#“because Pride is supposed to be in June” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

azzibueckers5 · 1 month ago

Text

i want you to need me (need to want something more)

(ao3 link) (read iwkpa first) (wc: ~9k)

five times paige bueckers curses azzi fudd's entire existence and generally wants to die, and one time she curses azzi fudd's entire existence but for really awesome reasons this time so it's chill.

part 1 (of 2): in which paige is down horrendous. like horrendously horrendous

AN: hi hello looky here, i did indeed write more of these idiots. enjoy angtsy paige as promised. i swear the second chapter will make up for it. i hope. i smoked a joint by myself and listened almost exclusively to waiting room while writing the majority of this... so that's your warning in terms of angst levels and editing levels lmfao i'm sorry <3 (also there's a BRIEF mention of religious guilt but its like so super light- but if you're worried at all just message me)

1. june 2020, arlington, virginia

the dc humidity is stifling as paige races up the last stretch of asphalt after azzi and turns up the driveway to the fudd’s house, breathing heavily and trying to muster up enough remaining energy to catch the younger girl in the last stretch of their run.

the air is heavy around them, thick with an incoming summer storm, and paige doesn’t even have the breath to groan aloud when azzi’s finger’s graze the basketball hoop’s post at the top of the driveway a second before her own, their designated finish line.

“i win again, fuck you,” azzi wheezes, the pride in her voice still audible even through her heavy breathing.

paige’s eyes do not catch on the strip of skin exposed between her waistband and the bottom of her shirt when she pulls her arms up to rest them on her head. they do not.

she slaps at azzi’s leg half heartedly and attempts to keep both the fatigue and petulance out of her voice when she whines, “you cheated- grabbed my back when we turned up the hill.”

they both know that paige was already losing.

azzi doesn’t dignify it with a response, and only shoves her leg back in retaliation, which. rude.

“so hot out. wish it would start raining already,” is what she says instead, and it's a testament to how long their run was that she’s not fighting the cheating allegations.

paige grunts in agreement and hunches over, hands on her knees, trying simultaneously to catch her breath and also valiantly to ignore the sight of azzi stripping off her tank top in her periferal. and then she discovers that if she leans over far enough, her ponytail will fall over her eyes and she can inconspicuously ogle azzi from behind strands of her hair.

delightful.

she’s too busy letting her eyes roam across the smooth, taut skin of azzi’s stomach that’s being revealed and involuntarily tracing the sweat droplets on her abdomen to notice that azzi throws the damp shirt at paige’s head, until it hits the side of her face and drops to the ground next to her foot.

it takes a concerning amount of strength for paige to not reach down, bring the teal material to her face, and do something entirely insane like inhale it. or worse, lick it, which she’s pretty sure isn’t something you’re supposed to want to do when confronted with your best friend’s sweaty work out top.

belatedly, she says “ew azzi, that’s nasty it’s all sweaty,” and hopes the disgust in her voice is convincing. she wishes azzi’s sweat was as repulsive as she’s trying to make it seem, but instead it just makes her desperately want to put her mouth on the places that produce it.

there might be something wrong with her. probably.

and then azzi’s head tilts, in the way that almost always leads to trouble, “yeah?”

and paige’s disgust was either too convincing and azzi feels like being a shithead, or not convincing enough and still azzi feels like being a shithead but for entirely different reasons, because the brunette smirks, and proceeds to wipe a hand across the moisture on her abdomen and then shove it in paige’s face.

paige wants to die. like genuinely. death. drowning. incineration. a bolt of lightning perhaps.

instead, she shrieks, catching azzi’s wrists in her hands, and tries to shove her sweaty forehead into azzi’s neck, wrestling with her hands to get one free and lift her own shirt up to wipe the damp material across azzi’s side.

they’re both squealing, giggling in between indignant grunts, and the struggle lands them pushed up against the plastic of the garage door with a thud, paige pinning azzi’s hips to the surface with her own.

and this. backfired. a little bit. because now she’s pressing a sweaty, wriggling, half naked azzi against a hard surface. with her own body.

her brain whites out for a second, and azzi must notice because she takes advantage of her hesitation to do anything and flips them, wiping her face down paige’s arm.

and paige isn’t like, turned on by that, but she’s not not turned on either. what the fuck.

she can’t even come up with retaliation, too focused on how close they are and how warm azzi is, and the feeling of her skin pressed up against paige’s, and. she’s going a little bit insane, she thinks.

azzi stills then, too, at paige’s non-reaction, and then they’re just staring at each other, hands still gripping each other’s in a now forgotten attempt at defense, air thick with more than just the humidity.

they stand there for a second, just looking, chests heaving, and paige isn’t going to kiss azzi, obviously, that would be stupid, but she’s certainly thinking about it, and.

and then thunder claps, loud, above them, warning of an imminent downpour, and azzi jumps away from paige like she’s been burned, stumbling backwards.

her face is contorted, a little shocked, like she doesn’t know what just came over her. paige wishes she knew the feeling, but unfortunately she knows all too well what just came over her.

her head falls back against the garage door, arms going limp, and she watches, dazed, as azzi disappears into the house, calling out something about how winners get to take the first shower over her shoulder, the screen door banging behind her.

she lets out a groan loud enough to be mistaken for another roll of thunder and wonders how long this silly crush she has will continue to torment her.

this awkwardness– usually the result of paige getting to close, touching too much– has been happening more often recently, ever since she eagerly embraced the fudd family’s hospitality to let her stay with them through quarantine.

if she’s honest with herself, which she usually isn’t, the tension has always been there, she’s just now letting herself notice it more, and she wishes– especially in instances like this when azzi gets particularly close to letting paige cross lines before shoving her away– that she’d never let herself pay attention to it all.

because it aches a little bit, in a masochistic, addictive sort of way, the exhaustion of having azzi close in every way but one– the one she only lets herself think about in the darkness of the middle of the night, with azzi’s slow breathing only inches away.

she wonders when, if ever, she’ll have the courage to do something about the way her stomach flips when azzi smiles at her a little too long, or the way her fingers tingle when azzi grabs her hand during movie nights.

she knows the other girl like the back of her hand though, knows that she isn’t ready yet, doesn’t know if she’ll ever even be ready, so she shoves her fascination with azzi’s sweat into the corner of her mind labeled things i shouldn’t think about and presses a hand to her forehead, hard, trying to physically force it back.

she stays outside long after azzi disappears, body cooling all the way off, and doesn’t follow her until the rain starts, until the water droplets pour down onto her and cruelly wash away the traces of azzi’s sweat from her skin.

2. november 2022, storrs, connecticut

paige has had maybe the worst day ever.

okay not really, but certainly the worst day she’s had in a while. she’s not dramatic enough to say it beats that one in august, the scar on her knee is too heavy a reminder of that, but it’s up there, just mundane enough to be brutal in the quieter ways, the ones that add up.

it had started, this morning, when instead of waking to the movement of azzi disentangling herself from paige’s comforter, the blonde had been jerked awake by the sounds of jana and ice bickering, loudly, outside her door and an empty left side of the bed.

azzi and her had fought the night before– nothing big, just a flare up of irritation that happened sometimes when they spent too much time together– and she’d left their weekly movie night early instead of curling up against paige’s pillows and falling asleep like usual, leaving a lingering annoyance over paige’s mood already.

so, naturally, she’d started her day in shitty spirits, and they’d only worsened through a particularly brutal PT session.

and then she’d had to sit through a team meeting preparing for an upcoming game that she’d spend sitting, uselessly on the bench, had gotten a paper back with a less than stellar grade, and had been caught in the rain on her walk back from the dining hall with nika.

all she wants to do now is to wallow in self pity, make azzi cheer her up, and tuck herself into her favorite spot between the brunette’s head and shoulder and let her hands in paige hair wash away the day.

they’d made up from the night before at practice this morning, when paige had been incessantly annoying, throwing basketballs at azzi’s shots during warm ups until she’d dropped her stupid ignoring paige act, and she’s looking forward to finally unwinding in front of one of the only people she’s ever been vulnerable in front of.

azzi hasn’t responded to paige’s text about coming over by the time she gets out of the shower, but she doesn’t really care, too sulky to wait for her to be done with her homework or whatever she’s deemed more important than tending to paige’s ego, and she trudges down the hallway and up the stairs between their suites with more drag in her feet than usual.

caroline is sitting on the couch when paige barges in, and she looks surprised to see paige here, which is odd considering she spends equal time in this apartment as she does her own, but paige ignores the hesitancy on her face in favor of starting down the hall, too tired to care.

but then caroline says “ wait, no,” shrilly, a little panicked, when paige makes it about halfway through the living room after a muttered hello, and stands up off the couch, as if she needs to physically interrupt her movements.

and that stops paige in her tracks, because what.

“bruh- what,” paige bites out, and if it's a little rude, sue her. “azzi’s here, right?”

caroline hesitates. “yes, but-”

but paige isn’t listening, and caroline will understand, anyways, that paige really just needs azzi right now, so she cuts the brunette off, mumbling “kay, catch you later,” before walking the short rest of the way down the hall and to azzi’s door.

she can hear caroline protesting behind her, more urgently, but paige is having none of it, and pushes open azzi door without knocking.

and stops short.

there is a boy in azzi’s room.

there is a boy on azzi’s bed .

in paige’s spot. on azzi’s bed.

there is a boy in azzi’s room on azzi’s bed sitting next to azzi, touching azzi’s thigh.

paige feels like she might throw up.

“oh- i’m. oh-” is all she gets out, as azzi jumps off the bed like she’s been burned, the stupid boy’s hand falling limply off her leg in the process.

“paige! what’re you- hi- what’re you doing here?” she says, eyes wide and flustered, like she’s been caught.

because she has, a little bit. they don’t exactly talk about the people they hook up with, but paige usually has some semblance of idea on what azzi is doing, enough to know when she needs to let nika get her uproariously drunk, or call drew for a couple hours to take her mind off things.

they also don’t really ever bring people back to their rooms– in the rare event paige is feeling particularly horny, she’ll always go to a girl’s room, never bringing them back to hers. because her room is her and azzi’s space, and she’d kinda thought azzi’s room was too, seeing as the brunette had never brought anyone back either. until now, of course.

on a fucking random thursday evening. fuck.

paige is reeling, and the entire day’s worth of shitty events comes crashing down on her.

“m’sorry- sorry i was just- i’ll just-” she flips a finger over her shoulder at caroline behind her and backs slowly out of the doorframe, trying to stave off the tears welling in her eyes until she’s alone.

“wait, p, are you- are you okay?” asks azzi, hands wringing together in front of her. she looks torn, and paige is genuinely offended that this mediocre boy is enough to even hold a candle to her, enough to make azzi glance back and forth between the two of them like they hold equal weight in her life.

stupid-ugly-boy has been entirely silent throughout this horrifically awkward interaction, head moving between the two of them in uncomfortable confusion, and paige really wants to kick his face in.

instead, she mumbles out a “no yeah- i’ll just. come back later,” and her voice sounds shaky. what the fuck.

azzi tilts her head and asks, imploringly, “you sure?” and paige almost wants to just break down right then and there, and cry about physical therapy and the rain and her stupid knee and her stupid paper and how this fucking guy messing everything up, but she glances at ugly-stupid-boy still sitting on azzi’s bed, and nods once, before turning on her heel.

