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ghostbusters-fan · 1 year

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A Thanksgiving to Remember~

Or the Ghostbusters(and Louis and Janine)go over to Dana's apartment for Thanksgiving...everything's going great until Ray falls asleep in Egon's lap...

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"Hi boys," Dana said, smiling softly at the four. "And hello to you too, Janine," she added, spotting the secretary behind the tall men.

"Nice to see you again," Janine said, butting her way to the front of the men and handing Dana the homemade pie.

"Oh it looks delicious Janine, thank you! Louis is already helping me but I'd love having your talent in the kitchen too now come in, come in, everybody," Dana opened the door wide for them all.

Everyone headed straight for the kitchen. Except for Peter who wrapped an arm around Dana and kissed her cheek, "Did you miss me, baby?"

"I missed you, daddy," Oscar cried, running up to the only father he's ever known.

"Oh I missed you too, slugger," Peter said, getting down on one knee and holding his arms wide open to the 5 year old.

"And I'll take that, thank you," Dana cut in, snatching the 12 pack of beer from her boyfriend's hand. She wanted Peter to at least wait until the food was ready before he started drinking.

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Ray brought Thanksgiving decorations, convincing the rest of the Ghostbusters to help make Dana's apartment more festive and cheery while Dana, Janine, and Louis finished all the cooking. About an hour later, there wasn't a single part of the apartment that wasn't decked out in turkey themed decorations. Ray was positively beaming, "Y'know I didn't think it was possible but we did even better than last year, seriously great job guys!" His friends shared a quick glance that reminded them all that Ray said that every year but none of them were about to kill their friend's holiday joy.

"Yep, it looks amazing, buddy," Winston said, patting Ray's shoulder.

Suddenly Louis poked his head out of the kitchen and called out, "Hey guys, food's ready, and I made my special salad for everybody! I put extra tuna in it too!"

Peter opened his mouth to make a crack about who on Earth would make a salad for Thanksgiving but was stopped cold by Egon elbowing him in the side and his harsh, reprimanding glare.

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They all filled their plates then sat down together in the living room, chatting away while the Macy's Day parade played on TV.

Peter cracked open a beer and Ray started to give a speech. "I'm thankful to live in such a great firehouse which I know Peter and Egie weren't thrilled about at first so I'm extra thankful you two bought the place anyway. I'm also thankful that I have the best job in the world where I get to work with my friends," Ray looped his arms around Winston and Egon, sending a bright smile at Janine and Peter. "You guys really don't know how lucky I feel just to have met you and having you all as my friends is just-"Ray started to tear up-"my family used to tell me I was always so hard to put up with and kids at school never really liked me, they always said I talked too fast about things they didn't care about, moved too much, I was just too all over the place for everybody so"-he sniffled, wiping his mismatched eyes-"I JUST CAN'T YOU TELL ALL ENOUGH HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!!!" Tears streamed down Ray's cheeks, "I-I'm sorry, guys. I didn't m-mean to-to break down on y-y-you like this."

Winston and Egon gave Ray a side hug.

"Oh Ray, it's okay," Janine said.

"There's no shame in crying," Dana assured him, reaching out to give him a quick but strong hug.

"Yeah nobody cares that you're a big softie," Peter added, polishing off his second beer.

Everyone shot Peter a vicious glare, even little Oscar stopped staring at all the pretty, colorful floats and looked at him, eyes full of confusion. "Why are we staring at daddy," Oscar asked.

"Your father just send something silly is all," Dana said, gently ruffling the boy's hair.

"Hey I meant it in a good way, Ray you've got a big heart and if people don't like you for it then they can go-"Oooookay I think he gets the point," Louis hurriedly interrupts Peter.

"Just don't let anybody tell you you're not a great guy, Ray, cause you're one of the greatest," Peter muttered before taking a long sip of his beer.

Ray smiled, crying tears a joy now over how much his friends cared, and the other Ghostbusters started talking about what they were thankful for, each one reminding Ray how much they liked their friend. A now, slightly tipsy Peter found it odd how Egon dove into a particularly long rant about Ray and how much he loved spending time with him but made no comment as Dana started to say what she was thankful for....

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As the day stretched on into evening, the chatter slowed and everyone grew lazy, wanting to take a nap after eating all that food, Ray was already snoozing on the couch. In Egon's lap. "Comfy over there, Spengler," Venkman asked.

Egon put all his fury behind the silent glare he shot right at Venkman but the red in his face was more out of sheer embarrassment than any real anger.

"Alright, alright, nothing to see here. Just leave the lovebirds alone," Janine whispered, pushing Louis, Winston, and Peter out the door.

Venkman looked back at Egon with a shit eating grin on his face while the bespectacled scientist was left helpless on the couch.

Egon didn't know what to do, he couldn't talk, couldn't move without risking waking Ray up...he didn't mind the other man on his lap though. If Egon was really being honest, he enjoyed the weight, the warmth, just the presence of Ray is...amazing. The problem was that he enjoyed moments like this in private, not in Dana's apartment for all to witness. Not to mention the headache of going back to the firehouse later and being asked incessant(and very personal) questions from Venkman about what happened between the pair. Wait...Dana's apartment. Dana's here, Oscar's here. Where are they...?

He looked around just in time to see a door shut. If he remembered correctly that was Oscar's room...it is getting late, Dana must be putting him down for a nap, she'll be back soon, she'll try talking to me and that will wake Ray up then this whole mess will be over, Egon's brain rationalized.

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15 minutes later and this mess was definitely not over! What was taking her so long? Did something happen? She would've screamed-and woke Ray up-if something had happened right? The curly haired scientist was about to get up but the weight of Ray's head kept him in place. Ray's still in his lap...the same Ray who makes sure Egon is eating enough and gets(at least some)sleep when he sees the other man working himself silly(Ray's words, not his), the same Ray who gives him Crunch bars when he's having a bad day and offers to make a run to the store to refill Egon's candy stash, the same Ray who pops into Egon's lab every day to talk about an upgrade for the proton packs or a new book he's been reading that he thinks Egon will love, the same Ray who loves fixing up cars, the same Ray who loves ghostbusting, the same Ray he loves so much that sometimes it hurts to see him so close but be unable to touch him...

Without thinking Egon runs a hand through the man's hair. At first Egon is horrified by his impulsiveness, jerking his hand back as if the physical contact burns him, and holds his breath in hopes that Ray won't wake up. One. Two. Precisely three seconds go by and he's still sleeping...realizing this, the taller scientist reasons it would be alright if he did it just one more time.

Egon cards his long, slender fingers through the other man's hair. Ray's hair is soft and fluffy-almost like petting a kitten-and Egon finds himself running his fingers through his deep brown hair again. And again. And again....

"Ngh..., Ray starts to stir and then he's awake, looking up at the curly haired scientist with those mismatched eyes that had caught Egon's attention when they first met back in college. "Are-yawn-are we still at Dana's place, Egie?"

Shit.

"We are," Egon answers, trying to remain stoic. If Ray doesn't notice, if Ray doesn't mention it then Egon can pretend he isn't still laying in his lap.

Finally, finally the other man sits up and rubs his tired eyes. Egon is as relieved as is he devasted by the very fact.

"Mmm...sorry, didn't mean to fall asleep on you. Hope you didn't mind," Ray said, offering him a sheepish smile.

Egon minded. He minded A LOT. But at the same time, he didn't mind at all...

"Where is everybody anyway," Ray asks, noticing it's just the two of them.

"They went home. I'm...unsure of Dana and Oscars' current whereabouts though," Egon replies stiffly. He can still feel the warmth of Ray's body heat on his thighs.

'Oh' is all Ray manages to say, leaving the two men in an uncomfortable silence.

The taller scientist stands suddenly. And then Ray is also jumping to his feet.

"Egon, I'm sorry if I-if I you know...grossed you out...earlier by falling asleep on you like that. If you-I am not repulsed by you or your earlier actions," Egon cuts in. "In fact, I am actually quite fond of you, Raymond," he adds, tentatively reaching out for the other man's hands.

The bespectacled scientist doesn't know what to do now...if social standards dictates that he should kiss Ray or pull him closer or-"I like you a lot too, Egie," Ray admits. And does he need a new glasses prescription or is Ray really blushing right now?

The other man leans in closer and Egon finds his head lowering all on its own...then they're kissing. It's a short, hurried kiss on Ray's part(almost as if he thinks Egon will suddenly change his mind and be disgusted with him)but Egon isn't at all disappointed with the kiss.

"Do you wanna-umm should we just-"Firehouse," Egon blurts, cutting the shorter man off.

"Firehouse. Yup. Yup, sounds good," Ray turns quickly, pulling his boyfriend(yes they're boyfriends now)to the door.

Then suddenly they hear a creak and Dana appears around the corner looking drained. "Oh hello boys, sorry I was gone so long. I was putting Oscar down for a nap but he didn't want to sleep and wait where's everyone else-Firehouse," Egon blurts again. Maybe even a little dumbly.

"Yeah, they all left a-and we're leaving too! Anyway uhh thanks for the party, Dana," Ray said embarrassed, even a little awkwardly, as he opens the door to her apartment.

"Okay...have a good night," Dana says, a little confused by their strange behavior.

"Yup, you too, byeeeee," Ray calls out, hurriedly closing the door and rushing off into the hall.

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kylesvariouslistsandstuff · 2 months

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Big slate drop from the Diz, ahead of their CinemaCon presentation next week... Some changes, some new additions, some slot-fillings...

Some of these dates are to the shock of no one:

10/18/2024: A REAL PAIN

12/06/2024: NIGHTBITCH

04/11/2025: THE AMATEUR

10/10/2025: TRON: ARES

05/22/2026: THE MANDALORIAN & GROGU

06/19/2026: TOY STORY 5

07/10/2026: MOANA (Remake)

A REAL PAIN recently ran at Sundance, now it's a Searchlight movie, it's a comedy drama starring Jesse Eisenberg. Good get for them.

NIGHTBITCH is a new Searchlight addition to the schedule that sounds quite cool, a horror comedy that will go into limited release, maybe for a potential Oscar run? Amy Adams as someone who is convinced they're turning into a dog at night? I'd see that.

Thriller THE AMATEUR vacated this coming November for next spring. TRON-in-name-only debuts fall 2025, instead of a Christmas slot like TRON: LEGACY did. AVATAR 3 currently has that locked up. It also didn't opt for the summer, but I'd imagine the VFX need plenty of time. TRON: LEGACY also took a good amount of time to come together, and we want The Grid looking as good as it can.

TOY STORY 5 was obviously going to be Pixar's summer 2026 release after Bob Iger said it was aiming for 2026... It sure as heck wasn't going to be the studio's spring 2026 title. Also, who's directing? No word on that? And yet, no word on what the 3/6/2026 Pixar movie is. Still scheduled on the same day as Warner Bros. Pictures Animation's THE CAT IN THE HAT movie, which took the date after Disney had already claimed it for a Pixar film. The game of chicken there still hasn't ended.

MOANA remake also unsurprisingly swam back a year, as it was nowhere near production and you've got the actual MOANA sequel coming out in November. Would've been too close of a release. (And even then, a remake of the original coming out a year and a half after the sequel is still overkill to me, but whatever.)

Everything else for 2025 remains in place: The four Marvel movies (doubt they're gonna put FOUR out this year), ELIO, SNOW WHITE, ZOOTOPIA 2, AVATAR 3, etc. Nothing has filled other slots Disney claimed for that year:

03/07/2025

05/23/2025

Chances are, those just go to 20th Century/Searchlight titles. Memorial Day is a pretty prime slot though, so I reckon that goes to something good-sized that's been in the works for quite some time. MALEFICENT 3, maybe? That recently announced sequel to FREAKY FRIDAY? Or that D+ LILO & STITCH remake gets upped to theatrical? Could be anything.

Either more stuff gets shifted after CinemaCon, or things stay the same for a while. It's worth noting that this sizable slate update comes after Disney Pictures got its new president, David Greenbaum. Nothing greenlit under him just yet is on here, as these things take time, but we're definitely seeing the last of his predecessor's efforts finally coming out.

I'm over here still wondering what's up with Suzi Yoonessi's original fantasy film that she was directing for Disney Animation, and if we'll get that somewhere between the triple-decker sequel offerings of MOANA 2, ZOOTOPIA 2, and FROZEN III. Iger had previously said that FROZEN III was aiming for 2026, but Disney curiously didn't slot it in the Thanksgiving 2026 frame that was previously locked for a WDAS movie... Maybe FROZEN III has to wait a little bit? Or Suzi's film somehow comes out between early 2025 and mid 2026, with FROZEN III following in the fall? I don't know. Does that film even still exist?

Plot thickens, as always...

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hywin-artz · 1 year

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Pick one | Which One?

