#night dreamer records

[gbhbl]

Album Review: Din of Celestial Birds - The Night Is for Dreamers (A Cheery Wave Records / A Thousand Arms Music)

The word is ‘brilliant’ and no-one who lets this record fully envelop them, will come away thinking differently.

Leeds, UK based instrumental cinematic post-rockers Din of Celestial Birds will unleash their much-anticipated debut full length album ‘The Night Is for Dreamers’ on August 11th, 2023. The album will come on Vinyl, CD, and digital formats through A Cheery Wave Records (UK) and A Thousand Arms Music (USA). There’s a lot about Din of Celestial Birds that makes their dynamic sound so special. Most…

[dduane]

Status report, “Why Won’t My REM Sleep Work The Way I Want It To” dep’t

(Tom Sturridge's voice) When the waking world leaves you wanting and weary, sleep brings you here to find freedom and adventure; to face your fears and fantasies...

DD: (resigned not-for-the-first-time thought, off the usual admiration of the grace of the phrasing) Dammit, I really wish I remembered my dreams more often.

DD (that night, asleep, somewhere between 1:30 and 6:30 AM*): Experiences prolonged, convoluted and vivid dream about meeting up with a group of people as (understood) lead for an upcoming creative project of some kind. During the dream she is responsible for numerous infrastructure objects and events involved in this meeting, many of which go awry while the participants participate gamely all throughout and leave her feeling like an incompetent idiot. This then morphs into a far more prosaic dream about her being in a hotel room packing to leave, in which the stuff she needs to bring all suddenly turns out to be both heavier than expected and too big to fit in either suitcase. One of these items is a huge hardcover book which she regards in exasperated resignation, realizing that there’s no way out of it, she’s going to have to buy another suitcase and pay extra to check the fucking thing—

DD: (wakes up enough to realize with intense relief that this is indeed a dream and all unreal—while still remembering it vividly, down to textures and colors.)

(Quick bout of Even While Half Asleep analysis ensues, because asleep or awake, she's still been a psych nurse. A standard discharge-of-stress dream; and yeah, considering the usual worries that [for her] come with executing short-form fiction when she usually works where there's more room to stretch, the Gigantic Book’s a little on the nose as visual metaphor goes. But whatever. For the dreamer, dreams are inherently first draft. Editing comes later…)

DD: [Still fortunately only halfway out of the post-dream ex-psychopompic state, beckons over passing character] Dusty, do me a favor? Get Lord Morpheus on the horn and tell him I said “Ha ha, very funny.”

Herewiss: And was it really?

DD: (wakes up fully off his amused/ironic look, rolls eyes) ...Honestly, what even is my life. :)

*Timing indeterminate because the Fitbit, which has been losing power abruptly sometimes, had dumped its charge and failed to record REM or other data during this period. ...So annoying. Oh well, some other time.

[raimoka]

— " (I'M) WAITING FOR THE SUN "

｡ ㅤꕤ ㅤ PAIRING: dazai osamu & reader.

SYNOPSIS: it was just a single string, so thin it could easily be cut with scissors, however, with just that mere red thread, it tied you to him.

tags ➜ alternate universe — modern, no abilities, painter!reader, writer!dazai dreams, pining, generally a fluff, soulmates trope, catching feelings, open ending, named reader — only last name though, dazai osamu is bad with feelings implication. ‹𝟹

⋆ author's notes: I wanted to try something new and the first thing that came in my mind was soulmates trope.

send an order!! → guide ❀ flowers ←

You have always been a dreamer.

Oftentimes you would drift away from your surroundings into an imaginary world, your sense of reality blurring away.

In that world you would feel relaxed, happy and at peace even if it's for merely a few minutes. A world where you could erase everyday from your mind and form an illusion of something you were unable to grasp, a world filled with colors and beauty.

It's bittersweet.

And although it's painful knowing these are nothing more but surreal fantasies, hopes and dreams it's worth it in the end.

However—as of late, your daydreams changed into a one singular daydream that, for whatever reason, keeps replaying in your mind like a broken record.

Day or night, in the painting room or in the peace of your room, whenever you close your eyes, be it a ten minute nap or eight hours of sleep the same scenario will play in front of your eyes over and over again.

Sun will shine its way through the grass as your fingers brush against your creamy white lace dress. Birds will sing their song to which you'll hum under your breath as the fruity smell of just bloomed flowers lingers in the air.

You'll sing and dance and laugh as if you're the only one in the world.

Then after a while you'll approach a big cherry tree in bloom, and suddenly you won't be alone anymore. There, in front of that very tree, will stand a person with chocolate colored brown hair carried by the wind, wearing a white button up shirt along with black trousers.

They'll look in the distance, seemingly unfazed and each time and even after twenty times you've seen the ending, you would approach them slowly when—as if on cue the person will turn around and you would freeze up at your spot, your heart skipping a beat because in front of you will stand the most beautiful human you have ever encountered. For a moment, they'll lock eyes before they vanish into the air, leaving no trace behind.

Then you'll twitch, snapping back to reality.

bleary and cloudy, immense hues of darkness lay hold of your sight, then as the starch gradually settles to the bottom and the skim rises to the top, at last your eyes wearily open—unable to remember his face.

It's as if when their eyes lock everything fades and your brain stops. It's weird and the more times it happens the more annoying it gets.

The person in your dreams feels familiar yet so out of reach. Like you've known them your entire life but hasn't even met them yet, as if the two of you were tied by a red thread of fate.

His presence is strong. Unique. Strange.

You can remember the way the smell of carnations surrounded him, the way his chocolate colored brown hair rode on the breeze, the way they were so tall you almost felt embarrassed standing near him but you can't, for the love of god, remember their face.

You feel their stare on your face. You know that your eyes lock each time and that each time they do your heart skips a beat. You know it and yet you can't pinpoint even the most obvious things, like their color.

You want to know more and everytime that you feel like you're getting closer to discovering something, you would get pulled out of the state of unconsciousness, snapping you back into reality.

It was as if it was mocking you, laughing at the anger it was giving you.

Your eyebrows knitted together, hands balling into a fist.

You ha—

The sound of wood splitting in half brought you back into reality, disrupting the scrambles of thoughts beginning to form within your mind.

huh ?

You lift your head, met with the sight of your paintbrush splitted into two. The other half of the paintbrush falls, accompanied with the sound of thud.

Your lips, which were previously formed into a thin line, parted.

"nazoki, did you just break your brush?"

you tense up. you feel everyone's eyes shift to your frame, hushed whispers accompanied with snickers filling the room. sweat builds up on your hands as the giggles continued, and you bit down on your lip, hovering your gaze on your thighs.

"It can be easily fixed but remember, that's not your own and you need to learn how to be careful with the brushes."

meekly, you dipped your head in response.

"yes ma'am..."

❀

It was already late when you arrived back home.

The sun had gone down, and the skies embraced by hues of warm colors had turned into vast of blackness already.

You didn't change out of your clothes, with the fatigue beginning to overtake your body, you didn't bother to do so.

You gently unlocked the door to your room and slipped inside.

you were greeted with pure abyss, which was anticipated since it was already night. however, there was still some disinctive things within the shadows, like the books sheltered on the shelves, the roses in the vase on the nightstand, and the paintings in the corner of your room.

you perk up.

you moved, walking towards to the empty canvas at the corner of your room.

In front of you, you laid down an empty white canvas and some newly bought paint from few days ago. without a second thought you started painting. You didn't know what you were going for just yet but you settled on just letting your hand move freely across the canvas.

One stroke then another��you paint sky, petals and a silhouette.

So far it's turning pretty decent but the more you draw the more anxious you became. The brush in your hand starts shaking as you reached out to paint the silhouette's face.

...

What now?

Cold sweat runs down your face and you had to take a moment to snap back to reality. Suddenly your stomach fills with dread and you had to take a break from painting.

The face. You couldn't remember the face.

You didn't finish the painting that day.

❀

There is no need for you to open your eyes because when you came to your own senses, feeling grass beneath your palms as the sun beams directly in your face, you knew exactly where you were.

Despite going to sleep in a bad mood you can't help but feel strangely relaxed now that you're here.

Slowly opening your eyes, you sit up and took a look around. Nothing, as far as you're aware, has changed. It's still the same dreamy place you visit everyday (sometimes even multiple times).

Birds are still singing, the sun is still shining and the flowers are still blooming.

After a short walk you find out the unknown person is also still here, simply staring at the distance.

You freeze in place and simply admires them from afar, staring at their back profile.

They stand there unbothered.

You take a big risk of walking up to them—not too close but not as far in an attempt to get a better view. Nothing.

You're scared.

Then you get a crazy idea.

Now you're terrified.

Quickly, before you get a chance to make a cowardly decision and back up, you ran towards the person and grabs their wrist, not giving them enough time to turn around.

First thing that you felt is warmth. Their skin is warm.

You lift your head head and meets their face that is now painted with a shocked expression, lips parted. When your eyes meet you felt fear, surprise, shock, happiness, anxiety all at once because you've finally caught them.

Then all emotions swirling within your chest dulls and the person slips away, disappearing from your grip once again.

❀

First thing, you did when you woke up is rush towards the canvas and frantically attempts to copy down the face, that expression of surprise and alarm, as similar as possible before eventually it too leaves your mind.

However it doesn't turn out anything like you've seen just a few moments prior. The expression on its own looks pretty amazing and the face is really unique, not quite like anything you've drawn before, but it's not his.

Shit.

Why? why couldn't you do it?

You were so close and yet—

You slipped up.

You didn't get it. You needed to remember. You didn't know why.

All you knew is that this person drives you crazy.

❀

Surrounding you, there was variety of pages of papers, canvas, multiple art supplies.

You pull out canvas after canvas messing up, repainting, scrapping, breaking, trying again, over and over again but nothing feels right.

Before long, what little memory of the person's face is left in your memory vanishes leaving you with an uneasy feeling in your chest. You fall to your knees, gripping the paintbrush in your palm firmly, cursing yourself. Why? Why couldn't you remember?

It continues like this for a while. After every nap you would pull out your sketchbook, which has by now found its new place under your pillow, and try to sketch the face but each and every time you'd be met with another failed attempt.

It felt like a curse of some sort. Wanting to remember but not being able to. Wanting to know but not being able to meet. Wanting to understand but not being able to learn.

You've tried many different ways. You tried jumping him. You tried running into him. You tried approaching him slowly. Sometimes you'd lock eyes with him, sometimes he'd disappear the moment they establish physical contact. You'd sketch day and night but you just couldn't nail it.

Slowly but noticeably a pile of crumpled up paper in your trash can started increasing. So far you've ruined three canvases and wasted almost an entire sketchbook which gave her an confrontation from your roommate, both from the trash and the one canvas you borrowed from her.

"If you need canvas, please just buy one for yourself. I'm gonna get scolded by my mother."

"the trash can in your room is starting to overflow with trash... some of the trash are even on the floor already, please dispose of them if you can. I don't know what you're trying to do but you should give it a little break, it doesn't seem like you're getting anywhere either way."

you've apologized multiple times for it, but in spite of her intentions being different, the painful truth behind her words pierces through your heart like an arrow. You weren't not getting anywhere that much is right but she's trying.

you were trying so hard because for the first time in a while you had a goal set in mind.

That night you didn't bother the guy. Instead, you sat down leaning on that big tree watching him stand just a few meters ahead of you.

You haven't given up of course but god you were tired. you sigh, releasing the tension in your body, closing your eyes beneath the tree's shadow.

You didn't know what you expected but someone snapping you out of your thoughts you sitting next to you was not it.

For a moment, you were too scared to look aside because this is a rare opportunity and you couldn't mess this up and yet at the same time you could wake up at any moment so if you were to waste this it would eat you up from inside for days. Anxiously, you moved your head and catches sight of the brown haired individual's side profile. It's the sight so dazzling you suck in your breath and bites your lip and just stares.

Every time you visit, you noticed a small detail you haven't before. Like how they shift from one leg to the other when the cold breeze brushes against their concealed arms, you wondered if it was really that cold for him, or how messy his hair was, you could've presumed he didn't take care of himself.

Today, you notice his eyes are shimmering brown, bright and full of life, no . they weren't full of life, they were filled with pure abyss, barely reflecting any source of tiny sparks. He was tired, lonely, and empty. You wondered how long they spent in this realm. Does he have a home? What's his story and how did he end up here? Just now after you take a good look at them, you started questioning all those things. Up until now all you knew was that they were here each time you fell asleep and that your face gets red and your heart skips a beat whenever you get near.

For the first time that you stared at them for more than two seconds, you started noticing all the little details. His bone structure, every single lash on his eye, even how messy his hair was. You take a mental note of it and stares for so long that you didn't even realize he might've feel awkward until they cough and move their face to the side, hiding their face a little bit further with the locks of his hair.

"I'm sorry."

You speak up slowly.

You wonder if he was even real.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

Silence. Heavy, uncomfortable, cold, suffocating silence.

He gives her a side eye but don't say a word. You, not knowing how to react, just stares. You stare back, drowning in their eyes, not even realizing how close they've gotten to each other.

You have drawn many portraits of many different people up until this point in your life. The beauty of it all is that every person is different, unique and beautiful in their own way. Each painting you did is special because it's not like any other. That's, in your opinion, the beauty of this world. Even now, this person that might be nothing more than a fragment of your wild imagination is unlike any other you've met.

They are so beautiful it made you sick. Not just their physical appearance but their aura and their company. The way when their hands touch it sends an electric shock through your body or the way you get all warm and fuzzy inside when you were near him.

you swallowed down a thick saliva, forcing yourself to speak again, you didn't know what you were gonna say but with the tense atmosphere between the two of you, you wanted to ease it up, thus allowing the words in your throat to carry out.

"Hey."

The boy shifts his gaze towards you upon your call, moving his head along his gaze. You feel the hue of light red beginning to adorn your cheeks as soon he turns his head to your direction.

You fidgeted with your fingers, "You're a very pretty person."

