future, but... ...with all our effort, we'll make it through together." "Thanks, Nick. Although, that doesn't seem to make me feel any better." "Oh, buck up, will ya?"

Nick then pulled Jimmy close to him as they decided to find some spot to longue outside, which made Jimmy just blush a bit. And from his tall friend's cheesy motivational speech, he wonders what he's implying when he mentioned "we'll" and "together." Together as in the whole squad as a group, or together as just him and Nick as a pair. Cindy, following behind, watched with indifference on Jimmy and Nick's closeness.

#Jimmy Neutron #Boy Genius #Nick Dean #Sheen Estevez #Carl Wheezer #Libby Folfax #Cindy Vortex #fanfic #Season 4 #I’m sooooooooo sorry for the wait!

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 4 years

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DELAIN: Chillin’ As Doomsday Approaches

In the band’s press release, you state that Apocalypse & Chill will surprise your listeners. What are some of these surprises you have in store for them?

We always write our music pretty organically, so we set out with every album to make it bigger, better, and louder. But it’s not like we’re going to completely change. We just go with whatever inspiration brings us. However, on this album there are some new elements. We’ve got a real choir, we’ve got Timo screaming, and we have full instrumental tracks, which we’ve never done before. There are definitely some parts where we really explored what we could do differently. And then what I mainly think will surprise our listeners is, especially in the first half of the record, the sound is very electronic, without going away from sounding like Delain. They’re all very much from a pop and electronic side of the spectrum. And I think that some of our fans who like us for our previous material, they will kind of be scratching their heads during the first half. But towards the second half of the album, it picks up on the orchestral elements again and becomes more symphonic. There’s plenty of new things on the record, but I definitely think that our fans will be able to appreciate what we’ve done.

How did these electronic influences creep in? Was there something specific you were listening to or interested in that made you want to incorporate it into your music?

I don’t know. I think that within the writing team, Martijn comes up with really 80s synth parts and I often come up with kind of like 90s dance parts. Those two mix well in our music. But it’s not like we said, “We’re going to incorporate this.” When we meet up to write, we all take some ideas with us, like a verse or a chorus or a theme or whatever. We sit down and listen to it and see what we want to work on all together. That’s how those ideas work themselves into the music.

With these ideas, themes, and lyrical inspirations, was there anything going on in your life or the world in general that catapulted these ideas into the songs?

Yeah, I think so. One thing that’s relevant for the way that we’d written this album is the fact that we’ve recorded it very fragmented. Martijn is a producer who really spearheaded this idea of “let’s do everything in several blocks of just a couple of songs” instead of in one go. Because first of all, we didn’t have enough time to have one big block for writing and recording and mixing the entire album because we’ve been touring like crazy. So, this gave us a lot of flexibility, but also the chance to go back on the songs now. All these ideas come from different places as well. But I must say that over the last few years, definitely a lot of it has been inspired by the concerns about the world today. If you open up a newspaper, if you turn on the TV, you see the world quite literally being on fire. And then if you open your socials, you’ll see everyone living their most perfect lives. There is this great contrast between the two where you wonder how can these actually exist at the same time and is this even the same world? And I think that contrast is also visible in the songs on our album.

The visual of the album cover and the promo photos have a 1950s cinematic movie star theme. Is that the concept or theme behind it?

It was really that contrast between the impending doom that you sense when you look at the news these days and then at the same time the complete projections that is very much the majority of things you see on socials. That was very interesting. Since it is so much about zeitgeist, Netflix and chill, it’s a very 2019 thing. So, we felt like the play on words was really fitting for this album. And then when I was playing with the idea of that title…it’s not like I think of a song first and then the title and then the artwork. Usually when you think of a title, there is an image in your head. Or when you think of the music, you see something, like you can imagine it. And for this title right away, I could imagine someone lounging while the world is on fire. I actually put this image together in Photoshop, but I am not a very practiced designer. We really liked that image. We’ve been also looking for images that were more towards the kind of covers that we usually have, like the more art nouveau/romantic/goth imagery, but it just didn’t fit the theme and the title as well as this one. What we eventually did to give it that identity and authenticity that my mockup was lacking, is we gave it to this collage artist. She works really analog. She cuts up images and papers and she reworked the image into what is now the cover and also continued that for the promo photos in the inside. Inside of the booklet you’ll find all of us wearing sunglasses and having different natural disasters reflected in our sunglasses. We put that topic throughout the entire artwork. Not that a lot of people get to see CD booklets these days, but for those who do buy the physical thing, we always try to give it something extra.

How did getting Beast in Black’s Yannis Papadopoulos to sing on “One Second” come about? Did you specifically write his part or realized after the fact that he’d be a good fit?

We realized afterwards that it would be a good fit. We really like working with guest musicians. It’s always a very nice surprise to see what other people, other creatives come up with when they listen to your music. Yannis, we’ve been in touch with him for a while. We met him in Greece. I remember during an after party at a show he taught me a bunch of Greek curse words! We had a few songs where we thought we could really use a guest here, we could really imagine his voice there. Then we were at a festival this summer and they played there as well, and that’s I think when the deal was struck. We gave him a choice. We had three songs where he could imagine it. We always try to give our guests an amount of freedom, so they can really make it their own.

The video for “Burning Bridges” has such cool visuals and beautiful scenery. Where was that shot, and how did the concept and the characters come about?

It was filmed in Snowdonia, which is a gorgeous part of Wales. We filmed it with the company Video Inc., which is a company that we’ve actually worked with for four different videos in one year. In 2019, we did four videos with them, including “Ghost House Heart.” The idea behind “Burning Bridges” for me lyrically was really that the protagonist of the song keeps leaving his surroundings in order to get away from the negative energy there—the negative energies are following him. The real question is, are those negative energies actually coming from your surroundings or are you the one bringing them? And then leaving and burning your bridges behind you will solve absolutely nothing. That was the idea that we wanted to work with for the video as well. What I really like about Video Inc. and how they work is we’ve had in the past where we pitched a song to other video companies and they came up with all these ideas that didn’t fit the song at all. And then we thought, “Oh, we have to give him some more input.” So, any images or ideas that we have with the themes, we send them over, but sometimes then people just say, “Okay, we’ll do that.” And what I really like about Video Inc. is they take the idea and then they go over it. They’re the video makers, that’s their expertise, and they give their own twist to it. “Burning Bridges” is definitely one of the most dramatic ones of the four videos, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.

You’re the frontwoman and the main focal point of the band, but the album closer “Combustion” is a cool instrumental that gives the rest of the band a chance to shine. Was this a song specifically created as an instrumental or music that you had trouble finding words for it?

It wasn’t meant to be a song with lyrics ever. Actually, this song was written by Timo and I’m sure that Joey also had a say in it because his drumming parts are very prominent. They actually started performing this song as a showpiece Joey had at his graduation at music school, and they performed it there. We really loved that song and that performance. Another thing is when we write songs for Delain, we really like pop structured songs. None of us in the band are ego trippers, none of us try to show off what we can do. We just do what the song needs, but on this track, they really get to shine. And I think that it’s really cool to give them that moment to shine because we have some really fantastic musicians in the band and they play very functional parts in the regular songs. So, I think that this is a great opportunity for them to show what they’ve got. Also, this is an egocentric reasoning, but for me, a lot of the songs have become much harder to sing. I really appreciate the two minutes of taking a breath during the shows! I think that on the album Apocalypse & Chill, that song for me, represents the explosion, the combustion, the apocalypse itself, if you will. I think it’s got a very symbolic function on this record.

What’s the music scene like in the Netherlands? You’re a very well known international touring band, but what was your humble beginning like?

