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yelena-bellova · 3 years

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Safe Haven: tftaws!Bucky Barnes x fem!reader - Chapter Eleven (final chapter)

chapter ten - Chapter Eleven: Safe Haven

Series Masterlist

Plot: Y/n and Bucky enjoy their time off in Brooklyn and make decisions about their future.

Warnings: FLUFF, very little angst for once, talk of torture, reference to suicide, open ended plot twist that I'm not sorry for...all the fluff, seriously...

Word Count: 7.3k

A/N: Here we are...part of the journey is the end, and we've arrived. Even though there's another a/n at the bottom (with an important announcement so don't tap out too soon) I want to iterate just how thankful I am for the response I got on this series. I had the most amazing time writing it and loved getting to meet and connect with so many of you through it. ENJOY!!

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It had taken all the strength Bucky had in his soul to knock three times on Yori’s door. He didn’t know what reserve he had had to tap into to actually make his long-hidden confession but once the words had fallen from his lips, he felt both freed and all the more burdened. Watching his friend’s eyes become overtaken by heartbreak, the desperate, confused utterance of ‘why…?’ By the end, Yori wouldn’t even look at Bucky. Bucky didn’t blame him, he was surprised that the man wasn’t yelling him out of his apartment. Instead, he calmly told Bucky to leave, surely holding back the majority of his emotions until he was by himself. The door shut on their friendship and Bucky was by himself on the other side of the door once again, drawing the shaky breath he’d held while he was inside Yori’s place. Out of every person he’d gone to see, every heart he’d had to crush, this one had hurt the most. In the dauntingly long hallway, his eyes sought out the gift the universe had given him, so undeservingly.

His guiding light.

Bathed in the blue light that flooded through the dirty windows of the aged building, Y/n stared down at her feet as she paced. For as open as they’d become with one another, Bucky found himself unable to ask her to accompany him to his last opportunity to make amends. The two of them had become so skilled at reading each other that with one look in his saddened eyes, Y/n had squeezed her phone into the pocket of her jeans and stood by the door waiting for him to ready himself. Bucky was starting to make peace with his past, but he still didn’t know what he had done in his wretched life to have such an angel in his life.

“Hey,” she greeted soothingly, turning to face Bucky as he approached her, “How’d it go?” Bucky wasn’t ready to speak yet, he wasn’t even sure how he could describe what had just transpired. He simply sighed and allowed Y/n to wrap him in her arms in the embrace that was quickly becoming his favorite place to be.

——

As I woke with a groan, stretching my arms over my head, I was immediately aware that one side of the bed was cold. I blindly reached a hand over and felt around for Bucky’s missing body, sitting up when my search was unsuccessful. I blearily scanned the bedroom, our suits laying in a pile that had been kicked to the corner of the desolately furnished room. The few articles of clothing I had gone to the nearest department store and purchased for my impromptu stay in New York still lay folded on top of Bucky’s dresser. It didn’t dawn on me until that moment that I was beginning to spread across Bucky’s apartment without even trying.

It had been four days since the Flag Smasher’s final stand and while the world may have been spinning, mine had never been more steady. Bucky and I hadn’t left his apartment for more than running necessary errands. Other than that we’d spent the time enjoying our slice of domestic heaven learning about one another. I had discovered that Bucky was a good cook but only when it came to breakfast food. He had found out that I needed to sleep with the windows opened slightly for background noise. I had learned that his Spotify consisted strictly of music from the ’40’s and nothing else, contrary to what he’d told Sam about diving into Marvin Gaye’s discography. He’d learned that I got cold easily which led to both me stealing his hoodies and being on the receiving end of many bear hugs. We could tell what the other would do in combat or how they’d handle a concerning matter, but it was finding out the little things about James Buchanan Barnes that made me fall a little bit harder for him with each revelation.

The unlocking and opening of the door followed by quiet footsteps alerted me to his presence. I heard a few muffled noises before the floorboards outside the bedroom creaked, the door opening directly after. Bucky was careful and nearly silent as he came into the room until he saw that my eyes were open. We shared a lazy smile as he approached the bed.

“Did I wake you up?” he asked.

I shook my head in reply, he came to kneel at my side of the bed and pulled the hand he’d hidden behind his back out revealing a bouquet of daisies. “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any cuter,” I chuckled, reaching out to grab the bouquet, “I don’t think anyone’s ever bought me flowers.”

“That’s a crime,” Bucky said as he stood up, shedding his leather jacket as he walked around the bed, “In my time, you always brought a girl flowers on the first date. It was just what you did.”

“I guess we can consider my little extended stay a first date,” I dipped my nose down to smell the flowers, “Although I’m pretty sure in your time you wouldn’t allow a girl into your bed so soon.” Bucky snickered to himself, “A gentleman would never let a lady sleep on the floor. And selfishly,” he tugged his second layer, a grey long sleeved shirt off over his head, and looked down on me lovingly, “I sleep better with you here.”

It was true. He’d told me how he’d only used the bed once since he’d moved in, having slept on the floor instead. I was familiar with the phenomenon, Sam had gone through the same thing when he’d returned from the service. I’d told him that if he had a nightmare and needed to move out to his living room, I’d join him with no hesitations. Shockingly, it hadn’t happened yet and we’d slept in a peaceful tangle of limbs each night that I’d been with him.

Kicking off his boots, he slipped under the duvet and sat up against the headboard, looking over at me and patting his jean clad thigh. I set the flowers down and crawled over to him, sinking down onto his lap and sliding my hands around his neck.

“I like this,” he complimented me with a smirk, tugging at the material of his henley that I was wearing, “Looks better on you than it ever would on me.” “Clearly you’ve never seen you,” I scoffed, I’d also learned that the man had no idea just how attractive he was, “What were you off doing?” “Grocery store,” Bucky answered, gesturing to the sidelined bouquet, “Florist. Dr. Raynor’s office…” “Oh, I didn’t know you had a session this morning.”

Bucky took a deep breath, his hands firmly secured around my waist and his thumbs rubbing at my hips. “I didn’t,” he answered, “I, uh, I crossed off all the names in my book. Thought I’d drop by and let her know.” I gave a breathy laugh, “All of them?” He nodded, “All of them.” Surprised and proud, I placed my hands on his cheeks and pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “I never doubted you for a second” I said softly, our lips almost touching, “I’m proud of you.”

Bucky gave a small smile, not yet ready to take as much pride as I could in his recovery. I could tell that he was lighter, while his personality was silent and stoic there wasn’t as much sadness lurking beneath it. To those who knew him, the difference in his behavior was visible. The days that I’d been in New York were the happiest I’d seen Bucky since I’d known him.

“So…” I sighed, my hands sliding down to his shoulders, “No more therapy sessions, no more battles to be fought…What do we do now?”

The dreaded question that we’d been avoiding since we’d isolated ourselves from the outside world. There was no doubt as to whether or not I wanted to make it work between Bucky and I, but we hadn’t even discussed what “it” was. What should have unfolded over the course of a couple months had happened as a crash course over two weeks. I didn’t regret it, I just needed to know where Bucky’s head was at regarding our future. “Look,” Bucky averted his gaze downwards, “I’m not…I haven’t done this in a long time and I can’t promise that I’m gonna be good at it. I can’t even promise that I’ll know what I’m doing some of the time. But,” he shyly raised his eyes to meet mine, “I want this. I want you.”

His earnestness was so genuine, I thought my heart might burst from the emotion in his ocean blue eyes. “Bucky, I don’t want perfect,” I said, “And I’m pretty sure that a 106 year old with a robotic arm and a girl who can fly using blue energy from inside her wouldn’t even know what to do with perfect,” I earned a single laugh out of him, “Whatever we have right now, that’s what I want. I want to fight with you by my side and make a difference in the world, then I want to come home with you and teach you to cook something other than pancakes.”

He furrowed his brow, “What do you got against my pancakes?”

“My point is,” I giggled, my hands drifting back up to each side of his neck, “I want you exactly as you are. I haven’t done this in a long time either, I thought that after my dad died I was too broken to ever let myself be happy like this and you know that I’m coming in with more baggage than before. You’re not the only one who doesn’t know what they’re doing. But there’s nobody else I’d rather figure this out with than you.”

The long stare he gave me was reminiscent of the first moment we’d been alone together, standing before the 200 foot drop in Munich. It was the first moment I’d appreciated his beauty, maybe it was the first seed planted in what was now a full-blown relationship in the making. This time, instead of sassing me with those hardened, slightly amused eyes, he surged forward and kissed me, cradling the back of my head in his Vibranium palm. I returned the kiss with just as much fervor, gripping the tight blue t-shirt tightly in my fists. Unlike the kisses we’d shared at 1AM in the kitchen of my house, this one carried a different weight. It was a promise of a future. Movie nights introducing Bucky to the classics that he’d missed. Lazy mornings in bed turned passionate as our bodies surrendered to one another. Protecting each other on whatever battlefields we’d inevitably end up on. Frustrating fights over something we’d inevitably admit was stupid to argue over. Whispering soothing affirmations to help Bucky come down from a violent nightmare. I could taste it all, the good and the bad, in that one kiss and I wanted every bit of it.

“Two weeks…” I said after we’d parted, shaking my head in amazement and laughing, “That’s all it took.” “Crazier things have happened,” Bucky reassured me with a smile, running his hands up and down my back, “My folks always said they knew in a week and they were together for almost forty years.” I bushed my lips against his softly, basking in the euphoria of knowing that the two of us belonged wholly to one another. To think that I’d been willing to throw all of it away mere days ago, I was ready to deprive myself and Bucky of the love we’d craved all our lives. I thanked God that my resolve to stay away had weakened long enough to let Bucky in because now, wrapped in his strong arms with his lips begging for a deeper kiss, I knew that I had something truly spectacular in my hands.

“Well, since this is official,” Bucky said, a little breathless, “There’s something you should have.” He took his hands off of my body and reached behind his neck, pulling off one of his dog tags. Understanding what he was doing and the significance of it, I moved my head to allow him to place the necklace over it, the cold metal of the ball chain settling against my neck. The tag fell between my breasts, I picked it up and read Bucky’s name, his service number, the name of his sister, their address and his birth place. He’d given me, a part of his future, a piece of his history.

“Bucky…” I whispered, not trusting my voice enough to come out steady.

“A lot of soldiers gave one of them to their girls before they shipped out,” he recalled, watching me examine the piece of metal, “At least I know if I ever do ship out anywhere, you’ll be with me.” I bit my lip and smiled, looking up at him with misty eyes. When the first tear fell down my cheek, Bucky was quick to wipe it away and did so with a smile of his own. After all the pain we’d both suffered through in life, we were finally allowed tenderness. Our hearts were scarred, our bodies worn, but no amount of trauma could lay a hand on the way we felt about one another. There’d be many more fights, some with forces bigger than the ones we’d spent the last two weeks taking a stand against. But at the end of the day, I had Bucky, my safe haven to come back to.

“It’s getting late,” I observed after a few minutes of sweet silence, the morning hours were slipping away from us, “Are you hungry? I can make us something.” “Yeah, but,” Bucky’s hands found my arms and he rubbed his palms against them, “Let’s stay here just a little while longer…”

A grin spread across my face, one that I was finding only Bucky could bring out in me. “Okay,” I replied, settling my face in the crook of his neck and resting against his chest, the only place I wanted to be.

——

A FEW DAYS LATER

“You ready, Barnes?” “I’m ready.” “This is the most dangerous mission we’re ever going to face.” “I wouldn’t have come if I couldn’t handle it.” “Then why are you sweating?” “I’m not…sweating.” “Well, at least I know you’ll never lie to me. You suck at it,” I smirked just before smoothing out the shoulders of his jacket, “Follow my lead, you’ll be fine.”

