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puckyess · 3 years

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You won’t regret it | Pat Moynihan

Words: 8k

“Ten” your friend, Kat says with a smirk on her face.

You vaguely register that her remark is directed at you. “What?”

“That’s the tenth time you’ve locked eyes with Moyni” she says, now nodding over to where he was still watching your group, more specifically, you.

There was a smile on his face and he was still talking to the couple of guys around him, but his eyes never left you. Every time you glanced in his direction that night they had always been on you. But neither of you made a move toward each other. You just continued to share curious looks from opposite ends of the room.

“That is so not true”, you say lamely, turning your attention back to your friend.

Of course she calls you out, claiming that the first time was when you guys had first walked in the door, the second when you were in the kitchen with Mike, then out on the balcony, when Tyce came up and hugged you. She trailed off but she had made her point clear.

You roll your eyes, “Fine, I'll go say hi, but that's it” you tell her. The grin on her face was enough to say she was appeased by your answer, even if it was reluctant.

Taking in a steadying breath and an equally big gulp of your drink, you turn around only to find the boy you were looking for no longer there. A frown settled in your features, a tap on the shoulder has you spinning the other way.

“Hi, I’m Pat” he says, holding his hand out to you.

You look down at his hand with an eyebrow quarked and a hint of a smirk plays at the corner of your mouth. But you extend your own hand nonetheless and it earns a bright smile from him. His hand is warm and as cliche as it sounds, your hand fits perfectly in his. He shakes it up and down and the whole scene makes you giggle.

“You’re laughing at me, what’s so funny” he asks, still not letting go of your hand.

His smile lets you know he’s just teasing and you already feel so comfortable with him. “I’ve just never shaken someone’s hand in the middle of a party” you say motioning to where your hands are still connected.

It’s hard to tell with the glow of the multicolored lights but you swear you see him blush as he releases your hand with a little squeeze. He plays it well, “Well now you have, I’m honored to be your first” he says. and now it’s your turn to blush.

Normally this is where you’d go to look away but something about the way he says it, with a hint of insinuation, a challenge to see if you’ll comment that has you maintaining eye contact as you take a sip of your drink. Who was this guy and how did he manage to have your stomach in knots and make you feel at ease all at the same time?

He asks for your name then and it takes you a second to realize that you haven’t known this man for more than 10 minutes because it feels like you’re already good friends.

“Y/N” you tell him, extending your hand to him with a smirk. He picks up on you mirroring his action from moments ago and tips his head back in an easy laugh that you join him in. You wouldn’t mind hearing that sound more often.

Just as your hands connect once again, one of his teammates barrels over and throws an arm around his shoulders. “Moyni! There you are! We’ve been looking for you” he calls over the noise of the room and based on the eye roll from Pat and the shit eating grin on his buddy’s face, you would guess that his friends knew exactly where he was.

“I’ve been gone for what, all of 5 minutes? Can you guys not handle being alone that long?”

The boy holds his arms up in defense, “Hey don't shoot the messenger, Tyce sent me. You guys are up next”. Pat glances back to where his teammate is waiting at the pong table with a smirk and gives you an apologetic smile.

“It was nice meeting you, Y/N. I’ll see you around” he calls as he’s pulled away. The wink he shoots you over his shoulder replays in your mind as you lay in bed that night.

The next few days pass by pretty uneventful, until Wednesday that is. You’re eating dinner with your roommate, Kat when your phone lights up on the table. You have this thing with your friends where if you’re out to dinner, phone’s stay in the middle of the table so that you can all enjoy the present with each other.

You ignore it, listening to Kat tell you about the plans for that weekend. When it lights up again, you give it a look but your will power holds steady and you continue to listen to your friend. When it lights up a third time though Kat pauses and gives you a look. “Who is that?”

Her guess is as good as yours though. The person who normally would be blowing up your phone is sitting across from you. “I don't know” you say honestly.

She rolls her eyes, making a move for your phone and her face lights up when she reads through the notifications. She hums, “It seems a certain Mr. Moynihan has taken an interest in you”

At the sound of his name your hand shoots out to snatch the phone from her, quickly scanning the screen.

3m ago Twitter: @pmoynihan19 has followed you

2m ago Instagram: @patrickmoynihan_ has requested to follow you

2m ago Instagram: @patrickmoynihan_ wants to send you a message

“The boy works fast” your friend chirps, a smug smile on her face.

You somehow manage to hear her over the sound of your heart beating in your ears. “It’s been four days, I'd hardly call that fast” you say as you swipe up to unlock your phone.

“What’re you doing?” Kat asks, narrowing her eyes.

The alarm in her voice makes your thumb hover over the twitter app. “I’m following him back?”

She grabs your phone again and you know it’s no use to try and get it back so you sit back in your seat with your arms crossed, waiting for her explanation.

“You can't follow him back right away, are you crazy?”

You raise an eyebrow at her, “and why not? You said it yourself, he’s clearly interested. And if I remember correctly, you were the one who was excited for me 30 seconds ago”.

“Well that was before I knew this was the first time he was making contact with you since the party! You said it yourself, four days is hardly fast. Make him wait a day or two before you follow him back” she says, throwing your words back at you.

You think about what she said and while you hated to play games, you did have to say she had a pretty good track record with these kinds of things. Or at least more experience in this area than you did.

“You know I'm right,” she quips, knowing you’re mulling over her words.

“Fine,” you say finally, “I'll wait one day. But that’s it”.

“You’ll thank me later” she smirks over her wine glass.

“You don't even like Chipotle” you muttered to yourself as you pulled into their parking lot. You were one of the few people who was not a Chipotle fiend but for some reason you had been craving it all day long. And after the day you had been having you made the logical decision to not cook tonight.

Unfortunately, your boss had kept you a little longer after work and you hadn’t been able to beat the dinner rush like you had hoped you would. You let out a sigh, taking your place in line alongside the slew of college kids looking for their fix. With the line moving unbelievably slow, you pull out your phone and answer a few texts and then aimlessly catch up on social media.

“Burrito or Bowl?” the worker asks you and you tuck your phone away, reciting your order.

When it comes time to pay you go to hand him your card but he shakes his head, “You’re all set” he says, sliding your bowl across the counter. “Moyni already paid for you”.

You look down at the shiny silver lid and there’s a simple message scrawled on the lid “hi Y/N :) - Pat”.

Your card is still in the air and your jaw is practically on the floor. “How…”

“He’s over there,” he says motioning over to a table. Your eyes follow and soon you’re walking over toward a table full of hockey players.

When he spots you his face lights up and he removes himself from the group. “I shouldn’t have bought your Chipotle” he tells you and your smile falls. Was this some kind of joke?

“What?”

“I'm mad at you ya know” he continues, but he wears a smile that says otherwise.

He gives you a little nudge with his arm, hands in his pockets. “I followed your socials, why didn’t you follow me back? Did you see my message too?” he asks, completely calling you out.

You can hear some of the guys snickering and you can't tell if it’s for your benefit or his, but it makes you extremely aware of your current situation. Curse your friend for getting you into this, if you had just followed him back last night this wouldn't be happening.

Lie and deny chants the little devil sitting on your shoulder. “I haven't been on social media lately” you offer lamely.

“That’s a lie, you were just on instagram” he states, his smile growing wider. He was clearly enjoying watching you squirm.

Your face starts to flush, getting caught in your own lie. “How do you know?”

He reaches up and taps the side of his glasses with his finger, which you have to say make him look even more attractive if that was possible.

You tip your head back and groan. You were still wearing your bluelight glasses from work. You wore them so often these days that you forgot you were wearing them at all. “You can see the reflection huh?”

His smile is softer now as he nods. “I could see you scrolling from a mile away and still not following me back” he tsks.

“I was advised not to,” you tell him honestly, throwing your friend under the bus.

“By who? It was Kat wasn't it? I'm going to have to have a word with her'' he teases.

“You and me both” you mumble.

He laughs and you’re relieved that he’s not mad or annoyed at your foolishness.

“I was hoping the Chipotle might persuade you,” he jokes.

“Thank you for this” you say, motioning to the bowl in your hand, “I really needed this today”.

A hint of color dusts his cheeks and then they lift into yet another warm smile as he says, “of course. I’ll let you go eat it while it’s still warm”.

You send one last thank you his way and then reluctantly walk away.

“Remember to follow me back, Y/N! You won't regret it!” he calls after you as you walk out the door.

Your friend was going to hear it for this one.

Pat’s words echo in your ears as you get ready for bed that night. “You wont’ regret it”. A cute, friendly, easy going hockey player; he had “regret” written all over him. But there was also something else there, something that made you feel excited and comfortable to be yourself. And that’s what had you throwing caution to the wind when you hit the follow button on twitter and then again on instagram.

You chewed on your lip as you opened his DM and chuckled at his message. It was simple, yet effective.

Hi, I’m Pat

🤝

You type out an equally short response.

Y/N

🤝

The bubbles pop up immediately.

It took you long enough

You shook your head as you read it, the boy was honest you had to give him that. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t throw a little sarcasm in there, chirping his incredibly fast response was a good start.

I could say the same to you

The bubbles pop up again and then disappear and you hope that he catches your sarcasm and doesn't just think you’re being rude.

I could reply slower if that’s really what you want…

You hate that you can hear him saying it, were you really falling this fast?

Not at all.

Yes, yes you were.

You lean against the counter with your mug, letting the warm steam fan your face. “Alright, why are you looking at me like that?” you ask Kat finally.

“Well I was going to say someone’s in an awfully good mood today, but I take it back. You do realize today is Friday right?”

You ignore her comment, but answer her question. “I do, I called off today”.

“And why is that?” she asks. She gets a weird smile on her face like she knows something you don’t and you don’t like it.

You narrow your eyes on her suspiciously. “What’s going on? Do you have something you need to tell me?”

She jumps off the couch, excited all of a sudden. “Do YOU have something you need to tell ME?”

“What? No! Seriously what’s up?”

She practically explodes then. “Were you with Moyni last night?”

You flush at the mere thought of that. No you weren’t with him in the sense that she meant, but had you spent the wee hours of the night talking to him? Maybe.

She catches it and screeches. “I knew it! I told Tyce this morning and he didn’t believe me-”

You cut her off in the middle of her excited rant, “Wait, you what?”

She takes a breath then and backtracks, still pacing around the apartment. “I was facetiming Tyce this morning and Moyni walked in all smiley asking for something and T chirped him asking how he was in such a good mood when he was up so late last night and asked who he was talking to. And boy did he blush like you just did”, she was down right gleeful telling the story.

“Anyway, Moyni tried to deny it, but Tyce was like ‘no dude I could hear you talking through the wall so who was it’. And he wouldn't say. And that’s when I was like wait, I didn’t hear you leave for work today and you never miss so you had to have had a long night and so I told Tyce I bet she was over there last night and now you’re all bright eyed and bushy tailed, like glowing actually and that only comes from one thing…”

By the time she finished her storytelling you were feeding off her energy. “Ok that is so NOT what happened” you laugh at the disappointed look on her face, “But. He DID ask me to come to his game tonight”. You try to act casual but the minute she lets out a squeal, you do too. You can’t believe you had become one of those girls, but you were just so damn happy.

“What?! When?! How?! Ok, rewind, spill!” She finally settles herself on the couch, somewhat patiently waiting for you to dish out the details of last night.

Between the lack of sleep and the adrenaline coursing through your veins all night, your nerves were shot. Pat and Tyce had managed to get yours and Kat’s seats not only next to each other, but with the best of views of both the ice and them. Watching warmups was fun, seeing the guys interact and show off a bit for your own personal entertainment.

The game delivered too. The goofiness, relaxed form the guys had taken during warmups was gone as their competitive sides came out and they battled for the win. Having someone to cheer for on the ice and your best friend by your side made it that much better. You even caught Pat glance up into your section once or twice and you could see that smile even through his cage.

In all it was the perfect night but this side, well you’ve never done this side of it before. You’ve never been on the side that waits for a player after the game. You’ve never been part of that group.

You stood next to Kat as she easily mingled with some of the girls and players that had formed a group near you. You only really knew Tyce and Parker and neither of them were part of the circle.

Groups had never really been your thing, you were more of a listener than someone who could handle the spotlight. You were often talked over or couldn’t really get your words out the way you wanted to so you kept quiet. In your usual friend group it was fine, you still felt part of the group, but tonight not so much.

Everyone around you seemed to know each other and had no problem interacting. You watch as the conversation bounces from person to person until you almost zone out.

That all changes when Pat makes his way into the group. He seems to be looking for someone, maybe even you but your small frame is hidden behind the wall of guys. You catch the warm smile he throws at you across the group of people engaged in conversation and asks if you saw his goal, a moment that you did in fact see and you respond without hesitation.

It’s like he flips a switch in you. You’re no longer uncomfortable on the outskirts with his attention on you. It’s as if there’s not a whole conversation going on around you with the way he talks to you, singling you out in the best way.

He nods his head to the side, motioning for you to follow him. “This is better, it’s quieter and you looked like you could use a break” he jokes once you’ve moved away from the noise of the group.

You grimace at whatever must’ve given you away. “I looked that bad huh?” you tease him.

He doesn't comment, just shrugs. “Don’t get me wrong, I love being around everyone and the energy is great but I also know that sometimes after a whole night of being wound up it can be nice to step away for a bit”

His response surprises you, you weren’t expecting something so honest and sentimental. “Thank you for that. It was a pretty crazy night. Fun, but crazy!”

At that he grins. “The boys were pretty chippy tonight yeah? There’s a little extra bite there when we play BC”.

“I could tell, you were really running your mouth out there”

He laughs, “I was doing no such thing”

“So all that pushing and shoving happened for no reason? You were such an instigator, not saying it’s a bad thing but you should own up”

“Yeah Moyni, own up” Tyce says siddling up next to him.

Pat just shakes his head. “Butt out Tycer you don't even know what we’re talking about”.

“Well of course I don't, how could I when you two wandered off to have your own little conversation” he points out with a smirk.

Pat catches you rolling your eyes at him and starts to laugh. “Relax, Y/N here was just telling me what a loud mouth I have and now she knows I get it from my roommate” he says, throwing an arm around you and pulling you into him, “Isn’t that right Y/N?”

You were very aware of the weight of his arm on your shoulders as well as the heat of his still warm body with yours turned into him. It didn't help the warmth that was spreading across your face nor did the sly smiles from both of your roommates.

“Those weren't my exact words, Pat” you said poking his side.

The movement of him reacting to your little jab has him pulling you further into him to where you have to put a hand on his chest to keep from completely falling into him. You can feel his heart beating surprisingly fast and you look up at him.

He gives you a soft smile and the whole moment is ruined by Tyce making gagging sounds and Kat hitting him. “Ow! What was that for?” he asks obliviously.

She rolls her eyes. “You are such an ass sometimes, Tyce. Let the kids have their moment, come on”. She turns to you and Pat, “You’ll have to excuse my child of a boyfriend” she says glaring at Tyce and pulling him away from you two.

Pat laughs it off, “Well then… What do you say to doing this all over tomorrow for game 2?”

“Hmmm. I think I can swing that”

“You won’t regret it,” he says, giving you a squeeze.

Somehow Pat managed to weasel his way into different parts of your life. What started as showing up to his games turned into hanging out after, going out to party on Saturday turned into nights in, homework sessions turned into brunch dates. You hung out whenever your schedules allowed but less that, there was no contact in between. It left you feeling confused until you were with him again and then you forgot all about it.

“Are you home yet?”

“No, Pat, for the tenth time; I’m on my way home from the gym. You’re a country away from me right now, why do you care when I’m home? Aren’t you supposed to be playing hockey or something?” you tease him, wedging the phone between your shoulder and the side of your face.

“I thought you went to the gym right after work on Wednesdays? It’s like 7 o'clock there now isn't it?” he asks confused.

You chuckle into the phone as you get out of the car and grab your bag. “Should I be worried you know my schedule?”

“You always make me wait after practice to get food with you after your workout on Wednesdays, thank you very much. That’s how I know your schedule. You’re also just a very predictable human” he chirps you right back.

“Stop rolling your eyes at me” he says almost as if on cue.

“Like I said, a country away and you’re still a pain in my ass, Pat” and just like he could see you rolling your eyes at him, he can see your smile too.

“I actually do have to go to practice, there’s something waiting for you when you get home!” he rushes and then hangs up without even giving you the chance to say goodbye.

You sigh as you unlock your door. You really did miss him and you really needed to get a grip. He had been gone less than a week and you were already moping...moping over someone who wasn’t even yours to mope over.

“You want to tell me how you manage to have someone so wrapped around your finger from thousands of miles away?” Kat’s voice makes you jump as she walks into the kitchen with you.

“What?” you ask her confused.

There’s a grin on her face as she nods to the island where there’s a Chick-fil-a bag and a card waiting for you.

“Ohmygod, he didn’t”

“Ohhh, but he did! Now open it, you’re lucky I haven’t read it already”. She’s almost more excited than you are.

You were trying to not get worked up over what the little note could possibly say, but it was hard not to when he had clearly been excited about it all day- and made a point to ask you about it multiple times that day.

“Hi, Y/N, you’re halfway there! Have some nugs for me and remember...treat yo self! I’ll see you soon. - Yours, Pat”

You’re smiling like an idiot as you read the words, his words over and over.

“What does it say? You know what, just give it to me” she says, snatching the small piece of paper from you.

“Awhhhh what does it mean? Halfway to what?”

You couldn’t get rid of the grin on your face if you tried. “Halfway through the week. Pat and I always get dinner after his practice and my workout on Wednesdays to celebrate.”

“Well shit, where’s my Moyni? I’m going to have to train Tyce better. What about the ‘treat yo self’? Is that an inside joke too?”

You shake your head remembering the first time it came up. “He asked me where I wanted to go and for once I was actually able to make a decision and I chose Chic-fil-a because I was craving it. He gave me a hard time about choosing fried chicken right after I had worked out and I waved a nugget in his face before popping it in my mouth and saying I earned it and was going to treat myself. It’s dumb…” you trail off.

“It’s not dumb if it makes you smile like that. I’m just mad he didn’t send any for me”.

“How did he get it here if you didn’t pick it up?”

“He sent Tyce over with the bag and card before you got here” she answers.

“It sounds like it’s Tyce you should be mad at” you point out.

She agrees and runs off to her room to reprimand him.

You sit down with your bag and note and take a selfie to send him. I’m one happy girl. The only thing missing is you.

After you send it, you wonder if maybe it’s too much and then you remember that he arranged for his teammate to deliver you chicken nuggets and a handwritten note simply because it was your Wednesday tradition and you feel like it was just right.

Pat’s giddy mood carries into practice and overflows once he gets back to the locker room and checks his phone for any indication that you had gotten his surprise. He had told Tyce to drop it off and was going to kill him if he didn’t follow through.

When your smiling face holding up both the red and white bag and the little note fills his screen, he can’t help but match your grin.

I’m one happy girl. The only thing missing is you.

- The nuggets are my replacement! At least they can’t chirp you for ruining your workout (;

Haha I would take a few chirps to have you sitting across from me.

- We both know you wouldn’t be able to handle that 😅

Ummm false. But thank you! Tyce is a good messenger

- You didn’t think just because I was in a different country I’d forget about our Wednesday tradition, now did you?

Never.

“What’s got you smiling at your phone like that, Moyni? Could it be your….girlfriend?” Trevor shouts extra loud, making sure the locker room hears him, earning some chuckles and shouts from the guys.

Pat doesn’t embarrass easily, he just rolls his eyes at his teammate. “Don’t have a girlfriend, Z”

The couple guys around him laugh at his denial and Trevor steps in front of him, stomping his foot with his hands on his hips. “Give me the phone, Moyni”

Pat stops untying his skates and looks up to see a very sassy Trevor Zegras waiting on his demand. “Hand it over, Mister Moynihan”.

Pat shakes his head, but hands over his phone. He knew Trevor was immature enough to not let up and honestly he wasn’t ashamed of anything that was said.

Surprisingly he doesn’t broadcast the messages to the locker room like Pat was sure he would. Instead, it was a lot of mumbling as he read through what had his buddy all keyed up.

“Mhmm”

“Yup”

“I see”

Finally he handed the phone back to Pat and clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, buddy. I’m afraid you are one sick puppy”.

Trevor was known for saying things that just didn’t make sense and this definitely made the list. “Dude what? That’s what you got from my messages? Were you looking at the right thing?”

“Yup. One love sick puppy” is all he quips before walking away

You had been on pins and needles all day and you knew exactly why- the World Juniors final roster was supposed to be announced anytime now.

You knew in your heart that Pat would make the team but it would make you both feel a helluva lot better if you could see it in writing, this year especially. Not only had he not made it last year but you swore every other day you saw someone was getting sent home because of the virus. It didn’t make dealing with the waiting process any easier.

In the few texts and facetimes Pat had been able to squeeze in since camp started, you both carried positive energy but you could tell he was holding back. He would light up when he talked about the guys and odd little activities they were required to participate in like superlative voting and bob ross painting nights. You knew he was having a blast being back with his old buddies, especially after all of the quarantine and protocols they had to go through.

There was something else there though whenever you brought up how he was doing personally. Pat was a positive guy, the glue guy of the locker room. He liked to keep things lighthearted and loved to make everyone around him smile. So when his own smile doesn't quite reach his eyes you know something is up.

“You’re holding out on me, Pat. What’s up?”

“Nothing’s up, I just missed you”.

“I know what you’re trying to do here, but telling me you miss me is not going to distract me from the fact that you keep dancing around my question,” you try to give him a little grin but the way he’s acting makes you worry.

“Do you know when the roster comes out?”

He lets out a sigh and rolls over from his back to his stomach, hugging the pillow and propping the camera up again. His hair is adorably messed up and his glasses make him look incredibly soft and boyfriend like. You almost forget you even asked him anything as you memorize him through the screen until his voice cracks through the silence.

“I don’t know if I want to know when it comes out” he admits.

His answer confuses you. “Why would you not want to know?”

“Because then this all could come to an end and I don't want it to end”.

Your eyebrows furrow and you frown at him. “What do you mean, Pat? All of what and why is it ending?”

“This”, he says motioning with his arm, as if that’s supposed to help you. “Camp, the guys, this team. I don’t want it to be over”.

Your expression softens when you finally realize what he was talking about and it breaks your heart.

“Pat”.

“What if I don’t make it again this year, Y/N?” he asks quietly, almost as if he’s afraid if he says it too loud it might come true.

“Come on, Pat, you know that’s not going to happen. You’re going to make the team.” You don’t know how you can convince him to not doubt himself because if you were being honest, you had thought he was a lock to make it last year, before you even knew him, and he had been cut.

