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exo-can · 3 years

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Growing Pains: Send My Love (To Your New Lover)

A collection inspired by Adele’s album 25

A/N: Sooo, it’s been a while lmao.

Please note that this is part of a series, although this chapter has enough in it that you can infer what is going on so it can be read by itself.

Previous Chapters:

When We Were Young (Smut)

I Miss You (semi-smut)

River Lea(Smut)

Warnings: Smut (like a lot yo. Probably the filthiest thing i’ve written ok.) , cursing, choking, hairpulling, Yoongi is not happy about your confession but has emotional constipation so chooses to take it out in ~other~ ways

Sunlight casts it’s warm glow over you, body growing hot under the mountain of blankets you'd haphazardly thrown over yourself late last night. You don’t move though, letting the rays of light burn against your eyelids as you bask in the afterglow of sleep. That is, until you felt the slickness of sweat in the crevices of your form. Sighing lightly, you shift on the couch and feel the heaviness begin to fade from your limbs as stiffness takes its place. The apartment is quiet, the city too. That magical sunday haze always makes it seem like the world is running at half-pace, if only for a few hours in the morning. Slowly, you crack your eyes open just enough to catch a glimpse of the clock hanging on the wall above your tv. 11:14… you note silently. Woojin must have left for work without waking me.

And just like that, your calm morning is gone, spirited away by a fresh wave of emotions that you can no longer chalk up as only guilt. A second sigh escapes you, though this one was much heavier than the first. Pushing the blankets away from your body, you sit upright on the couch. Rubbing the remnants of sleep from your eyes, you straighten the crumpled outfit which you’d never bothered to change out of last night. Spotting your phone on the coffee table, you pick it up with a yawn and tap the screen to life. A couple emails, some notifications from various social media platforms and one text that makes a soft smile curl your lips upward without your knowledge.

Yoongi 4:38am

Did you get back okay? You could've stayed you know.

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

"It's me." the words had sounded timid as they'd left your mouth, even by your own ears.

“I know.” He didn't sound surprised, which irked you. You knew what he said on the roof, but a part of you still worried that this was a game to him. A game in which he knew he was currently holding the winning hand. “Caller I.D."

“Right.” A faint heat bloomed on your cheeks as the elevator doors gave a soft ‘ding’ and opened to the apartment buildings lobby. Plopping yourself down on one of the plush leather chairs, you fiddled anxiously with the sleeve of your oversized jacket. A dim crackle of radio silence echoed across the speaker, not quite sure what to say now that you’d actually dialed his number. You tried though, a feeble “I-” making it’s way up from your vocal cords before the line went quiet again.

Thankfully, Yoongi was the first to break the tension. “Do you want to come by? I would’ve offered at Luna’s but…”

“No, I’m glad you didn’t. I’d rather not broadcast what we’re up to to them.” You answered honestly. It wasn’t that you didn’t love and trust your friends. It was just that it was much harder to explain what you were doing when you yourself didn’t even really know. “But yeah, I would… if that’s okay.”

“I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t want you to, Y/N.” Yoongi reassured you, making your insides twirl. “I can come and get you. You still at Luna’s building?”

“I am, but that’s alright. You’re already at home.”

“It’s not far.” He insisted. “I don’t mind. Besides, this way you don’t have to wait for a cab.”

You bit your lip, and responded. “As long as you’re sure.”

“I am.” A rustle could be heard on the other end, which you could safely assume came from his pushing his arms into his jacket. “I’ll be there in ten. Wait for me in the lobby, okay? It’s cold out.”

This made you giggle. Thoughtful and protective as ever. “Yoongi, it’s July.”

“I know but,” he replied with a sigh and you wondered if he was making that cute exasperated face that he used to make whenever you teased him, “just humor me, okay?”

“Okay.” You said, the remnants of laughter still present in your voice. “See you soon?”

He hummed in agreement before adding, “I’ll text you once i’m there.”

“Alright, bye.”

“Bye.”

The line went dead and immediately you began to fidget, nerves beginning to set in. In all honesty, you didn’t know what to expect when you went over there. There wasn’t time on the roof to discuss the details of what this arrangement would entail. Everything with Yoongi was grey, reminding you of how your relationship had started back in college. He never was big on discussing this type of stuff, you remarked silently. Yoongi was and always had been a man of action, not words. Words he saved for music. Once upon a time, you had found this incredibly frustrating. Now however, you were grateful that you could explore your rekindled relationship, whatever it may be, without the pressure of definition. Perhaps it was time that made the craving for clarity you had when you were younger wane. Or perhaps it was the fact that diving deep and defining what this was, meant you’d have to face the demons residing in your head. Whichever, you knew that there was one thing you’d have to lay out on the table for both of your sakes. As much as the thought of doing so made your heart clench and your gut churn with dread.

The screen of your phone lit up suddenly, a new text flashing up on the lock screen which read:

Here. Black car right in front of the doors.

Gathering yourself up from the couch, you took a soothing breath before stepping out of the building. Sure enough, a black car sat parked directly in front of the doors which gently clicked shut once you’d let go of the metal. Seeing the car, it was suddenly that much clearer to you that Yoongi really had worked hard in the time you’d been apart. As college kids, neither of you had driven, the cost of having a car in the city being too much for either of you to justify. Now however, it seemed Yoongi didn’t have a need to pinch pennies like he used to. The black car parked in front of you acting only as evidence of this fact. It was nothing obnoxious, but you could tell that the car had cost a fair amount more than your used Honda. Steeling yourself, you grasped the sleek handle on the door and climbed inside.

Settling as gracefully as possible into the luxurious leather seat, you sneaked a glance at Yoongi. A pang of guilt washed over you, realizing he had already changed into sweats and a simple white t-shirt before you’d called. You let a frown turn the corners of your lips downward. “Thank you for picking me up.”

A small chuckled emanating from his chest made you look up from his clothes. His face was encased in the blue glow of the lights from the dash of the car. His hair was slightly tousled, blonde tufts just long enough to sweep over his eyebrows. A teasing smirk played at the edges of his mouth while his dark eyes regarded you.

“What?” You fought the urge to squirm under his gaze.

“It’s been years and you still haven’t learned to just let people do things for you, huh?”

Rolling your eyes, you gently pushed at the hand that was draped over the gear shift. “I just don’t like being a bother.”

“You never are.” His blunt response made you blush, your gaze travelling down to your lap where your fingers toyed with one another.

There was no need to look up at him, you knew he had a pleased expression on his face. Playing with you had always been one of his favourite things to do, if only because of the color it brought to your cheeks. Shifting the car into drive, he pulled away from the curb.

Both of you fell silent as Yoongi drove, though it wasn’t uncomfortable. Lingering familiarity with one another eased the tension alongside your earlier banter. Turning your eyes toward the streets that passed you by, you wondered what his place was like. Did it measure up to the car? Your mind attempted to conjure up an image of what type of place you pictured Yoongi living in. However, everytime you tried to picture him living somewhere posh and luxurious, like the car, you couldn’t. The Yoongi you’d once known liked urban places. Area’s full of little nooks and crannies hiding the best of what the city could offer by the people who were its life blood. Hell, you couldn’t even count the number of times he’d led you through obscure alleyways and because ‘I swear, it’s the best in town’. And frankly, he’d always been right. Though that never stopped you from teasing him, calling him a hipster and laughing when he rolled his eyes. You didn’t even realize you were sporting a small smile while recalling all old memories until you felt it drop.

It really hadn’t been far, just as Yoongi had assured you. The car ride only lasted about 15 minutes before he was turning a corner to come before tall wrought-iron gates enclosing an area that was towered over by a few highrises. It was then that you realized that the car really did match the house as Yoongi unrolled his window and gave an amical wave to the man sitting in a small booth just on the other side of the iron bars. The man gave him a friendly grin before opening the gate for Yoongi’s car to pass through. Rolling his window back up, you sidled up to the passenger door, gawking at the height of the buildings before you. Yoongi’s fingers drummed against the head of the gear shifter as he pulled into a parking garage. As he drove to his space, you couldn’t help but notice that all the cars you passed were on the same caliber, or higher, as his own. Reaching his own parking spot, the car came to a stop and you unbuckled your seatbelt. Stepping out of the car, Yoongi locked the doors and motioned for you to follow him.

All the way up to the apartment, you had the distinct feeling that he was watching you and the feeling only heightened once you were inside. You did your best to school your features, not wanting to come off as rude, but you couldn’t help your eyes from widening as you took in his place. From the entryway, you could see into his kitchen and lounge. Both were impressive. The kitchen was decked out with white cabinets and marble countertops while the living room was big enough that you were positive it could house the entirety of your small shared apartment. But the real thing that caught your eye was the view.

Floor to ceiling windows made up the wall to the outside world and with the height you were at, you could see nearly the whole city. Lights twinkled in the distance as you let out a breathless, “Wow.”

“You like it?” Yoongi asked, his eyes still hovering over your frame as you slipped your shoes off to move closer to the windows.

“It’s beautiful.” You replied honestly, your gaze raking over the city. Eyes drifting down, you could barely make out the man sitting in his booth at the gate. Dimly, you noticed no one milled about the street down below, this area’s inhabitants much more used to staying within their pretty walls. You really had been honest; this place was beautiful materialistically, but something about it just seemed a little cold to you. There was no hustle and bustle here. It almost felt detached from the city. It wasn’t that you didn’t understand the appeal of being removed from the loud streets and neon signs, it was just so far from what you had known Yoongi to love when he was younger. These thoughts raced in your mind and before you could think better of it, you slipped, “but-”

“But?” Yoongi had padded across the hardwood floors to you while you were in thought, handing you a glass of water that you hadn’t even heard him get.

Quickly, you arranged your features into a warm grin, muttering a ‘thanks’ and taking a sip from the glass before speaking again, “I just always pictured you living somewhere more… lively.”

Insecurity flashed across his face so briefly, you wondered if it really had been there at all as he rearranged his expression into the indifferent look you were well acquainted with. A hand came up to scratch the back of his head as he replied, “yeah, I guess it is a bit… much, isn’t it?”

“No, Yoongi.” You rushed to say, worried you’d hurt his feelings. “It’s just a surprise is all. I knew you worked hard since we graduated, I just didn’t realize how hard.”

This seemed to appease him, but you could tell that he knew you were trying to make him feel better from the slight downturn of his mouth. Nodding, he motioned to the white couch in the living room. Relief flooded your veins at the realization that he was as content to drop the subject as you were when he said, “sit with me?”

Nodding, you padded your way across the hardwood floors to the couch, settling down in the middle. Yoongi followed, plopping down onto your right, leaving you to immediately question your decision making skills as the scent of his cologne engulfed you in the close proximity. A pale arm came to rest on the back of the couch as he wedged himself into the corner, legs spreading comfortably. A knee knocked yours and you forced yourself not to gasp at the contact. Slim fingers drummed the cushion, close enough to you that you were sure your hair was grazing the tips each time he lifted them. A jolt of desire churned in your stomach, unable to quell the images of where else those fingers had touched not weeks prior.

“So, what about you?” Yoongi’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts.

“What about me?” You replied, trying to hide your blush as you took a sip of water, willing the liquid to kill the flames inside you before placing it on the coffee table in front of you. After all, you had no idea what to expect from tonight. You had no idea what Yoongi, or even you, expected from this causal relationship. Though your body certainly seemed to know what you wanted.

“What are you doing now?” He said. “I just realized that I never really asked. Did you apply at that newspaper after college?”

You hid the wince at the mention of that particular venture. “Um, I did, yeah.”

“And you got it? That’s great, Y/N-”

“Oh, no, I didn’t get the job.” You responded quickly, suddenly finding the spacious room more than a little stifling.

“Oh, fuck, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay!” You plastered a bright practiced grin on your face and looked up at him, the same grin you’d given all of your relatives when they asked the same thing. Not wanting to make it more awkward, you blurted, “I actually got a job at a gardening magazine. It’s proofreading but the hours are great and the pay is pretty decent too.”

“Well, that’s great— wait,” He paused, a look of confusion passed over his face and your stomach dropped. You should’ve known better than to say anything to him of all people. “Proofreading? I thought you hated doing that.”

A melancholy chuckle left your lips. “I did, but honestly it’s not so bad. I could do worse.”

He hummed, not in agreement but acknowledgement and the fact that you could hear the difference irked you. “Are you gonna stay there for a while?”

It felt as though a crack had split your smile and Yoongi was peering into it. Were you really still so easy for him to read? It wasn’t fair, not when you felt like you were constantly chasing a shadow. The remains of the smile slipped from your lips and you considered his question. You shifted as you contemplated, your knee now leaning against his fully while your body twisted so you could face him more. Fingers brushed against your shoulder as you spoke softly. “Honestly? I don’t know anymore.”

“Why’s that?”

“I just—” you sighed, your brows furrowing together unable to help the way Yoongi seemed to pull the truth from you in any situation, “when I started there, I told myself it was only temporary. But as time went on, I guess I just started to get comfortable, y’know? And now, I don’t know, it’s hard to just up and leave something without guarantee that it’ll work out. So I stayed.”

He leaned forward slightly, almost making you jump when the pads of his fingers found the nape of your neck and kneaded the skin softly. It was casual; he only needed to move a few inches to reach your skin, his arm still resting nonchalantly over the back of the couch. If you were anyone else, you wouldn’t have really thought it was anything besides a comforting gesture. But you weren’t just anybody. The action made your mind sift through countless memories in which he’d done the same. Once he’d found out the action was something you found comforting years ago, it had become a sort of habit for him. You didn’t know if he had meant to do it or if it was only natural after having dated all through college, but the gesture instantly had you feeling more at ease. However, the touch still made your breath catch.

Hearing the stutter in your breathing, Yoongi hesitated. His fingers came to a stop and made to pull away as he muttered, “Sorry, I should’ve asked if it was okay before I—”

“Wait,” before you could think anything of it, your fingers curled around his forearm to halt him in his retreat, “it’s okay.”

It wasn’t actually, but with the way tension you hadn’t even known you’d been clutching on to had begun to seep from your limbs at his ministrations, you couldn’t muster the energy to deny yourself a reprieve.

A faint smile wormed its way onto his lips as your head tilted so that the skin of your cheek rested on his arm. In a voice so small you were sure he hadn’t meant for you to hear, you heard a barely there ‘cute’ just as his fingers resumed drawing shapes into your skin. Not wanting him to catch on that you’d heard, you drew your thanks into the skin of his arm, your own fingers mirroring the movements of his on your neck. With each shape drawn, Woojin grew more and more distant in your mind. Your resolve to confess grew weaker with every stroke while the butterflies in your stomach roared, finding the will to ruin this moment dismal.

“So,” you said, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen over you two, “is this your move now?”

His head quirked and an eyebrow raised. “My move?”

“Yeah,” there was a teasing tone in your voice. “Instead of food stalls and diners you bring the girls up here to woo em’?”

A raspy chuckle shook his shoulders, a sly smirk stretching his lips. “Honestly, I haven’t had any of this long enough to try it. Why, is it working?”

“Meh,” you acted indifferent, shrugging your shoulders playfully and jiggling the arm that was half slung around you. “I prefer to be wined and dined.”

“I’d hardly call plastic stools, soju, and chicken ‘wined and dined.’”

“Hey,” you pouted, raising your head from his arm. “I’ll have you know I loved those stupid plastic chairs.”

“Don’t I know it.” He snorted. “You almost ripped my head off when you found out I went with Jin without you that one time.”

He wasn’t lying. You really almost did. “Well, yeah, but that’s because I always thought of it as our ‘place.’”

An amused look crossed his features. “Our ‘place?’”

“Yeah, y’know,” heat flared in your cheeks, absentmindedly squeezing his forearm out of embarrassment and mumbling, “like couples those in movies and shit have a ‘place.’ I thought of that as ours.”

“You thought of a street food stall as our ‘place’?” The mirth in his voice did not escape your ears.

“I mean, not just one. More like the street.” You replied sheepishly, earning you a genuine gummy laugh. The grips you had on each other loosened as his body rocked forward, his free hand landing on your thigh as his frame shook. Your heart did a somersault in your chest as the distance between you diminished. His laughter earned him a slap on the chest as your bottom lip jutted out. “Don’t laugh.”

“Sorry, it’s just, there?” His laughter died out, his hand on the back of the chair coming up to carry the weight of his head as he rested on it, your hair fluttering against his bicep. “Of all places?”

“Well, excuse me Mr. High-and-mighty. You have somewhere better you’re thinking of?”

“Your old apartment.” His answer was immediate.

“My apartment?” You questioned.

“Yeah,” he replied, a fondness glazing over his eyes as he looked down at you. “We had a lot of important moments in that place.”

Like watching a movie, memories flashed in your mind. Good, bad, and somewhere in between; all sorts of things happened in the confines of those walls. Some you wished you could forget. Some that you wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. It was only now that you realized just how close the two of you had gotten while you talked. His thumb rubbed at the skin just above your knee and he had drawn one leg of his own up onto the couch, folding it under himself so his shin pressed against the length of your thigh. The white shirt he wore billowed against your arm and upon looking at his face, you realized that if you leaned in just the littlest bit more, you would be able to stretch your neck up so your lips would meet. Looking at him, you finally saw behind his carefully constructed walls. The tender look on his face as his ink coloured irises gazed down at you told you that it wasn’t just you who treasured those memories. Eyes flicked from yours down to your mouth and you could feel his body coaxing you to just bridge the gap. Squirming under his gaze, your eyes dropped to your lap.

“I lived there,” you said with a shaky voice. “Doesn’t count as a place.”

An amused puff of air escaped him, fanning across your cheek down to your collarbone. Minty.

“So, is this how you get the guys now?” You couldn’t help but peer back up at him at the question. The hand that was on your leg rose to grip your chin, his thumb giving your bottom lip a featherlight stroke. A surge of heat rocketed through you at the contact. “By being a sore loser and pouting when they prove you wrong?”

This time, you chuckled, repeating his earlier words, “why, is it working?”

“Yes.” He admitted instantly, your legs pressing together in response. His hand holding you in his grip, dark eyes drifted down to where his thumb sat just below the ridge of your bottom lip. Your own eyes dropped too, watching raptly as his mouth came closer and closer to your own. The air felt heavy, your hands coming up to fist his shirt as your tongue snaked out to wet your lips, catching the salty tip of his thumb. Letting your eyes drift back up, you saw that his irises had become darker, his lids drooping slightly and exuding lust. He was going to kiss you and god, did you want him to. But as soon as you felt the slightest brush of his lips against yours, the face of your boyfriend popped into your mind. Jerking, you pushed him just far enough away that you could drop your head in shame.

“Yoongi, wait.” You fought the trembling in your voice. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

Ever-respectful, Yoongi immediately released you. His hand fell into his lap, your skin instantly mourning the loss as he leaned back away from you. Studying his face, you could feel your heartbeat quicken and your palms growing clammy. He watched as you tried to summon your courage, the only sign that he was worried being the way his brows scrunched to make the faintest ripple in the skin of his forehead. Taking a slow breath and trying not to pay attention to the way your face suddenly felt so much warmer, you spoke, “I should’ve told you this on the rooftop, but I-”

Your throat clenched around the syllables and your hands curled into fists where they had fallen on your lap when he had backed away from you.

