#if you pretend they’re singing about a love interest and not my man jesus you get some bangin songs out of it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

boop-le-snoot · 4 years

Text

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 9

As promised, two chapters in one day! HBD to this trash rabbit. I just get thirstier with age.

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it's own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV. DRUG USE IN THIS CHAPTER. Just generally an uncomfortable vibe, thread carefully.

Summary: You're Peter's classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don't know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you're lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: Ooh, boy. This is a whole mess. Angst. [insert drugs owl meme]. Steve doesn't pass the vibe check yet again, stupid old man. Bruce + Tony be like: I CAN'T GET NO SLEEP CUZ OF Y'ALL.

My beta, whomst I love more than cake - @miscmarvelwritings . She's so beautiful though. And so smart. Wow.

The strobe lights pulsated to the rhythm of the music, bodies swaying, gyrating to the tune. The club was banging this time of night, people were living it up like there was no tomorrow. For me, in the VIP zone it was quieter, calmer, but no less exciting. The atmosphere here was distinctly different from the one on the main floor.

It was hard to wallow in misery even if it only took me an hour to stop resisting the gratuitous amounts of white powder on the silver platters. "It's better when you're there to watch them, they'll do it anyway but at least you can know that they're getting the good stuff!" My idiot father proudly announced, looking at me snorting a line through a rolled up hundred dollar bill.

Whiskey and vodka wasn't doing it for me. It made me feel low and Dad, being Dad, of course noticed it and immediately called a guy who knew a guy and suddenly all of his friends and their baby-faced companions had white under their noses. Cash flew like autumn leaves.

As I went out to the main dance floor to get a closer look at Billie Eilish in all of her edgy, beautiful self, the drug hit me like an avalanche. No trace of the grogginess or the mortification that had hitched a ride on me from Stark tower. I danced and sang and saw dad smiling at me in approval, his equally high and important friends all wearing identically predatory smirks. They were good at spotting the obvious - beauty, talent, money. I had no qualms about the fact that dad was off bragging about my close relationship with Tony. If my father was feeling particularly bold, he'd be telling them he knew and encouraged it all along, his buddies pretending to believe the white lie in turn.

I had exchanged my pants and sneakers in favour of a skirt and fishnets with high heels combo, a decidedly inappropriate attire for a daughter having a family night with her father but he insisted I dress trendy. I loved my dad, I really did, and I knew he meant well - I'd definitely be out of place amongst these TVscreen worthy people in my jeans and sneakers but...Tony was one of those people, and he had never ever said anything bad about the way I dress. Even when I obviously and purposely put on obscene clothing just to get a rise out of someone.Tony just smiled and played along.

Tony Stark was the heartless asshole here? Really, press? Really, haters?

"Standing there, killing time, can't commit to anything but a crime..." I sang along quietly as I hurried back to the VIP area. My dad was standing up and so were a couple of his buddies. "Where's ya goin'?" I asked, taking a seat.

"Be right back baby girl, if you find better company then go on without us," Dad winked, throwing a totally nasty glance at one of the girls. She was not much older than me but her body was stick thin and bolt-ons and Botox were her two best friends. She gave me a dirty look and I returned it, extending a waiting hand towards my dad. He chuckled, depositing a neatly rolled stack of hundreds into my palm.

"Dad, I want a new purse," I whined, just a tad. Just to see the girl's eyes go wide with acrid envy. Dutifully, another couple of stacks landed in my palm without any objections and the company retreated towards the back door.

I sighed.

Fiddled with the straw of my drink a bit, contemplating my options. I could always ditch this party and go somewhere more active, somewhere with better music and kinder people.

"Ay, baby girl, you wanna party with us?" A tall, handsome man from dad's previous company approached me. "We'll have some fun." He maintained a respectful distance but the intentions were clear.

"Nope," I popped the sound, not even sparing him a glance. A few lines of cocaine stared at me from the table beckoning with a better high, a stronger sense of euphoria, confidence and energy to dance, to sing, to be happy. I picked up one of the discarded banknotes, quickly rolling it by a sheer force of habit and cleaning up the tray. One line.

"Holy shit, is that..."

Two lines.

"The fuck?!" I recognised that voice. I have been hearing it every day in the labs, I've been hearing it in my dreams.

Tony was gaping at me, in front of me.

"Hey, Tony. Fancy seeing you here." Any other time, I'd be cringing at my lame greeting but I was feeling way too good to care about trivial things like being clever or being appropriate.

"I was looking...for you," He slowly said, putting a single finger on the tray with the last line of coke and pulling it out of my reach.

"That's funny," I snorted, hastily wiping at my nose to cover the tracks of my very bad, very immoral, very illegal activities.

"It's not, Princess, it's not funny at all," He frowned. "C'mon, we're leaving." And extended his hand. I decided to follow along - there was nothing for me to do at this club anyway, the music was lame and the people were stuck-up.

"I look like a prostitute, Tony, I'll take the back door," I attempted to pull him towards the aforementioned but he didn't budge, just stared straight ahead and towed me along like he was wearing one of his iron suits under the stylish jeans and tee get-up.

He stopped in front of the exit, giving me a critical once over. Wiped my face, again, brushed my hair back. Gave me his shades - I dutifully put them on, figuring the manic look in my eyes was anything but attractive right now. "Jesus Christ, Princess," He sounded desperate. "You're beautiful, don't you fucking worry."

And we made our exit, arm in arm, me trying not to stumble in my high heels, Tony being my rock, my solid foundation. In other words, I was hanging onto him for dear life trying not to fall over and give a reason for a sneaking paparazzi to make a scandalous headline.

"You're doing great, Princess," Tony helped me into his Tesla, slamming the door behind me and hurrying towards the driver's door. I managed to unclasp and kick off my shoes, curling up comfortably into the passenger's seat.

I watched the man as he started the engine and watched him wrestle with whatever personal demons that tormented him as he peeled off and raced into the Friday night city.

"What in the everlasting fuck..." He started, stopping abruptly mid-sentence. "How did you even get in there?"

"I came with dad. He literally ditched me to fuck some whore, like, twenty minutes before you showed up." I shrugged, eyeing the modified panel of the car. It was very obviously Tony's own design. I wondered if he could introduce me to Elon Musk someday.

"What the fuck? And correct me if I didn't hear you clearly," Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. "Your father took it upon himself to drag you to a club, get you drunk, gave you cocaine and fucked off with some groupies?"

"Yah, that's about it. My dad is all about cocaine and whores, the more the better," I replied, leaning in to take a closer look at the car's panel. "Hey, could, like, introduce me to Elon Musk someday? That would be fuckin' awesome."

Tony went eerily quiet, I saw his knuckles on the steering wheel go white. Vague expletives were muttered under his breath. "I'm guessing you're good on sleep?" He finally asked through gritted teeth.

"Sleep? Don't know her," I laughed. "I wanna dance, Tony."

"Of course you do, Princess." His smile was tired and forced and full of pity. "You know, I don't think I'll be able to sleep now, either," He admitted, taking a sharp left. "How about we get some McDonald's and camp out in my lab?"

"Sure, whatever," Not like I had much choice in the matter. What I really craved was a good, long, hard fuck (by Tony himself preferably) but if science calls... I have no choice but to comply. "Get me two Big Macs," I demanded least he try to joke and get me a Happy Meal or some shit.

He did get me the food without any usual grumbling. I didn't like this Tony. Tired Tony, sad Tony, angry Tony. Wrong Tony.

"Huh?" He said and I realized I'd said the last part out loud.

"I don't like a sad Tony,” I said. "It's the wrong kind. Sassy, snarky and perpetually caffeinated Tony is the best Tony. The only proper kind, in fact." I stated with seriousness, shoes dangling from one hand and my McDonald's in the other. Man, I have been seeing more and more of this god-damned elevator recently.

"You're high as a kite, darling," He chuckled then, a real laugh.

"Who's high?" Bruce's voice came from the kitchen.

In a state of blind panic, I jumped behind Tony. "Not me."

Tony palmed his face.

Steve came over from the fridge, leaving the rummaging to Bucky. He took one look at me and suddenly I felt small, insignificant like an ant. I didn't like it much. "Holy hell, the fuck happened? Tony, explain." The Captain demanded, giving me the world's biggest stink eye.

"It's her piece of shit of a father, dragged her off to some night club and left her hanging with his buddies, fucking off god knows where. It's not her fault so lay the fuck off, Rogers, with your self-righteousness," Tony exploded all over Steve, the pent up frustration rearing it's ugly head.

I mustered enough courage to tiptoe around the dick measuring contest to sit at the counter. My appetite was gone and my burgers were turning colder and soggier with every passing second. Just like my life.

"Hey, Princess," Bruce's gentle voice halted my train of thought. He approached me carefully, ignoring the men behind me in favour of simply wrapping me up in a quiet, comfortable hug. "You feel alright? Want some water?"

"Nu-uh," I mumbled, unwilling to part ways with the warmth of this embrace.

"... Steve, I found her snorting miles of coke all by herself while an some jackass was waiting for her to be even more out of it. It's rare that I say this but I had literally zero words." Tony punctuated his words by tapping his fist against the wall multiple times.

Bruce tightened his hold on me, a sudden influx of strength accompanied by a quiet, low growl in his throat.

I felt the sudden need to clarify the situation. "Tony, chill. It takes me a lot more to be out of it, I'm fucking coherent and I'm talking sensibly. It's not my first rodeo."

Apparently I'd gone and said the wrong thing because all the men in the room were suddenly growling. I even totally forgot about Bucky who had the uncanny ability to exist in a room without making absolutely any sort of noise.

"The fuck do you even mean by that, Princess?" Tony screeched, probably already knowing that answer.

"From one rich kid to another, you should damn well fuckin' know," I spat, unwilling to admit my misery.

He sighed, audibly deflating behind me. I refused to listen to him, refused to be humiliated and exposed like that for my perfectly human desire to be happy. To not be a disappointment, to not be disappointed in everything and everyone. Bruce was nice and kind and warm and selfless but even he couldn't love me the way I wanted to be loved. Cherished, taken care of. All that mushy stuff. I was selfish, so I snuggled in closer to him, muting the world around me, replacing it with the smell and feel of him.

Cocaine made it a whole lot easier to imagine. Maybe that's why it was so addictive.

"Guys, calm down, you're stressing everyone out," Bruce rumbled quietly. I loved the way his deep voice seemed to reverb throughout his chest.

"Get me a cup of coffee, would you, Buckaroo?" Tony sighed again. I heard the sound of him slurping at his coffee. I heard Bucky's metal arm clunk against something equally metallic before the supersoldiers bid everyone good night and walked off.

Only then I removed my face from Bruce enough to take a good look at Tony. He was eyeing me, too.

"We have a caffeinated Tony," I said, softly. "Now we just need some science to have a happy Tony."

He smiled but it came out watery. He wanted to say something but choked on his words. "C'mere," He finally said, turning in his chair and opening his arms.

I unashamedly made grabby hands, the universal gesture for ‘I want, gimme’, and Bruce delightfully deposited me into Tony's waiting arms. It was like my birthday and Christmas came out all at once. Tony's embrace was warm, like Bruce's, but tinted with an unexpected familiarity. He smelled like motor oil and fancy cologne. It was heavenly.

"You keeping tabs on me, huh? Coffee, science and sass? That's your recipe for happiness?" The engineer asked me, a seriousness that didn't match the joking tone of the conversation at all.

"I think I got you figured out. Peter, too, is important for happiness. But in controlled amounts," I said, giving it a careful thought.

Tony chuckled, sounding a little bit shocked. "What about you?" He said after a brief moment of silence passed, interrupted only by Bruce's tea kettle coming to a slow boil.

"I don't think you need me for happiness," I said, meaning it. "But let's be honest, I'm a nice addition."

He stilled under me, briefly. Bruce cleared his throat.

"Brucie needs me, I think. He's lonely," I told Tony with a sudden influx of desire to be completely honest and 100% transparent. "And it makes me happy, because I need Bruce too. He's the best," I finished.

"Is that so?" Tony sounded vaguely tearful so I attempted to pull back to take a good look at his face. He didn't let me though, gently but firmly pressing my face back into his chest. "And me?"

"I do need you, Tones," I admitted without spilling any unnecessary details.

There was a child within me, small and scared and lonely, like Bruce. I hated her, hated being so soft and needy when everybody else obviously (and understandably) was busy with figuring out their own lives. I wished, desperately so, to just boom-boom-whoosh her away like Doctor Strange magicked away unwanted visitors.

Tony said nothing but his hands betrayed him. They shook and they held onto the skimpy see-through fabric of my top like he was a drowning man and I was his only floatie. For the moment, I closed my eyes and let myself believe he needed me, too.

"I'll catch a wink or two, wake me up if you need something," Bruce broke the silence, having finished off his tea. I didn't notice the time pass so quickly, too lost somewhere between here and there and Tony. In short, I was being lovesick all over the billionaire.

"Bwucie," I leaned backwards, pushing until Tony caved and let me rest my back against the counter, elbows on top of it, legs dangling freely on the sides of his legs. It put a lot of me on display. Tony had called me beautiful earlier so none of my usual habits of being appropriate around the man concerned me. He thought I was pretty!

"Princess," Banner came over to wrap me in a hug that was quite awkward, considering the fact I was sitting on Tony. It took some maneuvering to get it right.

"Night night," I said the usual and got a brief kiss on the cheek before Bruce shuffled off, yawning.

Tony was watching us with an unreadable expression. As soon as I turned my head to look at his face instead, something in him changed. His eyes grew big and round, the crease between his eyebrows disappeared. The corners of his mouth tilted up.

On a sudden impulse, I reached over to run my palm gently over the neatly trimmed line of his beard, following from his chin to his jawline, to his soft tousled hair. His eyelashes shook, fluttered, as the engineer leaned into my touch with the grace of a cat. "Kiss him, kiss him" my brain chanted. I knew I was a coward, I wouldn't do that. "Pretty," I said instead, the word coming out in a whisper.

He gulped, audibly. "Princess, you have no idea..." Shaking his head, as if he was surrounded by a swarm of mosquitoes, Tony briefly looked away. "You have no idea what you're doing."

"Nope," I agreed solemnly. "But at least it feels good. It feels right."

"God," He frowned, one of his hands coming to nervously card through his hair. "Nothing about this is right."

My face fell. Just like I thought, Tony wanted exactly nothing to do with a clueless little teenager. It stung and tears pooled in the corners of my eyes where I stubbornly refused to let them escape and make me into a crybaby. "Whatever you say, Tony." I was ready to agree with anything he said, really, if he would just keet holding me like that.

"Don't," He raised a palm. "Don't close yourself off like that."

Now I was genuinely confused. What exactly did he expect from me? I shrugged.

"You're clever, brilliant and beautiful, you can and should do so much better than all of this," He vaguely gestured towards me, towards himself, towards us and the whole damn city.

I contemplated my answer, briefly. "A lot of people tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing. Don't I get a say?" The bitterness had fought its way out and won. "I just want to be happy for a bit. All the usual bullshit."

He looked taken aback, really. Like he hadn't even considered the option. Typical.

Meanwhile, I continued my word vomit. "I want someone to give a damn about what I want and what makes me happier. Until then, I have no other choice but to take care of myself the best way I know how. Like everybody else does," The weight of his arm landed on my waist, pulling me close to his chest yet again. I didn't resist. No fight left in me. The tiredness seeped deep in my bones, chilly.

The sudden change of altitude startled me. The engineer had picked me up and started walking off towards the elevator, directing it to the lab. His personal lab. The tiles felt cold under my feet where he put me down to make his own beeline for the bar. I would've joined if not the drug in my system - the last thing I wanted was to land in a hospital yet again.

I took the moment to browse my social media, untag myself from all the unflattering pictures, post my usual shitpost. A tiny skirt, equally tiny top and fishnets - I felt out of place in his lab although I've worn more outrageous things previously. I was raw, torn open, bleeding my misery all over the room. That was not in my plan, but then again, when did ever life go as you planned it?

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @as-i-layhereinyourbed @sleep-i-ness @gigglyfox01

please check your blog settings before tag request or, alternatively, follow the "party favours" tag itself if Tumblr doesn't let me tag you - it does that for some reason. love you all 3000.

#party favours #bun writes #stephen strange x you #stephen strange x reader #Stephen Strange x y/n #bruce banner x you #bruce banner x y/n #bruce banner x reader #tony stark x y/n #tony stark x reader #tony stark x you

143 notes · View notes

fremedon · 3 years

Text

Brickclub catchup, 2.3.6 - 2.3.9

Brickclub restarts today! I still haven’t written up the last three chapters because they’re almost all plot, and I have a much harder time finding things to say about plot than I do about the digressions.

These four chapters bring Valjean into the Thenardiers’ inn and out of it again, with Cosette. Once again, Valjean is not named, and we see him mostly from outside, though Hugo is exercising very fine control over the level of distance--his departure from Paris is seen not merely from outside, but through sources which are named--police reports, the speech of the king and his bodyguards.

(I feel like Valjean’s encounter with Louis XVIII’s carriage has be significant--it’s the king, after all--but I don’t have a handle on how. The bishop’s encounter with Napoleon stated one of the principal concerns of the book; Louis...well, he’s that big man who’s the government.

He keeps coming up over the next couple of chapters, though--Hugo specifies that the gold coin Valjean leaves in Cosette’s shoe is not a Napoleon but a newly-mined louis d’or of the Restoration; Mme. Thenardier says she’d rather marry Louis XVIII than keep Cosette in the house another day. (And Cosette’s reaction to the doll is like being told she’s the queen of France; and Mme. Thenardier says soon the stranger will be calling Cosette “Your Majesty” as if she were the Duchesse du Berry. Maybe it’s just that we’ve left Waterloo, and the narrative is embedding itself in the Restoration?

Actually--no, maybe it’s that Cosette is leaving The Sergeant of Waterloo, emerging from the keeping of the character identified with both Bonapartes.)

After Valjean leaves the stagecoach, we follow him at a camera’s eye viewpoint and see his encounter with Cosette again, this time from outside; then into the inn where we see him through the eyes of Mme. Thenardier and the other patrons; and then finally, as he takes the candle and finds Cosette, and places the louis d’or in her shoe, it zooms in quite close--not entirely getting into his head, but making his thoughts and feelings very clear.

And then we zoom out again and watch him through Thenardier’s eyes, but this time, Valjean has the upper hand. The decrease in narrative distance has been matched by an increase in Valjean’s confidence and ability to navigate human society--he’s gone from so feral and baffled that he throws himself into ditches to hide from passers-by to calm, collected, and in control. Cosette--seeing her, realizing what she needs from him--is the catalyst; but it also feels almost like the reader’s observation is helping him along. The closer we get to his own viewpoint, the more human he becomes.

Some scattered observations:

Les Deux Forçats is a real play, which premiered in 1822.

Cosette saying she never had a mother when the narrator told us flat out in her last chapter that Fantine’s spirit was there and watching is heartbreaking. (And h/t to whoever pointed out--Pilf, possibly?--that Fantine’s deathbed vision of Valjean coming for Cosette isn’t just wishful thinking: she’s seeing this scene; she’s seeing the future.)

Cosette “resorted to the tactic adopted by children in constant fear: she lied.” Once again, it is really striking just how blasé Hugo is about lying. He doesn’t judge it at all, except from a purely utilitarian standpoint. It’s really striking here, on the heels of several mentions about how Cosette has never been to church and knows nothing of religion--you would expect any other writer of the time to point to Cosette’s lies as evidence of the neglect of her moral education, and Hugo doesn’t.

Immediately following that--Valjean pretends to find Cosette’s lost coin, and even though the one he hands over is the wrong denomination, Mme. Thenardier is still partially taken in: “Anyway, it’s just as well he didn’t take it into his head to steal the money that was on the floor.” Cosette lying out of fear is followed by Valjean lying out of compassion for her, and it’s a notable moment in his progression back to functionality and humanity.

“But that a man wearing a hat like that should take the liberty of making any request, and that a man wearing a coat like that should take the liberty of expressing himself, was something that Madame Thenardier did not think she had to tolerate.” The way Mme. Thenardier and Javert reach the same sorts of judgments through entirely different thought processes is fascinating. They both judge sort people instantly into social categories and are personally offended when they don’t fit into them nicely, but for Javert the social order is itself good and necessary, while for Mme. Thenardier it’s all about her fear of anything threatening her own interests or those of her daughters.

Similarly, “no matter how much in her effort to imitate her husband in all his actions she had made a habit of dissimulation,” controlling her feelings about Cosette’s sudden elevation in the world is beyond her. She and Javert will both attempt to lie to satisfy authorities, but it doesn’t come naturally to them.

Cosette dresses up her lead sword as a doll because she is so desperate for something to love. In her earshot, Mme. Thenardier tells Valjean that Fantine was a bad mother who abandoned Cosette and is probably dead; Thenardier and the other customers sing bawdy songs about the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus; and Cosette rocks her swaddled sword and croons “My mother is dead! My mother is dead.” That’s...a lot of motherhood all over the page, and all of it twisted somehow. But it sets up the stage very well for Valjean to step in. He’s not anyone’s idea of a mother--but if these are the other options, he’ll do.

Cosette stares at the magnificent doll “as if it might have been the sun approaching.” Little Cosette really is Grantaire and I’m still not sure what to do with that, because everything it suggests about Grantaire’s potential is just heartbreaking.

