#i'll see if i can find clips of the songs that were cut

[mint-is-here]

this: *exists*

me:

[lynaferns]

Redraw (well, third attempt) of an old drawing from 2022.

Alright, this is a big one, so, PC users: left click the image, right click the image, open in another tab, zoom and see all the details you want.

Phone users: press down on the image, download, find image in your phone gallery, it will download at full quality so you can zoom and see all the details.

The fancy stars and the inside of the piano were a pain in the ass, everything else went pretty smoothly, or at least the average complications. I'm proud of how I mixed the colors in the piano. I was convinced I'd end up making a mess but it turned out nice.

Once again, this is finished because I decided so. I have no energy to make the final look I had in mind.

The piano alone, close ups (cuz the jpeg won't let you zoom at the very max and that sucks, so I screenshot from my art program) and an idea for an AU + youtube playlist I made that I relate too much to the AU under the cut. vvv

SO!

This was never supposed to be an AU, and I probably won't do anything regardless, but I got the idea while I was working on it last month. And since I have a liiiiiiittle basic knowledge of music and experience, specially in piano... well...

I had bad experiences learning music as a child so probably the story would reflect on that lol.

An old astral auditorium that's abandoned and in ruins during the day and gets all shiny and nice at night when it's illuminated by the light of the stars.

Sun, Moon and Eclipse are in charge of the place, they do their best at keeping the place standing… and are the main musicians that play for the stars every month, once or twice. The day and night transformation affects them too.

Violet (y/n that's not really a y/n at this point) is a young altruist and selftaugth violinist (yeah yeah, I'm very original with the names, hush) that came across this old auditorium. She starts visiting the brothers to play music during the day and decides to join them in the auditions to play for the stars, and help them modernize a little bit to attract human audience too.

The brothers play several instruments to be able to acompany each other if necesary buuut they each have a "favourite". Sun mainly Piano, Moon mainly Harp (can also play piano and viola to accompany Sun) and Eclipse can play any instrument Sun and Moon can and more, but likes accordion :)

Sun is the most strict one when it's about playing music even though he likes to mess around with songs and improvise during day hours when no body is around, but will feel guilty afterwards... Moon is a gremlin that likes messing up and playing with the instruments in ways you are not supposed to (like using the viola bow as a sword). Eclipse is easy going and will match the energy of their brothers while keeping them out of trouble. Clip doesn't really like playing for the auditorium and prefers improvising silly songs alone or with Sun and Moon.

You can ask me about this AU if it got you curious, I'll be glad to answer!

I still want to make the MC design at least. And maybe some sketch comics if I have the energy for it.

[euphoriiabts]

Idol Jake x Idol Y/N

When fans start shipping you with TXT's Huening Kai, Jake is quick to see the clips and tiktok edits, causing a huge wave of jealous to overcome him that you've never seen before in your life.

You come home from your group's music video shoot to find Jake sitting on the living room couch, scrolling through TikTok.

"Whatcha looking at, babe?" You ask curiously as you walk towards him.

"Is he better than me?" Jake replies, causing a spout of confusion to bloom in your facial expression.

"Is who better than you?" You ask, confused, looking at him quizzically as if you're taking my last math exam of the year in high school.

"Kai. Is he better than me?" Jake answers, no specific tone of voice being detected, but you can tell he's jealous with the vein that pops out of his neck from his anger.

"Why are you asking me that?" You question as you sit down next to him.

"Just answer the question-"

You shake your head, "No, Jake, he isn't better than you, you know that," You reply, thinking for a moment before continuing, "Is this about the fans?"

Jake looks up at you and for the first time since you arrived at home, you could finally see his facial expressions. He had a hint of anger, possession, and jealousy in his eyes, but his gaze softens when he meets yours.

"Look at the edits, baby, the clips and the pictures? They make you guys look so good together.." Jake whines and pouts like a big man child despite being 21 years old and judging by his tone of voice, you know that he needs reassurance, so you look him in the eyes and move a strand of hair out of his face.

"Baby. It doesn't matter what the fans think they know or how they feel because I'm your girlfriend and nothing is going to change that, okay? I love you and you are the only person in this world that I want."

"But what if-"

"Nuh uh, no 'but what ifs', I don't want to hear you talk down to yourself, do you understand me, Sim Jaeyun?" You say, cutting him off before he can finish his sentence. Jake just nods and that was the end of the conversation that night, but if you knew Sim Jaeyun any better, you were already well aware that he was going to need a lot more reassurance than that.

So you went to bed, cuddling extra close in his arms that night and running your fingers through his hair as we relaxed and fell asleep quickly. The rumors about you and Kai only grow more intense, the fans dying and begging to see more. You try your absolute best to comfort and reassure Jake that fans just have a tendency to act that way and you think it's going well until one day your management holds a meeting with you, telling you that your group is going to be doing a song collaboration with ENHYPEN. At first, you assume that it's all just a coincidence, until after the song is recorded and you guys release the teasers, Jake gets extra touchy in all of the TikToks the groups make together. You weren't the only one who was catching onto it, in fact, every last member of both yours and his group started saying things about it.

"Jake, you're so close to Y/N in this one, even the fans have noticed. You know how much trouble you could get in if it was leaked that you guys are dating, right?" Jungwon states and the reaction Jake gives says all too much that he is definitely up to something.

"Sim Jaeyun, what are you plotting?" You ask, raising your eyebrows as you speak, looking at him with your hand on your hip, maintaining a stern look on your face. You look him directly in the eyes and you swear for a moment you saw him grinning, but you couldn't get a good enough look to confirm before his face goes back to a normal one. Jake nods,

"I understand, I'll be more careful." Jake says to Jungwon, ignoring your question. You shake your head and brush it off, hoping that he'll stick to his words. As the next few weeks move forward, your collaboration has been completely released and the speculations about you and Kai have almost gone entirely radio silent as new dating speculation between you and Jake builds. You lay next to Jake in bed, watching as he scrolls through TikToks about it, smiling to himself.

"Are you proud of yourself?" You ask rhetorically, already knowing the answer to the question.

"Look, babe, they think we'd make a better couple than you and Kai.." He states happily as he points out one of the comments on a post. And with that, the new rumors calmed your jealous boyfriend down and you never had to hear about another dating rumor again.. Until about two weeks later when you open your Twitter notifications,

"Omg did you see Jake and Chaeryoung? They're so cute together, look!"

"No literally they'd be such a cute couple."

"Something HAS to be going on!!!"

"I'll be so happy if they're dating, OH EM GEE"

You stare at the comments and quotes on your phone as you feel a huge wave of anger and jealousy overcome you,

"Oh HELL no.."

A week later..

1 Notification: Twitter.com

"Pop Crave: According to Dispatch, ITZY's vocal line member Y/F/N and ENHYPEN member Sim Jaeyun are reportedly dating! An anonymous tip-"

You didn't get time to even finish reading the tweet before you heard your boyfriend yelling your name from the other side of the house,

"Y/F/N what did you do?!" Jake yells, anger and amusement apparent throughout his voice.

Well this was going to be a fun week for the both of you..

[kuwdora]

For the vidding asks: 10, 12, 21!

10 What was the best comment you've received on one of your vids?

Let me tell you about a comment that fundamentally rattled my soul to the core and made me extremely hyper-vigilant, but eventually I got less rattled by it and absorbed it into my creative process because it was so incredibly helpful for me and made me a better vidder.

I made this due South Fraser/RayK vid in 2007, it was my second ever vid I was trying to make. It's called Better Off. If you look at my original vid notes I wrote like 500 words talking about how much I hate I my vid. How much it sucks, how it’s awful. How I was apologizing for it and basically giving up on the vid. The whole self-flagellating nine yards. I got a lot of great feedback on it, like over 20 comments, so despite me hating my own vid of new hobby I was learning to do, people fucking loved it.

