#and like i’m not tolerating it well because i’m falling into seasonal depression

[coccolithophore]

i’ve been in charge of managing my entire family’s emotional well-being since i was 9 years old and no matter how much i voice this they always fall back on me to make sure everyone is okay even when i have openly voiced that i’m not in the right emotional state to provide support and i’m getting so tired of it i’m ready to run away into the woods lol

[kaaytea]

hey! i hope youre doing great! if it isnt a problem, could you do atsumu, oikawa, sakusa and kuroo with a s/o who overthinks alot and notices that theyre hanging out with someone else alot recently and is scared that they're going to leave but they reassure reader that they won't leave? it'd be nice if it was fluffy :(((

Hi cutie! I'm doing well and I hope you are too! I apologize if Sakusa isn't very..Sakusa-y?? I'm still figuring him out a bit 😅 I tried my best to make it fluffy enough, I hope what I wrote will suffice

The Dangers of Overthinking

⤷Includes: Oikawa, Kuroo, Atsumu, Sakusa

-------------------------------------------

Oikawa

It's no secret that Oikawa is a pretty popular guy

And usually this doesn't bother you much, no matter how busy Oikawa was he always had little ways to reassure you he wasn't ignoring you

Gradually you started to notice him spending less time checking in on you throughout the day, the most you'd get is a pat on the head, a quick kiss, or a short text before Oiks slipped away with the rest of his team

You did your best to ignore the little voice in your head expressing that he was avoiding you. Oikawa was committed to his sport and that was fine, this behavior was normal

But the one thing you couldn't shake was whenever he went off with the team there was a person you didn't recognize in the group

You'd met his team HUNDREDS of times and by this point you knew everyone by name, number, and position from the hours you've sat with Tooru and watched game recordings. It was the middle of the season so they couldn't have suddenly got a new player

So who was this person? And why was your boyfriend always gravitating towards them?

Overthinking was dangerous for you, the longer you dwelled the further you fell into the dark doubts tucked into the back of your mind

This continued on for weeks until one day you just stayed in bed wrapped in blankets with only your thoughts

Setters are trained to notice small things, little details that could reveal a weakness in defense, anything that would help them decide who to set too

Oikawa was beautifully gifted in that aspect of a setter, it didn't take long to notice how distanced you'd become

Originally he thought it was a personal matter so he let you have your space, except unlike the other times you didn't bounce back. Infact, you were getting further from him the longer it went on

Oikawa quietly opened the door to your bedroom, letting his volleyball bag slip off his shoulder and placing it by the door

He sat down carefully on the side of your bed before he playful poked your side

"(y/n)-chaaan~"

You didn't respond and only pulled the sheets tighter around you causing a pout to form on his face

He gently pulled the sheets away from your head and pressed his hand to your forehead

"You don't have a fever so you're definitely not sick.....wanna tell me what's wrong?"

"You're not gonna leave me, right?"

Your voice was so quiet he just barely heard what you said

The hand on your forehead slipped down to your cheek, his thumb brushed softy across your cheek bone

"Why would I leave you?"

"You keep hanging around that person"

"Ah, be a little more specific sweetie"

"The blonde one! The blonde that's been hanging off you when you're with the team!"

You finally open up to him and what's he do? LAuGh! He's laughing at you!

Tears started to burn in your eyes as you quickly went to pull the covers over your head and flip onto your side facing away from him, only Oiks was a step ahead and pulled you into a sitting position facing him

"W-wait wait, Let me explain! (Y/n)-chan, that's our new manager. They've been helping me plan out drills for the team."

"Oh"

Well now you felt a bit silly

After a few seconds of silence you sighed and hid your face in Oikawa's shoulder. His arms wrapped around you body and he leaned back against your headboard

He spent the rest of the night holding you, whispering promises of never leaving you and how you're more important to him than anything else

Kuroo

Kuroo's friendly personality seemed to just attract people

I mean it was definitely something that hooked you so it was understandable why people tend to flock to him

It's just frustrating when he seems to have plans with people all the time, you barely see him these days

You didn't want to bring this to his attention in fear of being seen as clingy or controlling; Tetsu was your partner and had his own life, he wasn't a pet you could whistle for whenever you felt lonely

But you couldn't help but feel a bit....rejected

You were only about 5 minutes into lunch break and so far all you've done is lay your head on your desk and watched the rain fall outside

The gloomy day enhanced your depressed mood, your mind caught in the whirlpool of overthinking

Suddenly a little package was placed in front of you, followed by the sound of a chair being pulled up to your desk

You lifted your head from the desk only to find the very person that's been stuck in your mind sitting infront of you

"I got you melon bread from that bakery you like down the street, I would have given it to you earlier but you weren't here when I got to campus this morning."

"I missed my train..."

Kuroo snorted at your response and muttered something about you being cute before pulling out his lunch and beginning to eat

You opened the melon bread package, it looked delicious but your appetite seemed to have vanished

Kuroo watched you tear off a piece of the bread before placing the piece back on the wrappings with a sigh

Something was definitely wrong, you never turned down pastries from that bakery

"Not hungry?"

"Not really..."

"Did something else happen this morning? You're looking a bit...dejected"

You could never lie to Kuroo, and at this point you were so fed up with feeling alone that you didn't care about looking clingy, so you told him

He listened carefully to what you said and when you finished your rant he reached over the desk to hold your hands in his

"I'm sorry I made you feel like that. It won't happen again, I promise.....You've gotta tell me these things though, ok? I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."

You could tell he meant every word he said, if there was one thing you knew about Kuroo it was that he prided himself on staying true to his promises

You felt a weight off your shoulders the second he pressed a kiss to your hand

You even got your appetite back and devoured the melon bread he got you!

Atsumu

You'd of never expected Atsumu to spend time with someone outside of the volleyball team

Especially one of his fan girls of all people

All this interaction between the two started abruptly during lunch break. The girl had bounced up and pulled him away from your little group before anyone could get a word in, everyone just stared as the blonde was dragged down the hall

You were use to the fan girls, 'Tsumu never gave them the time of day so it was never a problem, but this just felt...off

Why was he suddenly paying attention to one of them? Was he bored of you? We're you just not enough to satisfy his ego?

You were torn from your thoughts by a gentle call of your name

You turned your attention from the clipboard in your lap to the direction of the voice meeting Kita's soft but steady eyes

"You seem less energetic than normal, have you eaten anything today?"

"Oh I'm fine Kita-senpai, you don't have to-"

You were cut off by him handing you a banana and a rant about how even their manager has to be in peak condition

You couldn't refuse Kita so you took the food with a smile and powered through the rest of practice

You left immediately after you finished cleaning the gym, ignoring the calls from Atsumu to wait up for him

You tried to walk fast so he wouldn't be able to catch up but the universe seemed to be against you as he easily jogged up to you minutes after you left

"Wassup with ya today? Kita-san said you were actin' weird."

"I'm surprised you noticed he said anything, your attention seems to be on other people."

Atsumu stepped infront of you, blocking you from walking further down the road

"Wass that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know Miya, why don't you ask your little fan girl"

You stepped around him attempting to run the rest of the way home but his hand grabbed your arm, spinning you back around to face him

Atsumu's hands held you in place to keep you from running away

"That's what this is about? That annoyin' scrub who won't leave me alone?"

"Annoying scrub?"

Atsumu went on explaining how he was partnered with her for a project in Japanese history and how even after they finished the project she wouldn't leave him alone (no matter how many times he told her to go away)

After he explained you felt a little better but you still felt insecurities scratching at your mind

You reached out for his hand and started walking again, keeping your eyes on the ground as you walked

"You didn't think I was cheatin' on ya.....right?"

"....."

".....I'd never leave ya for someone like that, yer the only one I've got my eyes on. Plus, yer the only person I've found that can tolerate me."

You laughed slightly at that, he wasn't completely wrong. Atsumu was a rather complex person but you found something enjoyable in that complexity

He let go of your hand and pulled you into his side, keeping his arm wrapped around your waist as you walked

Sakusa

Ok so maybe you were a bit jealous

Not much, but just a bit

You should have expected Sakusa would have admirers as the ace of Itachiyama (not to mention he was a very handsome guy)

But it still catches you off guard with how outwardly flirty your fellow manager was

Like they even know you're in a relationship with Kiyoomi and yet they continue to throw themselves at him

Being jealous over that was honestly very silly on your part because Sakusa has expressed their flirting makes him uncomfortable

So really there wasn't anything to worry about

Well...

That is until one day you overheard them telling Sakusa they enjoyed going out last night and that they should do it again

Which he responded with a "maybe"

If you were paying attention you would have noticed the flat tone to his voice and how his body language exuded 'Im very uncomfortable please go away'

But you being you, the second the manager opened their mouth your mind shut down and your blood went cold

They went out together last night?

You avoided everyone for the rest of practice, offering instead to clean practice jerseys and water bottles

Those were jobs usually done by two people but you needed to get away from everyone and you were hoping the jobs would take up the rest of practice

By the time you were nearly done with cleaning the water bottles, Sakusa had joined you at the outside fountain, mask pulled up on his face, his bag on one shoulder and yours on the other

"Do you want help?"

"You don't have to Omi.....it's my job anyways"

Despite your dismissal of his offer, he placed both your bags down and helped you clean the rest of the bottles, even going as far as carrying them back into the gym for you

You followed him over to the equipment room, you unlocked the door and took the box from his arms and put it on It's shelf

"You ready to go?"

"Almost, I have to throw the jerseys into the dryer. You can go on ahead without me."

"I'll wait, I want to avoid Komori. I don't feel like being dragged out with his friends again."

Dragged out with his friends? So it wasn't a secret date, Sakusa was forced to go by his cousin

Sakusa made his way by you to the gym's laundry room, Swifty tossing the practice jerseys into the dryer and then returning to your side

"You can stop worrying now, I know you overheard our conversation earlier. I would have much rather spent the night with you than them....they're too pushy for my liking."

He picked up your bags again and offered you his arm (something he much preferred over holding hands)

though he was usually a stoic person, you could just see the warmth his eyes held as he looked at you

You linked your arm with his, soaking up the heat from his body and the calm atmosphere that surrounded him

[queer-and-dear-books]

Title: The Charm Offensive

Author: Alison Cochrun

Genre: Fiction | Romance | Friendship | Drama | “Reality” TV | LGBTQ+

Content Warnings: Homophobia | Biphobia | Racism | [All from one character]

Overall Rating: 9.9/10

Personal Opinion: The Bachelor but make it gay. No, this doesn’t mean one guy dating multiple men. This means the bachelor falls in love with his male handler and they embark on this thrilling, romantic ride of an adventure while on the show. Every moment made my heart swell in the best way possible and in the end, I had fallen for Dev and Charlie as well. As I’m sure you all would too. Them and their found family of queers.

Couple Classification: Dev Deshpande X Charles Winshaw = Nerd X Prep/Nerd

Do I Own This Book? I want to. One day.

Spoilers Below For My Likes & Dislikes:

Likes:

- Okay, I’ve only recently seen the appeal of reality TV with my brief fall into Big Brother. That being said, I still loathe the Bachelor franchise. I hate the heteronormative, toxic, female VS female storylines that they push and I hate the attention-seeking drama hogs that are cast every season. That is why this book is amazing. It completely subverts all those tropes by having an incredibly diverse cast and crew. I mean, we have the bachelor himself, the prince in this case, Charles Winshaw. He’s a tech mogul with a hot body who has severe anxiety and OCD. He’s also on the ace spectrum (probably) and gay (although he was repressed and didn’t even realize it). His love interest is his openly gay handler, Dev Deshpande who is desi and is suffering from depression. We have Jules Lu, Chinese and bi. We have Parisa Khadim, pan and brown. We have Skylar Jones, black and ace, with a non-binary partner. We have Ryan Parker who is the queer white guy. We have Angie and Daphne, the final two girls in the competition who are both queer! (Lesbian and bisexual respectively) And it was just so amazing watching this journey as Charlie and Dev fell in love and became this found family with everyone else.

- Charlie and Dev are just so adorable. They’re so patient and understanding with one another. When Charlie had his panic attacks, Dev was by his side. He never judged Charlie for his “quirks” and he paid so much attention to Charlie that he learned his coping skills like tapping out “calm” in morse code or breathing three times. He didn’t need Charlie to tell him those things. He just did everything he could to calm Charlie and accommodate his needs to make his experience on the show as pleasant and tolerable as possible.

- Likewise, when Dev had his depressive episode in Munich, Charlie stayed. When others left and were pushed away like Ryan and Jules, Charlie chose to stay. Because Charlie knew what it was like to push people away when all he wanted was for them to stay. And he was there for Dev every time. They knew when the other one was spiraling and instinctively went to look for one another when they were on set and it just made their chemistry so great to witness. It’s no surprise that literally all of their friends knew they were together.

- I love how this book strongly advocates for therapy and talking about how you don’t need to have your sexuality figured out at any specific point in time. For Dev, he was five. And for Charlie, he was twenty-eight. Both are okay and valid. And I love that they made each other feel valid. And for Dev, who was so afraid of being seen as not Fun Dev for going to therapy, I am so happy that Jules, Skylar, Parisa, and Charlie all talked about their own experiences in therapy to make him feel valid too.

- Okay, Dev flying Parisa out to be with her best friend on his birthday and Charlie flying out Leland Barlow, Dev’s favorite pop singer, to do a concert in Cape Town, South Africa, was just so sweet of them both! It made me feel so giddy too, just seeing them have fun at that concert especially after that big fight they had. Like Dev knew he was a dick and Charlie still did this for him all because of the depressive episode. I want a sugar daddy that will do that for me.

- And Charlie reading Dev’s entire script and loving it and telling Dev that it needs to be sold even though it’s about brown men falling in love is just so adorable and validating? I love that so much, especially as a writer. And the fact that Charlie realized his feelings after reading it was just so, so great! And the way he realized that his OCD wasn’t triggered when he was close to Dev and only Dev was just so sweet. Ugh, they’re just so fucking sweet!

- Their respective best friends are so funny and confident and I adore them. Jules and Parisa knew that their best friends were fucking and set them up at almost every turn. Parisa especially is hilarious and just brilliant. She was ready to sue Ever After for discrimination and became their new head of HR. She gave Charlie condoms, lube, and vividly drawn diagrams of anal sex. She is a queen on every level. And then we have Jules with that “practice date” idea and also pretending she couldn’t be his fake girlfriend so she can push the Dev/Charlie agenda.

- I knew that that ending was going to happen. I knew that they were going to slap all of the footage that they could find of Charlie and Dev together to create the first ever gay season. But just seeing the storyline the editors made actually play out was just so amazing. And getting to see Dev’s reaction for all 12 hours of it was just so pure. And the fact that Mark Davenport just rolled with the punches with his hosting and was essentially a huge fan of them finally just coming together was adorable! Because when Dev burst out on stage to apologize and also profess his love to Charlie, it honestly almost made me tear up. I wish it was real so that I could’ve watched it live.

- Dev’s boundless energy (when he’s not depressed) is so adorable. When he was happy and running through first-class on the airplane, when he was talking about falling in love in a boat, when he wanted to take photos of his version of Charlie to keep for himself, when he was arguing with producers for Charlie’s sake, I can absolutely see why Charlie fell in love. And when Charlie was drunk and talking about how Dev is the most beautiful man in the world and deflecting every gay man’s advance because he wanted them to know that Dev deserved to be loved far more than him, it just meant so much to me as someone with self-confidence issues too.

- Angie and Daphne are just so cool honestly. I love the girl power friendships on the show. And Angie is just a delight in general.

Dislikes:

- The only reason why this does not get a perfect score is due to a personal issue. I have beef with Dev. His reaction being to leave the show and ghosting all of his friends was just wrong. He could have just looked at any of their texts and realized he should’ve watched the show earlier. But no, he isolated himself. And for a guy trying to focus on his mental health, I just want to say pushing all of your fucking loved ones to the curb is not the way to do it. I am glad they all confronted him about it because fucking hell, I’d be so mad at him. And I’m glad he apologized to Charlie. But yeah, if Jules and Parisa beat the hell out of him, I would not have blamed them for that. He really ditched them all and his lovesick mentally ill lover too. Fuck. And his parents were watching Ever After and they just didn’t think to encourage him to watch too? I get they (and his therapist, Alex) were all trying to respect his boundaries but FUCK. Three whole months of radio silence and Charlie sent him a whole ass voicemail basically pouring his whole heart out and I just hated him for a solid four pages.

- Fuck Maureen Scott. She was the showrunner and she was just a monster. She really said, “I can’t be queerphobic, I hired all these queer employees.” And in that same breath, demonized Angie, a black bi woman. She said their next princess couldn’t be bisexual and that’s just so wrong. I’m glad she got fired and I’m glad the next princess ended up being lesbian. Let’s fucking go Daphne! I am actually less mad at Maureen than I am at Dev and the rest of the crew for never even trying to stand up to her in the past. Granted, they didn’t have the privilege and power that Charlie did as a cis white man with money but still. Well, at least Skylar admitted that they’d been complicit for too long. Charlie really pulled a power move at the end though when he got them to reedit and overhaul everything.

- I don’t know how I feel about Ryan. I do get why he broke up with Dev but damn, he really did act like a dick in the beginning. He didn’t even own up to it. He just let Dev be depressed and made no real effort to care about him. He claims he cares about Dev and didn’t want Dev to be in the closet for Charlie but he does not know how to be even a little empathetic toward people. He’s insensitive and abrasive and I wish we saw more of his caring side earlier.

- Fuck Megan too. And Delilah as well. And Maureen for sending them into Charlie’s room for that altercation. And also sending in that one boyfriend to just deck Charlie in the face. But I do love that we saw Charlie grow over the course of the show through that. He couldn’t speak up for that girl when her boyfriend was calling her slut but he spoke up against Delilah calling Megan “crazy.” And he later stood up to Maureen when literally no one else did. He had severe anxiety and he did that. He stuck to his morals and stuck to the love he had for Dev and I respect that so fucking much. Especially after all that Ryan said about him. I think that was the point Ryan realized that Charlie really was good for Dev.

- I’m still mad at Dev.