As if hearing your thoughts he says, “yeah, but I thought I would make it last year too and that backfired and there’s even better players here this year”

“Where is the confident guy that stuck his hand out in the middle of a party to introduce himself? The guy that has a smile or a smirk on his face 100% of the time? I miss him. You’re allowed to have doubts and worries, but not on this. I won’t have it. You are going to make this team Patrick Moynihan, I believe in you bub”.

He’s silent for a moment too long and you think maybe you stepped over a line somewhere, but then that smile that you love so much makes an appearance.

“Wow, you’re going soft on me, Y/N”

You roll your eyes, but your grin matches his, “As much as I said I wanted to see that smirk of yours…”

At that he lets out a chuckle and your Pat is back. “Really though, thank you. You make a pretty good glue guy with that pep talk.”

“That’s what I’m here for. Now get to bed, Mister. You’ve got a big day tomorrow”.

Apparently your speech had worked because he says, “Call me tomorrow, you wont regret it”

Exactly 12 hours later you’re impatiently doing just that. “Come on, Pat, answer your damn phone”.

“Did you need something?” and even almost 3,000 miles away you can see the way the right side of his pulls up into a smirk that drives you crazy.

“Do you have something to tell me?” you drawl out, despite the burst of energy you had.

He hums in response. “Nope. Can’t think of anything”.

“Pat you made the team!” you practically scream into the phone, too excited to play his games. You chant it as you jump around your room, probably pissing off your downstairs neighbors to no end but you didn’t even care.

He laughs at how excited you are and you can hear how much lighter it sounds from last night.

It’s like he reads your mind because he says, “you’re going to royally piss off your neighbors if you keep jumping around like that”

“I don’t care, you made the damn team, Pat! I’m so happy for you, so proud of you. I hate that I can’t actually be there with you”. And it was true. You hadn’t noticed how strong your...whatever it was with Pat had grown, how close you two had become until he was gone. You hadn't even been apart from him for 2 weeks yet and yet you’re pretty sure you missed him the second you sent him off on his way to Michigan. And now that he made the team, you wouldn't see him for at least another month.

“I know, I wish you were here with me too. You’d love it here.”

You’re surprised at his admission, you had expected him to chirp you for being soft again but his comment was anything but and you have to pull yourself together because you absolutely cannot let him see you tear up or he would definitely deliver on that chirp.

“Well as much as I want to see you, I better not see you until next year”

He scrunches up his nose at that. “It sounds so long when you say it like that”. It almost sounds like he’s whining and for once you actually love the sound of it.

“You better bring me a souvenir too. I like gold in case you were wondering”.

“I’m sure you do”

“I can always ask Zegras” you tease.

“You’re lucky you’re a country away from me, Y/N” he threatens and you swear his voice is three levels deeper but you try to not let him see the way it’s affecting you.

“And what is it exactly that you’d do, Pat”

“You’ll see. You might want to take it back though, you’ll regret it if you don’t”. His words are a contrast to the ones he left you with last night, a promise and a threat all rolled into one.

Missing Pat made the anticipation for World Juniors that much better. The content that USA was pushing was something you looked forward to seeing everyday. You loved getting a glimpse into the guys Pat had history with and could see why he had formed such a bond with them.

The newest little piece of the team media was an interview from Landon Slaggert. With him being Pat’s roommate for the duration of their tournament, you had gotten to know him pretty well. He would usually pop into Pat’s facetimes and give him a hard time for a few minutes before giving him the room.

The interview was pretty standard, asking a little bit about his draft experience, the hurdles of the college season, college in general, but then it turned interesting.

“So what’s one thing you learned about your roommate, Patrick Moynihan, that you didn't know before having spent so much time with him in this setting?”

Slaggert gets a big grin on his face and now your interest is piqued.

“Well I knew him pretty well before since we were teammates in the NTDP program, uh but I probably figured out that he’s more of a girlfriend guy than he is a single guy. He likes having a girlfriend, so that’s one thing I learned about him”.

To say you were not expecting to hear that response was an understatement. Your jaw fell on the floor and your heart followed. Girlfriend guy? Who the hell was his girlfriend. You didn’t know whether to feel pissed or sad, but settled on hurt.

You shook your head at yourself and willed the tears welling in your eyes to go away. You should’ve known that after months of being with him and never actually being with him that he was never yours. This information shouldn’t even affect you, much less hurt you and yet it did.

The worst part was he hadn’t even told you about her. You thought you would at least give yourself credit as being an important person in his life, someone that you at least had shared almost everything with. And he hadn’t bothered to share this huge part of him with you. The more you thought about it, the more worked up you got.

It’s like he could sense he was in trouble because your phone lights up with his face. You’re in no state to talk to him, so you hit ignore. He was persistent you had to give him that as he gave it five more tries followed by a slew of text messages that ranged from “why are you ignoring me” to ok “im getting pissed”.

Hah. He was getting pissed, what did he have to be upset about. He finally gives it a rest even though part of you wishes he hadn't.

The words “you won't regret it” taunted you. You knew better and played with fire anyway.

“Damnit Pat'' you curse him as he stumbles and loses the puck. It seemed that every time the puck was anywhere near his stick tonight he’d turn it over. He wasn’t himself out there. He was trying to overcompensate in all the wrong places and it was noticeable.

With no fans in the stands you could hear him getting an earful when he hopped back over the boards. “Next shift Pat, next shift” you mumbled like he could hear you.

The period couldn’t end soon enough after back to back unanswered goals from Germany. You watched as the boys made a beeline for the locker room, one in particular making your heart squeeze as he hung his head.

As mixed up as you were about your emotions for him, he was still one of your closest friends and you knew he was blaming himself for the mistakes that had led to chances and goals. He was normally the guy to lift everyone up and keep them focused on the prize. You knew better than anyone how his energy affected a room. It was hard to see him like this, you only hoped he would find it in himself to get through the last period.

With your heart in your throat, you willed the third period to be better for him. It could have been worse but it still wasn't pretty. He was only in the box once but he didn't see the ice too much after that. You didn’t really blame the coach on that one with Pat playing more as a liability tonight than someone who could help them win the game. Regardless, you saw the way his shoulders slumped on the bench despite doing his best to congratulate his teammates.

Luckily USA ended up pulling out the win. As selfish as it was, you felt like you had something to do with the way Pat played tonight and you knew you needed to fix things with him. It was unfair for you to ignore someone who had no idea there were unsaid expectations.

When the phone rings more than the usual three it takes him to answer, you begin to worry.

“So now you want to talk to me? Save yourself the lecture, Y/N I'm not in the mood.”

You knew you deserved it, but it was the first time he was anything but nice to you and it made you flinch.

He sighs. “M’sorry, I’m just not having the best time lately” he apologies.

You can hear how tired he is and you would bet that he's running his hand through his hair and over his face.

“Does it have anything to do with the game?”

His end of the phone is silent. You knew he didn’t necessarily prefer to talk about losses even though they claimed his brain.

“I didn't think you’d watch the game”

“Well you must not know me then. I’d never miss one of your games”

“Even when you’re mad at me?”

“I’m not mad, Pat. Not at you anyway.”

“Well you could’ve fooled me. Who are you mad at then if it’s not me? Because you’ve been completely ignoring me and I don’t even know why. I don’t know how I’ve managed to piss you off 3000 miles away”

“I’m not mad at you, Pat! You’ve done nothing wrong. I’m mad at myself.”

His mood instantly shifts when he hears that. He’s always been such a good listener and shoulder for you to lean on.

“Why is that? What’s going on honey? Hang up the phone and Facetime me. I need to see you.”

Hearing the pet name makes your heart ache even more than it already does and makes you equally as confused. You have to pull the phone away from your ear just so that he doesn't hear your sharp intake of breath as you grasp for any kind of solid ground, your head spinning. Your phone begins to vibrate against your chest like it’s trying to soothe your heart.

“Hey, Y/N, look at me. Are you okay?”

For the first time since meeting him at that party months ago, you can't bring yourself to look at him.

Even without seeing his face you know his lips are turned down into a frown and his eyes are full of concern. The loaded question hangs in the air, waiting to tip the balance of your life and this relationship. How could you be okay when the person you felt the most for had someone else, someone he hadn't even bothered to tell you about.

“When were you going to tell me you had a girlfriend?” you ask him, trying to muster a smile for his benefit but there’s so much hurt in your voice and sadness in your eyes that there’s no use.

You expect him to play it off, act like he was going to tell you all along. What you don’t expect is for him to turn red and start scratching the back of his neck. And suddenly you have a very bad feeling. If he was acting like this, it must be more serious than you thought.

“What? What girlfriend would you be referring to now?”

He’s acting goofy and it’s not adding up. Your eyes narrow in on him through the screen. What was he up to?

“The girlfriend that was mentioned by your roommate in an interview? Are you seriously going to keep lying? It’s bad enough that you didn’t tell me about her in the first place”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, come again?” He still had that stupid look on his face like he was in on some big secret and it was really starting to aggravate you.

“The interview of Landon that USA posted. They asked him if he learned anything new about his roommate and the first thing he came up with was how you’re some big girlfriend guy, Pat. So cut the crap, who is she?” you deadpan.

He scoots closer to the camera, still with that smug look and says “He did what now?”

Apparently you had to spell it out for him. “Do you have a girlfriend or not, Pat? Why are you dancing around the question?”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend. Yet.” he tells you, rocking back in his chair.

Now you were more confused than ever. “What?”

“Unless you want to change that?” he pauses, waiting for you to connect the dots. “You see, I’ve been waiting and waiting on this girl to finally give me a chance but I couldn’t tell if she was interested in me. Until now, when she’s 3000 miles away from me and is pissed over a comment Slaggs made in an interview about a girlfriend that I don’t even have.”

You knew he was saying words and all the right ones too, but you just couldn’t comprehend what he was actually saying. So you echo the only word your brain seemed to know, “What?”

“It’s you, Y/N! You’re the girl.” he laughs.

“But….since when? When did you know?”

“Since the night I shook your hand at that party. All the guys knew I had the biggest thing for you, they’ve been giving me a hard time for not making a move.”

“That was the first night we officially met” You said finally putting it all together, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t know how you felt and we were good friends, I didn’t want to mess that up” he shrugs like it’s no big deal.

You sit back in your own seat now and take in all that he’s revealed in the last few minutes. This much you could understand because it’s exactly why you hadn’t said anything yourself.

“So Slaggs outed your secret huh” you tease him and he’s relieved to see a smile finally grace your face.

“I really didn't know about the interview, but I guess I’m going to have to thank him for that later”

You raise your eyebrow at him and even in another country he can see the troublemaker gleam to your eyes. “Thank him? You think this ends well for you, bud?”

He looks way too smug for your liking, “Of course it does, I’ve finally got the girl of my dreams and I’m on my way to a gold medal”

“And what makes you so sure that I’m yours”

“Just say yes, Y/N. You won’t regret it”.

#pat moynihan #trevor zegras #providence college

161 notes · View notes

my-major-is-k-howard · 3 years

Text

Screaming Color

Happy New Year, everyone!! I thought I’d start 2021 off right with my last Parrlyn soulmate AU one shot. Thank you all for getting me through 2020. I appreciate and love all of you and hope that this year is a WAY better year for you. You deserve it! And as always, I hope you enjoy this one shot!! 💙💚

Word Count: 4388

———————————————————————

Anne shifted impatiently on her bed as she watched Kat closely observe each color on her eye shadow palette, indecisive on which one she should apply to her restless subject.

“Kat, I don’t have all day,” Anne complained as she looked down to Kat’s palette. To Anne, they were just a mix of lighter greys and darker greys, a sign that she still had yet to find her soulmate.

Anne thought briefly about the moment she would meet her soulmate and her monochromatic world would slowly turn into one of color. She longed to experience the wonderful sight of color that Kat had tried describing to her. Despite her best efforts, Anne still struggled to imagine what color was actually like. Though, Kat’s overt excitement while explaining the different shades and sights made Anne bubble with anticipation at the thought of sharing that first colored glance with her soulmate.

“We’re going to brunch with Anna,” Kat muttered absentmindedly. “We could literally have all day, if we wanted.”

“But you always spend so much time picking colors!” Anne whined as Kat finally picked one of the lighter greys to apply.

“I want to make sure those green eyes of yours pop if you happen to meet your soulmate today,” Kat replied as she began working on Anne’s makeup.

Anne paused for a moment to think about what Kat had said. “What is green like?” Anne asked dreamily after a few moments. She had asked this question countless times before but she never got tired of Kat’s answer.

“Green is like a gentle stroll in the park, surrounded by nature. It’s peaceful and quiet, like the feeling you get when someone truly knows you,” Kat answered as she moved from Anne’s left eye to her right. “At least, that’s what I think of when I see green. It reminds me of you. Because your eyes are the prettiest shade of green I’ve ever seen.”

“You and Anna are so lucky,” Anne whispered. “You met each other in elementary school. And I’m stuck here wondering if I’ll ever meet my soulmate.” Anne sighed despondently at the thought.

“You will, Anne!” Kat exclaimed. “And they’ll be the most amazing person ever!”

“I hope so,” Anne responded, silently dreaming about her soulmate as Kat finished doing her makeup.

~~~

Cathy grunted quietly to herself as she heard the front door of her apartment swing open. The two voices chattering to each other cut through Cathy’s concentration, causing her to stop halfway through writing her sentence. She set down her pen with a huff as she threw her head back in frustration.

This had become Cathy’s new normal, much to her distaste. After her roommate Catalina had found her soulmate early last month, the two lovebirds had become practically inseparable. They had spent the majority of their time together, enjoying the new sights and sensations that came as new soulmates bonded. And, all the while, Cathy had never felt more alone in the world.

Of course, Cathy felt guilty about her emotions but she couldn’t help feeling irritated when she saw Catalina with Jane. Cathy was sure Jane was a lovely woman but it stung when she remembered that she had been completely replaced by her.

It used to be Cathy that Catalina would sit and watch movies with. It used to be Cathy that Catalina would tell all of her thoughts to. It used to be Cathy that Catalina would want to spend time with. Now, Cathy had been reduced to a passing shadow in the background of Catalina’s life.

Cathy shook her head to clear her mind of those depressing thoughts. She shouldn’t be blaming Catalina for how lonely she felt. Deep down, Cathy knew she was just longing to have a connection with someone like Catalina had with Jane. She wanted to spend an endless amount of hours talking and laughing with someone that gave her butterflies. She wanted to experience color for the first time with her special someone and watch as her greyscale world slowly came to life. She wanted to find her soulmate.

The sound of giggles broke Cathy out of her thoughts, as she looked down at her journal with a sad expression. She wouldn’t be able to focus enough to write with all of the background noise coming from the living room. So instead, Cathy decided to leave the apartment altogether and head to her happy place: the library.

In a hurry, Cathy threw on her favorite hoodie before grabbing her phone and keys off her desk. She hoped that she would be able to get past the living room and out the front door without any awkward conversations.

Of course, luck was never on her side. A few paces before Cathy reached the door, Catalina noticed her. “Hey Cathy! Where are you going?”

“The library,” Cathy grunted as she reluctantly turned to face the couple that was cuddled up on the couch. Cathy did her best to refrain from wincing visibly at the sight.

“Hey!” Jane’s sickenly sweet tone made Cathy narrow her eyes skeptically. “I like your jacket!”

“Yeah! It’s blue,” Catalina said excitedly, which only added insult to injury. It was bad enough that Catalina had seemingly forgotten about Cathy in the past month but jabbing at her inability to see colors yet was a step too far.

“You know I can’t see color, Catalina!” Cathy finally snapped. “But thanks for rubbing it in my face that you can!”

“Cathy, I didn’t mean it like-” Catalina’s frantic response was cut off by Cathy slamming the door on her way out of the apartment. As she walked down the stairs, Cathy was overcome by guilt for acting out of anger and lashing out at Catalina. She almost turned back to apologize but decided against it, knowing it would be best for each of them to have their own space for a while before talking it out.

With that reasoning in mind, Cathy exited the building and rushed off to the library, hoping to find some solace among the endless shelves of books. Even if her sight was in black-and-white, she could always paint a vibrant picture in her head of the stories held within the bindings of a good book.

~~~

Anne turned off her motorcycle as she pulled into one of the spots in front of their favorite restaurant. She looked around the outdoor seating to see if Anna had arrived before them. Much to her surprise, she found Kat’s soulmate sitting at one of the tables with a menu in her hands.

“She’s actually on time for once,” Anne mused as she took off her helmet and slid off her motorcycle.

“I told her that she would make me sad if she turned our brunch into a lunch again,” Kat piped up from beside Anne as they approached the table.

“Did you give her your puppy dog eyes?” Anne asked and received a devilish smile in return.

“You bet I did!” Kat answered as Anne laughed and nudged her cousin’s shoulder affectionately.

“I taught you well,” Anne responded, winking at Kat with a smile on her face. “I’m so proud of your progress.”

Kat giggled before walking up behind Anna’s chair and covering her soulmate’s eyes with her hands. “Guess who it is!”

Anna paused for a moment, pretending to be deep in thought. “I think it might be my beautiful soulmate who also has extremely soft hands. Or her obnoxiously loud cousin.”

“Rude!” Anne scoffed jokingly at the last comment directed at her as she took a seat in the chair across from Anna.

“It’s me!” Kat exclaimed excitedly as she popped her head next to Anna’s. In turn, Anna smiled at her lovingly before pressing a quick kiss to her lips.

Anne watched the small exchange with a longing expression on her face. She couldn’t be more happy that her cousin had a perfect soulmate. It seemed like they were made for each other and Anne knew for a fact that nobody made Kat happier than Anna did.

Yet, seeing her interact with Anna made her heart drop slightly in her chest. Anne longed to share small moments like the one she had just witnessed with her own soulmate. She wanted to hug and kiss them, cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie together, and even invite them to brunch with Kat and Anna so that Anne would finally feel less alone. More than anything, she wanted to find her soulmate.

“Earth to Anne!” Anna’s exclamation snapped Anne suddenly out of her thoughts.

“Sorry! I got distracted,” Anne mumbled out as an apology.

“No worries! We were wondering if you were ready to order,” Kat chimed in.

Anne briefly looked down at the menu in front of her before nodding her head. She practically had the thing memorized after so many visits to this spot. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Not long after, the trio ordered their food and settled into casual conversation. They talked and laughed together until their waitress set down their plates and they began eating in silence.

After a few minutes of quiet, Kat piped up and said, “Anne, I can’t wait until you meet your soulmate!”

“What… what makes you say that?” Anne asked, caught off guard by Kat’s sudden confession.

“She wants you to start doing your own makeup,” Anna joked before Kat smacked her lightly on the arm. “Ow!”

“No, I love doing your makeup!” Kat exclaimed. “But brunch would be so much better if there were four of us.” Kat gestured to the empty chair in front of her, the perfect place for Anne’s soulmate to sit. Anne turned to look at the chair with a small smile on her face, imagining a near future where she could hold hands with her soulmate under the table as they ate brunch with Kat and Anna.

Anne was about to respond when something in the crowded sidewalk caught her eye. Her attention shifted completely away from her brunchmates as she turned to get a better look at what it was. She gawked as she saw the sight of a pretty woman rushing past their table, wearing something… colorful.

Anne suddenly pushed back her chair and stood up, turning around as she watched her soulmate run further down the street. “T-that was…” Anne stuttered as she turned back to Kat and Anna, who each had wide grins on their faces. “... color.”

“Go get ‘em!” Kat cheered and motioned for Anne to leave. Anne smiled back at her before quickly taking off in the direction her soulmate had gone.

After a moment of stunned silence, Anna spoke up. “I think you just summoned her soulmate, Kat.”

“Yes. I did,” Kat replied and lifted her head in pride. “I take full credit.”

“Do you think Anne is going to finish that?” Anna asked and gestured to her half-eaten plate of food.

“Probably not,” Kat answered and watched as Anna scooped the leftover food onto her own plate. She looked back up in the direction her cousin had gone in pursuit of her soulmate before continuing. “I doubt she'll be back any time soon.”

~~~

Cathy pushed open the library door with a huff before a sudden calm washed over her. The library atmosphere instantly soothed Cathy’s temperament as it brought back the many good memories she had made while reading her favorite classics.

Before Cathy could think about where she was going, her feet led her to the shelves holding the literary classics out of habit. As she browsed the different titles in search of a new one to read, Cathy felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulled it out and sighed when she saw several messages from Catalina asking where she was and apologizing profusely for her earlier behavior.

Cathy quickly grabbed a random book from the shelf before walking over to the seating area and picking a spot to sit away from the others who were reading. As she sat down, she slid the book on the table and began messaging Catalina, letting her know that she was at the library and also apologized for her sudden outburst. Cathy knew that they would still have to talk about why it had happened but for now it was nice to simply be forgiven.

After letting Catalina know she would be home in a few hours, Cathy slid her phone back in her pocket and turned to see which book she had grabbed from the shelf. A scowl passed over Cathy’s face as she let out a frustrated sigh. Sitting on the table was a hardback copy of “Romeo and Juliet,” one Cathy’s least favorite books.

The title seemed to mock Cathy, reminding her of the soulmate she still had yet to find. The first time Cathy read the book, she had been enamored by the love that Romeo and Juliet had for each other until she realized how disastrous their choices turned out to be for themselves and their families. Their love had been selfish and brash, a complete opposite of what Cathy hoped for herself and her future soulmate.

With those thoughts swirling in her head, Cathy slid the book away from her and resolved to find a new one when a voice spoke up beside her. “I’m not much of a fan of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ either.”

“Finally someone agrees! I think it’s a terrible portrayal of love for teens to read, especially when considering how much society has evolved since Shakespeare’s time and-” Cathy’s flow of words suddenly stopped as she turned to look at the person standing beside her chair. Her breath caught in her throat and for the first time in her life, Cathy was truly at a loss for words. Because nothing could describe the sight of the stranger’s eyes, glistening in a new shade that Cathy had never seen before.

She was utterly speechless as she stared in shock, suddenly realizing that the beautiful woman she was staring up at was her long-awaited soulmate. The girl shuffled nervously before flashing Cathy a quick smile. “I- um- can I sit with you?” Cathy’s soulmate stuttered as she gestured to the empty chair across from her own.

“Yeah, absolutely!” Cathy exclaimed eagerly as she broke out of her daze. She watched as the woman took a seat and looked back at her with curious eyes, causing her eyes to sparkle even more brightly than before. Cathy looked down shyly, almost unable to bear the intensity of the color in them.

“I’m Anne Boleyn. And I guess we’re soulmates,” Anne said with a nervous chuckle.

Cathy gave Anne a warm smile before introducing herself. “My name’s Catherine Parr. But most people just call me Cathy.”

“I like your jacket, Cathy,” Anne complimented. “Do you happen to know what color it is? Because it’s the first color I can see.”

In that instant, Cathy was incredibly grateful for Catalina and vowed to not only apologize profusely to her when she got home but also treat her to a nice dinner to show her gratitude for telling her the color of her jacket before she left. “My friend said it was blue,” Cathy replied as she looked down at her sleeve. The faintest hues were starting to seep into the fabric, though they were still too faint to differentiate from the grey the jacket was before.

“Blue,” Anne whispered to herself. “I like blue.”

“Anne, your eyes…” Cathy couldn’t even finish her sentence as she became enraptured once again by the beautiful colors in Anne’s irises.

“Oh, yeah! My cousin says they’re green,” Anne mentioned, proud of herself that she remembered the color.

“Green is beautiful,” Cathy said and admired the way Anne’s eyes lit up at the compliment.

“You’re beautiful,” Anne blurted out before ducking her head in embarrassment. Cathy blushed at the sudden praise and reached across the table to take Anne’s hand in her own.

“That’s really sweet, Anne,” Cathy nearly whispered as she gave Anne a soft smile. Anne returned Cathy’s smile with one of her own.

In that moment, Cathy felt the pang of loneliness she had carried around with her for so long finally dissipate into thin air. In its place, a small bud of love had sprouted for the woman sitting front of her, the same woman that also happened to be her soulmate. An elated feeling spread in Cathy’s chest at that thought. She couldn’t wait to get to know Anne better. She couldn’t wait to bond with her soulmate and live a life full of color with her. And she certainly couldn’t wait to fall in love with the green-eyed goddess sitting in front of her.

