#I intend to drop something huge in the anniversary next year | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imatechbummerliketomholland · 3 years

Text

sorry seems to be the hardest word - h.o

Word count: 3171

Warning: angst, swear

Pairing : harrison osterfield

Request: no.

N/A: It took me so long to write this. I remember i asked @soft-haz to write something with the "sorry seems to be the hardest word" vibe, it was so good! But i wanted to write something by myself too. Remember, english is not my first language, so be kind if you spot mistakes, i really try my best. Italics parts are flashbacks

Thanks to @petersasteria because she correct a big part of this fic! Love you. Don't hesitate to tell me what you think of the fic! Love you all! xx

ღღღ

part 2 (harry hollad x reader) - part 3 (harry holland x reader)

The few rays of sunshine in London today and England's victory over the Croats had improved your mood. Tom and Harry were home as soon as the game was over, they found you sitting on the couch with a glass of wine. You hadn't wanted to join them at the bar for obvious reasons: to keep your privacy as much as possible. Living with four boys was not easy, but living with four boys, one of whom was a world-famous actor and another in the midst of the media boom, was even more so. Of course, fans knew that Tom, Harrison, Harry, and Tuwaine had a female roommate. But you've always managed to never appear with your face uncovered in any media activity of your four-favorite divs.

The bottle was already nearly empty and you were already on your drunken streak, not wanting to stop when two of your drinking buddies had just entered. What a good opportunity to continue the evening.

"Will you join me, boys?"

“Mmm yeah, sure, love.” Harry said.

But a problem presented itself to you: the boys drank beer, you drank wine. You had two options now: either open a new bottle of wine for yourself or continue the evening with beer. Your eyes turned to your glass, spilling the rest of the bottle into your jug before swallowing it dry. Harry had a stunned expression on his face as Tom smirked.

"I see hanging out with us leaves its mark."

"You wish, Holland. I knew how to do it before I even knew you existed."

"You've known me since I was 19."

"And you think I waited for you to learn how to drink?"

"Fair enough."

You met the boys in a pub. You’ll never tell Nikki that, when you met them, her precious twins drank too many beers even if they weren’t old enough to drink (technically, they weren’t criminals, drinking beer at 16 is legal and come on, it’s England!)

❀❀❀

So, you met the boys in a pub. It was one of the nights when your friends and you wanted to drink until you're blackout drunk. You were in that pub/club, looking up after one of your friends. She had detected some pretty boys in the back and left you there, alone. You moved around the room without paying attention: glass in hand, your phone you stared at in the other. You suddenly felt an arm blocking your chest with force. The surprise had made you drop your glass.

“What the heck?!?”

“You will not pass, miss.”

“Oh yeah? Why? Is the pope there?” You said sarcastically

The man who stood in your way raised an eyebrow and you looked at him, waiting for a response.

“You are very funny. It’s a VIP space.”

“Once again, why is that?”

“None of your business.”

“Actually, I don't care if Sir Elton John is in that bar or if it's even the Queen of England. I'm just looking for my friend: tall, blonde, balloon-sized fucking boobs, red dress."

“Not seen."

You sighed. The situation annoyed you to the highest point. You had lost your friend and that big asshole had broken your glass. The man in front of you seemed to be marble. Short answer, arms crossed, and an imposing posture. All you wanted tonight was just to have fun. You didn't care that God-knows-who, any famous or rich enough to book a VIP space, was in that bar.

"Would the asshole that hired you tonight, at least be kind enough to buy me the glass you broke with your bullshit?"

From his side, Harry had noticed the altercation. He then walked towards you, he laughed when he heard you insult his brother through the bouncer's fault. And as the Colossus' bodyguard was about to tell you that you could always dream of getting that free drink, Harry spoke up.

“The asshole, maybe not directly. But the asshole's brother. Certainly. It will be on his check anyway.”

“For God's sake, what are you waiting for then?”

And just like that, you met the boys. Harry paid you for the glass that the other jerk broke, invited you to this precious VIP space and you could talk and dance the night away. You had exchanged your social media and over time, your phone numbers. And as fast as you couldn't imagine, you had found yourself stuck in an apartment with four adorable idiots as roommates.

❀❀❀

"Hey, y/n, where are the others?" Harry asked.

You grumbled and grabbed the beer the curly had just opened. He protested as you took a sip. Tom gave you a curious look and you frowned behind your bottle.

"y/n?”

"I don't know where T is, but Harrison's gone on a date with Gracie."

The two brothers exchanged a look heard in the face of the bitterness they had perceived in your voice. It was no longer much of a secret that you had feelings for Harrison. You had feelings for Tom's best friend for almost as long as you'd met him. Harry had noticed it first, because you were much closer to him than to Tom. The actor had understood at the start of an evening, at the beginning of the relationship between Harrison and his girlfriend.

However, you didn't hate Gracie. She was beautiful, kind, and very funny. She really brought out the best in Harrison, she made him happy and you could see that because of the distinct smile on his face. You didn't hate her; she just wasn't you and you just weren't her. And that was the whole problem. Jealousy consumed you and you hated yourself for it.

“Are you alright, darling?” Tom asked you since silence filled the room after your last sentence.

"I'll be fine after one more drink" you simply answered.

You took a sip of the beer you stole from Harry. Drowning in alcohol was certainly not the solution. But you just wanted to forget the blond a bit for tonight. Tom's worried look made you roll your eyes.

"Oh come on, Tom. Don't give me those eyes. I will be fine ..."

“Yeah, sure.” he said with a doubt.

"Can we just watch a silly movie or play a silly game to make my night better?"

Harry seemed to hear you as he shrugged and took a sip of his drink. He knew you by heart. At this point, he really considered you his best friend. So he knew you needed something to clear your mind. Something where your mind should be quick to think about.

“One,” he said nonchalantly.

"Two" you responded with a huge smile on your face.

"You are both stupid." the Holland elder complained about the game you had just started.

"You say that because you're a lousy actor who can't remember his lines. Play Holland!"

"Three". He capitulated.

And you continued like this until 21. Then, there followed a multitude of rule additions each time you reach the number 21. The 7 turned into "I'm a poor liar", the 18 into "I'd rather kiss a guinea pig" ... And every time one of you made a mistake, he drank. After an hour, the game looked like a strange conversation from the outside.

"Squirrels are scary, man." Harry said, mimicking his older brother.

"Black Widow is the best president of the United States" Tom said

"But she’s a bad lay." you responded, with a fake sigh of disappointment

"I'd rather kiss a guinea pig"

"Because you have no taste"

"Twenty"

It was at this precise moment, in the middle of the conversation, that Harrison decided to enter the living room. His blissful smile gave way to an air of amazement and disbelief at the talk between his three roommates. It was Tom who first noticed his best friend. He nodded to greet him. Harrison wore a simple black t-shirt with chinos. You took a look at your roommate and your cheeks flushed a little more than they already were.

"Hello mate! How was your date?" asked Tom with a big smile on his face

"Awesome. Can't believe it will be a year in 3 freaking days." Harrison said.

You could see his large smile, and blissful air. He was sweating happiness and although you were happy for him, it tore your heart. You purse your lips to avoid comment. Harry spoke up.

"We're playing 21. Do you want to land with us?"

"In fact, you can take my place." You got up from the couch and walked over to the kitchen to drop off your beer drain. Harrison frowned as Tom exchanged a new look with his brother.

"y/n, you can stay, It's an unlimited players game." Harry almost begged.

"No, I'm tired. I'm going to take a shower and then go to bed."

“y/n” Harrison tried to call you to hold you back a little longer.

But you were already gone. You've never climbed the stairs so fast to run away from your roommate/best friend. Harrison looked at Tom and Harry, worried about your behavior. The curly one just shrugged his shoulders as his brother shook his head, silent. They weren't intending to get involved in this. You were the only master of your feelings and the time you'll decide to confess them to Harrison. That is why they preferred to be quiet.

☙♡❧

You spent the whole next week to avoid Harrison as much as possible. Established more distance with him was your solution to protect yourself from your feelings especially after his one-year anniversary date with Gracie and his absolute cute instagram post. It broke you down. Your heart was in peace but you couldn't blame him or his girlfriend. You were in love with the wrong guy, that's all.

But you couldn't hide from him forever. After all, you both lived in the same house, you had the same friends. So, it was hard to pretend he didn't exist.

Today was not your lucky day. You bumped into him in the kitchen. That was his opportunity to hold you down. He grabbed you by the shoulders, preventing you from burying yourself. Now he would finally find out what was wrong with you. Because Harrison wasn't a fool. He had noticed that you acted with him differently. Your behavior remained unchanged towards the other boys in the house.

“y/n. Don’t avoid me; please, please y/n, look at me”

You have plunged your eyes into its bewitching blue irises. Big mistake. You were drowning now in the turmoil of your feelings for the blonde. He had always had that effect on you, always. Tears started to bead at the corners of your eyes, you were biting your lip to hold back the torrent of tears that was already beginning to flow. Harrison's throat tightened at the sight of you like that and his hold on your shoulders slowly loosened.

“I hate seeing you like this. Please talk to me” he almost begged you

“Harrison…” your voice struggle as soon you pronounced his name.

“Please darling…tell me what’s goin’ on”

As a perfect angel, Tom was the one who saved you by interrupting this quick talk. You wiped away your tears with the end of your sleeve and run away to your room. Harrison sighed in despair. He didn't understand why you were running away from him like the plague.

“Dude, do you know why she's like that. What did I do? » He finally asked to Tom.

"I can't tell you Haz. She's the only one having the right to tell you about this"

"Bullshit. Fuck you all." Harrison said, frustrated.

Then he just quit, leaving the kitchen.

☙♡❧

Sunday came and Tom asked you all to spend the night with him before his LA trip the next evening. It was a normal night with friends. And despite your pent-up feelings and wanting to avoid Harrison at all costs, you didn't want to miss Tom, he was your friend.

There was only the usual gang: Harry, Tuwaine, Tom (obviously) and you. But the tension was felt within the group. The lingering unspoken words about your feelings for Harrison were beginning to weigh on all of your friendship. It was so bad that it hurts to stay in the same room as Harrison. All you could see was his constant happiness, this wonderful man he had always been but in a more radiant version of himself. And you weren't the cause of that. You hated it, you hated being selfish that much. You were ready to sacrifice your friendship with the young Netflix actor for two reasons: you wanted to protect yourself ... and you weren't ready to be that obstacle in the midst of Harrison and Grace's happiness.

You were in the kitchen with Harry, pretending to help him with drinks and snacks. The curly boy could see you dragging your feet, repeating like a mantra this phrase "come on, you can do it ... do it for Tom, it's his night. Don’t be selfish, you can make it." And you really wanted it ... have a good time with your friends.

Sometimes Harry felt guilty for introducing Gracie to Harrison. They worked together as set PA in 2018 and became close friends but not as close as you were with him. You considered him like your best friend. It made sense for him to feel a bit responsible for your broken heart. But you never said a word about it.

“I’m sorry, y/n” confessed Harry.

“For what?” you simply responded.

"For having hampered your happiness. I was stupid to introduce Grace to Harrison and ignore your feelings. I wanted to help my friend. "

"Bullshit Harry. Never apologize for that. You've been a great friend to Harrison."

"But not for you."

"Who cares?" you asked, trying to minimize your feelings

"Me ... you are one of my best friend y/n"

"Just like Harrison is your best friend. Don't apologize for making him happy. Fuck, I'm the one who should apologize." You said, with a tone of anger and despair in your voice

And that's how you crack, breaking in all your sensitivity. You couldn't hold back your tears from falling as you blasted everything that was on your heart. You don't even realize that Harrison is a few feet behind your back. The weight of your feelings, your anxieties explode in the kitchen as when a cup is dropped on the immaculate tiled floor.

“What I got to do to make him love me? What I got to do to make him care? Not as the sweet friend Harry. I’m deeply in love with him and it’s gonna drive me insane! What I got to do to make him want me? Huh Harry, can you tell me? All those question in my head…and no answer to that. And you know what? It's sad, sad situation…more than that it’s a shitty situation, because I'm getting away from him and it makes us sick. Because I'm unable to tell him why.”

“You just told me.” Harrison finally said.

You jumped for a second before you froze. Harry is caught off guard and rushes into the living room stammering an apology. You are trapped. You are trapped and you can hear the footsteps of your roommate coming closer to you, so close, that now you can feel his breath on the back of your neck. Gently, he places his hands on your arms and exerts pressure for you to face him.

"You love me"

"It depends ..." you replied with difficulty

"On what?"

"On what you heard before."

"Enough that you can't contradict me."

Her thin smile doesn't help you relax. Instead, you look down, admiring your two pairs of feet. You felt like being stripped naked and you didn't like that feeling. If you could have kept this secret in your grave. But now he knew and you felt even heavier than the Titanic.

"So ... is that it? Nothing more to tell me?"

"What do you want me to add to what you've already heard?"

"Sorry?" he tried.

"For what?"

"For what? y/n are you kidding me? Sorry for being distant with me, maybe? Sorry for hiding all these things from you? Sorry for not trusting our friendship to come to me and speak?" he exploded…

"What would that have been for, Harrison? You don't love me back…" you screamed back.

"I ... I’m ..."

"See, sorry seems to be the hardest word."

After that last ironic reply, silence fell in the kitchen. So was that it? Was that how your friendship was to end? The great giants of the universe had reserved this dramatic scene for you to break years of bonding. You didn't know how to get out of this situation. You didn't even know if there was a few more things to save. You were broken and had just spoiled the happiness of one of your best friends.

Harrison was silent. He seemed to be probing your body, your attitude, analyzing any gesture that might give him the opportunity to take a step towards you. But the solution was there, finding everything ... It was enough, for both of you, to swallow your pride.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" you echo your previous conversation

"Sorry for not feeling the same as you. For not being who you want me to be to you."

"You know ... I don't hate her."

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Gracie. I don't hate her. She makes you really happy. I just hate the jealousy I feel towards her… I hate that I am not her. But I don’t hate her, she's a really good girl."

A small smile dawned on Harrison's lips, the blonde toyed nervously with his fingers and the ring he always wore as an accessory.

"Yeah ... yeah she's great."

"I'm really sorry ... about everything."

"It's ok. We don't control how we feel. I..I can understand"

"Yeah..."

"y/n?" he tried; a little bit shy about what he’s gonna ask.

"Mhmm?"

"Do you think we can be friends again?"

You bow your head, taking a minute to think. Was everything really broken? Were you going to be able to rebuild a solid friendship after this conversation? Were you going to be able to squeeze out your feelings? You sighed before plunging into those beautiful blue eyes that you loved so much.

"Maybe. I hope so with all my heart."

"I hope so too. And I hope you find someone like I found Grace."

"You can always dream. You dripping with love, it's impossible to find someone like you two."

"Don't despair. He might be closer than you think."

He winked at you and you looked at him confused. But after a few seconds, a smile appeared at the corner of your lips. No, you had no hope of him talking about him. But you were happy, because that little sentence opened the door for you to a bond that you were trying to find.

#harrison osterfield #harrison osterfield fic #harrison osterfield x reader #haz osterfield x reader #haz osterfield #harrison osterfield x y/n

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fairyoftbz · 3 years

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Étoilé | m. kevin

🏵 pairing: bf!Kevin x fem!reader 🏵 genre: fluff, suggestive 🏵 word count: 2.5k 🏵 tw: suggestive themes, a very badly written make-out session in the water 🏵 synopsis: you thought that you’d celebrate your relationship anniversary like every other couple, but Kevin had another plan in mind. 🏵 requested: yes! thank u!! 🏵 a/n: i apologise if it’s cringe or in a rush, i’m still not used to writing this type of thing! i hope it’s any good...

╰☆☆☆☆╮

Today was a special day for you and Kevin. Celebrating your third year together, happiness hadn't left you since you met this young, talented man. You were over the moon (no pun intended) when you first started dating this little ray of sunshine, and you don’t know where you would be or what you would do if he had never appeared in your life. He brought so much positivity in your life that you could only thank him for making you a better person and the happiest girl on earth.

And today was the day to celebrate those beautiful years of common life. Kevin and you had made sure that you were clear of any type of schedule or appointments to make the most of this beautiful day. In addition to that, the weather seemed to be on your side considering the temperature skyrocketing as the hours passed, not a single cloud on the horizon ready to come and ruin your day, none of that. It looked like even the stars were ready to celebrate your anniversary by offering you the warmth necessary.

You had talked about your plans a few days prior, and you were the one to come up with a beautiful idea. Why not going back to the places that were essential throughout your three years of common life?

Kevin instantly agreed with the idea, suggesting places that brought back beautiful memories. You managed to narrow down the places you wanted to visit again to three.

The first place was the coffee shop where you worked as a student with his sister, the one who made this relationship possible by introducing you to him one night during an aperitif at the shop. You remembered how attractive you found him, being a spluttering mess the entire night spent getting to know each other better.

The next spot was the abandoned field a few streets away from your apartment building. As for your second date, he had prepared a picnic and you spent the entire day there, flirting like two teenagers. You played around and joked for a while, Kevin suddenly asking you to kiss him. Wanting to play around and tease him, you only kissed his cheek and scurried away, leaving an offended Kevin behind. After running out of breath while trying to flee from your date chasing you, you fell back on the picnic tablecloth and timidly pecked his lips before pulling away, your boyfriend becoming flustered by your actions, a bit disappointed that it didn’t last any longer.

And the third place was at the beach, where you spent the entire day together, enjoying the ocean and the sun as much as you could. Kevin, being the hopeless romantic that he is, asked you to be his girlfriend as the sun was setting, making the scene unforgettable. You still remembered it, even three years later, gladly telling the story to anyone with a huge smile on your face.

You were so sure to have become the protagonist of a fiction that you had to pinch yourself after he had asked you out, just to make sure that you weren’t hallucinating.

And today, you felt all giddy to back to the same place you went to for your second date. just like the first time, he prepared a nice picnic and messaged you to meet him up at the same spot as a few years prior.

Kevin looked handsome when you arrived, and you were excited to spend the day together. Everything surrounding you was gorgeous, you took a lot of pictures from the scenery and your boyfriend, having fun and flirting like the first time until the sun decided to leave. However, instead of acting cute, Kevin was more teasing, sometimes borderline explicit, just to see the bashful look on your face.

“Stooop, not this loud,” you playfully nudged him in the ribs and he cockily raised his eyebrow, breaking into a laugh.

He swiftly tackled you to the ground and hovered above you, nearing his face to yours while whispering sweet nothings into your ears. You grabbed his face and gently grabbed it away from you to press your lips against his, slowly making out with him.

“So I am not allowed to whisper things to you, but you can kiss me like that?” he said while pulling away, making you giggle as you looked to the side. “You know that there are families around, with children, trying to have a good time together. So try to keep your needs to the bedroom, baby,” he teased, and you rolled your eyes with a huff, knowing that he felt the same as you did.

His teasing grin confirmed what you thought, the light in his eyes changing into something quite different, hotter, needier. With only one look, you understood the other and immediately packed everything, putting away things in a rush, Kevin on your heels as you dashed to the car park of the supermarket nearby. When you were in the car, giggling like a schoolgirl as the exhilaration rushed through your veins, your boyfriend’s hand resting on your thigh as it innocently trailed higher the closer you got from your apartment, breath itching in your throat each time he teased you even more.

Yet, as you were about to take the small street to reach your building, Kevin decided differently by driving right past it, speeding away after taking a sudden turn. Your eyes watched the street sign and you smiled as he started following a route to a well-known spot: the beach.

In the thrill of getting out of the car, you took the untidily folded tablecloth and bolted to the beach, laying it on the sand before happily sitting down between Kevin’s legs. His arms immediately surrounded your waist and his mouth trailed open-mouthed kisses on the skin of your neck, making you shudder at the sensation. Kevin smirked as you were easily affected by his touch, laid hold of your waist to press you further against him.

You smiled and gave a half-suppressed laugh as you pressed your cheek on his shoulder, getting lost in the sensation as you struggled to suppress the moans that were already threatening to spill at the abandoned field. Your boyfriend stopped for a while and you sighed in relief, feeling your heartbeat slowly calming down as he stopped his ardent attack on your neck.

“I have an idea,” Kevin declared, now huskily whispering in your ear. “Yeah?” you replied as his hand gently caressed your thighs up and down. “Do you follow me?” you slightly frowned at his words, turning your body around as you watched him get up. He took off his baseball cap and dropped it on the tablecloth, grabbing the back of his V-neck sweater and took it off before unbuttoning the first few buttons of his shirt.

“You wanna go in the water?” You stated, observed getting into work, earning a smirk from the man standing in front of you. “Isn’t it a good idea?” Smirking, he threw his shirt at you while biting his lower lip, rolling your eyes at his comment. “The last in the water will do the dishes until September!” he yelled as he was about to take off his jeans, only to watch you spring on your feet and removed your dress, getting ahead of him as you wore fewer items of clothing than him.

