#infinity on the other hand...... ten out of ten where is that music video

[darawringtwenties]

Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High Record Label: Island Records Release Date: February 6 2007 I’ve spent the last week wrapping my head around which album I want to start The Rawring Twenties off with. There are thousands of albums in the scene that I can talk about, and that I will potentially talk about, but I wasn’t sure which one I should start off with until it randomly hit me -- why don’t I start off with the album that started it all for me? The goal for this series is to talk about albums that I personally grew up with in the metalcore, post-hardcore, and emo world, as well as discovers bands and albums I never listened to or never heard of, ultimately seeing if these bands / albums have stood the test of time (or if they’ve held up, just talk about how great they are), as well as why they were important for their time (and if they’re still important). It dawned on me to start this show off with the one album that kicked off the last fifteen years of music loving, and that’s the masterpiece that’s Fall Out Boy’s third album, 2007′s Infinity On High. Over the course of maybe a decade, I’ve written a LOT about this record. I’ve written a ten-year retrospective on it, I’ve reviewed it multiple times on various social media sites, as well as have just talked about it on social media many times over, but I can’t stress enough how important this record is important to me. To understand why this record holds such a special place in my heart, we need to take a trip down memory lane, and magically go back to the year 2007. I was in eighth grade when this record came out, but at that time, I wasn’t as much into music as I am now. The extent of my music knowledge and enjoyment were a handful of classic rock bands that were in my parents’ collection, as well as a few albums from bands like The All-American Rejects, AFI, My Chemical Romance, and Panic! At The Disco (all of which I may talk about in another episode of the show). I didn’t know anything about metalcore, pop-punk, mathcore, emo, screamo, or post-hardcore, but I knew I really enjoyed bands in that vein. A year prior to Infinity On High coming out, a friend of mine showed me the music video to this little song called “Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down” by some random band called Fall Out Boy. I had never heard of them before, but apparently, they were pretty big in the pop-punk / emo world at the time, and they were from the Chicagoland area, so they were from our neck of the woods, but I loved what I heard. Their vocalist was very soulful-sounding, definitely not what I had already been used to, the hook of the song was extremely catchy, and the lyrics were poetic, clever, and interesting all at once. I really wanted to listen to more of them, but back then, I didn’t know where to find music other than Target and Walmart. The Internet was around, but it wasn’t to the point of where it is now, and streaming didn’t really exist to the same caliber that it does today. Being able to find any song ever made wasn’t a possibility back then, but I was able to find a lot of music through the few stores that I went to. Fast forward to the weekend of Infinity On High being released, which is when I was able to check stores for new music, and I remember picking it up, because I saw that it came out and I was really interested in hearing more from them. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I brought the album home, but the rest is history, as Infinity On High is the album that changed everything for me. The record blew my mind the first time I heard it, and it’s one of those handful of albums that blows my mind every time I hear it now, because I feel as though I was transported to the year 2007 and I’m thirteen again. Nostalgia aside, the history of Fall Out Boy and their progression throughout their 20+ year career is extremely interesting, and they were at a creative crossroads by the time this record came out. This album is easily their most creatively interesting, adventurous, and unique, and even looking at the rest of their discography, Infinity On High will always be my favorite of theirs. Fresh off the heels of 2005′s From Under The Cork Tree, which is the album that featured “Sugar,” as well as the huge single “Dance, Dance,” Fall Out Boy were one of the biggest bands in the world. They were championing the pop-punk scene in the mainstream, and they were one of the biggest bands to make that kind of music popular for a brief time. Their debut, 2003′s Take This To Your Grave, is considered a pop-punk landmark, but it was rough around the edges, and lacked the maturity and creativity that would be a staple of their next few albums. Cork Tree introduced a sense of pop accessibility that showcased vocalist and songwriter Patrick Stump in a much better light, while lyricist and bassist Pete Wentz’s lyricism was just as sharp, clever, and cynical as ever. For Infinity On High, however, they really thought outside the box. R&B singer Babyface was a producer on the album, along with Neal Avron, and rapper Jaz-Z is featured on the opening track. Because of a lot of outside influences being prevalent this time around, the band wanted to experiment more, and R&B, soul, jazz, flamenco, and other kinds of music not associated with pop-punk, hardcore, or emo are utilized, and it makes for one of the most unique and fascinating albums of this era. Almost every song on this album is absolutely fantastic, partially because every song on this record is completely different from one another. The big single from this album “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race” is this weird mashup of soul, pop-punk, and hardcore, whereas “Thriller” is an easycore almost, with its breakdowns and catchy hook (that also features Jay-Z, for some reason), but the song “I’m Like A Lawyer With The Way I’m Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)” is almost a straight up Motown song with how soulful and smooth it is. My favorite cut on the album is the pop-punk rager “Hum Hallelujah” that interpolates Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” but it’s one of the catchiest songs on the record, as well as having one of the best riffs. Another one of the singles and one of the strangest songs on the album is “Thks Fr The Mmrs,” where it has this R&B meets flamenco sound. It’s also got one of the best hooks on the entire album, too. Another staple of this band, as well as this album, are the lyrics of Pete Wentz; his lyrics have always been one of the hallmarks of Fall Out Boy, and you can find many examples on their first albums of how clever, witty, and poetic they are, but this one is really interesting, because it deals with fame and how the band is taking their newfound fame. They got huge before this album, and they got even bigger afterwards, so they were one of the most talked about acts in the world at the time this album came out and for a long time after. This album’s lyrics are a lot better than the previous two albums’ lyrics, especially their debut, as I find some of the lyrics on Take This To Your Grave to not have aged extremely well, mainly in the sense that some of the lyrics are painfully misogynistic, but the band wrote those songs when they were literal children, so I can kind of forgive that, especially when the band denounces that type of lyricism and behavior now. They even started writing about other things on this album, so this album marked a progression in more ways than one, both in terms of their attitudes and their musicianship and overall sound. With that said, the main question of this show is whether or not these albums hold up, and without a doubt, Infinity On High definitely holds up, in case you couldn’t tell from my ramblings on it. Most reviews won’t be this long, but I wanted to start off with the album that got me into music, and it just so happens that this album is extremely interesting and unique, both for its place in the music scene at the time, as well as within Fall Out Boy’s own discography. This is my favorite Fall Out Boy album, and they’ve done a lot more since this album, in case you’ve been living under a rock. They went on hiatus in 2009, after the release of 2008′s Folie A Deux, and they came back in 2013 with Save Rock & Roll, ultimately releasing a couple of albums since then. Personally, I enjoy all of their albums to some degree. I’m even a defender of their post-hiatus material, although to be fair, it’s very much mainstream pop-rock in the vein of Imagine Dragons, and it’s not as good as the earlier material. It’s just all opinion, at the end of the day, but this is easily their most experimental album, and it’s my favorite even outside of that nostalgia. This is the album that still got me into music, and I’m happy that it’s the first one that I started with, so spin this album if you haven’t heard it in awhile. Thanks for the memories, Fall Out Boy, even if they weren’t so great.

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

It’s The Avengers (03x12)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 12: The Double Effect

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline   Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: ehehehehehe

Word Count: this chapter happened every time I tuned out my decision making brain, and the world, and just picked my laptop to go sit somewhere that is not cozy enough to fall asleep.

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

A mellifluous note from a violin took over the speakers kept on the coffee table before a prima donna voice did a Snow White-esque intro. The camera sitting on the floor captured the graceful and delicate toes tipping their way before swirling three times. Another pair of feet came in the frame to let it capture two stoic bodies in their perfect ballet stance before they both dropped their head and twerked their behind at the tunes of the fairy tale WAP, revealing the faces of Tony Stark and his mentee. The exquisite routine ended with the same fervour that Tony Stark reserved for his biggest balls, leaving the two breathless and the audience- that was just coming in focus with their mouths gaping wide- quite impressed. "Let's see if you can top this," Tony winked at them, his stern face soaking in the silent applause.

No one said anything. "How can you look so good in tights?" was all that could be heard in the loud thought leaving Scott's mouth, who had to blink and get himself out of the trance. "Did I say that out loud?" "Oh...kay," Rhodey's forehead lines held the weight of all the sanity in this universe, "how about we do something that does not kill the audience with your balls in their face?" Natasha opened her eyes wide while looking at infinity.

Natasha: Can't say this was my first time to have someone dance with their Spanx on for full display. *looks at the camera with no emotion* The ones before were not that lucky though. *camera zooms in* may their souls rest in peace.

"How about an Among Us themed video?" Peter jumped where he stood, his tutu fluffing up with his movements. "And those Ooooooo-aaaaaaaahhh ones," Bucky added. "I'm surprised you even know that," Sam was quick to mention. "Cassie's been teaching me." "...Cassie as in...Scott's Cassie." "Mmm-hmm. She set up everything for me on my iPad." "But your iPad has a child lock." "Oh, that's for me," Scott called from the other side of the table. Natasha looked straight at the camera recording this conversation, making it focus on her face when she closed her eyes and mouthed 'don't ask'. Past the chatter, another camera focused on Tony's eyes stuck on the flat screen that was not turned on for the first time in a long while. "She's fine," Wanda assured him with a smile. "I just now saw her running through a desert. And she seemed really excited." Tony nodded, his body not still at the thought of you out...somewhere he could not see you. "And what about the too-clever-for-himself God?" Wanda chuckled. "He's right behind her. Almost catching up." A certain tick in his train of thoughts made Tony narrow his eyes before turning back to Wanda. "You can see inside people's head, right?" He whispered. Tugging her upper lip under her teeth, Wanda chuckled. "I can read everyone's mind and I know what you're going to ask. The answer is no." Tony straightened his back like a good ballet dancer. "No as in you can't read his mind or no as in he...does not...or no because he is...not..." Wanda passed a quick look to the camera by her side before walking away.

Wanda: *shakes her head* No. Not going to answer that. Or that. Or that. *breaks into a giggle* *sparkling eyes* oh but you should see his head!! Peter's voice: *from outside the frame* Who's head? the camera shifts from Wanda to a curious Peter standing in the doorway before coming back to her. Wanda: *looks back from Peter towards the camera* *stifles a blush* No one. *gives the camera a knowing look*

The Galactic Desert Lulu walked over the rocks giddy as ever. The familiar boots in black followed him as the camera rose from the bed of rocks to bring in the horizon over the smooth desert dune they were climbing. The view of the beginning of the rocky side of life on this planet welcomed them where some old ruins of a monastery lay scattered everywhere.  From where he stood on the top, they looked like scattered Copic markers left by a giant's child on a wild spree; that or something resembling close to your room. When his eyes focused on those figures, he could see the familiar rainbow group that he had grown to dislike. If they were close, it meant so were you. And as if to answer the question- that had just loosened that tension in his brows- Loki's attention was taken by a delightful chirp from Lulu, who pressed his tum-tum and slid down the sand towards the colourful aliens.   A beat resonated through the stones. Loki's brows grew curious again- but only till they saw you. The camera focused on you, panning in to take a good of the swing of your shoulders to the beat. Other than the pep in your step, the lens could make out the flower crown was new; and so was the glitters that were strewn on your black shirt.  A sigh was all that Loki presented the crowd with before coming down the discreet stairs in the sand choosing to completely ignore you.

Am I being weird You're looking through me like You don't even hear (hello?)

The words were clearly meant for him but it wasn't him who joined in with you on the beat. And that did get his attention. First, it was Sky- the sky blue dude who twirled you around to let you fall into Red's arm.

'Bout to get on my Houdini shit and go and disappear Am I wasting my time tryna give a fuck But I don't really care

Red- with his piercing gaze set at Loki- matched your step to the heartbeat with one fierce smirk before you were nearly stepping on your own feet to walk into the dead centre of the place.

Fading all the signs that I keep on running through Making up excuses so they blame it on my youth

White joined you, happy to be by your side. He seemed different today. A bit more handsome. Maybe it was this starlight. Or maybe he was born with it.

I just wanna have fun, with jewels in the sun And ignore all the calls that I'm getting from my mom saying:

Every single one of the rainbow band had their arms and legs in sync with your steps as if you had rehearsed this part with them at least a hundred times.

Focus on, focus on, focus on, focus on you Focus on, focus on, focus on, focus on you

The twist and jerk of the hips was something new that raised Loki's brows. Nonetheless, no one from the audience complained about those moves. Least of all Lulu- who was shaking with beats while trying to mimic you as much as his bushy body allowed.

I'm trying hard, I'm trying really But I ain't got 20/20, I ain't seeing clearly I can't Focus on, focus on, focus on, focus on you

Loki tried to rub the worry mixed with frustration from his face while turning away from you. The camera caught the little flinch the God felt when you turned him around.

Face off, face off (Bang, bang, bang)

The finger gun motion brought down the rainbow colours one by one only to have them coming back up slowly, that too in perfect sync. They were so flawless that for a moment there, Javier had to catch his own emotion of impressed surprise in one of his devices.

Looking in the mirror You and me now (Yeah!)

You stepped closer to Loki with the words.

No one's around (Yeah!)

Winking suggestively at him while all his did was frown a little at that very suggestion

Time to get down (Down, down, down)

He took a step back in the name of caution only to find you catching Orange by his collar to bring him close and dancing your way down his body, leaving a little gap between the God's lips to let his lungs breathe in what he was witnessing. And whatever air he had left in his lungs was forced out when Orange looked at the God and gave him his version of a 'thumb's up'. Loki nearly broke into a run to get you away from him only to find himself grabbing thin air while you were standing on the broken pillar ten feet away from him. And relatively at quite the height.

Fading all the signs that I keep on running through Making up excuses so they blame it on my youth

Green and Purple joined you over the stone, swinging their arms and shaking their hips in languid harmony with you; going where your hands went, turning where your head did, enjoying themselves a lot.

I just wanna have fun, with jewels in the sun And ignore all the calls that I'm getting from my mom saying:

Whether or not you pretended to fall from that height, Loki felt the fear for a good second before Javier's camera recorded him inhaling in the fury of giving away his emotions as you appeared to dance right around his back. And these alien skittles made it even worse of an embarrassment.

Focus on, focus on, focus on, focus on you Focus on, focus on, focus on, focus on you I'm trying hard, I'm trying really But I ain't got 20/20, I ain't seeing clearly I can't Focus on, focus on, focus on, focus on you

When nothing else worked, the silent death glare from those smaragdine eyes towards the jolly ball of music player did the trick of shutting the party down. "Every time anything even close to dreadful happens in my vicinity, why is it always the pack of you prism puppies?" Those 'prism puppies' giggled at some inside joke before White licked his lips and turned towards Loki. "Because one of you loves us too much." Lulu, now resting on Loki's shoulder, turned to look at you and his camera caught the giddy swing in your steps as you skipped your way to Loki's side with a guiltless smile on your throbbing lips and those barely open yet content eyes looking at everyone around them. "Bullshit," Loki cussed without a hitch in his breath, leading you to gasp with a dramatic air. "He said bullshit," you whispered to Lulu, who tilted his head in response. "Shut your ears, babe." Green smirked. "No bullshit, your highness. We can only be called upon when someone thinks of us with no ill intentions in their heart." Loki had to raise a brow at that. "So you are saying one of-" he pointed at the four of them- "us took the time out of their life to think about you? Where is your pr-" "We can project the thoughts of the caller on the big screen if you want-" Your eyes opened wide at the idea and you nodded with quite the enthusiasm. "Okay," Loki announced with an amplitude loud enough to make you jump, "we all need to take a break after that hard routine!" He clapped his hands to conclude the meetup which bummed you out. "Let's go somewhere then. Drinks are on me." "Yes!" You jumped and skipped to Violet, taking his hand in yours to swing your arms with his as the two of you skipped forward. Orange and blue with yellow mimicked the two of you while green and red kept their hands in their pants and followed you guys with a strut fit for Gods. Javier made it a point to stay right at the front to catch everything. That left Lulu and his camera to record the two kings left alone to look at each with a knowing gaze. "It should not come as a surprise but I have to say it was quite the shock to hear you call out our name." White nudges the rock on the ground with his shoe, giving enough space and privacy to the God look at him with a piercing gaze till he had his fill. "You never speak of this," Loki commanded, "to anyone. Especially-" "I know," White acknowledged before he could finish. "I have seen your thoughts, remember?" He cannot help but smile he prefect-teeth smile at Loki. "How does it feel to be on the receiving end of a mind reader, Loki?" "Do not talk to me as if we are friends." Loki sounded tired and done for the day. "Aw," White swung his shoulders before letting his finger poke Loki in his arm, "you have quite the ego even without your powers. But I still like you." He lets his index fingers touch each word in a fluffy manner while making uwu eyes at the God. "I don't," his eyes glowered. "YOU DON'T?" White gasped out loud enough to catch the attention of the group that were a few meters ahead of them. "BUT YOU SAID IN YOUR THOUGHTS THAT YOU L-" Javier's camera caught all seven of you turning around to hear white shout something inaudible before Loki apparently hugged him to the point that they both fell down. "Wow!" you tilted your head with a content sigh. "It's so nice to see people get along with Loki." "Of course, they'll get along," Yellow mentioned, "they both like y-ow!" No one but the camera saw the quick smack delivered on Yellow's head by violet. "To lead!" Violet declared, not taking his eyes off Yellow. "They both like to lead. Well and with example." You smiled at them with confusion in your eyes and turned away and forward, with the same confusion, shaking it off, murmuring 'space spirits, space spirits' and continued skipping towards the destination that lay behind the last piece of the standing monastery.

Violet: *cutest accent* that was close Yellow: *bumping into Violet to come in the frame* *excitedly* this close. *grins ear to ear* Violet: *rolls his eyes*

A small crevice between the monastery's remains led down a stony path that looked right out of a fantasy movie, giving the feel of the European middle age street except for the moss and hanging boulders over the group that crossed the path.  Javier's camera caught you humming as you bobbed your head side to side, the boys mimicking your movement while moving with you. "Oooh!" you sang, "the air smells like candy!" "What's candy?" "Something sweet, something sour, and sometimes tangy!" Green tsked.  Orange looked at him in confusion and gave him a questioning nod. "She is on the second stage now." "What's that?" Green gave his companion a head-to-toe look before narrowing his eyes. "I don't know." Gasping with fake frustration, Orange begged with his soft jumps to know what it was. His baby voice was in vain till he came close to Green to whisper, "Is it something terrifying?" Green shook his head. "Something...ugly?"  Green sighed. Orange walked closer to Green. "Is it something horny?" The miss in Green's step confirmed everything for Orange, who tried his best to stifle the ecstatic butterflies his felt in his gut by biting down on his lips. Too bad he could not do the same for his flirty eyes. "Ori..no," Green cautioned him, but 'Ori' was already clasping his hands and almost his entire body to not let the joy escape as he swung around and skipped to your side. "Bad Ori," Green called out, but Orange was already wrapping his arm around yours, making you skip with him towards the opening, leaving the rest to catch up. Violet and Red joined Green as they watched the two of you disappear from their view. "He knows White will kill him if he does anything stupid, right?" Red stated with the killer smouldering look. Somewhere on earth fangirls screamed and two specific men started to question their orientation. Violet stretched his pretty pink lips and raised his perfectly done brow. "Do you think that'll stop him from doing something stupid?" With one thought-ridden pause, they let out a collective groan.

Facility Lawn "Oi! Sam!" The camera looked down from the lounge's balcony at Natasha standing in the bright afternoon sun with her hands cupped to call out Sam's name one more time if he did not show up this time. "'Sup!" The falcon greeted the Black Widow from the balcony, sipping on fresh coconut water right out of its natural juice box. "Throw me a sanitiser," Nat shouted. Sam turned where he stood, bending backwards just enough to get a peep inside. "Yo-" he grabbed a passing Bucky's attention- "pass the sanitiser." Bucky grabbed the bottle kept on the coffee table on his way to casually throw it in Sam's direction- who made it a point to look just as effortless while grabbing it. "Where you been?" Sam asked before readying his arm to do a precise throw in Nat's direction. The camera grabbed the roll of her eyes and a defeated sigh. "Had to drop off some documents." "Where?" "...at the White House." The throw came down from half the way as Sam let out a disgusted- and stretched- 'ew'. "You went over to Trump's place?!" Clearly, the assassin was to trying to hold down the guts wanting to come out of her. "I know. You don't have to remind me of the misery I just went through." "Woman, you need something bigger than this can," Sam stressed while raising the sanitiser in his hand. "Why are you standing in the lawn?" The camera in the lawn caughtTony in his workout clothes coming out from the garage while Nat tried her best not to grit her teeth. "She was at that wrinkly orange's place," Sam quipped before Nat could open her mouth to speak. "My feelings exactly," Sam agreed with the emotions reflecting on Tony's face right now. "Just hand me the sanitiser," she muttered at Sam through her eyelashes. "Oh, noooo-" Tony shook his head- "you need a whole bucket." A whistle-like cheer came from the front door as Scott came skipping outside. "What's happening?! What are we celebrating?" His bright eyes waited for an answer in excitement. "We're not-"  Nat's voice was drowned by Tony's 'she visited the orange tan bitch's office', making the assassin share a mum look with the camera before closing her eyes to contemplate. "Oh," Scott breathed through his teeth with a sorry face before taking a few steps back, "I'll get the hose," leaving Nat to look at the camera with a blank stare that was painting quite the picture of her thoughts.

Natasha: *expressionless* Someone's going to die tonight. *takes out a folded dagger* Sam: *pops his neck into the frame* *whispers* of too much cleanliness. *smiles wide for the camera* Natasha: *looks at the camera* *clicks the dagger open*

Monastery Grounds Lulu's camera caught the eerie vibrations these narrow path reflected from its walls as the huge metal door came into view. The intricate foreign drawings were understandable to the few who knew about the times of the monks. But to the innocent soul like Lulu, it only added to the unspoken horror that might be on the other side of this numbing silence where this little one could hear Loki's heartbeat loud and clear. Floofed up and cuddled into a ball, he hid in Loki's jacket right by his chest. Everyone except Violet, White and Loki had already gone through it. "It's all right," Loki hummed at the little one, stoking a few hairs on his shivering head, "there's nothing to worry about". The tsk of White's tongue was louder than he expected. "I wouldn't be so confident," he muttered under his breath. "And he needs to hear this because?" Loki was quick to question, facing the captain of the little group. White looked at the little floof curled up around Loki's chest before his eyes threw a curious glance at the God. "If he does not face his fear, he won't grow. I am sure an intellectual like you would know." "And why would I want him to 'grow'?" The null emotion brought a smile on White's face. "Are you really that protective of him or do you not want someone to find out what happens when he...'grows'." "Maybe he's both," Violet adds while looking at the sky from whatever the tall walls have left for the view. "Maybe you two should keep your business instead of thinking what others are thinking." "You know that is literally the basic part of our job, right?" A roll of eyes later, Loki sighed and turned towards the door. Lulu perked up from the jacket a little to hear something before clicking his stomach. "What exactly did I do in my life to be stuck with you?"  White knew he wanted him to hear that. "You think it's you we want to hang out with?" The door is dragged open and bass boosted tunes fill the musty alcohol-filled air that comes from the night on the other side.

