#yes this is a flex my dad is awesome

[musicalmoritz]

Obviously everyone is allowed to have their own interpretations but for me personally I will never get how ppl see Gojo as an older brother/uncle figure to Megumi. They are me and my dad if we were in an anime

[captain-hen]

BUCK & EDDIE IN EVERY EPISODE ↳ 6.13: mixed feelings (1/3)

[Image Description: 10 gifs of Evan Buckley, Eddie Diaz and Christopher Diaz from 9-1-1 season 6, episode 13. The scene is taking place at daytime at the dining table in Buck's loft. Gif 1: Two gifs on a large canvas. First, a shot of Buck coming to sit down with a bowl of popcorn in his hand, squinting as he answers Chris' question about what's the square root of 162, "Well, it's not a perfect square. So that would be 12.727, I think." The shot shifts to Eddie, who looks over at Chris sitting next to him as he checks it on the calculator. Second, Chris says excitedly, "That's right. This is awesome, Dad. Buck knows everything." Eddie pouts slightly, scrunching up his face as he replies, "Yeah, yeah." Gif 2: Two gifs on a large canvas. First, a wide shot of the three of them together as Buck sits down, saying, "Not everything. I—I think it's just the math stuff. Second, Buck, takes a sip of his beer as he says, "Today, on the way to work, I was able to calculate exactly how many gallons of gas I needed to get myself to the firehouse." As he speaks, the shot cuts to Eddie and Chris. Gif 3: 4 smaller gifs on a large canvas. First, while focused on his phone, Eddie asks Buck absently, "Why not just fill it up?" Off screen, Buck replies, "Because figuring it out was more fun." Second, Buck reaches out to garb some popcorn, smiling as he says, "Turns out, I love math." Third, Eddie reads from his phone, "Well, according to this, people can get new cognitive abilites—" Fourth, it cuts to Buck and then back to Eddie as he continues to read, "—After a serious injury to the central nervous system." Gif 4: Two gifs on a large canvas. First, Buck nods seriously, saying, "Ooh, which I—I definitely had. The shot shifts to Eddie, raising his eyebrows at his phone as he says, "Mm. But some doctors are saying it's not a real thing." Second, Buck looks indignant as he says, "Uh, you—you think I've secretly known the square root of 162 all these years and just been holding out?" The shot cuts to Eddie, looking up at him as he speaks. Gif 5: Two gifs on a large canvas. First, earnestly, Buck says, "No, come on. It—It has to be lightning. The shot shifts to Eddie who points at him and says, "Fair point." Second, as Eddie speaks, off screen, saying, "This guy literally got the power of electricity after being struck. Said the lights would turn on and off every time he walked into a room." Buck flexes his hands and squints down at them as if trying to exert a superpower. Gif 6: A shot of Buck looking at Eddie, grinning, as he says, "I wish I got something like that. You know, ESP, or...maybe the ability to see into the future or read people's minds." The shot cuts to Eddie, skeptical as Buck speaks, and then back to Buck again. Gif 7: 4 smaller gifs on a large canvas. First, Buck raises his eyebrows as Eddie says, "Those sound like terrible powers to have." It cuts to Chris, who says, "Maybe this is just the first phase." Second, Chris has just said, "Maybe you'll get more powers the stronger you get." Buck points at Chris enthusiastically, saying, "Yes, like an actual superhero." Third, Eddie tilts his head, saying, "You did get struck by lightning." Fourth, Chris adds, "Classic origin story," And Eddie nods, waving his hand in a told-you-so motion. Gif 8: After Eddie asks Buck what he's gonna do with his new-found superpowers, Buck says, "Ooh," looking intrigued. The shot cuts to Eddie and Chris, Eddie looking amused as Chris says with a mischievous grin, "He could give me the answers to my math homework." Gif 9: Eddie lightly chastises Chris, grabbing a page from his hand, saying, "Uh-uh. Uh-uh-uh-uh. You're never gonna learn if he gives you the answers. In the background of the shot, Buck smiles and laughs fondly at them, ducking his head. Gif 10: Smiling brightly and joyfully at Eddie and Chris, Buck tilts his head, reaching across the table as he says, "I'm the guy with the answers. I kind of like it." /End ID]

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Just One Look

Series Masterlist

Warnings: dark elements but nothing too graphic in this one.

Please leave me some feedback either in a reblog or an ask! Likes are always appreciated as well. You know I love yall and hell yeah, you love Professor Steve.

You sit against the wall, perched in a nest of textbooks, notes, and your laptop. Jensen's small bed has become HQ for your operation; cramming for final exams until your head splits.

You flutter back and forth, jotting down notes, scrolling through articles on the screen, furrowing your brow until your head hurts. You're encased in your fastidious fit as the door opens, barely breaking through the shell of your focus. It isn't until Jensen says your name that you manage to tear yourself away.

"Hey," you smile at him as the smell of caramel fills the room, two tall cups in a cardboard tray in his hand, "what's all this?"

"I told you. Recharge time," he grins, "and a few extra goodies."

He wiggles free one cup and hands it over, then takes one of the paper bags and sets in beside your laptop.

"Ugh, I'm gonna be so fat," you bemoan, not really bothered by the extra sugar.

"Me too," he sits on the edge of the bed, "so, how's it going? Are you an expert yet?"

"Shut up," you stick your tongue out, "you and your photographic memory."

"Hey, the lord blessed me in many ways," he winks before he takes a sip of his coffee.

"Oh my god, you're a dweeb."

"Well, I was talking about you," he smirks, "but also yes, there is a lot of Jensen to go around."

"Right," you roll your eyes and giggle, "stop trying to distract me."

"I'm not distracting you, I'm teasing you. The difference is that while you're sitting there trying to focus on English Lit or whatever dead guy you're reading about, you're fighting not to think about what's in my jeans--"

You grab your copy of Wuthering Heights and throw it at him. He deflects it as he stands, cackling as you feel your cheeks burning. He barely keeps from dribbling coffee down himself as he strikes a pose.

"So shirt on or off."

"Really! I don't have time for this, Jen."

"Ah, come on, we both know you're gonna ace this shit," he flexes his chest, giving it a look as he watches his tee strain, "and I mean... I'm into the whole bookworm thing you got going on right now."

"Stop!" You shout.

"Alright, alright," he relents, showing a palm as he takes another gulp, "I'll wait... I've waited this long."

"I'm sorry, Jake," you sit back and peel away the plastic tab on the lid, "I'm not meaning to... make you wait. It's just I've been so busy and tired and stressed and--"

"I'm not complaining. Waiting makes the heart grow fonder. That's Dickens, right?"

"I think it's a proverb but I don't know," you shrug, "still, it's not that I don't want to... do stuff it's... I'm... nervous."

He looks down and arches a brow, "heh, me too. I know I talk a big game but, yeah."

"Let's just let it happen whenever it does... oh, did I mention, I'm staying on campus for the holiday. Trip home is too expensive."

"Really? That's great."

"Great?" You wonder.

"Yeah, I didn't feel much like seeing my dad, anyway. He just likes to ask me why I didn't get a football scholarship. And the divorce is a bit intense."

"You don't have to stay for me--"

"Nah, really, you're giving me a solid excuse," he pulls up the rolling chair from his desk and sits, "and I mean, I can't think of a better way to enjoy my time off."

"Uh, yeah, awesome," you smile, pushing your shoulders up bashfully, "well, if I even make it through exams."

📖

Your nerves swirl in your stomach. It's not just your usual pre-exam jitters, but the prospect of seeing Steve --Professor Rogers, after your last encounter. You keep your chin tucked down as you join the queue waiting outside the exam room, hugging your purse strap as you sway back and forth.

Rogers appears down the hall, greeting students by name, as he struts down to unlock the room and props the door open. You wait until a few others part from the wall to join the building wave of bodies shuffling inside. As you pass the professor, he sniffs, almost a tut, as if to deride you in particular.

You leave your bag along the front and find a seat along one of the curved rows. The professor waits for the clock to run out as he hands out the examinations, row by row, then starts the usual explanation of the rules, time limit, et cetera. You fidget in your seat, passing down the stack of papers for the next person to take one. You just want this to be done with.

As Professor Rogers calls for you to begin, you put your head down and flip the front page. You're ready. Your confidence in the material isn't undercut by the controversy. You won't let it.

Your hand hurts with the tightness of your endless scrawl. Short answer, then the big essay. The hall is silent and thick with the tension of students sighing and yawning over their finals.

You stop to think about your final argument and lift your head without thinking. You scrunch your brow and nose as you try to untangle the words in your head and your eyes meet Rogers'. You're shaken by the intensity of his stare. He doesn't move, he doesn't look away, his attention bores into you and has you cowering over the paper.

Fuck. He's definitely still upset. Well, so are you. He screwed you out of an income. You just hope you hear back from the tea shop about your resume. It's your last hope outside of commuting to the nearest McDonalds to sling burgers.

You shake it off, or try to. You finish the last portion of the essay but don't get up right away. You don't want to be the first to leave. You also don't want to walk up to Rogers alone.

So you wait, pretending to read over your booklet until you send a shadow rise from down the next row. You watch patiently. The first inspires a second and you get up, sidling down to the aisle to follow the trickle of students. You approach Rogers and hold out your booklet. He stares at it a moment before he takes it and flips to the first page, reading the first question.

He finally looks up as you start to back away, "good luck."

His words hang in the air and you flinch. The stone in his eyes crushes you. There's something in them, a promise, a threat. You back up and turn, fighting to stay calm as you reclaim your bag from against the wall.

At least it's over.

[wesleysniperking]

25 things I remember and tell myself when it's tough to support Usopp in a shonen world.

1. If Usopp had a solo movie, it would make up for his lack of screen time.

2. If When Elbaf is his moment to shine, it can absolutely counter everything haters say he lacks. Usopp is fabulous regardless; he just doesn't see it himself.

3. I'm not sure why other fans get mad when people defend their favorite character. If an Usopp fan sees a comment like "Usopp needs to go die in a hole," it's natural to respond. Insulting someone's favorite character invites a reaction.

4. Usopp is awesome and has nothing to prove.

5. There's a beauty in retrospect. I believe he'll receive better reception by the time I'm using a walker. Yesterday's taboos are today's norms.

6. You can't take away Usopp's sniping abilities. He may be called the weakest, but no one can deny he's the best sniper. Look at his dad.

7. I believe people have forgotten storyteller Usopp, especially when they don't understand why Elbaf is significant.

8. If Usopp doesn't get his moment in Elbaf, fans will be justifiably upset. Franky's Egghead and Zoro's Wano arcs had different build-ups. Who's the outlier here?

9. Saying Usopp doesn't have Observation Haki is the dumbest thing haters say. Even non-canon reminds us that he has it. Some are just mad that he got it.

10. I don't understand how someone can passionately hate Usopp and how he's written without blaming Oda. Criticizing Usopp's writing implies Oda's done some bad writing, which is okay! No one is perfect.

11. Of all the reasons Usopp is hated, the Wano situation where he told Nami to lie is the most frustrating to defend. It genuinely beats out Water 7.

12. Usopp is the most flawed Straw Hat in the fandom's eyes. I compare him to King David a lot, especially since David is considered a warrior king who fought Goliath and was heavily flawed, yet God still loved him. Like King David, who was one of God's favorites because he had a good heart and held no pride, Usopp isn't as prideful, arrogant, or selfish as he seems. He doesn't even lie that much. People wonder why Luffy let Usopp join; it's because Luffy, like God with David, sees a good heart with no pride in Usopp.

13. Whatever happens, flaws and all, Usopp will always be my favorite.

14. I don't understand how fans can talk so badly about Usopp. Yes, people find him grating and irredeemable. But neglecting a humanist approach is scary. If you can't tolerate a character like Usopp and put him down as weak, inferior, and irredeemable, something's wrong.

15. I might project onto Usopp, and he might be my comfort character, but I root for him and accept him for who he is. Recently, I thought I wouldn't pass my finance class at university but managed to get a B with enough grit and tenacity. Usopp faces that all the time!

16. If you're waiting for Usopp to "finally be brave," you might need to find another character. It's like picking a university degree; Usopp isn't for you.

17. Despite everything, Usopp is still awesome. No one will ever overshadow him to me. I'm all in with tunnel vision.

18. Usopp embodies the idea that the greatest are the least, and the least are the greatest.

19. 19. Usopp is only 19. People need to give him grace. At 19, I was still a kid!

20. If Usopp is such a bum, why do people remember him? How does he bring the crew down? Recently, there's nothing to suggest he's hindered the crew's success.

21. Sniper King doesn't need to come back. It annoys me when haters say he needs to return because they hate the current Usopp. It's a weird flex.

22. Yes, Yasopp isn't a good dad, but he's not the worst anime dad. It bothers me when people emphasize this to prove Usopp is a “bum” compared to his crewmates. It's unfair.

23. I believe Oda is saving something big for him. If I'm wrong, it will be devastating, but I'll find a way to defend it. I won't be alone.

24. Syrup Village is a goated arc. Usopp is the reason the crew got a ship.

25. Disregarding all agendas, ships, headcanons, theories, and projections, Usopp is still a character worth respecting and rooting for. This will be MORE evident 20+ years from now. Just wait.

usopp community I created. feel free to join. (still wip, but you can post anything!).

Gif credit

[bboisawesome]

Probably lmk season 4 spoilers. I type things and rant without thinking so, just a fair warning.

We good?

Okay….

First things first…

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

WHAT!?!?

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN!!! HOW DO I BEGIN!?!?

I just wanna say, I might have missed certain contexts because I watched English sub on YouTube, and I was freaking out the whole time. So if there is something I miss or misunderstand that might be why.

I guess some simple thoughts is where I’ll start?

Official monkey MK design!! How are y’all feeling about that one!?!? My boi was glitching and I felt real bad for him!

I couldn’t really tell if they were trying to say he was also born from a stone, or if Monkey King somehow made him? Or…what? Or if it was purposely vague just so they could do the whole, “It doesn’t really matter who you are, you are who you choose to be thing.” I was slightly confused and freaking out.

Either way, I was screaming the whole time. I died when MK called Pigsy his dad, because yes! He is. And my boi Pigsy really had the gall to say he was more of a godfather!?!?!? MK says you’re a dad? You’re a dad!

Which also, MK kind of went ahead with calling Azure Lion Uncle, soooo…confirmed Wukong dad as well?

MK getting all the dad’s and uncles. Kind of jealous. Even if some of them are causing issues. Especially Azure. Not cool dude.

They really heightened the MK angst this season and AAAH!! I can’t handle it!

Seeing the crew with the old crews weapons and stuff was super cool too! I like how during the training scene they had qualities that their past lives or ancestors or whatever hadn’t learned or learned as quickly. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t also learn from the past. Mei is awesome, but I agree girl has to plan ahead more and stuff. I love her to death though.

Pigsy’s was nice to see. (Also soup bending from my man Pigsy.) He may be a bit tough on the outside, but he really does care for his friends and family, and I love that! Now he just needs to get super strong to help them out!

Calling Tang out was funny. My poor useless scholar shall be useless no more! Flex those brain and courage muscles boi! It was so cool to see more of Tang’s abilities!

And Sandy was perfect all along. I always knew it. 😌 I love how the dude kept sticking silver stars on him. 😂😂 His only flaw? Maybe being a little TOO nice. But, even Sandy knew that and can probably adjust accordingly. He had that character growth in season 2. 😂

Usually I like torturing characters I like, but seeing MK suffering and sad made me sad, and I just wanted someone to hug him. Which he got when reunited and getting his friends out of heaven! So I’ll take it! My boi was still glitching though. Someone gotta do something about that.

There was just so much, I can’t even think of it all or what I want to say or do, besides screaming. Plus I was a little confused in places because I am dumb and it is late. I am definitely gonna rewatch a couple times, and absolutely rewatch when the dub comes out! So maybe my thoughts will be in better order by then? Hopefully I’ll process it more by the time the special or finale comes out? Whichever it may be?

Until then, sorry for my insane ramblings. I just needed to process and yell some more.

I don’t even know how I’m gonna sleep or go to work tomorrow like a normal person! Especially after that cliffhanger!!! AAAAH!!

Definitely gonna look for something to draw too! I need to draw something! Okay, okay…I’m chill. I’m cool. See y’all later, and I hope you can process this new season well.

[cartoonfanaticmonsterrobotalien]

Solar Opposites in Mighty Solars Issue #50: “Monster Mayhem Pt. 3” Ch. 3

A few seconds later, the heroes made it. But then

Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: Wait.

Mighty Solars: Yes?

Mighton turns to Quasarblast who is looking like he’s ready to transform into his Super Shlorpian form.

Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: I feel like a… his skin starts to turn to black and he starts to grow bigger and muscular Oooh so fucking horny right now!

Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: Oh yyyyeees! skin starts to turn black as he starts growing bigger and muscular I agree my love!

Horns then appears on Korvo’s head as his super suit rips by the muscle grow and his eyes starts glowing aquamarine. Then, his teeth became monstrous and he develops wings as he moans in pleasure.

Cherie/Shining Light: How are they turned on by this?

Janiz steps in to explain.

Janiz: Let’s just say, it runs in each of their families.

The husbands finish transforming and roar. They then breathe heavily.

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: Ooooh yyyyeees! I feel stronger! flexes right his muscular arm

Mundane Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: Feels great, right?

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: seductively towards Mundane Mighton Yes you darling handsome beast.

Mundane Mighton gets flustered.

Mundane Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: seductively Oh ho, you beautiful dirty slut. You got me turned on right now.

The two husbands make out as they moan passionately.

Yumyulack Solar-Opposites/Vil-Gil-An-T, Jesse/Fung-irl and Sonya/Nighthowler: feeling embarrassed Oh God.

Pupa Solar-Opposites/The Mighty Pupa: Eeew.

Miss Frankie/Night Saw: Uh… guys?

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: Yeah?

Miss Frankie/Night Saw: THE WITCHES ARE HERE! LOOK OUT!

Luckily, Super Shlorpian Quasarblast sees them and shoots surprisingly ice breath at KaIju Earth Elemental Colleen and KaIju Wind Elemental Min-Gi as it throws them off track. The Mighty Solars gasp.

Mighty Solars: astonished and amazed Whoa.

Jamie/Firewall: That. Was. FUCKING AWESOME!

Dr. Weatherstone/The Blizzard: Wow! That is cool! Your Super Shlorpian form has an ice breath like me!

Super Shlorpian Quasarblast blushes, then grows surprised by this technique.

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: Holy shit! I have no idea I could do that!

Mundane Mighton laughs.

Super Shlorpian Janiz: It’s true. We do.

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: Still Janiz, how did you figure out we were Super Shlorpians?

Janiz sighs sadly.

Super Shlorpian Janiz: After we escape into space, I ended having a panic attack and then I transformed suddenly. I later found mom’s note and she was gonna tell us when we are old enough, but she passed away along with dad when we were still Replicants before they could.

Super Shlorpian Quasarblast gasped.

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: gasp sadly Whoa… that was a long time ago. We were still kids.

Super Shlorpian Janiz starts crying.

Super Shlorpian Janiz: tearfully I am so sorry Korvo. I should’ve stayed with you. I should’ve told you about-

Super Shlorpian Quasarblast however smiles and hugs his sister.

