#and boom sam joined the party | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

last-herondale · 6 months

Text

Almost

Bucky Barnes x FemReader!

Angst, heartbreak, longing, unrequited love

Hello! It’s been a while, but here is my Bucky fic that I promised from my poll!

The night air was cool and crisp against your skin. The wind was blowing slightly, not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to cause stray pieces of your hair to swirl into the night as you leaned on the balcony of the Avenger’s tower. You could hear the music from the party inside, its rhythmic beat softly booming from within. It was Steve’s birthday party and it was a lively event that you, Nat, Sam, Bucky, and surprisingly Tony, had spent weeks planning. The guardians had flown in for the occasion, as well as Carol and Thor, who had Loki in tow with him. The night started off simple enough with a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. It was just Steve, Bucky, Nat, Sam, and yourself at dinner while Tony was busy finishing the party preparations with Bruce.

You had wondered if dinner would be awkward at all. It had been 10 months since Bucky and Nat had broken up, and it had been a strenuous ordeal for the whole team. Nat had broken it off with Bucky, for personal reasons she had told you in confidence. You knew they had had problems during their relationship, problems mostly stemming from their mutual inability to be there for each other emotionally. It was a tough reality to face, for both of them. You often felt like the bridge between the two of them, being the one that both parties were able to confide in. It was hard to be impartial to either side.

On one hand, Natasha was your best friend. She had been ever since you joined the team. She had been dating Bucky when you first joined the team, and your friendship only seemed to strengthen once they broke up. You loved Nat, and treasured her friendship more than anything in the world. You were very surprised when she told you that she started seeing Bruce Banner a few months ago. Even though Bruce seemed like the opposite of Bucky, in all accounts she seemed very happy with him. And you were happy that she was happy…

But on the other hand, there was Bucky. He had been devastated by the breakup. He had wanted nothing more than to drown away his sorrows in booze and fill his nights with endless distractions. You had been very surprised when he had called you one night, asking if you wanted to hang out with him and Steve. Nat had been out with Banner that night, and the tower felt lonelier than usual, so you agreed.

The three of you had spent the night drinking and playing darts. It had been a fun night of laughter and jokes. You were almost glad to see Bucky as he once was, happy and carefree, but as the night wore on, and Steve tapped out around 4 am, it was just the two of you left at the bar. The two of you just sat at the bar, sipping the last of your drinks when you asked him how he was doing.

His facade had slipped away, the smile he had forced all night was gone, and instead he put his head down and let out violent sobs of anguish. “I miss her, god, she was…everything.”

It broke your heart to see him so miserable. You never knew he was in such a poor state. It had been 7 months since they had broken up at that point, and as far as you or Nat knew, he hadn’t seemed like he was upset about it. Why he decided to be so open in front of you… you couldn’t understand. But you comforted him, as best as you could. You stayed with him all night, agreed to take a walk with him and let him vent to you until the sun came up. When he finally passed out on your couch at the avengers tower, he woke up hours later and left without a word.

You thought that was the end of it. That it was just one drunk night that had him so emotional, but then he called again. And again. And again. Hanging out with Bucky started to become a normal part of your routine. Half of the time it was always with Steve, the three of you hanging out. But then Bucky would want to hang out with just you. Mostly you both would talk, sometimes drink, sometimes watch a movie or even sing some karaoke once the liquor started to hit. It was…nice.

You had made sure it was okay with Nat, of course. Asking her if she was bothered by you hanging out with her ex, but Nat seemed undisturbed.

“It seems like he needs a friend, and I know I haven’t been around for you a lot lately either. I’m okay with this, really. Whatever it is— and whatever it becomes.”

Despite your many assurances that nothing was going to happen between you and Bucky, Nat just brushed it off and teased you further about it. She was in a really good place with Banner and she seemed genuinely thrilled with the idea of you and Bucky becoming an item.

The idea had crossed your mind a time or two. Mostly when you were very intoxicated and alone with Bucky. It was hard not to be drawn in by the beauty of him. You’ve caught yourself staring at his arms when he was throwing darts more times than you’d care to admit, and whenever he would throw his arm around you in a fit of laughter, you couldn’t help but feel your stomach flutter.

Getting to know him on a deeper level made the idea of not wanting him even harder to deny. He was still very much hung up on Nat, that was clear, but whenever he let himself be vulnerable and he talked about his past and the things that haunted him, you couldn’t help but feel connected to him in a way that you hadn’t felt with others. Everything about him seemed to be drawing you in. It was a maddening cycle trying to stop yourself from catching feelings, but it was one you fought for the longest time.

Until tonight. The party had been the biggest eye opener to you since you started being friends with Bucky. Dinner was not an awkward affair, much to your surprise. Nat and Bucky were cordial with each other at the dinner table, even sharing a few laughs as you sat between them.

“How have you been James?” Nat asked. Bucky gave her a small smile. “I’ve been alright. I heard about you and Banner, congrats by the way.” Banner had proposed to Nat a few weeks ago. To your surprise Bucky had taken it rather well.

“Thank you, we are very happy,” Nat beamed. She gave you a quick glance and smiled. “Have you seen anyone Buck?” You opened your mouth to protest to Nat, but Bucky just laughed.

“I have been talking to someone for a little while now.”

You felt your heart drop to your stomach. This was the first you had heard of this. You kept a steady grin on your face as he continued talking. You thought you saw Nat flash you a Quick Look, but it was so fast you could have thought you had imagined it.

“Well, that’s awesome. I’m happy for you Buck,” Natasha smiled.

“Yeah, we’ve only been on a few dates but so far it’s been going well.”

The rest of the dinner felt like a strange blur. You remember sitting there, you remember eating, and you remember getting into the car to head back to the tower where the surprise party was, but any other detail of the night faded away into nothing.

Why did it bother you so much? You had no right to lay claim to all of Bucky’s attention. The two of you were friends, and nothing more. You had set that boundary yourself, for yourself to stop yourself from getting hurt. But then again, you had never gotten as close to anyone as you had with Bucky. There had been people in the past, those you thought had the potential to hold your heart, but nothing ever worked out with them.

When the party returned to the tower, an uneasiness settled deep into your stomach as people began to arrive. You tried your best to distract yourself with trivial tasks such as handing out drinks, messing with decorations, or just following Sam around and letting him talk your ear off. But as the party grew, so did the uneasy feeling in your stomach.

Who was this girl? Would she be here tonight? Would you be able to handle it if she was?

As these thoughts were swirling around your head, you decided that maybe it was time to talk to Nat about your feelings. You searched around wildly for any sign of her or Banner but came up empty. You saw Bucky momentarily, he was talking with Steve and your eyes met for a single moment but you quickly looked away. You needed air.

So, that’s when you stepped out of the party and had been hiding ever since. You sent a text to Nat to meet you outside whenever she could. You stood there a bit, swirling the drink in your hand and enjoying the breeze on your flushed cheeks. You heard the sliding door open and you turned expecting to see Nat.

“I need to talk to— oh, hey,” you caught yourself and pitched your voice higher as Bucky closed the door behind him.

“Hey, doll,” He said, his usual playful tone was a bit strained, “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you replied quickly, a bit too quickly, “I, uh, just needed some air.”

You moved a bit from your spot as he came to stand beside you. The smell of his cologne hit your nose as he sidled up next to you on the balcony, the leather of his jacket brushing against your arm momentarily. Your chest felt like it was contracting, being so close to him. As if the proximity alone was enough to unravel your whole being.

“How are you enjoying the party?” You choke out, refusing to look him in the eye, focusing instead on the city skyline below.

“It’s fine,” he began cautiously. It seemed, “It would be better if you would talk to me though.”

Your back stiffened at his words. You said nothing and yet he continued. “You’ve hardly said a word since dinner and we both know that isn’t normal. You didn’t even laugh when Sam made fun of Banner’s bowtie in the car.”

“Yes I did,” you said weakly.

“If you’re gonna lie to me, can you at least look me in the eyes?”

It was the brokenness in Bucky’s voice that made you turn to face him finally. His eyes were searching yours, trying to read every detail from your face. You bit your lip to keep it from trembling.

“Please, just tell me what’s wrong,” he begged quietly.

You opened your mouth, wanting to answer him, wanting to take away his discomfort at this moment, but the aching of your heart prevented words from coming out.

A choked out noise came from your lips just as the sliding door opened.

“—and I told him, I said—- oh hey!” Scott Lang said in a slur of words, having some unfamiliar guy in tow behind him.

“This are my buddies! Barnes and—“

“Leave Lang. Now.” Bucky said with icy venom.

You didn’t have to look to know that Bucky’s cold tone was enough to do the job as the door slammed shut again.

You wished you could follow Scott out of the situation, but you couldn’t. You took a deep breath, summoned your courage, and downed your drink in one fell swoop.

You shut your eyes right and clenched your jaw a moment as the liquor burned down your throat.

“I’m in love with you.”

The silence that followed there after was deafening. You opened your eyes and looked at Bucky. His expression was soft, his eyes a bit wide with the information, but there wasn’t any hint of anger or disgust.

“I…” he began, “I don’t deserve that.”

His eyes finally looked away from you, as if it was his turn to be embarrassed. His turn to feel ashamed.

“Look, you’ve been everything to me lately. You’ve put up with me when other people wouldn’t— when other people haven’t. You’ve cared for me, truly cared… and it’s lit a fire in my soul again. A fire I thought would forever be extinguished when Nat—- when we broke up.”

His eyes flickered towards you for a moment here and there. You held a steady gaze out towards the balcony, letting his words sink in as you felt your heart shudder at each word.

“I owe you more than I could ever pay back, and that’s why I know— I know I don’t deserve you.”

Suddenly your felt his bare fingers under your chin, his hand gently tilting you gaze to him. Tears fell down silently and touched his hand.

“Listen to me, okay, please,” he begged, his voice catching slightly, “I love you. Okay? I love you, I do. But you deserve more than me. You deserve someone whole, someone who has all the love you give them in turn equally back to you, and then some. I want what’s best for you, and I know deep down that I am not that.”

You did everything in your power to not turn into a whimpering mess, you held his gaze, ignoring the tears. You took a ragged breath and moved your chin enough for him to drop his hand.

“Tell me about her.”

Bucky sighed and put his hands in his pocket.

“She’s nice. Has her own issues, but she’s more like me. Broken like me.”

You nodded, wiping at your face in vain. The tears kept coming, even if you didn’t feel sad. Even though you were pissed.

“I’m happy for you,” you said as happily as possible. You took a step towards the door but he moved in front of you, gently placing his hands on your shoulders.

“Wait, please.”

You didn’t fight him. You met his gaze in defiance and you swore you could have seen a smile creep on his lips.

“There she is,” he murmured.

You couldn’t help but smile a bit at him. Even though a million emotions were running through your mind at the moment, the idea staying mad with him never stuck for long. Even now.

“I need you to know how much I care about you. I need you to understand that. If you hate me for it afterward then I can live with it,” you opened your mouth to tell him you could never hate him but he kept going as if to purposefully stop you.

“I would still be in a very dark place if it wasn’t for you. I value your life significantly more than mine. I would die for you, I would kill for you. You are everything to me and more and I am so honored to be loved by you. I treasure you, I adore you, but I am no good for you. Please understand that. You deserve so much more than I have to offer. And I would hate myself if I broke your heart. And I would. I already have. And I hate myself.”

Suprisingling the tears stopped. You looked at Bucky and studied his face. He was sincere. He was broken, that you already knew. He had more ghosts than anyone else could ever imagine, and past that haunted him daily. But he was Bucky. And he was kind and he was gentle, and he was fierce and loyal.

And you loved him.

That feeling would not easily go away, no matter how much Bucky might wish for it to. But you decided then that you would hold onto that feeling for now. Even though he warned you, had told you he did not want anything further. It would be harsh. It would be devastating. It would be soul crushing.

But it would be yours.

“I think I need some time.”

That was all you said further. His hands dropped from your shoulders and you walked back into the fray of the party. You could feel his eyes on you as you walked through the lobby. People were dancing and drinking and laughing and having a blast. You walked past them all, not paying them any mind. Nat found you, tried to talk to you but you just brushed her off as you found the elevator.

You held yourself straight. Composed. Even when the door to the elevator closed and you were alone. Even when you walked down your corridor and found your way into your dark apartment. It wasn’t until you changed from your party clothes into your sleepwear, curled up in your bed, alone in the dark, that you began to cry.

#reader x marvel #marvel fanfic club #fan fic author #fic writing #james bucky barnes #marvel #bucky x reader #winter soldier #james bucky buchanan barnes #marvel bucky barnes #unrequited love #fem reader

342 notes · View notes

luvrlou · 2 years

Text

Get Out Of Your Own Way

Pairing: Matt Press x fem!reader

Warnings: swearing, drug use, underage drinking, Matt is a warning in itself

Summary: Matt Press can never seem to get out of his own way.

A/N: Why is there no Press imagines!

Word Count: 2.1k

If Y/N L/N was asked who she most hated in the entire world, she would answer with Matt Press in a heartbeat. Where to even start with him? Some would say he's a dick others would be straight up and label him a sociopath. Conventionally, he was attractive, tall, had dark hair and always had this mysterious glint in his eye, that's what caused the girl to dislike him even more.

"Halloween, the one night of the year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it," the iconic words of Cady Heron projected from the small tv in Diana's bedroom.

"Di! Is this too much?" Y/N questioned, twirly around the room in a pair of black spandex shorts, a black crop top with purple zip and a witch hat placed messily on her head.

"Some would say not enough babe!" She replied, "put these on," she instructed chucking a pair of black heels towards her friend.

Tonight the two girls were headed to a Halloween party thrown by some kids in the year below, it was in this boy, Brodie's, basement. The pair were invited by a close friend of his called Abby Littman, Y/N didn't know her that well but Diana had known her since she was one year old.

"So what are you being?" Y/N asked the ginger girl sitting on the floor across from her.

"An angel!" She smiled grabbing the wings and halo next to her and placing them on. She stood up and did a spin, "tada!"

"Get your heels on so we can leave," the H/C girl ordered, switching off the tv, "we'll just walk, yeah?"

"Sounds good!" Diana grins, grabbing her friend by the hand and running down her stairs, locking her door behind her and heading in the direction of the party.

"Mothers lock up your sons!" Y/N yells as the pair enter the party hand in hand.

"Y/N and Di are here!" The other girl finished, receiving a chorus of cheers from the massive amount of teenagers in the basement.

"Di, come get a drink with me!" Y/N shouted over the noise.

The pair slipped through mountains of intoxicated people and poured themselves two cups of vodka, lemonade and blackcurrant juice. They clinked cups and downed their drinks giggling softly to each other before pouring themselves the same again.

"Let us mingle!" Diane croaked in a weird voice causing her friend to burst out laughing, they both parted ways and went to mingle.

"Glad to see you embracing your true self as a witch!" A male's voice boomed, followed by an obnoxious giggle.

"Lovely to see you too Matt," She pulled a tight-lipped smile, "Samantha," she nods towards the other girl.

"Awe, don't be so jealous of our Sam," he taunted, pulling a faux pout.

Y/N rolled her eyes, "I'm not jealous, I just don't like her simple as that."

"Don't need to be so rude!" The girl on the couch complained.

"Shut up Samantha," Press quipped before turning to glare at the girl in front of him.

"I'm away for a drink, bye Matty!" Y/N teased, grinning.

"And I'm joining you!" He added, clearly trying to wind her up.

She groaned and made a break for the kitchen.

"So Y/N, you do realise that you're meant to dress up as something for Halloween?" He laughed as she grabbed a bottle of vodka.

"Matt, you do realise that being a dick doesn't need to be your only personality trait?" The girl spat back, filling up her cup with vodka, and adding almost equal part lemonade.

"Woah, you have enough lemonade for your vodka?" Press asked taking the bottle off of her as she attempted to add even more into her cup.

Y/N smiled, "aren't you so cute caring about me," her smile dropped, "now fuck off and play with your little toy, she's waiting for you!"

He grunted in annoyance before walking off with a beer.

"It's shot o'clock!" Abby's voice rang through the small basement. All of the drunken teenagers gathered around the table tennis table and started to pound on it.

A chant of "Tiny sips, tiny flips!" bounced around the walls of the basement as Abby walked around pouring everyone a shot, Y/N stood oppisite Norah, a girl she knew fairly well.

When it came to her and Norah's turn Norah sent Y/N a quick smile before they both grabbed their shots and downed them, they tried to flip their cups, both messing up and sending the cups flying.

"Better luck next time sweet cheeks!" Press cackled his arm hooked around Samantha. Y/N sent the boy a middle finger, causing Diana to burst out laughing from behind her.

"Holy shit Di! You scared me!" Y/N drunkenly chuckled, embracing her friend. The pair walking off, "let's get more shots."

"You know how glad I am to have picked you to be friends with!" Diana commented, stumbling over to the kitchen, Y/N on her arm.

The girls grabbed a bottle of tequila rose and two shot glasses, pouring shots and linking arms, downing them.

"I could drink this all day!" Diana dreamily exclaimed.

"We can!" Y/N cheered, taking the bottle by the neck and pouring some of it down her throat.

Diana snatched the bottle drinking it wistfully slipping to the floor, Y/N joining her. Despite the partygoers coming and going from the kitchen, no one really paid much attention to the two girls tanning the bottle of creamy alcohol.

"Shit it's done," Y/N whined, sliding herself to lie down on the cold floor.

"Oh my, what have I walked in on?" The dreaded man said as he entered the kitchen.

"Oh Matty, be a doll and pass me down one of the vodkas," the intoxicated version of Y/N slurred.

"Absolutely not, get up!" He commanded reaching for Diana's hand, who gratefully took it and stumbled to a stool. Press then went to grab Y/N and haul her to her feet.

"Don't touch me, Matt Press!" She screamed.

"Come on Y/N, work with me, " he muttered, watching the girl submit and grab onto him. "There you go," he softly whispered as she reached her feet.

Matt turned to leave and Y/N went to sit next to Diana, "I wish he wasn't such a cunt," she stated, making Diana whip he head around.

"Y/N! Oh my god!" She screamed, and then they smelt it, the weed-infused aroma of a bong, "I think I know what time it is, do you know what time it is?"

