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prissygrlsorority · 1 year

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everything you need to make your own personal beauty binder 🎀

disclaimer: this post is heavily inspired by @tomb-of-ligeia and @daphne-dauphinoise, and early 2010s beauty youtubers. it’s always kind to credit your inspo <3

inspired by the lookbooks and makeup charts used by makeup artists designers at high fashion runways shows and childhood bratz coloring and activity books. the law of attraction is at use heavily with this binder (writing down goals and wishlists)!

you should be keeping diy recipes you find in here.

*you don’t need a physical binder. some people function better with digital mediums. i prefer anything physical and concrete. but you can do all this in something like a notion, or your notes app, etc.

why? 🎀

a cute girly hobby (esp for type A, anal retentive, or analytical personalities/extremely creative, hands on people) to keep track of your routines, motivate you to keep yourself maintained, and figure out what works best for you. it’s nothing too serious, just a girly pastime for people that maybe buy too many products, slip up on routines, or don’t what looks best on your features. have fun!

what to record in your binder? 🎀

an intro sheet 10 different topics divided by tabbed sections: your personal features, makeup, body, fashion, skincare, hair, fragrance, nails, treatments/procedures, salons/spas/referrals/contacts 🎀

intro sheet 🎀

here, you should keep your goals, desired look, and how you want to perceive yourself.

your personal features

a chart of your color season. mine is cool winter. you can use color season for whatever, i choose to apply it to my makeup.

your natural body shape. this will help you choose the best clothes to flatter your silhouette.

a close up, unfiltered clear photo of your bare face. note your skin type, color, undertone, and any other things that stand out to you.

note what you wanna enhance and what you wanna improve. this will help throughout your binder.

makeup

put on a light layer of every lipstick/lip gloss/etc. you have and make kiss shaped swatches in your binder. note the shade, brand, and finish. then the mood/occasion in which you’d wear it.

swatch all your lip liners, again leaving the details of the product.

swatch your foundation shades. note the finish, name and brand.

make a sheet dedicated to all your “holy grail”, essential products.

swatch your eyeshadow palettes. i have all my shimmer pigments swatches and it’s the prettiest thing to look at.

do you have any go to makeup looks? your casual look, going out look, no makeup makeup look, etc.? do these looks and take high quality pics. make personalized face charts by printing them out and noting the steps and products you used.

take c*nty pics of your lashes after trying on all your mascaras/falsies. note the effects and when you would be most likely to wear them.

print out any pics of interesting makeup looks and products you wanna try.

try on lip combos and kiss swatch them. i’m doing this because i do amazing lip combos all the time but i forget which products i used, and it’s hard to replicate the look.

body

take a stick figure-esque picture of yourself and print it out. any outfit you want to buy, print and clip it out first and see if it’s something you’d wear and actually like.

are you experiencing any skin issues on your body and trying any products? keep track of the issue and how the products are doing.

if you don’t already have one, brainstorm workout routines and general wellness/fitness goals.

what are your fav body products? what products did you buy, and hate? TRACK THEM!

any detoxes/diets you’re doing should be recorded in this section.

record “beauty enhancing” foods and drinks here. mine include matcha, lemon water and acv shots.

fashion

outfit planning! take pics of pieces you already have and clip them out. (i’m doing this currently and keeping them all in a little pocket in my binder).

make a moodboard of your personal style(s). how do you want your closet to look? try to see what details, colors, additions are consistent throughout. when shopping, these are what you should keep track of.

print out your signature clothing color palette if you want to have one.

dedicate a page to accessories you have/want, and how you’d style them.

*this can be expensive but the fashion girls will prob love this* go to the fabric store and buy little swatches that you like. take note of what the fabric is and why you like it.

dedicate a page to all your signature details. all the little specific things that scream YOU and NO ONE else! that means do not write pink, girly, etc. here. that is not exclusive to you, hun.

skincare

take a current filter free photo (make it glam! tie your hair up in a ballerina bun and put on some cute earrings) of the state of your skin. if your skin is perfect, i’m jealous and how does it feel to be god’s fav? if not what problems are you experiencing?

log your current skincare routines and how they’re working.

make a page for your skin type, how it feels when you wake up and how it feels and looks by the end of the day and research tips to deal with your personal skin type.

skincare wishlist! list any products you wanna try and what they are for. sample them from ulta or sephora if it’s possible.

dedicate a page to the skincare ingredients your skin loves the MOST! mine are retinol, bha, and vitamin c.

i have a page for all the extra cute little skincare devices i want. on it there’s a stainless steel gua sha, an ice pack, facial steamer, and pink foreo.

hair

what’s your hair type, density, porosity and curl pattern?

write down any hair goals you have. mine is frizz free tailbone length caramel brown hair with honey blonde highlights by the end of this year.

what’s your signature hairstyle? do you have a signature? brainstorm here.

clip out hairstyle inspo from pinterest and insta and try to recreate all the looks!

what are your fav hair products? i keep track of the best curling creams and leave in conditioners for my hair personally.

take note of any trending products you wanna try.

fragrance

make a moodboard of how you wanna smell. after this, research notes and how they work together.

now track your fav perfumes, your most complimented, etc.

note what fragrances go with what occasion and how they make you feel.

make your perfume wishlist! my fav part!

nails

swatch all your polishes. label them and their finish.

what’s your signature/go to nail look?

do you have any pics of your fav mani + pedis? print them out and write the details you loved the most.

write down your at home mani and pedi routine and it’s frequency.

write your fav colors and styles to wear on your nails. mine are glittery pink, pale pink, white, cream, french tip and pink frenchie. a hyper girly twist on the classics.

treatments/procedures

take note of any surgeries or procedures you want done and what they do.

anything you leave the house to have done regularly, keep track here.

don’t limit yourself! forget your budget! what are some high maintenance treatments you wanna experience? manifest it.

references

write down the sources of which you find great info for beauty and fashion

keep addresses of your fav salons and spas.

keep business contacts of your fav estheticians, stylists, nail techs, etc.

use my branding yourself guide to assist in your beauty binder! so much inspo and so many good resources! 🎀

#prissygrlsorority #my posts #beauty binder 🎀

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genshingorlsrevengeance · 7 months

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(GFL) AR Team singing Karaoke for their S/O

(AR Team) M4A1, ST AR-15, M4 SOPMOD II, M16A1, RO635

No one requested this, it popped into my head because the song in question is called "Machine Gun Kiss" from Yakuza. ...I'm ashamed I haven't thought of this sooner.

(M4A1) "Y-You want me to sing?"

(S/O) "Karaoke isn't supposed to be serious. You don't got to worry if you sound bad. It's all part of the experience! And it's only me here so just focus on having fun!"

Trusting S/O, she simply nodded with a smile and picked up the microphone and looked through the song choices.

(M4A1) "...Wow, this is quite the outdated machine. This looks like its from the 2010's!"

(S/O) "I guess the Commander likes things retro? Beats me."

Finally deciding on a song, she prepared her vocal module as the screen displayed the song.

...

STAR looks a bit bewildered when S/O hands her a microphone.

(ST AR-15) "I'm not sure this is a good idea."

(S/O) "It's just for fun! You don't have to do perfectly."

(STAR) "...Hm, alright. I suppose I'm interested in trying something new."

...

(SOPMOD) "AW HECK YEAH! Gimme that microphone and turn that STEREO UP!"

(S/O) "Hah, yes ma'am!"

SOPMOD was almost bouncing up and down in excitement, her eyes sparkling as soon as she heard the music begin.

...

(M16A1) "WHEW! Okay, got enough alcohol in me, let's do this! What kinda song you got for me?"

(S/O) "How's this?"

M16 smiled as soon as she saw the name.

(M16A1) "Hell yeah, put that in!"

RO twiddled her fingers.

(RO635) "I'm told that my singing is...not exactly the best, S/O."

(S/O) "Who cares what they say, we're here to have fun! Plus, if it makes it any better, I'm your only audience tonight!"

(RO635) "I...I don't know if it does, to be quite honest S/O."

She sighed, wryly smiling.

(RO635) "Keep this between us, okay?"

...

(M4A1) "O-Okay, here we go!" ... (ST AR-15) "Here goes nothing..." ... (SOPMOD) "OKAY, LET'S GET FIRED UP!" ... (M16A1) "Now we're talking, let's DO THIS!" ... (RO635) "I sing for you...!"

====

M4 sways her hips to the beat, her voice starting out soft as the lyrics begin.

"Midnight shadow evaporates Accelerate through this old highway city..."

====

STAR is still unsure, but seeing S/O clap along with the beat cheering her on was making her slowly more confident.

"Into the night, you by my side, your tear-stained eyes Rouge running down your cheek, but baby-"

====

SOPMOD was on board since the VERY second S/O brought it up, her voice flaring up as she sang, motioning her hands passionately.

"Tonight everything's all right As long as you're here next to me My sweet babe-"

====

Even though M16 was half a bottle of whiskey into the night, that did not stop her from being coherent enough to sing the lyrics, getting really into the spirit.

"Now let's let go of our Past and our future This night has room for only two, you and me"

====

RO was starting to have fun watching S/O's smile as she sang her heart out, finally letting go and committing fully into the song.

"So come and see, I'll show you paradise tonight!"

====

(M4A1) "Not just 1 kiss-" ... (ST AR-15) "-Not 2 kisses-" ... (SOPMOD) "-Not one hundred-" ... (M16A1) "-I've got a full-" ... (RO635) "-Clip of love for you, baby!" ... (M4A1) "Hold on to me and-" ... (ST AR-15) "-I swear I won't let go-" ... (SOPMOD) "-I'll never,- ... (M16A1) "-Let you slip-" ... (RO635) "-Away from me!" ... (M4A1) "Machine-" ... (ST AR-15) "-Gun-" ... (SOPMOD) "-Kiss-" ... (M16A1) "Let's-" ... (RO635) "-Just-!"

"FALL IN LOOOOOOOVE! WOOOAAAAAAH OH-OOOOOOOOOH!"

====

M4A1 was breathing heavily as her smile overtook her anxiety, S/O's clapping putting her in an even better mood.

(S/O) "That was great!"

(M4A1) "T-Thank you! Now, I believe it's your turn?"

====

(ST AR-15) "Whew, that song was a lot nicer than I expected."

(S/O) "You killed it, STAR!"

STAR smiled bashfully.

(ST AR-15) "Hm.~ Wanna give it a shot now?"

====

SOPMOD pumped her fists before raising them into the air.

(SOPMOD) "WOOO! YEAH! That song is awesome!"

(S/O) "Wanna go again?"

(SOPMOD) "You know it, get me another!"

====

M16 took another drink, wiping her mouth.

(M16A1) "Machine Gun Kiss, eh? Fitting song!"

(S/O) "You got really into it, M16!"

(M16A1) "Psh, I saw you singing along with me!"

====

RO put her hands together, looking at S/O.

(RO635) "H-How did I do?"

(S/O) "Just fine, did you have fun?"

(RO635) "I...I did, thank you!"

#girls' frontline imagines #girls' frontline headcanons #girls' frontline x reader #m4a1 x reader #st ar 15 x reader #m4 sopmod ii x reader #m16a1 x reader #ro635 x reader #m4a1 gfl #st ar 15 gfl #m4 sopmod ii gfl #m16a1 gfl #ro635 gfl

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 month

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My scrolling through Josie Long YouTube video clips yesterday turned into learning that she did a 30-minute version of her Something Better show on Live at the BBC, a thing I had somehow never known before, despite having looked for it previously. That's the one show that had been stopping me from being a completist about her stand-up shows - my Josie Long folder has at least one full-length version of all the shows she's done as Edinburgh/touring shows, except something better in 2016. I was disappointed that this one seemed to have never been filmed, until last night, when I learned that she did quite a bit of it for Live at the BBC. So now that video is also in my folder and I am a more successful completist.

Not completely successful, because it's still not the full show. But it's a lot better than a little clip, like a Live at the Apollo set that only gives them about ten minutes. Live at the BBC gives them 30 minutes, which is much better. I do have one basis for comparison, having heard the full version of John Robins' Speakeasy off his Bandcamp page and I saw the 30-minute version of Live at the BBC, and the latter covers enough of the former to make me feel like you are getting a good idea of what the actual show is like.

So I watched Josie Long's Live at the BBC thing, and it was really good. A lot of it was material I'd heard before, scattered around in shorter clips, but it was so much better to see it all at once, the way it's supposed to come together. It was a Brexit show, obviously, because it was 2016, and it had all the Josie Long contrasting of hope and optimism with righteous political anger, and she told us about books she was reading, and it was great fun and so very worth the thirty minutes. There were some really funny references to her earliest shows, and contrasting different parts of her style, and it was an interesting bridge in the gap between the kind of thing she was doing in the early 2010s and the more recent stuff. She did her fun characters. It was great fun. And of course there was an exciting and inspiring rallying cry. All the stuff you want from Josie Long.

After that I looked up the Live at the BBC show, because I like the idea of a TV show that lets comedians do more than the usual ten-minute sets that you get on TV, and I watched Sara Pascoe's episode. It was also really, really funny, and reminded me of how funny Sara Pascoe is. I kind of had it in my head that her stand-up isn't for me, because a while ago I watched her do a short thing on a NextUp stream that I didn't enjoy at all, but to be fair to her she said it was very new material at the testing stage. Then more recently I re-watched her LadsLadsLads show and it made me laugh a lot, and it reminded me that she is actually very good.

Her Live at the BBC special was entirely material I'd not seen before, and it also made me laugh a lot, and then I wondered why LadsLadsLads seems to be the only full stand-up hour she's ever filmed (please correct me if I'm wrong about that), but I decided I want more of this so I will settle for the short TV clips. So then I went back down a YouTube clip journey, this time of Sara Pascoe clips, and have spent all morning watching them and they're very funny. Here's a small sample of ones from various years that I particularly enjoyed:

youtube

#Youtube

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oswlld · 1 year

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Eight (8) Shows to Get to Know Me

tagged by @talays-portkey ♥ ty for tagging me and having me walk down memory lane for the past few days (spent too much time in all the tags microdosing on my upbringing)

DISCLAIMER: i wanted to showcase defining eras in my life/made an impact in a substantial way; i’m also recommending an ep to watch with each one, which isn’t part of the tag format but imma do it

i. LOST (2004-2010)

this was my whole world for my entire hs existence and into my early college years. half of the shows listed here stems from my first love of the ensemble cast, their interwoven yet clandestine storylines, and the mystery box. at my first sdcc, half of the cast was present when they debuted p1 of the series finale (you’d think i was dead the whole time fksfsk;lv)

the jessi special: The Constant (04x05)

ii. Fringe (2008-2013)

yes, i faithfully followed jj abrams into another insane show. i think it actually altered my brain chemistry, rewired something in me, devoured a piece of me. once LOST was over and Fringe brought in the alternate universe, i dove in head first and never resurfaced

the jessi special: Making Angels (04x11)

iii. Doctor Who (2005-Present)

i think it was technically winter 2010 when i started binging this show because s6 was my first time catching it live (was young and naïve, i caught it on bbca lol) ive been on hellsite for almost two years at the time and fully became a fandom blog, so it was inevitable i would love this series. i think it was the first show i made gifs/edits for???

the jessi special: The Doctor’s Wife (06x04)

iv. Lizzie Bennet Diaries (2012-2013)

oh look, my dna makeup shifts again. i actually started watching this show the week leading up to Darcy Day and can still vividly remember the migraines from binging 8-10min eps times 60ish worth of content. this show got me into writing my first fic, running an rp blog, creating instrumental playlists, making a DWxLBD blog, AND eventually flying my ass back to CA to meet the cast and beloved mutuals at VidCon

the jessi special: A New Buddy (ep56)

v. Orphan Black (2013-2017)

happy international women’s day to this show and this show only! i think of all the shows listed here, this is the first time since LOST i caught all the eps in real time from the very beginning. this was filling the hole Fringe was about to carve deep in me. but if you cut me open, you will find the beth-shaped hole that nothing/no one has been able to fill and likely will never fill til the end of time

the jessi special: The Collapse of Nature (04x01)

vi. Shadowhunters (2016-2019)

im willing to admit that the reason i got into this show was because of the wedding kiss haha i saw the clip, signed the adoption papers on the spot, and went on to write a 100K+ wip series. admittedly, i confess that this was a DNF and never finished the last season... i abandoned my boy.gif

the jessi special: Of Men and Angels (01x06)

vii. Sense8 (2015-2018)

a show about eight children than i gave birth to, that i raised on my own, that i will defend on my death bed and beyond??? that show sense8?? yes that show sense8. fun fact, when they did the screening of the finale in Chicago, the cast ended up sitting three rows behind me in the theater and i could hear them talking in between scenes the entire evening. wish i could bottle that feeling up

the jessi special: I Have No Room in My Heart for Hate (02x07)

viii. Bad Buddy (2021-2022)

and we finally made it to the current decade! its nov 2021, im fresh off leaving my previous job and still getting situated in my new position, yet this show was a siren calling to me in the dark mist of my life. i ended up saving the binge watching for the week of my bday and my whole life shifted again. it must have been so alarming on the outside, seeing me go from making 1-2 edits a month to 1-2 edits a day for almost THREE MONTHS. the fact that i still cont to avg two edits/week since then... oy lol

the jessi special: Ep10 (shocked pikachu.jpg)

and ill also throw some honorable mentions too: Chuck, The Good Place, Vice Versa, Twenty Five Twenty One, Once Upon a Time, and Elementary

now tagging @pranink, @icouldhyperfixatehim, @noxclara, @curious-earth (no pressure tho!)