Bucky blew out a breath, his cheeks loosing their puff as he exhaled, “Here goes nothing…” I gave three sharp knocks on the door before entering, seeing the familiar face waiting in a chair by the window. “Hey, Mama…” My mother smiled deeply at the sight of her daughter, alive before her. “Baby,” she whispered as she slowly rose to embrace me, “Oh, you’re here.” “I’m here,” I smiled, trying to fight the tears threatening to fill my eyes. My mother had been my first call after the battle in New York, realizing that my face was flashing across every news channel in the country alongside Sam and Bucky. This was the first time I’d seen her since before I’d left Louisiana with Sam.

“And you brought someone?” she asked over my shoulder, pulling away to wipe her cheeks.

“I did,” I turned around and looped my arm through Bucky’s, who was looking vaguely nauseous, “Mom, this is James.”

Bucky stuck out his gloved hand towards my mother, “It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Y/l/n.”

“Wonderful to meet you too, James,” she responded, shaking his hand and looking over to me, “I’ve been waiting a long time for Y/n to bring somebody home.” I forced a chuckle, “Thanks, Mom…” “Well, I’m honored that I’m the one she chose,” Bucky beamed, his bright eyes seeking mine out.

“Well, sit down,” my mom gestured to the two free chairs in the room, “I want to hear all about how you two met.”

Bucky and I exchanged a nervous look as we pulled up our seats to join her by the window. How were you supposed to explain that you’d fallen for a 106 year old who just happened to have once been the world’s deadliest assassin? “Um…James is one of Sam’s friends from the military. He came with us to Munich and things just sort of,” I slipped my hand into one of Bucky’s that sat in his lap, “Happened from there.” “We didn’t like each other much at first, but,” Bucky chimed in, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand, “She definitely snuck up on me.”

“Oh my,” she looked at me amusedly, “How’s Sam taking this? Has he threatened you yet, Bucky?” “Yeah, I, uh, got a text from him the other day, and it read something like ‘I’ve got access to government weapons, don’t make me use them.’”

I covered my mouth and snorted as my mother got a good laugh herself, “You didn’t tell me that.” Bucky shook his head, a small smile on his lips, Sam and him had been getting along swimmingly since his last visit to Louisiana. But no friendship could eclipse Sam’s overprotective nature when it came to his family, it was only a matter of time until Bucky was on the receiving end of its ugly side.

“Truth is,” Bucky turned his gaze to my mother while keeping a soft grip on my hand, I could feel his nerves radiating through his touch, “I’m crazy about your daughter, ma’am, I think she’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”

Mom sighed, an ear-to-ear grin painted across her face. It was the same one I’d seen when my sister had first brought her now husband home to meet us. “I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear that, James,” she replied, “I’m looking forward to getting to know you more.” “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” I questioned, “It’s been so long since the whole family was together.” “I wish, but I’m a little too tired to make the trip there,” Mom answered, settling into her seat a little more, “You don’t need an old lady there slowing you down.” “That’s ridiculous,” I gently pushed back, “But since Sam and I are back home for a while, we’ll make sure to bring everybody up one of the weekends.” “I’d like that,” she smiled. A phone buzzing interrupted the conversation, Bucky let go of my hand to reach into his jacket pocket. “It’s Sam, probably wants an ETA,” he announced, rising from his seat and looking between both me and my mother, “Sorry.”

Both of us shooed him out of the room to take the call, turning back to one another once he was gone with shining smiles. “Honey…” “I know…” I tried to hold back a giddy laugh threatening to erupt.

“He seems wonderful…” I shook my head, semi in disbelief that things had turned out the way they had. “You don’t even know the half of it, he’s just…I’m crazy about him.” “That much is obvious,” Mom gestured to my face, “You haven’t stopped smiling since you walked through that door. I’ve never seen you this happy. Just one thing…” I furrowed my brows as her smile turned to a knowing smirk, “Did you honestly think I wouldn’t know who he is?” I sighed, leaning forward in my seat and propping my elbows on my knees. “We weren't trying to hide it, he just doesn’t like to advertise it. Once people know, they usually can’t look past what he was. But, Mom, we’ve been glued at the hip for the last two weeks and I can promise you, what you’re seeing is what you’re getting. I wouldn’t be with him if I thought there was any chance he could hurt me. He saved my life and so many others last week...” “Sweetie, you don’t have to try and sell me on him,” Mom said soothingly, reaching out to touch my knee, “I trust your judgement and I also know what happened to him, it was tragic. The fact that he has a second chance at his life makes me happy, especially since it’s with you. Watching the two of you, how at ease he is with you…And those eyes,” she stopped to chuckle, “The way he looks at you is something special, it’s something magical. The two of you fit.”

Eventually I would tell her the whole story of how Bucky and I came to be, but it was better saved for another day. If she only knew how challenging it had been to get to something so simple and how Bucky and I valued each other all the more for it. “He fought for me, Mama,” I said with tears brimming, letting out a laugh, “Literally and metaphorically. And I just couldn’t let him go, he’s everything I’ve wanted but what I thought I could never have.” Mom placed a hand on my cheek, “You deserve him, my love. After everything you’ve been through, you deserve happiness.” And for the first time, I believed her. I believed that through my suffering, I had played a small part in helping Bucky through his. We deserved something more than what had happened to us and we had found it in one another.

“Your father would be proud of you,” Mom said, her face flashing with a different emotion than joy for a brief second. “I’m not sure about that…” I mumbled, dodging her eyes in favor of staring down at my hands, a different reaction than I’d ever had when talking about my father.

“Sweetie,” she coaxed me, tapping at my hands until I looked back up at her, “Do you…do you know something?” My heartbeat started to quicken as I struggled to contain the information I was withholding from my mother. It was taking everything I had not to tell her that her husband had been a part of one of the cruelest organizations the world had ever seen. The pain must have reflected in my expression. “Yeah,” she whispered, biting her lip and closing her eyes, “You know…” “Mom?”

She sighed, sitting back in her chair and supporting her head in her hand. “I didn’t know anything about that part of your father’s life when I married him, he didn’t like to talk about his time in the ‘service’ and I never pushed it…It wasn’t until the night that he died, before he left the house, that he sat me down and confessed it all.” “He…” I moved to the edge of my seat, “He told you?” “Mmhmm,” she nodded, a distant look in her eyes like she was transported back in time to that very moment, “I didn’t know how to process any of it, how could I? This man who I’d shared my life with and he’d made his living off of inflicting pain on innocent people. Hours later, he was gone and any chance to delve deeper into it was gone too. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with everything, but I made it. You’re free to draw your own conclusions, Y/n, I’m not telling you how to feel. All I’ll say is this,” Mom drew a breath before continuing, “Your father’s guilt over what he did, to Bucky specifically, overwhelmed him. He told me how HYDRA manipulated him, a young and ambitious man, into coming to work for them, lying and telling him they were creating a better world with their work. He thought he was fighting for what was right…I’m not making excuses for him, believe me, I’m simply telling you what he told me. Do you remember when he’d wake up from a nightmare?” I nodded grimly, the shrieks of my father’s always strained vocal cords still haunted me decades later. “Do you remember what he used to cry when he woke up?” Mom asked.

I silently shook my head in reply, when I’d be awoken by my fathers blood curdling screams as a child, I’d always bury my head under my pillow in an effort to block it out, shedding tears at knowing I couldn’t help him. “Soldat…”

My head perked up, the word was familiar to me after hearing Zemo call Bucky the same thing when we were undercover in Madripoor. “Of course by the time that your James was free, your father had been dead for over a decade but,” Mom paused, looking out the window as memories hit her, “Your father’s guilt over what he did ate away at him every day. As far as you went, he told me that the reason he wanted to keep your powers hidden was because he was afraid HYDRA would come for you. It’s the reason I moved us to Delacroix after he died, I didn’t want to take the chance of somebody finding you. Dad didn’t want them to make you a weapon the same way they made one of James. But honey,” she took my hand, “He believed you could do great things, truly. One of the last things he said to me was that our family was the one good thing he’d done in life.”

Everything that I’d thought and everything I’d never thought had been revealed to me. My father’s crimes could never be erased, but some part of me felt satisfied knowing that he knew what he did was wrong. He’d been haunted day and night by Bucky, the man who I was completely head over heels for. In some way, it felt poetic that Bucky and I had ended up together. I couldn’t magically heal his trauma, but for every bit of torture my dad and countless others inflicted upon him, I was now there to shower him in the love and safety he deserved.

“Have you…forgiven him for what he did?” I hesitantly asked.

“You know, after all these years, I’m still not sure what forgiveness looks like in a situation like this,” she admitted with a small shrug, “We weren’t affected, yet his past put us in danger, especially you. And now, seeing the man that he was paid to hurt and how much joy he brings you, it’s bringing up a lot of emotions I thought I’d buried. I know he regretted what he’d done with his whole being and I believe that, but I still question why he didn’t leave sooner. I wish I could give you a better answer but-“ “Mama,” I squeezed her hand and pushed back my tears to help her, “I’ve had this information for a week and I’m still spinning, I can’t imagine what it’s like to sit on it silently for this long. I was hellbent on keeping this from you but I’m actually relieved that I don’t have to hide it…” I took a trembling breath, “Dad did a lot of things wrong in his life, but I have a chance to do a lot of good. I’ve talked to Sam and I’m going to keep working with him, I’m done living with my hands tucked under my legs. I want to make the difference in the world that Dad thought he was making.” “I think you’re off to a pretty good start,” my mother replied, “I was terrified watching you fly around New York, but I’d also never been prouder of you.” A knock on the door followed by Bucky sticking his head through it broke us from the topic. “Am I interrupting?” he asked, his eyes widened slightly as he worried. “Not at all,” my mom said cheerily as she slowly rose from her seat, “I don’t want to keep you two any longer when you’ve got somewhere to be.”

I tightly embraced her and placed a kiss on her cheek, “Love you,” I whispered.

“Love you too, sweetheart,” she replied, gesturing afterwards to Bucky who made his way over to her and allowed himself to be hugged by her, “Take care of my girl, James.” “I will,” Bucky promised, pulling back to give a nod full of conviction.

Once the two of us had shut my mom’s door and were back out in the hallway of the nursing home, Bucky noticed the slight puffiness of my eyes. “Happy tears or sad tears?” he asked as we walked down the hall.

“‘I don’t know’ tears,” I replied with a small smile, weaving my fingers between his gloved metal ones. “But well done, Sergeant. I’d consider that a successful mission,” I finished, receiving the laugh I loved so much and a kiss to the side of my head. I pressed my lips to the place on his shoulder where I knew underneath his layers Vibranium met his skin, one of his favorite places to be kissed. My phone went off then, alerting me to a text, I pulled it out of the pocket. “Bucky…” I muttered, stopping in the middle of the hall. “What is it?” he asked as he stepped back to join me, I held my phone out for both of us to read the ominous words displayed.

The world’s seen what you can do, come to Madripoor when you decide to use those hands for something worthwhile.

- The Power Broker

“How did they get my number?” I asked in surprise, letting Bucky take my phone to examine it closer as if he could find something I couldn’t. “I don’t know,” he answered, handing the device back to me, “But we’re changing it immediately, you need to show this to Sam soon as we get to the house.” “They’re not actually threatening me, seems more like a job offer than anything else that’s only going to be declined. Plus, they’re all the way in Madripoor,” I stuck the phone back in my pocket, “I’m not going to let this ruin our day.” Bucky frowned down at me as I took his arm once again, “You’re a little too relaxed about this.” “I’m a mutant who can make things move with her mind with Captain America for a brother and a Super Soldier for a boyfriend, I’d love to see the Power Broker try to mess with that.”