You could feel his stare on you, but he didn't utter a single word.

"When I say pretty, I don't mean it just at that... you're so pretty that I could be with you all day just to watch the cherry blossom tree's bright pink light glow on your skin and how it brings out a million subtle sparks of color in your eyes, and In the evening, I could draw you all night long until I have no more strength, and when it's finally night with the moon, I could close my eyes to remember the day going by as a reflection of you."

as you spoke, you couldn't help but notice how close your faces were with just a few centimeters apart from each other. you two were so close, It distilled a warm fuzzy feeling within your chest.

"you're quite talkative."

for once within several dreams, he finally uttered a single word, and just the mere sound of his voice made you speechless. he leans his head slightly closer and you couldn't help but think that your faces will crash. you were sure your faces will crash and you're scared if they do the universe as we know will explode but the world collapses before you could get a chance to blink and suddenly you were panting in the pitch dark of an all too familiar room.

❀

They say everything comes with its good and bad sides so you presumed the same must go for this entire situation too.

If it were up to you, you'd say the good thing is you finally finished your painting. After so much time and effort you have finally created something you're satisfied with.

Bad, or rather unfortunate, thing is that the next time you went to sleep you didn't dream at all. At first you thought it was a mistake so you pulled her blanket over your frame and went to sleep again despite the morning sun desperately trying to climb on your bed through the closed windows and your roommate gently knocking on your door.

Nothing.

After a few more times of not being able to wake up in that imaginary world of yours, you started to freak out a little. It was understandable though. When you spend so much time somewhere, so much that it turns into a habit, it's only natural to get worried when it abruptly stops with no sign whatsoever.

For now you'll just have to learn to adjust to your new reality.

❀

It has been a year since you last dreamed of that dream.

you struggled to accept the truth, occasionally glancing at the painting you've finished right after your last dream. however, as time passed by, you managed to divert your attention to much more important things, slowly forgetting the world you would often dream off.

you didn't know whether you liked it or not but you supposed it was fine since a lot of great opportunities were beginning to appear to you.

"That's why nazoki-san, we would love to invite you as a guest artist for our next gallery showcase!" Words were ringing in your ears like an echo. There were thousands and one emotion flowing through her body. Excitement, joy, disbelief, anxiety and so much more.

Finally, It's finally happening. You couldn't help but think to yourself. All that hard work and effort is finally paying off.

When you got a call from a nearby gallery asking for someone with your last name, you presumed it was for your mother, a professional artist who had few of her works showcased there, that's why the first thing you felt when they said it's you they needed was confusion.

You've been drawing for years, joined many different art courses and took many drawing classes, participated in many events but getting an offer to have some of your work showcased in a big, professional and well-known gallery for one of their events was something new—a step closer to achieving your dream.

Of course, you didn't hesitate and swiftly agreed to the offer.

It's only when it came time to choose your best work you got a tad uncertain about which paintings to pick.

You decided to go for one landscape drawing, one abstract and one portrait.

Choosing a landscape and abstract was easy, you simply chose your most recent work, a work which, by chance, was seen by her classmates and some teachers and received tons of compliments.

Choosing a portrait was a bit harder though—there was just so much diversity between your models you'd feel bad choosing one out of many other, just as beautiful, ones.

You dig through the canvases in an attempt to find a perfect one when your hands suddenly brush against the beige fabric pulled over one of the canvases, hiding it from view.

A drop of cold sweat rolls down your neck as you uncover the familiar painting. It's still the same as you left it a year ago.

When your dreams stopped you felt as if you lost a part of yourself. Being unable to face the painting you worked so hard on, you ended up covering it up and leaving it to collect dust in the pile of canvases.

Even now when you looked at it, a part of you feels like sinking but the feeling of dread is easily outshined with the feeling of nostalgia and warmth.

you decided which portrait to bring to the event.

❀

More people have visited the event than you had originally planned, it was almost a bit overwhelming. Almost. All the praise you got made up for it.

You would be lying if you said you didn't like to be praised. You loved the words of affirmation, to hear someone from a higher level acknowledge her efforts and make sure you're on the right track.

You were silently lurking in the crowd the entire day, starting conversations when you'd get the chance, giving speeches about her art.

You talked and talked, over and over again, repeating what you've already said over twenty times by now and every group so far would listen carefully. Seeing them genuinely interested in your work made it all worthwhile.

Soon enough, night fell and people started leaving one by one, saying their goodbyes. It's a shame that the day has come to an end but if you're lucky maybe you will get more chances like this in the near future.

"nazoki-san!" One of the gallerys workers approaches you, "Would you mind picking up your work? I still have some guests to see off."

"Alright! Thank you so much again!" You bow down your head before you make your way to the hall where your work has been showcased up until now. It was a part of their agreement that when the event is over you'll get to bring your paintings back home.

When you step foot into the room, however, you find you weren't not alone. Almost like a deja-vu, in front of her stands a familiar brown haired person with their back turned towards you, in his hand, he held a book, it seemed like he was looking for some inspiration.

Your heart sinks.

Immediately, you stop in your tracks.

How?

Blood in your veins freezes as the cold sweat starts dripping down your face. It can't be…could it?

"E-excuse me-e—" you tried to speak up but your voice breaks in the most embarrassing way possible.

The person twitches in surprise, turning around with a startled expression on their face and it's the same damn expression you saw that day when you first grabbed their hand. you swear it is. It has to.

The person points an index finger to himself, tilting his head to the side, "Me?" as soon as you heard that voice, you knew damn well it was.

For a short moment their eyes lock. It's the same chocolate colored eyes holding the same lonesome warmth and oh you want to rush towards them at full speed and tackle them to the ground but youi calm yourself down and continues to talk, "We're closing."

Your voice comes off stronger and steadier this time but the hint of nervousness can still be distinguished.

"Oh… I'm sorry. I got lost in my thoughts."

So much happened today. You talked a lot, you walked a lot and on top of that you woke up early with only three hours of sleep the night prior, perhaps you're just imagining things. Maybe you're daydreaming again. But his voice sounds so real and you can see them so vividly even with you vision blurry from exhaustion.

There is so much you wanted to know, how, why, what, when, huh?? you heard stories about people's dreams coming true, about how some met people in their dreams but you never imagined anything so…extraordinary happening to you. But here you were with so many questions lingering in your head and so little time so you decided fuck it no matter what happens this time, no matter what kind of story your faith is writing, whatever happens in this timeline you weren't letting them go again.

The chocolate haired person gives you a warm smile, although, It looked a bit forced, you didn't say anything as he turns back to glance at the painting in front of them one last time.

"I was just thinking about how this painting looks a lot like me."

Your knees buckle up underneath you.

Weak .

you felt weak.

but you couldn't even focus on that, all you could focus on was how the person you've been longing for was indeed right in front of you.

and with that, the interlude halts.

₍⑅ᐢ..ᐢ₎ taglists are open everytime.

2024 © reposts are prohibited with/without permission... plagiarism is prohibited. don’t translate my work without my permission. i will take measures of reporting you. reblogs and likes are appreciated.

[littlemissmasokitten]

Welcome to the After Show Part 1

Pairing: Christian Yu x Fem!Reader

Genre: Smut (Minors DNI), Exclusive Situationship, Light Conflict w/ Healthy Communication

Synopsis: Christian Yu, or better known as the workaholic DPR IAN, and you are in a situationship only prevented from being more due to his heavy workload, otherwise, you two absolutely adore each other. Now with the first portion of his tour handled, he's more than ready to give you the attention you've both been needing.

Content Warning: Smut, pet names (Darling, Princess, Baby), LOTS of preface, L-bomb (More on the sweet side, curse my Asexuality), light fingering, nibbling, marking, nipples (lightly mentioned), open-ended.

Ngl, was supposed to have more smut but I got writer's block bad and I just want to throw this out into the world already. BE FREE!

Networks: @othersideoutlawsnetwork Part 2 Continued: Here

It had been a short while since the last time Christian had toured and yet so much has changed since then. Even though you hadn’t the chance to be by his side back then, you were proud to be here for him now.

Your relationship had been kept a secret and held a bit ambiguous for some time but everyone on the team knew something was going on between you two. All the times you left his recording studio looking more disheveled than the last but the rumors still held true. The only thing Christian loved more than your body was the art he was creating day in and day out.

Even while you’d wished for your relationship to become something more, you continued to sit back, silently admiring his sleepless nights. You lived for the odd hours he’d wake you with a gentle caress of your face, happily presenting the 4-5 samples he’d created over the last hour you’d been asleep. He always worked so diligently and reliably. Being woken by him was always a treat in itself though his diligence not only shone in his work but in the way he’d treated you as well. He was always certain to reward you for your patience and that was more than enough for you. 

The coming days of the Seoul concert were busier than ever. You’d honestly expected he’d disappear off into his own world so you were surprised when he brought over matching luggage cases and invited you along to South Korea with him. Even though you’d only be able to stay in his Seoul apartment while he worked, it was a refreshing change of scenery and felt like a good use of your vacation time. You cozied up in his bed with a book or two and a bit of tea, staying up a little late into the night just to see him stumble in after a long day and hold him close until you fell asleep in each other's arms. 

Everyone knew the first day of the concert would be hectic so you stayed behind. Despite the way he stumbled into the apartment after the fact, worn and exhausted, his eyes lit up telling you every little detail of the event and how much it warmed his heart getting to see "the lovely Dreamers" once again. In a moment, he clutched your hands in his and he begged you sweetly to tag along for his second performance the following day. Despite your initial hesitance toward the potential of being spotted, you agreed under the condition of staying in a secluded backstage waiting room.

Now here you are as you promised you would be. The quiet room with a few snacks and beverages, a couch, a chair, and the greyest walls imaginable. It was moments like this that made you wonder if it was really okay to continue living this way. You opened your phone for the Nth time only to see fancam after fancam of his performances taking over your social feeds. A lighthearted sigh leaves your lips when you see him tying a bow on his head. “He’s so precious, of course this was all worth it”.

As the words leave your lips, you hear a light knock on the door. You eagerly sit up, a twinkle in your eyes. “Yeah?~” The door creaks open with Christian peeking before sneaking in and closing the door shut. You make your way up and both run into each other's arms once again. “Darling, it must get tiring to always be waiting on me like this but I can promise you…” he leans in, tucking your hair behind your ear to softly whisper against it “I’ve been waiting to get to you just as much as you’ve waited on me”. As each word gently falls upon you, your senses become enveloped by him. 

The softness of his words tickling your ears.

The way his body fits perfectly against yours.

The scent of his sweat infused with the woody cologne he’d put on before the performance.

The sight of his stage makeup drying after running down his face.

By all means, he should be exhausted like any other day but the twinkle in his eyes as he looks down at you says everything you’d needed to hear.

In a moment, your lips are on his, your fingertips tracing up his shoulders to the dampened back of his neck. He gently caresses the small of your back as you exchange feelings for each other with actions alone. Between the heavenly plush of his lips, the delicateness of your tongues just barely swiping between desperate kisses, and warmth of your breaths colliding, what was meant to be a moment of understanding was rapidly spiraling into a familiar deep desire. 

A breathy moan escapes your lips and he takes it as an opportunity to graze your tongue with his. As quickly as you get a taste, his mouth leave yours and relocates to the base of your neck, one hand reaching up, tangling into your hair as he ever so softly marks you. “You taste delicious, Darling. I'm so lucky to have all this right here waiting all for me". He guides you back against the arm of the couch and mumbles against your skin "Now, let me show you proper just how I appreciate you, Darling".

With a small whine of acceptance, he guides you to lean back, his hand giving your thigh a squeeze, thumb rubbing at the soft plush of your thigh. He presses kisses down your chest, only stopping to mouth over the peak of your nipple, clearly protruding beneath your thin t-shirt.

You loved the way it felt how he touched you, the butterflies in your stomach when he'd give in and spoil you with endless affection. But as his hand crept up your thigh, so had your feelings. "Christian..." you held his hand in place, causing him to look up to you once again. "What is it, Darling? Is something wrong?"

You swallowed hard and stayed quiet a moment before responding, averting his gaze. "I don't love the way things are ambiguous between us. Sometimes... I wish..." your words trail off.

"I love you, y/n. No doubt about that in my heart" he softly carresses your face. "You've stayed beside me through my best and worst days, you've held on through my busiest months and have been the anchor and breath of fresh air I needed in the times between. If 'official' is what you want, I'm more than ready to give it to you."

Your eyes widened, "Do... do you really mean it?" you say in a near hushed whisper. He kisses you softly, slowly deepening the kiss, one arm snaking around you before leaning back to whisper against your lips. "More than anything, Princess. If it helps..." his free hand rides the rest of the way up your thigh, rubbing your heat through your leggings, a finger slipping between your folds "be as loud as you'd like now and we'll explain later."

Your breath hikes in a damn near squeak, only needing to see you eagerly nodding before he returns to ravaging your mouth once again. A second finger slipping between and you'd swear on your life the next day if asked that his fingers had never felt thicker. He nibbles your lip as his finger teases your hole through the leggings. You give a small yelp, to which he kisses your lip all better.

"Don't get shy on me now, Baby. Lets lay you down this couch and I'll give you good reason to be loud."

The lingering time between you and the couch is spent up in a blind tango, your lips endlessly caressing each other's. Even as he sits you down and leans you back, his body only casts over yours the whole while. You pull him down closer by the loose hanging fabric of his shirt, yearning for him more desperately.

"Is my pretty girl already so needy? Well darling, I'm more than happy to oblige". He props himself up on one arm, looking deep into your impatient doe eyes, his free hand brushing between your thighs, taking in the sight of you trembling with your breathy, half-lidded gaze. His fingers brush past your clothed core before snaking their way down your waistband and teasing your dampened folds. Your hips buck up for more but he raises his fingers away, kissing you deeply as he settles your hips back down.

"ah ah~, no moving for you, darling..." he leans and whispers deeply "I've got you."

