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falsegoodnight · 4 years ago

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Hi Ris! First of all, I want to tell you that you are such an incredibly talented author and I enjoy your works so much. I'm curious as to how could you write a lot in short amount of time? I mean, can you explain a bit about how do you plan your fics, if that makes sense? Sorry to bother you, have a nice day❣️

hi!! ahh thank you so much!! i’m so glad you enjoy my fics! <3

so for your question, i got a bit carried away so i’ll be adding a cut so you can read more!

just a quick ramble:

first of all, i just want to say that there’s going to be people that write really quickly and people who take more time to write but that difference doesn’t have any holding over one’s worth as a writer or anything like that! in other words, there’s nothing wrong with taking your time when writing a fic/story so i hope you keep that in mind and don’t be too hard on yourself when you’re struggling! every writer is different - it’s the same as how some writers have tons of ideas and some only get a good idea once in a blue moon or how some writers can write dialogue or a different element of a story easily and others can’t. it’s just a characteristic and not a representation of your success/achievement!!

that little bit is hopefully unneeded but i wanted to include it just in case!!

anyways, even though speed is relative to your own person and it’s different for everyone - there are factors you can control!! and you’re right in that planning is one of them!! if you have a detailed outline (or basis for how the story is going to begin, progress, and then resolve at the end then you’re going to have less struggle when it comes to writing the story because you know what you’re characters are striving towards!! obviously, some writers don’t use outlines and i can’t speak for anyone because this is what’s worked for me but it has helped me a lot so if you haven’t tried an outline before, i’d definitely recommend doing it at least once!

i’ve talked about it before but my outlines tend to be super detailed!! once i get a basic idea of a fic, i like to delve as deep as i can into the characters/plot/world. the first thing i’ll do is type out my idea in full detail so i don’t forget anything important and so i can see it all in print. then i’ll usually make some character profiles for each of the main characters (usually just louis and harry but sometimes i’ll include small ones for side characters!!)

an example format:

louis:

- age:

- job/career: (if they’re in school or it’s a fantasy/paranormal then this could be something like ‘student, english major’ or ‘witch’)

- background/history: (everything important to the story but also a lot that’s not dhjdk)

- positive traits:

- negative traits:

- character growth: (if i want to include character development, i always write that down!!)

then i begin my scene list which is basically a numbered list of every scene that takes place in the story!! it’ll usually start with a beginning scene, maybe a few scenes i know will take place somewhere in the middle, and also the ending scene (which is typically one of the first things i figure out when outlining the story!) and as i get more ideas and dive deeper and deeper into the story, this scene list grows longer and longer! some scenes are more outlined than others depend on how self-explanatory or complicated they are!

it’s also important to note that outlines are fluid, in that you can tweak/change them anytime you want! even when you’re 3/4ths of the way through a story and you decide you don’t like the ending you initially had and have a better idea! i can’t count how many times i’ve changed things in the middle of the story!!

having a super detailed scene list helps me know exactly what’s going to happen in a scene so i can just write it instead of spending time trying to figure out what’s going to happen in this scene while i’m in the middle of writing it!

and if i’m writing a fantastical/paranormal world, then i also always write down every detail of the worldbuilding that i want to include in the story - but also a whole lot of information i don’t end up including! knowing your story and your world is KEY to writing something quickly!!

i could go way more in detail if you wanted but i won’t ramble this time!! if you want more insight into outlining, i’d be happy to do a longer post one day (i already plan on it actually - i’m just lazy haha) but basically, planning has definitely had a huge impact on my writing productivity!

it doesn’t work for everyone though!! so here are some other things that contribute to my productivity:

- finding as much time as possible to write

as a full-time student with a part-time job and other responsibilities and just a life in general, it’s difficult to find time to write! but i try my best to carve out even just ten minutes per day to write and when i get that time, i take advantage of it. i think we all know that there’s time in our days that we usually just let get away from us - whether that means scrolling through social media without actually retaining anything, staring aimlessly at the ceiling, or just sitting around and doing nothing - i’m not saying that’s a bad thing or anything (i do all three all the time) but i am saying that it’s possible to stop yourself from letting that time slip away and instead choose to channel it into getting down a few words! even if you only write eleven words, that’s eleven more than you had before!

it sounds a bit obsessive but here’s what i’ve been doing when i wrote my last few fics: waking up thirty minutes earlier every morning before class so i can start my day by writing (honestly this is one of my favorite things to do because it helps wake me up and also gets me feeling productive when i’m usually just groaning and complaining about exhaustion - ofc not everyone will be the same), staying up late to write on my phone while in bed (again, i have unhealthy sleeping habits so maybe this isn’t a good tip but the point is that i take advantage of free time hdjkdk), and my favorite thing to do to get out words quickly:

- writing sprints

this is honestly one of my favorite things to do whether it’s a ten minute sprint or an hour long one! just setting aside a time dedicated to getting as many words as possible on paper (don’t focus on whether they’re perfect, just write - everything else comes later!) is always beneficial to me!! i do this frequently!!!

setting goals also helps for goal-oriented people like myself!! well, goal-oriented and competitive people such as myself haha. i love a good challenge to reach a certain word count (or even a goal like finishing a certain scene!) so if you’re like me, this could help a lot!

- accountability

this one can relate back to the writing sprint/competition thing if you do a sprint with someone else (super fun!) and keep each other accountable!! you can even just tell someone close to you that you’re aiming for a certain word count in a certain time and then tell them to check in with you! the satisfaction of being able to tell this person that you succeeded rather than didn’t (once again, not that that’s a bad thing!) can be particularly motivating!

- incentives

again, if you’re someone like me who works on reaching goals and reaping rewards, then this could be really beneficial! rewards can be anything from candy (i used to let myself eat a sour patch kid for every 100 words i write and let me tell you, that really helped hdjkd) or letting yourself watch an episode of a show you want to see!! they can be big prizes for smaller chunks of words or small prizes for bigger chunks of words - it doesn’t matter!! just do whatever gets you motivated!!!

also:

- get rid of distractions

i use sites like blocksite to keep myself from getting distracted by things like twitter/tumblr/youtube so i can focus!!! they have things like passwords so you can’t deactivate the block so if you have someone around you that can put in a password to make sure you don’t get tempted, taking advantage of that when you really want to get some work in is always good!

this is also something i do for assignments and other things in day to day life so just a helpful resource in general!

---

yeah so those are my main tips for writing a lot - do keep in mind that i’m naturally ambitious and also that i enjoy (or enjoy the results of) doing all of these things (even the harder ones!!!) but that may not be the same for everyone!! and not everyone writes as much or me, or even wants to in the first place! and that’s fine!

the most important thing to do is to cater to what you want. the goal you’re aiming for, the progress you want to make, etcetera.

at the end of the day, progress is progress - no matter how miniscule it may seem to you!! and also, quality is always better than quantity in my opinion!!!

this is way longer than i intended but i really hope it helps even in the slightest and if anyone else that’s a writer sees this and wants to rb with their own input (or comment!), feel free!! <3

#asks #:)#writing advice #writing tips #my writing tips #to save

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its-bound-to-get-loud · 4 years ago

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Why I believe 5SOS didn’t work as a pop-punk band (+ my opinion on THAT Rolling Stone article)

This title of this post may be an unpopular opinion for a lot of you. But I don’t believe 5SOS worked as a pop-punk band. In this post I will explain exactly why. I hope that even if you don’t agree, you will at least understand my POV. This post is probably gonna have a lot of text. Not a lot of links, videos or pictures involved. I hope it will still be interesting for you. All of this is just my personal opinion, I have no way of proving that this is 100% true. It’s just a careful deduction of things I’ve seen and thought about over the last few months, mixed with some personal opinions. With this post I’m trying to tackle some topics that are being talked about often and showing them in a different light. I’ve put quite a lot of time into writing this, so I’m hoping you will appreciate it. Finally a huge, massive thank you to my friend R for proofreading this, it means a lot to me.

To start things off, I’ve had quite a lot of thoughts about this topic: I don’t think 5SOS truly worked as a pop-punk band. The image didn’t fit them and it wasn’t right for their era. It was a fun sound, I enjoy listening to it, they probably even enjoyed making it. Obviously fans enjoyed it as well. I fully believe that when they first started, pop-punk is what the guys wanted to sound like. It’s the music they listened to, those were the bands they looked up to. When they got signed they had not been a band for a super long time, they were young and barely had any experience in both life and music. I’m not someone with an extensive knowledge of pop-punk groups, but from what I know a lot of these bands were misfits, outcasts. People who didn’t feel like they had a place in society. In some cases from broken homes, with bad childhoods, etc. That’s who they were and it’s what their music was about.

I’d say 5SOS as whole do fit those characteristics. They were from a small town where music wasn’t really a career for most people. So they felt the need to get out of their town and pursue music. Michael dropped out of school for music, Ashton obviously had a very difficult home situation. Calum has mentioned that his family didn’t have a lot of money when he was younger. I’m not sure how the situation was for the others. But besides this, everyone but Ashton came from a stable home, Calum’s parents separated later on. So I can see why the guys related to these pop punk bands put out songs about this. Especially when you’re a teenager you often feel misunderstood by everyone else.

But when 5SOS started they looked more like a boyband than a pop punk band. Their earliest songs were mostly love songs. While the boys might have felt like being a pop punk band, and maybe even considered themselves to be one, I would say they were more of a pop/pop rock band.

In some cases a label can mold an artist or band into a certain image upon signing. But 5SOS had already gathered a following before they were even signed, so molding them into a rougher pop-punk image right upon signing would not have worked, it would not have been organic. They probably didn’t want to alienate the fans they already had, because they were valuable in getting the word out about 5SOS.

Their first manager, Adam Wilkinson, didn’t seem to think 5SOS would work as a pop-punk band as well. Just look at these quotes taken from That infamous 2015 Rolling Stone article (I will not link it, because I despise it, just google if you feel the need to read it).

“While they cannot cross into the realm of pop punk, they can stand on the sidelines and capture the end of that market.”

“They always wanted to be Blink 182 or Good Charlotte, but I’ll be the first to admit I thought that was shooting too far,” says Wilkinson. “We tried to make them a little more pop.”

That last quote is basically what happened. 5SOS ended up connected to One Direction, a huge pop act at the time. A connection that wasn’t as much of a “coincidence” as they wanted to make it look like. Louis was never the one to truly discover 5SOS, this was simply a smart PR decision to connect 5SOS to the 1D fanbase and grow their audience. I highly suggest reading this post that lays out exactly how 5SOS came to get signed and how their connection to 1D began. You will see that there is clear evidence that it didn’t happen like they wanted us to believe.

And let’s be real. Take a look at this early 5SOS picture. Does this look like the next Green Day or All Time Low? They all look like the boy next door, with maybe the exception of Michael. Basically they had the looks of a boyband, and while they never have been a traditional boyband (and certainly aren’t now), they certainly were marketed as one early on. This is a label that still sticks to them to this day.

I fully believe that their team (management/record label) tried to slowly evolve them into a more pop-punk image as they got bigger. They couldn’t ride the 1D train forever and had to stand on their own 2 feet. That’s where we arrive at the Sounds Good Feels Good era. This is a fascinating era for me, because there is a shift. Their looks start changing, suddenly they slowly become rockstars, piercings start happening. The boys are growing up. They are old enough to drink, girls are in the picture, etc. Musically it’s also clear that their sound is changing. The self-titled album is still fairly pop-rock, 1D but a little edgier perhaps. Sounds Good Feels Good is the more pop-punk album. But is it really? Because as most fans will know, the album knows 2 sounds. It has the clear pop-punk bops, such as Money or Safety Pin (to name a few), but there’s also some songs that already predict the sound for Youngblood such as, for example, Waste The Night and Vapor. It’s clear to me that while they probably still enjoyed their pop-punk sound the guys were growing up and were slowly discovering what music their sound as a band should be.

If we’re being honest for a moment. What songs from SGFG really feel the most personal? Sure, She’s Kinda Hot is a bop, but what about Vapor? Vapor is by far my favorite song on the album, it tells me a story, it makes me feel emotion. Now I’m very biased towards SKH, because (unpopular opinion) I don’t like the song much because of the lyrics. But that’s a different story (we may get to that someday). There is nothing wrong with a song that’s a bop, you need those. I could enjoy SKH if it wasn’t for the lyrics. But bops can have meaning too. SKH doesn’t in my opinion. Besides the fact that the guys were growing up and maturing their sound, the music scene just wasn’t very pop-punk or even rock based anymore. It wasn’t a sound that was popular anymore.

I took a look at the billboard charts and pulled some statistics. Friday October 23 was the release date for SGFG. The Top 3 Billboard hot 100 songs that week were

The Weeknd – The Hills

Drake – Hotline Bling

Justin Bieber – What Do You Mean?

The songs/artists closest to 5SOS in sound in the WHOLE Billboard Hot 100 that week were One Direction – Drag Me Down, Fall Out Boy – Uma Thurman and Twenty One Pilots – Stressed Out. That’s 3 songs in a list of 100 songs and you can debate how close the sound of those actually was to the sound of 5SOS at the time.

Taking a look at the Billboard 200 Year-End chart, the #1 is Taylor Swift – 1989. SGFG ended up at #136 (keep in mind that the album was released in October, so close to the end of the year). 5SOS self-titled ended up at #73. The LIVESOS album ranked #176. There’s a few other records that can be considered rock in the list, but barely any pop-punk in the whole chart. The only one to be considered for that title would be Fall Out Boy’s – American Beauty/American Psycho album, which was #15.

Pop-punk or rock in general, wasn’t a popular sound that topped the charts around the time 5SOS got started as a mainstream act. Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week 5SOS released their first ep (Unplugged) was Call Me Maybe by Carly Rae Jepsen. The real mainstream success of pop-punk was mostly in the late 90’s running all the way through the early 2000’s. This is why I wonder why the label tried to make them into a pop-punk band in the first place. My best guess is that their team relied on the fans to push the success of the band forward after they came off of 1D’s Where We Are tour. They might have tried to create an edgier version of 1D with similar success. Where you create a fan base that is big enough to support the band without the need of casual listeners or fans from different demographics (male, female, old, young, etc.).

I think they relied too much on 1D fans to gravitate towards 5SOS as well, which may have been a mistake. Not all 1D fans actually liked 5SOS, some even actively stayed away from them the more they were pushed under their noses. When I entered the 1D fandom in 2014 most things I saw about 5SOS were negative. 1D fans considered them problematic and didn’t like them. This is partially why I steered away from 5SOS at the time. Besides that, I had enough going on with 1D to keep me occupied. Of course 5SOS’s fan base still grew quite a bit from the 1D exposure, but they never got to the same heights as 1D did. In several interviews the guys have said that they were being called “the biggest band that nobody has ever heard of”.

On a more personal note. As a recent fan, the whole pop-punk image never felt very genuine to me. Which might be because I came into the fandom backwards, starting with CALM and going back to their older material after that (side note: I did listen to the Youngblood album once or twice before). Don’t get me wrong, I love SGFG, I play it regularly. Money is a banger, Hey Everybody!, a bop, Permanent Vacation, love it! But as a fan I like to identify with songs and recognize that the artist is telling something that is personal to them. I don’t get that feeling from some of these songs.

An example of a song that is emotional, yet (mostly) not personal to the band is Broken Home. It’s a beautiful song, but I generally skip it. 1, because it’s a very sad song and it’s not always something I’m in the mood for. 2, because it’s not a song I relate to on a personal level. And most importantly 3, I don’t see the song relating to 5SOS as people, other than maybe Ashton. An interesting quote about the song, made by their producer John Feldman, is on the genius page for this song.

“Other than Ashton, the three guys have parents who are still together. Ashton has never met his father. Ashton really connected into the theme. “We’re saying something with this song, it’s going to connect with the audience, at least 50% of our audience comes from broken homes. We’re actually taking a stand.” The other guys are loyal and family-driven and sweet, so they were like, “What are our parents going to think about us singing about a broken home when we don’t come from broken homes? How authentic is it?” It was a two-month debate.”

So the guys themselves were already questioning the authenticity of the topic when they were recording it. Ashton connected to the theme of the song, but the others didn’t. It wasn’t something they had experienced. It doesn’t say why the song made it on the album anyway. As stated in the quote, a lot fans can relate to it. I’m sure many fans found comfort in the song, which is a nice thing. The song doesn’t make you relate to the band though. If any of them had written this song from a personal experience it would have connected a lot differently. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing that the song is not personal, it just doesn’t feel very genuine when you know the artist has no relation to the story they are telling.

