#not feelin too ambitious lately

[wembleysfraggle]

Saw Across the Spider-Verse today and HAD to do some sketches while it was fresh in my mind! I love them soooooo much 😭💖💖

#art tag #fanart #spiderman #spiderman: into the spiderverse #spiderman: across the spiderverse #miles morales #gwen stacy #gwenmiles #spider gwen #gwen x miles #spider woman #i struggled w gwen a bit but i think it turned out ok!! #these arent the best but i wanted to do some low presh sketches #not feelin too ambitious lately #but GODDDDDD NEEDLESS TO SAY IT WAS AMAZING #i dont need to tell u it was amazing to know that but MAN #it was everything i wanted AND MORE #spiderverse

[lottiebagley]

Pumpkin- Fred Weasley

We're heavy liftin' but we're feelin' fine We think it's funny when we look at the time I know co-dependency has dragged me out But I really don't think that's what this is about

The group of sixth year Gryffindor students sit around under a tree by the black lake waiting for the arrival of their friend. Y/N Malfoy was quite similar to her family in most ways, ambitious, cunning, loyal and scheming, admittedly also a little bitchy with a flare for the dramatic. The difference being important though, she used all of these skills for good. Surrounding herself in a group of Gryffindor's despite being Slytherin simply because they made her laugh, she had never cared over blood or house supremacy and it drove her father mad, her mother to worry constantly and her younger brother to quietly admire her, although he'd be caught dead before saying it.

"Here she is," Lee grins widely watching the girl approach

"You're late," Fred comments, a smirk on his face and teasing lilt to his voice

"Can it Pumpkin,"

"Okay that joke has never and will never be funny," He groans as she drops to the ground next to her friends, fanning her face from the summer heat as she lays in the warmth, her shorts and top showing more skin than her family would approve of.

"Whatever you say Pumpkin," She grins, reaching her hand up to pat Fred's cheek as he leans his back against the tree.

"Why are you late?" Angelina questions, her head in her boyfriends lap. She laughs loudly when the girl says nothing simply smirks.

"Seriously? Again?" Alicia questions, laughter in her voice

"Wait! What don't we know?" Fred pouts dramatically, pushing himself up from the tree. His feelings for the girl glaring brightly. He may as well have a bright flashing sign pointing to him that says he's head over heels for his best friend who doesn't believe in love.

"There's no we. Just you I'm afraid," Lee smirks, Fred's heart sinks a little when he notices his twin brother sympathetic smile.

"Our little golden child-" Angelina starts

"She has never been a golden child," Lee interrupts

"Shut up. Our little golden child has been sleeping with Adrian Pucey," Angelina grins.

Fred feels his heart drop to his feet. Splintering into 1000 pieces.

"Merlin, your parents would approve," he comments, feeling the eyes on him waiting for a response

"They won't need to. It's just casual sex," she shrugs. She isn't sure why she feels such an urgency to make sure Fred knows it's not serious. Sure, he flirts with her but she always kind of assumed it was a joke, so of course it wasn't the guilt making her want to scream at him that she was still single. It wasn't feelings either. There's no point in feelings.

"I wish I could do that," Alicia sighs wistfully, Fred glad the attention is off him "Just have casual sex, flings that mean nothing. I get so attached so quickly," she rambles before turning her head to face her friend, who is eyeing Fred with suspicion, trying to work out if he's just tired or if he's upset.  "How d'you do it?"

"It's simple Li, there's no point in catching feelings. Love is treated like some inevitable thing that happens to everyone but it's not. I won't ever fall in love. Most people don't. Boys are going to hurt you time and time again so there's no point investing your happiness in them. The new relationship glow dies and you end up alone. Embrace the fact you've only got you to count on and life becomes easier," She explains

"How can you know someone isn't going to just come in and sweep you off your feet?" George questions, eyes flickering between the girl talking and his brother who is staring into space almost like he's trying to block out whatever the girl is saying.

"Life just doesn't work like that,"

I wanna give it all, I know I will 'Cause blueberry eyes seem to make time still We can boogie in the sunshine with some Burt's Bees And I know you like to pull the leaves off trees

"Thought love was stupid and pointless and made up," Fred quips, his voice in her ear making her jump in the otherwise empty corridor, taken by surprise at his presence.

"Shit!" she shrieks, hand swatting him away from her "You know most people say hello Pumpkin," she adds

"Hi darling," He grins

"Hi," she responds with a smile, not sure why she's blushing a little

"Back to my point about love,"

"You never actually made it," She retorts, eyes shining in the moonlit corridor

"Are you not on your way back from a secret meeting with one Adrian Pucey?" He questions, beginning to walk in the direction of the Slytherin common room, making sure to slow his steps down a little on regards of her much shorter legs.

"And if I am?"

"You've been spending an awful lot of time with him recently is all," Fred comments. Eyes focused on her as she quiets for a moment thinking.

"He's not the worst person to be around," She shrugs, he hums in response. He isn't sure what to say. He expected her to shoot down his accusation but instead she had admitted to liking Adrian.

"Why are you up so late and lurking near the Slytherin commons?" she questions, expecting an elaborate prank to be explained.

"Someone had to make sure you made it to bed safely," He shrugs, she hopes in the dark he won't see her blush, although he can and it makes his heart skip a beat.

"Pumpkin, anyone would think you care," She teases gently

"I do. In fact I care more about you than anyone else I know," He admits, his sincerity and vulnerability a change to their usual playful tone.

"I feel the same for you," She admits as they come to a stop outside the Slytherin common room.

"You sure do know how to make a guy feel special," He smirks, leaning against the wall next to the entrance to the Slytherin common room.

"I think love is stupid and fake and I don't believe in the whole one true love, soulmate bullshit," She announces, a look in her eyes that Fred has never seen before as she stares up at him.

"I know that," He smiles gently, enjoying the way she's standing a little too close for just friends.

"I'm difficult and tricky and emotionally unavailable and I'm a stupid person to have feelings for,"

"I know that," He smirks widely

"I'm sensitive and if this is all some joke-"

"What's this?" He questions, a cocky grin on his face and an eyebrow raises. She sighs

"This!" She exclaims, gesturing between them "You treating me special and flirting and walking me to all my classes and back to my common room every night and carrying my bag and-" She begins to ramble

"No joke," He assures, hands held up in surrender

"I don't believe in love and I think feelings are stupid,"

"You've mentioned,"

"But, you should know that if anyone were going to change that it would not be Adrian Pucey,"

"Are you saying it would be me, sweetheart?"

"Don't get too cocky pumpkin," She smirks, before turning away from him and slipping into her common room, leaving Fred stood in the corridor with a lovestruck grin on his face.

I used to think that Romeo was full of shit And the Notebook was just my favourite chick flick But now I get why Sarah was so hard to forget It's this feeling that I'm feeling like Nemo in a net

She sits next to Alicia in the Room of Requirement, patiently awaiting the boys as they mingle with the other party goers.  Sipping on their drinks and talking over the loud music.

"Are you staring at Fred?" Alicia questions, eyes following where she's staring off into the distance. Fred is standing with a cup in each hand. One that he regularly raises to his mouth as he laughs with a few Hufflepuff boys. The other that he holds from the top, hand easily large enough to cover the whole top, although he continuously glances down to check there's no opening. He looks good, his height meaning he's a head taller than the other boys, his white shirt slightly too tight meaning his muscles bulge in it.

"Hmm?" She questions, forcing her eyes away from the boy, glad he hadn't caught onto her staring

"Oh my god! You were!" Alicia cheers

"I was?"

"Staring at Fred all gooey eyed and lovestruck. Can't say I'm surprised there's been way too much sexual tension between you two for like ever,"

"I wasn't. I was simply looking at him cause he said he'd bring me another drink and I'm nearly out," She retaliates, Alicia looks at her questioningly for a second, but after glancing at her nearly empty cup seems to believe it. She'd probably have questioned it more if Angelina hadn't arrived, taking the empty seat next to the girl.

"How's Adrian?" Angelina smirks widely from behind her cup

"Uh, I wouldn't know," She admits, adjusting her short black dress a little

"What? You had one of the best looking boys in school for casual, steamy sex and you ended it?" Alicia gasps, looking at the girl in front of her like she's insane

"There was nothing to end," The girls shrugs, taking a chug of her drink, emptying the glass and placing it down.

"Why the fuck would you stop sleeping with him? He's fit," Angelina  pesters, she's saved from having to come up with a lie when Fred arrives in front of the girls, offering the drink he's been protecting with his hand to her.

"Chug that and come dance with me," He demands, she raises her eyebrow at him

"Friends can dance together y'know?" He smirks widely, the line between friends and more seeming to fade and darken back and forth constantly between them.

"To friends then Pumpkin," She smirks, accepting the cup and chugging the alcohol despite the slight burn in her throat.

"M'Lady," He grins, offering a hand that she takes whilst rolling her eyes, allowing him to pull her away from the girls.

"That is why you stop sleeping with a boy as fit as Adrian Pucey," Alicia smirks to Angelina who laughs at the comment.

"Spoilt for choice," Angelina chimes

Pumpkin, pumpkin You're gonna kill me Pumpkin, pumpkin La, la la la la, la Pumpkin, pumpkin I need you to feel me Pumpkin, pumpkin La, la la la la, la

"You know darling, people might think you like me," He whispers into her ear, hot breath sending a small shiver down her spine that makes smirk grow wider.

"People should keep their noses out," She responds, spinning to face him.

Her chest flush to his, her hands finding place on his shoulders as she moves her hips against him. Practically grinding to the music playing through the party.

"I like this dress," He compliments, eyes raking her up and down with dark eyes, hands trailing up and down her body

"Take your hand of my arse Pumpkin," She smirks, although she says nothing else when he doesn't, the warning more a habit than her actually caring

"You brother is watching us," Fred comments, focusing on not letting his eyes drop to the curve of her breasts that are pushed up, practically spilling from the little black dress

"Father will be happy to hear all about this," She smirks, earning a chuckle from Fred

"You not worried about it?" He questions, ignoring the weird need in his chest to place kisses to her neck, wanting more than a little to mark her up.

"I've been disappointing him long enough," She shrugs, one hand dropping from around his shoulder to trail down his chest, unable to stop herself from wanting to feel the toned muscles under the shirt

"Ever the bad girl," He smirks, a feeling of pride in his chest when he notices her eyes darken a little.

"That's low," She comments with a smirk "Besides father knows we are friends and this is a friendly dance," She adds, turning back around to press her back to his chest, rolling her hips to push her arse into him.

"I certainly hope you don't dance with all your friends like this," He smirks, leaning down a little, a tight grip on her hips, dictating the speed of her teasing movements.

"Only my favourites," She grins.

Fred is glad she's not facing him or he's pretty sure he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from kissing her.

We're cruisin' slowly but we're movin' fast We both decided to thank our past We've got a hundred lists of things we wanna do But I'm also cool just doin' nothin' with you

When Fred had bid her goodbye for the summer his heart and stung a little. He hated not being able to see her over the holidays. He hated that Adrian Pucey would be around all the time due to their families friendship. He hated that although she acted like it didn't her father's constant criticism hurt her.

It was because of the very last reason that when they were in third year George had scribbled their address onto a piece of parchment and given it to her with a smile and a whisper of 'if you need us we would love to see you'.  She'd never used the paper before. Writing to the twins and their friends, and holding out through the summer. She'd kept the paper though, tucked in between an old fairytale book in her bedroom.

Standing at 7:30 in the morning on the doorstep to the burrow, school trunk in tow and eyes sore from crying she wondered if the offer had long since expired.

Molly Weasley knew of her. She knew that the Malfoy's had a daughter and assumed she'd be as stuck up and rude as the best. Then her boys came home after their first term talking with bright smile and enthusiasm of their new friend and she was shocked when over and over again the name Y/N Malfoy was in the stories. By the end of their first year, with their letters and excited chatter she'd grown to know the girl was nothing like her family, instead she was a friend of her twins and by default Molly loved the girl, happy to see her boys happy. By Christmas of third years she realised that George loved the girl like a sister and Fred loved her as a lot more.

Despite all of this she'd never spoken to the girl. The Malfoy's whisking her away from her friends at the train station before she could even say 'goodbye' with cold eyes and snarls. Therefore she was more than surprised to pull the door open and see her with blotchy tear stained skin and silk pj shorts, a sweater she knit herself with a large 'F' on the front almost drowning her.

