#also I feel like the word trainers is a more uk thing so i said trainers/sneakers

[hightowres]

does anyone have any trainers/sneakers recs bc i really want to buy some that are comfortable but also cute! i like new balances so i’ve been thinking abt getting a pair but i was wondering what other shoes ppl would recommend

#i have a pair of asics that are super comfortable #but other than that i literally only wear my docs or converses #and i need more trainers #also I feel like the word trainers is a more uk thing so i said trainers/sneakers #i once mentioned jumpers to an american and they didn’t know what that meant and i had to clarify that jumpers are basically just sweaters #so i thought trainers vs sneakers might be a similar thing #idk maybe they’re actually different things? #but to me they’re the same #sorry this was long and irrelevant #pls give me advice though

[vanessakirbyfans]

Vanessa Kirby suggests we meet on the Mall, the central location for her on-screen triumph as the young Princess Margaret in The Crown. I’m standing outside the shuttered Institute of Contemporary Arts when she strides into view, a slender, leggy figure with bleached hair and brilliant blue eyes, clad in trademark black, but for her gleaming white Converse trainers.

"I haven’t been here since we were filming!" she marvels through her mask, gazing up the processional avenue towards Buckingham Palace. "I was whizzing up the road on a motorbike, holding onto the back of Matthew Goode [as Antony Armstrong-Jones] and feeling so exhilarated about what on Earth was happening to my life – being in a job I loved, playing someone I loved."

Her ebullient mood was dented when Margaret’s handbag, into which she’d put her own phone, was blown away from between her feet, and an opportunistic passer-by ran off with it. "By the time I could check Find My iPhone, it was already in Leicester Square," she says. "Of course, the costume department were furious because the bag was vintage and a one-off." We both laugh, rather ruefully, for such anecdotes already seem to belong to a more carefree time. This bright, crisp lunchtime in lockdown, the Mall is all but deserted –there would be no need for roadblocks or filming at dawn today – while the roles Kirby is here to discuss are light-years away from her embodiment of a pampered royal party girl.

The morning of our meeting, Pieces of a Woman has launched on Netflix to rapturous reviews and critical acclaim that has seen Kirby, in her first lead role, picked as a front-runner for the award season’s most coveted best-actress gongs.

It is not, however, an easy watch. Kirby plays Martha, a first-time mother whose baby dies moments after being born; the film follows Martha’s subsequent disintegration, alongside that of her close relationships. Her labour, which comes at the start of the film, is some 26 minutes of one unbroken take that manages to be simultaneously intimate and menacing as the camera swoops around the apartment and hovers beside the traumatised protagonists.

Kirby’s performance is astonishingly unselfconscious, which is the more surprising since she never went to drama school (turning down the offer of a place at Lamda in favour of stage roles at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre) and says she couldn't bring herself to dance in front of her friends. "I’m the one who sits in the corner and watches." She describes seeing herself on-screen as "disconcerting", and "not a very natural human experience", and indeed even finds making Zoom calls a trial. "There’s nothing to hide behind!"

For Pieces of a Woman, the director Kornel Mundruczo decided that the birth scene would be the first to be shot, she tells me, as we stroll around St James’s Park, conducting ourselves like a couple of spies in a Le Carré novel. "I knew I’d have to be naked, and literally open my legs and give birth in front of a group of strangers I’d only met that morning. I was actually quite thankful – I thought, the rest of it’s going to be a lot easier."

In fact, she says, she found herself swept away by the emotion of the story. "Normally, it’s so hard to forget there are machines in your face, but I had no idea that a camera was even there." Was it traumatic to act? "The first time we shot it, I was literally sobbing for 10 minutes afterwards. I couldn’t get out of it. My brain was telling me it wasn’t real, but my unconscious didn’t know the difference, especially with having a real baby in my arms.

"Kornel came over onto the bed and held me so tight. He didn’t let go of me for five minutes, and he said, 'Just remember this feeling.' That really helped me for the rest of the movie, when the character doesn’t express anything, but almost has to be doing the howling without speaking a word."

Kirby took her research seriously, even asking a mother-to-be –a total stranger – to allow her to be present in the delivery room at the birth of her son in a north-London hospital. "I remember every single second of it," the actress says emphatically. "I was there, glued to my seat, for seven hours, not even a loo break! I was just amazed, in awe. I saw a woman completely surrender and go on this spiritual journey, which involved indescribable pain, clearly, but also ecstasy. It gave me a whole new respect for women and how powerful they are, and a new empathy for men, because they feel so helpless. And obviously, seeing the baby come out was the most incredible thing in the world I’ve ever seen, by far. After he was born, all of the mother’s colour returned, she looked like an angel, she had a kind of holy glow." Bathetically, it was only then that the couple recognised Kirby. "They were going, 'Oh my God, it’s Princess Margaret! This is so weird!'"

The experience has given her a new philosophy on life, she says. "I was watching the mother go through these contractions, which were excruciating, and the pushing, and then there was a moment of calm, and of expansion. And so, when I’m going through things in my life, I say to myself, this is like a contraction, surrender to it, because there might be something born from it. Sometimes we don’t want that; when we’re feeling something horrible, we want it to pass as far as possible. I’m teaching myself to allow it to be there and not resist or push it away, and that’s because of that woman."

But her character’s storyline also demanded that Kirby understand the experience of stillbirth. A friend introduced her to a woman who had lost her baby Luciana under eerily similar circumstances to those in Martha’s narrative. "She shared everything with me." They have become close friends, and the film’s ending is dedicated to Luciana. Kirby continues to work with Sands, the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death charity, and is voluble in her admiration of the Duchess of Sussex and Chrissy Teigen, both of whom have recently spoken out about their own experiences of miscarriage.

"I feel so close to them and so proud of them for breaking that silence," she says. "Meghan is probably the last person who would feel comfortable sharing her very personal, intimate feelings. It’s that courage that I want to continue to honour. What they’re saying is, if you’ve been through it, we have too, we share your story. I think that makes you feel less lonely. But one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, which is far more than I knew about. Society finds it difficult to hold space for that kind of pain."

Her parents, to whom she is very close, have both seen the film and wept throughout, she says. As if on cue, her phone pings, and her eyes soften when she checks the message; it’s a childhood friend who herself miscarried, getting in touch to say how much the film has meant to her.

The integrity of Kirby’s performance has already netted her the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. "It doesn’t seem real," she says. "I have it in its case – I wouldn’t have it on display, it looks like a football trophy – but occasionally I glance at it and think, 'Did that really happen? Or did I make it up in a weird dream?'" In a similar vein, she is reluctant to engage with the Oscar buzz surrounding her. "I don’t even know when they are," she admits. "My 13-year-old self would have a heart attack. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it!"

Kirby’s other film, The World to Come, is set in mid-19th-century America but touches on the same themes of bereavement and redemption. The central character Abigail, played by Katherine Waterston, has also lost her young daughter, and in her grief, turns away from her husband to have an affair with Tallie, her free-spirited, flame-haired neighbour. "I was glad I was playing Tallie rather than Abigail, because it might have been a bit too much," Kirby confesses – though without giving away spoilers, that role is pretty traumatic too...

The screenplay is taken from the short story of the same name by Jim Shepard, which was inspired by an entry he found in an antique diary: 'My best friend’s moved away, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again.' "It was one woman’s voice, like an echo from the past, and we’ll never know who she was," says Kirby. "The World to Come really educated me about what life was like for women not that long ago. They didn’t have a choice about anything they did with their time. You were owned by the house, and the man, and you had no freedom outside that. The best thing about doing this mad job sometimes is having your ignorance illuminated. I gravitate towards things that push beyond my experience, I want to go to places I don’t know, I’m not familiar with."

The experience of making both films has changed her profoundly. "I can’t do anything unless it means something to me now," she says. "It’s a better way to work, because you’re not focused on yourself at all. So maybe I’ll only work once every 10 years!"

To ensure that this is not the case, and in order to find more untold, female-led stories, her ambition is now to set up her own production company. "Even a few years ago, a film about a woman losing a baby would have been unthinkable. There are so many voiceless people, and I have a voice in this industry, and I want to make sure the tribe is represented properly."

It is undeniably awkward, therefore, that her male co-stars in the films, Shia LaBeouf and Casey Affleck, both of whom play violent, abusive husbands, have been called out for their treatment of women. In December, the British singer FKA Twigs filed a lawsuit against LaBeouf, her ex-partner, alleging that he "hurts women. He uses them. He abuses them, both physically and mentally". While LaBeouf largely denied the accusations, he admitted in a statement to The New York Times: "I have a history of hurting the people closest to me. I’m ashamed of that history and am sorry to those I hurt. There is nothing else I can really say."

Meanwhile, Affleck was sued by two female crew members working on his 2010 film I’m Still Here, one of whom accused him of sexual harassment. He denied the allegations, and the lawsuits were settled out of court, but he later told the Associated Press: "I behaved in a way, and I allowed others to behave in a way, that was really unprofessional, and I’m sorry."

Kirby is understandably reluctant to get into any of this. "I can’t comment on a legal case that’s going on in someone’s personal life," she says. "I feel really protective of Pieces, so that’s what I want to speak about. Because it came out at eight this morning, all I can think about is the mothers I spoke to, and wanting them to be my focus. I just know my job is to honour them."

Perhaps counter-intuitively, starring in Pieces has awakened in her the desire for a family of her own. "It’s definitely made me want a baby, for sure," she says; but she hasn’t currently got a partner, having split up from Callum Turner (Frank Churchill in last year’s Emma), whom she met when they co-starred in the 2014 film Queen & Country. "This year has made me think a lot about the home I want to create. I like the idea of inviting someone into a space that’s mine, preferably before I have kids."

In the near future, however, Kirby has nothing on her plate except for getting through a third lockdown. "I’m free as a bird! I’ve read a lot of stuff, and said no to a lot of stuff..." She currently shares a flat in Tooting, south London, with her sister Juliet, an assistant director, and two friends. "I was just about to move out to live on my own in north London – my God, I would have been so lonely! My sister saved me. It was so nice to have routines together. We were trying to take a bit of exercise, cooking together, watching films that made us feel better, drinking wine on Friday nights..."

By now, having circled St James’s Park several times, we are strolling back towards the Corinthia Hotel, where Kirby has a full programme of Zoom interviews lined up for the afternoon. "That’s why I’m so happy to have actually had the chance to go out and meet you in real life," she says enthusiastically. "It’s funny when everything in your life closes down, and you have to sit with yourself, and you suddenly notice all the things you have and you’re grateful for. I hope that feeling never goes away – I will never underestimate how lucky I am."

#Vanessa Kirby #Pieces of a Woman #The World to Come #Interview #Articles

[imagine-that-100]

Holiday | Part 13 |

Description of Part 1: Alex Turner x Reader (Female) | You’ve been friends with Alex Turner and the other boys from Arctic Monkeys since you were 13. You never for a second thought that Alex would release a song about you though. From late night phone calls and almost constant texting and teasing, you’ve managed to stay close with him over the years. When a pact is established and a holiday is arranged, life seems to be treating you very well. But a month in LA will either make or break you.

Word Count: 11.4K

A/N: It’s Friday, which means you get your next dose of Holiday! So, this series is probably going to end up being around 20 Parts all together. That’s not for definite but with what I have prewritten and what I have planned for it that seems like the number it’s going to end up around. Not for definite but don’t worry we aren’t anywhere near done yet.  Taglists are always open. Thank you for reading x

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| MASTERLIST IN BIO |

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The click of the door unlocking distracts you from your conversation and you can already tell that as soon as that door opened something embarrassing would take place. And you weren’t wrong.

You press your lips together as you watch the front door open. The men around you laugh at the joke that one of them just made as you watch Y/B/F push the front door open, and you just wait until she inevitably notices who’s inside your flat.

When the door is halfway open, she immediately looks over and her eyes go wide which causes you to grin at her. She doesn’t even look your way before she completely retracts herself back out of the room with a little squeal of excitement.

You couldn’t stop the giggle leaving your lips as you watched the front door close behind her and you lent your head on Alex’s shoulder as you heard him start laughing at her reaction too.

“Who was that?” Jamie asks you, looking from the door to you.

Nick also looked completely confused, which you weren’t surprised about. Not everyone walked into a room, squealed and then immediately left.

“Just Y/B/F” You tell them as your giggles die down.

“Your best mate?” Jamie confirms, he remembered you talking about her before.

You pick your head up off Alex’s shoulder to nod, “Yeah she lives here too. Didn’t pre-warn her that you were coming though”

“She knows who we are?” Nick asks.

“Yeah we met at one of your gigs, rest is history” You smile at the memory.

Jamie looks at you curiously before asking, “When?”

“Humbug tour” You say as you sit up a bit.

“Didn’t tell her I knew you straight away though… And she only became obsessed when I was having a moment of weakness and watched 2007 Glastonbury again” You continue to tell them as you stand yourself up so you can go and check if she’s okay.

You started walking towards the front door when you heard Alex sigh.

“Why am I going out with someone who’s obsessed with me?” Alex shakes his head at you.

“Are you having a laugh?” Jamie asks him whilst wearing a very confused expression.

He was obviously thinking the same thing as you.

“Al, hunny” You say turning back to look at him, “Everyone in the room can vouch that you were just as obsessed with me as I was with you”

“I mean she’s right” Nick shrugs and Jamie nods in confirmation.

You giggle as Alex looks at them like he’s broken-hearted because they sided with you.  

“You’re meant to be my mates, stick up for me” You hear him scorn them as you make your way towards your front door to see if your best friend is alright.

You open up the door and take a step outside as you say, “Y/B/F?”

You look right first but see nothing, then you check left and see her just stood down the corridor with her shopping bags still in hand. You smile at her before letting the door close behind you as you walk towards her.

You smile at her as you approach her, “Are you okay?”

“Y/N/N that was Jamie Cook and Nick O’Malley, right? Or am I seeing things?” She asks you, completely blanking your question.

“No, you’re right” You chuckle before talking some of the many shopping bags from her.

“Fuck me” Y/B/F sighs before leaning her head against the wall. Still a little in shock, it seems.

After a moment, she looks back at you and says, “Jamie Cook is sat in my spot”

“Yeah but you’re not gunna kick him out of it, are you?” You laugh.

“Hell no” Y/B/F says with a massive grin on her face.

You start slowly walking back to your door which you notice that, in her shock, she’d left her keys in.

You suppress your giggle before asking her, “Are you prepared to say hello?”

She shakes her head at you.

“Not really, I look like a tramp” She gestures down at herself.

You looked at what she was wearing and shook her head. She looked so cute in her baby pink joggers, white trainers, and her long sleeved white cropped V-neck top.

“That’s a lie, you look gorgeous” You tell her, wishing you’d attempted to look cute.

You just wore your blue jeans with a long-sleeve black top tucked into them. You were in your slippers currently too just because you weren’t going anywhere with Alex until later on, so you thought you’d be comfy for a while longer.

Alex had made his usual effort though and was dressed in his black boots, jeans and a black and white striped top. Crazy how even the simplest of outfits made him look fucking incredible.

“You think so?” Y/B/F asks you as if she didn’t believe you at all.

God you loved her so much. She was too precious.

“Yes, most definitely” You tell her with a big grin before you open up the door once again, except this time Y/B/F stays inside when she enters.

“You know what? I sometimes wish you didn’t have a boyfriend so I could get off with you” She sighs as she places her bags down on the ground next to where you’d just put her others.

You laugh at what she said before making your way back over to sit next to Alex. As you do that though you nudge him a bit so he will budge up so Y/B/F can come and sit down next to you.

“Right Y/B/F, it’s nearly been two months. You can’t wish me away that quickly” Alex tells her as he moves up and you take a seat next to him again.

You smiled at him telling her that. You knew two months wasn’t a big anniversary by any means, but you were pleased to know he knew how long you’d been together for.

You shouldn’t have been surprised though. Alex was one of the most romantic people you knew.

Everything had been plain sailing for the both of you back over in the UK thankfully. It had been a week since you were at your Mum’s and you’d all coexisted in the smallish flat quite well.

In fairness, you weren’t there for most of the day but from what your best friend and Alex had told you when you’d come back home, they got on quite well and gave each other the space they needed.

Y/B/F was now obviously off work because it was the summer holidays and Alex floated around your flat keeping himself busy either by playing your guitar or watching TV. You guessed he’d been napping too considering the state of his hair when you’d come home from work the other day.

You knew he’d being going seeing his Mum and Dad a lot too, something which you were both going to do later on. You hadn’t been to see them with him yet because you’d been knackered after work every night, but you couldn’t wait to see them in a bit.

“Sorry Al, I just miss the days when I could pull my best friend” Y/B/F shrugs her shoulders pretending to sound a bit deflated.

That seems to get Alex’s attention though and his head snaps towards you.

“You used to pull each other?” He asks you with his brown eyes staring at you.

Looks like someone liked the idea of that.

You grin at him, “It’s happened more than once”

“Would be happening again right now if it was up to me” She mumbles as she passes by you all just to chuck her shopping bags into her room.

“I mean it doesn’t look like he’ll have any complaints about it” You chuckle with suggestive eyebrows at her before she disappears off into her room.

She shouts back to you, “I bet he wouldn’t”

“I don’t have any objections either” Jamie grins at you.

You start giggling at Jamie saying that and Y/B/F comes and sits down next to you. She gets herself comfy on the settee when she smiles at Jamie and Nick.

“It’s nice to meet the both of you. I’m Y/B/F” She introduces herself.

“Yes, we have heard a lot about you” Nick smiles back at her.

Jamie grins and chuckles though, “Mostly about the present you sent Alex”

“Oh, for fucks sake” You sigh before sinking into Alex’s side a bit more.

“Ha, yeah, it was a pretty good idea and from what I hear, it went down a treat” Y/B/F giggles before nudging you in your side which you playfully glare at her for doing.

“Think treat would be an understatement from the things I was hearing” Jamie chuckles and it almost sounds evil.

“What have you heard?” You sceptically ask him before you look to Alex wondering what he’d been telling his mates.

Alex just look at you and shakes his head, “Don’t look at me. I didn’t tell anyone anything”

You could tell he was being serious.

“Oh for fucks sake, is Miles making shit up again?” You turn back to the other two Monkeys on the sofa opposite wanting to know.

“Matt mostly, actually” Nick tells you and you shake your head.

You tut before saying, “He wasn’t even there when he opened it though. He’s full of shit”

“No but apparently he saw Alex’s wrists the following day” Nick grinned.

“Alex’s wrists!?” Y/B/F shouts from next to you.

She shot straight up in her seat and turned towards you and Alex with her jaw practically on the ground.

“Jesus Christ” You murmur before running a hand through your hair.

“Did you- Oh my god” She stammers, and you just press your lips together whilst you look at her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?!” She asks you, her jaw still hanging open.

You shrug innocently before pointing to Alex, “Because I feel like I divulge too much of my sex life, especially when it’s with him”

“What is that meant to mean?” Alex asks you with raised eyebrows.  

You laugh, “You’re pretty so people wanna know more about you”

Nick and Jamie just laugh at that. Alex looks like he wished he didn’t ask.

“I actually can’t believe it I’ve never been prouder” Y/B/F excitedly tells you.

You grin at her, “Thank you my love”

She blows a kiss at you and you laugh before blowing one back despite being sat next to each other.

“You know if I didn’t know how obsessed with each other you are” Nick starts by pointing between you and Alex.

He then continues to say, “I would think you were the roommate Al, and they were going out”

You and Alex chuckle at that but Y/B/F backs up Nick’s point.

“He is the constant third wheel, yes” She confirms, and it makes Alex scoff as he throws his arm around your shoulder.

“I’ll get off with her in front of you in a minute” He threatens and you have try and not roll your eyes.

She laughs and stands herself up, “You won’t because you’ll know I enjoy it”.

That caused you to snort because you know it would be true.

“Yeah, there are pros and cons of having a bisexual best mate” You chuckle as you watch her walk towards the kitchen.

“Pros outweigh the cons” Y/B/F says as she turns to look back at you.

“Oh definitely” You say as Nick and Jamie laugh.

She asks you guests politely, “Do you’s two want a brew?”

“Yes please” Nick smiles at her.

Jamie nods before saying, “She’s already a better host than you two”

“I offered you a drink when you came in and you said no” You scoff, offended by your friends sat opposite you.

“She’s a shit friend just ignore her” Y/B/F says from the kitchen.

You scoff but don’t react to her other than that. You shake your head before looking over to Nick and Jamie who are silently chuckling to themselves.

They look so good; You were so glad they were here. You hadn’t seen them in over a year, so it really had been lovely catching back up with them.

“You gunna make us one Y/B/F?” Alex calls to her and she tells him to fuck off.

You pat his thigh before resting your hand on it. “Don’t be silly” You tell him, knowing exactly what she was about to tell him.

“You live here. Get up and make it yourself” She shouts back at him which makes you laugh.

“Didn’t want one anyway” Alex mumbled under his breath before he kissed the top of your head.

You had a little chuckle to yourself as you watch Y/B/F come back into the room with Nick and Jamie’s drinks in hand. And after they securely take it from her with a ‘thank you’ she goes back and gets her drink before sitting herself down next to her again.

“So, I believe you two met at our gig?” Nick asks Y/B/F more than he asks you.

You nod as she follows up with, “Oh yeah. Those were the days”  

“Alex, bring back the humbug hair please” She excitedly asks him too.

“I mean it’s really not that far off” He says before running his hand through it.

He’d not gelled it back today, but after his shower he’d pushed it so it was out of his face and it was getting quite long. You didn’t fail to tell him how good it looked either.

A little longer and he’d look like a brown-haired version of Prince Charming, and you were certainly okay with that.

“But yeah we met at your Liverpool show… Then we were next to each other again in the pit for Sheffield weren’t we and we got talking before the support came on” She tells them before taking a sip of her drink.

“We exchanged numbers at that show, didn’t we?” You ask her.

She nods, “Yeah we did, because I texted you to see if you were going to the Newcastle one”

“Which I obviously was” You grin at the boys around you and they shake their heads at you.

You knew you were a weirdo superfan, but you couldn’t help it. You just loved a good gig and their music was top tier.

“But we both weren’t going to your London shows but we then realised that at the time we lived twenty minutes away from each other, so we ended up going in my car to the Newcastle one” You carry the story on.