He froze for a quick second as he saw the sheer, sexy white lingerie you hid under the fabric of your dress, his distracted eyes allowing you to take the lead and run towards the ocean at full speed. The water was cold but the burning sensation travelling your body didn’t prevent you from entering the ocean. It managed to cool you down instantly as you got water to your stomach, gazing at a defeated Kevin that arrived a few seconds after you.

“That is so unfair,” he said while entering the water, dragging you by the waist in deeper water as you laughed.

With your hands resting on his shoulders, he glanced at you with a smirk tugging on his lips, wrapping your legs around his waist. Hair framed your face in the most gorgeous way, Kevin observing you with admiring eyes, a gentle smile appearing on his face.

“You are gorgeous Y/N. You never told me you were wearing this set though,” he mumbled, without being affected by the small waves, looking at you with a sudden sparkle of lust illuminating his eyes. “Oh. My mistake. I should have undressed in front of everyone at the field to show you,” you murmured with a mocking smile, only to have Kevin roughly grabbing the back of your head to pull you against his mouth, messily kissing your lips as he hungrily held you tight against him.

The hotness of your bodies grinning against the other was almost enough to warm up the entire ocean, his touches lingered in your mind as his hands travelled lower to grab your ass. You hated to admit it, but Kevin only needed to kiss you with all his might to make you melt in a small puddle of love. It was delicious, you couldn’t even deny it, his hands kneading the flesh of your butt cheeks always achieved to make you feel some type of way. Just feeling him against you felt like heaven, pressed chests heaving together as you were about to lose yourself to him.

“Don’t play with me, baby,” he mumbled against your lips before kissing you again with more eagerness this time. You grabbed the shorter hair at the back of his head and tugged on it, Kevin emitting a groan against your lips.

Pulling away, he slowly yet roughly grabbed your lower lip between his teeth, tugging and playing with it as his hands were busy playing with the wet lace underwater, pursing your lips to stifle a whimper.

Lust and arousal filled your eyes as you stared at Kevin, barely keeping them open at the intensity of the emotions you were feeling. He let go of a hand on your ass to come and gently cup your throat, tongue slowly entering your mouth and easily dominating yours as you felt a rush of heat bolting south, a small moan escaping your mouth.

“I’ll never get over how easily you get turned on with just with my hand around your throat,” he chuckled, and you groaned, slightly annoyed at how cocky he sounded.

Kevin acted all smug and playful, but you also knew he was slowly losing his mind at how much he loved and cared for you. The only thing that he wanted to do right now was showing you all the love he had for you, but he also knew that words and actions weren’t going to be enough to even reach how much he loved you.

You wanted to talk back, but he was quick to silence you by trailing his hand to your cheek to cradle it while his mouth went the opposite direction, leaving prominent hickeys on the smaller ones that he gave you on the beach and at the field. Your eyes rolled at the back of your head and your stomach did somersaults at the overwhelming sensation.

“I think that’s enough foreplay. Don’t you think?” you said, and his mouth stretched into a smirk, dying the following second as he kept on taking the right path to send you to cloud nine. “Someone’s quite eager tonight, hm? Let me take care of you, love,” he whispered and disappeared in between your breasts.

[...]

Chests rising and falling against the other, Kevin gave you a quick kiss on the lips and another one on your jaw before walking closer to the shore hand in hand, feeling the exhaustion washing over you. With an arm crossing over your breasts just in case, you picked up the discarded bra on the sand that your boyfriend threw a few moments prior, holding it away from you as it was wet and sandy.

You both quickly paced to your tablecloth, drying yourselves as best as you could as you got dressed again, relieved when you noticed that no one had stolen anything during your little lovemaking session. The adrenaline rushed through your veins as you pulled your dress over your body again, shivering as you felt the lace wet some parts of your dress. Quickly discarding the panties off your legs for some comfort, you glanced at your boyfriend who was rebuttoning his shirt as if nothing happened.

“Naughty girl,” he smirked as he detailed your actions, handing you his V-neck sweater. “I’m not that cold,” you stated but took it anyway, Kevin breaking in a fit of laughter. “Your nipples say otherwise, darling, or it's the thrill of getting freaky in the ocean maybe?” your eyes widened at his boldness, a shocked, playful look painting your face before putting his sweater on. “You perv,” you giggled, and he shook his head, grabbing the panties you were holding and tucked them in his jeans back pocket.

Turning back to the ocean, you looked at the dark blue water, the starry sky and the moon illuminating the small waves and the foam crashing on the sand before vanishing back in the salty water. You sighed and softly smiled, two arms wrapping around your shoulders in a much gentler way than a few moments prior.

“What are you thinking about, Y/N?” Kevin whispered in your ear and you lifted a hand to rest it on one of his forearms, enjoying your boyfriend’s hold and warmth surrounding you. The teasing atmosphere had disappeared, getting replaced by something deeper, softer. “Look at the sky, it looks gorgeous,” you whispered as if speaking louder would break the moment. Kevin kissed your cheek, lips lingering on your skin and you smiled, gently turning your head to peck his lips. Everything was slower, gentler, and softer as if your actions in the water were just a great memory. “It is indeed gorgeous, there’s nothing compared to you admiring it,” he whispered, and you smiled, a delicate warmth engulfing your heart in a hug at his cheesy words.

Boy, this man was a flirt, but you adored it. It made you feel like you were still in the chasing part without the doubt of not being this type, and you could stay in this state forever.

“I love you,” you whispered, and Kevin placed himself in front of you, lifting your head with his finger under your chin, admiring your face as pure love adorned his pupils. “I love you too Y/N, to the moon and back. I love you even more than all the stars in the sky tonight. Happy anniversary, love,” he whispered before taking your hand, lifting it to his lips to press a gentle kiss on top.

You shivered at the contact and Kevin drew you closer to him, lips connecting with your forehead before you started to walk back to his car.

He was the best thing that had ever happened to you.

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backtothestart02 · 4 years

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A Lifetime of Love Letters - 1/1 | westallen fanfiction

A/N: Inspired by the Joe/Iris 6x07 deleted scene. I had to! Enjoy. :)

...

Synopsis: Barry writes Iris West letters.

...

Barry writes her love letters.

It starts early. Right after their first successful date actually.

Iris is swamped, madly typing away to get a story completed after spending the entire morning reminiscing her first real date with Barry, her best friend who she’s falling for and letting herself fall for for the first time in her life. She’s gotten so distracted, the beautiful faded orange rose in a vase on the corner of her desk reminding her of the little kisses that got them started, she hadn’t gotten any work done at all.

So, she’s concentrating now, flipping through her notes, circling things and typing and double-checking sources and references. So much so that she doesn’t realize until a huge gust of wind passes through and tangles the strands of hair framing her face that there is something laying on one foot beneath her desk.

She pushes her chair back and finds it is a piece of folded paper. Curious, she leans down to pick it up and opens it.

Iris,

You look so beautiful today my heart nearly stopped.

Barry

Iris bites her bottom lip and kisses his name on the paper before folding it back up again and tucking it into the drawer to her right. She’s falling for him already. Hard.

After they get engaged – for real this time – Barry’s letters get longer. He concocts poetry that drags on more like narrative but is still adoringly sweet. He talks about her like she’s a goddess or an angel.

Your dark tendrils wrap around my fingers. I pull you tight with a tender caress. Your legs like silk against my whispers. Your voice the sweetest melody in my ears.

Iris knows that she’s hardly either, but with her impending death on the line and then six months later with Barry freshly returned, she lets herself believe it. She loves him so much she can hardly stand it sometimes. It’s breathtaking and emotional, and she’s consumed by it. She can’t remember what not loving Barry feels like, and she never wants to know it again.

It’s become habit now, an expectation after they get married. Iris looks forward to those love letters, especially so when they come in two pages or three. He’s started drawing hearts at the bottom. He always ends in his letters in ‘I love you’. He talks about how proud he is of her and her accomplishments, how he can’t wait till he sees her again, and sometimes he even gets dirty, talking about their sex life and how great it is he can’t imagine it possibly getting any better until she occasionally surprises him, and it does.

Those letters make heat rise into her cheeks, and she’s sure to put them in a separate location than the other letters. An inconspicuous place that one else would ever look but she would always find. A box with a lock on it, because the only person that should be seeing these letters is her.

This morning I had to take a cold shower, because all I should think about was your mouth on my… and your legs wrapped around my… and the sounds you make when I…

And Iris has to fold up the letter or she’ll be finding herself in the women’s bathroom doing pretty much exactly what Barry himself had to do early that morning, and she’s already too behind in work to delay herself with that.

The last letter she receives from Barry before Crisis has her tear stains on it. It was the last letter she thought she’d ever receive from him. It’s filled with emotion. Love, lust, an eternity of intoxication, and a replica of his wedding ring, since he fully intends on wearing the real thing when he…

But then there’s his first love letter after he survives Crisis, and Iris clutches it tightly. It’s more beautiful and more real than she could have ever imagined, and she cries on that one too, but those tears are happy, and so this letter is her favorite.

Years later, she’s passing Nora’s room in the hallway of their home. She hears her and her best friend, Lia, giggling like the schoolgirls they are, and she hears the most precious words pass her daughter’s lips.

“Okay, roses are nice on an anniversary, I’ll admit, but does your dad write your mom love letters?”

Lia contemplates. “When they were dating maybe. I’d have to ask.”

“Well, my dad does. Since their first date until now every day, and he’s still doing that!”

Iris smiles to herself, but the smile drops as soon as the next words spill out.

“I’ve even found some kind of…naughty ones where my mom thinks no one knows where-”

Iris barges into her bedroom.

“Nora West-Allen!”

“Mom!” she proclaims, scandalized.

Lia’s jaw drops, and Nora is blushing fiercely.

“Hand over those letters right now.”

“But-”

“Now, Nora.”

She sighs dramatically, gets up and pulls them out of the drawer in her nightstand, then grumpily hands them over. Scandalized, Iris tucks them under her arms and heads out the door. Nora’s closing the door when Iris shouts back.

“Keep it open!”

“Why? So you can eavesdrop better?” Nora sasses, and it both scandalizes and impresses Iris because she’s got the same feisty spirit she herself had as a teenager.

“Nora Dawn!” she warns, about to say she’ll have her father punish her when he gets home, but she’s too mortified to bring up the subject of the letters with Barry, and plus, Nora’s a daddy’s girl, and she’ll win him over to her side in a heartbeat.

So, she satisfies herself with Nora’s, “Yeah, yeah, I’m keeping it open.”

She mutters something else, but Iris pretends not to hear it. It’s easier that way.

Late into their sixties, Barry is still writing Iris love letters, though he can’t speed in and out of her office as fast as he used to, so he hands them to her instead, and she loves it just as much. He leans down to press his lips to hers in a quick peck, but he lingers, and she loves that too.

When their home one evening, Barry looks at Iris where they sit on the couch and asks her what she thought he’d never ask, since he hadn’t in all the years he’d been doing this.

“Do you like my letters to you, Iris? The ones I give you during your workday?”

“You mean your loooove letters?” she teases, which makes him blush, but he nods, “Yeah.”

“I love them, honey,” she says and pulls him in for a kiss. “They’re perfect, just like you.”

“Iris, I’m not-”

“Just like you,” she repeats, and he doesn’t argue.

...

*will post on AO3 and FFnet when beta’d.

#westallen #fanfiction #westallen fanfiction #backtothestart02 fanfiction #a lifetime of letters #one-shot

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megbox · 3 years

Text

2020 Year in Review

Previous Posts: (2019) (2018) (2017) (2016) (2015) (2014) (2013) (2012) (2011)

2020 is a weird year because as the world goes through something collectively extremely traumatic and that is radically changing the structure of our lives, our workplaces, the way we connect socially, our mental health… our response to disease…. SO MUCH ABOUT THE WORLD…. And yet the day-to-day of living in a pandemic is so… mundane. I am privileged enough to have that opinion. I have stayed securely employed and it is privilege for my main reaction to something as intense as this pandemic to be boredom. But really, 2020 was a year of absences. It was a year spent largely alone, in my own company. It was a year that forced me to rest. It was a year that made me feel so terribly lonely but also forced me to get acquainted with myself and enjoy my own company in a new way. And it was a year of running.

I would also like to thank Connor for making this post happen by reminding me to do it and not to break tradition.

January & February

I am combining these months because they were not altogether all that memorable. My resolutions, as I noted on Twitter on January 2, were to 1) Keep running and 2) Learn how to make fresh pasta dough. I can safely say – mission accomplished on both fronts.

On January 14, I had the privilege of presenting a suicide intervention lecture to students at the medical school where my brother goes. By that time, I’d done a million of these presentations so nerves aren’t really a factor (imagine that! Me, no longer remotely afraid of public speaking…), but this one meant a little extra to me. My brother is so highly accomplished, and I am so proud of him, and I enjoyed having an opportunity to show him what I do and make him proud of me. I wore my favourite dress and did my hair all nice and he described it later as “exceptional.” It was a really, really good feeling. The first weekend of February, Ali and I had planned to go to Jasper. We wanted to go for a hike or two, and get super stoned and go to the planetarium. A huge blizzard hit Alberta just before we were supposed to leave, so we ended up having a staycation here in Calgary. We rented a hotel room, went swimming, drank wine, went to Japanese Village, had drinks in the lounge and then later to a punk rock band roulette night at the Palomino and finally crawled into our giant hotel bed and fell asleep to Remember the Titans… of all movies. It was the kind of night where you simultaneously feel 18 and 35 years old.

March

March was when the pandemic really started to become real. I don’t know exactly why, but I did not take the threat of coronavirus very seriously until the last minute. My coworkers would whisper about it in the hallways and I just rolled my eyes. But then, people started deciding they would work from home, the number of us in the office dwindled. The vibe was bad. Nobody could really focus. They held meetings at 8am and 4pm every day just for COVID-19 updates and we all waited with bated breath for them to finally tell us to go home and not come back. I really feel like I didn’t acknowledge the true implications of this virus until we got the official work from home order, and I had to tell my boss, my laptop at home is too old to run this software, I need a work tablet. My first official work from home day was March 23, 2020. I don’t remember much about that time except that the general sense of panic and anxiety made my job a lot busier, and it is hard to do a job like mine from home because it is hard to counsel or reassure clients through anxieties that are hitting you just as hard. I coped with wine, a lot of running, and listening to Ben Gibbard’s afternoon live streams where he would play acoustic versions of Death Cab songs and other covers. He played New Slang by the Shins one night and I burst into tears. I also coped with teaching myself how to make fresh pasta dough, and enjoying what was, at that point in the pandemic, the novelty and fun of Zoom.

April

In the absence of being able to have a party for my birthday, I decided to be obnoxious and do a “challenge” on my Instagram story. I asked my friends to record a distance run and/or walked and send it to me as a birthday present. My actual birthday ended up being a cold and windy and pretty miserable day. I ran 12km myself, came back home and watched both Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL, and then went to my parents’ to celebrate both Scott and I’s birthdays with our family. My friends dropped off presents to my door and drove past my house and honked and I felt very loved and appreciated. I drank a lot of Prosecco with my brother and we listened to Kacey Musgraves.

It was also in April that I become “acquainted” with my neighborhood running nemesis. I put acquainted in apostrophes because I have never actually spoken to him. On one fateful run in April, I happened to catch up to him on my regular route. This was at the height of the COVID fear and so, while I would usually just pass someone on the sidewalk, I went out into the street. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and SPED UP. WHICH IS SUCH BAD RUNNER ETIQUETTE LIKE DUDE I’M IN THE ROAD LET ME PASS YOU. And then we ended up in this like, all-out 100m-finals-at-the-motherfucking-Olympics sprint challenge when all I was trying to do was go for a leisurely training run. And then I finally passed him, turned a corner and had to like collapse on to my hands and knees to catch my breath. Since then, I see this man running all the time. Sometimes while I am also running, sometimes from my car when I am driving through my neighborhood. He’s like… 16. And we are very competitive with one another. I hope to one day actually say hello to him. I both hate that guy and have to thank him for the motivation.

I ran my first half marathon on April 13, 2020. I was very hungover because I had stayed up quite late with someone on Zoom the night before on a virtual “first date” that had gone much better than anticipated. I don’t know why but I woke up the next morning in such a good mood that I decided I would go for a long, slow run. I got to 18km and figured, what’s 3.1 more? And so, I did it. The first thing I did upon finishing was call my mom. The second thing I did was contemplate calling an Uber to drive me the 2km left to my house. The other notable thing in April is that Maddy moved back from Australia, begrudgingly and a LOT earlier than planned, because of COVID.

May

May was kind of a blur. It was the first month of the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee, which I signed up for while coming off of the high of actually running a half marathon all by myself. The GVRAT was fucking awesome. It was created by Lazarus Lake, of Barkley Marathons fame. The ask is to run 1022.68km between May 1 and August 31, an average of about 8.3km per day. Well, you could run, walk, or hike. This is the actual distance it would take you to cover the state of Tennessee. Myself and about 20,000 other weirdos from around the world signed up for this challenge. I figured I would never get a chance to run in a Lazarus Lake race for real, and being home all the time opened up a lot more opportunity for training. It was one of the very best things I did for myself in 2020. So May involved a lot of running, because I was fresh and naïve and fully intended to be ahead of the curve. I was running about 10-12 per day, sometimes more, and not taking any rest days.

In between these runs, I spent a lot of time going on long, ambling quarantine walks with Maddy. We would either go for a long walk or she would come over and we would get absolutely hammered in my backyard playing beer pong just to pass the time. We would send snapchats to our exes and make TikToks like 18 year olds. I know we never really said it out loud but having eachother during this time made these months bearable. We were lamenting the loss of a summer, and Maddy’s time in Australia, and all of the expectations we had for ourselves. We were watching our friends in relationships move in together or get closer due to the quarantine. We needed companionship, and stupid things to laugh about, and love, and distraction. And I can genuinely say I would not have gotten through this quarantine period if it weren’t for the nights I spent shooting Pink Whitney and dancing to Party in the USA in my living room with her.

May 13th was my one year anniversary of working at the university. It felt good to have accomplished so many things in that time, and have moved up already in my job, and to have a full-time, permanent contract.

And May 16th was when I ran my second half-marathon as part of a virtual challenge put on by a friend of a friend. My parents came and sat in lawn chairs in the park while I did loops. They cheered me on and filled my water bottle for me when I ran out. They’re my number one supporters and I love having a family that does that kind of shit for me in the face of something arbitrary like a virtual half marathon challenge. I knocked 7 minutes (!) off my original time. Amazing what not being hungover can do for your fitness levels.

June

I don’t remember many important things about June, other than Maddy moving to Banff. It was depressing but I was also happy for her and happy to have an excuse to go out there and visit. I went the very first weekend after she moved. Halfway through June I seriously contemplated quitting the GVRAT. My shins were bruised, I was dreading every single run, and I could not fathom doing it for 2.5 more months. I was dragging behind in the standings and losing my motivation.

I spent a lot of time with friends reading in parks. Sometimes, often, with wine. I met a stranger in Canmore Park and ended up kissing him. He was lovely.

Ali and I had one really good day in June where we went to the Farmer’s Market and then came back to her place and watched Ru Paul’s drag race for like eight straight hours. It was one of those days where we hadn’t seen each other in so long and you just feel totally high off of friendship and absolutely everything is funny and you just can’t stop laughing. I vividly remember it as one of the best days of the year.

July

Again, July kind of passed in a blur. I did a lot of hiking, and a lot of running… keeping up with the GVRAT. I hiked Picklejar Lakes, Castle Mountain, Little Beehive Lookout.

I went to Banff for a weekend to hang out with Maddy. We had a predictably wild weekend with her roommates and friends. We had dinner at Chili’s (hell yeah) and then went to High Rollers for beers and bowling. The “thing to do” at that point for all of these Banff people was to meet at the “rec grounds” aka public firepits and drink. The police would generally leave you alone so long as you weren’t being rowdy. I sat next to an Australian named Josh at a picnic table and later took him back to my hotel room and he gave me the world’s most unbelievable obvious hickey. Maddy and I sweat out the tequila shots the next day with a long ass hike, and then had a nap before her brother came and took us climbing at the Sunshine slabs – an activity I was not very good at but I wanted to be good at. It was the kind of weekend where you feel like, okay, I definitely indulged my wild side. And you drive home just like totally exhausted but smiling. I sent Maddy’s brother a voice note on my way into town thanking him for taking us climbing and saying it was nice to see him.