- Also a bit at Charlie and Dev for not getting together sooner. Like, I get why they couldn’t but the fact that they wouldn’t admit it wasn’t just practice sooner is just so mind-numbingly stupid to me. You’re telling me everyone else around them realized they were in love and they were out here just fervently making out and then going, “He doesn’t feel the same.” Then again, both of them somehow grew up thinking that they didn’t deserve love. Charlie I get after everything he’d gone through with his bigoted brothers and close-minded father and smug dudebro co-worker Josh Han. Dev, I get a lot less. So I am once again mildly mad at Dev. I just wish he would’ve reached out to Charlie or watched the damn show! I mean, I get why he refused to watch but his parents could’ve at least told him about the edit he was getting!

- I’m still mad at Dev for icing out Charlie like that. Charlie was just the sweetest  person and Dev just… UGH. But they were back together in the end and I am glad they are. I just wish the road to getting there hadn’t been so stupid.

[voidix]

So my dear friend @kittytudor and I were discussing some takes the fandom has on Dazai and especially his interactions with Mori and I thought I’d share

I really hate the train of thought that goes like “they’re super smart so they know life has no meaning and nothing matters” like that’s cynical for no reason whatsoever and just nihilistic

Yea when you are intelligent you see all the bad in the world and feel like you’re powerless to stop it a lot of times but the things is

You know scientists see beauty in everything geologist will get excited about literal dirt a marine biologist about a gold fish. When you’re intelligent you see all the bad but also all the good

However it’s easier to see the bad and often times it clouds your view but part of the healing process is starting to see beauty and happiness in the smallest things and I think that’s a journey Dazai is slowly going on.

So I really don’t think intelligence is the issue here and I’m gonna assume you’re an edgy bastard if you say so

I feel like Dazai’s issue is more the environment than anything and the lack of meaningful relationships. I know we clown the scene where he says actually living is okay now 1 day after meeting Chuuya but here is the thing. This might have been the first time he had someone his age who wanted to hang out with him or even less just someone his age who tolerated him. I personally know nothing about his life pre mafia but you can assume it wasn’t a good life if at age 14 you decide the bloody mafia is preferable to wherever you’re at at the moment

In my opinion Mori didn’t encourage it per se but he didn’t try to stop it either I really think that for him he did not expect Dazai would go through with it (again) and /or as cruel as it sounds if he actually did it which Mori didn’t think was likely he had one less rival to worry about but I really think that’s Mori’s reasoning for staying “neutral” for lack of a better word on this issue

That being said I’m sure being surrounded by death and suffering did not do any good for an already depressed 14/15yo

Which leads me to the second point. I really don’t think Mori expected Dazai to leave or tried to make him leave. For Mori Dazai was a powerful asset because of his ability and because of his intelligence that y’all are obsessed with. So why would you want to push that person away and it’s not like he was encouraging him to suicide here which would make much more sense than wanting him to leave.

And I have evidence

I’m gonna start it with: Oda did not die to set an example I don’t think so no. In his conversation with Chuuya he said something like “being a leader means making sacrifices for the well being of the group” or something like that and that’s what he did here.

He sacrifices Oda to get the permit.

The strange thing is I do think Mori meant what he said to Chuuya that he is a leader but also a servant to the mafia he wants the mafia to gain more power and that’s why he did what he did to get the permit.

I do think it could be a lesson to Dazai but not in the “if you cross me this is gonna happen to you” because Oda didn’t cross him Oda didn’t want power he is the last person who was interested in that. I think if anything it was more a lesson as in “when you take over this is something you’ll have to do and I’m showing you how it’s done”

Evidence for that is he was chuckling when he mentioned that possibility that Dazai would kill him and take one someday. And I agree that Mori

Wouldn’t mind if that was better for the Mafia. Like he wouldn’t make it easy for him and he wouldn’t give up but if he is defeated he wouldn’t be angry or annoyed because like I mentioned above I do think he was genuine when he said he is also a servant to the Mafia

My other piece of evidence is that when he showed Dazai the permit he seemed proud of what he’s done. The way he presented it and the entire scenario he seemed proud more than smug. If he really wanted Dazai out I feel like he would’ve been more smug about the whole thing and we know he can do that well.

And obviously there is also the fact he offered him not once but twice to come back. And what’s interesting is that the first time the offer was secret like he sent Gin and Higuchi and it was in a shady ass tunnel

Now the other time is where it gets interesting because it was very public in front of Dazai’s colleagues the black lizard and Fukuzawa.

Now Mori is a smart guy but also he has a sense of pride as we learned so I really don’t think he would risk being humiliated in front of Fukuzawa of all people just to mess with Dazai and he seemed genuinely surprised when Dazai said “you kicked me” and he didn’t offer him to just come back no he offered to be back as an executive and having Dazai decline and clown him in front of Fukuzawa like that I don’t think he would risk that if he was just playing

The thing is Mori is smart but he has tunnel vision in my opinion. He was so focused on getting the permit he forgot that this plan has consequences that aren’t just “we get the permit”

And also one of Mori’s issues is that he never takes into consideration people’s emotions. You can predict human Behavior to a certain degree a lot of times you can know what to

Say or what to do to get a certain result but the thing is humans aren’t algorithms they don’t always operate on logic they have emotions. And these emotions can be so strong that they override any crumb of logic left which is something I think Mori fails to understand. That’s why he didn’t expect Dazai to leave he forgot about the emotional factor.

That’s what Mori lacks but Dazai has and my evidence for this is a scenario we laughed at because it was presented in a funny way but I think that’s something that shows that Dazai is better at this 4D chess game than Mori.

On the Moby Dick he knew that Akutagawa would abandon everything to talk to him. If Dazai only operates by thinking about logical Behavior he wouldn’t have told Atsushi to do this but he realises that the emotional factor is one of the strongest drives humans have.

And you know I think Mori knows that when it comes to 4D chess Dazai would defeat him but he doesn’t mind that he isn’t scared of that. In dead Apple he couldn’t have possibly known the whole business with the pill but he told Chuuya to interfere. Mori has a strange sense of trust towards Dazai even now that they’re part of different sides.

I think Mori is has always been aware that although he says he does Dazai doesn’t actually want to die and I think the scene with the hyper and hypo tension medication in 15 shows this. If you actually want to die why would you Mix medicine with effects that cancel out each other and Mori is a doctor he knows this. That’s why I think he didn’t expect Dazai to commit and that he believes Dazai actually wants to live and because of that he will try and preserve himself and by extension Yokohama which is why he told Chuuya to go in dead apple, which is why he let Akutagawa go on the Moby Dick in season 2 because he realized Dazai wanted him to go there and he trusts Dazai to a certain degree .

I really feel like his underestimated the emotional factor and this will ultimately lead to his downfall. Like he didn’t expect Dazai to leave he wouldn’t expect anyone to react super emotional to god knows what he’ll do and thereby underestimate their response to that which will make him meet his end.

I don’t think the “you kicked me” is Dazai in denial he acted ok emotions or at least that’s not the whole thing. I think that Dazai’s reasoning for saying that is this:

Oda died so Mori can get more power which was part of Mori’s plan all along so looking at the bigger picture it was Mori’s plan and actions who drove me out of the Mafia so he basically “kicked me out”

Also I wanna add that I feel like Mori because he underestimates the emotional factor he doesn’t understand to this day why Dazai left like he knows it’s related to oda he can follow that train of events but in his mind it doesn’t make logical sense why Dazai would do that which is why he didn’t manage to win Dazai over back to The Mafia because in his mind be doesn’t know the logical reason why Dazai left which is also another reason why he was so surprised when Dazai said he kicked him

Also I’d like to add that I really don’t think he felt threatened or wanted to just get rid of him

Dazai was already suicidal so if it would very easy to make it look like that. And like I mentioned before if it was the best choice for the Mafia I really don’t think Mori would be that bothered about being replaced by Dazai.

I also don’t think he thought Dazai would be more useful on the outside because once again why lose a valuable addition like that

And it’s not like

He wanted to use him

As a spy or anything we know that would’ve been arranged differently see Ango

So Mori the logical guy he is wouldn’t want his enemies to have someone with Dazai’s ability because that’s a pain in the ass and also

He wouldn’t want an insider like Dazai to join his enemies and spill all his secrets. Dazai had a very high rank and like I said I don’t think Mori expected him to leave so he had no reason to hide things from

him so even without his ability he would be a very strong asset to the Mafias enemies so there is no way Mori would think he is more useful on the outside since

1. we already said mori has tunnel vision he couldn’t possibly predict that much that he thinks Dazai is better out

2. We established that he isn’t afraid of him

3. He wouldn’t want the ability and the information to fall into his enemies’ hands

4. If he was actually scared and wanted to get rid of him making it seem like suicide or actually driving him to suicide would be much easier especially since mori is a doctor

So yeah this is long thanks if you read until the end it was super fun to write this id love to know what others think I’m sorry if it’s a bit unorganised it’s copied from my notes app

[extremelyblackandwhite]

champagne problems

pairing: mob!bucky barnes x reader

warnings: smut

a/n: oooo smut. the next chapter is the last and i’m depressed about it already

TOLERATE IT - TIS THE DAMN SEASON

Bustling crowds or silent sleepers, you’re not sure which is worse ...

Her shift dragged; it seemed as if the clock was stuck and moving only a minute after three hours had passed and even though there was the same sea of people coming through the doors of the club, the shift felt slow. Everything was in slow motion and her eyes daren’t move from the bar. Bobby was still on holiday and as such it as merely her, ignoring everyone and every word which came her way and ignoring Edward who kept nagging her about Mr. Barnes, a person who she didn’t want to look at.

She didn’t understand how one could just pretend to be entranced by another one and just turn it on yet she would also not debate her mind about what her feelings were for her boss, the same boss she was supposed to betray. She was supposed to betray him and yet she didn’t know how or even if she wanted to. Why should she? They clearly had sent Edward in and him being the spineless vermin he was, she was sure he’d quickly join his group by quickly sleeping with the woman who surrounded the mob boss. The women ... the women were always so beautiful, beautiful enough to make Y/N want to make herself up before she came up to the bar, feeling too bland next to the gorgeous women who paraded around him. Beautiful dresses, spotless faces, beautiful makeup, beautiful hair and here she was, in her old cardigan cleaning the bar with dirty rags stinking of a mix between bleach, peanuts and booze. 

Once the lights were up and every single glass was washed and placed on their due shelf for tomorrow she was out. Bag hanging from her shoulder and books against her chest, she took the backdoor. The front door always had freshly drunk or high people whom she wanted no problems with. As she pushed the door open, she saw him, smoking in front of him car looking so effortlessly cool, chic even. It was pouring, raining so harshly it would drench anyone who dared step foot in yet he just stood there unbothered, cigarette still somehow burning, water drops rolling of his trench coat. Usually she would’ve entered the car and allow herself to be driven home; instead she turned her head to the side, pretending she hadn’t seen him. He, however, had seen her. 

      - Wanda picking you up today, petal? - he said in a mocking tone, throwing the butt onto the bin.

      - No, sir. - she stopped, still not daring to look at him. - I thought about walking home alone. 

      - At night? When it’s pouring? Sometimes I think you like to get hurt, petal. 

      - With all due respect, Mr. Barnes, I think I should go by myself.

      - Please. - he sighed, hands on his hips. - Get in the car, I’ll drive you the fastest I can. You don’t even need to look my way. 

Her lips tightened. It was pouring rain, her clothes were already as drenched as they could be and she had been less than 10 minutes. She sighed, walking through puddles of water towards and away from him and inside his car, setting against the leathered seats. Bucky chuckled, watching from the side of his eye as she crossed her arms across her chest like a kid, avoiding his gaze as if he were the devil. Maybe he was, but he would never act like it in front of her.

She watched the rain fall down the window like waterfalls. It was bad, bad enough she could start seeing the water almost pool on the asphalt of the road. As they kept driving through the darkness, only the headlights giving light to the dark road until blinding lights came into their front view. Police came into view with their lights but all she could see was the bar barring the only way into her road. Bucky pulled the window down, charming smile as the cop realised who he was speaking with. She looked at her knees, perfectly knowing who it was, perfectly knowing if he discovered who she was so would James and she was locked in a car with him. Not a good combination.

     - Evening, officer. What seems to be the problem?

     - Mr. Barnes, sir. - she tipped his cap at him. - The road is flooded. We feared this and warned all residents to be at home before 5PM. 

     - I understand, officer but you see my employee here lives just down the road. Can’t I walk her in? Come on, you know I always pay you back, double even.

     - It’s up to your knees, sir. You’re better off in a hotel for the night, m’am. Safety protocol. 

James turned around his car making her look his way as he started driving away from her home. What was he doing? How was she supposed to go back home and how was she supposed to calm down when he was driving her away from her home. Was he going to drop her at a hotel? Was he going going to drop her, she didn’t know. She opened her mouth, waiting for words to come out but nothing came out. She didn’t know what to ask, what to say other than yell at him to let her out yet she didn’t. Y/N didn’t want to yell at him. 

He noticed this, slowing down the normal fast pace at which he liked to drive, only now hearing to both of them breathing and the water drops of rain hit the windows. He could see her, through the mirror, her face leaning against the window, eyes reflection a sort of fight he was sure never to completely understand, only partially knowing. His eyes returned to the road ahead, the lights of each house dimming as everyone prepared to hold each other tight, hold their loved ones as the storm continued. He could only look at himself, almost as his vision refused to notice she was right there but she was. Both locked in the same car. 

     - You can stay at my place tonight. - he mumbled. - You’ve been there before. I’ll drive you back first thing in the morning. 

She didn’t replied, instead letting her own eyes close momentarily, head laying against the water stained glass. She listened to the rain, considering all her life choices or what she was even doing. Was she okay with becoming this close to the mob boss? Becoming part of the inner group of females who followed him, just another name in a big list. Was that the question she should be asking? No. Did she really want to ask herself the question she had to? Also no. It was much easier to tell herself it was business. It was much easier to lie than tell the truth.

Y/N opened her eyes once again as the car slowed down and the sounds of rain drops were no longer around heard. They were parked inside his garage, one which she had seen before. He was the first one out the car, opening the door before walking away. She made haste to get off the car, almost power walking after him as he pressed the lift’s button to open the doors. The doors slide open and he stepped in, her following behind.

    - I’ll be sleeping in a hotel down the street so you can calm down. 

    - You can stay if you want. I mean, it’s your house. 

    - Why should I? So you can freak out about the possibility of me killing you?

    - That’s not it. 

    - Afraid I’m going to force myself on you? - he scoffed. - You know what, Y/N? I’m just not gonna be there and you can do whatever you want without blaming me for whatever theories you have. 

    - Why are you so mad suddenly? 

    - I’m not mad.

    - Yes, you are. - she crossed her arms. - Excuse me if I don’t feel comfortable around you when you have more than two hundred kills blamed on you, when you’re constantly surrounded by girls and the rumours and the guns you always carry. 

   - I’ve killed two people in my whole life. Two. - he pointed his finger at her, making her take a step back. - They deserved it and I’m so tired of trying to make you feel safe. I get you a job and you’re upset, I get you a job waitressing so idiots won’t treat you like shit and you think I’m being the bad guy. I drive you home every single time and you still look at me as if I’m going to kill you. You can think whatever you want, I’m done. 

She was going to rebuff him, tell him he was wrong but that wasn’t true. She couldn’t say he was wrong out of principle and because once the doors slide open, he disappeared into his big apartment. Y/N stayed behind, heart heavy as she threw her soaked bag onto the couch, sitting on it with a huff. Like a kid she put her hand under her chin, she knew he was right. Of course she knew. But she was the captain’s daughter, she was the one who’d heard tales and seen photos of terrible crimes on the kitchen table when she came in to show her dad her drawings. She knew it, she just didn’t exactly knew what he did. It was all very hush hush, mostly rumours, which ran from people to people and like the game of the broken phone, things got distorted.

She was the captain’s daughter but this wasn’t her. It wasn’t her identity. She knew better not to judge someone by rumours and gossip, her mother had taught her better than that yet she wanted to have her little walls. She wanted to be surrounded by that wall, that wall which said she felt absolutely nothing and that she was doing a good job. Y/N knew, she knew way too well what having those walls crumbling would mean. It would mean she was a woman infatuated with a man. Plain and simple, except it wasn’t and it wasn’t just a woman and just a man, it was the captain’s daughter and the mob boss. She knew not to slap labels on things but this is what it was, this was what she had been her whole life, not Y/N, not the nurse student, not her last name but the Captain’s daughter and him, him it was the same. She could count the number of people who knew his full name or even his first name in one hand. He was the boss. The mob boss, Barnes. Never James Buchanan Barnes. 

She sighed, looking to the chess board in the table in front of her. However, unlike everything else in the room which was absolutely spotless, organised and unseeingly unlived in, the chess board was still in the same position they had left it. Her fingers grazed the black chess king, holding it up to her eyes. The piece she had won.

His shoes hit the linoleum floor making her look his way. He had a small leather carry on, something quite stylish and refused to make eye contact with her instead walking straight to the elevator.

     - Mr. Barnes. - she perked up from the couch, getting his attention instantly. If she only knew. - Can you entertain me for a second?

     - I’m leaving, Y/N. What do you need?

     - Sit down. - she pointed at the couch in front of her. Bucky scoffed, for someone who was afraid of him killing her, she sure didn’t mind ordering him around. Her. The bartender. - Play with me. 

      - Play with you? - he dropped the suitcase to the floor, walking slowly to the chair in front of her. She sat against her own chair like a throne and so did he, standing in front of her. - You should be careful with your word choice.

      - You should be careful with me winning again.

      - I’ve learned all your moves, petal. I’m an observant player. 

      - I doubt that.

Bucky leaned over, setting his pieces as she did the same. Soon enough they were back to playing. Bucky observed her, watching as every play was so calculated, never by chance, lip in the middle of her teeth as she smoothly moved her pieces around almost like a ballet dance. Bucky remembered playing against more experienced players. “Chess is the game of the mind, James. You need to almost control and predict them to win” his teacher would tell him. She was impossible to read, always looking deep in thought yet so calm and collected, he guessed she needed that for the field she was in.

His pieces were dropped on her side, her taking what was his without any doubt until she stole his queen. Now, James’ knew not to play anymore. It was a courtesy of chess, yet she still didn’t look or carried the air of someone who had just won her game. Instead she looked at him, waiting for his move. Bucky leaned against his chair. 

      - You won. I should be leaving, it’s late. 

      - Wait, just .... why don’t you stay for a bit? We could talk, I’m not that tired yet. 

      - Petal, it’s late.

      - I’ll fix you a drink.

      - You can’t fix a scotch if your live depended on it. - he chuckled. - How about I fix you a drink? What’s your poison?

