#december 18 2019

[patroqlus]

i finished my call down the hawk reread!! now im off to read mister impossible for the first time 🙈

[neil-gaiman]

hi neil! big fan! first time i've mustered the courage to ask you a question, haha.

it's good omens related: i've heard a lot of people (and been infuriated by them) over the past nine months saying that you only did the kiss because of the fan pressure. i want to know whether this is true or if you still would've done the kiss had the fandom not been begging you.

tysm for reading this! can't wait for season 3!

No, I came up with the kiss in December 2019 because John Finnemore and I had spent a day talking about the general plot of Season 2, when, late in the afternoon, sitting by the Regents Canal, John asked how it was actually going to finish, because, he told me, he is the kind of writer who needs to know how something is going to end before ever he starts. (I'm the kind of writer who normally finds out how things end when I get there.)

And when he asked, I thought for a bit about where I wanted to be at the start of Season 3, and then I described the last ten minutes of Episode 6 to John, including the kiss.

Given that we wouldn't tell anyone that we were doing more Good Omens for another 18 months, the daily asks saying "THEY HAVE TO KISS IN THE NEXT SEASON OTHERWISE YOU ARE QUEERBAITING US" had not started to come in yet, and by the time they did, the kiss, along with the rest of the scripts, had long since been written.

(And at no time has any fan ever pressured me to write a kiss at the end of Episode 6 that would break their heart.)

[renthony]

Nimona: a Story of Trans Rights, Queer Solidarity, and the Battle Against Censorship

by Ren Basel renbasel.com

The 2023 film Nimona, released on Netflix after a tumultuous development, is a triumph of queer art. While the basic plot follows a mischievous shapeshifter befriending a knight framed for murder, at its heart Nimona is a tale of queer survival in the face of bigotry and censorship. Though the word “transgender” is never spoken, the film is a deeply political narrative of trans empowerment.

The film is based on a comic of the same name, created by Eisner-winning artist N.D. Stevenson. (1) Originally a webcomic, Nimona stars the disgraced ex-knight Ballister Blackheart and his titular sidekick, teaming up to topple an oppressive regime known as the Institution. The webcomic was compiled into a graphic novel published by Harper Collins on May 12, 2015. (2)

On June 11, 2015, the Hollywood Reporter broke the news Fox Animation had acquired rights to the story. (3) A film adaptation would be directed by Patrick Osborne, written by Marc Haimes, and produced by Adam Stone. Two years later, on February 9, 2017, Osborne confirmed the film was being produced with the Fox-owned studio Blue Sky Animation, and on June 30 of that same year, he claimed the film would be released Valentine’s Day 2020. (4)

Then the Walt Disney Company made a huge mess.

On December 14, 2017, Disney announced the acquisition of Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc. (5) Industry publications began speculating the same day about Blue Sky’s fate, though nothing would be confirmed until after the deal’s completion on March 19, 2019. (6) At first it seemed the studio would continue producing films under Disney’s governance, similar to Disney-owned Pixar Animation. (7)

The fate of the studio—and Nimona’s film adaptation—remained in purgatory for two years. During that time, Patrick Osborne left over reported creative differences, and directorial duties were taken over by Nick Bruno and Troy Quane. (8) Bruno and Quane continued production on the film despite Blue Sky’s uncertain future.

The killing blow came on February 9, 2021. Disney shut down Blue Sky and canceled Nimona, the result of economic hardship caused by COVID-19. (9) Nimona was seventy-five percent completed at the time, set to star Chloë Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed. (10)

While COVID-19 caused undeniable financial upheaval for the working class, wealthy Americans fared better. (11) Disney itself scraped together enough to pay CEO Bob Iger twenty-one million dollars in 2020 alone. (12) Additionally, demand for animation spiked during the pandemic’s early waves, and Nimona could have been the perfect solution to the studio’s supposed financial woes. (13) Why waste the opportunity to profit from Blue Sky’s hard work?

It didn’t take long for the answer to surface. Speaking anonymously to the press, Blue Sky workers revealed the awful truth: Disney may have killed Nimona for being too queer. The titular character was gender-nonconforming, the leading men were supposed to kiss, and Disney didn’t like it. (14) While Disney may claim COVID-19 as the cause, it is noteworthy that Disney representatives saw footage of two men declaring their love, and not long after, the studio responsible was dead. (15) Further damning evidence came in February of 2024, when the Hollywood Reporter published an article quoting co-director Nick Bruno, who named names: Disney’s chief creative officer at the time, Alan Horn, was adamantly opposed to the film’s “gay stuff.” (16)

Disney didn’t think queer art was worthy of their brand, and it isn’t the first time. “Not fitting the Disney brand” was the justification for canceling Dana Terrace’s 2020 animated series The Owl House, which featured multiple queer characters. (17) Though Terrace was reluctant to assume queerphobia caused the cancellation, Disney’s anti-queer bias has been cited as a hurdle by multiple showrunners, including Terrace herself. (18) The company’s resistance to queer art is a documented phenomenon.

While Nimona’s film cancellation could never take N.D. Stevenson’s comic from the world, it was a sting to lose such a powerful queer narrative on the silver screen. American film has a long history of censoring queerness. The Motion Picture Production Code (commonly called the Hays Code) censored queer stories for decades, including them under the umbrella of “sex perversion.” (19) Though the Code was eventually repealed, systemic bigotry turns even modern queer representation milestones into battles. In 2018, when Rebecca Sugar, creator of the Cartoon Network series Steven Universe, succeeded in portraying the first-ever same-sex marriage proposal in American children’s animation, the network canceled the show in retaliation. (20)

When queer art has to fight so hard just to exist, each loss is a bitter heartbreak. N.D. Stevenson himself expressed sorrow that the world would never see what Nimona’s crew worked so hard to achieve. (21)

Nimona, however, is hard to kill.

While fans mourned, progress continued behind the scenes. Instead of disappearing into the void as a tax write-off, the film was quietly scooped up by Megan Ellison of Annapurna Pictures. (22) Ellison received a call days before Disney’s death blow to Blue Sky, and after looking over storyboard reels, she decided to champion the film. With Ellison’s support, former Blue Sky heads Robert Baird and Andrew Millstein did their damnedest to find Nimona a home. (23)

Good news arrived on April 11, 2022, when N.D. Stevenson made a formal announcement on Twitter (now X): Nimona was gloriously alive, and would release on Netflix in 2023. (24) Netflix confirmed the news in its own press release, where it also provided details about the film’s updated cast and crew, including Eugene Lee Yang as Ambrosius Goldenloin alongside Riz Ahmed’s Ballister Boldheart (changed from the name Blackheart in the comic) and Chloë Grace Moretz as Nimona. (25) The film was no longer in purgatory, and grief over its death became anticipation for its release.

Nimona made her film debut in France, premiering at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival on June 14, 2023 to positive reviews. (26) Netflix released the film to streaming on June 30, finally completing the story’s arduous journey from page to screen. (27)

When the film begins, the audience is introduced to the world through a series of illustrated scrolls, evoking the storybook intros of Disney princess films such as 1959’s Sleeping Beauty. The storybook framing device has been used to parody Disney in the past, perhaps most famously in the 2001 Dreamworks film Shrek. Just as Shrek contains parodies of the Disney brand created by a Disney alumnus, so, too, does Nimona riff on the studio that snubbed it. (28)

Nimona’s storybook intro tells the story of Gloreth, a noble warrior woman clad in gold and white, who defended her people from a terrible monster. After slaying the beast, Gloreth established an order of knights called the Institute (changed from the Institution in the comic) to wall off the city and protect her people.

Right away, the film introduces a Christian dichotomy of good versus evil. Gloreth is presented as a Christlike figure, with the Institute’s knights standing in as her saints. (29) Her name is invoked like the Christian god, with characters uttering phrases such as “oh my Gloreth” and “Gloreth guide you.” The film’s design borrows heavily from Medieval Christian art and architecture, bolstering the metaphor.

Nimona takes place a thousand years after Gloreth’s victory. Following the opening narration, the audience is dropped into a setting combining Medieval aesthetics with futuristic science fiction, creating a sensory delight of neon splashed across knights in shining armor. It’s in this swords-and-cyborgs city that a new knight is set to join the illustrious ranks of Gloreth’s Institute, now under the control of a woman known only as the Director (voiced by Frances Conroy). That new knight is our protagonist, Ballister Boldheart.

The film changes several things from the original. The comic stars Lord Ballister Blackheart, notorious former knight, long after his fall from grace. He has battled the Institution for years, making a name for himself as a supervillain. The film introduces a younger Ballister Boldheart who is still loyal to the Institute, who believes in his dream of becoming a knight and overcomes great odds to prove himself worthy. In the comic, Blackheart’s greatest rival is Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, with whom he has a messy past. The film shows more of that past, when Goldenloin and Boldheart were young lovers eager to become knights by each other’s side.

There is another notable change: in the comic, Goldenloin is white, and Blackheart is light-skinned. In the film, both characters are men of color—specifically, Boldheart is of Pakistani descent, and Goldenloin is of Korean descent, matching the ethnicity of their respective voice actors. This change adds new themes of institutional racism, colorism, and the “model minority” stereotype. (30)

The lighter-skinned Goldenloin is, as his name suggests, the Institute’s golden boy. He descends from the noble lineage of Gloreth herself, and his face is emblazoned on posters and news screens across the city. He is referred to as “the most anticipated knight of a generation.” In contrast, the darker-skinned Boldheart experiences prejudice and hazing due to his lower-class background. His social status is openly discussed in the news. He is called a “street kid” and “controversial,” despite being the top student in his class. The newscasters make sure everyone knows he was only given the chance to prove himself in the Institute because the queen, a Black woman with established social influence, gave him her personal patronage. Despite this patronage, when the news interviews citizens on the street, public opinion is firmly against Boldheart.

To preserve the comic’s commentary on white privilege, some of Goldenloin’s traits were written into a new, white character created for the film, Sir Thoddeus Sureblade (voiced by Beck Bennett). Sureblade’s vitriol against both Boldheart and Goldenloin allowed Goldenloin to become a more sympathetic character, trapped in the system just as much as Boldheart. (31) This is emphasized at other points in the film when the audience sees Sureblade interact with Goldenloin without Boldheart present, berating the only person of color left in the absence of the darker-skinned man.

The day Boldheart is to be knighted, everything goes wrong. As Queen Valerin (voiced by Lorraine Toussaint) performs the much-anticipated knighting ceremony, a device embedded in Boldheart’s sword explodes, killing her instantly. Though Boldheart is not to blame, he is dubbed an assassin instead of a knight. In an instant, he becomes the most wanted man in the kingdom, and Queen Valerin’s hopes for progress and social equality seem dead with her. Boldheart is gravely injured in the explosion and forced to flee, unable to clear his name.

Enter Nimona.

The audience meets the titular character in the act of vandalizing a poster of Gloreth, only to get distracted by an urgent broadcast on a nearby screen. As she approaches, a bystander yells that she’s a “freak,” in a manner reminiscent of slurs screamed by passing bigots. Nimona has no time for bigots, spraying this one in the face with paint before tuning in to the news.

“Everyone is scared,” declare the newscasters, because queen-killer Ballister Boldheart is on the run. The media paints him as a monster, a filthy commoner who never deserved the chances he was given, and announce that, “never since Gloreth’s monster has anything been so hated.” This characterization pleases Nimona, and she declares him “perfect” before scampering off to find his hiding place.

It takes the span of a title screen for her to track him down, sequestered in a makeshift junkyard shelter. Just before Nimona bursts into the lair, the audience sees Boldheart’s injuries have resulted in the amputation of his arm, and he is building a homemade prosthetic. This is another way he’s been othered from his peers in an instant, forced to adapt to life-changing circumstances with no support. Where he was so recently an aspiring knight with a partner and a dream, he is now homeless, disabled, and isolated.

A wall in the hideout shows a collection of news clippings, suspects, and sticky notes where Boldheart is trying to solve the murder and clear his name. His own photo looks down from the wall, captioned with a damning headline: “He was never one of us—knights reveal shocking details of killer’s past.” It evokes real-world racial bias in crime reporting, where suspects of color are treated as more violent, unstable, and prone to crime than white suspects. A 2021 report by the Equal Justice Initiative and the Global Strategy Group compiled data on this phenomenon, focusing on the stark disparity between coverage of white and Black suspects. (32)

Nimona is not put off by Boldheart’s sinister media reputation. It’s why she tracked him down in the first place. She’s arrived to present her official application as Boldheart’s villain sidekick and help him take down the Institute. Boldheart brushes her off, insisting he isn’t a villain. He has faith in his innocence and in the system, and leaves Nimona behind to clear his name.

When he is immediately arrested, stripped of his prosthetic, and jailed, Nimona doesn’t abandon him. She springs a prison break, and conveys a piece of bitter wisdom to the fallen knight: “[O]nce everyone sees you as a villain, that’s what you are. They only see you one way, no matter how hard you try.”

Nimona and Boldheart are both outcasts, but they are at different stages of processing the pain. Boldheart is deep in the grief of someone who tried to adhere to the demands of a biased system but finally failed. He is the newly cast-out, who gave his entire life to the system but still couldn’t escape dehumanization. His pain is a fresh, raw wound, where Nimona has old scars. She embodies the deep anger of those who have existed on the margins for years. Where Boldheart wants to prove his innocence so he can be re-accepted into the fold, Nimona’s goal is to tear the entire system apart. She finds instant solidarity with Boldheart based solely on their mutual status as outsiders, but Boldheart resists that solidarity because he still craves the system’s familiar structure.

In the comic, Blackheart’s stance is not one of fresh grief, since, just like Nimona, he has been an outsider for some time. Instead, Blackheart’s position is one of slow reform. He believes the system can be changed and improved, while Nimona urges him to demolish it entirely. In both versions, Ballister thinks the system can be fixed by removing specific corrupt influences, where Nimona believes the government is rotten to its foundations and should be dismantled. Despite their ideological differences, Nimona and Ballister ally to survive the Institute’s hostility.

The allyship is an uneasy truce. During the prison break, Nimona reveals that she’s a shapeshifter, able to change into whatever form she pleases. Boldheart reflexively reaches for his sword, horrified that she isn’t human. She is the exact sort of monster he has been taught to fear by the Institute, and it’s only because he needs her help that he overcomes his reflex and sticks with her.

Nimona’s shapeshifting functions as a transgender allegory. The comic’s author, N.D. Stevenson, is transgender, and Nimona’s story developed alongside his own queer journey. (33) The trans themes from the comic are emphasized in the film, with various pride flags included in backgrounds and showcased in the art book. (34) Directors Bruno and Quane described the film as “a story about acceptance. A movie about being seen for who you truly are and a love letter to all those who’ve ever shared that universal feeling of being misunderstood or like an outsider trying to fit in.” (35)

When Boldheart asks Nimona what she is, she responds with only “Nimona.” When he calls her a girl, she retorts that she’s “a lot of things.” When she transforms into another species, she specifies in that moment that she’s “not a girl, I’m a shark.” Later, when she takes the form of a young boy and Boldheart comments on it, saying “now you’re a boy,” her response is, “I am today.” She defies easy categorization, and she likes it that way.

About her shapeshifting, Nimona says “it feels worse if I don’t do it” and “I shapeshift, then I’m free.” When asked what happens if she doesn’t shapeshift, she responds, “I wouldn’t die-die, I just sure wouldn’t be living.” Every time she discusses her transformations, it carries echoes of transgender experience—and, as it happens, Nimona is not N.D. Stevenson’s only shapeshifting transgender character. During his tenure as showrunner for She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix/Dreamworks, 2018-2020), Stevenson introduced the character Double Trouble. Double Trouble previously existed at the margins of She-Ra lore, but Stevenson’s version was a nonbinary shapeshifter using they/them pronouns. (36) While Nimona uses she/her pronouns throughout both comic and film, just like Double Trouble her gender presentation is as fluid as her physical form.

Boldheart, like many cisgender people reacting to transgender people, is uncomfortable with Nimona. He declares her way of doing things “too much,” and insists they try to be “inconspicuous” and “discreet.” He worries whether others saw her, and, when she is casually in a nonhuman form, he asks if she can “be normal for a second.” He claims to support her, but says it would be “easier if she was a girl” because “other people aren’t as accepting.” His discomfort evokes fumbled allyship by cisgender people, and Nimona emphasizes the allegory by calling Boldheart out for his “small-minded questions.” While the alliance is uneasy, Boldheart continues working with Nimona to clear his name. They are the only allies each other has, and their individual survival is dependent on them working together.

When the duo gain video proof of Boldheart’s innocence, they learn the bomb that killed Queen Valerin was planted by the Director. Threatened by a Black woman using her influence to elevate a poor, queer man of color, the white Director chose to preserve the status quo through violence.

Nimona is eager to get the video on every screen in the city, but Boldheart wants to deal with the issue internally, out of the public eye. He insists “the Institute isn’t the problem, the Director is.” This belief is what also leads the comic’s Blackheart to reject Nimona’s idea that he should crown himself king. He is focused on reforming the existing power structure, neither removing it entirely nor taking it over himself.

Inside the Institute, the Director has been doing her best to set Goldenloin against his former partner. Despite his internal misgivings and fear of betraying someone he loves, Goldenloin does his best to adhere to his prescribed role. As the Director reminds the knights, they are literally born to defend the kingdom, and it’s their sacred duty to do so—especially Goldenloin, who carries Gloreth’s holy blood. This blood connection is repeated throughout the film, and used by the Director to exploit Goldenloin. He’s the Institute’s token minority, put on a gilded pedestal and treated as a symbol instead of a human being.

Goldenloin is a pretty face for propaganda posters, and those posters can be seen throughout the film. They proclaim Gloreth’s majesty, the power of the knights, and remind civilians that the Institute is necessary to “protect our way of life.” A subway PSA urges citizens, “if you see something, slay something,” in a direct parody of the real-world “if you see something, say something” campaign by the United States Department of Homeland Security. (37)

The film is not subtle in its political messaging. When Boldheart attempts to prove his innocence to Goldenloin and the assembled knights, he reaches towards his pocket for a phone. The Director cries that Boldheart has a weapon, and Sureblade opens fire. Though the shot hits the phone and not Boldheart, it carries echoes of real-world police brutality against people of color. Specifically, the use of a phone evokes cases such as the 2018 murder of Stephon Clark, a young Black man who was shot and killed by California police claiming Clark’s cell phone was a firearm. (38) The film does not toy with vague, depoliticized themes of coexistence and tolerance; it is a direct and pointed allegory for contemporary oppression in the United States of America.

Forced to choose between love for Boldheart and loyalty to the Institute, Goldenloin chooses the Institute. He calls for Boldheart’s arrest, and this is the moment Boldheart finally agrees to fight back and raise hell alongside Nimona. When Goldenloin calls Nimona a monster during the ensuing battle, Boldheart doesn’t hesitate to refute it. He expresses his trust in her, and it’s clear he means it. He’s been betrayed by someone he cared about and thought he could depend on, and this puts him in true solidarity with Nimona for the first time.

During the fight, Nimona stops a car from crashing into a small child. She shapeshifts into a young girl to appear less threatening, but it doesn’t work. The child picks up a sword, pointing it at Nimona until an adult pulls them away to hide. When Nimona sees this hatred imprinted in the heart of a child, it horrifies her.