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: It’s okay Janiz. You don’t need to apologize. I already am okay, because I was my husband and kids throughout my life.

Super Shlorpian Janiz smiles.

Super Shlorpian Janiz: I’m so happy you did. Oh and Terry… hugs Mundane Mighton Thank you for taking care of my brother.

Mundane Mighton smiles tearfully.

Mundane Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: You’re welcome Janiz! Now let’s go save those girls!

Mighty Solars: Yeah!

A few seconds later… the 5 KaIju Witches kept on rampaging until, they felt hit, which belongs to Magma.

Louise/Magma: You want us so badly?

The 5 KaIju witches combined each other as they look down at Magma menacingly.

Louise/Magma: Come and get us!

The 5 KaIju Witches roar and flies towards Magma, only for to fly out the way after creating green a lava flow and then have hers powers combined with Fizziepop’s, Firewall and Core Burn’s powers as it throws the witches off the track.

Sherbet/Fizziepop: Nice job guys! A perfect 10!

Jamie/Firewall: That was fucking awesome!

Alice/Black Moon: Way to go guys! You’re doing great!

Then, Slimar uses a wave to wash the witches out. Shine Light uses her stealth to lure them and jumps up. The witches then got shock after Detroit uses his electrify combine with Mundane Mighton’s new lava powers from his Mundane form as the girls groan and flies up. Suddenly, the other Mighty Solars gasp upon seeing Luke in the way.

Mia/Navigator: Luke! What are you doing?! It’ll kill you!

Luke: I’M NOT LOSING WILL AGAIN!

Luke then uses his flames at the 5 KaIju Teen Witches, but Vil-Gil-An-T uses his laser eyes and manage to get Luke out of the way as he falls while screaming and becomes unconscious.

Yumyulack Solar-Opposites/Vil-Gil-An-T: I’m sorry Luke. I didn’t have a choice. It’s too risky right now!

Then, he nods at Venus Tip, Black Mamba and Black Moon for the signal.

Naomi/Black Mamba: Let’s go Black Moon and Venus Tip!

Black Moon and Black Mamba then concubine their web powers and created a shocking web while Venus Tip blast it and creates a powerful force as the three Mighty Solar women flies out of the way. But then as the girls heads towards the web, Marissa steps in front of it and the girls head inside her soul! A blast appears as it causes the girls to fly out back to normal but with ruined clothes as they fall unconscious. Suddenly, Marissa’s skin has become like a silver metal as she gasp and falls to the ground on her knees.

Luke: Marissa!

Marissa: groaning Get Will and her friends out of here Luke! I’m not sure! How long I can contain it!

Mighty Solars: WHAT?!

Luke: What are you gonna do?!

Marissa: I’m gonna try to release it!

Luke then tries to go up to Marissa but Detroit and Trailblazer stops him.

Montez/Detroit: Luke! Don’t this! She’s gonna be fine!

Principal Cooke/Trailblazer: She knows what she’s doing.

Luke: What?! But-

Principal Cooke/Trailblazer: She’ll be fine! Let’s go!

Suddenly, Marissa’s body starts to shatter as she gasp.

Mighty Solars: gasp in shock

Luke: MARISSA!

Marissa: God, forgive me.

The shatter parts on Marissa’s body starts to glow brighter as she began to say her final words.

Marissa: Luke… forgive me.

Marissa’s body then shatters into diamonds as it makes a huge explosion while the monstrous spirits fade away. Shattered diamond parts fall on the floor as the Mighty Solars look on in shock. Then, Black Mirror came and screams in anger.

Sister Sisto/Black Mirror: YOU HEROIC BASTARD RUINED MY PLANS!

Super Shlorpian Quasarblast and Mundane Mighton then lands and looks at Black Mirror heroically.

Sister Sisto/Black Mirror: looks at Super Shlorpian Quasarblast And you! How did you get back to normal you fucking smartass bitch?!

Super Shlorpian Quasarblast smirks.

Super Shlorpian Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: It was because this form runs in the family. And it was because my sister saved my life.

Super Shlorpian Janiz flies down and lands on her feet while smirking.

Super Shlorpian Janiz: That’s right! So back off, bitch!

Sister Sisto/Black Mirror: Grrrr! This isn’t over Mighty Solars! I’ll back for vengeance! turns into her spirit form and flies off

Super Shlorpian Quasarblast transforms back and groans.

Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblast: takes a deep breath Thank God that’s over. Thanks for coming Janiz.

Super Shlorpian Janiz: Anytime.

Then, Mighton turns back and embraces his hubby in a kiss with tears of joy in their eyes

Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: Korvy…

Korvo Solar-Opposites/Quasarblasr: Oh Terry. Thank you for not giving on me.

Mighton smiles.

Terry Solar-Opposites/Mighton: Anytime boo.

The husbands kiss like Ember and Wade do in Elemental

Yumyulack/Vil-Gil-An-T: runs up with his sisters and brother to hug their dads Korvo! Terry!

Jesse Solar-Opposites/Fung-irl: You guys are okay!

Quasarblast tearfully hugs his kids. The family then gets into a group hug as they smile in tears of joy.

[tranquilspot]

Examine Room.

[This is a rewriting of a post that has been sadly deleted, as such this version will be different and modified since I only recall the broad outlines]

This ‘young man’ is now officially John, and the tags will reflect the name change from now on. Both for convenience and non-spoil policy in case new readers happen to come across this blog.

Aaah~ The all-caps words, it’s been pinned down as a Homestuck thing. I saw a post once from someone who innocently wrote in this format. The Homestucks were on the lookout on that one x) Don’t you love it? For me it’s such a treat for my dyslexic eyes. Why can’t all writers write more like this, it’s not rocket science! Bold, italic, space between paragraphs, colors and quotes to draw the attention to the important parts. So please, no more HUGE BLOCKS OF TEXT. It’s ugly, it’s annoying, you spend 5 minutes on a paragraph cause you were reading in diagonal then went back as you didn’t (mis)understand the whole thing and read several times the same sentence/word until you finally get something. And now your head hurts/you’re irritated. Anyway, back to Homestuck proper.

Who the fuck has cakes in their room, hell SEVERAL CAKES with cream and all dripping on the furniture?! Yes I get it, I too like to bring snacks to eat in front of the computer but dude It’ll attract ants! DAD might be a better guardian than the others, but you can’t deny that behavior and parental choice wise there’s something off about him. Don’t get me started on having a HAMMER AND NAILS just sitting on the floor waiting for an unfortunate fool (tool hehe) to step on it. Well, we’ll get back to safety hazard a bit later.

You like to program computers but you are NOT VERY GOOD AT IT.

One thing that I find interesting and just noticed is that John not being good at programming isn’t really important nor relevant, what is on the other hand is that it introduces two significant elements to the story: data structures, and ~ATH (until death). The former focusing on FETCH MODI and CAPTCHALOGUE CARDS, while the latter on VIRUSES (mobius double reacharound starting in act 5). I highly doubt that it was a foresight on Hussie’s side, taking into account the ~ATH is a Problem Sleuth reference (the symbol on the cover is the face of DEATH) and him incorporating those elements in his, at the time, brand new webcomic was a flex on their computer knowledge and skills. Still I think it’s nice to point it out, as it doubles (triples?) as a soft introduction to concepts that will follow the readers far into the adventure and even pop back in as a Chekhov's gun.

You have a fondness for PARANORMAL LORE

This sentence is awesome and irks me, because paranormal shit is so cool but sadly people tend to overlook it and focus on the shitty movies and magician parts.

Which is so lame! John even gave a speech about ghosts and science in Act 6 Intermission 2 that was interesting and I will definitely talk about it when we get to this conversation.

Though maybe I shouldn’t talk about stuff before they’re actually brought up by the narration? Whatever I’m my own boss, I can still develop before or when it happens. You guys tell me in the notes what you think about it.

You also like to play GAMES sometimes.

Funny how among the group of 4 friends, only John and TT have ‘play games’ mentioned in their introduction. TG plays on Xbox alone or with his Bro, GG as far as I know doesn’t own any game until SBURB came around the corner.

Perhaps it’s because the author already established that those two planned to play together. Or maybe it is pointed out by the narration because it is a relevant piece of information for establishing the plot. Or even maybe it's part of Hussie “I’ve put writing rules then soon after will discard them” hijinks. Or all of the above.

John however does own games in his disk rack, and later in the adventure plays at one of them with two of his friends. But I’ll wait and develop my thoughts on the matter when we get there (for the disk rack, very soon). —>

[sanguineterrain]

Sweeter Than This

Summary: you and Steve take the gang apple picking.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Word count: 3.5k

Warnings: heavy dose of pining, kissing, the kids being little shits (affectionate), Steve being a dork!!! <3

Notes: first time writing for Steve Harrington! hope you guys enjoy this one. A reminder that Steve and the Reader are over 18 and that I imagine this taking place after S3.

divider by the wonderful s-tarksintern <3

The radio on your desk crackled briefly before a tinny voice rang through. 

"Hello? Y/N?"

You pulled down your sweater, jumping up from the bed to answer. "Steve? Since when do you have a walkie?"

"Oh, I, uh, don't. This is Dustin's… we're, um, almost there. Nancy and Robin couldn't make it, so—"

Another voice interrupted. "Hi, Y/N!"

You smiled. "Hey, Dustin. Excited to go apple picking?"

"We all are!" he confirmed. "And my mom—keep your pants on, dude, you can talk to your girlfriend in a minute." 

"She's not my girlfriend!" was Steve's instant reply, and you felt heat bloom up the back of your neck. 

"Anyways," continued Dustin. "My mom said I could get a bag of their cider donuts. Isn't that awesome?"

"That's so awesome," you replied, genuinely excited. "I can't wait."

"Okay, come down! We're here."

You pushed the antenna down and grabbed your purse, flying down the stairs. You paused by the door, giving yourself a final onceover in the mirror before heading out. Steve was outside, leaned on the passenger side door of what looked to be the Wheelers' station wagon. He straightened as soon as you walked down the path. Dustin was next to him, waving. 

"You can sit up front, Y/N," Dustin informed you cheerily. 

"But won't you have to sit in the hatch?" 

"It's cool," he shrugged, cheeks puffed into a grin. "You guys should sit up front together."

"O…kay. Thanks." You turned to Steve, crisp fall air sliding through your lungs. "Hi, Steve. Rockin' the Wagon, huh?"

"Unfortunately," he grimaced. "Nancy and Robin bailed, so Nance let me borrow her car to fit everybody."

"Bailed?" you wondered. “That doesn’t sound like them.”

He shook his head. "They both simultaneously came down with the flu, somehow. I think they're full of shit, personally, because Nance is religious when it comes to getting her vitamin C. She has, like, three oranges a day as soon as the temperature drops below sixty."

"Come on, all the good apples will be gone at this rate!" came from inside the car.

Steve rolled his eyes. You laughed, nudging his shoulder. 

"Onwards, Harrington. The children have spoken."

"The children are brats."

But he got into the car. You did the same, turning your head to check that everyone was here. Max, Lucas, and Mike were in the backseat, while Dustin and Will had quietly accepted their fates in the hatchback. 

"Seatbelts!" said Steve, and there were a few clicks. 

"You too, Y/N," he added, lips quirked, and you pulled your belt across, smiling sheepishly. 

"Sorry. I ought to be a better role model, huh? Anybody want snacks? I have pretzels, kettle corn, graham crackers…"

"I'll take some pretzels."

"Kettle corn for the win!"

You passed out the snacks, taking care not to drop any when the car pulled away from the curb. 

"Don't make a mess, we don't want to dirty up the Wheelers' car," you reminded. 

"Hey!" Steve said, glaring at the rear view mirror. "I can literally see you guys throwing pretzels at each other. Cut it out."

"Yes, mom, yes, dad," mumbled Lucas, making all of them giggle. 

Steve rolled his eyes. You cleared your throat. 

"Steve, would you like a snack?" 

He grinned, eyes bright and dark like mahogany. 

"Sure, why not. What are my options here?"

"We've got Goldfish, trail mix, and grapes," you said, presenting the Ziplocs with a flourish. 

"Oh, Goldfish, no doubt. Here." He took one hand off the steering wheel, tendons flexing as his left hand curved around the leather. His right hand reached towards you, and you opened the baggie, cupping it so it was easier for Steve to take the crackers. He glanced at you, swallowing. 

"Thank you, Y/N. Guys, everybody say thank you."

"Thanks, Y/N!" chirped five adolescents. 

"Anytime. Steve, you've got crumbs."

"Oh." He swiped at his mouth. "Good?"

"Not quite. Here—" you pulled up the sleeve of your sweater, gently brushing the corner of Steve's mouth. 

He swallowed, the corner of his mouth tipping up. "Thanks."

You smiled, popping a grape into your mouth. 

"Sure. So, Dustin," you started. "How big is the farm?" 

"Four hundred acres. It's been around for almost two hundred years!"

"I hope they have apple taffy," said Mike.

"And pumpkins," added Lucas.

"Pumpkins aren't till next month, dude," Max corrected.

"They could have them!"

As the pumpkin debate continued, you glanced at Steve. 

"Hey. Is that a new coat?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. Bloomingdale's. Half off, actually."

"Wow," you said. "What a steal."

"I know, right? The inside is super soft. Here, feel."

You hesitated, eyes darting from the jacket to Steve. He was focused on the road, unaware of your hesitation. 

"Okay," you murmured, touching the inside of the collar. 

It was soft, thick like sheep's wool. You felt the heat from Steve's skin, see the summer freckles still prominent on his neck. The coat was big on him, making him look cozy. You forced your gaze away.

"It's nice," you said hoarsely, retracting. "Looks good on you, Harrington."

His answering grin was sunshine. Butterflies fluttered in your belly.

"Are we almost there?" asked Will. 

"We've been driving for ten minutes," replied Steve. "Take a nap or something."

Will's face scrunched. "I'm too old for naps."

"After the year we've had? I don't think so."

To Steve's credit, Will and Lucas both ended up falling asleep in the hour drive it took to get to Berkshire Farms. Max quietly listened to her cassettes and Dustin and Mike occupied themselves with some game you were certain you wouldn't understand. 

"Hey, Y/N?" Steve's voice was hushed. 

"Hmm?"

"I was wondering, if, um… well, I know you're starting classes soon, but I was wondering if maybe you wanted to, uh, do something."

"Do something?" you asked. 

"Yeah. I mean, you'll be at school, but—"

"I'm only a half hour away," you reminded. 

"No, yeah, right. And that's awesome, obviously. I'm… I'm glad you're so close. So, I thought we could, you know, do something together."

"See a movie?" 

"Yeah, yeah. Like that. But…"

You turned your body all the way, facing him. Gravel crunched underneath the tires as you pulled into the parking lot of the farm. Steve's fingers drummed on the steering wheel. He didn't look at you. 

"But what, Steve?" you prompted. 

"We're here! Open, open, open!"

You blinked. Dustin jiggled the handles. Steve sighed, telling him to cut it out before unlocking the doors. You followed them out before they all scattered, corralling the group towards the booth to get bags for apple-picking. 

"Everybody take a bag," you directed. "No pushing! Guys, come on. Okay, where do we want to go first? How about the golden delicious?"

"My mom wants me to get pink gala," said Mike. "I'll meet you after."

The others echoed similar sentiments.

"Wait—guys, I thought we were going to pick apples together. You're going to leave me by myself?" you frowned. 

They exchanged looks before Lucas spoke up. "You won't be alone, Y/N. You'll be with Steve."

"Yeah, Steve's cool," said Dustin. “Don’t you think he’s cool?”

“Well, yeah, of course I like Steve, but—”

"He'll carry your apples for you!" he added and nudged Max, who nodded emphatically. 

"Yeah," she agreed. "Uh, Steve's great. You guys would be great… picking apples together."

They stared at you with wide eyes, a few shifting their weight. You relaxed into a smile, finally understanding. 

"Okay, okay. You guys want to spend time together before school starts, huh? I get it, we're old and we cramp your style."

"No—" started Will, but was effectively cut off with an elbow from Mike. "Ow, what the hell!"

"That's exactly it, Y/N," said Dustin. "Yeah, whew, we didn't wanna say anything, but we need to go over some plans for high school, you know? I mean, we're gonna be freshmen. It's a big deal."

"What's a big deal?" Steve asked, two apple bags tucked under his arm. 

"Nothing. High school stuff. Anyway, we're gonna go pick our own apples. We have walkies," Dustin said, shaking his own radio. "Here, take this one."

He tossed Mike's walkie to Steve, who caught it with one hand. "Whoa, you're ditching us? Come on, guys, Y/N really wanted this to be a thing we did together."

"Steve, it's okay," you soothed, patting his arm. "They want to hang out. We're old and they have important teen matters to address."

"I'm not old!" Steve insisted. His eyes narrowed at Dustin, who was the picture of innocence. "What are you planning?"

"We're not planning anything, Steve. Is it so wrong if we split up for a bit and meet back for lunch?"

They were all beginning to back away. You shook your head fondly. 

"Go ahead. Keep your walkies on, though. Will, watch out for bees!" 

"'Kay! See ya! Have fun."

They scattered into the orchard, disappearing among the rows of apples. You turned to Steve, who had his arms crossed. 

"Those little assholes," he muttered. "You're way too soft on them."

"Aw, they're kids. Besides, I knew they'd want to do their own thing at some point. They should have fun, you know?"

You bumped Steve’s shoulder, not wanting him to be truly upset with them. He sighed, melting. 

"Yeah, okay. Guess they deserve it." He took the bags from under his arm. "So where do you wanna start? Golden delicious, right? For the pies?"

You blinked. You'd mentioned making pies for Mrs. Sinclair's bake sale weeks ago. 

"You remembered."

"Well, yeah. Your pies are, like, the best thing there." 

"Oh, so you only remembered to get free pie, huh?"

Steve's grin was boyish. "Maybe I'm just really dedicated to the Hawkins bake sale."

"Wow, well, good to know where your loyalties lie, Steve," you sighed dramatically. "But if you can be bought with free pie, I guess I'll make the most of it."

You stepped forward and picked a few apples, dropping them ceremoniously into the bag. Steve gently coaxed it out of your grip, dutifully holding it open as you snaked down the aisles.

"Hey, so… that thing I mentioned," he began as you prowled for good apples. "In the car. About us going somewhere?"

"Oh, right! What were you thinking? My school will probably have sports rallies and stuff. We could go to one of those together? Maybe with the others?"

"We could," Steve said weakly. He scratched the back of his neck. "But I was thinking, actually…"

"Steve—I'm sorry, keep talking—but can you get that apple up there for me? On the top branch." 

"Sure, sure." Steve reached up, his arm longer than yours, and he plucked the apple from the tree, dropping it into the bag. You nodded, satisfied. 

"Good. I think we've got enough. Let's go to the granny smiths next."

You headed down the path, watching for the little signs tied to stakes in front of the trees. 

"So, Y/N? What I was saying before."

"Oh my God, yeah, go ahead. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off," you said. "So what did you mean?" 

"Like, uh… shit." Steve chuckled slightly, cheeks red. "Damn, I used to be good at this."

"Good at what?" 

“I, um…” 

You were closer now, having entered Steve’s space to pick a pair of bright green apples. He opened the bag for you, never looking away. 