#tag meme #tagged #this is jessi #i am a tree and these are the most defined rings #the ones people would study and say 'tf happened in this era'#now i feel obligated to make an edit for fringe #its the only show of the eight listed that i have never made something for #made a few LOST edits maybe two remakes ago #theres still some LBD edits in the archive tag #now all the new mutuals since bad buddy ended know me on a molecular level

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gointothevvater · 3 years

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Her full profile is finally here! Seven pages of information! I may have gone down the rabbit hole just a tiny bit!

St. Cecilia Jameson

Gender: Cis female

Status: Alive

Occupation: Singer for British rock band Stiletto ("Like the knife or like the shoe?" "Yes.")

Family: Elizabeth Robinson, née Wallis (Mother), Bryony Robinson (Older half-sister), Esme Robinson, née Davies (Grandmother, deceased), Herakles Zafeiriou (Biological father, though she's never met him), Evander Zafeiriou (Older half-brother, who she's also never met, though they've exchanged family photos and stories via email)

Voiced by: Florence Pugh (Speaking), Lzzy Hale (Singing)

Age: A few months younger than Pickles

Date of birth: December 15 (Sagittarius)

Place of birth: Oxford, England

Birth name: Felicity Robinson (Initially, only Sammy knows this, though the rest of SnB learns it at Esme's funeral)

Nicknames: Ceelie (By Pickles and Sammy, mostly, though the Dethklok boys pick it up eventually), Star (By Magnus), princess (By Skwisgaar)

Ethnicity: Half English, half Greek (Though she's unaware of the latter for most of her life)

Height: Five-foot-one

Sexuality: Bisexual

Relationship status: It's complicated. It's always complicated. She's unlucky in love.

Current location: London, England

Appearance: St. Cecilia is a petite woman (She's half a head shorter than Pickles!) with golden skin and long white-blonde hair, which she wears in a high ponytail. She has thick, dark brows and bright brown eyes (Skwisgaar says she has "wolf eyes"). She has three white marigolds tattooed on each shoulder, a labret piercing, and a vertical collarbone piercing at the hollow of her throat. Her ears are pierced three times each, in which she wears two silver hoops and a silver stud on each side, and she has a small black star beneath each eye. She has a Christina piercing, nipple piercings, and a belly button piercing. She has a No Time For Antivenom tattoo on her sternum, and a European robin tattoo at the back of her neck. Along her spine, she has a tattoo reading "to thine own self be true." She has a shitty stick-and-poke crown tattooed behind her right ear. She has a pear body type, with wide hips, a small chest, and an even smaller waist (Nathan can encircle her waist with his hands). She typically wears a black muscle shirt, ripped dark jeans, heavy boots, black driving gloves, and a studded black leather collar with a D-ring at the front. She also wears a Gibson pearl guitar pick on a necklace, which was given to her by Pickles when they first started dating in the 80s. She wears a silver cuff on each ear, and her tongue is pierced with a simple silver stud.

During flashbacks to the Snakes N' Barrels era, she's shown with darker blonde hair cut in a mullet style, and only her labret and ear piercings, plus one on the right side of her nose. She wears a cropped white tank, with high-waisted jeans and black Converse sneakers. She wears mismatched armbands, one black, one striped, and the same collar she wears in the present.

Her more casual look consists of a black button-up shirt with the sleeves pushed up, which she wears tucked into a pair of leather pants. She wears pumps instead of boots, and her hair is twisted up in a clip. She keeps her collar, but doesn't wear the pick necklace or her ear cuff, and she switches her hoop earrings for studs. She doesn't apply her stars.

For fancier occasions, she wears a black dress with spaghetti straps and a very short, flared skirt, black opera gloves and black strap pumps. She, as always, wears her collar with it, and she pulls her hair into a high bun.

Personality: St. Cecilia is cocky, witty, and teasing, but ultimately good-natured. She's a bit selfish and stubborn, but she does everything with 110% effort, hoping to impress people, even if she winds up getting hurt in the process. She'll do literally anything for validation. To say she's vain would be an understatement. She's something of a coquette who flirts with both men and women, and is she has a tendency to "think with her dick," as Tony once put it. She's slow to anger, but quick to jealousy, and she holds grudges for far too long. She's the playful type, but it's largely in a chill way. She's an obvious extrovert, and the role as frontman for Stiletto came very naturally.

Skills & Hobbies: St. Cecilia writes good poetry, great song lyrics, and terrible erotica. She likes plants and is quite the chess player (Though she hasn't managed to beat Charles even once), which she learned during her school days. She also learned to fence, ride horses, and speak fluent Latin there.

Musical Talents: She's a classically trained singer (When she was little, she was part of her church's choir), and she writes most of the song lyrics and some of the music for her band, Stiletto. In Snakes N' Barrels, she played lead guitar on a white Jackson Pro Series Rhoads RR3, but during their reunion concert, she plays a more modern Gibson Explorer '76 Reissue 2010 Cherry. She took piano lessons for several years as a child, and she's still pretty good. Nothing outstanding, but if Stiletto needs to incorporate a piano into a song, she's perfectly capable of playing it herself.

Relationships:

-Pickles the Drummer: Their relationship is a complicated one. They've known each other for ages, and they've been together through the highest highs and the lowest lows, all the way down to rock bottom. She partially blames him for her late teens and early twenties being the fiasco they were, and she cut off contact with him for a long time after the SnB breakup. During the run of the show itself, the two reconcile somewhat and even become more or less friends before Abigail shows up and things start to crumble again. They have a hard time admitting it, but there's love between them, and there has been for a long time. They're both afraid to try getting together again, though, as there's a mutual fear of the relationship ending as it did the first time, with them hating each other again. They're back together at the end of Doomstar, but there's no way of telling if the love between them is enough to keep them together or if they'll just fall apart all over again.

-Magnus Hammersmith: They were more off-and-on than anything, but they were together for years, even though quite a bit of it was long-distance. It wasn't supposed to be a serious thing. It was just supposed to be a quick fuck. Then it was supposed to be a performance to annoy Pickles, but Magnus quickly realized that St. Cecilia's feelings for Pickles were too strong for her to be any use to him in his revenge plot. The basis of their bond formed because they understood each other on a level they've never known with anyone else: Former Snakes N' Barrels guitarist St. Cecilia Jameson and former Dethklok guitarist Magus Hammersmith both understand on a fundamental level what it's like to be left behind and forgotten. Magnus caught a bit of feelings, and when Roy Cornickelson's funeral came around, Magnus warned St. Cecilia not to attend. It was their last interaction, and it forever cast him in a positive light for her, even after she learned what he was doing with the Metal Masked Assassin.

-Nathan Explosion: They get along pretty well. Their first meeting was at a singers-only Crystal Mountain party, and they ended the evening with a quickie in the coatroom. He wrote a song about the encounter, but Pickles never figured out that it was about St. Cecilia, which Nathan thinks is just the funniest thing. He mostly sees St. Cecilia as one of the guys once she meets with Dethklok again for the SnB reunion. It's a "been there, done that" kind of deal. She's not brutal, but she's funny and she's fun, and goddamn, is she pretty, and they would absolutely hang out if they could get their schedules to line up.

-Skwisgaar Skwigelf: St. Cecilia is nothing short of enchanted by Skwisgaar. It's not a crush, exactly, but she has a huge amount of admiration for him. They've practiced together a time or two, but she's a little rusty and winds up with her fingers bleeding because her calluses have gone soft. He tends to tease her over her soft hands. A guitar god, he tells her, can't have hands like a princess. His calling her “princess” becomes a bit of a thing for them. The two of them often have brunch together, talking shit and drinking. She's good for him; He's never had a female friend before.

-Toki Wartooth: Within the series itself, St. Cecilia hasn't given Toki much thought. He's cute, but he's just sorta there. His incident during the SOBERTOWN USA concert really scared her, and she more or less avoids him after that. Post-DSR, though, their relationship changes. He, like her, was hurt by Magnus, and even with him dead, Toki misses him terribly. St. Cecilia misses him, too. As sad as it is, this becomes their common ground. Their other connection, odd as it sounds, is pole dancing. St. Cecilia does it for exercise, and Toki did it for money, and they often compete to see who's better on the pole.

-William Murderface: St. Cecilia actually has a begrudging fondness for Murderface. He's awful, but he's also pretty funny, and she likes to hear him talk about knives and medieval weaponry, as her family home is full of such things. They clash over things, of course, but she likes being around him more often than not.

-Charles Offdensen: St. Cecilia really likes Charles, actually. He's basically the only person on the show who's really "on her level" class-wise. He attended Harvard, and she attended Oxford, so they have a great deal to talk about. They play a lot of chess and fence on occasion, and if it weren't for her feelings for Pickles and his obligation to the Church, they just might have gotten together.

-Dick Knubbler: They're friends, in a way. She thinks he's kind of a weirdo, but he knows how to have a good time, so as long as he isn't hitting on her, she likes being around him.

-Abigail Remeltincdrinc: They became friends mostly due to the fact that they were both women in the music industry (And both working for Crystal Mountain) and supporting each other seemed the right thing to do. Abigail getting involved with Dethklok and catching Pickles's attention quickly became a sore spot, and they drifted apart after that. After DSR, things got even worse. Abigail, naturally, is glad that Magnus is gone, while St. Cecilia is devastated by the loss. They had something of a falling-out over it, and they haven't really spoken since.

-Edgar Jomfru: Despite being very different people, St. Cecilia really enjoys Edgar's company. He merely tolerates her at first, but she grows on him, to the point where they're legitimately friends come Doomstar. The two of them often have lunch together on the roof of Mordhaus so they can get some fresh air.

-Family: St. Cecilia's family consists of her mother, Elizabeth, her older sister, Bryony, and her now-deceased grandmother, Esme. St. Cecilia has a very formal, cold relationship with her mother, and she has no desire to change that. As far as she's concerned, her mother doesn't deserve to have a good relationship with her. St. Cecilia adores Bryony, though. Though Elizabeth brags about her, Bryony remains modest and is very close with her sister because of it. Though there's seven years between them, they may as well be twins. Esme, who passed away in 1993, was more of a mother to St. Cecilia than Elizabeth ever was, and St. Cecilia still misses her terribly. She was a big part of getting SnB off the ground, and the boys even came to her funeral.

-Snakes N' Barrels: St. Cecilia adores all the boys, of course, but Sammy is the only one she really kept in touch with after the breakup. He was her favorite long before Pickles joined. There was a pregnancy scare not long after the band took off that somehow, against all odds, brought the two of them even closer. Sammy was St. Cecilia's first love. Her relationships with Tony and Snazz were much more professional, though none of them were anywhere near professional. The crown tattoo behind her right ear was done by Tony on a drunken night in, and it was too good a night for her to even consider covering it or getting it removed.

-Stiletto: She gets along with them all quite well! She's known Niamh McLoughlin, their bassist, the longest, and their friendship dates back to their school days. Lex Clarke and Priyanka Dayal, the drummer and the guitarist respectively, came as a package deal, as they've been more or less married for years. St. Cecilia adores them and the sweetness of their relationship. She's a little envious of them, actually, though she would never say so.

History:

-Childhood: St. Cecilia was born in Oxford, England to Elizabeth Robinson. She was raised more or less at her family's girls-only boarding school, away from her mother. When she was fourteen, she fell off a horse during an equestrian class and badly injured her shoulder. She was one of the popular girls during her school days, up until she hit fifteen and decided that she was no longer a child and had a right to demand respect from her emotionally distant mother. She quit the piano lessons she had been taking for several years and took up the guitar, though it aggravated her injured shoulder and even as a teen, she developed a dependence on painkillers. This rebellious period stretched until she was sixteen and ran away with the help of her grandmother. St. Cecilia was given her name just before she left, so it would be easier for her to hide, as well as a hefty sum to tide her over until she could get herself settled. She was only in LA for a few weeks before she met Sammy at a bar where the SnB prototype band was playing. Naturally, Snazz and Tony weren't thrilled with the idea of Sammy's kinda-sorta-girlfriend trying to become their lead guitarist, and when Snazz disparagingly referred to St. Cecilia as Yoko, she broke his nose (How could he have not expected violence when a Beatles-loving British girl was called such a horrible thing?). This earned their respect and is an event that they laugh about to this day.

-Snakes n' Barrels era: St. Cecilia stuck with the band for several months before they found Pickles, and she was smitten with him the moment she heard him sing. Esme was an important source of financial support during their formative years. The band made it big after not too long, and they all grew quite close. St. Cecilia ended up in an ill-fated off-and-on relationship with Pickles as time went on, and to this day she doesn't remember the first time she told him she loved him. It wasn't long after his first OD and his following stint in rehab that she told him, and they were both drunk in celebration of his release. His tolerance, even post-rehab, was far higher than hers, though, and he remembers, though he sometimes hates that he does. Though there was genuine love between them, the stress of the band and both of their substance abuse problems drove a wedge between not only the couple, but also the entire band. Coupled with Pickles fucking groupies behind St. Cecilia's back and St. Cecilia's becoming a rather serious Vicodin addict to combat the pain in her injured shoulder, the band was doomed. Pickles came to see St. Cecilia off on her flight back to England, saying he would meet her there when his next residuals check came in, but he never made it, and they didn't speak to each other for years afterward. It hurt, but St. Cecilia supposed it was for the best. A clean break, and all that.

-Preklok: After SnB broke up, St. Cecilia returned to Oxford, staying with Bryony in their mother's guest house as she tried to figure out her next move. Despite her gift for writing lyrics, she had no talent for writing books, and that idea quickly went down the drain. She still received a large amount of money in residuals, but she was reduced to a mere socialite, though it mostly agreed with her. At her mother's insistence, she attended a few classes at Oxford University. She absolutely loved it. In 1992, Esme passed away. St. Cecilia only told Sammy about it, but he took the initiative and brought Pickles, Tony and Snazz with him to the funeral. St. Cecilia was initially pissed, but she really appreciated the support. That was the only time she saw Pickles between SnB's breakup and their reunion concert. He was devastated when her parting words to him were "I love you with everything I am, but I never wanna see you again." In the mid-90s, she posed for an issue of Playboy, and Pickles has a copy of the issue tucked away somewhere. It wasn't until 1998, when she moved to a little flat in London, that St. Cecilia reunited with her school friend Niamh and the idea of Stiletto came about. They found Priyanka and Lex at an open mic night at one of the local clubs, and they hit it off, both as friends and as bandmates. They played at many clubs and pubs, and they were soon found by a scout at another open mic night. They signed with the UK branch of Crystal Mountain Records and were assigned the surly but efficient Melinda Glasscock as their manager, and within three years, Stiletto was huge, due in part to St. Cecilia's residual fame from Snakes N' Barrels. Their first tour was through Europe, but the second came to America, where St. Cecilia met Magnus in a bar post-show. They got on really well, and she invited him to her hotel room for the night. They exchanged numbers and got quite close over time, with her even flying him out to London from time to time so they could hang out. Magnus knew who she was from the start, and while he planned to use her feelings for Pickles to get her on his side, that soon faded and he came to genuinely like her. She wouldn't learn who he was until later on. A few years before canon, she had a quickie with Nathan in a coat room at a singers-only part at Crystal Mountain records, and he used the fact that she couldn't fit her mouth around his dick as inspiration for Dethklok's infamous song "Glasgow Smile."

-Season 1:

-St. Cecilia's first mention within the confines of canon is during Performance Klok, when Pickles mentions he hasn't been in a serious relationship since the '80s despite the fact that he would certainly thrive under such attention.