Candles, glow sticks, fire lanterns- anything that can burn and glow lights up the building on the inside. 

Take a sip, take a sip, take a sip And a trip, and a trip, and a trip

Bottles, vessels and jugs of baroque shapes decorated the wall at the back up to the ceiling, creating an intricate mirage of figures dancing in the glass as lights reflected off them. 

And I'm like, when you bitch, when you bitch, when you bitch Counterfeit hypocrite holy shit

Bodies everywhere. Smoking, drinking, grinding, making out, trying new colours on their tongues. Bodies dancing to the music roaring through the neon stick-looking speakers. The shadows left by the light dance everywhere; even at places they are not supposed to. 

And amongst all the elated uproar, Javier's camera caught the three beings- and a furball- dispersing the crowd with just their existence, standing there with an aura that said the world revolved around them. And to some extent, they were not wrong.

Everybody gets high, why the hell can't I?

Eyes followed these boys; some filled with lust, some with a shade of curiosity, some with a hint of envy. But these three had eyes only for one thing. Looking for half the shades of a rainbow and a tipsy woman accompanying them. It wasn't long before all those eyes landed on the figure standing on top a table dancing like it was the end of the world. The jacket was gone and the maroon tank top with those familiar black jeans was the centre of attention. Hair down and flipping with all those jumpy moves. At one point the camera even caught you looking at it, winking and giving a shiver-inducing smirk.

Everybody gets high, why the hell can't I?

A closer look and Javier was standing in the mix of some very desperate and hungry creatures either dancing around the table either enjoying your company or doing their mating routine to attract you. As long as they maintained the distance, everything was fine. But as soon as one wrinkly faced rat tried to step on the table to touch you, a burst of roaring energy blew that alien back to where it belonged with the rest of the confused crowd. A few seconds late realisation came when five shadows with eyes gleaming like cats looked right into their souls, making them shrivel and curl up. The very next moment, five cutest boys were dancing with you on the table, increasing your happy high even more.

Everybody gets high, why the hell can't I?

Loki: *rubbing his face in his palms* never in the thousand years of my life did I think I would die of old age. *shakes head* And that too from worrying to much because of a measly human woman. *you go dancing past the camera screaming in delight* *Loki's eyes follow you before he stands up from the wall he's been leaning on and takes a step forward to come in the way of this one crocodile-man alien who is twerking his way to you. Crocodile-man jerks his way into Loki, who is standing there with his arms crossed, unwavering in every way, making the aquatic species lose their composure and walk back where they came from, letting their body tell the God to take it easy.* 

Fifteen minutes later Javier's camera focused on those big eyes of yours that were so devastatingly engrossed in Lulu as if they were seeing him for the first time. And that poor little furball was mimicking every move of your neck like a little one does with their mama. "Waaah!" you whispered with a tinge of positive shock. Javier's camera zoomed in on Loki who was looking at you with the judgment of an entire galaxy in his eyes. "You adopted him," his voice tried to cut through that trance but all it did was make your pupils wide in affection and let your throat give out a broken squeal before you petted your little one affectionately. A loud gasp followed, making Javier turn towards you and pan in on the drunken horror on your face. "What." "He is so fluffy-" you whispered while drawing the purring burrito close to your chest- "I wanna kill him in my arms!" For the first time in the history of fancams, the lens caught Loki's head fall all the way back in defeat while a groan left his throat, and before anyone witnessing could recover from it, the God was on his feet trying to take Lulu away from your arms. "Give me the baby." "Mm-mm." "You'll kill it." "..." "Give me Lulu before I pin you down and take him by force." It was quite visible that you were trying to imagine his words and it was also evident that there was that very slight smirk at the end of your lips before you licked it away. "I'll give him to you when you finish my beer." A confused frown was all you got. "Dammit, you look cute even when you frown," you whispered to yourself before turning to Loki, "I don't like the taste but I don't want it to go to waste. Finish that and then not only will I give you Lulu but you can also take me home."

Loki: The fact that she is ready to go home when we all know what happens when she gets drunk is both a boon and a bane. It's like an opportunity presenting itself and you look at it suspiciously, wondering what exactly is hidden underneath. *camera pans in* But for tonight I am willing to take that risk. *picks the beer mug* *drinks it without breaking eye contact with the camera*  *camera zooms out to pan in on White standing at the back frozen with a beer mug in his hand as his jaw drops to the floor* 

As soon as the mug hit the tabletop, you, Orange and Violet hooted and cheered and Lulu- who was sitting in your lap- imitated your hand gestures. "Come on-" Loki got and dragged the chair back- "let's go." Like a basic instinct, White immediately took Lulu from your lap before you stood up and jumped in excitement. "YES! LET'S GOOO!!" And ran to the dance floor, leaving the camera to capture the pure void that came over Loki's face.

Quarantined Avengers Facility The security cameras showed the time as two in the night when Scott could be seen walking through the lounge still half asleep as he made his way to the kitchenette for some water. "Take this," a husky voice boomed through the dark, making the man almost have a heart attack while he turned his fists towards the source of the voice, letting the bottle hit his face and fall down. "Sorry," Bucky apologised before going to one of the three bottles next to him and devouring every drop of that gifted liquid. Picking up the bottle and nursing his fresh wound that was definitely going to grow into a bump in the morning, Scott joined the assassin on the sofa. "Can't sleep?" "I can't stop thinking about those videos where that one woman is spilling all the stuff men do." "You gotta be more spe-oh! the woman who knows the secrets of the balls! Yeah, she does know a LOT!" Bucky stared in the infinite darkness and nodded. "Well, nothing to distract us from how we play with our ass hair like this," Scott groan mentioned as he got up to pick the remote and switch on the big screen. What played was the recording of you dancing under shimmering lights in a crowd of quite a variety of creatures. The beats were not familiar at all but that did not stop you from swinging your hips and jumping around having the time of your life. Without realising, Scott was also swinging his head with the sound while the camera panned in on you a bit more, unexpectedly catching an odd faced creature with sparkling blue eyes and grey skin getting close to you from the back. Unbeknown to you, the creature opened his mouth to let his snake-like slippering tongue slip out to come next to your ears. "What the f-" Before Scott was able to finish his emotion, a hand caught that tongue from behind, twisting that little sneaky shit and throwing it back somewhere out of the frame followed by a very audible yelp. Without missing a beat one of those very hands took yours and dragged you out of the frame too without any warning. The camera hastily followed to find you being dragged right to the dimmest lit corner in the back only to smack your back into the cold wall while a strong pair of familiar arms pinned your escape routes on either side of your shoulders. "What the he-" your giggles stopped right with the sentence when you realised the distance between your face and Loki's was less than your palm's. All the fun in your eyes seemed to suddenly evaporate when you felt those hands by your either side drag themselves closer to your shoulders; when those green eyes were staring right into your soul and that flawless acne-free face was getting close enough for you to smell the sweet alcohol in his one long exhale. His black tresses nearly covered both your faces while your mind evidently went blank and your body wanted to be swallowed by the wall for a second. "Loki," you managed to whisper through your croaky throat, wanting it to sound like a question desperately. In response, Loki let his left hand grab the few strands of stray hairs out of your face and gently tuck them behind your ear. That was all it took. And the lounge camera recorded Scott falling to the floor unconscious with a satisfying thump. Bucky sat there sipping his water and raised brows and a contented 'hm' leaving his throat.

Over the other side, Loki drew himself closer to you, making you look at his lips time and again before you finally closed your eyes. Loki's lips brought themselves closer before stopping right at a finger's length. The camera panned in to discover a little furrow in his brow that came and went before finally settling in and letting him draw himself back with a glower. "Why did that beer taste sweet?" The question came out of nowhere, making you open your eyes to a very confused God looking at his hands and his surroundings and finally you. And just when that scared grin came to settle on your lips, did his eyes blow up realisation. "Oh, fu-"

[ordinaryschmuck]

Top 20 BEST Animated Series of the 2010s-1st Place!

And now. 

For real this time.

What is hands down.

The Best.

Animated series.

In the 2010s.

Is…

(Pause for dramatic affect)

#1-Adventure Time (2010-2018)

I mean...what else?

The Plot: The magical land of Ooo has many things: A kingdom made of candy, a sociopathic Ice King, and even a self-proclaimed Vampire Queen. Amongst all this chaos are two adventures: A human boy named Finn, the Human, and his magical dog/best friend/adopted brother (yes, really) named Jake, the Dog. These two then go on adventure after adventure, facing against the many oddities that the Land of Ooo offers. What type of dangers? Well...you’re just going to have to watch the show to find out.

Before I start praising the crap out of this show, there’s one thing I want to get off my chest. You see, I hate Top X lists that always end with “the one that started it all.” It comes across as lazy because there is no way the first story tops every other one after it. Case in point: when looking at the best episodes of your favorite shows, how often do you see the first episode making the top ten, hell, even the top five? Not often, I bet. And sure, you can make the argument that “Without X, there wouldn’t have been Y,” but is that even a fair comparison? Sure, Disney wouldn’t have been as big as it is now without Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs being a success, but does that make it right to ignore great movies like Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994)? Sure, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is the reason why fans love to hate Star Wars in the first place, but how often do you hear people saying Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is the best of the franchise. And sure, the Marvel Cinematic Universe wouldn’t have existed without Iron Man being a box office hit, but with movies like Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, can you really say Iron Man is the best in the franchise anymore? To me personally, if you’re going to pick “the one that started it all,” then it better be something that can outshine “it all.” This is why I chose Adventure Time as the best-animated series of the 2010s. Not because it’s a show that practically sparked the existence of almost every show on this list, but because it really is that good of a series. Unfortunately, with a series that really is that good, there will be people who try to pick it apart. This is why I’m going to do my best to defend against some criticism that Adventure Time seems to face. 

The first criticism I want to talk about is one that hasn’t even occurred to me until I watched JelloApocalypse's video called, “So This is Basically Adventure Time.” In that video, I realized that Adventure Time doesn’t really have a proper storytelling structure. Hell, most episodes don’t even have a conclusion. They just stop almost randomly. But there’s a remedy to this problem, and it's one that I discovered somewhat effortlessly during my rewatch of the show. And that solution is to stop looking at Adventure Time as a series of episodes and more of a series of experiences. What do I mean by that? Well, while watching, you can either have a good experience or a bad experience. A fun experience, or a depressing experience. A philosophically brilliant experience or a randomly stupid experience. All of which can happen separately or conjoined in every episode. Personally, I like this style of storytelling because I’m more likely to remember the experience of watching something rather than the basics of what is being viewed. However, as JelloApocalypse has proven, not everyone is going to be ok with this style. This is fine, as everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Just remember that if it doesn’t work for you, that doesn’t mean it won't work at all. Case in point: there’s a reason that this show got ten seasons.

However, with those ten seasons come the inevitable seasonal rot. Which, in this case, can easily be explained. Halfway through season five of Adventure Time, series creator Pendelton Ward left and made Adam Muto the head showrunner. And where Ward’s style relied on being random and hilarious, Muto took the series in a more philosophical direction. Several fans were turned away from this aspect, but I like to argue that this isn’t seasonal rot and more of a series’ development. Tons of shows on this list went through their own transitions, some subtle and some drastic. Whether or not you’ll be ok with those decisions is entirely dependent on who you are. And personally, I actually enjoyed the direction that Adventure Time took. While I was entertained by how hilarious the original seasons were in Ward’s run, Muto caused me to think more intensely than any other show I have seen in my life. This is why, once again, I would like to point out that just because it didn’t work for you doesn’t mean that it won’t work at all.

But one thing that didn’t work for me, and one criticism that I’m inclined to agree with, were how some characters got treated in later seasons. Now to be fair, most of the characters actually become more interesting as the series goes on (Ice King, Marceline, BMO, Susan Strong, etc.) There are just two characters that got a little iffier compared to others: Finn and Princess Bubblegum. The main reason why Finn’s character seemed to fail is that the writers focused more on Finn's love life (or lack thereof). I genuinely believe that Adventure Time has some fantastic romantic relationships, but that aspect of Finn’s character is easily the most uninteresting. It’s even worse when an episode focuses on his armorous hangups through past...mistakes. I even heard that this decision ruined Finn as a character for some people, which I can totally see why. Luckily the show course-corrected itself, and by season six, it started focussing on an aspect of Finn’s character that is actually interesting: His family. Not to give away any spoilers, but let’s just say that Finn gets significantly more fascinating through this decision. Unfortunately, one decision that never got better was how the show treated the one and only Princess Bonnibel Bubblegum. This character started off as a gentle/playful ruler who was as sweet as her kingdom. Only to evolve into a sociopathic control freak who is obsessed with science. What went wrong is that the show goes so far as to say that she’s always been that way, even since she was a kid. I guess she just was good at hiding it in early seasons. Once again, the writers try their best to course-correct Bubblegum, but all they did was make her bearable than despicable.

But while Bonnie doesn't work for me, do you want to know what does? Literally everything else about this show. One of the reasons why Adventure Time is the best series on this list is because it has elements of every other show that has already been mentioned before it. You see, Adventure Time can have: Hilarious comedy, intense action, superb animation, creative ideas, compelling drama, catchy music, thought-provoking stories, good romantic subplots, gay romantic subplots, great lore and backstory, intriguing mysteries, and, most important of all, bacon pancakes. All of which can be handled in ten to eleven minutes, where most shows struggle within twenty-two.

But one element that stands out among the rest is Adventure Time’s serialized storytelling. You see, there are two different types of storytelling: Plotting and pantsing. Plotting is how it sounds: You come up with ideas beforehand and work your way into making them come to life. Pantsing is where the goal is to basically make things up as you go along and try to make everything connected afterward. The ladder is the route Adventure Time takes. Every single amount of lore, character development, and even surprise twists were thought up almost on the spot. And one might think that this makes things more complicated, but when I rewatched the series in 2019, a solid 99.9% of what’s written lines up. Sure, there are small things that get confusing or downright forgotten. But that’s the keyword: small. It’s the big things that the writers try their best at explaining away, which can be much appreciated. And while I can love a show for creating a well-crafted story, I got to give Adventure Time respect for doing the same thing just by improvising. But do you want to know the real reason why I stuck with this show? And why do all the elements mentioned before manage to work so well? The same reason why any show can work so well: The characters.

And yes, I know I just complained about how certain characters were nearly ruined in this series, but that doesn’t change how good they are. Almost every character that the show focuses on has a level of intrigue to them, and characters that don’t still manage to be incredibly entertaining, to the point where a worm’s butt can carry an episode by itself (Yes. Really). But nothing beats the central duo, and I’m being honest when I say they make the series enjoyable. Finn and Jake not only have such an entertaining brotherly dynamic, but the two of them are just so much fun that I can’t help but smile whenever they’re on screen. They’re easily the best thing about the show, as well as the most entertaining characters in it. This is saying something because Adventure Time has a LOT of characters. One might say too many. In fact, one could argue that Adventure Time suffers from the too-many-characters syndrome, which I can absolutely see. However, every character is so unique and creative that to this day, I still remember the Tree Witch in the episode “To Cut a Woman’s Hair.” From her voice to her design to even Tree Witch's creative and hilarious way to convince Finn to get her some princess's hair.

This brings me to another great thing about the show: Its endless amount of creativity. Everything that Adventure Time does is something you will never see anywhere else. From all the unique ways the show has Jake use his stretchy powers, to also having a vampire drink the color red instead of blood, Adventure Time is always a show that leaves me scratching my head wondering, “Why hasn’t someone else done this before?” And the best part is, no other show can do the ideas that Adventure Time has had. Because there is no way of doing it without coming across as a carbon copy. Which I can appreciate. Believe it or not, I would rather see an idea done once and never again, rather than repeated to the point where it becomes stale. Letting Adventure Time keep its creativity helps the show stand out among the rest and prevents it from being forgotten through time.

Thus, we come to the real reason why Adventure Time is the best-animated series on this list: Memorability. When doing a rewatch of the series, I was surprised by how many episodes I somehow remember. In fact, out of over two hundred episodes, I only manage to forget one (which coincidentally managed to be an episode I hate). I honestly don’t know why so many episodes managed to stick with me. Maybe because the show is so creative that it’s hard to forget. It's probably because the characters are instant icons that their impact just won’t leave me. Hell, perhaps it’s because the show is so gosh dang weird that my brain refuses to forget a second of it. No matter what the reason is, it all still stuck. And I’m not going to lie, I feel as though there are going to be a lot of shows I'll forget over the years. But ten years from now, something tells me I’m never going to forget Adventure Time.

Now that I think about it, there really have been many great cartoons over the previous decade. And we owe it all to Adventure Time. The act of being unique and creative with one’s ideas came from Adventure Time. The idea of being more mature and deciding what should and shouldn’t be for kids came from Adventure Time. The fact that a show needs well-written characters to tell a great story came from Adventure Time. Even certain shows were made because creators worked on Adventure Time (looking at you, Steven Universe). Is the show perfect? No. Far from it, even. But when looking back at the many great series we’ve gotten in the 2010s and the many great shows we’ll get in years to come, I realize that the fun will never end WITH Adventure Time.

(Especially since we’re still getting it with four hour long specials on HBOmax)

[ancientwastedlores]

The Support System (Ch: 3)

SUMMARY: The Avengers have managed to collect all the infinity stones across the universe, and are currently keeping them in far corners of the world, only for research and to see if they can improve the planet and its people. Reader is a researcher with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, as well as a field agent. Loki is currently serving time for his actions in New York City in 2012.

A/N: Find it on AO3 here. Links to the first two chapters are below. I’m quite enjoying posting, it gives some order to life after my Masters. What does one do after all the education? I’m lost. I’ve been just been writing and cleaning my house. Oh well. Enjoy! 

Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2 

Chapter: 3/? 

Warnings: N/A

Audience: general.

___________________________________________________________________

CHAPTER 3:

After sending the email to Strange and helping Tony and Bruce around the lab for a bit, the three of you walk into the dining room with Tony loudly announcing ‘PROGRESS!’ 

Everyone cheers, and you take your seat at the table. ‘You can unlock the stone then?’ Vision asks. 

‘Yes, I’ve just asked Strange if he can help’.  ‘Good, Bruce told me I might have to speak to it like I’m a cousin, so I'm hoping for an expert's opinion’. 

You laugh. Everyone is served dinner by Samantha, and after some have said their prayers, you all begin eating. 

‘How’s prep for the extraction?’ Tony asks Natasha. 

You tune out now, and no one engages you in conversation either. You’re lost to people when you eat, everyone knows that. Your thoughts wander to Loki finally, something you’ve kept locked away the whole day successfully. You think about the stuff he told you last night. You liked the company, but you wouldn’t dare admit it; your lack of personal ties made it easy to go on your missions. Everyone else around you acted out of fear for their loved ones as they carried out a mission, and you liked not needing to feel that. No. You couldn’t take that responsibility. You continue your meal, and now you’ve already started thinking about the Reality Stone, and your little ‘Harry’ joke. 

After dinner, the Avengers head to the bar. The next day is a weekend, so people are letting loose. It’s been thirty minutes, and Wanda is already singing some Sokovian song. You laugh at the silliness of the mighty heroes unfold before your eyes; Thor is drunkenly challenging everyone to lift his hammer, and laughing at them as they all fail. Steve tries to again, and again, it moves ever so slightly, causing Thor some panic. 

You’re still sitting at the bar stool, sipping your second drink, when Loki comes and sits next to you. 

‘Hello’ he says.  ‘Hi’ you smile at him warmly.  ‘I tried to make the first drink you made me last night’ he smiles like a little child, and extends his glass towards you. ‘Try it?’ 

You take the glass and take a sip. The vodka is definitely watered down with cranberry juice, and the raspberry liquor was lacking, which didn’t give it the kick you like. 

‘Not bad’ you reassure him. ‘But it’ll take you about ten of these to get halfway to where you were last night’. 

He laughs. 

‘I’ll show you’ you hop off the stool and go behind the bar. You take the shaker and pour some ice into it. You pour about two shots of vodka and a little less than half a glass of cranberry juice, followed by some raspberry liquor. 

‘What’s that?’ Loki asks. ‘I didn’t add that’. 

You tell him, and he goes ‘aaaah’. You smile. Closing the shaker and shaking it, you prepare a glass with your other hand. You find yourself shaking it to the rhythm of the music playing in the bar. 

‘Now you pour’ you pour the drink into the martini glass, and top it with a comical number of umbrellas, which gets you a laugh this time. ‘Try it’ you slide the drink across the bar towards him. He sips and smiles approvingly. ‘Let me make you another’ he offers. 

You move from the bar, and he tries to recreate the drink. You take a sip and congratulate him on getting it absolutely right. 

You spend the rest of the night making different kinds of cocktails for each other. You teach him some good pairings, and he tries to experiment with things that shouldn’t go together, but somehow do. The rest of the Avengers are singing and dancing, some of them making grand confessionals of love to each other (mostly Tony and Bruce), but you and Loki are still at the bar turning your noses up and laughing at the terrible choice of green apple vodka with red bull. 

‘That was absolutely terrible’ Loki says laughing, pushing the drinks aside. He sits down next to you, and the two of you have worked your way to an old fashioned. You watch the others gather around Thor for some reason. 

‘You feeling good?’ you ask Loki.  ‘Very much’ he smiles at you. ‘Thank you’.  ‘It’s no trouble’ you pat him on the arm. ‘Do you want to head to where they are?’ 

He hesitates, and you notice, but he says yes. You both take your drinks and head to where the rest of the Avengers are; when you get there, you see Tony taking his fifth try at lifting the hammer. You wonder how a man barely able to stand wants to engage in Thor’s game. 

‘Hey, I haven’t tried yet’ you announce.  ‘COME!’ Thor says, his laughter booming. 

You give your drink to Loki and walk up to the hammer. The rest of the Avengers are howling and giggling, and you hear Tony go ‘I believe in you kid!’. 