Santa Claus Valjean! Just in case the breaking and entering to leave alms hadn’t already clued us in. Saint Nicholas is the patron of repentant thieves, prostitutes, small boys, and young girls of marriageable age; I feel like Hugo looked at that list and said “Sounds like the three problems of the age.”

Thenardier stays up until 3 AM watching Valjean, and then is up again two hours before daybreak writing the bill. I know it’s three nights past the solstice and daybreak is pretty late, but wow he is taking no chances on Valjean’s slipping away unnoticed.

Fursona watch:

“Eponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. For them she was like the dog.”

The scene where the girls dress up the cat is such a well-observed piece of pretend, but also--if little girls are cats nowadays, does that mean they will grow up to be lions?

(Also, I am hella impressed at just how many minutes of time must elapse in the story without Eponine losing her hold on that cat--even holding it one-handed while she tugs on her mother’s skirt!. Donougher specifies that the cat is not just dressed, but “swaddled,” so maybe the cat is burritoed? Still impressive.)

Mme. Thenardier says Cosette is “more like a bat than a lark.”

#brickclub #lm 2.3.6 #lm 2.3.7 #lm 2.3.8 #lm 2.3.9

13 notes · View notes

adapembroke · 4 years

Text

Reading Tarot Like The Magician

My first exposure to Tarot was through a Tarot workshop I inadvertently took with Rachel Pollack while I was in graduate school. Rachel Pollack is a Tarot luminary who was an influential figure in the Tarot revival in the 1980s. Tarot was a very different art before the 80s. My work exists, in part, because of the work she did blending Tarot with modern psychology. Her book Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom was for people of her generation (and mine) what Modern Tarot by Michelle Tea is for people starting out today.

I had no idea Rachel was famous in the Tarot world when I met her. To me, she was a science fiction luminary, and I was too busy gushing about taking a class with someone who had just published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction to notice that her workshop was on the Tarot card the Hanged Man.

My school was a magnet for hippies, pagans, and weirdos, so I was probably the least Tarot-literate person in that workshop, but when she held up a well-loved copy of the Hanged Man card and started describing the connections to religious and mythological figures and ideas in the card--Odin, Osiris, Jesus, Mohammed, Odysseus, the Tree of Life--I was enchanted. Utterly. As soon as I could, I ran out to a New Age store and bought a pack of Tarot cards, and that deck of cards is sitting on my desk next to my computer as I write this almost a decade later in their worn and tattered blue velvet bag with a crescent moon pressed into it.

When I stepped into that class, I was still in Fool time. I was exploring, wandering around, didn’t know what I was doing. In the moment when I became enchanted, I stopped being the Fool, and I started being the Magician.

Become Enchanted

Now there’s something a little bit odd about what I just said, isn’t there? I said that I became the Magician when I became enchanted, but aren’t Magicians the ones who do the enchanting?

Yes, this is true, but before you can enchant anyone, you must, as Lee Morgan says in A Deed Without a Name, first be enchanted.

Why is that? And what does it mean to be enchanted? When you have been enchanted, you have fallen under someone’s spell, the way people in the old stories fell into Fairy, falling out of one life, one time and into another. Your life has changed. Your story has changed.

A spell at its most simple is a story. When a witch casts a spell, they are telling a story that, for example, a few herbs, a spoon of honey, a little lemon, and a cup of hot water will make your sore throat go away. When you decide to sip the tea, you are entering into that story. You are giving that story permission to change you.

Sometimes, the story isn’t powerful enough to change you. The herbs are wrong or your sore throat is too far advanced to be helped or the witch hasn’t told a story that convinces you it will work.

Perhaps, the witch doesn’t believe the spell will work themselves. In that case, they have failed to step into the story they’re telling themselves before trying to pull someone else in with them.

Now, when I talk about belief, I’m not talking about faith. Faith is the belief in things you haven’t seen or experienced for yourself. Witchcraft is a practice, not a religion. We do the things we do because they work for us. A witch who successfully enchants the person with the sore throat is usually a witch who has suffered a sore throat themselves and drunk the tea and discovered it works.

This is why you must first be enchanted to be the Magician. You must experience the story for yourself before you can tell it to someone else.

Creativity Is Magic

When I was in graduate school, I lived in Silicon Valley. I was new to the Valley, and I was curious about where I lived, so I decided to write my thesis novel on technology startup culture. As part of my research, I joined a hackerspace. A hackerspace is the punk rock granddaddy of co-working spaces. Co-working spaces are the Millennial stepchild of office parks. I wrote my novel surrounded by young CEOs who were trying to build companies. These companies were so young, so new, there was nothing to them but a slick website and a business card. Usually, the CEO was the only employee.

At first, it seemed kind of funny to me that these guys were calling themselves CEOs.

How can you be the chief anything when there’s only one of you?

Then one day I was at my friend Dave’s company’s launch party. I’d like to pretend it was the kind of Silicon Valley debauch you hear about in the news, but the guests were mostly members of his family. His mom made deviled eggs. If the party hadn’t been held in an office park, I would have thought it was a graduation party. In a way, it was a graduation party. Dave had graduated from the hackerspace to an office park.

During the party, Dave told me something extraordinary: “The hardest thing about starting a company is that it’s all in your head. In your head, it exists, but it can’t live there. You have to make it real for other people.”

That’s what the business cards and the fancy titles and the deviled eggs were all about. They were ways of making his company, which only existed in his dreams, real. They were about telling a story and making it real enough that people could believe it without faith.

The Fool is just an idiot with a dream. The Magician is the next step in the creative process. You become the Magician when you fall in love with an idea and try to make that dream real, when you take the image in your head and start making lines on paper, when you stop running a melody around in your head and start singing, when you pick up a deck of Tarot cards and attempt to become a reader.

Turning a dream into reality requires creating something out of nothing. If you know your physics, you know that you can’t get something from nothing. Only a Fool could believe it’s possible. To get something from nothing is magic. Literally. That’s why the Major Arcana is called the Fool’s journey. Every magician starts out as a fool. Magic is the art of bootstrapping a dream into reality, taking something that only exists in your head and turning it into something other people can interact with. Outside of the witchy world, we call it “creativity.” There is absolutely no difference between creativity and magic.

Magic Is Power, Directed

Now, let’s look at the Magician himself. He is wearing white robes with a red cloak. White is the color of innocence, and red is the color of experience. He is still fundamentally inexperienced, but he has enough experience to put it on like a costume. Over his head is the sign of infinity, which symbolizes unlimited potential. He holds a wand in his hand like a lightning rod, ready to channel power from the universe. It is a white wand, again a symbol of innocence. He doesn’t yet fully understand the powers he’s dealing with, and his action is just a little bit foolish, like someone literally trying to catch lightning.

On the table in front of him are a pentacle, a cup, a sword, and a wand. These are the symbols of the four elements and the suits of the minor arcana.

The pentacle corresponds to the element earth. By having power over the pentacle, the Magician has power over practical things such as work and finances, and power over the earth. He can ground. He can do magic that changes his circumstances in concrete ways.

The cup corresponds to the element water. Water is the element of emotions and creativity and the heart. By having power over the cup, he has power over his emotions and the emotions of others. He can tell stories and create art that make himself and others feel a certain way. The sword corresponds to the element air. Air is the element of the mind. By controlling the sword, he has power over his mind and the minds of others. He can use thought and reason to bring others over to his point of view.

The wand corresponds to the element fire. Fire is the element of passion. By controlling the wand, he has power over his passions, his energy. He can direct his energy toward the things he desires, and he can inspire others to join his cause, as well.

Flowers are everywhere on the Magician’s card. This card is fundamentally a card of growth. The person who is in a Magician phase of life—or whose Soul Card is the Magician—is someone who is primarily growth oriented. The Magician is the eternal student. Unlike the Fool who studies any old thing, the Magician has channeled his interest and study into becoming powerful in one thing.

When the Magician comes up in a reading, it might mean that the person being read for needs to focus their power, particularly in a creative direction, or that they are in a time of life when becoming empowered should be a focus for them. Either way, like the Fool, this card is fundamentally an optimistic one. It is time for the querent to become enchanted.

This post was originally published on Aquarius Moon Journal on 21 January 2019.

#witchblr #tarot

53 notes · View notes

365days365movies · 4 years

Text

February 22, 2021: Pillow Talk (1959)(Part 1)

Y’know, I actually do like Doris Day.

She’s funny, she’s talented, and she’s a timeless beauty that I remember very well. TOO well. You guys ever have that one thing that your parents crammed down your throat SO MUCH that you got sick of it? Well, that’s what my Mom did with The Thrill of it All.

Which is, for the record, a cute movie, and one worth watching again at some point. But I’m gonna ease my way into that with Doris Day and Rock Hudson’s first movie, 1959′s Pillow Talk.

However, while I’m not stranger to Doris Day, I’m afraid that I don’t know too much about Rock Hudson from experience. Well, there is one interesting tidbit about him: Hudson was one of the biggest stars of the ‘50s and ‘60s, and his career continued up until his death in 1985...from AIDS-related complications.

Yeah, Rock Hudson was one of the biggest gay celebrities in Hollywood, although he never publicly came out. However, it was somewhat of an open secret in the community at large, and basically all of his female co-stars know about it.

And said secret was revealed posthumously, after his tragic death during the height of the AIDS crisis. He was by far one of the most high-profile deaths during this time period, and you’d think that would’ve caused more waves about the AIDS-crisis, considering that he was good friends with...well...another actor.

Yeaaaaaaaaah, not gonna get into Reagan and ALL OF THAT SHIT here. This here is a movie blog, not a political blog! But, uh, yeah, a LOT of fucked-up shit about Reagan and the AIDS crisis, obviously, and part of it was Rock Hudson. So, yeah, it’s something that I wanted to address before we got into this whole shindig.

Because, again, I’ve never seen a Rock Hudson movie, but dude was a pretty huge deal, and this was a part of his life that I felt it unfair not to at least acknowledge. SO, with that out of the way, let’s have a little Pillow Talk. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

youtube

We start with that might be one of my favorite opening sequences so far this month, which you can see above. From there, Jan Morrow (Doris Day) wakes up, humming the theme song from the credits, which is clever, considering that she sang it! Talented lady, seriously.

Jan wakes up and goes to the phone, intending to make a call. However, this is where we get a pretty stark cultural difference, and a needed history lesson for some of us, me included. See, Jan’s phone line is actually a party line, seen through this neat little visual edit.

See, this is what’s called a “party line”. From the 1870s onwards, there was a shortage of available phone lines. By the time you get to the ‘60s, more and more people had personal phones in their households, but without enough lines to go around. And so, some people were forced to share their phone lines with others, hence the party line system!

Here’s the thing, though: if somebody was on the line already, anyone else on that line could hear the conversation of other people. Which is exactly what’s pissing of Jan right now, as she needs to make a call, but the line is being used by her party line partner, songwriter Brad Allen, who’s serenading his girlfriend (?) Eileen (Valerie Allen). Not sure that they’re actually dating, but Eileen definitely wants to.

After Jan’s insistence, they get off the phone, and Jan’s able to begin her busy morning at last. Well...almost. Brad’s now talking to Yvette (Jacqueline Beer), and she wants him to sing HER song to her, which is LITERALLY just the Eileen song with a different name and in French! Which is...hilarious. It’s very funny, not gonna lie.

Once again, Jan tells him to get off the party line, and hangs up angrily. She leaves just as her cleaner woman, Alma (Thelma Ritter) arrives, fresh off of a hangover. Jan goes to try and get a line of her own, and the manager, Mr. Conrad (Hayden Rorke) makes a WEIRDLY sexist comment about jumping to the top of the list if she were pregnant. Which, yeah...weird.

Anyway, Jan, in her frustration, tells Mr. Conrad that she’s hired of sharing the line by a “sex maniac.” Mr. Conrad asks for specifics, and is AGAIN WEIRDLY SEXIST ABOUT IT. He asks if his dalliances with other women disturb her in particular. But yeah, he also says that if he is indeed a “sex maniac,” they may need to disconnect him altogether. Which has...uncomfortable undertones all on its own, but whatever, moving on.

On her way to work, Jan’s friend Jonathan Forbes (Tony Randall) shows up to bring her a STRAIGHT-UP CAR, holy shit! He’s doing so to thank her for decorating his offices (she’s an interior decorator, he’s a car dealership owner, so...fair exchange?). She insists that it’s too personal, which confuses him, as it isn’t perfume or lingerie.

But, uh, dude? IT’S A WHOLE-ASS CAR!!! Look, I’m with her on this one, don’t just give me a fuckin’ car out of the blue! I don’t care what the reason is, tell me that shit first! And Jonathan is CLEARLY trying to make it just a little more personal, if you get my meaning.

Jan finally arrives at her office, owned by Mr. Pierot (Marcel Dalio), and she tells him that an inspector has been sent to look after Mr. Allen. This inspector is Miss Dickenson (Karen Norris), and being of the wimmins, is immediately entranced by the apparently irresistible Mr. Allen, sabotaging any attempt at inspection.

The next morning, the inspector’s report comes through, and Miss Dickinson has of course cleared him of all charges. He calls her, and the two clash in a way that definitely means they’ll never, ever, ever fall in love, no sir, not these two, not a CHANCE IN HELL

They agree to make a schedule for using the phone, and Brad accuses Jan of being jealous of his free-wheeling, bed-hopping lifestyle, which she takes great offese to. But after they hang up, she thinks on the idea of having bedroom problems. Looks like Jonathan wants to fix that, on account of being the THIRSTIEST MAN ALIVE.

Dude has three three ex-wives, all of which were revolts against his mother, for which he’s seeing a psychiatrist.

...CHRIST, the man’s a walking-talking red flag. Jan also says that she doesn’t love him, like...AT THE FUCK ALL, and the man just straight-up says, “How do you know, we’ve never even kissed.” Ai which point, any normal person would see the phantom neckbeard and whip out the fuckin’ bear mace, but Jan just lets him lean in for the goddamn kiss!!!

Jan...standards, Jan. My God. Anyway, she still turns him down, he asks her to get married again, and she leaves. For God’s sakes, man. Anyway, she goes home, where Alma’s listening to Brad serenade a girl over the party line. Jan notes the time, and tells him to get off the line. He calls back, and tells her off.

Brad gets a visitor: his old college friend FUCKIN’ JONATHAN AGAIN. He bemoans being a millionaire (po’ babyyyyy), then reveals that he’s pining over Jan, whom he doesn’t know is the person on the party line with Brad. He hears a good amount of information about Jan from Jonathan.

After the conversation, Brad tries to somewhat reconcile with Jan, but she doesn’t have any interest in doing so. That night, the two have separate affairs. Brad meets up with a woman named Marie, and serenades her with the same goddamn song from earlier, that suave motherfucker. Dude flips a switch, and the door fuckin’ LOCKS! Jesus, state-of-the-art hook-up tech of 1959.

Meanwhile Jan is attending a dinner held by an extremely client, Mrs. Walters (Lee Patrick). Needing to get home, she has her son Tony (Nick Adams) give her a ride. But on the way home, they stop and WHAT THE FUCK TONY??? I actually can’t find a clip or GIF of this, so I’ll tell you...he is ALL THE FUCK OVER HER, and it’s GROSS. CAN WE PLEASE STOP SEMI-RAPING DORIS DAY? WHAT THE FUCK, IN NO WAY IS WHAT I JUST WATCHED OK, HOLY SHIT!!!!!

Like...wow, that was the most uncomfortable I’ve felt watching a movie in a WHILE. And it’s not even because of the act itself, it’s because of how...OK it feels in the context of the film. Jan is BARELY upset by this slimy little weasely-faced rapey CREEP LITERALLY ASSAULTING HER IN THE FUCKING CAR. And in case you were wondering, yes! This film was written by FOUR MEN.

This is gross. Sorry, but this whole sequence is gross, and it gets even LONGER, because she AGREES TO GO GET A DRINK WITH HIM. WHY, JAN? STOP ENCOURAGING THIS BEHAVIOR. He tries to get her drunk (but ends up drunk himself), but she tries to leave. However, who should be sitting one table but Brad, who realizes who this is. Jan tries to leave, but Tony tries to get her to dance with him, AND SHE ONCE AGAIN AGREES, JAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!

And its during this time of distress for Brad that, OF COURSE, he finds himself extremely attracted to her. And since he knows who she is, but she doesn’t know him, he decides to fake his identity. And there we go, we’ve got a creepy-ass one-sided relationship set-up.

Meanwhile, lightweight Tony passes out on the floor, drunk as shit. Brad goes into help, putting on a take Texas accent and calling himself Rex Stetson. And OF FUCKING COURSE, she’s lost in his fuckin’ eyes. Damn those eyes, and his suave bullshit.

They shove Tony into a cab, then take his car, which appears to be too small for Brad, which makes sense, given the fact that Hudson was 6′4″, goddamn! The two take a cab, and the two reveal their mutual attraction to the audience, through their inner thoughts. Looks like all Jan needed for a relationship was handsome-ass Rock Hudson.

In her thoughts, she thinks on how honest and down-to-earth Rex Stetson seems, unlike “monsters” like Tony and Brad Allen. And OF COURSE this is how we get this started. OF GODDAMN COURSE this is how we start this relationship. Liar revealed, LIAR REVEALED, I FUCKIN’ HATE THAT GODDAMN TROPE SO MUCH

Soon after “Rex” takes her home, he goes home herself, and gives her a call, inviting her to dinner the following night. She accepts. Then, in the middle of the call, Brad pretends to pick up the line as himself, in order to set up the two identities as being separate...this is reverse You’ve Got Mail, isn’t it?

Think about it. Two people that hate each other, and they’ve never seen one another, but also love each other after meeting in person. IT’S THE OPPOSITE OF YOU’VE GOT MAIL. Ugh. Fine. Even down to the fact that he has a sizeable advantage over her, due to his full knowledge of the situation. He even tries to use his identity as Brad Allen to set-up their date the next night for success.

And it works, goddamn. A clever yet manipulative asshole, this dude is. They get on a horse and carriage, and we hear the inner thoughts of Jan, Brad, and the dude who owns the horse. And, yeah...it’s funny. The two go to dinner, where Jonathan shortly arrives. Brad gets him out of there with...mildly fatphobic means, but it is the 1950s, so things were just kinda...entirely that.

But in any case, Brad gets away with it, and he and Jan spend a hell of a lot of time together going all around the city. And the whole time, he’s playing the role of “Rex.” Ugh. This is a good halfway point, so let’s go to Part 2 here! See you there!

#pillow talk #michael gordon #rock hudson #doris day #tony randall #thelma ritter #nick adams #romance february #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #my gifs #mygifs #silverscreendames #old hollywood

9 notes · View notes

justjessame · 4 years

Text

The Deal Chapter 35

Negan didn’t take Carl and me somewhere and ditch our bodies after beating our brains out with his best girl, Lucille. Sadly. Instead, he took us on a road trip. Back to Alexandria. He regaled us, the entire way there with all the ways that he COULD have killed Carl. How he could have forced me to have to watch him put down my baby brother for daring to attack as he had.

I let his bullshit roll over me. I’m learning, slowly, that Negan loves the sound of his own voice. And he truly adores putting fear into the hearts of those who allow it. Instead, I watch out the windshield as we drive along the road. Abandoned cars. A smattering of walkers. And the feeling of being fully aware of everything for the first time in a long time.

When we arrive at the gates, no one dares to stop us from coming inside. With both Carl and me at his side, Negan makes his way to Dad’s house. And, instead of walking in like he owns the place, which I’d expected, he knocks. Olivia, the woman who’d kept the inventory for the armory and pantry answered, and I wondered if she was my replacement in my former house.

I can’t remember having much interaction with her before, when I was still an Alexandrian. It doesn’t strike me as very strange how intimidated she seems by Negan. He’s a hard pill to swallow when he’s trying to play therapist, but when he’s just being himself, well then you see an asshole in full bloom. She tries to get rid of us, because whether she understands or not, Negan and I are a matched set right now. She tells Negan that Dad is out scavenging, that he probably won’t be back by the end of today. I wonder if Michonne went with him, and that’s why she’s here, to watch my baby sister.

She talks about how they’re low on supplies, how they’re practically starving, and then Negan shows just how fucking charming he is. A raised eyebrow. He looks her up and down and insults her by insinuating that since she’s curvy, that he doubts her sincerity. And, yes, I’m editing his bullshit, because it was disgustingly mean. He catches my eye, and sees my glare, so he tries his hand at apologizing.

Of course, this is Negan we’re talking about so once he tries to say sorry in his own classy way, he follows up with an offer that has me rolling my damn eyes. “I think it would be enjoyable to screw your brains out. I mean if, you know, you’re agreeable to it.” Dear fucking Christ, does he have a filter at all?

And Olivia, who I can’t recall much about, does something that has me fucking grinning from ear to ear. She slaps him straight across his smug, arrogant face. The crack makes my heart sing.

Negan ruins the fucking experience by telling her, after she rocks his fucking head on his shoulders with that slap, “I’m about fifty percent more into you now. Just saying.” Ugh. Seriously? He catches whatever look I have on my face, smirks at me, and winks. Could he be more crude and annoying?

He dismisses her, letting her leave his royal presence to fix lemonade that he knows he left behind. Powered lemonade is his newest whim, and I wonder if Olivia had it in her to fucking poison him.

Of course, we couldn’t just drop my little brother off at home, get back in the damn box-truck, and head the fuck back from whence we came. Now, where would Negan’s fun be in that?