~~~

The two queens stayed in the library and talked with each other for quite a long time until eventually the librarian got tired of asking them to stay quiet and politely asked them to leave. Anne and Cathy apologized for being disruptive before leaving the library as they quietly giggled to themselves.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever been kicked out of a library,” Cathy commented as they walked hand-in-hand down the street.

“Oh, I’ve probably been blacklisted from every library in town for being too loud at this point,” Anne joked and nudged Cathy’s shoulder lightly. “Where are we off to next?”

“There’s a park not too far from here,” Cathy said with a question in her eyes. “I’d like to see it in color, if you’re okay with that.”

“I’m more than okay with that, Cathy,” Anne responded and squeezed Cathy’s hand in reassurance. “I love spending time with you.”

Cathy looked up to Anne with a shy smile on her face. “I love spending time with you too. I know we haven’t known each other for that long but you’re my new favorite person.” Cathy bit her lip nervously at the confession, watching Anne’s response to see if she had gone too far.

Anne visibly lit up at Cathy’s words. “You’re my new favorite person too!” Anne exclaimed excitedly before taking a moment to pretend like she was pondering thoughtfully to herself. “It’s almost like we’re soulmates or something,” Anne joked, eliciting a small laugh from Cathy.

“Maybe it’s because we are soulmates,” Cathy said with a smile on her face. Anne took that opportunity to look at Cathy for a moment and admire how beautiful Cathy really was. A lively color had seeped into her skin in the past couple of hours, contrasting from the dull grey it was before, giving her an almost angelic glow in Anne’s eyes. Her smile literally lit up Anne’s world, making the colors that had appeared in her surroundings over time a little brighter than before. Cathy’s gentle touch made Anne crave every part of her, filling Anne’s mind with daydreams of them cuddling and kissing one another as Cathy led her to the nearby park.

Anne was broken out of her thoughts by Cathy gasping next to her. She looked around for a moment before having a similar reaction to Cathy. Anne stared in amazement at the beautiful park in front of her, practically glowing with a newfound life that Anne had never experienced before.

Anne tore her gaze away from the sight of the park to steal a quick glance at Cathy. She smiled subconsciously as she watched Cathy look around, taking in every new color and committing it to memory. After a brief moment, Cathy turned to look at Anne and they shared a smile.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Anne exclaimed excitedly and pulled Cathy towards the entrance of the park. Cathy eagerly followed her, sharing in Anne’s excitement to experience their first walk in the park together in color.

The new soulmates spent most of their early afternoon roaming along the park’s walkways, admiring their surroundings as the colors around them became more vibrant and lively. They chatted as they walked, getting to know each other better as they exchanged interests and a few laughs as well.

Anne felt so at peace in the world, relishing in the park’s atmosphere and bright colors as she brushed shoulders gently with Cathy. There was no feeling like it. For the first time in her life, Anne felt truly whole. Of course, her upgraded eyesight was amazing but the real reason for her happiness was the beautiful girl beside her, the girl she was quickly falling in love with.

“Everything is so much more beautiful now,” Cathy breathed out as she scanned the park briefly, her eyes landing on Anne. “And it’s even better than everything in the park is also green.”

Anne tilted her head in confusion as she looked around at the trees and grass, noticing that their hue was the predominant color in the park. She looked back to Cathy. “You mean my eyes are the same color as the trees?” Anne asked, almost in disbelief.

Cathy nodded. “Though, your eyes are brighter than the leaves.”

“Wow.” Anne was at a loss for words. Kat’s description of the color green came back to Anne’s mind and she suddenly understood what Kat had been trying to explain. Colors enhanced moments that would otherwise seem ordinary, making them all the more exciting and memorable. They helped make connections between memories and surroundings, similar to how Anne’s favorite color had quickly become blue because it reminded her of Cathy.

Cathy led Anne to a bench and they sat down next to each other. Cathy turned to Anne and brushed the hair that was covering her cheek behind her ear. Anne blushed at the gesture as Cathy brought her hand to rest on Anne's cheek. She leaned into the touch as Cathy softly stroked her cheek.

Slowly, the two of them leaned in for a kiss and Anne felt a million butterflies erupt in her stomach. When their lips touched, Anne felt her heart flutter in her chest and she was certain that she could spend the rest of her life kissing Cathy.

They parted after a few moments and Anne felt a small smile play on her lips as she watched Cathy look around in awe at the park that had suddenly become much more vibrant and alive than before.

“Do you think that happens every time?” Cathy asked as she looked back to Anne with an excited smile on her face.

“I think there’s only one way to find out,” Anne said with a smirk. Cathy raised an eyebrow before licking her lips and pulling Anne in for more kisses. Though Cathy didn’t look back at her surroundings after that, instead keeping her eyes closed and enjoying the sensation of Anne’s lips on her own.

Anne quickly lost track of time, too caught up in losing herself in Cathy’s arms and in their later conversation.

“Hey! I’m curious, Anne,” Cathy began after her giggles had ceased from Anne’s stories about her disastrous experiences while attempting to cook. “How did you find me? At the library, I mean.”

“Oh! I didn’t actually,” Anne replied. “I saw you run past the restaurant where I was eating and tried to catch up to you. But, you’re really fast! I saw you walk into the library and then it was only a matter of time until I found you.”

Cathy’s eyes flashed guiltily as she remembered why she had been speeding to the library. “Oh. Yeah, I was upset after a fight I had with my roommate. Going to the library helps me calm down.”

“Is everything okay between you too?” Anne asked as she rubbed Cathy’s shoulder, sensing her distress at the memory.

“Not… exactly,” Cathy managed to reply. “She found her soulmate recently as well and I felt like she replaced me in a way. I got angry with her and snapped at her before I left. We apologized to each other but I know we still have to talk it out when I get back.”

“I know how you feel. When my cousin and I moved in together, I felt like she was spending more time with her soulmate than with me,” Anne empathized. “I talked with her about how I was feeling and she made sure to include me more and have one-on-one time together after that. I know it’s pretty cliché but communication really is key.”

Cathy pondered over what Anne had said before a look of determination passed over her features. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll go talk to her.” Cathy paused momentarily and looked back to see Anne’s proud smile. “Thank you, Anne.”

“No problem, Cathy,” Anne said, before a look of complete terror passed over her face. “I totally forgot I left my motorcycle at brunch!” Anne exclaimed as she dropped her head in her hands in embarrassment.

Cathy giggled at Anne’s dramatic reaction before saying, “Hey, it’s okay. Let’s walk back to your brunch spot and then I can walk back to my apartment to talk with Catalina.”

“Yeah okay,” Anne breathed out as she stood up, followed by Cathy. “I could drive you to your apartment, if you’d like.”

Cathy smiled at Anne’s offer. “That would be nice.” The soulmates smiled at each other before making their way to the small restaurant where Anne had first seen Cathy. Much to her relief, her motorcycle was still parked out front where she had left it. Kat and Anna were gone but Kat had placed Anne’s helmet on the seat of her motorcycle. Anne picked it up and handed it to Cathy for her to put on.

Anne turned the motorcycle on and felt it roar to life under her. Cathy slid behind Anne and wrapped her arms around Anne’s torso, causing Anne to smile widely at the action.

As Anne navigated the streets following Cathy’s instruction, she was overcome by how suddenly her life had changed. In the morning, she had been dreaming of what it would be like to have a soulmate and now she had hers pressed softly against her back. In the morning, Anne was longing for someone to fill the void of loneliness in her heart and now Anne’s heart was overflowing with love for the beautiful woman behind her. In the morning, Anne’s world had been in black-and-white and now it was in screaming color.

#parrlyn #parrelyn #parrlyn fanfic #six the musical #six the musical fanfic #anne boleyn #catherine parr #anne boleyn x catherine parr

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peppersonironi · 4 years

Text

For @duketectivecomics‘s Duke Week Day Six: All in the Batfamily

Summary: Duke gets woken up at night and is roped into a strange initiation ceremony into the bats. Despite initial chaos, Duke finds that he is actually enjoying himself, and that maybe being a part of this family isn’t such a scary thing. Throwing a glitter bomb at Batman is definitely scary though.

“Are you ready?”

Duke opened his eyes, to find Dick Grayson hovering a few inches away from his face. “Gah!” Duke let out, scrambling backwards on his bed till he hit the headboard. “What are you doing?”

“Poor reflexives,” Duke looked past Dick to find Damian frowning at him, “And he should have known we were present before waking.”

“Settle down, kid,” This time Jason spoke, “Not everyone is as freaky as you.”

Duke blinked the sleep away from his eyes, and surveyed the scene before him. Dick was still by his bed, grinning. Damian and Jason stood behind, along with Cass, Tim, and Stephanie. Wow, when was the last time he’d ever seen all these guys together in the same room without killing each other? Duke had a worrisome feeling that he was the reason for this strange behavior.

“Um,” Duke asked, “What’s going on? It's 2 am.”

“We’re welcoming you to the family!” Dick’s grin grew impossibly wider.

“But I’ve been here four months?”

Tim shook his head. “But you haven’t had a proper welcome, yet. We had to wait till everyone was here, and Steph insisted she be a part.

“Heck yeah!” The blonde teen said, “I’m a part of this family, whether you like it or not! Bruce even gave me an allowance!”

“You tricked him into giving you his credit card,” Jason replied dryly.

“Like you haven’t done that before.”

“I don’t bother tricking him.”

Duke looked back and forth at the exchange, trying to wrap his mind around what was happening.

“That doesn't answer my question.”

Damian sighed. “In order to truly be a Wayne, you must go through the initiation period.” “That's not ominous at all.”

“Tour,” Cass said, “You learn things. Not bad, fun.”

Duke nodded. “Thank you, Cass.” He was still confused, but at least she was trying.

“If you would get dressed, we have much ground to cover.” Damian sniffed, but even Duke could tell the kid was excited.

Dick backed away from the bed. “We'll be right back, Duke, get ready!”

*****

Five minutes later, Duke found himself hastily dressed and standing in the entrance hall of Wayne manor. His siblings were arrayed in a semi-circle before him, all of them in weird red robes. They had managed to set up tiki torches at intervals around the room, adding to the atmosphere of doom.

“We are gathered here today to celebrate the bonding between two families. That of the Thomas' and that of the Waynes.” Duke blinked at Tim. “Why are you making it sound like we're getting married?”

“Shh!”

“In this great ceremony, We accept you, Duke Thomas, into our fold. After this day henceforth, you will be one with the bats.” Tim took a deep breath and continued reading from the scarily large book in his hands. “The bonding day is set in three parts. The first, a display of power. You shall be shown our places, and our things, so that you are made privy to the goings on in the lives of Gotham's most secretive family. Next, You shall be given tasks by each member of the clan – excepting Bruce – that you must complete. Fail even one, and be warned.” Tim stared Duke down. “You have been warned. The final and most dangerous stage of all …” Tim stopped reading, and every single one of the gathered Waynes began to stomp their right foot. This went on for several seconds. “Is … Cake. Do you accept the challenge, Duke of the Narrows?”

Duke sighed. He didn't quite like the sound of this, but he might as well. “Sure.”

Jason whooped, and even Damian cracked a smile.

“Well,” Steph said, “let's get on with it!”

* * * * *

“And it was in this room that Dick broke his first chandelier.”

Duke paused, staring at Jason who had taken over as tour guide after Tim started foaming at the mouth. “First?”

The now recovered Tim grinned. “Yup! He's broken twenty three and a half in his fifteen year stay at the manor.”

Duke nodded. “Alrighty then.”

“Over here are some pictures of Bruce's great-great-great-great-great-great-great something aunts. If you look closely, you'll see the outline of mustaches. Bruce made us erase them.” Stephanie bounced by, pointing out exactly which paintings she had decimated.

The tour had been going on for almost an hour now, and Duke would be lying if he said he wasn't having fun. Sure, he had seen most of the stuff here, but the stories that went along with them were amazing. It was sweet to know which room Dick insisted they have a family movie in, back when it was only him, Bruce, and Alfred. It was hilarious to find out that the strange purple splotch on the love seat in one of the east wing's drawing rooms was from the time Damian insisted on trying slushies. Or the many tails that arose from the kitchen. From Bruce attempting to cook (He'd always wondered why Alfred had banned him) to the time Jason sleep walked himself into making beignets.

Cass had insisted they tour the air vents (He didn't know you could get into them, let alone that they could fit people, and wasn't quite sure what to do with the information) and trying to get Jason squished in was a highlight of the night. Cass also showed Duke the best hiding places in the manor, in case he ever needed to hide during a prank war. Or Bruce.

Stephanie knew the places with the thinnest walls, and also other tricks for listening in on conversations. She said she'd never had to use the information, but Duke wasn't convinced.

Dick explained the pros and cons of each chandelier in the manor, along with a very detailed instruction pamphlet on getting yourself onto one. Duke promised himself he'd never try.

Tim knew all the best wifi spots in each wing. Somehow, the wifi wasn't the exact same in every part of the house.

Jason knew the best sniper perches, and how to get there. Also, the coziest spots in the library, primed and ready for any avid bookworm. (Duke was actually excited for the second. He really did enjoy reading, but usually stuck to his room)

Damian was very solemn as he brought Duke to random places around the house that were apparently Alfred's (The cat's) and Titus' favorite hang outs. “In case you need a friend who is not as fallible as humans.”

The tour ended on the roof, each sibling taking to their claimed section. Duke was permitted to choose his own, and did so. He ended up picking a quiet outlook on the forrest, over the west wing.

Duke was given a few minutes of peace, not noticing till a little ways in that he was alone. Huh, he thought, this is kind of nice.

“Alright, Narrows,” Duke turned to find everyone staring at him, “You ready for the fun part?”

* * * * *

“Now lift up your left foot two inches … got it!”

Unfortunately, the first challenge that was given to Duke by Dick, had him breaking his earlier promise to himself. For you see, Duke Thomas now found himself wrapped in the crystal and gold of Wayne Manors largest chandelier.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Duke asked for the seventh time.

“Perfectly!” Dick replied, but the snickers and filming phones of his siblings made Duke question the acrobat's words.

Duke shifted on the chandelier and heard a soft cracking noise. He froze, terror rushing through his entire body.

“That was just me!”

Duke looked to down to find Stephanie pulling a couple twigs from her hair, and snapping them in two. She had a manic grin on her face. Oh, she knew exactly what she had done.

“Just don't do it again!”

“Don't worry, Duke,” Dick called, “You're almost done! You just need to chill for a bit longer. I'm gonna toss up this candy bar, and you need to eat it. Just try not to look like Superman when he sees kryptonite. If you don't catch it, you fail.”

Duke took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Okay, I'm r-”

The candy bar was flung up a second before Duke expected it, causing him to fumble and reach out a bit to far to grab it. The chandelier swung dangerously, and Duke let out a scream. A moment later, however, the swinging calmed down, and Duke paused long enough to register the roaring laughter coming from bellow him.

“Stop!” Duke said, “This isn't funny!”

“Yeah, it kinda is.” Tim was the first to speak, after having to lean heavily on Steph. “You forget, Duke, that each and every one of us had to go through this. It's great to see someone else panic. One of the few pros to Bruce's adoption addiction.”

Duke glowered. “Just stop laughing.”

“Chill, Duchess,” Jason grinned up at him. “Just eat the candy and you can come down.”

Duke sighed and unwrapped the kit-kat that had given him the worst fright of his life – and that included everything he saw on patrol. He gingerly broke it in two, put on a gruesome grin, and took a bite.

Everyone cheered, and Duke's grin became slightly more genuine. “You have completed the first task,” Tim said in a solemn voice. “Let us move on.”

Everyone filed out of the room, and Duke started to panic. “Hey wait! How do I get down!”

* * * * *

“I don't know if I can do this.” Duke sat in the batchair, Alfred having moved graciously to allow Duke to complete his task.

“It's simple Narrows,” Jason said, “Just press the button and ask the question. Simple.”

“But does it have to be … that?”

Jason looked very serious as he answered, “yes.”

Duke sighed. “Here goes nothing.” he reached forward and press the unmute button. “Hey, B?”

Batman's growl came through the speakers. “What are you doing awake, Signal? It's the middle of the night.”

“But you're awake.”

“I'm part of the night patrol. You're not. So what are you doing awake?”

“I need to ask you a question.”

Bruce sighed. “Go ahead.”

Duke sighed and looked back at his sibling who were all grinning maniacally. He turned back to the computer. “Does Santa exist?”

Bruce let out the most long suffering sigh Duke had heard that week. “One of your siblings better not have put you up to this.”

Duke looked at Jason, who was frantically shaking his head. “No, B. It's just, the freaking devil is real, right? And the greek gods, and a whole bunch of other stuff? So why not santa?”

Bruce sighed. “Good night, Signal,” and he logged off.

“Not our best,” Jason said, shaking his head, “next time we should ask how babies are made.”

“NEXT TIME?!?!?!!?”

* * * * *

“You can get it down in one gulp if you try hard enough!”

Duke looked over skeptically at Tim, who was making Duke drink a special blend of espresso, five hour energies, and Monster.

“You just need some ambition!”

Duke gulped. “Ambition to die?”

Tim sighed. “Just do it. If you don't, you'll fail the challenge, and you DON'T want to find out what happens then.” His point was emphasized by every single one of the bats unleashing their personal batglares upon him.

Duke grimaced, grabbed the venti Starbucks's cup, and gulped it down. He swayed for a moment. “I'm never sleeping again.”

Tim grinned, “Nope!”

* * * * *

Damian's task was relatively simple. His pets had to approve of him. They'd already gotten Alfred's, Titus', and Bat-cow's approval, and they were outside trying to find Jerry the turkey.

“Got him!” Stephanie called from bushes, and a loud squawking ensued. She walked over, carrying the bird and placing in front of Duke.

Everyone stood still for a moment, then Damian spoke. “He approves.”

Duke grinned. “Great, what's the next challenge?”

Damian smirked, and Duke's stomach dropped. The eleven year old turned around and whistled sharply. Large wing beats sounded from far off and a huge shape appeared on the horizon. As it approached, Duke could make out what appeared to be a large, fuzzy dragon. The animal landed right in front of Duke, and Damian continued.

“Thomas, meet Goliath.” the tiny terror turned to the beast. “Goliath, decide his fate.”

* * * * *

“So, what do you have for me, Cass?” Duke asked warily. He knew Cass was the nice one, but he wouldn't put it past her to choose something … questionable.

Cassandra smiled sweetly, leaned forward, and whispered in Duke's ear, “hug Jason.”

Duke sighed. That wasn't too bad. He turned around and faced Jason head on. “So, what did she sa-”

Jason was cut off by Duke launching forward and wrapping his arms around Jason's huge chest.

The young man sighed. And wrapped his arms around Duke. “Eh,” he said when he saw the looks he was getting, “Duchess isn't too bad.”

Dick grinned. “Does that mean I get a hug?”

Both Duke and Jason tensed. “On the count of three,” Jason whispered, “We run.”

Dick grinned and opened his arms.

“One.”

He took a step forward.

“Two.”

Dick smiled. “Come on, guys!”

“THREE!! RUN!!!”

* * * * *

“Now pour delicately, Master Duke,” Alfred said as he instructed Duke on how to properly have tea. Everyone had insisted on going to Alfred before Stephanie's challenge, which had Duke worried slightly, but he honestly enjoyed having tea.

“Don't forget to have good posture,” The butler continued. Duke frowned slightly. Maybe this would be longer than he thought.

* * * * *

“Now a tad more glitter. You can never have enough!”

Duke followed the instructions, finishing up the glitter bomb which Stephanie had taught him how to make. He wasn't sure what it was going to be used for, but he knew it wasn't gonna be good.

“Great job, Duke!” Stephanie grinned, then turned to Dick. “How much longer till Bruce gets back from patrol?”

Ah. Yeah, this definitely wasn't going to be good.

“Five minutes,” Dick replied, “Everyone in position!”

And so Duke found himself dragged into the Batcave, glitter bomb behind his back, and a hastily memorized instruction to throw and run in his mind. Five minutes later, the batmobile rolled into the cave. Bruce jumped and and came over to Duke.

“What are you still doing up?”

“Bruce, would you ever disown me?”

Bruce frowned and pulled off the cowl. “No, Duke. Of course not.”

Duke nodded. “Would you ever break your no-kill rule just for me?”

Bruce smiled and shook his head. “Never.”

“Okay, most important question,” Duke paused and took a deep breath, “Would you ever blame me for something that isn't my fault?”

“Not if I can help it, I promise you that.”

Duke took another deep breath and nodded. “Alright.” He then in one swift movement pulled out the glitter bomb from behind his back, and threw it at the Dark Knight of Gotham. The Caped Crusader. The Batman.