“Hey, lovebirds! You there?”

The crackle of the walkie startled you apart. Steve fumbled to dig it out, pressing the button.

“What is it, Dustin?” he answered impatiently.

“Okay, okay, sheesh. We were wondering if you and Y/N are done, ‘cause we’re hungry.”

“I could eat,” you said. “Steve?”

“Sure,” he sighed. “We’ll meet you guys at the car.”

It wasn’t far to the parking lot. Steve carried your apples for you, despite your insistence you could carry a bag. You went to pay for your bags while he went to the car so the kids could get their lunches. You bought a pint of cider to share, smiling when Lucas lit up at the sight.

“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist. “Their cider is awesome.”

You unpacked your lunch—chicken salad—and dug in. Soon, everyone was eating… except Steve. Of course, you noticed immediately. 

“Where’s your food, Steve?” you asked.

“Oh, uh, I didn’t bring any. I’m good, you know, I’ll eat tonight.”

Your mouth drew into a pout. “Steve, you should eat.”

“Y/N, it’s okay, really.”

“Dude, you activated her mother hen mode,” Max sighed. 

You pulled out a second chicken salad sandwich, sliding it to him. “Here. Take it.”

“No, Y/N, I don’t wanna take your food—”

“You’re not,” you shrugged. “I packed extra just in case. Eat, Stevie, please.”

Steve relented, unwrapping the foil. You beamed, satisfied, and returned to your own food.

“After this, we should look at pumpkins,” announced Lucas.

“It’s not even October. They don’t have freaking pumpkins, man,” Mike sighed.

“Here we go again,” groaned Max.

“There are other fruits,” you offered, but they weren’t listening.

They started roughhousing then, and you reached to pull the food away from the edge. 

“Guys, stop,” Steve said. “You’re too close to the table, it’s gonna—”

Someone bumped into the corner. The cider toppled.

“—spill.”

You hissed at the cold, standing. Eighty percent of the cider ended up on your sweater. The other twenty pooled on the ground in a sugary puddle.  

“Shit, I’m sorry!” rushed out Mike. 

“Sorry, Y/N,” Lucas winced. 

“It’s okay,” you sighed, quickly wiggling out of your sweater before the liquid soaked through. “It’ll wash out.”

You grabbed a wad of napkins, patting your sweater. The cider had already begun to set, and you soon gave up, carefully rolling it into a ball. A particularly chilly breeze cut through and you shivered. That’s when you felt something soft being draped over your shoulders. 

“Hold on, I think I have a scarf too,” Steve said, standing before you could protest. 

You snuggled into his coat, pulling it around your arms. The kids stared at you, all with secretive smiles.

“What?” you asked.

“Nothing,” Dustin said in a voice that made it clear it was something. 

Steve returned shortly with a knitted heather gray scarf. 

“Won’t you be cold?” you asked.

“I’m okay. Still got my sweater,” he said, gesturing to his yellow pullover. 

“Alright, but if you feel cold…”

“I won’t,” Steve laughed. “Promise.” 

Your last stop, minus the pumpkins (which were not yet in season, much to Lucas’ dismay), was the gift shop. Will and Max made a beeline for the apple cider donuts. The others were fascinated by the apple-themed trinkets. You particularly were taken by the hand-knitted tea cozies. 

“What do you think?” came Steve’s voice from beside you. He held up an enamel pin that said apple-y ever after. “Is this a babe magnet or what?”

You snorted. “Without a doubt. Girls love apple puns.”

“Yeah?” he grinned.

“Mmhm. I do, at least.”

You felt Steve’s eyes on you as you continued looking through the cozies. You held up another with a turkey on it.

“Hey, this reminds me,” you started. "My mom said you could come over for Thanksgiving. If you want. I don't know if you have plans, or…"

"I don't," Steve said. "My folks aren't, uh, much for family dinners.”

"Well, you're always welcome to ours. And I thought maybe it could be fun! I asked Robin and she said she might make it too, so…”

Steve smiled, nodding. "I’d like that. Jesus, wow."

"What?"

"Times like these, I'm, um—I’m really glad I pulled my head out of my ass.” Steve shyly ran a hand through his hair. “God, you probably couldn't stand me back then. I'm happy we met, despite the circumstances. You're the best thing in my life, Y/N."

"Oh," you said, overwhelmed. "Steve, I—well, that's not true. You had Nancy. Have Nancy." Their history was one you were well acquainted with.

Steve shook his head. "No. 'S not the same. She's great, don't get me wrong, but you're… it's like apples and oranges."

“Hmm?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, voice a whisper. “And I, uh… I really like apples.”

Your eyes darted to his lips. Steve watched them do so.

“Y/N! Can I get this? Suzie wants to try this science thing from camp.”

Dustin held up a lighter with tiny apples on it. 

“Um, no, you may not,” you scoffed. “Your mom would kill us if you brought that home.”

“She won’t see it! I swear, I’ll be super cautious.”

“No,” you and Steve answered at the same time.

Dustin pouted, disappearing to put it away.

“These kids,” Steve mumbled, hands on his hips. 

You hid a smile behind the tea cozy, scooting closer to him. 

“Hey. You cold?” he asked.

“Kinda. There’s a draft,” you lied. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, putting an arm around your shoulders. “It’s okay.”

The car ride home was quieter, apple-picking having effectively worn everybody out. Huey Lewis sang about the power of love, only slightly muted from how old the car’s radio was. Steve had fastened the apple-y ever after pin to the collar of his sweater. You smiled every time your gaze fell on it. 

You dropped Max off first, then Lucas, then Mike and Will, who were having a sleepover. Dustin was the last, living the closest to your house. He gave a little wave and a thumbs-up before racing up the steps. Eventually, you were in front of your house. Steve parked and got out for you, carrying your bags of apples to your doorstep.

“Thank you,” you grinned. “Again. You’ve been a huge help today, Steve.”

“Oh, well, y’know, gotta have somebody to tag-team those rascals.”

“You were great. You’re always great,” you added, heart thumping. 

Steve’s expression was soft, eyes warm. “I had a lot of fun, Y/N.”

“Me too! I love hanging out with you.”

You stared at each other for a long moment before you turned abruptly, fidgeting with your house keys.

“Um, okay, well, I’m gonna head in. Oh! Crap, your coat. And your scarf. Uh—”

You dropped your keys and winced. Steve slowly retrieved them as you shrugged off his jacket and unraveled the scarf. As soon as he straightened, you tossed them over his head like he was an unsightly lamp. 

“Shit! Sorry.” Pull it together, Y/N.

Steve’s shoulders were shaking as he bit his cheek to restrain his laughter. That got you giggling, and soon you were both breathless, snorting and wheezing. He pulled the coat off his head, tucking it under his arm. You couldn’t help another giggle at the flyaway hairs from the static.

“Here, lemme just—” you gently flattened Steve’s hair, hand lingering down his arm and finally falling back to your side. 

His smile was fond. “Thanks.”

“Sure thing. Wouldn’t want you coming across any groovy chicks with hair out of place.”

“Groovy?” he teased. 

“What! People say groovy,” you defended.

“Nobody under forty.”

“That does it,” you decided. “No free pie for you, Steve Harrington.”

“Aw, come on! Alright, how ‘bout this: we can bring groovy back. You’ll make it popular again.”

“Hm. Okay, fair enough. I’ll save you a pie.”

“Groovy,” he grinned, handing you your keys.

You snorted, turning and picking up your bags, struggling only for a moment before you got the door open. Steve kept a hand on the door so you could get inside and put the bags down. 

“Okay. Good. Good stuff. So, uh…” 

“Y/N?”

You turned back around. “Yeah—yes, Steve?”

Steve was close, closer than he’d been all day. Your heartbeat picked up as he leaned in, hand coming up to cup your face. You both paused, waiting.

“Can I–?”

You nodded, eyes already fluttering shut. Steve tasted like sugar and cider. Your hands curled into his hair, nose pressing into his cheek. His lips were soft, a little cold from the weather. You could feel his body heat through his sweater and you tugged him in. 

The door hitting your butt made you flinch. Steve pulled back, concerned.

“Door,” you chuckled breathlessly, hands resting on the nape of his neck.

“Oh,” he said, thumb brushing your cheek. 

“So…”

“So,” Steve echoed. “Was that, uh, okay?”

“More than okay. Really, really great, actually.”

“I can’t take all the credit,” he shrugged. “I am wearing the pin.”

“Oh, I see,” you grinned. “Well, what do you and your pin say to coming over Saturday and helping me make pies?”

“We would enjoy that very much, but I should warn you I’m incredibly accident-prone in the kitchen.”

“That’s alright,” you said slyly.

His lips were pink and slightly swollen. You felt excitement curl in your belly at the prospect of getting to kiss Steve Harrington again and again. You drew him in, lips resting on his.

“You can be the taste-tester.”

[xattexx]

Cannot let you go out without others knowing it

pairing: Jimin x reader

genre: fluff

note: quick drabble

„Jimin I am going out.“ You answered Jimin’s question when he asked you were you are going.

You have planned last week that you will go out with girl, enjoy your free time and have some fun since all you have been doing is working. You were so excited about this night. Finally, just girls nights out. No boyfriends.

Well apparently, your boyfriend forgot about it. When you remind him he looked shocked. Like you didn’t told him two days ago. You both were now looking at each other.

“Wait, what? Why? I want to go with you. You look too good to be out without your protector.” He flexes his muscles. You smiled at Jimin because he was looking so sweet. You would take him with you, but you promised it will be just you girl. That you will take care of each other.

“Baby, I am going out JUST with girls. I promise we will come home around 2 am. Maybe sooner who knows.” You told him but clearly it wasn’t enough since he didn’t change his expression. He just hugged you and told you that you are not going without him. Like a little clingy puppy. He asked you if you really want to go and if you would not rather be home. That he would massage your back and feet, have a nice glass of wine, face masks, play some games… It all sounds awesome, but you already promised yourself and you know your friends would kill you if you decided not to go.

You tried your best to explain him. He really wanted to have you today all to himself. “Jimin, enjoy your time without me. Play some games with Jungkook and Taehyung. Watch that film you wanted to see, the one I told you I won’t watch it with you. I’ll be home sooner than you will think.”

Clearly, he realized he will have to let you go. But not just like that.

Jimin ran from your bedroom. He stopped in the middle of his run to run back to the bedroom just to tell you that you look stunning. Then he ran away again. Minute later came back when you were ready to go. He took your left hand. Suddenly he slips ring to your finger. Random one he bought you, the most similar to engagement ring. You questioned his gesture.

“So that everybody knows you are taken.” He told you as he quickly kissed you so you wouldn’t say a thing. Then he crouches down and took your foot. He takes out sharpie from back pocket and wrote his name on your foot like in Toy Story. This made you laugh so bad. Damn, this man… Very funny Jimin. Very funny. Do you have written Jimin on the bottom of your foot? Yes. Why not?

“Just in case someone would not believe your ring.” He commented his action.

“Do you think that I will take off my shoe just to show this to random dude who would try question my beautiful ring?”

“Yeah, you will.” You both were smiling. He was sweet. Too concern that someone may take you from him. He is sometimes scared to lose you but he probably forgets that you won lottery with him.

Before you left he made you twirl around to show yourself off. You looked breathtaking. Clearly happy to go out. Just one last goodbye kiss and hug.

“I will wait for you. In case something happens call me.” As if he was your dad.

“Okay okay okay, now let me go.” You said as he was hugging you. Last time clinging onto you. Or you thought. Jimin wasn’t just clinging onto you. You realized he was putting on hickey on the back of your neck as one last sign of him.

“JIMIN!” You screamed out. Not big love bite but visible.

He laughs at his successful art when you look in the mirror. “Okay now you can go.”

“Well, thanks love.” Not going to lie, you liked this. At least you knew he cares and loves you.

[whatifyoulivelikethat]

that kind of morning, m | jjk

pairing(s): jungkook x reader

summary: You’re really bad at waking up. Big sleepyhead with foggy memory kind of bad. Your brain is on autopilot. Hm, kind of hard to pilot when everything seems out of place. And you’re mildly hungover. Ow. You just ran into a muscular chest. Who could that be?

warnings: rated M (18+) for language; morning after a wild night; graphic descriptions of sexual acts and a tiny bit of smut–while on the phone (fem reader, nipple play, dry humping, hint of a handjob); non-idol!BTS; basically sleepy and slightly hungover reader trying to piece together life lmao

–

Most people make their worst decisions at night.

Not you. You make your worst decisions in the morning. 

Maybe it's because you don't drink coffee.

"Ow!"

Was your bed always that high? Huh. You squinted in the sunlight filtering through the window, far too bright for your sensitive eyes. Instead, you occupied yourself with sniffing the t-shirt you were wearing. It smelled clean, like fabric softener. Also, it was white. Generally, you didn't buy white shirts since they dirtied easily. A miracle that this one wasn't stained. 

You stumbled through the bedroom door – was it always that far? – and smacked your nose into a wall. 

"Ow!"

"Ah!"

A moving wall. Wait, not a wall. A shirtless guy. Oh. It had been that kind of night. 

You rubbed your nose. "Erm, hello. You're still here, huh?" you mumbled. 

The guy blinked at you. "What do you mean? This is my apartment."

Oh. That's why everything seemed unfamiliar. Now that you looked at him, he was pretty attractive. Long dark hair, large brown eyes, dark brows, shapely pink lips with a mole underneath his lower lip. He had two more on his nose and cheek. Lightly tanned skin and a cute confused face. Huh. Nice muscles too. Good for him. 

"Alright, I'll be on my way then, uh..." you trailed off awkwardly, pushing past him. The events of last night were hazy and your head hurt a little, although not so bad that you couldn't function. You were just poorly functioning because you weren't a morning person. 

"Do you want coffee or something?" the guy asked, following you. He sounded a little worried. 

"Nah, I don't drink coffee," you muttered, holding onto the wall as you walked down the unfamiliar narrow hallway. "Stains your teeth."

Speaking of teeth, your breath was probably awful. Hopefully that poor guy didn't breathe near you. Come to think of it, this wasn't what you were wearing last night. It was probably his shirt, considering the large size. Where were your clothes? Oh, look, a bathroom. 

"I could order us some breakfast," the guy continued as you stuck your head into the bathroom and saw the sink. There was a black toothbrush and a crumpled tube of toothpaste, definitely not yours. A black cup for rinsing one's mouth, with a winking emoji printed on it. A black shirt bunched up and half-falling off the sink. Deodorant. Cologne. You picked it up and sniffed it. A clean scent. Didn't make you want to throw up. Awesome. 

You flicked on the faucet and shoved your hands under it. Cold. Fuck. Whatever. You cupped some and brought your hands to your face, dripping water everywhere, and cursing under your breath before gargling some. Best you could do. You spied something red out of the corner of your eye. What was that? You squinted at the towel rack through the mirror, water trickling down your chin. There was a thin scrap of ripped lace fabric on the hanging white towels. 

The guy was still talking. 

"I can get you a spare toothbrush? Do you want some cleanser to wash your face?"

He had a pleasant voice, a little deep. Clear, smooth. Made you think of a cool, refreshing breeze. 

Wait. 

Were those your red panties on the towel rack?

You winced at the mirror. Welp. Those were done for. Didn't look like you could salvage them. You suddenly felt a chilly draft on your bare ass. Your arms were still dripping water as you leaned down and splashed your cheeks. Guess you'll just have to figure something out. You turned off the water and wiped your face off with your palm. A white hand towel appeared. You took it, seeing the guy's tattooed hand and arm. Sexy. He had an emoji tattooed onto his knuckle of a sheepish, crooked smile. 

Kind of looked like you, at the moment. 

You dried your face and hands. 

"Thanks, but it's fine, I'll just go home so I don't bother you," you said, folding the towel and placing it on the sink before moving past him and his curious expression. 

"You're not bothering me. I want to make your morning comfortable."

You noticed your red dress from last night on the ground. The thin straps were torn off and there was a distinct, dark stain down the front. Hmm. You vaguely remembered scooping your tits out and smashing them against his hard dick and dropping a stream of spit down your chest for lubrication before furiously tit-fucking him and making him cum all over your collarbones and neck. 

Ah. 

Well. 

That dress was fucked. 

"Can I borrow this shirt? I'll give it back," you said, turning around to see the guy's face bright pink, staring at your dress on the ground. 

"Uh, yeah, sure, whatever you want," he rambled, shifting awkwardly. He was wearing light gray sweatpants. You looked down. He shifted away quickly, but it was pretty hard to disguise that tent. 

You scratched your head. Hm. "Say, uh..." you trailed off again. 

He blinked with those big chocolatey eyes. "Oh, um, Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook." 

He stuck his hand out. You shook it, fitting your hand in his, suddenly remembering when you grabbed it and put it between your legs, smearing your juices from his wrist to his forearm and grinding onto his muscle, flexing your opening on his skin as he moaned darkly into your ear.

Ah.

You let go.

You were probably past handshakes, but, oh well?

"Right, erm, Jungkook, do you know where my jacket is?" you asked sheepishly. 

Jungkook whipped his head around, sending his black hair flying everywhere. "I think... it's in the living room?" You remembered running your hands through that hair, panting in his face as he shoved you against the wall, two fingers on your clit and rubbing furiously, those big chocolate eyes watching you come undone under him. 

He moved past you and you flattened against the wall, not touching him. Hm. This increased clarity as you continued to wake up was starting to make this more and more, uh... less chill? Weird? Awkward? You followed him at a slight distance, lifting your head to see his back. Your eyes widened. Long red scratches up and down his defined back, caused by your fingernails as he fucked you violently into his bed, your thighs clasped around his waist and his name in your mouth, his thick cock making your pussy so tight and full that you felt like you were going to explode, so completely jammed with pleasure that you couldn't stop moaning. 

Erm. Hm. You kind of needed panties with the sudden leakage happening down there. 

Oh shit, did you use protection? You frowned as you screwed up your eyes to think. Yes. You did. Jungkook had grabbed them from his nightstand and spilled the whole box, thus causing you both to scramble to detach one in your and his haste.

For. 

Er. 

Fucking like animals. 

You both got one condom and ended up using both.

"Ah, here." 

You reached out and took your long-line black leather jacket from Jungkook. That's right. You'd worn that red satin dress with this jacket and black high heels. You spied them by the mat at what you assumed was the front door. Jungkook wasn't looking at you. His face was red. You slipped on the jacket. Smelled the rum still sticking to it. Right. You went to the club, got a drink, and Jungkook had knocked into you, spilling it into your jacket. It was an accident, but that was fine, because Jungkook was hot and you bribed him into talking to you by asking him to buy you another drink.

Super cute with his apologies, nervously speaking to you all night before loosening up with a few drinks and beginning to tease you, little by little, until you were in his apartment, getting your jacket slipped off your shoulders and his mouth on your newly exposed skin. 

The memory made you reach up to touch your left shoulder. You winced. Peered under the jacket and shirt to see a giant purple hickey. 

"Oh... er, sorry..." Jungkook sputtered sheepishly. "You seemed really into it at the time."

There was damn waterfall between your legs now.

"I was," you replied, a little too quickly. "Uh, I mean, I am. Was great."