“Hey,” Yoongi replied, reaching out to the hand on your lap before hesitating. Deciding you needed the comfort, he let his hand lower to stroke the skin. “It’s all right. You can tell me now. Or not. I never meant to push you into anything and if I have-”

“No! It’s not that. It’s nothing you did.” You immediately responded, your hand flipping to hold his tightly in reassurance. “I- um, I’m actually seeing someone.”

“Oh.” His hand was still in yours but you felt it go limp in your grasp. It was almost comical the way his eyes widened before his carefully constructed mask slipped into place. The silence was suffocating. If you tried, you could probably hear every car within a block of his place right now. Ink irises swept over your face and lowered your head, guilt surging through you. Sensing that you’d outstayed your welcome, you began to rise from the couch only for his fingers to contract and pull you down to the couch again. Landing rather ungracefully, you met his eyes once more. “Is that why you freaked out the next morning?”

You didn’t have to ask for context. “Yeah, it was him on the phone.”

“Hm…” He hummed, more to let you know that he’d heard you than anything. His eyes studied your face, as though searching for something. But what, you didn’t know. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“Um,” you replied, “I don’t know if you noticed, but I was a little bit busy freaking the fuck out.”

He gave you an exasperated look, his grip still tight on your hand. “I mean that night.”

You opened your mouth to answer, only to shut it again. Why hadn’t you? You’d been drinking, but not nearly enough to make you forget something so vital. Even when you were having sex, you knew it was wrong in the back of your mind, and yet you hadn’t let out a peep. Sifting through your memories, you couldn’t really find a definite answer. At least you had the decency to shoot him an apologetic glance. “I should’ve, I know.”

“And after?”

“I didn’t think your number was the same?” It was a sorry excuse and you both knew it.

“You didn’t think to ask the six friends we share?”

“I-”

“He doesn’t know does he?” The question he cut you off with was more a statement than anything.

“No.” Something in Yoongi’s eyes seemed to click, causing shame to make your ears burn as you spoke.

“The way I see it,” Yoongi let out a small, humourless chuckle before a smirk settled onto his mouth and his thumb started to rub slow circles into the skin of your hand. “Most people who want something like this to go away,” He shifted closer on the couch and his palm began to glide up your arm. Your eyes shifted to your lap, knowing exactly where he was going with this. “Probably would’ve either stayed away or told me to shove off.”

The fingers of his right hand fluttered past your left shoulder as his shirt brushed the skin of your arm from his leaning closer. Everywhere he touched felt on fire, the soft pads of his fingertips pushing your hair behind your ear and exposing your neck did nothing to help. And then you felt his breath. Warm and flooding your senses enough that you couldn’t hold back a shudder. He chuckled darkly, letting his mouth come so close to your ear that you could feel the ghost of it along the shell. His voice was thick when he spoke, “you didn’t do either, so what exactly do you want?”

Your voice was hardly a whisper, heat beginning to churn inside your belly, “I don’t know.”

“I think you do.” He said with a laugh as his fingers grazed over your neck to cup your jaw. Gently, he turned your head so you looked up at him, his nose nearly grazing yours. He was close, so close, and yet never invading your space. Never taking that last step of intrusion without your permission. The city lit up the edges of his hair as he let your breath merely mingle with his own in the last inch of space between you. His thumb stroked your jaw lightly while his dark, hooded, eyes searched yours. “What do you want, Y/N?”

Your tongue felt heavy in your mouth, peeking out to wet your lips before swallowing the lump in your throat and saying, “He can’t find out.”

And then his lips were on yours. A mewl catching in your throat as your eyes fluttered closed because finally he was kissing you. Lips pillowed yours while his fingers left your jaw to tangle themselves up in the hair at the nape of your neck. Your hands flew from your lap to curl into the fabric of his shirt once again, pulling him ever closer. You were the one to swipe your tongue across the seam of his lips, practically begging him to grant you access. A month. One whole month since you felt this much heat pooling between your legs and all the man had done was kiss you, for christ sake.

When Yoongi finally let his tongue slide against yours, you really did mewl, making him chuckle into the kiss. He took the opportunity to explore your mouth, mint painting over your taste buds as one of your hands crawled up his chest to grip his shoulder. When your mouths parted, you leant forward, chasing his lips until a sharp yank of your hair moved you back into place. Seemed Yoongi hadn’t forgotten that you liked a little pain with your pleasure. Lips trailed across your cheek to your jaw as Yoongi made a humming noise, his hand fisting your hair to pull your head back far enough so he had full access to your neck.

“You seem a little wound up.” He remarked smugly before placing a wet kiss just under your jaw.

“N-no marks, Yoongi.” You moaned, fingers digging into his shoulder.

“‘Course not.” He chuckled, letting his lips and tongue glide down the column of your neck, leaving a wet trail in their wake. Teeth grazed your neck, but he did as you asked. “Wouldn’t want him knowing someone else is doing his job better, would we?”

You couldn’t reply, as the hand that wasn’t curled up in your hair grazed the skin of your thigh, inching ever higher. Instead, you let out a breathy exhale, the hand on his shoulder gliding to the nape of his neck. Lips travelled back up to yours, kissing you in slow, sensual pecks that wouldn’t be nearly enough to satiate you and he knew it. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to take the initiative to tangle his tongue with yours, you tried to take control. Leaning as far into him as you could while he still held your hair in a fist, you snaked your tongue out to touch his puffed lips. A chuckle rumbled through his body to yours before he slipped away. His fingers released their hold on you and he shifted to rest his back on the arm of the couch, his left leg tucked to line your thigh while the other dangled off the couch. Heady eyes appraised your tousled appearance, raking over your flushed cheeks to where your fingers were digging into your thighs. With a thoroughly smug smirk, he patted his thigh.

Perhaps the motion should’ve made you annoyed, the implication that you were something akin to a pet more than clear. But instead it merely threw gas on the fire roaring in your belly. Maybe a little too eagerly, you moved so you could straddle him as he stretched his legs out under you. There was no denying the heat that flashed in his eyes as you bunched the fabric of your skirt so you could lower your weight down onto him. The jean material sitting in the crevice where your ass met your leg and just barely covering your core from his eyes. Not that it would be on for much longer if you had it your way. Both hands came to cup his face, tilting it up so you could crush your lips to his. His own digits snuck under your jacket, dragging over the curves of your waist as his tongue slid over yours. One hand slid to the small of your back while the other roughly palmed your breast, making you break the kiss with a hiss. It seemed your breast was only a stop though, his right hand continuing its journey up to push your jacket away from your shoulder. Taking the hint, you leaned back to rid yourself of the coat. Yoongi let his right hand come back to your thigh, skimming his hand back and forth over the length of it, inching higher with each stroke.

Dropping the jacket on the floor unceremoniously, you hastily reattached his lips to yours. As you kissed, your body started to follow the motions, gently rocking on his lap in an effort to encourage his digits to just dip under your skirt already. You huffed in exasperation when the pads of his fingers left your leg completely, feeling him grin impishly into the kiss. His teeth caught your lower lip as his hand began to tug your shirt out from where it was tucked into your skirt. Releasing your lip, he commanded gruffly, “off, Kitten.”

Obeying immediately, you used both hands to peel the loose tee off before depositing it on top of your jacket, your core clenching at the nickname. As soon as you were free of the shirt, Yoongi wrapped his arms around your waist, wrenching you into him. Clutching his shoulders to steady yourself, wet kisses coated your skin from your clavicle to the mounds of your breasts. Cold patches of saliva coating your chest made you shiver when his breath ghosted over them. The digits on your back traced up your spine until they reached their destination, deftly unhooking the clasps of your bra. The straps hung on loosely to your shoulders until Yoongi took it upon himself to slide them down your arms. As soon as they were revealed, Yoongi’s eyes fell heavily onto your breasts. Throwing the bra to the side, his hands clutched your waist as he brought his mouth to a nipple. A tantalized sigh escaped you when his tongue slipped out to flick a pert bud, only to circle it after. Dropping your head back, pleasure bloomed inside you as he teased your nipple until it was hard before moving on to the other. Hands clutched your skirt, forcing it up and over your hips to expose your cloth covered sex. Satisfied with his ministrations, Yoongi pulled back to rest once again against the arm of the couch as his hands slid down to cup your ass. Fingers digging into your cheeks, he guided you into rocking over him, causing you to let out a moan.

“You’re a mess,” he pointed out, arousal heavy in his voice making it rasp in a way that you’d always loved. His words made you clench around nothing, grinding your hips into him for friction that you desperately needed and feeling his bulge through his sweats. “I haven’t even touched you where you really want it and you’re a mess. You’re practically drooling. I bet your panties are soaked.”

It was true, they were. You could feel it every time you rolled your hips, your underwear sliding over your weeping core so it was slick with your juices. His words did nothing to help, each syllable shooting straight to your groin. Pleased with the fucked out nod that you gave him as a reply, one of his hands released your ass, the other coming to your hip to still your movements. Nudging you to support your own weight, you were about to whine in protest when his free hand traced your slit lightly, making the noise die in your throat. With the pace of a snail, Yoongi moved his thumb to press into your clit, slowly circling the sensitive nub. A shuddered breath escaped you as you stuttered, “Y-Yoongi.”

“What is it, Princess? That desperate already?” He teased, speeding up his thumb every few strokes only to slow down once more. You couldn’t bring yourself to care that you were practically putty in his hands already. You blamed the weeks of fantasizing about him for it. When you didn’t respond, Yoongi leaned forward to bite at the skin of your breast with a growled demand. “Answer me.”

You were certain he could have felt the way your sex clenched at his rough treatment. Yoongi had always been dominant in the bed, but never like this. Never this vocal. However, it was a welcome change; a new trait of his you were more than pleased to discover, though a little curious as to what brought it on. Swirling your hips in an effort to get more friction from his touch, you let out a whispered “yes.”

“Good.” He hummed, fingers flicking your underwear to the side so he could finally touch you. His index ran along the length of your slit, to collect your juices. Pulling the finger back to gaze at the slickness that now coated the digit, he questioned, “how long has it been since you were this wet?”

You nearly groaned when he brought the finger to his mouth, sucking the traces of you off his skin. “A month.”

Popping the finger out of his mouth, he gave you a delighted laugh. “That so? Boyfriend can’t seem to get you going?”

“Not like you.” Your answer was immediate, leaning over to peck him softly as your hands strayed to the edge of his shirt that had ridden up from when you’d rocked over him. You moved your mouth to his neck, slipping your hands under his shirt to feel the soft skin of his stomach.

He hummed in approval, letting his head fall to the side to give your wandering lips more room. When he spoke, you could feel the rumble of his voice against your lips, “Good answer.”

Sliding his hand back to your core, he swiped his thumb over you, capturing some of the moisture before returning it to your clit. Much to your relief, he had deigned to reward you with a steady circular rhythm that instantly had you gasping into his neck. When his middle finger delved inside you, you couldn’t keep your nails from digging into his abdomen. Pleasure bloomed inside of you as he dragged the finger across your walls and out before inserting it again. Moans left your lips in encouragement, muffled as you sucked at his neck. Sure, he wasn’t allowed to mark you, but there were no rules against marring his skin. Your hands explored the expanse of his chest, nails digging in every few thrusts and pushing the shirt up higher. When he inserted another finger, you keened and dragged your nails from his sternum to his pelvis hard enough to make him hiss, though he didn’t stop you. Slowly but surely, your hips began to rock in tandem with his hand, the thumb on your clit now only making contact when you rolled down onto his hand. Yoongi curled his fingers inside you and you shook, rolling down harder as your walls spasmed. Unable to focus on anything other than his fingers, your lips ceased their onslaught on his neck to bury your forehead there instead, heat consistently rolling through you. With every push of your hips you could feel yourself edging closer and closer to completion, your movements gradually getting rougher as you desperately chased it.

“Fuck, Y/N.” Yoongi groaned, “look at you go.”

His words spurred you to lift your face from his neck to see what he meant. Uncurling from your tucked position, you felt a spurt of pride when you noticed the way the milky skin of his neck was splattered with red, some spots dark enough that you were sure they’d form a bruise. Eyes crawling down to where his hand was buried inside you, you realized that at some point when you’d begun to lose yourself to the pleasure, Yoongi had stopped stroking your walls. Evidently, your rocking had been hard enough that he’d had to lower you down until his hand was resting against his own pelvis, stagnant. Embarrassment made your hips stutter when it dawned on you that you’d been using his hand like a toy.

“Don’t stop,” he growled, the hand on your hip squeezing almost painfully as it encouraged you to continue rutting against him. The pull and push of his hand, eased you back into motion, his eyes locked on where your center swallowed his hand. When he was sure you’d continue without his help, the hand on your hip trailed up to cup your breast, tweaking the nipple under his thumb. The only movement from the hand inside of you was a gentle curl that accompanied each thrust of your hips and made the tension in your lower abdomen begin to mount. “That’s it. Fuck yourself on my fingers, Princess.”

Below you, you could feel how hard Yoongi was. His thick length brushing against your inner thigh in a way that you knew couldn’t be satisfying for him, though he couldn’t seem to care less. You ached to touch him, make him feel even a modicum of the pleasure he was so effortlessly pulling from you. But with the position you were in, it was impossible. So instead you clutched the hand that was gripping your breast and brought it to your lips, Yoongi’s eyes watching you curiously as you did so. Pushing his index and middle finger together, you wrapped your mouth around them and swirled your tongue around them as though his digits were a much different part of his body. Satisfaction made you suck when you heard the barely there moan that escaped his chest at the motion. Shallowly, Yoongi began to thrust his fingers into your warm mouth.

“Shit, you really are desperate for me aren’t you?” He remarked, an amused mask cast over his features, but you could see the lust underlining his irises. Instead of answering verbally, you merely sucked, coaxing his fingers deeper into your mouth. A chuckle rumbled in his chest as his fingers in your core began to move again as a reward. “He really must not be taking very good care of you. Or at least not like I do.”

There was just enough insecurity in his voice for you to catch it, though Yoongi stamped out any chance for you to soothe it by clamping his fingers in your mouth down to trap your tongue while the ones buried in your heat began a brutal pace.

“Bet I can make you feel better with my fingers than he ever could with his dick.” Yoongi’s mouth tilted into a wicked grin at his own challenge. You already have, you wanted to say, but the fingers holding your tongue down and the spasming in your core morphed it into a strangled moan. The tension in your belly was taut now, threatening to snap with any plunge of his fingers. When he scissored his fingers inside you, you knew you were gone. The deep rasp of his voice in your ears breaking the floodgate when he said, “C’mon, Kitten. Cum for me.”

A tidal wave of pleasure lit up your nerves like a christmas tree. The intensity of it made your body curl in on itself as your hands clamped down on Yoongi to keep yourself steady. Hips stuttering, you rode out the waves as Yoongi’s fingers in your mouth slithered out, a lewd string of saliva strung from his fingertips to your lips. As your movements slowed, so did Yoongi’s, until he gently pulled his hand away from your mound. Blinking away the blurriness in your vision, you watched as Yoongi spread his fingers in the soft light of his apartment. Traces of you coated his digits, shining when they caught they caught the light as he brought them to his mouth. Hooded eyes locked with yours as he cleaned his fingers of your essence and despite the orgasm you’d just had, you felt your sex clench greedily.

Leaning forward, you pulled his fingers from his mouth so you were free to capture his lips with your own. Releasing his wrist, you rested a hand on his shoulder as the other snaked down his body. When you finally reached your desired destinations, you squeezed through the fabric he still wore. Yoongi broke the kiss to let out a breath, warming your lips as you cupped him through his sweats, the length of his dick solid under your touch. Eager to return the favour, your hand slipped under the bands of his clothes, taking him in hand and relishing in the feel of the contact. Trailing your lips to his throat, you pumped him, a soft groan rumbling under your kiss. You didn’t mark him any more, merely brushing across the marks on him before delving further. Truth be told, you were frustrated that he’d opted to keep his shirt on for the time being, aching to see and feel the skin hidden by it under your lips. You didn’t let it distract you though, shimmying down his body and positioning yourself so that you straddled one of his legs while the one that was closest to the edge of the couch moved so his foot was flat on the floor. Once you were settled, you tugged on his bottoms. Lifting his hips, he let you tug them down just enough that his erection could escape.

Keeping your eyes on him, you curled over to place a chaste kiss on the tip, the slow strokes of your hand never ceasing. You saw him try and fail to hide a shudder, evidently hesitant to show that you had just as much of an effect on him as he had on you. Resting your hand on the base, you kissed down his hard length. He cast an annoyed look, which made you smile. You let your tongue loll out of your mouth, dragging it up the underside of his cock before taking the tip on your mouth. Sucking lightly, you tasted the first hint of precum on your tongue and hummed, watching as Yoongi’s eyelids drooped with pleasure. Never did you think you’d miss the taste of someone's cum, and yet here you were. The desire to him surged inside you as you took him into your mouth, your hand sweeping over the inches you couldn’t yet reach. Yoongi gathered your hair in his hand, swirling it so it made a coil that wound around his grip to keep it from impeding your efforts. Resting the hand on the back of your head, he urged you further down his length with every bob of your head. The sound of slurping echoed in the apartment as you did your best to pleasure him in all the ways you remembered him liking. Taking a breath through your nose, you let your hand fall to his balls, cupping and massaging at them. Yoongi’s jaw fell so his mouth hung slightly open when you sucked him down until his tip hit the back of your throat. His grip in your hair tightening as he muttered “shit.”

The reaction made your stomach clench, rekindling the arousal between your legs. Sliding back up, your saliva coated his dick, the veins bulging just beneath the skin. Diving back down, you took him as far as you could, your free hand gripping his shirt in as you fought the urge to gag. He let out a small groan, his hand holding your head in place. Swallowing around him, he couldn’t keep his hips from jerking upward, tears springing in your eyes but you remained still.

“Fuck, I forgot how good at this you are.” Your lower half grinded over his leg in an effort to ease the tension that had built up in your core again as your heart swelled with pride from his praise. Easing up only a little to take a breath, you lowered even further, only stopping when the tip of your nose touched the skin of his groin. The moan you let out around him made Yoongi tipped his head back, relishing in the constriction of your throat on him and the feel of you rubbing yourself against him. Tears leaked out of your eyes as you struggled to not gag with him so far down your throat, failing once or twice. Though Yoongi didn’t mind, in fact he seemed to get off on it, a murmur of “good girl” falling from his lips each time. When the pressure became too much, you eased up once again, inhaling deeply. As soon as you went to take him in again though, the hand gripping your hair held you back. Brows furrowed in confusion, you fixed him with a questioning look as he sat up, dragging you up into a sitting position in the process. Yanking your head back to kiss a line up to your throat, he mumbled “I’d rather cum doing something else.”