"Bong time baby!" Y/N yelled, grabbing Diana's arm and stumbling towards the couch, "pass the bong sophomore!"

Y/N lit the end of it inhaling a big draw and passing it to Diana, Y/N reached over to Press and blew the cloud of smoke straight into his face, "oh you want to play that game huh?" He smirked, clutching her by the hips and pulling her onto the couch. "Hand it over Diana!"

Press took the bong and inhaled, grabbing Y/N's draw roughly and connecting their lips, the smoke travelled into her mouth. "Press! You animal!" Jordan shouted.

Y/N watched grinning as Samantha ran off into a bathroom, she stood up snatching the bong of the raven-haired boy, "Is there any weed that's not in here, I want a joint," she announced.

Abby sprinted off and came back with a small baggy filled with weed and a box of rolling paper, you took them out the girl's hands and kissed her forehead, "you're a gem."

The girl grinned and chucked herself onto the couch, on top of Brodie. Y/N stumbled towards the table to roll two joints, one for her, one for Diana.

"Come get one Di!" She shouted, the skidding and crashing indicated that the girl had arrived.

She picked one up and inspected it, "I love when you roll them!" Y/N tossed the lighter at her which she caught surprisingly well. Y/N placed hers between her lips and waited for her friend to light it.

The pair walked over to the people on the couch, the two girls mentally deciding to through themselves on Abby, the party had noticeably gone quiet, as the time had hit around half one. The only people who were left were the group of nine huddled around the couch.

"You know how much I love you, Abby, you're so cute and pretty," Y/N mumbled, cuddling into the girl she hadn't properly talked to since about five minutes ago.

"You two are definitely drunk!" Abby laughed, pushing both Y/N and Diana off of her onto the space next to her.

"We're not drunk we're just appreciating life!" Diana shouted, taking another long draw of her joint.

"While you guys appreciate life, me and Norah are away to have sex!" Jordan slipped into the conversation, causing everyone to groan.

"Shut up Jordan!" Norah reddened, pulling him away and up the stairs.

Everyone sat and talked for a while, despite never really hanging out with the group Diana and Y/N were fitting right in, laughing like they were old friends who hadn't seen each other for ten years. Diana had especially warmed up to Brodie who she was now all over in the corner of the basement.

"Perhaps we should take this to my room, what do you say Diana?" Brodie suggested to the ethereal-looking girl on his lap who was layering his neck with the red lipstick she had swiped on only an hour or so prior.

"I say that sounds great!" She beamed, grabbing the boy's hand and leading him up the stairs as silently as they could.

"I'm heading, I refuse to hear two couples going at it." Abby groaned kissing Y/N on the head before she leaves, waving a small goodbye at Ginny, who was cuddled into Hunter's side pretty much comatose.

"I better get Ginny home, sorry guys." Hunter pitifully smiled.

"No please don't leave me here with Matt!" Y/N pleaded making him burst out laughing.

"I'm not that bad babe!" He answered, giving her a side-eye. Hunter sent you yet another apologetic look, assisting a stumbling Ginny up the stairs.

"I need another drink," Y/N declared, standing up from her spot on the couch. She could sense him following her to the kitchen, which bothered her a ton but she was too interested in getting some more fiery liquid down her, instead of pouring something she just grabbed a bottle of vodka, slugged some down and trudged back to the couch.

"Stop hiding that you like me, it's honestly pathetic." A voice spoke behind her.

She whipped round, and finally he had well and truly pissed her off. "Oh my god, will you ever get out of your own way?"

"What's your deal, why are you being such a bitch to me lately, do I mean nothing to you," Matt shouted taking a step closer to the girl.

"Well fucking done Matt! You finally get it!" She yelled back at him. "You aren't as stupid as you give yourself credit for."

Matt laughed, "look at yourself Y/N, you're a mess, just admit it the only way you are happy with yourself is when you're drinking or smoking your dumb fucking joints!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" She questioned getting even closer, making him step back into the table.

"I stopped being close to you and now you cry by yourself in school and act like you don't give a flying fuck about anyone! Other than Diana? Tell me that isn't true." He demanded looking the girl up and down.

"You don't know the first thing about me Press." She spat, prodding his chest with her dainty finger. "I mean you can't even go by your first name and you call me pathetic, that's funny!"

He only grunted in response, shoving the drunken shell of a girl out of the way, this only annoyed her even more.

"Matt for the love of god, just let me hate you." She whispered.

He huffed, "I don't want you to hate me Y/N but we'll never have whatever it was we even had again."

"God Matt! Stop!" Her distraught voice begged, his complexion softened a bit before advancing towards her, "Matt, don't speak."

Y/N pondered her decision, looking at the tall body who is towering over her, in one swift movement she pulled the boy closer, her hands wrapping around the back of his neck.

Matt's warm breath fanned over her face, "are you going to kiss me or what?" He smirked.

"Shut it." Y/N reached up and placed her lips against his, him instantly wrapping an arm around her waist, his other falling firmly on the side of her neck, he started to walk her so his back hit the cold table.

"Jump," Matt grunted, breaking the kiss, his arms came down to the back of her thighs, lifting her onto the table. She wrapped his legs around his waist, letting him kiss down her neck.

#ginny & georgia #ginny & georgia imagine #matt press imagine #lou writes fanfic #matt press x reader #press x reader #ginny & georgia x reader #ginny and georgia x reader #Spotify

597 notes · View notes

daryfromthefuture · 4 months

Note

Dary, I would very much like to hear about the angsty miitopia au unfolding. :)

*takes a deep breath* Okay. I shall provide you with the basic information. This will take forever but I AM READY (just transferred a bunch of screenshots from my Switch to my phone to give visuals lmao)

Under the cut because this includes massive spoilers for Miitopia

Marty is the hero of our game, just a regular guy from a place called Greenhorne. He came to Greenhorne town only to find it attacked by the so called Dark Lord (who I made Edna in this game). Edna steals the faces off Miis and plants them on monsters so they gain power and fight Marty. Marty agrees to go on a quest to find and defeat the Dark Lord. So far, so good.

On the quest, he meets other Miis willing to help him. Those are Jennifer, Paul (from the Pinheads) and Linda. They fight and stuff (and rescue King Sam and Princess Lorraine as well as help Lorraine convince her dad to marry her childhood friend George instead of the prince Biff that Sam wants her to marry. Guys those roles were PERFECT for them I swear. George was spineless in this game and had the perfect color scheme, and Biff ws absolutely useless. 10/10 casting from my part), but as soon as they get to the next kingdom, the Dark Lord straight up kidnaps Marty's friends and he's all alone again :(

Here's some screenshots from the castle before we move on

Marty watching his parents. Yeah.

I said Marty was left alone? Well, not completely. He's not alone in spirit - because in Greenhorne, he has had an encounter with the Great Sage Doc, who has saved his life with his magic (you can see where this is going). Marty meets him again in Neksdor, as well as his new party members - Dave, young Emmett, and 1986B Jennifer (I was legit running out of BTTF characters because I had a lot of the townspeople be characters like Seamus and Maggie. And Clara is my horse. She's a purple unicorn. Oh and my quizmaster is Bill Nye which, also, is 10/10 casting. I am proud of myself)

In this new desert land called Neksdor (pun of "next door"), Marty and team fight a pharaoh before having to move on to the next kingdom. Oh and unhinged versions of my OCs because, again, I was running out of BTTF characters. I even gave Western Union Guy and Terry the car mechanic roles.

Edward Cobra.

Citizen Valley Jen being possessed

An impression of Neksdor (ft. Clara)

Next up, we had to go through the Realm Of The Fey, a fairy/elf kindgom. Once again, Edna kidnapped all my friends so I had to cast my OCs as new party members.

(absolutely no context screenshot but welcome Helen, Anthony, and Marion)

I cast server friends as the Fab Fairies because I SWEAr Bobby G doesn't have enough female characters in this franchise.

@bg-sparrow was the eldest Fab Fairy and I had to fight her as an owl. I'm so sorry BG lmao

After finishing off this kingdom, Marty got to head to Krakaton, where the Dark Lord hides out. His friends are once again kidnapped, and - much worse - Edna stole their faces, too!!

Marty discovers his friends with no faces and is absolutely devastated.

Enter the Great Sage.

The best part began: Doc joined Marty's team! Yay! Together, they went to rescue Marty's friends and had some endearing moments along the way :)

Look at them. They're buddies. I love them.

In the end of this mission, they manage to rescue all of Marty's friends and Doc leaves again. And now, we are approaching the final battle against the Dark Lord in Edna's castle retreat.

That battle was surprisingly easy and BOOM, Marty wins!! Congrats!

But the game is far from over. It turns out that Edns was in fact possessed by the so called Dark Curse, and now the Curse is looking for a new body. Naturally, it attacks Marty, being angry with him for defeating the Dark Lord.

And then Doc appears and saves Marty once again.

Sacrificing himself in the process.

Yep - Doc is a villain now. And he's even more powerful than ever before, due to his Great Sage powers. This is heavy, am I right?

Marty is absolutely heartbroken :( But Jennifer hypes him up jsgfdjhs

Now, Marty, his team and this kind dragon named Dominic have to chase Darker Lord Doc and defeat him to free the Great Sage

After Marty had to do a bunch of side quests collecting jewels that open the entrance to Doc's hideout, the Sky Scraper...

(More no context images)

...he stood in front of its gates, wondering whether he was making the right choice...

(I clicked No. Marty, being the selfless guy he is, did not think about himself afer a moment of consideration. It's funny, Marty never refers to the Darker Lord and Doc as the same person. It's so wholesome)

And now, here we are. I'm on my way to the final FINAL boss of this game, but this plot is absolutely destroying me. This Mii RPG game has no right to be this angsty like. Why.

As a reward for going through all this, have a sketch of them I made yesterday :]

I can't wait to rescue Doc from his misery 🫡 Thank you for reading, this game has me in a chokehold lmao

And thanks Nikki for the ask! It was fun rambling about all this

#back to the future #bttf #marty mcfly #doc brown #miitopia #ask reply #silly rpg game is emotionally destroying me #how did it get this far #also i had a bttf marathon yesterday so im already having big feelings #this is not helping at all but hey #its a good kind of emotional torture lmfao

20 notes · View notes

yetanothersparrowofthedawn · 5 months

Text

Style

Extended Masterpost

Word Count: 3.3k

Pairing: ex!Jake x Reader

Genre: mix of sort of angst, sort of hurt, sort of fluff idk, ex!Jake

Disclaimer: English isn’t my native language, so I apologize in advance for mistakes and awkward wordings to come.

Previous track : Secrets from a Girl

Chapter soundtrack : Style – Taylor Swift You got that long hair, slicked back, white T-shirt, And I got that good girl faith and a tight little skirt, And when we go crashing down, we come back every time, 'Cause we never go out of style.

Laughter filled the air as friends and industry colleagues toasted to Danny's happiness and success. The drummer's 25th birthday party was an intimate affair, tucked away in a bar on the outskirts of LA. Greta Van Fleet just happened to be in California at the time which meant, to everyone’s delight, that YN could attend the celebration.

"Holy shit, I'm so fucking hammered," Josh declared as he plopped down onto the seat beside YN, the pulsating beat of the music reverberating through the air.

A soft chuckle escaped YN's lips. "Might be time to lay off the melon liquor, babe," she teased, casting a playful glance in Josh's direction.

Josh leaned in, feigning despair as he buried his head in her cleavage. "If drinking fruity little drinks is wrong, then I don't wanna be right.”

“Fine,” she laughed, shoving him off, “but don’t come ask me to pull your hair back later.”

"Well, you're one to talk," A voice interjected. They both looked up to see Jake approaching. “I’m pretty sure your breath could power up a tank right now, YN” he smirked.

"And yet here you are, Jacob" she retorted, shooting him a playful grin as she eyed the drink he’d gotten her, “my bartender in shining armor”.

"What can I say? Can't let a girl die of thirst," Jake shrugged casually. "Uh-uh,” he shook his head, holding the glass just out of her reach, “first… would you look at that!" he exclaimed, pulling a glass of water from behind his back.

"That better be tequila in there, Jacob," YN said, eyeing the clear liquid warily.

"Drink up, superstar," Jake insisted, his tone teasing yet firm.

As she reluctantly grabbed the water and downed it, Josh chimed in with a question. "So, why'd you say Harry couldn’t come, again?"

"Prettyboy is shooting a perfume ad somewhere in Tuscany," Jake replied before YN could, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"Jealous, Kiszka?" YN teased, raising an eyebrow playfully, “But yes, that’s why I’m flying out tomorrow, we’ll do New Year’s there.”

“Aw, a New Year’s kiss with your new lover, how adorable,” Josh teased, his tone dripping with sarcasm as he and Jake visibly gagged.

"Bitterness is an ugly look, you know?" YN retorted with a roll of her eyes.

Suddenly, Sam's booming voice cut through the din of the party, calling out to YN from atop the bar. It was a familiar sight – it wasn't really a party until Sam was up on the bar, urging others to join him in his revelry. “Come on up!” he shouted, holding out his hand.

“Not in a million years, Sammy,” she yelled back over the music.

The youngest Kiszka’s eyes widened in mock disappointment, “You used to be fun, you know?”

YN scoffed. But before she could respond, Jake interjected with a smirk, “She’s a good girl now, haven’t you heard?”

YN turned to the guitarist, her expression a mix of amusement and surprise at his teasing. “Am I, really?” she countered playfully, her eyes dancing with mirth. “Alright, give me a boost,” she relented, allowing Jake to grab her waist and hoist her up onto the bar with unexpected strength.

“There we go,” Sam declared, immediately pulling her into a twirl as she laughed.

“YN, sweetheart, that is an awfully short skirt you’ve got there,” Josh chimed in mock-shock, clutching his pearls for added effect.

“Well, keep your head down, then, perverts,” YN shot back with a grin, as she looked down. She met Jake’s gaze, who raised his hands in mock surrender.

“Oh, I’m not complaining,” he interjected teasingly. She rolled her eyes at his comment, but a shy smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

Amidst the vibrant energy of the party, Jake found himself caught in a moment of quiet observation. His gaze softened as it lingered on YN's figure, admiring the way she effortlessly commanded the attention of those around her.

Josh, ever perceptive, caught the momentary lapse in Jake's usually composed demeanor. He observed the subtle softening of his brother's features as his stared at the girl he used to have and hold.

Sensing Josh's scrutiny, Jake shifted uncomfortably, a faint blush creeping up his cheeks as he realized he had been caught. With a playful smirk, Josh raised a knowing eyebrow.

The guitarist's response was swift and dismissive, a pointed retort to deflect Josh's silent observation.

"Shut up."

"Oh, come on, stay a little longer,” Josh pleaded with a playful grin as YN slipped on her coat, “it's barely past midnight."

"I told you I have an early flight," YN replied with a regretful smile.

"Party-pooper," Sam nudged her.

As she reached for her phone, Jake approached her. "How are you getting home?" he inquired.

"I'll just get a cab," YN responded.

"No, let me give you a ride," Jake offered, his tone firm yet gentle, “I’m the designated driver, anyway.”

YN opened her mouth to protest, but Jake raised a hand to silence her, “I'm not letting you get in some random cab in this state," he asserted, his gaze unwavering.

She relented eventually, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips as she yielded to his insistence.

But as she moved to bid her farewells and make her exit, Danny's voice cut through the air, his arms wrapping around her in a brief embrace. “Are you sure you have to go?” he pouted in playful desperation, “Italy’s not going anywhere.”

"Sorry, babe” she mumbled, leaning in to press a kiss to the drummer's cheek, “Happy Birthday."

YN blew kisses to everyone else in the room and, with a final wave, she turned towards the door. Her steps faltered slightly as Jake's hand closed around her arm, halting her in her tracks.

"Stay here," he instructed, "I'll go get the car. You'll catch your death with that skirt."

YN waited inside, her mind swimming with a heady mixture of alcohol-induced thoughts. She couldn't help but think of the way Jake had looked in the dim light of the bar, his rugged features softened by the glow of the party lights.

Moments later, the sound of a car pulling up outside snapped her back to reality, and she made her way out to find Jake waiting by the driver's side, a chivalrous smile gracing his lips.

"Madam," he greeted her with mock formality, opening the car door and extending a hand to help her inside.

"Remind me to give you a tip," she chuckled as she settled into the car, the warmth of his hand lingering on hers.

Jake made sure YN was nice and buckled up, his hands lingering for a moment longer than necessary as he ensured her safety.

Thoughts of the past and the uncertain future crossed his mind. Long drives like these once had a tendency to either end in burning flames or paradise. There had seldom been an in-between for the two of them.

After a while of playful arguing over the GPS setting, the air conditioning, and the radio channel, they finally settled into a comfortable silence, the only sound the soft hum of the music filling the car.

Jake couldn't help but steal glances at her as they drove, his wild eyes flickering from the road to her. She caught his gaze.

"Take a photo," she teased, a playful smile tugging at her lips, “it'll last longer.”

"Can't blame me," he quipped back with a smirk, "It's been a while since I've gotten you to myself."

"Well, to be fair," she retorted, her tone light yet tinged with a hint of underlying seriousness, "It's been a while since I've heard from you."

Jake sighed knowingly. They both knew they should do more to stay in touch, but life always seemed to get in the way. Despite the easy banter, there was a subtle tension lingering between them, unspoken words and unresolved emotions hanging heavy in the air.

"So, how's the next album coming along?" he broke the silence, in a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject.

She didn’t reply, instead turning up the volume to avoid his question. Only, the subtle sadness lingering in her eyes didn’t go unnoticed. Not good, apparently.

"Come on,” he persisted, his tone lightening as he tried to cheer her up, “I'm sure you must have something cooking for your new muse."

She giggled at his playful mockery of her recent romantic endeavors. The sound was like music to his ears.

“Here, I’ll help you out,” he cleared his throat. "His eyes green as English grass, and boy, did you see that ass?" he mockingly sang over the music, his voice going in and out of tune.

She chuckled at his attempt at lightening the mood, turning the volume up even higher to drown out his voice.

"Boybands may be a bit crummy," he continued even louder, reveling in seeing her smile again, "but you know he's giving me the one D."

"You're an idiot," she laughed, shaking her head affectionately.

