#couldn’t find the actual stories for top 5 artists and songs but found a few screenshots in my camera roll

[foreveransparrow]

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#couldn’t find the actual stories for top 5 artists and songs but found a few screenshots in my camera roll #for the record the most listened artists were #selena gomez in 2020 top 1% #sam smith in 2021 top 0.5% #little mix in 2022 top 2% #and now BTS in 2023 top 1% #spotify wrapped

[sleepysnk]

i fell in LOVE with the ideas you gave me about streamer!eren so here we go! thank you again and i hope you enjoy <3

Jaegerbomb is Streaming

Pairings: Streamer!Eren Jaeger x Fem!Reader

Warnings: None

Jaegerbomb is now streaming

Eren adjusted his mic as the stream began, it was a Friday night and he was doing his usual nightly stream. He talked about it on Twitter so he expected a lot of people to be tuning in tonight, as well as it was a Friday night and not many people had school the next day.

"What's up guys?" Eren said as he watched the views begin to go up and the viewers tuned in.

He watched people type in the chat sending the usual 'hi eren!' or the 'hey eren!' he was used to the these messages, a smile forming onto his face.

"Good to see you guys here again! I honestly have no idea what I'm gonna play tonight but we'll go with it," he said, looking at the different chats.

He began to read the different messages that were being sent, some people complimented him or asked how his day was to which he responded with 'thank you' or 'my night has been great'.

Eren was a popular streamer.

He gained popularity within a few months after he streamed with some pretty well known streamers, his raging and yelling is what got him noticed by people, as well as his appearance. People got a kick out of him all the time and he was definitely going places.

Eren was cute, he had emerald-like eyes, brown hair, a sly sexy smile, and he always looked amazing no matter what. It attracted female attention as well as some males, Eren didn't mind it though, he loved interacting with fans on a daily basis; he also had a pretty big fanbase with 400k followers on Twitter and 90k Instagram followers. They were all amazing people and Eren couldn't ask for better.

His rage was something people found to be hilarious, there were compilations of him yelling at Call of Duty or screaming when playing the popular horror games. There was also this one time Eren's mom walked in and yelled at him when he was being too loud, and people found it to be hilarious.

He called his fans the 'Jaegerists', his fanbase was very sweet and there was rarely any toxicity in it. Which in Eren's opinion, was very relieving.

When Eren got popular he was very nervous of the issues that came with it, sometimes people would recognize him on the street or people in his classes would bring up his streams. It was something Eren enjoyed, but he tended to keep his streaming life out of his personal life. It was also a request by Carla, his mother. She told Eren to be careful and always be wary of the internet.

He did exactly that and here he was now, sitting with 7k people watching him.

"What should I play tonight? I was thinking we could do Cold War or Minecraft, but being honest Cold War is a bit boring right now; so let me know guys!" Eren said, scrolling through his chat.

Within seconds people began replying saying either Cold War or Minecraft.

Suddenly, a few notifications started popping in from a few of his viewers.

jaegerbombfan10 donated 30 coins!

iloveeren_ donated 10 coins!

erenjaeger21 donated 5 coins!

Eren smiled as he got the donations, it was common for his viewers to donate to him and he was very thankful for it. He never begged his fans for donations or any of that and that's what people liked about Eren, he never asked for anything other than love and kindness.

"Thank you to those who donated! You're all amazing!" he said with a smile.

The usual kudos came into chat and people sent in hearts to the chat which made Eren feel 10x more happier, he enjoyed what his fans were doing for him and he was so thankful.

"Alright I think Minecraft won.. so today we're gonna do that," Eren added, narrowing his eyes a bit at the different chats which suggested the game.

Eren skimmed through his computer and began to load the game, it took a few moments but the main screen popped up and Eren put on his headset.

His eyes averted to the chat's people were sending in.

jaegerbombswife: eren u look so good

ereniloveyou_: minecraft is so cool eren

jaegerbombsbiggestfan: omg eren u look so cute right now ❤

jaegerist21: ooo minecraft? sounds fun eren!

"I feel like a mess right now but thank you guys, really. What music should I play tonight? Let me know in the chat," he said before turning back to the screen and entering his world.

It was pretty common for Eren to stream during the night, he doesn't really have the time during the day to stream since he has school and other important personal things to deal with.

He scrolled through the chats with different artists and songs, "You guys want Pop Smoke? I played him last time.. how about some The Kid Laroi? He has some good songs," he said, clicking through to find his spotify.

Eren clicked on a random song and went back to Minecraft, he started by running around and organizing his items because a few people in the chat were complaining about his inventory.

"Oh shush! Not everyone is perfect! My house is dope okay?" Eren said before chuckling a bit.

Suddenly, a few notifications came through which caught Eren's attention.

y/nloveseren donated 500 coins!

y/nloveseren donated 1000 coins!

y/nloveseren donated 800 coins!

That was surprising.. not many people donate three times in a row, and with that many coins either.

Eren watched as the user moved from the bottom of the donation list to the very top, whoever it was, they were donating a lot of coins to him.

"Yo! Y/nloveseren! Thank you for your donations!" he said, smiling to himself.

A few chats suddenly bubbled in.

jaegerist45: damn whoever that is they donated a lot.

jaegerbombsbiggestfan407: omg fr!

iloveueren77: eren i can donate later!

y/nloveseren: of course! ♡ you're one of my favorite streamers <3

Eren smiled at the message, "Nah thank YOU for donating! It's appreciated," he replied.

As Eren continued playing Minecraft throughout the night y/nloveseren continued to donate to him, they ended up donating about five or six times after and it was surprising for him. He hadn't ever seen this person in his streams before, he tends to remember usernames, but theirs didn't ring much of a bell. They must have been a silent viewer.

"You guys can ask some questions by the way! It's only midnight and I really wanna hear from you guys," he said, taking a sip of his water bottle.

Questions began to fill into the chat.

jaegerbombbbb21: eren will you ever play outlast?

erensimp34: how tall are you eren?

jaegerist0123: does ur mom know about u streaming?

erensbiggestfan31: are u single?

Eren skimmed through the different questions, some were the usual and some were odd. "Well to answer, I will play Outlast at some point. I am 6'1, my mom does know I stream, and yes I am single." he replied.

Many reactions came from the chat, people saying how sexy his height was or talking about how he was single.

y/nloveseren: ur single!? holy shit

Eren chuckled a bit, "Yeah I am single.. it's mainly 'cause I never really found anyone who was going to stick around you know?" he said.

y/nloveseren: can i place my minecraft bed next to yours then? ;)

Eren's eyes widened a bit from the message, his cheeks growing a light shade of pink; nobody has ever flirted with him on a stream before. Yeah people have called him sexy or said he was hot, but a flirt was never thrown.

"Y/nloveseren you definitely caught my attention with that.. but sure! I'll let you," he smirked.

The chat suddenly went wild with people sending in messages about what he said, others pointed out his blush or the way he was smirking right now.

jaegerist45: eren a simp? ooop

iloveyoueren_: what? :/ eren what about me 🙄?

erensimp34: SIMPPPP

erenishot386: did u guys see him blush? I GOT IT ON CAMERA

jaegerist219: omg he blushed? y/nloveseren keep talking!!

Eren smiled to himself, "Alright settle down guys! What they said was nice, okay? Nothing serious."

y/nloveseren: aw :( i was serious tho! you are quite the cutie <3 i deadass can't believe you noticed that message 😭!

y/nloveseren donated 400 coins!

"Thank you y/nloveseren! Seriously, you are kicking ass tonight," he said. "I'm definitely not the cutest but thank you, really!"

Within the next few hours, Eren and a few other viewers chatted about new games and a few embarrassing stories Eren told them. The one person who stood out to him though, was y/nloveseren. They donated a lot that night and Eren even chatted with them.

"Alright guys! I'll see you all soon! Goodnight," Eren said, waving at the camera.

jaegerist45: night eren!

iloveeren716: goodnight Eren! ♡

y/nloveseren: night Eren! sleep well <3

Eren stopped the stream and leaned back in his chair, who was y/nloveseren? And why couldn't he stop thinking about them?

-

The next few weeks of streaming were exciting for Eren, a few new games were released and he started playing them for his fans. He gained more popularity from the games as well and he was happy to see new people trickling in.

Though, Eren had another thing to look forward to when streaming.

(Y/N).

He actually ended up finding out her name, yes she was a girl.

During one of his streams he asked a few questions about her, of course she was happy to respond to Eren and he always looked forward to seeing her in his streams. She was his top donater and he was always excited to see her pop in, it was odd; Eren never felt this way before.

She was a fan, someone who looked up to him, yet Eren felt... excited to see her? He would get nervous if he didn't see her join a stream or he'd be disappointed if she left early, it was odd. He wasn't sure why he felt this way.

His fans pointed it out as well, they noticed Eren would smile a lot whenever he spoke to her or he would laugh at her jokes.

Eren never did that, not even with a fan.

He was sitting in his chair, the stream had just started and people began to fill in, he was going to play a bit of Call of Duty and then he would chill.

"What's up guys? How are we doing today?" Eren asked, looking at the screen.

erenfan21: hey Eren! i'm good

jaegerist45: yoo hey!

iloveeren1827: hi eren! how are you?

y/nloveseren: hi eren!! <3

Eren smiled seeing her pop into the chat, "I'm good guys, hi (Y/N). Good to see you," he replied.

As Eren played the game he couldn't help but look over to see if (Y/N) ever talked, he didn't want to miss a message from her. Sometimes he got so distracted he would end up dying or losing a round, a lot of people took notice.

"Bro Call of Duty makes me so mad," Eren said, his brows pinching together as he focused on the screen. "Maybe I should uh.." he trailed off as he looked at the chat.

Suddenly, his controller vibrated and it showed his character dying.

"Fuck!" Eren yelled, rolling his eyes. He then turned off the game and leaned back in his chair, he was clearly mad; his rage was something that entertained people and this was no different.

erensbiggestfan31: damn Eren you're mad again?

jaegerist187: shit guys he might rage

jaegerbomb1782: ah shit, u good eren?

y/nloveseren: eren? are you okay?

His eyes flickered towards the chat, "Yeah I'm good guys! That shit pissed me off, but I'll head back in." he said, pressing a few buttons to head into the game again.

y/nloveseren: yay!! 🥰 happy Eren is the best Eren!

y/nloveseren donated 700 coins!

He smiled to himself again. She always made him smile.. it was something she did to him, she had this effect no other fan could put on him.

"Say (Y/N).. you donate a lot and I always see you here.. yet, I don't think you've ever followed me before," he said, looking at the screen.

The chat began to blow up.

jaegerist45: OOOOO 👀

iloveeren167: oh shit? eren?

y/nloveseren: i'm just shy 😭 plus i doubt you respond to dms

He ran his fingers through his brunette locks, twirling one of the strands in his fingers. "I do actually respond to dms, but you're shy? That's cute lowkey.. I actually have an idea," he smirked.

y/nloveseren: and that is? 👀

erensimp34: A CHALLENGE? y/n omg

jaegerist45: oh shit.. IM INTERESTED

jaegerbombfan20: SHE GETTING BOLD 😩

"If I win this next round of COD you gotta give me your Instagram," he said, leaning back on his chair.

The chat began to blow up with messages of people hyping (Y/N) up, a grin formed onto Eren's face seeing what people were saying. He hoped that she wasn't uncomfortable with what he said, that's the last thing Eren would ever want.

y/nloveseren: bet, deal.

His eyes widened a bit, "Shit for real? Just know I'm not forcing you, but I'm curious about you."

y/nloveseren: nah! you're fine ;) let's see if you win though

Eren smirked when his eyes scanned over the message, "Alright.. say less," he said.

He entered the game and started playing the round, he made sure to keep extra focused so he wouldn't lose. That was the last thing he wanted, he was interested in what (Y/N) was like; she was definitely intriguing.

Eren pressed his thumbs and fingers into the controller, his grip tight enough that his knuckles were white; his fans even noticed and told him it wasn't that serious, but Eren didn't care. He wanted to win and losing is something Eren hated.

Suddenly the screen flashed the victory and Eren put his hands in the air. "Hell yeah! You guys see that? Jaegerbomb is the winner!" he yelled with a smile on his face.

His chat was going crazy.

jaegerist45: YO GOOD JOB EREN

erensimp13: omg nice job eren!

jaegerbombfan20: dude u did so good!!

Eren's smile widened looking at the chat, he always enjoyed his fans telling him he was doing great.

y/nloveseren: you actually won, damn. i didn't think you would have 😭, but since you did.. you want my instagram?

Eren leaned back in his chair, "Hell yeah! Hand it over," he replied.

y/nloveseren: it's y/n.l/n!

He grabbed his phone and went to Instagram, the chat was blowing up yet again when people saw her actually put her Instagram in. They hyped her up and even told Eren that he was a lucky guy for that.

Eren found her profile instantly, he scrolled through her photos and his eyes went wide; she was gorgeous. Eren was used to pretty girls talking or messaging with him, but she.. she was different and he felt it; he couldn't help but stare at the different photos of her in the mirror or the selfies she had with a pretty smile.

He looked at the chat and moved his headset to the side, "Yo.. guys.." he said, staring at the screen.

Instantly people began asking questions. "Guys.. she is fucking gorgeous, (Y/N) you're so cute holy shit," he said, smiling to himself.

jaegerist45: YOOO EREN IS A SIMP

iloveeren3827: awe 🥺

erensimp13: SHOW USSSS

jaegerbombfan20: is she pretty? y/n omg ur so lucky

erensbiggestfan928: simpppp

jaegerist2827: DID YOU GUYS SEE HIS SMILE?

His smile turned into a frown when he saw that (Y/N) wasn't talking in the chat anymore. Did he make her uncomfortable? He didn't force her into sending it, maybe she was uncomfortable and she just didn't want to say anything.

"Yo.. (Y/N) are you there? Shit did I make you uncomfortable? I'm sorry," Eren said, putting his phone on his desk.

He shook his leg watching the different people responding to what was going on, a few people apologized to her; they said that they didn't mean to make her feel weird or force her into telling Eren her Instagram.

His eyes flickered when he saw her name.

y/nloveseren: omg no! you didn't make me uncomfortable at all :) thank you for your comments tho! 💗 you made me smile

Eren felt relief wash over him, "Ugh thank god! I thought I made you feel grossed out! But it's my pleasure.. you are beautiful," he said.

People started to leave messages like 'awe <3' or 'omg guys Eren is so simping right now'. All in all, he found (Y/N) extremely attractive and he decided to follow her, he silently prayed that maybe just maybe.. they would talk outside of the stream.

Eren noticed how late it was, it was currently 2:31 A.M. and he usually went to sleep earlier on Sunday's because of his classes.

"Alright guys! I'm gonna end it here, it is really late where I live so I'm probably gonna head to sleep. Goodnight everyone! Thank you for tuning in!" he said while waving at the camera.

Everyone wished Eren a good night and he ended the stream. He rubbed his tired eyes and went to shut off the light in his room, all he wanted was to relax and get a good night's rest.

He placed his phone onto the nightstand and rolled over to the other side of his bed, his body relaxing into the sheets and comfort of his mattress.

A sudden ping woke him up.

It was odd, nobody usually texted Eren this late except for maybe Armin who reminded him to keep quiet while he studied but Armin was out that night with Annie.

Reaching for his phone, the screen lit up; he had a notification from Instagram. More specifically, a direct message.

He unlocked his phone and noticed he had a dm from (Y/N), she actually texted him; a smile grew onto his face as he opened it up.

(Y/N): hey! i doubt you're awake, but i wanted to message you and say hey <3!

He instantly began typing back.

Eren: hey! i was about to go to bed but i wanted to respond to your message, so you're y/nloveseren right?

Within seconds she viewed the message and began typing again.

(Y/N): haha, yeah that's me! i've been watching you stream for a really long time, but i was a silent fan. i got a job recently and i decided to donate since you have always put a smile on my face lol.

Eren: wow really? that's sick! it's so cool to meet you, i always look forward to seeing your name in my streams 😭. how old are you btw?

(Y/N): it's cool speaking with you too! i'm 19 btw!

Eren was surprised, she was around his age? Some of his fans were under 18 or around 20+, but he was surprised to see someone the same age as him around. Most of the girls around his age weren't interested in streamers or gaming in general.

Eren: say uh.. do you mind maybe, getting to know one another? only if you're cool with it of course

He chewed his bottom lip waiting for a reply back, he wasn't sure what she would say. He didn't want to come off as the creepy streamer who talks to fans and does weird shit with them.

(Y/N): really? sure! i'm down :)!!

He smiled seeing the message, maybe this girl was worth losing sleep over.

-

Eren spent the last few days talking to (Y/N), he would stay up past 3 A.M. texting with her about life and getting to know her deeper.

The two connected instantly that night, (Y/N) was an university student studying psychology and she had a job at a local cafe near her apartment outside campus. She was interested in gaming and she told Eren that she had been watching his streams for a few months, she found him to be entertaining and he was one of the few streamers that weren't weird.

They shared a lot of the same experiences on a lot of things. Eren told her about the many relationships he had and how the girls instantly thought he was weird or boring for wanting to stream instead of having a career. (Y/N) had just gotten out of a really bad relationship and she told him that her ex found it weird that she watched him.

As much as Eren really liked the vibes he got from (Y/N), he was scared to get close with her. Armin warned him many times about how some 'fans' aren't actually fans, they con people and gain their trust to expose them later. Eren didn't want to be used for money or any of that, that would be the end of him.

Still though, Eren wanted to talk to her more. He hadn't ever gotten like this with a fan before, but maybe.. this could be different?

Eren was laying in bed that night, he decided not to stream because he was tired and he just felt really lazy. He was doing the usual, texting (Y/N) and listening to music.

(Y/N): what are you up to?

Eren: i'm just laying down, listening to music. wbu?

(Y/N): i was wondering if you maybe wanted to.. facetime? of course we don't have to but i feel like it could be cool?

Eren looked up for a second, maybe a facetime would be good; it could help him get to know her more and maybe he could find out if she was looking to fuck around with him.

Eren: sure! here's my number

He sent her his number and sat up, he wanted to look decent for her anyway. He fixed his messy hair and tied it back into a bun, then he zipped up his sweater.

His heart began to race, why was he feeling this way? It was just a fan nothing he couldn't handle, he silently hoped that she wouldn't think he was weird or anything.

His phone suddenly began to ring, he rushed over to his bed and grabbed his phone. It was an unsaved number so he assumed it was (Y/N). He fixed his hair and clicked the green answer button.

"Hey!" Eren said, his smile showing as he saw (Y/N) behind the screen.

She giggled, "Oh my God hi! You're so much cuter behind the screen," she replied.

Eren chuckled, "Thank you.. you're very beautiful yourself."

Her cheeks grew hot, "You're sweet but.. what's up? How are you doing tonight?" she asked with a smile on her face.

Eren leaned back in his chair, "I'm doing good, what about you? Do you work tonight?" he asked.

"No I don't actually.. that's why I decided to call you since I had some free time. Are you streaming today?" she asked.

He shook his head, "Nah.. I uh.. I decided not to since I was tired and I honestly was too lazy to get on," he chuckled.

"Oh Jaegerbomb is lazy huh? That's odd, you usually have so much energy." she giggled.

Eren smiled at her words, "Yeah I'm pretty lazy sometimes.. but y/nloveseren just insisted we facetime," he said in a dramatic tone.

She rolled her eyes playfully. "Oh shush! I was being sweet and plus I was bored, so be thankful I asked." she said, giggling a bit.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Oh I see.. but I am thankful! You're a pretty sweet girl (Y/N), I love talking to you."

She felt bashful around him, Eren had this impact on her and she always had butterflies whenever his name popped up into her phone. He was sweet, attractive, exciting, and most of all he was an amazing listener; something (Y/N) never had.

"Thank you, Eren. You're a really sweet guy yourself," she replied, nodding her head to the side.

He propped his phone up on his bed, he adjusted himself so he was a bit comfortable. "Of course! You deserve it (Y/N)," he smiled.

The two talked for hours that night about so many things. They told each other different stories from their childhood, they talked about weird experiences they had, and they even got a bit personal with one another. Eren felt like that was a huge plus, he could never get this personal with anyone.

He loved the vibes he got from (Y/N), she was easy to talk to, funny, sweet, she matched his vibe and the two got along so well.

Eren had his mind made up.

She was worth losing sleep over.

-

A month or two had gone by since (Y/N) and Eren started talking. They were still very close and they talked pretty much all day everyday, that was something that rarely ever happened with a fan. Most of the time Eren wouldn't speak to fans long.

He considered her a friend, but he knew inside he wanted to be more than friends with her.

He was currently streaming at the moment, he was a bored; not much was going on and he was playing some Minecraft to pass the time. (Y/N) told him earlier in the day that she wouldn't be joining the stream till later because she was working late. It slightly disappointed him, but he knew that her personal life was important.

He sighed, "What do you guys wanna talk about? Ask me anything," he said, looking towards the chat.

A few questions bubbled into his chat, some were questions that he's answered before. But one question actually caught his eye..

jaegerist3452: what do you think about y/n?

He furrowed his brows for a second, why would they be asking about her? Sure, he told people that he was speaking to her and they talked outside of the streams, but nobody really asked.

"What do I think about (Y/N)? Oh, she's dope as hell. I love talking to her, there's a lot more I can say but I dunno.. she might not like it," he replied, leaning back in his chair.

His eyes scanned back over to the chat where everyone was spamming telling him to say it and that she probably wouldn't judge him.

"You guys really want to know?" he asked, sitting up a bit.

erensimp43: yes!! i wanna know!

jaegerist45: i'm down to listen

erensbiggestfan2928: tell us!

iloveeren1010: i wanna hear!

Eren let out air through his nose. "Well (Y/N) is a really really sweet girl, she's so nice and easy to talk to. Not to mention how great of a listener she is, her personality is something I value the most about her; she always makes me laugh and talking to her is my favorite part of the day. Most of all, she's beautiful. She's such a pretty girl and.. damn, I'd love to make her mine."