After fleeing to their hideout, Nimona makes a confession to Boldheart: she has suicidal ideations. So many people have directed so much hatred toward her that sometimes she wants to give in and let them kill her. In the real world, a month after the film’s release, a study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law compiled data about suicidality in American transgender adults. (39) Researchers found that eighty-one percent have thought about suicide, compared to just thirty-five percent of cisgender adults. Forty-two percent have attempted suicide, compared to eleven percent of cisgender adults. Fifty-six percent have engaged in self-harm, compared to twelve percent of cisgender adults.

When Boldheart offers to flee with her and find somewhere safe together, Nimona declares they shouldn’t have to run. She makes the decision every trans person living in a hostile place must make: do I leave and save myself, or do I stay to fight for my community? The year the film was released, the Trans Legislation Tracker reported a record-breaking amount of anti-trans legislation in the United States, with six hundred and two bills introduced throughout twenty-four states. (40) In February 2024, the National Center for Transgender Equality published data on their 2022 U.S. Transgender Survey, revealing that forty-seven percent of respondents thought about moving to another area due to discrimination, with ten percent actually doing so. (41)

Despite the danger, Nimona and Boldheart work diligently against the Institute. When they gain fresh footage proving the Director’s guilt, they don’t hesitate to upload it online, where it garners rapid attention across social and news media. Newscasters begin asking who the real villain is, anti-Institute sentiment builds, and citizens protest in the streets, demanding answers. The power that social media adds to social justice activism is true in the real world as it is in the film, seen in campaigns such as the viral #MeToo hashtag and the Black Lives Matter movement. (42) In 2020, polls conducted by the Pew Research Center showed eight in ten Americans viewed social media platforms as either very or somewhat effective in raising awareness about political and social topics. In the same survey, seventy-seven percent of respondents believed social media is at least somewhat effective in organizing social movements. (43)

In reaction to the media firestorm, the Director issues a statement. She outs Nimona as a shapeshifter, and claims the evidence against the Institute is a hoax. Believing the Director, Goldenloin contacts Boldheart for a rendezvous, sans Nimona. From Goldenloin’s perspective, Boldheart is a good man who has been deceived by the real villain, Nimona. He tells Boldheart about a scroll the Director found, with evidence that Nimona is Gloreth’s original monster, still alive and terrorizing the city. Goldenloin wants to bring Boldheart back into the knighthood and resume their relationship, and though that’s what Boldheart wanted before, his solidarity with Nimona causes him to reject the offer.

Though he leaves Goldenloin behind, Boldheart’s suspicion of Nimona returns. Despite their solidarity, he doesn’t really know her, so he returns home to interrogate her. In the ensuing argument, he reverts to calling her a monster, but only through implication—he won’t say the word. Like a slur, he knows he shouldn’t say it anymore, but that doesn’t keep him from believing it.

Boldheart’s actions prove to Nimona that nowhere is safe. There is no haven. Her community will always turn on her. She flees, and in her ensuing breakdown, the audience learns her backstory. She was alone for an unspecified length of time, never able to fit in until meeting Gloreth as a little girl. Nimona presents herself to Gloreth as another little girl, and Gloreth becomes Nimona’s very first friend. Even when Nimona shapeshifts, Gloreth treats her with kindness and love.

Then the adults of Gloreth’s village see Nimona shapeshift, and the word “monster” is hurled. Torches and pitchforks come out. At the adults’ panic, Gloreth takes up a sword against Nimona, and the cycle of bigotry is transferred to the next generation. The friendship shatters, and Nimona must flee before she can be killed.

After losing Boldheart, seemingly Nimona’s only ally since Gloreth’s betrayal, Nimona’s grief becomes insurmountable. She knows in her heart that nothing will ever change. She’s been hurt too much, by too many, cutting too deeply. To Nimona, the world will only ever bring her pain, so she gives in. She transforms into the giant, ferocious monster everyone has always told her she is, and she begins moving through the city as the Institute opens fire.

When Ballister sees Nimona’s giant, shadowy form, he realizes the horrific pain he caused her. He intuits that Nimona isn’t causing destruction for fun, she’s on a suicide march. She’s given up, and her decision is the result of endless, systemic bigotry and betrayal of trust. Her rampage wouldn’t be happening if she’d been treated with love, support, and care.

Nimona’s previous admission of suicidal ideation repeats in voiceover as she prepares to impale herself on a sword pointed by a massive statue of Gloreth. Her suicide is only prevented because Ballister steps in, calling to her, apologizing, saying he sees her and she isn’t alone. She collapses into his arms, once again in human form, sobbing. Boldheart has finally accepted her truth, and she is safe with him.

But she isn’t safe from the Director.

In a genocidal bid she knows will take out countless civilian lives, the Director orders canons fired on Nimona. Goldenloin tries to stop her, finally standing up against the system, but it’s too late. The Director fires the canons, Nimona throws herself at the blast to protect the civilians, and Nimona falls.

When the dust settles, the Director is deposed and the city rebuilds. Boldheart and Goldenloin reconnect and resume their relationship. The walls around the city come down, reforms take hold in the Institute, and a memorial goes up to honor Nimona, the hero who sacrificed her life to reveal the Director’s corruption.

Nimona, however, is hard to kill.

Nimona originally had a tragic ending, born of N.D. Stevenson’s own depression, but that hopelessness didn’t last forever. (44) Though Nimona is defeated, she doesn’t stay dead. Through the outpouring of love and support N.D. Stevenson received while creating the original webcomic, he gained the community and support he needed to create a more hopeful ending for Nimona’s story—and himself.

The comic’s ending is bittersweet. Nimona can’t truly die, and eventually restores herself. She allows Blackheart to glimpse her, so he knows she survived, but she doesn’t stay. She still doesn’t feel safe, and is assumed to move on somewhere new. Blackheart never sees Nimona again.

The film’s ending is more hopeful. There is a shimmer of pink magic as Nimona announces her survival, and the film ends with Boldheart’s elated exclamation. Even death couldn’t keep her down. She survived Gloreth, and she survived the Director. Though this chapter of the story is over, there is hope on the horizon, and she has allies on her side.

In both incarnations, Nimona is a story of queer survival in a cruel world. The original ending was one of despair, that said there was little hope of true solidarity and allyship. The revised ending said there was hope, but still so far to go. The film’s ending says there is hope, there is solidarity, and there are people who will stand with transgender people until the bitter end—but, more importantly, there are people in the world who want trans people to live, to thrive, and to find joy.

In a world that’s so hostile to transgender people, it’s no wonder a radically trans-positive film had to fight so hard to exist. Unfortunately, the battle must continue. As of June 2024, Netflix hasn’t announced any intent to produce physical copies of the film, meaning it exists solely on streaming and is only accessible via a monthly paid subscription. Should Netflix ever take down its original animation, as HBO Max did in 2022 despite massive backlash, the film could easily become lost media. (45) Though it saved Nimona from Disney, Netflix has its own nasty history of under-marketing and canceling queer programs. (46)

The film’s art book is already gone. The multimedia tome was posted online on October 12, 2023, hosted at ArtofNimona.com. (47) Per the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, the site became a Netflix redirect at some point between 10:26 PM on March 9, 2024 and 9:35 PM on March 20, 2024. (48) On the archived site, some multimedia elements are non-functional, potentially making them lost media. The art book is not available through any legal source, and though production designer Aidan Sugano desperately wants a physical copy made, there seem to be no such plans. (49)

Perhaps Netflix will eventually release physical copies of both film and art book. Perhaps not. Time will tell. In the meantime, Nimona stands as a triumph of queer media in a queerphobic world. That it exists at all is a miracle, and that its accessibility is so precarious a year after release is a travesty. Contemporary political commentary is woven into every aspect of the film, and it exists thanks to the passion, talent, and bravery of an incredible crew who endured despite blatant corporate queerphobia.

Long live Nimona, and long live the transgender community she represents.

_ This piece was commissioned using the prompt "the Nimona movie."

Updated 6/16/24 to revise an inaccurate statement regarding the original comic.

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Notes:

1. “Past Recipients 2010s.” n.d. Comic-Con International. Accessed June 10, 2024. https://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards/past-recipients/past-recipenties-2010s/.

2. Stevenson, ND. 2015. Nimona. New York, NY: Harperteen.

3. Kit, Borys. 2015. “Fox Animation Nabs ‘Nimona’ Adaptation with ‘Feast’ Director (Exclusive).” The Hollywood Reporter. June 11, 2015. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/fox-animation-nabs-nimona-adaptation-801920/.

4. Riley, Jenelle. 2017. “Oscar Winner Patrick Osborne Returns with First-Ever vr Nominee ‘Pearl.’” Variety. February 9, 2017. https://variety.com/2017/film/in-contention/patrick-osborne-returns-to-race-with-first-vr-nominee-pearl-1201983466/; Osborne, Patrick (@PatrickTOsborne). 2017. "Hey world, the NIMONA feature film has a release date! @Gingerhazing February 14th 2020 !!" Twitter/X, June 30, 2017, 3:16 PM. https://x.com/PatrickTOsborne/status/880867591094272000. ‌

5. “The Walt Disney Company to Acquire Twenty-First Century Fox, Inc., after Spinoff of Certain Businesses, for $52.4 Billion in Stock.” 2017. The Walt Disney Company. December 14, 2017. https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/walt-disney-company-acquire-twenty-first-century-fox-inc-spinoff-certain-businesses-52-4-billion-stock-2/.

6. Amidi, Amid. 2017. “Disney Buys Fox for $52.4 Billion: Here Are the Key Points of the Deal.” Cartoon Brew. December 14, 2017. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/business/disney-buys-fox-key-points-deal-155390.html; Giardina, Carolyn. 2017. “Disney Deal Could Redraw Fox’s Animation Business.” The Hollywood Reporter. December 14, 2017. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/disney-deal-could-redraw-foxs-animation-business-1068040/; Szalai, Georg, and Paul Bond. 2019. “Disney Closes $71.3 Billion Fox Deal, Creating Global Content Powerhouse.” The Hollywood Reporter. March 19, 2019. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/disney-closes-fox-deal-creating-global-content-powerhouse-1174498/.

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8. Jones, Rendy. 2023. “‘Nimona’: Netflix’s Remarkable Trans-Rights Animated Movie Is Here.” Rolling Stone. July 3, 2023. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/nimona-netflix-trans-rights-animated-movie-lgbtq-riz-ahmed-chloe-grace-moretz-1234782583/.

9. D’Alessandro, Anthony. 2021. “Disney Closing Blue Sky Studios, Fox’s Once-Dominant Animation House behind ‘Ice Age’ Franchise.” Deadline. February 9, 2021. https://deadline.com/2021/02/blue-sky-studios-closing-disney-ice-age-franchise-animation-1234690310/.

10. “Disney’s Blue Sky Shut down Leaves Nimona Film 75% Completed.” 2021. CBR. February 10, 2021. https://www.cbr.com/nimona-film-abandoned-disney-blue-sky-shut-down/; Sneider, Jeff. 2021. “Exclusive: Disney’s LGBTQ-Themed ‘Nimona’ Would’ve Featured the Voices of Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed.” Collider. March 4, 2021. https://collider.com/nimona-movie-cast-cancelled-disney-blue-sky/.

11. Horowitz, Juliana Menasce, Anna Brown, and Rachel Minkin. 2021. “The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Long-Term Financial Impact.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project. March 5, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/03/05/a-year-into-the-pandemic-long-term-financial-impact-weighs-heavily-on-many-americans/.

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15. Clark, Travis. 2022. “Disney Raised Concerns about a Same-Sex Kiss in the Unreleased Animated Movie ‘Nimona,’ Former Blue Sky Staffers Say.” Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-disapproved-same-sex-kiss-nimona-movie-former-staffers-say-2022-3.

16. Keegan, Rebecca. 2024. “Why Megan Ellison Saved ‘Nimona’: ‘I Needed This Movie.’” The Hollywood Reporter. February 22, 2024. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/megan-ellison-saved-nimona-1235832043/.

17. St. James, Emily. 2023. “Mourning the Loss of the Owl House, TV’s Best Queer Kids Show.” Vanity Fair. April 6, 2023. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/04/loss-of-the-owl-house-tvs-best-queer-kids-show.

18. AntagonistDana. 2021. “AMA (except by ‘Anything’ I Mean These Questions Only).” Reddit. October 5, 2021. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheOwlHouse/comments/q1x1uh/ama_except_by_anything_i_mean_these_questions_only/; de Wit, Alex Dudok. 2020. “Disney Executive Tried to Block Queer Characters in ‘the Owl House,’ Says Creator.” 2020. Cartoon Brew. August 14, 2020. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/disney-executives-tried-to-block-queer-characters-in-the-owl-house-says-creator-195413.html.

19. Doherty, Thomas. 1999. Pre-Code Hollywood : Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934. New York: Columbia University Press. 363.

20. Henderson, Taylor. 2018. “‘Steven Universe’s’ Latest Episode Just Made LGBTQ History.” Pride. July 5, 2018. https://www.pride.com/stevenuniverse/2018/7/05/steven-universes-latest-episode-just-made-lgbtq-history; McDonnell, Chris. 2020. Steven Universe: End of an Era. New York: Abrams. 102.

21. Stevenson, ND. (@Gingerhazing). 2021. "Sad day. Thanks for the well wishes, and sending so much love to everyone at Blue Sky. Forever grateful for all the care and joy you poured into Nimona." Twitter/X, February 9, 2021, 3:32 PM. https://x.com/Gingerhazing/status/1359238823935283200

22. Jones, Rendy. 2023. “‘Nimona’: Netflix’s Remarkable Trans-Rights Animated Movie Is Here.” Rolling Stone. July 3, 2023. https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/nimona-netflix-trans-rights-animated-movie-lgbtq-riz-ahmed-chloe-grace-moretz-1234782583/.

23. Keegan, Rebecca. 2024. “Why Megan Ellison Saved ‘Nimona’: ‘I Needed This Movie.’” The Hollywood Reporter. February 22, 2024. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/megan-ellison-saved-nimona-1235832043/.

24. Stevenson, ND. (@Gingerhazing). 2022. "Nimona’s always been a spunky little story that just wouldn’t stop. She’s a fighter...but she’s also got some really awesome people fighting for her. I am excited out of my mind to announce that THE NIMONA MOVIE IS ALIVE...coming at you in 2023 from Annapurna and Netflix." Twitter/X, April 11, 2022, 10:00 AM. https://x.com/Gingerhazing/status/1513517319841935363.

25. “‘Nimona’ Starring Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed & Eugene Lee Yang Coming to Netflix in 2023.” About Netflix. April 11, 2022. https://about.netflix.com/en/news/nimona-starring-chloe-grace-moretz-riz-ahmed-and-eugene-lee-yang-coming-to-netflix.

26. “’Nimona’ Rates 100% on Rotten Tomatoes after Annecy Premiere.” Animation Magazine. June 15, 2023. https://www.animationmagazine.net/2023/06/nimona-rates-100-on-rotten-tomatoes-after-annecy-premiere/

27. Dilillo, John. 2023. “’Nimona’: Everything You Need to Know About the New Animated Adventure.” Tudum by Netflix. June 30, 2023. https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/nimona-release-date-news-photos

28. Reese, Lori. 2001. “Is ‘“Shrek”’ the Anti- Disney Fairy Tale?” Entertainment Weekly. May 29, 2001. https://ew.com/article/2001/05/29/shrek-anti-disney-fairy-tale/.

29. Sugano, Aidan. 2023. Nimona: the Digital Art Book. Netflix. 255. https://web.archive.org/web/20240309222607/https://artofnimona.com/.

30. White, Abbey. 2023. “How ‘Nimona’ Explores the Model Minority Stereotype through Its Queer API Love Story.” The Hollywood Reporter. July 1, 2023. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/nimona-eugene-lee-yang-directors-race-love-story-netflix-1235526714/.

31. White, Abbey. 2023. “How ‘Nimona’ Explores the Model Minority Stereotype through Its Queer API Love Story.” The Hollywood Reporter. July 1, 2023. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/nimona-eugene-lee-yang-directors-race-love-story-netflix-1235526714/.

32. Equal Justice Initiative. 2021. “Report Documents Racial Bias in Coverage of Crime by Media.” Equal Justice Initiative. December 16, 2021. https://eji.org/news/report-documents-racial-bias-in-coverage-of-crime-by-media/.

33. Stevenson, N. D. 2023. “Nimona (the Comic): A Deep Dive.” I’m Fine I’m Fine Just Understand. July 13, 2023. https://www.imfineimfine.com/p/nimona-the-comic-a-deep-dive.

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37. Department of Homeland Security. 2019. “If You See Something, Say Something®.” Department of Homeland Security. May 10, 2019. https://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something.

38. University of Stanford. n.d. “Stephon Clark.” Say Their Names - Spotlight at Stanford. https://exhibits.stanford.edu/saytheirnames/feature/stephon-clark.

39. Kidd, Jeremy D., Tettamanti, Nicky A., Kaczmarkiewicz, Roma, Corbeil, Thomas E., Dworkin, Jordan D., Jackman, Kasey B., Hughes, Tonda L., Bockting, Walter O., & Meyer, Ilan H. 2023. “Prevalence of Substance Use and Mental Health Problems among Transgender and Cisgender US Adults.” Williams Institute. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/transpop-substance-use/.

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42. Myers, Catherine. 2023. “Protests in the Age of Social Media.” The Nonviolence Project. February 11, 2023. https://thenonviolenceproject.wisc.edu/2023/02/11/protests-in-the-age-of-social-media/.

43. Auxier, Brooke, and Colleen McClain. 2020. “Americans Think Social Media Can Help Build Movements, but Can Also Be a Distraction.” Pew Research Center. Pew Research Center. September 9, 2020. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/09/09/americans-think-social-media-can-help-build-movements-but-can-also-be-a-distraction/.

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45. Chapman, Wilson. 2022. “HBO Max to Remove 36 Titles, Including 20 Originals, from Streaming.” Variety. August 18, 2022. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/hbo-max-originals-removed-1235344286/.

46. Iftikhar, Asyia. 2023. “Netflix CEO Slammed by LGBTQ+ Fans over Cancellation Comments: ‘They Are NOT Allies.’” PinkNews. January 24, 2023. https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/01/24/netflix-ceo-ted-sarandos-cancelled-shows-lgbtq-fans-reactions/.

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49. Lang, Jamie. 2023. “Netflix Has Released a 358-Page Multimedia Art of Book for ‘Nimona’ - Exclusive.” Cartoon Brew. October 12, 2023. https://www.cartoonbrew.com/books/nimona-art-of-book-aidan-sugano-netflix-233636.html.

[dilemmaontwolegs]

Irresistible || CL16

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x fem!reader Summary: A one night stand comes back to haunt you when your father plans to marry his mother. Warnings: 18+ only, nsfw, smut, cheating, time skipping, kind of taboo (future stepbrother) WC: 6.1k F1 Masterlist || One || Two

December 2019

Two years ago you had spent an amazing week in Monaco during a European getaway. It was meant to be a once in a lifetime trip but now you sat opposite your father at the kitchen table in your family home trying to understand what he was saying.

“…the kindest woman. You’ll love her, just like I do.”

He fell in love so now you were expected to leave behind everyone you knew and just start a new life with his new family. You knew he had been happier since the trip but you never would have thought it was because of some long distance relationship. He had kept that to himself for a long time.