As the GPS finally announced their impending arrival, YN suddenly spoke. "Wait, turn there instead" she instructed.

Jake glanced at her, his brows furrowing in confusion as he followed her gaze to the upcoming turn. What was she up to now?

Before he could voice his question, she continued, her words taking on a playful tone, "You love that song."

She quickly reached out to turn up the radio and open the car roof, allowing the cool night air to rush in and tousle her hair. The wind whipped around her, sending tendrils of hair cascading over her shoulders as she swayed to the music beneath the open sky, her movements fluid and effortless.

Fuck. He did love that song.

As he watched her, a surge of something pulsed through him, igniting a fire that had long lain dormant within his soul.

In that moment, as the world faded away and all that remained was the two of them and the music, Jake knew one thing for certain:

They would never go out of style.

The car eventually came to a smooth stop and they both stepped out onto the quiet street. The night air was cool against their skin as he walked her to the door.

"I should get going," Jake murmured as he glanced back to the car.

YN's lips curved into a playful smirk, a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes as she drunkenly leaned against the doorframe. She knew deep down she should tell him to leave, but in that moment, with the warmth of alcohol coursing through her veins, she couldn't bring herself to do so.

"Don't you want to take a peek?" she teased; her voice laced with playful invitation. Jake had yet to see her new place. “I did promise you a tip,” she added.

She knew she was playing a dangerous game.

The guitarist looked hesitant. He, too, knew too well where such things often led.

"Do you really need me to tuck you in?" he asked.

"Come on," she insisted with a smirk as she stood on her tiptoes, “I've got choccy milk in the fridge," she murmured in his ear.

Jake couldn't help but chuckle at her antics, the corners of his lips quirking upwards in a reluctant smile. He could never say no to her.

He stood by, patiently, as YN drunkenly fumbled with her set of keys. With a triumphant click, she finally managed to unlock the door.

Together, they walked into the cozy confines of her home. She made a beeline for the light switch, her movements slightly unsteady, while Jake shrugged off his jacket.

"So, this is your new place," Jake remarked as he took in the surroundings. It wasn't extravagant, but it was quintessentially LA, with sleek furnishings and floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a breathtaking view of the city skyline.

YN hummed in agreement. “Make yourself at home,” she said, a contented smile gracing her lips as she disappeared into another room. Left to his own devices, Jake settled onto the plush leather sofa.

Moments later, YN returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses. Jake's eyes twinkled with amusement.

"No chocolate milk?" he gasped in mock offense, his tone laced with feigned disappointment. "Can't believe I've been tricked into coming in under false pretenses."

"I know, right?" YN replied with a chuckle as she poured the wine, “You’ve got to be more careful.”

Jake's expression softened, a hint of concern flickering in his gaze as he studied YN's flushed cheeks and slightly unfocused eyes. "Don't you think you've had enough for tonight?" he asked gently.

But YN simply brushed off his concern with a dismissive wave of her hand. With a playful giggle, she extended a glass of wine towards Jake.

"I'm good, thanks” he said. Their gazes met in a quiet exchange. A silent acknowledgment of the boundaries that needed to be maintained. Jake couldn’t indulge if he wanted to drive back. And he had to drive back eventually… right?

YN said nothing in response. She simply nodded and kept the glass to herself. But there was something in her gaze as she took a sip. A mix of appreciation, respect, and something else that Jake couldn’t quite make out.

Truth be told, it was disappointment that lingered in her eyes. Who she was disappointed in, though, was a different question altogether.

"Mind if I light up?" Jake broke the silence.

YN nodded in approval, and he pulled out some rolling paper and tobacco from his pocket.

She watched from beneath hooded lashes as Jake skillfully rolled the cigarette, his fingers moving with practiced precision, her knees pressing together involuntarily when his tongue dragged against the rolling paper.

With a flick of his lighter, the tip of the cigarette glowed cherry red as Jake took a long drag, smoke curling lazily into the air. YN couldn't help but inhale deeply, the familiar scent stirring memories buried in her flesh.

He held out the cigarette to her, a silent invitation.

She shook her head, a wry smile playing on her lips. She’d been avoiding smoking to preserve her voice. Besides, Harry disliked the smell.

Right, Harry. Harry disliked the smell.

"I'm a good girl now, haven't you heard?" she said in playful defiance.

"Are you, really?" he countered, a low murmur that sent a shiver down YN's spine, before placing the cigarette back between his lips.

She chuckled softly and stepped forward. With a gentle touch, she plucked the cigarette from his lips, her fingertips brushing against his skin ever so softly.

He watched, mesmerized, as she brought the cigarette to her lips, her red lipstick leaving a smudge of crimson upon the filter. Jake clenched his jaw, something primal stirring deep within him.

The smoke filled her lungs, swirling around her like a lover's embrace. Heady and intoxicating.

She settled on the sofa beside him, their thighs brushing in a tantalizing caress. With a soft sigh, she leaned back against the cushions, her breathing slowing as she fought the creeping pull of sleep.

“Alright,” YN began, blowing out some smoke, “you know all about me and Harry.” his heart skipped a beat as reality hit him like a cold shower. Jesus fucking Christ. He’d almost believed it.

“So, tell me about you” she continued, a playful glint dancing in her eyes, “I heard you’ve been out and about with some girl.”

He didn't reply immediately, instead reclaiming the cigarette from her fingers and taking a slow drag.

"It's not true?" she pressed, curiosity evident in the tilt of her head.

"No, it's true," he admitted with a nonchalant shrug, flicking ash into the nearby ashtray. His mind briefly wandered to the random girls he'd been seeing, or rather just fucking – a decent distraction when the quiet of the night got too loud.

"A couple of them," he added, his gaze focused intently on the glowing ember of the cigarette between his fingers.

She giggled softly. "Not keen on being tied down, Kiszka?"

He sighed. “Not in a while, no.”

Her smile faded slightly as she met his gaze. She’d been the only exception.

They settled into a comfortable silence, the weight of their shared history lingering in the air. YN leaned on her side, her blinking slow and heavy.

"I think about it sometimes, you know?" Jake broke the silence, his voice tinged with a hint of vulnerability. "You and I, I mean."

YN's nod was barely discernible. "I get that," she murmured, her voice soft and drowsy, "I've been there too, a few times."

Jake couldn't help but feel a flutter of nervousness in the pit of his stomach at her words. He wasn't accustomed to speaking about such matters sober.

After a moment of reflective silence, Jake leaned forward to extinguish the cigarette, the ember fizzling out with a faint hiss. As he did, he continued, his voice barely above a whisper, "I wonder where we’d be now, had things been different." His words hung in the air, laden with unspoken longing and regret.

"You know what I mean?" Jake's voice trailed off into a whisper as he finally turned back to YN, only to find she had drifted off to sleep against the cushion, the soft rhythm of her breathing now filling the room.

A faint smile played on Jake's lips as he watched her peaceful features. He was almost grateful for the wine induced coma. It had perhaps been a sign from the universe, stopping him from going any further. Saying something they’d both regret.

With a tender brush of his fingertips against her cheek, Jake whispered softly into the stillness of the night, "Sweet dreams, superstar."

As the early morning light filtered through the windows, YN stirred from her slumber, her eyes fluttering open to the unwelcome sound of an alarm she hadn't set.

Confusion washed over her as she realized she was lying on top of her bed, a warm blanket draped over her form.

She sat up with a groan, her head throbbing from the remnants of the previous night's indulgence. Rubbing the remnants of sleep she found that her makeup had been removed, leaving her face bare, yet she was still fully clothed in the outfit she had worn the night before.

YN sighed, slowly recalling the previous night’s events.

Jake.

She wondered when he’d left. She didn’t even remember falling asleep.

As she stepped out of the shower and began to get ready for the airport, her phone buzzed. It was from Danny, thanking her for the previous night and attaching a treasure trove of photos capturing the festivities.

Still wrapped in her towel, YN scrolled through the myriad of pictures she’s been sent. Sam and Josh's antics filled the screen – dancing, laughing, and inevitably ending up face down on the floor. Danny's face, alight with joy as he blew out the candles on his birthday cake, was a heartwarming sight, even with his hair and face smudged with vanilla icing.

Her scrolling halted abruptly when she came upon a photo of her and Jake.

In the dim glow of the party lights, they sat side by side, lost in conversation. Her head was thrown back in laughter, eyes shining with unbridled joy. Jake, his expression softened by a rare smile, looked at her with a tenderness that sent a shiver down her spine.

YN stared at the photo, a bittersweet smile tugging at her lips.

Yeah.

Looks were overrated.

But God knows these two would never go out of style.

Next Track : The Way I loved You

Extended Masterpost

OK TIME TO BE HONEST THIS IS VERY MUCH A FILLER CHAPTER, BUT I REALLY WANTED YN TO RELEASE A SONG CALLED “STYLE” BECAUSE I MEAN COME ON THE ABSOLUTE AUDACITY OF THAT GIRL

Anyway, hope you liked it! Once again, I am begging you all to interact and leave comments it makes me so happy to get feedback and reactions xxx

Also, this is only the beginning lol. I have a billion drafts for other chapters so stay tuned, peaceful army.

Taglist

@aintthatapity

@sinarainbows

@vanfleeter

@gretavanhockey

25 notes · View notes

lotrmusical · 4 months

Text

here it is: the Big Wheel of Things People Love About Watermill Lord of the Rings!

spin here

optional: use what you get as a creative prompt for fanworks to celebrate the anniversary of the production! (full info here)

a couple stats from sorting the responses, just for fun:

louis/frodo is the most commonly mentioned, followed by nuwan/sam, aaron/aragorn and folarin/gimli.

a full 10% of responses mention the characters' physical affection: hugging, holding, reaching for each other, etc. this is truly the world's claspiest musical

louis and nuwan are tied for the most quoted line deliveries, followed by tom

everyone really loves the ent noises and falling leaves in the fangorn scene. (5 separate mentions)

full list of responses & credit below the cut 🍃

@cicelythereaper:

The Ents being represented by the sound of wood striking wood in the walls

The actor-musician setup - the way everyone is musical and telling a story!

Galadriel standing within her giant wreath - which turns into a sort of Ring of fire when she's considering going darkside

The choreography of Flight to the Ford

Frodo and Gollum's parallel body language

Folarin's performance in Moria

Saruman. Everything about Saruman

Aragorn's habit of clasping people's heads

@mischieffoal:

Matt Bugg's Gollum thirst traps

Lobelia

Evil flute magic

I want the ring/risk to be mine alone

Day May End

The breath like choreo at the first "lorien laure"

clutching our heads in his hands

Mrs. Bracegirdle

Samfrosie 5ever

GIRL PIPPIN

"our lives are woven together yours and mine"

aoife's voice

sioned's extremely eldritch elf queen

brown sam and black rosie!!!!!

yazdan's just really hot

extreme divorced energy saruman/gandalf

that bit in the council of elrond where Legolas speaks just as the turntable has put him directly facing the audience

Boromir's death and wake

Boromir's ghost/Faramir

Aragorn/Arwen, they do it SO WELL

@nowandforalways:

The new arrangement on specifically Frodo's verse of Now And For Always

"SAM LOVES ROSIE SAM LOVES ROSIE"

The way that PDukes says the words "a far, green country"

Frodo constantly slinging his arm around Sam's shoulders

Plum cake

Bilbo kissing Frodo's hands

Ensemble hobbits reaching their hands out to Frodo when Sam helps him up before Wonder

Hobbit hug after Gandalf falls in Moria

"Heyday" stupid-foot-tap-jump-thing

The change in Gollum's voice after Frodo calls him "Smeagol"

Sparkly elven cloaks

The way Arwen holds her arms

Stab Wound Continuity™️

Shelob puppet

PDukes standing behind Theodenothor looking so SAD

Arwen & Aragorn's matching arm movements during Lasto i lamath

The "beat drop" in Lothlorien (when they start singing in Quenya lol)

"Master Elrond, WHY there is a dwarf here I do NOT know"

The lighting during Song of Hope (reprise)

The Black Speech being projected on the back wall when Gandalf takes it out of the fire in Bag End

Frodo mostly hanging back at his own birthday party and then immediately getting SO INTO IT when the dancing starts

Frodo fully forgetting his pack at the start of The Road Goes On and Sam grabbing it for him

Louis' voice

Frodo directing the other hobbits and encouraging the Breelanders during The Cat And The Moon

The red waistcoat with Louis' dark hair and eyes

How physically affectionate Frodo is with the people he loves

TIRED AND COLD

Frodo grabbing Smeagol's arm to counter-balance as Smeagol falls into Mount Doom

Louis being the resident freak in all of the cast interviews

Frodo being on the lower harmony for the first time in the whole show when he joins Sam singing at the Gray Havens

@eelfleece:

BIG! SPIDER! PUPPET!

little small leaves floating down in the ent scene and the soft Boom Boom accompanying them

anonymous:

It drove my sibling's wife insane for several months. Sometimes the most important thing about a production is how much it means to people you care about.

the actor-musicianship

the intimacy of the theatre

the cast themselves

the strong south-asian inspiration in the music and choreo

It felt like such a genuine production. No big stage or huge light shows, just actors having fun and delivering one hell of a performance. The smaller venue helped with that a lot

The pre show where Bilbo walked among the crowd greeting people and chatting with them as if they too were hobbits.

I walked from Newbury station to the theatre so getting there and seeing that the outside of the theatre was decorated as well was such a good way to arrive there after an hour of walking

All of the actors being the ones who play pretty much all of the music as well made me have so much more respect for the amazing cast

The parts where actors played outside of the stage like gollum climbing the decor or Aragorn (I think) suddenly being on the balcony.

The leaves falling when the ents are in the scene made it so much more immersive

The costumes made for the production were amazing. Each one suited the character well

I saw the actress who played pippin smiling throughout the entire show. She was having genuine fun and that made it so much more authentic to me

I am Astonished that they managed to fit all the three books into one musical.

I just really hope this musical will someday return to the watermill theatre as it was the best performance I have ever seen. Nothing will top this

the way louis maskell says "mr gandalf - please" with a laugh in his voice as he kneels next to sam to "protect" him from being turned into anything unnatural

the final show where sam scurried behind frodo during "don't let him turn me into anything… UNNATURAL" so frodo just knelt with his hands out in front of him like "Mr Gandalf… please"

Legolas! and! Gimli! forehead! touch! and! head! clasp! during wonder after talking about seeing the caves and the forests together

Louis Maskell's wiggles

Yazdan's northern accent for Legolas

the Look TM and intonation on Frodo's "…goodbye, Sam" before they do the foot tapping as Sam heads off to the Ivy Bush with Rosie

looks like /you've/ got ALL the company you need

oh yes! lots of FRUIT around here

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli doing different rituals whilst kneeling over Boromir's body

Aarongorn's ritual gesture - hand to head, chest and lips

boromir: 'and defeated him!!' elrond: '…...yes. 🙄'

'don't adventures ever have an end?' bilbo's heartbreaking tone

circle of light holding gandalf captive in isengard

the pattern from the moria doors also used on gimli's costumes

NAZGUL PUPPETS. horse skull my beloved

the blue cloths rippling down from the ceiling for flight to the ford

amelia's high harmony in road goes on

council of elrond turntable and curved benches blocking that effortlessly puts everyone where they need to be to keep the scene moving, clear, dynamic

'go forth in hope that the small may succeed where the great could not' tom's tone and gentleness with frodo making me cry every time

STAR OF EARENDIL A CAPPELLA MOMENT. CHILLS FOREVER

all the times merry, pippin and sam support frodo and help him along, emotionally and physically

EVERYONE MIRRORING SAM AND REACHING OUT THEIR HANDS TO FRODO BEFORE WONDER

nuwan's beautiful floral guitar strap

sioned's galadriel becoming increasingly terrifying, her distant gaze and lilting intonation

matt bugg gollum upside down moments

the audience helping to rebuild the shire for the epilogue

the big white sail for frodo to exit behind one final time, and his last look back as he goes

all the people playing instruments but ESPECIALLY elliot getting so so energetic and hype during song of hope reprise

'w-w-what she means is… how about a song?' and the other hobbits immediately dying inside

FOLARIN'S LAMENT FOR MORIA and his bowing to the surroundings before he starts and the depth and reverence and awe he brings!!

CHARLOTTE GRAYSON ROSIE 'i've been expecting you since the spring!!' making me cry every time

aarongorn's gentleness and reluctance to come out, and the way he sits during the council trying to fade into the background while everyone's talking about the lost sword

bridget and reece's cartwheel/lift choreo in cat and the moon!

the lights in the big tree by the outside stage

'that's often how it is in a forest, pip' geraint's hilarious delivery, and him and amelia clearly having the MOST fun together

The ensemble acting as an extension of Sam! He represents the people ✊

The way Aragorn falls to his knees after Song of Hope (Duet)

The nazgul lighting

Incorporating the environmentalist message from the book with the wildflower packets, the orcs' industrial look, and the emphasis on rebuilding at the end

The ensemble narration :)

The sense of loss that clouds the production, as it tells of the end of an era and doesn't quite finish where it started (same place but so much is missing) (again with the rebuilding theme)

Rosie Cotton

Creative use of the physical space in the house!

The ents being represented by Noises

Being a major adaptation willing to mess around with gender! I hope this starts a trend of more genderfuckery in Tolkien adaptations

the detail of the set and costume design!! e.g the pattern on gimli's costume matching the moria floor pattern

Folarin's Lament for Moria - absolutely incredible voice, was swept away

The hobbits hurriedly putting their waistcoats on and rolling up their shirtsleeves as they transition from Mount Doom to Gondor

Yazdan's wide eyed wonder and smile as he sings Lorien

Sam's quiet, muttered "no Frodo" when Frodo says "goodbye Sam" during the final (I love to have my heart smashed into a thousand pieces)

Charlotte as Rosie - so joyful and sweet and strong and A++++ fiddling

whoever's job it was to stick their hand through a hole in the ceiling and drop leaves one by one while the ents were talking

Nuwan's Sam and Louis' Frodo, how tender and in love they were

HANDS

Tiny weirdo powerhouse Georgia Louise Galadriel!! Best Galadriel performance ever.