Delain is a little bit of an odd example in that case because Martijn had rolled out of Within Temptation, who were at their breakthrough, and he had so many well known guests on this album that he wrote and that took a long time. There was a lot of work that went into that, and he had a whole big business plan that he used to get to the labels as well. But we got into that label straightaway for the first record because of all that hard work that Martijn had already put into it and the planning he did and the whole set up of the project. But, if I look at the scene that I was in before I got involved with that, the Dutch metal scene is a very small scene. Everyone knows each other, everyone is in everybody’s bands. I was I think in four bands at that moment. I was in a band, a guitarist in that band was doing a project, and I was in that project and then Martijn did arrangements for that project. And that’s where he heard me. So, he asked me for his project. I know that’s a very confusing sentence, but that may be a good representation of the Dutch music scene. It’s very interesting because a lot of metal comes from the Netherlands and actually a lot of symphonic metal comes from the Netherlands. But you would never tell if you looked at the Dutch mainstream music media. I don’t know, maybe it’s because it’s not exotic enough for us, or maybe it’s because it’s too exotic. The Dutch popular music is basically just dance and hip-hop. And I have nothing against dance and hip-hop, but sometimes it’s weird to me. I do these Dutch guest things and there will be people from multiple genres, and I will always be the one with the most followers on Instagram and Facebook. And they will be like, “But we don’t know you!” And that’s very typical for Holland, I think. Music that is very well known internationally is not really well known in the Netherlands itself. On the other hand, it also has its benefits because I bet that even if Delain would have a massive hit in the genre that I could still go grocery shopping without people recognizing me!

Delain has been around for 18 years and you have this new album out and upcoming gigs for the next few years. What are you looking forward to the most in the near future?

We have already reached so many things that we wanted to reach with Delain. It’s been really amazing. It’s been an absolute roller coaster. Martijn and I do most of the work behind the scenes, and we’re a really tight team and we both have started talking about how we might want to start doing some things outside of Delain every now and then. I think our biggest goal for now is to really find a balance and do anything in order to keep making beautiful music together. Because if I look at what we’ve done in the past, if I look at the album that we made now, I’m just really, really proud. It is really a product of our team. The sum is more than its parts, so to speak. I just really hope that we can keep doing that and make a lot more beautiful music and hope that people keep enjoying it. Delain has been around for 18 years and you have this new album out and upcoming gigs for the next few years. What are you looking forward to the most in the near future? We have already reached so many things that we wanted to reach with Delain. It’s been really amazing. It’s been an absolute roller coaster. Martijn and I do most of the work behind the scenes, and we’re a really tight team and we both have started talking about how we might want to start doing some things outside of Delain every now and then. I think our biggest goal for now is to really find a balance and do anything in order to keep making beautiful music together. Because if I look at what we’ve done in the past, if I look at the album that we made now, I’m just really, really proud. It is really a product of our team. The sum is more than its parts, so to speak. I just really hope that we can keep doing that and make a lot more beautiful music and hope that people keep enjoying it.

#Charlotte Wessels #Delain #2020 interviews

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talkfastromance4 · 5 years

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Cross Her (C.H part II)

Summary: With a new album and tour soon to be on the rise, 5SOS’s management has decided to put Calum into a public relationship.

Warnings: none, light fluff

Words: 2.5k

Author’s note: this is a small one, sort of a filler I guess, but the next one will be longer! I hope you enjoy, Grace and Calum are very near and dear to my heart. Any feedback is appreciated!♥♥♥♥

Masterlist

Part I

Their first public appearance is going to be subtle, according to Francesca. Something simple but noteworthy that will get the fans’ (and the paparazzi) attention. Calum thinks they should just go get coffee, its innocent enough and it won’t be totally overbearing on Grace.

When he picks her up at the hotel, they both take each other in quickly before busting out in laughter. Their outfits are totally matching. They both have on the new merch for the album; he’s in a hoodie while she’s wearing a t-shirt with some jean shorts and her white converse. Calum has on his black ones.

“What are the odds of that?” Grace laughs.

“Great minds think alike,” he nudges her shoulder playfully.

They decide to go to the coffee shop where he and Ashton frequent, that’s where the paps are at least. While they’re waiting in line to order Calum sees her twisting her fingers while she looks up at the menu.

Without even thinking, he takes one of her hands in his, he notices how soft and small they are and gives her a gentle squeeze.

“Okay?”

She looks up at him and she nearly forgets how to breathe. His hair is the perfect amount of messy, his lips look extra plump and his eyes are full of concern. For her. She still can’t believe this is happening. Grace knows he’s asking if she’s okay with what’s going on around them, some girls have taken out their phones and snapped pictures while paps are outside up against the glass.

But she’s also wondering if he’s asking if it’s okay that he took hold of her hand.

“I’m okay,” she breathes holding onto his hand more tightly, her thumb draws a circle on his skin.

“D’you want to sit inside or go out walking at the shops?” he asks her once they have their drinks.

“Um,” she chews on her lip peeking outside. More photographers have arrived but they’ve scattered further from the building trying to get the perfect shot.

If they stay inside it’ll be more headline if it shows they’re trying to be more private. If they go outside she’ll be swarmed by cameras in her face and she doesn’t think she’s quite ready for that yet.

“Stay inside, please.”

“No problem,” he smiles leading them to the back of the shop. He makes sure her back is facing the front windows to give her a little breather and to feel more relaxed. “How’re you doing?”

“Good, good,” she nods, “I’m just suddenly very self-conscious of every little thing that I do.”

“Don’t be,” he reaches for her hand again which she gladly takes. It’s his turn to rub circles on her skin. “It’s just us having coffee and talking.”

“Right.”

After a few moments, Calum takes his phone from his hoodie pocket and angles it to their hands on the table. He snaps a photo then turns it to show her. She stares at the photo fondly, loving how delicate and small her hand looks in his.

“I like that,” she smiles giving his hand a squeeze.

“Is it okay if I post it to Instagram? I can make it my story so it’ll disappear in 24 hours,” he suggests. “I won’t tag you in it either if you’re not ready.”

“Yeah post it, and you can tag me. Might as well get used to people commenting on it now, right?”

He nods and shifts to Instagram where he goes to his story, he adds the photo and the black heart emoji followed by her handle. He does all this while still holding her hand.

“Done,” he says pocketing his phone once more.

She feels her phone vibrate and makes a mental note to screenshot that photo later. Like the photo, she’ll disappear from his life, but unlike the photo it won’t be in 24 hours but still. Grace pushes those thoughts from her mind and focuses on the right now, right here with Calum. Right now their hands are still locked and he’s looking at her like she’s all he sees.

Grace takes it as him playing his part so she wants to do the same. She’s used to being the one that has more feelings than the other person anyway, so it’s not that hard for her to play along.

»»»

When they finally leave the coffee shop it’s about 4 in the afternoon and only a few stragglers of the paps are around. Still hand in hand, the ‘couple’ walk down the sidewalk to Calum’s car. He’s promising her Chinese takeout and any Netflix show or movie she wants to watch back at his place. He comments that the size of her hand in his is another 5 points of adorableness on their point system and she laughs, which a photographer caught.

“I’m at 100 points and you have how many?” she asks while she slides in the passenger seat. She already misses the warmth of his hand in hers.

“Still at 70,” he sighs closing his door and starting the car.

“You get another ten for Chinese takeout.”

“How is that adorable?” he laughs.

“Because I say so,” she sticks her tongue out at him.

He laughs at her impertinence but inside he’s thinking of what it’d feel like to kiss her.

»»»

It’s only a few hours before their new single is about to be released and management has rented a yacht for them to all party on before it happens. The music is blaring, drinks are flowing and fire is flaming as the chefs create hibachi—Calum put in a special request for Grace. Crystal, Sierra and KayKay are all aboard as well and have welcomed Grace with open arms.

She’s still on the shy side being surrounded by all these people, her bottle of Mike’s is held in a death grip between her fingers. She’s wearing a pretty baby blue dress with spaghetti straps and a cold shoulder cut. Her hair is sea blown but she doesn’t care, she loves the ocean and breathes in the salty sea air with her eyes closed. A warm body sidles up next to her, with one whiff she already knows its Calum.

“Hey, are you doing okay?” he asks lowly.

