#but the eras tour one might be the one I make most of

[theamazingannie]

Official prototypes for my friendship bracelets. Might change around the letter beads and a few of the colors due to inventory but overall I’m happy with the results

[ilostyou]

i’ve seen far too many tiktoks made purely with the intention of making fun of other people at tour (for their outfits, for how excited they got, for what songs they did or didn’t know…i could go on) and i just want to say i wish every single person who feels the need to not only make fun of someone but to do it on the internet a very fuck you. leave your mean girl energy at home idc

[pucksandpower]

can i request charles leclerc x singer!reader when reader is basically taylor swift and their relationship is like her and travis kelce 🥹🥹 also charles telling his fellow drivers but they dont believe him until THE taylor swift!reader is in the paddock kissing him

IF ITS NOT TOO MUCH HASSLE OFC

Charles Leclerc x pop star!Reader - Social Media AU

kymillman

Liked by charles_leclerc, y/nupdates, and 492,815 others

kymillman Y/N MAKES HER PADDOCK DEBUT

Miss Americana arrives at the Circuit of the Americas and receives no less fanfare than the drivers themselves. Y/N Y/L/N will be singing The Star-Spangled Banner before the race later today!

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leclercbae this was only posted two minutes ago and charles has already managed to like it? must be a new record even for him

enchantedtifosa the devil works hard but charles “y/n y/l/n’s biggest fan” leclerc works harder 🫡

leclercupdates did anyone else see the video of charles spotting y/n walking into the paddock as he was exiting the ferrari motorhome?

f1girlie he turned around to go back inside so fast that the automatic door didn’t even have time to open and he slammed his forehead into the glass 😭

scuderialeclerc charles is trying (and failing miserably) to hide that he’s fangirling harder than anyone has ever fangirled before

y/nupdates

Liked by f1wagupdates, ferrarinews, and 683,294 others

y/nupdates Y/N Y/L/N attending the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as a guest of Scuderia Ferrari today

View all 3,758 comments

lightsoutleclerc crossover of the freaking year

fearlessferrari decade

tifositwilight century

leclercmidnights millennium

f1wagupdates how crazy would it be if the rumors are true and y/n really is at the race because she’s dating charles?

mirrorballeclerc being delulu is the solulu but even my delulu has limits 😂

f1wagupdates well it seems that my delulu is actually trululu

f1wagupdates

Liked by charles_leclerc, yourusername, and 1,085,793 others

f1wagupdates This week one year ago, Charles Leclerc attended The Eras Tour as a fan just like the rest of us. Today, Charles Leclerc proudly kissed Y/N Y/L/N after winning the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. King of our hearts and king of manifesting 👑

View all 6,294 comments

charles_leclerc what if i told you i’m a mastermind? and now you’re mine

yourusername what if i told you none of it was accidental? and the first night that you saw me i knew i wanted your body

charles_leclerc once upon a time, the planets and the fates and all the stars aligned

yourusername you and i ended up in the same room at the same time

f1wagupdates i have managed to run this account for five years without getting jealous but this might be my breaking point

tifositears god really saw how much pain ferrari was putting charles through and decided to make his biggest dream come true as an apology

formurrari he deserved it after 2023

charles_leclerc and i would suffer through another season of driving the SF-23 and every single horrible strategy call again if it meant getting to call y/n my own

yourusername i love you 🥹

charles_leclerc i love you more ❤️

yourusername i love you most 🫶

charles_leclerc i love you mostest 😘

landonorris OKAY WE GET IT

charles_leclerc be nice to me or i’ll tell y/n to take away your tickets to her next show

landonorris … carry on

pierregasly also king of never shutting up about his girlfriend

charles_leclerc and proud of it

[midnightsslut]

A Guide to Red - The Quintessential Taylor Swift Album

After the release of The Manuscript, the role of Red and Red (Taylor’s Version) in Taylor’s life and discography has been highly discussed. A lot of people have referred to it as her magnum opus and most formative album. I have decided to compile a condensed list of about a dozen key interviews, performances, speeches, posts, and videos from 2011 all the way until 2024 that illustrate the importance of this record for Taylor’s personal life and career. I’m putting the list under a cut because it got pretty long. You don’t have to go through all of these, obviously, but I would suggest at least one per era. The bolded ones are essential in my opinion.

Pre-Red - These interviews hint at Taylor’s emotional state at the time and thus the content that will be explored on the Red album

2011 The New Yorker profile

Taylor Swift reveals new album is all about heartbreak - Extra TV

Bonus: an article going through Taylor’s arm lyrics on the Speak Now World Tour, which she described as mood rings for any particular show

Lover diary entries from the making of Red (credit to @cabincreaking for the scans)

- All Too Well lyrics first draft (February 2011)

- Random bursts of happiness and anxiety during the Speak Now Tour (June 17, 2011)

- Red (September 8, 2011)

- Holy Ground (February 2012)

- Nothing New (March 2, 2012)

- Working with Max Martin (June 10, 2012)

Red era - Listen to the original sixteen songs on the Red album at this point.

Red announcement livestream + Q&A

Red prologue

2012 Rolling Stone interview

2012 The Guardian interview

2012 Billboard interview

2012 Esquire interview

Sirius XM Town Hall - an hourlong interview from the day Red came out

Good Morning America - this is the first mention of the ten-minute version of All Too Well

Red track-by-track descriptions

Random interview where she discusses the connection between writing Speak Now and Red

I Knew You Were Trouble music video

Diary entry about how love is fiction and she might move to New York after all (January 6, 2014)

Diary entry from Grammy night (January 25, 2014)

Red Tour London performance of All Too Well - any performance of this song from 2013-14 will work here, but this one has a pretty comprehensive speech

Final performance of All Too Well on the Red Tour - just listen to the speech here

Post-Red era - Over the course of these interviews, you’ll see her relationship to the album evolve.

Taylor’s description of Clean (skip to 11:18)

2014 BBC Live Lounge interview

1989 World Tour interview where she mentions thinking she’d never sell as many albums as she did with Red before 1989 came out

Clean speech - a lot of these will work, but these two best describe her relationship with the Red era and heartbreak in general

All Too Well (The 1989 World Tour live)

2015 GrammyPro interview

All Too Well Super Saturday Night performance

Reputation Tour All Too Well speech

Red into Daylight performance - 2019 City of Lover concert in Paris

Re-recordings era - at this point, listen to the red vault

2020 Rolling Stone podcast

Red (Taylor’s Version) prologue

2021 Saturday Night Live performance

All Too Well: The Short Film + Behind the Scenes

Seth Meyers interview

2022 Tribeca film talk OR TIFF (both are equally good. I have a slight preference for the former, but there are some interesting new details in the latter). You could also watch directors on directors from the same year as a bonus, but it’s less comprehensive.

2022 Graham Norton - How All Too Well (10 Minute Version) came about + how the re-recordings inspired Midnights

Also listen to Midnights

The Eras Tour

All Too Well speech (Glendale Night 2 & Atlanta Night 1) - any of the speeches from March and April 2023 will work, but these two really illustrate how she feels about this time in her life now and how the fans changed the Red album for her. Obviously credit to @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes for the transcripts!

Maroon first ever live performance (‘This is a song about something that happened a long time ago, but it took place in New York’)

Aaaand finally listen to The Tortured Poets Department, especially The Manuscript

This is a lot, but it’s worth it. Enjoy!