Moving on to the 2015 Rolling Stone article I have mentioned before. This seems to cause some division among fans. Was it all true or was it made up? My opinion is that it’s a mixture of truth and BS. But a whole lot of it feels taken out context or exaggerated. I have been a fan since March, so I wasn’t around at the time this came out. But since becoming a fan I have watched tons of interviews and clips and have extensively discussed this band with my friend, so I’d like to say I have done my homework and have a good picture of this band. On top of that I’d like to think being a 1D fan sharpened my critical thinking skills and might have helped me see through certain bullshit. I don’t claim to be the person with all the answers, but maybe my thoughts make sense to some people. There might be some context that I’m missing or facts that I haven’t come across, if you feel like there’s a piece of information I’m missing, feel free to let me know.

The way the article starts, it reads like fanfiction. Literally. The extensive description of the surroundings, the time of day, everything. The first time I read it, it made me cringe so hard I had trouble getting through the whole thing. First things first. This interview takes place the day after the AMA’s. Who the fuck scheduled this? Either someone should have prevented them from getting drunk and partying, or they should have scheduled this on another day when these guys were in a better state of mind. That is, assuming things went the way they went as described in the article. Which is something I highly doubt.

The only direct source saying that this article is not genuine is this tweet from Luke. Besides that I have only read secondhand that the band and people surrounding them have spoken up about the inaccuracy of the article.

Some people believe 5SOS could have sued Rolling Stone for slander if this article was really as false as they claim. Now I’m no lawyer, but this is not how things work in the entertainment industry. An article like this has been agreed upon before. The interviewer didn’t just decide to drop by one day. During celebrity interviews there’s always someone from their management or PR team around to make sure they don’t say any stupid shit. Celebrities are a brand, they have an image to protect, albums to sell. If they say things that make them look bad it can cause damage to their good name. Record companies have invested money in artists and they want to see a profit in return. They don’t want to risk losing money, that’s why celebrities have PR teams. RS may have had a reputation for being a very honorable publication, but these days that’s not the case. They are not that far removed from cheap gossip rags such as the Sun or The Daily Mail nowadays. They still get read by a lot of people, which puts them in a position of power. Often when an interview takes place there are certain topics that have been agreed upon before, there are also topics that can be blacklisted if the artist or their team doesn’t want them talked about. For example relationships or family matters. These will also be agreed upon beforehand.

Here is a story about a former journalist for the British tabloid The Daily Star, who has admitted to making up stories and explains how they get away with it.

For arguments sake, let’s say the guys slipped up and showed their “true colors”. With a big publication like this it’s common that their team would have to approve the article before it comes out. If there’s anything in there that was not agreed upon that they don’t like, the article can be edited.

This leaves us a few possibilities.

The article is completely true and their team is shit at their job. They failed to prevent the boys from slipping up about stuff they shouldn’t and did nothing to stop Rolling Stone from publishing.

The article is true and their team just allowed the article to be published for whatever reason.

The article isn’t true, but their team let it happen anyway, possibly because they wanted to move the band away from their boyband image into a more punk-rock image that went with their sound.

My vote goes out to the last one. I think their team wanted to make the boys look more edgy/punk-rock and get rid of their boyband image and this is how they tried to do it. I think parts of the article may be true, but a lot of it is greatly exaggerated and in some cases made up. If my theory is true, it also means 5SOS or their team had no reason to sue Rolling Stone if they wanted to. Because it would mean you have a major publication on your bad side, which means no more future promotional opportunities for the band and/or the label. While Rolling Stone may be trash, it’s a publication that a lot of people read. Therefore it’s a very important connection that you don’t want on your bad side.

If you still think they could have sued Rolling Stone then take a look at some examples from 1D. 1D has been targeted by the British tabloid The Sun for YEARS. They wrote the most awful shit, a lot of it not true. Yet they still had exclusive scoops whenever something important happened. Exclusive meaning, these topics were given to them exclusively for publishing. It was proven that their PR manager is friends with the journalist from The Sun responsible for most of the stuff written. 1D never sued The Sun for those articles, because they most likely were agreed upon by their team beforehand. 1D has never tried suing the Sun over anything, despite what they wrote. This was not 1 article, these were many articles. Especially towards the end of 1D, when it was clear their label was losing 1D, there was a smear campaign in the media to discredit 1D and its members. There was a chance some members were going to sign with a competing label, and that’s something their label didn’t like. Here is a good collection of headlines from that smear campaign. Nobody ever got sued over these articles.

Do you still think 5SOS could have just stood up and sued Rolling Stone? The entertainment business is full of politics. If you don’t play the game you’re out. Also, question yourself. Why does Luke still say the article was twisted and inaccurate 4,5 years later? He has owned up and apologized for past mistakes, yet he keeps insisting the article didn’t tell the truth. He even goes to say that the article “broke and hurt him”. If you believe Luke is still covering his ass for what he said in that article, that essentially would he mean he is emotionally manipulating people by saying the article hurt him. Is that the person you think Luke is?

1 more thing I want to point out. Yes, I am aware of the fact that Calum has a large version of the magazine cover hanging around in his house. I can’t say exactly why. This is my best guess. That cover was still a big thing in their career, despite the article, it is still a Rolling Stone cover. That’s a milestone that not every artist gets to do in their career. Just because he has the cover hanging around doesn’t mean he enjoyed the article that came with it.

This whole post has gotten super long, it may not be the easiest thing to get through. So thank you if you made it till the end. As stated before, this whole thing is mostly just my opinion. But the parts about how PR teams work are a fact. I do not work in the music or entertainment industry, I’m not a lawyer, so I may have gotten some things wrong. If I did, please let me know and I will try to fix it. Feedback is always appreciated.

#5 Seconds Of Summer #Ashton Irwin #Calum Hood #Luke Hemmings #Michael Clifford #5SOS #musical direction #pop-punk #Sounds Good Feels Good #Rolling Stone #original

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secretradiobrooklyn · 4 years ago

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Get In Moses Edition | 2.13.21

Secret Radio | 2.13.21 | Hear it here.

art by Paige, liner notes mostly by Evan, *means Paige

1. Chantal Goya - “Tu m’as trop menti”

From the movie “Masculin feminin,” a DVD we borrowed from Tim. This is the film where Godard was whispering the lines into a headset of the actor, so they were learning their lines literally as they were saying them. This is the opening song. Not particularly Valentine’s Day, in that it’s about lying too much… but still there’s a dissatisfaction that is undeniably a part of French romance.

2. Human League - “(Keep Feeling) Fascination”

Such a square song! But the keys hook is so immortally beautiful, with its crucial warble. The rest of the song is sweetly and innocently ‘80s. It reminds me of being in art class in high school, fully participating in the aesthetic crimes of the era.

3. Marijata - “Break Through” - “Afro-Beat Airways”

Analog Africa is just now releasing a repress of this long sold-out collection. I’d listened to it before, but I guess that was before I knew about Marijata (thanks again, Jeffrey!) because it was a shock to discover a track by one of our very favorite Ghanaian discoveries. So far as I knew, Marijata only released one album of four songs — which is fantastic — and then eventually started backing a guy named Pat Thomas. Those records, unfortunately, are nowhere near as vital and fascinating as their own record. So finding this song was a welcome revelation! I should also say that, no surprise, the whole collection is a banger from front to back, and will definitely show up again on the show.

4. Philippe Katerine (avec Gérard Depardieu) - “Blond”

This strange guy is a kind of joker songwriter in French pop, as far as I can tell. This song is all about what one can get away with if one is blond. He’s a really fascinating character, a tiny bit like Beck maybe, in the sense that he seems to have made a successful career of taking unexpected directions. He’s also an actor, working with Claire Denis (!), Jonathan Demme and Gille Lellouche among many others. He was also in “Gainsbourg - A Heroic Life,” which is an excellent movie that we highly recommend. (We had no idea who he was when we saw it at the St. Louis Film Festival.) Also, he appears to be married to Gérard Depardieu’s daughter, which would seem to explain this particular guest star.

- The Texas Room - “Cielito Lindo”

Several years ago, a producer in St. Louis put together the amazing album known as “The Texas Room,” which brought together immigrants from all over the world who currently lived in St. Louis. That meant Bosnians, Cameroonians, Mexicans, and native-born Americans… including Andy Garces, a fellow Paige went to high school with — His mom was Paige’s voice teacher as a matter of fact — who recorded this strange and excellent version of “Cielito Lindo.” The release party for the album was one of the greatest nights we spent in that or any city, dancing our faces off to all kinds of music. At one point the Bosnians got so excited they took over the room, shouting along and hoisting up their guy in the air. Basil Kincaid did the art for the album, and I think that’s the night we finally met. We have one of his collages on our studio wall right now — right over there!

5. The Modern Lovers - “I’m Straight” *

When we got the current SK van (circa 2015) we were super excited because we could finally bring out other musicians on the road and we could also have folks from other bands that we were out with jump in the van with us for a stretch. That February we were on tour with Jamaican Queens, and our friend Andy Kahn came out with us to play guitar. Not only is Andy a rad musician and great guy to be around, but he was an excellent road DJ. Somehow I made it to 30 without getting into The Modern Lovers (I know, crazy!) Andy has great taste and had a well appointed iPod so he was the official van DJ pretty much right away. He put on this record one day and I just lost it. The thing is, after that I was like “Play ‘Roadrunner’ again!” all the time. When I hear this record I still think of that tour. Andy in the back seat DJing, Ben and Erik jumping in the van to come with to Baltimore, graduating to “truck” in the Holland Tunnel queue, so much snow, host Bentley, “Go cats?”, Aaaaaahhhhh!

6. Frances Carroll & the Coquettes - “Coquette / When I Swing My Stick / Jitterbug Stomp”

I think we learned about this band last year, when Coquettes drummer Viola Smith died at 107 years old (in Costa Mesa, not Silverlake, Paige would like you to know — her bad). The video link below is highly recommended — the whole band swings hard, and the interaction between them and Frances Carroll is well worth the watch. They were considered a curiosity at the time, being an all-female band, and man they could play. Viola Smith in particular had an insanely long career, playing from the 1920s straight through into 2019! She played with Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb, and in the original Broadway production of “Cabaret.” Her particular innovation was having two toms at shoulder height, on either side of her head, which she would roll and ricochet shots off. Very cool style, never copied.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFDD_NxtKZ4

7. Pierre Sandwidi - “Boy Cuisinier”

Born Bad Records is one of the world’s coolest record labels, with a huge array of vintage discoveries as well as African albums as well as contemporary pop and noise bands. “Boy Cuisinier” is off Pierre Sandwidi’s album with them. It bears some definite relation to Francis Bebey but takes its own turns just as often. Sandwidi hails from Burkina Faso, known as the Upper Volta when he was growing up. We’re just now learning about him and his scene — I confess I didn’t even know Upper Volta was African; I thought it was Slavic — so I wouldn’t be surprised if some more Voltaic music shows up here soon.

8. Evan Sult avec Tracy Brubeck - “The Cats Won’t Stay In”

Paige’s mom Tracy called while we were in the middle of the show, and they paused to have a conversation about, you know, whatever — the snowstorms, the neighbors, the news. She was on speakerphone so that we could all talk, and eventually I just started taking notes as fast as I could. This is the result. I find it fascinating. That’s Paige singing lead on the Marty Robbins tune.

9. Kil Monnower Alimunna, Grup Hindustanbul - “Tadap Tadap”

Years ago I saw the movie “Monsoon Wedding” by the director Mira Nair. It really stuck with me, particularly the gorgeous opening credits in maroon and orange and sky blue. I was trying to tell Paige about that sequence, so just in case we could catch a glimpse of those colors, we watched the trailer. This song is the soundtrack to the trailer. It’s really an amazing track — so Indian, of course, but with definite Western points of contact, like when it goes to the major chords unexpectedly in the post-chorus, which sounds practically American. And the final outro minute or so is full of delayed, reverbed vocals in a psychedelic style, til it reaches the strange and intoxicating sound that he makes with his voice as the song fades into the distance.

- Martial Solal “New York Herald Tribune” - “A bout de souffle” soundtrack

10. Gillian Hills - “Tut Tut Tut Tut”

Gillian Hills, probably more famous for “Zou Bisou Bisou.” This track is great, listen for those syrupy slides and harmonies. I just learned that she is English, and the music video for this song is definitely shot in Angleterre. Full of famous red phone booths (now famous little free libraries.) When we were doing this week’s show I asked Evan “Is this song too obvious?” He said no, it wasn’t too obvious. If you know why I’m asking, then you know. So is it?

11. Jacques Dutronc “La Compapade”

We’ve been into Jacques Dutronc for many years now, because he’s a brilliant French songwriter and composer. But this one track has been a baffler for many years now. It shows up out of nowhere and sounds like… what? What the hell IS that? Is it African? It sounds African, but — is it? Is it just some strange lark on his part? Paige was apprehensive about playing it on the show, even though we both really enjoy it, because we couldn’t tell if it was somehow demeaning to someone. But eventually I argued that we don’t know what the hell most of the singers are saying in the songs we play, or which cultural taboos they’re transgressing, and the same is true in this case. If it is somehow offensive to anyone, I hope it’s clear that wasn’t our intention. But… I don’t know. I don’t think it is. I think it just comes from a cultural heritage and context that is French in a way Americans cannot understand or appreciate. In any case, it’s an amazing performance and recording!

12. K. Frimpong & His Cubanos Fiestas - Me Da A Ɔnnda”

Research into African rock and styles eventually brought us to K. Frimpong and His Cubanos Fiestas, which has turned out to be a satisfying step into the Ghanaian highlife/Cuban scene. I love the keyboard hooks in this one and the way the patterns just roll on and on with each other like a river, in no hurry but pulled forward by their own currents. He was also a visual artist — his art appeared on the cover of last episode’s Nyame Bekyere album. This was also the first time I’ve encountered the character “Ɔ” in the wild. I have zero idea how it is pronounced.

13. They Might Be Giants - “Birdhouse In Your Soul”

“Not to put too fine a point on it / Say I’m the only bee on your bonnet / Make a little birdhouse in your soul.” I remember when I first realized that was a feeling I was feeling — hoping to build a birdhouse in the soul of another, to be inside one another in a little protected place. The rest of the song is a nerd-rock dream palace I love as much as any other nerd, but the chorus is where I discovered an emotion I hadn’t suspected was there when I first heard and fell for this song and this band in high school (thanks, Jeremy Peterson!).

Paige adds: This song is blowing my mind. I don’t like writing lyrics, my ratio of melodies and harmonies to lyrics way out of whack. Evan brought this song back into our lives this week when Sleepy Kitty was asked what our favorite love songs are on a real radio show. We’ve been listening to it a bunch since Thursday and damn, these lyrics are good. It’s really reminding me that you can write about ANY.THING. Blue Canary in the freakin’ outlet by the light switch. Looking at the lighthouse picture. It’s a clinic. I learned something, and I can go home.

On the original topic, I love thinking of this as a love song. If you hear a love song, it’s a love song. It’s a love song.

14. Sleepy Kitty - “Tu veux ou tu veux pas” *

I took two years of French in high school and missed out junior and senior year because of a scheduling lulu that made 3rd and 4th year French conflict with advanced painting which was the primary reason I was taking French in the first place. I’m still not over it. Years later, I’m at Electropolis (in my memory) and I hear this Brigitte Bardot song on Tim’s excellent sound system and I can understand…most?…some…of it! I fell in love with this song and with French again and started stumbling, scrabbling at it again. We started working up this cover. Thank you Suzie Gilb for helping with the pronunciation. We did a 7” of this song and it’s a rare SK track with me playing trombone on it.

15. The Velvet Underground - “I Love You” *

I don’t really have much to say about this track except that it reminds me of flying to Germany because I got the 5 Disc set with all the extras on it a few days before leaving for a high school foreign exchange program. I was so happy to have those discs to absorb on the long flight, and come to think of it, it really inflected the whole trip.

16. Secret Song - “African Scream Contest”

The genesis of our love for African rock/funk/whatever (if for a moment we don’t count the profoundly influential “Graceland”) is the immortal collection “Legends of Benin,” put out by Analog Africa. As soon as we dug further for our favorites from that collection, we found “African Scream Contest” vols 1 and 2. I was drawn to the second one because it had a killer track by our hero Antoine Dougbé, but eventually spent as much time with the first volume. Both are absolutely fantastic. Part of what I love so much about them is learning how much of an impact James Brown and his band had on African music, which is super apparent throughout these collections and especially this track. The drums and the grunts and the hard stops and the horn blasts — it��s all there.