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Piano Studio Ghibli Music Collection Hayao Miyazaki Movies Soundtrack | How Do You Live Soundtrack

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23 Facts About Studio Ghibli That Will Change The Way You Watch The Movies Love and magic; longing and spirits. Anjali Patelby Anjali Patel BuzzFeed Staff Studio Ghibli 1. Isao Takahata (director of The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Grave of the Fireflies, and My Neighbor the Yamadas) and Hayao Miyazaki (director of Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and My Neighbor Totoro) cofounded Studio Ghibli together. Takahata discovered both Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi, the composer for many Studio Ghibli films. 2. Hisaishi was asked to re-score some of the music for the English release of Castle in the Sky. According to Disney, Ghibli's North American distributor, markets outside of Japan weren't comfortable with large gaps without music. In the original Castle in the Sky, there is only an hour of music in the 124-minute movie. 3. The films that Miyazaki directs are entirely in his vision. He storyboards everything himself and uses those images as a script. Production begins before the boarding finishes, so no one, including Miyazaki, knows how the film will end. Studio Ghibli 4. Though many consider Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind to be the first Studio Ghibli film, its release predates the studio's founding. The first Ghibli film was Castle in the Sky. 5. If you look closely, the same fox squirrels from Nausicaa of the Vally of the Wind reappear in Castle in the Sky. 6. Witnessing the1984 Miners' Strike in Wales impacted Miyazaki, and subsequently influenced Castle in the Sky as it is partially set in a mining town. Studio Ghibli 7. Neil Gaiman adopted the script for the English version of Princess Mononoke. He said that what Miramax (the North American distributor) and Studio Ghibli wanted were so different that he wrote a draft for each, then told them to fight it out amongst themselves Studio Ghibli / Via pinterest.com 8. Ponyo, a movie about a goldfish who wants to become human, is loosely based on The Little Mermaid. 9. Miyazaki drew the waves in Ponyo himself. Studio Ghibli 10. Howl's Moving Castle and Kiki's Delivery Service are based on books of the same name. Tales from Earthsea is based on a series, and Grave of the Fireflies is based on a semi-autobiographical novel. 11. Studio Ghibli does use some CGI, but it never accounts for more than 10% of the finished film. 12 Studio Ghibli's first fully digital feature was My Neighbors the Yamadas directed by Takahata. The first digital feature Miyazaki directed was Spirited Away. Studio Ghibli / Via ffxiv-roleplayers.com 13. To get the scene where Chihiro pushes her hand into Haku's mouth just right, the animators recorded a vet opening a dog's mouth as a reference. 14. The English voice actress for Chihiro in Spirited Away also voiced Lilo from Lilo and Stitch. She also played Samara Morgan, known as "the girl," in The Ring. 15. Spirited Away is the highest grossing film in the history of Japanese cinema. It is also the only non-English film to win the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. 16. Miyazaki based Chihiro, the main character of Spirited Away, on his observations of the 10-year-old daughter of one of his friends during a retreat to his mountain cabin. Studio Ghibli 177. The main town in Kiki's Delivery Service is modeled after Stockholm, San Francisco, Paris, and places in Ireland and Italy. The setting was created by imagining a 1950s where a war never happened. 18. Porco Rosso was originally supposed to be a 45-minute in-flight film. It grew to be much longer than that, prompting the studio to turn it into a full-length feature for theatrical release. 19. Ghibli is the name of an Italian scouting plane used during World War II. It's also the name for a hot wind in the Sahara. Studio Ghibli 20. The Wind Rises started out as a manga that Miyazaki drew after the release of Ponyo. It was his producer who convinced him to turn it into a full feature movie. 21. While working at Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki sticks to his schedule like clockwork. He arrives at the studio at 11 a.m. sharp and leaves at 9 p.m. He also works six days a week, and on his day off, he often cleans the river down the street from him. 22. You can see original short films in the Ghibli Museum that you can't see anywhere else. They're screened in a theater that looks similar to the baby's room in Spirited Away. 23. There are no set routes to navigate through the museum. Fittingly, the museum's slogan is "Let's Lose Our Way, Together." Unless otherwise noted, all facts are from The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki by Dani Cavallaro.

Studio Ghibli Music Collection Hayao Miyazaki Movies SoundtrackSource: https://www.buzzfeed.com/anjalipatel/facts-about-studio-ghibli-to-remind-you-the-world-still-h

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About the Author: HYWIN ARTZ A story told with Adobe Expressexpress.adobe.com Portfolio: https://express.adobe.com/page/TFC8mWvzvTa4I/ My-Self "HYWIN LIJO JOHN" "You can Google me as HYWIN ARTZ.; It's easy to find me. :)." I am a freelancer, I Provide Services - Digital Collage Art / Graphic & Logo Designing / Illustration / 2D Animation / Vfx (Compositing) / Photo, Video & Audio Editing. Hywin ARTz - Digital ARTIST/ Graphic & Logo Designer/ Illustrator/ Photo Manipulator/ Photo, Video… Friends & People Call me HYWINhttps://express.adobe.com/page/TFC8mWvzvTa4I/Digital Artist/Graphic Designer My Skills…www.linkedin.com Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hywin-artz-5a34b086/ HYWIN ARTZ on Behance WHAT I DO: * Provide all kinds of Digital Artwork / Graphic Designing / Illustrations / Logo Designing / Photo…www.behance.net Behance: https://www.behance.net/Hywin #Avant #Garde #Artist #collage #ART #Digital (@hywin.artz) * Instagram photos and videos Edit descriptionwww.instagram.com https://www.instagram.com/hywin.artz/

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outoftowninac · 2 years

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FOREVER AFTER

1918 / 1919

Forever After is a three-act play by Owen Davis. It was originally produced by William A. Brady starring his daughter, Alice Brady and Conrad Nagel.

From the day they first met in the schoolhouse in a small New England town, Theodore Wayne, son of a respected lawyer, and Jennie Clapton, daughter of wealthy parents, have been sweethearts. Their romance has progressed into their college years, where Ted has become a big football star on the gridiron. But Jack Randall, the wealthiest boy in town, has also courted Jennie, with the approval of her mother, impressed and blinded by Jack's money. Ted's father dies, and Ted has to leave college to return home to a menial job in order to support his mother. Jennie's love for him never waivers, but her mother convinces Ted that Jennie's happiness hinges on having money and social position. He leaves town, with his mother, and Jennie is heartbroken. Then World War I breaks out.

Alice Brady was doing double duty during the run, making films during the day, and performing in theatre at night. She was nominated for an Oscar in 1937, and won the Award in 1938. She appeared in the play courtesy of Select Films Corp., to which she was under contract. This was her first stage appearance in more than three years.

During the run of the play, Miss Brady co-starred in a film with her stage co-star Conrad Nagel in Redhead (1919). The film is now considered lost.

Instead of Atlantic City, the play premiered in Long Branch NJ on August 12, 1918 and then Asbury Park NJ before moving south to Washington DC. But that doesn’t mean Miss Brady didn’t ‘visit’ Atlantic City - at least in film.

During the run of Forever After, Brady was also filming The World To Live In (1919) which was partly set in Atlantic City.

Instead of going on location to the seaside resort, Select Films brought Atlantic City to Brady, by painstakingly recreating the lobby of Atlantic City’s iconic Traymore Hotel (above) at a New York studio. Extras who had vacationed at the Traymore were recruited to verify the accuracy of the recreation. In 2010 HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire” also chose to recreate 1920′s Atlantic City in Brooklyn.

The reason for starting tryouts in Monmouth County was that Brady had a home in Allenhurst NJ on Deal Lake, which is on the northern border of Asbury Park and the Atlantic Ocean. During the run of the play, Brady leased the home to his daughter, although she had very little leisure time to enjoy it.

Forever After opened on Broadway at the Central Theatre (1567 Broadway at 47th Street) on September 9, 1918.

About the Venue: From 1921 through 1957, the Central alternated movies and live theatre (including a fair amount of striptease and burlesque). Movies kept it afloat until 1988, when the Shuberts sold it. The theatre lobby became the Roxy Deli and the auditorium became what is now the W Hotel. Forever After was the premiere production of the new 1,100 seat venue.

“The new theatre is attractively decorated in French gray and old rose, with just a bit of dull gold. The audience last night gave every indication of liking the new play immensely, which should be encouraging to the management, as there are a fearfully large number of seats which people could stay away from in the Centra!.” ~ HEYWOOD BRAUN

It was reported that producer Brady spent $40,000 on the scenery, and another $40,000 on sound effects to imitate the sounds of war.

Miss Brady’s salary was revealed to be $750 for her stage week, and a further $1,500/week for her screen work.

"I work in pictures all day. The only rest I ever get is on rainy days, and often I don't get that, because I have to be fitted for new costumes. Ordinarily I get to the studio a little after 9 in the morning and I'm there until 6 in the afternoon. I'm here at the theater about 7:30 and I usually manage to get away about 11:30.“ ~ ALICE BRADY

Miss Brady’s comment about having rainy days off reflects that early filmmaking was done outdoors to capitalize on the sun as a lighting source, instead of lighting interiors in a studio.

On December 23, 1918 it moved to the Playhouse Theatre (137 West 48th Street).

About the Venue: The Playhouse was a theatre built by William Brady in 1911. When he died and it was sold to the Shuberts. From 1949 to 1952, it was an ABC Radio station. Both the interior and exterior were used in Mel Brooks' movie, "The Producers." In 1969, the theatre was razed to build onto Rockefeller Center.

Between the two venues, the play ran 312 performances, closing on June 7, 1919. Miss Brady and the play took the summer off, before touring the play in the fall of 1919.

Forever After opened in Atlantic City at the Globe Theatre on September 25, 1919. Alice Brady was billed as appearing “personally” and “returned to the speaking stage” so readers would not think that Forever After was a film.

A film version of the play was made in 1926 starring Mary Astor and Lloyd Hughes. Alice Brady, meanwhile, took a decade-long break from film from 1923 to 1933, concentrating on Broadway instead.

The film opened in Atlantic City at the Stanley Theatre (Boardwalk & Kentucky) on November 3, 1926.

#Alice Brady #Forever After #Mary Astor #1919 #1918 #Broadway #Broadway Play #Atlantic City #Traymore Hotel #Globe Theatre #Playhouse Theatre #Central Theatre #Asbury Park #Long Branch #Owen Davis #New Jersey #William A. Brady

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swamp-world · 2 years

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like. i don’t normally weigh in on celebrity drama and gossip. but holy SHIT what the FUCK is going on with Will and Jada Smith and the Oscars. like. first of all, am thinking about a video by F.D. Signifier on Black celebrity couples and I want to go back and rewatch it, it’s not my place to comment on. But this. holy shit. i do not see how anyone could watch that clip and not think Will Smith is in the right.

1. Chris Rock makes a joke not just about Jada, but at her, about her autoimmune disorder

2. Jada does not look amused—in fact she looks visibly displeased, rolling her eyes and giving him a look that very clearly says “you’re not funny, fuck you”—AS IS HER FUCKING RIGHT.

3. in response to this, in response to the target of his joke (not just SUBJECT but TARGET) not laughing, he spreads his arms and looks around for validation at the kind of scattered laughs, and then tries to like, pick it back up. we’ve all seen a guy do this, the “that was funny! come on, huh? wasn’t it funny?” Chris Rock says “that was a nice one, eh?”

4. note: we see Will Smith laughing!! in the same shot as Jada is looking irritated, Will is laughing. the camera cuts away for a second; and I imagine in that time he realized how fucked up it was, or how hurt Jada might be, or anything. because one second he’s laughing and the next he’s defending her, and that’s called paying attention to what’s going on with those you care about.

5. so we have Chris trying to say “hey that WAS funny” and recover when the target of the joke was visibly not amused, and then he tries to move on and recover from it

6. and then there’s Will Smith coming up, and he laughs and goes “uh oh!” all goofy like, haha this is just going to be a comedy thing, and then zero hesitation Will Smith slaps him across the face and turns around. note: his face looks,,,kinda satisfied when he does? i bet that did feel good, frankly. and chris responds by going “wow, wow!”

7. specifically, he takes this and does turn it into a joke, going “will smith just smacked the shit outta me” to an audience who respond with laughs. and i think that this is where we get to the real what the fuck moment

8. IF chris rock had just moved on or apologized, that might’ve been something. but what ends up being the case is that he makes a joke at Jada’s expense (AND THEN TRIES TO CONVINCE HER AND THE AUDIENCE THAT IT WAS FUNNY NO LESS), Will stands up for her in a way that could have just been left as “you get a silly slap for being a jackass, but moving on”. if he had just left it at that, it would’ve felt something different. of course he’s not going to want to “compromise his integrity” by retracting his joke or apologizing, especially after he carried on and defended the joke, but like. that would have been the right thing to do. but he turns Will’s anger from being just theatre into it also being a joke

9. and THIS is where we hear Will Smith call from the audience, “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth!”

10. again. i actually wouldn’t have been surprised if Will Smith had just left it at slapping him and then walking away, if Chris Rock had also left it there. he turned Will’s anger into a joke, taking away the weight and impact of it. Will Smith in turn made it so that no one could ignore that.

11. and again, Chris goes on the defensive: “wow dude, it was a G.I. Jane joke!”, again denying that it might’ve actually been hurtful, continuing to assert that it doesn’t matter.

12. once again, Will says “Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth” MUCH louder, and much angrier, so that Chris can’t turn it into a joke.

13. and FINALLY, Chris says “I’m going to” as an acquiescence. that’s what it took for him to give in and even concede enough that he won’t again, but still not enough for him to apologize or walk it back.

14. everyone really just expects Jada Smith to sit there and look annoyed at Chris Rock trying to convince her that he should be allowed to make fun of something she’s struggling with, because we’ve put Behavioural Etiquette above all else, above being kind and being thoughtful, and so it is more important that you sit there and hurt in polite silence than that you actually “break propriety” and do something to defend someone who’s hurting

#will smith

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annethepancake · 3 years

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30-Day Movie Challenge here. Part 2/3. Part 1. Part 3.