“m’sure. see you like- tomorrow. or whatever.”

her voice doesn’t crack, which is something, and she hears azzi ask again but she’s already halfway back down the hallway, speeding past caroline and her pitying expression to get the fuck away from whatever is about to happen in azzi’s room.

she pauses once she gets outside their apartment’s door for a second, half expecting azzi to be right behind her with a dismissive excuse for ugly-stupid-boy and soothing words for paige, because azzi always knows when she’s upset, always prioritizes fixing it, but when she realizes after five seconds that azzi isn’t coming, she starts down the hallway and lets the tears begin to fall.

she hasn’t cried over azzi in months, ever since she decided that she was going to have to be fine with being just friends, just best friends, that it was enough, but by the time she gets back to her room, she’s full on sobbing, and she collapses down onto her bed, muffling her cries into the st. john's basketball sweatshirt that azzi had left two days ago when she’d been there for a movie night and had ended up sleeping over.

she doesn’t even have the right to be upset, not really, and this somehow makes it hurt worse.

because azzi and her weren’t dating– weren’t anything– and she didn’t owe paige an explanation for what she did with her life, her body. even if it was with really stupid ugly boys. especially then.

her heart feels like it's been hit with a hammer anyways, though, and she takes back the thought that she’d had earlier– that she wasn’t dramatic enough to say this was the worst day ever– because this was now officially tied with the day she’d torn her acl.

at least that had had a fix- a surgery, and a rehab regimen, and doctors telling her how to get better, get stronger. she even had a return date, a definitive end to the injury, even if it was far off.

but this feeling in her chest, the absolute panic coursing through her veins? there was no doctor that could cure it, and no timeline on when it would get better.

she was starting to think it never would.

…

paige must fall asleep like that, curled around azzi’s sweatshirt crying, because she wakes to the feeling of azzi pulling the hoodie out of her arms.

she blinks blearily up at her, eyes puffy and disoriented, and she hates herself a little bit for immediately noticing how soft and pretty azzi looks in the dim light of the room.

“can i-” is azzi’s sheepish, whispered question, gesturing down at paige’s arms.

even in her sluggish state, she knows she should say no. even in normal friendship circumstances, crawling into each others beds after having sex with other people is considered fucking weird.

but paige is a weak, sad, little idiot, and she does not say no. she nods instead, and azzi visibly sighs in relief, before slipping into paige’s arms like she has a thousand times before and tangling their legs.

and paige’s heart hurts, because how dare azzi seek her out after breaking it so casually. and how dare her dumbass self let her.

she doesn’t know why she asks, but she can’t stop the question once it pops into her head, and she waits a few moments, like maybe if long enough time passes azzi will fall asleep and she won’t have to hear the answer, and then:

“did you- did you fuck him?” she whispers, and the word fuck comes out harsh, vulgar.

azzi stiffens in her arms, and there’s silence for a few beats, before she exhales a quiet “ paige,” and it’s answer enough.

it cuts deep, so, so deep, and paige should cry, and yell, and kick azzi out of her bedroom, because that’s not fair , that she gets to sleep with other people and then come crawling back to paige, traces of someone else’s hands all over her, but instead she just inhales quietly against the stinging behind her eyes.

she shifts them on the bed, so azzi is curled up with her head on paige’s chest, and tilts her head back so the younger girl won’t be able to feel her tears when they inevitably fall.

and as azzi drifts off, paige wonders what her last straw will be, because she’s creeping closer and closer to the point of no return, the heartbreak of no return.

she’s weak for azzi though, knows she’ll let the girl do almost anything, and as she lies awake, tears dripping quietly, uncomfortably into her ears, she knows she’ll always let azzi come crawling back, always give her whatever she wants.

it’s not at all a comforting thought.

3. april 2025, tampa, florida

the music in the hotel suite they opted to turn into an impromptu after party is just on the side of loud called obnoxious , but paige can’t bring herself to give a fuck when azzi is singing along to the song emphatically next to her, smile wide and notes slightly off key as she tries to drag paige in closer to dance with her.

her hair is damp from the earlier spray of champagne, and there’s confetti stuck to her forehead, and paige thinks she’s the most beautiful woman that's ever graced the earth.

and she knows they’re both like, really, truly, exceptionally drunk, but she really hopes she’ll remember this moment in the morning: her and azzi, tangled together on the dance floor, pure joy splashed across the brunettes face, their teammates in various stages of hammered around them, champagne still flowing and laughter echoing through the room.

she feels like she’s on cloud nine, like nothing could pull her down from the high of the natty, and azzi’s unwavering attention, and her beautiful, strong, pretty hands that are tangled in the net still dangling from paige’s neck.

when people start winding down (see: caroline carrying kk upstairs, and ice and jana passing out on the couch in the corner), paige and azzi drag themselves off to paige’s room.

and in her haze, paige doesn’t really know why, but they stay tangled together on their waltz to the elevators, and in the elevators, and then back down the hall towards the room, and when paige almost trips over the door frame after fumbling with the key card, azzi laughs so hard she almost causes them both to crash to the ground, and.

and azzi’s laughter is still the best sound she’s ever heard– and she’s heard the buzzer at the end of a national championship game win– and paige really wants to taste it.

and then. and then she is tasting it because she’s kissing azzi, wide and messy and giddy.

and azzi’s kissing back, she’s kissing paige back, and this is definitely the best day of paige’s life, no doubt about it.

they stumble through the door into the main room, bumping into the dresser in their insistence upon staying attached to eachother, but paige can’t be bothered to actually pay attention to where they’re going because she’s kissing azzi, and azzi’s hands are underneath her shirt on her stomach and her hands are in azzi’s hair– and holy fuck.

azzi makes a needy little noise in the back of her throat when paige tugs at her shirt, and their lips part for a second so she can yank it off, and paige wants that noise imprinted in her mind forever .

she tosses the offending material behind her just as azzi turns around and launches herself onto the bed, giggling all the way, and paige takes a second, in her absolutely sloshed state, to appreciate the sight of a happy, half naked azzi climbing off balance onto the bed and waiting to be kissed, just as giddy as paige is.

she’s so pretty. and she’s waiting for paige to come and kiss her, and fuck.

this is even better than raising the trophy over their heads, even better than cutting the net.

and then azzi whines out a needy “ paige,” and she scrambles to follow, because what the princess wants, the princess gets.

she giggles aloud at that thought– and then realizes when azzi makes an indignant noise that it hadn’t been just a thought but she’d said it out loud too. oops.

azzi pulls paige down on top of her the second she gets close, and she falls, limbs knocking and tangling in an unfortunate manner, but then their mouths are melding together again and paige doesnt care at all that her leg is trapped because they’re kissing .

she moves her mouth down for a second, just to suck a mark into the skin of azzi’s chest, and azzi moans into her ear, and jesus christ. paige is overwhelmed. she pulls her head back with a nip of her teeth, and the sight of the darkened skin, red and angry and proof that azzi is hers, is enough to make her throb in her sweats.

she surges back up to kiss azzi again when the younger girl's hands tangle in her hair, tugging like she’s just as needy for it as paige is, and.

and she doesn’t mean to– really, she doesn’t– but she’s still riding the high of the game, and azzi is spread out underneath her, clad in only a sports bra and sweats, kissing her, and there’s so much champagne running through her veins, and so much skin to put her mouth on and. she just loves azzi so, so much that she has to tell her.

“fuck, az. love you- love you so much,” she mumbles, pressing the words into azzi’s neck, and dragging her tongue across her collarbone. “m’so in love with you,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.

it seems like something azzi should know, probably, since it's so awesome and they’re kissing .

except– azzi stiffens.

“no p, shhhhh– why’d you ruin it, c’mere,” azzi slurs, lazily, one hand pressing over paige’s mouth, and.

and paige's heart cracks in her chest.

she pulls back and blinks down at azzi, trying to come up with a coherent response while her mind catches up to the reality of what she’s just said.

“wha’” she says dumbly, at a loss, white noise suddenly filling her ears.

“can we just. can this just be kissing– i don’ wanna complicate…” azzi trails off, and then when paige says nothing, tries to drag her in for another kiss, eyes unfocussed.

paige lets her, for a second, before her mind catches up to it, and then she jerks her face back, trying to ignore the keening noise azzi makes when she does, because.

because she’s just told azzi she was in love with her, and the response had been don’t ruin it. she wanted to die.

“azzi, i can’t–”

she frowns, eyebrows drawing up comically, and has the audacity to sound annoyed. “why not?”

paige cannot do this right now.

“can we just– can we just talk about this in the morning?” she asks, voice cracking on the last word. at azzi’s grumpy huff, she adds, a little desperate, “azzi, promise me we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

and azzi must be really drunk, because her eyes are drooping, but she agrees. “yeah, promise, p.”

paige doesn’t believe her, doesn’t even know why she wants to talk about it in the morning anyways, but as she glances down at the mark, now taunting, that stares up at her from azzi’s collarbone, dread settles heavy in her gut.

“go to sleep, az,” she whispers, and tucks a curl behind her ear.

“‘kay,” she replies, sleepily, drunkenly, and paige thinks fuck.

and she doesn’t know how that started and ended so fast— they were barely in the elevator like ten minutes ago— but paige feels her whole world come crashing down.

and when azzi falls asleep almost instantly, half on paige’s side of the bed, curls tangled and face peaceful, like she didn’t just shatter paige’s whole entire heart, paige thinks that this might be the thing that finally kills her.

she’s still drunk, so drunk, and the room is spinning from the liquor and blurring from the tears.

she tries to muster up sleepiness that won’t come, tries to shut down the searing panic that’s thrumming through her, but the only coherent thought in her head is fuckfuckfuckfuck.

she’d known, on a deeper level, that azzi probably didn’t feel the same, but the way she’d been looking at paige recently, they ways she’d clung to her tonight, the way they’d just been fucking making out , it had made paige think, just maybe, that she’d had a chance, that maybe azzi’d felt it too.

but now she knows, with certainty, from the way azzi had callously rejected her, that azzi didn’t feel the same.

if her entire body wasn’t so paralyzed with dread, she thinks she would probably throw up.

eventually, on what should be the happiest day of her life so far, championship net still tangled around her neck, dreams achieved, and the love of her miserable life next to her, she falls asleep crying.

because she knows, with all the drunk certainty in the world, that this has fucked them up, fucked paige up, in a way that will be impossible to fix.

the taste of champagne on azzi’s lips and the echo of the words why’d you ruin it follow her into her dreams.

and when azzi is gone when she wakes up, she’s not even surprised.

4. april 2026, indianapolis, indiana

the arena is deafening with the wrong crowd’s noise, almost suffocating, sky blue and yellow confetti falling around the sea of people on the court, as paige watches in despair as ucla celebrates their thorough defeat of uconn in the national championship.

the huskies had barely stood a chance, in all honesty. sarah had gotten hurt in the semis- a strained ligament after a particularly hard fall in the paint that didn’t pose serious long term concerns but had sidelined her for today’s game, and kk hadn’t been able to clear concussion protocol after a hard hit during the first quarter.

which left azzi, and the rest of uconn, limping through what would otherwise be a quite competitive match, and just trying to not get blown out.

azzi had played spectacularly too, in paige’s deeply biased but correct opinion, keeping it close enough to not be embarrassing and racking up 33 points and 4 steals.

but it hadn’t been enough, and even from a hundred feet away, without having talked in months, paige could see how upset azzi was, how hard this loss would be felt.

it made her want to bundle azzi up in her arms and hide her from the rest of the world– tuck her away and talk her down from the spiral that paige knew with certainty her brain was already starting to spin.

except she doesn’t have that privilege anymore, and it was killing her.

she’d sat with nika and a couple other ex teammates, so they get to go down onto the floor to give consolatory hugs and apologies, but by the time paige gets through kk and geno and all the other people who want to talk to her, azzi has already disappeared into the tunnel.

caroline takes one look at paige’s faraway gaze following the back of azzi’s head, and shoves her towards the entrance. “go find her. gonna be the only one who gets through to her anyways.”

and it should be reassuring, that caroline thinks paige is still the right person to go after her, but it only adds to the pool of dread in her stomach. regardless, though, with a pat on nika’s shoulder, paige slips away into the tunnel, knowing without a doubt that azzi is hiding in an empty room somewhere, trying to compose herself enough to talk to the media.

she ducks into three different doorways with no sign of the brunette, before coming across an empty office, lights off but an achingly familiar back profile visible through the window in the door.

paige pauses, hesitating. a year ago, she wouldn’t miss a beat, would already be next to azzi telling her a stupid joke and trying to get a smile out of her, but she’s not sure azzi wants that from her anymore. paige hasn’t exactly been a stellar friend, avoiding alumni events and dodging texts, and the guilt is suffocating.

still though, azzi is hurting, and paige will never be able to sit and watch her be upset without at least trying to do something about it.

cautiously, she raps her knuckles against the doorframe, before pushing in, not waiting for azzi to turn around.

she does a double take when she turns enough to see that it's paige, and her heart breaks in her chest at how surprised she looks that it's the blonde, and how upset she looks at the loss.

they stare at each other for a second, and it's almost awkward– a reminder of the last year that's aged them and driven them apart– and paige’s heart constricts. azzi looks so tired.

she doesn’t know why she says it, why she thinks it will be funny, but she makes a pathetic attempt at breaking the tense silence by blurting “miss me out there?” and immediately regrets it.

azzi’s face falls, cautious expression morphing into blatant hurt, and she curls in on herself. and fuck. paige is really stupid.

