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parkers-gal · 3 years

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Can you with Ag reader! where she’s 19 and Tom is 24 and his fans are attacking her saying she’s “too young” so she decideds to bring him to a award show just to flaunt it to the haters, you can write it how you want!

hope u like it <33 (sorry it took so long) wc: 1k

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You had promised your manager that you would attend as many award shows and red carpet events as he wanted, as long as you didn’t have to perform. You loved performing, truly you did, but the crowds at music award shows were merciless and sometimes overly critical. You felt better when you performed on tour, so you were saving your songs for that.

In hindsight, you probably should’ve looked into just how many award shows you’d have to go to, because with your chart rates going through the roof, you’ve been nominated for practically every award.

Tonight, you’re going to the VMA’s with Tom. You’d just recently gone public, taking it to social media and going “Instagram official,” as the news outlets liked to call it. You’re only a few years younger than him, and though it doesn’t bother either of you, it seems to have become a thing online.

You’ve paid no mind to it, however. After reassurance from Tom, you’ve both chosen for him to accompany you on tonight’s show. You suspect all of the despisers will emerge from their shells, but with Tom looking as good as he does, you really don’t care.

He’s dressed as if this is the Oscars, even though it’s not. You’re wearing a black dress, one that puffs out slightly, with a slit running down your leg. He’s wearing a matching tuxedo, the two of you showing off your looks with linked arms and mirrored smiles.

As Tom emerges from the backseat of the limo, he steps aside and offers you his hand. You hear screams erupt merely at Tom’s arrival, so the second you step out onto the carpet, the screams become howls and the crowds have enlarged.

After a brief moment with your stylist and your manager, you’re walking in front of the paparazzi, free for them to take any pictures from all angles. You wave to a few who you know, smiling for the crowd.

Tom’s fingers are on your waist, and he squeezes slightly, reassuring you that he’s here and he’s not going anywhere.

“Give us another pose!” Someone is yelling loudly and commandingly, and though usually you don’t do what they say, this is the first time you’re out with Tom. With a grin, you turn in his arms, hand going around his neck while you strike a different pose. To be dramatic, Tom dips you like a dancer, and when he brings you up again, you kiss his cheek sweetly.

Cameras flash wildly until you’re dragged away and onward to the interview part. With a hand intertwined with Tom’s, you lead the two of you over to your first interview of the night.

“Y/N! You’re here for your many nominations on your new album and hit singles, positions and 34+35. And, I can see you’ve brought a date.” The woman directs the microphone to you, and you chuckle, nodding breathlessly.

“Yeah, I brought my very stunning boyfriend: Tom.”

He smiles into the camera, hand finding home on your waist once again. You can tell the fans might just gawk over the affection, so you try to contain your smile at least a little bit.

“How long have you been together?”

“A couple months,” Tom’s british accent is thick as the microphone picks up on it. You lay a hand on his chest calmly, as if it’s second nature, and you wrap up this interview before moving on to the next one.

“So, you’ve just gone Instagram official, right?” Another interviewer begins with your relationship with Tom. You nod, humming.

“Yeah, we felt we were both ready to share it.”

“How have the two of you responded to all of the… hate comments online about the age gap?”

You’re bewildered at such a serious question so early on in the interview. You click your tongue in thought. “I mean, we’ve both sort of just… tried not to let it get to us? We’re very secure, in our relationship and our feelings and where we stand on things, so I don’t think it’s affected us too much.”

“Yeah,” Tom continues with a soft smile, genuine only for you. “If it comes to it, we’ll fight the haters off. But if it gets bad, we’ve discussed how active we’ll be on social media and how public we’ll be about our relationship.”

“Age really isn’t an issue, for us.” You continue so the interviewer won’t have to. “It isn’t weird and the dynamic isn’t purely focused on ‘oh my god, you’re like five years older than me.’ It’s just us connecting and loving each other, and that’s… pretty much all we have to say about it.” You finish with a smile and a breathy chuckle, Tom nodding along.

A good forty minutes later, and you’re sitting in one of the many rows of seats. Tom sits beside you, hand on lap as your fingers are — once again — intertwined. They’re reading off the winners for each nomination, now.

Your first nominated category is called up, and after a quiet beat of silent excitement, they call your name as the winner.

“And the winner for the best pop single is…. Y/N L/N! Congratulations.” Dua Lipa reads off the winner from a golden envelope, and suddenly you’re standing up quickly. You hug Tom, and he kisses your cheek, but before he can sit down again, you grab his hand and lead the two of you up the stairs.

He helps you, with your dress and with your steps, holding your hand as he guides the two of you protectively. He didn’t expect you to bring him up with you, but he’s not complaining.

“Just a big thank you to everyone who streams my music, to my management team, and my family and friends, of course. But also,” You eye Tom, who’s standing beside you with a smile. “A big thank you to this giant goofball, who’s stuck with me through a whole load of shit. Love you.” You smile lazily as cheers erupt, and Tom brings you up against his chest quickly, a smirk plastering his lips.

“Cheeky girl.” He whispers, capturing your lips with his, giving the cameras what they’ve wanted all night. He doesn’t overdo it, kissing you for a few seconds before the two of you embrace in a hug as you eventually make your way off stage.

#tom holland x ag!reader #tom holland x singer!reader #tom holland x famous!reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fic #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fluff #tom holland imagine #tom holland blurb #tom holland oneshot #tom holland x younger!reader #ariana grande!reader #tom holland request #fic #tom fic

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livixbobbiex · 3 years

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Popular BOTW theory debunked!

Hi, Zelda fandom. I’m really sorry this has to be my first post, but I want to clear up what seems to be a very popular fan theory as completely untrue.

I only got into the game recently, but I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how in the Japanese version of the game, the quests are written from Link’s perspective and in the style of a diary.

Not only is there no actual proof for this (that I can tell), it’s actually quite misleading. No offence to the OP, but there’s a lot of slightly off things being shared. Particularly as I’ve seen big YouTuber theorists also make points based on this “fact”, I really wanted to, as a person who speaks Japanese, clear it up for you.

Japanese Pronouns

So the main issue here is that Japanese as a language functions differently from English (plus a lot of other European languages). If you’ve ever taken a Japanese class, you’ve probably started a sentence with “watashi wa~~~~”. The thing is, actual Japanese people rarely do this.

Pronouns just aren’t necessary in Japanese often. You use context alone to figure out the subject. For example, “I went to the shop” would be more like “shop went” in Japanese. The “I” is clear enough. If the sentence wouldn’t be clear, a name is usually used, but failing even that a pronoun can finally happen. They’re more of a “reserved for necessary times” word function, not one that appears in almost every sentence.

The issue with Breath of The Wild

So taking a look at Link’s adventure logs in Japanese (both the main and side quests - I haven’t completed them all on this save file yet but I went through more than the original theory post did anyway), there’s no pronouns anywhere. No version of “I” that I can find, and no “you” either. I spent quite a long time reading them all, and I just don’t see it.

I think some of the confusion might have arisen from the “tai” verb ending (which means ‘to want’). Yes, this is more associated with first person. It’s not a confirmation though. You can still use it when speaking to someone.

The main ACTUAL difference with the English (aside from some lines being cut) is that the style is written way more formally than Japanese. That does not automatically mean first or second person. It’s just a very interesting style choice difference from the translation team - who made it more formal in other countries. It’s really funny, by the way. It talks about Link being a hot woman at one point - maybe I’ll translate some at some point.

Remember how I just explained context? BOTW literally doesn’t have one. It could just as easily be taken as “you” or “I”. So, whilst I think that it’s fine to theorise, it’s quite irresponsible to push the canon narrative here. A lack of “you” doesn’t automatically equal an “I”.

Diary?

The only real incriminating thing is the menu being called something like “adventure notebook/memo/etc.”. That being said, I don’t think this should necessarily be taken literally. It’s not that dissimilar to the English anyway. The actual section headers are more like “main challenge”, “side challenge” which would be out of place in an actual diary.

Nintendo straight up used the word for “diary” in other places, so I feel like if they really wanted this effect they would have committed more to it.

Link’s Memories - the nail in the coffin

I know this isn’t the main part everyone seems to have been talking about, but it’s still on the same menu and presented in a similar way. If you go to Link’s memories, they’re pretty much all very explicitly in third person.

Apologies for the zoomed in picture, I was talking to a friend on instagram and I didn’t know I would make this post at the time. It’s pretty simple to fact check though.

It literally says, clear as day, “Zelda and Link”. Some of the other memories specifically reference Link as “he”. This is all under the supposed “diary” menu, too, so unless you want to argue Link is experiencing some dissociation from his past self-

What I actually think

I admit I’m not a long term Zelda fan, however from what I understand Link is really meant to be the player, right? Is that not part of the REAL reason he has no spoken lines? It would be really strange to me for Nintendo to straight up directly spell out Link’s thoughts like that. It seems very intentionally up to interpretation.

Japanese “I”, when it is used, is problematic because it’s gendered. I’m sure a lot of fans of Japanese culture are aware of “boku”, “ore”, “watashi”. If Link is supposed to be the player, they can’t really use a pronoun like that as it’ll alienate a portion of the audience.

From what I can see, the origin of this is from quite a small twitter post, where a Japanese fan shares their thoughts on the idea. If the theory was something obvious that spoke for itself, why would they be making a “did you notice this” post? Again this furthers the “interpretation” idea.

It would be really weird for translation teams to make this much of a change anyway. The formality thing was stylistic, but I doubt they could get away with this severe of a meaning change. I have a LOT of harsh things to say about how much they messed up like most of the cutscenes (for real it’s shocking), but this I don’t think would have been changed so much. From my knowledge of the industry, anyway.

Summary TLDR

I’m really sorry, but the original theory is pretty wrong. Well, let me put it this way. I think, if you want to ignore the memory context, you can headcanon that the adventure logs are from Link’s POV. No matter the case, I still think they are represented of his feelings in some way. The adventure log being Link’s POV is a theory only, not a FACT.

The only way it can actually be proved is if one of the writing staff has actually stated the intent in an interview or something, and I have yet to find one.

#zelda breath of the wild #legend of zelda #botw #botw link #breath of the wild

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midnightseonghwa · 3 years

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𝐄𝐲𝐞𝐳 𝐎𝐧 𝐔 | 𝐩.𝐬𝐡

✕ 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Solo Idol!Seonghwa x Staff!Reader

✕ 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Idol au and fluff

✕ 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 3.7k+

✕ 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Cliche k-drama themes, Seonghwa is a solo idol, mentions of overbearing fans and some sneaking around.

✕ 𝐄𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬: Unedited

✕ 𝐀/𝐍: This was requested by anon! Well, welcome to the fandom once again and I’m very glad you decided to give my writing a try. Here is your very fluffy piece~~ I hope you like it! Do let me know what you think! ♥️

✕ 𝐀𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐜: here

✕ 𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭: @teeztheflag

Girls and boys alike crowded in front of your office building, the eager fans holding posters and light sticks, their love for their idol drawn in hearts and love declaration as you stood against one of the windows, observing the entire scene.

"Some fans," Yeosang said, handing you a cup of coffee and standing next to you, "Are not sane."

You rolled your eyes, throwing your colleague an odd look before raising the small paper glass of mix-coffee to your lips.

"Let them be, idols exist for a reason," you replied and Yeosang hummed, sitting at the table and flicking through the schedule for today.

The crowd seemed to grow thicker as the security team started putting up barricades to prevent fans from trampling over people who were entering the building.

"Yeo?" You asked, turning to face your friend and colleague, the same one who told you that getting into the entertainment industry would be profitable and a good idea.

You've never listened to any of his ideas again...

"Who's on the schedule today?" You asked, setting the paper cup down and leaning over the small plastic folder Yeosang was looking through.

"Uh...we had a couple in the morning but the only interview left for the afternoon slot is..." he trailed off, flicking through the numerous pages before landing on one.

"Park Seonghwa," he said, finger, pointing to a name that was highlighted in yellow and marked as important.

"Park Seonghwa?" You asked, turning the file around to look for yourself.

"Yeah, it says so right here and look, you're on the interview staff," he said, tracing over your name with a blue ball pen that was in his hand.

"He finally agreed?" You asked, a look of bewilderment coming across your face before you re-read Park Seonghwa's name and then yours, written in the same line.

"It took forever but apparently boss managed to get his agency's approval," he said and you opened your mouth to say something when screams suddenly erupted, shaking the entire office building.

Out of the windows, you saw a black van pull up to the front, windows tinted black so that nothing from the inside was visible. The security team crowded at the front of the van, some holding back screaming fans while others were given the responsibility to clear the way to the front entrance of the building.

"(Y/n)!" A voice came from the door and you turned around to see San, another one of your colleagues calling you.

"Let's go! He's here!" He yells and you throw Yeosang a quick look before getting your jacket and id card.

"Good luck," he whispers, sipping on his coffee again.

"Thanks," you breathe out, "I'm going to need it."

The tray of water bottles felt heavy in your hands as you walked towards the dressing room that was currently being occupied by none other than THE Park Seonghwa.

You stopped at the door, hands trembling ever so slightly as you felt his famous aura literally suffocating you.

Raising your hand to knock, you steadied the bottles in your hand before the door was swung wide open by Seonghwa's manager, Jung Wooyoung.

"You are?" He asked, asking for your id to make sure you were part of the interview staff and not some fan who was stalking Seonghwa.

"(Y/n)(L/n), part of the interview staff. I've come to brief you and Mr Park about the interview schedule?" You said, catching a peak of blond hair moving behind Wooyoung before the smaller male moved over to cover the dressing room from your view again.

"That's perfectly fine, you can brief me and I'll make sure to relay the same to Mr Park," he said and took the tray of water bottles from you, handing to some stylist who was passing by.

"Uh, alright. Here are some of the questions that we have prepared. It's completely up to Mr Park if he wants to go through them or not. The interview will begin in a short while and I will be the one to escort Mr Park to the interview room," you finished, handing Wooyoung some files with the questions along with a few more documents your boss had asked you to hand over.

"Thank you for the information, (Y/n)(L/n), you are free to go," Wooyoung said, turning around and shutting the door right in your face.

You stood there stunned, not quite sure how to react to the ever-mysterious Park Seonghwa that you had only ever got the privilege of seeing on the internet or tv.

Cocking your head to the side, you walked down the corridor and towards the main interview room.

Maybe the actual interview will be better?

Despite the soundproof walls of the interview room, you could still hear the fans screaming and it was starting to cause a bit of a headache for you.

"Hey," San said, nudging your side in a whisper, "Did you pass on all the files like boss asked?"

"Yeah, but Seonghwa's manager is oddly protective. None of the other managers I've interacted with has been so...protective," you said, fiddling with your fingers that were clasped in front of you as everyone set up filming equipment around you.

"Honestly, if I was Park Seonghwa's manager, I would be protective too. I heard that some fan even broke into his hotel room and stole his socks," San whispered, leaning scandalously close as if he was telling you some dirty secret.

"Oh..." you trailed off, a frown settling on your face before the camera crew signalled five minutes to shoot.

"That's my cue to go and inform Park Seonghwa's manager," you said, dragging yourself out the room and into the corridor.

Arriving in front of Park Seonghwa's dressing room again, you stared up at the black letters before knocking on the door again.

"Back so soon?" Wooyoung asked, arms protectively caging the door as if you were even interested in viewing the probably uptight and snobby celebrity who was sitting inside it.

"Well, it's been half an hour since I came and I'm here to inform you that there are five minutes left for shooting to begin," you said, not really interested in exchanging any more words with Wooyoung than what was required of you.

"I see," Wooyoung said and peaked into the room behind in before giving you a nod.

"Wait here while Mr Park finishes," he said and jutted his chin out to the opposing wall of the corridor.

"Sure," you said, lip twitching in distaste as you sauntered to the corridor wall behind you and leaned against it.

You were sure you actually waited those five minutes to shooting in the corridor, staring at Park Seonghwa's name printed over the door.

Clicking your tongue, you pushed yourself up the wall, raising your fist up to knock again when the door swung wide open and Wooyoung gave you a disapproving and irritated look.

"Someone should really teach you patience," he said, moving to stand beside you as the styling team filed out and lastly, the man of the hour, Park Seonghwa.

You had only ever seen him on tv up till now. The angled cheekbones that could probably kill with skin that seemed to be blessed by the angels, it was true; he really did look better in person.

Who would've thought...?

"If you'd follow me," you said, leading them down the with a sigh, the feeling of a headache overwhelming your senses completely.

Walking into the interview room, you saw Yunho, the interviewer and a dear dear friend of yours already seated on set, filming the introduction and opening.

San came up, holding up a mic as he hooked it up to Seonghwa backside before attaching the small black mic to the front of his shirt.

"Be careful," Wooyoung hissed and you could've sworn that for a second, you saw Seonghwa flinch.

But just as you imagined the whole ordeal, his eyes returned back to their previous look and the smile that he put on his face that your colleagues normally gushed about.

"It's done," San said, checking the mic once before moving away to check other equipment.

"I hope you've read the script. Best of luck," you said, trying to ease your own nerves.

"Thanks, maybe I'll need it," Seonghwa said, moving past you with a breeze of cologne that had you move back and really rethink your life decisions.

Had THE Park Seonghwa really just talk to you?

Did he reply to your empty greeting of luck?

San stared at you wide-eyed from the corner of the room before quickly turning away when you looked his way.

Perhaps, Park Seonghwa had some human words left in him.

Yunho started off with the basic questions, the concept for his most recent comeback, why that specific concept was chosen and all that jazz.

Throughout the whole interview, you were standing behind one of the cameras, holding the script and making sure everything was going according to plan when you couldn't help but shake the feeling that Seonghwa was unfocused on the interview, completely lose in some other universe.

Making direct eye contact with the interviewer was something every celebrity usually did; to show that they were interested and focused on the interview at hand but for some reason, Seonghwa's eyes kept flicking over to the camera you were standing behind, the action looking hidden and quick but you caught his gaze every time.

"It is all thanks to my shine-stars, my fans. I wouldn't be able to stand here today without them," he said, gaze flicking nervously over to you when the red light was blinking on some other camera.

You offered him a smile back to comfort him but that only seemed to unnerve him further as he stuttered over his words, his sentences coming out muddled and botched.

Yunho did the closing, thanking Seonghwa for joining one last time before thanking the viewers who were watching from home.

The crew called it a wrap for the day, some of them extremely annoyed at the fact that Seonghwa couldn't keep his gaze focused on the correct camera. Most were annoyed about the long night of editing they would have to sit through.

"Hey," San said, handing you and Yunho a can of coffee, still warm to touch.

"Ah, thank you," you said, taking it from the lanky boy and popping it open.

"So, how was it interacting with the infamous Park Seonghwa," you teased, nudging Yunho in his stomach with a little teasing smile on your face.

"Millions of girls would be dying to take your place right now," you said, adding to tease the taller.

"I think...I think I overestimated Park Seonghwa's professionalism," Yunho muttered, taking a sip of the coffee before sighing.

"What do you mean?" You said, eyebrows furrowing at his words.

"I mean, you were there. You saw how unfocused the man was and if this is how he usually does his interviews, the crew must be doing a darn good job at editing him to look so top-celebrity-like," Yunho explained, San nodding along at his words.

"I'm sure he's had a tiring day," you reasoned, getting touchy out of nowhere about Seonghwa's professionalism.

"Oh, he definitely had a tiring day staring at you throughout the whole interview even when the signalled camera was another," San snorted, hiding his teasing smile behind his can of coffee.