11. My guilty pleasure movie: Wilde (1997) Fuck toxic boyfriends but young Jude Law was soooo pretty in this, it convinced me that maybe Oscar Wilde had a point when he fell so madly in love with this god awful little brat named Bosie.

12. An underrated movie I want people to watch: Beautiful Boy (2018) It’s not underrated I don’t think, it’s just a lesser known film starring Timothée Chalamet. Aside from Timmy’s phenomenal performance, the message of this movie is really clear and really helpful. Watch this and never, ever do drugs.

13. A movie whose color scheme I love: Amélie (2001) If you know my photography skills you know I’m awful and always use saturation to try to distract you from it. I do like vibrant colors and saturation, and while The Grand Budapest Hotel could have been an obvious choice I just prefer the warm and vibrant colors here in Amélie, the colors themselves just told the story so well.

14. My favorite female director: Emerald Fennell She directed her debut feature length movie (Promising Young Woman) while pregnant with her first child. And it’s a masterpiece that won her an Oscar. Phenomenal work. She’s also one of the screenwriters for Killing Eve, which is amazing as well.

15. A film that discusses mental health: Eighth Grade (2018) Such an important movie (for kids and adults alike) and the way it’s played out is a tad too real, and so well executed. Bo Burnham did a great job on this and he deserves every praise he got from such an outstanding work. The mental health issue that the film discusses: Anxiety in teenagers in a world of social media.

16. A movie I keep coming back to: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010) Every time anyone breathes “comedy” around me, there I am with my “Ooooh you should totally watch Scott Pilgrim”. But really it’s such a clever comedy and I would be offended if you watched with me and didn’t like it :< Not to mention the awesome soundtrack!

17. That mood changer movie: Brokeback Mountain (2005) My heart still aches for these two honestly. And it really did change a whole industry. I wrote about it here.

18. A quote I admire from my favorite movie: Maurice (1987)

“I was yours till death if you’d care to keep me once, but I’m someone else’s now, and he’s mine in a way that shocks you. Why don’t you stop being shocked and attend to your own happiness?”

You know how I feel about Maurice. It is such a shame that this quote is not included in the final cut, but it’s such an important scene. Briefly about the movie: Maurice was gay in the 1910’s England, where homosexuality was a crime punishable by jail time and hard labor. He met Clive who made him discover that about himself, but then Clive decided to conform to societal norms and left to marry a woman. This quote is from the speech (the “fuck you” speech as the fandom likes to call) that Maurice delivered to Clive right before leaving to roam the greenwood with Alec (his new love interest) and never returning. This quote really captures how much Maurice was now sure of himself and knew who he was, which he never had been before, and marks the moment he decided to pursue his own happiness and flip off the entire England with its social stratification and homophobia.

19. A movie based on a true story: Hidden Figures (2016) This movie shone a light onto a story I never knew existed before: Black women’s contribution to freakin’ NASA! All of the three women were so phenomenal and I’m so glad I got to know them through the performances of three equally awesome actresses.

20. My favorite cinematographer: James Ivory I don’t know a lot of cinematographers, but James Ivory used to be an art director, so movies like Maurice and Call Me By Your Name and A Room With A View do have a lot of his touch of art, and I like all of the visuals in these films, so there we go.

#wilde 1997 #emerald fennell #beautiful boy #timothee chalamet #scott pilgrim vs the world #brokeback mountain #maurice 1987 #hidden figures #james ivory #30 day movie challenge

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joeygoeshollywood · 3 years

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My 25 Favorite Films of 2020

Well, this was quite the crazy year, especially for movies. While many films that were slated to be released this year were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year still provided some laughs, tears, and thrills both in theaters and in the living room.

(NOTE: Due to the delayed awards season calendar and postponed Oscar bait films that are unavailable to be seen before the end of 2020, this list will eventually be updated after having seen the following films: The Father, Minari, News of the World, Nomadland, One Night in Miami, Pieces of a Woman, Promising Young Woman)

Here are my 25 favorite films of the year:

25. Kajillionaire

Quirky filmmaker Miranda July is back with her first feature in nearly a decade. Kajillionaire is a bizarre but captivating tale about a family of criminal grifters and how the daughter reevaluates her strained relationship with her parents after an outsider is welcomed into the fold. Evan Rachel Wood takes what could have easily been dismissed as a goofy caricature in Old Dolio (yes, that’s her name) and turns into a heartfelt portrayal of a woman whose lifestyle of freeloading dictated by her parents (played by Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins) becomes her own crisis. In many ways, Kajillionaire feels like a fantasy that keeps people asking, “What on earth is going on?” And this time, it’s for the best.

24. Freaky

Revamping decades-old plots like the body-swapping antics from Freaky Friday can either result in a predictable failure or a surprising success. Thankfully, Freaky falls into the latter category. In this horror comedy, a deranged serial killer (played by Vince Vaughn) swaps bodies with his victim, a timid teen girl (played by Kathryn Newton). What makes the film work though are the dedicated lead performances, particularly by Vaughn, who is pretty convincing as young girl trapped in a grown man’s body. With a few good laughs and decent thrills, Freaky is worth the watch.

23. The Outpost

The Outpost is an intense film about the real-life story of small group of US troops isolated by surrounding mountains in Afghanistan, under the constant threat of the Taliban, which ultimately comes to a head in the Battle of Kamdesh. The film captures the harrowing experiences of these soldiers with heart-pounding action sequences, which are fueled by a solid cast including Scott Eastwood, Caleb Landry Jones, and Orlando Bloom.

22. Uncle Frank

Paul Bettany may be best known for playing The Vision in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but he should be celebrated as his title character in Uncle Frank, a touching dramedy set in 1973 about an NYU professor who returns home to his estranged family for his father’s funeral while his niece, played by rising star Sophia Lillis, idolizes him for teaching her to be her authentic self while he keeps his sexuality a secret. Bettany brilliantly balances the coolness of his stature with the internal agony that ultimately hits a boiling point, which is counterbalanced by Peter Macdissi’s fun performance as Frank’s happy-go-lucky lover who accompanies him back home despite his wishes.

21. Hillbilly Elegy

Hillbilly Elegy was panned by critics over politics that had absolutely no role the film. Based on the best-selling memoir by J.D. Vance, the newest feature from Ron Howard shows the journey of a boy who despite all odds growing up in a poor family that constantly struggled with abuse and addition managed to get into Yale Law School and achieve the American dream. While both Gabriel Basso and Owen Asztalos hold the film together as the younger and older Vance in the present and flashback scenes, Amy Adams as the impulsive, irresponsible mother and an unrecognizable Glenn Close as the no-nonsense inspiring grandmother that turn Hillbilly Elegy into an acting tour de force.

20. The Trial of the Chicago 7

Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin sits in the director’s chair once again in this courtroom drama about the real-life protesters who showed up in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. With themes that resonate today, The Trial of the Chicago 7 benefits from its sharp screenplay, well-paced editing, and an outstanding ensemble cast that includes Eddie Redmayne, Mark Rylance, Yahoo Abdul-Mateen II, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong, Frank Langella, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Michael Keaton.

19. Yellow Rose

Broadway actress Eva Noblezada makes her film debut as an aspiring country singer on the run after her mother, an illegal immigrant, is obtained for deportation. Yellow Rose presents a nuanced depiction of US immigration, but at the heart of it is a heartbreaking story of a young woman who struggles between putting her family or her dreams first. Between Noblezada’s powerful performance and solid original music, Yellow Rose hits all the right chords.

18. Palm Springs

Move over, Groundhog Day. While the Bill Murray classic has largely monopolized the time loop film genre, Palm Springs gives it a run for its money. Andy Sandberg and Cristin Milioti star as the unlikely duo who are stranded reliving the same dreaded wedding day involving mutual acquaintances and their desperate efforts to escape the seemingly inescapable. The Hulu comedy stands on its own two feet for the good laughs, the chemistry between the two leads, and the film’s emotionally-grounded plot.

17. Let Him Go

Kevin Costner and Diane Lane reunite on the big screen after playing farmer parents in Man of Steel to rancher grandparents in Let Him Go, although this time they are able to display their full acting chops. In this period dramatic thriller, they set out to find their only grandchild following the death of their son only to discover that the widowed daughter-in-law remarried into an infamous crime family. While both Costner and Lane tug at the heartstrings, it’s Lesley Manville, who plays the ruthless matriarch of the family, that really takes command of the screen. Ultimately, Let Him Go is all about family and the lengths one is willing to go to protect it.

16. Unhinged

In a year plagued by the pandemic, Unhinged led the way to the revival of movie theaters back in August and perhaps in some ways it was meant to be the film to do so as the themes of a rage-fueled society and the lack of human connection carry weight. Russell Crowe stars, as the title suggests, as an unhinged psychopath whose road rage torments a woman and her adolescent son. Unhinged is the epitome of pure entertainment and is why we go to the movies. While it’s not quite the most sophisticated thriller of the year, it’s still one helluva ride.

15. Emma

Anya Taylor-Joy has had quite the year with both highs (The Queen’s Gambit) and lows (The New Mutants). But it began before the pandemic with the release of Emma, which she stars as the iconic Jane Austen title character, a socialite who meddles in the love life of others while refusing to acknowledge her own shortcomings in that department. Supported with a strong ensemble cast, beautiful production design, and comedic charm, Emma is not to be missed.

14. The Invisible Man

ln the era of remakes and reboots, very few are as good as Universal’s latest monster flick revival of The Invisible Man. Elisabeth Moss stars as a woman who believes she’s being haunted by her abusive ex-husband, someone she becomes convinced faked his own death and is stalking her without being able to be seen. Filmmaker Leigh Whannell, the writer behind the Saw and Insidious horror franchises, generates good thrills and high-wire tension with the help of high production value and a terrifyingly-good performance from Moss.

13. Dick Johnson is Dead

Documentarian Kirsten Johnson filmed a beautiful, intimate tribute to her father Dick Johnson, who has been suffering from Alzheimer's in the final years of his life. However, instead of dreading his death, both daughter and father embrace it by having him acting out several scenes of his over-the-top demises. Dick Johnson is Dead may focus on the subject manner of death, but this documentary actually celebrates life and the laughs that happen along the way.

12. The Wolf of Snow Hollow

Perhaps one of the littlest-known films of the year, The Wolf of Snow Hollow is not your conventional indie comedy horror flick. Writer/director Jim Cummings stars as an overly-heated police officer who attempts to get to the bottom of a string of murders in his small, snowy Utah town by what appears to be some sort of werewolf, though he remains unconvinced. Featuring one of the final performances from veteran actor Robert Forster, The Wolf of Snow Hollow uses its quirky sense of humor to stand out from the rest of the pack.

11. The Gentlemen

The Gentlemen is a fun, action-packed, crime caper from Guy Ritchie about the London turf war of drug kingpins. Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Henry Goulding, Michelle Dockery, and Colin Ferrell all round out the strong cast, but its Hugh Grant that really steals the show as the comedically manipulative Fletcher, whose only allegiance is to himself. If you like a stylish film with well-choreographed violence and a fast-paced plot, The Gentlemen should be your cup of tea.

10. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Some of the best play-to-film adaptations are the films that feel like you’re watching a play, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is one of them. Produced by Denzel Washington, Viola Davis gives a transformative performance as Ma Rainey, known as the “mother of the blues” and the clash she had with a pair of White music producers, but she also butts heads with her trumpet player (played by the late Chadwick Boseman), who also has his own music ambitions. While Davis obviously gives other Oscar-worthy performance, it was Boseman who was able to show how incredibly gifted he was as an actor. And while the world lost him far too soon, at least his last role ended up being his greatest.

9. The Kid Detective

One of the biggest surprises of the year was how good a movie starring and produced by Adam Brody was. Brody plays a washed up former kid detective who attempts to revive his once-celebrated career of solving mysteries by getting to the bottom of a murder in his hometown. The Kid Detective is a brilliant dark comedy from newcomer writer/director Evan Morgan with good laughs, plenty of plot twists, and a career-best performance from Brody, who proves he’s more than just the pretty face from The O.C. we all know him as.

8. Mank

Citizen Kane is widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made and Mank is a worthy tribute. Gary Oldman stars as the title character Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz, the Oscar-winning screenwriter behind the iconic film. David Fincher (The Social Network, Gone Girl) managed to capture the epic scale of the 1941 classic that would make Orson Welles proud.

7. Soul

Soul is one of those rare existential Pixar films that goes beyond being children’s entertainment. Following in the footsteps of 2015′s Inside Out, Soul depicts what happens to the soul of a jazz musician who’s convinced his time on Earth isn’t over. While the universe created to explain how souls work and the plot that went along with it falls short of its emotions predecessor, Soul is still high-caliber among Pixar films and a great movie for both kids and adults alike.

6. Another Round

Perhaps the greatest work from Swedish director Thomas Vinterberg to date, Another Round follows four unsatisfied middle aged men who decide to take a theory of task from a Norwegian psychiatrist, who concluded that maintaining a blood alcohol level of 0.050 will enhance their mental and psychological state. Mads Mikkelsen, who’s best known to American audiences as Hannibal Lecter in the short-lived NBC series Hannibal and the Bond villain in Casino Royale, offers a strong, nuanced performance as one of the four educators who embraces this drinking challenge in a film that provides an equal balance of chuckles, cringes, and emotional gut punches.