August

Okay – August was actually really eventful. Like most of the year’s events happened in August, honestly. A lot of running and hiking. I did Ha Ling Peak for the first time, and we did a 30km hike to Aylmer Pass one day that was a fricken GRIND. I spent the long weekend in Saskatchewan. We went to a cidery, and I ran laps around my Dodo’s acreage, and then we got to visit Wakaw Lake and reunite with our old next-door neighbours. We took the boat out and went tubing and lit fireworks and had an amazing dinner and honestly it was like reliving my childhood in the best, best, best way. I fell asleep on the car ride home.

I went camping with Ali in Sylvan Lake. We got ice cream and cooked fish tacos over the campfire. She told me that Cody had a date planned for the day they took possession of their house, that she wondered if he might ask her to marry him but didn’t want to get her hopes up in case it didn’t happen and ruin what otherwise was supposed to be a celebratory day. Spoiler – he did ask her to marry him  I was running when she called me. I was listening to Epsilon by Kygo, and now when I hear that song I always think of them. I stopped my watch and just openly bawled on the street out of happiness for them.

Steven successfully defended his master’s thesis. We went camping in Waterton to celebrate with Matt, Kennedy, Regan, Scott, and Rie. They brought cake. We did a sunrise hike. I slept in the back of my Ford Escape.

On August 27, Ollie passed away. It was both expected and unexpected. He had been having some issues with seizures. The vet didn’t think it was anything to be too concerned about, he was old and it wasn’t uncommon for them to happen. It happened suddenly. I had a terrible sleep that night, and woke up in a cold sweat somewhere between 3 and 4 am. In the morning, my mom called me and told me the news. He had a giant seizure in the night and was crying and yelping. They woke up and took him to the emergency vet, they made the executive call to put him down to prevent any further suffering. He died right around the time I woke up in the middle of the night. I like to think that was his way of saying goodbye, maybe. I cried all day. Well, let’s be honest, I cried all week. I burst into tears at the mere thought of him. He was such a good and lovely dog. He was so loved by us. He had a good life. It is always sad when we lose pets so early. They bring so much joy to our lives, and still when I go to my parents’ place the first thing I want to do is call for him or pet him. I hope he is running around in whatever the pet afterlife is. I miss him.

And on August 31, I ran my last kilometre of the GVRAT. I finished with 733.78 run, 83.18 hiked, and 205.09 walked.

September

September was a nice break from running. I got to start coming to campus one day a week, on Thursdays, which was good for my mental health and work productivity. I got to spend September long in Vernon with Maeghan and Madison at Michael’s family’s cabin. They took us boating and made us meals and didn’t judge us for drinking margaritas with Michael’s sister literally all day. It was the best. It was the epitome of every summer weekend you dream about. I was so happy I got to go.

I met a boy in September. It’s always September, isn’t it? It feels weird to write about him. Like, that makes him significant. But. He is significant. And I met him in September. And it was unexpected. Last minute. And essentially not a day has gone by since that day in September that I have not thought about him.

I also joined a Calgary Sport and Social Club team with my friends for softball and it started in September. We played two games and then I tore my hamstring running from second to third base. I tore… my hamstring…. Running like 30 metres…. After a summer of literally running 10+ km every day. I… it was the worst day ever. Softball itself was amazing and so fun even though I really do suck at the sport but highly recommend Rec League C-level beer league softball with all of your best friends. There’s just no way that isn’t fun.

October

A lot of pouting about my hamstring, I went to two physio sessions and then decided to just start running again. I’m bad. I’m a bad example. Don’t do what I do… but also…. It worked.

I went to Victoria to visit Sydney over the Thanksgiving weekend. We went to a Thanskgiving potluck party at my old coworker’s place. It was a nice experience to be the new people at a party, to have a room full of new people to meet and who ask you questions about your life. We got really drunk and they tried setting Sydney up with one of their roommate’s brothers, and gave us lipstick to try, and poured us tequila shots. We had such an amazing meal. It was honestly so fun. We laughed in the cab the whole way back about how we were going to need to debrief that evening HARD the next morning. We watched a lot of All Gas No Brakes, and went for dinner and brunch and I limped up Mount Doug with my hamstring. It was a very very chill weekend, like we spent a lot of time just lounging at Sydney’s apartment and doing nothing. Because that is the kind of friends we are. It was so relaxing and lovely. I was sad to leave.

Karla, my roommate, left for New York at the end of October. Her aunt was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, and she and her mom made the executive move to go there to basically be with her for the end of her life. She wasn’t going to be back until December. I was happy, because it’s nice to have a place to myself, but also sad because Karla is lovely and I knew it was going to be a stressful situation for her.

November / December

I am combining these two months because they have also been largely uneventful. In fact… I don’t know if I could really tell you anything significant that happened. We’ve been in a lockdown. I’ve spent my time playing piano, watching Netflix, listening to podcasts, basically doing all of the things I usually do when I’m bored. Lots of Among Us. Lots of outdoor things… skating… more running. We’ve been in a lockdown since early December. Time has dragged on since then. I spent Christmas with my parents. Scott and Rie stayed isolated, because Scott is in and out of the hospital for school. My mom and I watched shitty Christmas Hallmark movies and made fun of the guys who star in them. We drank a LOT on Christmas Eve and both spent Christmas with a wicked hangover. My dad and I ate edibles and I was launched into the stratosphere. I spent New Year’s Eve with Boy from September. We played beer pong, and card games, and he tried to use a coat hangover to pick the lock on the mysterious room that my landlord keeps locked. We spent most of the night kissing, honestly. I was happy to spend the last moments of the year with him.

2021:

Honestly... at this point... who really knows?

#year in review #text #personal #2020

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a-yellow-book · 4 years

Text

Favorite Things

In the years after Wei Ying's death, Lan Zhan poured all his heart and soul into protecting his legacy and raising A-Yuan.

I saw a fan-art of Lan Zhan standing in front of a bookshelf full of Emperor Smile's bottles and thought it would be hilarious if he openly displays them in the Jingshi for all of the Cloud Recesses to see instead of hiding them under the floorboard or something. Then it morphed into this. There will be a happy ending, I promised. We just gotta wade through some angsty moments first.

Part 1 of 2

[read on ao3 instead]

Year One

Lan Zhan stumbled on a loose cobblestone and almost lost his grip on the bottle of Emperor’s Smile. The path leading back to the Cloud Recesses was in need of repairs, and Lan Zhan wasn’t strong enough yet to fly. While the wounds on his back had scabbed into rough and dark scars, the damages done to his golden core were not yet healed. Even so, Lan Zhan walked all the way to Caiyi Town and back to the Cloud Recesses to procure a bottle of Emperor’s Smile. He fully intended to smuggle it back to his room, rules be damned. It was Wei Ying’s first death anniversary, and Lan Zhan wanted to get his favorite things to remember him by.

The two junior disciples didn’t say anything to Lan Zhan as he passed them, the liquor bottle tucked neatly inside his sleeve. As he got closer to the Jingshi, Lan Zhan heard an excited squeal coming from the gardens just beyond the gate.

“Father! You’re back!” A-Yuan ran toward him with his arms raised, expecting to be picked up.

Lan Zhan bent over to grab A-Yuan after reminding his son, “Lower your voice while you’re in the Cloud Recesses.”

“Sorry, Father,” A-Yuan said, leaning his head against Lan Zhan’s shoulder. “I missed you,” He whispered.

“I missed you as well,” Lan Zhan replied. He brought both the child and the liquor bottle into the Jingshi. Brushing off the loose leaves that somehow found their way into A-Yuan’s hair as he played in the garden earlier, Lan Zhan set him down.

“Father, where did you go?” A-Yuan asked.

“A-Yuan, do you remember when I told you about your other father?” Lan Zhan lowered himself on his knees to be at eye-level with his son.

“Father Ying!” A-Yuan nodded enthusiastically, “Is he coming to visit?”

“No,” A pause, “He has passed away,” Lan Zhan said softly. “Do you know what that means?” He had tried to explain to A-Yuan before, when he first recovered from his fever - no doubt gotten as the result of hiding in a humid cave for days with no food or water, but the small child was quick to forget the things that hurt him.

A-Yuan’s bright face took on a sad look as his eyes welled up with tears, “It means...It means he’s not coming back.”

Lan Zhan pulled A-Yuan in for a hug, patting his head gently, “It also means that we get to keep him in our hearts forever.” A-Yuan snuggled deeper into Lan Zhan’s embrace, and he could feel his son’s tears seeping through the collars of his robes. “Will you help me to remember him?”

A-Yuan brought his head up and nodded weakly.

Lan Zhan showed him the bottle of liquor, “I left earlier to get this. Even though Wei Ying is no longer of this world, we can remember him through the things he loved. This is Wei Ying’s favorite wine.” Lan Zhan booped A-Yuan’s nose with his own and added, “And you’re Wei Ying’s favorite son.”

That made A-Yuan giggled, “Are you Father Ying’s favorite too?” He asked amidst his giggles, not knowing how much that question weighed on Lan Zhan.

“I am his keeper,” Lan Zhan said. “I protect his favorite things.”

A-Yuan looked a bit confused at that, but before he could ask more questions, Lan Zhan stood up to place the bottle of Emperor’s Smile on the empty bookshelf. He didn’t care what others would say. There was no reason to hide what was the unchanging truth - his love for Wei Ying.

Year Two

It was a chilly afternoon. Lan Zhan was busy writing replies to the pile of letters on his desk when A-Yuan tumbled in.

“Father!” A-Yuan cried out.

Lan Zhan immediately dropped the brush and hurried over to his son, “What is wrong?”

“Father!!!” A-Yuan cried louder as he ran right into Lan Zhan’s arms, “The others... they...”

“A-Yuan, take a deep breath, gather your words, and explain to me what is wrong,” Lan Zhan said calmly, hand rubbing soothing circles on his son’s back to ease his cries.

“The others... they... they were saying bad things!” A-Yuan said in between hiccups, “They were saying bad things... about.... About Father Ying!!!”

Lan Zhan froze. He should have expected this. Although spreading gossip was forbidden in the Cloud Recesses, it was still impossible to stop the disciples, especially the younger ones, from doing so. Brushing the stray hairs from A-Yuan’s tear-stained face, Lan Zhan asked, “What did you tell them when they said those things about Wei Ying?”

“That lying is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses!” A-Yuan said petulantly, “They were spreading lies about Father Ying and I had to correct them. But no one believed me!” He continued, no less tearful.

Sighing, Lan Zhan pulled A-yuan into a hug, “I am sorry that happened. While it is very difficult to change the opinions of others, it is crucial that we do not let their hearsay dissuade us from our truths.”

“It makes me so sad...” A-Yuan whispered, defeated.

“I know - it makes me sad too,” Lan Zhan admitted

“Why do they hate Father Ying so much?” A-Yuan asked, sniffling.

Lan Zhan froze, entirely at a loss on how to unpack years of resentment, misfortunes and political machinations that led to Wei Ying’s demise to a five-year-old. At the same time, Lan Zhan did not want to lie to A-Yuan; it would only make it harder when the truth resurfaced.

“Wei Ying was a brilliant cultivator who surpassed everyone in his generation,” Lan Zhan began, “He also was unconventional in his thinking. Do you understand?”

“Un..conv..?” A-Yuan tried to repeat the word, shaking his head.

“Unconventional - it means that Wei Ying often did things that were different from what was considered normal,” Lan Zhan explained.

“And that is bad?” A-Yuan scrunched up his nose in confusion.

“No, it is not,” Lan Zhan shook his head. “Wei Ying followed his beliefs and did what he thought was the right thing to do, despite what others said at the time.”

“Because lying is prohibited!” A-Yuan perked up, understanding dawning on his young face.

“Yes, because lying is prohibited,” Lan Zhan smiled gently, heart warming that A-Yuan was able to connect the dots so easily. “So no matter what other people say, we will always cherish Wei Ying and all that he was, and is, in our memories.”

A-Yuan nodded as he leaned his head against Lan Zhan’s shoulder, “Can we go play with the rabbits, please? They always make me feel better.”

“That is a lovely idea,” Lan Zhan agreed. Then, with one fell swoop, Lan Zhan scooped a squealing A-Yuan up into his arms. “And I heard that there is a little boy who needs to be buried among the rabbits!”

“Hehe...Father!” A-Yuan giggled and tried to wiggle free to no avail.

Lan Zhan was grateful that A-Yuan was still young enough for these simple distractions to work. He knew it would only get more complicated as A-Yuan grew older, and there would be questions that required a more nuanced approach than this. Nevertheless, as he carried his giggling son towards the Rabbits Hill, Lan Zhan felt a rush of affection and a renewed sense of determination. No matter what, he would make sure that A-Yuan would grow up to be a brilliant man just like Wei Ying. And more importantly, he would make sure that A-Yuan knew how much he was loved and treasured.

Year Three

The Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations were in full swing in Caiyi with stalls selling colorful lanterns and sweets everywhere. A-Yuan, for all that he was trained to master the Lan’s brand of restraint, was still a six-year-old. So when he jumped up and down in excitement as they walked through Caiyi, Lan Zhan just nodded and smiled along indulgently.

“Father! Look!” A-Yuan waved his arm and bodily dragged Lan Zhan toward a stall that boasted a huge display of beautifully painted lanterns. “Bunny!” He pointed at the ones with bunnies painted all over, “Can I have one? Please?!”

Smiling softly, Lan Zhan reached out to touch the brushstrokes that formed a particularly fluffy bunny on the lantern closest to them. “We’ll take this one,” he said to the seller. Next to him, A-Yuan was practically vibrating with excitement.

“Thank you, Father!!!” He squealed and grabbed hold of the lantern with both of his chubby hands. “I want to show Jingyi! Can I show Jingyi when we get back home please?”

Lan Zhan nodded in agreement, and A-Yuan rewarded him with a bright smile in response. It lasted for a brief moment before A-Yuan’s attention was taken by other brightly lit stalls.

“Father! Look!” A-Yuan pointed at another stall selling lanterns, but this time, he pointed at the string of lotus shaped ones. “Can we get one for Jingyi please? He doesn’t have anyone to buy him things....” A-Yuan trailed off, frowning.

Jingyi had come to the Cloud Recesses barely a season ago when both of his parents died during a night-hunt. His mother was Lan Zhan’s distant cousin and whom he remembered mostly for the troubles she got in while she was studying at the Cloud Recesses. Lan Jingfei and Wei Ying would have gotten along splendidly in another life.

At first, stricken with grief and fear of an unfamiliar environment, Jingyi had mostly kept to himself outside of the classes and training sessions. A-Yuan, being a sensitive and caring child by nature, had tried to befriend Jingyi when everyone else had left him alone. It took a few rocky weeks of A-Yuan offering Jingyi treats, sitting next to him in classes, and eating meals with him before their friendship took roots. Lan Zhan suspected the final straw was A-Yuan showing Jingyi the Rabbits Hill, which had been off limits to other disciples.

Honestly, Lan Zhan was glad to see A-Yuan making friends and showing his innate compassion for others. In time, Lan Zhan hoped that would dispel all the negative association the Wen name might have had on A-Yuan.

*****

The moment they arrived at the Cloud Recesses, A-Yuan immediately ran off to find Jingyi with the lanterns in his hands. Lan Zhan went back to the Jingshi to meditate. Before long, the voices of the children drifted through, pulling Lan Zhan out of his meditation.

He heard a soft knock amidst the shuffling of feet and whispered voices, “Come in.”

Jingyi pushed the door open and stepped in. Bowing deeply, he said, “Hanguang-jun, thank you for my lantern.”

“You’re welcome, Jingyi,” Lan Zhan nodded. The two boys looked up at him and smiled.

“We’ve finished our training for the day, Father. Would it be ok if we visit the rabbits to show them our lanterns?” A-Yuan asked.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan always found it difficult to say no to his son.

The two boys quickly bowed in goodbye and headed out towards the Rabbits Hill hands in hands, the lanterns swaying along with their movements.

#the untamed #the untamed fantics #my writings #wangxian #angst with a happy ending #eventually

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idiot-extraordinaire · 4 years

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We Could Happen

Summary:

AU. The last thing Santana Lopez expects when her best friend asks her to cat-sit is to find something with the blonde in apartment 1812.

Title after the AJ Rafael song.

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13667414/1/We-Could-Happen https://archiveofourown.org/works/25812445

Santana Lopez is not what you would call a "pet person".

Her experience with pets involved a goldfish when she was five, who didn't last till the end of the month, a pregnant hamster that gave birth, ate it's young and promptly died a few days later when she was eight and the neighbour's pitbull, who had a habit of standing with it's head over the fence and barking loudly as it jumped up and down, terrifying her every time she walked home from the bus stop.

There was also her cousin's cat, who managed to scratch up her furniture the weekend she agreed to cat-sit and the parrot her ex-girlfriend had that flew out of its cage and pooped on her favorite leather jacket, so yeah.

Santana didn't hate animals, but she did prefer that she not be in close proximity with them for extended periods of time. She much preferred the pictures of puppies and kittens that circulated on Instagram than actually having to be near one. It was perfect, all cute and no responsibility.

Which is why she almost strangled Quinn when her best friend informed her she was going to be leaving her cat in Santana's care for the foreseeable future.

"What do you mean your cat is going to be staying with me?"

"I'm being seconded to our London office," Quinn informs her. "They said six months, but it could be up to a year. I can't take Charlie with me."

"Why can't you leave him with someone else?"

"Sam and Kurt's buildings don't allow pets."

"What about Mercedes?"

"Mercedes is going on tour in a few weeks, she can't bring him."

"Yes, she can. It'll be like part of her act."

"Santana…"

"Leave him with your mom, then!"

"Santana, I'm not flying to Lima to drop him off at my mom's, when you're perfectly capable of taking care of Charlie."

"Look Q," Santana retorted. "If I wanted to take care of a cat, I would buy a cat. But I don't want one, so Charlie will just have to find somewhere else to stay."

"Come on."

"What happens if I bring a girl over? I can't just have this cat getting all up in my business while I'm trying to get my mack on!"

"He's a cat, not a child!"

"I don't have the space."

"You live in a two bedroom apartment! You have a room for your shoes!"

"Okay, first of all, it's one and a half bedrooms!" That was true, the real-estate agent had advertised it that way, which was perfect for Santana since a "half bedroom" provided a perfect excuse to never have houseguests. "And second, it's full, so there's nowhere for him to stay."

"He doesn't need his own room," Quinn rolled her eyes. "Your place is more than big enough."

"What about someone from your office? How about Ken doll? Or what's-her-face with the ugly shoes? It won't matter if he pees in them," Santana rattles off names.

"Santana, please don't make this difficult," Quinn sighed as Santana crossed her arms over her chest, indignantly. "Don't make me call it in," she says, almost warningly.

Santana narrows her eyes. "You wouldn't."

What Quinn was referring to was the favor that Santana agreed to let her call in, one time only, no questions asked.

Over the years, Santana had gotten pretty good at letting one-night-stands know that that was exactly what it was , a one night stand. It saved a lot of confusion and hurt and awkward conversations in the morning, but once in a while, even the best could slip up.

It was a few months ago when the morning after, it became obvious that Santana's latest one-night-stand intended for their relationship to become...well, a relationship, and Santana informing her that it wasn't going to become one didn't work either.

It became painfully clear to Santana that she'd taken home a crazy person and she called Quinn, who was on her way to a big meeting. Santana had pleaded with her that it would only take five minutes and that she'd owe her huge so her friend complied.

Fifteen minutes later, Quinn showed up at Santana's apartment to play the scorned girlfriend. She went on, screaming and crying about how Santana could do this to her after they were together for five years, how awful she was for cheating (on their anniversary no less) and even threw in an "I should have listened to my mother about you!" for good measure.

She really sold it. Santana was convinced Quinn was going to slap her across the face, when she heard the front door click shut behind her and Quinn turn off the waterworks.

"There, she's gone. Now move, I need to touch up my makeup before I go to my meeting," Quinn replied nonchalantly, strolling past Santana and into the bathroom.

Quinn was only five minutes late to her meeting, but Santana had to keep her promise and officially owed Quinn one favour that she was allowed to call in at any time.

Apparently, this was it.

"You're calling in the favour over your cat?"

"Apparently, I have to," Quinn rolled her eyes and let out a sigh, before the corners of her mouth turned up in a smirk. "Which means that you really can't say no."

Santana really wanted to slap that stupid smirk off her best friend's face. But alas, a deal was a deal and she'd sealed her fate on that morning many months ago when she took home that crazy (though admittedly hot) girl who really took that U-haul stereotype to heart.

Live and learn, she figured.

And that was how Santana Lopez ended up as guardian to the calico, Charlie.

"I expect him to be in the same condition when I come back," Quinn warned her, on the day he was dropped off before his human departed for London.

"No promises, Q," Santana rolled her eyes.

"I'll call to check in."

"I'm an adult, I'll be fine without you."

"I meant on him."

"When did you turn into a crazy cat lady?" Santana cracked.