Part 2 Continued: Here

[intheclearyetgood-tv]

A Way In

Triggers: not much, just reader being stabbed once but nothing graphical; making out (once); paparazzi at the end

Pairing: Taylor Swift X Singer!Female!Reader

—————————————————————

Being a singer-songwriter has always been one of your biggest dreams… and let’s be honest here, you never had many chances of making that dream come true. You were a dreamer… a huge one to say the least, and considering that you lived in Nashville - the city that according to people, makes everyone’s dreams come true - you should have been perfectly fine… buuut no, no can do.

You worked at Bluebird Cafe, yes, the place were Taylor Swift was discovered. Not that you’d ever met her. You were a huge fan of hers, and even if you were like 7 years younger than her and had lived in Nashville your whole life, you never met her, you never had such luck… and this lack of luck (sorry for the play on words) always persisted in your whole life.

As I was saying, you worked at The Bluebird Cafe, as a waitress. You were close with the owner of the shop, who let you give a small performance once a week for the night openings, mostly on Friday or Saturday nights, which was very convenient, considering those were the days when the cafe was most busy.

But were you ever lucky enough to meet some producers or some record label owner? Nah, that would require too much luck, you didn’t have it.

On a busy Saturday night like always, every table at the cafe had been served so you made your way up to the small stage, being comfortable about it as you had done it a thousand of times already. You sat on the stool and took the guitar, fixing the microphone to your height as you began speaking.

“Hey everyone! How’s your night going?” You started, and some of the usual clients replied happily, making you smile. “Well it’s nice to hear that you’re all doing well! Tonight I’ll be playing some original songs written and composed by me, and after that, I’m up for requests! Some of you already know me but for the ones who don’t, I’m Y/N L/N and I’ll keep you company during this lovely night!” You began singing a song you had written after that small presentation, and continued with some covers, singing Taylor Swift songs too, the small jar with a sign written ‘TIPS’ over it slowly being filled as the night went on.

You were completely unaware of the pair of blue eyes looking at you at some point during your performances.

As the bar slowly emptied, blue-eyed-girl included, you found yourself sitting at the same stool with the same guitar in hand, looking through your phone. You always did that, at the end of the night, silently hoping that someone would come up to you and offer you a record deal…

What a daydreamer.

“Still nothing?” Nancy, The bar owner asked, once the bar had definitely emptied and the doors were being locked. You sighed and put the guitar back on its stand. “Nope, nada” you stood up, taking a look at the tip jar. “At least I got some good tips tonight” you looked at her, she knew you well enough to recognize when you were sad. “Honey, don’t look at me like that,” she started, placing a hand on your shoulder. She was like s mother to you. “Eventually some producer will notice you, trust me.” You smiled sadly “I hope so” you said, and helped her with the final chores of the bar, before leaving through the back door.

It was about two in the morning, the neighborhood was pretty empty… you always found it scary. And the alleyway you got onto from exiting the backdoor, wasn’t less scary. You always speed-walked your way out of it… but today wasn’t a lucky day.

When is it ever?

You were almost onto the main street, when you felt someone sneaking up on you. You weren’t quick enough to react, the person trying to pull you somewhere but you applied resistance, pulling away. He managed to stab you through your stomach and you whined in pain through your covered mouth, the stranger’s hand covering it.

However you had a bit of luck, because your whines were loud enough to alert a certain someone’s body guard, who momentarily left his duty to have a look in the alley.. thank God he did.

The stranger, upon seeing the big men, let go of you and ran away. you slid down against the walk, not having taken notice of the man, too busy keeping your own hand on the wound on your stomach.

“Mrs. Swift, I think we’re gonna need to call an ambulance.”

You weren’t sure what happened next, as you were in shock, and not quite attentive to your surroundings. You just know that someone familiar was by your side, trying to keep you awake and all you remember is some blue eyes…

— ~ ~ —

You woke up the next morning to the sound of beeping, white walls surrounding you and the noise of people talking outside your door- probably nurses and doctors.

“Thank God you’re awake!” The voice startled you, and you turned to your left to see Nancy sitting on the chair next to your bed. “Did I faint onstage again?” You started, trying to sit up, “God, I had this weird ass dream-“ you winched in pain when you tried to sit up, “fuck-“ only then noticing that maybe it wasn’t all a dream. You lifted your shirt and saw the quite big bandage covering the left side of your stomach, some red stains on it. “Maybe it wasn’t a dream, fuck it hurts”

“We need to put a street lamp and a camera in that alleyway. I’m so sorry that happened hun,” Nancy started. “I shouldn’t have ever let you leave through the back door, I-“ you quickly interrupted her as you laid back down. “Nancy, don’t apologize, please, you couldn’t have known. No one could have” silence set between them after that, until you interrupted it with a laugh: “you know, I think I was hallucinating at some point, cause I thought I saw Taylor Swift” you laughed,

…but Nancy stayed serious.

“You weren’t hallucinating” Nancy said, her seriousness making you stop laughing. “What?” You said, looking at her with confusion written all over your face. “You weren’t hallucinating. That really was Taylor Swift. Her bodyguard saved you and She brought you here-“ you interrupted her. “Nance, seriously? Come on, don’t play with me, you know I care about that stuff-“

That’s when the door opened.

“Oh you’re awake!” The familiar voice had you immediately turning your head to where it came from. “W-what is happening- am I still high or.. on some kind of medicine?” The blonde laughed, noticing you trying to sit up but dropping her smile when she saw you wince in pain. “Woah there, lay back down,” she said and put a hand on your shoulder, fluffing your pillow as she helped you lay down.

“You’re Taylor Swift,”

“Yes”

“And you’re here,”

“Yes.”

“Am I dreaming?”

That had the blonde laugh again, looking at you. “No, Y/N you’re not dreaming. I’m actually here. And you’re actually talking to me” you were still looking at her with your jaw dropped. “How is that possible?” You said, making Taylor smile again. “Last night I was at the cafe, I come visit from time to time… and I saw you performing. I talked to Nancy about talking with you, but you were far from done so she suggested I waited for you to finish your shift, so that’s what I did, I didn’t expect… that,” she said, gesturing to your wound.

“I-I’m sorry you saw me perform last night!? And your songs too!?!? Oh my god that’s so embarrassing-“ Taylor was quick to interrupt you. “No no no don’t say that! I was actually about to say that you were amazing! That’s what I wanted to talk to you about…” she looked at you hopefully, you were still wonderstruck about all the situation. “I-I’m sorry I might need some time to process all this” Taylor giggled again and nodded, letting you process what was happening.

A couple minutes later you looked back at Taylor and smiled slightly “okay, you can go ahead,” you said, and Taylor smiled. “Y/N, I will go straight to the point. I heard your original songs and Nancy told me that you write and compose your own songs. Would you like to write and sing a song with me?” That’s when your jaw dropped once again. You were quiet for a couple more minutes. “I’m sorry- you would like to write and- and sing a song, WITH ME?” You emphasized the last two words, you know, for good measure.

The blonde in front of you nodded, and you began talking again. “But- I’m no one- I mean I don’t have a producer, a label, a manager? I don’t even have an album?” The blue eyed woman shrugged. “That’s not a problem, I mean, Nancy here told me that you want a career as a singer, maybe we can make that happen, no? Plus, I’d be really happy and honored to write a song with you!”

You were freaking out, your favorite singer ever had just asked you to write a song with her. And who were you to say no to that!?

Within the next couple days, you were out of the hospital. Taylor had visited both days, just getting to know you. You still felt like you were dreaming, but it was all so true and real. The luck you never had came just at the right moment, when you needed it the most.

That day, as you were being discharged, you were shocked once again when you saw the blonde at the door. “Hey there, ready to go?” Wait, what? You thought you were gonna have to walk home alone, but here she was, picking you up and taking you home. “Uh-yeah sure” you said and slowly walked over to her, you still had some trouble walking, as it hurt your insides… literally, where you were stabbed. You could feel the pain even with all the painkillers.

“Do you need help?” Taylor asked when she heard you wince in pain. You shook your head, hand over the bandage as you kept walking over to her. She sighed and walked over to you, wrapping an arm around you to support you. “You’re stubborn, aren’t you?” You blushed a little at her comment, though appreciating the help and occasionally leaning onto her. You were both lucky that the hospital had an underground parking, no one actually saw Taylor and even if they did, Nashville’s a pretty chill town, they’re used to her.

“Where’s your bag?” She asked once you reached the car. You looked at her with confusion written all over your face. “My…bag?” Taylor took some time to reply, closing the car door before getting in from the other side. “Yeah, you’re supposed to come at my place…” you were even more confused now. “I am?” That made Taylor laugh, you looked so confused right now. “Yeah, but I’m guessing that Nancy didn’t tell you. Well it’s fine, I can just land you my clothes. I’m taller then you so they’ll be big for you, but I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Oh by the way, my mom’s waiting for us at home with pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, I hope you like them”

And here you were freaking out again. “Your mom as in- Mama Swift?” Taylor hadn’t stopped laughing one second. “Yeah, her. I didn’t realize you were a fan of mine” she smiled, gently nudging your shoulder. “Yeah- of course I am! When I was 10 you were like the talk of the town, i never once managed to come see you in concert and 17 years later I’m in your car, going to your place and getting to record a song with you? That’s like a dream come true, girl” Taylor laughed at that, god, you loved her laugh.

When you arrived at the Nashville house you were greeted by her mother. She asked you about the incident with that stranger, but then proceeded to make you feel at home, her dog, kitty, being a big help in that as she wanted to jump on you, but Taylor had to hold her back as you were still injured.

She gave you a quick tour of the house and ended it in the music room. “Oh wow this is amazing” you said as you walked in, different types of guitars hung on the wall, the huge piano in the middle of it, just wow. You looked at the guitars first, looking a bit longer at the blue koi fish guitar, your favorite.

“Wanna play it?” She said from behind you, you smiled a little but you had a tendency to break other people’s stuff, so you declined the offer, even though eventually your finger pressed on a piano key. You pressed that a couple times before getting a melody in mind and making a brief chord progression, then you took your phone and typed in the chord progression. Taylor looked at you in amusement.

“Is that how you get your ideas?” She asked and you nodded, feeling a bit tired so you sat down on the piano stool. “Yeah. Some times I press a random piano key, and I have perfect pitch so it doesn’t take me long to make a chord progression and arpeggios… then according to how the whole of it makes me feel, I write the lyrics. Or sometimes I get a tune in my mind and play around with it” you said, Taylor smiled and made you scoop over on the stool, making space for her.

“Play the chord progression, keep with it for a while” at that point you had figured out what she had in mind, so you began playing. At times emphasizing some notes more than the other, switching up the rhythm, and Eventually Taylor started coming up with lyrics.

It was your turn now to look at her in amusement, she was so focused and you could see how she felt the melody, how each word came running to her as if she was brainstorming a perfect combination of words.

“Hold on, hold on, lemme record this, this is so good already” she said and took out her phone, recording the whole process. You eventually began harmonizing with her and adding lyrics, both getting lost in the moment as you completed first and second verse.

“Woah,” you said after both of you had gone silent. “That was, I don’t know. I’ve never written something so fast. It’s coming out so good, Tay” you said, the nickname slipping easily from your lips as you scribbled down the last lyrics you had come up with. “This is gonna be one hell of a song Y/N, I can feel it. We wrote two verses in less than… what, 10 minutes?” You nodded and took a look at the scrapbook Taylor had brought. “Okay, we have two verses. We need choruses and pre-choruses and I’ll leave the bridge up to you because your bridges are like, the best thing to ever exist on earth”

It was her turn to laugh at your comment, and you soon joined her in laughter, unaware of her mother’s eyes on both of you, through the door.

Andrea had never seen her daughter this happy.

— ~ ~ —

It had been a month since the two started writing the song, and between going to the studios in NYC and LA, now it was nearly done.

Aside from writing the song, you started spending more time together. You were really close, and Taylor was kind enough to let you stay at her place whenever you traveled around to record the song.

“God, I’m so tired” Taylor said, getting back into the NYC TriBeCa house after a long day at the studio with you, the backing vocals needed to be added so that’s what you did. You nodded at her statement. “Yeah, I’m tired too and I don’t even do it yearly like you do” she nodded as well and went to get a quick shower. When she was done, it was your turn to get a shower and when you went back into the living room Taylor was watching a rerun of FRIENDS, and you joined Taylor on the couch like you always did: laying down on your side with your head on her lap.

It had become usual for the both of you, none of you minding the physical touch, as Taylor loved it and so did you, never having gotten it enough when you were a kid. She would play with your hair and/or trace her fingers on your arm, and god, you felt like home.

Oh, I’m falling in love…

When the episode finished and the post-credit scenes were being rolled, you turned to lay on your back and looked up at Taylor. She soon felt your eyes on her and looked at you.

There was silence for a couple seconds before both of you started laughing. “What?” Taylor said between giggles, you brought your hands up to your face to hide the red-ish color that had started to paint your cheeks. “No nothing I just…” you took a deep breath, and once your cheeks didn’t feel warm anymore, you removed your hands.

Thank god Taylor didn’t notice the blush.

“I was just thinking and… if you hadn’t come into the cafe that night, I wouldn’t have met you and we wouldn’t have recorded our first songs together… this could make me start my career, this could make my dreams come true… and all because of you, Tay” you smiled and sat up, looking at her. She smiled back. “Y/N…” she started, and you hummed, as to signal her to continue talking. “Instead of putting out the song on platforms, what do you say if we play it together at my next concert? So everyone can see you, hear it live… you know,” she shrugged and smiled, watching shock take over your features.

“Are you sure? I- I mean- that would be amazing, Tay! Oh my god, yes please!” You had a thousand thoughts going on in your pretty little mind, but one was better than all of them: you would be performing on stage with Taylor Swift. The older woman hugged you and you hugged her back tightly. Once the initial shock had worn off, you started watching another rerun of FRIENDS.