“no, azzi, i didn’t-” she stutters out.

and then without thinking, with only the visceral need to comfort the younger girl running through her, paige closes the space between them in three steps and wraps her arms around azzi, one hand cupping the back of her head and nestling azzi into her neck.

and then they’re hugging, and azzi relaxes into her, curling so tightly together that maybe they’ll be able to forget about the distance of the last year.

“m’really proud of you,” she presses into azzi’s hair. “still the best shooter in the nation, forreal.”

“i still lost ,” comes the response, ever the pessimist.

“not your fault. played better than last year, even, and you were the mop .”

paige pauses, assessing the mood, and then adds, still into azzi’s hair, “gonna go number one next week, az. i just know it. dc’ll love you. they already do.”

“maybe, but i’d probably pick lauren, cause y’know, she won,” she protests, and paige can feel the tears soaking the collar of her t-shirt.

“hey.”

she gently tugs azzi’s head back and out of her shoulder to look at her for a second, faces close.

which is a mistake, because now they’re inches apart and azzi is so beautiful, even crying like this, and paige has missed her so badly, but she needs to make sure azzi believes the next words out of her mouth.

“if they don’t pick you, they’re fuckin’ stupid, okay?” she reassures, wiping a thumb under azzi’s eye.

she inhales shakily but nods, and paige can’t resist adding “besides. either way you’re still gonna lose to me in the league,” with a lopsided smile.

azzi collapses back into her, with a weak groan, laugh muffled into paige’s shoulder, and it sounds more like a sob, actually, but it’s something , and paige just tries to hold her, tries to lessen the pain with physical touch alone.

the last time they’d been this close without awkwardness had been almost exactly a year ago, and they’d been kissing, and.

paige forcefully shut down those thoughts. she has azzi here, in her arms, and she isn’t going to waste it. she closes her eyes and tries to memorize the feeling of azzi’s strong body pressed up against her, the tickle of her curls against paige’s neck, the grip of her fingers against the back of paige’s shirt, the way she smelled, still sweaty from the game.

because she doesn’t know if she’ll ever get this again, have azzi this close.

they’re quiet for a bit, just breathing each other in.

and then azzi mumbles “i’m really mad at you,” into her shoulder, in lieu of all the distance between them, the awkwardness that they both know is paige’s fault, and guilt floods her senses.

paige thinks azzi can’t possibly be more mad at her than she is at herself.

“yeah,” she breathes out. “i know,” and tightens her hold.

she wants to apologise, to get on her knees and beg for forgiveness and convince azzi to forgive her, to let her back in. that leads to hurt, though, so instead, she just grips her a little harder, like maybe telepathically she can convince azzi how much she misses her, how much the last year has fucking sucked.

the seconds tick by, and paige hopes that this is as healing for azzi as it is hurting for herself.

and then a staff member paige doesn’t recognize comes barrelling into the room, shattering the sanctuary of peace that they’ve carved out, and azzi wrenches herself from away paige’s grasp, face wet and hands shaking.

“oh- i’m so sorry- i didn’t realize…” the woman trails off, seemingly processing that she’d just interrupted azzi fudd and paige bueckers.

azzi wipes at her eyes frantically, and stutters out “no it’s um- it’s fine i think i have to go do press,” before darting out of the room with only a glance back at paige, eyes wide and expression weary.

and then she’s just. gone.

the woman looks between paige’s stock still position and the space by the door that azzi just fled from and starts profusely apologizing, but paige cuts her off with a gruff “its fine,” and the woman stops, before nodding and radiply following azzi out the door.

and then its just paige, and the lingering scent of azzi’s hair, and the ghost of her touch in this fucking empty office.

she wishes, often, that she could hate azzi, because it would make this whole thing easier. but this is only a reinforcement of how she will never be able to do that, will probably spend the rest of her life loving her and missing the feeling of them pressed together.

she stays in the room for ten more minutes, trying to compose herself, and when she’s more emotional for the rest of the day than she otherwise would be, she just blames it on ucla.

5. july 2026, dallas, texas

sometimes, on her darkest days, when she wakes up with azzi’s phantom touch on her face or her laugh still ringing in her ears, paige wonders if loving azzi as much as she does, without reciprocation, is her punishment for being gay, because it aches a thousand times worse than any injury she's ever had to endure. it's the kind of hurt that feels like it has to be caused by some higher power, has to be some sort of eternal damnation.

this morning is one of those days, and she wakes with the echo of azzi’s name on her lips, only to be reminded of the harsh reality of her empty dallas apartment upon opening her eyes.

she sighs, long-sufferingly, into her pillows, who offer her no advice, and resigns herself to another hollow day.

there is no part of her, anymore at least, that struggles with her relationship with god and her sexuality– ironically enough it had been azzi that had talked her through her guilt-induced panic attacks during high school– but the feeling of punishment still lingers, occasionally, like maybe god was spiteful that she’d always worship azzi just a tiny bit more.

she sighs again, this time to her ceiling, which remains as mockingly adviceless as her pillows, and counts to three in her head before dragging herself out of bed to get ready for practice.

basketball is usually a sure bet at a good distraction, but today, they’re prepping for the next three games.

which means they’re prepping for the mystics.

which means paige has to see azzi’s fucking perfect (face) shooting form seventeen different times, and endure sideways glances from everyone in the room, as if knowing that azzi would be here, in dallas, in a weeks time wasn’t nauseating enough as is without everyone pitying her.

only dijonai and arike knew the gut wrenching truth: that they had been neither lovers nor strictly just friends, but something worse, in the middle, just teetering on the knife’s edge that was more , until paige had knocked them off balance and the blade had eventually sliced through her head and heart and cut her open, leaving azzi with only a few knicks

the team was still aware, though, that they were on less than stellar terms– probably thought they were exes like the rest of the fucking world– but that didn’t spare paige from having to offer up intel, as coach had put it, on slowing her down

(her quiet loyalty to azzi has no limits, it seems, because she only offers up a meager statement about the shooting guard occasionally favoring her left leg, which isn’t even really true anymore. not that paige paid enough attention to azzi’s games to notice that progress. at all.)

film, evidently, drags by, and even the abnormal amount of stupid jokes from dijonai isn’t enough to distract paige from the miserable anticipation of having azzi in the same city.

practice afterwards is even worse, somehow, and paige is uncharacteristically sloppy, getting told on three separate occasions to lock in.

she lets arike trail after her when she hits the weight room instead of the showers, if only because she doesn’t have the energy to protest, and prays that the older girl, who has become something of a mentor, and who at least somewhat understands the predicament, leaves paige to her thoughts.

surprise, surprise, her prayers go unanswered, and she makes it barely three reps into her chest presses before arike breaks the weighted silence.

“you can’t go on like this forever, p. you know that,” is her really chill, lightweight conversation starter. always to the point.

“dunno what you’re talking about,” she says, stubbornly, sulkily.

arike doesn’t even glance up from her own rack, like paige’s denial doesn’t deserve a response, before sighing.

“i’m talkin bout you barely being able to say the name of a girl you haven’t spoken to in months, haven’t been alone with in a year.”

paige resists the urge to tell her that, actually, paige had been alone with her in april, and it had hurt so badly to be that close to azzi that she’d nearly fled the state that night. it probably won’t help her case.

“i can say azzi’s name. i just don’t like to.” her voice comes out relatively smooth, and paige mentally pats herself on the back.

“you grippin’ the bar so hard i’m worried you gon’ snap it in half.”

whatever. at paige’s stubborn silence, she continues.

“look. i get it, okay, i do. but you need to at least try and move on. take advantage of what’s left of the break. take a pretty girl out on a date-”

“ rike-” paige starts to protest, but is ignored.

“you don’t have to marry her, paige. you don’t even gotta kiss her. but this sulking thing has got to stop.”

“i’m not sulking,” she says. not at all in a tone of voice that could potentially be mistaken for sulking.

arike just raises an eyebrow. “i have a friend, jadyn, she’s cool. used to hoop. she’s asked about you before, definitely your type. lemme set you up, please. if not for your sake then the rest of us who’ve had to watch you mope since you got here.”

“how do you know what my type even is,” paige says, stubbornly.

arike lets the bar fall out of her hands post-squat with a loud thump, before beginning to gather her things. mockingly, she asks, “do you want me to answer that?”

paige does not. she switches gears. “i’m not moping.”

unimpressed, arike squirts some water from her gatorade bottle down at paige as she walks by in response. “yeah, sure. just think about it, okay? baby steps.”

…

paige contemplates arike’s offer on the drive home, and in the shower, and even throughout her automated, rather lacking post shower routine.

the last time she’d hooked up with someone had been a few months after the natty. paige had been hammered after a win with dijonai, had tried to take a random girl home from the bar, and had proceeded to call the poor girl azzi while they were making out against the door of her apartment. it had been as disastrous as you’d expect, and paige hadn’t tried since.

she hopes, maybe, that the older girl has dropped it, and paige won’t have to either awkwardly shut it down again, or worse, suffer through a date with an unsuspecting stranger. but then as she’s pulling on a pair of sweats, her phone lights up in front of her with a text from the devil herself.

arike: im sending jadyn your number, pleaseeee just give it a shot.

she sighs, and glances at the mirror across from her. even now, a year since being anything remotely azzi’s, she still looks at herself and only sees traces of the younger girl.

her third piercings that she’d let azzi coax her into (she had been staunchly against it until azzi had said, casually, “it’ll be hot” and paige had agreed in a matter of milliseconds.)

her hair, damp from her shower, smelling like the shampoo paige had been using since freshman year at uconn because azzi had said it smelled nice once.

even her t-shirt, subconsciously chosen out of her drawer, was the color blue that azzi had said matched her eyes.

it was ridiculous, after all this time, all this silence– silence that was paige’s doing– how firmly intertwined azzi still was in her life. her claws were still buried in paige’s whole being, dug just as deep as they’d ever been. to be fair, she’d never actually tried to dislodge them, beyond the whole no speaking thing, but still.

she knows that probably needs to change, knows that part of the reason for putting distance between them was so that eventually paige could think about her without a knife between her ribs, but the thought of moving on feels wrong. even the idea of changing her fucking shampoo feels like a step too far.

because paige doesn’t want to forget. there’s almost comfort in the misery: missing azzi– loving azzi– is as familiar as breathing, even if that breath feels like it's being ripped from asthma ridden lungs.

arike is right though, paige needs to at least try. she thinks about the words baby steps , and tries to ignore the nausea in her stomach.

she glances back down at her phone on the dresser when it lights up with another text, but her eyes skip over the notification from arike without reading it, and land on the time: 5:55.

she only knows about angel numbers because azzi had gone through a brief phase during her second acl tear that she’d called her spiritual awakening (paige had called it azzi’s trip to crazy town ), but still, she remembered what 555 had meant. transformation. it had stuck with her, a little more than she’d expected, and she glances at her framed uconn #5 jersey that hangs next to the door to her closet.

she can hear azzi’s voice in the back of her head, reading out of some voodoo book she’d picked up on a trip to her favorite bookstore, reverent even with paige making fun of her every thirty seconds.