“Can’t you just have a midlife crisis like everyone else?” you asked. “Why are you moving us across the world for a stranger?”

“Did you not hear me? Pascale is not a stranger. Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I love her.”

Resentment built and you pushed your chair back as you stood up. “You loved mum too, and look how that ended.”

Your father sighed and you immediately felt guilty for the heaviness in that one breath. It wasn’t his fault your mother decided domestic life wasn’t for her and left when you were just a baby. It wasn’t his fault that she met a man who had a motorcycle and flirted with the wrong side of the law. And it certainly wasn’t his fault that they crashed in a high speed police chase when you were 15.

You sank back into your seat and picked at the chipped Formica table top. “I’m sorry, dad.”

A calloused hand from a life of hard work gently patted yours. “It’s a big adjustment, pumpkin, but you said Monaco was a beautiful place. I thought you would be happy.”

“It was, but I’ll never see my friends.”

“I’m not saying you can replace them, but you’ll make new ones. And even with the different timezones I’m sure you can make arrangements to video call each other.”

He was making an effort, you could recognise that at least. “Fine. I suppose it won’t be that bad.”

August 2017

All of the streets seemed to look the same, the stonework buildings towering over you as the afternoon sun dipped even further below the mountains that bordered the place. You had no idea which way it was to get back to the hotel and you weren’t going to risk the international roaming charges to use the internet on your phone, you already spent most of your savings on the clothes in the bags that hung from your wrists.

You were too busy looking up and trying to get a sense of direction that you didn’t see the man getting out of his car. Pain flared in your knee as a door slammed into it and you dropped the bags to clutch your leg that throbbed and drew a groan from your lips. It was worse than hitting your funny bone and you grabbed the hood of the car to balance when you nearly teetered over.

“Mon Dieu, est-ce que tu vas bien?” 

You couldn’t understand a word he said but the accent was almost enough to make you feel better, until you looked up. The setting sun cast a golden glow around the man and you swore he was more beautiful than the godlike statues you had seen in Rome the week before. 

“I, I,” you stammered stupidly as he knelt down beside you and repacked the bags that had fallen to the street. His bright green eyes lingered on the red lace bra and panty set you had spent a small fortune on before he cleared his throat and shoved them in the bag. “I don’t speak French.”

“You should really be watching where you are walking,” he said as he stood up, his accent saturating his words and making the scolding sound sexy. And it was most definitely a scolding. “You could have been hit by a car.”

“I was,” you pointed out as you tested your leg and winced when you put your weight on it.

“I meant one that was driving past. It was a good thing I was parked.” He looked down his nose and shook his head. Somehow this stranger had managed to make you feel guilty for disappointing him, and it started to infuriate you.

“I really don’t think this is all my fault,” you snapped as you swiped your bags back. “This is a footpath, and that is a no parking zone. Maybe you should concentrate more on where you should be driving than how I should be walking.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and he did the same until his lip twitched and a smirk broke out. “You think I am a bad driver?”

You looked at the double yellow lined he was parked over and squared your shoulders. “Does a duck quack?”

He mouthed the question back before he understood what you were implying and laughed as he took a step closer. “I like you, you are funny, and delusional. What is your name, and what are you doing tonight?”

You were still trying to figure out if he had complimented or insulted you when someone called out and stole his attention before you could answer.

“Charles, dépêche-toi!”

You both turned to the group that had arrived, all of the young men looking almost as handsome as he did. They had to be from the same modelling agency, or there was something seriously strong in the water here.

“Well?”

You looked at Charles and found he was still waiting for an answer. “Probably still trying to find my hotel.”

“Funny,” he chuckled before waving his friends off. “Je te rattraperai plus tard.” He took your bags and stuffed them in the backseat of his car before offering his hand. “I can’t have you walking these streets all night, god knows what trouble you could cause.”

“I was doing fine, until you hit me with your car, and now you want to drive me in it? Nuh-uh, I would rather take my chances on foot.”

You stepped around him to get your bags back, or at least you tried to but your aching knee gave out. You would have fallen to the pavement but a strong arm curled around your waist and pulled you against him. 

“You could have just asked if you wanted to hold me, biche.”

“Excuse me?” You pushed away from him and gritted your teeth through the pain. “I’m not sure in what world you think that is flirting, asshole.”

Charles threw his head back with a laugh and easily caught up to you, his palm heating the small of your back as he guided you around to face his car again “Biche, not bitch, it’s a cute little deer. I can call you Bambi instead, I quite like that. Unless you want to tell me your name?”

You rolled your eyes, unsure whether the endearment was an improvement at all, but stepped into the car when he opened the door for you. “No thanks, I don’t know if you are some sort of stalker.”

He laughed again before walking around to the driver's seat. “What hotel are you staying in?”

“The Fairmont.”

The flashy car roared to life and you turned to face Charles when his laughter grew. “So you would tell a stalker where you are staying but not your name?”

“That sounds to me like you are admitting you are a stalker,” you shot back with a daring arch of your brow. “Besides, I’m staying with a man that would snap you like a twig if you tried to turn me into a skin suit. I don’t have anything to worry about.”

“Your boyfriend?”

You snorted at the question and shook your head. “My father.”

He smiled at the news as he pulled out into the traffic and drove the short distance to the hotel. Your meandering had only left you two streets away from it so it was probably more of a nuisance to drive you there but Charles didn’t seem to mind. 

“Are you enjoying the city?”

“It’s beautiful,” you said with a nod. “It’s almost a shame to leave tomorrow.”

“Have you been to Jimmyz?”

“Not yet.” You had heard of the club but most nights had consisted of a late dinner with your father and then bed. It was actually the first day you hadn’t spent hanging out with him, he had gone to get a haircut that was long overdue after all the travelling and you had used the alone time for a little girl shopping.  

“You should come tonight, my friends and I are going and I owe you for hitting you with my car.”

January 2020

Your father thought it would be a good idea for Pascale to come and stay for a week before the big move. She owned a hair studio so it was easy to take some time off and she was due to arrive any moment. He had all but begged you to make an effort with Pascale before leaving for the airport. He had never brought a woman home, or at least while you were there, so it was strange to see how he fussed over the crumbs in the kitchen sink. 

You did a quick final inspection through the house but with most of the belongings already sold or shipped off to Monaco there was next to nothing that could make a mess. You only hoped all your things arrived in time at the other end. It was bad enough you were going to be staying with one of your step brothers to begin with but it was only for a few weeks while the renovations on the new house dad and Pascale had bought were finished. He promised that your room would have a view of the ocean and your own bathroom - it was absolutely a bribe but you were fine with that.

The car pulled into the driveway, past the large real estate sign with an unmissable SOLD sticker across it. You had seen a handful of pictures of Pascale on your dad’s phone but when she stepped out of the car you realised they didn’t do her justice. Despite being on multiple planes that never made for a decent sleep, she looked refreshed and even her hair was still in a perfect blowout. She was really pretty, or maybe it was the bright smile she gave your dad when he parked the car.

“Do I look alright, Peter?” she asked as she touched her hair nervously and straightened her blouse.

“It’s not an interview, sweetheart,” he chuckled as he grabbed her suitcase. “You look beautiful.”

August 2017

The club was unlike anything back home. The music seemed to seep into your skin, the bass vibrating in your bones. Even the air was intoxicating with the promise of a night of bad decisions.

“Bambi, I didn’t think you would actually come.”

You turned away from the bar and found Charles drinking in the sight of your short, tight dress. His eyes followed every line, dip and curve of your body and he bit his lip as he dragged them back up to your face. For the price you had paid you were happy it had the desired effect.

With your confidence bolstered you sent him a smirk and grabbed your drink that had been placed down. “Well you did say you owe me, you can start with my drink.”

Charles didn’t look away as he reached into his pocket and stepped closer, his hand reaching past to slap a bill on the bar top. His scent reached you, the cologne inviting you to lean closer and inhale the decadence of vanilla and bergamot. “The usual, please.”

He could have stepped back while his drink was made but he chose to stay close, his eyes flicking down your cleavage to see the red lace set he had been daydreaming about all evening. “How about we get out of here?”

You had fantasised about a summer romance since the trip began, what young woman wouldn’t when they were going to Europe? But you hadn’t been able to conjure a face as handsome as his when you closed your eyes late at night and your hand drifted beneath the blankets. Now you had the opportunity in the palm of your hands and you weren’t going to let it slip from your fingers.

Tipping your head back, you met his green eyes that dared you rise to the challenge. “Lead the way.”

February 2020

You were jet lagged and exhausted when you finally reached your temporary accommodation.

“Charles is just on his way back from work but he shouldn’t be too far away. Make yourself at home, sweetheart,” Pascale said as she helped you with your bags.

The apartment was bare with mostly blank white walls and a few framed pictures of Ferrari cars. It was a typical boy space that was in desperate need of soft furnishings to liven it up, but that wasn’t your problem to deal with.

“He just bought the place so he’s still finding his ‘vibe’,” Pascale noted when she saw you eying up the empty space, the words sounding like they were verbatim and not her own. “But there’s two bedrooms and two bathrooms so you’ll have your own space. The builder said our house will be finished in a few weeks.”

“It’s great, Pascale,” you assured her as you set your bag down on the bed with a long yawn. You were surprised to find it had a floral duvet and a sheet set already made up - something you were sure she had done for you.

She nodded and placed your other suitcase down before leaving, closing the door most of the way. “I’ll let you rest for a bit.”

You woke to voices down the hall and found a blanket had been draped over you at some point.

“Can’t she sleep on Enzo’s couch? I don’t even know her, she could try to sell my things. There have been stranger things done before.”

“Ah-ah, no, and she doesn't even watch racing. Peter said she had no interest in the sport.” Pascale sighed heavily, the same way your father did when he was having to repeat himself. “She’s a lovely young lady, and she’s going to be family so please treat her as such.”

August 2017

“Where are we going?”

Charles just smiled and kept driving through the quiet streets before pulling into a hotel far nicer than the one you were staying in.

“You live in a hotel?”

He laughed and tossed his car key to the valet driver. “No, but I have a roommate who would probably not be very happy with me if we woke him.”

He already had a room and led the way to the elevators with the confidence of a man who had certainly been here before. You didn’t mind, you were hardly a saint, and you knew exactly what you were doing when you dressed for the night out. You knew how you wanted the night to end.

For a man who looked eager to undress you, like he had done with his eyes, he didn’t touch you until the door was firmly closed behind him. But once that door locked shut it was as if the leash he had kept a hold of himself with was dropped and he pinned you against the wall, his lips finding the hollow of your neck.

The temperature in the room seemed to swell as his kiss climbed higher and he finally reached your lips. You moaned at the feel of his hands roaming your body and his tongue slipped past your parted lips when he dragged the zip down your spine.

“J'ai envie de le faire depuis que je t'ai vu pour la première fois. You are so fucking sexy.” [I have been wanting to do this since I first saw you.] He stepped back and watched the material fall away to reveal the tempting red lace he had been dying to see.

Your heart skipped a beat at the hunger in his eyes and you reached behind your back to unclip the bra. It was thrilling to watch the colour of his eyes fade to black as you revealed more skin to him but when you reached for your panties he spurred forward to stop you.

“Mine,” he stated as he brushed your hands aside and hooked his fingers into the waistband instead. Falling to one knee, he dragged the lace down your thighs and let them tangle around your ankles before kissing your hip. Your head fell back against the wall with a thud as he nudged your legs apart and pulled one leg over his shoulder. “What’s my name?”

Your forehead crumpled as his breath warmed your cunt and you buried your hands in his hair to hurry him up, but he was too strong.

“What’s my name?” he repeated.

“Ch-Charles,” you stammered as his fingers teased your entrance without delving further, driving you wild with need.

“Good girl, remember that when I make you scream.”

The words left you drunk and you would have dared him to make good on them but his tongue found your clit and two fingers curled into your cunt. All thoughts left your head while he was knelt fully dressed before you and all too soon his name echoed across the room as he brought you to your first of many highs.

You could barely walk by the time you collapsed on the king bed and your head was spinning from the various positions you had found yourself in. You only bothered to move when a phone vibrated on the bedside table and you reached over to see if it was yours.

Giada: When are you coming home?

“Need a break, Bambi?” Charles teased as he returned from the minibar with a bottle of water, cracking the top off and offering it to you first.

You took the bottle with a grateful smile and swallowed a few mouthfuls to ease your dry throat. “Who’s Giada?”

His eyes flicked to his phone and he grabbed it, quickly replying to the message before tossing it aside and caging you beneath his body. “My roommate. Now, where were we?”

You should have been in a dead sleep but something had woken you. It was an ungodly hour given the darkness that was still outside but it did mean you saw the light of Charles' phone. His soft snores were silenced by the pillow he buried his face in and you took a second to admire the sight of his toned body in the moonlight.

Giada: It’s so hard to sleep without you here. I love you xxx

You slipped out of the bed without waking him and hated how good the ache between your legs felt because of him. You should have known a man like him was bound to have a girlfriend. She was probably a model.

You quickly gathered your clothes and dressed on the way to the door, closing it silently behind you. No one had to know you were even there and in a few hours you would be heading to the airport, never to see Charles again.

It took far longer than you expected to find your way back to the hotel and your father was already awake when you entered the room.

“You look like you had a rough night.”

You continued on your way to your bedroom in desperate need of a shower before packing. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fair enough.”

You reemerged looking refreshed but you still felt contradictory inside. You told yourself that you did nothing wrong but it didn’t help when you knew there was a woman waiting at home for the man you had fucked. Fucked didn’t begin to cover what you had done - he had hung the stars and the moon, he had expanded your mind to the pleasures that could be sought with the right experience and partner. He had ruined you for all the men back home.

You fought to tug the zip of your suitcase closed, more than ready to leave the place behind, and growled in frustration. Your dad knew better than to bring attention to your mood but he gently moved you aside and closed the stubborn zip himself.

“How was your night?” you asked as you went to the kitchenette and made a strong brew of coffee.

He smiled to himself and picked up the suitcase to add it to the pile by the door but his smile dimmed when he saw how miserable you looked. “Nothing special, I just had dinner and a walk by the water.”

Normally you would have picked up on the lie, but you were too self centred to notice how happy he looked. He was glowing.

February 2020

You followed the voices to the living room and found Pascale in the doorway saying her goodbyes. You couldn’t see the face of the man she was talking to, only a head of dark hair, but he turned when his mothers attention was drawn away. 

“You…” you breathed as you recognised the green eyes that had haunted your dreams for two years. Pascale frowned and you plastered a fake smile as you held your hand out. “You must be Charles.”

“I am,” he hummed as he looked at your hand before enveloping it in his much larger one. “It is a pleasure to meet you.”

“I’ll see you both for dinner tonight, Charles can drive you until we get you a car.”

Charles seemed to be hearing the news for the first time. “I can?” 

“Yes, you can. Now make sure she feels at home alright, maybe introduce her to some of your friends.” Pascale blew a kiss and left Charles to close the door.

His eyes sparkled with mischief as he locked it and you realised at that moment just how fucked you were because, despite the quick prayer you had sent, Charles had recognised you too. “Hello again, Bambi.”

“Fuck me,” you muttered beneath your breath.

Charles smirked and booped you on the nose as he walked past you and towards his kitchen. “No thanks, you’re going to be my sister soon.”

You hated that for a second you were disappointed before common sense returned and you went to your room to find your phone. “Dad, I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Charles is an asshole, that’s why,” you whispered angrily, your eyes scanning the bottom of your door to see if he was eavesdropping. 

“It’s only for two weeks, three at the most, plus he will be heading back to Italy for work on Monday.”

“Who the hell works in Italy and lives in Monaco?”

“He does, you would know that if you had a conversation with him and got to know him.”

“I don’t want to get to know him, I want to go home.”

“This is home now,” your dad said quietly as you heard Pascale arrive home at the other end. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

You flopped onto your bed with a groan as the call ended. Two weeks. Two fucking weeks. You groaned again as you realised that it may be just two weeks of living with him but there would be a lifetime of having him as your step brother. “Fuck!”

“I might have to get a swear jar to cover your half of the utilities.”

You surged upright and found Charles leaning against the balcony door, a balcony you apparently shared with his room next door. “Can I just make one thing very clear? As far as I am concerned, whatever happened two years ago - it didn’t. Nothing happened. I never saw you before today.”

“Nothing happened?” he chuckled as he walked into the room. “You still have that sense of humour because I remember a lot happening. Do I need to jog your memory?”

You hated how your body betrayed you, how your eyes followed his every step as he closed the distance between you. “You’re actually sick. Our parents are getting married.”

He stopped in front of you, his fingers brushing a stray strand of hair from your face and his eyes traced your lips. “You were gone when I woke up.”

“Giada wasn’t your roommate.”

“No, she wasn’t,” he admitted with that same smirk that simultaneously had you wanting to both slap it or kiss it away. “I have a new roommate now.”

“Not for long, I am gone as soon as the house is ready.”

“Oh, Bambi,” he laughed, swaggering his way back to the balcony door. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

“Asshole.”

“Biche.”

“Charles, you should introduce Y/N to Charlotte,” Pascale said as she poured another wine for you. “That’s his girlfriend. You would probably get along with her, she’s about your age and a very nice girl too.”

You bit your tongue as you raised your glass to your lips and stared at Charles over the rim. Placing the glass back down, you smiled sweetly. “Is that right? I could do with making a girlfriend here, someone to talk about boys with. Maybe she can set me up with a handsome Frenchie.”

A foot kicked you under the table and you chuckled at the glare he was sending you over the greek salad. 

“We go to brunch on Sunday,” Pascale said with a pat to your hand. “You should come.”

“Count me in.” You stabbed a sweet cherry tomato with your fork before sealing your lips around it and humming in delight. “This was a delicious meal.”

Charles soon declared he was exhausted from the drive back from wherever it was he worked in Italy and Pascale looked a little disappointed that the first family dinner was cut short. Since he was your ride, you had to say goodnight to everyone too and followed him out to the car that was even flashier than what he had two years ago. His Ferrari fixation was more than just pictures of the cars in his apartment but he drove one too. 

“You are quite eager to leave,” you noted as you lowered yourself into the passenger seat, your skirt riding up your thighs as you settled into the leather. Charles inhaled sharply as he saw the hint of your panties peek out and slammed the door shut before storming his way around the car.

“I’m in half a mind to take you over my lap and turn your ass red,” he growled as he pulled out of the driveway. 

“Arthur is lovely,” you commented as you smiled at your reflection in the window. You were absolutely enjoying the way Charles gritted his teeth, but he had started this dance in your bedroom. “He offered to keep me company while you are away next week. I think I might enjoy his company more than yours.”

“Biche,” he warned as he broke the speed limit and practically skidded to a stop in his reserved parking spot. “You’re mine. No one else touches you. Ever.”

You slipped out of the car and felt his eyes on your ass as you climbed the stairs to the apartment. Though you had a key you waited for him to open the door and kept your voice low while he fumbled with the lock in his frustration. “Jealousy doesn’t look good on you.”

“Everything looks good on me,” he argued as he turned the key and shoved you through the doorway. 

“Is that what your girlfriend tells you?”

“No, she prefers me with nothing on.” 

You could understand why that was but didn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you agree as you went to your room. “Goodnight, Charles.”

“Night, ma biche.”