Alex looks at you then and says, “I swear for half of these you didn’t tell us you were coming to them though”

“No I didn’t because when I came to see you at the end of the Manchester gig, you were fuming I’d been driving all over when I could have just come on the bus with you guys” You smile remembering it fondly.

You continue, “And then you made me get the bus with you to Nottingham and you got them to detour back through Manchester so I could get my car before you went up to Glasgow”.

“Fucking hell, I’m glad you weren’t in the pit for that gig” Alex says before hugging you slightly closer to him.

“Shit yeah, that was bad that” Jamie remembers.

Y/B/F looks around at the men in the room slightly confused, “Why? What happened in Glasgow?”

“The crowd were animals. They were throwing shit at us” Nick tells her.

Alex tells her, “We had to stop a few times… Didn’t we?” Double checking with the other lads.

You knew he was right because you remembered him telling you about it afterwards.

“Yeah bloody rowdy bastards. Never seen anything like it” Jamie shook his head with wide eyes, obviously remembering the whole ordeal.

You feel it was the perfect time to throw in a joke.

“So… You could say they were dangerous animals” You say almost immediately wanting to laugh at yourself.

You knew it was a bad joke but since being home with Y/B/F you’d got back into the habit of saying them.

“Oh fuck off” Alex sighs immediately and shakes his head.

He removes his arm from around you before pushing you towards your best friend.

“You can have her Y/B/F” Alex says, and you lean against your best friend instead.

She whispers in your ear, “I’m glad you said that joke because I was seconds away from saying it”

You both just have a little giggle to each other before a new conversation starts back up. Half an hour passes by really quickly whilst you all chat away and it’s all relatively calm.

To begin with.

“How are Katie and Kelly?” You ask Jamie and Nick.

“My lot are doing great thank you” Jamie smiles.

Nick nods, “Yeah, same for me”

“Both your babies are okay?” You check with a smile.

Both men opposite you nod their heads and your glad to know that everything is good with them.

“Yeah they are doing great” Nick tells you.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t even know you had a kid Nick” Y/B/F says.

“And that’s what I like to hear” Nick grins liking that his privacy is still maintained.

You chat a little more about how they are doing before you just settle into conversation and before long Jamie brings up about when Y/B/F entered the room.

“Your entrance was quite comical Y/B/F” He grins at her.

“Yeah sorry about that. Not used to having my heroes sat in my home” She says a tad embarrassed before taking another mouthful of her brew.

Nick chuckles, “Wow don’t think I’ve ever been called a hero before”.

“Well you most definitely are one. You’ve saved mine and Y/N’s lives more than you’ll ever know” She tells them.

You nod with a smile.

“How’s that?” Jamie asks.

“Well we have a saying in this flat…” Your best friend starts, and you take over to finish it.

“An album a day keeps the depression away” You smile.

Your smile only gets bigger when Alex starts chuckling next to you.

“And nine times out of ten it’s one of your albums” Y/B/F confirms.

“Or Miles’” You point out.

She grins suggestively at you before saying, “Oh yes, who could forget about that man”

“You need to prepare yourself for when you meet him” You say as you scoot yourself closer to Alex again.

She bolted up so she was sitting up in her seat properly, “Miles is coming?!”

“Not today. Don’t worry” Alex eases her worries.

“Thank fuck” Y/B/F breathed out a sigh of relief as she sank back into sofa, “I was about to run to the shower”

“What’s going on with Miles?” Jamie asks.

“They have been in contact and you know…” Alex trails off and you roll your eyes at having to take over.

Sometimes he was still too pure around his mates. You of all people knew how dirty that mouth could be.

You didn’t think he should have a problem saying what was going on.

“They’re gunna fuck, is what he’s trying to say” You fill them in.

“Oh right, nice one” Nick chuckles looking from you to Y/B/F.

Jamie asked curiously, “How’d that even come about?”

“Y/N/N half set them up” Alex informed him.

“Not really, they grouped together embarrassing me about Alex” You tell them the full truth.

“Which time?” Y/B/F asks.

You’re about to answer her but then she carries on.

“The time I told them that your most relatable video was Snap Out Of It, or when I told them that you thought about Alex when you were with that other guy” She yet again spills your secrets.

“You thought about Al whilst you were with someone else?” Jamie gasped with a grin plastered on his face.

Nick’s jaw is on the ground, but he also laughs at what had just been revealed.

“I fucking hate you” You tell your best friend.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this again” You sigh dramatically before leaning your head on Alex’s shoulder to hide for a second.

However, Alex smirks and aids Y/B/F in spilling your secrets, “Yeah, he was too boring for her apparently, so because she was listening to our music, she thought about me”

You can hear Jamie’s laugh this time as Nick starts bullying you.

“You’re actually filthy” Nick chuckles with a disappointing shake of his head.

Your head snaps back up to say, “It’s not like any of you fuckers were meant to find out”

“You all know far too much about me, it’s not right” You shake your head and put your feet up on the sofa so you can hug your legs.

“Well I’m sorry that you were being a whore for your best friend, and he found you fit too…” Y/B/F defends herself.  

“I think I set you up and I don’t near you complaining when you’re shagging in the next room” She continues before taking another sip of her drink, so she didn’t laugh.

Jamie and Nick try and hold back their laughter at that and you shake your head.  

“Fuck my life” You say before hiding your face into your legs that you’re still hugging.

“It sounds like he does” Y/B/F says nonchalantly, as if it wasn’t a big deal.

Nick and Jamie then burst out laughing and you can only hide by closing your eyes. Alex just chuckles and pulls you into him.

You feel him plant a kiss which makes you feel the slightest bit better.

“Sick of being bullied” You murmur as you pick your head and look to the people around you again.

Alex smiles at you and shrugs before saying, “I’m still gunna shag you either way”

He has you laughing at that, so that made it a little difficult for him to kiss you, but he got one after a second of giggling.

“Oh, forgot to tell you” Y/B/F taps your shoulder

“Want me to ruin your favourite song off Favourite Worst Nightmare?” Y/B/F asks you.

“I don’t think you can ruin that song” You tell her.

Alex asks you, “Which song?”

“You should know you wrote it” Jamie tells him.

“Yeah sorry I’ll just read her mind and tell you which one it is” Alex furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head.

Sarcastic bastard.  

“Is it 505?” Nick asks with a smile.

You shake your head, “Nope”

“Stop guessing” Alex says because he knows Nick will just carry on guessing and he will probably go through the whole album without getting it right.

“See if you can guess from how I ruin it” Y/B/F grabs all of their attention

You pout, “I really don’t want you to ruin it though”

“Too bad” She smirks at you.

“Right come on tell us” Jamie hurries her on.

“The song is about a condom” She says before pressing her lips together watching for your reaction.

You pull a face at her before shaking your head, “No it’s not”

“Sing it to yourself in your head” She instructs, and you do as your told.

You literally get to the second line before your jaw drops and you turn to Alex and scowl. There’s no hesitation in your actions as you slap his arm.

“You’re fucking disgusting” You scowl at him before moving out of his grip.

“Right I’m sick of you two reading into my songs. Because I don’t even know which one she’s on about” Alex sighs

“Balaclava” You tell everyone.

“Is it bad I can’t even remember how it starts?” Jamie asks and you laugh.

“Running off over next door’s garden before the hour is done. It’s more a question of feeling than it is a question of fun” You say slowly as you look at Alex.

You couldn’t believe your favourite song now had these connotations.

“Al mate, that’s nasty shit” Nick scolds him.

Alex mumbles, “Fuck sake, I can’t win”

“I can’t believe you’ve just ruined my favourite one” You pout turning back to your best friend.

She smiles at you victoriously but says, “I’m sorry it ruined it for me too, so I had to share the discomfort”

You huff in your seat before looking at Alex.

“Sorry love but what did you think it was about?” He asks you.

“I don’t even know, I just thought it was some Bonnie and Clyde shit” You shrug and pout your lip.

“Well it’s still about that don’t worry” He smiles but shakes his head at you.

“It’s alright Y/N I’ll go out with you instead and write nice songs about something poetically tragic for you” She grabs you hand and kisses the back of it which makes you, Jamie, and Nick giggle.

“I can do that myself thanks” Alex says before taking your other hand and practically pulling you back into him.

He was the cutest but softest possessive boyfriend in the world.

“I take it you’ve told her about the album then?” Jamie smiles at the both of you.

“About Everything You’ve Come To Expect? Yeah, she came to the studio when we were doing some recording” Alex nods before getting up out of his seat.

Alex looks to see if everyone else around him still have full cups and they practically do so he just asks you if you would like a cup of tea and nod you head saying, “Please”

“Don’t mean that album” Jamie chips back in though

“What album then?” You ask confused.

“AM” He says, and you look at him blankly.

You pretty much knew everything about that album. You knew every lyric. Every beat of Matt’s drums. Every Guitar solo.

So, you were confused as to why he was bringing it back up.

“About how AM is practically an album about you” Jamie reveals, and you go deadly still.

Not being able to comprehend, you ask, “What?”

“Most of the songs on AM are about you” Jamie tells you again.

“No, they aren’t” You shake your head.

“Well they are… He’d be texting you and then start writing lyrics down the next minute” Jamie informs you.

But you don’t believe him.

“No, they’re about Arielle. They aren’t about me” You say completely in denial.

You were so confused. Even Nick was looking at you like he was sad that you weren’t realising.

“No, Fireside and Arabella are about Arielle. The rest are pretty much you” Jamie confirms.

“Yeah okay, Knee Socks is about me, but none of the others” You say.

Nick looks at you like you were a precious child that was too innocent to understand.

“Do I Wanna Know, R U Mine, One for the Road, Party Anthem, I Want It All, and if we’re counting the era Electricity is and Stop the world is obviously about you” Jamie lists them off on his fingers

“How is it obviously about me?” You asked, having none of it.

It had never even gone through your mind that any of these songs would be about anyone other than Arielle. She was with him whilst they recorded the songs to put on the album.

“Are you joking doesn’t the Stop the World’s lyrics literally go ‘Getting you alone isn’t easy to do’? Because me, Nick, and Matt were always around when you came to see us” Jamie makes his first point to you and it stuns you into silence.

“Dislikes everyone in the room…” Jamie quotes the next line but then shrugs.  

“Speaks for itself that one” He says before glancing towards his mate in the kitchen who was definitely earwigging.

“Then what is it? Oh, ‘Doesn’t wanna tell you the truth’ because he didn’t, because he always thought your flirting was a joke” Jamie drops another bomb.

Nick takes over this time to tell you, “He always said that you left too soon whenever we saw you even when we were out till daylight”

“And he’s wanted to get off with you since we were sixteen” Jamie makes his final point, finishing off the chorus of the song.

“The album may have come out just after he broke up with Arielle, but he wrote most of the songs before he even got with her” Jamie tells you and that was when it hit you.

You went cold. Freezing cold.

You couldn’t believe it. All of your favourite songs were about you.

You were deadly silent and when Alex came back in you looked up at him your face still held complete shock.

“Is he being serious?” You ask.

You saw him nod and look at you cautiously. You murmur a ‘thank you’ as you take your tea off him.

“I… I don’t know what to say” You stumble on your words a bit as you watch as Alex sits back down next to you.

You really weren’t expecting that today. Or any day for that matter.

“You don’t have to say anything. They are what they are. You helped me a lot more than you actually know, but you don’t have to say anything” Alex says before taking the first sip of his tea.

You smile at him with your lips together and nod. You’d talk to him about it later, you didn’t want to make things awkward now.

“I fucking knew Stop The World was about you” Y/B/F carries it on though.

“How?” You ask completely baffled.

She tells you her theory, “After you came back and told me that you were together, I was listening to it and was thinking ‘yeah definitely. Got Y/N/N written all over it’”

You shake your head at her not believing her.

“I also guessed that You’re So Dark was based on that Halloween picture of you” She told the room and you shake your head.

Alex looked towards her with shock written on his face, “You’re freakishly good at knowing these things”

“You’re joking, You’re So Dark too?” You ask.

Alex smiles at you before pressing his lips together. So, he was telling you but also not.  

YBF says, “Why are you surprised? The song literally says I want you down on all fours”

“Enough about Alex and sex please” You say having enough.

She raises her eyebrows at you, “Okay I’ll remind you of that when you wanna watch 2013 Glastonbury again and you have no one to drool with”

“I’ll just shag him as I watch it. Best of both worlds then” You fire back.

“Oh. My. God” Alex says like he wants to leave the building entirely.

You all just end up laughing.

Thankfully the conversation ends up going in a completely different direction after those revelations and the conversation is pretty peaceful. That is until an hour later Y/B/F pretty much makes you all jump.

“Nick O’Malley” Y/B/F says.

“Y/B/F” He comes back just as strong but then he quickly deflates with, “I don’t know your last name”

She giggles before she starts, “I’m surprised by you”

“How come?” He questions her curiously.

She shrugs, “I don’t know, I just always got the impression that you were really shy”

“No, not shy at all… I just don’t like people, so I don’t talk to them” Nick tells her with a grin

You laugh, “Absolute mood”

~*~*~*~

The lads stayed for a few hours before they had to head off back home to their wives and children. You’d had a really nice day catching up with them and you were glad you all got on so well together.

You decided to wait until you were alone with Alex to bring up the AM thing with him. You weren’t embarrassed by it at all, you were just a little shocked.

You genuinely never expected anything like that. And you’d never thought about any of those songs that way at all.

So, the first moment you got alone with him, which happened to be on the way to his Mum and Dad’s house, you decided to bring it up. You were driving your car that you and Y/B/F shared over to Alex’s as she was walking to her Mum’s house today.

You turned the radio down a little before you started talking.

“Al about before…” You trail off for a second.

He seemed to already know what you were about to say, “You don’t have to say anything Y/N/N, Jamie shouldn’t have told you”

“No, it’s okay” You say honestly.

Now it had sunk in, you really weren’t bothered by it.

“It’s a lot for someone to take in. He should’ve just kept his mouth shut” Alex sighs, obviously annoyed and you can see in your peripherals that he shook his head.

“Alex… All I wanna say is I’m flattered and… Call me self-absorbed but I’m still going to play them on repeat, regardless of who they’re about” You tell him honesty.

You’d spent almost the last 2 years being obsessed with that album. You weren’t for a second going to change that behaviour just because you’d been told certain songs were about you.

“You’ve got it tattooed on you; I would expect nothing less” Alex smiles at you.

You quickly glance back at him and smile. Unfortunately, you can’t keep your eyes on the gorgeous man next to you as you’re forced to look back to the road.

“I have questions though” You tell him a little sheepishly.

You hear him chuckle, “I never doubted that you would“

You quickly smile at him before asking, “How is electricity about me? Because I know for a fact that I hadn’t kissed you before that night in the bar. Because I would have remembered”

“Okay before I start, I just need to tell you that when I write a song… It starts off as literally a line or two or an idea, and then I think of a storyline around it mostly... And I liked to make the ones that have pieces of you in it, a bit more hidden” Alex explains, and you nod to show that you understand him whilst keeping an eye on the Sheffield traffic.

“So, Electricity…” He begins.

“That one was just when you used to kiss my cheek for a few seconds, and I could feel it for days after… And the nicknames you called me, and the little flirting that happened… That’s what that one was about” Alex tells you and you smile.

Alex tells you, “Oh and I guess when you helped me get over Alexa, I fell for you again then cause I literally just wanted to be on the phone to you all the time”

You turn your head slightly towards him and you’re about to say something else until he takes the words straight out of your mouth.

“If want me to explain them all I will do. I’ll go through them now” Alex says, and you smile before remaining silent.

He knew you too well.

Alex says, “Do I wanna know and R U Mine speak for themselves really”

“One For The Road literally started because I remembered being sat on the floor talking to you at your house party back in the day. I think it was the time your Mum got angry at us”

“Oh my god I actually remember that now you say it” You almost gasp.

It was the night that you forgot to tidy up after your house party. But you could remember sitting on the floor next to him because there was no room left on the sofa. You were there for a long while actually just shamelessly chatting away to him.

“So, you get that I built that song around that memory of you sitting on the floor chatting to me?” Alex double checks.

You nod your head understanding a little more how he became the creative genius that was Alex Turner.

“Okay good, so I Want It All... Is that one not obvious, now you know how I write them?” He asks you.

You shake your head, “No, not at all. I’ve got no idea how it’s related to me”

Alex sits up and turns to you a little bit more asking, “Do you not remember after that Suck It And See show, that you came back on the bus and you were completely besotted with the miniature whisky’s we had in there?”

You shake your head not remembering that at all.

“You drank almost all of it Y/N” He informed you.

“Why am I an alcoholic?” You sigh.

Alex just laughs at you before continuing, “Well yeah anyway when you were leaving, you kissed my cheek before you got into the taxi back home because the bus had to leave”

“I don’t remember that at all” You say honestly. “I remember coming onto the bus with you all, but I don’t remember drinking. I mean, I know I obviously drank but I don’t remember miniature whisky at all”

“Pisshead really, aren’t you?” Alex laughs.

You just laugh too as you make your way into High Green. You were almost there now so you hoped he’d continue spilling this information until you had to get out of the car.

“Jamie told you about Stop The World…” Alex continues on.

“You’re So Dark, primarily based on that picture of you on Halloween” He told you and you still couldn’t believe that.

It was the one year that you’d ever dressed moderately slutty for Halloween by having a short black dress on. You’d literally covered yourself in fake blood though and you had a shitty Dracula cape on that you’d splattered in blood too.

“But I don’t drive a Prius or read H P Lovecraft or Edgar Allen Poe?” You glance at him, still a little confused about that one.

“Right I had to make it clever or else you’d know it was about you. And I didn’t want you knowing… And I knew you never knew you were quoting them”

“I quoted who?” You ask with furrowed eyebrows.

“You used to quote Lovecraft and Poe all the time on your Instagram and you didn’t even know it” Alex informs you.

Oh shit.

You did used to google quotes to put as you Instagram captions back in the day. Maybe you should have fact checked.

“You love your vampire programmes and them shitty films from a few years back… And I remember your emo phase. You were always in your leather jacket and I’ll never forget that spiked collar you had”

He told you and you felt embarrassed. Mostly about the fact he was referencing really bad films that you once loved but the fact that he liked your emo phase. Most of the time you looked back at the pictures and hated them.

But you kept them on your account because there was no use in hiding from your past. You’d embraced it and one way or another it led to who you were today.

It’s another reason why you never deleted any pictures of your exes off your Instagram.

Alex continued to explain that song though, “You watch horror films which I sorta dipped into that a bit more to make it clever. But in truth I actually don’t know how you didn’t know that one was about you”

You shake your head at him, “Alex I don’t listen to your music and automatically think it’s about me. I literally only knew Knee Socks was because I used to wear knee socks like it was law”

Alex then places a hand on your thigh, which you didn’t mind about, but you knew he was doing it because he was about to make a point.

“Y/N, you used to stay on the phone to me until like four in the morning sometimes, so that’s where ‘shun the daylight’ came from” Alex tells you with raised eyebrows like you should have at least had an idea.

And he had a point.

“Alright, fair enough” You murmur before focusing on the road properly again.

Alex then decided to smugly add onto that that, “And you know I like you down on all fours”

You gulped.  

Suddenly all the memories of the different time that position had been used was brought to the forefront of your mind and you had a hard time getting rid of them

“Not whilst I’m driving Al” You scold him a bit half-heartedly and didn’t even attempt to move his hand from your thigh.

Absolutely pitiful that he got you hot and bothered just by saying that.

He chuckled to himself before giving your thigh a squeeze before carrying on.

“I think the last one is Party Anthem, and that was about a dream I had” He informs you which you found really interesting.

“I dreamt that we didn’t know each other but you were there in the bar and I fully tried my hardest to pull you but…” Alex pauses for a second.

And from a quick glance over at him, you think that it’s because he was trying to remember the dream.

After a few seconds, he starts again, “You were in this bar looking stunning in this long black dress that you were in. And all I can remember other than that, is that I really wanted to get you back home with me and nothing else mattered…

“So that one was about me literally longing for you at this bar whilst everything else went on around us and I just didn’t care… Because I was there with you” Alex smiled at the memory of it.

“Did you get me?” You couldn’t help but ask with a smile on your lips.

“I woke up just as we were about to get to it. I was so fucking annoyed” Alex chuckled.

You shake your head at him as you pull into a space just outside his Mum and Dad’s house.

“Why’d you think I was so hesitant when I answered the phone when AM got released and you called me up?” Alex smiles at you as he watches as you park the car and turn the ignition off.

You undo your seatbelt before turning to look at him and sweetly smile at him. You see that he had a hair out of place that you knew would bug him, so you lent over and moved it out of his face for him.

“You’re actually the cutest Alex” You say as you comb your fingers through his hair.

It was purely out of habit at this point, messing with his hair. You loved it and you knew he did too, so he had no issue with you maintaining his vanity for him.  

“Why?” He chuckles before leaning in to kiss you.

You kiss his soft lips a few times before pulling away to answer his question.

“I don’t know… I’m just… Very flattered” You took your time to think of the right words.  

“Like, even when we were just talking on the phone normally, I never thought that we were chatting anything but shit like we usually do” You laugh, “Obviously we had our serious chats, but I didn’t ever think that it would be worthy enough for you to write a song or five about”

Alex chuckles at your little joke before taking a hold of one of your hands.

“You have no idea what you’ve always done to me love” Alex smiles at you before moving that hand he had a hold of and placing it against his chest.

As soon as he’d made you do that, you could feel his rapid heartbeat was.

“I think mine’s faster” You say grabbing his hand and placing it just about your heart.

Alex silently feels your chest hammering away for a few seconds and you can see his shock in his face.

“I do that to you?” Alex’s asked in disbelief, your heartbeat felt faster than his.

You smile at him, “You always have”

It was cheesy to admit, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

“Tell me, how we were just friends for so long again?” Alex asks before removing his hand from your chest and holds your hand once more.

You chuckle, “I really don’t know”

“As long as you keep flirting with me for the next sixty years, I think my heart will always beat that fast for you” Alex admits with a cute grin.

“Jesus, I might have to stop because I don’t want you to die on me” You joke, grinning back at him.