HERE is the comment thread that changed my life. Where j-s-cavalcante kindly said the greatest most wonderful things to me but also made me go 👀:

I wish you hadn't waxed eloquent on the subject of how bad this vid is, because now I feel like an idiot posting this comment: I LOVED it. It makes me think, it scares me, it makes me see DS in a slightly different way, and it's fascinating with ALL those action scenes and blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments. And, OMG, Dangerous!Fraser is freaking me out a little, here, and making me want to write, and that's one of the best things I think vids do for me. I find the good ones inspiring. I don't think anyone has quite dealt with this issue in a vid before, certainly not in this depth. But the idea that Fraser is deliberately risking Ray's life in these "wildly bizarre ways" for some unknown, maybe pathological, reason of his own is…scary and believable and intense! The use of so many of their action scenes all cut together so quickly is really, really effective in getting the point across. The song is cool and it inspired shivers up my back. Wow. (It also brings Speranza's "Wildly Dangerous Ways" (http://www.trickster.org/speranza/WDWays.html) to mind--one of my all-time favorite F/K fics.) And you did something so clever that I really loved…I'm not sure if I can express it properly, but there are a few clips that seem very obvious choices for the lyrics in question, such as the shot of Damian Kowalski on the " who's your daddy?" line and the scenes from Ray's messy apartment on the "I'll be hiding in your dirty room" line (there are more---"I'll not wake you," and the airport lines, etc.). And when those scenes show up matched to those lines, they seem like too-facile choices, but then in the very next line+clip combination, you reinterpret them: "I'm your daddy now" has Fraser holding the heavy bag for Ray, and so on. I found that very effective and just…intelligent. I think it's an intelligent vid. But you say it sucks, so I guess I don't know any better. I'll just live in blissful ignorance…and play it for writing inspiration…. :)

Dear asker, friend. @marahsarie. I want you to know that when I made this due South fanvid I was 100% sure in my belief that I was making a happy, intense adventure vid. Wholesome. Action. My beta sapote at the time was trying to say the same things j-s-cavalcante was saying but I was not grasping it. So when I read j-s’s comment I lost my goddamn mind. How could I have failed to understand what the fuck I was making? How other people might see it?? I was embarrassed and confused and and and...then I got it.

Iiiiiiiiiiiiiii...didn’t realize that the song I was using was the singer was about a cult leader. But because this song was about a cult leader and that was the reading that people who watched the vid were taking away from it... everyone lost their minds. It was a darker interpretation of Benton Fraser than anyone had ever seen in a vid before. Pathological? Fraser? In my vid? I guess it's more likely than I thought.

I stewed and chewed on this comment and reviewed my 300 emails I exchanged with sapote to understand what the fuck I was thinking when I heard the lyrics and how I made something so different than what I thought I was making. I wrote over 2k words about song choice and what I learned, which you can check out here if you want to see what thinking about song choice was like so early in my vidding experience.

That comment was so full of love, it was supportive, and specific and surprising. It meant the world to me. It made me think about how to intentionally approach a song, try to understand what the song is or might be about based on the song lyrics themselves, the singer’s confirmation of the song meaning, and what other people might interpret a song as. I also started thinking about how and when I will want to vid with or against specific song narratives and how I could make a vid successful in the process depending on what I did to make my case. Whether it was with symbolism or metaphor or technical efforts. Sometimes I still end up with happy accidents (as well as intentional horror, hahh) and there is always the possibility of more unintentional accidents and horrors because my brain is very squishy. I'm still human and I've fucked up before and will probably fuck up again but I will try to do my to know what's going on in what I make.

Truly that was the best comment ever. It really really helped me think critically about my work and how others might approach it even when I do or don't know what they might see. And it was just so kind and nice and reassuring and it really got me excited to make more vids after that, too.

— 12 Most underrated vid that you wished had gotten more views?

My Maya Herrara vid from Heroes! Racist fans were fucking awful about Maya as portrayed by Dania Ramirez. Fuckshit racists. The Heroes writers wrote the most racist shit, too, and did her character a great fucking disservice. It was awful. I’m still fucking pissed about it. You can read my extensive notes about Maya I wrote at the time on the original vidpost.

I loved Maya and wanted to vid her. Even though I wish the show Wasn’t Like That. I wish that she had something better, I wish that actress had something better, too. I loved her so much and I wanted more of her. I love her and I'll probably cry again the next time I rewatch the show. I don’t know if Heroes fandom people ever watched my vid back in the day since it wasn't the main Slash Pairing. I made this vid in 2008 and it has like 18 views on YouTube so here we are. I love Maya. She deserved better.

— 21 How would you describe your vidding style?

My vidding style is passionate, earnest, irreverent. It’s also unhinged, deeply fucked up. I love utilizing internal motion in clips to create a sense of movement and use that energy with the musicality of songs. I’m also inordinately gleeful about vidding fucked up themes and sources and can’t bring myself to be apologetic about it. But I’m equally unhinged with my love and joy for the wholesome characters and shows I make fanvids for, too. I don’t know if I come off as balanced or anything but. I always approach my vids with love (for the show, the characters, the vidding process, the creative catharsis, etc).

Thank you kindly for these lovely asks!!!

[lazyvase]

Dear, @purplekoop

GRRRR RAHH War Bots is consuming me! I keep finding myself thinking about the far off hypotheticals and all the little extraneous details:

What would box art look like? So far I can see Wilderoad and Calber staring at each other from the corners of the art. A random map from the game is the background. Other bots from the game are all rushing towards each other ready for a fight.

What kinds of PvP maps will there be? One idea I had is an abandoned amusement park based on a once-beloved-but-now-forsaken gaming company that is now being used for training.

Also I had the potential* headcanon that the PvP gameplay is the War Bots** training.

*(I say potential because i don't know if you already had that idea. I don't want to assume.)

**(Not to be annoying myself. But I know that War Bots is not the final name of the game nor the team. I just wanted to make that clear real quick. Sorry if this sounds rude. I genuinely don't know how to phrase this without sounding like an asshole.)

What will the trailer look like? I can see a rough draft. A little rendered animation of showing Wilderoad walking onto a PVP map. Chaos is everywhere. We then get quick clips of gameplay footage of characters using their abilities. The obligatory pop song playing in my head bounces between "Cut Off" by Set It Off and "Magic 8" also by Set It Off. (I listened to the album these songs were in recently while I had War Bots on the brain)

By the way, I see Wilderoad as the face of War Bots mainly because they were literally the introduction to it, and if I remembered correctly, they were also one of the first characters made. And if i'm remembering REALLY correctly, I believe you yourself said they were the face.

What will the cosmetics be like? This question really started when you mentioned the quickly scrapped penguin's moveset being given to Velenna. I instantly thought "Alright, Velenna should be given a penguin skin then." Then i realized that I don't recall you ever mentioning cosmetics. Would it be more TF2-esque with a loadout system? Or would it be more Overwatch 2-esque with a simple complete skin system? Speaking of Overwatch, I couldn't help but think of an "Ancient Heroes" skinline that gives our favorite bots a familiar look. Some mappings are rather cut and dry, while some really get you to think (Poppett in particular: Tracer? Lucio? D.va? Kiriko????). I also briefly imagined a "Coat" mechanic of sorts. Where you could merely change the color of the bots bodies. Like putting on a new coat of paint. (As you can see, I'm kinda using War Bots as a cope and a way to wean me off of Overwatch. Or at least attempting to.)

What would the community jokes and memes be like? What would be our nerf Genji? I can already see a meme about Necross, but I won't since I plan to make that one a reality eventually.

Bot Select? I want to see all the bots lined up in rows and columns.

Of course. What game would be complete without your favorite thing: figures! Not to make you drool, but imagine if a Wilderoad figure was right there on your desk. Or Formann? Or Poppett? Or Velenna? Or Navea? Or etc etc etc.

It's all so just- GRRRrrr OHHHhhh, so enticing, so magical, so beautiful. I'm proud to say that I'm on the ground floor of War Bots. I love being a part of this. I can't wait for what comes next.

Sincerely, G

PS: I have absolutely no idea when the rest of The Gardeners posts will be finished. I have solid ideas on all of them (minus one). I just haven't had the time to write them. This week I'm focusing on a big midterm and have the usual load of homework. I'm trying to get a lot done this week so Spring Break I can truly relax and write to my hearts content. Of course, the biggest roadblock to my writing is that I'm busy writing a script for my university's comedy skit program club. And that has a deadline of the week after Spring Break. So yeah. Sometime after that I suppose. I will let you know that the next Gardener I'll be going over is the one with blades.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings!