-She first appears in Snakes N' Barrels, during the documentary the Dethklok is watching. The guys are a little critical when they (Save Nathan, who's known for a long time) learn that part of SnB's downfall was due to Pickles's failed relationship with St. Cecilia. There's some comedic nonsense talk about fucking one's guitarist before Pickles goes to speak with Charles. Though St. Cecilia is working on an album with Stiletto when she's asked to go the reunion, she manages to push through and finish in time, though she arrives nearly late. She finds Pickles backstage, and when he sweeps in to kiss her, she pulls away a bit, saying they can't do this, as she's spoken for. She lets him hold her close, though. The rest of Dethklok finds them like that, and St. Cecilia excuses herself to go find Sammy, Tony and Snazz. There's some talk about Pickles not leaving Dethklok, which he says he won't, but they're rather worried after catching him with St. Cecilia in his arms. Meanwhile, she manages to find the boys, and they meet with Pickles backstage. While the boys partake of the Totally Awesome Sweet Alabama Liquid Snake, St. Cecilia doesn't, as she once humiliated herself by passing out on stage and doesn't wish to repeat the incident. She presses a kiss to Pickles's palm before they go on stage, an old ritual that they were never able to shake. What happens is far worse than someone just passing out, and she and Pickles leave the stage amidst the chaos while the medical Klokateers take care of the boys and see them off to the hospital. It's a disaster. She's embarrassed and angry, and she turns down Pickles's offer of a ride home and calls someone instead, as she didn't get her money converted and can't pay for a cab. This someone turns out to be the man who's claimed her, Magnus, and Pickles is none too happy about it. He tries to stop her from going with him, but it doesn't work.

-She isn't seen in Dethkids, but she is mentioned. When Pickles starts drinking harder than usual, he finally gives in to the urge to call her, to talk about how Sammy and Snazz and Tony are doing, and to tell her that she should steer clear of Magnus. He's so drunk, though, that she barely has even an idea of what he's talking about.

-Offscreen, but somewhere between the two SnB episodes, Magnus and St. Cecilia abruptly break up. She has a feeling something was going on with him, but his sudden disappearance really hurt her. They had been together off and on for years, after all. A few weeks before he left, he bought her a little pink knife and showed her how to use it, just in case he wasn't around to protect her. When he left, he left his guitar behind, and she still has it as of Doomstar.

-Season 2:

-She's mentioned by Seth in Dethwedding, though only as "that British chick" he thought Pickles would eventually have married. Pickles nearly decks him for even mentioning her.

-St. Cecilia's next appearance is in Snakes N' Barrels II. In part one, during the advertisement for the SOBERTOWN USA concert, she's missing from the band lineup, and Pickles is both relieved and a little concerned by her absence.

-In SnB II part two, Nathan, Skwisgaar and Toki find her among the crowd at the SOBERTOWN USA concert. Nathan asks if she wasn't invited to play, but she says that she was: She just didn't think it was right to play without Pickles. Realizing that Pickles is sneaking around backstage, she leaves to go find him and try to keep him from doing something he'll regret. She only finds him just as Tony, Snazz and Sammy start freaking out, and she only just manages to keep Pickles from killing Rikki Kixx, though she honestly doesn't mind the thought of him dead. She pulls Pickles away from the stage, where he calls the Klokateers to take care of Sammy, Snazz and Tony, and she sets to icing down his bruised knuckles. She tells him that she and Magnus broke up, and he's thoroughly pleased about it: She's too good for him, anyway. That irritates her a bit, but she tells him to call her sometime, though she insists he do it when he's not drunk off his ass.

-Season 3:

-Ironically, when Pickles calls her in Dethhealth to inform her that he's dying, he's in fact drunk again. She wants to go to Mordhaus to see him, but he tells her to stay where she is, as he doesn't want her seeing him like that, though she's seen him at rock bottom as it is. At the end of the episode, he's drunker and higher than ever, but he calls her again to let her know he's all right. She can't understand him, though, so he puts Nathan on to explain. She’s thoroughly relieved, but she’s still considering going to Mordhaus to see him. She implores of Nathan, "Take care of him, all right?"

-Offscreen, in the time between Dethhealth and Dethmas, Pickles goes to London for a while to appease St. Cecilia, and to their mutual surprise, it's not really all that different from how it was when they were actually together. There's lots of cuddling and kissing and great sex and just... Hanging out. It's easy for them to be together. They have their share of problems, but the old spark between them is still there. Pickles is honestly a little scared of that: What if he falls for her all over again just for her to break his heart like she did last time? The fact that she has Magnus's guitar makes him doubly suspicious. He starts drinking harder than ever to drown out the thoughts of her.

-In Rehabklok, when Pickles's drinking is brought to the attention of the band and he's sent to rehab, he tries for a while to blame it on St. Cecilia. She broke his heart, and he drinks to cope. It makes perfect sense, until he starts to really think about it and realizes that he's equally at fault for how their relationship (And also SnB) fell apart. He realizes, after many years, that he hurt her as badly as she hurt him. And that makes him feel even worse. He talks the doctor into letting him call her to apologize, but it doesn't go well: She's a little offended that he would even consider blaming her for his drinking, given he was a drunk long before they met. "Is that what I am to you now? An excuse to get drunk and act a fool?" Not long after that, Pickles realizes the real cause for his drinking.

-Just before Charles goes to speak to the UN in Doublebookedklok, he calls St. Cecilia and cryptically asks her if she speaks Latin. She owes him a favor for getting her out of some legal trouble, so she can't really refuse. Several months before, she punched a scummy paparazzo who called Magnus washed-up, and Charles used his reeducation program to keep those involved from pressing charges or damaging St. Cecilia's reputation.

-Season 4:

-In Fanklok, before Charles meets with the band to discuss Klokikon, he welcomes St. Cecilia to Mordhaus and presents her with an ancient-looking journal that belonged to Aurelius Isambard, one of the original prophets of the Church of the Black Klok. She's taken down to the basement, where she's introduced to Edgar Jomfru, and gets to work.

-In Diversityklok, after he's spoken to Edgar, Charles speaks to St. Cecilia. He finds her engrossed, but thoroughly worried. She asks if this is real, and she's even more worried when he tells her it is.

-Offscreen, St. Cecilia has been hard at work translating the journal, and she's come to a passage that seems to describe the growing tension between the band. It also mentions an approaching star, and she takes to sitting on the roof at night to observe the sky.

-In Prankklok, when Pickles tells Nathan that he's not allowed to drink any tequila during their friender-bender, Nathan tells him he can't visit St. Cecilia when they stop in London. Pickles reluctantly agrees. Not long after, we see Pickles on his phone, though, debating on calling her just before he notices the storm warning.

-Offscreen, St. Cecilia approaches Charles about a phrase repeated over and over in the journal: Fata sidus oritur, the star of fate is born.

-After Charles breaks the news about Ice Festival to Skwisgaar in Bookklok, he goes to speak with St. Cecilia and Edgar in the basement. She's tacked two star maps to the wall: One from the previous week and one from the previous night. There's a spot near the center of the first map that seems bigger on the second one. She looks like the world is ending when she tells him it's the Doomstar. It's real. It's coming? When? Soon, she says. Far too soon.

-When Charles tells the boys he's going out of town in Dethcamp, it's to take St. Cecilia to an observatory, where they meet with Ishnifus and spend a few days tracking the Doomstar's movement as it comes closer and closer to Earth.

-In Going Downklok, when Pickles shows up all decked out for his meeting with Abigail, Nathan is quick to ask, "Don't you have a girlfriend?" Pickles insists he doesn't; He and St. Cecilia was hurt and angry the last time they spoke. On top of that, he believes she's all the way in London, and Abigail is right there.

-Offscreen, between Dethdinner and Breakup Klok, St. Cecilia is tagged in the video of Pickles leaving Dethklok by a drunken Toki. She's incredibly hurt. Pickles has nothing, he said. She, apparently, is nothing.

-In Breakup Klok, Pickles tries to call St. Cecilia to invite her to his wine tasting, but she refuses to answer and sends him straight to voicemail. Towards the end of the episode, after the escape from Salacia, Charles requests a check-up on Edgar and St. Cecilia back at Mordhaus, and Pickles is stunned and angry to learn that she's been more or less within arm's reach for months. Had he known, he's certain things would have been different-- He wouldn't have tried to make a move on Abigail and he wouldn't have fucked up his chance to get back with St. Cecilia again.

-Offscreen, St. Cecilia speaks to Charles about staying at a hotel for a few days, just until Roy Cornickelson's funeral, after which she'll return to Mordhaus and her translation work. The day of the funeral, though, she receives a call from Magnus telling her she absolutely cannot attend, as he can't guarantee her safety. It's the last time she has contact with him before his death. We also see her watching the news about Dethklok's breakup and the insinuation that Abigail caused it, and St. Cecilia chucks a bottle at the TV, mirroring Pickles's actions in SnB II.

-In Church of the Black Klok, St. Cecilia is fetched from the hotel by Klokateers and taken to the Dethsub, where she meets with Charles, pointedly ignores Pickles, and goes to work with Edgar instead.

-The Doomstar Requiem:

-In "One of Us Must Die," St. Cecilia can be seen on one of the slides, staring up into the sky with Isambard's journal held to her chest. Towards the end of the song, reading from the book, she sings, "Dethklok, they must be rejoined/Evil, it must be destroyed/No more apathetic stoics/They can learn to be heroic/Write the song that will be our salvation..."

-In "Training," while carrying the journal, she sings the lyrics, "As the prophecy foretold, the Doomstar has been born/And you all will be endowed with a power known to none." Nathan, Skwisgaar and Murderface are looking at the art of the Prophecy, but Pickles is watching her. Ishnifus places a hand upon her shoulder, and they sing together, "The Deth lights are within you all waiting to be woken/And when the five are united, the evil will be broken," in a show of solidarity.

-In "En Antris et Stella Fatum Cruenti," just after Ishnifus is killed and the Doomstar goes red, we see a shot of Charles, Edgar and St. Cecilia at the Church, watching the sky.

-In "Morte Lumina," in a mirror to Nathan and Abigail's kiss, we see Pickles approach St. Cecilia, and she presses a kiss to his palm (Which is a really significant gesture between them) before he pulls her into his arms.

Trivia:

-The stars on her cheeks are actually a makeup trick, as she's afraid to have a needle so close to her eyes.

-She smokes Honeyrose Cherry cigarettes (Which have roughened her voice a bit), but she doesn't drink to excess, save when she's with Pickles. He's a terrible influence on her, but she adores him just the same. Considering him and Magnus, she has rather bad taste in men.

-Her signature scent is Estée Lauder's Cinnabar, which features notes of jasmine, orange blossom, cloves, and patchouli. She uses a cinnamon body oil when she wants to get Pickles's attention. It always works.

-She wants nothing more than to be loved, but she's keenly aware of the fact that most of the people who "love" her only want to coast on her fame. It's resulted in her having a hard time trusting people. The fact that Pickles and the rest of Dethklok don't need to coast off her is part of why she likes them so much.

-She's an iced coffee addict, and she prefers chocolate, caramel, or hazelnut varieties.

-She was raised Catholic, and while she lapsed a long time ago, she has occasional bouts of Catholic Guilt. Her name is related to her religion, as St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music.

-Her preferred alcohol is Bombay Sapphire gin, though she also likes white wine and champagne.

-She's a plant mom. Her flat is full of plants, including a little devil's tongue cactus she bought at a farmer's market in LA when she first came to America. It's traveled the world with her! It lived in the cupholder of Snazz's van for several years, and now it lives in her kitchen, perched on top of the microwave.

-She has a pretty serious oral fixation. She's always got something in her mouth: A cigarette, a pen, a popsicle, someone's fingers, a dick. Depends on her mood. Getting her tongue pierced helped a little, as she can play with the stud, but some habits just can't be broken.

-She and the rest of Stiletto own a condo building in London together, and she naturally has the penthouse to herself. It's very airy and open, with lots of mirrors and plants and exposed brick. One corner of her living room is just a huge window that looks out on the city. It's her favorite feature. Magnus is too nervous to go near it.

#this is a lot but i feel like she feels like a real character almost #Metalocalypse #nathan explosion #pickles the drummer #skwisgaar skwigelf #toki wartooth #william murderface #charles offdensen #magnus hammersmith #mtl #my mtl #st. cecilia jameson

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thatcartoonnetworkblog · 3 years

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Cartoon Network Hotel Review

WHAT TIME IS IT????

If you don’t find yourself screaming this when you get here, even just in your head, then you’re in the wrong place.

But after a nice drive through Amish Country, the Cartoon Network Hotel is nice and visible right outside of Dutch Wonderland. Coming in, you see images of some of your favorite characters, right before Finn and Jake welcome you at the front.

Granted, it looks like I came off season- with fall and school just starting, Dutch Wonderland is only open on the weekends, and the hotel wasn’t exactly packed from what I can see. Which made for a good time for the indoor pool to be under renovation, so I sadly didn’t get to check that out. But hey, the outdoor pool was running just fine, although it was mostly empty, just myself and a family.

I didn’t take any pictures of the pool, since I didn’t have my phone (but a couple of Ice King’s penguins are playing life guard duty, alongside a pretty cute girl), but I did snap a photo of the Powerpuff sprinklers! They look pretty cool, right?

But that’s jumping ahead. Anyway, as mentioned, today it didn’t seem so busy, so despite arriving a couple of hours before 4 PM check-in, I was able to get a room right away. It must have been busy enough that I didn’t get the Gumball room I asked for, but instead I got my second choice, Steven Universe.

But I mean, look at this. I can’t complain. I was just thinking that I wanted the SU room instead, anyway.

The rooms are themed to one of six shows/franchises, the other four being Powerpuff Girls, Ben 10, Adventure Time and We Bare Bears. The former two seem to be primarily inspired by their recent series however, not their classics, so your mileage will vary there. I asked a receptionist which show tends to be the most popular choice, and she says that it rotates. Apparently PPG does get picked often by those who grew up with it, which makes sense, although those aren’t my Powerpuff Girls.

So, some things of note- there are four exclusive channels to the Hotel. Gumball and Teen Titans Go get their own 24/7 channels, which seems redundant since they’re basically all CN shows anyway. But they also have a FanFavs channel, which shows various episodes from various series, and New Shows, which I’m not sure if it shows currently unaired episodes or not. I couldn’t get that one active for long, but I did see part of a Victor & Valentino episode. I did have FanFavs on a bit as background noise, and they seem to mostly show:

Adventure Time

Regular Show

Steven Universe

Ben 10 (2016)

Mao Mao

Thundercats Roar (seriously...)

It seems like they mostly rotate from those shows, but I’d like to believe there’s more. Griz is on the cover bar for it when you connect to wifi, and you’d think they’d also show at least the 2016 PPG show as well, as that’s all over the resort.

They also do showings of cartoons in the kitchen at 3 and 9 PM, as the kitchen is closed during those times. My flight was very early, so I missed the 9 showing, as well as the Summer Camp Island-inspired bonfire that happened before, but I caught the 3 o’clock cartoons. They played episodes of Craig of the Creek, Total Dramarama, Teen Titans Go, and Gumball. Pretty cool, although these are basically the only four shows the channel plays anyway, The intro they use for the screenings shows clips from classic Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby-Doo cartoons, but none of those were shown today. Maybe they’ll throw one in at another time? Probably not Scooby... or maybe just a movie, since they apparently play movies as well sometimes.

I didn’t stick around for most of the TDR cartoon though, as I was participating in the Craig of the Creek scavenger hunt. They hunt various CN characters around the lobby vicinity, and you try to find them in the right spot.

This is what you get if you win- a COTC pin and a Hershey bar. But hey, you can’t argue with results, and this is about it for Craig merch.

The gift shop almost exclusively focuses on the six shows with featured rooms, and a lot of merch isn’t exclusive. I did get a couple of things though.

The beach towel is based on the designs you see all over the hotel and has a couple of series not otherwise represented in terms of merch, like OK KO, Summer Camp Island, and the aforementioned COTC. Oh, and Clarence! Almost missed him in the bottom.

I got the stickers because there are more COTC characters, and again, the designs are nice. The SU pin was cool, and if there was a similar one for AT or Gumball, I would have got that as well. And I got the Anais keychain because Gumball merch is strangely rare despite its popularity, especially for her. There were also some pencils, notebooks, a couple of T-shirts and a hoodie. I almost got some pencils.

There’s also an arcade and an activity center, but those do seem mostly for kids, plus you have to pay for most of the crafts. I think the coloring is free at least, and there are a couple of nods to classic shows I found that I’ll share on another post.