Boromir and Sioned-Elf’s mesmerising interaction at Lothlorien

Legolas and Gimli's arm clasp / forehead touch during Wonder

Bilbo’s birthday party in the garden and getting to wish him a happy birthday

Frodo’s expression when Elrond gives him his blessing

Elf hand choreography and hand speak!!

Literally everything about Nuwan and Louis in Now and for Always

Sassy Elrond/Saruman

Aaron’s soft boi Aragorn. I stan a gentle king.

Nuwan's Sam being decisive and protective with Frodo and taking no sh*it. "Lots of fruit around here!" comes to mind.

#lotr musical #lord of the rings musical #lotr #watermill anniversary creative celebration #long post #thanks everyone for sending these in i had the best time reading through all the responses #all of which are very normal #also if you want me to add/remove credit for your responses let me know :)))

14 notes · View notes

natusvincere · 3 months

Text

That Darn Cat || Sam and Vic

TIMING: about a week ago LOCATION: Downtown PARTIES: @natusvincere & @uncannysam SUMMARY: Vic comes across a scuffle, which turns out to be Sam being attacked by a Cat Sith. She has to decide if she wants to pet it, or help. CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

Vic was stressed. Things felt too upside down with the Good Neighbors, even more than she ever expected them too. She knew when joining there was a good chance that something was awry, but conversations she’d been overhearing were pointing to something deeper than she had ever expected every day. And now, everything seemed to be happening all at once, faster than she was ready for. But life rarely cared if she was ready.

She was determined to do more research- to find out exactly who this ‘Winifred’ was and if she was really as nefarious as Vic had begun to expect. Unfortunately, her leads were going nowhere fast, and she kept following ones that lead her to dead ends. Actually, this one led her to a poorly-lit alleyway, but the sentiment was still the same. She was about to head home, defeated, when she heard a commotion from the other end. Even with her superior sight and hearing, she couldn’t quite make out what she saw, only that it seemed to be the beginning of a scuffle. Instinctually, she slowly made her way toward the sight, trying to get a better look.

It had been a long day and the afterwork errands were always the hardest, especially when customers wanted to pick arguments or try and haggle prices with her. Luckily for Sam, she didn’t have too much to do. A quick trip here and there, and she could be back home to Scout and her nice comfy bed. However, that’s not what fate had in mind for her tonight. No, there had been something waiting just beyond the path back to her truck, and as Sam rounded the corner there it stood waiting.

At first, she had been startled by it, but as soon as her eyes adjusted, Sam realized it was a cat. An oddly very large black cat except for the one patch of white fur on its chest, but nothing too bad. Or so she thought, “Fuck, you scared me. What are you doing back here?” The animal cautiously moved towards Sam, soon rubbing up against her thigh and purring; its larger body pressing into hers slightly knocking her off kilter, “Hey, whoa. I don’t have anything okay? Just my groceries.”

As she continued to move forward, the cat followed her. Sam fumbled with her keys trying to get them into the door of her Bronco, but before she could, the animal rubbed up against her again, knocking them out of her hand, “Dammit.” Sitting her groceries on the ground, Sam dropped down looking for her keys and while doing so, she felt the animal rub some more as its purrs grew louder, and soon she found herself pinned up against the truck in a sitting position while this enormous cat continued to rub on her legs moving back and forth, “Okay, alright, I get it. You just want some love.” Reaching out, Sam put her hand on the back of the animal’s neck, but before she realized what was happening, the large creature pulled up its paw and smacked Sam across the cheek; claws fully extended.

“What the fuck?!” Yelping in pain, the woman pulled her hand up to her cheek only to find blood, and without thinking, she quickly shoved the animal off of her trying to scramble to her feet, before it could get another swipe in.

It was more than just a scuffle. Vic knew, because as she walked closer toward it, the sickenly sweet smell of blood permeated the air around her. Her instincts told her to pounce, or to let the creature do what it wanted and then eat up the aftermath. But she was better than her instincts. And extremely well-fed. She was thankful for both of those facts. But it seemed as she investigated further that what caused the blood was a… really big cat? She found herself moving toward the scuffle in double time, trying to think of the best way to help. “Hey!”, she said, in her loudest, booming voice, hoping to scare it away. She even tried hissing at it, sticking her tongue out in the process and feeling entirely ridiculous. “You need to get control of your demon-cat before it hurts you again”, she called to the woman, avoiding eye contact with the blood on her cheek. What would it taste like, she wondered, to feed again from a warm body?

She shook her head, taking in a deep breath as she reached down for the cat, wrapping her arms around its belly and trying to pull it off the girl. Even for someone of her strength, the cat was big, and she had to grunt out her words as she tried to pull it away. “This… thing…has to be a…code violation…somewhere”, she grunted, setting her feet in place on the ground. It wriggled in her grip, but she pulled it away so the girl just might have been able to wriggle away. “But the best… thing to do…”, the cat finally wriggled from her grip, pacing between the two of them, “...is to get that thing trained. Do you know how much of a fine they could charge you if it hurts someone else?”

She watched the cat as it walked between the two of them, rubbing against both of their legs as it did so. She remembered reading, years ago, how cats sometimes got overstimulated with too much affection, even though this one seemed to be actively seeking it out. “Do you have a leash or something?” She couldn’t ask about the girl’s injuries, because thinking about the blood and talking about the blood were two entirely different things, and she could only handle one of them.

Sam continued to struggle with the massive cat, until she noticed someone come running to her rescue. Watching as the woman tried to convince the cat to leave, before she was actively tugging it backwards had given Sam the chance to get back to her feet, “This isn’t my cat! I was walking back here to get in my truck and leave, and it just came out of nowhere!”

The shorter woman quickly snatched up her keys from the ground, before the cat had broken free from the other person’s grip and started rubbing up against both of them, “Fuck if I’m getting fined for anything. Why does everything around here have to be so massively overgrown?” She looked down to her groceries and to the locked door of the truck. All she had wanted to do was gather up her stuff and leave, but she wasn’t about to leave this stranger, who had helped her, with this large cat that clearly had no training whatsoever, “What do you suggest we do with this thing?”

Sam backed up against the door of the Bronco while the animal moved back and forth between the two of them. It had done a number on her cheek, and she knew it was going to suck trying to doctor it considering blood was still trickling out of it. Pulling her shirt up, she tried to dab some of the crimson liquid off of her face, her eyes set on the woman standing across from her, “And thanks…this thing probably would've eaten me alive if you hadn’t come along. Sometimes it does not pay to be short in this town, when most animals are almost twice your size.” She let out a frustrated sigh.

“It’s something in the water”, Vic said matter-of-factly, shaking her leg free of the beast as it rubbed against her again. She still knew how important it was to keep the average person off the scent of the supernatural, and this demon-cat was definitely some sort of zombie cat, or something. “They put growth hormones in it a few years ago because our children were under the national average for height. Someone must have overdone it this month. Curse our natural yearn for being the best.”

She watched as the woman dabbed her shirt long her face, her eyes lingering on the spot left on the shirt. Her eyes found the woman’s a little too late- she hoped she didn’t notice. “It was nothing. I uh… I hate cats, so…”. She actually kind of liked cats, but the aloof facade was much more important. “So I really did that more for me than you.”

She looked back at the animal again, wondering the same thing. “I don’t know- Animal Control in this town is usually pretty busy, aren’t they? But… this bastard is pretty persistent.” As if on cue, the cat took a break from rubbing against their legs to instead stand on it’s hind legs and rub against her shoulder instead. She resisted the urge to reach out and give in. “You don’t have any catnip in any of those bags, do you?”

Sam rolled her eyes at the answer dripping with sarcasm. Though a part of her did almost want to believe it. Wicked’s Rest was becoming stranger by the day, and the long she lived here and the more she discovered, Sam had wondered if her parents were as oblivious as she once was or if they just didn’t tell her about the things that went bump in the night. It really would’ve helped though, the night Zach was attacked, if they had known. But regardless, there was a situation in front of her, and one she and the other woman had to figure out, before it became more than just a nuisance. Things around here like to do that quite often – become more than just a nuisance that was.

“Oh, well, thanks I think. I mean, I’m more of a dog person myself, but cats are okay. This one, though…” Where did this thing come from? A zoo? And how were they going to get it back to whom it belonged to? Sam definitely wasn’t taking this giant ass feline home with her. It’d eat Scout and murder Sam in her sleep, “Animal control is really our only option though right? Unless you want to take it home with you.” Sam was hoping she would say yes, but there was definitely a slim-to-none chance she would.

Watching as it jumped up on the other woman, Sam took that opportunity to finally unlock her door and quickly throw her groceries inside, before the beast decided to shift its attention to her again. And though she didn’t do it, it had taken everything within Sam not to hop in the truck as well and drive off. But instead, she shut the door and shoved the keys back in her pocket for safe keeping, “Why would I have catnip, when I don’t even have a cat?” She narrowed her eyes in the direction of the woman and the massive cat.

Vic looked over at the creature, who was practically at eye-level, and tried to glare it into submission, the way a teacher might do with a small child. It didn’t work, obviously, so her scowl momentarily switched to the woman in front of her. “I have a 3-year-old and a Rottweiler, I don’t think my home would be the best fit. You’re sure you don’t want to take it home?”

She wasn’t even sure a cat that size would fit in someone’s front door, nevermind make a good house pet. “If we do call animal control, are we supposed to just… sit and wait until they come? And what if it… goes rabid again?” She didn’t mind squaring up with the demon cat if it tried to attack the woman again, but it would have been ever so humiliating to do it in public, especially in front of this stranger.

Vic held her hands up in defense, the cat backing down as she did so. “Hey, it’s not my place to judge what you do or don’t do with catnip in your free time. I can’t just go assuming you didn’t buy catnip.” It sauntered it’s way back across to the other woman and Vic watched it carefully, on edge as she waited for it to pounce. “It seems friendly enough now… what did you do it make it to angry that it tried to claw your face off?

When the other woman explained her home situation, Sam quickly realized there was no good option for this cat, “I’m positive. I live in an apartment, and I highly doubt this thing would even make it up the steps.” She couldn’t imagine trying to explain to the building manager why there was a massive cat living there. And she had her business to think about also. There was no way she was going to take a chance on hiding this thing, when the landlord could easily kick her out for a double pet violation forcing her to give up the space she rented downstairs for Escape Your Fate.

“I mean I don’t know. I’ve never dealt with a cat this size before…” Sam had seen some weird stuff, and though the cat was pretty, it was still intimidating, and she didn’t have time to wait around for someone to come and try and catch it. She had groceries and a hungry dog to get home to. “Are there any animal shelters around here close by?” Sam glanced back at her Bronco. She didn’t even think the thing would fit in the back, but maybe they could figure out a way to get it to follow them to a shelter.

With the idea swimming around in her mind, Sam was almost going to pull out her phone to check, but decided against it as she noticed the feline coming back over to her. Leaning up against the truck for support, she watched nervously as the animal began rubbing against her leg again, a bit distracted from the other person’s response, “Well…you assumed wrong.” Sam was careful to keep her hands by her side this time out of fear of getting scratched again, “I just went to pet it before. It looked like it wanted to be rubbed, but when I touched it, it freaked out on me.” Her heart rate picked up slightly as she heard loud, but soft purrs rumble from its throat, “It’s purring. What does purring mean? I’m not a cat person. I don’t know these things, and I don’t want to try and pet it again if it’s going to murder me…” She looked at the other woman somewhat panicked.

Vic gave a huff, looking down at the creature walking between their feet again. She couldn’t imagine this creature on her massive property, nevermind a small apartment. And then there was the whole issue of it being extremely dangerous and unpredictable… No, she didn’t think either of them taking it would be a good idea at all. “I don’t keep a list of all the animal shelters in town tucked away, you know”, she said, crossing her arms. It was a lie, she knew exactly where all of them were, thanks to a rather unfortunate obsession with counting them a few years ago. The alley they were in was about the farthest they could get from any of them. The universe continued to show its way of being so unfortunately inconvenient.

The creature became obsessed with the other woman, and Vic noticed her anxiety. When she was anxious, not much helped, unless she found herself painting. Maybe the girl needed some distraction herself. “What’s your name?”, she called out of nowhere, avoiding the sight of the blood once more, hoping it wouldn’t pool up in any deliciously tempting ways. “Mine is Vic.”

She squinted her eyes though, when the woman claimed all she did was pet the cat. “The cat whisperer says cats get overstimulated. Maybe it’s not used to affection.” Although, the way the cat was rubbing up against the woman made it seem like it was definitely asking for more pets. What the hell was up with this thing? “Relax! Purring is good. It means contentedness, I think. Or it could point to anger… what are the rates per minute of the vibrations?”

The more this thing rubbed against Sam, the more anxious she became. She didn’t like being cornered by a giant cat. It was like accidentally falling into the lion’s den at the zoo without any way of escaping. Sam was tiny. She always had been. And the harder this thing rubbed, the more claustrophobic she was starting to become. This woman’s smartass replies weren’t helping either. Thankfully that had all shifted, when Sam heard the question.

Forcing back the knot forming in her throat, mixed with a few cat hairs, Sam tried to focus, “Uh…It’s…It’s Sam. I wish this thing would just leave already.” She couldn’t go back any further into the door of the car and at this rate, she already felt like she was leaving a Sam shaped dent in her door. “Purring is good. Okay. Purring…wait…what?! How the hell am I supposed to know the answer to that?!” The question was so ridiculous that Sam laughed nervously, until she noticed the cat had quit rubbing and was staring up at her with narrowed slits, “Fuck.”

Closing her eyes and shaking in fear, Sam didn’t want to know what was about to happen next, until she felt it. The Bronco had jarred causing the woman to open her eyes. And when she looked up, the cat was looking down at her from a reclined position on the top of her truck, “Oh come on!!!” Sam growled in frustration as the cat stretched out and rolled around on the roof of the vehicle.

“I’m not going to let it hurt you, Sam”, Vic said, knowing her word probably didn’t mean much. Sam didn’t know her from a hole in the wall, and if a stranger promised Vic safety, she might have laughed in their face and kicked their shins. “It’s just an unfortunate side effect of this town. Being afraid of it is just going to give it power.” She didn’t know if that was true, but she didn’t want to see anyone feel so afraid, either. Cats were supposed to bring joy, not…whatever this bastard was doing.

Uh oh. It was time to put her money where her mouth was, because that giant pussy-cat was getting dangerously close to Sam’s face. She was almost too late to react too, until she realized the cat was jumping on top of the truck and not Sam like Vic had worried was going to happen. Okay. Maybe her confidence in her ability to fight it off had been false, because this thing was fast. “Hey!”, she yelled at it, holding eye contact. Cats hated that, right? She reached down, grabbing a rock from by her feet. If she wanted to, she could have gotten it square between the eyes (she knew her aim was on point), but she wasn’t about to harm an animal only due to its large, threatening claws. This was just about scaring it. “Get outta here!”, she yelled at it, chucking the rock toward it. It went straight over its head, like she’d planned, but the cat seemed especially interested in where it had landed.

Vic peered over the side of the truck, and a few feet from where the rock had landed, a squirrel was rustling through the dirt. The cat’s position on top of the truck suddenly became low to the ground, like those lions in that movie Rosie loved when they were ready to pounce. “Sam…”, she whispered, slowly walking toward the truck. “I think its distracted…”

Hearing Vic yell at the cat had pulled Sam’s attention away from the massive animal. And in doing so, she slowly backed away from the truck and closer to the woman. The cat was at an even greater advantage now being on top of the Bronco, and if it decided to jump they were done for. But she watched as Vic bent down to pick up a rock and bravely threatened the animal. It was the chucking of the rock clear over the massive feline’s head that had surprised Sam. If that cat had been angered, they were both screwed.

But instead, it did something else. It followed the rock, before setting its eyes on a nearby squirrel. Sam quickly looked back at Vic upon hearing her whisper, “I-I think you’re right.” Her voice was shaky, but low, and slipping her hand into her pocket, Sam quietly pulled out the keys. She had been so careful not to jingle them knowing jingly shiny things were like crack to cats of all sizes. But the biggest issue had been her door. The Bronco was old, and no matter what, the doors squeaked. This was their only shot though, unless they ran, and Sam was pretty sure they couldn’t outrun a cat that size.

Holding her breath, she slowly opened the door as she kept her eyes trained on the animal. It’s body low and butt raised ready to pounce on the squirrel below, “Vic get in…” She waited with baited breath hoping the woman would slide into the truck and to the other side fairly quickly.

For a moment, Vic wondered who would be faster- herself, or the large, demanding cat. She was faster than the average human, sure, but would she be quick enough to place herself in front of Sam if the cat tried to attack her again? She wasn’t sure, and she slowly took a few silent steps closer to the truck for good measure. She wasn’t about to risk losing someone innocent.

Luckily, the cat pounced off the top of the truck, swiftly and sneakily, and the squirrel was still none the wiser. She watched as it slinked through the grass and managed to blend in despite it’s size. It was an entirely fascinating creature, and if it weren’t for their impending escape, she might have stayed to watch it for hours.

Her eyes fell to Sam’s pocket as soon as she heard the keys jingle, and a small smirk formed on her lips. Sam Smarty pants, that would be the name she’d put in her phone if they exchanged contacts. It was a good idea, one that Vic’s fight mechanism hadn’t even glossed over. She nodded, because duh, she got the idea, and she cringed visibly as the door creaked loudly as she closed it.

The cat, who had gotten much closer to the squirrel by that point, lifted it’s head and looked toward the truck at the sound of the doors. “How old is this thing?!”, Vic asked, wiping her hands off on her jeans. She was about to scold the girl again to let her know how dangerous it was to drive an old, potentially unsafe vehicle, when from the other side of the window, she saw the cat running back toward the truck at double speed. “Sam! Drive this death trap! Now!”

Somehow, they managed to evade the cat safely, but Sam wasn’t able to escape Vic’s lecture about vehicular safety in an ever changing, dangerous world.

#w #w:sam #w:tdc

5 notes · View notes

booksteaandtoomuchtv · 1 year

Text

In The Lonely Hour (1/10)

A03 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Summary: A collection of canon-compliant(ish) one-shots that provide glimpses of Killian's life based on the album "In the Lonely Hour" by Sam Smith.

Mind on My Money After turning his back on a corrupt king, Killian finds purpose in piracy.