The chat began to blow up with messages.

jaegerist45: that's so cute man

jaegerbombfan20: awe 🥺

iloveeren_: that's adorable holy shit

erensbiggestfan1083: simppppp but that's so nice

He smiled at the thought of her. "Yeah call me a simp but... she's really amazing," he said.

y/nloveseren: wow 🥺..

His eyes bulged out of his head when he saw her name in the chat, a blush crept onto his cheeks feeling embarrassment washing over him.

"O-Oh shit.."

Everyone began to flood messages about how Eren just got caught, he felt embarrassed and really bashful. She most likely heard everything he just said, what if she was uncomfortable?

"Shit I'm sorry (Y/N).. I shouldn't have said that shit.. we barely know one another and you're probably really upset," Eren said, rubbing his temples.

y/nloveseren: no Eren ur fine! what u said was actually really sweet 🥺💗.. thank you <3

He sat up, "Really? Wait.. so you're not mad?"

y/nloveseren: no not at all! :) i can say the same about you.. you've definitely been really sweet and i really like you

His jaw dropped and a smile formed onto his features. "Wow.. I have no words. Can we text? Please?" he asked, raising his brows.

y/nloveseren: of course <3!

Eren reached for his phone and saw her typing in their dms, his eyes flickered upwards at the chat which was now going crazy over what they both said to each other.

jaegerist45: dude that's so cute

jaegerbombfan20: I'M GONNA CRY OMG

The vibration of his phone broke him out of his thoughts, he went to Instagram to view the message from her.

(Y/N): hey :), i heard what you said and it really made my day. i was having a shitty day at work and hearing what you said made me so happy, so thank you for that. i like you, eren. i know you may not feel the same but talking to you has been so amazing and i would love to talk to you more ♡.

He smiled before sending a reply.

Eren: i would love to! talking to you has made me so much happier and i'm glad we met. everything i said was true and i want to keep talking, you're amazing.

(Y/N): sounds like a plan ❤.

Eren smiled and looked up to see his chat spamming his name, many people took the hint that he was talking to her.

"I got her guys.." he said with a smile.

#anime #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #aot x y/n #aot x reader #aot imagines #aot fanfiction #snk x y/n #snk x reader #snk imagines #snk fanfiction #shingeki no kyoujin fanfiction #eren jaeger #eren jaeger x reader #eren x reader #attack on titan fanfiction #anime fanfic #this was cute

[facets-and-rainbows]

Blue Exorcist 10th anniversary book Q&A session

The 10th anniversary book has a section where Katoh answers 100 questions submitted by fans on Twitter, so here they are translated/paraphrased! May contain manga spoilers up to the recent flashback arc, so be warned.

(Note that I’m playing it very fast and loose here because there are A HUNDRED OF THEM, so not exact wordings, but it should capture the gist. Lemme know if there are any you want elaborated on)

1. Katoh likes the feel of traditional drawing more than digital but is impressed with how far digital has come

2. Meph THOROUGHLY ABUSES spacetime to watch all his shows and ensure that he gets all the merch he wants

3. Did the girls take all of Yukio’s school uniform buttons in middle school? Yes, they did (apparently it’s like A Thing for girls to ask for a button from their crush at middle school graduation, based on some sad movie from the 60s where a guy who got drafted as a kamikaze pilot gave a girl one of his uniform buttons to remember him by)

4. Rin's tail is about a meter long

5. There are tons of servants working at Mephisto's mansion. Belial is in charge of them

6. Katoh borrows from all sorts of neat real locations when making settings

7. Katoh identifies with pretty much all the characters the most! Except Lucifer.

8. Demon designs she's proud of include the impure king and hachirou, pretty much anything that was the main one in an arc

9. Katoh lists a bunch of her favorite musical artists/music she’s listening to recently: King Gnu, Official Hige Dandism, Kenshi Yonezu, BAD HOP, Sakanaction, Keyakizaka 46, Hypnosis Mic, Aimer, B’Z, Queen Bee.

10. Awww the rabbit manga that characters are often reading isn't just Robo to Usakichi, it's an even older one that she drew as a little kid

11. She likes industrial style interior designs

12. Rin and Yukio alternated who got the top bunk growing up, because they couldn't agree on it lol

13. Katoh cares a whole lot about panel layouts and speech bubble positions, might even be her favorite part of the process (it shows!)

4. Katoh does NOT have a mashou, lol

15. Rin has probably been practicing in secret so he can learn to carry stuff with his tail

16. Izumo probably got into shojo manga around 1st grade, her mom had some around the house

17. Specialty dishes: Rin - lots of stuff but especially nabe Yuri - stuff you can throw together quickly Shiro - stuff he learned from Yuri and/or cookbooks, alongside teaching Rin Yukio - Does. Not. Cook.

18. Can't pick a favorite place she's been on research, but there's no place like Japan

19. Kinzou's band isn't currently meeting because demons, but he's probably still thinking of new songs

20. Hardest characters to draw: anyone with detailed flowing hair. Hardest to write for: Lightning and Gedouin. She had to go read books about serial killers specifically for material for Gedouin, lol 

21. Suguro actually gets a dorm room to himself, though allegedly Yukio is technically assigned as his roommate, lol. Didn't end up that way what with Yukio being a teacher and also Rin’s whole...situation

22. Shiemi makes some of her own hair accessories! Cute

23. Katoh doesn't mind if you include stuff with fan letters but check with the editor first

24. Time for making each chapter: Planning/storyboarding: 1-5 days. Sketching: 3-5 days. Drawing/inking: the rest. Just...the rest of the time

25. Neither Suguro nor Izumo have dated before and neither is currently dating. But that's probably just because things were hectic for them! It could happen

26. Yukio breaks 5 or 6 pairs of glasses a year, someone get this kid a strap or something

27. How many spare glasses does Yukio have? Check the fanbook lol it's in there (dang it Katoh)

28. The demon she wants us to pay the most attention to is Lucifer. Because plot.

29. What's under the Order's big meeting table? It's a BOTTOMLESS PIT and if you fall in it you DIE that's what makes it COOL (laughs)

30. What are the job requirements for the angelic legion? Literally just Arthur liking you and inviting you to join

31. She WANTS to do more character profiles but just hasn't gotten to it

32. Rin's tail feels like a cat tail, texture wise

33. The "red Assiah fire" is literally just actual fire nothing special

34. Rin's current hair color is light blue fading to white at the ends

35. Thoughts on Rin's growth: she likes that he stays positive in awful situations and she also thinks it's very main character of him to face the past instead of avoiding it

36. Mephisto didn't purposely surround Rin with stuffed animals when he woke up after going crispy. Mephisto's bed is just Like That

37. Kurikara was based on a cool sword she found in a sword book, but that one was technically just a ceremonial sword. The symbol on it us a Sanskrit letter kaan (sp?) associated with Fudou Myouou

38. Kuro can communicate with normal cats and hangs out with them often

39. Sometimes Shiemi's skirt is extra fancy around the hem what's up with that? Apparently it's an optional accessory that comes with the skirts help I haven't noticed this and don't know any fashion terms in any language

40. When coloring, Katoh always tries to have an overall theme in mind ("emphasis on blue" etc) so it comes together in the end

41. Yes the twins are genetically related to Shiro because of Goro (she says they're like his nephews but I say GENETICALLY at least they'd be indistinguishable from his children)

42. Strongest mom of all the strong moms around here? Yuri! Did you SEE her give birth??

43. Are you careful about your own health Katoh-sensei? Not particularly! Her mom has had to bring her food at work sometimes! Don't do this at home kids

44. At the dating events Shura goes to, does she drink cocktails in moderation? Yeah, she probably downplays her normal drinking habits at these things. But normally she's down for just about any kind of drink

45. Lucifer just really likes oysters okay

46. How many pages of manga does Katoh draw in a day? If she's being good about self-care: three. Maximum number ever: TEN

47. Mephisto is one of those folks who can eat like a garbage compactor and never gain weight. Possibly because his body resists that sort of change the same way it resists aging etc

48. First food Rin cooked: fish burger type patty. Yukio's favorite things Rin cooks: fish simmered in soy sauce, yellowtail with daikon radish. It's fish all the way down

49: Did Rin ever get more monthly allowance from Mephisto? It doubled! He gets TWO 2000 yen bills now (rip) [T/N: That's uh, that's USD $37.26 a month or 33.10 euro]

50. Why isn't Rin more popular with the girls? He gets nervous talking to them, plus he's too oblivious to notice even if he DID have some fans

51. Why change Suguro's hair? She gets bored with keeping everything the same, and she wanted a visual representation that he was getting serious and going into kind of a training arc

52. Things Katoh pays extra attention to when drawing: trying to capture the feel of whatever she's drawing (like "that looks warm and soft" or "I bet that guy stinks" cough Lightning cough)

53: Does Rin take after Yuri more? (He's got her eyes!) Katoh tried to draw Yuri so she looks like both twins. Personality, too - Yukio has her smarts and Rin has her optimism

54: Do you ever wanna be like Mephisto? Well she'd like to be able to get away with just ANYTHING EVER, but no, let's not be like Mephisto

55. Konekomaru not only carries around a cat toy in case he meets any cats, he MAKES cat toys to carry around based on what he thinks the cats would like

56. How'd you come up with Shima? Go read the fan book!

57. Do the kids have Twitter/Instagram accounts? Rin - probably not. Konekomaru might be on some social media. Paku and Izumo are totally on instagram

58. Is there something Rin makes that you wish you could try? All of it! That's the whole idea! He's good at cooking!

59. Will we ever have a (G-rated) reveal of what ALL of Mamushi and her family's tattoos look like? Maybe! She'll think about it

60. Does Arthur have a repertoire of different hairstyles? Not really, he just puts some of it up on the top. Heck he might even have people to do that for him

61. If you wrote a shojo manga what would it be about? She'd have to do a lot of research before even coming up with a story, since there are so many style differences between the genres aside from just the subject

62. The other two of Mephisto's top 3 favorite foods: Cup ramen and....f-fried bubblegum?? Is that a THING???

63. Where do you start when drawing a character? Usually the outline of their face but if it's a complex pose/composition she'll start with whatever's in the foreground (like hands)

64. If Katoh could have a familiar, what demon would she choose? Mephisto. As the all-powerful author, she might actually be able to command him as a familiar!

66. If you swapped Yukio and Rin's relationship around what would change? not much, you'd pretty much have Rin going to the Illuminati and Yukio going to the past

67. Top 3 foods/souvenirs to try in Kyushu? Well she doesn't know what’s good CURRENTLY but when she was there she always used to like burdock tempura udon, hakata torimon (a kind of manju with white bean paste inside), and Chikae style cod roe. today I learned Katoh went to high school in Kyushu

68. Katoh listens to music a lot while she's storyboarding, then when she and the assistants are all drawing and inking they put various videos/movies and stuff on in the background

69. For all his hitting on girls, is Shima actually popular with the ladies at all? He's got enough girls in his life that he probably COULD find a girlfriend if he really wanted, but the double agent thing tends to get in the way. He still wouldn't be as popular as Yukio though (side thought/translator’s note: Shima would be proud of being number 69.)

70. Katoh has the ending planned out in a big-picture way, but there are still a few details here and there that she's fretting over

71. It's cute when the boys put their ties over their shoulders when they're working on something! Where'd that come from? She just figured a tie might get in the way and that seemed like a realistic way to get it out of the way

72. Looks like Yukio is getting some facial hair! What about Rin? They're both about the age for it, but maybe Rin can't grow a beard yet. Maybe a little peach fuzz here and there

73. Katoh's favorite blue exorcist merch? There were some exorcist licenses a while back, and the exorcist pins. Basically it's really cool that these little accessories she drew ACTUALLY EXIST NOW, LIKE YOU CAN HOLD THEM IN YOUR HANDS

74. Okay realtalk how long do we have left, I don't want the series to end yet? We're solidly in the second half by now but it's not, like, ABOUT to end yet

75. Katoh would be a Knight meister, based on what characters she likes to play in games and such

76. How many people in the whole exorcism cram school? More than you think! She doesn't give a number but apparently licensed exorcists also attend classes for new meisters, etc, so there's a wide age range attending

77. How's Arthur feel about, like, studying Taming on the way to becoming Paladin? He's at least mostly accepted that you have to use demons to fight demons effectively

78. Konekomaru started wearing glasses in his first year of middle school, so like 7th grade (more recent than I thought!) He has one spare pair, in contrast to Yukio lol

79. Katoh's current obsessions? Ghost/scary stories! She's even been going to live readings of them recently

80. Media Katoh consumes for inspiration? A wide range of foreign teen drama, horror/suspense, shojo manga, light novels, anime, etc. Special focus on things where two boys are in conflict or there are brothers involved

81. If they weren't exorcists what jobs would they have? Rin - chef. Yukio - doctor. Shiemi - uh, florist?

82. Inspiration for the design of True Cross Town? Katoh and her assistants gathered up a bunch of references, picked out stuff they felt matched the tone, and mashed them all up together

83. Did you use any references etc for the school/exorcist uniforms? She says she probably should have but she just kind of made them up before publication

84. Favorite part of drawing? For color pages, picking out a color scheme. For black and white, drawing in all the little details (though she doesn't always get time to lately)

85. Once again confirms the demon kings' weird hair is a representation of their horns. ADDS THAT PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SEE DEMONS CAN'T SEE THE WEIRD HAIR

86. Now that Yukio's at the Illuminati, where's he gonna get his Jump SQ and spare glasses? Well he probably never planned to stay for long, but hey it's a big ship and they might have an optometrist and/or newsstand there

87. Do you base the demon characters on any references etc? Not really, she just gets a general idea of popular demon designs and then makes up her own in her own style

88. Merchandise Katoh personally wants to have made: stuff that an adult could just use in their day to day life. Also, it's not gonna happen, but if her favorite figure brand made AoEx figures she could die happy

89. If Beelzebub's host body was a beautiful woman, how would Shima react? Would the womanizing win out over the bug phobia? Katoh replies that Shima would probably just faint from being near a girl that pretty, before the bugs even got involved

90. Will the twins ever get to smile and eat dinner together again?? We'll just have to wait and see!

91. What do you check at a "scenario check"? what's a scenario check man I dunno They check for people being out of character or the setting feeling off. They had a lot of these checks for the anime, but they also do them for the drama CD, games, and all that other stuff where multiple authors are involved

92. Why does Shura use baldy as an insult for people who are clearly not bald? She feels like they have some kind of metaphorical, mental kind of "baldness" and she's calling them out on it. Whatever that means

93. After Blue Exorcist ends, what do you want to draw next? She has SO MANY IDEAS, SO MANY

94. Did Katoh make up the Shinto chants that, for example, Izumo used against Gedouin? They're assembled from bits of actual Shinto prayers according to what feels right in the scene

95. Yukio reads the Jump SQ, right, and, just hear me out here, he likes gag manga, right? Does this mean he reads Salaryman Yukio? It's something he would read, but let's say that in the AoEx universe there's just a very similar manga that he finds oddly relatable

96. What do Yukio and Shima do in their free time on the Dominus Liminus? oh my god you guys this ship has so many amenities.  Yukio probably spends time reading in the library, which they totally have. There's also, like, a gym, and a movie theater, and a THEATER theater, all of which are free. Shima probably hangs out at the pool (!) and goes to the movies, and hits on illuminati girls, lol

97. Easiest character to draw? The ones with boring simple hair, lol. Lightning gets an honorable mention for ALSO not having eyes in most shots, but Rin wins--he was specifically designed to be easy for Katoh to draw because that's what you want in your main character

98. How do demons understand gender? They just possess whatever feels like the best match to how they feel in Gehenna, whether that's a man, or a woman, or a rat, or whatever

99. Where do you start when you're coming up with a story? She starts with character design and how the characters relate to each other. Currently she's just continuing an existing story, so she works on splitting up the overall plot into episodes and fleshing it out with scenes and information about characters

100. When do you feel most happy? She honestly feels like she lives a very happy life overall. Mentions noticing a lot of little things, like how nice her cats' heads smell when she cuddles them or taking a nice cold refreshing drink of water. There's happiness in everything. aww.

#blue exorcist #interview #Ao no Exorcist #translation

[horansqueen]

Stuck With You - Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Tell Me

🡪chapter 1  🡪chapter 2  🡪chapter 3  🡪chapter 4  🡪chapter 5  🡪chapter 6   🡪chapter 7  🡪chapter 8  🡪chapter 9  🡪chapter 10  🡪chapter 11 🡪chapter 12 🡪chapter 13 🡪chapter 14 🡪chapter 15 🡪chapter 16 🡪chapter 17 🡪chapter 18 🡪chapter 19 🡪chapter 20

College Enemies To Lovers AU

characters // masterlist // instagrams // mood board

Tell me what it's like to be with you Remind me of the things we use to do And tell me that this time will never end Tell me what it's like, tell me again

Everytime you stay It never feels quite the same And everytime you go It hurts a way you'll never know

Everything I fear Shows itself everytime you're here And everything I know (I know) Leaves with you everytime that you go

click here to be on the update list

NIALL

                                               It was not easy to ignore her. I had spent days doing exactly that but now that she had pushed me away, I couldn't do it anymore. I felt like a creep whenever I'd find myself staring at her for a bit too long. How could I just forget about her and pretend that nothing had happened between us? How could I just pretend I didn't care about her anymore? That I didn't think about her all the time? That I didn't have feelings for her? It felt completely stupid to go on with my life as if she hadn't been the most important part of it in the last few weeks... as if she was not still a big part of it.

I looked at her as she walked out of our class, laughing with Daxia and Asher about something I didn't hear. She raised her nose up in a grimace and giggled a bit more but I just pushed my hands in my pockets, remaining motionless as she left. She was better than me at pretending, and if I couldn't remember the way she had kissed me in the elevator, or the way she had looked at me when she found out I paid half her rent, I would believe her. Luckily (nor not?) I could clearly remember all of it. The way she had ground on my thighs as we kissed deeply and how she had whimpered when my cock had swollen between her legs... The way she let me touch her, the way she sucked on my tongue when we kissed in our room... but most of all, the way her eyes fluttered when I placed soft and slow kisses on her lips after my claustrophobic crisis... the way she had looked so hurt and sad whenever I left for whatever reason... the way I could hear pain in her voice every time I rejected her. It was all those things that kept hope alive inside me. You can't just forget about someone like that, right? Not someone who had that effect on you, no, I didn't want to believe it.

I waited, hopeful that maybe she'd glance back, giving me just enough fuel to keep hoping for something, but she didn't, and I ended up walking back to my room only to grab my guitar and my notebook. I scribbled a few words quickly, the first things that came to my mind when I thought about Devon, and found a melody just as fast.

I stared at some of the words written and felt my eyes flutter as I breathed in. I tried to stop the tears and swallowed them hard before clearing my throat and rubbing my eyes. It couldn't be the end, I didn't want it to be, and now that Devon was ignoring me the way I had ignored her, I couldn't help but hate myself, knowing it was what I actually put her through, and probably even worse.

I took my phone and snapped a picture of my notebook and my guitar, wondering how Devon would have taken the picture and knowing it would definitely have looked better than the one I was now posting on instagram, but it didn't matter. Somehow, I wished she would see it and realize it was for her, but I knew there was only a tiny chance for that. I hesitated but added a few words from the song I had just written in the description part and blinked a few times staring at it, wondering if it was a mistake.

"Every time we get this close, It's always pulling us apart."

--

Turns out Devon didn't like the picture or commented on it. I was not really expecting it but I was hoping for it, but if I knew one thing about Devon now, it was that she was really stubborn. It was not what emanated from her the most, in my opinion, and it wasn't as important as her intensity, her feelings, her fiery, her empathy and her sensitivity, but it was still a part of her that I couldn't deny. I couldn't blame her, most artists were stubborn, I was slightly entitled myself, but her stubbornness was strong and I liked it, even if it caused a problem at that exact moment.

When Lewis invited me home to watch the game, I almost refused. I wanted to see Devon, but she had asked not to see me, and it would have been wrong of me to go to her place, knowing she didn't want me around her. I wanted to respect her and what she wanted, even if I was desperate for a conversation with her. I knew I couldn't force her to have feelings for me, or to act on them. It was on her, and begging her or harassing her wouldn't change anything. In fact, it would make things worse and anyway, it was not the kind of things I did. If Devon ended up giving me a chance, it would be her decision, the same way it was my decision to push her away and not take all the chances she already gave me. A bad decision, but it was all mine.

I finally accepted when Lewis told me Devon was leaving for the evening and even if I was disappointed, I didn't show it or mention it. I couldn't stop wondering where she was going and with who as I drove to my friend's and when I parked. I stayed for a few minutes, sitting behind the wheel, trying to stop the erratic beatings of my heart. I hadn't felt like that for so long. It felt like a heartbreak all over again, except this time, the whole break up was my fault and the problem was me. I leaned my forehead on the wheel and sigh until I heard someone chuckle.

"Are you napping before the game?"

I sat up and leaned my head on the bench before sighing loud enough for Louis to hear.

"You’re here for Devon, I'm guessing." I just let out without enthusiasm, not even looking at him.

"Nop, I'm here because Lewis invited me to watch the game."

It made me frown and I turned my head his way as it was still leaning on the bench. "What?"

"Ya head." Louis shrugged, glanced at the door of the building before looking back at me. "I thought Dev was going to watch it with us."

I raised my eyebrows and started my car again, shaking my head slightly as Louis got closer. "Hey, mate, where are you going?"

"Devon doesn't want me near, I'm certainly not going to spend the evening in her vital space and make her uncomfortable." I explained, putting both my hands on the wheel.

"Dev doesn't want you to avoid her."

I sighed again and turned my head only to meet Louis' eyes. "She was pretty clear."

"You know she likes you, right?" Louis raised his eyebrows. "She wants you in her life."

"But she made it clear she didn't want me around. I can't just go with your words, okay? I have to go with hers."

I couldn't pretend it didn't feel good to hear from her best friend that Devon actually liked me, but I was also aware that Louis wanted me happy. He had been taking care of me ever since that story with my ex girlfriend. I didn't know if it was out of guilt or pure friendship but either way, I couldn't deny that he was there for me, no matter what. I had been blabbing and complaining to him every single day since that stupid blind date at the restaurant and even if he was annoyed by all the shit I threw at him, he remained calm and collected, which was a first for him.