It was still early but you refused to leave your room, instead opening your laptop to watch a movie. You were halfway through a stupid rom-com when you heard a feminine voice in the apartment and you paused it to check you weren’t hearing things.

“Oh, Charles, bébé, baise-moi!”

You rolled your eyes at the sounds of the headboard banging on the wall you shared and rifled through your bag to find a pair of headphones. It seemed that they grew louder or you became hyper aware of what was happening in the room next door, and a needy throb began between your legs when you heard Charles moan deeply. 

Your frustration built until you disappeared into the bathroom and doused yourself in a cold shower, cursing him the entire time you waited for your blood to cool. You could finally think clearly after drying off and recognised he was only making his next move in the game he had started. It was time to start planning yours. 

Charles' steps faltered when he emerged from his bedroom shirtless but he recovered quickly and walked past your position on the couch as he went to get himself a drink of water. 

“You should try Gatorade,” you suggested as you flipped through the channels leisurely. “I find it better than water after a good fucking.”

“What are you wearing?” he finally asked after emptying the glass in one breath and wiping his lips dry.

“This is how I sleep,” you said as you stretched your legs out onto the ottoman. “Is that a problem for you?”

His eyes followed the line of your legs to the edge of the black and red babydoll you wore and cleared his throat. “No, no problem.”

“Charles, who are you talking to?” A pretty brunette emerged from the room and scanned the room, taking in her half naked boyfriend talking to you who was barely dressed much more than him. 

You rose to your feet before Charles could recover and bounced over to the young lady, wrapping her in a hug. “You must be Charlotte, maman’s told me so much about you. I thought I would have to wait until Sunday to meet you.”

“Maman? Sunday?” she asked as she looked at Charles for the answers.

“This is Y/N, my step sister - or soon to be -” he added quietly. “Maman invited her to brunch.”

“We are going to be great friends, Lottie,” you sang as you stepped back with a grin. “I just know it.”

Charles nearly broke his glass as he tossed it in the sink and headed back to his room, returning a moment later with a sweatshirt and jeans on. “Allez, mon amour,” he called to Charlotte as he grabbed his keys. 

You pouted playfully as he led her to the door. “She can sleep over, I don’t mind - I have earplugs.”

Charlotte flushed pink and clearly had no idea you were in the house while they were getting down and dirty. It made it all the more entertaining as you waved goodbye. “I’ll see you Sunday.”

Charles waited until Charlotte had passed the doorway before following, casting a final glance your way. “Don’t wait up.”

You felt his presence in your room before you saw him step out of the shadows with just a towel slung low on his hips and the bed dipped under his weight. “Well played,” he admitted, flopping back and making himself comfortable. 

Rolling over, you turned to face him and tucked your arm under your head. “Did you think about me when you were with her?”

His lips twitched before he gave in to the smile. “Every fucking second.” 

“She’s pretty.”

He reached out and brushed your cheek with his knuckles. “You’re beautiful.” 

You could feel yourself falling to the temptation that his lips provided and it was getting harder to resist taking what you wanted. “You should go back to your room.”

“Your lips say one thing but these say another,” he teased as his touch drifted over your collar and down to your breasts, the thin babydoll doing little to hide your nipples that had hardened since he laid down in the bed. “They are begging for something else entirely.”

“Charles,” you whispered as you leaned into his touch before you could think better of it. 

“I forgot how good my name sounded on your lips,” he hummed as his hand slipped beneath the material, “but I like it better when you scream it.”

“This is a bad idea.”

It didn’t stop him from rolling your nipple between his finger and thumb and drawing a soft sigh from you. “Why is this a bad idea, biche?”

“Because you have a girlfriend, and you’re my step…step…fuck…” Your eyes fluttered shut as his hand slipped between your legs and he touched you over your panties.

“Let me worry about Charlotte, you just relax and spread those lovely legs wider for me.”

“This is going to end badly.” You knew it but it didn’t stop your knees from parting for him. There was something about him that threw caution to the wind, it had been that way the first time you met too. He was pure temptation. He was the apple and you were Eve, unable to resist taking a bite. “I’ll find somewhere else to stay.”

He bit his lip as he watched how your body danced for his touch. “But not tonight.”

“Not tonight,” you conceded as you watched his eyes darken with lust. “Now please fuck me.”

Charles woke alone for the second time after sleeping with you but he smiled when he heard music playing in the living room. “You stayed,” he teased as he walked down the hall, trying to tame his hair along the way. 

“Didn’t have another option but I have found some short term rentals to view next week.”

He froze and his hands dropped to his side. “Wait, you were serious?”

“Yes, this isn’t going to work because if I’m anywhere near you this will just keep happening, and it was a mistake.”

The pop music suddenly grated on Charles' nerves and he grabbed the remote, changing it to another channel before tossing the remote away. You knew he was sulking at the thought of losing his plaything but you ignored him and watched the French news that you couldn’t understand. 

Something on the tv caught Charles’ attention though and he sat up straighter, his arms unfolding as his mouth parted in surprise. The breaking news headline was one that was universal and you realised something big was happening. 

“What is it?” you asked as he remained fixated on the tv. 

“It’s that virus,” he murmured. You had seen it on the news at home before the move, the outbreak reaching all across the globe as it spread person to person. You had been worried about it on the plane with each cough you heard. “It’s spreading here.”

“Okay, and?”

 His hand found its way to his mouth and he bit his nails as he listened, translating and relaying the information for you in sporadic bursts. “You won’t need that rental, Bambi.”

“Why?”

He turned to you with an odd look that you couldn’t quite figure out, possibly apprehension or anticipation or a mix of both. “At midnight tonight the whole country is going into lockdown.” 

His phone started ringing almost immediately and he excused himself to take the call. “It’s work.”

“Shit, shit, shit.” You grabbed your phone and dialled your dad. “Did you hear what’s happening? What do we do?”

“Relax, pumpkin, it’s going to be fine,” he assured you. “It’ll all blow over quickly, I’m sure. They can’t stop the world from turning, can they?”

You laughed in agreement and felt a little better by the time you hung up the phone, but Charles returned looking stressed as he dropped onto the couch beside you.

“Good news or bad news first?”

You didn’t think it mattered either way and just shrugged.

“Italy is also going into lockdown so there’s no reason to go back on Monday.” He draped his arm over your shoulders and pull you into his side. “Looks like we are going to be seeing a lot more of each other.”

“Is that the good or the bad news?”

“Well, I like my job so not being able to do it is bad for me, but being trapped with you indefinitely certainly sounds good to me.”

“Indefinitely?” you laughed and shook your head. “As soon as the house is done I’m gone.”

Charles' laughter silenced you and his kissed your temple. “Oh, Bambi…The builders will be locked down too, nothing will be finished any time soon. You’re all mine.”

“Shit,” you groaned in realisation. It was going to be impossible to keep your hands off him and from the grin on his face he knew it too.

“This is going to be great.”

Click here for part two.

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Lil Nas X featuring Billy Ray Cyrus - Old Town Road 2019

"Old Town Road" is the debut mainstream single by American rapper Lil Nas X, first released independently in December 2018. After gaining popularity, the single was re-released in March 2019. The rapper also recorded a remix with American country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, which was released on April 5, 2019. Both were included on Lil Nas X's second EP, 7 (2019). Dutch record producer YoungKio composed the instrumental and made it available for purchase online in 2018. It features a sample of "34 Ghosts IV" by the American industrial rockband Nine Inch Nails. The sample was placed behind trap-style Roland TR-808 drums and bass. Lil Nas X purchased the instrumental for US$30 and recorded "Old Town Road" in one day.

The song reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart before the magazine disqualified it from the chart on the grounds that it did not "fit" the genre, sparking a debate on what constitutes the "definition" of country music. Though "Old Town Road" did not re-enter any country charts, both versions of the song collectively peaked at number 1 on the main Billboard Hot 100, remaining at the top for a record-breaking 19 consecutive weeks; the remix peaked at number 50 on Billboard's Country Airplay chart. "Old Town Road"'s overall run at number one is the longest in chart history, surpassing the previous record of sixteen weeks achieved by both "One Sweet Day" (poll #296) and "Despacito". One or more versions of "Old Town Road" have topped the national singles charts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland and the UK, and have charted in the top 10 in various other international markets.

The song was certified diamond by the RIAA in October 2019 for selling 10 million total units in the US, the fastest song to be certified diamond. At the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, the remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus was nominated for Record of the Year and won Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Best Music Video. In September 2021, the song set the record for the second-highest certified song in history by the RIAA, at 16× platinum in the US - meaning it accumulated 16 million equivalent song units. The single has sold over 18 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.

"Old Town Road" received a total of 80,6% yes votes!

[maddy-ferguson]

turning 17 is the worst thing that ever happened to me i wouldn't wish that on anyone

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

On 7/31/2019 Trump has a private meeting with Putin. On 8/3/2019, just 3 days after his private meeting with Putin Trump issues a request for a list of top US spies. By 2021 the CIA reports an unusually high number of their agents are being captured and/or being murdered. During the search executed at Mar A Lago the FBI find nore documents with lists of U.S. informants on them.

A Timeline

• FBI wiretapped Russian gambling ring headquartered at Trump Tower for two years - March 21, 2017

• Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador - May 15, 2017

• Trump, Putin Meet For 2 Hours In Helsinki - July 16, 2018

• Rand Paul Goes To Russia And Delivers Letter For Trump, Marking Our Era Of Irony - August 9, 2018

• Following the Money: Trump and Russia-Linked Transactions From the Campaign to the Presidential Inauguration - December 17, 2018

• The US extracted a top spy from Russia after Trump revealed classified information to the Russians in an Oval Office meeting - September 10, 2019

• Trump’s Loose Lips Force US to Extract Spy From Kremlin - September 10, 2019

• Was Mar-a-Lago Trespasser a Tourist or a Spy? A Judge Said Her Story Didn’t Hold Up. - November 25, 2019

• Trump downplays massive cyber hack on government after Pompeo links attack to Russia - December 19, 2020

• Russia has been cultivating Trump as an asset for 40 years, former KGB spy says - January 29, 2021

• There was Trump-Russia collusion — and Trump pardoned the colluder - April 17, 2021

• Longtime GOP operatives charged with funneling Russian national’s money to Trump, RNC - September 20, 2021

• Captured, Killed or Compromised: C.I.A. Admits to Losing Dozens of Informants - October 5, 2021

• Files Seized From Trump Are Part of Espionage Act Inquiry - August 12, 2022

• Ex-Clinton aide implies 'President of France' file found at Trump's home during Mar-a-Lago raid could be valuable to Putin as 'kompromat' - August 13, 2022

• Inventing Anna: The tale of a fake heiress, Mar-a-Lago, and an FBI investigation - August 22, 2022

• Russians used a US firm to funnel funds to GOP in 2018. Dems say the FEC let them get away with it - October 30, 2022

• Trump makes shocking comments about trusting Putin over US 'intelligence lowlifes' - January 31, 2023

• Russia's Prigozhin admits links to what US says was election meddling troll farm - February 14, 2023

• GOP operative sentenced to 18 months for funneling Russian money to Trump- February 17, 2023

• Trump allegedly discussed US nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving White House: Sources - October 5, 2023

• 'So appalled': What witnesses told special counsel about Trump's handling of classified info while still president - April 24, 2024

🤔🤔🤔

[joosthead]

finally // beautiful stranger || j.k. f!reader

WARNING #1: explicit real person fiction ahead, dni if below 18. dni if anti-rpf

WARNING #2: explicit rpf/real person fiction content ahead. read at your own risk. dni if anti rpf, dni or read ahead if you simply don’t like rpf lol

₊˚⊹⋆ part 3/prequel to normal au — this is a standalone fic but here’s part 1 and 2 if you want a little lore down the line : ). or if you’ve already read p1&2–this is how normal au joost and reader meet :3. set in december 2019.

₊˚⊹⋆ reader: f!reader. notfamous!reader. normal au a.k.a. reader has an office job and attends university. reader is not from nl

₊˚⊹⋆ word count: 11k (exactly !! :3)

₊˚⊹⋆ cw: smut (strangers to…lovers?, f&m!receiving oral, eating it through panties, protected piv), smoking, drinking. mentions of violence. reader and joost are kind of dicks to each other + pouty and annoying but dw it's ok bc theyre cute. unironic use of the word yolo. reader is apprehensive about receiving oral—references being self-conscious because it’s been a while. unironic ome robert during sex : ( teehee op does not drink or club sorry for inaccuracy

WARNING #3: rpf ahead—don't like it, don't read it. do not repost this on any other platform, screenshots or text alike. do not click ahead if you don’t want to read rpf. do not interact if you are below 18. how to block tags/words on tumblr.

₊˚⊹⋆ track(s) of the fic: “finally // beautiful stranger” by halsey :'')

₊˚⊹⋆ junote: plushies!!! thank you for your patience and the love on normal au :''') i absolutely adore this au and i'm so glad to know you guys do too!! much more to come ;)))) honestly this isn't extensively edited i was just so excited to drop it : 3 thank you so so much to @howisjoostfanfictionforfree and @killerlookz for hearing me out on my decisions on how to place this in the normal au verse >-< I SO APPRECIATE YOU GUYS!! <3333

₊˚⊹⋆ translation: "Zo mooi, liefje, ik heb zoveel geluk." - "So beautiful, I'm so lucky." / "Je smaakt zo lekker, ik vind het geweldig." - "You taste so good, I love it."

18+ only — explicit rpf content ahead, minors dni, anti rpf dni. 4th and final warning!

You should’ve brought a jacket. 

If you were someone else, you’d have blamed it all on your roommates, their insistence that since your shared townhome was “only a few blocks away” from the club you were going to and “the snow isn’t even that bad” and “see it’s not even that cold” convincing you that an extra layer wasn’t needed. You’re you though, and you’re bearing the entire brunt of your regret as you trudge through the sleet covered footpath, the snow shoveled to the side and yet still not enough to keep the wetness off of your strappy heeled feet.

Why didn’t you bring a jacket? Why is it so cold in the Netherlands? Why did you move here for university? Why did you even sign up for that many courses this term, and why did the weather have to be like this right after you took your last final?

When will it end? Never, you think, but at the very least—tonight you get to party. After trudging through a kilometer of snow, of course, your roommates trudging right in front of you and suffering just the same. The snow that falls melts as soon as it hits the ground, your skin, dampening your hair and chilling you with the wind that whistles past. 

Maybe you shouldn’t have even gone—but you promised that you’d loosen up after how hard you’d been going at work and school. Either way, you wouldn’t pass up the chance to meet your roommate, Ruby’s…Ruby’s boy-thing, an up and coming music producer with big eyes and a soft voice stage-named Tantu; and you wouldn’t pass up seeing Alanis, too, an acquaintance of your other roommate, Marina, turned your own friend. 

It’s okay. Before you even know it (feels like an eternity), you’re through the line and through the threshold of the club (after getting squished and cut in front of and annoyed), and now you stand in front of the bar, trying (and failing) to get the bartender’s attention. 

The club is packed to the gills with people—it is a raucous Friday night, and it’s been months since you’ve been in a place so full of people that wasn’t a library, a lecture hall, or some work event you had to attend. Still, though, it feels natural getting back into the groove of things, holding hands with Ruby as she leads you through the dance floor, checking on Marina behind you before she leaves to find Alanis. 

The cold you were blanketed with outside is no more, not even close now that you’re slipping in between and through grinding bodies and flashing lights, the background music to your night a thumping beat you’ll feel in your bones tomorrow and a fast rapping Dutch voice over it. It’s overstimulating in a good way, you think, much preferred over the overstimulation of your packed schedule—you'll have a few weeks of this before it all starts again, and you're happy to be here at the end of it all. 

Eventually you make it to the bar. Someone stepped on your foot on the way there, you lost sight of Marina, you have to adjust your little black dress constantly—whatever. Ruby’s boy thing is unmistakable, giant blue eyes and typical dad cap, and he stands at the bar with three shots waiting for you both.

“You must be Ruby’s other roommate!” he yells over the music and you nod, smiling at him as Ruby goes to hug him around the waist, giggling as she does. 

You prop your elbow up on the bar for support—god, these shoes suck—and yell back, “You’re Teun? Is this your song?” 

“This is my friend’s song, actually, Joost!” He looks around for a bit before giving Ruby a smile; her excitement is contagious owing to the fact that she’s almost never so animated, like she’s bouncing on her heels with her movement. “He’s supposed to be here tonight, I think he’s late.” 

“Joost?” you yell, and he nods—you nod back in approval. Very pop, very gabber (if you’ve judged the subculture correctly in the 2 years being here), very loud, but you like it. 

“He’s a really cool guy, I promise!” Ruby says, giggling even more and sharing a mischievous look with Tantu that you’re not sure means something. 

“Mmm, sure,” you smile, scrunching your nose. You have a feeling that Joost, whoever he is, will become someone important later on in the night, but you put him on the back of your mind as you pick up your shot glass alongside the two of them and down it—you expect it to burn on the way down, seeming like some kind of vodka, but it’s smooth and sweet, only slightly burning. “Thanks Tantu,” you say, holding your hand up for a high five which he reciprocates, laughing. 

“You’ll like Joost, I think,” he nods, and you cock an eyebrow. 

“Are you trying to set me up with someone?” 

“You need something to distract you from all your work, babe,” Ruby says, taking your hand and squeezing it. “Hopefully expensive vodka will loosen you up a bit.” 

Rolling your eyes, you sigh, “I didn’t ask for a distraction.” Work and school are already difficult enough to juggle as is, let alone your abysmal social life only kept alive by Ruby and Marina’s wide circle of friendly, eccentric creatives. You’d rather just keep your circle small, keep your head down and focus, but your friends always have things up their sleeves. 

Ruby orders 3 Bacardi colas for your small group and turns back to you. “We’re gifting you one, okay?” 

You shake it off, focusing more on the lovely rum and cola once it comes into your possession. Sipping at it, you follow Ruby and Tantu onto the dance floor, the bustling crowd jostling you around as you teeter on your heels, keep your purse close to your body, and try to keep your drink from spilling. 

Truthfully, the purse (the purse!!!) is one of your most prized possessions—you don’t think yourself too materialistic, but scoring a 90s Dior saddlebag for less than a thousand euros, with your first big paycheck… you reason that that’s more than enough to get you to be materialistic. 

You cover it with your arm as best as you can as you try and follow Ruby’s pretty lion’s mane of brown curls, turning to make sure you’re still there every once in a while but mostly just hanging onto Tantu’s hand—you don’t mind third wheeling when Ruby’s being so cute, a side of her you've never seen before. 

The three of you make it to the heart of the crowd, running into Alanis and Marina and picking them up along the way, the thrumming beat of some early 00s song until it transitions to something so hyperpop your eardrums might rupture. 

You mouth the lyrics, bright lights shining into your eyes, your dancing constricted by being way too close for comfort with a bunch of drunk and sweaty strangers, but. You’re trying. That’s for sure. 

Marina’s hands snake around your waist as you sway together to the music, eyes closed and letting the alcohol get to you; you would go back to the bar and get another drink if it wouldn’t be such a damn hassle to do so. 

You’re enjoying every single moment, the time passing by in a blur of dancing people and loud voices and sweaty bodies—you’re almost in a haze, all you’d need is a drunk cigarette to make this night perfect, but then Marina lets go of you, and you get disoriented. So many lights, so many people, not enough of your people. 