You facepalmed. Jungkook jumped, startled that you slapped your own face. 

"Sorry, I'm not a morning person. What I meant to say was last night was amazing and I had a great time," you sighed. "You were wonderful. And hot. And sexy. And I'd do it again."

Jungkook blinked at you with those big chocolatey eyes. 

"O... oh." 

He seemed torn on whether to believe you or not. To be fair, your voice was hoarse and you sounded half-dead. Plus, your speech was a little cliché. Sigh. You struggled to retain brain function, shaking your head roughly. It always took you a long time to wake up and it was worse when you weren't home doing your usual routine. You furrowed your brows, raising your head to frown at Jungkook. 

Hold on. 

"Don't you work for my dad?"

Jungkook started, eyes shifting. 

"Er... yeah."

Did you just fuck one of the waiters at your dad's high-end restaurant? All night?

Huh.

What are the chances?

You were going to have to see Jungkook later that night, since you were the hostess.

"You know, Jungkook," you said, realizing why you had spoken to him last night, why it was fun and familiar banter, why he was so cute to you, and why it had been such a good chance. "Let's not tell my dad about this."

Jungkook's eyes went shifty again. "Yeeeeeeeah... let's not."

Your dad meant well. He was loud and brash by nature and scared every human being that hadn't lived under his roof for decades. Speaking of living under his roof... Maybe you shouldn't go home smelling like rum and Jungkook's cologne, wearing his t-shirt and no panties.

"You... sure you wanna go home?" Jungkook asked, chewing on his lip. You noticed he looked a bit disappointed. Sad. 

"Actually," you sheepishly began. "Maybe I shouldn't. Not until Papa leaves the house." You twisted your mouth to one side and poked your index fingers together. Awkward. "Your offer for breakfast still stands?" 

He brightened. "Yeah. Yeah, of course. What do you want?" He held up the phone form the coffee table. "We can order something."

Your eyes shifted to the phone. Ten missed calls. 

"I would call Papa first," you muttered, walking forward and taking the phone from him. You felt his body heat, the closeness of his bare torso. He smelled nice. Jungkook made a surprised noise, only now realizing he had picked up your phone by accident. You slipped your other arm around him and pulled him to you, inhaling his scent. He made another squeak of confusion as you pressed your lips to his warm chest. 

Mmm. Nice. 

You phone vibrated violently and you answered it without looking, kissing Jungkook's skin softly, hearing him gasp and stifle his moan as the sharp bark of your name blasted from the phone speaker. 

"Where are you?!" Your dad was yelling at the top of his lungs. Jungkook shivered under you. He probably thought your dad was pissed, but he was only worried. 

"I'm fine. Slept over at a friend's since I went to the bars last night."

"Oh, fuck, sheesh," your dad grumbled, swearing repeatedly. Your lips began to travel and Jungkook was smacking your arm impatiently, shaking his head, mouthing at you, are you crazy, what the fuck are you doing, before he clenched his jaw and tipped his head back as you began to lazily lick his dark nipple, feeling it harden with your touch.

"Are you eating?" your dad barked in your ear. 

"Mhm, can't start the day unless you eat," was your reply, grinning around Jungkook's nipple as his face was becoming more panicked by the second. 

"That's right," your dad huffed. "What are you eating?"

"Korean."

Jungkook gave you an exasperated, pained look that quickly turned to ecstasy, placing a hand over his mouth and muffling his moan as you sucked in his nipple, bringing your hips into his sweatpants, the tent returning.

"Hah, fine, would it kill you to fucking call so I don't think you're dead?" Now that you were an adult, your dad didn't bother filtering his cursing anymore.

"Ah, sorry, sorry," you replied, very apologetically and sweetly, grabbing a handful of Jungkook's ass and ramming his rock-hard cock into your crotch, clamping your thighs around it. Jungkook was flailing his one free hand and pressing the other over his mouth, trying not to make a fucking sound. 

"I'll remember next time. Promise, Papa."

You heard your dad let out a puff of air. "Hmph. Fine. Don't forget you have to work tonight. I'll let you have the day after off..."

You raised your eyebrows, switching sides and slowly flicking your tongue on Jungkook's nipple, thighs sliding back and forth on Jungkook's clothed length. He was losing it above you, muting his cries and rutting against your thighs to match your pace and add more simulation.

"I thought the other hostess was on vacation for a couple more days?"

"I asked your mother to cover for you," your dad grunted. "You should have some free time while you're still young. Have some fucking fun before you die. That's why I work."

"Ah... okay, thanks Papa. I love you."

"Love you too," was your dad's reply, not so gruff anymore, but warmer and kinder. 

He hung up. 

You dropped the phone from your ear. 

Jungkook gasped a lungful of air, throwing his hand aside now that he could finally breathe, turning into a high-pitched yelp when you yanked his pants down, shoving his cock between your thighs again, but skin on skin this time, angling him down, the head smearing pre-cum in your mid-thigh. Ah, yes, what a pleasant surprise it had been when you saw this pretty cock for the first time, looking so perfect squashed between your tits. 

"B-But breakfast..." he choked out between moans.

"I'm getting it," you panted, grinning, sliding up and down his hot stiffness, feeling it twitch. "Best to have some protein in the morning."

Jungkook clenched his jaw, horny and indignant.

"Korean? Really?"

You switched to your hand, kneeling down as you stroked his stiff length hard and fast, giving him a devilish open-mouthed smirk, wet tongue sliding out.

"Hey, I didn't lie."

-

wondering how Jungkook feels about all this? that kind of evening.

--

masterpost

[mitta-likes-moths]

Hey there, I was wondering if you have any miniforce headcanons? If not, that’s cool, happy Valentine’s Day btw

*in the distance you hear cheers and what sounds like screams of happiness, although you’re not very sure. It seems they’re circling back to you!*

any ways- *evil laughter*

-Out of all of them, Max and Lucy are the tallest, Sammy being the shortest

-Max is 0”10

-Lucy is 0”9

-Volt is 0”7

-Sammy is 0”6.5

-It’s not super noticeable but when Volt wants to agitate him he’ll make some short jokes, that usually gets him riled up enough to take whatever challenge or dare was mentioned

-They’re all really strong

-Like come on, academy training and the fact Sammy used to be able to fly gives obvious hints they’re all stronk

-At one point when Sammy was insulting someone he said something along the lines of their head being more hollow than his bones (that’s been in my head for too long)

-This is the exact reason he can jump so high

-When Volt gets spooked or something his tail gets really poofy

-The group regularly picks up Sammy because of how short and light he is, he doesn’t even fight it at this point, he has accepted it as part of his life

-Lucy is the queen at Mario Kart but she doesn’t play it often because it gets kind of boring when you win every time

-By herself at least, beating her is basically a flex and it’s fun to hear the other’s reactions while playing while somehow avoiding sabotage, irl and in game

-Though she is queen of Mario Kart, Sammy is the king of drifting, even when he has been affected by a mini mushroom he will still somehow drift like a god (teach me your ways)

-Despite obviously bad with fast vehicles Volt still chooses the fastest option thinking he’ll win this time

-He doesn’t, but at one point he actually chose a different vehicle and cried happy tears when he got 4th place

-Max is pretty good at it but he and Lucy are the best at accepting defeat, it’s just a never ending competition with the everyone else

-Owl pellets

-Sammy will pull out a bucket at any given moment and puke out an owl pellet and set it off to the side

-Speaking of, he puts any food with bones into his mouth whole and puke out said owl pellet later on, but this doesn’t happen THAT often

-Max is a closeted vocaloid fan

-He can also do a perfect Peppy impression and Volt will occasionally ask him to say “Do a barrel roll!”

-He subconsciously says this out loud at any given moment

-He once saw a small stream and was just in his head, absolutely not, and chucked dirt on the spot

-He came home with a dirty tail and a dirty tail only

-He also has a big fear of spiders, the spider mechon only sort of resembled one which is why he wasn’t scared

-Leo, Lucy, and Sammy are the bug handlers of the group

-Pascal would make an amazing dad and I will fight you on this, it doesn’t matter whether he kidnapped the child or not

-This is canon, but they will all throw hands with a stranger for each other

-Gender is irrelevant and dorms at the miniforce training academy were based purely off of personality and such

-What birds lack in as much endurance as other animals due to hollow bones, they make up for exponentially in speed, agility, and etc.

-The group has physically asked Susie what a gender was and were confused at the fact they wear clothes 24/7

-Animals have non anthro forms as well as their anthro forms that we commonly see in the show, it’s just an ability that not many animals know about anymore

-There are animals that do live with humans and we just don’t see it in the show except for the main four

-Sammy is multilingual, he knows Cambodian, Spanish, asl, etc.

-Susie’s last name is Agnello

-Sammy is insecure about his laugh and dancing skills, part of the reason he doesn’t do either very often

-Even though they’re both awesome

-The crew on tv is the equivalent to Elmo on rove

-Once when Volt was aggressively bargaining, again, Sammy said something along the lines of, “ah yes bargaining, the third stage of grief”

-Sammy walks really quietly, he’s scared a lot of people on accident and maybe on purpose but you didn’t hear that from me

[path-of-my-childhood]

Musicians On Musicians: Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift

By: Patrick Doyle for Rolling Stone Date: November 13th 2020

On songwriting secrets, making albums at home, and what they’ve learned during the pandemic.

Taylor Swift arrived early to Paul McCartney’s London office in October, “mask on, brimming with excitement.” “I mostly work from home these days,” she writes about that day, “and today feels like a rare school field trip that you actually want to go on.”

Swift showed up without a team, doing her own hair and makeup. In addition to being two of the most famous pop songwriters in the world, Swift and McCartney have spent the past year on similar journeys. McCartney, isolated at home in the U.K., recorded McCartney III. Like his first solo album, in 1970, he played nearly all of the instruments himself, resulting in some of his most wildly ambitious songs in a long time. Swift also took some new chances, writing over email with the National’s Aaron Dessner and recording the raw Folklore, which abandons arena pop entirely in favor of rich character songs. It’s the bestselling album of 2020.

Swift listened to McCartney III as she prepared for today’s conversation; McCartney delved into Folkore. Before the photo shoot, Swift caught up with his daughters Mary (who would be photographing them) and Stella (who designed Swift’s clothes; the two are close friends). “I’ve met Paul a few times, mostly onstage at parties, but we’ll get to that later,” Swift writes. “Soon he walks in with his wife, Nancy. They’re a sunny and playful pair, and I immediately feel like this will be a good day. During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. We walk into his office for a chat, and after I make a nervous request, Paul is kind enough to handwrite my favorite lyric of his and sign it. He makes a joke about me selling it, and I laugh because it’s something I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. That’s around the time when we start talking about music.”

Taylor Swift: I think it’s important to note that if this year had gone the way that we thought it was going to go, you and I would have played Glastonbury this year, and instead, you and I both made albums in isolation.

Paul McCartney: Yeah!

Swift: And I remember thinking it would have been so much fun because the times that I’ve run into you, I correlate with being some of the most fun nights of my life. I was at a party with you, when everybody just started playing music. And it was Dave Grohl playing, and you...

McCartney: You were playing one of his songs, weren’t you?

Swift: Yes, I was playing his song called “Best of You,” but I was playing it on piano, and he didn’t recognize it until about halfway through. I just remember thinking, “Are you the catalyst for the most fun times ever?” Is it your willingness to get up and play music that makes everyone feel like this is a thing that can happen tonight?

McCartney: I mean, I think it’s a bit of everything, isn’t it? I’ll tell you who was very... Reese Witherspoon was like, “Are you going to sing?” I said “Oh, I don’t know.” She said, “You’ve got to, yeah!” She’s bossing me around. So I said, “Whoa,” so it’s a bit of that.

Swift: I love that person, because the party does not turn musical without that person.

McCartney: Yeah, that’s true.

Swift: If nobody says, “Can you guys play music?” we’re not going to invite ourselves up onstage at whatever living-room party it is.

McCartney: I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing “Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, “I can do that better.” So I said, “Come on, move over, Woody.” So we’re both playing it. It was really nice... I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, “You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff.”

Swift: I listened to your new record. And I loved a lot of things about it, but it really did feel like kind of a flex to write, produce, and play every instrument on every track. To me, that’s like flexing a muscle and saying, “I can do all this on my own if I have to.”

McCartney: Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit. I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to “When I’m 64” when I was, you know, a teenager.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: When the Beatles went to Hamburg, there were always drum kits knocking around, so when there was a quiet moment, I’d say, “Do you mind if I have a knock around?” So I was able to practice, you know, without practicing. That’s why I play right-handed. Guitar was just the first instrument I got. Guitar turned to bass; it also turned into ukulele, mandolin. Suddenly, it’s like, “Wow,” but it’s really only two or three instruments.

Swift: Well, I think that’s downplaying it a little bit. In my mind, it came with a visual of you being in the country, kind of absorbing the sort of do-it-yourself [quality] that has had to come with the quarantine and this pandemic. I found that I’ve adapted a do-it-yourself mentality to a lot of things in my career that I used to outsource.  I’m just wondering what a day of recording in the pandemic looked like for you.

McCartney: Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music - I had to do an instrumental for a film thing - so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, “Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?” [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.

Swift: That’s so cool.

McCartney: What about yours? You’re playing guitar and piano on yours.

Swift: Yeah, on some of it, but a lot of it was made with Aaron Dessner, who’s in a band called the National that I really love. And I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, “All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt, and he writes the top line.” I just remember thinking, “That is really efficient.” And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas... “Maybe one day I’ll do this.” I always had in my head: “Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.”

So when lockdown happened, I was in L.A., and we kind of got stuck there. It’s not a terrible place to be stuck. We were there for four months maybe, and during that time, I sent an email to Aaron Dessner and I said, “Do you think you would want to work during this time? Because my brain is all scrambled, and I need to make something, even if we’re just kind of making songs that we don’t know what will happen...”

McCartney: Yeah, that was the thing. You could do stuff -  you didn’t really worry it was going to turn into anything.

Swift: Yeah, and it turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called “Cardigan,” and it really happened rapid-fire like that. He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus. I had originally thought, “Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,” but it ended up being done and we put it out in July. And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, “How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?” If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is Folklore.

McCartney: And it’s more music for yourself than music that’s got to go do a job. My thing was similar to that: After having done this little bit of film music, I had a lot of stuff that I had been working on, but I’d said, “I’m just going home now,” and it’d be left half-finished. So I just started saying, “Well, what about that? I never finished that.” So we’d pull it out, and we said, “Oh, well, this could be good.” And because it didn’t have to amount to anything, I would say, “Ah, I really want to do tape loops. I don’t care if they fit on this song, I just want to do some.” So I go and make some tape loops, and put them in the song, just really trying to do stuff that I fancy.

I had no idea it would end up as an album; I may have been a bit less indulgent, but if a track was eight minutes long, to tell you the truth, what I thought was, “I’ll be taking it home tonight, Mary will be cooking, the grandkids will all be there running around, and someone, maybe Simon, Mary’s husband, is going to say, ‘What did you do today?’ And I’m going to go, ‘Oh,’ and then get my phone and play it for them.” So this became the ritual.

Swift: That’s the coziest thing I’ve ever heard.

McCartney: Well, it’s like eight minutes long, and I said, “I hate it when I’m playing someone something and it finishes after three minutes.” I kind of like that it just [continues] on.

Swift: You want to stay in the zone.

McCartney: It just keeps going on. I would just come home, “Well, what did you do today?” “Oh, well, I did this. I’m halfway through this,” or, “We finished this.”

Swift: I was wondering about the numerology element to McCartney III. McCartney I, II, and III have all come out on years with zeroes.

McCartney: Ends of decades.

Swift: Was that important?

McCartney: Yeah, well, this was being done in 2020, and I didn’t really think about it. I think everyone expected great things of 2020. “It’s gonna be great! Look at that number! 2020! Auspicious!” Then suddenly Covid hit, and it was like, “That’s gonna be auspicious all right, but maybe for the wrong reasons.” Someone said to me, “Well, you put out McCartney right after the Beatles broke up, and that was 1970, and then you did McCartney II in 1980.” And I said, “Oh, I’m going to release this in 2020 just for whatever you call it, the numerology...”

Swift: The numerology, the kind of look, the symbolism. I love numbers. Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13... 89 is a big one. I have a few others that I find...

McCartney: Thirteen is lucky for some.

Swift: Yeah, it’s lucky for me. It’s my birthday. It’s all these weird coincidences of good things that have happened. Now, when I see it places, I look at it as a sign that things are going the way they’re supposed to. They may not be good now, they could be painful now, but things are on a track. I don’t know, I love the numerology.

McCartney: It’s spooky, Taylor. It’s very spooky. Now wait a minute: Where’d you get 89?

Swift: That’s when I was born, in 1989, and so I see it in different places and I just think it’s...

McCartney: No, it’s good. I like that, where certain things you attach yourself to, and you get a good feeling off them. I think that’s great.

Swift: Yeah, one of my favorite artists, Bon Iver, he has this thing with the number 22. But I was also wondering: You have always kind of seeked out a band or a communal atmosphere with like, you know, the Beatles and Wings, and then Egypt Station. I thought it was interesting when I realized you had made a record with no one else. I just wondered, did that feel natural?

McCartney: It’s one of the things I’ve done. Like with McCartney, because the Beatles had broken up, there was no alternative but to get a drum kit at home, get a guitar, get an amp, get a bass, and just make something for myself. So on that album, which I didn’t really expect to do very well, I don’t think it did. But people sort of say, “I like that. It was a very casual album.” It didn’t really have to mean anything. So I’ve done that, the play-everything-myself thing. And then I discovered synths and stuff, and sequencers, so I had a few of those at home. I just thought I’m going to play around with this and record it, so that became McCartney II. But it’s a thing I do. Certain people can do it. Stevie Wonder can do it. Stevie Winwood, I believe, has done it. So there are certain people quite like that.

When you’re working with someone else, you have to worry about their variances. Whereas your own variance, you kind of know it. It’s just something I’ve grown to like. Once you can do it, it becomes a little bit addictive. I actually made some records under the name the Fireman.

Swift: Love a pseudonym.

McCartney: Yeah, for the fun! But, you know, let’s face it, you crave fame and attention when you’re young. And I just remembered the other day, I was the guy in the Beatles that would write to journalists and say [speaks in a formal voice]: “We are a semiprofessional rock combo, and I’d think you’d like [us]... We’ve written over 100 songs (which was a lie), my friend John and I. If you mention us in your newspaper...” You know, I was always, like, craving the attention.

Swift: The hustle! That’s so great, though.

McCartney: Well, yeah, you need that.

Swift: Yeah, I think, when a pseudonym comes in is when you still have a love for making the work and you don’t want the work to become overshadowed by this thing that’s been built around you, based on what people know about you. And that’s when it’s really fun to create fake names and write under them.

McCartney: Do you ever do that?

Swift: Oh, yeah.

McCartney: Oh, yeah? Oh, well, we didn’t know that! Is that a widely known fact?

Swift: I think it is now, but it wasn’t. I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males. I wrote this song called “This Is What You Came For” that Rihanna ended up singing. And nobody knew for a while. I remembered always hearing that when Prince wrote “Manic Monday,” they didn’t reveal it for a couple of months.