5. I’m Thinking of Ending Things

From the crazy mastermind of Charlie Kaufman, the writer behind Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Anomalisa, his latest on Netflix is too a mind-bender. I’m Thinking of Ending Things is a surreal, zany, and at times disturbing examination of the human condition as the nameless female protagonist played by an incredible Jessie Buckley mulls over breaking up with her boyfriend (played by Jesse Plemons) while visiting his parents’ house. Accompanied with a stellar production design and a crazy-good performance from Toni Collette as “Mother,” Kaufman newest cerebral feature lives up to his iconic reputation of filmmaking.

4. Da 5 Bloods

Spike Lee is one of the few genius filmmakers who is able to blend multiple genres together and his latest film is no different. Da 5 Bloods is an action adventure, buddy comedy, dramatic character study, and war movie all wrapped up into one about a group of Vietnam War veterans who return to the former battlegrounds to find the remains of one of their fallen soldiers as well as some treasure that they kept hidden years ago. With a strong ensemble cast that includes the late Chadwick Boseman, its longtime character actor Delroy Lindo who steals the show with his powerful performance. Da 5 Bloods is easily one of Netflix’s strongest films to date.

3. The Assistant

One of the first #MeToo-era films, The Assistant offers the day in the life of a low-level female staffer of a production company who is haunted by the presence of her Harvey Weinstein-like boss (who never actually appears in the film). However, rather than depicting the dramatics of sexual misconduct, The Assistant uses the common subtleties and nuances of the workplace yet maintains the same tension and heartbreak. Anchored by the remarkable, devastating performance by up-and-comer Julia Garner (Ozark), The Assistant is as important as it is well-done.

2. Sound of Metal

Riz Ahmed gives the performance of his career as a heavy metal drummer and former addict whose sudden battle with going deaf upends his life. Sound of Metal is an incredible experience that gives a rare glimpse in the American deaf community which is enhanced by the remarkable sound design that helps the audience actually hear what the musician is going through. It’s truly one of the most rewarding films of the year.

1. The Climb

The Climb takes the generic “man sleeps with his best friend’s fiancé” storyline and turns it on its head. In his feature debut as writer and director, Michael Angelo Covino leads as the not-so-apologetic adulterer Mike and Kyle Marvin, who co-wrote the film, is the good-hearted Kyle who struggles to whether or not to forgive his best friend’s ultimately betrayal. Not only is The Climb is quirky and hilariously written, it’s a remarkably well-made comedy with some of the year’s best cinematography. Between a strong cast, a superb screenplay, and the extremely-high production value, The Climb is at the top of the mountain of 2020′s best films.

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dubersbutt · 3 years

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4 Times Leon Joined You and Connor

+ 1 Time He Stayed

Summary: How you, Leon and Connor became a thing

Warnings: smut (oral (female receiving, male receiving, penetrative sex), mlm sex (blowjobs)), sexuality crises (sexuality procrastination)

1) The “Accidents”

Leon gets your text message a second too late. The notification with your name and “DON'T OPEN MY SNAP” hanging above the picture of your scantily clad torso, matching royal purple set, the deep colour complimenting your tan skin. Leon is torn between wanting to be respectful and wanting to keep the picture open until he can get himself off. But, he’s a good dude so he does not do the latter. Instead, he closes the snap and texts you back

Leon: Whoops. I didn’t get your message until after I opened it

You: Ugh. I’m sorry, your name is right under Connor’s and my finger slipped.

Leon: Aren’t you supposed to be at school.

You: Stats are boring. I was trying to bother my boyfriend.

Leon: Pay attention in class, (Y/N).

You: 🙄

You: You can keep the picture btw. I know I look good

You: No face, no case

Leon doesn’t keep it but, his finger hovers over the replay button for far too long.

~~~

Leon’s furnace craps out on him halfway into the season, and Alberta winters without heaters isn’t very enjoyable so he temporarily moves in with Connor, the day of the charity gala. Leon has a good time for the most part. Except -

He can’t get that fucking picture out of his head. And your dress hugs you in all the right places and he really hopes that neither you or Connor notice that how often he looks over at you. Connor has to rub elbows with the rich donor more than Leon does, so he keeps you company in between rounds. The two of you keep yourselves entertained by comping up with potential conversations for the other people in the room.

“Leon wait,” you say, clutching his arm and Leon feels his heart skip a beat, “That girl is his daughter, not his sugar baby.”

“No,” Leon was convinced, they were sitting way too close if that were true, “How do you know?”

You point to an older lady that’s approaching the table. She leans down to give the man a quick kiss and Leon’s about to propose a potential mistress until he realizes the girl looks like a younger version of the older woman.

“Shit,” he says and you look at him with wide eyes, “We’re going to hell.”

“We totally deserve it too.”

An hour later, Leon is excusing himself from a conversation with Klefbom and an older lady. She hardly notices, her attention has been focused on Oscar the whole time. Oscar tries to get him to stay but Leon thinks her not-so-subtle flirtation is hilarious.

He laughs when he gets the “I’m gonna fucking kill you” text from Oscar on the way to the bathroom.

Leon: I don’t like being the third wheel

Leon: Make sure she’s not married, klef. You’d be a terrible mistress

Oscar: I would be the best mistress in the history of mistresses.

When Leon opens the door to the bathroom he’s met with the sound of moans. He supposes he should have shut the door right then and there but he opens it all the way without realizing. He’s met with the sight of Connor fucking you on the sink. Your nails are digging into his back as Connor fucks you. He’s frozen for a moment, can’t remember how to move his limbs until you meet his eyes. He’s fairly certain you smile at him but he’s also convinced he imagined it. He replays your moans and tiny whimpers in his head.

He’s not even surprised when he wakes up the next morning and the girl next to him looks a little like you when he squints.

~~~

A week later he’s coming home from a run, the weather had warmed up enough for a short 15 minute jog before he had to pack for the California road trip. He lets himself in through Connor’s garage door, taking off his snowy boots in the mudroom. He takes his earbuds out, pocketing them when he hears -

“I - fuck, don’t tease me.”

Not again.

Now, Leon is kind of annoyed. He texted Connor that he was on his way home, had given him ample time to move to his bedroom. And Leon has to pass the living room to get to the guest room.

“You’re such a brat,” he hears Connor say and the next thing that comes out of his mouth is a loud groan.

Leon has to start packing, they need to be at the airport in an hour. He tries to make his appearance quick and minimal but he meets Connor’s eyes. He mouths, sorry as he picks up the pace, but Connor doesn’t seem to mind. His face is flushed, and his chest is rising and falling quickly. Connor winks at him. Winks.

When he finally makes it to his room he slumps against the walk, leaving the door open a crack so he can hear Connor’s moans. He can’t help it anymore, he pulls the waistband of his pants down, gripping his dick. He has to bite down on his hand to keep his moans at bay. He cums in unison with Connor, using his moans to guide him to finish.

He stands there for a moment, hands sticky with cum listening to Connor praise you through the crack in the door.

~~~

Leon doesn’t make a habit of picking up men during the season. You can never know who's secretly a hockey fan wanting to sell Leon’s bisexuality to the tabloids. Hell, only like 4 people on the team knew. But Anaheim doesn’t have a huge hockey presence so he takes a chance. He gets out of team movie night under the guise of an upset stomach.

Instead, he Ubers to the nearest gay bar. The place is pretty packed when he gets there. He orders a drink and notices a floppy haired blond guy across from him. He’s a little too scrawny to pass as Connor, but Leon’s not asking for perfection. He asks the bartender to send over another of whatever he’s having before he makes his way over to him. Not-Connor’s name is Josh, and they hit off right away.

Soon, Leon’s pushing not-Connor up against the bathroom wall, grinding against him. Not-Connor gets down on his knees and sucks Leon off. It doesn’t take long until Leon’s shooting down his throat with a hand in his thick hair. He starts to get down so he can reciprocate, his jaw is gonna kill him tomorrow but he’s not an asshole, when not-Connor stops him.

“If you want, we can go to mine and you can fuck me,” he says, biting his lip.

Leon’s already forgotten his name, but he says yes anyway.

Not Connor is really fucking flexible, letting Leon hook his legs over his shoulders when he fucks him in missionary. They stop for a quick snack in the kitchen before Leon bends him over the counter and fucks him until tears form in the corner of his eyes.

Leon’s half an hour late for curfew, but no one says anything to him.

2) The Vacation

Don’t get him wrong, Leon is always honoured to be invited to All-Star weekend. However, if he had the choice of being interviewed for two days straight or sitting on a beach in california for a week, he probably wouldn’t put too much though into his decision.

But, he still had 4 days of vacation in Palm Springs with the team before he and Connor had to leave early. Connor had asked him if he wanted to split the cost of the penthouse suite, and because Leon’s room was on the other side of suite as yours and Connor’s room, he said yes.

They left for California as soon as their last game ended, leaving them too tired to party the first night, choosing to order room service instead. Leon gets a plate of honey garlic chicken wings, 12 of them to himself, spaghetti, and a slice of cheesecake because, fuck it, he’s on vacation.

When it arrives, he snatches the plate of wings before Connor could take one, he had a bad habit of saying he didn’t want stuff and then asking for a few bites. Normally, Leon doesn’t care but he’s been craving wings for weeks. Why did he choose the career with the strict diet regimen?

“You’re really not gonna share?” Connor asks, eyebrow raised.

“Nope,” he replies, popping the ‘p’ and sinking his teeth into his second one.

“You have 12!”

“No one was stopping you from ordering your own.”

Leon feels your eyes on him. He assumes it's because he’s foregone any and all manners. The sticky sauce on the wings coat his fingers, he can feel it in his beard but he does not care because they’re so good. He doesn’t care that he’s gone full barbarian-

“Leon do you want to have a threesome with us?” you ask and Leon chokes on a piece of chicken.

“What?” He nearly drops his wing, “Right now?”

Connor’s groans and runs a hand through his hair in exasperation, “This is not how we said we would ask him.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t explain it,” you giggle and gesture at how he’s hunched over his wings, “but this is doing it for me?”

“Really?” Leon asks incredulously and Connor looks at you in disbelief.

“I wish I could say it didn’t.”

Leon squints at you and Connor, “You’re serious about this?”

“Yeah,” You both respond.

“We’ve been discussing adding a third,” Connor asks, “We were going to ask when you weren’t beasting a plate of wings - I admire your ability to eat during a conversation, by the way - but someone can’t keep it in their pants.”

You shrug, taking a bite from your burger.

Leon contemplates it, eating his 8th wing in the meantime.

“Sure,” he says, starting his 9th, “But not tonight. I don’t feel sexy after I eat spaghetti.”

You laugh, “Leon, if you had to choose between only sex or only food which would it be?”

“Food,” he says with no hesitation, or regrets.

~~~

The next day Leon spends baking in the sun. Everybody had decided to spend the day in the attached private pool in the suit. He chirps Connor when his skin starts to burn about an hour into the day and pokes at his red shoulder when he joins Connor under the umbrella.

By the end of the day Leon is pleasantly tipsy, saying goodbye to the team as he lounges on the couch. When the door shuts, you settle yourself in his lap. Your skin is warm from the heat.

Your sheer white swimsuit coverup has been driving Leon insane for the past two hours the team has been in the suite. Although, seeing you in your bikini, watching the water glint off your tan skin as Connor splashed you with the water, was far worse.

“Hi,” you hum, leaning in, “You still down for this?”

“Of course.”

You kiss him, letting out a groan as you do so. Leon rests his hands on your thighs, and when you don’t rebuke him he slides them up, dragging your cover up with him. His fingers toy with the band of your suit bottoms. He pulls away from your mouth, instead kissing along your jaw, scraping his beard against your skin gently. Normally, he wouldn’t be so bold, but, when you first started dating Connor, he told Leon that he started to grow his beard out because you enjoyed the scratch on your skin. He pays attention to the places that draw tiny gasps or moans from you, noting them for later.

“I should have known that the two most impatient people in my life wouldn’t wait for me,” Connor says, holding your jaw to kiss you. Leon doesn’t miss the way your body goes limp against him when Connor’s fingers tighten ever so slightly.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a sub,” Leon hums, pulling your cover up all the way over your head. “She’s not,” Connor interjects, helping Leon with his task, “She’s a brat, but she’s pretty.”

“You’re mean,” you respond, “Should we move to the bedroom?”

Connor pulls you up, off his lap. Leon thinks that he’s just going to lead you, but Connor picks you up. You pull him closer with your legs, grunting as Connor settles you and starts walking to the master bedroom. Leon has to stop himself running after you.

Leon takes two minutes to get there, stopping for a quick glass of water. Two minutes is all it takes for Connor to fuck you from behing. Leon takes a minute, scanning his eyes over the two of you. Connor looks over and winks at him and Leon gets that same pang in his heart again. He stops, and you let out a whine in protest, pushing your hips back against him.

“Take her mouth,” Connor says, nodding towards the empty spot on the bed.

“For the record, I’m not thrilled that you’re bossing me around,” he says but obliges, pulling his swim shorts off on the way there.