——

The dock was exactly how I loved to see it, packed and filled with joy.

Sam and Sarah had invited the whole town to the celebratory cookout, people of all ages flooding our corner of the bayou as Bucky and I pulled up. Sam had loaned us his truck for the duration of our stay and I was having the time of my life showing Bucky around Louisiana and there was nothing more Louisiana than a cookout with the entire community.

Bucky parked near the end of the dock and hopped out, carrying the ice cream cake that we’d picked up on our way. He crossed around the front of the truck to open the door for me, taking one of my hands and helping me hop out of the passenger side. After a dozen more reassurances during the drive that the text I’d received wasn’t worth freaking out about, he’d begun to relax. For once, he wasn’t trying to hide his emotions. I could see it plain as day on his face, he was genuinely excited to be back in Delacroix and even more excited when the familiar sounds of AJ and Cass hit our ears.

“Oh! There he is!” Bucky greeted as the boys ran up to us and began throwing fake punches at my boyfriend who willingly played along, dramatically dodging their imaginary hits. He raised up the hand that held the cake over Cass’ head and yelled to which I quickly threw an energy shield underneath his arm to protect the overly expensive dessert.

“Aunt Y/n! Can you make us fly?” AJ came up to my side and begged.

Cass backed his brother up, “Yeah, can we? Please?” “No,” I replied, retaking Bucky’s hand and letting him lead us through the crowd, “But you can follow us with your two perfectly functional legs.” My nephews both groaned and laughed as they fell in step behind Bucky and I. “Where is everybody?” he asked as he set the cake down on one of the picnic tables set out and removed his sunglasses.

“Uncle Sam’s taking pictures with people, Mom’s cooking and Aunt Mel’s at one of the tables,” Cass answered, his face lighting up as he got a good luck at the dessert.

“After dinner,” I said, quickly having switched back into aunt mode, “Now lead the way.”

I extended my hand toward the boys and raised them up a few inches above the ground, receiving laughter and praises in return as I moved them ahead of us and through the crowd. Along the way people kept patting me on the back or sneaking in quick hugs, they shook Bucky’s hand and thanked us both for what we’d done in New York. The only thing that confused me was how people weren’t calling me by name. By the time we made it to Sarah, I had questions.

“There they are, America’s Power Couple,” she announced, coming out from behind the booth where she’d been chopping to hug us both. I pulled back to lower the boys back to the ground, “Do you know why people I’ve known almost all my life are suddenly calling me ‘Sapphire?’”

“Did you not check the internet at all when you were in Brooklyn?” she raised an eyebrow before pulling out her phone from her back pocket and pulling up Instagram, “Ever since the night of the fight, people have been referring to you as Sapphire. People are posting pictures of you, trying to get interviews with you, kids are even dressing up like you!” “Oh my gosh,” I mumbled as I scrolled through the hashtag containing the name, seeing all the proof of Sarah’s words before my eyes. Dozens and dozens of various types of photos displayed my signature shade of blue, “Bucky, look!” He took the phone out of my hand, a smile spreading across his face soon after. “That’s my girl,” he said proudly, handing the phone back to Sarah.

“You wanted the superhero life, you got it,” my sister laughed before returning to what she was doing, “Sam’s doing pictures and there’s already been people asking if you were gonna be here so I imagine they’re gonna want some with you.”

Bucky grabbed my hand and led me around to where a line had formed, spotting Sam as the destination. As soon as he caught a glimpse of us, he held up a finger to the crowd and broke away from them. The three of us exchanged hugs, me internally laughing to myself at the fact that two weeks after saying they never wanted to see one another again, they were now brothers in arms. Sam took my hand and tugged me towards where everyone was gathered, “Lotta people have been waiting for you, Sapphire,” he smirked.

As the day went on, the three of us did meet and greets with nearly everybody. At one point I found Bucky casually talking to Sarah with AJ, Cass and other neighborhood kids hanging off his vibranium arm. People had gathered around me as well asking to levitate them, something that provided entertainment for everyone. We ate, we laughed, at one point I caught Sam and Bucky watching the sun set over the Louisiana waters. I couldn’t resist the temptation to sneak in between the two and was received with an arm around each of my sides. We’d fought a shared battle along with our own separate three and now that they’d all been put to rest, we could take a minute to enjoy the freedom we’d worked so hard for. The future was unknown, but I knew that if we’d made it through the mess of a week we’d had together, there wasn’t a whole lot that we couldn’t make it through.

——

When the sky darkened, the dock lights went on and the party kept going. Someone had brought out a Bluetooth speaker and there was now a section of the dock that acted as a makeshift dance floor. I was seated at a table with Melanie watching the show, baby Alexandria fast asleep in her arms. “So…Bucky,” my sister said teasingly teased.

I let out a loud sigh, “Bucky.” “He’s perfect for you,” she smiled, “I’m glad you brought him home.” “Me too,” I scanned the dock until I spotted my boyfriend, engrossed in a conversation with Sam, “He fits right into the family.” “I’ll say, the kids love him. Max and Sophia have been following him around all day, I’ve never been able to get the baby to sleep as fast as when he held her…” I chuckled, “Yeah, just when I thought he couldn’t get any more attractive, you stuck a baby in his arms.” Mel snickered at my reaction, “Yeah, pretty sure every woman on the dock snapped a picture of that.” The two of us burst into laughter before hushing ourselves as to not wake the sleeping infant. “Hey, Sapphire,” she nudged my shin with her foot, “I’m proud of you.” “Well, that’s a far cry from how you felt last week,” I commented, remembering the fear in my sister’s voice from our phone calls in Riga.

“I’m always going to worry about you, but once I actually saw you do your thing,” she breathed, “I was just in awe of how you would risk your life to save all those people. It would be a waste to not put your gift to good use.” I leaned my head against hers and brushed a finger over Alexandria’s thinly haired head, appreciating the sweetness of the moment. Once a slow song came on the speakers, I watched as Bucky stepped away from Sam and made his way over to our table. “Can I steal your sister away for a dance?” he asked Mel. “Steal? You can keep her,” I shot my sister a faux smile while she watched on with a grin as I took Bucky’s outstretched hand and let him lead me away. “Gonna show me some more Madripoor moves?” I jested as we walked across the dock. “That was not dancing, although I did enjoy it,” Bucky replied, giving me a wink that could have melted me into a puddle, “I’ll show you what real dancing is.” I recognized the song as a version of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ and realized Bucky waited until now to show off any moves in his arsenal because it was probably the first song he recognized on the playlist. He encircled my waist with his flesh arm and took my hand in his Vibranium one, pulling me so close that there wasn’t any space left between us. He began to sway us slowly to the beat of the song. I rested my cheek against his, breathing in the scent of him mixed with the bayou evening air. As far as I was concerned, dancing in the arms of the man I was somehow lucky enough to call my own in the place I loved most in the world was the perfect end to a perfect day.

“Alright, I give…” I relented softly, close enough to his ear that I barley had to speak louder than a whisper for him to hear me, “Your version of dancing is better.” He gave a gentle laugh, the sweetest sound, and rubbed at my waist, “It’s more about the partner than it is the actual dance, think I’ve got the best one.”

“You certainly know how to make a girl blush, Sergeant Barnes,” I replied just before he spun me out of his arms and back into his body, “When’s your flight back to Brooklyn?” Bucky cocked an eyebrow, “Already tired of me?”

“Never,” I shook my head with a genuine smile, “Just trying to soak in all the time I can with you before you go back.” “About that…” he trailed off, turning his gaze to the various other couples dancing around us, “I was thinking of maybe extending my stay. I mean the scenery’s nice, good food,” he looked back to me, “Decent people.” The grin that I was fighting was starting to make itself very apparent, “What are you saying?” “Well,” Bucky shrugged and looked away again, “I mean, I’d need to find a place, hopefully nothing too expensive or else I’d have to find a roommate and even then, it’d be hard to find someone I like enough to live with…”

“Bucky…” I’d ceased our movements to show just how serious I was, searching his face to try and tell if he was joking or not. “What do you say, doll? You think you can put up with me a little while longer?” he asked with a smirk. I exhaled happily and pulled him down to my lips, kissing him with all the excitement that filled my veins at the prospect of him staying. When we finally pulled away, I cradled his cheek in my hand. “I will put up with you for as long as you want,” I beamed, pecking his lips once more. “I’m glad,” Bucky kissed my temple, “It was either telling you this or the other thing…” “What’s the other thing?” I asked, thinning my eyes at him in expectancy of another surprise.

Bucky drew a breath, taking a few seconds to steady himself for whatever he was planning to say. “Well, I was going to tell you that I love you but,” he clicked his teeth, “Now that I think about it, it’s probably better saved for another time,” The earth ceased to move and spin at a dizzying pace all at once, his blue eyes never more truthful than they were in that moment. “I think you’re right,” I said over the lump in my throat, holding back the tears that had come all to quickly, “Best to save that for another day, wouldn’t want to make a hasty declaration or anything...” “That’s what I was thinking,” Bucky replied plainly, continuing our charade. I gave him a watery smile, bringing one of my hands up to run through the hairs at the base of his neck. “I love you too,” I whispered.

Both of Bucky’s arms wrapped around my waist, clutching me as tight as he could without actually injuring me as our lips met. I encircled his neck and relaxed into him completely, feeing aglow with the love that I could finally admit to feeling. Both of us smiled into the kiss, feeding off of the mutual joy of what was unfolding before us. Was it crazy to commit in the ways I was committing to a man I’d known for only two weeks? To some, yes. But ‘some’ hadn’t formed the bond that Bucky and I had over the short span of time it had taken for me to fall in love with him. We had seen the best and the worst of each other, rising and falling with one another’s waves and learning what made the other tick. I wanted every part of him, the good, the bad, the traumatic and the pure. The quick decisions that would raise eyebrows made sense to us, and that was more than enough reason for me to see each one through.

“Thanks for not giving up on me,” Bucky said softly after we’d parted, pulling back to admire me. “Thanks for not letting me give you up,” I returned, staring up into the eyes that had first captured me. The eyes that I’d get to stare into each and every day.

Since the night we’d connected on the jet ride to Berlin, there was some way Bucky had made me feel that I couldn’t put a name to. Something I couldn’t understand at the time but I was fully aware of now. Bucky felt like home. And with our bright future ahead of us, wrapped in his arms dancing underneath the Louisiana stars, I’d never felt more at home.

----

A/N: I'm not crying, you're crying. GUYS. IT'S OVER. WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH MY TIME NOW? I want to thank every single person who liked, commented, reblogged, sent messages and asks and supported this silly little fic I thought up one day after watching TFATWS. As someone who is super insecure about their writing, seeing it well received was a boost to my confidence to keep running with this. I've loved getting to write this and give it to you all and can't wait to write more for you. I'm adding my new taglist link for anyone who would like to be added, it's separated by the characters I write for and you can choose which ones you'd like to follow. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU A MILLION TIMES AGAIN. I LOVE YOU ALL 3000!!