[taylorswiftstyle]

Eras Tour Film premiere | Los Angeles, CA | October 11, 2023

Oscar de la Renta 'Cutout Floral Gown' - $11,990.00 $5,995.00

In my predictions post for this premiere on the TSS Patreon I selected a different dress by Oscar de la Renta (a longtime favourite designer of Taylors) and noted that my ideal styling with said gown would be a "red lip and pinned faux bob with tons of bangles and chandelier diamond earrings ... for an old Hollywood glam feel."

Needless to say, I support and love this outing.

It's dramatic and ladylike while also honouring and extending the #1989Blue precedent she set during the final stages of the U.S. 2023 leg of the Eras Tour. Dressing to a colour palette is a perfect connector and reminder to bridge both the event at hand of the concert tour movie and her most pressing upcoming record with 1989 (Taylor's Version) set to release on October 27.

All in, this is a beautiful gown and perhaps one of her best appearances ever. The elegant styling (dainty rings and eye-popping matching diamond tennis necklace and bracelet) were the perfect choices. And maybe I'm just jealous that Taylor is someone who can pull off blue eyeshadow (any other brown eyed girls who were told that blue makeup would make your eyes pop and subsequently did not look like Taylor Swift when you tried a powder blue shadow look? anyone? just me?).

Designer Fernando Garcia also noted during the Resort 2023 collection's presentation that "cut-outs have become a go-to for our customer". The ones on this gown feel like an organic nod to the spliced crop tops that were signature to the original 1989 fashion run in 2014. But here, they're more organic and integrated into the design - a natural part of fully blossoming some might say. And if you missed the subtle cut-out nod, there's always the faux bob that might double take you into believing you were back in 2014/15 and also nods to the messy, slightly undone style seen on the 1989 TV cover.

As backstory, it should surprise no one that this particular collection happened to debut on June 13, 2022 at (where else) the New York Botanical Garden.

Worn with: Cartier necklace + Anabela Chan bracelets, Cartier studs + Cathy Waterman + Akillis + Anabela Chan rings, and Giuseppe Zanotti heels

[zot3-flopped]

Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

[azrielsdove]

Don’t Blame Me: Azriel x Reader

Warnings: Violence, Suggestive

(loosely based on the don’t blame me x LWYMMD mashup from the eras tour ngl)

***

You heard a desperate, strangled shout of your name as he went down. You screamed, anger and fear taking over. No, no, no, you chanted in your head, diving in the direction Azriel had fallen. This couldn’t happen, not to him.

The two of you were sent on a mission to investigate unknown creatures breaching the borders of the Night Court. Rhys wasn’t even able to tell you what they were, just that they were more dangerous than anything you’d dealt with before. You had been given explicit instruction to leave once you found where they were residing and report back the location. From there a larger team would be sent out to eradicate the threat.

You had been tracking them carefully for days, trying to find their home base. You were beginning to think they didn’t have one, that these creatures were nomadic. Until an hour ago. Azriel had practically dragged you as high as you could go in the sky, pointing to a cluster of trees a while away. “There,” he explained, “they reconvene there during the day.” You nodded, preparing to fly back to Velaris and tell Rhys. Azriel caught your arm, shaking his head. “I want to track them a little longer. Make sure I have the pattern right so when we come back we can have the best chance at taking them out.”

You didn’t have a good feeling about staying out, but you agreed anyway. It was important to ensure the information you had was as detailed as possible. That’s how you ended up here, wind rushing past your face as you free fell down to where Azriel landed. Please be okay.

You dropped to the ground and surveyed the area for any sign of life. There was nothing there. If you hadn’t seen Azriel fall yourself you would have assumed nothing was ever down here. You took off through the trees, heading in the direction of what you assumed was their camp. You listened carefully for any sound, whether it be danger or Azriel himself. You were nearing the clearing he had spotted earlier when you heard a slow hum, ducking back behind a tree and tucking your wings tight against you. You poked your head out to watch two of the creatures move farther in the area, Azriel dragged between the two of them. Your heart ached at the blood running down his face and his limp body.

You followed the creatures until you were at the edge of the camp, watching their moves intently. The tied Azriel to a tree trunk, moving and muttering around him. You were taking in how many you saw, estimating that about 30 of these things were living here. Your nose wrinkled at the sight of the insect-like beings, their long stingers the supposed most dangerous part of them. The creatures were roughly the size of an Illyrian soldier, resembling wasps more than any type of fae. Large, disgusting wasps. The hum grew louder as what you supposed was the leader approached Azriel. Your toes curled as you watched the way it yanked his face up, inspecting the unconscious male.

It turned to one of its workers, a horrible clicking sound coming from its mouth. The other responded in the same way, the language grating against your ears. They turned back to Azriel, continuing to talk about him. You wished more than anything you could understand what they were saying. You looked over Azriel again, noticing that his blades were still strapped to his body. Did the creatures not realize what they were? Or were they truly so deadly they didn’t need to worry about disarming their enemies? A chill ran through your spine at the thought.

The leader let out a loud screech and the others filed into neat rows in front of it. You paled at the sight of them all together. What were you going to do? You desperately called for Rhys in your mind, knowing he likely would never hear you. Even if he did, how long would it take him to get here? Azriel might not have that much time left.

The leader gave some sort of command, and you watched in horrified shock as they all opened their mouths. Long, sharp, straw-like tubes came out, heading straight towards Azriel. You didn’t have time to think before you ran out there, quick enough to take them by surprise and get in front of him. The creatures all stopped, taking in this new sight in front of them. Adrenaline was pumping through your body, the only thought you had was to save Azriel.

Don’t blame me.

You pressed your back to his front, reaching behind to grab on to one of the swords strapped to his chest. Your warrior eyes darted around the creatures, desperately searching for any sign of weakness.

Don’t blame me.

The leader moved towards you, that horrible straw coming straight to your face instead. In a split-second decision you ripped the sword from its place on Azriel’s chest, a loud scream tearing from your throat as you swung. Tense silence spread through the woods, followed by a sickening squelch as the creature split in half.

Don’t blame me for what you made me do.

The other creatures all swarmed towards you at once, your screams and the sounds of bodies hitting the floor echoing through the woods around you. You became feral, tapping into the deepest parts of your Illyrian training. All you knew was to not let them touch Azriel. One of those horrid straws sank into your thigh, a searing pain ripping through your skin. You yelled, the next strike aimed at the creature who attacked. The wound burned like acid had been poured into your bloodstream, and knowing the way these creatures worked it probably had. You couldn’t let that stop you, not when Azriel was in danger.

Look what you made me do.

You fought back with more anger, cutting down creature after creature. You were a force of pure power, midnight blue siphons a thing of deadly beauty. Another straw embedded itself into your arm, the sword clanging to the ground. You wrapped your uninjured hand around the pulsating thing, ripping it out of your skin. You squeezed your hand around it, harder and harder until you felt the satisfying pop of it breaking. The creature it was attached to howled and you shot it square in the chest with your power. You looked around, noting there were only three of these left. Even with your arm and leg out of commission, you felt you could finish these last few off.

Don’t blame me, love made me crazy.

Your uninjured arm slid down, pulling out a dagger you had strapped to your thigh. You surveyed the three creatures around you, deciding to go for the middle one. You roared, jumping forward and latching on to the nasty beast. Your dagger rammed into its chest and you slid down, your weight pulling the blade down its body. It screeched as you were showered with its sticky green blood, collapsing backwards. You turned to the other two, adrenaline dulling the pain of your injuries as you pulled out a second dagger.