“I never asked, and now I’m curious so, what’s your type?” Taylor said out of the blue, when the episode had almost ended. You didn’t think much of it, and your reply came pretty quickly. “Well, definitely girls-“ you were about to continue, but Taylor interrupted you: “no shit sherlock” you stared at her wide eyed “you knew???” You asked, laughing at yourself. “Uh DUH? Your outfits basically scream “I’M GAY” even if you’re wearing my clothes which are like, the straightest clothes possible” she laughed again, making you blush. “I’m gonna take that as a compliment”

You punched her shoulder jokingly and continued with your explanation. “I don’t know, honestly. I Focus more on personality then appearance, even if I do have a thing for ocean blue eyes” Taylor didn’t seem to have caught the hint, and even if she did, she let it slide.

A couple weeks later you were standing backstage to Taylor’s concert, anxiously waiting for it to begin. It would take a while before she got to the Surprise Songs, and you already knew that you were gonna die. You were never good at handling anxiety.

“Hey, how are you doing?” You felt a hand on your shoulder, and turned around to see Taylor in her Lover outfit. You had to force yourself not to look at her legs or let your jaw drop. “I uh- I’m nervous. Really nervous” Taylor smiled and hugged you. “It’ll be okay, trust me alright? You’re talented, your voice is amazing… you- we rehearsed this song so many times, it’s going to be just fine.”

Her words of reassurance helped you stay calm, until she got to the acoustic set. “Welcome to the acoustic set!” Taylor said, cheers of crowd filling your ears. “So, the surprise songs for today are a bit more… surprising, as we’ll have not 2, but 3 surprise songs, and that’s because we have a surprise guest today!” The crowd cheered once again, and you started feeling insecure. They probably expected someone famous, not an unknown singer.

“Let me say a few things about her first. As you all know, I was discovered at Bluebird Cafe in Nashville… I went to visit, almost a couple months ago and there was this girl, playing a few of her original songs and also covers… and I really, really loved her voice, and the feelings she made me feel, I don’t know, I had to get to know her. So I did, and today we’re both here with a song that we wrote together, please welcome onstage Y/N L/N!”

The crowd cheered once more, and you made your way onstage, heart thumping in your chest as you reached the front stage, smiling brightly as you took a brief second to look around, before bringing the microphone up to your mouth “oh my God hi everyone! I’m so nervous, this is literally my first time on a stage, and I might start rambling so excuse me” you giggled, fans cheered and you tried to steady your shaky voice.

“Uhm okay. I don’t know what to say honestly, I grew up in Nashville and I grew up listening to Taylor’s songs so yeah, fellow Swiftie here” once again, the crowd cheered. “I grew up working and playing my music at bluebird cafe, hoping for someone to notice me and to offer me a record deal… no one ever did. I mean, I still don’t have a record deal but never in my craziest mind would I have imagined that at some point in my life I’d meet Taylor and she’d want to write a song with me. Tay, You’re the closest friend I have and I just want to thank you, thank you so much for trusting me, for giving me this opportunity,”

Taylor smiled and walked over to hug you tightly, bringing the microphone away from her mouth as she could feel your heart thumping, and said “You got this girl. I know you do. I love you.” You smiled brightly and pulled back from the hug. “Anyway, this is the song we came up with, it’s called ‘A Way In.’ We Really hope you’ll like it”

You sat down at the piano, starting with the melody of the song. Taylor started singing, and you had the harmonies for the most part of it, as well as the highest vocals, the belt and bridge. Even if it was Taylor’s concert, she wanted you to have your moment, she wanted you to start your career beautifully and this could be the right way to do so.

When the song finished, the cheers were louder then ever. You got a standing ovation, Taylor herself was looking at you with proud eyes and smile and clapping for you, you walked over and gave her another tight hug, before looking back at the crowd. Tears in your eyes, and you took your microphone again. “Thank you so so so so much guys. Hopefully we’ll cross paths again” you threw a kiss to Taylor and walked backstage, letting Taylor procede with the actual surprise songs.

When you got backstage, all the cheering was for you. You hugged and thanked everyone, before going to Taylor’s dressing room and changing back into your normal clothes.

When the concert finished, you didn’t expect Taylor to come straight to you and hug you tightly, kissing your cheeks. “Y/N that was amazing! Did you even hear yourself? I never had a crowd cheer that loud for me! They absolutely loved you!” She smiled brightly and took a water bottle that was handed to her, as well as a towel for her sweat. “Tay, you’re exaggerating” you giggled “no I’m definitely not! Wait and see the videos on tiktok later tonight”

Taylor went and got changed, as the stadium cleared out after the long concert. When she was finished, as you were walking out the stage through the back. You were talking with Andrea when Taylor grabbed your arm and pulled you back to her, not giving you time to react before she pressed her lips on yours.

The time felt like it was passing by in slow motion, Taylor was kissing you. She was kissing you and she seemed hesitant about it, and upon realizing what was happening, you brought your arms around her neck, deepening the kiss as Taylor squeezed her grip on your hips, smiling in the kiss as metaphorical fireworks exploded around you.

When Taylor pulled back, your foreheads stayed connected. She looked at you, eyes full of lust, and she brought a hand up to brush some hair away from your face.

“You said you were straight,” you whispered, hinting a laugh.

“Yeah, I might have lied”

You giggled and leaned in to kiss her once again.

You were completely unaware of the few hundreds of fans and paparazzi taking pictures and videos of the two of you making out.

[heliads]

like a heartbeat, drives you mad

From the moment you first dream of Neverland, you know that it's a home unlike any other. Waking up is terrible every time, but what if you were able to find a way to stay there forever?

masterlist

You are always alone when the thoughts catch up to you. When you’re with other people, it’s different, easier to convince your mind to race to better, safer topics. You don’t have to think about the fears or the worries, you just have to keep up with the conversation or do your best to not seem like the person you’re terrified you truly are. Everything hinges on the one other person there, distracting you from the relentless parade of thoughts, keeping you firmly in reality.

When you’re alone, though, you can’t hide anymore. You wave goodbye to your friends to head inside, and with your hand on the knob, you think, did they really want to see me? And, was that laughter genuine, or were they faking it the whole time? Worse, was it at me?

Things get worse once it gets dark. You lie awake at night thinking that you’ll fail at everything, that no one will want to associate with you after that, that everyone on this earth is going to live and die and no one will ever remember you again. You don’t like thinking along such dark lines, but the self-hatred is strong and won’t let you go. You’ve tried before, shaking it off, but it always comes creeping back when you want it the least.

Life is not the best, but at least the fall of dusk upon the streets and surroundings of your hometown brings you the blessing of finally being able to go to bed. You can push off schoolwork until the next day, chores until forever, just so long as you can shut off your mind and crawl under your covers and everything will go away.

Tonight is one of those nights when you want it most of all. It’s been a long day, followed by a long week, chased by an even longer month. You can only tell yourself that it’ll get better soon for so long before even that familiar lie loses its charm. It’ll be good to rest tonight, though. Maybe tomorrow will make you happier. You close your eyes and try to sleep, all but begging unconsciousness to fall over you and carry you away. Your waking life is horrid enough. In sleep, at least, you will be alone, but–

In your dream, there is a boy. He was not there before. He is, in fact, nobody you have ever seen before. This should not be a problem. Dreams are rarely perfectly photographic, but this boy is, indeed, perfect. He’s absolutely in focus, blurred by none of that dreamlike haze that most figures cling to in your subconscious. It’s like a memory, but it’s never happened. It’s like reality, but you are still definitely asleep.

You stare at him for longer than is perhaps polite, but he does not go away. You can feel this dream in a way that should not be possible– the carpet under your feet, the cool of the air conditioning. You’re in your room, standing by the door. He’s perched on a chair, eyeing you with interest, and as bizarre as this dream is, you cannot shake the absolute certainty that this is his fault.

The only thing to be left, then, is to get some answers. You work up the confidence to speak, and your voice sounds exactly as it should, not distorted by dreams or anything. “Who are you?”

The boy chuckles. “A friend of yours. Hopefully, that is. I’d like to get to know you.”

Having gone a record number of years of your life without any hyperrealistic boys disrupting your dreaming schedule, especially ones who specifically wanted to meet you of all people, this only adds to your confusion. “Why?”

The boy shrugs liberally. “I’ve been encountering fewer and fewer dreamers around. Yours are the most vibrant. I was curious.”

You fight the odd urge to laugh. “A lot of people dream. Maybe you’re just bad at looking.”

This is, of course, the most rational thing you can do, immediately pick a fight with some guy currently terrorizing your brainwaves. Luckily, he doesn’t seem offended by your need to argue, and he just grins. “See, you’re right, but most dreams are nothing more than surface level. Yours are deeper, richer, stronger. In all honesty, that’s the sort of thing that makes me more powerful, so I wanted to see what it was about.”

You scoff. “Sure thing, magic boy, you, like, eat dreams or something. Weird of you, but okay.”

He smiles again. He shouldn’t, but he does. “You don’t believe me? I can show you.”

He stands, holds out a hand to you. You’re certain this guy’s nothing more than a figment of your imagination, but still. You hesitate. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Peter,” he says, “but magic boy works too.”

It makes you laugh. Shouldn’t, but it does. Just enough to shake loose your hesitations– what could happen here, after all, in the confines of your own dreams? You take his hand and something sparks behind his eyes. Pride, maybe. Or justification of some sort. Either way, you get the feeling that he’s just proven himself right.

Peter walks over to your window, throwing it open abruptly and climbing out onto the ledge. “You have to trust me,” he tells you, “or this isn’t going to work very well.”

You want to argue with him that you have absolutely no reason to trust him at all, but for some reason you’re already crawling out the window before you can get the words out. Your body trusts him, even as your mind doubts it. Strange, but nothing about this makes sense, anyway.

Peter straightens up slowly, bringing you with him. “Are you ready?”

“For what?” You ask, concerned.

His eyes dance with mischief. “For this,” he calls out, and he pulls you from the ledge.

There is a terrible moment of falling, when the only sure thing is his hand still wrapped around yours. You are plummeting towards the ground with dreadful speed, but then you’re not, and you’re leveling out again, the two of you pulled through the air as if by some invisible string.

The wind whips through Peter’s hair as the two of you soar through the air. “How is it?” He shouts over to you.

You laugh delightedly. “Fantastic.” It’s almost a pity it isn’t real. The fact that it feels so true but isn’t is almost more heartbreaking as if nothing had felt like reality in the slightest.

Before you know it, you and Peter are well beyond the reaches of your town, or even your country. Dark waters skim by underneath you, the waves of some foreign sea. Thousands of stars twinkle above you, Peter points out a few, shouts, second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning, that’ll get us there. You frown at him, call back, where? And he laughs, delighted in the thought of all that you have soon to experience, and screams, Neverland! at the top of his lungs.

It sounds like a joyous place. It is, from the moment you step foot on its pearlescent beaches, and later still, when you’re striding through the lush forests towards a campsite. It’s all a blur from that moment onwards, a swirl of new faces running towards you and laughing at your jokes, the clash of swords without a trace of fear, promises that you’ll love this even better, or that, or everything.

It is paradise. You do a hundred things and never tire. The Lost Boys who meet you, take you by storm, and obviously enjoy the company of a newcomer. Throughout all of it, Peter watches, tucked into the shadow of a tree trunk, arms folded across his chest with that satisfied smile on his face again. He does not approach until earlier into the morning, once dawn starts bleeding out beneath the blushing fingers of the rising sun.

“We have to go back,” he tells you at last, slipping out from his hideaway to step carefully to your side, “Or, you do, at least.”

The memory that none of this is real comes crashing down upon you, and you can feel the ecstasy of this whole night leaving you in a flash. “Right,” you say, “This is just a dream. Forgot about that.”

The thought that you’ll have to wake up and go to school and exist again as a normal person without any of this wonder that you’d just experienced makes you feel sick and saddened. Peter shakes his head, eyes soft. “You don’t necessarily have to wake up, but you should. You can come back soon, though.”

You laugh bitterly. “Of course I can, dream boy. I’m going to forget all of this by morning.”

He frowns. “Do you want to?”

“No,” you insist, “but I don’t think I have a choice.”

“You do,” Peter tells you, “You always have a choice. Always.”

With that, he takes your hand, and pulls just so. You stumble forward, caught off balance, and when you look up again, you’re in your room. Same four walls, same ceiling, same everything. You know somehow that this is the dream no longer, even without mysterious boys or wonderful islands in front of you.

A dreadful sigh leaves your lungs, carrying only heartbreak and misery. What a pity, to have such a magnificent dream and then have to leave it. Knowing that none of it was real is perhaps one of the worst agonies you have ever encountered in your life.

Or– was it not real after all? There’s something clenched in your hand, and you raise it slowly, uncurling the fingers one by one. What falls neatly onto your lap is a stone, polished to perfection by centuries of tides. It’s like no stone you’ve ever seen around here, shiny in a way that nothing natural is. It’s dark and lovely and– and it’s exactly like the ones on the shores of Neverland when you first touched down. There was no way you could have gotten it anywhere but there. That means that you were there after all, and that it’s real, it’s all real.

You go throughout the day in a haze, barely able to focus long enough to remember where you’re supposed to be going. None of it matters, though, not even the snide comments of your teachers or the questioning looks from your peers. Nothing matters, because the second the day ends and night creeps back around you, you know it’s time.

You have a brief moment of terror just before you fall asleep when you wonder if you can get back after all, that perhaps that was just a one time thing. No, you decide firmly, I want it. I’m going.

And, when you open your eyes to that same slightly uncanny feeling of the dream before, you know it, you can get back. Peter isn’t here this time, but that doesn’t stop you from racing to your window and throwing open the sash. You leap out into the air again blindly, reaching for the stars even before your feet leave the threshold. You won’t get hurt, none of this is real. All of this is real, that’s why you can fly into the air again, caught by an unseen hand. Second star to the right. Straight on until morning. You know the way. You couldn’t forget it if you tried.

