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#yes that's how you write the sound part. i looked up the lyrics on google
synonymroll648 · 1 year
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sophie: how are you feeling?
keefe, sighing: i’m blue
sophie: da ba dee da ba di? 
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thestarsarecool · 1 year
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Paul McCartney Interview in Q Magazine: Cash for Questions. January 1998 Issue.
Hi, all! A photo of one page of this has been around on tumblr for a while (here), but I’ve always wanted to read the full thing. Some lovely soul on Google Groups in 1997 decided to transcribe the full interview (here), so now I’m uploading it so you can read it. Hooray!
Q. When you first wrote a song with John Lennon, did you realise you would play one of the biggest parts in rock 'n' roll? (Michael McConnell, Crawley, West Sussex)
A. Obviously not. But even with all the so-called "historical" events that followed, you're just too inside it all, too busy doing it to realise anything's "historical". You just get on with it. I'm not a great ponderer. Some people would say that's a mistake but it's just the way I am. It's quite cool not to always get the overall picture because it leaves something to be found out. The musicologists get paid to discover the differences between me and John. I'm only just beginning to see it now, based probably on their analysis. So John is often one note, I'm often more melodic. (McCartney is thinking especially of Ian McDonald's book Revolution in the Head, where he describes the ace partnership in contrasts: Lennon's method is "harmonic, dissonant", McCartney's that of the "natural melodist".) It might sound amazing but we never spotted that when we were writing. We just did our thing. But it is kind of apparent when you bother to analyse it.
Q. If John Lennon could come back for a day, how would you spend it with him (Mark Wilson, Deeside, Flintshire)
A. In bed.
Q. Were you ever envious that Brian Epstein didn't fancy you? (Nick Gibson, London) 
A. No, I didn't mind. We just used to go to these clubs at night and wonder why there were so many men. It was OK. Brian was very cool about his side to things. I think the nearest any of us got to it was the John-going-to-Spain thing (it inspired the movie, The Hours And The Times) and I'm not sure what the strength of all that was. I think it was power play on John's part. But Brian kept his private life aside. He kept it out of our faces (pause, possibly for effect). He kept it out of mine, anyway.
Q. What were the last records you bought? (Chris Timms, Harrogate)
A. The Prodigy's The Fat Of The Land, Radiohead's OK Computer and Chopin's Nocturnes.
Q. How do you feel about all the animosity between you and Oasis right now? (Christina Vellano, Syracuse, New York, USA)
A. There is none as far as I'm concerned. What happened was I'd said, Good group, good singer, good songwriters. But people asked me about it so much that one time I decided to take it further and say that they don't mean anything to me. I am not related to Oasis. I wish them good luck and everything. But my kids mean something to me, John Lennon means something to me, but Oasis ....
Q. Who would you pick to play with in your dream six-piece band? (Alan Thatcher, Essex) 
A. Dream? So we're into fantasy, aren't we? Ringo, John, George, that's three. Me. Jimi Hendrix. That makes lots of guitarists, so Little Richard on keyboards.
Q. With Wings, did you feel pressurised to live up to The Beatles? (Andrew Williams, Neath)
A. Yes, it was a case of "follow that!". Impossible to do. Looking back on it, it's a lot better than I thought, though some of it is just not PLAYED as well as The Beatles. My son (James, co-worker on McCartney's last pop album, Flaming Pie) plays a lot of Wings, so I'm re-listening, and there's good shit that I'd forgotten about. A lot of the lyrics were off the wall, drug stimulated. Things like "Soily - the cat in the satin trousers says its oily". What was I on? I think the answer is stimulants.
Q. Do you still support the legislation of cannabis? (Grahame Woods, Northwood, Middlesex)
A. I would make a distinction between legalising and decriminalising. I'm in favour of the latter. The problem is that jails are stuffed full of kids doing what a lot of people do. Why stuff the jails with young kids? Plus it's one of the best places to score. I remember when I got busted in Japan, nobody made the slightest effort to rehabilitate me (laughs). Just stuck me in a box for nine days. Obviously you come out and you are fairly resentful.
Q. Do you roll a wicked joint? (Steve Kline, Bury)
A. I have nothing to say in answer to that question, m'lud. I wasn't even at the venue.
Q. The critics have been harsh on your solo work. Did this ever discourage you? (Robert Hemauer, Madison, Wisconsin, USA)
A. Yeah, sure, but you don't let it kill you. It's a difficult one, because it's never cool for someone to tell you you're shit. Many people through history were damned by the critics of their own time - Cezanne, Van Gogh, Stravinsky, all great painters! Ha ha!
Q. We'd like to see your paintings but can't get to the exhibition in Germany (McCartney unveils his work for the first time in Siegen, Germany, next year). Any thoughts about putting your paintings on "tour", or publishing a book of them? (Kathy Goodman, San Diego, CA, USA)
A. A difficult one. If you're a so-called celebrity - like Bowie, Anthony Quinn, Tony Curtis - and you exhibit any art, inevitably, people are not going to think of you as a real painter. Gallery owners come up to me and offer to give me exhibitions. I say, You haven't seen my pictures, and they say, It doesn't matter. Well, it does to me. Otherwise, it's just trading on the name. However, this guy from Germany came over, looked at all my paintings, seems to like them. He's telling me what they're all about.
Q. You've done so many things - classical, films, music, art, drugs - is there anything left you might have a go at? (Tim Bowler, Swansea)
A. The thing is how reluctant I've often been to have a go. I think we were brought up pretty repressed. Brought up to be seen and not heard, to stay in your place, particularly a working class thing. And I think - I hope - with The Beatles, we got rid of a lot of that. With the painting, for instance, it was Willem de Kooning who liberated me. I used to go to his studio, took in one of my paintings, said, Hey Bill, I hope you don't mind but can you tell me what it is? (Affects American drawl) "Oh, looks like a couch." Well it looked like a purple mountain to me. And he says, "Well, whatever." Here's one of the greats, his works go for one million, and it was great to see how little bullshit he was bringing to it all. It's really important to explode these myths that surround the arts, music, painting. It's Wizard of Oz time - so many myths, and it's often just a little man behind the screen. The paraphernalia that surrounds them gets in the way. Often you meet leaders in their field and they have none of that. I remember asking a great painter - Peter Blake, maybe - for some advice once, and he said "Just paint a lot". Similar to my approach to music.
Q. How do you know when a song's finished? (Joyce Slavik, Palatine, Illinois)
A. It's full up. You've answered all of your questions. Normally, I start following a thread: "Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice ... " The thread might come out of nowhere, and I follow it and complete it, like a crossword puzzle. When the crossword is full up, the song is finished.
Q. What's more embarrassing: writing Hi Hi Hi or Say Say Say? (Tien Vu, Costa Mesa, California)
A. (Weighs up pros and cons). Say Say Say.
Q. Why did you give such extensive interviews for an authorised biography (Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now) instead of writing an autobiography? (Deena Hochberg, Southampton, Pennsylvania)
A. I don't think I'm a writer. I've never been moved to do it. You have to have a pretty big fire in the belly to do something as big as that. I fancy music more. I'm happier writing in songs rather than in prose, or poetry. Though I wrote something that was never published about the time I got busted in Japan - for my kids. Because I knew one day they'd say, "Hey dad, what was it like, nine days in a Tokyo jail?". So I had a mate of mind, who did all our printing, knock up a few copies, one for each of the kids.
Q. I'd like to know if Sir Paul sings in the shower, and if so, what does he sing? (Jennifer Nash, Bursville, Minnesota)
A. It's normally the bath. I prefer a good bath. And the answer's Firestarter - "I'm a firestarter, de-de-de-de-dera."
Q. As a kid you used to play pranks at school by throwing balloons filled with something "worse than water". If you had one of those balloons right now who would you like to hit with it? (Brett Yuskiewicz, Leipzig, Germany)
A. Jonathan King. He's a prat from way back.
Q. Which football team did/does each Beatle support? (WC Chan, Maryland, USA)
A. None of us were big footie types. We weren't very sporty, unlike other groups who were always having knock-arounds. My dad was an Everton fan, which I was most of my life. But then Liverpool started playing well, and Everton didn't, so I took the unprecedented move of supporting them both. It's not allowed, I know, but there you go.
Q. For years, you've claimed it's you in the Walrus costume in the Magical Mystery Tour film. But watching the footage shows that for it to be you, you and John would have had to exchange all your clothes. Are you winding us up, or have you not watched the film in 30 years? (Dorothy Northcutt, Tucker, Georgia) 
A. The big one. Very good question. I tell you what it was. In the stills we had taken, I was the one with the Walrus head on - in the film it's different. So John then immortalised it in Glass Onion, "I've got news for you all, the walrus was Paul". Obviously at the time you don't care, it's just a Walrus head. You don't realise years later people like our friend from Georgia will analyse it.
Q. What is the quality of each of the other Beatles that you like(d) the best about? (S. Breggles, Richmond)
A. All of them - musical talent. All of them - honesty. Ringo -funny, and kind hearted. George - straightforward and open. John - witty with a soft centre, or maybe hard with a soft centre.
Q. Do the copulating beetles on the sleeve of Ram (1970) stand for F**k The Beatles? (Luc Van de Wiele, Wemmel, Belgium)
A. It happened to be a picture Linda had taken. We couldn't resist it just because of the way it looked. She'd caught these two beetles f**king, and then the significance hit us. We saw that pun, yeah, thought why not?
Q. Was there ever a third Lennon song for Anthology 3? (Jake Lennington, Rush City, MN, USA)
A. There was, but George didn't like it. The Beatles being a democracy, we didn't do it.
Q. I have a Beatles t-shirt which I bought from The Grapes (celebrated Liverpool pub). I was told the band are pictured in their favourite seats - adjacent to the Ladies where you would often catch a glimpse of the girls changing for an evening at The Cavern. True? (Alan Tomkins, Goring, West Sussex)
A. I hope so. It SOUNDS true. Had there been an opportunity to spot the girls changing, I'm sure we would have sat there.
Q. If you hadn't been a musician, what do you think you would have been? (Tony Carter, Manchester)
A. The only thing I could have probably qualified for was teaching. So I might have been an English teacher.
Q. Does it do your head in - stuff like the handwritten lyrics to Getting Better selling for $249,000 at Sothebys? (Peggy Robinson, Trinant, Gwent)
A. It's the price of fame - literally. You scribble them on the back of an envelope, and it gets to be famous. People want it, so it becomes a desirable object. Like Mozart's bog paper, which is another highly desirable object, apparently. More valuable obviously if it's been used.
Q. What is the inscription on the ID bracelet you wear? (Rachel Hyland, West Harford, Connecticut)
A. It says Paul - for when I forget who I am.
Q. How does it feel to have a star named after you (the christening courtesy of American astronomy fans)? (John Sales, Barry, Glamorgan)
A. Really cool. The good thing is that as you get on, your fans get on too. And some of them are pretty swotty. Like the people who started Apple, they were just Beatles fans, hence the name. You don't sit around looking at the sky, trying to find it, but it's like getting a very nice birthday present. I'm not religious, I don't believe in any one system - I sort of think the universe is basically benevolent and we f**k it up - but I am spiritual. I saw Stephen Hawking on TV the other night, and he was saying that we are made of the same stuff as the stars. Which is great. We are all stardust, luv.
Q. What do you want written on your gravestone? (Tom Mangold, Exeter) 
A. Here lies Gracie Fields. Anything to keep people away.
Q. Hey, is it true you are dead, and if you are, what is it like? (L.A. Patterson, Hamlet, North Carolina)
A. Yes. And it's very interesting. It's a very interesting afterlife.
#my quotes#my articles#paul mccartney#lots and lots and lots of thoughts#obviously the 'in bed' in quote is ridiculous#but the 'John Lennon means something to me' bit is also of interest#the way he talks about Brian is fascinating#and the way he says 'John-going-to-Spain-thing' is very amusing#My favorite part of the interview is when he says he was probably on stimulant when he wrote some of the Wings stuff#'What was I on?' indeed#I wish he said 'yes I roll a fantastic joint thank you for asking'#my life goal is to smoke a fatty with paul mccartney#him saying he was brought up to be seen and not heard?? hmm#ok why are either of those songs embarassing#ok maybe this is a cultural thing but why was he still taking baths#him just straight up calling out Jonathan King is very ???#I wasn't sure if it was the same guy but @lennons pointed out to me that Paul wrote an open letter calling him stupid in 1990#here: https://twitter.com/JohnFLyons2/status/1503719188321472521?s=20&t=m3KkkYTjSS5L23CIAthuww#the letter is awesome by the way#Dorothy from Georgia coming through with a 'you and John would have had to exchange all your clothes.'#I feel like I remember him denying the RAM beetles thing in the past so it's nice to see him admit it#of course he sees no problem with watching girls changing#like gross but I think it's funny that he's like 'lmao I hope so haha yeah I would have definitely done that'#love the beatles democracy reference. petty king#ok maybe the most fascinating thing for me here is the gravestone bit#that he would like people not to know where he's buried#he would like people to stay away#hmmmmmm#and for some reason 'it's a very interesting afterlife' made me sad#AND scene
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kimtaegis · 1 year
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Yes, you are right about the criticising part... I think it's okay to criticise the bad things they do. They are humans as well, they make mistakes whether it's one person (someone from bts) or a company. And I feel like this fandom has a filter for criticising things because it was a week or two ago when everyone was so angry about the dynamic pricing. And rightfully so because that's yikes. But why can't we have the same for music too? Just because an artist is more involved? And I don't want to point fingers, or blame people because truly we don't know how this collab came to be.. I don't want to blame Jimin but I also don't want to say he's completely "innocent" because we are just fans, we don't know what he knows or thinks. He can just as easily Google or ignore things like us. I don't know how to feel about the company either, because it's possible they didn't know who Jimin would feature with (but that sounds weird), but at the same time they are a _company_ with a shit ton of money and resources, wasn't there even one person who said: Yea let's maybe sit this one out? And on the other side, people who actually made the song in America, they really looked at these people and said yeah let's hire them? Almost all of them are very problematic and they just employed them. So... whose fault is it, you know? Because there are so many factors, especially when it's not Jimin or hybe making the song and asking someone to feature, but they are the ones getting asked to do a feature. So it's weird but it just makes me really uncomfortable and we won't ever really know what was behind the scenes anyway... And I don't think we really need to know? Like they accepted, they made the song, it's done. But we can't have a civilised conversation about this because we'd be labeled antis immediately... That's what's also fucked up. Why is it easier to criticise the company than the artist. When Joon spoke about how he got a lot of criticism for his lyrics and that pushed him to be more mindful and get his lyrics checked out and just work on being a better person... Everyone praised him. But suddenly everyone forgot what pushed him? He got criticised. And he took notice of that. And he said, you know what, you are right, I want to do better. And I love him for it. But others or the company can't do the same if the fandom just blindly supports everything that has to do with music.. They called out the AI artist. They called out the dynamic pricing. They called out the NFTs. But they can't have the same energy for collaborations?
Anyway, sorry for writing a lot. I won't send another ask regarding this. But thank you if you read it :) I always love hearing your opinion on things and it's always a relief when something bad or like less good happens and I'm not alone with my very different opinion.
your ask goes along well with the previous one I answered. you made such good points, especially with the recent dynamic pricing uproar and what namjoon said about criticism making him want to improve. I really have nothing to add, and I think your words are a good end to this exchange here. I really wish more people would be a little more critical like this. yes, in the end we all want to have a good time, just vibing and all, but there are things that should simply not be acceptable by common sense, and it should be said. People who are so reluctant to realising artists’ missteps always make me wonder how they treat their loved ones, like… do you also just blindly support their problematic actions? The day fans will finally see that criticism is not the devil in disguise but a way to change things for the better, the fandom will be heaven on earth fr
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skepticalarrie · 2 years
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hi, i was just wondering if you could explain a bit more about reversed songs? how do they manage to get some words so clear when you play it back? do they record it backwards and then hide it in the song, or do they have to write lyrics that sounds like coherent english when you play it back? bc that seems like soo much work having to consider the lyrics backwards when writing, and to get it to sound good both ways
Hi, dear! Yes. Actually, I was just looking into this earlier, so thank you for asking. I think this is an interesting discussion for us to have.
It's a technique called Backmasking. It's not complicated at all. Nowadays it's such a simple concept and easy to pick up, we can simply play anything backwards on our phones/computers. But back between the 80s/90s, it was a big controversy. A lot of bands were accused of hiding evil and subliminal messages as a form of manipulation and all kinds of shit.
Here's what google says:
Backmasking is a recording technique in which a message is recorded backward onto a track that is meant to be played forward. Backmasking is a deliberate process, whereas a message found through phonetic reversal may be unintentional.
The Beatles, who incorporated the techniques of concrète into their recordings, were responsible for popularizing the concept of backmasking. Singer John Lennon and producer George Martin both claimed they discovered the backward recording technique during the recording of 1966's Revolver; specifically the album tracks "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "I'm Only Sleeping", and the single "Rain". Lennon stated that, while under the influence of marijuana, he accidentally played the tapes for "Rain" in reverse and enjoyed the sound. The following day he shared the results with the other Beatles, and the effect was used first in the guitar solo for "Tomorrow Never Knows" and later in the coda of "Rain". According to Martin, the band had been experimenting with changing the speeds of and reversing the "Tomorrow Never Knows" tapes, and Martin got the idea of reversing Lennon's vocals and guitar, which he did with a clip from "Rain". Lennon then liked the effect and kept it. Regardless, "Rain" was the first Beatles song to feature a backmasked message: "Sunshine … Rain … When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads" (listen; the last line is the reversed first verse of the song).
As for your question, what Harry did with both Sunflower and Boyfriends - same with the example of Rain in the text above. Is that part of the song is simply backwards. So when played forward, the words and the noises are pretty much unintelligible. But when you play it backwards, that's the "original" sound, so it sounds perfectly clear. There are other situations where you can try to say/sing words in reverse, so again, it won't make much sense when played forward and it can go unnoticed, but it will form words when played backwards.
What doesn't really happen is to have both sides making perfect sense and forming coherent words. That's what a lot of people have been confused about, I guess. And that's where all the theories come from. Which is okay.. Harry is clearly into the backmasking technique, nothing says conspiracy theories like hidden messages on a song LOL so I totally agree he would do that. But also, hidden messages when played backwards are supposed to sound clear and coherent. And I really don't want to be a bitch about that because I see people are having fun with it, but everyone listening to "Louis" and random words to every single music played backwards, you're just hearing stuff because words played backwards will naturally form another words. It's one thing to play Medicine in reverse and hear shit like I'M GAY or THIS SONG IS ABOUT SUCKING DICKS (which is what I was expecting tbh) haahahaah but people are hearing a bunch of random words and trying to make sense of it, and that's not what's supposed to sound. If Harry in fact hid more cryptic shit in songs in reverse, it should sound clear and the message needs to make sense, like Boyfriends and Sunflower.
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binnieboyswhore · 3 years
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SKZ AS...
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Stray Kids as receiving a blowjob Pairing: Skz x Reader Genre: smut Word count: 1,994 Warnings: Oral (m receiving) and face fucking, if there’s anything else i need to add please let me know! Authors note: This is kinda garbage but also i love it so much. I also just love seungmins so much cause i often think about it too much lol anyways further a do here it is. (also if you can write in korean and know korean please DM me i’m trying to get a skz tattoo but do not trust google translate in the slightest)
Please if you are under the age of 18 do not interact. Thank you :)
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Chan: 
Getting in studio blowjobs was one of Chan's favorite things. He’d always be the one to ask, with his puppy dog eyes he’d complain how horny he is and how if you hadn’t worn such a short skirt he wouldn’t feel this way. He’d complain how well, technically TECHNICALLY you made him this horny as you are the root of this problem you should be the one to take care of it. Eventually you give in and get on your knees for him constantly playing the big doe eye angle with his dick in your mouth making him lose his mind. You watch as he squirms trying to continue mixing songs with one hand while holding onto the chairs armrest with his other. He’s an absolute slut when you focus on the head of his cock so that he has enough time to tell you and release on your face, his favorite place, with your tongue sticking out. He’d also be an angel and clean your face off with a tissue while kissing you and mumbling what a good girl you were.  
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Minho: 
You and Minho always had a voyeuristic relationship never shying away from a bit of public sex but when you reached your hands down into his pants in front of his hyung at dinner and continued to tease him he knew he had to put you in your place. He’d give you a deadly side glare that only fed into the pumping of your hand around him. He would excuse himself from the table for a second and as he was just out of sight your phone would go off and you’d scurry off after him making a quick excuse for the table. As soon as you make it behind the door he has you on your knees slipping his throbbing cock between your lips. Rutting his hips into your face not caring about the speed. Essentially he’s face fucking you in the middle of the mens restroom and neither of you could care less. He watches as your mascara runs down your face cooing at how gorgeous you looked with your mouth stuffed full of him. He grips your hair as he cums down your throat then tells you to meet him at the car after you clean your face and goes to tell the boys you felt sick. You were in for a long night of being put in your place.
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Changbin: 
Changbin would come home in a rage, something about someone not listening to him during rehearsals or something. He’d just be fuming with no way to let it out so he just rants and rants to with clench fists. You have him sit on the couch as he keeps going on and on while you get on your knees between his legs, shaking your head and agreeing with his anger. You take out his member and slowly start to pump him and his ranting slows down and his moans become more frequent. He slides his hand into your hair so he has some control over your movements. You slide him into your mouth gagging as he moves his hips a bit. He looks down apologetically and you just take him further in your mouth, you allow him to take control using your head and his hips to get himself off. He watches as spit falls out of the sides of your mouth and your tears leaving mascara tracks down your cheeks. Seeing how wrecked you are with his cock in your mouth he can’t help but let himself release down your throat. When he removes himself he pulls you onto his lap whipping away your drool and tears very lightly before giving you a sweet kiss as a thank you.