You quieted down at his words, his intentions not quite hitting you right. Seonghwa wasn't staring at you...he couldn't have been.

An idol? As big as Park Seonghwa nervous and staring at a typical entertainment staff?

"Yeah right," you said, a laugh falling from your lips at how ridiculous San sounded.

"But it's true, even I-" Yunho started, only to quickly get shut down by you.

"Let's call it a night, boys," you said, thanking San for the coffee once again and then picking up your jacket before exiting the interview room.

The walk to your apartment was cold, the wind blowing hard as it whistled past your ear and into the freezing January. Your shoes hit the unruly pavement with a loud noise and you rubbed your hands together, trying your best to produce some heat.

It was almost midnight, the interview taking longer than expected with some hitches here and there with equipment, and you wanted nothing more than to just melt into your bed.

Snow hadn't fallen this year but the temperature had still fallen close to the negatives and you were one step away from freezing your toes off.

It was in these situations where you wished you owned a car or at least lived far enough to use public transport but the ambiguous distance to your house and everything around it gave you the option of none.

You crossed an alley, the yellow light of the streets hitting you in the face before you were stopped by a calling of your name.

"(Y/n)!"

The voice was whispered, but loud enough for you to hear it. It had a tone of urgency under it and currently, turning back to face this person was the last thing you wanted to do.

"(Y/n)!"

There is was again, the calling of your name by a voice that seemed horribly familiar.

"It's me!"

You stopped in your tracks, the voice clicking and it's owner clicking in your head until it was too late for you to turn around.

"Park Seonghwa?"

His name came out louder than intended and you quickly clamped your hand over your mouth and looked around, trying to spot any rogue paparazzi members.

You stepped further into the alley, hidden by the shadows of two buildings as you came face to face with a sunglassed idol clad in a white sweater and jeans.

"How are you here? Did you follow me? Does manager Wooyoung know about this?"

Questions after questions spilt from your mouth and at least Seonghwa had the decency to look a little bit shameful.

The male sighed, pulling his sunglasses off before facing you with his deep brown eyes that were just barely visible in the dim light.

"No, I didn't follow you here and no, Wooyoung doesn't know about this. I can't keep up with his nagging anymore," the male sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before leaning against the brick wall behind him.

"You didn't answer my first question. How and why are you here?" You asked again, trying your best to maintain some friendly distance in case you were ambushed by fans or the paparazzi out of the blue.

You didn't have the time or money for a scandal.

"I...I saw you during the interview-"

"Yes, I noticed. Actually, the entire crew noticed. You sure aren't subtle for a celebrity," you huffed, crossing your arms over your shoulders.

Seonghwa visibly blanched at your words, heat taking over his body as it turned his white cheeks a red.

"Uh...yeah, I-" he stuttered, rubbing the nape of his neck before shrinking into himself even more.

You watched the idol's personality take a full shift from what he was usually portrayed as, the strong, very in-your-face character and fewer words, letting his good looks and charisma do the work for him.

But here, standing in front of you in a dim alley with the cold January wind blowing, you saw the cold celebrity replaced with a hesitant boy, one who was probably just caught by his mother stealing cookies from the jar.

"It's alright," you smiled, feeling as if it was your responsibility to put Seonghwa out of his embarrassing misery.

"I'm sure the crew will do a good job at editing."

Seonghwa smiled back at you, his row of perfect teeth on display.

"I wanted to wait around for you but Wooyoung pushed me to go. Something about my image or whatever...but I...I really wanted a chance to just...talk to you," he admitted, visibly deflating at how inhumane he sounded.

You stood straighter at his words, the reality of him being in a completely different social status from you hitting you right in the face.

"But you're an idol," you said, the words coming out before you could stop them and you wished you could've at the way Seonghwa flinched at your words.

"Yes, yes I am..." he trailed off and offered you a weak smile, this one not quite reaching his eyes.

Silence enveloped the both of you in a bubble, the outside world muted and numbed.

"But I..." Seonghwa started, a bashful but determined tone to his voice.

"But I am human before I am an idol. So if I want to make friends and date then it's completely up to me," he finished, eyes shining as if he had some new scientific discovery.

"You're absolutely right," you said, feeling rather proud that he could come out and say those things, despite knowing how much backlash he was going to receive from his fans and company.

"And I would really like to get to know you," he said, trying his luck again before you tilted your head to the side, weighing your options.

"Then you best follow me," you said, walking in the direction of your apartment and then looking back at Seonghwa who had already slipped his mask and sunglasses back on.

"I haven't had these in ages," Seonghwa said, holding the crispy hotdog coated with powdered sugar, ketchup and mustard in his hand as if it was some kind of treasure.

"How long is ages?" You asked, curious about how someone could voluntarily abstain from heavenly foods.

"Ever since my trainee days...so maybe like four or five years now?" Seonghwa said, trying to count the years of his training and then post debut.

Your eyes bulged out of their sockets, jaw falling limp around the hotdog that was in your mouth.

"Four to five years of eating grass? For what?" You asked, tone absolutely exasperated, already feeling exhausted at hearing Seonghwa.

"At that time, it was my passion. To sing, dance and have so many people love you. I didn't quite realise how vile the entire industry was at that time," he admitted, taking a bite out of his hot dog before.

You quieted down, his words hitting you deeper than you thought it would. You barely knew this man, but somehow, more of him was exposed on the internet and you would be able to know him just by clicking a few links.

But how well exactly?

"So, Mr Park, tell me about yourself," you said, picking up a stick of fish cake and pouring some soup into a paper cup.

"I'd like it better if you just called me Seonghwa," he said, discarding the empty hotdog stick into the trashcan and picking up some chicken skewers.

"Okay, Seonghwa, tell me about yourself," you said, handing the lady at the stand some money.

"Why? You can just find out by going on the internet," he said, eyes curious but also slightly distant.

"But I want to know the real you. You said you wanted to talk and what better way for two strangers to talk than to introduce themselves?"

Seonghwa nodded, pulling a piece of chicken off the stick.

"I don't actually like jalapeno flavoured chips," he said, scrunching his nose up.

"Oh?" You asked, amused at the random piece of information he decided to start with.

"Yes, Wooyoung likes them and he was spotted buying them once and everybody just assumed it was for me," he said shaking his head while laughing.

"Continue," you said, ladling some more soup into your paper cup.

"Fans started giving me jalapeno flavoured chips at fan signs after that and I..." he trailed off, not quite sure of what to say.

He glanced warily at the lady at the stand who seemed disinterested in your conversation but you can never make out a prying ear until everything is exposed.

"Let's go, I know a place we can talk," you said, handing the lady the last bit of money before giving out your hand.

Seonghwa looked at your slightly perplexed before he slid his hand into yours and was pulled into the night by you.

The night air was crisp, the cold biting at your face and hands as you set the small blanket you had grabbed from your apartment onto the terrace floor.

"Are you sure no one will see us here?" Seonghwa asked, sitting down on the blanketed floor.

"I mean, see for yourself," you said, gesturing to the wide expanse of empty space that looked as if it hadn't been used in over a century.

"Fair enough," he said and pulled his legs into his chest.

"I take it you're not the most flexible?" You teased, taking a seat in cross-legged position next to him.

"No...that's one fact they got correct about me," he said breathing in the night air while marvelling at the city lights.

"You have no idea how boring it is being cooped up in my apartment. Like at least if I was in a group then I would have my members to keep my company but it gets so lonely sometimes when you're a solo idol," Seonghwa ranted, his nose turning a cute shade of pink from the cold.

"Well, after everything you just shared, I'd say we're friends now," you said, leaning into his side in a friendly manner.

"If everything goes well, I hope we can be something more," Seonghwa said, twisting his fingers together.

Your words got stuck in your throat at his confession. You literally saw him for the first time today!

"Hm...maybe if you play your cards right and don't accidentally out yourself first," you said, playing it off cooly.

"Does this mean you'll see me again?" Seonghwa asked, eyes hopeful, twinkle resembling the night stars above.

"If you promise to come and do more programmes with me," you answered playfully but the speed at which Seonghwa nodded almost made you want to kiss him there and then.

"Of course, as long as I get to see you," he said and you swore your heart almost leapt out of its chest.

You responded with a smile, placing your hand over his.

Seonghwa seemed a little taken aback by the action but turned his hand over to his palm and interlaced your fingers together.

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quickspinner · 3 years

Text

Month of Miracles Day 5 - Decoration

Find the prompt list here!

I have meddled with powers I did not fully understand and now the Hallmark AU has gripped me. I think you can expect to see more of this sprinkled throughout the month. Oh, well. Multiparters in prompt months are like a tradition for me now, right?

Hallmark Movie AU

Imagine, Marinette thought as she helped Rose unpack the decorations and ornaments to go on the tree, Luke Stone in a town like this.

Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t heard of him releasing anything new recently. So he was from this town, then? He must be on vacation, visiting his family and helping out at the farm. Taking a break, maybe writing some new songs. Funny, to think of the glammed up, heavily bedazzled rock star wearing flannel and working on a Christmas tree farm.

Marinette had winced the day before, watching him tear up his palms hauling the tree she’d picked out yesterday and tie it down deftly with fingers that had to be worth millions of dollars. It pained her to think of the hands that had created such beautiful music being abused in such a way. Surely he should have been wearing gloves, at least. He’d been so cold to her, though, that Marinette hadn’t dared suggest it or question him.

She’d been skeptical when Jagged Stone’s son had made his debut on tour alongside his father. She’d been a longtime fan of the older Stone and didn’t think even his own flesh and blood would be able to match him—but the younger Stone hadn’t tried. Luke’s music was clearly influenced by his father, but was also entirely his own, but so evocative, so emotional, she had been pulled in despite her reservations. She owned every one of Luke Stone’s albums, including the special edition greatest hits album, which she had bought even as she complained to Alya that he was too young in his career to be releasing a greatest hits album.

Marinette hadn’t said much to Rose about the encounter, not sure whether it was common knowledge amongst the town that he was here, and not wanting to infringe on his privacy if it wasn’t. Rose had given her a funny (disappointed?) look when she mentioned the grumpy young man that had helped her, but hadn’t said anything about it, just asked Marinette to come back today and give her a hand decorating the tree after the maintenance staff got it set up.

It wasn’t as if Marinette had much else to do, and Gina’s house felt huge and empty with just her in it, so she’d agreed, and here she was unpacking dusty boxes that had been hauled out of storage. She sighed as she surveyed the contents. The boxes looked like they’d been packed up by unsupervised five-year-olds last year.

She was sorting the decorations into piles, still absently pondering the mystery of Luke Stone, when the library doors slid open, and the man himself walked in. He was dressed much the same as he had been yesterday, in layers that hid the muscular shoulders and arms he displayed on stage. Before Marinette could react, Rose flitted past her.

“Luka!” Rose squealed, throwing herself at him. “You’re here!” Luka staggered slightly but wrapped one arm around her waist to catch her, holding her with her feet dangling off the ground as she kissed both his cheeks, her arms wrapped around his neck. Marinette stared, mouth hanging open slightly.

“That was enthusiastic,” Luka laughed, looking down at the petite blond hanging off of his tall frame.

“I’m happy to see you!” Rose smiled brightly.

“You just saw me at dinner last night.” Luka bent his knees and set her on the ground. Rose took the hint and let him go, but bounced on the balls of her feet. “And I told you I’d come, he added.”

“And now you’re here!” Rose threw out her arms. “I’m so glad! I have so much to do to get the childrens’ program ready and the decorations are so much for poor Marinette to manage by herself! Have you met Marinette?” she inquired, turning and holding out her arms to present her friend. Marinette closed her mouth and tried to smile as she gave a little wave. “I think you did,” Rose continued, turning to give him a warning look. “I think she said she ran into you at the farm.”

Luka felt embarrassment creeping up his neck at Rose’s clearly scolding look. He nodded at Marinette. “Briefly, yeah. Nice to see you, Marinette.” He pronounced her name carefully, feeling bad about teasing her yesterday. She smiled a little more, and then looked down, her hands fluttering around the decorations she’d been separating.

“You can get the lights on the tree while Marinette finishes working out that stuff,” Rose suggested, pointing to a pile of lights sitting near Marinette. “You’re nice and tall, so that should make things easy. There’s step stools in the kids’ area if you need them. Come here and I’ll show you what I want.” She hooked his arm and pulled him around to the far side of the tree. “The plug’s over here, so you’ll need to start on this side.”

As soon as they were out of sight, Rose slapped his arm. “Dummy!” she scolded in a whisper. “I didn’t send her to the farm so you could be mean.”

“I wasn’t mean,” Luka protested weakly, and then frowned. “What do you mean, you sent her?” He gave his not-quite-sister a suspicious look, and then leaned slightly to look around the tree and make sure they were out of earshot.

He paused. Marinette had been cute yesterday in her puffy pink coat and earmuffs, but he hadn’t really had time to notice her. Now she looked trendy but comfortable in pigtails and a soft pink sweater over skinny jeans, her profile turned to him. She was an authentic kind of pretty, he reflected, but then Luka had found himself thinking that about a lot of people since he’d left the rock star world, where everybody wore layers of stage makeup, styled and coiffed and dressed so that every detail about them enhanced the image they wanted to project.

Still, her full lips made a pretty bow, especially when she pouted them slightly in concentration, and her hair had a shine that came from health rather than product, and her eyes were—

Rose’s elbow in his ribs jolted him out of what must have been a pretty intense stare, and he flushed, leaning back slightly so he couldn’t see Marinette on the other side of the tree.

“She already thinks you’re mean,” Rose hissed. “Don’t be a creep on top of it.”

Luka winced. He didn’t need Rose’s reminder to feel guilty for behaving so abruptly yesterday. Already prickly from a morning of needling by his mother, he hadn’t been prepared for anyone to recognize him. No one had up until this point, and he’d thought he was safe. It was an unpleasant shock to have a stranger recognize him, especially someone from the city who might carry word of his presence here back to the press. His mother’s call had sounded like his guardian angel’s trumpet in that moment. When Juleka had called him to help tie her chosen tree on top of her car, he’d done the work quickly and silently, and avoided her gaze as much as possible.

He’d felt bad about it later, when he’d had time to relax and reflect, but he hadn’t expected to see her again—certainly hadn’t expected to have Rose practically throwing her at him. He gave her a warning look.

Rose opened her mouth but before she could say anything, Marinette popped around the side of the tree. “Rose, do you have some scissors anywhere?”

“Yes, in the cabinet behind the desk,” Rose said, pointing. “Probably on the top three shelves, there’s a box of craft supplies there. You might as well bring over the whole thing in case you need anything else. Let me know if it’s too high up and I’ll send Luka to grab them instead.”

“Got it,” Marinette smiled, and turned to follow Rose’s directions.

Luka shot Rose a glare. “Quit it,” he warned.

“Quit what?” Rose inquired, with a blink and head tilt that made her look like she didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.

Luka knew better.

“I don’t need any help, Rose,” Luka muttered, folding his arms. “I could find a relationship on my own if I wanted to.”

“Mmhm,” Rose hummed in a disbelieving tone. “Because there’s so many to choose from here in this little town.”

Luka rolled his eyes and didn’t reply.

“I do like Marinette though,” Rose said, and smiled innocently when Luka gave her a look. “She’s really sweet. We only met a couple of days ago and here she is, bending over backward to get me a real tree and spending her time decorating it.”

“You set her up,” Luka accused, peeking around the tree briefly to make sure she wasn’t coming back yet. “You’re trying to set me up.”

“She’s so creative,” Rose sighed. “She showed me some of her portfolio the other day, and it’s fantastic. She’s a fashion designer, you see.”

Luka snorted. “Oh, yeah, she’ll totally fall for me. Without my stylist I’m a fashion disaster and you know it Rose.”

“That just makes you a challenge,” Rose chirped, and then softened a little as she looked at him. “Look, I know you’re not looking right now, but that’s a stupid attitude to have when an amazing person just drops into your lap.” She tossed her head in a move he was sure she’d picked up from Juleka, though it was less effective without Juleka’s mane to accent it. “I should know. Anyway, do what you want, I just think she’s neat and I wanted you to meet her. I’ve got a good feeling about her. If I’d met her two years ago I’d totally steal her from you. If you’re smart, you’ll keep an open mind.”

Luka sighed, but he saw a flicker of pink and when he glanced around the tree again, Marinette was back, the box of supplies at her side. She was lifting a large tinsel garland from the box she’d just opened, only to find it was all a tangled mass. There was a sort of mournful look on her face, a little droop of sadness, maybe even loneliness, to her shoulders. He remembered the tightness in her eyes and around her mouth yesterday, and the way she’d spilled out her reason for being here at the slightest nudge. A fashion designer—that was a cutthroat business, especially in the city. Poor thing was probably as tired and strung out as he’d been when he came home.

He wasn’t even aware he’d sighed until Rose giggled at his elbow. “I think you can figure the lights out on your own,” she said with a little pat to his arm. “I’m going to get back to getting ready for the children’s program. You two just...have fun, okay? Make it festive!” She fluttered her hands at the tree, then waved at Marinette and abandoned him to the awkwardness.

It didn’t take long to get the lights on the tree—Luka had plenty of practice after getting the farm set up for the season. He stood there for a moment, hesitating. He glanced at Marinette. She had finished the sorting and was back to struggling with the tangled garland, and the look of utter defeat on her face...hurt, somehow.

“Can I give you a hand?” Luka found himself offering.

Marinette started slightly, and in an instant her shoulders went back and her smile flashed back into being. Luka was surprised to realize that it didn’t feel fake, despite the fact that he had seen her feelings on her face just a moment before. She was hiding those feelings now, but the smile she offered him was as sincere as the sadness.

“Um, sure, if you want to,” she said, holding up the garland in two hands. “It’s pretty twisted up. We could just leave it, but...might as well give it a shot, right?”

Luka took a handful of garland, and Marinette took another one farther down. They moved apart, spreading it out as far as it could go between them to try and see where it twisted back on itself.

“This looks like the end,” Marinette muttered, plucking at a piece. “Can you just hold it up for a minute?”

Luka did, watching Marinette as she looped the end she’d found back over and under and through the glittering mass. The silence was awkward, and the more Luka tried to think of something to say, the more he felt like there was only one thing he could say.

“Listen, I wanted to apologize—” he began as Marinette said, “Luka, I’m really sorry—”

They both stopped, and laughed, and Luka gestured for her to go ahead.

“I just,” Marinette pushed her hair back and glanced at him, then looked away. “I wanted to apologize for blurting that out about—you know—I should have thought, I should have realized you wouldn’t want to be approached like that, while you’re clearly not working—well, you were working, but not, not like that and I should have—well. I’m really sorry. You’re at home and you probably don’t want people gushing all over you while you’re trying to spend time with your family.”

Luka took a breath, looking at the floor for a moment. “I wanted to apologize too, for being so abrupt with you. I...hadn’t had the best morning, and you did startle me. I’m...well, I guess you could maybe say I’m retired, and I’d rather not be...known, here. I guess I kind of panicked.”

“Retired?” Marinette looked up at him in surprise. “But your music was so good! I mean—” She flushed, and grabbed the garland, moving to start draping it around the tree. “I really liked it, anyway. Sorry, I know it’s not my business...Anyway, I understand, and I won’t tell anyone I met you here.” The garland she was trying to place slipped off, and she sighed in frustration. “I swear Christmas hates me,” she muttered to herself.

Luka picked up the trailing end and held it so that the weight was no longer dragging. “Thank you. I really appreciate that.”