      - Can I get some tea? 

      - Sure. - he shrugged. - Which one do you want?

     - You have more than one type of tea? - she smirked, legs crossed over one another, the old wool dress still clinging to her skin due to the soaking wet fabric. James tried not to eye her, instead turning his back before he could be blamed of checking her out. - You don’t strike me as the type of person to like tea.

     - Maybe I’m just trying to impress you. 

     - Then in that case you should have biscuits. - she turned around on the couch, knees of the cushioned seat as she stared at him in the kitchen. He looked exactly like the type of man on the cover of an IKEA magazine, those ones were a shirtless man is holding a coffee cup like every morning after sex fantasy of every woman. 

     - I do have biscuits, petal. Which ones do you want?

     - Which ones do you have?

     - Try me.

     - Chocolate covered digestives. Only one side chocolate. 

     - An educated choice. - he opened one of the many drawers of his kitchen, pulling an acrylic container fulled to the brim with the same biscuits she had described. A man of taste indeed. He handed them a plate with three biscuits followed by the one tea cups he had which were his coffee mugs, always spotless white. She envied how pristine everything was in his home. In her flat, half the cutlery was hers, the other half Wanda’s and none matched with one being bright blue and the other one bright red. 

As for him, she knew what he drank, always the same, always the same old scotch. At this point she wondered if he liked it or if it was a power symbol. Big powerful man drinking the most expensive scotch in the world. At least it was the most expensive scotch when she researched it on her laptop on a particularly boring lecture. Yet, it somehow wasn’t the drink which gave him that untouchable appearance. It was him. 

    - I have a question. - he moved the glass away from his lips, pinkie finger pointing at her. - How come you ended up dating my cleaning boy?

    - We didn’t date. - she snorted, completely forgetting who she was speaking with. - His mother and my father dated for a long time after my mum died .. to be honest, I think it started before my mum died. Anyway, she had this awfully annoying kid, first time he came in he broke the head of my doll.

    - Oh no, petal. Should I break his head? - James joked, downing whatever was left of his scotch.

    - I would take you up on that. - Y/N rolled her eyes. - Dad always liked him, he once told me he was the child he never had.

    - Ouch. 

    - Well, he wanted a boy. - she leaned against the cushioned coach. - I don’t know why he said we dated, I would never.

    - Good.

    - Why do you ask? - she leaned her head against her shoulder

    - You have potential, petal. I thought maybe being around him would make him want to get back together ... I mean, you’re going to be a nurse.

    - Don’t trust him. - she held the mug against both her hands. 

    - Pardon?

    - Don’t trust him. Edward, I mean. Don’t tell him anything, don’t say anything, just don’t trust him.

    - You know something I don’t? - he put both his hands on either side of the couch’s handles. 

    - Promise me.

    - Petal ...

    - Promise me. - she cupped his face, looking him deep into those baby blue eyes she had gotten so used to see every day. - Promise me, okay? Just ... you don’t need to know. Promise me.

    - Petal, I’d do everything for you. - he rested his hand against her warm cheek. She reacted to his touch, leaning against his rough palm. Her eyes travelled towards his, looking at him like someone she’d knew from. Like an old friend. He leaned towards her, nose against hers. 

Her eyes flustered, cheeks warm and she no longer knew if it was due to the apartment’s heating or because he was looking at her that way. She closed her eyes, listening to the small sounds of the environment surrounding her. Bucky kissed her forehead as her eyes opened and the world seemed to stop for a while as if she was living her own version of a 1950′s romantic movie. Her finger caressed his cheek.

    - Well, you shouldn’t do everything for me. I’ll break your heart.

    - Already broken.

Y/N’s lip quivered at those words. It was if he had been meaning to say them but had held them in for so long, forceful forbidding himself to even think it and it broke her heart to hear it. She leaned her forehead against his, looking at him with a look Bucky didn’t remember seeing. God, he was so used to seeing fear in other’s faces that he almost forgot what ... it didn’t mind anymore. He’d done that mistake once early this day and he wasn’t going to do it again. She didn’t want him and he wasn’t going to try and convince her. She doesn’t belong in his world and she doesn’t belong in his. 

     - Kiss me. - Bucky didn’t think twice, immediately kissing her as if his life depended on it.

He pulled her away from the couch’s rest, pulling her towards him and caging her in his hold as her hands fell from his face and rested upon his shoulders. His jacket was discarded to the corner of the room, leaving the mob boss only in his soft black dress up shirt. His hands pulled at the hem of her dress which peeled off her body almost perfectly, the sheen on the water on her beautiful skin which made him want to run his lips over it. Her fingers grazed over the dark buttons of his shirt, pulling them off their own fabric rips to open his shirt which slide down his perfect physic. Her dress hanged by her hips as he raised her to lay atop his lap, throwing the chess board to the floor as his hands roamed her back. The pieces fell to the ground, some breaking, some rolling but none of them really cared too lost on each other.

Bucky turned her around, laying her atop the coffee table before sitting in the same couch she had been sitting. He could just look at her forever - warm damp skin, lips half open, irregular breathing, innocent knowing eyes. He could look at that forever and be happy yet all he wanted was to feel her, kiss her skin, sense the faint smell of the Daisy perfume she would reapply behind the bar every once in a while. He smirked, leaning over her body, one hand gathering both her hands above her head while the other held her waist, lips leaning from her jaw to her neck. She whined, fingers moving and wrists turning as she tried to free herself from his grip, wanting to hold him but he didn’t allow her. Instead, Bucky started sucking on her pressure point, wanting to leave a mark for others to see before moving to her collarbones, down her perfect swells and to her belly button.

He smirked as he reached where her dress was hanging. He pulled it slowly out of her legs coming face to face with her beige underwear with a little bow up top. A little present for him to open. 

Y/N could feel his finger grazing her skin, dragging teasingly. He was so close, so close to her core and yet so far. All she wanted to do was push him to do it but he had her hands tightly caged in his hand. She looked at him with pleading eyes, almost pouting making him chuckle at how needy she was. He would’ve toy with her had he not want to feel her for so long.

He dragged her underwear down her legs, throwing it across his living room before setting himself on his knees in front of her. There he was, the most powerful man in the town kneeled in front of her, kissing her leg from her ankle to the apex of her thigh. All she could feel was his soft lips contrasting with the rough stubble he had which made the mix of emotions much more interesting. It was slow yet hungry at the same time and she expected him to keep at it until his lips moved to her core abruptly. She held it a moan on her throat, oxygen punched out of her lungs as she moved her head to the side. 

Bucky hooked both her legs over her shoulders, getting the access he so wanted, getting her where he’d always wanter her. She moaned uncontrollably as his tongue teased her entrance, lips suckling her bud. Y/N wanted to hold onto his head, pull on his hair and her fingers kept contracting as she fought his handle of her hands. It was too much, so much she could feel herself start to cry, not remembering the last time someone had paid this much attention to her. She tried not to focus on him eating her out, feeling like if she did she’d come down from her high as fast as she had gotten there. Once he started moaning against her core, the vibration drove her over the edge yet he remained there licking and lapping at whatever she had to offer as she regained her breathe. 

    - You okay there, petal? - he rose, leaning over to kiss her, releasing her hands. As if they were magnetic, she cupped his face, feeling his skin against her fingers. He pulled his lips away from her, expecting an answer but she only nodded, hands leaving his face to travel to his trousers to try and push them down. Bucky aided her with that, pushing his trousers down and pulling her closer.

He could see his eyes look into his, so beautiful yet so lustful at the same time. God this woman, he thought to himself, this woman is gonna end me. His hand searched for hers, intertwining his fingers with hers as he slowly started to enter her, her walls accommodating him like they were made for each other. She forcefully shut her eyes, the sting being the first thing she felt, not used to being stretched out like that.

   - It’s okay, petal. - he kissed her forehead. - We can stop, do you wanna stop?

   - No. - she moaned, the sting started to fade as pleasure gave way. He got her signal and started to slowly rock in and out of her, eyes glued to were they were both connected. Dear God. He couldn’t help but pick up the pace at the sound of her lustful moans, leaning down to kiss her as he lost control over what pace they were at, instead going by instinct. 

She could feel and hear everything; her walls tightening around him, milking him for what he was worth it, the groans that sounded like moans that he would let out, his lips never leaving hers no matter how messy the kiss became, the slapping sound of their skin meeting.  The room was hot, filled with sighs and groans and moans, something pornographic. 

    - Come on, petal. You’re gonna come undone for me, yeah? Just for me. - he tried to get a grip on himself as she started to clench on him more often. His hands came up behind her back, slowly raising it from the coffee table as he quickened his pace, still panting but not stopping as if he had been possessed by an incubus. How could he stop? How could he stop when she looked like that, head thrown back, lips swollen and open, fucking perfect. 

A high pitched moan made the room go completely new, it was almost as if she were high, white spots crowding her view as she let her muscles relax and fall back. James held her, throwing himself to the couch behind him, her on top of him as ropes of white spurted inside of her and spilled onto the couch. Fuck, he wanted to keep those stains so he could remember. Her head rested against his shoulder, breathing returning to normal as he kissed her hair. 

      - If you wanted me to stay so badly, you could’ve just asked. - he grinned, kissing her head once more.

      - Shut up. - she giggled, turning her head to look at him. - Hi.

      - Hi. - he smiled. His hand blindly searched for one of the many useless blankets that adorned his couches to wrap her in. Once he found one, he drapped it over her back, managing to get up and walk to her room.

She wanted to stay awake, she wanted to stay awake and spend the night talking to him but once the blanket draped over her back, she was good as gone. 

The morning rose with its cloudy skies, the dim lighting awaking her up as she rose her head from the bed, hair made into a tangled mess. He had an arm over her, face to her back, softly sleeping. She wondered why it was so surprising to see him like that, even mob bosses sleep but he just looked so peaceful, so ... so normal. Almost as if they could be a regular couple just like everyone else. She shifted in bed, to look at him, her slight moves immediately awaking him but he chose to keep his eyes close, not wanting her to worry about waking him up. 

   - I know you’re awake. - she said, voice laced with sleep as she noticed his breathe pattern change as well as his eyelids twitching. - James. 

   - Bucky. - he corrected. - You can call me James when I’m fucking you but I prefer Bucky. 

   - Bucky. - she repeated. - I like that.

   - Do you wanna have breakfast? - he opened his eyes. - Anything you want. 

   - You’re gonna cook me breakfast or are you gonna force the shops to open at ... - she looked at her watch, colour draining from her face. - 10AM. Holy shit, I’m late.

   - Y/N ... - he laughed as she got out of the bed, bed sheet wrapped around her body as she searched his room for her clothing. - It’s drying in the bathroom, petal. 

   - I’M LATE. I’M LATE TO THE ONLY CLASS I LIKE. - she rushed over to the bathroom, almost tripping on the large sheet. Bucky stood on his side, watching her with a silly grin as she pulled the dress over her body along with her underwear. - STOP STARING, YOU’RE DRIVING. 

   - You’re calling the shots now? - he cocked an eyebrow at her. 

   - I’m late. - she kneeled on his bed, trying to push him out of it. - Bucky, c’mon.

   - No, petal. You’re already late, just stay the day with me. I’ll even give you the day off. 

   - I have to graduate first. - she crossed her arms.

   - Okay. 

Bucky was quick to get dressed, grabbing his car keys from the hook on the door before taking her down to the garage and into the car. Y/N pushed down the mirror, trying to fix whatever mess he had done to her. There was not much she could do but try and comb her hair and push her dress’ neckline up to try and hide the hickeys. She kept looking at her watch, wondering if she’d make it and as he parked in front of her department’s building, she only had 5 minutes to go. It felt more like a one night stand but desperate times called for desperate measures and besides she was working this night so she could explain to him that she wasn’t trying to bail.

   - I can’t drive you home tonight, petal. Gotta receive a shipping by the docks. Sam will probably drive you, I’ll speak with him at the club and I’ll let you know before I leave.

   - It’s okay I can ask Pietro or Wanda. 

   - Go on before you’re actually late for it. - he opened her door and she sprinted like a mad woman.

As she walked into the lecture hall, most of her colleagues, including Wanda, were already sat on. She shamefully hide her head, climbing up the stairs to the middle row where Wanda had kindly saved her a seat and was probably wondering where she had been and why she hadn’t called. Once she sat, down, the questions ran down on her. 

   - You look like hell, Y/N. God, why do you even have a phone if you don’t call me or Pietro? 

   - I’m sorry, they had blocked the road.

   - Did they block your phone signal?

   - No. - she sighed. - Hey, you think Pietro or you can pick me up today? Mr. Barnes is receiving a shipment tonight.

   - He’s receiving a shipment? Do you know where?

   - Uhm ... yes.

   - Good, that means you can tell your father and you can finally quit that god awful job and behave like regular Y/N.

She had forgotten. She knew where the shipment was, she had the smoking gun, she was done, right? Why did it felt so heavy? That was what she was put into his life for, to get information yet she couldn’t find herself to send the text to her father. The rest of the day she stared at her phone, at her father’s number, her fingers hovering over the keypad. She knew the answer, docks. Five letters, one word. There was only that place yet writing those five letters seemed to be the hardest thing in the world. She had time, she told herself. She had time to send her father the message so she spent the day ignoring it.

As she walked on the cobblestones that led to the bar, her resolve only broke looser. She didn’t want to send that text, he didn’t deserve that, he didn’t deserve to have her stab him in the back. She didn’t want to stab him in the back, that was not her. Maybe that was what they wanted of her but it wasn’t her and it was not going to be her. As she stepped inside the already half full bar, she turned off her phone. Nobody needs to know, nobody will know. As she told herself those words, someone pushed her arm, throwing her onto the supply cupboard. She looked up to see Edward locking the door behind them.

  - What the fuck? I have a job to do. - she tried to push past him but he stood there. - What do you want?

  - The waiters said they saw you get in the car with Barnes.

  - So? - she crossed her arms. - He drives me home.

  - I knew you shouldn’t be in the case. I mean, you’re a wannabe nurse and you think you’re in the big league.

  - What is that supposed to mean? I was put up to this way before you were.

  - Wonder why? You’re doing a shit job and now you’re fucking sleeping with Barnes? I always knew you got what you wanted but I never knew you were a mob boss’ whore now. 

  - Oh fuck off, Edward. - she tried to push him once again but he pushed her back and further into the cupboard.

  - Where’s the shipment, Y/N? Do the right thing and you can go back to sucking him off. 

  - You can go to hell.

  - WHERE IS IT? - he pushed her against the wall but she spat on his face. - Fine, you know what fine. Guys like him are never gonna go to prison, he’s just gonna buy his way out. If you want things done, do them yourself.

   - Don’t do anything stupid, Edward. - she pleading, following him as he walked to the door. - You’re not gonna win. Just give up.

   - I hope you fucked him goodbye. - his hand went into the hem of his pants, she knew damn well what he was about to grab and about to do. She rushed to the door but he locked it on her face. Her heart raced as she started to punch and kick the door, screaming at him to open the door. 

    - Bastard! - she mumbled, looking over the cupboard and at the small window up the top. There was a series of creaky shelves under them. Hopefully it was open. Carefully, she moved the stuff out the shelves and started to climb them until the last one which gave her enough room to push the window open. As she reached for the latch, the window didn’t move. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She looked around, looking for anything to break the window with but everything was merely brooms and old rags. She wrapped an old vodka smelling rag around her hand and sighed. It’s okay, you’ve seen it done in the movies besides it’s an old cupboard, old window. It’s gonna be easy. She bite her lip and swung her hand towards the glass which shattered into her hand, a few pieces lodging into her palm. It was a hole small enough for her to put her hand in and open the latch from outside. As she done it, the window creaked open and she jumped into the small space, wiggling out of it and falling onto the ground.

Once she found herself in the alleyway she ran over to the employees door, opening it and rushing into the dance floor. Her eyes scanned the room, his usual table was empty and he wasn’t either at the bar. Her best option was to try and find him before Edward did. Although she harboured a grudge against him, she could not overpower it. She mixed with the rest of the club goers trying to look for Bucky until she spotted him moving through the crowd. She pushed a few people away, trying to reach him by yelling out his name but the music was too loud. Luckily for her, the crowds were easy enough to overcome and she finally reached him, tugging onto his jacket before he could leave.

  - Hey petal. You’re on your break? - he asked, smiling down at her.

  - Bucky, I need to tell you something.

  - What happened to you hand? - he noticed her bleeding hand. - Did you drop a bottle? Did someone hurt you?

  - Bucky, wait, I ...

  - BARNES! - a voice interrupted her. The crowd screamed and stepped away as Edward held a gun up. Bucky put his arm over her shoulder to push her behind him but she stepped in front of him. 

The sound of the gunshot went off, everyone was screaming and running out of the club but all she could hear was a beep. Her breath seemed to falter once to quicken again as her muscles lost force and she felt herself falling. She awaited to hit the ground but someone held her.

  - FUCKING KILL HIM! - she could hear Bucky’s voice in slow motion almost as everything went darker than the club she was in.

She would’ve made such a lovely bride, what a shame she’s fucked in the head

taglist: @lookiamtrying @mariamermaid @sebastianstansqueen @unmagically @buckybarnes1982 @mela-noche @lowercasegenius @randomweirdooo @projectcampbell @sebbystanlover-vk @jevans2 @hollarious @itsallyscorner @tcc-gizmachine @saiyanprincessswanie @stuckysavedmylive @vicmc624​ @sebstanfan123​

[matan4il]

Hi you lovely person. I think we're about to get a buddie hug scene. Every season has one of them since Eddie introduced. What do you think?

Awwww, hi lovely Nonnie! And God, I want that. If the season ends without a Buddie hug, I may riot. IDK that we’ll get one for sure. I’m thinking about when we got hugs between them so far and the theme seems to be that it happens after a life threatening (or relationship threatening) event, but not immediately after, more like in the recovery stage, as part of healing and getting back to things being good. So given that we’re all speculating about what will happen in the last two eps, I guess it matters whether they’ll manage to fit in a joyous occasion after the danger, like we saw in 218, or whether we will have to wait for a post recovery process hug, like the one in 301. If we can have both? The more Buddie hugs, the better! ;) Thank you for this wonderful ask! xoxox

Thank you for your thoughts on the Bob Goodman episodes, and in general; your meta makes me love the show even more! The writers for ep 413 are Lyndsey Beaulieu (ep 305, 311) and Andrew Meyers (ep 310, 312, 403). The director of the episode, Brenna Malloy, posted an instastory about it some weeks ago.