The warm skin of his arm touches hers and she gets a chill from the contact. Calum notices and begins to pull away.

“Are you cold? I can get you my jacket, it’s downstairs.”

“No, I’m okay,” she promises stepping closer to him. “But thank you.”

“I bet you’ve been wanting to jump in the water all day,” he grins taking his spot next to her again. A small spark ignites between them.

“You have no idea,” she shakes her head and takes a big swig of her drink.

“How about we go to the beach tomorrow?”

“Really? But wait, don’t you have to do promo for the song tomorrow?”

“Only in the morning,” he shrugs. He leans his right arm on the railing of the yacht, angling his body towards hers. He’s tempted to place his left hand on the skin of her back that’s exposed, curl her hair away so he can admire the smoothness of her flesh. He averts his eyes to hers, “we’ll be done by two.”

Grace purses her lips, a thing she does when she’s thinking about something and also a thing that Calum has taken notice to. Just like when she’s nervous she’ll twist her fingers. In a short span of only a few days he already knows what her small quirks are and what they mean.

“Two sounds good, I’ll pack some snacks,” she smiles then nudges him in the chest, “I’ll make sure to have avocadoes.”

“You’re too kind, and that’s another twenty points by the way.” He’s leaning in closer to her.

It’s as if they’re in their own little bubble. The chaos of the party around them is long forgotten, but that always seems to happen when he’s with Grace. The outside world tends to fade away.

“Twenty?! How do avocadoes give me twenty points?” she exclaims eyes wide in shock.

“You remembered I like avocadoes,” he shrugs, “avocadoes are very important to me.”

She laughs and shakes her head switching the bottle to her other hand. Her small hand rests on top of his large one, her fingertips barely grazing the initials of his father.

“Then you get twenty points because you remembered I love the water. So now you’re at a hundred points there, buttercup.”

“Buttercup?” he chortles.

Being this close to him she can feel the rumble in his chest, it shakes his hand under hers so now they’re practically holding hands.

“That’s—“

“If you add more points—“

“Five points, sweetheart,” he finishes and notices her blush.

“Then you get five more because of what you called me.”

“Have we decided on what the final number to win is?”

“I don’t think so,” she giggles.

“You’re going to win anyway.”

“I dunno, you’re only twenty points behind,” she smirks leaning into him more, “I’m sure you’ll pass me up.”

“I highly doubt that, sweetheart.”

She peers up at him, a smirk playing on her lips. They’re so close Calum could just bend his neck a little and—

“Can we take a selfie?” she asks pulling him from his thoughts.

“Uh, um yeah,” he clears his throat as she pulls out her phone from her pocket. A fact that she gushed at him when he picked her up for the occasion putting her hands in both pockets and doing a little spin. It was horribly adorable.

He shifts his weight on his feet and stands behind her, his arms encircle around her. She holds up her phone with the rear facing camera and he sees it’s snapchat already set to her favorite filter. He’s so tall that he has to bend down. His cheek rests against hers. He can smell her floral lotion, it’s called Beautiful something or other and he gets a little dizzy.

Grace can feel his breath on her cheek and ear, it creates goosebumps on the back of her neck. She angles her phone a bit more for the perfect angle then takes the photo. She’s doing a slight purse of her lips with a cute smile and he’s got his soft grin showing.

She saves the photo and shows it to him.

“I’m going to screenshot that later,” the tenor of his voice vibrates on her skin.

Grace wants to close her eyes and revel in the smoothness of his voice, he could talk to her for hours about who knows what and she’d be perfectly content.

“Or I could just send it to you,” she laughs. She tries to keep herself busy by opening up Instagram so she can post the photo. She tries to distract herself from how close his lips are to hers, or the way his arms are trapping her against him in a safe space.

“Yeah I guess that could work, too,” he hums and Grace feels her legs go weak. He watches her type away quickly for the picture. “’Yachts of fun waiting for Falling All into You xx.’ I like that, that’s clever. Put the yacht emoji and the wave one and the music one.”

“Ten more points for your emoji knowledge,” she giggles inputting the ones he suggested. She tagged him then posted it.

“Hey, guys! The single’s about to drop in two minutes!” Luke hollers from behind them.

To her dismay, Calum removes his cheek from hers and she feels slightly cold when his arms aren’t around her anymore. She pockets her phone then turns around to face him.

He takes her hand in his, intertwining their fingers then gives her a soft smile.

“I can’t wait for you to hear it,” he says then pulls her along to join the rest of the group.

When the song begins playing Grace closes her eyes while she listens to it. Calum watches her absorb herself in the slow build-up of the guitar, then the soft beat of the drums and finally Calum’s voice coming through. She smiles hearing him sing, her head nodding slightly to the beat.

So far away but I feel you near,

Your voice is music to my ears,

How’d we end up this way?

Two strangers adrift so far?

Falling all into you,

Your eyes, your smile everything you do

Makes me weak at the knees

I bow down for you

Anything you want

I’ll give it to you cause I’m

Falling all into you…

Grace wants to think it really is about her, that Calum wrote these lyrics specifically for her but her rational side knows this has been finished long before they met. He probably wrote it for some other girl and her heart sinks. But she loves the song, it’s so raw and the music is beautiful.

Everyone else cheers and claps when the song finishes, Michael chanting ‘again, again!’ when Calum nudges her gently. She opens her eyes to see his brown ones already staring at her.

“What’d you think?” he asks quietly. They’re the only ones left seated on the couch while everyone else disperses for more drinks and food.

“It’s amazing,” she breathes. “I love how it’s slow but still kind of upbeat, you know? The harmonies are great but I like how it’s mainly you singing.” She smiles brightly and takes his hand in hers.

“You really like it?” he tries to keep his excitement to a minimum but he can’t really hold it. He didn’t realize how much he wanted Grace to like it until he watched her listen with her eyes closed. Like she was immersing herself into the song and into his voice.

“I love it, I’m probably going to have it on repeat for days. When’s the album drop again?” she giggles.

“Nice try, but I can’t tell you that, sweetheart,” he grins.

“Damn, not even to your fake girlfriend?” she teases.

The rest of the night is spent with the party slowly dwindling down until they dock at the marina. Calum drives Grace to her hotel, he still wants to speak with Francesca about renting a small town house for her, and she’s asleep as soon as the car starts moving.

The song was written by Ashton and Calum helped a little bit here and there with the lyrics. But when he sang it, he put his heart and soul into it. He wanted it to sound like he was singing it to someone, so he imagined that whoever that special someone was, it would send them to him.

Under the traffic lights Calum glances to Grace, her lips are lightly puckered as she sleeps and his heart lurches. When he heard the song again tonight, moving his lips to himself singing it, he looked at her the whole time. Like he was singing it to her, for her.

It’s only been two weeks but he can tell he’s already falling fast for Grace. He enjoys spending time with her, he enjoys her presence and after holding her hand tonight he never wanted to let go. He wasn’t expecting to actually be falling all into her, as if the song predetermined this moment.

#calum hood #calum hood fluff #calum 5sos #calum hood imagine #calum hood fic #calum fic #calum imagine #5sos writings #luke hemmings #michael clifford #aston irwin

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joyofcrime-elinorhigh · 5 years

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Top 10 Toonami Ad’s of the [adult swim] Era.