“Of course,” Marinette smiled, and then she said, “How long have you and Rose been together?” This time the garland stayed where she placed it, with Luka feeding her more as she circled around the tree.

“Together?” Luka repeated, startled. “We’re not together. She’s dating my sister, actually. In fact if they’re not engaged by New Years I’ll be shocked.”

Marinette’s head whipped around to look at him. “O-oh. Oh! Oh, I understand now.” She flushed. “Just, before—”

“Yeah, I get it,” Luka grinned. “I can see how that would look if you didn’t know.”

“Wow, how off base was I, though,” Marinette giggled. “So your family’s from around here? I—oh, that sounded nosy didn’t it, I’m sorry, I swear I’m just trying to make small talk.”

“I’m not offended,” Luka chuckled. “Actually my family just moved here a few years ago. When my mom bought the tree farm I thought it was just another one of her crazy whims and she’d move on to something else before long, but she seems really happy here. What about your grandma? Gina doesn’t seem like the small town type, either.”

The conversation flowed comfortably from there, as they finished the garland and moved on to the other decorations. Marinette didn’t ask him any more questions about his music, and he carefully steered clear of asking her any questions about why she’d come—or been sent—down to their little town, and faster than Luka could have expected, they were closing up the empty boxes and stacking them to the side to be returned to storage. Marinette had a good eye, Luka had to admit as he looked at the tree. Not surprising, he supposed, but it did look a lot nicer than the previous year’s tree. Not only that, Marinette had arranged the extra decorations on the library desk in a pretty little display, and with his help, had even trimmed the windows with some icicle lights they found at the bottom of one of the boxes. Luka knelt to plug in the last set of lights, and when they were on, the whole library screamed holiday cheer to an almost obnoxious degree.

As if his thoughts had summoned her, Rose appeared behind him.

“Wow, look at this place, it’s awesome! Everything looks great! You two make a fantastic team!” She grinned at Luka, and he raised his eyebrows at her in warning. “Everything is so festive,” Rose went on, clearly ignoring him, as she laid a thoughtful finger to her lips and examined them, “except for you two. You’re ruining the mood.”

Faster than Luka could track she whipped something out and stuck it to his forehead, then turned and did the same to Marinette. Only when he saw the bright blue gift bow stuck to Marinette’s forehead did he realize what Rose had just done to them, and he rolled his eyes as he reached up to touch the bow on his own forehead. Rose swatted his hand away and then grabbed his arm, hauling at him until he had no choice but to stand up or fall over.

“There, now you’re properly decorated too,” Rose beamed. “All right, you two have spent all morning helping me, so get out of here and go do something fun! It’s such a pretty day!”

“Rose, it’s freezing,” Luka tried to say, but Rose was already pushing them towards the door, and he gave into the inevitability of it all with a sigh.

“Go down to the café, have lunch on my tab, both of you,” she ordered, dumping their coats in Luka’s arms before shoving them out of the door. “Thanks for all your help!” she called, waving at them as the doors slid closed.

“Real subtle,” Luka grumbled, reaching up to peel the bow off his forehead as he turned to face Marinette. That was a mistake, because the way her mouth was pursed in a little moue as she worked to remove her own bow was kind of adorable.

Damnit, Rose.

Fiction Master Post | Month of Miracles

#quickspins #monthofmiracles2020 #lukanette #endgame lukanette #lukanette endgame #hallmark au #is that even a thing lol #it is now #luka couffaine #marinette dupain-cheng #miraculousladybug #miraculous ladybug #quickfic #promptfic

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honeypwark · 4 years

Text

[ Night Night ]

↳ Roller Coaster era (late Jan-early Mar 2019)

↳ Lily arrives right on time for NCT Night Night. JohnJae is whipped. Lily talks about promoting solo.

m.list

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

After a rather stressful salon visit and practically shoving herself into the outfit her stylist gave her, Lily raced to the recording studio home to NCT Night Night, among other radio shows. Normally, guests enter at the beginning of the ad break preceding their introduction. However, those commercials are over halfway over by the time Lily is shown into the recording studio.

Simultaneously, two voices shout, “Lily Leeeeeeeeee!”

Lily laughs, NCT Night Night’s very tall hosts, Johnny and Jaehyun, standing to greet her. Normally, she wouldn’t think twice before hugging her best friend’s older members in greeting but she knows there’s a live video feed, so she keeps to the more formal bow and handshake.

“You’re late,” Johnny says.

“Would you be insulted if I told you I forgot and fell asleep?” Lily asks.

“Yes.”

“Then it was traffic.”

The three of them laugh and Lily walks around to sit across from Johnny and Jaehyun. She sits and, careful of her recently styled hair, puts her headphones on. For a moment, all she can hear is someone advertising super fast pizza delivery service. She looks up and sees Jaehyun saying something and motioning toward his head.

“Ah,” she says in understanding, moving one side of the headphones off her ear.

She doesn’t notice Johnny and Jaehyun looking at her fondly as she fixes her hair. A few staff members rush into the room, adjusting the cameras facing Lily down, having estimated where she would be sitting too high while waiting for her. Soon after, the commercials end and Johnny and Jaehyun begin the introductory dialogue.

“Johnny, have you ever heard of Sunshine?”

“Sunshine? Like light from the sun?”

“No, like the Nation’s Sunshine, Twice’s Lily.”

“But isn’t Lily from America? How did she get the nickname Nation’s Sunshine?”

“Are you curious?” Jaehyun addresses the listeners. “Then find out here!”

“Come meet tonight’s special guest nicknamed the Nation’s Sunshine on NCT Night Night.”

With the show led into, Jaehyun turns his attention to Lily, “Our guest for tonight is a beloved member of a popular girl group who has recently made her debut as a solo artist, lighting up the stage with her bright vocals and refreshing concept during the cold winter months. Lily Lee, hello.”

“Hello!” Lily responds cheerfully.

Johnny chuckles at her peppiness, “Please introduce yourself.”

“Hello!” Lily repeats, “I’m Lily Lee. I’m glad to be a guest on NCT Night Night and am very excited about tonight’s broadcast!”

“Hello and welcome, Lily,” Johnny says.

“Before we begin, would you like explain how we all know each other?” Jaehyun asks.

“Yes. My best friend is one of Johnny and Jaehyun’s members, NCT Dream’s Jisung. I’m good friends with all of NCT, who I met through Jisung.”

“We’re you’re... oppas? Is it alright to say that?” Johnny glances around as thought looking for someone’s nod of approval.

Lily laughs, “Well, you are... six and four years older than me, aren’t you?”

“You were born in 2001?” Jaehyun asks.

“Very late 2001. December twelfth.”

“You’re that young? That means you’re younger than Chenle.”

“Not by much, but I am younger than him, yes.”

“And you’ve just made your solo debut with ‘Roller Coaster,’” Johnny reads from his script. “Your debut single came with two songs, the title track ‘Roller Coaster’ and b-side track ‘Don’t Know What To Do.’ You wrote your b-side, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Lily nods. “I wrote the lyrics and composed most of it. I had help from a friend I trained with who’s debuted now, Stray Kids’ leader Bang Chan. He and I were really the only ones to work on this song and he would push me to figure stuff out on my own. He didn’t hold my hand and tell me what would work.”

“He wanted you to make it your own,” Jaehyun supplies.

“Yes.”

“And you also helped write lyrics for ‘Roller Coaster’?” Johnny asks.

“I did.”

“So, what’s it like being the first of your group to have a solo project while also being the youngest? What were your members’ reactions?” Jaehyun prompts.

“When I was first offered the chance to promote solo, I was really really nervous about their reactions. I care a lot about my members because they really took me in and accepted me when I’d only just move to Korea and I didn’t want them to think that I was privileged or thought I was better than them. Those worries were ultimately stupid because after I talked to one of my friends about it to get his opinion, I told them and they were all super supportive.”

“And how does promoting solo vary from promoting with a group?”

“Well, I feel a lot more pressure to do well. I always feel a lot of pressure to do well because I want to give the best performance possible to Onces, but especially when I’m the only person singing onstage I want to do my absolute best. Of course, everyone makes mistakes and since I’m so clumsy I’m bound to make some as well. But anytime I do make a mistake, I know Onces won’t care too much. And if the rest of my performance was spectacular then it’s alright.”

“It must be a lot of pressure to be the only person onstage people are watching,” Johnny agrees.

“Yeah, it is.”

“We’ll continue our interview with Lily Lee in a few minutes. This is ‘Dancing With A Stranger’ by Sam Smith and Normani.”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“The story behind how you got your pet dog Blue is an interesting one, isn’t it?” Jaehyun asks about halfway through the broadcast.

“It is... a little unconventional,” Lily says carefully.

“How did you adopt him?”

“Well, I went out on my own one night to a convenience store and on my way back, I heard whimpering in an alleyway. When I went to see what it was, I found a little puppy in a plastic tub.”

“He was left to starve,” Johnny surmises sadly.

“Yeah,” Lily nods. “So I snuck him into the dorm because I knew my members probably would freak out and make me get rid of him. I went into the dorm, opened my bedroom window, and climbed down the fire escape to where I’d left Blue down below. I brought him up to the dorm, gave him a bath, and it wasn’t until the next day when he’d pooped on the kitchen floor that the girls found out.”

“And you managed to convince them to keep him?” Jaehyun asks.

“With a lot of promises that I would be fully responsible for him- and a little but of guilt tripping-, I did convince them to let him stay.”

“Good thing, too, because he’s adored by your fans,” Johnny says. “On another note, fans have been in a frenzy about something since they found out you’d be coming on the show.”

Lily groans, “I know.”

Johnny laughs, “You know what it is?”

“You two are both so tall,” Lily says, “They want to see me next to you.”

“We’ll take a picture at the end of the broadcast, don’t worry,” Jaehyun tells the listeners.

“How tall are you, Lily?” Johnny asks.

She sighs exaggeratedly loud and long into her mic.

Johnny and Jaehyun laugh heartily.

“I’m like one hundred fifty three centimeters or something,” she says.

“Am I really thirty one centimeters taller than you?” Johnny asks, bewildered.

“I don’t know, you’re the giant,” Lily says. “I look up at everyone regardless. Though I’m probably around one fifty seven right now with the insoles I’m wearing.”

“Imagine wearing insoles,” Jaehyun teases.

“Don’t patronize me,” she says, “I’m your sunbaenim.”

Johnny and Jaehyun falls silent for a few moments.

“You are,” Jaehyun says in disbelief.

“Oh my god,” Johnny mutters.

Lily laughs at the two men who are obviously just now realizing she is at least four years younger than them yet is their senior artist.

“While we think on that for a few minutes, this is ‘Airplane pt.2’ by BTS,” Jaehyun says.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

“So, how did you get the nickname the Nation’s Sunshine?” Jaehyun asks.

They are rapidly approaching the end of the broadcast after a little under an hour of fun stories and lighthearted teasing.

“I’m a really bright and happy person,” Lily starts, “I’m generally optimistic and I’m kind of the mood maker of Twice. My members started calling me Sunshine as a term of endearment and then just as a nickname. Eventually, it caught on and spread to the fans. I became really, really popular in Korea as I appeared on variety shows and things like that. I feel like I sound like a braggart when I say this, but people started commenting about how anytime I was onscreen- even if they didn’t know me- they’d start smiling, so they started calling me the Nation’s Sunshine.”

“Even though you’re a foreigner?” Jaehyun asks.

“I guess,” Lily shrugs. “I mean, I’m ethnically Korean and after living in Korea for four-ish years, I’m fluent in Korean so except for me name, people don’t always realize I’m from America.”

“America!” Johnny shouts.

“America!” Lily shouts back.

The three of them laugh.

“Well, tonight has been very fun,” Jaehyun says.

“It was fun!” Lily agrees.

“I hope we can have you back sometime,” Jaehyun says.

“I hope so, too,” she nods, “Maybe with my members.”

“Do you have anything else you’d like to say?” Johnny prompts.

“Uh, yes,” Lily says. “Um, Onces! Thank you so much for all your support as I ventured out and promoted solo. I hope I’ve promoted Twice and myself well and you are satisfied with my performances so far. Please always support me. I love you! Thank you! And thank you to Johnny and Jaehyun for having me as a guest! This was a lot of.”

“Okay,” Johnny says. “The final song for tonight is our lovely guest’s recent release. This is ‘Roller Coaster’ by Lily Lee.”

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rina-writes · 4 years

Text

Read This

Summary: You, a long term friend of the twins, notice that Ethan has been acting strange. After beating around the bush for a couple months, Grayson breaks down and tells you what’s going on. You decide to show Ethan something that you never intended for him to read...

A/N: When I started this side blog, I wanted to make it such that it would only feature my writing of who I am obsessed with at the time. I really wanted to comment Ethan’s battle with acne, but didn’t want to take away from the purpose of this blog. So, I put it in this short fic. I hope you all enjoy!

You could see the concern in Grayson’s face as you trudged toward Ethan’s room, your long cardigan flowing majestically behind you with the quick movement. Grayson lurched forward to grab your wrist and you looked at him with a frown.

“I don’t think you understand the state that E is in right now.” Grayson said, looking at the ground instead of meeting your eyes. “I know you’re a fan of tough love, but I don’t think this is the greatest time for it.”

“Grayson, I’m not an asshole.” You said, pulling your arm away from him. “I’m not here to kick him when he’s down...I just want him to see something that I wish I had seen in my most insecure moments.”

Grayson seemed hesitant. You couldn’t blame him. The three of you were usually goofballs, pranking each other and roasting each other whenever you got the chance. It was weird for you to see Grayson so serious and using an inside voice. It was weirder not seeing Ethan at his side. It felt like the world was topsy turvy enough with everything going on, to see your friend group shattered as well pushed you to want to do something about it.

“I’m giving you 10 minutes.” Grayson said after some thought with a sigh. “But, leave the door open.”

“Okay, mom!” You punched his arm, playfully.

Grayson wagged a finger at you putting on his best scolding face before laughing softly. He gestured for you to go up the stairs and you nodded, turning from him.

The walk to Ethan’s room felt longer than usual. You realized it was because you were a bit nervous and it caused you to drag your feet. You took a deep breath and added some pep in your step. This wasn’t the big bad wolf, this was one of your closest friends. If you went in with that mindset, this whole thing was for naught.

As you got closer to Ethan’s room, surprised to see the door already open. You knocked on the door gently as you walked in. You frowned seeing Ethan laying in bed, his head pressed against a pillow with his eyes glued to his phone. He looked paler than you’ve ever seen him and his hazel eyes glossed over as though he was in his own dream world.

“Hey, it’s me.” You said, walking toward him. You tried to put a bit of normalcy in your voice. You hoped he didn’t hearing it quiver.

“Hey...” Ethan said, not enthusiasm in his voice. He didn’t really move. His head was still pressed to the pillow, but he used his feet to clear a space on the bed for you to sit.

“Oh wow the royal treatment.” You grinned. You walked over to him and he turned away slightly.

“Uh, I should let you know, my face is kind of a mess right now.” Ethan said, his words muffled slightly.

You sat on the edge of his bed and looked at him. You could barely see his face, but from what you could see, it didn’t look that bad. If he didn’t bring it up, you probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Ethan, you’re talking to me.” You pointed at yourself. “If I didn’t apologize for literally every hair disaster I had in the last four years, you shouldn’t apologize for this.”

“They weren’t THAT bad...” Ethan said, finally locking his phone, but still avoiding your eyes.

“Your mom and the other hair stylists staged an intervention because of my last dye job.” You leaned forward and narrowed your eyes. “They emptied the store and had chairs in a circle like freaking Alcoholics Anonymous.”

Ethan laughed softly, a sound you realized that you had missed from the moment you entered the room.

“The chairs were such a nice touch.” Ethan joked doing the ‘chef’s kiss’ motion with his hands. “I wish I could take credit for it, but pretty sure it was someone at the salon.”

“My point is...” You said, moving right along as you resisted the urge to touch your hair now just to check if it was okay. You smiled, “...we’re friends, Ethan. We don’t have to apologize for things like this...”

Ethan went silent. You gulped worried that you went too far already. Now you understood why Grayson was acting they way he was downstairs. You wondered how many times they argued and how many times they shut each other out over the past couple of months. With them, there were two kinds of fighting. There was the fighting when they were both yelling and pushing each other. That was the norm. But, then there was the fighting where they both spoke in the quietest of voices. Where they didn’t make eye contact and only said a few words, usually sandwiched with swears. These were the arguments that worried you most because it usually meant one or both of them was hurting.

“I want to show you something.” You said, pulling out your phone from the front pocket of your jean shorts.

For the first time since you walked in, Ethan looked at you. This also meant that this was the first time you got a good look at him. He did look bad, but not because of his skin. His eyes looked so cold. It was like he was staring through you. You’ve seen him beam at complete strangers and now, he was staring at you like you were invisible.

You controlled your reaction, not wanting him to misunderstand your surprise. You softened your face, but dared not smile. He would be able to see through a phony grin. You looked own at your phone and started to get ready to show him what you planned.

“Grayson doesn’t let me see Twitter.” He said, before glancing away. “If that’s what you’re going to do...”

“Well, thank goodness I’m showing you Tumblr then.” You said, still looking at your screen as you typed in your search.

“Here...” You handed it to him and Ethan took your phone.

“What is this?” He asked, squinting at the brightness of your screen. At the top was ‘ethan dolan’ which searched all the Ethan Dolan tags on Tumblr.

“It’s the top results for Ethan Dolan on Tumblr.” You said, resting your hands on your lap. “I looked it up a long time ago to tease you guys. As you can see there are a lot of edits and stuff, but there’s also fan fiction.”

“I’ve read this stuff.” Ethan said, handing it back to you. “Clearly, you don’t watch our videos.”

There was a hint of a smile as he teased you. With it, you saw a glimmer of the Ethan Dolan you were waiting to emerge. Baby steps.

“Trust me.” You said pushing the phone back towards him. “This is nothing like you have ever read before.”

“You don’t even know which one I’m going to read.” Ethan rolled his eyes.

“Your fans are a lot more...eh, mature in their writing now.” You blushed softly. “Trust me.”

Ethan looked annoyed, but he decided to read one of them. You watched uncomfortably as his face turned redder and redder.

“Why am I spitting on her?” In the most deadpan voice, Ethan broke the silence and asked, looking at you.

“Oh my god!” You yelled, getting embarrassed. “I don’t know! I didn’t write it.”

“Do people think I’m that mean?” Ethan asked, looking back at the phone. “That I’d choke my girlfriend because she said that she was going to go ask Grayson to take care of her. Like OKAY, you do that...”

You snickered. As if Ethan would have such a chill reaction to something like that.

“Oh come on, E.” You rolled your eyes. “You’re not innocent...you know what fetishes are and that some people like being dominated.”

“Are you saying some people because you mean yourself?” Ethan quirked a brow, looking at you with a smug expression.

He was totally messing with you! You have been upset if you weren’t completely relieved

You narrowed your eyes, not giving away you position. “Anyway...now, I want you to go to the recent tab.”

You watched Ethan’s eyes search the screen and then his thumb move to the top of the screen to click on ‘Recent.’ He scrolled down more, his face turning more red.

“Well, that’s a very graphic description of my penis.” Ethan put your phone down and crossed his arms over his pillow, looking at you with a soft smile. “Did you come here to get laid?”

“Ugh, no!” You rolled your eyes. “You’re missing the point...”