Quinn's little goodbye with her cat stretched out to twenty minutes, not including the two- hour-long orientation she gave Santana about vet appointments, shots, food, litter boxes, his pet carrier and everything in between.

When the front food shut, signalling Quinn's exit, Santana looked down at Charlie, who in turn just stared up at her and meowed.

"Ok listen, we need to get one thing clear, now that your crazy mom isn't here to save you," Santana dropped down so she was closer to eye-level with the cat. "I'll do all the vet appointments and the cat food and even emptying out your nasty-ass litter-box, but if you ever pee in one of my shoes, you are done here," she said in a low growl.

Charlie meowed again and licked his paw. Santana decided to take that as an understanding.

----------

Charlie is actually not bad. Santana won't go as far as to say she enjoys having him around, but she doesn't hate it.

He walked around the apartment like he owned the place and climbed up on the furniture, but all things considered he was pretty good. He went in his litter box and knew his feeding routine.

During the first week, Santana came home from work to find the legs of her coffee table totally scratched up. She brought out the eyesore that was his bright blue scratching post on full display in her living room so that he could use it instead, but Quinn informed her that Charlie was probably just getting antsy from being alone in the apartment all week.

Santana installed a kitty door so that he'd be free to roam about the apartment complex during the day and come home when he needed and leave her damn stuff alone. Since then, he seemed calmer when he was indoors and would take to lying on the couch next to her when she was watching TV.

So yeah. Santana figured having Charlie around wasn't the worst thing in the world.

She could, however, do without Quinn's constant need for updates on her cat. Based on her social media posts, Quinn was having the time of her life in London, meeting new people and going to new places.

However, based on her messages to Santana - it seemed less like she was a socially active woman in her twenties living it up, and more like she was a fifty year old cat-mom missing her cat-child, with nothing else to do.

[Quinn]: Did you feed him today?

[Quinn]: He likes the chicken flavour.

[Quinn]: Is he getting enough exercise?

[Quinn]: Can you send me pics of him?

[Quinn]: You're giving him baths regularly, right Satan?

[Quinn]: If anything seems wrong TAKE HIM TO THE VET

[Quinn]: How is he today?

Santana got so tired of the messages that eventually she started trolling Quinn so that the blonde would leave her alone.

[Santana]: Congrats, grandma! Charlie knocked up the neighbour's cat. You have nine of them to come home to!

[Santana]: Cats can drink scotch right? Cause I accidentally poured the wrong thing into his bowl.

[Santana]: Charlie's a persian right? Cause that's who's sitting on my couch rn.

-----------

Santana had settled into routine with her new roommate. It wasn't like she had to walk the cat or anything, so she made sure that there was food in his bowl before she left for work and he was usually home by the time she got back anyway.

In between she guessed that he was wandering the neighbourhood looking for mice or whatever it is that cats do. Whatever, he didn't touch her shoes and her furniture and frankly that was the best she could hope for.

Work on the other hand, left much to be desired.

Santana was the youngest person in management at one of the most promising new marketing and PR agencies in Los Angeles. She'd been there since interning in her senior year of college and knew the ins and outs of the business better than almost anyone. She was sharp, effective and knew how to get things done. It also meant that she spent too much time at the office.

You know what they say, if you need something done, give it to the busiest person at the office.

"Miss Lopez," her assistant, Marley, stepped into the door of her office. "The Mucusin people are here."

Mucusin was a new over-the-counter cold medicine soon to be released in stores. Santana had advised them to change the name, but they were pretty adamant about keeping it so it seemed like she was going to have her work cut out for her.

"Send them in."

-----------

So it turned out the Mucusin people were not only married to the name, but to the idea of keeping the packaging green.

Santana had to fight an eyeroll when she gave that directive to the design team to come up with a few samples incorporating that particular shade of green.

When she finally got home, she spotted Charlie, sitting on the arm of the couch, waiting for her and meowing expectantly.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll get your food," she grumbled, putting her things down, opening a can of Cat Chow and emptying it into his bowl.

Once she'd fulfilled her obligation, she ordered some food for herself on her phone and headed into the shower, wishing to wash all the stress of the day off before her dinner arrived.

She eats in front of the TV, when she notices that Charlie barely touches his food. Santana squints at him. He looked... different, something was off.

She gets distracted when Real Housewives comes on.

It's probably nothing.

-----------

Santana makes a hundred cat-lady jokes at Quinn's expense before complying when Quinn asks Santana to help her face-time Charlie.

"Oh my God, Santana!"

"What?"

"Why's he so fat? What have you been feeding him?"

"I just feed him the stuff you told me to buy, it's not cheap by the way, Q," she flips the camera back around so that Quinn's facing her and not the cat. "I don't even know what the big deal is, he looks-"

Santana's about to say fine when she gets a good look at the cat for the first time in weeks. That stupid Mucusin campaign's been taking up all her attention, that she didn't even notice. Charlie's gotten fat.

"I told you, you better return him in the same condition you got him!" Quinn chastises.

"Well, I'm not returning him yet," Santana huffs. "And I didn't take you for a fat-shamer, Lucy Caboosey."

Quinn scowls at that remark. "Seriously, calicos are supposed to weigh like 7 or 8 pounds. How much does he weigh?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? He was supposed to have a vet appointment last week!"

"Yeah but I didn't finish that Mucusin campaign until yesterday. I thought it would be fine to delay it by a week."

"Satan, I swear to God-"

"I'll take him!" Santana sighs exaggeratedly. "God, the way you fuss over your cat, wouldn't it be easier to just have a child?"

"Santana-"

"It'll be fine," she eyes the cat from his place by the coffee table. "He hasn't gotten that fat has he?"

"Yes!"

-----------

Santana takes Charlie to the vet and in six weeks in her care he's managed to put on five pounds. It's not a good look.

The vet recommends some diet cat food and that Charlie get some exercise. Since he's already out the whole day, Santana buys the way too expensive diet cat food and hopes that it will fix the situation.

She's not thrilled with the idea of having to spend her weekends taking the cat for a walk.

After another week, she manages to wrestle him onto the bathroom scale for long enough to see that he's not losing weight.

The mystery of the cat's weight gain finally gains traction while she's at work and her boss, Shelby pulls her into her office.

"Cheating scandal broke today," she places a file down in front of Santana.

"What are we dealing with?"

"Throat Explosion's lead singer came down with a case of mono, gave it to his girlfriend."

"So?"

"So, the day after, the bassist comes down with a case of mono too. The girlfriend's an actress, she's getting a pretty big following and the singer's taking a lot of heat. She kicked him out."

"He slept with the bassist?"

Shelby nods. "There were rumors before, but no one ever bothered to address it, they thought it would go away."

"Well it's not going to now. What do they want us to do?"

"What do you think?" Shelby raised a brow. "PR. They need damage control."

-----------

#Monogate gave Santana the breakthrough she needed. There was a third party involved. If she wasn't making changes to his diet and he was roaming about all day, there must be an external reason as to why he was gaining weight.

It's a Saturday when Santana finally decides that today will be the day she figures out who's been fattening up the cat.

She's bought him a tracking collar which synced with her phone. She checked the record previously to see that Charlie was only really exploring the apartment complex, never straying too far away from it. So she deduces it's someone else who lives in one of the apartments.

Santana knows that she has to move fast. Despite his weight gain, Charlie could still climb high and squeeze into spaces she couldn't.

When the sneaky little bastard slipped out from his kitty door, Santana quickly followed him out, tracking his steps on the app on her phone. It led her past the courtyard and into the garden patch of the complex, just by the fountain.

She waded through various potted plants, through the small pavement path in a mostly-grass covered area. A few of the plants had grown a little too tall and wound up smacking her in the face with their leaves. Santana kept glancing at her phone to make sure she was on the right track and was validated when she heard the sound of something being set down on the concrete and a pleased meow.

She scrambled through the rest of the plants and through the clearing, finding a woman, sitting on the bench and Charlie eating from a little orange cat bowl.

"Aha!" Santana exclaimed, leaping out from the garden and accusingly pointing at the cat, who didn't seem the least bit perturbed. She did however, come face to face with an amused looking woman.

Santana had expected some sad old guy who didn't have any friends and had taken to stealing the attention of the neighbour's cat but this woman was...well, gorgeous.

"Hi," the woman greeted her, seemingly unshaken by Santana's abrupt entrance.

"Hi," Santana managed to get out. "You're...you're the one who's been feeding my cat?"

"Oh is he yours?" she asks, reaching down to pet Charlie. "He likes to stop by here."

"Yeah, I mean...sort of," Santana frowns trying to explain the situation. "He's not mine, but he's in my care."

"Are you sure? Are you sure you're not a catnapper?"

Santana is partially amused but also a little offended. "Of course not! How can you accuse me of being a catnapper when you're the one feeding other people's pets?"

The woman frowns. "Feeding isn't the same as catnapping."

"So it's you? You're the one who's been fattening him up?"

"That's mean," the woman creases her forehead and pouts a little, rubbing Charlie's furry head. "I think he looks fine just as he is."

"What's he eating anyway?"

"Tuna casserole."

Santana's feelings of offense evaporate at this point and she's just confused.

"What?"

"My roommate is trying to learn to cook for her boyfriend," the woman explains. "I don't think it's very good but Cheeto seems to like it."

"Cheeto?"

She looks a little embarrassed. Santana thinks it's kind of cute. "That's not his name?"

"No, uh, his name is Charlie."

"Oh, I've been calling him Cheeto. The orange spots on his fur are kinda cheeto shaped. He doesn't seem to mind," she adds.

"No, I'm sure he doesn't."

Now sensing that Santana was out of accusation mode, the woman extended her hand.

"I'm Brittany, by the way. 1812," she gestures to the apartment behind her.

Santana shook it. "Santana. 1820"

"I like your name."

"Thanks. My mom picked it out."

Santana was horrified at the words that just left her mouth. What the hell was that? She knows how to talk to beautiful women, ok? She's just having an off day. Apparently her game had just decided to up and leave and go on vacation without telling her first.

Brittany giggles at that and scoots over a little on the bench, inviting Santana, mouth still slightly agape from her words, to take a seat next to her. She obliges and just stares down at Charlie tucking into his tuna casserole. She mostly stares down at the cat because Brittany's eyes are so very blue.

"So how long has this been going on exactly?"

"Maybe a month," Brittany shrugs. "He just kind of started coming around and one time he looked kinda hungry so I fed him the leftover's my roommate cooked. After that he kinda started coming around a lot."

"Leftovers huh? I guess the Cat Chow I've been feeding him doesn't really compare."

"Depends on the brand you buy, but usually cats prefer people-food even if it's not always the best for them. I try to only feed him stuff that cats would normally eat, like chicken and fish. Only stuff that they'd be able to catch in the wild."

"Huh. I had no idea about any of that."

"Ok, one time I fed him steak," Brittany says, looking a little guilty.

"Wow."

"My roommate bought this 14-pack of steak from Costco and I messed up with the freezing and the defrosting and we ended up just having to cook all of them. I thought maybe he should eat some before it went bad…" she trails off. "He seemed to really like it."

Santana chuckles a little. "Lucky Charlie, I bet he's the most well-fed cat in LA."

"Even more than all those pets to the stars?"

"Oh, totally, especially since he's apparently been getting double meals."

Brittany laughs and for reasons she doesn't quite understand, Santana can hear her heart beating louder in her chest.

"Sorry, if I've been stealing him away from you," she apologizes. "I just miss having a cat around."

"You had a cat before?"

"He lives back home with my parents. My roommate's allergic so I couldn't get another one even if I wanted to. I miss him sometimes. Even if he was leaking pages of my diary on the internet."

"Oh," Santana says, obviously confused. "Sounds like kind of a jerk."

"Yeah, but he has a good heart under all his addictions and gang affiliations."

"Right."

"So is Charlie your first?" Brittany asks.

"Is it that obvious I don't know what I'm doing?" Santana laughs. "I guess so. I mean, technically he's my friend's cat but she got sent to London for a couple months for work so she asked me to take care of him."

"I think you're actually doing pretty well considering he's your first cat. They're not as easy to take care of as everyone thinks," she comments as Charlie finishes his tuna casserole and jumps up onto the bench, where Brittany can pet him.

"Thanks."

"I also think you're a good friend."

Santana feels herself starting to blush and looks down at the ground to avoid eye contact. "You just met me. There's no way you could know that."

"Yeah but you're looking after your friend's cat while she's away, even though you don't really have any experience in it and you even tracked down to see where he was going when you thought something was up. Sounds like a pretty good friend to me."

"Yeah, well…" she mumbles, not sure of how to respond. "Listen, I think um, I think I'd be cool if you wanted to still hang out with Charlie and stuff. He seems to like you and I doubt I could stop him even if I wanted to."

Brittany's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Yeah. Maybe just go easy on the steak, though. My friend is a total helicopter cat-mom and she's not super happy with all the weight gain."

"I know an Atkins diet that might help."

"I mean, yeah, if you think-"

"Oh, thank you Santana!" with a big grin on her face, Brittany leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Santana in a big hug. The brunette was taken aback by it, clearly not expecting it, but was pleasantly surprised.

"Sorry," Brittany pulled away, looking a little embarrassed.

"No, don't be," she managed to get out. "Listen, Brittany, would it be cool if I got your number?" Santana realizes instantly what it sounds like and quickly tries to explain herself. "Since I obviously have no idea what I'm doing with this cat thing. Just, so I could like, text you if I have questions about cat food brands or going to the vet or something. You know, for Charlie's sake and everything," she added quickly.

"Totally," Brittany grinned. "I'll be like your cat whisperer."

Authors Notes:

If anyone here ever watched the show Chuck, the apartment complex in that show is kind of what I imagine the apartment complex here looks like.

I actually came up with this idea many years ago, but I didn't put pen to paper till recently. It was inspired by the fact that at a certain point my friend (and her parents) ended up feeding their neighbours cat on a regular basis and it started to get fat. This is also the first multi-chap I've written in years and the first Brittana multi-chap I've written at all.

#brittana #brittana fanfic #santana lopez #brittany pierce #pet-sitting!verse

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migleefulmoments · 4 years

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Le Sign, Abby

Anonymous asked: this is funny, C posted a photo of beard, D posted photos with the beard. Almost like they were sitting next to each other and saying “ok ok I will say this” (and it isn’t like EVERY Halloween Darren and Chris post their costumes for their fans)

ajw720 answered:

The only difference, C controls his SM and the bearding, D does not, (that isn’t true but I know you need to believe it or your world comes tumbling down). but they knew the Halloween post was coming when C posted his belated b-day wishes (not that he acknowledged they were late).

It really is, if you can remove the very human, tragic element, like a script for a really bad D Movie. C posts “Happy Birthday, Babe!” a day after the man’s actual b-day and “D” praises his fake bride for MAKING TEN costumes (let me stop you right there, Darren was actually APPRECIATING Mia for putting together 10 costumes while he was too busy to help. He was praising her for thinking of and executing 10 costumes. He was honoring her for being as into Halloween as he is and playing along. He was praising her because he loves her. If he wanted to praise her for shopping he would have use the word shopping. Your reductive shopping tirades- which you turned it into a full day of nonsense intended to bully Mia- misses the point of his Tweet entirely. At the end of the day, he appreciates her. If your lover appreciates you AND is sensitive enough to care about your feelings they should write something about you on social media..if they aren’t, then it sucks to be you but shut up because the shopping straw man silly makes you look petty, obtuse, unappreciated, mean girls who are so jealous you can’t see straight. Yes, a lot of their costumes this year were mass-produced and purchased this year-so what? Who cares? Is the bar of Halloween costumes that they are all couture? In the past they have used costume designers- they never made their own costumes entirely from scratch themselves. But that doesn’t mean that coordinating 10 costumes isn’t time consuming and clearly Darren didn’t care -he appreciated her.) Sure praise her if she actually designed them and sat with her sewing machine No, she went online and ordered things (I doubt she even went to a store) (Why would that matter? You really have no idea what she did do you? You’re just grasping because you're so pissed that Darren mentioned Mia and now you are stuck erasing that history...AGAIN. Darren is always doing things with- and saying things about- his wife that prove time and time again that they are a couple and he loves her...it infuriates you because you have to erase it or "debunk” it. ) and 3 couple costumes were cheap frankly (Again, why would that matter but also at $50+ per costume, I wouldn't call that “cheap”?). The only thought was how narcissistic she could be (What did she do? I didn’t see her social media...what did she say? Oh, right, you didn’t see her social media. You're just pissed that Darren mentioned one nice word about her. Your the one who blew it up into Armageddon and gave her so much attention) in their execution (as @flowersintheattic254 pointed out even the Mario costume had a reason, it was a reminder of Japan and the fake encagement by referring to the ad that paid for their trip there) (Huh? You're insane. That’s suuuucccchhhhhh a stretch- but then you cannot stop thinking about that trip. I just don’t understand who the person you believe ccDarren is. Is he such a coward that he lets Mia walk all over him and hurt him over and over? Why would he agree to be a dog hurt by CDV or make fun of the place they g to engaged if ccMia was ruining his life? Nobody is that much of a wuss ass twit. The rest of us on planet sanity know that a the real reason they wore that costume was because Mario wins when he rescues Peach).

And seriously how are people not questioning that she spent the entirety of her month picking TEN costumes? (Because it isn’t our place to question that. I don’t get your beef? Is it because she isn’t stuck working 9-5 in a cubicle like you are? Is it because she both a successful business and a wealthy spouse so she has more freedom than you do?) Who has time for this? I know, i know, a person whose only role in life is to play fake plus one.(You come off as so jealous every time you bring this up-and god how many times can you bring it up? How other people live shouldn’t concern you. It just spins up your anxiety and you have no control over it. Couples make decisions about their roles and their work schedules and nobody else gets a say and nothing is “normal” or “abnormal”.)

I am just so tired by D in particular being utterly dragged down by the useless dead weight by his side and his team’s sole ambition to promote her and make her sound like a decent person. (Here’s the harsh reality Abby- Darren posted his Halloween costumes and gave Mia a simple mentioned and you have written or reposted 23 posts about it just today. It has consumed your blog and your life. The ONLY person pushing and promoting Mia is YOU and your ilk. Mia is a decent person with lots and lots of friends-but even if she was the world’s worst person-even if she sat all day stalking and cyber-bulling strangers - you still have no say in who Darren marries and loves. That you don’t like her- or that you

If they wanted to praise her, maybe they should have forced her to participate in the zero waste initiative instead of sitting drinking by the pool or have her volunteer to help young girls who have been kicked out of their homes, or have been raped. (This entire paragraph is rich-talk about moving the goalposts- if he had put her in the video-which wasn't under his control since it wasn’t his project, he was just the host- you would have lost your shit over her being in the video raging about her lack of worth she isn’t famous, she’s a slut, blah blah blah...like please please have enough self respect to recognize that you would have been livid if she was in the project). Or pick any cause and truly volunteer her time to promote it (you have NO idea what she does with her time or money because she doesn’t post it on social media. If she did, you would be raging that she was looking for attention- so please stop. What do YOU do to help the world?). If she is not going to actually get a job and pursue a career (SHE OWNS A BUSINESS!!!!! Just like your boss... and you know she does. Your refusal to accept that is an ad hominom logical fallacy) please force her to do something that is actually of value and contribute something good to the world. But to praise her for picking TEN costumes? (Le sigh.)

Praise that comes from a man who this year alone won three awards, is starring in a show he created and wrote the music for, has his first big movie premiere this week, is exec producer and star of a huge show on N/etflix, just announced his starring role with 2 A++ lists actors next spring on Broadway, celebrated the 5th anniversary of the festival he created, volunteered his time for the zero waste initiative, performed at several charity events, and was just yesterday name limited series actor of the decade. Where is the praise for him from his “bride”? (Abby, come on, just because she doesn’t have public sm doesn’t mean she isn’t praising him in real life -or on her private sm-in fact, she has praised him on her social media that has been reblogged and you bitch about that. She was bragging about him speaking Tagalog at a dinner and your bitched and moaned that she didn’t know the language his mom speaks-forgive me for not believing you know more than she does). He at least deserves it. (Why does he deserve it? Because he’s famous and he’s a good actor? People are more than the value of their celebrity. You sure buy into the celebrity-obsessed culture don’t you? Pathetic. A husband thanking his wife for doing something for him is not something you can argue about-It is what it is. You have no say. There is no argument, no straw man, no gaslighting, and no erasing it).