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Hyunjin: 
Hyunjin has been busy working on some lyrics or some new dance moves for stray kids and you couldn’t care less. The more attention he gave to his work meant less attention for you and you well you were feeling extra needy since being abandoned by your boyfriend. You stand behind his chair, your arms wrapped around his shoulders watching him work as you kissed his neck and nibbled at his ear. He hadn’t said anything about it while occasionally leaving little kisses on your arms. You were growing irritated at how  he was just blatantly ignoring your neediness. You whisper little things in his ear and he just tells you later and that he’s busy right now. You stand behind him weighing your options. You can either wait and see if he follows through or you can take control here and seeing as he needs a break anyways you choose the latter. You make camp between his legs and put your head in front of his desk so that he couldn’t not see you. He smiles down at you with all the love in his heart and you explain how he needs a break anyways. He finally leans back and let’s you do your thing as he holds on to the armrest of his chair constantly cooing how beautiful you look when you take him like that. He begins to get whiny when he’s about to come so you take your mouth off his full length paying attention to just the tips and he moves your hands away so he can pump himself and finally release all over your chest. He’d watch as you take your fingers swiping up his release and slowly licking it off, his eyes grow darker and as he shuts his laptop you scurry off to the bedroom with him not too far behind you excited to finally have your Hyunjin back.
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Han: 
An empty movie theater would be the perfect place for a Jisung blowjob. It wouldn’t take much to convince him either, you’d just have to say well since no one is here and then the sound of his zipper meets your ears. You grin from ear to ear as you reach your hand over the shared arm rest, Jisung letting out quite whimpers. When he was hard enough you bent over the armrest and started moving your head at a rather fast pace as you started to grow nervous of getting caught. You added your hand to jerk off what part of his shaft wouldn’t fit in your mouth and soon he was pulling at your hair and whispering that he was about to come. As he releases in your mouth he bends over his chest hitting the back of your head causing him to go further in your throat and making you gag. Your throat tightens around his already sensitive member causing him to let out a bit louder whine and that’s when someone from the front room sat up and looked back to try to figure out what was happening. Jisung and you look at each other in shock and embarrassment as you both thought the place was completely empty
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Felix: 
You guys would be backstage at some show waiting for stray kids turn to go on stage and poor Felix, the worst part for Felix wasn’t the performance, it was the waiting, the anticipation. He would constantly get in his own head with the what if’s and shut down and get real quiet. You quickly noticed this process happening and grabbed his hand trying to help calm his nerves but when that didn’t work you looked down at your watch noticing you had enough time. You kissed below his ear pulling him out of his head space for a second then whispered to meet you in the bathroom. He walks in with a confused look as you turn to lock the door really fast, you get on your knees hooking your fingers into his waistband and explaining that you’d help him relax. He’d agree almost immediately, i mean he’d get out of his hand and have your pretty lips around him? Win win. He’d mostly stand there holding his shirt up so it won’t get in your way as you held onto the back of his thighs using it as leverage to force your mouth down his length, the eye contact between you two never wavering. He fed off the intense eye contact only breaking for seconds at a time to watch as you took his length so well, only gagging when he used his hips. You fed off his tiny moans and how he tried so hard to keep his eyes open to stare you down. He’d come in your mouth just because you guys did have to go back out but in his head he came all over your breasts. By the time he got back to the boys he had to go on stage and he was out of his own head all thanks to you and that magical mouth.
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Seungmin: 
I can see Minnie saying yes to a blowjob while he’s driving like homeboy thinks it’s so hot to do things you’re not supposed to do. Like you guys would be stuck in standstill traffic and with nothing else to do and you’d just have to ask him once and he’d start unbuttoning his pants. He’d gather your hair into a makeshift ponytail and let you do your thing. Your thing including everything from licking him up the bottom of his shaft to suck your cheeks in when you got near the head of his cock. He’d try to control you in little ways like holding your head still periodically, scared you might try to pull something while he moves the car little by little through traffic. He’d let little moans and whimpers slip past his lips trying his hardest to not make it completely obvious to those around him what was happening inside his small car.  He’d eventually come down your throat as he hits the brake a little too hard, shoving himself down your throat and you can’t help but moan at the new depth. He’d let a rather loud strained moan out as he holds your hair in his grip. He’d also beg for a kiss from you wanting to taste himself off your mouth and yes it would be the hottest thing you’ve ever done.
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IN: 
Jeongin loved nothing more than to finally get out of the dorms and stay the night at your apartment, getting away from the boys and their constant babying towards him to seeing you and kissing you whenever he wanted. After staying up all night catching up on what the other has been doing all week you both passed out without even an I love you in exchange. When you woke up, your body curled into Jeongin like a perfect puzzle piece. That was until you felt him poking your lower back. You smiled to yourself rolling over and peppering his face in soft kisses to wake him, he smiles at you grunting at you. When you make a comment about what he must’ve been dreaming about his eyes burst open and his cheeks redden but you kiss it away assuring him that you’d take care of it. You crawl under the blankets but not without a little protest from Jeongin saying you didn’t have to if you didn’t want to but you wanted to more than anything. You take your time with him seeing as it was morning you didn’t want to over stimulate him in any way and hurt him. You can hear his little moans from under the cover as you lick a thick strip on the vein on the underside of his cock. You take your time kissing him and just appreciating him and he enjoys it so much that when he actually comes it takes him by surprise and it’s the hardest he’s ever come. After he would have the cutest fucked out smile wanting nothing more than to just kiss you all over your face and return the favor.  
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lunarblazes · 3 years
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i made a desertduo playlist and then decided to be a nerd and write explanations for all the songs! like a nerd!
playlist link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5ZGylutQpyTbgX7MY7Lrzz?si=t8_kBwBHSYG5kxTvZoIrTQ&dl_branch=1
QUICK DISCLAIMER: i am aware that a lot of these songs may have or imply romantic connotation! i would really really like it if these were not read as though those romantic connotations carry over to scar and grian. even if we’re just talking about the third life characters, i would prefer not to ship them or imply romance between them on this post. thank you so much and keep reading if you’d like to see the playlist analysis!
and now that that’s out of the way, PLAYLIST TIME!
passerine- the oh hellos
“you were the song that i’d always sing/you were the light that the fire would bring/but i can’t shake this feeling that i/was only pushing the spear into your side again”
this song really just... firstly, it’s one of my favorite songs, and the line i chose there pushes home the sort of terrified devotion i think the desert has. plus there’s a fun line about the cold wind blowing in from the north in the ending bits that i think very much fits their conflict with the red army, and a lot of legally obligated flight imagery that i need to have in every possible song because i’m a fuckin nerd.
no children- the mountain goats
“i hope that our few remaining friends/give up on trying to save us/i hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss off the dumb few that forgave us”
i will admit that no children isn’t a perfect fit, but the general vibe of sort of defiant pessimism and betrayal fits very well with them! it’s very triumphant in its death, and i think that is very desertcore, because what’s more triumphantly dead than being the last duo left alive?
skulls- bastille
“when all of our friends are dead and just a memory/it’s always been just you and me/for all to see”
okay like this entire song is SO MUCH DESERT VIBES? LIKE SO MUCH. if i were to ever make an animatic for them i’d do it with this song. “a match is our only light, it’s day of the dead i’m indiana jones, yeah,” “i hope you can make me laugh six feet under when we’re bored of each other,” “i don’t want to rest in peace, i’d rather be the ghost that annoys you,” IT JUST KEEPS GOING. i think this song would work well with any third life duo, honestly, but these two in PARTICULAR just because of how it ended with them literally ‘buried’ next to each other, and again, the chaotic death vibes.
freaking out- mystery skulls
“i just keep out of my tongue/til all you want is done/and you just wanna leave me, oh yeah”
this song is a very third life grian song to me in particular! it could be my bias because of my little headcanon of grian burning on his red life, but seriously, this song is very reminiscent of the back and forth of loyalty that grian has with scar. the above line is sort of representative of the betrayal on red, and of course grian’s life debt.
night running- shin sakiura
(this song is in japanese! these lyrics are the rough english translation i found on google.) “someday we will stand at this place once again/for sure we will stand up again and again/we will watch it will the end/i want you to live freely”
this song is actually the ending theme for the anime bna, which i adore, and i just added it on a whim before looking at the translated lyrics. but um. holy hell the lyrics hurt me because they’re about running in search of someone, running for no reason, looking for something, and it just really hit, because the desert never really had a goal! they didn’t expect to survive, they were trying to survive, but what was their longterm goals? nothing. so that sort of endless search felt fitting for this. plus the song is a parallel for the two estranged best friends of the show so! perfect.
summer nights- siames
“it’s summertime/singing al green in your car/heading to a party/and the night air feels alive”
okay again, i will admit this song is mainly on here because i absolutely love it, but i also do think it fits well. it’s also about healing/estranged friendships, with a very distinct feeling of nostalgia for a happier time. maybe for a time when this was all a game, when there was no blood or betrayals on their hands. little canon divergent, but it’s fun for me, so into the playlist it goes!
allies or enemies- the crane wives
“are we allies or enemies/this will be the death of me, this will be the death of me/all’s fair in love and war but i can’t fight with you anymore”
. i just. points to that lyric. it literally led to both of their deaths. are they allies or enemies? it also fits with scar still wanting grian to be his friend even after he’s no longer indebted with the line “what happens now? do we have another go, do we bow out?” another very good animatic song that i’ve considered heavily. i listen to this playlist a lot
burn him down- kitsch club
“you must destroy, oh you must destroy, beyond all recognition/you gotta burn him down, you gotta burn him down, beyond all recognition”
this song just has a lot of fire and arson and high energy vibes. my little war criminals look at them go
rose- the oh hellos
“what's true is like a sickle/it'll cut you to the middle/your rose is without a thorn/but no, my mouth don't taste of metal/from the pot here to the kettle/i think we got a lot we gotta learn”
this one is like the exact opposite vibe of burn him down. the oh hellos are so poetic and this song just... feels like the healing potions after a battle. many of the metaphors here fit, i think
lone digger- caravan palace
“hey, brother, what you thinking/that good ol' sound is ringing/they don't know what they're missing/(they call it lonely diggin')”
okay this song is straight up just a dance song. i added it because i like it and also for some reason it feels ominous to me? i’ve got no idea why, it’s seriously just a club song, but it’s a banger and it’s in this playlist because i said so
feed the machine- poor man’s poison (suggested by my friend argonaughtkeene!)
“somethin’s goin” on, just look around/fear is on the rise, and there’s blood all over the ground/let’s all just blindfold the poor, we all know what’s in store/ we got ‘em now, just break ‘em down a little bit more”
this song is a VIBE for both desertduo members. there’s parts for both of them. it’s ruthless, gritty, very maniacal, perfect. listen to it and you’ll immediately understand why i added it.
sweet tooth- scott helman
“i hold hands with cosmic entities/i’ll take this two-ride if i please/i got this sweet tooth baby, yeah i got this sweet tooth baby/i exploit my opportunities/some broken hearts, some cavities”
sweet tooth is super upbeat and bright with these strangely dark lyrics? like i’m pretty sure it’s about addiction. in any case, i thought the “i hold hands with cosmic entities” very funnily fitting for both of the desert boys. it’s a banger!
necromancin’ dancin’- bear ghost
“when i’m necromancin’, everyone’s dancin’/nobody can stop me, i dare you to try/the dead are infused with insatiable groove and they’re coming for you, there’s nowhere to hide”
necromancin’ dancin’ just. bastard vibes. there’s not much more to say it’s just huge villain song vibes. i adore it.
crazy = genius- panic! at the disco
“if crazy equals genius/then i’m a fucking arsonist/i’m a rocket scientist/if crazy equals genius/you can set yourself on fire/but you’re never gonna burn, burn, burn”
i. yeah. y. yeah. more bastard vibes. also shoutout to an artist i saw (i think it was strifesolution?) who made a desertduo piece to this song because i have not stopped thinking about it ever
sweet bod- lemon demon
“i’m diggin’ up your coffin/and pouring out the contents/your sexy, sweet solution/is ripe for distribution”
you know how i said freaking out was a grian song? this one is a scar song. it’s my favorite lemon demon song and also it has the total macabre capitalism vibe that third life scar NAILED. more bastard vibes good for him <3
drunk- the living tombstone
“feel so much better than usual/i feel indisputable, oh/but now i’m feeling so beautiful/don’t wake me up from this spell i’m under, if i’m still breathing/i know that i will be ugly when i feel like myself again, oh/but right now i’m feelin’ so beautiful”
the descent of this song, starting off with a polite gathering and ending with a gasping drunk in the parking lot gazing at the stars that he can barely see? yes. yeah. mhm. i used a line from this song for a fic, actually, it fit so well.
oh no!- marina
“one track mind, one track heart/if i fail, i’ll fall apart/maybe it is all a test/cos i feel like i’m the worst so i always act like i’m the best”
bubbly pop track about false confidence, the ruthlessness of the pop industry, and the influence of the media? you know why this is here. it vibes. it rocks.
do it all the time- i don’t know how but they found me
“we’re taking over the world/a little victimless crime/and when i’m taking your innocence/i’ll be corrupting your mind/no need to cry i’m only doing everything i want to do because i do it all the time”
EVEN MORE BASTARD VIBES! SOMEHOW THERE IS MORE! this playlist is half villain songs and half heart-wrenching ballads and that’s the real desert experience i think.
the phoenix- fall out boy
“i’m gonna change you/like a remix/then i’ll raise you/like the phoenix”
BATTLE SONG BATTLE SONG! i’ll be honest i partially chose this song because i am a huge sucker for phoenix grian imagery in particular, but it’s also just a very good war song for them. villain song no 18372948 except this one originally had a hero vibe and now it’s changed specifically for them?? wild. their power
the other side- the greatest showman
“right here, right now/i’ll put the offer out/i don’t wanna chase you down, i know you see it/you run with me/and i can cut you free/out of the treachery/and all you keep in”
scar and grian’s desert monopoly conversation went exactly like this canonically because i said so fuck you <3
icicles- the scary jokes (suggested by my friend demizorua!)
“icicles don’t soften when they die/so why should i, why should i?/oh, icicles don’t soften when they die/they sharpen into sabers and they stab you in the eye”
this song actually has specific parts for both grian and scar! my cool epic friend mx demizorua pointed both of them out to me and i adored it so much. it’s a very spiteful song, just like the desert boys. also it feels vaguely murderous. perfect
problems- mother mother (suggested by my friend demizorua!)
“i’m a loser, a disgrace/you’re a beauty, a luminary, in my face”
literally this entire song fits them. particularly their relationship with the flower husbands, to me, honestly— the whole “when we meet at the pearly gates/you’ll get the green light/and i’ll get the boot in the face” reminds me a lot of them hdksjdks
tongues and teeth- the crane wives
“i know that you mean so well/but i am not a vessel for your good intent/i will only break your pretty things/i will only wring you dry of everything”
h. yeah. this song is literally gaslight gatekeep girlboss and i attribute it to the desert for that reason alone. songs to commit murder to!
you’re nobody til somebody wants you dead- saint motel
“you’re nobody til somebody wants you dead/and the list, it grows, and grows, and grows/it grows, and grows, and grows/and grows, and grows, and grows/until it’s everyone you’ve ever known”
this one is very self-explanatory. enemies pogchamp
curses- the crane wives
“there’s a fire in my brain and i’m burning, love/oh my, oh my/keep running to the sink, but the well is dry/oh my, oh my/every word i say is kindling/but the smoke clears when you’re around”
okay again! this one has two very specific parts for both of them. grian’s the first verse, which is above, and scar’s the second verse!! i really do like my fire imagery for these two don’t i? well, i blame them for having a fuck ton of tnt on them at all times and literally burning their enemy’s banners as a final act of defiance.
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couchpotatoaniki · 3 years
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Idol!ATEEZ: Their s/o secretly writes fanfics pt.2
A/N: This was a request from someone who wanted to read their reactions to dirty fanfics *wiggles brows* but cba coming up with more backstories, so this’ll be a continuation of the first reaction
Tag list: @lovelyrose014-blog​ sorry this took so long :((
WARNINGS: swearing, mature content, heavily suggestive
Part One
Kim Hongjoong:
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Hongjoong made no effort to hide that he read your stories. It was as he promised; the first time he read them was not the last.
He’d been filling up his rare breaks with your works, powerful words contrasting your timid nature and no matter how many times he indulged himself in your crazy mind, Hongjoong never ceased to be amazed.
You had more sides to you than he ever could imagined.
Although, there was one thing he put off for quite some time now, and that would be reading your more popular fanfics. The fan favourites. After all, being the leader, he should know what his fans like, and as your boyfriend he should know what you crave.
Hongjoong was a smart guy despite the goofy act he put on--very similar to your intelligence and geeky-yet-quiet nature. He knew that you wanted to keep him away from the dark side of your account, not wanting to scare him away (which he would never let happen). Hence why he hadn’t gone on it since he wanted to respect your wishes to some extent.
Until now.
Hongjoong swears it was curiosity, nothing more, but deep down he knew. He still needed to see that side of you, the side you deem acceptable for a whole world of strangers to see but not him.
Drove him mad.
But he was still in denial as he chanted in his head that this was only for research purposes. Bullshit.
Late at night, when pretty much everyone had gone home and he still had some work left to do, Hongjoong decided to take a well-deserved break, lying on his sofa as he scrolled through his phone.
He was doing what he had planned--he was finally doing it and nothing made the adrenaline rush faster through his veins. He clicked on the one which had the most reads, the one that was the most popular among anything you wrote, and from the title, it appeared innocent enough.
Maybe this wasn’t the one...
Then again, you were adamant that he never read it.
“Never hurt to try...” Hongjoong mumbled, despite being the only one in the sound-proof room. He clicked on it, anticipation making him restless.
Long chapter, as usual, and everything started out fine enough. No sign of anything, nothing suggestive at all.
What was the big deal about?
The next few chapters were of a similar feel. Sweet, gentle, fluffy. But he couldn’t put his phone down, something about this story had him...unsettled. It was nothing like your usually ones--with sadistic characters and an intricate plotline.
No. This had him slightly confused. It felt too kind.
Then he carried on. And then he realised.
That was exactly your intention.
The filter you had put over the first few chapters was slowly startling to peel away, into something more twisted.
Hongjoong buzzed off this, knowing exactly that the earlier chapters were a trap, a false sense of security. How you managed to poison every reader slowly, like your words were mercury.
By the time he got to the first smut chapter in the series, he was already consumed, work forgotten . Every word felt like it sucked out a part of his soul, and the heavy themes in the scenes had him in an uncomfortable situation of rather tight jeans.
Right now, all Hongjoong wanted was you. He needed you. To do all those things you wrote, to be there with him and feel the things he was feeling.
Luckily, you were always awake at this time of night.
Just a phone call away.
Park Seonghwa:
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Although he loved your shower time, there was one habit that Seonghwa didn’t like and that was you leaving your notebooks everywhere. It made his daily cleaning harder than it should’ve been.
Never did he look through them, caring too much about not invading your privacy (save for a few months ago where he accidently found out about your fanfic account on AO3). But today was a stressful day already.
All he wanted right now was to lie down with you and watch some cheesy romcoms, accompanied by some snacks. Hongjoong, ever the perfectionist, was under more stress than usual and that meant all the other members were too.
Seonghwa was the nurturing mother, and even he felt like he lacked the energy to be as such with the way things were going right now--a comeback just around the corner.
So, yes, the tall boy was quite peeved today. He needed his charger. He needed you. But you were taking your damn time in the shower and he had to pick up all your damn notebooks from the most random places.
What even was it about these notebooks that you had to buy--or try to buy--a new one every time you entered a shop? Seonghwa never understood your love for them as he had only linked the devilish little thing to his work, where Hongjoong would be composing or writing lyrics.
The last thing he needed right now was something to remind him of his job.
The stress continued to build as this argumentative thoughts accumulated in his head, causing him to drop the hardback in his hands. “Fuck’s sake,” he growled, too pissed off at the moment to notice that your book had oh-so-conveniently opened up.
When he did, however, his fiery anger cooled down at the page, which had a few words on it. Luckily for him, your handwriting was fairly neat (unlike your normal habits) so he could read your little notes.
Phrases, sentences, ideas, the plot line in general, that’s what he got from a first glance. Maybe he could have a peek, seeing as though he was exerting a lot of energy recently.
The words, the plot, everything on that page was something he did not expect. It was smut.
Surely his innocent sweetheart wouldn’t be writing those, right? He gave you the benefit of the doubt when he found out about your fanfics. But you were a sweet girl, and he had always thought you mind was as pure as your heart was.
Then again, no one’s heart is truly pure, and it wasn’t the first time you had been tainted by him.
His eyes scanned your words, finding that it was somewhat vanilla and gentle.
A sigh escaped past his lips when he found that you were still his soft-hearted princess.
Then he noticed it was an old entry. Flicked through the pages and saw that the smut scenes progressively got more frequent and dabbled a little more in the dark side of things. 
His heart plummeted. Not just because your innocence was slowly peeling away, but because he too found himself getting a little interested by it. Especially one of the last entries of that notebook, where he found himself blushing hard enough to turn his normal skin to resemble that of rubies.