Duke turned and bolted, leaving a stunned Bruce Wayne in his wake. Once he was in the stairwell, he turned in time to see Bruce completely covered in purple glitter. He looked down at himself, then up to the heavens.

“STEPHANIE!!!” He yelled.

* * * * *

“That was legendary, Narrows!”

Duke grinned back at Jason. Sure, lobbing a glitter bomb at the guy who was currently giving you a home (not to mention said guy was THE BATMAN) had been one of the worst experiences of his life, but even he had to admit it was funny.

“Seriously, Duke,” Tim replied, “I don't think I could have done that.”

“And the dialogue leading up to it!” Dick grinned as he sat next to Duke on the couch.

“It was worthy of cake,” Damian replied, a smile on his face.

“Speaking of cake!” Stephanie announced as she strolled into the room, a large cake in hand. On the top read 'one of us'. She set it down on the coffee table in front the sofa.

Cassandra grinned as she handed Duke the cake knife. “One of us,” she said, and the chant was soon picked up.

“One of us! One of us! Once of Us!”

Duke grinned as he sliced through the cake. Everyone cheered.

“So how do you feel, Duke? Got the crazies yet?” Stephanie asked as she collapsed on the sofa.

Duke grinned. “Not yet.”

Jason laughed. “Give it some time, kiddo.”

Duke settles back and took a bite of his cake – blue velvet – and pressed play on the movie. Everyone settled down, eating cake and enjoying The Incredibles.

* * * *

A few hours later when Duke was the only awake, Bruce quietly walked into the room.

“How'd initiation go?”

Duke sighed contentedly. “Good.”

Bruce smiled. “Get some sleep. You did well tonight.”

Duke didn't bother trying to figure out the implications of that sentence, opting instead to settle back into the cuddle pile. Cass, tucked under his arm, Damian on his lap, Dick wrapped around his other side, Stephanie atop Jason, and Jason and Tim woven into the chaos of limbs. It was warm and strangely comfortable.

Duke sighed, smiling. It's nice, he thought, belonging.

#dukeweek2020 #duke thomas #batfamily #sibling bonding #batsiblings #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #being part of the family

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cellophane-headcanons · 3 years

Text

~ b u t t e r f l i e s ~

just a short little drabble i decided to write for Bakugou!

pronouns used: they/them

summary: bakugou had gained a crush on the transfer student and //finally// decided to try and confront them about said crush.

warning: swearing, a little suggestive, bakugou trying not to be an angry and flustered mess around you.

15+

| | | | |

It had been at least seven months since you had transferred to U.A High. Seven months of training, learning, and making friends at such a well liked and prestigious school.

That first day when you had walked into Class A was nerve wracking for you.

For Bakugou, it was as well when you had walked in.

You were absolutely stunning in his eyes. He never thought he would see anything close to beautiful, but when you walked in, he was taken aback.

And for him, the last seven months were absolute hell.

Your scent was exhilarating, your smile was breathtaking, and those eyes..

Those eyes were like diamonds.

For seven damn months, he was a hound to everyone else, but with you he gave an exception.

He flashed you a genuine smile from time to time, helped you out with homework and with training.

Everyone was taken aback when he was around you.

Today, though, he had shown up to class in.. a rather bad mood.

No one had pissed him off, except Sero, and no one had really spoken to him.

“Oi, Y/n/n, we need to talk after class.” He breathes out, his gaze never faltering to leave your figure.

You look up from your sketchbook in your hands, giving a sweet smile.

“Alright, Katsu.” You then resume to sketching once more, humming a soft tune that Bakugou knew all too well that it would be stuck in the back of his mind whenever he was training, studying, thinking of you.

| | | | |

After class, Bakugou waited for you by the doorway as you packed your things.

You walk to him, your sweet, delicate lips upturned into your equally sweet smile. “Where do ya wanna go, Katsu?”

He felt his cheeks brush a dark, maroon shade when seeing your smile, and his eyes subtly trailed to the said lips that gave off a mix of vanilla and caramel.

“You’ll see, idiot.” He held his hand out for you, to which you happily took into your own.

Your hand was soft compared to his own, and he was enjoying the way it felt in his.

“Let’s get going, Y/n/n.” He lead you out of the classroom, then out of the building.

The walk was a good thirty minutes, and within that time, you and Bakugou joked around, talked about anything you really wanted to, but the one thing that was really swarming his mind was how badly he wanted to kiss you.

The place he had taken you to was a park you had talked about with your friends nonstop, and he had happened to overhear the conversation. Nah, he stalked you.

“Katsu! How did you know I’ve wanted to come here?” You beam, looking up at him with those luminescent, gorgeous eyes that he absolutely adored.

Bakugou cleared his throat, walking you over to a cherry tree.

“Y/n, I need to ask you something.” He breathes out, completely dodging your question.

“Oh? Oh, yeah!” You giggle. “What did ya wanna talk to me about?”

He was quiet for a moment or so before actually speaking up.

“I.. I, um..” he tries, but he’s gone completely blank.

“You.. You, um..?” You tease. “C’mon, what is it?”

He sighs. He was told that actions speak louder than words.

He turns to face you, his left arm draping around your waist and tugging you against his front, and your expression could make him do things he’s only ever dreamed of.

Within two seconds, he had you against the tree, his lips mere inches away from yours, his caramel breath fanning over your face like the AC vent you laid atop of on hot days.

“Kat.. Katsuki..” you murmur, and before you could even question what he was gonna do, his surprisingly delicate lips locked with yours, his body pressing harder against yours.

His hands wander to the backs of your thighs and he lifts you up, your legs instinctively wrapping around his waist.

A few moments of a rough yet gentle make out went about before he, finally, pulled away, a trail of saliva building up before breaking apart, soft pants leaving both your mouth and his.

“Katsu, what was it that you had to tell me?” You whisper, already knowing the answer but wanting to hear it from him.

“I’m in love with you, dumbass.” He breathes out, pressing his forehead against yours.

“I’m.. I’m in love with you, too.” You smile, and you both, once again, lock lips with butterflies ruffling in your stomach’s.

#katsuki bakugou fanfic #bakugou katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugou #bnha fluff #katsuki bakugou fluff

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sixsclassic · 4 years

Text

It’s Lovely: Part 2

Some more Parrward fluff with Baby Mae. I recommend listening to You Mean the World to Me by Freya Ridings as it’s the song I listened to while writing.

Also a big shoutout to @modernqueensix for the kind words about the first part and it really was the motiviation I needed to finish the last bit of part 2!

Part 1

Things had moved on rather quickly in Kat’s life since meeting Mae, it was like she put herself in a slingshot and everything was flying by. She finished her first year at university and since she was living with Anne and Catalina, she was already home. She was scared that the end of the school term meant that Cathy and Mae would go back to the town where Cathy grew up but she was rather relieved to find that Cathy had found a job in the city that she’d be working for a while and couldn’t move back home. Since the first meeting of Mae, Kat spent as much time with the two of them as she could.

They’d go to the park a lot, get lunch, or just spend time at Cathy’s apartment. Mae had even met Anne and Catalina since Cathy insisted on meeting the two and Katherine was sure that she wanted them to meet Mae as well. Kat felt so much love for both Cathy and Mae. It made her heart swell with how happy Mae was to see her whenever she’d come over. The two year old would run over to her squealing her name until Kat could pick her up. They had a special bond that Kat couldn’t explain but her life was starting to make so much sense with Cathy and Mae in it.

Now it was a special day for Kat, it would be the first birthday of Mae’s that she got to spend with them both. Mae was turning three on August 1st and Kat was really determined to make it a special day for her, as she was learning about everything the little girl liked over the past three months. Kat now found herself sleeping over every once and a while at Cathy’s place and today was no exception. She felt Cathy stir against her as Kat was curled up against her girlfriend’s chest. Cathy pressed a soft kiss to the crown of Kat’s head before untangling herself from Kat’s arms and legs and heading off to the kitchen to start Mae’s birthday breakfast.

Her little girl loved chocolate chip pancakes and they’d had them for any special holiday since they were Mae’s favorite. This year it felt a little different for Cathy since the previous holidays spent just the two of them and now they had Kat in their lives. It was pleasant, so Cathy continued to make the pancakes as she heard the quiet shuffle of feet from the hallway and she turned to see Mae coming towards her, rubbing her eyes. Her now three year old was dressed in her favorite frozen nightgown and her hair was braided back into two dutch braids. Two dutch braids that Kat had patiently done on a wiggly toddler last night.

“Happy birthday my princess.” Cathy smiles as she leaned down on her knees and brushed some baby hairs off of Mae’s forehead as she gently kissed each of Mae’s cheeks earning a giggle from the little girl. “Tank you Mama.” Mae says bashfully as she let herself fall into her mother who encased her little one in a hug, placing a few more kisses on the top of Mae’s head. She then settled Mae on the counter as the toddler snacks on some of the chocolate in the bowl Cathy had placed beside the pancake mix.

A few minutes later Cathy heard another pair of feet shuffling down the hall. Kat exited her room, dressed in one of Cathy’s old band tees and a pair of pajama shorts. Her hair tied back in braids, matching Mae’s since she’d insisted the night before that her Kat Kat match her. “Happy birthday Mae.” Kat smiles, moving to where Mae was as the toddler outstretched her arms towards Kat who took her girlfriend’s daughter into her arms. She gave Mae a gentle squeeze and kissed the little girl’s cheek a few times. “Tank you Kat Kat.” Mae says, now beaming as she saw her favorite two people. “You’re welcome sweet girl.” Kae replies, placing another kiss on Mae’s cheek. Kat then turned her attention to Cathy, giving her girlfriend a matching kiss on her cheek. “And good morning to you my love.” Kat says, leaning her head on Cathy’s shoulder.

“Good morning beautiful.” Cathy answers as she delivers a soft kiss on Kat’s lips. Kat grinned widely as she danced around with Mae in her arms, making the little girl laugh loudly and Cathy though her heart was going to burst right there, this was the life that she always wanted for Mae and herself, for someone to love them both.

The morning had gone by successfully, Mae enjoyed her birthday breakfast so much that she wore most of it on her face and her nightgown. It earned her an early bath that day since they were going to be having a few friends over that to celebrate with them for Mae’s birthday. It was going to Jane with Edward since the little boy had turned two in late June and he and Mae had a little playdate the previous month and the two had wanted to have another since, then Cathy had also told Kat to invite Anne and Catalina since they were a part of their family. A few of Cathy’s friends from high school were going to be attending as well, their names being Joan and Anna. As well as three of their friends from their art class, where they’d met were going to be attending as well; Bessie, Maria and Maggie.

The last three had been the friends that really encouraged Cathy to ask Kat and always held study sessions for the first few months to see how quickly the two were falling for each other. Now they were going to be seeing Kat in a new light, one where she was a part of Cathy and Mae’s life as a big part. The party was scheduled for two and Mae spent part of her early afternoon, napping so that she’d be awake and ready to have fun during her party.

While she was napping, Kat and Cathy were getting the apartment setup with balloons and other decorations, Kat going to get the cake about an hour before the party started. “It’s looking amazing babe.” Kat says as she wraps her arms around Cathy’s waist, pressing a soft kiss against Cathy’s neck. “I can’t wait for her to see it.” Cathy replies as she looks around the living room that was filled with different frozen characters.

“She’s going to be so happy to see Olaf.” Kat smiled, “I’m going to go see if she’s up.”

“Sounds good to me, love.” Cathy replies, as Kat slipped in Mae’s room, finding the tot curled up with her teddy as Kat gently rubbed her back and Mae began to stir. “Hi sweet girl, do you wanna get ready for your party?” Kat asks as Mae rubs her eyes.

“Yes pwease.” Mae nods as Kat lifts Mae into her arms and the three year old settles against Kat’s chest as she begins to wake up and Kat finds the dress that Cathy had gotten for Mae’s birthday, a simple cornflower blue dress with daisy flowers on it. It was going to look so cute on Mae, so Kat got Mae dressed, finding a white bow to match the dress as she brought her out to the living room. “My princess, you look beautiful.” Cathy smiles.

“Tanks Mama.” Mae smiles as the doorbell rings and the first set of guests begin to arrive. The party went amazing, Mae spending most of the party playing with Edward, and being so excited at all the cool new frozen toys she’d got. Kat felt so grown up in that moment, like that Mae was her little girl, and it felt special to have some of her friends there to celebrate Mae’s birthday. Probably one of Mae’s favorites was that Anne and Catalina got her tickets to see Frozen on Ice and Kat swore that Mae was going to make herself pass out from all the excitement.

Later in the night, Mae was asleep right at bedtime, not even needing a bedtime story since she wore herself out from all the excitement. It left Cathy and Kat cleaning up the living room, and noting who gave Mae what so they could write thank you notes to everyone. Finally they were finished and settled on the couch, Kat resting her head on Cathy’s lap who started to play with her hair. “You’re so good with her.” Cathy finally says as Kat glances up at her and before she could get anything else out, Cathy adds, “Move in with us?”

“R-really?” Kat asks as she sits up and faces her girlfriend.

“Yes, I mean it.” Cathy nods as a smile grows on Kat’s face.

“I would love to.” Kat beams as she kisses Cathy softly.

“Mae loves you like crazy, she was asking me about something the other day and I wasn’t sure when to talk to you about it but now feels right.” Cathy explains.

“I love her like crazy too, you can tell me anything.” Kat replies as Cathy gently takes Kat’s hand in her’s and gives it a gentle squeeze.

“She asked me if you’re her other mommy. She sees that other kids at daycare have two parents and she knows that we’re together. I hope this doesn’t scare you.” Cathy says as her cheeks began to turn bright red since it was something she’d been building up the courage to talk to Kat about.

“I’d love to be Mae's other mommy. She holds a special place in my heart that I can’t explain. Something inside me tells me that I was always meant to find you two and I’d really love to be Mae’s mommy. It would mean the world to me.” Kat smiles as tears start to form in her eyes, she feels so connected to Cathy and Mae since now she’d be something more than Kat Kat to Mae.

#parrward #parrward fanfiction #six fanfiction #six fanfic #six the musical fanfic #six the musical fanfiction #Catherine Parr #Katherine Howard #Katherine Howard x Catherine Parr #fluffy #fluff #Mae Seymour #mary seymour

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imagine-loki · 4 years

Text

Gifted

Title: Gifted (Sequel to Giftless)

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 35/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE:

Imagine that you are Stark’s niece and you secretly share a strong relationship with Loki since he entered the crew. One day you get hurt so bad during a mission that you are about to die. Loki knows a spell that will save you and share his immortality with you but you and he will be linked forever sharing thoughts, pain, emotions…

RATING: T NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3 click here

Tony was waiting in the sittingroom of the compound for you when the portal materialized. /Told you we should have set the portal to my apartment/ you grumbled at Loki when Tony barreled into you, yanking you from Loki’s grip as he held you tightly to him. You couldn’t help laughing at Tony, though. He would never change.

“Kat! We were so worried. You guys were gone for so long with no word!” Tony exclaimed, panic in his ton.

You sighed and finally got free of his arms. [There was trouble] you signed at him. He had lived here and been friends with Veronica too, of course, since this was his tower. He’d actually been friends with her before you had moved in to the tower, before your parents had died. He may have even had a crush on her at one point.

“What trouble? Why are you signing?” Tony demanded, automatically signing along with his words. Veronica hadn’t been gone long and the habit stuck from living with her. Old habits died hard.

You looked over at Loki. /Can you tell him what happened? It will take me forever to sign the whole thing/ Loki nodded his reply. /Thanks, I want to see if Veronica is home. Can you two survive alone together that long?/

/We will be fine, darling/ Loki answered with a smile. The smile was supposed to be reassuring, but you didn’t trust Tony not to punch Loki in the face again.

[Loki will tell you] you signed to Tony. You used magic to change back to human clothes. You had missed your jeans in Asgard. You got used to wearing dresses there, but you were still way more comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt. You kissed Tony’s cheek, then kissed Loki which earned you a growl from Tony, then went to see if Veronica happened to be in the tower. She wasn’t officially part of the team anymore, but she still had suites here and stopped by often to visit. Instead of knocking on her door, she had a doorbell that would flash the lights inside. You pressed it and waited. You only had to wait a moment before she came to the door. [You’re here!] you signed excitedly.

[Kat!] she replied with a grin. You had been friends in the couple years you had both lived in the tower together. She tried to hide how lonely she was, but she had become your friend when you made an effort to sign out the conversations around you, and be her voice when she wanted to jump in and the loud supers weren’t noticing.

[Can you come in? you need help] She stepped back to let you in with no hesitation. [Thanks]

[What trouble?] she asked. Even though she wasn’t officially on the team right now, due to her very pregnant belly, she was still one of you and jumped right back in to emergency mode as easily as any of the rest of you. You briefly explained about your lack of ability to speak.

[Do you have any ASL books I can borrow?] your ASL was still really good, but you needed a wider vocabulary and needed to brush up on it. She pulled a few volumes from her bookshelf and handed them to you. You made your apologies after that. You had left Tony and Loki alone for too long already. She laughed at that and shooed you away to go rescue one or both of them.

She was right to shoo you off. You got back to them just in time. Loki was finishing his story about your kidnapping and how you had saved yourelf. “You were supposed to protect her!” Tony roared. You sighed and set the books down on your end table before calmly walking up to the boys. Tony pulled his hand back to punch Loki in the face. You swept in between them, shoving Loki back a step. Tony pulled his punch in time. You wouldn’t have let him hit you, but you were glad he stopped anyway. That meant his temper could be dealt with. “Don’t protect him, Kat,” Tony snarled at you, reaching to shove you out of the way.

[Stop trying to hit him] you signed angrily. [This isn’t his fault]

/Please do not do that again, darling. u\I would hate to have to hurt him for punching you/

/He won’t punch me/ you thought back at Loki. /Not when he’s mad at you. Besides, you won’t protect yourself and I don’t want to have to heal your nose when he breaks it. I like your nose the way it is/

“The hell it’s not!” Tony roared. His hands were too busy singing his reply as he spoke that he couldn’t form a fist again. That was a good thing. “He was supposed to protect you. You were supposed to go there and heal!”

[I did heal. You know Balder is bad. This is Balder’s fault. If you want to hit someone, hit me for getting kidnapped] you weren’t comfortable using telepathy with humans. You had burned out someone’s mind once already and didn’t want to hurt someone you loved like that, so you were sticking to sign with the humans, unless telepathy was one of their powers. Loki promised to help you later learn how to speak to the others via telepathy.

Tony just pulled you into a hug instead. “Like yI would ever hurt you, imp,” he replied. “He says they are researching how to fix this,” you felt him gesture to Loki when he said that. You nodded against his chest. “We should tell Fury…” he hedged. You sighed, but nodded again. The three of you went to find Fury. He was in his office, so he wasn’t hard to find.

You hadn’t been in his office since you were grounded for turning all of the Avengers’ costumes pink one summer. You weren’t glad to be back either. That was almost as unpleasant of an experience as the day you got grounded for an entire summer for escaping your guards for an entire day. This place did not have good memories. “Soldiers,” Fury greeted you when you entered.

“We have a report to give, and we’re not soldiers,” Tony announced. You and Loki wisely let him take charge. He was highly regarded by Fury and much more used to dealing with him. Even if they did manage to piss each other off most of the time.

"Then give it,” Fury replied curtly. Tony told the story this time. You were glad you didn’t have to do it. Loki chimed in additional details when they were needed. Fury looked at you when they were done. “You know what I’m going to ask, Kat,” he told you gently. Fury wasn’t usually gentle, but he had experience with uncontrollable powers in the past. You nodded, you knew exactly what he wanted. There was only one thing he could ask for at that juncture. You shoved Tony into one of the chairs. You didn’t want to have to catch his heavy ass when he passed out. You saw the glimmering green shield around Loki. He’d be safe.

/Careful, darling. They are human/ you nodded and opened your mouth, whispering just loudly enough for them to hear you. They were both unconscious slumped on Fury’s desk a moment later.

It took them a few minutes to come back around, during which you were teaching Loki the annoying hand-clapping game you had taught to Thor. There was nothing to do but wait for them to come to, so you might as well have some fun.

“That was…educational…” Fury commented after he had come around. You went over to them now that they were awake and healed their bleeding ears. You could have done that earlier, but you hadn’t wanted them to think you was exaggerating. “I will put R&D on looking for a solution. In the meantime, your classes start again day after tomorrow. We have told the university that you were on a mission for us. You will inform them of this development and that Loki will be accompanying you as translator. You will also be sticking to a work schedule from here on and the number of emergency healings you get called on will be very strictly monitored. I do not want the incident of a couple weeks ago to happen again,” Fury ordered. You nodded meekly, not daring to go against his temper. “Dismissed, all of you,”

You swept from his office as quickly as possible. None of you wanted to be there longer than you had to be. You tapped Tony’s arm to get his attention. [You ok?] you asked. He nodded.

“Yeah, I’m fine. That’s some curse you got from Balder…” he added. You rolled your eyes. That was an understatement.

[How’s Pepper? Did she heal?]

“She was a whiny baby for a week,” Tony whined. “She claimed she couldn’t do anything for himself and demanded I take care of her. For everything.“ you laughed at his put-upon tone and Pepper taking advantage of Tony. “She’s in the office this morning, but she’ll be back by dinner.” you nodded your understanding. “Oh, your actor friends will be here tomorrow. Fury is actually letting Tom and Kelly into the compound for your birthday party,” you nodded and grinned. It was always fun getting to see your nice normal human friends. They just happened to be famous actors. You really couldn’t do anything normally if your only human friends were actors.

You and Loki spent the day pouring over the ASL books. You could study a whole lot faster now that you were soulbond. Everything one of you learned, the other did too. It was a great side effect.

Tony kept checking his watch as the afternoon wore on. You smirked at how adorable he was, waiting anxiously for Pepper to get back. Right before dinner, Pepper returned. Tony jumped up from the couch to go greet her, wrapping Pepper in a too tight hug. You laughed at Pepper’s yelp of pain. You took pictures of them to immediately post to Facebook. “Tony! Let go!“ Pepper yelped, a cat-tail appearing on her and puffing up. She was still getting used to having magic and didn’t always control her shapeshifting. Tony didn’t let go until Pepper had kissed him. You was glad they were more comfortable with their relationship being in the open. Pepper came over to you when she saw you. You stood and hugged her too. "Kat! You’re back!” she greeted you. You nodded. “How was your trip?” you started signing a reply, but then stopped when you remembered that Pepper hadn’t lived here long enough to have learned.

/Lo?/ you called, drawing Loki’s attention from his book.

