#also yeah no the french one is another musical

[steelthroat]

I may not speak Deutsch. HOWEVER, the random gods of the internet have graced me with Mozart das musical so...

*seeks the musical on YouTube*

WAIT THE FRENCH MADE ANOTHER ONE? ROCK????? DUDE SAID FUCK THE HIERARCHY?????

Ahem anyway:

Mozart, das musical

Mozart, l'opera rock (eng sub)

[eyivibyemi]

✧ I won’t really write descriptions for these, but see original post tags for explanation/commentary on the song snippet ✧

[huuuuughes]

First Time Feeling - Mat Barzal x Reader

Pairing: Mat Barzal x Fem!Reader

Word count: 6.4k

Warnings: so much fluff, did i go overboard? maybe lol

A/N: this was my first time participating in a fic exchange and i honestly had so much fun. this is for the summer fic exchange 2k24 hosted by the lovely @wyattjohnston. it is written for the also fantastic @ahockeywrites! i am your friendly neighborhood exchange writer. i hope you enjoy it as much as i did writing it!

also i used google translate for the french. pls dont come for me if its not right im doing my best

It’s that time of year, when hockey pauses and every hockey player you know has a wedding because they scarcely get to have them in season. Growing up a coach's daughter, you were not unfamiliar with NHL weddings, and it meant your best friends were other kids from the organization your dad was in at the time. Now that you were getting to be that age it meant everyone you knew was having weddings.

Except you.

You were the one single person remaining in the bridal party for your best friend. Everyone did their best to try and include you without making it feel like third wheeling but sometimes it felt like that anyway. It wasn’t like they could help it and you were always happy for them. Weddings just seemed to rub salt in a wound now. Being alone scared you more than a lot of things. Which is why you were taking this bachelorette weekend to let loose and have fun. At least more than you usually let yourself. Your ability to do shots at a fast pace and without hesitation got you to that buzzed feeling a little too quickly.

But everyone was having fun. The band that was playing for the bar was insanely good and every song kept making you wanna dance. You managed to drag a few of your friends out onto the dance floor with you and it was the first time you felt free in a very long time.

“We’re gonna go get a drink, do you want something?!” Hannah attempts to yell over the volume of the music.

“YEAH, just water is good! Thanks!” You didn’t want to leave the dance floor- you were having a really good time. You let the music be your happy place for the moment, forgetting any problem you had before coming in the door. Out of the corner of your eye you noticed a trio of men looking at you. And then you have to do a double take, because you’d just seen those same 3 men at the previous bar, and the one before that…

Moving to a different spot on the dance floor didn’t seem to help. Hannah still wasn’t back from the bar and you were starting to think that these creeps were trying to form some kind of blockade. It was unsettling, but your usual fears were blurred by the alcohol that was currently coursing through your veins. You had forgotten there was a reason you didn’t like to drink that often. Then there was a tap on your shoulder, and as you turned around one of them was right there.

“You wanna dance sweetheart?” He screamed in your ear.

“No thanks! Just waiting for a friend!”

“I don’t see that friend anywhere right now, why don’t you want to dance?” Attempting to get closer to you, he moved forward causing you to back up into a stranger. Another one of his friends, you discovered, once you saw the first one smirk like there was some kind of inside joke that you weren’t in on.

“I said no.”

“That’s not what that outfit says.”

“Get away from me you fucking creep.” Your voice was firm, attempting to just go back to having fun. You closed your eyes, trying to let the music flow through you again. When you opened them there was yet another man coming at you, but this one didn’t feel threatening. He looked familiar, like you had maybe seen him before in passing. You couldn’t place it sober, and you definitely couldn’t in the current state you were in. He was making a beeline for you, pushing the first creep out of his way and almost onto the ground.

“Holy shit babe, there you are!You, my love, are too drunk! Time to go home!” Before you knew it he was reaching for your waist and your feet were no longer touching the ground. He throws you over his shoulder like you were nothing but a paper weight. Instead of the panic you should have felt, you relaxed over him. You didn’t fight the motion, it felt good to just stop for a moment. But then you realized that you really didn’t know who this was either and you just let a strange man pick you up and carry you out of the dance floor area.

“UM YEA HI, WHO ARE YOU?” You attempted to yell at him but the music was still loud. He either didn’t hear you or chose not to respond because you didn’t receive a response.

“Excuse me! Sir! I demand to know who you are please!”

Still nothing from him. He was like a big brick wall.

“JUST BECAUSE I'M SMALL DOESN'T MEAN YOU CAN JUST MAN HANDLE ME.”

But then you were on the ground again. It had felt like years before he set you down again but when he did you were once again reunited with your friends. You finally had a chance to get a good look at the stranger who carried you. He was definitely over six feet tall, and was honestly the hottest man you’d ever seen in your life. His eyes were a soft brown color that you could almost drown in. His hair was also brown, and fell in different directions all over his head. The expression on his face was a neutral one, but you felt drawn to him.

“Girl holy shit, why didn’t you tell us those creeps were still following you?!”

“Stop shouting at him babe, you are FINE!”

“You guys failed to mention your friend was such a chatterbox when she’s intoxicated.” The man laughed, but you could barely focus on anything with the way the world seemed to be swaying about.

“Thanks so much Mat, for rescuing our friend. She’s kind of key to the wedding festivities this weekend.”

“No problem. I hope your night gets better from here. Tell Coach I said hi. Maybe I’ll see you this weekend ladies.” He winked, like he knew he was going to but was just saying that to be clever. He looked like he felt accomplished about your frustrated state. As if he found it cute or endearing that you were so small yet had so much anger.

“You know she’s single Mat!” One of your friends interjected. And with that the handsome stranger who now had a name walked off and out of the bar, and you wondered who his friends were. You watched as a smile broke out on his face again, as if he was thinking hard about the proposition just said to him.

“Have a safe night ladies.” He lifted his head in a nod and you watched him walk out of the bar and out of your sight.

Everyone in your group had also decided that they had enough for the night and you booked it back to your hotel. The wedding was in 2 days, and the rehearsal dinner is tomorrow evening. Tonight was the last night to let loose and perhaps you had come too loose.

The next morning…

Your head was pounding. Opening your eyes was a no go, the light too painful to look at. It was like your entire head was pulsing. Liquor should definitely not be mixed with any other type of alcohol, you thought.

“WAKEY WAKEY BITCH, UP AND AT EM!” The bride came into your room, clearly more ready to tackle the day than you were.

“Oh my god Hannah. STOP YELLING. My head is killing me…” you groaned.

“Oh I know, I was there too, bestie. I’ve brought Tylenol and water, and there’s breakfast in my room. Oh and here’s some sunglasses. Those might help for a bit.” She thrust all of the items in your arms and helped you sit up without dying.

“Come on, we have a bridal party meeting, maid of honor!”

You loved Hannah, you really did, but if she didn’t lower her volume you thought your head might explode. After a quick shower, some meds, and an outfit change you were ready for the bridal party meeting there was to be had. When you walked into the room it was a mixture of excitement and groaning. All of the bridesmaids looked like they’d been through it, but the groomsmen were relaxed. The groom had his party a few weeks ago, just in case any shenanigans ensued.

“There she is!”

That voice. You knew that voice…God why did you know that voice?

You almost dropped the plate of food in your hands. When you turned around the shock of who it was rendered you speechless. It was the man who carried you across the bar last night. The man you thought you’d never see again after that embarrassing spectacle you’d caused. The memory was slowly coming back to you, and you really, really hoped there wasn’t video evidence.

“Good to see you survived your journey home.” He smirked.

“Wait! Do you know Mat?!” Clutterbuck asked. You knew Cal from your dad’s years in the league. You knew most of the people in the room, but Mat had been a pretty private guy. You didn’t really know much about him other than he was damn good at hockey and had pretty nice eyes. Since you only knew him in passing, you had never heard him talk much and drunk, you definitely did not recognize him. You felt like the blood had entirely drained from your face all you could think of was how quickly you could get out of that room.

“Apparently I do.” Your eyes tried to stay fixed on the ground as the meeting got started. It was basically just going over who was going to walk down the aisle with who and what everyone’s entrances would be for the reception.

“So, you’ll be with Mat. You guys good with that?” You locked eyes with your best friend. You knew exactly what she was doing. She was trying to play matchmaker without even asking you first. How would she even know if he was your type?

“I mean I-,” You stammered.

“Yeah, it sounds great to me.”

Finally you had to look at him. Of course he would say that, maybe he was in on it, you were being tortured by all of your friends. You had to begin lining up to practice, making sure you didn’t fall flat on your face and embarrass the bride. They all knew him, there was definitely an underlying motive. You had a feeling it was because they didn’t want everyone to pair up and you were left by yourself. It was a nice gesture, but being filled in would have felt nice so you did not in fact have a strange man picking you up and throwing you over his shoulder in a bar.

Being the maid of honor, you were last in the order to go. You waited patiently in the back of the line, the only one who was not linked in arms with their partner. Mat offered his arm to you, attempting to show some good will.

“You gonna take it?” He asked, raising an eyebrow at you.

“No.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about last night. Your friends told me to come get you by whatever means necessary so that is what I did.”

“So you decided the only way was to pick me up with no warning? Who taught you to do that?” You threw your arms up in the air almost in defeat, you didn’t know what to make of what he did. You may have been drunk but you were never going to forget looking down at the ground when being carried across the room.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” He shrugged and still somehow managed to look smug. He knows what he’s doing, and he definitely thought that he was being charming by doing so.

“I want you to tell me why you did that! All you had to do was grab my hand and lead me away!” You’d had enough of his games. You were going to get some answers before the night was over and done with.

“They all seem to know you, but I don’t. Why is that?” You had turned to face him, staring him down in order to get him to crack. It was almost your turn. You’d run into a slight issue when the bride decided she wanted to switch up the order of things before the honors of maid of honor and best man. All this meant was more time to get him to crack, which if he had known any better, would not take you very long. His resolve was weakening, and quickly.

“I’ve been around. You just haven’t noticed me.”

“I think I would have noticed you.” It would be hard to miss someone as pretty as he was. Did you really just admit that? Your dad hadn’t been with the Islanders for several years, but you still knew who most of the team was. Based on what you had managed to Google on the walk from the meeting to the present rehearsal location was that he was a pretty damn good hockey player.

“I don’t think so sweetheart. Your friends have told me all about you too, you know.”

“Oh yeah? What did they tell you?” You were almost angry but didn’t know why.