The beaches of Neverland are empty, but you charge forward anyway, nearly tripping over tree roots and loose plants as you hurry through the forest. You can just see the lights of the camp, and then, yes, you’re into the clearing, and you’re greeted by shouts of glee and joy. Peter’s waiting for you at last, slowly clapping with the rest of the boys.

“You made it,” he says, evidently proud, “We wanted to see if you could.”

“Of course I can,” you tell him, laughing, “I made that choice.”

“That you did,” Peter says, and the celebrations begin.

It is quite possibly the best time of your entire life. You repeat this process day after day, slogging through your daylight hours with the end goal of being able to fall asleep and go back to Neverland, back to your Lost Boys, back to Peter. Nothing matters but the island. They all get along with you better than any friend you’ve ever made on the mainland.

The journey takes a shorter and shorter time, gone in the blink of an eye, and half the time you just wake up on the shores anyway, so familiar is the destination to you. You learn archery, throw knives, spar with the boys, shriek and shout and spin around the campfire. It’s fantastic, all of it, but that only makes the morning even worse in your opinion.

For, no matter how excellent of a night you had on Neverland, you always have to go back. Always. Peter takes your hand and he gives you that same look, that expression of regret and acceptance, and promises to see you later, to see you soon. Then you’re back in your house, and every time, the storm of homesickness and grief at no longer being on your island pulls you under.

It makes you think, though. On your first night on Neverland, Peter had said something strange about how you didn’t necessarily have to wake up. Perhaps it fits in with what he’s been telling you about how everything is just a choice. Maybe he’s been waiting for you to want that choice, the one to live here forever. It’s one you’d make in a heartbeat if you could only do it.

Curious, though, you start looking around at the other Lost Boys. They had to have gotten here somehow, right? One night you see one of them arrive, ferried over by a strange shadowy thing that looks far more terrifying than the whirlwind flight you’d had with Peter.

You ask one of the Lost Boys about it that night, interested to know why you were brought by Peter and this newcomer wasn’t. Apparently, though, you were the anomaly, not this boy.

“Usually Pan makes his shadow bring newcomers over,” the boy tells you matter-of-factly, “but I guess he wanted to impress you or something.”

You frown. “Why?”

The boy lifts a shoulder, evidently unbothered by the whole affair. “You’re the last of the dreamers, I guess he wants to keep you around or something.”

It’s an unhelpful answer, all things considered, and basically just what Peter had told you in your dream bedroom that first night. Still, the story is consistent, at least, and it makes you even more certain that Peter wants you to stay. You’re one of the dreamers, right? Why wouldn’t he want you to stay here forever, at least to keep his magic strong if not for the obvious friendship the two of you have had since the very first time you met?

You resolve to bring it up to Peter the next night. You’ve barely been on Neverland for an hour or two before you pull Peter aside and tell him what’s been on your mind for the longest time.

The breath out of your lungs is shaky, but you’re determined to get this right. “I want to stay in Neverland,” you tell him. “Forever, I mean. Not waking up. I want you to bring me here in real life. You always say that we have to make choices, and this is mine. I choose Neverland.”

Peter nods slowly, and you’re almost getting up your hopes that he’ll be accepting when he starts to speak. “That certainly would be an important choice. I would have to choose to bring you, though.”

You incline your head once. “Yeah, that’s why I’m asking you now. I mean, we’re friends, right? You and me, and the rest of the Lost Boys get along with me, too. I belong here, you know that. You brought me here in the first place, at least let me stay.”

He’s not saying anything. Why isn’t he saying anything? After too many minutes, Peter sighs, raking a hand through his hair. “Dreaming is one thing. Actually living here is something else entirely.”

“I know,” you say, starting to get impatient, “I’ve thought about this a lot, trust me, but I feel more alive on your island than I have in the real world. This is my home, Peter. You made it my home.”

Peter stares at you, the ground, his hands, and back to you. “No,” he says at last.

It feels as if you have fallen off of a tall cliff, condemned to tumble down forever in endless emptiness. “What? Why wouldn’t you– you’ve let me come here every night for months, but actually being on this island for good is too much for you? Peter, was any of this actually real to you? Was I just here as a temporary thing while you tried to harness the power of a dreamer or something?”

Peter shakes his head quickly. “No, no. It wasn’t about that. You’re as good as one of my Lost Boys–”

You cut him off, feeling the horror build in your chest with every passing second. “But never actually one of them, right? I can hang around during my nights but I will never be one of them, because you don’t really want me here. If you did, you would have brought me like all the others.”

You want to scream and cry, perhaps both. You’ve trusted him and, hell, even loved him, more than anyone else. Peter was the one thing in between you and complete melancholy. He’s turned your whole life around, given you reason after reason to keep going, but he does not want you around for good. Maybe he doesn’t even want you around at all.

He’s trying to say something, come up with some excuse that’ll somehow exempt him from your heartbreak, but anger is quickly outweighing sadness in your mind and you won’t let him. “No,” you say shakily, “If you never intended to keep me, I won’t waste our time. Why have me here at all?”

Peter’s eyes widen. “Wait, please–”

You never hear the end of his sentence. You’ve woken yourself up from this glorious dream enough to be able to do it all by yourself, and you do it now. When you open your eyes, it’s still dark outside, several hours from morning, but it’s over now, it’s all over.

You know that with certainty. You’ll never be going back. If Peter does not want you, and it is suddenly crystal clear that he does not, or he would have already taken you to Neverland and never fought it, then you will not trouble him with your presence any longer. This is what he wants, even if it destroys you. 

It’s funny, realizing how much being on Neverland transformed your life. Your waking hours suddenly seem longer, the days filled with more dread and dullness than they ever had before. You had been miserable before you dreamed of Peter and the Lost Boys, and now that misery is back in full force. You compel yourself to forget him, to forget everything that had happened on that island, but picking up the pieces is a far harder task than you had ever anticipated.

Days pass. Weeks. Months. At first, you have to force yourself to wake up from that dream again and again, catching yourself with the image of second stars to the right even as you promised yourself that you would never think of it again, but it gets easier as time goes by. That hurts more than it should, but you have no other choice. Peter does not put himself in your dreams again. You do not show up to Neverland. Everything is exactly as it was before, but worse, because now you have those memories of a time that was far better than this one.

You’re walking home from school one day when you’re reminded of Neverland again. It’s a strong memory, forcing itself to the front of your mind. Green trees, the leaves waving overhead. The breeze whipping at your face. You can’t imagine why you’d be thinking of it again, and then you turn a corner and he’s there in front of you. 

Peter.

It’s impossible. You’re not dreaming, so he shouldn’t be here unless– unless he actually came here. You stand stock-still, hardly daring to breathe, and Peter looks back at you, just as shaken even though he’s the one who came all this way.

“I miss you,” he says slowly, unsteadily. You’ve never seen Peter hesitant, or ever show any sign of a lapse in his typical cocky confidence. Not until now, that is. Truly, he has no idea how you will treat him now that you’ve already left once before and gotten away with it.

“I know,” you tell him, “I know.”

Peter tilts his head to the side, trying to get a read on you. “Did you miss me?”

You take a step to the side, looking at the nearby scenery, anything but him. “Yes. Parts of it. I missed running with the Lost Boys under the trees. I missed the bonfires and the dancing. And yes, I think I missed you. But I hated feeling like you didn’t want me there, and for a while, that was enough to make me think I didn’t miss you.”

Peter’s eyes are wide, twin emeralds twinkling in the quiet air. “And what about now that I’m here? Can you miss me now?”

“I can,” you decide at last. You do. You have, and seeing him again has ripped open a fresh wound you swore had already healed. Blood is oozing around your fingers, but for some reason being with him still takes away the pain of such a grievous blow.

Peter holds out a hand to you. He’s trembling slightly, far less sure of himself than he’d been in a dream of your bedroom many months ago. Still. He wants you even now.

“Come back with me,” he says, “Back to Neverland. We all need you. I need you. You don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. It was always your home, I didn’t realize it before. It could be your home again.”

You look at him. It’s been a long time. You’ve grown up in the time since you last stepped foot on the island, but strangely enough, you think he has too. That’s why you’re able to take his hand at last, and trust that he will not let you down again. He needs you, just like he said. As it turns out, you need him too.

Peter’s smile is radiant. “Shall we go back, then?”

You allow yourself to smile back at last. “I think we will.”

ouat tag list: @lovesanimals0000, @eclliipsed, @w1shes43, @lost-ender

[jgroffdaily]

The New Yorker Interview

Jonathan Groff Rolls Merrily Back

The actor reflects on his journey in reverse: from his latest Tony nomination to his arrival in New York, waiting tables and dreaming of Broadway.

By Michael Schulman, Photograph by Thea Traff

June 2, 2024

Excerpts:

One of the problems with “Merrily” is its protagonist, Franklin Shepard, whom we first meet as a slick, philandering forty-year-old Hollywood producer. It takes two acts to arrive at the charismatic musician he once was, with a lot of mistakes in between. Putting effect before cause gives each scene a painful irony—but how do you get an audience to care about a guy who’s off-putting for so long? “Merrily” is back on Broadway, in a production directed by Maria Friedman, and it’s finally a hit. One big reason is its Frank, played by Jonathan Groff, whose natural warmth shines through even in the character’s older, sleazier incarnation. When this revival opened Off Broadway, in 2022, The New Yorker’s Helen Shaw wrote, “Groff’s silky tenor and angelic face elevate a part that can sometimes be contemptible—for the first time, I could see Frank as both the dreamer who believes in greatness and the glib charmer who believes every lie he tells.”

Groff, thirty-nine, is now nominated for a Tony Award, alongside Friedman and his co-stars Daniel Radcliffe and Lindsay Mendez. He was previously nominated in 2016, for “Hamilton,” in the scene-stealing part of King George III, and in 2007, for the indie-rock musical “Spring Awakening,” as the rebellious schoolboy Melchior Gabor—his breakout role, opposite Lea Michele. Groff had come to New York three years earlier, as a stagestruck, closeted nineteen-year-old from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he grew up among Mennonites and was obsessed with the original cast recording of “Annie Get Your Gun.” “Merrily,” with its themes of aging, idealism, and the vicissitudes of show business, has had Groff thinking about his own path toward stardom. “Doing this show on Broadway at this time, moving to New York twenty years ago, I’ve now lived the time frame of the show,” he told me recently.

We were talking at a bakery north of Washington Square Park. Groff had glided in on a bicycle. As we spoke, he frequently welled up with tears—he’s a crier—but regained his composure by focussing on a pair of googly eyes affixed to the wall behind me. For our conversation, which has been edited and condensed, I had an experiment in mind.

Let’s start with the extremely recent past. Three days ago, you went to the Met Gala. How was your night?

The big headline for me was Lea Michele was pregnant, and I sat next to her at the table, holding her giant train thing while she peed. She took it off, and I was holding that and her purse. I saw Zac Posen, who was at our table, help Kim Kardashian up the little tiny stairs, and I said to him, “Wow, that was such a sweet moment of the gay helping the diva.” I was relating to him, like with me and Lea. It’s a zoo of famous people. I was going to go to the after-parties, but my body was just, like, “No.” I hit a wall from the shows and the epicness of the week, with the Tony nominations. So I was home by eleven-forty-five, and in bed by midnight.

The Broadway production of “Merrily” opened last fall. You told Jimmy Fallon that Meryl Streep came to your dressing room, where you have a bar named BARbra, and she took a video of you and sent it to Barbra Streisand. Who else has been there?

The first thing that comes to me is sitting in BARbra in October or November, drinking whiskey with Sutton Foster. I came to New York as a teen-ager and saw her six times in “Thoroughly Modern Millie”—now she’s in BARbra, dropping in for, like, an hour and a half after the show, and it’s so full circle. Who else? Patti LuPone was there—another big one for me. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Martin McDonagh. Glenn Close sent back a bottle of champagne to be chilled in BARbra, which we drank together.

This show, like every Sondheim show, is very dense. Over the course of three hundred-plus performances, are there certain moments that have suddenly hit you a different way, or that you realize have a double meaning?

Double, triple, quadruple, infinity. I’m still having revelations, which really makes me believe that it’s a true work of art. Maria [Friedman] talks about how, with Sondheim’s writing, he “leaves space,” which is why it’s always new. He always needed to work with a collaborator, and she talked about the actor being an essential collaborator. She said the lyric he wrote in “Sunday in the Park with George”—“Anything you do, / let it come from you, / then it will be new”—is Sondheim’s directive to the actor.

The Tuesday after the Tony nominations, I got to the theatre, screamed with Lindsay [Mendez], screamed with Dan [Radcliffe]. [He chokes up.] Then I was singing “Growing Up”—“So old friends, don’t you see we can have it all?”—which has meant so many different things to me in the run of the show. At yesterday’s matinée, Dan and I were sitting on the roof singing “Our Time”: “Up to us, pal, to show ’em.” We’ve done it a million times. We look at each other, and Dan just fucking loses it crying. He had to look away from me. We talked about it afterward, like, “What the fuck was that?” I don’t know. Something just happened.

When you started the show, in 2022, at New York Theatre Workshop, were there kinks in your performance that you’ve since figured out?

I remember feeling shocked at being disliked for so long in the first half of the first act. It was very clear from the energy of the audience that they loved Mary in the opening scene—immediately, they’re on her side. I’m out here as a gay guy, playing this straight, two-timing Hollywood producer who’s cheating on his wife. I’m already having to feel confident in a way that I don’t in my everyday life, this sort of swagger. And the audience hates me. I remember feeling scared and self-conscious. Maria, in that preview process, really helped with that, because she talked about the value of when it’s real, and you’re not playing ugly just to be ugly. The one line that I really struggled with was “I’m just acting like it all matters so people can’t see how much I hate my life and how much I wish the whole goddam thing was over.” That is a really confronting thing to say.

People might say that this is one of the fundamental flaws of “Merrily We Roll Along”—that you’re confronted with this cynical, smarmy Frank in the first act, and you don’t really understand him until the show’s over. I can imagine going into this not knowing if that’s a solvable problem, because it hadn’t been for decades.