“You just had me read written porn about myself...I’m not sure anyone would get the point.” Ethan said, the smile on his lips getting wider as his eyes started to regain the playfulness you had grown to adore.

“What was the difference between the fics in the Top section and the Recent section?” You asked, trying to give him a hint.

“Oh, you’re so acquainted with them that you call them fics?” Ethan asked, leaning back. You could now see that he was shirtless, in long gray sweat shorts, his stomach and chest exposed as he laid back on his head board.

“Alright, that’s it.” You said, pretending to leave as you snatched your phone.

Ethan knew you were bluffing, but he was too nice to call you out on it. “I’m sorry,” He gave you a little pout. “Don’t go.”

“Answer the question...” You said, sitting back down and crossing your legs.

Ethan stuck his hand out to take your phone and you unlocked to hand it to him. He switched between the two tabs.

“Uh, the ones in the top are a lot dirtier, I guess?” He narrowed his eyes. “Not by much though.”

“Okay, what about the gifs and stuff?” You asked. “Still seeing thirst comments?”

Ethan chuckled. “Yeah...about the same.”

“That’s kind of my point, E.” You took your phone and stared him down so he couldn’t look away. “For your fans, you’re still so hot that they want you to choke them and make them beg for you. You’re still their soft boy that they want to spoon and pamper. You’re still their sweetheart that...in all honesty, was probably the first love for many of them. They haven’t noticed your pimples...E.”

Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but you put up a finger.

“But they don’t know how bad it is.” You said in the deep, husky voice you use to imitate him along with your signature arm flex gestures.

Ethan rolled his eyes. “They really don’t. I mean look.” He pointed to his forehead.

“I’m going to lick it.” You said, lurching forward.

“HOLY --- Don’t you dare.” Ethan said, sticking out his foot to stop you.

You laughed, loudly and eventually, Ethan did as well.

“Every time you say something like that’s I’m going to lick. Then you’ll have acne and my spit on you.” You stuck out your tongue.

“I’m going to have nightmares.” Ethan joked, smiling softly.

You slapped his thigh and grinned. “Look, I’ve been kinda where you are. With my skin, with my hair, with my weight...all of it. I kept thinking I didn’t deserve to have fun until I looked perfect. All the while, the people around me didn’t even notice. I bet you probably don’t even remember when I’m talking about...”

Ethan shook his head. He turned his head to look out the window and then realization washed over his face.

Ethan paused for a moment. “I only remember that one day where you didn’t want to go to the beach and then someone told me it was because you didn’t want to go swimsuit shopping...I didn’t really get it at the time. I was just upset because that was the first time we were going to hang out in months and it was the only time Gray and I were free.”

“That’s how I feel about this.” You smiled softly. “To me, Gray, your friends, your family, your FANS...” You pointed to your phone. “We don’t get why you don’t want to come to the beach. We don’t give two hoots how you look in the swimsuit, we just miss you.”

“I can’t say I feel 100% better.” Ethan admitted. “But, I’m feeling a little less...shitty.”

“A little less shitty. I’ll take that.” You smiled, standing up.

“I half expected to come in here and slap me across the face.” Ethan laughed softly.

“Good god, do both Dolan Twins think I’m an asshole?” You put your hands on your hips.

“Oh Tin Man, you do have a heart...” Ethan joked.

You grabbed one of his pillows and hit him with it. He grabbed another and hit you back, your laughter filling the room.

“Wanna get something to eat? Or at least go downstairs?” You asked. “You know how Gray gets when he’s left out.”

You imitated Gray hunched over and pouting looking at Ethan from the corner of your eye.

“Yeah...” Ethan smiled, getting off the bed and standing up. “Imma tell him you did that.”

“Heh, do it.” You scoffed. “I’m not afraid him...Just uh, let me start my car.”

You reached in your pocket to pull out your keys and pretended to remote start you car by pointing it at the window.

He gave you a tight hug. “Thanks, kiddo. You’re not half bad most of the time.”

“Yup.” You said, hugging him back lightly. “I’m the best, I know.”

“So be honest....” Ethan asked “...how many of those fics of me have you read?”

Your eyes widened slightly. “What? Grayson, are you calling me?!” You yelled speed walking toward the door.

“Gray! Y/N is lusting after.” Ethan yelled, following you out the door. “She’s prying on your brother in his moment of weakness.”

Grayson smiled as he heard you two thundering down. 9 mins and 35 seconds...not bad at all.

#ethan dolan #dolan twins #ethan dolan blurb #ethan dolan fic #ethan dolan fanfic #grayson dolan #ethan dolan scenario #dolan twins scenario #dolan twins blurb #fic-read-this #r-writes-fic

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bananaofswifts · 3 years

Link

Your guide to the singer-songwriter’s surprise follow-up to Folklore.

CARL WILSON

When everything’s clicking for Taylor Swift, the risk is that she’s going to push it too far and overtax the public appetite. On “Mirrorball” from Folklore, she sings, with admirable self-knowledge, “I’ve never been a natural/ All I do is try, try, try.” So when I woke up yesterday to the news that at midnight she was going to repeat the trick she pulled off with Folklore in July—surprise-releasing an album of moody pop-folk songs remote-recorded in quarantine with Aaron Dessner of the National as well as her longtime producer Jack Antonoff—I was apprehensive. Would she trip back into the pattern of overexposure and backlash that happened between 1989 and Reputation?

Listening to the new Evermore, though, that doesn’t feel like such a threat. A better parallel might be to the “Side B” albums that Carly Rae Jepsen put out after both Emotion and Dedicated, springing simply out of the artist’s and her fans’ mutual enthusiasm. Or, closer to Swift’s own impulses here, publishing an author’s book of short stories soon after a successful novel. Lockdown has been a huge challenge for musicians in general, but it liberated Swift from the near-perpetual touring and publicity grind she’s been on since she was a teen, and from her sense of obligation to turn out music that revs up stadium crowds and radio programmers. Swift has always seemed most herself as the precociously talented songwriter; the pop-star side is where her try-hard, A-student awkwardness surfaces most. Quarantine came as a stretch of time to focus mainly on her maturing craft (she turns 31 on Sunday), to workshop and to woodshed. When Evermore was announced, she said that she and her collaborators—clearly mostly Dessner, who co-writes and/or co-produces all but one of these 15 songs—simply didn’t want to stop writing after Folklore.

This record further emphasizes her leap away from autobiography into songs that are either pure fictions or else lyrically symbolic in ways that don’t act as romans à clef. On Folklore, that came with the thrill of a breakthrough. Here, she fine-tunes the approach, with the result that Evermore feels like an anthology, with less of an integrated emotional throughline. But that it doesn’t feel as significant as Folklore is also its virtue. Lowered stakes offer permission to play around, to joke, to give fewer fucks—and this album definitely has the best swearing in Swift’s entire oeuvre.

Because it’s nearly all Dessner overseeing production and arrangements, there isn’t the stylistic variety that Antonoff’s greater presence brought to Folklore. However, Swift and Dessner seem to have realized that the maximalist-minimalism that dominated Folklore, with layers upon layers of restrained instrumental lines for the sake of atmosphere, was too much of a good thing. There are more breaks in the ambience on Evermore, the way there was with Folklore’s “Betty,” the countryish song that was among many listener’s favorites. But there are still moments that hazard misty lugubriousness, and perhaps with reduced reward.

Overall, people who loved Folklore will at least like Evermore too, and the minority of Swift appreciators who disapproved may even warm up to more of the sounds here. I considered doing a track-by-track comparison between the two albums, but that seemed a smidgen pathological. Instead, here is a blatantly premature Day 1 rundown of the new songs as I hear them.

A pleasant yet forgettable starting place, “Willow” has mild “tropical house” accents that recall Ed Sheeran songs of yesteryear, as well as the prolix mixed metaphors Swift can be prone to when she’s not telling a linear story. But not too severely. I like the invitation to a prospective lover to “wreck my plans.” I’m less sure why “I come back stronger than a ’90s trend” belongs in this particular song, though it’s witty. “Willow” is more fun as a video (a direct sequel to Folklore’s “Cardigan” video) than as a lead track, but I’m not mad at it here either.

Written with “William Bowery”—the pseudonym of Swift’s boyfriend Joe Alwyn, as she’s recently confirmed—this is the first of the full story songs on Evermore, in this case a woman describing having walked away from her partner on the night he planned to propose. The music is a little floaty and non-propulsive, but the tale is well painted, with Swift’s protagonist willingly taking the blame for her beau’s heartbreak and shrugging off the fury of his family and friends—“she would have made such a lovely bride/ too bad she’s fucked in the head.” Swift sticks to her most habitual vocal cadences, but not much here goes to waste. Except, that is, for the title phrase, which doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial. (Unless the protagonist was drunk?) I do love the little throwaway piano filigree Dessner plays as a tag on the end.

This is the sole track Antonoff co-wrote and produced, and it’s where a subdued take on the spirit of 1989-style pop resurges with necessary energy. Swift is singing about having a crush on someone who’s too attractive, too in-demand, and relishing the fantasy but also enjoying passing it up. It includes some prime Swiftian details, like, “With my Eagles t-shirt hanging from your door,” or, “At dinner parties I call you out on your contrarian shit.” The line about this thirst trap’s “hair falling into place like dominos” I find much harder to picture.

This is where I really snapped to attention. After a few earlier attempts, Swift has finally written her great Christmas song, one to stand alongside “New Year’s Day” in her holiday canon. And it’s especially a great one for 2020, full of things none of us ought to do this year—go home to visit our parents, hook up with an ex, spend the weekend in their bedroom and their truck, then break their hearts again when we leave. But it’s done with sincere yuletide affection to “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking,” and “the warmest bed I’ve ever known.” All the better, we get to revisit these characters later on the album.

On first listen, I found this one of the draggiest Dressner compositions on the record. Swift locates a specific emotional state recognizably and poignantly in this song about a woman trapped (or, she wonders, maybe not trapped?) in a relationship with an emotionally withholding, unappreciative man. But the static keyboard chord patterns and the wandering melody that might be meant to evoke a sense of disappointment and numbness risk yielding numbing and disappointing music. Still, it’s growing on me.

Featuring two members of Haim—and featuring a character named after one of them, Este—“No Body, No Crime” is a straight-up contemporary country song, specifically a twist on and tribute to the wronged-woman vengeance songs that were so popular more than a decade ago, and even more specifically “Before He Cheats,” the 2006 smash by Carrie Underwood, of which it’s a near musical clone, just downshifted a few gears. Swift’s intricate variation on the model is that the singer of the song isn’t wreaking revenge on her own husband, but on her best friend’s husband, and framing the husband’s mistress for the murder. It’s delicious, except that Swift commits the capital offence of underusing the Haim sisters purely as background singers, aside from one spoken interjection from Danielle.

This one has some of the same issues as “Tolerate It,” in that it lags too much for too long, but I did find more to focus on musically here. Lyrically and vocally, it gets the mixed emotions of a relatively amicable divorce awfully damned right, if I may speak from painfully direct experience.

This is the song sung from the POV of the small-town lover that the ambitious L.A. actress from “Tis the Damn Season”—Dorothea, it turns out—has left behind in, it turns out, Tupelo. Probably some years past that Xmas tryst, when the old flame finally has made it. “A tiny screen’s the only place I see you now,” he sings, but adds that she’s welcome back anytime: “If you’re ever tired of being known/ For who you know/ You know that you’ll always know me.” It’s produced and arranged with a welcome lack of fuss. Swift hauls out her old high-school-romance-songs vocal tone to reminisce about “skipping the prom/ just to piss off your mom,” very much in the vein of Folklore’s teen-love-triangle trilogy.

A duet with Dessner’s baritone-voiced bandmate in the National, Matt Berninger, “Coney Island” suffers from the most convoluted lyrics on Evermore (which, I wonder unkindly, might be what brought Berninger to mind?). The refrain “I’m on a beach on Coney Island, wondering where did my baby go” is a terrific tribute to classic pop, but then Swift rhymes it with “the bright lights, the merry go,” as if that’s a serviceable shorthand for merry-go-round, and says “sorry for not making you my centerfold,” as if that’s somehow a desirable relationship outcome. The comparison of the bygone affair to “the mall before the internet/ It was the one place to be” is clever but not exactly moving, and Berninger’s lines are worse. Dessner’s droning arrangement does not come to the rescue.

This song is also overrun with metaphors but mostly in an enticing, thematically fitting way, full of good Swiftian dark-fairytale grist. It’s fun to puzzle out gradually the secret that all the images are concealing—an engaged woman being drawn into a clandestine affair. And there are several very good “goddamns.”

The lyrical conceit here is great, about two gold-digging con artists whose lives of scamming are undone by their falling in love. It reminded me of the 1931 pre-Code rom-com Blonde Crazy, in which James Cagney and Joan Blondell act out a very similar storyline. And I mostly like the song, but I can’t help thinking it would come alive more if the music sounded anything like what these self-declared “cowboys” and “villains” might sing. It’s massively melancholy for the story, and Swift needs a far more winningly roguish duet partner than the snoozy Marcus Mumford. It does draw a charge from a couple of fine guitar solos, which I think are played by Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver, who will return shortly).

The drum machine comes as a refreshing novelty at this point. And while this song is mostly standard Taylor Swift torrents of romantic-conflict wordplay (full of golden gates and pedestals and dropping her swords and breaking her high heel, etc.), the pleasure comes in hearing her look back at all that and shrugging, “Long story short, it was a bad ti-i-ime,” “long story short, it was the wrong guy-uy-uy,” and finally, “long story short, I survived.” She passes along some counsel I’m sure she wishes she’d had back in the days of Reputation: “I wanna tell you not to get lost in these petty things/ Your nemeses will defeat themselves.” It’s a fairly slight song but an earned valedictory address.

Swift fan lore has it that she always sequences the real emotional bombshell as Track 5, but here it is at 13, her lucky number. It’s sung to her grandmother, Marjorie Finlay, who died when Swift was in her early teens, and it manages to be utterly personal—down to the sample of Marjorie singing opera on the outro—and simultaneously utterly evocative to anyone who’s been through such grief. The bridge, full of vivid memories and fierce regrets, is the clincher.

This electroacoustic kiss-off song, loaded up with at least a fistful of gecs if not a full 100 by Dessner and co-producers BJ Burton and James McAlister, seems to be, lyrically, one of Swift’s somewhat tedious public airings of some music-industry grudge (on which, in case you don’t get it, she does not want “closure”), but, sonically, it’s a real ear-cleaner at this point on Evermore. Why she seems to shift into a quasi-British accent for fragments of it is anyone’s guess. But I’m tickled by the line, “I’m fine with my spite and my tears and my beers and my candles.”

I’m torn about the vague imagery and vague music of the first few verses of the album’s final, title track. But when Vernon, in full multitracked upper-register Bon Iver mode, kicks in for the duet in the middle, there’s a jolt of urgency that lands the redemptive ending—whether it’s about a crisis in love or the collective crisis of the pandemic or perhaps a bit of both—and satisfyingly rounds off the album.

#taylor-swift #pop #rock #country-music

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saladejin · 4 years

Text

Call An Uber? | 04

BTS x Reader | idolverse au, uber driver!Reader, translator!Reader | Fluff, flirting, super slow burn, angst and hurt/comfort, mature themes and eventual smut

Summary: Your normal life with a normal, yet inconsistent job gets drastically changed when your dreams come true. Sounds boring right?

What happens when all of this occurs, but you’re still doing something you love AND getting a large sum for it? Now there’s something to think about, and it’s definitely not what you’re thinking.

Warnings: Implied mental health struggles, anxiety and slight panic attack

Word Count: 2.9k

< masterpost >

»»————- <<prev | next >> ————-««

Another three days passing brought forth another fresh steaming pile of emotions.

I was due to start my job at Bighit in the following week, and had been dropping in to meet with Bang PD and the staff regularly since the initial signing of the documents. Its only purpose was just for me to get to know everyone, since I would start off in the company playing a major role, and for me to get comfortable in the environment. PD-nim knew I was not used to working for such large and renowned companies, and I was so happy he had taken that into consideration.

Another meet-and-greet done today, and I was trembling.

I didn’t know why it had all suddenly decided to drop on me now, but my only solace was the splash of vivid crimson sitting out in the otherwise monochrome carpark of the building. I yanked open the car door with shaking fingers and all but fell into the familiar leather seat, my breathing uneven from the tightening within my chest.

Don’t get me wrong at all, the company was absolutely amazing, and so were all the staff and their immediate hospitality. Bang PD was like a second father to me already, and I’d even had him ruffle my hair once today after he’d somehow managed to laugh at one of my jokes. His assistant, which I now knew as Chang Soojin, or just Soojin-unni as she had told me to use, was becoming a reliable colleague and friend pretty quickly too. I had met many members of the staff, including the co-ordi noonas, managers, stylists etc. Even a group of interpreters who specialised in specific languages.

Hence why they employed me so quickly, I’d thought to myself after finding out they only knew English and Korean.

There was that one Spanish interpreter, who had been absent on the ‘fateful day’, but he was now doing fine and had profusely apologised to me afterwards. I felt bad for the guy, as I probably seemed like a warning replacement if anything of disarray was to happen again.

Bighit can be bloody scary, damn.

My breathing had evened slightly, but stress was still causing my head to become a mess of jagged scribbles. So much had changed in my life recently, and even if it had an overall positive effect, my mind was still left reeling. This was the kind of sudden responsibility that made me want to revisit my childhood days, to let go of being an adult and to be surrounded by nothing but carefree bliss.

A light rapping on my car passenger window tore me from my strangling thoughts. I gasped, squinting my eyes to glimpse at the darkly clothed figure before sighing. The person had thoroughly frightened me, and I wasn’t very happy about it. They crouched down to look in, and when they saw I was making no move to stop them, they pulled open the passenger door hesitantly.

“Is this Uber operating?” Yoongi softly asked.

I was still irritated that my precious alone-time had been ruined, after going through quite a bit of anxiety about my life in general, but I couldn’t bring myself to refuse the impassive man at the moment. After even more thought, I concluded that having someone to talk to would in fact help me the most right now. When I nodded slowly, sighing again in an attempt to regather myself, he lowered his head in gentle understanding.

“Uh, if it’s a really bad time I-”

“No, Yoongi. Wait is it even okay to not use honorifics? Should I call you oppa?” I shook my head, my voice steadily gaining life again from how croaky it sounded before. I hadn’t cried, but I was definitely on the verge before he’d made his appearance.

Yoongi settled into the passenger seat holding a lidded coffee cup. He was dressed in dark but flowy clothing, and I questioned his sanity briefly considering how hot it was outside. It was mid-afternoon at the moment, but we both didn’t seem to have schedules planned.

“Even though I’m not against it, I feel like dropping the honorifics would work better for you. I won’t get offended,” he hummed, sipping his coffee. I noticed how tired his eyes were under the cap he wore, and instantly felt bad for being annoyed with him before. He adorned a black mask too, but it was sitting under his chin to make talking and drinking easier.

“Did you also want coffee? I could offer to get you one.”

His sudden question caused me to blink in confusion. Then I realised I had been eyeing the cup in his pale hands quite intensely. His dark eyes were blank and his pale blue-white hair was slightly roughened from the breeze outside. Trying not to fawn over him, I broke out into a strained chuckle while my hands came up to slap my cheeks in embarrassment.

“No no no, I wasn’t…Ah I’m sorry, I just have a lot going on at the moment.” I decided to let the cat out of the bag with another sigh. He may as well know what was going on behind my outwardly apparent emotions. I didn’t even know how I was meant to hold a decent conversation when my insides were such a nervous wreck. I knew I would build myself up again eventually, but he just happened to catch me at a vulnerable time.