McCartney: Yeah, it also proves you can do something without the fame tag. I did something for Peter and Gordon; my girlfriend’s brother and his mate were in a band called Peter and Gordon. And I used to write under the name Bernard Webb.

Swift: [Laughs.] That’s a good one! I love it.

McCartney: As Americans call it, Ber-nard Webb. I did the Fireman thing. I worked with a producer, a guy called Youth, who’s this real cool dude. We got along great. He did a mix for me early on, and we got friendly. I would just go into the studio, and he would say, “Hey, what about this groove?” and he’d just made me have a little groove going. He’d say, “You ought to put some bass on it. Put some drums on it.” I’d just spend the whole day putting stuff on it. And we’d make these tracks, and nobody knew who Fireman was for a while. We must have sold all of 15 copies.

Swift: Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

McCartney: And we didn’t mind, you know?

Swift: I think it’s so cool that you do projects that are just for you. Because I went with my family to see you in concert in 2010 or 2011, and the thing I took away from the show most was that it was the most selfless set list I had ever seen. It was completely geared toward what it would thrill us to hear. It had new stuff, but it had every hit we wanted to hear, every song we’d ever cried to, every song people had gotten married to, or been brokenhearted to. And I just remembered thinking, “I’ve got to remember that,” that you do that set list for your fans.

McCartney: You do that, do you?

Swift: I do now. I think that learning that lesson from you taught me at a really important stage in my career that if people want to hear “Love Story” and “Shake It Off,” and I’ve played them 300 million times, play them the 300-millionth-and-first time. I think there are times to be selfish in your career, and times to be selfless, and sometimes they line up.

McCartney: I always remembered going to concerts as a kid, completely before the Beatles, and I really hoped they would play the ones I loved. And if they didn’t, it was kind of disappointing. I had no money, and the family wasn’t wealthy. So this would be a big deal for me, to save up for months to afford the concert ticket.

Swift: Yeah, it feels like a bond. It feels like that person on the stage has given something, and it makes you as a crowd want to give even more back, in terms of applause, in terms of dedication. And I just remembered feeling that bond in the crowd, and thinking, “He’s up there playing these Beatles songs, my dad is crying, my mom is trying to figure out how to work her phone because her hands are shaking so much.” Because seeing the excitement course through not only me, but my family and the entire crowd in Nashville, it just was really special. I love learning lessons and not having to learn them the hard way. Like learning nice lessons I really value.

McCartney: Well, that’s great, and I’m glad that set you on that path. I understand people who don’t want to do that, and if you do, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s a jukebox show.” I hear what they’re saying. But I think it’s a bit of a cheat, because the people who come to our shows have spent a lot of money. We can afford to go to a couple of shows and it doesn’t make much difference. But a lot of ordinary working folks... it’s a big event in their life, and so I try and deliver. I also, like you say, try and put in a few weirdos.

Swift: That’s the best. I want to hear current things, too, to update me on where the artist is. I was wondering about lyrics, and where you were lyrically when you were making this record. Because when I was making Folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs]. I was completely...

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

Swift: “Peace” is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture - the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

McCartney: Yeah, it was very important to us to try and keep their feet on the ground amongst the craziness.

Swift: She went to a regular school...

McCartney: Yeah, she did.

Swift: And you would go trick-or-treating with them, wearing masks.

McCartney: All of them did, yeah. It was important, but it worked pretty well, because when they kind of reached adulthood, they would meet other kids who might have gone to private schools, who were a little less grounded.

And they could be the budding mothers to [kids]. I remember Mary had a friend, Orlando. Not Bloom. She used to really counsel him. And it’s ’cause she’d gone through that. Obviously, they got made fun of, my kids. They’d come in the classroom and somebody would sing, “Na na na na,” you know, one of the songs. And they’d have to handle that. They’d have to front it out.

Swift: Did that give you a lot of anxiety when you had kids, when you felt like all this pressure that’s been put on me is spilling over onto them, that they didn’t sign up for it? Was that hard for you?

McCartney: Yeah, a little bit, but it wasn’t like it is now. You know, we were just living a kind of semi-hippie life, where we withdrew from a lot of stuff. The kids would be doing all the ordinary things, and their school friends would be coming up to the house and having parties, and it was just great. I remember one lovely evening when it was Stella’s birthday, and she brought a bunch of school kids up. And, you know, they’d all ignore me. It happens very quickly. At first they’re like, “Oh, yeah, he’s like a famous guy,” and then it’s like [yawns]. I like that. I go in the other room and suddenly I hear this music going on. And one of the kids, his name was Luke, and he’s doing break dancing.

Swift: Ohhh!

McCartney: He was a really good break dancer, so all the kids are hanging out. That allowed them to be kind of normal with those kids. The other thing is, I don’t live fancy. I really don’t. Sometimes it’s a little bit of an embarrassment, if I’ve got someone coming to visit me, or who I know…

Swift: Cares about that stuff?

McCartney: Who’s got a nice big house, you know. Quincy Jones came to see me and I’m, like, making him a veggie burger or something. I’m doing some cooking. This was after I’d lost Linda, in between there. But the point I’m making is that I’m very consciously thinking, “Oh, God, Quincy’s got to be thinking, ‘What is this guy on? He hasn’t got big things going on. It’s not a fancy house at all. And we’re eating in the kitchen! He’s not even got the dining room going,’” you know?

Swift: I think that sounds like a perfect day.

McCartney: But that’s me. I’m awkward like that. That’s my kind of thing. Maybe I should have, like, a big stately home. Maybe I should get a staff. But I think I couldn’t do that. I’d be so embarrassed. I’d want to walk around dressed as I want to walk around, or naked, if I wanted to.

Swift: That can’t happen in Downton Abbey.

McCartney: [Laughs.] Exactly.

Swift: I remember what I wanted to know about, which is lyrics. Like, when you’re in this kind of strange, unparalleled time, and you’re making this record, are lyrics first? Or is it when you get a little melodic idea?

McCartney: It was a bit of both. As it kind of always is with me. There’s no fixed way. People used to ask me and John, “Well, who does the words, who does the music?” I used to say, “We both do both.” We used to say we don’t have a formula, and we don’t want one. Because the minute we get a formula, we should rip it up. I will sometimes, as I did with a couple of songs on this album, sit down at the piano and just start noodling around, and I’ll get a little idea and start to fill that out. So the lyrics - for me, it’s following a trail. I’ll start [sings “Find My Way,” a song from “McCartney III”]: “I can find my way. I know my left from right, da da da.” And I’ll just sort of fill it in. Like, we know this song, and I’m trying to remember the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and...

Swift: Oh, I know that song - “The Kiss of Venus”?

McCartney: Yeah, “The Kiss of Venus.” And I just thought, “That’s a nice phrase.” So I was actually just taking phrases out of the book, harmonic sounds. And the book is talking about the maths of the universe, and how when things orbit around each other, and if you trace all the patterns, it becomes like a lotus flower.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: It’s very magical.

Swift: That is magical. I definitely relate to needing to find magical things in this very not-magical time, needing to read more books and learn to sew, and watch movies that take place hundreds of years ago. In a time where, if you look at the news, you just want to have a panic attack - I really relate to the idea that you are thinking about stars and constellations.

McCartney: Did you do that on Folklore?

Swift: Yes. I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films.

McCartney: What stuff were you reading?

Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use - kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

McCartney: Exactly. So you’d see the word in a book and think, “I love that word”?

Swift: Yeah, I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.

McCartney: How about “marzipan”?

Swift: Love “marzipan.”

McCartney: The other day, I was remembering when we wrote “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: “kaleidoscope.”

Swift: “Kaleidoscope” is one of mine! I have a song on 1989, a song called “Welcome to New York,” that I put the word “kaleidoscope” in just because I’m obsessed with the word.

McCartney: I think a love of words is a great thing, particularly if you’re going to try to write a lyric, and for me, it’s like, “What is this going to say to that person?” I often feel like I’m writing to someone who is not doing so well. So I’m trying to write songs that might help. Not in a goody-goody, crusading kind of way, but just thinking there have been so many times in my life when I’ve heard a song and felt so much better. I think that’s the angle I want, that inspirational thing.

I remember once, a friend of mine from Liverpool, we were teenagers and we were going to a fairground. He was a schoolmate, and we had these jackets that had a little fleck in the material, which was the cool thing at the time.

Swift: We should have done matching jackets for this photo shoot.

McCartney: Find me a fleck, I’m in. But we went to the fair, and I just remember - this is what happens with songs - there was this girl at the fair. This is just a little Liverpool fair - it was in a place called Sefton Park - and there was this girl, who was so beautiful. She wasn’t a star. She was so beautiful. Everyone was following her, and it’s like, “Wow.” It’s like a magical scene, you know? But all this gave me a headache, so I ended up going back to his house - I didn’t normally get headaches. And we thought, “What can we do?” So we put on the Elvis song “All Shook Up.” By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, “That’s powerful.”

Swift: That really is powerful.

McCartney: I love that, when people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, I was going through an illness and I listened to a lot of your stuff, and I’m better now and it got me through,” or kids will say, “It got me through exams.” You know, they’re studying, they’re going crazy, but they put your music on. I’m sure it happens with a lot of your fans. It inspires them, you know?

Swift: Yeah, I definitely think about that as a goal. There’s so much stress everywhere you turn that I kind of wanted to make an album that felt sort of like a hug, or like your favorite sweater that makes you feel like you want to put it on.

McCartney: What, a “cardigan”?

Swift: Like a good cardigan, a good, worn-in cardigan. Or something that makes you reminisce on your childhood. I think sadness can be cozy. It can obviously be traumatic and stressful, too, but I kind of was trying to lean into sadness that feels like somehow enveloping in not such a scary way - like nostalgia and whimsy incorporated into a feeling like you’re not all right. Because I don’t think anybody was really feeling like they were in their prime this year. Isolation can mean escaping into your imagination in a way that’s kind of nice.

McCartney: I think a lot of people have found that. I would say to people, “I feel a bit guilty about saying I’m actually enjoying this quarantine thing,” and people go, “Yeah, I know, don’t say it to anyone.” A lot of people are really suffering.

Swift: Because there’s a lot in life that’s arbitrary. Completely and totally arbitrary. And [the quarantine] is really shining a light on that, and also a lot of things we have that we outsource that you can actually do yourself.

McCartney: I love that. This is why I said I live simply. That’s, like, at the core of it. With so many things, something goes wrong and you go, “Oh, I’ll get somebody to fix that.” And then it’s like, “No, let me have a look at it...”

Swift: Get a hammer and a nail.

McCartney: “Maybe I can put that picture up.” It’s not rocket science. The period after the Beatles, when we went to live in Scotland on a really - talk about dumpy - little farm. I mean, I see pictures of it now and I’m not ashamed, but I’m almost ashamed. Because it’s like, “God, nobody’s cleaned up around here.”

But it was really a relief. Because when I was with the Beatles, we’d formed Apple Records, and if I wanted a Christmas tree, someone would just buy it. And I thought, after a while, “No, you know what? I really would like to go and buy our Christmas tree. Because that’s what everyone does.” So you go down - “I’ll have that one” - and you carried it back. I mean, it’s little, but it’s huge at the same time.

I needed a table in Scotland and I was looking through a catalog and I thought, “I could make one. I did woodwork in school, so I know what a dovetail joint is.” So I just figured it out. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, and I’m whittling away at this wood and I made this little joint. There was no nail technology - it was glue. And I was scared to put it together. I said, “It’s not going to fit,” but one day, I got my woodwork glue and thought, “There’s no going back.” But it turned out to be a real nice little table I was very proud of. It was that sense of achievement.

The weird thing was, Stella went up to Scotland recently and I said, “Isn’t it there?” and she said, “No.” Anyway, I searched for it. Nobody remembered it. Somebody said, “Well, there’s a pile of wood in the corner of one of the barns, maybe that’s it. Maybe they used it for firewood.” I said, “No, it’s not firewood.” Anyway, we found it, and do you know how joyous that was for me? I was like, “You found my table?!” Somebody might say that’s a bit boring.

Swift: No, it’s cool!

McCartney: But it was a real sort of great thing for me to be able to do stuff for yourself. You were talking about sewing. I mean normally, in your position, you’ve got any amount of tailors.

Swift: Well, there’s been a bit of a baby boom recently; several of my friends have gotten pregnant.

McCartney: Oh, yeah, you’re at the age.

Swift: And I was just thinking, “I really want to spend time with my hands, making something for their children.” So I made this really cool flying-squirrel stuffed animal that I sent to one of my friends. I sent a teddy bear to another one, and I started making these little silk baby blankets with embroidery. It’s gotten pretty fancy. And I’ve been painting a lot.

McCartney: What do you paint? Watercolors?

Swift: Acrylic or oil. Whenever I do watercolor, all I paint is flowers. When I have oil, I really like to do landscapes. I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.

McCartney: It’s a bit of a romantic dream. I agree with you, though, I think you’ve got to have dreams, particularly this year. You’ve got to have something to escape to. When you say “escapism,” it sounds like a dirty word, but this year, it definitely wasn’t. And in the books you’re reading, you’ve gone into that world. That’s, I think, a great thing. Then you come back out. I normally will read a lot before I go to bed. So I’ll come back out, then I’ll go to sleep, so I think it really is nice to have those dreams that can be fantasies or stuff you want to achieve.

Swift: You’re creating characters. This was the first album where I ever created characters, or wrote about the life of a real-life person. There’s a song called “The Last Great American Dynasty” that’s about this real-life heiress who lived just an absolutely chaotic, hectic...

McCartney: She’s a fantasy character?

Swift: She’s a real person. Who lived in the house that I live in.

McCartney: She’s a real person? I listened to that and I thought, “Who is this?”

Swift: Her name was Rebekah Harkness. And she lived in the house that I ended up buying in Rhode Island. That’s how I learned about her. But she was a woman who was very, very talked about, and everything she did was scandalous. I found a connection in that. But I also was thinking about how you write “Eleanor Rigby” and go into that whole story about what all these people in this town are doing and how their lives intersect, and I hadn’t really done that in a very long time with my music. It had always been so microscope personal.

McCartney: Yeah, ’cause you were writing breakup songs like they were going out of style.

Swift: I was, before my luck changed [laughs]. I still write breakup songs. I love a good breakup song. Because somewhere in the world, I always have a friend going through a breakup, and that will make me write one.

McCartney: Yeah, this goes back to this thing of me and John: When you’ve got a formula, break it. I don’t have a formula. It’s the mood I’m in. So I love the idea of writing a character. And, you know, trying to think, “What am I basing this on?” So “Eleanor Rigby” was based on old ladies I knew as a kid. For some reason or other, I got great relationships with a couple of local old ladies. I was thinking the other day, I don’t know how I met them, it wasn’t like they were family. I’d just run into them, and I’d do their shopping for them.

Swift: That’s amazing.

McCartney: It just felt good to me. I would sit and talk, and they’d have amazing stories. That’s what I liked. They would have stories from the wartime - because I was born actually in the war - and so these old ladies, they were participating in the war. This one lady I used to sort of just hang out with, she had a crystal radio that I found very magical. In the war, a lot of people made their own radios - you’d make them out of crystals [sings “The Twilight Zone” theme].

Swift: How did I not know this? That sounds like something I would have tried to learn about.

McCartney: It’s interesting, because there is a lot of parallels with the virus and lockdowns and wartime. It happened to everyone. Like, this isn’t HIV, or SARS, or Avian flu, which happened to others, generally. This has happened to everyone, all around the world. That’s the defining thing about this particular virus. And, you know, my parents... it happened to everyone in Britain, including the queen and Churchill. War happened. So they were all part of this thing, and they all had to figure out a way through it. So you figured out Folklore. I figured out McCartney III.

Swift: And a lot of people have been baking sourdough bread. Whatever gets you through!

McCartney: Some people used to make radios. And they’d take a crystal - we should look it up, but it actually is a crystal. I thought, “Oh, no, they just called it a crystal radio,” but it’s actually crystals like we know and love.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: And somehow they get the radio waves - this crystal attracts them - they tune it in, and that’s how they used to get their news. Back to “Eleanor Rigby,” so I would think of her and think of what she’s doing and then just try to get lyrical, just try to bring poetry into it, words you love, just try to get images like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,” and Father McKenzie “is darning his socks in the night.” You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you know, “preparing his Bible,” which would have been more obvious. But “darning his socks” kind of says more about him. So you get into this lovely fantasy. And that’s the magic of songs, you know. It’s a black hole, and then you start doing this process, and then there’s this beautiful little flower that you’ve just made. So it is very like embroidery, making something.

Swift: Making a table.

McCartney: Making a table.

Swift: Wow, it would’ve been so fun to play Glastonbury for the 50th anniversary together.

McCartney: It would’ve been great, wouldn’t it? And I was going to be asking you to play with me.

Swift: Were you going to invite me? I was hoping that you would. I was going to ask you.

McCartney: I would’ve done “Shake It Off.”

Swift: Oh, my God, that would have been amazing.

McCartney: I know it, it’s in C!

Swift: One thing I just find so cool about you is that you really do seem to have the joy of it, still, just no matter what. You seem to have the purest sense of joy of playing an instrument and making music, and that’s just the best, I think.

McCartney: Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?

Swift: We’re really lucky.

McCartney: I don’t know if it ever happens to you, but with me, it’s like, “Oh, my god, I’ve ended up as a musician.”

Swift: Yeah, I can’t believe it’s my job.

McCartney: I must tell you a story I told Mary the other day, which is just one of my favorite little sort of Beatles stories. We were in a terrible, big blizzard, going from London to Liverpool, which we always did. We’d be working in London and then drive back in the van, just the four of us with our roadie, who would be driving. And this was a blizzard. You couldn’t see the road. At one point, it slid off and it went down an embankment. So it was “Ahhh,” a bunch of yelling. We ended up at the bottom. It didn’t flip, luckily, but so there we are, and then it’s like, “Oh, how are we going to get back up? We’re in a van. It’s snowing, and there’s no way.” We’re all standing around in a little circle, and thinking, “What are we going to do?” And one of us said, “Well, something will happen.” And I thought that was just the greatest. I love that, that’s a philosophy.

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: And it did. We sort of went up the bank, we thumbed a lift, we got the lorry driver to take us, and Mal, our roadie, sorted the van and everything. So that was kind of our career. And I suppose that’s like how I ended up being a musician and a songwriter: “Something will happen.”

Swift: That’s the best.

McCartney: It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. It’s great if you’re ever in that sort of panic attack: “Oh, my God,” or, “Ahhh, what am I going to do?”

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: All right then, thanks for doing this, and this was, you know, a lot of fun.

Swift: You’re the best. This was so awesome. Those were some quality stories!

[sgt-paul]

MUSICIANS ON MUSICIANS: Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift

© Mary McCartney

❝ During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. ❞

interview below the cut:

Taylor Swift arrived early to Paul McCartney’s London office in October, “mask on, brimming with excitement.” “I mostly work from home these days,” she writes about that day, “and today feels like a rare school field trip that you actually want to go on.”