A chill skittered down your spine, letting him push you around like a toy as he maneuvered you how he wanted. Wrapping an arm around your waist, he moved you to straddle him once again, lifting his leg that brushed the floor so it was once again on the couch. Holding you tightly, your chest was crushed to his, each breath making your breasts push against him. Weaseling a hand down in between you, you keened when he grabbed the base of his dick and ran the tip along your folds, quickly moving yourself to pull your panties to the side for better access. You were so wet again that you heard the slippery sounds of his head being coated in your juices. When he rimmed your opening, your head clouded with lust, desperation coursing through your veins and causing words to tumble past your lips without so much as a second thought. “Yoongi, please just fuck me.”

“Hm,” he hummed, holding you up so that you couldn’t sink down on him like you wanted. A smirk toyed at the edges of his mouth again as he admonished, “I think you can beg a little better than that.”

“Please,” Surely, you thought, this counts as some form of torture. A gasp escaped you when he let the tip of his length delve into you and proceeded to hold it there as words started to babble from your mouth. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you for a whole month. You make me feel so good, Yoongi. I can’t stop thinking about how you fucked me on that stupid chair and how much I just want you to do it again, how much I just want to feel you inside me again. I want you to stretch me out, fill me up, and make it so you have to carry me home. Please.”

“Much better.” His praise is accentuated by his length finally slipping the rest of the way inside of you, finding little resistance from how wet you were.

A pleased sigh left your mouth as his now free hand swatted yours away from your underwear to hold it to the side himself, thumb hooking into the material and pinning it to where he gripped your thigh. The hand that was slithered around your waist fell to your hip as he leaned back, letting you move to start rocking on him. There was no denying how he made you feel. You hadn’t been lying when you’d begged. The proof being in how perfectly he filled you and how you’d hardly moved at all yet you already felt your walls pulsating around him, begging for the feeling only he seemed to be able to give you. You never felt like this when you had sex with Woojin, or anyone else for that matter, and the admission of that frustrated you. What if staying with Woojin was the mistake and not this?

It’s only sex for right now, you reminded yourself, picking up the pace as though to prove it to yourself. Focusing on how Yoongi’s dick stroked your walls in an effort to will away your thoughts, it was almost as if the man below you knew your thoughts were straying. He bent his legs under you to prop his heels against the seat cushion before drilling upward to match your thrusts, effectively whisking away any thoughts that weren’t about him. Your mouth gaped and you tilted your head back, feeling the coil in your stomach getting ever tighter. Apparently, he felt it too, immediately wrenching you off him when it felt on the verge of snapping.

The groan of frustration you gurgled out was cut short by him muttering gruffly, “Stand up.”

Without protest, you shifted your shaking legs to stand. Yoongi moved to sit before you, his hands groped up the back of your thighs until they met your ass. Kneading your cheeks roughly, he tipped forward. Your hand curled in his hair when his tongue peeked out to glide over the skin of your lower stomach in a wet kiss, punctuated by his teeth nipping at your hip. Unceremoniously, he yanked your panties down before standing. Stepping out of the fabric, you flung them to the side with your toe as Yoongi’s mouth met yours, his hands gripping your hips. Your tongues danced as you felt Yoongi pivot the both of you so you now had your back to the couch. Pulling away from the kiss with a nibble at your lower lip, he turned you abruptly. The silken skin of his cock brushed against your ass, the leftovers of your sticky fluids transferring from him to you. Lips brushed against your ear as a hand traveled up your curves to rest against the top of your spine as he all but growled, “bend over.”

He hardly gave you the chance to obey, his palm pressing into your spine to tilt you forward. Bracing yourself by gripping the top of the couch with your elbows bent so your back was nearly level, the hand on your spine slithered to your head. Fingers gathered your hair in a fist and yanked it toward him like a leash, forcing your head to pull back, your spine to bend, and your ass to push into him with a hiss. At the sound of your pain, the hand loosened to your own dismay.

“Too much?” You immediately shook your head ‘no’. There was no doubting the pleased note in his voice as his grip tightened again to pull on the strands of your hair and he replied, “good girl.”

A foot nudged in between yours, edging your feet outward to spread your legs for him. Guiding himself to your entrance, he thrust himself inside you. His free hand gripped your hip, blunt nails digging into the skin as he pulled back and thrust himself back in with a resounding snap of his hips. The pace he set picked up right from where you’d left off instead of building up. Your shrill cry of pleasure echoed in the apartment, the new angle allowing him to hit deep with each push of his hips. The force of his movements jostled your body, the strength causing your breasts to sway underneath you. The feel of cotton brushed against your spine as Yoongi’s body curled over yours. His dick was filling you in the way you had only felt when you were with him, your brain reduced to mush as he pushed you more toward the couch with every thrust until your arms were bent and the only thing keeping your head from falling into the top of the couch was the grip on your hair. Your jaw hung open, moans and mewls escaping your lungs as you pushed backwards to match his rhythm. You were close, nearly letting out a sob when his pace slowed.

“Tell me,” his breath fanned against your ear, your mind swirling with pleasure. His words were slightly laboured, most of his effort going toward plowing you into the couch. “How many times have you thought of me when you were with him?”

“Before the party?” You replied, breathlessly. “Never.”

“And after?”

You didn’t have the capacity to feel embarrassed at the moment. “Every time.”

At your admission his hips snapped into you with renewed vigor and you couldn’t help but feel a little satisfied at the fact that Min Yoongi was jealous. Pain tingled at your scalp as Yoongi pulled on your hair, forcing you to follow as he tilted up, causing your arms to straighten. Fingers trailed up your stomach, briefly pausing to palm your breast before travelling further upward until they reached your neck. Digits gripped your throat, his forearm finding its home in the valley of your breasts making you feel the way the muscles tensed when he tightened his grip to limit your breathing. A moan was caught by his hand, the sound coming out choked and gurgling. Yoongi pressed his forehead into your shoulder, a grunt pushing past his lips when your walls began to contract tellingly. With a few more thrusts, you came undone.

A moan rumbled against your back, your legs trembling as ecstasy crashed over your body, the pressure at your neck heightening it. Your vision became spotty as wave after wave of pleasure coursed through your veins. Velvet walls spasmed around Yoongi, his hips stuttering at the sensation, though continuing to guide you through your orgasm. When a faint feeling began to fog your mind, you reached up to tap Yoongi’s hand. Immediately he released your neck and you gasped in a gulp of air, the sopping sounds of Yoongi pistoning into you rang in your ears as he desperately chased his own end. With a few more snaps of his hips and a harsh grope of your breast, Yoongi finished. A groan of pleasure hung in the air as he hastily pulled out, painting your back with ropes of white. He shifted a hand to stroke himself, riding out his high. A piece of you couldn’t help but feel disappointed that he didn’t want to cum inside of you like last time. In the back of your mind, you had to wonder if this was him drawing a line and if it was for his sake or yours. As the last of his orgasm dribbled out, he released a breath of hot air that you felt faintly caress your shoulder before wrapping his free arm around your stomach. For a moment the both of you were silent, exhaustion making your chests heave while your bodies began to cool, his cum making goosebumps rise on your skin as it began to dry.

“Was that okay?” Yoongi asked suddenly, breaking the silence. His voice was soft as he spoke, a stark contrast from earlier. “Not too rough?”

You brought one hand away from the couch to rub at the arm that encased you, “it was more than okay.”

His chest vibrated with a chuckle. “Good, you always were kinky but I thought I’d check.”

Changing your tune, you slapped his arm. “I’m kinky?! What does that make you?”

Yoongi struggled to keep the giggle from his voice when he pinched your side and quipped, “a willing and considerate partner.”

Feeling your legs beginning to shake, Yoongi sighed and pulled away from you, releasing your body from his hold as silence fell over the room once again. You did your best to stay upright, only faltering a little before your legs remembered that they were, in fact, not Jell-o. Your hands ached when you finally released the other from its hold on the back of the couch and stood up straight. You hoped that your vice grip hadn’t done any damage to the material. A shuffling of fabric could be heard behind you and you turned your head to peer at Yoongi as he walked across the living room to the washroom. Collecting your clothes off the floor, a twang of regret pulled at your heart that you hadn’t been able to see his body as you’d fucked. However, it was quickly snuffed out by surprise when you caught yourself thinking, there’s always next time. You mentally began to prepare yourself, remembering how sick you’d felt after you’d last had sex with Yoongi, and even Woojin for that matter. For over a month you’d felt disgusting after having sex and now, when by all means you should feel that way, you didn’t. Even with the thick rivulets of cum from someone who was most definitely not your boyfriend slowly dripping down your spine. But why?

Your contemplation was interrupted as Yoongi gently placed a hand on your shoulder, a slightly worried look on his face as he bit his lip and turned you to wipe his cum off of your back with a rag he had gotten. Scratching the back of his head, he nodded toward the other side of the living room.

“There’s a bathroom there if you want to get cleaned up. I have clothes you can wear…”

You knew what the unspoken question was in that statement and as much as you wanted nothing more than to accept his offer, you couldn’t. “I should probably go back home.”

He nodded, unsurprised by your answer. “Yeah, I guess he’ll be waiting for you, hey?”

“Yeah.”

He was silent and you felt a stab of self-consciousness now that the heat had been taken out of the room. Glaringly aware that you were standing naked in his apartment you held your jacket to your chest so it at least partially covered your body. “At least let me make you something to eat before you go. There wasn’t much left at Luna’s after the guys dug in.”

Lifting your eyes from the pile of clothes you crushed to your chest, you shot him a soft smile. “I’d like that.”

Nodding, he turned and shuffled toward the kitchen as you made your way to his bathroom. Flicking on the light and closing the door, you quickly began to attempt to make yourself presentable. Sliding your skirt and bra on, you decided to forego the panties that you shoved into your jacket pocket. Your hair was the worst of it, thoroughly mussed from Yoongi’s hands. When you did your best to smooth it down, you couldn’t help but notice that the follicles felt sore, though you didn’t actually mind much. The reward of his roughness was most definitely worth the pain you felt between your legs and where his hands had handled you. Once you were satisfied with your appearance you exited the bathroom, a savory aroma wafting to your nose.

“Ramen?” You asked, coming to stand beside him at the stove.

A grin made his lips turn upward as he stirred the noodles in the pot, remarking, “only the best for my hook-ups.”

“Oh.” You deadpanned, a flare of jealousy licking at your insides. “So, I’m not the only one coming around then.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He chuckled. “Not that you really have a right to complain here.”

That made you frown guiltily. “I-I guess you’re right.”

Noticing your sullen expression, he started to backpedal, “Sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”

“No,” you shook your head before tilting it to lean on his shoulder to stop him from thinking he’d upset you. “I mean you really are right. I pretty much told you I’m not going to stop what I’m doing so it’s not fair for me to expect you to.”

He hummed, his features screwed up in thought. “Then, what happens now? I’d rather not wait another month before seeing you again.”

“Me either, honestly. We do whatever we both feel comfortable with, I suppose.” You could feel the tension melt from Yoongi’s frame, though your own seemed to bask in it. Anxiety chewed at your soul, despite what you said, at the thought of this all blowing up in your face, but you still didn’t want to let this pass by. Deep down you knew that if you did, you would never stand a chance at ever letting Yoongi go with a million ‘what if’s’ taking residence in your head. Sensing your thoughts running rampant, a hand glided to rub at the small of your back as a sweet distraction. A small sigh left you as your head fell to his chest and his arm coaxed you to press your body into his. “Just like you said on the roof, I want to explore this.”

“Okay,” Yoongi agreed, nodding. “So, let’s say I asked if you’d kiss me right now. How comfortable are we feeling with that?”

An amused giggle escaped your lips, craning your neck to look up at him. “So comfortable that I just might say yes.”

Pushing yourself up onto your tippy toes, you slanted your mouth against his. The kiss was soft, lips welcoming one another as old friends and sending a warm feeling through your chest. Your fingers crawled up to rest your palm against his sternum as you pecked him for a second, third, and fourth time. Pressing circles into his chest with your thumb, you broke the kiss to brush your lips against his cheek before falling to the flats of your feet. Turning his attention back to cooking, he waited a few more moments before shutting off the burner.

“Go sit.” He said, jerking his head toward the breakfast bar at the kitchen island.

You nodded obediently, extracting yourself from his warmth to slide onto one of the barstools. Yoongi grabbed two bowls and filled them, rounding the island to place one in front of you before plopping down onto the stool beside you with his own. Motioning for you to dig in he watched as you blew on the scalding meal, biding his time until you’d shoveled in a couple mouthfuls before saying. “You are, by the way. The only one.”

You coughed on the hot soup, his laughter echoing in the room as he pat your back and your cheeks warmed. Swallowing the mouthful, you shot him a glare. “You did that on purpose.”

“Maybe.” He admitted, a playful, content smile on his face which stayed there for the rest of the night.

#bts fanfic #bts smut #yoongi smut #yoongi imagine #yoongi fanfic #bts imagine #suga smut #suga imagine #suga fanfic #bts scenarios #yoongi scenarios #suga scenarios #listen #this has been in my drafts for A WHOLE ASS YEAR #if there are spelling mistakes and shit i am sprry but i do not have the energy to edit this thing atm #honestly a miracle i finally got it out ok #ok bye see you next year lmao

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under-the-lake · 3 years

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‘I enjoyed the [DA] meetings, too. It was like having friends.’ - Luna, Friendship and Loyalty: Why She is NOT a Manic Pixie Dream Girl

This quote from Half-Blood Prince, Chapter Seven, is one of the blunt yet calm and non-judging statements Luna can come up with occasionally, and that usually startle people because of their accuracy and/or bold honesty. While Luna can be very Berkeleyan in her conception of reality, her friendship once given seems to be given forever. Contrary to many characters in the Harry Potter series, she’s loyal to people before being loyal to her House. Luna has also been deemed to meet the requirements for being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG). I beg to disagree with that statement. Maybe she ticks some of the boxes, but many of her traits and actions stand in opposition to that. So I’ll also explore that side of her here. These two short paragraphs already showcase Luna as ambiguous. Exciting, right?

Loyalty, Friendship, Empathy and MPDG

I’ve been asking people around me what they thought of Luna. Many put her loyalty, friendship and empathy forward. First it might be useful to define those terms. I know we all have some idea of what they are, but I was thinking of a more academic point of view (still wondering why Louhi was not sorted in Ravenclaw). I’ll try and make it short (I can hear you snort…).

Loyalty

Loyalty has been a theme running throughout the series from the very first chapter. Mr Dursley’s loyalty to the family principle of not mentioning the Potters is tested a few pages into the first book (Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter One). Dumbledore’s loyalty to the Potters is shown straight in as well (PS, Chapter One). I mean why would the headmaster bother bringing a baby to their foster parents himself if there was not a good reason? Harry’s loyalty to the Dursleys is settled rapidly as well, and further into the book (PS, Chapter Two), Hagrid’s loyalty to Dumbledore is stated by the gamekeeper very soon after he meets Harry (PS, Chapter Four). Loyalty as a virtue is associated with Gryffindor House by the Sorting Hat in each of its three songs (PS Chapter Seven; Goblet of Fire, Chapter Twelve; Order of the Phoenix, Chapter Eleven). It is therefore associated straightaway with the hero of the story, and by default, and tacitly, slyness and unreliability are associated with the ‘enemy’ that are Slytherins. None of these traits is mentioned in so many words, but Gryffindors are the ‘brave at heart’ whilst Slytherins ‘use any means to achieve their ends’ (PS, Chapter Seven) and that doesn’t change throughout the books.. Luna is a Ravenclaw. So what then?

What is loyalty? I mean we all have a sense of what it is, of course. Supporting our friends, our family, fly high the values we share with a society, support them whatever the circumstances, swearing allegiance to a master or an institution (sometimes even to social constructs). Loyalty is a virtue, albeit, as many point out, a complicated one, because it puts the person in front of hard choices, for instance telling their friends the truth or being bold, or honest, or doing things that they wouldn’t normally do, or acting against their own inclination. Some say loyalty is only a feeling because it’s always grounded in some sort of attachment for a person/institution/society. There’s no denying that loyalty cannot be affectless, but it doesn’t follow that the feeling is a positive one. You can be loyal out of fear, for instance. Take Wormtail. Of course one can question the very use of the term ‘loyalty’ in his case, but it ticks most of the boxes. What are the boxes, then? After reading the ‘loyalty’ entry of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Kleinig, 2017), I decided to make the boxes as follows: a) there needs to be some strong form of attachment that can go as far as devotion via professional commitment (like for a lawyer), b) this attachment makes the person want to secure (or at least not to jeopardize) the well-being/interests of the person/object/concept they are loyal to, c) this attachment makes the person put their interest and well-being after those of the object of loyalty, and d) there might be an interest for group survival (either genetic or other). That last one is one of the boxes that relate to family relationships, friendships, house loyalty etc…

The question is, how does Luna relate to loyalty? I reckon she’s one of the most loyal characters in the whole Harry Potter series, because she doesn’t question the concept. Her friendship, therefore her loyalty, once given, is given forever. Whilst she can be very Berkeleyan in many ways, Luna is full black or white when it comes to friends.

Friendship

Aristotle (him again) devoted a big part of his thinking to what friendship might be. Peoples (or some people among the peoples) have been discussing the topic of love and friendship as something fundamentally human (I don’t think I agree with that, but that’s not the point here). Ancient Greeks and Romans put friendship above romantic love in their scale of feelings (and I must say I do agree with that): it’s philia, friendship-love (Deavel & Deavel, 2010). That’s why there’s such a canyon of difference between the words ‘pal’ or ‘mate’, and ‘friend’. It has to do with the level of intimacy you share with the person (mentally and/or physically), but also with how much you embrace that person with all their qualities and faults, not trying to change them for your or their sake, but also being able to tell them truths in their face that nobody else would dare utter without fear of losing them.

If we go back to Aristotle, he defined three types of friendship (which, for him, is a kind of virtue, meaning people must constantly work on it): friendship for use, for pleasure, or complete friendship (Aristotle, in Mogg & Tully, 2012). It is easy to understand the first: the person whom the ‘friendship’ is bestowed on is only a means towards an end. For instance, take Peter Pettigrew. He never loved his three Marauder companions, but he used them to get protection. In the second type of ‘friendship’, the person who bestows his ‘friendship’ on someone wants to derive something pleasant out of it, still not considering the feelings of the other. That could be, for instance, the kind of relationship Romilda Vane would like to have with Harry, or again Pettigrew and the Marauders. A complete friendship means that the person desires positive things for their friend, for their sake and not their own. It’s valuing the friend for themselves, and not as a tool. Usually, in analysis of the Harry Potter series, only the friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione is viewed in this light (Mogg & Tully, 2012). That might be because it indeed develops over seven years, involves living together not only in the comfort of Hogwarts or the Burrow, but in a tent (granted, with all comforts as well), on the run, on a mission, not really knowing where they are going. As Mogg & Tully put it, the evolution of friendship in Harry, Ron and Hermione goes from being a working group of complementary units to sharing and learning from each other and supporting each other’s psychological development.