Alex leans back in for a final kiss before getting out of the car, “Where’s the fun when there’s not a little bit of risk, ey?”

You laugh but shout after him, “That was disgustingly cheesy”

~*~*~*~

Another week goes by and in that week, you’d had some surprisingly good news. As it turned out, the company that you currently worked for was opening its second building out in America and thankfully that building was being opened in LA.

Your superior who you’d handed your notice too last week, came up to you at work and asked for a chat in her office. You of course agreed thinking she would be making another plea for you to stay with the company but surprisingly she gave you even better news.

She’d heard though different people that you were leaving because you were moving to America. So once she asked what area you were moving to, she breathed a sigh of relief. She then basically offered you the job to start over there in the same role you were in now but over in America.

You jumped at that chance with a quick phone call to Alex in between just to check if it was alright with him that you wouldn’t be starting till later in the year. But he of course said it was fine and that he was so beyond happy for you.

Everything seemed to be going great for you both and you’d started slowly packing the things you wanted to take back with you. You obviously didn’t need to take everything as you would be back over here to see your family and Y/B/F more than once a year.

So, you’d had a busy week to say the least. You were tying up loose ends at work and making sure everyone was catered for and then the only thing you had to do was find a suitable replacement for you at work.

You had two weeks to do that and then you were free until the end of October. The building was due to open in LA the last week of October which Alex was buzzing about because you could both celebrate your first week at work by going to his fancy Halloween party.

Apparently, he’d already got his outfit planned and he had ideas for him with how you could match. You dread to think what he had in mind but you loved Halloween so you would definitely be taking part.

In truth you couldn’t wait to get back to LA. You were ready for a change and ready to start a life with Alex.

You loved that he was who you were coming home to every night after work. You loved that he never failed to make you smile and give you a kiss every chance he got.

It made you so happy that he got on with Y/B/F really well. It was so strange to see them interacting with each other when you came home from work.

You’d come home one day during the week to see them both lay on the opposite sofas both watching the first Avengers film together and they were both talking about how pretty Scarlett Johansson was.

Something which Alex went all red about when you creeped over to him and called him out on it. He then proceeded to pull you down on top of him, still in your work outfit, so you were forced to watch it with him.

You slotted yourself into the small space between him and the back of the sofa and you all watched it together. It turned from appreciating Scarlett Johansson to Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans and even Tom Hiddleston.

When the weekend arrived, you spent your Saturday practically doing the same thing. It was lashing it down with rain all day, so you were all having a movie day.

You spent half the day cuddling your best friend and the other half cuddling Alex. You only went over to him though when you were continuing with your Marvel marathon and he got jealous of you gawking over Chris Hemsworth.

And the cuddling didn’t stop later that night when you’d both decided to head off to bed.

Despite doing nothing all day you were both knackered when you went to bed and you couldn’t wait to get to get to sleep.

It was 1am so it wasn’t really late, but you were usually awake till 2am minimum. So, as you were getting into bed an hour before usual, you couldn’t wait to get to sleep.

You were that tired that as you got changed, you didn’t even longingly look at your boyfriend as he stripped himself down. You just got yourself into your pyjamas and got into bed.

Once Alex joins you under the covers, you cuddle yourself into his body. You were both on your sides facing each other with your head tucked under his chin and buried into his neck.

Alex can feel your tired breaths on his neck, and he hugs you closer to him. You yawn slightly and feel sleep taking you over.

Alex smiles to himself hearing your yawn. He starts twirling your hair around his fingers as you slowly slip further into sleep.

Only when Alex feels you release a deep breath, he leant down and kissed the top of your head and says a soft, “Goodnight Y/N/N” knowing you’d be asleep soon so you wouldn’t have heard him if he’d waited any longer.

Your lips brush against his neck as you tiredly reply, “Night Al, love you”

Alex was slightly taken aback by that, but it didn’t stop him from saying it back immediately.

“Love you too” Was his reply and he was so relieved he could finally say it.

He’s loved you for a long while and he’d wanted to say it the first day you were his.

You smiled at what he said but you didn’t fully process his words until a minute later when it clicked, and your eyes opened. You moved back so you could look at him and he looked down at you to meet your gaze.

“Did I just? Did we just?” You stumble on your words confused.

You genuinely had no clue whether you’d just dreamed that or not.

Alex chuckled at that before he lent down and kissed you quickly.

“Yeah” He smiled.  

You close your eyes feeling like a moron.

“I’m sorry, I’m so stupid. It’s not even been two months” You say before covering your face with your hands.

“Ey, none of that” Alex says before moving your hands out of the way.

Once he can see your beautiful face again he says, “Two months or not. I love you all the same”

You let out a sigh of relief. Thank god he said it back or you would have wanted to die.

“I love you Alex. I really do” You tell him properly.

Alex grinned at you before leaning down to kiss you. You both couldn’t get the smiles off your faces even as you kissed.

“I love you too baby” Alex said before pulling you back into him and held you the tiniest bit closer before kissing the top of your head again.

Hearing that fall from his lips gave you goosebumps. You don’t think you’d loved anyone the way you loved him.

And he was here. He was yours.

And he loved you.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The following Saturday was nowhere near as cute.

You’d been lay in bed all day in pain thanks to your period making an appearance.

Thankfully, Alex hadn’t been with you all day as he’d gone out early for a full day with his Mum and Dad, so you were grateful that he hadn’t seen you in the mood that you’d been in.

The same couldn’t be said for Y/B/F as when you’d dozed back off to sleep around noon, she’d come in, jumped on your bed to wake you up and you’d snapped at her. You did apologise because you were really ratty with her, but she knew you got like this sometimes especially on your first day of extreme pain.

Y/B/F knew to give you your space after that and you only ventured into the lounge where she was residing when you got yourself something to eat and drink. Which you didn’t do much of as you collected a few cans of Fanta Fruit Twist on your first trip to the kitchen.

So, you ended up spending the majority of the day in your room with your TV on watching The Office US to pass the time. The programme put you in a slightly better mood, but you were still feeling moody in your bed all day.

You hadn’t even been on your phone all day just because you knew it would piss you off looking at people having a better time than you were having.

You were currently up to the episode in The Office where Dwight, Michael and Andy were doing parkour and despite it being hilarious you weren’t even laughing because of how awful your body currently felt.

You heard the front door close over the volume of your TV and you looked at your clock to see that it was 17:47 which meant that it would probably be Alex coming back. You’d let him use your car this morning because you knew that you and Y/B/F weren’t planning on going anywhere today so he may as well have made use of the vehicle.

You couldn’t even bring yourself to get up to go and greet him though. You’d only just got yourself into a comfy position where the pain had stopped, and you didn’t want it to come back. You were due to take more tablets to dull the pain even more, yet you didn’t move.

You hadn’t even texted Y/B/F because you still felt bad about before.

Y/B/F turned around to look at Alex as he came through the front door and she said a quick, “Hey”

“Hello, you have an alright day?” Alex asks her as he quickly gets himself a beer out of the fridge.

After a long day with his Mum and Dad he just needed to relax.

“Yeah it’s been alright apart from the love of your life biting my head off” Y/B/F giggled.

Alex laughed at that. He then followed up on what he’d just been told with, “Why what happened?”

“She’d on her period and is the rattiest person in the world the first day when she’s in pain so she bit my head off when I went in to chat to her”

Alex shakes his head not even surprised.

He remembered you being ratty in high school and when anyone questioned you about your mood, you’d just be completely honest and tell them it was period pain. A tactic that seemed to work because people were too embarrassed by your answer to carry on talking to you.

“She’s still in there?” Alex asked her as he walked into the lounge.  

Y/B/F nods with a smile before turning back towards the TV. Alex heads towards your closed bedroom door and he laughs when your best friend warns him, “Good luck with the she devil”

Alex walks into your room chuckling to himself as he closes the door behind him. He turns to see you lay flat on your stomach across the bed.

Your head is buried into your pillow with one eye slightly on show looking up towards the TV that shows The Office. Just from here Alex could tell that you were in pain as you’d not even murmured a hello to him.

Alex puts his beer down on your desk before moving round the bed so he could crouch down in front of you to see if you were alright.

“Hey, love, are you okay?” He asked as he tucked a strand of your hair, that was lay over your face, behind your ear.

You gave him a little smile as he then stroked your cheek for a few seconds before you shook your head and release a little groan to answer his question.

“What’s up?” He asked you, pretending that he didn’t know.

You just snuggled into your pillow a bit more feeling sorry for yourself, also not really wanting him to see you moody.

“Ey, look at me” Alex softly cooed until your full face was on show.

He gave you a grin seeing your tired face. He coaxed a little smile from you before giving you a sweet kiss which definitely made your smile get a bit bigger.

After he pulled away, he looked at you in a way you recognised that he was asking if you were okay.

You murmur into the pillow, “I’m on my period Al and I feel like I’m about to die”

Alex chuckled at your exaggeration and asked you, “Is that it?”

You frowned at him before you went to playfully hit his arm, but you quickly realised you didn’t have the energy or capability to move without it hurting so you just stopped.

“Jesus, you just be in pain” Alex chuckled seeing the anger flash through your eyes at what he said but then it quickly dissipated.

You start whining then, “It honestly feels like I’m being flayed from the inside out”

“A bit extreme that love” Alex said raising his eyebrows at you as if you were being stupid.

He was just joking with you and you knew he was, so you pouted at him.

“Until you’ve been through it you can’t comment” You grumble.

Alex then laughs a little as he stands up and kisses your forehead after he gets back to his feet.

“You may as well have stayed with your family Alex; I’m going to be like this all night” You tell him starting to feel bad that you’re inevitably going to be moody with him too.

Alex makes his way to the other side of the bed before he lays down next to you. He hugs you from behind which you find very cute and he kisses the top of your head again.

He says into your ear, “Why are you trying to get rid of me when I could be helping you?”

“Didn’t think you’d wanna be lay in bed with me being grumpy all night” You tell him honestly.

“It’s no different to any usual night then is it” Alex says in a serious tone but he’s joking with you.

You scoff, “You’re so nasty”

Alex just laughed at that.

“You know I’m joking. Please tell me how I can help” Alex said rubbing your back that was still covered with your pyjama top.

Of course you’d stayed in your pyjamas all day.  

“Can you please get me more Paracetamol and Ibuprofen from the kitchen please and another can out of the fridge?” You plead with him.

Alex smiled before kissing your head again and he said, “Okay”

He very kindly went and got you the painkillers for you and once you’d thanked him you made as few movements as you could to take them, so the pain didn’t come back. Of course, that didn’t work though so you ended up wincing in pain again.

Alex was sat on the bed next to you when he asked, “Where does it hurt?”

“My uterus” You tell him as you lay back down on your stomach, but you look towards him this time.

Alex snorted at that answer.

“Other than there” He chuckled.

You tell him, “My stomach and back are killing me”

“I could give you a back message if you want?” Alex graciously offered.

You think about it for a second but then decide against it.

“Tempting, but it’ll make me wanna have sex with you, and I don’t wanna do that” You say honestly, and you see his brown eyes spark with mischief.

“I meannn”

“No” You say very quickly.

“Definitely not. No thanks, I’ve already said that I love you too soon I’m not having sex with you on my period that soon too” You tell him before you chuckle, “You either get one or the other”

Alex laughs at that. “Well, you tell me to stop just before you want to fuck me and I’ll either keep going or stop” He teases a little.  

“Alex” You say sternly.

“I’ll stop I promise” Alex says before manoeuvring himself, so he was pretty much straddling your arse.

You give in, “Fine, but please be gentle with me”

Alex laughs as he pushes your top up your back, so he had access to your skin. For once you were warm for him to touch.

Probably because he’d just had a beer in his hand and the fact that you’d been in bed all day.

“Words that have never left your mouth before” Alex mumbled with a grin, but he’d said it loud enough for you to hear.

“Wow, are you trying to make me hit you today?” You scoff tying to look around at him as you felt his hands start rubbing your lower back.  

Alex smiled at you, “You’ve got to be nice to me now. I’m in control of this massage and I know how to get you worked up”

“Please don’t” You plead.

“Be nice then love” He said as his hands started working on your lower back.

After about 5 minutes of him working his magic on you, you felt a lot better. You chatted about his day with his Mum and Dad and how he’d gone with them to see his Grandma and his other Grandad.

He said that he’d had a really nice day with his family around him as some of his cousins had shown up too who were a similar age to the both of you. Apparently one of them had mentioned you and how he followed your Instagram which Alex them called him a stalker for.

Alex told you that his cousins’ comeback was something along the lines of, “It’s not stalking, I just think she’s fucking fit”. You laughed at that just imagining Alex trying not to be jealous or biting his tongue, so he didn’t say something he’d regret.

You also jokingly agreed with him when he told you that his cousin apparently called him a ‘lucky man’. But in truth you were the lucky one.

You were about to go and start a life with him. And yeah it was all a bit quick and sudden after nearly two months but if two people love each other as much as the two of you seemed to, you didn’t think that there was anything you wouldn’t do to try and make it work.

You were also really lucky because as his fingers were working the aches in your muscles away and your pain started to dissipate. But you didn’t tell him because you wanted him to carry on.

This was the most relaxed you’d felt all day.

Once he’d finished telling you about his day, a comfortable silence fell between the two of you and the only noise in the room was the TV blaring away. But a comfortable silence when you’re in the presence of someone you love was overrated, so you start chatting to him again.

“Alex” You get his attention.

“Yeah?”

“How are you so good at everything?” You ask, really enjoying the feeling of his fingers massaging your skin.

Alex hums in amusement before saying, “I’m not, I just know you. I know what you like“

“But you’re still so good at it. I love those magic hands” You smile into the pillow.

Alex laughed at that as he carried on rubbing your skin, “Do you have a thing for hands or something?”

“Just for yours” You tell him, and Alex laughs again.

A few seconds pass before he asks you, “How are you feeling?”

“A little better” You hesitantly say because you didn’t really want him to stop.

“Do you want me to carry on?” Alex asked picking up on the fact that you seemed to be enjoying this.

“Mhhhh yeah, please do” You laugh a little.  

You fall into conversation about your day, and you tell him that you’d literally done fuck all and just tried to sleep your pain away. He jokingly scorned you because about watching The Office all day without him which ended up in you promising him a full day watching it at some point back in LA.

As you talked about life back in LA though you felt Alex repeat a movement on your lower back that resulted in you arching your back. He’d done it once before, so you didn’t know whether he knew he was doing it accidentally or not.

So, you decide to ask, “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“Doing what?” Alex questions as he pushes from the small of your back up your spine with his thumbs.  

You giggle as you arch your back again. He was definitely doing it on purpose.

“How do you know to do that?” You ask him.

“I know a lot about you and how you move” Alex tells you as if he’s proud of that knowledge.

You say “Oh right” in a way that suggests you didn’t believe him.

So, Alex decided to show you that he actually knew you like the back of his hand.

“I’ll demonstrate. If I do this…” Alex saying as he grabs your unsuspecting hips, “Your stomach always tenses and you inhale” and he wasn’t wrong you did exactly that.

Then you felt him lean forward over your body and you felt him move your hair to one side of your neck. He touches the bit of your neck that’s just under your ear and near your jaw and says, “You like it that much when I kiss you there, that your jaw always falls”

You hummed in satisfaction when he kissed you there and he nipped down on your skin which like he said made your jaw drop.

“Alex” You whine, knowing he was trying to get you a little worked up.

“You also really like saying my name whenever I do anything, and I love it” Alex said huskily in your ear and you loved it.

“I love you” You say as you roll yourself over so you’re now facing him and he’s still hovering over you.

Alex smiles and leans down to kiss you. You smile into the kiss and throw your arms around his neck, so he stays there for a little while.

You would definitively never get tired of kissing him. It had definitely become your favourite way to pass the time.

Alex pulls away and brushes your nose with his and says, “I love you too”

You smile up at him and you start to feel his fingertips trail down your body. Once he finds the bare skin on your stomach, from your top being pulled up, he slowly trails his fingertips down to the top of your joggers.

Yes, last night you’d slept in your joggers because they were so cosy and warm.

You sharply inhale as you feel his fingertips dance across your lower stomach.

He ask looking at you suggestively, “Do you want to know what else you do?”

You silently chuckle and shake your head at him. “I think you’ve had your fun for today” You say as you reach down and stop him from teasing you.

Alex pouts down at you but you just chuckle and say, “Thank you for making me feel better”

“Anything for you” He smiles before he leans down and kisses you again.

“Now, come on big decisions have to be made for the rest of the night now?” Alex says with a smile. He was back to being cute now.

“Oh right?” You ask him curiously as he hovers above you. That gorgeous chain dangling from his neck again, begging to be pulled so you could kiss him again.

Something which you restrained yourself from doing.

You actually paid attention to Alex when he asked you, “Yes, Dominos or Pizza Hut for tea? And for our classic movie night, are we watching Terminator or Blade Runner?”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Taglist” @the-girl-before @murderousginger @minigranger @turnertable @bastillewolf @slothgiirl @billskarsgard-is-gorgeous @watashi-no-namae-wo-yonde @fookingsummertime @marvel-avengers01 @shibuikelsi @toolateformcrtooearlytoleaveemo @gretavanbobatea @chocolatecig @iamnotjesha @rachaeljayne15 @edgythought @when-the-darkness-comes​ @angelicnobody​ @marveious​ @liviasaugusta​ @boysinskirts​ @musicmania100​ @he4rtbre4khotel​ @innocte​ @beckauhhh​​ @whoknowswhatimeant​ @tony-starks-ego​ @tobarmaidswhodontcount​ @elektranxtchiios​  @bettyschwallocksyee​ @alexsvacuumcleaner​ @cornerstqne​ @halfofwhatisayismeaningless​ @juicebox-baby​ @yousuck-marina​ @nrldswita​ @dot-writes​ @skullag​ @arctic-bloe​ 

Other parts can be found in Masterlist in bio x

#alex turner x reader #alex turner #alex x reader #Alex #Turner #alex arctic monkeys #arctic monkeys #arcticmonkeys #AM #alex turner imagine #alex turner fanfic #alex turner fluff #alex turner blurb #alex turner x you #alex turner x y/n #arctic monkeys fanfic #matt helders #jamie cook #nick o'malley #miles kane #whatever people say I am that's what I'm not #favourite worst nightmare #humbug #suck it and see #tranquility base hotel and casino #tbhc #the age of the understatement #everything you've come to expect

[bills-pokedex]

Worldbuilding Month: Day 1

{Hello hello, and welcome to Worldbuilding Month! This is going to be a little different from the usual ask-filled months in that most of the content that’ll be popping up from here on out will be out of character and also not ask-based. It’s all still headcanon, but it’s headcanon that basically adds depth to this world in ways answering in-character won’t.

All answers will be archived under both #resources and #worldbuilding month as we go.

That said, let’s get started with the basics:

Geography (and Politics) of the Pokémon World

I’ll be blunt. Regions are regions.

Or to put it in other terms, it’s plain canon that the Pokémon world is divided into regions. We all know this. But the world this blog is set in assumes regions are not independent countries but rather parts of them.

More than that, though, they’re literally the regions they’re based on, but with Pokémon. So for example, Kanto is literally the Kanto region of Japan, Johto is Kansai, and so on. To get a good footing on what that actually means, I pretty much draw from this website when trying to orient myself: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Pokémon_world_in_relation_to_the_real_world

Anyway, the politics between these regions tends to be rather interesting as a result. Kanto and Johto have been closely linked yet rivals for eons, but it makes a lot more sense because they’re both part of the same country. There are deep connections between Johto and Sinnoh because, literally, they’re the same people. There are certain flavors that Kalos and Galar share (ancient history laced with legends surrounding heroes and knights) because of course they would, being literally fragments of France and the UK, respectively. Alola feels removed from the rest of the world because it’s literally Hawaii, and Unova feels removed from the rest of the world because it’s literally New York. And so on.

But above that, another basic fact that you’ll need to know going into this world: there’s world peace. 

Yep. All these countries. All these conflicts. All the millions of times Unova’s and Alola’s (and Orre’s) mother country tried to fuck things up for everyone else in real life ... and there’s world peace for Bill.

Granted, we’ll get to why there’s world peace in another post (that’s very complicated history that involves a fanmade mythical that’s not exactly in place of the atomic bomb but very near to it), but the point is there’s no war. There’s no real conflict. Pretty much every problem we know in real life (except, well ... organized crime and poverty) has been solved. Most of that is thanks to the fact that every country in existence put their heads together and realized that maybe if they actually wanted their young children to go out and catch these strange and wonderful creatures called pokémon, it might be a good idea to make that experience as safe as humanly possible.

To that extent, a lot of the barriers that exist for us don’t exist for the people of Bill’s world because the world needs to be as easy as possible for ten-year-olds to navigate. There is a universal currency that all trainers can use called the pokéyen. There is a universal language that all trainers can also use called Common. Almost everyone is taught how to speak Common and deal with pokéyen from a young age, in courses as mandatory as math and science, because these are universal concepts intended to maintain that sense of unity. This is why someone with as impoverished a background as Jessie can leave Kanto and go off to Kalos and Unova without having to worry about whether or not they can speak French or English and why Ash Ketchum can travel halfway around the world without having to convert money or figure out how to ask for directions in a local language.

(Side point: No, there aren’t really translators out there. This is a piece of canon that was kinda forced onto the blog, and honestly ... the mun reserves the right to retcon. But the reason why there are no translators is because that’s ultimately more expensive, unwieldy, and unreliable than ... just learning a language, to be honest. So while there are translators, particularly to translate one old language to another, most people just kinda ... learn Common in school.)

But anyway, we’ll get into languages in a later post too.

As for how, specifically, governments operate, to put it simply, national governments handle national issues. While each country got together to form bridges between one another (Common, pokéyen, pretty easy immigration, etc, etc) and while they do indeed work together to solve international issues, if an issue occurs within a country’s borders only, then yes, that country will tackle it with their own government. For example, Team Rocket? Considered to be a Japanese issue, taken care of by Japan. Rebuilding Geosenge after that one Team Flare incident? French issue, handled by the French government. And so on.