Oh, Lord save me, my drug is my baby I’ll be using for the rest of my life.

The two convened on you at the same time and you swung out both arms, spinning in a death dance with the blades. You landed on one knee in front of Azriel, twin thuds from behind you letting you know you struck true. Your breathing was heavy as you looked up, up into his wide eyes. He murmured your name and you dropped the daggers, the adrenaline rushing out of you. You winced at the sudden pain in your arm and leg, spreading quickly from your intense use of them. You fell forward, body shaking while you tried to push yourself up. You had to untie Azriel, he had to get out of here.

Don’t blame me, love made me crazy.

You forced yourself up with a cry, fingers undoing the knots the creatures had used to keep Azriel trapped. He pulled out of them the second he could, catching you as your weakened body fell against him. “I got you, I got you,” he whispered, cradling you tight to his chest before shooting off into the sky. Far, far away from the carnage you unleashed on those creatures who dared to threaten him.

***

“No, Rhys, i’ve never seen anything quite like it. She took out all of them. Heavily injured on top of that.” You recognized Azriel’s voice, muffled as if he was standing behind a door. You tried to open your eyes, but your eyelids felt as if they were ten thousand pounds each.

“That can’t be. You’re certain no one else was around? I’ve never heard of one single person taking out 30 of them. I’ve rarely heard of someone taking out just one on their own.” Rhysands voice was contemplative, trying to understand how you could have pulled off such a feat.

“I know that. I saw her do it Rhys. She was a true force of raw power.” Azriel sounded…in awe of you. You forced your eyes open, blinking as you adjusted to the soft light pouring in from the windows. You looked around the room, realizing Rhys and Azriel must be standing right outside the cracked door. You tried to sit up, a loud gasp of pain ripping from you at the action.

The sound alerted the two males outside, the door flinging open as they rushed in. “How are you feeling?” Azriel demanded, immediately coming to your side. You tried to sit again, the pain knocking the breath out of you. “Let me help,” he said softly, gently pulling you into a sitting position.

“I think i’m okay. In a lot of pain. What happened?” Your throat was sore, voice gravelly. You assumed you had been out for some time. Rhys observed you carefully, like you were a specimen he was investigating.

“You took on a hoard of those creatures. Alone. Do you remember that?” His question was almost accusatory, as if he didn’t believe the story.

You nodded. “Yes.” The reminder of those horrible bug creatures made you shiver, the sounds of them dying echoing in your ears.

“Can you show me? How you did it?” Rhys’ eyes bore into you, almost a threat. You stared right back, not appreciating the doubt from your friend.

“Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.” A claw stroked your mental shields and you dropped them easily. The memories of the fight began playing, the anger you felt overtaking your senses. If you hadn’t been there you wouldn’t have believed the strength you showed to defeat all of them. The reminder of your wounds stung your healing skin, Rhys even wincing as he watched. He could feel your rage, your power.

He could feel the dedication and love you felt towards Azriel.

You threw your shields back up at that, not wishing to let him in any further. He had seen enough. Rhys blinked at you, eyes flitting between you and Azriel. “I see,” he mused. “Well, you certainly did kill them all. That’s quite some feat of power. I think perhaps I should tell Cassian to up your training.” He winked at you and moved to leave the room. “I’ll let the healers know you are awake. I will be back later to check in.” He left, closing the door quietly behind him. Leaving you with Azriel.

Azriel, who was looking at you like you were the most delicate flower he had ever seen. “Are you sure you’re alright?” His concern struck a chord in you, a hand reaching out for his.

“I will be just fine. How are you? Is your head okay?” Your eyes scanned his hairline, relieved that there seemed to be no permanent damage.

“I’m good. My wounds weren’t half as bad as yours. They knocked me unconscious once I hit the ground.” His eyes lowered and he ran his thumb over your joined hands. “I should’ve been there for you. To help.”

You squeezed his hand in your own. “You were attacked, Az. I’m just glad I was able to get to you in time. If I were a moment later…” your voice trailed off and tears pricked at your eyes. Those straws were so close to stabbing into his body, sucking the life out of him.

“Hey,” he said, looking back up at you. “You saved my life. That’s all that matters.” He gave you a smile, your heart squeezing tight.

“Yea,” you agreed, even though you wished to say more. You wanted to tell him you loved him, be honest about your feelings. You were so close to losing him, to losing any chance to be with him. The fear of rejection stopped you from continuing, the way it always did.

Azriel was looking at you intently, eyes seeming to read your mind. You put on a small smile, pushing your feelings back down. His eyes dipped down to your lips, gaze heavy. Your heart skipped at his expression of hunger. “Az,” you whispered as he leaned closer to you.

“Hm?” He asked, not taking his eyes off your mouth.

“What are you doing?” Your voice was a whisper, so quiet you weren’t sure he could hear you.

“Something I should’ve done a long time ago.” He ducked his head down then, pressing his lips to yours. You went completely still at the touch of him, mind in overdrive. He began to pull away when you came to, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him back. You kissed him hard then, the way you wished you had when you thought he was going to die. When you thought you’d never get the chance to.

His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you tight to him. You ignored the protest of pain in your arm and leg, focusing on the feel of Azriel pressed up against you. Of his mouth on yours. The way one of his hands began traveling down your thigh, fingers running along the edge of your nightgown. He bit gently on your lower lip, a silent question to open your mouth. You obliged, moaning at the taste of him. His fingers dug into your thigh at the noise and you let out a cry of pain.

Azriel pulled away from you quickly, apologizing immediately. “Maybe we should wait until you’re healed.” You sighed at the statement, but unfortunately agreed. You wanted to enjoy your first time tasting, feeling, loving Azriel. You pouted at him as he readjusted you, laying you back down on your pillows. He brushed a stray piece of hair off your forehead, leaning down to press a soft kiss to your skin. “I love you.”

Your heart was going to thud out of your chest. “I love you too.” Your declaration was a tad breathless, trying to decide if you could actually ignore the pain long enough to get on top of the male. He laughed, sensing your thoughts and gave you a soft kiss. You had waited so long for this moment, to have your love reciprocated.

“You need to rest.” He moved to hover slightly over you, carefully moving his way down your body. His fingers found the edge of your gown again, eyes looking up to yours from between your legs. “There are plenty of other ways I can please you.”

***

I needed to write something that was a request or a series, so this is what happened. I hope you guys enjoyed it!!! <3

[uwurakax]

-> HQ AS TAYLOR SWIFT LYRICS +

summary just the vibes of t.swift songs/lyrics and who (i think) match with the haikyuu guys ♡

-> i srsly missed them sm omg, clownin (also im rusty pls cri), maybe one day we'll write more on t.s songs bc dang she's killin it rn

(also edit bc i just came back to check this again before posting but, i thought it was fitting bc ya girl got eras tour tickets!)

(( edit two - you can see from above when i started working on this, came back and came back again rn, bc sis is making friendship bracelets rn for next month aa! and i got inspired by this lol - i also just have impeccable taste ))

featuring kageyama || oikawa || akaashi || kenma || atsumu ♡

+ i got other stuff ready to post promise, i just needed this out there +

KING OF MY HEART

"and we rule the kingdom inside my room, 'cause all the boys and their expensive cars... never took me quite where you do and all at once you are the one i have been waiting for, king of my heart, body and soul"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

it's not easy moving on. you'd been scorned before, and had your heart broken. it wasn't a secret to know you'd been on guard, had your heart under lock and key. created a tall, ivory tower that you made sure no one else would think of scaling. that was before you mer him. it was implausibly easy. how everything fell into place when you were just within his vicinity. maybe being hurt wasn't so bad, because if you didn't face them, they wouldn't have led you to him, here and now. he wasn't just the king of the court anymore, another invisible crown bestowed onto him as he climbed; holding the key to you.