Yet, he couldn’t stop.
That was until he heard your voice yelling, "Seonghwa!"
Eyes like those caught in headlights, his large hands shut the book with lightning speed. But you had already caught him snooping.
"What are you doing with my notebooks?" You cheeks a dusty rouge from both the hot water and embarrassment, you snatched away the book from his hands.
"N-Nothing! It fell and opened up and I just..." He sighed, afraid that he'd already broken your trust. "I'm really sorry..."
Exhaling softly when you saw Seonghwa looking like some sort of scolded puppy, you reached on your tiptoes to ruffle his hair. Calms him down a little.
“What,” you cleared your throat to rid your voice of fear, “what did you read?”
Now how was he going to play this? Was he going to lie and say it was only one page, or would he say that he had a peruse through the whole thing? As you had caught him already, it would not be a bad idea to tell the truth. “Um...bits and bobs. Just skipped through, really. I’m sorry.”
Smiling softly, albeit a little awkwardly, you patted his shoulder comfortingly. “It’s fine, I just... didn’t... expect you to... find out this way.”
He chuckled nervously. “Well, I’ve know for about two weeks now, about your... writing.”
“What?!”
Jeong Yunho:
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One problem that you have, is that now Yunho knew you wrote fanfics, you became sloppy with hiding it. Not like there was a real need to because--as mentioned--he knew about it. How you loved to write thrillers and suspense and all there strange wacky things you’d find on a documentary about dangerous people.
Though that didn’t mean you never wrote other things as well.
Your works were obviously for a certain age and above (not like the warnings you put matter because the underage ones read it anyway), so writing the occasional smut was normal for you.
In fact, you were comfortable with it. Your personal experience with Yunho, combined with the ones you read online, all fuelled your creativity. Unfortunately, now that you became more open, Yunho had more opportunities to read what you wrote.
Not like it mattered much, you thought, because the words in your google docs were pretty much ineligible from the phrases only you could decode.
Sadly, when it came to smuts (what you wanted in them and what you didn’t), there wasn’t really a way to hide what you were talking about.
So when your tall and rather innocent boyfriend took a sneak peak at your latest entry, he was smacked in the face with the bullet points on there:
Fake dating AU
Cunnilingus
Blindfolds
Size kink
Hand kink
Sir kink
Power play
Complacent sub
(Because for some goddamn reason, every Yunho smut I’ve seen had either a hand kink or size kink...not that I’m complaining tho--)
Was this the stuff you were into? Because he certainly never never knew it. Your sex life with him had been somewhat vanilla due to the fact it only recently started and both of you were still a little too shy to branch out and dabble in other things yet.
His only thoughts until he next saw you were about this. If you were channelling your frustrations into your writing, then he could help you, right? After all, he wasn’t against trying this stuff out. It was a learning experience he was willing to go through. For you.
So when you came back from work, he sat you down on the bed, very nervous with his large hands engulfing your own. Concern would be a drastic understatement.
“Y/N?” You hummed in reply, now thoroughly scared. “I just wanted to let you know... that I’m not afraid of...expanding our experiences and neither should you be.”
Your heart dropped into the abyss of your stomach. “Y-Yunho, are you breaking up with me?”
“Wait, what?” The confusion of this situation seemed rather familiar. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. I just...” he bit his lip, still quite shy. He really didn’t know how to say this outright.
So he showed you instead.
As your eyes fell on the document of your plan for the next smut scene you had to write, your face dropped. Horror was evident in every part of your expression and he could see that.
“Yunho, I--”
“Look, there’s nothing wrong with you wanting to try some of this,” he said, before bashfully looking out the same window you had when you had been discovered. “Besides... I wouldn’t object.”
Now that the both of your faces were redder than roses, the air had become slightly more...still and heavy.
“Listen, Yunho, just so you know, I don’t often write my own preferences. But I suppose trying new things is a bad idea...”
Kang Yeosang:
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Almost a year had passed since your boyfriend had found out about your writing (through your clumsy cousin, no less) and you were careful as to what you showed him.
He often helped you through tough times like writer’s block, and understood your strange little habits. Even threw you an idea once in while whenever you were struggling to think of something or even took you out--restaurants, landmarks, whatever would help.
Yeosang was looking after you.
But now? Now, he pampered you.
That had you lowering your guard. He was being so kind, so why not let him read more?
Here’s ‘why not’:
Because he kept pushing his limits. Yeosang and you never had done anything, despite the fact that both of you were living together--by your request, since you had been in quite a few bad relationships where sex was a major factor. So, for the past two years, Yeosang had been alone in his endeavours.
All his intention was to find out what you were into. That was it, he swears. Thought it might at least curb the growing need to have you begging under him--or above him--just have a small glimpse as to what was in store. Maybe even have them as company when he really needed you.
Mission Impossible, is what this felt like, buttering you up, making you feel safe and comfortable (this came naturally since he always wanted you to feel this way with him, horny or not). You were like a fortress, always giving him more but not the stuff that he needed.
So he tried the same tactic he used to get you confess.
Truth or Dare (alone, obviously).
“Seriously? Last time we did it like this, you found out my rather embarrassing secret.”
“Just answer,” he pushed, watching you carefully as you climbed into bed next to him.
“Okay... truth,” you mumbled as you buried your body between his arm and chest.
“How about ‘dare’ this time?”
Your lips released a tired chuckled. “That’s not how this works, Yeosang...” But after a long few minutes of silence, you caved into his request. “Okay, fine. Dare,” you grumbled after saying something along the lines of, “if you wanted me to do something, then just ask.”
His lips brushed against the lobe of your ear, sending electric shocks down your spine. “I dare you to send me one of your smut fics.”
‘Surprised’ wasn’t really the word you would use to describe the immense shock that hit you like a train. “No.”
“Can’t go back on a dare.”
“But that’s even more embarrassing than having you read my normal fanfics...”
“No, it isn’t. Not to me, at least.”
“Yeosang,” you whined but as it became more and more clear that he would not give up as time passed on, you caved once more. Hesitant, you pulled out your phone to scroll through your works. What was the best one to send to him, you had no idea. “Can I at least ask why?”
“Because I want to get to know you more. All of you...” That one sentence had you more excited than you’d be willing to admit.
After all, it wasn’t just Yeosang who felt alone at nights (and sometimes days) for the past two years. Arguably, it was harder for you since you used to be very...active. Hence why you had such a selection to choose from right now--it was your outlet.
Perhaps it would be best to let him see the one that had you more bothered than anything after writing it--since he wanted to get to know that side of you as well.
Finally making a decision, you handed over your phone with bated breath. What would he think? Would he be weirded out? Would he not be into any of it?
For the boy, however, it was a completely different story; he was too into it. The more he read on, the worse his boner got until he looked physically uncomfortable.
Immediately seeing the discomfort on his face, it was as if your worries became reality. Hand reached out to snatch the phone from his hand but his reflexes were much quicker than yours, pulling the slab away as he kept on reading.
By the time he finished, his breathing was heavy and ragged.
This, sadly, had only made his situation worse. Only purpose this served was to make him crave you even more. Certainly didn’t help to have you leaning over him, soft, bra-less chest beneath thin, stretchy cotton of your shirt against his bare arm, trying to see if he was alright. Definitely had you concerned seeing his pained self.
“Are you okay?”
“Not really,” he humourlessly chuckled, “didn’t know it would affect me as much as it had...”
For some reason, you leaned further down and kissed him. Whether it was because of seeing his hooded eyes or feeling the tension in his muscles as he restrained himself against your body, you didn’t care. Relief was the first thing you felt, knowing that he was just as frustrated as you when you wrote it.
No, he was worse. You could tell by the feverish movement of his mouth against yours. You could tell by the harsh grip he had on your waist. You could tell by the stiffness poking your thigh.
Yeosang pulled away with as much willpower as he could muster, while your lips chased after his. “N-No, we can’t, remember?”
Huffing, you were thoroughly pissed off at the promise you made two years ago with him when you first started out dating. “Yeosang, look at me.”
His gaze was even more reluctant, knowing very well that it would be much more difficult to have the eyes he loved so much staring back at him with as much lust as he had clouding them. But he listened.
“That promise was there so I could get to know you and see if I want to commit to this relationship, long-term, and we’ve had two years to think it--which is long enough for me.” Each hand cupped his cheeks, pulling him closer for a peck since you couldn’t handle being that touch starved anymore. “So, screw me.”
Yeosang didn’t need to be told twice.
Choi San:
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It had been a little over a month and San had still not dropped his admiration. Didn’t look as if that was going to change anytime soon either, especially with one of your recent updates.
Your current story had a lot of pent up sexual tension and all your readers (your boyfriend being no exception) were at the point of begging in the notes of each update.
Finally, you decided to take mercy on all the poor folks and finally write that one scene which had them crying with gratefulness at the end.
As it was a long-awaited scene, it had to live up to high expectations. While you could do the most tooth-rotting fluff ever, that wasn’t your style. This scene needed to fit the vibe of your series so the whole bit flowed nicely.
The problem was, everything you wrote was ‘too much’. Too much fluff. Too much kink. Too much basicness. Too much weirdness. Too much awkwardness. Too much cringiness.
Unfortunately, this put you in a bit of a pickle and you were close to losing your damn mind. On the other hand, San--the caring lover he was--had noticed. Wanted to do something nice for you, not just because he could clearly tell it was a bad case of writer’s block and he wanted to you to write more things he could read, but because it hurt him a little inside to see you this frustrated.
Requested a day of, which he got considering how hard he had been working, an spent that day as your personal servant. First up was breakfast in bed--fried egg (sunny side up), beans, buttered toast, hash browns and a tall glass of cold, hand-squeezed orange juice. Not to mention a shirtless San in plaid cotton pants, the only coverage his torso receiving was the pink apron he had on.
Kissed you on the forehead and told you to take your time, then get ready or a day out while he made lunch.
The next two meals went by in a similar fashion, where he had put so much love and care for everything to be perfect for you. Your favourite sandwich and a fruit salad, water and a chocolate chip cookie before a walk in the park where you both fed the ducks in one of the nearby lakes.
Later was dinner--arguably the best one out of them all. Steak with roast potatoes, and steamed vegetables (much to San’s dislike, but he withstood it for you). The day’s activity had you more than tired, cheeks aching slightly from smiling too much. Then again, you didn’t even notice because all you could think about was how lucky you were to land yourself such an amazing boyfriend.
Even after dinner, he continued to treat you like the royalty you were in his eyes. Offered a nice massage to relieve the past week’s tension all pent up in your poor muscles. It was innocent enough...
Until it wasn’t any more.
Despite the cloths thrown about everywhere on the bed, neither of you had motioned to clean up and San had instead opted to run you a bubble bath. Scented candles and all. It was more relaxing than you had imagined it to be, and by the time your face rested on San’s now-clothed torso--both of you wrapped snuggly up--you fell asleep.
The man loved the sight, and for once, he actually enjoyed running after you, making sure your every need was fulfilled whether you expressed it or not.
Because throughout the day, you were the happiest he had seen in a while, and all his efforts let up to this sight: you cuddled up close with that beautiful, enchanting smile faintly on your plush lips that he had so gently attacked not two hours ago.
He found himself loving you even more; a pleasant surprise as he had thought his cup was close to overflowing.
Two days later, he found himself falling even deeper when you had finally posted your latest chapter. San found himself grinning by the end of it--a little turned on, but more happy than anything.
Because San’s magic had worked. Cured your painful writer’s block since the words simply flowed as you typed the scene that had been causing you hell.
And whole chapter was awfully similar to that special day when San decided to take care of you.
Just tweaked a little so it would be more smut than it was fluff, adding just the right amount of sweetness that allowed your story to continue to flow perfectly.
Which was why San had been more joyous than usual the past week.
You were a perceptive person so you caught the change in his usual demeanour rather quickly. The source of it, however, was beyond you (he was good at hiding his knowledge of your secret). Any reason you tried to pin down on him was a little off.
Stress? No, he was too happy for that. Upcoming event? None that you knew of, and he shared everything of importance with you. Feeling happy just because? San was the more emotional out of the two of you and none of his moods lasted this long.
So what was it?
It was frustrating to say the least, but your boyfriend wasn’t letting it out. And you don’t think he ever will.
“Oh well,” you mumble, “can’t be that bad if he’s so happy...”
Song Mingi:
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The boys had made a pact when they began to read your stories: no reading smuts with the group. This was fairly easy since they would normally be oneshots and you generally weren’t one to write them often into your series. On the odd occasion you did, you often put up a warning and explained straight after if there were any important bits.
All in all, very easy to avoid.
Mingi was a gigantic baby, and with babies, comes curiosity. A sense of need to know what’s happening. An insatiable thirst for knowledge and experience. Suppose what is trying to be said here is, is that Mingi wanted to read the explicit stuff you wrote.
What went on inside that wonderous brain of yours, he wanted to find out. But he couldn’t do that with the boys, nor did he want to. No chance in hell he was gonna be caught with an awkward boner.
Never would he live that one down.
So his plan commenced at night, when everyone in the dorms were fast asleep, he opened up his phone.
Now would normally come the dilemma of what to read, but Mingi is not that patient; as mentioned before, he is a giant baby. The first post he found that fit his criteria was the one that he read. Coincidently, that was result of your ‘experimental’ ones.
Using metallic things wasn’t something you had tried yet with Mingi, but you though you’d take it for a test run through your work to at least see it clearly how it would run if something like that was to happen. Sometimes, you found, it’s makes more sense to write it out rather to keep in your head.
On the other hand, Mingi didn’t really know that your writings stemmed from mild curiosity rather than what your really into (not that you would particularly mind trying some of it out). In his head, this was what you wanted to do.
He’d be lying if he said that the idea wasn’t much of a turn on, and the time he  spent trying not to make a sound loud enough to wake up the other members would prove that. To him, this is was your wish and he would gladly comply to it.
The next day, he decided to run along with the theme, but to also add in a few twists of his own. You often liked that, both in and out of the bedroom.
Went out to buy some new rings for you, larger ones decorated with pretty gems for his pretty baby (even though he was one himself). Handcuffs, too, were ordered online, and a silver-chain choker--he made sure to double check it was safe to use. Next up was a little metal ball--he got this idea from the pokey challenge and something called the ‘passion fruit kiss’ on snapchat. Either way, he was excited to try it.
Babies like Mingi, as mentioned, have little patience and so he wanted to try it out as soon as possible, so the moment everything came, he quickly sterilised everything and waited for you to come home.
Made sure each metal piece was cold to the touch by keeping it in the fridge, and had a rolled up black silk tie stuffed in his pocket to act as a makeshift blindfold.
Sensory deprivation was the ‘twist’ he wanted to put on, since you both had tried something similar before with ice cubes and that went quite well...until it became too cold for Mingi’s mouth and that plan had to be scrapped sooner--hence fridge, for a little bit of coldness.
When you finally arrived, he looked like an excited puppy, and you had no idea why. Until he spun you around and tied a soft cloth over your eyes. “Mingi, I’m really tired and I just--”
“Shhhhh,” Mingi lulled right next to your ear, warm breath fanning over the nape of your neck which felt more sensitive than usual, “trust me?”
Sigh escaping past your lips, because yes, of course you trusted him. And now that you felt slightly more awake from his action, maybe you were willing to hear him out. ”Baby, what are you doing?”
Chuckling that followed your question was deeper than normal. Had it always been like that or was it your mind playing tricks on you? Either way, he didn’t answer and all you had heard was the fridge opening.
“Seriously, baby, what are you doing?” Now you were just nervous, all intentions of a lazy evening down the drain as your heart sped up.
It closed, and shortly after your lips were met with his, a faint taste of strawberry attached to them. Then something smooth and cold slipped past from him to you.
The metal ball was passed between the two of you in a playful game of which only your boyfriend knew the rules of.
When he could tell your guard was down and now you became a little more comfortable, Mingi slowly took your hands behind your back.
You had not paid attention, but you should have. Cold, tight restraints pressed against your skin, shockwaves making you gasp from the low temperature. But Mingi kept on going, kissing you to ease your tension.
Two metal things, so there must be a third, right? You knew about people’s strange obsession with threes so you completely expected another cold metal object to come into play. But the question was, what?
You soon found out when a thick chain choker brushed against your neck, clasping around it snuggly. This was it. This was the third and final one. And your suspicions seemed correct when you had not felt another chilly accessory grace your skin.
You wouldn’t have, not when the coldest of all the items--the rings--were being slipped onto your boyfriend’s fingers. You were in for a surprise in just a few moment.
Needless to say, there was only one thought swirling around in your head.
Maybe he isn’t that much of a baby.
Jung Wooyoung:
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Ever since Wooyoung found out your fanfics were not about him, but his favourite K-Pop band, BTS, he had been...difficult. Moping around, trying to play for your attention a lot more than normal, not letting you have some peace of quiet with your computer.
It was almost as if he was jealous. You knew how needy the boy could be, wanting skinship with you more than he did with San. Knowing that you were fawning over men that weren’t him had certainly done something to him.
But Wooyoung knew you were no-nonsense. The complete opposite of him. It was exactly why he fell for you, and it was exactly why he wasn’t being as petty as he wanted at the moment.
He knew deep down you were his and he was yours.
Then again, that still didn’t stop him from feeling jealous, and had even gone so far as to decrease the amount he listened to BTS’ songs--especially around you.
At first, you didn’t notice the change since Wooyoung was often spontaneous so his behavioural pattern was difficult to decipher. Eventually there came a point where the clinginess increased so much, you couldn’t feign ignorance anymore.
Looking back, maybe you should not have burst his bubble and let him think that your fanfics were about him... Actually, no; either way, the moment he found out about your hobby, it was going to be hell. But now you just feel bad.
Yet, you don’t feel bad enough to stop. You never actually fantasised about being with them--it was just fun to write about. Clearly, he didn’t understand.
Your boyfriend seemed to be at his tipping point when he came back to you after a long day of dance practices that went sideways, typing away intently on your computer.
This was his time. You usually spend time with Wooyoung when he came back, but you were too busy to comfort him in his desperate time of need. Too busy with fantasising about Taehyung’s large hands or Namjoon’s dimpled smile.
Wooyoung was as cute as Hoseok and Jungkook. He had a unique laugh like Seokjin and was as flirty as Jimin.
He had all your favourite qualities in a partner so why spend time thinking about other men? He was literally right there, begging for your attention and yet, now it seemed as if you gave him none (which wasn’t true since the only thing you’ve done is become less secretive about writing).
When his attempts at distracting you from writing had fail, he tried to see what exactly it was you were writing about. Unfortunately, you had tried to hid it from his sight; the only thing that helped in doing was pissing him off even further.
Only after a tough struggle did he finally see what you had been so focused on that you had neglected him.
It was more BTS fanfic, but this one was worse. This one had him fuming--skin hot red and ears pooling out steam. This one was smut.
It was about no other than Yoongi, and by God, was it a rough.
That was how you liked it, and so did Wooyoung. Probably why he was so angry while reading about mirror sex with one of his fellow idols; you were just twiddling your thumbs in the corner, not sure about how badly your boyfriend was going to burst.
Wooyoung, no matter how mad he was, he had to admit... it did turn him on. Although, he was a prideful boy--not liking how you thought about others and more importantly, how threatened he felt while reading it.
Suddenly realising that it wasn’t enough just being all the perfect parts you liked (even if it came naturally to him).
He had a point to prove; Wooyoung could go beyond your wildest fantasies--and boy was it a wild fantasy.
Throwing your phone haphazardly somewhere (making you wince in prayer that it was not broken), your boyfriend gripped you by the wrist and dragged you across the room. You had barely enough time to realise what he was doing, only feeling a cold surface against your back as his lips ravished yours.
At some point, he broke away--lips swollen and slightly more red than normal. To say the sight had not affected you more than you already were would be a lie.
Still not giving you enough time to speak, Wooyoung turned you around so you could finally see what he had you pressed against.
A mirror.
If an idea of what he was planning hadn’t dawned on you, having his fingers tug at your clothes certainly gave you one now. His free hand had clasped around your jaw, making you look right into your reflection, seeing how your boyfriend’s lips were dangerously close to your ears as he looked at you dead in the eye through the mirror.
“Let me show you that I can be better than your imagination. Let me show you that you need to think about no one but me. Let me show you how good you’ll feel and who is the sole reason behind it.”
Yes, Wooyoung has all your favourite qualities in a partner while exceeding all expectations. That’s why you’re dating him.
Choi Jongho:
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Ever since the release of your first movie and publication of the book it was based on, your career had blossomed. Finally, you quit the job that had been draining the life out of you to work full time at the publishing company.
Everyone around you could tell you were much happier, and the one who noticed it the most was Jongho.
Sure, your eyes were less sunken in, your cheeks more red, your step more bouncy. But he could feel that you changed on the inside too.
Your smile didn’t feel so forced after you came back from work and he had asked you how the day was. Now, your boyfriend found himself talking less and listening more to what you had to say.
If there was an expression more powerful to describe how he loved this happier version of you, he would use it in a heartbeat.
Sure, there were still times when the both of you couldn’t hang out as much as you would like to, but that was always in the job description, and the both of you were more than happy with it as long as the bed had both of you in it at the end of the day, both metaphorically and literally.
Then came along your second movie deal of a completely different story. In fact, it was based upon a movie you had watched at the time, and you hated it so much that you simply redid the entire thing.