One of the finest elements of these records is the hidden track at the end, tucked five or so minutes back from the last song. These are often some of the hottest tracks on the album, well worth the wait, and this mystery song is no exception. Unfortunately, though, that means we don’t know who made this track or what it’s called. Oh well — that only makes it cooler!

- Adrian from Brooklyn

17. The Beatles - “Dizzy Miss Lizzy”

We watched “The Beatles: Eight Days a Week” recently (totally worth a watch), and we were struck all over again by how insane their lives must have been at that time. Yes fame, yes sudden fortune, yes global supremacy, yes yes yes — the thing that I can’t get over is the shrieking, and how it wasn’t just present at their shows, it was EVERYWHERE THEY WENT, AT ALL TIMES ON ALL DAYS, EVERY SECOND THEY WERE OUTSIDE. How completely unsettling that must have been, to be the center of that howl, day after day, year after year.

18. The Fall - “Sing! Harpy”

Dedicated to Adrian from Brooklyn and all those young women and men losing their minds over the Beatles so completely that all they could do was shriek, even at shows where the crowd’s sound completely obliterated the sound of the band they so desperately loved and came to hear.

(This is also some of my favorite violin playing in any rock music, right up there with “Boys Keep Swinging” and The Ex’s “State of Shock.” I would LOVE to work with a violinist in this mode.)

19. T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - “Gnon a Gnon Wa”

So intense! That constant chord strike throughout the song is a kind of high-note drone that we find ourselves drawn to. It kind of reminds me of the sound of a casino, where you walk in and all of the machines are chiming the same note, promising to just take your mind away and keep it safe until you need it again.

- Tommy Guerrero - “El Camino Negro” - “Road to Nowhere”

20. Black Dragons de Porto Novo - “Se Djro” What a slinky number! I love how spare the instrumentation is, but how much power is contained in that one guitar part. This is side A of a 7” put out on Albarika Store, the label that T.P. Orchestre called home for many albums.

21. Helen Nkume and Her Young Timers - “Time” This is (so far) the closest we’ve gotten to reggae on WBFF. I know nothing about the band or the music other than their fantastic name and sound — oh, and the fact that she is known elsewhere as Prophetess Helen Nkume. She appears to be Nigerian, or anyway her record label is. I love the guitar hook on this song, it just sneaks in and steals the show.

22. Anne Sylvestre - “Les Gens Qui Doutent”

23. Parvati Khan - “Jimmi Jimmi Jimmi Aaja Aaja Aaja Re Mere” A lucky find! Someone in one of my Facebook groups posted a video from this album, so I took note and returned later to check it out. This is from an Indian movie called “I’m a Disco Dancer” that looks like a real kooky thrill. The actors appear to have only the vaguest sense of what “disco” might be — or what a guitar might be, for that matter. It kind of looks like someone saw a single photo of a disco night and extrapolated a whole movie from it. Nonetheless, Parvati Khan is entrancing in the song and in the video, and we HAVE to see this movie, with or without subtitles. The smoldering look alone really requires investigation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUdJQSUcK_Y

24. Nancy Sit - “Love Potion #9” * One thing I’ve always known about Evan is that he doesn’t like the song “Love Potion #9.” When we stumbled across this, I thought it was awesome but I didn’t want to make Evan listen to a song he doesn’t like on Valentine’s Day! Evan says this song has little to do with “Love Potion #9” which makes me wonder, Evan, what’s the part you don’t like about “Love Potion #9”?

Evan adds: I honestly can’t remember what my issue with this song was. I swear, it was like… it was around the time of “Melt With You,” which I also found inexplicably irritating (and still do). I suspect now that there was an inept cover version that first steered me wrong… but luckily there’s a strange Chinese version to steer me right again! Oh life.

- Michel Legrand - “Solange’s Song (Instrumental)” - “The Young Ladies of Rocheforte”

25. The Velvet Underground - “I’ll Be Your Mirror” * This is the song that I said was the best love song of the western world on the real radio. I think it’s so beautiful and so adult. I don’t even know if I would have thought of this as love song a few years ago. When first got into the V.U. I thought it was a pretty song – a neat song, but I didn’t really know what it meant, what it could mean. What’s funny is when I think of this song, I have a Lou Reed version in my head – his voice, the harmonies. When I revisited the Max’s Kansas City live version (which as far as I know is the only one besides other more recent live versions and surely what I’m thinking of?) I realized that the version in my head is essentially that one but cleaned up, remastered, different EQ, and as far as I know entirely imagined.

Evan adds: (Paige has been playing this song recently around the apartment. I don’t even have to tell you how lovely it is.)

*p.s. If you want to hear the piece about musicians talking about favorite love songs on KWMU it’s here: https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2021-02-11/listen-love-songs-to-keep-you-warm-on-cold-winter-nights

Super fun getting to talk about this stuff and in such good company!

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dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram · 4 years ago

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I’d say I struggle more with thinking/discussing Louis being anything but straight because of how his claimed heterosexuality has been presented in a more in your face way (with the “I’m in fact straight” tweet, E then D then E’s public long term presence for example) in relation to how I’d say the majority (from my perception at least) of his fans do not think he is straight.

If he is straight, and we’re all very wrong, he obviously finds himself in a position where I don’t really know one would get out of.

If he’s not straight/gay, he’s confronted with a fandom that perceives (and often identifies with) a part of him that he is keeping private for reasons that are only his. I don’t know what effect it has on Louis that I, like many others (and maybe most who attend shows, buy his stuff), has on his life.

I feel like I’m not articulating what I mean correctly. I’m not implying that I know anything about Louis or his feelings. I don’t know how me thinking he is gay makes his life harder or easier. If he’s gay and he feels accepted and loved and just the good feelings from fandom then that would be ideal, but I doubt it’s that simple. It might be easier for him if I loved and engaged with his public life.

He is and has always been surrounded by a lot of publicly straight signifiers (almost always a public female partner, a child with a woman). Harry literally said “We’re all a little bit gay” and has engaged with more overt and obvious queer symbols so I feel like those who would think he’s 100% straight are ignoring the obvious. Harry has a larger fandom that still includes people that have him as a fantasy boyfriend.

I don’t know what the answer really is as to what I say/do/think about Louis is so interpreting what he says and does is always uncomfortable to me. I will say that when he wore Polari, it felt important to me in a way I can’t really express. Could it have meant nothing? For sure. But my gay heart wanted it to mean that it was ok for me to be seen only by those who want to see me and get it. But that’s about me and my struggle. I’m very much not out in my real life but there are a select few who do get me. For me it’s comforting to know that some people see that part of me even if it’s hidden most of the time, but I don’t know if it is for Louis on such a huge scale and I’m harming him.

I think there’s a lot here and it’s all really interesting.

The question of hypothetically straight Louis is one that I have thought a lot of over the years. But I can’t get up much concern for his wellbeing. It might be a bit weird that all your fans think your gay, but it’s probably just an illustration of the nature of the celebrity fan relationship. While being perceived is stressful at hte best of times, and being perceived wrongly brings additional stress, fundamentally I don’t think people thinking you’re gay when you’re actually straight is a significant problem (particularly given everything else Louis has faced).

Although ever since like March 2016, I have been fantasing about hypothetically straight Louis’ fandom adviser. I’ve always thought if he was trying to persuade people he was straight he was doing a spectacularly bad job and I would love to consult for him.

I don’t think your distinction between Harry and Louis’ situation quite works. There have been more than enough straight signifiers around Harry for him to be widely perceived as straight. The woman whow was presented as his ex-girlfirned was on a song! You say that people who think Harry’s a hundred per cent straight are ignoring the obvious, but everything you list took place on stage. Only a very small percentage of people who engage in Harry’s music and career have the slightest idea what happens at a concert they didn’t go to. And waving rainbow flags is reasonably widely understood as an act of solidarity. I have lots of thoughts about the difficulties of trying to occupy any place of queer ambiguity at this place in time, but I think it’s important to understand that it is very possible to pay a moderate amount of attention to Harry and see him as straight.

[opps I thought this was finished so I posted it and it’s not - what follows is the very brief version].

I think everything you say about wanting to be felt is important and widely felt (have you read Jodie Foster’s Golden Globe lifetime achievement award acceptance speech - it’s really interesting on those questions).

But I don’t think the dichotomy and tension is between them being straight and possibily being harmed, and then being queer and wanting to be seen. I just don’t think it matters that much if they’re straight. The tension is the desire to both be seen and also a set of other desires: for privacy, to control your own story, and to live a life that you have been told is only available to straight people, that so many people in the closet experience.

#it's funny how these things read #I think 'we're all a little bit gay' is one of the straighter things Harry has ever said #Anonymous

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hlupdate · 5 years ago

Link

Interview: Louis Tomlinson Opens Up About ‘Walls’ & Tour Plans

It’s go time for Louis Tomlinson. After years of building anticipation, the 28-year-old unveils his debut solo album Walls today (January 31). And the 12-song collection (featuring familiar titles like “Two Of Us” and “Kill My Mind”) was well-worth the wait. On it, he reintroduces himself to fans after taking over the world as one-fifth of One Direction. And the crooner does so by placing the focus on his powerful pen to provide a glimpse into his heart and soul. Whether he is overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the title track or embracing a youthful sense of adventure on “Fearless,” every song offers a chance to engage with him on a new level.

But dropping Walls was just a warm-up. Now he turns his attention to the accompanying world tour. It all starts with a March 9 set in Barcelona. Then the hitmaker spends the next several months making stops across the globe. That includes a string of North American dates in June and July. And it’s the moment he’s been waiting for. Last week I had the opportunity to chat with Louis about the rest of his action-packed 2020. He opened up about how he mentally prepared for the arrival of the album and his goals. After that he spilled some tea about the show. That includes a little insight into the setlist selection process.

OG fans will be happy to know that they’ll definitely hear a couple One Direction staples in a live setting again this year. Even better, Louis plans to play every song off Walls. Keep an eye peeled for our official album review in the coming days. In the meantime, dive into our interview below to learn more.

You’ve been working towards Walls for a couple years now. How does it feel to be so close to releasing it?

I think just a big sense of relief. I’m excited to release it and to have the fans hear it. And to go out there and tour it. So I’m just excited to get into this stage. It feels like it’s been a long time coming.

Obviously you’ve done a couple album releases before, but it was always as part of One Direction. Do you feel like this being a solo project changes your perception at all?

Yeah, I think there was a slightly different goal. Naturally with the One Direction albums versus with my own solo album. I think I actually kind of review once I’d come out of the band… I had to almost redefine the word success really. Because the experience I had in One Direction wasn’t really real life. So in terms of what I want to get out of this album and what I’ve for starters learned a lot along the premises. But what I want to get out of it is that hopefully my fans think I’m a good songwriter. So really it’s almost less pressure in a way.

I think lyrically your writing is coming across so well.

Thank you.

Speaking of the songs you’ve released, it’s interesting looking at the tracklist. Some of the songs made the final cut, but there are a couple older singles that didn’t. How did you decide what would live as a stand-alone moment in time versus what would make the final album?

I think when I looked at the older singles that I’d done it was hard sonically for them to sit on the album. On the vinyl I did a version of the Steve Aoki song “Just Hold On.” But it’s a completely new production. We reworked that. But with the other singles, it was kind of difficult to imagine them on that record. I feel like my songwriting kind of matured a little bit since then.

Can you talk about why you settled on Walls as the overarching title for the album?

To be honest it’s my favorite song on the album. I think it’s the best song on the album. It’s the song I’m most proud of. So I’d been thinking about what title I was going to have for the album for a while. And then I kind of just thought let’s not overthink it. What’s my favorite song? I love the concept behind the single so I kind of just went with my gut and went with that.

It’s interesting too because as I’m listening to the album I notice that you obviously reference walls in the title track. But you also talk about fences on “Defenseless.” It seems like there was a theme emerging of overcoming barriers or putting yourself out there without barriers. Was that intentional that you were doing lyrically while writing?

Not deliberately but I do try to write in an autobiographical sense. And as relatable as possible. I think that’s one of the things that we all go through at times. So I felt like yeah it was important to cover that. I hadn’t realized. A lot of walls and fences.

A lot of things we had to get over. Looking at the tracklist, is there a song that hasn’t been released yet that you’re most excited for fans to hear?

I’d say “Only The Brave,” which is the last song. It’s just short of two minutes long, and it doesn’t really have a traditional structure to the song. You only really get the chorus once. And I think it’s an interesting moment in the album. It closes the album, and I think it’s interesting.

One of my favorites is “Fearless.” I love the message. I took it as encouraging yourself to return to our youthful confidence and just saying fuck it to expectations and anxiety.

Yeah, absolutely.

I was hoping you could tell me a bit about how it came together?

I think the age that I’m at at the moment, I’m 28 now. I’m kind of in this strange age. We’ve got a bit more life experience, but it’s kind of reflecting on how fearless you are when you’re young. The fact that you are willing to make mistakes over and over again. It’s just drawing on that whole vibe, really.

That’s something I relate to being at a similar point in my life.

Nice. I appreciate that.

Do you plan to release any more singles off the project?

No I don’t think so. I think I’m going to release the album, and I’m going to get into tour and just concentrate on that for a little bit. Just so I have more stuff to write about. Then at some point this year I’ll get into writing the next record I suppose.

Awesome! It’s good to hear that there are already plans for another album.

Yeah. Definitely.

Something else I wanted to ask about was the “Walls” video. Some of the other videos this era have been more straightforward in terms of a plot, whereas this felt more conceptual. How did you come up with the idea for this one and what does it mean to you?

This is the fourth video that I’ve done with that director Charlie Lightening who’s amazing. I really enjoyed working with him. The first three videos fit together. Were narrative driven and had a bit more story to them. So I thought, we both thought it was important with this video to kind of move away from that and make something visually more interesting. We went to Morocco to film it in the desert. I Think it looks incredible. You’ve got that scale with it being in the desert. And yeah, we were just trying to make it look kind of trippy and surreal. Visually interesting. Just a good sort of performance video instead of getting lost in a narrative.

Cool. I also wanted to talk about touring. How are you getting ready for the show?

I’ve been doing little bits of rehearsals here and there because I’ve got TV performances anyway. Like two or three weeks of rehearsals. To be honest since the year started I’ve kind of been counting down the days in terms of my solo career. This is what I’ve been working towards. So I’m really excited about it.

It brings everything together, and it’s great to see that this is coming. I was reading your last interview with us and you mentioned that touring was a big goal. So it’s great to have it be here.

Definitely. It feels good.

Speaking about the show, will the focus of the setlist be on your solo music or do you plan on throwing in any of the material you wrote for One Direction?

I think it’ll be like there might be three One Direction songs in there. I mean I’ll definitely put a few in. It would be rude not to, and there are some bangers in there. But mostly Walls. I’ll probably do the whole album and maybe two or three One Direction tunes.

That’s awesome. I can’t wait to see what the setlist ends up being. Thank you so much and good luck with everything you have going on.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your time, man.

#louis tomlinson #walls promo #walls #310120

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loveyoulou · 5 years ago

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So, apparently, reading a certain harrie’s in depth essay sparked something in me and I could not just let it go without a fight. oops! If you want to get subjected to that...

As a Louie, I hope Louis does not get to read what I just read because it is straight up fucked. Yeah. Like have you considered the fact that these are actual people that you are talking about (that know each other and are friends) and not just some random product that needs to be compared and reviewed? Are they really reduced to that by their own species now? Honestly, who would want to be subjected to that kind of judgemental and inconsiderate thinking?

Pulling up stats and timeline, as much as people find that important to make a relevant opinion on what they want to prove is pushing it a little bit too much. Yup, its all for the sake of research and credibility, I know... you take this very seriously, you've proven your point, and then what? You now have the proof that Louis is far more inferior than Harry? Hmmm...

What did he do to you? Has Louis offended you in any way personally? What did he do sooo offending that you seem to need to put him down like that? And quite passionately too.

Before I continue, I just want to thank Louis for releasing music even though he subjected himself to different kinds of garbage that people have been writing about him. Let us not forget that even though he is used to the prying eyes of the public, he is still a person. A person who has the right to grow into themselves in their own time, why are people being too judgemental about him?

He is where he is because he was given the opportunity and was brave enough to grab those that he actually wants. It’s not called wasted opportunities, its called a choice. That’s how life is. On top of that, over and over again he keeps on thanking his fans for giving him the chance to have the opportunity to do what he wants to do. It’s sweet right? Being acknowledged and constantly reminded of the fact that Louis checks up on his fan base?