[justabitsp00ky]

Blank Room Soup.avi, a hoax?

I believe by now most of the internet is familiar with "Blank Room Soup.avi", or originally called "Freaky Soup Guy", a video wherein two costumed characters comfort a man who's crying while eating soup.

It's off putting at worst, maybe slightly uncomfortable. Of course there were rumors that it came from the dark web and that the man was forced to eat a soup that had his dead wife in it, or slight variations of.

Of course, none of that is true. The truth, however, is rather muddled.

See, the costumes belonged to a man named Raymond Persi. Raymond Persi works for Disney and is an animator, director, and voice actor for a handful of movies and The Simpsons between season 16-21 and The Simpson's Movie. Raymond also had these costumes, as they were a project of his that were essentially mascots for events or stage shows. The act was called "RayRay".

According to Raymond Persi, one day while out for a show, the costumes were stolen, and some time he was later sent this video. Finding it absurd, he posted it to youtube to show his friends, and the costumes remain stolen. Though still a mystery as to who stole the costumes and made the video is, the rest of the mystery is solved right?

Well, there's a possibility that Raymond Persi's story is a fabrication. Below the cut, I'll go into a very likely theory about what is possibly going on. Nothing is confirmed, however.

What's lesser known is that there were actually multiple videos in this series. The second video is mostly the same, the man is in the lackluster room crying with his soup, but now they mascots are off to the side, watching, until the last couple seconds when one of them runs up to the man and kicks him. The third video, however, is where it gets interesting.

It's a 10 second clip, where in a dark alleyway with a single spotlight, "RayRay" comes out with what we can assume is a hostage. The man is bound and gagged. The camera zooms in on both of them, before cutting off.

So it got it eerier, it seems, but this is the beginning of a lead.

Raymond Persi has a sister named Dominique Lenore Persi, who is the front woman for an experimental rock band called "Stolen Babies", a band with quite some horror themes to their songs and music videos.

As we can already see, there's quite a similarity between the "hostage" in Blank Soup Room 3 and the gentleman in the hat and glasses on the left.

In fact, as we can see here, he has the same pale face, glasses, hat, and red jacket. Oh, and ropes, isn't that funny.

As a matter of fact, there are photoshoots of RayRay with Stolen Babies!

And they've even been there for their shows as mascots, fulfilling their intended purpose after all. In all, just a brother helping support his sister's band.

So, let's loop around. RayRay, Stolen Babies, Blank Soup Room.avi. What's the theory? That Blank Soup Room may just be a promoting stunt for Stolen Babies. I personally think Raymond lied about the suits being stolen and the video being sent to him to try to make it more mysterious and spooky. I mean, sometimes people just lie, even when regarding searches and mystery.

Unless it's true that the costumes were stolen, and maybe Blank Room Suit inspired Raymond Persi to make more creepy videos and photos for Stolen Babies with spare costumes of RayRay.

Either way, nothing is confirmed for certain. We still don't know who the crying man eating the soup is, we don't know who's under the costumes, and we don't know if Persi is telling the truth or not. Still, the first soup video is... quite eerie.

[pityroadart]

Hey, what is your process when making collages? How do you collect things for them, how do you decide on quotes and what to draw/paint on and such? I really enjoy them :)

Hello! That's a very good question, I do it so automatically that I'm not entirely sure myself — but since I caught myself in the middle of a cut-and-stick sketchbook session, let's dive into it.

First up, I collect scraps like a trash magpie. Always have done, always will. Any paper items that I enjoy the colour/shape/texture of. Nowadays I tend to enjoy things with bold primary colours or black and white, pages from old maths textbooks or encyclopedias, flyers from local exhibitions, fragile tape and shipping labels from parcels, scraps found on the floor, old shopping lists, slips of paper from inside medicine packets or covid tests etc, anything that jumps out at me.

I collect these things in the pocket at the back of my sketchbook, or in a drawer (I have a whole drawer dedicated to scraps — some picked up from six or seven years ago, and some from last week). I hoard them like some sort of paper-loving dragon.

Other things I like adding are washi tapes, stickers, cinema tickets, drawings (whether straight in the sketchbook or stuck in), and anything else flat enough to fit in there.

Here are a few older sketchbook pages (from about 2014) showing some other types of scraps I've collated and used, and I think you can see where my current style has grown from.

The second part of your question is: but how do I put them all together? Again it's pretty much instinctive by now, but here are a few things I look for:

- Do I have a theme for the page? Is there a central object I want to build around? For the recent star trek pages I shared here, I'd been to see TMP and TWOK at the cinema and glued my tickets into my sketchbook, so I knew I wanted to theme the page around them

- Is there a colour palette? Either I pick colours from my central object, or I decide on a colour palette myself. Nowadays I keep my colour palettes very limited - one or two bolder colours and a range of cream/white/black/grey - but previously I've set the palette as pastel rainbow colours for example, when those were the colours I was more drawn to

- What words, symbols or drawings do I want to add? This can be lyrics that have been stuck in my head or that fit the theme, phrases I've come up with, fragments of found poetry clipped from textbooks, drawings that fit the theme (e.g star trek screencap thumbnails in the first example), etc. They don't have to fit the theme perfectly, or make sense to an external viewer - the important thing is that *you* want them on your page

This image below is a fragment of an as-yet-incomplete page - in which I swatched some leftover watercolour paint onto the page, found it complimented the colour of a sticker from a parcel perfectly (the small circular sticker), then I added an interesting-looking image from an old encyclopedia, which reminded me of a line from a Mountain Goats song: "the low pressure system brings the breezes in", and I wrote out another line from that same song on kraft paper and stuck it in. So it makes sense to me, or maybe someone familiar with the song, but to the average viewer it just looks kinda cool and/or they enjoy the line I've written out.

Then the next thing is to stick everything together! I'll confess, I rarely do this in one sitting - I currently have multiple pages I'm working on, one started the other month and almost complete, one started two weeks ago, and one just started today. I add to it whenever I get an idea or find a scrap that fits. But I used to do the pages in one sitting, and that absolutely works too.

As to how I decide what goes where on the page, that's just intuitive! I've made collage-y type art for at least fifteen years now (and longer if you count playing 'cut and stick' with old magazines as a kid), and I've very much learnt what sort of compositions please me, and how to tell if something feels too cluttered or lopsided or too spacious. But the beauty of this part is it's all personal preference! Shuffle your scraps around before gluing them down, and see what works for you.

Sometimes I add text or drawings first and use scraps in between, sometimes I stick the scraps down first and fill the gaps with text or drawings - there's no one way to do it! And hey, if there's something you don't like, you can always tear it out or stick something over it, that's the joy of mixed media.

Anyway this was a bit long-winded but I hope it makes at least a little bit of sense. Go forth and play with scraps!

[walk1nghe3rt]

November Rain by Guns N'Roses

Famous song of the album Use Your Illusion I, in 1991. One of the longest, whose clip released in 1992 won an MTV Video Music Award !

(Lyrics under the cut)

[Instrumental Intro]

[Verse 1] When I look into your eyes I can see a love restrained But, darlin', when I hold you Don't you know I feel the same? Yeah

[Chorus] Nothin' lasts forever And we both know hearts can change And it's hard to hold a candle In the cold November rain

[Verse 2] We've been through this such a long, long time Just tryna kill the pain, ooh yeah But lovers always come and lovers always go And no one's really sure who's lettin' go today, walkin' away If we could take the time to lay it on the line I could rest my head, just knowin' that you were mine, all mine

[Chorus] So, if you want to love me Then, darlin', don't refrain Or I'll just end up walkin' In the cold November rain

[Refrain] Do you need some time on your own? Do you need some time all alone? Ooh, everybody needs some time on their own Ooh, don't you know you need some time all alone?

[Bridge] I know it's hard to keep an open heart When even friends seem out to harm you But if you could heal a broken heart Wouldn't time be out to charm you, woah-woah

[Guitar Solo]

[Refrain] Sometimes, I need some time on my own Sometimes, I need some time all alone Ooh, everybody needs some time on their own Ooh, don't you know you need some time all alone?