Hello there, everybody. My name is JoyofCrimeArt and gosh darn it, if the Nostalgia Critic and Watchmojo is allowed to review advertisements and trailers then why can't I?! This list is not to niche, YOU'RE TO NICHE! Anyway, if you've read the title you know that this is my first every top ten list! Yay me! Every reviewers got to do one at some point, am I right? Now for those of you who do not know last Friday (March 17th, 2017) was a very special day. Besides from being St. Patrick's Day it was also the twentieth anniversary of a little known television block known as Toonami. In case your not in the know, Toonami is an action animation block that ran on Cartoon Network from 1997-2008. This block purpose was to bring action shows (primarily anime) to the television audience of the late nineties and early two thousands, and judging by how long the block ran I assume it did a pretty good job. Toonami was one of the main sources of anime entering the United States in the time before the internet was widely accessible. It introduced a young generation to action shows and anime, airing series like Dragonball Z, Naruto, One Piece, Sailor Moon, Gundam Wing, and Justice League, just to name a few. But it wasn't just the shows that made the block last so long. It was the personality. Toonami had two things that a lot of other blocks at the time didn't possess. Aesthetic and Tone. The block started off being hosted by a Moltar, a character from the Cartoon Network original series Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. However in 1999 this changed when the block got it's new host, who was not connected to any other series. This robot's name was TOM, voiced by Sony Strait and later on (and more famously) the legendary Steve Blum. There was also SARA, an artificial A.I who would help TOM host. This is wear the block really began to gain it's identity. One of the greatest thing about the block were the way that it did it's promo's. All Toonami had to do was air the shows, but they did more than that. They had game review, where TOM would give his opinions on the hottest new releases. They would have speeches where TOM would talk to the viewer directly about topics like courage, anger, and individuality. They had what they called "Total Immersion Events" where we got to see some of the adventures of TOM and SARA, often leading to a new redesign of the block and characters. Not to mention just the promo's they had for the shows themselves which, using a combination of masterful editing, awesome music, and often times an epic announcer voice. They even had anime music video's that They were more then just ads, they were experiences in there own right. It's something that's hard thing to explain without seeing it but trust me, these ads knew how to build up hype. Toonami ended on Cartoon Network in 2008 after an eleven year run. But despite this the fan base was still there and in 2012 adult swim aired one last night of Toonami as part of there yearly April Fool's event. The fan support for this surprise marathon was so great that about two months later Toonami was brought back on adult swim. It stated small but since then the block has grown to heights that rival it's heights during the Cartoon Network days making it one of the only revival to actual be as good as it's original run. This adult swim era is the era that I am the most familiar with, because despite all my talk about the early days of Toonami I didn't really watch it all that much back then, and most of that stuff I mentioned was stuff that I learned about later. The adult swim era is the era of Toonami that I actually watched some of. So thus, to celebrate the blocks 20th anniversary (or 16th if you don't count the years it was off the air) I present you with the top ten Toonami ad's of the adult swim era. Because these ad's are so thought out and epic that they warrant discussion. Plus I want to show my love for one of the last great blocks on television. Why am I only doing the adult swim era ad's though? Well, a lot of the older ads are either hard to find online or in really poor "ripped from a VHS tape" level quality. (Plus I...I can't watch 11 years worth of ad's.) Also there will be some rules to this top ten list. 1.) I won't be counting game reviews or Total Immersion Events. Game reviews, while neat, aren't necessarily going to stand out that well in the "epic or thoughtful" category and Total Immersion Events don't count because there increased budget gives them an unfair advantage. 2.) I will be judging this by the quality of the ad, not by the quality of the show or film itself. Toonami's had some not so great shows that they were able to make look great with the use excellent editing. And they've also had some great shows with less than great ads. And 3.) If there are two or more ads that I like, but like for the exact same reason, only one get's to be on the list. I want to encourage diversity on my list, plus it be boring if I had to write two nearly identical explanations on why I like two different ads. Hope that makes sense. Also there might be a little bias for shows I like, because me having a connection to the show will make me more likely having a connection to the ad. But I'm still counting down the ad, and not the show, so keep that in mind. When your doing an opinionated top ten list, it's kinda inevitable that some person bias will leak through. Also keep in mine that this is just my opinion, so try not to take any of this to seriously. Also keep in mind that I'm the type of guy who's opinions change really often and thus sucks at ranking things. While the list is ranked this is more designed to simply show off the best of Toonami, and the exact numbers could change day to day with me. Anyway I hope you enjoy the list. And if you have no idea what Toonami is maybe this list will help show you why I and so many people love it so much. (Cause otherwise you'll just wonder why this weeb is so infatuated with advertisements.) Anyway, onto the list! Number 10: Akira Long Promo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpJvCbXH6Hw

This ad is a great representation of what makes Toonami promo's so special. While I haven't seen it yet, Akira is one of the most well known and critically acclaimed anime movie of all time. So it makes since that the people behind Toonami would want to put there all into the promo for it, out of respect for the film and it's legacy. And it shows. Everything about is this ad just screams "epic." The ad starts off silent with only the recurring noise of an explosion in the background, only for the actual dialogue to begin at the twenty four second mark. This allows the tension to build more and more as it creates a sense of impending danger. The promo continues to slowly show more and more of the action, but doesn't go all out until the one minute twenty second mark were the music get's ramped up as the ad reaches it's climax. It's interesting to note that the announcer for the ad calls this "one of the greatest animated films of all time." not "one of the best anime films of all time" but "one of the best animated films." period. Toonami's ad's don't usual say stuff like that, only doing it for really big series and films. That line makes it feel like this film is important! You have to see it, just to know why it's ranked up there as one of the best animated films. The ad closes on another quite moment causing the whole ad to sort of book end itself. This ad honestly feels more like a film trailer than a normal Toonami ad. This is likely due to the lack of many "Toonami" elements. The words at the end aren't in the standard blue and white text, which was common in Toonami ad's that came out around this time. The ad is able to make the film seem epic and important, while leaving a lot of mystery on what the plot is. That is why it earns the number ten slot. Number 9: The Bullies Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfjHN52SVhE

Stepping away from the super action heavy side of Toonami we have the Bullies Speech. Really this speech is tackles a very basic issue, and a issue that's been discussed by after school specials for decades. However what makes this speech stand out from those cliche specials is the sincerity and the realism of it. The speech doesn't feel like it's talking down to the viewer. Part of the reason for this is because unlike most of those after school specials, this speech is targeting adults. That alone brings up a point that many other things with a bulling moral doesn't point out. That bulling doesn't stop at high school. Also it takes a bit of a more realistic look at bulling by pointing out that A.) bullies are often victim of bulling themselves and not always the generically evil characters that they are often portrayed as being. and B.) Most of the time the only way to stop bulling is to stand up for yourself and not like other people decide how you live your life. It gives a valuable lesson about bulling in just one minute and doesn't come off as cheesy as all. That's hard to do. And for that it get's the number nine slot. Number Eight: Samurai Jack Final Season Long Promo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtgXDiXr-0M

This one is kinda cheating because this was originally made as a standard adult swim promo. However, they did make an updated version of it, with the only difference being at the end where they say "on Toonami" instead of "on adult swim" so it TECHNICALLY counts! Also in terms of editing, tone, and style it is much closer to a Toonami ad then an adult swim ad. Also this ad is great and I want to talk about it. This ad had a lot it had to do. It was the first real big look at the new season of Samurai Jack. And while hype would be there for this season regardless of the ad, people had been waiting thirteen years for this. And so the ad had to make it all seem like it was worth it, and get the show the hype it needed to justify adult swim taking a chance on it. This ad starts with long establishing shots and not a lot of action, much like the show itself. Pretty similar to the Akira promo in that regard. But then half way through the action picks up, all to Jack's narration which is a really nice touch. It manages to give hints about the plot of the season, while still leaving in the element of mystery. Like obviously it's showing that those female warriors are going to be our season big bads, but who are they? Why isn't Jack using his sword? Does he even have his sword? So many questions are brought up, that we know the answer to now, but not at the time when this trailer came out. It's in a way where it makes you excited to see where the show is going to go. There's also that bit at the end where Jack is speaking the intro to the theme song, and I can't decide if it's cool or just kinda cheesy. (Though I am leaning towards the cool side.) However, wouldn't it be great if after Jack says "Got to get back. Back to the past. Samurai Jack" we just heard Jack say "-Samurai Jack. Jack. Jack Jack Jack Jack-" in Phil Lamarr's stoic, deadpan Jack voice doing the will.i.am cover! Yeah...It not doing that is why it only get's the number eight slot.