Yet, I question this exclusivity in the sense that Luna’s character makes her a good candidate for that kind of friendship. She might not tick each box, but I’ll explore the concept, as well as try and state that Luna is NOT a MPDG among other reasons because of her take on friendship and loyalty. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe not. That’s the excitement of research, isn’t it?

Empathy

Empathy is a fashionable word nowadays, so it tends to be used to convey many things. However, primarily, it means the ability one person has to feel ‘in the stead’ of another, to step into their shoes and feel ‘with’ them. It is a central concept to the building of human societies, because it allows people to create bonds with one another. Empathy can lead to altruistic motivation, meaning that one who feels empathy towards others might want to help them. In the Sandford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stueber (2019) says that according to one of the philosophers who currently studies empathy, Batson, the predominant trait of empaths is selfishness (sic), that the altruistic bit of empathy is not the most common, and what determines if a person will help another or not depends on how strong they are personally, and what the cost of helping the other would be. To be truly altruistic, moreover (and quite obviously), the helping behaviour must not be directed towards a personal goal. That’s sort of logical, given the name is ‘altruistic’, but again, there are different forms of help. Other researchers (Ciladini et al., in Stueber, 2019) state that when in extreme conditions, this altruistic behaviour stems from a sense of oneness between the actors, the emergency or extremity of the situation leading them to behave as one body, therefore saving limbs rather than individuals. Empathy could go that far.

Of course I chose to mention those bits of the article because they serve my purpose, my question being Luna and empathy. I guess one could write books about all those three topics, but what is given here will be enough to shed some light on Luna.

A Manic Pixie Dream Girl?

For those who are into sociology and pop culture, the term is familiar. For those who are not, it requires a definition. The phrase was coined in 2007 by Nathan Rabin (in Nilson, 2020) but this type of characters actually were always there in pop culture in various forms. However, Rabin said that since this character was growing more and more common in films, it might be useful to coin a concept, and so he did: a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a female character whose only role in the plot is to guide a soulful young male character towards embracing life and its mysteries. My inner feminism starts at such a phrase and all sorts of arguments come to mind to destroy it. After all, I am Louhi, The Witch Of Pohjola. However, it is true that MPDG characters exist and must be taken into account. Now the question is, what defines a MPDG?

A MPDG is a character who, at first, seems to have none. She stands out of the crowd, and represents something mythical or otherworldly at first, for the males around. That makes the MPDG attractive, along with some sort of dreaminess. Among the other ‘symptoms’ of the MPDG (Pasola, 2014) are innocent bluntness, lack of self-consciousness, and a propensity to desert conversations she doesn’t find interesting. There is even a ‘test’ (Bechdell-Wallace test) to assess MPDG-ness in a female character, and it consists of three statements: 1) the plot must contain at least two women, 2) who talk to each other and 3) discuss something else than men. This test has apparently been widely used to analyse films and culture (quick google scholar search… didn’t have time to read) since its appearance in 2005. Bechdell says that if a female character fails that test then she can be deemed a MPDG. I think it is a bit too straightforward.

Appearances… can be misleading. Therefore, while Luna fails the test (Pasola, 2014), there’s more to see than meets the eye, and Luna is worth the analysis. So, my stance is that Luna is NOT a MPDG, however much she looks the character at first sight.

Luna: what about her, then?

Luna is sort of vapoury, has a mythical or mystical je-ne-sais-quoi about her, conveyed by her waist-long blonde hair, protuberant eyes that give her ‘a permanently surprised look’ (OoP, Chapter Ten), and her rather peculiar choice of jewellery (butterbeer-cork necklace or radish-earrings). In the films, this effect is carried on further by Evanna Lynch’s voice, which gives Luna an ethereal quality. Therefore she physically sort of fits the MPDG trope. Moreover, according to literature, as said before, she fails the Bechdell test.

BUT. I don’t agree Luna is anywhere near a MPDG.

Let’s start with the definition of a MPDG. According to it, Luna should be a sort of muse to a man and guide him to embrace life and its mysteries. Well. Er… aha. There’s already a problem here. Because Luna guides nobody to embrace life and its mysteries. She sometimes says things that are just plain true and takes a rather original stance when it comes to relationships with others. She doesn’t guide anyone. She never seeks people to help them or offer any kind of advice. If she happens to be there at a moment when she can say something that seems relevant to her, then she’d do it. That’s not guiding. It’s a chance meeting. At least that’s how I see them. You could argue that she guides Harry. Why yes, but the bias is that we see the whole story from Harry’s point of view, so there’s no way we can be sure Luna doesn’t give the odd piece of her mind to anybody outside Harry’s presence. She doesn’t act like a muse either. Harry doesn’t daydream about her, his thoughts don’t get back to Luna every now and then. He basically doesn’t give a damn about her, at least at first, and if he occasionally does, it’s either by chance or for lack of a better option, like when he invites her to Slughorn’s Christmas party, or when he has no choice but to take her along to the Ministry. After that last adventure, though, his attitude towards Luna changes, she has grown on him, but in no respect is she a muse to him. He’s too much entangled with his love life, his loyalty to his parents, the Order and Dumbledore, and his need to save the world every now and then, to care much about others. To add to this, nowhere in papers analysing MPDGs do the words friendship, empathy and loyalty appear to describe the characters. And Luna can feel all three, and shows them throughout her appearances in the Potter saga.

Luna is empathetic, though in her own way. She can sense how others feel and offer comfort, yet it’s not the usual kind. ‘You’re just as sane as I am’ (OoP, Chapter Ten) is not exactly comforting at first to Harry, when he thinks he’s being mental, seeing the Hogwarts carriages being pulled by winged skeletal horses. He has just seen how unusual Luna is, reading the Quibbler upside down and believing the cock-and-bull stories her father prints about Fudge’s army of Heliopaths. However, at the end of the same book, they discuss Sirius’ and Luna’s mum’s deaths, and ‘as [Harry] watched her go, he found that the terrible weight in his stomach seemed to have lessened slightly’ (OoP, Chapter Thirty-Eight); Luna sort of comforts Harry in spite of herself with her optimism, and she couldn’t do that without being empathetic. In Deathly Hallows Luna is the one person who keeps Ollivander alive while both are imprisoned in the cellar at Malfoy Manor, as he acknowledges to her on leaving Shell Cottage: ‘I’m going to miss you, Mr Ollivander’, said Luna, approaching the old man. ‘And I you, my dear,’ said Ollivander, patting her on the shoulder. ‘You were an inexpressible comfort to me in that terrible place.’

Luna doesn’t seem to ‘need’ friends. As in, she’s not actively looking for friends. She probably has a whole world in her head that fills her. That doesn’t mean she’s not happy having some friends, as the mural in her bedroom at home is proof enough of. When she acknowledges friends, then she’s loyal to them. Had she not been so, she wouldn’t have stood alongside her dad and advocated Harry’s interview to be printed in the Quibbler. She wouldn’t have fought with Neville in the renewed Dumbledore’s Army in Deathly Hallows. She wouldn’t have stood to the Malfoys while being held captive. In return of her loyalty, one of the next offspring in the Potter family is called Lily Luna. I think we can reasonably say, along Aristotle in Mogg & Tully (2012), that when Luna bestows her friendship on someone, it is a complete one. She doesn’t want to change people, doesn’t want to use them, just wants the best for them, whatever the cost for her.

Luna doesn’t question her feelings. What she gives, she does fully. To the Trio, Neville, Ginny, and also Ollivander and Dobby. That leads her to not talk about her friendships, and therefore, maybe, people to think that she doesn’t have any. However, she expresses them in sometimes odd ways verbally, like when she agrees to go ‘as friends’ to Sulghorn’s Party with Harry (HBP, Chapter Fifteen), and sometimes in hidden ways, like in that ceiling painting she did in her room back home, and that the trio discovers when visiting Xenophilius during their hunt for clues about the Hallows (DH, Chapter Twenty-One).

Luna doesn’t forgive. She doesn’t need to. She’s so detached that it sounds like she’s not hurt by people being mean to her. A fine example of this is the finale of OoP, when Harry meets her on his non-way to the End-of-Year Feast, and Luna is looking for her possessions (OoP, Chapter Thirty-Eight). She doesn’t hold a grudge towards her fellow Ravenclaws for being mean to her. Therefore, she doesn’t need to forgive either.

Some people have suggested Luna could have autistic traits (Belcher & Stevenson, 2011; Guha, 2020). There are indeed traits that could lead into that direction, and the web is full of people discussing that possibility. However, Rowling has denied that (it’s all over the web, but I cannot get my hands on the place I read that bit of interview…). Luna is just… Luna, the moon girl, whose name is maybe only the moon, or, as Le Callet (2018) suggests, a tribute to an Assyrian satirist from the 2nd century AD, Lucian of Samosata, who wrote A True Story, a fantastic tale about creatures like tree-women, or Selenites living on the moon and grilling frogs (moonfrogs, ring a bell?), breathing the vapour that wafts from them. He was also a known critic of the belief in the paranormal and of religious superstitions. Then part of him stands in opposition to Luna’s: she does believe in weird stuff, has odd superstitions (Nargle infested mistletoe and all that), which she eventually has to give up (like Crumple-Horned Snorckacks). Luna’s name might also be a tribute to Cyrano de Bergerac, the French 17th century author of Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon which is a classic in the field of early French science-fiction (see illustration below, by Henriot, 1900, Cyrano in front of the Moon). After all, Rowling is learnt in French and French literature, so we cannot rule this hypothesis out. In this book, Cyrano travels to the Moon using rockets powered by firecrackers… The inhabitants of the Moon are four-legged creatures who have talking earrings which are used to teach children.

All in all, all well considered, there is not much to back up the idea of Luna being a MPDG, and I am quite relieved to see that my small researches and musings have led me to that conclusion. You could say I am biased, wanting my conclusions to fit my hypothesis. Who wouldn’t? However, it is reassuring to find that one’s mind goes not astray, somehow. I find, after all this thinking, that we can learn a huge lot from Luna, even if she appears only sporadically in the story: human values that make people strong in a moral sense: resilience, trust, loyalty, friendship, self-confidence.

Now this has been done, I want to delve further into Luna’s character by exploring the job of Magical Naturalist (that appeals to me a lot, being a biologist myself, with specialisations in botany, zoology and ecology), as well as exploring her relation to Death, comparing it to how the other characters embrace it (or not). But these are completely different stories.

Thanks to Little My, Purple, Andromeda, Kikimora, Dawn, and Thetis, for sharing their opinion of Luna with me.

Sources:

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/the-original-forty

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/thestrals

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/0730-bloomsbury-chat.html

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the-resiliency-of-luna-lovegood

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucian

Belcher, C. L., & Stephenson, B. H. (2011). Entering the Forbidden Forest: Teaching Fiction and Fantasy in Urban Special Education. In Teaching Harry Potter. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. 121-142.

Chaillan, M. (2016). Harry Potter et Berkeley. In Harry Potter à l’école des philosophes, Philosophie Magazine, Hors série n°31, novembre - décembre 2016. 70-71.

Granger, J. & Bassham, G. (2016). Just in Your Head? J.K. Rowling on Separating Reality from Illusion. In Bassham, G. (2016, Eds.). The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy, Hogwarts for Muggles. Wiley Eds. 185-197

Guha, S. (2020). Luna Lovegood or Loony Lovegood? - Reading Luna Lovegood as a victim of Asperger’s Syndrome. In P Barry, N Pederson, L Kang (2020, Eds.) Proceedings of the Two-Day Conference: Questioning Attitudes and Labels: Mental Health Versus Madness, St. Mira’s College for Girls, Pune, 45-48.

Kleinig, J. (2017), “Loyalty”, in Zalta, E. N. (2017, Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/loyalty/

Le Callet, B. (2018), Le Monde Antique de Harry Potter, Stock, Paris.

Pasola, K. (2014). The Integrity of Luna Lovegood: How JK Rowling Subverts the ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’ Trope. In Martín Alegre, S. (2014, Ed.). Charming and Bewitching: Considering the Harry Potter Series. 153-161.

Mogg, J., & Tully, K. (2012). Harry gets by with a little help from his friends: An Aristotelian reading of virtue and friendship in harry Potter. Reasons Papers, 34(1), 77-88.

Nadal, C. (2014). Magical Science: Luna Lovegood’s Beliefs, Discoveries and Truth. In Martín Alegre, S., Arms, C., Blasco Solís, L., Calvo Zafra, L., Campos, R., Canals Sánchez, M., … & García Jordà, L. (2014). Charming and bewitching: considering the Harry Potter series. 148-153.

Nilson, M. (2020). A Magic Manic Pixie Dream Girl?: Luna Lovegood and the Concept of Postfeminism. In Jarazo-Alvarez, R. & Alderete-Diez, P. (2020, Eds.). Cultural Politics in Harry Potter: Life, Death and the Politics of Fear. 32-41. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2000). Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2005). Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, London.

Rowling, J. K. (2007). The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Bloomsbury, London.

Scamander, N. (2001; 2018; [1927][J.K. Rowling]). Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Bloomsbury, London, in association with Obscurus Books, 18a Diagon Alley, London.

Stueber, K. (2019) Empathy, in Zalta, E.N. (2019, Ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/empathy/

#Louhi #Luna #LunaLovegood #J.K. Rowling #Philosophy #Sociology #HarryPotter #Aristotle #Empathy #Friendship #Loyalty #MPDG

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thewitchdump · 4 years

Text

Master of Puppets

Gather around folks for the first bout of fighting in this year’s annual LNU Fighting Festival! In the first round we’ll witness a match between fan favorite Diana Cavendish and underdog Chloé Mercier!

Part of @dianacavendishisgay ‘s ZipperAU, Check out their blog for more

The gathered crowd at the Luna Nova University Arena went wild as the voice of professor Chariot Du Nord boomed through the loudspeakers of the massive structure. “Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our annual fight festival, here at LNU!”

Down below, deep in the bowels of the arena, Chariots’ voice and the following raucous cheers of the crowd were nearly completely swallowed up. Not that Diana minded. She had enough input to deal with, with that damned wire ticking away inside her, administering micro-shocks that were too small to cause harm, but just big enough to be massively irritating.

With a sigh, she rose off the bench that stood in the middle of the changing room between the rows of lockers, and stretched. “It’s almost time now.” She mused while her eyes wandered over to the clock hung above the door.

Another muffled wave of cheers confirmed her speculation. SHe closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to block out the annoying ‘tick, tick, tick’ of the wire inside her. “You got this.” she told herself. Despite her best efforts, her heart was beating faster and faster by the second.

That beating only continued to intensify as she left the changing room and made her way out towards the field. The din of the crowd was transforming from a dull sound to something more harsh and defined with each step she took along the long concrete tunnel.

“Are you ready for the first match?!” she heard professor Chariot yell into the microphone. The way the professor was getting into, put a small smile on her face. That smile only grew as she began introducing her opponent for the match.

“Here we go, folks! In the red corner we have a newcomer! Everybody, please welcome Chloé Mercier!”

The sound that came reverberating down into the bowels of the arena was indescribable as the crowd roared full of excitement. Without any thought of her own, her smile only widened.

Damn the wire and it all, this is what she was here for and she would enjoy herself.

“And in the blue corner, we have one of this year’s favorites! Will she be able to keep up with everyone’s expectations, especially after last year’s semi-final upset? There is only one way to find out. Please welcome, Diana Cavendish!”

She felt the cheers of the crowd wash over her as she stepped into the light of the arena. The atmosphere was almost intoxicating, the way it buzzed with excitement and adrenaline. She tried to spot Akko and Hannah among the jubilating masses but to no avail. Then again, she didn’t really need to see them to know that they were watching.

Her opponent was already waiting for her on the field, a grim expression drawn across her features. Diana had seen her on campus a couple times before, but had never really spoken to her. The way the blonde student was looking at her set something within her on edge.

The two of them met in the middle of the arena, gazes leveled against each other. Still smiling, Diana extended her hand towards her opponent. “Let’s have a good match.”

But Chloe simply remained staring at her until she withdrew her hand. What was her problem? She didn’t have any time to think this over before professor Nelson stepped up on the platform with the pair.

“Alright ladies,” her voice had this peculiar drill sergeant quality to it that only a PE teacher could properly pull off “I wanna see a clean fight out here. No excessive force, no striking a downed opponent and most importantly, when I say ‘stop’ you stop whatever it is you’re doing right that instant. Understood?”

Both fighters nodded, their eyes locked in a fierce stare-off.

“Alright then, Take your stances!”

Diana and Chloé both took several steps back while Nelson vacated the ring. The world seemed to be silent for a split second before the match started, the ticking of her wire and the beating of her heart the only sounds audible to her.

“START!”

Diana took a step towards her opponent, determined to land the first blow. But as soon as her foot touched the ground she froze. Her leg didn’t seem to want to obey her orders as it stayed planted where it was. Distressed, she tried to backpedal but found that she couldn't will any of her limbs to move.

“Now that’s a sight to behold. What’s the matter Cavendish? Did you suffer a sudden bout of stage fright?” A voice suddenly assaulted her ears, so loud that it seemed to be directly inside her head.

Diana knew in an instant who that voice belonged to. “Get out of my head.” she hissed staring straight at Chloé who was favoring her with a cocky smile as she stepped closer to her immobilized opponent.

“What, are you afraid I might find something that I’m not supposed to, Danny?”

Diana redoubled her efforts to move, fury beginning to build in the back of her mind. But none of her efforts bore fruit. The only thing she achieved was sagging down to her knees.

Chloé who was now standing over her laughed inside her head, her visage twisted into a mocking parody of itself. “You know Cavendish, I have hated you from the moment I first laid my eyes on you.”

She swung her leg out behind her and gave Diana a hefty kick into her abdomen. She gagged and staggered backwards on what little strength her legs still had in them. Chloé went on “You and your little clique of friends think you’re so damn special, completely inconsiderate of anyone outside your little circle.”

“What are you-” Diana started but got cut short when Chloé hit her square in the face with a right hook.

“The great and mighty Diana Cavendish with her flock of groupies and adoring friends. Or should I call them your harem?” Diana took another fist to the face, staggering her closer and closer to the edge of the field. “Did you ever have to work for anything in your life? Did that Cavendish name come included with friends and yes-men? Do you even have any idea what it means to struggle?”

Diana was so astounded for a second that she didn’t even notice the blood running down her nose. “What are you even talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb with me!” Chloé grabbed her by the chin and forced her head upwards to look her in the eyes again. “I’m gonna show you what struggling looks like!”

The blonde wound up for another punch with her free hand and Diana knew she probably wouldn’t remain conscious through this. At this point she had already given up trying to fight against Chloé’s block in her mind. She closed her eyes and braced for the impact

The sounds from the arena that had been drowned out by her opponent’s monologue inside her head came flooding back over her. The astounded calling of Chariot’s voice over the loudspeakers, the cheers, the shocked gasps, all of it. But one voice in particular seemed to rise above the rest.

“Kick her ass, Danny!”

“Akko!” Diana whispered, her eyes snapping open to see Chloé’s fist only centimeters from her face. With no time to think her body simply reacted on its own. The arena suddenly was blinded by a flash of lightning, followed by an incredibly loud thunder crack.