[Guitar Solo]

[Verse 3] And when your fears subside And shadows still remain, ooh yeah I know that you can love me When there's no one left to blame

[Chorus] So, never mind the darkness We still can find a way 'Cause nothin' lasts forever Even cold November rain

[Guitar Solo]

[Outro] (You're not the only one, you're not the only one) Don't ya think that you need somebody? Don't ya think that you need someone? Everybody needs somebody You're not the only one, you're not the only one Don't ya think that you need somebody? Don't ya think that you need someone? Everybody needs somebody You're not the only one, you're not the only one Don't ya think that you need somebody? Don't ya think that you need someone? Everybody needs somebody You're not the only one, you're not the only one Don't ya think that you need somebody? Don't ya think that you need someone? Everybody needs somebody

Lyrics by Genius : Guns N' Roses – November Rain Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

[dealbrekker]

YEAH that tvxq Mirotic video you reblogged awakened something in me. The moment that dude started singing I clicked off the video bcs my jaw dropped so hard I was like WAIT FUCK WAIT WAIT WAI

PLS GIVE ME RECS 🙏🏻 I know literally nothing about them beyond seeing you scream about them (Changmin and Yunho if I’m not wrong) anyway yes I find your blabbering very endearing actually. love you <3

Obviously you can't see me rn but I am smiling so big omggggg

I guess as a brief introduction I do some bullet points and then give you some songs to check out!

They go by TVXQ for the most part, but you'll also see their Japanese name, Tohoshinki, and their Korean name Dong Bang Shin Ki (DBSK). All translate to roughly Rising Gods of the East.

They debuted in 2003 as a 5 member group, and 3 of them left in 2010. Anything from before 2010 you come across will have the 5 voices. Yunho and Changmin stayed as TVXQ and "re-debuted" in 2011.

Personally I think it is totally worth it to listen to the old stuff. I don't think there ever was and ever will be a phenomenon like TVXQ/DBSK as a group of 5, and their korean and japanese songs and ballads are mind blowing.

That being said, I stuck with Yunho and Changmin more than the others after college (funnily I was introduced to them just as they were breaking up), and consider them to be the true TVXQ. They worked insanely hard to make TVXQ theirs and their vocals and talent have grown so, so much to fill in the voices that left.

So some song recs! I'll stick to the Korean songs for now, but their Japanese catalogue is NUTS. I think at this point they have more Japanese songs tbh.

3 big pre-2010 songs:

Mirotic Rising Sun Love in the Ice (this one makes me cry every time, especially the re-arranged duo version since they cover all the voices so beautifully)

All of their old songs have been rearranged for the 2 of them, so you can certainly find those versions too. All the links above are the originals.

3 big 2011 and on songs

Keep Your Head Down (their comeback as a duo song) Humanoids (this link actually will take you to the Japanese version of the song, live concert performance because it is THE Standard for live performances) --- Also, this is a facebook link, because I couldn't find this on youtube for some reason??? Let me know if it doesn't work and I'll try to find a better one!! Spellbound (my favorite song/mv experience. It's straight choreo with only 1 camera cut)

3 Yunho solos:

Drop (I'm fine it's fine it's not insane king shit or anything) Thank U (this one has some blood and violence heads up. If that's not for you, any of the live performances are stellar) Vuja De (this one has scenes from his longer NEXUS mini film which I also recommend. It samples all the songs from that particular album)

3 Changmin Solos:

Chocolate (he can cut it out, quite frankly) Maniac (so theatrical, so musical, so AHHH. I think this is my fave of his solos) Fever (I lost my ever loving mind when I saw this for the first time. Face clutching ensued.)

Picking 3 for each of them was incredibly difficult omg. I'm excited for your thoughts! Completely understandable if you don't go through all of them, but these are some personal faves.

Finally, they just did a Killing Voice episode where they do a half hour medley of a ton of songs if you prefer to sample them that way! This is where the mirotic clip I reblogged is from :D

Their new album just came out and is called 20&2 if you want to take a listen. It's their first Korean comeback is 2018 so we've all been feral lately.

Thank you for getting through this info dump. I'm glad my blabbering is enjoyed lololol XD.

[echantedtoon]

Angel x Marx

"Next." "But you didn't hear the whole song!," screeched the angry female on stage. "Look, Lady....I'm looking for a female MODEL! Not a female singer. Now, if you would please,......MOVE ON!" Grumbling and cussing, she left the stage. The male watched as she disappeared before covering his face in his hands and groaning. How was he supposed to find a model in time for the big event? All of the women that showed up were all too fat. yoo short. Too skinny. Too busty. Not busty enough. Or didn't get the memo about the model part of the auditions. "Castello's gonna kill me...." "Hello~. Are auditions still open?" "No. No they're not," he said not looking up. "But, I think you'd want to see this.~" "Look, Lady!" His head snapped up. "I don't ....!.......Angel?!" The spider demon smirked down at the horrified dragon shapshifter. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!," he shrieked. "I was bored and saw yer ad in the paper. Yer lookin' for a model.~" "Yes. A FEMALE model. You're a guy!" The spider pouted before holding up what looked like a newspaper clipping to his face. "This says, and I quote.....Wanted. A young feminine model, preferably 6 ft, with nicely toned skin and be able to fill a swim suit. ......I can be very feminine and.....about 6 ft." "YOU can wear a swim suit AND look like a girl? This I gotta see." He smiled." Does this mean I get the part?" Marx sighed. "........Ok. I'll give you a trial run. But, that doesn't mean you get the part. We'll just see what you can do." "Alrighty, Marxy.~ What do I have ta do?" He pointed backstage. "There's a ladies dressing room back there. Go and get all girlied up. If I like what I see, you get the part. If I don't .....then I'll just deal with Castello's yelling." "Okie dokie." Marx tried not to snicker as he watched Angel strut away. "This is gonna be rich." -1 hour later- He impatiently tapped his finger against the arm of his seat. "How long does it take to put on a dress and make up?!," he shouted. "Hold the h-ll on! I'm comin'! It takes a while to tie a ribbon just right!," Angel shouted back. "This better be worth my time! I don't have time to deal with.....!.....your......antics?" He trailed off as Angel walked on stage. Indeed he looked very feminine. With puffy pink hair, nicely applied make up, and a shiny red velvet, bikini like outfit with a matching giant bow tied behind. Along with a matching choker and boots. ".........Molly?" Angel shook his head. "........Angel?" He smiled." Yes?~" "You look....." "Like a girl?~" He slowly nodded. "Well, what do ya think, Mr. Producer?~," Angel said in a feminine voice," Did I make the cut?~" Marx cleared his throat before standing up and walking over to the stage. He climbed up and went to Angel. "Well, let's see." He began to walk around the demon. He examined his body and outfit he had choosen. Pulling it here and there to make sure it was correctly put on, and not loose anywhere. While he was checking the chest part, he didn't notice the figure come in through the side stage. Angel smiled and tried not to laugh. "..........What exactly are you doing?" "Eep!" He spun around. "B-Boss!" The snake starred at him with an eyebrow raised."........I came to see if you found the model we needed, but apparently I interrupted something." Angel snickered while Marx blushed a deep crimson. "Ounce you two are done, have her ready for the photoshoot.'' He walked around them to the exit doors. He stopped and looked back." And Molly, tell Angel to stop harassing Marx. His complaining is giving me a headache." He exited the door leaving a laughing Angel and flustered Marx. "Hmhmhmhmm. So........you wanna inspect me some where more private?~" "SHUT UP!"

[veyette]

So, finally listened to "To Who(m)ever wants to hear" and it was great !

1. Everest

2. UIEUD

3. Spotlight

4. Invincible

5. Kind of Love

6. Slow down

7. Paranoïd

I am an Alec Benjamin's listener so I knew Dream's songs would certainly be my style of music (still loving Change your clothes, the first one who made it into my spotify) but still, very good surprise.

I was a bit apprehensive bc I am not a fan of excerpts : I mean, either the excerpt is good and the rest of the song will feel disappointing bc not as imagined (like when you hear a music part on tiktok and then listen to the whole song... the rest pales) or the excerpt is mid and it's not really enthusiastic. BUT it's still the best way to build expectation and boost a song and it's nice to see the theories around so u know, still really glad we had them !