You smile and grip the handle. You wink at Loki. Loki smiles back at you. You clear your throat and pick the hammer easily off the table and lift it over your head. You’re met with stunned silence. You’re sure that action alone sobered Tony up, and Bruce just starts to cry. 

‘How… what?’  ‘I am worthy’ you smile at him, still holding the hammer above your head. 

He is still absolutely shaken, and flops down on the couch, still staring at the hammer in your hand. He looks like he’s about to burst. 

‘Okay, I’m kidding’ you bring it down to your side. ‘It’s an illusion. Loki helped’ you grin as you place the hammer back on the table. 

Everyone looks at Loki. After a few seconds, Bruce breaks the silence, ‘I want a video of me holding the hammer up and mocking Thor, can you make that happen?’ he asks. 

Everyone laughs, including Loki, while Thor tries to protest. Everyone else’s requests for Loki drown out Thor’s complains, and having accomplished your mission, you take your drink back from Loki and sit down. 

xx

Later in the night, everyone else has gone to sleep. You’ve put on some soft lounge music and are sitting at the bar. You finish your drink and turn around in your stool to take in the scene. Tony is asleep on one of the couches. Vision is trying to drag Wanda back to their room. Thor has passed out hugging his hammer. Bruce is asleep sitting up in another couch, with Nat's head on his lap. A smile escapes you. You’d fight to the death for these dorks. 

You flip the lights off, so the only light in the room is from the city. Heading to your room, you hum a tune to yourself. 

You open your room door to see Loki sitting on a chair by your bed. He smiles when he sees you and holds up a DVD cover. ‘I heard it’s a good movie. Would you like to watch it with me?’ 

It’s a copy of Doctor Who, Season 1. 

‘Where did you get that?’  ‘The library’ ‘We have a DVD library!?’ you exclaim. You didn’t think those even existed anymore.  ‘You’ve been in the tower for a year!' 

You shrug, saying you mostly just stream shows on your laptop and don’t bother with a DVD player. He points out that the TV in your room has been gathering dust, and now he knows why. 

‘Well, that’s not a movie, it’s a TV show. It’s about time travel’.  ‘Oh. Well, I hear it’s great’ he flips the cover in his hands nervously. 

You smile, knowing you’re the one he probably heard it from. ‘Pop it in’. 

He gives you the widest grin and goes to the huge flat-screen that’s been going to waste for the past year. He puts the DVD into the player and you grab the remote to hit ‘Play’. Without even thinking about it, you’ve made space for Loki on the left side of the bed again, and patted the side as he walked over. He gets in under the blanket with you, and sits there watching the first episode. 

[akemiozawa]

Dark Temptation (Vampire! Vil x F!Reader)

Okay, I’ve been a bit obsessed with Dracula the Musical lately. However, there is no FULL soundtrack with a broadway cast. Only a few of the musical’s numbers.

But with some researching, I found several FULL productions done in Germany, Austria, South Korea, etc. with ALL the numbers. This is one scene in the musical that I happened to like from Seoul’s version out of the others. Where Dracula seduces Mina into joining him in the afterlife. And of course, I had to include one out TW boys into the mix. And who better than to include than our beauty queen himself? Enjoy~

(NOTE) I had to change some of the lyrics to better fit the scene

and the key: 

Vil

You 

Together

————————————————————

You breathe out a shaky breath of air. Chills shiver your back, despite the clothes, that tried to pass for sleepwear, you donned: a silky night slip and simple white slippers. Around your shoulders was a long silky robe. Your hair let down in its glossy curtain, fluttered behind your as you walked.

You couldn’t sleep. Something keep itching at the back of your mind, but you couldn’t put your finger on it. You felt like you were....being watched...No matter what you tried, nothing did the trick: warm milk, therapeutic candles, heck, even counting sheep wasn’t helpful in the slightest! That same feeling of eyes stalking you didn’t go away as well.

You felt like the walls were closing in. You felt you were going to get crushed. You felt like screaming, but your voice was caught in your throat. Paranoia had set in. Panic, desperation, fear. You stumbled for the door, your door. You could barely see in the blanket of night that cloaked your room. Blind in the dark, you felt for the doorknob, a chance at freedom. As soon as you felt it, you didn’t hesitate to twist, then wrench it open and ran like the devil for the common room of (Dorm).

Which leads you to where you are now. Creeping towards the windows, you gently lean against them, catching our breath, calming your heartbeat. It seems that the feeling of being watched had diminished.

Or so you believe.....

Unknown to you that a dark presence was lurking outside, eyeing you by the windows with a predatory gaze. His eyes glinted deviously underneath the rays of the full moon’s glow. He smiled, showing a hint of sharp, elongated canines.

“Oh my dear, sweet little (Y/N). So alone, so helpless, so...frightened. It’s so difficult not to take you here and now when you look so.....divine....but soon....soon, you’ll be mine....and I’ll make sure of that....very soon.” He whispered, eyeing the clock. Ten minutes until he made his debut. He smirked and without a trace, vanished into the shadows.

————————————————————

Nine minutes have passed. You fidgeted with your fingers as you sat on the couch. Just watching the time tick by did little to tame your frazzled nerves. If you continued at this pace, you’re sure to be sleep deprived by tomorrow morning.

“Ugh, screw it, I might as well try and close my eyes for the time being.” You mutter. But as soon as you felt your eyelids drift-

Dong! Dong! Dong!

You jolted from your place.

The great clock within the walls of Night Raven echo their ominous toll of midnight.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Suddenly, the feeling was back.

‘No not again...!’ You quivered. You throw yourself away from the couch, but you didn’t look in time to see where you were heading and tripped and fell harshly to the ground. Your body screamed with bursts of pain from the impact.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

The full moon was glowing against the midnight sky. Although it seemed calming for most people, it sent a feeling of dread shooting through your heart. You upped yourself with your elbows, sitting on the side of your leg and looked around the room, the pain still lingering but subsided for the moment when you went to your knees.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

A lock clicked. The windows squeaked as they opened, the curtains fluttering like wings on the gentle breeze. You froze, not daring to look back to the windows.

The clicking of boots sounded behind you, more shots of fear pricked your mind.

“Ah...hello, my dear...” a soothing voice resounded.

You knew immediately who that silky voice belonged to.

“...Vil...” you gasped.

Although the opaque curtains did what they could to flush him out, you looked over your shoulder, out of the corner of your eye, to see his outline framed by the bright moonlight. You could barely make out what he was wearing: a gaudy white dress shirt, black slacks, his black and gold boots, and royal purple robes draped off his shoulders. But instead of his hair being up like normal, it was down, exposing the dyed ends.

You turn back forward, fright turning your body frozen. You tried not to quiver.

Vil smiles. You looked too adorable now, hiding your fear from him. Well, he might as well humor you before striking.

“What are you doing up, my sweet?” He cooed delicately.

You tried not to shiver; his words were like the sweetest of honey, but you could sense a twinge of hunger in them.

Out of everyone in Night Raven, you were the only one who knew of Vil’s true origins. Hell, not even Headmaster Crowley knew about the Pomefiore Leader! Nope, it was you and you alone.

But...why? Did he see something in you that made you a cut above the rest?

“I...I couldn’t...s-sleep.” You stuttered. “B-but...I-I should be...asking you that as well...!” You did what you could to keep your voice even, despite the feeling of dread creeping up on you. Vil was giving off a certain vibe, and you didn’t know if it was bad or good.

You could feel Vil smile behind you. But this one...felt...oddly reassuring, unlike his usual smiles....

Vil slowly drew closer to you, calmly like a hunter towards it prey; one sudden move and you could bolt like a frightened deer. His jeweled eyes never left your beautiful figure.

(Here’s the video as inspiration for the scenario)

“Ever since I saw you...shivers down my spine. You're the one, you're the chosen one! I'm here to make you mine...” he sang softly, gently. He made his way towards you, getting down on one knee, his hands gliding down your arms. You shivered lightly, the strange contact from him...felt...it felt...

Godly

It may have been small, but god, was it entrancing! You couldn’t help but let him touch you more as your eyes fluttered shut.

“All the centuries ago, you are flesh of my flesh for all time.” He whispered as his arms wrapped around you gently, like you were fragile glass. His head neared yours, turning in so he could breath in your scent. Rose and Vanilla clouded his senses. It was euphoric! Absolutely euphoric!

He wanted, no...he NEEDED more.

“Please, don't make me love you. Please, don't make me need you. I cannot turn away from you arms again.” You sang, letting your true feeling for the blonde emerge. You turned your head to face him, not meeting his eyes, as a feeling of dread eased into your body. As much as you wished, you knew people would see you differently. You were from different worlds, for Pete’s sake! He was a prince, you were...

You were what? And even if you were that, would it still be enough for the two of you to be one?

“I can feel the nightfall, that eternal darkness. Will I ever see light within the shadows?” You slowly rise to your feet, staring down at your enclosed hands, easing away from the vampire prince, turning to another window where a sky of dark blue etched out small stars in the sky.

Vil seemed to sense your distress. He knew you were hesitant of your choices. But it didn’t matter. He made his choice, and you’ll make yours. Even if he had to tempt you!

“Pure pleasure for infinity! Why should we all be born to die?” He demanded, standing effortlessly. “I offer you my love, eternal love - The love unchanging as the stars above!” He drew near you, eyes glowing with a light of pure hunger. It scared you yet...

Thrilled you to the core of your confused heart.

“My blood will be your blood, My flesh will be your flesh, Together we will face the centuries ahead, And when the worlds grow old, Our gold will still be gold -” Your hands entwined like vines, as he brought them to his lips, kissing them ever so feathery. You felt completely enraptured by his eyes, begging you to be with him. It was as clear as the sky. He wanted this. He wanted you. A light hazyness drowned your mind, like you were floating on air, the more you looked into his eyes.

“Surrender to me, (Y/N)!” He whispered.

Yes...let you and him be together...it’s what you’ve wanted, right? Together...forever...

No!

You snapped from your trance. Wrenching your grasp from his, turned away, hands clasped above your heart. The fog clouding your mind has thinned.

“I feel the fog is closing in, And I am losing all control!” Your voice shook with fright. You couldn’t! That feeling of doubt was still implanted in your heart, rebelling against your impure thoughts. The fear wouldn’t go away... submitting yourself to him would be like giving your soul to the devil!

You turned to flee, but Vil shot forward, clasping your elbow. You knew he wouldn’t let you go that easily. If he was the predator, you were prey. Simple as that.

He forced you to look at him, “You have that far-away look in your eyes-A look that nothing spoken can disguise!” Were your true feelings for him that noticeable? As much as you wanted this, wanted him, the more you tried to follow your better judgement. Ignoring your feelings for him would spare you the rumors amongst your peers, but at what cost? Blind love? A dark ?A blossoming romance with the one you tried to ground your heart for?

You trembled as you yanked your hand away from his and ran to the safety of your place. But it seemed that no matter where you ran, he was there, his voice echoing the halls, filling your head with such intimidating thoughts.

“It tells me that you feel the things you want to feel, Your body wants me now - Some things you can't conceal! We'll live our lives and then, We'll live them once again; There's always a tomorrow.” As soon as you reached your safe haven, you knew you were trapped. He had you backed into a corner, and no matter where you ran, it would be your end. Shutting your eyes, you couldn’t help but breathe out softly,

“There's always a tomorrow! There's always one more night...”

Walking to your window, you peer out into the sky, the feeling of Vil’s arms slipping around your waist sent another spark down your spine. You looked down, the blood flaming your cheeks a noticeable red, but he took your chin between his fingers to make you look at him. As amethyst lined with (e/c), you suddenly felt safe in his arms. The two of you leaned closer and closer, eyes drifting shut, until the cold of his lips met yours in a delicate kiss. Your lips and his fit like pieces in a puzzle, granting you beautiful splendor more than anything you could imagine! It grew more as he drew your body closer to him in such a romantic embrace. 

Soon, the need for air became vital as you drew back. Out of breathe, you lay your head on his chest, he reciprocated with holding you closer, one hand stroking your (H/c) locks. Vil inhaled deeply as his senses caught whiff of your scent, the one that drove him insane. 

“How can we turn back when we have come so far? Any sacrifice is worth it to be where you are!” you both sang in harmony. The richness of your voices blended together, as you stared into each others eyes once more. 

But something was different in his eyes. You felt so enthralled, you couldn’t look away. You felt yourself nodding your head as he moved you in front of him.

“You had me in your grasp, I/you had to fall Away from the rays of light.” You could feel the strap of your night slip fall gently down your shoulder, and of Vil’s hand grasping your own in comfort, as he prepared to do what he has wanted since you cast your spell of love on him. 

“Together forever, Until time is undone,” With your blood and his together, your souls will be bound for infinity! A lifetime of love, beauty and romance that will ne’er be shared with another vixen but you, and you alone! 

"To fall into the hands of...Night!” His elongated fangs pieced your flesh like pricking your finger on a needle. A sharp gasp escaped your lips, and you jostled in pain, but soon, the pain ebbed away and pleasure filled your veins. You felt your breathe run short, your vision grew fuzzy and your brain was shutting off. But you never resisted. You smiled gently as the world faded around you.

As soon as you fainted, Vil caught you in his arms, holding you like a bride. His lips were partially bloody, but he didn’t mind. Staring at the puncture wounds on your neck, he felt trumphant. Even more than knowing he was the most fairest than all. 

He now had you in his world. His beautifully perfect and dark world. By surrendering yourself to him, your mind, body, soul and heart were now his. He will grant you euphoria by the blood bond you both had shared. His spell of dark temptation lured you in, and you will be his queen, now and forever.

---------------------------------------------

WOW. this turned out a lot longer than i expected....but I hope it was good enough! Thanks for reading!

[daleisgreat]

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

A movie podcast I listen to, The Big Picture, did a recent episode on the 10th anniversary of 2010’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (trailer). Coincidentally enough, that film remains in my backlog box all these years later, so I made sure to re-watch it before giving that podcast a listen. For those unfamiliar with this film, it is based on a series of six graphic novels of the same name by Bryan Lee O’Malley released between 2004 and 2010. The basic gist is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) falls for newcomer to town, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). In order to win her over Pilgrim has to defeat Ramona’s “Seven Evil Ex’s.” Scott spends the rest of the film exploring Ramona’s mysterious past and dueling her ex’s while practicing with his band, Sex Bo-Bomb, as they progress through a battle of the bands tournament. Sex Bo-Bomb is one slick act! Stephen Stills (Mark Webber) is the doom-and-gloom frontman of the band. Kim Pine (Alison Pill) is a 2010 take on Daria and effectively nails her vintage expressionless glares and blunt quips. Young Neil (Johnny Simmons) is the affable, DS-loving, always ready alternate for Sex Bo-Bomb. Their #1 fan and also other girlfriend of Scott Pilgrim is one Knives Chau (Ellen Wong). Knive’s arc is probably my favorite of this ensemble cast as her journey from adoring fan and girlfriend to her final destination is a fascinating quest to see develop and a faithful translation from the books.

I first heard of the books on the videogame podcast, Team Fremont Live where they reviewed the first book and their breakdown of it caught my attention when they dissected all the nonstop videogame references that are peppered regularly throughout it. The film captures that imagery to a T where it feels like Pilgrim is living in a real life videogame. In this world suspending disbelief is required because it is jam-packed with extraordinarily choreographed battle scenes, makes anyone capable of instantly pulling off bombastic martial arts moves in the blink of an eye without any training whatsoever, and quirky little animations of objects like Mario Bros.-esque coins and pixelated items inserted throughout that any videogame fan will pick up on. The fighting game fan in me popped a little each time a thunderous “KO” blared out each time Pilgrim emerged victorious after an evil ex duel. As a lifelong fan of videogames, it was fun picking up on all the references and Easter eggs in the background throughout. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World hit at an interesting time where Michael Cera was the only established star at this point in 2010 and was riding the last wave of critical success coming off of Arrested Development, Superbad and Juno. Brandon Routh is noteworthy appearing here as one of the evil ex’s after flaming out in his single appearance in a Superman film. However, a few other stars are here right before they exploded into bigger success like the aforementioned Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Chris Evan is here as another evil-ex shortly after his two Fantastic Four films, but a year before donning the Captain America costume for the first time. Anna Kendrick is here in a small role as Scott’s sister Stacey while in the midst of her initial Twighlight run. Finally, Brie Larson is here as Scott’s evil-ex, Envy Adams and she is the lead for her band, Clash at Demonhead in my personal favorite musical performance of the film as they belt out “Black Sheep.”

It is worth repeating that I highly recommend suspending all disbelief going into Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and simply roll with it. The battle scenes are a hoot to take in and feature a ton of CG that holds up well ten years later. It is also worth pointing out this film is part absurd videogame battles, part early 20s love triangle drama and to a lesser extent part musical with several performances from Sex Bo-Bomb and other bands throughout the film. Director Edgar Wright tracked down a few bands to play the tracks for some of the featured bands in the film such as Beck performing the handful of Sex Bo-Bomb songs in addition to a slew of other tracks from artists like The Rolling Stones and Blood Red Shoes that perfectly supplement the outlandish tone of the film. It is not too often on here I recommend hunting down the soundtracks for a film, but the soundtrack for Scott Pilgrim vs. the World I wholeheartedly recommend! I think the Scott Pilgrim vs. the World BluRay may have set the record for amount of extra features for a single film in the near seven years of movies I have covered on this blog. A rough tally on my notes gives an approximate sum of nearly five hours of bonuses, and then four feature length commentary tracks on top of that! I will not detail every bonus, but will give some highlights of the ones that stood out for me. There is just under a half hour of deleted scenes with or without commentary from Edgar Wright. Most of them are extended scenes from the first act to trim out excess background info, but an alternate ending is what stood out the most that Wright explained he changed because it did not go over that well in test screenings. I can always appreciate a good blooper reel, and an excellent 10 minute reel is compiled here that I would rate right up with the stellar ones in the Marvel films.

There are three features grouped together in the ‘Docs’ section of the extras tallying up to a little over an hour. If you only had time for one of the five hours of bonuses I would go there because that has the core making of documentary which breaks down collaborating with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley, nailing the casting, detailing the extensive stunt training and interviews several of the bands about being featured in the soundtrack. Speaking of the soundtrack, there are four music videos included. Definitely check out the four minute animated short, Scott Pilgrim vs. Animation that is essentially a prequel to the film that dives into Scott and Kim’s former relationship. There are 12 ‘Video Blogs’ totaling 45 minutes that are raw on set interviews with the cast and crew between takes that sees the crew up to all kinds of mischief to kill downtime. This BluRay easily has the largest photo gallery of any home video I have covered with several hundred photos. One gallery is labeled ‘storyboards’ but each storyboard panel is nearly identical to the excellent quality of the art in Bryan Lee O’Malley books so that is essentially a free comic book adaptation of the movie buried in the extras! I experienced all four of the commentary tracks in one re-watch of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World via jumping around to a different commentary about every five minutes. Edgar Wright is on two of them, one with Bryan Lee ‘O Malley and writer Michael Bocall and the other with photography director Bill Pope. The other two commentaries are split among nine cast members, with Michael Cera and the rest of the leading cast on one and the ancillary cast members on the other cast commentary track. Wright has tons of nonstop insight and production facts on his tracks, and the cast tracks are have a lot of fun anecdotes such as Cera failing at trying to get additional people on the commentary via phone call. On top of the commentary I had on during my re-watch was also a factoid subtitle track to really take in the extra features. Despite going on now for three paragraphs about the bonus features, I think I only touched on about half of what is available, and it is truly astonishing to see how much they crammed into one BluRay disc.

A part of me thought going into this that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World would not hold up after 10 years. I would chalk that up to thinking I may have got easily won over with all the hype from being vastly into the books back then and being too caught up into the build to the film’s initial release. I can put those reservations to rest thankfully as I immensely enjoyed this ode to videogame fandom as much as I first did in 2010. Throw in a plethora of extra features to last all year to make Scott Pilgrim vs. the World one of my highest recommendations yet! If you want even more commentary from me about this film than below I have embedded the podcast I originally recorded 10 years ago shortly after seeing the film on its opening weekend. I bring on a couple other special guest hosts that are also ardent Scott Pilgrim fans and we review the film, soundtrack, the books and the videogame. Enjoy!

I brought on a couple other Scott Pilgrim experts on as guest hosts on my podcast to review the film, books, videogame and soundtrack shortly after they all released 10 years ago. Check it out in the embed above for more Scott Pilgrim goodness or click or press here to queue it up for later. Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs 3 12 Angry Men (1957) 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown 21 Jump Street The Accountant Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie Atari: Game Over The Avengers: Age of Ultron The Avengers: Infinity War Batman: The Dark Knight Rises Batman: The Killing Joke Batman: Mask of the Phantasm Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice Bounty Hunters Cabin in the Woods Captain America: Civil War Captain America: The First Avenger Captain America: The Winter Soldier Christmas Eve Clash of the Titans (1981) Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special The Condemned 2 Countdown Creed I & II Deck the Halls Detroit Rock City Die Hard Dredd The Eliminators The Equalizer Dirty Work Faster Fast and Furious I-VIII Field of Dreams Fight Club The Fighter For Love of the Game Good Will Hunting Gravity Grunt: The Wrestling Movie Guardians of the Galaxy Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 Hell Comes to Frogtown Hercules: Reborn Hitman I Like to Hurt People Indiana Jones 1-4 Ink The Interrogation Interstellar Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Jobs Joy Ride 1-3 Last Action Hero Major League Man of Steel Man on the Moon Man vs Snake Marine 3-6 Merry Friggin Christmas Metallica: Some Kind of Monster Mortal Kombat Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge National Treasure National Treasure: Book of Secrets Not for Resale Pulp Fiction The Replacements Reservoir Dogs Rocky I-VIII Running Films Part 1 Running Films Part 2 San Andreas ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery The Secret Life of Walter Mitty Shoot em Up Slacker Skyscraper Small Town Santa Steve Jobs Source Code Star Trek I-XIII Sully Take Me Home Tonight TMNT The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2 UHF Veronica Mars Vision Quest The War Wild The Wizard Wonder Woman The Wrestler (2008) X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Days of Future Past

[xoruffitup]

Burn This 7/14: Final Show Recap

Burn This is over and I’m a mess of feels. This play has gifted me with four solid months of incredible performances, late NYC nights with friends both new and old I will treasure forever, and short but beautiful moments of dreams coming true at stage door. The final performance was overwhelming, hysterical, and oh so bittersweet. 