Number Seven: Dragonball Z Kai Promo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlHQ3aCLB-M

Okay, how to do I "screaming and punching is really awesome" and make it come off as analytical and thought out.... It could be argued that Dragonball Z was the biggest show in Toonami's original run. You could make an argument for Naruto and a few others, but Dragonball Z was one of there big series. When Toonami came to adult swim EVERYBODY was waiting for them to announce that they would be airing DBZ again. And thus, when DBZ Kai did come to Toonami, it made sense for them to make a promo like this to hype people up even more. This ad does a lot of things well to encapsulate a lot of what people love about DBZ. From the slow build up as Goku charges up him famous Kamehameha attack, to the fact that we see clips from the Saiyan, Nemek, and the beginning of the Android saga. That's 64 episodes! Usually a Toonami ad will only use clips from the first couple of episodes. But, I guess since so many people have seen DBZ they didn't care about spoiling it. But the upside of this is that the ad can use clips from several of the series best fights, giving the ad an interesting dynamic compared to other Toonami ads. The ad is able to use different kinds of fights, from giant monster, ki battles, and hand to hand combat, allowing this ad to almost act as a "best of" for the series. The only part I'm not so sure about is the line where they say "and there kicking even more ass this time." To me it came off as a bit cheesy. Also there is this air of smugness when they say "The way it was meant to be seen. Right here. With us." You don't own Dragonball, Toonami. Dragonball belongs to the world! But yeah, the ad's ability to use such a massive array of clips is what gives it the edge in this countdown. They were able to highlight all the best points of the series, and show what it is that makes Dragonball Z so well known, and so beloved. ...But let's be real. The main reason it's on here is because of all the screaming and punching. Screaming and punching are just cool! That's a scientific fact! Number Six: Attack on Titan Promo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH1DH8jiy5A

With Attack on Titan being one of the biggest Ha! Ha ha ha, I'm going to go fu*king kill myself now- anime series to come out in recent history, this ad delivers in selling the show to people who may of heard of the show through word of mouth as "That zombie show, only the zombies are giant naked people without genitals cause anime is weird." This was one of the last ad's to have the announcer explain the plot of the show Some still do, like the Dimension W promo, but there a lot rarer now. It's really a shame because I really like the "voice of God" style trailers, and this ad is a perfect example of why it works. The announcer explains the plot perfectly, while describing the titans in such a sinister fashion that it almost makes you forget the fact that giant man eating naked people without genitals is kinda silly! Still though, this ad is great. It tells you everything you need to know to get the basic premise of the series in just a minute and a half long run time and really works on selling the show for any new comers. The orchestration in particular has the exact right combination of both epicness and dread to really set the tone. You instantly get the story, set up, and motivation of the main character all in one minute and a half long promo. And the ad concludes with Eren Jaeger screaming like a psychopath in that classic Eren Jaeger way. There's no way you can watch this and not get even a little pumped, right? I can't be alone on this. Hey, do you know that the voice of Eren Jaeger in the English dub of Attack on Titan is the same voice as Cat Noir in Miraculous Ladybug? Knowing that makes both shows a thousand times funnier. Anyway, onto number five.

Number Five: The Positivity Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbN6bqkfjc8 Positivity is something that I feel is something that is very easy for a lot of people to lose sight of. Especially recently, making this speech hold a lot of extra impact. So many people these days believe the cynicism or nihilism is the "smart" way of thinking. And while everybody has a right to there own personal philosophy it has never been something that I agreed with. Positivity, at least to me, has always been very important. And this ad helps show why. One thing that really sticks out to me with this ad is the music the plays throughout the first act. One thing that Toonami has always been good at, is the music. This track in particular really fits the tone of the ad. There's also some stand out moments with the clips. Like the part wear we see Eren Jaeger's face smash against the ground, only for us to see him gliding later in the ad. Symbolizing how life can sometimes feel like a giant obstacle, only for you to surpass it with the right amount of effort. This is my favorite Toonami speech, and I always feel in a good mood after watching this ad. It just has this nice feeling to it, that I just really appreciate. It's a great thing to watch when your down, to remind you to always look up. That's why it earns the number five spot.

Number Four: Space Dandy Long Promo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSWP5_WKeuE Most of the time Toonami ad's do a great job at making a show seem epic. This ad, however, does not try to make this show look "epic" at all. Rather this ad tries to portray the show for what it is. A wacky, over the top, crazy good time. The difference in tone really helps the ad stand out from other Toonami promo's. There are also some other unique things about the ad, like how instead of having the standard Toonami narrator it has the narrator from Space Dandy. (For those who have not seen the show Space Dandy is a lot like Powerpuff Girls, in the since that the narrator is a character who interacts with the show.) Also this promo features the licensed song "I Turned into a Martian" by the band The Misfits. The songs fast pace really helps fit the wild and crazy feel of this ad and the show it's self. This is another promo that also does a good job explaining to the audience what the show is and what the basic premise is. (Basically It's Johnny Bravo in Space) My only criticism of this ad is at they end when they say "from the creators of Soul Eater, Full Metal Alchemist, and Cowboy Bebop" which I find a little misleading. It is from the creator of Cowboy Bebop but it's only from the animation studio that made Soul Eater and Full Metal. Not the creator. Space Dandy is my favorite show that I have seen on Toonami (Trust me, the show is smarter then the ad makes it looks. I promise!) So there is a bit of a bias there. At some point I'd love to make a review for the show proper so I can talk about it in more detail there. But either way, this is a great promo for it, and it get's the number three slot! Number Three: Moltar's Transmission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJLDK8j_HnA

So as I mentioned previously Toonami was originally hosted by Moltar from Space Ghost: Coast to Coast before switching to TOM in 1999. Moltar was voiced by voice actor C. Martin Croker, who tragically died on September 17th, 2016 at the age of 54. Thus, in tribute to him, Toonami made this little bump to honor his legacy. The third and fourth season of Space Ghost Coast to Coast is one of my personal favorite seasons of television, so it was nice to see this tribute to him (I haven't seen much of the later seasons.) Also without him there may not of even been a Toonami in the first place, so it's nice for his impact to be acknowledge. Moltar was rarely mentioned after TOM took over, as the Toonami crew wanted to differentiate themselves from the "Coast to Coast" brand, and as such we never got to see any interaction between TOM and Moltar. This ad is really are only peak into there relationship and it's great to see. Toonami's Moltar was very difference from Space Ghost's Moltar, as the crew has stated they didn't really want to use Moltar in the first place, again because they wanted there own feel. But it's nice to hear from this Moltar, who seems a bit more of an in-between between the two interpretations. The lack of music also helps with the solemn and It's nice to hear that in-universe Moltar get's somewhat of a happy ending, and isn't imprisoned by Space Ghost. The only part that is a little jarring (And this is a small nitpick, please don't think I'm a jerk) is seeing the Moltar animation from 1997 next to the 2016 animation of TOM. (Although I acknowledge that it's the best they could do, as I wouldn't want them to cut the scene of us seeing Moltar.) Anyway this tribute is great, and could be argued to being the best Toonami ad. I simply made it number three because this type of thing isn't what you tend to think of when you say "Toonami." Anyway, on to number two! Number Two: Get Busy Living (Music Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT_tyeQMNr0

And speaking off death, that brings us to our next entry, the "Get Busy Living" music video. Probably the most unique Toonami ad there is, this music video provides us with some of the most interesting visuals that a Toonami ad has ever offered us. Most Toonami music videos just use clips from the show over some music as a well to tell some kind of story, or express some kind of theme. But this ad does something completely different by having the clips on top of other clips, and having different filters on top of those clips. This trick, which sadly hasn't been done since, adds layers to the visuals and the experience as a whole. Then there's the theme and message of the music video. A rather often talked about but still important message about human mortality, and making the most out of life. There have been Toonami ad's that have touched on this topic before, like the "Live Life to the Fullest" music video, but none has done it as well and as creatively. As someone who thinks about death a lot, this video is...oddly comforting, in a weird kinda way. Also I find it kinda weird that, for a video that tackles such a serious subject matter the show that most of the audio and visuals come from is...Space Dandy. (See, I told you the show wasn't as dumb as it looks!) At times some of the visuals seem like a bit "much" but for the most part this is an excellent music video. It's amazing to look at, has a deep message, and the clips do a great job reflecting the subject at hand. And for that it earns the number two spot. Now onto number one! Number One: There About To Warp (Music Video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk7Q8RVL-CY