"Hi deary," Molly smiles gently

"I'm so sorry to intrude-I-it- I couldn't be there any longer. The boys said years ago I could come here if I ever needed and-I- I'm sorry that was years ago and the offer is way past expired- Sorry to bother you, this was stupid. I'll just be going," She rambles, cutting herself off and hiccuping the words out.

"You'll do no such thing. Come in," Molly instructs, pulling the door wider to allow her to come in. She smiles gratefully, grabbing her trunk and tugging it behind her into the house.

She looks around and can't help the small smile. The house is more of a home then any she'd ever been in before. Lived in and warm and bright and she could feel the love radiating through it. It made perfect sense that the twins grew up here.

"Leave your bag by the door. One of the twins can carry it up later. Take a seat while I make breakfast and let's, you and I, have a chat. I'm afraid the twins won't be up for hours," Molly offers. The girl nods, shooting her a smile and sitting down.

"Tea?" Molly questions

"Please," She responds almost timidly, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her jumper trying to dry the dampness. Molly nods, sending the girl a gentle smile and flicking her wand, the pots jumping into action making the tea.

"Now, dear, do you want to talk about it?" Molly asks gently

"No. Sorry. I just need to process," She admits

"It's no worry, you just make sure not to keep it all bottled up. Whenever you are ready we are all here for you, you can stay as long as you like, alright?"

"Thank you Mrs Weasley,"

"Please dear, call me Molly,"

"Molly," The girl nods, taking the tea she is offered with a thanks.

"Now, do your parents know you're here?"

"No, I left late last night. Father and I argued and I went up stairs and packed and just kinda," she trails off

"Left in the middle of the night with no explanation," it's Ginny's voice that speaks from behind her.

"Hey Ginny," The girl grins, jumping up to hug the younger girl who happily returns it. The Weasley kid's all liked her having had her company forced on them by the twins at school.

"Hey, Fred's going to be so happy to see you," Ginny smirks, laughing when the girl blushes, eyes staring down to not look at Molly who is smiling widely.

"You need to let your parents know you are safe," Molly instructs as the two girls sit down.

"They won't care," She shrugs, Molly's motherly glare quickly shot at her "but I'll let them know," She assures

"How'd you even get here?" Ginny questions

"The knight bus,"

By the time the girls have had breakfast and caught up it's 9AM and the both Harry and Ron arrive in the kitchen, greeting the newest addition to the home with a hug and teases of Fred's excitement. By 10AM George has arrived downstairs, elated to see one of his best friends, pulling her into a tight bear hug before ruffling her hair.

George and her are sprawled out in the garden, backs in the grass, both clad in pjs, easy conversation flowing and her feeling 1000 times happier than she did that morning by 11AM

"Merlin, Georgie, we are supposed to be working on puking pastilles and you're lounging about in the garden," Fred's voice shouts, leaning out of his window, to see his twin, not yet seeing the girl who is leaning against the wall, out of his eye line.

"I'm entertaining our guest!" George quips

"Guest? Is this you weird way of saying we have to de-gnome the garden again?"

"No. But we do need to," George responds

"Hey Pumpkin," The girl calls out, shuffling to be next to George and in Fred's eye sight.

Fred's face is overtaken by a wide grin, almost instantly he's out of the window, sprinting down the stairs and hurtling into the garden.

She jogs to meet him, laughing when he lifts her into the air spins her around, her legs wrapping around his waist as she grins down at him.

"Merlin, I missed you,"

"I missed you too. A lot," She admits, hating the way her heart is hammering in her chest.

"What're you doing here?" He asks, concern over taking his features, his hands still gripping her tightly as he holds her up

"I really don't want to talk about it yet," She admits

"But you're okay?"

"I am now," She assures, leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek and smirking when he blushes.

"Merlin, it was two weeks not two years," George comments, breaking the moment up now he feels he's given them enough time.

Fred sighs, wishing he'd had the nerve to just kiss her like he so badly wanted to but nervous how she'd react, the though of ruining their friendship striking fear in his heart.

He places her down delicately and insists on giving her a tour of the house, Molly watches with a fond smile at the way her son can't stop grinning all day.

I ran in circles on a Monday night You had to go so you could make your flight I looked at my mom and said, "What do I do?" She said, "This look is somethin' and it's new and true"

"You seem to really like her," Molly pesters, a week and a half into her stay. She's washing the breakfast dishes as Fred dries them. She knows immediately he wants to talk about it, her son only ever helps with house work when he wants his mother's advice and is too shy to ask.

"I do," Fred confirms, watching through the window.

The group were heading to a nearby lake and she's standing in the garden with Ginny, clad in a bikini she'd borrowed from the younger girl and a pair of shorts and carrying a towel. Sunglasses pushing her hair back and laughing at something the younger girl said, the two seemingly closer by the day.

The sight of her in just a bikini had made Fred's heart stop. She had barged into the twin's bedroom in the search for suncream Ginny had leant them and Fred had struggled to put words together as George smirked watching the interaction.

"She likes you too, I can tell," Molly prompts, wondering what the problem was.

"I know, well I kinda figured. She's just complicated. None of us know why but she's an utter cynic. She doesn't believe in love, she doesn't have any interest in dating or marriage or any of that. She has is in her head every guy she lets herself like will end up hurting her," Fred explains

"That kind of thing is normally past hurt,"

"She's never been in a relationship," Fred counters

"Okay, well in that case it's highly likely it's a childhood thing,"

"You mean?"

"Her family is very traditional. She might not have grown up seeing healthy, loving relationships," Molly explains gently

"So, what do I do?"

"You prove you're different. You prove you are worth the risk," Molly explains. Fred nods, setting his tea towel down despite being no where near done with the dishes.

"Thanks mum," He grins, Molly smiles, watching her son head towards the door

"Take a shirt so your shoulders don't burn!" She calls but Fred is out the door before she can finish the sentence.

"Took your time!" Ron calls, standing up from where he, George and Harry had all been sat waiting

"Just cause some of actually help mum," Fred quips, ignoring his brothers as they all begin the 10 minute walk to the lake. George challenging Ron to a race. Ginny talking awkwardly to Harry, her crush evident.

Fred is no better than his younger sister, falling into step next to her.

"Surprised you aren't racing," She comments

"Bored of beating them," he smirks cockily "Besides, talking with a beautiful girl such as yourself is much more fun," He adds, proud when she giggles.

"You're in good shape," She comments, eyes flickering over his body, clad in only swim shorts, his toned chest and muscular arms on full show. She laughs a little when he blushes bright red. "Not so slick now are we Pumpkin?" She smirks

"Pumpkin still isn't funny," He attempts, the bright red flush still on his cheeks doing little to help his case.

He tries desperately to recover on the walk but every time he starts talking she makes a show of looking at him, eyes lingering, something she enjoys greatly, making him blush even more.

The day by the lake passes beautifully. Games of chicken, sunbathing, forcing Ron to go back and pick up sandwiches at lunch time.

It's mid afternoon, Ron and Ginny playing a game of exploding snap on the jetty over the lake, Harry reading 'Quidditch through the ages', George writing a letter to Angelina.

The pair are in the lake, Fred pushing her in when she was sunbathing earlier and jumping in after her. They'd had a race which landed them a distance away from the others.

"You won because I let you," Fred announces

"I won because I took swimming lessons until I was 11 and was on a summer swim team until I was 14," She shrugs

"What else don't I know about you?" He teases

"I speak Latin, I can play the piano and flute, this is the first school break I haven't spent nearly ever waking minute at my ballet studio and I know greek mythology like the back of my hand,"

"Why?"

"Private tutors," She shrugs, he laughs loudly, shocked he knew so little about aspects of her life.  She shivers a little

"You wanna get out?" He questions

"Quite like the water," She shrugs, he nods, opening his arms

"I'm not cuddling you in the water Fred,"

"It's that or hypothermia," He shrugs, she sighs, secretly happy, and allows him to pull her into his hold, resting her head on his shoulder as he subconsciously strokes a hand up and down her back.

"You really are full of surprises," He comments

"As are you, I've been learning an awful lot about you from your parents,"

"If it made me sound uncool it was a lie,"

"You were already uncool to me," She smirks,

"Harsh," He grins, eyes focused on the way she bites her bottom lip as she stares up at him "You look really beautiful," he comments

"So do you pumpkin," She returns.

Neither of them know what's overtaking their system as they lean in slowly, her lips just grazing his when suddenly his shoulder's are pulled down and he's held under water. Ron laughing happily when his brother pushes his way up to the surface a scowl on his face.

"What the fuck, Ron!" Fred shouts

"We need to leave or we'll be late back," The younger boy announces, swimming away before his brother can splash him.

Fred shoots her a sorry smile before they both swim back, climbing the ladder onto the pier. Fred makes sure to wait until Ron's holding his towel and wearing his t-shirt before he shoves him off the pier and back into the lake for ruining the moment.

I used to think that Romeo was full of shit And The Notebook was just my favourite chick flick But now I get why Sarah was so hard to forget It's this feeling that I'm feeling, like Nemo in a net

It's been two weeks since she arrived by the time she is ready to open up about the fight with her parents. It's only her and Fred. They sit cross legged on a sofa, the warm night breeze pushing through the open windows.

The kids had all occupied the living room, watching movies and eating snack but as the night got later one by one they'd all gone up to bed, leaving the pair who had been cuddled up way too close for just friends all night.  

"I told you Ginny had foul choice in films," Fred comments

"I quite enjoyed it," the girl shrugs in response

"You. You who has previously said 'Love is a commercial lie' enjoyed Titanic," He smirks

"I guess maybe I'm starting to accept I could have been a little wrong," She admits, refusing to look at Fred.

It was true, being with Fred all summer had made her realise that the love she felt for him wasn't just some stupid passing thing. She loved Fred Weasley. Loved him to her very core. She thinks a part of why she was finally letting herself feel the admittedly scary emotions was seeing how happy Molly and Arthur were.

"Why do you hate love?" He questions, it was a thought that had been on his mind a lot as of late.

"I guess I just never saw it before," She shrugs

"Aren't your parents married?"

"Yeah but they don't love each other. They were an arranged marriage, father had the prettiest girl and mother married into a fortune. They barely speak unless they are in public. They sleep on opposite sides of the house," She speaks and her voice is void of emotion, Fred isn't sure what to say.

"So you just assumed no one was happily married?" He questions gently, giving her shoulder a comforting squeeze.

"No. I knew love was real, it was just that it was easier to not fall in love and it the best way to stop it was to convince myself no one had it," She admits

"Why wouldn't you want to fall in love though?" He prompts, eyes fixed on her as she fiddles with the hem of the large t-shirt she's wearing.

"It would end in heart break. I have to marry whoever my parents pick. If I fall in love when I get married I live my whole life knowing what I could have had. But now, I'm halfway in love and my whole world feels, I don't know how to describe it, brighter I guess, and all that self preservation was meaningless,"

Fred feels his heart break a little. He wasn't sure if it was because she had been dealing with all this for so long or if because deep down he knew he would marry her tomorrow and he didn't doubt for a second that he wanted her forever.

"I'm so sorry," He hums out

"Not your fault. It's what we argued about, they had a suitor coming to stay for the summer. That's why I ran," She admits

"Oh, sweetheart," He sighs, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to him.

"Would be great if you could do something repulsive so I like you less," She jokes, he laughs loudly

"Sorry, darling, but I really don't plan on letting you slip through my fingers and no matter what I'll make sure you don't have to marry some pretentious pure blood," He promises and she feels more at ease than she has in years, she knows Fred has got her, Fred'll stop at nothing to make sure she is happy.

Pumpkin, pumpkin You're gonna kill me Pumpkin, pumpkin La-la-la-la-la-la Pumpkin, pumpkin Need you to feel me Pumpkin, pumpkin La-la-la-la-la-la

"Where are we going?" She questions, eyes squeezed shut as Fred tugs her hand pulling her along behind him.

"My favourite place," he responds, although she had no clue what that meant.

"Well, are we nearly there?"

"Shut up and be patient, jeez woman,"

It's a further three minutes when Fred stops, laughing when she walks right into him, eyes still closed.

"Okay, open," She can hear his smile

She opens her eyes, they're standing in front of a meadow full of wildflowers, the pink sun set making everything glow, a picnic blanket full of goodies that were clearly prepared by Molly in the centre.

"You're right. It's beautiful," She smiles brightly, turning from the view to look up at Fred who is beaming down at her.

"Not as beautiful as you," He grins cheekily

"That was awful," She smirks, his loud laughter ringing out through the meadow. She grabs his hand in hers again, pulling him along to the picnic blanket.