First – A conclusive update about the letter book! After Adam didn’t come out to stage door on Friday or Saturday (understandable tbh because both nights had giant, rowdy crowds), the crowd was absolutely MASSIVE on Sunday after the last matinee. People were pushing, crowding, yelling Adam’s name and it was absolute madness. When Adam got down to me, the crowd was literally pushing in from every angle and there were about ten people reaching their Playbills out to him around my head, but I just started talking. Given the manic atmosphere I only had time to get out something like: “I’ve seen the show several times and had incredible dialogues about it. This is a collection of messages from people about what the show meant to them.” Adam literally could not stop moving or else the crowd would have caged him in, but he looked back at me, still listening, and when one of the security guys took the book Adam looked straight at me to acknowledge and thank me! Both he and the security guard assured me it would get to him. I didn’t get to explain it fully but I think he understood what it was and the book will speak for itself!

This is the cover I made for the collection:

You can see me hand over the white laminated book right at the beginning of this video, and Adam look back to say thank you. 

My friend next to me also took this video where he looks back at me for half a second :’D And gives a tiny smile! (in the middle of that pandemonium, poor bb) 

Let me quickly say a big THANK YOU to everyone who contributed. <3 After that insane crowd at stage door, those wholesome, thoughtful messages about his work in this play would be the perfect remedy. Thank you so much to all of you for taking the time to write out appreciation for everything he gives us. :’)

NOW, the show!

Okay so firstly, the downside: I was NOT impressed by the audience. A lot of people seemed to have seen the show before (not that I’m judging, clearly) but were laughing CONSTANTLY at everything Adam did. To the point where you couldn’t even hear his lines half the time, and the audience failed to grow appropriately somber in the moments when he falls apart. Not a very courteous audience at all.

But the cast!!!! There were some poignant moments when it really seemed to be their real emotions coming through, bleeding into the way they played certain scenes. During the infamous, always-entertaining exchange in Act 2 while Adam’s sitting on the couch in the robe asking “Who’s the apple and who’s the orange? You never had an apple tart glazed with orange marmalade?” I SWEAR there was a second where that grin was all him, having an absolute ball of a time. When he said “who’s the orange?” he literally kicked his feet up like an overexcited little kid and it was THE. PUREST.

Okay so in the interest of remembering as much as I can, I’ll go in order from the beginning!

First, a bit of textual analysis. Every time I see the play, I’m struck by how incongruous the first twenty minutes seem in comparison to the rest. I know that’s on purpose, because Pale’s entrance is very much supposed to shake up and tear into Anna’s world with pure chaos – turning everything on its head. But knowing everything that’s going to come after, all the lofty discussion in that first scene about myths and epic love tropes all seems terribly self-aware. It’s more than foreshadowing. It literally seems to be a self-narrating framing device for everything that’s about to follow after:

“The wives of the sailors out at sea. The women waiting for years and the men never coming back. What sustains them through loss? Through pain? I think they felt things in a more profound way.”

Robbie is never coming back, and Anna is searching for something inside herself – some feeling – in order to push through this mess of grief and frustration that she can’t make sense of even to herself. She has a shell around herself at the beginning, and nothing to break through it or guide her way; no direction.

“The Flying Dutchman – Senta throwing herself into the sea to save the Dutchman from perdition.” (I mean come on – In this story Senta literally “has this boyfriend hanging around” getting in the way of the epic love and this couldn’t be more meta if it tried.)

Knowing what’s to come, it’s striking that Anna doesn’t seem to realize she is the real subject of conversation here, not Burton’s lofty novel ideas. Even a mere ten minutes after she recounted the funeral where she swore she was expected to “throw herself over the casket” – she doesn’t seem to relate herself to the story about Senta hurling herself into a watery grave because of the love and loss of a man.

In some performances, I think Anna is closed off because she’s purposely trying to avoid such a fate for herself. After losing Robbie, she doesn’t want to “sacrifice herself” through deep connection to another person ever again – Not even to Robbie’s memory as she refuses to give in and confront her grief. And hence her resistance to starting a real relationship with Pale. In other performances, it seems that she’s genuinely blind to the walls she has put up around both herself and her own emotions. You can see the walls in her physical body language – How she always seems to be sitting in defensive, closed-off positions when Burton tries to get near her. (Contrast that with how she literally wraps herself around Pale while he’s crying on that same couch later.)

Anyway, I just find it incredibly cool that what at first seems to be snobby, “arty” (to take Pale’s word) aimless talk at the beginning is actually all the characters indirectly reflecting on everything that’s about to happen to them – to Anna, particularly. This same exact self-examination resumes in the first lines of Act 2, when Anna finishes reading Burton’s draft script.

“It’s so sad.” “I thought they were having fun.” “But beneath it all, they’re so lonely.”

There it is – The deceptively simple three lines that sum up the entire play and spell out the tragic beauty of Pale and Anna’s relationship.

OKAY I’ll stop with the analysis now. On to the details everyone cares about!

So when Adam charged out, holy shit his voice sounded SHOT. It took a good few minutes for his yelling to warm up enough for his voice to stop sounding completely hoarse. It clearly cracked a few times and I just wanted to brew him some tea. (A pot, of course, because a cup wouldn’t even be economical…)

But by around the time he got to my favorite, side-splitting monologue about imagining you’re a tree and you get made into toilet paper or money to get passed around or parchment for a restaurant or music paper for the Boss to write on… but either way you end up drifting down to get stuck in some Saudi Arabian oil tank propellers. (Bending down and spinning his arms like propellers and cue me absolutely falling apart each and every time.) …. His voice finally sounded fine by then! :D

I’ve forgotten to write this in previous posts, but in plays I always LOVE moments when the actors come right to the front of the stage and just stand there for a long moment, wordless and motionless, just staring out into the theatre without really seeing anything, lost in the gravity of their own emotion. Keri has a moment like this before Pale’s entrance (I think when she says, “I thought everything important to the future of dance was going to happen in this room.”) Adam has his moment while Anna is talking about Robbie’s dancing, how good he was and how Pale would have liked it. Adam just stares out into infinity for a long moment, while it demands physical effort from him in order to take in what Anna’s saying. He doesn’t smile while he says, “You saw him and say he was good. I never saw him and I know he was shit.” His long moment of stillness here – finally facing the audience in close proximity and unnerving silence (a striking moment after he spent the last fifteen minutes raging around the stage and often having his back to the audience) is when you can see the very beginning of him unraveling. This is when he starts to plateau – tumbling from his coked-up high into a dark, helpless pit that cleaves him clean through.

After bitching about his pants getting ruined and putting his leg up on the sofa to show Anna, he did the most RIDICULOUS twirl this time! After slowly lifting his leg over the table, never breaking eye contact with her once, he then did this slow, melodramatic twirl - complete with extended ballet fingers and everything. It was nothing short of glorious.

After he kneeled down and screamed, he rose completely shattered. I don’t think I’ve ever heard his voice so devastated with sobs and tears – to the point where you could barely understand him. “No, I don’t do this. This ain’t me” sounded like he was begging desperately, but had no idea what for. There are a lot of stunning things Adam does in this play, but rising and sinking and rising again through these completely polar opposite, all-consuming emotional states within the span of twenty minutes has to be the most incredible. He truly embodies the transformations with his entire body – The way he paces around aggressively then helplessly, the way he spends long, silent minutes simply rubbing at the same place on his chest in pain, the way he doubles over as the brunt of his grief settles upon him like a crushing physical weight. The way he channels his very physicality to embody menacing one moment, then vulnerable and helpless the next. It’s just nothing short of breathtaking and awe-inspiring.

Okay okay, after he drops the hilarious bomb out of nowhere: “You know you got no tits at all.” And when the exchange ends with “It makes a man want to look, see how much there is” – Afterwards he just looks over at her with this hilarious, seedy smirk that was GOLD. Almost like “so is this hapless seduction working????”

Watching the couch kissing scene was, again, like being seduced yourself. He just stares at her for such a long moment before finally leaning in for it. She knows what he’s thinking – she knows what he’s going to do, and she’s completely mesmerized by the intensity of his single-minded focus; even as his hand reaches out for that gentle, tentative brush along her hair. Making sure she really wants this before he slides into it.

And then…. God, the way he delivered the lines that are some of my favorites: “Let’s start the engines real slow here. Go halfway to the city, stop for something to eat. You’ll find there’s times I’m a real good listener.”

jsdfjadlj his voice is so soft and deep, while he’s looking at her so intently, almost communicating the words with his gaze alone. He speaks so slowly and purposefully. The words themselves might be flippant in the double entendre, but there’s a sincerity behind them that wraps itself around your heart completely. You can see it wrap itself around Anna, as she falls into him completely. Every single person in the audience would probably do the exact same.

When he leaves the next morning, it never fails to make the audience crack up how he just waltzes out the door with no great to-do as he calls “Alright people, I’m outta here!”

CLASSIC.

Act 2:

After Burton flips him onto the floor and keeps yelling at him, the way Pale just rolls away onto his side and goes “Good night” all mischievous and cutesy asldfjsadlkfj. And then “Good night, Bruce!” after Burton finally leaves.

Other honorable mentions from this scene:

Pale, from offstage: What the fuck do you know?! Larry: Hmm… what do I know? That’s one of those questions you don’t know whether to answer with hubris or humility.

“Who’s Bruce Lee?!”

After Anna and Larry left the room, Pale’s fighting with his coat was extra aggressive this time. He was basically windmilling his arms as he repeatedly yanked at the back of the jacket until finally flipping it up and off and over his head.

Okay okay so I know I already talked at the beginning about the robe scene but I swear this one was EXTRA delightful. He was just grinning and cheesing all over the place at his own cleverness with the “hat trick” joke. Looking SO pleased with himself and just infuriatingly adorable for a giant brickhouse of a man in a stupid purple kimono I mean wtf!!!!

Oh and right before that! When he brought Anna the cup of tea after sabotaging her phone call with Burton and then hiding his face behind the robe sleeve all coyly, he was extra sweet about it this time :3 After handing her the mug he kissed her twice on the forehead, then just stared for a second at her grumpy face before kissing her on the nose too. (!) Then he proceeds to do the cute thing where he tucks her hair behind her ear while asking, “You want some eggs?”

Even when Anna shuts him down, the way he went over to sit on the couch, picked up his tea, then gave these awkward looks to both Anna and Larry like “welp, guess we’re all sitting together now” was sO funny. How the man can deliver such comedic effect without saying a word is beyond me.

Then, Anna starts to blow up at him. When she delivers the final, most devastating blows of “I have nothing for you. I don’t like you, and I’m frightened of you” – I’ve taken to watching Adam as the blows land. He stands there completely still and his face barely moves, and yet there’s this unmistakable, silent devastation about him. The man’s been called the “King of micro expressions” for a damn good reason. This time, after several long moments of tense, pregnant silence – He just did this minute shake of his head as he looked right at Anna. Even for all her anger, he still doesn’t really believe that she means what she’s saying. But that tiny shake of his head spoke volumes. It was almost disapproving, almost pitying, maybe a touch frustrated. While in previous performances he often seemed to be completely crushed – all spark drained from him; There was this bare, subtle moment of disbelief and lingering defiance. Disbelief that Anna was really deluding herself so thoroughly. He is so sure in this scene – while he’s telling her she’s not really afraid of him, she’s only afraid of caring and feeling something – that she feels the exact same way he does. He’s sure their connection is on equal terms; just like he’s sure it’s the only honest, true thing in either of their lives. And in this performance, rather than being crushed by Anna denying it all, he seemed more upset on her account – That she wasn’t letting her walls down to let the truth in, as he already has.

That^ is Adam Driver’s talent, ladies and gentleman. I literally just wrote a whole paragraph about one barely-perceptible nod. Damn. Okay. Give me a second here to pick up the pieces of my feels.

Okay, so I have detail-level and meta-level thoughts on the final scene from yesterday. Detail-level first: Last night was the only time I’ve ever heard Adam deliver the “That was me and you up there” line softly and earnestly, rather than pitching it into a teasing joke with “me and youuuuu up there.” Instead, he kept the tone of the scene gentle and almost timid. I adore in this scene the way he asks her about her dance piece. How at first, he’s not there for himself or even for the idea of them together. He tells her how much he enjoyed the piece, and when he says that he knew it was Robbie – that he could see Robbie in it – there is no greater or more moving praise Anna could receive. Nothing could mean more to her in this moment.

This scene is so quietly gorgeous, and it was simply spellbinding yesterday in how the tone remained so tender all the way through. Throughout the entire scene, the two of them mirrored each other with absolute perfection. A large part of that is because you can tell these are two actors who’ve been playing off each other for months and developed such keen awareness of each other’s physicality and tiniest displays of body language. Even in the way they stand at opposite sides of the stage at first – It’s like they’re tied together by invisible threads. They face each other directly – neither turned away or trying to hide – and when one moves, the other seems to respond exactly the same way. It continues once they sit down together to burn the note. From the way they sit beside each other to watch it burn, to the way they slowly turn towards each other and draw together, they move in perfect harmony and symmetry. They are tuned into each other simply effortlessly and it’s so satisfying and beautiful to watch.

At a higher scene level: It’s so lovely how different this scene feels in comparison to their explosive earlier scenes. (One with sexual energy and another with an angry fight.) There’s this feeling of undeniable rightness and ahhfinallyrelief when they’re back together for this final scene. And as they talk about Robbie through Anna’s dance piece, everything feels different. It feels peaceful for the first time, even a touch reverent as they speak with a shared understanding of each other’s loss that no one else in the whole world could take part in. While earlier in the play, discussion of their shared feelings of loss led to negative acts of self-destruction, aggressive frustration, or self-denial; this time there is finally the feeling that these two can come together and create something positive out of the loss they’ve shared. Thanks to what Pale unlocked in her, Anna’s feelings of loss that were once so unbearable she could not even face the honest thought of it, now became the fuel for an act of creation she’s been striving for her whole life. And the fact that Pale made time to come see it; the fact that he appears in her apartment and can voice so precisely her same sentiments that went into the piece – It means they’ve finally reached a place together where their connection becomes a source of creation and positive beginnings.

Adam does such beautiful acting in this scene. “I don’t know what to do with myself here. I’m 36. I’ve got a wife, two kids…” He paused here, and when he spoke again his voice quavered with feeling that simply overflowed, “I ain’t never felt anything like this.”

One of my favorite images from the whole play is when they both silently sit together on the couch, watching the note burn away in the ashtray together.

(For the first time, I thought back to Act 1 when Pale cryptically answers Anna’s question about what he does with “I’m a roving fireman. I put out fires. Sometimes… just let it burn.” In this case, perhaps this fiery thing between them would be safer if it were put out. But they watch the flames dance and dwindle together, and the warmth and light slowly growing between them is something neither of them have the will to put out.)

And then, that touching, movingly desperate final moment. After “I don’t want this” / “I don’t want it too” – when Anna sinks into his arms and he hurriedly gathers every bit of her in his lap and in his arms that he can fit. He clutches her like she’s part of his very being, rocks her, and reaches up to smooth her hair back so he can kiss her head. His voice breaks again when he confesses, “I didn’t expect nothing like this.” Another moment of desperately holding each other, until Pale half-sobs in helpless apology, “I’m gonna cry all over your hair.”

Every single time, the way Adam says it delivers a swift, sweet blow straight through the heart. Honestly, I would do anything to relive that wrenching heartache again. <33

It’s been an incredible run. I miss the show already, but I couldn’t be happier with the moving, magnificent nights I spent in the Hudson Theatre. Thank you to Adam and the whole cast for touching so many of us every night with this beautiful play. :’’) It has been such a thrilling, joyful ride!

-Until Adam’s next play!!! :)

[chirpingtiger]

Some Avengers headcanons

Scarlet Witch is Cassie Lang's second favorite Avenger. (Scott, obviously, is first.) That's why Scott makes a point of saying "I know you, you're great too!" to her in civil war, and why he later starts learning magic tricks for Cassie.

Bucky has named every single goat he tends to after people he knows. The most reckless one is named Steve. The one that constantly tries to headbutt him is Sam.

Shuri has an extensive database of memes about life in the palace. Her brother and Okoye are the only ones who currently have access.

Peter occasionally doodles spider suit designs on the margins of his homework without thinking about it, and then has to tear them off before handing it in. His teachers are still under the impression that he has a homework-hungry dog.

Clint has purchased each of his children a bow and arrow set for their tenth birthday. He already has one picked out for Nathaniel.

Sam has a special charging station for Redwing set up right beside his bed. He occasionally has Redwing fetch him water or turn of the light so he doesn't have to get up.

Natasha has a bad habit of borrowing other people's stuff without asking. Especially sweatshirts and jackets. If it's kept where she can access it, it's fair game. If you borrow her jacket without asking, however, expect a big fuss.

Wanda has a lingering habit that she got from growing up poor, homeless, and hungry - she stockpiles food. She hides it away in her room without really thinking about it, and the others occasionally have to go through and bring it all back to the kitchen so they don't get ants.

Vision tries to avoid the internet, especially after what happened to Ultron. He thinks it brings out the worst in people, and doesn't quite trust himself to be unaffected.

Steve has always debated getting a pet, but after losing his whole world he's a little hesitant to let himself love something that he knows only has a lifespan of ten years.

On occasion, T'Challa will intentionally misquote vines to annoy his sister.

When Bruce gets nightmares, he watches obscure crafting and decorating videos on YouTube to calm himself back to sleep. Hearing the generic video background music has him yawning like a charm.

Thor always stocks up on Midgardian food before heading back to Asgard. Lucky Charms is his current favorite.

Peter likes trying to do things upside down just to see how different it is. He's very familiar with having to explain to Aunt May how pouring himself a drink wound up with orange juice all over the kitchen.

The first thing Aunt May does once she discovers that Peter is Spiderman is examine the suit - she removes the tracker the second she finds it. This is why Peter surprises everyone when he shows up in Infinity War.

Scott has a ranking system from 1 to 10 on how enjoyable each of Cassie's kid shows are for adults. That way he knows which ones he's going to need his phone as distraction to sit through.

Lila Barton is the only known person in the world who has gotten away with putting a pink bow in Natasha's hair.

Nick Fury keeps a couple dozen bottles of aspirin in his desk - one for each of the Avengers, labeled with their name - and he'll pull from a specific person's bottle whenever they are giving him a headache. One of the ways he judges performance is by seeing how fast it takes him to go through that person's bottle.

[doctorocsid]

THE MAKING OF PHOENIX WRIGHT’S SECOND DAY OFF

Or: The Immense Struggle of Trying to Make Decent Content

A good year and a half. That’s how much time passed between me starting Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off and me uploading it to YouTube. What a hell of a load off my back that was. If you couldn’t tell, making this video was a bit of an undertaking, to say the least. And by “undertaking” I mean “an exercise in pure agony”. So, I figured I’d do a bit of a writeup here so I can get across to you the absolute hell of an experience making this video was.

PART 1: THE INITIAL PLANNING STAGES

The original “Phoenix Wright’s Day Off” was released in February 2018 to, though not a lot of views, a generally very positive response. Despite its janky animation, people seemed to enjoy it for its complete ridiculousness, comedic timing, and overly-choreographed fighting. Not to mention literally being the only Ace Attorney-themed Garry’s Mod video ever made that actually uses the Ace Attorney characters. (I’m still the only person to ever do that as of the time of writing. Woohoo.)

Given the positive reception and the fact that I literally ended the video with a “To Be Continued”, I was ready as I could ever be to start work on a sequel. The first one only took me a couple weeks to make, so surely a sequel wouldn’t take much longer, right?

Oh, how wrong I was. Still, I started planning out exactly how things would go. Throwing around ideas in my head. I needed it to be bigger and better than the original, of course. How was I gonna do that? Well, my initial plan was, uh, misguided, to say the least. What I wanted to do at first was create the sequel entirely in Source Filmmaker, along with giving it a darker, more serious tone to contrast the ridiculous slapstick of the first. Not a great idea for a sequel to a video that mainly relied on throwing ragdolls around for comedy.

https://streamable.com/taxrn

The original intro for PW2DO, based off the intro for “Fargo”. A lot less cool-looking than the final intro I made. (Even though I intended the video to be made in SFM, I made the intro in Gmod solely because I could just film myself driving the car instead of having to animate it manually.)

The final intro was done in a not too difficult fashion - the characters were animated in Garry’s Mod on top of greenscreens, which I then imported into Premiere and changed to solid colors. Added some extra video effects I found in places. Set it to an instrumental of Propane Nightmares. I’m proud of how it turned out, mostly. I won’t deny after I introduced the characters I didn’t exactly know what else to do with it, so I just filled it with some random actiony shots I thought might look cool. Incidentally, this was the only part of the final video that was made in Premiere - the rest of it was just edited together in Vegas Pro. Which crashed many times during editing. Fun.

PART 2: THE PAINS OF INDECISION (AND ALSO SOURCE FILMMAKER)

Nonetheless, I got to work, despite not actually knowing how to use Source Filmmaker. “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” I figured. And over time, more or less, I managed to figure it out. Sort of. And by “figure it out” I mean “become subject to the true hell that is SFM”.

Let me give you some quick background here. SFM has two main editors for animation: The “motion editor”, and the “graph editor”. The motion editor uses a relatively easy-to-understand method of animating: you select an object you want to animate (a prop, weapon, ragdoll, etc), select the span of time in which you want the thing to move to its new destination, and then you move it to the new destination. Sounds simplistic, but can be used extensively to create good-looking animation. (I myself used this method for the bar fight in PW2DO.) The graph editor on the other hand, is much more involved, depending on the tried-and-true method of using keyframes for animation. Some people prefer this one because it allows you to directly edit and fine-tune each little animation curve to your liking. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXnpk8xDLg

This unfinished PW2DO prototype was animated entirely with the graph editor in SFM.

Really, you can use either one for animating, whichever suits you best. For me, personally, the graph editor feels like something designed in the seventh circle of hell specifically to torture me. Why does adding a new keyframe screw up all my preexisting animation? Why does adding a new keyframe make the ragdoll’s bones stretch out to infinity? Those are just a couple questions I shouted at my computer screen while trying to figure it out.

Eventually, I just gave up. I came to terms both with the fact that I wasn’t satisfied with what I was making, and with the fact that trying to use SFM’s graph editor to animate was making me want to julienne my keyboard. (I hadn’t figured out, or really even considered the motion editor at the time.) “Screw it,” I said to myself. “I’ll do in Gmod, like the last one.”