555 signals change and new beginnings, suggesting you should let go of old patterns that no longer serve you and embrace the significant shifts and personal growth that are on the horizon.

god. she’d give anything to be back in that tiny dorm room in storrs, curled around azzi like nothing outside of her room had existed and listening to her drone on about tarot cards and spiritual realms. before paige had gone and fucked everything up.

but she’s not- she’s in dallas and azzi is in dc, she thinks , she doesn’t even know for sure, because they haven’t talked in months and- paige needs to get a grip.

and when the third 5 ticks to a 6 and her phone buzzes again, this time from an unknown number, paige resigns herself to trying .

she’ll try to listen to this girl arike is convinced paige will like, and not picture azzi in her place; try and relax and let loose and embrace the possibility of moving on. maybe she’ll even let herself be taken home, she doesn’t know.

but this moping thing is really getting old, and she knows it can’t last forever. over a year is already teetering on the edge of pathetic, and that's without considering the part about how paige is wallowing over a girl she didn’t even date.

embracing change and new beginnings or whatever. she can do that.

…

god is laughing at her. he must be. embracing change this ass.

as she sits in her car outside the apartment building she’s just fled from, trying to calm herself down enough to not be a danger on the road on her drive home, she curses her entire existence.

herself, for just generally being a pathetic idiot, the stupid fucking angel numbers, for giving her the entirely false impression change was coming, and god, for making her life one long-running, miserable joke.

and most importantly, azzi fudd. for being like, so impossibly wonderful that paige is on the verge of a panic attack just from hearing her voice for the first time in months.

how did she know.

panic courses through her, more potent than the venom of a snake bite. all it took for paige to resort back to hopelessly, impossibly azzi’s, despite the taste of someone else on her lips, was a phone call that lasted less than 2 minutes and azzi saying i miss you.

she feels like the scene is frozen (surprise, surprise, even the metaphors she makes up in her head about her own life are straight from azzi’s favorite movie) where ana begins to climb up the side of a cliff, huffing and puffing and evidently feeling like she’s made an exceptional amount of progress, only for the shot to pan out and reveal that she’s only a couple inches off the ground.

because she hasn’t had to interact with azzi at all in the last year really, aside from painful group events and ignored texts, and she’s self aware, knows that getting over azzi is gonna take more than a year of just trying and failing not to think about her, but she didn’t realize how easily she’d fall back into her old feelings after a god forsaken two minute phone call. she’s been trying, slowly, to make progress, reconcile with what her life looks like without azzi in it, and had almost convinced herself real headway was being made, only for the last twenty minutes to completely shatter that mirage.

paige knows she shouldn’t read into it, let azzi voice in her ear spark anything but regret and hurt.

except azzi misses her .

the ten minute drive back to hers is a miserable affair of trying not to think about the hurt in azzi’s voice following jadyn’s question in the background, and the fact that azzi said she’d text, and.

and the fact that she’d called paige. drunk. saying she missed her.

paige has the backbone of a worm.

she’s returning from an otherwise very decent date and hookup and of course azzi as is the only thing on her mind. of course.

she feels a little bit guilty, too, as if she was like. cheating on azzi. which is fucking ridiculous, she feels ridiculous. but she can’t fully squash the thought that azzi somehow knew that paige had just been kissing someone else and pretending the straight, silky hair in her hands had been curly and wild instead.

whatever.

she allots herself five more minutes to freak out, before resigning herself to the fact that she has to get out of the car, but as she goes to turn it off, her eyes catch on the time on the dash: 1:11am.

the voice in the back of her head that sounds like azzi says the law of attraction and manifestation.

she slams her head on the steering wheel in despair.

…

sleep that night comes slowly, fitfully, morning even slower, and paige tries valiantly to set her overeager expectations that azzi will text to a very manageable zero.

she’s never been good at wrangling her mind into reason when azzi is involved, though, and when she rolls over at 8:30 and has no new notifications, she takes the pillow she’d just been lying on, presses it to her face, and tries to smother the side of herself that is still pining, nine years strong.

(she fails.)

but then, after dragging herself out of bed, while her head is stuck deep in her closet, trying to pick out which depression hoodie she wants to wallow in today, she hears the distinct sound of a text tone from where she’d left her phone on the bed.

she jams her elbow into the shelf, and then again into the doorframe in her haste to check her phone, but she can’t even pay attention to the sharp pain of her funny bone, because there, against her lockscreen of drew in a uconn bueckers jersey, is a text from azzi fudd.

azzi 💗: you gonna show me your cowboy boots collection or what

and every (meager, pitiful) ounce of progress from the last fifteen months that hadn’t already disappeared the night before flies out the window.

if paige were a smart woman, with her best interests at heart, she would reply with something dry and dismissive, push azzi away and resort back to the moping that’s been occupying her life for the last year.

unfortunately, paige is a fucking idiot, through and thorugh, and azzi remembered to text, and is trying, again, despite paige’s track record of ignoring her, and.

paige really, really misses her.

and she hasn’t exactly made a lick of progress in this whole distancing herself thing, and really, what could one hang out do. it’s not like paige can fall more in love with her.

she waits for what she believes is a respectable, chill, not too eager amount of time– time in which she passes by pacing holes in her floor and trying not to throw herself out the window– and then responds an hour later.

she can do friends. she can do one game and a hangout and not lose her mind. definitely.

when paige has grey hairs in five years, she’s billing azzi for the dye treatment.

AN: peace and love <3 as always pretty pretty please tell me how you liked it. i BEG. wait also the title comes from lizzy mcalpine's pushing it down and praying, and it's the line that directly follows I wanna know peace again, wanna sing a different song which I thought was quite fitting. ALSO! the second chapter (the +1) should be out in the next couple of days i just wanted to get this out first don't worry. i will redeem myself from the angst and give you fluff and smut i swear on my life.

#ta daaaaaa #sorry for the angst #paige x azzi #paige bueckers x azzi fudd #um i blank every time i have to tag #pazzi #idk man enjoy

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sophietv · 2 years ago

Text

Everything you need to know : Failed Coming Out 2019

This is an answer to an anon I've received.

I typed it all and Tumblr said there was an error when I went and tried to published it. So I had to type it all again but lost the anon....

Here's the question: could you tell me more about her wanting to come out in 2019? sorry for asking again I'm new on the fandom!

Hi!

It will be my pleasure! This is such an important part of the Gaylor Lore to know and understand, especially when you are new in the fandom.

This theory has been confirmed, but we'll get to it in a minute.

Also, I'm so sorry because learning about what went down during Lover Era is a transformative experiece in the Gaylor fandom, in a very heartbreaking way.

So back in 2019 Taylor wanted to come out with the Lover Era.

June 30th during the New York City Pride wich was also the Stonewall's 50th anniversary, was supposed to be the day it happened.

This date might be familiar to you, because it's the date we learned at the same time as Taylor about her masters being sold to Scooter Braun.

So let's start at the begining of all of this. I won't go through ALL the details because my post will never end. But I'll cover the most important ones.

Right at the begining of the year, insiders were already talking about the fact that Taylor was planing to come out that year in podcasts and blind items.

Then in March 6th (Karlie and Taylor's anniversary)

Taylor does a post hinting at this new era. The very first lyrics we get (We got hints at ME back in February):

Daylight the song is about Karlie. But this line specifically means coming out.

Stepping into the daylight, and letting everyone see the real you.

(Also worth noting the lesbian filter)

Taylor started being really loud in the posts she made from now on. Flagging rainbow, lesbian and bi colors every chances she got.

And flagging Butterflies. Wich is very important thematically in Lover and coming out.

Side note on the Butterfly meaning:

Remembre how in reputation, snake was a really important theme?

And how in Lover it switched to butterflies?

More specifically it switched to Snakes transforming into butterflies?

There's a species of butterflies, that when they are in the chrysalid phase of their transformation into a butterfly, can look like a snake if they feel unsafe or attacked in order to protect themselves.

Then, after the average 13 days waiting period, they transforms into a beautiful butterfly.

Basically what Taylor was doing, protecting herself during reputation with that "personna" like she described.

And now, she was ready to finally transforms and have a new beginning.

Here's a description of what butterflies means:

A powerful beacon of growth and new beginnings, the butterfly signifies the power of transformation and the incredible feats we can achieve when we trust ourselves. We all have the ability to listen to our innate wisdom, guide ourselves through difficult times, and emerge better and stronger than before.

The ME! of it all:

Ok back into the Lover Era timeline!

So all those rainbow posts were leading up to the first single: ME!

Even Taylor Nation was pretty loud about this (number of rainbows = number of days leading to ME! release):

3 days before ME! release, Taylor performs at the Time 100 Gala and it's the first and only time she switched so very clearly pronouns in the song, multiple times:

She sings repeatedly : I want HER midnights

And she even seems to be getting more and more confortable as the song goes on and singing it louder and louder.

She also looks at the crowd while singing it.

Then she releases ME!

That was really the first part of her coming out.

And honnestly, she shouldn't have had to do more than this.

ME! was released on April 26th.

April 26th in 2019 was Lesbian Visibility Day.

And she captionned the release with: ME! Out Now!

A song about how she is unique as a Lover...

That is without mentioning the amount of rainbows everywhere in that MV as well as other references.

Worth noting that in 2019 Lil NasX came out in a MV with the rainbow tower and was annoyed that people didn't get it?

Taylor also probably deadass thought that she made it obvious:

May & June 2019 leading up to the big coming out:

Taylor continues to be as loud as she can.

She makes a very generous donation to GLAAD:

She sings ME! every chances she gets, while flagging the Lesbian Flag.

Taylor Nation also keeps on being really loud:

And releases a song and music video about homophobia and includes herself front and centered in the LGBTQ+ community (represented by the Trailer park, note how Ryan Reynolds, the only straight person in the MV is outside of this park, not in it like Taylor).

With a bi flag wig...

So yeah, she was trying really hard to make people see her.

Christian Siriano and the dress...

Back in April, we learned that Christian Siriano (a fashion designer) was working on a project for Taylor:

In June, he started teasing us about a mistery rainbow dress for an unnknown person:

It was heavily rumored that it would be the dress used by Taylor to come out at the end of Pride Month.

He kind of confirmed it with this post:

Then. June 30th.

The New York City Pride.

Taylor planned to come out at the event.

Employees on site, starts to be warned about this (you can find some comments online).

Taylor learns at the same time as us that her masters were sold to Scooter Braun.

She never makes it to Pride.

And Billy Porter ends up wearing the dress:

But. You can see that the dress was not meant to be worn by him. It doesn't fit well and the "nude" parts shows that it was meant to be worn by a white person.

In 2022, Christian confirmed it by dueting a TikTok talking specifically about this.

He deleted it right after but you can still find it on TikTok: (X)

Last minutes changes to Lover:

We now know that Taylor scrapped two songs from Lover: All Of The Girls You Loved Before and Need.

All Of The Girls is really loud and very clearly talks about a girl. Wich Taylor couldn't afford if she didn't want to/couldn't come out.

London Boy was actually written and added really last minute to the album.

Really interesting, because this is her loudest song about her loving boyfriend. Wich is a brilliant thing to do if you want to limit the public speculation after all the flagging that you did...

We know it was last minute, because Taylor sampled it on Cold War from Cautious Clay. (X)

He was called in the middle of the night and had to approve the sample right away.

Interesting fact: Cold War was featured in Book Smart, a movie Taylor promoted that year.

The song plays during a lesbian sex scene...

The intro to London Boy is actually Idris Elba in a interview where he was talking about a charity where he sold a date with him.

You know, people paid to date him...

The shift in the Lover Era:

After this, you can start to see a shift. Where it was colorful sequin and rainbows everywhere with colorful choreography.

She now dresses in black, is incredibly sad and sings mostly accousting song.

Like her BBC 1 performance or Lover In Paris:

Miss Americana:

Miss Americana was supposed to be her coming out documentary.

It has been confirmed by the director of the project that a lot of footage has been scrapped.

Also, the documentary was supposed to be called : Is It Cool That I Said All That?

This is why the documentary sometimes feels like something is missing and some parts are rushed.

They tried to switch her coming out approach by making it her political activism era.

Taylor confirms it in Anti-Hero MV:

youtube

She's pierced through the heart by The Archer.

Her queerness starts showing (she's bleeding lavender glitters).