“Well for starters they just want you to be happy. They know you haven’t been happy for a little while now.” He smiled at you, and you tried not to melt in response. The way your body reacted so physically to him when all he did was smile was not something that you could ignore.

“And what else?” You prompted.

“My last relationship was some time ago, and let’s just say it didn’t end that well. They’ve noticed I haven’t been happy either.”

“You look happy to me.”

“Looks can be deceiving. The cameras and the media pick up only what they want to see.” This time he didn’t meet your eye. Which told you everything you needed to know. You would never understand how strangers and the media thought they knew someone just by what you see them do as an athlete. As if they don’t have personal lives or things that are important to them. Your suspicions were confirmed, but not in the way you thought. Of course your friends wanted to set you up with someone. Not to be funny or to try and make a joke, but they hated to see you so unhappy. Things were starting to make a little more sense.

“So you knew their motives?” You asked, feeling bad about how you had sort of gone at him without knowing why. You couldn’t undo the years of crappy guys that you had to deal with in the past, but now you could learn to give Mat a better chance.

“Partially. I knew they wanted to set me up with someone, but I don’t enjoy the anxiety of blind dates. They didn’t want me to say anything to you- they wanted to protect you. Based on your reaction I’m guessing you don’t enjoy surprises either.”

“Correct. So what would you like to do about this?” You asked, hopeful.

“I think we should see where the weekend takes us, and go from there. How’s that sound?”

You hoped that he couldn’t see the blush starting to appear in your cheeks. Your friends did this on purpose. They wouldn’t just set you up with some hockey player they didn’t know or trust, they knew he had to be vetted first. They also knew that you wouldn’t just take being set up with someone due to your stubbornness, so this was the only way they knew how to get to you.

“I’d like that.” His smile was infectious and you could feel yourself reciprocating.

Once the rehearsal dinner was figured out, the rest of the evening seemed to go as planned. Most importantly, the bride was happy. You noticed Mat across the room, smiling at you. You were alone at the bar, and watched him excuse himself from the conversation he was having to walk your direction.

“You wanna get out of here?” It was almost a whisper, so only you could hear it. You looked around the room to make sure that your absence wouldn’t be noticed.

“I thought you’d never ask.” You took the hand that he offered you and followed him out of the room. His car was already waiting, the perks of having the wedding on Long Island was a lot of the wedding guests already lived in the area.

“I feel like a teenager sneaking out when I’m not supposed to!” He held the door open for you as you slid in, and he climbed into the driver’s seat, “Where are you taking me sir?”

The sun was starting to set, making the sky an orangish pink color. It was like all of the colors of the sky melting together, painting a beautiful scene that no camera could ever do justice. He reached over and grabbed your hand as he began to drive. It looked like he was going nowhere in particular, and he squeezed your hand gently. You appreciated a first move when you saw one, it took the anxiety out of the way and you instantly felt more relaxed around him.

“There’s somewhere I want to show you. It’s not that far from here, is that okay?” You nodded. According to maps, the destination was only a few miles away. It was almost dark out, but not quite. The sun rested quietly in the sky, hovering just above the skyline ready to disappear. Mat still held your hand in his, gently squeezing every so often as if to reassure you of something but you weren’t quite sure what yet. When you arrived at your destination, there wasn’t another car to be seen. The only sound came from a distance, and then you looked around.

“Where are we?” You asked.

“Crescent Beach. I used to come here a lot when I first came to New York. The city can be overwhelming sometimes, but out here you can actually hear yourself think. The sunset’s here are something to behold, I’ve heard.” He held out his hand for you to take, and led you on to the beach. He had already grabbed two blankets from his trunk. You laughed a little bit, you always kept blankets and towels in the back of your car just in case too.

“It looks like we’re just in time for sunset.” Mat laid down one of the blankets on the sand. You were close enough to the water to be able to smell it, but not close enough that the tide could touch you. He placed the other blanket over the two of you, sitting down beside you after you got comfortable.

“The sky looks beautiful right now. I would have never thought a sunset in Long Island could look like this!” You closed your eyes for a second, taking in the smell of the ocean and the sound of the waves. It was the peace you were looking for during the wedding weekend.

“New York can be beautiful when it wants to be. You just have to know where to look.”

“I like to think that whenever there is a sunset this beautiful, it’s just someone you lost saying hello. Like a little wave from the sky, you know?” You asked him. He nodded, looking out across the horizon. “Tell me about you Mat.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Why did our friends want to set you up with someone?” You were curious.

“I’d been on and off with someone for a long time. It was unhealthy for me, and for anyone to be around me. Let’s just say I wasn’t always the most pleasant person. I want to start a family one day. With as much as players can move around, my home is with a person. Not a place or anything like that, if that makes any sense at all.”

“I was the same way with my dad. We moved around every few years, it felt like I could never really put down roots in one place.”

“What’s your favorite color?” He asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

“What does my favorite color have to do with anything?”

“It says a lot about a person to me.”

“You’re a little strange, has anyone ever told you that?” You both laughed, his was infectious.

“Just answer the question!”

You tell him your favorite color, smiling.

“Don’t you want to know what mine is?” He asked.

“Tell me.”

“It’s blue.”

“Like Islanders blue?”

“Any blue, but right now, blue like the ocean.” The breeze started to blow hard, quickly reminding you that you were in fact in New York, not a beach somewhere tropical. Mat was good at making you feel like you were somewhere else but in a good way.

“Tell me something else about you Mr. Barzal.”

“Is this 20 questions or something?”

“It is now!” You playfully smacked his thigh, you were so close together it wouldn’t take much for you to lean in and kiss him.

“Tes yeux sont les plus beaux que j'ai jamais vus.” You could tell he was speaking French just from the way he changed his accent. Since when could this beautiful man speak french?!

“You can speak french?”

“A hobby of mine, you could say.” From the way the words flowed out of his mouth, you knew it wasn’t just a hobby.

“What did you say?” You turned to look at him, slightly shorter so that you had to look up to look at each other. Everything else seemed to disappear behind him. There could have been roars of people around you, but you wouldn’t have been able to hear them. It was true what they said, when you found the right person it was like everything else melted away.

“I said you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” You couldn’t even attempt to hide the blush you could feel forming in your cheeks.

“Is that how you get all the ladies?” You managed to speak finally, after gaining your composure again. But your voice was quiet, like you didn’t want to know the answer.

“Tu es le seul que je veux.” His forehead came to rest against yours. You could feel his hot breath against your face, lighting the nerves in your body on fire.

“Tell me what you said.” You breathed out, trying to catch your breath as if it had been taken from you.

“You are the only one I want.”

“Okay.” You didn’t know why you were saying it. But he seemed to know why, and crashed his lips against yours. His hand came up to cup the back of your head, bringing you as close to him as you could get. The ocean breeze no longer seemed to matter as you began exploring each other’s bodies. He pulls you onto his lap, wrapping the blanket around you in one fluid motion. His lips tasted slightly of whiskey and chocolate, inviting and warm. Warmth blossomed in your chest, like you wanted to be engulfed in each other. You could feel his hands wanting to go under your shirt, and you nodded into the kiss to let him know that it was okay.

You pulled back just for a moment to catch your breath, but not letting your forehead leave his. You were breathing hard against each other as one, in sync already after the slightest touch. His eyes told you everything you needed to know, and you felt safe in his arms. Mat placed his hands on either side of your face, allowing you to feel just how much the moment meant to him. To him, he was holding his world in his hands and now he never wanted to let you go. His next kiss felt like fireworks, and now you knew what it felt like when people said they never wanted something to end. A kiss like the two of your lives depended on it, and you wanted to get lost in him. His kisses were soft at first and increased in intensity every time you drew back for a breath. You wanted more, you wanted all of him.

He breathed your name, realizing that it was in fact now dark outside. The only light came from the street lights in the parking lot and the small flashlight Mat had brought from his car. He brought you in for a hug against him, tucking your head into the nape of his neck. You fit there perfectly, and the smell of his cologne engulfed all of your senses.

“We should probably head back to the hotel.” He whispered, but didn’t make any moves to let go of you.

“Maybe…”

“That doesn’t mean we have to be alone tonight.” He squeezed you, the reassurance washing over you. You nod, and get up off the ground. Mat shakes off the blankets, trying to get rid of as much sand as possible. But you knew that there would be sand all over you for days, in places you never think sand would end up. He got you settled in the car, placing the supplies back where he got them from. Once back in the car, he took your hand once more and you drove quietly back to the hotel.

“Where do we go from here?” You asked.

“I like you.” Another hand squeeze. You didn’t know what to say back to him, too afraid that anything would scare him off just like the other guys you’d dated. “You don’t have to say it back yet, I just didn’t want this night to end without telling you that. When I know I want something, I won’t stop until I can have it. If you’ll let me, that is.”

“What about tonight?” He didn’t answer you, but that was okay. It was unspoken, hanging in the air like a cloud, but you knew you weren’t going to be alone that night. Or the rest of the weekend, if Mat had anything to say about it. Arriving back at the hotel, Mat handed his keys off to the valet and led you inside.

“Is there anything you need to get from your room?” He asked once in the elevator.

“Not that I can think of.”

“Good.” Once the elevator doors opened to his floor, he picked you up and threw you over his shoulder once again. But this time you were more than okay with it. He had to set you down in order to open his room, but picked you up again once you were inside. He laid you down on the freshly laundered bed, throwing your shoes across the room and his along with them. You crawled under the covers together, and all he did was hold you. There were the occasional make out sessions throughout the night, but nothing more. He told you about his childhood and growing up playing hockey, and you told him about the life of being a coach's daughter.

He told you about the way he likes his eggs cooked, his pregame rituals, and all the movies he liked to watch. You talked about anything and everything that came to mind, eventually falling asleep in his arms. When you woke up it didn’t feel strange, it felt like you were supposed to be there. The morning after was always an awkward moment, falling over your words and trying to sneak out without the other person noticing. There was no sneaking out this time, instead you woke up with a kiss from Mat being planted on the top of your head.

“Good morning, beautiful.” He whispered, kissing around your neck and cheeks as much as he could.

“It’s wedding day today.” You smiled, you were excited to get your best friend in the world down the aisle. In helping her find her happiness, you had also managed to find some of yours.

“I’m guessing you have to go soon?” He asked, looking down at you.

“Well I am the maid of honor you know, I think someone will notice if I’m not there.”

“But what if I told you I just wanted to hold you all day instead?” He smirked. The hold that this man already had over you..

“What if I told you, that starting tomorrow you never had to let go of me again?” He sat up quickly and looked down at you.

“You mean it?”