This is so lovely, Nonnie. Thank you so much! I’m delighted that my meta can be such a source of enjoyment. I’ve been going through quite a rough rl patch and every message like this, every person who reblogs a meta post with kind comments, helps more than you all realize! Thank you for the info as well, that is AMAZING to hear. All of those eps had such great Buddie content, I am very hopeful as well. Hope your day is as gorgeous as you helped make mine! xoxox

(two more under the cut for length)

Is it just me or did Buck look sad in this episode? Like, idk, the way he said i dont trust anyone and then backtracking, and his face when the team went away to the kitchen after declaring the treasure hunt stupid, reckless and dangerous (before he dialed Taylor). He seemed depressed? Forlorn maybe? If u saw it, do u think there is something to it? That it means something?

Also him making a move on Taylor seemed off to me. Like, it felt more like he was desperate to find His Person and less like he actually had a crush on Taylor. Like he saw that they have chemistry, have history, make a good team, tolerate and like each other for who they are and have both matured tremendously, he decided why not?

sorry if this sounds crass.

@fandom-101 Hi hon, always so lovely to hear from you! *hugs* And it’s def not just you, Buck felt sad and frustrated to me throughout the ep. Just... generally unhappy. Like he’s doing this for the wrong reason and maybe that’s what Taylor is picking up on and why she keeps rejecting him. Even when he was making his move with Taylor in Athena’s house at the end of the ep, there was something there that felt a bit off. I didn’t get a loved up vibe, I got a vibe that he’s interested and he wants this to happen, but not necessarily because he’s oh so enamored. It felt like he’s making an effort to show her he’s interested. It def fits for me with his theme since 316, highlighted in the Buck Begins arc, that he feels alone and sad, and he just doesn’t want to be. So yes, basically I agree with everything and saw and understood Buck in a very similar way in this ep. He looked at Taylor, thought she had changed, that he likes the change, but I didn’t feel like I saw him quite falling for her, more like she’s there and he’s alone, so he’s trying it ‘coz he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. I’m sure we’ll get at least one conversation on this subject, if not more, in the last 2 eps of the season, so we’ll see how much our reading of this got it right. But it’s always nice to know we’re not alone in how we understand something, right? ;) Lotsa love! xoxox

I agree with you that i think taylor will be another stepping stone. wish i dont have to see it play out so im looking only from afar :'D wake me up when buddie begins! thank you for sharing your thoughts! <3

Nonnie, I’m a monoshipper and no doubt, loving a slow burn couple (especially one that is same sex, which means it’s a lot less sure they will get together in canon) is a huge challenge. It’s easier to deal with when you’re a multishipper. Then, even if you want one ship to be endgame, you can enjoy the other ships on the way there and that makes things easier. Then again, the whole thing about slow burn is that the endgame is that much sweeter ‘coz we’ve earned it with our blood, sweat and patience. So I know it isn’t easy, but I hope you’re hanging in there! And not gonna lie, I laughed at “wake me up when buddie begins”, I’m totally hearing it to the tune of “wake me up when september ends”. XD Hope you have a great day! xoxox

[bimswritings]

This Is Our Way

Ch.1

Summary: What happens when you make the mistake of thinking you can steel from a Mandalorian? You land yourself and job and a plethora of adventures and emotion you could never even dream of.  The question is; where will those emotions lead.

Warnings: Typical canon violence, NSFW implications and scenes later on

You can also read it on my Ao3 account.

_____________________________________

Clouds. Dark, impenetrable, depressing grey clouds are what greet you as soon as your eyes open, just like they have every day for years during your existence on the scrappy planet of  Corellia. Home to the most desperate and cruel criminals, along with the enslaved and weak civilians and captives. All mixed in with your average day citizen trying to get by.

A great place to live.

The sound of tie-fighters overhead is what first woke you, screaming as they made their morning flight overhead, acting as an ever present reminder of the Empire's presence and signaling the start of your day. Bones and joints crack in sync as you push yourself up, rubbing your eyes and crawling from the busted old weapons crate that acted as a poor supplement for a bed. Its lid laid discarded to the side, allowing the cool night air of one of the only dry nights of the month to flow in while you slept. The hard metal lining was barely tolerable, even when padded with the few scraps of fabric you had managed to snag over the years, but it was sturdy and the lid provided great protection from the ever present rain on the overcast planet.

Taking care not to trip while climbing from the enclosed space, you stumble out onto the main section of the roof and stare over the city as you stretch, trying not to cringe as certain bones popped back into place painfully. It wasn’t a pretty sight, and not even the fresh breeze that floated in from the sea could make it any more appealing.

Boring, industrial buildings stretched as far as the eye could see in varying colors of black and steel, hardly standing out against the horizon of equally dull colors only punctuated by the occasional crism Empire flag. In the middle of it all was the only decently maintained and sizable buildings on the planet, where the majority of ships for the Empire were produced. It was thanks to the presence of that one building that there was even an economy here, keeping it from turning into a more dreary and wet version of Tatooine, the outlandish world it was. The sight was enough to make your stomach churn, but had nothing on the aching pain that radiated from the organ and had you mind wondering when you had eaten last. Three, four days maybe? It didn’t matter. However long it was, the meager scraps you had managed to find behind the restaurant district of the wealthy were but a distant memory. It was this very hunger that drove you from your safe space, forcing you to climb down the pipes lining the outside of the building you resided on.

The metal creaked and groaned in protest under your weight, but you didn’t give it a second though, knowing there was nothing to worry about. You had been climbing along these fixtures for years, nimble hands and feet finding the smallest of purchases as you move along with ease.

When the ground was close enough you dropped, rolling through the impact to your feet and taking shelter behind an abandoned stall as you momentarily stumbled, vision swimming and black dots dancing before you. Force, you really need to get something to eat soon. Rainwater could only fill your stomach for so long before it lost its abilities to hold you over.

Peering around the corner, your eyes scanned the narrow alleyway, looking for any sign of stormtroopers or other rough characters that would cause trouble. You were never much of a fighter, but today especially was a day you were feeling particularly weak.

‘Alright. All I need to do is slip out, grab a couple of credits, and get back. It should be fine as long as I don’t run into-’

“Well well well. Look what we have here.” Leon’s voice spoke from behind, making you cringe and berate yourself for not being more careful. This was the last thing you needed to deal with, and Leon’s sickly smooth voice only served to grate on your nerves more as you turned to face him and his three lackeys, identifying them as Sho, Everett, and Corin.None as dangerous, but all as bad tempered as their leader.

Glacial blue eyes stared from pale skin beneath his shock of blond hair, a combo that drew ladies like flies to him. Pair that with pearly white teeth and he could have been a poster boy for some prep school on Coruscant. If not for the tattooed arms and green vest that held the insignia of a ranicore tooth, marking him as one of Sozin’s many street enforcers. His kind was the one you hated most. Cocky guys who thought that just because they were someone in some gang they had power over everyone else, not giving a second thought to those they hurt, be it man, women, or child. As long as they got a nice cut at the end of the day they were fine. Despite your hate for them, by all means joining a gang was the best way to survive here. It promised food, shelter, and constant work. All you had to do was give up your own self respect and humanity in return.

“The little Jawa had finally come out from her fortress. Tell me,” He smirked as the others formed a loose circle around you, effectively caging you in. “Get anything good lately.”

You wanted to spit at him, slap that stupid smirk off his face and leave him to go crying back to his boss. But you didn’t. Instead, you took a more casual, defensive stance, ready to get away the moment you had the chance. Slapping a fake smile on your face, you cocked an eyebrow in mock teasing.

“Please. If I had anything of interest I’m sure you of all people would know.” You were getting more nervous now, keenly aware of how close Sho was getting to your current position. Far too close for your liking.

“And with the patrols increased and punishments cracking down, things have gotten harder.''

“True, but I just never know what those sticky fingers of yours may manage to pick up. Your skill has a reputation after all.” His eyes skimmed over your body, not even trying to hide the way he was practically undressing you. The slimy bastard had been pining after you for years, ever since he had watched you lift a number of things from a trooper when you were both just young teenagers. He claimed it was for your skills but it didn’t take a genius to see he was looking for something more. “Maybe you could give me a live demonstration some time.”

And there it was.

You said nothing, only pushing yourself further against the cool metal of the wall behind you in an attempt to create some sort of distance in between you. Your stomach, the traitor it was, decided that it would be the best time to voice its own opinion, letting out a loud growl of protest that didn't go unheard.

Leon’s face took on a mask of concern and sympathy, and you might have fallen for it had you not known any better. His tone took on a softer, more whispery tone, like he was speaking to a stray feline. Not that far off if you thought about it.

“You look hungry. Why don’t you come back with me. I can get everything squared away with Sozin, and I promise, I’ll take real good care of you.”

His hand extended out in invitation, strong fingers that had ended the lives of so many gently relaxed, the other crossing behind his back in a mock gentleman pose, as if he even knew what being a decent guy even started with.

“C’mon. Think about it. No more empty stomachs or fighting for every scrap. You’d even have a nice bed to lay in at the end of the day. No more sleeping on the filthy streets.”

Scoffing, you summoned the last of your confidence, brushing past him and ignoring his invitation. “I’d rather take the streets than your blood soaked sheets any day.”

That should have been it, and it would have been for anyone else on just a code of respect among those here. But Leon wasn’t known for taking no for an answer. Before you could even make it  three steps his hand closed on your elbow, bringing you back closer to him. Despite all you twisting and pulling, his superior strength kept you close, breath fanning your skin as he spoke.

“Listen here, I’ve been more than kind in my advances. A saint some may even say, so you’re not going to walk away from me, understand? No your going to come back and-”

“Hey!” A shout from the end of the alleyway interrupted him, drawing all your attention as the squadron of storm troopers rounded the corner to the alley, falling in line behind their captain.”You there! What’s going on?”

At the sight of the local law enforcement and their blasters, Leon’s grip loosened a fraction. Just the smallest amount really, but enough for you to be able to slip from his grip and between Sho and Corin before they could stop you. You ignored the shouting of the officer, sprinting in the opposite direction and around the corner into the main streets of Corellia.

‘Good luck trying to find me now.’ You smirked, pulling your hood up to conceal your face as you effortlessly blended into the crowd, becoming just one of the thousands of faces that traveled through as you continued on your way. Now it was time for the real work to begin.

Just as with the seasons, your own hunting grounds changed, ever rotating through the different sectors in order to keep law enforcement off your tail. It was one of the first lessons you had ever learned; never hunt in the same spot for more than a few weeks.

Today was a fresh start in the port district, leaving an abundance of new and unaware targets. It was a popular place for travelers as well, who were especially naive, but even with that you knew today would be a challenge. It hadn’t been a lie when you told Leon that the troopers were cracking down. More patrols and increased severity of punishments had started to begin in order to ‘cut down the crime’, as your senator put it. Fat chance of that though, as one could argue that Corellia ran on crime. Still, the effort put forth was really putting the pressure on smaller people like you, who were just trying to survive, not to mention the street vendors and shop owners had installed their own new security measures in place, leading to an unfavorable combo that led to your current weak and hungry state. So you were here, looking for some oblivious fool to cop a few credits off from your perch just outside the mechanics.

As your eyes scanned the crowd, looking for visible money holders or those with liftable jewelry and other items, you saw him. He was hard to miss actually. The beskar he wore from head to toe shone proudly even without the light of the sun hidden above, speaking of its own durability and care shown by the owner. Alongside him was a pod, closed, and most likely carrying whatever supplies he had picked up from the market. The brown cape around his shoulders did nothing to hide the gun scross his broad back, nor the dozens of smaller weapons strapped to his person.

He stood tall above the crowd, most parting like water around a stone to avoid him, and it was no wonder. Even you had heard the stories about the Mandalorians. Fierce warriors and fighters who could track their prey to the ends of the galaxy. They were the best bounty hunters and hired guns on the market. You had been witness to more than one lowlife being pulled from their seat in the cantina by his kind, kicking and begging to no avail as they were carried away, dead or alive.

Teeth gnawing on inside of your cheek, you debated with yourself. On one hand, he was a high risk target, undoubtedly being used to these kinds of places and the people who lived here. Stealing from him would earn you a blaster shot to the head if caught, that is, if he were feeling merciful enough not to crush every bone in your body. But then, he was a bounty hunter. They always carried a lot of credits, and ones worth more at that. One swipe from him could set you up for days, if not weeks! He was also the only target you had seen open worth any value the entire day, and you weren’t sure you could go much longer without food.

You debated with yourself, going back and forth as you watched him grow closer to where you sat. If you didn’t make a decision soon you would lose your chance all together.

As if detecting your hesitance, your body made the decision for you, loosening another growl from its depths, prompting you forward and before you knew it you were on the move. Pulling a small guide book from your pocket, you pretended to be grossly interested in the useless thing, eyes moving to falsely skim the words as you carefully adjusted your path closer to his, threading between the crowd with as much ease as he cut through it.

The moments before were tense, each step leaving you feeling more electrified as adrenaline coursed through your body, only feeding your blind confidence as you counted down.

‘6..5...3..2..1….Now’

You pretended to stumble, tripping on your own feet as naturally as you would walk, veering from your course and bumping into the armored man. You winced slightly as your shoulder made contact with the metal, which made your grunt of pain that much more believable and distracting while your hands got to work. Like all bounty hunters, he kept his money in front of him, just slightly to the left of his leg. A tactic to prevent pickpockets like you that frequented the scenes they often found themselves in. Smart, but you had gotten used to this tactic before, and it was a simple swipe of your hand as it quickly entered and retreated the pouch, fingers closed around an unknown number of credits, all within a fraction of a second as you mumbled apologies, raising your opposite hand in distraction as your other moved to pocket your catch.

As soon as your own fingers left the pouch, you knew you were in trouble. Years of being on the streets had taught you when you had the upper hand in a situation or not, whether you were the predator or prey. In that moment, that small fraction of a moment, you went from poised victor to the most demure of prey.

And the man in front of you was the hunter.

His hand, even quicker than your own, moved to latch onto the retreating limb. The very one holding the credits you had thought had been yours.

Head snapping up to meet his, you were faced with an unfeeling gaze in the form of silver surrounding a small ‘t’ of inky darkness that prevented you from seeing his face. You tried to pull away, only to have his stern grip tighten even more, the leather of his glove squeaking in symphony along with the crackling of the joint. Yet you still refused to drop the credits, stubbornly holding onto them out of spite and fear. If he hadn’t seen them yet, there was no way he could indefinitely prove you had taken anything from him, though the way he focused on it told you he already knew the truth.

Kriffing hell. Why had you even thought this would be a good idea. He was a Mandalorian, and in your hunger driven brain you had somehow managed to convince yourself it would actually work. Well congratulations, you had the credits, but now you were as good as dead. If he didn’t decide to deal out his own justice and kill you then and there, surely he would turn you over to the stormtrooper.

The skin on your back tingles and warmed at the thought, memories of public whippings flashing in the back of your mind and doubling your heart rate and raising your panic even more.

Maybe you could still get out of this though. He was a man, as far as you could tell anyways, and all men were susceptible to one thing, hardened warrior or not. You could distract him, try to get a trade or compromise in return for forgetting about the situation. If not him then the clones. Maker knows they were always willing to pass up small crimes every once in a while in exchange for a way to sate their horniness. Though you had never tried the practice yourself, you had heard of numerous others getting off the hook that way. How hard could it be?

Your thoughts were interrupted by movement, bringing you back from your blind panic of plotting how to get out of this. The Mandalorian had tilted his head, t-visor still trained on your face as he observed you. Those around you were all too eager to ignore the situation, walking past with explicitly diverted eyes as they went about their business. The hand not holding yours moved, making you flinch back but with nowhere to go as he kept you trained in place. It moved towards your face and you braced, eyes scrunched and ready for the impact of a palm or fist making contact.

Yet, it never came.

Instead, the soft worn leather gently pressed against your face, fingers gently running along the curve of your cheek, highlighting the bone that protruded with hunger. The occasional scrape of his beskar along the skin makes you shudder, but if he even notices he doesn’t say anything, only continuing to stare as his hand tips your face every which way for him to examine. Then he just...let go. Without another word he had dropped his hands, stepping around and continuing on his original path, leaving you behind him, frozen in place and in a state of shock.

You could have stood there for any measure of time, be it seconds or minutes. Your brain was too busy trying to process what had just happened to even think about anything else. It was only when someone rudely bumped into you, almost knocking you to the ground, that you finally snapped out of it, and suddenly you were running. Feet pounding the uneven ground as you gained speed, faces flew past as little more than blurs as you continued to put more space between you and your should-have-been attacker. If it had been any other time you might have been proud of the speed you had, the burning in your lungs of little significance. Not even when you had seen Leon once again did you blink, blowing past as he called out and tried to grab you.

Before you knew it you were rounding the alley back to your little home, leaping more than climbing up the pipes with record speed as your feet barely touched the rickety metal. You practically dove into your little crate of a home, pulling the lid and locking yourself in darkness as you tried to sooth your pulse, taking deep breaths that did little to help. Absentmindedly, you began humming to yourself. A song so out of tune and unrecognizable it would have made a wookie weep, but it was what you needed as you pressed the burning and sticky skin of your forehead against the cool metal of the wall.

Eventually, after countless repetitions or the short tune, you managed to steady yourself, bringing enough sense back to realize you were still holding onto the credits from before, which were now gripped tightly in your hand. Enough to the point where the skin had turned a pearly white and your fingers hurt to move as you slowly unclenched them, revealing angry marks and even places where the rectangular currency had bit deep enough into the skin to draw blood. But oh what a beautiful sight it was.

One hundred credits laid in your fist, clustered together in a jumble of varying amounts and different kinds, but a total amount of one hundred. You normally only got this after a week of extremely successful hunting in the summer months. The sight of it now was enough to make you cry.

Despite the urge to go and get food from the nearest vendor, you knew better than to go out right away. For all you knew he had only let you go just to follow you back to your base, probably thinking he could turn you into the stormtroopers for a bigger ransom than what he lost, or loot your own place for anything you had stored up. Jokes on him if that was the plan, because he would only get back what you took from him.

The thought stayed stuck in the front of your mind, forcing you to stay tucked in your hiding space for the remainder of the day and keeping you awake through the night. Every little sound made you jump, convinced that you would once again find yourself at the receiving end of his burning gaze, the helmet he wore only masking his expression and leaving your fate uncertain. He never showed though, never ripped the lid off your container or dragged you out into the open.