And boy, why did they (the harrie) make it seem like Louis is not working his ass off - he did when he was in the band and was overworked. He’s still doing it now, do you think releasing an album does not take a lot of hard work? Do you think looking for his own sound is not hard work? Hmmm...

Louis can easily find a different career if he wanted to. He could've just hid himself away from the public like Zayn because tell you what - it’s good for Zayn to not engage with the clownery that is media. Good for him, really, that he knows he does not want to engage or subject himself to all the industry related drama. His life is probably a bit more peaceful now that he is minding his own business. That is because that's what Zayn wants. But look! Even though he's tucked away from prying eyes people still has a way to throw something at him. Sigh.

Louis on the other hand, second guessed himself from starting a solo career. He even mentioned that he wanted to work on behind the spotlight and concentrate on songwriting... But then, he said he wanted to live with no regrets and wonder what could have happened if he actually pursued a solo career. As fans, we respect that and more than appreciate the fact that we can enjoy him and his music.

Saying things that he does not have pull - by pull, meaning he does not have enough clout (as what I have read from the harrie post) - meaning, he knows what direction he wants to take, and has values that might not be as “controversial” or sex driven which attracts a lot of audience, is that it? A lot of artists that are famous nowadays are highly sexualized both in their songs and image. And I doubt that is what Louis wanted to be portrayed as or even be remembered as. He is more than that, very much.

I do not think Louis is the kind of person who will play the victim here, he has a very strong character and is very independent. He might have confidence issues that he needs to overcome and I will be crying the day he fully has it back.

The guy went through a lot - and he still pushes back at life. How many people would actually have the courage and energy to do that after all the hurdles he’s been through?

Having Louis on the XF delayed the album, but on the brighter side, he said so himself that he wanted the experience. And he’s good at it. As I saw it, he enjoyed the experience, with the extra middle finger to every anti when he and Dalton won. I may come off as naive but, people cant just see things as a one sided affair, its not like he did not get paid, okay? If money is all it is that he wants then, yes. He got paid, he was richer. Isn’t that what people think as the bottom line? Sigh.

It’s not like he was not able to at least share who he really is as a person - an individual that is far from the brand that was given to him when he was in the band. YES, because who would want to be branded as a drug addict, cheater, smoke all you like, negligent father? Of course he wanted to have a bit of his dignity restored, to show that he's not what always the media portrays he is.

His music was pushed back and its very unfortunate, but from what I saw is that it's a conscious decision to be involved in a show - he can decline if he wanted to. If he wanted to change his career after xf he can, but he went back to making music even though he is aware that his own music timeline was eternally botched up (a million times over) - but he still did it anyway even though he knew that it would be a struggle to compete within the music industry. Only to what? To have his music be attacked and saying that his decision to make his music more honest is contrived - my goodness with people’s double standards.

Louis is not Harry - he is his own person. Harry seems to take his career as a job that needs to be done. It seems that for Harry his career is just that, a job that is why does whatever people tells him to do to stay relevant. Sing and he sings, act and he acts, pose nude and he takes off his clothes. He consented to that - he likes that. That’s how he is and people eat that shit up - his team knows what it is that makes a someone popular and so he does it. Maybe he enjoys it, maybe not, we don't know. What we know is that he does it, and again, people eat that shit up. That’s just how it is.

We should also be thankful that Niall and Liam for giving us new music, and be more considerate of Liam’s debut album (in case you did not personally like it). Liam also did not have the luxury to grow his music in the background just like Louis and the other boys so, why do we have to singlehandedly criticize them on that? We are very forgiving of other musicians, why do we overly criticize the boys for theirs? URGH. ALL of them worked their assess off, so please stop attacking them like we all know better.

The music industry is grueling what the hell, lets not add to the negativity.

So yeah, this got out of hand. DAMN. If you got this far, thank you for reading. Sorry for this long ass rant, it just happened. Imma go and stream the fuck out of Louis songs because I love him and his music gives me positive outlook in life.

#wtf #i actually wrote this whole ass rant #i dont like writing long posts #but some people are being dumb #hihi #i dont have a choice #this is for you louis #because i love you so much #that i made a mess #louis tomlinson #louie

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jlf23tumble · 5 years ago

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Hi jen! I know usually anons have specific requests but could you rec me a couple of fics ? Just something you think it's really great! I'm not feeling too well and i need to get out of my head for a while. (Thank you in advance!)

oOh, mannnn, that sucks, but I feel ya!! This is mildly tricky but also incredibly easy: you don’t necessarily need or want anything super angsty or kinky because you don’t feel great, and canon’s probably a no go (which is a shame, I’d be rec’ing that pube fic HARD bleepin’ CORE), so you need some good AU material that’ll err on the side of distraction, methinks. Because I’ll bet that you’ve read most of these, I’m gonna give you a few more than two, and if you HAVE read ‘em all anyway, come back over and tell me a little bit more about some parameters, and I’ll do another pass. These are just off the top of my head, but I can search with the best of ‘em, goddammit, even my own spotty bookmarking. Under the wiggly line, in no particular order.

Tuxedo Dress-Up, by Blake/ @newleafover, 11k, E. Louis is an aspiring song writer by day, a make up artist for drag queens by night, and masquerading as a full time real estate agent for his third most famous (and first most handsome) client Harry Styles.Or, five times they fail to fuck in a closet, and one time they get it right. (I will not rest until everyone has read this one!!!! I can rec it for pretty much every single scenario, and I barely restrain myself, I’m telling you)

Sing You Butterflies, by objectlesson/ @alienfuckeronmain, 22k, E. Harry’s a clumsy unicorn who accidentally stomps on a witch’s garden and is turned into a human as punishment, so he wanders into a nearby village covered in glitter, still figuring out how to walk on two feet, and meets the fairy-tale-fine Louis, who has to teach him how to live as a human and stop him from eating soap. (I’m putting two from Phoenix on here, but rest assured I’d rec all of hers, too, this is just an adorable fantastical story that completely immerses you in another world that’s still rooted in this one? talent, I tell ya...and I HIGHLY recommend all of P’s fic, she’s writing drabbles in so many universes if you want to explore)

Take Me Under the Blue, by objectlesson, 19k, E. Louis hasn’t even seen his legs yet. He doesn’t know how they work or how long they’ll be. Maybe they won’t suit the rest of Harry at all, and he’ll have to grow into them or something. It doesn’t matter; Louis has loved Harry for a year with scales, so he can’t imagine wonky legs putting a damper on his attraction.He supposes he’ll just have to find out. In the meantime, he wonders how the fuck he got here, in his squelching wellies about to save the love of his life from the sea and take him to bed and bang him for the very first time.It’s sort of a long story. (when I heard about this one before editing, I was scurred...but it’s so fucking GOOD, I’d read so many more installments, and I say this as someone who hates fish dick stories, p.s., there’s no fish dick)

just call me inspiration, by @hereforlou, 51k, E. The truth is Louis knows he’s going to hell, if there is such a thing, but it isn’t because he writes erotic fiction for a living. If anything, it’s because his muse, the reason he’s inspired to write about people shagging in increasingly creative ways everyday, is the sweetest, loveliest, most genuine (and completely oblivious) future children-book illustrator in the world. Or, the one where Louis is a writer, Harry is an art student, and they inspire each other in very different ways. (Just me as Liam, that’s all I’ll say)

Tied Down, by @ham-palpert, 48k, E. The most interesting case in Liam and Niall's careers falls directly into their laps, courtesy of an epic fuck-up of one Harry Styles, partner to the almost-infamous drug dealer Louis Tomlinson. The investigation yields an unexpected yet satisfactory outcome for Liam and Niall. For Harry and Louis, however, things are far more complicated. (A twisty mystery, and all is NOT as it seems, so read the tags and push through chapter 1; it’s more of a tense drama, if you want to go down that path)

Alien Roadtrip!, by @helloamhere, 16k words, E. For the first time in his life, Louis doesn’t know where he’s going. Harry doesn’t mind. Or roadtrip with desert feelings, too much snack food, and empty motels. Harry is definitely absolutely not an alien. That would be ridiculous. (great dialogue and miles of smiles/laffs in this one, plus you can pretend it’s related to that area 51 nonsense if you really want to)

I’m reading a couple of WIPs that might pull you in, too:

Harry Styles Cooks..., by @sunsetmog, 52k, E. In which Louis Tomlinson can’t cook, there’s a very special shower curtain, and Harry Styles used to be a baker.Or: Louis owns all of Harry Styles’ cookbooks, and he never intends to cook a single thing out of any of them. (this one is updating fairly slowly, but that’s okay, it’s literally Christmas every time I get that nota, AGGRESSIVE SIGHING OVER HOW MUCH I GRIN LIKE A LOON WHEN I READ EACH INSTALLMENT)

Cards Are Dealt, by @loutmlnsn, 26k, E. Louis likes his life; he likes his job, he likes his house, he likes his town and he loves his cat. It’s not exciting, per say, but it’s comfortable, predictable and quiet. It’s normal. It’s what Louis has always wanted out of life. What Louis never wanted out of life was an A-list actor for a neighbour, who at first glance appears to possess all the values that Louis detests in a human being. An AU in which Louis is a nurse, Harry is an actor, and first impressions matter just as much as everyone keeps saying. (I’m actually reading a few wips, but I tend to notice when they update...I don’t bookmark them until they’re done, though, and this last one just updated yesterday, so check it out! Harry Styles Cooks is my fave wip of all time, I will never forget I’m following it, lmao)

#fic rec #get better soon angel!

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love-ya-tommo-row · 5 years ago

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Seeing discourse about whether or not Louis is romantic/affectionate/sexual, and it was really combing with a lot of thoughts I’d been having about “social patterns”.

Cause Louis is a great example of “homosociality” meaning the majority of his social relationships and friendships are with men. I actually find the lad crew kind of sweet, that Louis’ been able to navigate the changes of his life to maintain that friend group, and they seem to help form a buffer for him when they go out so he can just be “one of the lads”. And Louis is so SO affectionate- I think you especially saw it when he was young, he was all over his friends all the time, and seeing him on X-Factor made me wonder if it was a bit of a stress/anxiety thing. His first response to others’ freaking out was to give them a cuddle, to offer physical reassurance, and it’s kind of easy to imagine Louis as a teenager, keyed up in an interview and instinctively wanting a cuddle but covering it with rough housing or teasing. But again, we rarely see him socialize with women, so almost all that affectionate is targeted at platonic male friends. It is kind of interesting to see him sprawl all over his male friends, yet rarely goes beyond handholding with his girlfriend. One thing I’ve noticed in people who are intensely homosocial is that, because they feel more comfortable fulfilling their need for emotional intimacy with same-sex friends, their heterosocial or heterosexual relationships are less emotional and more “functional”. I mean, the TL;DR is once you realize like 80% of Louis’ social circle is men his own age, you can’t unnotice it.

Of course, noticing Louis’ homosociality IMMEDIATELY made me notice Harry is the dead opposite. His social circle is almost entirely women his own age or a little younger, and men a good bit older than him. It’s funny he has such a reputation for being charming, because he actually strikes me as a pretty awkward person? Like he seemed to have a very normal “teen boy” friend group in secondary, but those relationships seemed to fall by the wayside- I actually found it a little sad that at their massive New Years/housewarming party, Louis invited basically everyone he knew and Harry didn’t invite anyone. Lad groups are essentially egalitarian bands- if one member gets too big, the others instinctively take the piss to put them back in their place, to keep the balance in the group. Louis gets the piss taken a lot, and he claps back easily. I don’t see that dynamic in most of the public interactions Harry has with his social group, and in fact he seems to go out of his way to avoid them. Befriending older men established in their careers means they’re less likely to get defensive or be threatened by his success, and women rarely feel threatened by a male friend’s career. Even in the band, Harry rarely did the rowdy lad things in public, and yeah, part of that was probably to avoid the Appearance of Larry, but it also just genuinely seems like it wasn’t his scene? I don’t think the girls he was hanging around in 2013 were stunts for stunts-sake, seems like he genuinely preferred female friendship. But he also just moves on pretty easily- he’ll find someone he clicks with, hang out with them intensely, then dial back and find someone new to be intense with. It’s a pattern people have noticed often, but it’s still interesting to me, it’s very distinctive to Harry.

Many children who grow up to be gay have pretty distinct heterosocial preferences in childhood- they mirror the opposite sex parent, they seek out games and activities associated with the opposite sex, and often in adolescence they form friendships more easily with opposite sex peers than the same, for the same reason most heterosexuals prefer same-sex friends- it can be hard to balance friendships if you’re sexually attracted to your friends. So in that sense, Harry’s preference for girls and non-threatening men as friends is classicly gay, if maybe unusually persistent out of adolescence. He really does seem to thrive in that “precocious” role in relationships, which lets him be on the young end of his chronological age, where Louis is all “pater familias” energies. And of course, most heterosexuals are homosocial- I’ve worked with some TRAGICALLY heterosexual couples, who exclusively got emotional fulfillment from same-sex friends and just could not relate to each other in an emotionally intimate way at all. Louis doesn’t seem homosocial in that sense, though. He’s very intimate with his sisters, and seems fully capable of relating to women emotionally- he just preferentially seeks out men. And that’s very typical of most gay adults I know- they were heterosocial as children or young teens, but in adulthood have cultivated social circles that are majority same-sex.

There are so many “compelling opposites” about Louis and Harry- when I was first discovering them, I assumed they were why the idea of Larry was still so powerful, even though they haven’t publicly interacted in practically 4 years. Once I noticed I could call to mind a dozen images of Louis with same-aged male friends, but none of him with women who weren’t his family members or ‘intimate partners’, and couldn’t think of a single image of Harry hanging out with a boy his own age but could easily remember him with half a dozen gal pals, I couldn’t unnotice the striking mirror image of their social styles.

#and this is barely touching on class stuff lmao #normal headcanons: wouldn’t if be cute if hardy and louis held hands on their anniversary!#me: *5 paragraph essay of psychosexual pseudo-analysis lol*#louis tomlinson #harry styles

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kimnamjooonz · 6 years ago

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Blank Space - Episode 9

PBlank Space

Showing up in this episode:

Karlie Kloss

Tom Holland:

Taylor Swift:

Chris Evans:

Basically everyone is here.

Songs that inspired this chapter:

Break Up With Your Girlfriend, I’m bored - Ariana Grande. (Morgan’s song)

I’m a Mess - Bebe Rexha (Also Morgan’s song)

Don’t Hurt Yourself - Beyonce

I Did Something Bad - Taylor Swift

Hands To Myself - Selena Gomez

Mambo N. 5 - Lou Bega

Dancing Queen - Abba

Africa - Toto

Hey Ya - Outkast

Blank Space - Taylor Swift.

Okay, this is a hot mess but I had a lot of fun writing it.

''Oh my God, who is she, I get drunk on jealousy, when you come back is time you leave, cause darling I'm a nightmare dressed like daydream.''

After the Madison Square Garden outing, the two weirdest weeks followed. Morgan and Sebastian had rescued a cat and almost kissed but after that, Sebastian came back to his senses and Morgan went into a spiral of anger without any precedent. The thing was that for a moment she had thought that she had achieved something after the moment they had shared while rescuing Thirteen so, it was a disappointment of the size of the Empire State when on the next day pictures of Sebastian and his girlfriend splashed the Internet. Morgan was as livid as the majority of Sebastian's fans. But, just like in the old times, she kept her emotions to herself and went on with her life. Only Taylor noticed that something was off and that Morgan was ready to snap. Not of stress or pressure but of anger. But Morgan was taking revenge in the best way she could: by landing her first Vogue cover, being invited to every show at the New York fashion week and hanging out with the most popular models afterwards. And being loved by apparently everyone on the Internet. On set, everything was as normal as it ever was. Morgan and Sebastian kept their outstanding chemistry but when the cameras stopped rolling, they went back to their brooding selves, hardly sharing a word. At least they weren't shouting at each other anymore even though Sebastian could see a shadow of anger in Morgan's eyes every time she looked at him. There were only two people that knew the reason why Morgan had been like a chained monster the last couple of weeks: her assistant Lucas and her new friend Karlie Kloss. She had met Karlie at the New York Fashion Week and they had immediately clicked. They were often pictured together leaving events or hanging out around the city. Morgan hadn't had any other option but to tell Lucas as he had found her smashing a glass of water to the floor after a new set of pictures of Sebastian and his girlfriend had surfaced the Internet, this time kissing. Lucas was a bit alarmed by Morgan's attack of jealousy and decided to call Karlie to help him handle her. He decided to not tell Taylor who was going to give Morgan an earful, without any doubt. Together decided to distract Morgan with an sleepover and a Harry Potter marathon. Taylor joined them, even though she found the situation curious. Morgan just lied and told her that she had had a bad day at set and they were helping her to relax. But Morgan needed help to release that anger. The best solution was to get over Sebastian but everyone knew that this was not going to happen any time soon. Morgan's solution was to run him over with her Porsche but Lucas had pointed out that this was probably getting Morgan to prison and would end her career in a heartbeat. Luckily Karlie proposed Morgan to do kickboxing with her and she had liked the idea. She already knew how to do rugby tackles and now she was learning to punch and kick. Lucas and Taylor were a bit reluctant. The were starting to fear for Sebastian Stan's well being. Taylor still remember the words that Clint had told Morgan at the airport: 'If they break your heart, you break their necks.'. She prayed that Morgan didn't took that piece of advice to heart. But after a week doing kickboxing, she could feel the difference. Anger wasn't clouding her thoughts anymore and she could feel her wits getting sharper and more calculating. Or that was what she thought. Many others had noticed too. Taylor, Lucas and Karlie were proud of her as she was in a much better mood. Even Sebastian had noticed. There was no anger in her eyes anymore but sometimes she caught her staring at him in a way that made him wonder if she knew something he didn't or if she was planning to give him an slow and painful death. That Friday evening Morgan was with Lucas and Karlie at the gym. Don't Hurt Yourself by Beyoncé was blasting and Morgan was punching a punching bag with all the force in the world, and the song was motivating. They were even singing some lyrics. ''I am the dragon breathing fire, beautiful mane I'm the lion, beautiful man I know you're lying...'' Punch. Karlie was impressed. In a week Morgan's workout was noticeable. She looked even more stunning, if that was possible. ''Morgan, sing the next part because it's absolutely epic.'' said Lucas, laughing.