PART 3: OH RIGHT, GMOD SUCKS TOO

The first PWDO was relatively simple to make, at least compared to the second one. There were two main tools I used: Stop Motion Helper (a tool for animating stuff within Gmod itself without the need for actual stop motion or whatnot), and the classic technique of “throw stuff around in front of the camera”. I had little to no experience doing 3D animation when making it, but it worked out anyway. It let me practice some camera framing stuff, too. All I was really doing for most of it was animating the characters moving along with the camera. But for the second video, I desperately wanted to up the ante. I wanted it to be cooler. More edgy. More cinematic. Turns out, there’s one main reason that proved difficult for me. And that’s that Garry’s Mod kinda sucks for long-term animation.

Here’s the difference between animating in SFM and animating in GMod. SFM is made for animation. GMod isn’t. So, if you want animating in GMod to be anything less than horrendously tedious, you need some addons to help you. Stop Motion Helper is a neat little addon that lets you animate stuff in Garry’s Mod with the “tweening” type of animation. Simply put, you pose something in point A, make a keyframe, move it to point B, and then make another keyframe. Stop Motion Helper will then automatically animate it moving between the two points. Thus, instead of the stop motion method where you have to pose every individual frame, you technically only have to pose the beginning and end. Not that it looks very good if you only do that. Of course, like any kind of animation, it’s still something that requires a lot of effort if you don’t want it to look cheap and robotic. But it works. Sort of.

Doesn’t work too well with vehicles, though.

There were a multitude of small limitations and annoyances, however, that proved to be annoying to deal with in GMod nonetheless.

FIRST PROBLEM: Because GMod isn’t made specifically for animation, resuming a project within it is kind of a hellish endeavor at times. Unlike Source Filmmaker where you can just open a project file and everything remains the same, Garry’s Mod’s saving tool doesn’t save a lot of the addon-related data when you create a save file of whatever scenario you’ve made. That includes stop motion helper animation. While SMH does have its own support for saving animations, you have to save every single animation as its own separate file. Take the scene in PW2DO, for instance, where Phoenix shoots those cops to get the security footage.

https://streamable.com/2ikd1

There are seven moving parts in this scene - Phoenix, the picture frame, both cops, the gun, the shampoo bottle, and the camera. Note how many of these are moving in each camera shot along with how many shots there are (ignoring after the cop goes out the window, because that’s not done with SMH). That’s ten shots, if you didn’t want to count. If I wanted to save this whole scene for potential later tweaking, I’d have to make a save file for the session along with saving the animation data for all ten shots - that’s ten separate animation files for this one scene - and then I would have to manually reapply the animation to each individual moving element. 

On top of that, not everything can be saved at all just by sheer concept. The muzzle flash, for instance. While the flash graphic over the gun was added in post, the actual light emanating from it was something I had to do in-game, and it’s not something you can animate with SMH. Therefore, I had to play the animation in GMod, and then specifically time me hitting a button on my keyboard to make the flash happen at just the right point. That’s just one workaround in a program that, when animating in it, is like 80% workarounds.

But nothing about Garry’s Mod frustrated me quite as much as the final fight scene.

PART 4: THE BAR FIGHT

The final fight scene of PW2DO was the one thing that kept me from releasing the video sooner. Seriously, out of that year and a half or so, I’d say only a month or so was spent working on the GMod portions of the video. The rest was just that stupid, godforsaken fight scene. (And mostly procrastinating on making it.) Allow me to try and outline to you what I went through doing this.

Now, the fight scene went through three specific incarnations. They were all based around Maya and Athena tracking down Phoenix and beating the crap out of him, it just differed on two basic things: the location, and the fight music. The first idea I had was them fighting Phoenix in an alleyway while ABBA’s “Waterloo” played in the background. (i know that sounds silly but i swear i couldve made it work) That one didn’t get beyond planning stages - I’d kinda choreographed some of it in my head, I know Phoenix was supposed to get a crowbar at some point, but it didn’t get any farther than that.

The second incarnation was much more well-developed. The way I figured it was as such: Phoenix, after retrieving the security footage from his office, would go on the run and get on a bus. However, when he got on the bus, it’d be revealed that Athena was driving it, and Phoenix would fight Maya as they went down the road. (No comment on how Maya and Athena got a bus.) This was gonna be set to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince, inspired by the opening car chase scene from Kingsman: The Golden Circle. (Meh movie, neat fight scenes.) Eventually they’d crash the bus, all go flying out the window, and then Phoenix would get arrested by the cops as he did in the final video. Sounds neat, right? So, what stopped me from doing this?

jesus christ so many things

Everything wrong with this concept centered around one particular problem. I absolutely could not, for the life of me, figure out how to animate a fight scene in a bus that was moving down the road. In SFM that might’ve been possible, but in Garry’s Mod? Good luck with that one. I practically tore my hair out trying to come up with a single working solution to this. Allow me to present to you the various ideas I had and why they all failed miserably.

IDEA 1: Animate the bus moving and the characters moving in it at the same time

This was the fastest-thrown-out idea because the complexity of something like this was just too much for Gmod and an animation addon. What’s that? You want to be able to stay with the scene as it animates? No, that’s basically impossible to do. It’s not like SFM where you could just attach yourself and a camera to the moving vehicle and animate from there. It just wasn’t feasible.

IDEA 2: Create moving textures and place them outside the windows to give the illusion of movement

This one went out the window too, unfortunately, as rotating the camera to any degree kinda just seriously killed the illusion. I could’ve done the scene without the cool cinematic fighting camera movements, but… is it really Phoenix Wright’s Day Off without those?

IDEA 3: Create a 3d video of going down the street in GMOD and paste it onto a greenscreen outside the bus, and animate it rotating properly in Premiere

I don’t blame you if you don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about. See, miraculously enough, there is actually an addon for GMod that allows you to record 360 degree videos within it - and after a decent amount of finicking around with it, I actually managed to make one that seemed to work fine. It was from this point I actually set out and started making the scene - I got about ten seconds in, mostly comprised of driving shots, a neat easter egg with Homestar Runner (not something i’d do nowadays tbh) and a single shot of Phoenix beating on Maya. I was all set to get going.

And then Premiere just refused to work with the 360 video. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to animate it rotating and stuff, but it wouldn’t let me do this at the same time as the normal 2D video that was meant to be pasted on top of it. It frankly just. Wouldn’t let me. And after a lot of struggling, I just. Gave up. That ten seconds of video, trashed.

https://streamable.com/4omnep

I did manage to re-piece it together from the old files on my drive, though. With mostly missing sound effects.

So, that was scrapped. I wasn’t doing the bus fight. What, then, would work out better than a fight scene based off the first fight scene of Golden Circle? Apparently, my mind decided that would be the last fight scene of Golden Circle. Cool.

Thankfully, things went a lot smoother there, but it wasn’t without hiccups. Now, if you’ve seen Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off - I don’t know why you’re reading this if you haven’t - there’s a chance you might’ve found the music choice for the bar fight scene a bit odd. If you’re not aware, it’s a cover of the 1986 Cameo song “Word Up”, by a German country band called The Bosshoss. This is the song they used in the movie so you’re not allowed to question me on this.

Given how western-y the song sounds, though, I had to at least make the context fit. Despite that, I couldn’t really find any GMod maps that had a good enough bar interior for a while - and I really wanted it to be a bar fight. Bar fights are cool. Thankfully, I did eventually manage to find one. This one, in particular: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806759276&searchtext=

Yes, that’s a My Little Pony based map. I worked with what I had, okay? That was the least of the issues, anyway. By this point I’d had enough of trying to animate with GMod, and as such I’d decided to move back to SFM, but that caused a whole new issue. This map wasn’t made for SFM. And opening it in SFM just. Crashed. I won’t go super into detail of how I fixed this, but essentially I had to download a program called BSPSource so I could decompile the map, re-open it in Hammer, and export it to properly work with SFM.

Still left me with some annoying issues though, as you can see. Not too difficult fixes, though - The first one I just covered up with another corkboard, and the second thing was fixed by typing mat_specular 0 in console. Was a bit annoying that I had to do that every time I reopened SFM, but whatever. It was working, at least. (that’s something you’ll think to yourself a lot if you ever get into using SFM.)

 Anyway, things went pretty okay from this point on. You know, aside from me proceeding to barely ever work on the thing for like a year and a half. I didn’t have many hardships during it other than my own procrastination, so instead take a look at some of the funny tricks I pulled to get this scene to go the way I wanted.

https://gfycat.com/OldfashionedForkedFlatcoatretriever

Engineer telekinetically swooces his shotgun back to himself.

https://gfycat.com/SleepyShadowyLadybird

I had to make Phoenix hover over Engie to let his arms reach him without his legs obscuring the camera.

https://gfycat.com/AptHomelyGoral

The rope was way too short to reach the soldier, so I had to have Phoenix basically throw the rope in order to reach his gun. I also forgot to detach the rope from his hand afterward, so it kinda gets flung around with it off-camera.

https://gfycat.com/AgonizingScrawnyAbalone

Phoenix apparently decided for himself he wanted to go out the window.

Aside from all that, though, things finally went okay. Eventually. I managed to finish up the animation, add some extra ending stuff in GMod, and do a neat credits sequence to David Bowie music. All in all, it went okay.

And that’s it. After all that waiting, I finally managed to put an 8 minute video out from one and a half years of it not being finished. It was quite a load off my mind, for sure, and to this day it stands as my proudest video. It’s silly, has its down moments, but I can at least confidently say it’s the best Ace Attorney gmod video. If only because there is basically no competition.

So, what’s in store next? Not much of anything as far as I feel right now. I could make a third one, one day - I did envision it as a trilogy - but although I do have some ideas for it, I still have zero motivation to actually make it. So who knows. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe Phoenix Wright will escape from prison one day.

So, this was the experience of making Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off. I hope this gave you something of an idea on how agonizing this video was to make, and totally means you should go and share it everywhere to get me more views because I DESERVE it after the hell I went through.

Seriously, though, thanks for reading, and may this post serve as a warning if you ever decide to do Garry’s Mod or SFM videos. Not a warning against it, mind you, you can make some totally cool stuff. Just be prepared to suffer a bit in the process.

[rivenroad]

about me

(picrew source)

– one / NAME / ALIAS.     Rowan / Rowan

– two /  BIRTHDAY.     2nd March

– three / ZODIAC SIGN.     Pisces Sun/Aquarius Moon/Aries Rising, also monkey for the Chinese zodiac

– four /  HEIGHT.     5′4″, compact size elf boy

– five  /  HOBBIES.      Making art, looking at art, thinking about art, growing plants, collecting friends (stuffed animals), saturating myself with music, playing video games but basically only a small handful of them over and over, world/character-building, walking outside and observing small things on the ground

– six /  FAVOURITE COLOURS.      Any kind of blue-green, gold, purple

– seven / FAVOURITE BOOKS.      I don’t even know any more because I find it so hard to read these days in spite of my voracious childhood reading, which seems to be an incredibly common problem, and some of the stuff I loved when I was younger I don’t know if I’d be into any more but I always appreciate anything that has a unique style and voice. My favourite teenage reads were things like A Clockwork Orange and the Perks of Being a Wallflower, various Iain Banks novels... The Picture of Dorian Gray is always around. I’m trying to read more artist (auto)biographies lately and use my local library more, I got some David Hockney and Grayson Perry books out recently.

– eight  /  LAST SONG LISTENED TO.

     Hot on the Heels of Love by Throbbing Gristle

– nine  /  LAST FILM WATCHED.

     uh... fuck. I don’t really watch films often, last non-TV-series I saw was probably Kusama: Infinity, a documentary about Yayoi Kusama who is one of my favourite artists. Last series I watched in its entirety was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5 which was everything I ever wanted it to be.

– ten  /  INSPIRATION FOR MUSE.      Oh yeah... there are a lot of those. All kinds of things, all over the world. As is the case for anyone, they’re all pieces of me, in some form, some particular idea that I found fascinating or appealing that seeded itself. I’m very interested in people’s relationships to society, to other people, to their place of origin, states of mind, how they’re affected by traumatic events, all the kind of messy complex shit that makes up being human. I would say my sideblogs are a pretty good guide to what a character’s specific influences are, but not all of them have them or have very well developed ones... yet. Cassius and Yvon’s are the most substantial and representative of them though.

– eleven /  DREAM JOB.      Some form of freelance/independent artist but I don’t know where I might end up, it just needs to be something creative that supports me. I need to be able to express my ideas and perspectives creatively because that’s what I’m good at and what I find fulfilling and my brain has so many things in it that need to be allowed an outlet and if they build up too long without being released it becomes dangerous and I will wilt and die.

– twelve  /  MEANING BEHIND URL.     I was extremely into Nael van Darnus when I chose it and I haven’t changed it because I am still very fond of Nael and I also don’t like change so when I set up blogs they tend to remain mostly the same for years, for better or worse.

Tagged by: @goahead-spintheglobe 💜

Tagging: you (you)

[infiniteleftdoesffxiv]

Getting to know me(me) (again-ish??)

One; Name/alias --

Real name is Nunya Biz, but I go by Infi or Ilma, depending on where folk know me from.

Two; Birthday --

Sep. 1st! I have no idea why the date feels satisfying, but it does.

Three; Zodiac Sign --

Virgo (Aug 23rd to Sep 22nd)

Four; Height --

I have no idea for sure, but apparently around 5 foot 4.

Five; Hobbies --

I have a lot. Besides RP and MMOs, I write fanfiction and original fiction, draw traditional and digital art, sew, collect porcelain dolls and various figures, and I write music as a side pursuit.

Then there's the cooking and baking... Don't get me started on reading. And crochet. And misc. miniature crafting. Or the other video games...

Six; Favorite Colors --

I'd have to say my favorite color of all time is pink. Hot pink, soft pink, pastel pink, neon pink, magenta to salmon... I love pink.

I also love reds and oranges and purples. Blues also come in closely; yellow is a color I'm very much "meh" on. Green... Overall, I'd say I hate it in general terms fjfjshhsjdjfh

Forest green, neon green, or pastel green. Any other greens are greens I Dislike:tm:

Seven; Favorite Books --

I haven't read it in a while, but I remember that I loved "The Cat Who..." series. It was just a fun time. I should read them again...

Warriors was another that I was head over heels for, a while back. Never finished the series, though -- I got to the end of the third arc, read a couple of the extra books, then fell out of reading them.

"The Secret Piano" is also a good book, but it's... Not so much a fiction book than a translated autobiography by Zhu Xiao-Mei. It was a bit of a difficult read (for me, at least), but it's definitely a good book to read if you're interested in what happened during the cultural revolution in China.

Eight; Last Song Listened To --

LittleJayneyCakes' cover of Regardless, Cannon Busters' ending theme.

Nine; Last Film Watched --

Oh god I don't remember. We're gonna count the last film that I chose to watch, since that's easier to remember. Think it was called "Olden Time"? It was an animated short film about an uhhhhh... think of Lumiere and Cogsworth from BatB? YEAH. Except with a TV and a windup cat doll. Old 50s-ish era TV set gets tossed out, meets a little windup cat doll. Things go from there.

It's a cute little bit of animation! Also sad at bits. I don't remember how it went, really, it's been around a year, at LEAST since I've seen it, but it was good. Do recommend.

Ten; Inspiration for Muse --

I've got so many, you'd have to ask for specifics, but a short list:

Eloise, Narua, Nim, Berriath, Tabitha, Carmen, and Fraeswys were based off of original/previous characters I've had in the past.

The rest are original to FFXIV-verse, and the starting point for them always has been "let's take a hook and build off that" (i.e, Yellow Dove: Maelstrom. Sechen: Xaela. Ryoko: Astrologan and Geisha.)

Eleven; Dream Job --

I don't remember if I've said it on my blog before, but my DREAM dream job would be as a paramedic.

My second dream job and the one I'm actually shooting for is to be a piano teacher. It's just... I love it so much, and the thought of passing on that knowledge and helping other people work to play it is just something that makes me happy. It won't be easy, but I'd think it rewarding.

Twelve; Meaning Behind URL --

Uh. Um. Hm. Yeah. I think it's obvious. Self explanatory.

My username tends to be Infiniteleft, and I play FFXIV now, so.... Yeah. Actually, you can also find my BNS blog simply by changing ffxiv for BNS. There's screenshots of Taiwoo (original Tabi), Carmen, AND Nim up there, I think. Alongside a couple of shitposts.

As for "Infiniteleft".... I have NO IDEA why I went with this, but. From what I've been told I told people, I really liked the infinity symbol when I was younger, and I'm left-handed, so I mushed them together because I needed a username. After a previous set of aliases which I won't disclose for the sake of my own peace of mind, this one stuck.

Tagged by: @benes-diction had an open tag so I went ham. Hi Jonesy.

Tagging: Gonna leave this one open, too, actually, with respect towards some people just wanting privacy for the first set of questions. If you wanna do it tho. Please. Go wild.

[ddaengjo]

love me like you do ┊ hwang hyunjin

genre: best friends to lovers au, fluff, angst

pairing: reader x hyunjin

warnings: cursing, drinking, infinity war spoilers

summary: you had been best friends with hwang hyunjin since grade school. you both knew each other like the back of your hand, and you shared everything with one another. in fact, all your friends joked that you’d eventually get married, settle down, and have five kids. of course, the both of you just saw that as funny, since you were both currently dating other people. but that was before everything became a complete mess.

author’s note: this is my first fic! i hope you all like it, because i definitely enjoyed writing it. (p.s. ― i use all lowercase when not writing formally, but in all my writing pieces i make sure to capitalize and use proper grammar!)

You're the light, you’re the night You’re the color of my blood You’re the cure, you’re the pain You’re the only thing I wanna touch Never knew that it could mean so much, so much

It was the sound of your phone buzzing loudly that woke you up at 2:30 a.m., groggy and angry and ready to fight the world. You groped around your bedside table, trusting your fingers rather than your sleep-blurred eyesight ― considering you were already myopic to the point that you could barely see something three feet away without your glasses on, you could trade eyesight with a bat and still be better off at this early hour. After a long while of uncomfortable straining,  you finally sighed in victorious relief, your fingers closing around the smooth case of your phone. Dropping it onto your pillow beside you, you squinted at the bright screen, trying to adjust to the sudden burst of light in the dark room. You swiped your finger across the screen, unlocking it, and opened your texts to find new messages from your best friend, Hyunjin.

[2:30 a.m.]  Y/N Y/N Y/N

You groaned, rolling your eyes and falling back against the pillows, debating on whether to answer his text or just leave him on read. Your innate sense of compassion (Hyunjin always swore that you were nothing but Satan, while everyone else who WASN’T your best friend since grade school and DIDN’T clown you for a living always called you a sweetheart) won the battle, and you ended up answering. But that didn’t mean you were going to play nice.

[2:33 a.m.]  hwang hyunjin you better have a good reason for this because if i weren’t so fucking tired i’d punch you in your perfect teeth.

[2:38 a.m.]  aw good morning to you too 💖💖💖 i’ve been up all night trying to make a head or tail of this history project and it just makes NO SENSE UGH Y/N I NEED YOUR GENIUS INTELLECT RIGHT NOW AND RIGHT HERE

[2:42 a.m.]  i absolutely hate you and your procrastinating ass.

[2:43 a.m.]  says the queen of procrastinating herself 💀💀

[2:45 a.m.]  YOU WOKE ME UP AT 2:30 AM YOU ASSHOLE SO STOP CLOWNING ME OR I’M MUTING YOUR NOTIFS AND LEAVING YOU ON READ 💀💀

[2:47 a.m.]  FINE FINE JUST COME HELP ME

[2:48 a.m.]  i’m too lazy to get out of bed so i’m just gonna skype you. but dw, you’ll still feel the salt coming off me when i talk 😘😘

[2:50 a.m.]  y/n you beautiful wonderful human being i love you so much i’d throw myself under a truck for you.

[2:53 a.m.]  lmao don’t let minjoo hear you say that unless you want her to actually throw ME under a truck buddy 😉

You couldn’t help smiling; it was impossible for you to stay angry at someone as goofy and vibrant as Hyunjin, especially because you knew him so well and for so long. You didn’t really care that you were wearing just a strap-sleeved tank top and shorts, or that you had a bedhead; Hyunjin had seen you in far worse states, like when you were in the fourth grade and had the stomach flu for a month. That was bad. You closed your texts, opening Skype instead, and clicked the very first contact, waiting for Hyunjin to pick up your video call. He picked up right on the second ring, grinning ear to ear; he was wearing his  “I ❤️ NY” shirt, his favorite gray hoodie, and khaki shorts, not to mention the goofy smile he always wore when talking to you.

“How’s Satan doing today?” he joked immediately, his face lighting up at the sight of you. His eyes twinkled with mischief as you rolled your eyes.

“Just fine, thanks,” you grumbled. “As great as one could be at almost 3 o’clock in the morning, when even the BIRDS aren’t awake.”

“For all it counts, I think your hair seems to be doing great at almost 3 o’clock in the morning,” Hyunjin said sagely, nodding his head. “I mean, it’s hiding your devil’s horns really well, and it also doesn’t look like a mama bat had a mental breakdown while making her nest!”

“I hate you.”

Hyunjin pretended to clutch his heart, wounded, despite the grin still playing on his lips. “Aww, Y/N, now you’re just being cruel. You know you don’t mean that.”

As much as you hated to admit it, you knew he was right. And he knew, too, judging by his little smirk. Had you been sitting next to him in person, you’d have thrown a pillow at him by this time.

“All right, what is it you don’t understand?” you asked, rolling your eyes yet again.

“Everything!”

You swallowed the urge to groan loudly. This was going to be one long, long night.

You're the fear, I don't care 'Cause I've never been so high Follow me to the dark Let me take you past our satellites You can see the world you brought to life, to life

You managed to get three hours of sleep that night, thanks to your dumbass of a best friend. He owed you big-time, you thought, sipping your coffee through pursed lips while glaring balefully out the window as you waited for him to show up at your house. You both had walked to school together since you were eight and he was nine; you weren’t planning on stopping that even when you were in college, since you were both hoping to major in some form of art ― he in photography, you in writing ― and attend the same university.

It was 7:30 a.m. when Hyunjin came jogging breathlessly up your driveway and let himself in using the spare key you’d given him. You had half an hour to kill before your bus arrived, so you’d not only made yourself coffee, you’d set a mug on the table for Hyunjin as well. He took it gratefully, crossing the kitchen in a few large strides ― he was a literal ten inches taller than you, with his 5’10” towering over your 5’0” ― to join you by the counter, where he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. To anyone else, it seemed as if you were both dating, but it to you both, it was merely just a gesture of affection between two old friends.