“We'll sail under the crimson flag and give our enemies no quarter.”

Cheers rose from the men - there was far more money to be had in piracy and, apparently, more honour. Killian marched toward the helm, exuding confidence and daring any man to entertain a moment’s fantasy of mutinying against his command. It seemed the cheers were earnest in their support of his command and his newest career path for the former soldiers.

He expected some of the men to hesitate when he proclaimed that they fly the crimson flag rather than a black flag. But, it seemed the senseless loss of their beloved former captain had hardened their hearts as effectively as it had his. He felt the heavy, lifeless body of his brother in his arms, still warm even as his eyes dimmed without the presence of Liam behind them any longer. Anger filled him as he pushed away the intrusive memory, that had stolen his breath and made his hands sweat so that he had to tighten his hold on the ship’s wheel. He welcomed the anger, it made him feel stronger than the desolate despair that had previously encompassed him.

For months, the anger gave him purpose. It fuelled him, empowered him, and drove him in his tireless campaign against the King's navy. His reckless actions and calm leadership in battles painted a brutal reputation that his men boasted about at every port after they had a few too many, but well-earned, pints.

As he watched a heavily-burdened frigate on the horizon try to change course at the sight of his ship, Captain Jones smiled in anticipation of the chase and battle to come. Killian felt a glimmer of warmth - was that pride? - in his chest that his deeds had the best captains of the King’s armada fleeing whenever they caught a flicker of a crimson red flag or navy hull in their spy glasses.

“Raise the crimson, boys!” Killian’s smile was near feral, adrenaline blazing through his body as he steered the Jolly Roger to intercept the naval ship. The sharp clip of orders, the rumble of cannons being rolled into position, and the excited shouts of his crew as they caught up with the Anthem of the Realm rose from the deck and fed the fire in his veins. He never felt more alive than he did in these quiet moments right before…

BOOM!

The crack of wood splintering was met with cheers as the Jolly’s cannon hit her mark. Water splashed onto the deck as the Anthem’s answering cannon fire fell short. Killian gave the wheel to Mr Starkey and jumped down to join his men on the deck. As the sea began beating at the hull, the waters angry by the disturbance caused by the battling ships, he took his place to lead the boarding party as his first mate brought them closer to the pride of the royal navy.

The steady thud of heavy grappling hooks hitting and scraping along the deck made Killian smile. The navy was coming to them. It would be an easier fight if they didn’t have to traverse to the other ship. The Jolly groaned in protest as the boarding lines pulled her toward the larger ship, but her crew held off the sailors as they attempted to cross by cutlass and arrow.

The waters were as crimson as the flag he flew by the time he stood on the deck of the Anthem, her captain trembling at the end of his blade. The captain had been found locked in his quarters, tucked safely away, while his men died around him. His words were desperate words that Killian had heard countless times, “There are chests of gold below deck. I can lead you to them. Please, will you spare me?”

“We’ve relieved the ship of her burdens before finding you cowering beneath your bed, Captain.”

He returned to the Jolly Roger, her hull lower in the water with the pilfered jewels, gold, food, and barrels of fine rum. He cut the lines holding her to the Anthem. Starkey was already pulling the Jolly away from her latest victim. He watched with a satisfied smile as the finest ship in the King’s navy and the last stronghold the king held over these seas sank to the seafloor, taking her craven captain down with her.

The sunset filled the sky with brilliant oranges and reds, and the seas calmed once they claimed the Anthem. His crew celebrated their new fortunes and the lives they fought to keep that day. As they toasted their captain for claiming ownership and power of the seas of the realm, for bringing them wealth, for leading them to victories, for fighting the Kraken, for charming mermaids, and for even more ridiculous myths as the night grew older, he watched the stars.

The anger that had kept him such constant company had started to fade. As a star darted across the night sky, Killian found himself hoping that he could find something, anything to fill the void it was leaving in its stead.

#Killian Jones #Captain Swan #CS fanfic #Liam Jones #angst #lots of angst #i mean the source material is all angst #In the Lonely Hour #Sam Smith #it was going to be Lewis Capaldi but it was too devastating #the happy ending is in canon #because you won't find it here #fanfic by Jas #manip by Jas #it's me - I'm Jas

18 notes · View notes

transingthoseformers · 1 year

Note

Do you have any AUs you really like kicking around that you haven't talked about as much?

Yessss actually! I popped in a read more, if you don't mind

There's my Dynamo and rescuebots au, which I've written a bit about (and ended up freaking out halfway through the last ficlet of it😅)

I play a lot with my tfa Mockingbird oc and how they'd be created and introduced to the autobots

I had this old au was was based on the cyberformed earth concept but it was naturally based around a random character who wasn't autobot or Decepticon adjacent and almost in a sorta "okay fuck, the apocalypse happened, now i have to map the terrain and learn new things" way

I frequently find myself going back to the plotline of the tfp autobots capturing a semi-rogue Decepticon who just... stays there and both parties get attached. Sometimes said con was friends with orion and tronus before the war, sometimes not. I have found similar plotlines that are same but earthspark.

I've played around with a bayverse x tfp continuity before as i think they would compliment each other nicely worldbuilding wise

I've probably posted about it before but the idea of Megatron having a friend/amica/whatever in the backround who absolutely gave the shovel talk to Orion and is frothing at the intake to bestow said shovel consequences to Oppy for breaking Megatron's spark

Tfp but Whirl comes to earth plotline, and Bulkhead actually gets super protective of Whirl because he fucking knew what that guy went through and is gonna set things right this time

"Oh Fuck Overlord? On Earth? I guess the autobots, Decepticons, and humans have to work together against this menace"

I've posted about it before but the LL coming to the tfp universe

The Transformers: the play au me and Techni went back and forth on!

Posted about this before but a tfa "Decepticons win and most/all autobots are captured" situation where a moderately higher ranking Decepticon finds the situation sorta fucked up and slowly but surely acts as a double agent to betray the Decepticons and get as many autobots as possible onto drumroll here a tfa version of the Lost Light!

The one tfa oc Firefłight being a lazy big bastard with a frenemies-ish situation with Fanzone and pushing Starscream off of tall buildings

Naturally rescue bots plotlines that include them coming to the tfp base oh naturally

I don't talk about it a bunch but during Serotonin Syndrome two: electric boogaloo I went on an absolute streak with the tf: a&p au that was very much based on a single valveplug tfa megs x tfp optimus ficlet I saw

I had this one au i wrote a bit about where the matrix got damaged in a boom boom and Oppy had essentially the opposite of the Orion Arc happen— he was in his old frame but has the same memories and personality (ish). I think i called it Optimus Pax

My Liason from Hell bayverse au, from au dungeons!

The one au I made a loooong time ago around the 4/9/21 thing, which was oc x oc with one having an alt based on draco lizards and the other on striped hyenas— i believe both ended up carrying at the same time, it was Ferrous and Carnage? Yeah.

I talk so little about spinocon aus but they have so many storylines like way so many

O ooo oo o i sorta forgot about it but my "Why Earth? Always Earth?" Au that was an animorphs x Transformers au, i never truly followed up on that

Back when i was watching Supernatural oh i naturally made an au based on that that i never wrote down, I think Miko was sooorta like a wereworf but fox based? Yeah it was Sam and Dean meeting the autobots but we can put Castiel and Crowley in there too

Lottttts of ex-DJD plotlines where said character joins the autobots

Oh i had this one idea based on the humans cloning a Cybertronian from CNA samples but i didn't follow up on it

That one au idea i had where Megatron was gonna have a new kid and a few of his previous ones who have never met ever over the vorns finally meet and it's almost a nostalgia sorta au but has the tone of a will reading, like fuck they not only learned of eavh other recently but they're gonna have a sibling? And these kids are soooo different because megs made them during vastly different parts in his life, it was tfp/mtmte continuity mix

I've ran "Starscream meets the rescue bots" storylines beforr

Just way too many work together plotlines based on the quality of mercy series

The blatant isakai au storylines where each human that becomes a Cybertronian died in their respective universes and woke up in the tfp one in Cybertronian frames!

#maccadam #transformers #aus #i have... too many.#too many damn aus #oh this easily covers a good 3ish years of various aus and storylines #alternate universes #most of these i never followed up on #and i don't think i will #some have posts #some don't #some of these are super duper receng #some I've been running for years #some are old as hell but i just remembered now #plus there's the goddamn go charlie! dream with it's own fan continuity ig? it was vaguely g1 based #^w^ i am. insane.#this took so long to write but i love it #it's mostly tfp_ a nice amount of tfa_ some rescue bots and bayverse_ and a single earthspark plotline

10 notes · View notes

oldestenemy · 1 year

Text

Through Another Lens - An Exercise in Futility

Eh fuck it I'm gonna start posting my lost boys fic here too, since my wizard101 stuff goes here already.

Michael clings to the tree like a lifeline, trying not to watch the carnage unfolding just feet away. Skin is ripped from bone, blood spills carelessly and needlessly as David and the others tear through party goers. He swears he can hear every heartbeat as it stops, can feel it as bones snap and flesh burns.

Join us.

Sam fleeing up the stairs, promising to help him get out of this-

His eyes are burning.

Have they gone that same red-ringed yellow? Full of the hunger and fire he can feel rising in his chest, like the other night, but there is no door between him and the blood this time. There is no mouse in a trap. There’s only the screaming.

He can’t pretend the fascination with the scene before him is gone.

He can’t lie to himself and say it’s not calling him.

Michael lets himself drop from the tree, not really aware of it even as he makes his way closer to the fire.

For how little his legs seemed to hold him up only moments ago—they move with purpose now. Steady and strong and driven towards something that feels inevitable. Every step is easier than the last, as though his feet barely hit the ground as he reaches the warmth of the firelight.

People are still screaming aren’t they?

It’s all muffled.

His head is rushing so loud.

There’s a moment when he grabs hold of someone that he sees Sam again.

Sees fear and disgust and it’s almost enough to freeze him solid.

Does his face look like the rest of them? Sunken skin clinging to bone?

Almost enough.

But he’s so hungry.

The first pull of blood hits his empty stomach and from the second it does, his only thought is more.

And more comes.

Hot and thick and full of salt, full of fire that crawls through his veins until the ache has left all his limbs and his exhaustion has melted into exhilaration.

And when the only heartbeat left in Michael’s ears is his own, the body drops.

There are four pairs of eyes on him.

And David looks as smug as ever, even coated red.

There is a long moment where he and David just stare at each other, where the crackle of the fire and the boom box come back into his ears. Where the truth of what he’s done hasn’t quite set in. There is only the fire behind him, and those bright blue eyes.

And then it breaks.

“Congrats, bud!” He jumps when Paul smacks him across the back. He still looks wild, hair a lions mane of blond and blood, but at least all their faces seem to be normal again. “Didn’t think you had it in you!”

“You owe Marko $20.”

“Shut up, Dwayne.”

How they’ve fallen immediately back into normal antics is beyond him. People are dead- he just killed someone. Why does he feel like he could take on the whole world? Why isn’t he losing his mind like the other night? Words are so far out of reach.

David is still uncharacteristically silent, Michael would have thought he’d take this opportunity to gloat further, or maybe even to offer more cryptic bullshit as he had on previous nights. But there was no such reaction, just the intense stare and that glow of triumphant smugness about him.

Michael runs a hand across his mouth and it comes away wet and red, shimmering in the firelight, just extra confirmation that this was happening. Wondering if it’s always going to feel like this, if he’s going to do it again. He has to do it again, knows it as soon as the thought crosses his mind. For now though, there’s a fog setting in. A heaviness to his mind threatening to pull him under.

Like that night below the bridge, in the air, waiting for the fall.

He’s still just holding on to the high it feels like he’s on, to the heat of the blood filling him.

Until reality inevitably returns.

And he falls.

Read the rest here <3

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #lost boys fanfiction #tlb 1987 #tlb fanfic #piles of vampire bs #i have a writeblr for this but shh

5 notes · View notes

we-are-dreamers42 · 28 days

Text

Nightingale: We Are Alike Part III

Bucky Barnes x OGcharacter

photo by me

After losing James Alexandra goes back to New York. The last thing she needed was to go to a party.

Word Count: 1,811

Series List

WARNING:

Chapter 20

Later that night I’m on a plane to New York City. It was too dark to see anything out the window, but I still stared. I could still feel his cold hand around my neck. The way he looked at me. The hollowness of his eyes. What did they do to him? Meeting the real James and watching him just disappear was devastating to see.

Steve met me at the airport. He was leaning on his motorcycle with a smile.

“How was your flight?”

“Long. You didn’t have to pick me up.”

“If you would’ve taken the Quinjet then I wouldn’t have to.

“I don’t know how to fly those things. Besides, I preferred the long flight.”

“Also I’m here to make sure you get to the Tower.”

“Why?” I whined. I hated it there. All the people in my business. Absolutely no privacy. I was forced to stay there for a month while the government decided if they were willing to pardon me.

Once I was pardoned I found my own apartment in the city. It’s lonely sometimes, but it’s what I needed.

“It’s a party that Tony is having tomorrow night. He wants everyone there.” I got off his bike as he pulled up to the Avengers Tower.

“I’m definitely not in a party mood.” After everything that’s happened the past three days. I just wanted to sleep for the next week.

“Thor will be there.” That would normally make me giddy. I had a secret crush on the God that wasn’t a secret at all, but right now I really didn’t care.

But to keep up an appearance, and to deflect that I’m in a really shitty mood. I smiled really big. “You really know how to manipulate me.”

“Stop making it so easy.” The elevator opened on the floor where all the Avengers rooms were. “You’re not coming?” I got off, but Steve pushed another button.

“I have some stuff to talk to Tony about. See you tonight.”

I waved him off as the doors closed. I made it to my old room, and instantly collapsed on the bed, and slept for the next nineteen hours.

Reluctantly I open the doors to the main area of the Tower. This was fine, just mingle a bit then slip out when no one is looking in an hour or two.

I headed straight to the bar. I needed a drink. Even if I couldn’t feel the effects. I still liked the taste of my vodka sour. Waiting for the bartender to make my drink I’m pulled into the conversation between Thor, Tony, Maria and Colonel Rhodes.

Rhodes was telling a story. The other three were paying attention, but I couldn’t. My mind wondered. Asking questions that just made me anxious.

Did James snap out of it? Or did he go back to HYDRA? I just left him there in the street. When he needed someone to trust I ran away. He did tell me to. Yet I still felt so guilty. I was a coward. I should’ve stayed, and made sure he was okay.

“Boom.” Rhodes said, pulling me back to the conversation. “You looking for this?” The four of us just stared at him.

“Boom. You looking for… Why do I even talk to you guys? Everywhere else that story kills.”

“That’s the whole story?” Thor asked.

“Yeah, it’s a War Machine story.”

“Oh, it’s very good then.” I had to take a drink so they couldn’t see my smile. The story might’ve not been funny, but this situation was hilarious. It pulled me out of a shitty mood. Even if it was only for a moment. “It’s impressive.” Thor continued.

“Quality save.” I giggled as I walked away.

I go up a level looking down on everyone. Steve, and Sam were talking at the railing.

“I’m happy chasing cold leads on our missing persons case.” Sam said sarcastically.

“Me too. It’s my new favorite hobbie.” I matched his sarcasm.

“You can join us on the next mission if you’d like.” Steve said.

“No. It’s not really my thing.”

“What is your thing?” Sam asked.

“Exercising restraint from kicking your ass.” I joked.

“Your world is crazy.” Sam said.

I could never be comfortable being in such a light. I may have the title of Avenger, but it was something that I still felt like I needed to earn. Line them all up and they belong here. Their skill and will to be this way. I’m not even close. I’m way to fucked up.

“Be it ever so humble.” Steve said.

“You find a place in Brooklyn yet?” I asked.

“I don’t think I can afford a place in Brooklyn.”

“Well, home is home.” Sam said.

“If you need a roommate, let me know.” I suggested.

“I’ll think about it.” I meant it more as a joke, but from his look he’s actually thinking about it. I guess it wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen.

Sam walked off, but Steve stayed.

“Alright spit it out.” He said.

“What?”

“Something is bothering you. What is it?”

“Nothing is bothering me.” I laughed to mask my lie.

“You would tell me if there was.”

“Of course.”

Steve, Thor, and I are talking to World War Two veterans. Steve was swapping stories with them when Thor pulled out a little flask.

He took Steve, and my drinks and poured the liquid in.

“I gotta have some of that.” One of the men said.

“Oh, no. See this was aged for a thousand years.” He handed back my glass. I took a sniff from the glass. The smell was so faint like nothing was there. “It is not for mortal men.”

“Neither was Omaha Beach, blondie. Stop trying to scare us. Come on.”

“You heard the man,” I said.

“All right.” As he poured very little in each drink. I finally tried mine.

I almost spit it back out when I felt the burn go down my throat. It was good, but damn was I not expecting that.

“I might actually get us drunk,” Steve said after his own sip.

“Those guys don’t have a chance,” I said coming to the same conclusion.

“Not at all.”

Two in a half minutes later. All the veterans are either talking to themselves or being carried out because they couldn’t walk. Then there is me who is a bit tipsy.

I’ve never felt this feeling before. I kinda liked it. But I found out the hard way that I ramble on about everything that I think. Everything.

“You are a gorgeous specimen,” I said to Thor. “Like if I didn’t want to throw up every time a man puts a hand on me I would totally try, and get in your pants. Respectively of course.”

“You are my sexual awakening,” I told Nat. “Also I wish I had your body.”

“The nerd thing is a huge turn-on,” I said to Banner.

“You are a very very beautiful man,” I said to Steve as he helped me to the couch so I didn’t say anything worse than I already have. As I said all that I knew that I should've. I wanted to stop, but it just flowed out.

“How come you’re okay?” I asked.

“Because I’ve been drunk before, and I know how to keep it in.”

“Unfair.”

“Do you need anything?”

Then of course I did something that I really shouldn’t have said. “I found him.”

His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. “Where?”

“I found him in Moscow.”

“Then we need to go now.”

“He’s not there anymore. I lost him in Paris. He could be anywhere by now.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“Because I needed answers that I didn’t want you to know.”