“Yeah, I could tell,” he started. “I followed you out because I saw you running out here shaking like a leaf. I guess it sounds kind of creepy when put like that.” He shrugged, eyeing the dashboard of my car while I just tried to take in his quiet observation.

“No, actually I appreciate it. You haven’t even met me yet…ugh why am I doing everything backwards right now?” I rested my head onto the steering wheel, positively exasperated. Yoongi and I had never even held a conversation before, but here I was acting like a total idiot and making him worry about my mental health.

“Don’t worry about it, you’re all I hear about these days.” He sighs with a groan, letting his head roll back to rest against the leather headrest. My own curiosity was tickled.

“Really? Let me guess, ‘the crazy Uber chick who somehow managed to get herself involved with shit that didn’t concern her’?”

He laughed silently at that, the gummy smile melting my bundling insides into a puddle – and suddenly everything was alright.

I didn’t have to have everything in my life figured out right now, I just had to make the most of my time with these amazingly driven individuals who had undoubtedly captured my heart. Alongside this job which was actually my passion to begin with.

I didn’t even know how I hadn’t freaked out over the fact that the Min Yoongi, worldwide famous producer and rapper, was sitting in my car. He was sitting in the same seat the Park Jimin had sat in about a week and a half ago. I needed to shut down my brain before it began to burn a hole into the back of my skull from overworking.

“That would be funny, but no, definitely not. I just wish the young ones would let me sleep, but they’ve been excited. I swear I’ve already met you ten times at this point.”

I snort in amusement, absolutely loving how blunt he was about the whole situation. Too many people, since I had arrived in the country, were overbearingly polite and careful with their words. I was not used to it at all, and it made the ‘foreign’ experience all the more jarring. Yoongi probably understood this to an extent, so I was grateful he tried his best to be more casual right away.

“Look, can I start driving? I just need to clear my head a bit. Maybe I can introduce myself properly.” I exhaled loudly, my nerves significantly calmed since chatting a little. Even though I felt terrible at the thought, I couldn’t help but be grateful that it was Yoongi who had paid me a surprise visit instead of one of the others. His presence was somewhat reserved and I had trouble reading the guy half the time, but his company was the type I needed instead of something loud and overwhelming.

“Sure, I did kind of barge in so you can continue with whatever you were doing.”

You mean almost having a mental breakdown?

“But I do want to actually meet you, because if I have to hear your name around the dorm one more fucking time without knowing who you are, I may just snap.”

I laughed loudly, his grunt-worthy words causing amusement to roil around in my chest. I figured I would question him about exactly what was said a bit later. For now, I just needed to relax and ease my worries, and driving was my channel for exactly that. I started reversing out of the carpark with silence finally befalling the car, grateful to finally leave behind the line of black company vans surrounding me. I found it ominous if I was completely honest. Engulfed by the view of several identical black vans was a little unsettling when the only car I was used to was Red.

When did I even decide to name my car? It’s such a boring name too.

“Well, I can start by saying my name is (L/n) (Y/n). (Y/n) is fine, and you already known I don’t care for honorifics. I’m from (Y/c), and I landed a job at Bighit Entertainment by letting two of your band members hitch a ride. Ultimately escaping their foreseeable deaths.” My dramatic tone increased the longer I spoke, and I could see the corners of Yoongi’s lips turning up gradually.

“That sounds about right. Jiminie told me you were a big fan, but it turns out you are really collected when you see us. I appreciate your efforts, but feel free to let it out if you need.” He tilted his head with a smirk, his ‘Genius Suga’ persona surfacing within the span of two whole seconds. I just bit my lip to contain another amused giggle.

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m not one to freak out after the initial shock. Most of my extra-ness is of the internal type, I’m afraid.”

He shook his head in mock disappointment, eventually flashing me that endearing expression where his lips stretched across his whole face. I covered my cheeks with one hand to stop my bubbling amusement from erupting.

“Stop please, or I’ll crash!”

He simply sipped his coffee, smirking again at my reaction. I knew I hadn’t actually doused his ego, but his antics still aided in lifting my spirits higher and higher. As I tried to figure out where I wanted to drive, Yoongi pulled out a small notepad full of scrawled notes and scribbled out lines.

“Well, you already know who I am, that much I can guess. Now that we’ve met, I can tell those kids to shut up and do something useful,” he continued. Even though his tone was full of complaint, I knew he loved every single one of those boys wholeheartedly.

“Where are they now?” I asked through a smile, glancing down as the rapper flicked through his notepad to the page he had last used. “Practicing more, at least I know Jiminie, Jin-hyung and Jungkook-ah are. We’ve got a big concert and a comeback soon, so everyone is riled up.”

“Yeah, that seems like a packed schedule for at least a few months. I’m really excited for what you guys have in store though, it seems too unreal that I actually get to see everything behind the scenes for the first time in my life,” I sighed out in awe, thinking about a possible new album and new content. How could I even go about it normally when everything was different? Wait, was I going to get a discounted album? I surely hoped so.

Yoongi looked at me carefully before making a few notes in his notepad, his fingers working the pen deftly through long and hardened experience. His ripped black jeans were tighter than I initially thought they were, but my attention only went there because he was tapping his foot rhythmically as he wrote.

“Lyrics?” I questioned, raising an eyebrow in his direction and diverting my attention. I drove towards the outskirts of Seoul, hoping to find somewhere quiet and peaceful to settle for a bit. The time had essentially flown by, but I was sure the sky wouldn’t darken just yet.

“Yeah, just the usual. I help write a lot of songs, and lyrics always just flood into my brain at the most random times, you know?” he murmured, flicking backwards to another page and filling in another empty space.

The realisation that I was driving somewhere random and unknown hit me suddenly, and I briefly wondered if taking Yoongi with me would end up costing me my job all too soon. I was quickly reminded of a similar occurrence with two maknaes, one that caused the managers and Namjoon to lose their absolute marbles.

“Um, I was gonna drive randomly around the area, but I just realised that your managers would skin me alive if they knew I took you with me. Does anyone know you’re with me?”

Yoongi looked up, his eyes, which were once laser-focused on his lyrics, now scoured into my own and I gulped suddenly. His long, dark eyelashes were always beautiful, but they were even more mesmerising in person and this close. They contrasted so nicely against his milky skin that I almost lost focus on the road again.

I may just crash and kill someone one of these days. Customer or not.

“I texted a few people,” was all he said before returning to his notepad, and I shrugged indifferently. He was an adult, and he could make his own decisions. I just hoped I didn’t cop any roastings for it later on.

“Would I be able to show you something?” he then asked.

I glanced sideways, catching him picking at his nails with his teeth apprehensively. It seemed he was stuck on something to do with a lyric, but I didn’t know how I could possibly lend a hand. His lyrics were always so impactful and flowed so nicely. How could I form my own opinion when everything I’d heard from him so far was nothing less than beautiful?

“Yeah? Did you need another perspective?” I probed, willing my feelings of disbelief down into the depths of my subconscious.

“Well, I’m trying to tie together my verse in one of the new songs, and I almost have it. I want someone fresh to have a look.” He held out the pad and I pulled over onto the side of the smaller road. We were now definitely nearing the more ‘picturesque’ side of Seoul anyway, and the city fell away behind us as my eyes scanned over Yoongi’s handwriting. The last line struck a chord deeply within me.

“This is real you, and this is real me” – which one is “you”? Which one is “me”?

“Wow, this really hits hard,” I breathe, reading over the snippets of the verse he had written again to fully absorb what was going on. The whole thing was emotional, and raw. I could imagine his voice rapping hard to form these thoughts, the angry and hurt emotions seeping in.

“I can feel the struggle through the lyrics. It’s like you’ve been through a false love that you threw yourself into after believing it was true...a betrayal of sorts, I guess?” I met his eyes again and grew a little confused when a chuckle of irony fell from him. It must have been some joke I didn’t understand.

“I’m glad you feel so much from it.” He blinked. “I’m actually going to try a different technique with this track, so expect some changes from my usual style.”

He then smiled again, taking the notepad before I could catch any glimpses of the other notes. I couldn’t contain a soft huff of annoyance. “You’re not just gonna tell me?”

He deadpanned before parting his lips to respond. “Just because you work for Bighit doesn’t mean you get every special privilege.” I almost reeled at the thought of bothering him with my question, but he only smiled again while tucking his notepad away.

“Plus, you’re a fan, so my goal is to keep it a secret for as long as possible.”

“Mean,” I grunted, pulling out onto the road again so I could start to head home. The sky was darkening, and I knew there were only so many boundaries I could push before I crossed the line. Yoongi seemed to know this too, but he avoided addressing the subject for some reason.

“Where do you want to be dropped? I’ll have you know I’ve been charging you handsomely for this Uber service,” I muttered, still pretending to be pissed off at him for hiding information.

“I’ll buy you a coffee next time, I promise.”

tagged: @l4life, @joyful-jimin

139 notes · View notes

maxiekat · 5 years

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In a world full of rom-coms, when was the last time you cried over an onscreen breakup that actually stuck? No grand gestures to save the day, just pure, raw, lust and heartbreak. If you want to get so deep in your feels you forget if you’re actually heartbroken or just bleary-eyed over someone else’s love story, then you may need to subscribe to the church of Drake Doremus.

The director is known for his mostly improvised, chill-inducing romantic dramas (Like Crazy, Newness, Equals) and his latest is a tender-to-the-touch look at a modern love triangle in Endings, Beginnings, which premieres Sunday at Toronto Film Festival. Much like his previous work, Endings, Beginnings is clever and cutting, but also soft and quiet. Shailene Woodley is at the heart of the film playing Daphne, a thirty-something artist (her specialty is hand-painted tea pots, which she sells on Etsy) who recently and abruptly quit her job and ended her long-term relationship with her boyfriend (Matthew Gray Gubler, in his third Doremus film).

Looking for a hard reset on life, Daphne moves into the pool house of her much more together older half-sister. She also stops drinking, focuses on looking for a new job, and cuts men out of her life. Until, of course, she meets two men at a New Year’s Party. One’s brooding, asking her for a light of a cigarette in the most drunken and charming of ways. He’s wearing a shearling jacket, worn-in with adventures. The other’s in LA’s version of a suit — he’s put together, and looks at her with the steady intentness. Daphne should be avoiding both, but she quickly becomes enamored with bad boy Frank (Sebastian Stan), a nomad who drinks absinthe, and good boy Jack (Jamie Dornan), an academic who has a dog and dreams of moving to Europe. What starts as innocent text-flirting evolves into two full-blown relationships. Oh, and the guys are best friends.

When Stan first read for the film, he read for both Frank and Jack’s role, but what really attracted him to the heady rom-dram was Dormeus himself, of whom he’s been a huge fan. “I met him and I said, ‘I gotta tell you, I don’t know which one of these people you are seeing me as, but I really relate to both of them. I love both,’” he says over the phone to Refinery29. Stan’s in London where he’s filming the spy-thriller 355, a movie he says is “stylistically and tonally very different,” than Endings, Beginnings, but with “a couple of similarities here and there.”

“And we just got very deep. We got into relationships and being in our 30s and the world we are in right now, and all our experiences.” The vulnerability seen on-screen between Woodley, Stan, and Dornan is something special, and almost entirely improvised, based on just 30 pages of notes. Endings, Beginnings is a far cry from the big budget Marvel movies you’re used to seeing Stan in (he plays Captain America’s pal Bucky Barnes in seven Marvel movies and one upcoming spin-off series.) I was reading your Instagram post earlier gushing about working on this film with Drake. When did you become a fan of his, and why did you two think Frank was the role for you?

“I was aware of [Drake] for awhile. Like everyone else, I loved Like, Crazy, and then I also like his recent movie with Nicholas Hoult, Equals. I was also just really interested in doing a movie and improvising — because the entire movie is practically improvised. I never worked in that medium before. I got a call saying, Hey do you want to meet with Drake and talk about this movie [and] read the draft?, which was basically like 30 pages. There were two guy [parts] at the time. I met him and I said, ‘I gotta tell you, I don’t know which one of these people you are seeing me as, but I really relate to both of them. I love both.’ And we just got very deep. We got into relationships and being in our 30s and the world we are in right now, and all our experiences. Again, I didn’t really know that is where we were gonna go, but he was very honest with me and I was honest with him. We parted ways, and the next thing I knew he called me to have a session with somebody at the time that he was thinking of for the role as Daphne, and I went in and had a 3-hour improv session with him, then he called me and told me that he wants me to do the Frank role and I was fine with that.”

Only 30 pages. Everything else is improv? All the film’s dialogue?

“Yes, that is all literally on the day, in the moment, happening real-time. Basically, the script that he had was just the outline: Daphne comes out a recent relationship and moves in with her best friends. They’re having a New Years Party, and she runs into Frank who asks her for a cigarette. It was all outlines, but in terms of the dialogue and how we would get there, that was all improvised. That was an interesting experience because I had never worked that way and no take is ever the same. I walked away from that experience feeling very vulnerable. You’re not hiding behind any lines.”

The improvisation really added to the film. I left it feeling more emotional than I expected.

“We’ve all had relationships, and we know how tricky they are. They’re complex and there’s many layers. I don’t know — I have always loved romantic comedies. I grew up on When Harry Met Sally and all that, but I sometimes feel that relationships aren’t entirely depicted as messy and as raw and as painful as they are. That’s why I loved working with him because I feel like he gets to the core of situations. I’m happy to hear you related to it because that is what he wants. He wants you to go, 'I’ve had that conversation...been in that situation.’”

There’s been a resurgence in romantic comedies, but not so much romantic dramas like this. Do you think there’s a reason why?

“I love romantic comedies and there is a space for them, but [rom coms] are hopeful. Sometimes when I go to the movies, I don’t want to necessarily see what my life is. I want to be like, Hey! It’s nice to think that maybe that could be that way. If you want to be inspired, or laugh a little bit — there’s that element of it. And sometimes you want to see a movie that makes you feel less alone in your experience. A lot of European films are much closer to this, and I think Drake loves a lot of European films and is influenced by them and the personal quality. Structurally in romantic comedies, you have bigger things happening, right? Whereas [in this movie], there are big things happening, but there’s a much more subtle transition through everything.”

Frank is the “player” of the film, while Jack is the “good guy,” for lack of a better phrase. You’ve said before that you didn’t really know why you were often cast as the “bad boy.” Do you still not know why?

“I don’t know! [Groans] I don’t know. The truth is, the reason I was saying [I could play] Jack was that I talk a lot in my life. I philosophize a lot. I try to read things. Then I think about it, and then I wanna talk about it. I relate to that [aspect of Jack]. And actually, there was a lot to Frank and Daphne that we shot that was funny. They had a lot of their own back and forth, but what ended up being in the movie — I think Drake never forgot the vision that he had for Frank — [was him] being much darker than we shot. I am happy it ended up that way because there needed to be a contrast.

But I don’t know! I am glad they think I can do this. I am one of the most over-thinking, neurotic people I know. So I don’t know how it happens, but it keeps happening.”

I thought a big part of Frank also was his big shearling jacket. Since most of the movie was improvised, did you have anything to do with his outfits?

“Oh yeah, I kept that jacket, first of all. It’s a great jacket. What’s great about Drake is that he was like, ‘Hey, listen, people wear the same stuff all the time. If something works, let’s just it.’ I was like yeah, the guy probably kind of flies by the seat of his pants anyways so he just has a few things. I think I wore some of my own jeans. The boots I wore were mine. Drake definitely wanted us to wear our own stuff so we could feel comfortable in it.”

This was originally called No, No, No, Yes and ended as Endings, Beginnings. How did the title change shape the movie?

“It was always a working title. I saw that it was paired up with her experience — every no and every yes was paired to one of the relationships that she was going through. Endings, Beginnings is a little more specific. I know for awhile he was even contemplating a title that was even just made up of emojis which I thought would have been really fun.”

Oh yeah. I loved the texting aspect in this movie.

“There is an element of texting in the time period we are in, and there is this new language to it. They got it in the sense that both Jack and Frank have their very specific ways of texting. Jack probably uses punctuation, and Frank does not. [Laughs]”

You’ve worked with a few of the Big Little Lies women now. Do you have plans to work with the others like Zoe Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon, or Laura Dern?

“That has not hit me — that’s kinda funny. I don’t think I have ever met Reese Witherspoon and I’ve met Laura Dern. If the opportunity presents itself then great. I certainly wouldn’t have had a problem if there had been a role in the second season. I would have done it in a second. I loved the first season.”

I have one more that I have to ask about — obviously Gossip Girl is getting rebooted, and Chace [Crawford] said it made him feel “old,” but he’d be down. Have you thought about it at all?

“[Laughs] I don’t even… it’s so weird. Somehow a lot of people talk to me about Gossip Girl, and I always thought I was just a guest star. It was a very special show. It certainly defined those years, and we all got our start there in a way. It would be hilarious and weird and crazy. He’s right — we are old! I don’t know what business they’d have with me, but, Jesus. If there was some funny little witty thing and they called and we’re like, ‘We’re doing this thing and we have everybody….’ I’m not gonna be the asshole that says no. Maybe I’ll be in the background scooping some ice cream.”

#sebastian stan #endings beginnings #drake doremus #gossip girl #shailene woodley

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tbr-agency · 4 years

Text

wedding disaster.

“Just give him to me and no one will get hurt,”

summary ⟶ Nobody have thought that a wedding ceremony could end up with someone getting a gun shot.

timeline ⟶ April 2020

characters : Got7, Bang Nara (The Bloody Roses), Bang Chan (Stray Kids), The Bangs

warnings ⟶ gunshots. blood.

Nara chuckled as she sees the text she received by Bambam. She knew that he wasn’t coming, despite Nara telling him that his schedule was too pack, predicting that his manager was going to say the same too, and she was right.

Nara wasn’t too sad. The other girls’ couldn’t attend the event too as they were busy with work ever since they are being promoted, working in NIS and working with MMG and JYPe at the same time.

She was feeling neutral. Not that she doesn’t care but, Nara feels that this event wasn’t as important to her.

“What’s with the huge smile? Oh! Is Got7 coming?!?” Nara’s older sister, Boyong, squeaked and Nara quickly shakes her head, setting her phone aside on the dressing table.

“Sadly, no. They are busy with their recent comeback, remember? I knew he couldn’t make it,” Nara sigh, seeing her older sister looking disappointed.

“At least Bang Chan is coming,” added Nara and Boyong sigh, looking at Nara through the mirror.

“He’s our cousin, nothing interesting.”

“He’s still our cousin!” Nara answered with an amused scoff. Boyong shrug as she was adjusting her wedding dress.

“Keep your eyes on your newly-wed husband, eonnie. He’s gonna be mad if you are checking out on other guys.” Nara teased as she was helping her older sister, helping to carry the back of the long white gown, as Boyong was about to walk towards the door.

“He knows I’m a hard-core Ahgase,”

“I thought you’re a Stay?” Nara said confusingly and Boyong looks at her with a huge frown.

“You’re a bad little sister! You don’t even know my favorite group!” Boyong sulked and Nara’s eyes widened as the bride was stomping her way, and Nara followed her steps.

“Well I’m sorry! I didn’t know since you are always talking about Hyunjin!” Nara fired back and Boyong gasp loudly as she quickly turned towards Nara with a glare.

“I don’t sent out my wedding invitations for nothing you know!”