Olivia, acting as though I’m an enemy too, stays in the house as Negan takes a grand tour. Taking off his boots, testing the carpet in Carl’s room with his bare feet, I have to wonder if he’s truly enjoying the feel of it because of the novelty, or if he’s checking to see if wiping his bare ass across it would cause him discomfort. Watching the steady stream of water as though he’s never had it before. He looked around what had been my room with interest. Uncomfortable interest, as though he’d find something more about me. Good luck.

And then, as we passed the room where Judith sleeps, he goes to open the door and I shake my head and tell him it’s just another empty room. He squints at me, and puts his hand on the doorknob.

“Really?” I ask him, raising my eyebrow. “Why are you interested in empty rooms?”

He calls my bluff and opens the door, and there she is. My little sister, the ONLY thing I regret leaving behind. And the ONE person in the world that I wanted to protect, from him, from the world at large and he’s found her.

“Oh my!” He doesn’t raise his voice, as he draws nearer to her, and handing Carl his precious Lucille, he almost seems in awe of her. “Look at this little angel.” And then she’s in his arms, and he’s being incredibly gentle with her, as he looks over her sweet blonde curls at me. His tenderness is a surprise, even if he’d never shown me the mean streak I knew ran in him.

Judith is holding a stuffed elephant as he bounces her gently in his arms. He takes a minute to study her, and then looks once again at me. And I wonder at the clear question in his eyes. What could Negan possibly want with this? With Dad’s life? With mine?

Negan makes himself at home in Dad’s house. He shaves with Dad’s straight razor, giving Carl advice like “against the grain, always go against the grain”. He’d handed Judith to me before he went into the bathroom, and I started to turn away, to take her somewhere alone, but he stopped me. “No, sweetheart, you both stay.” Shooting a look at my brother he corrects himself. “All three of you stay.” Which is why I’m having my unscheduled visit with my baby sister in full view of the man I’d assumed would kill me.

While he’s shaving, giving out advice to Carl, he keeps watching me with her. As I quietly talk to her, running my hand down her soft curls, and checking her for signs that she missed me. Even a tiny bit. I can’t stop myself from kissing her head. From entertaining her with her stuffed animal. And I work hard to block out Negan’s interest. Pretending that he’s not filing my reactions away for another round of my therapy when we head back to his domain.

He fixes dinner. Spaghetti sauce from scratch. Noodles, obviously. And he enlists Carl to make rolls. Me? For once, since I offered myself in Glenn’s place, he allowed me to sit at the dining room table and have peace away from him. Still in view, of course, but at a distance. With Judith. And get lost in her, if only for a little bit.

Olivia returned with the lemonade, and I could feel her glaring at me. Her urge to grab Judith from my arms, to keep her safe from ME was clear as a bell on her face. I could also tell that Negan had noticed. “Be a lamb, Olivia, be a lamb.” He was reiterating what he’d said when he requested the lemonade earlier, only now the term that I’d taken as a taunt to the other woman, took on a new meaning. A warning, I could hear it in his voice. A threat, a reminder of who he was, and that I was with him was so evident that she rushed into the kitchen to make the drink.

Once dinner was prepared, we settled around the table, looking for all the world like a family dinner with a tinge of hostage situation. There’s an extra place setting, but I’m so wrapped up in my baby sister that I don’t pay attention to the why. I’d kept Judith on my lap, but we didn’t start to eat. Negan, clearly waiting for something, or someone. And I knew, he was holding dinner for Dad. A picture he’d created, a scene that would fuck with Dad’s head a little bit more. His children, a member of his community, and the very man who’d bested him, around his very own dining room table with a meal fit for a Sunday dinner from before the world turned to shit.

Negan has the patience of a toddler. Eventually he realized that Dad wasn’t going to return just because he’d set the stage. He finally gave in and asked Carl to pass the rolls. I hated to admit it, and I damn sure wouldn’t let him know, but he made a sauce that rivaled the Italian place that I’d loved while at college. I fed Judith from her own plate. I drank a bit of the lemonade that Olivia had made. And I tried, very hard, to ignore the feeling that Negan was watching me closely.

After eating, Negan decided it was perfect weather to sit on the porch and take in the scenery. He held out his arms, once he’d taken off his jacket, and I reluctantly handed Judith back to him. He took one chair and Carl took another. Negan looked like he was enchanted by my little sister. That in her he saw something that he hadn’t seen in far too long. Did I trust it? That he wasn’t dangerous to her? No. I didn’t. Not because he’d shown violence to me or her, but because the need to keep her safe. The need to make sure that she remained innocent of the world and its dangers was one of the few things that I’d never felt numb to was amplified by my mask developing the cracks that Negan’s meddling had created.

I leaned against the banister in front of them. Close to Negan, since she was in his arms, and I hadn’t noticed that Carl’s eyes were taking in my behavior, and Negan’s.

“So my sister doesn’t get to sit?” He bit out, glaring with his one unruined eye. “She has to stay quiet, she has to just blindly follow you around?”

I closed my eyes to his challenge. He didn’t get it. And I had a feeling no one, not even the rest of my family understood. Why I’d done it, why I had to stay beside him. Carl didn’t see me. No better than anyone else had. Dad had only had a glimpse, and even he didn’t get it.

“Have you seen me order her to stand?” Negan asked. “Have you seen me tell her not to look at you or speak to you?” He was challenging my brother’s assumptions. “Jesus, were you this fucking blind before you lost your eye?” I opened my eyes to see him cradling Judith to his chest. His voice stayed low, quite even, careful not to scare her. “I’ve been thinking about what you’d said earlier, Carl. Maybe it is stupid keeping you and your dad alive.” He pulled Judith forward, bouncing her on his knee and seemingly speaking to her. “I mean why am I trying so hard? Maybe I should just bury you both down there in those flower beds.” A gesture to the manicured lawn in front of us. He was staring into Judith’s tiny face, smiling and chuckling. “And then I can just settle in the suburbs.”

My heart clenched. Fear blossoming in my chest at the thought that my deal with him was all for nothing. That my brother’s actions, that his clear challenge of Negan’s power and his seeming inability to wipe all of us out was a sign that he was weak.

We’d gone back inside Dad’s house. Negan grew tired of taunting my brother and the neighbors. Judith was fussy, too much excitement I’d guessed. He’d given her back to me, watching as I rocked her in my arms and hummed to her. He followed me upstairs to put her down for her nap. Ignoring the dagger glare of Olivia, ignoring Carl’s unasked questions, the hurt that had flickered across his face when he decided that my silence was my own choice.

I was staring down at Judith as she drifted off to sleep clutching her elephant. Leaving her, today, would be more painful than my realization that I'd given her up for the ‘greater good’ had been. Holding her, feeling the rush of feelings that I’d gone numb to, the unconditional love I had for her, made it all the rawer. He watched me, leaning in the doorway, keeping his distance, letting me have this at least.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for the maternal type, Jessi.” He kept his voice down, so Judith could rest. “I didn’t know that you fucking had her here, that she depended on you.” I could feel the intensity of his attention. “That you sacrificed your need for HER when you offered your life to me.”

I hadn’t noticed the tear falling. Didn’t even feel the usual burn warning that I would cry. His thumb brushed it from my cheek, startling me since I hadn’t heard him come closer. I kept my head down, drinking in Judith’s tiny person. Savoring it, memorizing it, so I could take this little piece of her with me. “Do you want to stay?” It was barely a breath. “Jessi, do you want to stay?”

I shook my head. A deal was a deal. And I wasn’t a shirker. Plus, I’d seen the look on Olivia’s face. The judgement. The insinuation that I was a traitor. A turncoat. In bed, I imagined her look inferred, with the enemy.

“No, I don’t want to stay.” I answered, keeping my voice as quiet as he did. “There’s nothing left here for me, nothing aside from her.” I couldn’t stop myself from running my hand down her back. Touching the softness that I’d taken care of for so damn long. “And she has other people for that now, to keep her safe.” It hurt to acknowledge that I was so easily replaced. That Dad had handed her care, her safety over without effort.

He left me there, letting me have my quiet and solace in the company of a sleeping little girl that had become my only reason to keep the motions going. The only reason that I kept up my mask. The only reason that I’d survived, even if I wasn’t living.

#negan x ofc #daryl dixon x ofc #The Walking Dead #alternative universe #mental illness #dark #rick grimes daughter

7 notes · View notes

wherearemyglassesbro · 4 years

Note

If you could put any character into Hetalia what country would they be

Oooo!!

Mexico: OH BOY!! If Mexico isn’t introduced as a woman I will 1000% go bonkers. She has so much potential! Here we go. Mexico is a strong willed woman with curly hair and a confident air around her 24/7. She doesn’t like to speak English so she will only speak Spanish, especially with America, she won’t speak English with him just because. She is very passionate about her country’s rich history and will educate anyone who is interested, she doesn’t discriminate, she’s excited to share her culture with others :) She is very involved with children. She visits orphanages and hospitals to see them and tell them stories! She takes Mexican holidays very seriously and she puts photos of old friends on her alter during Dia de los Muertos to keep their memories alive long after their families are gone, she believes she owes it to them :’) She also has a HUGE passion for quinceneras ooooh my gosh!! She throws about six every year for families who can’t afford big parties, she throws them herself with her own government allowance! She makes the dress, books a nice venue and buys tons of flowers ‘every girl deserves to have her own special moment’ and you can bet that when the girls dance with their dads she has to excuse herself to cry happy tears in the bathroom. She often goes to church and she has crosses and statues of Jesus adorning her house because it makes her feel safe and comforted to have Him there to watch over her. Lastly, she knows she shouldn’t feed stray dogs. She’s been told not to....But she leaves seven dog bowls out at night for hungryc homeless doggies :’)

Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan would be a tall, slender woman with with deep brown eyes. She’s very stylish and has three closets worth of beautiful dresses, especially dresses that are yellow, orange and peach since she thinks they suit her best. She’s a Muslim woman but she doesn’t wear hijabs, they are not very common in her country at all so she doesn’t wear them. However, she has a collection of hijabs in every color just in case she may want to wear one. She’s kind but if she sees people littering or graffiti-ing buildings she will stomp over there and tell them off, she fears no man!! She loves children and goes out of her way to greet them and compliment their clothes or something like that. She’s fluent in many languages and often pretends she doesn’t speak English because she prefers her own language, Russian and French. She is very traditional when it comes to tea culture and hospitality. She’s a wonderful woman who loves her people very much!! :)

Ethiopia: Miss Ethiopia is so strong dude, she can easily toss a man in a river if she wanted to. She says she doesn’t like violence but she does get a kick out of putting men in their place if she has to. She does NOT mess around!!! She can’t stand liars, she refuses to associate with them. She almost always tells the truth, it is very important to her. If the government wants her to lie to her people, she will not. She does not enjoy living in her capital, it’s too stuffy and crowded for her!! And she doesn’t really like modern clothing so she sticks to her traditional clothes, which she mostly makes herself. Her hair is usually very intricate, she spends a long time braiding it. She loves her natural hair and does everything she can to keep it healthy :) She travels all over her country constantly she’s never in one place for too long. She rarely goes to world meetings just because she doesn’t...like to go. She sees them as a waste of time since she could be back at home with her people. She’s very involved with them!! She has a medical license so she helps sick men, women and children who may not have access to medical help. She loves her people so much and has dedicated most of her life to them, she’s selfless and a role model :’)

Greenland: He’s a strong boy who’s about 17-18 physically. He lives close with his citizens and is very social! He’s very involved in the community, more than happy to help whoever needs it! A woman needs help with her baby? He’s there to help! Someone’s stuck out on the water? No worries, he’s gonna go get his boat and help them back to shore! He sticks to where his people are and will move with them. If a city becomes less popular he’ll move to be close to others. When he was young he was alone a lot so staying close to his people is very very important to him! He doesn’t get invited to as many of Nordic events like Iceland does so he’s a bit bitter about that though he’d never admit it.

Jamaica: Miss Jamaica is a very strong woman. She is proud to be Jamaican and will let everybody know it! She goes to church every Sunday and helps out within the church community. Helping the elderly is very important to her, she sees people disregard the elderly a lot in the world so she sees it as her duty to help them! She dedicates Monday and Wednesday afternoons to helping out her elderly friends by cooking, cleaning and just socializing with them especially if they have no other family. It’s stereotypical but she loves when tourists come to Jamaica for Bob Marley’s birthday concert because seeing everyone bond over music and food like that makes her incredibly happy!! She’ll even set up a tent to make food for people too! And speaking of food, she knows how to cook, man!!! She can cook circles around most nations! She puts in a ton of spices and sings while cooking and she invites all of her neighbors over for cook outs as often as she can cause she just!! Loves to cook! And now she gets to share with her neighbors :) She’s a very kind woman but Dont underestimate her cause she can and will beat your ass u_u

Hawaii: I’m not really into statetalia at all but I imagine that Hawaii still has a representation around despite being part of the US. We’ve got another beautiful woman!! She’s about 5’6 with waist length hair that she’s been growing out for years. She is very passionate about conserving Hawaiian traditions so she teaches children the art of hula and passes down legends and stories of the spirits. Her arms and legs are decorated with tribal tattoos that she updates every decade or so since nation bodies reject ink over time. She often attends protests because she doesn’t want her land to be taken over by pipes or buildings. She gladly welcomes tourists, she loves showing off her culture to those who are curious about it because it’s so fun to see their eyes light up when they see traditional dances or fire stunts!

Most of these are women but there are like 4 female nations rn theyre all men which isn’t bad but female nations are even more interesting to me since women are constantly underestimated y’know. I hope I got this right, I did a lot of research first about these places. I think they’re all very beautiful places!!

#this ask got BURIED #im sorry if I got anything wrong skdjskjdbs I love these countries I really do I think theyre beautiful and interesting skdjskhs #aph #hetalia #headcanons #hetalia headcanons #aph azerbaijan #aph ethiopia #aph greenland #aph jamaica #aph mexico #I love azerbaijan btw I did a huge project on it in middle school and I still read up on it often!!#its goregous there!! and the food and tea looks good #and im not even a tea drinker lmao

43 notes · View notes

bitnotgood28 · 4 years

Text

Thank you @hometothecanyonmoon for tagging me!!

1) When did you become a Louie?

Embarrassingly late. I’d say around mid-April 2020, since that’s around the time I learned about Larry and joined the 1D fandom. I focused mostly on Louis and Harry and whatever they got up to, so during that I just noticed little quirks and started to pick up on their personalities. Harry is sweet and dorky and I adore him, but I love Louis’ wit and his sarcasm and his compassion, basically his character in general. Afterwards, I learned that Louis has recently released LT1, so I downloaded the entire album to give it a listen and have not stopped listening since. His whole album is a blessing, all of his music is so meaningful and touching; you’ve heard his songs and lyrics, yeah?

2) Why did you become a Louie?

Multiple reasons, the two main ones being his music and his personality. I’m not greatly interested in the type of music that’s mostly being released at present (no offense meant), and Louis’ voice is just incredibly unique, something I really like in artists. Everything that he’s written has been sincere and expressive, like a touch of rawness in them, especially when he sings. There’s just so much emotion behind every word and note, and his voice!! It has the sweetest rasp to it and his voice has gotten stronger and more powerful over the years, yet it can still be soft and light like during the bridge in Defenceless. He is also such a sweetheart, treating everyone kindly and with understanding unless he thinks they’re undeserving of it. The way he socialize with children and animals makes my heart melt, he looks so happy and excited during those interactions with his crinkling eyes and his smile-goodness, he is truly God’s gift.

3) One thing that drew you in specifically?

Easily his charisma and satire. His humor and jokes always stood out to me during interviews, his quips are just hilarious, that sweet boy. He draws attention to himself and leaves an imprint on you, and you get attached to him and his personality and his cheekbones-essentially his entire being. I was also kind of irritated with the amount of lines he and Niall were given compared to the other boys, so I paid more mind to the two of them (along with Harry) at the beginning. I think it’s also because I tend to notice those who aren’t as noticed or not quite under the spotlight-is that they proper description? Anyway, between Louis and Niall I wound up taking more of a liking to Louis with his sass and his cheek and his eyelashes. Man, is he even real? He’s so sweet and genuine, he’s endured so much and has continued to stand strong after each blow; it’s as heartbreaking as it’s inspiring. I just want to wrap him in a blanket and take him far away from all the cruelty present in the world, maybe feed him some tacos and stroke his hair until he falls asleep. He can still joke around and enjoy life while also doing his job and doing it brilliantly, might I add. I feel like he’d be a wonderful best friend to have, empathetic and supportive, someone you’d be able to stir up chaos with but also who’d keep your moral compass pointing in the right direction. Honestly, I’m quite certain that God created him with the thought of sunshine and sunflowers in His head.

4) Favorite song on Walls?

Oo, that’s difficult. I love Always You, its tempo and it’s tune are just really lively and upbeat. I’ve also got a special place in my heart for the lyrics of Fearless (God, that second verse and chorus and first verse - the whole song), Defenceless (“I come running to you like a moth into a flame,”? “I’m too tired to be tough, just wanna be loved by you,”???), Only For the Brave (“It’s a church of burnt romances and I’m too far gone to pray,” “All the lonely shadow dances from the cradle to the grave,” this song is so lyrically poetic and I love every second of it), and Two of Us (the bridge.. God it’s so melancholy yet somewhat hopeful[?]). Kill My Mind also has this great indie rock sound to it, I’d gladly listen to it for hours. I.. am realizing that this absolutely does not answer the question, but I hope you now understand how good Louis’ songs are and how much I love them <333

5) Who would you want Louis to collab with?

Okay, I took a bit of time on this and I think one would be Alessia Cara. I’d really like to hear how they would sound together, considering how unique and distinctive both of their voices are individually, and how the music they produced would mesh with each other. Another would probably be Ed Sheeran, lyrically I think they’d be quite powerful like Louis and Alessia, but I’m not sure how they’d sound as a unit. It’d be interesting to hear though, I’m sure. Last is Harry, and if you’ve heard edits and that duet in the chorus of Truly, Madly, Deeply, you know what I’m talking about and you know how good they sound together.

6) Favorite Hairstyle?

Peaky blinders is one, he looked like a sweet little hedgehog during that time. Cinnamon swirl is also high on the list. He looked like actual royalty (I mean when doesn’t he, but this is god tier princely) and everything was right in the world. He was just- the living embodiment of delicate. His messy quiff and messy fringe back in 2013-2014 were just.. so attractive? Those hairstyles also make me miss seeing his full face :((

7) Back to You, Just Hold On, or Miss You?

(where is the Just Like You option)

I love the lyrics and meaning behind Just Hold On, it’s all really hopeful and motivating. The whole song was really well done, Louis and Steve Aoki did such a good job. Miss You also has a great sound to it, and you can really hear his accent throughout the whole song (fook, luv, anova, need I go on). I also love the bit of violin (I think it’s a violin) they added in the second pre-chorus and final chorus? It adds kind of like a lighter factor to the heavy guitar and drums already present in the song, and some sort of assurance that everything will be okay (I’m bad at describing things I’m sorry akdjsjdj). Back to You, God the notes they hit during that song.. beautiful (“We don’t know how to make it stop,” and “I love it, I hate it and I can’t take it,”). Can I also just say that Louis and Bebe both looked really, really attractive during that music video? Like damn please hold back on the extra chili, it’s already hot in here.

8) Louis in suits or sweaters?

Louis in suits is just.. all his assets (ha) are accentuated and he looks so sharp and beautiful, his shoulders just a bit broader, and his curves more defined. Then when he wears blue suits, his eyes are just that much more blue. Louis in sweaters, on the other hand: sunflowers incarnate, sunshine and kittens, a soft heated blanket with socked feet and a fireplace while snow falls softly outside the window. He looks so, so warm and huggable and sweet with his sweater paws- imagine being his friend and being able to cuddle him? Just snuggle and chat about what he’s got prepared for LT2, maybe watch a horror movie. God truly has His favorites. In conclusion: Louis in sweaters.

9) Favorite tattoo?

I think the compass was really well made, like the shading and the contours make it look almost lifelike. Then it points to HOME, which I think is so sweet and personal, like he already knows what ‘home’ is to him and he’s sure that that’s where he’d want to go back to, every time without a doubt. I also like the “It Is What It Is” tattoo, it’s written elegantly, kind of like a Ballantines font and it’s definitely an eye-catcher, displayed on his chest. The stag one also isn’t bad, its right eye is just a bit more bugged out than the other. It makes it a lil more special though, it’s easily identifiable as Louis’ tattoo because of that and the antlers are sort of majestic.

10) Favorite Louis photo (currently)?

I am going to pretend I read that as ‘photos’ because I am an indecisive little shit :))

(HELLOOOO HE LOOK LIKE THE SWEETEST HEDGEHOG // He is just- in his element, he is living up there)

(He makes the tousled hair look so good what the hell // Does this need elaboration, I mean, his smile literally powers everything on earth, and the crinkles by his eyes, and his sweater, and his lil canines, and-)

(Please God he is. Ethereal. Stunning. Perfect. In both photos, his eyes are just. Bright. And the cinnamon swirl, I- I’ve ascended to a higher plane of existence. He’s just so beautiful. Gorgeous really.)

11) Random extra?

When one is given the opportunity to express their love for Louis Tomlinson’s accent, one must accept.