He gives himself a few pumps before you reach over and take over, “You can put your hand in my hair,” you say, before you wrap your lips around the tip.

Connor’s hand slides along your spine, lightly dragging his nails as you start to bob your head, taking Leon deeper each time.

“Should we link arms in true Eiffel Towel fashion?”

~~~

Leon thought it was going to be a one-time thing, but the next morning he wakes up with your throat on his dick, and he can hear the shower running. By the time Connor’s back in the room, you’re cuming on Leon’s cock as he spills into the condom.

“You asshats,” Connor says, water dripping down abs, “I leave for five minutes.”

“You take the longest showers known to man, Con,” you tease, accepting his kiss.

That day the team planned on going to go sightseeing, but Leon makes the excuse of finding a girl at the hotel bar last night. Connor says that the two of you are going to take advantage of the empty penthouse. And you do. The next day, during the team hike, the three of you lag behind the rest, too exhausted to keep up.

~~~

Leon thinks that when they land in San Jose for the All Star game, that it’s the end, and he’s almost sad about it. But at the end, Connor and him get the same snap. You lifting up your McDavid jersey to reveal a lacey, navy blue bodysuit. The V dips tantalizingly low, Leon wants to lick the exposed skin and feel your body squirm against his as he teases you. He and Connor change faster than Leon thought was possible, and soon he’s upstairs in yours and Connors room. Connor fucks you first, not giving you quite enough to cum as he finishes, filling you. As Leon’s rolling on the condom, Connor’s whispering in his ear - don’t let her cum.

So Leon fucks you slowly. Holding both of your hands in one of his palms, he takes his time. His thrusts are rhythmic, as he grinds into you, watching your face contort. He rubs your clit, feeling the way you clench around him. He pushes you to the edge and waits before pulling out entirely. He rests his dick on your stomach, pulling off the condom as he cums on your stomach.

3) The Dinner

Connor gets sick from the WEM signing in February. (Whoever decided to have the Oiler’s star player do a fan signing with a thousand people in the middle of flu season needs to be fired but that’s besides the point.) Because of this, he can’t go to the Nuge’s team bonding dinner but he insists that you still come, the other girls would miss you.

So you go, and you press up against Leon every once in a while during drinks. At dinner, you sit next to him, keeping a hand on his thigh at all times. Your hand moves onto his inseam as you spoon risotto into your mouth. While Nuge and Bre are handing out deserts, you lead him down a hallway.

“Hold on...aha!” you push open a door, leading to a guest room. The bed is made, and there’s a picture of Nuge’s dog on the bedside table. You turn the picture down, “I don’t want Sophie to see what we’re about to do.”

“(Y/N), What about Connor?” he asks. Leon has spent the night with you and Connor multiple times since coming home, and he’s fucked you many times but Connor’s always been there.

“Connor doesn’t care,” you say, pushing him down on the bed, “He said it was fine. We can FaceTime him if you want.”

Leon doesn’t think you’re lying, but he does enjoy watching Connor bite his lip as he watches Leon fuck you from behind. He’s got a terrible angle, can’t really see much but just the sounds of you and Leon make him groan into the phone. You end the cal with a quick “I love you.”

“You coming over tonight?” you ask when you and Leon finished getting dressed.

“Obviously.”

Everyone’s tipsy enough that they hadn’t noticed the two of you were gone.

When Leon comes over that night it’s the first time he gets his hands in Connor. He’s just finished fucking you - he’d quickly become the one to call the shots when he was around - and Connor was watching him pound into uou with wide eyes, fists clenched at his side like he was told.

Leon had spent a number of nights with you and Connor by now, but he figured Connor wasn’t into men so he didn’t push it. But this time it was different, he didn’t know why, but it was.

Leon knee-walks over to him, planting his legs on either side of Connor’s thighs. He doesn’t kiss him, doesn’t know if that’s too much, but he slides his hand up the length of them.

Giving a handy for the first time is always a little bit awkward, Leon actually has to pay attention to what they do and do not like, but with Connor it’s easier. It’s still a little awkward, he accidentally squeezes Connor’s base a little too hard and he crumpled against him, but it’s significantly better.

(Later that week you’d have a conversation with Connor.

“You know I don’t mind if you wanna do stuff with Leo when you’re gone right?”

“What?”

“If you want to. You don’t have to but you seemed like you really enjoyed Leo’s hands the other day. Not that I blame you for that.”)

4) The Roadie

Leon isn’t expecting anyone to knock on his hotel door. He’s surprised when it’s Connor there. He’s antsy, cracking his knuckles.

“Hey,” he says, furrowing his brows at Connor’s uneasy demeanour, “everything okay?”

“Everything’s great,” Connor replies, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Do you wanna come in?”

“Wh-oh yeah sure,” he stutters like he didn’t realize that he was still outside.

Leon lets him in, and Connor walks to the chair on the other side of the room, but doesn’t sit. Leon eyes him as he sits on the edge of the bed.

“So I talked to (Y/N),” Connor starts.

“And…” Leon prompts.

“She said that if we wanted to mess around together on roadies then that’s fine with her,” he takes a deep breath “andivebeenthinkingaboutitandiwannatrymaybebutivenever-”

“Woah woah woah,” Leon stops him, “You’re going to have to repeat that way slower.”

“I was thinking that, if you’re down, then maybe I would be willing to try it?” he trails off at the end.

“Connor?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to sleep with me?”

“Maybe,” Connor takes another deep breath, “I mean I’ve never done anything with a dude before, but I kinda liked it the other day. But like, only if you want to.”

“We can fool around on roadies,” picking up is so much work, Leon would love to have a steady side piece - even though he doesn't have a main piece, “Since when were you into dudes.”

Connor rubs a hand over his face, “Don’t start with me. I’ve been having an ongoing sexuality crisis for a while. I love women, (Y/N) especially, but we’re tabling this conversation for, like a year.”

“Just one thing,” he says, finally sitting down on the bed next to him, “I don’t want you to….fuck me just yet.”

Leon wants to laugh, Connor’s so straight that it hurts, “Gay sex isn’t like straight sex, there’s a process. And, I don’t want to brag, but if I were to fuck you, you wouldn’t be able to walk for a week and you’re kind of important to the team.”

“So...you’re a bottom,” Leon teases, poking him in the shoulder.

“I think so? Obviously I won’t really know until I try it but I see the appeal….what are you?”

Leon does laugh at that, “ I usually top but I don’t mind taking it every once in a while.”

Connor nods, which Leon finds adorable. The last time Leon dealt with any kind of virginity was when he was losing his own (both times), and he’s kind of excited.

Connor leans in, kissing Leon softly. Leon pushes against them, hand coming up to card through Connor’s hair. A few moments later, he pulls away.

“What’s the verdict?” Leon asks.

“Your beard feels weird.”

“Good weird or bad weird,” Leon didn’t have a 5 step beard oil routine for it to feel bad.

“Good weird.”

Leon hums in approval. Connor leans back in, and this time Leon pushes him down on the bed and Connor lets him. He lets Leon trail kisses down his neck, chest heaving off the bed once Leon gets that spot at his jawbone that drives him crazy.

“You good?” Leon asks as he lowers himself between Connor’s spread legs. Connor nods, “If you’re uncomfortable, tell me and we stop.”

He takes Connor’s dick out of his shorts, only mildly surprised when he realizes Connor’s not wearing any underwear. He licks his lips as he starts to jack him off. Connor lets out a breathy moan as Leon drops his hound to the base of his cock a with a gentle squeeze. Leon leans forward, sucking on the head gently as he watches Connor’s face turn red. Leon bobs his head down, taking more down his throat each time. Leon digs his fingers into Connor’s hips to keep them down.

“Easy, baby,” Leon murmurs, not realizing the nickname was on the tip of his tongue until it had slipped out, “It’s been a while, you’re gonna have to give me a second before you fuck my throat.”

“ ‘M sorry,” Connor says, panting.

“It’s okay, Con,” Leon responds, reaching for Connor’s hand and placing it in his hair.

“Fuuck, Leo,” Connor grunts when Leon starts to suck on his head.

Leon finds a good rhythm, bobbing his head low and hollowing his lips as he comes up. Connor is groaning, Leon should probably tell him to keep his voice down given that they’re surrounded by the team but he doesn’t care.

Leon drops his dick, until the very tip of his cock, and sucks. Connor grunts, thrusting up into Leon’s hands before Leon starts to slide his hand up and down quickly, bringing Connor to the edge.

“Close,” he pants, “I-close, Leo, plea-”

Leon sinks his head down one more time before Connor hits the back of his throat. He sputters a little as Connor keeps spilling into his mouth. He feels a little bit dribble out, and when he finally pulls off, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

“How was that?” Leon asks, tucking Connor’s soft dick under the waistband of his shorts.

Connor has a hand thrown over his face, and his only answer is a groan. Leon can’t help but laugh.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I know my head game is strong.”

(Connor tries to give Leon a blowjob, but he gets a little too ambitious and chokes a few bobs in. Connor sputters and coughs, and Leon can’t help but chuckle as Connor grips his thighs, trying to catch his breath. He wants to try again but Leon stops him.

“You’ve done a lot today, you can try again later if you want to.”

“No, no I can do it.”

Leon explains that he doesn’t want Connor to bite his dick and Connor relaxes, giving him a hanjob instead. His pressure is a little light, so Leon wraps his hand around Connor’s and guides him until Leon finishes all over his stomach.

(Connor hesitantly runs a finger through the mess, before slowly raising his finger to his lips. He scrunches his nose in disgust. “Drink some pineapple juice, ugh.” and Leon laughs)

Connor leaves shortly after, and Leon definitely doesn’t replay the moment over and over again in his head.)

+ 1) The One Time he Stayed

When Leon pulls up into Connor’s driveway, he’s expecting the usual: play with Lenny, threesome, play with Lenny, dinner, play with Lenny, maybe round two, decide if he wants to drive home at 3 am (the answer is most likely no).

However, when he shows up Connor isn’t even home, which is not normal. Lenard throws himself at Leon when he walks through the door, knocking him down on the floor.

“One of these days he’s gonna be successful in his assination attempts,” you joke from your place on the couch.

“There are worse ways to die,” he says as he gets back on his feet, this time ready for Lenny’s high energy. Eventually Lenny decides Leon is not worth his time, padding off to his bed by the fireplace, so Leon sits by you on the couch.

“Watchya reading?” he asks, poking you in the side.

“My textbook detailing the different types and phases of psychosis,” you say, capping your highlighter.

“Hm,” Leon grunts, “Uplifting.”

“Very,” you place the book on the coffee table, “So Connor was telling me about your hook up on the roadie.”

Leon’s heart stops, “Connor said it was okay and you seduced me at Nuge’s so I assumed-”

“Leon, relax” you cut him off with a chuckle, “I’m not mad.”

Leon lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“And I did not seduce you at Nuge’s.”

“You led me down a hallway I’ve never been in just to have sex with me in their guest bedroom,” he raises an eyebrow, “that’s the definition of seducing.”

You mutter something that Leon can’t decipher under his breath which he knows means that he’s won this argument.

“Anyways,” you say, clearing your throat, ““Connor was gonna be here, but he had an appointment and now he’s stuck on the Henday but he’ll be here soon. We were talking and we were thinking, only if you wanted to, that maybe you could join us...as a couple.”

Leon isn’t sure he understands your proposal.

“What?”