By the time you managed to fall asleep, your body finally running out of its immense supply of adrenaline, the city itself had just begun to awaken below to the wee hours of the morning, and the fighters had just begun their morning rounds once again.

‘Maybe...maybe just a few hours of sleep.’ You thought to yourself, burrowing down into your small nest of blankets. What could be the harm?

Well, apparently a lot.

You had woken up in a panic, cracking the lid to see that the sky had already gone dark once again. Swearing to yourself, you emerged once again like a Nightshrike from its cave. Foregoing any normal rituals, you allowed your body to stretch itself as you moved, hustling from rooftop to rooftop, something you only did under the cover of night. The last thing you need is someone seeing you and discovering your home up top. You would never be able to get any peace after that.

You were in a rush though, and the thought of wasting a day of work didn’t bother you nearly as much as the thought of your favorite shop closing. With the amount of credits you had now, you wouldn’t have to worry about money for a while, so the only thought you had while the dim lights of the city flicked to life below was getting there as soon as possible. Who knows, maybe you’d even have enough to treat yourself to some fruit, an expensive and rare treat for anyone on the planet.

Skidding to a stop just before the end of the row, your eyes lit up at the sight of the shop still open, clearly readying to close. Shimmying back down to increasingly deserted streets, you were already drooling at the thought of biting into something and not having to wonder what it would taste like. No more than ten minutes later you were leaving, pockets now full of brick bread as the owner locked the doors behind you.

The plan was to only eat half of one on your way back, the nutrient rich and dense pastries giving you enough energy for the day in a single bite, but not even halfway back you found yourself licking the crumbs from your fingertips, hardly holding back from grabbing one of the four remaining loafs. Instead you reached into the opposite side and grabbed the meiloorun fruit you had managed to snag.

Now this was the main event.

Sinking your teeth into the soft skin, you nearly groaned as its taste exploded on your tongue, making your taste buds dance and sing as the sweetness became so intense it almost hurt. You still loved it.

Your stomach was full for the first time in forever, almost foreign as you had begun to forget the feeling. Juice dribbled down your chin as you continued on your way home, making a deliciously sticky mess to be wiped away and cleaned by your lips, intent on not letting a single morsel go to waste.

Thankfully the trip back was less eventful than your previous outing, helping instill an eerie yet calming silence over the city and prompting you to take your time.

You always enjoyed it up here on the roofs. Hardly anyone came up, not many having the same confidence and agility possessed by you and few others, and there was an ever present breeze up here that didn’t quite reach the lower levels. Not to mention the view it gave, which was one of the main reasons you had chosen a roof as your spot for a base camp. If only you could see the stars, but alas, the sight was as rare as greenery here, leaving it up to your own imagination to construct an array of bright lights on the top of your crypt.

Finishing the fruit, you paused at the edge of the building before your own. Small lights danced in the darkness, the occasional lamp illuminating a hustling figure and the street walkers that lined the corners of streets, calling to anyone in sight. The occasional search light of a patrol ship would shin above the buildings as it made its rounds over the city.

‘Must be looking for someone’ you mused, turning back to return home. No reason to get caught out tonight, especially when you were looking at a few days of relaxation.

As you turned, a familiar flash caught your eye, triggering a new taught panic response. You could hardly believe your eyes, rubbing them extra hard just to make sure you were seeing things right. But alas the sight before you neglected to change, unfortunately not a trick of the eye like you had hoped it was, and the Mandalorian you had thought you escaped the previous day continued walking down the dark alley.

You began to sweat backing away from the edge and further out of his line of sight, trying to still keep him in yours as you peered back over and tracked his progress as he got closer.

‘Kriff. I should have known he would want his money back.’

Panicking, you began going over all the escape routes near you. Ones through city street and sewers that would be much too small for him to fit through. Though, if he had tracked you here then chances were he would be able to find you wherever you went. This really wasn’t good. You might not even be able to go collect what meager possessions you had back in your box.

Then, materializing out of the darkness as if he were made of it himself, was Leon. He stepped into the path of the Mandalorian like he had no fear and, knowing how stupid he was, you thought he might actually not have any for the bounty hunter. But why would he when he was the primary enforcer for Sozin and still had his own backup, the three from earlier.

“Hey there.” He spoke in a voice that promised nothing but trouble, hands casually resting in pockets that undoubtedly concealed a weapon of some sorts. "I've been meaning to have a talk with you. The shiny Mandalorian warrior everyone is talking about."

This, you thought, was not good.

[cozytwilight]

evermore / twilight saga correlations 🌲✨

willow: Alice & Jasper because she “saw him” before he knew her. The lyric, “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind, head on the pillow, I could feel you sneaking in” made me think that this type of feeling was Alice’s pov. Also, “I come back stronger than a 90′s trend” is SUCH Alice attitude. Also relatable to Edward/Bella in that he is “wrecking her plans” being human and she is begging him to “take her hand” in changing her to be with him forever but whatever

champagne problems: about Jacob from Bella’s pov when he receives her and Edward’s wedding invite. Champagne problems means insignificant problems in the grand scheme of things, yet feels big to the person/people dealing with the problem. These problems could be those such as the problems brought upon Jacob and his family by Bella being with Edward/the Cullens. Lyrics like “your Midas touch on the Chevy door” goes back to early moments such as Bella’s first time seeing Jacob since they were young as Charlie is showing her the Chevy he bought her from Billy as well as moments in New Moon when they would drive in the Chevy together.

gold rush: I immediately thought of the rush/euphoria/drama of Edward and the Cullens and the way they are perceived at school for being “gorgeous”. Bella’s first interaction with Edward and getting to know him. Also thought of Rosalie’s beauty and how stunning she is depicted to be.

‘tis the damn season: New Moon!!!! Specific lyrics like, “I won’t ask you to wait if you don’t ask me to stay” and “there’s an ache in you, put there by the ache in me” (Bella’s pov) “the only soul who can tell which smiles I’m faking” and “Time flies, messy as the mud on your truck tires” (Jacob’s pov)

tolerate it:  This one could be Edward’s pov @ Bella or Bella’s pov @ Edward. In Edward’s pov, he feels constant guilt in having Bella involved with him. I thought of the pregnancy bath scene when Bella takes off her robe and Edward watches her from behind, feeling completely disgusted with himself and what he’s done. In Bella’s pov, she feels she is putting his family in danger for her life, constantly feeling like a burden because of her clumsiness and weakness as a human.

TW // r*pe | no body, no crime: Honestly, I thought of Rosalie killing Royce and her r*pists right away with this one.

happiness: New Moon; Bella dealing with the depression and nightmares from Edward leaving her. Specifically the lyrics, “Past the blood and bruise, past the curses and cries. Beyond the terror in the nightfall haunted by the look in my eyes that would've loved you for a lifetime”.

dorothea: I thought of Carlisle and Esme. They are the most wholesome couple of the series in my opinion and I picture parts of this song depicting Carlisle’s pov of their relationship when they first met. Lyrics like, “when we were younger down in the park, honey, making a lark of the misery” make me think of the resentment they felt early on toward their immortal life, but making the best of it together.

coney island: Matt Berninger’s verse is Edward’s pov after leaving Bella. “What's a lifetime of achievement if I pushed you to the edge? But you were too polite to leave me.” and “Will you forgive my soul when you're too wise to trust me and too old to care?” This goes back to the constant guilt Edward is feeling for his involvement in Bella’s life.

ivy: I thought of Bella no longer wanting to be a human with the lyric, “the old widow goes to the stone every day but I don't, I just sit here and wait grieving for the living” and “my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand” referring to her feelings toward Edward.

cowboy like me: Literally just thought of Jasper. Also Charlie Swan and Billy Black...in this house 🏠 we stan the dads. long story short: New Moon! Bella subconsciously falling in love with Jacob during their blossoming friendship; fixing motorcycles in his garage and spending time together, he gets her mind off losing Edward and helps pull her out of her depression. I literally picture this song on the soundtrack like WHILE Bella and Jacob are in the garage together. 

marjorie: Bella’s dream seeing her grandmother in the mirror, but it was really herself grown elderly and grey.

closure: I immediately thought of Leah and Sam with this one; specifically Leah’s pov. The hurt she felt when Sam left her for Emily and is forced to be in closeness with him through the pack. Leah is one of the best characters and I’m sad she never got a brighter ending :( 

evermore: Bella’s pov in New Moon while spending her days depressed and hopeless, as the song goes through a “grey November” and December. She grasps onto any memories of Edward and acts recklessly to hear his voice and confirm he was real, lyrics like, “I thought of you in the cracks of light. I dreamed of you, it was real enough to get me through”. Bon Iver’s verse is Edward’s pov, last verse transitions into Edward’s return and into Eclipse “I had a feeling so peculiar this pain wouldn't be for evermore”

I also posted this on my twitter account, you can see here - and I included some photos! :)

[oneweekoneband]

In the first cold hours of a new December morning, Taylor Swift once again revealed herself to be the primary antagonist in my hero’s journey. Weary and woebegone as I am, I will not waste strength on any attempt to deny that this latest attack has knocked me off balance, but I believe it is important that I���we, really, the lot of us who have been bloodied pitiably beneath this most brutal show of force—rebound immediately into a defensive posture so that there might be any hope at all for survival. Taylor’s second pandemic album will be released at midnight tonight, so I guess Shakespeare and his little “play” about elder abuse can get fucked after all. The album is called evermore. It was hubris, I can see in retrospect, which led me to tempt my enemy by writing all these words about her on this, the week of her birthday, knowing as I do that Taylor is one of those especially dangerous adults who make a big deal about both birthdays and lucky numbers. Icarus is my name now, covered in melted wax and tumbling to the sea. So as to steel ourselves for these horrors yet to come, I offer now, with not arrogance but the faith of the foolhardy, my best conjecture as to the content of each detestable track. 

willow - Could be about a tree. Could be about a girl. More likely it is both somehow, which is extremely pervy, and not just because that’s part of the plot of the unspeakably cursed The Raven Cycle novels, which I, a full blown adult with, generally speaking, normal brain function, voluntarily read for the first time this summer because some of us, ma’am, used the pandemic for activities that hurt only ourselves, not others. Well, happy holidays, tree fuckers.

champagne problems - Whatever this is, know that I will be considering it a work after Fall Out Boy’s “Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends” and I’ll be right to do so and many people will say as much admiringly and they’ll smile at me with pride and doff their caps as I go.

gold rush - If this song is anything but a loving, comprehensive summation of the children’s novel DEAR AMERICA Seeds of Hope: The Gold Rush Diary of Susanna Fairchild then I’m going to walk directly out of my home and, deadly virus be damned, keep walking until I’ve entered Taylor Swift’s instead, at which point I will begin to scream out a litany of complaints at the very top of my voice, ceasing only when her security team kills me or we fall in love.

tis the damn season - Worst case scenario this is a sad Christmas song (the best kind of Christmas song) and it devastates me in the most degrading way possible. Best case scenario it’s really bad and dumb and I can live without pain.

tolerate it - Many possibilities here. Could be about white-knuckling it through a period of depression, or a breakup. Most obviously, it could be about COVID-19 lockdowns keeping us trapped in our homes, disconnected from loved ones, going slow-brained and strange, bowls piling up, and suddenly so desperate for human interaction that even memories of having drinks with somebody from Hinge who quoted Friends twice in an hour are tantalizing in comparison to the touch-starved dreamstate of staying indoors... But I kinda feel like this is Taylor replying “COPE” from on high to my tweets about how I would rather be boiled alive than have to face the existence of this record.

no body, no crime (feat. Haim) - What would be very good is if this is a homosexual romp about Taylor Swift and the one hot Haim guitar girl with the really gay energy doing a murder together a la “Somethin’ Bad” by Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood, but honestly, it is probably another song about Gone Girl.

happiness - Impossible to speak on this since, thanks to Taylor Swift, happiness is something with which I have no familiarity. 

dorothea - Have seen chirping on the odious bird application about how perhaps this song title suggests that Taylor has written a song about Middlemarch, titling it for Dorothea Brooke, but I reject this because it implies that Taylor has read Middlemarch, which is a premise I cannot accept. Whether this refusal is out of self-preservation, being unwilling and in fact unable to face a world where Taylor Swift read and was moved to creation by the novel which was my most essential friend the summer I got dumped by a guy who I still had to work feet away from in a candle factory for another month, and about which Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson whose birthday it happens to be today, which isn’t to say that this means anything about anything. I am simply trying to batten down all hatches literally and spiritually in light of having been had once again by this numerology obsessed demon) once wrote "What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory.” or because I just at my core do not believe that Taylor has read a single book since Gone Girl I couldn’t possibly say.

coney island (feat. The National) : Some ungodly americana ass bullshit that is going to ruin my life. The thought of holy terror shaped like a horse girl Taylor Swift and trickster nymph in the body of a tax accountant Matt Berninger, two individuals I have allowed, separately, to cause me grievous psychic harm, having even the barest amount of one to one contact, even digitally, has made me want to peel all my skin off and put it back on flipped inside out so that I might, when I look in the mirror, see a version of myself which approximates how I feel.

ivy - Another song for the plant lesbians. That’s fine, and I’m happy for that community, but what I want to know, looking at this growing pile of songs named after women, is where, Taylor, is the song about loudmouth queen Inez, legendary gossip and, for my money, the star of folklore?  

cowboy like me - Putting it as mildly as humanly possible, to slit my throat would be less cruel. I am drawing a straight line from me writing illegible sequels to perfect film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (itself a sequel) in crayon as a toddler, to Paula Cole’s “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” on the radio in my mom’s two door Honda, to me everyday after school in third grade changing into the cowboy costume my godmother bought, to me at fourteen internalizing a sense of righteous indignation that would take years to even begin to outgrow when Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, to the winter I dropped half my classes out of fear and sickness and read paperback westerns on the twenty third floor of the college library for tens of hours at a go, to the profoundly gay episode of Supernatural called “Tombstone” which is, yes, named for the profoundly gay cowboy film Tombstone, to the inspired and revitalizing pause in “Space Cowboy” by Kacey Musgraves where she’s like, “You can have your space........ cowboy”, to Mitski’s Be the Cowboy, to the perfect boygenius cover of certified classic “Cowboy Take Me Away”, to whatever the hell this is going to be.That line is not to make a point at all. It’s just that there is a line and beside it there is me, incapacitated.

long story short - Just like all the other times anyone has ever invoked this phrase in the entire history of human beings expressing themselves with language, it is going to be a huge lie, because this woman never shuts up.

marjorie - After all that Taylor has put me through over the years, she should have at least named one of these wretched things “ellen” after my dead Sagittarian grandmother, whose birthday is tomorrow, December 11th, which is again, the release date of Taylor Swift’s second album in sixth months, but it’s probably for the best that she didn’t because you simpletons would immediately think it was an homage to George Bush’s friend Dory the fish, and therefore gay, regardless of the actual text of the song, and it’d be the “betty” massacre all over again. That being said, this is almost assuredly another horny song about some mid-century white lady. Only days ago Taylor was telling Entertainment Weekly that she’s been watching a lot of movies in quarantine, and while she didn’t name 1958’s Marjorie Morningstar starring Natalie Wood, I wouldn’t put it past her.

closure - God, I hope this one is another Kaylor classic so we can all act like complete raving lunatics online from the confines of our own plague quarters for a few days. It’s been a hard year.

evermore (feat. Bon Iver) - I’ll be catatonic by this point. Who cares?

right where you left me - Yes, in hell.

it’s time to go - Yes, TO HELL.

[bossuary]

FIC: Methuselah

Rating: M (for a later chapter) Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Aziraphale & Crowley Tags: holidays, sadness, ennui, winter solstice, christmas,old marrieds, established relationship, depression, seasonal affective disorder, winter Word Count: 724 (for Part 1), 6798 (total) Summary: Crowley is a cad. Rather, he has CAD (Celestial Affective Disorder). But he doesn't call it that. He doesn't call it anything, this prickly, destructive mood of his, because that would mean talking about it.  Notes: I’ll post the individual bits here over the next few days, but the whole thing is already up on AO3 (there are footnotes, but i fucked up the coding on the links, so, oh well. sorry about that.) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ PART 1 - “Stuff” The angel and the demon differed on politics, philosophy, and social issues. They argued incessantly about history, economics, and religion. Apart from these subjects, they were perfectly compatible. Thousands of years of antithetical ideologies had not stunted the growth of their friendship. In fact, both parties seemed to enjoy a bit of verbal sparring, a melee of the minds, opposing someone who cared enough to oppose them. Every argument planted a seed in their common ground, and from it grew an everlasting bond, liberally fertilized with a talent for taking the holy piss out of one another.

While their so-called superiors were hammering away at the ineffable engine of war, Crowley and Aziraphale were eating things they liked, talking about the things they liked to eat, and generally getting on like a cosmos on fire. They’d figured it out, and didn’t mind that no one was ever going to pat them on the back for it.

They learned who they were and what they wanted out of their “forever,” and once that bit was sorted there was no turning back.

The strength of their relationship did not, however, mitigate certain conflicting states:

Crowley did not enjoy the winter holidays.

Aziraphale loved Crowley too much to leave well enough alone.

⬳∞⟿

“I’m cold.” 

He wasn’t.

“Move by the fire.”

“No.”

It wouldn’t do any good, since he wasn’t cold. He was. . .whatever they called pine cones and cactuses. (Cacti?)

He was prickly.

All the way through his crooked patch of ether, Crowley felt pangs of brittleness taking hold. It had happened every winter solstice for as long as he’d been on Earth, no matter the hemisphere or the eon. Even the stars, having crises of their own, seemed to give Crowley a wide berth, shifting their brilliance elsewhere in the infinite, beginning with the sun.

He sighed into his scarf, not a proper hiss, though it sounded like one. On the other end of the sofa, Aziraphale set his book down, but not before marking the page with a bit of grosgrain leftover from gift-wrapping.

“How about some roasted nuts?” Aziraphale patted his lap, where the tartan blanket they shared had grown by an extra four feet; to accommodate Crowley’s greed for coziness. “There’s a vendor on the Square who sells delightful spiced nuts.”

Crowley glared at the fire.“Nah, it’ll be full of people. Singing people.”

Crowley could’ve been in the ‘carolers’ division. Groups of people yowling at passersby in public, close enough to smell the onions they had for lunch, tolerated politely for reasons no one can remember? Outstanding work.