"You're right." Louis admitted, taking one last pull at his cigarette and throwing it on the ground. He pushed the smoke out of his lungs on the side to make sure it wouldn't come in my face and licked his lips. "You do give up quite easily though don't you think? She came back every time you pushed her away." he pointed out in a gentle tone.

"No, she didn't." I shrugged a shoulder. "We just ended up being locked together in random places."

"Maybe Lewis' apartment can be that random place."

I moved my head closer to the window and looked up at the building before sighing. "If I have an inkling of a feeling that she's uncomfortable, I'm leaving."

"Good."

I ended up in the elevator with Louis, rubbing my hands on the back of my jeans. I was more and more nervous as we got closer to his apartment and when Lewis opened the door, I felt like my heart was going to jump out of my chest by my throat.

I didn't ask about Devon but she didn't seem to be there and we all sat in the living room with a beer. There were a few guys from some of my art classes too, sitting on the floor, but I decided to sit next to Louis on one of the couches. I finished my beer quite fast and got up to grab an other in the fridge. My heart skipped a beat when I closed the door after grabbing a beer and my eyes got slightly bigger.

"Hey, Devie." I let out in a low tone, swallowing hard as my eyes roamed on her. "Uhm you-you look great."

"No need to lie, Niall." she shook her head with a sigh. "I don't know why I let Daxia convince me to wear things like that, this is so uncomfortable."  She pulled on the bottom of her dress roughly but all it did was show part of her bra. She was leaning a bit and I let my eyes roam on her cleavage for less than a second before looking away.

"You shouldn't do that." I pointed out, clearing my throat. "It's- it's pulling it at the top."

She looked down at her breasts and groaned, letting her head fall back on her shoulders. I had to admit I didn't remember her with that much cleavage and I licked my lips.

"Are you.. are you wearing a push-up bra or something?"

She looked up in my eyes with surprise and her lips parted slightly before she moved her head slowly from left to right. "How did you..." she didn't finish her question and shook her head faster. "That's it. That's enough. I'm getting changed!"

"No wait!"

I grabbed her wrist, two of my fingers and my thumb wrapping around it loosely. She stopped and breathed in, and I wondered if it was because she was annoyed that I stopped her, or annoyed because of that electric feeling that probably crossed her body the same way it had crossed mine at the contact of our skin.

"Devie, you look amazing." I admitted in a low and soft tone as she turned around to face me. I hated thinking she was going on a date, and all the scenarios in my head made my heart sink in my chest, but I couldn't lie to her. I would never lie to her again. "You really do. You look beautiful."

She bit her bottom lip and nodded as I let go of her wrist and she pulled on the top of her dress again to cover more of her breasts.

"I'm sorry, Devie. I know you're leaving but, if me being here bothers you, I can leave."

She looked up again and her eyes met mine. She just shrugged and cleared her throat, looking back at everyone in the living room before turning back to me again.

"No it's okay, I know Lewis is your friend." she shrugged, grabbing her purse on the table. "I'm leaving for the evening anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

I remained silent and pushed my hands in my pockets, holding my breath. Was I allowed to look at her the way I was looking at her?

"A pair of shorts."

"What?" she asked with a frown.

"If you wear a pair of shorts under your dress, it'll bother you less that it's short."

"The problem is mostly that I hate my thighs but I guess you're not wrong." she chuckled, raising her eyebrows. "It's a good idea."

I waited patiently until she came back, walking by the kitchen and waving shyly at me. "Bye Niall, thanks for the tip."

It took me a few minutes to go back to the living room. No one had noticed I had left for a while except for Louis, who turned his head my way as soon as I sat next to him. "Did you tell her?"

"Mm? Tell her what?" I asked, staring at the tv as I leaned my elbows on my knees.

"That you love her."

I turned my whole body his way, now only focusing on him, and shook my head. "No, and I don't plan to." I explained slowly. "Louis, she hates me."

"She doesn't hate you and you know it."

I didn't answer and turned back to the tv for a few minutes and finally leaned my back on the couch. "You think she's gonna shag a guy tonight?" I asked low and a bit sad, looking down at my beer as I turned it in my hands.

"No."

"Why not."

"I know Dev, she's not like that." Louis explained, letting out a sigh. "Would you shag a girl tonight? A girl that's not her?"

"What does it have to do with anything?"

"Dev is a lot like you." he finally confessed. "I'm sure you've noticed before. You two react the same way, you've been through the same things... both of you gave up on love and both of you are completely in love with each other. You stopped having sex with Mandy because Devon is all you think about. Trust me, you're all Devon thinks about, too."

"She told you that?" I asked, closing my eyes and swallowing hard.

"She'd kill me if she found out I told you."

---

An other week without Devon, an other week getting drunk and complaining to Louis. I had missed a few classes and always ended up in the music room to write songs on the piano after everyone had left until very late at night. I would probably get denied the access to that room if they found out I was drowning my pain in vodka, beer and rum while I was composing but I didn't care.

On friday night, Louis had begged me to join him in class. He had asked for the keys to classroom to finish his work and apparently, he wanted me to write a song for him that he'd use. I had never written a song for kids before but I was always ready to try new things. Besides, Louis had been there for me a lot in the past few days and I felt like I owed him at least that.

The days were getting shorter and it was already dark outside. Weirdly, the hall was barely lighted but I noticed the open door of a neon-lit room. I walked in and noticed Louis, sitting on one of the desks. His lips curled when he saw me and I realized I hadn't seen a small classroom like that before.

"Neil, hey, I'm glad you're here." he raised his eyebrows, jumping off the desk and walking to me. "I really need you."

"Yea, of course." I frowned, looking around the room. "I mean we could have worked in my room, or yours?"

"Mm no, we couldn't." he replied, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and bringing me closer into a weird hug. "It really had to be here."

"Okay, you're being weird. It sounds like a bad horror movie. Are you gonna kill me or something?"

Louis chuckled as I looked at him and he took a few steps back, throwing his arms in the air.

"I'd never do that, Niall. You're my best friend!"

I took a step closer when he reached the hall and he moved his hand in front of himself, making me stop immediately. "Wait here a minute or two, okay?"

"Alright."

I sighed and sat on a desk, my guitar on my lap, and let my fingers slide on the strings gently. It's only when I heard a voice in the hall that I looked up and frowned. My heart skipped a beat when Devon walked by the door, her eyes covered with Louis' hands but I frowned and raised my hands up when I noticed Lewis, slightly behind them, who was telling me to keep quiet with a finger on his lips.

"Lou, I hate surprises, you know it." she let out, nibbling on her bottom lip.

Despite all the stress my friends were putting me through, I still found myself thinking about kissing her as my eyes fell on her mouth and I held my breath.

"Keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them, alright?"

"Mmhm."

Slowly, he removed his hands from her eyes and I stood there, not really knowing what the hell they were trying to do. Devon didn't want to talk to me, she didn't want to be around me or hear about me, and bringing her here was not going to change anything, I knew it. It's only when Louis closed the door and I heard the lock that I understood.

"No!" I Iet out, jumping off the desk as I gripped my guitar tighter. "NO!"

I hit the door a few times without looking back at Devon but I knew that by now, she had understood what was happening. Our friends had decided to lock us in a room without our consent and I could feel myself get dizzy at that thought.

"It's not funny guys! I'm claustrophobic!" I yelled, hitting the door again with the side of my fist. "Let me out!"

"The room is big enough and there's like, five windows, Niall!"

"Yea!" Lewis agreed. "Feel lucky, at first we had thought about the janitor's closet!"

"Guys, it's not cool!" I begged, leaning my forehead on the door. "And it's useless."

"No it's not!" Louis let out as I closed my eyes and groaned low. "Solve your shit! I'm tired to hear both of you talk about each other!"

"Plus, we stole your phones." Lewis let out with a laughter. "I took Devon's when she was not looking and she just thought she lost it. Louis stole yours a few minutes ago."

I frowned and my hand reached for my pocket, realizing he was right and I just rolled my eyes. My heart was beating so hard I was wondering if it would just stop completely at some point. It was not a claustrophobia crisis though, it was just the fact that once again, I was locked with Devon somewhere but this time, the roles were reversed. She was the one who was avoiding me.

"Neil, tell her, okay?"

I didn't answer him. I just licked my lips and turned around, scared of what was going to happen. Devon raised her eyebrows at me and pressed her lips together, her arms wrapped around herself. She tilted her head and I had to swallow the lump in my throat.

"Tell me what?"

-

Request

#niall horan #niall horan smut #niall horan fluff #niall horan fanfic #niall horan fan fic #niall horan fanfiction #niall horan fan fiction #niall horan story #niall horan writing #niall horan au #niall horan college au #niall horan uni au #niall horan enemies to lovers #my fanfics #swy

[crimson-ace]

Basewarming Party

Archive of Our Own Link

It’s been a few months, but here’s another Miraculous Transformers AU story! This time with some backstory.

Adrien, Alya, and Nino were leaving school when they saw three familiar vehicles nearby.

Nino ran over to the green dump truck and got in, planning to play some new songs for Stoneheart.

Alya headed over to the yellow sports car and groaned as Queen Bee told her to not mess up anything inside her.

Adrien got on the red motorcycle and smiled when Ladybug asked how his day was.

The three headed off and separated for a little bit to not draw suspicion as they soon met up on an empty road.

“So we spent the last solar cycle setting up an area of the base for you.” Ladybug explained to Adrien while they drove. “It’s normally used for human liaisons to present top-secret information when they need our help, but Pegasus thinks we did an okay job setting it up.”

Ladybug, Queen Bee, and Stoneheart soon made it to a road in Fontainebleau Forest and drove to a secret area that led to the location of the Autobot base. After giving their security codes, the three Autobots drove into the base and let the humans out, immediately transforming to their robot modes.

They noticed there was a banner hung up near one of the base’s computers that depicted the faces of Adrien, Alya, and Nino, as well as the Autobot insignia, with something written in an incomprehensible language.

“Uh...what does that say?” Nino asked.

Stoneheart tapped Ladybug’s shoulder lightly. “Ladybug...” He pointed to the banner, causing Ladybug’s optics to widen.

“Oh, scrap!” Ladybug hit her own head in frustration. “I forgot to write that in your language, not mine! Sorry!” She replied. “I meant to write ‘Welcome, Humans!’.”

“You made this?” Adrien was impressed with the level of detail in the banner.

Ladybug nodded. “Uh, yeah. I used to be an artist back on Cybertron. It was more of a hobby I picked up while I was in the Autobot academy. Why don’t you check out what we set up for you?” She added, realizing she was rambling on, and pointed to a staircase for the humans to walk up.

Adrien, Alya, and Nino walked up the stairs and were surprised by what they saw.

There was a couch set up in front of a small television which looked like a model from the mid to late 2000’s, and in between those was a “table” made from a board of wood on top of four cinderblocks. There was also a minifridge nearby, though most of the Autobots didn’t know what the humans ate, and planned to ask them later before getting snacks.

“So? What do you think?” Stoneheart asked as he walked over to the area and looked over them.

“Dude, this place looks awesome!” Nino chimed. “You guys did a great job!”

“I still think we should have put a cage here.” Queen Bee snarked, earning a glare from her fellow Autobots.

“So. what do you guys want to do now?” Alya asked the others.

“Well, earlier today, Stoneheart asked me about what Earth’s greatest warriors are like, so...” Nino took out a Blu-ray player and a container of the original Star Wars trilogy in the same format. “I said I would introduce him to Luke Skywalker.”

So the three humans sat down on the couch with Ladybug, Queen Bee, and Stoneheart sat down behind them to watch the movie. Even though they asked if this was based on Earth’s actual history, the Autobots were surprisingly invested in the film. When Obi-Wan Kenobi was killed by Darth Vader, Stoneheart cried out in despair, surprising everyone.

Apparently, the noise was enough for Pegasus to walk down, wondering why everyone was being so loud. “Can you all please keep all that noise down? I’m busy performing system diagnostics here.”

“Okay, C-3PO, we’ll be quiet.” Ladybug snickered as soon as she finished the sentence. “Did I say it right?” She asked Adrien, who nodded with approval.

Pegasus let out a sigh of frustration at the commotion. “I wasn’t built for this…” He grumbled. “What exactly are you doing anyway?”

“We’re learning about Earth history, obviously.” Queen Bee smirked. “Optimus said we need to familiarize ourselves with the planet.”

Pegasus scoffed. “We came here for a reason other than to watch human entertainment, Queen Bee.”

“Hey, why exactly are you here anyway?” Adrien asked. “I know you guys fought a war over control of your home and its energon, but why did you come all the way to Earth for it?”

Queen Bee smirked. “Well, as Optimus Prime’s second-in-command...”

“You mean acting second-in-command” Pegasus added, earning a glare from the Autobot.

“I, uh... I can explain what happened and how we got here, provided you don’t tell anyone else...” Queen Bee started to explain

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The civil war between Autobots and Decepticons had lasted for a very long time, so both sides were forced to abandon the planet Cybertron to find new sources of energy. For some reason, our ship’s scanners found your planet to have an a lot of raw energon. Like, we've never seen a planet with this much energon before.

Unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones to find out...

"Hull breach on Decks 3 to 5! Shields are also damaged!” Ladybug cried out.

“We’re taking heavy fire, sir! We also just lost one of the thrusters!” Pegasus added.

While the Decepticons had a majority of their resources with them on their ship, which they called the Nemesis to show how friendly they were, it was only the five of us on a much smaller ship not nearly as armed as what the Decepticons had.

After another onslaught of fire from the Nemesis, a majority of our systems were knocked offline.

“Brace for impact!” Optimus ordered as our ship plummeted to Earth. It was a miracle we managed to survive.

We all came back online after about a few of your Earth hours and assessed the situation with our ship.

“Diagnostics say the ship is beyond repair with our current resources.” Pegasus said solemnly. “Some of the computers are still online, but we don’t have a lot of working parts right now.”

“So, now what? What can we do now?” Ladybug seemed to be the most nervous about our predicament. Then again, she had the least amount of experience out of all of us. (Hey!)

“We came to this planet in search of energon, but it seems we have an additional mission now: to protect it from the Decepticons.” Optimus stated. “Is the ship’s probe still online?" After checking the systems, Pegasus nodded, causing Optimus to walk over to one of the ship’s control panels. “Teletraan I, scan the area for local lifeforms. We will take on their appearances to blend in to avoid suspicion from the Decepticons.”

So the ship’s probe flew around for a little bit and not only came back with data on forms we could take, but also an image of an energon mining site the natives had set up.

“Carbon-based lifeforms?” I scoffed at the idea of these inferior lifeforms being able to harvest energon. “Do they even know what they stumbled upon?”

Pegasus continued to browse through the footage and gasped. “I’m detecting Decepticon signals converging near that area. They must have noticed the energon too.”

“Nevertheless, we must scan an alternate mode and try to obtain this energon in a discreet manner before the Decepticons. We must disguise ourselves as what these lifeforms view as vehicles.” Optimus declared as a mechanism on the ship popped up while we all browsed through ideas for possible alternate modes.

Ladybug saw something with two wheels and smiled “Ooh, that looks nice.” she said as the ship’s systems reformatted her so she was able to transform into that.

Stoneheart saw what looked like a green vehicle designed to carry heavy objects. “So is this supposed to be like one of Earth’s more powerful vehicles? Either way, I like it”. Soon, he was reformatted as well.

Pegasus saw a yellow and white vehicle with brown highlights and emergency lights, reminding him of the Rescue Bots on Cybertron. “This seems like a suitable form to take.” He was the next to be reformatted.

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, I couldn't really find anything like this in brown, but the motorcycle isn't spotted either, so just work with me, alright?)

Optimus chose a large red and blue vehicle with a trailer attached to it without saying anything as he was reformatted.

I on the other hand, had looked through the options for a form to take for a few nanoclicks. Naturally, a bot as beautiful as myself needed an appropriate form. Thankfully, I found something just as interesting, and one of the few good things about this planet. It was one of your Earth cars with a sleek design and yellow paintjob. I stood still as I eagerly waited for the machine to finish reformatting me.

“Remember, we must keep a low profile and only reveal ourselves unless absolutely necessary.” Optimus ordered. “For now… Autobots, transform and roll out!”

With that familiar command, we all transformed into our new vehicle modes (except Pegasus, who stayed to see if anything else on our ship was working) and left for the excavation site the humans had set up.

Granted, it took us a couple of run-ins with some other Earth vehicles to get the hang of this planet’s traffic laws, but we eventually made it to where the energon was. There was also a sign written in your language that said something like “GOPHER-MINT PROPERTY/NO TREE-PASSING”. In hindsight, we really should have familiarized ourselves with the language before we headed out.

It didn’t seem like the Decepticons had attacked yet, although we were in trouble with a different form of opposition.

“This is Officer Raincomprix! Step out of the vehicles right now! You have violated several traffic guidelines, and are now trespassing on government property.” Someone from your planet’s law enforcement had apparently been following us. The strange thing was that he had a human partner who looked much younger than he did, almost like she shared genetic qualities with the man. “I’m going to give you until the count of ten to get out of the vehicles. Wait… where are the drivers? WHY DO NONE OF THESE VEHICLES HAVE DRIVERS?!”

Before we could really say anything, a stray shot from the distance hit the ground, signaling the Decepticons were here. The officer ran back to his car and tried to drive away as the Decepticons made their way to the surface.

“So, Optimus Prime. I see you and your little band of Autobots managed to survive the trip to this planet.” That raspy voice taunting us belonged to only one Decepticon. The very same Cybertronian who started the Decepticon cause behind the civil war that had caused so much suffering across the galaxy for megacycles. The Emperor of Destruction and leader of the Decepticons, Megatron.

“I see you’re trying to maintain cover on this strange planet rather than simply harvesting all the energon the local life forms have managed to discover for us. Typical Autobot weakness.” Megatron smirked as he and his Vehicon troops opened fire on the mining site. “Take the energon, and see if these lifeforms found any more locations with it. If you find nothing, leave no survivors.” He gave that last order with a sadistic grin.

“What should we do?” Ladybug asked nervously.

“Even if it means exposing our cover, these organic lifeforms need help. Autobots, transform!” With that order, we all transformed into our robot modes and activated our weapons. “Autobots, make sure none of the local lifeforms are hurt. Now, split up!”

So we all scattered to engage the Vehicons. I armed my stingers and fired off electrical blasts at some of the Vehicon forces. Of course, the organics were afraid of a superior being like myself, so they ran away like cowards… or maybe that was because another Decepticon was right behind me.

“Reckless as usual, I see.” That stoic voice came from my Decepticon counterpart, the (actual, not acting) (shut up, Pegasus!) second in command of the Decepticons, Malediktator. I slowly turned around and saw he was armed with his signature weapon, a rocket launcher.

“Maybe, but at least I know I’m fighting for the right side.” I quipped as I aimed my stingers at Malediktator.

Malediktator began to open fire, shooting several heat-seeking rockets at me. I tried to blast some of them, but there were some rockets that still managed to hit their target. I was knocked to the ground and struggled to get up.

Malediktator was going to fire again, but he was hit in the head by Ladybug’s “weapon”, her yo-yo, causing Malediktator’s weapon to misfire. It was probably the only time she actually helped out in a fight before. (I’m standing right here, Queen Bee!)

One of the stray missiles went towards the human law enforcement and his genetic experiment in the distance, until Optimus ran over and covered the two, taking the hit in the process. I think they talked a little, but my auditory processors couldn’t pick up their conversation.

Ladybug and I kept fighting to disarm Malediktator, but even though it was two on one, he still managed to overwhelm us. We tried our best, but it was really hard to keep up with the second in command of the Decepticons. While we were fighting, I noticed Optimus fighting Megatron one on one, but it was hard to make out who was winning.

Malediktator knocked both me and Ladybug to the ground and took aim at us with his rocket launcher. He was about to open fire when we all heard a crash to the ground. We turned around and saw Megatron slowly getting up after presumably losing to Optimus.

“If you are to harm the humans, Megatron, know that I will do everything in my power to stop you.” Optimus said, raising his ion blaster and pointing it at Megatron.

Megatron simply laughed in response. “Very well. If you’re so determined to protect this pitiful race, I’ll let you have this victory. But be warned, the next time we meet, I won’t have such mercy.” He stated grimly as a ground bridge appeared behind him. “Malediktator! We’re leaving. You can scrap those two another time.” He said as he turned around and walked into the portal with the remaining Vehicons.

Malediktator lowered his weapon and nodded. “Yes, Lord Megatron.” He said before walking away into the ground bridge. I tried to blast him, but Optimus raised his arm, silently ordering everyone to stand down.

As soon as Malediktator entered the ground bridge, the portal closed.

We all got up and collected ourselves as the humans swarmed around us. Strangely, the law enforcement unit and his experiment were the closest to Optimus. It was like everyone was afraid of us except those two.

“Did you really mean what you said back there? That you’d protect us?” The law enforcement unit asked.

Optimus leaned down so he could look the human in whatever optics were for him. “Of course. Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.”

The unit was amazed by how serious Optimus sounded. “Is there anything we can do to hel--what am I doing? W-Who’s the highest ranking officer here?” Another human ran up, calling himself a “Colonel”, or something along those lines. He said he would talk to his superior about what happened.

After a mega-cycle or two, some vehicles I assumed belonged to this planet’s government arrived. One man came out, who was referred to as the “Prime Minister”. I didn’t really see what made him a Prime and I certainly didn’t know Earth had their own Primes, but everyone still listened to him.

“So, from what I’ve heard you’re at war and have come to our planet.” The Minister said. “What exactly are these ‘Decepticons’ you’re fighting after?”

“They are after a powerful source of energy and the lifeblood of our kind, energon. Your planet seems to have an abundance of it for some reason.” Optimus explained.

“And your ship crashed so now you need a new base of operations?” The Minister asked, earning a nod from Optimus.

“That is all that I ask for.” Optimus replied. “You kind need not interfere in this war. Even depleted of their resources, the Decepticons could lay waste to your planet if you aggravate them enough.”