“That’s not nice, eonnie. You should invite them, without thinking of receiving something in return.” Nara said softly and Boyong stop at her tracks, slightly turning towards her younger sister.

Boyong was always grateful for Nara.

Even was she was the youngest, the younger girl always said something nice, never once she would threw anger towards any one of her parents or even to Boyong or their brother, an older brother for Nara, Junsung.

Even when they had a huge fight, Nara would always apologies first, even though she wasn’t in the wrong.

Boyong bit the bottom of her lip, realizing what she had said.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Boyong mumbled softly and Nara smiled while grabbing the back of Boyong’s dress.

“C’mon let’s move you to the entrance there. Dad is waiting for you,”

“Boys, there will be change of schedules,” their manager announced as they stood outside the stylist room, after taking pictures of the end of their musicbank performance.

“Do we have schedules that was slot in last minute?” Jinyoung question as he wen to towards his manager, as his eyes moved towards the manager, waiting for the older one to fish out his phone.

“Well, you can say that..” his manager muttered and Jinyoung’s eyes moved toward the lit up phone, seeing the schedules that was re-arranged. Jinyoung’s eyes went wide as he quickly turned towards the others who was busy taking pictures.

“Yah! Bambam! Look’s like we won’t be missing your girlfriend’s invitation,” Jinyoung smirked and Bambam’s head stick out from being blocked by Yugyeom and Jackson.

“What? What?” Bambam repeated and Jinyoung roll his eyes as the younger ones head stick out in between Jackson and Yugyeom since they were blocking his way.

He went towards Jinyoung, his eyes were fixed towards towards his managers phone that was lite up. Bambam’s eyes widened to see the message that was sent by JYP.

“We have to hurry! The ceremony is starting soon!” Bambam rushed towards the stylist room, passing by Yugyeom who looked confuse to see why his best friend was rushing.

“Why is he like that?” Yugyeom pointed out, earning a chuckle from Jinyoung.

The other members went towards their manager, as they read the message.

“That explains why he is being hyper,” Youngjae muttered.

“Are the other girls’ coming?” questioned Mark, looking at their manager as he shook his head.

“Unfortunately, no. Their schedules were too packed.” answered their manager and the boys’ can’t help but to nod, trying to hide their disappointment.

“At least Nara is there to accompany us,” Yugyeom shrug as he peek inside the stylist room, to see Bambam basically standing infront of the mirror, posing here and there while adjusting his outfit that was being used for their performance on their new comeback.

“Bambam, for how many times I said this, we’re going to a wedding ceremony, not a fashion show.” yelled Jackson as his head stuck out from the entrance, sounding a little too impatient.

The other boys started to get a little impatient too.

Jinyoung sigh as he went into the room, walking towards Bambam. He grabbed the younger one’s arm, dragging him out of the room.

He could the younger one whining, repeating words like ‘I have to look good for Nara!’ ‘I have to make a good first impression infront of her family!’

Jinyoung can’t help but to sigh while rolling his eyes, still hearing Bambam whining as the 7 of them exited the location.

“Look who it is, my favourite couz’”

Nara‘s head turned towards the voice, to see Bang Chan as he strolled towards her, as she was standing at the side of the main entrance, greeting the other guests as they went into the hall.

“Well hello there mate!” Nara said in english, earning a chuckle from Bang Chan as he was opening his arms towards Nara for a hug and Nara gladly accept it, hugging him a little tight.

“Are the Got7 hyungs coming?” questioned Bang Chan curiously and Nara smiled sadly, shaking her head slightly.

“No... Their schedules are packed.” Nara pouted and Bang Chan sigh.

“Man, that’s too bad. Well, work comes first after all - - anyway, congratulations on your work couz’! You are promoted to NIS! Do you know how cool it is?!” exclaimed Bang Chan as he was jumping here and there, an eyebrow raised on Nara’s face.

“Please elaborate on which part of the job do you think it’s cool, Chan.” Nara shook her head, folding her arms to hear how excited his cousin is.

“I don’t know! It’s exactly like in the movies! Guns, weapons and tight-suits,” Bang Chan explained, his hand moving everywhere, earning a chuckle from Nara.

“Gotta be honest, but when I see your instagram post of you and the other noonas, my eyes went wide,” Bang Chan confessed and Nara raised an eyebrow towards him, at the same time she was multi-tasking, both of them were.

Welcoming never ending guests that was Boyong’s and her newly-wed husband’s colleagues that had attended the same university, and also her parents’ guests.

“What? Do we look uglier?” Nara teased while bowing towards the guests entering, at the same time congratulating Nara on her raised in her job and career.

Nara was prepared for this, since her own agency made it public and they were trained to be more alert, knowing the group might have gained fans which is unlikely, but they predict that they will gain anti-fans.

This was just half of it. They knew that they would get more hate after finding out that the whole Got7 members are in a secret relationship (except for Ahrin).

“Uglier? Are you serious?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Nara smirked a little, turning towards him.

“The noonas look gorgeous! Especially Eunhee--

“Chan, you do know Eunhee is dating someone right?” Nara cuts him off, seeing Bang Chan’s expression automatically changes.

He nods while sighing and Nara’s expression softens.

“There’s a lot of other fishes out there, Chan. She’s not the only one that is gorgeous in this world,” advised Nara and Bang Chan looked away, the same feeling appearing when he saw the couple for the first time.

Bang Chan saw them, his senior and his crush inside the JYP building.

He predicted and he knew very well that they would end up together, with the chemistry they will be facing in the near future, and he was really right.

It’s impossible for his senior to not have any feelings for Eunhee.

It was actually impossible to avoid having feelings for the girls, if he was in Got7 position.

But at the same time, Bang Chan didn’t want to believe his prediction.

He remembered tearing up as soon as he saw Eunhee kissing Jinyoung, the look in her eyes was full of love and Jinyoung wrapping his arms around her body.

Bang Chan quickly walked away knowing if he stayed for too long or if he had conversations with them, he would break down.

Since then, Bang Chan would try his hardest to move on, focusing on his group and of course him being stuck in the studio.

“Thanks couz’, for being there for me,” Bang Chan turned towards Nara, as she locked eyes with him, smiling a little.

She feels bad for him but it was the only way since she is his cousin, and a close friend to Eunhee.

Nara tilted her head, as she smirked a little.

“Well, the girls and I have friends in Virg--

“Nara!”

A very familiar voice called Nara and both of them turned towards the direction. Nara’s eyes widened slowly, as her lips curved into a wide smile.

Got7 suddenly showed up and Nara’s eyes instantly locked with Bambam’s.

“Bambam didn’t--

“I’ll probably go first. I’ll see you later, couz’” stated Bang Chan and his head was lowered and Nara quickly frowned seeing him quickly entering the ceremony hall.

Bambam slightly looks taken aback, seeing Bang Chan quickly went in without greeting them. The Aussie would usually greet him as well as Yugyeom before anything.

“Hey baby girl, what’s up with Chan?” questioned Bambam curiously while leaning towards Nara for a hug.

“Everything’s fine. He’s just tired-- Bam, are you not planning to let go?” muttered Nara, feeling Bambam’s hand wrapping on her waist tightly and his chin landing on top of her shoulder.

“I didn’t want the others’ to see your exposed chest. You look so damn gorgeous, baby.” whispered Bambam and Nara could feel her ears turning red.

The rest of the Got7 members saw the couple and they quickly made weird noises in an attempt to teased the younger one.

“Yah! Yah! You’re in public!” Jaebeom nagged at the back and Nara looked at them, pointing at him since he didn’t want to let go.

Again, Jinyoung had to step in, which is to grab the younger one’s collar slightly and Bambam knew who it was exactly since that hyung was the only one who would pull him by the collar.

Bambam whines as he pouts slightly towards Nara, earning a giggle from her.

“You look lovely, Nara-ah,” Jackson complimented and Nara smiled a little, looking at each one of them, up and down.

“You guys look charming too,” Nara winks at them and they scoff hearing her words despite her boyfriend is just beside them.

“Yah! Did you just flirt with my members!? Wha- Yah!” Bambam exclaimed and the other Got7 members can’t help but to laugh. Nara locked her arms with Bambam, saying that it was a joke since all of them are close friends.

“The ceremony will commence in about a minute. Every-

“That’s the signal, c’mon,” Nara gestured to them to come in and they went in one by one. Bambam suddenly stood infront of her.

“Aren’t you going to come in?”

“I can’t go alone. I need my date and my girlfriend with me,” said Bambam with a little smile while holding out his hand.

Without saying a word, Nara reached out for his hand, as they walked in the ceremony hall hand in hand, not caring about people's obvious gazes and whispers.

Bambam’s eyes were always onto Nara despite her standing at the side, her focus were towards the front and he was trying his best to focus on what the priest was talking as he was reciting the wedding vows.

There were people in the room but his eyes were only glued onto her.

He loves the dress that she was wearing, he loves it not because he picked it for her, it was because she looks like a princess in his eyes.

There were times that his other members had to shake him, realizing that the thai-guy was staring at random guys as if he was asking for a fight because they were staring at his girlfriend for too long.

“Yah, we came here to support Nara, not to have a fight,” Youngjae whispered and Bambam sigh a little.

“But hyung, they are staring at Nara and I can see them literally drooling as if she is an object, what will you do if you were in my position?”

“Well before I could even make a scene, Yeonji will probably be ahead of me first,”

“You’re not wrong though,”

Nara must have known that Bambam was troubled, she was stealing glances towards Bambam.

She would make it obvious by making eye contact with him, despite her parents being there.

But what made Bambam feel shy was when Nara visibly wink at him and giving out flying kiss towards him, making the ones that Bambam describes them as his threat, the drooling guys, turning towards where Nara was gazing at, then to reveal Bambam.

At the same time, there were clicking heels sounds and Nara instantly looked towards where it came from, immediately knowing who it was.

“Nara-ah!” There was Boyong running towards her younger sister, as she cried onto her arms, earning a deep frown from Nara herself.

“Hey, hey. Why are you crying? You shouldn’t cry on your big day,” Nara cooed, hearing loud sobs from the older one and Nara immediately felt a sharp pain on her forehead realizing she was being flick on the forehead.

“What the heck is that for!?!” Nara whines in english as she rubs her own forehead, and Boyong’s sobs a little louder.

“That’s because you’re being silly with your words again! This is called happy tears you dummy!” argued Boyong and Nara frowns.

“Did you just call me--

“Hey! Must the two of you argue in every occasion? Geez, catch a break already!”

Both of the Bang sisters turned towards the voice, to see her older brother, shaking his head in disapproval and beside him was the usual Bang Chan who was giggling his head out, seeing both of the girls getting scolded.

But what made Nara immediately went quiet was to see their own father and mother looking amused.

“They are always attacking each other but in the end, they help each other’s butts,” teased their father and Nara smiled a little as she side eyed her older sister who’s eyes were downcast.

“You said Bambam couldn’t make it, but his whole group is here,” their mother raised an eyebrow as she somehow took 2 steps aside to see Bambam and the rest of Got7 members.

Nara widen her eyes as she began to panic, looking at Boyong for help.

“Right! They came last minute I forgot to informed you!” Nara quickly ran towards Got7′s side as they strangely looked relax.

“It’s okay. They have spoken to us, Nara. You should relax,” Junsung winked towards Nara and she can’t help but to frown deeply, while looking towards Bambam who was smiling towards her widely and innocently.

What did they talk about?

“You must be curious what--

Just then, there was a loud crashing sound coming from the outside, it was sounded like there was glasses being thrown on the floor.

Nara quickly turned towards Got7.

For the first time there was fear on her eyes, and Bambam could see it clearly.

Junsung turned towards the 2 older adults of the Bangs, as they were looking at each other.

“That doesn’t sound good. I’ll call the cops,” informed Junsung as he was already on the phone, as well as their father.

Soon there were officers coming in, escorting the guests out of the area.

Nara’s family were already prepared, somehow already knowing this will happen since her family is working close with the law enforcement, especially Nara.

Among the Bang family, Nara’s job was a risky one and all of them knows about it.

Because they carry the name of the family with love, they were willing to risk it.

“Nara, you should guide Got7 and Bang Chan out of here,” Boyong instructed, her tone of voice changed as her voice sounded a little deeper.

That was the voice she always used when she is in school or when she is doing her practical, since was going to be a lawyer in the future.

“I’ll come with Nara too. She can’t guard 8 guys alone,”

Nara nodded as she quickly pushed the boys out of the area, going to the secret hallway through the back door.

Nara was honestly scared, for the very first time. Maybe because her affections were stronger for the boys.

The Got7 boys’ were again rather calm.

They quietly followed Junsung and Nara’s orders along without questioning them.

“Hey, couz’. You look pale,” Bang Chan voiced out at the back as he was in the middle of Bambam and Yugyeom. Nara turned towards them with a raised eyebrow.

“You should speak for yourself,” muttered Nara as she turned towards the front, earning weird frowns from the 3 of them. The 3 of them looked totally fine.

“We’re almost there - C’mon!” Junsung opens the door, the sunshine finally greeting them and they thought they were finally safe since they were outdoors, but it was the opposite.

Somehow, both Junsung and Nara were being tackled but Junsung has fast reflex, avoiding himself getting tackled but Nara was being grabbed to the floor.

Bambam’s eyed quickly widen, at the same time Bambam was being dragged by the other Got7 members as well Bang Chan to the corner to hide themselves.

Nara basically was wrestling with the unknown, it was too fast for the spectators to catch up their hand-to hand combat as both of them were already pointing guns towards each other’s face.

“I’ll drop it if I were you. You’re surrounded,” voiced out Nara, her eyes gesturing above to see NIS officers, pointing their guns towards the unknown infront of her, his face was covered with a black mask and a cap, hiding the shadows of his features.

Judging from the voice, it was obviously a guy.

“I said, drop the gun now. We don’t wanna shoot you, but we will,” commanded Nara, her gun was still pointing towards him and she was getting impatient, she was about to slowly pull the trigger off.

“Just give him to me and no one will get hurt,” said the unknown man, and Nara tilted her head slowly.

“Who the hell is him?” voiced out Nara, her brows were furrowed deeply.

“Bang Chan,”

Nara was confused, very confuse.

She tried to keep a straight face but failed, as her eyebrows were furrowing multiple times.

Everything took a second and a single gunshot was fired first, followed by another 2 gun-shots, and a few deep voices yelling out names, and even though her hearing was blurred, Nara knew they were calling her name.

With just a blink, she could feel a sharp pain on her right shoulder and weirdly, it feels heavy.

Her right shoulder quickly went automatically downwards at the same time the grip of her gun slowly loosen and her gun slowly dropped to the floor.

“Nara!”

Nara looked towards Bambam to see his eyes widen as twice, also the NIS officers were dragging them away and Nara swore that she could see Bambam tearing up while he was trying to get to where she is.

Unfortunately Jackson and Jaebeom was holding onto him tightly, and soon he was already yelling and wailing out her name.

Her left hand traveled towards her heavy weight shoulder, bringing her left hand to her sight.

She sees her hand shaking uncontrollably and her sight was being covered by red liquid on her fingers finally realizing what just happen.

Nara was shot.

masterlist : Got7 Bodyguard Au

#got7 au #got7 bodyguard au #got7 bambam au #got7 imagines #got7 scenarios #got7 bambam scenarios #got7 bambam #bambam #got7 mark #got7 jaebeom #got7 jackson #got7 jinyoung #got7 youngjae #got7 yugyeom #bang nara #bang chan

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suhlut · 4 years

Text

⭐️ starstruck | wooseok x reader

◆ pairing kim wooseok x reader

◆ genre fluff, smut, (angst.. maybe?)

◆ warnings tiny age gap! like by a year.

◆ a/n i am thinking abt making this into a series because i really do love this idea! but please let me know what y’all think. i’ve had this in my head for awhile just thinking about this sort of thing. i rly wanted to give this sort of request to someone but then i just started writing !! i rly love it a lot actually.

◆ inspired by the weekly idol episode that included gfriend, twice, got7 & btob. if you haven’t seen it ! go watch it, it’s worth it. there’s also other episodes where groups are on together but this one is my fave !

———————————————————

to say you were excited would be an understatement, your group had just made their debut and here you are making your variety show debut but it was a rookie / sunbae special so it meant you’d be in the same room with those that you look up to, in particular, your favorite boy group x1 were taking part but you had heard that it was only the hyung line that was appearing. this caused your stomach to fill with butterflies because you really did look up to them, especially kim wooseok, you had been a fan of his for a long time even in his up10tion days and of course your band mates knew this so they wouldn’t let it go, making kissy noises at you since you arrived on set.

you were sitting in the styling chair, as your stylist made last minute details to your make up, applying a soft rose colour onto the apples of your cheeks and the bridge of your nose as you were the maknae of your group, your look was overall innocent as you were styled wearing a white cotton off the shoulder dress that stopped just slightly above your thighs, you really liked the dressing up part because your stylists did such a good job. once she was done with you, you relaxed into the seat deciding to take a few moments for yourself, “girls!” your manager yelled interrupting your thoughts, “please go over the talents that you’ll be showing today and make sure that each of you are showing your best abilities. this appearance can do a lot for you, seeing as you’ve just debuted. y/n, your acoustic guitar is here if you want to do that cover you spoke about.” you smiled brightly as he remembered your request, nodding, a part of you grateful that your manager really did act like a big brother, taking care of each of you incredibly well, you looked over at the girls who nodded enthusiastically at you agreeing about the cover, “that’s a great idea y/n! maybe we could do some dance covers and just share some funny stories about the dorm?” you nodded softly, “that’s a great idea, f/n-unnie!” you smiled before looking into the mirror, applying more lip tint as you waited for the alert to head to the set, the butterflies never ceased to die down. taking out your phone, noticing the notification from x1members official twitter account, smiling very big noticing it was a post from wooseok, trying your best to hide the blush that was clearly forming on your cheeks, “wow...” you accidentally blurted out causing your band mates to clamber to see your phone but you just ran from them, “it’s nothing!!!!!” you giggled, hiding your phone. “she was probably just staring at wooseok-sunbae, look at her cheeks! it’s clear!” one of them remarked, smiling, “shush! he could hear you!”

— wooseok pov —

it had already been a long day and it was only 9am but with prerecordings that they had to do at music shows and interviews, they were finally at their last schedule of the day which wooseok was so grateful for, he was excited to spend the rest of the day with his members. they made their way through backstage to get to their dressing room, but then the mention of his name caught not only his attention but the rest of his members’ too, they slowed down their pace and peaked into one of the rooms noticing one of the recent rookie girl groups, “she was probably staring at wooseok-sunbae!!!! look at her cheeks!” wooseok darted his eyes over to the girl they were cornering, his heart tightened at the sight of this petite girl whose cheeks were as bright as fresh strawberries, he smirked a little as he took in all of her features, “cute..” he muttered to himself before he was interrupted by her cherublike voice, “shush! he could hear you!” at that moment, wooseok heard a chuckle from behind presumably seungyoun, he shook his head a bit with his smirk still present before making their way to the changing room, settling into his seat as the stylist began their work applying light brown eyeshadow, making sure to blend it carefully, wooseok took this time to look up the girl from before on his phone, smiling as he read over her profile, “y/l/n y/n... you’re so cute...” he sighed softly before scrolling down, his eyes growing in size noticing that you had once stated he was your idol, this really made him feel like he was on cloud nine and he didn’t know how to hide how pleased he indeed was other than letting out a small laugh, smiling to himself, “you’re driving me crazy.. y/n.”