''We just got to let it be, let it be, let it be, baby'.. HEY BABY'' Punch. ''WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK ARE YOU?'' Punch. ''I SMELL THAT FRAGANCE ON YOUR LOUIS V BOY'' Punch. 'JUST GIVE MY FAT ASS A BIG KISS BOY'' Punch. ''TONIGHT I'M FUCKING UP ALL YOUR SHIT BOY'' Punch. Punch. Punch. Punch. Morgan was punching that bag as it had personally offended her.

''This is so cathartic'' said Lucas, who was lying on a mat, tired. ''It is'' the song had stopped and Morgan was on a little break to drink water and rest. ''Brilliant, Morgan, brilliant'' said Peter, Morgan and Karlie's personal trainer. He was a lovable big guy, who was always flirting with Lucas. And Lucas shamelessly flirted back. Morgan always thought that he was the reason why Lucas kept going to the gym with her and Karlie. ''I wouldn't like to be the person you're angry at.'' ''You're right. You wouldn't like to.'' Morgan looked at her reflection on the big mirror and she loved what she saw. Her back was more muscular and her arms more defined. ''Are you sure you're not training for an action movie?'' he asked. ''Something Marvel related? After all, you work with Sebastian Stan and he's from Marvel.'' Thinking of the DEVIL, there he was, mentioned again. ''Not at all. Maybe I take on the mantle of Captain America now that Chris Evans is leaving.'' she said with sarcasm. ''It seems that you're enjoying being Stan's partner way too much that you want to do it again.'' Karlie teased her again and Lucas laughed out loud. Peter was the only one that didn't understand. ''Keep teasing, you two'' Morgan rolled her eyes at him. ''Let's do something else.'' ''Let's try to combine your kicks with your punches, okay?'' Karlie was searching for another song to motivate Morgan. Taylor Swift's I did Something Bad was the chosen one. Morgan was thinking exactly the same. Peter was guiding Morgan in everything that she needed to do, and of course that the song lyrics were helping her. They say I did something bad, why does it feel so good? Punch. They say I did something bad why does it feel so... Punch. ...good? Kick. Most fun I ever had and I'll do it over and over and over again...'' Punch. If I could... Kick. It just felt so... Punch. Kick. ...good. Punch. Kick. Karlie and Lucas were having a lot of fun, watching Morgan kick and punch, totally possessed with the song. ''LIGHT ME UP! LIGHT ME UP! GO AHEAD AND LIGHT ME UP!'' they sang, trying not to laugh. She finished basically submissing Peter. ''Okay, okay, you were good Morgan. Anger motivates you.'' he ruffled her hair. ''See you newt week and don't punch anyone, okay?'' She just nodded. She was so tired that she was lying in a mat, breathing heavily and trying to get some energy and get up. ''So... ready for tonight?'' Karlie asked. That night there was going to be a cast party but everyone knew it was more than that. Many people was going to go, and they weren't related to the movie at all but Damien had invited them for publicity. Morgan herself had invited Taylor, Lucas and Karlie. Everyone knew that Sebastian was going to bring his girlfriend and everyone was asking if Joe Alwyn was going to bring Taylor Swift. For all of these reasons, Morgan was excited. ''More than ever'' she was still lying on the mat, moving her hands sensually at the rhythm of Selena Gomez's Hands To Myself. Lucas jumped from the mat with Morgan's phone in his hands. ''Can I film this for your Instagram? This is too priceless. Post workout Morgan Llewellyn lip synching and looking devastatingly sexy. Perfect.'' ''Perfect to PornHub'' commented Karlie. ''Shut up, Kloss. Now, do what you were doing, Morgan. Remember, you can't keep your hands to yourself. Taylor is going to kill you but not before you kill a certain someone of a heart attack. Now, action.'' At the other side of Manhattan, Sebastian was opening the new Instagram notification from Morgan only to end up weak on the knees with his eyes almost bulging out of his skull. He had to sit down to call himself a little and watch the video again. ''Damn'' was the only thing he could mumble.

''You are absolutely out of control.'' Taylor reprimanded Morgan once they were at home getting ready for the party. ''I told you not to post sexy stuff.'' ''It was good.'' Morgan was ready and she was sitting on the table, looking bored. ''Did you see how many likes it got?'' ''Yeah, including one from your co-star.'' Taylor kept curling her hair. Lucas giggled. He was straightening the front of his shirt. He and Morgan knew that they had achieved their purpose. And it was just he beginning. Lucas couldn't wait to see what else Morgan had in store. She looked spectacular, with a metallic short, loose dress, that had a star in the middle with an inscription in Welsh. It highlighted her long legs to perfection. She accompanied the look with high heels, snake themed jewellery and her signature red lip. ''Beth bynnag y mae'n ei gymryd, rwyf bob amser yn ennill.'' Taylor read the inscription in Morgan's dress. ''Isn't that a bit threatening?'' ''It depends how you take it. And no one except you understands Welsh.'' ''What does it say?'' asked Lucas. ''Whatever it takes, I'm always going to win.'' Taylor translated the sentence. ''Childish.'' however, Taylor was a bit weary of Morgan, who was not going to give up in whatever she was planning. Taylor didn't want to know. So, Morgan was going to go there making statements and no one was going to understand. ''Let's go, remember we're picking up Karlie on our way there.''