She tries to cover it up by taking the table cloth.

Her wanting to cover it spoils the dinner for everyone and they leave her.

And while she sings : "Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism, Like some kind of congressman?"

She covers her queerness with a sticker : Vote For Me, For Everything

Confirming that the political activism during Lover Era and mostly Miss Americana was in fact really to cover the fact that she was already one foot out of the closet when they had to backtrack.

With this. Take a look at the closing scene of Miss Americana. When The Archer is playing in the background.

It's a montage of Taylor talking to someone and Taylor on the release night of Lover.

Look at what Taylor says...

Queerbaiting Backlash:

This might be the worse part in my opinion.

Since she was flagging so hard to come out.

Sadly, most people didn't get that that was exactly what she was trying to do.

And medias massively accused her of queerbaiting.

And using the queer community.

I'm still so mad and heartbroken about this....

reusing an old Twitter post...

Even queer fans...:

Frankly, speculating about her sexuality would have been way less damaging than this...

Songs about this event:

Taylor wrote a lot about this failed coming out.

The Archer, was her song about her anxiety about coming out. And begging her fans to stay.

I'm not gonna do a full lyrics analysis because this post is already a novel.

But read those lyrics with that in mind and you'll see how loud it is, and heartbreaking.

"I've got a hundred thrown out speeches I almost said to you"

Also. Worth noting that after Lover was released and she was not able to come out, she switched one lyric in that song.

Instead of "Combat, I'm ready for combat" singular (coming out was the combat she was ready to face)

She now sings every time "Combats, I'm ready for Combats", because coming out has turned into multiple battles that she has to face now...

Hoax:

Noticed how she says that all of her heroes die all alone in The Archer?

Her fear that if she comes out, all her fans would leave.

In Hoax she says: "You know the hero died so what's the point of keeping score movie for?"

Because with her Master Heist and everything, she was not able to be one of those heroes herself... The hero that she wanted to be died in that moment because she was unable to come out.

Edit: I messed up the lyrics. But it's even more telling. Because the movie she's talking about is Miss Americana, once she was unable to come out.

Evermore:

This song is litteraly her looking back at what happened and how she managed to process everything and ultimatly heal even though it felt at the start like she would never be able to.

"I've been down since July" - June 30th = failed coming out

"Motion capture, put me in a bad light" - Queerbaiting allegations. And Miss Americana being rebranded.

"Writting letters, adressed to the fire" - Her hundred thrown out speeches that she almost said.

"I rewind the tape, but all it does is pause, on the very moment all was lost" - June 30th...

"Sending signals, to be double crossed" - Her flagging strongly on her way to come out, only to be accused of queerbaiting.

Right Where You Left Me:

The restaurant is a metaphor for the closet.

"Sitting in a corner I haunt, cross legged in the dim light"

Doesn't really feel like a restaurant, but her hiding in the closet.

"I swear, you could hear a hairpin drop. Right when I felt the moment stopped"

Droping hairpins is giving hints that you are gay.

She was doing this very loudly right before she was kept from coming out.

"Dust collected on my pinned up hair"

Her hair are still pinned up because she was not able to come out. And dust collected over time that she spent forced in the closet.

Anti-Hero:

AH is really The Archer 2.0, and talks about the same fear of coming out and being abandonned.

The fact that she decided to depict herself as the Anti-Hero is both really interesting and heartbreaking.

Because to her, the hero was the version of herself that was able to come out...

Listen to Change in the perspective of being able to come out and change the face of the industry:

"Tonight we'll stand, get off our knees

Fight for what we've worked for all these years

And the battle was long, it's the fight of our lives

But we'll stand up champions tonight"

They were the Champions.

Side note: she sang this song at the ACMA in 2010, two weeks before Chely Wright's coming out.

When we know that she has knowed and worked with Chely since about 2007.

Then Taylor wrote Long Live one month after Chely Wright's coming out.

Listen to the song with the same perspective as Change now.

"You held your head like a hero, on a history book page"

Chely Wright came out in May 2010. Taylor wrote Long Live in June 2010.

Look at the parallels of both songs.

And now, look at her choice to name that song Anti-Hero after everything that hapenned....

She also wrote Long Story Short and The Great War about that event, but this is for another post and it's about how this event affected her relationship with Karlie.

How she thought she was betrayed but ultimately found out it was not the case.

And how they both made it through.

Ok, I'm exhausted lol.

Sorry for writting a novel.

But this is such an important part of Taylor's history and I really wanted to do it justice (hope I was able to).

If you are still reading...Thank you for your question!

#kaylor #gaylor #lsk #lgbetty #gaylor twitter #gaylor swift #gaylor theory #anon

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mariacallous · 7 days ago

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The closing of Dupont Circle felt like a bad omen. The park and its namesake neighborhood, a longtime hub of gay life in Washington, D.C., were expected to be packed during WorldPride 2025. But on June 2, the National Park Service announced that it would be shutting down the place on the celebration’s culminating weekend.

The intrusion of federal Washington on the District was unsettling but not unprecedented; the circle, like many of the most popular spaces in the city, is not under local control. More unusual was the chaos that followed. For many residents, there was a sense of fear that the federal government was intentionally excluding queer people from a beloved green space. (The NPS later said that the city’s police chief had asked for the closure.) The shutdown order was reversed the next day, then suddenly reinstated. Black security fencing went up on Friday, and then came down again the next morning, opening the circle just in time for the headline parade, on June 7.

The entire affair—the opening, the closing, the paranoia, and then the alarming news of a shooting (which was unrelated and, thankfully, nonfatal)—could be easily put down to the vagaries of big-city life. But it also served as a heavy-handed metaphor for the general vibe of Pride month in the capital and across America: severe emotional whiplash.

For D.C.’s queer community, this was supposed to be an unambiguously triumphant June, one marking multiple important anniversaries. WorldPride, an international LGBTQ festival, had hastily chosen D.C. for its ninth event, after the initial 2025 host, Taiwan, pulled out. The change was fortuitous, in part because it coincided with the 50th anniversary of Pride events in D.C. (first organized in 1975 just a few blocks north of Dupont Circle). And most significantly, this June is the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

Every Pride is a commemoration of LGBTQ history, as well as a celebration of how far the community has come. For many in Washington, by some measures the gayest city in America, the marking of a decade since the Obergefell decision in the city where the Court ruled represented the ultimate victory lap. But the actual event was more mixed. Although organizers initially expected 3 million visitors, attendance was reportedly only in the hundreds of thousands. Many foreigners skipped it, citing the United States’ recent detainment of travelers and noncitizens over their public statements or social-media posts. Domestic visitors were wary, too, of partying in the federal government’s backyard—particularly in the days leading up to President Donald Trump’s big military parade. Trump and his party have made the rollback of LGBTQ rights a nationwide priority, and more encroachments—perhaps even the reversal of Obergefell—appear to be on conservatives’ radar. Backlash has officially arrived just as some members of Generation Z, the queerest cohort in American history, take their first steps into adulthood. Instead of reveling in their progress, they’re having to reenvision their future and wondering which rights are safe and which they might not be able to count on.

Ten years is a long time for a young person. The teens I saw reveling in the streets in rainbow clothes, hair glitter, and body paint were born recently enough that they might not even remember the day of the Obergefell ruling. Older members of their generation were just teenagers when it came down. The bisexual rapper Doechii, who performed at a free concert near the National Mall on Pride weekend, was 16 in 2015; the lesbian pop star Renée Rapp, a grand marshal of the WorldPride parade, was only 15. The youngest Gen Zers, born in 2012, were toddlers at that time. Today, more than one in five Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, a greater share than in any generation before them. They grew up, and many of them came out, in the most gay-friendly social climate our country has ever seen. They have had role models in every corner of mainstream American life: Congress, the cover of Time magazine, the NFL, the military, The Bachelor. Things that felt impossible for so many teenagers in decades past—using gender-neutral pronouns; cutting their hair short; bringing a same-sex partner to a high-school dance—were normal for an unprecedented number of them. Target marketed them so much Pride merchandise that they shared memes mocking the collection.

But now that they’re reaching maturity, these same young people are watching their status quo erode. The past few years have been marked by harsh, vitriolic backlash. Homophobic language and slurs are back in vogue among a contingent of influencers. The Target jokes stopped being funny when, in 2023, right-wing social-media attacks on its Pride collection got so bad that the company pulled some of the items from its stores, citing threats to employees. The Republican Party has aggressively challenged transgender people’s ability to serve in the military, play sports, update their IDs, and medically transition.

And over the past six months, rescinding rights has become official policy. Trump has targeted individual transgender teenage athletes on social media, while his government has cut funding for HIV research and prevention worldwide. State governments and major religious denominations are challenging same-sex marriage, and corporations with a recent history of unfurling rainbow flags—Booz Allen Hamilton, Mastercard, Pepsi—have pulled out of sponsoring Pride events. The White House called LGBTQ-specific suicide-hotline services “radical grooming contractors” and abruptly halted its partnership with the Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on preventing self-harm by queer youth. The Supreme Court just ruled that a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors can stand. Meanwhile, support for gay marriage shows a record-high partisan divide, with a major dip in Republican approval and even a slight overall decline.

Pushback against social progress isn’t a new phenomenon, and neither is adversity for LGBTQ people. But prior generations grew up knowing it firsthand, whereas Gen Z has been raised in a world where, each June, huge rainbow parades bearing the imprimaturs of corporations and local governments rolled down the streets of every major U.S. city. That gave them plenty of reasons to believe that the recurrent waves of discrimination their elders faced—the Lavender Scare, Ronald Reagan ignoring the AIDS crisis, the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act—had been relegated to history’s dustbin. The milestones of their youth, after all, were victories. But these wins lulled the movement into what Sarah McBride, the 34-year-old transgender representative from Delaware, described to my colleague Hanna Rosin as “a false sense of security.” After Obergefell, there was a “dynamic where public opinion was sort of a mile wide but an inch deep,” she said. And, in her view, the LGBTQ coalition coasted instead of carrying on the work of public persuasion.

Now the reality of the moment is setting in, and it’s taking a psychological toll. “I always say people come to a doctor’s office for two reasons: They’re either in pain, or they’re afraid,” Max Doyle, a physician assistant at Whitman-Walker Health, in D.C., who treats many queer Gen Zers and Millennials, told me. “Lately, my patients have been coming in because they’re in mental pain and they’re afraid.” He’s been seeing an increase in depression and anxiety in his patients, and referring more of them to psychiatry.

The ebb of LGBTQ acceptance provokes serious, immediate material concerns for people who are beginning their adult lives. They must ask themselves questions like: Where is it safe to live? Should I pursue gender-affirming surgery before it’s too late? Should I get married now? Will we still be able to use surrogacy or IVF to start a family if we wait a few years? The freedom these young adults grew up with was, in part, the freedom not to think about these things. That liberty was incomplete—stratified by class, race, region, or pure luck—but wherever it did exist, it represented the fulfillment of a long-held dream, one in which queer people would be able to pursue careers, relationships, and families without fear of being outed or ostracized. Having to ask Where and when can I hold my beloved’s hand? is caustic to a person’s dignity. Having to wonder Where can I safely use the bathroom? is abrasive to the soul. It fundamentally alters one’s brain chemistry to see Sesame Street accused of “grooming” for posting a Pride message.

Doyle is 29, and a Millennial. He says he’s not entirely surprised by this climate of backlash, especially because he grew up in the more conservative Midwest. But his co-workers at Whitman-Walker, which has been providing LGBTQ health care in the nation’s capital for more than 50 years, belong to many generations, and he finds that his older colleagues and patients, especially those who survived the AIDS epidemic, are “more jaded”—but also “better prepared.”

This year’s WorldPride was loud, colorful, and full of confetti. As anyone who has spent June in D.C. might have expected, the air was thick and humid, and attendees were dripping with sweat basically as soon as the sun rose. Signs implored the crowd to support trans troops, to get tested for sexually transmitted infections, to stand against queer-book bans, to join IKEA’s customer loyalty club. Drag queens threw beads and flags from floats; pop hits and disco classics wafted down 14th Street. There was plenty of good humor and an undercurrent of naughtiness and rebellion.