This made the Minister sigh. “We can have some of our best men work on helping you construct a new base. Other than that, we’ll try and let you fight this war as long as you keep it a secret. If things heat up, we inform the United Nations about these... Decepticons. We’ll also expect status reports from you to make sure things are okay.”

Optimus nodded and stuck out his hand. “Understood.” He extended it to shake the human’s hand, but because the human was so small, he could only shake Optimus’ finger.

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“But yeah, after a few orbital cycles, the humans helped us set up this base in the forest, and we keep in contact with them through a liaison.” Queen Bee said, finishing her story.

“Wow...” Adrien was impressed by everything Queen Bee had told about their journey to Earth. “And you really can’t get back?”

“Not unless we fix our ship or create a working space bridge.” Pegasus sighed.

“Oh...” Adrien felt bad for all the Autobots. “I’m so sorry...”

“You have no need to apologize.” Everyone turned around to see Optimus Prime entering the room. “Although we were forced to abandon Cybertron, Earth is not a prison. We are more than willing to protect any world from the Decepticons.”

“R-Really?” Adrien asked, earning a nod from Optimus. “Are you sure we can’t do anything else to help you get used to the planet?”

“Can we, Optimus?” Ladybug got up and asked. “It’s a good learning experience.”

Queen Bee got up next to her. “Ladybug has a point. Learning about Earth culture can help us better understand these strange organic lifeforms”

Optimus took a few moments to think about it and smiled in response. “Very well. Maybe this can be the humans’ way of repaying us for protecting them.” He said, making them all cheer.

“This is so lit!” Nino cried out, which only confused Stoneheart.

“What does ‘lit’ mean?” Stoneheart asked.

Ladybug shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe it has something to do with lighting things on fire?”

“Maybe we can teach you all about memes first! That’ll be fun!” Alya suggested. “Ooh! Let’s teach them about Rickrolling!” She took out her phone and started to look something up.

Queen Bee rolled her optics. “This isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to know about Earth culture.”

“And now you know how I fe--” Before Pegasus could finish his sarcastic comment, they were all interrupted by a song playing on Alya’s phone that all three humans were dancing to.

We’re no strangers to loooooooove~

You know the rules, and so do I!

“Welcome to Earth!” Alya and Nino cried out to the music while they kept dancing

Optimus sighed. He had a feeling he really should have put more consideration into letting the humans educate the Autobots.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down!

Never gonna run around and desert you...

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug au #miraculous ladybug crossover au #transformers #transformers au #transformers crossover au #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #adrien agreste #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #queen b #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #ivan bruel #stoneheart #max kante #pegasus #andre bourgeois #malediktator #optimus prime #megatron

[sinterblackwell]

kaylina’s top ten books of 2020 🖤

update 01/13/21: i stupidly forgot about a book that upended my life and made me fall in love with historical fiction, and so thus,,,everything has changed 😔

what that means is that a few of the original titles listed here have either been moved around or removed; i apologize to myself for the inconvenience. i do recommend reading through a bit of this again if you already read it the first time as i also revised my thoughts on one book mentioned here, so just something.

one of the things i wish for the most in 2021 is that i get to share more about my love for reading, so here’s the first post of many to satisfy that wish. 

throughout 2020, i wrote some posts on a complete whim about the stories i was reading and they just kept piling on and on because i was so caught up in the euphoria of having something to turn to when school was dragging me down. i found myself to really enjoy talking about these books while i was on here so i felt it would be a worthwhile conclusion to give a good wrap-up of the top ten books that made 2020 more bearable among all of the bad.

this post is very long so if you’re curious to see what ten books stood out to me this year to make it to this list, you can keep reading in the cut below. it’s all sort of a ranking so it’ll explain why the list is backwards, and i’ll also link more information on the titles in case any of you are interested :’)

first things first, here are three honorable mentions that didn’t quite make the cut but are still important to me one way or another.

3. circe by madeline miller

i have to give thanks to scylla for being one of the main reasons i considered this book as one of my top favorites, a nymph-turned- monster that circe has to face more than once in this story. 

also, miller herself building this book upon a figure who was barely considered in the odyssey is like a big slap to all the scholars out there who didn’t consider circe anything else but a jealous madwoman who used sorcery as her vengeance for all the sailors who came across her island. 

cheers to the author for having actual critical thinking skills 🥂

2. the invisible life of addie larue by v.e. schwab

i did write a review for this book that i don’t find nearly as coherent as any other review i’ve written in 2020 but here it is if any of you are interested. 

the fantastical elements of this story, along with some of the portrayal of certain characters such as luc and those that passed addie by made me fall in love with what v.e. schwab had to offer.

however, i can’t help but think that there’s s a lack of depth regarding minorities in this historical fantasy also set in the modern day. there were bits and pieces of this story that made me pause and feel like something was missing, aspects to it that left something to be desired. thinking back to it now, and after seeing a reviewer’s update on their review of this story, i‘ve come to understand that it could be because i knew this book could’ve been so much stronger if the mc was BIPOC or there were more characters of color who could give their own piece to the story as well.

there’s so much more i can say about it, but that’s a post entirely of its own to be made in future, i hope.

1. the year of the witching by alexis henderson

probably the best reading experience i ever had in 2020. here’s a review that goes into a bit more detail :’)

and here we go!!

10. clown in a cornfield by adam cesare

this book was so fun. i didn’t realize how much of a good time with this story i had until i was thinking about it last night. i mention in my review that i’m not a big horror reader but you can genuinely tell how much the author themself was a big fan of the genre and poured so much of their love into this book. it’s because of that love that i’m grateful for how much i enjoyed this story as a reader who typically is drawn more towards fantasy and contemporary fiction.

i didn’t have much of an attachment to the characters but they did make me laugh and smile despite this being a slasher horror, and because of that, this has become a pretty memorable book for me.

9. sex with shakespeare by jillian keenan

sex, to me, has always felt like a taboo topic, not just because i don’t have experience in it but because it all seems so complicated to me so just talking about it feels like i’m way out of my depth. what made this such an enlightening read for me was seeing how the author was discovering her sexuality through the influence of shakespeare’s works. keenan is very open and considerate of what readers may think going in learning about her fetish but she holds her own when it comes to her personal experience and how much more complicated one’s sexuality really is.

i highly recommend reading this article she wrote for the new york times here for more insight about her sexuality before this book came to be. 

in this compelling memoir, the author literally brought shakespeare’s own characters to life and made them feel real, connecting them to her journey throughout her life. this to me, was something i could completely relate to because there are fictional characters i envision in moments of my life where i need them most and seeing the author herself explore that felt so real and imaginative to me. 

this book was funny, light-hearted in some parts but incredibly vulnerable overall. i found the insightful analyses she’s made with shakespeare’s works so smart and well-written, i couldn’t give this book anything less than a five-star.

8. blood water paint by joy mccullough

written in verse, this historical fiction took me a while to get through but only because it was just one of those weeks where reading wasn’t that easy for me. once i finally got back into the stick of things, i completely devoured the rest of this story in less than a day. 

the main character’s love for art was written with so much vision and spilled out in all these bright colors as depicted on the cover. what i particularly loved about this story were the interludes, little pieces inbetween chapters where the main character reflects on her deceased mother’s stories that were told to her when she was young. these characters that the mother envisioned in her storytelling became a source of light for the main character in her real life, where she then is raped by a popular artist in her village that was a mentor to her for a brief time. the aftermath of this assault culminated into a trial that got quite bloody, particularly involving self-afflicted torture in a matter of dignity.

the title makes sense once we’re in the aftermath of this trial, but how the characters from her mother’s storytelling come to life in the moments when she feels vulnerable are something i was completely enraptured in. this was because it wasn’t just their stories being told, but it was also the main character’s. seeing fiction and reality converge in such a time where women were used and borrowed felt like a vindication of sorts, very telling in how the arts works wonders upon a world that prioritizes logic over matter. 

7. everything i never told you by celeste ng

this is a story about a family who’s dealing with the grief of the middle child, who’s assumed to have committed suicide. having the story reflect on each family member before and after lydia’s death, each of them dealing with grief in their own ways, impacted me just the same as how i saw how much they were grieving even before everything was torn down to pieces, all to the point where there was no way to go back. family sagas in literary fiction are always something i find myself to really connect with, and this one was no exception.

i’d also recommend listening to “ven” by cami, if not because you yourself might understand my feelings about this story a bit better then just because it’s a really good song that i discovered as i was reading this book. 

6. darius the great is not okay by adib khorram

there’s one particular post i made regarding this story that i’d love to share here. through that post, i share a bit about my connection to darius as our narrator in this first book and then going on to the second book, “darius the great deserves better”, review for that sequel here. 

just as darius felt a disconnect to not just his persian side of the family, but also from his entire family as a whole, i felt the same when it came to my dominican heritage. reading his journey throughout this first book in his own voice meant a lot to me then and it means a lot to me now.

seeing him grow and create bonds with characters like sohrab, his depression not being put off to the side but not beholding itself as the center of the story, and then just the persian culture all in itself when darius and his family travel to iran due to personal circumstances--all of it, makes this story something so incredibly special to me. 

i learned a lot from this book, and seeing family at the forefront throughout all this was everything.

5. autoboyography by christina lauren

lo and behold my 2020 comfort book of the year + one of my favorite books of all-time. it’s the same feeling i had with “verona comics”, except even stronger because i came into this book thinking it’d be a nice and light read but it was so much more than that. 

not only did this story center around two teenage boys in love but it also took into account of the relationships that they both had with other characters in this story. the portrayal of both tanner and sebastian’s families moved me beyond belief, for entirely different reasons, but seeing their story play out along with these two characters made this story hit even harder than i would expect. the location of this story and the significance of that plays such a huge role when it came to how tanner’s bisexuality was represented throughout, and how sebastian’s own grapple with his sexuality affected parts of the story. the author’s note at the end was just about anything i could ever want when it comes to understanding the purpose of one specific story, except i already learned so much from it that reading that note made the characters feel even more real.

may i suggest listening to “someone” by michael schulte because the lyrics of this song and the singer’s voice itself remind me strongly of tanner and sebastian’s relationship? which thus led it to becoming a big comfort song for me? so much so that it was my 2020 song of the year on spotify? no? yes? cool :’)

4. clap when you land by elizabeth acevedo

this was my first acevedo book, “the poet x” being her most popular work, but “clap when you land” for me too important a read that i didn’t want to miss as i was first going into acevedo’s writing. you can say that it’s because of how much this book means to me that it motivated me to read her sophomore novel “with the fire on high” and motivates me to finally read her debut “the poet x”. 

i’ve talked to myself a lot about the personal connection i have with this book, but i’ll just say here that the context behind how these two main characters weren’t aware of each other’s existence and what it meant as they were also dealing with the fact that their now-dead father was still there for them despite having them in two different places,,,,,it’s just too monumental for me to put into words here. this author being afro-latina just like me and having written this story about a flight destined to dominican republic that never actually made it, and with so much heart above it all, i connected with it a lot.

as a dominican who feels both connected and disconnected to her heritage, this story breathed so much life into me. i wish you can know just how much. 

3. lobizona by romina garber

the fact that i thought everyone would talk about this 2020 release with so much fervor and yet here i am holding the weight of this story with both shoulders,,,,unbelievable. i always feel insecure when it comes to recommending a book because the fact that i thought this one was incredible but not a lot people have talked about it, it makes me wonder why that is.

i really loved this book because as fast of a read as it was, there was so much to take in that you can tell how much effort the author put into it. as a fantasy, it’s connection to our reality is so grounded that it makes you wonder if it actually exists, and the background of our main character raises the stakes of a story like this where one’s identity matters too much to simply be blurred into the background. i loved seeing how there was animosity between these characters that we meet and the main character because despite having ties between each other, that doesn’t ignore how much labels in our society and the connotations that come with it carry its weight. seeing the sacrifices that were made and the discoveries coming at our main character with such a force, there was something so exciting that came from reading this book but it was very solemn overall.

the reason why this story isn’t at the #1 spot is because of technicalities, as i do admit that the ending did feel a bit rushed. but!! it made me more excited to see what’s to come in the second book of this series, “cazadora” (set to release in august 2021) so there we have it. 

2. black sun by rebecca roanhorse

inspired by the pre-Columbia Americas, this story and its different narrators enraptured me in each and every page, my love for naranpa and serapio as characters soaring beyond the pages. all these different narrators appeared to have started this story as if they had no ties to each other but really, these web of characters are so interwoven with each other that there’s no telling what their destinies reveal. seeing how naranpa and serapio’s fates were tied together (not romantic, just a note in case i made it seem as such) put me on edge because there was so much political conflict and then here was a prophecy that put so many lives at stake, it was hard to know what could possibly happen. because of this, the ending of this first book in the “between earth and sky” series absolutely bowled me over and i cannot wait to see what could possibly happen next.

let me also just show my appreciation for one of the narrators, xiala, who for some reason made me think for a brief moment that her part in the story was over but really, that could not be further from the truth, i have to believe in that. 

here is a review written by one of my favorite book bloggers about this story, listing five reasons as to why reading “black sun” could be an absolutely brilliant reading experience for you. it’s much more detailed and brings so much justice to this story than i ever could so if you’re interested, i highly recommend you check it out.

1. “lovely war” by julie berry

a mythic historical fiction that explored ww1 spanning a circle of characters, including the greek gods themselves—it was bound to catch my attention.

the beginning of this story immediately solidified my interest in the plot, the gods and aphrodite herself regaling the tale of mortals caught in the brink of a war that not only came with death and terror but music and bonds formed under strenuous circumstances.

watching as this journey didn’t exclude the gods themselves and how they were affected in what’s ultimately a love story, but not exclusively a romantic one, made this book become something so close to my heart, i’ll never let it go. i highly recommend.

~

and we’re done!! thank you to those who’ve read this far, this was actually a lot of work with a lot of links but i hope there’s something that you guys got out of it in the end. i’m really proud that i did this but i’m more proud of myself for having read so much in 2020 to have even been able to make this post. 

thank you to all the new characters i met who will stay in my heart forever but most importantly, my thanks go to the authors who worked so incredibly hard to get their books out there, some with debuts and others with a beginning of a new series; you guys have done so much among all the trials of 2020 and i, along with so many other readers, will continue working to get your stories out there this year and the years ahead, that’s for sure. 

happy new year to all of you and stay safe, everyone. 

#❣️ #this is a lot ik but i tried :’) #booklr

[lombredanslaeu]

hourglass | lee jeno

▸angst, fluff i guess??

▸ summary: sometimes, love just ain’t enough.

▸ WARNING: eating disorder, depression, body dysmorphia, starvation. if any of the above triggers you or if you are not comfortable, please refrain from reading the story. 

All your life, you never really cared about your weight. As an engineering student and a part-time musical theatre actor, you never had the reason to be conscious of your body. Engineering required only your brain; no one cared what you wore or what you looked like in class. Musical theatre didn’t have as much standards for appearance than it does with vocals. Your body wasn’t that bad anyway. You were considered skinny by some and many grew envy about how you could eat so much and not gain a pound immediately. However, your perception of your body changed the day you started dating Lee Jeno.

You met Jeno when his company’s CEO decided to treat its artists with tickets to a Wicked show. You got the greatest opportunity of playing Elphaba; with your impeccable vocal talent, it wasn’t an effort to grace the stage and awe the audience. Your production always valued you not only because of your talent, but also because of your warm personality. You first made eye contact with Jeno when his company’s CEO took them backstage to meet the cast after the show. You had time to talk for a while as the CEO became deep in dialogue with the show’s director. It was Taeil who first initiated a conversation with you as the others, especially the youngsters, were too shy to start a conversation with anyone. As everyone warmed up with the other casts, you never failed to notice how Jeno was love-struck with you.

“Wow, your voice is defying the laws of gravity,” another member, Johnny, said to you.

You blushed and shook off the compliment. “Thank you so much. That meant so much to me.”

Everyone scurried off to different areas on the backstage. You were caught off-guard when one of the younger members, Jeno, talked beside you.

“How long have you been performing?” He asked.

“Only just for a year. I wasn’t planning on making this long-term. I only wanted to play a few shows here and there.” You explained. “but, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity of being Elphaba.”

“That was one of the greatest performance I’ve seen in so long.” He said. “I actually really enjoy musical theatre.”

“Really?” You asked, shocked by his confession. “What’s your favorite musical?”

“It used to be Cats,” He said, smiling shyly. “But I think know it’s Wicked.”

“Oh please,” You chuckled. “Cats is a really good show.”

He looked at you, laughing shyly. “Do you like frozen yogurt?”

“I like frozen yogurt,” You smiled.

It wasn’t long before you found yourself going on secret dates with the heartthrob. You would bond over coffee, books, and broadway musicals. You never knew he liked musicals. There would days where he would help you practice songs for your next show and you would watch him practice a choreography for a comeback. You both found the one thing that kept you closer and closer: the love for performing.

“Seeing the happy faces of my fans is one thing,” He started, staring off into the night. “But the look on my parents’ as they say how proud they are of me, is what keeps me going.”

You stared at his side profile and swallowed a lump in your throat. “They have every reason to be proud of you.”

He turned his head to meet your eyes. His eyes lingered on yours for a while before looking down at your lips. You blushed at the feeling he had over you.

“You’re really pretty.” He started. The statement took you by surprise. Not a lot of people tell you that you’re pretty but, if it comes from Jeno, any other doesn’t matter anymore.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” You chuckled. You’re not lying. Jeno has the looks that could make anyone wrapped around his fingers. “I feel like I don’t deserve to be under your gaze.”

“Of course you deserve to be looked at.” He said, more seriously this time. “I could build a gallery of you but that would give me more competitors so, I won’t do that.”

“Jeno, if you wanna kiss me, just do it.” You said. You wanted to punch yourself for what you just said. Normally, you would freak out and leave from embarrassment. But now, you held your gaze stronger. You had no idea where the courage came from.

And he did. He kissed you like you were the only thing that mattered. It didn’t end there. Later that night, he showed you how beautiful you are.

Sometimes, he would sneak out, with a member or two, to watch one of your shows. He would stare in awe at how people give you their applause. As the spotlight shine down on you, it was like he was seeing a goddess grace everyone with her beauty.

“Dude, if you don’t ask her out, I’m really gonna do it,” His friend, Jaemin, announced beside him.

“I already beat you into it, punk.” He responded boastfully. The shocked look on his friend’s face made him laugh.

Your peaceful relationship was cut short when his boss found out about the thing going on between you two. To say you were shocked by his calm and accepting nature would be an understatement. His company approved of your relationship. It was like the stars have aligned just for the both of you. The news broke out and spread like wildfire on the internet that night. You were too busy rejoicing with your lover that you failed to notice the threats and harsh comments of furious fans until the next morning.

You were supposed to wake up with the bird chirping and the sun shining just for you. However, you found yourself with an unfamiliar feeling in your gut. It was as if you were scared to do anything and go outside. You knew how ugly criticism from fans could be. You understood that many would not approve of your relationship but you accepted that. His company accepted the relationship and his future in NCT is not affected. At the end of the day, the comments would just float around the internet and disappear before you know it.

“You can block off the comments, you know,” He said.

“Yeah, but I think criticism can always help me improve,” You said. You didn’t want him to hate his fans.

“Those aren’t criticisms, Y/N” He replied. “Those are bashful comments.”

“It’s okay, Jeno.” You smiled, pecking his lips. “I can manage.”

 --

Outfits are an important part in musical theatre. They distinguish which character is which, even if the actor is an understudy. You were casted as Regina George in the musical remake of the hit movie, Mean Girls. The director and costume head requested you wear a crop top and skirt for the role and you said yes; after all, you liked really girly outfits. You were looking over your closet and picked out items that might fit the role. You tried on an outfit that you think was a good combination. You looked at yourself in the mirror and felt a slight wave of worry come across your chest. Jeno’s fans might see your show. What would they think if they saw your body was no match to any female idol that Jeno has interacted with? You walked over to your phone and searched up healthy diets for a good figure.

 --

Jeno had a day off and he wanted to see you practice your songs. You both sat at the couch of your small apartment with lyrics sheet in front of you.

“I wanna have pizza for lunch. What kind do you want?” He asked, fishing his phone out of his pocket to order.

“Oh nothing, I’m kinda watching my figure.” You said, looking down to avoid his eyes. You’re still not comfortable in telling people about your diet, especially to Jeno.

“Are you sure? You can burn those off in work outs anyway.” he said, concern washing over his eyes. It worried him that you weren’t eating. Food was one of the things you both bonded over. You had a fancy palette. He thought it was best to trust in you for now.

“I promise. Olivia makes very good hearty meals. I will eat dinner later.” You said.

With so much going on between theatre and your college life, there is only so much you could do in your free time. Working out would take so much of time and with deadlines as the semester is ending, you couldn’t find any time for it. So, you resulted in skipping meals. You only had two more weeks until the Mean Girls show. You just had to make sure your stomach was flat till the end of the production.

“Do you think my cheeks are too full?” You said to Jeno, squishing your face in front of the mirror.

“I think they suit you.” He said before pinching your cheeks. “It’s also really fun to squish.”

“Ouch,” You chuckled before playfully slapping his wrists away.

“You don’t have to worry about them.” He said, wrapping his arms around you. “They make you who you are.”

“That’s very cheesy, babe,” You said while chuckling.

“Y/N, you don’t have to change because other people wants you to.” He replied, more serious this time. “I’ll make sure you believe that you’re the prettiest girl that I’ve ever seen.”

 --

You were stuck with a question on your Physics quiz. You hadn’t eaten anything since you woke up. While you were standing in front of your mirror, you liked how flat your stomach was. The first show happens tomorrow night and you planned on keeping your body that way until then. The lack of food in your system resulted in your brain not working well. You spent many sleepless nights studying for Physics. Usually, you would have solved this problem in under 5 minutes but right now, you only had a minute left in your quiz and you just can’t seem to figure out what to do. On top of that, you were feeling very light-headed. The ding of your professor’s alarm struck a sharp pain from your ears to your head. You winced as you struggled to stand up. Your seatmate looked over to you, checking if you were okay but you smiled it off. You also regretted telling Jeno about your stupid diet because all he did was bug you if you ate already.

jenobear [11:34 am]: babeee, did u eat already??

jenobear [11:34 am]: oops i forgot u have ur quiz. good luck, love <333

jenobear [11:35 am]: make sure u eat, ok?? I love you.