"So, how did you enjoy your summer?" He questions

"We have three days left," She argues

"That excited to go back to school?" He teases

"It's our last year, guess I'm just not ready for it to be over," She explains, he smiles gently

"I get that," He agrees, shooting her a smile "Don't want to fall out of touch with people," He adds. She nods. Extending her hand pointing her pinky finger at him

"I don't make pinky promises if I don't know what they are,"

"That no matter how far apart we end up, you and I are always going to have each other, always going to be friends,"

"Who knew the Slytherin was so sappy," He teases, his finger immediately wrapping around hers and squeezing.

"Tell anyone and I'll kill you," She smirks, Fred chuckles, passing her a chocolate covered strawberry.

"I can catch that in my mouth,"He speaks confidently.

20 minutes and a 30% success rate between the two of them, Fred leaps to his feet pulling her with him.

"Where are we going?"

"We are dancing,"

"There's no music,"

"I can sing if you want," He offers

"I'd rather not go deaf," She smirks, he laughs loudly

"I'm a great singer," He defends, she raises her eyebrows at him,

"Whatever you say pumpkin." she laughs when he rolls his eyes.

"Fine, we don't need music,"

He pulls her into him, arms around her waist as hers wrap around his neck, her head on his shoulder and Fred Weasley could die happy. He has no idea that she could too.

I used to think that Romeo was full of shit But when I look at you, I think this must be it, oh

It's the last night before school starts when she knocks at Fred's bedroom door. Hands shaking a little in nervousness and pacing the hallway.

It's pulled open by the boy who's brows furrow in concern at the sight of her.

"Can I come in? we need to talk,"

"George is asleep, we can talk out here," He smiles softly at her, stepping into the hallway and tugging the door closed behind him.

"You ruined me," She states

"What?" He questions, eyes wide and a sense of nervousness about him

"I had everything together. Everything was perfect, it was glass and could break any second but it as mine and it made me good, it protected me,"

"I'm confused,"

"I didn't let boys matter. It didn't matter if they laughed at my joke, if they were looking at me when I looked at them, if they thought I looked good, if they found me too bitchy or too loud or too anything. It didn't feel like if I wasn't near them I couldn't breathe,"

"If it makes you feel better I always think you look good,"

"Fred, I'm being serious,"

"So am I, darling,"

"I'm scared,"

"I won't hurt you,"

"I think that's the problem," she admits.

"I'm gonna kiss you now cause I've waited forever and you make it fucking impossible sometimes and by sometimes I mean every fucking day cause you-"

"Just kiss me pumpkin,"

"That's still not-"

His protest ends when her lips crash to his, he grins into the kiss, arms snaking around her to pull her in as her's tangle in his hair. A grunt leaving his lips and falling into hers making her smirk against him.

Everything falls into place.  

"About time," They jump apart at the sound of George's voice, leaning in the hallway

"What the fuck George?" Fred complains, although his arms stay wrapped around her, effectively holding her flush to his chest, unable to leave his grip.

"Maybe don't have private discussions in the middle of the hall if you don't want us all listening," at the sound of Ginny's voice the couple look upwards.

Harry, Ron, Ginny and Hermione who arrived two days before are leaning over the banister on the floor above them to watch.

Fred sighs, before deciding fuck it and crashing his lips back to hers, a little less innocent, smirking when he hears fake gags and his siblings all running back to their rooms.

Pumpkin, pumpkin You're gonna kill me Pumpkin, pumpkin La-la-la-la-la-la Pumpkin, pumpkin I need you to feel me Pumpkin, pumpkin La-la-la-la-la-la, oh Oh-oh, pumpkin, pumpkin Oh, la-la-la-la-la-la La-la, ooh, ooh-ooh

**

Masterlist

#fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley x you #weasley twins #weasley #harry potter fanfiction #fred weasley x malfoy!reader

[artlessictoan]

*crawls out of the void to dump this and disappear again* so just a lil bday prezzie for my good ol pal @thecozycryptid... a day late. as is my usual mo. there’s still 10 mins of the day left it’s definitely not 2 days late. fuck. it was originally gonna be part of as longer story but i got a little over ambitious with it so here’s just one scene, still gonna work on the rest bc it’s a kanky bday thing but who knows when it’ll turn up kjdfhgsjhkdfg

anyway HOPE YOU ENJOY BUDDY!!

---

The sounds of grunting and cracking wood floating over the wall weren’t unusual, but Kankuro was in the middle of a very good book and they weren’t helping his concentration.

Scrambling up the wall separating the training area from the garden proper, he poked his head over and glared at the girl busy pummelling a training dummy into dust. “Yo, I just repaired those, you wanna slow down so they last more than a week this time?”

He was fully prepared for her to scream at him, so when she instead jumped half a foot in the air and spun around like she was expecting an attack, he raised a brow. Yodo didn’t calm down much when she saw it was only him, just gave him that look she had whenever she was stressing about something and didn’t know whether to dare ask for help, or just run away and pretend she was above the assistance of others.

Deciding that the book wasn’t quite that interesting, he pulled the rest of his body over the wall and dropped down on the other side. “You wanna talk?” he asked, not stepping any closer, so she didn’t feel pressured and clam up as a result.

There was a moment where she could’ve gone either way, but it only lasted a few seconds. “I think I’m sick,” she mumbled; if he weren’t a shinobi, he might not have heard her.

“Sick?” Clearly it wasn’t something minor like a cold – as tough as she liked to act, she tended to become a bit of a whiny brat when she knew she could get extra attention by playing up her illness – and he hadn’t noticed anything off about her the last few days. “What kind of sick?”

Resigned to opening up to him, her cool, rough façade dropped away and she stomped over to him, flopping down on the ground and answering with her most petulant whine, “I don’t know! I was fine until I went to Konoha last week, but now I keep feelin’ really weird and hot and tingly at random times, you think I caught something while I was there?”

Ok, so she probably wasn’t that worried, the tension in his shoulders dropped a notch as he sat down next to her. “Maybe, when exactly did this start?”

“Right after I met up with Chouchou, I kinda ignored it at first ‘cause I was so excited to see her again, but it wouldn’t go away whenever we were hanging out, it sorta stopped when I got back home but now I get all sweaty and uncomfortable for no reason and I can’t figure out what’s wrong.”

“That doesn’t sound like any illness I’ve ever heard of, you sure there’s no common link, like after you’ve eaten something specific? Could be an allergy or something.”

Her face screwed up as she wracked her brain for clues, meanwhile Kankuro gave her a brief visual examination himself. She didn’t look particularly unwell, a little on the thin side but she’d always been skin and bones – several doctors had assured Gaara that it was just a result of childhood malnutrition and as long as she was eating healthily now then it was nothing to worry about – and her face was a little flushed but that could very easily just be a result of her working herself up about the whole thing.

“I think… I guess I notice it most when I’m thinking about Chouchou?” She frowned. “Kinda weird, maybe it’s just ‘cause she reminds me of Konoha which is where I first felt sick? Actually, now I’m feeling weird again, do you think she made me sick?”

The urge to slap his own face was overwhelming, but he fought through it and carefully packed away his repressed laughter deep inside, to be released later on when she was less likely to punch him for it. “Yeah, I’ve heard about this before…” He turned to fully face her, placing a comforting hand gently on her shoulder, before continuing, “I’m sorry, but the symptoms are clear, I have to diagnose you with Lovestruck Idiotitis.”

She stared blankly at him.

This time he really couldn’t hold back a snort at her painful obliviousness. “You’ve got a crush on Chouchou, kiddo.”

“Wha- no. No. I don’t- No!”

“Ok, so the feeling hot and tingly, does that get worse when you think of her? Have you been paying more attention to her appearance lately? Do you think about her more than you used to? Look for excuses to touch her?” The stunned silence and gaping mouth basically answered his questions. “Yeah, that’s what we call a crush.”

He let her have a few moments to come to terms with the crushing reality of his statement, but Yodo wouldn’t be Yodo if she didn’t fight against every uphill battle she came across.

“But that can’t be it, I’ve never had a crush on anyone before and I’ve known her for years without… feeling like this.”

“Feelings don’t happen on a schedule Yodo,” he said, dropping an arm across her shoulders and pulling her into a light hug, “you’re probably just a late bloomer, not that unusual.” He himself remembered not having much interest in relationships until he was well past twenty. Admittedly he’d had other, bigger things to be worrying about before that, like a family on the verge of collapse and a shinobi war or two, but he still remembered how it felt the first time he realised he had feelings for someone.

Pretending not to notice the very soft sniffling, he let Yodo duck out of his grip with the same performative disgust she always levelled at his attempts at comforting. “I… you’re probably right.”

“Always am.”

She scoffed and threw a wad of sand at him, he snickered and threw one back, and all was right with the world again.

“Frick, I dunno what to do now, how do I tell her? I ain’t gonna be able to hide it if I turn into a blushy mess every time I see her.”

Kankuro had seen the way that Chouchou had been looking at her best friend for many years now. “Yeah, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about, just be yourself.” She clearly already liked Yodo as she was anyway, no need to mess with a winning formula.

Apparently Yodo wasn’t only oblivious to her own feelings however. “No way, I’ve gotta try and win her over somehow, be really suave an’ cool or something.”

“I can help with that,” Kankuro said, a beautiful idea blooming in his head, “just give me full control of your hair and wardrobe for a day, oh and let me puppet you around too, I can make you a queen of dance.”

Another spray of sand slapped against his face. “Forget it, I’m going to ask papa for advice instead!”

Spirits help her, if she did that she really would be doomed.

She was already charging off, leaping to his feet, he chased after her, desperately screaming all the way, “Woah, woah, woah, I was just kidding! Please don’t ask Gaara he has negative amounts of game!”

---

#ictoan writes #kankuro #yodo #yodocho #sand fam is best fam #naruto #hello procrastination my old friend #i blame ass creed

[ofcnoel]

                                       𝒾𝓃𝓉𝓇𝑜𝒹𝓊𝒸𝒾𝓃𝑔... 𝕟𝕠𝕖𝕝 𝕝𝕒𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕥 

                  ―   chance perdomo. he/him. cismale.  ／  noel laurent  just pulled up blasting a boy is a gun by tyler, the creator  — that song is so them ! you know, for a(n) twenty-two year old rapper, i’ve heard they’re really reckless, but that they make up for it by being so altruistic. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say rolled up sleeves on an oversized sweater, missed 2am calls, messy notebooks filled with lyrics. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

tw: uh , homophobia? yeah yikes.  

              hi  it’s  me,  dumb  bitch  machine,  raq.  annnd  this  is  my  lil  cherub  noel.  lit  rally  love  this  rp  more  than  life  itself  and  i’m  SO  happy  that  it’s  come  back.  it  was  a  crazy  special  place  a  year  ago  and  it’ll  be  another  crazy  special  place  now  too. noel’s  brand  new  so  excuse  the  awkward  phase  i  tend  to  go  through  while  i  feel  out  a  new  muse.  i’m  also  playin  with  new   aesthetics  for   threads  and  what  not   so  like  just  be  patient  with  me  skjags.  i ...  already  have  a  second  muse  in  the  works   because  yes  i’m  extra!  cannot  wait  to  write  with  you  all !! 

         [ 𝕓𝕒𝕤𝕚𝕔𝕤  ―  ❝ BETTER  DAYS  FOLLOW  ME  LIKE  THE  SADDEST  SONG ❞  ] 

full  name:  noel  amari  laurent  

age:  twenty-two years old

date  of  birth:  may  12th 

star  sign:  taurus 

place  of  birth:   san  marcos  ,  texas 

currently  living  in:  los angeles , california  

voiceclaim:  brockhampton /  kevin  abstract

sexual orientation:  bisexual 

spoken languages:  fluent  in  english  and  very  limited  in  spanish thanks to his dad  *more  on  that   later 

TL;DR :  noel  laurent  is  a  twenty-something  rapper/boyband  member  who  is….  honestly  trying  his  best  and  failing  lmao.  he  lost  alot  of  connection  to  his  family  really  young  and  recently.  because  of  this,  he  has  a  tendency  to  cling  hard  to  people  and  make  himself  his  own  makeshift  family  in  people  who  don’t  always  have  his  best  interest  in  mind.  which  always  lowkey  just  hurts  him  in  the  end  cause  his  expectations  are  too  high!  he’s    ambitious  and  loving  but  hella  reckless.  