Safe Haven taglist: @tanyaherondale @wanniiieeee @asoftie4bucky @edencherries @i-reblog-fics-i-like @ttalisa @gcfty @withyoutilltheendofthismess @rinaispunk @weirdowithnobeardo @felicityofbakerstreet @godlyhufflepuff @eternalharry @voguesir @mizz-kraziii @okayline @smellmymisunderstoodfluff @wanderin-stories @nicklet94 @intricate-melody @aesthethickks @stumbleonmywords @simplybarnes @21bruhs @lostinwonderland314 @superbookishhufflepuff @kaelyn-lobrutto24 @zozebo @fandomxreaders @kittengirl998 @sarai-ibn-la-ahad @i-know-i-can @x-judyjude-x @thebi-valkyrieofvalhalla @buckverse @living-that-best-life @haphazardhufflepuff @citlalireedus @lindseyrae20 @missstef23 @qhbr2013 @sebby-stann @bluemoon-icecream @iixbella @lets-love-little-me @abitofeverythinggg @itsnottilly @sltwins @mads-weasley @hart-failure @natdrunk @nctma15 @obsessedwithjustaboutanything @patdsinner33 @rosebucketbarnes @tylard-blog1

#bucky barnes x fem!reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #sam wilson x platonic!reader #sam wilson x reader #marvel imagine

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tomorrowxtogether · 3 years

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TOMORROW X TOGETHER is thriving on TikTok!

The future of TOMORROW X TOGETHER after the “Anti-Romantic” challenge

2021.09.15

More than 100,000 videos on social media platform TikTok had used TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s “Anti-Romantic” as their background music just one month after the song’s release, and the number exceeded 300,000 a month later on July 24. This makes it the most used TOMORROW X TOGETHER song for videos on the service.

The track’s TikTok popularity began with the “Anti-Romantic” dance challenge. After seeing the positive comments left on a video of her playfully dancing to the song, American TikToker Zuki from New Jersey developed it into choreography and posted a tutorial video where she explained the moves slowly so others could easily follow along. “I [took] inspiration from the simplicity of popular TikTok dances,” Zuki elaborated, saying she shared the tutorial because her “main goal is to entertain and have fun.” Her choreography for the dance challenge involves undulating along to the melody of “Anti-Romantic” with handclaps and hip pops in time to the drop of the beat, and it quickly spread through other TikTokers across the platform. That’s why so many “Anti-Romantic” dance challenge videos have “dc: @yutasbestie”—dance credit to Zuki by username—in their descriptions.

One of Zuki’s close TikToker friends, Irene, is also MOA (the TOMORROW X TOGETHER fandom) and covered Zuki’s choreography. With more than 45 million views, Irene’s dance challenge is the most viewed TikTok video related to “Anti-Romantic,” and as she took center stage in the trend, her follower count surpassed one million. “I woke up one day bombarded with comments of different languages,” like Portuguese and Spanish, she said, and was glad to find people “viewing my video and connecting with it despite the language differences.” Her experience hints at how the “Anti-Romantic” dance challenge spread so rapidly across the world. On June 27, when the number of videos for the challenge had exceeded 100,000, TOMORROW X TOGETHER joined in with a different kind of challenge: an “Anti-Romantic” lip sync. Their video was viewed 4.5 million times in the first day alone.

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TikTok’s unique personalized recommendations works such that “related content is suggested not only to users who like K-pop, but also to users who could potentially like K-pop, depending on their preferences,” said Jay Bae, head of global business development at TikTok Korea. Even if you’re not following any K-pop artists, there’s a good chance that, if many of the videos that fall within your areas of interest use their music, content related to their songs will be recommended to you. This leads to people discovering new artists and hearing music that they didn’t even realize they would like. This is one of the reasons that TikTok has had such a notable influence on the music industry within the past several years. It’s equally likely that, once the dance challenge kicked off, these personalized recommendations pushed “Anti-Romantic” to make its way into the feeds of TikTok users who could potentially be interested in TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s music. “Anti-Romantic” maintained a steady amount of streams in the US after its first week and actually saw increases in Mexico and Brazil. It can be assumed that it was the foothold that TOMORROW X TOGETHER has on TikTok as well as in countries like the US that drove TikTokers to quickly make a lot of dance challenge videos and that those videos spread far and wide through recommendations.

On top of that, “Anti-Romantic” is in the most unique situation among all the tracks off the same album, The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE. “Anti-Romantic” placed 158th on the Spotify US 200 chart on the day of its release, placing higher than the lead single, “0X1-LOVESONG (I know I love you) feat. Seori” (173rd). According to Google Trends, in the time between May 31—when the album was released—until the announcement of The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE, the top three global search terms related to TOMORROW X TOGETHER were all in reference to “Anti-Romantic” (“anti romantic,” “txt anti romantic” and “anti romantic lyrics”). During the same timeframe, interest in the group was also highest in the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan, respectively, while the countries showing the most interest in “Anti-Romantic,” in order, were Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Paraguay, Brazil, South Africa, Colombia and the US. It seems “Anti-Romantic” had a far-reaching appeal beyond simply the fanbase. For example, TOMORROW X TOGETHER released a TikTok video on July 2 using the Duet function, which allows users to split the screen and place their video beside an existing one. In this case, the group sang along with an earlier video from salem ilese, who is among the writers on “Anti-Romantic.” While the TOMORROW X TOGETHER account had seen an average of around 20,000 new followers per day, that figure shot up to 50,000, and while there had been many Google searches for the song coming from countries like Brunei, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Switzerland, Chile and South Africa, this shifted afterward to Armenia, Morocco, Colombia, Venezuela, Denmark, Belarus, Egypt and Korea. Apparently, some of the group’s new followers had fallen in love with “Anti-Romantic” after seeing the dance challenge. The challenge also found new fans in a more diverse set of countries.

Zuki said she chose to dance to the song because the “voice was so soothing and the instrumental was so minimalistic it gave the song more sincerity.” Not only was the music itself good, but it sparked her interest in TOMORROW X TOGETHER so that she looked up more of their material afterward and kept making videos related to them. “I didn’t expect it to have much success on TikTok specifically,” Nicole Kim, leader of BIGHIT MUSIC’s A&R Team, said, diving into what led teenage TikTokers like Zuki to respond to “Anti-Romantic.” “But I was sure the music was perfectly suited for Gen Z around the world from the moment I got the demo made by Alex Hope and salem ilese.” Kim Bo Ram, also from the A&R Team, revealed how “We Lost the Summer,” which had done well in North America, became a reference point when finding TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s pop sound: “We saw how this song that trendy singer-songwriter Charli XCX worked on to simultaneously capture trends in both K-pop and contemporary pop had a good response,” she said. “Rather than something overly sad, we wrote bitter, self-deprecating lyrics because we were trying to escape being too typical and represent Generation Z,” suggesting the style of the lyrics also played a part in the song’s popularity. In fact, “TXT [has] their unique style and concept,” according to Irene. “They have a fresh and lighter sound,” she said, “yet when interpreting their lyrics, they tend to be deep and dark,” and the group’s songs reflect “many of the feelings and experiences teenagers encounter. It is not a surprise that so many people across the globe find comfort and a connection with them.” Mariah, a TikToker, performed the “Anti-Romantic” dance at the ceremony where she accepted first place for a tumbling competition and uploaded the video, which has been viewed more than five million times. “I love the way that [TOMORROW X TOGETHER] create a safe space” for others their age to feel comfort, she said, as well as how “they know how to lead with confidence … through their music.”

So, while the “Anti-Romantic” dance challenge demonstrates how a K-pop song can spread across the world through social media, it also shows why TOMORROW X TOGETHER is particularly influential on TikTok. The first thing TOMORROW X TOGETHER released for “Anti-Romantic” was a short film on their official TikTok account on May 27, four days before their comeback. The group was collaborating with Korean TikTok creator Sihyun Rania to produce videos for all eight songs off The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE, with the video for “Anti-Romantic,” the album’s first track, naturally kicking off the project. The videos took advantage of TikTok’s short format and platform-specific techniques through quick transitions, slick editing and videos that were tailored to the mood of each individual song. The “Anti-Romantic” video garnered over nine million views, more than 30,000 comments in languages ranging from English to Indonesian, Spanish and Korean, and some 1.9 million likes. Users expressed appreciation for how passionately TOMORROW X TOGETHER was using TikTok and excitedly commented about the group’s grasp of the ins and outs of the service. Comments calling the boys musical.ly kings and raving how they’re even good at musical.ly (referencing the short-form social media service that was popular with teens in the US, Canada and other English-speaking countries and merged with TikTok in 2018) collectively were liked by over 5,000 people, and one commenting about how good the group’s transition game is had over 12,000 likes. In another video, whose title translates to “#JustinSOOBIN” and used a slowed down version of Justin Bieber’s “Baby,” SOOBIN covered an existing dance challenge by filming himself lip-syncing in the mirror with a lovelorn look on his face. The video received so much reception on the day it was posted that the TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s TikTok account picked up 80,000 more followers compared to the previous day.

The TOMORROW X TOGETHER members “create videos that exceed expectations by interjecting with clever comments or discovering points that are crucial,” Yu Ji Yeon, also with HYBE 360 Artist Content Studio, said. “They turn out well because they watch a lot of videos posted on TikTok and share them with their friends.” YEONJUN personally suggested he do a dance cover of the popular “Nowhere to Go (Quarantine Love)” that he “saw all over TikTok and wanted to try” and specifically uploaded the video on a Monday with a hashtag translating to “#MTWTFSSKeepItUpEverybody.” BEOMGYU lip-syncing to multiple characters from Black Rubber Shoes, TAEHYUN comparing one month of exercise to one year and HUENINGKAI’s cover of “good 4 u” were all made based on things the members were interested in or that were trending at the time. Lee Da Min, another employee from the Artist Content Studio, said that “the members use TikTok like it’s a game. Everyone agreed that creators should enjoy playing with TikTok so that the viewers can also enjoy themselves and the service can become a playground where everyone can express themselves.”

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Whether they’re making music or TikTok videos, TOMORROW X TOGETHER has been in step with their Generation Z peers, and as their output accumulates, more and more Gen Z followers come to experience what the group is all about. In that respect, there could be more opportunities to let the wider world know about them the way the “Anti-Romantic” dance challenge did. Bae, the TikTok executive, felt that the challenge “expresses the international creators’ own creativity through their choreography inspired by the artist’s music, and the chemistry from that combination of music and choreography really resonated with a lot of people and led them to feel similarly and have fun, which is a very TikTok-esque and ideal outcome.” That’s also the reason why TOMORROW X TOGETHER, when they showed a trailer for their LO$ER OR LO♡ER would-you-rather game via TikTok on August 17, could write, “Let’s find out together tomorrow with the one and only TikTok Kings!”—because they have the confidence to accept whatever phenomena arise from the chemistry between K-pop, TikTok and Generation Z as if they were playing a game.

#txt #tomorrow x together #210915 #weverse magazine #soobin #yeonjun #beomgyu #taehyun #hueningkai #anti romantic #article

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cyber-flight · 4 years

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Notes from the AHWM Explanation Livestream

This will be long, so fair warning! If you're on computer, you can press the spacebar to skip this post if you want!

