#descriptions and author's notes in the image captions

[meropeeonmee]

CHAPTER 3 (PART 1): THE LEAK

Description: A leaked demo reignites the internet’s obsession with a pop star’s rumored romance with an NFL quarterback—and exposes the heartbreak they both tried to bury.

AUTHORS NOTE: THIS TOOK ME A WHILE HUH? This is a veryyyyyy long chapte, have fun reading!

CHAPTER 3 (PART 2) !

MATERLIST

The sun was already too high by the time Fernanda opened her eyes. It slid through the cracks of the blackout curtains like it had snuck in just to find her, spilling across the edge of the hotel bed in a gentle diagonal. For a moment, she didn’t move. Her arm was flung over her forehead, bare skin soft against linen, the only sound in the room the low hum of the A/C and the distant, muffled rhythm of a city that never slept long enough to dream.

Her phone was face down on the side table, vibrating every few seconds like it had something urgent to say but didn’t want to speak up. She didn’t reach for it.

Instead, she stared at the ceiling. Not thinking. Not empty. Just… paused.

Last night had been fine. Actually, more than fine. She’d looked good. Felt steady. Didn’t flinch at the flashbulbs. Didn’t let the questions dig. She’d even sung—unplanned, unbothered. And she didn’t hate it. That alone was growth.

But then she made the mistake of opening Instagram. Not to post—she rarely did anymore unless it was required. But just to scroll, passively, to remind herself that the world was still spinning in filtered images and sponsored captions.

She hadn’t even searched his name.

But there it was.

A blurred shot of Chris Evans and Lily James leaving the same hotel lobby. Maybe London. Maybe Paris. Maybe nothing. Somewhere only they know.

But people didn’t post “maybe.”

They posted “new couple alert 👀,”

“he’s clearly upgraded,”

“she looks like Fernanda if Fernanda had her sh*t together.”

And suddenly, the air in her hotel room wasn’t still anymore. It was the kind of silence that made everything louder—the hum of the AC, the ticking clock, even the sound of her own heartbeat. Her heart pounded like it was screaming for something it couldn’t name—just loud, desperate, and alive.

She sat up slowly, pulling the sheets around her like armor, her eyes finding the edge of her suitcase, the clothes she’d tossed over the chair the night before. Her dress was still draped over it—creased now, not glamorous, just fabric. Just something she wore.

Chris had been a chapter she never thought she’d open, much less reread. She was twenty-two when they met—wild in that sharpened, vulnerable way, a paradox of high heels and hot takes, constantly dragged by the media, constantly expected to either apologize or explode. And he was… quiet. Solid. Steady in the kind of way that made her realize she’d spent years dating men who ran on chaos because it made her feel like she was still alive.

With Chris, things slowed. Not in a boring way. In a grounding way. Like he was a fireplace in the middle of winter, and for the first time in her career, she could exhale without being told it was too loud.

She changed for him—though not because he asked her to.

She started sleeping early. Reading. Drinking less. Listening more. She stopped tweeting impulsively. She stopped fighting strangers in comment sections. She started seeing herself the way he saw her—not as a story, but as a person. And maybe that’s what scared her. Because when someone sees you that clearly, you either grow into it or you start to shrink.

She didn’t shrink.

But she outgrew the version of herself that needed that kind of calm to survive. She found her own stillness. Her own spine.

And then, just like that, it ended.

He said she didn’t need him the way she used to.

She said that was the point.

No slammed doors. No final fights. Just two people sitting on a balcony, one too old to start over again, the other too young to stay still forever. She remembered the way his hand felt on the back of her neck when he kissed her goodbye, the weight of it. Not romantic. Not desperate. Just… final.

And now he was allegedly dating someone blonde and British and uncomplicated, the internet’s favorite type of revisionist history. The kind of person people could root for without having to defend it.

She didn’t feel jealousy exactly.

She felt replaced in theory.

In concept.

Because she knew what people would say:

Lily James makes sense. Fernanda was a phase.

A lesson. A mistake he made once before remembering who he was.

And yet, none of that reflected the truth. The real truth. The one that never made it into the threads and think pieces and YouTube commentary videos.

The truth that he loved her. Quietly. Patiently. Fiercely.

That she loved him back.

That they both tried. That trying wasn’t enough.

She padded into the bathroom barefoot, her voice still stuck in her throat from sleep, or maybe restraint. Her reflection greeted her in the mirror like an echo. Smudged eyeliner, pillow-creased cheek, hair falling in soft waves down her back. She looked like a woman now.

Not the messy popstar who’d made headlines for feuding with other girls and accidentally flashing paparazzi in 2016. Not the teenage girl who wrote diss tracks from her bedroom and cried backstage at her first award show because someone she admired called her annoying. Not even the girlfriend who once called Chris “the calm after the storm” in a profile that would be dissected for months.

This version of Fernanda was quieter.

And not in the way the world demanded women be quiet. But in the way a woman becomes quiet when she no longer feels the need to defend her place in the room.

She washed her face slowly. Brushed her teeth. Tied her hair up.

She ignored the missed calls. Skipped the texts from her publicist. Let her assistant stew in the panic of “Fern, have you seen the internet?”

She didn’t need to reply. Not yet. Maybe not ever. The world would spin itself dizzy whether she said anything or not.

By the time she pulled on a hoodie and opened the curtains fully, New York had already moved on. The streets below pulsed with that unbothered rhythm that only big cities had—cars honking, dogs barking, coffee cups balanced on window sills, someone yelling into their phone on the corner like the rest of the world didn’t exist.

She poured herself a glass of water. Sat on the windowsill.

Scanned the headlines half-heartedly.

Most were about last night. About her. And not in the way that used to scare her.

“FERNANDA LETRÁN UNEXPECTEDLY PERFORMS AT PRIVATE NYC EVENT – IS A COMEBACK LOOMING?”

“THE VELVET DRESS. THE SONG. THE LOOK. THE MOMENT.”

“FERNANDA LETRÁN SINGS ‘CAN’T TAKE MY EYES OFF YOU’ AND THE INTERNET LOSES ITS MIND.”

One gossip account had posted a video of her stepping out of the SUV. Slow motion. Rain. Lights. A ridiculous caption underneath:

She’s not the moment. She’s the memory.

Fernanda laughed. It was small, but real.

Then her eyes caught another tweet—one she hadn’t expected. A grainy photo. Her on stage.

In the background, slightly out of focus, someone stood still—tall, calm, watching her with a kind of unshaken stillness that felt too intentional to ignore. He blended into the crowd, dressed as casually as the rest of them, but there was something about the way he stood—grounded, unconcerned, quietly separate from the noise—that stayed with her longer than it should have.

Even through the blur, she could make out the stubble along his jaw—barely there, but enough to soften his face in a way that made him seem older, more lived-in than the curated image she vaguely remembered from highlight reels. And now that she had seen him in person, even briefly, that detail clicked—he wasn’t trying to impress anyone. He wasn’t trying at all.

The tag confirmed what she already knew.

Joe Burrow.

She didn’t zoom in. Didn’t screenshot. She just stared for a moment, letting the image settle in her chest like a pebble dropped in still water.

He’d asked her about Batman. That was the moment it shifted—subtly, but enough. She hadn’t expected that from him, especially not in that room, not from someone like him. Most men in those spaces led with forced compliments, self-referencing jokes, or some thinly veiled attempt to connect their lives to hers. But he had just asked, almost shyly, if Robert Pattinson was nice in real life. If the rumor that they were friends was true. He hadn’t even tried to make it charming. It just was.

And now, knowing what she hadn’t known then, it made even more sense—he was recovering. The ACL tear, the rehab, the months of physical therapy. Someone had mentioned it in passing at the party, and she’d tucked it away, but now it came back in sharper focus. He had no business walking around New York like that—let alone standing through a crowded industry event—but he did, unbothered and unannounced.

For a second, she’d wondered what it must’ve taken to get on that plane, to get through the event, to be still healing and still choose to show up. Maybe his recovery was going better than expected. Or maybe he just needed a night that wasn’t about the comeback.

Either way, it made her look at him differently.

She turned her phone over and let the screen go dark. That wasn’t her story. Not now. Maybe not ever. But still, something about that moment stayed with her—not because it was cinematic or dramatic or fate wrapped in flashbulbs, but because it felt like something real had passed beside her in a room full of smoke and mirrors. And instead of chasing it, she let it move on. Quiet. Undemanding. Just in case.

But maybe twenty minutes later—after she had gone to the kitchen, reheated a croissant, taken two bites, abandoned it, wandered back to the couch, and stared at the ceiling—she turned her phone back over.

Not because she was thinking about him. Obviously not. That would be ridiculous. She was just… curious. About the timing. The injury. The photo. She was simply fact-checking.

She opened Safari and typed in a completely normal, totally detached search query:

“Joe Burrow injury recovery timeline 2021.”

A few articles came up—ones about his rehab schedule, some local news outlets quoting his physical therapist, and an ESPN piece that praised his quiet work ethic and called him “ahead of schedule.”

She kept scrolling.

Then she saw it.

A headline tucked neatly between player stats and practice footage:

“Joe Burrow and longtime girlfriend reportedly split earlier this year.”

Her thumb hovered.

Then, as any rational human being would, she tapped.

The article was vague. No names. No dramatics. Just a polite “sources say” and some references to timelines.

She blinked, locked her phone, leaned back against the couch, and muttered a completely unaffected, “Okay. Weird. But whatever.”

Exactly ten seconds passed.

Then she unlocked her phone again.

Opened Instagram.

Typed his name into the search bar—just “Joe B,” because efficiency was key—and clicked on the first tagged post that came up.

She scrolled quickly, casually, in the way one does when one is not stalking, until she nearly liked a post from three weeks ago, panicked, and tossed her phone across the couch as if it had personally betrayed her.

“Nope,” she hissed, catching it mid-air with reflexes she didn’t know she had. “I’m not one of those girls.”

And she wasn’t.

She wasn’t interested. She wasn’t invested.

She was simply conducting light research. Casually. Elegantly. Like a woman with boundaries and self-respect and exactly zero crushes.

And maybe she skimmed the comments on a fan-run page.

And maybe she paused a little too long on a photo of him in a hoodie, hair unstyled, holding a coffee, looking suspiciously like someone who listened well and didn’t post about it after.

And maybe—maybe—she said, to no one, in the quietest possible voice,

“Of course he just got out of something serious. That tracks.”

But that was it. She wasn’t spiraling.

She wasn’t spiraling at all. She was just informed. Girl math.

—

The brunch was invitation-only—of course it was—and tucked inside a loft that pretended not to care how exclusive it was, all raw brick and minimalist floral arrangements and seating charts that just happened to place the most photographed people in the most photographable corners.

Fernanda arrived precisely twelve minutes late—enough to be noticed but not gossiped about. Her assistant had offered to come. She declined.

She wore a deep slate-blue slip dress barely visible beneath a boxy black blazer, her hair twisted back in a no-nonsense sweep. The sunglasses stayed on until the lighting demanded otherwise, and even then, her eyes didn’t linger. It wasn’t an entrance. It was an exit disguised as a presence. She wasn’t trying to turn heads—she was hoping not to be part of the conversation at all.

As soon as she entered, conversations shifted—not dramatically, just enough. A pause here. A laugh cut short. People looking without looking. The polite choreography of attention. She didn’t scan the room. She didn’t need to. She already knew the faces that showed up at events like these. Industry veterans. Rising stars. Power-adjacent men in monochrome suits who whispered about “brand alignment” like it was sacred scripture. Producers who used to call her “firecracker” in 2016. Stylists who had once begged to dress her and now pretended they hadn’t. A new generation of actresses who looked at her like a cautionary tale in mascara.

Someone passed her a mimosa. She took it without looking at who handed it over.

She slid into her seat at the long central table—beside someone she vaguely recognized from an A24 film and across from a woman who had just directed a critically acclaimed series about grief and girlhood. The conversation was soft and intentional, the kind of dialogue that knew how to find its way into Variety pull quotes. When someone asked how she was, she said “fine,” which in this room meant still valuable.

It didn’t take long.

“So,” said a tall executive with skin like porcelain and a smile like a trademark, tapping her glass with two fingers, “is the heartbreak album coming?”

Fernanda didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. She tilted her head slightly, thoughtful, her gaze unreadable behind her lashes. Then she shrugged. One shoulder. Slow. Elegant. Dismissive without being impolite.

A few at the table laughed like she’d delivered a punchline. She hadn’t.

The director across from her, the one with the grief series, raised a brow. “So that’s a yes?”

Fernanda picked up her mimosa and took a sip like it was the only thing in the room worth responding to.

Someone leaned in—an A&R rep from another label, one who’d tried to poach her during her most chaotic year. “Just saying,” he murmured, “if you dropped something even close to last night’s energy… the game wouldn’t survive it.”

She didn’t answer. Just stared past him, eyes fixed on the soft white flowers drooping over the center of the table. Hydrangeas. Beautiful and fragile. They wilted fast.

The topic shifted, as topics always did in rooms like this—politely, with precision. Soon people were whispering about another scandal, someone’s secret engagement, and the back-end data from a new single that was allegedly “underperforming, but in a cool way.” Fernanda listened with half an ear, her expression perfectly neutral, one hand curled loosely around her glass.

But a word kept echoing underneath it all, persistent and quietly invasive in a way that made her skin prickle even beneath the lights—heartbreak, said not with empathy or understanding but with the easy detachment of someone turning a feeling into a trend, a talking point, a storyline they could trace on a chart.

They treated it like a genre she had mastered, like a branding tool she was expected to wield again now that the song had hit a nerve, as if her grief belonged to the public and was once again available for download.

The way they said it—soft, loaded, expectant—made her realize they didn’t want healing; they wanted her to bleed elegantly, consistently, and profitably, as if closure was boring and anguish made better art.

So she excused herself early, not out of rudeness or rebellion, but because staying any longer felt like handing over parts of herself she hadn’t even fully reclaimed yet, and because no amount of poise could protect her from the quiet, exhausting truth that they weren’t celebrating her—they were circling her, waiting for the next break to write about.

The label meeting was at 4:30. She almost didn’t go.

But Fernanda knew better than to ghost her own career. She walked in alone, face bare, hair in a sleek low bun, a long trench coat thrown over a plain black top. She didn’t greet anyone with hugs. Just nods.

The room was full: her manager, her A&R rep, two execs from the digital marketing side, and someone new from the branding team who smelled like ambition and almond perfume.

“We just want to float a few ideas,” her manager began, which in label-speak meant prepare to be sold to.

They showed her a deck—soft colors, aesthetic moodboards. “Fernanda 2.0” in bold. Talk of authentic vulnerability, of controlled intimacy, of a modern renaissance for pop women reclaiming their narrative.

They played a clip from her performance at the party—iPhone footage, shaky but moving.

And then the pitch: drop a single. Maybe a live version of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” as a teaser. Roll it out with a minimalistic cover. A campaign built around silence and reemergence. The word “intentional” was used at least six times.

Then came the kicker.

“Or,” said the almond-scented strategist, smiling like she was suggesting a toast, “we lean into the mystery-man narrative. The internet’s obsessed. It’s tasteful. We don’t name names—we let them fill in the blanks. Implied muses are hot right now.”

Fernanda was quiet for a long moment.

Then she leaned forward, one elbow on the table, her voice steady and soft.

“I didn’t survive the noise just to be used by it again.”

Silence. Then, a nervous laugh from the intern taking notes. The execs glanced at each other.

“I’m not saying no,” Fernanda added, standing now, collecting her things. “I’m just saying not like this.”

She left before they could decide how to repackage her resistance as part of the pitch.

That night, the rain came back—not a storm, not dramatic or insistent, just a quiet, steady rhythm against the windowpane, the kind of soft repetition that matched the stillness in her chest, the kind that invited thought without demanding it. Fernanda sat curled in the corner of the rooms wide windowsill, legs drawn beneath her, her sweats slightly too long and the faded T-shirt on her shoulders still holding the faintest scent of a different time, not because she missed the past but because softness was rare and she knew how to hold onto it when she found it.

The city beyond the glass was blurred and glowing, the lights from distant buildings bleeding into the fog, like a watercolor version of New York —muted, restless, unreal—and inside the room, everything felt too quiet to sleep, too late to move, too early to reach for something new. Her laptop lay beside her unopened, her phone buzzing once with some calendar reminder she didn’t bother to read, and for reasons she didn’t overanalyze, she opened her browser and typed in his name.

Joe Burrow.

She didn’t know what she was looking for—maybe just proof that what had happened the night before had actually happened, that the conversation they’d shared wasn’t a byproduct of champagne or low lighting or the surreal filter of parties where people wore charm like armor. The screen filled with interviews, clips, slow-moving thumbnails of post-game pressers and podcasts and sideline shots where he looked mostly the same: hoodie up, shoulders relaxed, eyes steady but distant, not uninterested, just quiet in a way the world didn’t often allow men like him to be.

And as she clicked through the videos—listening, watching, observing without really meaning to—she found no shift in tone, no mask slipping into place, no version of him more polished than the one she’d already seen. There was no change between the man who stood under the chandeliers and asked her about Batman and the one who sat in these clips answering questions with long pauses and unhurried honesty; no air of performance, no curated persona trying to fit a mold. He didn’t seem to be trying to charm anyone, didn’t adjust his cadence to the room or throw words around just to fill silence. He was just him.

And maybe it was that consistency—so rare in the world she’d spent years trying to survive—that caught her off guard more than anything else. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t tried to become more likable in the clips or more clever or more captivating, just remained exactly as he had been: thoughtful, quiet, a little awkward in a way that didn’t need fixing. And for the first time in a very long time, Fernanda felt the unfamiliar sensation of recognizing someone not because they reminded her of something, but because they didn’t remind her of anyone at all.

She didn’t finish the clip. She didn’t watch the next one. She didn’t save the tab or take a screenshot or send it to anyone under the pretense of irony.

She just sat there, the glow of the screen fading into sleep mode beside her, the city still whispering through the glass, and the rain—soft and rhythmic—continuing its quiet confession against the window, while something in her that had felt stretched thin for months slowly, silently began to return to shape.

It had been nearly a year since Fernanda last saw Ava in person. Not that anyone would’ve noticed—on the surface, there were still signs of life between them. The occasional like on a birthday post, the rare comment under an old tour photo, a one-minute voice note that sat unopened in Fernanda’s inbox for nearly a month before she finally replied with nothing more than a thumbs-up emoji. It wasn’t tension. It wasn’t betrayal. It wasn’t anything dramatic enough to name. Just space. Unannounced and quiet, the kind that builds slowly in the spaces between missed calls and “we should catch up” texts that never become plans. They had been close once, closer than most—threaded into each other’s routines, each other’s work, each other’s memories. But time is cruel in how subtly it pulls people apart. And eventually, it just happened: they drifted. The way people do when life becomes noise—when schedules fill up, when silence feels safer than vulnerability, when your own head starts to sound louder than anything outside of it.