         [ 𝕓𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕘𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕕  ― ❝  I  WISH  YOU'D  LOVE  ME  FOR  LIFE  ❞  ]  

alright   here   we   go

noel    was    born    in    san    marcos    texas    to    eva    laurent    on    may    12th    1997.    For    all    of    his    life,    it    was    just    him,    his    mother    and    his    younger    sister.    They    didn’t    have    a    ton    but    eva    did    everything    she    could    to    make    sure    they    had    everything    they    needed.    she’s    an    incredible    hard    worker    and    that    work    ethic    trickled    down    to    noel    from    a    very    young    age.    

alright  so  #daddyissues  much?  noel’s  dad  was  in  his  life  when  he  was  really  young.  from  three  to  like  eight,  because  his  parents  got  back  together  for  a  couple  years  .  once  they  broke  up  again  his  dad  vanished  again  !  he  has  very  few  memories  of  him  but  some  of  them  are  still  they’re  prettyyyyy  fuzzy.  tbh  ,  his  dad’s  a  really  touchy  subject  so  he  tends  to  just  pretend  the  guy  doesn’t  exist  !

he   kinda   always   wanted   to   help   out   his   mom   (   spoiler   alert,   he’s   a   mommas   boy   but   more   on   that   later   )   so,   pretty   much   from   the   age   he   was   legally   able   to,   noel   his   been   #grinding.   like,   imagine   that   one   kid   that   fell   asleep   in   english   because   they   work   late   the   night   before.   that   was   him   throughout   highschool.   he   was   working   odd   jobs   constantly   on   the   side   of   his   main   job.   mowing   lawns,   dog   walking,   you   name   it   he   probably   dabbled.   he’s   smart   so   he’d   do   other   kid’s   homework   for   pay   but   wouldn’t   do   his   own   homework   cause…   fuck   his   grades   ig   lmao

 he’s   always   had   an   affinity   for   music   but   rarely   found   the   time   to   actually   play   an   instrument   or   write   anything   for   that   matter.   it’d   take   one   really   stubborn   choir   teacher   junior   year   who’d   nudge   him   to   start   turning   the   handful   of   short   poems   he’d   turned   in   for   their   songwriting   project   into   songs.   

you  could  say  mid  highschool  was  really  formative  years  for  the  boy  …  along  with  falling  in  love  with  making  music  he  literally  fell  in  love  FOR  REAL  with  someone  for  the  first  time  !!  soft,  yes.  If  you’re  lucky  he’ll  talk  about  dylan  quite  fondly  buuuuuuuuut  that’s  another  touchy  subject  cause  had  to  keep  it  secret  til  it  all  essentially  fell  apart.  His  mom  had  met  a  handful  of  noel’s  girlfriends  prior  to  dylan  …  and  he  hadn’t  gained  the  bravery  to  tell  her  about  him.  It’s  sad  i’m  sad.  

him  and  his  bois  would  later  collaborate  and  realize  “  hey  we’ve  got  something  good  here !  “ soooo  they  planned  to  move  out  to  la  pursue  the  #bandlife . 

now,  telling  his  mom  about  this  move  led  to  an  EXPLOSIVE  fight  cause,,,  noel  was  basically  helping  support  her  and  he  wouldn’t  be  able  to  do  that  if  the  band  stuff  fell  through.  The  mess  of  the  fight  resulted  in  a  bunch  of  stuff  that  probably  should  have  been  said  and…  noel  coming  out.  great  timing  son.  So  yea,  he  left  the  house  at  the  ripe  age  of  18  and  has  been  hanging  with  his  bros  ever  since.  honestly  pls  protect  him    

         [ 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪 ― ❝  LUCKY STRIKE, FILTERTLESS, DON'T PUSH ME.  ❞ ]   

kay  so  if  you  can’t  tell  the  boy  is…  ambitious  !  he’s  the  type  to  believe  in  something  and  throw  his  fully  self  into  it  because  he’s  just  that  dedicated  to  chasing  dreams  .  killer  work  ethic  ,  but  he’s  gotten  a  better  handle  on  balancing  work  and  fun  thanks  to  his  bois.  he  is  insanely  lucky  which  one  pushes  him  to  take  more  risks  

kinda  goes  with  the  last  one  but  he’s  SUCH  an  open  hearted  dude .  that  guy  after  a  break  up  no  matter  how  messy  will  probably  wanna  be  friends  (  but  also  messy  enough  to  turn  exes  into  friends  with  benefits  and  then  catch  feelings  again..  Issa  nasty  cycle  pls  pray  )  

loves  a  party  ,  is  probably  skinny  dipping    and  calling  his  ex  while  drunk  i-  WATCH  HIM  OK?  afskajd

he’s  honestly  so  sweet  and  humble  buuuuut  don’t  think  that  means  self  deprecating  cause  my  son  knows  hes  pretty  .  he’s  got  enough  self  esteem  to  share  and  prioritizes  #selflove  skagja  will  accept  a  compliment  with  a  cheeky  smile  and  a  simple  thank  you.  so,  not  arrogant  but  like  he’s  not  gonna  deny  the  obvious  truth?  lmaooo  

swear  to  god,  he’s  bad  at  keeping  secrets  and  will  let  u  know  how  he  feels.  even  with  crushes  so  unless  he’s  feelin  nervous  for  some  reason  most  likely  he’ll  make  the  first  move.  he’s  a  romantic.  he’s  just  all  around  really  honest

one  direction  STAN :) skfjadk 

 [ 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤 ― ❝ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ ᴏɴ ᴍʏ ᴍɪɴᴅ , ᴄᴏᴜᴘʟᴇ ʜᴜɴɴɪᴅꜱ ᴀᴛ ᴀ ᴛɪᴍᴇ ❞ ] 

Exes  are  always  great  ,  maybe  a  best  friend  who  isnt’  apart  of  the  band,  general  friends,  bad  influences  who  take  him  to  parties  where  he’ll  inevitably  skinny  dip,  good  influences,  new  crushes,  unrequited  crush  cause  we  love  heart  break,  neighbors,  enemies  (  i  ??  don’t  put  it  past  him  to  have  ended  up  in  a  fight  while  drunk  or  something  cause..  reckless  )  people  he  might’ve  met  in  texas?  His  band  mates  (  if  you’re  lookin  to  bring  a  second  ;)  )  sibling  like  friendships,  anything  sis

#intro

[impcsters]

╰ ♡  MUSE 54, STERLING K. BROWN, CIS MALE ┊ have you seen JAMAL JAMESON around hillston? the 48 year old is said to be a/n FORMER PRESIDENT. the neighbours would say that they’re CONTROLLING and CYNICAL, but they’re actually PERCEPTIVE and SUPPORTIVE. HE often reminds people of stress-induced wrinkles, top secret files, & a hunger for success. watch out, though. you wouldn’t believe that HE BRIBED SENATORS TO PASS LEGISLATION.

hello, it’s lex, back again Already bc i have zero self-control; also BIG disclaimer, i studied political science, so i think ik about government and how everything works but ???? i also know nothing so- no thoughts, head empty, ANYWAY 

stats:  full name- jamal jackson jameson nicknames: jj, mr. president??? birthday- september 27, 1971  zodiac sign- libra traits- perceptive, supportive, ambitious, wise, charismatic, controlling, cynical, impatient, workaholic & defensive  languages spoken- english, some spanish  hogwarts house- ravenclaw 

background: - jj, which is what he mostly goes by, grew up right outside of hillston in a less affluent town - he was the youngest of five boys and the most sensitive of them all- and the apple of his mom’s eye - he always worked his ass off to try and prove to his brothers how tough he was and how cool he was and all that - this made his want to be successful SO bad and he wasn’t super good at sports and stuff, so he threw himself into academics - he was the captain of the debate team, on the academic decathlon team, student government vp, valedictorian of his senior class- he was, like, smart or whatever (which is great considering i have the brain capacity of a flea) - he went on to northwestern for undergrad and then yale law school - he met his wife somewhere along the line- he is sOOO in love with her, a soft n in love husband (someone bring her plz????)  - after that, he came back to good ol illinois and started working at a pretty well-known firm in chicago and ALSO ran for chicago city council - from there, he ran for senate and beat an incumbent - he only did one term before going for the presidency and he was a bit of an underdog- no one thought he could win and then HE DID - he went into the presidency very idealistic, he really wanted to make a difference and thought he could - but then the political bureaucracy really bogged him and his ideas down and he was like //: - he went from hopeful to just trying to stay above water - and like, he was a good president and did amazing things, but… as his secret says, he paid off a handful of senators on the other side of the aisle to vote for policies he campaigned for - he feels so so guilty about this, but he also feels like it was necessary to get change to happen- he just wishes he could’ve done it the clean way - now he’s like ): and feels a lil useless bc he achieved all his career goals and he NEEDS work, so he’s putting a lot of his attention onto his family and trying to better hillston however he can just to feel needed   personality: - he’s a super friendly guy and doesn’t know a stranger- it made him a great candidate - still sensitive, tries to be in touch with his emotions in a way that he felt like his father never was- it was why he was closer w his mama - kinda has a negative view on the usefulness of congress and the governmental process now and he’s really sad that he feels that way bc he WANTS the government to do so much good (bro me too) - feelin a little inadequate lately, so is trying to overcompensate in all areas of life, specifically fatherhood bc he wasn’t as present when they were growing up because he was always campaigning - loves his kids very very much, he’s so proud of ALL of them and will tell everyone how proud

god, i did not mean to go on this long AGAIN- you know the drill tho, gimme a like or come find me (: 

#hillston.intro

[quarantingz]

oop mind dump(!), half-baked thoughts (!), usual confusion(!), being busy(!), efficiency(!), procrastination(!) & none of the above(!)

enjoy :))

[written on] 7 april, tuesday

[intended to post on] 7 april, tuesday

[intended to post 2.0 on] 8 april, wednesday

[finally posted, after much procrastination and probably just laziness, on] 9 april, thursday

Hi there!

With a lack of a profound statement to start off this entry, I’ll just say this…my mind is as scattered and non-sensical as ever! What’s new?

Second coffee in, I’m thinking about, as the title suggests, a lot of things (with as much caffeinated enthusiasm as it suggests)! I definitely didn’t think I was going to be writing a post today because I thought yesterday’s entry [monday’s] was heavy enough that I could simmer and ponder over it for a while longer. But I guess, as things go, and because I naturally must write things down, I need to write everything that’s going on in my head right now - before I forget, but also so I can pRoCeSs it :)

I will definitely not get through everything I think I want to write about in this one post, and for the sake of keeping it short and still somewhat legible and engaging, I will try my best. Maybe I will do a part two (??). Hmmm maybe I won’t haha. We’ll see how this goes.

Here we go…enjoy…

So as I was swinging my arms and getting a good stretch of the legs on our family “night” walk yesterday, Tali asked me, “did you have a good day today?”. It was a simple question and one I always answer with a “yeah kinda, did a few things, wish I did more, but tomorrow will be better!”. I like looking on the bright side, but it really got me thinking about what it means to be busy and how society has placed a lot of emphasis on it currently.

I recently read an article on It’s Nice That called, “You are More than Your Output”, which was an interesting read on this idea of “busyness”, the pressures on what we do for a living, self-definition from this and our relationship with work. Oosh, it was confronting and I definitely needed to discuss this with someone further. So of course I decided to send it to Gwen, Cullz and Paulz (there’s something so comforting and encouraging to know that I have people in my life who creatively challenge and most importantly, understand my journey as a creative, post-graduation).

Twas good discussions and what they said was so so good (got my brain juices flowing for sure), but I want to briefly touch on this topic and my thoughts about this…I love being busy, in fact, as I’ve mentioned before, I thrive off being busy. As bizarre as it sounds, I’m almost like an adrenaline junkie who gets off of busy schedules and long lists of TO-DOs. I like to ambitiously jam-pack my day with the most things I can do and “tick off” in ONE day. Sounds overwhelming and you’re probably thinking I’ll burn out eventually and I won’t always like this once I have a full-time job. But for now, I like that feeling. It makes me be and feel productive. And although I regularly remind my friends to take a break and relax in order to rejuvenate, I can’t seem to take this advice myself. I constantly feel like I’ve drunk five cups of coffee within 20 minutes, so my heart usually feels like it’s going to beat its way out of my chest, and my mind is so full, it’s almost incomprehensible and confusing.

Anyway, back to productivity…this feeling is probably the reason why I struggle with self-love a lot - if I’m not achieving everything on my list, I’m not being productive enough, it is not a “good day” and I’m not…“succeeding” in life. Which again, is all about MINDSET, people!

Yes, everything does comes with balance, prioritising and re-evaluating what’s the most important things in life at any given time. Sorry, but I feel like this entry will just raise more questions and half-baked thoughts (ha, managed to tick that off the list!), than actually solving anything.