“Sorry, Pep,” Tony jumped in while Loki was getting to his feet to come see what the trouble was. "I forgot you don’t sign. I’m sorry! Everyone here learned when Veronica was living here permanently. I forgot you haven’t been here that long. It feels like you’ve always lived here!” Tony added at Pepper’s puffed up anger. Pepper was always around, but not around around and hadn’t known Veronica well. “Anyway, Kat can’t talk. It’s nice to hear the quiet, actually,“ Tony stuck his tongue out at you. You reached up at grabbed it, glaring at him. Stupid uncle. Tony made a protesting noise, and spluttered, but couldn’t get his tongue back from you.

"What is the matter, Tony?” Loki asked pleasantly. “Does a cat have your tongue?” he asked with mischief in his eyes. You saw the flash of green magic and suddenly Pepper was roaring in laughter. You looked over your shoulder at Loki, raising your eyes in question, until you felt the cat-ears on your head. You let go of Tony’s tongue to reach up to feel them.

/Loki!/ you shouted indignantly. Loki just laughed and kissed you.

“I could not help it, darling. The joke was too good,” he explained when he broke the kiss.

“Stop that,” Tony growled at you. “Just because you’re dating doesn’t mean you want to see it or know about it.” You just gestured between himself and Pepper. “That’s different,” he growled. You rolled your eyes. Stupid uncle.

/Put it back/ you thought at Loki.

“I will not,” he replied pleasantly. you glared at him.

“Tony, her ears are prettier than mine!“ Pepper whined, tugging on Tony’s sleeve to get his attention. It wasn’t like Pepper, but sometimes the cat instincts took over, which was adorable, no matter how much she hated it. You looked over at them at laughed. A minute later your phone dinged. Pepper had taken a picture and posted it to Facebook. You giggled and immediately made it your profile picture.

"Never, Pep,” Tony replied exasperated. He pulled Pepper to his side and started petting Pepper’s fluffed up cat-ears until his fiancé calmed, or forgot that he was joking. Pepper was such a handful and it amused you to no end that she’s the one Tony fell in love with.

"I will show you how to remove them yourself,” Loki placated you. He took your hand and magically showed you the process for shapeshifting. “I suggest you do not try to shift forms without me around until you get the hang of it,” he added. You nodded, closed your eyes, and concentrated. The cat ears were gone in a moment later. You grinned at Loki when you had successfully done it. He gave you a smile in return. “Well done, darling,”

Your phone dinged again a moment later. You reached into your pocket. You had a text from Tom, the actor who played Loki in the Avengers movies. -It looks like you’re back in town. Nice cat ears. Kelly and I got here a day early. Want to meet us for tea?-

-Of course we do. Just let us know where- you typed back. You showed your phone to Loki so he could read the messages.

“What?” Tony asked.

“It appears we are going out to meet our friends for tea,” Loki explained. He used magic to change his clothes to jeans and a button down shirt. It was the closest you got him to casual when we were going out. You did manage to get him to wear a t-shirt out of the compound when we went to the amusement park, but that had been stupidly hard work. You stepped up on a box made of air so you could reach Loki’s hair to tie it into a manbun for him. You left the magenta-red streak free, tucking it behind his ear. Loki turned around to kiss you when you were done. “It is nice to kiss you when we are the same height,” he commented.

“Stop that!” Tony snarled, but you couldn’t help but laughing when Pepper kissed him a moment later.

“Also, what’s with your hair? Did you try dying it again?” Tony demanded. You shook your head.

“Lady Kathryn has gifted me with a lock of her hair, and I have done the same. It is a sign of love. Do not make fun, Tony,” Loki explained, speaking firmly to defend you. You smiled and reached up to touch the lock of Loki’s hair which grew among your own hair, tucking it back behind your ear.

Your phone dinged again when you stepped off the invisible box you had been standing on, which you promptly vanished, this time with the location of the coffeeshop Tom wanted to meet you at. “Kat, don’t stay out too late. The kids want to watch Superhero Musical in honor of your return,” Tony told you when you showed Loki the text.

You nodded. [We won’t] you signed at him. Loki offered you a hand. You placed your hand in his and teleported the pair of you from the room before Loki had the chance it. You grinned at him when you arrived, proud of yourself. He laughed and leaned down to kiss you in reply.

You entered the coffeeshop and saw Tom and Kelly already waiting at a table for four. They had drinks for you already too. You waved and made your way through the crowded shop to sit with them. Loki pulled out your chair for you. Always the gentleman. Well, except for yesterday, but that was different.

“How have you been? We heard you were on a mission for the Avengers. It’s been all over the news, people speculating on what it was,” Tom asked you once you were settled.

[Can you tell him what happened?] you signed to Loki. You hadn’t appreciated how difficult this meeting would be. You extra couldn’t use telepathy on Tom and Kelly. They didn’t have powers.

“What’s wrong?” Tom asked, signing the words as he said them. You gaped at him. You hadn’t expected him to know how to sign, especially not ASL, BSL maybe, but not ASL. He laughed. “It’s a skill I picked up over the years. It seemed useful at the time.” you laughed again.

[How are you not married already?] you signed at him. He was very nearly perfect. He looked away with color in his face. You jumped on him. [Who is she?] you demanded, all excitement. He just looked at Kelly.

“Do not tell the press,” he told you firmly. You nodded and made the age-old gesture of zipping your lips. He laughed. “So, what happened while you were gone?” you sighed, but explained how you had been cursed with a power that hurt people when you spoke. Loki jumped in to add that it was Balder who had done it. Both Tom and Kelly appreciated that. They knew who Balder was from his actions here on Earth. “All your magic and you can’t fix this?” Tom asked Loki.

Loki shook his head sadly. “Not yet. We are researching, but we do not know how Balder did this…”

[I’m fine. It’s just a little inconvenient] you reassured them.

You chatted about your lives and what you’d been up to for an hour or so before you all had to go. You got delayed when the press got ahold of the fact that all four of you were there. You got stopped and had to take pictures. You posed nicely for exactly one picture. The rest of the pictures just included you being silly goofballs. You escaped before you had to sign every single slip of paper people could find.

When you arrived back in the commonroom, the group was already gathered for the movie. “C'mon, you two!” they called when you reappeared. You laughed, and you and Loki both used magic to change into pajamas for the movie. Everyone else was already in their pajamas. Tony growled when you were only wearing a tank top and pajama pants, but you glared at him in reply. He was only wearing pajama pants. Everyone was wearing pajamas, including Loki once he had seen that that’s what everyone was wearing. You made your way over to Pepper first, while Loki settled himself on the couch. You looked over the scar on Pepper’s chest, you could see the top of it just above the top of her tank top. It was light, not nearly as bad at the one on Loki’s. You touched it gently, investigating it as a healer.

“I’m fine, Kat. You saved my life that day. I can handle a little beauty mark,” Pepper reassured you, laughing. You sighed. You should have done better.

“Don’t you dare start thinking that you should have done better,” Tony snapped at you, knowing you too well. “You nearly died saving her life. I love you both and I am so grateful you both survived that day. You would have died, Kat, if you had done any more,” Tony reminded you. You nodded, but still went to curl up with Loki. You touched the scar on his chest too. Both wounds had been made my Balder. Tony had been wounded in the exact same manner, but you had enough power that day to heal Tony without a scar. Loki you had healed in the middle of battle, his scar was deep and obvious.

"You saved both of our lives that day, darling,” he told you softly. “I wear the proof of our battle with pride,” he added gently.

“Enough being sad!” one of the super kids called. They started the movie a minute later. Loki pulled you onto his lap and wrapped a blanket around the two of you. You laid your head on his chest so you could watch the movie in peace and listen to all of the kids sing along.

You sat up and stared when they all started signing along to the songs. Most of them were clumsy and missed half the words, except Veronica who was leading the sign-singing. It was amazing that they were willing to try, willing to make you feel included. You laughed and wrestled your arms out of the blanket so you could join along. The duet was hilarious with everyone trying to both sign and sign along to their parts.

Loki used magic and made two clones of himself, one male and one female so he could lead the song. You laughed the loudest at his antics. He also got the loudest applause when the song was over.

You stayed up late with our friends watching Avengers movies to the point where everyone fell asleep in the common room in a big heap of blankets, pillows, and tangled limbs. The Facebook page was overflowing with comments from the community the next morning. You blamed Fury for the pictures, especially when Tony, Loki, and you were the only ones whose faces could be seen in the pictures. You were the only ones whose secret identities were compromised.

That didn’t mean you didn’t have a separate Facebook page for your superhero alter-ego. You had to give the fans a safe way to contact you for fanmail or they got weird. All of you had social media pages for our superhero alter-egos. Except Loki, who didn’t bother with an alter-ego.

You didn’t have to worry about Fury’s pictures that night, though. It was a comfort to be surrounded by your silly super family, cuddled between Loki and Tony in your heap of pillows and blankets. You were pretty sure your frozen toes were on Tony’s stomach too. He didn’t complain. He was just glad to have you home.

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #submission #nekoamamori #gifted #chapter 35

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the-quiet-winds · 5 years

Text

Shake it till You See it

so this one was an idea i had that @ichlugebulletsandcornnuts and i wrote together and, to be quite honest, it is hands down one of my favorite ones we’ve ever done (not including the ward au because that is our damn CHILD but you understand (which btw the first part of the next installment should be up tomorrow))

this one is pretty soft overall, but there are some moments of self-deprecation. otherwise, we should be pretty good.

being on tour had given the queens the opportunity to travel all over europe, and the producers told them that in the future they were planning on taking the tour global. right now, the queens were in Spain, and aragon had delighted in the opportunity to show her fellow queens around. on this particular day, however, both jane and parr had decided to stay at home while the others went to a nearby beach; parr immediately retires to the tiny room she’d commandeered as an office in their rented accommodation, while jane decides to get some cleaning done. the other queens, as lovely as they were, did not seem to have ‘keeping tidy’ mastered in their list of skills. it was a tie between boleyn and katherine as to who was the messiest with their belongings, and so jane decides to tackle katherine’s room first. she starts by sorting the large pile of clean laundry sitting on the desk that katherine had never got around to putting away. she starts placing them in the correct drawers, but upon opening katherine’s sock drawer she’s faced with a notebook. the cover is plain pink and jane picks it up, frowning slightly. she was going to put it back, but then a photo falls out of the notebook and drifts to the floor.

jane picks it up and a wave of nostalgia washes over her.

the picture is of jane and parr from when they were in finland, touring helsinki. parr had taken the picture, jane remembers with a fond smile. the two of them had been sitting at a table outside a tiny cafe, eating finger sandwiches and drinking iced tea (a horrifying concept to jane, but it wasn’t absolutely horrible). the moment captured in the picture was when jane let out one of her trademarked ‘mum puns’, as they were called, causing katherine to uproariously laugh and jane to grin quite goofily at katherine’s reaction.

jane smiles down at the photograph for a moment or two. she opens the notebook, intending to just tuck the photograph in the pages, but the page it falls open on catches her eye.

there was a photograph of her and katherine, both fast asleep at an airport. katherine’s legs were tucked under her and her head was resting on jane’s shoulder. next to the photo were some sparkly silver star stickers, placed seemingly randomly across the page, and underneath were the words “Glasgow Airport, 23rd December” written in pink glitter pen. in smaller letter underneath it reads “me and jane talked about the brönte sisters - she loves them (note to self: read bronte sisters?)”

a rush of affection runs through jane’s system at the note. she’s suddenly struck with a memory of seeing katherine toting around one or two brönte books not too long after.

the opposing page is all written in fine green ink:

“it’s christmas! jane loved the CDs, she says she’s going to listen to them all the time. she got me this gorgeous jewelry box from stockholm and i think she wants me to put a picture in the lid. i just don’t know which one to choose!”

a soft smile grows on jane’s lips; she remembers vividly katherine running into her room a week and a half after christmas to proudly display the box, complete with a photo of the two of them at their London press night. both of them had been shocked at the positive response and had giddy smiles on their faces, wearing the gorgeous dresses they’d bought specifically for that occasion. from what she’d written, it seemed as if katherine had agonised over the choice for that full amount of time and the thought was sweetly endearing to jane.

she doesn’t even realise she’s turning the page until it’s already happened, eyes already skimming the next passage.

“18th January - we arrived in norway yesterday and the first show was a blast! lots of positive reception.

last night i had a stupid nightmare. the usual. i don’t really know how, but when i woke up, jane was there. she did that thing with my hair that calms me down.”

there are some water droplets on the page, presumably tears to jane.

“i don’t know what i did without her, to be honest.”

jane stares down at the page, heart aching for katherine. “oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs, even though there’s nobody around to hear her. she looks over at the opposite page, where katherine had stuck a ticket to Oslo Aquarium at the top.

“19th January - we went to the aquarium! just me and jane. i think she wanted to make me feel better after last night. when we were in the cafe jane went to pay for everything and a woman asked me where ‘my mum’ got her coat from!!” the word ‘mum’ was underlined three times and jane stares at it, trying to work out if it was meant to be positive or negative.

jane knows she shouldn’t keep reading. these were katherine’s private thoughts, obviously not meant to be read by anyone else.

but jane’s curiosity was killing her.

she flips the page.

“katherine’s 2am thought #46” is written across the top. “jane really really REALLY loves when her mum puns”

this brings a smile out of jane and she gives a small laugh. the journal continues on like this, memories and tickets and photographs littered throughout. one page features a small sketch of a person; it was difficult to tell who it was supposed to be due to the fact it was unfinished and had a scribble through it, with “WHY CANT I DRAW” written in biro underneath. jane frowns. she personally thought the drawing was quite good. the next page was even worse, however.

katherine had just written the word “stupid” over and over again, in shaky handwriting and with tear stains littering the page.

jane’s heart twists and her jaw falls open in a small gasp. it seems so logical, jane realizes, that katherine would have some (...a lot, really) of self-esteem issues. jane hates knowing that she’s suffered in such a way and somewhere, deep down, promises that, if she can help it, katherine will never feel so low about herself again.

little does she expect, when she turns the page, to read a similar sentiment echoed in katherine’s words.

“25th January - we went on a walk this morning. there was a woman with a little boy, she was helping him learn to ride a bike. jane tries to hide it but i know it got to her, seeing that. i wanna try and make her feel better. i don’t know how, but i’m gonna try. she deserves to be happy.”

tears well in jane’s eyes and the little statement. she then very clearly remembers what must have been that evening when katherine came into jane’s room, blanket around her shoulders and ‘wuthering heights’ clenched in her hand, shyly asking if they could read together. it was a tender moment, one which ended in katherine asleep practically in jane’s lap at that point. it had, in fact, made jane incredibly happy to share something she loves with someone she loves

jane is flipping through a few more pages when suddenly there’s a clatter of the front door being thrown open and a gaggle of overexcited voices float down the corridor. jane hurriedly goes to shove the journal back into the drawer, but a charm on her bracelet catches on a page and as she yanks her arm away the page rips.

she doesn’t even realize the page ripped and simply closes the drawer and hurried back to where she was folding the laundry.

katherine walks in a moment later, hair slicked back from the water, a ‘six!’ tank top and gym shorts over her bathing suit.

“oh, hey jane,” she says surprised, but not displeased at having this particular guest in her room. “whatcha up to?”

katherine’s eyes fall on the single discarded page and picks it up. her eyes widen. it’s the page from her journal where she had simply written ‘stupid’ over and over. she looks at jane with wide eyes. “what were you doing?” she asks fearfully.

jane freezes, eyes widening as she spots the page in katherine’s hand. “I-” she starts. “I was just doing some tidying, love.”

“how did this end up on the floor?” katherine asks, voice with a thin veneer of calm over the clear panic. jane doesn’t answer for a moment. she doesn’t want to tell the truth, doesn’t want to admit that she violated katherine’s privacy by reading her personal thoughts, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out how the paper ended up outside of the journal, and jane knows that katherine already knows the answer to her question.

jane deflates, shoulders sagging. “i’m sorry, love,” she says quietly, not meeting katherine’s shocked and probably hurried face. “i didn’t mean to, i just opened the drawer and saw the book. then something fell out so i went to pick it up and i was stuck. please forgive me, kat.” jane looks down, ashamed, waiting for katherine’s response.“nobody was meant to see that,” katherine says quietly. she doesn’t know how to react; she mostly just feels embarrassment. her cheeks flush as she thinks of jane reading the parts where katherine is thrilled to be mistaken for jane’s daughter, or the stupid childish stickers she’d put on some pages, or her self-pitying rambles. she’d be surprised if jane could see her as anything except a stupid little girl after reading that, and she looks down to avoid eye contact.

jane notices katherine’s cheeks and ears burn bright red. katherine isn’t mad, she’s embarrassed. about what, though? what was she not meant to see?

she suddenly remembers seeing ‘mum’ underlined three times on the aquarium page.

“i’d be honored if someone thought you were my daughter,” she says quietly and suddenly.

katherine looks up, eyes wide and almost disbelieving. “r-really?” she asks, voice practically reaching a squeak. jane nods, not reaching out to her but just subtly opening her arms, in case katherine wanted a hug. just as she predicted, katherine lets out a tiny, slightly embarrassed noise of happiness and darts into her arms. her hair and clothes are still damp from the water but jane doesn’t mind.

“i still shouldn’t have looked at your journal, though, kat,” jane says as she hugs katherine. “and for that i really am sorry, I promise you it won’t happen again.”

“it’s okay,” katherine squeaks. a thought strikes her and she pulls away. jane panics, hoping that katherine didn’t have a sudden change of heart. katherine digs the book out and flips wildly on it, looking for a certain page. she blushes heavily as she shyly hands the book to jane.

“this is like the only good drawing in here,” she says, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

the sketch is in dark pencil, a drawing of her and jane together on the couch. katherine looks to be curled up, head on jane’s lap, the other woman’s hands gently resting in her hair.

“kat, this is brilliant,” jane says softly, eyes transfixed on the drawing. katherine fidgets slightly.

“you really think so?”

“i do,” jane smiles. katherine looks uncertain for a moment.

“would you like it?” she blushes again. “the drawing, i mean. you can have it, if you want.” she shrugs, as if nonchalant, but her cheeks pink and ruin the effect.

“i’d love it, sweetheart.”

jane, remembering what else she’d seen in the journal, sets it down and katherine’s heart sinks. it only gets worse when jane takes her hands and tugs her to the bed, where they sit down next to each other. jane turns to face kat before speaking.

“about what else i saw in there,” she starts and katherine cringes, knowing exactly what she saw and what was about to come.

she didn’t expect jane’s hands to leave hers and gently come to cup her cheeks, tenderly bringing her face up so they were eye to eye.

“kat, love,” jane says, “i know that you have a lot of...,” she searches for the right words, “self-esteem issues, perhaps.” katherine flinches slightly, so jane strokes a thumb lightly on her cheek. “i just want you to know that you can talk to me about anything, and i’ll never judge or think anything less of you.”

katherine looks down, and then back up at jane, eyes wide and uncertain. jane does her best to pour all the love she has into her reassuring smile, and katherine sends her a weak one of her own.

“thank you,” she says quietly. jane tucks a strand of hair behind katherine’s ear.

“it’s no trouble, love. i’m here for you, always.”

katherine’s eyes well with tears again, and jane hopes they’re tears of relief.

sure enough katherine’s resolve crumbles as she falls into jane’s arms, mumbling words of thanks and love into the crook of jane’s neck.

jane gently strokes her hair. “always, love. always.”

#six the musical #six musical #jane seymour #katherine howard #julie and jess write #shake it till you see it

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beckzorz · 6 years

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PREMONITIONS (3/5)

or, Adventures Adjacent to a Six-Year-Old Seer

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Words: 1457 Summary: On Halloween, your clairvoyant niece leads you straight into Bucky Barnes. It could not have gone worse. Warning(s) for part 3: None A/N: Happy Monday! I hope your week is off to a great start :-)

Part 1 | Part 2

Part 3

You shove your hands deeper in your coat pockets and glower at the shiny red heart balloons tied to the sandwich board outside the cafe. They were advertising a lovebug special—two medium coffees and two heart-shaped cookies at an unfair discount. Two cookies would be nice, but buying two coffees for yourself was beyond even you. You hadn’t been sleeping well lately, and your Sunday coffee habit had become a daily necessity. The line, meanwhile, is going at a snail’s pace. If it doesn’t speed up, you’ll have to rely on the crap they offer at work.

You give up after another few minutes and duck out of line with an aggrieved huff. The people behind you shuffle forward, ever vigilant to keep their spot.

One day you’ll get yourself a coffee maker. This is getting ridiculous. And expensive.

Your visit to the hospital back around Halloween had, by some miracle, been covered by insurance. Mostly. But between the deductible and the copays on physical therapy, you’d gone through your holiday bonus in no time at all. Back before shit hit the fan, you’d been dreaming of a cabin in the woods, a fireplace, s’mores. Books and blankets too. But a cozy getaway would have to wait for you to earn back your vacation time.

In the meantime, all you could do was stifle a yawn as you headed into work. You were over a month into tax season, and your department was already in a fine frenzy. There had been some mishaps last spring—a few managers had been fired—and now you and your coworkers were paying the price. Your manager ambushes even before you can sneak to the kitchen for coffee.

The whole day is like that. You jump from one urgent task to another until your eyelids feel like sandpaper.

The only good thing that happens is that you get out early enough to beat most of the dinner crowd at the cafe.

The sign for the damn couple’s special is horribly tempting. Sugar sounds amazing right now… And it is a good deal. Maybe you could share it!

You turn impulsively to the person behind you. “Wanna split the—”

Your jaw drops. Behind you is none other than Bucky Barnes.

“You!” you sputter.

“Nice to see you too.” Bucky’s tilted grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“What are you doing here?” you ask. You step out of line, too bewildered to even contemplate ordering a drink.

“Saw you ducking in, thought I’d say hi,” he says. “I just got back.”

“Back from where?”

Bucky shrugs. There’s a stray bit of hair that’s escaped from his bun; he brushes it impatiently back. “Just… away. You look good.”

You blink and glance down. Your pea coat is hardly the most flattering thing you own. “Uh, thanks.”

“I mean, considering you got shot.” At that, the little grin on Bucky’s face sneaks up into his crinkling eyes.

“Oh, that.” You tilt your head with a smirk of your own. “Better or worse than Halloween?”

Bucky’s rich laugh fills you with delight. “I’d have to think about that,” he says. He tilts his head and studies you. “The lighting wasn’t this good, but the black looked nice.”

“Wow,” you deadpan, hand over your heart. “One might swoon.” You bite your lip in an effort to keep a straight face, but Bucky’s eyes are sparkling and you can’t help but break into a giggle.