I am also really glad he started by publishing UIEUD and Everest, bc they do feel apart of the rest of the songs (one is a collab, the other really personnal and yet shared in its story).

As for my listes explanation :

1. Everest

2. Until I End Up Dead

-> They both had recency bias though, I think I'll need to redo a classement when I'm used to the others. And I was right to call it that bc now that I've listened to the others I changed my mind ahah, I'll have to actualise this.

They were "outside" for me bc it's been two months since I started listening to them and in music, 2 months to get used to a song is very long. Music is about familiarity after all. They're set as 1 - 2 but really, I like them for different reasons. Both are great rythm and melody wise, and have cool clips.

Everest was heavily carried by Yung Gravy (professional rapper and I feel the difference), had some great lines.

UIEUD is more emotionnal still, and will always be. And it's not only emotionnal for Dream but for the public too, it's an hommage for a reason.

3 (or 1st ?) Spotlight

4. Invincible (like u)

3 and 4 were really close but Spotlight was really hear catchy for me. I already was singing along after the first listening. It's, dare I say, more mainstream in the way I can definitely imagine clips to it or maps made on this song. I can hear it on the radio. Invincible is a very very close second though because of the lyrics and the music. Definitely my favorite in terms of "Dream's songs", but I'm not sure I could share it with friends outside the fandom.

5. Kind of Love

I love Kind of Love's music clip, go see it on ytb if u didn't already. I like the melody and the lyrics too, though the bits I heard made me think the song would be different so... I've to get used to it.

6. Slow down

7. Paranoïd

6. and 7. are on the same foot for me and it's funny bc they are totally parralleled in my taste. I loved Slow down "leak" and thought it'd be in my favorites, kinda like the first listen but a bit stagnant after (sorry but this song compete with Invincible and Spotlight, it's nothing against the song itself). While Paranoïd... I didn't like the bit leaked (song wise), I thought the song would be way to cut and dry for me to appreciate it and I was right about that. But the more I listen to it the more I like it, it grows on me real fast (even though I still find the chorus too hard and broken for my personnal taste).

All in all I obviously love the album and I encourage you to either check it out (and download it!). I wasn't sure about buying the cd but the songs are really good and yeah, I'll economize for it.

I hope the lucky ones that go to the concert have the best time there !

[nebulousfishgills]

flower asks!

white carnation, jasmine, azalea, bluebell, tigerlily, aster (lol), lavender, and/or freesia

Thanks for the ask! This one's a long one so buckle up.

White Carnation - Would you ever want to get a piercing? Where?

This may sound funny, but I have zero piercings (not even my ears) and I highly doubt I'll ever get any. It's just never appealed to me, idk. My grandma never pierced hers, she always wore clip-ons.

Jasmine - Describe your dream partner or best friend. What kind of personality traits do they have?

All my friends I would consider my "dream" friends (my irls and if we're friends on Tumblr you also count). As for dream partner... I mean, I'm not sure. I guess someone who's nice. They should be supportive of me and, to quote a thing my mom sent me, "the weird little things that make my heart happy." Someone who makes me excited to wake up in the morning and who would take me to the theatre once in a while. Someone who encourages me to be the best version of myself. Also someone who can take my darker sense of humor and keep me grounded when I inevitably become a whirlwind of undiagnosed adhd or whatever the fuck I have. Also some blue eyes, same as my mom blue eyes can make me absolutely weak.

That was a tangent, but I am a writer so-

Azalea - What is the most recent song you've listened to? How do you feel about it?

Okay this is gonna sound completely fucking unhinged, especially since it's so short, but last night I had Busted from Phineas and Ferb on repeat for like, three hours as I was doing a doodle because it came across my youtube feed and I realized it's like... exactly like a major scene I have planned for a fic, just without the musical swagger.

Cut to me fifteen minutes into this loop alone in my dorm room pretending I'm [Unnamed Character A] telling off [Unnamed Character B] for [Unnamed Event].

Bluebell - Do you have any pets? If so, what are their names?

I'm currently separated from them by "educational distance" but I have two kitties at home, a Tortie named Jackie and an Orange Boy Cat named Maggie (He has a more feminine name because PetSmart told us he was a girl when we adopted him since they *said* they did a spay operation... but then he had to get a surgery where they told us he was a boy... but by then Maggie had stuck and we'd already gone through three hours of arguing on what to name him in the first place).

Tigerlily - Do you have any favorite quotes from any movies, tv shows, books, or poetry? (Or from people in real life)

Y'all, I have a million favorite quotes from a million things. For now I'll give you one of each

Movie: "Ghosts are real. This much I know. There are things that tie them to a place, very much like they do us. Some remain tethered to a patch of land, a time and date, the spilling of blood, a terrible crime. But there are others-- others that hold onto an emotion, a drive, loss, revenge... Or love. Those-- They never go away." -Edith Cushing in my all time favorite movie, "Crimson Peak."

(I'm also like, 99% sure I'm being followed by a ghost or spirit of some sort so)

TV Show: I'm pretty sure me saying Henry's fifteen minute monologue in Stranger Things is cheating since that's, like, many many quotes, but I'll say it anyways because those fifteen minutes were life changing.

Book: I wish it was easier for me to find a quote, but unfortunately all my books are packed away for move-out in a couple weeks. My memory is eluding me so just pretend like I either said something really profound or something extremely stupid.

Play: "You're still beautiful." "You don't have to lie to me." "It's not lying, it's looking at things another way." From Wicked, my favorite musical (am I basic for that, maybe). Seeing this on Broadway last summer was a religious experience and I'm gonna have another one when I see it from the seventh row next year.

(I changed it to play because, fun fact, I don't read poetry that much. Another thing from my mom, she hates poetry... bear in mind this woman has a BA in English)

Real Life: "People are like 'you're weird' and I'm like 'yes, I've been waiting sixty years to get that compliment'" -my history professor. The man's said so much wild shit this semester I have an entire discord channel devoted to recording his quotes, dude's a legend.

Aster - Do you have any fictional crushes on any movie, tv show...

...

Okay I had a collage I made of every character I've had a crush on, lemme see if I can find it so I can be concise.

(One frantic search later)

It's not fully updated, so lemme just make one rq, every character I actively have a crush on (give or take one or two):

Moving on.

Lavender - What's currently on your mind (aside from the ask game)

How much of a degenerate I am.

No, but in reality, I have two packages I'm waiting for and I keep obsessively tracking them because I'm terrified they'll not get to me before my move-out date.

Freesia - What do you want people to remember you for? Serious or not serious answers.

I can say my writing in a serious and a not serious way. Remember me for my s tier descriptions and remember me for whatever the fuck this is:

[dogboy-danielcain]

Hello! I wanted to know if you have any tutorials to make edits on your phone! I really like your work and I would like to make some fancams too :)

omg hi!! first off, i'm super flattered by this ask, anon, thanks so much! i don't have any official tutorials, but i can give some general advice:

i use capcut on my phone for my edits, it's not the only app out there and i encourage experimenting with different apps, it's just what i've grown used to working with! i mostly use pretty simple functions so i'm guessing they'll translate pretty easily to other apps!

i just use my phone's screen record for clips and music, youtube and newpipe should work fine with screen record for music, and for clips i mostly use internet archive (tubi also works, but not for some movies for some reason)

i usually either sync clips with the beat of a song (listen to the drums/bassline) OR i sync the clips to the song's lyrics (usually i do this last one if i'm using a song that i think is particularly applicable to my chosen character/theme! it draws attention to how the words work with your clips). you can do both in the same edit if you want! there's rly no strict rules here!