In fact, it had irked you to the point no one could even tell it was based off of something since you had changed so much of it. However, there were still concepts you kept in the story--intimate scenes, for example (even if they too were completely changed).
You wrote such concepts before, and you would continue to do so since it was just interesting to write. Jongho, however, did not know about it.
At all.
So once your second movie was released, he was in for a surprise.
It was miraculous how terrible your memory was, since you had forgotten that you had not told him about the scene that would come up as you both watched it at home just before it’s release in the cinemas.
‘Surprise’ wasn’t really the word Jongho would use when it did come up, nor would it be ‘shock’. He was... mildly curious? Not that either... Well, all he knew that whatever he was feeling was not overwhelming.
“Did you know they changed this scene?” you spoke up.
“Really?”
Humming, you nodded your head. “They said the original scene was... Let’s just say they thought it was ‘too much’.” Then you scoffed under your breath. “Don’t know why they thought that though. It was fairly vanilla. Just some wall sex is all,” you confessed.
Now he felt a little overwhelmed. But he was mainly amused. “I don’t remember doing that with you.”
“Hmm? Oh... that’s because we didn’t.”
Chuckling under his breath, he cocked his head to the side, the paused scene in the background long forgotten. “Have you ever wanted to try it?”
“Once upon a time. Suggested it to my ex once before but he couldn’t lift me up since I was ‘way too heavy’,” you recalled with air quotations. “Didn’t bother trying after that.” You laughed at the memory, finding it to be hilarious back then and even now.
But your boyfriend on the other hand had not. In fact, he was no longer amused.
He was pissed.
It wasn’t about the fact that you had mentioned your ex--he never felt even remotely threatened by him. It was because he had called you heavy. He called his precious darling ‘heavy’. And you just laughed.
That was who you were--no matter how mean another person was being to you, you took it as a joke and moved on. You saw no point in dwelling over the bad, and that was one of the many genuine things he had fallen for. This time was different; it annoyed him.
Sure it might have been a dumb little memory for you, yet simply hearing about it had his blood boiling.
“Get up.”
“Wha--why?” The dark look in his eye had your lips sealing within the second. As if on autopilot, your body stood from the sofa you two were so comfortably perched on.
He followed you up, wrapping his hands around the back of your thighs, which only meant one thing. “Jongho--no. You won’t be able to.”
“Am I or am I not the strongest man you’ve ever met?”
“You are, but--”
“‘But’ I don’t care.” Forcefully, he lifted you up as you yelped, legs wrapping around his waist. “See? I can pick you up completely fine.”
Scanning his face, you saw that what he said was true. He picked you up as if you were as light as a feather, no tension in his neck, face, or arms to suggest he was having a hard time either.
It had you leaning against him, forehead touching forehead, laughing even more than you did before. Smile once again etched on his face, Jongho pecked your lips, walking slowly with you in his arms.
“Now shush and let me fuck you against the wall.”
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lifeofkaze · 2 years
Note
hello!!!!!!!!!!! ⭐ if ur inbox is already too crowded and also i hv a question: are there any prompt ideas you thought of that u didn’t end up using when u put the challenge together? thanks bye!!!!!!!!!!!!
I said last time we played this game for any⭐in my inbox I'd talk Rockstar playlists again, so here we go.
Answering this part first because I don't have to cut in the middle of the playlist then:
Were there any prompts that didn't make the cut while putting the challenge together?
It would be such a good question if I had made the prompts after deciding to create this challenge but the thing is... it was the other way round.
I was undecided as to which of my OTPs to write for this year's Valentine's Day so I went to my friends to have a little poll. I should have known better... It went a little like this:
Kaze: So, I really don't know. I have ideas for all of them. Pick for me.
@the-al-chemist: Well, if you know something for them all...
@kc-and-co: Write them all.
Kaze: No.
@the-al-chemist: Yes.
@whatwouldvalerydo: That wasn't a question.
@kc-and-co: Might as well make it a challenge for the whole of Tumblr.
@whatwouldvalerydo: DO IT I AM IN.
Kaze: But...
All of them: WE'RE DOING A CHALLENGE.
All I could do afterwards was come up with some prompts that would fit my ideas and sound like they would fit the theme. There was some juggling around with the prompts, naturally, but when it comes down to it, I made them to fit my ideas, not the other way round 😂
For the Rockstar Director's Cut, look below the cut!
Part 2 - Birmingham (Playlist)
Rock 'n' Roll All Nite (Live) - Kiss This was pretty much an expo chapter (ugh, expo) all of it happens on/around the stage. So I wanted to have a song that kind of reflects this touring/rock n roll lifestyle that our rockstars lead. That I like the live version of this song better than the studio one was just a nice bonus.
Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis @the-al-chemist's choice
Dirty Laundry - Don Henley This might just be my least favourite song on the whole playlist, I have to admit. Al and I went back and forth looking for a proper song for this chapter and I ended up doing a lyric search on Google. Seeing as this chapter deals with Rita Skeeter trying to unearth some dirt on the members of Equinox and sensationalism is the topic of the song it fit thematically but it's not that much my personal taste.
All Summer Long - Kid Rock The lyrics say it all, don't they? But really, this song reflects the easy and laid back mood I wanted to create in this chapter before things got steamy. Also, it literally led to them doing it all summer long (and longer) so...
Then the Morning Comes - Smash Mouth This was another frantic Google search song because this was intended to be one chapter with All Summer Long - hence the double title. It couldn't be a separate one in its entirety because we were still in the flashback Orion has during the interview from Chapter 10, so we needed to express that in the title somehow - not super elegant, but still the best way we could come up with. The song was chosen for the title, obviously, and it reflects how both Lizzie and Orion don't make a big deal of them spending the night together and they're fine with it being "just a fling".
Killer Queen - Queen This one always makes @the-al-chemist laugh because that's one of her Rakepick songs and Lizzie and Rakepick couldn't be further from each other, but I digress. As of now I have about five songs that would have fit better in this situation but oh well. I was looking for a song speaking about a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it, and not being afraid of flirting with danger - as Lizzie does here in teasing Orion while literally all eyes and cameras are on them.
Summer of '69 - Bryan Adams The rockstars are unwindig, Orion gets contemplative and Lizzie tio risky. Also, the literal title - 'nuff said.
Good as Hell - Cold Years This cover version is one of my favourites on the playlist and I always replay it at least once because I love the drums in this song so much. But funnily enough, it was another Google song when we were looking for something pool-related to reflect the setting. We eventually picked it because when she talks with Lizzie, Skye is literally "tired of the bullshit".
Pyro - Kings of Leon @the-al-chemist's choice
Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses Children/Childhood is a big topic in this set of chapters - Lizzie deals with an overly curious child slowly setting some gears in her head into motion and Orion and Merula are confronted with their past. We wanted to have this mini arc in the story because 1) it puts Merula and Orion both in an emotional state we needed for plot drive and 2) kids have a way of noticing the obvious things we adults sometimes don't see, like Lizzie and her dreamcatcher thing and how the mood between her and Orion tells a different story compared to how they see themselves.
Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones @the-al-chemist's choice
Ever Dream - Nightwish This is not a rock song per se as Nightwish is actually a metal band, but they're my favourite band overall and this is one of my favourite songs. It is about love, and wondering whether love is requited. This chapter here is the turning point for Orion, where things truly flip from a physical relationship to emotional involvement for him. Also, put the word "stars" in a song and it goes on their playlist. I'm not making the rules.
Edge - Takida Takida is the band that represents the first half of the story for me because they inspired a lot of it (the song which started this whole madness was by them, but not this one). I had trouble picking which exact line I wanted for this chapter because basically the whole song fits, but eventually "We're on the edge, we just might be lovers" reflected it beautifully. While in the chapter before we saw Orion's emotional turning point, we see him giving in to it here, and the first time the two of them (on Lizzie's side, involuntarily) breach their unwritten rules.
Irresistible - Fall Out Boy Ah, Fall Out Boy, my beloved. Don't judge. It's in the title here, really. Lizzie and Orion (especially he, though) are at a point where they can't resist the attraction between them anymore. It goes so far that they get reckless and put what is between them above their work with the band, which is something they swore they would never do and which slowly attracts the attention of those not knowing already.
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kitkatd7 · 4 years
Text
Christmas Party
Summary: You’re having a great Christmas eve… until you aren’t. You’re being bullied and Loki isn’t having any of it.
Pairing: Loki x Reader
Warnings: Angst! self-consciousness, bullying/belittling, cursing, fluff ending
Requests: 
Requested by @myraiswack: Hello love, congrats again on 500!!! Could I request a prompt thing for Loki with 4. “Leave me alone” angst prompt but then a fluffy end with 9. “Hold me” (so kinda a hurt & comfort thing? Idk you can do whatever😁💕) Thank you so much 😘
Requested by @cap-n-stuff: Hi! Can I get an angst to fluff with Loki?? Thanks! 
Prompts: “You have to kiss me if we’re under the mistletoe.” (Season of Fiction Writing Challenge)
Word Count: 1482
A/N: This is for @star-spangled-beard-burn Season of Fiction Writing Challenge!! Congratulations again, and I hope you enjoy it! Beta read by the beautiful @rhemasky and the ever wonderful @cap-n-stuff thanks lovelies <3
Prompts will be in bold (Poem is not mine and I take no credit for it, I’m borrowing it from google) 
----------------------
You’re at Tony’s Christmas party with your boyfriend, Loki, and everything is perfect. The food is amazing, all of your friends are present, and you’re all watching Tony, who’s drunk, and singing Deck the Halls with the wrong lyrics. And to top it all off- You feel beautiful for the first time in a long time. Not that Loki didn’t tell you every chance he had how gorgeous you were- but having someone tell you and feeling it are two very different things. But tonight- Tonight is different. You look gorgeous; you feel gorgeous. A dark green dress hugs your skin delicately, accenting your curves. The golden sparkles that start at the top gently cascade down the strapless dress, thinning out until they disappear just before the hem of your skirt. Your hair twisted back into soft waves, held by golden pins. The necklace you never take off you rests at the hollow of your throat; An elegant gold star with small white gems. It was a present from Loki, gifted along with a poem: 
I want to invite you for a walk
To a quiet place; in the moor. 
When the breeze sings serenades, 
One of those nights-
The moon is full.
A restless pounding invades my heart
When I think of my confidants-
The stars.
If only they could speak,
What would they say?
If you could hear them speak,
For they know my fondness for you
And that in my thoughts,
There is no other one.
If only the stars could speak
They will tell you that I love you.
They would ask you, 
To love me back.
That was how he told you he loved you. The memory wraps around you in a warm haze as you smile up at Loki. His grip tightens around your waist as he presses a kiss to the top of your head, and you sigh contentedly. 
“Do you want champagne, love?”
You hum a yes, watching as his dark, deliciously clad form disappears into the crowd.
You roll your eyes upon hearing a high pitched voice call your name. You turn, coming face to face with one of Tony’s countless guests. Lord knows how she got an invite. 
“Aren’t you Loki’s ex-girlfriend?” She asks, not waiting for a reply as her friends shoot you a pitiful look. “That is so sad! I can’t believe it. Everyone thought you guys would work out- But can you really blame him for breaking up with you?” She snarks, tone shifting as she eyes you demeaningly. 
“What? No, we didn’t break-”
“I mean, sure, you’re sort of cute, in your own way. But honestly, you're not good enough for him anyway. It’s probably for the best. You’ve got too many… How can I put this lightly?” She pauses thoughtfully, her hand under her chin in fake contemplation. “...Imperfections.” She finally says maliciously as her friends nod in faux sympathy. 
“Also, you’re obviously way too clingy- Guys don’t like that.” She hums, shaking her head disapprovingly. “Loki needs a more confident girl. Prettier. Thinner. Someone like- well, someone like me, I suppose,” she says casually, eyes glinting assertively. 
All the air is pushed from your lungs as you choke back sobs.
Loki’s eyebrows furrow as he watches you whirl away from a group of women and push your way aimlessly through the crowd. He grabs your arm lightly as you turn to face him, looking up at him with tears in your eyes.
“My love, what’s wrong?” He asks, cupping your face gently when you shake your head and try to step away. He whispers your name, his eyes clouding in confusion. “Tell me what they said,” he prompts you gently. Blinking back fresh tears, you pull away. “Leave me alone,” you whisper hoarsely before rushing out, vanishing in the mass of bodies.
He looks around for the source of your pain, his eyes scanning the crowd so intently he doesn’t notice Thor come up beside him. “Are you alright, brother? You look tense.”
“I’m fine. It’s Y/N. Someone upset her greatly, and I think it only fair I return the favor,” Loki growled, striding across the floor with purpose, his eyes glinting. 
Stalking up to her, Loki glares daggers, his words dripping with venom. “I don’t know what exactly you said to Y/N, but I know the general context- If you think for even a moment that you are worth more than she is, you are desperately wrong. She’s the most beautiful, intelligent, gentle person I’ve ever met, and to call her anything less than that is simply your resentment overtaking the little sense you have. She is worth more than you could possibly imagine, and she deserves for you to treat her with more respect than anyone here. The only reason you aren’t begging for your life right now is because of her and the restraint she taught me. Consider yourselves lucky we didn’t meet a year ago. Now. Get. Out,” Loki snarls, eyes flashing with barely contained rage. 
----------------------------
Some minutes later, Loki opens the door to your room softly, slipping inside to find you perched on the edge of the bed, smudged mascara and drying tears mixing on your cheeks. Your dress in a forgotten heap on the floor, replaced with sweatpants and a hoodie that you never gave back to him. He crouches in between your thighs, his hands resting gently on your legs. All his quick wit evades him, and he finds himself unable to conjure the perfect words to ease your pain. “I’m sorry.” 
You burst into fresh tears, burying your head into his shoulder, and all he can do is hold you as you try to find the words. “She’s right, you know?” You murmur, sitting up as a mirthless laugh passing through your lips as Loki looks at you in confusion.
“What was she right about, darling?”
“That I’m not like her. I can never be like her- I’ll never look like her, or sound like her, or act like her. I can never be that perfect. She was right about everything. She was right that I’ll never be good enough for anyone. But I’ll especially never be good enough for you-”
Your sentence cuts off as Loki’s lips capture yours, his hands cup your face as he kisses you with such a confident passion that it leaves you breathless when he pulls away. Resting his forehead against yours, he stares deeply into your eyes. “Don’t ever say that you aren’t good enough for me again. It is I who isn’t worthy of you, my love.  But she’s right-” He starts as you look at him in shock. “-That you aren’t like her... And that’s why I love you.” He huffs lightly to himself, brushing the back of his hand against the soft skin of your cheek while gazing at you like you hung the moon in the sky. “I don’t want you to be like her. I don’t want you to try to look or sound or act any differently than you are- Because as soon as you try to be someone else, you lose yourself. Darling, perfect is not a real thing. Perfect is a mask, an image of what someone else wants you to be. To be perfect is to be fake and to let go of every ounce of life in your being. I love you exactly the way you are, and always will.”
You stare at Loki in complete surprise, your lips parted slightly, at a loss for words.
He kisses you again with a dominating sweetness that you’ve never felt before. His lips are fierce and compelling against your own as you lean into him, all of the pain you felt slipping away into memory at the caring touch and soothing presence of your lover. 
“Hold me.” It comes out a breathless plea against his lips as he gathers you in his arms and moves you both to the headboard. 
You snuggle into him, your head on his chest and his arms securely around you. Anchoring you. “This isn’t exactly how I imagined us spending Christmas.” You hum tiredly against his skin in agreement. 
Before you can slip into sleep, you hear him murmur your name. Your eyebrows furrow at the soft expression on his face and the light dancing in his eyes. “You have to kiss me if we’re under the mistletoe,” he whispers. 
“Loki, there isn’t any-” You huff before following his gaze to the ceiling where there is, in fact, mistletoe. “That’s cheating.” you chuckle, leaning closer instinctively, eyes flicking between his and his lips. 
“Mm, perhaps. But if I get a kiss from you then it’s worth it.” He charms, lips curving into a warm smile. 
You sigh, into the kiss in pleasure and exhaustion before nestling back into his side. Maybe this isn’t a terrible way to spend Christmas.
-----------------------------
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Text
~I Let You Down~
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Gif found on google and it wouldn’t let me see who the original poster was. So credit to the original poster if this is your gif!
JP ‘Rook’ Cappelletty x Female!Reader
Word Count: 4,660
Prompt (also found on google): “I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending they’re you!” 
3rd person POV x Lyric oneshot
Song: Clumsy by All Time Low
‘Some say it’s true, that true love never dies...Even when it’s five years later and you’re still dead set on trying to hate the person who broke your heart and left you behind to pick up the pieces.’
Authors note: It’s been ages since I’ve done a lyric inspired oneshot, or a oneshot, or any writing really for that fact lol But I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, so I hope you guys enjoy it! This is also my first time writing for and actually posting something for Rook. So I hope I did it justice. Let me know if you guys would be interested in reading more, or even possibly reading a part 2 if this one does well enough! 
Y/N (Your name) Y/F/N (Your full name)
------------------------------
‘I flew too close to the sun Fell back to Earth like a stone I got too high on myself Too young and stupid to tellI was bound to make a mess of things Mixin' fireworks and gasoline Never meant to make you fall with me’
The words blasted from the speakers of her old ‘68 Chevelle as she whipped into a parking spot beside her favorite Cafe. Taking a moment to extinguish what was left of her cigarette before cutting the engine and climbing out into the sweltering LA summer heat. Taking a moment to adjust her aviators and check that she had everything she needed before making her way inside, the door chimed softly as she stepped into the building's relaxing atmosphere, the air condition a welcome feeling as she made her way up to order a much needed coffee.  
The line was relatively long, congested by the usual late morning rush, but Y/N was happy to wait as long as it took. It was Friday, and she finally had a day off too herself for the first time in ages, and she would be damned if she let anything as trivial as waiting a few extra minutes in line ruin her good mood. So there she stood, patiently scrolling through some messages on her phone while she waited. Moving slowly with the flow of the line of customers, as she listened to the song that played from the shops speakers overhead; The same radio station she'd been listening to in her car.
‘I let you down I've been clumsy with your heart again I guess you figured me out Now here's a taste of my own medicine (I let you down)’ 
The door chiming softly behind her was nothing of significance. It had chimed at least four times prior to her arrival as more customers filtered in from the heat. Y/N unfazed by the sound at this point as she closed out an email from one of her clients managers. Making a mental note to herself to write a reply later when she arrived home before she stuffed her phone into her back pocket and looked up. A startled squeak escaping her lungs as she was suddenly rushed by a blur of curly hair. 
“Aunt Y/N!” 
A smile taking over Y/N’s face as she recognized the girl's voice. It was a voice that she’d recognize anywhere, even if Y/N hadn’t seen in her almost five years. “Hey, Casie.” Y/N smiled brightly as she hugged the girl a little tighter, happy to see such a familiar face.
“Dad! Look who I found!” Casie exclaimed excitedly, both her and Y/N turning at the same time to watch as Colson approached them through the small crowd that had formed inside the small Cafe. 
“Hoooooly shit!” Colson chuckled as he approached the pair who were still locked in a tight embrace. One that Colson was quick to join in on. “Now there’s a face I never thought I’d see again. How the hell have you been, Cash?” 
Y/N rolled her eyes at the silly nickname she had been given ages ago by the man before her himself. A nickname that she hadn’t heard in ages, something that tugged at her heart, sadly, as it brought forth a rush of memories she had long since kept buried...And for good reason.
“I’ve been doin’ alright.” Y/N chuckled softly as they finally broke away from the embrace to move up with the line. “How about you guys? It’s been ages -- When did she get so big?!” The words all came rushing out at once in a wave of excitement that overtook her, making Colson chuckle as he wrapped a long tattooed arm around his daughters shoulders, and pulled in for a tight side hug that had her squirming to escape before she punched his arm playful with a glare.
“I keep askin’ myself the same question.” He answered with a soft rumble of a laugh. Flinching a little as Casie punched his arm a little harder. “Ow.” Colson chuckled as he rubbed his arm lightly, moving to pull his wallet out of his back pocket before handing it to her as the line shortened once more. “Why don’t you grab us all somethin’, Princess, and we’ll grab a table--” 
“Already on it!” Casie said excitedly as she rushed off to take Y/N’s spot in line as Colson motioned towards an empty table near the windows. 
“I can’t believe how grown up she is...” Y/N admired as they took a seat, a hint of sadness in her eyes as she turned to watch Casie, who had finally reached the counter, place an order. “God, what was she, five, the last time I saw her?”
“Sounds about right.” Colson nodded. “Was right before you left Ohio for LA...”
“Yeah...” Y/N’s brows knit together tightly as she frowned, a wave of guilt crashing into her like a freight train. “Sorry I’ve been so shit at keeping in touch.” She apologized softly.
“Hey--” Colson reached out a hand to give her own a brief, reassuring squeeze. “Don’t do that to yourself. What happened, that wasn’t your fault and you know it. We were all young and stupid. Shit, even Rook knows that and how bad he fucked things up...You made your choice, and clearly it was the right one. I mean look at you--” Colson paused to lean back in his seat as he gestured at her proudly. “Ms. big time music producer over here.” 
“Oh stop it.” Y/N waved off the comment playfully with a roll of her eyes. “But really, I mean it Colson. I always meant to come back and see you guys, especially Casie...But I just...I don’t know. I guess I just feel guilty that I disappeared from her life like that with nothing more than a few short video chats here and there, ya’know?” 