“Well I don’t just spend the night with anyone, Mathew. I think our friends might just be right…” You smiled, he came down to kiss you so fast you didn’t even know what hit you. Was it crazy to rush into something so fast? Maybe. But did it feel right? Absolutely. You’d read all the romance novels of quick relationships, always telling yourself it wasn’t actually like that. Those were just fairy tales you could read about, nothing like that would ever happen in real life.

It took a little more convincing for him to actually let you get out of bed and go to the bridal suite where everyone was getting ready. Of course he had to be with the grooms party, but somehow it never took guys quite as long to get ready.

“Are you sure you have to go right now?” He asked once he pulled away from you. You didn’t want to get out of the nice comfy bed with a pretty man laying in it but duty called.

“Yessss, do you think you’ll be able to survive without me for a few hours?” You started to throw off the covers, but he pulled you back in.

“No, I don’t actually. I might just lay here and cry all day!” You laughed, knowing that both the bride and groom would come for him but let him pretend.

“You’ll be fine, I promise. If you let me go, I’ll let you grab my butt when we dance later.”

“DEAL!” One more quick kiss, and you were finally able to get up. One wave goodbye as you opened the door to leave, and you were off. You had to stop by your own room to get your dress and makeup, and then it was off to the bridal suite. You were surprisingly one of the first ones to arrive, and were able to eat a little bit of breakfast for once. Everyone in the bridal party got to choose their own dress as long as it was within the color palette, and yours was your favorite shade of blue. It fits you in all of the right places, just the way that it should. The bride paid for everyone’s hair to be done, and once everyone was all finished getting ready it was time to take pictures of the bridal party. The photographer seemed to be on her A-game, and for once things were running on time in your life. Anthony already gone to take his place

Finally you got to have a moment just you and your best friend on her big day. The day both of you had talked about since you were kids, the one that you spent planning on pinterest for hours without even a thought of someone in the picture.

“Hannah… you look stunning! I hope today is everything you ever dreamed it would be. I can’t wait to see the look on Anthony’s face when he sees you today. I’ll still beat him up if he ever hurts you though. Are you ready?”

“Have I told you I love you yet today?”

“I love you too girl. Let’s get you married!” Each bridesmaid had their groomsman, and you took your place at the end. Mat walked around the corner and paused when he saw you, stopping him dead in his tracks.

“You like something you see sir?” He offered up his arm for you to take once he made his way to you.

“Tu es le seul que je veux.” He repeated his words from last night, kissing your cheek.

“Me too.” You’d learn how to say it in french, one day at least.

Of course there wasn’t a dry eye in the house after the ceremony. After all of the guests made their way to the reception hall and the rest of the wedding party photos were taken, the evening seemed to go rather smoothly. You may or may not have felt Mat’s hand graze across your butt a few times during pictures, but you kindly reminded him that he wasn’t allowed to feel your butt until you got to dance. He acted like you were torturing him though, depriving him of a dream.

You wanted to get your wedding mingling out of the way first, so that you could enjoy the night with who you wanted. It did not go without notice that Mat’s eyes were following you around the room in a very flirty kind of way. You hadn’t felt like this in a really long time, like you could relax because you were finally comfortable with someone.

“Hey bestie, how is your night going?” Hannah found her way over to you, and more of your friends noticed. You recognized what was happening, they wanted to get all of the dirty details about you and Mat. Of course their plan was successful, but you were also a proud individual. All of them were smiling a little too big at you, asking without actually asking.

“I know what you’re trying to do here!” You accused her.

“Don’t waste time woman, we wanna know! How’s it going with Mat?” Hannah asked.

“I saw you going into his room last night!”

“We know you two snuck off last night, don’t even lie.”

“Where did he take you! Was it romantic?”

“One question at a time!” You were only one person after all, “It’s still very new, we just met this weekend.”

“That smile doesn’t lie sweetie.” You were a bad liar and they knew it.

“Okay fine. Yes we snuck off last night, yes I was in his room but we didn’t do anything but talk and make out, he took me to a beach, and yes it was romantic! Now if you don’t mind, I promised my man a dance and that he could touch my butt. I always keep my promises!”

“YOUR MAN?”

You ran before they could question you further, right towards Mat, who held his arms open for you. Hiding things was never your strong suit, so you two had decided to not even bother.

“They look like you just told them the world is going to end tonight, what happened?” He asked, bringing you into his arms for all the world to see. Clearly he was ready to make everyone aware you were an item, and you weren’t going to object.

“I called you my man, and then immediately walked away.” You smiled up at him.

“Oh you did?”

“Yes sir.”

“I guess that does leave us with the big question.”

“What question?”

“What are we going to do with us? Did this weekend make you want to see me again?” Great opportunities rarely presented themselves at your doorstep. Mat had treated you better in the last 24 hours than a lot of people and you already knew your loved ones approved. It felt right, your gut always had a good feeling about these things. It would always be fun to tell the grandkids you met at a wedding, you’d tell them the part about the bar when they were old enough.

“I said you were my man, did I not?”

“Well you did keep me waiting ma’am, that’s a criminal offense. I’m not sure if I’m your man yet.” He said through a smile.

“Oh is that so?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Nah I’m just fuckin with you, I’ve been dying to kiss you all night.” He brought his hands up to cup either side of your face, and kissed you in a way that shouldn’t be in the middle of your best friends wedding reception.

“You don’t want to touch my butt?” You ask when you finally pull apart.

“Of course I do, but if I touch your butt right now we would be leaving this party within the next few minutes and I believe we both have important things to do.” He whispered in your ear, giving him a look. A look that said I know you want to take my clothes off right now, so I’m going to do my best to tease you. After pulling away, Mat offered you his hand for the dance you had promised.

Standing in the middle of the dance floor with him, while looking at your surroundings and seeing how happy your best friend was, kind of hit you like a sack of bricks. A few years ago if someone had told you this was where your life would end up, you’d have called them crazy. You felt him kiss your forehead as you danced, and you felt yourself melt into him a little. You had no defenses against him, your walls suddenly disappeared when he was near. If he was out of your sight, suddenly the world wasn’t as clear anymore. Maybe summer wasn’t just a time for flings, because this one felt different. Who would have thought just one summer weekend could be so life changing.

........

Half a summer and one year later…

You couldn’t believe you were standing where you were. Summer was starting to become your favorite season. The only thing that brought you back down to earth was the squeeze you felt on your hand from your new husband. The look of reassurance on his face told you all that you needed to know, that he loved you and that you’d be fine. Crowds weren’t always your thing, even if it was your own wedding.

“You ready?”

He knew the timing of your entrance better than anyone, and you could hear Tito start to speak from the other side of the door. The doors opened, blinding you with light. You felt one last squeeze, and then your brain managed to get your feet to start moving again.

“My friends, it is my honor and great pleasure to introduce to you for the very first time… MR. AND MRS. MATHEW BARZAL!”

[tac-the-unseen]

OUAGH the last one gave me the idea of a musician reader x slasher

If I were to suggest a specific genre maybe they’re into rock because. Yeah.

Could you do something with that?

Slashers x Musician Reader

Micheal Myers:

•Plays it off but thinks it cool as hell

•He did play the piano for a very short time in his childhood, but the ward made him very rusty 

•Will happily watch any concerts you put on for him

•Will Secretly watch you if you don't 

Billy loomis & Stu macher:

•They both immediately pitch in a song request 

•They bring up the fact that you play an instrument to win arguments with people 

•Will eventually find a way to break your instrument 

•They will be very apologetic about it 

•attempts to replace it 

Thomas Hewitt:

•very interested 

•He's curious by nature, he wants to know everything he can about it 

•Your instrument is the most expensive thing in the house 

•daydreams about being able to play a song for you, one day

•until then, he'll try to figure it out himself 

Bubba Sawyer:

•Tries to sing along when you play

•he also dances but always ends up knocking stuff over

•Will sit in front of the door so her brothers can't get in while you're playing

•They constantly complain about the racket 

•Chop-top will occasionally sit in while you play 

Bo Sinclair:

•immediately shows you his acoustic 

•brags about how he can out play you

•loses miserably because he only practiced for a couple months 

•mad about it

•polishes its case whenever he comes around to it 

Vincent Sinclair:

•romanticizes it by thinking about how you're two different types of artists 

•Sketches you playing your instrument 

•Sheepishly asks you to pose

•makes a mini wax sculpture of your instrument 

•He get super giddy if you play a song for him

Lester Sinclair:

•extremely impressed 

•He's always thought of being able to play an instrument as a high class/rich person activity 

•Falls asleep while you play, Not because you're boring, But because he finds it soothing 

•will find out how to care for your instrument so he can help repair any damages it might face

Billy Lenz:

•probably was the reason He zeroed in on you in the first place 

•fines it incredibly alluring and wanted you to play all the time 

•Will find a way to get his grubby hands on your instrument 

•Will eventually break it but not feel sorry 

•(Not So) patiently waits for you to get it fixed

Brahms Heelshire:

•He can play the piano and just uses it as another excuse to hang out with you 

•looks up songs to properly make a duet with you 

•whenever conversations died down or get a little stale, he whips out the instrument card 

•whether you did or didn't know how to play an instrument he's going to romanticize it anyway 

Hannibal Lecter:

•insists on making some kind of duet with you, and whether or not your instruments align with each other 

•buy stuff to make for your instrument is a mint condition 

•’humbly’ braggs about your talent at his dinner parties 

•Will make you food associated with your instrument(s) (look that up, it's a real thing because of course it is)

Will Graham:

•Like to watch you play whatever it is you play

•He's never really had any interest in instruments, But he starts listening to videos featuring your instrument. 

•Casually asks Hannibal facts about your instrument 

•makes you a little charm related to your instrument to put on your keychain 

•Has flashbacks to the guy with his throat turned into a Cello 

The Lost Boys:

•They all at some point have picked up an instrument 

•David can play the Piano, Organ, violin, and guitar

•Dwayne can play the Hand drums, flute, and Bass guitar

•Paul can play the clarinet, electric guitar, French horn, and marimba 

•Marko can play the Drums, Harp, Cello, and viola

•They have all genuinely considered starting a band 

•No matter what you play, you'll fit in

Thanks for reading <3

I went for a more neutral tone with this fic. Because I don't want to write 16 other fanfics about specific music genres ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠🎀)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[lokideservesahug]

Always that good?