Furthermore, the Pokémon League is not a government. Rather, it’s ... like a government-sanctioned sport, really. Most governments see it as the key to maintaining international peace, but the Leagues themselves have no political power. If anything, it’s the other way around, with the League governed by the government itself. (In fact, that’s what the Pokémon Association that Bill occasionally works for actually is: a government body meant to oversee the Pokémon League and the rules that run it.) In other words, it’s considered to be a glorified baseball league by most; it’s just that a lot of its players either hold actual government positions besides the ones they hold in the League or can be called on by law enforcement to serve as a kind of National Guard (or in other words, one-person army that maintains the peace in their particular city or region). But we’ll probably get to the League structure in a later post.

Anyway, that’s probably about it. Regions are just regions, which are themselves just subsections of larger countries, which are all in harmony with each other due to pokémon training, and the Pokémon League is not their government.

With that in mind, tune in tomorrow as we dissect why there’s no war in Pokémon Sing Se.}

#resources #worldbuilding month #pokemon headcanon #pokemon worldbuilding

[amuseoffyre]

Britpicking Index

Some useful compare/contrasts for non-British people writing characters in Britain :) (Also, vice versa, because me and my editor have had some run ins over things I didn’t realise had different names in the US). Feel free to add more if you think of them. These are the main ones I’ve encountered and seen discussed in various forums.

Apartment

Flat. We occasionally use apartment now, purely because Americanisms have slipped into the lingo, but mostly, we call them flats.

Bangs

Have never understood why they’re called bangs. We call them fringes.

Bathroom (Going to the…)

Nipping to the loo, having a slash, nipping to the little girl/boy’s room.

Candy

Sweets. Just generally sweets of any kind.

  Chips

Crisps. Because they’re crisp, I suppose?

On a related note, chips over here are the great big chunky potato fries. The little skinny ones (ie. Like McDonalds or Burger King’s) are French fries, but generally, people will still call them chips.

  Cookie/Biscuit

Honestly, this one is… all over the place because US biscuits sound like savoury scone-type things but are very much not savoury scones because they’re served with gravy. Or apparently with jam/honey/other stuff.

Meanwhile UK biscuits are generally small, crunchy and sweet. But I have been reliably informed that a biscuit =/= cookie. However, some things that UK manufacturers call cookies are – in fact – biscuits. Do not trust cookies that crunch and hurt your teeth.

Fannypack

Um. So fanny is a certain area of genitalia over here. Just... worth knowing. We also call them “bumbags”.

Faucet

Tap. Also, we have separate taps for hot and cold in older buildings. Because Chaotic Evil :)

Freeway

Motorway. (More road/traffic information at the bottom)

Garbage/Trash

Rubbish. Bins are the general receptacles for it. 

Gas (Gasoline) and Gas Stations

Petrol and petrol stations. Same stuff, a lot more expensive from what I’ve seen of pricing per gallong versus per litre.

Grill (For cooking)

This one tripped me up very hard in one of my short stories. My US editor and I were as confused as each other when we described them to one another.

We do have grill pans here (ie. The pans with the ridged bottom) and we do the outdoor grilling thing over a flame as well, but generally in the UK, if we say ‘grill’ we are talking about the oven broiler.

Outdoor grilling is just called barbecue unless on a large/professional scale, when it miraculous turns into a grill. The George Foreman grill is also a thing, but I haven’t seen them show up in fic all that often.

Jelly

Jelly = jam, ie. the spreading stuff for sandwiches and things. Jello, on the other hand, is called jelly.

  Jumper

Not a dress. These are generally the knitted kind of pullovers/sweaters. Christmas jumpers are definitely a thing.

Lemonade

It’s a trap. It can refer to a) freshly squeezed lemon juice, b) fizzy lemon juice or c) lemon-ish-flavoured-ish fizzy drinks like 7Up and Sprite. And to add to the trap, it varies in every shop and restaurant. Good luck!

Line/Lining up.

Queue/queuing. Also getting in line.

  Movies (Going to)

Going to the cinema or going to the pictures.

  Pancakes

Yes, I hark back to The Discourse of crepes versus pancakes. UK pancakes were not like US pancakes in my tothood. They were thin, rolled-up things that were more like crepes. However, Scotch pancakes (or drop scones – no idea. Not a frigging scone) are like chibi US pancakes, thick and fluffy. Ingredients vary across the board. I’ve seen recipes including butter and soda and everything. The most basic recipe is pretty much eggs, flour, milk.

 Pants

This is a big one that shows up an awful lot. The word pants in Britain tends to describe underwear of some variety, so you can imagine that this gives a very different mental image of a scene if someone is wearing tight pants in a fancy restaurant.  Pants can be anything from tighty-whities to full-blown granny pants.

Generally pants get called trousers over here. We have the usual varieties of jeans and leggings and things, but generally, full-length leg coverings? Trousers.

Pie

Generally, a pie is savoury, unless specified otherwise.

Pumps

Technically, some shops do refer to them as pumps, but most people I’ve encountered in my 30+ years of living here just call them shoes and define by other means (ie. ballet flats, beach shoes etc)

(Also, fun fact, pump is frequently used as slang for a fart. So someone putting on a pair of pumps...)

Refrigerator

Just fridge, usually.

Roommate

Unless you are literally sharing a room with them, they’re a flatmate. Also, UK universities don’t generally do shared dorms. Everyone gets their own private room, though not everyone gets their own private bathroom.

Sidewalk

Pavement or footpath depending on how rural said walkway is. (More road/traffic information at the bottom)

Shopping Cart

Trolley. If it doesn’t have one wonky wheel, you are Blessed.

Sneakers

Generally, trainers. This can cover any kind of laced-up shoe that is used for sport or is kind of casual and flat, although we also differentiate between Converse, tennis shoes and such as well.

Plimsols are those lace-less slip-on canvas shoes used by kids for indoor sports. They are awful and smell like rubber.

Soda

I can’t give a fixed answer for this one. There are some areas that call all fizzy drinks “pop” while there are other regions which call all soft drinks/fruit drinks “juice��.

 Store

Shop. Superstores, on the other hand, are supermarkets. On a related note, going grocery shopping is generally just known as “doing the shopping” or - more northerly - “getting the messages”.

Street cars/Trollies

Trams. This was a matter of great and heated argument back in the day. Fortunately, there aren’t all that many in the UK, so unless you’re writing in specific parts of the country, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Suspenders

Braces. Because using the word suspenders over here is generally referring to the stockings-and-suspenders variety, with strong hints of lingerie involved. Kind of a nudge-nudge, wink-wink, wahey! kind of thing. Because sometimes, we never grow past the Carry On films.

Trunk (of a car)

The car boot or just ‘the boot’. Similarly, the hood of the car is called the bonnet.

TV

Called either TV or telly. Daft little thing, but putting the telly on reminds me of home :)

Washcloths

Flannels or facecloths.

Some minor oddities that may be useful:

Eggs

We don’t refrigerate them. We don’t have to. Some people keep them in a special shelf of the fridge, but generally it’s not necessary.

Laundry

In British houses, washing machines are generally in the kitchen. Don’t know why, given that Europe tends to have them in bathrooms or laundry rooms. (Useful to know, we don’t call the baskets laundry baskets/hampers. They’re generally just referred to as “the washing”)

Also, a lot of houses don’t have tumble driers. Outdoor drying is still quite common (weather permitting) on lines strung for the purpose between poles or on a whirligig contraption in the back garden. In Scotland, blocks of flats often have a shared “drying green” which does exactly what it says on the tin. Except, because it’s Scotland, I believe they named it ironically.

If you don’t have a tumble drier and the weather Gods are displeased, then we resort to the good old-fashioned airer, a murderous contraption of metal rods (usually coated in white plastic) that unfolds (and bites the unsuspecting finger when it collapses for no good reason).

Recycling

Oh. good. god. In the name of trying to make us save the planet, we have bins for everything. In my area, we have a regular bin, a recycling bin, a garden waste bin, a composting bin and a glass-recycling box. I know places that have more. I know places that have less.

They’re usually on weekly rotations and it’s an absolute nightmare trying to a) find space to store them and b) find space to put them out for the rubbish collection. Some areas that are mainly blocks of flats have large communal bins with similar distinctions, but I think pretty much everywhere is burdered with an excess of large plastic bins.

Roads and the Use Thereof

We drive on the left side of the road with the driver’s side on the right of the vehicle. Intersections are called junctions and I think roundabouts are a much more common phenomenon in Britain than in most sensible countries.

We still have the usual road signs and things, although British variations thereof. You can find British traffic signs by any basic search online. Traffic lights are usually just the three colours - red, amber, green - but you do occasionally get ones with extra signals for cyclists and the like.

Cycle lanes are about, but they’re not as common as somewhere like the Netherlands.

Which brings me to crosswalks - we have two common varieties: zebra and pelican. Yeah, we’re eccentric like that.

The pelican crossing is the one where you press the button and wait for the little green man to give you the all-clear to walk. It’s called Pelican because it used to be a semi-acronym - "pedestrian light controlled crossing".

Zebra crossings usually have no buttons. Some of them have striped poles with roung yellow/orange lights at the top, but not as much anymore. These kind of crossings give pedestrians the right of way, although a lot of drivers seem to ignore that rule.

Technically, they do have their names, but most of the time, we just refer to them as “the crossing”. No one really differentiates between pelican and zebra anymore.

School/college/variations.

Generally, we have state schools (government funded, variable on quality) and the independent schools which are the fee-paying ones for people who want to go private. Be aware that public refers to independent schools in some places, but to state schools in others. Children are entitled to education between the ages of 5-18.

For the early school stages, it varies depending on region. Where I am (Scotland), you have 7 years of Primary school (P1-7) and up to 6 years of Secondary school (S1-6).

I get a bit confounded with the English system because it seems to vary a lot depending on region. Primary covers most for the early years, up to age 11, but then you get a cocktail of Lower/Upper, Sixth Form and College for the secondary years depending on which area you’re in.

We don’t use terms like sophomore etc (I honestly thought that was the flag-code thing)

College is generally seen as the stepping stone between school and university. You don’t need to go to college in order to go to university in a lot of areas, but in some regions, your final year of school is done at college. It’s all a bit confusing.

University is where you go if you want to study a degree. Again, the courses vary by length depending on subject. A standard bachelor degree is 3 years in most places (except for stuff like medicine and architecture). Masters are an additional year (or two) on top of the Bachelor. Anything beyond that is variable depending on both university and course. We call the unis for short.

Swearing

Depending on region, the strength and frequency of profanities varies. For example, I’m in Scotland and one of the ladies I work with has used the c-word as a verb. Someone was playing the fool and she described them as “c*nting about”. My boss was usually ill if she didn’t drop f-bombs 8+ times a day and usually while laughing. It’s rare not to hear someone on the bus swearing on a daily basis as well.

Going back to the previously mentioned fannies, please enjoy an infamously Scottish advert:

So swearing. Yes. Variable. Definitely something to be aware of.

#britpicking #trying to be helpful and useful to fandom for a change :)

[virgyvandijk]

For that au idea, idk if it meant any ideas or juat your own. But if its any could you do a liverpool x peakyblinders/mafia style one if you don't mind?

this got so long i’m sorry it’s going to have to go under a cut 

virgil’s father is the kingpin of a drugs gang that near enough rules the netherlands. they control what goes in, what goes out, and ron built the empire up from scratch, dating back to long before virgil was born

he was a flaky dad when virgil was a kid, but when he turned twelve, he disappeared completely. just upped and left without a trace, leaving a whole trail of destruction in his wake. eventually he got back in contact and left his number

when virgil got old enough, he realised what his dad actually did. it disgusted him, to be honest. made him feel sick, because he knew what happened down the production lines of drug gangs. he knew about the violence that so many innocent people inevitably faced, and he couldn’t believe his dad was a part of that

people still recognised him though, when he was in the right bars or even just walking on the right streets. they knew who he was and who his father was, and they’d stop him. sometimes it’d be compliments, sometimes anecdotes, and sometimes threats. he hated all of them

when he turned 18, all those people on the streets started asking him when he was going to follow in his dad’s footsteps. then it turned into trying to convince him to join, and it began to feel constant

the day after his 19th birthday, he packed a bag, kissed his mother goodbye, and moved to the uk. he had a friend in liverpool who had somewhere for him to stay and the offer of a job, so he got on the next flight out and started fresh

he set up a life in liverpool – a good one. he had a decent job as the head of security for concerts in the city, and moved into his own little flat, right near the docks. nobody recognised him, and that was absolutely perfect, it was a proper New Start 

he met jordan through a friend of a friend of a friend at a house party and they hit it off straight away. he’d never been so attracted to someone after only speaking for them for a few minutes, and he wasn’t even nervous when he asked jordan if he’d like to go for lunch the next day, because he knew jordan was going to say yes

their dates were more often than not, every other day for the first week and then every day after that. they got on so well, just spent hours talking and laughing and getting to know each other. virgil didn’t think he’d ever met someone quite like jordan

it wasn’t long until they decided to move in together. they were together most of the time anyway, spending time at virgil’s flat away from jordan’s housemates, so it just made sense. they both had decent jobs and put together a considerable amount for a deposit on a house, and they moved in not even a month later

things were good. virgil knew that he’d found his forever and he was happy about it, settled in his own little house with his own little family (jordan and two cats), in a country where nobody knew about his father and what he did for a living

except, of course, things aren’t always that easy.

gini is the only person he still talks to from back home, because he moved to liverpool shortly after virgil did – after virgil told him how happy he was in the city. they’re inseparable by now, and virgil considers him a brother

they go out for dinner every tuesday (jordan leaves them to it, has a night in with the cats and a pizza), somewhere different each week. gini chooses the restaurant, because he’s much more exciting than virgil is, but that’s fine by virgil. he doesn’t need to be exciting, he enjoys his life as it is thank you

one tuesday, virgil parks somewhere in town and walks to the restaurant that gini suggested. he’s never been there before so he’s using google maps, head buried in his phone, and he quite literally bumps into someone heading up paradise street. he looks up, and he swears he recognises the bloke, but he can’t quite place him

before he can ask, the man speaks. his accent is dutch – the same recognisable region as virgil, and he grins, but it’s more evil than kind. says, “i know you – your dad is ron van dijk. expanding his business, are you?” 

virgil tries to walk away, but the man calls him back. he says he’s got some information about his brother, about what he’s been up to. virgil didn’t even fucking know, but the man has some documents on his phone and virgil can’t deny it. his grin grows wider, and virgil wishes he could forget his next words completely

it’s a choice, that’s the thing. it’s a choice and he makes it, but it’s a choice between his brother’s entire life being ruined for a stupid little mistake that he made when he was a kid, or virgil running a few slightly illegal errands for some shady man. it’s a choice, and it’s one he makes willingly. not only is his baby brother’s wellbeing at stake, but also his own. he doesn’t know what he’ll do if hendo finds out about how shady his family is

but it gets out of hand. at first it’s just a few drops of packages that virgil determinedly doesn’t look into, because he knows he won’t like what he finds. he can do that, can just pretend it’s something different, that this stranger doesn’t have all the information in his pocket to ruin so many lives. the packages eventually turn into bigger requests – into violence. virgil has never been a violent person. he might be big, and some people might find his stature imposing, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly

the violence is where he draws the line. he tells the stranger that he’s not going to do it anymore, that he’s done what he asked and he’s done it perfectly, so there’s absolutely no reason for him to carry on

in hindsight, he probably should’ve been a little suspicious about how calm and casual the stranger was when he said that, but he was just so relieved that he didn’t think twice

he forgets about it. well, as much as he can – it still plays on his mind but days pass and turn into weeks, so he doesn’t think about it. it’s over, as far as he’s concerned, and now he wants to make his boyfriend a nice meal and spend quality time with him and the cats

he picks a friday night, when neither of them have got to be up in the morning. buys a nice bottle of wine and cooks jordan’s favourite meal, because he always finishes earlier than jordan does

except jordan doesn’t come home when he’s supposed to. virgil doesn’t hear the familiar crunch of his tires over the gravel in the driveway, or his keyrings clinking against each other. he doesn’t hear the familiar inflection of jordan’s accent shouting virgil’s name or the incomprehensible muttering about virgil leaving his trainers in the middle of the hall

at first he thinks jordan is just caught up at work, but then an hour turns into three, turns into five and the worry is gnawing at his stomach, making him nauseous. it doesn’t help that jordan isn’t answering any of his calls, either – no matter how many times he dials that familiar number 

on the twenty second time he calls, the ringing stops and there’s silence. jordan has finally fucking picked up, and virgil snaps at him, asks him where he’s been and why the fuck isn’t he home, but the voice that answers isn’t jordan. the accent is dutch. familiar. virgil’s heart sinks into his stomach and tears prick at his eyes, because he should have known he wasn’t getting out of it this easily

his chest feels tight, breaths struggling to go in, but the stranger just laughs. tells virgil that he got what he deserved for thinking he’s the one in control here. tells virgil that if he doesn’t do as he’s told, his little boyfriend will die, and it won’t be quick and painless

virgil agrees, says that he’ll do whatever he wants, whatever he needs – as long as he doesn’t hurt jordan. that’s the only thing that matters

the stranger gives him instructions and hangs up. he sounds so smug that it makes fury boil in virgil’s veins and before he even realises what he’s doing, he’s scrolling through his contacts until he finds his father’s number. he’s not even sure why he kept it, but right now he’s glad. the nausea sets in while he listens to it ring, and he bites his tongue when his dad answers

“i fucking hate you,” he spits, means every word of it. “i hate you. i hate what you’ve done to me. you’ve ruined my life, you’ve ruined everything, and i will never, ever forgive you.” 

“okay,” his dad replies, completely unfazed. virgil somehow hates him even more. “is that all you called for?” 

“i’m in liverpool. where does your gang operate?” virgil asks, voice hard. he knows his father will give him an answer, because that’s the least he deserves. “they’ve taken my fucking boyfriend, ron. they’ve taken him and i won’t let them hurt him, so tell me where they’ve set up around here.”

ron does the only decent thing he’s ever done in his life, and tells virgil. he doesn’t even say goodbye before he hangs up and then he’s dialling the number for jordan’s dad. he’s a police officer – virgil needs the back up. he’s rational enough to know that he’s too emotional for this, and he’ll never forgive himself if jordan ends up hurt, or worse, because of him

he stands back and watches as armed police surround the warehouse. it’s nothing out of the ordinary, really – there are hundreds of empty buildings around the docks, and this one is no different. virgil has walked past it dozens of times and he didn’t think twice about it

he’s not really thinking twice about it now, to be honest. he just wants his jordan back, in his arms and in one piece, and his heart is hammering against his ribcage when the armed officers burst through the doors. jordan’s dad stands next to him, an arm around his shoulders, and he’s really surprised that he’s not blaming virgil

it feels like hours, days, but it’s probably only minutes before that familiar stranger is being dragged out. he’s glaring, and if looks could kill then virgil would be six foot under already, but he makes a point of not looking at him. instead, he watches a few other men being dragged out, ones that virgil vaguely recognises from his dad bringing them around when he was a kid 

eventually, jordan is being helped out by an officer, and virgil’s knees almost buckle with relief. he’s got a few cuts and bruises, blood streaked through his hair, but he’s okay. that’s the main thing – he’s okay

he heads straight to virgil, not even blinking at the sight of his dad standing there, and throws his arms around his neck, shuddering out a sigh when virgil tightens his arms around jordan’s waist. it’s only been half a day since he’s had jordan’s skin under his hands but it felt like years, and he buries himself into the older man’s warmth, into his scent

“i’m okay,” jordan whispers, thumb stroking along virgil’s hairline at his temple. virgil still isn’t quite convinced though, and he guides jordan towards the ambulance that’s waiting and makes sure he gets checked over properly

he is okay, to which jordan mutters, i told you so, but still, virgil would rather be safe than sorry. he takes jordan home and then helps him up the stairs and into the shower, hesitating when jordan tells him that he’s okay, that he can manage to wash himself. still, he knows that jordan probably needs some space after what just happened to him, so he heads downstairs and lowers himself into an armchair

what just happened – fucking hell. jordan nearly died, and it was virgil’s fault. dragged him into this and didn’t even give him any warning. he had no idea who virgil’s dad was or what he did. he probably feels like he doesn’t even know who virgil is anymore, if anything he told him was true

he’s probably going to leave.

jordan is taking his time in the shower, and virgil manages to convince himself that he’s in their bedroom, packing a bag and trying to figure out how to tell virgil that he’ll come back for the rest of his stuff later. nothing would surprise him after the fucking mess he’s made of everything 

when jordan comes back down, he’s dressed in a comfy pair of joggers and one of virgil’s hoodies, fingers tangled in the baggy sleeves of it as he pads across the living room. he says something, but virgil doesn’t even hear it, let alone reply

“virgil?” jordan asks, close enough that virgil has to snap out of his thoughts. he doesn’t look up from the floor, can’t bring himself to make eye contact, because he doesn’t deserve that. “i said, do you want a cup of tea?” 

“if you’re going to leave me, can you just – not drag it out?” virgil says quickly, the words choked as they leave his mouth. the thought of it makes his heart beat twice as fast, tongue too big for his mouth, and he quickly wipes the tears away that have spilled over his cheeks.

jordan drops to his knees just as quickly, both hands coming up to frame virgil’s face. he lifts his head, makes him look at him, and whispers, “i’m not going anywhere, virgil.”

virgil blinks. he’s so confused. “even after all the lies? all the pain i’ve put you through? you could have died, jordan. it would have been my fault,” he says.

“no,” jordan says, shaking his head. his thumb traces along virgil’s bottom lip carefully. “i love you, and that means i love all of you. even the parts that have a shitty excuse of a man for a father. even the parts that you haven’t told me about. i love you, and that means i’m all in.”

virgil can’t help it. he bursts into tears, sobs wracking through his entire body. he’s never felt unconditional love like this before, because even his mother was half terrified he’d turn out like his father, but jordan doesn’t see any of that. jordan sees virgil, and nobody else

jordan slides his arms around virgil’s shoulders and pulls him in close, for a tight hug. he lets him cry it out for as long as he needs, shushing him gently, and doesn’t say a word when virgil falls silent

that’s unconditional love. it means more to virgil than he could ever describe.

send me an au and i’ll give you headcanons

#anon #asks #vh #lucy writes

[jaybug-jabbers]

Pokemon Sword/Shield: A review of my experience

So, I’ve rung in the new year in style with a bad cold. Fortunately, I received a new Switch Lite for Christmas and a copy of Pokemon Sword, so at least I’ve had something to do while sitting about feeling miserble. I beat the game last night, and I figured I’d say a few words about what I thought of it. There are major spoilers ahead!