There was CG smoke for the bomb

The last shot was running after the bomb goes off, filmed during the day

Many cursed images

(0:56 - Guns Blazing) November 5th = gunpowder treason & plot (a reference)

Ethan is the one yelling during the run

Helicopter/Car was filmed in a place formerly known as Spiderwoods (spiders, snakes, and bugs everywhere)

Mark's patented method to get rid of snakes is to tell them to fuck off

There was big black snake near the library

Chica snore-grumbles

Most of the choices were pretty evenly split in the video data

The guy who owned the field in Helicopter/Car also owned the helicopter

It was hard to get the cameraman to know that the camera is an interacting character

They filmed up to 10 pages a day

Prison was the first 2 days of shooting, as well as the part with the most characters/extras (12 people)

Mick gets typecasted in roles of authority

The Prison location is a functioning mental hospital

John was a Prisoner, first mate, and is a realtor IRL

There is no "why" to recording this to keep a broad audience and have fun after Mark was in a depression and made WKM

The Gregory Brothers / Schmoyoho made 2 renditions of I Don't Wanna Be Free (which is on Apple/iTunes/Spotify)

The musical was a production/recording nightmare on the 2nd day

They had 20 minutes max. to learn each segment; they had a choreographer helping them learn the dances

The original vocals didn't have the accent

Mark had to do the vocals, acting, blocking, etc. in 30 mins

Mick was supposed to cross frame during the top-hats-part, but they had already recorded it; the producers weren't comfortable telling Mark "no" yet, so they had Amy do it

The smashed bricks were styrofoam; Mark was typed to a rope that was pulled

The director of photography was Phillip J Roy; he took a pay cut to work on this project

Yancy's sleeve tattoo is the whole map again

Yancy's tattoos are Tiny Box Tim and Mark/Dark across his knuckles; those were Makeup's ideas

The Musical was only 1/4 of a recording day

There was 3 work weeks of shooting (15 days)

Day By Dave made a remix

Yancy was named "Prison Mark" until the fight scene started to be made in post-production, where he needed a name; Mark liked Yancy and Amy was very against it originally

Yancy killed both of his parents; Mark knew people were gonna fall in love with him anyway

"Yancy stans, go, march on"

Yancy has an emoji bandaid

Heapass (canonically) makes an appearance in Thanks and also Yes Please; he had "Heapass" on a cast, but it was on the wrong side from the camera

Holt Boggs (the cell guard) is an amazing man; he was overqualified ("soft hands")

The cell was in a green-screen soundstage, so there was more improve

Yancy was supposed to be hidden in the ceiling or beside the bed, but under the bed turned out better; he's hidden under the bed the whole scene

The Red Gemini was the camera that they used for this project

Mark just runs off frame in Thanks and also Yes Please

The audio-only part was very convenient for filming and fitting for a 1st-person perspective

Yancy's talk at the gate was Mark real-acting & the late shot of the 1st day of filming, which made all of them realize that the project could actually work

Yancy WANTS to be in prison; he knows all the ways out - he'd leave if he wanted to

The items in the box are more representational achievements

Mark needs our help to promote AHWM, through liking the video(s), commenting good things, and spreading the project; the performance of this dictates the ability to make another similar project

Mark worked for FREE for 5 months, taking no cut of the budget for himself

"Yancy is just Prison Mark with amnesia" "There could be a time-skip there; it could work"

Robert Rex, "a god walking amongst mere morals;" has always wearing the same thing; Mark didn't know that he was going to do different accents

Amy is the hand with the feather-duster

The Warden's desk moves into the hallway after a smash-cut

Mick's line had to be rewritten so it can be ambiguous; you can only tell if you were looking

The Warden embodies "big strong hands," something Mark writes into dialogue a lot (along with "trust you me"); everytime he touches something it cracks (his desk, Yancy's shoulder)

Pulling stuff from behind Mark's back was on-the-spot

The dirt joke was a prop-person and Mark throwing buckets

Mark helped Holt Boggs make a short video

HOLT BOGGS

The truck in Prison was a one-take-wonder; they actually bashed the truck through the wall in a such a cartoony, perfect way

The Bob/Wade skit was a reference to Prop Hunt

Mark comparing the disappointment of people not liking the video to a cup of dirt under the Christmas tree

The lid to the sewer says "a heist with markiplier"

The sewer was in an actual sewer treatment plant, which took about a week of filming; some parts were flooded so they couldn't film there; this place was scheduled to be torn down

Mark forces us to choose the Light Tunnel first

Cranbersher, GrittySugar, and Lixian collaborated for the Light Tunnel; it was originally going to be live action with a green-screen and a pre-made raft; Cranberser offered when he had a 3-month break from other projects

Amy notes that Mark did a lot of "falling"

Mark had to carry a 200 pound man and a heavy camera rig to carry Y/N

There was poison ivy, snakes, spiders, etc. on the island

The Game Grumps voiced the aliens; Erin originally was meant to play the Warden & Danny was meant to play one of the guards

Many roles fluctuated due to scheduling

Getting abducted is a reference to ADWM ("not again!")

Mark loves MatPat's scenes and acting (Build a Shelter)

There were so many mosquitos near the Cave and the actors couldn't put on bug spray because they had to preserve their makeups

There was a giant hole in the Cave from which grasshoppers rained down

They were a mile into the cave; they weren't able to staff them for 3 days, so they recorded for 2 days and had fo cut some shots

The Cave freeze-frame was unscripted; the camera director didn't tell cut and it was too funny

The Hermit was originally supposed to be Jacksepticeye but scheduling errors were in the way

Mick was originally supposed to be Crazy Ed

When the sound-guy didnt have a sound effect, one of them riffed something at the mic and it was modulated to fit as best as possible

Mark's camera loses signal/battery power

Mark has done the hot-wire-while-moving in Car before (van videos)

The blue flash during Car is you from the future/another timeline

Mark was actually driving the car; someone flashed the blue light so it was a bit dangerous

Tyler and Ethan make appearances as Zombies

Tyler actually let Mark hit him with a rock

There was a dead beaver in the shed during the Zombie Apocalypse

The Zombie Apocalypse shots were in VERY hot weather

The barricaded front door but very open back door was intentional humour

Ethan's zombie handshake was thought up on the spot

Moe was the man screaming from the fire and zombie attack, making everyone behind the camera laugh

Rosanna Pansino sings opera & speaks Chinese

The Scientist had to be broken up (the cuts are in the gunshots)

243 is a chemical identification symbol in an actual laboratory, nothing meaningful to the plot

The code leads to the AHWM website

What's truly inside the box is the real timeline, which is the team making the project

The room where the monitor was in (Amy, script manager, etc.) was locked out and no one could see what was going on, only hear it through headsets

Mark threw 2 dummies (main video, Absolutely Not!)

Chica likes to climb through the cords underneath Mark's desk

The true/canon ending is For The Greater Good, which leads to ADWM

SodaPopIn hasn't really done this before, but he went with it because he was told Mark was nice; he continued even during harsh weather, many planes, and a long take/monologue

The sandwiches are a callback to ADWM

The montage endings were inspired by the ones Amy made for ADWM

There was never any time set aside to get photos for the montages, so they had to continuously get pictures

Catherine makes an appearance in the Warfstache bit

Warfstache is just a meta joke > you respond by writing in the comments as a survey, producer Catherine is more powerful than the video-editing, ringing the bell for notifications

They rented the same place for the Warfstache bit that they used to film all the other previous Warfstache bits

Dark inserts himself wherever he feels like being

There is charity (#TeamTrees) merch for each of the egos/Mark characters in this project (including the new ones)

Edge of Sleep's last episode aired yesterday (as of the stream - 6/11/19)

A "reverse" charity livestream is happening soon

The next project(s) are already in the works

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT HEIST

Amy originally wasn't going to work on this project until they went to Texas; she became Creative Producer once Mark put himself into too many places

Iba originally auditioned for the man in the burning truck, but his voice was so good he became the seer/guide

The project has been "cooking" since May

The next project would be a completely different project, not a continuation

SPREAD THE WORD ABOUT HEIST

Regular uploads start again tomorrow (7/11/19)

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zukkaoru · 3 years

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top five fics of 2020

i was tagged by @zukka-soulmates to post my five favorite works I made this year.

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

(these are going to be in no particular order because i’m indecisive)

1. plum blossom

confession: i actually started writing this fic before i even finished watching atla for the first time. finishing this fic was what motivated me to finally watch the last few episodes (which i had been putting off bc i didn’t want it to end). i was expecting it to be around 5k words, but i just kept writing more and more, and i actually liked what i was writing while i was writing it, which is not always the case for me. it also got way more attention than i ever expected it to (at the moment, it’s my only fic to cross the 1000 kudos threshold and it has almost 200 public bookmarks, which is absolutely insane to me). before i wrote/published this fic, i’d always wanted to write one of those really long oneshots that ended up being 15k+ words bc i admired that people could even do that, so i’m proud of this fic for that reason. the other thing i really like about this fic is that while it is technically a zukka fic, i ended up spending a lot of time in it exploring the friendship between mai and zuko, as well as the friendships between zuko and many of the other main characters in the show, and i had a lot of fun doing that.

2. my calamitous love & insurmountable grief

i got a lot of comments on this one from people saying they were impressed that both the prose and the poetry parts of the fic were equally good, but honestly, i wasn’t too proud of the prose part. i am, however, pretty proud of the poems. my favorite line (which several people commented on) is definitely “could the world ever mourn for us, my love?” from hope wasn’t meant for us, and that was actually the first line i came up with for that poem. that poem was also the first sonnet i wrote that i don’t actively want to set on fire, so that’s cool too. i’m also a little partial to the end of star-crossed - “and i am only me” because i think it highlights how differently sokka views himself from the way other people (zuko) view him. sokka thinks he’s inferior to all his friends because, well, he’s only sokka. but only sokka has half the world leaders wrapped around his fingers and could single-handedly save or destroy the world if he just. realized. how important he is to the people around him.

3. it’s nice to have a friend

this was the first mailee-centric fic i wrote, and i wrote most of it all in one day. i think i’ve said this before, but this fic is one of the few that just. went exactly where i expected and hoped it would go, and i think accurately portrayed the tone and mood i was going for. i really liked the last scene in chapter three with the snow, and i’m also pretty proud of the ending line, which is nice, because ending lines are important to me and i have gotten stuck on endings so many times because nothing i come up with is good enough. also, the beginning of chapter two actually paved the way for the next fic on this list

4. (no sweeter innocence than) our gentle sin

this fic is a monster. i don’t know what else to say. it’s 25k words long and i wrote it all in three days, listening to chloe moriondo’s cover of take me to church basically the whole time. if that cover was on spotify, it would have made my spotify wrapped just outright embarrassing because i probably listened to that song two hundred times in the span of three days. it started as an exploration of how the agni kai between zuko and ozai might have affected mai and ty lee (hence chapter two of it’s nice to have a friend being the starting inspiration), but it turned into... i don’t know. twenty-five thousand words of me projecting onto all four fire nation kids. and i know people get bogged down by internalized homophobia and homophobic family because it’s depressing and it’s been done before, but i didn’t really write this for anyone besides myself, and people like me, who just want to know that they aren’t alone in what they’re feeling. and it took 25k words and i still wasn’t completely satisfied with it, but i think i got a pretty good start in showing what it’s like to grow up with family whose love you know is entirely hinged on their false belief that you’re straight, and in an environment where you’re essentially taught that if you’re gay, you have to choose between everything you’ve ever known and any shot at living, or falling in love.