“Why would I-”

“Because I had things I need figuring out by myself. I’m fucked up, and I didn’t want you looking at me differently. Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad. I”

“Don’t say disappointed.”

“I understand. Just wish you told me your intentions. I don’t think you’re fucked up Alex.”

There was an exasperated gasp behind us. Tony stood there with a big smile.

“Don’t.” Steve said.

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth Rogers. You should not be using that language there, mister.”

“Did I miss something?”

“No you didn’t.” The others were making their way over. The party was over.

“I’m going to get going. I want to avoid the repercussions right now. Might even leave the state for a bit.”

“If you do go, keep in touch.”

“Of course Captain.” I saluted him, and hurried away before anyone could say anything to me.

The next morning I did just that. I took a road trip to LA. The long drive gave me time to be by myself, and wallow in my guilt.

“It’s not your fault.” Rox said.

We were sitting in her boyfriend's apartment. Very rich apartment. Definitely an upgrade from our last place. I’m glad she found someone. Or ones. She denied it all the time, but I knew she never had a boyfriend before because of me.

“It is actually. He was hidden in Russia, and here I come. The disaster and killer of peace. He’d still be there instead of in the clutches of his abusers.” I put my head in my hands. “What have I done?”

“There was no way you could’ve known. While you’re on your self discovery tour did you develop a way to see the future?”

“No, but-”

“Then it’s not your fault. As much as you don’t see it. You’re not a bad person. You had the best intentions.”

“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but I can’t. I appreciate it.”

“I know what you need.” She gave me her ‘I’m up to something smile.’

“What?” I asked wearily.

“You need to get laid.”

I hadn’t felt the need to burst out a laugh for a while. Leave it to Roxy to offer such useless advice. Then I realised she wasn’t laughing with me.

“My God, you’re serious.”

“Yes. You’ll realise all that built up tension. When was the last time you had an orgasim?”

“I’m not talking about this.”

“It’ll help.”

“Maybe for you. Not me.”

“Fine, but the offer still stands, just let me know.”

“I’m not having sex with you Roxanne.” I yelled out.

“Oh fuck no. I meant I give you permission to pick.” She handed me four pictures. Each one of her boyfriends.

“I can’t tell if this is worse. Are you pimping out their boyfriends?”

“No, they talked about it, and agreed. You can pick more than one if you want. Or all four. That’s a fine time.”

I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but it did allow me to forget James. If only for a moment.

0 notes

casbooks · 2 months

Text

Book 12 of 2024 (★★★★)

Title: LBJ's Hired Gun Authors: John J. Gebhart

Series: 1 of Gebhart in Vietnam ISBN: 9781935149651 Tags: Aviation, Helicopter, US USMC United States Marine Corps, VMO-2, VMO-6, VNM Vietnam Rating: ★★★★ Subject: Books.Military.20th-21st Century.Asia.Vietnam War.Aviation.USMC.Helos

Description: Many Vietnam memoirs have appeared in recent years, but not a single one has the humor, pathos, poignancy, and often sheer hilarity of John J. Gebhart's riveting LBJ'S Hired Gun. As Gebhart tells it, he was a "smart-mouthed college boy" who joined the Marines to see the world and "dust a few black pajamas for Uncle Sam." Two grueling tours of duty later (1965-1967) he returned home as a sergeant after surviving 240 combat missions (12 air medals) and being shot down twice. On his chest was the Navy Commendation Award (with the combat V).

LBJ's Hired Gun launches with Gebhart's grim recollection of the intense old-school brutality that was Marine Corps training on Parris Island before transitioning to his difficult journey for Southeast Asia aboard a troop transport with 2,000 other nameless grunts. These hardships offered but a glimpse of the suffering he and his comrades were about to endure. PARA His candid account of life and death in Vietnam is written with a lively, infectious flair. But be forewarned: no attempt has been made to sanitize this memoir with politically-correct language. Gebhart tells his story exactly as he and his comrades spoke in the 1960s. The result is a gripping, no-holds-barred memoir of his "misadventures in-country." He spares no detail and no one in his effort to convey exactly what he and his comrades experienced in Vietnam.

Here is how the author describes Vietnam: "What was not to like about Vietnam? It was a tropical paradise filled with lush green forests and mountains, endless rice paddies, and beautiful beaches with clear green water. You get all the free ammunition you want, endless cold beer to drink, and boom-boom girls to party with. Who could ask for more? Of course, there were some minor problems like all the VCs and NVAs who wanted to kill us. Everyone counted the days they had left before rotating back to the land of the big PX. I was having such a great vacation I signed up for another 12-month tour. I spent twenty-four action-filled months dusting VCs and NVAs, rescuing reconnaissance teams, flying LZ prep missions, delivering mail to bases where you came in shooting and flew out the same way. Somewhere along the line they decided I should be decorated for killing the enemy."

This is not just another book about Vietnam written by an officer. LBJ's Hired Gun is the story of an enlisted man who lived on a dead-end street in West Philadelphia, intent on lifting your spirits and putting a smile on your face as you journey with him across the world and meet the people, explore the places, and relive the events that shaped Marine Corps history in Vietnam from September 1965 to September 1967.

There are many outstanding Vietnam memoirs. LBJ's Hired Gun stands heads and shoulders above them all.

#Book #Books #Ebook #Ebooks #Booklr #Bookblr #history #military history #nonfiction #vietnam war #usmc

0 notes

arpov-blog-blog · 5 months

Text

enate Democrats successfully voted to dismiss two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday, just hours after the trial formally opened.

The speed of the impeachment trial was an embarrassing blow to Republicans who had threatened to gum up the Senate and delay the proceedings in a bid to highlight what they argue is Mayorkas’ failure to secure the border and stop the flow of thousands of undocumented migrants at the border.

However, Democrats, who control the upper chamber, easily dispensed with the pair of impeachment articles — as well as several motions to adjourn the Senate.

They passed a motion declaring that the first impeachment article — accusing Mayorkas of failing to enforce immigration laws — “does not allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor” and “is therefore unconstitutional.” The party-line vote was 51-48, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voting “present.”

Democrats also passed a motion declaring the second article — alleging that Mayorkas lied to Congress under oath — unconstitutional. That strictly party-line vote tally was 51-49.

The Senate then voted to end the trial "sine die," meaning for good, less than 3 1/2 hours after it began.

"Once and for all, the Senate has rightly voted down this baseless impeachment that even conservative legal scholars said was unconstitutional," said Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson.

“President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas will continue doing their jobs to keep America safe and pursue actual solutions at the border, and Congressional Republicans should join them, instead of wasting time on baseless political stunts while killing real bipartisan border security reforms.”

There was never a scenario in which Mayorkas would have been convicted, which would have required two-thirds, or 67 votes. From early on, the Democrats, led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, pledged to "expeditiously" deal with impeachment and then move on to other business.

Republicans, who had hoped to drag out the process and make it as politically painful as possible for Democrats, cried foul over how quickly the trial wrapped up. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said Democrats set a horrible precedent by rapidly dismissing the articles; he suggested this could mean the end of any future impeachment.

"It just won't make any difference, right? If you can impeach and then it will come over here and just be like, boom, gone, done, you don't have to do anything," Hawley said. "Why wouldn't a future Senate avail themselves of that to get rid of it and not have to go through a trial?"

Schumer fired back, arguing that it was Republicans who had set the "dangerous precedent" by "letting impeachment take the place of policy disagreements."

"Cabinet person after Cabinet person could be subject to this; we cannot have that happen," Schumer told reporters after the trial.

Senate President Pro Tem Patty Murray, D-Wash., presided over the trial on Wednesday.

A day earlier, the 11 House GOP impeachment managers, or prosecutors, walked across the Capitol to the Senate chamber and hand-delivered the two articles, accusing Mayorkas of failing to enforce immigration laws and secure the border, as well as lying to Congress under oath, including by saying the U.S. border with Mexico is “secure.”

After they read the articles on the Senate floor, the managers joined conservative senators at a news conference where they demanded a full trial and said a motion to quickly dispense with the articles would be unprecedented.

After the Senate voted to dismiss the articles, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his GOP leadership team issued a strong rebuke to Democrats.

“By voting unanimously to bypass their constitutional responsibility, every single Senate Democrat has issued their full endorsement of the Biden Administration’s dangerous open border policies," the GOP leaders said in a statement.

"Secretary Mayorkas alongside President Biden has used nearly every tool at his disposal to engineer the greatest humanitarian and national security catastrophe at our borders in American history."

DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg dismissed the "baseless" impeachment in a statement, saying, "Secretary Mayorkas will continue working every day to enforce our laws and protect our country. It’s time for Congressional Republicans to support the Department’s vital mission instead of wasting time playing political games."

0 notes

xtruss · 7 months

Text

2023 Person Of The Year: Taylor Swift

— By Sam Lansky | Photographs By Inez And Vinoodh For TIME | Published: December 6, 2023

Taylor Swift is telling me a story, and when Taylor Swift tells you a story, you listen, because you know it’s going to be good—not only because she’s had an extraordinary life, but because she’s an extraordinary storyteller. This one is about a time she got her heart broken, although not in the way you might expect.

She was 17, she says, and she had booked the biggest opportunity of her life so far—a highly coveted slot opening for country superstar Kenny Chesney on tour. “This was going to change my career,” she remembers. “I was so excited.” But a couple weeks later, Swift arrived home to find her mother Andrea sitting on the front steps of their house. “She was weeping,” Swift says. “Her head was in her hands as if there had been a family emergency.” Through sobs, Andrea told her daughter that Chesney’s tour had been sponsored by a beer company. Taylor was too young to join. “I was devastated,” Swift says.

But some months later, at Swift’s 18th birthday party, she saw Chesney’s promoter. He handed her a card from Chesney that read, as Swift recalls, “I’m sorry that you couldn’t come on the tour, so I wanted to make it up to you.” With the note was a check. “It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life,” Swift says. “I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.”

Swift’s accomplishments as an artist—culturally, critically, and commercially—are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point. As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell. As a businesswoman, she has built an empire worth, by some estimates, over $1 billion. And as a celebrity—who by dint of being a woman is scrutinized for everything from whom she dates to what she wears—she has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it. (“I don’t give Taylor advice about being famous,” Stevie Nicks tells me. “She doesn’t need it.”) But this year, something shifted. To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.

If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year? How many times did you see a photo of her while scrolling on your phone? Were you one of the people who made a pilgrimage to a city where she played? Did you buy a ticket to her concert film? Did you double-tap an Instagram post, or laugh at a tweet, or click on a headline about her? Did you find yourself humming “Cruel Summer” while waiting in line at the grocery store? Did a friend confess that they watched clips of the Eras Tour night after night on TikTok? Or did you?

Her epic career-retrospective tour recounting her artistic “eras,” which played 66 dates across the Americas this year, is projected to become the biggest of all time and the first to gross over a billion dollars; analysts talked about the “Taylor effect,” as politicians from Thailand, Hungary, and Chile implored her to play their countries. Cities, stadiums, and streets were renamed for her. Every time she came to a new place, a mini economic boom took place as hotels and restaurants saw a surge of visitors. In releasing her concert movie, Swift bypassed studios and streamers, instead forging an unusual pact with AMC, giving the theater chain its highest single-day ticket sales in history. There are at least 10 college classes devoted to her, including one at Harvard; the professor, Stephanie Burt, tells TIME she plans to compare Swift’s work to that of the poet William Wordsworth. Friendship bracelets traded by her fans at concerts became a hot accessory, with one line in a song causing as much as a 500% increase in sales at craft stores. When Swift started dating Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chief and two-time Super Bowl champion, his games saw a massive increase in viewership. (Yes, she somehow made one of America’s most popular things—football—even more popular.) And then there’s her critically hailed songbook—a catalog so beloved that as she rereleases it, she’s often breaking chart records she herself set. She’s the last monoculture left in our stratified world.

It’s hard to see history when you’re in the middle of it, harder still to distinguish Swift’s impact on the culture from her celebrity, which emits so much light it can be blinding. But something unusual is happening with Swift, without a contemporary precedent. She deploys the most efficient medium of the day—the pop song—to tell her story. Yet over time, she has harnessed the power of the media, both traditional and new, to create something wholly unique—a narrative world, in which her music is just one piece in an interactive, shape-shifting story. Swift is that story’s architect and hero, protagonist and narrator.

This was the year she perfected her craft—not just with her music, but in her position as the master storyteller of the modern era. The world, in turn, watched, clicked, cried, danced, sang along, swooned, caravanned to stadiums and movie theaters, let her work soundtrack their lives. For Swift, it’s a peak. “This is the proudest and happiest I’ve ever felt, and the most creatively fulfilled and free I’ve ever been,” Swift tells me. “Ultimately, we can convolute it all we want, or try to overcomplicate it, but there’s only one question.” Here, she adopts a booming voice. “Are you not entertained?”

A few months before I sit with Swift in New York, on a summer night in Santa Clara, Calif., which has been temporarily renamed Swiftie Clara in her honor, I am in a stadium with nearly 70,000 other people having a religious experience. The crowd is rapturous and Swift beatific as she gazes out at us, all high on the same drug. Her fans are singularly passionate, not just in the venue but also online, as they analyze clues, hints, and secret messages in everything from her choreography to her costumes—some deliberately planted, others not. (“Taylor Swift fans are the modern-day equivalent of those cults who would consistently have inaccurate rapture predictions like once a month,” as one viral tweet noted.)

Standing in the arena, it’s not hard to understand why this is the biggest thing in the world. “Beatlemania and Thriller have nothing on these shows,” says Swift’s friend and collaborator Phoebe Bridgers. Fans in Argentina pitched tents outside the venue for months to get prime spots, with some quitting their jobs to commit to fandom full time. Across the U.S., others lined up for days, while those who didn’t get in “Taylor-gated” in nearby parking lots so they could pick up the sound. When tickets went on sale last year, Ticketmaster crashed. Although 4.1 million tickets were sold for the 2023 shows—including over 2 million on the first day, a new record—scalpers jacked up prices on the secondary market to more than $22,000. Multiple fans filed lawsuits. The Justice Department moved forward with an investigation. The Senate held a hearing. Given these stakes, Swift had to deliver.

Ticketmaster and Live Nation executives testified at a Senate hearing after demand for tickets overwhelmed the siteAl Drago—Bloomberg/Getty Images

“I knew this tour was harder than anything I’d ever done before by a long shot,” Swift says. Each show spans over 180 minutes, including 40-plus songs from at least nine albums; there are 16 costume changes, pyrotechnics, an optical illusion in which she appears to dive into the stage and swim, and not one but two cottagecore worlds, which feature an abundance of moss.

In the past, Swift jokes, she toured “like a frat guy.” This time, she began training six months ahead of the first show. “Every day I would run on the treadmill, singing the entire set list out loud,” she said. “Fast for fast songs, and a jog or a fast walk for slow songs.” Her gym, Dogpound, created a program for her, incorporating strength, conditioning, and weights. “Then I had three months of dance training, because I wanted to get it in my bones,” she says. “I wanted to be so over-rehearsed that I could be silly with the fans, and not lose my train of thought.” She worked with choreographer Mandy Moore—recommended by her friend Emma Stone, who worked with Moore on La La Land—since, as Swift says, “Learning choreography is not my strong suit.” With the exception of Grammy night—which was “hilarious,” she says—she also stopped drinking. “Doing that show with a hangover,” she says ominously. “I don’t want to know that world.”

Swift’s arrival in a city energized the local economy. When Eras kicked off in Glendale, Ariz., she generated more revenue for its businesses than the 2023 Super Bowl, which was held in the same stadium. Fans flew across the country, stayed in hotels, ate meals out, and splurged on everything from sweatshirts to limited-edition vinyl, with the average Eras attendee reportedly spending nearly $1,300. Swift sees the expense and effort incurred by fans as something she needs to repay: “They had to work really hard to get the tickets,” she says. “I wanted to play a show that was longer than they ever thought it would be, because that makes me feel good leaving the stadium.” The “Taylor effect” was noticed at the highest levels of government. “When the Federal Reserve mentions you as the reason economic growth is up, that’s a big deal,” says Ed Tiryakian, a finance professor at Duke University.

Carrying an economy on your back is a lot for one person. After she plays a run of shows, Swift takes a day to rest and recover. “I do not leave my bed except to get food and take it back to my bed and eat it there,” she says. “It’s a dream scenario. I can barely speak because I’ve been singing for three shows straight. Every time I take a step my feet go crunch, crunch, crunch from dancing in heels.” Maintaining her strength through workouts between shows is key. “I know I’m going on that stage whether I’m sick, injured, heartbroken, uncomfortable, or stressed,” she says. “That’s part of my identity as a human being now. If someone buys a ticket to my show, I’m going to play it unless we have some sort of force majeure.” (A heat wave in Rio de Janeiro caused chaos during Swift’s November run as one fan, Ana Clara Benevides Machado, reportedly collapsed during the show and later died; Swift wrote on Instagram that she had a “shattered heart.” She rescheduled the next show because of unsafe conditions, and spent time with Benevides Machado’s family at her final tour date in Brazil.)

Top: Swift told TIME she started training six months in advance of the Eras Tour, which kicked off in March. Courtesy TAS Rights Management Bottom: Austin, Andrea, and Scott Swift with Taylor at NYU graduation in 2022 where she received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts. Courtesy TAS Rights Management

Swift is many things onstage—vulnerable and triumphant, playful and sad—but the intimacy of her songcraft is front and center. “Her work as a songwriter is what speaks most clearly to me,” says filmmaker Greta Gerwig, whose feminist Barbie was its own testament to the idea that women can be anything. “To write music that is from the deepest part of herself and have it directly speak into the souls of other people.” As Swift whips through the eras, she’s not trying to update her old songs, whether the earnest romance of “You Belong With Me” or the millennial ennui of “22,” so much as she is embracing them anew. She’s modeling radical self-acceptance on the world’s largest stage, giving the audience a space to revisit their own joy or pain, once dismissed or forgotten. I tell Swift that the show made me think of a meme that says, “Do not kill the part of you that is cringe—kill the part of you that cringes.” “Yes!” she exclaims. “Every part of you that you’ve ever been, every phase you’ve ever gone through, was you working it out in that moment with the information you had available to you at the time. There’s a lot that I look back at like, ‘Wow, a couple years ago I might have cringed at this.’ You should celebrate who you are now, where you’re going, and where you’ve been.”