The "They're About to Warp" music video, in my personal opinion, is not only the best Toonami ad of the adult swim era but is also the ad that is most representative of Toonami as a whole. If I wanted to explain what Toonami was at it's core to somebody who had zero idea what it was, this would be the ad that I would show them. There are many, many ad's like this one. For example, the "Let's Fight." music video is very similar to this ad in terms of style and editing. In fact, "Let's Fight" would of made it onto this list, but I wanted to encourage diversity in my choices, and didn't want to pick two videos that I liked for the exact same reason, and so it was not included. (If it was included, I think it would be around number 5 or so.) This ad takes what ad's like "Let's Fight" or the "Better Cartoon Show" series ad's does right, but amps it up to eleven. I honestly don't really know what to say about this ad, if you watched the video above it should be pretty obvious why it has the number one spot. From the awesome build up of TOM opening the warp gate to just the onslaught of action scene after action scene, it is everything that makes Toonami epic wrapped up in one minute long ad. It is impossible to watch this ad without getting some kind of a boner! And yes...even if you are a girl. The ad's just that good! So that's my personal top ten favorite Toonami ad's of the adult swim era. I hope you all enjoyed it. And if you weren't a Toonami fan before reading this, hopefully I was able to show you why so many people really treasure this block, and maybe even convinced you to give it a look for yourself. As of the time of posting this review Toonami runs on Saturday nights from 11pm-3:30pm est. And if your interested and checking out any more of these bumpers check out Youtubers CabooseJr's page. He archieves most of the adult swim era ad's and was were I got the majority of these videos from. www.youtube.com/user/CabooseJr Also keep in mind, like I said earlier, I'm very indecisive when it comes to list like this, and even while editing this I considered changing some promo's placement on the list. So really the exact number placement doesn't really matter to much, as my opinion can change day to day. So really, the order doesn't really matter to much. I just wanted to showcase the best Toonami had to offer, because I thought it would be interesting. So keep that in mind. What's your favorite Toonami ad, adult swim era or otherwise? Are there any that I missed? Also what did you think of the top ten format? Tell me in the comments down bellow. I honestly enjoyed writing with that kind of format and I would love to do other top ten's in the future. It'll take some time before I get REALLY good at writing them, but I think there's some real potential here. Please, fav, follow, and comment if you enjoyed this review. I'd love to get a conversation started, even if you don't one hundred percent agree with me. Anyway, that's all I have for this time, so have a great day!

(I do not own any of the images or videos in this review all credit goes to there original owners.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

#toonami pre-flight #toonami #Atack on Titan #Space Dandy #Dragonball Z Kai

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mypersonalrambling · 6 years

Text

It’s All Fun and Games

Warnings: Language, Sexual themes/ Smut,

Pairing: Bill x Reading

Requested: By @kellysimagines

Author’s note: This took me forever to write. I have a difficult time with anything but rough sex, so feel free to drop by and let me know if I wrote softer sex correctly. I want to thank @kellysimagines for being so patient with me through this process. I would also like to thank the Anon who shared their feelings/emotions with me, it was extremely helpful. I couldn’t help but use this fic as a self promo for one of my other fics; check out Twisted Fate

Summary: Bill and Y/N are doing a photo shoot for a movie and Bill decides it’s the perfect time to tease

This photo shoot was taking forever. You had been here since 4 am this morning so you could get your makeup and hair done, your outfits were laid out, and making sure things were close to perfect by the time Paul, the photographer arrived. It must be nice to stroll in at the last minute and have everything done. You knew he was important, however, that didn’t help your crankiness.

Bill, of course, didn’t arrive until an hour before the shoot since he didn’t have to have as much makeup and hair done, man it sucked being a woman sometimes. This was going to be an all-day event, this being the promo shoot for the movie you and Bill were staring in. You and Bill had been dating for a few months now, but not many people knew about it. The two of you thought it was best to keep it hush hush as long as possible. You hadn’t been in the spotlight very long, but you knew the two of you dating would be front page news.

Bill has shown you some tricks he’d learned from being in the limelight and even he admitted he didn’t have the full experience until now. Before he’d done small movies kind of staying in the background. This was his first blockbuster movie, it was expected to be number one during the releasing weekend.

When you first thought of acting you told yourself you wouldn’t do any boring romance movies, that was thrown out the window when your agent found the script for Twisted Fate. It was a romance film however it seemed so raw. Bill played a single father whose wife passed and is having a difficult time dealing with her passing so he tries therapy for the sake of his daughter.

They were making it into a three-part series. It was still unbelievable to you to be chosen out of so many more qualified candidates. They had their choice and they wanted you. You tried your best to not show your inexperience, although there were times it wasn’t possible, like this photo shoot. Never in your life had you been in a photo shoot. It seemed awkward, everyone was running around trying to make sure everything was correct. Finally, they gave the signal for you and Bill to come to set. It took ten minutes of re positioning before the first shot was taken, you weren’t sure how you were going to make it the entire day.

The publicists had informed you they needed as many decent photos as possible so they could make them appealable to the public. One stated they didn’t think they needed much more publicity than they had, but there could never be too much, well as long as it was good. Bill seemed serene, able to take the photographers directions without one of her assistants rushing over to help. It was so embarrassing having to have help in every direction, making you feel too dumb to even take a photo correctly.

Bill was certainly helping you through the entire process as well. He would help shift you before an assistant ran over. Although he wasn’t totally helpful, he wouldn’t stop whispering all of the dirty things he wanted to do to you. “Look so good in that dress. Good enough to just fuck you right here in front of everyone. Think they’d enjoy the show? Bet you’re getting wet just thinking about can smell you from here.”

Trying to not show how much the dirty things he was whispering in your ear, you smiled trying to focus on the photoshoot. “I know you’re trying to ignore me, darling, don’t think it’s going to well. Can’t wait until we get a break so I can taste you. Gonna eat you like it’s my last supper.”

You knew by this time you were blushing profusely. Bill had always had this power over you. He knew exactly what to say and what would get you going. He also knew you were prone to blushing making it even more satisfying to him to see you squirm. The photographer noticed you were starting to feel ill at ease. However, he didn’t know the true reason, he believed all of the spotlight was getting to you when in reality Bill wouldn’t stop whispering dirty things in your ear. “Why don’t we take a ten-minute break? I think we all need it.”

You rushed to your dressing room, splashing a little water on your face, to hopefully cool you down without washing away the makeup. Unbeknownst to you, Bill has slipped in, sitting on the chair to wait for you. “Took forever in there love, don’t have much time now, guess I’ll just have to be quick.”

“Fuck! Really Bill? You could have given me a heart attack.” He grasped your hand pulling you closer to him. Once you were close enough that you were standing with one of his legs between yours. He gently raised the bottom of your dress until it was above your waist. Pulling your panties to the side, he ran a finger between your folds. He ran his finger between your lips a few times before putting a small amount of pressure to your bud. A gasp escaped your lips, even the small amount of touching he was doing was close to sending you over the edge.

“Mmmm, darling you’re positively divine,” he smirked licking your juices off his finger. Once he was satisfied he’d gotten everything, he brought his fingers to your lips, begging for you to suck on them. Bill had always gotten off on watching you treat his fingers as if it were his cock, hut right no you were almost positive he was close to coming in his pants. When he pulled his fingers out, you knew it was going to be hard for him to restrain himself. You looked down to see what was taking so long, the two of you had limited time and needed to make use out of it.