Chloé staggered back with a surprised yelp, as the crowd fell silent, mirroring the blonde’s surprise. Diana felt the pressure on her mind fall off to zero in an instant. A smile returned to her face as she rose to her feet, blocking out the pain from her stomach and face.

Her opponent stared at her in shock, cradling her lightning scarred arm. “W-what did you j-just do?”

Now it was Diana’s turn to stride towards her adversary with a cocky smile on her lips. “Oh, not much. I put the positive and negative terminals for a discharge onto my face.”

Chloé staggered back, tears beginning to form in her eyes. “N-no, stay away!”

Diana, now bearing a smile not too dissimilar from Chloé’s just moments before began charging towards her staggered foe with her arms swung out behind her.

“NO!” Chloé screamed as Diana brought her hands together on either side of her head.

“STOP!”

She froze for the second time that match as Nelson's voice boomed out over the arena. Chloé had her fixed in a wide-eyed stare, feeling the electricity emanating from Diana’s palms stand the hairs on her head. She heard the hum of electricity ready to arc over; she smelt the ozone tang of ionizing air around her.

“You know what’s funny?” Diana asked, keeping her hands in position next to Chloé’s head. “You got inside my head and yet you still know absolutely nothing about me.”

She finally withdrew her arms and let the built up charge dissipate from her palms. She used her jacket sleeve to wipe off her bloody nose.

Nelson, who had stepped back into the Arena, made a wide gesture with her arms in Diana’s general direction. “The winner of the first match by TKO is Diana Cavendish!”

Diana let her eyes wander across the wildly cheering crowd as she took in the applause. Chloé took that opportunity to slink off and get some medical attention for her arm without so much as a word to Diana.

Her eyes finally came to rest on two people in the crowd who seemed to be almost jumping out of their seats at the outcome of the first fight. Even from this distance it was hard to mistake Hanna and Akko for anyone else. Waving in the general direction of her two biggest fans she whispered to herself “Thanks you two. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

#Zipper AU #LWA #little witch academia #LWA Fanfiction #Original Writing #Diana Cavendish #Hannah England #Akko Kagari #LWA AU

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thelittlefanpire · 4 years

Note

I'd love to know about to the sea for the WIP Title game!

ah, yes. to the sea. the fic I’m writing to you because I loved your Lincoln/Luna fic so much!

It actually has it’s own post already!

So this is the second most difficult WIP on the list because of how much TROUBLE it has given me! It’s got such a strong aesthetic and rhythm that I seem to have lost, and I’m very intimidated to jump back into it again. I write this fic one word at a time, I swear!!

Here is a little extra snippet for youuu:

Luna broke through the trees to find the lab still sitting in the middle of the clearing. The thick concrete walls of the vault were cool under her fingertips as she moved quickly inside.

“Raven?” Luna called out. Her voice echoed down the empty hall of the lab. Her footsteps were silent as she glided across the hard floor. She held her breath when she reached the stairs and looked over the edge of the banister down to the bottom floor.

Raven had once defined Luna by the beating heart in her chest, not the blood that ran through her veins. The last time they saw one another, Raven was suffering from the fried computer chip in her brain. As Luna walked down the stairs now, she thought back to when she had rocked Raven through the storms in her mind until the hurricane subsided.

When the ocean of despair called out to you, it was hard to resist sinking down into its depths. Luna worried about what she would find in Becca’s crypt.

WIP TITLE GAME! ask me about my stories!

#wip meme #WIPs #tag games #tlfwips

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dishonoredrpg · 4 years

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Congratulations, NAY! You’ve been accepted for the role of THE LOVERS with the faceclaim of ASHLEY MOORE. Admin Cas: I think we can all agree that The Lovers is a difficult concept to pin down. It’s a task in itself to balance the devotion they have for The World, her world, while not sacrificing who they are at their core. But, Nay, you were certainly up to the task. There’s something so lovely about Prudence, so beautiful and admirable, but something hungry. So much of her life revolves around The World, but that does not mean that Prudence doesn’t have a story of her own to live out. I particularly enjoyed the way you likened her story unfolding to a caterpillar grows into its chrysalis; to become a butterfly or moth, either is possible. I can’t wait to see what you do with her!

Please review the CHECKLIST and send your blog in within 24 hours.

Out-of-Character.

NAME: nay

PRONOUNS: she / her

AGE: twenty-two

TIMEZONE, ACTIVITY LEVEL: gmt + 5 ; and i’d say my activity ( especially with quarantine, still ) is at a 7/10. lately, i have been trying to write every day, and that means at least a reply every day – even if posted through queue after being written on a better writing day.

ANYTHING ELSE?: i wrote this way too quickly, because i suck at being patient and didn’t want to wait a week to turn in an app, so forgive me for the sinful typos committed in my haste! this definitely isn’t as polished as i wish it were. also? there are possibly too many insect-facts in this and if that shit squicks you, i am so sorry.

In-Character.

SKELETON: the lovers

K E Y W O R D S

UPRIGHT: love, harmony, relationships, values alignment, choices

REVERSED: self-love, disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values

| source: x

NAME: prudence “prue” luna lockhart

→ ETYMOLOGY ;

P R U D E N C E / “intelligence; discretion, foresight; wisdom to see what is suitable or profitable;” also one of the four cardinal virtues, "wisdom to see what is virtuous;" from Old French prudence (13th Century) and directly from Latin prudentia “a foreseeing, foresight, sagacity, practical judgment,” contraction of providentia “foresight” (see providence). Secondary sense of “wisdom” (late 14th Century) is preserved in jurisprudence.

L U N A / “the moon,” especially personified in the Roman goddess answered to Greek Selene; also, an alchemical name for “silver”; from Latin luna “moon, goddess of the moon,” from PIE *leuksna- (source, also: of Old Church Slavonic luna “moon,” Old Prussian lauxnos “stars,” Middle Irish luan “light, moon”), suffixed form of root *leuk- “light, brightness.” The luna moth (1841, American English) so-called for the crescent-shaped eye-spots on its wings.

L O C K H A R T / Scottish: of uncertain origin, probably from a Germanic personal name composed of the elements loc 'lock', 'bolt' + hard 'hardy', 'brave', 'strong'. English: occupational name for a herdsman in charge of a sheep or cattlefold, from Old English loc 'enclosure', 'fold' + hierde 'herd(er)'.

| sources: x & x

FACECLAIM: zendaya coleman ( or ashley moore or natali litvinova — in order of preference! )

AGE: three-&-twenty for zendaya / four-&-twenty for ashley or natali

→ BIRTHDATE: fantasy-equivalent of july 8th; the most cancer baby there ever was!

DETAILS: it took me forever to find a skeleton that made me feel the enduring love i’ve been searching for beyond the ability to see a story, and as it always, unfailingly, tends to happen for the rare occasion where i opt for a softer character, it caught me completely off-guard. initially, surveying the tags, i was leaning towards the skeletons of the wheel of fortune, the hierophant, the devil, the hermit – all of whom, in my opinion, are characters who have been shaped by a darkness, be it inherent or inflicted, that’s rendered them with shadows or edges. with the lovers, that’s not the case. they are tender: like a paramour’s kiss, or a bruise, or an overripe peach you can sink your fingers into. and maybe it’s my unflinching desire to subvert the stereotypical presumption of what it is to be soft, the fragility noted in their skeleton does not translate to weakness or meekness to me; i enjoy that they are both tender, and possess the ability to be chaotic, and manipulative, and impulsive and desperate and vindictive and defensive. what i love most about this particular skeleton is the sheer humanness of them.

that, and their love for THE WORLD. for a moment there, that was definitely what drew me to them; this idea of love as religion had my mind reeling like a siken poem, rhapsodising about a love so powerful, it can alter a person. this is partially because i am the most hopeful and shameless of romantics, and partially because love, its nuances, and its powers and vulnerabilities genuinely, deeply interest me. however, working my way deeper into this application-form, that changed.

it is the love that the lovers — or prue, to me, now — holds for THE WORLD is one that attracted me. it is her own potential for growth that’s kept me in her clutches, besotted, wishing to tell her story. hers is a tale, i believe, of metamorphosis: a question i posed in a later section, as well as what lurks in my mind, is whether that metamorphosis is one that leads to a moth or a butterfly. did you know it is moths who come from cocoons, but butterflies who come from a chrysalis? moths, who are drawn to light. butterflies, who drink nectar, also help spread the seeds to grow more of the flowers. both which come from a caterpillar, whose first meal is typically the egg they come from. what i enjoy is the ambivalence that presents itself — or, as i like to call it: potential. there are several directions that prue’s story could go in, several choices that could define her, and it’s all up in the air until it isn’t anymore.

i wish i could tell you that my EUREKA! moment wasn’t insect-research, but i can’t, because that would be a lie. i’m not even sorry.

BACKGROUND:

☉ CONTENT WARNING(s): infant death, stillbirth, body horror imagery, insects

come, dear reader, won’t you settle in? let me spin you a tale—a tangled web of one, indeed—about a girl who smells sweet as white roses and is as satiny to touch as her gossamer-thin garments. this girl is just a girl; she has never been the girl. even so, this story is her story, and though she is not equipped to be the heroine of a story, or so she believes, she is the heart of this one. like a heart, she is swollen with the fullness of blood: thus, let me etch this tale into parchment with the blood of love, in crimson-ink of metallic-reek.

it comes in three parts: a beginning, a middle, an ending; it is for you, dear reader, to decide which is which.

let us anoint this tale the title of METAMORPHOSIS –

✧✧✧

i. THE EGG ;

before there is the girl, there is a man and a woman who live in faerûn by the sahrnian sea, bound together by a contract that is decidedly not the forest-fire love faerie-tales herald. yet that is not to say that love never comes, just because love comes after. when it does, it is a calm love, a steady one; a love that has never cost one to lose one’s mind, and has been grown, meticulously, over the passage of time and the trials and tribulations have littered the path of a match made by those who are older and have witnessed so much more life than them. it is not for years that the woman feels nature stirring within her body’s vessel, and when it does, it is with the undying bestowing upon her a gift that makes up lost time.

when the girl comes, she comes from a belly more full than most. it makes sense that it is so, for there were meant to be two of them: a boy, and a girl. one might suppose that, in the end, there still were, yet only one in the way it mattered.

( you decide, dear reader: which is which? )

she is born — and it is days, and days, before her time. no matter, a name still awaits her. prudence, they call her. pierce, he would have been.

from the beginning, she emerges from the ruddy cave of her mother’s womb incomplete. a greyish pallor remains where life ought to be warming her skin; it is as if he leeched enough life from her for him to choke on, and she siphoned her brother’s death through the connection only womb-mates share – and this is what she will hear in later years, when she asks about him.

she will wish she hadn’t.

✧✧✧

ii. THE CATERPILLAR ;

( when you feel unforgiving, dear reader, remember: it is a caterpillar’s job to eat; without an abundance of consumption, it cannot survive. it is this abundance of consumption that allows for the production of silk. it is this same abundance of consumption that is its undoing. )

years do not care if one is ready to bear them; they come, when they must, as they must. and so comes to pass the childhood that tries to swallow prudence lockhart whole, over and over and over –

as an infant, blood is filtered out of her body and fresh blood poured into her veins. it helps, some. it does not help enough, yet there is nothing more to be done; her parents must take her home, and pray to the undying god for the rest. they pray, and pray, and pray, as two people of noble blood and lucrative business-dealings rarely stoop to, for lack of need to need it.

as a child, prue is still a frail slip of a thing, with bones jutting out against taut bronze flesh in protest. fill yourself up, her mother pleads. you must survive, beloved. she offers her savory meals and sweet decadence twice, and anything she takes a suggestion of a liking to just as many times more — and it works; it takes time, but work it does, and prue’s cheeks round some and at times flush rosily, some weakness giving way to the minute miracles that are her tardy signs of life. it is not much, but it is enough, isn’t it? it is to the mother who has warred for her existence. who still combats for prue’s survival.

when does the girl begin to feel that it might be her that her mother is fighting, when every frustration about her lessness, her inherent lessness, begins to steal the breath from prue’s lungs – for is it not her who is all poetry & rot, wisp-thin & about as flimsy? her heart fills with hot, vital blood then: it beats loud and clear as a belltower’s toll, cutting through all else with the potency of its truth. this is as much as i am, she beseeches in turn, as her mother had once done, except not, for graceless tears roll down her cheeks in impassioned rivulets and the voice that thickens with feeling.

how will you survive the world, beloved? her mother implores.

i might not, prue knows. i might not, she accepts.

it is the caterpillar’s destiny to unbecome –

✧✧✧

iii. THE CHRYSALIS ;

– unbecoming takes time.

it takes long enough that both mother and daughter grow used to it, initially, and then around it, ultimately.

there is, after-all, the distraction of warfare engrained in the backbone of their precious faerûn. there is the journey to tyrholm, the settling into the dregs of hightown – not quite lowtown-bound, and not-quite-not. it fazes her parents to not be profound upper-echelons of society; her father, a man used to running the business inherited by the men in the lockhart family, and her mother, who had spent all of her time worrying for prudence and never had to about wealth. but prue, for her part, is accustomed to the notion of not-quite-right / not-quite-enough; the feeling might not be home, per se, and yet she recognises the walls of the house all the same – could walk its rooms in the dark, if she had to.

it is circumstance that calls the lockharts to castle tyrholm.

it tears at her parents: her father believes in not squandering opportunity, and her mother would rather squander anything but prudence. even THE EMPRESS sees it, does she not, when she cants prudence’s head and observes her fragility? the king’s reputation precedes itself; would a heart as true and innocent as hers survive a court like his? within minutes, it is too late to ponder it any longer. within minutes, it is no longer a choice, but a deal already struck. just like a match: it cannot be unstruck. one can endeavour to douse a fire, but it is not the same as un-starting it.

for a time, the castle is one more place prue does not feel she belongs; it is alright, she tells herself. you are alright, she says – because her mother is no longer by her side telling her anymore, is she? silken thread ensnares the girl when THE WORLD knocks on her door one evening; it is lilly-white, the radiance of their smile. prue does not understand why, then; she is nothing exceptional, she flounders for the right thing to do, and even then, she gets it wrong so much more often than she ever gets it right. perhaps, she will never understand why – why they are so kind, why they make her feel seen, why…

and still, this once, there is no question of whether it is enough. they are more than enough.

for the first time in her life, prue discovers what it is to be warm.

✧✧✧

tell me, dear reader – is this a butterfly’s or moth’s metamorphosis?

PLOT IDEAS:

❂ “love, for you, / is larger than the usual romantic love. it’s like religion. it’s terrifying.” – richard siken

see, i told you: siken’s poetry reeling through my mind. religion is a really interesting ideology to link the notion of love to, because there are so many boundaries one crosses in the name of faith. at times, we call it the lesser evil. other times, we say it’s letting the end justify the means. we’re all trying to be holy.

this is where i want to start discussing potential plots for prue — but i want to, first, preface it by saying that though THE WORLD is very much at the centre of her story, it is because prue’s unparalleled love for them is central to her life-story; i treat it like an experiment, where prue is the dependent variable and her love for THE WORLD is the independent variable that incites action & reaction, placed in different situations. it is, that said, the most potent of variables, and can hardly be called controlled, despite how desperately prue herself attempts to keep it to the corner-alcove they hide the truth of their love in. this love is not a selfish love; it is strong, and all-consuming, and maddening – more than a soldier’s swearing fealty to a kingdom, it is the most devout of prophets bowing their head at the altar of the divine deity they put their faith in. that’s pretty intense stuff, right? i want to see what it elicits.

this can be a double-edged sword, and in fact, i’d be rooting for it to be. on one hand, i want to explore how this love has made prue strong. i want to see how it has made her braver, and more resilient. i want to explore that she took THE EMPRESS deeming her fragile-seeming, and how she’s donned it as armour, because it is that same delicacy that has made THE WORLD love them. i want to explore it through interactions with the royal family foremost — THE WORLD, of course, but THE EMPRESS, THE EMPEROR, THE CHARIOT, and if it works out, maybe even septimus himself. it’s rare for prue to not let things slip, and roll off her back, but that is when it comes to her. her love for THE WORLD makes her want to protect them, fiercely; it lights a fire in her soul that has never been lit before. and fire? yes, it warms – but oh, it burns, too, doesn’t it? it has the power to ruin. and i don’t want to limit that exploration to just the royal family; i want to explore it with the animosity-potential between her and TEMPERANCE as well, but that’s one plot i’ll talk more about further down.

there are little ideas floating around in my head that i would love to explore with the respective players, but i could imagine a friendship between prue ( probably due to her sweet-tooth luring her, too often, to the kitchens ) with THE HANGED MAN – and to explore a bond, that could further be complicated, potentially, by prue not being able to talk about what she and THE WORLD share. or, more chaotically: for her to share it, and for THE HANGED MAN to let it slip to THE DEVIL? how far would prue go to protect this? and would she, if it presented the opportunity for the future where she and her love get to be together is pushed closer by it? how selfless is her love? how powerful would fear be against it?

i’m honestly just a firm believer that, when our backs are against the wall, that’s when we find out who we really are. and that’s the main storyline i want to explore with prue, more than anything else, because i think that she has never been pushed to that edge and, because of it, she’s never copped up to her own identity. she met and fell in love with THE WORLD at such a young age, so quickly and wholly, that it has shaped so much of what her ideal self is. i want to see how her ideal self would differ from the reality of her. and i want to see her confront it.

❂ “you are going to break your promise. i understand. and i hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that i will not hate you.” – catherynne m. valente

very recently, someone put forth an idea to me: love is a promise. that’s what i want to talk about here. there’s a sense i got — both from the lovers’ skeleton, and THE WORLD’s — that both of them know that there is a time-limit on their relationship. or, at the very least, whatever room there is for prue in their future, it isn’t a room where they share the bed. but i also get a sense that they know it, and neither of them talk about it. i think a part of prue feels like the amount of good that THE WORLD has brought her will last her a lifetime, and i think that isn’t true, so much as she’s hoping it is? i want to see the two of them talk about it. i want to see prue wanting them to fight her love. i want prue to admit she wants to be chosen over duty, or a marriage with someone who isn’t her, or fear, and i want to see what something like that would do to their relationship. or hell, i want someone who has power over THE WORLD, like THE EMPEROR, or THE EMPRESS, or THE CHARIOT or THE HIGH PRIESTESS to find out about the true nature of their relationship and force that choice once they even start talking about, so the situation can force their hands even if they don’t force one another’s.

there’s so much between the two of them i want to dissect and play with, it apparently needed to separate quotations. oops?