(here is where it gets intense)

How do they not see how ridiculous it is for someone with D’s accomplishments in 2019 alone praise a person for purchasing TEN costumes for Halloween? (SMH because one has nothing to do with other. Comparing them is another logical fallacy-your entire post is full of them. It’s like saying that if I am honored for my work saving kids’ lives, you can’t be honored for your work because your work in corporate immigration isn’t as important as mine is). And stans, how do you accept that this is right or normal. (I just don’t get why you continue to ask us WHY and then outright refuse to learn from what we say. A life without learning is a wasted a life, Abby. To answer your question-because there is no “right" or “normal” when it comes to a stranger’s life. Darren’s life is Darren’s life and he can marry a Rhode’s Scholar or high school drop out with a low IQ. He can marry someone who never wanted to work or someone who wants to own the world. He can marry a humanitarian or Kim Kardashian. It’s his choice..not yours...you have no say whatsoever.) You really know nothing about him and have such little respect for him as a person if you continue to accept the character his idiotic team has created on his behalf. It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity. (oooh someone has been reading my blooogggggg. No, Abby, YOU have no clue who Darren is. When I read Darren’s words or hear him in an interview, I take in what he says and I simply add that info into my internal “who is Darren” file. This is how we learn about the personality of anyone and everyone we know. We hear what they say about themselves and we take in how they act and what they care about, what they don’t care about, what they think is important, and what they do with their life at work and outside of work and we form a persona in our minds. You, on the other hand, have decided Darren is a very specific persona that you only see on rare occasions and looks far more like Blaine than he does like the real Darren. So instead of listening and learning, you immediately set about to rewrite his words, change the meaning, and debase their value and intent because you have already formulated your version of Darren and it’s static. You won’t accept anything he does or says as “real” if it doesn’t meet that fantasy Darren. But this isn’t how it works in real life. We don’t label someone and then expect them to fit that model at all times or we get angry and scream “this isn’t normal”. Everyone we know is growing and learning and changing al the time and we simply take in that information and store it away as part of their personality. You spend so much time being so angry about Darren’s life because you haven’t actually seen much of your ccDarren since Glee ended. And you know that at some level because you just said “It is so far from the person he is and that he generally holds himself out to be when given the opportunity” That is the key here- the Darren you love is never around because that Darren ceased to exist when Blaine went away. The Real Darren is the one you see every single day- he’s a multifaceted guy-just like all of us- who can be prim and proper when he wants to but can be bawdy and crude and sexual. They are all Darren Criss).

This isn’t about being a “gay fetishist” or “hating woman” this is about wanting for D to be fairly and accurately represented and no longer forced to participate in this stupid, life sucking game to promote a person that contributes absolutely nothing to the world. (No, you're right, this isn’t about being a gay fetishist or misogynist- you are those as well- but this right here is about you not liking the person Darren Criss is in real life and demanding he adopt the persona of a character you fell in love with on Glee. Darren was never Blaine. Yes, he can act like Blaine in an occasional Tweet or during an interview- usually on the red carpet when he doesn’t know the interviewer. But that doesn’t mean he is that person. Think about it, you have never once seen the Darren you believe he is outside of Glee events, interviews, your favorite 3 Tweets (the Met Gala coat, the granddaughter of his Midway character and Bradley Cooper) and the conversations you imagine he has with his family and Chris. It isn't reasonable to believe that the Darren you see every single day isn’t the real Darren. People are who they are, they aren’t who we want them to be- that goes for your favorite celebs, your parents, your best friends, your lovers, your coworkers and even your children (which is a very hard lesson for some parents). You’re suggesting that he is acting like someone else because you don’t like what you see. That isn’t healthy, period. As for promoting a person who contributes nothing to this world- judging someone based entirely on other people’s social media mentions of her is frankly fucked up. It’s another logical fallacy to believe you know what Mia does for the world. She owns an entertainment venue and Darren is an entertainer. Just because Darren has more fame than she does, doesn’t make him more valuable. It’s really pathetic and sad that you see the world that way.) If you want to have a strong female role model, there are so many, i’ve talked about a few in the past few days (thus far Nancy, Lea, and Phoebe) and will continue to do so, but please stop worshiping a person whose sole reason you are speaking about her is her connection to D, even if you refuse to accept it is fake. (Abby, Darren loves Mia. He married her, IDK what it takes for you to understand that you have no say in his life and bitching and moaning and demonizing Mia says nothing about Mia, but it does say everything about you. You're petty, cruel, a bully, and you are losing sight of reality- please get some help. As for role models- I had to ask because I couldn't’ imagine that Lea was Lea Michele-it’s funny how your opinion of her changed after you saw more of the real Lea on LM/DC tour. Maybe you should learn from that. Nancy Pelosi-I mean yes but are you suggesting Darren marry Nancy? And Phoebe? Phoebe who? I don’t understand this argument at all. First of all it false presumes that everyone looks to Mia as a role model. None of us know her. The only people obsessing about others looking to Mia as a role model are you and the tinhats. I’m 50 years old, the only younger people I look to as role models are people who are doing something to change the world we are living in -fighting corruption, hate, and climate change. I don’t look to Lea, Darren or Mia as role models . I enjoy them as entertainers and I think Mia is kick ass but it ends there. We can all look to Nancy as a role model, but what the hell doe she have to do with Darren and Mia? My celebrity crush on Darren has nothing to do with looking for strong female role models nor does it have anything to do with who he is married to).

#cc #ccer #cc fandom #crisscolfer #darren criss #debunking cc nonsense

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musicboxunwinds · 5 years

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!! NEW INTERVIEW !!

It is hard to believe that Taking Back Sunday are celebrating their twentieth anniversary! They are a band that have came out of the emo scene champions and continue to prove why they are a band that everyone has to check out. It is hard to find a band that can compare to Taking Back Sunday, particularly when it comes to a live show.

It was great to have a chat with the band’s drummer Mark O’Connell on Tuesday to talk about their upcoming UK tour, their twentieth anniversary and what other plans the band have in store.

Keep reading to see what Mark had to say!

1. Taking Back Sunday have been celebrating their 20-year anniversary, what has it been like revisiting all these songs? And releasing the new compilation album ‘Twenty’?

It’s been really cool, I don’t know, when you think about it, when you’re like, “Oh wow, I’m a dude that’s been in a band that has been successful for twenty years and think the people like the music.” You know, once you really think about it, I realise how lucky we are. It’s a really beautiful thing to be able to do what we do for as long as we have done it.

MBU: What a huge career it’s been. It must be so hard narrowing down the tracks, there’s been so many amazing songs.

Mark: The way that we did it, is kinda like, we kind of just took the songs that people go the craziest for live.

2. There were two new tracks released on ‘Twenty’, were they written long before or were they written fully intended for this album?

They were written, not long before, Shaun and I live in Long Island, New York, we had some ideas and went to a studio here. Did our parts and made a song, then Adam and John they live in Charlotte, North Carolina, so when we were done with what we had, we sent it over to them and they put their thing on it, put lyrics to it. They did what they had to do to make everything fit and that’s kind of how the songs got together.

MBU: Will you be playing them on the upcoming tour?

Mark: You know, one of them is pretty slow and soft so we’re probably not going to play that one. “Ready To Go”, we’ve been playing it live ever since we recorded it.

3. Do the two new songs indicate more new music in the near future?

Yeah! I think so, I hope so.

4. Taking Back Sunday are a band that have come from a scene with no great longevity, what do you think has made TBS see everyone else out? I think, one of the big things for us is that everything that we do comes organically, nothings ever thought out. When we go into writing a song, we never think, “will this be a song that will be a big hit for us?” That was never really a thought, we just write and however it comes out, it comes out. People can see through bullshit, you know, so we try to be who we are and as real as possible.

5. I have seen TBS both in Glasgow and at Warped Tour in Toronto back in 2012, each time has been incredible, what still keeps you guys motivated to go out each night and kill it?

We love it, we still love it. What’s the point in doing something if you’re not going to be all in.

MBU: You guys really are all in, you can just see the energy just oozing from you guys.

Mark: 100%, we’re there to do something and what to make sure people have fun.

6. If there was one thing you would hope the people listening to Taking Back Sunday can take away from the band and music, what do you hope that would be?

Just whatever you want it to, if it’s impacted your life in a positive way. Speaking for all of us, that would make us all happy. Enjoying the live show, our fanbase is older now, they’ve grown up with us. There’s married couples come out, they’ve got babysitters for the kids, they drop them off at grandmas and grandpas. You can see it’s like a night out, people are coming to have fun and I think that’s what’s important. That’s what keeps people fans of a band, you go and see them, and they kill it, you want to go again.

MBU: I’m 30 now and I’ve been listening to you guys since I was around 12. The music you had back then is still so relevant now, even 18 years later. Think that speaks a lot for the band

Mark: You know, we never expected that to happen. When we recorded Tell All Your Friends, I remember having a conversation in the van on the way to a show or something that maybe we could sell 20000 albums, 30000 albums and even go on a couple of tours. All these years later, it’s pretty cool.

7. What can we all expect next from Taking Back Sunday?

Well, as you know were going to be doing this twenty-year anniversary, we’re going to the UK, were going to Europe then just doing this for a little while. You know, we have plans for tours maybe in 2020/2021 but we don’t know if it’s definitely going to happen. Everybody has been writing music, that’s kind of how we do it, we write music by ourselves, everybody has their own song and then once we meet up together, everybody puts their thing on top of it and they get the Taking Back Sunday song.

MBU: It’s quite unusual to hear that each person does their own little thing and then it becomes one big thing. You expect it to be more of a collective thing.

Mark: We kind of found out that that’s not a normal thing. That’s one of the things that’s added to the longevity of the band, everybody having equal say. It’s very democratic, everyone gets a vote. It’s really worked well for us.

8. To wrap up, is there anything you’d like to say to those reading?

I would say thank you, you know, thank you for caring about our band and thanks for the support.

MBU: Thanks very much, Mark! Hopefully see you in Glasgow!

Mark: Well if you do, come say hi!

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kokiafans · 5 years

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Via Real Sound: more pictures at the source!

Live best album ‘ALIVE -the live history-’ interview

KOKIA talks about her first live best album and her pride in the songs she’s built up over 20 years: ‘I want to be with everyone’s lives’

KOKIA has celebrated her 20th anniversary since she debuted in 1998 with the single Ai shite iru kara (’because I love you’). In this commemorative past year, she’s released all kinds of items, such as an original album and an all time best, as well as a DVD collection. She’s also been very active with concerts, of course in Japan but also with great success abroad, including a performance in Paris for the first time in a long time. Having run throughout this anniversary year, KOKIA herself also calls it a ‘20th anniversary marathon’. Topping it off is ‘ALIVE -the live history-’, surprisingly KOKIA’s first live best album. What did she feel through the works for this album, having listened to a great many live show sound sources once more? And so, I tried asking her not just about being a singer-songwriter, but also about her current superhuman way of working as she started her own personal office and produces all of her own works by herself. (Kuniko Yamada)

Songs as my own lifework

KOKIA, congratulations on your 20th anniversary year. I feel like it was just yesterday when we celebrated your 15th anniversary (laughs). Time passes quickly, doesn’t it.

KOKIA: It sure does (laughs). I was surprised too.

In this year, which you titled your ‘20th anniversary marathon’, you’ve worked on all kinds of releases and live shows.

KOKIA: Yes. There are also people who say an anniversary is just a checkpoint, but I am of the idea that it’s something I want to do a memorial for. It’s not limited to anniversaries; by properly preparing the points to make them last in people’s hearts, I feel it becomes easier for both me and the audience to participate in each commemoration. With KOKIA music, maybe you don’t feel like going ‘I’m supporting her! Yay!’ at full speed constantly, but you feel like going in fast at times when you want to listen excessively or when your mental state calls for it. So, depending on the person, they might not listen for a while, or they might not go to concerts so often; I think it’s fine if they have periods like that. But in this way, they go ‘Ah? It’s KOKIA’s 20th anniversary’, ‘Seems like she’s doing all kinds of things’ and once they hear about my anniversary year activities in one way or another or get to join, they think about listening to my music again for the first time in a while, or about trying to go to a concert. Doesn’t that turn into a chance?

It sure seems so.

KOKIA: I think it’s incredibly interesting that my activities start intersecting with the pace of these people’s lives again as time passes. Without getting overly eager, I think an anniversary surely is a place I’d like to create where guests can support me or easily return.

And at the opening of your 20th anniversary year, your original album ‘Tokyo Mermaid’ came out?

KOKIA: The release before that one was my all time best album ‘EVOLVE to LOVE -20 years Anniversary BEST-’. I held a concert at Tokyo Opera City as a 20th anniversary memorial, and I also held an orchestra concert and a performance in Paris. I also had live DVDs like the 3-disc collection DVD titled ‘Bird Watching’ that came out, right. I’ve considered all kinds of things in order to create these one by one, and it’s been a year in which I really organized my feelings as myself too, about the road from now on and the things yet to come, by talking and writing articles about these items again.

And then there’s the final icing on the cake for this memorial year, your Live Best Album ‘ALIVE -The live history-’.

KOKIA: In any case, everyone tells me how they like KOKIA live, and I got told my lives are life-like, but yet, when it comes to live CDs, I had only recorded my previous 15th anniversary concert ‘Color of Life’. I thought it was strange too that it was the only one I had brought out (laughs). Just as I was thinking that, I got into the talks for this.

Although it’s called a live recording, it’s completely different from when you bring out a concert on one DVD or make a live best as a DVD, as you bring it out as sound sources, right.

KOKIA: in the case of a DVD, of course there’s video. Visual effects are wonderful, and even if it’s not such a good take if you just listen to the sound, due to the entire atmosphere from the feelings from facial expressions, movement and light, it can still feel like a wonderful play and performance. But when you just listen to the sound, sometimes the sensation is disconnected, and sometimes you wonder if it could be a better performance. On the contrary, you might also luck out and go, I sang that song better than I thought! (laughs). With the visual support ending and scraped away, the ways you see and perceive things change, which was also interesting.

This time, you’ve chosen songs from sound sources from lives between 2010 and 2018, right.

KOKIA: Right. Since I arrange and connect to my concerts like I’m creating a scenario from the start to the end, I figured they wouldn’t be able to survive in me if I cut just one song from them. But this time, since I was extracting songs from each concert, I had to create an album out of an assembly of clippings like that, so at first I had to get used to it and felt uncomfortable. However, once I was thinking about the song order, once putting those songs in order like I was assembling one set list made with these scattered pieces, I felt it became a set list like the live show History, which I walked through in the past. All put together like that, it felt like the penny dropped in me.

But you had such a huge number of sound sources.

KOKIA: I felt like, how do I start on this? At first, I did nothing but listen, but that was quite a chore. I didn’t think it would be that tough, but it was (laughs).

This time, you compiled 24 songs in total for 2 discs; the first of those songs is Arigatou... (’Thank you...’), recorded last year at Tokyo Opera City. No matter how often I hear that song, I get choked up.

KOKIA: It’s a song I’ve sung countless times since my debut for sure, but it’s a song for which I’ve changed the arrangement through the ages and for which I’ve changed my way of singing too, so I wanted to put in this newest version of Arigatou... no matter what. It’s a title that I straight-up delivered during my 20th anniversary as a feeling, it’s also reflected in the lyrics. What’s more, to me, it’s my debut song in a sense. That’s because even though it’s not my actual debut song, it is the first song I wrote and composed myself that was made into a CD.

For the second song, you picked the oldest song from these sound sources, the 2010 performance of Saishuu jouei (’final screening’).

KOKIA: That’s a thing I liked to pride myself on as a pretty great one (laughs). This time I’m choosing from sound sources from a period of around 9 years, but before that, in short around the time of my debut, I sang things that I hadn’t written myself, and when you listen to them, how should I put it... you really feel they’re not my own, and I was shy and embarrassed. But for this live CD, I don’t feel uncomfortable even with the 2010 song Saishuu jouei being next after the 2018 version of Arigatou..., and I can listen to it normally. I feel that might probably be because I was unwavering in the things I want to say through my songs, even after many years. My style and way of singing have changed a little in that long period of time, but I guess it’s admirable that the things I want to do with my songs has hardly changed (laughs). I always keep thinking about exploring to become a better, more ideal KOKIA, just like how I think about that evolution and so on. However, I felt like the direction I’m heading in isn’t a mistake.

KOKIA, you went independent in 2006; that was something big too, right?

KOKIA: Yes. To me, my independence might be one reason why I’m still singing now. If you’re connected to a place and you end up singing under some stress as a singer for a long time, then you might choose a different life. But I think I would have gone independent sooner or later. Because I feel that songs are my own life work. I hate being told all kinds of things by my surroundings (laughs). So thinking about what I like, I want to do my stage performances, my albums, and my way of doing things at my own pace. I’m headstrong like that (laughs).

I don’t think you’d have come this far if you’d just been headstrong (laughs).

KOKIA: If I would praise myself, then perhaps it’s for the fact I can look at myself from a bird’s-eye view. It’s my belief that I know at a glance what I can and can’t do myself. Also, as the KOKIA my audience wants and the KOKIA I want to become myself nicely coincide, I intend to be serious about how to cultivate that. That’s why I love my job, and I’m really happy even though it’s busy.

What do you mean by ‘coincide’?

KOKIA: there are many musicians, and there’s a great amount of music in the world, but the audience that would hate it if there was no KOKIA music feels something from my songs. When they thought about something they were trying to get, my songs became a push against their shoulder at a big turning point in their lives, or hearing my songs put their minds at ease, or makes them wonder to themselves. I myself, too, keep writing with the feeling that it’d be nice to have a song at certain big turning points or scenes in life, something like a theme song in life like it is for everyone. I can’t express it well, but I create music while thinking very seriously about wanting to leave something behind in the hearts of my audience one by one, and so, I think that people who caught that at the same channel are the people who are listening to my music now.

So it doesn’t matter whether it’s Japan or abroad, does it. This time, you also have sound sources that were recorded at your performances in Paris and Shanghai.

KOKIA: When speaking of things I can say through my voice or through concerts, I guess you can divide them into 2 big parts. One part is like what I mentioned now, the physical part. That’s something in my Japanese lyrics that I convey, so I guess my Japanese audience can catch that directly. However, when I perform abroad, the part supplemented by the lyrics disappears, and I wonder how to resonate with my audience; separated from the realm of words, there are the vibrations and sensations I hold in my voice. I call those ‘sound waves’ (otonami); there are places where I use the power of those sound waves and the texture of the sounds, and it’s like I communicate that. I also feel that the change in my tone of voice is one of my own inherent flavors, so I try to make a set list that values songs that are easy to convey through things like the variations in my voice or in my way of singing. I think that for this album, the songs I chose are ones that you can enjoy in both of those ways.

I show my own merits by myself

You talked about it earlier already; you’ve gone independent, and over 10 years have passed since. Isn’t there a person who acts like a sort of manager?

KOKIA: There isn’t. It’s the Kirin Kiki method. (t/n: Kirin Kiki a Japanese actress.)

So you’re saying that you also answer phone calls about job requests by yourself.

KOKIA: That’s right. People from the recording companies and so on are hesitant, like ‘may I have your phone number?’, but I say that if they don’t have my phone numbers, the talks won’t advance. ‘Who should I talk to about the money?’, that’s really well put (laughs). Of course, that person is me as well. I will draw up the invoices and so on.

Well then, you also take on jobs abroad by yourself?

KOKIA: That’s right. Since I also do the matters abroad first-hand, I first translate the contracts and sign them. I’m already very busy when I mail with French people or get mail from China, as that was absolutely necessary to organize my concerts in the past year.

To put it simply, you have quite the work load.

KOKIA: But I realized it, myself. If I can do it, I can do it. I noticed that my own specifications were going through the roof, and honestly, it’s a really good feeling (laughs).

Though I guess it’s tiresome, the feeling of achievement outweighs that?

KOKIA: That’s right. I’m very much a demon for memos. As there’s a lot to do and I always forget, I write everything down, right. The things to do today, to do tomorrow, things to do within a week, and things to do within a month I all write down, and it feels pleasant when I get to cross those out one by one.

However, when there are more than 10 items of things to do, ithen they increase when I can’t process them at just as high a speed myself. Normally I don’t think it’s tiresome or something at all, but at those moments, at first I go ‘Wahh!’ as I can’t allow myself to be late with work (laughs). Aside from that, I feel like I’m overcoming the tough challenges one by one as I perform them one after the other as if they’re quests in a game, and I enjoy myself (laughs).

You’re facing forward no matter what. Surely you love your job.

KOKIA: I love it. I do all of my work and house tasks completely, somehow without a drop. But still, there are times like today when I want to hire some horse power. In an interview on the DVD I recently released, I said ‘I won’t give up anything!’ in response to a question about what will become of KOKIA from now on. I said ‘I’m someone who won’t give up a single thing, neither childcare nor my job nor having fun!’ (laughs). I myself thought it too, that this person really seems like someone who won’t give up (laughs).