— an hour later / y/n pov —

“all artists! please make your way to the set, thank you!”

you had thought that by now your butterflies would’ve died down but no, they only grew in size if that even made sense, you rubbed your hands together before feeling your leader take your hand in hers, whispering that it will be okay, she knew how nervous you get in these situations especially since you had spoke to her about the fact you didn’t know how you were supposed to act cool in front of your idol, but you shook the thoughts away and smiled at her, making your way towards the set.

— wooseok pov —

the minute the alert was made known, wooseok jumped at the chance to get out of the dressing room, just as he did, he spotted the way you were tightly hand in hand with your member, ‘is everything she does so cute?’ he thought to himself, slowly walking behind you but, every so often peaking at you to see your soft doll like features, noticing how plump your lips were, he smiled to himself feeling himself grow fond of her by the second. as he reached the set, along with his members, he bowed to them and trailed his eyes up and down your body, stopping on your eyes as they locked for a moment before you hurriedly looked away, he noticed how bright red your cheeks got in that moment and it would be a lie if he said he didn’t like that sight. seungwoo decided to make a move, introducing himself to their leader which made things easier for wooseok as he stayed beside his friend, smiling at them before levelling his eyes onto the petite girl that was occupying his thoughts; y/n, he noticed that you wouldn’t look up so he moved over a bit so he was in front of you, his smile never wavering as he looked right at you, taking in your sweet scent that he recognised as a strong cherry flavour.

— y/n pov —

you couldn’t believe it. han seungwoo has just spoken to your group, and your leader who was always so kind and there wasn’t a shy bone in her body had no trouble conversing back with him, but it didn’t even take a moment to register but you definitely noticed wooseok was standing close to his leader, and as much as you desperately wanted to you just couldn’t bring yourself to make eye contact with him, especially after the way ripped your attention from him moments ago out of shyness, so you just kept your head down, not even a second later you felt a presence in front of you and noticed feet just in front of your own, you couldn’t help your curiosity so in a slow action, you tilted your head, meeting eyes with him, your idol, kim wooseok, a small shy smile forming as you gazed into his eyes, ‘he is beyond anything i ever dreamed of.... he is ... beautiful.’ a dreamy sigh left your lips, your eyes widening upon realising your actions, watching as he opened his mouth to speak, “it’s time to line up! when i call your group name, come forward!” wooseok sighed heavily looking at you once more before turning to face the pd as he went through the groups, your heart racing as your group and x1 were left meaning that you were indeed paired up together, your band mates couldn’t help but make kissy noises at you when you all took your spots beside x1, noticing that you were right beside wooseok, you took this time to look up at him and bow, your band mates following you. he smiled at you, returning the bow causing you to lift your hands waving for him to stop because you couldn’t believe your idol was doing that for you. a few minutes had passed as you stood and listened to the pd go on about health, your smile never leaving your face and safety, then you felt a hot breathe against your ear, followed by a whisper, “you look pretty when you smile by the way.” your heart felt like it grew in size, recognising the voice it belonged to before looking to your side and seeing two beautiful deep brown eyes stare back into yours, wooseok smiled at you, you could feel your cheeks burn as your mouth opened a bit trying your best to understand exactly what just happened, ‘kim wooseok just complimented ME!!!!!! what!!!!!!! he must be mistaken’ you lifted your hands once again waving them to disagree with him, but stopping when you noticed the way his eyebrows furrowed, “you are, y/n-ah.” he spoke low, his finger tracing little shapes on the front of your hand that stayed by your side, you were incredibly thankful that you both were at the back. you softly smiled up at him, “y-you too.” you whispered back, taking the chance to compliment your idol, seeing the way he raised his eyebrows and a smile grew on his face made your actions feel worth it, clasping your hands together returning your attention to the pd. ‘he’s so... perfect. but why is he looking at me?’ you thought. ‘she’s so perfect... i’m going crazy.’ wooseok thought to himself, still looking at you.

#kim wooseok imagines #x1 imagines #wooseok imagines #x1 fluff #kim wooseok fluff #wooseok fluff #wooseok angst #wooseok smut #kim wooseok smut #kim wooseok angst

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bubbashawn · 4 years

Text

hi friends

grudgingly I have to admit that I really don’t know everything about Shawn *gasp* but I know some things and y’all know some things so can you help me and send in an ask with answers you thing Shawn would say? there are 70 questions so don’t feel pressured to answer them all just answer 1 or 2 or more if you’re bored in quarantine :)

what’s keeping you busy? Writing the next album

exciting thing in your life right now?

boring thing in your life?

what recently moved you? Watching old videos from tour

what’s your favorite instrument? guitars

number of guitars you own? As of 2018, 35-40 so probably 50 by now

what’s the first song you learned? ‘The A-team’ Ed Sheeran

what’s one hobby you’ll never give up? Juggling

hobby you want to pick up? Skateboarding lol idk

you just finished a tour? In December

favorite venue? Buenos Aires

favorite performance ever? Performing ‘Youth’ with Khalid and the stoneman Douglas show choir

how would you describe yourself in 3 words? Driven, meticulous, fun

pet peeve? When people text “k”

what’s something your scared to lose? My family

what makes you angry? when people lie

whose your fashion inspiration? Mixture of manny and a “natural rockstar” as Tiffany, stylist, likes to say

fashion piece that’ll never let you down? Black skinny jeans

regrettable fashion choice? The plaid phase

one you hope that’ll never come back? Bulky diamond studs, the littles hoops are way better

what’s your favorite exercise? Ascending height hurtles

best song to run around to? ‘I Want Crazy’ by Hunter Hayes

what’s your spirit animal? A black lab

favorite candy? Chocolate

favorite thing to eat? Turkey roast dinner

least favorite thing to eat? Tomatoes

desert you can’t live without? Muffins

first memory in your life? Brian breaking his elbow on the edge of a pool

who do you look up to most in life? Aaliyah

best piece of advice you’ve received? Nerves mean you care

good rule from your parents? Go to bed

advice you’d give your 15-year-old self? Don’t try to be perfect. People don’t like you because you’re perfect they like you because you’re you.

what do you know now that you didn’t know then? This is something a person could do

where do you see yourself in 10 years? Settled down, out of the city, happy with a family

tv show you’ve binged recently? Grey’s anatomy, again

fictional character you’d want to spend the day with? Ron Weasley

fictional place you’d love to live in? Hogwarts

last movie that made you cry? Definitely, maybe

movie you can watch over and over again? Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

favorite movie as a kid? Tarzan

any hidden talents? Like, no. Correct me if I’m wrong

can you say anything in a foreign language? “Puis-je utiliser les toilettes” May I use the toilet in French

go to dance move? Salsa

biggest surprise? Taylor swift and fans singing happy birthday on his 16th

biggest gift you’ve ever received? John Mayer’s guitar

what people are most surprised to know about you? Hates being inside

what’s your favorite thing about your sister? Her laugh

coolest thing about your family? Manny

silliest nickname you’ve ever been called? Benito

when do you feel most happy? Coming home to loved ones

when do you feel most creative? On stage

favorite song to blast in the car? ‘Still in Love’ by Thirdstory

can you tell us the name of your next song? Stuck on you

if your life was a song what would the title be? Miscommunication

do you remember what your first concert was? Taylor Swift

first thing you do when you have an idea for a song? Used to sing to Karen in the kitchen

what’s your writing process? Write it down in the leather journal from a fan

do you have to be in a certain mood to write? No - but the tone of each song will change with the mood

what song took the least amount of time to write? Something big

which took the longest? When you’re ready

how do you know a song is finished? When you smile every time you listen to it, it’s like pride overflowing

where do you keep your awards? Some in childhood bedroom with the fan mail all over the walls

what award are you proudest of? JUNO’s fan choice award, twice

what do you do on days off? Hang out with friends

whose your ‘go to’ friend? Any of them

if you had to vacation with one other person who’d it be? Niall Horan

place you like to visit? Hawaii

what do you like to do at home? Fifa against friends and chilling on the balcony with a lot of blankets

whats your most cherished item? Feather ring from Japan

one thing you can’t live without? friends and family

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1d-fics · 5 years

Text

- Have You Coming Back Again (whoknows) - It’s five o’clock in the morning. Louis has a lecture at half eight. He could be using this time to study or to do his readings or to go to the gym, but - well. He doesn’t have any exams coming up, he’s not going to his seminar today anyway and he hates the gym.

Instead he’s using this time to fuck with Harry Styles’ poor little brain.Louis jogs across the street and jabs the key into the car door. It opens easily, not that he was expecting anything else. He copied the key for a reason, after all.

He’s got Harry’s schedule memorized, more because the guy keeps following him around than anything, so he doesn’t bother looking around before climbing behind the wheel and setting his bag on the passenger seat. It’s a Monday, which means that Harry doesn’t even get out of bed before noon unless he’s planning on harassing Louis.

- Falling For Me Won’t Be A Mistake (rearviewdreamer) - Harry is married to his job and so overworked that he doesn't know how to stop. All it takes is a forced Hawaiian get-a-away, the warm tropical breeze of the island, and the most beautiful, elusive man he's ever seen to make him remember what living is like outside of work. Well, that, and the little souvenir he accidentally takes home with him.

- Don’t Tell The Gods (We Left A Mess) (bottomlinsons) - After a misunderstanding with Liam’s mother, Louis agrees to accompany his best friend to a family wedding and pretend to be the world’s best boyfriend. But their simple plan goes awry when he learns that Harry, ex-boyfriend/ex-love of Louis’ life, will also be in attendance.

- Led By Your Beating Heart (missandrogyny) - Nick leans over. "Oh," he says, his voice smug. "Who is that?"

Harry just blinks at his phone. "Um," he manages to stammer out.

"Who's that, Harry?" Nick asks again, but this time he raises his eyebrows and smirks. Harry knows Nick is just teasing, and that he's not really looking for new Harry Styles gossip, but, um. He might have found something. Accidentally.

Harry opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is another 'um'. He really needs to work on translating his thoughts into words. But then it probably wouldn't be any helpful right now, would it? His mind is as blank as a newly erased etch-a-sketch.

"Oh," Nick says again, this time gleefully, seemingly having picked up on Harry's distress. "Looks like we've got a story here! Are you going to call or delete her number?"

Her number. So Nick thinks it's a girl. Well, Harry can't blame him: 'Lou' is kind of an androgynous nickname. His stylist's name is Lou.

But this Lou, well, Louis, he's kind of, really, really not a girl. He's really pretty though, which, is something.

(Or: AU where Harry's in One Direction, Louis isn't, and they reconnect over a game of 'Call or Delete'.)

- Members Only (kikikryslee) - Louis works at Harry's new gym and neither one of them knows how to hold a coherent conversation with the other.

- Oh Glory (alivingfire) - Harry Styles is Team Great Britain's newest swimmer, and has spent his whole life training for this moment, a chance at the gold medal in the Rio 2016 Olympics. All his training, hard work, and dedication to no distractions is tested when he's assigned to the same Rio apartment as Louis Tomlinson, British gymnast and Harry's childhood crush.

- My English Love Affair (isthatyoularry) - The thing about sleeping with a member of a famous indie band is that the inevitability of having a song written about you is most likely a hundred percent. The second thing is that in the end, nobody's supposed to find out it's about you.

The one where Harry writes a song about his English love affair and Louis sleeps with someone in White Eskimo and all he gets is a stupid song written about him.

- Your Kiss (dimpled_halo) - Louis and Harry are best friends who make things more complicated when they start to kiss.

- Can I Be Him? (amory) - Louis is twenty years old and has been waiting for his soulmate and true love to come along since the day he was born. Harry is an eighteen year old youtuber who is skeptical of soulmates and the pressure of being the person someone else has been dreaming of their entire lives.

They meet at Playlist Live.

- As Long As Skies Are Blue (theboyfriendstagram) - Louis has been a football instructor at Lake District Camp for three years when twenty-year old Harry Styles - the latest addition to the counseling team - stumbles not so gracefully into his life. It’s not that Harry is everything Louis can’t stand-except. He is. But that doesn’t stop him from walking in on the naked boy too many times for it to be a coincidence.

- Never Be (cherrystreet) - Harry Styles moves to Connecticut from England for nine months as a part of a study abroad program, and he just so happens to move in with Louis Tomlinson and family.

- Soft Hands, Fast Feet, Can’t Lose (dolce_piccante) - Harry Styles is a frat boy football star from the wealthy Styles Family athletic dynasty. A celebrity among football fans, he knows how to play, he knows how to party, and he knows how to fuck (all of which is well known among his legion of admirers).

Louis Tomlinson is a student and an athlete, but his similarities to Harry end there. Intelligent, focused, independent, and completely uninterested in Harry’s charms, Louis is an anomaly in a world ruled by football.

A bet about the pair, who might be more similar than they originally thought, brings them together. Shakespeare, ballet, Disney, football, library chats, running, accidental spooning, Daredevil and Domino’s Pizza all blend into one big friendship Frappucino, but who will win in the end?

- Pour Your Heart Out (hrrytomlinson) - Louis is his soulmate. Or at least Harry thinks he is. Louis feels the same as Louis. But there are a lot of people named Louis in the world and this Louis might not be the Louis. It’s besides the point though, because Harry knows he can’t allow himself to get close to any boys. He just can’t and he’s told himself this multiple times. He has to simply stay away from Louis Tomlinson. But he can’t. Harry Styles can never stay away from Louis Tomlinson. It’s physically impossible for him to.

- My Heart, In Deadly Rhythm (impetuous) - Spies!AU in which Liam is the Wade to Louis' Kim Possible, Zayn seduces people for intel, Niall is an expert at blowing things up, and Harry is more than a bit famous in his particular field... or infamous, actually. And Louis? Well, Louis just wishes people would quit trying so bloody hard to kill him all the time.

- Now That I’ve Found You (allwaswell16) - Harry Styles has a great job working for his brother-in-law’s construction company. He has just one small problem. His concrete sub-contractor just quit, and he needs a foundation built as soon as possible. One fateful turn brings him exactly what he’s been looking for—an experienced concrete construction company that happens to be owned by the most beautiful man he’s ever laid eyes upon.

- Like An Endless Summer (objectlesson) - Louis is a riding instructor at a summer camp, and Harry is a fellow counselor who he’s been successfully managing his crush on for the last two summers. That is, until Harry shows up this year leveled up and lethal, and all Louis’s formerly perfected veneer of nonchalance melts like a popsicle in the sun.

- Peaches and Cream (seducedbycurls) - The study was to see if two strangers could live together for a month and fall in love.

- Always Come Back To You (whoknows) - One Direction is long over, Louis has recently come out, and he may have been lying when he told the world he had a boyfriend…

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standbyphoenix · 5 years

Text

Movie star River Phoenix left musical mark in Alabama by Matt Wake

Outside record producer Rick Rubin’s Hollywood Hills home, drummer Josh Greenbaum sat in a silver Volvo with his friend and bandmate River Phoenix, the film actor.

The rock-star Lenny Kravitz was with them.

On the car’s stereo, Kravitz played Phoenix and Greenbaum a recording of a new song he’d written called “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” This was 1992, before that explosive tune would become the title track to Kravitz’s third album and era-defining music.

At the moment, Kravitz needed a drummer. He’d recently told mononymous Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea he was frustrated trying to find the right fit. Flea later told Phoenix about Kravitz’s predicament, while Flea was having lunch with Phoenix. Upon hearing about the opportunity, Phoenix promptly hooked-up the drummer of his own band, Aleka’s Attic, with an audition with Kravitz - a much bigger gig.

“And that’s how much River loved me as a brother as a friend,” Greenbaum says. “He was like, ‘I don’t want to hold you back from potential success, and if I can hook you up with this audition then I’m going to do it.’ River was incredibly gracious and generous. He wanted to see the people he cared about thriving.”

The South Florida native wasn’t the only drummer auditioning that day at Rubin’s house. There were 25 or so “L.A. rocker dudes” at the “cattle call” that day “decked-out in leather, nose rings and tattoos.” In sneakers, jeans, sweatshirt and short haircut, Greenbaum looked more college-kid than arena-ready. In the end, the gig didn’t go to a dude at all. Cindy Blackman, a virtuosic jazz musician who happens to be female, deservedly became Kravitz’s next drummer. Still, Greenbaum says he got two callbacks to jam with Kravitz over the course of a week.

River Phoenix was a gifted, charismatic movie star so physically attractive he seemed to defy science.

His nuanced performances lit up such films as "Stand By Me," "My Own Private Idaho" and "Running On Empty."

But Phoenix told Greenbaum more than once, “music was his first love and film was his day-job.”

While some actors’ musical projects can be of dubious quality, Phoenix had legitimate singer/songwriter talent. “Music was a need of his,” Greenbaum says. “That’s why he put so much effort into a band, trying to make it in the music business, which of course would’ve come easier for him than anyone else that wasn’t famous already.”

Phoenix’s other passions included environmentalism, humanitarianism and animal-rights. He was one of the most visibly philanthropic young stars of the early ’90s.

Phoenix was the reason Seventeen subscribers knew what “vegan” meant. “He had a heart of gold and was an extremely hyper-sensitive, emotional person,” Greenbaum says. “And that’s why he wound up helping a lot of people.”

The Gainesville, Fla.-based band’s tours brought them through Alabama, including circa - 1991 shows at Huntsville’s Tip Top Café and Tuscaloosa’s Ivory Tusk. Greenbaum recalls Aleka’s Attic performing in Auburn, possibly at the War Eagle Supper Club there, and maybe Birmingham too.

“We had some successful tours,” says Greenbaum, who’s resided in Maui for more than 20 years. “People showed up because they wanted to hear what River’s band was like, but once they got there they were like, ‘Damn this really is a good band,’ and we had some real authentic fans of the music, for the music, not just because it was River.”

Back before social-media and celeb clickbait, Aleka’s Attic tours also gave fans a rare chance to see a massively famous actor in-person, in the wilds of local rock-bars.

Back then, Sandee Curry was attending Lee High School and delivering pizzas part-time. She was also "obsessed with anything Hollywood-related." When she and friend Michelle Woodson heard about Phoenix's band's upcoming Tip Top Café show, they resolved to attend. "River Phoenix is coming to Huntsville, my hometown? This doesn't happen," Curry says. As many people who lived in Huntsville then are aware, in addition to hosting touring and local bands, Tip Top was known for being extremely easy to get into under-age, so she'd been to shows there before.

Curry brought her snapshot camera to the show. The camera was freshly loaded with black and white film, and she took photos of Aleka’s Attic that night. When she got the film developed later, mixed in with random friend pics were onstage shots of Phoenix, singer Rain Phoenix (River’s sister), bassist Josh McKay, violist Tim Hankins and drummer Greenbaum.

At the Tip Top that night, River Phoenix played a Stratocaster guitar and sported facial scruff, a white T-shirt and camouflage pants. Curry recalls the famous actor being somewhat withdrawn onstage. “If I’m remembering correctly, he was mostly doing backing vocals,” she says. “The bassist and Rain were doing a lot of the singing.” Although Greenbaum says River Phoenix was the songwriter and lead singer on most Aleka’s Attic’s material, fans interviewed for this story recall Rain Phoenix being the focal point onstage during the band’s Alabama shows.

Curry classifies the band’s live sound as “psychedelic ’90s alternative-rock.” She adds, “It was a fun show.”

She remembers enjoying the song “Too Many Colors” and McKay’s tune “Blue Period.”