“I get it.” Colson nodded. “Still not your fault. And if it’s any consolation, Rook still beats himself up for what happened.”
“Good!” Y/N replied harshly, her frown returning at the second mention of that name. “I hope it haunts the bastard for the rest of his life.” She muttered under her breath, though it was still loud enough that Colson heard it and gave a chuckle. About to say something in reply when Casie approached the table, drinks in hand, and took a seat beside Y/N, passing over her favorite drink --an iced chai latte-- before giving Colson his own coffee and returning his wallet. 
“I ordered some breakfast sandwiches too.” Casie smiled.
“God I’ve missed you!” Y/N beamed as she hugged her tightly for a moment before letting go. Having to stave off the tears that built in her eyes when Casie refused to let go from the embrace. Torn away only by a sudden idea as she shot up and looked at Colson excitedly.
“Can she come over for the party tonight?!” Casie rushed out, bouncing in her seat a little as she waited for Colson’s reply as he turned to look at Y/N, giving a small shrug. 
“I think I’ll leave that one up to Cash, Princess.” Colson chuckled softly as he took a sip of his coffee, thanking the waitress as their food was delivered.
“Please Aunt Y/N?! Please, please, please?!” Casie all but begged, hands clasped together as she gave Y/N that all to familiar puppy face. The same one she used to use on her all those years away when she wanted something. Eyes sparking with a level of adorableness that she knew Y/N would never be able to say no to; No matter how badly she wanted to.
Y/N groaned softly, knowing what this would entail, and exactly who she would be faced with having to avoid. But knowing that it was almost Casie’s birthday, Y/N didn’t have it in her heart to refuse. “I suppose I can’t really say ‘no’ to that face, now can I?” 
“Yes! Oh my god, you’re the best Aunt Cash!” Casie exclaimed as she hugged Y/N tightly, melting what was left of her cold, icy heart a little as she hugged the girl back.
“Only cause it’s you.” Y/N chuckled softly with a smile. Even though she was a raging ball of anxiety on the inside now as every single worst case scenario suddenly played through her head as she thought about what the evening would hold in store.
~
‘Caught at the end of the lifeline The catch of a lifetime (I should've known, should've known, should've known) Oh we were destined for danger Familiar strangers (I should've known, should've known)’ 
The party had been well under way for more than an hour when the sound of a vehicle nobody recognized was heard pulling into the driveway at Colson’s. A black Chevelle that found it’s parking spot beside the row of motorcycles nearest the front door. Everyone exchanging a few confused glances as Casie made a beeline straight for the door, flinging it open before whoever it was even had the chance to knock...Rook’s heart dropping somewhere into the vicinity of his stomach as she stepped into view, just as Casie flew in for a hug. Almost knocking Y/N over in the process.
“You made it!” 
“Of course I made it.” Y/N chuckled softly, that all too familiar smile that haunted every single one of Rooks dreams, curving those beautiful lips of her upwards into a smile. A smile he never thought he could miss more than he did right at this very second. 
“Holy shit, is that Cash?” Slim exclaimed as he came around the corner and out of the kitchen, wrapping Y/N in a tight embrace. “I thought Casie was pulling my damn leg when she told us who was comin’.” 
“Surprise!” Y/N exclaimed with a nervous laugh as they broke away from the hug to extend the gift bag in her hand out towards Casie. “Happy Birthday, kiddo.” 
Casie all but squealed as she moved back in for another hug, barely giving Y/N an chance to wave a hello to everyone as she thanked her for the gift before dragging her through the house for a tour and to catch up. Rook frozen to the same spot, just staring after the two, completely oblivious to Colson’s presence as he leaned up against the counter beside him. 
“You alright?” 
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Rook’s head snapped around like it was on a swivel as he faced Colson. His tone sharp, but not one of anger. In fact, it was filled more with hurt than anything. His eyes drifting back towards the stairs where Casie and Y/N had disappeared just moments before. Colson held up his hands in defense as he shook his head lightly.
“We ran into her this morning while we were getting coffee. Case was so stoked to see her, man -- She didn’t wanna risk ruining anything. So she made me swear not to say anything. But I mean look, if you’re not cool with it and wanna take off, I understand--” 
“No...It’s alright.” Rook cut Colson off as he shook his head. “It’s Casie’s day and I’m not gonna ruin that. We’re both adults.” He swallowed harshly as his mouth suddenly went dry. “It’ll be fine.” At least he hoped. Colson nodding, remaining silent as he watched Rook’s gaze wander once more as he sipped stiffly at the amber liquid in the glass he held. His grip on the glass was so tight that Colson thought it might shatter.
‘We were bound to make a mess of things Mixin' fireworks and gasoline Never meant to make you fall with me’ 
Time seemed to slow as the night drug on for what felt like an eternity. An eternity that was filled with awkward avoidance and sour glances that were periodically thrown in Rook’s direction whenever he was caught staring for just a fraction of a second too long. Midnight came and went. The whiskey was going down like water, and there wasn’t a joint strong enough to make this night any easier. The only thing keeping him from disappearing completely, was the constant reminder that this was for Casie, and he’d be damned if he was going to ruin that for her...Not that it made it any easier.
Left to watch from the side lines as Y/N joked and messed around with the rest of the guys, just like old times...Only this time around, Rook wasn’t a part of it. And knowing it was by his own wrong doings was like a dagger straight to the heart. A dagger that was slowly being twisted a little deeper into his chest with each passing hour that he was subject to someone dredging up a memory here and a memory there. 
A soft sigh fell from his lips as he rubbed a tired hand  over his face before standing, passing the joint he’d forgotten he’d been holding, back to Baze who had been eyeing him with a concerned look. “You alright, man?” 
“Fine.” Rook waved a dismissive hand as he headed for the backyard. “I just need some air.” He added quietly. But the change in his demeanor didn’t go unnoticed as Baze gave a sigh of his own as he stood. Watching as Rook pushed through the small crowd of people and disappeared out the back door. 
“Hey, Cash.” Baze waved her down as she came out of the kitchen with another beer, offering the joint he held out to her, which she gladly accepted. Taking a hit and holding it for a few seconds before she let the sweet trail from between her lips. “So now that you’ve had a decent hit, I’m gonna go ahead and say something, so don’t fuckin’ hit me, ok?” 
Y/N’s gaze narrowed as she stared up at Baze, already knowing where this conversation was about to head. “I don’t wanna hear it, Basil.” She held up a hand. “He made his bed a long time ago, he can fuckin’ lay in it.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Baze held up his hands as he shook his head, not wanting to start an argument. “I agree with you a hundred and ten percent. We all do, Y/N, but you have to understand something--”
“I don’t have to understand shit!” Y/N snapped before she took another puff from the joint she now held. She wanted nothing more than to walk away, yet for some reason, she felt compelled to hear what else Baze had to say.
“You’re right, you don’t.” Baze shrugged. “But Rook’s not the same person he was back then...None of us are; Not even you, Y/N. We were a bunch of stupid kids, despite the fact we were all fucking adults. And I can assure you, that not a day has gone by since then, where that kid hasn’t beat himself up over what happened. I’m not saying you have to forgive him, Cash...But at least let the guy have peace of mind enough to forgive himself.”
“Unlikely.” Y/N scoffed through the exhale of smoke she had been holding in, having finally heard enough as she moved to step around Baze. Pausing only to pass the joint she held back to him before she headed for the back door. “Thanks for the hit though.” 
‘I let you down I've been clumsy with your heart again I guess you figured me out Now here's a taste of my own medicine And for all this pain, that I can't explain There's a black flag wavin' tonight You know I let you down I've been clumsy with your heart again’ 
Y/N all but stumbled through the backdoor as that last hit from Baze’s joint hit her a lot sooner than she had anticipated it would --her tolerance wasn’t shit anymore-- and she suddenly felt like she should probably sit her ass down somewhere before she tipped the fuck over. Making sure that she paid extra close attention to where her feet were going as she made her way over to the edge of the pool and took a seat. Dipping her feet into the water immediately, having ditched her converse hours ago while dancing with Casie; Blissfully unaware of Rook’s presence as she kicked her feet back and forth gently, watching the ripples the movement created on the surface of the water. Rook watching her quietly, remembering how they used to sit and do that together at the hotels on tour. The memory caused the ache inside of his chest to worsen as he tried washing the feelings away with a sip from his drink as he hung his head in his free hand. 
The distinct ‘clink’ of ice against glass alerted Y/N that she wasn’t alone, as she tensed up. Turning slowly to glance over her shoulder, only to find Rook sitting no more than a few feet away. A frustrated sigh left her lips as she turned back to stare at the water. Her first instinct to get up and leave, and she wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the weed in her system, but she didn’t have it in her to move. She had been running away all night, whenever he would enter a room, Y/N was gone the second he’d notice her. It was tiresome. And truth be told, no matter how much she still wanted to hate him right now, her heart simply wouldn’t let her...And she hated that even more.
She hated the fact that she had never stopped loving him, no matter how hard she tried to deny it and move on with her life, or how many times she had swore up and down to herself that she could never even possibly think about forgiving him...It just simply wasn’t possible. Not too say that it didn’t still hurt after all these years, or that it didn’t mean she wasn’t still angry. Because she was angry, and with every passing second that she thought about it, that anger rose to the surface, bit by bit, until it was too much for her to handle anymore. Y/N pushing herself up to her feet, trying her hardest to maintain her composure as she swayed slightly from the head rush of being inebriated. Her conscious all but screaming at her to keep her mouth shut and not start shit, but it was already too late as the words came pouring out of her mouth like word vomit.
“So that’s it then?” She hiccuped slightly as she stalked over to stand in front of Rook, her arms crossed tightly across her chest in an attempt to make herself appear angrier than really was. “Five fucking years, and all I get is a bunch of stolen glances and some forlorn fucking pouting? You’re not even gonna try--” 
“Cash, please don’t...” Rook spoke softly as he tried to defuse the situation. 
“Don’t you fucking DARE ‘Cash’ me, JP Cappelletty!” Y/N snapped. “Five fucking years! Five.Fucking.Years, JP, and you never even once tried to reach out, never tried to apologize! You just -- You just let me fucking leave with no more than a shitty ass excuse as to why I caught you sucking face with some random fucking half naked slut--”
“What the hell do you want me to say, Y/N?!” Rook’s head snapped up as he made eye contact and stood. His gaze boring straight into her own as he continued, his voice steadily growing heated, but he never raised it to the point of yelling. Not even once. “You want me to fucking apologize? When you and I both know that sorry doesn’t even begin to fucking fix what I let happen?! I’m sorry! I’m fucking sorry, Y/N! I’m sorry I fucked up so bad! I’m sorry I was a stupid fucking kid who got so wrapped up in all of this,” He paused to gesture around them. “That I didn’t stop to think it would even fucking matter. That there wouldn’t be any fucking consequences to my actions? I fucked up, Y/N, I know that, and I have to live with it every goddamn day! Sorry doesn’t even begin to fucking cut it, but if that’s what you want to hear, then I’m fucking sorry!”
Y/N remained quiet, her arms falling away to her sides as she watched Rook turn away from her. His hands scrubbed over his face and into his hair out of frustration as he tried to reign in every last shred of emotion that was threatening to pour out. “I’m sorry that I lost you...I’m sorry for that everyday that I wake up and remember that you’re not a part of my life anymore.”
“JP, don’t--” Y/N’s voice was barely above a whisper now, Rook’s  back still to her as she spoke, but her words went unnoticed as he continued. Tipping his head back as he looked up at the night sky as the words continued to pour forth from whatever depths of his soul they had long been hidden away in.  
“I wish that I could take it back, Y/N, I really do, but I fucking can’t. I’m sorry, and I’m sorry that ‘I’m sorry’ is never gonna be good enough to fix it...But I can’t do this anymore, Y/N. I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending they’re you!” Rook sighed as he bowed his head in defeat. The silence between them was heavy, even if only for a moment before it was interrupted by the broken sob that fell from Y/N’s lips, the sound catching Rook’s attention immediately as he turned, watching as her hands flew up to her mouth as she tried to muffle the sound of her own body betraying her, as another sob followed close behind; Tears streaming down her face as her body shook. 
“Y/N--” Rook was hesitant as he took a step forward and reached out, almost afraid that if he moved too quickly she might run; Or at the very least try and take a swing at him. Not that he didn’t deserve it. But as his outstretched fingers made contact with Y/N’s skin, it was all he could do to stay standing as she all but collapsed into his arms. Her face buried against his chest as she sobbed uncontrollably. “Hey, shh. It’s ok...I-I got you.” Rook murmured against her hair softly as he held her. Doing everything he could to blink back the tears that formed in his own eyes as every last ounce of pain and regret that flowed through her flowed through him as she cried.
“I-I’m s-sorry...” Y/N sobbed against Rook’s chest, causing him to glance down at her with a confused expression, as he was unsure why she felt the need to apologize, least of all to him. But before he could think to speak up and ask, Y/N continued. “I’m s-sorry that I’ve been a c-cold hearted, i-insufferable bitch! I’m sorry f-for how I’ve treated you. And not j-just in the past, b-but tonight to. I-I’m sorry for trying t-to force myself to h-hate you for the past f-five years--” Y/N paused, pulling away slightly as she tried to wipe away the tears that blurred her vision as she looked up at Rook. “I’m s-sorry that I never stopped loving you...But I’m not sorry for that as much as I try and hate you, that I’m still hopelessly in love with your dumbass!” 
Rook was left looking like a slack jawed fish as he opened and closed his mouth a few times, searching for the right words while simultaneously questioning if he had even heard her correctly to begin with. That she was in fact still in love with him. Reassurance came in the form of her lips crashing into his before he could say anything at all that might possibly ruin the moment, and for that, among other things, he was incredibly grateful for, as he moved his hands to gently caress her face. Her own hands drifted up his chest to find their way around his neck, one settling in his hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, as he deepened the kiss. 
That familiar spark of electricity igniting between them once more, just as it had with the very kiss they had shared all those years ago. Neither one of them wanted to be the first to break away, but eventually, they had to come up for air, Rook pressing his lips against Y/N forehead gently as he pulled her closer, and made a promise. Afraid that if he let her go now, if he didn’t speak his truth, that he’d wake up from some sick dream and none of this will have been real.
“I swear to you, Y/F/N, I swear to you on my own goddamn life, that if you ever give you me another chance, even though I know I’ve done nothing to deserve it, I promise you that I will spend everyday making it up to you; Even if it’s the last thing I ever fucking do.” Rook’s voice trembled with emotion as he tilted Y/N’s chin so that she was looking up at him. “I love you, Cash. I loved you then, I love you now and I will love you for the rest of eternity; Even if you won’t have me. You will always be my girl, and I will do everything in my power to never let you down like that again. Not ever.”
Y/N pressed her lips back to Rook’s, not knowing how else to reply at that exact moment. Knowing this wasn’t something that could be as easily fixed as they both wanted it to be...But at least for tonight, they could pretend. Knowing that come morning, when they were both sober, this conversation would be a lot harder as they worked on figuring out how to try and make this work again. Rook’s lips were eager against her own in response as his hands drifted down her waist, stopping only when they reached the back of her thighs and he lifted her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist. 
“Get a room!” Colson hollarded with a chuckle from the back door as the rest of the guys joined in with cheers and whistles, the pair now fully away that they had an audience. Both reaching a hand out to flip them all the bird. Too wrapped up in the moment to be bothered to care. “I love you.” Rook panted out when they finally did manage to break apart sometime later. The love and adoration in his eyes as he gazed up at Y/N, was almost too much for her to handle as she placed her hands against his cheeks and pressed her forehead against his own.
“I love you too, JP.” She whispered, keeping the last part to herself. ‘More than you could ever know.’
~
‘Turn the desert all to glass Droppin' bombs on future's past Nothing left for us, shadows dancin' in the ash Turn the desert all to glass Droppin' bombs on future's past Nothing left 
I let you down I've been clumsy with your heart again I guess you figured me out Now here's a taste of my own medicine And for all this pain, that I can't explain There's a black flag wavin' tonight You know I let you down (let you down) I've been clumsy with your heart again 
 Turn the desert all to glass Droppin' bombs on future's past Nothing left for us, shadows dancin' in the ash Turn the desert all to glass Droppin' bombs on future's past Nothing left for us, shadows dancin' in the ash’
------------------------------
Tagging: @jacksonroseroth
If you would like to be added to any of my future Rook fics, please feel free to let me know! ^-^
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simplybakugou · 4 years
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Sweet Summer Day
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↝ Once you finally managed to go on a trip to the beach with your girlfriend, things started looking a little hazy as you had to chase away some boys pestering her.
BINGO SPACE: Summer Vacation
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⋆ PAIRING: yaoyorozu x fem!reader ⋆ WARNINGS/TAGS: flufff; swearing; creepy boys 🤮 ⋆ WORD COUNT: 1542
A/N: this is another piece for the @bnhabookclub bingo event! momo owns my whole heart so obviously this was fun to write even though its a little shitty :(. thank you to @merry-kuroo for requesting momo for this prompt! the momo transparent cap is from the bnha bookclub google drive!
also yes the title is named after a TWICE track lmao. thank you @bnhatrashh​, the resident ONCE, for recommending me this BOP 💕
FULL BINGO MASTERLIST
✐posted 08.21.2020✐
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It was the perfect day with your windows rolled down and the breeze ruffling through your hair. The radio was blasting your favorite song and while you were screeching along with the lyrics, your beautiful girlfriend who was practically flawless in every single way possible was sitting beside you as she hummed with the lyrics, making up for the chaos you were creating. Occasionally you would stop singing, wanting to hear Yaoyorozu’s soft voice that sounded like the gates to heaven opening with an angelic choir whisking you up to the sky but everytime she realized you stopped, she would stop singing as well, not wanting to be the only voice heard in the small space of your car.
It was an exciting day, one that you had been looking forward to for weeks since you found out that it was actually happening.
You, Yaoyorozu, and the rest of class A were finally on your way to becoming third years, your final year at U.A. High. Unlike every other summer, you wanted to do something fun. Usually you spent your summer breaks training and preparing for the next semester. Since you and Yaoyorozu had been dating your first year, you would often accompany her and help her study to strengthen her quirk and as much as you loved helping her out as much as you could, you wanted to spend your last summer as a high schooler with the one girl you loved and while having some fun at the same time. 
You managed to convince Yaoyorozu to go on a little trip and spend some quality time with her to which she agreed to. Although she did suggest inviting the other girls, you wanted to be around your girlfriend and take this trip as a date with her and as much as you loved your friends, it was fun to go out with her on your own.
“Is that it?” Yaoyorozu asked, her eyes gleaming in fascination at the sight of the beach ahead of you.
You nodded, grinning at the sea sparkling from the sun’s rays, the sound of the seagulls squawking at people for food, and the many people hanging around the waves and the beachside under the sun. You parked the car, exiting the vehicle and immediately unloading your things as you couldn’t wait to feel the sand beneath your toes.
Yaoyorozu assisted you as you both walked onto the beach with two chairs, towels, and any other belongings you deemed as necessary. You were quick to set up the chairs, taking your shirt and bottoms off as you were clad in your swimwear as Yaoyorozu followed suit.
Yaoyorozu sat down on one of the chairs that you finished setting up, sighing as she slipped her sunglasses on as she was basking under the sun. How was this girl so stunning?
“There’s a shop down there; do you want me to get you anything?” You asked her as you pointed to the small shop right towards the outer part of the beach.
Yaoyorozu nodded, telling you she just wanted something light to eat since it had been a long drive to get there and neither of you had eaten anything. With what you and Yaoyorozu wanted to get in mind, you proceeded towards the shop, ready to fill your stomach with cheap food to fill your empty stomach.
While you were away and Yaoyorozu finally felt relaxed under the sun, feeling the stress already be alleviated as she sat there. Her short period of solace was cut short as a pair of teenage boys, who looked around her age, approached her. She removed her glasses, peering up at the boys curiously. “May I help you?”
The first boy sat down on the sand, smirking at her. “You seemed lonely over here so hopefully we can change that.”
“Um, actually I’m fine here, thank you,” Yaoyorozu said, laughing uncomfortably.
“Aw, come on, don’t make this weird,” the other boy cackled, rubbing his hands together. “Why don’t we help you out? You need someone to rub some sunscreen on for you?”
Yaoyorozu shook her head, visibly distraught from the pryful boys and how disturbing and intrusive their behavior was.
“Wait a second,” the first boy started, eyes widening excitedly before his friend could say anything. “You’re that chick from U.A.!”
“Oh shit, you’re right!” The other boy exclaimed. “No wonder you’re so hot. All the U.A. chicks are hot.”
At this moment you had thanked the cashier for the snacks as you paid for them, swinging the bag happily as you made your way back to Yaoyorozu. Expecting to still see her sitting down peacefully as she took some well deserved rest, you were granted with the sight of the two boys pestering her and hovering over her. She seemed uneasy as she tried to distance herself as best as she could from the boys even though they kept scooting closer and closer to her.
You sighed, already used to little creeps like Mineta harassing her at school and you and the other girls didn’t hesitate to put the little twerp in place. Fortunately you had a quirk that helped you maneuver the ground, no matter the material involved. Using your quirk, you created a barrier between the boys and Yaoyorozu, using said barrier to forcefully push them away from her. They rolled in opposite directions and Yaoyorozu met your eyes in gratitude.
“Hey, dipshits!” You called out to them, turning your head side to side so they both heard you. “Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend, you fucking creeps.”