(Laughs)

KOKIA: Right, that’s why I won’t give up. After having a child, I decided that I won’t work at all after 18:00 unless I have a concert or a business meeting that can’t be postponed. To put it in a way that’s easy to understand, if I handle the workload for 6 or 8 people by myself, then there is an extra barrier of having to finish in a shorter amount of time than those people. But on the contrary, it becomes fun. Like, ‘if that’s the case, why don’t I do it!’ (laughs). And I guess productivity might also go up? I guess there might be many people who think that KOKIA does all kinds of things or has come up with all kinds of things, but there are still so many more things I want to do from now on, so it’s gotten to the point where I wonder if I have enough time; I’ll get in trouble, I keep coming up with more and more ideas (laughs).

That power and those inexhaustible ideas surely come from somewhere? (laughs)

KOKIA: I wrote about it in my blog the other day, but since I’m constantly just producing output, I don’t really know where that’s coming from. I think that my audience already knows the music, but I don’t listen to it at all. I don’t have a CD rack at home, you see (laughs).

Is that so!

KOKIA: Lately I’ve been asked a lot what kind of music I listen to, but now that you mention it, I don’t really listen to music? Nay, on the other hand, why do you all listen to music? When I thought about it like that, to me, music comes out even if I don’t listen to it, so I feared that I might get influenced if I listen to music by others. Also, because I’m a person who produces and creates all kinds of things like music and words and expresses, I’ll always want space in my head. Extra room. It seems like sound doesn’t take space because it’s not words, but actually, it takes up a lot of space. So, when the sounds flow, I can hear them like distracting thoughts (laughs). If you always put yourself in the sounds, you might lose sight of something. That’s why my surroundings are mostly relatively silent. I might be a pretty old person (laughs).

I don’t think you’re old, though (laughs).

KOKIA: Moreover, in the current age, even if you block it to some extend because there’s news or disorder, what comes in comes in after all, doesn’t it? That’s why I personally feel that it might be okay even if I don’t take it in myself. But well, simply because I handle such a huge workload, I just don’t have the time to listen to music (laughs).

(Laughs) But I wonder, is that fundamental attitude connected in a way to what you called ‘unwavering’ a while ago?

KOKIA: In these 20 years, the music scene itself has really changed. For example, the amount of people who simply become like musicians has increased, right? At first, I feel that if it’s to enjoy music, then that’s alright. Because when it comes to music, I’d like it if it was something casual that people can do wonderfully simply for their own enjoyment or the enjoyment of the people around them. However, as on the other hand all kinds of people can now make music or play instruments, there are times when I’m really worried about the uncertainty of professional musicians. I started to feel that if we’re all evaluated in the same playing field, then we might get buried in the numbers if one can’t find something that’s ‘how they want it’. I suppose I started thinking about what my own individuality is like. Because there is no such thing as a license for musicians, you might say that you’re a professional as long as you say you’re a professional, but surely that’s not the case. So, for me it seems to be troubling to all be together in just one color, and I keep singing with pride that I do my own thing. So what I came back to wasn’t trying hard, but being myself. And if you speak of that, not trying hard but being yourself, then certainly we’re now in a time in which everyone wants to connect in some way or another, or wants to do a collaboration in some way. However, I often think about the strength of times when I’m alone, or of a power that doesn’t connect. So, I’m not even connected with people (laughs). I show my own merits by myself. I don’t feel sorry. By doing that, you might feel or appear to be temporarily left, but I think it’s absolutely different.

I see.

KOKIA: And about singing? When I went back to the ultimate point for singing, the people from long ago apparently communicated all kinds of things through song. While they change a little on the way like in a telephone game, the message in the song stays the same. I think that there’s something romantic like that in songs. Times change, but the very primitive points for people - the heart and intuition, those haven’t changed in thousands of years. Though genres and instruments in music all evolve, and though they evolve into amazing things, is there a kind of craving for music in a place where everything is scraped off? That craving of people. There, I think nothing has truly changed at all.

Meaning?

KOKIA: I think that when telling the ultimate story, for example when you face death, the thing that heals you is wonderful music... isn’t that what songs are?

Because there’s a trend among people in Japan to avoid and not talk about ominous things such as death, there hasn’t really been a chance so far to talk about it, but when a life ends, my own included, I wonder if you can’t trace the music and songs inside heart and head at the moment of passing or when the time of death is close, even if physical freedom has been taken away? It’s possible to yearn for all kinds of things, and memories can get revived. Can’t you remember scenes, people and places just by a melody playing inside your head?

I understand that feeling well.

KOKIA: My own life has been like in those KOKIA lyrics, and I will pass while the melodies play inside my head - ultimately, I’d like to offer that to everyone’s lives to that extent.

Surely that’s why in the MC of the album’s final stage Jinsei wa uta no you ne (’life is like a song, isn’t it’), you talked about your determination to keep singing while valuing the power of language in the future, too.

KOKIA: that’s right. That’s exactly how it is. Because I think it’d be really nice to think that in the end, one is happy to get to come across KOKIA’s songs in one’s life.

Your current project also is released on your day of debut, April 29. I’d surely like to enjoy it carefully until the end. By the way, this product is the last cherry on the cake of your 20th anniversary, right.

KOKIA: I feel like we’ve been talking about ‘20th anniversary, 20th anniversary’ for quite a long time now (laughs), but with this, it’s finished.

It’d be nice to continue for just a little longer, though (laughs).

KOKIA: No, no, that’s quite alright already (laughs). Because I’m heading for my 25th anniversary next!

(Interview/text: Kuniko Yamada / Photos: Yumiko Mitsuhashi)

■ Release information “ALIVE -The live history-” Release date: April 29, 2019

[limited first edition] VIZL-1584/ ¥4,167 + tax＊ anniversary LP size cover work (31cm×31cm) [normal edition] VICL-65188～9/ ¥ 3,704 + tax ※ PlayPASS supported, which allows all songs to be played by smartphone right away Track list

[DISC 1] 1. Arigatou… (’thank you…’) (April 29-30, 2018, ‘Beyond Imagination’ at Tokyo Opera City) 2. Saishuu jouei (’final screening’) (April 30, 2010, Oto no tabibito(’sound traveler’) at Tokyo Bunkamura Orchard Hall) 3. Family Tree (January 14, 2017, ‘UTA-Live2017 Shanghai concert Vol.1′ at Shanghai Majestic Theater) 4. Pinku no zou (’pink elephant’) (June 21-22, 2015, Oishii oto o tabeta nara (’when eating delicious sounds’) at Tokyo International Forum) 5. tomoni (’together’) (August 11, 2017, ‘The Soloist’ at Tokyo Bunkamura Orchard Hall) 6. Kaba ~Madamu Hippo no Yume~ (’Hippo ~madam Hippo’s dream~’) (November 11, 2018, ‘20 YEARS ANNIVERSARY STAGE’ at Paris La Cigale) 7. il mare dei suoni (April 4, 2017, ‘Mangiare Cantare Amore’ with Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI Roma at Tokyo Opera City) 8. Ai wa kodama suru (’Love echoes’) (December 6 &8, 2011, ‘music like a prayer’ at Shinagawa Church Gloria Chapel) 8. Obake ga kowai nante (’ghosts are pretty scary’) (November 24, 2018, ‘I remember YOU’ at Billboard Live OSAKA) 10. Everytime We Say Goodbye (October 29, 2014, ‘Billboard Live’ at Billboard Live TOKYO) 11. Utau hito (’singing people’) (April 28-29, 2013, ‘COLOR OF LIFE’ at Tokyo Bunkamura Orchard Hall) 12. The woman (April 30, 2010, Oto no tabibito (’sound traveler’) at Tokyo Bunkamura Orchard Hall)

[DISC 2] 1. Make Sense (December 24, 2016, ‘Christmas Party!!’ at Daikanyama Haremame) 2. The rule of the universe (June 21-22, 2015, Oishii oto o tabeta nara (’when eating delicious sounds’) at Tokyo International Forum) 3. something blue & something red (November 24, 2018, ‘I remember YOU’ at Billboard Live OSAKA) 4. Independent ~dokuritsu~ (’independence’) (November 5, 2016, ‘LAYERS Shinrabanshou (’all of creation’) at Tokyo International Forum) 5. Chouwa oto (’sound of harmony’) (August 11, 2017, ‘The Soloist’ at Tokyo Bunkamura Orchard Hall) 6. Chiisana uta (’small song’) (December 6 & 8, 2011, ‘music like a prayer’ at Shinagawa Church Gloria Chapel) 7. moment ~ima o ikiru~ (’live in the now’) (April 28-29, 2013, ‘COLOR OF LIFE” at Tokyo Bunkamura Orchard Hall) 8. Remember the kiss (November 11, 2018, ‘20 YEARS ANNIVERSARY STAGE’ at Paris La Cigale) 9. Kokoro no rousoku (’candle in the heart’) (December 6 & 8, 2011, ‘music like a prayer’ at Shinagawa Church Gloria Chapel) 10. Yume no tochuu (’on my way to my dream’) (April 29-30, 2018, ‘Beyond Imagination’ at Tokyo Opera City) 11. Jinsei wa uta no you ne (’life is like a song, isn’t it’) (November 5, 2016, ‘LAYERS Shinrabanshou (’all of creation’) at Tokyo International Forum) 12. Moon River (October 29, 2014, ‘Billboard Live’ at Billboard Live TOKYO)

■ KOKIA, live best album release commemorative special program (link expired) April 29, 19:00~

#KOKIA #translation #translation: interview #20th anniversary #alive the live history

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arizonatotoronto · 5 years

Note

Soft is great! To encourage these feelings, what are all the Mitches and Austons doing for the holidays across your different AUs?

So, Lady!Mitch and Auston obviously spend actual Christmas separately (Auston going home for three days while Mitch spends the break at her grandmother’s). They both attend a small holiday gathering at Patty’s, though, where Mitch wears another dress that has Auston thinking his days on this earth are numbered.

She’s brought along the most amazing tiramisu that Auston has ever, ever tasted in his life and he spares a moment to fantasize about dropping to one knee and pledging himself to her for life because of it.

Mitch drinks more than she might if this were a work event, barely protesting anymore each time Christina come by and tops off her glass of wine.

And a tipsy Mitch? Is an unusually handsy Mitch.

Auston tries not to spend the entire evening at her side, following her around like a lost dog. He thinks he succeeds, mostly. But, god, there are times where he’s sitting next to her, too-close on Patty’s living room couch, or where he’s leaving the washroom and she’s waiting in the hallway to enter, and she’s brushing by him with a happy laugh and a sweet little stumble that’s got both of her hands catching on his arm to keep her from tripping in her stockinged feet.

(And Auston is probably a freak? Because he’s so drawn to finally seeing her practically bare feet, can’t stop staring at how goddamn sweet they look. Without her heels, the height difference between the two of them is so much clearer. Auston can barely breathe every time she needs to take a step back in order to see his face properly without needing to crane her neck so far.)

He survives the night, but only just.

By the end of it, he’s got Mitch’s personal number in his phone because– because he’d honestly just wanted to make sure she’d gotten home alright in the Uber he orders for her, and she’d thought that the idea was just unbearably nice of him.

Auston falls asleep that night to “got home okay!” and then, “i had fun!!! thank u again for a great night :)!”

–

In the Frat AU, Auston and Mitch get a decent three weeks off after exams. It’s been almost a year since they’d bonded by the time Christmas rolls around.

It’s a little bit difficult, trying to navigate the holidays with two families now, but they make it happen as best as they can.

The first two weeks are spent with the Marners in Toronto, helping Mitch’s mother prepare and cook for all of Mitch’s little cousins and relatives. It’s a fairly low-key thing, standard Canadian holiday fare like stuffing and mashed potatoes, turkey and spiral ham. Auston loves every minute of it, the warmth of being included in all of the games, in the Secret Santa tradition he’s heard so much about.

If he’s honest, Auston had been a little bit worried coming into this whole thing, if only because Mitch has brought the same alpha home for the last 6 years. It’s pointless to have been nervous, though, because the Marners are so very kind, and they never once mention Mitch’s ex where Auston can hear. Instead, Mitch’s aunts beam happily at him as he loads up plates for the both of them, knowing without having to ask what kinds of things Mitch will want to eat.

For dessert, they split a plate of every dessert option available, and it’s impossible to ignore how delighted Mitch is by Auston’s care and affection, especially surrounded by his loved ones as they are.

After the food is eaten and packed away, Auston ends up spending a decent chunk of Christmas night helping the various Marner children put together their elaborate toy sets, cross-legged on the living room floor and surrounded by little tools and instruction manuals, by giggling kids who have figured out that Auston is a ton of fun to straddle and climb like a tree.

They fly to Arizona on Boxing Day to ring in the new year with the Matthewses in the desert. Auston’s Mama prepares a huge dinner on New Years Day, and Mitch becomes something like her little shadow. Auston is a little bit puzzled by it, but he lets it go because yeah, his Mama is great so it’s okay if Mitch wants to spend time with her while they’re here.

(Later that night, Mitch lets it slip that he’d spent the day learning how to prepare all of Auston’s favourite foods. Auston’s wolf reacts strongly, visceral and intense, because the thought of his omega wanting to do that for him, wanting to bond with one of the people Auston loves most in the world… it’s a lot.)

–

Rookie Mitch spends the entire holiday in Arizona, because his father is still being really– well. And like. It’s sort of his and Auston’s anniversary, of when they started hooking up, anyway, and Mitch cannot fathom being away from Auston right now.

At first, Auston isn’t sure if he should offer to take Mitch home with him. He doesn’t want to worsen the rift that has formed between Mitch and his dad by taking Mitch away from his family over Christmas.

He forgets all about that particular concern about a week before he’s due to fly home, though, because Mitch has begun acting not at all like himself, become quiet and reserved, and a little bit sad, too. Auston is immediately concerned, can’t help the protective instinct that flares hot in his chest at the sight of Mitch so unhappy.

“Is everything okay, baby?” Auston asks carefully over breakfast, because Mitch is staring rather vacantly into his cooling mug of coffee, and he’s been pretty far away the past few days.

“I– yeah,” Mitch says, though it comes out accompanied by a rather heavy sigh. “Yeah, everything is fine, I’m just. Thinking.”

“Okay, sure,” Auston says, and it comes out sounding far more stressed than he’d intended but he honestly can’t help it. “Do you… do you want to talk about it?”

Mitch sighs again. He scrubs a hand over his tired-looking face and admits into his palm that he’s been thinking about Christmas.

“Baby,” Auston says gently. He takes one of Mitch’s hands into his own and gives it a reassuring squeeze. “You know I don’t want to go and leave you here. Tell me you know that.”

“Yeah, Aus. I know. That’s not– that’s not it. I just. Fuck. I don’t want to stay either.”

It takes Auston a moment to work out what that could mean, and when he does, it makes him feel… just. Really fucking sad.

“You don’t want to spend Christmas with your family?” Auston hedges, and the look on Mitch’s face breaks his heart.

“Of course I want to,” Mitch says softly. “But I just. I can’t. I can’t, Auston. Not when– not if it’s going to be–”

“Come home with me,” Auston blurts. He can’t stand it, the sadness and the guilt radiating from his sweet boy. There’s a lingering anger directed at Mitch’s father that Auston very carefully does not acknowledge as he comes around the table to take Mitch into his arms.

“Auston.”

“Seriously, Mitchy. Come home with me. You know I want that, come on, we’d love to have you.”

“God,” Mitch gasps, breathlessly. “Is this– are you–”

“I’m sure. Angel, I am so very, very sure. It’s all I want, to bring you home with me, to spend the holidays together. You have to know that.”

(They only have four days off between games this year, but Auston is thankful for each and every moment. He books Mitch a ticket on his flight, and then, because he honestly loves spending money on Mitch – as unnecessary as that has become – he express orders a designer luggage set for Mitch to use, this time and every time after.

It’s not the same for Mitch, spending the holidays with Auston’s family and not his own. Auston understands the slight melancholy he can sense from his boyfriend, and does everything he can to make Mitch smile instead.

If that amounts to absolutely showering him with gifts and expensive, pretty things, and presenting him with endless delicious tidbits for him to sample right from Auston’s fork, uncaring of who sees, well. It’s Christmas, after all.)

#lady!mitch

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easily-distracted-ivashkov · 6 years

Text

The One That Got Away - Chapter 1: Rekindling an Old Flame

Nearly seventeen years had passed since Sirius had been sent to Azkaban. One year since his name was cleared entirely and best of all, the war was finally over. James, Lily, Remus, Tonks and even Marlene were all alive. The Pureblood was absolutely thrilled finding out Marlene had lived. She too had went into hiding, even went to the extent of changing her name to avoid any danger. The old couple however weren’t reunited until recently. Sirius swore his heart skipped a beat when he heard that his old flame was still alive and well. Sirius wanted nothing more than to reunite with the witch. There wasn’t another person alive that he had cherished and treasured so deeply. Only thing that separated the two was when Sirius was framed and sent off to Azkaban. He never heard from the beautiful blonde since the painful day that they were torn apart from one another.

Truthfully, Sirius hadn’t been the same since Azkaban and being stuck at Grimmauld for so long. He was calmer, much less obnoxious and rambunctious in comparison to what the Pureblood used to be. But there was more. A part of him seemed… lost, confused and even misplaced. Twelve years in prison and then spending another three locked up in his nightmarish childhood home had left Sirius feeling like he didn’t belong. The world had changed so drastically from before Azkaban, and even then he was still clueless about the Muggle world. He was scared and intimidated by nearly everything around him. It filled him with such anxiety to just leave the house without James or Remus with him. It wouldn’t take him long to get lost with the way things had changed in the time he was locked up. What started out as a curious person that wanted to learn everything about the world he never able to delve into, was now frightening to him. There was so much to learn and Sirius just felt so behind in every sense of the word.

Not only had Sirius gone through Azkaban and then was thrown right into Grimmauld, as soon as Sirius’ name was cleared, his drinking habits had only worsened. It was Lily that spoke Sirius into seeking proper treatment for his alcoholism. The pureblood had spent another year in and out of rehabs in hopes to get clean once and for all. And as of now, he had been almost a full year sober. He was still going in to therapy sessions just in hopes to help with his fight with depression and was quickly prescribed anti-depressants. He was a work in progress but he was eager to get back to a better version to what he was before.

It was a normal summers evening on a beautiful Saturday. Sirius, James and Remus. The trio of best friends had a set schedule of that being the three of them getting together at least once a week (but Sirius often saw James and Remus at least three times a week) and had lunch or tea together. Remus nor James usually brought their partners just for Sirius. They knew how being overly affectionate made Sirius uneasy and added onto that, the last relationship Sirius had was with Marlene. It wouldn’t be fair to Sirius making him the fifth wheel. James had easily caught on the second Marlene’s name was mentioned casually in a passing conversation while him, Sirius and Remus were off getting a bite to eat and catch up on their weekly activities. Remus was as busy as ever raising Teddy and ensuring that Nymphadora didn’t manage to trip and somehow manage to end up in the hospital. James was of course planning a big date for Lily for their upcoming anniversary. Somehow Marlene’s name was dropped in by Remus and James instantaneously noticed that way Sirius shot up and face lit up, knowing that Marlene was alive and well. Sirius thought he could have fainted from the overwhelming sense of happiness he felt. It didn’t stop there, though. James had made sure that Sirius was going to go out and see Marlene again. In all honesty, no one had really heard much from or about Marlene. She tended to stay under the radar even after the war had ended. James needed to try though, for Sirius’ sake.

A couple of days had passed of Sirius just going through his regular routine when James had come barging right into Sirius’ small flat unannounced. Sirius had plenty of gold to spend but he preferred something smaller. He didn’t need a huge mansion just for himself. He was much more at home in this cozy area. It was close to his best friend’s houses, so close that it was within walking distance. A place to sleep, eat and relax while being around those who mattered most to the wizard was all that mattered to him.

“Oi, wotcher, Pads?” The taller male greeted his best mate. Following the scent of tea that led straight to the kitchen. “Tea again?” James teased, hopping up on the kitchen counter right next to Sirius.

Sirius peered over at James as he entered the kitchen, “tea is calming. You should try some every once in a while,” he commented back, pouring himself a cup and then handing James one, knowing he wouldn’t turn it down.

This only earned a cheeky grin from the taller Pureblood, “you know, there are times where I’m like ‘that is the most Sirius thing I’ve ever heard’, and then you go on and make comments like that and I can’t help but think to myself, ‘when the bloody frick did my best mate turn into Remus?’ and this is one of those moments of the latter option,” James teased lightheartedly at Sirius.

Sirius couldn’t keep from rolling his eyes then as a smile tugged lightly at the corners of his lips, “hey, Remus can be fun when he isn’t nose deep into a book or you know… Telling us to be ‘responsible adults’. Whatever a ‘responsible adult’ is.”