Swift showed up without a team, doing her own hair and makeup. In addition to being two of the most famous pop songwriters in the world, Swift and McCartney have spent the past year on similar journeys. McCartney, isolated at home in the U.K., recorded McCartney III. Like his first solo album, in 1970, he played nearly all of the instruments himself, resulting in some of his most wildly ambitious songs in a long time. Swift also took some new chances, writing over email with the National’s Aaron Dessner and recording the raw Folklore, which abandons arena pop entirely in favor of rich character songs. It’s the bestselling album of 2020.

Swift listened to McCartney III as she prepared for today’s conversation; McCartney delved into Folkore. Before the photo shoot, Swift caught up with his daughters Mary (who would be photographing them) and Stella (who designed Swift’s clothes; the two are close friends). “I’ve met Paul a few times, mostly onstage at parties, but we’ll get to that later,” Swift writes. “Soon he walks in with his wife, Nancy. They’re a sunny and playful pair, and I immediately feel like this will be a good day. During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. We walk into his office for a chat, and after I make a nervous request, Paul is kind enough to handwrite my favorite lyric of his and sign it. He makes a joke about me selling it, and I laugh because it’s something I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. That’s around the time when we start talking about music.”

Taylor Swift: I think it’s important to note that if this year had gone the way that we thought it was going to go, you and I would have played Glastonbury this year, and instead, you and I both made albums in isolation.

Paul McCartney: Yeah!

Swift: And I remember thinking it would have been so much fun because the times that I’ve run into you, I correlate with being some of the most fun nights of my life. I was at a party with you, when everybody just started playing music. And it was Dave Grohl playing, and you…

McCartney: You were playing one of his songs, weren’t you?

Swift: Yes, I was playing his song called “Best of You,” but I was playing it on piano, and he didn’t recognize it until about halfway through. I just remember thinking, “Are you the catalyst for the most fun times ever?” Is it your willingness to get up and play music that makes everyone feel like this is a thing that can happen tonight?

McCartney: I mean, I think it’s a bit of everything, isn’t it? I’ll tell you who was very … Reese Witherspoon was like, “Are you going to sing?” I said “Oh, I don’t know.” She said, “You’ve got to, yeah!” She’s bossing me around. So I said, “Whoa,” so it’s a bit of that.

Swift: I love that person, because the party does not turn musical without that person.

McCartney: Yeah, that’s true.

Swift: If nobody says, “Can you guys play music?” we’re not going to invite ourselves up onstage at whatever living-room party it is.

McCartney: I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing “Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, “I can do that better.” So I said, “Come on, move over, Woody.” So we’re both playing it. It was really nice.… I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, “You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff.”

Swift: I listened to your new record. And I loved a lot of things about it, but it really did feel like kind of a flex to write, produce, and play every instrument on every track. To me, that’s like flexing a muscle and saying, “I can do all this on my own if I have to.”

McCartney: Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit. I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to “When I’m 64” when I was, you know, a teenager.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: When the Beatles went to Hamburg, there were always drum kits knocking around, so when there was a quiet moment, I’d say, “Do you mind if I have a knock around?” So I was able to practice, you know, without practicing. That’s why I play right-handed. Guitar was just the first instrument I got. Guitar turned to bass; it also turned into ukulele, mandolin. Suddenly, it’s like, “Wow,” but it’s really only two or three instruments.

Swift: Well, I think that’s downplaying it a little bit. In my mind, it came with a visual of you being in the country, kind of absorbing the sort of do-it-yourself [quality] that has had to come with the quarantine and this pandemic. I found that I’ve adapted a do-it-yourself mentality to a lot of things in my career that I used to outsource.  I’m just wondering what a day of recording in the pandemic looked like for you.

McCartney: Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music — I had to do an instrumental for a film thing — so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, “Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?” [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.

Swift: That’s so cool.

McCartney: What about yours? You’re playing guitar and piano on yours.

Swift: Yeah, on some of it, but a lot of it was made with Aaron Dessner, who’s in a band called the National that I really love. And I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, “All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt, and he writes the top line.” I just remember thinking, “That is really efficient.” And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas… “Maybe one day I’ll do this.” I always had in my head: “Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.”

So when lockdown happened, I was in L.A., and we kind of got stuck there. It’s not a terrible place to be stuck. We were there for four months maybe, and during that time, I sent an email to Aaron Dessner and I said, “Do you think you would want to work during this time? Because my brain is all scrambled, and I need to make something, even if we’re just kind of making songs that we don’t know what will happen…”

McCartney: Yeah, that was the thing. You could do stuff — you didn’t really worry it was going to turn into anything.

Swift: Yeah, and it turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called “Cardigan,” and it really happened rapid-fire like that. He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus. I had originally thought, “Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,” but it ended up being done and we put it out in July. And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, “How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?” If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is Folklore.

McCartney: And it’s more music for yourself than music that’s got to go do a job. My thing was similar to that: After having done this little bit of film music, I had a lot of stuff that I had been working on, but I’d said, “I’m just going home now,” and it’d be left half-finished. So I just started saying, “Well, what about that? I never finished that.” So we’d pull it out, and we said, “Oh, well, this could be good.” And because it didn’t have to amount to anything, I would say, “Ah, I really want to do tape loops. I don’t care if they fit on this song, I just want to do some.” So I go and make some tape loops, and put them in the song, just really trying to do stuff that I fancy.

I had no idea it would end up as an album; I may have been a bit less indulgent, but if a track was eight minutes long, to tell you the truth, what I thought was, “I’ll be taking it home tonight, Mary will be cooking, the grandkids will all be there running around, and someone, maybe Simon, Mary’s husband, is going to say, ‘What did you do today?’ And I’m going to go, ‘Oh,’ and then get my phone and play it for them.” So this became the ritual.

Swift: That’s the coziest thing I’ve ever heard.

McCartney: Well, it’s like eight minutes long, and I said, “I hate it when I’m playing someone something and it finishes after three minutes.” I kind of like that it just [continues] on.

Swift: You want to stay in the zone.

McCartney: It just keeps going on. I would just come home, “Well, what did you do today?” “Oh, well, I did this. I’m halfway through this,” or, “We finished this.”

Swift: I was wondering about the numerology element to McCartney III. McCartney I, II, and III have all come out on years with zeroes.

McCartney: Ends of decades.

Swift: Was that important?

McCartney: Yeah, well, this was being done in 2020, and I didn’t really think about it. I think everyone expected great things of 2020. “It’s gonna be great! Look at that number! 2020! Auspicious!” Then suddenly Covid hit, and it was like, “That’s gonna be auspicious all right, but maybe for the wrong reasons.” Someone said to me, “Well, you put out McCartney right after the Beatles broke up, and that was 1970, and then you did McCartney II in 1980.” And I said, “Oh, I’m going to release this in 2020 just for whatever you call it, the numerology.…”

Swift: The numerology, the kind of look, the symbolism. I love numbers. Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13  … 89 is a big one. I have a few others that I find…

McCartney: Thirteen is lucky for some.

Swift: Yeah, it’s lucky for me. It’s my birthday. It’s all these weird coincidences of good things that have happened. Now, when I see it places, I look at it as a sign that things are going the way they’re supposed to. They may not be good now, they could be painful now, but things are on a track. I don’t know, I love the numerology.

McCartney: It’s spooky, Taylor. It’s very spooky. Now wait a minute: Where’d you get 89?

Swift: That’s when I was born, in 1989, and so I see it in different places and I just think it’s…

McCartney: No, it’s good. I like that, where certain things you attach yourself to, and you get a good feeling off them. I think that’s great.

Swift: Yeah, one of my favorite artists, Bon Iver, he has this thing with the number 22. But I was also wondering: You have always kind of seeked out a band or a communal atmosphere with like, you know, the Beatles and Wings, and then Egypt Station. I thought it was interesting when I realized you had made a record with no one else. I just wondered, did that feel natural?

McCartney: It’s one of the things I’ve done. Like with McCartney, because the Beatles had broken up, there was no alternative but to get a drum kit at home, get a guitar, get an amp, get a bass, and just make something for myself. So on that album, which I didn’t really expect to do very well, I don’t think it did. But people sort of say, “I like that. It was a very casual album.” It didn’t really have to mean anything. So I’ve done that, the play-everything-myself thing. And then I discovered synths and stuff, and sequencers, so I had a few of those at home. I just thought I’m going to play around with this and record it, so that became McCartney II. But it’s a thing I do. Certain people can do it. Stevie Wonder can do it. Stevie Winwood, I believe, has done it. So there are certain people quite like that.

When you’re working with someone else, you have to worry about their variances. Whereas your own variance, you kind of know it. It’s just something I’ve grown to like. Once you can do it, it becomes a little bit addictive. I actually made some records under the name the Fireman.

Swift: Love a pseudonym.

McCartney: Yeah, for the fun! But, you know, let’s face it, you crave fame and attention when you’re young. And I just remembered the other day, I was the guy in the Beatles that would write to journalists and say [speaks in a formal voice]: “We are a semiprofessional rock combo, and I’d think you’d like [us].… We’ve written over 100 songs (which was a lie), my friend John and I. If you mention us in your newspaper…” You know, I was always, like, craving the attention.

Swift: The hustle! That’s so great, though.

McCartney: Well, yeah, you need that.

Swift: Yeah, I think, when a pseudonym comes in is when you still have a love for making the work and you don’t want the work to become overshadowed by this thing that’s been built around you, based on what people know about you. And that’s when it’s really fun to create fake names and write under them.

McCartney: Do you ever do that?

Swift: Oh, yeah.

McCartney: Oh, yeah? Oh, well, we didn’t know that! Is that a widely known fact?

Swift: I think it is now, but it wasn’t. I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males. I wrote this song called “This Is What You Came For” that Rihanna ended up singing. And nobody knew for a while. I remembered always hearing that when Prince wrote “Manic Monday,” they didn’t reveal it for a couple of months.

McCartney: Yeah, it also proves you can do something without the fame tag. I did something for Peter and Gordon; my girlfriend’s brother and his mate were in a band called Peter and Gordon. And I used to write under the name Bernard Webb.

Swift: [Laughs.] That’s a good one! I love it.

McCartney: As Americans call it, Ber-nard Webb. I did the Fireman thing. I worked with a producer, a guy called Youth, who’s this real cool dude. We got along great. He did a mix for me early on, and we got friendly. I would just go into the studio, and he would say, “Hey, what about this groove?” and he’d just made me have a little groove going. He’d say, “You ought to put some bass on it. Put some drums on it.” I’d just spend the whole day putting stuff on it. And we’d make these tracks, and nobody knew who Fireman was for a while. We must have sold all of 15 copies.

Swift: Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

McCartney: And we didn’t mind, you know?

Swift: I think it’s so cool that you do projects that are just for you. Because I went with my family to see you in concert in 2010 or 2011, and the thing I took away from the show most was that it was the most selfless set list I had ever seen. It was completely geared toward what it would thrill us to hear. It had new stuff, but it had every hit we wanted to hear, every song we’d ever cried to, every song people had gotten married to, or been brokenhearted to. And I just remembered thinking, “I’ve got to remember that,” that you do that set list for your fans.

McCartney: You do that, do you?

Swift: I do now. I think that learning that lesson from you taught me at a really important stage in my career that if people want to hear “Love Story” and “Shake It Off,” and I’ve played them 300 million times, play them the 300-millionth-and-first time. I think there are times to be selfish in your career, and times to be selfless, and sometimes they line up.

McCartney: I always remembered going to concerts as a kid, completely before the Beatles, and I really hoped they would play the ones I loved. And if they didn’t, it was kind of disappointing. I had no money, and the family wasn’t wealthy. So this would be a big deal for me, to save up for months to afford the concert ticket.

Swift: Yeah, it feels like a bond. It feels like that person on the stage has given something, and it makes you as a crowd want to give even more back, in terms of applause, in terms of dedication. And I just remembered feeling that bond in the crowd, and thinking, “He’s up there playing these Beatles songs, my dad is crying, my mom is trying to figure out how to work her phone because her hands are shaking so much.” Because seeing the excitement course through not only me, but my family and the entire crowd in Nashville, it just was really special. I love learning lessons and not having to learn them the hard way. Like learning nice lessons I really value.

McCartney: Well, that’s great, and I’m glad that set you on that path. I understand people who don’t want to do that, and if you do, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s a jukebox show.” I hear what they’re saying. But I think it’s a bit of a cheat, because the people who come to our shows have spent a lot of money. We can afford to go to a couple of shows and it doesn’t make much difference. But a lot of ordinary working folks … it’s a big event in their life, and so I try and deliver. I also, like you say, try and put in a few weirdos.

Swift: That’s the best. I want to hear current things, too, to update me on where the artist is. I was wondering about lyrics, and where you were lyrically when you were making this record. Because when I was making Folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs]. I was completely …

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

Swift: “Peace” is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture — the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

McCartney: Yeah, it was very important to us to try and keep their feet on the ground amongst the craziness.

Swift: She went to a regular school .…

McCartney: Yeah, she did.

Swift: And you would go trick-or-treating with them, wearing masks.

McCartney: All of them did, yeah. It was important, but it worked pretty well, because when they kind of reached adulthood, they would meet other kids who might have gone to private schools, who were a little less grounded.

And they could be the budding mothers to [kids]. I remember Mary had a friend, Orlando. Not Bloom. She used to really counsel him. And it’s ’cause she’d gone through that. Obviously, they got made fun of, my kids. They’d come in the classroom and somebody would sing, “Na na na na,” you know, one of the songs. And they’d have to handle that. They’d have to front it out.

Swift: Did that give you a lot of anxiety when you had kids, when you felt like all this pressure that’s been put on me is spilling over onto them, that they didn’t sign up for it? Was that hard for you?

McCartney: Yeah, a little bit, but it wasn’t like it is now. You know, we were just living a kind of semi-hippie life, where we withdrew from a lot of stuff. The kids would be doing all the ordinary things, and their school friends would be coming up to the house and having parties, and it was just great. I remember one lovely evening when it was Stella’s birthday, and she brought a bunch of school kids up. And, you know, they’d all ignore me. It happens very quickly. At first they’re like, “Oh, yeah, he’s like a famous guy,” and then it’s like [yawns]. I like that. I go in the other room and suddenly I hear this music going on. And one of the kids, his name was Luke, and he’s doing break dancing.

Swift: Ohhh!

McCartney: He was a really good break dancer, so all the kids are hanging out. That allowed them to be kind of normal with those kids. The other thing is, I don’t live fancy. I really don’t. Sometimes it’s a little bit of an embarrassment, if I’ve got someone coming to visit me, or who I know…

Swift: Cares about that stuff?

McCartney: Who’s got a nice big house, you know. Quincy Jones came to see me and I’m, like, making him a veggie burger or something. I’m doing some cooking. This was after I’d lost Linda, in between there. But the point I’m making is that I’m very consciously thinking, “Oh, God, Quincy’s got to be thinking, ‘What is this guy on? He hasn’t got big things going on. It’s not a fancy house at all. And we’re eating in the kitchen! He’s not even got the dining room going,’” you know?

Swift: I think that sounds like a perfect day.

McCartney: But that’s me. I’m awkward like that. That’s my kind of thing. Maybe I should have, like, a big stately home. Maybe I should get a staff. But I think I couldn’t do that. I’d be so embarrassed. I’d want to walk around dressed as I want to walk around, or naked, if I wanted to.

Swift: That can’t happen in Downton Abbey.

McCartney: [Laughs.] Exactly.

Swift: I remember what I wanted to know about, which is lyrics. Like, when you’re in this kind of strange, unparalleled time, and you’re making this record, are lyrics first? Or is it when you get a little melodic idea?

McCartney: It was a bit of both. As it kind of always is with me. There’s no fixed way. People used to ask me and John, “Well, who does the words, who does the music?” I used to say, “We both do both.” We used to say we don’t have a formula, and we don’t want one. Because the minute we get a formula, we should rip it up. I will sometimes, as I did with a couple of songs on this album, sit down at the piano and just start noodling around, and I’ll get a little idea and start to fill that out. So the lyrics — for me, it’s following a trail. I’ll start [sings “Find My Way,” a song from “McCartney III”]: “I can find my way. I know my left from right, da da da.” And I’ll just sort of fill it in. Like, we know this song, and I’m trying to remember the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and.…

Swift: Oh, I know that song — “The Kiss of Venus”?

McCartney: Yeah, “The Kiss of Venus.” And I just thought, “That’s a nice phrase.” So I was actually just taking phrases out of the book, harmonic sounds. And the book is talking about the maths of the universe, and how when things orbit around each other, and if you trace all the patterns, it becomes like a lotus flower.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: It’s very magical.

Swift: That is magical. I definitely relate to needing to find magical things in this very not-magical time, needing to read more books and learn to sew, and watch movies that take place hundreds of years ago. In a time where, if you look at the news, you just want to have a panic attack — I really relate to the idea that you are thinking about stars and constellations.

McCartney: Did you do that on Folklore?

Swift: Yes. I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films.

McCartney: What stuff were you reading?

Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use — kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

McCartney: Exactly. So you’d see the word in a book and think, “I love that word”?

Swift: Yeah, I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.

McCartney: How about “marzipan”?

Swift: Love “marzipan.”

McCartney: The other day, I was remembering when we wrote “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: “kaleidoscope.”

Swift: “Kaleidoscope” is one of mine! I have a song on 1989, a song called “Welcome to New York,” that I put the word “kaleidoscope” in just because I’m obsessed with the word.

McCartney: I think a love of words is a great thing, particularly if you’re going to try to write a lyric, and for me, it’s like, “What is this going to say to that person?” I often feel like I’m writing to someone who is not doing so well. So I’m trying to write songs that might help. Not in a goody-goody, crusading kind of way, but just thinking there have been so many times in my life when I’ve heard a song and felt so much better. I think that’s the angle I want, that inspirational thing.

I remember once, a friend of mine from Liverpool, we were teenagers and we were going to a fairground. He was a schoolmate, and we had these jackets that had a little fleck in the material, which was the cool thing at the time.

Swift: We should have done matching jackets for this photo shoot.

McCartney: Find me a fleck, I’m in. But we went to the fair, and I just remember — this is what happens with songs — there was this girl at the fair. This is just a little Liverpool fair — it was in a place called Sefton Park — and there was this girl, who was so beautiful. She wasn’t a star. She was so beautiful. Everyone was following her, and it’s like, “Wow.” It’s like a magical scene, you know? But all this gave me a headache, so I ended up going back to his house — I didn’t normally get headaches. And we thought, “What can we do?” So we put on the Elvis song “All Shook Up.” By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, “That’s powerful.”

Swift: That really is powerful.

McCartney: I love that, when people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, I was going through an illness and I listened to a lot of your stuff, and I’m better now and it got me through,” or kids will say, “It got me through exams.” You know, they’re studying, they’re going crazy, but they put your music on. I’m sure it happens with a lot of your fans. It inspires them, you know?

Swift: Yeah, I definitely think about that as a goal. There’s so much stress everywhere you turn that I kind of wanted to make an album that felt sort of like a hug, or like your favorite sweater that makes you feel like you want to put it on.

McCartney: What, a “cardigan”?

Swift: Like a good cardigan, a good, worn-in cardigan. Or something that makes you reminisce on your childhood. I think sadness can be cozy. It can obviously be traumatic and stressful, too, but I kind of was trying to lean into sadness that feels like somehow enveloping in not such a scary way — like nostalgia and whimsy incorporated into a feeling like you’re not all right. Because I don’t think anybody was really feeling like they were in their prime this year. Isolation can mean escaping into your imagination in a way that’s kind of nice.