- kageyama ♡

LOVER

"i take this magnetic force of a man to be my... my hearts been borrowed and yours has been blue, alls well that ends well to end up with you, swear to be overdramatic and true to my... lover"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

you knew he was a star, anyone with eyes could see. he was destined for great things, and you were a planet following, orbiting around his sun. you'd always follow, for as long as he wanted. your greatest pleasure though was with the mundane. you'd take the stardom, the fame... but you lived for the monotonous. where it was just you and him. you hoped it would last forever. hand in hand, nothing would stop you. whether it was cheering for him on the sidelines, or laying beside him at night, you'd love him for eternity.

- oikawa ♡

GORGEOUS

"ocean blue eyes, looking in mine, i feel like i might sink and drown and die, you're so gorgeous i can't say anything to your face, cause look at your face; gorgeous"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

starstruck, awestruck, wonderstruck. any and every 'struck' you could think of, and thats the feelings that grew the moment you locked eyes on him. it was such a cliche, a crowded room with a bunch of other bodies, and yet you seemed to naturally gravitate towards him. love at first sight. a concept so wildly unbelievable and yet so captivating, that the most famous love story revolved around it. yet here you were, stunned into silence, because this was what you were experiencing now. completely out of your comfort zone, never had anyone ever made you feel like this before; but what could you say? he's gorgeous.

- akaashi ♡

YOU BELONG WITH ME

"i'm the one who makes you laugh when you know you're about to cry, i know your favourite songs and you tell me about your dreams, think i know where you belong, think i know it's with me"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

it's not easy being in love with your best friend. you knew practically everything about him. so why was he with her when you were always in his corner from the beginning? the late night gaming sessions and text messages. she just wasn't good for him. she didn't understand him like you did, and his calls and conversations all but proved how much better you could be for him. so why? you didn't need to ponder long, because soon enough he was at your doorstep late into the night, confessing how it was a mistake, how he ended things with her and if he could come inside to talk.

- kenma ♡

CRUEL SUMMER

"and i snuck in through the garden gate, every night that summer just to seal my fate, and i scream for whatever it's worth 'i love you! aint that the worst thing you ever heard?' he looks up grinning like a devil"

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

you had heard about him. heard about how he wasn't good enough for you, and that you shouldn't get involved. you never were a good listener, and soon enough you became involved with him. despite the little voice in your head telling you to let go, you couldn't. it wasn't supposed to be forever, and you were okay with that. initially anyway. catching feelings for something that would end in disaster... but you couldn't end it. not yet. just how deep did you dive into whatever this was? you couldn't pinpoint when it went south, but did that matter? you were too far gone. the anticipation grew the longer this lasted, and in a bout of stress, you blurted out your confession. not your finest moment, and you were sure he'd shun you for good. turn his back on you and walk away, leaving you to mend your broken heart. he didn't though. he just stood there, with his stupid smirk that made you fall for him to begin with, confessing the same words you all but screamed at him moments ago.

- atsumu ♡

[stpansy]

i really love something about the fact that it's patrick doing the quote unquote costume changes for this little fob eras tour. like you could definitely argue that through the years pete has been the one most prominent in the public eye wrt fashion and image and sex symbol status for better or for worse--the eyeliner and the girl jeans, the dyed straightened hair, he was shirtless on rolling stone, he was the emo poster boy, he has a fucking fashion brand--the way he presented gained him a lot of notoriety/infamy. like. it would be very easy and make a lot of sense for pete wentz to be the one signifying fob's various eras through clothing. but instead it's patrick, who might be more subtle and certainly flies under the radar next to pete, but has still always had a strong sense of identity in his dress, with a clear enough delineation in eras that the message translates on stage. and pete just gets to have fun wearing what he wants to wear and looking how he wants to look. he just gets to be pete

[sageistri]

Jimin had a solo era where he had 10 days of mostly local promo except for Jimmy Fallon for his 6 song EP (1 b-side + 1 title track) in Mar 2023 + 1 collab (with Kodak and Jvke) in the F&F movie franchise in May 2023 + 1 collab with Taeyang of Big Bang in Jan 2023 with accompanying mvs for both collabs + 1 fansong released on christmas week 2023 with 30 hours of notice and recycled footage for its mv + 1 documentary released on weverse in Oct 2023.

JK had a solo era where immediately after hiatus he released left & right in June 2022 with Charlie Puth who's pretty famous in his own right, a world cup song in Nov 2022 and performed solo in the opening ceremony which was watched by 1.5 billion viewers. He then proceeded to release Seven in July 2023 with latto who's also pretty damn famous in the west with Grammy winning producers and an accompanying mv with Han So Hee. Seven is perhaps the most payola'd kpop song of all time - I can't even list it all down without making this ask huge but suffice to say that with all the ads and playlisting on several platforms including tth from day 1 and some help from spotify to keep all his combined versions together instead of splitting them and probably a tiktok heating deal - seven managed to stay on top of global for weeks and netted a bunch of records.

However moving on, JK performs at good morning america, is supposed to perform at the mtv emas (gets cancelled) and announces his next single 3D with Jack Harlow at Global Citizen Fest at NY releasing in Sep 2023. He also has a collab too much with kid laroi and central cee in Oct 2023 with an accompanying mv. After that we're gearing up for his all English album release in Nov 2023 with a 11 track album. He has features from major lazer and dj snake and songs composed and produced by the likes of Diplo, Ed Sheeran and Shawn Mendes. He goes on to perform snty at Jimmy Fallon, Times Square and iHeartRadio live. While none of his songs post seven are as heavily payola'd, they're still very well promoted. In Dec 2023, he releases a remix of SNTY with usher with an accompanying mv. He also features in hots in single I wonder in March 2024. Finally he's released a fan song never let go for festa in June 2024 which is a fansong but has a bunch of benefits usually seen for digital singles but no MV.

Obviously I haven't mentioned everything like their ambassadorships, their single bad decisions with benny blanco (mostly because I forgot about it), smaller promo like suchwita, JK's radio interviews, his visualisers, Jimin's Korean shows, either of their mnet performances, their myriad of tiktoks, their dance performances on youtube, JK's week-long station head parties or accompanying Yoongi on the D-Day tour. Plus as I said I can't mention the full length and breadth of JK's promo compared to Jimin in smaller aspects like number of remixes / remix albums or cd stock because this'll go on forever. And of course this is only the status as of today. We know pjm2 is coming as is probably a documentary for JK and their travel show together. Though I've probably missed out some things for both, I think I've covered the main points of both the solo eras.