His accent is like. Familiar, a bit like home (no, I’m not English), and I love that he’s been able to keep it even after years of living abroad. He has one of those accents where you can tell it’s present even when he sings, and when he uses endearments, God, it’s just so charming and sweet. It’s also really strong and distinctive, you can tell who he is by the first syllable or word he says. It’s a part of who he is and I love it so much and I love him so much, Jesus Christ akjskjd

I had fun being able to talk about Louis in this, there’s so much to him and every bit of it is another ray of sunshine <333

I tag @adorelou-28, @makethebestofwhatyouget, @28-oops-hi, and anyone else who wants to do this, no compulsions :))

#thank you Rae!!#i swear its been weeks since ive been tagged to do this and i am so sorry aldjakdjjd #tag games

10 notes · View notes

bergarachan · 5 years

Text

just let me adore you (oh honey)

rating: T

summary: Ryan, a couple weeks after experiencing a shitty breakup, goes to a bar to take his mind off of things. He quickly realizes the bar is a gay bar. He also realizes that Shane has been hiding some things from him.

read on ao3!

or, read here:

Ryan Bergara had had a long fucking day.

A long fucking month, to be fair. He hadn’t really told anyone except for his roommates (because it’s hard to hide things from the people you live with), but he and his girlfriend had broken up after a year of being together. They realized together that the affection they were giving each other was just an imitation of romantic love. They wanted to love each other, but honestly, they only thought of each other as friends. It was a relieving and devastating realization for both of them. Ryan cried, he was miserable for a week or two, but after that, friends they had become. It was almost like nothing had changed, that he and Mari were almost meant to be friends. And that revelation had sent Ryan into a spiral of a questioning panic. Ryan had never experimented with guys before… but honestly? Feeling a man’s stubble scratch him while they kissed…shit. Ryan shuddered. Maybe he should go out, get his head out of the gutter for a bit.

Ryan texted Shane, his best friend, asking if he wanted to come. But the latter just texted back with a “busy, sorry lil guy!!!!!!!!!!!!” (yes, with that many exclamation points), so clearly he was going alone for the night.

He threw on a long brown coat over the current black turtleneck he had on, and he looked at himself in the mirror. Holy shit, he looked good. He usually just shoved on a tee-shirt and skinny jeans but recently since the break-up he had been experimenting with style and he realized just how much he liked to dress up. It was quite fun, actually. Running his hands in his hair one last time while looking in the mirror, he decided he looked good enough to go out.

He decided to go to a bar that somehow he hadn’t really gone to before, nor had he heard of. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too crowded; however, it was a Friday night so maybe he was pushing his luck. He booked an uber and was swiftly picked up and driven to the bar.

Walking in, he noticed something was a little different. The people seemed louder, more confident, more lively, which made him frown in confusion to himself as he sat down. He ordered a beer; the bartender gave him a wink as he handed it to Ryan, and Ryan tried very hard to hide the blush that appeared on his face at the action. Jesus, what was happening to him? He had just started questioning his sexuality and he was already blushing like a newborn flower.

“Hey, is that Ryan Bergara?!” A familiar voice shouted from behind him.

Ryan whipped around and, seeing the person in question, he smiled. Finally, some good fucking company. “Hey, Curly!”

Curly, who was wearing a very Curly-typical outfit, slid into the seat next to Ryan. “Hey, Ryry! Didn’t expect to see you here. What brings you to a gay bar on a Friday night?”

Ryan was taking a sip of his beer and he nearly spat it out. “What?”

Curly frowned. “What?”

“This… this is a gay bar?” Ryan exclaimed. Curly chuckled a little in response, almost in disbelief.

“Was that not obvious, chico?” Curly asked, and watching Ryan shyly shake his head no, he smiled. “Oh, Ryan. Sweet, innocent Ryan. What would Mari say?” Ryan knows this was a complete joke, that Curly didn’t know, that he was just playing around and expected Ryan to laugh. But it kinda stung. Ryan immediately looked down to his lap.

“Oh. Uhm… actually,” Ryan stammered, “Her and I… we… split. About a month ago.”

Curly’s face immediately turned from playful to sympathetic. “Oh, no, Ryan…” And no, Ryan didn’t want to have this conversation.

“No, no… it was mutual. Besides… I’ve kinda been, uh, wanting to… experiment… lately?” He blushed as he said it out loud.

Curly’s eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

Ryan smiled shyly. “Yeah… I’ve been thinking about it and…”

“You realized boys are actually really pretty and hot and you want to get that D?” Curly finished for him.

Ryan laughed, embarrassed, cheeks flushing. “Yeah, I do, I guess.” He started to take a sip of his beer.

“It’s okay, mi principito,” Curly said, patting Ryan’s head as if he were a silly child. “We all knew you were a bottom, anyways.”

Ryan choked on his beer. “WhAT?” He coughed a couple times while Curly laughed, trying to regain the ability to breathe.

After laughing, Curly ignored him. “Anyways,” he turned towards the stage towards the back wall of the bar. “Usually on Fridays we have a music guest or two. I’ve come a couple times to listen, they’re usually really good.”

“Cool,” said Ryan. “When do they come on?”

“Around, like, eight, so in…” Curly checked his watch. “Ten minutes. You should stay and listen!”

Ryan shrugged. “Sure! It sounds like fun, and I’m planning on having a lot more beers than one tonight.” Curly laughed.

The two men talked for the next ten minutes, Curly asking lots of questions about Ryan discovering his sexuality, and Ryan answered as best as he could. It wasn’t a long story, really. After his breakup, he had just thought “Huh. Men are hot too. I should try dating one. I want a boyfriend. Wait what?” and that’s basically how it went. Curly asked Ryan if there were any guys he was interested in, and Ryan thought for a moment. As much as he didn’t really like to admit it, Shane was the first person that came to Ryan’s mind. Shane was always there for him, was there through his breakup with Helen, there through his recovery, supportive of him and Mari and their breakup respectively. He was there to care for Ryan when he felt down, they sang songs together, ran a show together, ran a goddamned business together, and not to mention, as much as Ryan hated it, Shane was hot. Ryan even caught himself staring at his scruffy beard, his shiny brown eyes, and the muscles he liked to pretend he didn’t have but definitely did have. Shane wasn’t fucking ripped like Ryan was (according to all his friends), but he had muscles. Shane was strong. And Ryan wondered what his strong hands would look like wrapped around Ryan’s ne- nope, nope, Ryan, you’re in public.

Choking kink aside, Ryan really did like Shane. Maybe Ryan even loved Shane. It wasn’t likely Shane had ever, or will ever feel the same back.

“What’re you thinking about, my friend?” Curly asked from beside him.

Ryan shook his head. “Nothing important.” It wasn’t important, really. Ryan would go on pretending he didn’t have feelings for Shane, just like he had probably been pretending for the past five years, and life would go on. Had it really been five years? Yeesh.

Curly looked like he was about to say something, but a loud mic feedback from across the room stopped them both. They turned their heads to a man at the mic. He had dark hair, smoothed back; but he also looked like he came here literally every day. He was wearing a hawaiian t-shirt, as you do, and worn-down jeans.

“Hey, everyone,” said the man as the people went quiet, “I’m Jared, I run this place. I hope you’re all having a great time so far.” He cleared his throat, then continued. “So, uh, today we have a musical guest. I think he should introduce himself actually, so…” He looked to his side, seemingly looking for someone standing at the side of the stage, then turned back. “take it away!” Jared exclaimed, and everybody started to clap. Ryan did, too.

Jared hastily came off the stage, and then another man walked onstage. He was wearing a white button-down, with the first couple of buttons undone, showing off his chest and collarbone. He wore black dresspants and clear framed glasses. He was tall and his hair was a light brown and his beard was neatly trimmed and oh my fucking god, that’s Shane. Ryan realized. His eyes widened like golf balls, and he turned to exchange a look with Curly, who’s eyes were equally as wide.

“Hey,” Shane said (oh my god, it’s fucking Shane) into the mic. “I uh, have a song to sing. I wrote it myself, actually.” The crowd cheered a little, and Shane laughed bashfully. “Yeah.”

As Shane continued talking to the crowd Ryan leaned into Curly and hissed, “Did you know anything about this?!”

Curly whispered back, “No, I would’ve told you. Holy shit, Ryan, he looks good.” And Ryan couldn’t argue with that. Jesus, Shane looked downright incredible in that outfit, and he must’ve gotten another haircut, because he looked like a sophisticated lawyer. For whatever reason, Ryan was into it.

“So, uh, this song is called ‘adore you’,” Shane continued, “It’s about one of my friends. He’s… he’s incredible, really. Inside and out. And, in our friendship we don’t get to, like, express our feelings a lot. It’s mostly jokes and bits. And… I wrote this when I was feeling emotional one day and I just wanted to tell him that- you know what? I’ll just sing it for you.” Shane cut himself off from his story, and in the back of his mind, Ryan wondered who the song was about. Shane had a lot of friendships that were more joking than emotional.

The band behind Shane started to play, and as the intro to the song faded in Shane vocalized with this “Ahh…” that was beautiful and controlled and incredible and how did Ryan not realize that Shane was that good at singing. It made Ryan’s heart do a flip-flop in his chest.

The drums kicked in, and Shane started to sing.

“Walk in your rainbow paradise Strawberry lipstick state of mind”

Holy shit. This song was lovely so far, in Ryan’s opinion. Whoever Shane had written the song about was the luckiest person in the world.

“I get so lost inside your eyes,” Shane continued to sing, “Would you believe it?”

“Never took Shane as a romantic,” Curly nudged Ryan in the shoulder, and Ryan shrugged.

“Me either.” Ryan dazedly wished it was him Shane was singing about. He’d pay good money to get a song as good as that, written just for him.

“You don’t have to say you love me You don’t have to say nothin You don’t have to say you’re mine honey,”

Ryan sighed, smiling. What a sap Shane was. Ryan always knew Shane was a sweetheart. He couldn’t wait to tease him about this.

The chorus kicked in, and Ryan’s breath caught. Shane sang this soft “ahhh” with backing harmonies from the band, and Ryan refused to believe Shane had that much talent. Maybe Ryan was less straight than he originally assumed.

“I’d walk through fire for you, Just let me adore you, oh honey, I’d walk through fire for you, Just let me adore you Like it’s the only thing I’ll ever do,” Shane gripped the mic stand with both his hands, started to tap with his feet, gaining a little bit of confidence as the crowd wooed a little bit. It made Ryan smile even wider to see Shane so happy, so relieved the crowd was enjoying what he’d made.

Shane started to sing the second verse. “Your wonder under summer skies Brown skin and lemon over ice Would you believe it?”

Curly nudged him again. “What?” Ryan asked. Curly just wiggled his eyebrows in response, causing Ryan to flush and shove him playfully. “Curly, you think he’s-? Oh god, dude, no. No. No.” Ryan giggled, embarrassed at the thought.

“I’m just saying,” Curly said, smug, and Ryan decided to give him a shove again.

“You don’t have to say you love me I just wanna tell you something Lately you’ve been on my mind,” The crowd had started to clap along with Shane’s song as the short instrumental in between the bridge and chorus started. Shane laughed bashfully, looking among the crowd of hands clapping. His smile fell ever so slightly as his gaze landed, consequently, on Ryan. Ryan’s breath hitched. Their eye contact was intense, full of an emotion Ryan couldn’t place. He quickly broke the eye contact by shyly looking down at his shoes. Shane’s voice didn’t waver, even if his expression did. He just continued to sing as beautifully as he ever had. The music faded to a simple base as Shane sang the chorus again,

“I’d walk through fire for you Just let me adore you Oh, honey,” The drums and guitar with the lovely melody and the rest of the instruments started to play again. Shane’s gaze flicked to Ryan’s again, and stayed there as he sang the rest of the chorus.

“I’d walk through fire for you Just let me adore you Oh, honey I’d walk through fire for you just let me adore you Like it’s the only thing i’d ever do,” Shane bounced along to the beat as the crowd started to clap again and cheer. Shane was smiling again, and this time the smile didn’t waver as he looked Ryan deep in the eyes and crooned, “Like it’s the only thing I’ll ever do,”

Ryan’s heart skipped a beat. This song couldn’t be about him, it just couldn’t. Shane could never like Ryan. Ryan was… a lot, emotionally. Ryan’s face wasn’t as symmetrical as it could be. Ryan talked too much about sports, his smile was wonky, his-

And with the last kick of the bass drum, the song ended. The crowd, including curly, whooped and cheered and clapped, and Ryan swore he’d never seen Shane smile wider. Ryan clapped too, laughing and smiling. He felt like a proud mother, even though he literally had never seen Shane sing like that.

“Alright, well,” Shane gripped the mic again, and the crowd settled down. “That was a cheese-show, wasn’t it? Gross,” Shane was clearly joking, and the crowd laughed along with him, including Ryan. “Anyways, here’s a song I did not write. Here’s What You Know by Two Door Cinema Club.” The band started to play again, and the crowd cheered as Shane started to sing.

Shane sang a bunch more songs, the rest of them just being covers of other songs that Ryan knew Shane liked. Ryan was genuinely enjoying himself too, and so were the rest of the people in the bar. He even saw some of the bartenders bobbing their heads and tapping their fingers along to the beat of whatever song Shane was singing. Every once in a while, Shane and Ryan would make eye contact, Ryan would flush, and Shane would smile as if he knew something Ryan didn’t; a secret. It was exhilarating to see Shane look at him like that. Ryan didn’t want Shane to stop doing that.

Once Shane finished his last song, he said in the mic to the crowd, “That’s it for tonight, folks. I, uh, I don’t sing often in front of a crowd,” Unless you count creating and singing a song about moonlight and french fries in front of people, Ryan thought to himself, making himself smirk.”So this was really special for me. Thanks to the band back here,” He motioned to the band, and people started to clap, “And thanks for clapping along and stuff. This was fun. Goodnight, enjoy the rest of your night!” And with that, the band started to pack up and Shane walked off of the stage.

Ryan locked eyes with Curly, and they shared a smile. “Should we go up and see him?”

Curly nodded enthusiastically, “Yes, omigod, yes, I am going to tell him to get on the radio, oh my gosh, that was amazing!” He gushed, and grabbed Ryan’s hand and pulled him through the crowd to get to the side of the stage where Shane would be putting away his gear.

When they got to the side of the stage, Shane was standing there, fixing his hair (as if it didn’t look gorgeous already, Ryan thought) and Curly pushed Ryan forward, having him face Shane up close.

“Hey there, Ryan,” Shane said with a soft smile, as suave and as cool as ever, and Ryan couldn’t do anything but gaze up at him amazedly, knowing full-well he looked like a swooning 15 year old girl, and giggle a little bit. God, what was Shane doing to him? He had literally never reacted like this, and yet, after Shane’s whole show, seeing him singing like that, looking like that, dressed like that, Ryan really could do nothing but swoon in his presence.

“Uh, Shane?!” Curly gushed from behind Ryan, taking a step forward and saving Ryan from any more embarrassment. “That was incredible! I didn’t know you could sing like that?!”

“Oh, hey, Curly!” At Curly’s response, Shane blushed a little bit, rubbed the back of his neck bashfully, “Well, uh, yeah. I’ve been writing and singing for a while now, just never got the chance to, like, perform. I struck up a conversation with the guy who owns the place and he brought up the musical guest thing, I told him about my songs, and… yeah. It went from there.” Shane turned back to Ryan, “Now what I want to know, is what you’re doing here.”

Ryan blushed even more. Usually when he blushed it didn’t show too much under slightly dimmed lights like these and under his tanned skin, but he probably looked like an anime girl at this point. “I didn’t know it was a gay bar. Whoops.”

A short silence fell upon the three, and finally Ryan, feeling awkward, softly said, “You were incredible.”

Shane said, “You look incredible.” Ryan looked down, shy. Fuck Shane for making him so bashful.

“Hey, Ryan?” Shane asked. His brown eyes looked so deep, yet so bright and full of emotion.

“Yeah, big guy?” Ryan responded, breath taken away.

“Can we… head outside for a moment?” He looked to Curly for permission, and Curly, the bastard, nodded, a smirk growing on his face. Fuck you, Curly.

“Oh,” Ryan blinked, taken aback by the question, “Yeah. Of course. Sure.”

Shane led the way, and he and Ryan stepped outside the bar. The air was slightly chilly, the sky was dark, devoid of stars, and the wind blew slightly. Ryan shivered, and he felt a large, warm hand on his shoulder.

“Uh,” Shane started, and Ryan glanced at Shane. He seemed… nervous. He was looking at his feet, hands in his pockets. “So… the song… the one I sang in the beginning.” He said, looking unsure/

Ryan nodded, goading him on. “Yeah, that was such a beautiful song, Shane. Whoever you wrote it about is super lucky.” Oh, god, I just said that out loud. Of course. “Uh… it was really good. I liked it. A lot.”

Shane smiled at that, a beautiful smile that Ryan was glad to see on Shane’s face. “Remember when we were filming tourist trapped?”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah?” He remembered it clearly. It was one of the best days of his 2019, hands down.

“I really loved those few days we were filming. It… it was amazing. I loved eating hotdogs and gin with you, going on stupidly scary roller coasters with you, hugging Snoopy with you,” That got a laugh out of both of them, “And it really was some of the greatest days of my life.” That makes two of us. “So… I got home, and… I wrote a song about it.”

Ryans breath caught. He couldn’t mean… “You…” Ryan stammered.

“Adore You is about you, Ry.”

Ryan’s face turned red. “Really?” He practically whispered. Shane nodded. “Shane…”

“Shh,” Shane shushed him, placing a hand on his cheek softly and swooping down to kiss Ryan.

Ryan gasped into the kiss, going still for a few moments before going Oh, yeah, your super hot super cute super sweet best friend is kissing you, you should probably kiss back, and kiss back he did. Shane wouldn’t let the kiss go beyond anything but chaste and sweet, wrapping his arms around Ryan’s waist to pull him closer as Ryan (on his tiptoes) wrapped his arms around Shane’s neck. “Shane,” Ryan sighed dreamily into the kiss, and Shane smiled against his lips in response.

When they finally broke apart for air, Shane smiled, pressing one last kiss to Ryan’s cheek. “Shane.” Ryan said, out of breath.

“Ryan.” Shane replied.

Ryan played with Shane’s collar. “Wanna go back inside?” He shot Shane with his classic puppydog eyes, glancing at him through his lashes. He knew Shane was a sucker for them, kiss or no kiss.

“If you insist,” said Shane, and the two went back inside, blushes on their cheeks and smiles on their faces. Ryan wondered what this meant for them. That kiss was something Ryan didn’t even know that he wanted, until tonight. He shook his head, deciding they’d discuss it later. Right now, he was happy, he was with Shane, and Curly, and this is where we wanted to be.

As they walked back inside, Ryan caught himself humming the ever-so-familiar tune,

just let me adore you, like it’s the only thing i’ll ever do.

#shyan #shyan fanfiction #belle writes #shyan fic

58 notes · View notes

writing-noah · 5 years

Text

Let's Go Back In Time

Time Capsules are an interesting thing to have as a kid.

They're these little boxes filled with objects that, years ago, meant the world to you.

For people unfamiliar with the time capsule, it may seem like a bunch of randomly selected objects thrown in a box that's called differently.

It couldn't be further from the real thing.

Kirishima never really thought about that old box until an hour ago. Hell, he even forgot about it completely. Had it not been for Gishian's call, that box would've ended up in the garbage and he wouldn't even care.

Eijirou didn't even think about the contents of that box until he was right in front of the arcade.

Was he really doing this? Getting an old box he hid with his ex-boyfriend that was filled with beautiful memories from when they were together? Memories of U.A. and his friends?

Memories of being a hero.

Because that ended up becoming a dream that Eijirou would never achieve. Becoming a hero. Saving people.

After he lost his quirk, everything fell apart.

"Eiji!"

A voice made him come back to reality, smiling at the sight of his old friend.

"Gishian!"

"You've changed so much, my boy! And you were finally able to be taller than me!" Kirishima laughed at that, tightly hugging the man.

Gish had known him his entire life. He was the owner of the arcade and also the one in charge of fixing the games if one broke down. Eijirou was six when they met.

That was twenty years ago.

"It was about time!"

Gishian nodded, an amused smile on his face. "It's really good to see you, my boy. It's a pity you don't visit anymore."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry about that. You know I've been working a lot."

"Yes, I know. But you should also have some time for yourself. I remember how much fun you had trying out all the games when you were younger... but let's not talk about it. How's the family?"

They started walking towards the back of the arcade, being careful not to be run over by excited kids running around.

"Everyone is great! My mothers ended up moving to a smaller place because mom got tired of the stairs. Grandpa finally called his son and daughter and they've been talking things out. Nonna and Nonno are spending some time back in Italy before they continue their journey around the world. Cousin Hotaro has a company that's going amazingly, and I think he's gonna do some sort of partnership with Futaba about a new product... Things have been great, yeah."

"And what about you? Are you still looking for a path to follow?"

Eijirou shrugged. "It depends on what happens around me. Right now I'm employed and just... going. It's been tiring, but I'll be fine."

"And what about the guitar and the singing? You left that aside?"

"That's actually how I'm making some extra money. One of my friends has a bar and she lets me play at night as background. I don't have to be on stage so that's why I can do it."

"Taller than me but you still struggle with crowds." Gishian smiled.

"It's a work in progress! My main objective was getting taller than you. Now that that's out of the way, I can focus on not freezing on stage!"

Gishian laughed, softly shaking his head. "I see... And how are your friends? I've seen them on the news a bunch of times. Great heroes!"