Graphics & Music

First of all, it looks absolutely beautiful. I’m used to using my 2DS, so the upgrade to the Switch Lite was quite the jump. When compared to previous Pokemon titles, the game is absolutely stunning to gaze upon. What’s more, the environments are varied, creative, colorful, and just lovely. They were such a delight that when I first started the game and had control of my character, the first thing I did was simply stand there for a solid five minutes just gazing on the dynamic, gorgeous countryside, butterfree flapping in the distance, Wooloo rolling around, people going about their day. It helps that I do love the UK and I’ve visited it in the past, and I have to say they did an excellent job evoking the feel of those landscapes. Exploring the towns and the environments was always a joy. Their layouts were natural, intuitive, and walking around or biking around was easy and fun. I was eager to explore every nook and cranny. Accompanying the environments was excellent music. All of the tracks were on-point. They set the feel of the location and they were all great to listen to.

UI & Battle Mechanics

Another thing you notice right away is the UI has been beautifully updated. It’s logically and appealingly organized, it’s very speedy, and there are a lot of quality-of-life tweaks and updates– such as accessing your pokemon PC from just about anywhere. (or easy access to Flying from the regular Map menu!) These tweaks have really helped smooth and streamline things and make for a better experience. It took some getting used to some of the tweaks, such as a forced Experience Share for the entire pokemon party. I’m still not sure what I think of that, but I kept reminding myself that full-party experience is standard in other RPGs, so it’s not so huge a jump for Pokemon to adopt it as well.

Characters

The game is also populated by many characters that I enjoyed. The character designs were well thought-out and appealing, and the characters themselves were fun. Hop may have a bit of a doofy haircut and be a bit of a dork, but he’s still an enjoyable rival. Professor Magnolia seems cool, as does her daughter Sonia. As we meet each of the gym leaders in turn, I generally liked them, as well. They did a good job adding little bits of personality to each of them. And yes, I even liked Leon, the over-the-top and bizarrely-dressed Champion. He was hammy and I think it worked well for him.

The Sport of Pokemon & Dynamaxing

Something else I found myself really enjoying was how much the game was emphasizing the sport aspect to Pokemon battling in the Galar region. This is something the game has always had to a certain extent, but never to the degree it has here. Pokemon battling was a huge spectacle here in Galar, done in massive statiums to huge, roaring crowds. This is a world of difference when compared to the solemn, trial-like, solitary experience of the Elite Four. It just brings and entirely different energy to the experience. And I found I really liked that. During the first few gym battles, I wasn’t entirely into it at first, largely because the first few gym fights were incredibly easy. But after they got a little harder, I started to get into the feel of things.

Naturally, the whole huge emphasis on the electric thrill of competition and of huge, bombastic spectacle was tied into the gimmick of this particular game: Dynamaxing. And as lukewarm as I was about Dynamaxing when I first heard it announced (I’m pretty tired of these gimmicks– Z-Moves, Mega Evolutions and the likes), I have to give credit where credit’s due: it was at least tied very thoroughly into the plot and into the fabric of the game. It didn’t feel tacked on, and I wasn’t resentful about actually using Dynamaxing. It may have been a silly gimmick, but it was still enjoyable to use, because it made sense to help entertain the crowds with oversized spectacle, and because there was a certain amount of enjoyment in the added strategy it required. I’m glad I was able to get into it.

I think the highest point for me about the gym challenge experience was when I was facing off Raihan. Here’s the chap they’ve been hyping for a while about facing up against, because he’s the last gym leader standing before you move onto the Semi Finals and the Finals. When you walk through the dark corridor out into the pitch, you can feel the electric atmosphere; you can hear people cheering your name as their new favorite trainer hopeful; and then, Raihan, the man who always acted so casual and smooth and cool, suddenly shows his intense side on the field of battle. He flings out two pokeballs and brags about mixing things up for you with a doubles format and with the weather, and dares you to step up for the challenge.

My two front pokemon come out– Snowdrop, my Frosmoth, and Bazz, my Grapploct. After all that weather bragging, I decide to show him, and have my Frosmoth flip his sandstorm weather over to Hail. Surprised, my opponent acknowledges that was a pretty nice move on my part. I then Blizzard and Superpower his first pair of pokemon out of the picture.

I’m feeling pretty good, and then he sends out his second pair of pokemon. I have no idea what the heck the Duraludon is supposed to be. Then he Dynamaxes it, which takes me a little off guard, as I had expected it later, but of course this is doubles so there is no later. I stall for a little bit, trying to decide what to hit the Duraludon with, and my first few pokemon go down, and the sandstorm kicks back in.

I decide to send out my Corviknight out for Dynamaxing. But I’m still floundering over the best tactic for this unfamiliar pokemon. I try Max Airstream to see how much it does, but it’s not a very impressive chunk. Then his Sandaconda gets a Glare off on my Corviknight, which is a pain. I waste one of my Dynamax turns getting paralyzed. I’ve fainted several other pokemon in the process of things. I start to think I’m toast and I’ll need to replay the match. Then I realize this stupid-looking Duraludon is, of course, a Steel type. I’d just recently put Body Press onto my Corviknight for some move variety. On my final Dynamax turn, I use it. It utterly destroys the Duraludon, which had just lost its Dynamax.

My own Corviknight falls back down into its normal state. There’s only one pokemon left on either one of our teams; his damned Sandaconda and my half-health Corviknight. The sand is still up, but my Corviknight didn’t mind that at all. It did, however, mind the paralysis and the Fire Fang the snake kept using. Fortunately, Corviknight is still a tanky beast, and I blasted away with Drill Pecks. It was tense, really down to the wire. Would Corviknight tank enough hits to make it? Would he get paralyzed at an inopportune moment?

Fortunately, he makes it, finishing off Sandaconda and taking the match. As I cheer at the victory, my pokemon cheers too, amongst all the swirling sand. The crowd roars, and I feel a genuine respect for my opponent’s skill. It was a good fight. Afterwards, when I returned to the lobby, people were congratulating me on my victory, and it felt truly nice.

Moments like these are not common in pokemon games. At least, they aren’t for me. I had felt everything during that match– the magnificent spectacle of the dynamaxing, the tricks my opponent pulled, his keen desire to win, the crowd’s thirst for a good match, my desire to pull through somehow. As it turned out, after that, I didn’t have battle quite as good. The Semi-Finals and the Finals were a cakewalk for me. Even the Raihan rematch was ridiculously easy. He changed up his team and made it much worse, so that he had different weather-setters for each poke, lacking any team synergey at all. It was a shame. Perhaps the only reason that match was so close was because I had been briefly intimidated over the doubles format and confused over the  Duraludon, but I do wish those magical experiences happened more often.

Indeed, even my final battle with the Champion was a woeful disappointment. I got off one Dragon Dance with Dragapult and swept the whole team cleanly. That brings up another point, though: the difficulty level of this game. It is … well, not very high. It’s a shame. I realize it’s a tricky balance, since this game is aimed at a variety of age levels, and they don’t want it too difficult for the younger audience. Still, it would be nice for Pokemon to implement a ‘hard mode’ to help deal with this issue. Perhaps if they did, we could have more magical moments like the one I had with Raihan.

Character Development & Plot

The low difficulty wasn’t the only thing about Pokemon Sword/Shield that sometimes brought disappointment. At the end of the game, I also found the plot sort of ended up in a no-man’s land. Almost all of the plotlines felt unfinished. Marnie looked like a really cool character full of potential, but then nothing ever really happened with her character. Team Yell ended up being very different from all the other ‘teams’ of the pokemon universe, in that they were just very vocal and sometimes excessively involved fans of Marnie. I actually liked the idea of the ‘team’ not being a group of organized villians up to no good, but Team Yell’s plot ultimately petered out into nothing. The same could be said for other characters. Sonia was a cool-looking character design and again seemed to have a lot of potential as a character, but I never quite understood the point of her plot. She was … uninterested in research, maybe, but became interested? Or was overwhelemed with the work? Or … what, exactly? When she “earned” the lab coat, it didn’t feel like an accomplishment. There was no weight or clarity to her character arc in the slightest. She didn’t even ultimately contribute all that much, because she failed to even be the one to discover the Sword and Shield artifacts.

Again, we find this trend with others, such as Hop’s development. Hop is a cocky, confidant young lad who idolizes his older brother. Eventually he runs into a trainer who throws off his groove, gets into his head with some comments, claiming that he’s dragging his older brother’s name through the mud by being shite at pokemon battling. Then he starts to doubt and second-guess himself, reshuffle his team and his strategies endlessly, and so forth. Eventually, he seems to ‘get over it’ and gets his groove back, but we never are given a really firm reason as to why he gets his groove back. What brought about this change? We need to see why he’s learned and grown. And really, even when he does pull his shit together again, has he really learned much from the experience? I assumed his ultimate lesson would be to see his brother more as an equal, not as someone to idolize; as a human who can self-doubt and make mistakes just like him. But the writers passed up the opportunity to go that way with the plot. They just sort of … gave up halfway.

The most of a glimpse we get from that is something given to us from the animation itself, not the writers. Out on the pitch, during the final battle against Leon, when he’s just about to toss his pokemon out, there’s a moment when he pauses and taps both hands against his face. It’s a subtle little gesture, as if he’s trying to shake off any gnawing self-doubts and get his head into the game, and it echoes his younger brother, who we’ve seen do the same thing. It’s such a lovely little touch, such a human moment, and to me shows that both brothers have been vulnerable to self-doubt despite their swagger, but in the end can overcome it. I only wish the idea were explored further in the actual plot.

The ‘evil plot’ of this particular game also feels only half-baked and incomplete. The motivation behind Rose’s actions feels entirely absent to me, as does any logic whatsoever. What’s worse, the game leaves behind so many lingering questions. OK, so this slumbering Eternatus is the source of all Dynamax power, and he’s discovered the energy will run out in a thousand years or so. How is waking up Eternatus by feeding it Wishing Stars (which, as Magnolia later reports, are bits of Eternatus itself– so, what, feeding  Eternatus pieces of itself?) going to help with that? Will it produce more energy once awake? So he planned on capturing it and … sending it out whenever they needed more energy? Or just keeping it around as a power-giving pet of some sort? But at the end of the game, the player keeps Eternatus for themselves, so doesn’t that mean Galar is sort of screwed now? How can the power plant continue to function (and Dynamaxing) if the source of that power is now inside my pokeball? Also, how exactly did Rose wake up Eternatus to begin with/bring about the Darkest Day? Just release all the energy he had at once? There’s so much that’s confusing and unclear. Basically, the plotline felt very half-baked. I had the sense the writing for this game was frankly very rushed.

It doesn’t stop there. Oleana, the whole thing with Bede, and other characters are left with tons of lingering questions and unfinished plotthreads as well. I suspect the devs simply ran out of time. It’s a huge shame, because I enjoyed all of these characters and felt there was so much potential there, but that potential was never really realized.

Pokemon

This generation has a relatively low number of new pokemon, and you do feel that a little bit as you’re going along. The older pokemon that are mixed in were chosen well, in that they blend naturally with the environments they were placed in, and they’re spaced out nicely, so you encounter a mix of new and old at a nice clip, so they have that going for themselves. But even still, yes, you do start to wish there were a few more surprising faces. Still, there’s definitely fun to be had with new pokemon, especially for some of the cooler Galar regional variants. (I fully support regional variants and am happy they made a comeback in this generation.)

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, there’s also only a very limited set of old pokemon this game has access to. Any species not listed in the Galar dex simply cannot be transferred over. This has upset many people, but when I played the game, it did not feel lacking for that reason. The sheer number of pokemon in the overall franchise is now staggering. It makes complete sense to not include every species in every game now. They intend to include old pokemon on rotation in future games, and that seems like a fair compromise to me. Am I bummed that my favorite Parasect can’t be transferred to Galar? Of course. But I’m not too worked up over the fact. He’ll see another region someday.

To finish this section off, I’m going to do a rapid-fire list of my top 5 and bottom 5 of the new pokemon.

Top 5

Corviknight: An absolutely gorgeous design and easily the MPV of my team.

Wooloo/Dubwool: It’s an adorable ball sheep/ram. You simply can’t go wrong with that. One of the first to be revealed of the new pokes, but I can never get bored with it.

Dragapult: A very creative, lizardy Dragon/Ghost creature that adorably shoots its own babies as ammo. I love it.

Grappaloct: So beautiful. Love its design, its stance, the way one tentacle is a belt, love its colors and pattern, its eyes, its cry, everything. Such a badass and I love octopi in general, so a real winner. This is the octopus we’ve needed for a while.

Snom/Frosmoth: I mean, in some ways its design isn’t revolutionary, since we already have many moth pokemon. However, Snom is still adorable and Frosmoth is still beautiful, something you cannot deny. And it’s been long overdue to get an Ice/Bug. What’s more, Snom is based off real caterpillars (jewel caterpillars), which is wonderful.

Bottom 5

Inteleon: A very distinctive design style that doesn’t look like it belongs anywhere near a Pokemon game. Just feels very mismatched to me.

Alcremie: I hate sentient food. A massive pet peeve of mine.

Applin: See above.

Duraludon: Sorry, but I still think its design is ugly. I can’t get used to it.

Mr. Mime (Galar Variant): No. Mr. Mime is always horrible. Stay away from me. Keep your creepy variant, too.

The Wilds Area

Of course, a review of the game would be incomplete if I didn’t mention the Wild Area. This section of the game was really very lovely. I enjoyed exploring what was essentially Breath of the Wild: Pokemon, and I think it’s a wonderful direction for the game to take. Wandering around, finding goodies, rare pokemon, Dynamax dens and all the rest is very entertaining and it’s just beautiful. Really makes you feel like you’re out in nature exploring, and really encountering pokemon in their natural environment. I’ve read people predicting that Game Freak is using the Wild Area in this game as a test, and something they will probably expand upon in later games. If that’s what they are indeed doing, then I welcome the change. I can’t say I am super interested in fighting wild Dynamax pokemon with my friends, but I did enjoy everything else.

Summary

So, would I recommend this game to others? It would depend on who you are. If you’re a big pokemon fan, then yes, of course. You’ll enjoy the beautiful locations to explore, the new pokemon, and the excitement of the Galar sports arenas, as well as some colorful characters. However, you are going to find some flaws. The plot and character arcs are going to eventually end up a little lacking, and you’ll find there’s not as much new content as you’d have preferred. While some aspects of this game are very well polished and complete, others feel rushed. Overall, it’s going to be a mixed experience, but I think that if you like pokemon, you will still enjoy it.

This is a repost on a new blog. The original post was on Jan 1, 2020.

#pokemon #game review #mycontent #pokemon reviews

[masterbeta29]

My review of Pokemon SwSh!!!! (or just Shield, cuz it was the version I play, LOL)

Finally, after finishing the game (including the Post game) and fully exploring the region, I think it’s time for me to say what I think of this 8 gen…

I know it’s obvious, but I mention it just in case: This is MY OPINION!!!, if someone disagrees with me its totally valid, I just ask for respect.

ALSO, English is not my first language so I might have certain lack/erros of spelling out there, or I repeat many words, hehe.

It is important to clarify that this review is based on SwSh base, everything that refers to DLC will NOT be included here, my opinion of the game is already done, the rest is extra content.

I wanted to give this review a more ‘’silly’’ tone, since giving negative opinions on the internet can be quite delicate and I wanted to relax the mood. Do not take this seriously, I still have my CONS with the game, but it is still genuinely enjoyable, which for me is the most important thing in a game.  I will talk about everything in general, so I will try to summarize certain points.

LET’S GO!!!

NEW FEATURES

Poke Camp, Curry Dex, Boxes and more

It’s like a dream come true for me, visiting other camps, seeing my whole party next to each other in the screen playing, discussing, running, is something really magical helps, me connect with them and know their personalities better, although I admit that I miss petting them lol and the minigames like in Gen 6. I also really liked the concept of curry as an alternative way to cure your Pokémon maybe I just wish there was a simpler way to know how to create new recipes (ALSO TMs).

Access to boxes anywhere is wonderful especially when you are breeding, just like, changing the name of trade Pokémon and the move reminder.

Rotomphone

It is not used as much as a phone, more than in the post Game (I can be wrong tho) but it serves as Dex and that’s what’s important really, the new feature is that now it includes the bicycle, that can ride both on land and water and in my opinion it is a degradation of what the concept of  “Poke Ride” was, but as I said before, it fulfill the function it should.

Trainer Cards

The concept of being able to share and customize them with other players is super entertaining, although it is a bit annoying that you always have to make a new code for each small modification. As for the cards of the main characters of the game, I will talk with a little more detail later. 

Dynamax

At the beginning it was fun and exciting, but in the end it just became a gimmick that sometimes I had to use by obligation in raids. It is not as epic as the Megas and does not have the weight of the lore and cultural/regional connection like the Z-moves.

The Giga forms, although some are great, and I am happy that they gave Pokémon like Garbodor love, I also think that there were many missed opportunities, starting with the starters of the region or in giving forms to Pokémon that in previous generations already had like Gengar and Charizard.

Raids

They are incredibly fun, it is an activity that you can spend hours and hours enjoying, especially with friends but if we talk about NPCs… OOF, I understand that the purpose of Pokemon is that we all make friends and work as a team, but DAMN, if it is stressful when you lose a raid with 3 friends and an NPC, because the Pokémon only killed the NPC, it is almost impossible to defeat a 5 star raid with only NPCs, and as I said before I understand why they do them weaker, but there are some that are completely useless, I see you Martin Solrock lol.

Poke Jobs and Rotom Rally

I  will be honest, I have not used these features enough to have a solid judgment on these lol.

CHARACTERS

Magnolia

OK, I need to get this off my chest: I am incredibly disappointed and sad with this character, especially since she is/was our first old female professor, to be simply pulled into forgettable land.

It started pretty well, but then it just disappeared until almost the end of the game to give the role of professor to Sonia … REALLY ?! I hate to say this, but she felt more like a device to give character development to Sonia, when she could have been used in scenes with Rose or repeatedly going into further detail about Dynamax for the MC (you know because she’s an expert about that topic…), before give the paper to Sonia. At least I am grateful that I had a little more screen time in the post game, although not even as a professor.

Sonia

Thank you Sonia, for allowing us to discover and know the story with you, honestly she was the one who saved mostly my interest in the story. 

But speaking of the character, I like her, I like her dedication to get out of the shadow of Leon’s achievement and to show her grandmother that she is capable, which she finally manages to fulfill, she still has certain insecurities, but that makes her more human, she’s the real professor (I’m still salty for Magnolia tho)

Leon

Everyone knows from the posts on my PT on Twitter that I constantly bullying the character, but I really like him a lot, he is an excellent guide/brother through the game, charismatic, EXTRA, but very involved in his role as champion, in the sense that he is always aware of what is going on and helping in the process, in addition to being strong (one of the most difficult battles in the game). Definitely among my fav champions with Cynthia, Steven and Kukui (I count him as champion, SU!)

Gym Leaders

I love them, their designs, personalities, the animations, they are all incredibly memorable, my favorites are Opal, Kabu and Piers. 

But even so, I wish I had more to go on besides the lore on the back of their cards and their battle animations, I would have liked to see them more integrated in the story, and I feel that it lack a little more interaction with some of them, especially Allister and Melony in my case, but at least the trainer cards were a good addition to know them a little more, outside of being a Gym Leader.

RIVALS

OK, I’m prepared for everyone to hate me, *sigh*:

I… I DONT LIKE BEDE AND MARNIE THAT MUCH?… I mean, I don’t hate them, and they are both far from being the worst rivals, but I did expect a little more from both…

Bede

I am one of the few of the fandom that does not like rivals flat jerks, because for me, that is not a character but rather  a trait.

But I wanted to give it a try, and when I was just beginning to gain interest in him, they force his backstory in my face… And as I said, I like trainer cards…but more in characters, like G.leaders because these are characters that we don’t see much around the trip, but in the case of rivals, that appear several times and develop in the story, I personally like to get to know them little by little, discover their story and understand them in the course, here I felt it more as an excuse for me, to feel bad for him, especially at the moment he gives you his card.

His relationship with Rose is not explored enough imo. 

And a complete turn-around that happens offscreen, like no joke, the MC literally didn’t see any of it, he just disappears after the Opal scene (but to give him credit, that scene is one of my favorites in the game).

But you know, I understood that he was just a lost boy, and I’m happy that he found a better place, and I admire his effort to want to change, so in the end I ended up liking him a little more.

Marnie

Marnie is interesting, because although I agree with many people that she would have benefited from having more screen time, I consider that a good character does not need all the screen time in the world, is about what but what they do with it, and the problem I have with her is that her time was not well spent.

I like her dream and I really like her relationship with her brother, however there was no moment when I really connected with her. I feel partly, that I don’t know her character, like her various personality facets. 

Untapped opportunities: fight with her more times or with her…would have helped the character a lot imo.

Hop

Hop is the best rival of the three hands down, his trainer card contains the right and necessary information to make us have an interest in the character, but also the story lets us know him more: a competitive boy, but who has insecurities, fears of failure, that is reflected not only by the dialogue but also in his Pokemon team (no really, it broke my heart when I realized that he didn’t have his Wooloo in his team), that he is frustrated and suffers, but he gets up, discovers other tastes and with these finds a new path, ugh perfect, I adore him.

Forcing the player to defeat him is torture, it is like defeating Hau in USUM and Wally in ORAS breaks my heart.

Rose

In short: ok character, decent /meh antagonist, and a horrible villain. 

Like the climax of the story, Rose is forced in the end to be the villain, when he worked best as an antagonist, his plan makes no sense, his battle is disappointing, although his battle theme is awesome, but it just does not fit the character, the plan, nor the situation at all.

But the character has a certain charisma, especially in his ‘’suit especially in his incognito suit.”

Oleana

Interesting character, with a potential backstory, with motives and characterization, who is underused in the story * sigh *… I LIKE HER THO

Overall, I would have liked to see much more of the relationship between Rose, Oleana and Bede, I think it would have benefited the 3 characters…

Team Yell

They are … ok, it is cool to have a team that is not villain, that bother the player from time to time even for good reasons, I admire his dedication and loyalty.