There's a bunch of stuff happening here. For one JK's solo era is spaced out very well regardless of who else among BTS is releasing. While other members are clustered in specific times to avoid overlap, JK manages to have the most well spaced out solo era sometimes to the detriment of a member whose promo he might be encroaching on (debatable but I think it's true). The world cup gig which undoubtedly went to BTS being co-opted as JK's solo has never sit right with me but whatever. People can delude themselves about how in demand JK is but the truth is Latto, Jack Harlow and others probably got very well paid for collabing with JK and were certainly approached by Hybe / SB projects rather than the other way around. Same goes for them putting the full force of their marketing department in netting all those performances in the US plus awards. The new jeans controversy gave some insight into how Hybe can use their leverage to net spons, awards and performances when they want to. The fact that most of the collaborators JK had are good buddies with 🛴 isnt lost on any of us. JK's almost exclusive focus on the western market with all English songs is also noteworthy. I haven't even mentioned Jimin's sabotages because I can see how it's debatable but certainly JK's team at Hybe / SB projects were at the least way more careful handling his releases than whoever the hell is running things for Jimin at Hybe even if you don't want to acknowledge the sabotage he went through or the sheer disrespect of having his album release cut off by another members. Also not going into the bs with the delay in Jimin's RIAA certification just so that JK could get that first kpop soloist title or the insanity of Jimin's billboard sales filtering versus JK's premptive itunes preorder for seven before the official announcement of the BB rules change and helpful midweek sales updates that seven had.

After all this, it's amazing that JK's main point of comparison is Jimin. The fact that jjks and armys still feel this compulsive need to compare JK with Jimin after he releases something inspite of JK's peers supposedly being Taylor Swift now (their words not mine) speaks to both how JK was unable to capitalize on his heavy marketing and records versus how much Jimin was able to achieve with Face and Like Crazy.

JK managing to get the most likes on tiktok, staying on charts after heavy playlisting, becoming the darling of kpop stans - notoriously known for being visual stans and extremely fickle, and getting a bunch of kpop awards at the end of 2023 and probably 2024, having the most name recognition among all the members, still needing most of his streams for SNTY to come from Thailand, having album retail sales equal almost the same as Jimin inspite of the huge difference in gross album sales - are these really worthy accomplishments after this extremely long list of moves he's made? Jungkook was very popular to start out with and has always been the darling of armys - to the extent that he managed to avoid getting boycotted inspite of being associated and working with a bunch of zionists for golden. Apart from his new kpop fans, did he manage to net new fans during his solo era though? Or are his main fans still the armys he started out with in the first place from his time in BTS? Is this what anons in your asks think we're supposed to believe is impact?

Impact is what happened after BTS released Dynamite and Butter. A breakout star or single is what Baby was once upon a time for Justin Bieber or Espresso is to Sabrina Carpenter today. You get gp fans when you release good music like Olivia Rodrigo or Billie Eilish. You get critical acclaim when your albums have overarching themes that were carefully constructed and thought out like Beyonces albums. Your solo fanbase becomes more dedicated when you share parts of yourself in your music like Taylor Swift does.

When you make an album with care and dedication, then even when your label doesn't give a damn about you or actively tries to suppress you, your song can still chart more than a year later with your solo fanbase working dedicatedly towards you. That might not be a PCA, but it's a damn sight more valuable imo.

Sorry for how long this got. I just kept remembering more and more stuff to include...

Wow... This is such a perfectly summarized version of the major points and opinions we've all had since jimin's debut... I love it, this is probably the best ask and best post related to this whole thing i have ever read.

It is good for pjms who still ask certain questions about stuff we already talked about and I can never find the exact post where we already talked about it so I'll pin it.

[a-aexotic]

hi ren, biggg congratulation and the eras tour celebration is such a cool concept 🥳

🌙 please for Rafe and Paris!

pairing. rafe cameron x fem!reader

warnings. literally nothing except fluff, and illusions to smut?

summary. rafe is in love with utterly and fully in love with y/n

➜ missing out on updates? ❪ navigation. masterlist. taglist. ❫

Everything about You and Rafe had been unpredicted, no one in a million years that Rafe "Druggie" Cameron could pull someone like you. You guys getting together was definitely not on anyone's list of things that were going to happen that year, but it did.

And honestly neither of you couldn't care less. You and Rafe were completely and utterly in love with each other and nothing could get in the way.

Rumors, people, family, circumstances. None of that mattered in the case of you two. Especially Rafe. After everything with his sister, always being a second choice, when he finally was someone's first choice, someone's favorite person, none of that mattered. He was his absolute happiest when he was with you.

I'M SO IN LOVE THAT I MIGHT STOP BREATHING.

You and Rafe had been together for a year now and Rafe had done a complete 360 from where he was at before he met you. Last year, he was at the lowest of his life; completely high all the time, partying every night, new girl every week. Now, he was sober and with the love of his life.

It had been a year now and neither of you have had the urge to say the scariest three words in a relationship, especially a relatively new one.

Rafe had realized he loved you two weeks into dating you but of course he hadn't said it, he didn't want to scare you off. He was already crazy enough, imagine if he just told you he loved you two weeks into dating?

Rafe had just something so out of pocket that you let out a loud laughing, making Rafe stop and think for second before joining in your laughter. It was so bad that you genuinely had stopped breathing, hanging on to the counter to stop from falling over. Your eyes were tearing up and Rafe's stomach had begun to hurt.

"Oh my gosh, I love you." You accidentally blurted once you stopped laughing. You and Rafe both instantly jumped up, both staring at each other. Your heart jumped and you didn't know how Rafe was going to react, his face unreadable.

"Wait, what?"

You couldn't back out now. "I-I love you"

Rafe felt like he was going to pass out with excitement. "I love you too, Y/N."

ROMANCE IS NOT DEAD, IF YOU KEEP IT JUST YOURS.

If Rafe had a dime for every time someone had made a rumor about the two of you, he would be richer than his dad and that's saying something. You guys were OBX's favorite topic to gossip about.

Instead of getting offended, you and Rafe had made it into a fun game anytime Sarah had told you something you heard. You guys call it "Would this happen in an alternate universe?"

The game kind of says it all. You and Rafe would see how realistic the rumor was. It became such a fun game for you two that you guys started making up your own rumors as well.

You sat in the passenger seat of the car, listening to Rafe tell you the next rumor. "Y/N left Rafe... for Ward."

You gasped and then let out a giggle, "Ward?"

"Yup."

"That is the most outlandish shit I've ever heard, oh my gosh." You replied making Rafe hum in response, "Never. I would never leave you for Ward, my gosh. How do people come up with these?"

"Never?"

You felt Rafe's gaze on you as you furrowed your eyebrows, "Yes, Rafe. I would never leave you for Ward."

"What about JJ?"

"Maybe..."

Rafe scoffed as you let out another one of your exceptionally loud laughs.

NO, I DIDN'T SEE THE NEWS, CAUSE WE WERE SOMEWHERE ELSE.

For your third year anniversary, Rafe had taken you to a Hawaii Cruise. This was the first time both of you had gone on a trip by yourselves so it was way more fun for the both of you. You guys didn't have to sneak around anywhere, having a lot more alone time then before.

Rafe had gotten a buzzcut a few months ago and you've grown to absolutely adore it. At first, when you got the spontaneous text from Rafe telling you he was buzzing all his hair off, you were going to cry. But once you saw it, you fell in love all over again. It gave him a mature sugar daddy look and you loved it.

One of the reasons why you dreaded him buzzing his hair is that you wouldn't be able to run your finger through his hair but now that it's semi grown, you could kind of do that again.

You and Rafe laid on the pool chair, Rafe laying next to you with his head on your chest as you twisted his semi grown out buzzcut. You guys both watched the dark sky in comforting silence, enjoying each other's company.