"Yeah, everyone has their agencies or are working with one of the top heroes... They're amazing."

"And you are too, my boy. Fighting villains and doing all that risky stuff isn't the only way to be a hero. You can also be one." Gishian put a hand on Eijirou's shoulder, squeezing it softly. Then, he let go. "I'll get the box, give me a second."

The man disappeared behind a door labeled "Staff Only", and Kirishima waited outside as he thought about those last words.

Thanks, Gish.

《》

Eijirou kicked the door closed the moment he entered his house, the heavy box from the arcade between his hands. He left it on the table, a relieved sigh exiting his lips as he softly caressed his arms.

"What on Earth did we put in this that's so heavy? Jesus... And why did we hide it inside one of the games!? That must be one of the worst places ever!" The now black-haired boy sat on the couch, lazily stretching as he made himself comfortable. It was still early for dinner, so he simply stared at the ceiling for a couple minutes.

...

Should he open the box?

No. They made a promise to open it together years ago. He can't break that promise.

...

But in reality, another broken promise wouldn't change things. Eijirou had already broken most of the promises he made with Kaminari anyways.

How he promised they'd always be together, have an agency with Bakugou, Mina and Sero and be the best heroes of all times. How he promised to even marry him, even though both of them saw the whole marriage and celebration as something unnecessary and over the top...

Just how many lies was his younger self able to tell?

Kirishima finally sat up on the couch, positioning himself right in front of the box. He sighed, hands getting close to the little lock desperately trying to avoid the box from popping open.

With a soft pull, it broke. And all the memories came rushing back to Eijirou as soon as he started recognizing the objects inside the box.

The first two things were extremely noticeable. Two plushies, a Pikachu and a Shark. They won them on their first date, at the arcade. Kaminari was determined to get a plush from the claw machine. And he did. The amazing thing was that the shark was stuck on Pikachu's tail, so he got both of the plushies at once.

After taking those out, two newspaper clips came to view. Those were covered in clear tape as a protection so they wouldn't get ruined with moisture and time.

The first one's headline was covered with silly drawings and scribbles. Because that wasn't important. The date was.

September 14th. The day they hid the box nine years ago.

The second one read "HEROES DEBUT: RED RIOT AND CHARGEBOLT". This one was pretty straightforward.

Next, Eijirou found four tickets. Two of them were for the first musical play he ever saw, which Kaminari bought tickets to and invited him. The second pair was for a concert of Kaminari's favourite band. Those were bought by Eijirou, as a thank you for the musical.

A bunch of cassettes were there too, all from different artists. They promised to listen to them when they opened the box together. Also a DVD of Kami's favorite movie, "Back to the Future".

After digging through hundreds more memories, he finally reached the very bottom of the box. There were two awful drawings of each other, made at a picnic date because Denki had the sudden idea. Those didn't fail to make Kirishima laugh.

Right after taking out the drawings, two letters came to view. One had written "For Future Eijirou" on it. The other, "For Future Denki".

He took his letter, opening it before he could think about it and starting to read what his younger self hoped he achieved in a nearby future.

Eijirou could only read all the stuff he didn't accomplish.

"Hope you're still close to 1-A after graduation and hanging out as much as possible!"

He was a lonely loser drowning himself in work so he wouldn't think about how he lost all his friends. Oh, and he didn't graduate at U.A.

"Hope you are an amazing hero who saves people with a manly smile!"

He could barely remember how to genuinely smile after losing his quirk thanks to the Quirk-Destroying Drug. After that happened, he had nothing to do with U.A.

"Hope you're eating healthier just like mamma told you, taking care of yourself and also exercising constantly!"

Visiting gym once a week counts as a win? And the rest... well...

"Hope you still love Denki with all your heart!"

...

That didn't change at all.

Eijirou left the letter next to him, his eyes tingling as the tears started to build up in his eyes. He used the back of his hands to wipe the falling tears away, putting all the memories back in the box.

How could he give up so fast? He isolated himself from everyone, even from himself. He stopped talking to everyone, blocked absolutely all his friends and broke up with the man he loved the most.

All because his quirk was removed? He felt like an idiot.

Yeah, quirks are a big part of people, but that doesn't mean it's everything. He was still Eijirou Kirishima. He was still that cheerful guy who wanted to help people, no matter how. That guy who loved his friends and family, and most importantly, himself.

How did he forget all that so suddenly?

He got up from the couch, the determination building up in his chest. Right now, only one thing was on his mind.

"It's time to change that."

《》

Well, this wasn't planned at all.

After an impulsive decision and two hours in an airplane, he was right in front Kaminari's door at his apartment in Kyoto. He felt the doubt taking over after realizing he had no plan, no words and no idea how to explain this.

...shit, should he even knock? What if Denki was busy? Or wasn't even there? Should he really dig up the past?

And why in the world did he bring the box with everything!? That was an even worst idea!!

He should just turn back and pretend this never happened. Bothering Denki after all this years would just be—

"Eijirou?"

Well fuck.

He turned around, the man he was so scared to see again right in front of him.

"Denki..."

Kaminari barely changed from how he was at U.A. His hair was still a bright yellow with a lightning bolt across the bangs, a bit shorter at the back. A couple piercings decorated his face on the lower lip and right eyebrow, and Kirishima could see he was wearing some lip gloss too.

He was clearly not expecting anyone, judging from the Doritos and drinks he was carrying, and also because he was dressed with oversized clothes he only used to be at home playing videogames or watching movies.

He looked beautiful.

"What... are you doing here? Why are you here!? And HOW!?" Denki's eyes looked like they'd pop out of their sockets with how surprised he was.

"Well, I... um... Gishian had to take out some games from the arcade, and he found this inside Super Smash."

Kaminari was suddenly right in front of Eijirou, his fingers softly brushing across the edge of the box.

"Our time capsule... I totally forgot about it."

Eijirou chuckled. "Yeah, I did too. I opened it and looked through some stuff and I just... wanted to see you so bad, Denki. I never apologized for acting like such a dick, and for hurting you the way I did. Losing my quirk hit me hard but that didn't allow me to say such things to you. You were there to try and make me feel better and the only thing I did was push you away. And I'm so sorry for that." His sight turned blurry again, tears starting to spill without him being able to avoid it.

"Hey, hey..." The blond left his groceries aside, and he did the same with the box that was between Kirishima's hands. Then, he grabbed him by the cheeks, using his thumbs to get rid of the tears that were rolling down Eijirou's face. "It wasn't all your fault, Eijirou. It was wrong of me to try and distract you from something that big. I wanted to see you back smiling so bad I tried to forcefully make you forget that. You were allowed to be sad, but I didn't understand that. I'm sorry."

Eijirou put his hands over Kaminari's, closing his eyes. That simple touch made his stomach flip a hundred times.

"I missed you so much, Denki..."

"I missed you too, Eijirou." The blond let go of the guy's cheeks and hugged him tight, his face hidden on the crook of Kirishima's neck. The black-haired boy hugged him back just as tight.

They stood there, in the middle of the hallway, for around half an hour. Once the tears stopped, they felt like it was the right time to let go and take a step back.

"I'm glad I can see you again."

Kaminari nodded, grabbing his groceries once again. "I'm glad you came, Eiji... Wanna come inside? I don't have anything scheduled today. We can open the box, talk a bit, have dinner... You can stay over if you'd like!"

"Considering I came here impulsively and didn't even look for a hotel... I'd like that a lot, yeah."

"Great! Because I also need to know what happened to you, dude!? You look exhausted, and you haven't shaved or dyed your hair in what seems to be a looong time! Have you been taking care of yourself?" Kaminari easily unlocked the door and entered his apartment, leaving the door open for Kirishima. He followed, box between his arms just like when he arrived.

"I have, man! I go to the gym on Fridays and—"

"Only Fridays!? That's not good for you, Eijirou! How many hours do you sleep? And what have you been eating!?"

"Um..."

"Junk food, am I right!? For the love of All Might, I'm gonna kill you, dude! That's not automatically fixed with ONE DAY of exercise! You know this!"

"I'm not a hero, I don't need that kind of training!" He left the box on the table, his eyes following Denki as he walked towards the kitchen to get water and open what he bought.

"It wasn't being a hero what pushed you to exercise and be healthy! I remember how you looked every time you were at the gym or at Gamma. You always looked as if you were home. Smiling, enjoying yourself. Your quirk only made your skin hard. The strength that allowed you to even punch down buildings was yours, Ei."

"Well, I don't need to tear down buildings anymore. So we're good."

"That's your excuse for not doing what you love? "I don't need it anymore"? Seriously?"

"Kinda, yeah!"

"...I'm about to change the Doritos to apples and force you to eat healthy. I'm THIS CLOSE."

"Oh, c'mon! You're not mamma. Just bring the Doritos."

"Why should I?"

"Because Doritos and Back to the Future is better than fruit and a movie, man."

The room stayed silent for a couple seconds until Denki barked a laugh.

"Fine. ONLY for the movie!!"

"You got it, Bolt."

It was an amazing night with Kaminari, catching up after all these years without each other. They talked about the past and everything inside the box at first, and that was followed by graduation, work, family and a lot more.

They were finally done after three hours of talking, so it was time to start watching the movie. While Kaminari turned on the DVD and everything, Kirishima was getting some blankets and pillows. He threw everything on the couch and turned off the lights once the movie was ready to start.

Denki sat down next to him, pillows all around him. He covered himself in blankets just like Eijirou did, scooting closer to the boy so he could use him as a pillow.

Just like old times.

《————————》

And that's all, I think! Had this idea after reading the Kirishima Headcanons my friend @bunnyramen wrote! Go check them out!!

#bnha #writing #kirishima eijirou #eijirou kirishima #denki kaminari #kaminari denki #kirikami #kamikiri #darknoahshere #Time Capsule

28 notes · View notes

i-dentities · 4 years

Text

[Subject name: Unknown. Begin transcript.]

Oh, Simmons, Simmons, Simmons. You want to talk about Simmons? Okay, I’ll bite. What a useless fucking idiot that man was. I mean, really, he was manipulative and cruel, but he didn’t make a lick of sense half the time. All bravado, you know?

[DSO Agent Inverness: But he was worth the effort of having him infected in Tatchi?]

Well, of course. We had a… complicated history. He made me what I am. He just never expected I’d be smarter and crueller than him.

[Agent Inverness: What do you mean, he made you what you are? When did you meet?]

[BSAA representative Jacobs: This is useless. Make her tell us where the Neo-Umbrella bases are.]

[Agent Inverness: We need to know the extent of Simmons’ involvement and the effect on the American government.]

[SSA Forster: Answer the question, Ms. Wong, and we’ll get you some water.]

[Subject looks up at the speaker, then into the camera on the wall.]

Is that my FBI profiler? Boy, I’ve got the whole menagerie, Special Supervisory Agent Randall Forster.

[SSA Forster: You’re not intimidating us, Ms. Wong. Start from the beginning.]

Oh, I’m not going to start from the beginning. You’d just pity me, and none of us want that. [Laughs.] I’ll start from the beginning with Derek, though. Let’s see.

You wanted to know about his, well, insidious effect on the American government? I suppose that’s where it starts. I was eighteen and he was twenty-five when he hired me to take care of General John Harrison. Romantic, isn’t it? I guess you all never tested for belladonna. [Note: Exhumation ordered immediately after this statement confirms presence of atropine and hyoscyamine in hair samples.] I must’ve been pretty good, because after that I was his go-to weapon for getting people out of his way, and he told me all about his big ideas. A world of chaos. You know the spiel.

[Agent Inverness: Why didn’t you tell anyone about this? Why did you go along with it?]

Ever listen to the song Sixteen Going On Seventeen from The Sound Of Music? You’ll have to get the full prognosis from Randall.

[Agent Inverness: So your relationship was intimate in nature?]

Is nothing private?

[Ms. Jacobs: You’re clearly showing signs of dehydration and exhaustion, Ms. Wong. We both know this act is getting you nowhere.]

Fine, I’ll sing for my supper. He considered himself in love with me and believed that I was or should be in love with him, and he was pretty damn convincing.

[SSA Forster: Did you perceive it differently?]

Oh, I believed everything he told me. I would’ve done anything to make him proud, back then. Can I get back to the story?

[Agent Inverness: Go on.]

So, he had his plans and his power, and I had my skills and my smarts, and we were - really - the perfect team. At least, that’s what he said. I brought him samples of various bioweapon agents over the years, to--

[Ms. Jacobs: Which bioweapons?]

To make the C-virus and develop reliable options, I was about to say. You really love interrupting me. It was… G-Virus, Raccoon City, 1998. t-Veronica, Sacred Snakes, 2002. The Dominant plaga, Eastern Slav Republic, 2011. I’m sure there were others.

I was personally involved with the development of the C-virus. If I may, I’ve been considered something of a prodigy. Derek always told me I was the only woman smart enough to keep up with him, whatever that’s worth, and I worked as a virologist at Umbrella in 1997. I mean, I’m sure you know all about my research for Neo-Umbrella. Marhawa, Edonia, even Tatchi… Field experiments.

And, of course, throughout this time I carried out all kinds of covert operations for him. I silenced people who knew too much about him, killed people who had power he wanted for himself, the whole nine yards. Anything to make him proud. Anything to advance his agenda, our agenda. He always told me… what was it? I would sit beside him when he was on his throne.

[SSA Forster: What throne would he have in a world of chaos?]

He was going to bring order to it. Under him. Listen to what I’m telling you; it’s a story. You’re a bad audience.

[Agent Inverness: Okay, where did you get the funding for your work?]

We pooled our funds. I worked hard, ran high-rolling jobs for all kinds of interests. Albert Wesker was one of my primary employers up through his death. Tricell, Umbrella, all kinds of militias, whoever could meet my asking price. I’ve always been pretty well-known in the bioweapons industry. Derek was the reason you didn’t have eyes on me until a couple years ago, he kept me out of reports and all.

When I was getting the Dominant plaga sample from the ESR for him, I posed as a BSAA agent, and in the fallout of the outbreak there I was labelled an international terrorist. I’m sure if you look, you can find his footprint in a few different intelligence databases, removing me. He was always so sloppy. [Evidence of file corruption in BSAA bioterror database coinciding with the time frame of this allegation has been found.]

For his part… you know he was a rich kid. That was where it started, and when our little operation grew he realized that you Americans really sink all kinds of no-strings-attached taxpayer money into all kinds of undisclosed national security projects.

I guess if you wanted to find something, one of his big sources was what he presented as a counterterror research and development operation. He called it Project Ada-- isn’t that sweet? Anyways, if you really get in the classified files there, my best guess is you’ll find... nothing. It wasn’t off the record, it was just Neo-Umbrella, and you gave us millions. [Existence of an US-STRATCOM undertaking codenamed PROJECT ADA from 1999-2009 has been confirmed; no evidence as to its function.]

Of course, I outgrew him eventually. Like I said, he made me even better than he was, and when I realized the monster he’d turned me into… [Laughs.] Well, I’m petty. I wanted to make him into a monster too.

[Ms. Jacobs: Why didn’t you turn him in?]

Would’ve been my word against his. Besides, then my plans would be ruined. Global infection, you know.

[Ms. Jacobs: So they were your plans?]

He’d given them to me. [Shifting.] What part of this doesn’t click for you, really? I’m exactly what he made me into. I know that. Tall Oaks… Tatchi… HAOS… that’s what I was made to do.

[Agent Inverness: So you orchestrated the assassination of President Benford?]

As much as I wish I could take credit for that, you’ve made it clear I have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth just to get a glass of fucking water around here, so no. It’s confusing, I know. How do you want me to go through 2012-2013? In chronological order, or by topic?

[Agent Inverness: In order.]

Alright, but don’t blame me if you get lost.

Okay, so I’d outgrown him, right? But he didn’t know that yet. Without his knowledge, I expanded Neo-Umbrella’s operations and started developing HAOS. Then in December, he ordered me to go to Edonia to ensure the US government successfully acquired Muller. I should have the mission briefing in my personal files in the facility you raided. [A partially damaged film reel was discovered matching this description.]

[Agent Inverness: But you didn’t. You abducted Albert Wesker’s son and performed unethical experiments on him for six months.]

Would you have done any differently?

[No response.]

We both know you wouldn’t. He’d still be in your custody if you got your hands on him, just like this except the only crime he committed against you was having a father. How old was Sherry Birkin when you put her in Simmons’ custody? Twelve? How old was she when you stopped experimenting on her?

You’re just like me- no, you are- only you make the antidotes and I make the poisons, and with all your resources and human guinea pigs you’re still always one step behind. Is it worth it? Are you proud?

[Break in recording here.]

--so no, he wasn’t involved with the development of the enhanced strain. [Coughs.] Christ. Still no [Recording corrupted.] He was pretty mad when he found out about it in Tatchi-- the enhancement made it harder for him to control, but that’s later. Where were we?

[Ms. Jacobs: What about Captain Redfield’s team? Was that part of your ‘field experiment’?]

[Laughs] No, that was for fun. Bunch of rats in a cage, you just wanna mess with ‘em.

[Coughing and sounds of motion.]

Oh, come on, let’s not- hey, hey, hey, let’s not do this again. Am I in trouble for telling the truth, now? You asked, hey, why don’t you pick on someone your own size? Jesus. I’m delicate, you know. Fragile contents. I’m just answering your question.

I pretended to be a damsel in distress so I’d get escorted through a dangerous area, I do it all the time. I did it in Raccoon City. Just didn’t let them all go that time. Anyways, I didn’t like Edonia. All I got was an annoying kid. Can we move on?

[Agent Inverness: Is Tall Oaks more fun for you? You said that was Simmons’ work.]

Simmons’ show, my handiwork. It was my baby that triggered the outbreak. That was the basic C-Virus, of course; he didn’t know about the enhancements I’d developed with Muller’s antibodies.

My understanding of the situation is that Benford was planning to come clean to the public about the sterilization of Raccoon City, take responsibility. [Coughs.] Cute. Derek didn’t want to take responsibility, though; he was the first to call for the sterilization as soon as I’d gotten the G sample. Didn’t want any competition, you know. So he decided to silence the president instead of facing accountability.

[SSA Forster: You said he used your baby to trigger the outbreak. Are you referring to the Lepotica?]

Yes, my baby. They’re all my children; Lepotica, Gnezdo… they come from me.

[Ms. Jacobs: Let’s get back on track.]

[SSA Forster: You mean you developed them?]

I made them of myself. Loved them. Like Ustanak, like HAOS would have been, if your clowns hadn’t killed them. I talk to them, you know. Tell them about the world. They understand me, they listen to me. ‘My hideous creation, go forth and prosper.’ My children. They love me.

[Note from SSA Forster: The subject began to cry openly at this point. Though I’m unconvinced that her crying was authentic, previous autopsies have found traces of the subject’s own mutated DNA in Lepotica and Gnezdo specimens. This has been a subject of speculation, as well as the fact that Neo-Umbrella had samples of her DNA on file, but it seems clear to me now that she developed the strain of C-Virus that created them using her own DNA as a base, believing that it made the resulting Complete Mutations her offspring. This fits with reports of her close relationship with the neutralized human mutation called Ustanak, which she may have created in a similar manner.]

[Ms. Jacobs: Focus on the events of June 2013.]

[Agent Inverness: Take a moment, Ms. Wong. You weren’t in Tall Oaks?]

[Pause. Subject hiccups, then grunts in pain.] No, I was at the Quad Tower in Lanshiang, working. Getting ready for the attack there.

[Agent Inverness: And Simmons didn’t know this was coming?]

No, he was occupied with the whole treason plot. It allowed me to get all the pieces into position without him catching on. Do you need me to walk you through exactly all of the events in Tatchi? Like children? I have to warn you, with so many moving parts there will be holes even in my story-- don’t take it out on me.

[Agent Inverness: That won’t be necessary. We have BSAA communication logs that trace your location throughout the incident, up until your reported death. How did you do it?]

Survive? A magician never tells.

[Ms. Jacobs: Ms. Wong, the sooner you cooperate, the sooner you’ll get to eat. We’re almost done here.]

Fine. What’s for lunch? I’m famished.

[Ms. Jacobs: Answer the question.]

It’s simple, really. I’m sure Redfield and Nivans mentioned the helicopter on the scene. It was mine. I sent a signal, they dropped a body double, I swung away, they picked me up. Your boys didn’t even bother taking the elevator down to examine the body up close, which I was banking on. The BSAA isn’t known for being thorough. Always letting someone else clean up your messes- but I’m sure whoever cleaned up didn’t find a body, because the one I had dropped was infected. It tore a hole in the ship a few minutes later; easy destruction of evidence.

[Agent Inverness: So you just left after that?]

I’d been shot in the chest, I wasn’t fit to do much else without infecting myself, and I’m smarter than that. Simmons was infected, all my plans were in motion. The helicopter took me to a safehouse not far away, where I recovered briefly and then was moved to a different facility.

[Agent Inverness: Where was the safehouse?]

Ugh, really? It was a few miles outside Lanshiang, no one’s using it anymore. I’m sure you already found it. When’s lunch? You people have to actually feed me at some point if you want me to be useful, you know.

[Agent Inverness: Very well, Ms. Wong. Since you’ve been… mostly cooperative--]

I’ve been very nice. You have no idea how much meaner I could have been. In fact, I’m feeling more irritable by the minute and I think it’s because I need medical attention but you’re making me beg for water.