But that night, after hours spent staring at a half-written song she couldn’t finish and lyrics that didn’t sound like her anymore, Fernanda sat alone in her hotel room, legs curled beneath her, and scrolled through her messages until she found Ava’s name. No unread texts. No ongoing thread. Just a blank space waiting. And without overthinking it, without knowing exactly what she wanted to say, she typed:

“You up?”

It was 10:42 p.m.

Ava: Always. Want me to come over?

Fernanda hesitated before typing back:

“Yeah. Please.”

They sat on the floor of Fernanda’s apartment, cross-legged with takeout boxes scattered between them like offerings from a simpler time. Ava still looked the same—hair pulled up messily, hoodie three sizes too big, eyeliner that never smudged even when she cried. Fernanda looked different, but Ava didn’t comment on it. She never had to. That was part of the comfort.

“I miss this,” Ava said, breaking open a fortune cookie and not even reading it. “Us. Talking without cameras.”

“I didn’t mean to disappear,” Fernanda murmured.

“I know,” Ava said. “You just started needing armor. And I didn’t fit under it.”

Fernanda nodded, picking at the rice with her chopsticks. “Sometimes I think I forgot how to be soft.”

“You didn’t,” Ava said gently. “You just got tired of being punished for it.”

It was the kind of line that could only come from someone who had seen every version of her—who knew the reckless 2016 interviews, the crying phone calls at 3 a.m., the giddy voice notes after first dates, the diary entries turned into songs.

Fernanda looked up. “Everyone thinks I’ve changed.”

Ava shrugged. “You have. So have I. That’s not a bad thing.”

“But they think it’s because I got broken,” Fernanda whispered. “Like the old me was a lie, and this new me is just sad and tame.”

Ava tilted her head. “Or maybe the old you was raw and loud, and this version of you is just… healing. People don’t know what to do with that. They think growth has to come with glitter.”

Fernanda didn’t respond. She just sat with it. Let it settle.

Then, softly: “You’re still my only real friend.”

“I know,” Ava said. “And you’re still you. Even if you’re quiet about it now.”

—

The next morning, Fernanda had another meeting at the label—nothing dramatic on paper, just a quiet block in her calendar labeled creative strategy, which was always code for something bigger. She showed up in muted tones, her hair swept into a low, efficient twist, glasses perched on her face like armor. No entourage. No dramatics. Just her and a coat that looked more expensive than it was.

It wasn’t meant to be a high-pressure conversation—just projections, possible tour talk, some vague suggestions about reentering the public consciousness now that the worst of the rumors had faded. The kind of meeting that only pretended to be casual because everyone in it had already decided what they hoped she’d say.

But on the way to the second-floor conference room, she passed a hallway she hadn’t walked in years.

It wasn’t the kind of place you ended up by accident. A narrow corridor off the main atrium, dimly lit, the walls lined with framed photos—landmarks in the label’s history. Platinum plaques, tour posters, vintage magazine spreads. Faces that had once ruled charts now frozen in time. Some she’d known personally. Some had treated her like competition. Some had warned her. Some had vanished.

She hadn’t appeared on that wall in years.

But there—tucked near the corner, beneath a flickering light and half-shadowed by the bend in the hallway—was a photograph she hadn’t seen since her early twenties. Her first tour.

She stopped walking.

The assistant in front of her paused, glancing over her shoulder. “Everything okay?”

Fernanda didn’t answer right away. “Yeah. Just… give me a second.”

The hallway was quiet. That kind of manufactured quiet that came from too much insulation and too many closed doors. The air smelled like pine cleaner and recycled ambition.

She stared at the photo.

Nineteen. Glitter eyeshadow. Smudged lipstick. A ripped fishnet sleeve. Her arm thrown around her guitarist’s shoulders like nothing could hurt her. And a smile—wild, crooked, a little cracked around the edges—that felt so loud she could almost hear it.

That girl had meant everything she said. Had sung every note like it could break or save her. She hadn’t known what selling out meant. She just knew how to feel things too hard and too publicly. She’d been called impulsive. Too open. Too much.

But she’d also been free.

Fernanda stepped closer, brushing her fingertips gently along the edge of the glass—not on her own face, but just beside it. The space in the frame no one ever noticed.

She didn’t miss the fame. But sometimes she missed that version of herself. The one who hadn’t yet learned how to shrink.

Her earpiece buzzed.

“Fernanda, they’re ready for you upstairs.”

She gave the photo one last look. Then turned and walked toward the elevator, something quiet settling behind her ribs—part memory, part decision.

She wouldn’t write from nostalgia. Not from the version of herself the world had turned into a storyline. She would write from the space just outside the frame—the part that had never been curated, captioned, or controlled.

The elevator ride was slow.

Fernanda stood near the back, hands in her coat pockets, eyes on the floor numbers blinking upward in soft, synthetic light. Her reflection in the brushed steel looked back at her like someone she was still becoming. Not yet defined. Not quite comfortable. But still standing.

When the doors opened, she stepped into a smaller conference room than she expected—long table, filtered morning light through frosted glass, two A&R reps seated on opposite ends like they were waiting for a verdict. A screen behind them displayed a paused slide:

Fernanda Letrán — Q4 Vision Meeting: Creative Concepts & Tour Projections

She didn’t react. But something shifted in her chest—just slightly, like a piano note held too long.

“Morning,” one of the reps said, standing to greet her. “Thanks for coming in. You look great.”

“Thanks,” she said, calm but distant, lowering herself into the chair at the end of the table. She crossed one leg over the other, her hand curling loosely around a pen she didn’t intend to use. The chair was leather. Too soft. She didn’t sink into it.

“We wanted to walk you through some of the early frameworks we’ve been discussing,” the second rep said, tapping his keyboard as the screen clicked forward. “Obviously, with the world still how it is, we’re not talking about hitting the road tomorrow. This is more about shaping the narrative now, so when it’s time, the foundation is already in motion.”

They were careful with their phrasing. Everyone in the industry was still walking around the idea of normal like it was a sleeping animal.

Fernanda nodded once. “So… 2023.”

“Realistically, yes,” the first one said. “Maybe soft shows in ‘22 if the climate allows it. But a proper world tour? Two years out, minimum. What we’re thinking now is vision. Momentum. Building anticipation.”

The screen changed again. Mockups. Logos. Concepts. Stylized fonts scrolling across a projected backdrop: photos of Fernanda—some old, some recent—filtered into grayscale, with taglines in serif print.

No more noise. Just music. Fernanda, as she is.

Another one followed.

She never disappeared. You just stopped listening.

Fernanda blinked once.

She didn’t speak.

The rep continued. “The point is, you don’t need a dramatic reinvention. You’re not starting over. But there’s power in the stillness. You’ve been quiet, and that’s created space. People want to know what you’ve been building in the dark.”

“And do they know I haven’t recorded anything yet?” Fernanda asked, her voice quiet, but sharp around the edges.

“Which is exactly why this is the right moment,” the other rep jumped in. “This isn’t about rollout. It’s about reclaiming voice. You start the story before the music drops. You control the lens.”

Fernanda looked at the screen again. One of the slides showed a mock stage design—minimalist lighting, stripped-down visuals, venues circled in places like Copenhagen, New York, Berlin, Tokyo. Cities that hadn’t been able to gather in years. Cities that might still not be ready.

“This is just the pitch,” the rep added quickly, as if sensing her unease. “No pressure. Just thoughts. You wouldn’t be committing to anything but the intention. The album would still come first.”

Fernanda didn’t answer right away.

Because this wasn’t just about songs or venues or strategy. It was about deciding what voice she would return with. Whether she even wanted to return at all.

People missed the idea of her. They missed the chaos, the commentary, the girl who had said too much and danced too hard and cried in public. The avatar of emotion they could quote on Twitter and sell back to her in gifs.

But did they miss her?

Did she?

She picked up her glass of water and took a slow sip. The silence didn’t feel uncomfortable—just unfinished.

Then she set the glass down, uncrossed her legs, and said carefully, “I’ll think about it.”

And that was it.

Not a yes. Not a no.

Just a held breath.

A promise that if she came back, it would be on her own terms—after she made something that sounded like truth, not product.

Something she could live with.

Something that didn’t just frame the fire—but honored what survived it.

Fernanda sat curled in the corner of the couch, knees tucked under her, the sleeves of her sweatshirt pulled over her hands. Her phone lay face up on the cushion beside her, screen still lit from the last thing she’d opened—a voice memo titled “For Nanda ♡.”

Ava’s voice came through the speaker, low and crackling. A quiet melody hummed between breaths—a song they used to half-joke about writing when they were fourteen, passing notebooks back and forth in the back of a classroom, dreaming out loud between math tests and after-school rides. Back then, everything felt like it could be a beginning. They didn’t know anything about the industry yet, just that music made things make sense. That song had never been finished. It barely had a chorus. But Fernanda remembered the feeling of it—the way they both believed, without saying it, that one day it might matter.

The recording wasn’t perfect. Ava sang a little flat. There was a laugh caught in the middle, like she hadn’t meant to take it seriously. But Fernanda closed her eyes and listened to it three times. Ava hadn’t said anything in the message. No “miss you.” No “you okay?” But the song was enough. That was how they always communicated best—between the lyrics, not outside them.

She let the message end and then, without really thinking, scrolled to the next notification.

Her mother’s voicemail.

She almost didn’t press play. Her thumb hovered over the button for a few seconds too long, like opening the message might open something else inside her. But she did.

“Mija,” her mother’s voice began—soft, measured, the kind of cadence she used when she didn’t want Fernanda to mistake gentleness for pity. “Just checking in on you. You don’t need to call back. I just—” A pause. A breath. “Don’t let the silence fool you. You’re not lost just because you’re quiet. You’ve always needed time to make the right noise.”

Fernanda swallowed. Sat up a little straighter.

“I know it feels like everyone’s watching. But they don’t really see. That’s something you give, not something they’re entitled to. So give it only when it’s yours.” The voice cracked slightly, not from sadness, but time. “Whatever you make next—it doesn’t have to save you. It just has to be true.”

The message ended.

Fernanda didn’t cry. She just nodded slowly, like her mother were sitting across from her, not hundreds of miles away. Like she could feel the permission in those words even though she hadn’t asked for it. She left the studio not with answers, but with fewer questions—and that, somehow, felt like movement.

She stayed in the stillness a while longer. No rush. No plan. Just the quiet.

Then, almost without thinking, she stood and walked across the room, barefoot, steps soft against the wood floor. Her fingers hovered for a second above the switch, then clicked on the small lamp in the corner. A warm pool of light spilled out, barely enough to fill the space, but just enough for what she needed. The piano sat near the wall, untouched for weeks. Maybe months. She hadn’t kept track. The top was dusted but closed, the keys hidden like a secret she wasn’t ready to tell.

Until now.

She lifted the lid.

The familiar creak, the small mechanical sigh of it, made something in her chest loosen.

She sat down.

Didn’t touch the keys right away. Just looked at them, like they might disappear if she reached too fast. There were so many versions of her that had sat at this same bench—frantic, devastated, euphoric, half-drunk, heartbroken, hungry. The girl who wrote angry anthems. The woman who wrote whisper-quiet confessions. The one who begged the music to save her. The one who didn’t need saving anymore.

She pressed a single note. Low. Heavy. Let it ring out.

Then another.

Then, without overthinking it, her hands moved slowly into a chord. Not one she recognized. Not one she planned. Just the shape that felt right.

Her voice came next, hesitant but steady. A hum, then a word. Not a full melody. Not a full verse. But something.

She reached for the small notebook on the windowsill—creased at the corners, pages half-full from years ago—and opened to a blank sheet.

She didn’t start with the chorus.

She started with a line.

Small. Honest. Maybe even forgettable.

But real.

“I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all.”

The pencil scratched softly as she wrote it down. No fanfare. No overthinking. She didn’t even pause to check the rhyme. She just let the next thought come, like breath. Like muscle memory.

“Oh, what a valiant roar… what a bland goodbye…”

The chords darkened. She shifted down a half-step, instinctively.

“The coward claimed he was a lion… I’m combing through the braids of lies…”

Her breath shook—not from weakness, but from recognition. These weren’t lyrics. These were facts in verse. The kind of things you never say out loud because no one believes you unless it rhymes.

“‘I’ll never leave.’ ‘Never mind.’”

She stopped and looked at the ceiling, blinked a few times, then let her fingers find the next notes.

“Our field of dreams, engulfed in fire… your arson’s match, your somber eyes…”

The notebook lay open beside her now, ink bleeding slightly into the paper from how tightly she’d pressed the pen down.

“And I’ll still see it until I die…”

She slowed, but she didn’t stop.

“You’re the loss of my life.”

There it was.

The truth. Not the headline version. Not the palatable arc. Not the story the label wanted to spin. Just hers.

She stared at those words for a long time.

They weren’t clever. They weren’t sharp. But they were exact. They weren’t trying to redeem anyone. They weren’t looking for closure. They weren’t weaponized.

They were just honest.

And for once, that was enough.

She sat back, hands still hovering just above the keys. The silence around her wasn’t empty. It was full—of history, of grief, of something final that no longer asked to be rewritten. She wasn’t sure if it was a song. But it was real. And that mattered more.

In the corner, the lamp flickered slightly. The rest of the room remained still.

She didn’t get up right away.

She stayed there, letting the chords ring and fade, one by one.

Not because she was lost.

But because she finally knew where to begin.

The TV cast a soft blue glow across the room, flickering against the pale walls while muted commentary from a late-night sports show droned on without purpose. Outside, the Cincinnati streetlights bled through sheer curtains, the occasional car passing slow enough to blur. Joe sat at the edge of his bed, shoulders hunched, an ice pack velcroed around his right knee, condensation soaking into the hem of his sweatpants. One socked foot pressed flat against the cool hardwood, the other planted in the throw rug like he couldn’t decide which part of him wanted comfort.

His phone rested in his hand, screen dimmed from inactivity, though he hadn’t set it down in almost an hour.

The ache in his knee wasn’t unbearable tonight, just persistent. A steady reminder. Not just of the rehab schedule or the medical updates, but of how easily everything could stall. He was used to pushing through things—pain, pressure, noise. But now, he was being asked to wait. To sit still. To not do the very thing that made him feel alive.

And still, somehow, that wasn’t the thing keeping him up.

Earlier that day, the locker room had been loud, and not in the usual way. Not pregame nerves or midweek trash talk. Just noise. Jamarr had been the loudest, as always—his voice carrying across the space like it was engineered to fill arenas.

“Yo, Joey B out here locking eyes with a popstar like it’s a Nicholas Sparks movie!” Jamarr had shouted, holding his phone up like it was evidence in a trial. “Bro, you better call Robert Pattinson and tell him to step aside!”

Laughter exploded around them. Teammates throwing in their own edits. “Look at the body language!” “He’s fully mesmerized!” “You see the way he’s gripping that drink? Man was locked in.”

Joe had just smirked, rolling his eyes without lifting his head. “You all need better hobbies.”

But he hadn’t denied it.

And when the noise died down and the tape came off and the ice went on and the room emptied out—he didn’t forget it either.

Now, hours later, the photo was still stuck in his head. Not because of how he looked, or what people said. But because he remembered the moment. The actual one. Not the meme version. She had been singing. Just… singing. Not performing. Not selling anything. Like she wasn’t trying to impress anyone in the room.

He hadn’t realized he was watching her like that. But maybe that’s what made it real.

He shifted his leg, winced slightly as the ice pack pressed colder against his skin. His phone buzzed faintly—another group chat notification. He ignored it. Instead, his thumb hovered over the search bar. He typed her name before he could talk himself out of it.

Just a scroll.

Nothing dramatic.

A couple of photos. A recent headline. Then autoplay took over and started running a grainy clip—some old interview, probably from 2018 or 2019. Fernanda looked younger. Softer in the face, but sharper in tone. Her hair was messier, her voice quicker, her posture looser. Like she hadn’t learned to hold herself yet. Not in the way she did now.

He nearly skipped it.

Then her voice shifted midsentence—no warning, no big tonal shift. Just a pause. A recalibration.

“I don’t want to be defined by the things I hate,” she said, one shoulder lifting like the words weren’t meant to be profound. “I want to be defined by the things I love. That’s where joy lives.”

He didn’t smile. Didn’t analyze it.

He just breathed. Slowly.

And for the first time all night, the weight in his chest softened a little. Not because she said something groundbreaking. But because she said it like she believed it.

And belief was rare.

He watched a few seconds more, then closed the tab and set the phone face down on the nightstand. The hum of the TV still droned in the background, but he didn’t turn it off. He liked the flicker. It made the room feel less like waiting.

The ice pack had gone lukewarm now. His leg stiff beneath it.

He didn’t move.

Whatever that moment was—whatever part of her had meant those words—it wasn’t his. And he didn’t want to pretend it was. But something about it had found him anyway.

And tonight, that was enough.

She arrived before the team. No stylist, no assistant, no label exec with a latte and a fake smile. Just her—barefaced, hoodie zipped up to her chin, hair pulled into a low bun, sleeves of an old sweatshirt bunched at her wrists, her journal tucked under one arm like it was something sacred.

The city hadn’t fully woken yet. Neither had she.

She wasn’t here to make a hit. She wasn’t even sure she was here to make a song. LOML had already been written—at home, days ago, in the quiet hours after her mother’s voicemail and Ava’s half-finished melody had shaken something loose inside her. She hadn’t shown it to anyone. Hadn’t said the title out loud. Hadn’t decided what she wanted from it. But something in her knew it needed air. Even if just once.

She sat at the upright piano tucked into the corner of the room—an old one, a little out of tune, the kind with a soft pedal that made everything sound like memory. Her pen tapped lightly against the edge of the keys as she flipped open her journal, scanning the lyrics she already knew by heart.

“I wish I could un-recall how we almost had it all…”

She didn’t whisper the line. She just looked at it, breathing it in again like she needed to be sure it still hurt.

The room was still—dimly lit, faintly scented with velvet curtain dust, old coffee, and the hum of stale electricity. It wasn’t her usual studio. Too hollow. Too impersonal. But she hadn’t wanted the usual. She’d asked for a space where no one would talk, where no one would ask what it was about or who.

The producer, one of the few people she trusted, kept his head down as he set up the mic and checked the input levels. No pep talk. No expectations. Just a nod when it was time.

She stood in the booth, headphones over one ear, a page of lyrics curled in her palm like she didn’t want to let them go yet. The melody lived in her body now, delicate and frayed around the edges, and this wasn’t about chasing the perfect take. It was about seeing if she could survive the sound of it.

She didn’t sing loud. Didn’t perform. Her voice came low and clean, like a cut that hadn’t scabbed yet—steady, soft, reverent. No flourishes. No filter. Just the words.