You heard Rafe sigh. "I'm so grateful I met you, Y/N."

"Me too, Rafe. Me too."

"No, I mean like... like I seriously can't imagine my life without you in it." Rafe looked up to meet your eyes and you felt like you were going to cry of happiness. "You feel like home, baby. You always have."

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, Rafe. I'd be lost without you."

And suddenly everything to Rafe made sense. There was no more confusion on where he was going, what he was doing with his life because it was all clear to him in that moment. It was all you. As long as he was spending his life with you, he was happy.

"Let's get married."

[vintageshanny]

Get Your Belt Unloose

This is a smutty little one-shot because I’m obsessed with how sexy he looks in a jumpsuit with no belt. (And you know me - I had to add in a little fluff at the end). Thank you @lookingforrainbows for inspiring me with this picture. ❤️

Content: Elvis On Tour-era (or honestly whatever year you want to picture) backstage hanky panky, 18+

“What’s your name, honey?” The words dripped off Elvis’ tongue as he wiped a sweaty lock of hair off his forehead. He blinked a couple times, his eyes still trying to adjust after an hour of staring into blinding spotlights and flashbulbs.

“Hi Mr. Presley, my name is Sherry. I’m covering your concert for the local newspaper, and I just have a couple questions for you.” The curvy brunette standing before him in a houndstooth dress started rattling off her rehearsed monologue.

“Well, I might have a couple answers for ya honey, but only if ya call me Elvis. That okay, Sherry baby?” Elvis laughed at his own joke and broke into song. “Sherry, Sherry baby! Anyone ever sing that to ya?”

Sherry smiled and bit down on her lower lip. He was so adorably pleased with himself that she didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was the most popular response when she shared her name. Darn those Four Seasons.

“Well, no one as handsome and charming as you.” The flirtatious tone surprised even her. She had been dying to meet Elvis, but her initial plan was to keep things professional until the interview was over, then she would just thank him for, y’know, being himself. She hoped the right words would come in the moment.

Elvis’ smile grew wider as he put his hand on the small of her back and beckoned to a small private room off the busy backstage hallway. “Let’s go somewhere a little quieter so you can ask me those questions.”

“Do you ever get nervous?” Sherry asked as Elvis closed the door behind them. “Nervous to perform I mean?” She tried her best not to focus on a little bead of sweat that had formed in his gray-flecked sideburn and was currently rolling down his neck toward his fuzzy chest.

“Oh yeah, I get nervous all the time. Stage fright I guess they call it. I-I-I mean, I do this all the time, y’know? B-b-but my fans, this could be their only show, so I wanna make sure it’s as perfect as it can be. Y’know what I mean, honey?”

“Definitely.” As she scribbled in her notebook, Sherry’s eyes drifted down to where Elvis’ long fingers deftly unfastened his belt, and she knew all her hopes of professionalism were out the window.

“Ooh boy, that starts ta pinch a lil bit by the end of the night,” he announced, letting out a sigh of relief at the feeling of freedom. “I guess I mighta gained a couple pounds since the last tour.” He hoped his self-deprecating chuckle would cover the very real insecurity, but the way Sherry licked her lips as her eyes stayed glued to his lower half let him know he had nothing to worry about.

“I think you look great!” The fabric of his jumpsuit seemed to mold to every contour of his body, highlighting the creases where his thighs joined to his groin. Without the belt, it was clear that the tiny pooch below his waistline led down to some sort of treasure, the soft bulge impossible to ignore. Something about the erotic nature of the visual summoned a supernatural courage in Sherry. “You don’t have to stop with the belt, y’know.” She relished in the pink hue that overtook Elvis’ complexion as a surprised little smirk spread across his lips.

“Ya always conduct your interviews like this, honey? It’s mighty unprofessional of ya.” He winked to let her know he really didn’t mind if she continued.

Sherry smiled back as she set down her notebook and took a step closer. “There’s a time and place to be professional.” She reached her hand up, letting his sweaty chest hairs tickle the backs of her fingers as she slowly pulled his zipper down as low as it would go, a few inches south of his belly button, most of his white briefs now exposed to her, the bulge inside them more prominent now.

“Wh-what’d ya have in mind for this time and place?” Elvis leaned down and pressed his lips softly against Sherry’s, his hands running down the sides of her breasts to her waist.

“Let me show you,” Sherry murmured into his mouth as she slipped her hand down inside the jumpsuit. Through his briefs, she felt the treasure she’d been searching for - something soft and thick and warm. He started to harden immediately as she rubbed her hand over him. Elvis’ lips parted in a soft moan, and Sherry took the opportunity to lean in and kiss him again, licking his tongue. “You taste sweet,” she whispered.

“Oh, Sherry baby, d-d-don’t tease me,” Elvis groaned. “T-t-touch me for real, honey.”

Sherry pulled open the waistband of his briefs and put her hand inside, wrapping her fingers around him and pumping up and down. She pressed her thumb gently against his tip, which was sticky with precum.

“Oh, goddammit,” Elvis groaned out, his head tilted back and his long graceful neck on display. Sherry leaned in, still pumping his dick, and kissed his neck, letting her teeth nip at him ever so lightly. Then she moved her lips down to where his jumpsuit was gaping open and gave his nipple a lick, sending a shiver through his body. Elvis tilted his head forward now, his eyes closed as he reached around and gripped her butt.

“Oh wow,” Sherry breathed out as she pulled his waistband out so she could get a better look at what she was handling. Between the vibrations of their heartbeats seeming to make the entire room spin and the sight of Elvis’ throbbing pink cock in her hand, Sherry thought she might orgasm right then and there, without even being touched. As if completely in tune with her desires, Elvis’ large warm hand slipped under her short dress and inside her panties, his fingers tracing over her dripping wet folds before penetrating her entrance. He pushed her legs open a little bit more so he could sink in deeper, hitting some magical spot inside of her.

“Oh, oh, Elvis,” Sherry moaned, clenching around his fingers, waves of pleasure making it difficult to even stand, much less keep up her rhythmic pumping inside his underwear.

“Damn, honey, ‘s like a faucet down there. Ya sure were ready for me, hmm?”

Sherry nodded and tried to focus her efforts back on him, her body still reeling from the intensity of the pleasure he gave her. She decided to just really go for it, her heart racing with nerves and desire. She pulled his underwear down in the front, completely exposing his hard dick and hanging balls.

“Aww honey ya ain’t g-g-gotta-” Elvis started to protest but could only watch with lust as she sank down on her knees in front of him, enveloping him in her mouth and gently massaging his balls. “Goddamn,” Elvis groaned and licked her arousal off his fingers as Sherry grabbed his butt and pulled him tighter against her, forcing him deeper into her mouth. She tried to keep her throat relaxed as he panted above her, his dick pulsing, shooting spurts of warm cum into her.

“That was some interview, honey. You’re a forward lil’ thing, ain’t ya?”

Sherry blushed at that and tried not to stare as Elvis tucked himself back in and zipped his jumpsuit halfway up, leaving part of his glistening chest exposed. “Not usually,” she admitted.

“Oh?” Elvis looked surprised. He was usually good at telling who the good girls were and who just wanted to say they’d had Elvis Presley. “This was special for today?”

“This was special for you. I mean, I don’t usually go around doing this, but I just really wanted to make you feel good.” Sherry felt silly trying to explain her feelings for a man she technically just met, but Elvis’ pleased grin calmed her.

“Believe it or not, honey, I don’t usually go around doin’ this either.”