The first boy stood up, aggravated and embarrassed that a girl had humiliated him in front of the girl he was poorly attempting to swoon. He strode towards you, standing right in front of you. “You trying to start something?”
“And what if I am?” You retorted, raising a brow at him.
Before the situation could escalate any further, Yaoyorozu pulled you away from him, not wanting you to be involved with something that could make you look bad online as you were already known for your abrasive behavior especially as a U.A. student. “We’ll be going now.”
As you both began walking along the shore, you peered over your shoulder, making sure the boys weren’t following you two. One of them started cursing you out from afar and you flipped them off in response and then you looked over to Yaoyorozu. “Why’d you pull me away?”
“I didn’t want you to get in a fight,” she said simply. 
You scoffed. “Please, those assholes were bothering you, they needed a punch or two to the fucking head to humble them.”
Yaoyorozu giggled and you smiled at the sound. Although she never wanted to make you worry, whenever she was catcalled in this manner, she always felt down and upset with herself for something that other people do. She was a strong girl, you knew that better than anyone else, but when a boy calls her out and tries to hit on her, it’s different than a bunch of high school students being attacked by a group of villains. Yaoyorozu often felt disgusted with the boys’ behaviors, these two twerps and Mineta alike, but it put her in a vulnerable position during these situations, making her not know what to do at times.
That is until she met you. You and the other class A girls didn’t hesitate to put any pervish boy in place, no matter who it was. You weren’t afraid to beat anyone for even making your girlfriend upset and you would take action in a heartbeat.
And with you by her side, you made her feel confident, helped her realize how much of an outstanding girl she really is.
Yaoyorozu latched her arm with yours, smiling softly at you. “Should we continue where we left off before we were rudely interrupted?”
You nodded with the biggest grin on your face. “I thought you’d never ask.”
From there you ran directly into the crashing and raging waves, all while hand in hand with Yaoyorozu. The water cooled you down from the sun beaming down on both of you. You did whatever you could to make Yaoyorozu forget the two little brats who dared to make her frown. From building sandcastles to finding the prettiest shells in the depths of the sand, it was overall one of the most fun times you had in a while. 
It was easy to forget that you were teenagers when you were treated like adults by your high school as you were put into difficult and dangerous situations once being attacked by the League of Villains numerous times. But times like these made it all better, or you could at least try to think that it made it better. You and Yaoyorozu made sure to spend the day doing every single activity that not only brought you joy but also made you both feel like your age for once. 
Although the day started off a little rocky, thanks to your efforts in order to bring that angelic, pure, and loving smile onto her face, Yaoyorozu was able to have the best sweet summer day of her life.
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bananaofswifts · 4 years
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Taylor Swift’s ‘Folklore’: Album Review
It’s hard to remember any contemporary pop superstar that has indulged in a more serious, or successful, act of sonic palette cleansing than Swift has with her eighth album, a highly subdued but rich affair written and recorded in quarantine conditions.
While most of us spent the last four months putting on some variation of “the quarantine 15,” Taylor Swift has been secretly working on the “Folklore” 16. Sprung Thursday night with less than a day’s notice, her eighth album is a fully rounded collection of songs that sounds like it was years in the interactive making, not the product of a quarter-year’s worth of file-sharing from splendid isolation. Mind you, the words “pandemic hero” should probably be reserved for actual frontline workers and not topline artistes. But there’s a bit of Rosie the Riveter spirit in how Swift has become the first major pop artist to deliver a first-rank album that went from germination to being completely locked down in the midst of a national lockdown.
The themes and tone of “Folklore,” though, are a little less “We can do it!” and a little more “Can we do it?” Because this new collection is Swift’s most overtly contemplative — as opposed to covertly reflective — album since the fan favorite “Red.” Actually, that’s an understatement. “Red” seems like a Chainsmokers album compared to the wholly banger-free “Folklore,” which lives up to the first half of its title by divesting itself of any lingering traces of Max Martin-ized dance-pop and presenting Swift, afresh, as your favorite new indie-electro-folk/chamber-pop balladeer. For fans that relished these undertones of Swift’s in the past, it will come as a side of her they know and love all too well. For anyone who still has last year’s “You Need to Calm Down” primarily in mind, it will come as a jolting act of manual downshifting into actually calming down. At least this one won’t require an album-length Ryan Adams remake to convince anyone that there’s songwriting there. The best comparison might be to take “Clean,” the unrepresentative denouement of “1989,” and… imagine a whole album of that. Really, it’s hard to remember any pop star in our lifetimes that has indulged in a more serious act of sonic palette cleansing.
The tone of this release won’t come as a midnight shock to anyone who took spoilers from the announcement earlier in the day that a majority of the tracks were co-written with and produced by the National’s Aaron Dessner, or that the man replacing Panic! at the Disco’s Brendon Urie as this album’s lone duet partner is Bon Iver. No matter how much credit you may have given Swift in the past for thinking and working outside of her box, a startled laugh may have been in order for just how unexpected these names felt on the bingo card of musical dignitaries you expected to find the woman who just put out “Me!” working with next. But her creative intuition hasn’t led her into an oil-and-water collaboration yet. Dessner turns out to be an ideal partner, with as much virtuosic, multi-instrumental know-how (particularly useful in a pandemic) as the most favored writer-producer on last year’s “Lover” album, Jack Antonoff.
He, too, is present and accounted for on “Folklore,” to a slightly lesser extent, and together Antonoff and Dessner make for a surprisingly well-matched support-staff tag team. Swift’s collabs with the National’s MVP clearly set the tone for the project, with a lot of fingerpicking, real strings, mellow drum programming and Mellotrons. You can sense Antonoff, in the songs he did with Swift, working to meet the mood and style of what Dessner had done or would be doing with her, and bringing out his own lesser-known acoustic and lightly orchestrated side. As good of a mesh as the album is, though, it’s usually not too hard to figure out who worked on which song — Dessner’s contributions often feel like nearly neo-classical piano or guitar riffs that Swift toplined over, while Antonoff works a little more toward buttressing slightly more familiar sounding pop melodies of Swift’s, dressed up or down to meet the more somber-sounding occasion.
For some fans, it might take a couple of spins around the block with this very different model to become re-accustomed to how there’s still the same power under the hood here. And that’s really all Swift, whose genius for conversational melodies and knack for giving every chorus a telling new twist every time around remain unmistakable trademarks. Thematically, it’s a bit more of a hodgepodge than more clearly autobiographical albums like “Lover” and “Reputation” before it have been. Swift has always described her albums as being like diaries of a certain period of time, and a few songs here obviously fit that bill, as continuations of the newfound contentment she explored in the last album and a half. But there’s also a higher degree of fictionalization than perhaps she’s gone for in the past, including what she’s described as a trilogy of songs revolving around a high school love triangle. The fact that she refers to herself, by name, as “James” in the song “Betty” is a good indicator that not everything here is ripped from today’s headlines or diary entries.
But, hell, some of it sure is. Anyone looking for lyrical Easter eggs to confirm that Swift still draws from her own life will be particularly pleased by the song “Invisible String,” a sort of “bless the broken roads that led me to you” type song that finds fulfillment in a current partner who once wore a teal shirt while working as a young man in a yogurt shop, even as Swift was dreaming of the perfect romance hanging out in Nashville’s Centennial Park. (A quick Google search reveals that, yes, Joe Alwyn was once an essential worker in London’s fro-yo industry.) There’s also a sly bit of self-referencing as Swift follows this golden thread that fatefully linked them: “Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to L.A.,” she sings. The “dive bar” that was first established as the scene of a meet-cute two albums ago makes a reappearance in this song, too.
As for actual bad blood? It barely features into “Folklore,” in any substantial, true-life-details way, counter to her reputation for writing lyrics that are better than revenge. But when it does, woe unto he who has crossed the T’s and dotted the I’s on a contract that Swift feels was a double-cross. At least, we can strongly suspect what or who the actual subject is of “Mad Woman,” this album’s one real moment of vituperation. “What did you think I’d say to that?” Swift sings in the opening lines. “Does a scorpion sting when fighting back? / They strike to kill / And you know I will.” Soon, she’s adding gas to the fire: “Now I breathe flames each time I talk / My cannons all firing at your yacht / They say ‘move on’ / But you know I won’t / … women like hunting witches, too.” A coup de gras is delivered: “It’s obvious that wanting me dead has really brought you two together.” It’s a message song, and the message is: Swift still really wants her masters back, in 2020. And is really still going to want them back in 2021, 2022 and 2023, too. Whether or not the neighbors of the exec or execs she is imagining really mouth the words “f— you” when these nemeses pull up in their respective driveways may be a matter of projection, but if Swift has a good time imagining it, many of her fans will too.
(A second such reference may be found in the bonus track, “The Lakes,” which will only be found on deluxe CD and vinyl editions not set to arrive for several weeks. There, she sings, “What should be over burrowed under my skin / In heart-stopping waves of hurt / I’ve come too far to watch some namedropping sleaze / Tell me what are my words worth.” The rest of “The Lakes” is a fantasy of a halcyon semi-retirement in the mountains — in which “I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet / Because I haven’t moved in years” — “and not without my muse.” She even imagines red roses growing out of a tundra, “with no one around to tweet it”; fantasies of a social media-free utopia are really pandemic-rampant.)
The other most overtly “confessional” song here is also the most third-person one, up to a telling point. In “The Last Great American Dynasty,” Swift explores the rich history of her seaside manse in Rhode Island, once famous for being home to the heir to the Standard Oil fortune and, after he died, his eccentric widow. Swift has a grand old time identifying with the women who decades before her made fellow coast-dwellers go “there goes the neighborhood”: “There goes the maddest woman this town has ever seen / She had a marvelous time ruining everything,” she sings of the long-gone widow, Rebekah. “Fifty years is a long time / Holiday House sat quietly on that beach / Free of women with madness, their men and bad habits / Then it was bought by me… the loudest woman this town has ever seen.” (A fine madness among proud women is another recurring theme.)
But, these examples aside, the album is ultimately less obviously self-referential than most of Swift’s. The single “Cardigan,” which has a bit of a Lana Del Rey feel (even though it’s produced by Dessner, not Del Rey’s partner Antonoff) is part of Swift’s fictional high school trilogy, along with “August” and “Betty.” That sweater shows up again in the latter song, in which Swift takes on the role of a 17-year boy publicly apologizing for doing a girl wrong — and which kicks into a triumphant key change at the end that’s right out of “Love Story,” in case anyone imagines Swift has completely moved on from the spirit of early triumphs.
“Exile,” the duet with Bon Iver, recalls another early Swift song, “The Last Time,” which had her trading verses with Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol. Then, as now, she gives the guy the first word, and verse, if not the last; it has her agreeing with her partner on some aspects of their dissolution (“I couldn’t turn things around”/”You never turned things around”) and not completely on others (“Cause you never gave a warning sign,” he sings; “I gave so many signs,” she protests).
Picking two standouts — one from the contented pile, one from the tormented — leads to two choices: “Illicit Affairs” is the best cheating song since, well, “Reputation’s” hard-to-top “Getaway Car.” There’s less catharsis in this one, but just as much pungent wisdom, as Swift describes the more mundane details of maintaining an affair (“Tell your friends you’re out for a run / You’ll be flushed when you return”) with the soul-destroying ones of how “what started in beautiful rooms ends with meetings in parking lots,” as “a drug that only worked the first few hundred times” wears off in clandestine bitterness.
But does Swift have a corker of a love song to tip the scales of the album back toward sweetness. It’s not “Invisible String,” though that’s a contender. The champion romance song here is “Peace,” the title of which is slightly deceptive, as Swift promises her beau, or life partner, that that quality of tranquility is the only thing she can’t promise him. If you like your love ballads realistic, it’s a bit of candor that renders all the compensatory vows of fidelity and courage all the more credible and deeply lovely. “All these people think love’s for show / But I would die for you in secret.”
That promise of privacy to her intended is a reminder that Swift is actually quite good at keeping things close to the vest, when she’s not spilling all — qualities that she seems to value and uphold in about ironically equal measure. Perhaps it’s in deference to the sanctity of whatever she’s holding dear right now that there are more outside narratives than before in this album — including a song referring to her grandfather storming the beaches in World War II — even as she goes outside for fresh collaborators and sounds, too. But what keeps you locked in, as always, is the notion of Swift as truth-teller, barred or unbarred, in a world of pop spin. She’s celebrating the masked era by taking hers off again.
Taylor Swift “Folklore” Republic Records
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philcoulsonismyhero · 3 years
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Fic Writer Interview
I got tagged by the excellent @astriiformes Ages ago to do this fic writer interview thing, and I’m finally getting around it! So here goes...
Name:
Mairi (sounds like 'marry'), Kamemor over on AO3 (after a particularly cool Romulan politician in a Star Trek novel, if you were wondering)
Fandoms:
Currently, I'm writing a lot of RWBY fic and that's unlikely to change because I'm deep in Special Interest Hell with no signs of coming up for air. In the past, I've also written a bunch of stuff for Criminal Minds and The Flash/DCTV. I've got a lot of other fandoms, but those are the main ones I've written for.
Two-shot:
Assuming this is asking if I've ever written one, technically no. But I do have a series (Just Hold On, a RWBY fix-it) that currently consists of two fics which could stand alone as they are, although I have plans to continue that one for quite a few more fics if I can find the motivation and time. And I guess I also have a couple of fics that I could have split into two chapters because they switch from one POV to another about halfway through. I like to stick to third person limited POV, and that means I often have section breaks when I want to switch from one character's perspective to another's, and for a two-person scene that usually means two sections. But I like the oneshot structure, and usually I don't feel like what I'm writing is long enough to split into chapters.
Most popular multi-chapter:
I only have one true multi-chapter fic, and it's Moving Forward, a Flash fic based on the idea of Reverse Flash being taken prisoner at the end of s1 rather than being wiped from existence. It's technically still unfinished, but I got a lot of lovely comments on that one a few years back when I was posting it, including a few folks that went through and commented on each chapter and really made my day. Maybe one day I'll actually finish it...
The only other thing I have that’s multi-chapter is a collection of missing scene ficlets, also Flash fic, but that doesn’t really count.
Actual worst part of writing:
My brain tends to be very visual when I'm writing fanfic for a TV show, and few things are as annoying as knowing exactly the facial expression someone is pulling and having No Idea how to describe it in words. Same with tones of voice. Also, I tend to jump straight into writing the bits of scenes that are most interesting to me, and going back and adding in the context that you need to make something actually readable for someone that isn't you can be a bit tiresome.
How you choose your titles:
It depends, tbh. A lot of my older fics are titled with short verb phrases that are pretty straightforward (like 'Moving Forward' or 'Breaking the Cycle'), but recently I've rather enjoyed using song lyrics. Most of my RWBY fics have lyric titles either from songs from the show itself or songs that I've got on my extensive Ironwood character playlist or otherwise just quite like and feel like they fit. I don't tend to find titles all that difficult, and I've got a fair few WIPs that have them already.
Do you outline:
Again, depends on the fic. With longer ones, yes, usually as a list of bullet points describing what happens. But shorter missing scene fics or things that I bashed out in only one or two sessions and only follow a single conversation tend not to be outlined because they just flow as I write them. I've got some more extensive outlines for a few of the fix-it AUs I've been playing with, but even then they're just bullet point lists or mostly held in my own head.
Ideas I probably won't get around to but wouldn't it be nice:
I have. So many. Most of them are RWBY fix-it fic, which is fun to write at the moment of divergence but then A Huge Endeavour to follow any further than that. I’ve planned out a bunch of different shapes for where the three different versions I’ve already written and posted would go, but there’s only one of them that I’m really continuing (aforementioned two fic series). Although I have a dilemma there, because the climax of the story arc that I figured out for that ‘verse would work even better in the other one that focuses more on Penny & Ironwood. But it’s not as simple as just throwing the idea into continuity with that one, because there’s a Major difference between the two in that in one of them, Qrow was the one who got through to Ironwood, and in the other they kinda hate each other over the whole ‘I blame you (and also me but mostly you) for Clover’s death’ thing, so I’d have to plot out a completely different relationship arc there which would have a knock-on impact on how well Ironwood is dealing with everything else. Canon divergence fic! it’s a good time.
I’ve also got So Much other RWBY fic in bits and pieces in various Google docs, it’s ridiculous. (Including a superhero AU that I’m rather fond of conceptually, but don’t really have a solid arc plot for.) A lot of it would be nice to get into a publishable state, but I probably won’t ever be bothered to.
On the not-RWBY front, I've also got a big Criminal Minds/Silent Witness crossover that I've planned out all the beats of, but actually writing it means coming up with the specific details of the murders and the autopsy scenes and a whole lot of technical stuff that I'm not comfortable just winging based on what I've seen on TV. But I also don't like researching real life crime stuff even though I love a good crime drama, so you see my dilemma. I like casefic in theory, but in practice I'm probably not going to write much of it. 
Callouts @ me:
Just because you’re an insomniac who mostly writes fic at night rather than sleeping doesn’t mean that every conversation fic has to happen as a result of one or both characters being unable to sleep, my dude. There are Other circumstances in which people talk to each other.
Best writing traits:
I’m good at character voice, although that’s a pretty standard thing to be good at. I also really like unconventional crossovers, I’ve gotten pretty good at playing around with conversations between characters who never met or aren’t even from the same universe and coming up with a believable dynamic for them. I also like to think that I’m good at getting into the heads of awkward characters and figuring out which bits to poke at in order to get them to do things they didn’t do in canon. (And figuring out how they rationalised the things they did actually do.) That’s a big reason why I liked writing Reverse Flash, the complicated bastard, and it’s why I’m having so much fun with Ironwood now. You’ve really got to work at him to get him to change direction, great big stubborn disaster that he is, and I think I’ve rather gotten the hang of that.
Spicy tangential opinion:
People should write more longfic focused on gen relationships. Some of the most fascinating relationships in stories, at least to me, are the ones between people you’d never expect to be friends, or between adults and the kids they feel responsible for who also feel kinda responsible for them, and that makes for a (imho) much more interesting story than most ships. I Live for a good complicated mentor/mentee relationship, but I hate looking for fic about them because then I have to deal with the fact that a lot of people ship those relationships and it squicks me out. Give me the longfics about types of relationships I actually care about!
(This whole thing is a good 40% of the reason that I’ve ended up get absorbed in planning out a RWBY Vol8 re-write where the parallels and the newly complicated relationship between Ruby and Ironwood is The Main Agenda. (The other 60% of the reason being ‘[x character] deserved better’.) There’s some Really Good Stuff there and I want to play with it in more of a longform situation than my usual oneshots.)
No pressure tagging:
@squireofgeekdom , @catgirlalchemist , and anyone else who wants to give it a go! Feel free to say I tagged you :D
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The Rolling Stone Interview: Taylor Swift
By: Brian Hiatt for The Rolling Stone Magazine Date: September 18th 2019
In her most in-depth and introspective interview in years, Swift tells all about the rocky road to 'Lover' and much, much more.
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Taylor Swift bursts into her mom’s Nashville kitchen, smiling, looking remarkably like Taylor Swift. (That red-lip, classic thing? Check.) “I need someone to help dye my hair pink,” she says, and moments later, her ends match her sparkly nail polish, sneakers, and the stripes on her button-down. It’s all in keeping with the pastel aesthetic of her new album, Lover; black-leather combat-Taylor from her previous album cycle has handed back the phone. Around the black-granite kitchen island, all is calm and normal, as Swift’s mom, dad, and younger brother pass through. Her mom’s two dogs, one very small, one very large, pounce upon visitors with slurping glee. It could be any 29-year-old’s weekend visit with her parents, if not for the madness looming a few feet down the hall.
In an airy terrace, 113 giddy, weepy, shaky, still-in-disbelief fans are waiting for the start of one of Swift’s secret sessions, sacred rituals in Swift-dom. She’s about to play them her seventh album, as-yet unreleased on this Sunday afternoon in early August, and offer copious commentary. Also, she made cookies. Just before the session, Swift sits down in her mom’s study (where she “operates the Google,” per her daughter) to chat for a few minutes. The black-walled room is decorated with black-and-white classic-rock photos, including shots of Bruce Springsteen and, unsurprisingly, James Taylor; there are also more recent shots of Swift posing with Kris Kristofferson and playing with Def Leppard, her mom’s favorite band.
In a corner is an acoustic guitar Swift played as a teenager. She almost certainly wrote some well-known songs on it, but can’t recall which ones. “It would be kind of weird to finish a song and be like, ‘And this moment, I shall remember,’'” she says, laughing. “‘This guitar hath been anointed with my sacred tuneage!'”
The secret session itself is, as the name suggests, deeply off-the-record; it can be confirmed that she drank some white wine, since her glass pops up in some Instagram pictures. She stays until 5 a.m., chatting and taking photos with every one of the fans. Five hours later, we continue our talk at length in Swift’s Nashville condo, in almost exactly the same spot where we did one of our interviews for her 2012 Rolling Stone cover story. She’s hardly changed its whimsical decor in the past seven years (one of the few additions is a pool table replacing the couch where we sat last time), so it’s an old-Taylor time capsule. There’s still a huge bunny made of moss in one corner, and a human-size birdcage in the living room, though the view from the latter is now of generic new condo buildings instead of just distant green hills. Swift is barefoot now, in pale-blue jeans and a blue button-down tied at the waist; her hair is pulled back, her makeup minimal.