Just as there are some nods to classics around the place, primarily the elevator and kitchen, but the people who want to see Dexter and Johnny and the Eds aren’t the target audience for this resort. Which is unfortunate, but the thing is, besides the fact that we’re getting old and today’s kids need their own shows, Cartoon Network has become a big deal internationally over the past decade, moreso than during their supposed heyday in the late 90′s-early 00′s. The six shows featured aren’t just picked for being the most popular, they’re all big draws overseas. We Bare Bears sells a LOT of merch in Asia and parts of Europe, even if it doesn’t seem that big of a draw stateside. Hopefully they can make this a tourist spot.

That said, I do hope that they consistently update things in the years to come. Part of the problem with the Nickelodeon Hotel over in Orlando was how stuck it was in the mid-2000′s. Sure, SpongeBob has remained a big draw over the years since, but when I visited the place around 2010 (didn’t stay, but took a tour), it was apparent that if your kids weren’t big fans of Rugrats or Jimmy Neutron, and they probably weren’t around that place until its last days, there wasn’t much reason to stay over.

I do think that Craig deserves his own themed room, and it may be time to swap out Powerpuff for it. Let’s admit that the 2016 reboot was a failure and move on. Or maybe just double down and replace the reboot designs with their classic look.

But hey, my final thoughts on the Cartoon Network Hotel? I had a lot of fun, and got the best sleep I had in ages. I’m not sure if I’d go again, though. At least unless it changes things up a little. Part of the thing is that this is really for the kids who love today’s new shows. And I do really love three of the six shows heavily featured here- four if you count the original Powerpuff. But I’m just not the right age for this place.

If you love any of these shows and/or Cartoon Network’s brand as a whole, I recommend checking this place out, but only if you’re near the area. Don’t make it a pilgrimage. Unless you have enough friends to make grouping up on the Steven Universe Dream Suite worth it.

That said, look at these Bear macrons. So damn cute, and tasty, too!

#my ramblings #cartoon network #cartoon network hotel

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ifuckinglovestvincent · 3 years

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St Vincent: “Pour a Drink, Smoke a Joint... That’s the Vibe”

Ding dong! Daddy's Home

By Johnny Davis

19/03/2021

Annie Clark, known professionally as St Vincent, picked up a guitar aged 12 after being inspired by Jimi Hendrix. During her teens she worked as a roadie and later tour manager for her aunt and uncle, the jazz duo Tuck & Patti. Originally from Oklahoma, she moved to Dallas, Texas when she was seven and later attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts for three years, before dropping out.

Clark worked as a touring musician with the Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Stevens, before releasing Marry Me, her first album as St Vincent, in 2007. By her fifth album, 2017’s Masseduction, she had become one of the most celebrated artists in music, the first solo female artist to win a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album in 20 years.

She became unlikely Daily Mail-fodder around the same time, thanks to an 18-month relationship with Cara Delevingne, and later Kristen Stewart. Her ever-changing music, dressing up-box image and head-spinning well of ideas have seen her compared to David Bowie, Kate Bush and Prince. To complete the notion of her being the "artist's artist", in 2012 she collaborated with David Byrne on the album Love This Giant.

Indeed, she is surely one of few performers today who could stand in for Kurt Cobain with what’s-left-of-Nirvana, performing “Lithium” at their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, as well as cover “Controversy” at a Prince tribute concert in 2020, with such guitar-playing fireworks its author would surely have approved.

Following the glam-influenced pop of Masseduction, St Vincent has performed another stylistic handbrake turn. Complete with a new image – part-Warhol Superstar, part-Cassavetes heroine – she has mined the textures of the music she loved most as a kid: the virtuoso rock of Steely Dan, the clipped funk of Stevie Wonder and blue-eyed soul of mid-Seventies' David Bowie, on her upcoming album, Daddy’s Home.

The title refers to Clark's own father, locked up in Texas for 12 years in 2010, for money laundering in a stock manipulation scheme, one in which he and his co-conspirators cheated 17,000 investors out of £35m. It is also, in typical Clark style, a bit of saucy slang.

Back on the promotional trail, Clark Zoomed in from Los Angeles one morning recently – fully caffeinated and raring to go. “My vices?” she pondered. “Too much coffee, man…”

What question are you already bored of being asked?

There’s not one that’s popping out. There’s no question where I’m like “Oh God, if I ever hear that again, I’ll jump off a building.” I’m chill.

I mention it because prior to releasing your last record you put out a pre-recorded “press conference”, seemingly to pre-empt every inane question the media would throw at you.

It’s so funny. It didn’t really occur like that. Originally that was supposed to be a legit green screen conference. Like, “I’ll just answer these questions ‘cos when they need to have me on ‘The Morning Show’ in Belarus they can have this and put their own graphics behind it”. But then when my friend Carrie Brownstein [collaborator and Sleater-Kinney vocalist-guitarist] and I started writing it and it became very snarky. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that “Oh, that might be off-putting or intimidating to journalists” I just thought "This is silly”. So anyway… I understand.

We're curious about your dad and the American legal system.

I have had a lot of questions about that. For some reason it didn’t occur to me how much I would be answering questions about… my hilarious father!

How do you view his time in prison?

Just that life is long and people are complicated. And that, luckily, there’s a chance for redemption or reconciliation, even after a really crazy traumatic time. And also anybody that has any experience with the American justice system will know this... nobody comes out unscathed.

You recently presented an online MasterClass: "St. Vincent Teaches Creativity & Songwriting". One of the takeaways: “All you need are ears and ideas, and you can make anything happen”. Who’s had the best ideas in music?

Well, you’ve got to give credit to people who were genuinely creating a new style – like if you think of Charlie Parker, arguably he created a new style. This hard bop that was just absolutely impossible to play. It was, like, “Check me out – try to copy me!” So, that’s interesting. I think Brian Eno, for sure, has some great ideas about music – and obviously has made some of the best music. Joni Mitchell – completely singular. I mean: think about that. There are some people who are actually inimitable – like, you couldn’t possibly even try to imitate them.

It’s a brave soul who covers a Joni Mitchell song. Although, apologies if you actually have.

No, I have not. And there’s a reason why not. Come on – Bowie. Bowie never repeated himself. David Byrne also didn’t repeat himself. He took all of his influences of classic songs and the disco that was happening at the time, and the potpourri of downtown New York music from the mid- to late Seventies… and synthesised it into this completely new, other thing. I mean, that’s impressive. Those are the ones we remember.

How hard is it not to repeat yourself?

It’s whether people have the Narcissus thing or not. Like, it’s always got to be a balance where you’re, like, “Well, I need to believe in myself to make something and be liberated. But I can’t look at that pond of my previous work and go ‘Oh you! You’re gorgeous!’” So I don’t go back and listen to things I’ve done. I finished Daddy’s Home in the fall and it was, like, “This is done” and it felt great. I loved the record and it was so fun to make. But what I did immediately afterwards was to write something completely different. But then I don’t know, ‘cos there are people who do the thing that they do just great. And you just want to hear more songs, in the style of the thing that they do great.

Right. No one wants an experimental Ramones album.

Exactly. Or, like, or a Tom Petty record. I don’t want a tone poem from Tom Petty! I want a perfectly constructed, perfectly written completely singalongable three-chord song.

The new album has a very “live” Seventies feel. I’d read that some of the tracks are first takes. Can that be right? It all sounds very complicated.

That’s not right. I should say [rock voice] "Yeah, that’s right, we just jammed…" But, you know, I’ll be honest. There are some vocal takes in there that are first takes. But it really is just the sound of people playing. We get good drum takes. And good bass takes. And I play a bunch of guitar and sitar-guitar. And it’s the sound of a moment in time, certainly. And way more about looseness and groove and feel and vibe than anything else [I’ve done before].

Amazing live albums, virtuoso playing, jamming – those were staples of Seventies music. Have we lost some of that?

I mean, I can wax poetic on that idea for a minute. In the Seventies you had this tremendous sophistication in popular music. Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan and funk and soul and jazz and rock…. and all of the things rolled into one. That was tremendously sophisticated. It just was. There was harmony, there were chord progressions.

What else from that decade appealed to you for Daddy’s Home?

It reminds me of where we are now, I think. So, 1971-1976 in downtown New York, you’ve got the Summer of Love thing and flower children and all the hippy stuff and it’s, like, “Oh yeah, that didn’t work out that well. We’re still in Vietnam. There’s a crazy economic crisis, all kinds of social unrest”. People stood in the proverbial burned-out building. And it reminds me a lot of where we are today, in terms of social unrest, economic uncertainty. A groundswell wanting change... but where that’s headed is yet to be seen. We haven’t fully figured that out. We’re all picking up pieces of the rubble and going “Okay, what do we do with this one? Where do we go with that one?” Being a student of history, that was one of the reasons why I was drawn to that period in history.

Also: that’s the music I’ve listened to more than anything in my entire life. I mean, I was probably the youngest Steely Dan fan. It didn’t make me that popular at sleepovers. People were, like, “I want to listen to C+C Music Factory” and I was, like, “Yeah, but have you heard this solo on [Steely Dan’s] ‘Kid Charlemagne’”? That music is so in me. It’s so in my ears and I feel like I never really went there [making music before]. And I didn’t want to be a tourist about it. It’s just that particular style had a whole lot to teach me. So I wanted to just dig in and find out. Just play with it.

Is there a style of music you don’t like?

That I don’t like?

You're a jazz fan...

I love jazz. Are you kidding me? I was that annoying 14-year-old who was, like, “Yeah, but have you listened to Oliver Nelson’s The Blues and the Abstract Truth?”

That does sound quite precocious for a 14-year-old.

It’s annoying. Just insufferable. [Thinking aloud] What music don’t I like….? Here’s what can happen. And I feel like it’s similar to when an actor has some lines in a script and they’re not very good – not very well-written – so they overcompensate by making it very dramatic and really overplaying it. I would say that is a style of music that I don’t really like. Where somebody has to really oversell it and it all feels… athletic. Instead of musical or touching.

Did you put your lockdown time to constructive use?

If you need any mediocre home renovations done, I’m your girl. It was fun. I did – let’s see now – plumbing, electrical, painting. Luckily there’s YouTube, so you can more or less figure it all out. I did a lot of that stuff and I have to say it was such a nice contrast to working on music all day. Because when you’re working on music you have to create the construct of everything. You’re, like, “I need to make this song. But what is this song?” Everything is this kind of elusive castle in the sky thing. But then, if you go and sand a deck, you’ve done something. It feels really good. And it’s not, like, “What is a deck? And who am I?” You’re just, like, “This is a task and I get to do it and I can see how the mechanism works I understand it it’s not esoteric – it’s simply mechanical". I can do something mechanical. I loved it.

Which bit of DIY are you most pleased with?

Painting the kitchen cabinets. That’s a real job. We’re talking sanding. We’re talking taking things off hinges. We’re talking multiple coats. The whole lacquer-y thing at the end. That. I’m, like, “That looks pretty pro”.

What colour did you go for?

Oh, you know, it’s just a sort of… teal. But classy teal.

Of course.

Yeah. The wallpapering wasn’t as successful. But, you know, that’s fine. So that was really fun. And then I also went down a history rabbit hole. I realised I had some gaps in my knowledge about the Russian Revolution and life under the Iron Curtain and the gulags and Stalin and Lenin. So, I went down that hole. And then I was like “Oh I forgot – I haven’t read any Dostoevsky”. So I have been working on his short stories – which are great. And then Solzhenitsyn I really liked – I mean liked is a strange word to use for The Gulag Archipelago. I read Cancer Ward… All of them. I recommend all of it. And then, before that, it was a big Stasi kick. I can’t remember the last time I had time to brush up on the Russian Revolution.

There’s a lyric on “The Laughing Man”, “If life’s a joke… then I’m dying laughing”. It’s also on your new merchandise. What do you think happens when we die?

Nothing.

This is it?

Yeah. I mean, I understand that it would be comforting to think otherwise. That there might be a special place. It would be nice! The thought’s never really been able to stick for me. I would say that we are made of carbon and then we get subsumed back into the Earth and then eventually we become life again – in the carbon part of our makeup.

Well, that sounds better than an endless void.

I don’t think it would be an endless void.

In what ways are you like your mum and dad?

Let’s see. Well, my mother is a precious angel who has unwavering optimism. She is incredibly intelligent and also very nonjudgmental and able and happy to explore all kinds of possibilities. Saying that, though… it’s sounding not like me at all. I’m like my father in that I think we have very similar tastes in books, films, music and a very similar sense of humour. My mother’s so kind that it’s hard for me to… Her level of kindness and decency is aspirational to me.

How famous are you, on a scale of one to 10?

God, I mean, like, “TikTok Famous” probably a one, right? I’m gonna say – I don’t know about the number system – but I’m going to say I-occasionally-get-a-free-appetiser-sent-over famous. Which is a great place to be.

What do you look for in a date?

It’s been so long since I’ve been on a date. You know, I once read something, it might have been something cheesy on a card, but [it was]: if you don’t like someone, then the way they hold their fork will bother you. But, if you like someone – or love someone – they could spill an entire plate of spaghetti on your lap and you wouldn’t mind.

You play a zillion instruments. What’s the hardest instrument to play?

Well, I can’t play horns or anything like that. The French horn is supposed to be really hard. I don’t like to blag… but I’m an incredible whistler. Like, I can whistle Bach.

Is Bach a particularly tough whistle?

I think… yeah. It’s fast. And noodly.

What’s the first thing you’re going to do when we're out of lockdown?

I’m gonna get a manicure and a pedicure and a massage. Massage from a stranger. Any stranger.

What about a night on the tiles?

I will probably attend a dinner party.

That sounds quite restrained.

It sounds hella boring. Sorry.

Clubbing?

No, I don’t really go to clubs. I think in order to go to clubs you have to be a person who likes to publicly dance. And I don’t publicly dance. I mean I would feel too shy to dance at a wedding. But for some reason I will dance on stage in front of 10,000 people.

That’s why alcohol was invented.

Exactly! But I swear I would reach the point of alcohol sickness before I would be drunk enough to dance.

The effects of drugs on creativity: discuss.

Unreliable. Really unreliable. Sometimes after a day’s work in the studio you’re like, "I’m gonna have shot of tequila and then sing this a few more times, and then play". It’s okay but you peak sort-of quickly. You can’t sustain the level without getting tired. And then I would say that weed just makes me paranoid and useless. Every once in a while some combo of psychedelics can get you someplace. But, for the most part, you either come back to [the work] the next day and you’re, like, “This is garbage” or you get sleepy or hungry or distracted and you’re not really doing anything. I’ve never had opiates. Or coke or whatever. So I don’t know. I can’t speak to that. But with the slightly more G-Rated [American movie classification: All Ages Permitted] thing, it doesn’t really help.

What do you have too many of in your wardrobe?

I’m not a hoarder. I tend to have one thing that I get really obsessed with and then I wear it every day. Some people, having a whole lot of things gives them a sense of safety and security. It gives me anxiety. I can’t think if there’s too much visual noise. If there was a uniform that I could wear every day I would absolutely do that. And at certain times I have.

Like Steve Jobs?

Or, oh God, what’s her name? The Theranos lady… Elizabeth Holmes!

The blood-test-scam lady?

Well, I guess it was unclear how much of it was self-delusion and how much of it was, you know, actual fraud.

Another black turtleneck fan.

And – again, this is unconfirmed – she also adopted a very low voice like this in order to be taken seriously as a CEO.

Like Margaret Thatcher.

Did she have a low voice?

She made hers “less shrill”.

Oh yes. Yes!

What movie makes you cry?

The Lives of Others

That’s a good one.

Right. I rewatched that during my Stasi kick.

I’ll be honest, your lockdown sounds even less fun than everyone else’s.

I mean… Look, I had to educate myself. I went to a music college [Berklee College of Music] where I tried to take the philosophy class and the way that they would talk about it… it was taught by this professor who was from one of the neighbouring colleges in Boston. And it was very clear that he really disliked having to talk Kierkegaard to a bunch of music school kids. He was just so bummed by it. I’m trying to learn, “What’s the deal with Kant?” and he felt he had to explain everything only in musical terms [because he assumed it would be the only thing music students could relate to]. Like, “Well, you know, it’s like when Bob Marley…" I’m, like, “No, no, no! I don’t want that!” So I had to educate myself. This is where its led me.

Where should we ideally listen to Daddy’s Home?

Put it on a turntable. Pour yourself a glass of tequila or bourbon – whatever your favourite hooch is – and smoke a joint and listen to it. I think that’s the vibe.