Getting to this place of harmony with her past took work; there’s a dramatic irony, she explains, to the success of the tour. “It’s not lost on me that the two great catalysts for this happening were two horrendous things that happened to me,” Swift says, and this is where the story takes a turn. “The first was getting canceled within an inch of my life and sanity,” she says plainly. “The second was having my life’s work taken away from me by someone who hates me.”

Swift shows me some things she loves in her apartment: a Stevie Nicks Barbie that sits still boxed in her kitchen, sent to her by the artist; the framed note from Paul McCartney that hangs in her bathroom; tiles around the fireplace that Swift found shopping in Paris with her mother. Connections to her family are everywhere, including a striking photo of her grandmother Marjorie, an opera singer and the inspiration for a track on her album evermore. Swift grew up on a Christmas-tree farm in Pennsylvania, with her younger brother Austin; her father Scott was a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, and Andrea worked in marketing. Her family still works closely with her today. “My dad, my mom, and my brother come up with some of the best ideas in my career,” Swift says. “I always joke that we’re a small family business.”

After moving to Nashville as a teen, she signed with Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine Records. Swift’s songwriting ability was evident from the first lyrics of “Tim McGraw,” her debut single: “He said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame that night—I said, ‘That’s a lie.’” Even for country music these lyrics are literary—conjuring a romantic fantasy, then deflating it a line later. The fairy-tale promise of love and intimacy became a runner in Swift’s work as a songwriter, something she’d repeatedly espouse, then skewer; she was self-aware about the role narrative played in her expectations. She was seen as a gifted pop-country ingenue when, in a now infamous moment, Kanye West interrupted Swift onstage at the 2009 VMAs while she was accepting an award. The incident set in motion a chain of events that would shape the next decade of both artists’ lives.

It was around that time, Swift remembers now, that she began trying to shape-shift. “I realized every record label was actively working to try to replace me,” she says. “I thought instead, I’d replace myself first with a new me. It’s harder to hit a moving target.” Swift wrote songs solo, incorporated diverse sonic influences, and placed more clues about personal relationships in her lyrics and album materials for fans to decode. Her epic ballad “All Too Well,” from 2012’s Red, epitomizes Swift’s superpower as a songwriter, deploying tossed-off details like a forgotten scarf that comes back at the song’s end to stab you in the heart—but it also had a secret message hidden in the liner notes. When an extended version of the song hit No. 1 last year upon its rerelease, it wasn’t only because the song is extraordinary, but because it has its own lore, like Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” if it came with an experiential puzzle for fans to solve. “She’s like a whole room of writers as one person, with that voice and charisma,” Bridgers says. “She’s everything at once.”

Swift knew she had to keep innovating. “By the time an artist is mature enough to psychologically deal with the job, they throw you out at 29, typically,” she says. “In the ’90s and ’00s, it seems like the music industry just said: ‘OK, let’s take a bunch of teenagers, throw them into a fire, and watch what happens. By the time they’ve accumulated enough wisdom to do their job effectively, we’ll find new teenagers.’” She went full-throttle pop for 2014’s 1989, putting her on top of the world—“an imperial phase,” she calls it. She didn’t realize it would also give her much farther to fall. Public sentiment turned—sniping about everything from her perceived overexposure to conspiracy theories about her politics. “I had all the hyenas climb on and take their shots,” she says. West wrote a song with vulgar lyrics about her, and claimed that Swift had consented to it, which Swift denied; West’s then wife, Kim Kardashian, released a video of a conversation between West and Swift that seemed to indicate that Swift had been on board with the song. The scandal was tabloid catnip; it made Swift look like a snake, which is what people called her. She felt it was “a career death,” she says. “Make no mistake—my career was taken away from me.”

It was a bleak moment. “You have a fully manufactured frame job, in an illegally recorded phone call, which Kim Kardashian edited and then put out to say to everyone that I was a liar,” she says. “That took me down psychologically to a place I’ve never been before. I moved to a foreign country. I didn’t leave a rental house for a year. I was afraid to get on phone calls. I pushed away most people in my life because I didn’t trust anyone anymore. I went down really, really hard.” (Kardashian wrote, in a 2020 social media post, that the situation “forced me to defend him.”) Swift’s next album, 2017’s Reputation, featured snake imagery; the video for “Look What You Made Me Do” saw her killing off younger versions of herself. She remembers Reputation being met with uproar and skepticism. “I thought that moment of backlash was going to define me negatively for the rest of my life,” she says. She had also satisfied her record deal with Borchetta, and knew she wanted out. “The molecular chemistry of that old label was that every creative choice I wanted to make was second-guessed,” she says. “I was really overthinking these albums.”

She met with Lucian Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group, and Monte Lipman, who runs Universal’s top label Republic Records, to talk about signing a deal that would give her more agency. Today, Grainge is perhaps the most powerful executive in the music industry, but, as I sit with him in his office in Los Angeles, he describes himself as an “old punk” who operates on instinct more than metrics. He told Swift, he says, “We will utilize everything that we’ve got as a company for you.” Swift felt like she’d been given carte blanche: “Lucian and Monte basically said to me, ‘Whatever you turn in, we will be proud to put out. We give you 100% creative freedom and trust.’” It was exactly what she needed to hear most when the chips were down.

Yet the release of Swift’s first album with Republic, 2019’s Lover, coincided with the second big upheaval in her professional life: Borchetta had sold Big Machine—and with it, Swift’s catalog, valued then at a reported $140 million—to Ithaca Holdings, which is owned by music manager Scooter Braun, a former ally of West’s. “With the Scooter thing, my masters were being sold to someone who actively wanted them for nefarious reasons, in my opinion,” Swift says. (“It makes me sad that Taylor had that reaction to the deal,” Braun told Variety in 2021.) The sale meant that the rights to Swift’s first six albums moved to Braun, so whenever someone wanted to license one of those songs, he would be the one to profit. Swift rallied her fans against the deal, but still felt powerless. “I was so knocked on my ass by the sale of my music, and to whom it was sold,” she says. “I was like, ‘Oh, they got me beat now. This is it. I don’t know what to do.’” She went back to work, using the pandemic lockdown to pare back her sound on critically acclaimed albums folklore and evermore.

Around the same time, she started thinking about rerecording her old albums in an effort to wrest back control. “I’d run into Kelly Clarkson and she would go, ‘Just redo it,’” Swift says. “My dad kept saying it to me too. I’d look at them and go, ‘How can I possibly do that?’ Nobody wants to redo their homework if on the way to school, the wind blows your book report away.” Since Swift wrote her own songs, she retained the musical composition copyright and could rerecord them. She also negotiated to own the master rights for her material when she moved over to Republic in 2018, so she now owns her new material and the rerecorded songs. (Major labels have since made it more difficult for artists to rerecord their music.) She began rerecording subtly different versions of her old albums, tagging them “(Taylor’s Version)” and adding unreleased tracks to redirect listenership to them. She frames the strategy as a coping mechanism. “It’s all in how you deal with loss,” she says. “I respond to extreme pain with defiance.”

Top: Swift performs at Foro Sol in Mexico City on Aug. 24. Hector Vivas—TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management Bottom: After playing Kansas City in July, Swift returned in October to support her boyfriend, Chiefs star Travis Kelce. David Eulitt—Getty Images

Grainge calls the rerecording project “bizarrely brilliant and unique”—something that only an artist at her level could pull off. “It’s got such a narrative—there’s a reason for it.” He shakes his head. “Imagine Picasso painting something that he painted a few years ago, then re-creating it with the colors of today.” Part of the success story, Swift says, is the freedom she received from the label to follow her instincts. “If you look at what I’ve put out since then, it’s more albums in the last few years than I did in the first 15 years of my career,” she says. That prolific output has fueled her ascension. “She could serve two terms as President of the United States and then go to Las Vegas,” Grainge says. “Who else can do that?”

In the grand narrative of Swift’s life, as she rose this year, her foes’ fortunes also seemed to turn. Over the summer, it was reported that several of Braun’s key clients—chief among them Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande—were no longer being managed by his company, while West’s antisemitic and other offensive remarks led to his losing key endorsement deals. Swift knows firsthand that fame is a seesaw. “Nothing is permanent,” she says. “So I’m very careful to be grateful every second that I get to be doing this at this level, because I’ve had it taken away from me before. There is one thing I’ve learned: My response to anything that happens, good or bad, is to keep making things. Keep making art.” She considers. “But I’ve also learned there’s no point in actively trying to quote unquote defeat your enemies,” she says. “Trash takes itself out every single time.”

The premiere for Swift’s concert film takes place at the Grove, an outdoor mall in Los Angeles, which has been shut down for the event; Swift has packed 13 screens with thousands of fans. She goes, one by one, to each theater thanking sobbing audience members for being there. Like the tour, the film, which was released directly to theaters without a traditional partner, is an event. “We met with all the studios,” she tells me, “and we met with all the streamers, and we sized up how it was perceived and valued, and if they had high hopes and dreams for it. Ultimately I did what I tend to do more and more often these days, which is to bet on myself.” She credits her father with the idea. “He just said, why does there have to be a—for lack of a better word—middleman?”

In the theater excitement ripples through the crowd, a mix of fans and Swift’s friends, as we wait for her. To my left are two dedicated Swifties, sisters who introduce themselves as Madison, 23, and McCall, 20, and who are still reeling from taking a selfie with Swift on the red carpet. Their wrists are covered in friendship bracelets, some of which are deep cuts—such as no it’s BECKY, a reference to a beloved Tumblr meme, and BLEACHELLA STAN, for Swift’s 2016 platinum blond bob—and Madison reveals a tattoo on her forearm that says “Taylor’s Version.” Both tell me their favorite album is Reputation. They are my favorite people I have ever met, and I want to talk to only them for the rest of my life. Madison admires Swift for her vulnerability—“which is insane, when she’s under endless scrutiny”—while McCall cites her consistency, which she calls “a lost art form.” When I ask how McCall feels about Swift’s romantic life, she fields the question elegantly. “It’s a disservice to her to focus on that stuff,” she says. “She’s so good at making her personal experience relate to millions of people. When I listen to her songs, I think about what I’ve been through—not what she’s been through.”

Swift’s private life has long served as both grist for the tabloid mill and inspiration for her own work; she split from her longtime boyfriend, actor Joe Alwyn, earlier this year. Most recently, she’s been dating the NFL star Travis Kelce, as has been well documented when she attends his games. “I don’t know how they know what suite I’m in,” she says. “There’s a camera, like, a half-mile away, and you don’t know where it is, and you have no idea when the camera is putting you in the broadcast, so I don’t know if I’m being shown 17 times or once.” She is sensitive to the attention that’s put on her when she shows up. “I’m just there to support Travis,” she says. “I have no awareness of if I’m being shown too much and pissing off a few dads, Brads, and Chads.”

I point out that it’s a net positive for the NFL to have a few Swifties watching. “Football is awesome, it turns out,” Swift says playfully. “I’ve been missing out my whole life.” (A game she attended in October was the most-watched Sunday show since the Super Bowl.)

Given her complex history with public interest in her dating life, I say, it seems noteworthy that her relationship with Kelce has played out so publicly. Swift gently pushes back: “This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” she says. “We started hanging out right after that. So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other. By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.” The larger point, for her, is that there’s nothing to hide. “When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” she says. “The opposite of that is you have to go to an extreme amount of effort to make sure no one knows that you’re seeing someone. And we’re just proud of each other.”

Swift’s openness is one part of why her fan base leans heavily, though not exclusively, female. The Eras Tour was one critical piece of what Swift calls “a three-part summer of feminine extravaganza”—the other two parts being Gerwig’s box-office bonanza Barbie and Beyoncé’s blockbuster, culture-shifting Renaissance Tour. “To make a fun, entertaining blast of a movie, with that commentary,” she says of Barbie, “I cannot imagine how hard that was, and Greta made it look so easy.” (“I’m just a sucker for a gal who is good with words, and she is the best with them,” Gerwig says about Swift, whom she calls “Bruce Springsteen meets Loretta Lynn meets Bob Dylan.”)

Swift is no less effusive in talking about Beyoncé, who brokered a similar deal with AMC and shows up to Swift’s Los Angeles premiere; the next month, Swift returns the favor by attending Beyoncé’s in London. “She’s the most precious gem of a person—warm and open and funny,” Swift says. “And she’s such a great disrupter of music-industry norms. She taught every artist how to flip the table and challenge archaic business practices.” That her tour and Beyoncé’s were frequently juxtaposed is vexing. “There were so many stadium tours this summer, but the only ones that were compared were me and Beyoncé,” she says. “Clearly it’s very lucrative for the media and stan culture to pit two women against each other, even when those two artists in question refuse to participate in that discussion.”

To Swift, the success of all three feels like an inflection point. “If we have to speak stereotypically about the feminine and the masculine,” she says, “women have been fed the message that what we naturally gravitate toward—” She has a few examples: “Girlhood, feelings, love, breakups, analyzing those feelings, talking about them nonstop, glitter, sequins! We’ve been taught that those things are more frivolous than the things that stereotypically gendered men gravitate toward, right?” Right, I say. “And what has existed since the dawn of time? A patriarchal society. What fuels a patriarchal society? Money, flow of revenue, the economy. So actually, if we’re going to look at this in the most cynical way possible, feminine ideas becoming lucrative means that more female art will get made. It’s extremely heartening.”

Beyoncé joined Swift in Los Angeles on Oct. 11 for the first screening of her Eras Tour filmJohn Shearer—Getty Images for TAS

Amid so much attention, it seems noteworthy that Swift appears more relaxed in the public eye, not less—although I wonder out loud whether it just appears that way. She nods. “Over the years, I’ve learned I don’t have the time or bandwidth to get pressed about things that don’t matter. Yes, if I go out to dinner, there’s going to be a whole chaotic situation outside the restaurant. But I still want to go to dinner with my friends.” She sounds thoughtful. “Life is short. Have adventures. Me locking myself away in my house for a lot of years—I’ll never get that time back. I’m more trusting now than I was six years ago.”

She’s also having more fun. At her premiere, Swift sits in the same row as me, Madison, and McCall, singing along and dancing in her seat; we keep craning our necks to look at her, sharing thunderstruck looks: Isn’t this surreal? There are moments in the film when the cameras capture the enormous screens behind Swift onstage, and it feels like a house of mirrors, these myriad reflections of Taylor Swift—us watching her watch herself on a screen, which is itself showing Swift’s image on so many screens, the thousands of fans onscreen in the stadium and us in this theater, with Swift in the middle of it—all of us rapt, unable to look away.

Swift and I have been talking for a while now at her apartment, long enough that our coffees have gone cold and her cat Benjamin Button has trundled into the room, then gotten bored and left. She tells me about revisiting Reputation, which is perhaps the most charged era in the tour. “It’s a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure,” she says, laughing. “I think a lot of people see it and they’re just like, Sick snakes and strobe lights.” The upcoming vault tracks for Reputation will be “fire,” she promises. The rerecordings project feels like a mythical quest to her. “I’m collecting horcruxes,” she says. “I’m collecting infinity stones. Gandalf’s voice is in my head every time I put out a new one. For me, it is a movie now.”

It strikes me then that for all the talk about eras, it’s also worth thinking about genres—how Swift has moved between them in the stories she’s told. At first, it was a coming-of-age story, one about a young woman finding her way in the world and honing her voice before a fickle public. Then there were romances, great ones—tales of enchantment and desire, heartbreak and disillusionment, relationships that she both excavated for her songs and that the media documented for her with either joy or schadenfreude, depending on the day. There have been dramas with stakes so high and turns so twisty they feel Shakespearean in their scope, betrayals both personal and professional that have shaped her life. Occasionally, these stories have tipped into screwball comedy—like when a crowd in Seattle cheered so loudly it registered as an earthquake, or when, on a tour stop in Brazil, the local archdiocese allowed messages celebrating her to be projected onto the 124-ft. Christ the Redeemer statue. But they have one thing in common: Swift.

She is a maestro of self-determination, of writing her own story. The multihyphenate television creator Shonda Rhimes—no stranger to a plot twist—who has known Swift since she was a teenager, puts it simply: “She controls narrative not only in her work, but in her life,” she says. “It used to feel like people were taking shots at her. Now it feels like she’s providing the narrative—so there aren’t any shots to be taken.”

Here, Swift has told me a story about redemption, about rising and falling only to rise again—a hero’s journey. I do not say to her, in our conversation, that it did not always look that way from the outside—that, for example, when Reputation’s lead single “Look What You Made Me Do” reached No. 1 on the charts, or when the album sold 1.3 million albums in the first week, second only to 1989, she did not look like someone whose career had died. She looked like a superstar who was mining her personal experience as successfully as ever. I am tempted to say this.

But then I think, Who am I to challenge it, if that’s how she felt? The point is: she felt canceled. She felt as if her career had been taken from her. Something in her had been lost, and she was grieving it. Maybe this is the real Taylor Swift effect: That she gives people, many of them women, particularly girls, who have been conditioned to accept dismissal, gaslighting, and mistreatment from a society that treats their emotions as inconsequential, permission to believe that their interior lives matter. That for your heart to break, whether it’s from being kicked off a tour or by the memory of a scarf still sitting in a drawer somewhere or because somebody else controls your life’s work, is a valid wound, and no, you’re not crazy for being upset about it, or for wanting your story to be told.

After all, not to be corny, haven’t we all become selective autobiographers in the digital age as we curate our lives for our own audiences of any size—cutting away from the raw fabric of our lived experience to reveal the shape of the story we most want to tell, whether it’s on our own feeds or the world’s stage? I can’t blame her for being better at it than everyone else. It’s also not like she hasn’t admitted it. She sang it herself, in her song “Mastermind,” off last year’s Midnights, in a bridge so feathery you could almost miss that it marks some of the rawest, most naked songwriting of her career: “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid/ So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since/ To make them love me and make it seem effortless/ This is the first time I’ve felt the need to confess/ And I swear I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian because I care.”

She tells me she wrote that song after watching the Paul Thomas Anderson film Phantom Thread, which—spoiler—culminates in the reveal of a vast, layered manipulation. “Remember that last scene?” she says. “I thought, wouldn’t it be fun to have a lyric about being calculated?” She pauses. “It’s something that’s been thrown at me like a dagger, but now I take it as a compliment.”