-°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°--°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°-Pairings: Charles Leclerc x gn! (I think) reader, Arthur Leclerc x reader (platonic)

Warnings: Swearing some French but I didn't use translate so it's probably all wrong. One mention of 'the deed' but it's brief. Brief mentions of drinking/being tipsy. I'm sorry if you have a pizza/garlic bread allergy😔

Notes: Its white fast paced and I'm not as happy with this peice as I have been wit others but here we go... 1/4 SMAU 3/4 writing so sorry if that's not your thing. Also I don't think I wrote this with anything gender specific but pls tell me if it isn't gender neutral!

Summary: You've been best friends with Arthur for over a year now... so why does his brother look so good?

-°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°--°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°-

☆-☆-☆-☆-☆

☆-☆-☆-☆-☆

☆-☆-☆-☆-☆

For a man who supposedly strictly sticks to his diet, Charles was all to eager to get his hands on the greasy concoctions you brought with you. He also didn't seem to dislike spending the evening as just the two of you. Neither did you but part of that was because the garlic bread was to die for.

As the night progressed, the Monagasque brought some beers from the Arthur's fridge. Despite you chastising him for stealing from his brother, Charles said that his brother wouldn't care and the beers could always be replaced. So, the two of you began to drink some beer along with your dinner. At some point along the way, the television was turned on but you weren't paying attention to it at all. All you could focus on was Charles. The way his eyelashes fluttered to a close as he took another sip; the way his addams apple bobbed slightly at the same time.

If you could get away with it, you would would stare into his eyes forever. They were captivating. The same man you were admiring then begins to break the silence by starting up conversation.

"This is very nice pizza. Where is it from?" "The pizza parlour just down the road, they've only just stared allowing people to take meals to go though." You see him nod in understanding at your words.

Before you can find yourself staring at him any longer and risking making it wierd, you turn your attention towards the television. As the programme changes, you find yourself gasping. You can almost feel the man next to you giving you a curious look but as the title to your favourite television show comes on screen, he laughs in understanding.

This pulls your attention back to him and you ask "What?" He doesn't even miss a beat before he replies "Nothing. You're just endearing" he finishes the remark with a smile. You can feel your cheeks heat as you respond "Sorry. It's my favourite show" this pulls a laugh out of him. "No need to apologise chérie and like I said, it's sweet."

This causes you to look down. You turn and face the television but continue to speak to the man next to you. You occasionally turn to him whilst speaking. "It's been a very long time since I've seen this. Arthur pays for different channels to me and with everything these days, the rights shows are always swapping between people and channels."

You didn't catch Charles' smile drop but you did notice his slightly deflated sounding tone "I'm surprised you dont live with him then." This causes you to pause. I mean yeah Arthur's your best friend but that doesn't mean you should live together- especially not with your difference in music tastes. You'd probably strangle him for listening to the same, boring, simple songs for hours on end before you could even finish the first week of living together.

"Hm? Why would I do that" Your enquiry causes his brows to furrow and he asks "Oh. Are you not at that stage in your relationship yet." Relationship? What does he-? Oh no...Oh no... Oh no.

You simultaneously visibly deflate and start laughing after his words sink in. Charles, who clearly finds it nowhere near as funny asks "What. Why are you laughing?"

"You- you" Unable to finish your sentence without it ending in a fit of cackles, you laughing some more, take some deep breaths and clarify the source of your amusement. "Charles, Arthur and I aren't dating. You know that right?" His lips form an 'O' and he looks down almost embarrassed as he shakes his head.

"But I've heard you saying that you ahd a thing for a Lecle-" He stops and grins as you both come to the realisation of what he's saying. Now it's your turn to look down in embarrassment and his to start laughing.

"Shut up." Your words clearly hold no weight and when you find him looking at you, eyes gleaming. You find yourself falling for him even more.

"So Chérie...you have a thing for Leclercs?" His eyebrows wiggle and when you both split into bursts of laughter, you could tell have dreamed of a better way to spend your evening.

☆-☆-☆-☆-☆

☆-☆-☆-☆-☆

-°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°--°•°•°•°•--•°•°•°•°-

Thank you for reading! As always, likes, reblogs and especially feedback is always welcome!

Also my inbox is open if you ever have a request!

Taglist: @nikfigueiredo @mysoulispainted @leclercings @d3kstar @hiireadstuff @a-beaverhausen @nichmeddar @lozzamez3 @stinkyjax @marymustdie @littlesatanicassholebitch @mehrmonga @insanedeathwish @ems-alexandra @a-disturbing-self-reflection @cherry-piee

[fivewantscoffee]

Yeah, if it was going to be a broken timelines issue, it would make so much more sense for Five to be the reason they are broken in the first place. I wish we'd gone with that instead of... you know.

Then the subway existing has an actual point, because the inciting incident was when our Five (the original Five) time travelled for the first time. And they still have to sacrifice the current versions of themselves to fix that but it isn't all bleak and for nothing.

Reginald and Allison's world still ends because of the Cleanse or whatever, but that isn't where it ends.

Five transports them all to the subway and sits them down to explain what's going on. The constant, non-stop apocalypses aren't random: they're a symptom of the broken timelines. They're trying to repair themselves by ending the world because they were never supposed to exist in the first place.

Five gets to have his total breakdown over being the reason the world keeps ending, then Lila eventually proposes a way to try and fix things.

Cue to the Hargreeves having to try and find their original timeline, getting lost for some time and all that.

Diego and Lila work out their issues. Allison gets to address her entire S3 Thing. She apologises to Luther, and then they can maybe have a heart to heart about how Allison got Claire back, but it cost Luther his wife.

The six-year timeskip is explored in some more detail, revealing what they did after separating at the end of S3, the hardships they faced, how they reconnected and got to where they were when the season began.

So, they find the right timeline eventually. They step out into Five's apocalypse and travel back in time to the day he time-travelled for the first time. The plan is to convince him not to.

They don't know if this is going to work, but it's all that's left to try. If they do nothing, the apocalypses are just going to keep on happening regardless. They can keep running, but there will always be something world-ending right behind them.

So they wait for Five to run out of the academy, all of thirteen and about to ruin his life in a jump our Five has regretted since the day he made it. This time, they confront him before he jumps.

They convince him not to time travel, telling him exactly what it is this jump will lead to. Five doesn't soften the blow or mince words; he needs his past self not to time travel, to never use this facet of his powers again.

Time wasn't made to be messed with.

They succeed, Five's past self doesn't time travel. He blinks back inside, to his room presumably, because he's not about to face Reginald right now.

The Hargreeves all stand around for a moment, looking at the Academy, at each other. Eventually, Klaus nudges Five. They all turn around and leave, too.

They end up at a park, where they sit down, they talk, and as time passes, they start to feel it.

The future - their past - is being changed.

All of the offshoot timelines are being erased, and theirs might have been the first one, but it is still an offshoot. In changing the past, this version of Five is also no longer the original. We get an actual, heartfelt goodbye before they all go.

Next, we see Five and his siblings as young adults in the original, fixed timeline. They're all nineteen, and as we bounce around from one character to another, we see what they're up to:

Luther walks into a coffee shop. He orders something, and as the camera pans to show the person at the till, a French exchange student who looks a lot like Sloane is revealed to be taking his order.

We see a floor being mopped. It's Diego in a slightly bare-looking apartment, large cardboard boxes scattered all around while he listens to music and dances to it. He's clearly in the process of moving house, and Eudora is there to help him. Grace's cross stitch hangs on the wall.

Allison is at an audition. She looks excited and a little bit nervous, but mostly happy to be here. When her turn comes around, she is 100% ready for it.

Klaus, Five, and Ben are all doing their own thing. Five is attending a university lecture. Ben is alive. Viktor is seen playing the violin, using his powers.

Finally, Lila is at the airport, boarding a plane. She puts on a pair of headphones, and music starts blasting. Fade to black.

The narrator says his part about how on the eighth day of August 2024 absolutely nothing happened. It was a normal day. The end, credits roll etc. etc.

[girlreviews]

Review #146: Parallel Lines, Blondie

Man oh man oh man. I love Blondie so much. I found this record in the Windsor Oxfam. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but I remember what boyfriend was with me so that puts me between 15 and 18. Yeah, same guy. I actually don’t remember if he ended up getting his hands on this record or not. I think I still have it. Will rifle through my collection later to check.

Blondie was in the “being cool” wilderness for some absolutely crazy reason at that point, and nobody really gave a shit about them anymore. When I was 17 or 18 they were playing the Reading Hexagon which is honestly still just such an unbelievable insult I’m still annoyed about it. I’ll circle back to that.

Parallel Lines epitomizes the complete and total coolness and badassery of Debbie Harry. I have never wanted to be someone more than I wanted to be her. So much confidence. Such incredible cheekbones. Such commitment to art. No apologies. The voice of an angel one moment and snarling whimsical warnings, like, hey you, don’t fuck with me, the next. Always standing in front of all of those completely non-descript nobody dudes. Yeah they’re playing the music, but who cares, who are they? It’s all her. She is Blondie.

Can I pick a favorite? It opens with Hanging on the Telephone, in which she is really threatening to rip the phone clean off the wall. It might be that one. But we’ve also got the classic One Way Or Another, which needs no comment, and one of my actual favorites of all time, Heart of Glass which never fails to fuck me up, but like, it’s a god damn disco track? Like sure, yeah, let’s boogie away our heart break. And I did. And I have. And I will. And these are all SINGLES. We aren’t even discussing the actual album tracks yet. Just listen to it. Honorable mention goes to Sunday Girl, which I always really loved. It’s cute and it’s kind of sweet in a very teenage girl kind of way that worked for me since I was in fact, a teenage girl. Also, not on the official album release, but there was a version of that track where the latter half was sung entirely in French and I always really dug it.

Okay so circling back to the Hexagon. This is a weird story and I’m still not sure how I feel about it, to this day. As I said, Blondie were playing a show at the Hexagon. I was absolutely obsessed with them, and Debbie Harry. I was also 17 or 18 and spent every penny I had on going to shows, but those pennies were pretty limited. I worked as a waitress at the pub that was two doors down from my house. It was full of characters. One such character was a regular, he was in his late 40s, was very wealthy, didn’t drive, was single, and spent literally every bit of his spare time in that pub. Think on that. He paid a lot of attention to the various young women that worked there. Was he creepy? No not exactly. But did it make you uncomfortable? Yes it did. Because you never knew when he might make it weird. Everyone liked him well enough. One day out of the blue this guy presented me with five tickets to the Blondie show. I didn’t know what in the hell to say or whether to accept them. Or what it meant. Whether there were expectations attached to them. Whether it was okay to take them. I was uncomfortable. I was 17.