^^ if you're syncing to the beat, your clips will generally be more consistent so it's really helpful to use Duplicate + Replace! once you feel like you have your first clip cut down to sync with the first full beat (or two beats, or however you're syncing it) you can duplicate that clip then replace your duplicate with your second clip, and continue doing this till you're done! it might not be perfect and you may have to tweak your clips a liiittle bit to make it work, but i've found duplicate+replace makes the process so much faster

if i'm feeling ~fancy~ sometimes i'll use overlays, which lets you put multiple clips in at the same time. on capcut, i don't recommend overlaying more than like. three clips at a time because it'll overwhelm the app and slow it down a LOT. (every app and phone is different so this threshold might be different for you!) overlays move differently than regular main track clips, so using them took me a while to get used to but i do love the results!

there's a lot of room for experimentation with overlays as well! since you're using multiple clips, you have to find ways to make them fit into whatever aspect ratio you've chosen. overlays can also be inserted at different points, so you can play around with syncing them differently as well!

one thing about capcut that drives me CRAZY is a lot of the time it will export your clips out of sync. i don't rly have a fix for this unfortunately (if anyone out there does i would LOVE to know what it is) so what i do is just do a test export, watch it to see what needs to be cut shorter for it to sync, go back to capcut and do my edits, then export again.

okay PHEW this is all the advice i could think of right now, i don't even know if this is exactly what you were asking for so please feel free to send another ask if you have more specific questions!! i wish you the best with your editing journey, and i hope you end up enjoying it as much as i do <333

[lonelyasawhisper]

Queen: The Greatest Show In The World

Chas de Whalley, Sounds, 11 September 1976

"EXCUSE ME, are you with Queen?" was the question.

I looked round. Yes, I suppose a young chambermaid in the country hotel twenty five miles from Edinburgh might think that. After all I was one of the only people in the Peebles Hydro without a suit and tie and my arrival the day before had coincided with the news that Queen were to be staying there too. At the height of the Edinburgh Festival, when every available room in town is booked by American tourists, there can have been nowhere else for the band to stay anyway. Not if Freddy Mercury was to be kept in the style to which he is accustomed.

"Only vaguely," I replied. "Why?"

She wanted me to get her their autographs. At two o'clock in the afternoon, when I'd only just discovered I would actually be ALLOWED to see the band in concert, let alone in private? Not so easy my dear. Try me later, when I know just what's going on, alright?

Alright.

But things weren't alright.

I had been flown up to Scotland with the immaculate Miles from the NME and the lovely Lynne from EMI Press Office. We were all at work on Kevin Ayers and the Soft Machine's joint gig at the Edinburgh Playhouse. But when we arrived at the Peebles Hydro Hotel there to my surprise was a letter, with my name on it, clipped to the receptionist's board.

'Mr. Chas de Whalley'.

Please phone Barbara Charone tonight (sic), if possible. (Urgent). She advises you should stay another night in Edinburgh and revue (sic) "Queen"!

Since when did Barbara advise anyone? A Queen 'revue' (and I was to have good reason to remember that spelling) was expected of me, and I hadn't even realised they were to be playing a gig there at all!

Miles had, but then Miles knows most things, it seems. He'd been trying for a ticket for the last week but had met the same stone-walled reaction everytime.

Lynne repeated it. EMI and John Reid the band's manager had insisted that there must be no Press at the Edinburgh Playhouse. After all this was to be the first Queen show for almost six months AND the debut date on a short tour that was to feature new material and new stage routines. Too much at risk. Between them they were adamant. Apologies all round, but we were not to see the show.

That I did was the result of more strange manoeuvres. It would probably bore you should I go into details about late-night restaurants, three quarters cut managers and equally befuddled yet tactless journalists.

So let it suffice to say that the atmosphere around Queen is strangely unreal. A world of Product and Image, Spieling and Dealing. In short the world of SHOWBIZ.

And I hated every minute of it.

Especially as it was so total. Every joint of the Queen organisation seemed so well armoured that if you did manage to penetrate the steel plate, it was only because there was chain mail underneath to ensure that stray journalistic blades would be kept safely away from the heart of the matter.

AND WHAT was the heart of the matter?

I don't know, do I?

But I'll tell you what I think...

I think Queen have no Heart at all and perhaps even Ice where that Heart should be. I already suspected that they have little in the way of Soul. The most cursory examination of their musical record suggests that one immediately. The clinical sound and the diamond hard song structures, there's precious little warmth on a Queen album.

The air of secrecy and subterfuge and Slothropian dealing did little to ease my doublts. In fact it only served to heighten my paranoia. After all, legs do get broken occasionally in the rockbiz and although, naively as it proved, I was hoping that I would find Queen's musical abilities impressive enough not to actively dislike their concert, I knew I would have a couple of unkind things to say.

I didn't realise quite how many.

To make matters worse they put on such a good show that a man feels guilty and dishonest if he criticises it. I mean, not only was it a good show, it was a great show. Coming to the band fresh I would be tempted to suggest that Queen have never played a better gig in the whole of their career. Indeed, if I were a Queen fan, I would seriously consider following the band to each and every show they will be doing in the next couple of weeks. But I'm not a Queen fan and little short of financial inducement could draw me along anywhere they might be booked to play.

I don't mind lightshows, smoke bombs and loud, loud music. And I have no objection to costume changes either. Not in principle anyway. As for commercial pop of the highest intelligence and technical skill, I get off on that quicker than most.

And if that was all that Queen have to offer, my job would have been easier. I could have approached them like I did 10cc at Knebworth. You know the thing. Here's a good band, they make records, can they pull it out on stage? So, 10cc were shoddy and disappointing but they had exhaustion and a cold breeze playing against them. They got by because, for all their cynicism, they still retain a deep love for people in general. Or as they used to say at English Literature Seminars: 'A Deep Love for Mankind'.

QUEEN DIDN'T and they lacked even the sense of humour of the blackest of comedians. In fact, if Queen love anyone at all, it's themselves.

That's obvious enough the moment Freddy Mercury hits the stage. The ballet steps and the centre-fold poses. The sharply pressed boiler suit and the £25 hair-do. Those sharply defined and oh so exotic Eastern features. I mean, he looks like he might eat vices for breakfast that you and I have never dreamed of.

And that element of narcissism is central to his image. It's right there in the name of his band too. It would be impossible to deny it in his music. That's probably one reason Queen are so popular.

The other reason, of course, lies in the fact that Freddie Mercury and Brian May write some really good songs and perform them just so. I have never seen a band so proudly confident as Queen were in Edinburgh. Nor a band who were performing and playing honed to such a sharp edge it could threaten you out of your seat. As the smoke bombs smoked and the thunder-flashes thundered and Freddie Mercury danced from one costume change to the next, Queen took us immaculately from their first album to their last and offered a glimpse at some of the material that will soon grace their next.

There was 'Ogre Battle' with those incisive and aggressive falsetto harmonies, 'Flick Of The Wrist' from Sheer Heart Attack and the gaily acoustic '39' from Night At The Opera. The audience sat rivetted, gaping at the stage like it was a movie screen. The backing tapes offered their assistance on 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Brian May took a five minute solo during 'Brighton Rock' and, criss-crossed by lights that cut through the smoke like lasers, Freddie Mercury and the Echoplex performed a 'Prophets Song' that would have shamed the Swingle Singers.

If that wasn't showmanship then neither was the medley of old favourites nor 'You Take My Breath Away', a new, delicate song that Mercury sang seated at his piano.

But it was all such an Act in the Greatest Showbiz Traditions, and transparently so, too.

Mercury talked to the audience like this was Batley Variety Club. You know, the mid-Atlantic accent and:

"We've come to the part of the show where we normally play a medley." And:

"This is the spot in the show where we do a request. What would you like to hear?"

ALWAYS THAT word 'show'. If you hadn't guessed it already from the lights and the bombs and the costumes, Mercury is telling you himself. This ain't rock 'n' roll, no nose to the grindstone boogie, not even bona-fide heavy metal. It's a spectacle of Busby Berkeley proportions. All form and no substance. As Mercury swaggered with his stick mike in one hand and a tambourine in the other this could have been Frankie Vaughan and his straw hat and cane routine. Update that a little and Queen have about as much to do with what rock 'n' roll is all about as Cliff Richard has. Less in fact, 'cos Cliff's past is worth something at least.

But the audiences love it all the same. As Queen left the stage at Edinburgh the auditorium filled with smoke. Up on their chairs' all around me, people were shouting and cheering. Dim red lights, groups of shadowy figures gathered together in the smoke and all the time this shrieking wailing noise of human voices. I was as straight as anyone can be after two beers but I began to feel very frightened.