THE REGION

The region is aesthetically beautiful, the details, the structure, the contrast for example between Hammerlocke and Ballonlea, and despite not living in the UK or having had the opportunity to travel to the destination, according to my friends the region in which the games are based is very well related, which I think is excellent. However, despite the visual beauty, when it comes to routes and exploration it feels a bit limited, there are really some towns, where the most interesting thing to do is complete the Gym, there are almost no reasons to return to the previous town after having passed them…

But, what I missed the most was the lack of exploration, discovery, the charm of the NPCs…

Many have told me: what about the Wild Area? Because of the ability to explore in an open area, it is probably the best in the franchise! and yes, the Wild Area is a very attractive part of these games (I will talk a little bit about this, later), but as I said, everything that is considered part of the capacity of the new console, I will not take it into account, it is unfair, because a portable console can NOT stand a concept such as the Wild Area although the developers had the idea before, not at least at SwSh scale.

And as I said before and again, the T.Cards are an incredible idea, but for me NOTHING compares to getting to know the characters through the world, dialogue, interaction… I’m going to use pokemon Moon as an example to make me understand better: (because it was the last main pokemon game I played before SwSh and that’s why I have it more fresh lol) Where you can enter Olivia’s shop, buy jewelry and visit her room and discover that she is a desperate single woman, or enter Gladion’s room and talk to the receptionist and that she tells you part of his story, that kind of things…

Let’s see for example Melony, we know she has more children besides Gordie, but only for concept art, and yes, probably do unique models would take a while, but I honestly wouldn’t have be bothered  if they use generic NPCS, they did it with Lana’s sisters, then the anime can dedicated to giving them unique designs.

Speaking of NPCs (mainly of those inside the houses), many lost the charm and authenticity they had… I mean, where is the lady who told us the story of her husband’s accident or the men of the coffee shop, who every time he prepares us a drink told us the story of where such a drink came from, ect… the NPCS on that side are boring…

EXCEPT BALL GUY, he / she is awesome!

I know this look like extra or unimportant things, but these little details really give life to the region, personality to characters that are secondary, it makes everything feel more united and also makes the main characters feel more inside the world, and honestly that is why on this hand, some cities felt empty for me…

But the other hand, I really liked what they did with the NPCs fans, see how the number increasing every time the MC wins a gym battle, makes the trip to become a champion feel more rewarding, It really helps you feel like a true champion when you got it. 

Other examples like the girl NPC who is going to support  you in the Gyms while their pokemon is evolving, or how the NPCS react and change their dialogue corresponding to what is happening… beautiful, for this part the worldbulding is 10/10.

The wild Area

Probably the closest we have for now of an open space area in a Pokemon game, I have to admit that I get lost at least 1 half an hour trying to find the next destination (I understand you Leon), it was hilarious lol, at the beginning of the game it turns out to be a fairly limited area, and you really can enjoy it in its entirety when you finish the main story, but I don’t see so much trouble with that, since it’s partly the point, for balance. In general, it is a fantastic idea although I feel that it is necessary to polish it in certain parts, and NO, I don’t mean THE TREE, but I don’t want to be so hard on GF at this moment, because is the first time they experiment with such concept…

Pokemon and Music

I put these two together because they both share a very curious characteristic: EXPERIMENTAL. 

The pokedex is super solid, I love how these last generations, GF is doing its homework and is striving to make the pokemon belong to the region, as for animals, myths, culture…muah I LOVE IT, BRAVO.

For me a good OST movie or video game not only has to be for the piece n yes, but how it is composed to accompany the events that occur on the screen, how it adapts and fits a certain scene of the story or character, and although I admit that in general it is not my favorite compared to other gens, there are tracks that have become part of my favorites:

The crowd, the screams, the build up as you gradually approach the last pokemon, ugh. Dynamax is cool and everything, but THIS is the basis for me, of why these battles feel so energetic and exciting.

That mystical atmosphere that catches you, is beautiful but at the same time mysterious, and perhaps many disagree with me, but the addition of the howls of the legendaries… I love it.

STORY

I think the game started extremely well, the introduction to the characters, the exploration, the introduction to the starters, the mystery of the legendary, everything is on track to me to enjoy this adventure to the fullest, but later I felt like it began to fall.

I understand that this is Pokémon and sometimes Pokémon does not need a complex story to make it enjoyable, as long as it makes sense and is entertaining, the problem I have mainly with the story is how they constantly get you out of it. I understand the concept they wanted to do: to take a more realistic point of view, in which adults take responsibility or in this case the champion and that later when you become champion you now can do what the champion did, and I like this concept, but the phrase of “you focus on the gym, we take care of the problems ” they say and they repeat it several times in the game like, I understood the first time!!! 

Indirectly I felt like they were trying to took me out, and in consequence I lost interest in the story of the game, if it hadn’t been because Sonia bothered to explain to me the lore and a little of what was happening. 

It’s more like “tell us” and not “show us”

and that’s the risk of this concept: you play as a main character, because you want to be a main character or share the role.

The climax feels incredibly forced and confusing, I felt that there was no build out, almost no foreshadowing for what was happening at the moment, everything comes out of nowhere, and thats why, I started making Okami jokes with Eternatus, because I don’t felt that emotion of the ‘’Climax’’.

Definitely in the part where the game shine was in the gym Challenge, as I said before, the gyms, the leaders, the atmosphere within them, the scale, the music that changing every time, until reaching the final pokémon, the challenges that we have to do before, the fans, becoming the champion, all this really is the identity of the game. 

Pokémon returned to its roots, where this story is the story of us again, and becoming the champion here is everything, it is one of the most exciting and most satisfying Gym challenge in all generations with gyms.

ADDITIONAL

Here I want to give opinions according to the experiences I had with certain things within the game, which I think are quite PERSONAL, because each person plays different Pokémon, by the team of Pokémon, because he decided to level up more or stay at a lower level or how you decided to follow the story of the game.

Difficulty

Decent, by the standards of Pokemon of course, I try not to leveling to much, and if I do, there are maximum 3 levels and only one pokemon… So, gyms were easy in general, perhaps a pair that were difficult (Allister and Melony), but I never did black screen as in other games, but definitely the most difficult battle in the game is Leon, which I think is appropriate.

Online

Its horrible lol, There were not only once but several times in which I lasted like 1 hour trying to connect with a person, it is ridiculous.The signal falling every so often. But in general the biggest problem I have is connecting with very specific people, not even with the infamous Festival Plaza had so many problems.

Gameplay / Pacing

It is normal the same as always which is fine, some drop of frames out there in certain scenes but nothing serious, some cuts and lack of scenarios / designs that if you should in when they took me a little at the time, but absolutely nothing compared as the haters make it look, the game is still incredibly enjoyable, and it can be played perfectly.

The pacing started pretty well/decently, but from the fourth gym onwards, everything became very very fast, and not to mention the climax and the Pokemon League, honestly all this last arc felt super stuck….

So my opinion in general is: I enjoy the game like any other Pokémon game, it has its entity, it has new and interesting things that I would like it to expand more in future generations and it has personality. Is it my favorite game or my favorite generation? No, I definitely enjoyed other generations more, there were many missed opportunities that they could take more advantage, and I feel bad for GF for making them release this game for this year and these dates, because unfortunately some cuts are very noticeable. But the generation just starting ,so we will have to wait and see what we have for the future. For now, Thanks Pokémon SwSh, for another adventure…

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon swsh #swsh spoilers #my op #my post #review #I probably forgot something and I also have a lot of types cuz im trash lol

[intotheswamp]

KOJEY RADICAL - Interview, March 2020.

Back in March, I interviewed Kojey Radical for a fashion website’s summer campaign. Then, y’know, a pandemic kicked off. Then, y’know, I got fired from said fashion website. So when I saw the website publishing shots from said campaign, I figured that my interview with Kojey would be lost forever, or chopped into pieces, or (most likely) my work would never get credited. So that’s why I’m publishing it here, for you to read, without being told to buy anything. One love, and motherfuck a Mike Ashley.

How have you found today?

So far so good.

Not too cold?

Well.. [laughs]

What's a normal day like in the life of Kojey Radical?

Depends on what day of the week it is. if I get time off, I'm chilling. All the way. I'm not trying to do too much because work is so intense and I'm busy and you kind of constantly got to stay creative and for me, I like pressure when I when I gotta finish up, deliver something... But to create ideas, I gotta be real relaxed. The most stressful thing for me is to play the Xbox.

Is something like today is that does not pop up pretty usually?

Yeah, and it's cool. I love it, I wouldn't have it any other way, but... It's crazy because like if you know, it's going to come up with music but you start off intending to just do music. Yeah, don't think about anything else. You don't think about having to do shoots or campaigns or even interviews. Just think about that what song's coming next, so it's the only thing that doesn't feel second nature. I feel like I gotta be, like... zen.

Would your friends describe you like that?

No.

How would they describe you?

Annoying. I'm petty, I'm sarcastic, I'm bad at communication, but I'm lovable and generous and funny. I like long walks on the beach. I mean, it's all just like it's all just one big Bumble profile. [laughs] Nah, but I feel like they all secretly love me.

You grew up in Hoxton. What does summer feel like in that part of London to you?

Busy. Chaotic. Familiar. Loud. Fun. There's an energy that comes with the area, that invites people to the area. So it kind of becomes like a hub, like a source of people to come and be themselves or get to the truest version of what they see themselves as... and then complain about it while they're there. That's just like that's just how we do it, we're English fam. We just complain.

Growing up, would you practice being onstage in your bedroom?

Yeah, I mean most of my life, my favourite lyrics are still written in my bedroom. I didn't necessarily ever think I was going to do music, it wasn't necessarily part of the plan. Poetry was just something I used to do as an escape from... everything, from life, from self, from, yeah, from anything. So my first passion and my first love was art, so I painted, drew, illustrated, designed... and I used poetry as a fall back like, Okay, just write what you got to say when you can't communicate. I find you you always have to explain art, people want you to explain art and sometimes it's difficult. So, to put it into words or kind of contextualizing another way was easier for me and then I had an idea for music and the rest is history. We good to go. We lit now.

So what would you consider yourself first and foremost?

I still consider myself an artist, I think the medium changed but the technique, the focus, the idea, the mentality - same thing.

What's the what's the main difference between writing a poem and writing a chorus?

A poem don't have to be catchy. A poem don't have to stay in your mind; the impact of a poem has to, but no particular part or lyric or line has to rhyme or rhythm in a way that sticks to you. Whereas when you're writing music or writing songs, there's a different technique. There's a different charm that comes with that. You can't even let the fact that you're poetical stop you from learning. Connecting loads of words -  yeah, there's a genius to it, but there's also a genius to simplicity.

Some of the best choruses and the best songs were often the most simple, or when you dissect the lyrics or give them meaning, they're the most poetic. So you gotta find a happy medium: whenever I'm writing music and choruses or raps or anything, it's about feeling. I don't feel it, it's off. If I write something and someone recites it back, and something about it feels off, that ain't right. We just fix it.

So what was the moment you definitely knew you wanted to work as a creative?

When I could hustle some money. I used to flip drawings, used to draw stuff for people - they used to pay me in primary school and then I used to flip video work. I filmed for people, wrote video treatments graduate for people. I used to flip -- flip anything, I was good at flipping. I was good at making money, to make some cash. Once I realised I could do it with some art, I was never working a normal job again. Ever. Again. I got fired from every job I ever worked. 

What was the worst job you ever worked?

What was the worst job I ever worked? They was all pretty much based around retail. They was all cool jobs! I just wasn't meant to work and that's fine. You feel that. You just got to figure out you, got to figure out your pace and what works for you. Like there's not one blueprint for everybody in the world and I think I got stuck following the group for a while. And luckily, I think everybody else around me could see it wasn't working for me and I was destined for something else. And that's why I kept getting fired: not because I was late, or because I didn't care enough, or that I couldn't find the stock room, or whatever else they might say. It's because they believed it. [laughs]

What was the first style purchase you remember saving up for?

What'd I buy? Well, some skinny jeans. That was revolutionary for me. I was wearing bootcuts for a long time. [laughs] I remember my first pair of skinny jeans changed my life. Then, trainers, I think I got some like adidas. What else did I like back then? You know what? I wanted to dress like Pharrell, so I bought whatever Pharrell wore or made. So I just saved up for whatever Pharrell made, like BAPE, Ice Cream, Billionaire Boys Club, Human Made, Dirty Ghetto Kids... Loads of them. Even those weird Soulja Boy shoes [laughs] that looked like the Ice Creams! They looked crazy. Yeah, I wanted to dress like Pharrell.

So style and music have always been one and the same for you.

Yeah. Like, when you're a kid, music is a big tool for communication and whoever speaks the loudest to you is going to inspire you the most. I was a kid growing up through like, I guess, trying to find myself and find where I belong. The stuff I saw, the communities and the tribes that I would see exist around certain types of music seemed the most appealing to me. I'm just getting into skate culture, I was really into like that early Neptunes production, and just the idea that style and music could go together. And Pharrell always kind of created a style around the sound, so like there'd be a shift in the music but also a shift in the fashion, they'd go hand-in-hand. You could almost feel the scrambling of everybody trying to catch up or imitate or recreate because it was just so... different and special. I think that effect is what gassed me the most as I want that effect. I'll never imitate anybody's music or anything like that, you can take inspiration, but it's the steps. It's like: what effect did that personality have? If you have the ability to inspire and really kind of create this need for other people to create what's next.

You’ve toured the UK many times, has any parts of the country influenced your style?

I almost bought a kilt in Scotland, but other than that, nah. I stay me. Which is cool. Everybody should be them. When I get there, I'm like you might learn this and I get to learn something. That's cool. I'm happy with learning.

What stopped you from buying the kilt?

It wasn't one in my size.

Fair enough. I read that you were in Accra before jumping into the process of making Cashmere Tears. What style inspiration have you taken from being in Ghana?

I picked up one of the greatest of all time, and her name is Amaarae. She's a young singer-songwriter from Accra and she was the catalyst and glue and the genius that helped make Cashmere Tears that extra bit more cashmere feeling.

Who else are you inspired by in fashion?

Amaarae, she's sick, you gotta see the way she dresses. When I first seen her, she jumped out of a big Jeep with a boxy blazer, she was almost on some Grace Jones type of stuff, but it was wavier because the hair was dyed - all the designer stuff was subtle, it was all accessories and I was like, yeah, cashmere.

Are you a big accessories, big jewelry person?

Yeah. Yeah, I like to say no, but I've got a mouthful of gold and neck full for silver and a wrist with whatever this is. I try not to show it, so I just wear it and keep my mouth closed. I put my chains on and zip my hoodie up. Because it's for me. I like it for me. I like the idea of grafting, sacrificing and when you can, just give yourself something nice. So all the jewelry, when I can, it's subtle [laughs]. When I can!

I read that you were really into Yohji Yamamoto. Can you talk a bit more about that?

Yeah, I mean, I think I think there's there's there's a power in deciding an aesthetic and sticking to it and I think the idea of almost concentrating in black, and seeing how far you can take different shapes and different ideas without stepping outside of an aesthetic... It's still revolutionising, but you're keeping it familiar, which then helps you concentrate your ideas into innovation, rather than trying to trend chase. Because you don't have to care what colors are in season, you have to care about what shapes are going to be most complementary to whatever else is going on out there, because that he's designed a whole wardrobe. That means that you never have to think about it. I feel like fashion should be conscious in the way it's made, in its approach to materials, literally how it is made... But, like, it should be subconscious in the way it's chosen and how it fits into your life, and how you put clothes on and how you approach wearing clothes. You shouldn't have to think about it. Everything should be done for you. That's the perfect consumer relationship, when it's just easy.

What's your favorite thing about working and creating in London?

The people I've managed to meet from here, the creators I've managed to create with here, I've always got to show love to my team:  Kaz, Swindle, Q, Charlie, my sister, managers, like everybody that certainly see my tour manager like everybody else around me my music my band - like everybody that helps me make the stuff is a different part of London. A different viewpoint and different perspective. It all comes together to make the big Megazord. In Power Rangers, you see when it's like they fought the evil ones, pow pow pow, jobs' done. The job is never done. You gotta take that one in. What happens is you don't quit. You assume, grab the mandem, say boom, Megazord time. Everyone gets together. Genius. That's how I ended up with all these amazing projects and great music -  because I am in the Megazord a hundred percent of the time, and I wouldn't have that Megazord without London. Full circle. See how I came back? Mad ting.

What Power Ranger would you be?

I would be the Green Power Ranger because I'm sometimes, I'm here, nah I'm not here, it depends what I'm doing this week... I can't be a Power Ranger all the time, there to save the day all day every day, you know how long this is? Nah, pop up like the Green Ranger, boom. What's that? It's Gucci, I'm wearing Gucci right there. All in front of you. [chuckles]

I saw your set with Swindle at Glastonbury last year and was taken aback by how stylishly you were dressed. What’s your approach to hitting the stage in the summer, are you dressing for the heat or to impress?

It's tough because essentially I used to really really really really dress up. Then I realized how impractical that was for the type of performance I give, so then the basis of a performance outfit was like: an amazing pair of trousers, I start with the trousers every time, cos nine times out of ten I will end the show in probably just my trousers. From there, you can go matching set or you can go some complimentary, so that kind of gives it volume and shape depending on what style of trousers - with skinnier, I might wear something heavy on top, if they're like a flare trouser, I might keep it real simple like a silk shirt on an open up ting.

Boom. Nine times out of ten though, the top's coming off cos we got work to do. So that's when the accessories come into play. The jeew-ells have to be shining. I don't wear my teeth when I'm on stage because I can't rap with these in, but also... The socks got to be fire, because sometimes if it's really crazy, that stage, I might just need to make it home. I mean, I'm kicking the shoes off and we're just going for it. Plus - I don't want to lose my shoes in a mosh pit, so I'd rather just go in there with my socks and have someone pick me up. Crowd surfing's fun.

You’ve hit the festival loop, not only in the UK but in countries across Europe as well. What makes a British summer vibe different to one elsewhere?

It's home! It's familiar, you know where to go. You know where the vibe is, you know how to navigate and I think... Memories are created in the summer, and the more memories you can create, the better. I think naturally as time progresses and generations grow up and there's always like a big vibe, there's always like new memories to make. So I think the summers I remember as a kid are different to the summers I experience now, and the ones that I experience in 10 years will be different to the ones from now. So luckily, If everything goes to plan, I'll be around for many more summertimes and then I'll be able to tell you a real, real answer. Right now, I'm just going through them one by one but I like 'em. Plus: you could go on holiday! If it gets boring, just hop on the plane, land somewhere, two weeks, bit of sun, come back, get more sun.

Tell us the process behind making ‘One Night Only’ with Mahalia, it really blew up.

Yeah, that was a good riddim. We'd done 'Water', which was a great record, my record. I remember I had finished 'Water' and I called Mahalia. First, I like the sound of the song, she's hitting me back straight away like yeah I'm on it. We went to the studio and really hit it off. That's, like, a great friend of mine. I was with her the other day actually, she was picking out jewelery at Cartier. Like, look how far we've come eh? Life's different now. Anyway, boom: back to the song. Swindle made 'Water', Swindle also made 'One Night Only'. So for us, that felt like the Dream Team, so when they had an open verse on that record, first person they called was me. What was crazy about it was that I didn't even intend to, like, be on the record like that. I was just going to help with some writing or whatever, but May puts confidence in me when it comes to my pen, and she teaches me to believe in certain parts of lyrics or ideas that I write down that I'm like hmmm, that won't work for me or that won't sound right. Even when I came in with the [sings] funny duh-duh-duhduh, I was just vibe-writing. I didn't think I was gonna have to sing it, and then, when you see it live, it's a movie. Get them going, eyes closed with the [pretends to hit a high note] It's wavy, trust me. It's a wave! That riddim's fire.

With on stage performances, do you find yourself holding in energy--

No.

So you don't save up energy for the performance, you've got energy all the time?

That's a waste of life if you hold back. Especially when you have the opportunity to go even further. We just got to cut all that out, that whole humble thing. Be humble, have humility, that is a good trait. But, naturally we feel that to appease other people, we have to downplay ourselves. If you're good at something, do good at it and then do great. Do it better than good. Don't ever tell no one, ah I'm not sure, nope. No holding back. If I'm not holding back, you can't hold back. So really, it's just two forces going at it when I'm on stage: it's just two tidal waves crashing. It's just beautiful. It's an explosion of love, it's great, cos no one's holding back. And if you're holding back? To the back, of the bus, go home.

Okay: don't be humble now. Tell us what's coming this year.

Everything, everything you could possibly imagine. And maybe nothing! Sometimes you got to hold back, but in a different way, you gotta make 'em want it, and then: boom! You give them better than great. Last time, I said do good be great. Then you give 'em better than great. So I haven't decided yet. I need to feel it out, I've got so much sitting there. We're bout to do this tour, going off to America, that'll be fun - feel like Eddie Murphy a little bit but it's cool, we'll figure out when we get there. Boom. Come back do a European part, do a UK part, lick off the festivals a little bit or... drop some music, write an album, make a film, design some furniture... I don't know!

Everything. That's the thing. I do whatever I want whenever I want to so I just got to want to do it and everything will be done. In the world, everything. I will change this planet. I promise.

2019 felt like a really big year for you. Was there a point you felt as though, 'wow, this is a real moment'?

[strokes chin] What happened last year? Cashmere Tears came out... Mmmm, so much happened. I forget. Every year rolls into one year, it just feels like it keeps going, and every time you get through that one milestone or one, kind of like, 'Yeah. Okay. That was crazy'. Something else happens the next week that's even crazier. So to process it, I'll almost forget what I did the day before, just so I can process what I'm about to do the next day. My family will have to remind me, like, big yourself up, be proud of yourself, you've come so far, you've done this you've done that. I'll just genuinely forget that - I could do Glastonbury on Tuesday and by Thursday all I care about is getting Prestige in Call of Duty. Like it, depends on what's going on. But I remember when I did KOKO, like a thousand, five hundred people, that felt like the biggest thing that'd ever happened to me. Then the year after that I was headlining the festival with Giles [Peterson] and now, this year I'm about to do Roundhouse and that's double the amount of people of KOKO. After that I got to think about the next big thing. So they all roll into one and I'm just happy I can keep doing it, because like I don't really care how long it takes, as long as I can do it forever.