You were about to let out a whine when he slammed two fingers into you, pumping them at a fast past, fast enough the palm of his hand was slapping against your pussy causing more friction. But it still wasn’t enough, you needed more; without thinking you began grinding against his hand. Bill, now standing, pushed your hair back allowing him access to your neck. This was the longest you believed he’d been quiet during sex, normally he was very vocal and he loved when you were vocal. “My dirty little girl, using my hand to get herself off. Thought you didn’t want to do this? Someone might catch us, I think that just made you wetter. Do you like the thought of someone walking in on us? Seeing you grind against my hand, using me for your own pleasure.”

A whimper escaped your lips, you were to so close, but you knew you were also racing the clock. It had to be getting close to time for the two of you to return to the shoot. There was a tightening in your stomach signaling you were very close to your high. The room was silent except for your breathing...rather panting, and the sound of your wetness.

You could feel the wave of pleasure begin to watch over you, your stomach began tightening, your chest was heaving, your fingers grasping for something, anything to grab onto, finally you settled on grabbing Bill’s hair causing him to let a guttural moan escape his lips. As close as you were a knocking on the door startled you, almost causing you two to fall over. “YN it’s time to go back to the photoshoot! Also, have you seen Bill?”

“Okay, uh, yeah he’s in here with me, just giving me tips on how to be more relaxed,” your voice cracked, afraid of what would happen if she were to open the door only to find Bill’s fingers thrust into your pussy. Thankfully she said to come on and left.

“Looks like we’ll have to finish this later darling, have to get back to work now.” His lips curved into a smirk. The little shit was going to leave you on the edge, knowing how close you were.

“C’mon,” you whined, “They won’t care if we take a couple extra minutes. I need to come. You can’t get me that close and then quit.”

“Oh but darling we have a job to do.” He slipped his fingers out sucking them clean, gave you a smile, and walked out of the room. Oh, he was going to get payback, there was no way you were going to let him get away with this. If he was arrogant enough to believe he could use you with no repercussions he had another thing coming. Fixing yourself in the mirror, you rushed back to set hoping it wasn’t too obvious as to the events prior.

Bill was already in place looking as if nothing had happened. He looked beautiful, it was hard to not stare, you noticed a few others in the room felt the same way, many of the assistants were overtly staring, not caring if anyone noticed them. Bill, however, didn’t, the only person he was gazing at was you, it was easy for you to see the lust in his eyes. You knew he would have a hard time, no pun intended, for the rest of this photoshoot. Bill was a pleaser, getting your off would get him off. You knew he loved to watch you, at any given time you would catch him looking.

Anytime he made you come, his eyes bore into you. On more than one occasion he’d come from getting you off. You decided this time you would be the one doing the teasing. They placed you standing on a box behind Bill giving you the perfect opportunity to whisper in his ear. “Mmm, I’m so wet, I can feel it starting to run down my legs. Too bad there isn’t anyone here to make me come, I had a chance this morning, but the guy just wasn’t able to.”

Bill was the dominant one in the relationship. This was risky, you didn’t want to hurt his feelings, simply tease him until he couldn’t handle it any longer. He was trying his damnedest to keep his composure. “Good thing these pants are black or otherwise you’d probably be able to see my wetness.” You knew you weren’t very good at teasing, but you tried taking cues from the times you’d been teased. You used to believe it would be easy to tease, however now you were realizing the art form it really was. However, you could see it was still having an effect on Bill. You could see the sweat forming on his brow, the way he bites his lips, his hands bunching the material of his pants.

He was struggling to stay focused barely listening to what the photographer was saying. The photographer began to notice leaving it be for a while before asking, “Bill is everything alright? You seem a little tense, do you need to take a break?”

Bill mumbled a yes before running to his dressing room, casually you followed making sure no one saw you enter his dressing room. “Bill?” You questioned barely above a whisper, “Where are you?” I couldn’t see him anywhere, I almost began to think I imagined him coming in here. Walking around the corner, you find he also has a bathroom in his room, placing your ear to the door you could hear soft moans. You couldn’t believe your teasing had worked. You tried the doorknob with no luck, “Bill, it’s me. Let me in.”

You heard shuffling behind the door, he opened it allowing you to see him with his pants around his knees, face flushed, beads of sweat began to form, his chest heaving. He looked vulnerable. You pushed your way into the room, waiting for him to close the door behind you. You waited until he turned to face you to pull on his arm, you made sure he was standing right in front of you.

You pushed him so he was leaning against the sink. You placed kisses down his torso until you were level with his cock. Never in your life would you have thought you could think a cock was pretty, but Bill’s was. The head was pink and swollen, glistening with pre-cum, just waiting for your mouth. Wanting to do a bit more teasing, you placed kisses on his tip before running your tongue along his shaft.

Even with the light touch, he let out a yelp. You glanced up just in time to see him take a huge gulp. You were in awe of him, he looked so beautiful trying to fight the urge to moan. This was going to be difficult for him to stay quiet, he had a tendency to be very vocal. You enjoyed the thought of teasing him, but you couldn’t wait any longer, you needed him in your mouth. You forgot about the time constraint focusing on the moment. No matter how many times the two of you have been together it was always a special experience for you. You took him in your mouth an inch at a time, always pulling back, to the tip, but never taking him out of your mouth.

It wasn’t long before you were taking most of him, you set a steady pace, not wanting this to end too quickly. You wanted the warmness overwhelming you to last, this was almost as good for you as it was for him. You placed one hand on his thigh steadying yourself while using the other to delicately massage his balls. Bill had you doing and loving things you never thought you would be into. When you were a teenager the thought of balls grossed you out and now more times than not, you would suck on his to add a different kind of pleasure.

Looking up at Bill you could tell he was trying to keep his eyes open to watch you, but it was becoming more difficult to do so by the minute. You could recognize when he was getting close, his legs always began to shake. He’d tried to control it but always failed miserably. Both of you were too caught up in the moment to hear an assistant come into the dressing room, walking closer to the bathroom, before knocking causing both of you to let out a gasp. Bill’s sounded gargled from it mixing with a former moan.

“Bill, you in there? Is everything alright, you aren’t sick, are you? If you are we can always reschedule. Although we don’t have much longer, it should only be about another hour. Paul had gotten most of the shots he needs. The next will be with Paisley for the family shots. She’s so adorable, I can’t believe how much she resembles you, Bill. They did a magnificent job of casting.”

“Can...can I have a few...more minutes?” Bill asked trying to contain himself. You hadn’t stopped during this interaction wanting to finish before you had to go back. There was a quiver in his voice, you almost hoped the assistant mentioned it, to cause him to blush more.

You loved when he showed his soft side. He was this big, tall, intimidating man, yet with you, he was soft, showing you his most vulnerable side. He never shied away from sharing his feelings. There had been many nights he’d laid his head on your lap, crying due to the stress he was under. He was protective of you, not in a possessive way, but in a way that made you feel small and taken care of. It never ceases to amaze you how he could go from cursing someone to turning to you and speaking as if nothing happened.

Since he normally took care of you, there were times all you wanted to do was take care of him, show him you embrace his soft side, rather encourage it. To most of the world he was the unobtainable, untouchable force, but to you, he was a soft baby who needed to be taken care of.

“Only a couple, we need to finish this today so the photos will be ready for the promo.” You heard him walk out of the dressing room. As much as you wanted to keep going, there was no possible way it could happen in two minutes, especially Bill would need to straighten himself to not look as if he’d just been blown in the bathroom.

Standing up, you wiped your mouth, pushed him off the sink so it was possible for you to fix your makeup if needed. He gave a small huff not favoring the outcome. “Looks like we’ll have to finish this later darling, have to get back to work now,” you mimicked using his words from earlier. You turned to look at him, wanting to be able to take everything in about his reaction. His eyes were squinted, his lips in a thin line, you knew he didn’t take too kindly to you mimicking him. He tried giving you a pleading look, one that you almost couldn’t refuse, however, this was payback from earlier. “Oh but darling we have a job to do,” you stated before walking out. Bill followed moments later, having been able to compose himself most of the way.