Daddy’s Home is released on May 14

#have u covered Joni mitchell? Annie clarkson: ‘I have not’#OKAY MA’AM WHATEVER U SaY MA’am #st vincent #annie clark #interviews #marfa was a dream #Apparently #and that one time she posted her singing jm in the car #also that time at Newport folk festival with doveman #‘maybe that’s her shtick this time around’#’to be full of shit?’#’yah’#that’s hot

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In a never-before-published 2012 interview, Harry Styles and Niall Horan talk about their childhoods, the future of One Direction, and much more

In the spring of 2012, I spent a few entertaining days hanging out with the five young members of a British boy band who were just breaking big in the United States. The guys from One Direction were unjaded, unguarded, totally charming, and a puppy pile of optimism and energy. On April 8th, in a New York City hotel room, an 18-year-old Harry Styles and 16-year-old Niall Horan sat down with me for a joint interview, published here for the first time. (The reporting was intended for a Rolling Stone cover story that never ran.)

It was late morning, and they had both just rolled out of bed. Styles wore a hotel bathrobe; Horan, with braces still on his teeth, was in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a Dallas Mavericks hat a fan had given him during a recent trip to Texas. The conversation was casual, full of laughs, and focused on their formative years.

What did you do at the gym last night? Harry: One of our security guys, his friend’s over, he’s a personal trainer, so I was working with him, and he ripped me to shreds.

In 12 hours, you have to do Saturday Night Live. Are you ready? Harry: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s going to be a fun day. It’s just really exciting, obviously. The show is so huge. For us to get the opportunity to be on it at all was just amazing, and to us, to be performing and just be involved with the show is amazing.

Have you seen whole episodes of it? Harry: I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube. They don’t show it in the U.K.

Growing up, when did you realize you could sing or that you wanted to sing? Harry: I sang in primary school, like the school productions, plays and stuff.

What was your first one? Harry: The first one was…I was five, and there was a story about a mouse who lived in a church, and I was Barney, the mouse. I had to wear my sister’s tights, and a headband with ears on it, and I had to sing a song all by myself. I remember it was just like, whatever…in the second, I was Buzz Lightyear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, so you know when they run and hide in the toy shop? Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop, so they just created my character. The last one, I was in…you know Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? I was the pharaoh, but I was an Elvis pharaoh.

Did you have a sense that this is what you wanted to do in your life? Harry: I think in school, I was OK, I wasn’t a bad student. I think I just knew I wanted to entertain people and stuff. I was a bit of an attention-seeker at school.

Niall: Me, too. I just talked too much, sang too much.

You were onstage as a kid and were like, “This is what I like”? Harry: I knew it was fun, I had a lot of fun doing it, and I stopped when I started high school, and then I didn’t really do anything, I just sang at home, in the shower, in your bedroom, that type of thing. I guess it started again when my friends were in a band and they wanted to do this battle of the bands competition that was at school, and they needed a singer, and one of my friends asked me.

What did you sing? Harry: We sang “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and “Summer of ’69.” We did it more towards the Bowling For Soup version.

How about you, Niall? Niall: I always knew I wanted to sing. I was academic…I was one of those people that if I’m not interested in something, I don’t really care. If I’m not interested in school, I would have never trained or done my homework or anything, I’d have just gone outside and played football or whatever.

Harry: [helpfully translating] Soccer.

Niall: So I always wanted to sing. I was singing here and there, not gigs or anything, but I always sang around the house or whatever, and I played Oliver in a school play. And then I just did that, and people told me I should do something…I was only 10, what could I do at 10? I just did a couple of gigs, and when I got to high school, they told me that I should just try out for The X-Factor.

Who told you? Niall: My French teacher. We used to do talent shows and stuff at school, she was like, “You should do it,” so I did it.

What did that entail? What were the steps from being a kid in high school to getting on the show? Niall: It was the final of The X-Factor the year before, and at the end credits of the final, it says, “If you want to apply for 2010, go online,” so a couple of weeks later, I said, “Right, I’m going to do it,” and I filled in the form online, we were sending emails back and forth, going to this place at this time. The first one is at a big stadium, then if you get through that, you come back the next day. Is that the way they did it with you?

Harry: I had to wait a little bit, I think.

Niall: I was there at five a.m., I got seen at 12, and I was out of there by quarter past 12, and the next day I came back at 10 in the morning. You get through the first round, then they do a round where they don’t tell you if you got through after that.

Harry: They film it.

Niall: The producer and someone from the label. They film it and show it to whoever. Then if you got through that, it takes about two or three weeks until you find out. I was in Spain. Then you just go through the audition.

Harry, how did you wind up on X-Factor? Harry: I basically said, the same as Niall, I was watching the year before, and I remember looking at the young guys on there, and I was kind of like, “I’d love to have a go at it just to see what happens,” and that was kind of it. My mum actually did the application, and then three weeks later, I walked upstairs and she said, “Oh, you’ve got your X-Factor audition Sunday,” and I was like, “OK.”

Niall: In England, it’s the biggest thing ever. It took a while to build.

Harry: The two or three years were steady, and third or fourth, it just blew up.

Niall: It works that one in three people in the UK watch it. There’s 60 million people in the UK, and 21 million people watched the final the year we were in it.

Harry, your band also played at least one wedding right? Harry: Yeah. We actually said that we’d do the wedding gig, and…

Niall: You get paid for it?

Harry: Yeah. 160 quid, between all four of us. 40 quid each…we said we’d do it, and then we found out it was the weekend coming up, and we hadn’t done anything for it, so we asked the bride what kind of stuff she wanted, and she said she didn’t mind, but she wanted some Bob Marley songs. Literally in three days, not even three, probably two days, we learned like 25 songs. We might have known like three of them before. I was 16, maybe 15, singing these Bob Marley songs. There was a girl a couple of years below us, and it was her mum, she said she wanted us to play.

Niall: Can you imagine you’re at a wedding and you have 16-year-old kids up on the stage?

Maybe you were really good! Harry: Yeah, the drummer is one of my best friends from school, he’s a sick drummer, he’s so good.

Did you think the band could be something? Harry: A bit. My friend’s mum was a radio presenter, and she did a radio show for a bit, so she was trying to sort us out a little bit of studio time, we were going to go in and record.

What do your parents do? Harry: My mum is a PA. My dad is a financial adviser.

How about you? Niall: My dad works at a supermarket, he’s the head manager, general manager of an area, not just one, and my mum is unemployed now, so I try to help them out whenever I can.

You probably can. That must be nice. Niall: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s good.

Plus, now you can tell them what to do. Harry: [laughs] “Now you go to bed.”

Were you happy as kids? Did you have adolescent angst and stuff? Did you go through depressed periods? Harry: Not really. I think at one point, I started acting like I was…I had a phase of listening to really heavy music.

Niall: I never went through that.

Harry: Not stupid heavy, but a bit… just because I thought it was cool.

Like what? Harry: Like Nirvana T-shirts, wore black all the time, pretty much.

Were you pretty happy go-lucky? Niall: Yeah, I was always happy. I think me and Harry were lucky. Our parents got divorced quite early, didn’t they, when we were really young. I was four, I didn’t know much, so I was always a happy kid, always up for a laugh, very carefree, and I’m a bit like that now.

Did you both grow up in your moms’ houses? Harry: Yeah.

Niall: I went between both, my mum moved to the country and I didn’t have any interest in it. I always felt like the country is for when you’re older. I was with my mom for a while but got bored, all my friends were in town, I went to school in town and all that stuff. It was more like that.

Harry: I lived with both parents, and then moved with my mum, and we owned a pub for like five years. I remember the first night, it was like a night where a band was playing, and I just thought, “How am I going to get to sleep?” I was three stories up, I was like, “How am I going to get to sleep with this noise?” I was next to a road in Sussex in the middle of nowhere, and by the end, I could fall asleep next to the band, I was so used to the noise.

Was it imprinting your brain? Harry: Maybe. One of the guys who used to play every so often, he used to be in Deep Purple or something… He started teaching me guitar when I was like 10, I think 10, maybe nine. I loved it. I was 10, 11, all of the regulars, I got on with them. I’d walk behind the bar and my head would barely go over the bar. It’s still going now. We sold it to my best friend, we go in all the time still.

People say you come off as more mature than your age, you come off wiser. Did hanging around all those people as a kid help you mature?

Harry: I don’t know, maybe. I moved when I was seven or eight from Cheshire, and it was still Cheshire, but half an hour away, but in terms of not driving and stuff, all my friends lived near my school, so that was a bit further out. One of my friends there was my sister’s age, he was 16 when I was 10. It was so tiny, they were the only teenage boys…we’d ride our bikes and go to the driving range and stuff. It was good, it was fun.

You both wanted to entertain – if it hadn’t worked out, would you have been really unhappy? Harry: Yeah, I think it would be kind of like…one of the reasons you go for X-Factor in the first place is that you want to do this, and it kind of helps you get out of the life that you were doing before. I worked in a bakery for two years. Obviously, I didn’t want to do that for ages!

If you’d asked people at school, would they have said, “Yeah, they’re probably going to be famous,” or would they never have guessed that? Niall: My aunt, I was in the back of her car. We used to go across Ireland to go to the beach for a couple of weeks, and I remember we were in the car, I was singing, and she thought I was the radio, and she told me, I never forgot it, that she thought I was going to be famous since I was six, seven. She was the only person who told me that, so I always remembered that.

Harry: My dad said it. I used to listen to a lot of the music he was playing, he’d play Elvis Presley to death, the Stones, I’d sing along to that and he’d say, “You’re going to be famous,” or whatever. He came on tour with us for a few days out here, he came to the Radio City show. He just said, for him, it was so educational. Obviously, he hears about what happens when I call him, but to see it and see it actually happen and how everything works was so good for him, he really enjoyed it. So that was nice.

So you grew up on Elvis and the Stones? Harry: Yeah, pretty much. My dad was a massive Stones fan, so it was pretty much Beatles and Stones in terms of what my dad played.

People say you kind of look like Mick.

Niall: He gets that a lot.

Harry: I get it more here, probably, than I do at home. It’s because of the British thing.

What have you learned about life from the last few years, what didn’t you know? What advice would you give yourself? Niall: How much more independent we actually are – me, anyway. Your mum attends to your every need and does your food and washing and gives you somewhere to live. Then you go into the real world, as you’re told as a kid…

Harry: We’re living on our own now.

Niall: We just started living on our own in the last six months, really.

Harry: I’m moving when I get back.

Niall: We do our own washing, we make our own food, we rent places, we’re out on our own now. You mature so quick, you’re dealing with big businessmen every day, you’re not dealing with school, people your own age. It’s a bit different.

Harry: You seem to learn so many life lessons, but in such a short space of time. If I speak to my friends and they’re having problems with girls, whatever it is, now I seem to just have the answer. I don’t know, it’s just different. Or I think I have the answer. In terms of…one of my friends was trying to decide what to do with school, stuff like that, and I would have had no idea what to say to him before.

The last two years must feel like 10. Harry: Yeah, but at the same time, it feels like six months, it’s weird. X-Factor was two years ago, but it seems like five years ago, but at the same time, it’s gone so quick. It’s a really strange dynamic of how it feels.

Do you have a sense of how this is going to go? Does it matter if it’s two years, five years or forever? Harry: I think how much we all enjoy it, because we love what we do – if you have to call it a job, it’s an incredible job to have, and we love it. We’ll all want to do it for as long as possible. If we have the opportunity to have a Take That kind of career, I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t want to do that. If we don’t, I don’t know…we’ve done some amazing things already, but we don’t want to stop there, we want to keep going. I guess if we didn’t, I think we’d probably want to still be involved in…I’d just write, I guess.

Do you want to act? It feels like you could have your own TV show. Harry: I think it would be more of a documentary, because obviously, we’re not actors.

People must want you to try. Niall: Watch tonight, tell us what you think. Watch SNL.

Will you all make solo albums? Is that inevitable? Harry: No, I don’t think so.

Niall: Let’s do a swing album!

Harry: [laughs] We’ll all do swing albums. We’re just so focused on this, we all feel so lucky just to be part of this opportunity that we’ve all been given, it’s incredible, we’re just loving it. It’s sick.

People make a lot of assumptions about people in your position. They think you’re puppets and do what you’re told. What do you do when people make those assumptions? Harry: When you look from the outside, especially if you’re a skeptic of groups made through TV shows, which is fair enough, people don’t see what we do on a daily basis, people don’t see…I think from the outside, it looks so glamorous, they see us do TV performances every now and again, see us doing an interview every now and again, but they don’t know that we work seven days a week.

Niall: If there was eight days, we’d fit it in.

Harry: It’s not as completely glamorous all the time, of course it’s not, it would be stupid to think that it would be, but it’s hard work.

Niall: You’ve got to remember that you’ve got people on your team that have been doing this for many years and have been through the mill. You have all that experience around you, even from our tour manager, who’s been doing this for 20 years, they know what’s right, but at the same time, we want to have creative control, because at the end of the day, it’s us stepping out onto the stage of SNL tonight and have to sing these songs. We want to be singing what we enjoy, as we said last night. The music we all listen to is what we try and blend together to make this One Direction sound.

Harry: We obviously want to make it authentic and have our say without going, “People say we don’t control it, so we need to take control.” We’re not…we haven’t been writing songs for 20 years, we’re not producers. We’ve got an incredible team around us. Luckily, we’ve been given a lot of freedom, so we don’t go, “OK, we just need more and more control,” because we have a lot of control already. I think we find a really good balance in the way we work with our record label and our management, and it’s just how we work together, I think.

In any case, it’s probably better than the bakery. Harry: Yeah. But I don’t get a nice bun on my break anymore, that’s the thing.

Did you wear an apron? Harry: Oh yeah, I wore a white polo shirt and a maroon apron with white stripes. “What would you like? 78 pence, thank you very much.”

Were you behind the counter? Harry: Yeah, I was behind the counter. It was good. It was Saturday morning, I started at five and finished at four in the afternoon and got like 30 quid, it was a joke.

Niall, did you have a job? Niall: No, never.

So this is your first job. Niall: Yeah, not bad at all. I was chilling, I was being a kid.

Harry: I had a paper route before that. It gave me a bad back, bad posture. It was a heavy bag.

I interviewed some fans downstairs, and asked if they knew who you were six months ago, and they all said yes, and a year ago…They were all early adopters, heard you from the Internet, watched X Factor on YouTube… Harry: It’s the internet. People have friends over here that might tell their friends and look on YouTube and show their friends. It’s insane how it’s blown up. We’ve had the opportunity to come over to America and do shows, and release our music over here, which is amazing. Through the power of social media, we already had a bit of a following before we’d ever been over here, we hadn’t done any shows. We had some fans out here, which was amazing, but weird, really strange. I don’t know, it’s gone crazy. We don’t really see loads of it. We do the shows, then we’re in hotels, then we fly somewhere else. We don’t see massive amounts of it, we just go with it. This whole thing has gone on, and it’s sick.

Do you ever feel anxious through all this? Harry: Yeah, I think, obviously, just naturally, you think about what’s going to happen in the future. We’re 18, 19, 20 years old, we’re young. I wouldn’t say anxious, we’re just excited most of the time, and having so much fun, that if stuff were to finish and you were to look back on your time and all you did the whole time throughout this amazing stuff was shitting yourself about what’s going to happen next, then it would just be…I think you have to enjoy it while it’s going on. I think you should be wary about the future, but not worrying about it all the time. We still enjoy it and have fun, but obviously, you do think, “What am I going to be doing in 20 years, 30 year?” I’ll have kids by then.

Harry, I saw a tabloid with pictures of everyone smiling, and you were looking thoughtful. Do you get down sometimes? While everyone else is having fun, do you start drifting off? Harry: No, I think I’m naturally…not everyone is happy all of the time. I think you always have times when…like when you’ve just landed off a really long flight or miss home or something. They got a picture of me where I wasn’t smiling. I usually smile, but they got one where I wasn’t smiling and used that, and then said I wasn’t happy. They did that for a few days, that’s when we were in L.A. last time. It goes with the morbid voice.

Ringo would say, “It’s just me face.” Niall: “Who’s that little old man?” [quoting Hard Day’s Night]

Harry: “That’s Paul’s grandfather. He’s very clean.”

Sometimes you can drift off, that’s just your thing. Harry: [laughs] I’m just soulful, man, I try.

Harry, do you mind when you’re singled out for attention? Harry: I don’t know. I don’t really…I don’t know. We’re a band. Everything we do is together. I don’t take much notice of it.

So you’re not the Justin. Harry: No.

Niall: J.C. was popular, too, wasn’t he?

It’s not like that for you guys. Harry: Not at all.