You feel a bit purposeless when you stop working. That's why I'm like, I wanna just get back on tour, get back out there and start doing shows and not get restless. We stop what we're doing, but then everyone rushes to get to that point with fame, like I want to be the biggest in the world or... Once you're at the top, you can only stay there for so long before you have to come down, that's how gravity works. The higher and faster you get there, the faster you're going to come down! That's science. Gravity, science, it's all right there in the textbooks they teach you in school. You just got to relate it to success and you'll be fine, you'll have all the answers.

Like who's on the up then in terms of gravity that you're checking out?

Everybody that I love and my prayers for them, is that they stay there for as long as possible, because everybody deserves it because everybody works really really hard. Mahalia again, that's a great friend of mine, to see her success is, like, amazing. Even, like, Swindle again, that's my brother - like I remember sitting in the cinema to watch one film and his advert with Apple comes on and it's his music playing, and I'm like yo...! That's big! It's crazy to me, because those are your friends, that's family, you're just excited for them. You just want everybody to win. I don't even know see the top, no one's even near the top, because once you're there, there's only one way down. So we're just still climbing, every day. Climb.

We're going to wrap this up real quick with a quick fire round. Okay, so just clear your mind - get real zen. First thing that comes to mind. What can’t you wait to wear this summer?

Silk.

What's a summer session mean to you?

Vibes. Plenty of vibes.

Who's going to drop the song of the summer?

Me.

What can't you leave the house without?

My wallet. No, I can! I'm lying. I can't leave the house without... my house keys. [chuckles]

In your area, where are you going when it's a sunny day?

Rooftop.

Fave party tune?

'Can't Lose' by Benji Flow.

Favorite sweet?

Werther's Original. I'm an old man.

Fave drink mixer?

Ginger beer. [PAUSE] No! Orange juice.

Favorite movie?

Beasts of the Southern Wild.

What's your favorite place on Earth?

My bedroom.

And your favorite piece of advice?

Keep going.

#interview #transcript #kojey radical #mahalia #fashion #uk music #poetry #style #swindle #pharrell #dgk #billionaire boys club

[championfrita]

Pokémon Sword and Shield Review

So...I've taken some time to fully play Pokémon Shield. Now, I know this is pretty delayed, and I got the double pack so I wanted to play Sword first to see if how I felt was really accurate or if I was being too harsh. That said, let's talk about my experience with the Galar Region.

Initial Impressions

Overall, I was excited to play Shield at first. Everything was bright and exciting and the characters were easy to recognize and not overly generic.

The first few hours of this game, well it's a slow burn. And I do mean SLOW. Even with the text set to Fast and me taking things at my own pace it took me at least a good couple hours to reach the Wild Area. Furthermore, this game has an infernal amount of handholding, even when given the option to say "I know all this already" it still gives a brief explaination for almost anything and STILL makes you sit ALL THE WAY THROUGH the catch tutorial.

It's 2019 and older players still don't get the option to skip this. Come on GameFreak.

That said, the longer I played the more I began to notice...how should I put this? Blatant laziness?

The Wild Area

Now, the CONCEPT of the Wild Area in theory is amazing. It's still not too bad as is, but there are definitely flaws. For starters, the same tree has been copy pasted all over the place to make up 90% of the foliage.

More than that, though, despite the Wild Area having a good selection of Pokémon and a fairly varietied environment (desert, lakes, forest) it feels oddly...empty. There are no real secrets to speak of, no hidden areas, no easily missed items. Everything is all right out there to see and spread pretty far apart. I don't know if it's a lack of Trainers or the fact that I don't have an Online membership so I played alone, but the Wild Area feels like it just needs something MORE.

Dynamax Raid Battles, even when done alone, are fairly fun and sometimes challenging with the turn limit. Radiant AI Trainers spawn in to assist you if you're playing alone so there's no worries about having to take one on with just one Pokémon.

Camping, which can be done anywhere but is introduced to the player here, is an absolute treat. Have YOU played fetch with a unicorn? I have, and I love it. The wide variety of curries you can make with different ingredients is nice, and your Pokémon even get EXP boosts if you play with and feed them while camping.

The Pokémon

Honestly, I'm really not impressed. The Galar Dex of new Pokémon feels painfully small, so much so that playing Pokémon GO and catching a few Unova Pokémon made me yearn for the days when we used to get regions completely FULL of new Pokémon. Remember when you had to wait until AFTER the main game to start catching Pokémon from past gens? I...well, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I LIKED that.

That said, using a sparse selection of Galar Pokémon and Galar Regional Variants on my team definitely made the Gym Challenge more difficult. I picked Scorbunny, because Fire Types, and honestly didn't really care for it or its evolutions at first. Cinderace has really grown on me though and I like Pyro Ball as a move. It's flashy and powerful and that suits me just fine. Most of the new Pokémon's DESIGNS were good and I liked them, there just really weren't ENOUGH of them.

I'm fairly pleased with the regional variants as well. It was difficult to adjust to Ponyta and Rapidash being Psychic Type, but I really liked having them on my team. At the same time...Meowth not evolving into a Persian doesn't really sit right with me.

I'm all for branch evolutions, but Perrserker honestly just looks more like a giant Galar Meowth than anything. I played this with only the info given in the few scattered trailers I'd seen, so I was genuinely excited to see what a Galarian Persian would look like only to end up with Perrserker. The Typing is phenominal, and I think it's great to see a Steel Type Meowth for a change, but I just don't like where they went with it. Eh. Ces't la vie, moving on.

The Story

It's weak. Straight up, the story in this game is poor. There were so many directions they could have gone. I really liked the idea of Rose being this charismatic chairman hype man for the League and being the bad guy. I saw it coming, but it was a nice change to see just based on his personality. Still, it feels rushed. His motivations are really one dimensional and glossed over. Like, "Oh, here's the bad guy. Go get him." It worked in Gen 1 because Giovanni was a MOBSTER. He was MEANT to be a bad guy straight to the core in general, but Rose just doesn't have that vibe.

Not only that, but the "Bad League Members" are kinda meh. That feels REALLY lazy. They didn't even really get a decent uniform change when they started taking on the name Macro Cosmos in Rose Tower. They got black glasses. That's it. Just that. The fight with Eternatus feels painfully rushed and shoehorned in too, almost like they thought "Oh no, we need to give them a big nasty boss to fight! Let's just throw a random monster at them and say Rose summoned it. Seems like a solid plan."

I DID like the after story with Piers though. It really solidifies that older brother sort of nature with him, even if he tries to hide it most of the time.

The Characters

I liked Hop. As a character he's really fun and I like how they gave him this over excited very grand gestured sort of personality. He's really just happy to be ANYWHERE as long as it's with his Pokémon and you. His admiration for his big bro might come off strong and make him seem a little flat at first, but he's overall portrayed as a good kid and I like him.

Leon on the other hand...well I hated him for most of the game. His design is great and he looks fabulous, but he just has the most cocky, obnoxious, pandering personality 90% of the time. Still, I have to give credit where credit is due and recognize that he IS actually a multifaceted character. He showboats not just because he's too confident but also to give the crowd a show and put people at ease in times of danger. Not only that, but his recognition of his little brother's accomplishments and his graceful acceptance of defeat when you beat him reveals a really well written character.

I don't DISlike Sonia, and I have no problem with Prof. Magnolia sitting on the sidelines, but she can be a little...irritating at times with the way she speaks about and to people. The Gym Leaders, aside from Piers, feel a little...light.

I mean, most Gym Leaders don't have detailed backstories, but these ones feel paper thin personality wise as well. I had to look at the official GUIDE just to be sure what the relationship between Melony and Gordie even WAS because you only seem him in her Special League Card in Shield and that tells you nothing about him. The only real leaders that stood out to me were Piers and Raihan, and while I was iffy about his design at first I LOVE Raihan. He has so much more personality and ferocity than any of the other leaders. And the social commentary about him needing to constantly take and post a selfie, even after losing, is a nice touch.

The Galar Region

Is very linear. Like, VERY linear. Even when you take a branching path it either loops back around or gives you a free ride to wherever you have to backtrack to. I hope you like Hammerlocke, cuz you're gonna be visiting there several times.

I know that the region is based off the UK, and maybe my Americanized idea of cities is different (idk, I've never been to the UK), but a lot of the towns in this game feel really small. Like, almost smaller than some of the towns in Hoenn small. Maybe it's a lack of significant interactable buildings, but despite many of them having multiple floors you typically can only access one and that's kind of a disappointment. The hotel in Wyndon won't even let you get in the elevator, and while I get that Alola also did that, it's kind of jarring when the hotel in Motostoke WILL let you see other floors.

That said, I kind of expected more than ONE Wild Area. The one we DID get is fine, and I appreciate what it is and lets us do, but I honestly thought there would be multiple places to really explore outside the standard straight lines. Pokémon has never been a franchise to shy away from puzzles before so I expected this to not be any different. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

Moreover, many of the environment pieces are just UGLY. A lot of the ground textures are reused 3DS assets, and those copy pasted trees I mentioned earlier? Also 3DS assets. How do I know? They're pentagonal instead of round. In other words, they have five sides. Why? Because the 3DS hardware couldn't handle complex environmental shapes that well so they could get away with it, but now that we have nice round berry trees the contrast becomes painful. The Wild Area is so ugly the first time you see it is at NIGHT. They were so aware of what they did they hoped making it darker would hide the lazy flop instead of showing off how bad it was.

It isn't like they COULDN'T fix it either. Look at Ballonlea and Glimwood Tangle. They're absolutely beautiful and very well done. The modeling with them is fantastic and I love the glowing effects. They absolutely could've made the poorly done areas look amazing, but for some reason they didn't and the game suffers some as a result.

Other Thoughts

The Gym Challenges...they were not fun. Like, honestly some were ok. Herding Wooloo was easy, but they really didn't feel like anything I would expect from a Gym. The water puzzle in Nessa's Gym was fine, and I personally liked the spinning cup ride, but the rest just felt like agonizingly long padding because they couldn't come up with anything. Look at Circhester's challenge. It's a dowsing rod gauntlet where you have to avoid falling in pits in an artificial blizzard. It. is. SO. SLOW. That said, Spikemuth having just a Trainer gauntlet instead was kind of awkward. I reached the end and asked myself "Was that it? Is this it? Is this all there is to Spikemuth? Just one giant alleyway and a Pokémon Center?"

Raihan's three trials of worthiness challenge? It was more difficult than the battle AGAINST RAIHAN. Speaking of, I beat Hop, Marnie, Bede, all the Gym Leaders, Rose, Oleana, and Leon on my first try every time. While it was more difficult with my specific Pokémon choices, it really wasn't much. And can I just say that the Gym Badges are kinda lame? I get what they were going for, but the designs of each piece could've been really unique and intricate and instead we got glorified stamps.

I liked a lot of the general features of the game. Camping, clothing shops, League Cards. I love designing League Cards, even if I'm the only one who's ever gonna see em. That said, the clothing choices were really narrow based on what we got in Sun and Moon. The variety of different items was pretty small, though I loved all the punk leather stuff but WOW IS IT EXPENSIVE. Like Lumiose Boutique expensive. AND WHY IS THERE NEVER A REDHEAD HAIR COLOR THAT ISN'T JUST AUBURN RED? There are actually A LOT of redheads with LIGHT RED hair (that's more a personal gripe than anything, I know).

A lot of the music felt almost like rehashes of older BGMs. Like, Postwick, Route 1, and Wedgehurst all sound like they have remixed Hoenn music. A lot of the other music tracks just don't feel fitting for the areas or for Pokémon games in general. I like parts of the Slumbering Weald music and I like the Gym Music, but the opening of Slumbering Weald feels awkward and like it doesn't fit a mysterious forest we're not allowed to be in.

I know I've complained a lot, but there were some things I genuinely liked. A lot of the Pokémon designs, place names, and other radiant decor and parts of the region are actually subtle and not so subtle references to cultural points of the UK. Skwovet and its evolution for example are a gray and red squirrel respectively and are a nod to invasive species, which is neat.

In Conclusion

Is Pokémon Sword and Shield amazing? No. Is it bad? No. Sword and Shield fall into that mediocre middle ground of being ok but nothing to write home about. Could I have done without them? Sure, they aren't some world ending imperitive must play. They're ok, and they make for a fine jumping on point and a fine little adventure if you have spare time. Have other mainline games done it better? Heck yeah, but that doesn't mean Sword and Shield haven't done a few good things too.

Overall, it sort of feels like GameFreak bit off more than they could chew, or were afraid to make changes because of unfamiliarity with the Switch's hardware and software limitations. Pokémon Let's Go had a lot more effort, but it also was much safer and had a much easier to work with art style to everything. Chibi proportions are a lot easier to fake than a more realistic counterpart. Things can be not perfect and it's less noticable than with more realistic proportions, and I think they were afraid to push back the deadline any further for the inevitable backlash despite that being what they likely needed. The DLC may change my mind, but as it stands, just the fact that they feel they can JUSTIFY their laziness with DLC packs really upsets me.

I give Pokémon Sword and Shield a 5/10.

It's just, OK.

[istheresomebodywhocanimagine]

Good Trousers

anonymous said: Can i request a Roger x Reader imagine where the reader has a girl band and he and the guys spot them at the recording studio and Roger asks the reader out? Pleeease ♥️ (love your blog btw)

“I’m hungry, does anyone want to go grab a bite while we wait for Fred to get done?” Deacon said, hopping up off the couch and brushing his jeans off.

“I’ll go with,” Roger immediately replied, climbing up from where he’d been laying on the floor. Freddie was currently recording vocals and, of course, was taking a lifetime to do so. He’d actually almost put Roger to sleep down there, so Roger was happy to get up and walk around for a moment. He needed to wake up if he was going to be worth anything on the set later.

Brian agreed too, grabbing his coat and pulling it on as they exited the tech booth, arguing about where to go that was nearby. Roger wanted a sandwich, but Deacon wanted Thai food. 

Their argument, egged on by Brian, almost made them ignore the partially open door that they passed by on the way out, but Deacon was the first to stop, a bassline that made his heart beat out of time catching his attention. It was loud, gruff, and irregular - and he loved the sound of it. So did Roger and Brian, who quickly latched on to what was distracting Deacon.

Roger’s curiosity getting the better of him, he just had to peek through the doorway and see who was in for recording today. Although he wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he looked inside the recording booth, it certainly wasn’t what he witnessed. 

Instead of a grungy-looking dude in bell-bottoms and a denim vest over a hairy chest, he found… well, you. And he was blown away by how casually you were playing such a mean bass riff, the look on your face absolutely detached from the magic your fingers were playing out on your strings. You had two other women in the studio with you, one behind the drum set and fidgeting with her throne while the other was tuning what Roger assumed was her guitar.

He pulled his head back and looked at Deacon and Brian in amazement, almost feeling out of breath from what he’d just seen.

“Who is it?” Deacon asked, peeking around Roger as Brian peered inside, witnessing the last part of the riff before it suddenly cut out. Roger was somewhat disappointed as he heard you stop playing, Deacon huffed slightly as he’d missed the chance to witness another bass player in more action than he’d been today.

Not even one of the trio was expecting you to poke your head out of the door and speak to them, so they all jumped when you suddenly appeared. “Er, hello, are you boys lost?” you asked, Roger smoothing out his shirt and hoping that you hadn’t noticed how much you’d just shaken him when you popped up. “You looked like you were looking for someone,” you continued, pulling your headphones down off your head and resting them around your neck as you straightened up a bit, opening the door more and smiling at them.

“Oh, no,” Deacon replied quickly, smiling quite bashfully as he rubbed his neck and glanced at the other two boys. “We stopped because we heard you playing. Well, I stopped. They followed. Anyway, it was brilliant.”

“You like it?” you asked, grinning widely and stepping out into the hallway with them, closing the door behind you. “It’s something new I’ve been working on for our album, I didn’t want to call in a studio bassist.”

“Our album,” Roger repeated under his breath, raising an eyebrow as he did so and looking you up and down quickly. “What’s your band’s name? Might want to look you up, you were killing it in there.”

You rattled off a name he hadn’t heard of before, and Brian nodded as you began to talk casually, like explaining your life story to them would be no big deal at all. You had the charisma of a lead singer for sure, very different from Deacon. “Yeah, we have more of a cult following here in the UK right now, rather than anything global, I guess. But we’re all-female, so that’s to be expected in this industry…”

As you talked, Roger couldn’t help but look you over again, slower this time. His eyes traced over your facial features, admiring the alluring look you gave off with all of the conviction you put into every expression. His eyes then worked downwards towards your outfit, which he actually adored a lot. You were in a vibrant white and red blouse, the floral pattern just odd enough to draw attention but not stealing the show like Freddie’s ensembles usually did. Your red trainers and stonewashed denim jeans didn’t steal away from the blouse, which kept distracting Roger to the point where you were beginning to notice. And he was starting to notice that you were noticing.

“I’m sorry, I am listening, I swear it,” Roger laughed, scratching the side of his head for a moment before looking directly at you with an innocent look to his beautiful blue eyes. “I was just admiring your blouse, love. It’s beautiful, where did you get it?”

Brian and Deacon almost laughed as they realized Roger was already going to start turning on the charm, and Brian interjected quickly. “We’re going to go on ahead, you’ll catch up, yeah?” he asked, patting Roger’s arm as they both passed. Roger nodded, Brian bidding you farewell before he and Deacy left the building. You were momentarily distracted, but Roger’s doe eyes lured you back in and you laughed, forgetting all about the question he’d just asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask who you boys were?”

“Oh, I’m Roger,” he introduced, holding out his hand, which you took gently. It was a big rough, more calloused than you’d expected, so you weren’t surprised at what he said next as he shook your hand. “I’m the drummer. That was Brian and John, our guitarist and bass player. I’m assuming you’re the bass player for your group?”

“Bass and lead singer,” you clarified, Roger nodding and dropping your hand after a small squeeze. “Where’s your singer? You all look so familiar.”

“Still recording, I’m afraid,” Roger chuckled, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And we’re Queen.”

Your lips went into an o-shape for a second, and then you laughed. “Of course, that’s why you all look so familiar.” After a moment where you looked him up and down, you grinned cheekily. You’d seen him in tabloids before, and he was far more intimidating there than he was in person. Granted, he was still overwhelming in person, but you weren’t the type to let that get to you. The fact that you found him to be gorgeous only fueled your repartee. “You’re not quite as large and in charge in person, eh?”

Roger scoffed at that, looking down at himself for a moment before giving you a funny look. He’d rarely met a woman as confident in their words as him, if not more. “You think so? Ouch, I thought I kept a pretty consistent image. I even wore my good trousers today.”

Laughing as he posed a bit, showing off his corduroy trousers, you shook your head, then put your hands in your back pockets and shifted your weight to the other foot. Your stance was a bit powerful, almost intimidating, and alarms starting going off in Roger’s head as he realized you were a personality to be reckoned with. Half of his brain was screaming at him to back down. The other half? Well, it was taking it as a challenge.

“You seem a bit more aggressive in print,” was your observation, and Roger almost pouted at the fact that you didn’t find him aggressive in person. “Right now, you’re just a bit of a pretty boy, to be honest.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” Roger chuckled, crossing his arms in a playful manner and raising an eyebrow. “I find that to be a compliment, sweetheart. At least I’ve got balance, and you find me attractive. Win-win!”

He had you there. You did find him attractive, plain and simple. “If you want to take it that way, be my guest, love,” you countered just as playfully, remaining in the same power stance and raising an eyebrow as if to provoke a response.

“I think…” Roger mused, pretending to rub his chin thoughtfully, which just kind of made him look like a dork to you, “I think I will. That way, when I ask you on a date, I’m at least going into it knowing you think I’m a looker.”

As he said the word ‘date,’ you recoiled your head a bit in surprise. You didn’t feel disgust or apprehension, just intrigue at how confidently he’d inserted that into his banter. Also, it was a bit corny. But he was still cute in a cheesy way, and you were single, so why not? “Honestly, mate?” you laughed, pulling your hands out of your back pockets and stretching a bit before heading back to the booth’s door. “You’re not as smooth as I expected. You should feel lucky that I’m going to agree to a date regardless.”

Roger grinned toothily, following you to the door and putting a hand over the handle so you couldn’t go back in yet. “Not my best work, I’ll admit it, but is that a yes?”

You smiled somewhat and glanced up at him for a moment, then grabbed the pen from your pocket and uncapped it as you took his hand that was on the doorknob. Carefully, you wrote your home phone number on the back of his hand as he watched the cap of the pen perched between your teeth, which was drawing attention to your lips. Roger quickly licked his own lips, trying not to focus on yours too much, and resumed his toothy smile as you dropped his hand, capping the pen again.

With a knowing smile and a nod, you went back into the booth without another word and left Roger standing there in the hallway, plans to call you as soon as he got done with this bloody recording session already quickly forming in his mind.

#roger taylor #roger taylor imagine #roger taylor x reader #queen #queen imagine

[amphtaminedreams]

VERY Late Festival Looks (Practical vs. Completely Impractical): Lookbook no.5

Hi to anyone reading,

This post is kinda redundant, I know. It’s the end of fucking October. Festival season in the UK is looooong gone. I would be better off doing a Halloween lookbook. But there’s always people getting drunk in a field somewhere, right?

I PLANNED (planned being the key word) to do this way back in like late August/early September but in all honesty, my mental health has been a bit wack since the end of summer and then it seemed as soon as I got back into a good headspace, I started getting a load of overtime at work. So, late. Very late. I still wanted to do it though because we didn't end up going to Reading Festival in the end so I had to wear the outfits I’d planned somewhere, even if it that somewhere did just end up being in front of my shitty camera and Amazon lighting. My friend got jury service and though I was really disappointed at the time, it ended up so that I got back from being out of the country for over a month at 11PM literally the night before the morning we were supposed to be leaving; I don’t think 5 days straight of being out of it, surrounded by huge crowds and loud music was really what my stability craving self needed, incredible line-up aside. Next year hopefully!