“It was legendary…”

“…It was momentary…”

She didn’t try to make it sound polished. She wasn’t sure she wanted it to sound like a song anyone could sing back. This was hers. And for the first time, she wasn’t trying to translate it into something easier to carry.

Through the glass, the producer didn’t move. He let her finish the verse, then the chorus. That was all she had ready to record. No bridge yet. No outro. But she’d needed to say it out loud, to trap it in air.

When the last note faded, she stepped back. Slowly. Pulled off the headphones like she was waking from a long nap. The producer glanced up but didn’t ask how she felt or what she wanted next.

“Want to do another take?” he asked gently.

She looked down at the lyric sheet, then at the mic, then shook her head. “No… not tonight.”

“Okay.”

He saved the file under her initials and the date, just as she asked, and promised not to send it anywhere. She didn’t need anyone’s ears on it yet. Not even hers, maybe.

She left quietly. Hood up. Sunglasses on despite the hour. The weight in her chest still there—but different now. Centered. Less brittle. Like something had finally cracked open the right way.

Not to bleed.

But to breathe.

Somewhere across the Country, in a half-lit recovery room that smelled faintly of sweat, metal, and the citrus disinfectant they used on gym floors, Joe had his knee elevated and a cold wrap snug around the joint. The rehab suite was quiet, except for the low hum of conversation and the occasional squeak of sneakers on linoleum. He wasn’t really listening to anyone. His mind drifted the way it always did after training—tired, unfocused, running on that weird edge between physical calm and mental static.

Across the room, a practice intern was scrolling TikTok on mute, until a faint melody filtered out from his phone speaker. It wasn’t loud. Wasn’t even clear. But Joe heard something in it—something raw, unpolished, not quite finished. He didn’t look up at first. He just furrowed his brow, paused mid-reach for his water bottle.

The voice was familiar.

The intern noticed. “Oh—sorry, man. Didn’t mean to interrupt. I just saw this clip going around. Fernanda Letrán, I think? Someone said it’s a demo that leaked this week.”

Joe’s hand stilled in midair.

He didn’t ask for the link. Didn’t say her name out loud. He just gave a small nod and turned his attention back to the ice wrap, adjusting the strap across his thigh. But later—when the gym lights dimmed and the hallway fell quiet and he was alone again in his apartment—he found himself humming the melody under his breath. Not because it was catchy. But because it felt like something someone hadn’t meant for him to hear.

Something that hadn’t been ready yet.

Fernanda didn’t find out until the next morning. Her phone buzzed with a screenshot from Ava—no greeting, no “can you believe this,” just a fan tweet;

@LetranUpdate

“It was legendary / it was momentary / it meant everything to me…”

[blurry photo of Fernanda at a 2023 event]

LOML (leaked demo)

259.7k likes · 50.1k Retweets · 8.9K saves

She blinked at it. Once. Twice. Then stared.

Her heart didn’t pound. It deflated. Like something small and private had been torn out of her chest and flung across the room without warning. She didn’t panic. She didn’t scream. She just stood still in the kitchen, phone still in hand, and tried to remember the last time music had felt like a place instead of a product. Like something she could hold without watching it slip between fingers the moment someone else found it.

It wasn’t the first time something of hers had leaked. But this time it wasn’t a studio single or a rehearsed track. It was a demo. An unfinished one. No bridge. No mix. No name. Just a half-built truth whispered into a mic less than 48 hours ago.

And now it had a title.

LOML.

She hadn’t even decided if she liked that acronym. But someone else had.

She wasn’t sure how it got out. Maybe the rough file had been ripped straight off a studio computer. Maybe it was emailed to someone too quickly. Maybe it was played on the wrong speaker in the wrong room. It didn’t matter. It was out.

And people were already dissecting it like it was fair game.

The leak moved fast. Not like wildfire, but like an undertow—quiet, relentless. It wasn’t the kind of thing that trended on charts or made headlines overnight. It moved through curated TikToks with faded filters and whispered captions like “this part wrecked me.” Through Discord leaks and fan graphics with grainy photos and lyric overlays. Through Twitter threads analyzing who it was about.

Just one line.

They didn’t have the rest of it—just the one fragment where her voice cracked slightly, where the lyrics buckled under the weight of something too personal to be staged, the part she hadn’t filtered or sanded down, the part she hadn’t cleaned the emotion out of before she dared to hit record, and somehow that rawness, that imperfection, became the only thing they latched onto.

She didn’t sleep that night—not in the way people meant when they said they couldn’t sleep—but instead drifted in and out of that shapeless, static-filled haze where your mind loops through half-formed thoughts while your body lies perfectly still, humming with a tension you don’t have a name for, and every time she closed her eyes it felt like someone else was in the room with her, not physically, but spiritually—listening, watching, interpreting the unspoken parts of her before she even had the chance to understand them herself.

It wasn’t fear, not exactly, and it wasn’t embarrassment either—not the kind that stings with shame or awkwardness—but something heavier, older, quieter: grief, the kind that arrives when something soft and sacred has been taken before you were ready to give it, when a version of yourself you hadn’t even finished being yet gets dragged into the light and repackaged as spectacle.

It was grief for the girl who had sat at a piano in bare feet with no audience, no agenda, no armor, and whispered a truth so vulnerable she barely dared to hear it back, only to wake up the next morning and find it turned into noise—into narrative, into a hashtag, into something too many hands had already touched.

By morning, the responses started rolling in, not like support but like a press cycle dressed in affection: Ava’s message came first, clipped and direct—“They love it. You know that, right?”—as if that made the exposure worth it, as if love from strangers could counter the hollow feeling of being prematurely unwrapped.

Then her manager’s voice memo, chipper and unnervingly excited, came next, bubbling with that brand of PR optimism that made her skin prickle: “Honestly? This could be a blessing in disguise. People are talking. It’s all organic! No rollout stress!”—as if the chaos could be excused so long as it drove engagement.

And just after that, her A&R rep sent a Google Drive link labeled Fan Sentiment Tracking – LOML Demo (July), accompanied by a screenshot of statistics that read like a Wall Street ticker—Engagement up 62%, Saves up 80%, Shares up 90%—followed by the phrase she’d come to dread in every meeting that followed a leak or scandal: “We’re witnessing a natural reentry moment. This is good. You just have to lean in.”

She didn’t respond to any of them.

Instead, she sat on the cold tile of her kitchen floor in the same sweatshirt she’d been wearing for four days, legs folded tightly to her chest like a barrier against the world, eyes straining from the blue-white glow of her phone screen, trying—really trying—not to fall apart under the weight of being watched when she hadn’t even meant to be seen, and the worst part wasn’t the comments or the headlines or even the fans pretending to know what she felt—it was the quiet, sick realization that they weren’t reacting to the music itself, not really, but to the wound buried inside it, the part she hadn’t healed from, hadn’t even processed yet, and now it was everyone’s.

Because beneath the fan theories and the lyric breakdowns and the trend thread titled “Letrán’s post-Chris Evans heartbreak era begins now”, there was something smaller, sharper, more painful—something she hadn’t even allowed herself to speak out loud: the fact that Chris had moved on, publicly, effortlessly, like it had cost him nothing at all, as if she had been just a season, a misstep, a phase between two better-fitting lives, and now he was out there clean-shaven and photogenic in pap shots with a girl who smiled softer and dressed simpler, the kind of woman you could take home without explaining the headlines first.

And maybe Fernanda really was past it.

Maybe she didn’t want him anymore—not in the visceral, desperate way that she once did—but there was still a particular kind of ache that settled deep when someone you once bled for seemed capable of walking into new love without limping, without pause, without the faintest shadow of what you had been together. She didn’t post a note or a caption or a blurry photo. She didn’t jump in to reclaim the narrative or clarify the lyrics or deny the origin story everyone had already assigned her. She didn’t defend her choices or lash out at the fans or even offer a wink of acknowledgment.

She just poured herself a glass of water with shaky hands, sat down at the edge of her kitchen table in silence, and stared blankly at the ceiling until the persistent buzzing of her phone felt like it was rattling through her molars. Because it wasn’t the leak that broke her—it was the fact that they took something sacred before she’d finished holding it in her own hands, before she’d decided what it meant, before she was ready to let it go. And still, beneath all the noise, under the headlines and metrics and theories about whether LOML stood for Chris or someone else or some poetic lie, one thing remained steady in her chest—anchored, sharp, and immovable: she knew what she meant, she knew who it was about, and she knew what it had cost her to write those words out loud. So no, she wasn’t going to let the world tell the story before she did.

Not this time.

Not again.

Which is why, later that afternoon, she walked into the label’s office without a glam team or a press advisor or even a carefully rehearsed moodboard of her own, just a hoodie zipped to her chin, sunglasses still on despite the fluorescents, her phone silent in her back pocket, her expression unreadable as she passed the framed 2017 poster of herself in the hallway—lip-glossed and smirking, frozen mid-chaos—and stepped into the elevator like someone stepping back into her body after too long away.

No one asked how she was feeling. They asked what came next.

The creative director wanted visuals; the social team wanted teaser clips; her A&R rep asked if she could finish the demo into a full track by Monday, “since momentum is on our side.”

She let them talk. Let them plan. Let them assign meaning to something they hadn’t written, hadn’t lived, hadn’t even listened to with their whole hearts.

And then, when the noise finally settled into a breathless pause, and someone asked—flat, transactional—if she was okay with LOML being used as part of the comeback rollout, Fernanda didn’t smile or soften or explain.

She just sat a little straighter, crossed her arms like armor that didn’t need polishing, and answered with the only thing she had left to protect:

“It’s not part of a rollout. It’s a beginning. And I decide what comes next.” And she didn’t say it to sound brave. She said it because it was the only thing in the room that still felt true. And—for once—that was enough.

She hadn’t meant to remember, hadn’t invited the memory in or set the table for it or even whispered its name, but memory never asked for permission—it arrived unannounced, as it always did, slipping through the cracks of a quiet moment and making itself at home like it had never left.

One moment she was curled into her couch, knees tucked beneath the oversized hem of her hoodie, the low hush of late afternoon light spreading across her apartment like breath held too long, the soft amber streaks crawling across the hardwood and climbing the legs of the coffee table before brushing the edge of her sock, the closed journal by her side untouched for hours, her tea long gone cold, and in the next moment she wasn’t there at all—she was back in his house, not the physical one with address and keys, but the one that lived in her, the one preserved in fragments and texture and color and warmth and that peculiar kind of stillness that only ever exists before you know what you’ll lose.

It was winter in 2019, and the version of herself that existed then was a quieter one, still learning what silence could take, still hopeful that softness didn’t always have to come with sacrifice, still unaware of the cost that would eventually be named in hindsight, long after she’d left it behind.

His place had never been curated like hers was—there were no candles selected for mood, no warm-toned lamps strategically placed for ambiance, no intention to make it look effortless for the camera—but it had a kind of lived-in comfort, a low hum of ease that made her feel like she could exhale without thinking, like her shoulders had dropped the moment she stepped inside and hadn’t noticed until she left again.

She remembered the chipped blue mug that never moved from the nightstand, the floorboards that creaked in that charming, lived-in way, the green notebook that always found its way to the end of the couch even when she swore she hadn’t left it there, like it belonged in the fabric of the space just as much as she did.

He’d been on the floor, back resting against the couch with a half-read book in hand, sleeves pushed up in that casual way that made him look more like a Sunday morning than a movie star, wearing the same sweater she always stole when she was cold or dramatic or both, and her notebook sat next to him—unopened, untouched—not because he didn’t care, but because he never read without permission, never asked for access, only listened when she offered, and that was one of the things she loved most: the stillness, the patience, the way he made space for her voice without demanding it.

Back then, the silence between them had felt full instead of hollow, not laced with tension or pretense or anything waiting to be fixed, but with the kind of mutual ease that let her write until two in the morning, bare legs folded beneath her on the carpet, her pen moving across the page while he padded around in the kitchen or read aloud in a voice so lazy and steady she once joked it could put her to sleep if she didn’t love it so much.

And for the first time in a long time—or maybe ever—she hadn’t felt like she had to perform, hadn’t felt the need to shine brighter than her own truth or fill the room with noise just to be allowed to exist, because in that space, in that fleeting, unrepeatable moment of her life, she had just been herself—unguarded, unfiltered, unplanned.

But now, years later, in a different apartment with no hum in the next room, no voice filling the silence with softness, no chipped mug or creaky floorboard or familiar sweater tossed over a chair, she finally understood that the ache in her chest had never really been about Chris, not in the way the headlines liked to frame it or the way the internet tried to dissect her lyrics into blame.

She didn’t miss him—not really, not anymore—but she missed her.

The version of herself who hadn’t yet learned to shrink, who still believed she could be loved and loud at the same time, who wore her metaphors like armor instead of apologizing for them, who thought being tender didn’t mean dulling the sharp edges that made her work electric.

The end of their relationship hadn’t arrived with scandal or betrayal or an explosive fall from grace—it had arrived quietly, like a slow leak in a boat she didn’t notice was sinking until her feet were wet, like a pressure that started out subtle and manageable until it became suffocating, until every choice started to feel like a compromise dressed as grace.

The age gap, the headlines, the persistent commentary that treated their love like a temporary press cycle, the interviewers who kept asking if she was just a “phase” for him, a wild chapter before something more reasonable—she remembered how she began to disappear, not out of shame or fear, but out of strategy, because she thought if she made herself smaller, less controversial, less loud, maybe their love would survive the weight of public scrutiny.

But it didn’t.

And slowly, piece by piece, she gave parts of herself away—not in a dramatic, one-time sacrifice, but in the quiet edits no one noticed: a lyric softened, a song reworded, a bridge cut because someone thought it sounded “too bitter,” and she didn’t fight it—not with the fury she used to have—because by then, she was tired of being difficult, tired of being the firestarter, tired of always having to defend her sharpness in rooms that preferred her rounded out.

And when it ended, no one mourned her silence.

Not even her.

She wasn’t angry that he had moved on, wasn’t bitter at the woman who came after her—if anything, she had made peace with the ending, with the idea that sometimes good things end not because they’re wrong, but because they can’t survive the version of the world they’re placed in.

But still, every now and then—like now—she found herself alone in her apartment, swaddled in oversized clothes, staring into the middle distance, wondering how easily she had let herself vanish in someone else’s comfort, how silently she had chosen to stop taking up space just to make love easier to carry.

And what if now—now that she was writing again, now that the music was coming back in slow, hesitant waves—the girl she once had been was gone?

The 2016 girl.

The one who set things on fire with her voice and didn’t flinch when they called her reckless, who stood on stage and cracked her heart wide open, who made mistakes in public and owned every one of them because she believed her art was worth the mess.

What if that fire had burned out?

What if all that remained was this: a measured, cautious, tired woman trying to build something new without knowing if the same heat lived inside her?

She closed her eyes, head resting against the worn cushions of her couch, and let the memory flicker across the backs of her eyelids—not for him, not to mourn what they’d lost, but for the girl she used to be, the one who hadn’t yet learned to flinch when the world said she was too much.

And maybe—just maybe—this was part of healing too.

Not reaching backward to resurrect a past that no longer fit, but standing still long enough to admit that she didn’t quite know who she was without the fire.

Not yet.

But maybe soon.

It was nearly 10 p.m. when she slipped through the studio doors again, unannounced, wrapped in an old hoodie and the kind of quiet resolve that didn’t need witnesses. She didn’t turn on all the lights—just the overhead lamp by the soundboard, its amber glow spilling across the floor like the start of a secret. The space didn’t feel unfamiliar, but it didn’t feel entirely hers either. Still, it was where she needed to be. She walked slowly, like the walls might listen differently tonight, and set her bag down with the kind of care that had nothing to do with the contents and everything to do with intention.

There was no one there to ask if she was ready, no producer waiting with a thumbs-up from behind the glass. Just the familiar silence of a room that knew her through every version—through rage, through heartbreak, through reinvention and retreat. She didn’t rehearse. She didn’t play back what she’d done before. She simply pulled out the worn lyric sheet from the front pocket of her notebook, unfolded it gently, and laid it flat beside the piano bench like it might break if she rushed.

The bridge was still missing.

She looked at the page, not with frustration but with something softer—curiosity, perhaps, or maybe reverence for the part of herself that hadn’t been ready to finish it until now. Her fingers tapped absently along the edge of the piano keys. The rest of the room waited. There was no urgency, only the hum of clarity that had been building in her since the day it all cracked open. She thought about the night it ended—not just the relationship, but the illusion she had held onto for far too long. The idea that if she stayed quiet enough, soft enough, agreeable enough, she could somehow hold onto both her voice and her peace.

But silence had never protected her. It had only diluted her.

She wasn’t writing a song about Chris anymore. She hadn’t been for a while. This wasn’t about the man or the headlines or the breakup that had been analyzed to death by strangers on the internet. This was about the version of herself she had lost when she stopped trusting her instincts. The one who second-guessed every lyric. Who shrank herself into something palatable. Who mistook survival for growth.

She didn’t rush the pen across the page. She let each word arrive slowly, not demanding space, but claiming it anyway. When the bridge finally surfaced—quiet and sure, like it had been waiting for her to be still enough to listen—she wrote it without flinching. No edits. No workshop sessions. No overthinking. Just the truth, line by line, shaped in her own language.

She sang it through once, low and steady, not trying to impress anyone, not even herself. There were no flourishes, no dramatic pauses, no manufactured ache—just the simplicity of a voice reconnecting with its own center. When it was done, she didn’t cry. She didn’t smile. She just sat in the stillness and breathed. Because in that moment, she knew the song no longer belonged to what had happened. It belonged to her. And that was enough.

—

The next morning, a message from Elise was waiting in her inbox—professional, warm, full of corporate optimism dressed in creative respect.

Subject: About “LOML”

To: Fernanda Letrán

From: Elise Grant

Date: Monday, 10:04 AM

Hi Fernanda,

Just wanted to check in about LOML.

We’ve seen the response online—people are really connecting with the demo, even though it wasn’t meant to be out yet. A lot of fans are asking for the full version. If you’re open to it, we’d love to help you record and release it officially. No pressure—we’d move at your pace. You’d have full creative control.

Let us know what feels right for you.

Warmly,

Elise

She read the email twice. First with her eyes. Then with her breath held, as if the second read might shift the weight of the words. It didn’t. It wasn’t a bad message—in fact, it was the kind of email most artists would consider a quiet victory. Her label was listening. Her fans were moved. The machine was ready to move with her.

But instead of feeling affirmed, Fernanda felt exposed.

By noon, she was seated across from her team in a glass conference room that looked like it had been designed by someone allergic to joy—too cold, too white, too eager to sanitize anything that resembled emotion. Her manager was there. PR. A&R. Digital strategy. Someone from sync who kept name-dropping Netflix placements. All of them with smiles that felt like strategies. All of them already sketching the narrative before she could define it for herself.