❂ “all things truly wicked start from innocence.” – ernest hemingway

we all have the occasional ( or perhaps more, no judgement! ) propensity for wickedness. i feel really passionately about softer people not being safe from cravings for chaotic behaviour, even if they might, in prue’s case, justify it through the innocence of intention. a lot of her initial effusion is of a heady amalgamation of sweetness and delicacy; i want to see her display a dash of something that takes leave from that, and surprises even herself. now, though not at all set-in-stone and totally up to be discussed with the respective player, i could easily see it rearing its head in the dynamic between herself and TEMPERANCE. how many times will she be shooed away from a room with a beautiful woman and the love of prue’s life? it terrifies prue, the idea that THE WORLD will slip out of her fingers like the sands of time, so much sooner than she is ready for. i’m curious: would there be a moment where she would not leave? where she would make the nature of their relationship known? would she ever snap back, or continue to smile tenderly, bow her head, and listen?

i’m also dying to explore the potential plot brewing between the lovers and DEATH. part of this is a total shot in the dark, so bear with me, but – imagine this: there is a darkness in them that tugs at the darkness in her; they are hungry, and she is a starving-thing, and what a pairing they could make. imagine prue venturing into lowtown with them, and for the alternative reality DEATH’s hunger dangles that could open a door to an actual future with THE WORLD? i want there to be temptation — towards darkness and chaos, yes, because i am a sucker for moral ambiguity, but also for the loyalist that prue is to be lured by the revolt.

❂ “you cut up a thing that’s alive and beautiful to find out how it’s alive and why it’s beautiful, and before you know it, it’s neither of those things, and you’re standing there with blood on your face and tears in your sight and only the terrible ache of guilt to show for it.” – clive barker

it is difficult for even me, as i delve into prue’s psyche, to be a wordsmith adept enough to encapsulate the sheer magnitude of her love for her lover. let me tell you this, though: it is love that is devout enough that prue would sacrifice herself before it. she would shirk what she believes she knows of herself to fight for THE WORLD. but there is little in the universe free of the shackles of consequence. it feels inevitable to me that, at some point, sooner or later, prue will commit an action or reaction in the name of love — and then, she will have to live with it. it’s even better to me for her to go beyond her limits for this love that is everything to her, and then find herself turning to them to sacrifice for her as freely as she does them… and for them to, perhaps, not be able to. or perhaps, for it to turn prue into a person she herself can no longer recognise. there was a part of me that wanted to already cook something up, and to toss it into the writing sample portion, but i decided otherwise. if i get to write this character, i want to start in a place that is different, and develop my way towards a darker pasture, so to speak.

a darker pasture, however, is where i want her to at least visit. in a setting such as this one, i don’t think it can be helped, truthfully.

❂ “each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” – anaïs nin

while i was trying to knit this application together into one whole piece, a recurring concern for me has been that i want this character to have its own story, and the lines of that can get awfully blurry when the character is one the feels as intensely as prue lockhart does. she is such a hypersensitive creature; more than anything, it is her interactions that penetrate her, and alter her, and cause the discord between the sides that are wont to tug at her, who stands in the most Lawful Neutral of spots. i’ve decided to lean into it, though, because i genuinely believe that it poses an intriguing dichotomy between her inherent nature and the nurture that moulds it beyond the obvious, magnitudinal parental hand in it. that said, there are actual several different potential connections i want to toy with here. ( one of which is THE HANGED MAN, but i already mentioned that above, and didn’t want to be repetitive! )

THE MAGICIAN / listen, prue is so used to being the Softest. but this little baby is even softer than her, and every time they flinch, she just wants to help. she tries, at every turn, to be kind and i really want to see her become a friend / confidant for them? maybe learn about their magic. to maybe give them a secret of her own back ;) gal pals, gimme. i need something wholesome; it can’t all be agony & ecstasy, god damn it.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE / it is pure coincidence that throws the two of them together as often as it does. but prue is the sort to believe the best in people, and is never too arrogant to admit where she’s been wrong. this bond is where her feelings towards magic first begins to see development, and i am so, so, so interested in toying with it. even more so when you throw in their bond with THE EMPEROR — does faze prue a little — and his relationship with THE WORLD in there. such potential for growth and drama.

DEVIL / for years, every time prue has seen them, she has walked in the other direction. otherworldliness is unnatural enough as it is, but the proof of what they can do scars them with evidence of it – and so, out of genuine fear, she’s evaded them. and yet, coincidental interactions with the WHEEL OF FORTUNE has made prue think twice. a look at the haunting in their eyes has made her think thrice. i want to play with that dynamic!!!

THE MOON / hers is the only magic that does not scare prue, i think. it is the only one she is not too intimidated to ask questions about, because she truly is extremely curious when she takes an interest in something, and a lifetime of listening in the background has given prue a taste for stories. i feel like she could bring out something adventurous and wild within prue? a part which prue never got to explore, because she grew up with a very, very cautious mother who kept a very close eye on her and treated her like glass because prue really does look fragile. i want a bond to make her feel stronger!

THE STAR / if there is one thing that prue has grown up to be, it is a true romantic. it makes him something of a kindred spirit; something in her could reach out to something in him, creating a kindred bond that makes her feel seen in a way that only THE WORLD has ever given her.

THE TOWER / because she was raised right by it, the sea is where prue feels most at home, and she always has. i could see there being something about THE TOWER’s stories making her feel warm inside, and thus, her braving a friendship with them. i think she could use the wisdom of someone older? and there’s just something about them that made prue shyly scuff her toe at the ground, like – an oliver twist moment of, “can i have more, please?”

THE FOOL / stories talk about princes and princesses. the dragon’s fire, the nobel steed. prue looks at him, and she wonders: where are the stories about them? the princess’ lover, and the king’s soldier – those who fight for the crown, without wearing it. it could make for such an unlikely bond, but such an intriguing one, i think? i got the idea, and i just could not shake it. humour me!

and 0f course, there is potential with literally every other character, too, but i honestly ran out of time before i could come up with something for them too. i’m down to flesh it out~

❂ “we grow. it hurts at first.” – sylvia plath

at the start of her story, prue starts off as a fragile underdog. she turns blossoms into a lover, and it turns her fiercer – which is not the same thing as being fierce, but it’s a start. what i want for her — what any writer wants for their muses, i reckon — is growth. i want prue, who has grown up sheltered and protected, to experience pain and hardship. i want her experiences to call into question what she thinks she knows, flip it on its head, and make her think. i want her to think, and to change her mind, and to change it again. i want her to confront her fears, and her uncomfortable truths, and to experience all the tempestuous emotions she’s spent her entire life keeping at bay, having convinced herself they could shatter her. i want her to unearth her endurance, to test its limits. i want to explore her undoings and remakings. what i enjoy most about her is the volatility of her that most would not see coming, because volatile and tempestuous and emotional is what she is. she is all heart, all the time, everywhere. can you imagine how visceral that has to make every experience?

imagine the potential for growth if she let herself just feel all of it. if she opened herself up, and let the universe rush in, instead of walking on eggshells as she does. just imagine. that’s what i want for her.

CHARACTER DEATH: i could, of course, see prue meeting an end. in fact, there are a couple of circumstances that could make it deliciously poetic, even.

Writing Sample.

They match each other: step for step; right, then left –

Hardly anyone turns to look at the two of them anymore. The two of them, making their way down the hall, with their dark heads leaned close together, like two plants growing towards one another when the sun leaves them for too long. It might be more peculiar to see them apart. There is a strange pride that twists a corner of Prue’s mouth at the unshakeable knowledge of the fact – a hint of tremendous pride at the small, precious claim THE WORLD makes with the statement of their proximity. It is everything to her, and perhaps it is what lends to the smoothness of her gait as they move past the portrait-eyes that scrutinise it, as if they await another of the many stumbles they’ve already witnessed. Prue floats beside them.

Her heart is gone, long-since pressed into the palm of their hand. Does it weigh them down? She could pretend it is why she keeps their fingers curled into the crook of her elbow, helping them carry the heaviness of the heart she’s given away to them; Prue holds fast to that touch with her own hand covering their fingers, unwilling to give up those four pressure-points that burn her flesh through the silk of her sleeve for anything, enough to shield it with the dome of her palm.

“ – Prudence?”

Their hand flinches at the same time as Prue’s grip on their fingers tightens. As if a chill blew in, and froze the marrow in her bones, the girl stills in place. It is not because she recognises the voice. It is because she ought to have done, for what the cant of her head finds is a woman whose gaze mirrors her own: amber-warm, almond-shaped. It is her same mouth that speaks the syllables of a variation of her names that does not belong to her, not as Prue does.

“Mama –” she says, her voice so quiet, she fears it might not reach her.

She is too far away now. Even mere footsteps away, she is too far.

Extras.

✦ INSPIRATIONS → anne shirley cuthbert – from anne of green gables; tiana – from princess & the frog; missandei of naath – from game of thrones; margaery tyrell / house tyrell – from a song of ice & fire; madame lebedeva – from deathless; effie trinket – from the hunger games series; jack pearson – from this is us; patroclus – from the song of achilles;

✦ INSPIRATION TAG → here;

✦ PINTEREST BOARD → here.

#accepted #accepted: the lovers

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alicentes · 7 years

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the sea mechanic scene is the gayest scene I’ve seen on tv in a long time can you believe ppl actually think luna and raven are straights.

#raven reyes #luna kom floukru #sea mechanic #the 100 #'it's not your blood that defines you its your heart' - the gayest line on tv

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b00bconnoisseur · 5 years

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60 questions for @not-my-brain

1. selfie.......Ugghhhh ok. Imma take one rn

Ok here u go (yes thats a bmth shirt)

2. what would you name your future kids?.....Ooo hmmm well when i was a kid i really liked the names disney, and mesiah. I didn't know at the time that mesiah was another name for god i think lol. I liked it cause of handlers mesiah. I still do. Ooo and maybe Tj too

3. do you miss anyone?......Yeah. My friends on Pinterest from a year ago. My friend lucas. Stan lee. Bob ross. My cousin who died from cancer some years ago. Snape. Sirius. Lupin. Tonks. Dobby. *continues to name every unfortunate death in hp*

4. what are you looking forward to?.......SE-YA next month!! Its the south eastern young adult festival at this college. You can have meet n greets with authors and alot of stuff its the besstttt

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?......DEFINATELY. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @sammchenry my friend lucas and @septembersbloom. ^^

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?..... What like...romantically? Or like a death? If romantically uhhh idk it took over a couple weeks but im ok now. Ive never had another relationship so idk. If death oof yeah idk maybe. Ig it depends on how much i knew them idk. Like when my nanny (great grandma) died i was sad for days (is that alot?)

7. what was your life like last year?.....Sucky af. Still is. But the highlights of my life last year was getting and making friends on tumblr, going to the tøp concert and going to warped tour, volunteering at the library, going to seya and meeting some of my favorite authors, reading, changing and improving my art, listening to all the bands i listen to now, getting into more fandoms, going to a friends house for the first time

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?.......Yes lol. Some years ago when i couldn't find smtn id be so annoyed and pissed id start crying. I dont now but still lol

9. who did you last see in person?.......Hm ig family doesn't count....? Wait do u mean a friend? If so uhh my friends rebekah, anika, and Judah at a TAB meeting at the library sometime last month.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?......I think so? Like i mean I can hide whenever i get my....time of the month from my mom (talking abt stuff like that with her makes me uncomfortable) and i hid a breakup. And other p big stuff too. So imma say yeah

11. are you listening to music right now?........*pops on earbuds after reading this* yee im listening to bitch lasagna by pewdiepie xD (do i have the best spotify playlist or what?)

12. what is something you want right now?.......To hug @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye but SOMEONE has to live so far away

13. how do you feel right now?........Happy that my earbud still works cause they got washed in the wash yesterday....oops. Its not my fault. I told my dad to remind me to take it out of my jacket pocket before they threw it in but noooooo he forgot

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?.......Uhhhhh fuck idk it was probably from my lil 4 yr old bro sometime last week. Other than him (hes my favorite sibling) i dont let them hug me too much

15. personality description.......Nerdy. Fangirl. "Emo". Tomboy. Hotsause obsessed. Book lover. Music lover. Black. Blue. Harry potter. Introvert. Fall. Sports. Values friendship. Loyal. Uhhhh i cant think of much lol

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?.......*sigh* yes. Yes yes yes. Theres some things abt me, or my life really, that i havent told anyone on here or my irl friends that i sooooo want to so bad but i haven't cause i feel like they'd feel bad and pity me and i don't want that

17. opinion on insecurities........I dont really understand this one. Everyones insecure abt something. Is this askin like if i think its ok or not? I say its ok. Im insecure about literally everything about me. My face. My personality. My socialness. My art. What i do. What i say. Basically my whole body. The things i feel good abt are my books, music taste, and my friends (ily fuckers)

18. do you miss how things were a year ago?.........Hmm this time around a year ago....idk its sorta the same but all the stuff i mentioned abt my year from last year didn't happen yet so nah tho my life sucks rn its better than this time last year

19. have you ever been to New York?........Nooo but i want too soo baddd i wanna visit @septembersbloom !! Im coming for ya soon gramps *does the eye watching thing* my dads been to nyc before tho cause he does construction and he had a concrete job to do there. It was a 23 hr drive for him

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?........Uhhh idk!!! So hard! Maybe.....the whole thats the spirit album by bmth ;)

21. age and birthday?.....15 yrs of age and September 27th 2003 (whats yours brainy? I'll put it on my calendar)

22. description of crush......Its weird idk im not sure if its a genuine crush or not but uh....They like hp :).Thats all u get

23. fear(s).......Losing my best friend @dirtysocke and my other friends. Death. Failure. Momo chasing after me then killing me slowly keeping my eyes open to look her dead in the eyes while i die

24. height......5'6 call me short and I'll fuck u up with THIS *pulls out trusty potato peeler named now steve* dont test me boi

25. role model......Hhhhhhhh so many! But uh gosh one of them is @superraedizzle (youtuberrrr) and vexx and bob ross and da vinci and aaaaaaa so many

26. idol(s)......First person that immediately comes to mind is @sammchenry cause he's super cool and he's really nice and his art's reallyyy good (if u havent seen it w-w-what are u even doin with your life?) And he has a great sense of humor and *continues to ramble about why samms the best*

27. things i hate.......Dabs. Transphobes. Homophobic ppl. Basically any hate on the lgbtq+ community. Bullies. The ship starker. Umbridge. Snape haters

28. i’ll love you if….....U you'll eat pizza, draw, and rp harry potter with mee

29. favourite film(s)......Fantastic beasts. Every hp film. Twilight. The maze runner 1-2. The hunger games. Spiderman homecoming. Kingsman: secret service. Into the spideyverse tho i havent seen it yet

30. favourite tv show(s)......Inkmasterrrrr. B99. The mick. The middle. Uhhh idk mostly ink master xD

31. 3 random facts........Ive never had shrimp. I had a beta fish for over a year once. Im eating pizza crust rn

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?.......G i r l s. I have all girl friends irl and one boy. And on tumblr it seems like i just meet girls? Likei agree with @cristal-kyd1280 its like alot more gals then dudes here. But i do have some guy friends on here too. But mostly girls

33. something you want to learn.......TO DRAW ANATOMY DAMMIT

34. most embarrassing moment........Every moment of my lifes an embarrassing moment. Idk of i can pick a "most" embarrassing one. But one time i i sent my crush (now ex bf) a hey fuckface and like some hearts or whatever for an ask game that meant like "i have a crush on u" "youre adorable" etc and said Hewo but i did it all anonymously. But he confronted me askin if i sent it cause im the only person he knows that actually says hewo lol. Then later on i finally admitted i really liked him and well y'all know the story after i think. Unless you're new

35. favourite subject.......A R TTTT OFC

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?........meet my friends on tumblr. Get into mtsu (college i wanna go to) and study art. And go skydiving

37. favourite actor/actress........favorite actor uhhhhhh probably thomas brodie sangster or tom felton and my favorite actress? Hmmm idk maybe evanna lynch (luna lovegood)

38. favourite comedian(s).......probably kevin hart lol he's p funny

39. favourite sport(s)........basketballllllll and football

40. favourite memory........uhhhhh idk?? One oh my favorite memories was when we went to see tøp in concert

41. relationship status.....single as a pringle

42. favourite book(s)......harry potter and the order of the pheonix. Harry potter and the half blood prince. Simon vs the homo sapiens agenda. Divergent. Maze runner. Twilight. Fangirl. Fallen. Red queen

43. favourite song ever.......TOO HARD DONT MAKE ME CHOOSEEEEEE

44. age you get mistaken for.........16 and 17 sometimes lol

45. how you found out about your idol........i was watching someone on yt and superraedizzle always poped up in my feed and my mom turned on one of her vids cause she always saw her vids too now ive seen most of em i love her. Id heard of vexx but never watched him and i was watching a collab from anthony miller art and shrimpy and i checked out shrimpys channel and was lookin at comments and alot of ppl said his art is like vexxs so i checked out vexx. At first i was like eh ok. Now i cant click fast enough when he posts a vid. And i actually fpund out about bob ross from my grandpa on jan 20 2017 when trump was getting sworn in or whatever. We turned on pbs and my grampa told me to look and bob ross was on and i was IN. I loved it. I even started watching full episodes on YouTube of the joy of painting after that. Wonderful man. My first painting i ever did i think was when i followed one of his tutorials xD (i didnt know it was popular at the time)

46. what my last text message says......."ok your turn"

47. turn ons.....uhh nerds ig idk um book lovers, music lovers, art lovers, potterheads, idk and nice ppl

48. turn offs......jerks. Homophobia. Idk ig whatever i said in things i hate

49. where i want to be right now......uhhhh idk wait didn't i already answer this? Ok this ones different ig so uhh with my friend lucas

50. favourite picture of your idol.....oh shit...favorite? Idk xD i have a fave of vexx but not of rae or bob. But heres pics of them any way

51. starsign......a libraaaaa boiii

52. something i’m talented at......drawing and speed reading. Thats about it lol. Oh and procrastina

53. 5 things that make me happy.......ooooo art, my friends here on tumblr, books, harry potter, and music ^^

54. something thats worrying me at the moment.....if my friend thinks im being annoying

55. tumblr friends......hhhhh so manyyyyyy. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @chinesewaffles2 @kingantlion @queen-baelin @sammchenry @septembersbloom and more

56. favourite food(s)......green beans, pepperoni pizza, and vanilla madelines

57. favourite animal(s).......basically any reptile. Puppies. Cats. Any animal really but my #1 are snakes

58. description of my best friend.....well she's a tiny bean (5 feet) and she has dark hair, she wears glasses, she doesnt take shit, she's in love with Josh dun, she's awesome, funny, nice (YES youre nice jackie) and shes the best friend ive ever had. Oh. And she has a weird obsession with spaghetti

59. why i joined tumblr.......well i heard abt it on Pinterest over a year ago but didnt want it. Then @mrfastbass-deactivated20181231 on DeviantArt said he got tumblr so i made one then followed him and figured id just post art and that's it cause i thought tumblr was boring as hell when i first got it. Now im p much obsessed with it

60. ask me anything you want.......go ahead brainy shoot. Give me smtn good

#my face #mutual peeps #not-my-brain #asks #60 questions

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reivcn · 4 years

Audio

@natshana

#;;its not your blood that defines you. its your heart || luna #;;cause i need you. to see. you are the reason || music #;;the bird and the moon || sea mechanic

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savagc · 5 years

Video

youtube

#☆ its not your blood that defines you | its your heart | l u n a m i r a g e ★#bc still the most complete vid of luna made and i loves so much

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margridarnauds · 5 years

Note

6, 12, 23, and 45 please!