Instead, he’d invented strands of a thousand twinkle lights that went out when only one bulb was burnt.

Aziraphale patted the blanket again.

“There is the rink at Somerset. You do love watching people fall down,” he said, and tried not to sound admonishing as he offered up the suffering of others for Crowley’s enjoyment. “I hear they have dodgems, now. Hours of smashed fingers and rattled friendships. Oh! And cider. What do you say?”

Crowley said nothing. Nothing spoke to him, and so nothing in him answered. Such was the sucking sound coming from Crowley’s back of beyond. Aziraphale waited for an answer, anyway, ready to jump to it.

The fire in the hearth rippled over logs that keened too high and soft to be heard: get out get out get out of me. Crowley shook his head. In the ether, pin-sprays of needles swayed and chimed: be still be still we’re underneath.

Other demons didn’t wrestle with existential blue-bollocks, as far as he knew. Crowley, unsurprised, continued to be exceptional in ways that didn’t benefit him in the slightest.

He was going prickly. It couldn’t be helped. But he didn’t have to do it on Aziraphale’s time.

“You go on. I’ve got stuff to do,” he said, and slid out from under the blanket.

“Stuff?” said Aziraphale.

“Exactly,” said Crowley, tugging his hat down over his not-chilled ears. “See you, angel.”

Over the sharp clitter-clap of his loafers on the floorboards, he heard Aziraphale repeat “Stuff,” in an aggrieved tone.

Crowley flapped a wave at the round face peering at him from the back of the sofa. He bounded down the stairs two at a time, and at the jangling of the little bell over the front door, he was gone.

[mooosicaldreamz]

We obviously need your song by song analysis of evermore please!

i got asked to do this about four times so here it is.....much anticipated. i know. please note that when i say that i hate her or despise her i don’t actually mean that. but i do

EVERMORE

OK LETS GO

WILLOW - ok, groovy first time you hear it, right? has a strong rumbly wiggle. let’s VIBE. the low of the verse, the high of the chorus…oh my goodness! what is she doing. she’s just out there! wow. “wherever you stray i follow” is a banger. “life was a willow and it bent right to your wind” with the overlay oof let’s go.!!!! a shockingly strong first entry of the record…best one since “welcome to new york” maybe!!! let’s just say it!!! for some reason “i come back stronger than a 90s trend” throws me off though…i don’t know. it’s just so moody pop, no one is doing it like her!!! i hate her

CHAMPAGNE PROBLEMS - every time i listen to this song i listen to it four times. not a joke. it’s perfect. i don’t think i need to convince anyone! it’s perfect!!!!! what are you doing? taylor swift, the most dramatic bitch, has been writing dramatic bitch songs since she was fourteen and yet, somehow, she contrives to write even more dramatic things as she ages. this song is a JOKE. there are not ENOUGH songs about denying proposals! it’s just simple and sad. oh my god. it’s insane. the fact that she wrote this with her boyfriend (i have a running theory that they are married, we are going to refer to joe as her Perfect and Glorious Husband from now on) …… come on. the ENTIRE BREAKDOWN. “YOUR MIDAS TOUCH ON THE CHEVY DOOR / NOVEMBER FLUSH YOUR FLANNEL CURE / THIS DORM WAS ONCE A MADHOUSE / I MADE A JOKE WELL ITS MADE FOR ME / HOW EVERGREEN OUR GROUP OF FRIENDS / DON’T THINK WE’LL SAY THAT WORD AGAIN / AND SOON THEY’LL HAVE THE NERVE TO DECK THE HALLS THAT WE ONCE WALKED THROUGH” ……. concluding with that absolute stabby killer “what a shame she’s fucked in the head” oh my god……….. and the song resolving in a very adult “you’ll find someone else” god

GOLD RUSH - ok so like this song is like ok it’s got the same groovy high /low that’s happening on willow but it’s so different! it’s so good! the pulse of the beat propelling the whole thing through and then the falling apart “oh what must it be like to grow up that beautiful”……………..ok. the visceral image of “my eagles t-shirt hanging from the door” …………. i admire very much taylor’s oncoming gift of moving through high/low imagery…… i love her so much? it’s so HARD. “my mind turns your life into folklore” beautiful! BEAUTIFUL! also i have some belief in me that this is about karlie kloss but i shall not dive into that hole.

TIS THE DAMN SEASON - oh so i’m supposed to LIVE with this song EXISTING. WHY!!!! HOW……..oh my god………..taylor was like, yes, i’m going to write a song about a famous girl going home and banging her high school flame for a week and jack and aaron were like oh ok. “i parked my car between the methodist and the school that used to be ours.” she is such a joke. “you could call me babe for the weekend” like ok emo!! emo!!! OK. I LOVE THIS SONG

TOLERATE IT - taylor really gave us the most depressing track 5, but it’s absolutely a banger and i love her! she is just vibing! oh my god. what a specific emotion to pinpoint with this song….it’s such a gift. no one is hitting this space

NO BODY NO CRIME - this song has no business being on this record but in the BEST WAY, like how daddy lessons mysteriously appears in the middle of lemonade. oh my goodness. this is just pure country revenge song. taylor was like oh actually i haven’t forgotten my roots and i hate men more than i ever have. and she got haim to sing with her. and it’s so good. the low “i think he did it” oh my goodness. this song is a joke. how is it real? it’s just a perfect radio song. it reminds me very much of “before he cheats” but it’s a lot more sonically calm

HAPPINESS - similar to “tolerate it” and i think “champagne problems” this song is beating on an emotional bush that is really really hard to hit the head of. like, so she collabed with the national and bon iver on this record and previous obvi, and i LOVE them, but their music can often be very………impressionistic? perhaps? is how i might put it. it’s sometimes hard to get a note of specificity from it. imo. but taylor loves a fucking story bro. and she has figured out how to tell made up stories. she can’t be stopped now. like…this space of a breakup and knowing that it’s for the best and being sad in this way? name a pop star who has a song this nuanced. for real! god. i despise her. “across a great divide / there is a glorious sunrise”

DOROTHEA - the other half to the far superior TIS THE DAMN SEASON and a banger all the same. it has the bouncy joy of the most buoyant national songs. in the same vein as the also far superior BETTY, she has her sweet dumb boy slurry and less intelligent voice. i love that she paints these narrators this way, it’s just nothing she would have ever reached for ever before this period. she has a Perfect and Glorious Husband now and she has begun to understand teenage boys, FINALLY.

CONEY ISLAND - i have upon many occasions opined that i love the national VERY MUCH. i once went to a festival with my gf and her sister to see them even though i was expressly not invited and you know what despite the fact that it caused a lot of angst, i got to see the national play TERRIBLE LOVE in the middle of the night and I SCREAMED IT. so like, listen. what is matt berninger doing here, to me, specifically????????? i was somewhat hesitant about how their voices might blend, but it works astonishingly well. and i think that it’s so wonderful, i can’t. the imagery of a dreary coney island…..”sorry for not winning you an arcade ring.” as taylor always proves, the bridge is spectacular. “were you standing in the hallway / with a big cake / happy birthday”……”and when i got into the accident / the sight that flashed before me was your face / but when i walked up to the podium / i think that i forgot to say your name” sorry to yOU calvin. she had ISSUES. and now she has a Perfect and Glorious Husband. also “sorry for not making you my centerfold” ok kaylor

IVY - this song is about emily dickinson and i DARE you to tell me that i’m wrong. I DARE YOU. I DARE YOU. you’d be wrong! embarrassing for you. taylor finally writing a probably legitimate queer song and it’s about fucking emily dickinson is so on brand…..it’s dripping with poetry and groove and she’s so fucking dumb i hate her so much. her narrative of ivy and poetry and the lakes district…….ok taylor. i know. i know you watched all the dickinson things that came out and you identified with her. the gentle sway of the “oh, goddamn” and the “oh, i can’t”……i CAN’T EITHER TAYLOR !!! i CAN”T TAYLOR!!!! “oh goddamn / my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand / taking mine but it’s been promised to another / oh i can’t / stop you putting roots in my dreamland” TAYLOR. and then she says, “oh you didn’t realize this wasn’t gay?” “i want to know the fatal flaw that makes you long to be magnificently cursed” like @ emily yourself taylor “he wants what’s only yours”……TAYLOR. give me the entire catalogue of emily dickinson songs!!!!! i can’t do this. “springs breaks loose / but so does fear” “i’d live and die for moments that we stole / on begged and borrowed time / so tell me to run / or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become / and drink my husband’s wine.” taylor if you see this post, a, i love you, b, i need you to tell me about ivy, and c, PLEASE can i have tickets to your next tour in the year 2025 or whenever because my gf never buys me any to your shows……….i love this song if it isn’t clear. i think i’d love it if it wasn’t gay

COWBOY LIKE ME - ok this will sound weird and if you’ve read this far i’m going to assume that you don’t care about me being weird…but this song reminds me of the fanfiction STAY THE NIGHT by lynnearlington (maybe u’ve heard of it). please reply if you think about this and feel the same. “never wanted love / just a fancy car” “you had some tricks up your sleeve / takes one to know one / you’re a cowboy like me” the opening line re: the tent-like thing reminds me very strongly of the fourth of july at our family’s country club and they set up a tent over the parking lot and this song just makes me think of that vibe????? i don’t know. i have vibes. i love this song a lot, which is impressive because it follows after the gay euphoria of IVY. perhaps this is because it gives me its own gay euphoria. “now you hang from my lips like the garden babylon” ???? is one of the most gay, seductive, brutal lyrics i have ever heard. she wrote that down and was like, oh yeah, vibez, hundo p. she did that to me

LONG STORY SHORT - this song is an honorary sequel to I FORGOT THAT YOU EXISTED from the lover era (honestly i’m still in the lover era). but i actually think this song is better! so we are taking that. “actually i’ve always thought that i looked better from the rearview” ok taylor let’s access that feeling! “no more keeping score / i just keep you warm” is like, stupidly sweet.  rip to calvin but now taylor has a Perfect and Glorious Husband.

MARJORIE - made me cry, simple and beautiful. one of the more personal songs on the tracklist! and something that i had never considered that she would write about, but i think the quarantine period has allowed a lot of us to dig into our feelings, so….vibez. we’re vibing!

CLOSURE - this song’s production sounds a lot like bon iver’s recent productions, very tech-y and repetitive and spare. rip to karlie kloss but taylor has a Perfect and Glorious Husband and karlie’s legal last name is kushner so who really won? hmm? i love “i’m fine with my spite / and my tears / and my beers / and my candles” the inclusion of candles is just. vibez. there are four candles lit rn in our apartment!

EVERMORE - i think this song is very intriguing and i’m still puzzling with it! the simplicity of her depressive gray November phase and then the very ebullient and bold bon iver interlude……..really has a manic/depressive, sad/angry vibe???? it feels so on brand for this pandemic quarantine…..and it works shockingly well, except for that i’d rather listen to the bon iver part for 10 minutes more. “all my waves are being tossed / is there a line that i can just go cross” and then taylor’s sort of call and response with his interlude……should just be the whole song.  but it’s still good. that’s how annoying she is

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

tapestry 👑 XXIII

Warnings: dark elements

This is dark!(king)Steve and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: King Steven had a wandering eye but you never thought it would fall upon you.

This Chapter: The reader welcomes old and new faces.

Note: Alright, so I managed another chapter. I’m working an awful shift that gives me no time before or after and it’s all so depressing. That being said, I think we all sense cummies in our near future as we get closer and closer to the thottening. Anyways. Enjoy. :)

<3 Let me know what you think with a like or reblog or reply! Love ya!

masterlist

Rita reminded you of the tutor you’d shared with your sister. He too was silent and stony. His eyes were full of judgment as you struggled over mathematics or some grammatical rule. The greying maid bore the same air of righteousness. 

You caught her rubbing the skirt of one of your gowns between her fingers with a dark grimace. You likely felt the same of the satin monstrosities but she had her perception of you and you were certain it was as immovable as she was.

You dressed in a moss green gown and pulled a matching cap over your head as your locks peeked out and trailed into a loose chignon. A gold thread lined the edge of the hat and added a majesty to the attire which contrasted your former grey selection. A golden chain of round loops rested along your hips and sparkled in the lantern light.

The king had left late the night before. The maid was not permitted until after he left. You’d cleaned up the mess before she did. Even so, she did not yield. Her dull blue eyes would not meet yours but found you when she thought you were distracted. Her thoughts were of no matter to you. She was a servant. You missed Marge.

A rap at the door and you drew your attention from the book of poetry. The worn leather cover was soft and folded at the corners. Rita crossed to the door as you prepared to rise. You dreaded another visit from the king but it was not unexpected. Though who awaited on the other side was.

Your mother swept past your father and into the chamber. You rose as she barreled towards you. Her skirts billowed from her round figure; her hips wide set and her bosom heavy, though her shape was not unattractive. She wrapped you up in her arms before you could greet her and kissed your cheek. You couldn’t help but smile as she swallowed you up in her warmth.

“Daughter,” She sang as she held you at arm’s length. “Oh I did miss you. And so much else, it seems.”

“Mother,” You beamed back at her. “You’re here.”

“I did arrive just yesterday.” She replied. She released you and turned to marvel at the king’s portrait. “Well…” She neared it with her hand on her hips. “That is… a lovely painting.”

“A gift from the king,” You stated plainly. “I did not know of your arrival.”

“You wouldn’t.” Your father grumbled as he lingered across the room. “Given your… sojourn.”

“When I left, I did not expect to return to such a mess,” Your mother turned back to you. “I see a different wardrobe but not a different girl.” She crossed to touch the chain at your waist. “Even so, much has changed.”

“Alice?” You ventured.

“The babe is still too young to travel,” She rescinded her hand. “It will be some time yet, but they are both happy and healthy. I did come as soon as the snow cleared. A pity I did miss the trial… I rather liked the old queen.”

“Pretender,” Your father snarled.

“Regardless, Willis, she was a princess still,” Your mother chided over her shoulder. “And I suppose you mean to take her place.” She looked to you and you averted your eyes guiltily. 

“Suppose it should happen whether I mean it or not.”

“It is the manner of betrothals.” Your mother comforted as she took your arm and led you to the couch. She sat and pulled you down with her. “We’ve waited so long, dear.”

“I did expect the convent.” Your father remarked.

“Oh Willis, do cease with your vile tongue,” Your mother remanded before once more turning her attention upon you. “I see he’s not changed.”

“I’ve missed you,” You said. “Really, I did.”

"I know you're young, girl, but I know you didn't think I'd miss my own daughter's wedding." She took your hand in hers. "Oh, if the king hadn't been so pious in my time I don't think I'd have your resolve."

"Do have some restraint." Your father reproached.

"Do not act as if you did not encourage her," Your mother countered. "You must've been chomping at the bit when the king set his eye on her."

"Unlike our foolish daughter," He scowled. "You've inspired in her a dangerous will."

"Did you only come to spread your black cloud over us?" Your mother accused. 

"I am most joyous at the reunion, dear, but it might not have been." He slithered. "She is fortunate she remains in the king's favour."

"And you are fortunate to be the fool who calls himself her father." Your mother was always quick to mirror his venom. "Oh, dear," She smiled at you, "I hear you've not had your fitting yet. All the better for I'll not have those gaudy royal tailors sewing your train."

"Mother? You'll sew my dress? Will you have enough time?" You squeezed her hand. 

"They'll have to wrestle the needle from my hand to stop me." She trilled. "And your uncle has offered to subsidize the dowry. Your father and I are still recovering from your sister's and a king does prove more hefty than a duke."

"The king did offer to waive it." Your father said.

"For a man who values his pride so, you are quick to sell it for a coin." She scoffed. "Oh I do hope you've not been listening to him." 

You chuckled softly and lowered your lashes. "You know I've never been very skilled at that."

"As I figured. I doubt we'd be at such an advantage if you had." She winked at you and you hid your snicker. "Husband, if you did come only to berate our daughter I should think you might be more productive elsewhere."

"I did come to extend an invitation," He retorted. "From the king. We have been asked to attend the royal table tonight."

"Oh, very well, so we should accept," She waved him off like a gnat. "Now, do I have you're leave to see to my daughter after such a lengthy absence? I should think I've had more than enough time to reacquaint myself with you, husband."

"Very well," Your father sulked. "But you carry on like this and our daughter shall be a poor wife indeed."

"I carry on like this and I shall enjoy my years to come." She snorted. "Now Willis, do go coddle those lords in council. They do appreciate your pandering more than us."

Your father sneered but said nothing more. Your mother watched him go and the maid eyed her with a measure of disapproval. The doors closed loudly in his stead.

"Now, all you write to me of is needlework," She turned back to you, "And I must hear of your royal escapades from your father, a poor narrator, and from distant whispers of court."

"I truly did not it would get this far," You confessed. Your smile fell as the shine of her unexpected appearance faded away. "I… mother, I fear I might be ungrateful. Cowardly, even. Selfish, surely."

"I know you. I know you didn't want the queen dead. However did you stumble into this?" 

She looked into your eyes and you could’ve cried because she didn’t look at you as a machinator or a tool or anything than what you were. She looked at you as a mother upon her daughter; the concern creased her plump face and aged her. You breathed deeply and leaned back on the couch.

“I don’t know,” You said. “I don’t… know. It’s happened all so quickly and I thought I could outrun it all. I thought… Why, mother, look at me. I never thought the king’s interest should last more than a week. That he would quickly move onto the next lady.”

“But he didn’t,” She ruminated. “I suspect he’s rarely been denied a thing in his life and we’ve all just witnessed how far he’ll go to get what he desires.”

You hung your head. “Do you think I am foolish for not loving him back? Not truly?”

“I don’t think that at all.” She said. “My girl, I think you’d be more foolish to love him back, but even I can see you’ve got to find a way to tolerate him if you don’t.” You nodded weakly as your eyes stung. “He’s handsome, surely, and from what I’ve heard, he does shower you with kindness. Why, look at these chambers.” She sighed. “I know these things do not mean love but you must do as any woman must in a marriage. You must find a way to bear it.”

You lifted your head as you searched her. “And when he bears me no longer?”

“Do not let him tire of you,” She urged. “Why, if I can bear your father as I do, you can bear the king. Your father does act as if he detests me but he does also come to me when he cannot decipher his courtly troubles. Make yourself useful in whatever way you can and they will endure the rest.”