“We really think this could be your moment,” one of them said, tapping on a slide deck showing hashtag spikes and streaming projections. Another added, “It’s the most emotionally honest thing you’ve released in years,” as though that wasn’t the exact reason she hadn’t wanted anyone to hear it yet.

“Let’s ride this wave while it’s fresh,” her manager offered, trying to sound encouraging. “People want to hear from you again.”

Fernanda nodded slightly—not in agreement, but in acknowledgment. A small courtesy, not consent. The meeting wrapped with follow-ups and suggestions and a teaser post she never approved. She walked to the elevator with her coat in her arms and her stomach twisted not with nerves, but with something heavier. When the doors closed behind her, she didn’t feel like a creator. She felt like a moment—one that wasn’t being made, just monetized.

Later that week, the temperature in the same boardroom dropped a few degrees—metaphorically and otherwise. This wasn’t the excited tone from earlier. This was control. Framed in language meant to sound supportive. Fernanda sat at the head of the table again, hands folded in her lap, calm, unreadable, wrapped in the kind of silence that didn’t invite interruption. She let them talk. Let them explain how “this is a window you don’t want to miss,” how the attention was “organic,” how she didn’t even need to promote it—they’d do all the lifting.

“And if I don’t want to release it yet?” she asked, voice smooth, edged with steel.

A pause.

“Why wouldn’t you?” one of them said, carefully. “It’s your best work in years. People are connecting. We’re not pressuring you—we’re supporting your momentum.”

She leaned forward, just slightly, but enough to tilt the power back toward herself.

“What if I don’t want to meet the moment?” she said, her tone calm, but no longer soft. “What if I want to make it?”

They blinked. Caught off guard by the question, and more so by the certainty behind it.

“I’ll release it,” she continued. “But not like this. Not like I’ve been cracked open for campaign strategy. This isn’t a comeback single. It’s not a marketing arc. It’s mine. And if you want to put it out, fine. But I decide when. I decide how. I decide what it says about me.”

No one interrupted her. There was no pushback—only silence. And in that silence, Fernanda felt something settle. She wasn’t waiting for them to say yes. She already had.

That night, long after the city dimmed and the studio emptied, she sat alone in the vocal booth with only her breath for company. She didn’t touch the keys. Didn’t sing. She just opened her phone and scrolled until she found an old clip—a short, chaotic 2016 interview with a version of herself she hadn’t seen in years. She was loud. Sharp. Unfiltered. Everything she was once punished for being.

And yet, as she watched, she didn’t flinch. Didn’t mourn.

She recognized her.

And for the first time in a long time, she didn’t just feel inspired.

She felt ready.

She stayed off her phone all afternoon.

It wasn’t protest. It wasn’t strategy. It was just… preservation. She cooked dinner slowly, barefoot, the playlist off. Let the silence stretch long enough for her thoughts to settle without turning into noise. It had taken her so long to find stillness again, to write from a place that wasn’t apology or defense or expectation. She didn’t want to lose that now.

But around 9:47 p.m., just as the city outside her windows began to dim into something soft and blue, she stood up, walked over to the desk, and quietly pulled open the drawer.

The phone blinked once as she picked it up. Notifications piled like footsteps she didn’t invite. She didn’t open them.

Instead, she opened her Notes app. Pasted in the words she’d written days ago and re-read a hundred times since. Words that weren’t trying to be poetic—just honest.

Then she opened Instagram.

Uploaded the image. Black and white. Soft light. Skin and denim. Hair wild, face hidden. She’d chosen it because it didn’t look like a promo shoot. It looked like a moment—half-private, slightly exposed, and fully hers.

She pasted the caption beneath it.

She read it once. Then again. Then clicked “Share.”

She didn’t stay to refresh. Didn’t open the comments. She didn’t need to. The moment wasn’t in the reaction. It was in the act.

Because for once, she wasn’t releasing a song to prove something.

She was releasing it to reclaim something.

And whatever the world decided to do with it—project onto it, praise it, dissect it, distort it—none of that could touch what the song already meant to her.

It was no longer a wound.

It was a boundary.

A truth.

A beginning.

And tonight, it belonged to everyone.

But it started with her.

The song dropped at midnight.

No teaser. No countdown. No behind-the-scenes video stitched into a carousel of press-ready moments. Just a black-and-white photo, a caption quiet enough to feel handwritten, and the kind of timestamp that only matters when you’re brave enough to let the world hear you break.

And still—it spread like wildfire pretending to be a whisper.

By 12:07, LOML was trending worldwide on X.

By 12:19, a fan account had paired the leaked demo with old footage—Fernanda at nineteen, laughing too hard, pulling her mic cord like it owed her something, the words “you’re the loss of my life” echoing over it like a last confession.

By 12:42, Spotify’s algorithm cracked. A curated playlist updated without warning: New Music Worth Crying To.

And by 1:00 a.m., the narrative had arrived. Gentler this time. But still—inescapable.

She didn’t sleep the night LOML came out. Not because she was nervous or afraid, not because she was waiting for reactions or watching the numbers climb—she’d done all that before, in past lives, in louder eras. She stayed awake because something in her refused to close. It wasn’t adrenaline; it wasn’t pride. It felt more like her body was giving her space to stay present in the quiet. To feel it as it happened. To witness herself without looking away. The post was still up. A black square, centered with soft white serif text—her handwriting digitized, still imperfect, like ink that had bled too long into the page. i lived it. that was enough. No caption. No tags. Just that. And the link. The song sat on every streaming platform with no playlist placement, no banner rollout. It just… existed. Like a wound left open, trusting the world not to touch it.

She sat on her bedroom floor, back against the edge of the bed, knees drawn in, the blue light of her laptop flickering against the soft skin beneath her jaw. The air felt thick—not suffocating, just weighted, like the kind of silence that follows a long cry or the final scene of a film that refuses to tie things up neatly. She didn’t refresh the streaming stats. Didn’t open Spotify. Didn’t check TikTok. She had a pretty good idea of what was coming. But the first notification buzzed anyway—Ava. Just the name on her phone, a message she didn’t read right away. Then a few more. People from the past. One from a producer she hadn’t worked with since 2017. Another from someone who had ignored her last three texts. “You okay?” “This one feels… raw.” “You didn’t have to gut us like that.” “It’s beautiful.” She didn’t answer.

Her hands were still clasped loosely in her lap, fingertips brushing her knuckles, her mind somewhere in the space between the studio and the release—between the moment she wrote it and the moment the world claimed it. A strange grief had followed its release. Not because it was gone, but because now it belonged to other people. To their stories. To their edits. To their commentaries. It wasn’t just hers anymore. And somehow, she was okay with that. Because deep down, she knew she had written it for herself first. And that had to be enough.

By morning, the internet was ablaze. Twitter threads dissected every lyric. “Who’s the love of her life?” “Is this about Chris?” “No way—this is giving Joe Burrow energy.” Fernanda didn’t bother correcting them. She’d learned by now that people didn’t want the truth. They wanted a version of it that fit their narrative. TikTok was worse—girls in bathrooms crying, lighting candles, whispering the lyrics over montages of exes, first loves, faded text messages. Some duetted the bridge like it was a prayer. One video used her spoken-word poem over childhood footage of two best friends who no longer spoke. Another stitched the line “the song was mine before it was yours” over a screen recording of an unanswered DM. It was everywhere.

Spotify emailed the label. Apple Music wanted to feature it. NPR reached out for an interview. One journalist wrote, “Letrán has shed the glitter and left us with blood.” Her label left a voicemail: “It’s exploding. Do we want to talk visuals? Should we prep a short film? Maybe a stripped acoustic version? Let’s strategize—this could be big.” She deleted the voicemail.

She went out that afternoon with no team, no glam, just a hoodie and a pair of sunglasses she hadn’t worn since her last tour. No destination—just distance from her phone, from the leak, from the questions in her own head. She ended up at a quiet café two blocks from her place. No music. No noise. Just the hiss of the espresso machine and the low murmur of strangers’ lives. She ordered a tea she wouldn’t drink and sat in the corner with a paperback she didn’t open. She didn’t need distraction. She needed stillness.

A girl sitting at the next table kept glancing over. Early twenties, maybe younger. Alone. Nervous. And then, eventually, brave enough to stand up and walk toward her. “Sorry,” she said, voice low, fingers gripping the strap of her tote. “I don’t wanna bother you. I just… that song? LOML? It felt like you cracked something open. And I don’t know how, but it made me feel like I wasn’t crazy. For leaving someone I still loved.” Fernanda looked at her—really looked. The girl didn’t want a photo. Didn’t ask for a signature. She just wanted to be seen. “You’re not,” Fernanda said, simply. The girl nodded once. No drama. No introduction. She walked out the door like nothing had happened. But for Fernanda, something had.

She stayed at the table long after her tea went cold. Still didn’t touch the book. But this time, she wasn’t just sitting in silence. She was processing. All this time, she’d been afraid the leak would misrepresent her. That her unfinished words would be taken out of context. That saying too much, too soon, would be the thing that undid her. But that stranger hadn’t cared about rollout plans or polish. She cared about the truth in it. Maybe Fernanda hadn’t messed up. Maybe she had just spoken from a place people weren’t used to hearing her speak from anymore.

She opened her Notes app. And without thinking, typed: is it cool that i said all that? is it too soon to do this yet? She stared at the words for a while. They weren’t a caption. Not yet a verse. But they felt like something. A thread. A door. A start. She saved them without editing. And for the first time since the leak, she didn’t feel like she’d lost control of the story. She felt like she’d just written the next line of it.

That night, the clip leaked. The studio video—the one she hadn’t posted, hadn’t planned to—had made its way online. She didn’t blame anyone. She didn’t even know who uploaded it. All she knew was that it was there, and that it didn’t feel like a betrayal. It felt like someone had wanted the world to see what they saw. No edits. No lighting tricks. Just her, sitting at the piano, her voice a little shaky at first but full of something unnameable. She wasn’t trying to be perfect. She was just trying to be. It spread like wildfire. The words raw, real, stripped, undone trended by sunrise. And still, she said nothing. She didn’t tweet. Didn’t repost. Didn’t explain. Because what could she say that wasn’t already in the song?

By the next afternoon, her inbox had mutated. Brands. Talk shows. A podcast she admired. The Grammys, suddenly curious. A flood of interest from people who hadn’t cared for two years. Her label scheduled a quiet meeting. No pressure, they said. Just a brainstorm. A light suggestion. A world tour. They slid the folder across the glass table, filled with cities, venues, merch prototypes, setlists that pulled from eras she no longer recognized. They talked in upbeat tones about reintroducing her, about momentum, about capitalizing on the moment. She nodded, flipped through the pages, smiled at the right cues. But all she could think about was the song. How simple it was. How quiet. How true. And how she wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to tour, or just… be.

She excused herself before the meeting ended. Said she needed to think. Said she had somewhere to be. She didn’t. She went back to the vocal room instead. Sat down at the upright piano. Pressed record on her phone, not to write something new, but to remember how it felt. The way the keys sounded like breath. The way the silence in between was a kind of language too.

By the third day, the noise wasn’t louder—it was sharper. Less awe, more analysis. Less love, more speculation. And the thing about being quiet for too long is that when you finally say something, people think it means everything. Fernanda knew this part. The pattern. The cycle. The “what does it mean?” phase. The “who is it about?” phase. The “has she changed or is she broken?” phase. But even knowing what was coming didn’t soften the ache in her chest when someone tagged her in a post that read: This isn’t the old Fernanda. She used to be fire. Unapologetic. This feels like heartbreak softened her. Another: She used to be fun. Now she’s just sad.

She read them without blinking. Not because she was immune. But because she didn’t want to give them anything more than that. What they didn’t understand was that she hadn’t gotten sad. She had gotten real. The world had loved her when she was chaos—2016 Fernanda in glitter boots, mascara-smudged, kissing strangers in bathroom mirrors, showing up at parties with headlines waiting before she even left. The girl they could mock, adore, cancel, revive. She had been messy. Loud. Deliciously destructible.

But then came the pause. The heartbreak. The growth. And Chris—stable, older, endlessly patient. He had offered her peace. Not perfection, not rescue. Just a mirror held still. And for a while, she wanted to live in that stillness. She had softened—not because he made her, but because for the first time, she could. Now, two years later, people looked at that softness like it was evidence of defeat. Like growth was something to be ashamed of.

She didn’t know who she was supposed to be anymore. Too much and not enough. Too wild and too quiet. Too glittery to be deep, too introspective to be fun. Too emotional for pop. Too pop for emotion. And that’s why she couldn’t write. That’s why she hadn’t finished a song in months. Because every time she sat at the piano, every time she opened a notebook or pulled out her phone, she heard them. The fans, the critics, the voices in her own head. Demanding she pick a lane. Pick a mask. Pick a version. And she didn’t know how to do that anymore.

Her phone lit up again. A new voicemail. She almost didn’t check it. But something in her hand moved before her brain did. It was her mom. Just her voice, soft, steady, filled with that kind of love that didn’t need translation. “Mija… no tienes que ser todo para todos. Just come home when you’re ready.”

That was it. No lecture. No strategy. Just home.

She didn’t cry right away. Not until the message played a second time. And then it came—not loud, not violent. Just one clean breath that caught in her chest

She hadn’t planned on staying awake, hadn’t set an alarm or pressed her phone to her chest like she used to on album nights, but sleep never came—not because she was anxious, not because she was waiting for validation, but because something in her refused to power down, like her body was holding open the door to this moment, daring her to sit with the strange, sacred quiet of it all.

The post was still there, untouched on her feed: black square, soft white serif text in her digitized handwriting that looked like it had been bled into the screen from a page too long folded in her coat pocket—“i lived it. that was enough.” No caption. No rollout. No strategy. Just the song. Just the link. Just the moment, left bare.

The air in her bedroom felt heavy—not in the way grief presses, but like something important had just happened and her body was still trying to catch up, still trying to file it somewhere between memory and meaning.

She sat on the floor with her back pressed against the bedframe, knees drawn in tight, her hoodie sleeves tucked between her fists, the soft buzz of the refrigerator the only sound in the distance as she stared at the quiet light of her open laptop, refusing to check the stats, refusing to open Spotify or read the early reactions, because deep down, she already knew what they’d say—she could feel it building online the way a storm gathers pressure in your bones before you hear the thunder.

And then it happened. The first buzz. Ava’s name on her screen, a name that always felt like a lifeline—but this time, she didn’t open the message right away. Then came another, and another. Some were from people she hadn’t heard from in months, others from collaborators who’d once ghosted her only to resurface now that the song had cracked something open.

The texts weren’t cruel—they were reverent, admiring, well-meaning. But even the kindness made her flinch.

“You okay?”

“This feels so raw.”

“I don’t know how you did that.”

“You didn’t just write a song. You opened a door.”

“This is it. This is the one.”

She didn’t respond. She didn’t want to make it real with words. Not yet.

There was a strange grief blooming in her chest—not because the song had been released, but because it was no longer just hers. It now belonged to a million other moments, to strangers who would use it to soundtrack endings she hadn’t lived, to fans who would assign it to romances she never confirmed, to Twitter threads and aesthetic TikToks and comment sections that would chew on it like it was evidence instead of art.

And just as she was almost able to let herself breathe, her screen lit up again—Ava, this time with a single sentence that made her heart lurch without reason:

someone leaked the studio video.

She clicked before she could think, before she could brace, and there it was—her in the vocal room, sitting at the upright piano, hunched slightly, hair tied up messily, hoodie falling off one shoulder, and that voice—not rehearsed, not belted, not produced, but fragile and unvarnished, trembling slightly on the high notes, her fingers playing cautiously like she wasn’t sure yet if she deserved to be heard.

She watched it once in complete stillness.

Then again, this time slower, with her breath caught just beneath her collarbone.

She hadn’t even saved that version of the clip. She wasn’t angry it existed—wasn’t even sure how it got out—but there was a particular kind of ache that came with seeing yourself at your most exposed through someone else’s lens, especially when you hadn’t given the world permission to look.

The reactions were instant and relentless.

The clip was everywhere by morning, embedded into fan pages, reposted by musicians she admired, dissected in soft-voiced YouTube essays that paused and rewound her falter like it was sacred, captioned by strangers with phrases like “real music is back” and “this is what pop used to feel like.”

She still said nothing.

Didn’t tweet. Didn’t repost. Didn’t issue a thank-you or an explanation or even a half-smile emoji in her Instagram story. She didn’t need to, because she knew anything she said would flatten it—would reduce the moment to content, to currency, to spin.

By the second day, her inbox had evolved into something she didn’t recognize. There were invitations—from the brands who had quietly dropped her during the quiet years, from the talk shows that had once framed her heartbreak as clickbait, from the Grammy team that had barely returned her calls after her last album missed a nomination. Everyone wanted a piece now. Everyone had a new angle. Everyone was ready to call it a comeback—like she hadn’t been here the whole time, quietly surviving in plain sight.

Her label asked for a meeting.

They kept it “low-pressure,” in that carefully engineered way corporate people say low-pressure when what they really mean is you owe us now. They brought pastries. Water bottles in glass. Slideshows and soft smiles and a folder with the word “TOUR” printed across the tab.

She flipped through it slowly—dates, venues, international flights, staged merch prototypes, a moodboard for a live visual that looked more like a funeral than a concert.

They pitched it like a celebration, like a return to something she wasn’t sure she missed.

She smiled where she was supposed to. Nodded once.

Then, without making a scene, she excused herself mid-sentence. Said she had another call. Said she needed to breathe.

She didn’t.

She went back to the studio instead. Slipped into the same vocal booth where LOML had been born. Sat down at the piano, placed her phone beside her, and recorded nothing. She didn’t even play. She just sat there, her fingers resting on the keys like they were bones she was relearning how to move.

And in that silence—full, heavy, honest—she finally admitted what had been buzzing in the background since the night the song went live.

It wasn’t the attention that scared her.

It was the expectation.

The fear that the world would now want more.

And not just more music.

More her.

And she wasn’t sure she had that version to give anymore.

Not because she didn’t want to. But because she didn’t know which version they wanted. The firestarter? The ghost? The girl in the black hoodie whispering into a demo mic? The woman who quietly let go?

They had all been her once.

But she wasn’t sure who she was now.

And maybe that—not the leak, not the praise, not the plans—was what finally made her feel like she couldn’t move.

Because even in the aftermath of telling the truth, she still didn’t know what to do with it.

Joe had slept like he always did—too little, too light—waking to the familiar sound of morning playlists bleeding through the kitchen wall, the kind of sonic wallpaper that marked time without meaning to, and even as the team group chat filled with memes, inside jokes, and training schedules he usually skimmed without thinking, something in him paused the moment his thumb hovered over a YouTube link, one without a caption, just a thumbnail with her face washed in golden light and a softness in her eyes that looked nothing like performance and everything like confession.