Sebastian was already in the place accompanied by his girlfriend and his friends. Damien Chazelle was around as well as some of the cast, pop music was on the background and the place was peaceful only because Morgan Llewellyn hadn't arrived yet. ''Are you sure she's not here yet?'' Florence asked. ''Yes. If she were here you'd notice that. She's chaotic and this place too peaceful.'' Florence wanted to meet the infamous Morgan Llewellyn once and for all to see if she was as bad as Sebastian said she was. Sebastian glanced at the windows. A horde of paparazzi were outside that didn't pay much attention to him when he got in. They most asked questions that were asked went like: ''Are you and Morgan dating? Because you should, you look gorgeous together'' (and they had asked that IN FRONT of his girlfriend), ''What do think about Morgan's latest Instagram video?'' or ''What do you think about the rumour of Morgan Llewellyn leading the live action Wicked movie?''. They just wanted to ask stuff about Morgan. Suddenly there was a commotion outside and there were flashes everywhere. ''What the hell...'' Florence mumbled. ''There she is. I told you she was chaotic.'' Florence suddenly wanted to leave. She hadn't even seen Morgan yet and she knew that she was whatever but good news. She was too overwhelming and she hadn't entered the building yet. And her feelings were justified when Morgan entered the place. Immediately, Sebastian's group knew that he had been right: pictures didn't do her justice. Morgan in person was ten times more gorgeous and with that metallic dress that exposed her long legs she looked like an exotic flamingo. In Florence's opinion she looked like a beautiful snake. ''I think I lost my ability to breath'' Chace mumbled. ''If you don't want her for you, set me up!'' ''Shut up, Chace!'' Sebastian desperately hissed. But he was with his eyes fixed on Morgan in a not so subtle manner. But Florence was staring at Morgan too. She was built like a Victoria's Secret Angel and she walked like one. She was pacing the room with feline steps, like she owned the place. She was vibrant, magnetic, full of life and absolutely chaotic. Morgan wasn't looking at them but Karlie Kloss was and Florence didn't like her expression. When Florence finally took her glance off of Morgan she saw Sebastian, Toby, Will and Chace staring at her with their mouths hanging open. ''Snap out of it!'' Florence reprimanded them but none only Will took notice. Morgan walked straight to Damien who was waiting for her. ''My dear Morgan! I was waiting for you! Finally the star of the show is here! I want you to meet a couple of people...'' In five minutes she was surrounded by a circle of influential people. From Greta Gerwig, Patty Jenkins, Kevin Feige (that no one knew what was he doing there) and many more. Only after half an hour she was free. ''I think I'm meeting my cast mates'' she said to Karlie and Lucas (Taylor was still talking to Greta Gerwig). Firstly she went to greet Michael and Alicia and then Emily and her husband John Krasinski. They talked for some minutes until Morgan decided that she couldn't keep avoiding the inevitable and approached Sebastian's table before she had any chance of chickening out and running away. Florence felt a pit in her stomach when she saw Morgan approaching. But there was no way to avoid her. But Morgan wasn't looking at her, she had her impressive blue eyes fixed on Sebastian. ''Nice co-star you make. You're here hiding while I have to deal with everyone.'' Florence was surprised. She was expecting Morgan Llewellyn to hiss or to speak Parseltongue. Instead, she had a silky voice that combined with a standard British accent that made it sound completely irresistible. ''What's the deal with you, mate? You always act like you don't even want to be here.'' Florence absolutely detested her. She just needed a couple of seconds next to Morgan to see that she was even worse than what Sebastian said she was. ''You have the whole stage to yourself, Llewellyn. Go and shine.'' Florence wondered if that was banter or if they really were used to say snarky things at each other. ''It tears me apart to say this, doll, but you may be right. With that sour face you won't charm anyone. Why don't you leave? TacoBell is having discount night. You can have a nice dinner there.'' Wait a second... since when Morgan Llewellyn called Sebastian 'doll'? ''I told you two weeks ago, princess. I'm not leaving, I'm staying.'' Florence was about to blow up. He was shamelessly calling Morgan 'princess'. He didn't even called her like that. What was the game they were playing at? ''That's on you, Stan. Have fun if you like or do whatever the hell you want, I don't care. Remember we're on the public eye and we're supposed to be friends so at least smile when you're talking to me. I don't want a Madison Square Garden 2.0, believe me, doll'' Florence couldn't stand it anymore. ''Hello, I'm Florence. I'm Sebastian's girlfriend.'' she had to intervene before Morgan tore Sebastian apart with her words. And she couldn't stand her calling him 'doll'. ''Oh, hi'' Morgan looked at her with a sweet expression. Nothing on her beautiful face revealed a drop of animosity but her eyes told a complete different story. They were cold as ice. ''Sebastian talks a lot about you.'' Sebastian couldn't believe that Florence was saying that. But his girlfriend was still angry because he had called Morgan 'princess'. ''How nice'' Morgan said with an unemotional voice. ''Can't say the same, but we almost never talk, so don't worry.'' Florence was reading the words on Morgan's dress. They were in some strange language that she didn't know. It wouldn't surprise her if it was a curse. Nothing would surprise her about Morgan. ''What does it say?'' she asked with a fake smile, pointing at the dress. ''To be or not to be, that is the question'' she lied without wincing. The message was to Sebastian, not to Florence. ''Shakespeare's Hamlet in Welsh. Balmain customised this dress for me with this quote.'' ''So you are Welsh. I thought you were British.'' Florence meant to say 'English' but she couldn't think clearly with Morgan in front of her. Morgan blinked a couple of times in confusion. ''Wales is part of Britain.. but maybe I'm not the best person to explain this... you can always go to the Wikipedia. It's pretty clearly explained.'' she turned around, making it clear that the conversation was over. Then she noticed Chace. ''You're Chace Crawford! Oh darlin'! I love you since Gossip Girl!'' Sebastian almost dropped his glass to the floor. He could see that Chace had got numb. ''Thank you. That is... a wonderful compliment.'' ''I have to go now, see you later.'' she smiled at him in a nice way, not flirty or anything of the sort. They all watched Morgan leave and take a seat in a table with Lucas and Karlie. ''She hates me'' Florence said, out of nowhere. ''She doesn't'' Toby showed up out of nowhere after he and Will had vanished when Morgan appeared to the scene. But they had been listening to everything. ''She hates Sebastian, you're just collateral damage. And she was pretty nice to you.'' Will laughed out loud. ''She literally said 'Can't say the same' and sent her to look up stuff in the Wikipedia. In which world that counts as being nice? Sebastian was right, she's a snake.'' ''She's not!'' apparently Chace was caught in the Morgan spell. ''I don't know what did you see. But she's really nice. She's just angry at you because you got two hours late to the first read through and invented she was on a date with you, Florence'' Sebastian wanted to punch Chace on the face. That was one of the things he wasn't supposed to tell anyone. But apparently justifying Morgan was more important to him. ''But you weren't! Sebastian!'' Florence looked at him with anger. ''Thank you very much! She was right after all! Where were you by the way?'' Sebastian couldn't think of an explanation that made sense. He had had a mental breakdown that fateful morning but he was not telling that to Florence. ''It doesn't matter'' ''Yes, it matters because thanks to your stupid lies now Morgan Llewellyn loathes me and wants me out of the picture'' Sebastian, Chace and Toby looked at her with their eyebrows raise. ''C'mon! You can see it all over her fake sweet face.'' ''You're just paranoid'' Sebastian kept his eyes glued to Morgan's back, who was with her friends and some other people. ''If she hates someone here, she hates me.'' ''The thing is...'' Will looked at him, straight in the eyes. ''...she doesn't hate you, Sebastian. And you know it.'' Many more people had arrived and some of them had joined Morgan and her friends who were just talking about harmless stuff like pets or what was going to happen in the next season of Game of Thrones. Between Morgan's new company were Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon and Harrison Osterfield. No one knew why they were there but their funny personalities gave life to the group. Tom Holland started to tell anecdotes that had everyone in tears. Sebastian couldn't kept his eyes away from her for a second. And she hadn't looked at him once. He got distracted only when Chace stood up. ''Where are you going?'' he asked. ''With them.'' he pointed at Morgan's group. ''They're a young and lively bunch.'' ''So you're on her side, now. Wow, thank you, Chace.'' ''I'm in nobody's side, stop being so immature. They look like they're having a great time and we're here in silence watching them have fun. I'd rather be there.'' And without any more words he left and second later he was installing himself between Zendaya and Karlie Kloss, being all smiles. The only thing Sebastian wanted was to follow him. After a while Toby's loyalty to him was over and he followed on Chace's footsteps. Morgan received him with a huge smile. Only Will and Florence were still with him. ''I'm getting a drink'' he almost ran to the bar. Michael Fassbender was there and Morgan was near, mysteriously talking with Karlie and Tom. Maybe they were talking about him or maybe he was as paranoid as Florence. He asked for a beer and was going to get back to his table when Michael approached him. ''Finally I get you alone... I'm going to be direct with you because you look painfully unhappy... just, once and for all, make up your mind'' ''What?'' he knew that what Michael had just said made perfect sense but he was not going to admit it. ''Don't try to deny it. I've been watching you and you could take your eyes off of her for a second.'' it was pretty clear who 'her' was. ''Just...clear that head of yours. Once you do that, you'll be a happier person, trust me.'' Michael went back to his table, in which his wife was talking to Morgan's agent. He was still processing Michael's words and looking at Morgan, who was talking only with Karlie, who after getting a drink was going back to the table. It was now or never. Without overthinking too much he approached her. He knew that what he was doing was wrong but he didn't care. Suddenly he was feeling reckless. ''So, you've been working out, Llewellyn?'' Morgan looked at him with suspicion. ''Glad you watched my Instagram video. I guess you enjoyed it.'' ''Yeah, half the world enjoyed it.'' he got one step closer to her. ''But that's not how I noticed. You look different. Stronger.'' Morgan had a side smirk on her face. ''Thanks for the compliment. There's nothing better than strength in this world. Physical strength and strength of character get you ahead in this universe. You feel powerful.'' He got even closer to her. ''What the hell are you playing at?'' Morgan looked at him with a side smile, without no hint of shame. ''My own game, Stan. It's not my fault you're bitter because you're not involved in it.'' He looked at her with the same smile. ''Are you sure of that? I'm pretty much sure I'm well into your game.'' ''Why don't you... prove it?'' she said the last words very slowly. She knew he couldn't. She was never evident about her feelings in front of anyone, let alone, him. He got so close to her that they were almost touching. Morgan needed all her self control to keep herself level headed. ''I thought something had changed between us after MSG. But no. You went back to being the insufferable person you were before.'' ''Look who's talking! I didn't see much of a difference in your behaviour, Stan.'' He had his eyes glued to her. Even though the room was full, this moment was just theirs. ''We shared a moment, Morgan.'' ''And? You come here talking about moments, when your girlfriend is right there looking at you. You have no shame, Sebastian. You thought we shared a moment but, I'm sorry to tell you that nothing of what I told you was of much importance''. But he didn't give up. He closed the space between them, placing her hand softly on her shoulder and leaned in order to whisper something on her ear. ''Keep lying to yourself, Morgan.'' his lips were almost brushing her skin. ''It meant something for you and it meant a lot to me.'' he placed a short and soft kiss just below her ear, leaving Morgan absolutely disarmed. He left with a smile and winking. The bastard knew that her had won this round. At least Morgan had the consolation that his girlfriend was going to give him hell and erase that winning smile from his face. But she was needing all her self control because her insides were screaming. She was obviously very shaken. ''What did he tell you?'' asked Karlie when she was back at the table. ''Nothing of importance.'' she said with all the calm in the world. ''Some crap about my Instagram video. Idiot.'' she didn't know why she was lying to Karlie. Maybe because there were many things that she liked to keep to herself. Like the sensation of Sebastian Stan's lips brushing against her skin for less than a second. Sebastian kept the winning smile for a good while. The magic lasted until Florence spoke. ''Are you going to explain what happened with your co-star? You two were pretty close.'' ''I was just telling her something about Tom Holland. Nothing serious'' he wasn't very focused on giving a strong excuse. The only thing that ran around his head was the softness of Morgan's skin and how good it'd feel to place more kisses in that neck of hers... Will, who had spent the night basically in silence, noticed Sebastian's absent minded and dreamy expression. ''Sebastian!'' Florence said in a loud voice that scared him a little. ''I was talking to you.'' ''Yeah, I know and I wasn't hexed by Morgan, we were just talking.'' once again, he was talking before thinking. '' She's a person by the way, not a creature from Mordor...'' then he noticed Florence's expression. ''Do you think I'm having an affair with her? Trust me, I'm not.'' ''I don't trust you'' she blatantly said. ''But I trust Morgan's ego. She'd never accept to be anyone's side chick. She has to be in the spotlight, she demands full attention, she has to be the one and only. I kind of pity the poor guy that ends up with her.'' Sebastian didn't share that view. ''She's not that bad, you know.'' ''Sebastian!'' he got yelled for the second time in ten minutes, this time by Will. ''You were the one that told us that she was a snake and we believed you. We're on your side, not like Chace and Toby, who are there laughing and having fun.'' But they couldn't finish what they were talking about because someone was making his way into the place: the one and only Chris Evans. Before Sebastian could even wave at him, Damien had already caught him and a second later he was introducing him to Morgan Llewellyn. ''What the hell Damien!'' he hissed. The only thought he had on his head was 'Not Chris, not Chris, not Chris, anyone but Chris.' He had to control himself for ten minutes while watching them talk. Thankfully someone had got the idea of dancing and Morgan had grabbed Jacob's arm and jumped to the dancefloor. Sebastian was starting to hate the Mambo Number Five only because he just wanted to be in Jacob Batalon's place so hard it hurt. Some minutes later she was dancing to Dancing Queen with Chace. But the worst was yet to come. It seemed that the world was testing how much jealousy he could bear before snapping. The first notes of Africa by Toto started to sound and he was absolutely scandalised when he saw Chris inviting Morgan to dance this particular song. And she accepted. Of course she was going to accept. Who on earth would reject dancing with Chris Evans? ''I can't believe it!'' he hissed. ''This is our song!'' ''What? Do you have a song with Morgan Llewellyn?!'' Florence just couldn't deal with this situation. She was discovering a side of Sebastian she had never seen before. The side that was very similar to Morgan's chaotic personality. And she didn't like it one bit. ''Just ignore him'' Will answered for him because Sebastian was too concentrated looking a Morgan and Chris. ''He's bewitched. It seems like that woman's exclusive fragance was poisonous after all.'' ''Well...'' Florence said bitterly. ''I don't see Toby, Tom Holland and his friends or Chris Evans bewitched. Not even Chace looks like a dreamy idiot anymore. Only Sebastian is acting like a fool. What does she have anyway?'' ''What she doesn't have'' it seemed like Sebastian was listening after all. The song ended and Morgan and Chris stayed a bit further apart from the rest of the group, sitting alone in a table. Sebastian was fuming. ''I have to stop this.'' he stood up and went towards Chris and Morgan. ''Sebastian, don't!'' Florence was getting desperate. ''Just don't do it!'' but he didn't listen. Chris and Morgan were having a normal conversation. None of them was flirting, that was absolutely out of the question. They were just talking about their pets. Chris was telling Morgan all about his dog, Dodger. ''...I love him. He's like my son. He's so unique... do you have dogs?'' There was nothing that Morgan liked more than talking about her animals. ''I have two corgis. Well, one is actually my brother's. We named them after Doctor Who characters. Mine's Doctor River Song and Clint's Captain Jack Harkness. I also have cats.'' ''Oh, I like cats too, no more than dogs but they can be nice. Are yours named after fictional characters too?'' ''No. I named them after Elizabethan people. I have Sir Francis Drake, William Shakespeare and Lady Elizabeth Tudor, who was Queen Elizabeth's name when she was Henry VIII's bastard daughter. It's impressive the amount of history you can learn through Shakespeare plays. Oh, and I rescued a cat here in New York. I named him Thirteen because of the thirteenth Doctor, who's finally a female, and I was born on a thirteen.'' She didn't mention Sebastian in the story. He had been the one that had actually found Thirteen after all. But Chris, or anyone else, didn't needed to know that. ''I was also born on a thirteenth. But of June.'' And also Sebastian, Morgan thought. But of August. Great. The triumvirate of the Thirteens. ''And I also have a sheep'' she added before making the mistake of blurting stuff about Sebastian in front of Chris Evans. ''Lady Macbeth....'' she was about to explain why she had chosen that name when she was interrupted by Sebastian. ''And here comes the Grinch.'' ''Chris, we need to talk.'' Chris was as surprised as Morgan by his attitude. ''Well, hello Sebastian. I had no idea that you were here. I haven't seen you yet.'' ''Yeah, yeah, we need to talk'' he basically dragged Chris away from Morgan, who wondered if he was jealous of her as she was talking with his beloved Chris Evans. ''Seb, are you okay?'' Chris was a bit concerned. ''What are you doing talking to her?'' he asked with bothering to answer Chris' question. ''Sebastian, are you drunk?'' Chris grabbed Sebastian's face and looked at his eyes. ''You're not. Not on alcohol at least. On jealousy, maybe. What the hell is wrong with you, Sebastian? You have a girlfriend and you're being a jerk to me because I was talking to Morgan about pets! Be honest, do you like her?'' Sebastian was a bit ashamed. He had gone there with the intention of call out Chris but the tables had turned in a second and Chris had got him straight in the wound. ''She's my co-star'' ''And? Do you think you're entitled to control her life just because she's your co-star?'' Chris laughed. ''Please, do me a favour and calm yourself down. I know you like her and you're conflicted so I'm letting this one pass as it never happened but... make up your mind.'' Sebastian found it weird that he was told the same by two different people, Michael and Chris. ''Do it sooner rather than later because you'll lose your girlfriend, Morgan Llewellyn and who knows who else, okay?'' Chris patted his shoulder with tenderness and a bit of pity. ''Chris, one more thing...'' he looked as if he was fearing the answer. ''Do you like her?'' ''I met her half an hour ago. She's a nice woman. Interesting to talk to, very charismatic. Now I know why the general public likes her so much.'' Defeated, he went back to his table. Chris went back to Morgan who was very intrigued to know what the hell Sebastian wanted. ''He was jealous'' said Chris before Morgan asked anything. ''What an idiot. Does he fear me to be a bad influence on you?'' ''He wasn't jealous of you. He was jealous of me talking to you.'' Morgan looked at him with her eyebrows raised. Her face remained unemotional. ''That is even worse. The guy has a girlfriend.'' Chris didn't believe her for a second. Maybe her unemotional voice, relaxed body language and the expression of her eyes were pretty convincing but Chris was absolutely sure that there was something else between these two. ''Whatever Sebastian feels for you, is mutual, isn't it?'' There was no need to keep lying. Chris had caught her. ''How do you know? Nevermind... look, it's weird. We hardly ever talk let alone touch if it's not strictly scripted. So, I have no idea what the hell is going on.'' She was being honest, there were days that she was really confused about what the hell was going on. ''There's something implicit between you two and you'll never admit it to each other because you're too proud for that. And he also has a girlfriend, which complicates things even more. And he's scared to leave her because what if everything backfires and he ends up staying alone. And he's probably very confused. Nice situation he got himself in.'' ''Wow, you're good in this. Anyway, I won't do anything as long as he has a girlfriend. Cheating is always wrong and he should know it. And I'm no one's second choice. Well, maybe the second woman to play the Doctor after Jodie Whittaker who's amazing. Anyway, I won't ever be 'the other woman'. That's simple humiliating.'' and she wasn't counting on the fact that she had been his fan for years. Embarrassing stuff to the limit. ''Of course it is. You deserve...'' He was about to say 'better' but Morgan wasn't listening anymore. She was looking at the door, where Joe Alwyn was making his entrance (late, by the way) accompanied by a woman that everyone in this room knew. Taylor Swift. ''Oh my God.'' she mumbled, looking at Joe talking to Damien and introducing Taylor to him. ''I've loved this woman since 2009, and I can't believe she's in front of me.'' ''I saw her live once'' Chris commented. ''She's really good.'' She was going to tell something to Chris but it was too late because Joe was already there. ''Hey, Morgan!'' he cheerfully exclaimed. ''And... Oh My God, Chris Evans. Captain America. Wow.'' he was a bit dumfounded for a minute and he wasn't the only one. He was fangirling with Chris just like Morgan was fangirling with Taylor. The difference was that Morgan didn't let it show and Joe's eyes basically shouted 'I LOVE CHRIS EVANS'. ''Hi, I'm Taylor!'' Morgan was surprised that bloody Taylor Swift was introducing herself in such a simple manner. ''Joe told me a lot about you. Believe it or not I've seen you before! I saw Lady Macbeth with Joe in 2016. I had to put on a wig just to pass as a normal person. But you were fantastic, really moving and wonderful. When Joe told me who you were I basically clapped like a seal.'' Morgan was sure that she was looking as starstruck as Joe. And she had performed in front of Taylor Swift in 2016 and she was learning about it in 2018. Nice. ''I've admired you since 2009. I know all of your lyrics, they've helped me out so many times to count.'' They were praising each other for a while and then went on talking about whatever that crossed their minds. Acting, cast mates, Hollywood, childhood stories. Anything. On his table Sebastian was with a wide smile. She had never loved Taylor Swift as much as at that moment. He wanted to stick a poster of her in his room. Thanks to her, Morgan had moved away from Chris. ''Someone should call Lord Voldemort to come and pick up his people.'' said Will, pointing at Morgan and Taylor with his head. ''They kind of look alike except from the hair colour.'' Sebastian disagreed with everything he had said. ''No. They don't look similar at all.'' once again he was making the stupid mistake of talking before thinking, ''Morgan has no comparison. She's the most beautiful woman in the world, hands down.'' He knew immediately that he shouldn't have said that. At least not in front of his girlfriend. ''You know what?'' she asked with coldness in her voice. ''Enjoy the rest of your night.'' Without saying a thing more, she stood up and left. ''Florence, wait, I'm sorry!'' ''Just, stay here, okay?'' Will was taking the situation under control before Sebastian made more of a mess causing a public scandal. ''I'll drive her home and make sure she's okay. You screwed this up.'' On the way out Florence didn't want to look at Morgan Llewellyn because she was sure that she had her signature sarcastic side smile, buy she did it anyway. And she had been wrong because Morgan was immersed into a conversation with Taylor Swift and hadn't noticed anything at all. Florence hated that harpy more than anyone she had ever met. Sebastian was looking around, making sure no one had noticed that fight with his girlfriend. But there was only Harrison Osterfield on a near table, typing something on his phone, not aware of anything. Morgan only noticed that something had happened when she had got a text from Harrison with all the gossip. And Taylor had also noticed something. ''I think your co-star is in trouble'' she said. Of course that Joe had told Taylor all about Sebastian and Morgan's constant bickering on set. ''I think he is'' Morgan was still looking at her phone. ''Are you two still fighting?'' she asked and Morgan wanted to laugh. Not even in her wildest dreams she could have imagined that someday she was going to be a topic of conversation for Taylor Swift and her boyfriend. ''Sort of.'' she simply said. She glanced at Sebastian who was looking a bit miserable and lonely. And she felt pity for him. Curse the fangirl feelings. ''I don't know why I'm doing this but... do you want to meet him?'' she asked Taylor who simply nodded. She made her way towards Sebastian's table with Taylor closely following. When they got there, they sat at Sebastian's side. ''I don't know what's happening to me, Stan but... I feel sorry for you.'' ''I didn't know you were capable of feeling, Llewellyn. This is a nice surprise.'' ''Oh, and... Sebastian, this is Taylor Swift. Taylor, this is Sebastian Stan.'' For some reason Sebastian wasn't very excited at meeting one of the most famous persons in the world. He was more busy guessing why Morgan had decided to talk to him at all. ''Nice to meet you. I really like your songs.'' it was the most stupid thing he had ever said but luckily for him, Taylor didn't seem to mind. ''And I saw you in I, Tonya. You were absolutely fantastic. It was outrageous that the Academy snubbed you. As outrageous as Morgan not getting nominated to the Lawrence Olivier.'' ''And Red deserved a Grammy'' Morgan and Sebastian said at the same time. It was the first time in his life that he admitted to liking that particular album. Morgan kept her intense gaze fixed on Sebastian. ''Look, I'm going to be honest here'' she suddenly said. ''I mean it when I said that I was sorry for you. You look so unhappy and lonely here that it makes me feel bad. You should be with us, dancing, talking and having fun. Make up your mind, Sebastian.'' this was the third time he was told of this in just one night. And somehow Morgan Llewellyn was more convincing than Michael or Chris. ''It's time for you to do what you want, not what you need. Just like I do.'' He looked at her with raised eyebrows. But what Morgan had just said made perfect sense. ''And does it work?'' he asked with genuine curiosity. He couldn't believe he was planning to follow Morgan's life advice. ''Just look at me! I've always done whatever the hell I wanted and look where I am!'' she got closer to him. ''I think it's worth a try.'' she whispered on his ear. ''Let's take a picture together! For sure it'd get attention! Can we kiss you on the cheeks?'' ''Go ahead'' he tried to keep calm. Morgan placed her head on his shoulder and he almost got dizzy with her fragance. She smelled like diamonds, fun, excitement, the city after dark and passionate nights. Before he knew she was 'kissing' him on the cheek, but barely touching him. Taylor had just wrapped an arm around his shoulder and making a face. And that was the picture. Just in this moment, Hey Ya by Outkast started to blast throughout the place. Even Damien was dancing. ''This song!'' Taylor exclaimed with a big grin. ''We have to dance!'' ''This song is my childhood'' Morgan and Taylor stood up at the same time. Sebastian thought that Morgan was exaggerating when she had said that this song was her childhood as he had been in his early twenties when that song came out. Then he remembered that Morgan was just twenty five and she was like ten or eleven when she was listening to Outkast. Yeah, that song was her childhood. He saw Morgan making her way to the dancefloor but she stopped in the middle of the way and came back to where he was. ''Come'' she suddenly said. He was expecting anything from Morgan but not this. ''What?'' he blinked a couple of times, confused. ''Come with us and have fun''. She extended her perfectly manicured hand and without thinking it twice he took it in his, with a smile on his face.