[Agent Inverness: Since you’ve been cooperative, then, I’ll ensure food and water are brought to your cell.]

What a gentleman. In that case, next time I’ll give you the locations of the remaining Neo-Umbrella research facilities. I think I’m free tomorrow if you want to make it soon. [Coughs.] I don’t like to be kept waiting.

Any last questions?

[Agent Inverness: We’re done for now.]

[Ms. Jacobs: Do you miss him?]

Simmons?

[Ms. Jacobs: Yes.]

Endlessly. It’s like he always said. I’m nothing without him.

[Agent Inverness: But… would you commit the attack in Tatchi again if you were able?]

[Pause.]

Without hesitation.

[End of transcript.]

Conclusion- SSA Randall Forster: This interview has raised a number of questions, but answered just as many. Based on those claims we have been able to authenticate with evidence, the story detailed here is the best understanding we have of “Wong”, Simmons, and their crimes. There appears to be absolutely no reason to reopen an investigation into Secret Service Agent Helena Harper, and in fact this interview offers insight into Simmons’ manipulative nature.

In the case of the subject herself, a full psychological profile will take significantly more time, and may wait until the DSO has been able to prove or disprove more of her statements and we have her complete history. Extracting her history before Simmons has become a secondary priority, particularly to find out where she got her training. This is proving extremely difficult; it seems to me that this comes from a deep-seated unwillingness to discuss her childhood rather than a petty attempt to impede investigation, so I believe more advanced interrogation practices will be necessary.

Sleep deprivation and mild starvation only seem to have made her irritable; her behavior indicates that she is trained and experienced with these conditions. However, she displayed a worrying level of volatility compared to reports of her attitude when she was brought in, and observers have reported that she displays erratic behavior in her cell. Having reviewed some of the surveillance tapes and her statements here, I believe not only that she experiences PTSD with psychotic features, but that solitary confinement is having an abnormally negative effect on whatever mental stability she has. This may be detrimental to the investigation.

Work with her is ongoing and will continue once she’s transported to a permanent facility. She has been given a pencil and paper to begin a list of GPS coordinates. In future interviews, agents should be wary of her ability to control conversations and manipulate others. Agent Inverness and Representative Jacobs both reported having somewhat sympathetic feelings toward the subject after this interview, despite the crimes she confessed.

#txt #long long long #ask to tag #also most of this is lies :)

5 notes · View notes

procancelled · 4 years

Text

Let’s Start A Riot (2008)

I want to start out by saying that while this album came out in 2008 so some of the stuff I reference may not have happened yet, the lyrics show that he had the ideas.

Also while some of these may seem like nothing, or very minor, given the things Dahvie has said I think that it’s important to look at everything he has chosen to put out to gain fans. The messages his fans are getting.

I Can’t Get Enuff

I’ll hit you harder than meth

I’ll leave you gasping for breath

References to rough sex and Dahvie’s oral sex fixation as well as drug references. I feel like the references to drugs matter a lot more now that we know he gives drugs to minors, clearly has access to drugs and promotes them.

Bitches Get Stitches

Stop the hate congratulate

Dahvie dismisses all criticism as hate which is always a red flag, especially when that hate is to do with any kind of sexual crime (Though this was before the Jessi Slaughter incident there were still allegations against him at this time)

You know my name so eat some cake

Flaunting his fame and clearly doesn’t care if people know his name for negative reasons.

Party hardy grab Bacardi

Young audience having alcohol referenced towards them. He gives minors alcohol, slips drugs in their drinks and then rapes them.

Talk your shit watch you get hit

Violent nature towards anyone who speaks up against him. Gives the idea that being violent towards anyone who says anything negative about him or the band is okay.

What’s up with that awful gossip

Rape and pedo allegations are not just ‘gossip’ dismissing it as something so trivial is gross. He’s just trying to convince his fans that anything they hear is just ‘gossip’ and not to be taken seriously while not saying what the ‘gossip’ is.

Don’t be mad cus my hair is so rad

Your hair is a wig. I don’t know if it was at the time but I would assume it was, or parts of it were extensions of some kind. And I have no problem with people wearing a wig, but when someone is pretending it’s their real hair and are wearing it to look younger so they can maintain having a young audience who they can take advantage of, yeah, I have many, many problems with that.

Also Dahvie offers to do young girls’ hair as a way to be alone with them so he can take advantage of them.

Bitches get stitches, end up in ditches

Violence and demeaning towards women

So get the riches

Cares about money a lot more than say, being a decent human being. He scams his fans out of money.

Check yourself before you wreck yourself

Acting like everyone who says anything about the allegations about him have the facts wrong

OMG blah, blah, blah

Rude and dismissive. Teaching his fans to act that way

I’m rated x for explicted sex

To me this feels like Dahvie is saying ‘I make it clear I’m sexual so you can’t blame me for what I do!’

You can talk your shit

You can run those lips

Implying that people who talk about the allegations are lying

You’re only making me famous you ignoramus

Dahvie is clearly a man who believes that all press is good press. This also, again, shows how much he cares for fame and how demeaning and insulting he is towards those who question him.

I’m dangerous

Well we can agree about something Dahvie.

Again his violent and threatening nature shows though.

You can talk your shit you’re only making me famous

This is a message he still puts out to this day and he makes his fans push it out too. He just calls everyone who exposes him for the awful person he is a liar.

And again, he continues to go on about fame and gaining more fame. More fame means more underage fans that he can take advantage of.

Blood On The Dance Floor

Slash, gash, terror, whore

I like you better on the floor

Shows Dahvie’s views on women and how demeaning those views are. Also uses violent language while referencing sex.

On the bed give me head

Oral sex fixation and demanding

Make you scream, candy cream

Childish

Scene sluts like it super rough

That’s the way they like to fuck

Shows that he goes for scene girls, who more often than not are on the young side. He’s generalising, being demeaning and also telling his fans, a lot of who are scene, how they should be having sex and how they should like it.

I like to twerk, I like to hurt

Okay so I know the Austin Jones things was years after this, but still Austin Jones vibes isn’t a good thing to give out.

Again with the violence

Bitch, don’t make me fucking work

Demeaning and also gives more of his views on sex

Now make your move into my room

And I’ll whip out my Dr. Doom

Okay so this isn’t a big deal but it’s just so cringy to call your dick ‘Dr. Doom’ and now I’m just thinking about how Dr. Doom is a villain. Also about how he loses, because that tends to be the theme with villains.

Oh, what the fuck?

Bitch, just shut up and suck

Again with the oral sex fixation and the demeaning language.

I need to feel myself inside you deep

More sexual references. Very demanding

Uh, uh I like it rough

I believe a girl sings this part. I’m just reading the lyrics and sparing my ears but Dahvie does not give it ‘rough’ he is abusive.

Uh, uh I give it tough

Like I just said, Dahvie is just abusive and has even gone ahead to say that that’s just what BDSM is which is so wrong and harmful.

It’s like a porno flick!

This line just makes me think about the fact that he has filmed himself raping minors, sometimes after drugging them.

I’m pure triple x

Redefine ultra sex

Dahvie constantly talks about how good he is at sex, which we know isn’t true given that he doesn’t even understand consent. Then there’s the fact that he’s telling his fans how he’s good at sex.

Sex and Violence

Just from the title we already have sex being linked with violence.

You’re so submissive

I’ll get you in position

Dahvie likes to be able to take control over whoever he is with, and he’s telling his fans what he likes. He goes as far as to take a women’s ability to have any control by drugging them.

Deep throat me girl and rule my world

Oral sex fixation

Be my scene queen

Most scene girls are young due to the fact that older people can’t dress and style themselves that way as they have jobs and such.

It’s just the way we fuck

It’s the way we cut

(Sex and violence)

Connecting sex and violence, probably trying to normalise this; ‘It’s just they way things are’.

Fuck me

Rape me

Just a disgusting line, acts as if rape is something asked for. It’s also ironic since he’s the one that’s the rapist.

Take me

Blow me

Oral sex fixation

I’ll slice you, I’ll dice you

More threats of violence.

I ❤ Hello Kitty

Referencing a character intended for children. If a child searches for Hello Kitty they may come across this song.

Also I think it’s really important to keep the name of this song in mind while reading the lyrics.

Ah! Ah! I like it

Against the wall

Just fuck me in the hall

Demanding and somewhat violent/rough/intense sex

You scream ‘meat sucks!’

Well you’re out of luck

Oral fixation. Also it sounds like he’s raping a lesbian.

I’ll fuck you in the face

And leave a nice taste

Oral sex fixation.

Dahvie would tell girls that had no sexual experience that cum tasted like ice cream... what fucking ice scream is he eating?

I’ll fuck you in the club

Exhibitionist

On the ground

Mop it up

Relax! Relax!

It’s my sexy track!

Acting like this is all an act, it’s just a joke and means nothing.

H.E.L.L.O.

Blasting through your stereo

K.I.T.T.Y.

Let me slip between your thighs

Hello Kitty is a children’s cartoon character and also is a minor.

H.E.L.L.O.

Coming straight from Tokyo

K.I.T.T.Y.

My sex will leave you satisfied

Again, this is a cartoon character aimed towards children he’s referencing.

H.E.L.L.O.

Show me how you’re such a whore

K.I.T.T.Y.

Bitch I’ll make you fucking cry

Okay so first off, ‘whore’ and ‘o’ don’t rhyme. Secondly, again we have Dahvie being violent and demeaning towards women. Lastly, HELLO KITTY IS A CHARACTER AIMED TOWARDS CHILDREN!

We mosh like liars

Well Dahvie, you are a massive liar.

You’re A Dancer, You’re Not A Lover

I want to tell you a tale

Of love, drugs and complications

Dahvie knows nothing about love. He drugs women/young girls and leaves them with a lot more than just complications.

Get into the bigger tits

Many of his victims have said that Dahvie was very interested in their chest. He views women as objects for his satisfaction.

So fuck me on the dance floor

Exhibitionist

Take off your pants

And do the revolutionary dance

Sounds really childish while the song, as well as the album, also contains many adult themes.

Modern World Christ

Dahvie compares himself to Jesus due to his name, or middle name as survivors have stated that he goes by Jesus David Torres instead of David Jesus Torres so when people look him up they wouldn’t find his arrest record.

This also just makes me think about all the cult leader who tie themselves to Jesus in some way.

Hollywood is full of shit

Say what you like

So we can call you a pedo and a rapist?

I got nothing to hide

I mean, you do but you can’t hide it any longer and you were doing a bad job anyway.

I’m not special or unique

Glad we can agree on that

I’ve been crucified like Jesus Christ

You’re not Jesus Christ!

As I grow stronger my voice gets louder

Just because you’re loud doesn’t mean you’re right or truthful

Your shit gets weaker as I stomp you with my sneakers

Rude, dismissive of claims against him and he’s also threatening those who come out against him.

Let my words eat you alive

Mocking victims

I wanna be the boy you adore

Not gonna happen Dahvie. And you’re not a boy, even at this time you were an adult.

Without the label of a Bedroom Whore

No one calls you that. We do label you as a rapist and a pedo.

And if you didn’t want any chance of being called that maybe don’t sing about sex.

So shut the fuck up with your ignorance

Me at BOTDF fans

And shut the fuck up with your competence

What? Why would you say they’re competent if you’re trying to act like they’re just liars and haters?

Money and Hoes

Again the want for money, probably to buy more wigs. And being demeaning towards women.

They want my cock

No they don’t, you force it on them.

They’re sucking my ding

Asphyxiation prescription perfection

Oral sex fixation. And who the hell calls it my ding? Like, he was rhyming it with bling, but seriously.

Hi, I’m danger

More dangerous but okay

I’m mightier than any Power Ranger

Power fantasy

I get what I want

Like the rapist you are. You get what you want because you prey on vulnerable people, make them trust you and then take what you want.

And be obscene

Leave parents feeling disgusting

Ironic since Dahvie befriends the parents of his victims to make it easier for him.

And I’m hood rich

You’re a middle class white guy

My grill is so ill

Just no

I’ll make your titties spill

No.

Also, demeaning

Till Death Do We Party

Cut your bone and slash your tongue

Violence...

Gonna shoot my hot load

...then sexual reference

Fuck me in the club, and light this bitch up

Exhibitionism

(Fuck me in the dirt, life up my sexy skirt)

Dirty, rough sex

Fuck me in the house and shake it all about

Shake it all about sounds childish

(Fuck me in the car, like a movie star)

He often raped people in the back of a car, forcing them to preform oral sex.

Fuck me in the rain, take away my pain

Sex won’t take away pain, this is a bad message he’s sending to his underage fans. Sex with Dahvie will only end in pain.

Fuck me in the church, make it fucking hurt

Violent

Dahvie,

I would not fuck you in the rain,

I would not fuck you on a train,

I wouldn’t fuck you in a church,

I wouldn’t fuck you for research.

I just want you in jail,

And for there to be no bail.

I Hope You Choke

Me to Dahvie

More violence

Cutting and frustration

Self harm, most likely trying to pander to his audience and seem relatable.

Sex and complication

Connects sex with negative emotions

I lost my grip

I’m about to slip

Love is cruel, remember this

Acting like this tortured soul to get pity.

Makes love sound bad.

Protect yourself from the fighting fists

Covered wrists

Self harm bating again

The whole song is just Dahvie singing about how some girl broke up with him and he hopes she dies.

Incel vibes x100.

Fallen Star

We’re so in love,

We did every drug

Connects love and drug use.

Normalising drug use when he has a young audience.

We kissed in the dark

In the back of your car

Many stories of Dahvie forcing himself on girls, or rather, forcing them on him, in the backs of cars. If it’s dark then they can’t see him.

You died in the crash site

Okay so there’s this whole story about how someone who was a member of the band died in a car crash, but while researching this I found a Facebook post where someone said at a show they asked Dahvie about it and he said she didn’t die and it was another one of his friends. I take this with a grain of salt because I can’t find any confirmed evidence as to whether this ex-band member is still alive or not.

He’s basically using someone’s death, not long after it happened, for sympathy on this album filled with references to sex and drugs as well as threats of violence.

Libertine

Okay so people say this song is dedicated to the member that may have died, however the fan in the Facebook post said that Dahvie said the song is dedicated to her because it was her favourite song on the album. Again, I have no idea which claim is real.

You’re living out a lie

Ironic.

If I could have my way I’d sit and watch you die.

Violence.

Also, you can see why I question this song being dedicated to someone who died since it has a lyric like this. Either Dahvie is being really tasteless, which I wouldn’t be surprised by, or she didn’t died and it was someone else and the story got twisted.

And there we go. One album done... so many more to go.

Wish me luck.

#blood on the dance floor #dahvie vanity #kawaii monster #botdf #anti botdf #anti blood on the dance floor #anti dahvie #anti dahvie vanity

13 notes · View notes

youngboy-oldmind · 4 years

Text

ALBUM REVIEW: Late Registration

 “So they asked me…Why you call it Late Registration Ye?/Cause we taking these motherf***ers back to school!”

Hip-hop trail blazer and Chicago legend Mr. Kanye West follows up his status-establishing album The College Dropout with a sophomore project that proves he’s far from a one hit wonder, relishing in his own league of musical production, lyricism, and soul touching artistry.

Overall Thoughts

I mentioned in an earlier post that Late Registration is my favorite album by Kanye, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I can endlessly rave about it. In 70 minutes, Late Registration(LR) utilizes the perfect number of skits, Grade-A featured verses from Jay-Z, Nas, Lupe, Common, Paul Wall, Cam’Ron, and Consequence, and a stellar instrumentation that combines old-school soul samples and flawless string orchestration. It also doesn’t hurt that film score composer and record producer Jon Brion helped produce some of the best tracks (Gold Digger, Roses, We Major).

Kanye elevated his pen game on this 2005 classic record. Before he made albums, he was already a solid writer and could definitely put together a verse. On LR, he exceeded to a new level, talking about himself, success, survival, while matching the prophetic vibe of “Jesus Walks” on tracks like “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”, “Roses”, and “Crack Music”. On top of these commentary tracks, he produced the tear-jerking track “Hey Mama”, my favorite dedication-to-mother songs in hip hop period.

I should also acknowledge the skits in LR. Through 4 clips, a story unfolds in a fraternity: Broke Phi Broke. In the four skits, they chant their various financial difficulties and struggles with a sense of pride. And in the final skit, we see Kanye get kicked out of the fraternity for being caught having new shoes in his closet. This is not only hilarious, but a clever commentary on his progress/success, and separation from the common plight and status of black men. Also, the topic of the skits excellently transition to the next song. Skit #1 talks about not having gas money, and the next song is “Drive Slow”; Skit #2 just repeats “broke, broke, broke, broke”, and the next two songs are “Diamonds from Sierra Leone” and “We Major”, both thematically about money and success. Skit #3 ends with a joke about not affording Christmas trees and the mother pretending to be one, and the next song is “Hey Mama”. And Skit #4 ends with Kanye being removed from the frat, and the next track is “Gone”. Expert skit placing on his part.

LR is a near perfect album; The “Empire Strikes Back” of hip hop sequels. This project has a song for any mood and definitely makes my top 10 favorite albums.

Album Breakdown

LR can be broken down into five section, each with their own distinct topics and tones, and separated by the four skits. These sections are:

Section 1: The Hits (Wake Up Mr. West) - Heard ‘Em Say, Touch The Sky, Gold Digger Section 2: Introspection (Skit #1) - Drive Slow, My Way Home, Crack Music, Roses, Bring Me Down, Addiction Section 3: Claim to Success (Skit #2) - Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix), We Major Section 4: Family Business (Skit #3) - Hey Mama, Celebration Section 5: Late Departure (Skit #4) - Gone, Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Bonus), Late

Section 1- The Hits

This section kicks off the album with bang after bang after bang. West and Adam Levine team up on the opening track “Heard Em Say” to lay down two themes of the album: Everything happens for a reason and nothing in life is guaranteed. He says several times “Nothing’s ever promised tomorrow today” accompanied by Levine’s harmonies that echo simultaneous sadness and hope. West also talks about some of the plagues African Americans, including low wages, AIDS, police harassment, admiration of drug dealers, and the pursuit of money and success. While talking about these inherently depressing topics, there’s a twang of hope and faith; there’s an energy of overcoming those obstacles and maintaining the belief that things will turn out alright.

In a 180 degree flip, the next track “Touch The Sky” completely contrasts the mellow mood of “Heard ‘Em Say”. With exhilarating trumpets sampled from Curtis Mayfield, West and Lupe bring an energy of celebrating success; reminiscing on the where they were before they got to the height they are now. A year before his debut classic Food and Liquor, Lupe spits one of the best verses on the album; matching Kanye’s energy while outshining him with his lyricism.

“Gold Digger”, possibly his most famous song, needs no introduction. This iconic track sampling Ray Charles’ I Got a Woman” is known by deep cut hip hop fans and mainstream fans alike. Jamie Foxx’s vocals on the chorus yelling “I Gotta Leave!” and Kanye’s verses about this girl who only wants him for his money makes an entertaining story but also indicates his new found status. He went from songs about not having money, to songs about dealing with a woman who only want him for his money. Talk about a bragging.

Section 2- Introspection

After two bop tracks we get “Drive Slow”, a track more mellow and laid back than the intro. Through a multitude of car metaphors, Kanye and Paul Wall talk about taking things slow, not to rush things, whether its spending money or sleeping with girls. Generally a middle of the road song for me. Nothing mind blowing but definitely easy to listen to.

In “My Way Home” we get a short, 16-line verse from Chicago all-time great Common, who talks about the struggles of the hood being home. This contrasts the hopeful tone on “Heard Em Say”, introducing a tone of relief he’s out that situation and he’s not going back. Fun fact: this is actually Common’s song that he decided not to add to his album Go!, which is why it just sounds like Common’s song instead of a Kanye song featuring Common. The slowed down samples vocals create a groove that almost makes you forget this is a sad song.

“Crack Music”, one of my favorites, paints an analogy to crack addiction and hip hop, hence the title. The Game brings a unique aggressiveness to the hook, which pairs well with the choir on chorus. However, the final leg of the song introduces an unsettledness: shakiness in the vocals, music freezes, and Malik Yusef delivers a poem that still gives me goosebumps to this day. The voice of legendary Charlie Wilson harmonizes perfectly with the chorus as well.

Next up we hear “Roses”, another instrumental masterpiece with Patti Labelle’s vocals and a Bill Wither’s sample on the chorus. West talks about the hospitalization of his Grandmother and the tightness/unity of his family. I love the quietness that plays during the verses and then the kick of the drums in the chorus. That excellently helps emphasize the intimacy of the situation.

Unfortunately, this leads into “Bring Me Down”, which is my least favorite track. Brandy’s vocals and Jon Brion’s instrumental are perfect, but it seems wasted on West’s verse. It’s disappointing to hear the epic strings and orchestration accompanied by Kanye saying weak lines like “There’ll always be haters, that’s the way it is/Hater n*****s marry hater b**ches and have hater kids” and “Yo girl don’t like me, how long has she been gay/Spanish girls say ‘Yo, no hablo ingles’”. The track honestly would’ve been better as an interlude with just Bandy’s singing, similar to “My Way Home” with just Common. But, the addition of West’s lyrics actually makes the song weaker.

Luckily, the project picks up with “Addiction”. However, I’ll admit I’m not a fan of lyrically. This isn’t a track where West is trying to demonstrate any lyrical expertise, so I’m not expecting a load of double entendres and layered meanings and mind-blowing messages. However, even for a surface level track, hearing him fake-stutter became a little annoying. But I like the topic of the song; him being addicted to all three “money, girls, and weed”. Although the topic and lyricism isn’t unique, it was at least entertaining.