He didn’t open it, not right away, not when he told himself it probably wasn’t about him, not when he muttered something under his breath about ego and projection and how the world didn’t revolve around coincidences and chemistry and two people colliding at a party once, but his logic collapsed quietly under the weight of what he already knew—her voice, not the one piped through arenas or radio edits, but the one that lingered after the crowd went home, the one that asked about Rob and laughed like she didn’t trust herself to laugh out loud.

It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t nothing, but it was real in a way that felt unspeakable, which made it worse, because real things—quiet, unexpected, unscripted things—were harder to forget, especially when they arrived like echoes that didn’t know when to stop bouncing off the inside of your chest.

He pressed play with the volume low, still barefoot, still shirtless, the morning still gray and unfinished around him, and as the first notes spilled out, not loud but immediate, like someone whispering a secret you weren’t sure you deserved to hear, he listened—not like a fan or a friend or even a ghost of something almost-was, but like someone who had been mentioned without being named.

By the time the chorus came, he was already sitting at the edge of the couch, not blinking, not thinking, the phone still in his hand like a dare he hadn’t fully accepted, and though the lyrics never said his name, though the verses never gave away their location or time stamp, something in the way she said momentary felt like it had been plucked from a conversation they never got around to finishing.

In the locker room hours later, when one of the rookies asked if he’d seen the song blowing up, he said no—just heard it once—and maybe that was technically true, but the melody had embedded itself in the space just behind his ribs, looping faintly beneath everything else like the hum of a fridge in an otherwise quiet kitchen.

—

They made her sanitize her hands twice before stepping inside, the smell of disinfectant sharp against the filtered air of a stadium that still carried the breath of other people’s noise, and as she walked forward—coat pulled tight, mask halfway down, hair tucked behind her ears like she was trying not to be seen by a world that had already memorized her face—Fernanda let the stillness of it wash over her in pieces, each echo of her boots against concrete a reminder that this place was built for something far louder than she was ready to be.

“Just take it in,” her manager had said that morning with a rehearsed optimism that tried not to sound like pressure, but she knew the difference, could feel it in the space between words, could hear it in the way he said we’re not locking anything in yet like they weren’t already having meetings and whispering about the comeback like it was inevitable, like it was owed.

She didn’t say anything, not when they passed stage markers in neon tape, not when someone—too young to remember her debut but old enough to fake the reverence—gestured toward the rafters and asked if she could imagine the opening night, because imagining was easy, and that was the problem; it was the feeling that tripped her up, the way her body remembered things her mind hadn’t caught up to yet—the adrenaline, the exhaustion, the way your name sounded differently when screamed by a stadium versus whispered by someone who didn’t want anything from you.

This was just one stop, one maybe in a string of maybes, cities bleeding together like time zones and turbulence, none of it announced, none of it confirmed, because if she said it out loud, it would start becoming real, and she hadn’t decided yet if she was ready for that kind of permanence again—if she could walk back into a world that only wanted the version of her that could set a room on fire without flinching.

Still, the silence followed her.

She stepped through another gate, into another tunnel, into another breathless corridor that smelled like sweat and last season’s dreams, and as she tilted her head back to look at the curve of the bleachers, that precise moment—the one before she turned the corner—felt like it should have lasted longer, because the next thing she knew, she was colliding softly into someone else, not painfully, not dramatically, just enough to make her stop moving.

He wasn’t wearing a mask—just a black hoodie and gray joggers, eyes wide for a second before softening into something quieter, something familiar, like recognition without all the weight of expectation.

“Fernanda?”

Joe.

She hadn’t rehearsed this, hadn’t prepared for it, hadn’t built the wall she usually kept between her and anything remotely personal, so the way she said hey came out slower, less guarded, more human than she intended.

They stood there in a narrow hallway lit by motion-sensor fluorescence, surrounded by crates and coiled cable and years of metaphorical noise, and she realized in that moment that she didn’t feel small here—not because she was ready, but because he wasn’t asking her to be.

“I didn’t know you were in Cincinnati,” he said, voice low and measured, like he didn’t want to startle whatever thread had just quietly connected them.

She nodded. “Just for today. Venue stuff.”

He gestured slightly toward the field behind her, one hand still in his pocket. “For the tour?”

“That’s what people think,” she said, not quite confirming, not quite denying.

Joe smiled—barely. “You don’t usually let people think.”

She looked at him closely, how real he looked in all this cold steel and absence of cameras, how unlike the internet version of himself he was, and said, “They’re gonna think whatever they want either way.”

Neither of them said much after that, just stood in the hallway like they were figuring out what to do with the timing, with the fact that this had happened again, naturally, without press or strategy or a calendar invite.

“You here for practice?” she asked eventually.

“Sort of. Logistics.”

She nodded slowly, her fingers tightening slightly around the tea cup that had long since gone lukewarm. “So we’re both here for things that may or may not happen.”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

Another long silence, but not an uncomfortable one—just the kind that came when two people realized they were circling the edge of something neither of them had quite named.

“There’s this deli not far,” he said suddenly, tone casual but body a little too still. “No cameras. Real food. I was gonna grab lunch.”

She tilted her head, not suspicious, just curious, always curious now. “Are you inviting me?”

He shrugged. “Only if you’re hungry.”

She was.

Not for food. For stillness. For something that didn’t need to be documented to be real.

So she said yes.

He didn’t know why he’d asked—not really, not in the way he usually knew things, because he was the kind of person who ran numbers in his head even when no one was asking him to, who double-checked flight times, replayed game footage until the timing was perfect, mapped every choice like it was part of a playbook—but this wasn’t that, this wasn’t planned, this wasn’t calculated, it just came out of his mouth before his brain had the chance to intercept it.

It wasn’t like him, not even close, and the second she said yes—without hesitation, without sarcasm, without armor—he felt the echo of the question in his own chest and wondered what part of him had asked it in the first place.

He wasn’t looking for anything. Not today. Not with her. Not like that.

But there was something about seeing her in this space—not lit up onstage, not composed for cameras, just standing there in a coat that didn’t match the stadium air, clutching a lukewarm cup of tea like it was the only thing anchoring her to the moment—that disarmed him in a way he didn’t fully understand, like someone had hit pause on the usual noise and all he could hear was the silence between them.

And maybe that was what made him say it—not romance, not nerves, but the rare pull of stillness, the kind that didn’t ask anything of him except to be present, which was ironically the one thing he always struggled with when he wasn’t holding a ball or standing under stadium lights.

He wasn’t even sure if it counted as asking her out, not really, not in the way people meant it—there was no script, no intention beyond the moment, just a quiet offer born from the strange, unshakable feeling that they were both carrying something unspoken and maybe, just maybe, it would be easier to hold it in the same room.

And so, even as they started walking—side by side, steps echoing in sync down the cold cement tunnel—he still wasn’t sure what he was doing, but for once, that uncertainty didn’t make him want to retreat; it just made him more aware of her presence, of the fact that she hadn’t looked away, that she was still here, and that maybe some things didn’t need a reason to happen.

Joe sat in the driver’s seat longer than he meant to, eyes fixed on the street ahead, the quiet hum of the engine the only sound between his thoughts, which were starting to cluster too fast to name, because he couldn’t quite figure out why he’d invited her to lunch in the first place—not really, not in any clear or traceable way that lined up with the way he typically moved through the world, slow and careful and thoughtful, like everything had to pass through three filters before he committed to it.

He wasn’t impulsive by nature, not with his body, not with his career, and especially not with women, and yet something about the way she’d looked standing there in the stadium corridor—low voice, tea in hand, eyes steady but unreadable—had pulled the invitation out of him before his brain had caught up, like his instinct had made the call and his logic was still scrambling to make sense of the play.

It wasn’t attraction in the traditional sense, not the kind that ignites fast and burns out faster, and it wasn’t curiosity either, because he already knew what kind of public story followed her name around—what headlines, what rumors, what noise—but none of that had factored in when he asked her to lunch, because what he was reacting to wasn’t the image of her, it was the silence that seemed to follow her when the image slipped.

And he couldn’t explain why he’d wanted to sit across from her while she wrapped both hands around a chipped coffee cup and leaned back in her seat like she hadn’t been handed a stadium the size of a small country last week, but he had, and the moment had been so simple, so ordinary, so free of spectacle, that it shook something loose in him he hadn’t realized was tight.

Because he was used to pressure, used to attention, used to moving through rooms where everyone expected something, but that lunch hadn’t felt like pressure and hadn’t felt like expectation—it had felt like reprieve, like two people letting their guards rest without saying so, and when she laughed at his fossil metaphor or rolled her eyes at his Batman comment, he felt more like himself than he had in weeks, maybe months, which was stupid and irrational and had no place in the life he was trying to keep disciplined.

Still, he kept replaying the way she’d said, “Bye, Burrow,” like it was a joke and a dare and a memory all at once, and he wondered if she even knew she did that—gave things weight without trying, made ordinary words feel like moments you’d come back to later, after the adrenaline wore off and the silence crept back in.

He wasn’t falling for her. He knew that. It wasn’t that deep—not yet.

But it was something.

And it scared him a little that he didn’t feel the need to define it right away.

Because usually, when something unexpected came into his orbit, he broke it down, labeled it, filed it somewhere safe in his mind—but this time, he didn’t want to dissect it, didn’t want to ruin it with too much clarity, because maybe part of him needed something undefined, unbranded, untouched by the playbook.

So he let the moment sit, undisturbed, and drove off slowly, without music, without a podcast, just his own thoughts filling the space, quiet and sprawling and unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.

“So wait,” Fernanda said, turning in her seat with the kind of ease that didn’t match the weight she carried online, one bare foot tucked under her and her eyes narrowed in mock accusation like she was preparing cross-examination rather than casual conversation, “you just walked up to me in New York and asked about Batman—no ‘hi,’ no ‘hey, loved your performance,’ just straight into the caped crusader?”

Joe glanced at her, barely suppressing the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, the kind of smile that felt almost reluctant, like it didn’t ask for permission to form and didn’t need one, because something about her tone—half teasing, half testing—made him want to hold his own ground but also make space for her, which wasn’t a position he found himself in very often.

“Technically,” he said, voice even, “I said hey.”

“Oh, technically,” she echoed, lifting an eyebrow, already unconvinced.

“And I meant the compliment about the performance,” he added, not quite defensive, just clarifying, because that’s what he did—correct things softly when they veered too far from the truth—“I just thought it’d be funnier if I asked about Robert Pattinson first.”

He said it with the same casual tone he always used when he didn’t want to admit he cared how it landed, but inside, he was already analyzing how strange it was that he’d even brought up Robert that night, how weirdly comfortable he’d felt jumping into a random inside joke with a woman he’d never spoken to before, how rare it was for him to feel that kind of pull without calculating what it meant.

“So instead of being charming,” she said, unimpressed, “you went with cryptic nerd?”

“Exactly,” he replied with a dry nod, because it was easier to own it than to explain what he couldn’t, like the fact that he had absolutely no idea why he’d walked over to her in the first place, only that he had watched her sing like the whole room didn’t exist, and by the time she was done, something in him had shifted without his consent.

“You realize I genuinely thought you were joking,” she said, her voice trailing into a quiet laugh that didn’t try to impress, didn’t need to.

“I wasn’t,” he said simply, “I still want to know if he’s seen the Batmobile.”

She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation, but there was a trace of something softer underneath it—something like curiosity or warmth—and he caught it in the way her mouth twitched before she smiled, the way her shoulders relaxed a fraction like she’d finally let herself be in the car with him and not just a version of herself she kept for the public.

“I should’ve known this would happen,” she said, shaking her head, “I say one thing about knowing Rob at a Vanity Fair shoot and suddenly I’m everyone’s Gotham hotline.”

Joe gave her a solemn nod, playing along, but somewhere deep beneath the surface of his voice was a real admission, one he wasn’t brave enough to name, which was that she could’ve said anything in that interview and he still probably would’ve found an excuse to talk to her.

“To be fair,” he said lightly, “it is important intel.”

“You are so weird,” she muttered, laughing again, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe the person sitting across from her was the same guy they always showed on ESPN highlight reels with unreadable eyes and a frozen mouthguard stare, and he knew she was right—he was weird—but he also knew he liked who he was around her.

“And you hide it behind that whole broody quarterback thing.”

“I’m not broody.”

“You literally spent the first ten minutes of this drive staring at traffic like it insulted your entire family.”

“That’s just me… driving.”

She snorted, hand brushing through her hair as she looked out the window with the kind of half-smile that made his ribs feel tight in a way he didn’t have a playbook for, and he wondered—really wondered—how the hell they’d even gotten here.

Because the truth was, he didn’t ask people out on a whim, didn’t extend invitations without at least three mental checklists already sorted through, and yet when he saw her in that corridor—tea in hand, voice low, presence unchanged—he had said it without flinching, without calculating, and now here they were.

And if he were being completely honest with himself—which he wasn’t always, not when it came to things like this—he knew that whatever he was doing with Fernanda Letrán didn’t make sense on paper and didn’t belong in the structured, compartmentalized life he tried so hard to maintain.

But it didn’t feel like a mistake.

It felt like he had blinked and something honest had slipped through the cracks of his usual restraint.

And she hadn’t made it easier—not with the way she asked questions that hit too close, or with the way she listened when he answered, or with the way she turned silence into something that didn’t feel empty.

She’d asked him once—half-joking—if he was using her for Rob.

He didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t using her for anything.

He just wanted to be near her voice.

The one she didn’t use on stage.

The one that came out when she wasn’t trying to be Fernanda Letrán™.

And maybe that was the thing.

Maybe he didn’t need to know why he asked her to lunch.

Maybe it didn’t need to be strategic or logical or convenient.

Maybe—for once—he could just follow the part of himself that wasn’t always calculating outcomes, that didn’t need a reason beyond the fact that something about her felt like peace he hadn’t realized he was missing until it showed up in his passenger seat with no shoes on.

And for a guy who always thought two plays ahead, that was saying someting.

Fernanda sat in a gray conference room, one leg crossed neatly over the other, her iced coffee melting too fast on the glass table. She was surrounded by half a dozen people from her label—marketing, A&R, tour production—and they were all excited. Buzzing. Talking at her, not to her.

“So we push ‘LOML’ to radio first week of may, lead with the heartbreak narrative. We already have 2.4 million reels using the bridge line. The story’s writing itself.”

“We’ll start teasing the new album mid-tour, call it her ‘rebirth era’—strong visuals, slow drip.”

“She’s never had a Billboard #1, this is the moment to go full press. Jimmy Fallon, Tiny Desk, Spotify billboards—”

Fernanda blinked, fingers tight around the sweating cup.

She wanted to scream. Or sleep. Or turn into a chair and disappear into the corner of the room.

But instead, she smiled. Polite. Controlled. “I don’t want the story to be about a heartbreak album,” she said softly.

They didn’t hear her.

Or maybe they did and chose not to.

“Of course,” someone said, “but we can lean into the emotion. People are really responding to the honesty. It’s a return to Fernanda.”

“Was I gone?” she asked quietly.

A pause. A few polite laughs.

The meeting continued.

She sat still, but inside, she could feel the splintering. That quiet pull between who she used to be, who they wanted her to be again, and the strange version of herself that had emerged in a Cincinnati SUV asking if it was okay to not want the noise.

When the meeting ended, she stood last.

No one noticed.

She left her coffee on the table, still mostly full, and didn’t say goodbye.

Her apartment greeted her with stillness, the kind she usually sought out after a long day, but tonight it pressed in differently, like the quiet wasn’t resting beside her but watching her instead. She stepped inside without ceremony, dropping her bag near the door and slipping off her boots in slow, unbothered motion, her body already curling inward as if to protect something tender she hadn’t named yet. The living room was dark except for the faint glow of city lights behind the curtains, and she didn’t bother turning on the lamps. She didn’t need the distraction of television or the noise of another half-ignored playlist.

Instead, she pulled the softest blanket from the arm of the couch and tucked herself into the corner like a thought folding in on itself, her knees drawn up, her shoulders tense beneath the fabric like armor that didn’t quite fit anymore. Outside, the rain had started up again, the steady kind that didn’t demand attention but refused to be ignored—like static gently wrapping itself around the city.

Her phone rested in her hand more out of habit than intention, and although there were no notifications from him, no missed messages, Joe was still in her head—the cadence of his voice, the unbothered rhythm of his laugh, that unexpected line in the car: “Maybe you’re different now.” It hadn’t been delivered as a judgment or even a compliment. It had just been a fact, one he spoke without ceremony, and that simplicity was what made it stay.

He hadn’t tried to fix her. He hadn’t tried to solve anything. He had just sat in that car with her like he didn’t need her to perform for him, like whatever version of her existed in that moment was already enough. And in a life filled with people who constantly measured her against the noise she used to make, that kind of attention felt like a rare species—quiet, unintrusive, almost fossil-like in its stillness, something buried and precious and meant to be discovered gently, not mined for headlines.

She closed her eyes, trying to recall the exact moment she had felt safe enough to slip off her heels and fold one leg beneath her while he drove, the way her laugh had landed without being dressed up, the comfort of not being required to impress. But she couldn’t remember deciding to let her guard down. It had just… happened. Like something ancient resurfacing without force—just there, as if it had always been waiting under the surface.

Was that what being seen was supposed to feel like? Not the spotlight or the applause or the perfectly lit magazine spreads, but the quiet act of being witnessed without pretense, of sitting across from someone who didn’t need a reason to like you, who didn’t ask for the version of you the world had decided to remember.

She looked at her phone again. Still no text. And strangely, still okay. Maybe this wasn’t a story she needed to control, or a moment she had to narrate into something bigger than it was. Maybe for once, it didn’t need a hook or a headline, didn’t need to be labeled a comeback or a redemption arc.

Maybe—

Her phone buzzed.

A message lit up the screen.

Joe: did you end up recording more today?

A smile pulled at her lips before she even realized it, the kind that came from being remembered without obligation. She typed something quickly, then paused, deleted it, and typed again—something truer.

Fernanda: Not really. Just thinking a lot. Might write tomorrow.

There was a pause on his end, the kind that didn’t feel anxious but respectful, as if he knew the tempo of her thoughts and didn’t want to interrupt the rhythm.

Then:

Joe: thinking counts. Want to hang this weekend? No Batman talk this time. Maybe.

She laughed quietly, the sound muffled by the pillow she pressed against her mouth, not because she needed to hide it, but because it felt warm enough to hold onto. He didn’t press. He didn’t charm. He just asked.

She stared at the message for a few seconds longer than necessary, then answered:

Fernanda: maybe.

And for the first time in what felt like years, “maybe” didn’t feel like a non-answer or a soft way of saying no. It didn’t feel like a detour or an escape hatch. It felt like a beginning. Not a dramatic one, not a perfect one—just quiet and honest and exactly enough.

A fossil of something new, still forming.

And this time, she was going to let it take its time.

The lights were too bright again.