“I do believe you,” Sherry responded with a smile of her own.

“Why’s that?” Elvis’ brow furrowed. Usually people acted shocked to hear he wasn’t with a different woman every night.

“The way you were trembling a little bit when I pulled your zipper down. You seemed almost as nervous as I was.”

“Well, what did I tell ya? Stage fright,” Elvis laughed. “I hope I made ya feel good too, baby.”

“You know you did,” Sherry laughed. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so good, to be honest,” she added with a blush. “What you might not know is that you make me feel good all the time.” Elvis looked at her quizzically, waiting for an explanation. “My life has been, well, very painful at times, and when I hear you sing, it makes me happy. I actually begged my editor for this assignment so I could tell you how much you mean to me. I didn’t necessarily intend to throw myself at you, but you’re kind of irresistible,” she finished with an embarrassed little smile.

“Wow, honey, that’s real sweet of ya ta say.” Elvis blinked before a tear could roll down his cheek. “You don’t know how much it means ta hear ya say all that. Maybe now we’re even with makin’ each other feel good.”

“Elvis, I could touch you and, um, uh, kiss you like that every day and it would never be enough to make us even. You deserve…everything,” Sherry whispered, a blush spreading over her face.

“Hmm,” Elvis pondered. “Every day? Ya think ya’d have the energy for that?”

Sherry giggled and gave him a playful shove. “I’d do anything for you.”

Elvis smiled a sweet crooked grin. “Well, let’s say I need ya ta make me feel good again. How do I go about findin’ ya?”

Sherry grabbed her long-forgotten notebook and scribbled down her name and phone number.

“What’re ya gonna write about me in your article?” Elvis asked as they headed back into the hallway.

“The truth. That watching you perform was the best night of my life. And you’d do anything to please your fans.” Sherry gave a little wink to make sure her innuendo wouldn’t be lost. Elvis laughed and pulled her in for a deep kiss.

As they parted ways, Sherry didn’t know if she’d ever see him like this again, but she did know that this memory would last a lifetime.

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added or removed): @whositmcwhatsit @missmaywemeetagain @lookingforrainbows @thatbanditqueen @be-my-ally @ellie-24 @from-memphis-with-love @arrolyn1114 @atleastpleasetelephone

[thetriumphantpanda]

I Was Enchanted To Meet You | J. Miller Drabble

Summary | Literally just a Drabble about Joel being an era's tour dad, meeting a pretty girl in cowboy boots and flirting. That's it. It's dumb. This goes out to my girl Doni @morning-star-joy who is going to see Tay-Tay tonight and can now be delulu about meeting Joel Miller there. And also therapy for me because I'm in the UK and got waitlisted for tickets, so CRIES. I wrote this in like an hour so excuse any spelling/grammar errors.

Joel Miller didn't exactly understand when he'd signed up to take Sarah to her first concert. When she'd asked to use his credit card to buy the tickets, he'd just nodded and handed it over. When his bill came through the next month, he almost passed out from the cost. But stood here now, in seats that might very well give him a nosebleed, watching Sarah almost lose her mind over the fact that Taylor Swift was about to appear on stage, it was all forgotten. All Joel ever wanted was for his little girl to be happy.

He'd spent weeks listening to the songs, learning the lyrics so he might be able to sing along with Sarah. He watched her sit in front of the television each night making bracelets to trade, and he squirrelled away as much money as possible so he could buy her a t-shirt or something on the night too.

Joel was watching as Sarah swapped friendship bracelets with two girls to her right when something else caught his eye. Two people shuffling into the two seats that had been vacant in front of Joel and Sarah for most of the night. One of them, around Sarah's age, was almost as excited as his girl, bouncing up and down, looking around the stadium with eyes as wide as saucers, taking it all in, but you? You were something else entirely. You had a white cowboy hat sat on top of your head, not dissimilar to his own apart from the colour and the fact yours was covered in sparkly rhinestones. You had a white dress on, falling to your mid-thigh, made of lace and scalloped edges, and a pair of beat-up old brown leather cowboy boots. The literal picture of heaven on earth as far as he was concerned.

He watched as you pointed to the two seats in front of him and Sarah, motioning for the other girl to sit down so you could hand her the soda you were carrying. He noticed your wrists were covered in the same type of bracelets his daughter had been going wild for all evening. Almost on cue, Sarah leans over, tapping your shoulder.

"You wanna trade?" She asks, holding up her own plastic-laden wrist to show you.

"Hell yeah," You smile, nudging the girl with you, "Why don't you give this little superstar one of yours too?"

Joel watches intently as you let Sarah scan your wrists for the specific bracelet she wants, picking one made of pink beads, swapping it with one of hers that was made of black and gold. Joel had no idea what any of them meant, all he knew was that the bill for friendship bracelet materials on his credit card nearly rivalled the bill for the tickets.

"You want one as well, mister?" Your voice cuts through his thoughts, "Can't come and see Taylor and leave with empty wrists I'm afraid."

"Well, I ain't got anything to trade ya with." Joel shrugs.

"That's okay," you smile, "I'll forgive you, this time."

Joel keeps an eye trained on you as you search your wrists, obviously having something incredibly specific in mind for him. You find it, eyes lighting up as you pull it from your wrist and hand it over to him. He takes the delicate thing in his big palm - red, white and blue beads with letters in hearts that spell out 'Cowboy Like Me'. Very fitting.

"Thanks, Darlin'," He smiles, slipping it over his hand, "You been waiting to find the perfect man to give that to all night?"

You let your head fall back in a laugh and Joel thinks you might just be the prettiest goddamned girl he's ever seen in his life. Sarah is pulling at his wrist so she can see exactly what bracelet you've given her dad, laughing and then leaning forward.

"I made him wear the hat!" She exclaims, "Told him he had to fit in."

"Well, you made a good choice," You grin, "He looks mighty fine in his cowboy hat."

You finally turn your attention back to your companion - judging by your likeness he assumes it must be your little sister. You're pointing out things around the stadium for her to look at, and he can't help but find it endearing how she's bouncing in her seat at every little thing, much like Sarah had done when they'd taken their seats.

Joel feels a nudge to his side, Sarah is looking up at him with that glint he knows and loves so much - she's got an idea.

"She's really pretty, dad."

"Sarah!" He chastises, eye flickering to you to make sure you didn't hear what she'd said, but you look completely oblivious.

"She is though!" She retorts in a hushed whisper, "I think she likes you."

Joel brings a finger to his lips to try and get this devil of a girl to be quiet, but he can't help but indulge her - Sarah was right, you are really pretty, "She don't know the first thing about me," He finishes the conversation, "Now you sit tight, I'm going to find you a soda."

When Joel returns, to drinks in hand, he can see Sarah leant over the seats speaking to you. He dreads to think what she's been trying to cook up, seemingly obsessed with making sure he's not so lonely in life anymore.

"Move over," He asks, Sarah shifting to the seat he was in before he left, "Don't drink it all at once, you'll need it for all the screaming you're gonna do." He says, handing the soda to her.

Once he sits back down, you turn in your chair to speak to him.

"Sarah says you're a builder?" She asks, clearly just trying to make polite conversation with him whilst your sister speaks to Sarah.

"Contractor actually," He shrugs, as if it matters, "But yeah, I build stuff, what do you do?"