You sighed and typed out an answer. You said you already ate. You hated lying to him but him being overseas made it easier for you somehow. The night of the show came at last. You sat backstage as Olivia helped you with your hair.

“You look pale. Are you okay?” She asked, concerned.

“Yeah, just a bit light-headed.” You replied. “It’s not like I haven’t performed with a headache before.”

“Okay, sure,” She sighed. She knew you too well. You didn’t like to be bugged with questions, especially if you’re preparing for a show. “Wanna eat at that new wings place? Heard it’s really good.”

“Sure, I could need some wings after the show.” You replied. All you needed was to be in shape for a few hours.

The crowd roared their applause as you, and the other casts, bowed as the show reached its end. You felt a migraine creep up your head and you knew its because you haven’t consumed as much food as you needed to lately. It also felt weird that it made you a bit nauseous when your eyes met the spotlight. You were glad bottles of water is all around the backstage. You picked up your phone and smiled to see messages from Jeno and the other members as well.

jenobear [9:30 pm]: never not proud of you. congrats on your show, love. <3

Lee Haechan [9:45 pm]: Y/N!!! Congrats on your show. I’m sure it’s amazing!

Kim Doyoung [9:50 pm]: Sorry I wasn’t able to go, Y/N. I’m sure you did great tonight, Regina George :)

You smiled and thanked them. You decided you wanted to call Jeno but a notification from a social media site distracted you. One of Jeno’s fans came to see the show and posted pictures of you with the caption “Y/N is very talented! I hope to see more of her shows soon~~” You blushed at the compliment. You know you shouldn’t have but you looked at the replies under the post. Your heart fluttered at the sweet compliments. You thought maybe dating an idol isn’t so bad after all. Over the sea of praise come a harsh comment that caught your eye. “I’m sure her vocals are amazing but she should work on her body.” , “Regina George wouldn’t have a match stick figure.” , “she’s kinda bloated. If only she worked on her love handles, I would like her.” You felt a sickly feeling to your stomach. You took each and every word to heart. You scrolled back up to look at the picture the original poster took. You zoomed in on your body and saw what they were talking about. The girls who played Gretchen and Karen, your character’s fellow mean girls, had Barbie doll bodies. Their curves hit at the right places and they had slim legs. You knew that you shouldn’t let this affect you. You have talent, you have personality. But, you also wanted Jeno’s fans to like you. That led you to texting Olivia to cancel your chicken wings plan.

 --

You prepped yourself to see Jeno again after 2 months. He had schedule after schedule and his team went overseas for at least 2 weeks. You limit your diet to soy milk and water. You looked at yourself in the mirror and you could see the changes. Jeno would definitely notice as well but, you liked how you looked. Your jawline was prominent, your waist was thinner, and even your legs got slimmer. It wasn’t easy slipping out of Olivia’s invites for take out and dinner but you managed, somehow. You started to notice how concerned she got each day, especially this morning.

“I grabbed you breakfast, it’s an omurice.” she said, with a warm smile.

“I can’t eat rice, I’m watching my weight.” You said, slurping down the soy milk.

“Since when did you care about your weight?” She asked.

“Since I realized that my body wasn’t in the right shape.” You made sure none of the words came out as bitter or else, she will suspect something was wrong. She didn’t stop bugging you and it started to make you cranky so you just gave in. After consuming the omurice, you couldn’t deny that you felt better. But the guilt started kicking in and the next thing you know, you’re sticking two fingers down your throat in an attempt to vomit what you just consumed. You stared at the mess on the sink and that’s when you knew something was wrong.

 --

“I missed you so much,” Jeno said, as he held you close to his body.

“How are you, my favorite boy?” You stared lovingly to his eyes.

“A bit tired,” He said, taking off his cap and fixing his hair. “But I slept the whole flight.”

“Do you want to just chill here?” You asked. Everyone in the door went to see a movie with the older members. Jeno and Jisung chose to stay behind since they had plans. He snuggled closer to your body. He noticed how your body didn’t feel familiar. He could definitely tell that you were losing weight.

“I am a bit hungry though,” He responded. He wanted to see you eat. It worried him to the core about thin you were looking lately. It wasn’t obvious when you two would FaceTime but it was more apparent in person. He felt you shift slightly at his response. He spoke before you could. “Have you been trying to lose weight?”

“I just wanted to be more fit.” You said, your heart beating faster each time you lie. “I’m working out.”

As someone who works out to maintain his body, Jeno knew well that your body wasn’t a result of working out. But as someone who cares about their appearance, Jeno also knew that he shouldn’t jump into major conclusions yet. He knew how horrible the talk about weight is and he didn’t want to put you through it. Besides, he knew you and he knows that you wouldn’t lie to him.

You felt conflicted as you noticed that Jeno was becoming concerned about how thin you got. To make him believe that you were well, you agreed in eating take-out with him for lunch. You know what to do after, anyway. As you wait for him to finish showering, you decided to check your social media accounts. You tapped on instagram to replied to a comment Olivia wrote on your new post. You laughed silently at how your friends gave funny compliments. Your eyes browsed through the comment sections. Normally, it would be filled with comments about your face, body, and how you didn’t deserve Jeno. This time, it was filled with compliments about how great you look. “I wish I had her body :(“, “Body goals oh my god”, “SKINNY LEGEND QUEEN”. You felt your cheeks blush at the compliments. You realized that the thinner you got, the more you got full of praise. You intend to keep it that way.

 --

Jeno scrolled through his twitter feed and saw an article from a k-pop news page. It was an article about your drastic weight loss. He looked at the pictures included in the article. There were pictures of you from months ago with your old body. Jeno reminisced the first time you met. You looked healthy and happy. You didn’t have the curviest figure, but you were healthy. Following the old pictures were recent pictures of you, both from your recent social media posts and pictures from fans during your latest theatre shows. Your ribs were more prominent and it created a tidal wave of concern to wash over Jeno. He didn’t realize how much he missed the old you. The one who was never scared to try different food. Now, it was like every time he asked you to eat with him, you always refuse. But, he was too kind to base a fight over your appearance.

 --

You sat across the couch with Olivia. You two decided to watch the latest season of The Office.

“Wait, let me use the bathroom for a while” She announced. While she did her business, a phone on the coffee table in front of you lit up. Your phone was laid beside hers so you looked over to see it was her phone that had the notification. What you didn’t expect was who sent her the message.

You have one new message from Lee Jeno.

You didn’t know what to think. It would be immature of you to accuse them of being unfaithful when you don’t know what the message contained. But why would she text him? Why would he text her? As in on cue, Olivia came back from the bathroom.

“Uhm, Liv” You started. “Why are you texting Jeno?”

She stared at you. She knew what you would think but she promised Jeno she wouldn’t tell you about what they were talking about.

“Oh, you know what?” You said suddenly. “It doesn’t matter. You two can be friends and I trust both of you.” You tried so hard not to sound jealous because you weren’t. Olivia is like a sister to you.

You knew well that she wouldn’t betray you like that. She smiled slightly and offered you the popcorn. You shook your head and she snapped.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Y/N” She said. You were caught off guard by her outburst. “You wanna know why I’m texting Jeno?”

You gulped, maybe you don’t want to know why. You changed so much of yourself to please him, his fans, and his management. If they betrayed you like this, you wouldn’t know what to do.

“You’re starving yourself, haven’t you?” She asked, her eyes burning holes into your skull.

“I-I’m not…” You stuttered. You thought you were good at lying but apparently, you’re not.

“Really?” She said. “Ever since you started dating Jeno, all you cared about was your weight. We don’t eat out anymore. We don’t cook anymore. What bothered you? Is it him? Is it the fans?”

You know you could never blame anyone, but yourself. It wasn’t their fault you turned out this way. It was one thing to hear about your weight loss from concerned fans, but it was another when it’s coming out of your best friend’s mouth. You didn’t realize that tears were falling out. The moment Olivia wrapped her arms around you, everything collapsed. All the pressure, the frustration that built up inside of you for so long. The urge of wanting to eat, to feel what it was like to taste again. The anger you felt for yourself for letting it become this bad. It all collapsed and fell from your eyes.

 --

“Here, there isn’t a lot of sugar in that,” Jeno offered you some cookies. You decided to visit him in the recording studio. You were doing so well. You decided to enrol yourself in a support group, as well, and you’ve never missed a single meeting. But you knew you were only forcing it. You saw Olivia and Jeno cry over your situation. It was unfair that you bring them into your mess. Maybe if you say you’re fine loud enough, you’ll believe it.

“I’m proud of you.” His eyes sparkled as he said those word to you.

“I love you.” You responded, before leaning in for his lips.

It took everything in Jeno to let you know how much he loves you. By the way his lips merge with yours and how his hands worshiped every crevice of your body. Each touch symbolizes that you are the most beautiful person he had ever laid his eyes on. You knew that; but, you wish you could believe it. With every praise that heat your cheeks, comes a wave of hate that consumes it all. Will a beautiful body make it all better for you?  

You hurried to your bathroom the second you got home. Olivia was out to her boyfriend’s night, leaving you alone with your habits. As your fingers hit the spot on your throat, you felt the hot bile rise from your stomach. It burned and left a sour taste to the back of your mouth; and you loved it. You missed the sensation of your stomach being empty. You never knew how much you liked the feeling of being empty until you felt it again.

 --

“Am I not enough for you” Jeno spoke, his eyes attached to his hands that are clasped in front of him.

“What are you saying, babe?” You asked. You tried to see where this was going. You made you sure every lie that came out of your mouth was believable; why is he saying those things?

“I try so hard to make sure everything I do for you is enough,” He said. It was obvious in his demeanor that he was tired. “I worry about you all the time. The members try so hard to cover up for me every time I needed to tend to you.”

You chuckled, “So what is this? You’re telling me I’m a pity party?”

“No,” He shook his head, not believing the attitude you’re giving him. Frustration was starting to let itself be known on his features. “What else could you possibly want? I give you love, I give you space. I get tired as well, you know.”

That’s when it dawned on you. Love is not enough. Love won’t come magically and heal everything. Jeno could give you all the love in the world but it won’t be the remedy. Love doesn’t fix everything. You can’t just go up to a broken person and expect romance would suddenly want them to dance on their grave. It doesn’t work that way. You never had the courage to tell him that. In retrospect, you wish you had it in you to say it.

“You’re enough for me, Jeno.” You said quitely. You didn’t know what else to say. All this time, you never blamed him. But here he is now, throwing it all back at you. You still won’t blame him though, he doesn’t know what it feels like; you’re glad he doesn’t know how it feels like.

“I don’t know how to help you if you can’t help yourself.” He said, sighing as if he has given up. Maybe he has given up. The people who left you before has taught you to swallow every plead to make them stay. That’s the only think you could stomach to swallow right now - the words to make him fight a little longer. You didn’t know how much long it would be for you to be okay, or if you could actually be okay. But, you knew better than to run after others when you can’t even stand for yourself. Some nights, you feel yourself drown in cold sweat. Your body felt like it could give up on you any minute. You laid still and wait; but it never came. You wondered how much longer.

Jeno has a bright future ahead of him. The news of him being single again gave him new schedules that would give him exposure to different opportunities. He didn’t regret leaving. He still occasionally see your musical shows just to check how you are. You will never know this but he hopes it’s always sunny wherever you are.

a/n: i hope you liked this. this hit close to home. i would like to remind you that if you are experiencing symptoms of any mental illness, please check with a professional. mental health is a topic that i hold deeply in my heart since i have experience from mental illnesses. i would also like to remind everyone to always be kind to others - whether it would be our friends, people we don’t like, and even idols. let’s not contribute to anything that could affect them negatively. as always, feedback and requests are always appreciated. love u all <33

#lee jeno #jeno x reader #jeno x you #nct jeno #jeno imagines #jeno angst #lee jeno angst #nct dream #nct au #nct dream imagines #jeno timestamps #jeno fluff #nct imagines

[silverwhiteraven]

Borne of the Stars - Chapter 5 - An MLB Kryptonian AU

Tag List:  @eve-valution @weird-pale-blonde-person @kris-pines04 @soulmate-game @abrx2002 @amayakans @vixen-uchiha @heldtogetherbysafetypins @raisuke06 @dorkus-minimus @captainartsypants @mopester-is-here @moonlightstar64 @annabellabrookes @daminett4life @toodaloo-kangaroo @the-navistar-carol @elspethshadow @chocolatecatstheron​ @ivymala07

[ Posted on Ao3 ] [ Chapter 1 ] [ Chapter 4 ] [ Chapter 6 ]

[ Summary:  A year passes by fast, but sometimes a lot can happen, and you'll miss it if you blink. Time for school to start: take two. ]

Marinette’s final year of collège had been a quick yet busy affair for the teen, quickly followed by the summer before her first year of lycée.

It had begun once more with an uncanny similarity to the year before. Alya began the morning with raves about her interview with  The Superman  and all the positive reviews on it. The reporter had still been curious about the events of Marinette’s encounter in Metropolis, but once more she had shut down that line of questioning before anyone could catch on. She reminded Alya that there had been a reason she didn't want to be credited for acquiring the interview; she didn't want or need the attention it would bring.

When Nino had joined them, Marinette finally presented to him the CD's and a record she had bought for him. He had been ecstatic, happy for the new content for his collection. As thanks, he managed to convince her to let him give her a copy of his latest songs that he had made over the summer. Besides his family at home who listened to him work, she would be the first to hear them. 

During lunch that same day, she had taken the chance to listen to the music, giving her positive response right away. Of course, in an excited blunder of praise, she let it slip that she thought Supergirl would enjoy it, too, and once more had to quench a bursting flurry of questions from not just Alya, but Nino and Adrien as well. 

Alya had pretended for all of five minutes that she would never forgive Marinette for not spilling anything she knew about the superhero. 

Nino, after letting the information sink in, had gone mute like his favorite artist had just told him his music was top notch; she supposed it was pretty close, so the reaction was rather reasonable. 

And Adrien, after showing confusion, and once Alya had filled them in on what she knew happened in Metropolis, had looked like he just spotted a celebrity more known than himself on the streets. He quickly followed the look with telling her that it was amazing how much good luck she had with meeting people when she had such bad luck with physical hazards. That had gotten a good laugh out of all of them, though Marinette had been a bit flustered about having that particular detail to her life.

That same day was also the beginning of Lila Rossi’s return to Paris and introduction to the class. Marinette and her closest Parisian friends had spent their two lunch hours together and missed their chance to introduce themselves then, but they did get their hellos and welcomes in after classes ended. 

When Lila made a passing comment about her trip during the summer before moving back to Paris, Alya had gone right into her normal lines of questioning, ever dedicated to being curious. The stories Lila was quick to recount were rather awe inspiring to the teens, and the perfect pictures and dazzling trinkets she presented with each one only solidified the tales. 

Adrien had to leave before he could hear more than one story, but Alya, Marinette, and Nino stuck around to hear more. 

After that, Lila became a frequent joiner to their group gatherings, regaling them frequently. She would join them for lunch, switching between either the different friend groups or encouraging the entire class to sit together; group picnics had become much more common due to it. She was often invited to smaller activities outside of school, and she readily accepted.

Lila became a quick and easy friend for the entire class.

Supergirl’s first return trip to Paris had been a month into the start of school. She had shown up half an hour after school for Marinette. The french student had to make sure none of her classmates were facing towards the bakery when she heard the all too familiar sound of the superhero flying in. After befriending Supergirl over the summer, it was hard not to recognize the signs; especially since she had to be a quick study to them. She had to make sure no one ever spotted the Kryptonian’s presence around her home for both their safety. 

Once Marinette managed to get home, she found Supergirl already holding a box of pastries and happy as the cat that caught the canary. 

Marinette, after easing her worries at the sight of the hero, joked about not being able to wait for their next phone call or her text. The two had started a habitual schedule of talking during Marinette’s evenings, after school let out for Supergirl, and the weekends, mostly consisting of Marinette's projects and Supergirl’s tales of heroism. 

Supergirl had laughed from the question. She then held up the box, stating that her new friends from school,  hero  friends, were in need of some lunchtime pick-me-ups, and this was the best place for it. Outside of going for ice cream, she had clarified, but the vote had been pastries, and Supergirl proudly made sure to volunteer to pick up the goods. From Paris. Without warning, of course.

But at least she made sure to come in through the balcony and not the front door. After all, stealth and secrecy was important when you're not supposed to be somewhere. With a roll of her eyes, Marinette told her to fly a little slower next time, too, as her breaking of sound barriers was a bit attention grabbing. There was more laughter, but this time it was accompanied by a promise to try and be quiet next time. 

Visits from Supergirl continued throughout the year sporadically, their luck holding true and keeping Supergirl’s presence in the city on the down low. The Dupain-Cheng parents were happy to have her visiting as well, treating her just as they would any other friend of their daughter: with offers of lots of food and care.

There was, however, one unexpected incident with one of Marinette’s friends.

Nino Lahiffe.

He had come up into the housing of the building one Saturday afternoon, bypassing the bakery, and went right into the living room, ready to head up the stairs to Marinette’s attic bedroom where he knew he would most likely find her. He completely forgot what he had come for when he froze and did a double-take of Supergirl lounging on the couch, feet on the coffee table. She stared right back at him in surprise, popping the bubble of her gum, before sending an almost feral grin at the boy. 

It turned smug and amused as Marinette came down the stairs and froze, too.

Nino had taken the whole thing in stride once he managed to shake himself and Marinette from the shock. From that day on, he had joined the ranks of the few who knew about the superhero’s visits, as well as the only person besides Supergirl and Superman who knew the full story of what happened in Metropolis. He also managed to ask Supergirl for more song recommendations, and heard straight from her that she did, indeed, enjoy the music he made. 

On one of the visiting days, Marinette could have sworn she heard Supergirl practicing French on Nino. 

At the end of November, Supergirl had been sheepish when she visited, presenting a ruined blue jean jacket she claimed was torn during a family squabble, questioning if it could be repaired. It couldn't. Yet by Christmas, when Supergirl wasn't able to visit due to being with family, Marinette had completed a blue-dyed leather jacket. She sent it to Clark Kent after requesting and confirming if he could get the gift to Superman to give to Supergirl for her.

New Years Day had brought Marinette a more than happy Supergirl kissing her cheek as she thanked her for the gift, before the hero then proceeded to give a gift in turn. It was a necklace, a decorated rose-gold egg-shaped locket, the actual size of a small egg, on a long matching chain. She had noticed it was actually locked, and Supergirl had winked, revealing two necklaces around her neck. Next to one with a blue crystal pendant, a matching chain to the locket held a small, rose-gold filigree key. She promised to reveal the contents of the locket someday if Marinette promised to keep it safe.

And promise she did.

Late January brought with it a second encounter with the teen she had saved at the Daily Planet. Again, it was brief, not much of an encounter, only a glance of him in the background of Adrien’s thank you video to his friend’s well-wishes on the anniversary of his mother’s disappearance. They had a good enough look at him to recognize that he looked uncannily similar to Adrien. The class had confirmed with him later that it was his cousin, Félix Luthor Graham de Vanily, son of his mother’s twin sister. She wondered if she would see him again; she didn't want to bother Adrien to ask for her if he was alright from the incident.

In the middle of March, Marinette cautiously presented to Supergirl a sterling silver panjas bracelet, having been inspired by the gifted locket. The designer revealed she had created the bracelet with the help of one of Paris’ silversmiths. The bracelet piece itself was a simple band with a gap on top, a chain from each side connecting together at the bottom point of the centerpiece. The centerpiece, resting in the middle of the back of her hand, was shaped like the diamond outline of the Kryptonian symbol on the heroes’ chests. Five more chains, one from each of the other corners and one from the middle of the top edge, lead to rings on each finger. The center three rings connected to a second set of rings, ending there. 

However, the decorative bracelet had something else as its main focus. She had used the kryptonite that had once been inside her, as a decorative inlay to the centerpiece and the first set of the middle three rings. Marinette worried it had been a bad idea, but, to her relief, Supergirl had shaken out of her awe of the jewelry and laughed, telling Marinette that it was very fitting for being so close to St. Patrick's Day. 

When Supergirl had also made a joke about the bracelet being able to pack a punch against Superman and that she may need to borrow it some time, Marinette had to refrain from a playful tap of her knuckles to the Kryptonian’s shoulder, the bracelet still on her hand. 

Marinette celebrated her 15th birthday in the afternoon with her friends, only a spare few weeks of school left for the class. She was already waiting for Supergirl on her balcony in the evening when the hero came by. The video-game she was presented, an early release in the States only, was by far her favorite gift. It was Supergirl's turn for a kiss on the cheek in thanks, and she didn't snap from her surprised stupor until the game had been started up, ready to be played for the rest of the night. And that's how long they did.

The third encounter with Félix, the start of many more to come, happened after the school year finally ended, summer break had started, and Marinette was officially out of collège. Supergirl had been visiting, but had been glaring outside at the park. When Marinette had spotted the subject of the superhero’s ire, she had dismissed herself to go find him where he was with Adrien. 

She learned he had been just fine, thank-her-very-much, though she had shoved him roughly enough to bruise for a few days. She apologized profusely, but he had accepted it as the least he could take for having not lost his life. He thanked her instead for saving his mother from losing her son as well. Especially since it would have been too ironic to bear if he had been lost after having only just left an interview about his late father. 

Marinette returned to the bakery soon after that, and saw that Supergirl’s scrutinizing gaze from earlier had softened. The hero admitted to listening in on the conversation, and thought that maybe she shouldn’t have such a big bone to pick with someone who may not have done anything wrong. Even if people around him were not so innocent. Marinette didn't pry, but she was still proud of her friend.

Many weeks of summer, hang-outs with her public friends, sleepovers with her secret hero friend, and countless mornings getting to sleep in late, it was finally time for Marinette’s official start of lycée.

She didn’t expect to feel déjà vu when she spotted a wide-eyed Nino, his eyes locked on a blonde, steel blue-eyed girl in a custom dyed-blue leather jacket and maroon ripped jeans, popping gum. 