You chewed your lip as you weighed her words. It was no different than what you’d heard before from Rose, Barnes, your own father. You were truly trapped. There was no horse fast enough to take you away from here or any prayer loud enough to evoke a miracle. This was it. Your life. Your lot. Your fate.

👑

The king hosted the dinner in his receiving chamber. A large trestle was set up in the place of his usual small table and his desk was shoved aside. You were the first to arrive; your guard escorted you as Hugh bid you come.

Steven waited within his chambers as servants set the table for the evening meal. He welcomed you with a kiss on your hand and lecherous eyes. You could only think of the day before. The stickiness along your chest. You were repulsed by the memory.

"I have heard your mother arrived at last. I think it only fitting we bring our families together." He explained as he clung to your hand. "We will be one soon enough."

"Your highness." You agreed. He looked at you sharply and you quickly corrected yourself. "My king."

He smiled and turned once more to watch the servants at their work. "A spring wedding. The season of rebirth. Fitting, isn't it?" He mused.

"Yes, my king," You agreed as you let him pull you around the room. "Very."

"A marriage in the spring is a good omen." He continued. "My last wedding was in the winter. Hideous affair." He stopped at the head of the table and looked over it. "Though I care little for the ceremony," He turned to you and leaned in to whisper. "I'm more eager for the wedding night."

You smiled and nodded. You licked your lips nervously and his eyes followed your tongue. He hummed hungrily. 

He was drawn from his fixation by a sudden disturbance. The doors were already open to allow the servants to pass in and out. A deep feminine voice neared from down the hall and soon filled the doorway. 

You looked up to the grey-haired woman with wisps of gold still laced through her strands. She entered with two maids in brown upon her tail. Her rich azure skirts stirred like a storm as she stopped before the long trestle.

"My son," She greeted the king as her decisive eyes found him. You were quick to bow as you recognized the dowager, Sarah. "I am weary of travelling and now you send to me to sup when I could as easily dine on my own and see to you in the morning."

"Mother, it is only a hour's ride to Charmal." His tone mirrored her own exasperation. "I did offer to attend you there."

"The castle is much too small for your court. A den of liars and fools." She ranted. "I never did like being the queen." She quieted suddenly and her eyes fell upon you, frozen in your abeyance. "Is this the one?"

"Yes, mother, this is--"

"Oh yes, I've heard of her." Sarah waved you up with two fingers as she neared. "They said she was plain but I didn't expect this." You blinked at her as she stood before you. "Though she is not entirely unattractive."

"She is beautiful," Steven insisted as he crossed his arms. 

"Ugh, you always were the romantic," She shook her head. "No doubt the reason Eleanor met her end, not that she was very pleasant to be around at all."

"Your highness, it is a pleasure to meet you," You offered.

"People say that often but how can they know so soon?" She pondered dryly. "Oh, girl, I do see it in your eye. You're quite irritated by me."

"I wouldn't say that," You replied cautiously as you glanced at Steven. "Merely surprised. Unprepared for our introduction."

"Do not worry about my son or propriety and speak to me straight," She demanded. "You seek to be the new queen?"

"Our betrothal would have it as such though I never sought it out." You said evenly.

"Oh, you did not?" She narrowed her eyes. "And why would any lady not dream of a crown?"

"Because it is more than a crown. Because it entails a heavy burden, a plethora of responsibilities which can never be entirely fulfilled, an obligation of one's whole person which would have the lives of others upon the same brow that wears the gold." The words steamed out and you stopped yourself with a hand to your chest and gulped. She was truly rousing in the worst way. "My apologies, I do ramble--"

She scoffed. "You are honest. And smart. I'd not give anything to have the crown back. Well perhaps I would abide it if it meant my husband should rise from his grave but even then, I do doubt my willingness to wear it."

You were silent as she stared at you. She considered you a moment before she retreated. She walked around the table and examined the cutlery.

"You will hate it. You should know that now. The last queen would tell you as much if her head was still in tact." She said wryly.

"Mother." Steven warned.

"Son." She countered curtly. "I won't lie to the girl. She's young, she's likely been lied to enough." She looked to you again. "This is more than a wedding. More than a marriage. This is everything. A country; a people; life. You will hold more than your own well-being in your hand, you will hold the world."

"Your highness." You nodded thoughtfully.

"And this one," She pointed to Steven. "As much a boy as the one I taught to walk. Impetuous, indulgent, and impulsive."

Steven exhaled loudly as he paced opposite his mother. He was almost growling as he kept his arms crossed and glared at the floor.

"But he is king and if I tell him not to marry you he will be ever more intent on it and so I wish you good luck in this catastrophe." She looked down her nose and straightened a fork. "I shall remain for supper but do not expect me to break fast with you, son. I am too old for all this courtly absurdity."

"Do as you wish, mother," Steven grumbled as he approached his mother to pull out her chair. 

"I think I shall," She smirked and sat. "I'll have some wine first. The girl too. She looks like she's in need of a cup."

"They'll serve the wine with the food." Steven huffed.

"I know they will but I am thirsty now," She leaned back and looked like the queen she'd been years ago. "Sit, girl." She ordered as she waved to the chair next to her. 

You sat as Steven beckoned to a servant and called for wine. The dowager tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. "So you’re the fawn who fell the great lioness from her pride."

"I did not… I…" You peeled at Steven as he hovered around his own chair and watched. "She did sow her own fate."

"So she did but she was weaving it for quite a long time." She remarked. "I do wonder at the snag that unraveled her."

"I did not wish her harm as I've never wished any harm." You said. "I only wished to be as I was. Insignificant and uninvolved."

"This is court, girl. That is impossible." She snickered.

"So I've discovered. So I shall surely continue to discover." You frowned. "What should I say? You want my honesty but you think you already know the truth. What has happened, has happened. I had my role in it though it did not unfold as I intended. 

"A woman has died and I live to take her place. I am a villain no doubt in many minds, in my own even; yours too, it seems." You bemoaned. "Perhaps I should accept that and cherish it. Nurture it until I grow as sinister as you would have me. I'd surely be better off if I did."

She arched a brow and looked between you and her son. You sensed Steven's gaze upon you. "Perhaps you should." She said. "A queen cannot afford to be good, only merciful, and mercy cannot exist without a degree of cruelty."

Silence permeated the chamber. Steven cleared his throat and pulled out his chair. He sat heavily and gripped the arms of his chair. 

"Mother, I expect you will cease the theatrics for our other guests." He muttered. "Or you should have your wish of a night alone."

The tension thickened as mother and son glared across the table. Your mouth was dry and your chest threatened to burst. You pressed yourself to the back of your chair and willed yourself into the void. The queen laughed and a servant appeared with a bottle of wine. She raised her glass to the maid and then reached for yours.

"Drink up," She said. "It'll soon be your best habit."

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #461

“this city looks so pretty, do you wanna burn it with me?”

Have you ever wanted a Nikon camera? Or do you have one already? My camera before the one I have now was a Nikon D3200. I use a Canon now. Who was the last person (if anyone) you said Happy Birthday to? A friend. Do you have Photoshop? If so, how often a day do you use it? I have it, but I barely use it nowadays. I use it to edit photos for character profiles or profile pictures, add a watermark for my actual photography, and I used to make Mark-oriented gifs like crazy. They mostly did really well, so... I might wanna get back into that and get That Sweet Validation. Do you watch any shows that you know your parents wouldn’t approve of? No. Have any of your exes gotten married or had kids since your breakup? None, I think. Do either of your parents have a mental illness? My mom has depression. Can you tolerate children for a long period of time? NO. Have you ever lived with someone you felt thoroughly uncomfortable around? No. Are you into dubstep? Yeah, I tend to enjoy it. Zelda or The Sims games? Can I pick neither? lol I don't feel very much at all for The Sims, and Zelda games have always looked... boring to me? Like I've watched most of the Game Grumps' playthroughs of all the games, and they make it hilarious of course, but the games themselves? Nah. Are you terrible at assigning bands their proper genre? YES YES YES YES YES YES. Even in my preferred category, that being metal, FUCK if I know the sub-genre. Have you ever made out in a closet? No, that shit sounds claustrophobic as hell. Have you ever been to a laser tag place? Yeah, on a triple-date once! It was SO fun. How do you wanna celebrate your next birthday? Have a couple friends over, pig out at The Cheesecake Factory. o3o Do you tease your parents about them being old? No, especially not Mom. She's self-conscious about getting older. Are you in love with someone? "In love" is a bit too far, buddy. But I love someone. Have you ever ridden a unicycle? No. Have you ever wanted a pet bunny? I was VERY serious about getting a lop-eared bunny for quite a while, but we just couldn't afford to adopt one (even off Craigslist) and get a cage for it, toys, etc. Are the bottom of your feet clean? I HATE seeing the bottom of my feet. Not because they're dirty, but because it's Callus City. I ain't even fuckin jokin'. Do you like really salty food? Yeah. :x When’s the last time you bled a lot? Well, I just recently finished my cycle after not menstruating for three or four MONTHS, so you can figure that one out. Have you ever watched a needle go into your own skin? Yeah. I like to know exactly when it's coming. Have you ever seen someone get a piercing/tattoo? Yes to both. When you’re done eating finger foods, do you usually lick your fingers? Usually kasdjlf;kalsdjf shut up ok I like food. What’s the most racist thing you have ever said? As a little kid, when my really good friend (a neighborhood kid, even) asked if he thought we'd be a good couple, I told him no because "blacks and whites don't date" or something like that. It was an idea I'd never been exposed to before; the idea was so foreign to little kid me. I had no idea I was being racist. It ended in a small fight and we didn't talk for a few days 'til he came to my house telling Mom that he had to "be a man" and fix this and if that ain't the cUTEST SHIT RIGHT THERE. We were friends again after that. He's still on my Facebook, and he actually semi-recently got married! :') Do you know someone that is mute, deaf or blind? No. Have you ever spent more than two weeks in a wheelchair? No. Does weed smell good? Or no? Ugh, no. Where do you see your closest friend in ten years? Successful and happy she kept pushing. Mama to so many reptiles that are blessed with the best lives possible in human care. Got at least one amazing book out there. If she's reading this, you've fucking got this. <3 Would you like to have twins? Mother of fucking god, no. Even if I WANTED kids, do fucking not give me twins. Who was the last person you got into an argument with? My mom. Want to have kids before you’re 30? Once again, I don't want kids, but IF I did, that'd be preferable before the risk of birth defects and other issues climb with age. Does anybody have a tattoo with your name on it? My older sister has my initial. Do you think somebody’s in love with you? No. Do you think you and your best friend will be friends in ten years? Yes, I genuinely do. Who were the last people to hang out at your house? Miss Tobey, our friend and landlord. Does anyone like you? Welp... I hope he still does. Guess we'll figure that out soon. What person on your Facebook do you talk to the most? VIA Facebook? Probably my friend Lyndsey. She likes to comment on stuff I share. Do you want to fall in love? I do, but I'm also utterly horrified to and risk being hurt again. Are you interested in more than one person at the moment? No. Once I realized I was so deeply into Girt, all other romantic feelings kinda just... poofed. How was your last break up? Civil and done with both of our best interests in mind. What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to say? Probably the first time I admitted I needed to go to the hospital for suicidal thoughts. I was so, so scared of what it was going to be like. What is the hardest thing you NEEDED to hear? That if Jason wasn't happy with me, he had every right to move on. She was right. Do you treat yourself well? No... but I'm trying to change that. What was the last song you sang out loud to? This "Set Fire to the Rain" cover. Do you take good pictures? I think I do? Have you ever done any internship? No. What’s a topic you’ve drastically changed your opinion on? Holy shit, so much, especially when it comes to morality and political stances. I am now a massive supporter and member of the LGBTQ+ community, I'm pro-trans rights, pro-choice... I've done like a dozen 180s in a lot of topics. Do you know anyone who has a PhD? I mean, some doctors, but no one in my truly personal life. Do you know anyone who works as a lawyer? Yes: my cousin. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis? LAKSDJFKLA;JWD NEVER AND I PRAY TO THE HOLY LORD THAT I NEVER DO. Does the thought of having wrinkles when you’re older upset you? Not massively? Like literally everyone gets them and is natural and inevitable. Do you know anyone who’s struggling with addiction? I know one alcoholic, and one that's probably borderline. I also have two friends who are extremely addicted to weed. Look me in the eyes and say it's not an addictive substance and I wouldn't believe you one bit. Is there a video or computer game that you can get lost in for hours? Eh, sometimes World of Warcraft. Some days I'm really into it, and others I barely touch it. What’s your favorite Disney Channel movie? I have no clue. I don't even remember movies that were made *for* Disney exclusively. Do you ever have to do yard work? No. We have a friend from the dance studio mow the lawn. Do you have any live versions of songs in your music software? My iPod has a whole live album of Ozzy. Did you or do you listen to Britney Spears songs? Both did and do. Britney is a boss bitch. Does your favorite band have a male or female lead singer? Male. Have you seen the movie Moulin Rouge? No, but I've seen some of that P!nk music video of the song and it brings out the Gay in me. Do you have a key to anything besides your house? No. Could you ever complete a 500-piece puzzle? I've done that before. I miss doing puzzles... Have you ever been to any sort of convention? I went to a reptile expo with Sara!! I REALLY want to go to another when my legs are stronger and can handle standing and walking so much. Is your mom or dad the older parent? Mom. Have you ever tried to walk on a moving vehicle and fallen over? No????? What is your favourite kind of bread? Is there any of that in your house? Pumpernickel. No. Are/were you in the school band, and if so, what instrument did you play? I played the flute all through middle school and I wanna say half of HS. Have you ever ordered an unusual drink at a bar? Never even been to one. Have you ever been pulled aside by security at the airport? I think once for some reason I don't recall? What is your favourite seasonal candy? (only available at certain times) Gingerbread men, probs. Or chocolate bunnies!!! :') How do you feel right now? My stomach is KILLING me. I'm super excited though that Girt is coming over tomorrow. Have you ever had surgery that kept you in the hospital for over a day? No. What would you like your generation to change? How we treat nature. Is there anyone that you truly could not live without? No. I learned that is a very unhealthy mentality to have. Do you like carrots more if they’re raw, or cooked? I just hate carrots. What restaurant did you last go out to dinner at with friends? With friends? I couldn't even guess. Does your refrigerator have an ice maker or do you use ice cube trays? It has an ice maker. Do you have a favorite sibling, if any? No; I love them all. Do you have a favorite brand of clothing? I STAN CLOAK. How’s the love life? Something new might start tomorrow. I think it will. Do you watch the news? No; that shit is depressing. Who do you admire most? Mark. Do you have a favorite album? Black Rain by Ozzy Osbourne takes the cake and always will.

[bezdddakota]

Thoughts on evermore ( track by track )

Willow is the best song on the album to get a music video because it’s the only one with any kind of radio  play. It’s a bop!! Also I COME BACK STRONGER THAN A 90′S TREND

Champagne Problems on my first listen, I thought it was about a young queer couple who got outed before they were ready and broke up because of it but apparently it’s about a man who was going to propose and she dumps him. I like my story better tbh

Gold Rush is interesting because she uses the term “ gold “ to describe her relationship and this song is a break up song!!  Also the song is unique because it sounds nothing like the rest of the album.

Tis The Damn Season is one of my favorite songs on the album because it reminds me of Happiest Season and it feels relatable like The 1. Also IT”S A CHRISTMAS SONG AND IT”S GOING ON MY CHRISTMAS PLAYLIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tolerate It is again interesting because there’s nothing more heartbreaking then seeing someone that you adore just literally tolerate you. Side note: the song falls into that weird category of music where people compare their love to religion.  

No Body, No Crime is everything I’ve ever wanted. I despise how people think that James deserves forgiveness when he knowingly cheated on Betty and everyone’s like “ he’s a child!! he didn’t know!! “ and it’s how you know that a man wrote it. Well Taylor came back with a Goodbye Earl/He Had It Coming song and it’s the proper ending tbh

Happiness. WHO HURT YOU!?!?!?!?!??!?!??! It’s the depressing sequel to Seven!!

Dorothea is kinda weird because I don’t know what to think of it. It reminds me of Me & Britney and I think it’s the prequel to Tis The Damn Season. 

Coney Island is kinda forgettable tbh. I’m re-listening to the album and I can’t remember it at all!! It’s not bad but it feels like a b side compared to Exile

Ivy is a wlw anthem and I will stand by that until I die. Also I find that her saying “ goddamn “ is weird and unnatural.

Cowboy Like Me  is adorable. Also I remember thinking “ what if Taylor worked with Mumford & Sons on Folklore “ before she was seen at their studio, ( the swiftgron is me is SHAKING )

Long Story Short is the most upbeat song on the album and I’m in love with it

Marjorie is the best song on the album. The lyric video made me cry and I wanted to call my grandmother and made me of think my grandparents who I don’t remember/ have never met. 

Closure is once interesting because again it falls into that category of WHO HURT YOU!?!?!?!?!?!?!? 

Evermore is weird. I love the first line of it for no reason but I really dislike with The National starts singing because their harmonies don’t match!! It makes me appreciate Exile all the more!!!!!!!

Over all it’s a fine album but I prefer Folklore. I don’t even see Everlore to be a different album at all but all it’s full of the b sides that didn’t make it on Folklore, ( which isn’t the case! ). I will just put Evermore right next to Folklore on my top 5 favorite albums list 

[sincerelyreidburke]

17 for bencole

“Wow, Mel, this is soooooooo late!” First: I know. Second: I’m profusely sorry. My semester was awful, and I have outstanding sappy prompts. This is the first of me finally finishing them off. Also, here’s the list, and if you want to request one no matter when you’re reading this, I will fill it!

Anyway. I’m so sorry. Both for my lateness, and for what I’m about to do to you. This isn’t really angst so much as it’s hurt/comfort, but I’m just warning you: Cole is in a bad place. There’s nothing more serious than depressive language, but it’s definitely hard to write him being so sad.

Read at your own risk, depending on how much you want to see Sad Cole Kolinsky!

17. “Because I love you.”

four years after graduation | november

 It’s getting dark again.

Cole hates this time of year. If he had the energy for it, he would honestly be down to personally fight the inventor of daylight savings. He really doesn’t understand the reason for setting the clocks back, and causing sunset to take place at 4 PM. Cole is pretty sure the only thing ever accomplished by daylight savings in the history of ever is making people feel dark, gray, and gloomy.

Case in point: out the apartment window, the sky is quickly and steadily darkening over a wintry Providence skyline. He hates how you can be facing away from a window in the winter, lose track of time, and turn around to find it’s pitch black out there. The city lights give him a little glow, cast across the floor of his studio, but that glimmer of light doesn’t stand a chance against the overwhelming night.