“Would you like to join me and Connor as a third?” you ask, “If you don’t want you can leave before Connor comes home and we’ll never bring it up again.”

~~~

Later that day, when Leon is falling asleep with Connor on one side of him using his chest as a pillow and you’re on his other side tucked against him, he’ll think about what a strange road it was to get here. Connor’s already asleep, listening to Leon’s heartbeat as his head rises and falls on with Leon’s breath.

“So was this always the plan?” Leon asks when he feels you tracing something on his skin.

“Hm?” you question.

“Was this all an elaborate ploy to get me to join you and Connor?” he clarifies, “Because if so, kudos because I never expected.”

“No,” Connor mumbles against Leon’s chest, turns out he wasn’t asleep, “We didn’t expect to ask you to join us more than once in California but you’re too damn cute.”

“I never thought we would because I didn’t think Davo was into dudes,” you say, “We get any closer to an answer on the sexuality thing, Con?”

“We’ll get there when we get there.”

#nhl smut #leon draisaitl #connor mcdavid #leon draisaitl imagine #connor mcdavid imagine #leon draisaitl smut #connor mcdavid smut #nhl oneshot #nhl imagine #polyfic

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wish-spinner · 3 years

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look me in the eyes. I'm wearing sunglasses and also inside your phone so you can't but metaphysically please look me in the eyes. What are your Comprehensive Greil Mercenary Literacy Headcanons

i just made the face from the comic on the guy driving and he thinks abt penis. Cracks My Knuckles. get ready

- i think most of them are like. relatively bumpkinish in terms of how they grew up (i. also have hcs for several of them in terms of their parents + their professions but. thats Extraneous here) so i think that more or less, none of them were actually taught how to read as young children with the exception of soren

- soren is by far the Most literate like he can get through rlly dense and verbose texts with ease. his sageparent taught him the basics and from there on out he just kind of. had it down pat?? i think hes always read a lot. just to entertain himself or unwind

- rhys was taught by way of Bible Study basically. i hc that when he was ~12 he started clerical training and generally priests have the distinction of being Educated. him and soren are the only ones who frequently read for leisure

- titania is abt the same Literacy Level as rhys but shes less of a fucking nerd. she learned the basics while working towards Knighthood (bc while its different from irl knighthood, where u were most likely a noble kid who would be training for years and years as a squire + would already know how to read and write, i imagine crimea still likes its knights to at least have a grasp on the written word). and tbh since then??? shes always had sort of a management role in the mercs. im convinced she did the paperwork + finances before soren joined/was old enough

- mist!! is also rather literate!!! she was taught by a combination of all of the above,, images such as titania sometimes letting her watch her write and draft up payment documents. and then her and rhys in the infirmary and shes flipping through a book and asking him abt the odd word she cant figure out?? its Good. tbh mist is just the sort of person where if she finds smth of her interest then she wants to work towards it and get better at it!! shes got a determination abt it and she Did succeed

- oscar is in a similarish boat to titania in that he Is literate bc he was taught in his training for knighthood, not to mention that hes probably been doing the shopping since he was fairly young, so hes got both theory and practical situations under his belt. i cant imagine hes much of a writer however

- rolf!!!! when the three brothers join the mercs, rolf actively Wants to learn how to read!!! bc oscar can and he wants to do it too!!!! unfortunately oscar has spent the past little while being very very busy trying to make sure that the two kids in his care are not starving or freezing to death and thusly hasnt had much spare time to teach him. fortunately at this point mist more or less knows how to read so i think she helps him get going on it. and then a while later once rhys joins?? he helps to. rolf somewhat literate hours. hes allowed

- ike is also semi-taught by soren.... i think he Can read but not necessarily. well?? its not rlly smth that catches his interest beyond its very practical applications, nor has it ever been something hes Had to do. he can go shopping and read a map and thats all he really needs

- boyd is similar to ike except he actively finds reading + anything related to learning it to be a bit of a chore. rolf can read bc he had the desire to do so and found learning it to be fun but boyd doesnt particularly care and also he kind of hates it!!! he recognizes words from the marketplace plus the odd Excited lesson he received from rolf but not a whole lot else

- gatrie shinon and mia straightup cannot read at all. they were never taught and have never rlly sought it out bc of a combination of a) Other Shit Going On and b) its just never been overly relevant?? in life??? its easy enough to shop without it. just pick up the thing u want and ask how much it is. honestly gatrie and mia Might have learned how to write their respective names but shinon actually doesnt rlly. know how

#ask #my post #fe #tellius #headcanon #[prince meme format] you can Always send asks abt fe headcanons #its Always legal #emblemposting

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 3 years

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Dream SMP Recap (January 17/2021) - End of Week

As the Blood Vines spread across the Dream SMP, Jack Manifold’s infiltration of Snowchester gains a new development as Tubbo fills him in on plans to create nuclear weapons. Jack and Niki meet to discuss their plans.

Meanwhile, Foolish has begun to get settled in, building a house for himself and collecting resources.

As usual, a summary of the week’s total events is at the end of the post.

---

- Extremely early in the morning, Antfrost goes down to the spider spawner. Technoblade is there getting some levels for some reason.

- Ant goes to check the Egg. Without the containment measures, it’s breached the entrance.

- Ant takes some of the seeds to spread around, commenting on how nice the Vines look. He plants a seed right in front of Techno, but then gets second thoughts and breaks it -- only for Techno to pick the seed up while AFK.

- A new Vine has appeared by the Casino, but Ant is confused as this wasn’t where one of the seeds was planted. Another sprouted up in front of Puffy’s Mushroom.

- Ant then checks on the Crater. The Vines have formed a massive web at the bottom.

- He plants a seed on top of Fundy’s Glitch Cube.

- Another unplanted Vine has appeared on the Scenic Route by Eret’s Museum.

- He plants a seed in one of the towers of Eret’s Fortress, aiming for it not to be too obvious.

- He then plants a seed right on the Eret statue at the Castle.

- Foolish comes online to start gathering resources and make plans for a house

- He starts building a house in a savannah biome near a desert, far away from Spawn.

- Tubbo and Jack plot together. Tubbo’s been reflecting on L’manburg, and how Dream has all the power. He has come up with plans to make a “Dream deterrent.”

- He’s come up with an idea for something like the Manhattan Project. He wants to give Snowchester the capacity for nuclear warfare.

- He proposes that they create a mining company in Snowchester as a front, claiming that they’re simply looking into developing new techniques for mining with explosives.

Tubbo decides to call it:

Project Dream Catcher

- Jack thinks Tubbo’s made a big mistake. He’s given Jack the key to nukes! Tubbo has no idea what he’s done.

Jack just hopes Tubbo will get over Tommy dying.

- They begin constructing the headquarters.

- Ranboo does a Mediashare stream

- Niki logs on in her Secret City, which she’s been working on a lot off-stream. She joins the VC with Tubbo and Jack.

- Tubbo whispers to Jack that he doesn’t want Jack to tell Niki about the project. Niki messages the coords of the Secret City to Jack. Jack is amused that Tubbo is so naively trusting.

- Jack starts running off to head to the coords. Niki tells him that she’s been working on a library full of helpful information.

- Jack tells chat that he’s only going to tell Niki what she needs to know.

- Jack tells Niki that he’s been living in a new snowy commune, where the only other members are Tubbo and Tommy. He tells her about the hyper tunnel to Tommy’s base, and also the Manifold Manifesto.

- He informs her about the Wednesday meeting, and that he’s helping them gear up. Jack says this is fine, since they both want Dream gone as well.

- Jack then explains Project Dream Catcher. A nuclear weapons project. Tubbo wants to test them somewhere, and Jack says that what he’s thinking, is he might be able to lure Tommy to the coordinates of the test when it occurs, as Tommy has no idea about the test.

- The test will happen on the 26th, and Jack wants Niki to ensure that Tommy will be at that location at that time.

- Jack shows off his new poster.

Be Worse.

- He has still kept secret from Niki the location of Snowchester.

- Niki thinks that Tommy would never admit that he’s done wrong, and therefore she has to resort to these measures to bring him to justice.

- Both Niki and Jack are convinced that they’re doing the right thing.

- Niki starts building a cobblestone tower near the summer house railway.

- Jack says that what he’s doing is a necessary evil. He isn’t like Dream. The manipulating and scheming he does is for justice. In Jack’s view, Dream does this stuff just because he can.

- Karl logs on for a karaoke stream with the Dream Team!

- Karl sees the Crater and pretends to be shocked. Oscar-level acting all around.

- They do karaoke at Karl’s Nightclub! Karl, Dream, George, Sapnap and even Callahan all join in with the fun.

Upcoming Events:

- Futuristic Tales From the SMP Episode

- Tommy and Tubbo’s meeting with Dream (Wednesday)

- Nuclear weapons test (January 26th)

---

END OF WEEK RECAP:

1/11 - Nothing much happens

1/12 - The bathwater mishap

1/13 - Ponk and Sam help Tommy prepare

1/14 - Puffy’s Hero Arc, Dawn of the Eggpire

1/15 - Ranboo’s confrontation

1/16 - Foolish arrives

1/17 - Ant plants the seeds, Project Dream Catcher begins, Karaoke Night!

#dream smp #dream smp recaps #dream smp end of week recaps

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even-love-unreturned · 3 years

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Meanings behind Chain of Iron chapter titles (part I, Ch1-15)

1. The Bright Web

From Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s sonnet “Body’s Beauty” (1866), alternatively titled “Lilith”, written to accompany his painting Lady Lilith.

Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told (The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,) That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive, And her enchanted hair was the first gold. And still she sits, young while the earth is old, And, subtly of herself contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold.

2. All That Turns

3. Bitter and Sweet

4. A Good Name

From “This Marriage” by Rumi, date unknown.

May these vows and this marriage be blessed. May it be sweet milk, this marriage, like wine and halvah. May this marriage offer fruit and shade like the date palm. May this marriage be full of laughter, our every day a day in paradise. May this marriage be a sign of compassion, a seal of happiness here and hereafter. May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcome as the moon in a clear blue sky. I am out of words to describe how spirit mingles in this marriage.

5. The King is Dead

“The King is dead, long live the King“ is a well-known traditional saying, and is the first thing that comes to mind, though I’m not convinced that this is the particular source for this title.

6. Things To Come

There are way too many possibilities for this one to narrow it down. I’ll put two of them here:

One the poem “The Flesh and the Spirit“ by Anne Bradstreet, published in 1650. An excerpt:

In secret place where once I stood Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood, I heard two sisters reason on Things that are past and things to come. One Flesh was call’d, who had her eye On worldly wealth and vanity; The other Spirit, who did rear Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.

And the other is “Frost at Midnight” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, written in 1798. An excerpt:

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear Most like articulate sounds of things to come! So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt, Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

7. Tread Lightly

Perhaps “Requiescat” by Oscar Wilde, written in the 1880s. In the poem, the speaker speaks of and to an unnamed woman, who is buried and cannot hear.

Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow.

All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust.

8. To Bring a Fire

Most of the references I can find for this are Biblical passages, but none exact.

9. The Scars Remaining

Most likely from “Christabel”, an unfinished narrative ballad written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge from 1797-1800. The ballad focuses on a young lady named Christabel and her encounter with a strikingly beautiful stranger called Geraldine, who claims to have been kidnapped from her home. Christabel takes Geraldine in to share her bed, and they spend the night together. The story also involves Geraldine putting a spell on Christabel that leaves her unable to tell anyone about what they do or what Geraldine’s “true form“ is.

Brings to mind a certain other strikingly beautiful character in TLH who also does spells to a similar effect, doesn’t it?

This excerpt that includes the phrase “the scars remaining”, however, is about Christabel’s father and his long-lost friend with whom he had a falling-out, but who also turns out to be Geraldine’s father.

They parted—ne'er to meet again! But never either found another To free the hollow heart from paining— They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder; A dreary sea now flows between;— But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been.

10. The Damned Earth

Likely from Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “Lenore”, published in 1843.

Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise, “But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days! “Let no bell toll! — lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth, “Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the damned Earth. “To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven — “From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven — “From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.

11. Crowns and Pounds and Guineas

From an untitled poem (but often identified by its first line) by A. E. Housman, included in his poetry book A Shropshire Lad, published in 1896. According to Wikipedia, this collection sold “slowly at first, it then rapidly grew in popularity, particularly among young readers. Composers began setting the poems to music less than ten years after their first appearance.”

When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, “Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.” But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me.

12. Requiem

A requiem is a mass for the repose of the souls of the dead, or a piece of musical composition in honor of the dead. It’d be impossible to narrow this down to a specific quote, though.

13. The Wintry Wind

Likely from “The Withering of the Boughs“ by W. B. Yeats, published as part of his poetry volume In The Seven Woods (1903). Each of the three stanzas of the poem ends with the following two lines:

“No boughs have withered because of the wintry wind, The boughs have withered because I have told them my dreams.”

14. The Flaming Forge

From “The Village Blacksmith“ (1840) by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem makes use of the image of “the flaming forge“ twice.

And children coming home from school Look in at the open door; They love to see the flaming forge, And hear the bellows roar, And catch the burning sparks that fly Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

[…]

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, For the lesson thou hast taught! Thus at the flaming forge of life Our fortunes must be wrought; Thus on its sounding anvil shaped Each burning deed and thought.

15. Walk by Daytime

From poem V in “A Dark Month” by Algernon Charles Swinburne, written in May 1881.

Dreams that strive to seem awake, Ghosts that walk by daytime, Weary winds the way they take, Since, for one child's absent sake, May knows well, whate'er things make Sport, it is not Maytime.

Part 2 (chapters 16-29) here.