McCartney: I think a lot of people have found that. I would say to people, “I feel a bit guilty about saying I’m actually enjoying this quarantine thing,” and people go, “Yeah, I know, don’t say it to anyone.” A lot of people are really suffering.

Swift: Because there’s a lot in life that’s arbitrary. Completely and totally arbitrary. And [the quarantine] is really shining a light on that, and also a lot of things we have that we outsource that you can actually do yourself.

McCartney: I love that. This is why I said I live simply. That’s, like, at the core of it. With so many things, something goes wrong and you go, “Oh, I’ll get somebody to fix that.” And then it’s like, “No, let me have a look at it.…”

Swift: Get a hammer and a nail.

McCartney: “Maybe I can put that picture up.” It’s not rocket science. The period after the Beatles, when we went to live in Scotland on a really — talk about dumpy — little farm. I mean, I see pictures of it now and I’m not ashamed, but I’m almost ashamed. Because it’s like, “God, nobody’s cleaned up around here.”

But it was really a relief. Because when I was with the Beatles, we’d formed Apple Records, and if I wanted a Christmas tree, someone would just buy it. And I thought, after a while, “No, you know what? I really would like to go and buy our Christmas tree. Because that’s what everyone does.” So you go down — “I’ll have that one” — and you carried it back. I mean, it’s little, but it’s huge at the same time.

I needed a table in Scotland and I was looking through a catalog and I thought, “I could make one. I did woodwork in school, so I know what a dovetail joint is.” So I just figured it out. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, and I’m whittling away at this wood and I made this little joint. There was no nail technology — it was glue. And I was scared to put it together. I said, “It’s not going to fit,” but one day, I got my woodwork glue and thought, “There’s no going back.” But it turned out to be a real nice little table I was very proud of. It was that sense of achievement.

The weird thing was, Stella went up to Scotland recently and I said, “Isn’t it there?” and she said, “No.” Anyway, I searched for it. Nobody remembered it. Somebody said, “Well, there’s a pile of wood in the corner of one of the barns, maybe that’s it. Maybe they used it for firewood.” I said, “No, it’s not firewood.” Anyway, we found it, and do you know how joyous that was for me? I was like, “You found my table?!” Somebody might say that’s a bit boring.

Swift: No, it’s cool!

McCartney: But it was a real sort of great thing for me to be able to do stuff for yourself. You were talking about sewing. I mean normally, in your position, you’ve got any amount of tailors.

Swift: Well, there’s been a bit of a baby boom recently; several of my friends have gotten pregnant.

McCartney: Oh, yeah, you’re at the age.

Swift: And I was just thinking, “I really want to spend time with my hands, making something for their children.” So I made this really cool flying-squirrel stuffed animal that I sent to one of my friends. I sent a teddy bear to another one, and I started making these little silk baby blankets with embroidery. It’s gotten pretty fancy. And I’ve been painting a lot.

McCartney: What do you paint? Watercolors?

Swift: Acrylic or oil. Whenever I do watercolor, all I paint is flowers. When I have oil, I really like to do landscapes. I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.

McCartney: It’s a bit of a romantic dream. I agree with you, though, I think you’ve got to have dreams, particularly this year. You’ve got to have something to escape to. When you say “escapism,” it sounds like a dirty word, but this year, it definitely wasn’t. And in the books you’re reading, you’ve gone into that world. That’s, I think, a great thing. Then you come back out. I normally will read a lot before I go to bed. So I’ll come back out, then I’ll go to sleep, so I think it really is nice to have those dreams that can be fantasies or stuff you want to achieve.

Swift: You’re creating characters. This was the first album where I ever created characters, or wrote about the life of a real-life person. There’s a song called “The Last Great American Dynasty” that’s about this real-life heiress who lived just an absolutely chaotic, hectic…

McCartney: She’s a fantasy character?

Swift: She’s a real person. Who lived in the house that I live in.

McCartney: She’s a real person? I listened to that and I thought, “Who is this?”

Swift: Her name was Rebekah Harkness. And she lived in the house that I ended up buying in Rhode Island. That’s how I learned about her. But she was a woman who was very, very talked about, and everything she did was scandalous. I found a connection in that. But I also was thinking about how you write “Eleanor Rigby” and go into that whole story about what all these people in this town are doing and how their lives intersect, and I hadn’t really done that in a very long time with my music. It had always been so microscope personal.

McCartney: Yeah, ’cause you were writing breakup songs like they were going out of style.

Swift: I was, before my luck changed [laughs]. I still write breakup songs. I love a good breakup song. Because somewhere in the world, I always have a friend going through a breakup, and that will make me write one.

McCartney: Yeah, this goes back to this thing of me and John: When you’ve got a formula, break it. I don’t have a formula. It’s the mood I’m in. So I love the idea of writing a character. And, you know, trying to think, “What am I basing this on?” So “Eleanor Rigby” was based on old ladies I knew as a kid. For some reason or other, I got great relationships with a couple of local old ladies. I was thinking the other day, I don’t know how I met them, it wasn’t like they were family. I’d just run into them, and I’d do their shopping for them.

Swift: That’s amazing.

McCartney: It just felt good to me. I would sit and talk, and they’d have amazing stories. That’s what I liked. They would have stories from the wartime — because I was born actually in the war — and so these old ladies, they were participating in the war. This one lady I used to sort of just hang out with, she had a crystal radio that I found very magical. In the war, a lot of people made their own radios — you’d make them out of crystals [sings “The Twilight Zone” theme].

Swift: How did I not know this? That sounds like something I would have tried to learn about.

McCartney: It’s interesting, because there is a lot of parallels with the virus and lockdowns and wartime. It happened to everyone. Like, this isn’t HIV, or SARS, or Avian flu, which happened to others, generally. This has happened to everyone, all around the world. That’s the defining thing about this particular virus. And, you know, my parents … it happened to everyone in Britain, including the queen and Churchill. War happened. So they were all part of this thing, and they all had to figure out a way through it. So you figured out Folklore. I figured out McCartney III.

Swift: And a lot of people have been baking sourdough bread. Whatever gets you through!

McCartney: Some people used to make radios. And they’d take a crystal — we should look it up, but it actually is a crystal. I thought, “Oh, no, they just called it a crystal radio,” but it’s actually crystals like we know and love.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: And somehow they get the radio waves — this crystal attracts them — they tune it in, and that’s how they used to get their news. Back to “Eleanor Rigby,” so I would think of her and think of what she’s doing and then just try to get lyrical, just try to bring poetry into it, words you love, just try to get images like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,” and Father McKenzie “is darning his socks in the night.” You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you know, “preparing his Bible,” which would have been more obvious. But “darning his socks” kind of says more about him. So you get into this lovely fantasy. And that’s the magic of songs, you know. It’s a black hole, and then you start doing this process, and then there’s this beautiful little flower that you’ve just made. So it is very like embroidery, making something.

Swift: Making a table.

McCartney: Making a table.

Swift: Wow, it would’ve been so fun to play Glastonbury for the 50th anniversary together.

McCartney: It would’ve been great, wouldn’t it? And I was going to be asking you to play with me.

Swift: Were you going to invite me? I was hoping that you would. I was going to ask you.

McCartney: I would’ve done “Shake It Off.”

Swift: Oh, my God, that would have been amazing.

McCartney: I know it, it’s in C!

Swift: One thing I just find so cool about you is that you really do seem to have the joy of it, still, just no matter what. You seem to have the purest sense of joy of playing an instrument and making music, and that’s just the best, I think.

McCartney: Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?

Swift: We’re really lucky.

McCartney: I don’t know if it ever happens to you, but with me, it’s like, “Oh, my god, I’ve ended up as a musician.”

Swift: Yeah, I can’t believe it’s my job.

McCartney: I must tell you a story I told Mary the other day, which is just one of my favorite little sort of Beatles stories. We were in a terrible, big blizzard, going from London to Liverpool, which we always did. We’d be working in London and then drive back in the van, just the four of us with our roadie, who would be driving. And this was a blizzard. You couldn’t see the road. At one point, it slid off and it went down an embankment. So it was “Ahhh,” a bunch of yelling. We ended up at the bottom. It didn’t flip, luckily, but so there we are, and then it’s like, “Oh, how are we going to get back up? We’re in a van. It’s snowing, and there’s no way.” We’re all standing around in a little circle, and thinking, “What are we going to do?” And one of us said, “Well, something will happen.” And I thought that was just the greatest. I love that, that’s a philosophy.

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: And it did. We sort of went up the bank, we thumbed a lift, we got the lorry driver to take us, and Mal, our roadie, sorted the van and everything. So that was kind of our career. And I suppose that’s like how I ended up being a musician and a songwriter: “Something will happen.”

Swift: That’s the best.

McCartney: It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. It’s great if you’re ever in that sort of panic attack: “Oh, my God,” or, “Ahhh, what am I going to do?”

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: All right then, thanks for doing this, and this was, you know, a lot of fun.

Swift: You’re the best. This was so awesome. Those were some quality stories!

[marshieee]

Could i request kuroo ushijima sakusa and msby bokuto when you come to their games but its a big game and you bring your kid(s) with you. (Maybe the kid(s) help bokuto with his emo mode or the kids help calm their dad down) idk i just thought this would be cute and fun for you to write

Also idk if you accept anons but if you do can i be midnight anon

Aahhhhh a father to children interaction i love that!❤️❤️ i still can’t believe I’m receiving request huhuhu😭❤️ OFCOURSE I ACCEPT ANONS! CHARACTER ANONS OR WHATEVER JUST COME TO ME!!!🥰 also this is gonna be their timeskip version so I’m gonna stick with kuroo’s timeskip profession if you don’t mind also i wanted to try to make this a little scenario just tell me if you want to make this as a hc. Sorry this took awhile.

When their kid(s) came to see them

Kuroo

“Man...”

Kuroo was watching schweiden alders game feeling nervous as he watch ushijima spikes the ball.

“Jeez he’s gonna break the ball at this point”

He was assigned to ask ushijima for a promotion video promoting a good sportsmanship and promoting the game just like what he did with hinata.

Normally he wouldn’t get this nervous but learning that ushijima is utsui takashi’s son changed his mood. Also knowing that ushijima would eventually become a professional volleyball player under Japan V. League soon.

“Like father like son huh”

Suddenly out of nowhere, even though the whole place was booming with cheers and claps he heard someone calling him.

“DADDY!!!”

He turned around and saw his ball of sunshine running towards him with you trailing behind.

“Baby!”

He kneels down and opened his arms waiting for his son to come to him. The toddler then dives into his fathers arms and started giggling, he stood up carrying his son.

“What brings you here buddy?”

“Mommy said she was going to watch a volleyball game and asked me if i wanna go”

“And you did”

“AND I DID”

As you finally reached them he gave you a cheeky smile, he kissed your cheeks since his son is there so kiss on the lips can wait.

“Hi kitten”

“Hello to you too kuroo-san”

“KUROO-SAN?”

You laughed but finally noticing his is kind of pale worried that he might be sick you gently cupped his face.

“Are you ok?”

He grabs your hand and give it a kiss, feeling that he is slowly calming down.

“Yeah”

But suddenly his son grabbed both of his cheeks and forcibly turned kuroo to face him.

“Y-Yes?”

“Daddy are you sick?”

“No buddy I’m fine”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure”

“Really?”

“Really”

“Okay”

“Hahaha...ok”

Still not convinced with his father’s word he gave kuroo a kiss on the cheeks and made up a little chant to make sure he’s ok.

“Thank you baby i feel a lot better now”

“What’s up with you anyways?”

“Well i was assigned to ask ushijima if he can make a promotion video with us”

“And? What’s wrong with that?”

“Recently i just discovered that ushijima is utsui takashi’s son”

“Wait really? The utsui takashi?”

“Yeah”

“Omygod”

“I know right?!”

Suddenly someone flung their arms around your shoulder, now that you noticed how close your face were with kuroo. The both of you looked at your son who is struggling to keep his arms around you since you’re a bit far, giggling you stepped closer, when he got comfortable, he took a deep breath and puts on a serious face.

“Who is utsui takashi?”

“Why is utsui takashi?”

“How is utsui takashi?”

You three fell silent for a good minute before bursting with laughter.

“Why are we even huddling anyways?”

You took your son out of kuroo’s arms and continued laughing with him. Kuroo watched both of his precious gems having fun, all smiles and that’s what he likes.

Ushijima

It was a big day today since it’s msby vs schweiden alders game.

He felt a excitement since he’s going to play against hinata shoyo again after those years. The fact that you told him you can’t come to his game today since you’re too busy and his daughter has a play date really saddens his mood. Boy just wants to flex sometimes you know.

Suddenly he heard a commotion outside their waiting room, he didn’t mind it at first but it gradually got a little louder so he decided to check it out. This man got confused over a commotion cause not only his teammates were there also the msby players were also there huddled in the middle of the hallway.

“What’s happening?”

They all turned around that made ushijima anxious because duh they were looking at him like he just killed someone then all of a sudden in the center of those giant players was a lovely little girl.

“PAPA!!!”

“Keiko?”

Fun fact: ushi named his daughter keiko that means “respected child”

Keiko runs up to her father and ushijima instantly scoops her up in his arms.

“Papa i’m here”

“But i thought keiko has a play date today?”

“Keiko said she wants to watch her papa play”

The boys gave way to you as you walked up to the both of them. Ushijima gave you a smile and pecks your lips.

“Hi mama”

“Hello honey”

Suddenly Kageyama appeared besides you and bowed.

“Hello y/n-san!”

“Oh my hello tobio-kun”

“TOBIO NII-CHAN!!”

“Hello keiko”

Hoshiumi then appeared behind ushijima and waved at little keiko.

“Hiii keiko-chan!”

“HOSHIUMI NII-CHAN!!”

“Hey keiko who do you think is the coolest?—“

“Papa!”

“No no not that—“

“But papa is the coolest for me”

“Besides your papa, me or hinata shoyo?”

Suddenly hinata pops out and caught keiko’s attention, ushijima had to hold her since she moved to the side to look at hinata. She stared at hinata making him nervous.

“SUNSHINE!!!”

They all got quiet when keiko shouted sunshine while giggling, hinata on the other hand was confused.

“Sunshine?”

“Shoyo nii-chan sunshine!”

Hinata blushed furiously after receiving a compliment from keiko, hoshiumi did not know what’s happening so he asked ushijima if he can carry keiko.

“Sure just be careful”

“I will i will”

Then they started to surround keiko again asking who’s the coolest to who’s the tallest and who’s the best etc. etc.

Ushijima watched as her baby girl was getting along with his teammates and other teams as well. You looked at ushijima who has a soft look, nudging him to the side.

“It looks like keiko is popular huh~”

“Yeah”

“Ah I wonder if she’s also popular at her daycare~”

Ushijima turned to look at you with a confused expression.

“Because if she is there’s probably a boy who likes her—“

“No”

“But what if when she goes home and told us about—“

“No”

“Aww keiko will have a prince—“

Ushijima grabbed both of your cheeks and kissed your nose, but he still looks frustrated after you put those thoughts in his head.

“Y/N no”

“Owkie~”

Sakusa

Today is a big day for the japan V league, the gymnasium was packed with fans and supporters for each team. You could see a lot of flags here and there, there’s also a huge group of people who would cheer for their teams.

A lot of camera has been clicking and taping since then. Fortunately for you, you got a good seat in front thanks for the sources you had, your little girl who’s sitting besides you is very excited to watch the game.

She begged you to have her face painted with a japan flag which you unfortunately did because you can’t say no to her sometimes, you gave her a fan with the japan’s team on it so she could wave it around and to fan herself of course.

The game has started and you cheered with your daughter, shouting and jumping whenever the japan team scores a point. Soon the game ended and it was the win of the japan team. You felt someone tug your shirt looking down you saw your daughter who was ready to go.

“Mommy let’s go! Let’s go!”

“Alright baby calm down we’re going”

You held her hands as you two walk towards the court, thankfully you two wore a pass around your neck or else.

When you arrived at the court a lot of people were there, paparazzi, reporters, few important peoples and all. You were trying to spot your husband among the crowd but your daughter found him first, she lets go of your hand and came dashing to wherever she found her father.

“AH BABY! WAIT!”

“DADDY!!”

Sakusa was having an interview with a reporter that time so he didn’t notice a little girl running towards him, when she got to where her daddy was she immediately hugged him.

The reporter was confused and panicking since a little girl suddenly interrupted their interview, they were glancing back and forgot to sakusa to the little girl when all of a sudden sakusa smiled and lifted her up.

“Where were we again?”

“Oh..um right uh, y-your thoughts about the game”

“Ah yes, they were a tough opponent that’s given it was really hard to go pass through their defense so it was nice when aran broke their defenses with one hard spike, overall it was a good game everyone did their best so that’s what matters”

“Right one last question um do you know this little girl?”

Sakusa looked at the ball of sunshine in his arms and smiled at her.

“Do you want to introduce yourself?”

The nodded enthusiastically at her father,

“Go on”

“Hello! My name is sakusa hayami! Nice to meet you!”

Fun fact:Sakusa named his daughter hayami which means “rare beauty”

The reporter was surprised and looked at sakusa who was smiling.

“She’s my daughter”

“Oh! Hello hayami-san nice to meet you too how old are you?”

“I’m...”

Hayami slowly extended her fingers and showed them,

“I’m five years old!”

“Wow! Anything you want to say abou your father?”

“Daddy?”

Sakusa then whispered to her.

“What do you want to say about daddy”

“MY DADDY IS AWESOME! HE’S SO STRONG WHEN HE POW THE BALL THEN WHEN THE BALL GO WHOOSH! THEN THEY CAN’T CATCH IT!”

She flings her arms in the air while explaining making the reporter giggle at her cuteness, sakusa then noticed you walking towards them, he gave you a smile and gestures you to come over.

“And here...”

He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer to him.

“...is my lovely wife y/n”

You bow down and the reporter bow down also, they look at the three of you and smiled.

“What a lovely family”

“It is”

Sakusa turned to look at you and kissed you on your forehead.

“It is a lovely family”

Suddenly someone shouted at the background causing all of you to turn around.

“HAYAMI-CHAN!”

“UNCLE BOKUTO!”

“HI HAYAMI-CHAN!”

“UNCLE TSUMU”

Sakusa turned to look at the reporter with a frustrated face.

“It’s a lovely family not until they come around”

“Ah hahaha...”

When the interview ended hayami played with her uncles, sakusa held your hand.

“Did you enjoyed the game?”

“Yeah i did, Hayami also enjoyed the game”

“Really?”

“Yes really i had to stop her from shouting to much or she’ll hurt her throat”

“Hahahaha...i see”

He placed a soft kiss on your hand, you looked at him.

“Thank you”

“You’re welcome~”

Bokuto

You wanted to surprise bokuto so you didn’t tell him that you’ll be watching his game today all he knows is you’ll be at your friend’s house since they needed you with something and the kids were scheduled with a play date.