I had come with several thousand others to see a rock 'n' roll band. Everybody else had the time of their lives while I hated every minute of it. You can't afford to discount audience reaction so, I suppose, I was in the wrong.

But surely there is more to rock than glamour and greenies.

Isn't there?

Retrieved from rocksbackpages.com

[doubleshotofsomething]

To Hell & Back

Part Two: “Lucky for me, your kind of heaven’s been to hell & back”

Summary: You still hate Bucky. But you need him to keep you from going to jail... So, what’s the harm in inviting him over to dinner?

Prompt: “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.”

Warnings: Angst?? (i think). Probably typos( which will be fixed). Implied violence. 

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

--

Part one [In case you missed it]

----

It's Saturday.

Your day off. Well, what used to be your day off until it was turned into a family therapy session.

Well... Not an actual therapy session. It is literally just dinner with your family, including your sister's husband - a man you refuse to identify as your brother in law for reasons that will end in you being called the j-word. The husband, because he's the only son-in-law your parents have, has been dubbed the "referee" of the Saturday Sessions.

Each session, since you've been discharged, has made committing murder seem more and more appealing.

So appealing, that you're standing in front of your neighbour's door with a basket of muffins and a please-keep-me-from-committing-felonies smile.

Bucky, because he just spent the afternoon searching for a new bar, is standing on the other side of the door. Both confused and frightened to see you at his door voluntarily.

"Is there a bomb in that basket?" He asks, eyes roaming over you suspiciously. "Believe me, it's not gonna work."

You blink at him, then at the basket. Then back at him. "Why would I put a bomb in a muffin basket and then hold it?"

He raises a sceptical eyebrow at you.

You huff. "Fine, they're poisoned. I accidentally added laxatives while making them-"

"Accidentally?"

"Yes, accidentally-" you glare at him. "-they're not for you. They're from us."

He blinks at you, confused. You haven't spoken to him, actually spoken to him, for a few months. You avoid him like he has a disease and when your paths do cross, you just glare at him like he threw your cat into on coming traffic.

It's been a few days since the coffee machine incident. He has a brand new one - better than the last one - sitting on his kitchen counter, waiting for him to develop the courage to give it to you. It should be easy. He has mastered the art of making amends.

But... He can't, for some reason, bring it to you.

"Wait-" he frowns, your words finally registering in his head, "-did you just say from us?"

You set the basket down. "So, remember when you broke my one shot at happiness?"

"Oh god." He forgot how dramatic you are, as well.

"Yeah, you can fix that little error by being a doll and-" you pause, then frown, struggling to find the right words.

"Muffin poisoned your tongue?"

"I'm trying to ask you to be my plus one for tonight's dinner-" you grit your teeth, your blood beginning to boil. "-at my parents house."

You didn't look him in the eye when you said that. And by the sounds of it, he doubts this is something he should be going to. Or something you should be going to. Not if it brings out this side of you.

"Who are the muffins for?"

They were for your sister. You broke her nose last week, which was never your intention, and the guilt has been eating you up alive since. The punch was meant for her asshole husband.

"You coming or not?"

"Let me grab a wine and the keys."

"We have muffins. No need to waste your good wine on mediocre tastes."

"I'm bringing the wine."

"If you make us stop to pick out flowers, I will watch porn with the volume on full blast every night for a week."

"Why are you always so violent?"

--

"So, how bad is it?" Bucky asks.

You've been in the car for a half an hour, because you chose the busiest route and the most congested during rush hour, and that's the first thing either of you have uttered since you politely dragged him out of his apartment.

You shrug. "Three roads lead to this one, so we'll be here another half hour."

"I mean the situation-" he drums his fingers against the wheel. "-you literally chose to be in a car with me, for the longest time possible. Either you want to get there late or you don't want to get there at all."

"Maybe I just like spending time with you."

Bucky scoffs, but doesn't question you further.

The car is silent, aside from the traffic outside, and you could almost relax. For just a moment, you could close your eyes and imagine you're somewhere else.

But you can't. Because you're not. You're on your way to a dinner that shouldn't be happening and is only happening because you're part of your neighbour's redemption list.

Because he just had to have a conscious.

"I punched my sister last week," you mumble.

Bucky wants to laugh. He wants to laugh so badly. He has met your sister, a handful of times - at the hospital, outside your room and outside your apartment door.

Every time she'd come over, she would knock hard enough to make him think she's part of SWAT team. And each time, he would could hear you scramble to switch off all devices that could alert her of your presence inside.

One time, you'd both arrived a few minutes after each other. His door was closer and already open, so you shoved your grocery in his hand and dived into his apartment to hide from your sister. He had to pretend he hasn't seen you since you left for work , and that the packet of sanitary pads that fell out were for his girlfriend.

He didn't have one.

He wants to laugh, because he doesn't like her at all. But he doesn't, because she's your sister. "What did she do?"

"She married an asshole-" you scoff. "-and decided to get in the way and I tried to punch said asshole."

At this, he grins. "And you need me there because?"

"I need you to keep me from trying to kill him," you begrudgingly admit. "I'm too high maintenance for prison."

"How bad is this guy that you need me to help you not kill him?"

"Bad enough that I'm gonna need you to park a few blocks away from the house," you turn to look at him, his confused eyes meeting yours for a quick second. "I told them we're taking the bus."

"Wow."

"Which means we only get to spend less than two hours there, if you drive a little slow-" you pause when he drives passed a McDonald's. "-hey, can we stop and get milkshake?"

He deadpans. "We have dinner plans with your parents."

"I get that you and them might have gotten along since you decided to be a hero," you glare at him. "But they're not as cool as the hospital visits made them seem."

Your parents have invited him over to dinner a handful of times, and each time he had to decline. You and him weren't on the best of terms, and he didn't want to make things worse by showing up for dinner without your knowledge.

He knows, first hand, that a few interactions aren't enough to give the full depth of a person. But he saw how devastated they were, how heartbroken they were, at the sight of tubes and needles sticking out of you.

He doesn't believe, he can't believe, for a second that they're as bad as you say they are.

But he won't argue with you. Not about this. "We'll get milkshake after."

"Hey, remember that coffee machine you br-"

"Oh, fuck you!"

***

You're not a fan of wine. At least, not the wine Bucky brought to the dinner.

An hour into the dinner and you've already had enough glasses to have Bucky worried. The wine is halfway to empty by the time dessert rolls in, and when your sister's husband clears his throat, you abandon the glass and drink straight from the bottle.

The second hour into the dinner is where things got interested. Interesting enough for Bucky to take the bottle from you before you could throw it at someone's head. Mainly because he wanted to throw it at someone's head. Your sister's husband's head to be specific.

Just as your mother gets up to start making tea for the muffins you brought, Bucky is the first on his feet and the first to use the 'we have to get going before we miss the bus' excuse.

You grin at him, vision slightly hazy from the wine you drank on an empty stomach.

"Mhmm," you hum as you cling into him to get to your feet, "the bus. We gotta- the bus. Bah-yeee."

"I'll make sure she gets home safe," he promises to your parents and they believe him.

Hell, you believe him. If there's one thing you can trust your neighbour to do, it's to save your life. But not your coffee machine.

He guides back to the car, which is parked exactly where you told him to, and he's never been happier to have listened to you. You sing all the way back, some ridiculous song about when you're fat and old, and you're the most content he's ever seen you.

Drunk off wine, eyes glassy and smile wide, as you try to mimic his steps. You sigh when you get into your seat, even though you fight him on opening your own door, and fumble lazily with your seat belt until he helps you clip it in.

Your struggle to find a comfortable position, but forget all about that when he parks the car outside your favourite coffee shop. You're out before he can even unclip his seatbelt and you're inside before he makes it to the door.

"Hi," you whisper-yell as you lean against the counter. "Pssst. Hi. Hello."