“So,” he says once you’ve composed yourself, “how’s the small one?” He puts a hand out at roughly Gemma’s height and gives you a significant look.

Your heart drops. Gemma. Right. This isn’t about you. You step back and stuff your hands into your pockets. “Oh, she’s fine. Nothing ever happened—but you must already know that.”

“Sure,” Bucky says. There’s a slight furrow in his brow. “But she’s a cute kid. I was wondering how she was doing. Being like that is… not always fun.”

“She is very cute.” You rock back on your heels and worry the inside of your cheek. “I mean… she seems normal. I don’t think she gets it, you know? And that’s… yeah.”

Bucky lets out a slow breath between his teeth. “Yeah. Yeah.”

You look at each other, not saying another word. There’s no need. You know Bucky understands the enormity of the situation. A child, barely more than a toddler—practically still the size of a toddler—with powers they didn’t understand, let alone realize they have? How could it possibly end well?

“Well, she’s got you,” Bucky says at last.

“Yes she does,” you answer fiercely. Sharp affection cuts into you, and you look away to keep Bucky from seeing the sudden tears in your eyes. Your gaze lands on the bakery case. The heart-shaped cookies are prominent in the display. “Man I could use some sugar.”

Bucky snorts. Whoops—you hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

“What, I’m not sweet enough for ya? Here,” he says, and he guides you to the register and looks at you expectantly.

You blink at him, then at the disinterested cashier. “Oh, uh, a medium coffee. And hell, one of those heart cookies, please.”

“Double that.” Bucky pulls out his wallet before you even think to reach into your purse. “I got it,” he tells you.

“Thank you, Bucky,” you murmur, bumping his shoulder with yours.

You try to look nonchalant when the cashier reads back the order as the lovebug special, but your face is warm. You do not glance at Bucky, though you can feel his eyes on your face. Sure, fine, he’s gorgeous and sarcastic and smart, but all the banter is just set dressing. The real reason he’s talking to you is Gemma.

Ugh. You screw up your mouth and look away. Gemma’s the only reason you encountered Bucky Barnes at all. Resenting a six-year old is a really, really bad look, but now that you’ve spent time with Bucky, you wish you’d met under different circumstances. No guns, no psychics, no children. Just two consenting adults.

And while you’re dreaming, might as well hope for some goddamned privacy.

“Here you go,” Bucky says. He holds out your coffee and cookie, already taking a bite of his own. They’ve given him a blue-frosted cookie, but the frosting isn’t half so bright as his eyes.

“Thanks.” You take his offering and turn away before he sees the flush in your cheeks. You have got to get control of yourself. No one’s eyes should be that distracting.

You step outside and take a bracing breath. It’s cold after the cozy cocoon of the cafe. At least the paper cup in your hand is hot against your skin.

“Don’t you have gloves?” Bucky asks.

“They’re in my other coat.” You take a scalding sip and wince. The liquid burns your throat, but warmth sweeps through you as the caffeine settles.

You glance at Bucky, who’s frowning down at his own hands and plucking at his gloves.

“Oh my god, Bucky, I’m fine,” you blurt. “Keep your gloves!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Bucky blinks, pauses, and studies you warily as he takes a quick sip. “No insult intended.”

After his amusement at your joke about insult and injury back in October; you feel confident that he doesn’t mean any harm now. Still, you can’t help a little retaliatory snark. “All good, Sergeant.”

His eyes narrow on you. You keep your expression vague and pleasant until you can’t help a giggle from escaping. Bucky relaxes and edges closer as a clump of people pass by.

“It’s good to see you,” he says.

“You too,” you reply.

“Nice to see you fully upright, too,” he adds, and you swat his shoulder with a roll of your eyes.

“Just for that I’m going to flatten you again next time,” you joke.

“Well,” Bucky says, eyes twinkling, “I can think of worse fates. See you around, ma’am.” He shoots you one final breathtaking smile and ambles off, leaving you speechless in his wake.

“God I hope so,” you whisper.

He disappears from view before it occurs to you that you should have just asked the guy out. Now you might have to deal with three more months without seeing him again. No banter, no blue eyes, no sexy smirks. No lovebug special.

You head for home, fuming at your temporarily loss of brain functioning. Typical—he distracts you so much you can’t even get yourself to make sure you would see each other before the summertime, if at all. Of course, maybe come summertime you’d see him at the beach, in a bathing suit…

You flush and bite your tongue to contain your grin. Now there’s a sight you’d be glad to see.

God willing, one day you would.

Read Part 4 here!

Tagging @kentuckybarnes @noshitstark @fortheloveofjbbarnes @sgtjbuccky@bitsandbobsandstuff @buckitybarnes @the-whitewolfie @the-canary@buckybarneshairpullingkink @bambamwolf87 @moonbeambucky @itsbuckysworld @c-a-v-a-l-r-y @thechaoticargonaut @sebstanwassup @australianhorrorstory @lovingllamareview @pleasureoftheguiltiestvariety @dontneedbiologytoadopt @angryteapot @snowflkedivergent @amoonagedaydreamer @moonstruckhargrove @vanillanestor @hey-liz-hey @justahopingwriter @whitewolfbabylon @wishcommandress @susmita121 @kat-lives @tarithenurse @seasidespecter

If you would like to be tagged (or if you would not like to be) just ask!

#bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes x reader #james barnes x reader #bucky x reader #the premonitions story

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sambart93 · 5 years

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2018.09.15 KAT-TUN CAST in Yokohama Arena [Report]

SET LIST

01. New Genesis 02. FIRE STORM 03. ONE DROP 04. UNLOCK 05. 喜びの歌 06. 願い 07. READY FOR THIS! 08. DIRTY, SEXY, NIGHT 09. Ask Yourself 10. Don’t wait 11. Sweet Birthday 12. GREATEST JOURNEY MC Segment 13. vivid LOVE 14. UNIVERSE (宇宙Six) 15. Marionation (中丸雄一) 16. World’s End. (上田竜也) 17. One way love (亀梨和也) 18. Real Face #2 19. ツイテオイデ 20. BIRTH 21. Love yourself ～君が嫌いな君が好き～ 22. DON’T U EVER STOP 23 KISS KISS KISS 24. Will Be All Right 25. アイノオカゲ 26. 薫 27. Unstoppable

-アンコール- 28. Peacefuldays 29. ノーマター・マター 30. FUNtastic

REPORT UNDER THE CUT

Can we talk about how much I fucking LOVE these boys? I love them with ALL my heart!!!

At YokoAri there really isn’t a bad seat. But I was super happy with me! I got the first row in the stands (2nd floor) and it was amazing!! And we got the best surprise ever when we were allowed and able to stand up! Usually the first row of stands are NOT allowed to stand and must stay sat for the entire performance but not for KAT-TUN because KT were of course like ‘fuck that rule! Our fans won’t stand for that’ <<< AHAHA GET MY JOKE?! So we stood the entire time! I think it was just over 2 and a half hours which is GREAT!!

I’ll try and split up the songs and such into their sections and costume changes -- but I could be VERY wrong:

New Genesis FIRE STORM ONE DROP UNLOCK 喜びの歌

願い READY FOR THIS! DIRTY, SEXY, NIGHT Ask Yourself Don’t wait Sweet Birthday GREATEST JOURNEY

MC vivid LOVE UNIVERSE (宇宙Six)

Marionation (中丸雄一) World’s End. (上田竜也) One way love (亀梨和也)

Real Face #2 ツイテオイデ BIRTH Love yourself ～君が嫌いな君が好き～ DON’T U EVER STOP KISS KISS KISS Will Be All Right アイノオカゲ

薫 Unstoppable

-アンコール- Peacefuldays ノーマター・マター FUNtastic

The opening is great! They enter and come down from a massive hanging chandelier thing in the air! It is amazing!! An amazing opening! When I watch it the second time, I’ll keep and eye on that big hanger and try and see them slip into place just before the show starts xD

READY FOR THIS and Dirty, Sexy Night was so great! I loved this coupling of songs! The first one get everyone hyped up and I love the individual dances the boys having during the instrumental/dance part in RFT! And DSN is just a great song all around where Kame can be a little shit xD

Ueda ripped his shirt open and kept it like that after ONE DROP xD everyone went mental and he kept it undone ALL the way until after the MC when he got changed xD

I died laughing when UchuuSix were first introduced because, I had already spoiled myself for the SetList so knew which Juniors were going to be there, but my friend didn’t. So when the boys came on stage and the ‘SIX’ showed first, my friend was like ‘AH HELLA NAH! NOT SIXTONES!!!!!’ but then went to UchuuSix and she was like “OH THANK GODDD’, and I was on the floor laughing because her react was so comical. No offence to SixTones fans >.<

UchuuSix were actually very good! I really enjoyed their song! I was bopping along and it was so interesting to see who stayed standing during their solo song because then you could see who the Junior fans were and their uchiwas, whereas all the KT fans just sat down and took it as a short break xD

The MC was THE BEST! So they had their usual talk which was just ridiculous of course because Maru was like ‘so..... what did you do recently?’ and everyone commented that they hate that phrases and question but then Maru paused ‘....so what did you do recently?’ and we all died laughing. And so Kame replied ‘well I went to the beach (Ueda/Maru: and you didn’t get discovered (by fans/press)?!), it was really nice and relaxing’, but then he was like ‘I’m always the one that talks the most and I have NO IDEA what you two do on your days off! WHAT DO YOU DO?! I know you box and you draw but... WHAT DO YOU DO?!’ so Ueda replied that recently he’d been going to smaller shops and there was one specific one in Ginza (Maru and Kame: IN GINZA?!) where an old man gave him some on the house tempura and how delicious it was. Kame asked ‘why didn’t you say no to his offer?’ and Ueda responded something like ‘what am I supposed to say? ‘*in a really rude way* I don’t need it old man! (Iranee yo Jiji!)’’ and everyone was dying. Then Ueda started saying ‘y’know if this audience was all guys--’ and Kame and Maru jumped in like ‘he’s spoken about this several times during this tour!’ and Ueda said ‘but it’s true! If this was all guys, I wouldn’t work as hard as I am! Are you telling me you’d work just as hard if our audience was all guys?!’ and neither of them specifically answered but everyone understood that they agreed with Ueda who’s all like ‘the audience is so full of women and they’re all so beautiful so I must do my best!’ xD whatta idiot. Adorable but oh god he’s funny. Towards the end of the MC, Kame picked up the towel basket and as he was leaving with Ueda he said ‘when we get backstage, tell me the name of that tempura place’ xD and then Maru stayed on stage and did his DJ Maru part on the top stage!

They also talked about the TachiMi/Standing part of the audience and Ueda was saying they should make those tickets cheaper ‘they should sell for 6500 yen!’. And then Maru was telling joking ‘even though it’s the MC... STAND!’ we’re allowed to sit during the MC, except for TachiMi.

They announced during this MC (I’m not sure about previous ones) that their TV show (Tame ni Naru Tabi +) was going to be a weekly show (thanks to hyphens’ support) from October! So naturally we all got super excited!

Just after the MC (which is shorter than we’re used to, but for good reason; coming up now!), Kame and Ueda go backstage while Nakamaru goes to the top stage, and there is his beautiful DJ set. So he does his Nakamaru DJ section with making sounds with his voice, recording them and pressing them in a certain order to make a song.

At the end of this segment, Nakamaru addresses the boys and gives them a request. At this show we had:

Nakamaru: Could you two do an impersonation from the game, Metal Gear Solid? Ueda: *Comes on stage* Snake! SNAKE!!!! Nakamaru: That was the best! Then Kame came on stage and he was like ‘I don’t know any other lines from the game!’ so then they suggested he do something from ‘King of Fighters’ and Kame replied ‘King of Fighters? ........ KING OF FIGHTERS?!?!?!’ and everyone died laughing. Kame: What’s King of Fighters? Ueda: It was a one-on-one fighting game. Maru: Ahhh so nostalgic... Kame: I dunno. Maybe because we’re from different generations. Ueda: THAT’S IRRELEVANT! Everyone laughed again xD

We got our usual Nakamaru TV Shopping skit but we had Ueda’s new character Yankee-kun join in! So we had the three of them being ridiculous about the bath products xD At the end of the Nakamaru TV Shopping skit, Kame walked off screen saying ‘say chuuka.... say renga...’ and I absolutely died. Because (BACKSTORY TIME!) a long time ago when they did their first Yokohama concert as KAT-TUN in 2005, Kame asked the crowd to do a call and response of ‘Say Chuuka! Say Renga!’, but at the time KT fans had no fucking clue what he was doing (Chuuka = Chinese Food and Renga = Red Brick Warehouse which are two super famous things in Yokohama), so he got super embarrassed (he talked about the embarrassment on Cartoon KAT-TUN and another Variety show MANY years ago). I spent most of this show waiting and hoping for him to do this C&R again, so I freaked and got SO HAPPY when it appeared in this segment instead xD I felt like something on my Check List had been ticked off at that moment hehe

I love, love, love the screen visuals for Vivid Love and Marionation! They are so gorgeous! And I love the props and the dance for Marionation too! And lets talk about how epic World’s End is! So we have an opening VTR of a snake and I just guessed ‘ooh he’s gunna cut it with a sword’ and there is a slash motion across the snake who dies as he’s cut in half and then Uepi came out on stage with a sword in his hand and I freaked! I was like ‘I WAS RIGHT! I WAS RIGHT!!’. It’s such a good performance and the visuals of the ticking timer on the screen too is great! My friend said she was disappointed in the ‘One Way Love’ performance and concept and to an extent I am BUT I totally understand why he did his performance this way. We had a prerecorded VTR of him singing the song, and then in the white or black parts of that VTR, the camera that’s following Kame on stage is shown in those parts. It is visually pleasing and great concept and looks good but I, like my friend, wanted him to do something really sexy for this song or just him actually singing it -- he did sing it a little but you could tell there was no point of him having a mic during it because he was putting his all into the modern dance he did.

Kame messed up for his line for Kun and said ‘MY DREAM’ instead of ‘My Friend’, and when he realised, he stopped singing and just smiled like a child at the camera and we all squealed obviously. It was the cutest reaction!

For the encore they came around in the trolley stand things and Ueda definitely saw us! We were only a few feet away from him so makes sense xD also the woman behind us was hilarious when Kame came along xD He pretty much pushed her small son out of the way so she could get Kame’s attention instead of her son. Me and my friend were cracking up laughing.

During the final greeting from them, we started getting really loud and clapping and woo-ing when Maru was trying to speak and he was like ‘be quiet! it’s late and other’s will hear you!’, but we did it again and got even louder and he just lipsynced ‘quit it! you’re loud!’, but you could tell him and all 3 of them loved how we just got louder and louder for them! xD During Ueda’s greeting he commented that there are some children in the audience and he was like ‘please don’t copy me! (his bad language and attitude)’.

Reports came out later that Massu had gone to watch this show too! My friend who came with me is a huge NEWS fan so was super happy to know Massu went the same time she did ^_^

And that’s all! Hopefully my second report will be up pretty quickly after this one!

#kat-tun #report #kamenashi kazuya #Ueda Tatsuya #Nakamaru Yuichi #concert #concert report

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reclusive-cat-lady · 6 years

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I was tagged ages ago by the lovely @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash ... had to wait til I got on my laptop to fill it out.

A- age: 27

B- birthplace: Papillion, Nebraska

C- current time: 8:44pm

D- drink you last had: Vienna Lager from an amazing local brewery Devil’s Backbone. Not sure how popular it is outside of Virginia but they offer it at like every bar here.

E- easiest person/people to talk to: My best friend Kat and my cats... yes, I talk to them more than I do humans so I’m including them.

F- favorite song: It varies but I’d say my go to songs when I need a mood pick up are Carry On Wayward Son by Kansas and Square Hammer by Ghost

G- grossest memory: I was catering an offsite event and much to my irritation the general mentality at my workplace is that any type of lifting or labor should be left to the men. When all the female staff members declined to empty the garbage can, I made a scene about it and went to empty it myself. Now I would have been proud of this example had the bag not had a hole when I lifted it into the bin. I was completely covered in carved up turkey bits and cranberry juice. Then I proceed to cackle like an idiot for the next few minutes because all I could think of is when TWD characters get covered in walker guts because that’s exactly what it looked like.

H- horror yes or horror no: Fucking hell yes.

I- in love?: only with my cats and fictional characters (I’m stealing that answer because that sums up my existence)

J- jealous of people?: tbh I’ve never really experienced jealously except for that time all my cats flocked to the attention of my best friend’s asshole husband. Envy though? Absolutely. My brain is just wired different than most people when it comes to attachment.

L- love at first sight or should I walk by again?: I believe in past lives due to my personal experiences so I’m inclined to think that’s the explanation for "love at first sight.” On a more factual spectrum, I don’t think meeting someone once for the first time can be a true and complete love as it takes time to develop feelings and attachment to another person.

M- middle name: Faith

N- number siblings: only child

O- one wish: to eventually move somewhere I’m happy

P- person you called last: my coworker/friend

Q- question you are always asked: Is your hair color natural? Ugh, I know people are just being friendly but it feels very intrusive and none of their business.

R- reason to smile: I’m had two consecutive days off for the first time in ages to recharge from all the social overload

S- song you sang last: I keep randomly singing Iron Maiden’s New Frontier because it reminds me of Westworld which I’ve been binging.

T- time you woke up: a little after 7:00am

U- underwear colour: my only white pair to go with my white sundress

V- vacation destination: There’s so many European counties I’d love to visit but I’ve been dying to go back to Senoia, Georgia. I was in Walking Dead heaven there.

W- worst habit: Probably sleeping with my makeup on. I only ever keep up my skin care routine in the months proceeding a con. I prepare for con ops like most women do their wedding.

X- x-rays: When I was 13 or 14, I would carry my kitten in my purse with me everywhere. One day my heel got caught on the sidewalk causing me to fall so I shielded the kitten with my arm. I can’t remember if it was a fracture or what but I had x-rays.

Y- your favourite food: Pizza or sushi. I haven’t been able to curve my sushi craze since writing my last fanfic.

Z- zodiac sign: Virgo poster child here

Tagging - @tsukistefhon @lucifers-trash-stash

#personal

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thesinglesjukebox · 5 years

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The Singles Jukebox Celebrates 30 Years of Rhythm Nation 1814 (a Janet Jackson retrospective)

Janet Jackson’s had one hell of a career. It’d be glittering even if you were to cut the album she released 30 years ago this week out of history. And historic is what Rhythm Nation 1814 is, not like a war, but like a discovery; it was groundbreaking and influential and so much pop released in its wake owes it a debt of gratitude. The album contained seven top 10 singles in the U.S., each with indelible melodies, state-of-the-art beats and vivid music videos. Janet was always on the radio, always on TV, and welcome everywhere she went. She endured the failure of two albums and the weight of family baggage before reinventing herself, seizing artistic control and having one of the longest and brightest imperial phases of any pop star. Sex positive, romantic, assertive and wise, she’s an icon whose brilliance comes as much from how her songs make us feel about ourselves as they do about her.

Her familial connections might help explain her, but they didn’t define or limit her. She’s a sympathetic performer, an innovator in the development of music video as an art form (someone in her camp needs to fix up her spotty presence on video streaming sites, people need to see these videos in HD) and a smart, underrated songwriter in her own right. There’s a lot of Jackson in Beyonce, in Rihanna, in Britney, and in any woman who makes us smile and makes us dance. Because she did all those things over and over again.

Here’s a bunch of songs by Miss Jackson that moved us, or just made us move:

Katherine St Asaph on “Nasty” [8.14]

Date the quote: “[His] dance cuts have a format-friendly, artificial sheen … but she seems more concerned with identity than playlists.” This is not from 2019, about a post-Spotify pop star (I cheated a bit, leaving out a reference to “Arthur Baker dance breaks”) but from the ’80s. Specifically, it’s from the Rolling Stone review of Janet Jackson’s’s Control, the first half of which is a review of a comparatively nothing Jermaine Jackson album. This was typical: if press didn’t dismiss her as an biographical afterthought who happened to still sing, they wrote about her alongside her family, and specifically her brother. (This continues to this day: Note the sustained attention given to her response to Leaving Neverland, which ultimately was to join her family in condemning it.) The line everyone quotes is “Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty,” but more pointed is one of the lines that precedes it: “my last name is Control.”

The lyric to “Nasty” is full of that sort of role-reversal, like a swordfight where one guy yoinks the other guy’s sword — the sword being the “nasty groove.” But said groove possibly illustrates the lyric even better. Made by producers/former The Time members/future creative partners Jam & Lewis out of big ’80s percussion, plus clanks and repurposed orchestral stabs from an Ensoniq Mirage, one of the earliest sampling keyboards, it doesn’t sound martial exactly, like some of Jackson’s later work, but certainly sounds stark. It sounds like a challenge, one Janet takes up: her past soubrette voice drops to a throatier register, then is stoked into roars. The beat’s not quite its own thing; “Nasty” resembles experiments like Herbie Hancock’s “Metal Beat,” and in turn much of New Jack Swing resembles it. But how Jam & Lewis described it was a rapper’s beat — now standard for pop or R&B singers, from Destiny’s Child to Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish, when they want a tougher image. Meanwhile, Britney took Janet’s soft spoken-word interlude “I could learn to like this” and extrapolated an entire career from it — and covered it, unusually early in her career — but simplified it, mostly collapsing the context of family ties and dignity and creative control onto one axis: sex. But what they’re all doing is asserting this kind of Control.

Part of appreciating songs from the ’80s and ’90s is prying them out of the clutches of the era’s pop-culture jokification– I do like MST3K, but their sort of snappy “Nasty” joke is kind of what I mean. More than one article/restaurant review/listicle attempts to identify, meme-ily, Janet’s idea of “nasty food” (Janet’s answer, dubiously, was whole squid). A certain comment by a certain head of state gave the song a late-breaking sales boost But put on some ’80s radio (or a contemporary playlist of people copying ’80s radio) and wait for “Nasty” to come on. The rest of the radio will flinch.