There was an imbalance in that group. Harry: I think we find it important that people get to know all of our individual personalities, because…

Niall: I think that’s what’s good about it, people see us as individuals as well as a band, we all have our own personality, and we all give something to a band. Previous bands, they go around and can never explain themselves, they can explain the band, but as individuals, what we bring to the band and stuff…

Harry: We all know that we all have our roles, and we all know that without one of us, it wouldn’t work.

#harry styles #niall horan #one direction #230720 #1d ten

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klaineownsmysoul · 3 years

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Well that fun little concert made my Saturday. What a great way to connect (as much as we can nowadays) with fans and raise money for some very worthy causes. That’s the kind of person he is and why I am still here supporting him after 10 years. So many great moments; in no particular order, here are some of mine:

The fact that he wanted to do something special to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Blaine Warbler becoming a part of his life and that for some of us (like me) it was our introduction to him

Even if he can’t remember all of the details about the show like some of us (cough cough you sang Everybody Wants to Rule the World in episode 4x03 “Makeover” and had on a white polo and dark pants cough cough), its obvious that his time on Glee meant a lot to him and he knows that it mattered to the fans

2 guitars because of course he needs 2 guitars

The Not Alone t-shirt which I have in my closet

The banner from the back of his set chair with Glee on one side and his name on the other - I thought it might have been a blanket or something until he pulled it off the couch and it turned out to be better than that

The irony of his referring to himself pre-Glee as a human jukebox when that seemed to be the extent of Blaine’s storyline a lot of time during the last few seasons because they knew his songs would sell and the writers were too lazy to come up with any kind of consistency for his character

Harry Freaking Potter

A binder full of songs and his little sign with his name on it

A treasure trove of bts videos - his audition speech to Kurt from NBK, belting out Baby One More Time like he’s got that blazer on already, the absolute GOLD of that Warbler rehearsal video - and his not being at all hesitant to share those with us

Choosing a few of the more emotional Blaine songs to sing:

Against All Odds (one of my very favorite songs covered by one of my very favorite people and I’m sorry but its Klaine FTW on that one)

Cough Syrup - one of his best solos

Somewhere Only We Know - good lord almighty that was absolutely gorgeous

He makes it all look so easy which is what the good performers do

THE BLAZER which somehow still fits him like its 2010 and he looks just as good in it as he did turning around at the bottom of the staircase of dreams

The “Darren wants” tag clipped to it because oh my god YES

If he kept nothing else, he had to keep a blazer, preferably one he wore

And he cannot EVER EVER EVER sell it

Teenage Dream - the song that changed everything for him that still means so much. Darren having a concert and not performing that would be like seeing Madonna and not hearing Like a Virgin. The stripped down version from the show that he arranged still haunts me and is something I can’t listen to but I will never tire of watching him perform the song

The fact that he thought enough about how he would have wanted Blaine’s musical story with Kurt to end that he had a song in mind, proving he put more effort into a hypothetical song choice than the writers did at any point in season 6 - and it was an absolutely gorgeous and perfect song to boot

His enthusiasm for things he loves is unbridled and so engaging; I could listen to him talk about music and songwriting for days on end and never get bored

His fantastic on the spot songs created for the names of people who donated - so perfectly Darren

He’s so genuine and intelligent and it comes through so clearly when he can just let go and be himself and its one of the most attractive things about him. $10 for 2 hours of Darren being Darren without ever having to leave your couch is a bargain and I would happily do that again.

#darren criss #dec aid #I stan for so many reasons

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dailytomlinson · 4 years

Link

In the spring of 2012, I spent a few entertaining days hanging out with the five young members of a British boy band who were just breaking big in the United States. The guys from One Direction were unjaded, unguarded, totally charming, and a puppy pile of optimism and energy. On April 8th, in a New York City hotel room, Harry Styles and Niall Horan, both 18, sat down with me for a joint interview, published here for the first time. (The reporting was intended for a Rolling Stone cover story that never ran.)

What did you do at the gym last night? Harry: One of our security guys, his friend’s over, he’s a personal trainer, so I was working with him, and he ripped me to shreds.

Have you seen whole episodes of it?

Harry: I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube. They don’t show it in the U.K.

Growing up, when did you realize you could sing or that you wanted to sing?Harry: I sang in primary school, like the school productions, plays and stuff.

What was your first one? Harry: The first one was … I was five, and there was a story about a mouse who lived in a church, and I was Barney, the mouse. I had to wear my sister’s tights, and a headband with ears on it, and I had to sing a song all by myself. I remember it was just like, whatever.… In the second, I was Buzz Lightyear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So you know when they run and hide in the toy shop? Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop, so they just created my character. The last one, I was in … you know Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? I was the pharaoh, but I was an Elvis pharaoh.

Did you have a sense that this is what you wanted to do in your life? Harry: I think in school I was OK, I wasn’t a bad student. I think I just knew I wanted to entertain people and stuff. I was a bit of an attention-seeker at school.

Niall: Me, too. I just talked too much, sang too much.

What did you sing? Harry: We sang “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and “Summer of ’69.” We did it more towards the Bowling For Soup version.

Harry: [helpfully translating] Soccer.

Who told you? Niall: My French teacher. We used to do talent shows and stuff at school, she was like, “You should do it,” so I did it.

Harry: I had to wait a little bit, I think.

Harry: They film it.

Niall: In England, it’s the biggest thing ever. It took a while to build.

Harry: The two or three years were steady, and third or fourth, it just blew up.

Niall: It works that one in three people in the UK watch it. There’s 60 million people in the UK, and 21 million people watched the final the year we were in it.

Harry, your band also played at least one wedding right? Harry: Yeah. We actually said that we’d do the wedding gig, and…

Niall: You get paid for it?

Niall: Can you imagine you’re at a wedding and you have 16-year-old kids up on the stage?

Maybe you were really good! Harry: Yeah, the drummer is one of my best friends from school, he’s a sick drummer, he’s so good.

What do your parents do? Harry: My mum is a PA. My dad is a financial adviser.

How about you? Niall: My dad works at a supermarket, he’s the head manager, general manager of an area, not just one, and my mum is unemployed now, so I try to help them out whenever I can.

You probably can. That must be nice. Niall: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s good.

Plus, now you can tell them what to do. Harry: [laughs] “Now you go to bed.”

Niall: I never went through that.

Harry: Not stupid heavy, but a bit… just because I thought it was cool.

Like what? Harry: Like Nirvana T-shirts, wore black all the time, pretty much.

Did you both grow up in your moms’ houses? Harry: Yeah.

People say you come off as more mature than your age, you come off wiser. Did hanging around all those people as a kid help you mature?

So you grew up on Elvis and the Stones? Harry: Yeah, pretty much. My dad was a massive Stones fan, so it was pretty much Beatles and Stones in terms of what my dad played.

People say you kind of look like Mick.

Niall: He gets that a lot.

Harry: I get it more here, probably, than I do at home. It’s because of the British thing.

Harry: We’re living on our own now.

Niall: We just started living on our own in the last six months, really.

Harry: I’m moving when I get back.

Do you want to act? It feels like you could have your own TV show. Harry: I think it would be more of a documentary, because obviously, we’re not actors.

People must want you to try. Niall: Watch tonight, tell us what you think. Watch SNL.

Will you all make solo albums? Is that inevitable? Harry: No, I don’t think so.

Niall: Let’s do a swing album!

Niall: If there was eight days, we’d fit it in.

Harry: It’s not as completely glamorous all the time, of course it’s not, it would be stupid to think that it would be, but it’s hard work.

In any case, it’s probably better than the bakery. Harry: Yeah. But I don’t get a nice bun on my break anymore, that’s the thing.

Did you wear an apron? Harry: Oh yeah, I wore a white polo shirt and a maroon apron with white stripes. “What would you like? 78 pence, thank you very much.”

Were you behind the counter? Harry: Yeah, I was behind the counter. It was good. It was Saturday morning, I started at five and finished at four in the afternoon and got like 30 quid, it was a joke.

Niall, did you have a job? Niall: No, never.

So this is your first job. Niall: Yeah, not bad at all. I was chilling, I was being a kid.

Harry: I had a paper route before that. It gave me a bad back, bad posture. It was a heavy bag.

Ringo would say, “It’s just me face.” Niall: “Who’s that little old man?” [quoting Hard Day’s Night]

Harry: “That’s Paul’s grandfather. He’s very clean.”

Sometimes you can drift off, that’s just your thing. Harry: [laughs] I’m just soulful, man, I try.

Harry, do you mind when you’re singled out for attention? Harry: I don’t know. I don’t really…I don’t know. We’re a band. Everything we do is together. I don’t take much notice of it.

So you’re not the Justin. Harry: No.

Niall: J.C. was popular, too, wasn’t he?

It’s not like that for you guys. Harry: Not at all.

There was an imbalance in that group. Harry: I think we find it important that people get to know all of our individual personalities, because…

Harry: We all know that we all have our roles, and we all know that without one of us, it wouldn’t work.

#brian hiatt #rolling stone #harry styles #niall horan #press #230720 #10years1d

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eyrieofsynapses · 4 years

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First Thoughts on YJ S4 Panel

WARNING: SPOILERS for the DC Fandome YJ S4 panel!

Okay, before I start chattering away, can I just saw how much I love this title poster? Because I love it. LOOK AT IT. LOOK AT HOW BADASS IT IS.

Warning: this first bit is a teeny bit ranty, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t genuinely love the panel. It was really fun, but I have a few gripes with the amount of information we got. If you wanna cut straight to the cheery bits, check under the cut.

So... uh. I’m not gonna say I’m disappointed? Because I’m not, this was good, we got info, it was nice to see the voice actors. But I’m... underwhelmed. I definitely wasn’t expecting a lot but this was still, mm, not as much as I thought we’d get. No poster, no previews of character designs, not a peep as to when we’re getting the new season, nothing on where it’ll be streaming, nothing as to new characters, nothing as to who’s going to be the villain, and the Q&A session was maaaayyybe 3 minutes long. Oof, guys. Thought you said you’d leave us with something that’d leave us “more than just ‘whelmed.’”

Essentially all we got was the title, and a few snippets of information regarding what the current status of the Team and its characters is. They didn’t really get the chance to talk to us at all about the actual season, either- I think Brandon spoke maaaybe three or four times? He got the title reveal, but, well, we knew that already, not that it’s their fault, but still. I love hearing the voice actors chat about their experiences and we got none of that, so that was disappointing. I’m wondering if there wasn’t some material cut, actually, because I distinctly recall seeing a clip on Twitter with Phil Lamarr talking about what it was like returning to the show, and it wasn’t in this. So what’s the deal, DC? Short-changing us on YJ again? When are we gonna get some actual news?

There is the little problem that their big reveal of the title was spoiled, oh, maybe three or four months ago, and that isn’t their fault, but it does make that revelation more of an “okay, well, glad that’s confirmed” rather than an “OH MY GODS IT’S PHANTOMS WHAAAAAAAT” like I think they were hoping. Still, that’s definitely exciting to hear, and the new title poster looks cool.

I got a “WHAT!!!” moment maaayybe three times, which is significantly less than I thought I would. There just wasn’t that much new info. But I think that’s less of a Grandon/production team problem and more of a world state and DC problem. I’m not annoyed at them, I’m annoyed at DC and at the pandemic, because I’m willing to bet their snippet was cut short by DC and what information they could’ve revealed just isn’t ready yet because of current events. Probably we would’ve gotten character designs if it weren’t for that.

As for the audio play, it was pretty good. They were definitely struggling what with having a distinct lack of people to pull from for a voice cast, but made some tongue-in-cheek references to it to take off the edge. I don’t think I realized just how many people voice for YJ until now... or how many characters each actor does. It’s a bit janky, and weird what with the arguing over who’s narrating the story (why, are they telling us the story, or are they telling it to someone else? Are you breaking the fourth wall, are you not? Make yourselves clear) but I’m blaming that on the fact that they’re more used to scripts than they are audio plays. These are different mediums, so there’s an inherent gap there; this probably would’ve gone better as an actual episode.

So, FIRST watch-through, here’s my HAPPY cheery thoughts and reactions, in no particular order! I might do a second one later, we’ll see. (Under the cut, because it’s long.)

Return of Bowhunter Security!

Clipboard makes a comeback!

The Supermartian marriage has taken place and they’re making reference to taking a long journey with Conner, M’gann, Bioship, Gar and J’onn. So... Mars? Do we finally get to see Mars?

Forager gets to be sassy! And a hilarious narrator! Which, c’mon, it’s Jason Spisak, honestly, I don’t know what I expected.

Ahahah, Jason makes the most delightful faces when he’s voicing Forager. (And a few flubs, but he’s good at covering them.) We all miss Wally, but man, he does a good job with this character. Also, hey, that’s how he does the clicks!

Rocket! Even though she had a relatively minimal presence, sigh. I’m hoping they build her character more this time, she always get short-changed.

ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM, repeat, ARTEMIS IS LEADING THE TEAM!!! YES!!!

And she also makes a reference at some point to being in this fight for ten years, which, HMM, do I hear a reference point for our time jump? They started back in 2010, so this implies that the season’s caught up to 2020. So... season one was 2010, season two was 2016, season three was... 2018, I think? So does this make the next time jump two years too, or am I off? It also takes place on February 23rd. Eh, either way, it’s absolutely not as long as a lot of people were fearing- heck, I’m thinking this might be the shortest jump yet. Yay!

I’m not sure if the Snapper Carr dialogue is cringy or hilarious. I’m going with hilarious because I’m betting this would’ve been great if it were animated. It definitely loses something without the animation.

Is... is Crispin Freeman playing four characters? Five? Will, Roy, Jim, Captain Boomerang... I think I’m missing someone, I’m gonna have to go back and rewatch this later, but wow. He switches between them so fluidly, too, that’s impressive.

Forget Freeman for a hot second, Nolan North, what are you doing, dude? Conner, Clayface, Mallah, at least one or two others, with a LOT of animal noises included... wow, okay. I definitely didn’t realize how many of these guys do two or three characters.

Phil Lamarr doing Brick, Black Manta and Kaldur all at once is definitely impressive. I’m gonna take a guess and say he likes doing Brick best. He seems to get a little grin sometimes when he’s playing the character.

Ahhh, Danica McKellar definitely likes playing Terrence Terror. Don’t ask me why, I’m just getting that feeling watching her. Villains are fun to play.

...Wolf? Where’s Wolf? Uhh, guys? Where’s our fluffy doggo? Don’t tell anyone but I’m scared.

Oooookay, that was unexpectedly gruesome. Dehydrating a man into sand? I mean, okay, it’s Clayface, but we didn’t know that till later. Eeeewww. Y’all, ik you’re going more dark, but that wasn’t an image anyone needed.

Jokes about Dadbod!Will are... hhh, cringy or funny, cringy or funny... I’m going sorta funny for now. Not enough to make me laugh, but enough to make me smile.

Okay, Will’s definitely still hilarious. Literally that entire scenario with Captain Boomerang was amazing, and only made better by the fact that it was entirely Crispin Freeman. The “are you the Green Arrow fanclub president or something?” “...you have no idea” moment, the “boomerangs are better and Batman said so!” “...okay, FINE,” FLINGING CLIPBOARD, Boomerang teasing Will for his dadbod and Will answering with a wicked uppercut... ah, man. This is 100% Roy/Will Harper and I am here for it.

I can see some people disliking this humor, but personally, I’m gonna just sit back and enjoy it. YJ has some quirky humor, but honestly, if you’re part of the fandom and you don’t like it, why are you even here?

Huh, Raquel’s a vegan and nobody’s making jokes about vegan burgers? Nice!

Oh, my gods, Forager deciding that Lian and Amistad playing with the food is an educational activity is AMAZING, 100% in character, and something I really, really want to see.

(Fanartists? Fanartists, pleeeeaaasse?)

Will and Artemis ribbing each other will never get old.

...wait. Hang on. Is Will the comedic relief character now along with Forager? Is this a thing? I guess it is. If you’d asked me who out of the original Team would replace Wally as the comedic relief back when I had finished the second season, I would not have thought of him first, but I think I’m good with this. It’s definitely in character to his comic version.

Ahh, Conner and M’gann’s relationship is still... interesting. Still not sure how to feel on this one. But hey, they’re married (?) now? Uh... nice?

Nightwing’s off on some mysterious mission, hmm? I’m assuming that’s because of Jesse McCartney not being there, but I think I’m gonna headcanon that there are Other reasons for this.

Yay, Clayface getting redemption! I love this in the Rebirth Batman: Detective Comics, so I’m 100% down for seeing it here.