Thank you!

6. List your OTP from each fandom you’ve been involved in.

So, I have no idea what we’re talking about as far as levels of involvement, but here are the ones I read fanfic RELIGIOUSLY for back in the day. So, behold my shame.

Cats (oh, my sweet, innocent 12 year old self) - Mistoffelees/Victoria.

Phantom of the Opera - Raoul/Christine/Erik, tbh. I started off E/C, then shifted to R/C when I realized E was a trashfire, then went to R/C/E when I realized that I loved garbage after all.

Van Helsing - Anna/Dracula. Which is impressive given I’ve never. Actually. Watched it. Sue me.

Carmilla - Carmilla/Laura.

The Pirate Queen - Graínne/Donal, one of the first fics I ever wrote. (And then never published.) Yes, he is a garbage fire in the musical, but in my very specific rewrite of it, he wasn’t. Though these days, I kind of lean towards Tiernan/Donal or Tiernan/Gráinne/Donal. Garbage pirate OT3 is garbage.

Dracula - The Countess (from Makt Myrkanna)/Lucy Westenra. The first explicit femslash I ever wrote, and it might very well never see the light of day because I do not forever want to be known as The One With The Blood And The Lesbians. Though, who knows? It might cleanse me of Printing Press.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Yes. Really.): Twilight/Princess Luna. I keep telling myself that my AO3 profile’s eventually going to be nothing but period dramas, my (1) Terra Nova fic, and…a My Little Pony fic, along with various Barbie Movie fics. For old time’s sake.

Terra Nova - Wash/Mira, due to @janetcarter‘s influence.

The Flash - Barrison. Specifically, Eobard/Barry. In many ways, it was my prep for 1789 with the whole “I murdered your parent” thing.

The Avengers - Loki/Tony Stark.

Les Miserables - Valjean/Javert

The Golden Compass - Mrs. Coulter/Lord Asriel

Arthuriana - Galahad/Mordred

Star Wars - Reylo or Finnlo. I don’t particularly have a preference, just let Kylo screw one of his various archnemeses straight to the side of the Light.

Star Wars: Rebels - Kallus/Zeb. Oh. Another enemies to lovers ship. Who would have guessed?

1789 - Peyrol/Ronan (Was there any doubt? If there was, I need to write more.)

Revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre - Madame Roland/Marie-Anne. In progress, but A Ship for me. Mainly because I’m a contrarian little shit who writes things when people tell me I can’t and then gets attached to the result.

Brennus, Enemy of Rome - Ahmet/Nissia. Which…I still need to. Write. My fanfic for that one. So that fanfic for it exists.

Lord of the Rings - Boromir/Aragorn

Friedrich: Mythos und Tragödie - Countess Orzelska/Wilhelmine and Fritz/Katte. Pretty much equally, though Orzelskine (?) Wilhelska (?) is starting to edge out Fratte.

La Legende du Roi Arthur - Leia/Guinevere in the French and Morgane/Guin in the Takarazuka.

Irish Mythology - Bres/Sreng. I will defend this one to the death and I will do it with citations and footnotes.

Scarecrow of Romney Marsh - General Pugh/Dr Syn. Yet another one I. Need to write the fic for.

Star Trek: ……..

………You know, my favorite thing about Star Trek is that, regardless of shipping preferences, we can all find something to enjoy. Kor/Kirk. While I can’t speak for DS9 Quark/Brunt, my current favorite from Discovery has to be Michael/Tilly, which might very well be the single most wholesome thing I’ve shipped in a very long time.

Ace Attorney: Phoenix/Edgeworth.

12. Who is your current OT3?

Chauvelin/Percy/Marguerite from The Scarlet Pimpernel. I do not accept constructive criticism on this one. Because Percy/Marguerite are sickeningly sweet on their own, Marguerite/Chauvelin has That Sexual Tension in Where’s the Girl and The Riddle, and Percy/Chauvelin fulfill all my requirements as far as enemies to lovers ships are concerned.

23. Name a fic you’ve written that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

I’ve talked a lot about Forgiveness being one of the very few things I’ve written that I’ve ever liked and the ONE thing that I feel…gets my idea of how L/R WORK together and probably shows off my style best, along with Fowl Play (WHICH HAS FANART NOW. WHICH I’M STILL NOT OVER BECAUSE MY BABY HAS FANART.) So, instead, I’m going to shift to Pour la Peine, which…is my messy, messy child in many regards, not the least because it’s so much longer + still isn’t finished.

(Warning for various and assorted personal, squishy feelings, as well as cancer mentions)

When I first got the prompt from @fallenidol-453, it was January of 2018. Two months before, I’d received the news that my uncle had Stage Four Esophageal Cancer and my mother had moved from our house to his house to care for him, leaving me without her help for the first time in my life, which I deliberately kept as low-key about on here as I could be, given that, to be honest, dealing with the endless “I’m so sorry to hear that”s gets very exhausting after awhile and I was a college student with a schedule to keep. And he and I had a very…contentious relationship, despite the two of us being alike in many ways. Possibly because we were alike in many ways. And, by May of that year, he was dead. And I would learn shortly afterwards that my paternal grandfather had died in January, but no one on my father’s side had bothered to tell me. I spent a lot of time trying to deal with the stress of that time, juggling that with my schoolwork and my fanfic, which I tried to work on from the time I received the prompt onwards. (Tbh, I’d had the opening scene in my mind for awhile before, but I hadn’t had a larger plot + ending until the prompt.)

At first, I thought that I would publish it like I’d later publish Forgiveness, in one straight chapter, but as time went on and on and there became less and less of a shot of having it done any time soon, I ended up just publishing the first chapter and deciding to update it from there. And that chapter got a lot of ribbing from friends. “Her brother is dead” really came off as a very melodramatic first line, but I also decided, very early on, that I didn’t care about what the objective quality of it was; all I cared about was creating a snapshot of a time in my life, just like when I go through the stuff that I made when I was twelve and I laugh about the various and assorted OCs and questionable phrases but love them all the same because they’re my twelve year old self’s. And, where I was at that point in my life, writing Solène mourning a family member who she had a difficult relationship with while I mourned a family member who I had a difficult relationship with, it was the only line that felt right to me.

There’s a lot of things with this one that I’m still not sure about. There’s a plot twist that I’ve tried to be quiet about for all this time (that I’ve probably been really terrible about keeping, tbh) and that is either going to be the Jumping the Shark moment or the defining moment of it, and I’m obviously not sure how that’s going to be received though I want to believe I’ve foreshadowed it enough to not make it too much of a swerve, I’m not sure how I feel about the ending, there’s a lot there that’s murky and probably more reflective of my writing a year ago than not, and I’m not sure about how I’ve handled the character dynamics given what we’ve got in canon or the dynamic I’ve put them into, or whether the choices they’ll make reflect THEM or what I WANTED them to do. Hell, with a few things, I’m not sure how I’m even going to GET to the ending.

But, I’m really proud of how much I’ve had the chance to work with Solène and Olympe, I’m really happy with a lot of the work I put into sequences like the two chapters long March to Versailles, which involved looking into a LOT of personal accounts as well as secondary sources analyzing it, and I liked trying to flesh out Solène’s world. But, more importantly, of everything I’ve written, it and Le Cri are probably the most directly personal to me, and even though a part of me still says Her brother is dead is a hell of a melodramatic opening line, it fulfilled its purpose. And, tbh, sometimes that’s all a fic needs.

45. What is your all time favourite fanfic?

This is so hard for me, because there are so many fics that have left a huge impression on me throughout the various fandoms I’ve been in. In 1789 alone, I was thinking of at least two different fics at a given point, which is both fantastic and minorly stressful given how small this fandom is (one of which, incidentally, was Little Dove Heart, since that really gave me a huge push as far as Laz and his backstory and his characterization and his relationship to Artois, even if I tend to keep the latter more in the background). And there have been so many fics I’ve read that I’ll remember and go back to periodically, and that really helped me as far as looking at how character voices could be developed and how description would work and how to work a time period and a setting into a story.

Overall though, I think I’m going to have to give it to Vae Victis, which is a work by @sineala‘s. I’ve never been quiet about my undying love for the Gauls and for Brennus in particular. Brennus is one of my historical favs, and I felt like this fic did a really, really fantastic job of bringing that much-neglected period of time to life and developing the characters on their own, without me having any background in the source material. With fanfic, especially with a more active fandom, there’s kind of an expectation that everyone knows the characters involved, so to be able to work in a different time and to get the reader fully invested in the characters and their relationship in their own right is a really fantastic accomplishment, and to be able to show the Gauls and Brennus (in what little time he gets, because my boi’s not the focus and I accept that) as three dimensional figures rather than a rampaging horde is always much appreciated. And it has a WORKS CITED page at the end, AKA the eternal key to my heart.

#long post #berncat #sorry for the tragic backstory dump on PLP!#but there's a reason why it's still my baby despite everything

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recommendedlisten · 5 years

Text

There were hardly any blockbuster albums in 2018, but there definitely was no shortage of great albums either. For that reason, the year in music was better off for it. Similar to how this year's 30 Best Songs came from an open field where newer artists breaking through the underground could take a seat at the same table as innovative veterans and modern pop royalty alike, the 30 Best Albums of 2018 tells a similar story of a past not showing any signs of being beyond its prime, and a very promising future as to what its rookie artists might create one day when they're no longer the buzzworthy genre outsiders, punks, dance makers, and indie rockers the scene's radar. And speaking of the latter, it looks like many of this decade's earliest risers have proven themselves as worthy of the hype through greater substance and hitting their own strides. Less obvious, however, was that 2018 was a banister year for a new wave of hardcore band that continue to challenge the status quo beyond every circle of sound imaginable. If you've been waiting for the real thing, this year's top honors delivered it to you. 2019 has a lot to live up, because if it's half as interesting as the 30 Best Albums of 2018, we'll still be very lucky as listeners.

30. Hovvdy - Cranberry [Double Double Whammy]

With their graduation to Double Double Whammy for its sophomore effort Cranberry, Hovvdy have removed much of the digital tape deck hiss from their debut to make memories even more vivid when being stored inside their songs. And yet, Cranberry is still as soft a listen in a lovely way as its predecessor was despite its sharper clarity, which leads one to believe that the duo of Will Taylor and Charlie Martin are more focused on the way the listening experience captures a feeling rather than seeks out a way to recreate it. The songs’ tempos oft slowly trot through crisp strums and repetitive drum steps, occasionally fluttered in the warm hum of Casiotones (courtesy of fellow Austin DIY scene peer Hannah Read of Lomelda), but in defining their shapes in bolder lines with proper pop construction, Taylor’s plainspoken singing have a bigger space on the canvas to paint broad-stroked stories onto and allow the details – as muted as they are – to sink in full.

29. House of Feelings - New Lows [Joyful Noise Recordings]

What started as a radio show and dance night spinning some of the most esoteric sounds in dance and electronic vibes is now a living, breathing music collective of creatives from all corners of the underground built on an unbreakable foundation known as House of Feelings. On the NYC troupe’s debut full-length New Lows, multi-faceted songwriter Matty Fasano, YVETTE drummer and producer Dale Eisinger, songwriter Joe Fassler, and a cast of HoF collaborators familiar and new including Perfect Pussy’s Meredith Graves, Shamir, Denitia, and EULA’s Alyse Lamb, the group steps back into the darkest time line of our present reality after tripping out in an ambient post-apocalyptic freak out with last year’s club banger Last Chance EP. The pathways through which they travel are still treacherous as ever, but with blood-soaked shoes, sweaty bass lines, brass spirits, and synthetic doppelgangers for human emotion, they’re able to create a chic antidote for corrupt modern connections.

28. Oneohtrix Point Never - Age Of [Warp Records]

Oneohtrix Point Never breaks free of self-imposed insularity through collaboration and his own version of mass pop deconstruction to create “nightmare ballads” on Age Of. It is – along with the performance art installation that accompanies it – simultaneously Daniel Lopatin’s most ambitiously detailed, yet cohesively-defined auditory experiences since breaking through in 2010 with the melodic MIDI warping of Returnal, as it reconvenes into a pattern of brain teasing pleasure that had until now, been marked for deletion in his virtual garden. Dismantling pop cliches into a morbid art form has always been Oneohtrix Point Never’s M.O., but never has Lopatin challenged them so heavily as he has on Age Of by putting what’s obvious in front of listeners, then ripping off its outer layers of gloss to reveal what makes them work. Whenever these songs feel as though they are encroaching upon a natural climax, OPNs pulls the hook away from our ears, as if to tantalize our reward ever so softly while testing the natural habits of our cerebral mechanics no doubt shaped by larger machines in the process. Now, that’s a scary thought...

27. Ava Luna - Moon 2 [Western Vinyl]

Moon 2 is the perfect title for where Ava Luna are today as artists. It’s their new phase – One in which the NYC art pop band shed the skin of the term “collective,“ and instead join tentacles to become a fully collaborative species as varied as their backgrounds are. That LP 5 is their most streamlined effort to date may come as an even bigger surprise given the latter detail, as each member of the five-piece has spent the interim since 2015′s Infinite House expressing themselves mostly on their own. It could be, however, that in learning to stand on their own feet and flexing these creative muscles that Ava Luna has become stronger as a unit, as stylistic cohesion is threaded through the album from the moment it creaks into infinite space. Gravity-free vocals and ambient waves glide through Felicia Douglass’ hushed breaths and silk-covered runs, Becca Kaufmann bumps energy into the alien disco, while guitarist Carlos Hernandez’ and the band’s rhythm of Julian Fader and Ethan Bassford maintain its physically kinetic geometry. In this phase, there’s no one who can do it all with the fashion and finesse like they do.

26. Gouge Away - Burnt Sugar [Deathwish Inc.]

Maybe more exciting than the arrival of their breakout Burnt Sugar is that Gouge Away are really only getting started. At its core level is vocalist Christina Michelle who lives and breathes her every word, be it gnarling in daily anxiety and frustrations with hope, or controlling the chaos with a sung seance. Since their debut ,Dies, she and her bandmates have evolved into a more intentional force with in their use of emotional intensity as Mick Ford’s guitars remain razor-sharp when need be, but conceal themselves in a softer casing that rolls down your spine before tearing into your skin. Burnt Sugar also gets some of its charred flavoring by pillaging the grime and grunge of ‘90s post-hardcore and noise influence, as Tyler Forsythe’s bass lines dent and wobbly through tension without resistance as Tommy Cantwell’s drums find a gnarled groove between the dark crevices they leave in their quake. Its brimming with so much possibility as to where they can go tomorrow, but for now, leaves a lasting bittersweet taste in your mouth.

25. Hop Along - Bark Your Head Off, Dog [Saddle Creek]

Bark Your Head Off, Dog finds Hop Along mastering the art of embellishing rock with finer detail. While it may require additional lengths to let it sink in, it’s definitively the Philly band’s most ambitious effort to succeed on all fronts.Their latest sonic evolution continues to bristle with rawness, yet hooks are deeply entwined in intricate chord progressions while Frances Quinlan’s storytelling has become a thing on the scale of an American classic in literature as she continues to observe the mundane of everyday living with deep existential analysis. The quartet’s overall sound reflects that need to uphold that imagery with compositions just as tangled in the ornate, and demanding greater patience on the part of the listener to hear exactly where knotted guitars untie themselves and fray into choruses, or where elastic, funky footwork begins to effortless flow with ease into melody. Bark Your Head Off, Dog is not just something to behold because of its creative maturation, but a fun practice in dissecting and digesting music (and subsequently, the world around us) that rewards the experience with resonating tunefulness hidden in between.

24. Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love [ANTI-]

Deafheaven’s fourth studio effort Ordinary Corrupt Human Love shares many of the same organs and bone structures as its ancestors, but it’s a different animal altogether. It’s Deafheaven putting every one of the eccentricities they have nourished in their sound out there from the start into the wilderness, free to roam and form an album that embodies the humanity within their metal machine. Piano interludes, dreamy soundscapes indebted to slocore and indie rock traditionalism alongside guest vocal apparitions both weave even further layers to an an already ornate tapestry of scorched earth black metal and post rock, if maybe adding a touch of fragility to Clarke’s core existentialism. He ruminates plaintive thoughts on nature, aging, and empathy with a poetic grandeur that makes no apologies for being transparently earnest. That earnestness in all facets is what differentiates Ordinary Corrupt Human Love from any other Deafheaven album, or any other album that seers together a heavy heart and inner peace for that matter.

23. Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer [Epic Music / Sony Records / Wonderland Arts Society]

Dirty Computer bares the familiar signatures of Janelle Monáe’s past work – a rollout full bonkers visuals overlaying forward-thinking production that sets synthetic futurisms on an asteroid collision with the funky torchbearing of the Purple One’s legacy – yet it doubles down on radio-equipped hooks and choruses grounded like no other effort she’s set forth. There’s a full reveal of the political being personal in that aspect, as the album celebrates Monáe’s “PYNK”-themed coming out party as a pansexual woman of color, redefining the “Crazy, Classic, Life” of the modern American dream in the process. Her freedom roar, be it sung with sex and smoothness as she exudes in album bangers ”Make Me Feel” and “Screwed” or rapped with sharpened poise on ”Django Jane” is limitless is strength. Monáe’s star power dwarfs even the legends of tomorrow accompanying her journey back to Earth, be it Brian Wilson’s cosmic harmonies on its title track, or the electric empower-ade made with Pharrell Williams on “I Got the Juice”. Now that she’s graced us within arm’s length, it’s time we start recognizing a world where everything revolves around Janelle Monáe’s universal message to be just as you are.

22. The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships [Dirty Hit / Interscope Records]

On their third LP A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, it’s here where millennial melody makers the 1975 come into their own with their most actualized commentary on modern connection and pop music. Frontperson Matty Healy’s guides the dialogue through astute observations as a voyeur as well as his own ugly overshares for public consumption The album especially glorifies the latter in its arrangement. Like the dopamine rushes and exhaustion of life’s sudden highs and unexpected lows, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships is pieced together in an unpredictable path of emotions in mind as it plays out. The listen combs through a post-Burial static plane, Auto-tuned trap pop, power ballad bombast, and even pulling off some oddity moments of loungey jazz. There’s a lot to not like about how our world is revolving, with the only optimism echoed here is the acknowledgement that we’re suffering through the darkest timeline together. For a generation whose attention’s spans are at peak deficit, hashtaggable plugs and genre-hopping get that message across through production-perfect content baiting reach.

21. Kamasi Washington - Heaven and Earth [Young Turks]

The year’s biggest adventure through the sonic cosmos comes by way of Kamasi Washington who takes you further out than you expected with Heaven and Earth, his latest grandeur display of avant jazz adventures composed with the special powers of the video game superheroes he invokes when aligning big brass purists and less discriminatory crossover crowd on the same universal plane. The double LP featuring 16 tracks average in 10 minutes in length each may as well be a quadruple one by today’s standards, though it also finds the Los Angeles saxophonist and his band in top form with cohesively connecting the dots in his experimentally sound genre reconstructions that encompasses free wheeling eruptions and percussive winks into the realms of rock, soul, and R&B. Heaven and Earth mediates his world of the weird and technically proficient with out current pop climate changes, and there’s more than enough sonic sight seeing in this journey to keep your senses in awe.