“So, Bigfoot, you took your sweet time getting here,” you commented dryly, looking him up and down with a wry little smirk. Your smile fading, you sipped your slowly cooling coffee and added, “All jokes aside, though, you look God-awful.”

“Thanks.”

“Your dark circles make it look as if you got punched in the eyes by an angry jack-in-the-box, and you’re looking pretty pale in the face,” you said bluntly, shaking your head. “Hyunjinnie, you’re driving yourself crazy. When you’re not staying up late for music lessons and photography projects, you’re staying up late doing your homework. You have to get more sleep.”

“Yeah, about that…” He ran a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck absently as his eyes met yours. He guided you over to the couch, sinking into the seat next to you as he continued. “I’m sorry about last night. I know you didn't get much sleep because of me. So, to make it up to you, I called Minjoo and Yongwoon up, and we’re doing a movie night double date at my place. My treat.”

Hyunjin was so considerate. That was one thing that made you love him so much ― he didn’t just throw some fake apology at you and forget about it; he tried to make it up to you in full. He was like that with you, with his girlfriend, with your boyfriend, everyone.

As soon as the wall clock read that it was 8:00, you grabbed Hyunjin’s hand, practically hauling him out of the house as he chuckled, trying to keep pace with you. “Relax, Y/N, the bus is never early!”

“I know, but Yongwoon is!” you panted, skidding to a halt at your bus stop, where your boyfriend was waiting as usual, one hand in his tousled black hair. “Hey, Yong!”

“Y/N! You’re early!” He exclaimed; you caught sight of the odd expression that flitted across his face and realized that you were still holding Hyunjin’s hand. You let go of your best friend’s hand, seeing his girlfriend, Minjoo, standing a little distance away; Hyunjin fist-bumped you as he passed you, greeting his girlfriend with a brief peck on the lips. You turned to your own significant other, who pressed his lips to yours for a moment before asking, a little edgily, “Why were you holding Hyunjin’s hand? Y/N… do you like him?”

There was a long breath of silence after his words. Finally, you began to laugh ― not at him, but because you found his question funny. “Sorry ― sorry, Yong, that was just really funny. Babe, Hyunjin and I are just really good friends. We’ve known each other since our sandbox days! Things like holding hands and hanging out a lot are just… things we’ve been doing for a really, really long time. But it doesn’t change anything for us. We’ve been doing this for over a year, and I love you just the same, see?” You kissed him again, and this time he had no complaints.

As soon as the bus arrived, you scrambled to reserve the back row for yourself, Yongwoon, Hyunjin, and Minjoo; you’d all sat there as a group since freshman year. As usual, you slid into your window seat, with Hyunjin dropping into the one next to yours, as Minjoo and Yongwoon dropped into the seat across the aisle. You didn’t see the look that passed between his girlfriend and your boyfriend because you were too busy looking over Hyunjin’s paper and making small revisions, which were mainly just grammatical errors, since the majority of your cramming session had been last night.

“I think this is good,” you said finally, as the school came into view. The smile Hyunjin gave you was definitely worth all the grumblings and lost sleep; you loved the way his eyes sparkled and crinkled at the corners when he smiled, the way his dimples deepened, and it had been your personal goal since day one of your friendship, when he’d fallen in the sandbox and you’d helped him up, to never let him lose that smile. You were the one who was a year younger than him, but you were also the more protective one in the friendship. It was something people often teased you about, calling you a mother hen, but you wore the title proudly. You were indeed a mother hen when it came to your best friend.

Your first class was history, which you and Hyunjin had together; Yongwoon had psychology, while Minjoo had English, so you waved goodbye, promising to save them seats at lunch. Hyunjin blew an exaggerated kiss at Minjoo, who giggled as you punched him in the shoulder, pretending to gag. “Ugh, look who decided to become Romeo all of a sudden! Come on, lover boy, or we’re gonna be late for class, and I’ll get my first detention because of you.”

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in purgatory, if you please, ma’am, so on we go,” Hyunjin said very seriously, earning himself another punch from you. “Ow! You’re short, but you punch like a sumo wrestler! What, did you absorb the soul of a wrestler you reaped, Satan?”

“Ha ha ha, very funny,” you grumbled, sinking into your seat at the back table, across from Hyunjin, right as the bell rang. “I’ll reap your soul if you don’t shut up.”

Even as the lesson went on, you spent the class passing notes and doodling all over each other’s papers, sometimes laughing so hard your teacher, a well-dressed brunette in her early thirties, had to frown in your direction, her finger pressed against her lips in a signal of silence.

That was how every day was, with you both ― it was just you and him. You were the planets; everyone else was just a satellite. You were a technicolor movie; they were just the audience. You and Hyunjin were the world; they were just outer space.

So love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do What are you waiting for?

It was on the bus home that you succumbed to the sleep that had been haunting your eyelids since the morning’s coffee had worn off mid-math class. One minute you were arguing with Hyunjin over whether milk or cereal came first (you argued milk, having gotten that habit from your parents, while Hyunjin argued that it was cereal), the next you had nodded off, your petite head on his broad shoulder.

When you came to, it was in a familiar room with soft blue walls and GOT7 posters all over the wall. You sat up, squinting slightly at the pale, watery orange sunlight streaming through the window; the translucent chartreuse curtains were slightly open, showing a rapidly darkening sunset sky in the prettiest pastel shades of blue, pink, and purple. You yawned, stretching your arms, and glanced down; you were still wearing your school clothes, which were now a bit rumpled because you’d slept in them.

“Sleep well, Sleeping Beauty?” You turned your head to see Hyunjin smiling at you from where he sat working at his desk, which was a sea of scattered papers. His glasses reflected a bit of the screen of his laptop and a bit of the sunset, which didn’t seem like a beautiful combination, but somehow, he made it work. He only wore his glasses at home unless he was out of contacts to use, in which case you’d see him wear his glasses to school for about a week before going back to wearing contacts; you stuck with your glasses at all times, mainly because for one, you were terrified of putting something in your eye, and for two, you had awful bags under your eyes, which your glasses did a good job hiding ― or at least keeping anyone from noticing.

You stretched again, comfortable after a few hours of rest. “You bet I did. Like a baby, in fact. How long was I out?”

“It’s 6:05 ― you can do the math.” You could hear the smile in his voice as you took a moment to decipher his words. Then your eyes widened. “I SLEPT FOR THREE HOURS?”

“Don’t worry, you haven’t missed movie night,” Hyunjin promised. “We still have an hour till Minjoo and Yongwoon are supposed to arrive. Do you want to get changed? Maybe take a shower to freshen up?”

“Yeah ― yeah, sounds great,” you said, stretching one last time before swinging your legs out from under the covers, so that you were now sitting on the edge of his bed. “All my stuff is next door, though.”

“You can grab some clothes from my closet,” he offered, smiling in your direction. “Just like when we were kids and your parents were out.”

You got up, shaking out your legs to get some feeling back into them, and opened his closet, choosing a purple tie-dye t-shirt. “I’m wearing shorts under my skirt, anyway, so I’ll just wear this over those,” you explained, and Hyunjin nodded.

The warm water felt like a liquid hug; you spent twenty minutes under the shower before deciding you didn’t want to turn into a living prune. You found, upon wearing it, that Hyunjin’s shirt went to your knees, but what did it matter? It was cozy. You blow-dried your hair, which took another twenty minutes, before pulling it into a loose bun and glancing at the time in your watch ― 6:50 p.m., which meant Minjoo and Yongwoon would be here soon. You noticed that the light in Hyunjin’s room was now off; he must be downstairs, you realized, so you descended the stairs, knowing from the rising aroma of hot chocolate that you’d find him in the kitchen. He glanced up at the sound of your footsteps, his face lighting up with a smile as his eyes fell on you. “You look adorable. Purple is definitely your color.”

“And you look suspicious. Who are you and what have you done with Hwang Hyunjin?” you snorted, amused. “I was expecting you to clown me for how big this shirt looks on me.”

He chuckled, turning back to the stove for a moment before placing a snowflake-printed mug on the counter in front of you. “Hot cocoa?”

“Thanks!” You took the mug gratefully, blowing on the steaming liquid for a few minutes before taking a sip, appreciating the feeling of the chocolatey, sugary sweetness, mixed with a hint of cinnamon and the creaminess of whipped cream, sliding down your throat. You had just taken another sip when the doorbell rang, prompting you to move towards the door, the hot cocoa mug still in your hand. You opened it to find Yongwoon, holding a bouquet of red roses.

“Hey! You’re…” You glanced at your watch, which read that it was 6:55 p.m. “...Five minutes early! Oh my gosh, are those for me?”

“Yes, they are!” He handed you the bouquet, grinning ear to ear, until his eyes took in what you were wearing. His smile faded slightly as he added, “Is that one of Hyunjin’s, Y/N?”

“Wha ― oh, yeah ― yeah, it is,” you said, a little surprised by the question.

“She fell asleep on the bus,” Hyunjin explained, “and since she lost sleep because of me, I felt bad waking her up. So I just carried her here and let her rest up in my room while I did my homework. When she woke up, she wanted to shower, and we realized she didn’t have a change of clothes, so I let her borrow one of my shirts.”

“I see.” Yongwoon’s lips had tightened considerably at this, but he didn’t say anything. In fact, he didn’t say anything till Minjoo arrived, about fifteen minutes after him; it was just you and Hyunjin chattering away over your hot cocoa until that time.

By the time she’d arrived, Hyunjin had gotten a huge bucket of buttered popcorn ready. He had four cushions ready on the ground for everyone, but you didn’t need your cushion; you just sat down in front of Hyunjin, your head in his lap, as you grabbed a handful of popcorn, munching contentedly as your boyfriend and his girlfriend came to join you on either side. Yongwoon imitated you, grabbing his own handful of the buttery, salty popcorn, while Minjoo was more refined, choosing to take the occasional two pieces of popcorn from time to time.

“What do you guys want to watch?” Hyunjin asked, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as he leaned back, propping himself up with one elbow.

“American Horror Story,” Yongwoon volunteered immediately, earning himself identical protests from you, Hyunjin, and Minjoo. He conceded defeat, grumbling to himself before falling silent and waiting for one of you to make a choice.

“Titanic?” Minjoo suggested, earning herself a loud yawn from Yongwoon and an identical groan of rejection from yourself and Hyunjin. Her expression became a sulky one, which made all three of you laugh.

“Avengers: Infinity War?” you suggested. Hyunjin nodded enthusiastically; you two were pretty much the biggest Marvel nerds around.

“Are you sure you’re not going to soak my sleeve in tears again?” Hyunjin asked teasingly. “Remember last time, when you were bawling so hard I was afraid I’d have to pull a Noah and ark my way outta there?”

You turned and sat up to glare at him, indignant. “You were crying, too!”

He blushed, ducking his head in embarrassment. “Okay, okay, fair point. Any objections?”

Minjoo was too sulky to say anything, while Yongwoon was just too whipped for you to say a word against your wishes.

“All right! Infinity War it is,” Hyunjin declared, pulling you more closely into his lap before positioning himself comfortably, half sitting and half lying against his cushion as he tossed some more popcorn into his mouth, searching through Amazon Prime Video till he found it. Then he hit play, wrapped one arm around you, and sat back to enjoy the movie.

Fading in, fading out On the edge of paradise Every inch of your skin is a holy gray I've got to find Only you can set my heart on fire, on fire Yeah, I'll let you set the pace 'Cause I'm not thinking straight My head spinning around I can't see clear no more What are you waiting for?

Two hours and forty minutes later, you and Hyunjin were clinging to each other and sobbing your eyes out, your shoulders a mess of each other’s tears, snot, and drool. It would have been disgusting if this weren’t your usual movie-watching ritual ― you two were the sensitive ones, and if anything remotely sad were to happen in a movie, the room would be flooded within the next five minutes as you clung to each other and wept as if your hearts would break.

“I thought you said you’d be okay this time,” Hyunjin sobbed, wiping his eyes on the hem of his sleeve as he crushed you in a hug.

“I’m never emotionally prepared enough for that movie,” you sobbed back, mimicking him and wiping your eyes on the edge of your sleeve ― or at least trying to as best you could through his bone-crushingly tight embrace.

On your left, Minjoo was just staring blankly at the screen as if not sure of what to do in terms of a reaction, while Yongwoon, on your right, had his lips pursed and his fists clenched. “Damned Marvel,” he growled, shaking his fist. “Killing off Black Panther like that… that’s not fair.”

“Groot had such a bright future ahead of him,” Hyunjin hiccuped miserably, reaching for the popcorn, which was running dangerously low.

“I agree,” you sniffled. “Man, Bucky never deserves the shit he gets. He was captured by the Nazis, fell off a mountain, lost an arm, got frozen and experimented on by HYDRA, became their brainwashed puppet, killed a bunch of people, accidentally tore apart the Avengers, got frozen over again, and then right when he was spending a peaceful time in Wakanda he got drawn into the fighting and then h-he just goes ‘Steve…’ and fades away and just...” You broke down again, prompting a wince from Yongwoon and an eye roll from Minjoo.

“I know,” Hyunjin lamented, patting your back reassuringly. “Well… that was fun, right?”

“Right,” Yongwoon said unconvincingly, his eyes narrowing slightly at the sight of Hyunjin’s strong arms drawing you more tightly into an embrace. You two had been nothing but skinship since the beginning of the evening ― or, if you counted the hand-holding in the morning, since the beginning of the day ― and he was beginning to feel a bit threatened by the boy you called your closest friend. He felt threatened, jealous, every time your fingers tangled together, every time your eyes met, every time you laughed at something he said, every time you gazed at him as if he was the only boy in the world. It was getting harder and harder for him to believe you every time you declared yourself and Hyunjin “just friends”.

He didn’t like it at all.

Minjoo smiled thinly, her smile not quite meeting her movie-star eyes with their perfectly done makeup. “It was lovely.”

She, too, felt a surge of wicked jealousy every time you and Hyunjin were together. It hadn’t bothered her as much at first, but now, it was almost all she thought about. The way he smiled at you, as if there was nothing and no one more important. The way he always jumped to choose you anytime anything ― a game, a project, anything at all ― involved a partner. The way he didn’t seem to care when you saw him in his glasses, but almost always avoided wearing them around her. The way he always chose yours whenever he needed a shoulder to cry into.

The way he felt so distant from her, even if he was next to her, and yet so close to you, even when you were apart.

And she hated it.

As Yongwoon left, he turned to press his lips against yours for a long moment, the intensity almost double that of any normal kiss of yours. He stole a glance at Hyunjin, who simply smiled a bright smile at him before brushing Minjoo’s lips with his and waving goodbye as she left. “I love you, Y/N,” he whispered, stepping out into the night.

“Hey, Y/N, want to stay over for the night?” Hyunjin asked. You smiled apologetically. “Nah, I wish I could, but Mom and Dad are going to video call to check in with me in about half an hour. I have to make dinner before getting started on my homework.”

“I could join you,” Hyunjin offered, his eyes lighting up. “And, to make up for last night, I can help you with homework today!”

“Hwang Hyunjin, you legend, you’re so amazing that I could 10/10 kiss you,” you declared.

He laughed, rumpling your hair gently. “You already did once, remember? Spin the bottle, seventh grade. You were my first kiss, Y/N!”

“Oh, yeah! That girl from the classroom next door, the one who kept ogling at you, looked like she was ready to pee herself!” you snickered, choking on your own laughter and erupting in a fit of coughing that left tears in your eyes; Hyunjin rubbed circles on your back soothingly, hoping to ease the coughs. Once he deemed it safe to leave your side, he hurried back into the kitchen to grab you a glass of water, which you took and gulped down gratefully. “Thanks, Hyunjinnie.”

“Don’t worry about it. And be more careful,” he scolded, earning an amused eye roll from you.

“See you tomorrow? Noon at that bubble tea place down the block?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Good night, Hyunjinnie.”

As you left, he watched you, his fingers tingling where yours had been resting against them just a moment earlier, realizing how much you’d grown up… and wondering how he’d grown lucky enough to have you by his side during all these years.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do What are you waiting for?

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (like you do) Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (yeah) Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do What are you waiting for?

He didn’t fail to meet you the next day ― in fact, he was early, waiting for you at an outdoor table as you arrived, wearing a mint-green hoodie and black yoga pants, your hair tied back in a neat ponytail.

“Hey, Sasquatch,” you called jokingly, and his glance snapped up from his phone to you, his eyes brightening and the corners of his full, rich coral-pink lips tugging themselves upwards into a bright grin.

“Y/N! Nice hoodie, the color suits you,” he exclaimed, tilting his head slightly to the side as he added, “is it new? I’ve never seen you wear it before.”

“Yeah, I bought it last week,” you said, feeling a rush of warmth rise in your chest at the fact that he’d noticed that small detail. He really did pay attention to everything.

“I love the color. Does it come in men’s?”

“Not sure. I’ll check, though ― we can go together, sometime tonight or tomorrow.”

“Sounds like a plan!” he declared, then glanced at the menu card in front of him. “I’m guessing you want your usual coconut milk tea, Y/N?”

“Yep, that’s me. Boring and predictable, like the old granny I am at heart,” you quipped, earning yourself another laugh from your companion.

“Predictable, maybe, since I’ve known you for so long,” Hyunjin agreed. “But boring? No way. You could never be boring, Y/N, no matter how long I’ve known you.”

You felt the color rising in your cheeks as you flushed pleasurably at your best friend’s compliment, which meant a lot more to you than he could imagine. “You’re sweet.”

His grin melted your heart as you grabbed the menu. “Let me guess ― you want the watermelon bubble tea. Again.”

“Why, Y/N,” Hyunjin gasped mockingly, his eyes widening, “however did you know?”

“Gee, I don’t know,” you said sarcastically, shrugging. “Maybe because you decided to even dress like a freaking watermelon for Halloween? And because you completely weeded that bag of Dum-Dums ― the one you were supposed to be handing out to the trick-or-treaters ― of watermelon lollipops? I could hear the kids complaining all the way down the street!”

“Okay, okay, Y/N,” he admitted, going red in the face. “You… kind of have a point there.”

You sat back with a triumphant smirk, which earned a grin from Hyunjin; within the minute, you both had begun to laugh hopelessly, till tears of mirth gathered themselves in both of your eyes and your sides ached with laughter.

After you’d both gotten your bubble teas, you sat for a while in silence. But it wasn’t the awkward silence that needed an ice-breaker; it was a comfortable silence, where neither of you needed to say anything to enjoy the moment spent in the other’s company.

You were the one who finally broke the silence. “Hey, Hyunjinnie, do you want to try a sip of my bubble tea? I realize, in all the times we’ve come here, you’ve never tried the coconut milk tea, while I’ve never tried the watermelon tea.”

“Sounds fun!” Hyunjin unhesitatingly leaned over, his cheek brushing against yours, as he took a sip from your straw, letting the new flavor soak onto his tongue for a moment before nodding his approval, his eyes lighting up. “Holy moly ― this is good! You have good taste, Y/N!”

You smirked at him before leaning across the table to take a sip of his drink, the watermelon flavor coating your tongue and cooling your throat as you swallowed. “Heck, I could say the same for you, Hyunjin! You might just have passed your obsession with all things watermelon on to me!”

It was a perfect moment, just you and him, peacefully enjoying each other’s company… till the sound of soft sobbing drew your attention away from Hyunjin. Your eyes scanned the bubble tea café till they found the source of the sound.

Minjoo.

And judging by the tears pouring down her face, she’d seen everything.

The color drained from Hyunjin’s face as he jumped up, practically knocking the umbrella off the table as he tried to make his way towards Minjoo, who heaved a sob and took a step back.

“Minjoo!” he yelled. “Minjoo, wait!”

“Minjoo!” You joined him, calling your friend’s name. “Minjoo, it’s not what it looks like!”

“Shit,” Hyunjin muttered. “I’ll… I’ll be back. I’m sorry to cut our outing short, Y/N, but...”

“Go,” you said grimly, your heart hammering with dread as you watched your best friend take off after his girlfriend, only hoping that things would turn out okay.

I'll let you set the pace 'Cause I'm not thinking straight My head spinning around I can't see clear no more What are you waiting for?

This time, when you woke up at 3:00 a.m., it wasn’t because of your phone, which had remained painfully silent all evening, save for a single text from your boyfriend, asking if you were free for a date that night. You’d declined his offer, sick with worry for your best friend’s predicament. He and Minjoo didn’t ever quarrel, and yet, the last you’d seen them, Minjoo was shouting at him, tears rolling down her cheeks, while he pleaded for her understanding.

Icy fear bubbled in your stomach as you lay awake against the pillows; the room felt uncharacteristically cold. You sighed, finally deciding there was no way you could get to sleep with so much worry gnawing at your mind ― maybe a midnight snack would help. You slid out from under the bedcovers, shivering as the cold air touched your bare legs ― you were just wearing shorts and a t-shirt ― and went downstairs into the kitchen, where you rummaged through the refrigerator and pantry, finding absolutely nothing that fit your cravings. You stretched, going to change clothes into a pink hoodie and black leggings, pulling your hair into a messy ponytail before grabbing your purse, pulling your car keys from them as you went outside into the driveway, opening the door and getting into your car. You started up the engine, waiting for a few moments as the heater warmed the inside, before reversing out of the driveway and beginning the fifteen-minute drive to the local Lotte.

The classical music playing over the stereo did nothing to ease your nagging worry, and all the way there, nausea roiled in your stomach like a vat of acid. You arrived in the parking lot of the supermarket, locking your car before entering the store and going straight to the dairy aisle, grabbing yourself five small bottles of your favorite brand of strawberry milk and paying for them quickly before hurrying outside again, the cover on your arm. You got back into your car, slamming the door shut, and left the parking lot, embarking on your return journey. About five minutes had passed when you suddenly screeched to a halt, pulling over abruptly, the color draining from your face.

A tall figure was staggering around on the curb, a bottle in hand. A very familiar tall figure. Your blood turned to ice as you recognized Hyunjin.

You’d never seen him drunk like this. Come to mention it, you’d never even seen him touch any remotely alcoholic beverage. You got out of your car, your heart pounding more wildly than it had ever pounded in your life, running to meet the boy with a tight hug.

“Hyunjin!” you cried, mingled pain and relief in your tone as you crushed him in a hug, aware that you were shaking from head to toe ― whether it was with anger or fear, you weren’t sure. Probably a mix of both, to be honest.