Here’s what happened. My Mom, who sort of knew him too, since he was always there, decided it was fine, because she wanted to go. But for it to be okay, she decided he also had to come. So we went, he came, and a few friends too. The thing is though, she never knew him like I did. I saw him every day. I saw him with the other girls that worked at the pub. I saw him drunk off his ass. I don’t know that I ever would have taken the tickets. Or if I did, I’m not sure I ever would have invited him. I feel a bit queasy about it to this day. I think in the end something really off-base happened one night between him and someone on staff and he got barred. That was usually the way it went with regulars who were there that often.

The other thing to note is that Blondie ended because Debbie Harry was with Chris Stein, who was literally dying of some rare autoimmune disease throughout their last tour. There were other factors at play, but essentially, they broke up because he was too sick and she stayed at his side and became his full-time carer. When he was well, he left her. They are, remarkably, still close friends to this day and still perform together. Just never forget that men are dogs, and that Blondie is and always will be Debbie Harry. I love her. To this day she looks better than I do in a mini skirt and I love that for her.

ETA: I checked and in fact, I do not still have Parallel Lines in my record collection, but I am quite confident it got lost when I moved back to the US. Also, I’m not 100% certain that show was at the Reading Hexagon. I just know it was a shitty venue not worthy of Blondie. This was 18 years ago. You get the idea.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Some comments on episode 3 / episode 10 - SPOILERS * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Daniel not wanting to eat the living fish…. yeah I can empathize

Raglan James - Is that a real name???? (LOL)

Love the banter

Daniel doubting how many Rashid’s there are… indeed

I like that they’re echoing Louis being away in last season this one as well

The underlying threat of Armand being able to kill them all if he so chose

That audio visualization will become important still I bet

How do you hide from the cloud indeed

Louis being asleep during the day?! Why this time? He was awake during the day before?

“Lestat’s prophetic vision”

Yes, be snarky Daniel :)

Flashback!!!!

Ugh incineration by fire gift

Oh Armand watching Lestat as harlequin - he has it baaaaad

Armand hinting that Lestat has powers he has not touched, and them talking to each other in their minds….

Viens a moi! Come to me!!! There it is! Armand said it to Lestat, yes baby!

And Armand admitting to stalking and then kidnapping.

And I love that they’re doing it all in French - I cannot quite judge but hope it’s well done

mhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh YES I CANNOT LIE I APPRECIATE IT AND I LOVE IT

the time freezing was so well done

Gosh Nicki. Gosh that feeding

to summarize: Liar, liar, pants on fire (LOL), but I love it. Ah yes, great fanfic, I like

Great now I will imagine Lestat and Armand beeeeeeeep in that box for ETERNITY lol

And Daniel… not buying it lol

“He abandoned xyz”… ohhhh there we have it. There we have it (not). The crux of the whole matter.

Louis knows what’s up. Deep down he knows. But them matching the stories is almost cute.

Claudia humbling herself like this to be part of it all breaks my heart

The sneezing made me cry with laughter

Ahhhh the wet room. And the rats. And the tombs. The tombs. Ohhhhh they’re so gonna lock Louis up there later. Oh boy.

“That’s a bit german” re the incinerator !!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Holy shit?!)

God Lestat interrupting that moment. And Armand sensing “Bruce”. Daaaamn.

Daniel getting distracted but the Talamasca. Who have access to his computer. (!!!)

“Where is Claudia at this point” 😔 (and no answer)

Santiago’s maker being down in the tombs is IMMENSELY interesting. WHO THE FUCK IS HE

Also him telling Claudia that her lies are almost convincing….

The “come to me” scene. Even better in total. Oh Louis. Armand calling him out on it.

And the philosophical discussion there. The admission despite the warning. Something Louis ALMOST remembers…

“that’s debatable” - “she did”. Oh MAN LOUIS

“I told you I loved you” - “And you said nothing.” Holy hell.

THAT KISS. the music.

It’s RAW.

God they’re on another level

AND THE PHOTO: Lestat being there… and then vanishing!!!!

Louis knows. He knows. Also that little story Claudia makes up there… oof.

The Bacon triptych - that is so weird. WHO wants to buy it. I BET that’s important.

And Daniel using the time to go through the material and find the proof of the theater burning.

The coven pressuring Armand. I LOVED that. The trepidation. Ugh.

And them throwing Louis out when she is initiated. Does he know of the five laws??????

And Claudia’s expression at the laws. Oh maaaannnnnn.

And I KNEW it!! Armand is playing with the fire there “threatening” Louis. I mean, he ultimately doesn’t, but he ALMOST does. The discussion in the sewers. The foreshadowing once more. Louis calling on what Armand promised, and Armand throwing the lies into his face. DAMN.

And Armand stating that Claudia won’t be there for long.

God I knew the coven would go and humiliate Claudia with that role. I knew it. Damn. Her face.

“The Savage Garden”. The roaring of the fire behind Louis. More foreshadowing.

“Did he break you? Or did you break him?” 😭😭

A century ago. Yesterday. So much pain.

That kiss. And Louis inviting Armand in on the premise that he won’t kill him!!!!!!!!!! Holy shit.

NO PAIN.

AAAAALLLLLLL THE PAIN.

Argh, loved it, maybe a favorite so far. There is so much going on. So much foreshadowing. So much knowledge suppressed, or endured. So much bitter realization. So many things hinted at and introduced.

Also, as clear as it is (and was said in the episode insider) that this is Armand’s little fanfic version… (as Assad how much of it is used to "paint Armand in a good light"?!) :))) . It was a LOT of fun. :)

And that banquet scene will be in the next episode already!! Whoop whoop, cannot wait!

[aristotto]

(I shall post everything I have not posted here before but deleted from Twitter)

First of hello, hi TUMBLR!!! This is my MD OC. Her name is Ari. Ahhhh a lot of info in the picture too.

(Her eyes are periwinkle by the way (more blue than purple) it may look strange on some screens. On my phone they look pink lol.)

(Before you ask-- Yes I speak french— Spanish and English too, currently learning mandarin. I got the languages autism i guess. —I went to high school in Rhône-Alpes. Studied theatre. I keep everything in english though, I know it's a more common and comfortable language)

Now... Lore.

Ari and her family (mom, dad, little brother) used to live in a small colony about 7-8 hours by foot from the next closest colony, where Uzi and the other members of the cast live in Copper-9. Her father (who I still have to name, but so far in the story he has only been called "Papa" by his daughter, and "Ash" by someone who doesn't even know him) definitely has something wrong with him, with his programming. He is a pathological liar and is quite paranoid, thinking anything can be held against him. This is why after a commercial dispute with a colleague, he decided to leave everything behind and take his whole family with him to another colony.

Oh yeah, here, have some music in the meantime (a friend told me it reminded her of Ari, so I'll leave it here):

I quote one of my writings:

"The family was ambushed as they moved from their previous colony to this one. It was quite the risky move, if I do say so myself. I think Ash is his name? The father. Both his wife and youngest child were killed.

As for his firstborn...

She's damaged.

She played dead. Her voice box was mangled, and even though it was repaired... It seems she doesn't want to speak anymore. Her program must have gotten corrupted. After all she was pretty beaten up, she couldn't even walk by herself that day.

She's a weird one, but she has proven herself to be very useful. Good at sewing apparently, and she's done some mechanical fixes here and there.

Good for her"

Her father is a clockmaker, her mother was a dressmaker. She learnt from both, but she is not an expert in either.

After the incident her father insisted in taking care of her by himself. He knew better, apparently. However... It did seem every fix was temporary, as her knees would stop working again in a matter of hours. Something wasn't right.

Her father is obsessed with control and being called a hero, being called a fighter and a loving father. He wants Ari to depend solely on him, this is why, unbeknownst to his daughter, he has been inflicting her these wounds. Salt water accelerates oxidation, and hidden in a can of antioxidant, the child wouldn't know.

This is when she comes back to school. She doesn't speak to anyone, but other kids seem curious about "the girl with wheels".

One kid in specific was kind enough to say hello one day.

(I am really bad at drawing, but you get the idea).

Doll gave her the bell she uses to communicate.

"You're not broken, you're not incomplete".

These are words Ari would never forget.

They used to be friends. Not close, just occasionally spending time together. As they became older they also grew apart. Doll joined the cheerleader team, made new friends, became more social. And Ari could walk by herself and didn't really need help pushing her wheelchair anymore. They both became their own people.

Ari never stopped thinking about her friend. She had a crush on her but she kept denying her own feelings. How could she? She must've only been confused.

Besides, she would have sworn Doll forgot about her.

She didn't though.

After Doll's parents passed, Ari got her wake up call to start working on mechanics. Despite the pain on her knees, she started sneaking out every now and then to pick up drone scrap parts. She dressed on her father's coat and covered her face, but the rumors started anyways. A limping figure carrying a heavy bag through the halls at night... "The Collector". Beware or it might take your limbs too!

Ari was determined to help reassemble worker drones in hopes of one day helping Doll with her parents, too. What she didn't know was how to recover the cores, so she never really succeeded in bringing anyone back.

She was one day approached by Doll, which surprised her, because she wanted help fixing her prom dress. This day while measuring her she finally realized she felt something more than friendship towards her, but she ever spoke about it.

She never did until it was too late.

Picture this after the events of episode 5, before Doll left the colony. (Forgive my badly done comic layouts)

She broke silence but... also broke her voice box again because well, she screamed, and she hadn't said a word in years.

Last resource... Throwing the bell at her.

Of course that love was not reciprocated.

"Save your tears. We'll talk when I come back, this is not a battle I can run from."

She did not come back.

Ever since the end of the events of the show, Ari has been trying to bring back Doll. A new body, yes, but she wants her to be alright again even if her love is not reciprocated. She doesn't care about that. She just thinks she didn't deserve to die.

I'll end part 1 here.

There's a lot more to go, and very little space for images.

Thank you

[moonisagremlin]

insane. TALK TO ME ABOUT YOUR HCS!! ( if you want to) i love spanish speaking mercs in general AWGH

ASDSFGGHGFGFDDDS @bimbombimbo LET ME GO FIND MY NOTES-

okay i found them :D keep in mind this is specifically about which Spain's regions they would be from (because, well, i'm spanish). Also, let's ignore TF2 takes place between 1969 - 1971 because, well, fascist dictatorship, y'know? (it is an interesting concept to further explore, but i'm not feeling like thinking about this rn. i'll make another post i think) ALSO these are mostly based around vibes and how i'm feeling (because headcanons are supposed to be fun).