Despite the political climate, WorldPride felt very much like a regular D.C. Pride. These kinds of family-friendly gatherings contain an implicit but powerful argument for acceptance. They glorify the power and importance of love in the lives of all kinds of people. They make gay life visible and diminish stigma or shame. And, crucially, they emphasize similarities instead of highlighting differences, in the hopes of generating wider approval. That spirit can be found in the majority ruling in Obergefell, in which then-Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that gay and lesbian couples respect marriage “so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves”; in McBride’s belief that her allies could have focused more on making the case for expanding trans rights; and in the travel-size trans flag I saw in someone’s back pocket branded with the logo of the mayor’s office.

That’s not the only way LGBTQ people have made progress, though. Today, recognizing that decades of change may not be as irreversible as they’d thought, some Gen Zers look back to their radical elders in search of models for moving forward. They counter homophobia and transphobia with slogans like “The First Pride Was a Riot.” They argue that the power of Stonewall came from the open rebellion of an unapologetic, unassimilated group. If even Elmo is getting called a groomer, their line of thinking goes, then being palatable doesn’t work: You might as well show up, as many did at WorldPride, in leather and drag.

The first D.C. Gay Pride Day, in 1975, was deliberately split across two sides of the street, the organizer Deacon MacCubbin has recalled over the years. He’d struck a deal with local media: They could film one side of the block; the other was for people who didn’t want to be outed to friends, family, or co-workers. In light of that history, this year’s parade, documented openly by thousands of iPhones and public Instagram posts, feels less like a typical party than a minor miracle.

About 69 million Gen Z people live in the U.S.; perhaps 10 million or more of them identify as queer. They can’t possibly agree on everything and may not have much in common at all, but that is a staggering number of people who acknowledge and share something that many born before them took to their graves. They may make very different choices about what their lives will look like, but even if it becomes much harder to be openly gay or trans in America in the coming years, five decades of history cannot easily be undone.

“We’ve been through this before, and it’s really hard on people, but we’re gonna get through this,” Doyle told me. This is what he counsels his patients, based on decades of knowledge about how, for instance, AIDS activists made medications more available and affordable, and trans people shared and used hormones long before they were widely prescribed. Those 10 million people represent a durable cultural change because they have grown up feeling entitled to be themselves in private and in public. That word—entitled—is frequently thrown around to insult this generation, but there are some cases in which the unabashed expectation of fair treatment is a clear source of strength. Personal liberty is an American entitlement, and these young people will not readily give it up.

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megwritesriddles · 2 months ago

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Mike Schmidt NSFW Alphabet

18+ MDNI!!!

A/N: I can't believe how carried away I got with this... can you tell I think about Mike Schmidt a lot...? Also I know I said I wasn't gonna post until maybe June but procrastinating my uni work is a hell of a drug... this time I'm disappearing fr... maybe…

Word count: 4.4k words (omg)

all fandom masterlist | fnaf masterlist

Warnings: fem!reader, period mention, breeding kink/pregnancy mentions (only as fantasy), slight degradation, Mike is bad at feelings, somnophilia (mentioned once in no detail rlly), some pervy behaviour.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

I love the guy, but I don’t think he’s great at this. He’d just kinda roll over, maybe keep an arm around you if he’s feeling it. After you’ve been together/hooking up for a long time, I think he might memorise your post-sex routine enough to make sure you have a glass of water on the nightstand beforehand and sleepily remind you: “Aren’t you supposed to go pee or something babe?” in a gruff voice. He’s not pampering or bathing you, but might sit in the bath with you if you run one, and won’t object to holding you in it. If he hurt you in any way, he would apologise and pad away to get you a bag of frozen peas to hold on it. But I can’t really imagine kisses on the boo-boo or cooing as his vibe. It’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s just who he is.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

I think he takes pride in his arms. He’s not crazy buff, but he’s in shape and has some muscle definition in his arms from his daily push-ups and all the manual labour jobs he’s had to work over the years. He preens whenever he catches you looking at his biceps, going especially crazy if you mention something about them. He likes to show off his strength to you, both in sexy ways, and more mundane ways like coming to help you move furniture. He loves to feel useful, like he’s actually adding something to your life, this is a way he can feel that objectively.

This man is an ASS MAN, I’m sorry but you cannot convince me different. Sure, he likes your boobs, he gets hard when you lean over to grab something and your cleavage is right in his face, but your ass is something else entirely. Obviously he thinks it’s sexy, but he also just likes to rest a hand on it, softly rubbing or squeezing as you stand together in his kitchen or lie together on the couch. He might even be the kind of guy to have a hand in your back pocket in public, although really he’s a bit too reserved for that. He thinks about it, though. Wear some form-fitting clothes or bend over in front of him and you can have him eating out of the palm of your hand (or somewhere else)

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

I always headcanon Mike as having a breeding kink… idk why. He doesn’t want kids, he has his hands full and wallet stretched thin enough, but he definitely does love to cum inside of you over and over and push his cum back inside of you when it drips out. Sometimes, he might even make comments about how you’d look with a belly swollen with his seed, but quickly regrets the thought once the sex is over. It’s just a fantasy about you, not about actually becoming a parent, he basically already is one.

You better be on the pill or some form of birth control, because he’s feral to come inside of you. If he ever has an opportunity to get a vasectomy (idk how he would but just humour me), he definitely would get one so you two can play about without risk.

If he’s not coming inside of you, I think he’d want it to be in your mouth. He finds it very hot when you swallow everything he gives you, loving when a bit of cum drips down your chin. This will mainly be reserved for quickies though.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Imagining there are no evil animatronics in the equation, he would 100% want to chase you around the abandoned halls of Freddy’s while he’s meant to be working. He’d give you a head start, then chase you down, pinning you to the floor and having his way with you. As much as he plays annoyed, he loves it when you manage to get away halfway through and make him chase you again, both of you laughing from the excitement and adrenaline. He grabs you once more, nipping your neck as you giggle breathlessly. He growls softly, though he can’t keep the amused smile off his face, “I have you now, little bunny,” (or whatever nickname you find hot for this scenario, he’s adaptable).

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Mike can only go one of two ways in my head.

1. He’s basically a virgin. Maybe, had sex once or twice with like a high school girlfriend between when he was kind of healing from the Garrett thing but his parents were still alive, but that’s a big maybe because was he ever healing or acting well-adjusted? probably not. So between being a traumatised, stunted teenager and then an even more traumatised adult who spends all the time he’s not working caring for his little sister, he has no time for dating and struggles to open up to anyone anyway. If he has any experience, I totally see him as being in a multiple year long dry spell by the events of the movie. So very limited experience.

2. Or! Any time he’s free, he goes to a bar and finds a woman to hook up with as a way of coping and keeping his mind off of things. He’s handsome and has a brooding quality about him that works in his favour picking up these women, and he’s never rude or unkind. In fact, honestly, he might hope that each of these hook-ups turns into true love, but of course they don’t, because he can’t be normal about relationships and drives everyone away, unconsciously or not. So he tries again the next week to the same result.

I usually lean towards 1. but I can kind of see either. Either way, he doesn’t have experience with healthy relationships, and if he has any sexual experience, it’s limited to tipsy one night stands or teenage fumbling, so he needs some training when you come along.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Missionary… doggy… cowgirl… all the basics… but you know what he loves? SPOONING! Wrapped around you and pressed against your back while watching a movie, don’t be surprised if he’s pushing down your sweatpants and slipping inside of you in that position. He loves doing it like that on his couch, or even in bed on a rare lazy morning, his lips trailing up and down your neck and shoulder, his chest warm against your back, his arms wrapped around you tightly, one hand sneaking down your tummy to your clit. He loves it. It gives you the perfect opportunity to tease him when he climbs behind you into bed after his night shift, pressing your ass back and wiggling it against his crotch until he gives in and pulls your sleep shorts to the side for a sleepy fuck. To him it’s like cuddling, which he already enjoys, but with benefits. And he doesn’t have to worry about the faces he’s making, which he feels a bit embarrassed by no matter how many times you say it’s hot.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

He’s serious, teasing or self-deprecating when you’re just making out and he’s lamenting how fast you got him hard again, or teasing you affectionately for being a ‘needy slut’ as you grind back against him for the second time that night, or he finally pins you down against the floor of Freddy’s, but during the deed he is focused and mostly quiet other than groans and grunts.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

I don’t think he grooms down there. He washes well so he sees no problem, maybe trimming if it’s causing any sort of issues. He’s not a person who cares much about appearances or presentation, so as long as it’s practical (clean) it doesn’t have to be pretty. He doesn’t care what you’ve got going on down there, as long as you also keep clean. In fact honestly if you were clean shaven or waxed, I think he’d talk you into going natural because ‘who has the time or energy?’. A little hair never stopped him from enjoying his favourite meal anyway.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Depends what your relationship is. I think he can be quite quick and detached if you’re just hooking up, whether it’s natural to him that way or he’s forcing himself to act cool is a different issue. So when he’s starts cradling your cheeks and saying how pretty you are during sex, instead of his usual gruff and clipped dirty talk, you’re immediately suspicious that he’s developed feelings, despite his own obliviousness and confusion when you try to confront him about his change in behaviour.

In a relationship he’s a bit softer, but still more closed off than most. He’ll say you’re beautiful and he loves you, then blush, even if he’s said it a hundred times before. He’ll take more time with you if you’re together, not rushing either of you toward the finish line to avoid getting attached (not that it would work anyway) and rather savouring the closeness. He’s shyer voicing his fantasies in an actual relationship than he is dirty talking with a hook-up, because frightening you away is not an option. His breeding kink sounds much more romantic when he whispers it to you slowly and slightly nervously while stroking your cheek.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Doesn’t get that many opportunities to get off on his own (he’s a busy guy) but whenever he does, he’s taking it, wasting no time and going as many times as he possibly can, because who knows the next time he’ll have this chance? He’s almost certainly thinking about you as he does this, even if you aren’t together yet. Those little outfits you wear to watch Abby/work at the mall/wherever he meets you just drive him so wild and all your social media accounts are conveniently public for his viewing pleasure.

Once he has you around, this is much less urgent. The time he gets alone is now spent calling you and getting you to come over, or showing up unannounced at your place to hump like animals. He will always prefer being with you over using his hand, so his hand essentially retires.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Breeding kink as I’ve said. Dare I say… a bit of somno.... he doesn’t mind if he’s the one asleep or not, he just finds it hot. Chasing prey as I also mentioned before, chasing you around and pinning you down, though it’s more playful than serious roleplay, just to get the adrenaline pumping.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Couch!! He has such a couch sex vibe and you can’t tell me different!!! But he also likes the bed, or the wall or floor at Freddy’s when you’re alone there together. He’s too reserved for anything exhibitionistic beyond the abandoned Freddy’s building at night, and I think he’d prefer to keep you to himself anyway.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

When you bend over or wear a tight skirt or leggings or something that highlights your ass. When you highlight other parts of your body with clothes or positions, like being sprawled out on the couch when he gets home. When you wriggle against him as you cuddle. When you play coy and shy around him or run away just to tease him. When you rub his back after he’s had a rough day at work. When he catches you admiring his arms. When you tell him you’ve missed him in that whiney voice. The list goes on…

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Probably anything overly gross and messy. 1. Because he’s not into it. 2. Because he doesn’t have the time or energy to clean up afterwards. He might consider period sex if he's just about to put a load of towels in the laundry anyway, but if it creates extra work, he's not really up for it. Time is precious and he's a little lazy.