“Bonjour, ma belle géode,” the girl spoke up, looking at Marinette with a cheshire grin and triumph blazing in her eyes; “Je m’appelle Kara Danvers.”

[ Translation: "Hello, [my] beautiful geode. My name is Kara Danvers." ]

#maribat #Borne of the Stars #Karanette #Kryptonian AU #miraculous ladybug #crossover au #dc super hero girls #dc superman #kara danvers #marinette dupain cheng #nino lahiffe #adrien agreste #alya cesaire #felix graham de vanily #supergirl #willowbendt

[wild-blue-sonder]

Kat Tracks: 2020

This is the final post of my annual list of favorite tunes that I’ve been doing for seven whole years! 2020 was a shitty year for humanity, but at least the music was good. Check out my top twenty picks below the cut.

1: Chicane feat. Moya Brennan- Saltwater (Kevin de Vries Remix) Kicking off this absolute flaming garbage heap of a year is a nice new house-flavored remix of a beloved classic. I am, admittedly, a sucker for a good remix, especially one that respects the integrity of the original track.

2: Cold Blue- In Madness / Winter Gates Although the album Winter from which these singles come from was released in November of 2019, the extended versions were released this year. And really, who doesn’t love a good extended mix? In Madness channels much of the frenetic energy I felt while in lockdown.

3: Seven Lions- Find Another Way This five-track EP proves what a phenomenal producer Jeff is. Each collab sounds more amazing than the last, but my favorite track has to be the title one featuring April Bender.

4: Jorn van Deynhoven- The Future is Now Yet another title track from an artist album released in March. It’s a downtempo/ambient piece featuring a piano melody, which I am also a sucker for. The buildup is lovely and conveys a sense of hope.

5: Nikola Melnikov & Max Sorokin- Pandawa Something this nice could only have come from a premier label like Anjunadeep. It has a rather ethereal vibe that you can get lost in and let carry you away.

6: Conki & Mark Wilkinson- I’m on Fire Yes, I am still listening to indie-flavored house music on SoundCloud. What else would you listen to on that platform, future bass or something? Psh. This is a solid cover of the original by Bruce Springsteen.

7: Elysian- Moonchild This banger is a collaboration between the Anjuna family’s Ilan Bluestone and Maor Levi, with trance staple Emma Hewitt providing vocals. It’s solid electronica, but I’m also a fan of the trancier OTIOT remix that was released in December.

8: Paul van Dyk- Escape Reality A full chillout/ambient/downtempo remix album from the legendary PvD? Heckin’ yes please. This is very much the same flavor as Aly & Fila’s The Chillout album from 2015, which you should also listen to.

9: Stoby & G. Coulter feat. Liz Cirelli- Sun is High (Solarstone Vocal Retouch) Who’s ready for summer? This track makes me want to groove on a beach all day and into the night.

10: Hemstock & Jennings- Mirage of Hope (2020 Version) Mirage is my favorite track of this year. The title says it all, really, but the lyrics are even more fitting.

11: Crystal Skies feat. Luma- Hear Me Now I was surprised by the quality of this dnb release on Ophelia, Seven Lions’ label, but after their superb Constellations EP from last year, I gladly gave Crystal Skies my undivided attention once more.

12: 4 Strings- Take Me Away (BLR Remix) It’s another great remix of a classic, this time with distinct deep house flavor. 4 Strings’ Believe album was one of my first forays into the trance genre and I can’t say enough good things about how this version does justice to the original.

13: Tribu- Sweet Disposition This is an extremely good deep house cover of the original by The Temper Trap. Tribu is a new alias of Vijay & Sofia, who I’ve followed on SoundCloud for a few years. There seems to be two versions of this track with slightly different vocals. I prefer the one released in April to the second release in July.

14: Craig Connelly feat. Karina Ramage- Life Half Lived (Club Mix) If you have browsed any of these lists from previous years, you know how much I appreciate the production value of Craig Connelly. This trance track is a more uplifting version of the one found on his A Sharper Edge artist album.

15: Bunt feat. Clarence Coffee Jr.- Unbreakable I adore the Bunt guys with their “folk house” sound and have been keeping up with their releases on SoundCloud since the beginning. This track basically punches you in the face with self-affirmation and confidence.

16: JPL & Jason van Wyk feat. Cat Martin- Unsteady (Pierre Pienaar Remix) Going in the opposite direction now is a melancholy trance offering from Pierre Pienaar, featured on PvD’s Vonyc Sessions podcast. What I really love is the breakdown exactly halfway through featuring that unmistakable JPL sound but with an elevated edge.

17: Kristina Sky & Danny Stubbs feat. Evan Henzi- High Tide I was a big fan of Danny Stubbs’ previous work on Broken, also from the Perfecto label. This track was heavily promoted by Paul Oakenfold. I couldn’t help but fall for the breathy male vocals.

18: Tenth Planet- Ghosts (Darren Porter Remix) Rounding out the year of classic remixes is this banging new progressive trance offering. I like that Darren Porter parred everything back from the chorus so you can actually hear the lyrics, not to mention he preserved that iconic buildup.

19: Nurko feat. Devon Baldwin- Blindspot (Parts 1 & 2) So, this is really interesting. It’s two versions of the same song. Both are in the melodic dubstep genre yet they’re very different from each other. Part 1 is a bit more toned down and Part 2 is slightly more elevated. I also like the story being told. Give these a listen and see if you can pick a favorite.

20: Yula- Fade Away (Soul Version) I never listened to the original release of this track, but I kind of don’t want to because I’m afraid it’ll ruin the emotional resonance of this downtempo version.

Previous Lists: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013

#kat tracks #music #trance #progressive trance #tech trance #deep house #progressive house #electronica #chillout #downtempo #dubstep #drum n bass #soundcloud #best of #2020 #classic trance

[purplesurveys]

883

1. What kind of textures do you enjoy most in your food? Crunchy, crispy, soft, hard, grainy, slimy, etc? I love chewing on any meal that involves rice. Born and raised with it, can’t feel full without it. I’ll give a special mention to slimy too, because I love seafood.

2. Do you keep up any seasonal decorations outside of their season? No. My mom removes our Christmas decor by late January, which is when Christmas season ends here. We don’t decorate for other holidays.

3. Can you remember the most awkward situation you've ever been in? What happened? Ugh god. Any time I’m left alone with Gab’s dad is bound to be awkward because he’s very quiet and stoic and I tend to be a vibrant, cheery people-pleaser and nothing I do will muster more than two words out of him...but our most awkward moment has to be when I was at their place and he had to leave to run some errands. I stood up and walked over to give him a hug, but for some reason the floor was slippery and I started to do the world’s clumsiest and longest stumble. As an instinct, I held on to his arm and shirt so that I wouldn’t fall flat on my face. It was terrible and nothing I could’ve done or said would’ve saved that situation. EUGH I’m wincing right now lmao

4. Can you remember the most scary situation you've ever been in? What happened? [trigger warning] Would have to be the time when my grandfather got too drunk off his ass that he physically assaulted one of my cousins, then a toddler. My aunt (cousin’s mom) is a little on the delicate and petite side and couldn’t do anything to confront my grandpa, who went on his rage for like 10, 15 minutes. Certainly felt like forever. Nothing has traumatized me more and that’s saying a lot, considering it’s been 13 years and I’ve been through tons of shitty situations.

5. Do you do anything unusual to help you concentrate? It’s not very weird but I did install an extension on my browser that would let me list certain sites (usually social media) I’d want blocked whenever I have work. I suppose not everyone has that kind of program so it kinda counts as unusual.

6. Do you ever wonder what your parents were like as children/teenagers? With my dad, yes. My mom tells me enough stories. I know her family hit a rough patch when she was a teenager and they had to sell a bunch of their stuff, including a grand piano. She went from living a comfortable life to having to skip meals in college because she only had enough money for her daily commute.

7. Do you think suicide is ever "okay?" Groan, this is so triggering. I’m not elaborating on this, soz.

8. Would you rather a close family member/close friend/significant other die of suicide or murder? Why is this? “>> I think having to deal with a murder investigation would be terribly messy and intrusive, and would add more trauma on top of what I’m already dealing with.” < All of this. You don’t always get closure with murders, too. And I would hate that.

9. In your opinion, what is the worst thing someone could ever do? Raping an infant is definitely up there for me.

10. In your opinion, what is the best thing someone could ever do? Be a positive change or impact in someone’s life. Idk, I’m easy to please.

11. Do you think about any fellow xangans outside of xanga? I’ll change the context of this question to Tumblr so I can answer it. And yes I do, sometimes. Not in a creepy way or anything; it usually happens when I encounter something in real life that I know another survey-taker likes.

12. What military installation is the closest to you? Fort Bonifacio.

13. Do you still open your windows during winter? We don’t get winter but yeah, December is the best time to leave the windows open throughout the night. It’s also a great time to be able to save on electricity haha

14. How cold is too cold? How hot is too hot? I’ve lived in a tropical country all my life so I’m a big-ass wimp when it comes to the cold, even though I love it more. I start shivering at around 23ºC. Too hot is anything reaching the 40s.

15. Would you rather lose both legs or both arms? Why? Legs. I use my hands a lot more, so it would be slightly more difficult if I suddenly had to move about without them.

16. If you committed a crime that landed you in prison for the rest of your life, but were given the option to receive the death sentence instead, which would you choose? Why? Death. I get to have the infamous ~last meal~. Lol in all seriousness though, I’d pick it because it would be a quick release for me, I guess. It’s a big reason why I’m not a fan of death penalty...it’s too easy an escape for criminals who deserve a lot worse.

17. Is there any specific album you can listen to in its entirety and enjoy every single song? After Laughter - Paramore

18. Would you rather be a famous movie star, television star, or musician? I don’t have talents that would make me succeed in any of these fields...I guess it’d be fun to be a movie star though.

19. If you are not religious, have you ever eaten dinner with a group of people that were and said grace before eating? How was this for you? If you are religious and say grace before dinner, have you ever eaten dinner with a group of people that weren't and didn't say grace before eating? How was this for you? Yes. I’m from a Catholic family, so we pray before every meal. I do a sign of the cross but barely, just so my mom sees I move my hands when we start the prayer; but I haven’t recited grace since I told myself I was going to be atheist.

20. Do you think an evil Santa or an evil Easter Bunny would make a better villain in a horror movie? I’d go with Evil Santa mostly because I have no attachment to the Easter Bunny whatsoever, and because it’d be hilarious to see a man with reindeer be mean.

21. Did you ever think any fictional story-book character was creepy as a child? Do you still think any of them are creepy? Yes. That girl who wears a ribbon around her neck still gives me the fucking creeps.

22. Would you rather wear nothing but white or nothing but black? Is there any color you'd actually want to wear head-to-toe? Black. I’ve done that many times, so it wouldn’t feel weird.

23. What physical/mental health problems run in your family? Do you have any of the same problems? I’m almost certain there are underlying issues on my mom’s side but seeing as none of us have ever gotten ourselves checked (and most of them don’t believe in mental health problems anyway) I doubt I’ll ever find out what exactly’s wrong.

24. What is your mental and physical health like right now? They are both doing surprisingly well considering how long I’ve had to stay home and how much everything has turned upside down. I’ve only had two bad breakdown in four months and I’ve since recovered from that nasty fever I got, so I can’t complain.

25. If you found a suitcase (with no information about the owner) with a million dollars inside of it , would you turn it into the police or keep it? Be honest. ;] “>> See, a million dollars is an exorbitant sum. There is no way I could just casually make off with a missing million and not suffer repercussions. It's just too much goddamn money, and in this particular scenario, it's highly likely that it's a trap of some sort (whether set for me, or set for someone else and my dumb ass just happened to stumble across it). I'm not dumb enough to try it.

Neither would I necessarily want to turn it in, because that might cause me to get involved in something I didn't want or need to be involved in. The most logical course of action for me would be to leave it the fuck alone.” < Yeup.

26. Would you rather gaze at the stars or clouds? Stars. The fact that they’re so much farther away makes them more fascinating to me.

27. Are they any foods you used to enjoy but no longer like? Are there any foods you used to dislike but now enjoy? There’s a certain brand of frozen sisig that I used to looooove and would have multiple servings of every time I had it. But I had it one too many times and now I can’t even stand the smell of it. On the other hand, I hated chicken curry as a kid, but I can’t get enough of it now.

28. Do you feel much older or younger than you are? Why? Neither. I just feel 22.

29. Did you get along with kids that were older or younger than you? I mostly got along with kids of the same age. I found younger kids too rowdy and being around older kids always felt intimidating.

30. Do you know any magic tricks? Nopes.

31. How much would life suck for you if you had a wheat allergy? A lot.

32. Are you able to watch gory scenes in movies? Why or why not? For sure. I always want to see how far FX artists can go; and if used correctly, gory scenes can be super integral to the movie. Midsommar is a really good example.

33. Do you constantly check the time? Does time seem to move quickly or slowly for you? Not anymore. I used to check it a lot while I was still in school. Sigh, I miss that life so much. Anyway, time definitely felt slower during the first few weeks of the lockdown, but now that I’m used to it days just fly by. I can hardly believe we’re nearly in the middle of July. So much of this year has been wasted. It’s miserable.

34. Would you rather live in a nice house in a bad location, or a less-than-nice house in a great location? I’m taking the great location. I don’t know if I can last living in a shady area, no matter how beautiful my house is.

35. Have you ever been a witness to a horrible crime? What happened? Domestic violence is the worst thing I can think of. I enumerated one of them in one of the earlier questions, but I witnessed several other cases as a kid.

#survey #surveys

[checkoutafrica]

Ami Faku; SA’s highest streamed female artist part one

There’s something so incredibly beautiful about listening to music in your own language. For me I never really deep lyrics when it comes to songs, I just listen because I vibe with the song but listening to SA soul just does something to me, I feel every single word and so much more! So it’s no surprise that I adore Ami Faku’s voice. 

I first discovered Ami in June last year whilst watching an episode of Uzalo (my favourite SA soap), her song Ubuhle Bakho played as Lindiwe walked down the aisle. It was at that moment that I knew I had found my first dance song! Regardless of where my husband is from, this will be our song, forever and always. You truly have to listen to it to understand where I’m coming from! This was the first time in a very long time that a song had brought me to tears. Her voice, the lyrics, her sound, the melodies, everything about it was just breathtaking. To this day I can’t go a week without playing the song, it’s on repeat none stop. I’m probably one of the huge reasons why she’s SA’s most streamed female artist of 2019, she’s without a doubt my most played SA female artist! 

Ms Faku has collaborated with some of SA’s biggest and greatest musicians I.e Amanda Black, Sun el Musician and Prince Kaybee just to name a few! She released her debut album in September and the more I listened to the album the more I fall in love with her, I kid you not, this woman will probably go down as one of SA’s greatest and I honestly cannot wait for her to get the global recognition she deserves. Within the first day of her album being released, it hit #1 on Apple Music, her album was #1 in physical sales of music for 4 weeks, she had 5 songs in the Top 50 of Radiomonitor Top 200 chart of 2019 and she was the ONLY newcomer on Spotify’s top 10 most streamed female artist. Imagine all of this was achieved within the space of a few months, so imagine what she could achieve In the next 5-10 years!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Ami (@ami_faku) on Mar 31, 2020 at 2:38am PDT

I had the privilege of interviewing this incredible woman on Monday and here is what she had to say; 

How does it feel to be named SA’s most streamed female artist by Deezer? How did you hear the news?

“It feels great, I keep saying all of these things are a blessing because at first, I did not think that all of this was possible so I’m very happy and grateful.

I found out whilst I was alone at my place and I called to confirm because I was like there should be a mistake but thankfully it was an actual thing and there was no mistake.”

View this post on Instagram

We are on the lead! Number #1 on physical CD sales on MUSICA SA

Grateful for all of you! The support is real.

A post shared by Ami (@ami_faku) on Jan 28, 2020 at 10:12am PST

How would you describe your music in 5 words and why have you chosen these particular words?

“Modern, Soulful, Truthful, an Experience and Quality music. Every time I think about it I would say those are the elements that my music has.”

Obviously, as an artist, you take inspiration from so many things, for example; your surroundings, life experiences and other artists. How did you discover your sound, how long did it take you and what advice would you give to other artists looking to find their own sound?

“It took time because if I look back to when I was 18 I wouldn’t have done this, I was not exposed/ around people who played live instruments but I always knew that I had this deep love for instruments and soulful music but unfortunately I couldn’t – It was just this experience of doing all these other genres to actually make this decision to say, no this is the music that I really love the most. It was just experiencing and looking at the music I connect with the most – afro soul and RnB but mostly very youthful, nothing old or anything, that’s why I incorporate youthfulness in my afro soul because it’s part of what I like so it had to be part of my music and sound.

To new artists, I would say just be sure that this is the sound that you want because it’s not easy to write on, it’s not easy to create a melody on because it sort of has to compliment cause the production is always so great so it’s quite intimidating, you have to really work hard into making sure that your delivery is just as good. Make sure you know what you want, don’t do it because everyone says you should do it and stick through what you believe in and just always be you because I am me in my writing and everything about this journey. I am fully 100% myself so I would encourage them to do the same.”

View this post on Instagram

Thank you so much for attending my #SincerelyYours showcase. I had the time of my life, I love you guys! Tonight we continue

A post shared by Ami (@ami_faku) on Mar 13, 2020 at 1:18am PDT

Most of your songs are related to the idea of love, is this romantic love? Have you yourself ever been in love, or are you in love right now?

“My music involves platonic love as well as romantic love, because I myself am such a lover. I express love even in songs I dedicate to friends and family so It can be however you interpret it.

I was definitely in love at some point, it’s always so weird when people ask me this, I’m like no why??? but I am grateful for the experience as it helped me to create songs that people love, so I guess it was worth something in the end, I got something out of it at least, so yeah I have been in love! My experience is very limited tho, so in order to broaden my audience I always also write in other peoples perspectives and tell their stories too.”

The post Ami Faku; SA’s highest streamed female artist part one appeared first on CheckoutAfrica.

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#Interviews #Music

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Moth Work Intro + False Idol | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth! 

Today I thought I’d do a writing update on a project I’ve mentioned a lot in my vlogs but haven’t mentioned as of yet on here! This is a personal ‘passion project’ that I’ve been picking away at since January and have recently taken on as my transition project from Rewired to my next book.

So yee! MOTH WORK (or ‘boys on a boat’ for those who keep up with the vlogs lols) has been my current project for the last few weeks since finishing REWIRED. I didn’t really mean to expand it as much as I have as it simply started off as a spinoff story of my boys Lonan and Harrison which I write every few months when I’m having a breakdown and need something to cheer me up. :-)

I’ve mentioned a few of these stories in the past (like Fishbowl and Mandarin), though this story is a bit different, as I’ve expanded it quite a lot more than I intended to! If you aren’t super caught up with Rewired, I’d definitely scroll through a few of my last updates so this one will make more sense! 

What’s it about? 

Moth Work is a FOSTERED spinoff story following Lonan and Harrison (dumb+dumber) at the peak of their relationship. I *was saying* that the plot went loosely as follows: after finding a photograph of a woman in Lonan’s father’s dark room, they set out to find her, HOWEVER, because I never stick to plans, I have yet to follow through with this main plot thread, lol. Vaguely, I’d just say the most important part of this story is their relationship at its most fragile because who is plot I don’t know her. 

Moth Work follows the events after REWIRED, and is a bit of a bridge between it and the next book. This makes it kind of hard to explain because a) it’s in a different POV, and b) context, but hopefully that makes sense! In essence: Lonan + Harrison’s relationship is big sad and Harrison tries to make it less big sad and it gets even more big sad. 

I’ll share a very quick profile of both of the boys so there’s some context for the following excerpts I’ll share!

Harrison

My boy

Generally very outgoing, tho around Lonan this fizzles. Only wants the best for Lonan despite their history. He’s the ‘main’ narrator of the piece (third limited to him though I’m guilty of head hopping lol), so the work has a softer tone than I’m used to. Though Harrison tries to be a Macho Man, around Lonan he’s most himself--mellow, a lil stupidly romantic, and vulnerable. 

Lonan

My problematic son/probably should be cancelled 

The “issue” in the relationship loool. He’s emotionally immature and lacks accountability, but because of his past, lacks the ability to recognize these faults and work on them. Because of this, he’s fundamentally stayed the same for the last few works he’s been in (if not gotten worse). Lonan requires a lot of emotional assistance, though he isn’t self-aware enough to recognize this. This is often the cause of much conflict. 

Conception:

Like I mentioned, I often write short spinoff stories following these boys because it’s a safe happy place for when I’m feeling stressed. This is basically how this piece started, though I’ve continued it for different reasons which I’ll get into. I don’t remember how the first scene was brainstormed, but I do know when I started writing this a few months ago, I wanted it to be a lot longer than my previous stories--a place where I could just dump my writing, even when it wasn’t good. I think I did this to cope with the stress of my writing class honestly, lol, I think I needed a break from ‘serious’ writing AKA a place I could just goof off and have some fun. 

The writing bit: 

Writing this story has been a bit inconsistent. I’ve been drafting it in little pieces since the beginning of the year, and only recently picked it up as more of a ‘full-time’ work. This is subject to change depending on whether or not I get more of book 7 done. I’ve gone from writing 20 words a day to 0 to 1000--there’s really no consistency with the drafting process here. 

I have recently decided that I’ll most likely expand this into either a novella or novel itself because there is literally so much tea left to explore and it’s surpassed 10k words. Drafting Moth Work has been so helpful in easing me back into the world of FOSTERED and piecing together the huge time gap from the end of book 6 to the start of book 7. I’ve been a bit anxious to really dive into book 7 for the fear of the unknown, so inching myself closer to that timeline through this project has been very helpful!

The editing bit:

I recently did an edit around the line level for this entire piece (it’s about 12k words right now) because a) it really needed it b) I was losing steam/starting to get embarrassed and c) I needed a refresher of what had happened because je suis tres forgetful. This edit made me feel so much better about the project. It initially started off as a work where the writing didn’t actually matter and this mentality was working until I got so embarrassed of the prose I found it difficult to read through old scenes to refresh myself and thus couldn’t productively draft. 