The barista blinks at you. Bucky cuts in before he can get a word out. "We'll take coffee. Filter. And anything that's bread-"

"-don't listen to him, he breaks hearts for a living. Sometimes he rips them out." I jab your pointer finger against the countertop. "I will take the strongest coffee you've got. I'm in the mood for bad decisions and-"

"We'll be at the booth, in the back." Bucky gently pries you from the counter. "One coffee and two bottles of water-"

You try to smack his hands away. "Why must you be so- Barnes, I swear to god, I will take your parking space."

He shoves you into the booth, then takes a seat opposite you. You attempt to make a break for the counter, but the glare he fixes you with is enough to keep you in your place.

It should scare you. The look he gives you. You know what he is capable of, without mad scientists to control him, you know the damage he's done. It takes a special kind of strength to face people like the flag smashers, and a special kind of crazy to go after them.

Bucky is both. And yet, his glare doesn't scare you. So much so, that you return it.

"I hate your brother-in-law-"

"Sister's husband," you cut in to correct him. "I refuse to recognise him as my anything."

He nods. "Right. So, let me get this straight-"

Bucky pauses as the barista sets down the coffee, the water, two croissants, some breadsticks and a garlic roll. When he's satisfied that there's nothing else, he leaves you alone with Bucky and the breads.

"You got work tomorrow-" he puts sugar into your coffee and stirs, before handing it to you. "-so you're gonna need to eat as much, so that it absorbs all that wine."

You glare at him but still do as he says. He's right and you'd rather sulk than admit it.

"So," he clears his throat to get your attention. "Your sister is an asshole, that married an asshole. And your parents are enablers of all that bullshit?"

You nod, practically shoving the garlic bread into your mouth. You didn't touch the food your mother cooked and, other than that milkshake Bucky bought you, you haven't had anything to eat all day.

"Instead of just sending you to therapy-" he scrunches his face in disgust at the thought. "-I can't fucking believe I'm advocating for that, but instead of paying for therapy. They do that? Host a dinner, sit a circle and kumbaya the problems away?"

Taking a sip from your coffee, you continue to nod. "Is it helping?"

He frowns, meeting your eyes. "What?"

"The mandated sessions-"you swallow. "-I heard you and Wings talking about it."

Thin walls. Shared balconies. Despite not being in each other's life, both of you know more than enough because of your apartments.

Your balcony and his are separated by a small barrier, but you can still hear his conversations - and visa versa- if you leave your glass door open enough when he's out there.

The wall that separates your apartment is thin enough for him to pick up on your habits. You don't think you're a creature of habit, but he would disagree.

He can tell, just from your foot steps, what you're going to watch or do in the living room. From the little sounds you make, he can tell which series you're binge watching for the umpteenth time and which one is on just for background noise.

If you weren't a creature of habit, he wouldn't have found you in time. You wouldn't be sitting in front of him, asking about his wellbeing, instead of dealing with yours.

"Wings is Captain now," he corrects, and you accept the deflection.

You would never overstep, or push. Not with him. Never with him.

"If Captain, why Wings?"

Narrowing his eyes, he pushes the bread sticks closer to you. "Fine, Captain Wings."

Again, you obey the silent instruction.

"Where were we-"

"We were plotting an asshole's abduction," you tell him, "and then dropping him off at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. If that's not available, then maybe near Dyer Island."

He raises an eyebrow at you. “Why would we drop your sister’s husband on an Island?”

"It's a place, with a shitload of great white sharks."

"And you know this because?"

"I like to always be prepared."

"For what?" His brows furrow. "Do you just know random places to dump people that–"

You cut in. "–will lead to an inevitable death by natural causes? Yes."

He stares at you. Actually stares. Openly, at you. He can't remember the last time he did that, looked at you, for no other reason than to just look.

You didn't always hate him. When he first moved into your apartment building, and the landlord introduced you too, you were indifferent. He didn't think you knew who he was, most people don't at first glance, so he was relieved. Indifference was definitely better than everything else.

That was until you walked passed him and Sam in the lobby of the building, a week after he moved in.

"Sarge–" you nodded at him, as you checked your mail. Then nodded at Sam as you made your way out of the building. "–Wings."

You knew, you always knew who he was, and just didn't care. That was refreshing, to say the least.

The hate only came that night, or the following morning, he wasn't sure. All Bucky knows is, he meddled, and now you hate him for it. For saving you.

He's tried to talk to you about it. Countless of times, he's tried, and each time you hate him a little bit more. Or so it seems.

He wants to talk about it now. It's obvious in the way he's looking at you, like he can't believe you're here, in front of him. You can't either, but you won't ever admit that to him.

Hell would sooner freeze over before you actually admitted that maybe, just maybe, he should have meddled sooner.

You won't. So, instead, you put down the bread stick and sit back. "I know a really cool coffee place... If you still need a new place to hang."

It's an olive branch. You don't ever say what you really mean, he knows that, and he smiles at that little fact. That he knows that, he knows you.

"Is the barista as dramatic as I hear?"

"Only to strangers that break down her doors," you shrug. "Oh, and guys who break her coffee machine–"

"You're never gonna let that go, are you?"

You grin. Because you're just as petty as he is.

---

Tags: @sunflowerxbarnes , @ginger-swag-rapunzel​ , @arctic-duchess​

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Movie Review | Bruce Lee Against Supermen (Ng, 1975)

This review contains mild spoilers.

Now, when a movie promises you a Bruce Lee imitator running around in a cape and fighting one or more superpowered foes, there's a baseline of entertainment value it should offer, right? What's most surprising about Bruce Lee Against Supermen is how dull it is. Ostensibly, it offers plenty of the schlocky thrills endemic to Bruceploitation. And, as a martial arts movie, it has plenty of fight scenes, all of which are shot coherently and not cut too aggressively. Yet all of this is executed with the least amount of energy possible. Even in the fight scenes, there's a secret ingredient missing. They're serviceable but rarely inspired. Perhaps the problem is with Li himself. He's been good elsewhere, but here he's too dignified a presence and too much in the shadow of the real Bruce Lee for him to ever really pop off the screen and breathe some life into the proceedings. But the movie's real kryptonite proves to be its reliance on chase scenes. There are a few of them in the movie, and they're interminable. The cars clip along at the most leisurely of paces and are rarely seen together in the same frame, something which holds true for the foot chases as well.

The plot, if you must know, concerns a professor who's developed a formula that might cure world hunger. Naturally, some bad guys want to steal it, so they kidnap him, and it's up to our hero Bruce Li to rescue him. I've seen a few Bruceploitation movies now, and this is the first one that rips off The Green Hornet. That being said, while I've never seen the show, I'm pretty sure that Bruce Lee played Kato and not the Green Hornet. Yet here, Li appears dressed as Kato in a few early scenes, yet the bad guys consistently refer to him as the Green Hornet. I suspect the filmmakers were about as familiar with the source material as the makers of The Dragon Lives Again were with The Godfather (as in, not very).

Also of note is that the professor has a sexy daughter, who briefly stops working so she can go skinny dipping, which provides one of the film's lascivious highlights. She also bonds with Li over a pop song montage, but proves jealous when she finds him in bed with another woman and the two ladies proceed to have a catfight in the shower. You see, the woman had picked up Li in a bar, where they talked over the phone from opposite ends of the bar. (Li wore a hideous sportcoat in this scene.) I should also add that the sex scene is scored with Kraftwerk's "Autobahn". This is the other one of the film's lascivious highlights.

As far as superheroics go, Li wears a superhero costume once at the beginning and once at the end, and never in between. Li has a friend in these scenes in a matching costume, but he is also never seen in between. The supermen in the title of the movie refer to a bad guy in black tights and a cape, who is recruited by the villains with the promise of "a hundred thousand in cash, ten nice girls, and a truck full of booze", which seems like a pretty good deal. There are also a couple of other sorta superpowered villains in black tights and mime makeup. At one point they pass frisbees to each other while Li is trapped between them, in one of the film's action-packed highlights. These guys also turn on the big bad at the end because they don't like the villains' treatment of women, so it's nice to know they have principles. Li also has another buddy who helps him out during fight scenes, using a slingshot to ward away some goons in another of the film's action-packed highlights. He does not get to wear a cape.

If any of that sounds fun, I'll concede that I was a bit tired and perhaps not in the right state of mind to enjoy this, so I hope you get more out of it than I do.