Fernanda sat in the makeup chair with a croissant in her hand that she hadn’t bitten into, skin dewy under layers of tinted moisturizer, her hair curled into the exact same soft waves she’d worn on two magazine covers and one album rollout poster. She could hear someone arguing softly behind a closed dressing room door—something about timing, or lighting, or both—but she didn’t turn.

She was used to chaos happening around her like weather.

“Three minutes,” someone called out.

She nodded automatically, eyes locked on her reflection.

The woman staring back didn’t look tired. She looked… composed. Polished. A version of herself she’d learned how to shape like a second skin. And lately, it felt like that version was the only one the world still recognized.

It had been weeks since LOML dropped, and the reaction had been louder than anyone predicted—viral clips, dissected bridge lyrics, interviews packed with headlines. The song wasn’t even finished when it leaked, but somehow, it had spoken louder than anything she’d released in years. She was booked out. Shoots. Panels. Press. Everyone wanted to know what she had to say now.

As if healing had a soundbite.

And yet… somewhere in the chaos, she had started to feel herself again. Not the bold, glitter-gloss version the world used to orbit. Not the one who lived in push notifications and award show reactions. But someone quieter. A woman trying to make peace with her own pace. A woman not afraid to want something simpler.

Her phone buzzed in her lap.

Joe: you look calm as hell. That interviewer’s voice would’ve sent me into hibernation.

Her lips curled—barely.

Fernanda: Don’t tempt me. I’ll fake a signal loss and walk out.

Joe: What a legend

Fernanda: You’re a bad influence.

Joe: Someone has to be. Eat something when you wrap, yeah?

She didn’t reply right away. She didn’t need to.

He wasn’t looking for banter. He was checking in. Quietly. Consistently. Without expectation.

And that—whatever it was—felt like a fossil she hadn’t dared to excavate in a long time. Not a relic of who she used to be, but something preserved. Waiting. Something real beneath all the layers.

He didn’t ask for the girl from 2016. He didn’t try to remind her of what she used to sound like or why people used to listen. He saw this version—frayed, cautious, unfinished—and didn’t flinch.

That was rare.

That was enough.

Joe hadn’t expected her to pick up—he really hadn’t—not because he thought she was brushing him off, but because he knew what the end of a day like hers looked like, knew the kind of exhaustion that settled deep in the body when you’d spent hours being watched, heard, dissected, and maybe even adored, but still came home with a hollowness the world couldn’t see, and so when her face lit up the screen—glam smudged, hair pinned back, eyes tired but not dim—he felt something in his chest settle, like tension unwinding without being told to.

“Hey,” she said, voice scratchy in a way that made it sound like the day had taken everything except the truth.

“You made it,” he replied, the words simple but full, like he was glad just to see her land on the other side of everything.

And as they talked—banter about interviews and dumb questions, something soft about soulmates and miso soup—he listened more than he spoke, not because he didn’t have things to say, but because he’d learned that sometimes the most important thing a person could offer was not a perfectly timed reply, but space, real space, to be heard without interruption or expectation.

But under all of that—under the hoodie, the quiet grin, the half-jokes about cheekbones and tired souls—his mind kept moving in that slow, steady rhythm it always fell into before camp, before pressure started building again, before the countdown clock in his body reminded him that he didn’t have the same kind of time to give away as other people did.

His leg wasn’t one hundred percent. Not yet. The team was watching closely, trainers keeping tabs on every lateral move, every ounce of weight he put into a throw. He’d been here before—rehabbing, proving, staying even-keeled—but this time felt different, not worse exactly, just heavier. Like everything he said yes to now needed to be earned twice over. And so even as he watched her laugh—genuine and worn-out and real—some part of him whispered, What are you doing?

Because there was a version of this—of her—that lived entirely in fantasy, in screen-lit conversations and lazy texts and the occasional lunch that didn’t require explaining. And then there was the real thing. The real her. The one who didn’t ask for much but deserved way more than just good intentions and a half-available man rebuilding his throwing mechanics.

Still, the words left him before he could stop them, not because he was trying to lock anything down, but because something in the silence between them made him want to be honest without angling toward an outcome.

“I want to see you again.”

And the moment it hung in the air—heavy, clean, irreversible—he felt that flicker of doubt, the one that always came later, always quiet, always wearing reason’s voice: Did you just offer to stretch your already razor-thin recovery schedule to fly across the country for someone you’ve only seen in person once?

That’s not who he was. He wasn’t reckless. He wasn’t twenty-two anymore. He didn’t throw himself into things blindly—not relationships, not risks, not flights that might cost more than they gave. And yet, here he was, offering—not to fix, not to impress, not even to date—but just to be present, just to show up in the way no one ever seemed to show up for her.

And when she paused—when her eyes softened and her voice came slower, guarded—he didn’t flinch, didn’t try to close the distance with charm or reassurance. He just waited.

Because if there was one thing he understood better now, after years of being on camera and in huddles and under scrutiny, it was that trust wasn’t about speed or intensity or declarations that didn’t leave room for the other person’s uncertainty. It was about time. About showing up when it wasn’t convenient, about saying the thing and letting it breathe, about not trying to fill every silence with control.

So when she said she didn’t have time for a relationship, he didn’t fold or fumble. He just nodded. Not because he was unaffected, but because he meant what he said—no pressure, no labels, just more of this.

And “more of this” didn’t mean throwing off his rehab schedule or ignoring the expectations that were already stacked up against him when the season kicked in. It didn’t mean turning her into a distraction or pretending he could build something with someone while pretending his body wasn’t still recalibrating under the surface. It just meant he was willing. That he wasn’t afraid of slow. That he didn’t need a label to keep caring.

Because maybe that’s what steadiness looked like now—not big gestures or certainty, but offering to sit in the gray with someone without needing to turn it technicolor.

And when she finally said, “Yeah. I’d like that,” he didn’t grin or pump a fist or breathe out like it was a touchdown.

He just let it land. Quietly. Solidly. Like something he didn’t have to outrun or chase.

Because there were plays to memorize, throws to rebuild, headlines that would surface the minute his cleats hit turf again. But in this moment, on this couch, with her voice still ringing soft in his ears and no need to decide anything beyond this screen, he let himself feel what was real.

And real didn’t need to be rushed.

[humming-fly]

It's dark Arthur, pull out your lighter.

(practically I know john is most easily portrayed as a normal hooded guy with a mask but deep down my heart of hearts still belongs to mergo's wet nurse)

[rongzhi]

context: i was reading the lyric annotations by the song authors to their song "Butcher Vanity" (content warning for cannibalism if u (or anyone) decides to check it out)

im not very familiar with douyins. do u know the douyin shes talking about here? or maybe the sound effect?

also im really sorry if the image turns out really low-res. i wrote in image description just in case

The "huh" douyin sound effect can be heard in the song such as at ~1:52.

The douyin mentioned in the annotations is this one:

(Caption: "Can't let the neighbors think I can't accord to eat pork ribs")

The notes say the cleaver sounds is mixed into the song, and while I can sort of hear a cleaver near the end, I don't know if it's from this specific video. Seems unlikely, as there's a BGM both in this douyin (the most popular version) as well as the douyins that are slightly older but use the same joke. More likely, the cleaver sfx is just any cleaver on a chopping board, as they pretty much all are going to sound that way.

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam. A potentially stupid question. Image descriptions for screen readers. Do they work the same way for audio and video? As in are they needed or helpful? I'm finding conflicting answers when I search for this.

Not at all a stupid question! I think sometimes it can vary by community, to be honest.

Screen-reader users, visually impaired folk, and others for whom IDs are particularly relevant, feel free to chime in; I'm going to ramble and you likely have more useful stuff to say. Remember to do it in reblogs or notes, as I don't post asks sent in response to other asks.

I'm not visually impaired, and I don't use a screen reader and thus am not really able to speak with firsthand authority. In the past, when I've asked, I've heard that in-post text is better than alt-text for images; even if that stops being the case, I prefer to use in-post text because there are people who aren't screen-reader users who also like the IDs. I do too, actually. And generally I've heard that video as well as image should be described. I don't do straight audio generally, but when I do, if it's a song I don't bother because the title is there and lyrics are googleable, if it's speech I like to see/give a transcript.

I like when videos have descriptions especially, because I am almost never in a position to play a video I see on my dash. If the video doesn't autoplay I don't want to hit play because then it will load with audio and I'm usually either a) somewhere I can't have audio or b) already listening to something and unwilling to turn it off. If the video autoplays it's muted, but if it's audio-heavy there's the same issue. So if someone posts a video without a description/transcript, unless it has captions, I can't engage.

There are a lot of guides out there for how to write IDs and I kind of think, based on conversations I've had, most of them are bullshit by people who don't use screen readers. In my experience, which is not universal but is relatively comprehensive, people who can't see an image often do not want a precise objective description as we're instructed to provide.

There's a great essay that touches on this, Against Access, where the writer, who is Deafblind, talks about how he doesn't want a diagram, he wants an emotional evocation.

Why are you telling me, telling me, telling me things? Your job isn’t to deliver this whole room to me on a silver platter. I don’t want the silver platter. I want to attack this room. I want to own it, just like how the sighted people here own it. Or, if the room isn’t worth owning, then I want to grab whatever I find worth stealing.

I've had people get shitty with me about putting "feelings" into my IDs, but the majority of people for whom those IDs are necessary have told me they like it because, for example, saying "She looks like she's about to commit violence" is a subjective opinion but conveys something that "A woman is standing with arms upraised and a frown on her face" does not. And if you're describing an image but there's not a ton of meaning to it, describing it in clinical detail is wasting time. A paragraph describing a fortysomething white guy and all the clothing he's wearing and the room he's in is not as helpful, on occasion, as simply saying "This is a photograph of me in my bedroom." It depends on context, which is your call to make, and the only way to get good at that is to do it.

But again: this is my experience with my readers, and even John Lee Clark, quoted above, doesn't speak for his whole community. So I would suggest that the best way to get an answer for this is just to ask your readers what they'd prefer. If you have friends who use screenreaders, ask them. If you don't, or if you don't get a response from your readers, I would do what you feel is best until someone tells you otherwise, and then be gracious and discuss it with them so you can better understand their needs. In my experience, when someone is genuinely trying to make a more welcoming space for disabilities -- as opposed to making virtue-signal attempts to Be The Perfect Ally -- they get a lot of slack when they don't get it exactly right. It is better to make a welcoming space for people to feel safe telling you that you fucked up than it is to pretend you're never going to fuck up.

So yeah, as someone who is more or less fully sighted, that's my two cents, but if you really want to know what your readers want, you know...I'd ask them. :) Good luck, either way.

[peterbscaprisweatpants]

[image description: a version of the "Girls When" meme is captioned with the quote, "But I did it for love, baby. Mike Costa", from Costa's author's note in the final issue of Costa's Venom (2016) run, #165. end image description.]

[imaginependergast]

New Pendergast newsletter

It's so nice to have something after Angel of Vengeance. In this one the authors ask DALL-E to come up with AI images of Pendergast and co. plus some captions, also AI generated.

Going through the pics and the authors commentary...

The first pic is of Pendergast sitting by the fire drinking absinthe in a rocks glass with a single votive candle in a glass on an end table. As Preston points out, "He looks like a male underwear model from the 90s; the hair isn’t right; and he’s way too young". Hard agree. But, as the author suggests, he does look good for a younger!Pendergast. Hair is still wrong, though.

Next we have Constance throwing Diogenes into a volcano. It's bad. For one her hair is way too long (as is the case in all the pics she's generated in), her dress is wrong, the background is bad, and Diogenes is dressed like Count Olaf in the Series of Unfortunate Events books. And yes, as Child says, he looks like he's falling "while acting out Hamlet’s scene with Yorick’s skull." Also peep those terrible AI hands.

Next up is Vinnie who is apparently a more saggy version of Dennis Farina. As the authors say, he has way too much hair, needs to be a bit heavier, and get a shave.

Then we have Leng in his lab. His face is sort of half-skeletonized but I think he actually looks like a Fallout ghoul with hair. Also for some reason the lines in his forehead look like the edge of a mask, like the skeleton face is a mask. And of course, AI fingers.

And we have Diogenes. The authors give it a 10/10, with the only real issue being his beard is too long. Personally, I think his good eye being wrong is too noticeable (it's neon green, not hazel) and his shade of hair is a bit too artificially red. It's actually not too far off from the image we got in the last Angel of Vengeance newsletter but here his face is a bit less rounded and his cheekbones are more pronounced. I do think his hair cut and style is better here, though. Hm. Gonna be honest, this nearly works for me. Nearly.

AND then we have Diogenes seducing Constance. Diogenes as played by Henry Cavill. Seriously, dark hair, dark eyes and wearing what looks like a costume piece. Constance also looks like she was pulled from a generic romance novel cover. Semi-hilariously, based on the AI description, Child says, "That shrinking violet is not my Constance.".

Finally we have Constance playing the harpsichord and the harpsichord has her name stamped into the side in ALL CAPS. Fan-fucking-tastic. Doesn't look like her at all. Also it looks like "the back yard of 891 Riverside extended all the way to New Jersey" (Child).

I have to admit it gave me a chuckle, above and beyond it being content. It also seems that, generally, the authors aren't fans of generative AI since they make sure to note that the abilities of the program are built off the backs of scraping art and writing, usually without permission. And honestly, I seriously do not like AI art and writing. As much of it is the issue of permission and potentially causing problems with artists/writers trying to make a living off their trade I just find it soulless. Seriously, if you ever want fanmade Pendergast stuff, there's artists and fic writers (like me!) that are interested in commissions or maybe even requests.

Still kinda enjoy that mid 20s Pendergast, though.

[mountainsea-chronicles]

Weekly Shanhaijing 2 - Yóng ( 颙 )

Author’s notes under cut.

又东四百里，曰令丘之山，无草木，多火。其南有谷焉，曰中谷，条风自是出。有鸟焉，其状如枭，人面四目而有耳，其名曰颙，其鸣自号也，见则天下大旱。

Four hundred li to the east is [a place] called Lìngqiū mountain. It has no grass or trees and much fire. To the south of it is a valley called the Middle Valley, from whence tendrils of wind flow out. There is a bird whose appearance is like an owl’s, human-faced, four-eyed, and with ears. Its name is Yóng, and it calls its own name.

-From the Classic of Southern Mountains ( 南山经 )

I wandered to a far mountain

where no tree was to be seen

but fires blazed through night and day

and winds whistled through the ravines

There lived a creature in these parts,

making its nest amidst the gale’s howl

Though its face beguiled, its eyes burned bright

and its body was that of an owl’s

And high above this cursèd place

it sang its dissonant song

It rings in my ears yet-

“Yong! Yong! Yong!”

A/N: This week’s one came a bit late, sorry about that! I had a lot on my plate.

It’s complete coincidence that this week’s installment is a bird from the Southern Mountains like last week’s. While I was thinking of what to feature this week, I was reminded of the yóng and wasn’t paying attention to details like that.

Translation

“…the Middle Valley.” - Decided to use the literal translation of the name as opposed to “Zhōng Valley” since it felt more appropriate.

“…tendrils of wind…” - The word “条” is a measure word generally used for things that are long, in strands, etc. This was my best attempt at trying to capture that image in English.

“…it calls its own name.” - “号” means “marker” or something along those lines. An indicator of identity. A more literal translation would be “its call marks/signifies itself,” but I went with “it calls its own name” because that conveys the idea better, in my opinion.

Art

When I picked out this creature, I knew I had to include the description of the area along with it.  The image of this eerily human-faced bird of prey framed by fire and smoke drifting in the wind was just too dramatic to not draw. It’s also quite a hyperbolic way to express the creature’s significance as an omen of drought.

There’s more to it than that. The word for “owl” used here ( 枭, xiāo ) is an onomatopoiea of the word for “reduce” ( 消, same pinyin ), also a component of words like “annihilate” ( 消灭, xiāomiè ) and “disappear” ( 消失, xiāoshī ). Fitting for a scene like this, isn’t it?

As for the owl itself, it’s modelled off an Eurasian eagle owl. I considered a barn owl due to its ( somewhat ) human-looking face, but decided that would be too obvious. I ended up choosing the Eurasian eagle owl due to various other reasons: the mention of the “ears” in the text; the large, powerful appearance; and the fact it can be spotted in the real-world equivalent of its range, down in South China.

Caption

I was at a loss for the caption at first, but then, for whatever reason, I suddenly thought of Shelley’s Ozymandias and various Edgar Allan Poe poems. Hence… this. It’s not meant to be good or anything, if anything, it’s supposed to be kind of cheesy ( as a lot of old poetry tends to be ).

[bestnewshub]

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Let me know if you want a caption or post text for Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

You said:

https://files09.oaiusercontent.com/file-Nfy26vCjErphdwPDh5qPM8?se=2025-06-16T11%3A53%3A42Z&sp=r&sv=2024-08-04&sr=b&rscc=max-age%3D299%2C%20immutable%2C%20private&rscd=attachment%3B%20filename%3DHollywood%2520Flashback%2520%2520Did%2520you%2520know%2520Will%2520Smith%2520was%2520originally%2520offered%2520the%2520lead%2520role%2520in%2520Inception%2520before%2520Leonardo%2520DiCaprio%2521The%2520mind-bending%2520thriller%2520could%25E2%2580%2599ve%2520looked%2520very%2520different.Christopher%2520Nolan%2527s%25202010%2520sci-fi%2520epic%2520n.jpg&sig=N7KaZ%2BcNjDtCvQ971a0ra7tgctkSrujyqsgtbTitx4M%3D

ChatGPT said:

Here are the title, description, and tags for the entertainment post about Will Smith and Inception:

🎬 Title Suggestions:

Will Smith Nearly Starred in ‘Inception’ Before Leonardo DiCaprio

Alternate Reality: Will Smith Was First Choice for Inception

Will Smith Passed on Inception Role Later Taken by DiCaprio

📝 Description:

In a surprising Hollywood revelation, it’s been confirmed that Will Smith was originally offered the lead role in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi masterpiece Inception before it ultimately went to Leonardo DiCaprio. The 2010 mind-bending thriller might have taken a completely different shape had Smith accepted the role. Fans are now left wondering what Inception would have looked like with the Men in Black star diving into dream layers.

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Let me know if you want a shorter Instagram-style caption or story text.

You said:

https://files.oaiusercontent.com/file-YaqAfNCgnuKbWAEysFpZWY?se=2025-06-16T11%3A53%3A59Z&sp=r&sv=2024-08-04&sr=b&rscc=max-age%3D299%2C%20immutable%2C%20private&rscd=attachment%3B%20filename%3DTragic%2520Update%25F0%259F%2595%258A%25EF%25B8%258F%2520Mortal%2520remains%2520of%2520Vijay%2520Rupani%2520recovered%2520and%2520handed%2520over%2520to%2520family%2520following%2520the%2520tragic%2520Air%2520India%2520crash.Authorities%2520confirm%2520identity%2520after%2520intensive%2520rescue%2520and%2520verification%2520efforts.Condolences%2520pour%2520.jpg&sig=YjErsmmLxdV5W7ZVDlxvEucbfbPrF/nF8iwJssd9DAc%3D

ChatGPT said:

Here are the title, description, and tags for the image regarding Vijay Rupani and the reported Air India crash:

🕯️ Title Suggestions:

Vijay Rupani’s Mortal Remains Identified, Handed to Family After Air India Tragedy

Air India Crash: Former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani Among Victims

Nation Mourns: Vijay Rupani Confirmed Dead in Air India Crash

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⚠️ Note: As of my last update, there is no public or verified report confirming the death of Vijay Rupani in an Air India crash. Please verify this information from trusted news sources before sharing, as it could be misinformation or part of an edited or fictionalized post.