“Hey… hey, Y/N,” Hyunjin slurred unsteadily, staggering and practically half collapsing on you, leaving you struggling for a minute with the task of supporting his larger weight. He smiled an unfocused smile down at you, wiping the wetness from his eyes. “Whatcha doin’ awake at this late hour, Y/N?”

“I could ask you the same,” you said anxiously, your pulse thrumming with worry. “What happened to you? I’ve never seen you drink before, and suddenly you’re holding a beer bottle and rambling around, punch-drunk, on the streets at…” You glanced at your watch. “...3:15 a.m. Hyunjin, what the fuck is going on here? Where were you? Why didn’t you answer my calls?”

“Minjoo broke up with me.” The boy’s voice was slurred with drinking, his balance completely off-kilter; he sank against you, his tears wetting the collar of your hoodie. “She left me, Y/N. She said she was done, that we were over.”

You were aware that you, too, were crying: crying for the horrible state you’d found your best friend in, for the blame you were allotting to yourself ― crying, mostly, because Hyunjin was crying, and his tears hurt worse than anything.

“Hyunjin,” you whispered, sinking to your knees and letting the male sag against you, his head nestling into your shoulder as he hiccuped and cried as if his heart would break ― which it already had, that night. You wrapped your arms around him, rubbing his back soothingly as he cried it all out, till he had no tears left in him to cry, numb at last.

“Come on,” you murmured, guiding an unprotesting Hyunjin into your car, helping him buckle himself into the passenger seat as you drove home, the quiet classical music and the feeling of your sleeping best friend’s head on your shoulder giving you an odd tingling feeling.

Once you got home, you gently shook Hyunjin awake, letting him use you as a support for his terrible balance. He didn’t shake you off, letting you guide him upstairs and into your room, where you let him grab a change of clothes (you left the room while he changed, coming back in as soon as he gave you the thumbs-up) before collapsing onto your bed. You would have let him use the guest room, but, truth be told, you wanted to keep your eye on him, too scared that he’d do something stupid again. So you went into the bathroom, changing into your typical t-shirt and shorts, before collapsing on the bed beside him, exhausted from the day’s events.

“Y/N?” You couldn’t stop the tear that slipped down your cheek at the sound of Hyunjin’s tired voice, which sounded less slurred and more… him. He scooted towards you, gently tugging your shoulder so you were now facing him, and brushed the tear from your lashes, wiping away the glittering trail the tear had left on your skin.

“Y/N, I’m sorry,” he whispered, wrapping his arms tightly around you, an embrace you returned with just as much fervor. “I’m really, really sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” you choked out, the guilt overpowering you. “It’s my fault Minjoo broke up with you. She didn’t like how much time we spent together.”

Hyunjin shook his head. “No, Y/N, this is not your fault. I should have been clearer with her, and anyway...” He hesitated, continuing, “...Maybe it’s not all bad.”

Your eyes widened with surprise. “What?”

Hyunjin flushed slightly. “This might just be the alcohol talking, Y/N… I don’t know anymore. But when you were holding me on the curb, I could feel you shaking. I could hear you crying. And I was getting my snot and drool and tears all over you, and by that time, you probably reeked of alcohol as much as I did. But you still held me. Minjoo… probably wouldn’t have.”

“Come on, I’m sure she―”

“No, Y/N,” Hyunjin interrupted, shaking his head vehemently. “The one time when you were on that family trip in France and I caught the flu, Minjoo came over. She took care of me, but… but I could see the disgust in her eyes every time she saw me throw up or cough up mucus. The one time I cried into her shoulder, she immediately went to change clothes. She’s only there in my highs, Y/N, but you’ve been there all the time. She only knows the happy Hyunjin, but you know the real Hwang Hyunjin.”

“Hyunjin...” Your voice trailed off for a long moment before you managed, “What do you mean?”

“I mean...” Hyunjin took your hands in his larger ones, hesitating for a while before answering, “I mean… or, at least, I think I mean… that in a way, it’s always been you. This was just the universe’s way of showing me. I know I make zero sense, but...”

“No,” you said slowly, his words taking a moment to register. “No, I… I kind of get what you mean.”

Suddenly, it all made sense.

Why Hyunjin and your kiss, all those years ago, had seemed better and more full of life than any that you’d shared with your boyfriend.

Why the first person you called up whenever you found yourself free ― or needed to spill some news ― was Hyunjin, not your own boyfriend.

Why, even if you were spending the entire day out with your boyfriend, you had to steal into the bathrooms at least once to hear Hyunjin’s voice on the phone for at least five minutes.

Why skinship with Hyunjin felt so much natural and easier than skinship with Yongwoon.

Why everyone naturally assumed you two were a couple.

Maybe it was because deep down, that was what you were ― the only difference was that you’d both labeled the feeling as the wrong one, assuming that you were just best friends and remaining oblivious not only to the other’s feelings, but to your own.

“Hyunjin… I’ve spent so many days wondering why none of the kisses I’ve shared with Yongwoon have even come close to matching the one we shared in the seventh grade,” you admitted. “I guess it’s because they were missing the one key ingredient: spark. I won’t deny that I really like Yongwoon ― or, at least, I did, at the beginning ― but he’s just… not right for me, and I’m shocked it took this long for me to realize. He was always trying to steal me away from you, keep you away when we were both together, while you were always ready to share me with him… all to keep me happy.”

“Y/N...” Before you knew it, Hyunjin was leaning closer, and so were you, and you didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly, your lips were pressed against his, and there it was, that spark, the one you hadn’t felt against your lips for five years.

As you both pulled away, you realized the words didn’t need to be said ― the kiss had spoken volumes more than those three simple words. That was the lovely thing about gestures ― they could explain things in ways much more nuanced than even a dictionary.

That night, you fell asleep in Hyunjin’s arms, your legs tangled with his, your heartbeats synchronizing.

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (like you do) Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (yeah) Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do What are you waiting for?

Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (like you do) Love me like you do, lo-lo-love me like you do (yeah) Touch me like you do, to-to-touch me like you do What are you waiting for?

You woke up to the warm sunlight filtering through your window; that was, by far, the most peaceful sleep you’d gotten in the last few days. You stretched, yawning appreciatively, before your eyes fell on the still-sleeping form of Hwang Hyunjin beside you. You smiled fondly, pressing a kiss to his forehead ― he stirred slightly, the corners of his lips quirking upwards ever so slightly ― before slipping out from under the bedcovers, going downstairs to make yourself and Hyunjin some coffee. Right as you’d finished pouring the two mugs, your doorbell rang; you went to open the door, your mug of coffee in hand, and saw Yongwoon standing there, smiling a little sheepishly. “Oh. Hey.”

“I was worried about you,” Yongwoon said, launching right into it with no prior greeting. “You haven’t been yourself lately ― you keep refusing dates, you don’t answer my texts quickly ― I’m worried about you, Y/N.”

Footsteps made you both turn around; Hyunjin was coming downstairs, looking tired but much refreshed after having showered and changed clothes. His smile made your breath hitch; it was funny how liking someone made them even more attractive in your eyes, because before, you’d been able to notice how pretty his smile was, but now, it was as if you’d forgotten, or never fully appreciated, how breathtakingly stunning it was.

Yongwoon’s smile had faded, and he was studying Hyunjin with a frown, furrowing his brow. “Why is he here, Y/N?”

“He stayed the night. He wasn’t… feeling the best, so I thought it best if I took care of him.” Your tone made it clear you weren’t taking any arguments, which simply made your boyfriend even more uneasy.

“I don’t like it,” he said abruptly. “I don’t like it at all, Y/N. I know you call him your ‘best friend’, but as your boyfriend, I don’t like the idea of you being home alone with another guy. I won’t let you―”

“Let me? Let me?” Your eyes widened with incredulity; the anger that burned in their depths caused him to take a step back, surprised. “I only meant―”

“No, I’ve heard enough,” you decided. “You sound like my grandpa. My annoying, patriarchal grandpa.”

“Y/N―”

“This isn’t working.”

He froze, staring at you for some hint that this was just a joke, maybe a very, very early April Fools’ prank. When he saw nothing except seriousness on your face, he managed, blankly, “Y/N, I―”

“Look. Don’t get me wrong, there was a point where I really, really liked you. But that was before I realized, whatever else we had, there was no spark.”

“Y/N!” he protested, taking a step towards you. You took a step back, shaking your head quite calmly ― you didn’t know where all this calmness was coming from, but you were glad for it.

“I want you to be happy,” you said finally. “I don’t think I’m the answer to that. And I don’t think you’re my answer, either. I’m doing this for the both of us. It’d be nice if we could stay friends, but… that’s up to you.”

Yongwoon looked from Hyunjin to you, the realization dawning in his eyes, which flared with anger. He shook his head, simply leaving the house; after a moment, he turned around, pausing, his eyes slightly wet with the reality that he wasn’t yours anymore ― and hadn’t been, for a while. “I don’t know about that, Y/N.”

You hesitated for a long, long while. “Bye, Yongwoon.”

“Bye, Y/N.”

As soon as he’d left, the tears spilled out; now, it was Hyunjin’s turn to hold you as you cried against him, your tears soaking through the thin fabric of his white t-shirt as he guided you to the couch, his arms tight and warm around you as he held you till you couldn’t cry anymore.

“Thanks, Hyunjinnie,” you whispered, looking up gratefully at him. He brushed away your tears, smiling that signature fond smile he reserved only for you, and placed a warm, soft kiss on your forehead, sending that tingling feeling flooding through your body.

And as the first snow of the year began to fall, outside, you wrapped your arms around his neck, your lips meeting his in a burst of warmth.

“I love you, Hyunjin.”

“I love you more, Y/N.”

“No! Stop that, I love YOU more!”

“Y/N! Gah, stop tickling me! I love you most!”

“Surrender already! You know I love you more than most.”

“Yes… yes, I do.”

[mortalgabby]

Film Trailers & Production Logos

Here are some trailers that I took inspiration from/are similar to the trailer I plan to make for my own ‘film’. 

Infinity War

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

Venom

Teen Wolf

The House With the Clock In Its Walls

The Darkest minds is a modern fantasy film that was released in 2018. The trailer I feel is a lot more satisfying and exciting to watch than the actual movie is, for several reasons. The way the montage of shots is arranged is non chronological (as many trailers are) but to the point where it is misleading - the ‘revolution’ that occurs is a scene at the end of the film. The actual revolution that appears to be the plot of the film based on the audio clips and footage used, but only starts right at the end (therefore would be the plot of the sequel). This made the film kind of disappointing in comparison to the way the trailer painted it.

I really like the song which is used, which rises in volume throughout the course of the trailer, making the film seem intense. The music gives off a motivational and uplifting vibe and suggests that the characters will triumph in the end- which inspired me to want to watch it. I think that this song was perfect as it does reflect the tone and genre of the movie really well. 

The trailer also does a great job at showcasing the amazing CGI effects such as the telekinesis and the magic. The VFX is definitely a key selling point in this movie and enhanced the trailer a lot for me as it’s not only beautiful and believable, but also awesome. 

The plot was not revealed too much in this trailer which I think is very important - just enough information was hinted at to intrigue the audience enough to want to watch, which sometimes isn’t the case as some trailers will end up summarising the film’s plot which ruins the experience for me. 

The title cards are also fitting with the film as they somewhat resemble the eyes and ability of the protagonist - fire. The titles are in a gold serif font which looks very elegant, again reflecting the tone of the film.

I chose to analyse this trailer as I feel it’s similar to mine in that the characters both have some kind of superpower which they’re learning to deal with. 

The Darkest Minds

The Last Airbender

This trailer begins with establishing shots of the different landscapes in which the film will take place, showcasing the amount of detail that was put into the world-building and special effects. I think that this is very effective. As the characters first enter the trailer, everything is very quiet which helps to build suspense. The shots are very long and start to build up to the reveal of important things - such as the ice cracking - but the shots are cut off before we are able to see what’s happened. This makes the audience curious, causing us to want to watch the movie to find out what happens.

Later on throughout the trailer, there are a lot of shots that showcase the action in the film, but these too are cut off and followed by silence for dramatic effect which works really well in my opinion, for the same reason. This trailer also does a really good job at introducing the main characters, locations and themes without spoiling too much of the plot, and contains intense instrumental action music which really helps to establish the genre. 

The special effects are also fantastic looking and add a lot of appeal to the film - I particularly like the close up shot of the main character’s eyes and forehead which glow - as well as the long shots that display the other characters’ powers. Like the previous film, this one is also related to my own work as they both explore the theme of humans having otherworldly powers. 

I would say that this trailer does a really good job of accurately portraying the film, unlike some of the others. 

Sorcerer’s Apprentice

This trailer was very surprising to see (since I watched it after watching the film) as I don’t think it reflects the film well at all - it certainly doesn’t do it justice and instead paints it as something way too serious and dark. The music choice is interesting and, in my opinion is out of place in a film about magic, it sounds more fitting for a thriller or horror movie. I think they should’ve used a more upbeat song in this trailer to reflect all of the songs that are used in the movie as well as the general lighthearted nature of it.

Another thing which I don’t they pulled off particularly well was the title cards - which also looked like something out of a horror movie due to the dark and drab colours used in them. The title cards did fit the aesthetic of the movie but at the same time the actual titles sounded like they were trying to hard to be scary ‘It is not your imagination,’ However I do admire how they have engaged the audience’s interest through the vague pronoun ‘it’ - we are left wondering what is it is and are thus more likely to watch the film. 

The dark title cards and ominous music didn’t really fit with the warm orange colour palette that both the trailer and film utilises, the two contrast so much that it seems like it wasn’t intentional which I don’t really like. The consistent colour palette does however make the trailer look quite stylised and aesthetic.

I do however really like how the Disney logo was edited to fit with the magic/electricity motif in the film. 

Another thing I liked about this trailer was how the visuals matched with the beats in the music - the appearance of the eagle was matched with the music growing louder and more intense on the beat. I feel as though this not only emphasises the importance of said aspects in the film but generally gives a really cool effect. 

I’m glad that this trailer, unlike some of the others, doesn’t spoil the plot at all  - in fact it sheds extremely little light on the story they’re trying to tell - we know that Dave is Balthazar’s apprentice but little to nothing else. I feel as though without any information on the story of Morgana meant that, from the trailer, there isn’t really enough reason to watch it. They also could’ve showcased more of the magical SFX as these were one of my favourite parts of the film. The kind of magic used in this film is a similar kind to what i’m trying to achieve in my own video. 

The Shape Of Water

Like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, this film also has a custom production logo to fit the genre and theme of it. I really like this little detail they decided to include as it really makes me feel more involved in the world they’ve created. 

This trailer starts off with a montage of the main character’s every day life, which is matched with some almost upbeat, instrumental music that is very iconic and, when paired with the visuals allude well to the time period in which the film is based. A lot of the things in this trailer are also matched to the beat of the music which is one of my favourite tropes as it looks really satisfying and just generally appeals to me. 

The title cards of this film reflect the themes by being designed as if they are underwater, which I think looks really aesthetically pleasing. the serif font in which they are written alludes to the fantasy genre of the film. The font choice itself looks very elegant and calm. There are multiple music tracks in this film - two of which sound very whimsical but are also creepy, the other one a lot more dark and intense. I think that having both tracks in the trailer helps indicate the different themes and emotions that will be present in the film - on one hand it is sweet and romantic, but there is also a dangerous and threatening tone that is underlying. 

I also really like how enigma codes are created through some of the lines of dialogue in the trailer - in particular the repeated line ‘Don’t do this!’ in a desperate tone. This piques the audience’s interest and make us more determined to watch the film so that we can find out exactly what is being referred to. 

I like how the colour palette for this film is mostly blue and grey as it reflects the ocean motif present throughout. 

In general I really like how the creature isn’t portrayed as a monster in the trailer - the humans are instead. This links in with my own film that includes fantastical creatures that don’t normally exist. 

Captain Marvel

The trailer for Captain Marvel starts right in the centre of the action which really makes you feel like you’re part of the world and is really exciting. The beginning of the trailer sets the scene and establishes the time period by showing the BlockBuster store. I think that this trailer is also really successful because of the actors who are in it - Samuel L Jackson and Brie Larson are both really popular therefore will attract a lot of attention to the movie even if you haven’t seen the other films in the franchise.  

The music is easily one of the highlights of the trailer for me; it’s bold, inspirational and also sounds somewhat otherworldly (which is fitting as it’s an alien film). I think that this really reflects how powerful and impressive Carol Danvers is, and will hopefully reflect the tone of the film when it’s released. There is also a very clear colour palette of red, blue and gold throughout this trailer which adds to it’s aesthetic appeal and also matches the colours of her iconic suit. I think that this colour palette is really unique and special since it contradicts the dark and serious tones of many other superhero movies - instead looking bold and motivational. The visual effects in this movie and CGI are also extremely stunning and are presented really well through the wide variety of shot types - for example when Carol looks at the camera with magical glowing eyes (which is a similar effect to the style of thing I wanted in my own trailer)

The title cards are also in the same signature colour palette which makes them fit really well. 

There are also a lot of shots that are timed to the beat, as well as many fade ins/outs from/to black which I think adds to the dramatic suspense and tension of the film as we are curious as to what we’re missing out on during these cuts. Another really unique part of this trailer I think is the shots which depict Carol at various ages doing the same thing - for example when she stands up but it’s multiple versions of herself one after another, like they’re united. I think that this creates a really gorgeous effect and i’m excited to see what the film will bring in the future. 

The title and the way it’s animated from a blueprint/frame is also really impressive and alludes to the high production value of the film. 

Production Logos

Marvel

Marvel’s logo is easily one of my favourite logos of all time due to the complexity and artistic nature of it. It combines the 3D title animation with the gorgeous painted portraits of all the most beloved characters, as well as even including live action footage from the movies. It is also extremely colourful and bold, and is full of such intricate detail that you need to watch it multiple times to really appreciate how much work was put into its creation. I also love how it starts off really complex and beautiful and eventually forms the iconic, simple red and white logo. The music that is usually paired with the logo also really brings everything together I think and is a work of art all by itself. 

This logo is so complicated that I couldn’t begin to attempt it - it also differs from my own greatly since I had no idea how to do something like this but would love to in the future. The two do however share the similarity that they both have hand-drawn aspects to them (the wolf is drawn on mine and the character paintings in theirs)

Disney

Disney’s logo is also really pretty and visually appealing to me. I love how cinematic it looks - it could easily be a scene in a film. It has a really beautiful semi-realistic style as the landscape itself could easily be a photo, and yet the castle itself is designed in a way that really reflects Disney's signature style but is still believable. the composition of this logo is also really nice- the horizon is inkeeping with the rule of thirds and the castle is in the centre. I also especially love the colours and animation of this production logo- there is a wide variety of tones used, but the landscape is mostly dark which helps the illuminated castle really stand out among the dusk sunset. The logo itself is also very clever as it both stands out and blends into the water - it’s noticeable but also fits very naturally into the scene. Much like the marvel logo it’s quite different from mine but if I had the skills to make something like this in the future I would love to. The main difference is that this logo is 3D animated and coloured while mine is monochrome and 2D animated. 

Summit Entertainment

I chose this logo because its simplicity reflects my own. The black background helps the bold serif font stand out very clearly and creates a very sophisticated and minimalist look. I like how, despite the lack of detail, you can very easily tell that the line above is a mountain peak  - due to the name and the colouring which reminds me of a snow-covered mountain peak. The peak is also in the very centre of the logo which is very pleasing to me. I think that this logo really embodies the idea that it doesn’t have to be insanely complicated to be effective. It also shares some similarities with my own production logo - the light coloured font contrasting against the dark background, and the addition of a drawn image as part of the logo. While I prefer the more visually appealing logos such as the previous two, I can definitely see the appeal of this one, which makes me feel better about my own design. 

Universal

The Universal logo is also very cinematic and has a lot of very eye-catching features such as the Earth, stars and galaxy. The space aesthetic that’s present in this trailer is really beautiful and definitely one of my favourite features about it. I like how it isn’t straining on your eyes - the stars and illuminated earth are still very ‘soft’, and while they are definitely noticeable they don’t make your eyes hurt. I also especially like the 3D sans serif lettering and the metallic texture that’s been applied to it - as well as how it’s coloured silver and not white. 

Pixar

Pixar’s production logo is also fairly simple in comparison to most of the others. The letters are written in a very cartoonish serif font which is 3D. The logo itself has a lot of depth that’s created through the shadows which the letters cast, which I really like. I also like the creative animation in this logo, in which a lamp is personified to take the place of the ‘I’ in Pixar by jumping on it. The animation is really fluid and organic which is very much representative of Pixar’s style.

I think that this kind of 3D logo would have been very interesting and fun to make for my trailer. This logo is somewhat similar to mine due to the small animation and simple colour palettes used. 

[katherinemacbride]

GHOST + Tender Center Study Group: Reading and…(Rotterdam, 2019/2020)

This text is also available as a captioned video with sound. https://vimeo.com/533486814

 The reading group is small: each time around ten people come, some returning, others new, an accumulation that fits round the pink and green and yellow table. We’re reading Edouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation, little chunks of poetic density that build world-making thinking. I imagine him carefully choosing his words, fostering their multiple meanings, crafting the fluid, viscous opacity. I see pleasure and care, by which I mean care as worry, want, attention, and protection. “[T]hinking needs care…and that thinking and care need to stay in the wake,” wrote Christina Sharpe in In the Wake, her work on the reverberations of anti-Blackness. This is a call to read with feet and fingers and all the skin between.

I first watched Manthia Diawara’s film Edourard Glissant: One World in Relation soon after I started listening out for Glissant’s writing. When my ears were open, it formed a connective ocean of reading touching self-organised spaces, communities reflexively building tools, academics with epistemological heartaches, and art organising, with either abolitionist or appropriative ends. The film shapes a piece of methodological ground, something that holds in motion.

Diawara and Glissant cross the Atlantic Ocean on a cruise ship and walk on Martinique. They have one long conversation, or many conversations, depending on how you think about time and ends and beginnings. The edited fifty minutes offer a viewer a qualitative possibility of understanding Glissant’s work in a highly accessible form, as if his thought were a character in the film. 