#chain of iron #tlh #the last hours #cassandra clare #chain of iron spoilers #and also sometimes the quotes cc uses as a chapter header don’t actually include the chapter title

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tcm · 3 years

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The Oscar Effect on Careers By Susan King

Does winning an acting Oscar change the career of the recipient? The answer is yes and also no. Take Brad Pitt, who won Best Supporting Actor last year for ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (2019). He’s a veteran superstar with over three decades in Hollywood. So, the award is more icing on the cake for his career. But that wasn’t the case when he earned his first nomination for Terry Gilliam’s 12 MONKEYS (‘95). Pitt was on a hot streak since gaining attention for his roles in THELMA & LOUISE (‘91), A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT (‘92), INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (‘94) and LEGENDS OF THE FALL (‘94), and his first Oscar nominations gave his career an even bigger boost.

Similar to Pitt, many young actors discovered their stock in Hollywood with Oscar gold, but nominations and wins have effected various stars’ careers in different ways. Here’s a look at various Oscar winners and how the award affected their careers.

Martin Landau

The Oscar has changed the career trajectory of many veteran actors. Martin Landau was making such TV movies The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island (’81) that just squandered his talents. But that all changed when he earned his first Oscar nomination for Francis Ford Coppola’s TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (’88), followed by a second for Woody Allen’s CRIMES & MISDEMEANORS (’89), eventually winning for his poignant performance as Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton’s ED WOOD (’94).

Ironically, Landau told me in a 2010 L.A. Times interview he didn’t think he could play the Dracula star. “It’s a Hungarian morphine addict, alcoholic who has mood swings,” he remembered telling Burton. “That would be hard enough, but it has to be Bela Lugosi! I said I don’t know if I can do this, but let’s do some tests.”

Makeup artist Rick Baker transformed Landau into the elderly frail actor. Burton, he recalled, looked at the tests and thought he was 50% Lugosi. Landau believed he captured the icon in fleeting moments. “I said if I can do it 10% of the time, I can do it 100% of the time. They have to accept me as Lugosi in the first five minutes or we don’t have a film. It was not an impersonation for me. He had to be a human being.”

Melvyn Douglas

Similarly, Melvyn Douglas, who was best known for his comedic roles in the 1930s and ‘40s in such films as NINOTCHKA (’39), had seen his career slow in the 1950s because of his liberal political leanings. But he came back to the forefront in 1960 after winning a Tony Award for Gore Vidal’s THE BEST MAN, and then receiving his first of two supporting actor Oscars for his turn as Paul Newman’s hard-working Texas rancher father in Martin Ritt’s HUD (’63). Seven years later, he received a Best Actor nomination as Gene Hackman’s father in I NEVER SANG FOR MY FATHER (’70), ultimately winning his second Oscar as the president of the United States in Hal Ashby’s BEING THERE (’79).

Luise Rainer

The German stage actress was signed to an MGM contract in the mid-30s. But the free-spirited Rainer, who considered herself an actress and not a movie star, was always at logger heads with studio head Louis B. Mayer. She told me in a 2011 L.A. Times interview, Mayer “couldn’t make me out. You know it was a little bit difficult for him. I wasn’t the type that he was used to. So, the poor man didn’t know what to do with me. For my first film, ESCAPADE [‘35], William Powell said [to him] you got to star that girl…My first film made me a star.”

Rainer won Best Actress as famed performer Anna Held in THE GREAT ZIEGFELD (’36) and as a Chinese peasant in THE GOOD EARTH (’37). All but one of her subsequent films didn’t do well at the box office and she left Hollywood. She made one film, HOSTAGES (’43), guest starred on some TV series including a voyage on The Love Boat and had a small part in indie film THE GAMBLER (’97).

Art Carney

One of the greatest comedic actors, Carney came to fame in the Honeymooners sketches on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Honeymooners series as Ralph Kramden’s (Gleason) best pal, the clueless sewer worker Ed Norton. He won five Emmys for his work with Gleason. Carney also originated the role of neatnik Felix Ungar opposite Walter Matthau’s Oscar Madison in the 1965 Broadway production of Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.

Well-known that he had a drinking problem, Carney wasn’t working that much in film or TV in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In fact, he tried to convince Paul Mazursky he wasn’t right for the filmmaker’s heartfelt dramedy HARRY & TONTO (’74) about a curmudgeonly old New Yorker who travels with his cat across country after he loses his apartment. Mazursky told me in a 2011 L.A. Times interview that no one wanted the part. James Cagney, Laurence Olivier, Cary Grant and even Danny Kaye were among those who turned him down.

He had seen Carney on Broadway in 1957 in a dramatic role in The Rope Dancers. “Of course, I had seen him in The Honeymooners. He didn’t want to do it,” noted Mazursky. “He said ‘I’m 59 years old and you want this guy to be in his 70s.’ I said, ‘Art, this is the first time I met you and you look like you are in your 70s – you’re balding, you wear a hearing aid and you have a bum leg.’ He told me, ‘You don’t want me, I’m an alcoholic.’ He had one bad night then nothing else. He had been out on a binge and he showed up on location in Chicago in a taxi in the morning loaded. I took him up to his room, put him in the shower and made him a pot of coffee. He was easy to direct.”

Carney won both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for his turn, beating out the likes of Jack Nicholson for CHINATOWN and Al Pacino for THE GODFATHER PART II. And he did some of his best work post-Harry including as an aging Los Angeles private detective in the charming THE LATE SHOW (’77) and as a senior who teams up with his buddies (George Burns and Lee Strasberg) to rob a bank in GOING IN STYLE (’79). He earned his sixth Emmy for the TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (’84), which was James Cagney’s last film. Carney’s final film was the 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger disaster LAST ACTION HERO. “I’m outta here” was the last line Carney ever uttered on film.

#Oscars #Academy Awards #31 Days of Oscar #TCM #Turner Classic Movies #Susan King

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imbellarosa · 4 years

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Let’s Talk Calm-ly about Two Loves

OR: When you’re a grown man who writes stories for a living, you definitely wrote your own weird bedtime story, too.

The TLDR here is that H has taken one specific listener around the globe, notably to Tokyo and Jamaica. He quotes an old Victorian Poet who was an awful human but who’s lasting legacy is the phrase “a love that dare not speak its name” which is - you guessed it - a reference to queer love. He also is super excited to spend what seems like the foreseeable future with this listener and has bought a little house with a garden of daisies with them and it’s very sweet and domestic. Anyways this is a wild time and it’s all under a cut because it’s...really a lot.

Anyways I think the people I owe thank yous this times around to are @queenlokibeth who had to listen to me scream about this for a while, Astrid, who screamed with me when this came out, and “M” who convinced me to finally get to work in this fandom. And, of course, all of the lovely people tagged below who’s work I used to build my argument.

1.) Who Wrote “Dream With Me”?

Well, not H, or so the story goes. Two other people (Steve Cleverly and Sanj Sen) did! I mean, right, okay, for a while I was like...that seems like an odd choice for a man who didn’t want to hand Two Ghosts over to his own band because it seemed too personal. He wrote on every song in both albums’ he’s released thus far, because he seems to be passionate about telling the stories he wants to tell (even if he won’t tell you explicitly what they’re about). But for a while, I was totally going with the flow there, and the rest of this analysis would still stand: the writer of this story definitely referenced a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and Harry’s own songs.

However, I then read this fun quote from the Co-founder and CEO of Calm:

“Well,” he said, “The the Harry Styles one is interesting because that came purely from Harry Styles himself...we took the approach of creating a sort of musical epic poem – he doesn’t sing, it’s spoken with poetry, but there’s a sort of musical sound bed to it and it’s pulling on things and themes that Harry’s fans really adore about him and associate with him. So his story was driven really by him – we really created a concept around him.”

- Chris Advansun, July 7th, 2020 via @hlupdate

And I thought, hmmm. This does not sound like a project that he was not involved in creating. From this point on (July, 7th 2020), I began to think of it as a three way co-collaboration between him and the other two authors. But this confused me a bit, because there was largely a nonreaction from the fandom. I was waiting for an actual transcript, because I always fall asleep to these meditation stories, but it was being referenced to as some sort of Y/N fic, which was...honestly not what I expected, but also not implausible, thanks to the ~lovely~ image this man has had since the age of sixteen. But also, twitter seemed to be concerned by other things at the moment, and no one was analyzing the story. .

In fact, I messaged a friend the day that this story dropped, because it had been kind of a shit show day on Twitter. Rumors were sort of flying about everyone and everything: had Liam shaved his head? Was he engaged? Had he and Maya broken up? Were Zayn and Gigi engaged? Had they broken up? Did Niall have a girlfriend? (this one was true lol). Were Elounor engaged? Were they pregnant? Had they broken up??? My personal fav was the bald Liam rumor, which he promptly put to rest in LP Act 1 by...having a huge mane of hair.

So then I thought - huh. Why has today looked like this? I’m not saying that there aren’t days that twitter goes wild because of boredom, because there definitely is - the articles about secret meetings in Italy that are coming out this week (8/12/2020) are proof positive. So that definitely does happen, but it doesn’t usually happen on the days that there’s a lot of content. And maybe I’ve just been starved for content in this fandom, but I would consider a 40 minute video quite a bit of content.

Then the transcript dropped. I’m using two as references - this one on Wattpad and also @carl-and-pearl ‘s version here (thank you so much for the transcript!!). We’re going to get into a more detailed description of what’s going on in the story, but the first thing I recognized immediately is that it was first person POV. I knew that going in, based on the number of Y/N jokes going around on twitter. Then I read it aloud, and I realized that it read like a letter. Like an experience specific to the writer and the reader. And while that’s not super uncommon to write about an experience from the author’s POV - I listen to a podcast called Nothing Much Happens: bedtime stories for adults which has a similar concept - I thought it was odd that they were trying to include both the author and the listener. I completely understood why the y/n jokes were pertinent. But at the same time, it felt like something had snagged in my mind - like a particularly annoying splinter.

The conversations I was having around this story - completely based on the content, concept, and my own instinct - was that this story contained specific references to one person. I thought that it did read like a love letter, and that most identifying features would have been taken out, but the essence remained. Which, once I thought about it, was something that H excelled at doing. Think about Sunflower Vol 6 and Adore You and Canyon Moon and even Watermelon Sugar and Golden. Ask yourself, What do I know about the person they are about? They have skin that browns, they have a secret, they have mesmerizing eyes, they’re willing to dance in the kitchen with him (to dancehall), they have a belly, they’ve been through hard times, they’re witty, they have an accent, and they have lips. I know - super specific right?

So the splinter grew into a thorn - what was I missing? And then - when I was looking for something completely different - I stumbled upon this old interview Harry did with Zach Sang and the Gang Show back in 2017. For context, he was being asked about Sweet Creature. As you can imagine, it’s hard for people to believe he wrote such a beautiful love song when he hadn’t ever really had a long term relationship (two hearts in one home?? Who did you move in with, you can imagine them asking. When did you have time?). So what did he have to say about this?

"In my opinion,” he explained, “I think most songs are written for one listener. Maybe there's one thing in there that only they'll notice about them.... It's so much easier to say something in a song than it is to say it to someone and I think it's really amazing to be able to communicate through that and be able to wrap up everything that you want to say in three and a half minutes and say it in a song."

- HS, May 3 2017

By this time, please believe that I was screeching. Seeing this felt like he put into words the exact feeling I had about “Dream With Me”. It felt like a nod to someone that I didn’t know, which made the story hard to listen to, tbh. Although, I will say that when I did finally listen to it, it knocked me out and gave me odd dreams so. Once was enough for me haha!

So my new operating theory is exactly what Advansun said: I think that H was the primary writer/the driving force behind the story. Because of the references I’m about to run through, because it feels like the way he tells stories, and because they admitted to him being more involved than they originally claimed. That’s going to be how I write the rest of the analysis - under the impression that H had a direct hand in the story that was being put forth. However, I think that the analysis itself would stand whether or not he wrote any of it. It would just be a more tenuous reflection of him than I believe it to be.

2.) How Do I Love Thee? In Two Ways.

Before I jump into the story, let’s talk a little about the poem that I want to compare it to: Two Loves, by Lord Alfred Douglas. Let’s be clear this is not at all a defense of who Bosie was - he was a terrible person, particularly in his later years, when he’d converted to Catholicism and turned his back on his younger self, and his partner, Oscar Wilde. He was violently anti-Semitic, and turned his back on his own community. I want to get this out of the way because I very much believe that we should examine artists for who they are. That is, after all, what I am trying to do here.

But his poem Two Loves has often been used - much to his disappointment, I’m sure - as an exploration of queer love in Victorian times. A line that I will be exploring more deeply in a second was in fact used against Oscar Wilde in his trail for indecency . He attempted - unsuccessfully - to explain it away, but it was too blatantly about their relationship for even the British Victorian society to ignore. I really, really recommend a read of this poem, because it is - despite it’s author - a good piece of work, which explores the themes of shame and love and longing between two men in that time.

I’m going to start with my own background, as someone who’s analyzed fandoms before. I first came across this poem in the Sherlock fandom, with this analysis by @the-7-percent-solution, when I was running in that fandom, and she explains the poem brilliantly in just a few lines. I’m going to take a little longer to run through it, but if you want a concise explanation and a brilliant meta, I encourage you to run to their blog and check it out. That fandom taught me most everything I know about catching symbols and recurring themes and “clueing for looks” and I love it desperately, still.

But we’re here to talk about this fandom, so on with the poem! Essentially, the poem outlines a dream the speaker had: In his dream, he’s standing in a field with flowers - beautiful ones of all kind - and he meets this young man with clear blue eyes and bright red lips and they kiss a bit and have a picnic, and it’s all lovely. If you think I’m kidding, I’m really not. Please, read it for yourself.

Anyways, after they did they did the whole picnic thing, the speaker and his date go on a walk in this field, where they come across two figures. The first is described as,

“...fair and blooming, and a sweet refrain Came from his lips; he sang of pretty maids And joyous love of comely girl and boy, His eyes were bright, and 'mid the dancing blades Of golden grass his feet did trip for joy; And in his hand he held an ivory lute With strings of gold that were as maidens' hair, And sang with voice as tuneful as a flute, And round his neck three chains of roses were.”