"I'm a teacher," You smile, "Teach 4th grade." He's about to ask you another question when every single person in the stadium starts screaming, he thinks by the end of tonight he might actually be deaf, "Well, you enjoy the show, mister, hope you learnt some lyrics."

Contrary to what he'd thought, Joel actually does enjoy the show. He sings along to some of the songs he remembers, dances with Sarah for most of the night and keeps a close eye on you during it all. You know every single word to every single song, just like your little sister and he has to admit that when you're throwing your hands in the air and screaming to the lyrics, he finds you prettier than he had done all night.

When all is said and done at the end of the night, you say a polite goodbye to him and Sarah. When he finally sits in his truck, waiting for the scores of traffic to clear so he can get them home, he kicks himself for not asking for your number, but resigns himself to the fact that it was fate. Meant to meet once and that was it. It's not until he's finally carried Sarah up to bed, fast asleep in his arms and settled down to unwind in front of the TV that he pulls his phone from his pocket and sees a message from an unknown number.

I was enchanted to meet you, Joel. Drinks? Saturday @ 6pm?

[avelera]

Mostly buried this in the tags of my next OFMD meta reblog down from this post but…. I don’t think Ed is going to apologize for his Kraken era and I don’t think the narrative is going to demand that he does.

I saw a couple posts expressing eagerness for Ed’s inevitable “apology tour” after he wakes up and I just fundamentally don’t think that’s going to happen. I could easily be wrong. But at most I think we might get a few mumbled, shamefaced apologies. If you expect him to grovel before Lucius and the crew, imo, that’s just not going to happen and here’s why:

- the narrative morality of OFMD has NEVER been encouraging its characters to become “good” people. The story is about finding love and acceptance during a midlife crisis. It’s about following your bliss. The highest moral demand it makes of its characters is to be true to themselves, not to become Good People. It’s a pirate comedy. It doesn’t care about murder. It cares about being true to yourself and your desire to be a pirate. Everything goes well when people follow their bliss. It falls apart when narrative defining main characters like Stede or Ed do what they think they should do instead of what makes them happy.

- Emotional pain has always been more important, more impactful, than physical pain in the show. Ed’s bad behavior (to put it lightly) was an expression of his emotional pain. Simply put, the narrative isn’t going to ask him to apologize for his emotional pain.

- Stede, the main driver of the narrative, DOES apologize because his actions led to Ed’s emotional pain (in his mind) and again, narrative pain is weighted more than physical pain in this show. Also, life is cheap, if you’re not a main character. This is still a pirate story. Murder is not treated as a sin.

- Ed is proud. Taika is proud. Both rightfully so one would argue, they’ve accomplished a great deal. Ed’s got a bit of Taika in that, actually more than a bit. It’s clear Taika puts a lot of himself into Ed. My gut tells me that Ed/Taika is just not going to grovel an apology. That’s just not his style. Mumbled self-conscious apologies because he feels he should is one thing. But deep sincere apology tours? Not gonna happen. He won’t abase himself like that (Ed OR Taika)

- The person he arguably hurt most directly, Izzy, hurt Ed IMMENSELY at the end of S1. Arguably more than Lucius, the majority of whose pain came from what happened after he was pushed overboard. But Izzy Ed personally tortured, and he did it because Izzy threatened to murder Ed if Ed didn’t climb back into the suffocating closet of Izzy’s expectations for him. Ed is not going to apologize to Izzy. Izzy got exactly what he deserved in physical pain after the emotional pain he dealt Ed, narratively speaking.

- I’m not talking real world morals, to be clear. Or even what the various Izzy or Ed fans THINK the other deserves, where the fans think the fault truly lies and who owes what to whom.

- What I’m saying is, in the OFMD world where emotional pain matters more than physical maiming, the narrative isn’t going to ASK Ed to apologize to Izzy for maiming him after what Izzy did at the end of S1 and Izzy getting his comeuppance for it. And that’s because they hurt each other equally, emotionally. They’re even now. Izzy lashed out and emotionally destroyed Ed during a vulnerable moment. Ed took his leg. They’re done. The way forward is for them to separate and get their toxicity out of each others life or find a new way forward with new understanding of each other as they become entirely new people after their respective ordeals. But as far as the pain they’ve dealt each other, there’s no debt. They’ve both hurt each other beyond the point of apology being anything but a false display.

Again, I could be totally wrong. Joke’s on me if ep. 4 opens with Ed on his knees crying and apologizing to everyone he hurt. But I just cannot picture that happening. And I don’t think OFMD is the kind of story that will demand it.

[lonelyroommp3]

*please read the explanations below the poll options before voting*

was thinking about this on my coach home and naturally had to make it into an overcomplicated poll

explanations, disclaimers, etc. under the cut:

until tumblr enables polls with infinite options there is no way for me to account for the entire breadth of human experience here. the categories provided and the examples thereof will not be, and are not intended to be, exhaustive. if you can't find the exact thing you do listed here or you think it falls into more than one category then please use your best judgement to select whatever answer is closest. only choose "something else not covered here" if there is actually nothing even close to what you do listed in the poll (and please elaborate in the tags if this is the case! i'm curious)

i really wanted to include "guy running alongside the moving vehicle you are in" but ran out of options. sorry

if you feel you do two or more of these things in equal measure just pick whatever one answer you want based on vibes

music video: anything you imagine as a standalone, prerecorded visual to accompany the music. this may feature musical performance elements, dance, a narrative, or any combination of the above. if you're imagining your little scene as if it's intended to be viewed on MTV, youtube, etc as the official visual complement to the music, it probably comes under this category

a music video mainly featuring somebody else: this could be you, your blorbos, your self insert OC, another artist you'd like to see cover the song, random actors/celebrities you would cast in the video, etc. whether they are performing the song within the video or not. if the bulk of the "running time" of your daydream is taken up by people who aren't the artist who originally performs the version of the song you're listening to, pick this one

a live performance: this could be in concert (whether a concert version that already exists e.g. imagining taylor swift's eras tour staging when you hear cruel summer, or a version you would like to see), at karaoke, at an open mic night, your acoustic cover that goes viral when you post it on youtube, busking on the street, performing to the other passengers on the bus, etc. could apply to dance as well as singing/music!

a diegetic use in narrative context: imagining the song being performed as a musical number by people in a story that exists beyond the scope of this one song in order to accompany or advance said story. this might be imagining the song being performed as one of many musical numbers in a stage or movie musical, or it could be a performance that takes place in universe (like the performances in glee, or scott pilgrim vs the world)

non diegetic narrative use: imagining the song as the soundtrack to a scene in a story that exists beyond the scope of this one song, but it is not being played/performed/heard by the people within the scene. for example, you imagine a fight scene in a movie taking place to this song, or perhaps it would play in the background during your OTP's first kiss if your favourite fanfiction was adapted into a netflix original tv series.

AMV/edit: a video compilation of existing* scenes from a piece of media, put together by a fan and set to music. (*existing might be taken loosely; e.g. you might be imagining an AMV of scenes from a book with no actual visual media adaptation. the main distinction is that here you are imagining the actual editing process of splicing scenes together as a fan project, as opposed to the music accompanying one continuous scene or sequence of scenes - which would come under "non diegetic narrative use" - or the clips being intended as the official visual accompaniment to a song, which would come under "music video".)

an abstract or lyric based visualiser: 2000s core windows media player visuals, a lyric video, anything that focuses more on objects, scenery, abstract patterns, words moreso than People/Fictional Characters/Animals/etc Doing Things To Music