5. when we all fall asleep, where do we go?

last but not least, we have what i affectionately labelled my sleep paralysis sokka one shot long before i even started writing it. this idea sat in my head for weeks before i finally got around to writing it, and in the earliest stages of the idea, it was going to be a zuko sleep paralysis oneshot. i’m glad i changed it to sokka, though, because i really enjoyed writing for him. i also might have forced myself into a position where i knew i would experience sleep paralysis before writing the very last scene, so i had some ~fresh~ memories in my mind as i wrote, and i think that scene had the most accurate description because of that. i would not recommend doing that to your mind/body, but... it did help me. (also i may or may not be thinking about writing a sort-of sequel to this that is kya ii-centric.. but i have many other wips to work on first)

tagging: @that-was-anticlimactic @tysukis @zukosaturtle-duck and anyone else who wants to participate! (of course, don’t feel obligated to if you don’t want to)

#tag game #grace's writing tag #hello grace here

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hscharts · 2 years

Text

Chart Update 2022-04-29 13:04 UTC

As It Was:

Spotify Top 200 Global: #1 (=)

Spotify Top 200 US: #1 (=)

Kworb Live iTunes US: #2 (-1)

Kworb Live Apple Music US: #7 (-1)

Spotify Top 200 GB: #1 (=)

View all the current chart positions for As It Was

Falling:

Spotify Top 200 Global: #107 (-1)

Spotify Top 200 US: #177 (+9)

Spotify Top 200 GB: #83 (+6)

View all the current chart positions for Falling

Golden:

Spotify Top 200 Global: #117 (=)

Spotify Top 200 US: #181 (+6)

Spotify Top 200 GB: #94 (=)

View all the current chart positions for Golden

Fine Line:

Kworb Live AppleMusic Album US: #81 (-2)

Kworb Live iTunes Album UK: #49 (+6)

View all the current chart positions for Fine Line

Adore You:

Spotify Top 200 Global: #80 (+1)

Spotify Top 200 US: #108 (+18)

Spotify Top 200 GB: #97 (+3)

View all the current chart positions for Adore You

Watermelon Sugar:

Spotify Top 200 Global: #31 (=)

Spotify Top 200 US: #56 (+7)

Spotify Top 200 GB: #47 (+2)

View all the current chart positions for Watermelon Sugar

Harry Styles:

Kworb Live AppleMusic Album UK: #79 (+2)

View all the current chart positions for Harry Styles

Sign of the Times:

Spotify Top 200 Global: #174 (-5)

Spotify Top 200 GB: #185 (+5)

View all the current chart positions for Sign of the Times

#As It Was #As It Was Spotify Top 200 Global #As It Was Spotify Top 200 US #As It Was Kworb Live iTunes US #As It Was Kworb Live Apple Music US #As It Was Spotify Top 200 GB #Falling #Falling Spotify Top 200 Global #Falling Spotify Top 200 US #Falling Spotify Top 200 GB #Golden #Golden Spotify Top 200 Global #Golden Spotify Top 200 US #Golden Spotify Top 200 GB #Fine Line album #Fine Line Kworb Live AppleMusic Album US #Fine Line Kworb Live iTunes Album UK #Adore You #Adore You Spotify Top 200 Global #Adore You Spotify Top 200 US #Adore You Spotify Top 200 GB #Watermelon Sugar #Watermelon Sugar Spotify Top 200 Global #Watermelon Sugar Spotify Top 200 US #Watermelon Sugar Spotify Top 200 GB #Harry Styles album #Harry Styles Kworb Live AppleMusic Album UK #Sign of the Times #Sign of the Times Spotify Top 200 Global #Sign of the Times Spotify Top 200 GB

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starrybethany · 4 years

Text

Pierre Engvall: Rewind by Rascal Flatts

Word count: 2331

Music video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPcASvgb7yg

Lyrics link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LEJRDWJYG8

Wish I could reach up and reset that sun

Reverse these wheels go back and re-pick you up

Went by so fast, oh, so sweet

Make me wanna remake a memory

“Y/N! I didn’t know you were working today,” my co-worker squeals excitedly as I walk into the quaint coffee shop.

“Yeah, my plane landed yesterday,” I inform her, pulling my apron over my head and yanking my hair out of the strap.

“How was Sweden?” She asks.

I know I could tell her so much. I could tell her about the beautiful weather and how my classes were so informative and how the culture is just so amazing.

But I also just want to tell her about one person who made the whole experience perfect.

The one person who could convince me to avoid my responsibilities and stay in that foregin nation for the rest of my life, the person who I could stare at forever without noticing the sun rising or setting.

I could tell her about how he would pick me up from my host family’s house to go to the bar at night in his expensive little convertible and it would make my host dad shake his head and laugh and my host sister smile with jealousy.

Or how he would push me on the swings at the park practically every night and would tell me all about his hockey team in Canada and funny stories about how stupid his teammates are.

“Y/N?”

I snap out of my thoughts, remembering her question. I don’t want to tell her any of those things. I feel like my relationship with Pierre is too personal to spread around- I want to remember him intimately.

“It was good. It was really, really good.”

Wish I had me a time machine

Oh, I float the moon back up in the sky

Put a cork back into that sweet red wine

Put your midnight hair back up

So you can let it fall one more time

“2012.” He squints those brown eyes that I spend too long looking into at the bottle, reading the label.

“You spent $200 on red wine from 2012?” I raise my eyebrows at him.

“Well it’s from France.”

I laugh at that and he cracks a smile, popping the cork and holding the bottle out as an offering. I hold my glass out towards him, watching as he begins to pour.

“Pierre that’s too much,” I giggle as he pours practically half of the bottle into the glass.

He laughs himself, pulling the bottle away and giving himself half of what he’s given me.

“It’s like you’re trying to get me drunk or something,” I tease.

“Or something,” he repeats, watching as I take a sip. “Can I braid your hair?”

“What?” I ask, confused by the sudden question.

“Can I braid your hair? I’ve just always wanted to try and your hair is so pretty.”

I can tell he’s becoming nervous by my delayed response so I nod, turning so my back is to him. I tug my locks out of it’s loose ponytail and ask, “Do you know how?”

“I can figure it out,” he answers. I can feel him move behind me and the Swedish music he put on to ‘cultivate me’ as he put it, becomes distant as his fingers grip my hair.

I lean back into his hands, closing my eyes and enjoying this moment of the two of us together. I don’t know how many more moments like this I’ll get. I have to leave to go back home in a couple of months and I don’t know if I’ll ever see Pierre after this.

It’s a summer love kind of thing.

His hands move to rest gently on my shoulders as my hair rests down my back.

“It’s not working,” he says in a hushed voice.

I hum in response, just enjoying the feeling of his company in mine. He lets it happen.

Untouch your skin

Unkiss your lips and kiss 'em again

“I used to be obsessed with astrology when I was younger,” I admit, staring up at the stars.

“Do you remember anything?”

“Um,” I point up at the stars and feel Pierre’s burning skin on my own as his hands slide down to grip my waist. “Do you want to know where the stars are or do you just want to fondle me all night?”

“I can do both,” he replies, planting a gentle kiss on my cheek. I laugh in response.

“Do you see that bright star, right there? Follow it down and there’s the Big Dipper. And where the Big Dipper is the Little Dipper is.” My eyes scan the sky as Pierre squeezes my waist, mumbling something quietly to himself.

It takes me a while to focus but as soon as I locate the constellation I light up. “To the right and down is the Little Dipper.”

“What about, uh, Halley’s Comet?” He questions, leaving a kiss on the back of my neck.

“Babe, Halley’s Comet comes once every seventy five years,” I tease, turning around in his arms to face him. His arms slither to rest on my lower back loosely and he leans forward, connecting his chapped lips to my own.

I will never get over kissing Pierre. Everytime we kiss it feels like the first time and I could live with that feeling for the rest of my life. He pulls back and smiles at me, brown eyes gleaming in the moonlight. Then he gives me a kiss. And another one. And another one.

So good, so right,

This is one night I'm wishing I could rewind

“I hate to end this,” I mumble into his chest. “But I have class early in the morning so I should probably sleep before then.”

“Or you could just pull an all-nighter,” he suggests, tugging me tighter into him.

I grin. “If I pull an all-nighter you won’t be seeing me tomorrow night.”

“Then let’s get you to bed,” he responds, holding his hands out to help me rise to my feet. Our hands stay interlocked once I’m stable on my feet and they stay that way during the walk to the car.

I turn back that radio dial re-open your door,

Try to talk George Strait into giving us an encore

“Oh, a gentleman,” I tease as he opens the passenger’s door for me. He rolls his eyes but waits until I’m seated in his car, closing the door and running to the driver’s side.

“Are you going to play some more of what we were listening to on the way here or are you going to switch it up?” I question.

Pierre likes to put on a Swedish singer whenever we’re in the car to educate me on how many talented people come out of Sweden. I’m aware of it already since plenty of NHL players, including him, come from this nation but I don’t mind listening to music so I don’t say anything.

“Let’s change it,” he decides, “Have you listened to Avicii at all?”

“Only the songs that they play on the radio,” I admit.

“Oh, he has a lot more hits than that.” I watch as he pulls up his Spotify, smiling secretly to myself as I see his ‘Y/N’s hits’ playlist. I didn’t even know that he made a playlist of songs that I like. I wonder if it’s songs that I said I liked or if it’s just songs that we listened to together that I said that I like.

‘Wake Me Up’ begins to blast through the radio and I comment, “They play this a lot on the radio.”

“Then you have to sing along,” Pierre demands, beginning the drive back to my host’s home.

“Only if you sing too,” I protest.

“Y/N, I don’t sing.”

“Well, then I’m not singing,” I cross my arms as if to prove my point.

He gives me a look and sighs. “Feeling my way through the darkness…”

Re-spin you around

Replay that sound

Of you laughing when we hit the ground

“What are you doing?” I squeal as he pulls my door open and tugs me out of the car.

“I didn’t know I was lost,” Pierre sings along, wrapping an arm around my waist and gripping my other hand in his like we’re ballroom dancing to the song we’ve been listening to on repeat the whole car ride. “I didn’t know I was lost.”

He picks me up, gripping my waist and twirling me around, chuckling as I squeal in surprise at the action.

“Pierre!” I giggle as he continues to twirl us around. Finally he sets me on my feet and I’m laughing so hard I have to lean into him, too high off of life and love to be able to stand properly.

I can see it now how 'bout we

Float the moon back up in the sky,

Put a cork back into that sweet red wine

He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to my lips. His lips ghost over mine as he says in a hushed voice, “I think you’re about to get in trouble.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

He pulls back, nodding his head towards the front door of my host family’s home. I follow his eyeline to see my host father standing on the porch, arms crossed, but a fond smile on his face.

“I guess that’s my queue.” I kiss his cheek, a tradition we’ve started since he first picked me up at the beginning of summer. “Thank you for the wonderful night and the delicious wine.”

“Thank you for educating me on constellations,” he teases, kissing the back of my hand.

I roll my eyes at his gentleman-like behavior, giving him a final wave before walking up the sidewalk and stepping past my host father into the house.

“Don’t say a word, papa,” I warn him lightly.

“Young love is beautiful,” he tells me, ignoring my words.

Put your midnight hair back up

So you can let it fall one more time

Untouch your skin

Unkiss your lips and kiss 'em again

“I love your hair, it’s so much longer now,” my coworker snaps me out of my daydreams once again, brushing a hand through my long locks.

“Yeah, thanks,” I tell her, pulling it back behind my shoulders. Everything in me is telling me to fight the urge but I can’t help it as I begin to French braid my hair, pretending my fingers are Pierre’s.

It seems like a pointless act because as soon as the braid is perfected, I let it go.

So good, so right,

This is one night I'm wishing I could rewind

I wanna re-fall and re-fly

Baby, re-live this night

“Do you remember when we went to that museum and saw that painting of that woman without her top on and you said that your boobs looked exactly like hers, and then didn’t show me your boobs so I could agree or disagree? The nerve,” he shakes his head.

I smile, watching him drive. I know he’s trying to get my mind off of my plane ride home and the fact that I’ll probably never see him again. Our whole relationship has been based off of teasing and lust, so he’s just helping me the best way he knows how to.

“And then you spilled your drink on my shirt to try to get me to take it off,” I continue, causing him to nod.

“I wanted to see them titties.”

I snort, leaning over to shove his shoulder. He jokingly swerves like I caused him to do so with my push and I squeal, not expecting it.