Section 3- Claim to Success

Following the second skit, we get “Diamonds From Sierra Leone (Remix)” with hall of fame rapper Jay-Z. This track is interesting because Kanye and Jay don’t discuss the same topic. Kanye talks about his conflict with buying diamonds, knowing they’re Blood Diamonds and his purchase of them could result in the killing of Africans, of whom he’s a descendant. On the flip side, Jay talks about his label and his success. Although Kanye’s verse has more substance, I think Jay’s verse was better. There’s one particular set of lines I’ve always loved

“This ain’t no tall order, this is nothing to me/ Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week/I could do this in my sleep/ I sold kilos of coke, I’m guessing I can sell CDs/ I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man /Let me handle my business, damn”

Then we get the top tier track “We Major”, which is the album’s best collaboration up to this point. Jon Brion shines again with the instrumental, creating this epic atmosphere of accomplishments. Really Doe and Tony Williams illuminate the chorus with the vocals, while Kanye comes through with poeticism he hadn’t reached since “Heard ‘Em Say”. I want to add a quote of my favorite part of his verse, but it would be half the verse. And to top that, Nas comes through with an even STRONGER verse, a contender for the best verse on the album, competing with Lupe on “Touch the Sky” and Common on “My Way Home”. And to top THAT off, the last few minutes are basically Jon Brion, Warryn Campbell, and Tony Williams showing off their expertise while Kanye shouts them out, along with The Roc and his label, G.O.O.D. Music. His vocals during this part are echoed so it feels like the listener is at a concert. You could have headphones on in a quiet room and feel like you’re soaring. Easily a top 10 song in West’s career.

Section 4- Family Business

After the height of Diamonds From Sierra Leone and We Major, the record dies down and returns to mellowness, continuing with the heart-string-pulling “Hey Mama”. Here, we get West’s lyricism reminiscent of the College Dropout style. This definitely was a poem or song he’d written prior to this project. As I said earlier, one of my favorite mother-dedicating songs in all of hip hop.

The next song, “Celebration”, is one of my favorites on the album. The lyrics aren’t impressive; West goofily slant rhymes “wild” and “endowed” at one point. He just discusses drinking, girls, and the accidental birth of his kid through a busted condom. However, I believe it’s the placement of the song on the record that makes me love it so much. After hearing the epic-ness of songs like “Touch The Sky”, “Diamonds From Sierra Leone”, and “We Major”, this song feels like an after party. An intimate gathering that allows West and the listener to reflect a little, over another brilliant composition by Jon Brion. And while the verses are nothing to look twice at, the chorus is serene. West’s harmonization with himself improves his voice. And at barely past 3 minutes, the song is short enough where the sub-par lyrics aren’t too distracting.

Section 5- Late Departure

When I first began writing back in middle school, I used to rap to the instrumental for “Gone”. This song is foundational to my hip hop appreciation and extremely underrated. To start, the Otis Redding sample is perfect. Jon Brion again combines his expertise with West to create a beat that evolves as it progresses, increasing in complexity and instrumentation. The verses improve with song as well, Kanye delivering the first and last, while Cam’ron and Consequence deliver excellent verses in the middle. Between Consequence’s verse and Kanye’s final verse, we hear the beat breakdown and evolve even more, building up to a final verse that leaves the listener speechless. West reflects about a multitude topics: being so innovative that his labels won’t approve his ideas, wanting to leave public light, his come up from being broke just wanting to upgrade from his “cheap ass sofa”, leaving his hometown that had nothing to offer him, inspiring new artists, never selling out, and ultimately showing he’s no longer on-call for anybody to use him. He’s established enough to choose his company and produce as he pleases. This is a perfect culmination of the themes throughout the album, and is the perfect closer.

Now, I say that with hesitation because technically there are two more songs on the record: The original “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” without Jay-Z, and “Late”. “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” is an excellent track. Instead of talking about Blood Diamonds or guilt, West talks about his writing process, feeling snubbed from awards, and ultimately himself. Definitely some of his strongest pen game on the album.

“Late” contrasts the previous song with a very calm feeling, possessing a lullaby quality. Here, he drives home the point that he’s going to be late with things he does, tying together the album title and the context of the album’s release, which was released months late. However, the lateness definitely worth the wait. It’s a toss-up between Gone and Late for which I prefer as the better closer. Gone is an epic reflection on the album’s theme and messages, and displays some of the best lyricism on the album. However, Late is a surreal, warm ending that feels like more of a winding-down end. If I HAD to choose, I’d say “Gone”. Because while both are great, I can’t imagine the project without “Gone”, whereas I could see it without “Late”.

Top 3 Songs:

1) Gone 2) We Major 3) Hey Mama

Overall Grade: A

#music review #album review #kanye west #hip hop review #hip-hop

4 notes · View notes

beaaatle-blog · 6 years

Text

John Deacon x (Female)Reader SMUT

Roger and the reader are best friends, and when he persuades her to come and meet the boys, she becomes pretty close with another member of the band...

ATTENTION: This gets pretty hot & smutty towards the end but i got lazy and cut it off. If y’all want a part two though, I might do it ;)

I got this idea AGES ago but procrastinated a hell of a lot. (Special thanks to @reddifreddi for getting me through this and constantly giving me new ideas 😂)

Also, this is quite lengthy. But the chemistry between Rog & the reader and the fluffy John parts are too good to miss, believe me.

Okay guys. Enjoy ;)

“I fucking hate parties!” you proclaimed rather loudly, sighing and ignoring the amused smirk plastered on Roger’s face, “you know this!” He let out a chuckle and shrugged his jacket on, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Come on (y/n), it’ll be fun!” he half-pleaded, raising his eyebrows and smiling over-enthusiastically, “you can meet the boys, have a few drinks. It’ll be cool.”

“You’re so annoying,” you mumbled, grabbing your keys and coat (and making a massive point of it). “You know what, fine. As long as it gets me out of this bloody apartment.”

“Attagirl.” teased Roger as the two of you walked out the door, locking it behind him. “Honestly though. You’ll thank me for this.”

“Highly fucking doubt it.” you snapped, already walking down the corridor to the stairs. Rog had talked you out of a cinema trip for this, and he sure as hell was paying the price. But his bribe of paying for all of your drinks was too tempting to miss.

The bar was only around the corner, thankfully, and when you got there it was completely empty. “Looks like everyone else is having a good week,” you muttered, making your way to the bar with Roger close behind. He laughed, doing his best to disregard your bad mood. You both ordered drinks before slumping down in the nearest booth and putting them down. Roger put his arms behind his head and leaned back, looking around. “The lads should be here in a bit. Not sure about Fred though. He’ll probably still be planning his outfit.”

You laughed slightly, resting your chin on your hand. “Cute.” You felt Roger’s eyes on you and raised your eyebrows, turning to face him and grinning at the expression on his face. “Not like that, you dickhead. I’m not stupid.”

Rog smirked, folding his arms (in front of him this time) and deliberately looking away. “Interesting.”

You rolled your eyes and chose to ignore his knob-ishness, leaning back slightly to fix your hair, and caught a glimpse of the door. A tall, slim, extremely good-looking ginger had just entered the room. And you were living for it.

“Holy fuck Roger,” you uttered, eyes wide, “please tell me he’s with us.”

“John!” shouted Roger, waving him over and grinning maybe a bit too widely. In this moment, your fight or flight response had gone to shit and you just stayed completely still, turning around and pretending to be deep in conversation with Rog. “You moron!” you whisper-shouted through clenched teeth, death glaring him, “you could have at least told me to do something with my hair! Or wear something not scruffy!”

Roger replied only with a smirk before turning his attention back to John as he sat down, having just been to get a glass of beer. “Heya mate, how are you?”

“Honestly? Shattered.” He laughed and put his drink down before taking his coat off, shoving it on the seat next to him, and turning his gaze to you. “Hi, by the way. I’m John.”

“(Y/n).” you replied quickly, trying to be smooth but probably failing massively. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you.” He smiled.

A slightly awkward silence ensued, but Roger was quick to intervene. “John’s our bassist. And a bloody brilliantly one at that.”

You raised an eyebrow slightly. “Bassist? I thought you gave off more of a singer vibe, in all honesty.” He fought a grin and you couldn’t help grinning ever-so-slightly yourself, your gaze dropping to the table. “Me singing never ends well, (Y/n). Rog can back me up on that.”

“Aww yeah. He’s on the same level as you belting ‘Hey Jude’ in the shower after a drink.”

“Roger!” you coughed out, physically choking on laughter. A small chuckle came from John and he ran a hand through his hair subconsciously, which you definitely did not watch from the corner of your eye. He still had that stupid grin plastered on his face. That bloody stupid grin. Maybe if you just kissed it away, it wouldn’t come back.

“Right, I hate to interrupt your embarrassment, but I’m going to ask the bartender if i can borrow the phone. I need to make sure the others aren’t dead.” And with that, he clambered over you out of the booth and just fucked off over to the counter, leaving you and John alone. He 100% knew what he was doing.

After a brief pause and awkward smiles, John spoke. “So, you and Roger, eh?”

You raised your eyebrows. “Oh no, no, no way. We’ve known eachother since we were 4 and it would be way too weird. Plus, he’s annoying as hell. And frankly not my type at all.” John smiled slightly at that and shrugged, resting his chin on his hand. “Fair enough.”

“What about you? Are you seeing someone?” You tried to sound genuinely interested, taking a sip of your drink.

“Unfortunately not,” he said, scrunching his nose with a little smile, “my last relationship ended over which of us was paying for dinner. It wasn’t the best, really.”

You smiled against your wine glass and put it back down, making eye contact with him again. “Let’s hope we don’t have that problem today, eh?” The two of you smirked ever so slightly, but then, there was Roger.

“They’re at Fred’s house!” he proclaimed from across the empty bar, covering the receiver of the phone and making faces. “Cheeky bastards! They’re getting shit-faced without us! They’ve got champagne and everything!”

“Of course.” John chuckled, turning to face Roger. “Are we going then?”

“After I’ve finished my drink, you knob.” replied Roger, muttering something down the phone before putting it down and making his way back over. “On second thought, pass us it (Y/n), we might as well take them with us.”

“Fairs.” You slid his glass across the table before picking up your own and fastening your coat again. John did the same, and the three of you braved the trek to Freddie’s.

The minute you opened the door you were greeted by an already wobbly Brian. “Truth or dare!”

”It’s nice to meet you too.” you muttered in disbelief and slight amusement, turning your gaze to see Freddie sat cross-legged on the floor next to an empty bottle with a cat on his lap. They’d been playing spin the bottle with two people. God knows how that went.

“Christ,” muttered Roger, rolling his eyes and shutting the door behind him. “This is (Y/n), by the way. Great first impressions.” Freddie smiled and ran a hand through his hair, yawning widely. Roger smirked. “Make room Fred, we’re joining in.”

“Truth.” you said to Brian, putting your drink on the table and slinging your coat across the banister. “(Y/n) you wimp! I had a really good dare in mind!” he whined, leaning against the wall for support.

“Come and sit down mate, you’re going to fall.” you laughed and grabbed his arm, pulling him to sit down with Freddie. John and Roger followed and joined the ‘circle’.

The game was interesting, to say the least. The rules changed about 10 minutes in and after 2 hours and 3 bottles of prosecco, Roger and Brian finally made out on Freddie’s order.

You sat watching the events, in love with the group of friends. Your head resting on one hand, you laughed to yourself as Roger and Freddie drunkenly argued over the last bit of pink gin, when you felt a hand on your shoulder. You turned your head to see John, his soft eyes glistening ever-so-slightly in the lamplight.

“Are you holding up okay? You look tired.” he offered, a very small grin still evident on his features. His face was scarily close to yours and you could see tiny, faint freckles dotted over the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, I’m just worn out. It’s been a long day.” you smiled and he nodded, smiling back. “I feel you.” his gaze darted from your hand to the bottle of gin to Freddie and Roger. “You given up for tonight aswell?”

“I don’t trust myself!” you laughed, rubbing your temple slightly. “Especially not in a group of guys. I have a tendency to sing and dance on tables.”

“The same could be said about me,” he said, chuckling shyly. And at that moment he moved his hand to just behind your hip, so that if the two of you got any closer he’d have his arm around you. He fucking knew what he was doing.

You turned your head to face him, acknowledging the move he’d just made, and the two of you looked at eachother for a second before Freddie chimed in.

“(Y/n)! Dare or dare!”

You grunted softly in slight annoyance, turning to Freddie and smirking to yourself at the look on John’s face. “Give me your best.”

Freddie leaned back onto Roger, who was now sat behind him, and put his head on his shoulder. “Roger, darling, help me come up with one.”

‘Shit,’ you thought. He’d chose Roger, of all people. And that man knew everything about you.

“I don’t know Fred, it’s hard to think,” he slurred, rubbing his eyes. “Ask Brian.”

Brian started at the mention of his name, smiling brightly. “I have one! It’s so good. You’re going to love this.”

Considering he’d been absolutely pissed since you walked through the door, you were fucking terrified. To say the least.

Brian giggled and tried to run both of his hands through his hair at once, nearly poking himself in the eye. “I’m proud of this one!”

“Spit it out then,” Roger basically wailed, leaning his head on Freddie’s in a feeble attempt to fall asleep. It didn’t really work.

You looked at Brian. Brian looked at you.

“Snog John!”

An annoyed, amused “Jesus Christ” slipped out of your mouth before you could stop it and you laughed softly. “I have to say Bri, I expected better.”

Roger and Freddie were still in almost theatrical shock at what Brian had said. “Brian that’s genius!!” said Roger, beaming at him from over Freddie’s head. “Go on (Y/n), get it!”

“Shut up,” you mumbled half seriously, hiding your red cheeks with your hands. Thank god it was dark in that room.

John was making frantic eye contact with Brian as if to say ‘give me a warning next time, dickhead’ or maybe even a ‘you’re a knob, but i’m thanking you for this’

“Get on with it!!” Freddie complained, which you couldn’t help but laugh at. “Calm down, Fred.” you mumbled through a subtle grin, turning your head to face John’s again and looking him straight in the eye. Gently, you placed your hand on his cheek and got a little bit closer. You made eye contact.

“I wasn’t expecting you to do it,” he said softly, staring right back at you, sounding almost nervous.

“A dare is a dare.” you teased, glancing down at his lips and then back up to his eyes. “You up for it?”

“Definitely.”

And with that, he closed the space between you. Immune to the loud wolf-whistling coming from the others, you closed your eyes, butterflies erupting in your stomach and feeling like they were performing some sort of mad tap dance routine. You inhaled sharply as he slid an arm around your waist and placed his hand on your lower back, pulling you in further. Literally everything about the moment was perfect. And it probably went on for longer than necessary.

“Alright alright, we get it,” mused Roger, probably a feeling a bit jealous and lonely. “I’m bored now.”

You smiled against John’s lips and the two of you parted for a split second. You looked at eachother, half impressed and half expectant. He had a twinkle in his eye- one that you’d seen a few times before. You smirked and tangled your hand in his hair before grabbing his hand and leaning in to nibble on his bottom lip. He got the message and chuckled in realisation, pecking you on the lips before standing up and stretching slightly. “Is it alright if I use your bathroom, Fred?”

“It’s upstairs, dear.” Freddie muttered sleepily. ‘Smooth bastard,’ you thought, watching him as he exited the room. He turned around to smirk at you and you stood up and faked a yawn, shoving your hands in your pockets. “I’m going to go and get some water, guys, I feel a bit sick.” Brian nodded in acknowledgement and Freddie let out a quiet snore, but Roger was sobering up a bit and he looked at you intently, eyebrows raised. You winked at him as you walked past, and you swore you saw his jaw drop as you left the room and shut the door behind you.

Within a few seconds, John’s arms were around your waist and you leaned up to kiss him feverishly. The kisses became quicker and sloppier and before you knew it he was pushing you against the wall, hands cold against the skin of your waist. You groaned softly and gently pushed him away, resting your hand on the back of his neck. “Upstairs. They’ll hear us.”

He nodded and you grabbed his hand, the both of you practically scrambling up the stairs and into the nearest bedroom. The world seemed to come to a pause around you as he quickly pulled off your shirt and began to kiss your neck, caress your back, pull you closer by the waistband of your jeans. Every touch and kiss felt like a fiery sensation against your skin, sending shivers up and down your spine. You were so mesmerised by the situation that the only thing you could do was moan quietly, and John certainly wasn’t complaining.

Things got more heated and you grinned smugly as you felt him getting hard against your leg. You kissed him for a little longer before tracing your fingers down the crotch of his jeans, making sharp eye contact. “May I?” you mused teasingly, tugging the bottom of his t-shirt with your free hand. His eyes, you’d noticed, seemed a lot more twinkly yet piercing than earlier, and they followed every move you made. He let out a breathy chuckle.

“Skip the bullshit, (y/n), you know what I want.”

The statement caught you off guard and you grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him in, kissing him even more passionately than before (if that was even possible). His hands roaming your body, the two of you basically collapsed against the wall.

It was going to be a long night.

•

The next morning, you woke up delightfully sore in many, many places (which you had to admit, you didn’t expect from a man of such a polite manner). Looking over to see that John- in all his bare-chested, bruised glory- was still asleep, you smiled slightly to yourself before patting him gently on the chest. “John. Wake up.”

He stirred slightly, his eyelashes fluttering as he opened his eyes. When he saw you he immediately smiled. “Morning (y/n).”

You smiled as he rubbed his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows, admiring you. The way your hair had a gentle wave to it after your slept on it. The way your tired eyes lit up when you smiled. The faint freckles on the bridge of your nose.

“This might be a stupid question,” he said softly, watching your reaction with care, “but can I take you out for a drink tonight?”

Letting out a soft laugh, you smiled lovingly and brushed his frizzy mop of hair out of his face. “Of course you can. We’ll need to settle who’s going to pay though.” You smirked. He smirked back.

Gently, you pressed a kiss to his chest before cuddling up to him and resting your head on his extended arm. He held you close, and the two of you drifted back to sleep.

And it was perfect.

#john deacon #roger taylor #bohemian rhapsody #boheman rhapsody fanfiction #john deacon x reader #roger taylor x reader #joe mazzello #ben hardy #queen #hollys fics

114 notes · View notes

meowmeow-motherfucker · 5 years

Text

New York, New York Chapter 2

Summary: After a chance meeting at an interview, Tom becomes involved with a woman while in New York filming the Avengers.

Pairing: Tom Hiddleston/OFC

Read it on AO3 here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1504970/chapters/3178469

A quick cab ride later, Tom and Anna entered the famous eatery. After getting their food, they sat in a corner booth hoping to stay under the radar. As they sat, the sun came out from behind the clouds and graced their table with warmth.

“So how are you enjoying the city?” Anna asked, trying to seem casual as she took a bite of her sub. Yes, because I always invite handsome men to lunch.

“-been here for over a year. I haven’t had much time to reacquaint myself.” Tom said before taking a bite himself. Anna nodded politely, pretending she hadn’t been off in her own little world.

“That’s no fun. There are so many amazing things here. I’d be happy to show you around a bit if you like.” She offered kindly.

“That would be lovely, thank you,” Tom said from behind his napkin, smiling widely as he looked back up at her. “I don’t imagine there would be a better guide than a native.”

“Well there’s always Dora the explorer, but somehow I think she’d be rather useless in this case.” Anna joked, giggling with Tom.

“No, she wouldn’t be very helpful. I don’t much fancy singing ‘backpack, backpack’ whilst walking around Manhattan.” Tom laughed.

“Oh but you’d fit in so well!” Anna giggled. “Downright normal compared to some. Us New Yorkers are…odd, to put it politely.”

“Not to mention your famous tempers.” Tom grinned. “Yeah…I’m probably the nicest tour guide you’re gonna find in this city.”

“And for that I am grateful,” Tom inclined his head before taking a drink. “So tell me about you. I have to say I’m immensely curious about what it is you actually do.”

“Oh,” Anna grinned. “Mostly I work with couples that are dealing with intimacy issues, but I do liaison with the prison facilities on time to time.”

“The prisons?” Tom asked incredulously. “What exactly do you do there?”

“Nothing too terrifying. I interview the inmates when they arrive, throughout their sentences and before they’re released.”

“I’m assuming the ones guilty of sex crimes.” Tom said grimly.

“Correct. I’m only called in as a specialist when there are certain…behaviors exhibited by the perp.”

“Doesn’t that frighten you?” Tom asked. “I know I would be uncomfortable at the very least.”

“Not really no,” Anna shook her head. “There are two guards outside the room at all times, and the inmates are always handcuffed. It’s all in how you present yourself. If you show fear they will try to intimidate you.” She explained. Tom nodded wordlessly, lost in thought.

“What exactly do you mean by intimacy issues? I’m sorry to ask so many questions but it’s a profession I know very little about.”

“It’s alright, people are always curious. My main focus is on people involved in the BDSM lifestyle but I have clients with issues ranging from erectile dysfunction to sex addiction. Some of them are recovering from sexual assault,” Anna replied casually. She paused when Tom didn’t say anything. “I’m not making you uncomfortable am I? I’m so used to talking about these things with my colleagues that it doesn’t occur to me sometimes that others might be extremely shy in this area.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Tom gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m not sure I could do that. Not just the prison part but all of it. Does it ever get under your skin? I mean-actually, don’t answer that. That was very rude of me. It’s none of my business.”