Tim did that for Clayface! Sweet! Not a plot thread I expected to go anywhere from that one season three episode, but one I am very happy to see used.

...more secrets. Uhh, M’gann keeping secrets from Conner is... icky... again... but granted, keeping them because of confidentiality agreements is, well, a better excuse than she’s had in the past. Still, this is getting old.

Huh, so Waller will let out the Team’s secrets if they tell anyone about Belle Reve. I think this was already covered in the third season, but maybe not so explicitly. The reactions... hmm. Of course Conner’s okay with letting out all their secrets (and M’gann’s willing to... go along with that? ...okay...?), but the others, maybe not so much? Hmm. I wonder what Dick would have to say about that one. He definitely has something to lose. Not sure about Kaldur or Artemis, though.

Jason did NOT get to make any Wally references. That makes me even sadder than if he did make one that made all of us cry. C’mon, guys. Let him have his references.

I’m always a little meh on M’gann, but hey, M’gann gets to be a 100% certified badass! Saving Clayface AND taking down a ton of baddies with telekinesis, yay!

Oh, my gods. LOOPHOLES. WHAT IS WITH THIS TEAM AND LOOPHOLES. I love them so much.

The Team signing on as Bowhunter Security- oh my gods, all of the Team in fucking Bowhunter Security uniforms- oh my gods, so very in-character, so very true to YJ, so absolutely goddamn hilarious, I wanna hug whoever came up with that. That is the BEST mental image and it is a CRIME that they didn’t animate that.

And, of course, Kaldur just immediately goes along with it. The Team’s corrupted him fully now. I mean, we knew that, but he’s done now.

Black Manta attempting to roast Kaldur for his security uniform and Kaldur roasting him back 100 times worse is wonderful. “I wear my dignity on the inside, Father. Where do you wear yours?” KALLIE I LOVE YOU

Ooooo, Artemis is inviting Roy to the Team? This should be interesting. He’s definitely not totally stable, but it seems to me that Artemis should be able to more or less keep him in check. Hopefully. She had to deal with Wally for five years, surely she can keep Roy in check?

...hmm. We’re all thinking there’s gonna be a Red Hood arc... Roy’s joining the team... Roy and Jason did have that run as the Outlaws in the comics with Kory... and this version of Roy has the sort of temper and attitude that I can just see Jason possibly getting along well with... hmmmmmmmm...

Hah, villain shenanigans. Having Task Force X argue all the time is in character and admittedly sort of funny, especially as Black Manta’s sort of pulling a Kaldur and playing the absolutely exasperated denmother. I dislike BM thanks to him being a Baddie and all, but watching (listening to?) him struggle to contain them is enjoyable if only because I like watching him suffer.

Ahh, watching the VAs is fun. It’s definitely nice to see that little view behind the camera. There’s the little smiles, the tiny grimaces at the icky bits, the responses to various bits, the way their demeanor changes with each character, everyone egging Nolan on when he’s yelling for Clayface being disintegrated... I’m sad we didn’t get to see them chat, but watching them interact while they work is fun. Pity Jason and Stephanie didn’t really have any interactions, though, I bet watching them work together would’ve been fun. Ah well. Still fun overall.

There’s a lot of variation in where they are/what setups they have. Some of them seem to have proper studios, some of them don’t but they have mics, Danica’s on the lower bunk of her son’s room with what I’m betting are several sheets hung behind her, and then... well, then there’s poor Stephanie with earbuds and what I’m betting is her phone at her friend’s house XD Also, Greg’s library is really awesome, can I steal it please?

Green title card... I know people have been positing this for a while, but Lazarus Pit? Also, the thing people haven’t talked about: Mars?! Is this a nod to the Martians, since M’gann, Conner, Gar and J’onn seem to be going there?

Lots of speculation regarding Phantoms, but that’s been going around for a while, so *shrug* I’m not gonna spend any time on that for now.

Someone’s gonna have to write this out, methinks, for further examination. We’ll see if I get around to doing that or not before Fandome ends. I’m betting someone will record it and post it on YouTube, but a written-out version of the script would be useful. If I do, I’ll probably post it, so keep an eye out.

So... season 3.9, episode 1? Hmm. Does this come directly prior to the fourth season? I kinda wanna say it does.

I have more thoughts, but I think I need to do a rewatch first, maybe in a little bit. Anyway... not what I was expecting, I sincerely miss Dick and Wally, but lots of funny jokes all the same, and lots of interesting information on the fourth season even if it’s nowhere near the amount we wanted. I might be underwhelmed but I’m certainly not disappointed.

#dc fandome #dc fandome reactions #Young Justice #young justice cartoon #young justice: phantoms #phantoms #young justice season 4 #PHANTOMS IS CONFIRMED #underwhelmed but still feeling the aster #BRING WALLY BACK PLEASE #and no we're not gonna shut up about that

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 year

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I decided in the last few days to watch a whole bunch of the stand-up specials I downloaded a while ago. Already wrote a couple of posts about ones that really got to me when I saw them, but here are some of the others.

Michael Legge - Jerk (2018)

I didn’t even have that one downloaded before, I only had The Idiot, but I thought that one was so very good that I immediately got this too. Also very good. Very similar to the other one, a lot of angry shouting. A fair bit of politically-flavoured angry shouting, sometimes just general angry shouting. A bit at the end that I think I’d appreciate more if I were more familiar with David Bowie’s work, but I really liked it anyway.

Actually, I liked that in both his shows that I watched. That they both ended with a properly big finale, I enjoyed that in a comedy show. And I know it can be a bit formulaic, to spend the last few minutes doing something big and dramatic that ties in lots of stuff from earlier in the show. But some things become part of an often-used formula for a reason. I’m thinking of when I got to see Dara O’Briain live last summer, his Voice of Reason show, and throughout, he kept talking about how callbacks are really cheap tricks that trick and audience into thinking they’ve seen something better than they really have. And of course, at the end he pulled everything together and ended on about eight callbacks in a row, leaving me feeling like I’d seen something even better than I actually had (though what I actually had seen was pretty damn good with or without the ending). I like that particular cheap trick and they work on me every time.

Anyway, both the Michael Legge shows I watched did that, and it was a lot of fun to watch. I guess he has to go really big at the end, if he wants the finale to be even more memorably dramatic than the rest of the show, given that the energy level is high the entire time. It’s fucking sharp, a lot of the good political points and genuinely visceral anger being almost thrown away into the sea of ranting about everything else, which I like. There were even throughlines and themes, but he didn’t hit you over the head with them, or at least not with them specifically, because he was too busy hitting you over the head with everything else at once. He didn’t need to make an extra big deal out of any one thing, except the endings, full of callbacks and even further heightened drama, and it felt to me like he took all the best parts of the “comedy show formula” and then just did the rest his own way.

…This is probably writing way too much about a guy I knew almost nothing about a few days ago and still know almost nothing about. But it’s what I got from the two shows and I really liked them.

Danny Bhoy - Live at the Sydney Opera House (2007), Live at the Athenaeum (2009), Subject to Change (2010)

I watched these mainly because I’ve decided I want to know about everything that happened at Edinburgh Fringe Festivals in the 00s, and it’s my understanding that Danny Bhoy is quite a bit of what happened at Edinburgh Fringe Festivals in the 00s. I sometimes spend nights just clicking through YouTube clips of stand-up, and if I’m in the realms of 00s British comedy, Danny Bhoy clips always come up as recommendations. So I’d watched a bunch of those clips before, found him mildly amusing, wanted to see if there’s more too him in an hour-long set.

The answer is… not really. Not based on the three I saw, which is probably more than enough. I mean, some of it was funny. And I definitely liked him. He’s very affable even before you factor in that I will automatically like anyone more if they’ve got a Scottish accent. He seemed to be having a good time, as did the audience. It looked like fun.

It reminded me a little of when I listened to that Radio 4 stand-up showcase from 2007-2009, and one season of it was hosted by Michael McIntyre, and that made me say… Oh, I thought all those other comedians were exaggerating when they describe McIntyre’s comedy, but it turns out they were mostly spot on. It was a bit weird to hear McIntyre’s actual routines for the first time, because it was weird to hear something done unironically when I normally only hear this sort of thing if it’s being mocked by another comedian as the quintessential bland conventional comedy.

I don’t think Danny Bhoy sounded similar to Michael McIntyre, but it gave me the same feeling of thinking it’s weird to hear this done in a straightforward way, when normally I only hear comedy like this if it’s being deconstructed. I think Danny Bhoy is what you get if you look up “mainstream observational comedy” in a textbook. And like I said, some of it was funny. I’m genuinely glad everyone was having a good time. I probably didn’t need three entire hours of it, which I sat through just because I’d already downloaded three and the completist in me wouldn’t let me stop until I’d finished them.

Phil Nichol - Nearly Gay (2005), The Naked Racist (2006), Your Wrong (2021)

I downloaded these for about the same reason as Danny Bhoy – when I spend a night clicking through YouTube stand-up clips, and I start from comedians who did Edinburgh shows in the 00s so YouTube starts giving me more comedians who did Edinburgh shows in the 00s – Phil Nichol comes up plenty. Often doing his song about the Only Gay Inuit Person (I refer to it here with the same convention that I use if I ever have to talk about the first song on our sports’ team’s competition road trip playlist, which is Kanye West’s Black People in Paris), so I mainly knew him for that. I downloaded his shows a couple of months ago because I wanted to see more of this other corner of 00s Edinburgh comedy, especially since his 2006 show The Naked Racist won the Perrier Award, and I like the idea of seeing as many Perrier-winning (or whatever other name it’s had in a given year) shows I can, just for the sake of understanding comedy history. The reason I chose now to watch them, however, is I cut out that clip of him calling a radio show and it reminded me that I’ve been meaning to do that.

Well. It turns out this guy’s got bigger problems that having an outdated racial term in one of his songs, and sometimes calling into a radio show after, I’m fairly sure, doing some drugs. By the end of those three shows, those other couple of things were looking quite tame, really.

I did finish the Naked Racist one by saying… I cannot stand people who go on about comedy “couldn’t be made today”, but they did give this a Perrier in 2006, while in 2022, I’m pretty sure Jerry Sadowitz technically got cancelled for less. Though it helps that Phil Nichol wasn’t shouting racial slurs while he did it… though actually, now that I think about it, he did in fact do that a couple of times too. But never in a derogatory way. My personal view of that is I don’t think those words should be used by anyone who isn’t in the groups they describe, but if someone outside that group does use them, context should be considered when judging it. And Phil Nichol’s context was very unambiguous about being furious at actual racism, as opposed to those many comedians who use words like that while knowing full well that any audience member who holds bigoted views could take that as validation, even if the comedian later on claims they were meant ironically (which it’s my understanding is the case with Sadowitz, I don’t mean to suggest those two shows are literally equivalent and obviously I haven’t even seen the show from last year, just read about it, so I can’t really comment, saying “Jerry Sadowitz got cancelled for less” was just my way of saying “Phil Nichol got his dick out, and had it out for longer than I bet Sadowitz did”). No actual racist could go to that show and take Phil Nichol’s comments, even with the most bad-faith interpretation, as agreeing with them.

Watching these shows was rather interesting because stylistically, it feels like a sort of weird fusion of the 00s British comedy done at Edinburgh, and the sort of thing I see in Canada. This guy would not be out place headlining my local comedy club on a Thursday-Saturday night (if it were a week when they were bringing in one of the really successful comedians and charging extra for tickets, that is) in a way that a lot of British comedians would seem out of place. I’m about 85% sure there are reasons for that based on his comedy style, and it’s not just the accent, but I also can’t think of specifics at the moment. So it’s possible that I just feel that way because I’m not used to watching recorded comedy in my own accent. Normally the comedy I’ve seen in that accent is live and in a darkened basement.

Anyway. It turns out I was wrong, in that other post I made, to say Only Gay Inuit Person is from 2005. It’s actually from the 90s, and 2005 is just when he did an Edinburgh show about how that song isn’t homophobic. Which, to be fair to him, it isn’t (jury’s out on anything else). While in 2006 he did a show that was somehow a protest against the Iraq war, and has beaten Desiree Burch’s Unfuckable, Mark Thomas’ Sex Filth and Religion, and all of Frankie Boyle’s DVDs as the least family friendly stand-up comedy show I’ve ever seen.

I’m pretty sure I really liked all three shows. It’s hard to tell, because at no point did he slow down nearly enough for me to work out what was happening. I almost definitely very much enjoyed them, but I think I recommend them to no one. They should never be seen by anyone.

John-Luke Roberts - A World Just Like Our Own, But… (2022)

The Phil Nichol stuff made me decide that might be a sufficiently concentrated shot of mid-00s comedy to be more than enough of that for one day, or possibly for several years. So I thought I’d try to counter my penchant for escapism into what was going on in Scotland in 2006, by watching something from this decade. I opened the John-Luke Roberts show, as he’s notorious for being a reliable vehicle that brings a person back to reality.

Obviously he isn’t that. But I did really, really like this. I’d only seen one of his shows before, which was his All I Wanna Do Is… (and then like 18 more words in the title) show in 2018. I went into that show with some hesitation, because I keep reading about how John-Luke Roberts does this brilliant inventive stuff that nobody else is doing, and I was curious to see it, but also aware that if it’s something not many people do, that might be because it’s something not many people “get”, and that might not bode well for my ability to enjoy it. I’m not one of those people who read Shakespeare comedies in high school English class and actually found them funny. And I didn’t mean to compare John-Luke Roberts to Shakespeare, it was just the first thing to come to mind when I thought of entertainment that you can only enjoy if you have knowledge of the form.

I watched the All I Wanna Do show anyway, and I liked it better than I expected to. It made me say, “Oh, I’d been wondering what ‘absurdist theatre’ actually looks like, and now I know. It’s that. Cool.” And that was exactly the point of it – he said repeatedly throughout the show that it was meant to be a showcase for what absurdist theatre is. So part of my reaction was just appreciating that, and be interested to find out what this thing is. Another part of my reaction was enjoying it, probably less so than someone who’s actually into that sort of thing and really properly understands it. But I could enjoy it as an outsider.

That’s how I felt about his All I Wanna Do show from 2018. Yesterday I watched his 2022 Edinburgh show, A World Just Like Our Own, and that one I properly loved. Not just enjoyed as an outsider, I got fully into it. He had me hooked from the very beginning – from literally the first sentence, as few comedy shows can do – and never lost my interest for a moment. I can’t think of a single bit that felt slow or unnecessary. It tied together like a beautiful puzzle, a somewhat tragically beautiful puzzle but also one that was weird and funny and vibrant, and that’s pretty much my favourite thing that a comedy show can do. Who knew absurdist comedy could come together in a way that makes so much sense?

I liked it so much. It had humour and mystery woven in every single line, ones that seemed disparate but then connections got made a little at a time, and he delivered it so sincerely. Based on my attempts at understanding what sorts of comedy shows win awards, I feel like this one should have won some awards last year. When he finished that run, someone should have given John-Luke Roberts a medal, or at least a hug.

Alasdair Beckett-King - The Alasdair Beckett-King Mysteries (2018)

I decided, after the John-Luke Roberts show, that I hadn’t had enough of men with properly long hair (none of this half-assed shaggy or even shoulder-length stuff), being surreal at me from within the last few years. I know ABK from his YouTube videos, which I’d say I find about 40% all right, 40% very funny, and 20% fucking hilarious. His live show did not disappoint.

I think my favourite thing about ABK is his really purposeful delivery, no matter what he’s talking about. With everything he says, it feels like he’s metaphorically looking you in the eye and swearing it makes sense. He’ll go from one thing to the next with so much intention, like whatever weird shit he’s discussing is the most natural thing in the world. And then every once in a while he’ll stop and look around, like he’s just remembered where he is. He said at the beginning that he was going to carve out a little space in this one room for this one hour where reality doesn’t exist and they can make whatever they like in there, and that is how it felt.

I’d read before that he uses a lot of “tech” in his live shows, and I wasn’t sure how much I’d like that, but I thought it was great in this one. Just a few slides, and a cheap smoke machine, nothing overwhelming at all. And it was all set up to be intentionally kind of shitty, low-quality pictures and the smoke machine not functioning properly, which I liked. It didn’t feel like a high-tech show; it somehow felt like a lower-tech show than shows that have none of that stuff at all. It contained several images that he’d printed onto cardboard.

Jessica Fostekew - Hench (2019)

After all these I remembered that women exist, and decided to open this one. I’d seen this show mentioned a lot, by people who discuss the big high-quality smart and hard-hitting shows that win awards and things like that.