Well, Maria wanted us to find the truth. She really believed that these characters weren’t archetypes, that there’s humanity in the writing from beginning to end. I found it after that first week or two of previews, not being so afraid. The line that made me want to do the show was “I’ve made only one mistake in my life, but I’ve made it over and over and over. That was saying yes when I meant no.” I’ve done that a lot in my life, and there was something that felt like the closeted version of myself. George Furth and Stephen Sondheim—I can only imagine being gay at the time that they were gay. Even though Frank is straight, there’s so much repression that feels very familiar to me.

Except that you felt it at the beginning of your life and not the middle, as Frank does.

Yes and no. I still feel it. I’m still trying every day not to go back. I’m obviously out of the closet, so that’s a huge relief, but I’m always going to be reckoning with the Republican upbringing that I had. I’m always negotiating whatever homophobia I’ve got. It’s all in there, still. What we see as ugliness in the top of the show, to stand and say, “I want to fucking kill myself, I hate my life,” and not overdramatize it but try to find it in the most pure, truthful place—it’s still, every night, a meditation to go there.

Let’s wind back. In 2021, you played Agent Smith in “The Matrix Resurrections.” Any good stories about Keanu Reeves?

Getting to play Agent Smith really unlocked rage inside of me that I didn’t know was there. That’s helped me so much with “Merrily,” particularly in the first act. Learning the kung fu was, like, months of fight training. They called me the Savage, because I was so into it. We were shooting a big fight sequence with Keanu, and, after the first few takes, I remember Lana [Wachowski] at the monitor, like, “Jonathan, come over here. Who is that?” I was, like, “I don’t know.” And she was, like, “And what is that?” I said, “Gay rage?”

I’d never shot a gun before. I shot Keanu and thought I had peed my pants, because I had this hot feeling. You know when you pee yourself and it’s warm? It lasted about ten minutes and then it went away. I sat next to Keanu and said, “Keanu, I just had extreme heat from my groin for, like, ten minutes.” And he was, like, “You opened up your root chakra.”

You turned thirty that year [Hamilton]? How was that?

I remember it vividly. We were at the Public Theatre. There was a fire in the East Village, and the show was cancelled that night. I got a cupcake at the deli around the corner from my apartment, on Sixteenth Street, and ate it by myself. I can be a bit of a loner, so that was a happy birthday for me.

(On Looking being cancelled)

But, in 2015, Michael Lombardo was our executive at HBO, and I was crying into my salad at some restaurant in West Hollywood, trying to convince him to keep the show going, right before getting on the plane to come do “Hamilton” Off Broadway.

I loved Raúl Castillo, who played your love interest Richie on the show. I interviewed him around then, and he told me that, since he’s straight, you all had to teach him some of the mechanics of what gay people do.

Oh, yeah! God, I love him so much. I officiated his wedding in July.

Let’s go back to 2013, when “Frozen” came out. You voiced the iceman Kristoff and the reindeer Sven. How did that film change your life?

It’s funny—I remember recording some of “Frozen” in San Francisco. I would be teaching Raúl, like, how to lick my asshole while jerking me off—not teaching him, but sharing the ins and outs of gay intimacy—and then going into the recording studio on a Saturday and being Kristoff and Sven in a Disney movie.

When they showed me “Let It Go” for the first time, I was, like, Oh, my God, this will help millions of people come out of the closet. This is the gayest thing I’ve seen in my life! That was the thing about “Frozen”: I don’t think anyone who worked on it thought it was going to be a juggernaut. It’s so weird to think of this now, but when it came out it felt quite alternative, because there was no villain, really, and the love was between two women. Now there are, like, tissues with Elsa on it.

Now we’re moving backward to “Spring Awakening.” By the time it moved to Broadway, in 2006, you were the twenty-one-year-old lead of the coolest musical in town. What was your actual life like?

I was so not cool. The show was cool, and the music was cool. I had people dropping me off joints at the theatre. And I remember fully understanding the stark difference between who I was playing onstage and who I was in real life, which was an extreme theatre nerd who wanted to be in the ensemble of “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and never would have imagined playing Melchior. It’s his gravitas. And trying to tap into that side of myself, which was a side I’d never experienced before.

Tell me about your audition.

I went to the open call and knew who Michael Mayer was, because he had directed “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” But it was “Spring Awakening” and I was, like, There’s a beating scene? This is so intense! They called me in for Melchior, then had me sing “Hey Jude” in a falsetto, and Michael was, like, “That was your falsetto?” And I laughed at him sort of making fun of me. Tom Hulce, who was our producer, told me years later that he moved my head shot from the “No” pile into the “Yes” pile because I had laughed at Michael in the audition, and he thought, This kid has the ability to let Michael roll off his back. We should bring him back in the next month or two.

It was, like, ten people up for Melchior. They brought me in first, because they thought they would just see me and cut me. But I had worked so hard on the audition material. I remember calling my dad the night before the final callback and saying to him, “I know I can’t be this character all the way yet, but I—”[He tears up again.] I really got to get my shit together! Why does this keep happening to me?

Because we’ve gone on an emotional journey.

I guess so, in reverse! Fuck me. [Pauses.] I knew that I had it inside, if they would just give me the chance. That’s all I was trying to say, but I guess I can’t stop crying while I’m saying it.

In 2005, you made your Broadway début, as an understudy in “In My Life.” Now, this was the weirdest musical I’ve ever seen. As I recall, there were dancing skeletons in a song about how everyone has a skeleton in their closet, a giant lemon that came from the sky at the end, and a girl on a scooter who turns out to be a ghost. And it was written by the guy who wrote “You Light Up My Life,” who then came to a dark end.

And his son!

Yes, his son killed his girlfriend. What the hell was going on with that show? Did you ever go on?

I went on for the ensemble members. I was so excited! I was in my first Broadway show, at the Music Box Theatre, walking in where it says “Stage Door.” And you couldn’t give away tickets to see the show. People were coming to laugh at the show from the audience.

Like “Springtime for Hitler”?

Exactly. And the cast had to do the show, even though people were laughing at them, which is devastating for the actors. But we formed a little family. It’s the plight of the actor. You’re just out there, like Sally Bowles in “Cabaret.” I was twenty years old, so I was lit.

Had you been waiting tables?

Yeah. The whole year before that, I was at the Chelsea Grill, in Hell’s Kitchen. The day I got to New York—October 21, 2004—I moved to Fifty-first Street and Ninth Avenue, before it was super gay, and I walked down Ninth and got a job waiting tables. A week later, I waited on Tom Viola, who runs the charity Broadway Cares, and became a bucket collector. I’d watch the second act of shows and then collect the money at the end. I went to hundreds of auditions, trying to get my Equity card. That, to me, was “Opening Doors,” from “Merrily”—that moment of sheer will and ambition and ignorance.

We’ve now reached our finale, which is 2004. Can you tell me about the decision to move to New York?

My mom was a gym teacher and my dad is a horse trainer, and they didn’t really understand anything about the performing world. But my dad grew up on a dairy farm, and he was supposed to take over and become a Mennonite preacher, which is what my grandfather was. My dad didn’t like cows—he liked horse racing, so he sort of rebelled and did his own thing. My mom always says that nurse, secretary, or teacher were the options for women in a small town at that time, but her passion was sports, so she ended up being a coach.

So they understood the power of fanning the flame of passion. When I was a kid and into acting, they drove me to play practice. They drove me to community theatre. My senior year of high school, my mom drove me to New York to audition for this bus-and-truck tour of “The Sound of Music.” I got that tour, and deferred my admission to Carnegie Mellon. I made ten thousand dollars after a year on the road, and I learned so much from getting to act every day. I wanted to take my ten thousand and move to New York, and my parents were super supportive: “If you feel like you need to go to college, you can always go to college. But take a gamble and move to the city.” I’d worked at this theatre in Lancaster called the Fulton Opera House, where I’d met this girl who wanted to move to New York, so she became my roommate.

To me, “Merrily We Roll Along” is about how difficult it is to stay in touch with the person you were as adulthood knocks you sideways and forward. When you think about nineteen-year-old Jonathan coming to New York, do you feel like you’re the same person? What’s changed?

[He bursts into tears.] I can’t tell why I cry! When we were about to start rehearsal for “Merrily,” I would listen to “Our Time,” and I couldn’t sing it without crying. And, when I think about that version of myself—I think it’s because that person who brings you here does diminish. Maybe it’s the grief for that person. The whole reason that I’m here now is because of that person, but that person no longer exists.

But that person is still in there, somewhere. That voice is so quiet now, but it’s still driving my choices. You have to make choices. You get older, that pure inspiration dies, but it doesn’t have to go all the way away. I think that’s the whole point of the show, why it goes backward. Maria says that Sondheim put all of his regret into it, so that we could have less regret for ourselves. And perhaps the reason it ends with these people, with these versions of ourselves that we remember when we see it, is that it’s an invitation to remember and honor that person.

Why does that make me cry? Is it grief? Is it joy? I don’t know, but I’m so grateful for that purity and that optimism. The first month that I was here, feeling so lost and confused, I pulled the Bible that my Mennonite grandmother gave me off the bookshelf. She gave me that Bible before I left town. I was alone in the apartment thinking, What the fuck am I doing in New York? Or not even “what the fuck”—I didn’t swear until “Spring Awakening,” and when I would sing “Totally Fucked” I would get beet red. And I remember putting the Bible down and thinking, This is not the answer. This is not making me feel good. And then running to Central Park and standing in front of the Bethesda Fountain. I was nineteen, and I was, like, This feels better—but, like, What? Who am I? What am I doing here? I know I want to act, but I’m so scared. And gay. But it was something—some voice, some passion, some inspiration. Some something brought me here.

[rraaaannnn]

8.little of your time

Finally I can see her head dangling happily in front of me. Was she happy that she was lost? Or was she always with this cheerful smile on her face?

“Coach…I want you to come with me?” She says while I look calmly, “The equipment store is here?” I point with my thumb while my other hand is in the pockets of my wide pants. She shakes her head no and the smile does not leave her face. “Please give me a little of your time. I want to visit this place.”

I had no real interest in music but curiosity piqued my interest so I decided to follow her while looking at the back of her head

Until we entered a store full of old albums, a large CD, and a small CD

But I was drawn to her round eyes as she looked at these music records with amazement and passion

My interest began to look at the album covers and the variety in them until I heard her soft voice calling out, “Coach is here!” I looked at her as she motioned for me to approach the corner where there were headphones and a CD player next to her.

She gives me the headphones while she carefully selects one of the albums, then she takes a second headphone and starts waiting for the music to get on

You can hear the melodies of the song starting and understand that the melodies also started for Hanni because she moves her legs in rhythm and her smile looks happier.

Recently, you have lost the sense of passion in your life and stopped seeing the people in your life as passionate

I don't know why, but seeing Hanni, a music major, enjoying what she hears makes me relax, even if just a little

Even though her music activity was closed and she was forced to enter another activity in which she did not understand anything in it, this does not make her lose her passion.

The soul is fond of loving what it is prevented from

It reminds you of your old self when your passion existed

I find myself looking at Hanni even after the music in the headphones has ended, and the only thing that makes me notice this is Hanni's movement as she takes the headphones off her head.

I also take the headphones away from my head and hear Hanni say with a slight smile, “Some songs have the smell of days.”

“I loved this album…can you imagine it is 150 dollars, expensive?” Hanni looks at the album in her hand and returns it to its place.

“Maybe your taste is expensive.” That's what I said after I took the album and went to the cashier. “Don't think I'm buying it for you, I'm buying it to listen to in training camp.”

I can feel Hanni standing behind me, looking longingly at the album as the cashier puts it in a bag

Something about this girl's actions makes you want to smile but remember that you still have a long day to buy training camp equipment

You walk out of the store as you walk ahead, “Try moving your little legs faster.” Hanni replies from behind you, “My legs aren’t little!”

You sit next to each other on the bus in the last seats, but there is a seat between you that contains an album bag. Hanni sits facing the window while leaning her head against the window and looking quietly at the street.

The bus was not full, just a few people and the driver

The calm and quiet movements of the bus, and the sun has almost set, make you think about the decision you made that you will be a coach

When Celine started convincing you and following you everywhere to become their coach, you didn't take her seriously, because she's just Celine. Celine didn't take her seriously since you met her, but the moment Yeji texted you, you knew it was serious, especially when Yeji said that her friendship meant anything to you before, even if A little bit that made you decide in just one night

You were never a coach in your life, you were just a player. A dreamer and a loyal friend

Your friendship didn't mean a little to you before, it meant everything to you

That's why you found your feet that day heading to the college stadium where Yeji and her team were

A very slight sound of the bottle colliding brings you back to reality for a moment. You look at Hanni, who is sleeping peacefully with her head pressed against the window.

It's been a long, tiring day for her “She must be tired.” You smile lightly, your smile almost visible on your face. You throw your head back as you wait for your arrival to your station.

While the sound of Hanni's head hitting the glass every second

—

Summary: Somehow, Hanni and her group of friends, who major in music, are forced to join the soccer club at their college. Their coach is the former soccer club player, Lee Yn, who is known to be mean and scary. So Yn becomes responsible for their development in playing and winning the championship

<- NEXT

Taglist:@aeriigfs @drvirgus @sixflame438

[evlynmoreau-blog]

The Ritual

Waking up move

The night cycle ends when the exploration reaches over +3 or -3 or the group obtains a ritual key. The group wake up and the day cycle begin, time to be productive.

Reality progressively collapse as the base personnel reclaim the lower levels of the base and get closer to the Dreamer. 

Base levels 1 to 3, reality collapse stage 1 

Remove all harm and items except for ritual keys, stress remains.

Radio communication is glitchy.

The group pick 2 each time they wake up:

A player character with harm wakes up outside of their dormitory, they keep half their harm and an item. Mark the character, the camera did not record their arrival.