This project isn’t written exactly in my usual style--it’s pretty stripped back and actually reminds me a lot of how my style would’ve been in book 3 had I been a better writer four years ago lol. I think the looser style works for the voice/the story itself but I def wouldn’t categorize this as litfic (what I usually write). Although the prose isn’t very complex, it took me a really long time to get comfortable enough to edit?? But once I got into the rhythm of it a few days ago, I completed the edit fairly quickly, and I’m 100% feeling better about the project overall! Though the prose is still not my top priority I’m not as embarrassed of it currently lols. 

I also divided the project into chapters because it was getting pretty long to just be one mass of text. I currently have 3 chapters. This update will cover chapter 1. 

Playlist:

Yo this is literally the best part of writing this project, lol, I get to listen to so much different music?? I’ve made a comprehensive playlist for this story with a character by character breakdown (if anyone wants to see that/highlights, let me know!). This playlist pulls from every song from my library, so we span genres and artists like crazy. Nothing But Thieves has been the primary artist for this story (specifically their self-titled album). These songs (all NBT oop) are the most relevant if you want to get the general tone lol (anything with a star has explicitly inspired the project):

Excuse Me*

Honey Whiskey*

Tempt You (Evocatio)*

If I Get High (II)

Gods

Lover, Please Stay*

I Was Just A Kid*

Get Better

Hell, Yeah*

Afterlife

Reset Me

Particles

Sorry

Number 13

Excerpts:

I don’t have *many* because prose hasn’t really been a top priority for this project, but I’ll try to include at least one per scene. 

This is one of the opening paragraphs from chapter one which I’ve titled ‘False Idol’. In short, the chapter follows the boys first attempting to destroy the dark room and then getting distracted and eventually not pulling through after Harrison finds a picture of Ominous Lady. 

The chapter’s chronology is wild so we can break it up as follows:

Scene A

The boys enter the dark room with the intention of burning it down

Harrison reaches for his lighter and drops it which prompts him to find the photograph of Ominous Lady

Him and Lonan mildly argue about Ominous Lady until Lonan takes it too seriously and throws a tantrum :-DD

Scene B

Not really a full scene, just a bridge between scene A and C.

Harrison has been waiting for Lonan to return to their campsite for the entire day and he decides to at the very last moment

“hey so i’m unable to apologize for anything but also! cigarette! let’s share it! lungs!” 

Scene C

The boys exercising their canoeing skills

This leads us to our first “beat”.

Lonan interrupts Harrison’s peaceful evening by having a mild crisis

This takes place right after the events of Lolita, Lolita (chapter 16 of REWIRED). We then jump back to the fictive present.

 This alternates like 5 more times lol then the chapter is done!

The following excerpt describes their entry into the dark room. Don’t know how smart it is to be smoking in a room full of highly flammable material but we out here.

I don’t think she’s particularly special but I also don’t hate her so!! hoping an aesthetic photo will make it read better :’)) I ! don’t ! think ! it does ! but !

Harrison shoulders the door first, traps it open with the clip of his boot. Dust and streaks of light rake behind him as he pushes through cardboard boxes, mountains of photo paper on the ground. Lonan follows silently, still wearing Harrison’s jacket. Trails of smoke from his cigarette catch in the negatives hanging by the clothespins, chemical peel between the layers of ink. In one hand he tends to his cigarette, and in the next, lugs in the canister of gasoline they found in the cabin’s cellar. As Harrison fumbles for his flashlight, Lonan sets it down by the table so it sloshes like the Pacific. 

This is a bit of when Harrison finds the photograph of Ominous Lady:

He turns the photograph over, and shines the flashlight on it. It’s scratched and developed wrong, little bits of orange obscuring the woman’s face, but it’s very much a woman. A dark bob and bangs in her eyes, jewelry hanging from her septum. Sunshades enough to reflect the European street behind her. The discreet jet of ink on her skin, blues and greens peeking out from under her sleeve. Izzy, he recognizes. Lonan’s mother. 

Nudging Lonan with an elbow, “I didn’t know your mom has tattoos.” 

Lonan takes the photograph cautiously, holding it by the corners like it’ll burn him. His brow trembles, but it takes him only seconds to say, “That’s not my mom.” He takes the flashlight from Harrison and examines it closer, fingers nimble and tracing the edges. In the grey light of the dark room, he looks nullified. Just a monochromatic hum of chromosomes and skin. 

that’s not my MOM

After the boys find the photograph, Lonan gets triggered at Harrison’s suggestion to find the woman (he presumes her to be someone involved with his father) and promptly has a tantrum and exits. This leads us into the next scene where the boys! actually! get! on! boat! In this scene Lonan tries to say sorry for his tantrum by offering Harrison a cigarette (lol) and because Harrison is hopelessly romantic and also hopelessly dumb, says yeeeees sir! They go for a canoe ride on the water. Thought it was going to be sweet, ended up being a shitstorm but!

This paragraph is kind of toast but:

The canoe isn’t hard to get into the water. After a few nudges from the dock into the slow dip of tide, it stabilizes easily. Harrison is convinced it will capsize but Lonan knows it won’t. They take one ore each, and ignore the life jackets at the back of the shed.

The moon is large and mesmerizing. As Harrison and Lonan take turns pushing the canoe into the water, mast first, then its entire belly, it colours them silver. Lonan’s protected the cigarette in the pocket of his shirt. Harrison stares at its faint outline stretched under the fabric. Lonan steps into the canoe first, rocking with the current, and extends a hand for Harrison. He pulls him in and they row until the cabin is the size of a fingernail, the wave steady and dense. Each cut of the paddle feels like plunging a scalpel into flesh and Harrison watches Lonan do it easily. In the distance, the cabin doesn’t look so menacing. Reeve has left the lamp on by the loft, and it glimmers back like an eyeball, effervescent and tiny. Nothing but a reflective penny in the distance.

Here’s some Harrison being lame:

The water laps at the base of the canoe, and Ris reaches over and touches it like it’s holy. He makes the sign of the cross and it feels perverse, cold water dripping from forehead to chin.

For a while it’s quiet. Just the distant hum of crickets, the slash of the paddle, and the off-chance flash of something in the distance; an animal, a flashlight. Ris tries not to think about Lonan’s dad, like a dead man slithering through the water, following their boat. He picks at a saltine, sucks it between his tongue meditatively. Against the sky, Lonan is backlit and lovely and flecks of his hair peek up from around the jacket’s collar. Harrison wonders if as a child, everyone said he looked just like his father. 

On top of lacking accountability, Lonan is also a professional canoeist so he takes over while Harrison eats saltines and reminisces about an encounter they had weeks prior. This leads into the solid chunk of backstory that I weirdly jump in an out of for the entire chapter. :)

Backstory consists of drunk Lonan having a crisis while Harrison tries to have a peaceful evening of taping up his drawings to his bedroom ceiling. The following excerpt describes the moment right after Lonan enters the room.

Harrison’s lips secured around his cigarette, his hand mid-air with packing tape and line drawings of the moon. A tinny country song dribbled through the radio. The minute-meal he’d heat up in the microwave lying forgotten and cold on his desk. Harrison set the pile of drawings down and turned off the music.

“Emily left?” Lonan asked. He kept his face upward, stared clumsily at the ceiling. Harrison watched his eyes trace the new drawings, following the uncalculated pattern. 

This paragraph is made up of 5 similes and this is the only reason I’m sharing it :)))):

Lonan has stopped paddling. The canoe sits in the middle of the lake, lifeless, like a bone in the water. He’s turned so Harrison can see him in profile, and Ris can’t tell if it’s relieving or worrying to see his face. Lonan’s jaw is taut, like there are words he wants to say there but can’t. Filling up the hollow bone. He blinks slowly, like he’s trying to re-centre himself, his chest quivering with breaths meant to steady him. The water laps at the base of the canoe, whirling. Dark hair tangles down his cheeks like the fingers of a poltergeist. 

I think that’s a pretty good way to end this post lol! How many similes have you put in one paragraph? What’s your record lol this is probably mine!

Hope y’all enjoy the intro to MOTH WORK. I have two other chapters already written which I’ll update on in a separate post! For now I hope you like this more laid back project, let me know what you think!

---Rachel

#writing #writingupdates #writeblr #amwriting #writerblr #fostered #mothwork

[leoninapelliolovesconchitawurst]

ENGLISH TRANSLATION ( Jeannette Nobbe)

VOLSKRANT.NL 31/01/20

by Mennon Pot

https://www.volkskrant.nl/cultuur-media/conchita-wurst-sorry-dat-ik-zo-n-wandelend-cliche-ben~b0477817/

(Conchita) Wurst: 'I'm sorry I'm a walking cliché'.

Above all we know Conchita Wurst as the bearded 'female 'singer who won the ESC in 2014. But we've moved on and are a bit wiser. It´s just Wurst now, but the beard is still there.

With light feathered steps, Thomas Neuwirth (31) enters the conference room of the hotel in Groningen where he is staying: black combat boots, black leather pants, tight black T-shirt, the black beard and the perfect short trimmed jet black hair..

He introduces himself as Tom. It's not difficult to recognise the bearded drag queen Conchita in him. (Kopenhagen, 2014, remember?) but the dress and wig are stowed away for a while. Conchita has a sort of sabbatical, so to speak.

Neuwirth is on tour as a man. Stage name: Wurst. Yesterday evening he performed in Groningen; the next concert will be 7 february at the Melkweg in Amsterdam. His new album 'Truth over Magnitude' also carries the artist´s name Wurst.

Let's get this straight: when the subject is Conchita Wurst, the word 'transgender' sometimes comes a long. Wrongly. Neuwirth is a man, ('but incredibly gay, of course'), who has a choice from now on: being on tour as a drag queen (Conchita) or as a man (Wurst) .

´a lot of fun, being a masculine stage persona', he says. Conchita will turn up again somewhere else.

Holland appreciated Conchita's 'Rise like a Phoenix' with the highest score, almost 6 years ago.

Neuwirth didn't forget: twelve points, douze points from Holland for the bearded diva from Austria.

Then hectic years followed. 'After the Song Contest I thought, I have to make the most of it now, build my fame and cash it in. So I surrounded myself with all kinds of experts, managers, stylists, make/up artists, the whole circus. After 3 years I was exhausted. I couldn´t do it anymore. I told my audience every nigh, be yourself, believe in yourself. But along the way, I forgot myself.´

He got rid of the experts’ circus and is having a relaxed tour now, with a small entourage. He feels good again, although in 2018 he had to announce he is infected with the HIV virus. His manager politely asks, almost in an humble manner, not to talk about that.

Tom doesn´t appear to be very worried about that. There has seldom been a star who starts an interview so cheerfully. ´A great photo shoot and after that talk about things I find beautiful and fun.

Terrific, I was already looking forward to it when I came out of bed.´

´Curriculum Vitae'

1988 – Born as Thomas Neuwirth in Gmunden, Austria

2007 – Candidate at the talentshow Starmania, and boyband Jetzt anders!

2011 – Debut as female persona Conchita Wurst, the debut single `I´ll be there´

2012 - Second place at the Austrian Songfestival

2014 – ESC winner with ´Rise like a Phoenix

2015 – First album ´Conchita´, co-presenter ESC

2018 – Second album ´From Vienna with Love´

2019 – Debut as male stage persona ´Wurst´, third album ´Truth over Magnitude´

2020 – Wurst ´Trust over Magnitude´ Sony Music

Wurst will be performing in the Melkweg in Amsterdam on February 7

SOUNDTRACK

Music from the Motion Picture Titanic ...1997

´My first CD. I was 9 years old when I bought it. `My heart will go on´’changed my life´. As it were, Céline Dion gave me permission to be utterly dramatic and to be over the top. When I came out of the closet, I heard that song in my head.

It was also a liberation for me as a singer. My mom always sang with a thin, high falsetto voice. I thought that was how it should be. Dion taught me, you may yell as hard as you can, with all the power you have in you. When you sing so loud, you can’t fake it. The sound you push out of your body, is the sound of your body, unique and by definition authentic. Céline Dion taught me that singing is something really physical.´

SERIES

The Crown ..Netflix..., 2016 until 2019

´For me it´s getting difficult to watch a movie to the end. I guess that´s because of all the series on Netflix and HBO. My favorite is `The Crown´.. ´the intro alone is so beautiful, that liquid gold that forms a crown, such art. I used to watch it twice. Ít says something about the fact that I can´t choose between the two women who play Elizabeth and the two men who play prince Philip. All the actors are great. The costumes, the stories, the palaces, it´s so delightful. The history also intrigues me, after every episode I checked on Wikipedia if it was really what had happened.

PARTIES

´At Christmas I always come back to Vienna. I love the lights, glitters and decorations, my inner Mariah Carey is looking forward to it every year. Christmas 2019 was extra special because it had been a long time since the whole family came together at my grandmother´s house.´

I would love it to be like that every year... A couple of days being together in one home. Talking, getting to really know my family. Maybe now you think, days on and on with uncles and aunts, such horror! It is easy to say that I don´t really have much in common with these people. But I do, Really. They all have a story and similarities with your stories. Ask them about your life and tell them about yours.´

That´s what Christmas is all about to me. To me, the birth of Jesus has not that much to do with it.´

ISLAND..

I have an agreement with my best friends to go on vacation at least once every two years. We have been to Mykonos a couple of times, THE especially gay island. I´m sorry I sound like a walking cliché.´

The sun, the sea, the beaches, the small streets, so cosy. We rent a house with a pool and for a week or two we live in our own little paradise, actually being a bit tipsy the whole time. Go shopping and cook.´

`What´s also very important, on Mykomos, the wind is always blowing the right way. I love to watch the women, because their dresses and their hair flutter so beautifully.´

STYLE ICON

Victoria Beckham

I was and still am a big Spice Girls fan and I especially admire Victoria Beckham, because she lives her life the way she wants. She appears in tabloids every day, but has survived a crisis in her relationship and has stayed happy with the love of her life and her family. I think that it´s really strong.´

In regard to her style, she can go from very classy to very trashy, I like that. One day she´s wearing a designer dress, the next she and David Beckham are walking in identical jogging suits. She couldn’t care less. I think that it´s inspiring.´

´I think she is utterly authentic, raging through the glamour. Although I have never met her, I´m sure that I could have a lot of fun with her. I´d love to drink some tequila with her for an afternoon or so.´

AGE

30

´I thought becoming 30 was really special, I lost my wild behaviour, came to be more restful. Some way or another I think a lot about some things my mother said: in my twenties, I ignored those lessons, but now I´m 30, I suddenly realised she was right for example how important family and friends are.

I´m 31 now, I have inner peace and my life in order, but I still feel young. I´m convinced that this the best period of my life´. My advise to everybody... be 30.´

ALBUM

Recomposed by Max Richter / The Four Seasons ..2012

I don´t play any instruments and until not too long ago, I didn´t really know much about music. I really found that a pity sometimes. Fortunately, my good friend Martin studies at the School of Musical Arts... !! He´s studying the history of music intensely and tells me about a lot of great composers. I learn a lot from that.´´I never understood classical music and didn´t really know anything about it, but thanks to the listening sessions with Martin I fell in love with Vivaldi..

The pop artist of the classical artists.

´Max Richter interpreted Vivaldi´s Four Seasons and composed it in a modern fashion. It´s a modern, post minimalistic piece, completely different from the original one, but you still recognise it. Greatly done, at the moment it´s my favorite album.´

BOOK

Friedrich Schiller « Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen ». About the aesthetic upbringing of the people..´

´A good friend advised me to read the philosophical letters from Friedrich Schiller ..Letters, 1794-1795)

That´s a hard job to do. Because of the old fashioned German I had to read some sentences 5 times. You always have to wrestle yourself through a thick layer of 18th century sexism.

´But further on you´ll find something beautiful. Schiller writes a lot about finding your inner beauty and your own truth. Dare to be yourself. Embrace your darker sides. Those are important as well.´

´At the same time he preaches self-perspective.. don´t take yourself too seriously, you´re not the center of the universe. That is very worthy to me. Namely because I DO think I´m the center of the universe, haha.

`Still it´s very wise of him, to send a message from 1795 to a 21st century queen with a Mariah Carey complex.´

CLUB

Circus in Vienna

´The Arena is a huge complex in Vienna, a concert building with a mega discotheque. A couple of times a year they organize Circus, my favorite gay club night. I always go there with my group of closest friends, but it´s actually a bit of a rule that we lose each other and disappear into the crowd.´

´I roam around all night- Every room, every floor has its own musical theme and decoration. I love the types of people I meet there, their clothes, their fetishisms, everything.´

….Arena Vienna, Baumgasse 80, Vienna

CITY

Amsterdam

´I live in Vienna, I love Vienna and I will always come back there, but the greatest city I´ve been to is Amsterdam – since then I traveled all over the world so I know what I´m talking about.

´Of all the cities I visited, Amsterdam is the only one where I would want to live a period of time. So that´s what I´m gonna do, this summer, for a few months to begin with.´

´I can see that Amsterdam also has the flagship stores from all known store chains. And a lot of tourists, like every special city. But I see all these small jewelry shops where they sell their self-made jewelry. Little bakeries. Cosy streets. And a lot of water. I love water. I love cities with lots of water.´

#conchitawurst #wurst #tomneuwirth #artist #singer #esc2014 #escwinner #music #performer #lgbt #celebrity #interview #translation

[officialkmi]

My Top 5 Rappers

Okay, so, I love listening to rappers, and it’s not uncommon for my to bias a rapper in a KPop group (if I don’t bias the rapper, then they’re my bias wrecker). I feel like there’s a lot of emotion that can be put into a rap song, and I like when they rap about something other than sex or how much money they have or whatever. I’m a broke asexual, that doesn’t resonate with me.

Now, when reading this list, you’ll see there’s some overlap between the artists I like. I’ll compare their music, but only to show why I love it so much. I’ll talk about the videos, but only to talk about the style I enjoy seeing. You’ll also see that not all of the artists are Korean, and not all belong to a KPop group.

Without further ado- Here’s my Top 5 Rappers.

#5: NF

Okay, show of hands, who has heard of NF? I gave him the #5 entry because I haven’t heard a lot of his music, but I really like what I have heard. His songs are real, talking about mental illness and struggles. While the video I link is “When I Grow Up,” it was “Real” that inspired me to make this list. "Real” is from 2016, and the sound of it brought memories of RM’s earlier work (particularly, “Joke,” especially with the aesthetic of the music video in the “abandoned” location).

What’s really amazing about NF’s songs is that they’re something real and relatable. Its not just “hey look at me! I get all the girls and I’m rich!” Instead, it’s him rapping about mental illness, triggering topics, etc. With that, I want to warn readers that look into his music that some videos and songs can contain triggering topics, so proceed with caution.

#4: BANG YONGGUK

I am a very casual Yongguk fan. I never really got into B.A.P, but I love the solo work he’s released since leaving the group (not to say it’s good he left, but just to say I only started listening to him after).

While he’s released a video since “Hikikomori" came out, I have to say that I still favor “Hikikomori.” It’s a song that’s very honest about his experiences and what hes been through. It takes a lot for people to be able to be open about things like mental health and what they experience, especially when your every move is being watched by the public. Korea also isn’t known for their excellent viewpoint of mental health and mental illnesses (as we can see with the tragic lost of SHINee’s Jonghyun and BIGBANG’s T.O.P’s attempted suicide). Idols don’t have a lot of freedom to open up, and it’s really only in these past few years that I’ve noticed Koreal idols being more open with their experiences.

I think it is great that Yongguk was open about his stories, as it is something extremely personal. I feel like this is something listeners can relate to much better than a song about getting girls.

#3: Agust D

When it comes to Agust D, I love the speed, the lyrics, everything. I can easily say I still have his songs on my playlist years after their release. The self-titled track “Agust D” is probably one of my top three in his mixtape. I still remember the day it came out. I was on another website, watching as people posted updates and reactions to the MV. They were mostly freaking out over him cussing and flipping off the camera. I loved it. I had always kinda been interested in Suga, he had this dark air around him that made me want to know more, and I didn’t know a lot of people that biased him. This video really made me even more interested and his mixtape really helped highlight his abilities to fans that maybe hadn’t had a chance to look into it.

I still remember jokes online when J-Hope’s mixtape got added to Superstar BTS and fans were doing their best to succeed. They said that the day they add any Agust D songs is the day our thumbs fall off.

I love it. And I always will.

#2: Jackson Wang

I’m not gonna lie, all of Jackson’s solo work has been either a hit or a miss for me. I like his music genuinely, or I kinda laugh at the lyrics. I like that he’s stepping into a different style, in a sense. Most fans know him for his role in GOT7 as a rapper (with amazing arms and a cute smile). Many fans also know he is from Hong Kong. So, when I heard he first released a solo, I expected it to be in Chinese (like how EXO’s Yixing’s solos are) or Korean. I was pleasantly surprised each time he released a song to find out they’re in English, even though I knew he speaks English. I feel like, of all the languages, I just didn’t expect it.

That’s why he’s number two. He didn’t do something expected. I feel like he’s found a style he likes and is sticking to it, and I am 100% positive that the songs will get better in time, just as GOT7′s music grew over time. Unlike the other rappers on the list, he isn’t releasing songs in his native language or the language he’s been rapping in whenever he’s on concert. He’s doing something different, and I’d be shocked if it’s not a bit of a challenge for him. That’s admirable, and we like admirable.

#1: J-Hope

Throw stuff at me virtually all you want for including two BTS members, but I can’t help myself.

I honestly couldn’t decide which JHope song to link for this one. I love all of his solo songs, though I am partial to “Hangsang,” “Airplane,” “Boy Meets Evil” (that dancing, am I right?), “Daydream,” and “Mama.” I actually did a project in college where I wrote about how the lyrics of “Mama” related to the story we had read. Granted, I bullshitted the entire essay since I did not actually read the story. I just wanted to write about a JHope song.