Offense:

Scout - I couldn't decide between making him Madrileño (from Madrid) or Barceloní (from Barcelona) (but I honestly would ADORE making him from Barcelona so i'm most probably going for that one). I also couldn't choose to make him a cani or a pijo. (I am now realising the amounts of spanish slang i'm saying, so let me explain it to everyone who isn't from spain:

pijo means... umm, kinda like, spoiled rich kid who is kinda mean or an idiot. and cani means, umm... adidas tracksuit, cigarettes, alcohol, horrible music taste, being completely reckless, really disrespectful in general. idk, i think it is because both these kinds of people feel like thery're the best, like, they are really "chulos" and kinda brag about being bad people. i don't know it is so hard to explain slang, let me know if you kinda got the vibe that i'm explaining please thank you)

Soldier - Castellano-manchego. I will just say one thing: Don Quijote de la Mancha. If you don't know who this is, go read the book please, it is the best piece of literature ever, thank you.

Pyro - Extremeño or Murciano. A lot of people joke about Murcia not existing or being like, a Thaumiel SCP, and also about Extremadura being kinda weird(?. honestly, even i do not know that much about it, so yeah, i just think it is funny to make the character we know the least about in canon from the places that i know are kinda weird and unkown (unknown to me at least). I think I'm also leaning for Murcia more because my grandpa was from there and that's cool.

Defense:

Demoman - Gallego. I wanted to make him from Euskalerria, but I think Galicia is more similar to Scotland (and because doing a bomb joke is childish and they're not funny. people have died from terrorism and it is not something from a century ago, this is extremely recent). Anyways, both Scotland and Galicia have really green land, similar weather conditions, amazing culture, and are really unique in general. Also because my grandpa was from there and that's really cool.

Heavy - Vasco. I also didn't make Demoman basque because Heavy fits SO much better. It's, it's the vibes, man. I imagine he would have some trouble speaking spanish because he would be from such an isolated village in an already (geographically) isolated part of Spain that he would be kinda monolingual, mostly speaking basque and knowing some basic spanish. He would be SO connected with his culture, I swear I might do more research and do a whole post about the traditions he would like.

Engie - Andaluz. Andalucia is located in the south and the people there have really good vibes honestly. I think he fits because he's so nice and welcoming, and because I also think him being loud and having such a distinct accent would be amazing. And also I think he would love singing and playing and dancing flamenco. (UGHHHH I LOVE ALL OF THIS HEADCANONS I THINK I MIGHT DO A WHOLE AU DEDICATED TO THIS AAAAGAGAHAHAHHHHHHH)

Support:

Spy - This bastard is still giving me a headache. He's too french 😭. But seriously, I cannot choose to make him andorrano (and I know Andorra is a separate country from Spain but, idk), català (because at least ONE of the mercs was going to be from where I am from, y'know?) or make him catalan but specifically from la Vall d'Aran (a region where, apart from speaking spanish and catalan, aranès, a variation of the Occitan language, is spoken). Making him from la Vall d'Aran would be CRAZY because that would mean he speaks Spanish, Catalan, Aranese, AND PROBABLY FRENCH TOO BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT NEXT TO FRANCE. That would make him (almost) PLURILINGUAL since birth, and i think that is wayyy too cool. Also, IMAGINE IF SCOUT WAS FROM BARCELONA AND HE AND SPY COULD BOTH TALK IN CATALAN AND BOND THANKS TO THAT AND- IMAGINE THE DADSPY POTENTIAL AAAHAAAHAAAAAAAAAAA-

Sniper - Canario. He would be from the Canary islands because, yes. I don't really have a reason honestly, maybe similar climate to Australia? Or, idk, i think it would also be cool to make him have some kind of latin american ancestry because a lot of people from the Canary islands fled Spain during the Civil War and ended up in places like Mexico and Argentina and stuff, so that would be cool. Or I could make him straight up latino, which would fit him honestly. I don't really know, both options are really cool.

Medic - Mallorquí/Menorquí. From Islas Baleares in general. This is because A LOT of germans go on vacation there, to the point this is a huge meme in Spain. So yeah, I think it would be funny to make him balear with german ancestry I guess. He can speak spanish, german but also catalan (because catalan is also spoken there), but he has a really strong accent and sometimes Spy and Scout need to really focus on what he's saying to understand what he means. Seriously, if you hear MY western accent and compare it with a eastern balearic accent/dialect you would say they're NOT the same language because of how different it all sounds.

Bonus characters!

The Mann brothers, possibly the Admin?... blablabla, all of those people - Madrileños (from Madrid). The Mann brothers convinced Zepheniah to buy some land in the middle of Aragón and you know what happened.

Miss Pauling - Valenciana (from Valencia). Idk i don't wanna make everyone from Madrid y'know? And also guess what language she speaks apart from Spanish :)

Saxton Hale - Same thing as Sniper, I don't really know if he should be full latino or canario with latinamerican ancestry.

Merasmus - Idk. Portuguese? Andorran? Asturiano? Navarro? I don't know. Galician would be cool as fuck tho because there are a lot of legends and myths about magic and stuff and idk, i have a book about celtic witchcraft and i could read it i think.

Woah, this is a LONG post I am sorry. I hope you learned something about Spanish culture (which doesn't only surround about paellas and flamenco, please). And I hope I do some fanfics or fanart from this AU (can I call this an AU? i don't really know). And if anyone wants to adopt these headcanons or do a similar kind of post, you have my permission (even though you don't need to) and PLEASE, tag me if you make a fanart or something similar I would LOVE to see it <333

[dudefromwormhole]

Hazbin Hotel Headcanons:D

That I collected through the internet and now have and absolutely adore. Feel free to add yours:)

Warning for cannibalism and possible spoilers. Enjoy:)

Alastor

1) Alastor rather eats meat of his possible victims than organs. He finds them edible, but just doesn’t like it.

2) Alastor never shares his food. And even when/if he is cooking something for others, he will cook the same food in the separate bowl just for himself.

3) Even if Alastor fell in love he would never(or really unlikely) realise that. Possibly because his own ego and beliefs.

4) Alastor sometimes fantasises about him being executed rather than his own original death. His favourites so far: hanging and electric chair.

5) Alastor would have a love/hate relationship with Will Wood’s music(yes.) just because he despises and underastimates all modern music.

6) Alastor has literal piles of old(and sometimes broken)radios.

7) Alastor hates discussing love and relationships, if they’re not about breaks up, while Rosie adores talking about them.

8) Sometimes Alastor cannot control his shadow. In terms of where it goes and what it does. So yeah, sometimes he walks around without shadow.

Rosie

1) The stuff Rosie proposed to Charlie when they met was prepared by herself.

Also I think Rosie can cook anything(aside from bones perhaps). She knows a lot of recipes about how to cook organs, different types of seasonings, etc.

2) Rosie has Belgic roots. Or French. I feel like she speaks French and maybe Italian or something. I haven’t decided.

3) Rosie only likes to drink dry semi-sweet wine among the alcohol beverages.

4) If Rosie would ever open a fashion business, all her clothes would be with embroidery. She loves embroidery and is pretty good at making it.

The Vees

1) Vox has a love/hate relationship with an electro swing. He likes it, but also “hates” it just because Alastor also likes it. He also likes dubstep and techno genres.

2) Valentino’s afraid of tickling.

3) Val’s also absolutely cannot sleep with the lights turn on, because he’s a moth.

4) Vox was absolutely horrified when he got to Hell and realised that he’s a fucking TV. If there wasn’t a constant danger of getting killed, he would probably sit in the corner of some building in shock.

5) Velvete uses Vox as powerbank.

6) Valentino’s eyesight got worse especially after he realised that he can use Vox’s head when he’s asleep, so now he kinda watches whatever he wants on his head when he’s bored.

7) And also Val and Velvete play the console using Vox(ye, the comic:))

8) In earlier days Vox was absolutely disgusted by someone touching his screen(in first days(look up #4) himself included), but as the time went and also the upgrade, change in themes, he kinda suppressed this disgust.

9) Velvete likes strawberry in chocolate.

10) Vox can draw decently, he just usually doesn’t have time and much imagination to do so.

11) Also Vox has a bad habit of tearing paper to keep his hands busy. By that I mean any paper. So yeah. There were some accidents.

Residents of the Hotel

1) Residents of the Hotel bump into Nifty at least two time per day.

2) Sir Pentious hates stairs.

3) One of the reasons why Husk hates his form is because he cant stop throwing off hairballs.

4) Angel can keep important secrets.

5) Nifty and Charlie both likes those bright and colourful plasters.

6) Vaggie is allergic to citruses(lightly but still).

7) Cherri makes her coffee with energy drinks. Tastes awful, but at least she’s full of energy to kick someone’s ass.

8) Husk knows a lot of card games and also taught the Eggbois how to play couple of them so they’d stop bothering him so much.

9) When he was alive, Husk used to travel and move from one country to another quite often.

10) Sir Pentious when he has a shower, always takes his Eggbois with himself.

11) The reason why Sir Pentious’ ship was covered with plasters was because his Eggbois thought they would actually heal it.

12) Lucifer will never admit that process of making ducks stopped bringing him as much happiness as it used to. But after seven years of just making them, trying to keep his mind off his problems, it just became a routine.

13) One of the reasons why Lilith decided to “disappear” was because at night Lucifer constantly stepped on his ducks and then screamed and cried and apologised to them, making it harder to sleep.

14) Charlie used to make little theatre shows with her toys when she was younger.

15) When Vaggie and Charlie’s relationship got a little more established, they had a whole trip through rings of Hell.

16) Lucifer has a handmade duck copy of every person that he met. He made the most absurd one for Alastor, of course

17) Angel is scared of swallowing bubblegum, because he genuinely believes that his gut will glue together if he does so.

18) Vaggie can’t stand sleeping covered.

Other Overlords

1) Zestial is a tea nerd. I think he would actually do those Chinese ceremonies and stuff. It’s like… the more he appreciates you, the more effort he would put into tea x)

2) Carmilla was(and maybe is?) a big fan of ballet and took classes when she was alive.

Other

1) Adam would love Beetlejuice. In any form, cartoon one, film, musical… He would be a fan.

2) Adam hates waking up at the morning and tells to “fuck off I’m a Gods fucking son” to anyone who tries to wake him up.

3) Adam hates tomatoes and will absolutely roast anyone who eats them when he’s near. Except for Lute.

4) When Heavens court plans to set up a party they usually don’t plan to invite Sera and St Peter.

5) Mimzy is the one who talks about her previous life more than anyone else, each time adding almost unrealistic details.

6) Adam calls his Exterminators group "tits" for because they are woman and there's a bird like that.