I think he'd be willing to give you a little spanking if you were into it, a little bit of degradation (but affectionately) calling you desperate and slut and such (I think he'd kind of like it if you called him a slut too when he's acting like one, he's happy that he's comfortable enough around you to act that way, or if you say "God, Mike, you're so easy," when he gets hard from something simple and innocuous). He won't slap your face, or choke you, or do anything crazy rough to you. He's not into seeing you in pain, in fact, it actively turns him off and makes him uncomfortable. He's quite playful during foreplay (once he's comfortable with you) so back-and-forth teasing and a (non-painful) slap on your ass is more his thing. Even his chasing kink is more about play than fear.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Mike likes a blowjob as much as any other stressed 20-something guy would. He loves seeing you on your knees, looking up at him with your sweet eyes. He'll play with your hair while you're down there, and maybe guide you by it if you're into that. If not, he's happy to just sit back and let you work your magic. For some reason, I headcanon that the first sexual experience he has with you is a blowjob. You're just hanging out/at work/whatever and you're sick of the tension, so get down on your knees in front of him. Who the hell is he to say no to that?

This is NOT to say he doesn't like giving, because he does, I think he even surprises himself by how much he enjoys it. He enjoys feeling useful as I've said before, so watching you feel so good from his ministrations is a thrill. He might use it to get his way a bit, kneeling in front of you a little while after an argument and silently kissing up your inner thighs, knowing you'll give in to him and forgive him for being an idiot. It's also something he does whenever he gets jealous or insecure that you might leave him. It's like he's reminding both himself and you of what you have together and what he can do to you.

He would definitely enjoy a sixty-nine (with you on top), bringing you pleasure only heightens his, and he enjoys when you get all sloppy and whiney on his cock as he brings you to your peak. Will massage your ass as you sit on his face, he would happily die crushed between your thighs.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

I kind of see him as being slow and rough, you know? Deep measured thrusts, watching your expression each time he's buried to the hilt. Of course, he picks up the pace a bit toward the orgasm, but I don't think he's ever crazy fast. Lazy sex is his favourite, so he's mostly pretty laid-back in his pace, but no less intense.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

He's definitely up for a quickie, more often than not, a quickie before work or on the couch while Abby is safely away and asleep is all he has the time for, so they're fairly frequent. He does prefer taking a bit more time with you, so when he can make the time for a longer session, he's happier, but he's also just glad he's getting any action from you at all, so he's not complaining.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

I think so, but not crazily so. He knows what he likes and doesn't like, so has some hard boundaries set, but that's not to say he wouldn't try a few things. Handcuffs, blindfolds, acting more dominant or submissive than usual and roleplay (although his acting would be super stiff) would all be things I think he'd be willing to give a go. Who knows? He might incorporate them into your sex life, or quietly tell you that he didn't really enjoy that much.

Risk-wise, a risk he would absolutely NOT take, is the potential to be walked in on by Abby. Couch sex is only fine because you can keep a blanket over you and her room is all the way down the hall so you have time to get decent before she could see anything, plus she's always asleep when you do that anyway, it's never during the day unless she's away at school. He will not take risks in regards to that, and hopefully you wouldn't want to either. You keep quiet and there's a lock on his bedroom door just in case.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

I think he does one round at a time. He might go a few times in a day, but there'll be a good break in between rounds. He can maybe push for two in a row on a special day, but more than that is physically not possible for him back to back. He'll happily make you come over and over though.

Unfortunately for Mike, I think he can finish prematurely quite often... he will definitely make up for it with you, but especially in the beginning, it was over quite fast. He's sheepish about it, yet tries to pretend he doesn't care and keeps going with pleasuring you however he chooses to do it, but the slight pink at the tips of his ears gives away his embarrassment. On the flipside, on days he's extremely stressed, he might have quite a struggle to come, and you'll have to stop several times to get him to relax his muscles and take a few deep breaths. Generally though, once you've been hooking up for a while, he'll come at an appropriate time and you can properly enjoy the experience together.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

I go back and forth between the idea of him having a fleshlight before he met you. I mean, since I usually headcanon that he was in a dry spell, but he's also a 20-something virile young man, I think it makes sense that he needed some sort of outlet for stress release. He would probably be really embarrassed about buying it, even though the person behind the counter couldn't give less of a shit, then he feels so weird about it that it just sits under his bed in its box for a month or two while he uses his hand. Finally when he does use it (maybe because he wants to pretend it's you) it feels really good, but he feels totally lame afterwards. Still, after that, he uses it every chance he gets, because he spent the money after all, even if it makes him feel like a loser. The second you start to sleep together, he's happy to hide it under his bed again to collect dust like it never existed. Though he might let you watch him use it, if you're into that. (Disregard this if you headcanon him as having hooked up with women from the bar)

I think he might kind of enjoy having you sitting between his legs, your back to his chest, with him holding a vibrator against your clit, his other hand softly kneading your breasts and his lips suckling your neck. Or just holding one to your clit while he fucks you. He finds it super hot if you tell him you used a dildo on yourself and imagined him before you were sleeping together, but he doesn't want to use it on you. Why use a dildo when he has a perfectly good cock right here? (Not related to toys but he loves to hear about fantasies you had about him before you were together, it makes him super hot and bothered, he loves to know that you wanted him as much as he wanted you).

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Once he's comfortable with you and sure that you're probably going to stick around even if he acts a little annoying, he can be very teasing. Like I've said a few times, I think (when he's comfortable) he's actually very playful with foreplay and the other things leading up to sex. He enjoys a bit of 'banter' or playfully swatting your ass. If you proposition him he might tease you and tell you to beg for it, but actually during sex, I don't think he's that teasing. He wants to make you happy and he wants to be happy as well, and to him, teasing usually only pushes that back, so he also doesn't like you teasing him that much. But definitely just throughout the day, like if you're cooking or doing laundry, he might just come up and rub against you from behind, kiss your neck, murmur a few dirty words and then walk away leaving you wanting so that you'll chase after him for more.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He's pretty quiet, out of both necessity and just his nature. He will grunt and groan quietly, maybe the occasional small choked-out gasp when something surprises him or feels just right. He's up for a little bit of dirty talk or praise during sex, but it's very short and hushed. He isn't a babbler, and the better he feels, probably the less likely he is to talk. So he might whisper a few dirty things right as you get started, but as he approaches orgasm, he goes silent other than his pleased grunts and listens to whatever sounds you're making. He loves hearing your pleasure (as long as you keep relatively quiet, even when you're home alone I think shouting and screaming might freak him out a little), but he loves mewls of his name or soft praise/dirty talk from you. I think he'd find it kind of cute if you were the opposite of him and tended to babble as you came.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

He's definitely the kind of guy to tell you that you're just hooking up and it's not serious, even though he's already fallen completely in love with you. I see him (maybe because of fanfic) getting into a friends-with-benefits arrangement with Abby's babysitter, and even letting her live in his spare room and spending every moment together, cuddling up every night, even pecking and holding hands in front of Abby, and not realising he's actually in a relationship, because he's too scared to actually say the words. You just let it be because, he's treating you well, he's not cheating on you, the sex is great, he's just oblivious to his own feelings. One day a coworker of his bumps into you in the grocery store and sees you all over each other, then asks Mike the next day about his 'girlfriend'.

"Girlfriend? What girlfr- ohhh... I see what I've done,"

A nsfw headcanon is that if you lived together, or even if you were just around enough to leave some clothes around occasionally, he is DEFINITELY stealing your panties. He's a bit of a perv (though he does feel ashamed of it), but is unaware how much you're aware of it, and how much you like it. It's just a little too easy for him to get his hands on your panties, but he doesn't realise to question it. Another one and this is so random, I feel like he tries to stay away from pornography, and if he does interact with it, it's like vintage or like old playboy type magazines. lol idk why?? and it's all kept very secretively in boxes under the bed... I think Mike carries a lot of shame tbh...

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

I've mentioned earlier that I think he has decent biceps. He would have broad strong arms (even stronger than they look, and they look pretty good), but not much muscle elsewhere. He has a little fat around his belly from eating pretty badly for years, but nothing too significant. Downstairs-wise, he's probably quite girthy, average to slightly larger than average length. No matter what he's like under his boxers, I think he's a little insecure about it, having convinced himself there's something wrong because he hasn't ever really had much comparison (staying away from porn), and anyone he's slept with (if with anyone) hasn't mentioned anything about it, so he assumes they were disappointed, when really there was just nothing to say, as saying 'hey nice cock,' is kind of weird and he had no particular features there to remark on.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

High, he's young, he's stressed, he's repressed and you are just so attractive to him that it's hard not to want it a few times a day. A good thing about him is that if he gets horny and you're not in the mood, he can quite easily bury the feeling for later, used to hardly having appropriate time to get off so having to ignore his arousal. I would guess you guys are doing it every morning and every evening most days, but this can change with your schedule and cycle. Special days eg. Birthdays, Christmas, Valentine's or anniversaries always include sex in the celebrations in Mike's book.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Mike is weird because sex in the morning energises him, but sex in the evening makes him doze off almost immediately. He can finish up with you and immediately head for work, and then later the same day be practically catatonic after orgasming, wrapping around you ready to sleep, groaning and complaining when you try to get him to move from the couch to his bed. It just depends on the time of day, but sex with you is definitely his new sleeping pill of choice.

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simpleskull200 · 1 month ago

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It's June 1st, the start of pride month and instead of being super excited this year, I feel nothing but disappointment in my own community not for my identity or being a part of this community. Rather, for the current state the community is in because of a vocal minority of people spreading internal queerphobia and hatred that goes against what we're supposed to stand for.

Pride started as a riot, a fight for equal rights, to be seen and treated as human. Yet, all too often I see people in this community invalidating eachother instead of trying to uplift eachother.

For everyone in the community who needs to hear this:

🩷 Trans women are women.

🩵 Trans men are men.

🤍 Nonbinary people deserve labels that make them feel whole—not erased.

💗 Lesbians can have complex pasts and STILL be real lesbians.

💚 Polyamorous people are valid!

💙 Bisexuality and pansexuality are valid, even if you’re currently dating “only one gender.”

💜 Asexual and aromantic people are queer enough, full stop.

💅 Drag is not predatory. Drag is art. And protest. And joy.

✨ Neopronouns are valid!

💖 Allies have a space in this community too.

No one needs permission to identify with a label that helps them breathe easier, that fits them, that expresses who they are.

You are loved, you are valid, and nobody should get to say otherwise. Happy pride month, here's to spreading positivity and acceptance for all queer identities! 🌈

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goldenheart-week · 1 month ago

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Goldenheart Week 2025 Prompt List

Each day has four prompt options to choose from, including an AU and a quote from the movie or comic. There are also five alternative prompts if you are not inspired by any of the options for a given day.

All kinds of fanworks are welcome: digital art, traditional art, 100 word drabbles, ficlets, longer fics, poems, embroidery, cosplay, music, gif sets, vids, etc. Feel free to finalize or update an existing WIP if one of the prompts seems to fit.

Day 1/June 27: Training | How did you fall in love? | Canon Divergence AU

“This isn't how things are supposed to go.”

Day 2/June 28: Dancing | Fever | Actor AU

“Haven't you missed our fights?”

Day 3/June 29: Loyalty | Breakdown | “Everything is Fine” AU

“Arm chopping is not a love language!”

Day 4/June 30: Domestic | Anniversary | Gay Dads AU

“Because I love you.”

Day 5/July 1: Confession | Forgiveness | Enemies to Lovers AU

“You never said you were sorry.” / “I - didn't? Oh god.” / “Don't get me wrong. It's not like I would have forgiven you.”

Day 6/July 2: Secret | Ocean/Beach | Mythical Creatures AU

“Nachos!”

Day 7/July 3: Happily Ever After | Beyond the Wall | Outfit/Role Swap AU

“...No. I wouldn't. And I'm the villain. What does that make YOU?”

Alt Prompts: Disability | Pride | Love Languages | Jealousy | Wedding

So that we can find your posts and reblog them during Goldenheart Week, please tag Tumblr posts with: #goldenheart week 2025, #day [x] or #alt prompt, #prompt name, #goldenheart, #nimona. Additional tags for fanwork type are also welcome (#nimona fanfic, #nimona cosplay, #nimona fanart, etc.). Please also be sure to tag for content triggers (#suicide, #suicidal ideation, #self harm, etc.).