“Ahh, and there’s the Sirius!” James exclaimed, gently patting Sirius on the shoulder before taking a sip from his tea. “Oh, so hey. I saw this really cute girl this –“

“I’m not interested.” Sirius irrupted before James could even finish his statement. It wasn’t the first time his friends had tried to set Sirius up with people because he ‘seemed lonely’. Sirius wasn’t interested. He knew none of them would be able to capture Sirius’ attention. Though he appreciated the gesture, he wasn’t in the least bit interested in dating. He was nearly fourty years old, dating wasn’t his scene back in his teenage years, and certainly wasn’t now.

“Well you didn’t let me finish, you Dingus. I know you aren’t interested but what if I told you that it was Marlene? Lils managed to get ahold of her and she definitely seemed up for meeting up with you from what Lily told me. So. Still not interested Mr. I Don’t Do Relationships?” James smirked as he folded his arms over his chest triumphantly.

Once again, as Marlene’s name was mentioned, Sirius’ full attention was piqued and James caught that immediately and Sirius knew it. “Marlene said she’d – she’d meet up with me-?” Sirius questioned in disbelief.

“Mhm. I mean if you aren’t interested I can just tell her that you’d rather not –“

“No! Don’t you dare!!” Sirius exclaimed loudly. A bit louder than intended. Clearing his throat in attempts to brush off his little outburst, he looked straight at his childhood friend, “I’d love to see her again.”

A victorious grin spread over James mouth then, “brilliant! You guys will be meeting up at the coffee shop you like!”

A pause from Sirius as he stared at James as he jumped down from the counter, “I feel like you were waiting for me to say that –“

“Well duh. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t ‘ship’ you two?”

“Ship? Are we pirates now?” Sirius cackled, downing the rest of his tea.

“Oh no, that’s what all the kids are saying nowadays. If they like a couple together then they ‘ship it’. And I very much ship this so excuse me while I go sail my ship. Peace.” James explained before shooting up his hands to extend up his thumbs and pointer fingers to make what seemed to be like finger guns to Sirius before making his exit.

“… What an odd man.” Sirius commented to himself after James took his leave.

Okay so I know that was a bit of a mess as it’s my first solo I’ve done in awhile, but I hope you all enjoyed it and feel free to leave me some love and some feedback would be greatly appreciated! Xoxoxodd

#sirius black #marlene mckinnon #blackinnon #james potter #remus lupin #lily evans #lily potter #the marauders #nymphadora tonks #teddy lupin #fanfic #this looks like shit on mobile #im sorry #tried fixing it but it didn't work and I'm sad

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chimpukampu · 6 years

Text

A Dork Named Adrien, Day 4 - Fashion

For @seasonofthegeek Adrien Appreciation Week challenge

AO3 | Fanfiction | Wattpad

Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

BTW in France, they call their tuxedos as smoking same with other European countries but I'll stick with the American English term instead to avoid further confusions.

This chapter is about Adrien and his male classmates, 'coz canon failed to focus on their tight friendship. Also, lots of fashion tips for men…and bad puns.

Slight S2 spoilers.

"You need a what?"

"A fashion guru, man. A fashion guru. One who knows about fashion," Nino told him casually "You're a fashion model so you're very much familiar with suits."

"Nino, I do Haute Couture. It's not similar with Prêt-à-Porter."

"Who cares? They're both articles of clothing anyway." Kim interjected but was nudged by Max.

"Prêt-à-Porter is a high quality, factory made fashion that is only available pre-seasonally, catering to climate and economic changes. Haute Couture, on the other hand, is a high-quality custom-fit piece made for a specific client and is regulated by a French law."

Markov settled himself on his bespectacled master's shoulder and added "Haute Couture houses are committed to present collections twice a year of at least thirty-five pieces of – "

"Will you two just stop explaining irrelevant things?" the jock scowled much to their chagrin "It's not helpful."

"Hey!"

"Can we just drop those fancy names and simply call Prêt-à-Porter as 'ready-to-wear' while Haute Couture as 'high-end fashion'?" Nathanael offered, which earned a nod from Ivan.

"I'm a bit confused. I don't understand why you all want my advice," said Adrien who was scratching the side of his chin "Why can't you just approach Marinette? She's an aspiring fashion designer and she knows all about tailored suits."

"No way we will ask Marinette about this," his best friend shook his head with a grimace "Even if Marinette kept this as a secret, Alya will still be able to pull the information out of her mouth. Alya can even interrogate a mute and they will tell her everything. You have no idea how scary she is."

"I'm pretty much aware of her cape-abilities."

"I'm going to let your pun slide, Agreste. Don't make me strangle you."

"Once Alya knows this," Ivan interrupted their banters "No way she will never share it with the girls, especially to Mylene."

"Or to Chloe," Nathanael added.

"Okay, I think I get what you mean," the blond model chuckled "Who doesn't want to dress to impress their girl? Am I right, Nino?"

"Shut up, you filthy rich brat."

"I don't need to dress to impress," Kim patted his chest proudly "Because Ondine is already proud of me – OUCH! Max, what was that for?!"

"Nobody wants to know your icky love story," the bespectacled boy sneered as he unrolled the magazine that he used to hit his friend's head "It's not helpful."

The boys' raucous laughs erupted when Kim's cheeks turned into an overripe tomato.

Mayor Bourgeoise made an announcement that his beloved daughter will be celebrating her birthday party in Le Gran Paris, and since it was a black-tie event, it was expected that there will be some famous celebrities, politicians and the press attendees there.

Despite the glitz and glamour, Chloe extended the invitation to her 'peasant' classmates. And of course, the class wholeheartedly accepted it.

"We better not screw this up," said Nino who was forced to slouch on the car seat as Ivan's large arm occupied almost half of the backrest "Not only for our girlfriends' sanity but also for our dignity. I bet there will be reporters there that could capture our mess and ruin our future."

"C'mon man, live a life! Yolo guys, Yolo!" answered by Kim who was sitting on the opposite side "Nobody cares if we'll do something funny there."

"No Kim, Nino's right," Nathanael defended glumly "Unlike you who has a scholarship grant, us here have to avoid any controversial issues that could reach to our prospect schools and lead them to cancel our application. Universities are quite sensitive to mass media nowadays."

Kim grumbled incoherently then slumped in his seat.

"This is a nice change of pace after our horrendous Bac," Ivan commented as he stared at the windows.

Nino groaned while cradling his head "Please don't remind me about that."

Adrien was supposed to be commuting with his friends, but when they learned about Gorilla's presence, they pleaded him to take them for a ride in his limousine.

He couldn't say no to their loud whines.

Now the six boys and a floating miniature robot – plus an undisclosed kwami in the pocket – were all cramped at the passenger's seat.

The ride to Haussmann-Saint-Lazare-Opéra was quite short. Considered as the commercial heart of Parisian shopping, this urban center is a home to major department stores and cheap deals, especially on men's clothing.

"According to the data that I have gathered last night, Manteau et Cravate sells the cheapest yet high-quality tuxedos in town," Max said as he swiped something on his phone. "They also have tux rentals too."

"I don't think I'll have another chance to wear a tuxedo after Chloe's party," Ivan mumbled, with eyes skimming on the store displays that they've passed. "As this is just a one-time event."

"You can still wear a tux on some formal occasions like weddings or anniversaries," their jock classmate supplied "We never know, Chloe might invite us again next year."

"Hmm, you might be right."

"Maman said that the jacket might not fit me after a year or two." Nathanael told them "So I'll just rent a tuxedo instead."

"So rent we shall do," said Nino, pushing the store's glass door open.

Shopping with male friends is way different than Chloe's, Adrien bemused as he observed the ruckus that was happening inside the shop. For his childhood friend, shopping means hopping from one store to another, multiple dress fittings and carrying several tote bags as they marched to another boutique.

Nino and the gang, however, prefer to stay at one place that could cater all of their needs. No window shoppings, catalog viewings, dress fittings or side trips like cafe and restaurants.

He never realized that hanging out with a group of boys for shopping was pretty straight-forward until now.

It was quite refreshing.

"What the hell is the difference between tuxedos and suits?" Kim complained as he rummaged the jackets that were hung neatly on the display racks "They all look the same!"

"Tuxedos have satins while suits don't," the blond model explained, "There are few exceptions to the rule though, but I think you'll find it sew-fisticated."

He guffawed when someone socked him with a pair of rolled socks. Thankfully, they were unused.

"Hey, Adrien," Nathanael called his attention behind the shelves "Which of these bow ties do you think would match on my dress shirt?"

"Bow ties?!" the jock reacted "Ew, that's for oldies! Why can't we use long neckties?"

"That depends on your jacket and shirt collar, Kim," reasoned Adrien. "Though most tuxes are best suited with bow ties."

"I hope you did not say that to deliver a pun," he deadpanned.

"Hey, all of my puns are intended."

This time, it was Nino who socked him with a belt.

Ivan emerged in front of them, holding two pieces of black garments "Adrien, waistcoat or cummerbund?"

"For you?"

His huge classmate nodded.

When he showed him a double-breasted coat, he answered: "Waistcoat would be tear-riffic on your attire."

Ivan made a non-committal hum as he left for a dress fitting.

"Can I use suspenders?" Max asked, showing him his single-buttoned jacket with silver lapels. "What colors should I use?"

"You can," Adrien answered, "But suspenders should never be visible and must be hidden completely beneath the waist covering and jacket, so it denim matter if it's a black or white."

Kim hastily shoved some lapel accessories on his face "Hey, I want a flower like what I saw on the ads! Can I use a flower on my jacket, Adrien?"

"Y – You mean Boutonnière? Of course," was his cringe reply after removing an artificial petal from his mouth "Just stick to a single flower, preferably red or white."

"Can I use yellow?"

Adrien gave him an impassive look for a moment before he sighed defeatedly. He turned his head around and noticed Nino on the other side of the room with a blanked expression.

"Hey dude, are you okay there?" he asked, tapping his best friend's shoulder lightly.

The DJ groaned inwardly "I'm having troubles on selecting tux here, man. They're all the same shade of black yet I'm not sure if any of these will compliment my skin complexion."

"I know what you mean," said the blond as he began to examine the tuxedo sets on the racks "You can wear a dark jacket and trouser to play safe, but if you're asking for my opinion, I'd prefer if you wear an off-black one. Like this."

Nino eyed the articles that he pulled out from the hanger "Are you sure about this, dude?"

"I'm a fashion guru, remember?" his friend announced proudly then flashed him a lopsided grin "I'm well Versaced in this area."

"I have no idea what Marinette sees in you," he retorted dryly.

The blond crossed his arms as if offended, "There Armani things that Marinette sew in me. And if she knows about this, I bet she would be very Prada me."

"Adrien, no."

Before the boys left the shop, Adrien reminded them of their shoes.

"Does that mean I can't wear my sneakers?!"

"No, Kim. You can't," the blond retorted with a straight face, "That's a fedoral offense."

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weekendwarriorblog · 3 years

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The Weekend Warrior 10/8/21 - NO TIME TO DIE, THE RESCUE, MASS, LAMB, NIGHTSTREAM, and More

It's a very special week here at the Weekend Warrior because October 10 will be my 20th (!!) anniversary as a film critic and the 20th anniversary of me doing a weekly movie preview column, mostly about box office but also with reviews and other stuff. Pretty cool, huh? (I’m celebrating this occasion by writing this column to the music of Public Enemy’s Apocalypse 91 which is 30 years old this month.)

Of course, this column wasn't called The Weekend Warrior in the early days, as I was instead doing "Half-Assed Analysis” at a long-gone Hollywood Stock Exchange fan site called HSJ.org. But then, it was a conversation with Mirko P. from ComingSoon.net (R.I.P.) that got me on the track of changing the name to "The Weekend Warrior" even though it would be a year before I would actually bring it to ComingSoon for 12 ½ wonderful years. The column has gone through a number of transformations and evolutions and iterations over the years, sometimes it being called something different just 'cause I didn't want to go through the ordeal of explaining to one of my bosses at a website that "The Weekend Warrior” is my own, and if I leave, it goes with me.

Anyway, I have taken a few weeks off over the years, particularly earlier this year when it just didn't seem a good time to be trying to predict box office, and I was starting to get burnt out on reviews. Now, the column is kind of back to being mostly about box office but with a few reviews, which is how I've always intended it.

Who knows if I'm going to continue this on that much longer, because honestly, there's no money and very little reward, and it does take a lot of time to write this up each week, especially with all the work I have to do for Below the Line. Anyway, for now, I'm going to keep it going, and we'll see how it goes. But Happy 20th Anniversary to me, and I can promise you… there won't be 20 more. NO FUCKING WAY.

Before we get to this week’s theatrical releases, I feel the need to mention the first of a bunch of October horror film festivals, as NIGHTSTREAM will begin on Thursday and run through Oct. 13. This is an amazing streaming horror/genre film festival that was instituted last year by four festivals, the Boston Underground Film Festival, the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, the North Bend Film Festival, and the Overlook Film Festival when all four were cancelled due to COVID. Some of these are still happening this year as physical in-person festivals but Nighstream continues on. Some of the guests at this year’s Nightstream are The Green Knight director David Lowery; Akela Cooper, who wrote the recent James Wan horror film, Malignant; horror and special make-up FX legend Greg Nicotero, who is also the showrunner on the Creepshow anthology series, and more.

There are so many movies and events going on in the week of Nightstream but some of the highlights include the World Premiere of Jefferson Moneo’s Cosmic Dawn, Scott Friend’s feature debut, To the Moon, and the Virtual Premiere of Scott Barber’s doc, This is Gwar, as well as much more.

You can see the full list of movies here and learn how to get a pass at the official site.

Let’s get to some other movies hitting theaters...

Obviously, the big release of the weekend and maybe the month is the 25th James Bond movie, NO TIME TO DIE (MGM), once again starring Daniel Craig in his final outing as 007, his fifth movie in a run that started with Casino Royale in 2006 and 15 years later, it’s coming to an end.

Obviously, this being Craig’s last stint as Bond is a big draw for the movie, but there are other interesting things to note First, it’s directed by True Detective’s Emmy-winning director Cary Joji Fukunaga, who is making his biggest budget movie to date, having started with smaller films like Sin Nombre and Jane Eyre, and then getting more attention for his festival favorite, Beast of No Nations, starring Idris Elba, who for a while, people seemed to want to play the NEXT Bond.

Much of Bond’s colleagues and friends from past movies are back including Naomi Harris as Moneypenny, Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q, but it also brings back Jeffrey Wright, who was introduced as Felix Leitner in Craig’s first film, Casino Royale, and also a few people from the last Bond movie, Spectre, which wasn’t received as well as the previous one, Skyfall. (More on those things in a bit.) Christoph Waltz played Blofeld in Spectre (for better or worse), and he’s back, as is Léa Seydoux, who played Bond's love interest, and actually she continues said role but brings more to the plot.

The new cast is pretty significant, starting with Oscar winner Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) as the new arch-villain, Safin, and actually, there’s also a new 007 in Lashana Lynch, who replaced Bond after he retired from MI6. There’s another “Bond Girl” (if you don’t mind the outdated trope) in Ana de Armas, who previously starred with Craig in Rian Johnson’s Knives Out, which feels like it was made 500 years ago but actually has a sequel shooting as we speak. In fact, Armas seems to be getting the best notices from everyone who writes about the movie, even though her section probably isn’t more than 15 minutes long.

I’m not going to say more about the plot. You either don’t need to know it in advance cause you’re seeing it anyway or you don’t WANT to know anything, and good for MGM for being able to keep the plot and lots of stuff secret despite the movie being delayed for 18 months due to COVID.

That’s right. No Time to Die was probably one of the first movies delayed due to COVID, and it definitely wasn’t the last, but MGM (and EON Productions) really stuck to their guns, and didn’t allow a streamer to come forward with millions and millions of dollars to put James Bond on streaming. (Granted, Amazon did come forward and ended up buying MGM outright earlier this year, and we’ve yet to see how and when that will come to fruition. As far as I know, Amazon has nothing to do with MGM’s 2021 releases, of which there are a few still to come.)

Actually, the fact that MGM is releasing this one on its own is an interesting point in itself, because it’s been almost 20 years since the studio has done that with Pierce Brosnan’s last Bond film, Die Another Day. In the time since then, MGM has been co-distributing its films with other studios until fairly recently -- the last four Bond movies were released by Sony Pictures. I’m not gonna throw shade at MGM, because they’ve been doing a fantastic job with No Time To Die, essentially marketing the movie once back in early 2020 and then again for its final release spot this Friday. In between, the movie has moved a number of times as COVID just kept ambushing its planned release date. Any weaker studio (like, say Sony) would have just sold the movie off (as Sony has done many times over the past 18 months until finally having a theatrical hit with Venom). Interesting how that works out, huh? MGM took over Bond, and now it’s releasing the new Bond a week after Sony’s biggest 2021 hit, essentially killing its chances at having a decent second weekend.

Others are seeing how well Venom did and are assuming that the box office is back, and that Bond can do even BIGGER numbers, but you need to take a few things into account, including something called REALITY. And it comes from the wonderful box office archive site, The-Numbers.com, which I have been using for those 20 years mentioned above.

Up until Daniel Craig took over the role, the biggest opening for a Bond movie (not accounting for inflation) was Brosnan’s Die Another Day with $47 million. Casino Royale opened with just $40 million in 2006, but it proved to have significant holiday legs as more people discovered it and decided that the new direction of tougher and grittier and more violent action was for them. It made $167 million domestically and $594 million globally. A few years later, Quantum of Solace had a much bigger opening of $67.5 million but made almost the exact same amount domestically -- the reason? People didn’t like it as much as Casino Royale, so it was more frontloaded.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes took over the 50th anniversary Bond movie, Skyfall, four years later, and that was generally as well received as Casino Royale, so that it set a new opening record for the franchise with $88.3 million and OVER A BILLION worldwide. Woo! Three years later, Spectre was going to introduce two classic Bond villains, Blofeld and Jaws (played by David Bautista) but it once again wasn't received that well, and it opened lower with $70 million and “only” made $200 million domestically vs. the $300 million of Skyfall. It still made over $879 million globally, but a final movie for Craig was always going to happen.

Now I’m going to talk about why I don’t think No Time to Die is going to break the opening record set by Skyfall, and believe it or not, it's not because of COVID. This is the thing. Bond clearly peaked with Skyfall and then it dropped down with Spectre, and that movie wasn't that well-received either by critics or fans with 63% from the former on Rotten Tomatoes and 61% from audiences. That is basically Quantum of Solace numbers and down from Skyfall's 92% and 86%. You take that disappointment and then you add six years, which is how long it's been between Bond movies, and you have a lot fewer people interested in shelling out money to see another Daniel Craig movie. There's no way around the fact that people are just burnt out on Craig and maybe Bond himself, and it really would take a huge wave of positive reviews to get them back.

Also, and unlike Venom, Bond is about as white as you can get in terms of a fanbase. I'm sure there's some African-Americans and LatinX movie fans who enjoy the action and stuff, but do you think you would see the entire James Bond collection in their Bluray libraries? I'm sure there are some, but they may be outliers, because Bond is the kind of Baby Boomer anti-woke un-PC franchise that the Millennials have been warning you about for years. It also doesn't have as big a female fanbase as other franchises (like Marvel) so that's another audience that might not rush out to see the movie. Sure, some changes have been made, including additions like Lashana Lynch or as she's better known, "WHO?!?!?", and de Armas, as well, but it's still the same old James Bond. Fukunaga just didn't try hard enough to make the necessary changes, or maybe he wasn't allowed to, because EON's Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. WIlson still hold very tight reins on the Bond films. Whatever has been done may not just be enough and who knows how many will want to see No Time to Die just to give Craig a glorious send-off? There's also the matter of No Time to Die being almost an hour longer than Venom -- longer run time, less screenings, less money per screen. It's simple math.

I already reviewed the movie for Below the Line -- I liked it but had some issues -- and it’s sitting pretty at 83% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a good sign for getting the interest of fans to return to theaters for a movie that won’t be available on streaming on VOD for quite some time, I’d imagine.

I’m feeling generally bullish (or is it bearish?) on No Time To Die, especially with how much better Venom: Let There Be Carnage did last weekend compared to my prediction (OUCH!) but I’m also keeping track of that REALITY I mentioned before. Not just COVID on this one, but also opening the movie earlier overseas where the movie can be easily bootlegged and put on piracy sites for people who just don’t want to chance it at movie theaters yet. (I’m going to be writing more about this soon, but I have seen probably 100 movies or more in theaters since they reopened in NYC, and I get tested regularly. I have not tested positive for COVID once.)

The movie has done very well overseas, scoring $121.3 million in its first weekend, but I still don’t think it will open over $80 million in North America. But I do think it will be close, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it opens somewhere between $75 and 80 million.