I guess what I want to touch on here, is not so much on the debate about whether you should be busy or not, it’s more about dismantling these personal-constructs that we have in our minds…

Ahhh, another topic to elaborate on (solely) for another time I guess (…??).

*** SIDE-NOTE (COZ WE LOVE A SIDE-NOTE) ***

Right now [tuesday, 2.40pm], my eldest sister sits on the La-Z-Boy, rocking back and forth trying to write a new idea for a new script. My dad too, sits facing the same way as her towards the ranch slider and garden, bowl of sweet mung bean soup in hand, relaxing in a foldable picnic chair for his “break”. I can’t help but smile at this scene and feel very happy and content in where I am right now. It also makes me chuckle at the contrast of their peaceful reflections with my scattered mind and furious typing. My frantic fingers almost echo in the quiet space that is my living room. I like this. I had only wanted to write one word down for this entry before I forgot it (then finish this piece tomorrow, when I felt like it), but here I am having written over one page long. I’m also not listening to music, which is rare for me as I like dwelling in the emotions and vibe of the music while I write - it helps me as you know by now. But in this moment, it’s just Tema, my dad, me, my typing and my silent scattered thoughts.

*** END OF SIDE-NOTE (ACTUALLY A SMALL APPRECIATIVE-NOTE) ***

Back to the point…the mere act of typing furiously on my keyboard (ooh links!) actually makes me feel busy and definitely makes me look busy. When someone says, “oh Alyssa, you’re always so busy” or “bro, when are YOU free?”, it kind of makes me feel good - that I’m somehow “succeeding” in life because I actually have things to do. But isn’t it all superficial and just an appearance? Because in my mind, I’m not achieving as much as I want to do within a day or week. Anyway, maybe that’s why a lot of people, even myself, give into this idea of busyness - because we’re fed this belief that to be “successful”, means that we not only occupy ourselves to the max, but we look the part too. That’s apparent in any bustling city, like Auckland, or London and Paris. People are constantly moving and doing things. These cities never sleep and apparently that idea means those cities and people are thriving and being “successful”.

I guess another aspect I want to discuss is the idea of efficiency. For some reason, that word is so mockable, but maybe that’s just because my boyfriend uses that word excessively and I like to laugh at him (because he’s silly, not because I’m a bully, woah, CHILL). So to be busy, and therefore “successful” is also associated with being efficient. Which also relates to B, who applies lip balm VERY STRANGELY, but efficiently…he applies it by swiping the stick across his top and bottom lip at the same time, followed by a giddy “EFFICIENCY G!” EVERY. TIME. This is quite like the idea of “killing two birds with one stone”. The idea of doing the most you can and preferably at the same time in order to optimise time. It also links with the saying, “time is of the essence”. Because we have such a limited time on Earth, people feel like they have to fill everyday and every waking hour doing something - or else we feel unproductive and ultimately a “failure”. I’m not saying everyone feels like this (I do), or that efficiency is stupid and entirely negative. I think it’s entirely individual and lies within our perceptions of the things we actually do and hope to do. Everything is relative (??).

Which brings me to the subject of procrastination. For example, in the span it has taken me to write this blog post, I’ve made myself a bowl of plain porridge for my late 2pm lunch (oop photo reference - twas really nice actually), a toastie with salami, sweet thai chilli sauce, harissa sauce and a lot of pepper (odd mix I know), which I had at 4pm, but now consider as my dinner coz now I’m stuffeddddd. I’ve also made hummus (which I think I want to write about next - there’s a metaphor in there that I want to exploit lol) for the fam, folded all of the whites and made the cinnamon apple filling for Tema and I’s mini pies. Talk about procrastination…see here, maybe this isn’t “procrastination”!

The issue lies in how we prioritise and give importance to certain things in our life. And in this case, I’m still being “busy”, but my perception of what I’ve done is that these are menial tasks - they are of lesser importance and priority compared to other things on my to-do list. Again, it is all relative. This comparison between certain things we do is what makes us fall into this trap of self-punishment and “failure” (again, maybe it’s just me). So when we do the thing that seems less important, we consequently feel unproductive . But I had been meaning to make hummus since last week, and I intended to eat lunch at 12.30pm, but got too busy looking through some design concepts for my friend, AND I was meant to fold the whites so my dad could have a clean set of singlets for this week. And lol, I wanted to make pie filling because we all craved something sweet (can’t we just do things just coz?). Looking over these, all of them are important! But why do we prioritise our jobs as so and essentially, degrade our life choices??!

Okay, I think I’m going to wrap this up because there’s no point to this entry anymore. But it was interesting to type out all these random thoughts and somehow try to weave them together. But as always, this is just a ramble. You're confused, I’m confused, we’re ALL confused.

(Or maybe I wanted to see whether you could keep up with my 100 mph train of thoughts hehe)

So to tie everything up in a big, definitely-not-an-indecisive-red-or-maybe-blue-nah-feelin-green-now-BOW…be busy, don’t be busy. Procrastinate, don’t procrastinate. BUT, be kinder to yourself. You don’t have to be busy nor productive - give yourself some slack, you’re doing the best you can! So practice SeLf-LoVe.

You owe yourself thatttt much :)

p.s. I think this post was more me procrastinating about writing and posting, because clearly, I took my time procrastinating and eventually posting three days later than when I first wrote this.

Anyway, have a great day y’all (productive or busy or none of the above)!

- a

[blondrichclosetwitch]

So ambitious 3:53 PM Jay Z—-

Said I'd either be dead or be a reefer head The motivation (word up) for me (fuck y'all)

Is them telling me what I could not be, oh well

Hey! Hey!

I'm so ambitious (hey!)

I might hit two sisters (hey!)

Hey, I'm on a mission (hey!)

No matter what the conditions (hey!)

Forget personal issues (hey!)

When you go what I been through (hey!)

Hey, if you believe it (then be)

Then you could conceive it (you, see?!)

Dear Teacher, you're probably somewhere near a speaker

I'm balling outta control, can you hear my sneakers

Fuck y'all

Never the house of love 4:00–Go to war, what a drag

A love of hate is really not the way

Light a flame or go to sleep

The time is right to celebrate or die

Lust, kendrick Lamar 4:02–I need some water

Something came over me

Way too hot to simmer down, might as well overheat Rush the fire exit, no time for battles

Well I, I never expected

This that new shit Whatever you doing, just make it count (I need some water)

I wake in the morning, my head spinning from the last night

Both in a trance, feelings are dead—what a fast life

Lately, in James 4:4 says

"Friend of the world is enemy of the Lord"

Brace yourself: Lust is all yours

I need some water—the big point here is the water; I keep a liter by the bed because I keep waking up unable to breathe. I don’t go to bed without a bottle, because I’ll get right back up.

4:08 old and wise alan parsons project—-And to those I leave behind, I want you all to know

You've always shared my darkest hours

I'll miss you when I go

4:11 knife grizzly bear—

I want you to know, when I look in your eyes

With every blow, comes another lie

You think it's alright, you think it's alright

Can't you feel the knife?— I think everybody knows the story by now. Al Capone has a slight role in it. But it’s about me being knifed by a dead mobster in Lanza’s when the Tarot Reader took me out for my birthday. Two healers asked me why there was a knife sticking out of my back when they were working on me.

4:16 PM my love will not let you down Bruce Springsteen—I got a time bomb tickin' deep inside of me

In your eyes plants and animals 4:22PM—I tried to follow

There's something soft in your eyes

When did you start to move so slowly?

When did you change the way you talked to us?

Hands around my throat death in Vegas 4:27 PM—Back down and touch, the door is shut

In the end you're just too close

There's no-one here, there's no-one there

I still can't tell, and if you'd better try this

And you might find, I'm in your place, I see your face

The air is cold, I'm still on hold

I still can't tell of what's been said

Your hands around my throat, ask me to let go

Christmas The Who 4:33— and the funny thing about this song is it starts at this really High Point, he says “ Did you ever see the faces of the children? They get so excited”…. Well I started to pick up on my own spirit children’s excitement every time this would play, but today it was a whole different level. So there’s that.

This song of course is about Tommy symbolizing Jakk, and not to sound vain but references to my abilities as a healer.

Modern things the yeah yeah yeahs 4:37–Did you find a boy

You meant to destroy?

Friendly advice Luna 4:44—I had to be drunk

Just to look at your face

That was all right by me

How long will this go....

How long will this go....

How long will this go on

Never be the same Camilla Cabello 4:55—this was the winner of the day next to fuck it I love you; they had me sing it, and since I realized I’d been poisoned, I hadn’t been singing much, but let’s look at the lyrics.

Somethin' must've gone wrong in my brain

Got your chemicals all in my veins

Feelin' all the highs, feelin' all the pain

Let go of the wheel, that's the bullet lane

Now I'm seein' red, not thinkin' straight

Blurrin' all the lines, you intoxicate me

Just like nicotine, heroin, morphine

Suddenly, I'm a fiend and you're all I need

All I need, yeah, you're all I need

It's you, babe

And I could try to run, but it would be useless

You're to blame

Just one hit of you, I knew I'll never be the same

Off of one touch, I could overdose

You said, "Stop playin' it safe

Girl, I wanna see you lose control"

You're in my blood, you're in my veins, you're in my head (I blame)

I can’t even tell you how meaningful it was to sing this. Really. I was kinda loud.

[megsblackfirewrites]

Our Bond is Stronger Than Death: Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Jack’s fists rained furious blows into the punching bag. It had been specially reinforced just for him so that he didn’t bust the thing open after a few punches. His enhanced strength made regular workout equipment break before he was even giving it half of his potential. He grit his teeth, glaring at the punching bag as he tried to work his fury out.

There wasn’t a lot he could do for his husband and it infuriated him. He couldn’t force Angela to help him; she was positive that there was nothing more to be done. She would have let him die if it suited her. It wasn’t fair; Gabriel had given his life for everyone in the organization. He shouldn’t have had to go to someone like Moira in order to save someone like his husband.

“Jack,” Jesse called as he walked into the training room. “Hey, how long’ve you been in here?”

Jack grabbed the punching bag to keep it from slamming into his face and grit his teeth. “Does it matter?” he demanded. “I’m just staying in shape.”

“Jack,” Jesse’s voice was cautious as he walked over and rested a hand on Jack’s arm. “Come on, you need to stop before you hurt yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jack snapped.

“What, you think you beatin’ the shit out of somethin’ is gunna help Gabe?” Jesse demanded. “Whoa!”

Jack whipped around and grabbed Jesse by the front of his shirt. He hoisted the slimmer man off of his feet and quietly reveled in the fear in Jesse’s eyes. Finally, something that would react to his fury. A punching bag couldn’t give him a reaction; Jesse could.

“Do not think to tell me how to deal with my husband’s current state,” Jack growled. “You don’t know anything, Jesse.”

Jesse stared before he swallowed and lifted his chin. “That don’t mean you get to treat me like shit,” he hissed. “Yer outta line, Strike Commander. Gabe wouldn’t approve of that.”

Jack’s hands tightened in Jesse’s shirt before he set him down. He took a deep breath and looked away, pushing his fingers up into his graying hair. He was so out of line that he didn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I….”

“I get it,” Jesse said shakily. “I…I don’t have a bondmate. Probably never will. I can’t understand what yer goin’ through, Jack. But…I’m here for you. No matter what.”

Jack shook his head and rubbed his palm into his eye. “Jesse, you don’t want a bondmate,” he said softly. “It sounds romantic, but it’s nothing like you could imagine. It’s pain and misery and happiness and joy and…and everything. Your thoughts aren’t your own anymore. Your emotions aren’t your own anymore. They’re shared. They’re yours, both of yours. And there is no moment where you aren’t aware of them.”

“So…everything that Gabe’s feelin’ right now…?” Jesse swallowed.

“I’m feeling it too,” Jack said before he turned his attention back to the punching bag. “And the only way to alleviate a pain that isn’t yours is to make a different one.”

Jesse’s hand settled on his arm before he could start throwing punches again. He glanced at the younger man and Jesse smiled sadly up at him.

“Hey, come get lunch with me,” he said softly. “Genji’s finally able to taste sauce and he can’t wait to drink it straight out of the bottle.”

“That kid is going to burn his stomach,” Jack managed a sad smile before he followed Jesse out of the training range. “He needs a keeper. A fulltime babysitter that can parkour just as good as Genji. That should keep the brat out of trouble.”

Jesse laughed as he kept a hand on Jack’s arm with his right hand, the left one still only covered with a skeletal frame of a prosthetic. Jack reached out to touch the prosthetic and nodded his head. It would do for now. It would all do for now.