Kat Stevens on “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” [8.67]

“What Have You Done For Me Lately?” is a sparse, angry snap of a song, the overspill of weeks and months of gradually-building resentment. It’s taken a nudge from bezzie mate Paula Abdul for Janet to fully admit her relationship has gone sour: her once fun-loving, adoring beau has become complacent, content to put his feet up on the sofa and take Janet for granted. Should she leave? She loves him! Or does she? Should love really feel like a heavy weight, pressing down on you? Like your stomach won’t stop churning? Like letting the phone ring out unanswered rather than deal with his temper? Like maybe it’s your fault that he’s like this? “Who’s right? Who’s wrong?” Janet is determined to make a decision with a clear head, but the anxiety and hormones are bubbling underneath (“I never ask for more than I deserve…“). Thankfully Jam & Lewis are on hand with a clinical, whipcrack beat — snap out of it, Janet! The tension manifests itself in her zigzagging shoulders, hunched and strained and contorted, primed to lash out – just as he walks through the door! Janet is wary, but her dude is on his best behaviour, puppy-dog eyes, I’ll do better from now on, I swear. They dance perfectly in time together, remembering the good times: all is forgiven. Surely Janet hasn’t fallen for the same old lines, doomed to repeat the cycle? Paula is rolling her eyes: ugh, not this bullshit again… Then, as the happy couple laugh together over dinner, Janet glances back at us, and the smile falls from her face. The decision has been made. As soon as Mr ‘Not All Men’ leaves for work in the morning, she’s putting her passport in a safety deposit box and setting up a secret savings account to fund her getaway. The plan is in motion. You’ve got one life to life.

Thomas Inskeep on “Diamonds” (Herb Alpert ft. Janet Jackson) [6.80]

After “The Pleasure Principle,” this might actually be my favorite Janet Jackson single (even though she’s technically the featured artist on it). “Diamonds,” written and produced by Jimmy “Jam” Harris and Terry Lewis for Herb Alpert’s 1987 album Keep Your Eye on Me, is, in all but name, a Jam/Lewis/Janet record — with a few Alpert trumpet flourishes. The beats rock hard, and Janet delivers what may be (and certainly was at the time) her most IDGAF vocal: you’re gonna get Miss Jackson (because you’re clearly nasty) some diamonds, aren’t you?

Alfred Soto on “The Pleasure Principle” [8.43]

For all the banter over the years about the cold and steel of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis’ beats for Control, the coldest and steeliest they had no hand in creating. Songwriter Monte Moir, like Jam and Lewis also a The Time alum, stumbled on the title first: “I had to figure out what it was I was trying to say, I just stumbled into the title and realized it fit.” Sung by Jackson in her airiest, most insouciant coo, “The Pleasure Principle” starts with bass synth and cowbell before settling down into a matter-of-fact tale of a night of sin. To visualize the concept, choreographer Barry Lather put together one of Jackson’s most iconic videos, a masterpiece of athleticism involving chairs. Too cold and steely for the audience, or perhaps the hype cycle for a sixth single had exhausted itself: “The Pleasure Principle” missed the top ten in the summer of 1987, stopping at #14. So ignore the single mix and revel in Shep Pettibone’s Long Vocal Remix.

Kat Stevens on “Let’s Wait Awhile” [6.60]

Can you have an erection-section classic that’s primarily about abstinence? “Let’s Wait Awhile” has all the features of a late-night Magic FM request slot regular: soft electric piano, finger clicks instead of drums, lyrics about promises and feelings and stars shining bright. But this message is about trust, not lust. It takes courage to admit that you’re not ready, and it requires faith in the other person that they’re not going to be a dick about it. I remember the advice columns in Just 17 repeating over and over that as Informed Young Women we shouldn’t be pressured into sex, which was all well and good until it actually came to the act of Doing It, whereupon the fug of hormones and internalised misogyny meant that all rationality went out of the window. It’s the sign of how strong and confident Janet is in her relationship, that she can be ‘real honest’ and discuss her concerns freely with her partner, without worrying that he’s going to a) dump her b) tell his mates that she’s frigid or c) ‘persuade’ her round to his point of view (*shudder*). If he’s not willing to wait, maybe he’s not such an ideal person to be doing this sort of stuff with in the first place? I can hear the dude whining to his mate now: “I took her out for dinner and all I got was a perfectly vocalised key change!” Just 17 would be proud of you, Janet.

Jessica Doyle on “Miss You Much” [7.83]

A little context: in March 1989 Natalie Cole released “Miss You Like Crazy,” a ballad built for Cole to sing wide about longing. In June Paula Abdul released the third single off Forever Your Girl, “Cold Hearted,” whose video made a point of its group choreography. And then in late August came “Miss You Much,” the first single from Rhythm Nation 1814. Did Janet Jackson have beef with her ex-choreographer? Was that the kind of thing people talked about, in the pre-poptimist, pre-TMZ era? Because in retrospect “Miss You Much” looks like a dismissal of “Cold Hearted,” cool and upright where the latter was David-Fincher-directed sleazy. (By contrast, the director of “Miss You Much,” Dominic Sena, had already treated Jackson with respect in the video for “The Pleasure Principle.”) But also “Miss You Much” plays as a broader statement, a refusal of expectations. There’s nothing sad or ballad-like about it. There’s that opening high of “sho-o-ot,” and then Jackson’s on a roll: it’s all about her, the deliciousness of her feeling; she can barely bother to describe the “you” being missed so much besides the blanditries of smiling face and warm embrace. The power in “I’ll tell your mama/I’ll tell your friends/I’ll tell anyone whose heart can comprehend” isn’t in the longing; it’s in how much she relishes being the one who gets to do the telling. By 1989 she was in control enough to not have to utter the word once. “Miss You Much” isn’t a deep song, didn’t set out to accomplish as much as the title track or later songs like “That’s the Way Love Goes” or “Together Again” would. But thirty years later it still looks and sounds like (what we now call) a power move.

Katie Gill on “Rhythm Nation” [8.57]

How does one try to condense the reach and influence of “Rhythm Nation” in a single blurb? Entire articles have been written about this song and video (because really, you can’t talk about the song without talking about the video). It’s influenced singers, dancers, directors, choreographers. It won a Grammy as well as two MTV Music Video Awards when those awards actually mattered. The choreography is perfect. Jackson and her dancers move with military-like precision, flawlessly executing maneuvers and creating a dance that would almost instantly become part of the popular consciousness. The sound is amazing. That bass groove is so tight, adding a layer of funk which the guitar takes to further levels. The tune is an absolute earworm, the chorus is iconic, and Jackson’s vocals are at the best of their game. But I think the most important part of “Rhythm Nation” is that this absolute banger of a song, this masterclass in choreography, has remarkably idealistic lyrics. Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” yearns towards a racially and socially conscious utopia as it attempts to unite people to join together and create this utopia. In a lesser artist, these lyrics would be out and out corny. But when wrapped up in the final package, the lyrics go from corny to believable. Suddenly, the idea of the whole world helping each other or rising up in protest doesn’t sound so far-fetched.

Alfred Soto on “Escapade” [7.67]

With solo credits as common as hair metal solos in Janet Jackson music, I often listen to tracks like “Escapade” and wonder: what did Janet Jackson contribute? Lyrics? Sure. But she has to write them around a Jimmy Jam-Terry Lewis melody, no? Or, as is no doubt the case, she comes up with her own vocal melody to accompany their chord progressions. According to Jam, the trio had “Nowhere to Run” in mind: first as a cover song, then as inspiration. “Escapade” hopscotches away from the sense of danger animating the Martha and the Vandellas chestnut; in 1989, into the eclipse of a grim decade for black lives, looking forward to Friday and drinks and friends would have to do. Over Jam and Lewis’ unrelenting thwack, Jackson sing-songs a valentine to a shy boy whom she hopes will join her in — what? The sheer euphoria of the bridge — a melody as bright as a returned smile — suggests worlds of possibilities when the check’s cashed and the night’s young. After all, MINNEAPOLIS!

Leah Isobel on “Alright” [7.14]

Rhythm Nation might have more banging singles, and it might have songs that more directly diagnose the ills of late capitalism, but no song on the record better encapsulates its utopian aims than “Alright.” Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis famously left the high end of Janet’s songs empty to provide space for her delicate soprano; here, they fill the low end with vocal samples, percussion, submerged synth blats, and tense bass licks. Instead of singing high for the whole track, however, Janet buries lyrical references to magic spells and the end of the world in her lower register, where they blend into the rest of the song. It’s only on the chorus, and particularly on her swooping vocal runs as she riffs on the phrase “you’re alright with me,” that she surfaces from the swirl. On a record where she spends so much time and thought discussing what’s wrong around her, here she takes the time to see and acknowledge what’s right. I don’t know that I’ve heard a better sonic analogue for finding relief from chaos: one voice against a wall of voices and sounds, getting lost and being found over and over to the comforting rhythm of a pop song.

Edward Okulicz on “Black Cat” [6.57]

“Black Cat” was never the huge stylistic U-turn it was perceived as. Janet’s brother had dabbled in rock guitars, and this is in that vein too, while still being of a piece with the other songs on the album. Where it succeeds is because it doesn’t just lean into rock, it’s as credible a rock song as it is a dance-pop song — the riff, which Jackson wrote herself, kicks ass, the drums shake a room as much as the cavernous thuds of her contemporaneous singles, and the song’s melody and the fierce vocal performance straddle both worlds. And if you don’t like the mix there’s like 900 different versions with 2000 different guitarists — only a slight exaggeration. Its overall success is testament to Janet’s persona, sure, because nothing she released could have failed at this point, but you can’t go to Number One with single number six off an album without your usual co-writers and producers unless you’ve written something that connects with listeners and performed it with power. The way she slams down on “don’t understand… why you… insist…” is a moment of perplexed, angry humanity in the middle of a song that tries to understand something tragic — the corrosion of drugs and gangs on young people’s lives — and while the soloing is a little hammy, the song escapes being embarrassingly corny. Because in fact the whole song kicks ass.

Pedro Joao Santos on “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” [8.71]

One of the greatest pleasures in getting into Janet is how deliriously bold all of her work is. A story, if you will: how Jimmy & Terry stepped in to support her emancipation and helped her invent new jack swing all within Control, before taking the formula apart in Rhythm Nation 1814, aiming for pop that was both a manifesto against bigotry and, between a balm and a corrective, a rush of love. It was designed for high impact, meaning it would’ve always been a pop juggernaut — the material was there, even if the marketing was oblique, which it was. Instead of a glamour shot in Technicolor and a flirtatious title, the 12 million copies sold feature a stark black and white portrait backed by a call-to-arms; the pop froth is smattered around the backbone of topical anthems.

From single to single, A&M skittered between the two sides and amassed consecutive top 10 singles, but it was the last calling card that proved career-defining. At first, “Love Will Never Do (Without You)”’s hard-edged beats scan identical to “Rhythm Nation”’s sonic matrix: belligerent and completed by Janet’s frontal vox, only in this instance driven through a more feminine marketing (the music video is a blueprint). That’s the first trick: she unexpectedly launches into the first verse in a tentative, lightly hostile lower register (“like a guy would,” said Jimmy Jam, as it was to be a duet) and keeps it until the chorus wraps up. It’s pop as friction. By the second verse, Janet goes up an octave and matches the now-bubbling passion at the forefront. The tiny synth countdown drives it into a perpetual unfolding, each time emerging to add more (vocal) layers to the cacophony and threaten to wrap it up, before coming back in force.

Janet’s head voice soars up to the grand finale, a pop cataclysm of an ending, one of the best in recorded history — which applies to the entirety of “Love Will Never Do,” a simultaneous pitch for chaotic head-over-heels energy and blockbuster status. It’s a bizarre ride and a joyous knockout: the honeymoon phase juiced into one relentless beast of a banger, one that changed pop for good.

Jackie Powell on “State of the World” [6.67]

“State of the World” deserved a music video. At its heart, this is a dance cut with a little bit less of the hard rock that roars in “Rhythm Nation.” In content and in sound, this track is a sequel and that’s not a criticism. It’s an expansion which encourages a foot tap by the listener and includes an absolutely integral bassline that drives this track through and through. While the song clocks in at under five minutes and could have been a bit shorter, its chorus, which crescendos in clarity and volume, makes up for it. In addition to Jackson’s delivery on the verses, which is rather understated, the sound effects which illustrate “State of the World” aren’t too kitschy. The cries and crashes aren’t as apparent as in brother Michael’s “Earth Song” for instance, and that’s appropriate. The politics had to run as smooth as the bass on this track, and they did. They didn’t serve as a distraction, but rather as an asset. Janet was the master of New Jack Swing, and while folks look to her brother’s album Dangerous as the most successful of this genre, Janet experimented with it first. The percussive repetition, serves a purpose for Jackson on the record. It maintains the same intensity throughout as it reflects exactly what she has to say. Lyrically, I wish that Jackson explained how her “Nation” would “weather the storm.” To this day, homelessness and poverty are issues that affect people continuously. Jackson states the cornerstone rather than the specifics, and maybe that’s okay. It’s something that in 2019 we need more than ever. While unity appears so far out of our reach, Janet attested as early as 1991 that we can’t stop and shan’t stop.

Thomas Inskeep on “The Best Things in Life Are Free” (with Luther Vandross, BBD and Ralph Tresvant) [7.60]

To soundtrack his 1992 film Mo’ Money, Damon Wayans (who wrote and starred in the critically-derided box office hit) called upon superproducers Jam & Lewis, and they did work, producing or co-producing 13 of the album’s 14 tracks and writing or co-writing 12 of them. The soundtrack’s lead single was very pointedly a “look at all the cool stars we got together” move, featuring superstars Vandross and Jackson duetting, along with a brief rap bridge from Bell Biv DeVoe (credited here as BBD) and their New Edition compadre Ralph Tresvant. Released as a single in May 1992, it’s a perfect summertime smash, simultaneously airy-light and slammin’, with Vandross and Jackson weaving in and out of each other’s vocals effortlessly. BBD and Tresvant pop in with a nothingburger of a rap (Tresvant gets a label credit for literally uttering one line, the song’s title) that at least serves to provide a modicum of grit to the proceedings, but no matter: Jackson especially sounds breezier than maybe ever, while Vandross seems to float above the record. The two are magical on a track perfectly suited for them (credit Jam & Lewis, of course), and the result is a minor classic.

Jonathan Bogart on “That’s the Way Love Goes” [7.86]

A little over a year ago I rather overshared in this space when discussing Madonna’s “Erotica,” released a year before this single. A year makes a lot of difference: by the time I was listening to Shadoe Stevens count this down on American Top 40, the summer it became the longest-running #1 hit any Jackson family member ever had, radio pop was no longer a dirty, soul-damning secret, just a daily companion, a window into a more colorful, adult, and interesting world than the ones I knew from books. I would probably have had a healthier relationship to romance and sexuality, in fact, if this had been my introduction to overtly sexual pop rather than “Erotica” — both songs share the technique of a sultry spoken-word refrain, but Janet’s is actually grown-up, with the confidence of a woman who knows what she wants and how to achieve it, with none of Madonna’s juvenile need to épater les bourgeois. As it happened I didn’t particularly connect to “That’s the Way Love Goes,” having reached the stage in my adolescence when getting a charge out of raspy-voiced men singing about political instability felt like the more gender-appropriate inevitability. It wouldn’t be until years later when I returned to re-examine the radio pop of my youth with maturer ears that the amazing miracle of this song fully dawned on me: those pillowy guitar samples plucked from songs where raspy-voiced men sang about political instability, but pressed into service of a loping, candlelit coo: equal parts seduction and vulnerability, Janet singing with the authority of someone who had already conquered the world about the grown-woman concerns that really matter: love, and sex, and the impossible beauty that results when they intertwine.

David Moore on “If” [8.33]

Janet Jackson sang explicitly about “nasty boys,” but I was, to use a term my son’s preschool teacher used to describe him, a timid boy, and I soaked up the privileges of maleness with a corresponding fear of performative masculinity. My love of women through childhood was paired with a deep-seated self-loathing that snuffed out friendships, made me uncomfortable in my body, and sparked intense, violent fantasies directed toward unnamed aggressors in my mind, all those “bad guys.” I wouldn’t be able to reflect on any of this until adulthood. But there was a point in preadolescence when the contours of the trap started to become discernible, and Janet Jackson’s “If” was both a cherished song — one I would listen to rapt in front of MTV or on the radio, legs haphazardly splayed behind me — and was also the uncanny soundtrack to my discomfort: a muscular, menacing, alien object that completely unnerved me, made me a supplicant to its rhythm, got into my head and into my guts, made me move, if only for a minute, in a world that glanced contemptuously toward — but stood defiantly outside of — that toxic timidity. I was the woman telling the man what I wanted, and I was also the man obeying; I was the dancer and I was the floor, too. On “If,” Janet Jackson and Jam & Lewis tamed the New Jack Squall that her brother unleashed on Dangerous with Teddy Riley, insisted upon its lockstep subservience to her mission and her groove, and pointed to an R&B futurism that was barely a twinkle in pop music’s eye in 1993. The result is simultaneously mechanistic and wild, rolling waves of noise that you quickly learn to surf or risk drowning in them. That same year, I also found inspiration in angry men, many of them likely nasty ones, the same men I would have assiduously avoided in person and fought off in my dreams. But Janet Jackson kept me honest, reminded me that my anger was a tell for my underlying cowardice and shame. There is never a hint in “If” that her hypothetical proposition — too strident for any coyness or the suggestion of flirting — could ever be satisfactorily answered. Not by you anyway. No boy, nasty or timid, could meet Janet Jackson’s challenge; she’s mocking the guy who would even try. By the time you hit that cacophony of a middle 8 break, defibrillation on an already racing heartbeat, you’re defeated, more thoroughly than any bad guy you might have dreamt up. You’re not ready for this world — you’re not, so you can’t, and you won’t. But what if…?

Jonathan Bradley on “Again” [5.67]

It sounds like a fairy tale: billowing keys, Janet’s tinkling voice, and no drums to earth the fantasy. “Again” was from John Singleton’s Poetic Justice, not a Disney picture, but it shimmers with its own magic anyway. The melody is gorgeous: listen to Janet measuring out the descending syllables in “suddenly the memories came back to me” like they’re sinking in as she sings the words. (She repeats the motif on “making love to you/oh it felt so good and so right” — this is a romance where the sex is as fondly remembered as the emotions.) Janet Jackson is such a versatile performer, and for all the bold strokes and blunt rhythmic force of her best known moments, “Again” is a treasure all of its own for being none of these: it is tiny and tender and sparkles with a real joy that is all the more wondrous for sounding like it could not exist outside of a storybook.

Scott Mildenhall on “Whoops Now” [4.83]

Even outside America, there’s a widespread tendency for people, in search of a lifetime’s grand narrative, to define everything that happened before The Day The World Changed – a coincidental proxy for their childhood, youth or adolescence – as a simpler time. It’s a convenient illusion for anyone in the world lucky enough to be able to believe it, whose formative years were insulated from war or suffering and can be instead defined by the most carefree scraps of pop culture. In that respect “Whoops Now” holds great temptation, it being the breeziest brush-off of burdens, with an all-over Teflon disposition. It’s therefore an almost fantastical ideal of ’90s radio (and still one of Janet’s most played in the UK); a warm and fuzzy-round-the-edges memory of which on closer inspection, the details are inscrutable. Janet, aloft in a proletarian reverie, relates a confusing tale of overnight shift work, a hindrance of a boss and the consequent curtailing of her plans for some fun in the sun this weekend with her friends (who, judging by her extended roll call, seem to mostly be record execs, producers and performers, as well as dogs). Narratively, it’s difficult to tease apart, but all you need to know is that hurrah – she somehow ends up on holiday anyway. A story that sounds more like something from an expletive-laden segment of Airline thus becomes the most casual celebration of the apparent inevitability of positive resolutions when you’re a globe-straddling megastar, or perhaps just a kid in the back of your parents’ car with the radio on. With that certainty of happiness and universal balance, and the belief that it ever was or could be, it’s fantasy upon fantasy upon fantasy. But no bother: Anguilla here we come.

Nortey Dowuona on “Throb” [6.86]

I started listening to Janet Jackson as a happy accident. Her songs were on Atlantic Radio, but nowhere else. I barely heard her music growing up and only knew of her massive career, and not the music that made it so huge.

So when I first pressed play on “Throb,” I was kinda scandalized.

Because it was so directly, overtly sexual, and confident about it. Janet was ready to get down and dirty, without all the mind games, patronization and bullpuddy packed all over it. The lyrics are pretty straightforward, and there are only ten lines of lyrics. Its pretty clear what Janet wants, and she’s gonna get it.

Plus, the bass was slamming, it slunk around my neck and just rested there while the air horn synths washed over my eyes, blinding me. The drums then stepped over me and plucked me up, with cooing and cascading moans and grunts swirled around my body, shredding me to pieces —

Then the song ended. And it was over.

I honestly, can’t really say why this is my favorite Janet song, but I can say that you should probably play it while having sex, and while thinking about having sex, and play this late night in the night if deciding to have sex. I know this’ll be the first thing I’ll play if I have sex with anyone.

Thomas Inskeep on “Throb”

In the summer of 1993, I’d just finished my second freshman year of college, in my hometown. (I’d gone to college straight out of high school in 1988, and dropped out without much to show for it, 16 months later.) One of my best girlfriends had herself just graduated from college and was back at her parents’ house, job-hunting. We were both past 21 and looking for a place to go dancing, and we found it in the nearest big city, Fort Wayne, Indiana, about 45 minutes away. It was a short-lived gay bar — so short-lived I don’t even recall its name, sadly — with a dance floor roughly the size of a postage stamp. I don’t remember meeting anyone there, ever. (I didn’t drive at the time, so Julie always had to, so it’s not like I could’ve gone home with someone anyway.) I don’t remember anything about the bar — except its dancefloor, and the fact that they had a decent DJ on the weekends, who mostly played house music, which I loved. And there were three songs that got played, in my memory at least, every single week. (And Julie and I really did go just about every weekend that summer.)

The first was Bizarre Inc.’s “I’m Gonna Get You,” an ebullient diva-house track which topped Billboard’s Dance Club/Play chart in January but was just peaking at pop radio in June. The second was, really, the gay club record of the year, RuPaul’s “Supermodel.” It peaked at #2 on the Dance Club/Play chart in March, but never left gay clubs at all through 1993. When that got played at the club, I would, week-in, week-out, “work the runway,” lip-syncing my ass off. (It’s just that kind of song.) And the third was an album track from a newly-released album (that would, in fact, eventually be promoted to dance clubs at peak at #2 on the Club/Play chart), Janet Jackson’s “Throb.” This song went where Jackson never had before, both musically (it’s a straight-up house jam) and lyrically (it’s a straight-up sex jam). Its lyrics are minimal but to the point: “I can feel your body/Pressed against my body/When you start to poundin’/Love to feel you throbbin’.” No subtleties there! Accordingly, Julie and I would spend the song grinding up against each other on a tiny riser at the back of the dance floor, because why not? And because it’s fun.

26 years later, ‘Throb” still kills. And throbs.