Without knowing if any of the movies below might be going wider (but highly doubting it), here’s what the weekend Top 10 might look like. Actually, let’s make that the top 8 cause last week’s #9 and 10 were so odd and I have no idea if anything is expanding wider, as I write this:

1. No Time to Die (MGM) - $76.5 million N/A

2. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Sony) - $31.5 million -65%

3. The Addams Family II (MGM/UA Releasing) - $9.3 million -45%

4. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (Marvel/Disney) - $ 3.5 million -43%

5. The Many Saints of Newark (New Line/WB) - $2.1 million -55%

6. Free Guy (20th Century/Disney) - $1.3 million -45%

7. Dear Evan Hansen (Universal) - $1.1 million -57%

8. Candyman (Universal) - $700,000 -47%

I think there are just way too many great movies to pick just one "Chosen One,” but since I probably should decide, I'm going with Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi's new documentary THE RESCUE (National Geographic). You may remember Jimmy and Chai from when they won the Oscar for Free Solo, and their latest is just as good. The rescue in the title refers to the 2018 rescue of an 11-kid Thai soccer team called the Wild Boars and their coach when they became trapped in the Tham Luang caves in Northern Thailand, as the annual monsoon season hits early, flooding the caves in which they’re exploring.

To fully understand how they got trapped, you have to have some idea of the structure of this underground cave system, and this film does a great job explaining how the monsoons create flooding in the caves and how much harder it is to get someone out of them when the rain just won’t stop. Two British cave divers, John Volanthen and Richard Standton, are called in to survey the situation and figure out if there’s a way to get the dozen trapped out alive, as time keeps passing until it seems like those kids are trapped without food longer than any human can survive. Seemingly, thousands of locals and foreigners come to the caves in hopes of helping, whether it’s trying to pump out water or dig new tunnels to try to find where the kids are trapped (which is a difficult task in itself).

There’s a good chance you were watching the news and you know the results of this elaborate and daring cave diving rescue, but you definitely don’t know how the plan was developed and pulled off until you actually watch it as it’s taking place. The underwater and cavern footage of the kids and their saviors is absolutely second to none, and it’s hard not to get emotional in the way Chin and Vasarhleyi assemble the footage with the music.

The Rescue is an amazing movie, maybe as good as the duo’s previous one, Free Solo, and it may be the best recapturing/documentation of an important news event that I’ve seen in recent memory.

I was seriously close to having multiple "Chosen Ones” this week, because there are a few other very good movies, including Fran Kranz’s directorial debut MASS (Bleecker Street), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, and deservedly received mass praise and stellar reviews. I don't want to say too much about the movie, because its emotional power may lay in not knowing too much about it in advance. The simplest plot is that it involves two couples meeting in the room of a church to have an important face-to-face about a difficult subject, one that needs resolution and absolution from both parties. If you like great writing and amazing performances, than the work of Reed Birney and Anne Dowd (as one couple) and Jason Isaacs and Martha Plympton (as the other) will make this movie a can't miss.

Again, without getting too deep into what the couples discuss, Mass is written and directed similar to one might do a 90-minue one-act play, but it begins with us seeing the people who work at the church trying to set up the room where this eventful tete a tete will take place. It’s surprisingly witty and even elicits a few laughs from Breeda Wool, who is so nervous and awkward about the meeting that’s about to happen.

When the two couples arrives, that’s where we really get into it, but it still starts out slow, a re-aquaintance phase between the two couples, who clearly have a difficult past, try to get through the niceties before getting into the serious conversation at hand. And here is where I’m gonna put a HUGE SPOILER IN HERE FOR THE NEXT PARAGRAPH.

As with so many movies, Mass deals with gun violence and the survivors of the types of school shootings we’ve seen far too many times in the last two decades. Isaacs and Plympton’s son was killed by the other couple’s son, who turned the gun on himself. It creates this dynamic where both couples have lost a son they loved, but Dowd and Birney are put in a spot where they have to try to explain their son’s behavior and if they saw that he was capable of such violence before the shooting took place.

The actors are all terrific, and while you might think a dialogue-heavy movie with four actors sitting at a table might not do much for you… well, first of all, you can go see No Time to Die if that’s more your speed … but Kranz’s direction is more than just getting these emotional performances out of his actors but also capturing it on film and editing it to best effect. There’s even an imperfection to the camera work, sometimes focusing on one actor while another is talking, that makes this long conversation feel even more authentic, as if you’re a fly on the wall in that room.

Again, the writing and performances and direction of Mass makes it one of the most powerful dramatic works this year. I’d love to see any of the four main actors get awards attention, but especially Dowd and Isaacs, who have been so deserving of awards love for a very, very long time.

Icelandic filmmaker Valdimar Jóhansson's LAMB (A24) is a very different movie, this one starring Noomi Rapace and Hilmir Snær Guðnason as Maria and Ingvar, a couple living on a sheep farm (or rather, a lamb farm -- I honestly don't know the difference) who make an incredible discovery when a lamb gives birth to a child they decide to raise as their own. Invar's brother Pétur is not only not impressed but he thinks they’ve gone crazy, but there’s a lot of far more nefarious things going on in and around their remote and isolated farm.

This is a really fascinating film, one that’s fairly subdued but Johansson and his cinematographer (Eli Arenson) beautifully capture the vast landscapes of Iceland and gives us a real idea of how remote and isolated the farm where it mostly takes place is. He also does a great job building on the mystery of this child and the tension that surrounds where it came from, and yet, I’m not sure I’d consider Lamb to be horror, even if A24 is maybe marketing it in that direction. Really, it’s more magical fantasy mixed with character drama, and Rapace is just great as always, really impressing me with her skills delivering baby animals and driving a tractor.

If you dig a bit deeper, you’ll discover that Jóhansson wrote the screenplay with one “Sjón,” an author who has contributed to Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (one of my favorite musical movies) and also wrote The Northman, Robert Eggers next movie.

This is a terrific debut by Jóhansson -- I have an interview with the director over at Below the Line, too -- and it will be highly interesting to see where he goes from here.

I was hoping to watch and review SOUTH OF HEAVEN (RLJEfilms), the new movie from Aharon Keshales, the co-director of the fantastic Israeli thriller, Big Bad Wolves, which stars Jason Sudeikis, Evangeline Lilly, Mike Colter, and Shea Whigham, but I fell foul of a lousy screener and just didn't have tie to watch it before writing this week's column. Sudeikis plays Jimmy, a convict who has served 12 years for armed robbery who gets early parole, and he swears to give his childhood love Annie (Lilly), who is dying from cancer, the best final year of her life.

I also didn't get a chance to watch Russian filmmaker Evgeny Ruman's comedy GOLDEN VOICES (Music Box Films), which opens in New York and L.A. this weekend. It stars Maria Belkin and Vladimir Friedman as Raya and Victor, the Soviet Union’s popular film dubbers who have been translating film classics into Russian for decades. When the country collapses in 1990, the Jewish couple decides to move to Israel in hopes of finding employment. When she answers a help wanted ad looking for “pleasant voices,” she ends up working as a phone sex operator catering to the Russian community in Israel while he falls in with black market film pirates.

I also just haven't gotten around to JUSTIN BIEBER: OUR WORLD (Amazon), directed by Michael D. Ratner, which seems like the fourth or fifth documentary about the global superstar, this one that goes into the making of his 2020 New Year's Eve concert after a three-year hiatus atop the Beverly Hills Hilton for 240 invited guests and millions via livestream. It will stream on Amazon Prime Video this Friday.

A couple horror movies streaming this week are THERE’S SOMEONE INSIDE YOUR HOUSE (Netflix), the new movie from Patrick Brice (Creep), which hits Netflix and involves a masked assailant targetting a high school graduating class to expose the darkest secret of each victim, forcing a group of misfits to band together to stop the killings.

Shudder gets V/H/S 94 (Shudder), the latest anthology horror movie made up of five installments, directed by Simon Barrett, Chloe Okuno, Ryan Prows, Jennifer Reeder, and Timo Tjahjanto. I haven't watched it yet but that's quite a rogue's gallery of horror/genre filmmakers there.

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video are the next two installments of this year's batch of Welcome to the Blumhouse movies, Axelle Carolyn's The Manor, an eerie tale set in a retirement home and starring the legendary Barbara Hershey, and Ryan Zarazoga’s Madres about a young Mexican-American couple having their first child in ‘70s California where he’s sent to work on a farm where the wife finds a talisman and a box with belongings of the former resident. Both of them debut on Amazon Prime Video this Friday, too. Also, you can read my interview with Ms. Carolyn over at Below the Line.

Other movies that just didn't fit into my schedule this week include:

ASCENSION (MTV Documentary Films) VENGEANCE IS MINE (Vertical) PHARMA BRO (1091) KNOCKING (Yellow Veil Pictures)

Next week’s wide release is David Gordon Green’s horror sequel, HALLOWEEN KILLS!

#Reviews #Movies #No Time to DIe #Mass #Lamb #The Rescue #Box Office #Streaming

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iwonderwhenyousleep · 6 years

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Teardrops On My Guitar

Hi! Merry Christmas @queenjmo! I'm your secret santa! This is the first part of my gift for you! I'm so excited to reveal myself so we can fangirl over cs and taylor swift together! This story just kind of popped up in my head and when I went to write it down it kind of took on a life of its own. When we were talking we discovered a mutual love of taylor swift so I wanted to do something with both cs and taylor! I really hope you like it! It actually ended up being very different from what I had intended. So, this was actually based on something that actually happened when I was in high school. I went to an all girls school, and on valentines day my calculus teacher's husband brought her flowers and it was the sweetest thing ever and for some reason I was thinking about it the other day and I thought that it just had to be turned into a Captain Swan AU! So, for the rest of the gift I'm going to post short one shots with references to other taylor songs with as many taylor references as I can get in!

Disclaimer: I do not own anything. If I did, I would probably just put a camera on Colin O'Donoghue, shoot forty minutes of him doing literally anything (preferably shirtless), and put it on TV. I would definitely watch that show.

Emma knew that not one of her students would be paying any attention to her the entire day. She taught literature at an all-girls school and it was the day of the prom. As the girls filed into the classroom, the pieces of conversation Emma caught all centered on the dance: hairstyles, limo pick-up and drop-off times, corsages, after-parties, pictures, the list went on.

Unless she put on a bright red ball gown and asked for hair-style tips, she wasn't even in the running for her students' attention.

Emma was sick of hearing about the stupid dance. It had been the only topic of conversation for the past week and a half. Mostly she was upset by this particular topic because she remembered what she was doing when she should have been going to her own prom. (Stealing a stolen car.)

But, she pushed that thought away. That part of her life was long past her. If only the emotional toll it had taken was completely in the past as well. Sometimes she feared it never fully would be. Of course, on nights when the bad memories kept her awake, she now had someone there to hold her and help her fall asleep through the tears.

As the three-minute warning bell rang out, signaling for students to get into their classroom, Emma realized that the conversation had shifted to another topic of conversation, blessedly free of prom-talk.

"Did you see the guy talking to Ms. Mills outside of the office?" Anne gushed to the girls seated near her desk. "He was so gorgeous! And I think I caught an accent!"

This simple statement had caught the undivided attention of every single person in the room, except Emma. She just chuckled under her breath. Whenever someone with a Y chromosome under the age of forty came within a thirty feet radius of the campus, it was major gossip and all other topics of conversation were quickly forgotten. Emma had thought that prom might overcome that particular quirk of an all-female education, but it would seem this boy was so 'gorgeous,' as Anne had put it, that he out-shined even the prom.

He must really be something, Emma thought with a silent chuckle.

"No way! Spill!" Diane cried with a huge smile and an eagerness only a teenage girl deprived of male contact for eight hours a day, five times a week could have. "What did he look like?"

"Well, I didn't get a great look at him, but he was tall. Maybe six feet. He had black hair and was wearing dark pants and a leather jacket." Anne told her tale with reverence, as if speaking of a deity and her audience was eating it up. "He looked maybe early 30s, not quite. He looked like a movie star!" Cue chorus of giggles.

While Anna lost some of her audience with the mention of his age, she had gained Emma's attention. The description of the man talking to their principal sounded a bit like the man that was in many of the pictures currently on Emma's desk. The bell signaling the start of class interrupted Emma's musings about who this 'movie star' look alike could have been.

"Alright, girls. I know since tonight is prom, your attention is never going to be all on me, so I thought we could just quickly go over the chapters you read for today, and any questions for your final essay which is due by the end of next week."

The already energetic room grew even more animated with this announcement. Julia's hand shot up and Emma called on her. "Ms. Swan, do you know who the handsome man Anne saw was?"

Before she could answer, the door to the classroom swung open and the entire room, minus Emma, gasped. Instead, she simply said, "Killian, what are you doing here?"

"Hello to you too, love." He greeted her in his lilting British accent with a soft chuckle. They walked towards each other until they met halfway between the whiteboard and the door. Killian gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as he always did and the entire class made a collective 'awwwwww.' An involuntary blush colored Emma's cheeks as she pulled away from her husband.

"Does a man need a reason to come see his beautiful wife whenever the need arises?" Emma rolled her eyes at the compliment, as she always did when he complimented her.

He looked around the room at the girls who were looking at him like he was the lead singer of whatever insufferable boy band was popular at the time. A few of the girls tear their gaze away from their teacher's husband to stare at Anne for confirmation that this was the man she saw, and Anne nodded her head furiously in affirmation. At all the attention he was receiving, Killian scratched the back of his ear in a nervous tick that Emma had always found equal parts endearing and adorable. However, she found it rather amusing that her usually cocky husband would blush under the obvious approval of a room of 17 and 18 year old girls.

"It's fine. We didn't have too much planned for today anyway. But are you sure you can take off in the middle of the day like this?" Emma asked, referring to Killian's job as harbormaster of Storybrooke Harbor.

"One of the perks of being your own boss. Plus, not much going on in such a sleepy town." He chuckled. "And I also wanted to give you this." From behind his back, Killian produced a single red rose, the same flower he had bought for their first date (after months of shameless flirting and innuendos). The resulting 'awwwwww' from her class is very loud, causing Killian and Emma to blush further. She was almost furious at him for making her feel this way. "Happy anniversary, Swan." He whispers in her ear so the whole class doesn't hear it.

He was rewarded by a huge smile from Emma, which was something he rarely saw when he first met her, but was becoming more frequent with each day that passed with them together. Emma sniffed the rose, taking in the wonderful scent which always reminded her of their first real date, and set it down on her desk until she could get a vase and some water.

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma caught one of her more outspoken students, Jill, violently raising her hand in the air. Emma took a step back from Killian, as she had unconsciously been stepping closer and closer to him.

"Yes, Jill?" Emma called on her.

"So, this is your husband, Ms. Swan?" Jill asked eagerly and many of the heads in the classroom quickly bob up and down in agreement with the question.

"Aye, that I am." Killian said proudly, making Emma blush harder.

As if to prove that he and Emma were indeed joined in holy matrimony, Killian put his hand up and showed the room his wedding band. Emma's heart did a little flutter whenever she saw that ring. She still couldn't believe that this amazing man had chosen her. She was never the girl anyone chose for anything. But, seeing that ring was a reminder that someone did choose her. And not just anyone. Killian Jones. Killian Jones had chosen her. And she had chosen him.

"Are you chaperoning prom tonight with Ms. Swan?" Another voice piped up, but Emma doesn't quite catch from where, as she was distracted by her musings on the deep meaning her husband's wedding ring held for her.

Killian smiled at the room full of eager eyes. No doubt every single girl was picturing him in a tuxedo, and Emma would be lying if she said she wasn't, too. Although the difference was that Emma actually had seen him in one before. And it was just as good as she had imagined. "I would love to, but Ms. Swan is not a chaperone for tonight's festivities. We have anniversary plans." He shot her a suggestive wink, and she slapped him on the arm. There was a resulting chorus of giggles from the students. Emma would have slapped him harder if this wasn't her senior class, so the majority of the students were over 18.

"Alright, you're going to give my entire class a heart attack if you say anything else." Emma playfully informed him.

His eyebrows shoot skyward as if she had just issued a challenge. But, before Killian can respond with the innuendo that is surely on his lips, Jill speaks up again. "I heard Ms. French is sick, so Ms. Swan is filling in for her at prom."

This was the first Emma was hearing of this. "What?" She was actually quite excited for her and Killian's plans tonight. They were going to have dinner at the restaurant where they had their first date, and then go home and watch a movie. (Or not watch a movie.) It was going to be low key and perfect. The other students nodded their heads in agreement with Jill, and Emma got a sinking feeling in her stomach.

She turned to Killian and said, "Can you watch them for a minute? I'm going to ask Regina if it's true." Killian looked just as nervous about it as she felt, but his nerves were probably amplified by being in the room alone with fifteen hormonal eighteen year old girls. However, he simply nodded his agreement, and the classroom did not miss him checking Emma out as she walked down the hallway.

Ten minutes later, Emma returned with a frustrated expression on her face. She had gone up to the principal's office and Regina confirmed the story. Emma had no choice, since poor Belle had needed an emergency appendectomy and would be in the hospital for another day or two. For her part, Regina had seemed to feel somewhat bad about it, and suggested that she bring Killian along so they could still spend their anniversary together.

While walking back to the classroom, Emma tried to think of ways to get out of it, but came up empty. Both the junior and senior proms were the same night, and it was a miracle that she was able to get out of chaperoning in the first place. (It had required letting Belle borrow her first edition copy of Wuthering Heights that Killian had gotten her for their six month anniversary to agree to do it, as Belle was the librarian and therefore not technically required to chaperone school functions.)

As Emma opened the door and walked into the classroom, Killian was sitting in the front of the classroom, completely absorbed in his conversation with the class. "Yes, but he had the opportunity to kill his uncle when he was praying and he delayed."

"Yes, but then he turned around and killed Polonius ten minutes later! The real root of the tragedy is actually traced back to Polonius's murder, not his delay of his revenge!" Kate responded. Emma hated to break up such a heated academic debate over the Bard, but she needed to tell Killian the news.

Frankly, she was a little surprised Killian got them to talk about anything not made of chiffon or tulle. But, these girls were extremely smart, and loved to be challenged. And Killian always loved a challenge. Plus, it looked like they were whooping his ass in their analysis. If Emma was a sappy person, which she most certainly was not, she might have cried at how proud she was. Maybe a few more minutes. She thought to herself.

"Yes, but his murder of the Polonius isn't the only time he acts impulsively without thinking." She used another point in the discussion to announce her presence, but not stop the debate.

"But it is the most extreme." Killian countered with a crooked smile. The girls continued their debate while Killian walked over to Emma. "Is it true, love?"

"Yeah, unfortunately." She looked extremely disappointed.

"Well, we can make lemonade out of these lemons yet, Swan." Killian smiled despite his own disappointment. He would be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to that night for weeks. "We won't be home that late. All that's changed is where we're eating dinner."

Emma loved his optimism. While she saw the glass as half empty, he saw it as half full and he always encouraged her to see the same. She loved how he always helped her feel better when she was down. "Well, I'll get to see you in a suit..." She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "And out of a suit."

Emma watched with satisfaction as Killian's eyes widened and he blushed just like her students. At this point, the discussion had stopped and all the eyes were on them. "I'll see you tonight, love." Killian kissed her on the cheek and walked out of the classroom with a wink.

It took her a full ten minutes, and telling the story of how she and Killian met, to get the class to stop asking questions about Killian and focus on their work.

When Emma got back to her house, the first thing she did was throw off her shoes. They'd been killing her feet all afternoon and taking them off felt like jumping into the ocean on a hot summer day. The relief brought a sigh of pleasure from her lips and her husband appeared from around the corner. "Oh, you know how I love it when you make that sound."

Emma just fixed her husband with one of her patented stares and rolled her eyes. That was when she actually saw what he was wearing. "Seriously?"

His best shit eating grin crossed his face and he looked down at the tuxedo t-shirt he was currently sporting. "You like it? Dave said it was very sporting."

"It's certainly…something." Emma couldn't help but smile at her husband's antics. She knew he was just making a joke and wouldn't actually wear that to her work event. "While I would love to see Regina's face if you wore that, I think your suit is in the back of our closet."

"It's already laid out on the bed."

A few hours later, they were both dressed and ready to go. David and Mary Margaret, their neighbors and best friends, rang their doorbell just as they were about to leave, which confused Emma. The confusion vanished when she saw Mary Margaret holding a polaroid camera and start to snap pictures of Emma and Killian in their prom attire.

When Killian thoughtfully put a corsage on her wrist, she wasn't suspicious. When David insisted that he drive them in his truck and Killian immediately agreed enthusiastically, she wasn't suspicious. When Killian pulled her into the traditional prom pose in front of the backdrop and photographer at the venue, she still wasn't suspicious. When they danced to "Enchanted" by Taylor Swift, which was their first dance at their wedding, she started to have some suspicions. However, the moment she knew wasn't until she realized that it had been some time since they had done any actual chaperoning that she realized what her husband was doing.

He was re-creating the prom that neither of them had ever gotten.

#csss #my fanfic #captain swan #cs fic #cs au #cs crew #cs mafia

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