Anyway, getting to the actual looks, I’ve done 4 “aspirational” (read: ridiculously impractical) ones and 4 more realistic ones. None of the clothes are new and even if they were, I doubt I’m in the position to influence anyone to do anything other than close the tab lol, but I’ve still put where they’re from just because the photos feel kind of empty without it. 

To start is these 2 totally wearable, mosh pit approved outfits:

In reality these are obviously the impractical outfits. Good for a photo but pretty much nothing else if you really want to enjoy yourself. Those buns were precariously positioned enough to the point they dropped to resemble ballsacks just from standing in front of a camera so I’d imagine they wouldn’t do all too well jumping up and down! Heels also aren’t really gonna work. That being said, if you swapped the boots for some converse or trainers and lost the  harness, you’d probably be alright! The hat would be kinda impractical for me personally on the sheer basis that my giant head is much too big for it to stay on without me tugging it down every few seconds but any person with a normal sized head (lmao, I cri), a hat is probably a good idea if you’re trying to keep your face out of the sun.

To make these two practical, I’d, again, lose the heels and maybe swap the top with the outfit on the right; if you don’t mind your nips slipping out, power to you, but that would be a concern of mine and the last thing you want to be thinking about whilst you’re trying to enjoy yourself is whether you’re inadvertently flashing your bobbies at strangers. The fringe belt could potentially be a bit of a hazard but I think I’d just grin and bear it because dancing around in that thing with tassels flying everywhere would be very-

The next looks are the ones I planned on wearing a variation of to actually go to Reading so they’re a lot more wearable.

See, I didn't really plan for anything other than hot weather which seems kind of dumb bitch like behaviour for a festival in England but IIRC it actually did end up being pretty pleasant around that time so let’s just call it me being a canny genius and efficient packer (though the things I DIDN’T pack for inter- railing versus the things I did probably says otherwise). My thought process was that at the beginning of the festival you’re probably not gonna mind putting in a bit more effort with hair and makeup and you’re not yet sweaty enough for wearing mesh to be a problem. I don’t know what it is but the moment I put one on my armpits go into hardcore excretion mode. Too much information, I’m sorry. 

Day 3 and 4, I know my legs are going to be resembling cactuses. Damn having thick, dark hair. And as much as I’d like to make some kind of feminist statement, I’m personally not a fan of bodily hair. If you’re like me, trousers are going to be your best bet, plus a light jacket you can put on so you’re not shoving unshowered armpits in people’s faces. Festival etiquette, y’know. 

Realistically though, I don’t think that anybody really cares all that much how presentable you look, especially by the last day. Everyone’s just there to have a good time and even if festivals have kind of become a bit travelling fashion show on a field the last few years (online retailers who launch specific festival collections months in advance, I’m looking at you), as long as you’re not wearing those high vis trousers, you’re not going to get judged; I’m sorry but I really cannot get behind that “trend”. I really think that some buyer at Pretty Little Thing found out you could get construction worker jackets really cheap on some kind of builder’s wholesale website and was like “yep, fantastic, we’ll take 50,000″.

All in all, not a super long post as I'm conserving my energy to do a huge overview of the 2020 RTW shows and a winter lookbook. But if anyone did read this far, thank you! As always, if you have any other suggestions on things I can write about, send me a message on here or Instagram and I will definitely make a note of it.

Lauren x

#festival #festivalseason #fashion #lookbook #styling #ootd #outfitinspiration

[spartanguard]

a different kind of catch

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY, @word-bug!!!!!!!! I’d hoped to have this up on your actual bday, but hope it was absolutely amazing and as wonderful and sweet as you are!!! This little CS ficlet was inspired by our mutual continuing love of  Pokémon Go; hope you like it! Love you!!! | 1.9k, rated PG

Emma wasn’t going to let this one go, not this time; she’d come way too close to give up now. She hurried to the spot where her phone told her she’d find her mark, constantly glancing down at the screen to make sure she wasn’t too late.

Everything seemed fine, but she picked up her pace to a jog, impatient to get there as she ran past people on the streets of Boston.

She was almost there—to the Starbucks on the corner—and so close to her prize that she could almost taste it (though that might also have just been the scent of coffee in the air).

Until she collided with something warm and solid just feet from her goal. “Oof—what the hell?”

“Uuh; bloody hell!” the other body shouted out as they both hit the pavement, phones clattering from their hands. Shit, her screen better not be cracked.

“Watch where you’re going, buddy!” she yelled, not looking at the man who ran into her as she scrambled to standing and grabbed her phone. Thank God, not broken—and better yet, there it was!

“Where I’m going?” he protested; she vaguely noticed he had an accent but was too caught up to really care. “Maybe get your head out of your damned phone and you wouldn’t knock over unsuspecting civilians!”

She just waved him off; she had to focus. She’d already missed on her first try, so she threw a berry this time and tried again. It caught...but it broke out. It didn’t run, though.

“Oh, is that the Lapras?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s the Lapras!” she hissed back, not taking her attention off her screen. “I’ve been waiting to catch one of these since the damn game started!” She didn’t have to defend her playing of Pokémon Go as a full-grown adult to some random asshole—not she was finally going to catch one of her favorite Pokémon.

“No, me too; good luck,” he told her, then went silent.

That kind of surprised her, but not enough to distract her from choosing an Ultra Ball. “You too,” she muttered as she wound up a curve ball.

She let go, and the message on the screen said “Great!” as the animation of the ball clasping around the Lapras played. Then she held her breath, waiting—one...two...three!

“Freaking finally!” she shouted; it may have taken two years, but she’d finally got it! (And it was high CP, too!)

“There it is, yes!” the guy echoed moments later. Caught up in the high of the catch, she turned around to give him a high five in celebration of their shared victory.

Without thinking, their hands slapped together, and then she got a look at him—and, woah, he was a catch, too: dark, disheveled hair hung over his forehead, just above his bright blue eyes, sparkling with happiness; a grin was playing at his lips and his sharp jaw was dusted with gingery scruff; and he may as well have been dressed like a modern Pokémon trainer because who honestly wore waistcoats anymore? (Though she didn’t recall anyone from the anime with that much chest hair...not that she was complaining.)

He seemed just as taken aback as she was, and their hands kind of hung in the air after their high five until they realized what they were doing and dropped them, both suddenly aware of how awkward they were being—not that it really mattered when they were celebrating a video game based on a television show that was originally targeted at children.

“Congratulations, love,” he offered, nodding toward her phone. “Is it a good one?”

“Yeah,” she answered, kind of shyly. “Yours?”

“Pretty good.” They stood there for another moment, unsure what to do; she should probably keep walking, considering she had an egg close to hatching, but then he spoke up again. “I do apologize for the collision; I believe I was just as focused as you were on catching that. Let me buy you a drink to make up for it?” he said, tilting his head at the Starbucks. “Maybe a Pokémon Go frappuccino?” he suggested, winking poorly.

She just scrunched her nose and giggled; she’d had that once and it was way too sweet for her. “Nah, that’s too much,” she replied. “But I guess I could go for a hot chocolate?”

“Sounds perfect.” He gestured toward the door, but then raced ahead to open it before she got to it.

“So now you’re a gentleman?” she teased.

“I’m always a gentleman,” he answered smoothly.

She shivered a bit; damn, this guy had an effect on her, and that almost never happened. But most guys weren’t as unashamed about Pokémon Go as he was. “Does the gentleman have a name?” she enquired.

“Killian.”

“Emma.”

They got in line and both busied themselves with their phones while waiting to place their orders. “You know,” she started. “That’s probably a good name for a Lapras.”

“What is?” he wondered.

“Killian.” She liked saying his name; it was unique, and her Lapras was male, after all.

He grinned—a real one this time, and brilliant. “I suppose I could say that Emma is, too.” Oh, and she liked how he said her name, too.

“Seems like a pretty good way to honor the moment,” she decided.

“Aye,” he agreed, and they placed their drink order.

While they were waiting for their beverages at the other end of the counter, she couldn’t help but glance over as he scrolled through his collection. “Damn, how’d you get all those Mr. Mimes?” He had a ton, whereas she would likely never even get one—stupid geo-locked Pokémon!

“I just moved here from the UK,” he explained. “They’re everywhere over there. But I’ve yet to see any Tauros now that I’m here.”

“Yeah, you don’t see too many in the city; but out of town—tons. Actually, I have a couple strong ones, if you wanna trade?” Technically she’d been saving those for her brother—one of the only other people she knew who played and was amassing a Tauros army, for some reason—but she could totally spare one to a good, mutually beneficial cause.

“I'd love that!” he gushed. Their drinks were up, so they grabbed them and found a little table in the corner. “Pardon the awful line,” he started after they sat, “but what’s your number?”

She snorted, but it was probably the first time in ages she was happy to give someone her “number”. “It’s 1022 0206 0620.”

He typed it in and then proclaimed “sent! To SwanGirl83.”

“That’s me,” she confirmed, and she got the notification on her end a few seconds later. “xJollyxRogerx24?”

“Aye,” he replied. She took a moment to observe his avatar; it was a pretty close representation, though dressed as close as possible to being a pirate, complete with eye patch. “I take it you’re a Captain Hook fan?” she quipped.

“Ha, yeah,” he laughed. “It’s not quite a hook, but same idea,” he added, holding up his left hand—which she suddenly realized wasn’t a hand, but rather a gloved prosthesis that matched the ones his avatar wore.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean—I didn’t even see…” she stammered; of course she’d put her foot in her mouth with the hottest player she’d ever come across; she could feel a Golem-like rock forming in her stomach.

To her surprise, though, he just waved her off. “No, no—you’re fine, lass; I’m the one making fun of it in the first place,” he assured her. Then his eyes bounced between her and his screen for a second, before stating, “I hope this isn’t too forward of me, but I daresay I prefer the actual Emma. Though that’s quite the fetching romper.”

She blushed a little, both at the compliment and the fact that she hadn’t changed her avatar’s outfit since the game started. There was just something so...Pokémon about that one-piece and leggings. “What can I say? I like to be comfy.”

“That implies you actually own a romper, then.”

“Ha, I wish!”

He replied with an almost goofy leer, eyebrow arched in amusement; she just shook her head, laughed, and promptly hid her embarrassment at walking into that by hiding in her hot chocolate.

“So, Pikachu as your companion?” he continued, apparently studying her via whatever symbolism could be found by her choices within the game.

“Yeah,” she said after she swallowed. “Can’t go wrong with a classic. And I like yellow.”

“I can see that, with you being yellow team and all.” He had her there.

“I’m guessing you like red, then, being Team Valor and with that shiny Gyarados there?” she guessed.

“Oy, he’s badass!” he protested, but then relented. “But yes, that’s part of it.”

They processed the trade, both finally adding another to their almost-completed Pokédexes, and then she sent him the most Boston gift she had on hand: Fenway Park. And he apparently sent her the most London one he still had: Big Ben. They shared giggles over that, and continued to chat—a bit about the game, comparing each others’ current stashes of Pokémon, but then it went onto work, family, friends, all that normal stuff, though it turned out neither of them really had much in that department.

Usually, she avoided romance altogether; she’d only found heartbreak there, and something told her Killian had, too. But what were the odds that she’d literally run into someone who shared so much with her, in addition to one of her favorite hobbies? For the first time in ages, she actually allowed herself to hope for something like that; hopefully he couldn’t see the Luvdiscs swimming in her eyes.

“Hey, there’s a raid a block over; I need to beat one for a research task.” His voice pulled her from her daydreaming. “Would you care to join me?”

She glanced at her screen; it was just a Ninetails, but she could always use another one. “Sure!”

They left the Starbucks—both hitting the Poké Stop there one more time for good measure, as well as a couple more on the way—and found the “gym” (actually just an ugly statue; it never ceased to amaze her the sorts of things that were considered “monuments” in this game). To the casual passerby, it probably looked like they were just two strangers immersed in their phones, but partnering up with Killian to takedown a foe was actually bringing them closer; seeing that red Gyarados in action was incredible, even if she was focused on what her Vaporeon was doing, too.

In no time at all, they’d knocked out the Ninetails and had both caught it. “I apologize if this is forward, Swan,” Killian said, “but we make quite the team.”

She couldn’t refute it. “Yeah, we do.”

Battling in raids together became a regular thing, and he was the first person she reached Best Friends level with (much to David’s chagrin). She jokingly bought him an eye patch for Christmas; he seriously bought her a romper.

And then, a couple years later, he proposed to her with a diamond ring nestled inside a Poké ball. People could rag on the game all they wanted; for Emma and Killian, it had been the best thing ever.

Hope you liked it and that maybe you got a birthday Lapras! also tagging a few others who I think still play/like it: @initiala @killian-morelike-killingme @distant-rose @queen-mabs-revenge @forestiyari @kat2609 @optomisticgirl @xpumpkindumplingx @wingedlioness @biancaros3 

#cs ff #cs modern au #pokémon go #ouat x pokemon

[peckhampeculiar]

Life through a lens

Words Colin Richardson; Photo Joe Magowan

To call Helena Appio a documentary film-maker would not be a lie, but nor would it be anywhere near the whole truth. At various times, she has been a student of anthropology, art, fashion and textiles; designed fabrics and clothes; modelled for Laura Ashley; and been a college lecturer.

During her training as a producer at the BBC, she had a brief sojourn in the land of sticky-back plastic. To her embarrassment, she once turned down the scourge of soggy bottoms. And don’t get me started on her byzantine and extraordinary family history. Well, do, otherwise the next paragraph will have to go out of the window.

In the early 1900s, great-grandfather Appio left his home in southern Italy and moved to Sierra Leone. ‘I expect he left Italy to escape poverty and make a better life for himself, but how and why he ended up in Sierra Leone, I don’t know,’ says Helena.

But once there, he did something even more unexpected. He opened a cinema, the first in Sierra Leone and probably the first in all west Africa. Helena wishes she knew more about it, but ‘the records were destroyed in the civil war of the late 90s and early 2000s. I’d like to go there to see what I can find out, but some of my relatives who have been say there’s nothing to go on.’

Great-grandfather married a local creole woman, part African, part Chinese and they raised a family together. One of his sons later moved to Nigeria, where he also opened a cinema. He, too, married a local woman, but he was killed in a motor accident shortly after the birth of their first child, a son. The boy, Helena’s father-to-be, was taken by his grandparents to live with them in Sierra Leone. He didn’t see his mother again until he was 15.

As a young man, Helena’s father travelled to Britain to train as an engineer. One evening, at a dance, he met the adopted daughter of a wealthy Glasgow family. They married and she went back with him to Nigeria, which, as Helena says, ‘was a very bold thing to do in those days.’

Helena, the eldest, one of her two sisters and her brother were all born in Nigeria (her youngest sister was born in London). But after ten years, her parents’ relationship, it seems, had run its course. Helena’s mother moved to London, bringing her children with her.

‘But my father didn’t come back with us. They never spoke about it, but they must have split up at that point. My mother just said we were all coming back to go to school, which we were. My father came and visited three or four times a year, as he was often in Europe with his business.’

The family settled in Blackheath. They were an unusual sight. In the mid-1960s, there weren’t many white women with black children living on the Heath. ‘People kept stopping my mother because they thought she must be Peggy Cripps,’ says Helena.

Peggy Cripps, the daughter of Labour grandee Sir Stafford Cripps, had caused something of a sensation when, in 1953, she had married the radical Ghanaian lawyer and politician Jo Appiah. The Appiahs had four children – three girls and a boy – who were roughly the same age as Helena and her siblings.

Helena went to Blackheath High, which wasn’t always a comfortable experience as she and her sisters were the only black pupils there. But she did well and, after leaving school and taking a gap year (partly spent travelling in Brazil), she went to Durham University to study anthropology.

‘I found myself in a very old-fashioned college. You had to be in by ten o’clock in the evening and every week there was a formal dinner where you wore a black gown and stood when the head of the college came in. I did not like that.’

So she moved back to London and switched her studies to art. ‘I’d always been very good at art,’ she says, ‘but it wasn’t encouraged at Blackheath High, which was a very academic school.’

She took foundation courses in art before switching to a degree in textiles and fashion at Middlesex University. After graduating, she opened a clothes shop in Covent Garden, selling fabrics and clothes she designed. But when her daughter was born, it became too much and she swapped the world of retail for the more sedate world of lecturing.

‘Then, one day, I saw an ad in the paper – the BBC was looking for nine people to be trainee directors and so I applied. We had two or three interviews and I got one of the places. I learned later that there were over 1,000 applicants. If I’d known that at the time, I wouldn’t have applied; I’d have thought there was no point. Nowadays, I’m often asked to talk to students and I tell them, don’t be put off; it’s worth a try, you’ve got nothing to lose.’

She started in 1990, a year after the birth of her son. Her training included a stint working on Blue Peter, making short filmed inserts. She says she learned a valuable lesson. No, not how to make a nuclear reactor out of some old washing-up liquid bottles, the insides of several loo rolls and acres of Fablon, but how to tell a story in just a few minutes.

It stood her in good stead when she was offered a contract in the BBC’s documentaries department. She worked on many programmes in her time there, but one that stands out for her is DJ Derek’s Sweet Memory Sounds, a portrait of the late Bristolian DJ who was known as ‘the blackest white man in Britain.’

After nearly ten years at the BBC, Helena decided to strike out on her own as an independent producer. She made two memorable documentaries. The Windrush Years for Channel 4 was a series of 12 three-minute portraits of people who came from the Caribbean to live and work in the UK between 1948 and 1971.

A Portrait of Mr Pink told the story of one of Lewisham’s most remarkable citizens, whose vividly painted house at the top of Loampit Hill dazzled all who passed it. More recently, Helena for the Kurdish Memory programme, helping to document the lives of the Kurdish people of Iraq.

Three years ago, Helena left Peckham to live in Hong Kong when her husband got a job working in the acquisitions team at M+, a new museum for visual culture being built in West Kowloon. She is working on a new film of her own, a documentary about the Filipino women who work, often in terrible conditions, as domestic servants in Hong Kong.

But she is back in Peckham whenever she can, visiting friends and seeing her children: Chris, a personal trainer, sports masseur, musician and DJ (performing as Jean Frais); and Nina, a charity worker, who is also the Queen of Samba, performing with the Bermondsey-based London School of Samba.

Helena has but one major regret in life. When she was working in the commissioning department at the BBC, she was approached with a programme idea by an unknown baker. Paul Hollywood, for it was he, invited her and some friends to his bakery school in an effort to convince her to give him his break into TV.

‘It was very nice,’ says Helena. ‘We had a good time. But I couldn’t see what we could do with him, so I turned him down. It took a stroke of genius by the Great British Bake Off people to team him with Mary Berry, Mel and Sue and make him the bad guy. I feel like the person who turned down The Beetles.’

..........................

View DJ Derek’s Sweet Memory Sounds at vimeo.com/53691544 and read about Mr Pink in the August/September issue of our sister paper, The Lewisham Ledger

[fyrapartnersearch]

Pokemon RP, M//

Hey, been a while. You can call me Bird - I dropped out of roleplaying for a while due to some unfortunate family stuff going on that took me longer than expected to bounce back, but bounce back I have. As always, Pokemon has been a long-time comfort for me, so it's no surprise that I'm looking for some pkmn roleplays - additionally, if we had a roleplay going before I stepped out, feel free to email me again to continue where we left off!

Plots are open for discussion, but I do have various character ideas going on that I'd like to explore. I'm more inclined toward people who aren't necessarily trainers - I like the idea of people going through daily life with their Pokemon and exploring different trainer classes (sailors, hikers, psychics, breeders, etc), and I'm also into the idea of them getting involved in a bigger/more serious overarching plot.

For example, a devoted Pokemon archaeologist uncovering a very ancient and rare fossil that a villain team will stop at nothing to get, a waiter caught in a high-end Pokemon battle that breaks out in their restaurant and discovering one of their frequent customers is the leader of an evil organization bent on taking on the champion and region - things like that. Two very different people who become unlikely allies and end up sticking together to get through some big event, be it an ex-champion and an engineer, a well-off coordinator and an interpol member, an ace trainer and a magician and an ex-grunt - things like that. Or just an average civilian tossed into the thick of things. What can I say, I have a thing for normies.

So like I said - no real plot in mind, but I like things culminating inter a bigger story, if that makes sense. Whether it's tracking down elusive legendaries, beating a villain team, or something else entirely. In addition, I want all characters to be older than teenagers - so like, 18+ are the BARE minimum, 20+ or older is my preference. Beyond smut being a thing (it will be! I don't fade to black, sorry. I'll get into my limits once we're in contact), I just feel better writing adults. I'm looking mostly for M// right now, but I also do F// if doubling. I'll probably make another post looking more for F// romance in a while if I hit my limit on M// pairings. Side characters are welcome! I like odd pairings, so bonus points if the romance is between characters who are opposites but unexpectedly fit well together. I'm also open to childhood friends or best-friends-to-lovers if that's more of a preference for you. Just. Romance as a whole is expected.

More info about me:

-CST timezone, I aim to reply every 2-3 days if I'm not immediately available. Sometimes I can reply multiple times a day, sometimes once a day, sometimes once a week. Depends on my schedule and how long the replies will be.

-EMAIL ONLY. One thread for the roleplay, one for OOC. It's easier for my to reply to OOC stuff more frequently than the actual roleplay since writing takes time and effort, and OOC chatting is very easy for back-and-forth.

-No fade to black. I don't do incest, pedo, bestiality (yes, that includes pokephilia), kinks like toilet play/gore/vore/feet, hardcore BDSM, or seme/uke stuff. In fact, I only play switch characters - I won't budge on that at all UNLESS we're doubling and have an equal chance to play top/bottom characters.

-Multiple paragraphs, third person. Usually 400-600 words minimum unless we're doing novel-style, but it really depends on the scene.

-I get invested. I love drawing and making playlists and boards, so expect those! It's always fun when you get passionate about characters together. I talk OOC and like to get to know my partners/become friends since I prefer longterm stuff.

-Email me at [email protected]. I delete any message that's just one or two lines or just says "I'd like to rp." Kinda harsh, I guess, but it's an annoying message to get. Tell me what you're looking for, your limits, things like that.

#oc rp #multiple paragraph #long term #email #smut rp #submission

[wojiushi18]

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