20. Iceage - Beyondless [Matador Records]

What began as an exorcise in violence, nihilism, and anxiety personified in the least suspecting of scenes within Denmark’s desolate DIY basements has evolved into a meticulous exercise in punk polyglot experimentation on Beyondless. Here, Iceage weaponize gothic purveyance to subdue their louder abrasions, but not necessarily their ability to confront the dark with any softer hesitation for a grander stage. The Danish quartet’s fourth studio effort is a new peak culmination in their insatiable desire to further themselves well beyond the limits previously drawn in their musical sculpture. The way they brandish danger and bleak existentialism in tandem with their bootsy grit is sexed up for pomp and glam through its incorporation of strong brass winds and cantankerous jazzy fits. Elias Rønnenfelt has written himself a charismatic stage persona to match – Consumed by the theatrics of a rock god and the Devil himself at once. Their unholy ritual has been completed and satisfies all heathens.

19. Tomberlin - At Weddings [Saddle Creek]

Sarah Beth Tomberlin was born to a strict Baptist household where her father was a minister, and she honed her craft as a songwriter through praise hymnals sung at Sunday sermons. She wasn’t allowed to discover a musical world outside of that sphere until she began secretly sneaking Bright Eyes CDs into her possession during her formative years. At Weddings, her debut full-length, is her way of forging her own path in a post-theist world that gives her – as she puts it on its opener “Any Other Way” – a sudden feeling that she doesn’t “have a place.” There’s more to her story than just existential queries hollowed out in a negative space where her voice, rendered in a delicate, yet devastatingly beautiful coat of reverb, echoes out as vast as the Midwestern fields she was raised. While At Weddings doesn’t conclude with her finding that place in the world she can finally rest comfort in, the ellipses it leaves listeners with is awe-striking in the way it makes you wonder right alongside Tomberlin where her path will lead her in the end.

18. Speedy Ortiz - Twerp Verse [Carpark Records]

Ever since they arrived on the scene as fresh-faced college grads of the school of indie rock with their 2013 debut full-length Major Arcana, the combination of singer Sadie Dupuis’ particular prose and she and her Speedy Ortiz bandmates’ higher level learning of idiosyncratic songwriting has been the thing that has made them stand out in a pack in the scene’s new wave of artists heavily influenced by the thinking person’s underground. With 2015′s Foil Deer, they proved that they had not only studied up on every book inside the indie rock laureates' libraries, and knew how to put that knowledge to proper use in writing their own chapters within it for today’s impressionable minds, but their latest effort Twerp Verse is a selfless endeavor devoid of needing to prove anything to anyone. Instead, it’s the quartet’s most outspoken commentary on modern day righteousness made all the more digestible with some new tricks from Dupuis’ second degree in spooky pop experimentation gained during a semester abroad under her sad13 guise. Speedy cram a lot to chew on here about common decency, but rest assured, these are choruses that will stick to your brain as much as the corrective lessons for a better society do, too.

17. Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want [Ipecac Recordings]

Before going on indefinite hiatus in 2010, Daughters helped carve out a particular sound that stylized post- and grindcore scenes in the mid-2000s. Elastic guitars, intense drumming fits, and a frontperson in Alexis S.F. Marshall who sounded like an unhinged cog thrown in the machine whose job was to cause malfunctions at every turn was their modus operandi. Through sealed rifts, Daughters have since reunited with its most recent incarnation of Marshall, founding drummer Jon Syverson, rhythm guitarist Nicholas Andrew Sadler and Samuel M. Walker on bass, yet they're not the same band we heard on their return effort You Won’t Get What You Want. The Providence quartet’s fourth studio effort makes a concentrated effort in reshaping the outlines of their hardened history in an industrial fusion of human parts and robot arms melding into one alongside sea-sawing droning, smoldering blues, and gothic epics. Just as Daughters’ past indefinite hiatus status made no promises, You Won’t Get What You Want feels like they’ve entering a new phase where the unease in uncertainty fuels the thrill ride to defy any expectation/

16. Wild Pink - Yolk In the Fur [Tiny Engines]

Despite having cut their teeth in the Brooklyn indie scene these last several years, Wild Pink don’t sound so much like your standard guitar-chugging city dwellers on their breakout sophomore effort Yolk In the Fur. The trio of John Ross, TC Brownell and Dan Keegan have grown beyond the concrete jungle and ventured into an equally captivating impression here of ‘80s synth-bleeding, Americana-influenced rock that has made storytelling sentiment glimmer like a borealis in the way it has for the album’s kindred spirit Tom Petty and more recently, the modern day journeys of the War On Drugs. Yolk In the Fur has its own handwriting to share, however, with Ross emoting existential philosophies while gazing through the monotony of the every day and millennial melancholia. It’s there where Wild Pink transcend beyond subways and human-saturated streets and into the vast fields, rivers and star-lit skies -- Their own version of escapism becoming contagious.

15. Camp Cope - How to Socialise & Make Friends [Run for Cover Records]

Speaking to Camp Cope’s How to Socialise & Make Friends is a daunting task, especially from this end seeing that any cisgender straight male isn’t the most qualified to do the kind of heavy lifting these Melbourne indie rockers’ do here on their sophomore effort. The listen protests and shouts just as much as it lets out heavy sighs as singer Georgia Maq airs her grievances, be it via acid tongue or a higher road empathy. Her targets include gendered double-standards and an exhaustion with cultured misogyny in every facet of her daily life. She sings from both the unjust experiences as the frontperson of an all-women band within a male-dominated punk scene and as a humanist, with dudes behaving badly toward both in and out of those circles. The sound Camp Cope wage war with words with burns with an anti-authoritarian DIY spirit and emotive frustration equivocally, as Maq’s unfurling guitars over Kelly-Dawn Hellmrich and Sarah Thompson’s steady rhythm clear a path for her to break the patriarchy, if even by throwing just a single stone into every glass ceiling at a time.

14. Snail Mail - Lush [Matador Records]

Lindsey Jordan knows the roller coaster emotions of being young better than most indie rock songwriters out there right now, perhaps because she’s still figuring out a way to deal with them. With her debut album Lush, the 19-year-old’s creative outlet Snail Mail invites the entire world into the thick of her Tiny Little Corner of Anywhere where the doldrums of suburban living collide with teenage romance and its ensuing anguish in a manner where even a minor happening in heartache is enough substance to soundtrack a turning point in the coming-of-age experience. How she does so is through a stronghold in sharp earnestness wise beyond her years with lyrical specificity wrapped up in slowburning melancholic hooks that might otherwise suggest what ‘90s indie rock might have sounded like had it been put to her eloquent pen in the present. Yet, Lush is through and through about living in the moment, growing pains and all, and Snail Mail is in no hurry to shake the ride.

13. Vince Staples - FM! [Def Jam]

FM! -- an 11 track, 23-minute-long project from Vince Staples -- extends the Long Beach M.C.’s streak of success through an endless summer party meant for momentary escapism. The listen is no different than tuning into the long-running Los Angeles hip-hop station 92.3 and its show, Big Boy’s Neighborhood, that serves to bind together Staples’ latest duality of disenfranchised disparity against fame and prosperity over a series of intros, skits, interludes and, to greater effect, a group of Cali-minded guest features that would fit in effortlessly next to the radio fodder Staples’ cult rap skills usually sit on the outside of. It’s a current snapshot of the Vince Staples of today without forgetting where he came from, and he gets a few hits in that way by dropping ugly realities into an otherwise mostly white Coachella crowd-pleasing playlist where tough-as-nails honesty and ear-softening commercial pleasure find a middle ground. FM!’s fun from the outside looking in, yet a complex commentary when you stick your head in closer, and nothing less than we’ve come to expect from rap’s best thinkers.

12. Vein - errorzone [Closed Casket Activities)

The Greater Boston legacy of heavy has long been a place where hardcore and metal collide with an awesome vigor, and that lineage continues to expand beyond the Baystate today with Vein, a group of Merrimack Valley thrashers who are amplifying the intensity of the scene’s groundbreakers in the likes of Cave In, Converge and American Nightmare, and bare down the void with their own young nihilistic bulldozing. Their debut full-length errorzone uses the framework laid before them and fuses its pieces into a sound of apocalyptic proportions where human adrenaline and natural forces smolder into the quintet’s firestorm to form a death-wielding vehicle. The end result tears shit apart in every which way. Lead screamer Anthony DiDio is a wrecking ball on his own two feet, but backed by Vein’s seismic riffs and stone pummeling rhythmic core, errorzone is unapologetically harsh in seeing that everything burns to the ground. Taking into account the current state of the world, that might just be what this place needs.

11. Beach House - 7 [Sub Pop]

With 7, Beach House’s singular sound has settled on a narrative that has no concrete objective in sight, but rather, an unharnessed exploration into the unknown of what possibilities may manifest. That it’s their most curiously daring listen in a career that’s already been defined by surprises is a fete most veteran indie rock acts these days should be envious to achieve themselves, and for that, Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally can thank their lucky intuition for guiding their spirit in a directionless path. 7′s specific magical power is their ability to transform that darkness into an unsuspecting beauty, as the album oft confronts such instances fit for these tumultuous times by embracing the ability for empathy and love to grow out of that trauma, capturing the free-fall from resistance into giving in with a lightness. Explorations with psychedelic hues and cosmic lights in their smoldering, vapory dream-pop soothe even the bleakest questions that float through the timeline of an otherwise frightening reality. Beach House, in their present formless existence, endure in its brave embrace of it.

10. Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs [Tan Cressida / Columbia Records]

Aside from being a grade A wordsmith, Earl Sweatshirt stands out among other rappers from the younger era thanks to his ability to connect with audiences by talking to real life context in ways that never look like fashion statements or image crafting. It’s neither a Drake-ism or an emo rap algorithm ploy -- It’s honest, ugly reality checks that have gone toe to toe with anxiety, depression and death talk without glamorizing any of them as a welcome lifestyle. Last we’d heard from him were the incisive cuts levied through weed clouds and paranoia on 2015′s I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside, yet, like many of his Odd Future alumni, Earl has grown out of his tumultuous teens, and with Some Rap Songs, the 24-year-old cult hero is beginning to piece together life’s puzzles clearly -- at least through prose. Throughout the listen, his rap style transcends any comparison to what his peers are creating as he delves into an abstract collage of background noise made of layered beats, samples of voices from the outside, and a control over his own as a hookless wonder. With the smoke clearing from the room, it turns out that the avant direction fits Earl Sweatshirt perfectly.

9. Robyn - Honey [Konichiwa Records]

In the 8 year absence releasing her ultimate legacy-cementing effort Body Talk, Robyn’s footprint on the pop universe has become permanently entangled in the DNA of its modern current. Now that she’s made her return on her sixth full-length effort Honey, however, we’re not just given everything we could hope for in a Robyn album – But something from a different creative pop genius than the one we last danced our worries away with. Experiences with grief and loss have changed the shape of the way she breaks our hearts and teaches us how to put them back together this time around, as Honey brings different facets of light into her singular sound to separate itself from similar flavors. Bright, shimmering whirls of synths and soft caresses sweep up a familiar warmth as any other Robyn endorphin rush, but glamorous house parties, funked up bass lines and breezy lite R&B turn the corner toward a different perspective in the healing process. Though we never truly know what pains life may bring our way, Robyn reminds us that there’s always a way back to the sweet stuff with Honey.

8. Pusha-T - DAYTONA [Def Jam / G.O.O.D. Music]

Stretches of ominous silence in between releases have worked to Pusha-T’s advantage in massaging his work into a hard craft. Ever since his 2013 debut My Name Is My Name and 2015′s followup King Push – Darkest Before Dawn: The Prelude, the pursuit of perfection has equated to him needing to waste less time to get people talking about what he’s saying. His X-acto knife precision consistently coupled with an ultra modern beat design never ceases to cut right where it needs to, and with his latest album DAYTONA, we get 7 tracks in just a little over 20 minutes where the Delaware son savors his words for deep impact. What’s left in its wake is a proper torching of the entire hip-hop landscape with his long shadow and knife-like flow that gave 2018 one of the year’s most talked about rap beefs. Darker moments surrounding loss of friends and the double-edged sword of fame swallow the soul whole into itself as well, and in aligning himself with Kanye West’s post-Pablo production (basically, the only good thing ‘Ye gave music this year...), the reign of King Push remains unrivaled.

7. Soccer Mommy - Clean [Fat Possum Records]

The opening moments from Soccer Mommy breakout Clean don’t idealize romantic expectations, so don’t get your hopes up that the rest of the album is going to find its way to some kind of happy ending either. Clean is the result of an ongoing bedroom-born lullaby inward that had been slowly forming the outlines of Sophie Allison’s persona over the years, with her debut full-length transforming early broad brush strokes into more detailed ones through a rickety walk of structurally-sound acoustic strums, hints of twinklecore in her alternative slow burn, and a healthy measure of studio trickery that puts a stamp with Allison’s name all over her confessionals. There’s an intense relatability to her storytelling as well as her underdog status of being on the losing end of relationships that makes her work resonate deep within the every-person, and they’re all necessary, too. Unlike all of the girls who she isn’t we meet here on Clean, owning up to her differences is what makes Allison sound realer than the rest.

6. Cardi B - Invasion of Privacy [Atlantic Records]

Social media-assisted personal brands may seemingly grow overnight these days, but one thing that won’t ever change is how they’re only a piece of the puzzle – if at all – in guaranteeing a successful rap career. If you were expecting Cardi B’s debut album Invasion of Privacy to change any rules of the game, it doesn’t over-promise in that regard, but it’s still an assured first step that includes Cardi delivering on her end of the it with a solid performance of real life character work backed by a roundtable of reliable modern production crafted by the likes of Boi-1da, Murda Beatz and Benny Blanco. It’s an early indication that proves she knows herself better than most others have in this position when it came to making money moves with natural instinct, and it’s perhaps the biggest reason why Cardi B managed to parlay her hustle from behind a smart phone into a #1 dream come true while her detractors keep bloating streaming algorithms in hopes of guaranteeing themselves a cheap hit.

5. Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour [Mercury Nashville]

With Golden Hour, Kacey Musgraves continues to be just as brave enough to color outside the lines of country with her honesty as she does in the palette she paints with as well. Disco-inflicted pop crossovers, cosmic countrypolitan, psychedelic steel pedaling, a refracted spectrum of ‘70s style classic rock piano balladry worthy of Elton’s rhinestoned co-sign, and in between everything, Golden Hour shining with that simple purity of fully lucid designs Musgraves has always brought to the table in dripping honey-combed acoustics into melancholia and pop that bring even a basic approach to songwriting into widescreen view. The album amounts to something akin to an actual rainbow for that matter – All colors vivid and unique in their own way, but when they collect together, they suggest something much more, be it in its wonders of life, love, and enjoying every second of it in the present with your senses filled with them.

4. American Pleasure Club - A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This [Run for Cover Records]

At the end of 2017, Sam Ray ditched the Teen Suicide moniker in favor of something more empathetic and conscious by redubbing his punk band American Pleasure Club. After years of making music inspired by depressive fits, substance abuse, and an aggressively nihilistic world view, he’s realigned his sound as well thanks to sobriety and finding domestic bliss with fellow musician Kitty Ray. With that, the band’s third proper album A Whole Fucking Lifetime of This is where Sam Ray has adulted beyond the bitter teenage malaise of his past while giving his loyalty of listeners every reason to continue working toward defining happiness in their own messy lives. That’s mirrored in a juxtaposition of vibes throughout the listen, varied in mood and style as vast as bedroom pop melancholia, pop-punk jitters, wallowing alternative waves, and hazy R&B that circle back to a big picture of coherency. Its a soundscape Ray has tinkered with tirelessly since the project’s inception, and has now found a fulfilling sweet spot in American Pleasure Club’s sound thanks to acknowledgement the reality of a love in a world that will never truly be a personal heaven nor hell.

3. Mitski - Be the Cowboy [Dead Oceans]

Mitski’s fifth album Be the Cowboy is brimming with ideas in brevity, yet it never falls short of articulating them with considered judgement that proves Mitski Miyawaki is in full control of her directive wheel. To give of herself even the slightest glimpse into the 27-year-old songwriter’s psyche through song is her gift to the Earth, with her pen blurring a universal connection between the personal and creation by mining its many striations of disconnect. Her other half on the surface level is often framed like a lover, though she’s hinted that sometimes the relationships that break her heart the most are those not reciprocated in her commitment to her work. Be the Cowboy finds her acting out every role in the story inseparably through the bombast of indie rockisms,an incorporation of songwriting worlds both traditional and modern that render new benchmarks of perfection for her timeless prose and even disco-pop, making it all the more difficult to decipher, yet that’s the point: They’re all designed as self-reflections given equal moments to be honored in her dark and light.

2. Low - Double Negative [Sub Pop]

Slowcore innovators Low have evolved far beyond the patient wonder of their music in several different styles over their storied 25-year career as a band, but nothing in their catalog is anything like their latest studio effort, Double Negative. The listen answers the question of what may exist of the Duluth trio if you were to destroy in their sound all the natural beauty that has endured gracefully these last three decades, and attempts to reconstruct it by fragment, particle by particle. That’s done intentionally, as the band holds a shattered mirror up to the world and reflects it onto themselves, as LP 12 embraces their most abrasive traits fearlessly through deconstructed and corruptly digitized instrumentation sucked into the vacuous production of. B.J. Burton, go-to producer at Bon Iver’s April Base home studio. The uncertainty in Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker vocals, while remaining tender all the way through, surface anxieties felt by many humans amid the disarray. We don’t know what tomorrow brings, though Double Negative captures the present in all its brokenness flawlessly.

1. Turnstile - Time & Space [Roadrunner Records]

Pull the 25-minute-long sprint that is Turnstile’s major label debut Time & Space apart by its guts, and you’ll hear that it’s so many other things than just a record that is guaranteed to insight a lot of free-falling bodies flying off stages wherever they take this record live. Even as a screamer, Brendan Yates is rather Svengali in his anti-et. al resistance, feeding his existential crisis into grungy despair and plunging down that rabbit hole lined in hybridized metal. Guitarists Brady Ebert and Pat McCrory alongside bassist Franz Lyon and drummer Daniel Fang are integral to controlling the listen between a slam dance and a hardcore meditation, meeting every signature call to the pit with a far out reverberation such as “Moon”, a lush, hazy pop-punker of a track. If there’s a single takeaway from Turnstile’s proper introduction beyond the DIY spaces they came through, it’s that the Baltimore quintet are prepared to take risks to reshape hardcore as something more than just punk’s harder edge of sound. It’s one continuous nonstop feeling, and one that’s bringing the whole scene into an entirely different level of being.

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