At the Tip Top, Curry purchased one of the cassette tapes Aleka's Attic was selling at the time. "I listened to that tape a lot and it turned me into a fan" of the band, Curry says. She considered herself "a hippie" and her listening tastes also included The Doors. Curry kept her Aleka's Attic tape until about 10 years ago when she gave it to a friend's young sister who was fascinated with Phoenix: "She was really impressed by this cassette."

Christopher Brown was one of several audio engineers who ran live sound regularly at the Tip Top. On the night of Aleka's Attic he was off-work but there hanging out.

“They were a little more artsy than the typical stuff that we had at the time,” says Brown, who works at a local brewery now. “I remember being pretty impressed by them.” Looking for a more-mainstream, stylistically similar act, I mention Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, known for 1988 patchouli-pop hit “What I Am,” to which Brown, replies, “That’s not a bad comparison.”

The Aleka's Attic show had been the talk of the bar for weeks. Vira Ceci was bartending that night at Tip Top. She recalls Phoenix being "so nice" when she asked him to autograph a cocktail napkin for her cousin, and says the actor was "easily the most accessible member of the band." Ceci, currently employed as a technical writer, recalls the Aleka's Attic show being "pretty busy for a weeknight" and thinks the bar probably charged their typical, $5 cover that night.

Lance Church owned, ran and booked the Tip Top during its prime. He remembers the motor-home Aleka's Attic toured in arriving early in the afternoon and parked in the gravel lot across the street. There was some advance promotion and local press coverage and Church recalls "parents were bringing kids over to sign their movie posters."

Church thinks Aleka’s Attic’s guarantee was “maybe a couple hundred dollars.”

In 1991 and several years into his acting career, Phoenix was just 21 years old. Church still keeps a photo of he and Phoenix shaking hands inside the Tip Top. "He seemed like a really good kid to me," says Church, now a manager at a chain restaurant. "He was polite. He didn't come in there like he was too good for the place or nothing. He was humble, a very likeable guy. He was giggly - he was just a kid."

Church says there'd been many phone calls in to the Tip Top in the week leading up to the Aleka's Attic gig, people asking about start time and such. In the end, he thinks about 100 people attended the show, inside the cinderblock building's mechanics-garage-sized interior. The Billiter sisters were among those attendees: Grace, then 18, Becca, 16, and Jo, 14 - all students at Westminster Christian Academy. (Again, the Tip Top was way easy to get into.) That night, Grace drove them to the Aleka's Attic show in her classic pink Volkswagen Beetle. Back at their family's northside Huntsville home, the sisters displayed River Phoenix photos on their bedroom walls, along with images with other hotties of the day, including Mel Gibson and Billy Idol. Other bands back then the sisters liked included INXS.

Expecting to see Phoenix as he'd appeared as a svelte longhaired Indiana Jones in the latest "Raiders of the Lost Ark" sequel, the Billiters were surprised to see him onstage with a haircut Becca remembers as "choppy and punky." Jo says Phoenix's singing voice "sounded good, a little gravely" and had "nice harmony with his sister." But what's really seared into Jo's hippocampus is she was in the same room with "hands-down my favorite movie star." When the band was on break, the sisters got to meet their idol. Phoenix even briefly, sweetly put his arm around Jo. "I think my heart stopped for a couple beats," she recalls. Looking back, Becca says, "I love that it was the three sisters" that got to share resulting, VW-wide smiles that night.

James Dixon, a University of Alabama student then, attended Aleka's Attic's Ivory Tusk show. On the sidewalk out front of the Tusk, he saw Phoenix leaning up against a nearby light-pole, smoking a cigarette. "That was the days before selfies and things like that," recalls Dixon, who works in financial services in Birmingham. "People would say, 'Hey, River,' and the coeds were swooning over him, but he wasn't being hassled. He seemed laid-back."

Inside, the Ivory Tusk was packed. Earlier that day, Kelli Staggs and friend Lori Watts were playing pinball on a machine inside the bar while the band was doing their soundcheck. One Aleka's Attic musician came over and said hello, then Phoenix, recalls Staggs, who now works in Huntsville as a defense contract specialist. Later that night, Staggs says Aleka's Attic performed, in addition to their material, a version of far-out Jimi Hendrix tune "Third Stone from the Sun." After they played their Hendrix cover, the band asked the crowd if they knew that song. "It was like they were trying to weed out who was there for the music, and who was just there to see him because he was famous," Staggs says. Staggs was an art major at University of Alabama, where she'd seen alternative bands like 10,000 Maniacs perform at local venues.

Aleka's Attic drummer Josh Greenbaum recalls the band enjoying their Alabama shows. "I remember good energy, a good crowd. I remember getting treated pretty well." (Greenbaum has a random memory of one or more of these Alabama venues having troughs instead of urinals in the men's room.) He recalls Tip Top as "a dive, and we loved it for that reason. It was very endearing." In Tuscaloosa, he met a friend named Nancy Romine he's stayed in touch with. "During the same Southeast run, Greenbaum says Aleka's Attic did a show in Knoxville, Tenn. that was multitrack recorded and broadcast. In this era, "Lost in Motion," "What We've Done" and "Dog God" went over particularly well live, he says. Greenbaum recalls Phoenix, "loved the creative process of recording. If he had a preference I would say the studio was, probably, because he was a little bit shy and didn't like being in public places so much. But I know he loved playing live too and he did enjoy the touring. He was happy doing both."

Greenbaum was born 13 days before Phoenix. They were just 16 the first time they met, their families were friends. Greenbaum drove his dad's 1977 Chevy van to Phoenix's aunt's house, Phoenix walked out to meet him, then they went inside where Phoenix played him a demo tape of his song "Heart to Get." "It was a cool song," Greenbaum says. "The last of the commercial music that he wrote, as far as I'm concerned." The two teenagers hung out for about an hour then Greenbaum drove back home. A few months later Phoenix called Greenbaum and said he'd met Island Records founder Chris Blackwell backstage at a U2 concert and Blackwell wanted to sign Phoenix to a development deal. Phoenix asked Greenbaum to move to Gainesville - the famously progressive Phoenix family were living in nearby Micanopy - and start a band. He'd get him money each month to help "develop a band, make records and tour." Greenbaum moved to Gainesville in April 1988. He also spent time with Phoenix in Southern California, getting to know each other."

We were sort of like non-blood cousins," Greenbaum says. "River could trust me, A, because he knew each other through family and he knew I wasn't going to just be some starstruck idiot; and, B, because I'm a great musician. And he valued me as a human being and as a musician, highly. And that proof of his commitment to music, that he was willing to support a brother, to have my talents."

At the time, Greenbaum had been playing “Aerosmith-y, commercial blues-influenced metal” in a local group called Toy Soldier, that eventually became semi-famous ’80s rockers Saigon Kick. At one point, Phoenix traveled to South Florida to visit with Greenbaum on a weekend when Toy Soldier was performing. “River had just gotten into (1984 mockumentary film ‘This is) Spinal Tap’ really heavily, and he did a ‘Spinal Tap’-esque video of that weekend, of that gig and the next morning,” Greenbaum says. “It was pretty funny, actually.”

Greenbaum was influenced by populist bands like Van Halen, Bee Gees and Queen. Phoenix introduced him to more quirkier acts like XTC, Roxy Music and Squeeze. As time went on, Phoenix's music became increasingly experimental. "It was deep, for sure," Greenbaum says of his friend's songwriting. "He had a commitment to crafting a masterpiece every time he wrote a song. And it drove me nuts. He was an eccentric person and his method of communication was such he didn't speak in technical music terms. He would speak artistically and metaphorically. He would say things like, 'I want it to sound like a ship on the ocean with the waves crashing up against the hull and birds flying over' or whatever. I would be like, 'OK, can we break that into sixteenth-notes?'"

Aleka's Attic's label, Island Records, was trying to figure out what to do with this music too. Island asked Phoenix to record two new demos to determine if they'd continue backing the project. He was going to be in the Los Angeles area filming the movie "Sneakers" and brought Greenbaum out to help demo songs. The drummer was able to hang on the "Sneakers" set, where he met his friend's costars, including Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier and Dan Aykroyd. After Phoenix turned in the new demos to Island, the label deemed the music unmarketable. Aleka's Attic was dropped.

At a certain point, McKay, who’d “butted heads musically and personally” with Phoenix for a while, Greenbaum says, parted ways with the band. Phoenix put together another band called Blacksmith Configuration, that featured Greenbaum and some new musicians, including bassist Sasa Raphael.

Phoenix was big on palindromes, Greenbaum says. Their song titles “Dog God” and “ Senile Felines” were palindromes and they were working on an album to be titled “Never Odd or Even,” another example.

On the night before Halloween 1993, Greenbaum went out partying with local musicians, “an intense night, for whatever reason.” Early the next morning, he crashed on the couch at a friend’s downtown Gainesville apartment. A few hours later, Greenbaum woke still buzzed to one of his musician pals from night prior knocking on the front door. When the friend entered, he looked pale and sweaty. He told Greenbaum he’d heard on the radio Phoenix had died. “I was in shock, but it just made sense and I knew it was true,” Greenbaum says. “In some way it didn’t surprise me. I didn’t see it coming - I can’t say that - but what I did see in River was his tendency for being extreme.”

In the wee hours of Oct. 31, Phoenix had collapsed and died on the sidewalk outside West Hollywood, Calif. nightclub The Viper Room, then co-owned by fellow actor/musician Johnny Depp. An autopsy determined cause of death to be “acute multiple drug intoxication.” Cocaine and morphine. Jo Billiter, the young fan who watched Aleka’s Attic’s 1991 show in Huntsville, cried when she heard the news her favorite actor died. “It broke my heart.”

Several fans interviewed for this story said Phoenix seemed a little bleary to clearly buzzed when they’d seen his band perform. Asked if he ever saw Phoenix’s partying on tour reach scary levels, Greenbaum says, “It was a typical rock & roll level. Nothing out of the ordinary. It was a bunch of guys in their young 20s playing gigs and having fun, just like any other band.”

When he was off working on films, Phoenix would check in every few weeks with Greenbaum, the drummer says. Phoenix called him from Utah, where he was filming the thriller “Dark Blood.” His next role was slated to be the interviewer in “Interview with a Vampire.”

When Phoenix called Greenbaum from Utah, “that was the most lucid, sane, grounded, understandable, discernible I had ever experienced him sounding. (In the past) there were times when I just couldn’t follow what he was talking about. He was kind of cryptic. And on that phone call he was like completely calm and sounded really together and we had a great conversation, a great connection and it wound up being our last phone call.”

In 2019, Aleka’s Attic music is back in the news. Two of the band’s songs “Where I’d Gone” and “Scales & Fishnails” were released along with a Rain collaboration with R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe (a friend of River’s) on a three-song collection called “Time Gone.” The record’s cover art features a photo of Rain and River, young and beautiful enjoying a sibling hug amid a verdant scene. A prior posthumous push to officially release Phoenix’s music hit snags getting musicians involved to sign off. “At that time, I was just like, 'Yeah, Rain, just get River’s music out to the world,’” Greenbaum says of that earlier effort. “That’s why he signed a record deal in the first place, to share his music with the world.”

As of the reporting of this story, Greenbaum says he hasn’t been contacted about usage of Aleka’s Attic music on “Time Gone.” The drummer found out about the release via messages from Facebook “friends” who are River Phoenix fans. “Rain didn’t consult us, she didn’t inform us, nothing,” Greenbaum says.

At one point during this interview, Greenbaum says he needs to call me back, so he can count out change to pay for groceries. He says he still plays drums with different local Maui cover bands as well as a blues-rock trio and by-day works construction and maintenance jobs.

Kro Records, the label that released “Time Gone,” didn’t respond to an email inquiry to interview Rain Phoenix and/or a label rep for this story.

Regular financial support and fast-tracking the Lenny Kravitz audition weren’t the only times Phoenix helped Greenbaum. He also bought him an electric-blue DW drumkit, among other instances. Outside of playing music, Phoenix and Greenbaum would throw the frisbee together or jump on the Phoenix family trampoline. They liked going to Falafel King and eating tabbouleh salad and humus. The famous actor would often come over for coffee to the mobile home Greenbaum and Greenbaum’s father lived in, on the Phoenixes’ Micanopy property.

These days, sometime random things will make Greenbaum think of River Phoenix. Sometimes it’s something more direct, like playing a gig will make him think of a certain onstage moment with his late friend.

After counting out coins in the checkout line, Greenbaum calls back. I ask if he thinks pressures of growing up famous led to what happened to Phoenix. “I wouldn’t doubt it,” he replies. “I definitely see how fame messed with his head, his heart. I think fame has that effect on everybody, which is why everybody wants to be famous, but you hear about all these famous people dropping dead and they’re unhappy, depressed and have drug and alcohol problems. Because fame is unnatural.”

— via AL.com, Feb 19, 2019.

#river phoenix #river #phoenix #josh greenbaum #rain phoenix #alekas attic

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rivjudephoenix · 5 years

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New Photo and Article: “Movie star River Phoenix left musical mark in Alabama” on al.com

Outside record producer Rick Rubin’s Hollywood Hills home, drummer Josh Greenbaum sat in a silver Volvo with his friend and bandmate River Phoenix, the film actor. The rock-star Lenny Kravitz was with them. On the car’s stereo, Kravitz played Phoenix and Greenbaum a recording of a new song he’d written called “Are You Gonna Go My Way.” This was 1992, before that explosive tune would become the title track to Kravitz’s third album and era-defining music. At the moment, Kravitz needed a drummer. He’d recently told mononymous Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea he was frustrated trying to find the right fit.

Flea later told Phoenix about Kravitz’s predicament, while Flea was having lunch with Phoenix. Upon hearing about the opportunity, Phoenix promptly hooked-up the drummer of his own band, Aleka’s Attic, with an audition with Kravitz - a much bigger gig. “And that’s how much River loved me as a brother as a friend,” Greenbaum says. “He was like, ‘I don’t want to hold you back from potential success, and if I can hook you up with this audition then I’m going to do it.’ River was incredibly gracious and generous. He wanted to see the people he cared about thriving”

The South Florida native wasn’t the only drummer auditioning that day at Rubin’s house. There were 25 or so “L.A. rocker dudes” at the “cattle call�� that day “decked-out in leather, nose rings and tattoos.” In sneakers, jeans, sweatshirt and short haircut, Greenbaum looked more college-kid than arena-ready. In the end, the gig didn’t go to a dude at all. Cindy Blackman, a virtuosic jazz musician who happens to be female, deservedly became Kravitz’s next drummer. Still, Greenbaum says he got two callbacks to jam with Kravitz over the course of a week.

River Phoenix was a gifted, charismatic movie star so physically attractive he seemed to defy science. His nuanced performances lit up such films as "Stand By Me," "My Own Private Idaho" and "Running On Empty." But Phoenix told Greenbaum more than once, “music was his first love and film was his day-job.”

Phoenix’s other passions included environmentalism, humanitarianism and animal-rights. He was one of the most visibly philanthropic young stars of the early ’90s. Phoenix was the reason Seventeen subscribers knew what “vegan” meant. “He had a heart of gold and was an extremely hyper-sensitive, emotional person,” Greenbaum says. “And that’s why he wound up helping a lot of people.”

Phoenix formed in Aleka’s Attic in 1987. The Gainesville, Fla.-based band’s tours brought them through Alabama, including circa-1991 shows at Huntsville’s Tip Top Café and Tuscaloosa’s Ivory Tusk. Greenbaum recalls Aleka’s Attic performing in Auburn, possibly at the War Eagle Supper Club there, and maybe Birmingham too.

Back before social-media and celeb clickbait, Aleka’s Attic tours also gave fans a rare chance to see a massively famous actor in-person, in the wilds of local rock-bars.

Curry classifies the band’s live sound as “psychedelic ’90s alternative-rock.” She adds, “It was a fun show.” She remembers enjoying the song “Too Many Colors” and McKay’s tune “Blue Period.”

Christopher Brown was one of several audio engineers who ran live sound regularly at the Tip Top. On the night of Aleka's Attic he was off-work but there hanging out. “They were a little more artsy than the typical stuff that we had at the time,” says Brown, who works at a local brewery now. “I remember being pretty impressed by them.” Looking for a more-mainstream, stylistically similar act, I mention Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, known for 1988 patchouli-pop hit “What I Am,” to which Brown, replies, “That’s not a bad comparison.”

Church thinks Aleka’s Attic’s guarantee was “maybe a couple hundred dollars.”

"We were sort of like non-blood cousins," Greenbaum says. "River could trust me, A, because he knew each other through family and he knew I wasn't going to just be some starstruck idiot; and, B, because I'm a great musician. And he valued me as a human being and as a musician, highly. And that proof of his commitment to music, that he was willing to support a brother, to have my talents."

Phoenix was big on palindromes, Greenbaum says. Their song titles "Dog God" and " Senile Felines" were palindromes and they were working on an album to be titled "Never Odd or Even," another example.

On the night before Halloween 1993, Greenbaum went out partying with local musicians, "an intense night, for whatever reason." Early the next morning, he crashed on the couch at a friend's downtown Gainesville apartment. A few hours later, Greenbaum woke still buzzed to one of his musician pals from night prior knocking on the front door. When the friend entered, he looked pale and sweaty. He told Greenbaum he'd heard on the radio Phoenix had died. "I was in shock, but it just made sense and I knew it was true," Greenbaum says. "In some way it didn't surprise me. I didn't see it coming - I can't say that - but what I did see in River was his tendency for being extreme."

When he was off working on films, Phoenix would check in every few weeks with Greenbaum, the drummer says. Phoenix called him from Utah, where he was filming the thriller "Dark Blood." His next role was slated to be the interviewer in "Interview with a Vampire."

When Phoenix called Greenbaum from Utah, "that was the most lucid, sane, grounded, understandable, discernible I had ever experienced him sounding. (In the past) there were times when I just couldn't follow what he was talking about. He was kind of cryptic. And on that phone call he was like completely calm and sounded really together and we had a great conversation, a great connection and it wound up being our last phone call."

In 2019, Aleka's Attic music is back in the news. Two of the band's songs "Where I'd Gone" and "Scales & Fishnails" were released along with a Rain collaboration with R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe (a friend of River's) on a three-song collection called "Time Gone." The record's cover art features a photo of Rain and River, young and beautiful enjoying a sibling hug amid a verdant scene. A prior posthumous push to officially release Phoenix's music hit snags getting musicians involved to sign off. "At that time, I was just like, 'Yeah, Rain, just get River's music out to the world,'" Greenbaum says of that earlier effort. "That's why he signed a record deal in the first place, to share his music with the world."

Kro Records, the label that released "Time Gone," didn't respond to an email inquiry to interview Rain Phoenix and/or a label rep for this story.

Regular financial support and fast-tracking the Lenny Kravitz audition weren't the only times Phoenix helped Greenbaum. He also bought him an electric-blue DW drumkit, among other instances. Outside of playing music, Phoenix and Greenbaum would throw the frisbee together or jump on the Phoenix family trampoline. They liked going to Falafel King and eating tabbouleh salad and humus. The famous actor would often come over for coffee to the mobile home Greenbaum and Greenbaum's father lived in, on the Phoenixes' Micanopy property.

These days, sometime random things will make Greenbaum think of River Phoenix. Sometimes it's something more direct, like playing a gig will make him think of a certain onstage moment with his late friend.

#river phoenix #music #aleka's attic #josh greenbaum #lenny kravitz #flea #red hot chili peppers #rain phoenix #josh mckay #rick rubin

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