While I support all of BTS’ members, J-Hope was actually one of the last two members I learned to identify and came to love. It breaks my heart, looking back. He stole my heart while watching him perform “Mama” live when I saw BTS during their Wings tour. Seeing his energy and how much he was enjoying himself, especially with the fans going “Hey mama!” with him...it warmed my heart.

A lot of rappers on this list have a dark aesthetic, especially with their music videos. Hoseok really switches things up, as he almost always seems to have a contagious smile on his face. While RM and Agust D’s (Suga’s) music videos for their first mix tapes were dark and gritty, Hoseok kept his bright and cheerful. That’s why he’s #1: he’s done something I have yet to see another idol do.

HONORABLE MENTION: HyunA

I 100% was going to make HyunA #2 instead of Jackson (sorry, Jackson) but...as far as I’m aware, she hasn’t released anything yet since leaving CUBE (because CUBE sucks and we support HyunA’s right to date). It’s expected, of course, since it hasn’t been long and it takes time to produce music and make music videos and all that. I want to support her fully once she’s releasing music at the new company, and as such prevented myself from listing her.

I will say, though, I love her style, her confidence, and her voice. She’s great because I feel like there’s nothing she can’t do.

#KMI #KMI Top 5 #official KMI #kmi official #top 5 rappers #hyuna #jackson wang #jackson #team jackson #nf #j-hope #jhope #j hope #daydream #daydream by jhope #daydream by j hope #hixtape #oxygen #oxygen by jackson #agust d #suga #yoongi #min yoongi #bts #bts rappers #bts rap line #rm #rapper nf #nf rapper #bang yongguk

[searchingwardrobes]

Natural Opposite: 9/16

The dance I invented for this chapter is probably my favorite. One, because it’s to a Nirvana song, and as a nineties teen, I LOVE Nirvana. And second, my dance background is more in this style (contemporary) than in ballroom. I hope you enjoy reading it and the way it brings Emma and Killian closer together!

Thanks to my beta @distant-rose who loved this Nirvana dance almost as much as I did. Ro, our music chats were such a fun part of doing this with you! I’m glad we have similar tastes. And my artist, @optomisticgirl girl, is so talented and perfectly captured a dance that was only in my head beautifully for this chapter. Thank you, B! She also made that gorgeous banner you see every Monday!

Chapter art:

Ch 2

Ch 4

Ch 5

Ch 6

Ch 7

Summary: Dance is more than Emma Swan’s career; it’s practically saved her life on more than one occasion. But when it comes to reality TV shows, she’s always danced in the shadows of her twin brother David and her sister Elsa. Her first season as a pro on Dancing With the Stars was a disaster, and she enters her second season determined to prove herself. All she needs is a good partner. Hollywood bad boy and ladies’ man Killian Jones isn’t what she had in mind.

Rating: M for mature themes, steamy dance routines, and sexy times (But NOT smut)

Trigger warnings: discussions of online solicitation of a minor, bullying, statutory rape, and emotionally abusive/controlling relationships; stalking; anti-Rumbelle, anti-Neal

Can also be read on

Ao3

Tagging: @bethacaciakay @kmomof4 @teamhook @kmomof4 @snowbellewells @whimsicallyenchantedrose @kday426 @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @jennjenn615 @followbatb @onceuponaprincessworld @hollyethecurious @ohmakemeahercules

Chapter Nine: Heart Shaped Box

Killian grinned widely at Emma when he arrived for their rehearsal the next day. She returned it and gave him a small hug in greeting, and she couldn’t say it was just for the cameras. As much as she hated to admit it, she found herself looking forward to their rehearsals. They actually had fun together. Yeah, he still drove her crazy sometimes, but he also made her laugh. Last week, Killian had summed it up in a teasing remark.

“You know, Swan, I quite fancy you from time to time. When you’re not yelling at me.”

Henry’s observation about him “liking” her rose to mind, but she quickly pressed that down. Flirting, she had come to find out, was his autopilot. And like her sarcasm, it was largely a defense mechanism.

“Sorry we have to rehearse so early,” Killian told her, “but . . . I brought a peace offering.” He extended a styrofoam to-go cup.

“Coffee?” she asked, with a tilt of her head as she accepted the offering.

“Please, Swan, are you trying to test me? It’s hot chocolate,” he said, tapping the plastic lid teasingly, “with whipped cream and cinnamon.”

“I must say, I’m impressed,” she told him as she took a sip, “and I like the early rehearsal. It means I get to pick up Henry from school this afternoon.”

“I’m glad,” Killian replied, but then he blinked and rubbed his eyes, “although I hope the coffee I consumed on the way here kicks in soon. Filming went into the wee hours this morning.”

Emma frowned. “Be sure you’re taking care of yourself. I know this show is grueling, especially when you have other commitments.”

“I’ll try,” he promised with a weary smile, “though I go straight from six hours with you back to the studio for four more hours on green screen. I’ll be glad when the hiatus begins. If I haven’t gotten voted off by then.”

Emma waved her hand dismissively as she set her hot chocolate down beside her dance bag. “Please. We’re making it to the finale, Jones, I’m telling you.”

“Okay,” Killian said with a smile, “let’s get to work then. It’s decades week, so what decade did we get?”

“The 90s.”

Killian’s brow furrowed. “The 90s.”

“Why? You don’t like the nineties?”

Killian shrugged. “Well, that depends. Are we talking flannel, angst-ridden, grunge nineties? Or boy bands, bubblegum pop, dark lipstick nineties?”

Emma laughed. “Well, don’t you know the decade well! What if I said we were dancing to ‘Heart Shaped Box’ by Nirvana?”

Killian’s eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. “Yes!” he enthused, pumping both fists.

“So Killian Jones likes angst,” she teased, “good to know.”

“Well, if you were going to make me dance to ‘MmBop,’ you may have had a mutiny on your hands.”

“Well, the cool thing about this dance is also that it’s contemporary. And believe me, angst works well with contemporary.”

Killian nodded, his face suddenly determined. “You can get really creative with this, Swan, that’s exciting.”

Emma put her hands on her hips and studied him silently for a few moments. The corner of her mouth quirked up when he almost started to squirm under her gaze.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he finally asked.

“How would you like to choreograph this dance with me?”

Killian’s eyes grew wide. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. You’re a performer and a musician.” She winked. “And you like angst.”

He gave her a smile she had yet to see on his face. It was genuine, as if he were truly touched by her offer. “I’d be honored, Swan.”

She cleared her throat, slightly unnerved at how much she liked this new smile on him. “Well, let’s figure out the story we’re trying to tell first.”

“Well, the lyrics are pretty dark.”

“Of course they are,” Emma said with a roll of her eyes, “it’s Nirvana.”

“Aye,” Killian chuckled, “and it’s also about a relationship. One that isn’t making either person happy, yet they stay together anyway.”

Emma swallowed hard. She knew the feeling.

“The man says he has complaints, yet then he turns around and says he’s in debt to her,” Killian continued.

Emma nodded. She had already listened to the song multiple times. “He talks about her having a cord around his neck, yet he climbs right back.”

“An umbilical noose, to be precise.”

Emma wrinkled her nose, “I know, but ew! Why did grunge bands use such sick and twisted images? He talks about eating her cancer, too.”

“They were pushing the envelope. It’s what every revolutionary period in music has done.”

Emma shook her head and smiled. “I better watch out. I’m treading into your area of expertise.”

Killian scratched the spot behind his ear. “Well, this is the genre of music I first learned to play on my guitar. I told you I was a bit morose.”

Her face softened at that. She remembered too well the lonely years before Ingrid. She could see why dark music would appeal to a lonely kid.

“So we’ve got a man who feels trapped in a relationship,” Emma replied, switching topics back to brainstorming for the routine.

“Hence the heart shaped box.”

“But I like what you said,” Emma continued, “about neither of them being happy. I think that should be our story. We’re a couple who aren’t good for each other, but we stay together anyway –“

“ – because we’re afraid of being alone,” Killian finished for her.

Emma smiled and then gave him a gentle slap on the shoulder. “You were right, Jones, we do make quite the team.”

“Or maybe,” he said softly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, “this topic strikes a little too close to home for both of us. Loneliness.”

Emma blinked and took a step back. Her heart pounded rapidly in her chest. Her hands clenched and unclenched as her mind tried to come up with a response.

Killian gave her his trademark crooked grin and quirked brow. “I mean, who wouldn’t crave loneliness when you’ve got cameras recording your every move?”

A slow smile spread across Emma’s face. “Right. Okay, Jones, let’s figure out the first eight counts.”

**********************************************************

It was the day of the show, and Emma and Killian sat on a dingy sofa set up on the dance floor hand in hand, waiting to be announced. Around them, the set department had created a living room in a rundown apartment circa 1995. Killian was dressed in faded jeans and a Nirvana t-shirt (of course). Emma wore black leggings and a plaid shirt, unbuttoned and tied at her waist. Underneath it she wore a black sequined bra top.

“You know,” Killian teased, fingering the tied ends of her shirt, “I don’t recall black sequined bras being a fashion statement in the nineties.”

“Well, not all of us are old enough to remember the nineties, old man,” Emma teased back.

“You wound me, Swan! I’m only thirty-five!”

Emma just laughed and rolled her eyes at his mock-offended expression. Behind them, the video package played of their rehearsal week. Just as she had expected, it opened with Killian finding her backstage last week after their Tangled routine. The expression on his face, which she hadn’t seen for herself at the time, was tender as he put his arms around her. It also showed their hug when he brought her coffee, and Killian tucking her hair behind her ear. They also played up the emotional portions of their choreography, showing embraces in super slow-motion. Emma rolled her eyes. It was ridiculous the way they were playing it all up like some sort of romantic comedy.

“Dancing a contemporary routine,” boomed the announcer, “Killian Jones and his partner Emma.”

She wished there were a commercial break so she would have a little more time to put the video package out of her mind. Killian gave her hand a squeeze, and she nodded, pressing her lips together. He relinquished her hand, and they both stared blankly forward as the lights came up and the music started.

The music producers were using a recording of the actual song performed by Nirvana. The live band just couldn’t capture the dissonance or the gravely sound of Kurt Cobain’s voice. She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak. Cobain’s broody voice filled the room as Emma and Killian slid off the couch and onto the floor. For the remainder of the dance, they pushed and pulled on one another, neither of them able to stray very far from the couch, which of course symbolized their toxic relationship. They used the couch often, beating it with their fists, jumping on and off it, falling and sliding from it. Then the dance ended as it had begun, both of them sitting, staring blankly forward. The overhead lights dimmed as other lights flickered in front of them, meant to look like a television playing.

When the music faded out and all the lights came up, Killian leapt up in excitement. Emma, however, felt herself suddenly drained of emotion. If Killian hadn’t pulled her to her feet and embraced her, she may have kept right on sitting there. She felt as if her heart had just been exposed. She blinked as Killian cupped her head, whispering in her ear how “brilliant, bloody amazing,” she was. Somehow, that snapped her out of her daze. She thought about the woman in the song and her heart shaped box. She took a deep breath, and stuffed her own heart back inside of hers.

As Killian led her over to Marco so they could face the judges, her limbs once again cooperated, and she plastered her “performance smile” on her face. She really was proud of Killian. Not only the way he just danced that, but his creativity in helping her with the choreography. She put her arm around him and squeezed him around the waist. They both struggled to breath; the routine had been intense and the movement had never really stopped.

So it took them a minute to register that all three judges were on their feet, clapping. Emma blinked; even Blue seemed moved almost to tears. They all sat and Emma gnawed nervously on her lower lip as Teach began.

“That was artistry, pure and simple. I’ll be straight with you Jones, I didn’t think you would cut it on this show. I wanted to hate you. But that? That was dancing. Amazing dancing. Well done!”

Emma gave Killian a happy little shove, and he beamed down at her with a huge smile on his sweaty face.

Tiana was literally crying and struggled to begin her critique. “That is what dance is supposed to be. I can’t believe you’re the same dancer you were three weeks ago. Remember when I said you weren’t opening up? Well, you took what I said to heart, and you have grown remarkably. And Emma? That choreography was genius. You deserve an Emmy for that.”

Emma was shocked when Killian pressed a kiss to her cheek, nodding vigorously in agreement. Emma grabbed Marco’s microphone.

“I do want to remind everyone that Killian helped me with the choreography, so thank you Tiana, but I have to give this guy credit too.”

Killian pulled her closer and pressed another kiss to the top of her head as the audience cheered. Once it died down a little, Blue gave her review.

“Look, I’m a traditionalist. I like to see ballroom and strictly ballroom. However, you danced that full out, and you were completely in sync with your partner throughout. Not my cup of tea, but I’m impressed.”

Since the decade week dances were performed in chronological order, and they had been assigned the nineties, their routine was the last one of the night. That meant no time for an interview with Ashley, and the judges gave them their scores right there on the dance floor.

“Tiana Sabine,” the announcer intoned dramatically.

Tiana seemed to pause an inordinately long amount of time before revealing her paddle. But when she did, she did so with flourish. “TEN!”

The studio audience went wild with excitement! The first ten of the season! Killian whooped and picked Emma up off her feet in a tight hug. Once everyone settled down, Blue gave her score of nine and Teach, amazingly, also gave them a perfect ten. It was the highest score of the season so far.

There was no time for an interview with either Marco or Ashley. Emma was relieved, worried she may have had to field questions about the very misleading implications of their video package. The couples all lined up, and for the first time, Emma was nervous about the double elimination. However, she didn’t have to worry. Gold and Ruby were voted off, to no one’s surprise, and then David and his Disney channel star Violet. The second one was a surprise, and the fifteen year old sobbed with disappointment. Emma was glad for the distraction as everyone surrounded the poor girl to console her. She still felt a little emotionally raw after that dance. And maybe it was the way the video package had been edited, but was Killian giving her an awful lot of casual affection recently?

According to social media, he was. By the next morning the two of them were the number one trending “couple” on both twitter and tumblr. Emma blushed as she read through the comments.

“Anyone else out there shipping Killian Jones with his dancing partner?” - @killianjonesandfairydust

“OMG! I ship it so hard!” - @neverland4evr

“Did you see the PDA last night? That was a lot of hugs and kisses!” - @hookNtink4life

They even had a shipping name: Captain Swan. And surprisingly, there were no longer any threats upon her life. She wasn’t sure where the Killer Rose shippers had gone, but there was only one remotely threatening theme among Killian’s “hookers.”

“She better not break his heart.” - @yeahiamahooker

But the only heart Emma was worried about was her own.

#2018 csbb #csbb #cs ff #modern au #dancing with the stars au #enemies to friends to lovers #natural opposite #searchingwardrobes

[aubrinn]

So I’ve decided that I’m going to go ahead and start posting my legacy family. I’ve actually realized that I don’t have as many pictures of them as I thought but it’s cool (besides the fact that the only picture I have from Gen 1 is the top picture in this post because I only thought about posting stuff around the time Gen 2 came around). First, a few informational tidbits that I think should be included, and then a story of how Gen 1 went (spoiler alert: it was a mess from the beginning). There’s a lot that I’m going to talk about, so if you don’t want to read so much, just skip down to the next to last paragraph titled “Summary,” but I really hope you’ll take the scenic read because I feel like that would give more insight and connection to the family. But without further ado, welcome to my Flores legacy!

1. This is my first ever legacy. My best friend and I decided to do a legacy challenge together. I think there are a bunch of rules and stuff - like certain traits, careers, and storyline stuff - but we aren’t following any of those. We just decided on no cheats for money, careers, and all that good stuff. The real challenge for me will be not getting bored. I don’t usually use cheats, so that part is easy for me.

2. I decided to start a legacy because the biggest family trees I’ve had span to 3 gens, and the 3rd gen is usually a baby or child before I get bored and make a new family. So I thought this would be an opportunity for me to feel a connection to a whole line of the same family and experience a full family tree where my sims actually have great-grandparents and cousins and uncles and all that.

3. When I started this legacy, I had an idea of the founder living more of a simple life, so in the picture she has just moved into a small, wooden house in that 20x20 lot on the Windenburg island. But that whole idea crumbled very quickly.

4. My editing skills are last to all (you know that phrase “second to none” which means you’re the best? well I suck so I’m last to all). I’m pretty new to editing and have only done simple stuff, so don’t expect much from my pictures because they will look pretty much like the original.

5. I’ve noticed that I tend to use a lot of parentheses.

6. Yes the family name is from one of xxxtentacion’s songs. Fight me.

Generation 1

Jocelyn Flores moved into her little shack house in Windenburg with the dream of becoming a famous artist. She preferred to paint outside because of the natural light and scenery (but it literally would not stop raining so painting rarely happened). I don’t remember where she met Marcus (after some thinking I think we joined the Partihaus club) but she met him and she thought he was really attractive. She flirted with him and asked him to woohoo and he said yes. Lo and behold, he had gotten her pregnant. She invited him over to tell him the news, and he seemed excited to become a father. Jocelyn liked Marcus and wanted to get to know him so they could possibly be together, but he turned down any non-flirtatious interactions from her (he literally only wanted her if she wanted to woohoo and we were not there for that). Then and there she decided she was done with him and that she would raise her baby alone. Jocelyn named her baby girl Beatrice (I’ve been told that’s an old lady name but I don’t care because I love that name), and she loved Beatrice more than anyone else.

One night, Eva invited Jocelyn to a party at the Ancient Ruins, and Jocelyn decided that she could use a night out (because I never take my sims out the house when there’s 2+ of them so I wanted to get out the house for once). The girls showed up to the party, and Marcus was there (I actually think I invited him but for storyline purposes, he was already there). His dashing good looks reminded Jocelyn why she wanted to be with him, so she bought him some drinks and chatted and flirted. (I thought maybe since he was being friendly it meant he would be open to getting to know Jocelyn and have a real relationship with her.) Convinced that his nice behavior meant Beatrice wouldn’t have to grow up without a father, Jocelyn hopped into the bushes with him and woohooed. And of course, she was pregnant again. And to my surprise (though I shouldn’t have been), after telling him the news, he again wanted nothing to do with her. Jocelyn (and I) then decided she was officially done with him. If you blow a second chance you’re not getting a chance to fool her a third time.

I then built Jocelyn a proper house on the 20x20 lot (it wasn’t cute, I’m not much a builder). Jocelyn gave lots of attention to Beatrice and her new son Sawyer. She fueled their imagination (skill) while also pursuing her dream. Marcus came over sometimes to see the kids, but he mostly just sat on the couch and watched tv. Not too long after Jocelyn gave birth, Eva became pregnant again. Curious as to who her babydaddy was, I used mccc on her to find out, and I was beyond shocked to find out that it was Marcus! Like how are we gonna share a babydaddy with our best friend?! Ridiculous. I didn’t want to see him after that. I was so done with him.

I decided to move the family into another house in Windenburg. I did it up and made it into a decent 3-bedroom house. Jocelyn, still wanting to find love, went on a couple of dates using the Simda dating app before going on a date with Diego Lobo. With him being an art critic, she felt like Diego understood the importance of fine art. They got along perfectly. After more dates and much more time together, Jocelyn proposed and he said yes. They celebrated their engagement with some woohoo back at his apartment, and the next day around the same time confetti burst into the air. Yep. Jocelyn was pregnant. Again.

(Then I took a break from sims - or maybe it was just this legacy - but when I came back I didn’t feel any connection between Jocelyn and Diego, so I made her break up with him. Bur for storyline purposes, we’ll say she realized that she only wanted to get married because she was scared of the idea of raising three kids alone, but then she realized she had gotten this far on her own and that she could continue being a strong, independent woman.)

Jocelyn then realized she didn’t want to get married to Diego. She was scared of the idea of raising all her kids on her own, but she realized that she had been doing just that all this time and that she didn’t need a man’s help if she didn’t truly love him. So she broke off the engagement.

Life went pretty smoothly after that. Jocelyn gave birth to her third child, a girl, and named her Ari. Diego wanted to be a part of Ari’s life, and he called her often. Marcus, on the other hand, stopped visiting and calling as if he didn’t know to where they moved (but I know he knew because that child support money still found its way to Jocelyn’s mailbox every week or so). The kids enjoyed the snow and sun and everything that the Seasons expansion pack had to offer in Windenburg. Jocelyn had many hookups (especially with Paolo Rocca) but she never settled. She was happy being a single mother (while Marcus ended up having 8 children total, by Jocelyn, Eva, Candy Behr, and I think one other woman).

Time went on. Birthday cakes were baked. Candles were blown. Beatrice, a teen, decided to get involved in school and join the drama club. After the first day, she knew she wanted to be an actress. A few days before becoming a young adult, she won a drama club accolade, and when she did age up, she moved to Del Sol Valley to achieve her newfound dream of becoming a famous actress. (The bottom picture is after she moved and Sawyer visited her.)

Summary: Jocelyn hooked up with Marcus and got pregnant, and he wanted nothing to do with her when she told him she wanted to have a serious relationship. She had her baby and named her Beatrice. She then saw Marcus at a party. He was friendly and non-flirty, so Jocelyn thought he would be open to having a real relationship. She bought him some drinks, and then they both slipped off into the bushes, resulting in a second pregnancy that turned out to be a boy who she named Sawyer. Marcus, again, wanted nothing to do with Jocelyn, so she decided that that was his last chance and she was now really done with him. She cared for Beatrice and Sawyer more than any mother could, and she met Diego Lobo. Jocelyn and Diego hit it off, so after some time she proposed, and he said yes. They celebrated with woohoo, which resulted in Jocelyn’s third pregnancy. She gave birth to a girl named Ari. Jocelyn broke off the engagement, realizing she only wanted to marry him because she was scared of raising three kids alone. Being in Ari’s life was important to Diego, so he called her often. Marcus couldn’t be bothered enough to do more than send child support checks. As time went on, everyone aged up, and Beatrice became a teen. She joined the school drama club which led her to aspire to be a famous actress. She won a club accolade and moved to Del Sol Valley once she was old enough to achieve her dreams (the bottom picture is after she moved and Sawyer visited her).

And that’s all, folks! Hope you enjoyed the read (whether it was long or short), and I hope you’ll come back for more on the Flores family.

#ts4 #ts4 gameplay #get famous #get famous gameplay #ts4 legacy #flores legacy #jocelyn flores #beatrice flores #sawyer flores #del sol valley