You get elbowed in the back by someone and it takes you out of your trance completely. You look back in annoyance, the culprit being a tall blonde guy with douchey sunglasses who’s whooping and hollering with a friend who looks just as rambunctious as he is. Scowling, you turn back to where Ruby and Marina are, speaking/yelling with Tantu and Alanis, somehow several feet away, but then you stumble over your feet, and the guy behind you stumbles into you, and you feel a cold liquid run down your arm, your side, all over your dress. 

Shocked (and frankly, about to cry) you look down at your now dripping arms, your purse and the stains on it obvious even now in the dim club light. A mixture of anger and pure disdain for the guy behind you comes over you as he turns around—what the fuck!!! Almost four months of utter bullshit at work and university and this is what happens to you the night you get back.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, I’ll pay for it, just find me later!” he yells, looking down at you, turning back to his friends and laughing, and you practically gasp in shock with how rude he’s being. Can’t even give you the time to make things right now, what makes him think you’ll trust him enough to leave it later? 

You tap on his shoulder, making him turn his attention back to you. He’s wearing earphones for some reason, and the big sunglasses really are so douchey. You’re normally not so judgmental—but he ruined your night. “Are you fucking serious? Sorry doesn’t cut it—this is vintage,” you shout, pointing at your poor purse. “And you’re a fucking asshole!”

“Oh, it’s vintage?” he scoffs, and you—you want to punch him in his smug face. You can’t even look him in the eye, his stupid sunglasses blocking your vision of him, but you know that you’re glaring holes through him. 

Any night else, you would’ve left it alone, probably. At the very least, get a yell in; at the very least, get his info and give him an angry text the next morning. Tonight, though, you have nothing to lose and a chip on your shoulder. You get up closer to him, in his face as best as you can with the height difference and the close quarters. 

“You wanna take this outside? You can yell where I can actually hear it, my music’s playing too loud!” he smirks, tapping on his stupid earphone, then pointing to the ceiling as the music keeps playing around you, as the people around you still keep dancing and hollering. He starts moving away from you, and you catch a glimpse of all of your friends—the puzzled stares from Ruby, Marina, Alanis, the concerned expression in Tantu’s eyes. You can't pretend to care about what you look like at the moment, except that’s all you care about at the moment. Your once perfect black dress, your mint-condition bag. 

You bring your purse up to your nose—fucking Baco, not even a clear drink that you can get out relatively easily. Maybe if you’d just brought a jacket, you wouldn’t have a Bacardi cola spilled all over everything and ruining your life. You forgot how intense you are when you’re tipsy. 

You follow behind him, practically stomping—you notice that people are parting for you more than they did in the beginning, and it’s likely because of the anger just radiating off of you in waves as you fume. Every once in a while, he turns and sees if you're still following…of course you are. You're not going to let him off the hook that easily. Any of your other friends would handwave it and just go back to partying. You’ve got an agenda, though. 

When you make it out of the club, jostling through what feels like a million people, you're a bit sobered up and it’s so late—it’s so cold. In the lamppost light, you see he’s much taller than you, wearing a heavy jacket and a wrinkled white button-up underneath it, baggy jeans with writing over the crotch. He looks exactly what you’d expect. “I already said I’d pay for your things,” he says, taking a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and offering you one, which you take as you roll your eyes halfway to the back of your head. “You have a stick up your ass.”

You take the cigarette between your fingers, bring it up to your mouth and he cups the end, holding the flame of his lighter to it—it sparks, and you take a long pull before sighing, “It’s gotten me much farther places than you, I know that for sure.” A smile teases on his lips, and you can't help but smile back, your anger already melting away like the snow on the ground. The two of you walk a little ways down, trying to get away from the loud clubbers and failing. It’s peak business right now; you couldn't escape them together even if you tried. 

In your head, you tell yourself that it’s because of the nicotine, the smoke in your lungs, but you have to be real with yourself. Whoever the asshole who ruined your night was, whether he was a friend of a friend or the soundtrack to this club—he has pretty blue eyes and a prettier smile, and you…you are weak. And sobering up and realizing that making a scene was a bit embarrassing. 

“Yeah?” he asks, and you nod, proudly, smugly, because you'd earned the right to after the way your life has been the past few months. “Sure it has.” Mood ruined again. You walked straight into that. 

Again, you roll your eyes. “I'm not here to try and convince you of my accomplishments.” 

“‘Accomplishments’,” he says, lighting up his own cigarette. “So accomplished but you didn’t bring a coat for this weather. Smart.” 

This makes you realize just how freezing you are, one of your arms hugged close to your body for what little warmth you can muster from it—your dress is quite short, not to mention damp from this guy’s Bacardi cola spilled all over it, and you’re feeling the consequences. Goosebumps line your skin all over, the breath that leaves your mouth is not only smoke but the cold condensation in the chilly air, and you shake your head. 

“I didn’t think I’d have to come out here and yell at you, but here we are.” 

“How much is your dress? Your purse? I'll send you the money and more for your trouble.” 

“I can't just replace vintage,” you fuss, looking down at your outfit. Your purse was once pink and white and Dior-monogrammed—now it is a muddy brown. Still Dior-monogrammed, but uglier. You never thought yourself a fusser—maybe this season of your life has changed you more than you thought. “I got this at a thrift in Berlin, you know how hard that is these days?”

A heavy weight gets put upon your shoulders; his jacket that he places around them wafts the smell of expensive men’s cologne and smoke. You look at him, incredulous; he gives you a quick glance, then averts his gaze. “You're shaking like a dog,” he says, taking a puff from his cig. “You need it more than I do.”

“Thanks,” you nod, and he gives you an acknowledging hum. “You don't have to. I was an asshole to you and you give me your jacket.” 

“Don't apologize for something that was my fault.” 

“It was both our fault.” 

The night is silent as it can be—not silent at all with clubbers streaming in and out, the music and the talking leaking to the outside. The two of you are a bit farther away from all the people—everyone is walking the other way to another club or bar to continue their outings. 

“Do you want to sit down? We can exchange info and stuff here. Your shoes look uncomfortable.” 

Now that you’re warm, you realize another thing: your feet are aching tired from the dancing, the minutes of stomping after him. The curb in front of you is damp from the snow, but his jacket is so big on you that it can cover your ass—it’s not like you have much else to lose with this outfit, anyways. You sit and he settles down next to you. The sky is a deep purple canvas marred by light pollution, yet you can still see a few stars. Same stars here, same stars back home. 

Another realization: you’re sitting in a foreign country, in almost silence next to some stranger, smoking a cigarette, wearing his jacket after calling him a dickhead and after he’s implied that you’re some airhead. 

Maybe you're just boring (you're not), but life has never taken you to a place like this before. 

To the side, he stubs out his cigarette, and you take a better look at him. Pink creeps up his neck, and when he turns back, you see how vibrantly rosy his cheeks are. If you're seeing it right, his eyes are a little heavy lidded, probably as a result from all of the alcohol. He has a beauty mark underneath his lip, and his lips are just as pink as his cheeks as he brings another cigarette to his mouth. “Do you want another? Or do you just want to keep staring?” His voice is playful, enough so that you bite your tongue for the quip back. 

“I shouldn't. I’m trying to quit, anyway,” you say, still breathing yours in. He nods and you notice that you can actually see his eyes now—no douchey sunglasses, or whatever you called them in your head back there. “Why aren't you wearing your glasses anymore? The ones you wore inside?”

“I don't need to wear them now that the lights aren’t crazy. It gets very overstimulating in there, the glasses help.” 

“I assume your earphones are for the same reason?” You point at his dangling white earphone, and he nods. “I should try that. Maybe it’ll stop me from yelling at strangers.” 

“Maybe it will help you, too. Want to listen?” 

He offers it to you, tonight’s symbolic olive branch, and you take it. “Sure,” but you take it out of your ear almost as soon as you put it in, the music extremely loud and blaring. “How do you not lose your hearing?” 

“I’ll lose it anyway—YOLO,” he says, shrugging, and amuses you how serious he seems saying it. “YOLO” is a fitting mantra for him. “I'm a performer, anyway, so—YOLO! Accelerate the process.” The music turns down considerably; if you're hearing it right, it sounds like Flemish dad rock, something you'd hear on the radio if you grew up here. 

“YOLO, I guess,” you laugh, and he nods like he’s proud of you, laughing himself. It sounds more like a bark, voice now raspy because of the cigarettes, because of the cold, but it sounds nice. “You’re a performer? What have I seen you in, then?” His appearance is so distinctive—hair so bright it almost glows, eyes reflecting an icy grey from the dark of the footpath in front of you. His style is even more distinctive, all Supreme and Bathing Ape and hype beast brands you’ve never heard of. 

But it is Amsterdam. Curly blonde haired, blue eyed hype beasts are a dime a dozen here. You’ve probably seen him around somewhere, it seems like even your roommates know him pretty well through their scene of creatives—but you can’t seem to connect him to anyone you’ve ever watched or heard before. 

“Let me pull up my music for you.” 

“Soundcloud rapper?” you tease. 

“Adjacent.” 

He takes his phone out of his jeans pocket, and you peer over his shoulder, watching as he scrolls through a different playlist. He looks back at you, smiles, looks at your lips then back up at your eyes—it takes a little out of you to keep from rolling your eyes, it takes a lot out of you to keep your composure when he does it. Ugh. “I don’t know what to play you,” he admits, turning back to his phone. “Feels like you’re just going to mess with me when I do.” 

“I'll try not to. Can't promise anything, though.” 

You put your hand on his shoulder—he feels warm, sturdy, and he’s taking way too long to pick a song out of the apparently many he has under his name. 

Finally, he clicks on a title and it begins playing; 1 second in, you say, “Skip,” just to fuck with him, and it works well—he looks back at you, mouth agape and eyes wide, expression so earnestly incredulous you have to laugh. Your faces are closer than they have been the entire night, but you can't even focus on that as you laugh. “Skip?!” he exclaims, getting closer to you, all up in your face. 

“Yeah, skip,” you giggle, nodding exaggeratedly as you lean into him like he just did to you. He’s so close, and he grins at you as your noses come close to brushing. 

“This is the first song of mine I’ve played the entire time, and you want to skip it.”

Obviously, it isn't actually a skip for you—”Ome Robert,” a really fun song about…sucking dick? Being a god? Either way, it’s incredibly catchy and well produced, but you don’t want to let him know that just yet. “Yeah, I wanna skip it. You’ve gotta have better than this.” 

“I work hard on this song, I release it myself, it goes platinum in the Netherlands, I make it to impress beautiful strangers at the club just like you—and you want to skip it. All that work, what did it even get me?” 

Beautiful. This counts as a win. “I admire your work ethic and I think it’s so commendable that you set up a record label for you and your friends—but it’s a skip, I’m sorry to say.” You shrug, putting your hands in the coat pockets once you stub your cig out. The air is so cold—honestly, you worry for him, his disheveled white button-up the only thing shielding him from the weather now that he’s given you his coat. 

“Tell that to everyone in the club, you saw it back there. You probably even danced to it, too.” 

“Did you have to pay the DJ to get him to play your song?” 

“No, we’ve been friends for years.” 

“Ah, so it’s nepotism. I see,” you state proudly, and he groans.

“Nepotism? I will let you know, I established a record label myself. Fully independent, no nepotism.” 

Though Joost’s tone is annoyed, there’s nothing but an amused grin on his face; you smile back, “Is he signed to your label?” He nods, and there, just as easy, you have another piece of ammo. “Ah, so he’s kissing up to the boss.”

“You—“ he starts, eyebrows furrowing, then stops, shaking his head at you. “I've been talking to you for an hour and I don’t even know your name.”

“We’ve been busy.” 

You offer your name and he repeats it, question mark at the end. You nod and he smiles bigger, if that’s even possible. In the streetlight, his eyes shine, long blonde eyelashes almost covering them. “We’re supposed to meet, did you know that?” 

“Really?” 

“I’m Joost. Friend of Tantu and Alanis. They said they wanted me to meet…their friend’s friend? If you are that. Friend’s roommate?” 

“What a way to meet.” You didn’t think this would be the Joost that Tantu was talking about at the bar, fiery yet sweet making loud and proud music you’d never heard before. 

“We made great first impressions on each other, I think. You are unforgettable.” 

“Mine worse than yours,” you sigh, and Joost hands you his cigarette to smoke the final few puffs. You take it even though you should quit, even though you told him you’re quitting, your lipstick staining the butt. 

“We can put it behind us, yeah?” he says, holding his hand out for you to shake. “Friends?” 

“Acquaintances, for now,” you tease, but shake his hand anyway. “Fuck, dude, your hand is so cold.” Your brows furrow in concern as you squeeze his hand, surprisingly freezing, surprisingly soft save for a few callouses.

Joost laughs smaller than you’ve heard him all night, your hands practically in his lap; his cheeks are glowing pink with how long you’ve been out here—your cheeks are warm, but likely not for the same reason.  

“Acquaintances? Don’t play hard to get.” On instinct, you wrap your other hand around Joost’s in an attempt to warm it. “Your hands are so warm, I appreciate you for trying,” Joost remarks. “Very small, too, Christ.” 

“Oldest trick in the book, Joost, my god,” you laugh, exasperated, yet still, you let him move your hands so they're flat against each other, palms touching. He holds your wrist gently so he can line your hands up; his fingers are much longer and thicker than yours, and the sight brings warmth to your cheeks—it shouldn’t have the effect it does on you, but it does. 

“It’s working, isn’t it?” 

You bring his hand into the coat pocket with yours—it worked enough for you to now willingly share this tiny pocket, that’s for sure. “It’s working,” you say softly, averting your gaze now that you both know that whatever it is is something that’s felt mutually. “Do you do this with every pretty stranger you meet in the club?”

If Joost is a performer like he says he is, a big time independent record label owner like he says he is—there’s sure to be a line of people out the door, or at least a few groupies or someone. Someone in that club who recognized those songs, recognized the mop of blonde hair sitting in front of you now. Over several failed situationships and romps with people this side of Europe, you learned: there is always someone. Someone who’s less busy, less distracted, more interested. 

You know you fit the bill for the interested part, at least—less busy is something you’ll be for a short time, less distracted…well, you have your full attention on him right now, don’t you? It’s been so long since you’ve done something like this, maybe you’re just feening for an excuse to check your own boxes for him, maybe you want to do this for the sake of the line out the door or the groupies. 

Or maybe he’s just Joost. Whoever Joost is, considering you just met him. And maybe you just want him to keep holding your hand, or talk to you more, show you more of his music or go back home with you, slip into your bed, stay until the morning. 

“I can't say I have. I’ve never had a conversation like this with anyone, really, so it wouldn’t even be worth it if I did,” Joost says. Your faces are close again—you would bridge the gap if you just let yourself, but you can’t; you can only muster the courage to let your noses brush against each other, only the courage to smile. “Can I kiss you?”

It seems, he’s checked your boxes for you. 

“Are you fucking crazy?” you scoff, though you lean in at the same time. Joost leans back when you do, teasing grin upon his lips, and you furrow your brows, shaking your head. “Don’t play hard to get,” you mumble as he untangles your fingers in your coat pocket, takes your face in his cold and gentle hands and presses his lips to yours. 

He tastes like cigarette smoke; his Bacardi cola on your dress and your shoes, and now the taste on your tongue; he tastes like smiling into a kiss with a pretty stranger, the way you both do now. 

Joost kisses like he’s scared to broach you, like it’s the first time he’s been delicate in a while—you kiss like you’re hungry for him, because you are, not a single care about your lipstick on his face or the people walking past or the fact that he’s a stranger. His hand slips under your coat, gripping your hip as you pull him closer by the lapel; you beckon him to kiss you harder when you let him lick into your mouth and you lick back. 

It’s your turn to pull back, come up for air; Joost chases you when you leave, hand running down your body as you go to stand up, a soft little, “what no” leaving his mouth when you do. The look on his face—his face!!! Fuck.—is so cute, big wide eyes and hand on the back of your thigh. You cup his face (is this too tender?), rub your thumb at the edge of his lips where your lipstick has smudged in an attempt to clean it off. Turning his head, he kisses your palm, and your breath catches in your throat. 

Wordlessly, he gets up, stands next to you. “What the fuckkkk!!!” he whisper yells, gesturing wildly, and the street echoes the sentiment back. “What are we doing?”

“I don’t know,” you say, laughing, and then stumbling because he’s gotten you in his arms again, kissing you, stumbling with you back against the brick wall of the building behind you as he laughs into your mouth to your whining between giggles about how he almost made you trip. 

Caged between his arms, you wrap yours around his neck so you can get up higher to kiss him—“I don’t regret spilling my drink on you at all,” Joost mumbles when you kiss his chin, nip at his jaw, go down to suck at his pulse point and nip at it too. “Can I touch you like this?” he whispers, and you nod as he brings his hands down to your ass, presses you harder against the wall, grinds against you as you kiss him breathless again. 

When Joost pulls away, you know—you’ve got him wrapped around your finger. Breathing almost heavy, pink lips dropped open, face more serious than he’s been the entire night and scanning your features in a way that is truly disarming—you don't want to admit it, but Joost has got you wrapped around his finger, too. 

A group of people from the club pass behind—you hear a few whispers of, “Is dat Joost?” and a few wolf whistles. Someone gives him a few congratulatory claps on the shoulder which he cringes at, giving you an apologetic smile. “Don’t listen to them.” Once more, he kisses you.

“Your place?” he breathes, and you sputter for a response. This is going a bit too well. Your silence seems to speak for you, but really, you're just thinking about if your room is clean, if your everything shower was enough, if you’re ready to do this with him. “Too much?” he winces, giving you a weak smile, and you shake your head. 

“No, no, my place is fine—my roommates might be home, though.”

“I can be quiet.” 

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s true.” 

“It’s a half-truth.” 

“I’ll take that.” 

—

After a kilometre walk the direction of your house chock full of giggles and pauses to keep kissing against brick walls, dark store fronts, alley entrances, you finally make it back to your house. 

You hurry up the icy steps to your townhome, taking Joost by the hand as he trips his way up the flight. “Schat,” he breathes, and the pet name makes your heart skip a beat, “My house was closer the other direction.”  

“You suggested my place, Joost,” you laugh as you unlock your door and step in your warm foyer—you wave him in, kicking your heels off and stepping onto the cold wood floor as he does the same with his shoes. 

Closing the door behind you, you listen for a beat…voices. The walls are so thin here, you’re unsure if the sounds come from your next door neighbours or your potentially home roommates. Either way, you bring a finger to your lips, telling him to be quiet. In his normal voice, he says, “I’ll be quiet,” and you laugh together at his volume—neither of your roommates would care, but the teasing you'll receive tomorrow if they knew it was Joost you were bringing home…endless. 

“Come, now,” you say, taking Joost’s hand and leading him up your steps, down the hallway to your room.

Your home is tiny and cozy and lived in—the three of you have worked very hard to make this feel like a household instead of just a shared living situation, frames lining the walls of your antics and travels together, baby pictures from home, posters of music artists and movies that one or all of you like. Joost lags behind you trying to look at them, but you just pull him along. Waiting any longer feels like a travesty. 

Once you get down the hallway, open and close your door, you push him up against your door and kiss him again to his surprise, your teeth clacking together from his smile and your enthusiasm. “You want me that bad, huh?” he teases, and you roll your eyes. 

The answer is yes, but you’re not going to let him know that yet. 