Maxwell Cavaseno on “Runaway” [6.50]

My childhood managed to dodge the oceanic nature of pop thanks to being struck between two extremes. My father usually kept the car full of rap, via cassettes of assorted rising stars of the moment (Big Pun, Nas, Various Wu-Tang Soloists) or whatever was playing via Hot 97. Meanwhile my mother typically wallowed in a realm of AOR pop a la Amy Grant or the likes who you could never remember anything about. If there was anything majorly important in the history of pop music from 89-98, lemme tell you, that shit didn’t happen anywhere near me. However, one of the few memories that did manage to linger on was “Runaway.” It was a record that managed to ethereally sneak up to me like some kind of weird creep that I just couldn’t understand with its weird foreign instrumentation simulating orientalist visions and Janet’s background vocals harmonizing like a bunch of Buddhist Cats sneering a la Randy Savage’s “nyeeeah.” Whenever I trailed along in supermarkets or tried to keep busy in waiting rooms, I could comprehend what happened on other songs I liked in the outer world like “Take a Bow” or “Kiss From A Rose.” But this? How did you rationalize all of these gliding vocals crooning and this swarm of glittery noises when you have barely any understanding of the world around you, let alone music? No matter how much further away and away I’d get from whenever it was meant to be a single, it could still disruptively appear in the wild and send the whole day into a state of disarray. It’s so alarming to know now as a grown adult that I can personally summon this ifrit of a single, rather than think of it as some sort of rare sighting of trickster energy (all the more bolstered by Janet’s ad libbed teasing of supposed imperfection and other-human excess) that isn’t meant to be heard more than once in a blue moon. To be honest, I may just forget altogether after the fact, the same way I never remembered the name of the song even when considering it for review. Just that “nyeeeah” hung around in my memory.

Danilo Bortoli on “Got ’til It’s Gone” [6.17]

In Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”, a cut from her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon, she sang of impeding progress as a form of destruction (“They paved paradise/And put up a parking lot”). Often seen as as environmental anthem, actually, she was looking back at the sixties, and then seeing, right ahead, a decade that showcased no promising future, only aching skepticism. This resulted in one the purest, simplest lines she has ever written: “Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”. Almost thirty years later, Janet Jackson conjured those same thoughts, conveying, instead, a different meaning. The Velvet Rope was her very own game of smoke and mirrors, and intimate and often misleading look at her private life. Lying at the center of that album, there is a delicate tribute. “Got ‘til It’s Gone” features a well-placed sample from that line culled from “Big Yellow Taxi.” The context is entirely different however. Here, the same words are uttered between confessions of love. It helps, then, that “Got ‘til It’s Gone” is, in reality, a talk. It’s the way Janet asks “What’s the next song?”. It’s the way Q-Tip responds “Like Joni says.” It’s also the way he asserts finally: “Joni Mitchell never lies.” The brilliance of a sample travelling three decades is that it is deliciously meta. The concept of truth, in Janet Jackson’s universe, is interchangeable. That way, she, too, can never lie.

Josh Love on “Together Again” [6.86]

Together Again was originally conceived as a ballad, and no wonder – it’s a deeply sentimental (borderline treacly, if I’m being uncharitable) song about death and angels and reuniting in the afterlife in heaven. Deciding to record it as a surging house jam instead was an absolute masterstroke, and the result is one of the most purely joyous, transcendent moments of Janet’s career. The idea of carrying a lost loved one in your heart and feeling their spirit in the goodness you encounter in the world, and even the thought of one day joining together with them again in the great beyond – “Together Again” makes you feel that joy rather than merely verbalizing it. So many of us say that when we die we want those we leave behind to celebrate our lives rather than mourn our passing, but Janet is one of the few artists to really bring that radical acceptance of impermanence to life.

Thomas Inskeep on “I Get Lonely” (TNT Remix) [7.43]

Allow me to be cynical for a moment: Janet Jackson, in 1998, is still a superstar. But in the past five years, she’s only had one R&B #1, ‘94’s sex-jam “Any Time, Any Place” (assisted greatly by its R. Kelly remix). So if you’re thinking “What do we do to get Janet back to the summit,” what do you do? Well, it’s 1998. How about calling in Teddy Riley? Better yet, how about he gets a helping hand from Timbaland? And the best: how about Teddy brings his merry men of BLACKstreet with him for a vocal assist? Ergo, “I Get Lonely (TNT Remix),” now label-credited to “Janet [she was just going by “Janet” at the time] featuring BLACKstreet.”

And you know what? It’s genius. The idea, brilliant. The execution, top-notch. Riley on the remix, with instrumental help from Timbo, with guest vocals from BLACKstreet: it’s more exciting than the original (which was already quite good), has a little more junk in its trunk (those should-be-patented instrumental tics that Timbaland is such a wizard with, ohmygod, much like Janet’s big brother’s vocal tics), and the duet vocals are superb (especially as it was so rare to hear Janet singing with others at the time, and every member of BLACKstreet save Riley was a great-to-marvelous singer). Presto! Two weeks atop the R&B chart in May 1998, along with a #3 Hot 100 peak. Mission accomplished — and fortunately, it works even better artistically than it did commercially. Everybody wins!

Pedro Joao Santos on “Go Deep” [7.14]

That The Velvet Rope’s party song is so heavy on gravitas and spine-tingling urgency speaks volumes. In an album so hellbent on carnal and psychological openness, the party of “Go Deep” goes deeper, and makes sense. It’s not just the top-20 banger it factually was, and it’s not just hedonism for the sake of it. That is, if you don’t divorce it from the wounds of longing, manipulation, abuse and distress being sliced fresh. Tension lies within this absolute romp, placed midway through the red-hot catharsis of Rope. It might be that the party acts as a salve for the trauma. Though it isn’t put into words, you can hear it subliminally: Janet’s hesitant vocal; the evocative, near-melancholy synth fluctuating about. You can even imagine the words as portals: making friends come together as support; the sexual come-ons not just because, but maybe as physical relief for the pain.

A bare-bones lyric sheet would give you nothing �� but music as context goes a long way. And the music itself from “Go Deep” gets me in raptures after all these years, from that ridiculous boing (perhaps best known from “I Can’t Dance” by Genesis) to the bass driving it, all chunky and rubbery, and the dramatic string arpeggios in the middle-8. If there’s got to be a template for urgent, carnivorous Friday night anthems, let this be the one — and keep it in context.

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa on “You” [7.00]

The Velvet Rope carries a strong and fascinating legacy; It is rightly praised as a predecessor to both mainstream R&B’s exploration of the intimate (the body) and the spiritual (the soul) in the continuing decades, and to the experimental scope and atmospherics later adopted by today’s so-called “Alt-R&B,” and this extraordinary mixture of elements is never more efficient than in the album’s third track “You.” The song is, first and foremost, a triumph of production genius. Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis’s use of space, and the dynamic at play between the then-cutting-edge electronica ingredients and neo-soul’s earnestness and sensual themes, should itself be a case study for aspiring producers, but it’s the way Janet’s vocals are performed and filtered through the track that take the song to unsuspected levels of greatness. There is something in the breathy, low-pitched verses that exudes unadulterated eroticism, and when the post-chorus harmonies kick in where things really become ecstatic. In several interviews, Janet herself defined this album as “baby-making music”, and I can safely bet that “You” is the song she was thinking about. And its echoes still reverberate today, not only in the sound of R&B to come, but in the fact that thousands of people were conceived to this very beat.

Edward Okulicz on “Free Xone” [6.83]

I remember it only vaguely; it was 1995, and for drama class we had to do a performance based on a social theme using a combination of media and methods. I was in a group with a big Janet fan, who decided to use her music as the basis of a combination spoken-word, mime and dance performance on racism. I only understanding the themes in the abstract because I was young, sheltered, and white. I knew racism was a thing I didn’t like, but it wasn’t an existential threat to me. Two years later, on “Free Xone,” Janet would speak directly to me and tell me of a bleak present with the promise of a better future. Janet told it like it was, and still is for many: if you are gay, despite the fact that love is love, a lot of people are going to hate you or at least be uncomfortable around you. Homophobia isn’t just violence or hostility, it can be any kind of social rejection, and it can happen anywhere, as it does in the anecdote in the first part of the song, where a pleasant conversation with a person sitting next to you on an airplane sours because of it.

Janet Jackson is a dancer, but she didn’t dance around anything if she didn’t have to. She leaned into her status as a gay icon out of love, not necessity. But she made her social justice songs out of both love and necessity. Hating people is so not mellow. Love and sex are never wrong. Janet Jackson has never resiled from that belief, and never shied away from putting it in song. I’d grown up listening to Janet Jackson, but I’d never thought of her as an ally for myself, and it was intensely comforting to hear that she was on my side when nobody else seemed to be (Meshell Ndegeocello’s “Leviticus Faggot” the previous year had more or less convinced me I’d die in the closet).

In 2019, her funk here sounds a little dinky, the transitions between the soft groove and the raucous party bounce are kind of awkward, and the weird song structure sounds like it was cut and pasted together, but it’s a collage of compelling pieces. It got quite a lot of play on the alternative youth station here, the one whose listeners were at the time generally terrified of a) pop superstars, b) Black artists, and c) dancing. Someone thought the kids needed to hear this, and they were right. “Free Xone” helped my nascent consciousness come to grips with earlier songs that I’d just considered a good time before. Its story is less common in the Western world, now, but it’s still true as history for some, and as present for others.

Leonel Manzanares de la Rosa on “Tonight’s the Night” [4.50]

I’m a sucker for good covers; we usually tend to give songwriting, the cult of the inspired author, and the concept of originality a certain mystique that grossly overshadows the importance of skilful creative interpretation and re-invention. But many of our most important singers are essentially covers artists — Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, Bettye Lavette, a huge number of blues and jazz singers, most of the 50s-60s Greenwich Village folk scene — because of course we need these musicians to give these tunes another dimension, whether stylistic, generational, or purely emotional. Also, a song’s perspective can change dramatically because of who is singing. “Tonight’s The Night” works with Rod’s gravelly, rugged voice, and, although it can sound a bit creepy by today’s standards, the arrangements carry it beautifully, but in Janet’s sexually adventurous, musically exuberant The Velvet Rope, it acquires a new dimension, a far more interesting one, might I add. From Janet’s view, and the brilliant decision of not changing genders in the lyrics, her version alludes to bisexuality in a way that makes complete sense within’ the album’s core subject matters, and works wonders within’ its production philosophy. Stewart later presented his live renditions of the song by saying “This is an original by Janet Jackson”. No one will refute that. It’s her song now.

Alex Clifton on “All For You” [6.86]

“All For You” is the first Friday night you go out with your new college friends and that utter sense of freedom where you realize the night is yours without a curfew. It’s sparkling fairy lights in the background, a disco ball overhead, at a roller rink or at a club with a fancy light-up dancefloor, maybe a stolen swig of rum on your tongue. It’s the moment you see someone new and your heart falls into your stomach with no prior warning, and you suddenly know you’ll do anything to talk to them. You simply have to; it’s an animal urge, chemicals and hormones whizzing through you and making it hard to walk because you’re giddy. Maybe you’re braver than I am and you go talk to the person who’s snagged your attention, but maybe you hang back with your friends and pretend you’re not watching out for your crush while also dancing stupidly with your new friends. There’s a pure exhilaration in this song that many have tried to emulate but few match the ease with which Janet performs. She’s flirty and sexy like no other, but “All For You” also makes you, the listener, feel flirty and sexy too — something about it worms its way into you and becomes the shot of confidence you need. Lots of people can write songs about dancing at the club, but Janet turns it into a night you’ll remember for the rest of your life.

Jibril Yassin on “Someone to Call My Lover” [7.00]

Does falling in love always feel the same every time? It’s one thing to keep pushing on in life but what’s striking about “Someone to Call My Lover” is how infectious Janet’s optimism is. Built on an Erik Satie riff by way of the band America, Janet recast herself as a woman excited to love again. Let it be on the record – long-term relationships are fucking terrifying. Moving on from the dissolution of a marriage is disorienting and the songs that use Janet’s divorce as inspiration on All For You share a tentative yet firm belief in renewal.

She uses “maybe” on “Someone to Call My Lover” the way one throws out a “lol” after shooting their shot – you don’t even have time to catch it amid her grocery store list of wishes for her future love. “Someone to Call My Lover” hits all the right places thanks to the careful and immaculate production but it’s Janet’s sincerity that marks it as her best twee performance.

Will Adams on “Son Of A Gun” [5.20]

Given All For You’s post-divorce setting, it was only appropriate that after the aural sunbeam of the title track and giddy optimism of “Someone to Call My Lover,” Janet would do a 180 and proceed to rip him a new one. The opening taunts — “Ha-ha, hoo-hoo, thought you’d get the money too” — against the throbbing kick bass set the scene, but the true genius of “Son of a Gun” comes from its sampling and modernization of ultimate kiss-off song “You’re So Vain.” The classic bass riff, once soft in Carly Simon’s original, is now razor-sharp. The cavernous drum beats sound like you’re trapped in an underground dungeon. All the while, Janet mutters burn after burn right into your ear (“I’d rather keep the trash and throw you out”) before Simon launches into the “I betcha think this song is about you” refrain, sounding like a Greek chorus confirming Jackson’s digs. The album version carries on until the six-minute mark, with Carly Simon waxing poetic about clouds in her coffee and apricot scarves in an extended outro. The video version wisely excises this in favor of guest verses from Missy Elliott, whose reliably grinning performance shoves the knife in deeper. In both versions, however, Janet’s menace is preserved. Forming a trinity with All For You’s preceding two singles, “Son of a Gun” showed just how versatile Jackson is, and how adept she is at encapsulating the messy, complex emotions of an ended relationship.

Will Adams on “All Nite (Don’t Stop)” [6.17]

I had been looking away from the television when it happened. By the time I’d heard the gasps from my parents and I glanced up at the screen, the cameras had cut to an aerial shot of the Reliant Stadium in Houston, where the 2004 Super Bowl was taking place. My 11 year old brain couldn’t process exactly what happened from my parents’ concerned murmurs, and having completely missed the incident (there was no YouTube back then, see), it would take years for me to understand the impact that the “wardrobe malfunction” had on culture and Jackson’s career. The greater impact was to be expected — the six-figure FCC fine on CBS (later dismissed by the Supreme Court) and conservative handwringing about the moral decline of the country — but Jackson in particular suffered unduly. There was the blacklist, ordered by Les Moonves, which kept her off CBS, MTV and Infinity Broadcasting. Jackson’s appearance at that year’s Grammy Awards was canceled. Late-night talk show hosts turned it into monologue fodder, usually grossly and usually at her expense. The controversy hampered her album cycles well into the Discipline era. Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake remained entirely unaffected. His career would skyrocket two years later with the release of FutureSex/LoveSounds; he became a Saturday Night Live darling; he performed solo at the Super Bowl’s halftime show in 2018. This alone puts Damita Jo and “All Nite (Don’t Stop)” in a more sympathetic light, but even then, pop radio missed out on a truly brilliant song here. Janet acts as the Dance Commander, taking the opening guitar lick from Herbie Hancock’s “Hang Up Your Hang Ups” and turning it into a lasso with which she throws you onto the dancefloor. The percussion percolates, each sound placed perfectly to create an undeniable groove. Because of the blacklist, it didn’t even break the Hot 100, and the video was also subject to its own asinine controversy — the few video channels that managed to avoid the blacklist edited out the sexual content, including a scene were two female dancers kiss. Even fifteen years later, it feels like we’re still reckoning with how Jackson was treated in the aftermath. But there’s an inspiring resilience in “All Nite (Don’t Stop)” reflected in the smile she bears on the Damita Jo cover; its unabashed sexuality in the face of all the backlash makes it an even better listen today.

Kat Stevens on “Strawberry Bounce” [7.17]

I like Janet best when she takes risks, whether that be controversial subject matter, a new image or a change of musical direction. Old faithfuls Jam & Lewis are still a solid presence on Damita Jo, but on “Strawberry Bounce” we see Janet plumping for a left field choice in the then-unknown Kanye West. The result is an intriguing Ryvita, all brittle handclaps and feathery faux-ingenue whispering, on the verge of crumbling into nothing. It’s so light that there’s no bassline, just a queasy glockenspiel tinkle and Janet’s butter-wouldn’t-melt sing-song. I keep wondering to myself: why have Janet and Kanye chosen to present a song about working a shift at a strip club in the style of an Aptimil Follow-On Milk advert? Is it a subtle reminder that sexy times may eventually lead to night feeds and dirty nappies? It doesn’t help that instead of a proper beat, we have Jay-Z muttering ‘BOUNCE!’ as if he’s grumpily shooing a dog off his lawn. It’s confusing and uncomfortable, yet compelling and convincing, and I’m still listening. The risk has paid off.

Will Adams on “Rock With U” [5.83]

“Just Dance” is often thought of as ground zero for the rise of dancepop and eventually EDM in the US, but it had been brewing for over a year before the Lady Gaga song topped the Hot 100 in early 2009. From 2007 onward, the increased interest in incorporating elements of disco via four-on-the-floor beats and faster tempos created some indelible hybrids, particularly in the R&B world: “Don’t Stop the Music”; “Forever”; “Closer”; “Spotlight”; and “Rock With U.” While most of those songs stuck to traditional verse-chorus pop structure, “Rock With U” proves that sometimes simplicity is best: A house arrangement of arpeggios and basic rhythms. A single verse, repeated three times and interspersed with wordless vocalizing with nearly no variation, save for Janet’s whispers. All this, combined with the glorious one-shot video, creates a hypnotic effect, like the song will go on forever. On a recent Song Exploder episode about “Honey,” Robyn said of dance music: “It’s about putting you in a place where you’re in your body dancing without thinking about when it’s gonna end. It’s more about the moment and how it makes you feel.” This is the heart of “Rock With U”: an invitation to get lost in the music, forget about the outside world, and just rock.

Maxwell Cavaseno on “So Much Betta” [5.67]

The beginning of the 2010s was way too challenging in retrospect and I regret every minute of it. “So Much Betta” was a song I first heard in a mix by Robin Carolan, now best known for founding and guiding Tri-Angle Records, but for a brief period operated a side-blog called “SO BONES” where he’d pontificate about random gems of pop, R&B and rap but in a way that made records feel gross and sinister. Suddenly Cassie’s “My House” was a ghost story, Vanessa Hudgens’s “Don’t Talk” would be compared to Takashi Miike’s Audition, and so on. In retrospect I think of the Capital P Pop songs of the decade that I’ve responded to enthusiastically like “TT,” “Cheyenne,” “Strangers,” “Somebody Else,” “Backseat,” “Lac Troi” or the dozens of others there is at least usually a despair or gloom I can at minimum project onto the record even where it might not be obvious. And that comes from hearing Janet Jackson whisper over a record that sounded like some toxic goo from out of the dregs of the Rinse.FM swamps I’d often thought to be “the coolest” sounds, before cutting through over glistening synths that felt like a phantom of not Janet per se but her brother’s past. It was a song that felt v. strange in 2010 well after MJ had died with the listless echo of the Pop Monarch feeling less like a dream-like invocation and more like a degraded copy of a copy in its grotesquery. Enough can be said about how cool and timeless and bright and powerful Janet at her best can feel. But it deserves an acknowledgement that she could also make a song that was so evocative in all the most unpleasant of ways.

William John on “Unbreakable” [6.67]

“Unbreakable” as an adjective is applicable to those rare, unending, strong relationships between people, whether they be romantic, platonic, familial, or, as has been intimated in relation to her song of the same name, between performer and audience. But it’s also a word that can be used to describe oneself, and one’s ability to traverse adversity with stoicism. The first song on Jackson’s most recent album doesn’t sound defiant – more “stroll to the supermarket on a warm summer’s evening” than an escapade to Rhythm Nation. But courage manifests in different ways. Jackson’s breezy delivery, which takes on an ecstatic form in the song’s chorus, is indicative of her self-assurance at her status; she’s embracing the languor allowed to her as a legend. She may have been removed of her clothes in front of the whole world a decade prior; she may have spent her whole life in the shadow of her infamous relative – but she hasn’t faltered. She’s still here. As she greets her listeners in her inviting whisper at the song’s conclusion, she notes that it’s “been a while” since her last missive, and that there is “lots to talk about”. But her listeners aren’t impatient; there’s always time for Janet. Her story has always been one of control, of poise, of excellence. Long may it continue.

Pedro Joao Santos on “Dream Maker/Euphoria” [5.17]

When I get to delve deep into a legend, as with Janet, I tend to hit the ground running and have them release a new, great album a few months later. Not having heard 20 Y.O. and Discipline, I was shielded from the Janet-isms from the ’00s and viewed Unbreakable as a proper continuation to her legacy, instead of the grand comeback it actually was — hackneyed artwork, halted tour and all. Janet got the upper hand, finding her reunited with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, in a steadfast gaze in a steadfast gaze over airtight, pensive and giddy R&B. An exemplary return to form, incidentally devoid of all the raunch, bathroom breaks and Kioko.

One older Janet-ism survived in a marginal capacity: the penchant for interludes, continued here in only two moments (aside from endearing sneezes and spoken-word outros): one was the bizarre preview for a Target-exclusive full track; the other was “Dream Maker/Euphoria”. A precise inflection point scribed upon the passage from “side 1” to “2” — even if things threaten to get a bit pedestrian and humdrum in the last half. The track itself is a dual mood, yet a continual trek through the glow of a renaissance. A seemingly old groove recalling the Jackson 5 gets dusted from the vaults for the first part. That’s ear candy for ages in itself, a web of vox so intensely feverish and melodically preternatural. It gets looped tantalisingly, then it transcends onto the next level. Full-on rapid eye movement: keyboards and ambience make up the sound of eyelids opening to meet a purple, unreal sky — suspended between worlds, a dream dimension of utopia and the reality where those ideas must coalesce. “I guess the dreamer must be awake,” Janet concludes after envisioning a “perfect place” exempt from “jealousy, abuse or hate,” “war, hunger or hate.”

Janet’s four peak-era albums alone prove she’s been excelling at world-building where and when the world was far from ready. In “Dream Maker/Euphoria,” it isn’t so much the stark condemnations of Rhythm Nation 1814, but its more hopeful fantasies, articulated through the confident tone of Control, set to the type of innovative musical reverie The Velvet Rope predated, softened through janet.’s sensuous filter. But more than the touchpoints of yesteryear, the essence of “Dream Maker/Euphoria” lives in its manifestation of the future: how tangible and expansive it might just become, if given a chance.

#Janet Jackson #writing #music

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