Around that time, I was reading Daniel Stern’s elaboration of a therapeutic method based on staying with what he called “present moments,” fragments of relation experienced as “now” where meaning is consciously or unconsciously made. A structured interview repeatedly parsing a thirty to sixty second piece of someone’s everyday experience can hold the density of the person and introduce therapeutic themes meaningful to them that would more frequently be opened with a biographical conversation. Parsing the same material, working through a different register or mode on each pass – affect/movement/cognition/emotion/feeling – supports approaching and sitting with parts of experience it's harder to stay close to. The chosen material is so everyday and seemingly simple that it’s not as initially threatening as investigating a theme or event that is already narrativised. This supports the staying close, the sitting with. The whole structure is a Möbius binding of care and therapeutic possibility where “moments of meeting” – transformation – can occur.

Both of these methods – interview as filmmaking, interview as healing – perform a fractal thinking. The smaller carries the larger, the smaller contains the larger, the smaller is the larger. A relation of compression and expansion. What is being compacted isn’t forced to lose parts, or the uncertain but co-constituting space between those parts. The density is just still there, no matter how small the scale goes. To feel another part of the fractal, imagine holding diamond in one hand and coal in the other, and feel the extractive double helix of the histories of geology and capitalist value burying death and trauma in the carbon atoms. For much of the film, Diawara and Glissant are passing through the space of Middle Passage, the sea that holds particulate memory in its eternal movement and burnt carbon in its acidity. 

Glissant describes his concept of opacity with broccoli. He doesn’t like broccoli. Why is an opacity to him, he just knows he doesn’t like it. Neither the other parts of himself nor other people who may find this preference opaque and seek reasoning for it need to be given clarity. Other people do like broccoli, and that’s ok. This opacity is the basis for an ethics of relation.

We can only trust that the complexity of someone’s experience, and what they know about, can be held enough in a conversation for someone else to be able to understand something of it. Can only trust that this inevitable partiality, this edit, this mis/understanding that may occur for the listener is enough. Must trust that what is opaque also constitutes what is transparent or possible to get. This is a call to responsibility.

In Portuguese, the verb “ficar” is used, amongst other things, for “to stay” or “to remain” (I stayed at home) and something like “to become/to get/to end up” (I got wet, I got angry, I got drunk). It can do this because it has multiple forms that work on subjects and objects in different ways. In “to become/to get/to end up,” it is a copulative form, linking things, gathering mass around a subject without the need for an object. Sometimes, I translate this sense into English as “to get.” In English, “to get” is also used as a passive auxiliary for things being done by unclear subjects (the bed got made, I got found out); for straight up mercantile receiving of nouns, property (I got a book at the library, I got dinner); and for understanding: Do you get it? Eu fiquei. Remain. Get different. Hold. In motion.

What I don’t understand is present in what I do. This is a call to responsibility. Experience is made of understanding, misunderstanding, not understanding, and overstanding in its different Black and white etymologies. The moment of vibration. The moment of listening. The different feels of time passing at different scales and simultaneous possibilities.

In the reading group, we read aloud. Music. Reading in unison, we don’t take in much meaning but focus hard on the circle round the table, keep time, hold ourselves back from speeding up too much, still racing. Reading in turn, we go paragraph by paragraph. Some read smoothly, some bumpily, different decisions each time as to footnotes, pronunciation, and volume. Some prefer to listen and not voice. 

A person holding a large parcel stops and looks in the window. They ask about the space, note the website, and leave. They come bundling back and say they will join. An older couple arrive, they read about it on an LGBTQI++ listings page. Someone travels from afar to be seen in the clothes that fit how they feel. A neighbour comes to feel more comfortable than in other places. People are gentle with one another, make tea and conversation, make the space.

The group is developing its own structures. Asking questions. Sharing information about related subjects. Speaking quietly. Bringing different life experiences to the reading, thinking about it in relation to colonialism here. We’re speaking English so we talk about this awkward tool that lets us share here. We talk about the Dutch hospitality of speaking English that carries within and around it quiet hostility or open racism depending on skin colour. 

The group gathers bodies: non-binary, female-identifying, pregnant, chronically ill, neurodiverse, white, mestiza, brown. The early evening timing and small group attracts people who can’t stay up late or socialise in large numbers. Everyone came alone and is here together. 

A reading group is a piece of punctuation where relations can grow; it’s not a set of parentheses but could be if parentheses could contain infinity. Commas can form parentheses around the words or break the words into an infinite parenthesis around the point, a black hole. They accumulate matter. Commas make pauses, connections, gaps, breaks – moments where what can’t be contained in the language meets the words on the page, reminding the reader of what is there in opacity. Commas gently and violently pin transparency to what can’t be known. They collapse and explode simultaneously.

Thank you to S, who was there and is no longer here.

References

Diawara, Manthia. Édourard Glissant: One World in Relation. K’a Yéléma Productions, 2010. Distributed by Third World Newsreel.

Glissant, Édouard. Poetics of Relation. Translated by Betsy Wing. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.

Stern, Daniel. The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Everyday Life. New York: Norton, 2004

[symptomsofbeingsarah-blog]

Oof I made a story

Sarah Salvina!

  Physical Description!

5’7”

Glasses with leopard prints, that are definitely NOT Nickelodeon Brand.

Brown hair that’s cut short, and is also messy a f.

Brown eyes

Round face

Medium sized nose

Full lips

Heavy-set

Wide thighs

Large Feet

Personality:

Positive Traits:

Creative

Loving

Empathetic

Kind

Knowledgeable

Down-To-Earth

Relatable

Extroverted

Witty

Humorous

Fast-thinker

Insightful

Mature

Negative Traits:

Self-Deprecating

Worried

Anxious

Paranoid

Unstable

Emotional

Blunt

Insecure

Unconfident

Chaotic Mind

Unrealistic

Vulgar

Powers:

Mind Reading, or Telepathy

Life Vision

Origin/Backstory

Sarah Salvina was a happy kid. Despite the divorce that had happened when she was a mere three years of age, she still managed to stay optimistic, and stay in touch with her father. All throughout her grade school years, she got amazing, honor roll level grades. Her mom was happy, her grandparents, although old, were still living life to the fullest, and everything was financially sound. But, when young Sarah would look into someone’s eyes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What was going on inside of their head? What were they thinking? What were they truly feeling? They were smiling, but were they actually happy? Of course, she kept all of these thoughts in her head, not wanting to seem like a freaking weirdo.

That was up until middle school. It started off as what was merely called an echoic memory. She could think of anyone’s voice. A celebrity, a friend, a classmate. Anyone who she’s been around often, or at least for a while. And, she could form a sentence in her head with them! ...She soon realized that nearly everyone could do this, and that she wasn’t special. She wasn’t a superhero.

One day, when she was in the seventh grade, her mother and her went to a thrift store to find some cheap books for Sarah. By then, her imagination was frantic, her thoughts rapid. She couldn’t think of one thing, no, she had to think of at least ten things at once. While she intensely skimmed through the books, she was thinking about a multitude of things. Oh, god, that math homework is hard, what’re we going to do after this? These books are lame. I’m hungry. I wish I had a cellphone of my own, it’s stupid that I can’t listen to music. I wonder what movies are out…

She was so focused in on her own thoughts, that she didn’t even notice as a woman bumped into her. Or, did she bump into the woman…? As Sarah apologizes, the woman, short, and with a wrinkly nose, shakes her head dismissively, and says: “It’s fine!” Sarah turns her attention back to her novels, when she hears something. “Damn it. That kid needs to pay more attention to the people around her.”

Sarah’s eyes widened, and she turned to the woman. That couldn’t be echoic memory, she thought, I barely heard the woman! What the hell?! Obviously in disbelief, the semi tall thirteen year old rubs her temples, and looks to the woman, who was now nearly out of the long aile. She couldn’t hear anything else from her.

That was the first time she ever read someone’s mind. And, although it was accidental, it changed her life forever. Now, obviously you can’t go around telling people that you can read minds. They’ll either think you’re crazy, or...yeah. That’s the only thing that they’ll think. Sarah was too old and mature to think up of something so silly and ridiculous, and life wasn’t a cartoon, or a video game.

For the few months of having this power, Sarah didn’t really use her newfound ability too much. Half of the time it was accidental, but the other half? She was able to snoop. She was able to figure out what people truly thought about her clothing, her hair. Basic things like that. It didn’t affect her too much, and at this point in her life, she was still a very powerful person.

That’s when she started seeing the shadows. And hearing a voice that wasn’t her own, but didn’t quite belong to anyone else either. Every once and a while, she would look behind her, and, just for a moment, see a glimpse of a man. He was tall, tall enough to loom above her, and over half of the school. His voice reminded her of both a huge, growling dog, and Dr. Falcifer from The Princess and The Frog. Self deprecating thoughts constantly flowed through her mind, so much that it started to bring down the normally cheerful, outgoing girl.

No one likes you. What if you end up all alone? You’re worthless, Sarah. Worthless. And an overachiever. Why don’t you just give the fuck up? What’s the point of trying if you can tell nobody likes you? Just read the minds of the people around you.

And, she did. Over the course of this time, she became a lot better at controlling when and where she read other people’s thoughts. As it was lunch time, she heads into the cafeteria, and walks past the popular table to get to the lunch line.

Ugh, look at that lardass. She walks around like she owns the school. Preppy little snob. I’d fucking throw a calculator at the fat bitch if I could.

Her eyes widen, and she quickly adverts her gaze from the popular student’s table. Focusing on getting her food, and sitting with her friend group, she gets into the lunch line. The thoughts turn normal again. For some reason, though, she couldn’t switch the telepathy off. Yeah, that’s what it was called. She’s certain, even though the only superhero that she truly loved was The She-Hulk.

God, I’m so fucking hungry. Jesus, can’t this line get any faster? Holy fuck, can this lardass stop breathing down my neck? She needs to stop hogging up the line, and lose some fucking weight.

“No, no!” She said, rubbing her temples. “They can’t be thinking that. You’re out of your mind, Sarah.” This got some stares out of her students. What weirdo talks to themselves?

“You. Because you’re an idiot, who talks to herself in front of a lunch line.”

Then, and only then, Sarah felt a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t there, of course, but to her, it was cold, rough, and hard. Her shoulder hurt. It felt like a weight was being put on her shoulders. She continues to move through the line, ordering her usual sandwich: Tuna on a roll with provolone cheese and lettuce. That damn stranger, the one with the weird growly disney villain voice, was gone now, but her shoulder still hurt.

For the next three years, the voice in her head would torment her. Convince her that she was ugly, that no one liked her. And, her self confidence went down the drain.

One night, she was sitting in bed, in the middle of a really good chapter of a book. But then, something in her mind made her unmotivated. Fucking anxiety. Or, is it because I’m a Gemini? Whatever. It’s fucking bullshit.  

“Internal monologuing? God, what the fuck are you?”

The voice mumbled. This time, though, it wasn’t just a voice. It was a person. Now, she snagged glances at him every once and a while, but she’s never seen him fully, right in front of her bed.  He looked like a villain straight out of a comic book...or an angsty teenager straight out of a My Chemical Romance concert. She couldn’t decide. Either way, she was frozen in place, trying to think of what to say to this mean, mysterious, possibly artificial person.

“So, what’s your name?”

“I’m sorry, what? You genuinely want to get to know me, even though I made you suffer in unimaginable ways?”

He looked giant and awkward in her small room, his head almost grazing the ceiling. He now had a hoodie on, and possibly dark eyeshadow under his eyes. That was just a guess, as he didn’t remove the hoodie from his head. She sits up on her bed.

“...Well, if you’re going to turn my self confidence into shit, I’d like to at least know who my arch nemesis is.”

For a moment, the man smirks, chuckling. It made him sound like a smoker.

“You’ll learn that eventually. But, for now, I need to give you another power. It’ll come in handy, trust me on this. You can read minds, but you’re 15. You have a lot more powers left to gain.”

Sarah raises an eyebrow. “Okay, Mr. Mysterious. What’s this power that I need to possess? God, I’m losing my mind. I’m talking to my anxiety, jesus christ.”

“You don’t even believe in Go--fuck it, nevermind. Just, give me your hand.”

She listens to him. He burns her hand, making her wince in pain. “Ow! What the fuck, you bastard!”

“Shut up and look.”

Sarah looks to her wrist. An infinity symbol is engraved in her wrist in black ink, and she rubs it.

“...You gave me a tattoo? Is that your big reveal? You’re a goddamn tattoo artist?”

Sarah looks to him. Suddenly, a bunch of numbers shoot around him, surrounding him as if she were a computer processing data. The numbers form an infinity symbol, which floated above him for a few seconds, before splitting apart in the air, digitally, piece by piece. Like a video game. “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“Life Vision. We’re immortal. You and I are really important, kid. We’re going to rid the world of all these evil bastards, and, trust me, your powers are going to help.”

Sarah stares at him as if he had twelve heads. Which, come to think of it, he could probably make himself have.

“...So, your name?”

He removes his hood, and smirks.

“Ang. Pronounced like Gong, with an A. I’m not that shitty airbender.”

[beige-eclipse]

Bitty Drabbles 20

(I’M ALIVE, I’M ALIVE!!! I am so sorry you guys! I got really really sick and even the slightest hint of electronic light made my head pound. I still kinda need ideas for drabbles, but I’ll try to be more regular again. Seriously, just give me a prompt like “goes to X place” or “does X thing” and that would be fine. At any rate, be sure to check out @vex-bittys after reading this.)

Today would be a pretty big step. Ella had proposed a nice day out in a city we used to often visit. I didn’t know, she suggested that Crim come and refused to take no as an answer. Ig had told her about the infinity scarf, so she saw it as being no problem. She had already called her two to go friends Isabell and Paula. They were ready to go and would be awaiting my arrival. I begrudgingly got ready. Crim looked on curiously. I smiled down at him.

“Ella invited us to go hang out with her.” Crim smiled at that, liking Ella the most out of my friends. I adjusted the infinity scarf before opening it up for Crim, his jacket and backpack already inside so he could get ready as we walked. “Well, hop in or we might miss our bus.” Crim did so without hesitation and I could feel him shuffling as he put on his sweater and backpack.

I gently told him to stay hidden until we were safely on the bus, just in case they refused us service, and made sure to snag a window seat. Luckily the seats were high enough that Crim could peek and watch out the window whilst also being protected from view. Anyone who came onto the bus promptly chose a different seat when they looked down to see him peeking out of the scarf.

I patted him to let him know we would be getting off soon and he sunk back into the scarf. I thanked the driver as I got off and bought a train ticket. I could’ve taken busses the whole way, but this would turn what would have been over an hour into about ten minutes or less depending on the timing of the train.

I subtly told Crim to stay hidden once again until we were safely on the train. I knew that he could see through the stitches of the scarf just fine, it would just be a little stuffy. He didn’t complain though, the train station was crowded, and I knew that Crim would have been uncomfortable enough that he would have stayed hidden even if I hadn’t asked him to.

The train came soon enough and though there were many people waiting, I was able to once again grab a window seat. The perks of being the second to last stop in the train line was that you were also the second stop when the trains came back in this direction.

People stared less on the train, so the person who sat next to me didn’t notice Crim soon enough, but of course, it would be rude to just stand up awkwardly, so he sat and tried not to keep glancing over at Crim, failing miserably. Crim glared at them; I didn’t stop him. Luckily for all parties involved, our stop was the fifth in the line, so we were off and out fairly soon.

Ella and her friends were waiting outside the train station for us, Ella having to stop the other two from starting a group hug that would definitely have crushed Crim. Crim peeked out and the two greeted him enthusiastically. First stop? Food of course. And what was our favorite food? Sushi.

Of course, Ella and her friends were active people, so they didn’t have the patience to sit down and eat at a stuffy restaurant. The compromise? Sushirrito. If you don’t know what that is, well, let me tell you. It’s basically a giant sushi roll, the size of a burrito. We usually order ours to go and eat them as we wander and window shop for things we can’t afford. I had another suggestion though.

Everyone happily ordered and munched away and I took the lead. Now, if you were in the lead, you knew where you wanted to go, and after turning a corner, they all knew my destination. The small park with the dried up fountain a few blocks away. The crowd was thick, but I managed to lead us through well enough. Once there, I sat down at the edge of the concrete monument that once held water.

The three I had led here looked at me expectantly. I shrugged and took out my phone, starting up a game that hardly anyone played anymore. They knew what it was from the music and copied me, taking seats to my left and right, opening up the old app. Crim came out of the scarf curiously.

Despite this being a park, hardly anyone came here anymore, having something else to do in the fast paced city. I handed Crim a few select chunks of fish from my burrito, despite having fed him the night before. I swear his eyelights turned to stars like the pygmies did back at the adoption center as he greedily scarfed down the morsels. Note to self, Crim liked sushi. We sat and chatted, finishing our burritos as we played, Crim looking at my phone screen in interest. I smiled down at him.

“This game is called Pokemon Go. It’s an app that allows you to find and catch virtual pokemon in real life, like in your game back home.” Crim’s eyelights flashed as stars once again as he pointed to my screen. He wanted to play. I explained all the features to him, but his fingers were too small for the phone to pick up, and when he tried his hands, that didn’t work either. The downsides of not having skin.

I finished my burrito quickly, offering my finger for him to use as a stylus. He took on the task diligently, though I made sure he actually caught the pokemon he was aiming for by using my previous skill in the game subtly. He didn’t notice, but soon enough, everyone had finished eating and it was time to move on.

Paula took the lead, both in the group and in conversation as we made our way through the city. Crim, I could tell, was having fun just laying in what was surely a hammock for him, taking in the new sites and smells. Paula brought us to the crystal shop. It was small, but not crowded. We split off, Crim coming out with wide eyelights. I smiled down at him.

“Would you like a crystal? I’ll get it for you.” He nodded, immediately scanning the store. He pointed, I followed. He finally settled on a small polished stone of Tigerseye. I chuckled. “Tigerseye? You’ve got good taste, that’s my favorite too. I tapped each of our group members telling them that I would be going up to pay. Crim’s eyes sparkled as I finished the transaction, handing him the stone which he promptly placed in his bag.

The store owner chuckled at his antics. Of course she wouldn’t be put off by the little lamia, her store held more than just stones if the many bone ornaments on the walls were anything to go by. I wonder why this place didn’t get more foot traffic. We left right after, the rest of the group comparing their finds. Unlike me, they tended not to pay… They were courteous not to take much, one stone each, but it was a habit I could do without. The poor woman had a hard enough time as it was getting by. I said nothing, and they had the courtesy to be quiet about it since they knew it was something I detested.

Isabell took the lead next, and though we had just eaten, her sweet tooth wasn’t satisfied. We ended up at the frozen yogurt and ice cream parlor. We liked this place because it was completely self serve. You grab a cup or cone of your choice and load it up from the frozen treat dispensers, pile on as many toppings as you like, then you pay at the front. It didn’t matter what or how much you put inside since you paid per ounce.

Low on cash? Don’t put in so much. Super hungry? Pile your mountain high and await your soon to be stomachache. I wasn’t too hungry, so I grabbed a cone rather than a cup. How people still managed to eat cold things in winter, I would never know, but we once again set off once we had our frozen treats. Ella was in the lead this time, and we all knew where she would go, so we would have to finish our food before getting there.

I managed easily enough, not having bought much in the first place, but Paula and Isabell had to finish outside by a trash can. Ella, despite being petite, could be quite the bottomless pit when she wanted to be. We were greeted warmly when we entered, though, we were all familiar with the staff. Crim looked on in wonder.

Video games lined the shelves, consoles sat behind the front desk, and small figures and other marchandise of video game characters adorned the rows. This was Gamestop, the store where I, and all of my friends, had purchased all of our games and game related goods. We wouldn’t be buying anything today, but they knew this. We always pre-ordered anything we wanted, we would just be browsing.

I made a point to walk up to the front and introduce Crim. I didn’t know the man by name, but I certainly knew him by face, and that was enough. He was like us, so I knew he wouldn’t reject Crim, and I had to translate Crim’s sign language since this man wasn’t in our loop. Once he knew Crim loved pokemon, that was it. He was quite informed on the topic, I mean, why work at a gaming store if you didn’t love video games? Crim listened with rapt attention. I told the man that Crim was starting on Generation one, and he commended me for letting him start from the beginning.

We stayed there for a while, partly for the stuff, mostly for the warmth, but eventually, we had to leave. It was still far too early to part ways, so we decided to wander around the local college campus. It was beautiful, yes, but it was mostly hills, and I would most certainly be getting flashbacks. You see, this used to be my college campus. Long story short, I don’t have a degree, but even I had to admit how nice the scenery was.

Squirrels ran amuck here, not fearing humans, and I made sure to keep Crim close. The little buggers would sneak into your bag and steal your food if you weren’t careful. We somehow ended up at the only library that was open to the public. I tried to make myself small as we entered, but it was a futile effort.

“Beige!” I smiled and waved at the boy manning the front desk. He was older now. We had a short conversation and he let us go on our way. Crim stared at everything, the library was large and beautiful, consisting of multiple floors. It didn’t need artwork, though there were paintings hanging on the walls, since the architecture was immaculate. It was awe-inspiring, but I knew the place like the back of my hand. I was greeted again as we quietly wandered the halls.

“Beige!” I smiled politely again, having a longer conversation with the man before me. We spoke of how things had been going, not too much had changed honestly. We parted ways once again, though I made sure to tell my old friend to say hi to my former boss. Yup, I used to work here back when I was a student. Believe it or not, I was a security guard.

Not as glamorous as it sounds. We were treated like janitors and hall monitors, and if there’s anything more annoying than an entitled child, it’s an entitled adult. You’d be surprised at how many times I’ve had to yell at young men and women not to climb on the outside of the building. I didn’t care if they were in the parkour club, they could take their antics to another building where I wasn’t liable for damages. We wrapped up our visit and I heaved a sigh of relief when we left.

I did miss my job terribly, but I knew I’d never get it back, so it just made me regretful whenever I returned. The chit chat as we walked down the hills distracted me though, and it was light side hugs for everyone when we had to part ways. Ella and I were able to take the train together, but she would need to stay on until the last stop.

It was far too crowded to gain a seat on the way back, the train having stopped at god knows how many stops along the way, but Crim was fine staying in the scarf. We said our goodbyes when our stop came up and we waited for the bus that would take us back home. The sun began to set as we boarded. I knew we were both tired.

“Have fun, Crim?” He nodded, taking out his new stone and showing it to me once again. I smiled as I patted his head absentmindedly. The walk home was pleasant and Crim went to go hide away his new treasure in what used to be his sleeping rock. We needed a day like today. I would have to thank Ella the next time we hung out.

First Previous Next