“It’s fine; people ask me that more than you’d think,” Anna smiled. “No, it doesn’t ‘get under my skin’, but I will say that things get…interesting when a surrogate is brought in.”

“A surrogate?” Tom asked hesitantly. “Do I want to know?” he asked dubiously.

“It’s not as bad as everyone thinks!” Anna laughed. “Surrogates typically only work with couples that are having intimacy issues like non-consummation. They act as a third party with me and a client to help them achieve a number of intimacy goals.”

“How so?” Tom asked.

�� “It varies,” Anna shrugged. “A surrogate’s interaction with a client is typically only talking them through a certain act, but it can include intimate contact or even sex.” Tom stared at her blankly, eyes wide and disbelieving, and she had to fight back a chuckle.

“And you…watch?” he asked quietly, hesitation dripping from every syllable.

“Yes.” Tom groaned, running a hand over his face.

“How do you consider that ‘not that bad’? Good God woman, how does it not get to you?”

“It’s my job!” Anna laughed. “I can’t very well help someone get over their problems if I’m not observing them. Besides, it wouldn’t be very ethical to fantasize about my patients.”

“Well no, of course not, but…do you not have a sex drive at all?” Tom laughed, taking another drink of his water.

“Of course I do. That’s what vibrators are for.” Anna said calmly, glancing at Tom in alarm when he spat out his water. “Shit I’m so sorry! I told you, I literally have no filter. I always forget most people aren’t as open as I am.”

“It’s fine,” Tom croaked, coughing awkwardly to clear his throat. “Maybe we should talk about something else.” He coughed hoarsely.

“Right. Sorry again, I have no tact. How on earth did we get on this topic anyway?” Anna chortled. “Jeez, we only met a few hours ago and here we are talking about sex.”

“I’m not sure,” Tom shook his head, grinning lightly. “I have one more question, and then we’re changing the subject.”

“Deal.” Anna laughed. “I’ll let you pick the next one.”

“Actually, I’m the cause of all this,” Tom smiled apologetically. “For the sake of sanity I think you should pick next.”Anna laughed.

“Fine. Question?” She asked, waiting patiently as Tom debated asking his question.

“I hope you don’t think me too forward, but I am extremely curious…did you truly enjoy me pulling your hair?” Tom asked and Anna chuckled nervously, glancing away for a moment before turning her eyes on him.

“You have no idea.” she admitted, a blush creeping along her cheek bones, much to his enjoyment.

“Enlighten me.” he requested with a sassy smirk and Anna blanched, curling her lips inward before giving a small laugh. “It’s just one of those things…let me put it this way: if I was guy…instant boner,” she said and Tom couldn’t help but laugh at her boldness. To think he’d put this lovely woman in such a state…he was enthralled. “And since we’re being honest I’m just gonna lay it out there…I think you’re incredibly sexy.” It was Tom’s turn to choke on his drink (again); he’d not been expecting that in the least.

“Thank you for that,” he chuckled nervously. “You’re quite lovely.” he replied safely.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m sexy?” Anna teased.

“Only if you want me to.” Tom smiled cheekily and Anna laughed at his charm.

“Yes please.” she asked sweetly with a smile of her own.

“Well since you asked so nicely…you are very sexy Anna.” Tom said, and Anna thought she could die happily at that very instant.

~~~~

“This is me.” Anna said as the cabbie pulled over to let her out.

“I’ll walk you up.” Tom offered, climbing out of the cab first to open the door for her.

“Thank you,” Anna smiled as she stepped out onto the street. “Oh!” she pulled her purse off her shoulder, rooting around for her wallet. She fished out several bills and offered them to Tom. “For my part of the cab.” Tom shook his head with a grin.

“No thank you.”

“But you already paid for lunch,” Anna objected. “And the cab ride there.”

“And?” Tom laughed. “Put your money away Anna.”

“Will I offend you if I don’t?” Anna asked teasingly.

“Yes.” Tom replied, grinning when Anna huffed and replaced the wallet in her purse. She unzipped a compartment and pulled out her house key, leading him up the stairs to her door. She put the key in the lock and paused. She didn’t want her time with Tom to end.

“Would you like to come in?” she offered. “You’ll give me an excuse to open the wine I’ve had sitting in my fridge.” Great, now he’ll think I’m a lush. It’s not even one o’clock yet. Tom smiled, and Anna was sure he was going to refuse.

“One moment.” he said, making his way back down the steps to pay the cab driver. He’s staying! Holy shit! Thank God I cleaned my house… Tom bounded back up the steps as she unlocked the door, following her inside as the cab took off.

“I’m gonna run these upstairs really quick, I’ll be right back,” Anna said after he’d shut the door, pulling her boots off. “Just make yourself at home.” she offered a small smile and disappeared around the corner, walking through the living room to the staircase at the back of the space. The living room was open and airy, spilling into the kitchen around a floor to ceiling divider with a pass-through window and bar. In the middle of the room sat a large dark blue couch, pops of orange and pink splashing off the decorative pillows. A cherry wood coffee table sat in front of it, dotted by a stack of starry coasters and a ceramic basin filled with rocks and candles. Tom let his eyes drift from the bay window on the far wall, immediately noticing her book shelves. An entire wall had been devoted to shelving, her TV in the center with a media cabinet below, the lights from the devices glowing at him through the glass panes. The rest of the shelves, floor to ceiling on either side of the TV, were filled with books. He gave a toothy grin as he moved to look at her collection, feeling akin to a child on Christmas morning.

Anna put her boots back in their cubby, trying to calm her racing heart. Tom Hiddleston is in my house! Oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD! She bit her knuckles, hard, and choked back the scream lodged in her throat. She needed to calm down before she went back downstairs. Flirting with the man was one thing, but now he was in her house! She’d offered him wine for fuck’s sake! And everybody knew what that really meant. I think I’m having a heart attack. Jesus Christ on a cracker, if he touches me I’ll keel over. Ok Anna, just breathe. Don’t leave the man standing in your house forever while you coach yourself in the closet like a loony. Go. Go. GO! Anna steeled herself and left the closet, walking back downstairs to find Tom eyeing her library. Anna smiled fondly, wondering if he’d gotten to the Shakespeare yet.

“Find something you like?” she asked as she walked up behind him. He turned to look at her, smiling affectionately as she joined him in front of the shelves.

“This is fantastic Anna,” he praised, his eyes straying over the many shelves in front of them. “And yes, I did find something I like.” he said, glancing down at her. Anna grinned, looking away shyly. She couldn’t tell if he meant her or the books.

“Thank you,” she replied coolly. “Not exactly the setup I’ve always dreamed of, but I love it nonetheless.” she reached out to run her fingertips along a lacquered shelf appreciatively.

“What’s your favorite?” Tom asked, smiling when Anna’s eyes lit up.

“My favorite?” she gaped at him, biting her lip. “Oh geez, that’s a terrible question; you’ll be stuck listening to me for hours.” she joked, scanning the shelves.

“Top five then,” Tom chuckled, enjoying her enthusiasm. “Does that help?” he asked teasingly when she turned her liquid gold orbs on him.

“A little,” Anna smiled as she turned to peruse the shelves. “Top five…top five…” Why does he have to be distracting? Tom had removed his jacket, leaving him in his vest and dress shirt. He’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing his muscular forearms and it was torture being so close to him. She could smell his cologne, and he smelled amazing. It wasn’t fair. “Fuck me.” she muttered sharply when she banged her elbow on the corner of a shelf.

“Beg your pardon?” Tom asked doubtfully, pinning her with an almost scandalized stare. Way to go Anna, now he’s gonna think you’re a pervert!

“I whacked my elbow. Sorry, I swear like a sailor.” Anna explained as she rubbed her elbow.

“It’s alright,” Tom laughed. “I’ve heard far worse, I promise. Are you alright?” he asked, reaching out to grasp her elbow, his fingers soothing the flared nerves almost instantly.

“Yeah,” Anna said, nerves making her voice higher than usual. “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked steadily, getting control of her nerves. Tom seemed to sense her need for distraction and let go of her arm. Anna immediately felt guilty; he probably thought he’d crossed a line. “I’d hate to be rude.” she said in explanation and Tom smiled kindly.

“You’re not,” he assured her, following her to the kitchen. “So the setup you’ve always dreamed of…for your books,” he said, glancing back into the living room when she looked at him over her shoulder. “Tell me about it.” he requested as Anna opened the fridge.

“Shiraz or Riesling?” she asked.

“Either one is fine with me.” Tom watched as she plucked the bottle of Shiraz from its place in the back of the fridge, his eyes fixed on her backside as she straightened and closed the fridge before crossing to the opposite counter and pulling a wine opener from a drawer.

“I’ve always wanted a library like the one in Beauty and the Beast,” Anna said as she uncorked the bottle. “Not quite as big of course, but with floor to ceiling bookshelves full to bursting and rolling ladders. Maybe a spiral staircase in there somewhere.” she smiled fondly, opening a cabinet and reaching for glasses, her shirt riding up to reveal her taut stomach and lean hips.

“That sounds lovely,” Tom agreed, smirking when Anna cursed. “Need something?” he asked as she strained to grab glasses from the top shelf. She huffed good-naturedly before turning to look at him.

“I can’t reach the top shelf,” she giggled. Tom smiled cheekily and walked over to her, making a show of reaching up for two glasses as she glared at him affably. He set them on the counter in front of her with a soft plink, grinning when he met her eyes. Anna rolled her eyes and smiled, shaking her head as she shut the cabinet. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” he replied, tucking his hands in his pockets.

“Oh crap, I forgot this needs to breathe.” Anna said with a frown.

“You never did tell me your top five.” Tom reminded her, grinning when she laughed.

“Really?” she giggled. Tom shrugged.

“I’m curious what a sex therapist reads for fun.” he said. Anna smiled, abandoning the wine and making her way back to the bookshelves.

“Harry Potter, hands down,” she tapped a shelf as he joined her, watching with mild amusement as she scanned the shelves eagerly. “I love Voldemort, he’s so deliciously evil,” she cackled, bouncing with excitement and making Tom laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that came from.” she apologized with an embarrassed laugh.

“It’s alright.” Tom chuckled. He liked this woman; she was funny and vivacious. And an avid reader; there wasn’t a single shelf along the wall with an empty space. She even had Shakespeare!

“Ooh, here’s a good one: The China Garden,” Anna announced. “Ender’s Game is really good too. The Notebook is one of my top five, but I haven’t read it in ages.”

“Why not?” Tom asked.

“It’s so beautiful, it always makes me cry…not that I need a book for that,” Anna said offhandedly, and Tom saw a deep well of pain in her eyes as she turned away. What could be so painful for someone like her? She seemed so carefree and open. “Anyway!” Anna’s voice snapped him to attention as she turned back to look at him eagerly. “Did you make it to the Shakespeare?” she asked giddily, all trace of sadness gone from her face.

“Yes I did,” he replied with a grin. “I’m very impressed; you have all of his work.”

“I adore him,” Anna sighed. “It’s impossible for me to pick a favorite; but lately I’ve been partial to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“It’s excellent,” Tom agreed. “I would have to say Othello is my personal favorite.”

“Othello? Oh, but it’s so depressing!” Anna laughed.

“You’re right, it is,” Tom smiled sheepishly. “I love it though. Cymbeline is another favorite.”

“What about the Tempest?” Anna asked. “I loved seeing it on stage; it was fantastic!” she gushed, sparking a lively conversation about theatre that lasted well over twenty minutes before either of them remembered the wine. Anna poured them each a glass, bringing the bottle into the living room as they sat on the couch, still talking spiritedly. The discussion turned to movies well into their first glass, both too busy either talking or laughing to remember to drink. Tom finished his first, lazily spinning the glass between his fingertips and laughing at Anna’s description of a foreign film he hadn’t seen. They were seated face to face, mirror opposites, reclined against the back of the couch; Tom with his head propped up on one arm. His face was warm, but whether from the wine or his proximity to Anna he couldn’t tell. He watched as she drained the dregs from her glass, his eyes rapt on her lips. He desperately wanted a taste of her. “Would you like another?” she offered, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as he placed his glass on the coffee table.

“No thank you,” he shook his head, his eyes following her as she leaned forward to set her glass down as well. “Anna.” he said as she sat back, her face inches from his. She turned her amber eyes on him and he was lost; reaching for her before he could stop himself. He pressed his lips to hers softly, reaching behind her neck to cradle her head after a moment. He felt her hands, light and hesitant, on his shoulders. One drifted to his neck as the kiss deepened, her fingers twining in his hair as her other hand splayed over his collarbone, gripping his shirt collar and her thumb and forefinger ghosting over his skin. Anna went limp, letting Tom press her against the back of the couch as his kisses grew more insistent. He abandoned her lips and dipped his head down to her neck, inhaling her scent as he enjoyed the way she clutched at him.

“You smell amazing.” Anna sighed into his hair, biting her lip softly as he pressed a kiss to the hollow of her throat.

“So do you,” Tom murmured against her skin, pulling her chest against his. He ghosted a hand up her side, the heel of his hands just grazing her breasts, and pulled away when Anna chortled, squirming against him slightly. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m just ticklish,” Anna giggled. “Sorry.” Tom smiled, relieved he hadn’t done something wrong.

“It’s alright.” he said, gazing at her fondly. She looked simply delectable; eyes sparkling, hair tousled, her lips full and reddened. He could easily get used to seeing her like this. She gave a chipper smile, reaching up to run her fingers over his short stubble affectionately.

“I like your beard.” she said shyly, giggling when he grinned.

“It’ll be gone soon.” he answered, almost apologetically.

“So I should enjoy it while I can?” Anna teased with a glint of mischief in her eyes.

“Definitely.” Tom nodded and they both laughed as Anna pulled him down to kiss him again.

“I like the way you think.” she murmured against his lips and he chuckled, threading his fingers through her hair again as he took her lower lip between his teeth, breathing her in when she exhaled. This woman was so alluring; she enticed him with the smallest of touches. He could easily become addicted if he wasn’t careful. He moved his hand, intent on wrapping his arm around her waist, when Anna hissed sharply. “Ow-ow-ow-hair-in-watch!” she winced as she pulled back.

“I’m so sorry!” Tom apologized urgently. “I should have thought to take my watch off. Here, let me get it, just hold still…” He reached up with his other hand, grabbing the strand of hair caught in his watch band, grimacing when Anna hissed again as he untangled it from his watch. “There. You’re free. I’m so sorry.” he said again, slipping the watch off immediately, reaching over to deposit it on the coffee table.

“It’s fine.” Anna soothed him as she rubbed her tender scalp.

“You’re sure?” Tom asked nervously, ready to retreat even as he reached for her again. Anna surprised him by grabbing his tie and pulling him in for a kiss, giggling when he grabbed her. His hands once again grazed her breasts through her shirt, and something inside him snapped. With a growl, Tom pulled her onto his lap and attacked her neck, peppering her skin with kisses and small nips as his hands worked the buttons on her blouse, opening her shirt just enough to let him see the sides of her breasts. Anna whined above him, grazing his hardened cock as she moved and making him gasp. Taking the initiative, Anna pulled him up for a kiss as she shifted on his lap again. Tom growled into her mouth, holding her hips in place as he bucked up into her. Anna gasped, clutching his shoulders tightly as he buried his face in her chest, holding her upright with his large hands as he explored her skin with his tongue. Anna twitched slightly when he gave her breast a quick nip, both of them groaning in frustration when he came across the sleek material of her bra. Tom paused, unsure how to go from here. He wanted to keep going of course; wanted to throw that damn bra out the window. But he also didn’t want Anna to think he was using her for her body, even if hers was amazing. He didn’t want her to think he’d come here for this purpose only; he’d come because he genuinely enjoyed being around her and wanted to know her better. Well I certainly know her better now… He glanced up at Anna looking for some kind of direction, knowing full well he’d do anything she asked. Anna seemed to sense his hesitation and swooped down to capture his lips with hers, running a hand under his collar to grasp the side of his neck. Tom returned the kiss fervently, reaching up to cup her face in his hands.

*beep beep* *beep beep* Tom groaned as his watch went off, screeching at them from the coffee table. Damn.

“I’m afraid I have to go.” He whispered against Anna’s lips.

“Duty calls, huh? It’s okay, I understand.” She replied begrudgingly, placing her hands atop his on her face and grinning when he laced their fingers together. He pulled away from her slowly, reluctantly, and sat up straight so Anna could fix her shirt. His eyes flickered to the swells of her breasts quickly disappearing behind the blue fabric as Anna’s fingers deftly redid the buttons. Her eyes were fixed on the coffee table as she worked mechanically, and Tom briefly wondered if he had crossed a line, but the thought was banished when Anna turned her gaze toward him and smiled brightly.

“I’ve had an amazing time with you Anna; I wish I could stay.” he said, bringing her hands to his lips to kiss them both. Anna couldn’t help but blush; he made the gesture seem so intimate.

“I have too,” she smiled. “I think your fans would be a little disappointed if you stayed too long though.” she joked with a small laugh. Tom chortled, releasing her hands gently.

“You’re probably right. I won’t be back until next week but…I’d like to take you to a proper dinner when I get back, if you’re available.” Tom said hopefully.

“I’d love to,” Anna smiled. “Can I ask where you’re going?” she asked he slipped his watch back onto his wrist.

“London,” Tom said as he got to his feet. “I’m visiting my family for the week before shooting starts.” he explained.

“That sounds like fun,” Anna replied. “I haven’t been to London in ages.” she mused, and Tom grinned. Maybe someday you’ll come with me. Whoa, Tom, don’t go jumping the gun; you just met this woman a few hours ago!

“It’s not much different from New York, truth be told.” he said as he slipped on his shoes.

“Still,” Anna shrugged. “I didn’t get to see much. I imagine it would be fascinating.” she said as she handed him his tie.

“Parts of it; thank you,” Tom conceded, quickly slipping the tie into place and tying it deftly. “Could I call you while I’m gone?” he asked hopefully, fixing her with a puppy dog look.

“Sure.” Anna smiled, typing her number into his phone when he handed it to her. She put a smiley face next to her name, feeling the need to pinch herself. Who would have thought I’d meet my favorite actor, have him dominate me (on TV!), make out with him and trade numbers, all in the same day! I made out with Tom fucking Hiddleston!!!! And he asked me out!! Tom’s watch beeped, impatiently reminding him he had other things to do.

“I’m so sorry, I really need to get going…thank you for lunch and…everything else.” Tom smiled shyly and Anna felt like a balloon about to burst.

“Why are you thanking me?” she laughed. “If you hadn’t offered to…you know,” she smiled nervously. “We wouldn’t have ended up here.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Tom admonished playfully, and Anna gave a mocking scoff.

“Tis a far, far cry from a bad thing.” she replied and Tom smiled, giving a quiet sigh when his watch beeped again.

“I should go.” he said, pinning her with an amused look. Anna opened the front door for him, wrapping her arms around him for a farewell hug.

“Be safe.” she said.

“You too.” he pressed a soft kiss to the corner of her mouth and left, walking down the street toward the subway station. Anna watched him go for a few seconds before heaving a swooning sigh and going back inside to polish off the wine. If this is a dream, for god’s sake don’t let me wake up.

Five minutes later, she’d downed her second solitary glass when a knock came on her door. Anna set her glass down on the coffee table, her eyes lingering on Tom’s glass for a moment before she crossed to the foyer and opened the door.

“Tom, what are you doing here?” she asked incredulously.

“I don’t know, actually,” he laughed. “But I think I forgot something.”

“What’s that?” Anna asked, jumping in surprise when he leaned in and kissed her.

“That.” Tom answered boldly as he pulled back, letting his hands fall to her hips.

“You came all the way back here to give me a kiss?” Anna teased as she wound her arms around his shoulders.

“I didn’t make it very far, I’m afraid. I spent a good three minutes debating whether or not to knock,” Tom admitted with a shy smile. “I’m sorry, I’m not usually like this.” he apologized.

“I don’t mind,” Anna teased with a small smile as she cupped the back of his neck, her fingertips grazing his hair. “But you’ll miss your flight if you don’t go.”

“One more.” Tom didn’t wait for an answer before swooping down to kiss her again, his hands holding her body to his as she gripped him tightly.

“You’ll be late.” she smiled against his lips. Tom groaned, shifting his weight impatiently.

“One more.” he said again, making Anna laugh as he kissed her again.

“That’s two!” she cried indignantly. She reached between them to flick his nipple, causing Tom to cry out in surprise.

“Did you just flick my nipple?” he asked dramatically.

“Yes I did,” Anna quipped, sticking her tongue out at him. “What are you going to do about it? Oh no!” she chided as he made to flick her back, covering her breasts with her hands.

“Why not?” Tom asked pitifully. “It’s only fair.”

“Because if you do I’ll never let you leave.” Anna argued.

“Let me? Remind me who the dominant here is?” Tom joked, laughing when Anna paled slightly.

“Don’t be a tease. Last one.” she raised up on her tiptoes and kissed him firmly, smiling when he wrapped his arms around her waist to crush her against him. “Now go!” she laughed, placing a kiss on his cheek before letting her hands fall away from him.

“As you wish,” Tom smiled, releasing her from his grip. “I’ll be in touch.” he promised, kissing her cheek before leaving a second time.

#new york new york #tom hiddleston #meowmeow writes

3 notes · View notes