A room slightly changed, details are not as remembered for the player characters and marked NPCs. Mark the room, If the room is marked again, a NPC goes missing, they were last seen in this room…

Someone from your cadre remembers fragments from the night cycle, from the point of view of a corrupted replika. Mark them. If marked again their behavior becomes erratic…

Base levels 4 and 5, reality collapse stage 2 

Recover only half the harm, stress and items remain. 

Radio communication becomes more erratic, ghost reception happens regularly.

The group pick 2 each time they wake up:

A player character with harm wakes up outside their dormitory, they keep all their harm, notes about the ritual scribbled near them. Mark the character, the camera recorded something else.

A room show subtle sign of corruption from the night world. Mark the room, if marked again a night world encounter slip into the base…

Someone for your cadre remember past events differently, marks them, if marked again they get sick and start showing signs of corruption…  

Base level 6, reality collapse stage 3  

Realities slowly merge, both day and night moves can be used. Recover no harm, everything remains. Radio can only receive the signal.

The group pick 2 if they ever wake up: 

A player character with harm wakes up outside their dormitory, a wounded NPC nearby, a ritual key in their hands. Mark the character, the camera recorded something…

A room show clear signs of corruption, mark it, if marked again the room become unusable, raise the rating of a trouble and reduce exploration by 1. 

Someone from your cadre is armed and wants to stop the group or destroy the ritual keys. Mark them, if marked again they inflict harm on a PC’s regard, a PC or themselves.   

Marked rooms and NPC are golden opportunities for GM hard moves. 

The GM can also mark rooms and NPC when they make a move.

The Final Ritual move

When you enact the final ritual roll +number of ritual keys -reality collapse stage

On 10+ reality stabilize, the Dreamer meet with the characters, they all remove a mark and get an epilogue. 

On 7-9 the ritual scares the Dreamer, they panic and minifest a fear to stop it. If the group is able to finish the ritual, reality stabilize and they receive an epilogue 

On a miss: local reality collapse, characters gain d6 marks and receive an epilogue.

Epilogues are based on the number of marks, the more you have the more tragic your epilogue is. I still have to design the epilogues table. Exploring together who the Dreamer was before the experiment is also an important aspect of the game. This will be mostly done through exploring the memories that the Dreamer transmit through the signal.

[azureflight]

HotD is not a prequel to GoT. It's a soft reboot for the tv franchise.

WARNING: The author is overdosing on copium and hopium, smoked directly from a colossal tin foil hat. Beware.

We have all groaned at the mention of the prophesy in the very first episode of the first season of HotD. "Why even bring that up?" was the common, understandable response. After all, that whole TPTWP/Azor Ahai thing went absolutely nowhere in GoT. There was no need for anything from any of them, they stupidly gave WW a dragon which allowed them to pass the Wall in the first place and then it turned out WW were not a big deal as Arya solo-killing one dude with a dagger they had since season 1 episode 2 was all it took.

The complete meaninglessness and worthlessness of the whole prophesy and the sheer weakness of an anti-climax that was the Others (White Walkers) threat is one of the main complaints people had with the entire S8 of GoT, especially the book fandom. And it always felt like a stupid twisting of the knife to keep talking about it in HotD, since we know it goes nowhere and means nothing.

Now, we know that's not how it's gonna go in the books. Not only is GRRM on the record talking about it, but 2D are also on record bragging about making it all up on their own. But this is the show and it's already not following the books, so talking about it in show canon is moot.

Unless...

Unless of course, HotD is the start of a second, separate show canon, distinct from GoT.

Now, when I first heard it in season 1, I assumed, like many others, it was a misguided attempt at making references to the OG show in order to hype up the audience and create connective tissue to get us into this new story. And indeed, as HotD repeatedly brought it up again and again, I too have rolled my eyes so far back I almost went blind.

But with the first episode of season 2, now HotD did something else. It didn't just allude to a prophesy that went nowhere, to a threat that was a big fat nothing. Instead, it straight up contradicted GoT.

The infamous "Beyond the Wall" episode was first broadcasted in 2017. Fire & Blood got published in 2018 and came with a specific passage, a letter from Alysanne to Jaehaerys, about how her dragon refused to cross the Wall. This info was not available before in any books, thought it was speculated by the fandom as a possibility. The book directly went against GoT, it felt like GRRM saying "no, wtf, no."

GRRM also gave HotD the info about Aegon I being a dreamer and the whole conquest being motivated by a prophesy about the Long Night, and TPTWP.

HotD did not have to include any of this. Targaryens and their dragons and Dany was good enough hooks for GoT/asoiaf audience. No one knew about Aegon I being a dreamer or having a prophesy, so no one would be upset by such an "omission" either. Indeed, including this bit of info earned them only derision and rebuke, continues to do so.

So why persist? They talked about it again and again in season 1, but by the time they sat down to write the scripts for season 2, the feedback was out there, not only from online fandom but also from professional critics in the industry. This prophesy is not crucial or fundamental to Dance's story neither, they could skip, tone down, ignore. But they don't. They changed so much from the books, a borderline fanfic at this point, yet they insist upon talking about this and hyping it up against the collective negativity of the fandom. Why?

HotD is the first spin off from Got/asoiaf IP that HBO purchased. S8 was such a massive let down, what had been an iconic cultural cornerstone for a decade, almost instantly dropped from discussions, unless it was to talk about "shows with shit endings." There was talk of "remaking" it, almost as soon as the last episode aired, which was of course nonsense, but it explains the mood.

HBO sat down and commissioned bunch of spin offs, not only to milk a popular franchise, but also to keep it alive after a massive blow. And GRRM was particularly backing HotD, talking about how Dance was a story he always wanted to tell.

Now, with HotD's success, we have Dunk&Egg coming, as soon as 2025 if all the news is to be believed. A script is being developed for the Conquest, there is talk of reviving Nymeria's show. HotD did its job of salvaging the IP after what could have been a franchise killer of a garbage ending to GoT.

Thinking on it in very general terms, everyone agrees that asoiaf books will eventually get another shot at adaptation. Of course they will, everything does. Reboots and remakes never die. But when, where, how, is the question, and I think we have the answer.

HotD is where it starts. This show is not a mere prequel to "Game of Thrones". It is the starting point of a new show universe for asoiaf franchise. And the first thing they did to set it all up and signal that commitment, is to talk about the prophesy, the Long Night, and how that's not gonna go like it did in the GoT.

HotD brought up Aegon I's prophesy upon hearing it from GRRM, keeps talking about TPTWP, keeps alluding to the super important threat of WW and now went out of its way to inject that "dragons cannot cross the wall" lore bit, not because they have a bizarre compulsion to make references to a failed plot line that pisses everyone off, but because they are specifically developing towards another shot at that plot line, one that promises to be better.

HotD is not a GoT prequel. It is the first installment of the new asoiaf-show universe. D&E, the Conquest, and maybe even Nymeria when it arrives, will follow this new canon, and all of them will eventually lead to another adaptation of asoiaf novels.

When? No idea. Harry Potter and the deathly Hallows Part 2 was released in 2011. A remake of the novels, now in tv series format, is currently being developed and projected to release at 2026. Apparently 15 years is seen as enough. Will it be longer for asoiaf? Maybe. Shorter? I do not think so.

But it is coming. We always knew it would eventually, some how, come, but I think we now know how and where it's coming from.

[glittering-moonlillie]

Tightrope (Damian Wayne x LOA! Reader)

Warnings: Heavy mentions of abuse, a few curse words. I made this more hurt comfort rather than angst, I'm sorry :<

Summary: Ever since the both of you were younger, you taught Damian the importance of hope and - even if it took years - he was more than happy to help you believe in it again. 

Word Count: 4085

Hope; it was the essence that life was built upon, the attribute that humans cling to in times of despair and grief. It was the shining light at the end of the dark tunnel, the soldier who - with gritted teeth - flipped off the dictator of life and continued to fight, bloodied, bruised and all. 

All you ever did was hope: hoped for a brighter future, hoped for control, hoped to explore and create rather than neglect and diminish. Whether it was in the middle of training, while you were sleeping, or studying, hope was the hidden deity you worshiped with every fiber of your little body. 

As you grew older, it was apparent that you were not born in the correct body. Your mother was a top assassin in an organization called The League of Assassins. She was taught to be a ruthless killer in order to serve the League’s higher purpose - to achieve balance in the world and create environmental harmony through slaughtering most of humanity. Instead of crafting, she helped to steal the lives of thousands, ripping them away from the world with precision. 

It was a responsibility of your mothers to be “the fang that protected the head,” which now meant it was your responsibility as well. From an early age, you were shaped to be a weapon. Your mother’s hands carefully molded your clay body, her expert hands knowing what ridges to smooth and what areas to sharpen. 

But the clay was too stubborn, too hard for her to mold perfectly, and resulted in a dull clump that was useless. One could imagine the disappointment of your mother, who served to be Talia’s right hand woman. When you were born, everyone expected you to have the same instinctual skill as your mother - the ability to contort into the shadows like a lethal chameleon with the ease of a slithering cobra, not to be some mindless dreamer. 

You were useless in combat compared to your mother; the grip on your weapon would always waver and your feet would sway at the thought of killing someone. You always ended up being one of the first spotted in the League’s version of Hide and Seek and subsequently faced harsh punishment. Logically, you weren’t the most competent war strategist either. Sure, you weren’t an idiot, but planning a tactical win against a horde of ninja’s was not your forte. 

And you would never be able to calculate the trajectory you would need to throw a shuriken in order for it to slice someone’s neck. 

A people pleaser at heart, you certainly tried your best to be who your mother wished you to be. Despite your heart wanting to hurdle itself away into the night sky so it could be at peace with the stars, it was trapped in this monstrous clay construction, doomed to kill - doomed to serve. 

Wake up. 

Train. 

Eat. 

Train. 

Meditate. 

Study.

Train. 

Eat.

Shower. 

Sleep. 

Repeat. 

Life was a broken record, repeating its meaningless tune to an empty audience. So you hoped. You eagerly wished for some sort of reprieve, searched for a meaning more than destruction with frantic hands and wild eyes until you struck gold. Soon, your hope bloomed into a boy. 

Damian was the son of Talia Al Ghul, with a soft face and forest green eyes, the raven black hair atop his head swooping to the right. He shouldered the weight of his family, his legacy and it showed. His confidence was as lustrous as an emerald. By the age of nine, he could easily take down every single member of the league (with the exception of his family) and had the tactical brilliance of Sun Tzu. 

Damian was not known for his kindness, no one in the League was. You were all raised to be merciless killers, mercy would only display weakness and get yourself killed. Damian seemed to detest everyone in the League, so it puzzled you as to why someone like him decided to show you kindness. 

Due to your inept nature, most leaguers often mocked you for your incompetence in battle. Their insults were displayed on your body like intricate cave paintings. Damian was the only exception, the radiant diamond that made you feel like the luckiest person. You weren’t sure if it was out of pity or sympathy, but he quickly became your one and only friend. 

His touch was delicate, as if he were grasping at the stem of a dandelion in order to preserve a wish. Words fell out of his mouth like an uplifting melody. Damian made it his personal mission to train you himself, if not to serve the League, than to at least protect yourself properly. You made it your mission to instill the same hope that burned through your bloodstream.

Training sessions that were filled with monochrome decay suddenly overflowed with special secrets and inside jokes between you and Damian - stories shared, wishes whispered, and dreams dreamt in the massive room that instantaneously felt too cramped. It felt like stealing bits and pieces of your childhoods back, simultaneously feeling enough yet not enough at all. 

The first genuine smile Damian gave you felt like you were just given the keys to a whole kingdom. There was something so uniquely special about it, as if you just discovered the end of a rainbow. He had a couple of missing teeth that you assumed would grow back in a few months, eyes crinkling for what seemed to be the first time ever. 

You expressed to him your desire to leave behind the legacy of your mother, to become a leaf swept up by the wind instead of being the bark that stubbornly grew its roots in one spot since at least the leaf would experience more of life than the tree ever will, even if it becomes brittle rust within a few days. 

More than anything, you wished to be swept away by the wind, the tide, anything would do really. 

He confided that he, deep down, wished to spend his days painting and growing a menagerie of rescued animals instead of living in the shadow of his mother and grandfather. But unlike you, he was also committed to proving himself and making a difference. He was the very best of the best, and his talent would be wasted if he were just a measly painter. 

Just as he trained you to fight properly, you encouraged him to pursue what he wanted, even if it went against everything else he was taught. 

After a few years of growing with each other, blossoms of a strong admiration and affection began to develop. Despite knowing loving him would face scorn, it was hope that made you believe you had a chance.

“I promise you, when I am in charge, you will be able to leave this place anytime you please.” He said to you, giving you that wicked smirk he always did when he was awfully proud of himself.  

  Damian covertly fashioned a simple promise band that day. It was made of softened branches, braided with the delicacy of hair. Tangled between the braids were small baby’s-breath, winking at you as the sun illuminated their features. He slipped it on your ring finger, as if it was a proposal, as if the two of you had a choice all along. 

The ring used to be a sign of innocent childhood romance, the physical embodiment of your hope. You used to clutch it tightly, wearing it with pride wherever you went, not knowing that life was sneaking up behind you to violently snatch it away with its bony hands and cold grasp. 

Now it just hung loosely around your neck, tucked underneath your clothes and hidden from the sunlight. You had walked the fine line between hope and delusion and it was only when Damian left that you realized you had been worshiping gods who would never hear your pleas. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gotham city twinkled under the guidance of the waxing moon, and for a moment, it almost looked beautiful. But it was a city where crime never slept, where screams echoed and smog filled the air. It was a constant reminder of why Damian will keep fighting, even if his body aches, even if he is beaten down time and time again. 

His purpose was to protect and save people, and he would do so even if it killed him. He was so eager to succeed, to strive and be better that it sometimes blinded him. But it was better than facing failure; it tasted of rotten fruit and bitter mugmort and he was not jumping at the chance to taste it again. Letting someone die was worse than making the choice to kill someone. 