You room is as tiny as the rest of the house, a queen bed in the middle with off-white sheets, a desk on the far side, a dresser with a mirror when you walk in. 

“I don’t do things like this very often,” you mumble, fumbling with his angular belt buckle between your fingers, the cold metal of it and the jagged edges of the plate spelling “ALBINO” in a stylized font. 

“Me neither,” Joost breathes as he tries to help you, but ends up fumbling with it, too. “Holy fuck, if I knew this would be so hard to take off, I wouldn’t have worn it.” 

“Cool belt, nonetheless,” you say, and he kisses you thanks. 

“It’s the name of my album,” Joost beams as he finally gets it unclasped, pulling it through his belt loops. You undo his button, unzip the zipper, he does the rest, clumsily pulling down his pants slightly. “We should listen to it.” 

“Later.” From here, as you palm him over his underwear, feel his length through it, you can tell—he’s big. “You should’ve told me you were hiding this back there, maybe I wouldn’t have argued with you as much.”

“I was afraid you would’ve clutched your pearls if I did, schat, the way you yelled at me.” 

“You would be right,” you agree, knowing you would’ve probably thrown a drink in his face if he made some remark about his dick size to you in the midst of your argument. “But if you told me, we probably wouldn’t have sat out there for so long.”

“I wouldn’t have given up that conversation for the world.” 

From anyone else, these words would be hyperbole; strangely, from Joost, they feel true. it feels like you know him already, and he knows you. Perhaps it’s the result of having such a circle of a venn diagram of friends and acquaintances. Perhaps you did know him from a different time and you just forgot.  

“Me neither,” you agree softly, smiling into the kiss you give him as you reach into his boxers and wrap your hand around his hard cock. He’s just as thick as you thought. 

“Fuck,” Joost breathes into your mouth already, and you watch him and his face contort in pleasure as you jerk him lazily in his underwear just for the added sensation of the fabric rubbing against him. Gazing at your lips, eyebrows furrowing, chest moving up and down and breathing heavy, he says softly, “I haven’t done this in…a year? A year and a half? So please, have mercy on me.” 

“Go home with someone? Me too.” You figure that it makes sense—any fling he has is probably on the road, in hotel rooms, anywhere but home. You're not exactly welcoming guests on Friday nights either, but you’re holed up in it 24/7. 

“No, I mean—any of it. I don't do casual often, at all, really.” 

You scoff lightheartedly, “Yeah, sure.” 

“I’m serious,” Joost smiles as you take his length out of his boxers and get on your knees, the plush carpet cushioning you.  

You don’t do one night stands and you certainly don’t do them with self proclaimed “performers,” yet here you are. 

Now in front of you, his cock in your hand, you make complete peace with your decision, and it’s easy to do so. 

He is so pretty—all pale, the tip a delicate rosy pink and leaking wet, a vein running along the underside. It’s nestled in a thicket of lightly trimmed dark blonde hair; you give him a few pumps, running your thumb over the head for some lubrication when you do. 

“Won't listen to my music, but you’ll do this, ridiculous,” Joost says quietly, hand on your cheek as you look up at him through your eyelashes. 

“You’re still on that? Big ego, shocker.”

“Obviously not a shock, you’re holding it.”

In shock at his audacity, you gasp dramatically. “Don’t get cocky, now. You still needed to beg me for streams earlier.”

You give a kiss on the pink tip, salty precum coating your lips. A perfect moment passes when you look back up at him—he rolls his head back in pleasure, a quieted moan slipping past his lips at your tongue finally on him, just one lick to the slit but enough to get him a little louder. 

His cock twitches in your hand, and you grin, kitten licks to his shaft, “Too much?” 

Joost says breathlessly, “I think my knees will buckle sometime tonight, schat,” and you beam up at him. 

“That’s a big compliment,” you purr, taking the head of his cock into your mouth and sucking lightly, which earns a strangled groan for you, a curse under his breath. With every bob of your head, you take a tiny bit more, about half—you're ambitious, but who can blame you when Joost is so pretty? Struggling to keep it together, his stomach muscles jumping and twitching with every hollowing of your cheeks, every drag of your tongue along the underside of his shaft. 

Joost’s hand comes up to the back of your head, just resting there gently as you swallow down his cock, dripping spit on your chin; it hits the back of your throat and you almost gag, having to pull back and pump him a few times, the shiny head now a deeper pink. 

“You like it that much, hm?” he says, moving your hair out of your eyes as you lick a stripe along the underside.

“When you make those sounds—yeah, I do.” You lap at a bead of precum dripping from his slit, and it makes him hiss; it makes him groan even more when you pop the head into your mouth and suck again. 

Involuntarily, he thrusts just a little in your mouth—”Can I do this?” Joost asks, and you nod around him. He’s gentle when he starts, and you prepare to take more of him by breathing through your nose.

He makes these little thrusts into your mouth that make your eyes water, shallow as you suck around him, steady with one hand on your head. With every thrust into your open mouth, he breathes heavier, his pretty lips are dropped open. Spit pools at the sides of your mouth; one long seat into your throat, followed by another, and you gag around him, making him groan loudly. “Holy shit, schat,” Joost breathes, and you feel accomplished. “Enough of that, I think I’ll cum.”

With his hand, Joost wipes your spit from your chin gently; brings you up to meet him for a sloppy kiss, which you smile into as he reaches around to your dress zipper, pulls it down a few inches, rough fingertips against your soft back. You start undoing the buttons of his button-up for him, fumbling just as you did earlier with his belt. For some reason, you can't find it in yourself to slow down around him. 

The zipper catches and you miss a button on the way down, both of you entirely too distracted by kissing like it’s a competition, like you want to eat each other—thankfully, you get all of them undone, and so you run your hands down Joost’s chest covered in hair, his happy trail, back down to his cock again. It makes him falter as he brings down your zipper but he manages to do it, fingers light as a feather running down your spine, nudging your dress down. 

Erratic and wild as the man in front of you, your heart beats a million miles an hour, your hands in his hair as he pulls down your dress completely and it crumples onto the floor. 

Joost pulls back, a string of spit connecting your lips, pupils blown out and wide as he scans your body, your breasts and your pebbling nipples. You move your arms in front of them, avoiding his gaze. “Don’t be shy,” he laughs softly, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed—“ he moves your hand over his heart—it beats as fast as yours, and you give him a small smile. “I’m nervous, too.” A kiss that seems to calm your nerves. “Can’t believe someone pretty as you would take me home.” 

He rubs your back, and already you feel comforted—how is this the same guy who spilled his drink all over you? “Why wouldn’t I?” 

“Do you forget how your dress is still very sticky because of yours truly?” 

You laugh together as he kisses your cheek, the side of your mouth, then kisses your lips slow and achingly gentle, licking into your mouth and rolling your nipple gently between his two fingers, his other hand cupping your cheek. He drags his tattooed knuckles down the curve of your breast, making your breath catch in your throat, a small whine falling from your mouth when he runs them down your stomach, fingertips down over the lacy black fabric of your thong, down more and teasing at your covered clit. 

“Get on the bed,” Joost murmurs, and you practically scramble to it before he stops you with a loose grip around your wrist. “Woah, woah, woah.” With a puzzled expression, you turn back to him. “We can’t have them watching, what?” he says, gesturing at your bed. Staring back at you with gigantic embroidered blue eyes: three of your cat plushies placed upon your pillows from earlier when you made your bed. You weren’t exactly planning on guests tonight. “Blasphemous, no? They can look out the window.” Scooting behind you and to the bed, Joost scoops up the three, climbing over it to your desk facing outside. The moonlight streams in through your curtains as he sits them in a line and turns them around. “Much better.”

“Much better,” you repeat, laughing. On your now clear bed, you lie back and lean over. Opening the lower drawer on your nightstand, you rummage around for the box of condoms you know is somewhere in here but is covered by notepads, extra pens, random pouches filled with indeterminate belongings. Under a folder filled with paperwork and old assignments, you find the box, opened but largely untouched except for one used for a 4th date Hinge guy from months and months ago who didn’t even make you cum. 

You dig the box out and hold it out to him. Settling between your legs, Joost says, “Not yet,” taking it out of your hands and placing it on the nightstand. “I want to taste you, schat, I’ve been wanting to all night.” 

…Eating it already? You’ve declared that Joost is ran through, but you find yourself caring less and less with how enthusiastic he is. Still, though, there’s a part of you that’s apprehensive about letting him see all of you so soon. 

“Joost,” you blush, closing your legs. He moves them so he can see your face, and your cheeks grow hotter as you reason, “We just met.”

“And?” Tilting his head to the side, Joost scoffs. “We’re already naked in your bed, schat.” 

He makes a good point, but still…you’ve never had anyone offer to do it on the first link. “I don’t know…You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“You just put my dick in your mouth, it’s only fair I do something in return.” Just a little, you part your legs for him; slowly, he takes a place between them, gaze disarming as he comes to lie on his stomach and rests his cheek on your thigh, giving it a chaste kiss. So convincing, but you don’t really need to be convinced, do you? “I will make it worth your while, baby.” 

Soft mewls come out of you inadvertently when Joost noses at your inner thigh, sucks at the sensitive skin. “We could just move on—that is perfectly fine, too. But I could give you even more of a good time if we do this.” 

“You talk big game, Joost,” you laugh. With his age and strange tattoos and his bleach-damaged hair and his expensive attire, you expect Joost to be bad at…all of it, really, but he’s only subverted your expectations tonight without having the chance to fully even touch you yet. 

“I wouldn’t do so if I couldn’t prove it to you.” Joost presses a chaste kiss over your panties, over your clit, and somehow, your heart ups gears, beating unsteadily. “And if I didn’t want it so bad,” he adds in a low voice. Completely different from the smiling, pink-nosed boy you saw in him earlier, Joost is hungry for you, the look in his eyes telling you everything you need to know about the veracity of his words. “If you don’t want me to see, I’ll close my eyes—for now, we can just do this.” 

Whoever had him last must have trained him well.

Lathing his tongue over you, Joost spreads his spit over the cloth of your thong, soaking the fabric even more than it already is as he holds your gaze. One arm is hooked around your thigh; the other hand, you’re not entirely sure, but judging from how heavy he’s breathing, how desperate he looks as he eats you out over your panties, the movement of his arm—he’s touching himself, and you wonder if he can feel how much more wet you become at the idea that he is. 

A few hours ago, thought yourself unshakeable in the face of him—now you’re a squirming puddle in his hands. 

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to—but I promise—“ Joost says, big blue eyes shining at you, hands now clasped together as if he’s begging for it—you figure that he is begging for it, technically, and who are you to deny him the opportunity? “Do you really not want it?” Though he’s giving you an out, he sounds so resigned, and it makes you smile a little. 

From the sidewalk, your front steps, the threshold of your room, you wanted Joost badly; wanted him even after considering all the outcomes of this: a waste of a free night, or an hour or two with an overconfident and underperforming boaster before you shoo him away, or a sweet but egotistical rapper in your tidy bedroom putting plushies on top of your university textbooks and leaving his clothing on your floor. 

Despite yourself, you want him. The confirmation that he wants you just as badly, too—the air in your room is charged with electricity, warm and stuffy almost even with the cold outside. You haven’t felt something so strong in forever, too distracted by work and school and life to really care about your body’s needs, even less so what it wanted. 

Joost is exactly what you want. 

“No, no, please,” you breathe, already lowering the side of your thong. “I want you, please, Joost.”

The confidence feels more like giving permission to yourself to be so vulnerable with Joost. No one has seen you this intimately in months (feels like years) and definitely not after such short time together. 

“Okay, schat. Okay,” Joost says, pressing one last kiss over your underwear before helping you pull it off. When you kick it off somewhere on the ground next to the bed, he screws his eyes shut dramatically, and you laugh. 

“You can open your eyes, you know?”

“Hey, I said I would keep them closed for you, I’m not going to break my promise.” He shakes his head, moving forward to kiss…somewhere, you’re not really sure, but it ends up being the junction between your leg and your center, which tickles you. 

“Break it, I don’t care.”

“If you say so.” Joost shrugs, then opens his eyes. Already, it’s as if he’s trying to study you, and it makes you want to hide. Against your better judgment, you open your legs wider for him to have more room, and he gives you a small grin. “Zo mooi, liefje, ik heb zoveel geluk,” Joost says softly, one tentative lick up your seam that makes you shudder. Your cheeks feel warm with how reactive you are to him. Synapses overloaded with his skillful tongue teasing at your clit through your lips, parting them slightly with his fingers—you don't even have it in you to translate what he said to English in your head. “Je smaakt zo lekker, ik vind het geweldig,” he groans, laying his tongue flat against the bud, lapping at it a few times, smacking his lips loudly against you. 

He wraps his lips around your clit, making you moan loudly at how good it feels; you tug at his sweaty blonde hair, and he laughs, he laughs with his mouth on your pussy, and the vibrations of his deep voice make you go crazy. Already, you feel your climax about to approach—in the whirlwind of your busy life, you had no time at all for any self-love, and you guess that your heightened sensitivity is a direct result of that. 

Or maybe Joost is just that good. 

You watch Joost as he devours you slowly, eyes trained on yours and unflinching, arms hooked around your plush thighs and holding you down—even if you wanted to, you couldn’t get away from him. 

When he reaches his right arm up to paw at your breast, you can’t help but notice—“You—is that Crazy Frog?” Crazy Frog tattoo?!?! On his forearm of all places?!?! Who exactly are you sleeping with? You are entirely and endlessly entertained and intrigued by the stranger you’ve picked up tonight. 

“You know Crazy Frog?!” Joost exclaims, pulling back from you with a pop that makes you moan, lips glistening as he sits up a tiny bit. 

“Yes, I know Crazy Frog, Joost.” You laugh, amused if not a little puzzled at the notion that Crazy Frog could be some niche reference for anyone who’s used Youtube in the last 15 years or born before 2003. 

“I thought you would be too fancy to know him, I’m glad you aren’t.” 

“I may have a stick up my ass, but that doesn’t mean I live under a rock.” 

“Great,” Joost smiles, climbing up over you to give you a quick kiss before you gasp at two of his fingers circling your clit. “Then we will get along just fine.” Kiss to your cheek, and he’s back on you again.

The pause in stimulation makes you more sensitive, somehow, and when he immediately sucks your clit hard, it punches the air out of your lungs—you clench your thighs around his ears, but it just makes him suck harder. In the matter of a minute, your orgasm is coaxed out of you by Joost and his wonderful mouth, your moans no longer quiet and subdued; you have to cover your mouth with your hands, but it’s no use when he keeps licking your swollen clit on your comedown, every stroke of his tongue bringing intense waves of pleasure surging through you, making you sob out his name like your neighbours won’t have it memorized by the time tomorrow comes. 

Joost pulls away from your pussy slightly when you finally release all of the tension in your thighs, your body, letting your vice grip on his blonde hair go. Every part of you feels like jelly as you try to catch your breath, sweat on your brow, the pulse between your legs strong and steady as a result of the beautiful man lying between them. 

“You want another?” Joost asks, wiping his mouth, then giving you a wet kiss on your overstimulated clit that makes you curse his name to his raucous laughter. “I can give you another, I could do this forever if you asked.”

“No, no need, that’s very much enough, thank you,” you say, shaking your head. If you could stand not to have him inside you for one more minute, you’d take him up on his offer. “That was too good.” 

“Dank je wel,” he grins, then kisses you, your own flavour on his lips and his on yours. 

“Graag gedaan,” you giggle in your crappy accent and he kisses you again. 

“Wowww, fluent. Very impressive, schat.” Joost nods, giving you a small round of applause, and you roll your eyes but pull him in for another kiss anyway. He moves to sit down so you sit on top of him—his cock is still hard as it was before, a small wet spot on your sheets next to you from where he laid down. 

The feeling he gives you, it’s inexplicable—all those days writing reports and essays, brainstorming and editing, thousands and thousands of words upon paper, and Joost has rendered you speechless in mere hours. No sound between you—no jabs, no complaints or thinly veiled flirty insults, just your shared breaths in your bedroom, just the dull shuffle of your now messed up comforter against your sheets as you reach over and rip off a condom from the sleeve, the box falling over and onto the floor. 

For once, you don’t quite care; you only care about ripping the wrapper, taking it out, pinching the tip of the condom, rolling it down his hard cock as you kiss him open-mouthed and thoughtless.  

“All fours,” Joost whispers, and you let yourself follow his lead after so long having to be in complete control of your life. It feels good being with him, feels good when he places your legs far apart and you settle on your elbows, back arching. You’re so exposed like this—you almost flinch when he dips his fingers into your dripping folds. You turn your head to look back, let him see you and your face as he teases your clit. “Who would have thought?”

“Thought what?” you breathe, wiggling your ass back against his hand. 

“Nothing to say? No teasing?” 

“I’ve done my teasing.” You already knew Joost’s hands were big—but when he wraps them around your hips and pulls you to him gently, the size of them is stark, so warm and gripping you tightly. He comes closer behind you, his thighs behind your ass, dragging the tip of his cock through your slit with a groan. “Joost,” you sigh in a small voice, so overcome by your need for him. “Please, I need you, please fuck me.” 

“Since you asked so nicely.”

With a few more swipes of his cock through your wetness, a few circles of the head against your clit that make arousal pool in your stomach and between your legs, he finally inches it inside of you just a little. 

He’s going so slow, and you—you've never been so impatient in your life. You slide back for him, loud moans coming from the two of you at the fast stimulation, his cock dragging against your walls as you  take him deeper. “Oh my god,” you whisper as he eases more of himself into you, then leans over you, chest pressed against your sweat-sheened back and a hand snaking around to knead your tits. 

“‘Ik ben een god,’ I guess,” Joost says into your ear with a laugh, and you can't help but laugh too, even with all the ego dripping from quoting his own song calling him a god while he’s fully inside of you. 

“Don't flatter yourself.”

“I don’t have to flatter myself,” he says, and the grin in his voice is absolutely diabolical; he says it with a hard thrust into you, which you moan at, the way his cock hits your spot so amazingly, your eyes almost roll back into your head. Every nerve in your body is electric, so many months without use, without stimulation, Joost is a shock to your system. “You do it enough for me.” 

You practically hide your face in the sheets as he falls into a rhythm thrusting into you at an angle so deep inside you could cry—you would never let Joost have that satisfaction, though, so you bite your lip and revel in the pleasure. Every steady seat of his cock inside you, every single breathy moan that falls from his mouth, every whispered murmur of your name accompanied by his hands roaming your back. 

The sticky slap of his balls against your clit, the wet sound coming from your pussy so filthy it could take you out of this dizzying haze. Really, it sends you in deeper, burying you in it the way he’s burying himself inside of you. 

“Fuuuck,” you drag out as you grip your sheets for any leverage, eyebrows furrowing with his hands gripping tightly on your hips to bring you back onto his cock. “Joost, like that.” The pace he's set for you both is aggravatingly perfect—you think you might want it forever. 

“You sound so pretty saying my name like that, baby, do it again.”

“Joost,” you mewl, eyebrows scrunching that you’re letting him have what he wants. You start to say it again, but as you do—he sinks into you so quickly, so hard, then starts sliding out of you so slow you let out a strangled sob. You can’t say anything else when he continues fucking into you, only letting out stifled sighs with every movement. 