You said:

NCR, Mumbai, Delhi Under Rain Watch: IMD Issues Multiple Weather Alerts.

ChatGPT said:

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🌧️ Title Suggestions:

NCR, Mumbai & Delhi on High Rain Alert as IMD Issues Warnings

Heavy Rainfall Alert: IMD Puts NCR, Mumbai & Delhi on Watch

Severe Weather Alert: Multiple Cities Brace for Torrential Rainfall

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The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued multiple weather alerts for NCR, Mumbai, and Delhi amid predictions of intense rainfall, thunderstorms, and localized flooding. Commuters in major urban centers are advised to exercise caution as waterlogging and traffic disruptions are expected. Authorities are on high alert and emergency response teams are being deployed in vulnerable zones. Stay updated and avoid non-essential travel in affected regions.

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Let me know if you'd like short captions for social media or reels.

[ardn631-isobelchilberto-2024]

Week 8 - Photobook Research

For our SDL, we were tasked to go visit a library and research photo books. I visited the AUT library and looked at 3 photo books. Each with a very different vibe. By doing this, I have some ideas of how I want to lay out my images as well as how I can combine them with relevant text, such as captions and brief descriptions. As well as using dividers and negative space to break up sections and allow the reader a break.

Photobook 1: Araki by Araki Publisher: Kodansha USA; 1st edition (August 8, 2003)

I took a look at Araki by Araki. It was very image-heavy, with pages purely just images and no negative space around them to separate them. While some would just have one or two images on them. This allowed me to breathe more while reading the book. That being said, a lot of pages were a bit too much for me in terms of content and didn't allow the images to shine. Though in some way, at least, they thematically blended together, so nothing felt out of place, and it was cohesive.

He had also laid it out by year with dividers. This makes me think about how I can divide up my photo book. This made it a nice way to flip through to a section you wanted and to see his art style develop over time. I should note that some of the images in this book made me a bit uncomfortable in terms of the objectification of women's bodies. I think it needs a content warning for unaware viewers such as myself.

Photobook 2: Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer by Howard Bossen, Publisher: ‎University of Pittsburgh Press; 1st edition (September 28, 2005)

The second book was Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer by Howard Bossen. I chose this book due to the amount of negative space the author used around each image. For me, this was a lot more enjoyable read than Araki by Arkai because each image had its time to shine, and my eyes could focus on one thing at once. I also liked the way he placed images on opposite pages that were of the same thing or had a similar shape to pair them well.

I like the cohesivity of each spread, as everything was black and white. The text was in black, and the backdrop was white. This made it very clean and modern, which fits the title of the book "Modernist Photographer." There also seems to be a clear grid system with images and type. Which helps with the polished look of the book.

Photobook 3: Vision and Justice: Annie Leibovitz by Nell Painter Publisher: ‎Aperture; First Edition (April 26, 2016)

The final photo book I looked at was Aperture 233. I looked specifically at a section of the book on Annie Leibovitz. I really like the double spreads of hero images she used. This honoured the content-rich ones. If they'd had been with another image, I feel it would have been too busy for the eyes. It added much more intensity and breathability to a busy image. I also like the page with two landscape images as they both relate to each other and aren't as busy as the others, so they pair well.

I also like the page with the explanation because as well as outlining the context of the images. Each other section follows the same grid system, so it's very satisfying to read through and easy to follow. I also feel the images themselves work well together. The colours and the backdrops pair nicely with the images on each spread.

[percontaion-points]

Elizabeth and the Call of Dragons (Fated Alpha #2) chapter 1

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Click here for the rest of the series!

Chapter 1

DEDICATION

To Christina and Brittany 

Without you, my last book would’ve been stuupid [sic]

I’m a little worried about what the book looked like without their help. Especially because there’s a typo on the dedication page. 

The man who murdered my parents sprinted down the airport runway in his wolf form, followed by hundreds of shifter wolves. My own pack was trying to kill me. 

That should have been obvious when he murdered your parents and then started to hunt you down. 

I get that this is technically book two, and there’s always some need to rehash what’s going on. But at the same time… Come on. This is literally five seconds after the end of the first book. 

I felt like a traitor and a coward, running from my father’s killer and away from the man who loved me. 

Is it seriously being cowardly to run from a huge mob of angry werewolves who want to murder you? Live to fight another day. 

“Just know this. I will do anything to make you mine.”

I honestly hate this kind of macho bullshit. This isn’t romantic, it’s fucking creepy. 

What if Liz eventually decides she doesn’t even want to be in a relationship with you? Would you seriously make her unhappy simply to sate your own desire?

Fucking asshole. 

“There are rumors of wolf women who have bore dragon pups. It is possible.”

This is up there with the Donkey/Dragon relationship in Shrek. Although I’m positive that this author is going to make the babies cute.

Side note, but how do I know that there are going to be babies? Because the last book in the series is literally called “Elizabeth and Her Baby Dragon”.

“Oh, those are just rumors. Who knows if they’re true or not. Besides, you guys can’t take that chance. You’re one of the most elite teams, and you must mate with a pureblood dragon. You’re honor bound to it. You gave your oath to the Queen to serve her Kingdom.” 

The blood drained from my face at the horror of what she was saying. 

Is it seriously that weird? It makes perfect sense to me. 

If anything, Liz should be kind of disappointed to learn that she’s going to be unable to have sexytimes with the sexy dragon man/men. 

Everything clicked in my head. This wasn’t going to happen. Me and these guys, it was just a temporary thing. They’d really just come to save me and that was it. I suddenly realized that even though I was still hurting from Aaron, I had hoped that these guys would be a permanent thing in my life.

She’s known them for less than a week at this point. Calm down, babe. The attachment you have is the trauma talking. 

… and the humidity clung to me like a lover. 

[Image description: A screenshot of Clint Eastwood. He is an elderly man with short grey hair. He is wearing a white and grey striped button-down shirt. He is holding a mug. He is giving a look of disgust and contempt to something off-screen. It is captioned with “I had to read this and so do you”. End description]

“No!” I felt a strong energy force its way into my head and then everything was dark.

Chapter 1 summary: We pick up immediately where we’d left off at the end of the first book, with the plane with the broken window taking off and leaving Liz’s old pack behind on the runway. There’s a lot of internal angst from Liz as they fly, but it’s all recap from the first book. 

They land and immediately get onto another plane. Liz is too out of it and trapped in her own head to notice when they land again. They’re randomly in Hawaii now, except that she’s too tired to think straight. She falls onto the bed, but wakes up later to Hunter trying to put a blanket over her. He says some stuff about the powers that they have, but I’m not sure that it even matters much. 

He then starts to kiss her, but Liz stops him. She tells him a bit about Aaron, and how she knows that he’s been forced into an engagement with Olivia. That no matter what, she has to go back and at least help free Aaron from his abusive, murderous father. Hunter obviously doesn’t like this, and makes a bunch of super creepy promises that she’ll be his. 

Liz wakes up later, and overhears some fighting. It’s one of the female dragons, briefly mentioned in the first book. Her name is Sophia. Anyway, she’s angry that they’ve exposed themselves for literally one person. The work she had to do in order to keep the weredragon identities hidden was quite high… Regardless of the fact that there’s a dragon who can literally erase memories, so I don’t get why she’s so upset. Anyway, she goes on to remind them that canines and lizards can’t interbreed, so forget about it. She tells them that they all have a duty to mate with female weredragons, and that she’s found some more of said females. 

At this point, Liz simply wants to leave. She goes and puts some clothes on, and contemplates stealing a car. She decides to go on foot because the car would be too loud. As she’s going, she walks past a cemetery, where a super creepy woman “missing half of her breast” sang a really sad song to her. If you have ever seen literally any horror movie in your life, you probably know how this is going to end. 

Anyway, Liz decides to follow her, because she’s too stupid to be alive. Quite literally, in this case. The thing turns out to be some sort of monster that starts attacking her and then tries to eat her. However, as you probably guessed, the dragons show up. Hunter and Sophia chase the monster away while Christian tries to use his powers to help her, but she doesn’t like that. For some unholy reason. 

[grad604katywolf]

Week 8: Anatomy of GRAD604 Critical Review and Exploration

Essay planning:

I decided it would be a good idea for me to start thinking of how I might structure my essay and note down the key information.

Max. 2000 words

Due Tuesday 24th October (Week 13)

Section 1. Title

Good titles (typically 10-12 words long) use descriptive words and phrases that accurately highlight the core content of the paper

Title ideas:

Finding myself in this creative world

Learning to direct myself through my creative world

The creative finding her way in the creative community

Section 2. Introduction (100 words)

The creative: Upbringing/environment that I was brought up in. Being surrounded by creative people.

Purpose of report: Seeing what the connections are between my creative practice

3 C's:

Creative: My work that I have prodcuced

Creation: What I use to create my work

Creative communities: Designers and creatives that inspire the work that I do and what I want to be a part of

Section 3. The Creative — Positioning the Researcher 

This is where you will introduce yourself as a creative maker, thinker and research. Defining in 3-4 points:

The creative (400-500 words):

The key values and ideas that underpin your practice; I want to create work that has a positive impact on the community

The conventions, media and processes that you gravitate towards; I gravitate towards digital illustration as well as drawing. Typography is a significant element too.

The key methods and tools you use to undertake research, locate ideas and context, to find a topic, subject matter and themes; Old school pencil and paper to get initial ideas down. Researching ways people have approached similar projects.

Share your point of view about the role and importance of design. This could be for a specific social or cultural impact, audience or cause, sustainability, gender issues, equality etc;  I find design to be super important in the world. This is because people interpret images way quicker than text so it is important that what your are saying comes across simple yet effective. There are so many aspects of design from painting to branding and campaign work which depends on what you are trying to express.

Section. 4 Contextual Review (Creative Positioning) (600-800 words)

This is where you are explaining the current state of knowledge in the field. What did you uncover, what is best practice and what conceptual/academic thinking did you uncover? 

Here you acknowledge the projects, practices, writings and people who are the most influential on your thinking, ideas and practice. Consider these prompts:

Describe 4 x designers / artists creative practices and specific projects you have researched;

Previously unavailable:

Theme:

Significance + impact on communities + you:

Image: caption it

Quote from them: reference

Emma Rogan:

Theme:

Significance + impact on communities + you:

Image: caption it

Quote from them: reference

Max Miedinger:

Theme:

Significance + impact on communities + you:

Image: caption it

Quote from them: reference

ALT group/Dean Poole:

Theme:

Significance + impact on communities + you:

Image: caption it

Quote from them: reference

Mccarthy studio:

Theme:

Significance + impact on communities + you:

Image: caption it

Quote from them: reference

Refer to the thematic and categorisations you articulated in week 8?

Discuss the key concepts, and contexts (including themes).

For all 4 x case studies talk about the significance of their work and its impact on communities + your thinking/practice.

Can you include a seminal quote from an author who has written about their work? (and accurately reference it)

Can you include and correctly caption images?

Section. 5 Identifying Communities of Interest

In this section you will clarify what you have learnt from investigating into creative + other communities, industry sectors, studios and agencies. Consider these prompts:

What did you discover about the wider creative communities; I discovered how there is some overlapping between the community here in NZ

What entities or specific initiatives did you identify and examine? What drew you to these?

Did you survey or investigate specific organisations or structures, or publishing entities?

What are your aspirations in the next 3+ years? Are you drawn to agencies, in-house design studios, or freelancing activity?: Through researching I have found myself really loving branding. I am drawn to design studios as it is a space for collaboration between likeminded people.

Section. 6 Reflections on the Research Poster

Here you will introduce, analyse and reflect on your poster and you could use these prompts:

Reflect on the graphic system that you used to represent your 20 x elements. Why was this specific system employed?

I have presented my 20 elements in this way as a way of expressing the idea of keeping things structured. The reason for the illustrations was because I feel it is the best way to express myself and my practice.

How is this visual system intrinsic to the nature of the elements / ideas you examined? What have you revealed about your sensibility as a designer?

I appreciate illustration and typography. Keeping things structured and clear to view.

Discuss the success of the artifact and the system you used to write and analyse each element.

I feel that the format is quite successful. It breaks down elements that have influenced me as a creative.

Reflection on 2 x elements that challenged the way you thought about ideas and contexts. Why? 

Badminton? - cultural significance

What categorisations emerged from analysis and reflecting on the elements + writing? List these.

Sport, culture - English/swiss, tactile

Discuss one important new link or connection you discovered and have researched after finishing the poster?

Illustration connection to cultural issues

Name one new idea or influence you gained from reading and viewing a peer's poster.

-The different approaches that people take

Section. 7 Conclusion (200-300 words)

Here we want you to discuss the key findings from research and critical takeaways that will propel your practice into year 3 over the 12-week course.

Consider:

What were the key findings and tools that have shaped the way you approach research and writing;

-That there are alot of non design influences that influence the work I produce.

What were the critical reflections that have shaped your ideas, process, and approach to subject matter and/or media? 

-Themes come into play when analysing

What was challenging about the research and critical writing? What areas did you need to strengthen?

-Learning about myself as a creative was the most challenging as I dont class myself as ad esigner yet.

How has the research into creative communities shaped the way you will approach Design Research IV and the internship course GRAD704 in 2024?

-I will approach the internship with an open mind and to just be myself.

[byterdigital]

Keyword research and optimisation from Byter on Vimeo.

Keyword research and optimisation is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimisation (SEO). It involves identifying the keywords and phrases that your target audience is using to search for products or services related to your business and then optimising your website's content, meta tags, header tags, images, and URLs to include those keywords.

To begin your keyword research, you'll need to identify your target audience and understand their needs, pain points, and search behavior. This will help you to identify the keywords and phrases that they are using to search for products or services related to your business.

Tools for SEO

There are a variety of tools that you can use to conduct keyword research, such as Google Keyword Planner, Byter's SEO Suite, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz Keyword Explorer. These tools allow you to enter a keyword or phrase and see the search volume, competition, and related keywords. This information can be used to identify the keywords and phrases that are most relevant to your business and that have the highest search volume and lowest competition.

Once you've identified your target keywords and phrases, you'll need to optimise your website's content to include them. This includes optimising your website's meta tags, header tags, images, and URLs.

Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML tags that provide information about your website to search engines. The most important meta tags for SEO are the title tag and meta description tag. The title tag should include your target keyword and provide a brief, accurate, and compelling description of your page's content. The meta description tag should also include your target keyword and provide a brief summary of your page's content.

Header tags, also known as H tags, are used to organize and structure your website's content. The most important header tag for SEO is the H1 tag, which should include your target keyword and provide a clear and concise summary of your page's content. Other header tags, such as H2, H3, and so on, should also include relevant keywords and provide a clear and logical structure for your content.

Images

Images should also be optimised for SEO by including relevant keywords in the file name, alt text, and captions. This will help search engines understand the content of the images and make it more likely to appear in image search results.

URL's

URLs should also be optimised for SEO by including relevant keywords and providing a clear and logical structure. URLs that are easy to read and understand are more likely to be clicked on by users and are also more likely to be indexed by search engines.

It's also important to note that keyword stuffing, which is the practice of including a large number of keywords in the content, meta tags, header tags, and URLs, can harm the ranking of your website. Search engines will penalize the website for keyword stuffing and it will not provide a good user experience.

In addition to on-page optimisation, off-page optimisation is also important. Backlinks, or inbound links, are links from other websites that point to your website. Search engines view these backlinks as a vote of confidence for your website's content and authority. Building high-quality backlinks from authoritative websites in your industry can help to improve your website's visibility in search results.

Finally, it's important to monitor your progress and make adjustments as needed. Use tools like Google Analytics and Search Console to track your website's performance in search results and measure the success of your keyword research and optimisation, and your greater SEO strategy.

Top 10 things to do Understand your target audience

Identify your target audience, what are their needs, what are they searching for, what are their pain points, these insights will help you to identify the keywords you should target.

Conduct keyword research

Identify relevant keywords and phrases that your target audience is using to search for products or services related to your business. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Moz Keyword Explorer to find the keywords with the highest search volume and lowest competition.

Optimise your website's content

Once you have identified your target keywords, optimise your website's content, meta tags, header tags, images, and URLs to include those keywords. Make sure your content is high-quality, relevant, and informative.

Optimise for long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific phrases that are less competitive and can drive targeted traffic to your website.

[attackofjak]

You can cite tumblr in APA (7th ed.) too!

For posts that are primarily text-focused: Real name with surname, first initial if known. [Username]. (Year, month day posted). Title of post in italics OR first words of post up to 20 not italicized [Tumblr post]. Retrieved from URL

For posts that are primarily focused on images/videos/memes/art/audio/etc. only (may include text within an image or have short caption): Real name with surname, first initial if known. [Username]. (Year, month day posted). Title of media in italics if known OR brief description in brackets [Type of media; Tumblr post]. Retrieved from URL

Notes: Don’t put @ in front of username. If the real name of the author isn’t known, use the username without brackets. You can use as much of the real or assumed real name as you can figure out from their blog or outside links. Use the primary poster as author when citing reblogged posts, but use the reblogged post’s URL since that’s how you found it. When citing posts with multiple authors who have added on with reblogs, include ALL of these authors in alphabetical order up to 20 then put et al. if there are more that 20. Use your best judgement when deciding whether to cite text or media when a post has both (what is the main focus?). When describing media that doesn't have a title, see if there is an alt text to help you! Remember to add the proper hanging indents in your works cited, I just don't know how to with the formatting on tumblr.

For example, to cite the post I am reblogging (without my current addition):

Greer, J. [rudjedet], Kathryn [art-thropologist], Liz [callalilycas], Mouse [micewithknives]. (2024, June 22). People who don't know anything about academics: man y'all are stuffy and boring what's up with that? actual academics: *too... [Tumblr post]. Retrieved from https://www.tumblr.com/callalilycas/754013447021314048/you-can-cite-a-tumblr-post-in-chicago.