You hoped no one suspected anything or months of being careful would be flushed down the drain. The two of you had periodic conversations of whether or not going public would be favorable. You knew there would always be some who weren’t fond of it, but the lack of privacy at the moment was terrible. Was it worth risking to be followed and hounded day and night about your relationship? Personally, you thought it would do more harm than good. Plus it was nice to have Bill all to yourself. It was a secret the two of your shared, you felt bringing you closer together. Of course, it was difficult to not touch or be affectionate in public. Sometimes you would even say it was torture. But knowing at the end of the day he was yours made it worth the hassle.

When you say, Paisley, you couldn’t help but awe, she looked adorable in a little sundress, sandals with her hair in braids. She was the almost the spitting image of Bill. Had you not known better you would believe she was actually his daughter, she even behaved like him. She had Bill wrapped around her little finger. From the day he met her, he would bend over backward to make her smile. You couldn’t help imagine how he’d be with his own children. If he was this influenced by someone else’s, he would never be able to say no to his own.

You couldn’t lie and say you hadn’t thought of you and he having children together. You imagined looking like Bill with your personality. They’d run around, teasing him, trying to get away with as much as possible. The two of you had never really talked about the future, focusing on the here and now. Both of you were too focused on your careers to even think about having kids now, however, that didn’t stop you from having baby fever anytime you saw a child.

The rest of the photo shoot seemed to pass by quickly, you weren’t sure if it was because you knew there was an end in sight or if it was because watching Bill and Paisley interacting kept your mind busy. Paul called for a wrap praising us for all of our hard work. He laughed stating he knew he could be a pain in the ass to work with due to be so picky.

Bill and you left separately as to not arouse suspicion. The two of you met up in the parking garage when you were sure the coast was clear. Bill drove both of you to his house, after stopping for food since both of you were starving.

When you arrived at his house all you could think about flopping down on the bed and going to sleep. You would never have imagined being in a movie would have been this much work, you were always going. Granted you wouldn’t change it for the world, this has always been what you wanted to be. Both of you stripped down until you were in nothing but your skivvies.

Bill threw in a horror movie, the two of you cuddling on the couch. However, you spent more time paying attention to Bill than the movie. He was so relaxed at home. It was fascinating to see the difference. Right now the two of you were curled up on the couch, he was lying with his legs parted, so you could sit between them, your head on his chest. He was alternating between playing with your hair and running his finger along your back. You knew he’d eventually catch you looking, but you didn’t care.

You loved the way his lips were slightly parted, his hair a mess, the way his chest clenched slightly during a scary scene, the way he had to be touching you all the time. He reminded you of a gentle giant. No matter the tough exterior he portrayed to the outside world, you knew the true Bill. The one who would do anything to protect the ones he loves. The one let cried at sad scenes in movies or who loved nothing more to cuddle up with you for an entire day. The one who laid his head in your lap so he could have his hair played with and would pout if you stopped.

“You’re supposed to be paying attention to the movie darling,” he grinned, placing a kiss on the top of your head.

“But you’re much more interesting,” you say rubbing circles on his chest. Neither of you spoke, spending the next few moments taking everything in about one another. You’re the first one to look away, but only so you can resituate so you’re sitting with a leg on either side of him. Looking down all you can think about it how comfortable you were with him. His house had become your favorite place, the two of you able to cozy up. You placed a kiss on his forehead, then both of his cheeks, his nose, finally his mouth. It started off as a light kiss which soon turned into something more passionate.

Bill’s and your lips molded into one, moving in perfect sync. Your hands made their way to his grabbing a handful, causing him to emit a growl. You broke away, giving you both a chance to breathe. “I was gonna teach you a lesson for teasing me earlier, but all I want to do is make love to you.” He slid you off his lap so he could stand up. Grasping your hand in his, he pulled you to the bedroom.

Once you were close enough to the bed he nudged you onto the bed, he took a moment to gaze up and down your body. It was almost becoming unbearable, you needed him. You needed to have his hands all over, not missing one inch. You needed to feel every inch of his length thrusting deep inside of you, to feel full to the brim. Bill snuck his hands behind your back to unclasp your bra. It was as if he couldn’t tear your lingerie off fast enough. He wanted to be skin to skin, nothing separating you.

Once neither of you had a trace of clothing Bill took no time in before diving between your legs. However, instead of his fast pace, he was taking his time. He was taking long licks, widening his tongue, being almost agonizingly slow. Instead of your high coming on full force at the speed of lightning, your high was building and building. It started with a warm feeling flowing through your body, starting at the top of your head working its way down to your toes. It felt extraordinary, the feeling continued, goosebumps began forming, causing you to shiver. The sensation of hot and cold worked well in making you feel the slow burn of ecstasy.

Bill hardly ever showed his sensual side during sex, normally the two of you were too overcome with desire to take it slow. It was a welcome change to make love, you wished it happened more. It was fun having rough sex, it was a favorite, however, there were times when you needed slow and steady.

A fluttering began in your stomach, it was light at first, then became stronger. It was almost impossible to think about anything other than how his tongue felt on you. A particular moan from Bill vibrated through to your core. He was always one who could get off from getting you off. He was rutting against the bed at this point, you knew he must be in some aching from how hard he was hitting the bed. “So….so...close...Bill please,” you begged, grabbing a handful of hair.

He pulled your hand away holding it close to your body. This would normally be the point in time when he’d tease you endlessly, however, his goal was different tonight, he wanted nothing more than to have you come. The familiar tingling in your stomach began to overwhelm you, your heart began to race, a couple beads of sweat formed, your legs started to quiver. You succumbed to your high, letting it wash over you. Bill held your hand, entwining his fingers with yours.

He stood up after your high had rushed through your body, helping reposition so you were no longer only lying half on the bed. You now were lying with your head on the pillows, watching Bill. He hovered over you, running a hand gently across both of your cheeks, and lips, never breaking eye contact. He ran his lips delicately across your neck, “I love you, YN. You’re gorgeous. I never want to take my eyes off of you, want to be here with you forever.”

He planted kisses all over your face, when they finally reached your lips, they molded together as if you were one. You could feel his erection pressing against your thigh, pre-cum dripping onto your leg, reaching down to grasp him, he let out a hiss against your lips. He pulled away focusing his attention on your strokes, if you kept it up much longer he was going to come onto your stomach. You paused causing him to emit a whine, “Need you in me. I want to feel you deep inside me, Bill please.”

He needed no more encouragement, he gradually thrust his length in. The place was steady, methodical. Bill for the second time entwined his fingers with yours, using his other hand to hold himself up. For the second time that night your high was slowly overwhelming instead of a sudden rush. It was a different feeling to experience every little sensation that went along with it. “I love you so much YN, don’t know what I’d do without you.”

He started to slightly pick up his pace, you knew this meant he was getting close and was trying to hold on as long as possible. You knew he wanted you to come one more time before did and in all honesty, you didn’t care. You wanted him to reach his high to feel the bliss wash over him. “Bill, let go.”

“No, want...you to come again,” he said through gritted teeth, trying his hardest.

“It’s okay, come for me baby boy, come.” You placed the hand not being held by his, on his neck drawing him closer to you. He gave up his resistance letting his high take over his body, his stomach clenching, you could feel his dick pulsing inside of you followed by spurts of come.

With no energy left, he fell upon you letting you hold him. Rarely did he let you hold him after sex, it was usually him holding you. It a satisfying feeling, you wished you could hold him forever. When he regained an ounce of energy he rolled over to the side, leaving an empty feeling. He faced you, his eyes open only a sliver, he looked fragile. You pulled him close so his face was nuzzled in your neck, “I love you, Bill, you’re the best thing to happen to me.” There was so much more that you wanted to say, however, at the moment you wanted nothing more than to lie in comfortable silence with him.

For the first time, the two of you fell asleep with you as the big spoon and he has the little spoon. It was always nice to be taken care of and protected, however, you wanted to reciprocate and let him know it’s okay for someone to take care of him every once in a while and you were the person who was going to do it.

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