Morgan Llewellyn during this whole chapter:

P.S. my Morgan is painful to deal with but I love her.

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martydriscoll · 6 years ago

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Day 16. If the characters were youtubers who would they be and why?

Andi - Fran Meneses: Fran Meneses is an artistic YouTuber who makes money off of her work. If Andi were a YouTuber, I definitely think that like Fran, her channel would be centered around her art more than anything else. Andi is such a creative, crafty person who has shown time and time again that literally anything can be art, and I think that when she gets older, her bank account and Etsy page will thank her for that. I don’t ever think Andi will stop making art. Art is her passion. She turns to it in the good and the bad times. Like Fran, I think that art will be Andi’s career one day. I can totally see her having paintings in a gallery (maybe more collaborative pieces with her future husband, Walker?) and thousands of views on Etsy. Her YouTube channel would not only consist of tutorials and art challenges, but also of videos like Fran’s detailing her life as a career artist.

Buffy - Chiney Ogwumike: If Buffy were a YouTuber, I think she’d be less of the commercial sort of YouTuber whose brand is based around YouTube, and more of someone who does something else for a living and makes videos as a hobby. Chiney Ogwumike is a professional basketball player who sometimes makes vlogs. Sometimes they’re more oriented around her basketball career, and sometimes they’re more oriented around her as a person and her view on things. When I envision Buffy as a YouTuber, I see her as someone who makes casual videos so that others can see into her life, not as a full-time YouTuber. I can see Buffy going pro in basketball and making a name for herself in the world of sports and wanting to share who she really is with her fans by making videos. I can also see her using her platform to shake things up in the world of sports even more by calling the media out on their coverage, or lack thereof, of women’s sports, something Chiney has done.

Cyrus - Judging by his absolutley iconic English accent, if Cyrus was any YouTuber, I think his name would be Nick Crompton and his collar would stay poppin’...sksksksk nah, if Cyrus was a YouTuber, he’d be...Shane Dawson: Shane Dawson has been doing YouTube for a long time. He’s earned the title of OG YouTuber by now, and though his current videos are beautiful documentaries in which he tries helping others, specifically people who don’t really have a messy past, his early videos...aren’t that great. This isn’t trying to shade him in any way! I just mean that the skits he made in high school were made by someone who wasn’t that experienced in writing or directing or anything, his videos were just made for fun. To me, this parallels Cyrus’ script and the movie that he tried to make. As we know, it wasn’t good, but that doesn’t mean Cyrus doesn’t have the potential to make an Oscar-worthy movie one day. Additionally, that thing that Shane has inside of him that just wants to help people...Cyrus has that too. He befriended TJ and Amber even though they didn’t have that good of a track record with his friends, and though they had and still have to put the work in of being a better person, Cyrus was part of their journey to be better. On the other hand, we haven’t seen Cyrus (or Shane) really go out of the ways to help themselves and the issues that they have with themselves. I definitely think we’ll see that in the future with both of them, as sesason two saw a big build up in Cyrus’ confidence in himself and Shane said in a recent video of him that he wanted to start working on helping himself, but as of yet, we haven’t seen a ton of that from them. I definitely don’t think Cyrus would have the scandal-filled past that Shane has, but they definitely have a lot of similarities that lead me to this opinion.

Jonah - Joe Sugg: Joe Sugg is a YouTuber who makes a variety of videos ranging from daily vlogs to music to challenges. He sort of does a bit of everything. Basically, if it’s the latest trend, he’s doing it. I could see Jonah’s YouTube channel the same way: a bit of everything. I definitely think Jonah would keep up with the viral trends, but also focus a bit on hobbies of his, like music. He would have a ton of teenage fangirls and become really big on YouTube because who wouldn’t love him? And his content would be pretty general and wide, so he’d get a fair amount of views on all of his videos. If Jonah were a YouTuber, I could see him as one of the pretty it boys of YouTube with a focus on music, and I think Joe Sugg fits that bill pretty well.

Bex - Morgan Adams: Morgan Adams is a YouTuber who vlogs about her life. From her YouTube page, you would think that she’s the most laid back, relatable person ever. Though I don’t think that Morgan and Bex are exactly the same in a lot of ways, that relatable, chill energy radiates off of both of them. Bex asking, “How about some pizza?” in an uncomfortable situation and Morgan making an entire video about back to school snacks? Same. Damn. Energy. We stan relatable queens!

Bowie - AJayll: AJayll is a music reviewer who gets into every song she reviews. She has fun with her videos, and in turn, she’s fun to watch. Her and Bowie have the same chill vibes and the same passion for music. I could totally see Bowie absolutley jamming out and vocalizing along to tracks like AJayll does, and that’s why she is my choice for Bowie for this prompt.

Celia - Rachel Talbott: Rachel Talbott is a lot of things, but the most important role she feels she plays is the role of mom. Talbots’s videos are lifestyle vlogs centered around skincare, cleaning, organizing, health, fitness, and being a mom. If CeCe was a YouTuber, I feel like the role of mom would still be the most important thing to her, and like Rachel, she would post all about it. Still, even with that as her main focus, there will be the occasional travel vlog with Ham.

Ham - FunForLouis: FunForLouis is a travel vlogging channel that basically just started because of what it sounds like: Louis Cole just wanted to have some fun. Originally, the channel was comprised of videos of Louis eating shocking things, but now it’s a travel channel where he pushes others to go outside of their comfort zones and live their lives. I think Ham would be great at that. Traveling and exploring the world is something that is super important to Ham, so important that he left his family for a while to do it...it’s not a stretch to think that if Ham were a YouTuber, he would be posting the same kinds of videos Louis is.

Amber - Ava Gridley: Ava Gridley is a model who vlogs about everything from her travels to her art to her favorite music to her makeup to her girlfriend. She has a pretty diverse, chill channel that she just...shares her life in. I feel like if Amber was a YouTuber, she would definitely be a YouTuber/model, and a lot of the things that Ava is into coincide with what Amber is into in my mind.

Marty - Nathan Zed: Nathan Zed’s channel is mainly a react channel in which he shares his reactions to everything from memes to Marvel. He definitely keeps his audience laughing. I think if Marty was a YouTuber, his focus would be more on showcasing his witty banter than it would be on, say, his sports. That isn’t to say that he doesn’t sometimes bring sports into his channel, he definitely would...I just think that as a YouTuber, Marty would focus more on his “Marty from the Party” side than he would his “track star Marty” side.

Walker - Whyt Manga: Whyt Manga is an illustrator who publishes his creations through his own publishing company. Maybe I’m blurring the lines between Walker and Darius a bit, but I envision Walker as a bit of a weeb, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I could see Walker making money with art in his own way: starting his own comic book/graphic novel company and publishing his own sketches and illustrations, which is exactly what Whyt Manga did. Whyt Manga and Walker are both brilliant artists, and I believe that they both have that drive and determination to work however hard they need to work in order to make art their career. They want to make comic books? They do that. They need someone to publish them? They create a publishing company.

TJ - Definiley Matty FUCKING Smokes 🤪🤪 For real though, if TJ was a YouTuber, I think he would be...Zack Evans. Zack Evans is a YouTuber who works for BuzzFeed. Currently, Evans does commentary for BuzzFeed Unsolved: Sports Conspiracies, a series that breaks down the validity of popular conspiracy theories about the world of sports. I could definitely see TJ doing something sports-centered in his videos, and I didn’t know what exactly that could be until I saw that series. I think TJ is probably a fan of all kinds of sports and would provide very good commentary on them. He is also a history buff, as seen when he easily rebuttaled Buffy’s Machiavelli quip, so I would like to imagine that TJ has enough insight on sports conspiracies to try and disprove them.

Iris - Ingrid Nilsen: Ingrid Nilsen is a lifestyle YouTuber who dabbles in a little of everything. Books, beauty, life, activism, and more are frequently featured on her channel. If Iris were to do YouTube, I think that she would make a lot of videos about life and advice that she has for others, as well as make a lot of videos about her more “nerdy” side. I also believe that like Ingrid, she is a very kind individual who would preach acceptance and love. Additionally, though I know Iris canonly had feelings for Cyrus, I also believe that her character mirrors Cyrus in practically every aspect, and I really like the theory that Iris is lgbt in some way, which also mirrors Ingrid, as she is a lesbian.

Natalie - Brianne Worth: Brianne Worth is an Australian YouTuber who vlogs about her travels, her opinions, and just anything she wants, really. She’s a really outdoorsy person. She seems to always be going on different adventures of all sorts. Though we do not see a ton of Natalie, what we do see points to a strong, sporty girl who is always the life of the party. Those kinds of traits are what I associate Brianne Worth with.

Gus - Cryaotic: Cryaotic is a gamer who, to my knowledge, doesn’t show his face. He just...games and pretty much leaves it at that. He’s done collaborations, but because we don’t know who he is, you can’t really tell how his life outside of YouTube is. We haven’t seen a whole lot about Gus, but what we have seen is that though he wants friends, he doesn’t really have them other than Jonah, and even that friendship is only sometimes. With that being said, I think if Gus was a YouTuber, he would probably feel way more comfortable being anonymous because that’s sort of how it is in real life. Hey, I could be wrong. Maybe YouTuber Gus would be completely the opposite because he wants to make friends! In my mind though, I feel like Cry’s approach to YouTube would allign with how Gus would approach YouTube.

Miranda - Laura Lee: Laura Lee is a snake and doesn’t deserve a following. Miranda can relate.

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weekendwarriorblog · 4 years ago

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The Weekend Warrior Home Edition 7/31/20 – THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE, SUMMERLAND, THE SECRET: DARE TO DREAM, SHE DIES TOMORROW and More!

As I started to gather what’s left of my wits for this week’s column, there seemed to be fewer movies than usual, and I was quite thankful for that. Then, a few of the movies scheduled for some sort of theatrical release this weekend were delayed and I discovered a bunch of movies I didn’t have in my release calendar to begin with, so this is a little bit of an odd weekend but still one with 8 movies reviews! I went into most of the movies this weekend without much knowledge of what they were about, probably was the best way to go into many of them, since it allowed me to be somewhat open-minded about what I was watching.

The first surprise of the week is that we’re getting another decent film from the one and only Saban Films, so maybe the VOD distributor has been using the pandemic to step up its game as well. Directed by first-time feature director Nick Rowland, the Irish crime-drama THE SHADOW OF VIOLENCE (Saban Films), based on the book “Calm with Horses,” stars relative newcomer Cosmo Jarvis as Douglas Armstrong, known as “Arm,” the enforcer for the drug-dealing Devers family. Douglas also has a young toddler with local woman Ursula (Niamh Algar), but when his handler Dympna (Barry Keoghan) orders Arm to kill for the first time, he’s forced to rethink his career.

Much of the story revolves a member of the Devers family caught making a lurid pass at Dympha’s 16-year-old sister, leading to consequences, as Arm is sent to beat the crap out of him. For head of the family, that isn’t nearly enough and soon, Arm is ordered to kill the man. (This aspect of the story reminds me a little of Todd Field’s Little Children, particularly the Jackie Earle Haley subplot.)

As I mentioned above, I watched this film with zero expectations and was taken quite aback by how great it was, despite not having been that big a fan of Keoghan from some of his past work. On the other hand, Cosmo Jarvis, in his first major role, is absolutely outstanding, giving a performance on par with something we might see from Thomas Hardy or Matthias Schoenaerts, at least in their earlier work. Barely saying a word, Jarvis instills so many emotions into “Arm” as we see him playing with his young autistic son, Jack, trying to keep his jealousy over Ursula under control, while also being there when Dympna needs him. Even as you think you’re watching fairly innocuous day-to-day stuff, Rowland ratchets up the tension to an amazing degree right up until a climactic moment that drives the last act.

Despite the film’s title, The Shadow of Violence isn’t just about violence, as much as it is about a man trying to figure out how to change the trajectory of his life. If you like character-based films like The Rider, this movie is definitely going to be for you. Another surprise is that the movie will be available only in theaters this Friday, rather than the typical VOD approach Saban Films generally takes, so check your local theater if it’s playing near you.

The faith-based drama THE SECRET: DARE TO DREAM (Lionsgate), starring Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas, is directed by Andy Tennant (Hitch, Sweet Home Alabama) and adapted from Rhonda Byrne’s self-help book, The Secret (which is based on a 2006 movie also called The Secret). Originally planned for a theatrical release, it’s now being released as PVOD, which seems to be the way that so many movies are going now. In it, Holmes plays Miranda Wells, a struggling widow living in New Orleans with three kids who on a stormy night meets a kind stranger (Lucas) who tries to pass on his philosophy of using positive thinking to get whatever you want in life.

Mini-Review: I don’t usually buy into some of the faith-based movies that are released every year, but that’s mainly because I rarely get a chance to see any of them, so why bother? I was ready to go into The Secret: Dare to Dream with a healthy amount of skepticism, because it seemed to be another movie about grand miracles… but in fact, it’s just a bland movie pimping Rhonda Byrne’s New Thought technique from her New Age-y self help book.

The idea is that positive thinking is all that it takes to get anything you want, something no less than Oprah quickly glommed onto. While the movie doesn’t hit you over the head with such a message, and “God” is only mentioned once, it also just doesn’t seem to offer much in terms of storytelling to maintain one’s interest.

Katie Holmes does a fine job playing an amiable single mother who meets Josh Lucas’ Bray Johnson as a huge storm is about to hit New Orleans, and he seems like a nice enough fellow as he helps her replace a broken bumper (after she rear-ended him, no less) and then fixing up the house after the storm. But Bray has a secret (hence the title) and it’s in an important envelope that he hesitates to give to Miranda.

The film’s biggest problem is that there never is much in terms of stake when it comes to the drama, because Bray seems to be there to fix everything and make everything better. Miranda’s only other real relation is an awkward one with Jerry O’Connell’s long-time (presumably platonic) friend Tucker, which only gets more awkward when he surprises her by popping the question. She says “Yes” without talking to her own kids first. The whole time while watching the film, I was expecting some sort of big Nicholas Spark level romance between Miranda and Bray, so when Tucker proposes, it throws a real spanner in the works, but only for a little while.

Incidentally, the “secret” of the title that Bray resists telling Miranda until pressured isn’t particularly groundbreaking either. I won’t ruin it. You’ll just be annoyed when it’s finally revealed.

The Secret: Dare to Dream is as generic and bland a tale you can possibly get, one that really doesn’t accomplish very much and feels more like a Lifetime movie than something particularly revelatory.

Rating: 6/10

Jessica Swale’s WW2-set SUMMERLAND (IFC Films) stars Gemma Arterton as fantasy author Alice Lamb, quietly living on the South of England in a small beachside town when she’s presented with a young London evacuee named Frank (Lucas Bond) for her to mind while his father’s at war. Alice lives alone but many years earlier, she had a friendship with a local woman named Vera (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) that turned into something more, despite the taboo of their relationship during those times.

This was another nice surprise, and as I watched the movie, it was hard not to compare it to last week’s Radioactive, since they’re movies intended to appeal to a similar audience. This one seems to be more focused, and Arterton does a better job being likeable despite being as persnickety as Pike’s Marie Currie. Although this isn’t a biopic, it did remind me of films like Goodbye Christopher Robin and Tolkien, and possibly even Finding Neverland. (Incidentally, the Summerland of the title is a mythical place that Alice is writing about, which adds to the fairy tale angle to the film.)

As the film goes along, there’s a pretty major twist, of sorts, and it’s when the stakes in the film start to feel more dramatic as things continue to elevate into the third act. The movie actually opens in 1975 with Penelope Wilton playing the older Alice, although I’m not sure the framing sequence was particularly needed for the film to work the way Swale intended.

Summerland is generally just a nice and pleasant film that stirs the emotions and shows Swale to be a filmmaker on the rise.

Another really nice indie film that might involve a bit more searching is director Sergio Navaretta’s THE CUBAN (Brainstorm Media), written by Alessandra Piccione. It follows 19-year-old Mina (played by Ana Golja), a Canadian pre-med student who lives with her aunt, Bano (Shohreh Aghdashloo), who pushes her career in medicine, although Mina would rather be a singer. At her part-time job at a long-term care facility, Mina meets Luis (Louis Gossett Jr.), a quiet elderly patient who sits in his wheelchair never talking to anyone until Mina discovers his love for music, and the two bond over that, although Mina’s employers don’t think she’s helping Luis despite his obvious change in nature.