FAQ | AO3 Collection | 2024 Prompt List

#goldenheart week #goldenheart week 2025 #nimona #nimona graphic novel #nimona webcomic #nimona comic #goldenheart #blackloin #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #nimona fanfic #nimona fanart #ambrosius x ballister #ballister x ambrosius

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theamazingwhizzo · 13 days ago

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A study of Kit and Ty's runes: Pre-TWP (SOBH) vs TWP (pre-release)

(Last image from June 2025, I'll update as we get new art!)

Ty wears more useful runes to help with his training as a centurion, and some investigations and missions, whereas Kit uses more practical ones. I can imagine him using them for everyday things or to learn the basics of being a shadowhunter.

While in the snips from TWP, Ty we see he has fewer runes (I suppose the love one was added because it was for Pride, because it's used in weddings), and more basic and symbolic ones. For example, the insight helps the wearer better understand situations. It contrasts a lot with Kit, who uses runes for combat and some useful for missions: mnemosyne (for memory), protected and talent.

On the last art, Kit has the protected rune on his wrist. It's used to protect the mind against magical intrusions, like encantos. It's not difficult to imagine it may have something to do with the fey. And on his chest he has the talent rune, which is used as a "wish for greatness". In QOAAD, Ty drew it to Kit to help with his persuasive skills, but instead helped him unlock his magic. So I find it interesting that Kit uses it in SOBH and also in TWP (Moreover, they're different versions. It's strange because, as far as I know, there's no difference between them). What stands out to me is that Ty wears the insight rune not once, but twice, and in the same place.

But I think it may also be metaphorical, and more to do with their dynamic than the story. Ty is making an effort to understand Kit, while Kit is trying to be brave, but also protect himself, while he is hunted by his own memories.

We can see that the difference between SOBH and TWP is notable in Ty and Kit. Kit goes from more basic esporadic runes, to more advanced and combat-oriented ones, while Ty goes from more mental and skillful runes to simple ones. It's weird the difference in TWP between Ty and Kit. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, or maybe there's a reason inside the story.

#kit herondale #ty blackthorn #the wicked powers #twp #tsc #kit herondale my beloved #ty blackthorn my beloved #twp theories

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hoovesandfloorpaws · 4 months ago

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Louis' rocky path to his first album

..and how it might have been the reason/one of the reasons why Louis shared Always You with us the way that he did.

I don't want to saddle this amazing post about the Always You snippet and little scavenger hunt Louis took us on on Aug 24, 2017 with a too-long derail, so i'm gonna make this separate post. But please definitely read that post, too, it's so good! It'll make you shake your fist and go "LOUIS!!" (affectionately) 💙💚

This is for possible context re: him saying he was "pissed off about industry shit" and it resulting in him sharing the snippet in August 2017 and what long breath Louis had to have in order to finally get to release his debut solo album. Disclaimer: obviously there was much more going on in Louis' life during those 3 years - lots of yucky stunting that left Louis looking dead behind the eyes (esp. because on top of it he was also still grieving heavily), Harry releasing his first album, starring in his first Hollywood film, and going on worldwide tours. Louis obviously not being able to accompany him publicly to premieres or to all the shows - in combination it likely resulting in a lot more physical separation than they were ever used to, possible rough patches between them as a couple, Louis' sister unexpectedly passing away and the subsequent massive grief after already having lost his beloved Mum just 2.5 years prior, weekly appearances on TV with the giant asshole who iron-closeted him and his spider mouse ever since they were teenagers, a few public slip ups/outings from within their work circles, Harry turning into a horse on live radio despite being able to yell NO when he wanted to, Louis beaming with pride every single time he was asked about his Harry - and much more. His/their life is complex and busy and I'm only shining light on a couple of things here.

We know Louis had wanted to finally record his album in 2017 and release it in 2018. He said it again and again in his tweets and I personally don't think he was lying or stalling. (additionally, a plan for a 2018 album release + tour for 'a managed artist' was mentioned in a strategic report of the 1D company One Mode Productions Ltd., but by that point it was directed purely by 3 big players from Modest! Mgmt and that plan could've been BS from the start and could have still been an old remnant of the original plans Modest had for 1D after their hiatus; it never happened and the company was acquired by Universal Music in July 2020. Exact detail about that will be/are in my H&L companies masterpost)

In June 2017 Louis had been finally supposed to be signed with a new label under Sony, RSA...

(tweet)

...but then an exec from Epic Records campaigned to get Louis to them instead, because she had loved Just Hold On, so he signed with Epic in July 2017.

(tweet)

It needs to be said that the reason for Epic wanting to sign Louis based on that collab with Steve Aoki potentially meant they were hoping he was going to make more of that kind of music. -- which he never did, so he possibly also never wanted to in the first place (quite the recipe for disaster). And Louis was lagging behind to the public eye; he was the only member of 1D who hadn't released more than 1 single since the start of the hiatus. Zayn and Harry had already released an album by that point, Liam had had 2 pretty successful singles, and Niall had his first album set to be released in October that year. Louis being at a disadvantage wasn't his fault or within his control at all, though, with having lost his Mum 8 months prior. Syco and Sony faffing about with the record deals for him is certainly not something a grieving (and closeted & stunt-riddled) first-time solo musician needs when they just want to focus on finally releasing their first album and wanting to focus on that. During that time, it's especially essential to have a record label on board which understands and shares the same vision of the album, so concepts can be discussed, demos sent and given feedback on, timelines for PR and marketing coordinated, release dates planned, etc.

Within the same month, on July 21, 2017, Louis did release Back To You on via his own label, 78 Productions. (78 Productions Ltd. is also one of his companies) and Epic Records. Syco helped with promo in the UK. Back To You wasn't a first single of the album, though! Like with Just Hold On, Back To You's genre was vastly different from the albums Louis would later come to release, so it leads me to believe it was a fun filler project for him to work on with Bebe Rexha and Digital Farm Animals and vice versa, and to finally put out some music that year and also do a few live performances.

A month later, he tweeted this:

(tweet)

4 days later, Louis gets pissed off "about some music industry shit" and a day later, he tweets:

(tweet) - and this is when he drops the snippet of Always You right at the part with the "I went to Amsterdam without you, all I could do was think about you". part and he keeps dropping hint after hint and we figure it out 💙💚 - and ends up putting that song on his debut album.

(1 month later, Harry leaves to start his first ever solo world tour in San Francisco, USA on Sep 25, 2017)

Months pass and still no album single incoming.

On Oct 11, 2017, Louis announces his next single will be postponed, but also drops Just Like You out of the blue:

(tweet) / (tweet) - although Louis says the song is "from the album", Just Like You never ends up on his first 2 albums.

Months pass again.. the single he said would come "later this year" turns out to be Miss You, released on Dec 1, 2017. The song doesn't end up on the regular album, only appears as a bonus track on the Japanese Edition.

(On Dec 8, 2017, Harry finishes his world tour in Tokyo, Japan)

The year turns into 2018... and Louis seems to become increasingly more frustrated:

(tweet)

3 more months pass..

(Harry leaves to start his 2nd solo world tour in Basel, Switzerland on March 11, 2018)

Another month passes..

(tweet)

3 months later, and as a first step into a hopefully better direction, on July 19, 2018, it is announced that Louis has switched management and is now with Matt Vines from 7 Seven Management.

In July 2018 it's announced that Louis will appear on X-Factor as a judge that year.

(Coincidentally, Harry finishes his world tour on July 22, 2018 in New York City, USA)

Louis' X-Factor filming takes place (with breaks in between) from July 28 until Dec 2, 2018. (together with Simon Cowbell, so that must have been quite unpleasant at times, but Louis' contestant won! HA!)

Most importantly: no music at all gets released for Louis in all 2018!

(Harry leaves to start a very short tour in Singapore on Nov 23, 2018 and already finishes on Dec 7, 2018 in Tokyo, Japan)

The year turns into 2019...

And then fucking finally, in Feb 2019, it is announced that Louis has signed with Arista, who also belong to Sony. Louis can finally really start working on the album now!

On March 7, 2019, he releases Two Of Us - the first proper single of the upcoming album and a beautiful song he wrote for his Mum. But the joy doesn't last long -- sadly only 1 week later, on March 13, 2019, Louis' sister Félicité unexpectedly passes away and this completely throws life off its hinges again :( 🖤

(Harry plays only 2 shows on March 28 + 29, 2019 in New York City, USA, because he inducts beloved Stevie Nicks into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame - but he doesn't tour again until October; is also in the process of finishing the recording of his 2nd album, Fine Line)

4 months later, Louis tweets this:

(tweet)

Things finally go according to (an obviously existing) plan now and it's clear that there's a proper release schedule at work. The single and music video releases are firing on all cylinders. Starting from September, there's basically a new Louis release every month. There's concepts for all music videos, as they all tell a multiple-part continuous story. Kill My Mind is released on Sep 5, 2019 We Made It follows up on Oct 24, 2019 Don't Let It Break Your Heart on Nov 23, 2019 then there's the usual Christmas break (X-mas is mostly for album releases, case in point: Harry's Fine Line's released on Dec 13, 2019) Walls, the album title single, is released on Jan 17, 2020 -- 2 weeks before the album release.

When asked what's his favorite song on the album, he replies with this:

(tweet) And on Jan 31, 2020 Louis' finally gets to release his debut solo album Walls! 🙌🏼

3 years in the active making and a frustrating 2 years later than he'd hoped for.

Because within just 3 years, Simon tried/succeeded to sign Louis to three different Sony-owned record labels! Possibly also because Louis made it clear he was not going to release his album with Syco alone, but that's just speculation on me part. (I also need to mention that Simon had already sold 50% of his shares in Syco Music to Sony in July 2015, leaving him with only 20% and he never re-acquired them, meaning since 2015 Simon was already 75% out of the door back then. Guess what he already knew would happen since the beginning of 2015, hmmmm?)

Personal thoughts: To me, that’s all absolutely wild behaviour to treat an artist like that. Someone who's made you such a fuckton of money already, too. (because let's be honest, the money's all people like Simon Cowbell and his Modest! minions care about) Simon's never had an ounce of integrity or loyalty in his body. To treat an artist, who to the public he claimed he was 'so close' to like this and to then see him struggle and still try to manipulate or bribe him into your own plans (the girlband, the management company, the DOA Triple Strings label) instead of finally letting him pursue what he so clearly wanted.. it's classic and disgusting. From my own professional experience of 15 years as an artist & tour manager, it is not surprising to me that Louis wasn’t able to establish any consistency within his career for the first 4 years. (And we probably only know half of the contractual shit Louis has had to deal with.) You'd usually need at least good management that you trust, that's ready to take the brunt of forces, but also makes sure you don't make certain mistakes (again), and that's ready to work with & for you in this. Record labels come second, especially since it's become easier nowadays to release shit indie and it's not like Louis' (and Harry's) household didn't have some funds-- but yeah, proper management is key! They're the junction where everything leads together. I have no idea what the James Grant Group thought they were doing with Louis, but it was complete weak sauce.

And although I'm also not a fan of Matt Vines and 7 Seven Management, they're definitely some kind of improvement. I understand Louis in preferring to work with people he's become close with and who he's already trusting, rather than taking the risk and choosing someone new - especially given Louis' very awful prior experiences with management. I hope Matt Vines steps up his game in the future, but from what I have learned in the past months, sadly I don't think 7 Seven Management have a good grasp on Louis' target group and fanbase and I'm not sure how much use they're making of proper market research. For an artist of Louis' caliber, they're doing too little.

Anyway, back to Syco, I think nobody is surprised that Louis had enough of it 1.5 years after Walls was released and finally ended things with Syco on July 11, 2020.

Now I want to end on saying that i'm only speculating something about his own record label / album delaying situation could've been the reason for him being pissed off. It also could've been something to do with the music industry in itself, something to do with Harry and him, something closeting- or stunt-related. I mean he did release a snippet of a song that's obviously about Harry and him. But he also released a snippet of a song that was supposed to be on his album. So yeah, the reason could've been a mix of both.

But even though we can't say that for sure, it was valid as hell that he was pissed. And he got to share the Always You snippet with us for it, such an incredibly special song; so clearly about Harry & him and he didn't give a fuck that night. And I think that's beautiful.

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