It is a compliment. After I leave Swift’s house, I can’t stop thinking about how perfectly she crafted this story for me—the one about redemption, how she lost it all and got it back. Storytelling is what she’s always done; that’s why, Chesney tells me, he gave her that gift all those years ago. “She was a writer who had something to say,” he says. “That isn’t something you can fake by writing clichés. You can only live it, then write it as real as possible.”

She must have known that all the references she made had hidden meanings, that I’d see all the tossed-off details for the Easter eggs they were. The way she told me that story about Chesney, she knew there was a lesson, about the power of generosity, and how a crushing defeat can give way to a great and surprising gift. The way she said, “Are you not entertained?”—surely we both knew it was a quote from Gladiator, a movie in which a hero falls from grace, is forced to perform blood sport for the pleasure of spectators, and emerges victorious, having survived humiliation and debasement to soar higher than ever. And the way before I left, she showed me the note from Paul McCartney hanging in her bathroom, which has a Beatles lyric written on it—and not just any Beatles lyric, but this one: “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein and Megan McCluskey •

Styled by Heidi Bivens at Honey Artists; hair by Holli Smith; make-up by Diane Kendal; nails by Maki Sakamoto; production by VLM Productions

On the covers: Jacket, denim shirt and turtleneck by Polo Ralph Lauren; dress by Area; bodysuit by Bardot, tights by Wolford; earrings are artist’s own

On the inside: Jacket, denim shirt and turtleneck by Polo Ralph Lauren; tuxedo jacket, tuxedo shirt, vest and pocket square by Ralph Lauren Collection, jeans by Polo Ralph Lauren; dress by Alaia; rings by Anna Sheffield and Cartier; earrings are artist’s own

#Taylor Swift #Article #2023 Person Of The Year #Sam Lansky #TIME

0 notes

inkandpen22 · 3 years

Text

Reckless Recognition (2/?)

Pairing: Colby Brock x Female!Reader

Warnings: mild swearing

Word Count: 3.2k

Part Summary: Y/N attends Sam and Kat’s engagement party. There, she meets all of their friends, finally in person. When she meets Colby, they hit it off instantly.... much to Y/N’s dismay.

Masterlist

After dinner with the happy couple, the three of us agree to meet at Sam’s house for the engagement party around 9 o’clock. From what I’ve learned from various conversations, Sam shared the house with a handful of his friends. According to Katrina, it’s stunning. The theme for tonight is Old Hollywood. Big jewelry, glam to the maximum, and gorgeous gowns. Nick picks me up at 8:30 sharp and we arrive right on time.

I have been many parties and galas in my lifetime but this is beyond any event I have ever seen or heard of without a doubt. Past the grand iron gate, Nick drops me off and as I climb out of the escalade my heels crunch against gold confetti scattered on the circle driveway.

“I’ll call if I need a ride back,” I tell him before he drives off.

“Yes ma’am.”

The mansion towers high into the sky nearly reaching the heavens. The boom of the base travels out of the house and I’m sure her neighbors are not quite fond of that. Marble stairs lead up to the giant glass and iron front doors. It feels as though I’m about to enter OZ as I push open one of the massive doors. Champagne bottles roll across the white tile as I cross the foyer into the rest of the house. Some faces are familiar, whether I know them personally, from video chats with Katrina or their presence on social media. Small party my ass, how many close friends could these two possible have?

“Y/N!” My name is called over the noise.

Katrina runs up to me in a light baby-blue silk gown. Pearls drape from her neck and it’s hard to ignore the presence of the diamond ring on her finger. After all, it’s the whole reason we’re all here. She pulls me into her embrace and Sam approaches us calmly with a glass of champagne in hand. Once we part, he hands me the drink and I thank him to which he offers me a kind smile.

“Glad you could make it,” he greets.

Kat takes my hand urgently. “Come Y/N! I must introduce to everyone!”

Before I have the chance to say a word, I’m pulled out toward the pool in the back of the house. Sam stays close, slipping through the crowd behind us. The cool night air covers my skin in a wave as we step outside. The house’s warmth created by all the bodies no longer protects my lightly covered body. I spot a group of people gathered around a table by the pool. A girl with black and white hair sits on a boy’s lap. Another duo sits across from them, but in separate chairs. I recognize the boys as Sam’s roommates, but I forget their names. There are more people scattered about the yard and gathered at the bar across the pool. Katrina pulls me over to the table where the couples are sitting.

“Everyone!” Katrina gathers their attention, interrupting whatever they were discussing. “This is my friend Y/N,” she announces enthusiastically to all of them.

A short brunette who I recognize as Tara greets me first. “Have we met before? You seem familiar?”

I swallow hard. I’m not sure how much Katrina told them, but the least amount of people who know what my dad does the better. Kat knows this so I trust she didn’t indulge more than necessary. I know she’s told Sam, him I don’t mind.

“Probably from calls with Katrina,” I determine with a smile, keeping the mood light.

She smiles brightly as the lightbulb goes off. “Aw yeah, maybe that’s it!”

Katrina goes around the table and formally introduces me to everyone. Corey offers for us to join them nicely. I sit between Devon and Sam as he and Katrina begin talking to Tara and Jake about the weekend’s plans. Devon is very sweet and welcoming. She does well at making sure I’m included, same with Corey. He asks me about Thailand, I assume it makes sense that Katrina told them at least that much. I mean, how does one explain that their best friend has been traveling non-stop for the last two years?

As the whole table begins talking to each other, my mind slips away. I scan the backyard and my eyes land a guy standing with his buddies by the bar. Randomly, his eyes meet mine and I’m quick to look away. He must be doing the same thing I am, looking about here and there as others talk. However, just in case he’s not maybe I should check again. I switch my gaze back to his direction and sure enough, his eyes remain on me. Startled, I turn to face the group at the table, too afraid to look back.

“Hey Sam?” I mutter to the boy beside me privately.

He leans in closer to me to hear better, “yeah, what’s up?”

“Who’s that at the bar? The one in all black,” I describe.

He nonchalantly checks over his shoulder, making sure to not draw attention to himself. If that kid recognizes me, I’m leaving. I don’t mean to sound rude, but I don’t really feel like talking about my dad when I’m at a party.

“I don’t see anyone at the bar dressed like that,” Sam points out.

I turn in my chair with confusion, “he’s right-”

I stop once I realize the guy has disappeared. How strange?

“Here, I’m heading over there anyway.” Sam announces and picks up my champagne glass off the table. “Let me grab you another drink.”

“I’ll come with,” I offer.

I check to see if anyone else needs a refill and Devon requests another Moscow mule. Sam and I head over to the bar to fetch everyone drinks. Instead of more champagne I request a gin and tonic, extra gin. I could use a little help to relax. This party is the most human interaction in large bulk I’ve had in a while.

“Oh shoot,” Sam huffs gently beside me. “I forgot my glass while grabbing Katrina.”

“I’ll go get it!” I offer, already heading back.

Sam thanks me up and down as I step away and I assure him it’s no trouble at all. I’m not watching where I’m going when my body hits a stiff object. I process it as another human being. My head snaps up as a cluster of people dart by I slip over some wet stone as I try to get out of the way. The stranger I bumped into catches me and I haven’t had a chance to get a look at them yet.

“Woah, I got ya,” a deep voice assures.

I steady my footing and collect myself. I apologize up and down to the person, having yet to see their face as I focus on the bottom of my gown.

“I am so sorry! I wasn’t looking and I’m a total klutz as it is,” I joke with a light chuckle.

“Nah, nah, it was all me,” the boy insists.

He helps me stand up straight and I toss my hair back with my hand. My eyes are met by the most exquisitely unique multi-colored eyes. I can’t decide whether they’re blue or green. Is it possible for eyes to have a hint of gray in them?

“I’m Colby by the way,” he introduces, overlooking my apology.

Distracted by his eyes, I mumble my name. “Y/N, nice to meet you...”

His lips curl up at one end creating the most cheeky smirk I have seen to date. Its his eyes that capture my attention most though.

“Have we met before?” He questions with furrowed brows. “You seem awfully familiar.”

Oh no.

“Oh... I uh... Well... probably from Katrina! We FaceTime a lot and stuff,” I rush out.

“Oh yeah! You’re that Y/N! She told us you were coming back,” Colby recalls enthusiastically “Well, it was nice meeting you too,” he chuckles lightly. “Officially, I should say.”

Sam comes up beside me. “You okay, Y/N?!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” I stammer nervously. “It was my fault really, I slipped. If Colby hadn’t helped me I would’ve definitely ended up in the pool,” I joke lightheartedly.

“Well I’m glad you guys have had the chance to meet,” Sam grins. “Katrina’s best friend and my best friend!”

I put two and two together and realize Colby is the guy Sam shares one of his channels sign on YouTube. I’ve seen a few videos of their’s, but I always paid more attention to Sam’s videos considering he was Katrina’s boyfriend.

“It was really cool of you to travel all the way here for this weekend,” Colby compliments. “How long were you in Thailand for?”

“A couple of months, mainly for the winter,” I explain. “Before then I was in Bora Bora.”

His eyes widen in surprise. I suppose Kat didn’t share the details of my travels with her friends.

“Wow! Have you been all over the world?” Colby questions in astonishment.

“Mainly Europe and Asian,” I describe. “Depending on the time of the year, I try to stay in the areas that are the warmest. I’m not a huge fan of winter.”

“Cool, huh?” Sam gloats to Colby.

“Beyond,” the dark haired boy gushes.

“How long have you been traveling?” He inquires, genuinely curious.

“Two years now, I haven’t stopped really. I’m originally from here and this is the first time I’ve been home.”

I don’t really know why I’m indulging so much to Colby. I suppose it’s just easy. His genuine enthrallment is endearing.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Sam excused himself, giving Colby a pat on the back.

I glance over my shoulder and watch Sam return to the bar. I was hoping he wouldn’t leave me. He was my security blanket. It’s not that I’m anti-social, it’s just I’m not used to socializing in a party setting. These last two years, I’ve tried to keep to myself and lay low. I’ve spoken to people on my travels, but only made acquaintances. My mind travels to the bakery I used to visit in Genoa. A father and son ran it. I got to know them relatively well, despite the language barrier. We exchanged the same few sentences every Monday, but I could tell they were quite fond of me in return.

“How long are you in town for?” Colby pulls me from my thoughts.

I turn my attention back to him and it takes me a minute to process what he said. “Oh uh, a week,” I mutter.

His brows rise in a hint of astonishment. “So short? Are you heading back to Thailand?”

“I... I don’t know,” I answer frankly. “I haven’t really thought about it.”

I’m sort of living day by day, figuring things out as I go. I haven’t had any obligations in quite some time so planning a schedule hasn’t exactly been required.

“I have a place you could go,” Colby claims, enthused.

I giggle, should be interesting. “Really? Where?”

“San Diego,” he suggests with a grin.

I laugh, “but that’s only two hours away.”

“Exactly,” he remarks with a witty smirk.

“Oo slick boy, huh?” I tease playfully.

“Not really,” he shrugs.

I notice a sudden blush appear on his cheeks.

“What? All bark but no bite then?” I chuckle with a raised brow.

“That depends,” he grins. “What do I have to do to keep talking to you?”

Geez, he’s good. I wonder if he knows it too?

_____________________________________

Hours go back and the party dies down, the remaining people being the closest friends of the couple or the roommates. Colby and I have since settled at the tiki bar, we’ve covered almost every topic about our travels. While my destinations are determined by randomness or climate, Colby seeks out the most haunted places in the world, very different ideals.

“You should come with us sometime!” He offers.

“I’ll think about.” I nod, genuinely considering it. A haunted house or hotel, better yet abandoned mental hospital, does sound rather intriguing. Best part, my parents would be livid.

Kat appears beside us and grips my forearm with a worried expression. “Y/N, could I borrow you a minute?”

My heart sinks. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head and glances at Colby before redirecting her attention back to me. “Let’s go talk inside...”

I nod and follow her inside. The anticipation is dreadful. I can help but assume the worst, either my parents know I’m back in town or worse the media knows I’m back.

The kitchen is empty, everyone having gone outside a while ago.

“What is it, Kat? You’re killing me here,” I chuckle nervously.

She rocks on her heels nervously and slides her phone across the counter. “You may or may not be trending on Twitter...”

“You’re kidding!” My eyes grow wide as I frantically pick up the device. Open to Trending, sure enough my name is on the list.

“Someone must’ve recognized you at the airport,” she concludes.

“Great,” I huff. I set down the phone and hide my face in my head.

“What’s doing on?” Colby asks as he enters through the screen door.

“We should watch a movie!” Kat blurts out.

He frowns in confusion. “It’s four in the morning?”

“So? You old man!” She playfully nudges him on the arm, laughing nervously.

“Yeah Kat, maybe I’ll just head home and lay low for a while,” I determine.

“No please! I just got you back!” She takes my hands pleadingly. “You can stay over tonight!”

“Did I hear slumber party?” Devin giggles as she enters the house with Corey.

“I vote scary!” He announces.

“Dido!” Jake adds close behind them.

“There’s that new James Wan movie!” Colby points out to the gathering group.

Sam steps inside and jogs off. “I’ll go set it up!”

“Here Y/N,” Kat starts to escort me away. “Let’s go find you something comfortable to sleep in!”

___________________________________________

After Kat and I change into t-shirts and shorts for bed, we squish together on the couch. When I mean everyone, I quiet literally mean everyone. Sam, Kat, Jake, Tara, Corey, Devon, Colby, everyone. Pillows and blankets make a fort around us. Kat leans against Sam, but squeezes my knee whenever something scary happens. Colby on my other side appears unfazed by the events, but nevertheless appears to enjoy it.

“She going to open the door and the little girl will be there,” Colby predict quietly between us.

“How much you wanna bet?” I challenge.

“Um.... Twenty bucks,” he offers.

I offer my hand. “You’re on.”

The two of us watch intently as the scene unfolds. The woman creeps up to the door, the anticipation building. Then, she swiftly swings it open, only for there to be no little girl.

I giggle.

Colby glances over at me with a grin. “Guess I owe you.”

As the movie continues, it grows in intensity as most scary movies tend to do. Everyone is more clumped together than they were before. Pillows being used as shields for the eyes.

“No! No! No! Idiot!” I hide my face in my hands, earning a few chuckles from Colby.

“She’s literally so dumb!” Sam groans.

Suddenly, there’s a jump scare getting most of us to at least jolt, not Colby though. Kat steals my pillow to hide her face. Desperate, I rest my head against Colby’s shoulder, blocking my vision with my hand. His arm that he kept resting on the back of the couch slides down onto my shoulders and then to my back, pulling me into him. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t comforting. I hope he doesn’t take my action that wrong way. I meant what I said before, once my duties to Kat are over, I’m leaving Los Angeles in the dust.

___________________________________

The movie end, everyone decides to call it a night. Ironically, we all start heading upstairs as the sun begins to creep up the horizon. Kat and I shuffle up the stairs chatting about the movie, particularly the dramatic jump scare that got almost everyone screaming. As everyone starts to head to their individual rooms, she leads me to the guest bedroom that I’ll be staying in tonight.

She starts to open the door. “No, I literally thought-”

Suddenly, a figure appears out from within the pitch black room.

Kat screams and stumbles back into me.

“Oh my God!” I scream, nearly falling to my knees as I grip Kat’s arm.

The familiar sound of Sam’s laugh fills the air and he steps into the light of the hallway.

“Not funny!” Kat shouts, swatting him on the arm.

He laughs. “Oh by the way, Y/N! We think the house is haunted!”

My eyes grow wide. “You’re kidding!”

Corey and Devin pass by on the way to his room. “With the amount of stuff we mess with? It for sure is.” He chuckles.

“Especially in the guest bedroom, that’s where we do all the rituals and seances,” Sam wiggles his fingers at me mocking a ghost.

“Lovely, I won’t sleep a wink tonight,” I huff.

“Don’t listen to them, it’ll be okay,” Kat assures me, pulling me into a hug. “Goodnight! I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Me too. Night, Doll,” I smile as we part.

Before climbing into bed, I clean off my makeup and get ready in the attached bathroom. I play music to drown out the silence. After the movie, Sam scaring Kat and I, and the boys telling me about their stupid rituals this room creeps me out. I suspect this will be an all-nighter and Friends marathon kind of night. I toss my hair up into a scrunchie and step out into the bedroom.

A figure moving by the bookshelves in the corner makes me jump. “Jesus Christ!”

“Shit!” Colby shouts, dropping something on the floor as he spins to face me.

I clench my chest, hunched over in a pant. “What the fuck!”

“Oh my God! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” He laughs, picking up the object I realize to be a video game case. “We keep all of us Xbox stuff in here. I was just pulling GTA.”

“Oh okay, it’s fine.” I exhale deeply as I catch my breath.

“Well, good night...” He expresses a soft smile and starts toward the door. “Sorry again.”

“Actually Colby?”

He hums, stopping in the doorway to turn to me.

“Would you... Would you wanna play in here?” I suggest a tad awkwardly. “I just don’t think I’ll sleep anytime soon and could use the distraction.”

He chuckles, the smile on his face growing to a grin. “Sure thing.”

I nod, moving toward my bed to sit on the edge. Colby squats down in front of the TV stand and starts to set everything up.

“Have you played before?” He asks as he heads over to join me.

“I may have lived in some remote places but I don’t live under a rock,” I tease.

I completely kick Colby’s ass round after round. Easily an hour goes by before I check my phone to see what time it is, even when I do and see the early hour, we keep playing. Our laughter and banter fills the room, drowning out the dreadful silence. I can’t remember the last time I played a video game or even had a normal night like tonight. Hanging out with friends and acting my age isn’t exactly a daily occurrence. I’ve just been alone for so long I’ve become used to it. I had forgotten what it’s like to feel normal. It’s nice.

_______________________________

Masterlist

Tags: victoriasgril gillybear17 wishyouwheregay ilmhss thismaarryyyy-18 girlbai0325

#colby brock imagine #colby brock #Sam and Colby #colby brock fanfic #colby brock fluff #colby

177 notes · View notes