“So much to say earlier, now look at you. It’s okay, I know it’s good, liefje,” he says softly. 

“So good,” you murmur, the drag of his thick cock in and out of your pussy bringing you almost to the edge as you collapse your torso onto the bed, so exhausted with the endless dopamine hit you’ve managed to score with Joost—almost to the edge until he ceases his movements completely as he’s fully inside you. 

“Schat,” Joost breathes, and you turn around and pout at him, completely (and justifiably) annoyed at the stoppage of his wonderful hips. 

“Fuck you, why'd you stop?” you ask, propping yourself back up on your elbows and shaking your head. 

Joost leans over you, lips on the nape of your neck, so you turn your head. “Fuck you,” he says, and you kiss him as he laughs. He’s so full of it—You’re so full of him, a comfortable pressure inside of you and snug against your spot. “You need me to hold you up? You can lie down if you want, schat, maybe it will feel even better.”

“Yeah, hold me up.” At your wish, he stands you both up on your knees as he supports your stomach; one hand wrapped around your waist and the other snaking down, down between your legs. 

You’re sure that this will collapse you once more—you don’t mind. He resumes thrusting into you, breathing into your neck, kissing your shoulder. The wet slaps of skin against skin, the sighs and the breaths and his raspy voice in your ear when he finally touches your sensitive clit alongside the firm movements of his hips. “Let it out, lieverd, I know,” Joost murmurs into your neck as you sob in pleasure; there isn’t a single second of reprieve he gives you, not even slowing the circles he’s making on your sloppy clit. 

You don't have it in yourself to argue; not against the ego or his wandering hands and his voice you’d deem condescending if you were still arguing on the stoop in front of the bar earlier—Joost is right, it is good, and this angle he has thrusting up into you is mind blowing, even as the rhythm becomes irregular and disjointed as he kisses and bites the side of your neck. 

Your heart beats ever faster, the knot in your stomach tightens and tightens with every languid and messy thrust inside of you. You reach behind yourself to hold onto Joost around his shoulders, gripping his hair as you bring him in for a rough kiss, all teeth and carnality—you were so composed, once upon a time. He’s given you every reason to forget that. 

“Oh, fuck, schatje,” he mumbles into your mouth. You pull back to look at Joost in his glory—he’s even prettier like this, messy and sweaty, patches of pink all along his cheeks and neck, eyes focused and almost stern. “My hand is cramping,” he says, and you laugh when he adds quickly, “And you also feel amazing, but also my hand is cramping.” 

“Keep going, I'm almost there,” you say, and he obeys, still rubbing your clit, your wetness smearing on your pussy and his hand. “Do it for me, Joost, you feel so good,” you breathe, and he nods, kissing you deeply—it hits you before you even register it, takes you off guard when you climax and you have to pull back from him to moan his name, looking him in the eye when you do. 

You’re never this loud—it’s very vulnerable realizing how much he’s coaxed out of you, Joost watching intently, soft smile upon his lips at your clenching pussy around him as the waves of your orgasm come through you, practically leg shaking. 

He kisses you quiet again; kisses you until it’s his turn, thrusting sloppily into you, the overstimulation stinging, but so good still. 

He whimpers your name, and you contemplate asking him to give you another orgasm; he whimpers again into your neck, just a soft vocalization against the still filthy sounds of the final few thrusts he can give you as he cums, the warmth you can feel through the condom flooding your pussy. 

When he stills, Joost places his forehead against yours, and you breathe together in silence—if you didn’t know any better, you’d think the two of you have been with each other for years. 

“I’m really surprised I lasted that long, schat,” Joost breathes, and you laugh, watching his face as he grins at you 

“I’m surprised, too,” you tease, giving him one last kiss and untangling yourself from him; he’s still inside you, softening with every passing moment. When he slips out of you, you hiss—it feels empty, how sad. 

“Hey, mean.” You flop down on your bed, completely spent, sweaty, still wet between your legs and watching as he takes off the condom, ties it off, and throws it in your waste bin. “I showed you a good time, didn’t I?” 

“I’m not sure,” you tease when Joost comes back to sit next to you, putting his underwear back on with an annoyed rolling of eyes. “Maybe you’ll have to show me one next time?”

“Next time, huh?” he smiles, slipping his shirt on from the pile on the floor, starting to button it up. “Ehh, I’ll think about it,” he says, and you slap him lightly on the shoulder. 

“You’re a dick, Joost.” Joost cackles as you barrage him with a bunch of weak punches to his shoulder and back, getting your revenge for the dress and your purse, for him being a rapper and a fuckboy and the giver of the best dicking down of your life. You try not to let it kill your vibe—it likely will later, but for now, you can just be silly about it. 

“Where’s your bathroom?” 

“The door next to mine.” 

Closing your eyes, you lie back on your bed, half expecting him to just dip, hoping he’s not that much of a fuckboy. But a few minutes pass, and there’s a soft knock to your door, and Joost steps gently into your room again with a glass of water and a washcloth in his hands. 

“Did you think I would just leave?” Joost asks, coming around to your side of the bed and handing you the glass. “Glassie water!” he says in a singsong voice, and you look at him puzzled as you thank him. “You’ll understand when you listen to my music more.” 

“‘When…’” you laugh as he gives you an offended look and nudges your legs open. The washcloth is cold when he places it on your skin and you wince, shaking off his apologies about the water’s temperature because it’s sweet that he’d even do this in the first place. 

As Joost cleans you up, delicate and gentle as ever, he says softly, “I will send you whatever money it takes to clean your purse, I will give you my number, and I’ll send you my schedule for the next month. Okay?” 

“Schedule? You sure it’s not filled with other strangers from the club?” 

“It’s not, I swear. You’re going to come to one of my festival shows this month, and you're going to like it.” Joost leans in and you expect a kiss for some reason, but he just takes the glass from your hand and drinks from it himself. A free festival pass doesn't sound so bad. “Ruby and Marina are back. I said hi.” 

“Oh god,” you laugh, covering your face. “What’d they say?” 

“They were surprised you took me home, but apparently they won a bet with Tantu, so—we did something good, I think!” 

“You think?” 

“I know!” You laugh at his…everything, really, sinking down in your comfy bed, realizing how heavy your eyelids are, realizing that you still haven't even exchanged numbers or last names. Does it matter this far in? “I think I should get going, schat. The sun is rising.” 

In the middle of his sentence, you practically drift off into slumber, pulling your covers over your bare body. “It’s cold, stay.” You pat at the spot next to you. “But not for too long.” 

thank you so much for reading! likes, comments, reblogs always so so appreciated <3 : ) askbox hereeee - juno

[louisupdates]

With the first quarter of the 21st century coming to an end, Billboard has been looking back on the 25 Greatest Pop Stars of the Past 25 Years. Below, we take a deeper look into the solo career of Louis Tomlinson — one of the members of our No. 22 pop stars, One Direction — and how his songwriting, originally honed in 1D, has helped him develop into one of the group’s strongest breakout artists.

When One Direction officially went on hiatus in 2015, Zayn Malik dropped Mind of Mine in 2016, Harry Styles’ eponymous LP dropped in 2017, Niall Horan followed with Flicker later that year and Liam Payne’s First Time EP arrived in 2018. Louis Tomlinson, however, took his time with releasing a full project – and entered an era of healing and self-discovery that saw him realizing his potential as one of 1D’s most self-actualized artists, even if not necessarily the starriest.

Even before going solo, Tomlinson showed he was meant for breakthrough success while in One Direction. Longtime Directioners know that Tomlinson wrote more songs in One Direction than any other member, penning long standing hits including “Perfect,” “History” and “Fool’s Gold” and proving his fortitude as a songwriter who understands lyrical cleverness and crafting the indescribably catchy refrains necessary to produce arena-ready hits. Beyond his musical abilities, Tomlinson’s sense of humor and friendship with fellow 1D members also ensured fans had a soft spot for him.

However, when he did go solo, the road was slippery at first. He teamed up with Steve Aoki for his first solo release “Just Hold On” in December 2016, and just three days before its release, Tomlinson’s mother died of leukemia. He still took the stage to perform the song on The X Factor, the first public testament to the star’s strength and dedication to his musical craft.

Tomlinson’s resilience amid adversity continued as he navigated the music industry. The star signed with Epic Records in 2017 and released a few singles – including “Miss You” and the Bebe Rexha and Digital Farm Animals-assisted “Back to You.” While the infectious hooks to both tracks could have easily solidified Tomlinson as a pop mainstay, the two singles didn’t perform as well as expected on the charts: “Just Hold On” peaked at No. 52 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “Back to You” hit No. 40, while “Miss You” missed the chart altogether. Ultimately, a full-length album never materialized with Epic Records.

Tomlinson shortly got back on his feet, as he always does, and signed with Arista Records in 2019 – where he honed his talent as a songwriter, this time feeling comfortable enough to tackle more vulnerable topics in his music. His first release under the label was “Two of Us,” a heart-wrenching tribute to his late mother. “I know you’ll be looking down/ Swear I’m gonna make you proud/ I’ll be living one life for the two of us,” he sings in the chorus, giving a glimpse into what would soon become a musical career full of honesty and vulnerability.

Unfortunately, shortly after its release, another hardship struck Tomlinson’s life when his 18-year-old sister Fizzy died of an accidental overdose. Both the release of “Two of Us” and the tragedy that followed showed just how close Tomlinson’s community of fans is, as they showered him with online love and support in the months that followed.

After taking some much-deserved time to heal, he announced in August of that year that his debut solo album was on its way – and shortly after, he released a follow-up single, the rock-leaning, drumline-driven “Kill My Mind.” Tomlinson admitted that he finally found his stride. “I’m actually really proud and relieved to finally find my place, find my lane musically,” he told Hits Radio Breakfast at the time, indicating a moment of relief amid his turbulent few years.

Tomlinson’s debut solo album, Walls, arrived in January 2020 and while it hit the Billboard 200‘s top 10, it was met with mixed reviews from critics, who suggested that the heart he wanted to portray wasn’t quite there. His growth outside of commercial success proved otherwise, as he had been spending the past few years building a solid identity not only as an artist, but also as a person. While some of the other One Direction alums are still finding their footing with their solo sounds to this day, Tomlinson grew strongly into an instrumentation-focused pop-rock artist whose lyrics go beyond the cookie cutter sentiments you might expect from a former boy band member.

And soon, all the hard work – both personally and musically – finally paid off. Faith in the Future, his 2022 sophomore solo album, debuted at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart. In the United States, Faith In The Future debuted at No. 2 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart, and at No. 5 on the all-genre Billboard 200, his highest-charting set yet on both tallies. The album’s success, as well his sold-out live shows on its accompanying tour, not only showed the still-standing Directioner devotion to Tomlinson, but also made it clear that he picked up a slew of new fans along the way.

Tomlinson’s self-awareness was evident on the album’s lead single, “Bigger Than Me.” “When somebody told me I would change/ I was afraid, I don’t know why/ ‘Cause so does the world outside, I’ve realized/ It’s bigger than me,” he sings – indicating that the key for solo success all along was being himself, and letting go of the pressure that fame brings.

While Tomlinson has still yet to score the major chart hits stateside that his 1D bandmates essentially achieved right away – and has been more focused on his 28 clothing line the past couple years – he’s proven that he doesn’t need traditional pop crossover success to have a bright future ahead of him. With another couple albums and tours that continue to establish his identity and expand his artistry, it wouldn’t be shocking to see him making the jump to arenas in the not-distant future. Louis’ solo career may not have gotten off to the perfect start, but it just might end up being perfect for him in the long-term anyway.

[codmw2019-2022]

Modern Warfare Character Ages [2019 + 22]

Preface: Just wanted to add before getting into this that this is my interpretation of the character ages based on information from the games, confirmed information, research into the military/CIA and collage/university course information. This is by no means meant to be a definite statement about character ages, I'm happy to discuss or change any of the information here within reason.

I would also like to credit @sleepyconfusedpotato and @oleworldblues posts with their own opinions on the character ages. Which helped base my own thoughts and provided some good information that they had found. You can find Sleepy's post here and Blue's here they are really good posts and they both explain their own reasons for how they perceive the main cast of modern warfare's ages.

Farah & Hadir Karim : 30 & 32 [2022]

Both Farah and Hadir's ages have been confirmed by Taylor Kurosaki who is one of the writers from Modern Warfare 2019. This was confirmed when a fan ask him via twitter/X about how old Farah was during the Barkov invasion.

This means in 1999 when Barkov invaded Farah was 7 and Hadir was 9. In 2009 when they escaped they are 17 and 19 respectively and in 2019 they are 27 and 29. Hadir dies in December of 2022 as discovered in the Atomgrad raids at the age of 32.

John Price : 37 [2022]

Using the information provided from his original operator bio we find that "John Price joined the infantry at the age of sixteen and has served the British Army for 18 years." and that "he was ‘Badged’ a member of SAS in 2005, spending the next ten years in the Middle East, the horn of Africa.".

With this Price's age works out to be about 34 years old, but since it only mentions serving the British army. I added 4 years for him to be able to complete basic training which is roughly 18 weeks basic training.* Followed by Special Air Service (SAS) training with is roughly a couple months, but you must serve at least 18 months in the military to be selected**, and finally his training at the Royal Military Academy to become a Lieutenant and then Captain which is 44 weeks with 2-3 weeks of leave.***

So Price would join the British army at 16 in 2001, be badged a member of SAS at 20 in 2005, become Captain at 25 in 2010. In 2019 he would be 34 and finally 37 in 2022, which to me makes the most sense based on other character's ages.

*[army.mod.uk solider training] **[eliteukforces.info SAS] [eliteukforces.info SBS&SAS] ***[army.mod.uk officer training]

Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick : 32 [2022]

We can do the same process as we did with Price for Gaz, his operator bio says "Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick, enlisted in the British Army in 2008. Within four years, he passed selection for Her Majesty’s elite Special Air Service where he is currently rounding out a decade of service."

Since his bio never mentions what age he joins like with Price and Soap I'm going to assume he finished school and joined the military at 18. So Gaz is 18 in 2008, 29 in 2019 when he meets Price for the first time and 32 in 2022. I am not taking into consideration the archived Activision blog posts, which say he joined in 2014 because of them being archived. I do use it for some other characters but for Gaz it changed the date he joined not just giving extra information.

Johnny 'Soap' MacTavish : 26 [2022]

You can blame Activision for why Soap is so young compared to the others. So according to his updated operator bio, "Soap has spent the last seven years carrying out both covert and overt operations around the world." this with the contents of his old operator bio before MW3 "At 16, too young to sign up, but lying about his age, MacTavish enrolled in the Special Air Service…"

Means that Soap would be 23 in 2022, which doesn't make the most sense especially considering he is a Sergeant in 2019 meaning he would be 20 in the MW3 flashback. So I gave him the same treatment as Price and added 3 years, to make up for basic and SAS training. So he would be 16 in 2012 joining the British Army have to wait 18 months to apply for SAS, be roughly 18 when he starts SAS training and finish it at 19 in 2015.*

So making him now 23 in 2019, 26 in 2022 but since he lied about his age TF 141 would think he's 28 during MW2 or 25 during 2019.

*[jobs.army.mod.uk SAS reserve]

Alex Keller : 35 [2022]

Alex is one of the last characters who have dates or years of service in their information. From his Campaign Biography it says he was a part of, "CIA's Special Activities Division," and also has surrendered "his former rank and history of special ops military service with Army Delta, Alex sacrificed traditional contact and association with family to join the SAD. He has spent the last six years living a series of assumed identities to achieve “sensitive” objectives wherever he is needed."

There's also, "Through 2017, Alex’s units played a key role in ensuring definitive victories against emerging terrorist networks." So we know Alex has been working in the military before 2017, now most SAD members are former Delta operators. There's also some reports of SAD members having Master's and law degrees.* So with that we can add roughly 6 years to his age to complete a master's degree in law.**

Now Delta force has some requirements like being over 21 to join and having two and a half years of service remaining, so if Alex joined the US military at 18 after finishing High School and getting his diploma.*** In a couple years he could join Delta Force, so by 26 he would be able to be apart of CIA's SAD. (If studying part time while in Delta Force) Then adding the another six years which is when he is apart of SAD, which is mention in his biography as the last six years. The bio is published late 2019 so Alex would be 32 years old.

So Alex would join the Military at 18 in 2005, would be 32 in 2019 when he loses the lower half of one of his legs and 35 in 2022.

*[CIA SAD] **[coursera.org law school] ***[Delta Force] [US Military Requirements]

Now for the Characters with little infomation

Alejandro & Rodolfo : both 37

We find out they've known each other for 20 years and signed up together. So they are both younger than 38 but older than 30 since Alejandro is a Colonel. Looking at Wikipedia you can/have to join 18 the Mexican military for at least 3 years, this gives them about maybe two years to get to know each other before joining together.

Ghost : 35 [2022]

Honestly just pick an age between Price and Gaz, I personally like the idea of him being the same age as Alex and having them know each other previously. Maybe even before Ghost starts wearing the skull mask.

Laswell & Nikolai : 52 & 45 [2022]

No older that 52 and 45 if we go based on their actors ages, which personally makes the most sense to me. Laswell's Campaign biography mentions her supervising a SAD program in 2008, and her having studied a Master's degree in strategic intelligence analysis and having a BA in International Affairs. This doesn't help much though with figuring out her age.

AN: Hopefully this very long post is some what helpful or at least has some good resources that people can check out, especially fanfic writers or people making their own OCs.

I'm also going to repeat what I put at the top the end here. But what I've written down is not a definitive answer for their ages (minus Farah & Hadir) it's just what I personally think makes the most sense.

Don't let my own opinions/conclusions about their ages get in the way of you having fun with how you view/interpret these characters.

[batifresa]

The Ultimate "Challengers" Timeline

I kept seeing some confusion in the fandom regarding the timeframe of certain events in the film, so I started working on this as a way to clarify theories and map out everything as accurately as possible. If you notice any mistakes, or know of a canon event that I missed, please don't hesitate to let me know!

Relationship-o-metric:

Art and Patrick were friends for approximately 6 years, 6 months and 17 days (2392 days).

Patrick and Tashi were in a relationship for exactly 5 months and 21 days (174 days).

Art and Tashi have been in a relationship for approximately 8 years, 11 months and 20 days (3276 days).

Some pointers and notes:

Patrick is 31 years old in 2019. It is confirmed Art is the same age as Patrick in two different lines: "We've been bunkmates since we were 12", and "One time, when we were 12, he thought I was asleep." So they're both 31 in 2019.

Tashi is said to be 18 years old in 2006, so she would have been 31 in 2019 as well.

The child actress that played Lily was 6 years old at the time of filming. So Lily should have been born in 2013 at the earliest.

The American school year starts in mid/late August or early September, and ends in mid/late May or early June, depending on state. We do not know where the Mark Rebellato Tennis Academy is located.

The majority of boarding schools start their academic program in middle school (6th grade). Art and Patrick would've been 11 years old then. We can infer that they either: befriended each other on their first year at the academy, and later asked to be placed together as dorm mates for their second year, or that one (or both) of them started attending the academy a year later (7th grade), though I think that's unlikely.

Stanford follows the quarter system (not semesters). Most students start the academic year in late September (Autumn Quarter), and must complete 12 quarters to graduate.

Stanford also does not revoke athlete scholarships due to injuries. So it is highly likely that, since she couldn't go pro, and she still had her scholarship, Tashi stayed in college until she graduated.