“Pain?” Moira asked as she set another sticky pad onto his chest.

“Six,” Gabriel grit his teeth. “Fucking six.”

“That from the serum or just bed pains?” Moira asked as she hooked a wire to the pad and made sure it was transmitting.

“One for the bed pains,” Gabriel said. “Five for the rest.”

“I’m still amazed that you can differentiate between the pain,” she shook her head as she lifted a datapad and tapped on it. “Okay, heartrate is normal. Deep breath…and lung capacity is top tier. Fill up your diaphragm. Yes, just like that. A little under preforming, but it is right beneath where the muscle is growing, so that’s normal.”

“Yay,” Gabriel grimaced. “So…?”

“Well, I’ll have to administer another dosage,” she said. “Your cells are regenerating a little faster than I anticipated, but they are still perfectly healthy. No signs of deterioration.”

“Good,” Gabriel murmured as he looked at the ceiling. “I’m so sick of this bed.”

“Understandable,” she chuckled as she checked his bed pans.

He was a little surprised by how dedicated Moira was to her job. Most doctors did not like having anything to do with the dirty part of caring for a patient, but Moira didn’t seem to mind dealing with his excrements. He knew she was using it to gather further information for her serum, but he didn’t care. Someone was helping him not smell like piss and shit and he appreciated it.

Angela stepped into the room with one of her nurses in tow. She pressed her lips together at the sight of Gabriel with pads on his chest, but turned her attention to Moira. This was going to be interesting.

“And how is the patient?” she asked.

“You could just ask me,” Gabriel commented. “Sitting right here, Angie. My stomach injury didn’t make me mute.”

Angela’s blue eyes flicked towards him in annoyance before looking back at Moira. Moira ran her fingers through her hair, pushing the red strands back into the swept-back bob she kept with meticulous care. She gave herself a small shake and smiled.

“He is recovering rapidly,” she said. “A few days ahead of schedule, but I expect that to level out soon. Would you like a sample of the serum, Angela? I would love to see what your nanomachines could do with it. Imagine the possibilities!”

“I would like a sample to make sure that it is within legal boundaries,” Angela said. “I know how you have no qualms about subjecting others to your unethical treatments.”

“I have the Strike Commander’s okay,” Moira glared at her.

“Who hasn’t been into the medical bay to see the Commander since he assigned you to his care,” Angela said with a tight smile. “This is my medical bay. You have access to the supplies, but all procedures go through me.”

“You,” Moira started to say before Gabriel lifted his hand.

“Do as she says, Moira,” he said. “It’s her medical bay. I expect her to do the same if she were in your labs.”

He saw the way Angela bristled at the suggestion that she would be caught dead in the Blackwatch labs and did his best to keep his satisfaction off of his face. Moira didn’t look impressed, pursing her thin lips together as she shot him a glare, but did as he ordered. It was best to placate Angela while he was still in her territory. Jack’s animosity towards her was really starting to bleed into him, it would seem. They’d have to talk about that.

Moira collected a small sample of her serum from the container it was agitating in and handed it over to Angela. Angela nodded before turning and heading for the door. She paused at the threshold, clearly wanting to turn around and say something, but was deciding on whether or not it was wise.

“I hope this isn’t a mistake, Gabriel,” she said gently. “I don’t want you to regret it.”

“I live with my mistakes, Angela,” Gabriel replied. “It’s what makes me human.”

Angela nodded her head and left. Gabriel shook his head and settled back against the pillow, swallowing as Moira worked on whatever it was she was doing with her information. He dozed for a little while, sinking down into blissful oblivion before he jolted awake with a grin.

“Jack!” he laughed as his husband stepped into the room. “You look like shit, old man.”

Jack gave him a tight smile before he nodded to Moira. “Some privacy, doctor.”

Moira blinked before she gathered her notes and left the room, shooting a curious look at the Strike Commander as she closed the door. Jack was in his workout slacks and a loose t-shirt that was covered in sweat stains. His hair was ruffled and greasy, his eyes a little bloodshot, and the stubble around his jaw looking tragically white. He looked like a normal, everyday man that was trying to deal with his spouse’s unexpected illness. It was as attractive as whipped cream and cherries.

“I take it back,” Gabriel grinned as Jack walked over to him. “You look hot.”

“You’ve got a bad case of cabin fever,” Jack said as he sat down in the chair beside him.

Jack reached out and took his hand, running his thumb across Gabriel’s knuckles. Gabriel watched him for a moment before tilting his head to the side.

‘Black thoughts on a black day?’ he asked.

‘I’m sending Jesse and Genji away from the base,’ Jack said. ‘Indefinitely.’

‘Oh?’ Gabriel blinked.

‘Something’s coming, Gabe,’ Jack murmured. ‘I don’t know what or when, but the air’s charged with something. I don’t want them here when it happens. I don’t want our boys getting hurt. I already arranged for Lena to be sent to the base in Gibraltar with Winston to continue her work.’

‘Hmm,’ Gabriel frowned as he lifted Jack’s hand to his lips and gently kissed over the large knuckles. ‘I approve. You’ve been restless lately. I can feel it when I’m sleeping. You’re always moving and I know you’re starting to get surly.’

‘I don’t like what we’ve had to do to save you,’ Jack murmured. ‘I…I don’t want you to suffer, Gabe.’

‘Suffering means I’m alive,’ Gabriel smiled and shook his head. ‘I knew it was going to hurt. But, Moira is doing everything she can for me. I appreciate it. She’s…well, she’s ambitious.’

‘And without scruples,’ Jack shook his head. ‘Hell, I’m scared she’s using you for tests that she couldn’t get to work on her animal subjects.’

‘If it saves others?’ Gabriel asked. ‘Isn’t that worth it?’

Jack looked away, but his agreement pulsed between them. Gabriel smiled and reached up, running his fingers over Jack’s cheek. He sent a gentle teasing wiggle through their bond, rubbing his thumb over the white stubble.

“Getting old,” he teased.

“Been getting old for a while,” Jack smiled at him. “We can’t all age like fine wine.”

“Jack, you’re like fine whiskey; you only get better with age,” Gabriel laughed.

“You’re only calling me that because whiskey can be made from corn,” Jack shook his head. “Asshole. Everyone makes the corn jokes because of that one picture of me in ‘Farmer’s Monthly’. I was ten and proud of the corn I’d grown. How was I supposed to know it looked like a dick?”

“Aw, but I love you no matter what, my cornbread,” Gabriel pursed his lips teasingly at Jack and made a kissy noise.

Jack laughed and shoved his face away. The break in his melancholy mood was a relief; Gabriel knew that Jack would be back in his rut soon enough, brooding over Gabriel’s condition. For now, though, it was the old Jack he knew and loved.  

#reaper76 #bondmate AU #Jack gets handsy when he's angry and stressed #Jesse can handle it

[sweater-vest-reid]

All You Need Is Love: Chapter Four “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

A Love Story Told by The Fab Four / Inspired by “Across the Universe”

Spencer Reid: a genius, hardworking, dedicated FBI profiler. Persephone “Percy” Jacobson: a passionate, brilliant, ambitious FBI specialist, and the newest member of the BAU. Spencer doesn’t believe in soulmates. Persephone doesn’t believe in happy endings. Told nonlinearly, watch as time, each other, and The Beatles, proves them wrong.

Chapter List

~~~~~

A/N: So glad you are all enjoying this series!! In a perfect world, I will have chapter five up sometime late next week, but I am currently in tech for a show I’m ASMing so I might not have time to write it. I’ll make sure to keep ya’ll updated!

Listen Here

~~~~~

Oh yeah I tell you somethin'

I think you'll understand

When I say that somethin’

I want to hold your hand

{2006}

It was late at night, and the jet roared through the sky. Percy sat by the window, staring out into the night sky. Music blared through her headphones, blocking out the rumblings of the plane engine.

Across the plane sat Spencer, deep into a large book. His eyes followed his fingers down the page, rapidly flipping through the chapters. His emotions on his face changing as he moved to a new page.

Percy watched as Spencer flew through the novel, his brain moving faster than the jet through the sky. She couldn’t look away. She loved watching him work. There was something about his intelligence that made her heart swell. The confidence he had in his ideas, how he trusted his instincts. Everyone knew he was special, but Percy was beginning to realize how special he was to her.

Percy glared at the empty seat next to him. She longed to sit in it, to be close to him. She thought about resting her head on his shoulders, their arms intertwined.

Percy desperately wanted to tell Spencer how she felt. She wanted to walk over to him and plant a long, passionate kiss on his lips. She wanted his face to be the first thing she sees in the morning, and the last thing she sees at night.

In a perfect world, that would be her life. But Percy knew she would never act on her feelings. She knew Spencer wasn’t interested in her. How could he be interested in her? He was brilliant, and his beautiful, rambling mind needed an equal mind to love.

Now, it’s not that Percy wasn’t intelligent. After all, she did have a Ph.D. in Religious Studies. And she climbed to the top of the FBI within her first year at the agency, becoming a member of the BAU at the age of 24. Percy had her moments of genius, but Spencer’s whole life was one big moment of brilliance. She could never compete with his intelligence.

Although Percy would never admit it, with Spencer, it really was love at first sight. When she saw his face for the first time as she walked into the office, she knew she would grow to love Spencer. His smile was infectious, and his laugh was intoxicating. She found herself speechless around him. Something about his presence caused her mind to malfunction. For almost three years, they'd worked side by side. And each year that passed, Percy buried her emotions deeper and deeper.

She continued to watch him, his eyebrows furrowed as he read. She wished things were different. Percy wished she was brave enough to express her feelings. She wished she was smarter. She wished Spencer felt the same way.

Spencer, finished his book and set it aside. He looked up, his eyes connecting with Percy’s. For a beat, they looked at each other, their eyes unblinking. But Percy turned and looked back towards the window.

Oh please say to me You’ll let me be your man And please say to me You’ll let me hold your hand

Spencer finished his book, placing it back into his bag. Looking up, he noticed Percy’s eyes locked on him. After a brief moment of eye contact, Percy's eyes returned to the window.

Spencer's eyes didn’t move. He watched her, her mouth moving in time to the music in her headphones.

Spencer smiled. Something about her made him happy. Through the darkness the team sees every day, Percy still managed to be a shining light.

Spencer never felt like this before. There were women in his past he had feelings for, but nothing compared to the way Percy made him feel.

His whole life, Spencer was told he was special. He was treated differently. Everyone seemed intimidated by him. But Percy was different. When Spencer went on one of his rants, and the rest of the team had tuned him out, Percy listened. She was the first to back him up in a debate, but she was also the first one to challenge him. The rest of the team took everything Spencer said as fact. And, although, most of the time Spencer was right, Percy was always there to catch him when he was wrong. Spencer never found it embarrassing, instead, he found it incredible. He found someone who understood him, someone who wasn’t afraid of his mind.

Spencer only wished Percy truly understood just how brilliant she was. He noticed her self-doubt. How she always opened with “I’m not sure, but…” and ended with “but I could be wrong” when she presented her ideas to the team. Spencer wanted to yell at her, to force her to become aware of her incredibleness. But Spencer couldn’t do that. He wasn’t brave like Percy. No one was brave like Percy.

Spencer recalled the first time he’d seen her courage and her selflessness first hand. It was a month after she’d joined the team. Spencer and Percy were tasked with interviewing the neighbor of the victim. What they hadn’t realized was that the neighbor was the unsub. As he began to run away, Percy chased after him, gun drawn. Spencer had watched in shock as she tackled him, ripping the gun from his hand as she pinned him to the ground. She never hesitated, she never showed fear. It was like that in every case. Percy risking her life to save others. She would face death head-on if it meant saving someone’s life. Spencer loved her for that.

Spencer glanced at the seat next to him, wishing Percy was beside him. He wanted to be close to her. Usually, his germaphobic tendencies never allowed him to feel this way, but with Percy, he didn’t care. He wanted to hold her, to feel her warmth. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her so badly.

Earlier that year, Spencer made out with Lila Archer, a Hollywood actress, in her pool. But, in that moment, Spencer wasn’t thinking about the beautiful actress across from him. No, when their bodies and lips intertwined, the only image in Spencer’s mind was Percy. He imagined it was her he was kissing. It was his secret fantasy. A fantasy he could never reveal to the love of his life.

How could he? Percy was too good for him. Spencer knew that Percy could have her pick of any man on earth. The world was her candy store.

But that wouldn’t stop him from dreaming.