- Two Loves, 1894

The speaker, however, was drawn to the second figure:

“He was full sad and sweet, and his large eyes Were strange with wondrous brightness, staring wide With gazing; and he sighed with many sighs That moved me, and his cheeks were wan and white Like pallid lilies, and his lips were red Like poppies, and his hands he clenched tight, And yet again unclenched, and his head Was wreathed with moon-flowers pale as lips of death. A purple robe he wore, o'erwrought in gold With the device of a great snake, whose breath Was fiery flame..”

- Two Loves, 1984

Of course, the speaker immediately asks the second man who he is. The second man says, “My name is Love”. The first man corrects him quickly:

“ He lieth, for his name is Shame, But I am Love, and I was wont to be Alone in this fair garden, till he came Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.”

-Two Loves, 1984

The second man sighs and acquiesces, “Have thy will. I am the love that dare not speak its name.”

It was, of course, this last line that really gave the meaning of the poem away. It was the line that was put to Oscar Wilde as proof of a romantic relationship, it was the line that went down in history as a way to refer to queer love, and it was the line that first stuck out to me when I was reading “Dream With Me”.

The reading here is clearly that “Love” is the love that is acceptable to society - easy, sweet, and cherished. “Shame” is the love that happens in secret - beautiful, alluring to the speaker, passionate, anxious ( as can be seen in the clenching and unclenching of his hands), and proud. He refuses to call himself as anything but what he is. The first man may call him Shame, but he refuses the name, and instead, offers a qualifier to his own descriptor. He is still love, he is just the love that can’t be spoken about.

3.) Walking in Golden Fields of Sunflowers

Now let’s talk about “Dream With Me”. I’m ignoring the first few stanzas (from the line “Have you ever wondered” to “What the two of us can find”.) because those are pretty standard introductory paragraphs to a guided meditation. So we start with the line “Let’s travel now to moonlit valleys...”.

I’m going to do the same thing I did with “Two Loves” first. I am going to describe literally, in general terms, what happens in the story. Warning, I change pronouns from “they” to “you” because the whole thing confuses me, but note that I’m always talking about the speaker and the listener:

So after doing the standard intro, the speaker and the listener take a walk through the woods enjoying nature, particularly the grass, the trees, and the blue sky above. You’re already clearly in love. Then you’re magically on a raft, with cherry blossoms all around you. If you want a good visual for that, here’s a site that has pictures from a boat rental in Tokyo where you can snuggle on a raft in the Chidorigafuchi moat. And then suddenly it starts raining, and they (you) watch the rain for a hot second, and then the scene magically shifts again, and you’re under a porch (although I guess it could be the boat rental’s porch. They do usually have covered areas).

Kind of furthering that theory, they then lounge by the shoreline, skipping stones and hanging out, looking at the snow capped mountains. In case you’re curious, because at this point I sure was, you can see mountains from certain areas in the city of Tokyo.

Anyways, then it’s snowing, and you’re magically in a cabin, just chilling by the fire, and you fall asleep again. You wake up somewhere else.

Where are you now? Well, you’re on a tropical island filled with palm trees. As an American, my mind immediately jumps to the Caribbean, but I suppose it could absolutely be in the Mediterranean as well. The island has white beaches, mangroves, a turquoise ocean, and a gorgeous, peaceful atmosphere.

If you’re curious as to what a mangrove looks like - and I certainly was - they are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone and Jamaica is doing a massive restoration project involving primary school children to regrow this vital part of their ecosystem. More interestingly, there currently exist no mangrove forests in the Mediterranean, so my initial feeling that this scene would take place in the Caribbean was correct. On that note - again, because I was curious - Jamaica has gorgeous white sand beaches with turquoise oceans.

But I’ve gone off topic again! After you’re minds are “in tune” once more (trying to find a heartbeat, anyone?), you reappear in a meadow, with beautiful flowers of all kind, where you are now walking hand in hand through a field of sunflowers, which give the feeling a “warm and golden hue”. Then you come across a little farmhouse with daisies poking out (clearly I have no way of locating this anywhere in the world, but I assume that the UK has both sunflowers and daisies). It’s an empty house which was loved and left because of the passage of time, which inspires my favorite line in the poem: “ The thought of passing time inspires/A feeling that grows stronger”. It’s just...really sweet to me.

So, of course, they do what anyone would do when they come across an empty farmhouse, they go inside. And there, they begin to fall asleep, reflecting on all they have just seen, referencing other scenes of the poem: “ Moonlit valleys, Burdened forests, Gazing at the ocean. Summer meadows, Tranquil sunsets steeped in emotion”.

The next few stanzas are just going to be copy-pasted, and then I’ll go into them a bit, but this is the end of the poem, so they’re the final reflections;

“The tenderness we feel When we are close Two minds as one Surrounds us and connects us But we’ve only just begun.

For now we dream together Of all there is to follow. And know that sleep will keep us safe From now until tomorrow.

Maybe all the memories That we’ve gathered here tonight Are all dreams now remembered Or wishes in plain sight.

No matter what They’re with us now. For this night and forever. And every time we close our eyes They’re yours and mine to treasure.”

- HS, Dream With Me, via @carl-and-pearl

And that’s it! The literal story, in short, is that you started in a forest, then went to Tokyo (maybe) and then Jamaica (perhaps) and then back to a field of sunflowers and daisies in the UK (which is also a guess, it could be Italy or France or Idaho for all I know, but let’s call it an educated guess).

4.) My Dream Journal

So now that we know what happens in the story, how do we interpret this? Well, There are a few lines in the poem that I want to draw your attention to: the first takes place in the first part of this story, when you’re still in the forest. This is, I must say, the most direct reference to Two Loves in the whole poem/song/story. Both works are describing a walk in the woods with your loved one, and, in a fun reference in the middle of the story, Dream With Me says

The shimmering reflection Shows us smiling from above. But what we think But dare not speak is L-O-V-E love.

-Dream With Me, 2020

Remember that line I mentioned before? I am the love that dare not speak its name. Right, so that’s almost a direct quote. It also has a really fun nod to “I Would” (Would he say he’s in L-O-V-E?/Well if it was me then I would), but I digress.

This first part of the narrative, I feel, really sets up what the rest of it will look and feel like, in the same way that “Golden” sets the tone for Fine Line. (You didn’t think I was going to make a post about Harry and NOT mention Golden, did you?? If you did, I’m disappointed!!). So let’s take a look at what’s happening, and the language he’s using to describe it.

One of the best things about this poem is how vivid it feels. Of course, I’m about to argue that it’s vivid because it was based in reality, but let’s talk about the sheer amount of detail he uses to describe the place he’s walking through. The valley (canyon lmao) is moonlit, the grass and the leaves make mosaics of green, you’re walking by the heather (the symbolism of heather is good luck, admiration, and protection), the sepia sunlight breaks through the trees.

You know what it kind of sounds like? Sweet Creature. You’re about to roll your eyes at me! I can feel it! But listen, okay?

“Sweet creature Running through the garden Oh, where nothing bothered us But we're still young I always think about you and how we don't speak enough”

Which, to be honest, sounds like what they’re doing. They’re walking through the garden in the sun, not daring to speak about the Love that he (they both) feel, and instead refering to it in veiled Victorian terms.

And then we head to Tokyo! I know that you’re about to ask me why I think it’s Tokyo versus...idk, anywhere else? Well, for one, he went to Tokyo (to let it go) publicly in 2019. He was there for a few months, and there are some great pictures of that time:

Look! Here he is with his club owner friend and his dog, and a fun red bandanna! But let’s be honest, the dog really steals the show here. But wait! there’s more! More dog content, too!

This was on Jan 31st, 2019, and he’s taking the dog for a walk! Very cute! If nothing else, he spent a lot of time with dogs in Tokyo! And the city fits the description of the story. So I feel rather comfortable with my interpretation that this first date is a memory of this trip - or another - to Tokyo.

So what did “you both”do in Tokyo? Well, chill on a raft while the cherry blossoms flutter around you, clearly. You also refocused your purpose. What did he do in Tokyo in 2019? Well, he took time to think about and write songs for the album he was about to go record. Kind of like refocusing on what’s next, right? And then, in the story when “you both” had time to think amongst the lake and the water and the rain and the moon, and you’d come to the conclusions you needed to, you left. What did he do when he did the things he needed to? Well, he left, too.

And where did he go? Well, in real life, I suppose he went to do his job. But, in the story, you’re meant to be falling deeper and deeper into sleep, so it’s sort of like traveling backwards, you see? Like counting down to one. So you end up on this island with turquoise ocean and mangrove forests. I’m calling this Jamaica. Why? Well, the description fits, for one, down to the four types of mangroves that exists within its ecosystem.

And - probably the biggest reason - I can place him there, too. Here’s him in 2017:

I added this picture because the water around him....looks rather turquoise, doesn’t it? Kind of like he’s enjoying his time on a tropical island by the beach?? Oh, and here’s another one!:

The red bandanna makes a comeback!

So what are you doing in Jamaica, according to the story? Well, you’re hanging out, basically. Enjoying the beach and each other, of course! What else? To be exact, “[Your] thoughts dovetail and unify/ In tune two minds together”. I’m so glad that you’re tuned like an old guitar now! Congrats! Really happy for you!

What was he doing in Jamaica three years ago? Why, he was recording his first album, or so the story goes. I’ll tell you something: finding press for that album was literally the most difficult part of this whole analysis. I got a fair bit of the tattoo roulette with Kendall Jenner, and some things about Carolina, but the interview with Zach Sang took me like an hour and a half to find again to link. The fact that a lot of it has been buried is...not great, for posterity purposes. He’s going to want that one day.

But I’ve gotten off track again! We gotta go back and finish our story, right? What happens now? Well, this does:

hahahaha okay, I’m really sorry, but I had to. I’m not, actually, making it up though! According to the story:

“ As minutes turn to hours We drift off somewhere new. And visualize a stairway To a door we now walk through”

- Dream With Me, 2020

So maybe Louis was just...demonstrating for you.

Anyways! Where do you walk out to? A golden field full of sunflowers. You walk for a minute, then come across an old house with daisies popping up out of the garden. And that’s where the story ends. I guess you’ve made that farmhouse feel like home.

Now to the little reflection he does on the outro. The lines I want to bring your attention are: “The tenderness we feel when we are close two minds as one surrounds us and connects us but we’ve only just begun” and “Maybe all the memories that we’ve gathered here tonight are all dreams now remembered or wishes in plain sight.”

Let’s talk about the first sentence first. In the context of finding a home that could be a shared home, and a future, this is very much an “end of the story, beginning of our lives” sort of thing. You’re back from all over, and it’s time to settle down, and see what’s next.

And now the second sentence. I think this is the one that really drives my point about this story being a collection of memories he has - that’s what he calls it. The story is “gathered memories” that might also be called “remembered dreams” (think of how people say of vacations, “oh it was a dream!”) or you might call it “wishes in plain sight”. This feels in line with the rest of the story. In this stanza, he’s sort of letting you in a bit. If I’ve read this right - and I really think that I have - he’s giving the larger context for the story. It’s a collection of memories he’s had with someone he loves.

5.) Cool! Can you prove it?

I mean, I’d argue that if you read this far, I have proved it, but let’s make some more links, shall we? This was called a “muscial epic” that was “driven by him”. I’d argue that if I know my Victorian literature (thank you, Sherlock!), then he definitely does. Then there’s the fact that he quoted it, so. That did happen. And he knows what it means. And even if he didn’t, there were two other people on the story. Someone was more than capable of catching that one, and the fact that they didn’t speaks to intent. They want you to think of that phrase when you read this poem. They want you to think of that walk in the woods while you’re going on this one.

And, as for my assumption that this is for and about one person, well. Think about it. He said that he writes his songs for a single listener. I’m not saying it’s the same listener each time, let’s get that right, but it is always just for one person. With that, and with the assumption that he’s been involved in the writing of this story, I’d say that the same rule applies. He went with someone to Japan and Jamaica (J^2 haha). And, if I had to guess, it was the same person.

Why, you ask? Well, for one, if that weren’t the case, then this poem would no longer be for one listener, it would be for multiple. And, for another, imagine how awkward it would be to listen to it with his current partner and have to explain “oh, yeah that was the super romantic vacation I took with someone else” . And, I suppose that because I think that attitude of “refocusing” and “dovetailing” and “tuning” and getting excited about imagining all of the tomorrows with your partner speaks to a long term relationship breathing easily, you know?

I’m also going to argue that describing the aura around the house as “golden” was intentional, especially when paired with the location - in the middle of a field of sunflowers. Those are both direct references to his songs. And those two songs are particularly linked by the number 28. The third song that features 28 is Fine Line the song, but that’s a different story. Anywho! “Golden”’s bridge just repeats the word ‘golden’ twenty eight times (if you go here , you can count the bridge) and “Sunflower Vol. 6″ ends the song with 28 “boops” (believe me, I wish I was making this up. I’m not.). So then, once again, you’ve linked a story to two already linked songs.

And, even if you don’t buy the intentional repetition, they’re linked another way, aren’t they? The color scheme and the sun symbol. Sunflowers were named because of their sun-like appearance. They turn to face it. They symbolize loyalty and adoration. And then, of course, the sun is - say it with me - golden. And it - like the person in golden - waits in the sky, beautiful and dangerous and constant. And here that symbol is, in a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. At home.

This whole story feels like you’re taking the time to find that heartbeat that you think you might have lost, and sort of coming back to a space where you understand that this is what you want, now and forever. It feels like finding a home that could be yours forever, and it feels like walking through some of the moments that remind him of that.

It really is rather lovely, if you think about it, especially since he has a tendency to attribute “home” to people rather than place, in his songs. So it’s like. Going all around the world and always being at home.

#harry styles #calm #dream with me #two loves #honestly man #im happy for you #but ewww #be less sappy please #i mean #SOME OF US DONT HAVE THAT YET HAROLD #hahahaha i think im funny #long post ts #idk how else to tag this but im really proud of it #okay now i'll do the penguin song #promise hahaha

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