“That was a good date,” I mumble, sitting up and suddenly remembering that a date like that is never going to happen again.

Pierre doesn’t respond but reaches his hand over the center counsel, gripping my hand in his gently and raising it to his lips, leaving a kiss. It’s enough for me.

Float the moon back up in the sky,

Put a cork back into that sweet red wine

Put your midnight hair back up

So you can let it fall one more time

“Why did you have to book a nighttime flight? I’m so tired,” he yawns dramatically as he pulls my suitcase out of the back of his car, holding out his hand for me to grip as we make our way into the airport.

“So I could sleep on the plane. Let me remind you that I didn’t know you when I booked the ticket home, I thought my host father would bring me back to the airport.” I try to bump my shoulder into his shoulder teasingly but hit his arm instead because of our height difference.

“Well, you got something better,” he responds, stopping at the check-in station.

We face each other and he pulls me tightly into his arms, squeezing me like he’ll never let go. I’m not sure I ever want him to let me go. My arms wind around him in return and I grip him as close to me as possible, savoring the last few moments we’ll get together.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you a goodbye gift,” he mumbles into my hair. “I was going to get you some red 2012 wine but I completely forgot when I was at the store, if I’m being honest with you.”

I laugh into his chest. “I couldn’t even bring it on the plane with me, babe.”

“Oh, that’s right,” he pulls back, gripping my shoulders, “American customs and all.”

He gives me a fond smile, leaning in for one, last, passionate kiss. We suck all of the air out of our lungs before he pulls away, pushing me jokingly towards the counter. “See you later.”

“Yeah. See you later.”

Untouch your skin

Unkiss your lips and kiss 'em again

So good, so right,

This is one night I'm wishing I could rewind

The door chimes and I look up from the counter I’m wiping, freezing once I see who stepped in. It couldn’t be- no. Why would he be here, in America? I thought he played on a team in Canada? He stops once he sees me and I watch him for his reaction.

A smile beams across his face and he practically skips over to me, ignoring the questions that the boys he’s with are asking him.

“Hi,” he breathes out.

“Hi,” I repeat. I watch as his eyes flicker all over my face, from my eyes to my nose to my lips. They stay on my lips, the lips he’s kissed so many times.

I feel electric now that I’m in his presence again. I feel alive, like something left me when I left Sweden and is now coming back now that I’m with Pierre again.

(Float the moon back up in the sky)

I'm wishing I could rewind

(put a cork back into that sweet red wine)

I wanna re-live this night

So good, so right

“I never thought I would see you again,” he confesses, reaching up to sheepishly rub the back of his neck.

“Yeah, me neither. What are you doing here?” I question.

“We’re visiting the hockey team here.”

“This city has a hockey team?” I ask, bewildered.

His laugh rings through the small coffee shop. It’s a beautiful sound that I haven’t heard in a long enough time.

“Do you maybe want to go out tonight? And get some dinner and drinks and just catch up?” He suggests nervously.

“I would love that.”

#pierre engvall imagine #NHL imagines #toronto maple leafs imagine #pierre engvall x reader #pierre engvall fanfic

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seasurfacefullofclouds1 · 4 years

Note

Fun fact: harry received more streams on Spotify this week (his 14th week) than niall received on his first week and they both only have one song on today’s top hits the biggest playlist and have pretty much the same playlist exposure. Another fun fact harry is already higher than niall on Apple Music US And pretty much all over the world on his 15th week. Another fun fact is harry charting higher than niall in some countries in Europe and he is #3 in Australia while niall is #2 (part) 1

And the best fun fact is that harry has now spent a total of 14 weeks in the top 10 on official charts in the UK, better than any 1d album. He is #7 this week. And he also managed to spend 7 weeks on billboard 200 top 10.He will also have the longest charting songs in official top 40 very soon and it is adore you and oh my god how can I forget falling is #20 this week. His 4th top 20 hit this era only. Now let’s see if you will post this or ignore it I am curious. (Part 2)

—

Fun fact, the world doesn’t love Harry Styles like we loved One Direction. We never will. He’s not Bowie. He’s not Elton John. He’s not Prince. He will never be their peer. Do you really think his numbers mean anything?

Fun fact, money buys promo. Influence buys reviews. Shocker! When the label is desperate for a star, has invested tens of millions in the star, and goes all out for a last ditch effort to create a megastar (even if the star himself isn’t looking so hot), sometimes they... create a star! Incredible, I know.

Fun fact, your Excel spreadsheets won’t make Adore You a good song— because it is driven by money and it’s still a shit song. (Falling too)

Another fun fact, Lights Up is the most viewed of Harry’s FL era videos because guess why. That’s right! No one cares about the music! Naked bodies! Rolling Stone— naked cover. Album photos— naked. Beauty Papers— stripping. Behind the Forum video— stripping. Why are we not surprised lol.

Fun fact, Carpool Karaoke One Direction 155 million views, HS1 Harry 55 million views, FL Harry 8.5 million views (gosh his personality really is 😶), BTS 25 million views, Billie Eilish 49 million views, Justin Bieber 16 million views, Adele 213 million views. Oh no! Next time Harry should strip.

Now run along and take pleasure in your numbers, and maybe write another thesis on whether Harry’s sporadic veganism will or will not save the world.

#21 march 2020 #harry styles #falling is on BBC radio 1 AND radio 2 playlists #this is sony #and it’s why he’s on official charts #it’s not rocket science

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independentartistbuzz · 2 years

Text

INTERNATIONAL PHENOMENON LAY ZHANG RELEASES “JIU”

The global pop star, LAY (Lay Zhang) has delighted his army of fans with his newest single release, “JIU”, available now on all streaming platforms. The occasion today is the 10th anniversary of Lay Zhang’s debut. The artist commemorates these years when he worked with his EXO brothers with this song. He wrote the song to celebrate this milestone as a toast to his brothers, and his fans hoping to see a better future. Listen in here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/7iWEo1YPXrWELXh4pD9S6w?si=0248c99fc2bc4e55

Over the past few years, LAY has dropped a series of hit songs and an album in 2020, shooting the talented musician to worldwide fame as a solo artist. Known for his charismatic personality and hypnotizing voice, “JIU” falls nothing short of the high expectations that have been set by both himself and followers. LAY’s most recent release was a global collaboration with American hip-hop artist 24kGoldn on the single “Dawn to Dusk,” which received over 2 million streams on Spotify alone. Opening up with short yet heartfelt conversations between him and his former members from EXO, a South-Korean mega-band, “JIU” instantly sets a tone of nostalgia and reminiscence. Each sincere conversation and member’s sincere call of his name is a representation of love and care LAY and his brothers so strongly share with each other. LAY’s pure and mesmerizing voice along with the R&B tune in the background continue the reminiscing theme with simple drum beats and soothing flow. With elegant, symbolic lyrics, LAY cleverly plays with the word “JIU” to draw a connection between wine and eternity. Centered around the concept of time and eternity, this story is a serenade of one’s life journey, eternal love, and perpetuity. The song is produced by LAY and is noticeable with his lyrical R&B melody. The lyrics such as “I have a glass of wine/Toast to our passion forever” is a testament to the profound impact of friendship between the EXO brothers and hits the heart of fans. LAY has been on a whirlwind the last two years after joining forces with Steve Aoki and will.i.am for the 2020 hit cross-cultural collaboration Love You More, reaching #1 on the QQ Music China chart. He then released a string of hits with an album, an EP and solo singles overseas further propelling his international star power. He has been and continues to be a household name in Asia. He is one of the most beloved stars in the region with a loyal and highly engaged 51 million followers on Weibo and over 13.9 million followers on Instagram. As a solo artist, LAY’s career has skyrocketed from tremendous success becoming the highest-ranked Mandopop star on Billboard 200 chart and the first Chinese artist to enter the iTunes Top 60 in the US with his third solo album NAMANANA. Outside of music, he is a powerhouse in the acting world of TV and film, hosted multiple top-rated reality shows in Asia and is one of the most awarded artists in China. In 2020, LAY released the hit album LIT and its title track of the same name. The digital album made over 30 million yuan in just 7 minutes 19 seconds after its release on QQ Music in China. In 2021, he released an EP EAST that featured his renowned “M-POP” style telling a story of LAY's spiritual growth in his career using oriental elements and symbolic identities.

#lay zhang

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v3vanya · 4 years

Text

“WHEN I AM SILENT A FALL INTO A PLACE WHERE EVERYTHING IS MUSIC” -Rumi Living the notes of music...

SABRINA CARPENTER.....

Sabrina Annlynn Carpenter(born May 11, 1999) is an American singer and actress,After making her acting debut with an appearance in the crime series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, she starred in a recurring role as the young version of Chloe Goodwin in the television series The Goodwin Games. Carpenter was later cast as Maya Hart in the Disney Channel series Girl Meets World, from 2014 to 2017.Carpenter has starred in the feature films Horns (2013), The Hate U Give (2018), and starred as Jenny in the Disney Channel Original Movie Adventures in Babysitting (2016). As a voice actress, she had a recurring role as Princess Vivian in the Disney Channel animated series Sofia the First from 2013 to 2018. In 2016, she began voicing Melissa Chase on the Disney XD animated series Milo Murphy's Law.Carpenter's debut EP, Can't Blame a Girl for Trying, was released in 2014, and in the same year, she released her debut single of the same name. She released her debut album, Eyes Wide Open in 2015, and has since released another three studio albums: Evolution (2016), Singular: Act I (2018), and her most recent studio album, Singular: Act II, was released on July 19, 2019.

DEMI LOVATO

Demetria Devonne Lovato ( born August 20, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and television judge After appearing on the children's television series Barney & Friends (2002–2004), she rose to prominence for her role as Mitchie Torres in the Disney Channel musical television film Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010).Lovato has released six studio albums: Don't Forget (2008), Here We Go Again (2009), Unbroken (2011), Demi (2013), Confident (2015), and Tell Me You Love Me (2017); all of which debuted in the top five of the US Billboard 200. She has earned nine top-20 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 with "This Is Me", "Here We Go Again", "Send It On", "Skyscraper", "Give Your Heart a Break", "Heart Attack", "Cool for the Summer", "Sorry Not Sorry", and "I Love Me". In total, she has sold over two million albums and 20 million singles in the United States.[7] On television, Lovato has starred as the titular character on Sonny with a Chance (2009–2011); served as a judge and mentor on The X Factor USA in its second and third seasons; and appeared as a recurring character on Glee. Her struggles with personal issues received significant media attention in the 2010s; in response to which she published a book, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year (2013), and released a YouTube documentary about her life and career, titled Demi Lovato: Simply Complicated (2017).Lovato is a pop, pop rock, and R&B artist. She has received various accolades, including an MTV Video Music Award, 14 Teen Choice Awards, five People's Choice Awards, and two Latin American Music Awards. She also holds one Guinness World Record, and in 2017 Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Outside the entertainment industry, Lovato is an activist for several social causes.

LAURA MARANO

Laura Marie Marano (born November 29, 1995)is an American actress and singer. She starred in the Disney Channel series Austin & Ally as Ally Dawson. Marano was one of the five original classmates in Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?. She starred in Without a Trace for three seasons and also Back to You, in both instances playing the daughter of the main characters. Marano starred in the indie film A Sort of Homecoming.[5] Marano also starred in the 2015 Disney Channel Original Movie Bad Hair Day. In 2019 Marano starred in the Netflix original movie The Perfect Date.In 2015, she signed with Big Machine Records and released her debut single "Boombox" on March 11, 2016 and "La La" later that year. On October 5, 2018, Laura Marano released the single "Me" as an independent artist. On January 13, 2016, Marano debuted her own radio talk show on Radio Disney entitled For the Record with Laura Marano. The weekly one-hour show chronicles Marano's journey as she launches her music career, featuring interviews with a guest star in each episode. The show also provides listeners tips on how one can pursue a career in music. The show has featured various guest stars including Nick Jonas, Ariana Grande, Meghan Trainor, OneRepublic, and Troye Sivan. The first episode of the show, which aired January 12, 2016, guest starred her co-stars of Austin & Ally.