He didn’t mind of course but it’s still sad that his babies wouldn’t be there to watch him play but when you told him that you’ll be watching at the television he said that he’ll do his best.

Now that you’re here at the noisy gymnasium full of spectators who supports their favorite teams, other brought their own banner some joined a cheering team. The whole gymnasium was full of tension and excitement that infected both of your children as they were jumping and shouting that you have to sometimes cover their mouth or else they’ll hurt themselves.

“GOOOO DADDY!!!!”

“GO GO MSBY!!!”

Bokuto didn’t know that you three were there all he knows is to focus on the game and win. Since the whole area was full of cheer it’ll be hard for bokuto to hear his kids cheering for him.

As the game went on the msby team isn’t doing well they were five points behind and they needed to catch up or the numbers will pile up. You can tell your husband is getting frustrated since his spikes keeps getting blocked, unlike before he knows how to calm down and act rationally but the frustration is still there if this continues he will lose his focus.

You have to do something, you were thinking of ways to help your husband and then suddenly your kids started shouting even more.

“DADDY YOU CAN DO THIS!!!”

“DADDYYYY!!!!”

You guessed that they sensed that their daddy is having a tough time, then it came to you, it’s kind of dumb to bring this with you but you thought that you might need or someone might need it and it looks like you did. Tapping the shoulders of the shouting children they then looked at you.

“Kasuga, haruki...”

You named your little girl kasuga which means “spring day” while bokuto named his young man haruki which means “shining sun”

You gave them a thumbs up as they looked at you with a confused expression.

“...leave it to mommy”

You grabbed your bag and looked for the thing that you brought, you immediately pulled it out of the bag.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a megaphone”

Yes, you did brought a megaphone without any reason you just shoved it down and brought it.

“Mega-phone?”

“Uh huh you can talk here and it’ll make your voice suuuuper loud and I’m sure daddy will hear it!”

They were excited to use it since they know that their daddy will finally hear them, you started to turn on the megaphone and handed the it to them.

“You two hold it very still”

Haruki lets his sister hold the upper part of handle while he holds the lower part of it. You made sure that it was on and loud and clear.

“Ok now you two go in front right, there in the railings mommy will be right beside you”

You don’t want other people burts their damn eardrums when the twins shouts. They slowly and carefully walked down the stairs holding on the megaphone on their hands. When you arrived at the bottom, the twins looked at you as you gave them your signal.

“Ok on the count of three...one...two...three!”

They took a deep breath and cheered.

“DADDYYYYYY DO YOUR BESTTTT!! YOU CAN DO THISSSS!!! GOOO FIGHTTTTT!!!”

If it’s just one of them it wouldn’t really attract a lot of people but since there’s two of them I’m sure there’s a lot of people who’s looking at the three of you. You blushed a little but didn’t stop the twins since you’re a supportive mother and wife.

Bokuto heard their screams, at first he thought he was hallucinating but when hinata turned around and started to wave at them.

“KASUGA-CHAN! HARUKI-CHAN!!”

“Kasuga...haruki...”

He finally turned around and saw his two bundle of joy waving at him and right beside them was you who looks flustered but still waving at him. He felt all of his frustrations fading away by just looking at the three of you all smiles for him, so he raised both of his arms and smiled.

“HEY HEY HEY!!!”

The twins immediately handed you the megaphone and copied their father’s actions.

“HEY HEY HEY!!!” “HEY HEY HEY!!!”

Bokuto turned to look at you, you blowed him a kiss to which he blows you one back. Feeling a lot better he tapped both sakusa and hinata’s back.

“LET’S WIN THIS!”

Bonus:

Atsumu watched bokuto’s with his lovely family and felt extremely jealous on how the two of you blowing kisses to each other.

“How come bokuto has two cute children and a beautiful wife”

Grumbling at himself he turned to look for a camera who’s recording live on television but since there’s a alot he just shouted.

“SAMU IF I WIN THIS YA BETTER GIVE ME A FREE ONIGIRI YA JERK!”

Fortunately that was caught on cam and fortunately for him too osamu was watching live on his phone.

“THEN WIN YA DUMBASS!!!!”

[chickensarentcheap]

Esme stuff :)

@tragiclyhip, @youflickedtooharddamnit, @secretaryunpaid​

Alright...which one of my children did this? lol.   TJ sent it, but he’s not saying who is  actually responsible. 

Andy’s been here LOL.   He always leaves us the coolest sand sculptures.

omg Tae....let’s go. Leave the kids behind.  Just us.  Let’s do it!

Yeah...yeah...father/son time...surfing together...very wholesome. What’s NOT wholesome is where my eyes directly go to. LOL.   Listen, I’ve been married to the man for ever a decade.  I see him butt ass naked all the time. But my eyes still focus.  After all, it’s my favourite toy!

Watching UFC together.  The husband is  verbally encouraging her to grow up to ‘kick major ass’. 

When your kiddos find the things they truly love and immerse themselves in, please don’t discourage them.  Don’t let your own insecurities or the things you’ve falsely learned prevent you from allowing them to pursue a passion.  Both Tyler and I know what it’s like to be forced to be someone we’re not at early ages. And when we started our family, we swore we’d never do the same to our kids.  We’d let them be who they are meant to be. We’d let them explore interests and find things they love.   And with Nugget, one of those things is gymnastics. He EXCELS at it.  And we are so proud of him.

Just had a very interesting, out of the blue convo this one.

Her:  “Mum, is it true you like both boys and girls?”

Me: “Yes.”

Her: “You like both, but you met dad and fell in love with him and got married and stuff.  And he’s a boy.  But you like girls, too.”

Me: “Yup.”

Her: “Is it true that Millie likes girls and boys too?”

Me: “Apparently.”

Her: “So if I do too, that’s okay?”

Me: “More than okay.”

Her: “Good. ‘Cause if you ask me, that’s pretty awesome. Getting to like both! But just so you know, I’m never getting married. I can’t handle that bullshit.”

And then she said she wanted to go and eat and that was that.

What’s the point of having a husband that works out all the time if he doesn’t flex once in a while for you?

Just arrived for Andy and Clover’s wedding.  Look at this set up for the reception!  #maybeathirdweddinghusband?  lol 

There’s never really a time when we’re fully alone LOL

He is not amused.

So much for a bath for two, huh?  I’ll leave you and your feathered friend alone. 

First shark sacrifice of the day! 

He’s bitching and moaning about having to wear a tie.  Because I wanted to see him in one.  I told him if he gets through three quarters of the evening with it on, he can use it for...other things...later.   LOL.

[purplerose244]

My thoughts on Seabound!!! 🌊🌊🌊 (1/4)

SPOILERS ALERT!!!

Finally Nya's season! Our queen, our water goddess, our amazing girl gets what she deserves! 😍😍😍

What I know about the season beforehand is that Nya's powers apparently are getting problematic for some reasons? Which is a pretty common topic in other shows but it's a first in Ninjago, usually the elemental powers don't have focus and I LOVE that we now get to see stuff like that 💕💕💕

I know there should be Wojira involved, trusting The Island to deliver that little foreshadowing at the end of the episode 🤷‍♀️ Also Maya is back... MAYA IS FINALLY BACK AFTER SEVEN SEASONS YES!!! 😭😭😭

I have nothing else to say, I have no idea what this will bring, hopefully something as good as Master of the Mountain! 🖤

Alright, here we go!

GENERAL THOUGHTS

Warning reader, I might be fangirling to an extreme because I love mah girl Nya and I've been wanting Kai and Nya's parents to be back ever since Hands of Time ended. So yeah... screaming alert 😅

At this point I don't doubt that the intro is great, we reached such a level of animation and we got The Fold 😍😍 Love the marine vibe and how it's similar to The Island, because it's a great intro 👌

NOW I like the writing! Maybe they rushed the dialogue's quality for The Island to get here? It's just fun and in character, maybe it's just me but I'm enjoying it a lot for now

How many episodes are in this? Wiki says ten, then I checked again and it's sixteen like with Master of Mountain... eh, it looks good so far so it's fine whatever happens 🤷‍♀️

A BIG SPLASH

Oohhh, new villain! One that uses... flames... huh, does she know there's literally a master of fire in the ninja team? Eh whatever she looks cute, give it up for Miss Demeanor!! 👏👏

Wait... OMG IS THAT ERIN MATTHEWS??? WE GOT MACY!! ❤❤❤

Whoa, we're finding out where did the order of the vengestone from season 13 come from?? YAS! CONTINUITY!

Yep, there it is, Nya lost control... her attacks look so cool 😍

Lol that kid trying to be a nindroid and Zane being offended 😂😂 Sorry hun, you're that popular

Aaahhh, thank you Ninjago! You gave me back Nya the perfectionist 😂 I was worried her reaction to her powers wasn't going to be in character but it looks fair so far. Brings me back to Possession, my favorite season 💙💙💙

WE GOT BACK THE FACT THAT SHE CAN MAKE IT RAIN!!! YAS!!! I might be easy to please but I love these details 🤩

🤯🤯🤯 Okay they are definitely going somewhere this time and I LOVE IT, because wow. WOW. Are we actually addressing the forever questioned fact that wind and water weren't elements that Chen needed at the Tournament? Are we giving a reason for them to exist outside the main set of elements and the elemental masters?? Duuuude, season 15 don't let me stop you, keep going 😍

Mm, so water and wind are connected to Wojira (now I see the connection with the special). Are we setting the ground for a new master of wind? 😏😏 It's risky going for a Morro replacement but it's a super intriguing idea! Oooor Edgy Boy TM might come back? WHO KNOWS I'M CURIOUS ANYWAY 🤩

Love how it is universal knowledge that Nya is super indipendent 👌

YES YES FINALLY WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MAYA!!! 😍😍😍 Is it too much hoping into a Ray cameo as well?? Pleaaaase? Also addressing Krux after so many seasons, this feels exciting!! 😊

This is what I'm talking about, training, fighting scenes, show me everything that water goddess can do! 🌊🌊🌊

Aaahhh, Nya flexing her mightiness through anger, just to remind us that she is the descendant of a water master as much as of a fire master 😅

YES YES YES YES IT'S HAPPENING FINALLY AFTER SEVEN SEASON THE FIRE WATER PARENTS ARE FINALLY BACK!!! 🔥🌊🔥🌊🔥🌊 I'M SO HAPPY I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR SO LONG!!! 😭

RAY IS THERE TOO HECK YES!!!! 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍 I shouldn't get this excited at only the first episode... WHO CARES RAY IS BAAAAACK!!! ❤❤❤

Omg Maya is definitely different from what I expected, turns out Kai's enthusiasm came from her 😂

Oh look at my flame babe 😍

He's so happy his parents are here, he's a total family man ❤❤❤

Nya is maaaaad... 😅

THERE SHE IS

WELCOME BACK JILLIAN I MISSED YOU 💚💚💚 Would it be too much having a "Your voice sounds familiar" moment with Maya and Lloyd? 😂

I'm so stoked for this! I want all the interactions I've missed for all of this time, asap!! HECK yes!! 😍😍😍😍

Oh, are we looking over the Miss Demeanor, vengestone situation? Mm... for now at least... WHO CARES FIRE WATER PARENTS!! 🔥🌊🔥🌊🔥🌊

THE CALL OF THE DEEP

Imma just slow clap for The Fold because this is another amazing intro, one of those things in this show that stays awesome no matter what happens 👍👍

So Maya gave Nya her discipline and perfectionism, but not the passion behind it 😂 I like this, it's not your conventional master of water, although I'd say it's different from the impression she gave me back in HoT. Maybe this is how she is when she's not trapped for fifty years? 😅😅

Is it too much asking for Kai and Ray bonding while the water women get the work done? 😅😅

Is this the sequel of Green Eggs and Ham?

Green Pancakes and Ham? 😂

Oh it's seaweed nevermind... at breakfast? I'm all for sushi rolls but this is a little 😅 Although since Maya missed their childhood she probably never cooked meals for them... how did I get myself sad 😢

Whoa, Maya is a strict teacher! I got flashbacks from my first and only dance lesson, teachers nitpicking every single pose, uuurrrggg I feel ya waterlily 😡

Again, not a fan of Misako, but coming from her the whole speech about wanting to be there for her child makes a lot of sense

Yes. YES.

YEEEEESSSS KAI AND RAY FAMILY BONDING THIS IS EVERYTHING I'VE EVER WANTED I'M GETTING ALL OF MY WISHES GRANTED FOR THIS ONE ❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥❤🔥❤

AND MY FLAME BABE IS SO GLAD HE GOT HIS PARENTS!!! 😭😭😭

Lol with Kai's new hair they look even more related 🤣

Ray also sounds so happy he gets to have his moment with his son 😢 I feel so blessed in this moment 👍

Also this scene makes a lot of sense. Nya grew up to be indipendent, one that succeed in most of stuff without problems, she built her life without any help and doesn't look for it. Kai grew up more insecure, he got some walls up but loves to take care of others and be taken care of. With a childhood lost he looks forward to a bit of softness ❤❤

Did Maya make real bacon for that sandwich? Do I smell some favoritism? 😅 Or maybe she really wants Nya to get onto the water mind setting idk 🤷‍♀️

Little tiny complain, why isn't Jay doing the fixing? Did he give up mechanics completely? It feels like we haven't seen him do tech stuff in so long, I miss techy boy in action 😞

And no, having to check on the bathroom doesn't count 😅

Aww robot date 💜🤍💜🤍

AAAHH ROBOT DISASTER 😱😱😱 ZANE DANG IT YOU WERE DOING SO GOOD NOT TRYING TO DIE IN THE LAST TWO SEASONS!!

Oh that was weird, weird magic purple wave thingie?

I DID NOT ASK FOR A SEASON WITH A BEST GIRL AT THE EXPENCE OF ANOTHER BEST GIRL PIX DON'T YOU DARE DO THIS TO ME 😱😱😱😱😱

"Well this is troubling." I love this samurai so freaking much 💜💜💜

GUYS THIS IS ONLY THE SECOND EPISODE, I'M A LITTLE SCARED NOW 😢

Okay Nya admitting that something's wrong looking so apologetic, girl you don't need to do that you already own my heart 😭

Alright, I'm guessing this is Wojira's power or something, and they will have to go down below and find out why... just throwing this in, maybe Maya did something? Because she wanted to finally be with her family and needed an excuse? JUST A THEORY WITH NO BASE I REALLY HOPE I'M WRONG!!!

Okay, two episodes and I'm BEYOND engaged, let's keep it up! 😍

UNSINKABLE

Getting an idea how this episode might end already 😂😂

Look, I love best girl Pixal, but I'm kinda sad that she seems to be the only one tinkering at this point. Like, I saw Nya fix little stuff, while Jay dropped engineering altogether, I miss my engineers team 😭

Aww, the guys didn't want to crush Pixal's dream of an unsinkable boat 💜 But honestly yeah, I agree with Cole, this might end badly 😅😅

Thank goodness

I was worried they forgot about Jaya ❤💙❤💙 Jay is such a cutie omg

Nya: Mm, going on a potentially dangerous mission with unstable powers in the heart of my element or... mom's tofu pancakes... *yeets herself over the ship*

I'm making too many screenshots of the Smith family... WHO CARES THEY ARE BACK AND THEY ALL LOOK SO GOOD!!! 😍😍😍😍

Aww Ray wants to play with his son and his friends so CUTE ❤❤❤ Still can't believe they play Prime Empire after everything that went down 😂😂

Whoa whoa whoa, Kai and Cole are sitting this one out? That's actually interesting, I'm pretty sure I saw Cole's scuba suit in the sets though so I didn't expect it... lol it's actually kinda fair that the two that used to be afraid of water aren't going 😂😂

Bet Kai is happy to stay behind because he gets to spend time with his dad 😭

Also studying the fire elementals?? Uhm, yes please?? TELL ME EVERYTHING ABOUT MY FLAME BABE!!! 😍😍😍😍

I'm sure this one scene...

... made so many lavashippers happy ❤🖤❤🖤 Cole you got Ray's blessing

Ninja team acting cool while Jay is being Jay, it's how it always goes, it's the entire show's description and I absolutely love it 😂 That wink though 💙

PIRATE ZANE IS BACK 😂😂😂 Haven't seen him since Possession, and this time he's not even malfunctioning 👌 Pixal is so done with his dorky boyfriend 😝

Of course Jay already has a ghost butler theory going on 😂

OF COURSE IT'S MAYA 😂😂

To be honest muffins would sold me too 😅 Not sure if she will make them out of tofu again though...

It's actually really interesting that we still haven't met the actual enemies, it does build up excitment! Very curious about these squid guys 👍

Well what do you know, the Unsinkable sank. Who would have thought?

... yeah same, sorry Pix 😅

FIVE THOUSANDS FATHOMS DOWN

Aaaahhh, Nya fixing stuff! That's more like it!! 😍😍

Oww, that one speech, I've been waiting for so long for that! Maya just wants to catch up with her daughter and it's not her fault she was separated from her children, but Nya did everything on her own with Kai. Only fair she isn't seeking for her help right now... still sad 😢

Pff, with this ninja team there's not a moment of privacy 😂😂

Maya cleaning his future son-in-law's laundry what the HECK 😂😂😂 To be fair Jay has a bit of a history of having to change underwears during sea travels 😝

Zane was attached to a battery? When?... are you talking about that one scene in Prime Empire? Cause that's not really a flashback I wanna ha- whoops never mind got the flashback 😱

Maya looks more calm now, I think she's trying to act more reasonable and she's got good points 👍 I know people were a little weirded out by how more cheerful she looks in comparison to Hands of Time, but I think she gets the most serious and rational when time needs. That's actually fascinating of her 🤔

CALLING OUT AN ATTEMPTED MURDER

THIS GIRL IS TOO GORGEOUS MY HEART CAN'T TAKE IT 🤩🤩🤩 Like my gosh that smirk, what the heck Pix 💜💜💜

Okay but Jay looking at Nya until the doors are completely closed?? CAN YOU FEEL MY JAYA HEART BEATING?? ❤💙❤💙

Whoa green gas I thought this was Nya's season ��

MAYA WHY ARE YOU SAYING THIS STUFF YOU'RE SCARING ME 😱😱😱 I SWEAR LEGO IF YOU BROUGHT BACK WATER MOM JUST TO KILL HER OFF I'M GONNA SUE YOU 😭😭😭

I really REALLY like the atmosphere of the entrante of the temple! Super sealike and ancient! 🌊🌊🌊

Maya: off we go, into the spooky old temple! (Why does it feel like something Kai would say? 😂)

Oh gee, someone sleeping in the deep, who could that be? Coff Wojira coff

Whoa the jellyfishes look pretty lifelike!

HERE HE COMES

WELCOME BACK GILES!!! ONCE AGAIN ON A LEGO SHOW I MISSED YOU SO MUCH YOU AND YOUR GODLIKE VOICE!!! 😍😍😍😍 Gosh he's a villain but he's got Clay's voice, how can I even try to hate him?? 😅

Alright, knocking down my water girls, that is pretty hateful material... BUT CLAAAYYY 💙💙💙

So they need the two amulets to wake up Wojira? Isn't one on the island? Fire dad and son coming to the rescue? WHO KNOWS BUT I'M ENJOYING THIS A LOT SO FAR KEEP GOING SEABOUND 😍😍😍