As a media example, to cite a random meme post:

Threefuckencrowsinatrenchcoat. (2023, June 15). Screen stills from Castiel's love confession to Dean on Supernatural overlaid with text reading "I love you," "Thousands of people..." [Meme; Tumblr post]. Retrieved from https://www.tumblr.com/threefuckencrowsinatrenchcoat/720176125171597312/myself-included-tbh.

people who don't know anything about academics: man y'all are stuffy and boring what's up with that? actual academics: *too busy fist-fighting each other over the beryllium problem or the existence of a dentistry profession in ancient egypt to reply*

[notsoheadless]

Remember Longcat, Jane? I remember Longcat. Fuck the picture on this page, I want to talk about Longcat. Memes were simpler back then, in 2006. They stood for something. And that something was nothing. Memes just were. “Longcat is long.” An undeniably true, self-reflexive statement. Water is wet, fire is hot, Longcat is long. Memes were floating signifiers without signifieds, meaningful in their meaninglessness. Nobody made memes, they just arose through spontaneous generation; Athena being birthed, fully formed, from her own skull.     You could talk about them around the proverbial water cooler, taking comfort in their absurdity. “Hey, Johnston, have you seen the picture of that cat? They call it Longcat because it’s long!” “Ha ha, sounds like good fun, Stevenson! That reminds me, I need to show you this webpage I found the other day; it contains numerous animated dancing hamsters. It’s called — you’ll never believe this — hamsterdance!” And then Johnston and Stevenson went on to have a wonderful friendship based on the comfortable banality of self-evident digitized animals.     But then 2007 came, and along with it came I Can Has, and everything was forever ruined. It was hubris, Jane. We did it to ourselves. The minute we added written language beyond the reflexive, it all went to shit. Suddenly memes had an excess of information to be parsed. It wasn’t just a picture of a cat, perhaps with a simple description appended to it; now the cat spoke to us via a written caption on the picture itself. It referred to an item of food that existed in our world but not in the world of the meme, rupturing the boundary between the two. The cat wanted something. Which forced us to recognize that what it wanted was us, was our attention. WE are the cheezburger, Jane, and we always were. But by the time we realized this, it was too late. We were slaves to the very memes that we had created. We toiled to earn the privilege of being distracted by them. They fiddled while Rome burned, and we threw ourselves into the fire so that we might listen to the music. The memes had us. Or, rather, they could has us.     And it just got worse from there. Soon the cats had invisible bicycles and played keyboards. They gained complex identities, and so we hollowed out our own identities to accommodate them. We prayed to return to the simple days when we would admire a cat for its exceptional length alone, the days when the cat itself was the meme and not merely a vehicle for the complex memetic text. And the fact that this text was so sparse, informal, and broken ironically made it even more demanding. The intentional grammatical and syntactical flaws drew attention to themselves, making the meme even more about the captioning words and less about the pictures. Words, words, words. Wurds werds wordz. Stumbling through a crooked, dead-end hallway of a mangled clause describing a simple feline sentiment was a torture that we inflicted on ourselves daily. Let’s not forget where the word “caption” itself comes from: capio, Latin for both “I understand” and “I capture.” We thought that by captioning the memes, we were understanding them. Instead, our captions allowed them to capture us. The memes that had once been a cure for our cultural ills were now the illness itself.     It goes right back to the Phaedrus, really. Think about it. Back in the innocent days of 2006, we naïvely thought that the grapheme had subjugated the phoneme, that the belief in the primacy of the spoken word was an ancient and backwards folly on par with burning witches or practicing phrenology or thinking that Smash Mouth was good. Fucking Smash Mouth. But we were wrong. About the phoneme, I mean. Theuth came to us again, this time in the guise of a grinning grey cat. The cat hungered, and so did Theuth. He offered us an updated choice, and we greedily took it, oblivious to the consequences. To borrow the parlance of a contemporary meme, he baked us a pharmakon, and we eated it.     Pharmakon, φάρμακον, the Greek word that means both “poison” and “cure,” but, because of the

limitations of the English language, can only be translated one way or the other depending on the context and the translator’s whims. No possible translation can capture the full implications of a Greek text including this word. In the Phaedrus, writing is the pharmakon that the trickster god Theuth offers, the toxin and remedy in one. With writing, man will no longer forget; but he will also no longer think. A double-edged (s)word, if you will. But the new iteration of the pharmakon is the meme. Specifically, the post-I-Can-Has memescape of 2007 onward. And it was the language that did it, Jane. The addition of written language twisted the remedy into a poison, flipped the pharmakon on its invisible axis.     In retrospect, it was in front of our eyes all along. Meme. The noxious word was given to us by who else but those wily ancient Greeks themselves. μίμημα, or mīmēma. Defined as an imitation, a copy. The exact thing Plato warned us against in the Republic. Remember? The simulacrum that is two steps removed from the perfection of the original by the process of — note the root of the word — mimesis. The Platonic ideal of an object is the source: the father, the sun, the ghostly whole. The corporeal manifestation of the object is one step removed from perfection. The image of the object (be it in letters or in pigments) is two steps removed. The author is inferior to the craftsman is inferior to God.     Fuck, out of space. Okay, the illustration on page 46 is fucking useless; I’ll see you there. (21) But we’ll go farther than Plato. Longcat, a photograph, is a textbook example of a second-degree mimesis. (We might promote it to the third degree since the image on the internet is a digital copy of the original photograph of the physical cat which is itself a copy of Platonic ideal of a cat (the Godcat, if you will); but this line of thought doesn’t change anything in the argument.) The text-supplemented meme, on the other hand, the captioned cat, is at an infinite remove from the Godcat, the ultimate mimesis, copying the copy of itself eternally, the written language and the image echoing off each other, until it finally loops back around to the truth by virtue of being so far from it. It becomes its own truth, the fidelity of the eternal copy. It becomes a God.     Writing itself is the archetypical pharmakon and the archetypical copy, if you’ll come back with me to the Phaedrus (if we ever really left it). Speech is the real deal, Socrates says, with a smug little wink to his (written) dialogic buddy. Speech is alive, it can defend itself, it can adapt and change. Writing is its bastard son, the mimic, the dead, rigid simulacrum. Writing is a copy, a mīmēma, of truth in speech. To return to our analogous issue: the image of the cheezburger cat, the copy of the picture-copy-copy, is so much closer to the original Platonic ideal than the written language that accompanies it. (“Pharmakon” can also mean “paint.” Think about it, Jane. Just think about it.) The image is still fake, but it’s the caption on the cat that is the downfall of the republic, the real fakeness, which is both realer and faker than whatever original it is that it represents.    Men and gods abhor the lie, Plato says in sections 382 a and b of the Republic. οὐκ οἶσθα, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὅτι τό γε ὡς ἀληθῶς ψεῦδος, εἰ οἷόν τε τοῦτο εἰπεῖν, πάντες θεοί τε καὶ ἄνθρωποι μισοῦσιν; πῶς, ἔφη, λέγεις; οὕτως, ἦν δ᾽ ἐγώ, ὅτι τῷ κυριωτάτῳ που ἑαυτῶν ψεύδεσθαι καὶ περὶ τὰ κυριώτατα οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἐθέλει, ἀλλὰ πάντων μάλιστα φοβεῖται ἐκεῖ αὐτὸ κεκτῆσθαι. “Don’t you know,” said I, “that the veritable lie, if the expression is permissible, is a thing that all gods and men abhor?” “What do you     mean?” he said. “This,” said I, “that falsehood in the most vital part of themselves, and about their most vital concerns, is something that no one willingly accepts, but it is there above all that everyone fears it.” Man’s worst fear is that he will hold existential falsehood within himself. And the verbal lies that he tells are a copy of this feared dishonesty in the soul.

Plato goes on to elaborate: “the falsehood in words is a copy of the affection in the soul, an after-rising image of it and not an altogether unmixed falsehood.” A copy of man’s false internal copy of truth. And what word does Plato use for “copy” in this sentence? That’s fucking right, μίμημα. Mīmēma. Mimesis. Meme. The new meme is a lie, manifested in (written) words, that reflects the lack of truth, the emptiness, within the very soul of a human. The meme is now not only an inferior copy, it is a deceptive copy.     But just wait, it gets better. Plato continues in the very next section of the Republic, 382 c. Sometimes, he says, the lie, the meme, is appropriate, even moral. It is not abhorrent to lie to your enemy, or to your friend in order to keep him from harm. “Does it [the lie] not then become useful to avert the evil—as a medicine?” You get one fucking guess for what Greek word is being translated as “medicine” in this passage. Ding ding motherfucking ding, you got it, φάρμακον, pharmakon. The μίμημα is a φάρμακον, the lie is a medicine/poison, the meme is a pharmakon.     But I’m sure that by now you’ve realized the (intentional) mistake in my argument that brought us to this point. I said earlier that the addition of written language to the meme flipped the pharmakon on its axis. But the pharmakon didn’t flip, it doesn’t have an axis. It was always both remedy and poison. The fact that this isn’t obvious to us from the very beginning of the discussion is the fault of, you guessed it, language. The initial lie (writing) clouds our vision and keeps us from realizing how false the second-order lie (the meme) is.     The very structure of the lying meme mirrors the structure of the written word that defines and corrupts it. Once you try to identify an “outside” in order to reveal the lie, the whole framework turns itself inside-out so that you can never escape it. The cat wants the cheezburger that exists outside the meme, but only through the meme do we become aware of the presumed existence of the cheezburger — we can’t point out the absurdity of the world of the meme without also indicting our own world. We can’t talk about language without language, we can’t meme without mimesis. Memes didn’t change between ‘06 and ‘07, it was us who changed. Or rather, our understanding of what we had always been changed. The lie became truth, the remedy became the poison, the outside became the inside. Which is to say that the truth became lie, the pharmakon was always the remedy and the poison, and the inside retreated further inside. It all came full circle. Because here’s the secret, Jane. Language ruined the meme, yes. But language itself had already been ruined. By that initial poisonous, lying copy. Writing.     The First Meme.     Language didn’t attack the meme in 2007 out of spite. It attacked it to get revenge.     Longcat is long. Language is language. Pharmakon is pharmakon. The phoneme topples the grapheme, witches ride through the night, our skulls hide secret messages on their surfaces, Smash Mouth is good after all. Hey now, you’re an all-star. Get your game on.     Go play.

[altamont498]

I posted 6,085 times in 2022

That's 2,814 more posts than 2021!

90 posts created (1%)

5,995 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@somethingscarlet13

@homoclothes

@plaidsquid41030

@vampireautism

@queenmorningrose

I tagged 382 of my posts in 2022

#the great ace attorney - 37 posts

#altamont498 - 37 posts

#bungo stray dogs - 17 posts

#ryunosuke naruhodo - 14 posts

#long post - 14 posts

#ace attorney - 14 posts

#club penguin - 11 posts

#lupin the third - 10 posts

#nsft - 10 posts

#youtube - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 121 characters

#''i am leaving to set up a retirement home for elderly goldfish on top of mt. kilimanjaro. my last day will be march 20th

I sent 2 gifts in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Unfriendly reminder that the image description/alt text option on website builders and social media platforms is there for you to describe images for people that are reliant on screenreaders.

It's not there for you to put in some hidden snarky comment or to use in lieu of a caption or an image credit.

[Image is described in alt text]

208 notes - Posted June 15, 2022

#4

With everything that’s going on at the minute, it’s probably a good time to remember how to spot a scam, because they’re not always obvious and you aren’t necessarily immune to them on account of age or intelligence level.

The following are genuine examples of scams that have been reported by others on the internet. They are not intended to be exclusive or exhaustive and are used for illustrative purposes only.

Seems too good to be true

Like something for nothing or an unusually large discount on something that’s usually hard to come by or very expensive.

Came from out of the blue

Someone claiming to be your internet provider calls up saying there’s an issue with your device or internet connection, even though both have been working fine all morning.

Account details/Access requested

Someone claiming to be from your bank calls up asking to confirm your account details for security purposes, or asks for you to download a program to resolve an issue with your internet banking which will allow them to control your device remotely.

Money or vouchers requested

A relative calls up and asks for money out of the blue, saying that they’re in a foreign country and have been injured and that doctors refuse to treat them until they’ve been paid, and that they need you to sort out payment for them.

Or: Someone from the tax office calls up saying you’re £500 on taxes and you need to send them Amazon vouchers right away.

’

Disguised or under Duress

Someone calls up claiming to be from the police, saying that they’re investigating counterfeit currency and need you to withdraw £2500 to hand to a courier. They tell you to tell the clerk it’s for a birthday present for your spouse if they ask you why you need such a large amount of money and not to tell them the real reason why, or else you’ll end up going to jail.

If any of the above fit the bill or sound very similar to what someone is asking you to do, there’s a chance you could get SCAM’D.

And if you do happen to fall for scams, make sure you tell the authorities or your bank right away as they may be able to put a stop to them (no organisation known by an acronym wants anyone impersonating them) and maybe able to recover some or all of your money.

Don’t feel embarrassed about it—scammers can often exploit our “off” days.

227 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

#3

[This image is alt text enabled]

275 notes - Posted January 12, 2022

#2

It is not enough for me to stretch after a 7 hour shift in work. I need someone to pick me up and wring me like a wet cloth.

356 notes - Posted July 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Shout out to the people not doing Inktober, Flufftober, NaNoWriMo, etc. this year (or any year) for whatever reason.

Because they have prior work commitments (retail/service can be hell this time of year).

Because they’re too busy with school work or exam prep.

Because they’re dealing with chronic conditions and illnesses.

Because they have poor mental health and want to prioritise that.

Have other personal priorities and commitments.

Because they have no ideas or are between projects.

Because they don’t have energy.

Because they just don’t bloody well want to thank you very much.

You aren’t any less valid as an artist/writer/creator, and can’t/shouldn’t be pressured into doing anything you don’t want to do or made to feel bad about it.

This list is not intended to be exclusive or exhaustive, additions are welcomed.

P.S Not intended to be hate on anyone who does actually participate or enjoy these monthly challenges.

3,664 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[mysterytickingegos]

Leap of Faith

Pairing: Actor!Mark x Reader

Genre: Action, Humor

Trigger Warning: Heights, Deep Water

Word Count: 1,013

Summary: After yet another heist gone wrong, you have to choose between trusting Mark’s gut instinct, or visiting your friends at happy trails again.

Request from @heehoooo​: Hope you don’t mind my Actor lovin ass poppin in here again but romance & she/her pronouns with the prompt 56 👀 I love your writing sm 🥺

Authors Note: Sorry for the long wait! I’m a little bit rusty, but I hope you like it. Thank you for sticking around <3

Want to Read More?

[Image Description: A gif of the actor from A Heist with Markiplier, standing outside of the museum in a beige suit, smiling and talking with his hands but seemingly frustrated as he speaks to the viewer. Captioned “I’m going back to base.” End Description.]

It was a miracle you got out of the museum unscathed. You’d think you’d want to take a break after that. Unfortunately, outside of academics, the box was virtually worthless once it was opened and Mark had to jump right into plan B to keep your new operation going. This time it was something a little more foolproof than a magic box in a haunted museum.

Or at least the small-town bank should’ve been foolproof.

“Go left!” You shouted, trying to find a way to escape on google maps at 80 miles an hour with no real destination in mind. “Mark, I said go left!”

“It’s too late now!”

“Turn around!”

He scoffed at you, keeping his foot firmly on the gas. “You hear those sirens too, right? I can’t. find another way.”

“It’s a dead end, there is no other way!” You snapped back, just before he was forced to hit the brakes where the guardrail turned in on itself. The sirens proceeded to get louder and louder along with your heart as it practically pumped out of your chest.

Mark was the first to get out of the car, running over to the railing and peering over. You’d barely gotten a leg out of the car yourself when he ran back and threw open the trunk to get the bag out of the back. “Let’s go, there’s still a way.”

Once you got the chance to peer over yourself, you shook your head. “Absolutely not, no way.”

"We'll be fine," He started, stepping over the rail onto the small bit of the cliff left looking over the water. "People do this all the time."

"Yeah, in the daylight, when they know how deep the water is!" You ignored the hand he held out, keeping a death grip on the metal in front of you.

"Look, it's not even that far down-" He glanced over your head at the lights in the distance that made it clear the police would be here any minute, and held his hand out again, this time more insistent. "I need you to trust me on this. We can make it."

For just a second there was a small voice in the back of your mind, not belonging to you but the ghost at the museum, but you quickly shook it away. Grabbing Mark's hand, you stepped over the rail yourself. "I swear if this kills me-"

"Oh, don't be dramatic." He said, adjusting the bag on his back. Before you could argue about the hypocrisy, he began to count down. “Three,”

The police would be driving down this street any second.

“Two″

You held onto his hand a little tighter.

“One.”

Taking in one last deep breath, you both jumped off the cliff hand in hand, plunging into the water.

The impact wasn’t pleasant, with ice cold water almost knocking the wind out of you and one of your arms smacking the water way too hard. You lost your grip on Mark’s hand and your clothes were weighing you down as you desperately tried to swim up. After what felt like a lifetime, you felt him grab onto your arm and pull you up. You gasped for air the moment you breached the surface, clinging onto him. “This ‘s so c-cold.”

“Shh.” Mark pointed up to the cliff, which was now glowing bright red and blue, then to the shore just yards away. “We have to swim under to get there, can you do it?”

You nodded, trying to collect yourself and still your shivering body just to make a point. Taking one more breath, you dipped back down into the darkness before the cops could shine their flashlights over you, staying still just long enough to let the light pass over you before you pushed forward. The circumstances made it feel more like moving through sludge than water, but your adrenaline kept you going until your hands dug into sand and you were able to wade onto the beach. Cringing once you were on land, you wiped the sand off on your pants. “Ugh, I’m not cut out for this.”

Mark on the other hand, was beaming. “I told you we could make it.”

“We haven’t made it yet,” You said, kicking off your shoes and tucking them under your arm. “C’mon.”

The two of you sprinted up the beach to the nearest street and kept on running until you found a ray of hope in a ‘for sale’‘ outside of a (thankfully) empty house. After getting in through a sliding door in the back, you used up the last of your energy keeping yourself from collapsing entirely, instead making it to the wall to lean back and toss your shoes away. After catching your breath, Mark was the first to speak up. “Now can I say I told you so?”

His teasing earned an exhausted sigh from you, but you couldn’t help but smile. “You’re right, I never should’ve doubted you.” You both let out tired chuckles, and you pushed yourself off the wall and found your way into his arms, staying that way in a peaceful silence...

Until you felt something on your hand that wasn’t water.

You pulled back to try to see what it was in the moonlight coming through the window. “Oh my god, did you get hurt??”

“No? I feel fine.” He took your hand and held it up to see for himself what had you panicking. “What the...Oh- Oh no, no!” He took a step back and pulled the bag from the bank off his back, tearing it open and holding a stack of twenties up to the window.

And then another....and another.

If it wasn’t bad enough that every single bill was soaked, they all had a fun new dye job ranging from pink to blood red.

You stared at the tainted bag with wide eyes, hands tangled into your hair as the painful realization hit you. Mark slowly zipped up the bag, cleared his throat and looked at you with a sheepish smile. “So um...plan C?”