How to sum up the past three years of Taylor Swift? In July 2016, after Swift expressed discontent with Kanye West’s “Famous,” Kim Kardashian did her best to destroy her, unleashing clandestine recordings of a phone conversation between Swift and West. In the piecemeal audio, Swift can be heard agreeing to the line “…me and Taylor might still have sex.” We don’t hear her learning about the next lyric, the one she says bothered her — “I made that bitch famous” — and as she’ll explain, there’s more to her side of the story. The backlash was, well, swift, and overwhelming. It still hasn’t altogether subsided. Later that year, Swift chose not to make an endorsement in the 2016 election, which definitely didn’t help. In the face of it all, she made Reputation — fierce, witty, almost-industrial pop offset by love songs of crystalline beauty — and had a wildly successful stadium tour. Somewhere in there, she met her current boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, and judging by certain songs on Lover, the relationship is serious indeed.
Lover is Swift’s most adult album, a rebalancing of sound and persona that opens doors to the next decade of her career; it’s also a welcome return to the sonic diversity of 2012’s Red, with tracks ranging from the St. Vincent-assisted über-bop “Cruel Summer” to the unbearably poignant country-fied “Soon You’ll Get Better” (with the Dixie Chicks) and the “Shake It Off”-worthy pep of “Paper Rings.”
She wants to talk about the music, of course, but she is also ready to explain the past three years of her life, in depth, for the first time. The conversation is often not a light one. She’s built up more armor in the past few years, but still has the opposite of a poker face — you can see every micro-emotion wash over her as she ponders a question, her nose wrinkling in semi-ironic offense at the term “old-school pop stars,” her preposterously blue eyes glistening as she turns to darker subjects. In her worst moments, she says, “You feel like you’re being completely pulled into a riptide. So what are you going to do? Splash a lot? Or hold your breath and hope you somehow resurface? And that’s what I did. And it took three years. Sitting here doing an interview — the fact that we’ve done an interview before is the only reason I’m not in a full body sweat.”
When we talked seven years ago, everything was going so well for you, and you were very worried that something would go wrong. Yeah, I kind of knew it would. I felt like I was walking along the sidewalk, knowing eventually the pavement was going to crumble and I was gonna fall through. You can’t keep winning and have people like it. People love “new” so much — they raise you up the flagpole, and you’re waving at the top of the flagpole for a while. And then they’re like, “Wait, this new flag is what we actually love.” They decide something you’re doing is incorrect, that you’re not standing for what you should stand for. You’re a bad example. Then if you keep making music and you survive, and you keep connecting with people, eventually they raise you a little bit up the flagpole again, and then they take you back down, and back up again. And it happens to women more than it happens to men in music.
It also happened to you a few times on a smaller scale, didn’t it? I’ve had several upheavals in my career. When I was 18, they were like, “She doesn’t really write those songs.” So my third album I wrote by myself as a reaction to that. Then they decided I was a serial dater — a boy-crazy man-eater — when I was 22. And so I didn’t date anyone for, like, two years. And then they decided in 2016 that absolutely everything about me was wrong. If I did something good, it was for the wrong reasons. If I did something brave, I didn’t do it correctly. If I stood up for myself, I was throwing a tantrum. And so I found myself in this endless mockery echo chamber. It’s just like — I have a brother who’s two and a half years younger, and we spent the first half of our lives trying to kill each other and the second half as best friends. You know that game kids play? I’d be like, “Mom, can I have some water?” And Austin would be like, “Mom, can I have some water?” And I’m like, “He’s copying me.” And he’d be like, “He’s copying me.” Always in a really obnoxious voice that sounds all twisted. That’s what it felt like in 2016. So I decided to just say nothing. It wasn’t really a decision. It was completely involuntary.
But you also had good things happen in your life at the same time — that’s part of Reputation. The moments of my true story on that album are songs like “Delicate,” “New Year’s Day,” “Call It What You Want,” “Dress.” The one-two punch, bait-and-switch of Reputation is that it was actually a love story. It was a love story in amongst chaos. All the weaponized sort of metallic battle anthems were what was going on outside. That was the battle raging on that I could see from the windows, and then there was what was happening inside my world — my newly quiet, cozy world that was happening on my own terms for the first time. . . . It’s weird, because in some of the worst times of my career, and reputation, dare I say, I had some of the most beautiful times — in my quiet life that I chose to have. And I had some of the most incredible memories with the friends I now knew cared about me, even if everyone hated me. The bad stuff was really significant and damaging. But the good stuff will endure. The good lessons — you realize that you can’t just show your life to people.
Meaning? I used to be like a golden retriever, just walking up to everybody, like, wagging my tail. “Sure, yeah, of course! What do you want to know? What do you need?” Now, I guess, I have to be a little bit more like a fox.
Do your regrets on that extend to the way the “girl squad” thing was perceived? Yeah, I never would have imagined that people would have thought, “This is a clique that wouldn’t have accepted me if I wanted to be in it.” Holy shit, that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, “Oh, this did not go the way that I thought it was going to go.” I thought it was going to be we can still stick together, just like men are allowed to do. The patriarchy allows men to have bro packs. If you’re a male artist, there’s an understanding that you have respect for your counterparts.
Whereas women are expected to be feuding with each other? It’s assumed that we hate each other. Even if we’re smiling and photographed together with our arms around each other, it’s assumed there’s a knife in our pocket.
How much of a danger was there of falling into that thought pattern yourself? The messaging is dangerous, yes. Nobody is immune, because we’re a product of what society and peer groups and now the internet tells us, unless we learn differently from experience.
You once sang about a star who “took the money and your dignity, and got the hell out.” In 2016, you wrote in your journal, “This summer is the apocalypse.” How close did you come to quitting altogether? I definitely thought about that a lot. I thought about how words are my only way of making sense of the world and expressing myself — and now any words I say or write are being twisted against me. People love a hate frenzy. It’s like piranhas. People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t really need very many reasons to do it. I felt like the situation was pretty hopeless. I wrote a lot of really aggressively bitter poems constantly. I wrote a lot of think pieces that I knew I’d never publish, about what it’s like to feel like you’re in a shame spiral. And I couldn’t figure out how to learn from it. Because I wasn’t sure exactly what I did that was so wrong. That was really hard for me, because I cannot stand it when people can’t take criticism. So I try to self-examine, and even though that’s really hard and hurts a lot sometimes, I really try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me. And I completely get why people wouldn’t like me. Because, you know, I’ve had my insecurities say those things — and things 1,000 times worse.
But some of your former critics have become your friends, right? Some of my best friendships came from people publicly criticizing me and then it opening up a conversation. Hayley Kiyoko was doing an interview and she made an example about how I get away with singing about straight relationships and people don’t give me shit the way they give her shit for singing about girls — and it’s totally valid. Like, Ella — Lorde — the first thing she ever said about me publicly was a criticism of my image or whatever. But I can’t really respond to someone saying, “You, as a human being, are fake.” And if they say you’re playing the victim, that completely undermines your ability to ever verbalize how you feel unless it’s positive. So, OK, should I just smile all the time and never say anything hurts me? Because that’s really fake. Or should I be real about how I’m feeling and have valid, legitimate responses to things that happened to me in my life? But wait, would that be playing the victim?
How do you escape that mental trap? Since I was 15 years old, if people criticized me for something, I changed it. So you realize you might be this amalgamation of criticisms that were hurled at you, and not an actual person who’s made any of these choices themselves. And so I decided I needed to live a quiet life, because a quiet personal life invites no discussion, dissection, and debate. I didn’t realize I was inviting people to feel they had the right to sort of play my life like a video game.
“The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because she’s dead!” was funny — but how seriously should we take it? There’s a part of me that definitely is always going to be different. I needed to grow up in many ways. I needed to make boundaries, to figure out what was mine and what was the public’s. That old version of me that shares unfailingly and unblinkingly with a world that is probably not fit to be shared with? I think that’s gone. But it was definitely just, like, a fun moment in the studio with me and Jack [Antonoff] where I wanted to play on the idea of a phone call — because that’s how all of this started, a stupid phone call I shouldn’t have picked up.
It would have been much easier if that’s what you’d just said. It would have been so, so great if I would have just said that [laughs].
Some of the Lover iconography does suggest old Taylor’s return, though. I don’t think I’ve ever leaned into the old version of myself more creatively than I have on this album, where it’s very, very autobiographical. But also moments of extreme catchiness and moments of extreme personal confession.
Did you do anything wrong from your perspective in dealing with that phone call? Is there anything you regret? The world didn’t understand the context and the events that led up to it. Because nothing ever just happens like that without some lead-up. Some events took place to cause me to be pissed off when he called me a bitch. That was not just a singular event. Basically, I got really sick of the dynamic between he and I. And that wasn’t just based on what happened on that phone call and with that song — it was kind of a chain reaction of things.
I started to feel like we reconnected, which felt great for me — because all I ever wanted my whole career after that thing happened in 2009 was for him to respect me. When someone doesn’t respect you so loudly and says you literally don’t deserve to be here — I just so badly wanted that respect from him, and I hate that about myself, that I was like, “This guy who’s antagonizing me, I just want his approval.” But that’s where I was. And so we’d go to dinner and stuff. And I was so happy, because he would say really nice things about my music. It just felt like I was healing some childhood rejection or something from when I was 19. But the 2015 VMAs come around. He’s getting the Vanguard Award. He called me up beforehand — I didn’t illegally record it, so I can’t play it for you. But he called me up, maybe a week or so before the event, and we had maybe over an hourlong conversation, and he’s like, “I really, really would like for you to present this Vanguard Award to me, this would mean so much to me,” and went into all the reasons why it means so much, because he can be so sweet. He can be the sweetest. And I was so stoked that he asked me that. And so I wrote this speech up, and then we get to the VMAs and I make this speech and he screams, “MTV got Taylor Swift up here to present me this award for ratings!” [His exact words: “You know how many times they announced Taylor was going to give me the award ’cause it got them more ratings?”] And I’m standing in the audience with my arm around his wife, and this chill ran through my body. I realized he is so two-faced. That he wants to be nice to me behind the scenes, but then he wants to look cool, get up in front of everyone and talk shit. And I was so upset. He wanted me to come talk to him after the event in his dressing room. I wouldn’t go. So then he sent this big, big thing of flowers the next day to apologize. And I was like, “You know what? I really don’t want us to be on bad terms again. So whatever, I’m just going to move past this.” So when he gets on the phone with me, and I was so touched that he would be respectful and, like, tell me about this one line in the song.
The line being “. . . me and Taylor might still have sex”? [Nods] And I was like, “OK, good. We’re back on good terms.” And then when I heard the song, I was like, “I’m done with this. If you want to be on bad terms, let’s be on bad terms, but just be real about it.” And then he literally did the same thing to Drake. He gravely affected the trajectory of Drake’s family and their lives. It’s the same thing. Getting close to you, earning your trust, detonating you. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore because I get worked up, and I don’t want to just talk about negative shit all day, but it’s the same thing. Go watch Drake talk about what happened. [West denied any involvement in Pusha-T’s revelation of Drake’s child and apologized for sending “negative energy” toward Drake.]
When did you get to the place that’s described on the opening track of Lover, “I Forgot That You Existed”? It was sometime on the Reputation tour, which was the most transformative emotional experience of my career. That tour put me in the healthiest, most balanced place I’ve ever been. After that tour, bad stuff can happen to me, but it doesn’t level me anymore. The stuff that happened a couple of months ago with Scott [Borchetta] would have leveled me three years ago and silenced me. I would have been too afraid to speak up. Something about that tour made me disengage from some part of public perception I used to hang my entire identity on, which I now know is incredibly unhealthy.
What was the actual revelation? It’s almost like I feel more clear about the fact that my job is to be an entertainer. It’s not like this massive thing that sometimes my brain makes it into, and sometimes the media makes it into, where we’re all on this battlefield and everyone’s gonna die except one person, who wins. It’s like, “No, do you know what? Katy is going to be legendary. Gaga is going to be legendary. Beyoncé is going to be legendary. Rihanna is going to be legendary. Because the work that they made completely overshadows the myopia of this 24-hour news cycle of clickbait.” And somehow I realized that on tour, as I was looking at people’s faces. We’re just entertaining people, and it’s supposed to be fun.
It’s interesting to look at these albums as a trilogy. 1989 was really a reset button. Oh, in every way. I’ve been very vocal about the fact that that decision was mine and mine alone, and it was definitely met with a lot of resistance. Internally.
After realizing that things were not all smiles with your former label boss, Scott Borchetta, it’s hard not to wonder how much additional conflict there was over things like that. A lot of the best things I ever did creatively were things that I had to really fight — and I mean aggressively fight — to have happen. But, you know, I’m not like him, making crazy, petty accusations about the past. . . . When you have a business relationship with someone for 15 years, there are going to be a lot of ups and a lot of downs. But I truly, legitimately thought he looked at me as the daughter he never had. And so even though we had a lot of really bad times and creative differences, I was going to hang my hat on the good stuff. I wanted to be friends with him. I thought I knew what betrayal felt like, but this stuff that happened with him was a redefinition of betrayal for me, just because it felt like it was family. To go from feeling like you’re being looked at as a daughter to this grotesque feeling of “Oh, I was actually his prized calf that he was fattening up to sell to the slaughterhouse that would pay the most.”
He accused you of declining the Parkland march and Manchester benefit show. Unbelievable. Here’s the thing: Everyone in my team knew if Scooter Braun brings us something, do not bring it to me. The fact that those two are in business together after the things he said about Scooter Braun — it’s really hard to shock me. And this was utterly shocking. These are two very rich, very powerful men, using $300 million of other people’s money to purchase, like, the most feminine body of work. And then they’re standing in a wood-panel bar doing a tacky photo shoot, raising a glass of scotch to themselves. Because they pulled one over on me and got this done so sneakily that I didn’t even see it coming. And I couldn’t say anything about it.
In some ways, on a musical level, Lover feels like the most indie-ish of your albums. That’s amazing, thank you. It’s definitely a quirky record. With this album, I felt like I sort of gave myself permission to revisit older themes that I used to write about, maybe look at them with fresh eyes. And to revisit older instruments — older in terms of when I used to use them. Because when I was making 1989, I was so obsessed with it being this concept of Eighties big pop, whether it was Eighties in its production or Eighties in its nature, just having these big choruses — being unapologetically big. And then Reputation, there was a reason why I had it all in lowercase. I felt like it wasn’t unapologetically commercial. It’s weird, because that is the album that took the most amount of explanation, and yet it’s the one I didn’t talk about. In the Reputation secret sessions I kind of had to explain to my fans, “I know we’re doing a new thing here that I’d never done before.” I’d never played with characters before. For a lot of pop stars, that’s a really fun trick, where they’re like, “This is my alter ego.” I had never played with that before. It’s really fun. And it was just so fun to play with on tour — the darkness and the bombast and the bitterness and the love and the ups and the downs of an emotional-turmoil record.
“Daylight” is a beautiful song. It feels like it could have been the title track. It almost was. I thought it might be a little bit too sentimental.
And I guess maybe too on-the-nose. Right, yeah, way too on-the-nose. That’s what I thought, because I was kind of in my head referring to the album as Daylight for a while. But Lover, to me, was a more interesting title, more of an accurate theme in my head, and more elastic as a concept. That’s why “You Need to Calm Down” can make sense within the theme of the album — one of the things it addresses is how certain people are not allowed to live their lives without discrimination just based on who they love.
For the more organic songs on this album, like “Lover” and “Paper Rings,” you said you were imagining a wedding band playing them. How often does that kind of visualization shape a song’s production style? Sometimes I’ll have a strange sort of fantasy of where the songs would be played. And so for songs like “Paper Rings” or “Lover” I was imagining a wedding-reception band, but in the Seventies, so they couldn’t play instruments that wouldn’t have been invented yet. I have all these visuals. For Reputation, it was nighttime cityscape. I didn’t really want any — or very minimal — traditional acoustic instruments. I imagined old warehouse buildings that had been deserted and factory spaces and all this industrial kind of imagery. So I wanted the production to have nothing wooden. There’s no wood floors on that album. Lover is, like, completely just a barn wood floor and some ripped curtains flowing in the breeze, and fields of flowers and, you know, velvet.
How did you come to use high school metaphors to touch on politics with “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince”? There are so many influences that go into that particular song. I wrote it a couple of months after midterm elections, and I wanted to take the idea of politics and pick a metaphorical place for that to exist. And so I was thinking about a traditional American high school, where there’s all these kinds of social events that could make someone feel completely alienated. And I think a lot of people in our political landscape are just feeling like we need to huddle up under the bleachers and figure out a plan to make things better.
I feel like your Fall Out Boy fandom might’ve slipped out in that title. I love Fall Out Boy so much. Their songwriting really influenced me, lyrically, maybe more than anyone else. They take a phrase and they twist it. “Loaded God complex/Cock it and pull it”? When I heard that, I was like, “I’m dreaming.”
You sing about “American stories burning before me.” Do you mean the illusions of what America is? It’s about the illusions of what I thought America was before our political landscape took this turn, and that naivete that we used to have about it. And it’s also the idea of people who live in America, who just want to live their lives, make a living, have a family, love who they love, and watching those people lose their rights, or watching those people feel not at home in their home. I have that line “I see the high-fives between the bad guys” because not only are some really racist, horrific undertones now becoming overtones in our political climate, but the people who are representing those concepts and that way of looking at the world are celebrating loudly, and it’s horrific.
You’re in this weird place of being a blond, blue-eyed pop star in this era — to the point where until you endorsed some Democratic candidates, right-wingers, and worse, assumed you were on their side. I don’t think they do anymore. Yeah, that was jarring, and I didn’t hear about that until after it had happened. Because at this point, I, for a very long time, I didn’t have the internet on my phone, and my team and my family were really worried about me because I was not in a good place. And there was a lot of stuff that they just dealt with without telling me about it. Which is the only time that’s ever happened in my career. I’m always in the pilot seat, trying to fly the plane that is my career in exactly the direction I want to take it. But there was a time when I just had to throw my hands up and say, “Guys, I can’t. I can’t do this. I need you to just take over for me and I’m just going to disappear.”
Are you referring to when a white-supremacist site suggested you were on their team? I didn’t even see that, but, like, if that happened, that’s just disgusting. There’s literally nothing worse than white supremacy. It’s repulsive. There should be no place for it. Really, I keep trying to learn as much as I can about politics, and it’s become something I’m now obsessed with, whereas before, I was living in this sort of political ambivalence, because the person I voted for had always won. We were in such an amazing time when Obama was president because foreign nations respected us. We were so excited to have this dignified person in the White House. My first election was voting for him when he made it into office, and then voting to re-elect him. I think a lot of people are like me, where they just didn’t really know that this could happen. But I’m just focused on the 2020 election. I’m really focused on it. I’m really focused on how I can help and not hinder. Because I also don’t want it to backfire again, because I do feel that the celebrity involvement with Hillary’s campaign was used against her in a lot of ways.
You took a lot of heat for not getting involved. Does any part of you regret that you just didn’t say “fuck it” and gotten more specific when you said to vote that November? Totally. Yeah, I regret a lot of things all the time. It’s like a daily ritual.
Were you just convinced that it would backfire? That’s literally what it was. Yeah. It’s a very powerful thing when you legitimately feel like numbers have proven that pretty much everyone hates you. Like, quantifiably. That’s not me being dramatic. And you know that.
There were a lot of people in those stadiums. It’s true. But that was two years later. . . . I do think, as a party, we need to be more of a team. With Republicans, if you’re wearing that red hat, you’re one of them. And if we’re going to do anything to change what’s happening, we need to stick together. We need to stop dissecting why someone’s on our side or if they’re on our side in the right way or if they phrased it correctly. We need to not have the right kind of Democrat and the wrong kind of Democrat. We need to just be like, “You’re a Democrat? Sick. Get in the car. We’re going to the mall.”
Here’s a hard question for you: As a superfan, what did you think of the Game of Thrones finale? Oh, my God. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. So, clinically our brain responds to our favorite show ending the same way we feel when a breakup occurs. I read that. There’s no good way for it to end. No matter what would have happened in that finale, people still would have been really upset because of the fact that it’s over.
I was glad to see you confirm that your line about a “list of names” was a reference to Arya. I like to be influenced by movies and shows and books and stuff. I love to write about a character dynamic. And not all of my life is going to be as kind of complex as these intricate webs of characters on TV shows and movies.
There was a time when it was. That’s amazing.
But is the idea that as your own life becomes less dramatic, you’ll need to pull ideas from other places? I don’t feel like that yet. I think I might feel like that possibly when I have a family. If I have a family. [Pauses] I don’t know why I said that! But that’s what I’ve heard from other artists, that they were very protective of their personal life, so they had to draw inspiration from other things. But again, I don’t know why I said that. Because I don’t know how my life is going to go or what I’m going to do. But right now, I feel like it’s easier for me to write than it ever was.
You don’t talk about your relationship, but you’ll sing about it in wildly revealing detail. What’s the difference for you? Singing about something helps you to express it in a way that feels more accurate. You cannot, no matter what, put words in a quote and have it move someone the same way as if you heard those words with the perfect sonic representation of that feeling... There is that weird conflict in being a confessional songwriter and then also having my life, you know, 10 years ago, be catapulted into this strange pop-culture thing.
I’ve heard you say that people got too interested in which song was about who, which I can understand — at the same time, to be fair, it was a game you played into, wasn’t it? I realized very early on that no matter what, that was going to happen to me regardless. So when you realize the rules of the game you’re playing and how it will affect you, you got to look at the board and make your strategy. But at the same time, writing songs has never been a strategic element of my career. But I’m not scared anymore to say that other things in my career, like how to market an album, are strictly strategic. And I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds — because male artists are allowed to. And so I’m sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business. But, it’s a different part of my brain than I use to write.