This was just a lovely film driven by Golja, who is just wonderful in the lead role with an equally terrific cast around her, and while it gets a little obvious, I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying this film that harks back to some of the great earlier work by Thomas McCarthy, as it follows a touching story that mixes a number of cultures in a surprisingly fluid way. It turned out to be quite a pleasant and unexpected film in the way it deals with subjects like dementia in such a unique and compelling away, especially if you enjoy Cuban music.

The Cuban already played at a couple Canadian theaters, but it will be available via Virtual Cinema and in some American theaters Friday, and you can find out where at the Official Site.

I was pretty excited to see Amy Seimetz’s new film, SHE DIES TOMORROW (NEON), since I was quite a fan of her previous film, Sun Don’t Shine. Besides having played quite a fantastic role in recent independent cinema through her varied associations, Seimetz also cast Kate Lyn Sheil, a fantastic actress, in the main role. It’s a little hard to explain the film’s plot, but essentially Sheil plays Amy, a woman convinced she’s going to die tomorrow, a feeling that starts spreading to others around her. I’m not sure if you would get this just from watching the film, because it’s pretty vague and even a little confusing about what is happening despite the high concept premise.

For the first 15 minutes or so, the camera spends the entire time watching Sheil as she cries and hugs a wall, while listening to the same opera record over and over. When her friend Jane (Jane Adams) comes over to check on her, she finds her vacuuming in a fancy dress. Amy tells her friend that she’s going to die tomorrow, and she wants to be turned into a leather jacket. Soon, after we’re watching Jane, a scientist, going down the same wormhole as Amy. That’s pretty much the running narrative, although the film opens up when we meet some of Jane’s family and friends, including Katie Aselton, Chris Messina, Tunde Adebimpe, Michelle Rodriguez and more. Soon after we meet them, they TOO are convinced that they’re going to die tomorrow. Incidentally (and spoiler!), no one actually dies in the movie. Heck, I’d hesitate even to call this a “horror” movie because it takes the idea of a pandemic that we’ve seen in movies like Bird Box, Contagion and others and sucks all the genre right out of it, but it still works as a character piece.

The thing is that the film looks great and also feels quite unique, which does make She Dies Tomorrow quite compelling, as well as a great vehicle for both Sheil and Seimetz. Even so, it’s also very much a downer and maybe not the best thing to watch if you aren’t in a good place, emotionally. You’ve been warned. It will open at select drive-ins this weekend, but it will then be available via VOD next Friday, August 7.

Next up, we have two fantastic and inspiring docs that premiered at Sundance earlier this year…

In recent years, Ron Howard has made a pretty amazing transition into respectable documentary filmmaker, and that continues with REBUILDING PARADISE (National Geographic), which takes a look at the horrible fires that struck Northern California in November 2018, literally wiping out the town of Paradise and leaving over 50,000 people homeless and killing roughly 85 people.

It’s really horrifying to see the amount of destruction caused when a spark from a faulty transmission line ignites the particularly dry forest surrounding the town of Paradise, destroying the hospital and elementary school and displacing the homeowners. This is obviously going to be a tough film to watch, not only seeing the fires actually raze the town to the ground but also watching these not particularly wealthy people having to contend with losing their homes. (It’s even tougher to watch now since you wonder how COVID may have affected the town as it’s in better shape now then it was last year.)

Using a cinema verité approach (for the first time possible?), Howard finds a small group of people to follow, including the town’s former mayor, the school superintendent, a local police officer, and others. It’s pretty impressive how much time this doc covers, and often, you may wonder if Ron Howard was there at all times, because it seems like he would have to have been embedded with the townspeople for an entire year to get some of the footage.

As I said, this is not an easy film to watch, especially as you watch these people dealing with so much tragedy – if you’ve seen any of the docs about Sandy Hook, you might have some idea how hard this movie may be to watch for you. But it is great, since it shows Howard achieving a new level as a documentary filmmaker with a particularly powerful piece.

Produced by Kerry Washington, THE FIGHT (Magnolia Pictures) is the latest doc from Weiner directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, this time joined as director by that film’s editor, Eli B. Despres. The “fight” of the title is the one between the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Trump administration that began shortly after his inauguration in 2017, his Muslim travel ban that quickly followed, and going up until mid-2019 when a lot of obvious civil rights violations were being perpetrated by the U.S. government.

This is a particularly interesting doc if you weren’t aware of how active the ACLU has been in helping to protect people’s rights on a variety of fronts. The doc covers four particular cases involving immigration, LGBTQ rights, voting rights and reproductive rights, and we watch the lawyers involved in four important cases, including a few that are taken right up to the Supreme Court. In following these four particular lawyers, the filmmakers do a great job helping the viewer understand how important the ACLU is in keeping the conservative right at bay from trying to repeal some previous laws made to protect Americans’ rights.

Of course, this film is particularly timely since it covers a lot of dramatic changes, including the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, which ends up being ironic, since he was the judge presiding over an earlier ACLU case involving a pregnant teen immigrant who isn’t allowed to get an abortion. The movie doesn’t skirt the fact that often the ACLU is called upon to help the likes of white supremacists and potential terrorist factions, since they’re about protecting everyone’s rights. I would have loved to hear more about this, but it does cover the backlash to the ACLU after the Charlottesville protests went horribly wrong in 2017.

Be warned that there are moments in this film where the waterworks will start flowing since seeing the ACLU succeed against oppression is particularly moving. If you’ve been following the country’s shifting politics keenly and want to learn more about the ACLU, The Fight does a great job getting behind closed doors and humanizing the organization.

The Fight will be available on all digital and On Demand platforms starting Friday, and you can find out how to rent it at the Official Site.

Vinnie Jones (remember him?) stars in Scott Wiper’s crime-thriller THE BIG UGLY (Vertical) about a pair of British mobsters who travel to West Virginia to make an oil deal in order to launder money. Once there, they encounter some troubles with the locals, particularly the sadistic son of Ron Perlman’s Preston, the man with whom they’re dealing.

Sometimes, as a film critic, you wonder how a movie that has so much potential can turn into such an unmitigated disaster, but then you watch a movie like The Big Ugly, and you realize that some bad filmmakers are better at talking people into doing things than others.

That seems to be the case with this film in which Jones plays Leland, who comes to West Virginia with his boss Harris (McDowell) to make an oil deal with Ron Perlman’s Preston, only for the latter’s son “PJ” (Brandon Sklenar) causing trouble, including the potential murder of Leland’s girlfriend. Of course, one would expect to see tough guy Vinnie Jones out for revenge against the endless parade of sleaze-balls he encounters, and that may have been a better movie than what Wiper ended up making, which is all over the place in terms of tone. (It was only after I watched the film did I realize that Wiper wrote and directed the absolutely awful WWE Film, The Condemned, also starring Jones. If I only knew.)

Jones isn’t even the worst part of the cast, in terms of the acting, because both McDowell and Perlman, two great actors, struggle through the terrible material, though Perlman generally fares better than McDowell, who doesn’t seem to be giving it his all.

There’s a whole subplot involving one of PJ’s friends/co-workers (recent Emmy nominee Nicholas Braun from HBO’s Succession) and his relationship with a pretty local (Lenora Crichlow) that goes nowhere and adds nothing to the overall story. Once PJ is seemingly dealt with, there’s still almost 35 minutes more of movie, including a long monologue by Perlman telling a sorely wasted Bruce McGill how he met McDowell’s character. Not only does it kill any and all momentum leading up to that point, but it’s probably something that should have been part of the set-up earlier in the film.

The fact this movie is so bad is pretty much Wiper’s fault, becuase he wrote a script made up of so many ideas that never really fit together – kind of like Guy Ritchie doing a very bad Deliverance remake before deciding to turn it into a straight-up Western. Wiper then tries his hardest to salvage the movie by throwing in violence and explosions and leaning heavily on the soundtrack. (The fact that both this and the far superior The Shadow of Violence used a song from the Jam was not lost on this music enthusiast.) Regardless, The Big Ugly is a pretty detestable piece of trash that couldn’t end fast enough… and it didn’t. (It played in drive-ins and select theaters last Friday but will be available on digital and On Demand this Friday.)

Available through Virtual Cinemas (supporting Film Forum and the Laemmle in L.A) is Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni’s documentary, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind, about the Canadian singer-songwriter who changed people’s impressions of Canadian culture, covering Lightfoots’s greatest triumphs and failures.

Film at Lincoln Center’s Virtual Cinema will premiere Koji Fukada’s Japanese drama A Girl Missing (Film Movement) on Friday, while New York’s Metrograph Live Screening series continues this week with Manfred Kirchheimer’s Bridge High & Stations of the Elevated starting today through Friday, and then the premiere of Nan Goldin’s Sirens (with two other shorts) starting on Friday. You can subscribe to the series for $5 a month or $50 a year.

Premiering on Disney+ this Friday is Beyoncé’s Black is King, her new visual album inspired by the lessons from The Lion King, as well as the new original Muppets series, Muppets Now. Since I haven’t seen either Lion King movie, I’m definitely looking forward more to the Muppets returning to "television.”

Launching on Netflix today is Matias Mariani’s Shine Your Eyes about a Nigerian musician who travels to Sao Paulo to look for his estranged brother and bring him back to Nigeria, as well as Sue Kim’s doc short, The Speed Cubers, set in the world of competitive Rubik cube solving and the friendly rivalry between two young “speedcubers.” Also, Season 2 of The Umbrella Academy will premiere on Netflix this Friday.

Premiering on Shudder tomorrow (Thursday, July 30) is Rob Savage’s Host, the first horror movie made during the quarantine about a group of six friends who decide to hold a séance over Zoom.

Amazon’s drive-in series continues tonight with “Movies to Inspire Your Inner Child,” playing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Hook.

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

#TheWeekendWarrior #SheDiesTomorrow #Summerland #TheCuban #Movies #Reviews #TheFight #RebuildingParadise #TheShadowOfViolence #VOD #Streaming #TheSecretDareToDream

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justa1dandjbfan · 7 years ago

Text

Little Surprise // Niall Horan

Your POV You have been dating Niall Horan for about two years now. He was currently in Los Angeles touring with the boys while you stayed in the house you and Niall shared in London. The past few days you have been feeling sick and then you remembered that you still hadn’t got your period. This morning you decided to take a pregnancy test and it turns out you were 4 weeks pregnant, you start crying and you were having mixed feelings about the situation, first you were happy because that baby it was made out of yours and Niall’s love, and even though you two were young you were going to drop everything if was necessary to take care of your unborn child, but also you worried because you don’t know how Niall is going to take it, you two had talked about marriage and having a baby but not yet, and on top of that he was on a middle of a worldwide tour. You decided to get over with this soon, so you text him. N: Niall Y:You

Y: Good Morning Ni, how are you? text me as soon as you wake up. Love you xx

You sat nervously in your bed, thinking about every possible scenario of how Niall would react. You really loved him and you didn’t want him to leave you, not even 30 minutes later you hear the special tone you had just for when Niall texted, you immediately took your phone and read his message

N: Morning Princess, today we had to wake up at 5 AM to promote our new single, I’m good and you? Although I miss you like crazy! Are you still feeling sick? Can’t wait to get back to London next month, I love you more xx

You looked at your phone smiling, suddenly you started to cry, thinking about how would your life be if he left you and your baby, you started overthinking and almost forgot to reply

Y: I’m okay, I need to tell you something later, so uhm call me when you have time. I love you xx good luck with the promo and say hi to the boys for me.

Not even 10 seconds later he replied

N: Y/N are you okay? I can’t FaceTime right now, but text me! I’m getting worried.

Y: Yeah I guess, and I rather tell you this over FaceTime since I can’t go there, So yeah call me later.

N: y/n tell me please I’m worried, I love you! I can’t let anything bad happen to you, you are my everything, you know what fuck the interview I’m calling you now

Y: Don’t worry I can wait

You texted him and suddenly felt the urge to throw up, You was so nervous and morning sickness wasn’t making you feel better, You run to the bathroom and felt my phone ringing. It was Niall. You quickly did what you had to do and cleaned you face, so hopefully he wouldn’t notice you had just thrown up.

Y: Hi

N: Y/N are you okay? Are you still feeling sick? Maybe you should go see a doctor He said out of breath

Y: I feel better Nialler, thank you You lied

N: what’s wrong princess? I can see all over your face that you are worried, and by your puffy eyes I can tell you have been crying. Please tell me what’s wrong? I’m really worried. Niall said softly

Y: It’s just that I’m afraid that you will leave me, I love you so much, and I can’t imagine my life without you! You’re my everything! I know you can have someone that is much better than me, that won’t screw your life up. You stopped for a bit, because you started crying and couldn’t talk

N: Y/N don’t you ever think like that again! There’s no one better than you and my life is perfect with you in it. What are you suddenly thinking that I’m going to leave you? Niall asked you worried

Y: Be-because I found out something this morning You said nervous

N: What happened? And remember whatever it is I’m never going to leave you no matter what Niall said

Y: I’m so nervous You said

N: I promise you everything is going to be alright Niall said confidently

“Here goes nothing” you thought

Y: Okay, here it goes. So, as you know 4 weeks ago you came to visit me You said while your hands were shaking

N: Yeah, I remember that day perfectly Niall said smiling

Y: Okay, and then later that night we started kissing and then we had sex. You said smiling at the amazing memory of that night

N: how could I forget, it was one of the best nights of my life, I don’t understand how this has to do with what we were talking about. Niall said

Y: That night, we forgot to use a condom, and you know how lately I have been feeling sick You said as a tear left your eye, saying you were nervous it was an understatement

N: I thought you were feeling better? Niall said completely clueless

Y: N-Niall I’m pregnant, I took a test this morning You said as you started crying, Niall was shocked by the news,

Y: I’m sorry, I understand if you are mad and you don’t want anything to do with me again. You are on the middle of a tour and a baby would only be another distraction for your career, thank you for everything you did for me on the past two years. I promise you I didn’t do this on Purpose. I just found out. I know this is something I should tell you in person but I just found out this morning and I needed to tell you I’m sorry. You said crying historically

N: are you sure you are pregnant? Niall asked

Y: I took 3 tests, and all of them were positive, but like I was saying you don’t have to be th- You couldn’t finish talking because Niall stopped you

N: Y/N, please don’t ever think or say that again! I love you so much, this are the best news I have ever received! We are going to have a baby and be a family, I’m going to be a dad! I would never leave you! I’m not mad at you, if it’s possible this made me fall harder for you! I can’t believe that in about 9 months we are having a mini you or me. I’m so happy, I promise to be there with you on everything! You are not alone in this. I know this wasn’t planned but I promise you we are going to make it work. I love you so much. I’m so sorry I can’t be there with you right now, but I’m going to try to get home tomorrow night since we have the next three days free. Niall said crying, you smiled knowing that everything was going to be alright, even though you were still worried about certain things like the tour and his career

Y: I love you so much, Niall we are going to be parents I can’t believe this. I’m glad I have you! Thank you. Me and our baby are going to be waiting for you, I’m booking a doctor appointment for when you get here then. I’m sorry this had to happen in the middle of the tour, What is everyone going to say? You asked worried once again

N: Stop saying sorry like this was your fault, it takes two persons to make a baby not one, so stop apologising. And we are going to take things one day at a time, lastly fuck what everyone else thinks is our baby. You are going to be such a great mother. Do anyone else knows? He asked you while he blowed a kiss

Y: nope, just you and me. And I think we should keep it that way for a while

N: Our little secret

Niall said making you smile

N: I’m so sorry but Louis is actually going to kill me if I don’t go now. I love you and our baby so much, I’m going to call you as soon as I’m done with this. Thank you for everything my love, Take care Niall said, you could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t want to hung up

Y: Hope you have a sick day baby, We love you so much and I can’t wait to see you. You said

N: I’m such a bad boyfriend, I forgot to ask you how were you feeling? Niall asked you feeling guilty

Y: Good, morning sickness is a bitch but it’s going to be worth it. I can’t believe that an actual baby is growing right now inside me

N: Our baby

Y: Yes, Our baby.

*************************** Let me know if you guys want a second part and I would really appreciate some feedback ♡ If you want to use this ask me first and give me credit of course♡ If you want me to write you an imagine I take requests! Just tell me of who do you want me to write it of and if you have an idea (the last part it’s option and it can be of any celebrity it doesn’t have to be Justin Bieber or One Direction related, even though I will probably write more of them because they are my life) thank you ♡

#niall horan #niall james horan #niall horan imagine #niall imagine #one directon #one direction imagines #1d imagines #slow hands #this town #imagine #1D

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