I have to admit, I wish I’d heard less about it before I watched it. Because I think I was expecting something a bit different from it – I’m not quite sure what – and that meant I’d didn’t really quite get on board until part of the way through. I ended up re-watching the first half after I’d finished the whole thing, and I liked the first half better on the second watching than I did on the first. I think expectations skewed it – not that it wasn’t good enough to live up to expectations, just that I thought it was going to be about something else.

Anyway. Judging it by what it was and not by what I thought it would be, it was very good. It’s in the classic style in some ways - humour mixed into stories that come together to be about difficult experiences (you know, like the “dead dad” show people make fun of, but in this case it’s “casually sexist mom, also casually sexist society”), some serious bits and some purely funny bits but most a mixture of both, ending on a callback that gets acted out physically for that big finale that I like. A whole classic formula I like, in fact.

I liked Jessica Fostekew’s perspective on a number of things, including things where I often feel a disconnect from a comedian’s perspective. By “disconnect”, I mean comedians who will do a show with all these feminist points but still make a joke on the premise that women who don’t shave their legs are gross or something. This show is very much the opposite of that, so the feminist points felt more consistent. And of course I connected to it as a woman who’s spent much of my life arguing with my mother about whether it’s a bad thing if my body becomes too “masculine” (not even in a gender identity way – that’s a whole other thing – I’m just a cis woman who likes to play sports, and knows from experience that all those transphobes only defend women’s sports in the one specific way that lets them hurt a vulnerable group, they support it a lot less when they realize it involves women having muscles and things like that). Again, I really liked the ending on this one. I liked the way it drew everything together, even the parts of the show that seemed to be about very different topics. I liked everything she built into the show to bring it to that point. I like how I got more out of it on a second watch, because I could see everything she was building. It was great.

Rachel Parris - Best Laid Plans (2018)

I enjoyed Jessica Fostekew’s show because it was great, but also because it spoke to some of my experience that I don’t see represented all that often. This show was... not like that one. It’s about how Rachel Parris always imagined herself getting married to a man and having biological children with him, but it hadn’t happened yet and she was very sad about that. As someone who never dreamed about any of those things, I viewed this show as more of an outsider. Having said that, she hit on universal themes like depression and slow but sure recovery and being annoyed at obnoxious people on trains, so there was still lots to enjoy.

It’s musical comedy, which is immediately a bit divisive. I don’t automatically dislike musical comedy, but it’s not my favourite thing, and a few of the songs I didn’t enjoy too much. But I really liked some other ones. I also loved her stories about teaching piano to kids, which she worked in with her own piano playing. And I thought the final song was very good.

I downloaded this one entirely because I like Rachel Parris on The Mash Report/Late Night Mash, so it was a bit weird to see her in a show that had no explicitly political content (I mean, I could at this point go into a discussion of how it’s a political issue that all people but particularly women are taught to feel like failures if they haven’t gotten married and borne biological children, but I shall refrain). She had a lot of the mannerisms that are so funny on that show, in a completely different type of content. However, those mannerisms are funny anywhere. The exaggerated smile, the talent for sounding so over-the-top in her sarcastic amount of sweetness, the straight face that just starts to break a little near the end of whatever point she’s making, betraying the irony. She’s very, very good at that.

Kiri Pritchard-McLean - Hysterical Woman 2017, Home Truths 2022

I watched her Victim, Complex show before Christmas and thought it was very good, so I rounded that out with these two this week. One show from before that one and one from after it, and you can really see her progression. In her first show, she referred to a lot of views that had clearly evolved by her most recent show - not even that she’d scrapped those views and adopted new ones, just that she’d developed them. It was interesting to watch.

All three shows I’ve seen show off Kiri Pritchard-McLean’s ability to go back and forth so quickly, which I really like. Back and forth between making a smart point and making a purely stupid joke. Back and forth between being intellectually political and filthy sexual humour delivered with a big smile. Back and forth between extreme confidence and self-deprecation. Back and forth between anger at all other people and solidarity with them. I enjoy all sides of those things, and I enjoy the whiplash of transitions between them.

There were a few points that left me with that thing of “Well I don’t know if that moment was funny, but I agreed the hell out of it.” And, somewhat controversially, I think that’s fine. Because all three shows I’ve seen by her also had many, many points - a high percentage of the show - that was funny. I like a show that can do both. I guess there’s some ratio of humour to just “agreed the hell out of it” that you don’t want to drop below, but she came nowhere near dropping below it. She always takes time to be funny.

I also like how she’s willing to criticize and contradict herself on stage. Her self-deprecation isn’t just for the sake of it, and it isn’t cheap shots about stupid things - it’s picking apart her own prejudices. She’ll do a routine, and then she’ll stop and point out of the flaws in it, that come from the limits of her own perspective. I really like any comedian who’s willing to do that, and Kiri Pritchard-McLean does it well.

I also just really like her. All the time, she has this “rough around the edges” energy immediately puts the audience in the mood to be entertained. She’s good sometimes on panel shows, but I like her a lot better in her own stand-up shows, when that energy comes out entirely.

2022 - Guy Montgomery - Guy Montgomery By Name, Guy Montgomery By Nature

For this last one, I decided to step away from all the rest of the things I’ve explored here, and watch a lanky white man in his mid-thirties from New Zealand list weird observations that occurred to him during lockdown, in a relatively understated way. I did this entirely because I really, really liked him on Taskmaster.

This one started a bit slowly, but I didn’t think any of it was bad, and by the end I thought it was very good. The first half or so were ruminations on idioms, particularly the famous Australian one about fucking spiders, with a lot of lines sort of casually thrown away, a list that was probably too long, and stuff about letters and numbers. The second half was more grounded in reality, but with callbacks that explain that actually the weird observations were all part of a plan to use them to explain the significance of other things. Which, as always, I love in a comedy show. I love a good callback, and a callback that reveals extra significance to what first appeared to be a casual observation - that’s just lovely (Jessica Fostekew’s show had a bunch of this too).

I liked his stuff about parenting. I really, really liked his routine about evening news shows. I liked the routine it built into, about professional athletes and role models, even more. Then he told a long surreal story about horse, and it was hilarious. That was pretty much the second half, it was brilliant.

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thepixelelf · 4 years

Text

Ways to Fall in Love Series

39. At a high school reunion

Genres: fluff, almost a high school au, friends to strangers to lovers

Pairing: Reader & Jae (Day6)

Words: 2.1k (00:08)

Note: this is based on an episode of Psych, which to be honest, I don’t know is copyright strike-able or not. Also if you play LoL please don’t get mad at me

Welcome to the ten-year reunion for the class of 2010! Features include: music, dancing, and running into old crushes you haven’t talked to since senior year!

•••

As music boomed through the shitty gymnasium speakers, Jae wondered if he should’ve shown up at all. Of course, this was his year’s reunion, but as most high school memories were, he couldn’t remember actually loving his high school in the first place. Too many cons outweighed the pros, really. Plus, the punch wasn’t even spiked. Everyone always spiked the punch when they were teenagers, but now that they were in their late twenties? All boring and... adult-like.

Jae wouldn’t deny the fact that he was an adult now, but he at least wanted to have a little fun.

Sungjin had organized most of what Jae could see, which was almost the entirety of the reunion. Maybe years on the student council did this to him.

“That’s not your grad photo,” Sungjin said, pointing at the photo clipped to Jae’s shirt.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sungjin leaned in closer, eyes squinted as he inspected Jae’s tag. “That’s Lee Minho,” he concluded. “Where is the photo I printed for your name tag? I had it all figured out! Instead of written names, we’d recognize each other with pictures from high school. Genius, right?”

“Very genius, my friend.” Jae jokingly raised his red solo cup to him. “But there’s no way I’m wearing my eighteen year old face for everyone to see.”

“You always have to ruin things, don’t you?”

Winking, Jae sipped from his too-sweet punch. “My specialty.”

Sungjin went on to talk about something or other — probably more examples of Jae making jokes out of whatever Sungjin tried to do — but was ignored when Jae’s eyes caught onto a flash of green.

You stood by one of the refreshment tables, eyes set on the tray of chocolate covered strawberries. Wearing a green button up, you stood out in more ways than one.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Jae said, putting a hand on Sungjin’s shoulder and shoving him so he faced your direction. “They’re here?”

Sungjin looked at Jae like he was crazy. (Not far off, but that wasn’t the reason for his antics right then.) “Who?”

Slightly frazzled, Jae pointed a finger straight at you, and in no time, Sungjin figured out exactly what had Jae so pressed. “Oh, them. Well this is their reunion, too, you know.”

In two seconds, Jae made a decision. He took one step before Sungjin held him back.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Are you kidding?” Jae turned to face Sungjin, walking backwards into the crowd of people he barely remembered. Stretching his arms out, he gestured to himself. “I’ve never had a good idea in my life!”

If there was one thing Jae remembered from high school, it was you.

You, who used to hang out in the library playing video games while the supervisors weren’t looking. You, whose laugh he could distinguish from all the way in another classroom. You, who single-handedly convinced the school board to send the entire class of 2010 on a field trip to the amusement park — for two days.

Your eyes were still on the strawberries, hand up to your chin in consideration, and when Jae caught sight of the tag pinned to your shirt, he almost laughed at how much you’d stayed the same. Instead, he called out your name as he approached.

You looked up from the trays to see his face and smiled when you glanced to his photo tag. “Lee Minho,” you mused. “I loved you in ‘Boys over Flowers’.”

“The one and only.” Making a show of twirling around as if he were actually a rich and famous actor, Jae felt his heart beat fast as he heard your laughter for the first time in a decade. “What do you say we skip gym class, head to the library?”

You scoffed, a playful smile on your lips. “Ten years and Jaehyung Park still can’t handle one gym class.” Despite what seemed like a rejection, you started walking to the exit, eyes motioning for Jae to follow. “What? Scared they’ll force you to Cadillac Ranch?”

“Hey, I kill it at the Cadillac Ranch.”

“Don’t worry, I believe you.”

The walk to the library was slow as you took your time looking at everything you passed. Pictures, art, posters from events which Jae didn’t understand. Had it really been so long since he graduated that he could barely comprehend anything? You grazed your fingers across the lockers as you walked by, talking about memories Jae didn’t have.

When you reached the library, the lights were off and the doors were closed. Jae hadn’t thought about that.

Wincing slightly in embarrassment, he turned to you. “Sorry, I—”

“You know,” you interrupted, “the place could be armed, what with all the computers they’ve got in there.”

“Huh?”

Out of your back pocket, you pulled out a clinking set of worn keys, which you held up, dangling off one finger, in Jae’s face with a mischievous quirk of your lips. You jangled the keys in the air and brought them closer so your face was back in focus. “You think we’ll set off any alarms?”

Jae only laughed, snatching the keys from your fingers. “Where did you get these?”

Shrugging, you moved to take the ring back and find the right key for the library. “I happened to have some great friends back in the day. To name one: Tina, our housemaster.”

“Housemaster?”

“Much better title than janitor, right?” Finally finding the right key, you made a little triumphant sound when the doorknob twisted, which Jae pretended didn’t make his breath short. “C’mon,” you said, crouching and waving a hand as if you were some spy raiding a museum.

Jae followed nonetheless, a slight smile on his lips as he threw out his now empty cup and shoved his hands in his pockets. Neither of you turned on any lights, the only thing letting Jae see at all was the streetlamp just outside the many windows of the library. “You wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that we haven’t set off any alarms, would you?”

As you sat in front of one of the fancy new computers (nothing like the ones from ten years ago) you searched for the power button and answered at the same time. “I told you, great friends create great opportunities. Park Sungjin, for example.”

The computer lit up, and your face glowed in front of the blue screen.

“Wait, you know Sungjin?”

“Of course. We were on student council together, remember?” Your eyes flitted across the screen in concentration as you attempted signing in. Standing behind you, Jae realized it made sense you weren’t looking at him while talking, but still, he didn’t like it. He sat on the desk right next to the computer, hoping his huff was too quiet for you to hear as you finally looked up at him. “Ah, but you never really paid attention back then, did you?”

Clicking his tongue, Jae laughed and looked away before turning back again. “Hey, I paid attention to the important stuff.”

“Like what? The girl’s volleyball team?” You laughed at your own joke before succeeding at logging in. “Aha!”

“No,” Jae answered, “like...”

Like you, he thought, but then again, he had no idea you knew Sungjin, at least enough to be in contact to this day. He made a mental note to chide Sungjin later for never telling him anything about you for the past decade. Though, he supposed he never asked.

“Wow, it’s still here...” you mumbled, staring too closely at the computer.

Jae shook himself out of his thoughts and twisted his body to look at the screen. “What’s still here?”

“The 2009 version of League of Legends. I thought for sure they’d wipe my drive, but here it is.” You pointed at the screen, and Jae leaned in further, eyes squinting to see exactly what you meant. The tiny logo from oh so long ago shined in Jae’s face.

“Wow,” he murmured. “That brings me back.”

“Right...”

Both of you fell into silence as you booted up the game, watching diligently as the computer struggled to run a ten-year-old system. When it finally opened, you dismissed the “update to newest edition” popup and typed in your account. Soon, Jae’s laughter filled the library along with yours as you both remembered just how dismally slow the school’s computers had been (still were) and just how bad Jae had been at League of Legends (still was).

It was some time later, when the laughter died down and the silence returned, that Jae realized he was staring at you from his spot on the desk, and you were staring back. Your elbow rested next to the keyboard, your cheek in the palm of your hand as you looked at him with those eyes.

“...What?” he dared to ask.

“You really don’t remember, do you?”

Jae gulped, shifting uncomfortably on the desk while you remained perfectly still. If only ten years apart from one of his closest friends hadn’t wiped so much of his memory.

“Remember what?”

Your gaze on him had Jae freeze on the spot as you sighed, still unmoving. “I stopped talking to you for the last two months of senior year, and you really don’t remember the reason why?”

Jae knew exactly the reason why.

You continued, somehow knowing Jae’s tongue was stuck in his throat. “You jokingly asked me out for months, and when I finally said yes, you asked me out for real.”

Jae remembered how you looked that day, a smile on your face he wouldn’t forget even after a hundred years.

“Do you know how embarrassing it is to be stood up at an arcade? I waited at the token machine for two hours.”

“I know.”

“And — wait, what do you mean you ‘know’?” You lifted your head from your hand, confusion written in your features.

“I mean...” Jae licked his lips, suddenly feeling his mouth go dry. He wondered if he could take it all back — what he did ten years ago — or if what he was about to do would be good enough. “I know you waited two hours. I did too.”

“What...?”

“I think—” He took a breath. “I think I thought I wasn’t good enough — that I would always be just the friend.”

“But—”

“And I wanted to be more than that, I did, but I was scared. Scared that as soon as I tried to be more than the friend, you wouldn’t like me as much. Like, what if you liked me enough to laugh at my jokes but not enough to hold my hand, you know?”

He took your hands into his lap.

“Jae...”

“You were wearing that t-shirt, I remember. That black one with Darkwing Duck that was way too big and totally out of style at the time. And you waited for me next to the broken token machine that you never even knew was broken because I never went inside.”

This time, you said nothing, didn’t try to interrupt. You stood, and Jae looked up from his hands wrapped around yours to your eyes, which reflected the blue screen of the monitor. He couldn’t read your expression.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed out, slightly disoriented with your face so close. “For leaving your there. For being an awful date... an even worse friend.”

Jae was an adult now, and there he was, nearly crying over his high school crush.

“Hey,” you whispered, a small smile gracing your lips. You pulled one of your hands from his grasp and touched up his hair, rearranging tufts he didn’t know or care were out of place. He couldn’t focus on that anyways, not with his heart racing with the intimate proximity. “Ask me if you’re doing better now.”

Your hand stilled just under his ear, and your eyes met his. Leaning in closer, you brushed your nose against his cheek so faintly he thought he imagined it, but your breath fanning over his lips proved him otherwise.

His words came out light, airy as his lips grazed yours. “Am I doing better now?”

He could feel your smile instead of see it. “Yeah.”

The first was quick, light, ended before it could begin. The second, Jae initiated himself, though you weren’t far behind, pushing into him as his arms circled your waist and yours crept around his shoulders. Slow, careful, not intense and heated like the movies always forced, but lovely and warm and soft. There was no third or fourth or fifth because Jae never wanted the second one to end.

With you kissing him like that, Jae cursed himself for wasting ten years spent not kissing you.

#day6 scenarios #day6 imagines #day6 oneshot #park jaehyung x reader #jae x reader #day6 x reader #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop oneshot #ways to fall in love #.100

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