And when I touch you I feel happy inside It’s such a feelin’ that my love I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide

{2007}

It was a hot summer day at the BAU. One of those days where the fans are on high and everyone’s energy levels are low. But that didn’t stop the team from celebrating.

It was Percy’s birthday, and unknown to her, the team had planned a party in her honor.

Percy stared at her phone and she entered the office. A text from Hotch read “conference room. Emergency.” Looking up at the conference room, Percy saw the drawn blinds. Percy shuddered as she walked up to the room, anxious about what was on the other side of the door.

“SURPRISE!” yelled the team as Percy opened the door.

Shocked, Percy took in the scene around her. The room, full of streamers and balloons, and in the center of the table sat a large cake with Percy’s face on it.

“Aww, you guys. Thank you so much. I thought I was going to spend my birthday hanging out with serial killers. This is so much better” Percy exclaimed.

“Don’t hold your breath, Jacobson. It’s still early. Plenty of time for a serial killer to make an appearance” Morgan joked, patting Percy on the back.

“What do you think about the cake?” Garcia asked, hurrying over to Percy’s side, “I thought, since you’re so drop-dead gorgeous you’d make the perfect cake.”

Percy giggled, “I love it, Penny. But you’re giving me a bit too much credit.”

Garcia gasped, “Never, Ma Cheri. I mean every word.”

Spencer moved over to Percy, a wrapped gift in his hands.

“Happy birthday, Percy.” He smiled.

Percy’s world stopped as Spencer wrapped his arms around her. Her breathing hitched and her heart rate accelerated. Spencer had never hugged her before. Spencer never hugged anybody. In that moment, she could have sworn she felt Spencer’s heart racing as they touched.

The team was just as shocked as Percy was. There was a beat of silence before Gideon spoke up. “Okay, so, who wants cake?”

The rest of the day was a blur for Percy, as her mind kept returning to Spencer’s hug. What did it mean? Does it mean he might have feelings for her? Spencer doesn’t just hug anybody after all. Or did it mean nothing and Percy was just overanalyzing what could have been a friendly gesture.

That night, when Percy got home, she opened the presents the team gave her. She saved Spencer’s for last. After unwrapping the rest of the gifts, Percy directed her attention to the last gift. It was wrapped in brown paper, a bow of twine tied around it. She ripped it open, the anticipation driving her crazy. The package revealed an old book. It was the complete story of Persephone, a book of which she’d owned many copies, but never read.

This copy, however, was different. It was older than the other copies she’d owned. The cover was full of beautiful gold decorations. As she flipped through it, she noticed the intricate drawings on each page. The book was stunning, a work of art itself. Percy loved it.

Opening the front cover, Percy saw a message. It was scribbled in Spencer’s signature chicken scratch. It read:

To the only Persephone more astonishing than her namesake. Happy Birthday, Percy.

Percy read the next line over and over. She closed her eyes, thinking that it was just her mind playing tricks. That when she opened them, she would return to reality. But when Percy opened her eyes, the message remained. Percy could hear her heart pound as she continued to smile, looking down at the writing.

Love, Spencer

Yeah, you got that somethin’ I think you’ll understand When I say that somethin’ I want to hold your hand

{2009}

Spencer paced around the bathroom. Was he really going to do this? Was he really going to ask Percy out?

His breathing was frantic, his palms sweaty. He was so nervous. His mind kept repeating scenarios in his head. Maybe she’d say yes. Spencer’s heart soared at that thought. A night alone, just the two of them. The best-case scenario. But what if she said no?

The sound of the bathroom door opening jolted Spencer from his panic. Rossi had walked in, clearly startled by Reid’s nervous appearance.

“You okay Reid? You look a little pale.” Rossi asked.

“I’m fine, great actually. I’m doing really well” Spencer rambled.

“Well, okay then,” Rossi replied, suspicious of Spencer’s behavior.

Spencer left the bathroom, shaking as he made his way over to his desk. Noticing that Percy wasn’t seated at her desk across from him, he sighed in relief, as he was not yet ready to see her.

“Well, I’m done for the day.” Said Morgan, grabbing his things and walking towards the door, “Are you headed out soon Pretty Boy?”

“Yeah, soon. Where did everyone else go?” Spencer asked, worried he’d missed his chance.

“JJ left a few minutes ago. Hotch is in his office, per usual.” Morgan replied.

Spencer felt his heart sink, “Where’s Percy? Did she go home?”

“Nope, she’s down in Garcia’s office. Why?” Morgan asked.

“No reason. Just wondering. Anyway, have a good weekend Morgan.” Spencer said.

Morgan left, leaving Spencer alone in the strangely quiet office building. He thought about ditching, abandoning his hopeful plans with Percy. The anticipation was killing him.

Suddenly, Spencer heard Percy walk up behind him, making his way to her desk.

“Hey, Spence,” Percy said.

“Hey, Percy,” Spencer replied.

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Spencer got up the courage to speak.

“Hey Percy, have you heard about that new exhibit at the Natural History Museum?”

Percy looked up from her work, “Are you talking about the one on the evolution of ancient languages? It opens tonight, and they have a bunch of famous linguists presenting as well. I wanted to go so badly, but tickets for the opening event sold out before I could get one.”

Spencer took a deep breath, “So, what are you doing tonight?”

Percy looked up at Spencer, confusion on her face, “Nothing, why?”

Spencer reached into his bag, pulling out the tickets,“It just so happens that I have an extra ticket for the exhibit tonight. Want to come?”

“Of course. I’d love to come,” Percy smiled brightly, “The event starts at 7, right? Well, we have a couple of hours, and, I don’t know about you but I’m done with my work for today. Do you maybe want to grab something to eat? I’m starving.”

“Yeah,” Spencer said, the smile on his face growing bigger, “I’d love that.”

“Good because there’s a new restaurant that opened a few streets over that looks amazing,” Percy said, grabbing her coat.

Spencer followed, grabbing his things and making his way over to the elevator. He couldn’t stop smiling.

He’d gotten his best case scenario. And he couldn’t be happier.

I want to hold your hand

Tagged: (Want to be tagged in all upcoming chapters? Message me and I’ll add you!)

@beysenpai / @theofficeofsupremegenius / @everybodywantstobetouched / @keepcalmandlovetomhiddleston / @criminal-navy-writings / @whale-of-a-time

#fiionog #fiionwrites #aynil #all you need is love #spencer reid #spencer Reid imagine #spencer Reid imagines #spencer reid fanfiction #fanfic #criminal minds fandom #criminal minds fanfiction #dr spencer reid #dr reid #criminal minds #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds imagines #cm #cbs #spencer reid fluff #criminal minds fluff #fluff #spencer reid angst #criminal minds angst #angst #the Beatles #oc #original character

[dippedanddripped]

A skinny, gap-toothed kid gesticulates wildly in the parking lot of Mike’s Drive-In in Oregon City. Short dreads stick up on either side of his head, like antennae to some alien planet. His friends, in the deep background, hang out of a silver Honda, goofing on one another. But it’s nearly impossible to take your eyes off the skinny kid, with his awkward dance moves and urgent facial expressions. He commands your attention. He needs it.

This is the video for Aminé’s persistently catchy “Caroline,” a half-sung, half-rapped summer anthem that went viral in 2016—the video has more than 200 million YouTube views, and the kid front and center is the artist himself. It’s Aminé’s best-known song, and for most music fans both within his home city of Portland and beyond, it represented the MC/singer/director’s colorful first impression.

Aminé—born Adam Amine Daniel, son of Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants to Portland and a graduate of Benson High—had been around awhile before “Caroline” hit. His debut album, Odyssey to Me, appeared in 2014, though it has long been expunged from the commercial internet. It begins with a low-key prophecy: “I’m headed to my next show / I gotta go / Headed to that Madison Square / 25,000 fans in the air.” Then an accented female voice repeats “Adam, wake up.” It’s Aminé’s mother, coaxing him back to Portland obscurity. But it’s too late. The dream has taken root.

Aminé hasn’t played Madison Square Garden just yet, but he has definitely found a bigger stage. In 2017, the hip-hop magazine XXL included him in its influential Freshman Class, which functions as a sort of critical watchlist of stars in the making. Billboard and the New York Times both weighed in favorably, the latter calling his major-label debut, Good for You, “one of this year’s most intriguing hip-hop albums and also a bold statement of left-field pop.” The album sold 13,000 copies in its first week, debuting at no. 34 on Billboard’s US charts. After a set at Lollapalooza, Daniel posed for photographs with his arm around a new fan, Malia Obama.

Through sheer will and a catchy song, a colorful dream world became Aminé’s reality. From the outside, it’s like he came out of nowhere. That’s intentional. To become the next big thing in the music world of the late 2010s, you have to let the world in on the ground floor. That can sometimes mean recalibrating, or even erasing, your pre-fame history. All the way along, Aminé—who, through manager Justin Lehmann, declined to be interviewed for this piece and did not respond to requests for comment on this story—had boosters and collaborators. Some have come along for the ride. Some were left in the dust. This is the years-long story of Aminé’s overnight success.

Born in 1994, Aminé grew up in Northeast Portland. He’s said his biggest aspiration back then was “to be Kobe Bryant,” a dream dashed when he was cut from the Benson basketball team as a freshman. But he also grew up in a musical environment—he’s told interviewers his parents listened to everything from Ethiopian music to John Mayer—and music eventually became an obsession. In his first recorded performance, he told Vice in August, he rapped about girls and rival high schools over Waka Flocka Flame’s “O Let’s Do It.”

Josh Hickman, a thoughtful and soft-spoken 26-year-old, is three years Aminé’s senior. He also went to Benson and both ran track, but the two barely knew each other then. Three years after high school graduation, as Hickman began his senior year at Portland State University, he connected with Daniel, a PSU freshman, who messaged him about music.

“My first impression of Adam was that he seemed older than he was,” says Hickman, who spent his college years composing and producing rap music under the name Jahosh. “There was a determination, or a focus, that resonated with me. It probably goes back to track and field at Benson. We would work out six days a week. It really instilled me with this work ethic and discipline. So when I met Adam, I was just like, ‘Man this is dope. He’s just like me.’”

I was screaming to the moon, ‘Check out Aminé! He’s doing the thing! Are you guys paying attention?’

Daniel loaned Hickman money to buy a microphone and portable vocal booth, and they began writing and recording on a relentless schedule. “He would come over in the morning and he wouldn’t leave till night,” Hickman says. “But it didn’t even feel like work.” Daniel would give Hickman input on the beats; Hickman says he helped with song concepts and even lyrics. Together they created the first DIY Aminé release, a mixtape called Genuine Thoughts.

With help from PSU music students whom the charismatic Daniel had recruited along the way—including multi-instrumentalist Irvin Mejia, who would go on to produce “Caroline” and other songs on Aminé’s major-label debut—Hickman went on to produce the bulk of Odyssey to Mein his windowless recording studio in East Portland in late 2013. The album’s songs run from vulnerable, confessional slow-burners (“My Emotions”) to explicit sex jams (“Feelin’ Like”). It’s ambitious both sonically and conceptually: The cover art adapts the poster from Richard Ayoade’s 2010 cult film Submarine, about a small-town 15-year-old named Oliver looking to lose his virginity. The album echoes the film’s plot in places, and references its protagonist throughout.

By Odyssey to Me’s 2014 release, Aminé had picked up a few key supporters in Portland, including Fahiym Acuay, an MC and writer (under the name Mac Smiff) for the popular regional hip-hop blog We Out Here. Meeting Aminé for a video interview, Acuay remembers a funny, slightly shy kid who seemed unusually driven. “He knew that he was a little bit different,” Acuay says. “He had a really different sound—kind of playful—but he also had these really deep melodies.” Acuay became an evangelist for the young artist: “I was screaming to the moon, ‘Check out Aminé! He’s doing the thing! Are you guys paying attention?’”

IMAGE: COURTESY MARCUS HYDE AND REPUBLIC RECORDS

While local acts like U-Krew, Five Fingers of Funk, Lifesavas, and Cool Nutz have made some waves, Portland has never spawned a true national hip-hop star. Instead, we have a closed rap ecosystem with its own set of references, stylistic tendencies, and small-town kingpins. Portland rap artists tend to be judged more on their lyricism and verbal ability than on their melodic instincts or pop savvy. And on those fronts, Acuay notes, Aminé is no match for local mainstays like Illmaculate and Rasheed Jamal—battle-tested MCs with dense, intricate rhyme delivery. In fact, if Aminé had emerged a decade earlier, there’s a good chance he’d figure in the Portland hip-hop story as an eccentric side character, selling mixtapes out of his trunk at rap shows. But Aminé was born in a new era, where the home-burned CD has been replaced by lightly curated “mixtape” download websites that connect artists directly to a national audience, with no middleman and no local-cred hurdles to clear.