What time is it? Cole has no idea. He’s been on the floor in the studio for a couple of hours, at least, working away at the bridge of a song he’s been trying to finish for the past three days to no avail. He hasn’t eaten since breakfast, but he isn’t hungry. His guitar has been in his lap so long that his legs, crossed beneath it, are starting to fall asleep. The sweatshirt he’s wearing— one of Ben’s, baggy on him the way he likes it— needs to be washed. He knows it needs to be washed, because it smells. He’s known this for at least a week. Putting it in the laundry is a small, stupid hill he can’t seem to climb, so he’s wearing a smelly sweatshirt. He hasn’t showered in two days.

The studio is dark. He’s been trying to work for hours, and hasn’t made any progress. It feels like every small task, right now, is that kind of hill.

He blinks into the dark, and leans forward on the rug for his phone, which is buried under a steadily growing layer of crumpled papers, broken pencils, and random trash. When he finds it, he turns it over to look at the time.

It’s 4:31 in the afternoon.

He looks, blankly, at his phone screen for a second, aware of some stacked notifications but not really reading them. It’s been a couple of hours since he even unlocked it. The glow of the screen, bright in the dark studio, hurts his head a little, and when it auto-sleeps, he sets his phone back down and exhales.

4:31, and the only thing he wants to do is go to bed.

And, honestly, what’s stopping him from that? Because bed is one room over, and if he just gets under the covers, he won’t have to think about how impossible it’s been to finish this bridge, or how behind he is on literally all of his music work, or how he has a shift tomorrow at the café, which, no matter how soul-sucking, is real work, and will be, until he makes something of himself, which is probably never going to happen, because he’s worthless and useless and can’t even write a bridge when he has a completely free Friday afternoon with nothing else to do—

Or, come to think of it, the dark. Most of all the dark. Because when the world is dark for so much of the day, it leaves a free place for Cole’s own darkness to occupy in his mind. It makes everything worse. It always has.

If he gets in bed, hides under the covers, he doesn’t have to think about any of that.

So that’s what he’ll do, he decides. That’s all he has the energy to do. It’s not like he has anything to do for the rest of the day anyway. Ben will be home from work in half an hour or so, but Ben won’t mind if he’s asleep.

It’ll just be easier. He doesn’t want to be alone in the dark with his thoughts anymore.

*

It’s getting dark again.

Ben is over it already, honestly. Summer is his favorite season, for a variety of reasons, and pretty much the only things that make winter tolerable are hockey (a significant benefit) and the holiday season (sort of). He hates daylight savings, because it’s so dark when he leaves work it might as well be eight PM. Today is no exception; he leaves his office building to a black city sky and a certifiably nasty winter wind. There might be snow coming, which would be a hate crime, since it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet.

At least it’s Friday. He catches a good stretch of music on the radio during his short ride home, and he’s still nodding to the beat on the elevator ride up to his floor in the apartment building. It’ll be a good night in; they can order from that good pizza place down the block, and maybe watch a movie. Cole has to work tomorrow, but it’s an afternoon shift. They have the next twenty or so hours all to themselves.

Ben is looking forward to it.

“I’m home, Coley!” he sings, as he pushes open the apartment door. There aren’t any lights on when he walks in. This isn’t concerning, until it is— because Cole doesn’t really hang out in the kitchen, but a quick glance tells him that the lights aren’t on in his studio, either. The door is open, and it’s dark behind it.

It’s like there’s no one home at all.

“Babe?” He flicks on the main kitchen light, as he shuts the door behind himself. There’s no response. Ben hesitates, just a second, as he hangs his jacket and keys, and then adds, “You in here?”

Which is a stupid question, because Cole has to be in here somewhere. He doesn’t drive, and even past that, isn’t the kind of person to randomly go out without saying where he’s going. Ben knows he’ll find him, somewhere in the apartment— he just doesn’t know where, or in what headspace, he might find him.

He can’t help but get just a little nervous, when he comes home to a dark apartment.

Because nine months into this relationship, Ben knows what dark means. Cole shuts lights off, habitually, when he’s in a bad place. He blocks out the light on purpose, like it’ll hurt him if he sees too much of it. Ben has come home to this before. And he knows, on top of everything, that the onset of winter doesn’t do anything good for Cole’s mental health.

So he treads carefully, across the kitchen, and speaks gently as he goes. “Cole?” He peeks into the studio, and flicks on the light. Cole isn’t in here— but evidence of him is. His working area is a disaster scene, with his guitar left on the ground, surrounded by writing utensils, crumpled notebook pages, and trash. His phone is in here, too, near his guitar.

It’s… a mess. But messes can be cleaned up. What’s worse than it being messy is the fact that it’s a clear sign of Cole being unwell.

Ben steps back from the studio, and glances down the hall. Their bedroom is the last room, and its doorway is just as dark as any other door in the apartment. He tries to be quiet, as he walks there, and when he glances inside, finds his hunch was accurate— Cole is a lump under the covers, on the far side of the bed.

“Cole?” he tries, again, but keeps his voice low. If he’s asleep, he doesn’t want to wake him up. At least not right this second. “I’m home, baby.”

The lump doesn’t move.

Ben hesitates, a second, as he hangs on the doorway. Cole is obviously asleep— his body, huddled almost completely under the comforter except for the hood of his sweatshirt and top of his head, is rising and falling, steady breathing. The problem isn’t exactly that he’s sleeping, but that he’s sleeping in the dark at 5:15 PM. That fact, combined with his mess in the studio, can only mean one thing.

Cole didn’t have a good day today.

It pains Ben to think of what must have led to this— because he knows this boy, knows him well enough to understand these signs, knows his brain never takes it easy on him, least of all on days when it gets dark in the middle of the afternoon. He must have been in the studio, at some point— that’s what he said he was doing today, when Ben left for work this morning. Last he saw him, he was sitting on the counter, eating Trix out of a mug, and he said, I really have to finish that bridge today.

That’s a good idea, babe, he’d replied, putting the lid on his travel mug of coffee. You’ll have to play it for me, when I get home.

Cole had smiled— thinly, like it took a lot of energy, but still, he smiled. I will, if I finish.

Ben doesn’t know what filled the hours between his leaving for work and right now. But he knows Cole wound up here, instead of in the studio— where he would be, if it’d gone well— and that that can’t mean much good.

But he can’t change any of that. What he can do is try to make the rest of the night better for him. And if nothing else, that is something he knows how to do.

So he turns on the lamp on their bedside table, the lowest light in the bedroom, and lets him sleep, as he changes out of his work clothes and into sweats. He turns other lights on as he backtracks through the apartment— the hall light, the dimmer in the living room, the fixture over the kitchen island. Each makes the place feel a little warmer, a better place to be on a cold, wintry, maybe snowy night. He looks into the fridge, then the freezer.

Yeah, screw ordering. He’ll make pizza, tonight. He’ll do Cole’s favorite— barbecue chicken, green peppers. He has enough in the fridge, and something home-cooked could probably do him some good.

It takes ten minutes to roll out the dough, another ten to do the toppings. He preheats the oven, and while he waits, he cleans up the trash in the studio. He zips Cole’s beloved guitar back into its case, and brings out his phone, leaves it on the charger in the kitchen. He doesn’t really want to throw away any of the notebook pages, just in case Cole decides, later, in a songwriting frenzy, that something he crumpled up previously might be important. So he leaves those, flattens them all and puts them into a pile on the studio desk. When he’s satisfied, he shuts the studio light off, and closes the door as he leaves it.

Next, he grabs a fresh change of clothes for Cole from the dresser, and sets them on the sink in the bathroom with a clean towel. He highly doubts that Cole showered today, and he hasn’t seen evidence of him doing so in at least a few days. Cole won’t like that, but it’ll do him some good.

He’s back in the kitchen, taking the pizza out of the oven, when he gets company. He doesn’t notice, at first— Cole is in socked feet, and moves quietly, so much so that Ben starts a little when he turns and sees him coming in. “Hey,” he breathes, keeping his voice mostly quiet, as he sets down the pizza stone on a potholder to cool. “How was your nap, babe?”

Cole stops a few feet from the island. Head to toe, he looks so hollow and tired that it hurts Ben’s heart a little. He still has the hood of his sweatshirt— well, Ben’s own sweatshirt originally, but basically it’s Cole’s now— pulled up over his head, the way he slept, and his hair, longer than usual, hasn’t been brushed in awhile. He’s squinting, not wearing his glasses, and he rubs one of his eyes over and over.

When he speaks, he only has half a voice. “Hi.”

Ben walks to him. For some reason, he feels like he has to hold him up, to keep him steady on his feet. He takes him by his elbows, and Cole falls into his embrace— he’s dead weight, and he exhales, presses his head into his chest. He’s a little shaky. Ben would wonder if he caught a cold, but knows better. He knows this. This is a different kind of sick.

“Hey,” he says again, and squeezes him tight around the waist. “What’s wrong, baby?”

Cole is still shaky, in his arms. He doesn’t speak for a minute, so Ben holds on tight. Cole smells like his clothes haven’t been washed in too long, and his hair is greasy.

“I didn’t—” comes Cole’s voice, small and unsteady, from his head pressed into his chest. “I didn’t get anything done today.”

“That’s okay, babe.” Ben knows his assurance in this category won’t really do much, because Cole is so, so hard on himself when it comes to creative productivity— but the least he can do is try. “You don’t have to get things done every single day.”

Cole groans, and shakes his head. “I had the whole day,” he says, and Ben doesn’t realize until right then that he’s crying. His voice breaks on the end of his sentence, and he sniffles. “I had the whole day,” he repeats.

“Hey— baby.” Ben tugs, very gently, at the hood of his sweatshirt, and eases him up so he can look him in the eye. His eyes are glassy, and he has a pillowcase imprint on his cheek. Ben wipes at a wet spot on his cheek. “That’s okay,” he says. “The writing isn’t important if you’re not okay.”

Cole sniffles again, and his eyes well up further. “Hey,” Ben whispers; his stomach turns at the sight. He pulls him close to hug him again, and pressed close against him, Cole cries a little more openly. “Don’t cry, baby. I’ve got you. I’m home now.”

“I’m so—” Cole stops, to sniffle, before he continues, “I feel so useless.”

“You aren’t useless,” Ben tries. He tightens his grip. He knows he’s the only thing keeping him steady. “It’s a tough time of year.”

Cole groans again, and then nods, and for a minute, they’re quiet. They stand in the middle of the kitchen, and Cole sniffles a few more times against his chest, and to take this away from him is the only thing Ben wants to do.

He can’t do that. But he can do what he can. He can try.

“I made dinner,” he says. “And I took out clean clothes— you should shower, babe.” Cole grumbles a little in protest, so he adds, “I know you don’t want to, but you should. You’ll feel better.”

“I don’t have the energy to shower,” Cole whispers, a little less tearily but just as weakly.

“I can—” Ben bites back his first response, because he doesn’t want to give the wrong impression. “If you want,” he rephrases, gently, “I can help you.”

Cole is quiet, and then lets off a long exhale. When he looks up, his eyes are still full, but he tips forward to rest his forehead against his, and reaches around the back of his head. Ben knows what he’s doing before he does it— he pulls at his elastic, and takes down his hair. When it’s out of the bun, Cole threads his fingers in it, like he’s holding on for dear life. It doesn’t really hurt, but it’s tight.

“Why,” Cole mumbles, and then swallows. He sounds like he’s fighting to keep his voice steady, to keep more tears from coming. “Why are you being so patient with me.”

It’s a question that isn’t phrased like one. Ben knows the answer, would always know the answer. “Because I love you,” he replies, without waiting. “And I would do anything to help you feel better. Even if it’s only a little at a time.”

Cole sniffles again, and Ben can see the exact moment he loses his fight against the tears. When they fall, Ben wipes them away with his sleeve.

“I’m sor—” Cole starts, but he cuts him off.

“No,” he says. “You never— look at me. You never have to be sorry, baby.”

Cole sniffles, again. His voice is strained, but he murmurs, “I love you,” and Ben doesn’t want to do a single other thing in the world tonight but be here. And hold him. And keep letting the light in.

“I’m right here, babe,” he tells him. “Okay? You can shower while the pizza cools.”

Cole takes a long breath, a shaky one, but his exhale is steadier than the inhale. It’s a good sign. It’s progress. It’s something.

They’ll take the night in steps, and go from there.

“Okay,” Cole says, finally, and he wipes his own face with the sleeve of the oversized sweatshirt. He nods, and repeats himself. “Okay.”

Ben reaches down, and takes his hand. When he squeezes, Cole’s squeeze back is tight. “Good,” he says, and tips his head toward the bathroom. “Come with me, baby.”

Out the window on his way by, Ben notices it’s snowing. It’s early, for sure, for that to happen. But the apartment is warm, and they have each other, and they don’t have anywhere to be.

It’ll be a long winter. But Ben is going to get them both through it.

Because through good and bad, dark and light, through any season, he has Cole— and he’s never letting go.

[paradigmsofbrittaperry]

okay so literally no one asked for this. but here’s my personal folklore/evermore playlist arranged both thematically and in a way that makes it a semi-linear storyline because I quite literally had nothing better to do. long winded explanations/my train-of-thought convoluted storyline under the read more!! 

1. the 1

you can’t not start with the 1. it always has to be the first song. I don’t make the rules.

2. champagne problems 

this song works like a compliment to the 1, like the other person’s perspective on their failed relationship. placing it after the 1 makes the songs a dialogue and I really like that.

3. the last great american dynasty

this seems random at first, but I promise, there was intent. I liked the idea of “I had a marvelous time ruining everything” applying to the failed relationship of the previous two songs. additionally, the concept of moving on to have the crazy life that you’ve always dreamed of after the relationship ended seemed fitting. 

4. seven

exploring the woods around their house causes the narrator to reflect on their childhood.

5. dorothea

I like imagining that Dorothea is the childhood friend referred to in seven. even if you don’t like that idea, the songs are still thematically similar and have the narrator reflecting on their childhood/teen years.

6. willow

this is a transition song of sorts. it somewhat fits into the thread of the first five songs, but - and hear me out - imagine this song as being from Betty’s perspective. this is her journey of falling in love with James, being infatuated with him from the first time they meet and being unapologetic about it.

7. gold rush

James’ perspective of falling for Betty. he doesn’t think that he has a chance with her and resigns himself to only daydreaming about her, but eventually realizes that Betty feels the same way about him.

8. invisible string

whoo they’re together! they’re in love! this is high school, so they’re already hearing wedding bells. 

9. cowboy like me

more of the same. but specifically, I see this song as a goodbye before the summer. I imagine that James’ family goes on vacation to the beach, and that’s where he meets…

10. august

and they have their summer fling. August (I prefer that name for her instead of Augusta or Augustine) is in love with James, and I imagine that he didn’t tell her about Betty. I also am operating on the assumption that they coincidentally live in the same town, but don’t go to the same school.

11. ivy

James’ perspective on his affair with August. he thinks that he may be truly falling for her, but knows that he is still promised to Betty. just imagine all the “he’s” as “she’s”. actually, this gives me an idea. they’re all lesbians now. I make the rules. James will henceforth be referred to as she/her. 

12. illicit affairs

James tells August about Betty, but continues to see her for the rest of summer. hence, it’s an illicit affair now.

13. ‘tis the damn season

essentially functions as a plea from August to James to stay with her. however, she realizes that James would never choose her over Betty and leaves of her own volition. 

14. epiphany 

(this one is actually courtesy of my friend b/c I didn’t know where to put epiphany so!!) James and August are coming down from the euphoria of their summer relationship and realizing they have to go back to reality. James knows this won’t stay a secret from Betty, his secrets will be “bleeding out”. August has accepted the whole james not choosing her thing, but it still hurts, hence her “crashing now”. 

15. hoax

August reflecting on her relationship with James. she misses her, and doesn’t know if she’ll ever find someone she feels the same way about, but knows that it wasn’t a healthy relationship and that James didn’t treat her the way she deserves to be treated. 

16. mirrorball 

this fits both August and Betty’s perspective. they both put their all into entertaining James, and both are wondering what it was all for.

17. tolerate it

we’re back to Betty. she hears of James and August’s affair from Inez and is devastated. she goes to confront her about it and lays everything out on the table, detailing everything that she’d done for him and asks how she could have done this to her after all of that.

18. mad woman

Betty knows that she’s expected to get over it and not be mad at James. but she’s pissed. James cheated on the wrong girl. also, she wants August to be as mad as she is, since neither of them deserved what James did to them. 

19. no body, no crime

Betty’s violent revenge fantasy. that’s all. I didn’t know where else to put this song and this spot seemed most fitting. 

20. exile 

Betty and James reflecting on their breakup. maybe she has another boyfriend?? maybe this is “plus I saw you dance with him”?? I don’t know, I’ve put too much thought into this at this point and feel like I’m losing it. 

21. happiness 

Betty, James, and August all reflecting on their respective relationships. 

22. my tears ricochet

Betty’s still thinking about James.

23. this is me trying

everyone is still recovering from the events of the summer and doing their best to move on.

24. closure

Betty receives a letter from James. she doesn’t want his empty apologies or his closure.

25. majorie

another song that I wasn’t sure where to place, but the “what died didn’t stay dead” and “if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re still around” fits the idea Betty and James missing one another well enough.

26. coney island

they’re still missing each other. James hears about Betty’s party and makes the decision to go see her and tell her that she’s still in love with her.

27. betty

self-explanatory.

28. peace 

their conversation in the garden.

29. cardigan

Betty reflects on everything that they’ve been through when she first sees James standing in her front porch light and decides to let him back in. 

30. the lakes

Betty and James make plans to elope! they’ve graduated college and they’re leaving everything from their past behind them to be with each other.

31. long story short

tl;dr of this whole gosh darn thing: they had a bad time. they survived.

32. evermore

similar to the 1, there just can’t be any other closing track. however, the theme of finding hope after a long depressive period of time still works with the narrative. Betty and James are together and starting a new life. August has moved on, maybe found someone else, has a successful career, and has hope for the first time in a while. screw it, the first five songs were actually from older August and Dorothea’s perspective and were them reflecting on their shared past. Dorothea was August’s first true love after James, and had also left, but comes back to her in the end. all of our main characters have been through a lot, but here they are. their pain won’t be for evermore. they survived, and better times are here.