6)(this one is to Hell in general) I like to think that you don't die in Hell in a way that when you recieve a deadly wound your body just kinda... gets more regeneration, so you still feel pain untill the wound is healed, but you don't die. So when Exterminators stab sinners with angelic weapons, process of regeneration stops, which gives them opportunity to die.

7) Though Vox created his own special kind of dying for himself. When his screen gets badly damaged, he changes it, so same goes with his body. I think he has a folder somewhere with his personality.

[their80smichelle]

Hiii I got a request! Orginally I had this idea down even wrote it on my masterlist but just wasnt working out after I tried to rewrite it.

Anyways, they chilling at his place and Dave Mustaine teach reader French (it's okay if u dont use french words lol) after hearing his recent song A Toute Le Monde, she wanted to learn as well. Feel free to do whatever lol 🙏

look at him go

a/n: Hiii! I. love. It. As a first request it’s really cool.🔥🩷

Sorry it’s long I was inspired- hope it’s okay and not too bad and that I respected your request (I feel like I rushed it at the end) (I'm always scared to post stuffs I write.)

Of course I used French words cause… I am French🤧

Time to tell you French is absolutely not sexy when YOU ARE French💀(I made myself giggle while writing this request though.)

🥖🇫🇷Also, Dave said the lyrics meant “to the entier world, to all my friends, I love you, I must go.”

But I would have translated it as “to everyone, to all my friends, I love you, I have to go.” Cause “to the entier world” in French it’s “Au monde entier.” There’s not a big difference but it’s still different. And for “je dois partir” it means you HAVE TO. But again, there’s no big difference.

Warnings: grammar obviously, French, fluff, is it cheesy? It definitely is, cliché lol

Anyway, hope you’re going to enjoy it!! 🩷

You and Dave were at his place chilling, eating popcorn and watching TV. You were sat on the couch and Dave was on a chair checking a magazine.

Megadeth just released their new song “A Tout Le Monde” and you already love it. But since the title and some lyrics were not in English you were wondering what it meant and why he wrote it in another language.

“Hey Dave…” he looks at me and smile, “Hey you…”

“Can I ask you a question about your song?” You ask turning your head toward him. “Sure, which one?”

“Hmmmm…” You hum and narrow your eyes unsure on how to pronounce it. You could see his smirk forming on his face. “The last one.” You speak. At least you were sure to not mispronounce it. Dave nods and looks at you, that little smirk still painted on his face. “The last one?”

“Ah no. Don’t make me pronounce it.” I tell him amused “Aw too bad... I can’t answer your question if I don’t know what song you’re talking about love…” Is that ginger mocking you or daring you??

“Aw… too bad for you too… for once someone was caring about your music.” You obviously didn’t mean that. You just returned it against him…

He opened his mouth wide and scoffed. Dave almost laughed but he quickly took a serious face and narrowed his eyes looking directly at you.

“Say it.” You narrow your eyes too “No.”

“Yeah, say it.”

“Nah.”

“C’mon say it!”

“Nuh uuuuh”

Dave looks at you and purse his lips “Hmm.” You mimic him and purse your lips too.

He wasn’t going to answer your question. You raise your eyebrows.

“Well. Okay.” He smirks again as you say it. “You’re evil. What’s the name again?” You feign not remembering it… but he’s not stupid so you roll your eyes.

“Hmmm, aaaa… tu- touuut, le… monde.” You say with an accent. Dave raises his hands in the air “Yeaaah”, but he laughs. You grimace “Hey don’t mock me.”

“Okay okay...” he stops his laugh and looks at you again “So what was that question?”

“Ah! Why the title and some lyrics are in French or whatever is that damn language?” he smiles. At least it’s a good question. “We just wanted to try something, and we tried in a lot of different language. We had Spanish and French, but French is the one that sounded better, and that was probably easier to sing.”

“Ah yeah cause French is easy…”

“That’s not what I said. And I have French ancestors anyway.”

You smile at this information. That’s actually a fire sentence to say.

“Sooo what does the lyrics mean in English?”

French is supposed to be a sexy language. Not that he’s not already sexy but he could be even more…

“Well, the title is in the lyrics… A tout le monde, à tout mes amis, je vous aimes, je dois partir. It simply means to the entier world, to all my friends, I love you, I must go.” He explains to you.

You were listening carefully to understand the meaning “I don’t know how… to explain that but, it’s simple words but deep lyrics.” He smiles again at your kind of compliment.

“Hey, do you know something else in French??” You happily ask curious. Not that You wanted to learn French, but it was still interesting.

He shrugs “Huh… I’m not fluent but I know some basics yeah. Why?” You look up and smile. “What?” he laughs (cutely. help). You shrug and purse your lips to hold your smile “Teach me French.”

He laughs again “Like what? I only know- “

“-Everything you know.”

He gets up and walk toward you. “Well, I know, bonjour…” he looks at you giggling at his accent “I know… Je m’appelle Dave…” You giggle and look at him in the eyes as he sat beside you. He looks at you too “salut…”

“Salut…” You repeat in a whisper. You couldn’t help the smile on your face.

“Tu es magnifique…” He says with a warm voice. You laugh again trying to hide you red cheeks. He laughs too “Why are you blushing? You don’t even understand!”

He takes a flirty face and raise his eyebrows up and down “Am I sexy?” it made you laugh even more. Is French funny or is it him being sexy? No. You’re not answering to that.

“Maybe! But out of all of this, what can I learn ??” He thinks about it for a second. “Hm. I know some curses too.”

“Dave! C’mon!” You slap his arm slightly “What?? You want to learn French to make me blush too??” He complains more amused than offended.

“HE- No?” You stop and say innocently “Sure… Okay repeat after me. Je, m’appelle.”

You repeat words after words, and you actually find it easy. He learned you how to say your name, your age, your gender, where you live.

“Stop laughing! How do you even pronounce that!”

“Aujourd’hui, je visite New York. Today I visit New York. Come on!”

You try to mouth the words as he says it. Yeah, well okay maybe French is hard. You then say the sentence Dave told you.

“No don’t say New York with an accent. French don’t do that…” You laugh a bit surprised “Why are they so complicated with their useless muted letters and their apostrophes?”

That French lesson ended with you not being able to pronounce anything anymore and Dave laughing at you trying to pronounce “Écureuil” because he thought it would be fun to teach you that word.

You both were now laying on the couch watching TV again your head on his shoulder and his head on yours.

“You know you can still try to learn curses… it’s easier…”

[pichongames]

It's time for a new DEV UPDATE! [February 2024]

Let's talk about the upcoming Nintendo Switch port, localization, plushies, and new content coming soon?

It's time for a new development update, we've been working on a lot of stuff behind the scenes so let's talk about some of it, shall we?

The Bunny Graveyard is coming to Nintendo Switch!

If you didn't know already, The Bunny Graveyard is on its way to Nintendo Switch. But this port will not just be any normal port, the game will receive some enhancements and changes both visually and gameplay-wise. Including motion-controls, HD vibration and more!

But do not worry PC users, even though some gameplay features will be exclusive to Switch, any content updates, improvements and future chapters will be released at the same time on all platforms.

More languages!

The Bunny Graveyard: Chapter 1 is currently being translated to more languages, some of these are:

Brazilian Portuguese

French

Russian

Japanese

Simplified Chinese

Korean

...and more!

Boxers Plushie!

You probably heard of this already, but yes! Boxers got himself his very own plushie, which is still available at the time of this writing, however, this is a limited edition plushie so make sure to grab one before they're gone. As of right now, there's still 8 days left, so think about it! You guys absolutely CRUSHED that funding goal by the way, 450 sold so far!

We're definitely making another one... hehe.

This is also our first piece of merchandise and we're open to do more merch stuff in the future! But for now we'll only be choosing things that don't slow us down during development. So, if you got any requests for merch, let us know and we'll look into it!

NEW free content is coming this year...

We are working on a new secret project for the game, it will be released as a free content update at the same time as the Nintendo Switch release. It's a small thing that we wanted to make for a while now, but never got the chance to do due to time constraints. Think of it as the next "4-1-1992" for now.

We'll be releasing a separate trailer for this soon, so stay tuned!

So... how's Chapter 2?

Finally, let's have a quick talk about Chapter 2.

We are still not ready to fully reveal Chapter 2, buuuut we can tell you a little bit about it. It is the most ambitious project we have ever done, we expect it to be about the same length as Chapter 1, but despite the length, this chapter has proven to be quite a challenge to develop... but you know us, we love ourselves a challenge!

The story has been fully written, the gameplay has been finalized, but there's still quite a lot of programming to go, and don't get me started on all the music and animations left. Oh, did I also mention that this chapter will be releasing at the same time on Nintendo Switch and PC? And that it will also release in multiple languages? And that I'm still working on this game mostly by myself?

Yeah, things are not the same as they were back when I was making Chapter 1, The Bunny Graveyard is no longer just a silly lil' indie game, but that's exactly what makes it fun. I seriously can't wait to show you guys what we've been working on, this chapter is going to blow you away. Expect a trailer sometime this year.

You can add Chapter 2 to your Steam wishlist now!

Final Thoughts!

2024 is looking like an awesome year for this game, I'm hoping that this year we can get more people to know about this game. I'm extremely thankful for all of the support that we've been getting lately, it's crazy that I can now FINALLY focus on this game full-time, something that I've been trying to do for a long time now. I'm still processing the fact that this game is coming to the Switch, but it really is! Truly a dream come true. If you got any questions, ask in the comments and I'll try to answer as many as I can! And as always, thank you all!

[canmom]

Animation Night 184: Mars Express

Animation Night is baaaaaack from Annecy break!

And yeah, the last couple weeks of this blog have been pretty Annecy focused here on the canmom entertainment sphere. And tonight that will continue! For tonight we shall right a wrong! And that wrong is...

...that wrong is that I didn't get to see Mars Express at Annecy last year. @mendely did and I was super jelly, OK!

For real though, this was among the hottest tickets at Annecy last year, and despite queuing a bunch of hours, I didn't stand a chance to get in without a reservation. But what is it? Well, it's a scifi movie directed by Jérémie Périn. Who's Jérémie Périn?

Well, the true veterans may recall Animation Night 1, when I showed you a certain music video for a song called Fantasy by DyE...

...that's not gonna embed, is it? But if you know, you know. (If you don't know, it's the one where the teens break into the swimming pool to make out and such and then a bunch of them turn into tentacle monsters.)