And Daniel knew how to work that system. He spent $1,000 of his student loan money to secure Odyssey to Me a spot in the featured albums section of Datpiff.com, a popular hip-hop mixtape-sharing blog that has served as a bellwether for artists like Drake and Chance the Rapper. By the end of summer 2014, Odyssey had reached 20,000 downloads. Daniel and Hickman found a promoter to take a punt on them—Ibeth Hernandez, who offered them a show at Peter’s Room in the Roseland, opening for critically acclaimed California hip-hop trio Pac Div. “It was so sweet,” Hernandez remembers of Daniel and Hickman. “They got me a thank-you card afterward, and it had, like, a Starbucks gift card inside.”

But the biggest payoffs came from shows Aminé and Jahosh booked for themselves. A few days after Christmas 2013, they threw a show marking Odyssey’s imminent release, hit social media hard, and drew 250. A party the next year drew 400, among them Blazers star Damian Lillard. His presence alone hinted that Daniel and Hickman had sidestepped most Portland hip-hop rites of passage. Not everybody would be happy about it.

But Daniel was making connections outside of Portland, too. In summer 2014, after landing internships with Complex magazine and Def Jam Records, he connected with a young, unestablished New York City manager named Justin Lehmann. To Hickman, something about the new arrangement set off alarm bells.

“I was with Adam from day one,” he says, “thinking, his success is my success and my success is his success.” Though he won’t dive into specifics—and allows for miscommunications—Hickman says he decided to get his handshake deal with Daniel into writing. Daniel refused. Hickman “got even more weirded out.” The partnership slowly unraveled, taking the pair’s friendship with it, and Hickman would later pull Aminé’s first album and the subsequent En Vogue EP from the internet, asking social media outlets and blogs to do the same. “It was my assumption that he would have most likely taken the music down himself, had I not,” says Hickman.

He was building this full package for himself. He didn’t just focus on Portland.

Aminé’s second full-length album—the excellent, world-music-inspired collection Calling Brio—proved that he was capable of making great music without Hickman. That too has been scrubbed from the web post-“Caroline,” along with videos and articles from 2014 and 2015, as has become standard practice for many indie artists who take on a major-label rebrand. Around the same time, Daniel texted Acuay to ask him to remove all the pieces We Out Here had written about Aminé from the site. Acuay reluctantly agreed. Later, when he saw a national piece on Aminé billed as “the first interview” with the young artist behind “Caroline,” Acuay admits, “I was kind of salty for a second. I had the first interview.”

Two years after Josh Hickman and Adam Daniel parted ways, Aminé struck gold with “Caroline.” The single and video led to a deal with Republic Records, a Universal subsidiary home to artists from Ariana Grande to Black Sabbath. While Daniel moved to Los Angeles in 2016, his official label bio still begins with “Now, Portland isn’t traditionally referred to as a hotbed of hip-hop like Brooklyn or Compton is, but Aminé could very well change that perception.”

For a moment, it appeared that Aminé might force the issue. In November 2016 on Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show, Aminé performed a striking and minimal version of “Caroline” with a string section. At the end of the performance, the yellow stage lights switched to red, white, and blue, and he delivered a message to the incoming president elected just days before. “You can never make America great again / All you ever did was make this country hate again.” It was a bold choice, one the Times and other outlets focused on. But Portland music fans noticed something else: two vocalists backing up Aminé were established players in the Portland scene, earthy R&B artist Blossom and inventive MC the Last Artful, Dodgr.

Acuay was watching that night. “It was so very Aminé. ‘I’m not going to do what everyone expects me to do.’ I was really proud of him. I remember thinking, he’s making us look good. He’s really holding it down for Portland right now.”

Publicly, “Go Aminé” is the party line in the Portland hip-hop scene, as well. But there is grumbling behind closed doors. A handful of artists and music scene staples contacted for this story declined to be interviewed about Aminé, or did not respond to requests. One artist formerly associated with Aminé indicated a reluctance to be seen as a hanger-on. A polite decline came from Nikolaus Popp, the prolific Portland director credited as the cinematographer and editor behind the “Caroline” video. Popp sent a somewhat cryptic statement: “Respect is everything in this world and that really goes for any human being. People will try to minimize you, but you always have to know your worth. Money doesn’t pay for respect, no matter the amount. It’s about how you treat people.”

In his first big national profile in the New York Times, Daniel used the phrase “super depressing” to describe his path through the Portland music scene, which the article’s author further characterized as “dead.” Aminé’s lyrical take on Portland has been bittersweet since his earliest songs. And on Good for You, he raps about coming home to find kids who bullied him calling him a hero. In the song “Turf,” he details the city’s gentrification in a mournful chorus: “I look around and I see nothing in my neighborhood / Not satisfied, don’t think I’ll ever wanna stay for good.” Another lyric speaks to those mixed emotions with even more clarity, and perhaps provides an explanation for the artist’s systematic eradication of the old Aminé: “I used to have dreams / Now I dream.”

I asked Vursatyl, one-third of the Portland crew Lifesavas—they released their debut, Spirit in Stone in 2003—if his group experienced a Portland backlash when they surfaced on the national radar. “The difference is we were really trudging it out in the local scene for a long time,” he says. “There were a lot of us trying hard to make it. Some of it was friendly competition, and some wasn’t. But everybody wanted to be the guy to put the city on the map.”

That city—before the gentrification of its North and Northeast quadrants—was a place where the black community was still somewhat centralized, and Aminé’s family home, off NE MLK and Dekum, sat at its heart. “There’s less of a sense of community now,” Vursatyl says. “And I think that, in the long term, Aminé would have benefited from what was the black community still being fully intact. He’s had an awesome journey and he’s doing great, but I feel like there’s a disconnect in terms of local pride in him. And you want that groundswell. You want to play to your base.”

But for Hernandez—who also booked Aminé’s first South by Southwest performance (“The whole showcase fell apart. It was a disaster, actually.”)—the fact that Aminé’s dreams were bigger than his hometown is exactly what made him stand out. “He didn’t make the rounds like other artists, but that’s OK,” she says. “He was building this full package for himself. He didn’t just focus on Portland. A lot of artists put themselves in a box, and that’s cool, but at some point you have to expand. I saw him expand at such an early point, and he’s still expanding.”

Where Aminé is expanding to is an open question. In interviews, he’s low-key and likable—the right mix of confident, humble, and self-deprecating. Critics praised Good for You as “honest” and “carefree.” Its impressive breadth spans from the floaty Frank Ocean-esque Auto-Tune ballad “Hero” to a curious diss track laid out over progressive, minimal electronic music, “STFU.” If anything, the album seems built—albeit on a solid pop-rap foundation—as a showcase for Aminé’s versatility in both sonic approach and personality. He’s a sensitive, brutally honest outcast on the molasses-slow “Sunday,” and a bitter ex-boyfriend on “Wedding Crashers.” Album closer “Beach Boy” spells out the MC’s thoughts on his own mutability: “Who knows what the future holds / I don’t, if the truth be told / They say play it safe, young soul / Fuck that, I’mma take control.”

Two years ago, taking control meant parting ways with Josh Hickman, now studying software development in Los Angeles and making music as a hobby. When he won an $18,000 scholarship for making a tutorial video about sampling, Hickman used a song he built for Aminé as the video’s source material. “I took it as a message from the universe or God that, hey, I got what I needed out of that situation,” he says. He hasn’t spoken to Daniel in years, he says, but he’s not bitter about the experience. “We had all these doubts,” he remembers. “We’d be in the studio just talking, saying, ‘Man, are we crazy?’ And it’s dope to see those doubts were unfounded.”

In October, Aminé posted a new video to YouTube, this time for his playful song “Spice Girl.” It hit one million views in three days. The video features a cameo from a childhood hero, from the first concert he ever attended: the Spice Girls’ Mel B. Like every artifact of Aminé’s newly rebooted career, the video is colorful, cinematic, and dreamlike.

The video also makes obvious what should have been clear all along: Aminé never had Portland dreams. He saw himself, a first-generation American-born citizen living in an unlikely corner of the country, playing Madison Square Garden. He saw himself in the company of stars.

Something familiar about the particular inflection Daniel gave the titular “Caroline” suggests she’s the same character André 3000 sang about 15 years ago, on Outkast’s smash-hit “Roses.” In Aminé’s later song “Veggies,” from his 2017 so-called “debut” album Good for You, he refers to himself as “André’s prodigy.” These tributes to the eccentric vocal genius and fashion icon who got every wedding party in America dancing to “Hey Ya” are rare signposts from an artist who seemed, to most fans, to “come out of nowhere.”

Just one year after he uploaded the “Caroline” video to YouTube, Daniel posted a street-corner selfie to Instagram. On the left, wide-eyed with his mouth forming a stunned “ooh,” is Aminé. On the right, Outkast’s André 3000.

Adam Daniel used to have dreams—now he dreams. And his most compelling characteristic seems to be that he’s living out his fantasies in the public sphere. But dreams, by their nature, are not collaborative. They are personal. One dream lived is always another deferred. It’s been clear from the moment “Caroline” hit YouTube that the skinny, gap-toothed kid in the front was going to stay there. It’s still anybody’s guess whom he’ll take with him.

#amine #music blog #pdxhiphop

[mindofawriter22]

Who Run It

Who you think you ahead of ? Not us

Where the hell were you at when I needed you

Kicked when I was down, I can’t believe you

Now that I’m up, want me to feed you

But fuck allat, wtf I look like

Once you left me, don’t even look right

You pillow talk her, while we pillow fight

Dick put her to sleep, you kiss her goodnight

Young Nigha chasin that bread, don’t fuck wit the feds

Rumors about me, give a damn what they said

Fuck what you heard, flip em the bird

You know if I said it, I meant every word

Now you in yo feelings huh

Talm bout you want beef or sum

Gon pull up if you want to

You see what these hands gon do

You ain’t even on that, period

Two Ls under ya belt, I’m serious

That shit you was talkin on Snapchat

Just vanished away, now I’m curious

I always thought you was pussy

So I can’t trip off that, period

But I kill pussy on the regular

Bloody murder to the 3rd degree

These bitches don’t mean shit to me

Nah they can’t wife me, I’m still a G

They fuck wit me so heavily

And I ain’t got no honey to give the bee

Who you think you foolin wit that line

Wanna be mine all of a sudden, I’m curious

Better take that shit on somewhere, ain’t havin no affair

You know wifey be furious

Dive in that pussy, that shit be water

Get a workout in, feelin dipped in a sauna

If I fuck this up, I’d be a fool

That’s like 10 years wasted of school

Loyalty is all I know, you got my heart like always

My love ain’t goin no where, because you know you my bae

We together, the perfect match just like Tinder

Took a man’s lost treasure & found myself a winner

Love my bitch, she mean the world to me

Why the fuck she still got insecurities

“Chris I know you still got hoes”

Then why the hell is yo ass still wit me

Got too much to lose, don’t you agree

We may disagree, trying to agree

Left my phone unlocked, so you could see

Ain’t shit to hide, so you can seek

And you know me for not givin a fuck

I’m the one that ain’t gotta filter

I’m the one that always keep it a hunnid

Then how the fuck they think I’m so heartless

Why they gotta do that?

Middle of Summer, in South Carolina

Myrtle Beach, sippin Piña Colada

Told Nighas I ain’t fuck they baby mama

It ain’t happen with Tonya or Rhonda

I was somewhere eatin Red Lobster

Get a box of shrimp with a to-go beverage

All my life I ain’t had no leverage

Stayed on the grind, now shit is better

My hustle keep gettin better

Cause imma lil workaholic

Hit the gym and put up hella shots

Imma just shoot til my arms tired

But I can’t stop, won’t stop

Nah keep goin til they cut the wire

You know I’m still ambitious

Just checked graduation off the wish list

Finna buy my own cap and gown

And some fresh Timbs to go wit the fit

Walk across stage, you know I’m lit

Dancin’, turnt up, I deserve this shit

Mama told me keep ya faith in God

Can’t lie, sometimes it got hard

I survived through it all from the start

Finished school, did it with my heart

Now I’m good, now I’m great

Young Nigha graduate

Nighas hatin’ on me, like “you late”

Success got an expiration date?

Nigha I waited years for this

Really, Nigha cried tears for this

What about they said I couldn’t do it

Jokes on you, got the diploma to prove it