SELENA GOMEZ

Selena Marie Gomez (born July 22, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and television producer. Born and raised in Texas, Gomez began her career by appearing on the children's television series Barney & Friends (2002–2004). In her teenage years, she received wider recognition for her role as Alex Russo on the Emmy Award-winning Disney Channel television series Wizards of Waverly Place (2007–2012).Alongside her television career, Gomez has starred in the films Another Cinderella Story (2008), Princess Protection Program (2009), Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie (2009), Ramona and Beezus (2010), Monte Carlo (2011), Spring Breakers (2012), Getaway (2013), The Fundamentals of Caring (2016), The Dead Don't Die (2019), and A Rainy Day in New York (2019). She also voices the character of Mavis in the Hotel Transylvania film franchise (2012–present), and has executed produced the Netflix television series 13 Reasons Why (2017–2020) and Living Undocumented (2019).Gomez released three albums with her former band, Selena Gomez & the Scene: Kiss & Tell (2009), A Year Without Rain (2010), and When the Sun Goes Down (2011), all of which attained gold certifications and reached the top ten in the US. Additionally, Gomez has released three albums as a solo artist: Stars Dance (2013), Revival (2015), and Rare (2020), all of which debuted at number one in the US.[2] She has released eight songs which reached the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100: "Come & Get It", "The Heart Wants What It Wants", "Good for You", "Same Old Love", "Hands to Myself", "We Don't Talk Anymore" with Charlie Puth, "It Ain't Me" with Kygo, and "Lose You to Love Me", the latter being her first US number-one single.In 2017, Billboard reported that Gomez has sold over 7 million albums and 22 million singles worldwide. Gomez has received various accolades and was recognized as the Billboard Woman of the Year in 2017. She has a large following on social media, and was at one point the most-followed individual on Instagram. Gomez's other ventures include a makeup line, a clothing line, a handbag line, a fragrance line, and a production company named July Moonhead Productions. She has worked with various charitable organizations and, at age 17, she became a UNICEF ambassador.

MEGHAN TRAINOR

Meghan Elizabeth Trainor (born December 22, 1993) is an American singer-songwriter "All About That Bass", and for being the recipient of the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 58th Annual Grammy Awards. Trainor became interested in music from a young age; she wrote, recorded, and produced three independently released albums between 2009 and 2011. After signing a publishing deal with Big Yellow Dog Music, Trainor wrote and helped produce country and pop music for other artists in 2013. She met producer Kevin Kadish in June that year, with whom she wrote "All About That Bass".Trainor rose to fame after signing a contract with Epic Records in 2014 and releasing "All About That Bass", which topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for eight consecutive weeks and received a diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) but drew criticism for its lyrical content. The song was included on Trainor's major-label debut studio album Title (2015), which also includes the top-10 singles "Lips Are Movin" and "Like I'm Gonna Lose You". The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 and was awarded a triple-platinum certification from the RIAA. The lead single of Trainor's follow-up album Thank You (2016) was "No", which reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at the same position on the US Billboard 200 and was certified platinum by the RIAA. Her third album with Epic, Treat Myself, was released in January 2020.

DUA LIPA

Dua Lipa; born 22 August 1995) is an English singer and songwriter. After working as a model, she signed with Warner Music Group in 2015 and released her self-titled debut album in 2017. The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart, and yielded nine singles, including "Be the One" and "IDGAF", and the UK number-one single "New Rules", which also peaked at number six in the US. In 2018, Lipa won the Brit Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.Released in April 2018, the single "One Kiss", with Calvin Harris, peaked at number one in the UK, and became the longest-running number-one single for a female artist in 2018. It won her the 2019 Brit Award for Song of the Year. In 2019, she was also awarded the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, and "Electricity", a collaboration with Silk City, won her the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording. The success of the singles helped her self-titled album become one of the most-streamed albums on Spotify and achieve platinum certifications. Her second studio album, Future Nostalgia, was released in March 2020 to critical acclaim. It is her first UK number-one album; its lead single "Don't Start Now" peaked at number two on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100.Lipa has received various accolades, including two Grammy Awards, three Brit Awards and two MTV Europe Music Awards. She has also been nominated for three Billboard Music Awards, an American Music Award, and four MTV Video Music Awards.

BILLIE EILISH

Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell (born December 18, 2001) is an American singer, songwriter, and musician.She first gained attention in 2015 when she uploaded the song "Ocean Eyes" to SoundCloud, which was subsequently released by the Interscope Records subsidiary Darkroom. The song was written and produced by her brother Finneas, with whom she collaborates on music and live shows. Her debut EP, Don't Smile at Me (2017), reached the top 15 in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.Eilish's debut studio album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? (2019), debuted atop the Billboard 200 and became the best-performing album of 2019 in the US.[2] It also reached No. 1 in the UK. The album contains six Billboard Hot 100 top 40 singles: "When the Party's Over", "Bury a Friend", "Wish You Were Gay", "Xanny", "Everything I Wanted",[a] and "Bad Guy", the last of which became her first No. 1 single in the US. In 2020, she performed the theme song "No Time to Die" for the James Bond film of the same name, which became her first to peak at No. 1 in the UK.Her accolades include five Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, two Guinness World Records, three MTV Video Music Awards, and one Brit Award. She is the youngest person and second person ever to win the four main Grammy categories – Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Album of the Year – in the same year. In 2019, Time placed her on their inaugural "Time 100 Next" list. Additionally, Eilish is the 23rd biggest artist of the digital singles era, according to RIAA, selling 37.5 million singles in the US alone.

HAILEE STEINFELD

Hailee Steinfeld (born December 11, 1996) is an American actress, singer, and songwriter. . Her breakthrough role was as Mattie Ross in the drama western film True Grit (2010), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Thereafter, Steinfeld gained further prominence for roles in Ender's Game (2013), Romeo & Juliet (2013), Begin Again (2013), and 3 Days to Kill (2014). She appeared as Emily Junk in the Pitch Perfect film series (2015–2017), and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her role as Nadine Franklin in The Edge of Seventeen (2016). In 2018, she voiced Gwen Stacy / Spider-Woman in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and starred in the action film Bumblebee, contributing to the latter's soundtrack. Steinfeld currently stars as Emily Dickinson in the Apple TV+ series Dickinson.Steinfeld made her breakthrough in music after performing "Flashlight" in Pitch Perfect 2 (2015), signing with Republic Records soon after and releasing her debut single, "Love Myself", followed by her debut extended play Haiz (2015). She has since released a series of singles, including "Starving", a collaboration with both Grey and Zedd, which peaked at number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, and "Let Me Go", a collaboration with Alesso, Florida Georgia Line and Watt, which peaked at number 14 on the

CAMILLA CABELLO

Karla Camila Cabello Estrabao ( born March 3, 1997) is a Cuban-American singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence as a member of the girl group Fifth Harmony, formed on The X Factor USA in 2012, signing a joint record deal with Syco Music and Epic Records. While in Fifth Harmony, Cabello began to establish herself as a solo artist with the release of the collaborations "I Know What You Did Last Summer" with Shawn Mendes, and "Bad Things" with Machine Gun Kelly, the latter reaching number four on the US Billboard Hot 100. After leaving the group in late 2016, Cabello released several other collaborations, including "Hey Ma" by Pitbull and J Balvin for The Fate of the Furious soundtrack, and her debut solo single "Crying in the Club".Cabello's debut studio album, Camila (2018), reached number one on the Billboard 200 chart. The Latin music-influenced pop album was well received by critics, and received a Platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Its lead single "Havana" topped the charts in several countries including the US and UK, and follow-up single "Never Be the Same" reached the top 10 in multiple countries. Cabello's 2019 duet with Mendes, "Señorita", became her second single to top the Billboard Hot 100. Her second studio album, Romance (2019), peaked at number three on the Billboard 200 chart and number one in Canada.

ASHLEY TISDALE

Ashley Michelle Tisdale (born July 2, 1985) is an American actress, singer, and producer. During her childhood, Tisdale was featured in over 100 advertisements and had minor roles in television and theatre. She achieved mainstream success as Maddie Fitzpatrick in the Disney Channel series The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005-2008). This success was heightened when she starred as Sharpay Evans in the High School Musical film series (2006-2008). The success of the films led to Tisdale signing with Warner Bros. Records and subsequently releasing her debut studio album Headstrong (2007). The album was a commercial success, earning a gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Tisdale played the voice of Candace Flynn in the Disney Channel animated series Phineas & Ferb (2007-2015).Tisdale's second studio album, Guilty Pleasure (2009), was released to less commercial success than its predecessor. Tisdale would part ways with Warner Bros. Records following the release of the album. During this time, she began appearing in more films and returned to television with shows such as Hellcats (2010). Tisdale's production company Blondie Girl Productions, first formed in 2008, signed a multi-year production deal with Relativity Media in 2010; Tisdale would produce shows such as Miss Advised (2012) as part of the deal. Tisdale starred in the High School Musical spin-off film Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure (2011), releasing a soundtrack to promote the film. This marked her final portrayal of the character to date.

TAYLOR SWIFT

Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter.She is best known for her narrative songwriting that often centers around her personal life, which has received widespread critical praise and media coverage. At age 14, Swift became the youngest artist signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house and, at age 15, she signed her first record deal. Her 2006 eponymous debut album was the longest-charting album of the 2000s on the Billboard 200. Its third single, "Our Song", made her the youngest person to single-handedly write and perform a number-one song on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. Swift's second studio album, Fearless (2008), propelled her to international fame and produced the successful pop crossover singles "Love Story" and "You Belong with Me". It became the best-selling album of 2009 in the U.S., won four Grammy Awards—including Album of the Year—and was certified Diamond by the RIAA.Swift's self-written third album Speak Now (2010) and genre-bending fourth album Red (2012) each sold over one million copies in their first week in the U.S.; the latter yielded her first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together". Her fifth album and first all-pop project, 1989 (2014), produced the back-to-back number-one singles "Shake It Off" and "Blank Space" and won three Grammy Awards—including Album of the Year—making Swift the first woman to succeed herself at the top spot on the Hot 100 and the first woman to win Album of the Year twice as lead artist.

ZARA LARSSON

Zara Maria Larsson born 16 December 1997) is a Swedish singer and songwriter. At the age of 10, she achieved national fame in Sweden for winning the 2008 season of the talent show Talang, the Swedish version of British TV's Got Talent. Four years later, in 2012, Larsson signed with the record label TEN Music Group and subsequently released her debut compilation recording, the extended play Introducing, in January 2013. The single "Uncover" topped the music charts in Scandinavia: Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. In February 2013, "Uncover" was certified Platinum by Universal Music Sweden.In July 2013, Introducing was certified 3× Platinum in the country.France. Larsson's debut international album So Good was released on 17 March 2017 and entered at number seven on the UK Albums Chart. It produced eight singles: "Lush Life", "Never Forget You", "Ain't My Fault", "I Would Like", "So Good", "Don't Let Me Be Yours", "Only You", and "Symphony", a collaboration with Clean Bandit. Almost all the album's singles reached the top 15 in the UK.

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