So Jérémie Périn is the guy who directed that! He's also well known for directing Lastman, a crowdfunded action series in which a boxer battles a bunch of superpowered agents to try to protect a psychic girl, not that you'd gather any of that from this trailer...

and writing for Crisis Jung by Bobbypills - don't blink or you might miss the boob-growing henshin and the guy with a chainsaw dick...

And while Crisis Jung isn't primarily his project, we can still definitely trust that when Périn is at the wheel, we'll seem some incredibly stylish, anime-inflected drama and also some proper freaky imagery now and again.

Mars Express, however, is Périn's first foray into film rather than TV animation, building on the big success of Lastman - and a pretty high-effort foray at that, taking some five years to make. And by all accounts it kicks total ass.

But what's it about? Classic cyberpunk noir material: a detective and the android replica of her partner return to their home planet Mars after apprehending a robot hacker. But the hacker is released, and they're given a new mission - to work with this hacker and go down to a colony where, ostensibly, humans and androids live in harmony, and track down a guy who jailbreaks the androids from their artificial constraints. That sounds pretty shady already, right? But the dirty secrets are only beginning.

Mars Express definitely pays its homages to those classic 90s anime films and OVAs like Ghost in the Shell and Armitage III, as well as games like Another World for the Amiga, but by all accounts gives it a fresh approach, with grounded characters - protagonist Aline struggling with alcoholism, her reconstructed partner Carlos with his floating holographic head carrying the whole identity issue of being a robot clone who's been rejected by his original's wife - which anchors plenty of juicy scifi concepts like renting out your brain as a computer, or something called 'resonance' which is how robots do it. What does that mean? The review I'm reading left it at that! Guess we'll find out.

Like most European productions it brought together a long list of production companies and it's a little tricky to figure out which ones are actual animation houses, but the main company seems to be 'Everybody on Deck'. They previously worked with Périn on Lastman, but otherwise largely seem to have worked on live action films. However, the animation was split among a variety of studios.

We can at least say that it brought in French animators from across the shop, some even on this very website. (At least I seem to recall seeing people having posted about having worked on it, though if I search now I mostly find peoples' reviews of the film). It's animation leans realist, with naturalistic motion taking advantage of anime-style 3s and 2s to give it a weighty feeling, embedding its characters in detailed environments with strong colour design...

And if we want to know more than that, we're in luck, since there's a pretty substantial 16-part making-of series partly available on Catsuka's youtube, starting with episode 1 showing the development of the script, with Périn and co-writer Laurent Sarfati bouncing ideas off each other. Only two other episodes are available: episode 11 shows some of the voice recording, and episode 16, which talks about the actual animation, interviewing various animators and showing some shot breakdowns. The last of these is probably the most interesting (to animators), talking about how the film went about realising Périn's 'precise, clinical' realist style.

The team were evidently very conscious of this being, for France, a first of its kind - a French-animated thriller targeting adults, with big ambitions to become a landmark film in French animation, able to stand up against the best anime. I'm not sure it's actually the first - for example, Summit of the Gods is also a tense, French-animated thriller with a realist art style! - but it's definitely a genre where there are very few examples to compare, and the team's ambition comes across as absolutely genuine.

That's probably enough to go on! We'll definitely also check out some of Périn's other work tonight, but Mars Express is our main feature! Starting in about an hour and a half at 8pm UK time, at our usual place, twitch.tv/canmom! Hope to see you there!

[sparks-polls]

Tumblr's Favourite Sparks Music Video - The Finale

We have our finalists! Congratulations, When Do I Get To Sing "My Way" and I Predict!

When Do I Get To Sing "My Way"

Defeated opponents: Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me), (When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing, Music That You Can Dance To, Funny Face, Call Girl

What people have said about this video: #my way hands down #for the whole story #also have you seen russell in that one? #i picked my way specifically because of russell in that video #it's gotta be my way. the drama and the story and the atmosphere is just so good #they're so classy in it - A+ looks and concept. and I love the whole idea of advertising a movie #I need my brothers torn apart by ambition #when do i get to sing my way (the video) inspired me to write a whole-ass novel #i'm happy as long as my way goes through #i voted my way. against this kind of opponent hardly anything stands a chance #my way takes it all #this isn't even a competition #another masterpiece of a video #the story & storytelling & all 3 of them looking amazing in black and white with that lighting #Ron glaring jealously from behind the curtains!!! #THERE'S ONLY ONE SONG I KNOW (iconic!) + RON DANCE (in colour for he gets to sing his way hell yeah) #Russell's smiles #old hollywood drama & the way the texts are displayed (excellent concept) #russell's model turn in my way for president #DO TWO BROTHERS TORN APART BY AMBITION MEAN NOTHING TO YOU? #the gorgeous old hollywood film that is my way is so important and special to me #it's got to be My Way for me - out of the videos left that is my champion <3 #i think my way deserves to win this contest overall #when do i get to sing my way is just so...

I Predict

Defeated opponents: Beat The Clock, When I'm With You, Johnny Delusional, No. 1 Song In Heaven [Plagiarism Version], All You Ever Think About Is Sex

What people have said about this video: #i predict should win this whole thing #i predict every time. #i made my french class watch the i predict music vid in college. i dont remember why. #but that's how much I loved it #only one answer that i can give #I Predict is just so PERFECT #ron in drag wins #nothing gets better than ron in drag #i predict that i predict will make it very far into the competition #nothing beats i predict i'm afraid #voted i predict because how could I not #i will always root for Heidi #this took zero thought #i predict duh #ron mael striptease should win it all #ron striptease para siempre #if my baby's taking me home can't win (sobs) then I Predict will be an honourable tribute #i predict deserves the win #I Predict is just so much more entertaining to me #and this is coming from someone who doesn't have a huge thing for Heidi unlike most Ron fans lol #i just love how committed he is to the striptease and Russell shining like a star in the audience and the fact that #the whole thing takes place inside an amplifier (a speaker?) #also it feels very Twin Peaks

[roseofdarknessblog]

Christmas baby | Levi Ackerman

You’ve always loved Christmas and everything that came with the holiday season. But for the last couple of years, Christmas has been special thanks to your partner. Since Levi was a Christmas baby, as you loved to call him, the holidays became even more remarkable to you.

Making everything perfect for Levi and his special day was your priority every single year. He didn’t like big noisy celebrations or people making a fuss out of his birthday. So every year, you made sure to spend the 25th of December in a calm and loving atmosphere. Sometimes at home and sometimes away on a little vacation somewhere nice.

„Good morning, sleepy head,“ you said with a huge smile when Levi walked into the kitchen. It was bright and early, the sun was only coming up, making the thick layer of snow outside sparkle in the sunlight. Your whole house was full of warm yellow glow, making everything seem extra cozy. „Breakfast is almost ready.“

Levi shook his head with a sleepy smirk, coming up to you and hugging you around the waist from behind. His lips pressed a warm kiss behind your ear, while you were finishing up with the special breakfast for your most beloved.

„Happy Birthday and also Merry Christmas,“ you said joyfully, looking over your shoulder to meet his lips in another tender kiss. His grip around your waist tightened a little, keeping you close.

„Thank you, love. Merry Christmas to you too.“ He rested his head against yours, watching you finish his favorite French toast with pieces of fried bacon. It was a lovely combination, mainly with Levi’s special winter-flavored caramel tea. „Do we have any plans for today?“

„No, not really. Maybe we could go for a walk if the weather stays nice. I love how quiet and peaceful the world outside is during the holiday season.“

„Yeah, that sounds nice. Maybe we can visit my mom, too.“

„I talked to her yesterday, she’s coming over for lunch tomorrow. And she’s expecting us for dinner today.“ You and Kuchel had an amazing relationship. She truly was a saint, who always had so much love for both you and her son. Even her brother Kenny liked catching up with you when he came for a quick visit or if you met at Kuchel’s house.

As you kept talking, both of you sat down at the dining table and enjoyed breakfast together. While you served the food, Levi made tea. Since there was nowhere to hurry, you could truly enjoy each and every moment, cherishing the time spent together on this very special day.

The house was nice and quiet, and all you could hear were the sounds of nature from outside. When you looked out the window, you saw tiny snowflakes drifting around and making the outside scenery even more lovely. It was such a huge contrast to everything you saw around you in the house – the Christmas tree, all the decorations and the fire peacefully burning in the fireplace, making the house warm and cozy.

The day of Levi’s birthday nor Christmas were ever about giving one another a huge amount of gifts. The best thing about the entire holidays were actually the days leading up to them. When you found time to decorate and bake together. Dance around the house to gentle Christmas music and fool around the kitchen, making a huge mess in the process and then cleaning it all up while tasting your sweet creations.

Yes, the actual holidays were beautiful and filled with love and gratitude, but those very last days before them had some unique kind of magic you looked forward to every single year. And Levi too. He adored helping you get everything ready. Despite all the tasks, he found it relaxing and assuring in a way. All the hustle before the holidays made him feel grateful that he had a special someone to share all of this with.

„What?“ Levi asked, when he caught you looking at him with a smile on your lips, while he was still finishing his breakfast. You shook your head and looked into your already empty plate. „No, tell me. What’s the matter?“

„Nothing, I just... I love you.“ He smirked at your shy expression as you said that. Almost as if you were saying it for the very first time. „And I’m so grateful that we can celebrate another holiday together,“ you added, reaching out your hand and stroking his cheek lovingly.

Levi slightly turned his head and pressed a kiss into your palm, leaning into your touch a bit more. The calm and content expression on his beautiful face made you feel all the joy in the entire universe.

„How about showing me just how much you love me?“ he teased and before you knew it, he pulled you over to sit on his lap, his arms wrapping around your waist tightly.

„Don’t you want to unwrap your presents first?“ you asked, playfully running your thumb over his lower lip. With a smirk, Levi’s hands slipped under your shirt and onto your lower back, his touch warm and gentle.

„Hmm, there’s one very special gift I can’t wait to unwrap,“ he mumbled in a low voice, his lips gently brushing against your mouth. One of his hands traveled up your back underneath your shirt, holding you close. His eyes locked with yours, full of love and hunger for your body. „Maybe we could get to it now, so later we can go for that walk you mentioned earlier,“ he continued teasing you, while his other hand slipped out from underneath your shirt and into your hair.

„It’s your special day. So you’re the one to say that we’ll be doing.“

„Trust me, I’ll enjoy this fact very much,“ he whispered into your lips and stood up, lifting you off his lap. With your legs wrapped around his waist, he made his way back to the bedroom, your lips staying pressed together in a passionate kiss for the entire time.

It was his birthday, after all. So it was only fair to grant him every little pleasure his heart desired.