You’ve been masterminding your business since you were a teenager. Yeah, but I’ve also tried very hard — and this is one thing I regret — to convince people that I wasn’t the one holding the puppet strings of my marketing existence, or the fact that I sit in a conference room several times a week and come up with these ideas. I felt for a very long time that people don’t want to think of a woman in music who isn’t just a happy, talented accident. We’re all forced to kind of be like, “Aw, shucks, this happened again! We’re still doing well! Aw, that’s so great.” Alex Morgan celebrating scoring a goal at the World Cup and getting shit for it is a perfect example of why we’re not allowed to flaunt or celebrate, or reveal that, like, “Oh, yeah, it was me. I came up with this stuff.” I think it’s really unfair. People love new female artists so much because they’re able to explain that woman’s success. There’s an easy trajectory. Look at the Game of Thrones finale. I specifically really related to Daenerys’ storyline because for me it portrayed that it is a lot easier for a woman to attain power than to maintain it.
I mean, she did murder... It’s a total metaphor! Like, obviously I didn’t want Daenerys to become that kind of character, but in taking away what I chose to take away from it, I thought maybe they’re trying to portray her climbing the ladder to the top was a lot easier than maintaining it, because for me, the times when I felt like I was going insane was when I was trying to maintain my career in the same way that I ascended. It’s easier to get power than to keep it. It’s easier to get acclaim than to keep it. It’s easier to get attention than to keep it.
Well, I guess we should be glad you didn’t have a dragon in 2016... [Fiercely] I told you I don’t like that she did that! But, I mean, watching the show, though, maybe this is a reflection on how we treat women in power, how we are totally going to conspire against them and tear at them until they feel this — this insane shift, where you wonder, like, “What changed?” And I’ve had that happen, like, 60 times in my career where I’m like, “OK, you liked me last year, what changed? I guess I’ll change so I can keep entertaining you guys.”
You once said that your mom could never punish you when you were little because you’d punish yourself. This idea of changing in the face of criticism and needing approval — that’s all part of wanting to be good, right? Whatever that means. But that seems to be a real driving force in your life. Yeah, that’s definitely very perceptive of you. And the question posed to me is, if you kept trying to do good things, but everyone saw those things in a cynical way and assumed them to be done with bad motivation and bad intent, would you still do good things, even though nothing that you did was looked at as good? And the answer is, yes. Criticism that’s constructive is helpful to my character growth. Baseless criticism is stuff I’ve got to toss out now.
That sounds healthy. Is this therapy talking or is this just experience? No, I’ve never been to therapy. I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything. God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all. She knows exactly where I’m coming from. And we talk endlessly. There were times when I used to have really, really, really bad days where we would just be on the phone for hours and hours and hours. I’d write something that I wanted to say, and instead of posting it, I’d just read it to her.
I somehow connect all this to the lyric in “Daylight,” the idea of “so many lines that I’ve crossed unforgiven” — it’s a different kind of confession. I am really glad you liked that line, because that’s something that does bother me, looking back at life and realizing that no matter what, you screw things up. Sometimes there are people that were in your life and they’re not anymore — and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t fix it, you can’t change it. I told the fans last night that sometimes on my bad days, I feel like my life is a pile of crap accumulated of only the bad headlines or the bad things that have happened, or the mistakes I’ve made or clichés or rumors or things that people think about me or have thought for the last 15 years. And that was part of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, where I had a pile of literal old selves fighting each other.
But, yeah, that line is indicative of my anxiety about how in life you can’t get everything right. A lot of times you make the wrong call, make the wrong decision. Say the wrong thing. Hurt people, even if you didn’t mean to. You don’t really know how to fix all of that. When it’s, like, 29 years’ worth.
To be Mr. “Rolling Stone” for a second, there’s a Springsteen lyric, “Ain’t no one leaving this world, buddy/Without their shirttail dirty or hands a little bloody.” That’s really good! No one gets through it unscathed. No one gets through in one piece. I think that’s a hard thing for a lot of people to grasp. I know it was hard for me, because I kind of grew up thinking, “If I’m nice, and if I try to do the right thing, you know, maybe I can just, like, ace this whole thing.” And it turns out I can’t.
It’s interesting to look at “I Did Something Bad” in this context. You pointing that out is really interesting because it’s something I’ve had to reconcile within myself in the last couple of years — that sort of “good” complex. Because from the time I was a kid I’d try to be kind, be a good person. Try really hard. But you get walked all over sometimes. And how do you respond to being walked all over? You can’t just sit there and eat your salad and let it happen. “I Did Something Bad” was about doing something that was so against what I would usually do. Katy [Perry] and I were talking about our signs. . . . [Laughs] Of course we were.
That’s the greatest sentence ever. [Laughs] I hate you. We were talking about our signs because we had this really, really long talk when we were reconnecting and stuff. And I remember in the long talk, she was like, “If we had one glass of white wine right now, we’d both be crying.” Because we were drinking tea. We’ve had some really good conversations.
We were talking about how we’ve had miscommunications with people in the past, not even specifically with each other. She’s like, “I’m a Scorpio. Scorpios just strike when they feel threatened.” And I was like, “Well, I’m an archer. We literally stand back, assess the situation, process how we feel about it, raise a bow, pull it back, and fire.” So it’s completely different ways of processing pain, confusion, misconception. And oftentimes I’ve had this delay in feeling something that hurts me and then saying that it hurts me. Do you know what I mean? And so I can understand how people in my life would have been like, “Whoa, I didn’t know that was how you felt.” Because it takes me a second.
If you watch the video of the 2009 VMAs, I literally freeze. I literally stand there. And that is how I handle any discomfort, any pain. I stand there, I freeze. And then five minutes later, I know how I feel. But in the moment, I’m probably overreacting and I should be nice. Then I process it, and in five minutes, if it’s gone, it’s past, and I’m like, “I was overreacting, everything’s fine. I can get through this. I’m glad I didn’t say anything harsh in the moment.” But when it’s actually something bad that happened, and I feel really, really hurt or upset about it, I only know after the fact. Because I’ve tried so hard to squash it: “This probably isn’t what you think.” That’s something I had to work on.
You could end up gaslighting yourself. Yeah, for sure. ’Cause so many situations where if I would have said the first thing that came to my mind, people would have been like, “Whoa!” And maybe I would have been wrong or combative. So a couple of years ago I started working on actually just responding to my emotions in a quicker fashion. And it’s really helped with stuff. It’s helped so much because sometimes you get in arguments. But conflict in the moment is so much better than combat after the fact.
Well, thanks. I do feel like I just did a therapy session. As someone who’s never been to therapy, I can safely say that was the best therapy session.
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thirteenandten · 3 years
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hello, do you have any tips for writing in English when you're not a native English speaker? Do you write in English from the start? Love your writing, btw!
Well hi! This was a very nice anon to receive, I'm honoured! And thank you for the compliment <3
So first let me start reminding you that writing in a language that it's not your own is super difficult, because it's not just diferent words and structures, but a whole different way of thinking and understanding the world. So please be gentle and patient with yourself while you do it!
Yes, the stories that I intend to publish in English are written in English from the start. Ever since I started writing my fics in English I took this approach and tbh I think it’s the best one. I reccommend it big time because you surely will write more complex or ellaborate stuff in your native language and then it'll be very difficult/frustrating to try and take that into English. Don't worry if your first stories in English are a bit rough, you'll get better with time! Practice here is key.
You can find the tips under the cut because I’m wordy as hell so it turned out super long.
- When English is not working for you like, I suggest writing down a little summary in your own language of what you want to write for later. Not the actual thing but what you want to tell. The ideas will probably come easier in your native language and then when English is working again, you can go back to it without losing your ideas.
-This one may be obvious but READ A LOT IN ENGLISH. I would especially suggest books written in English by English speakers. But of course, everything helps, including fics. And while you do that, try to stop and pay attention to the language. When something really works for you (a dialogue, a description, a feeling) pause, go back to the words, and notice how it was done. I've been doing this "active reading" lately and it has helped me a lot.
-Similar to the one above: expose yourself to a lot of English. Tumblr is okay but also go and watch videos of native English speakers. Listen to songs in English and take the time to look for the lyrics and think about them. When a word sounds interesting but you are not certain of the menaing, look it up! Even if you don't remember the words exactly for later, the little research will help you either way. Watch movies and series and pay attention to the language and how people talk. That'll also help you to incorporate phrases, jokes and sayings that people use in everyday life. Just expose yourself to English as much as you can and have your writer brain open and attentive!
-Going more into the writing process, those lists of different ways of saying words, or words for different moods or situations are fantastic. Just always remember to check for the word precise meaning and usage before putting anything in your work.
-I highly recommend Thesaurus. It's great for looking for alternative to words (always checking meaning and usage!), but also sometimes you know there's this word that reminds you of this other that would fit perfectly in your text and you just can’t remember the actual word you want. In those desperate moments, I go to Thesaurus, search the word I do remember, and more often than not, I arrive to the one I actually wanted (or sometimes, to another great word I hadn’t thought about!)
-Using a Collocations Dictionary literally saves your life (? I learnt about these dictionaries during uni and I loved them so much I bought a physical one which saved me many times while writing essays. Basically it gives you the prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, whatever that most usually “collocate” (go with) the word you’re looking for.
-Check for spelling whenever you are not certain you are writing a word correctly. And I mean putting the word straight on the Google search bar. If you got a letter (or several) wrong, Google will help you.
-Google combinations of words between quotation marks (”word”) to see if they are actually used by English speakers. I can’t come up with anything better right now, but for example, “seat belt” in Spanish is “cinturón de seguridad” and you could translate that literally to “security belt”. If for some reason I wasn’t sure of which of these combinations the acceptable, I could google each phrase between quotations marks and see the number of results. Usually, the option with more results is the one that is most commonly used and that will be understood more easily. For example, “security belt” throws 316k results, while “seat belt” throws 57million results. 
-Use Google Images to look for specific vocabulary you can’t remember or simply don’t know. “Kitchen appliances names”, “parts of a book names”, “parts of the body names” “clothing names”. You’ll get charts with pictures and names and it’ll make your life ten times easier, I promise.
-Decide if you are writing in British or American English... or if you don't care lol. The most sensible thing to do is to pick one, but if you are writing just for fun, you might as well accept that you’ll have inconsistencies in that matter and let it be. If you do choose one English variant though, google the most common differences in spelling AND I highly suggest running Word’s spellcheck after setting the language to the English variant you’re using.
-Needless to say, writing blogs are your friends. They are full of resources, some even specially thought for non native English speakers.
-In general I would say that googling stuff is an excellent strategy when you have doubts: verb conjugations, one words vs the other, anything about English grammar, etc.
-If you feel comfortable with it, getting a Beta reader who is an English native speaker is super great. A Beta reader in general would be fine because someone else may notice a mistake you overlooked (God knows how many "ringed" instead of "rang" I've posted in my life). Also a trusted friend giving a second read can help. Or you reading out loud, if it's not a very long thing, can help you identify if there's something off.
-Be gentle with yourself! You'll make mistakes! You will even post them! My fics, old and recent always have at least one mistake no matter how much I check them. That's fine! You can go and edit them or leave it, and I promise people won't get mad at you (if they do let me know and I'll virtually punch them).
-Finally, practice, practice, practice!
I hope this very long answer is somewhat useful! And do let me know if I can help you with anything else.
Much love xx
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onthepageoftears · 4 years
Text
What Was Lost —  Pt 2 (Jaskier x Reader) || Witcher
A/N: And part two is here! Thank you everyone for reading, and also thank you to all my new followers! A reminder that I now have a taglist, so don’t be afraid to sign up through the google doc I created (the link is in my description) :) Also, this is my fourth @thewitcherbingo entry, whoop! Enjoy!
Summary: Y/N, a famous bard, is cursed by a sorceress and loses her voice, leaving her only hope to get it back with the famous Witcher and her rival, Jaskier.
(based on this post)
Bingo Square Filled: Road Trip
Warnings: grief, language, angst, fluff!!
Words: 2,047
Please Don’t Plagiarize My Work!
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(Pt 1)
Though you were a traveling bard, this trip seemed excruciatingly long. Geralt insisted on taking the paths with little to no interaction of villages, meaning you couldn’t even stop to talk to the townsfolk. Not that you could anyway. But still, a big part of traveling was meeting the people, and with Geralt, that was the last thing on his mind.
It didn’t take long on the trip for you and Jaskier to start making music. Despite your lost voice, you couldn’t keep yourself away from your lute. And even though you learned that Geralt cherished his peace and quiet, you also learned that Jaskier didn’t give two fucks. So, the two of you made a great team in annoying the Witcher, one chord at a time.
You secretly thanked the gods that Jaskier was there. When before your rivalry was a playful past-time, now it was almost completely gone. What replaced it was…a friendship, which was something you realized you never really had until now. Watching the bard perform had been a pleasure, sure — but performing with him was so much more exhilarating. You couldn’t wait to get your voice back so you two could sing the best songs both of you would ever write. It was a bold statement, but something felt right in your gut as the two of you wrote random lyrics and came up with new chord progressions in your downtime.
It was the night before visiting the sorceress, and Jaskier was strumming his lute and humming along. You watched him with your body leaning against a tree trunk, smiling as he made nonsense lyrics and fucked up his chords repeatedly.
As you listened to Jaskier strum away, your smile faded. In the short bursts of time that you were enjoying yourself, you would suddenly remember what circumstances you were under. In a matter of seconds, like the flip of a coin, your mood shifted. Your heart jumped to your throat as the same questions you had been mulling over for the past few days swirled in your mind. What if the sorceress wasn’t where Geralt thought she was? What if she refused to give you your voice back? What if you could never sing again?
“Y/N?” Jaskier’s voice took you out of your trance; his hands were no longer playing the lute, and instead, he looked at you with concern. “You’re not crying because of my singing, are you?”
You laughed, though no sound came out. The sick feeling returned to your stomach as you wiped the tears from your cheeks; you picked up the notebook beside you and wrote: your singing is the least of my pain right now.
“I take that as a compliment.” Jaskier gestured to the lute in his hands. “In that case, any requests?”
You gave him a sad smile before writing in the notebook: I want my voice back.
“Hm. Well, I’m not familiar with that one…” His amused smile faltered when yours didn’t appear. He placed the lute on the ground next to him and focused on you. His jaw clenched as it searched your face. “We will get it back.”
You nodded your head but turned away from Jaskier’s gaze. You were still unconvinced; you decided to change the subject.
You pursed your lips as you wrote: do you hate me? Then turned it to Jaskier.
Jaskier rolled his eyes. “If I hated you, would I have gone on this journey to find your voice?” You just stared at him, each blink more dramatic than the next. He rolled his eyes harder. “I don’t hate you.” He sighed, then quirked a brow. “Do you hate me?”
You smirked, then wrote: next question.
Jaskier groaned. “Now come, that’s not fair.”
You shrugged and made a ‘zip the lip’ motion. Jaskier grumbled to himself and turned back to his lute, where he began strumming a song you two thought up just the other day.
“This is the place.”
You didn’t know what you expected. A large castle, maybe a few guards standing out front. Possibly some rabid animals ready to attack. After the surprisingly long trip, you thought the climax to your journey would lead to a crazy battle — at the least. But this…this was anything but that. It was a small hut, barely sturdy looking. You were positive that if you threw a rock at the front door it would fall off its hinges. You supposed the sorceress had some sort of magic enchantment on the structure, keeping it upright. If she didn’t, the walls were sure to fall down come the next storm.
Jaskier must have been thinking the same thing, as his nose was scrunched up. “Are you sure this is the place?”
“This is where she was last time I saw her.”
“Which was?”
Geralt blinked. “The last time I saw her.”
“Great. Fantastic.” Jaskier threw his arm forward. “Lead the way.”
As Geralt walked towards the hut, you felt your stomach drop. This was the moment of truth. This was the end of your journey.
Jaskier placed a hand on your arm. “Are you ready?” You nodded. It was now or never.
You were grateful that Geralt and Jaskier went in first; your stomach did about twenty-five flips as you followed them into the hut, your head whipping from side to side as you looked for the sorceress.
The hut was filled with dozens and dozens of trinkets; you thought if you breathed they would fall over. Bottles of random ingredients, liquids and solids alike, filled shelves that lined the walls.
“Fidelia.” Geralt spoke, making you turn your head to the corner of the room. There stood the familiar sorceress, smiling the same smile she did a couple nights ago. You shivered.
“Geralt. How strange it is to see you again.” Her eyes flicked to Jaskier, then quickly to you. “Ah. I see.”
Jaskier cleared his throat, “We’ve come to…ah, claim Y/N’s voice back.”
The sorceress — Fidelia, nodded. “That you did."
The room grew quiet as Fidelia squinted her eyes at Jaskier, then back to you. It would have been awkward if not for Geralt’s interruption.
“Fidelia. Her voice.”
“Yes, yes.” Fidelia brought her eyes back to you. She closed her eyes and breathed in, listened. It made you feel self-conscious, like she was listening to your thoughts. Which, maybe she was.
Luckily, she didn’t close her eyes for long. In fact, only a couple seconds after, she smiled. “Looks to me like you found what you needed.” The sorceress winked at you and stepped away to reach into a cabinet nearby. She pulled out the jar she had the night you met her. “Open this up and your voice will find its way back to you. Be patient. It will settle when it is ready.”
You tentatively took the jar from her hands, almost expecting her to rip it away. When she didn’t, you hugged it to your chest.
Geralt’s body weight creaked on the wooden floor as he leaned forward. “If I hear about something like this again—“
“You’ll never let me hear the end of it. I understand. Stay a bit, Geralt, so we can catch up. I might have a favor to ask you.” She turned to you, her smile as fresh as ever. “Take care now, darling.”
You barely nodded before gripping Jaskier’s sleeve and pulling him out of the hut, leaving Geralt and Fidelia to reminisce on whatever times they shared.
As soon as the door closed behind you, you took a deep breath. Your heart banged in your chest, begging you to get further away from the hut, just in case. You motioned for Jaskier to follow you and ran down towards the river that you had passed on the way to the hut.
You finally caught your breath as you sat down on a log near the river. The sound of frogs filled your ears and you breathed in again, this time feeling more at ease. You looked down at the jar and wondered, just for a second, if the return of your voice would hurt. Shaking that thought away, you uncapped the lid, bracing yourself for the worst. All you felt was a small gust of wind — then, nothing.
“So.” Jaskier sat on the log next to you and nudged your shoulder. “Have you truly...found what you needed?”
You took a big gulp and looked down at the jar in your hands. It was such a fragile thing, and just minutes ago it held an even more fragile part of yourself. You could now only hope that your voice was back — though the sorceress said it may take a while, your faith was flickering.
You looked to Jaskier and shrugged, a sad smile forming on your lips. For some reason, you thought back to your childhood — to the mother you never had, the father you wish you knew longer. Your eyes teared up at the thought of all that you had lost in the past; you wondered why the world had to take so much away from you, and why, when you were just beginning to feel better, more was taken away.
But now it was back, in your hands. And still, you felt like something was missing.
“You know, what I said about your voice. It wasn’t true.” You turned your head towards Jaskier; he was looking at a tree in the distance, probably avoiding your eyes. “At the tavern. And before that. None of it was true.”
You smiled at Jaskier, but the smile turned to a frown. I want to help you find what you were missing. This whole time, you thought what you were missing was your voice. Surely, that was part of it, but...maybe what the sorceress had meant wasn’t your voice — it was your companions. So many years after losing what was left of your family, and finally, you found a new family of your own. You had been traveling the Continent for years trying to fill the gap in your life that music couldn’t; and now, the gap was nearly overflowing.
You turned to Jaskier, heart brimming with… love? Excitement? You didn’t know. But it didn’t matter. All you wanted was the be with Jaskier for the rest of your life — for forever. Though you still couldn’t speak, his eyes caught yours at just the right moment; at that moment, he smiled. You smiled. And you grabbed his face and brought it to your own, capturing his lips with all the words you wanted to say to him, all the songs you wanted to sing with him. And he responded, placing his hands firmly on your waist, allowing you to lean into his grip, feeling the steadiness that his presence brought you.
At the feeling of his hands on your hips, you hummed; his touch brought butterflies to your stomach, butterflies you hadn’t felt in a long time. But then, your eyes opened wide with realization. You hummed.
You broke the kiss with your own smile and pulled back with a laugh.
“Thank the gods!” Your voice was husky, barely a whisper, but it was enough. Your smile stretched at the sound of your own voice; though it had only been gone for around a week, it felt like an eternity.
“I never thought I’d be saying this.” Jaskier’s smile lifted into a teasing smirk. He brought a hand to your face and wiped away a happy tear that fell without you knowing it. “But I am glad to hear your voice again.”
You opened your mouth to speak, but decided better of it. Jaskier watched you with a furrowed brow as you reached for the notebook you were carrying around; his eyes followed your hand as it wrote two words onto the page: Fuck off.
“I will definitely take that into consideration.” Jaskier nodded thoughtfully and pulled you in for another kiss; as his hands traced the sides of your face, you silently thanked the sorceress for forcing you on this journey — though, part of you still wanted Geralt to kick her in the face while you laughed as loudly as your lovely voice would allow. 
But maybe that was a bit harsh.
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Tags: @trees-fanfic​, @sdavid09​, @mystrade-shipper​
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