Since Art was playing a Masters 1000 tournament in 2010 (which require a high player ranking), we can assume that he either: left Stanford to go pro at one point, or he was allowed leeway to skip classes and compete professionally.

Yes, I did dive deep into Stanford lore and academic year calendars.

The film ends on August 4, 2019. They had no idea what was about to happen in December 2019. In 2020, the vast majority of tennis events were cancelled due to the pandemic, so that's a potential topic to tackle in fic, I guess.

[midchelle]

John and Yoko

The Beatles, Happiness is a Warm Gun (1968) // Yoko Ono, Play It By Trust (1966) // John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Robert Fraser at the opening of You Are Here (1968) // John Lennon and Yoko Ono for Melody Maker (April 26th, 1969) // Tumblr screenshot // John and Yoko during sessions for The White Album by Linda Eastman (1968) // John Lennon's letter to Paul McCartney in Melody Maker (24 November, 1971) // Derek Taylor, As Time Goes By (1973) // Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney at the premiere of Yellow Submarine (July 17, 1968) // George Harrison, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono during rehearsals for The Concert for Bangladesh (1971) // Lorde, The Louvre (2017) // John and Yoko for Look (March 18, 1969) // John and Yoko for New Musical Express (20 December, 1969) // Box art for The Wedding Album (1969) // John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their Bed-in for Peace at the Amsterdam Hilton (1969) // John and Yoko at a press conference at Heathrow Airport (April 1, 1969) // Lana Del Rey, Venice Bitch (2019) // John and Yoko (1971) // Bob Gruen, John Lennon: The New York Years (2005) // John and Yoko by Bob Gruen (9 November, 1972) // Yoko Ono, Death Of Samantha (1973) // John Lennon for Melody Maker (September 14, 1974) // John Lennon, Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down and Out) (1974) // Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, and John Lennon (1971) // Yoko Ono, No, No, No (1981) // Yoko Ono for The Sunday Times (May 25th, 1981) // Twitter screenshot // John and Yoko for Playboy (September 1980) // John and Yoko during sessions for Double Fantasy by Kishin Shinoyama (1980)

[lookingforhappy]

Noticed that Elliott has the arrival dates of Luther (3rd event), April 10th 1962, and Allison (2nd event), June 29th 1961, pinned to his wall, and figured I might as well try and calculate how old everyone is..

(Elliott's date for Diego is wrong, placing him at Sep 17th, when he arrived on Sep 1st.)

These are not perfect dates but they should be fairly close? and I'm not very good at maths so please correct me!

Hargreeves' ages in age order:

Five

Disappears at 13 yr, 1 mo, and 9 days old.

His new birthday in the apocalypse is now: 22nd February

+ 45 years in the apocalypse + an unknown amount of time in the commission makes him at least 58 yr, 1 mo, and 9 days old at the start of s1.

+ 8 days in s1 makes him at least 58 yr, 1 mo, and 17 days old at the start of s2.

+ 8 days in s2 makes him at least 58 yr, 1 mo, and 25 days old at the start of s3.

+ 7 days in s3 makes him at least 58 yr, 2 mo, and 2 days old at the end of s3.

From s1 - s3 he has aged 23 days.

Using this estimate (his minimum age) Five's new birthday in the reset universe might be: 5th February

Klaus

Travels to Vietnam at 29 yr, 5 mo, and 26 days old.

(Klaus leaves Vietnam on February 21st, supposedly arriving in Vietnam on April 21st) His new birthday in Vietnam is now: 25th October

+ 10 months in Vietnam makes him 30 yr, 3 mo, and 26 days old when he returns to March 28th 2019.

+ 3 days to finish s1 makes him 30 yr, 3 mo, 29 days old at the end of s1.

(Klaus arrives in Dallas on February 11th) His new birthday in Dallas is now: 12th October

+3 yr, 9 mo, and 4 days in the 60s makes him 34 yrs, 1 mo, 3 days old at the start of s2.

+ 8 days in s2 makes him 34 yrs, 1 mo, 11 days old at the start of s3.

+ 7 days in s3 makes him 34 yrs, 1 mo, 18 days old at the end of s3.

His new birthday in the reset universe is now: 20th February

Allison

Allison is 29 yr, 6 mo old at the end of s1.

(She arrives in Dallas on June 29th) Her new birthday in Dallas is now: 29th December

+ 2 yr, 4 mo, 17 days in the 60s makes her 31 yr, 10 mo, and 17 days old at the start of s2.

+ 8 days in s2 makes her 31 yr, 10 mo, 25 days old at the start of s3.

+ 7 days in s3 makes her 31 yr, 11 mo, 2 days old at the end of s3.

Her new birthday in the reset universe is now: 6th May

Luther

Luther is 29 yr, 6 mo old at the end of s1.

(He arrives in Dallas on April 10th) His new birthday in Dallas is now: 10th October

+ 1 yr, 7 mo, 5 days in the 60s makes him 31 yr, 1 mo, 5 days old at the start of s2.

+ 8 days in s2 makes him 31 yr, 1 mo, 13 days old at the start of s3.

+ 7 days in s3 makes him 31 yr, 1 mo, 20 days old at the end of s3.

His new birthday in the reset universe is now: 18th February

Diego

Diego is 29 yr, 6 mo old at the end of s1.

+ 2 mo, 14 days in the 60s (2 mo, 5 days in the asylum) makes him 29 yr, 8 mo, 14 days old at the beginning of s2.

+ 8 days in s2 makes him 29 yr, 8 mo, 22 days old at the start of s3.

+ 7 days in s3 makes him 29 yr, 8 mo, 29 days old at the end of s3.

His new birthday in the reset universe is now: 9th July

Viktor

Viktor is 29 yr, 6 mo old at the end of s1.

+ 1 mo, 3 days in the 60s makes him 29 yr, 7 mo, 3 days old at the start of s2.

+ 8 days in s2 makes him 29 yr, 7 mo, 11 days old at the start of s3.

+ 7 days in s3 makes him 29 yr, 7 mo, 18 days old at the end of s3.

His new birthday in the reset universe is now: 20th August

Lila

her age is completely unknown. we can guess she's around the same age as the umbrellas but otherwise she's a mystery.

Ritu Arya, her actress, was 32 in 2020 when s2 was released so that's as close to canon as we know right now, (except, the majority of the cast are older than their on screen counterparts, except for David who was actually born in 1989 and Aidan in s1 as he was 13 when he was cast).

The only other information we have on her age is that she was orphaned and kidnapped at 4. and that she spent 3 months in Berlin between s2 and s3.

Sparrows

All of the Sparrows are 29 yrs, 6 mo, 1 day old at the start of s3:

Marcus dies at 29 yrs, 6 mo, 1 day old.

Jayme and Alphonso die at 29 yrs, 6 mo, 3 days old.

Fei and Chris die at 29 yrs, 6 mo, 6 days old.

Sloane goes missing at 29 yrs, 6 mo, 7 days old.

Sparrow Ben enters the reset universe at 29 yrs, 6 mo, 7 days old.

Ben and Sloane's birthday's remain as October 1st

i think? please do correct me if im wrong!

tua s4 speculation under the cut

if s4 is 6 years on then the ages we have are:

Five is 64 in a 19yro body

Klaus is 40

Allison is 38

Luther is 37

Diego is 36

Viktor is 36

Ben is 36

Lila and Diego's kid is probably turning 6 yro.

Claire could be anywhere between 17 and 13 since she seems to be a teenager?

[everythingroyalty]

EUROPEAN HEIRS COMING OF AGE —25 October 2019: Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant – 1st in line of succession to the Belgian throne – speaks at a ceremony at the Royal Palace in Brussels in honour of her 18th birthday —8 December 2021: Catharina-Amalia, Princess of Orange – 1st in line of succession to the Dutch throne – speaks at her first Council of State at Kneuterdijk Palace in The Hague the day after turning 18 —17 June 2022: Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway – 2nd in line of succession to the Norwegian throne – speaks at the gala dinner at the Royal Palace in Oslo in honour of her 18th birthday that she celebrated in January 2022 —15 October 2023: Prince Christian of Denmark – 2nd in line of succession to the Danish throne – speaks at the gala dinner at Christiansborg Palace in honour of his 18th birthday —31 October 2023: Leonor, Princess of Asturias – 1st in line of succession to the Spanish throne – speaks at a ceremony at the Royal Palace in Madrid in honour of her 18th birthday

[meazalykov]

she was the golden girl

uswnt x (romantic) aitana bonmatí x (platonic) fridolina rolfo x uswnt!reader

summary: what happened in a world where reader plays in the 2023 World Cup after winning the 2019 World Cup?

warnings: tiny bit of angst and sadness, google translated spanish.

part two (part one here)

I remembered when I stood on the french pitch, surrounded by the deafening cheers of the crowd, sometimes I can’t believe that it happened. Tears welled up in my eyes as I hugged my best friend Mallory, threatening to spill over as a whirlwind of emotions flooded my mind. 

My hands trembled as I clutched the World Cup trophy tightly to my chest, feeling the weight of my team's triumph. The third goal in the world cup was scored by me, the youngest goalscorer in a Women’s World Cup final. The journey to this moment had been grueling, filled with sacrifices, sweat, and endless dedication. But looking back, all the pain and hardship were worth it.

Before the World Cup, the Champions League medal hung proudly around my neck, a testament to the skill and hard work I’ve displayed on the field. At the time, Lyon was the club of my life. I believed that I would’ve never left the french institution, extending my contract as much as I possibly could’ve. The memories of each game, each goal, each victory rushed back to me, overwhelming my senses.

And then there was the Ballon d'Or many months after both competitions, the ultimate recognition of my individual excellence. To be acknowledged as the best, only at the age of 19 years old, was a dream I had hardly dared to entertain. Yet there I was, being the second woman holding the prestigious award in my small hands, my name etched into football history forever as I stood beside Lionel Messi who received the men’s d’or. 

Surrounded by my teammates, coaches, and supporters, I felt a surge of gratitude and humility. This moment wasn't just about me; it was about the collective effort of everyone who had believed in my skills along the way. I will never forget it.

Four years later, It's 2023. I am 23 years old and still impressing the fans around the World. However, the scars of my ACL injury were still fresh, a constant reminder of the hurdles I had overcome to be here after the harsh 2022 year.

Playing for Lyon had once been a dream come true. I’ll never forget that experience. When I signed to Lyon from Portland Thorns at the age of 18, I was overwhelmed in joy. I needed that new challenge, and that challenge earned me the best awards, collectively and individually. But, the fallout from my December 2021 injury had left a bitter taste in my mouth. The club I had once called home had felt more like a distant memory as I felt forced to make the difficult decision to part ways and start a new life in the sunny Spanish city.

Now, I wore the red and blue Barcelona jersey onto the pitch. The transfer left me heartbroken, at first, now I felt a renewed sense of purpose. The road to recovery after my ACL injury in France had been long and arduous, filled with doubts and setbacks. Sometimes, I believed that my prime occurred at the age of 19, instead of the predicted 24-30 years old. Yet here I am, defying the odds once again to represent my country on the world stage in two months.

Sometimes the memories of my victories with Lyon and the United States lingered in the back of my mind, serving as both motivation and a reminder of what was at stake. The Champions League trophy I had lifted with Lyon and the World Cup I had claimed with the United States were testaments to my talent and resilience. But now, I lifted the Champions League trophy with Barcelona. 

After scoring the second goal of the final, with Patricia before me and Fridolina afterwards, the gold hung beautifully around my neck. It was my fourth time I've felt such a high amount of glory, but the happy tears still came as if it were the first. 

A month later, I am on a fourteen hour flight from Los Angeles to Wellington, New Zealand. As The plane soared through the clouds and I sat in my business class seat, my hands gripping the armrests tightly and my heart pounded in my chest.

“Y/n?” I took out my airpods when I heard the faint sound of my name coming from outside of them. I turned to my right and saw my teammate and captain, Lindsey, looking at me with a confusing look. 

“Hey.” I joked, pretending like my stress wasn’t visible for everyone to see. 

“Are you okay?” Lindsey asked. In my head, I debated on if I wanted to lie and say yes, just so I didn’t have to burden her with my stress. However, she’s known me for many years, the woman would notice my lie from miles away. 

“Not really. I’m just–a bit nervous.” I swallowed. The blonde girl nodded her head in understanding as she rested her arm beside mine. 

“That's understandable. Is it the competition that's bothering you? I mean– we are defending champions so we have a lot to prove.” Lindsey asked. I took a deep breath as my mind shifted to a particular person from my Barcelona team. 

“No– It's about–um.” I stopped speaking. I didn’t want her to cloud my head during the competition, as we both promised ourselves that we would play as rivals, not lovers. 

“Aitana?” Lindsey questioned, but yet finished what I would’ve said. I noticed my head as my face was plastered with sadness.

“yeah.” I mumbled. The Lyon midfielder looked at me with a questionable look, wondering if there were problems between the Spanish girl and I. 

“I mean– there's no problem between us. However we prioritize football first you know? we both agreed that during the competition, we wouldn’t talk much.. just so we can focus on this.” I ranted. I’m not stressed because of a possible match between Spain and the United States, I know that I’ll miss the shorter woman a lot. Also, what if we stop talking and a third factor might influence our relationship moving forward? 

“That's good that you’re prioritizing us– You shouldn’t feel nervous about your relationship because this will give you time to miss each other– things will go back to normal once the world cup is over.” Lindsey patted my shoulder in sympathy, I smirked as my nervousness started to subside. 

A month later, as I stepped up to the penalty spot, the weight of the world seemed to rest upon my shoulders. We finished the match against Sweden 0-0 and after extra time, we had to go into a penalty shootout. The stadium roared around me, a cacophony of cheers and chants from both sides echoing in my small ears. Nerves danced in my stomach, threatening to consume me with doubt and mistakes.

With a deep breath, My eyes focused on Zećira Mušović standing between me and the goal. She did great throughout the game and has the reflexes to stop my shot. Determination burned in my eyes, she saw it too. 

As I approached the ball with speed, the tension in the air was palpable but I couldn’t care. Every step felt like an eternity as my foot sent the ball soaring towards the goal. Mušović dove in desperation, but my ball went directly to the middle as she dove left. The ball crashed into the back of the net, eliciting a deafening roar from the crowd and from my teammates. 

My dimples on my cheeks showed as I am happy to make the penalty. Being substituted on the pitch after halftime, I tried my best to score but my shot on goal was overturned by VAR. Apparently, my body was offside. 

Now, my arms wrapped the bodies of Sophia Smith and Megan Raphinoe as I looked ahead at Kelley O’hara. My heart raced as I stared at her white colored cleats. She needed to score this, or else Sweden had the opportunity to win the knockout. 

She Missed. My heart dropped to my stomach as I looked at the Swedish players with rising confidence and opportunity. Hurtig took the shot and Alyssa blocked it over the line. This caused a debate among the crowd. Deep down, I knew Sweden made it. They’ve won. However, VAR was the only hope which would have proved me wrong. 

Unfortunately, I was right. Sweden emerged victorious in the penalty shootout, their celebration serving as a bitter reminder of the heartbreak that awaited my teammates and I. 

No, No, NO! I thought to myself as I felt the moisture in my eyes start to take place. Immediately, my mind did a flashback to the 2019 World Cup Final. Being 19 years old and happy as my small, yet muscular, arms held the heavy World Cup trophy. 

With a heavy heart, I broke away from my teammates and looked among the Americans in the stands. My shaky hands clapped to the fans in the stands, my facade of strength crumbling with each step she took. Cameras could capture my weak struggle to stay strong as the Swedish crowd rightfully celebrated. 

Turning around, walking back towards the Americans who were on the team, my knees collapsed on the grassy pitch, tears streamed down my tired face. This was the worst that the United States had completed in a World Cup. What went wrong? 

I wanted to stand up so badly, but I didn’t. Shame and Defeat took over my body which laid in the grass. What is my family in the crowd thinking? What are the USWNT fans thinking? What are my fans thinking?... my tears cried out more when I wondered what Aitana was thinking. 

After ten minutes of darkness in my eyes, covered by my hands. A comforting presence enveloped my body. I recognized the floral smell mixed with a tint of sweat. I looked up from my hands and saw Fridolina, my teammate from Barcelona and now my opponent who won the Round of 16. 

“You did so good, Don’t beat yourself up over this!” Fridolina spoke to me first as her thumbs wiped over my teary eyes. I felt comfort but a small amount of envy was inside of me, I wanted to win so badly. 

“Congratulations Frido.” The Swedish girl took her hands and helped me stand up as she gave me a tight hug. Aitana, Frido, and I are a trio back in Barcelona. In fact, she helped Aitana and I confess our feelings to each other. 

“Thank you! Just know that I am proud of you, she is proud of you too. Even if you aren’t proud of yourself.” The 29 year old said as my eyes stained her yellow covered shoulders. I knew she meant Aitana when she said “she”. However, I didn’t know where the Spanish woman was at the moment and what she was thinking. 

“Just go be-beat Japan. Okay?” I said through a crack in my voice. I found solace in the embrace of my friend. I might’ve lost but I am not a bitter person, now I want to see my club teammates have a good World Cup like I’ve once experienced.

As we exchanged jerseys, the voice in my head kept reassuring myself that I'll come back stronger than ever in 2027. 

Just a week later, most of my American teammates left Australia and went back home. However, my teammate Kristie and I decided to stay back. Kristies had a girlfriend who played on a different international team like I did, so we wanted to support them as they’re advancing to the semi-finals. 

Witnessing my Barcelona teammates play each other in the Spain vs Sweden match was intense. Standing beside Aitana’s parents, I wore a basic dark green t-shirt with 501 mid-thigh levi shorts. This is the first time I've met them as her girlfriend and they’re sweet people. We celebrated Spain’s win against Sweden and my heart would have exploded in happiness. My girlfriend will experience a World Cup final! 

On August 20th, after an intense match and a lovely goal from Olga Carmona, Spain won the World Cup! The feeling was bittersweet for me. I am happy for my girlfriend but subconsciously, I knew I wanted it to be me with the United States. However, I brushed that feeling aside since I needed to be happy for my lover. 

“Aitana ¡Estoy tan feliz por ti!” We both ran towards each other and hugged. I feel her lightly kiss the side of my head as I inhale her scent. Being able to feel her embrace after a month apart filled the small void in my heart.

“¡Esto es tan irreal, ahora sé cómo te sentiste hace tantos años!”  (This is so unreal, now I know how you felt all those years ago!) Aitana smiled. The smile on my face struggled to stay as a small frown, which I tried hard to conceal, plastered on my face for a quick second. I don’t think she noticed. 

“Lo siento por lo que ocurrió. En el fondo esperaba que fuéramos nosotros dos quienes nos enfrentaríamos en la final.” (I'm sorry for what happened. Deep down I hoped that it would be the two of us who would face each other in the final.) Aitana said as she understood my defeat in the Round of 16. 

“Aquí también. Sólo debes saber que todavía estoy muy feliz por ti, a pesar de mi derrota.” (Here too. Just know that I am still very happy for you, despite my defeat.) I said as I admired the goal medal that sat perfectly on Aitana's chest. She gave me a sympathetic smile before hugging me again. 

“¡Te amo!” Aitana whispered into my ear. 

“Te quiero más” I smiled back as I relaxed into her arms. 

<3