Perched on one of the gargoyles, the stone withering from the constant downpours, Damian allowed himself to be consumed by the thought of you. You never belonged somewhere like the League of Assassins, and Damian used to find it amusing. A group of highly skilled killers and one girl who only longed to be a professional dreamer, to soar the skies instead of being trapped in a steel cage - a girl that reminded him that there was more to life than just fulfilling a legacy. The last time he talked to you was almost a decade ago. He recalls the exact way your smile disappeared, the way the sunlight in your eyes was swept away by dark, foggy clouds. 

Remembers how he swore to come back for you, only to be told you were killed right before he came back. Heartbreak consumed him then and it only worsened with time. Despite lashing out on everyone, Damian knew deep down it was his fault. 

That is why he fights. 

But tonight, Gotham was mostly quiet. Damian’s shoulders fell as he let the rain wash over him, letting the tension melt away. The night was growing old and since there was nothing amiss, he decided it best to retire for the night. 

Making sure not to misstep, Damian got up and lifted himself onto the rooftop of the industrial building, gripping the grappling hook and preparing to swing himself to safety. 

The hook latched into the darkened building, allowing Damian to swing across. Tainted air filled his lungs, settling into his body with a delicate sting, wind whipping angrily through his hair. It was the closest Damian ever felt to flying, to touching the same blue canvas you wished to be a part of. 

A loud snap ripped through the air, and before Damian could react, he was rolling on the floor and bumping into a putrid dumpster. Damian grimaced. The pavement sweated with grime, making it more of an  inconvenience for him to jump back up and assess the damage done. 

The cord of the grappling hook had split in two but the cut seemed too precise with the frayed ends sticking up equally, meaning that the rope did not just snap; it must have been cut with something sharp enough to slice through enhanced nylon. 

Damian dropped the rope and slinked back into the corner, his eyes squinting through the dark. He watched the shadows cautiously and slowed his breath to a faint whisper; the grip on his sword tightened until his knuckles turned a pale white. 

There was a faint scurrying to his right, almost like a rat or another small rodent but the weight of each step did not match. The light steps progressively got louder, allowing Damian to step into the correct fighting stance. 

He caught the small shuriken between his fingers as it whirled towards his face “Tt, whoever you are, you are absolutely terrible at sneaking up on people.” He tossed the weapon to the grimy floor. “Reveal yourself.”

A person languidly stepped out from the darkness -  a walking shadow - with the only light reflected being from the glint of a palm sized weapon, most likely a dagger. Judging from the person’s curves and movement, he assumed they were a woman. If this was his mother’s doing, this would have been the first time she sent a woman after him. 

“Who are you?” He inquired, voice coarse and echoing across the walls of the alleyway. Instead of an answer, he was met with the sudden charge from the inexperienced assassin who’s blade barely grazed his cheek. Damian grabbed the woman’s forearm and twisted it, using his other arm to keep them at a safer distance as she tried to swing the dagger (incorrectly) at him like a magical wand. 

The woman grunted in pain, letting the dagger drop to the floor with a deafening clank. Letting her forearm go, Damian lightly kicked the person to the floor, pushing a fraction of his weight onto the solar plexus. He glared down, his eyes scanning the slick, black material and immediately recognized it as the one he was forced to wear when he was younger.

So his mother did send this person after him. 

“P-please…” It was a hushed mumble mixed together with the person’s frantic breaths. His eyes scanned again and he noticed the way the woman’s eyes were thin and constricted, examining him as he was her. The terrified look on her face seemed familiar, like something from a hazy dream or an old scrapbook. For a split second, Damian thought the person looked awfully similar to you, only for the thought to be immediately swept away as soon as it appeared. It couldn’t be you, you died. 

“Who are you?” He asked again, lightening the pressure of his foot. “Why did my mother send you after me?”

She continued to thrash around and murmur incoherent words, causing Damian to grumble. “If you aren’t going to answer me, I may as well dispose of-”

Before he could finish the empty threat, the hair of the woman, which shifted out of the shawl covering most of the face, leaked out like a tube of acrylic oil. The shade…it was similar to yours as well…

His heart began to leap in the air, long-forgotten hope pumping from his heart to his brain. He completely shifted his weight off of the woman and slowly leaned down. 

Of course, this could have been chalked up to wishful thinking and mindless absurdity. But he, deep down, wanted to believe, to hope. 

“I won’t hurt you…” He said softly, reaching out to the shawl. He tugged at it to reveal  a mess of hair the color of his wishes, prayers, and dreams combined. 

A few tears ran down the cheeks of the stranger, the fabric of the mask covering their mouth absorbing the liquid almost immediately. “D-don’t…shouldn’t…shouldn’t know who I am…”

“Why not?”

“I-I…you…” She paused, averting her eyes up to his once more. “Your mother wants you back in the League.” She finished, her gentler voice turning rigid and empty like a robot. 

“I’ve told her once that I do not wish to be part of her League. I’m not sure how many times I need to make this explicitly clear to her.” 

“No!” She suddenly pounced on Damian, voice quivering as she pressed another shuriken to his neck. “You can’t do that! Please, Damian. You don’t understand, t-the League needs you, I-I….I need to take you home o-or…or else…”

Damian felt his soul tear itself from his body, felt as if every single wound he tried desperately to cover was unearthed and drenched in lemon juice and salt. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to break out into laughter or crumble into tears. 

Dangling between the two was an old and battered ring, decayed with age. Everything began to click together. The hair was the same beautiful shade, the voice was almost the exact melody, even the combat reflected the same clumsy style.

It was you. 

Your eyes wandered down, widening once they saw that the ring escaped the confines of your shirt. You hastily ripped it out of Damian’s view, quickly dropping the artillery and scrambling off of him, your chest heaving. 

“Y/n…” He hesitantly reached for the warmth of your hand, not wanting to let you slip through his fingers again. It was a miracle, a shooting star in the palm of his hand, twinkling with the fiery hope of a phoenix feather. He already lost you once, broke his promise, and he will never let that happen again. 

“You left me…you left me there to die…” You nudged his hand away, refusing to turn towards him. 

“I would never leave you there to die! I came back for you a few months later once I convinced my father and I was told you died on a mission! They said your mother did not want to revive you because you were useless!” He argued. 

Damian reached for you again, desperately, the need to see you smile for him, because of him overrunning every sense of logic he normally abided by. Your shoulders were tensed as the rest of your body trembled, managing to break Damian’s frigged heart even more. 

“I looked for you everywhere. I almost killed every single person in that fucking building when they said you were murdered, as if it did not matter.” He said in a broken mutter. Damian let his arms wrap around your neck loosely, resting his chin delicately on your head. “I’m sorry, Y/n…I…I failed you.”

You placed your jittery hands on top of his and clutched them just as you did when you were both younger. The sleeves of the assassin attire fell down to your elbows, exposing branches of lighter skin, twisting and curling like cruel birthmarks. “What happened to you?”

Damian couldn’t help but trace the scars with his index finger, counting how many he noticed. Blood trickled down his lip as he tried not to let rage cloud his judgment. 

“When you left…m-my mother…she…” As tears slipped down your cheeks, Damian couldn’t contain the urge to gently kiss them away the same way he did the day he left. “Training became more intense…I was sent on more missions and…and every time I failed…”

Your voice trailed off, replaced with painful cries. “I-If I don’t bring you back…if you don’t rejoin the League again she might actually kill me…” 

Damian watched as you erratically took off the first layer of clothing, revealing a plethora of scars along your arms and neck, down to your clavicle.Whatever restraint Damian clung onto vanished as easily as a swift slice; a bomb ticking down to its demise would have been more nimble. 

“They won’t be getting away with this.” Damian got up, dusting off the filth on his pants, a plan formulating in his mind. He could call up Jason who would definitely not mind killing off some Leaguers who stepped out of line. He will call his father as well and they’ll discuss negotiations for your release. You could be safe with him, with his family. He would be able to grant you your every wish and desire, exactly how he promised. 

You tugged on his sleeve. “Damian…I can’t…I have to take you home. Please, I already know I can’t fight you.”

“I am not going anywhere, Y/n, and neither are you. I told you I would free you from the League when I was nine, and I plan to keep that promise.” He managed a soft smile, hoping that it would ease away the creases on your countenance, to paint over your frown and replace it with moonbeams and sunlight. He wanted to restore the hopeful blaze in your eyes.

Your frown only deepened. “Damian, you don’t understand, I can’t. I can’t run, I can’t escape.”

You shook your head, attempting to wipe away the tears in vain. “The happy ending that I wished for, it was stolen from me, Damian, and I will never get it back. I was wrong to hope.”  

“If you believed that, then you wouldn’t be wearing the ring I gave you. Y/n, you were the one who told me that I wasn’t tied to my heritage! That I could be whoever I wanted to be and do whatever I wanted to do even if it went against my family's wishes.” He fought back. “I won’t allow someone to throw your life away, Y/n. You have a choice. I can protect you.”

Palming your cheek, Damian pulled you into an embrace. The thought of you going back to someone who would only torture you, kill you, hurt him more than he would ever be able to admit. 

“They’d come after me, Dami. They will hunt me down and off me the moment I let my guard down. I would never be truly free, there would be no point.” You lightly pushed him away from you again, hands resting on his chest. For a moment, he wondered if you could feel the drumming of his heartbeat, the way it raced faster than his mind could keep up with. 

“And you don’t think I can protect you?” He replied, voice softening as he urged his legs to step an inch closer, and then another inch. “I would never let anyone hurt you, not ever again.”

Your eyes met with his own, and Damian hoped that the small glimmer he saw meant he was getting through the years of brainwashing, tugging at the strand of hope he knew you had left in you. Your lips parted slightly only to close a few seconds later. With your shoulders slumped, nose bright red, and cheeks gleaming with tears, you slumped into his arms and began to fully weep. 

It caught Damian off guard to see the intense emotion but it did not make him uncomfortable like it usually did; no, instead he felt a pang of sympathy coiling in his stomach, growing into vines and clawing up his throat and daring him to speak. 

“I’m so scared.” You whimpered, clutching onto his cape as if he were as fair weathered as a butterfly. “I-I…I…”

“I know. It’s alright.” He said. “I’m here.” 

Damian made a mental note to thank Dick for teaching him how to comfort others. He pulled you out of the disgusting alleyway and out into the quiet street. Getting you somewhere safe was his first priority and there was no safer space than Wayne Manor.  

“Where are we going?” 

“My family home. My father will be there and so will some of my siblings. It is absolutely the safest place in Gotham for you.”

The cold air seemed more bearable when the comfort of your hand rested in his. The stirrings of a former childhood crush resurfaced the more he looked at you. Despite that though, he knew it would not be fair to push his feelings onto you. If he did, Damian would be no better than the people who controlled you your entire life. 

“I thought you would have forgotten me by now.” You turned towards him, the edges of your mouth twisting into the first smile he had seen from you in years. 

“Forgetting you would be like forgetting how to paint.” He remarked.

A feeling of calmness wrapped itself around the two of you like a snug quilt. Damian could sense that you were still nervous if the constant swerving of your head at any sudden noise was anything to go by, but every time he made sure to pull you closer to show he was not going anywhere. 

By the time that the both of you reached the Manor, your breath managed to settle into a slower rhythm. Damian watched as your lips formed into an O as you stared up at the daunting Victorian-esque building. 

“I’ve always wanted to visit a castle…” You mumbled under your breath, tipping your head curiously the same way you did when you sneakily read the banned fairytales your mother was avidly against. 

Damian chuckled at the response. “And I always said I would take you to one.”

As he guided you through the Manor, the smile on your face began to appear more vividly. His family was surprised, but once he explained the situation, they eagerly welcomed you with open arms. Damian made sure to have Alfred fetch you some nicer clothes for resting while he held you in his arms. 

Ever since the both of you were younger, you taught Damian the importance of hope and - even if it took years - he was more than happy to help you believe in it again.

Did I reread this again before publishing? NOPE

But did I figure out the read more thingy? HELL YES

I consider this a win lol

[trekkiehood]

Lines from the Outsiders OBC recording that changed my brain chemistry

(below the cut bc there are a lot)

(I'm referencing the vocalization of these lines not the words themselves)

Tulsa 1967

- "this is TULSA 1967"

- "Cuz they live like socialites"

Grease Got A Hold On You

- The entirety of this song ok

- I could write the specific lines but it's just be the whole song

- "I'm a latch key kid but they keep changing the locks" Is particularly special to me tho

Runs In The Family

- "So I dropped out of school cuz I had to make a dollar"

- "that's why I'm scrubbing this kitchen why I'm singing this song"

Friday at the Drive In

- "Teachers pet or trigonometry"

- "Cuz it's FRIday night!"

Great Expectations

-"I've got Great Expectations!" Repeated with the ensemble

I Could Talk To You All Night

- "Fake it to belong. I'd rather read than fight or rumble"

- "It's like you're always just pretending"

- really all those harmonies

- "Talk this way"

- "Now don't get me wrong when I say I'm surprised. But I never thought I'd see hope in your eyes."

Runs in the Family Reprise

- "Think is gonna feed you"

- "You don't tell me when you're coming home lately."

- "you think by now I'd learn!"

- "one less thing for me to worry about!"

- "there ain't no telling where I'd go without you pulling me down"

- "a life I'll never know. That ship sailed long ago"

- "I do it for YOU Ponyboy!"

Far Away From Tulsa

- "Who we wanna be"

- "we'd sit around the fire"

-"we'd be each other's family Pony starts this life a new"

- "like the house I've read in Dickens where the walls are crumbling down"

- "Ponyboy you're just a dreamer"

- "Just a leap of faith away!"

-"Find that here" harmoniessssa

Run Run Brother

- Every single line of this song

- like no actually

Justice for Tulsa

- "And they killed him with a switchblade knife"

- "if you're turning up the heat I've dealt with hotter ---- than you!"

- "why don't you ask the Socs why the line got crossed."

- "five on two"

- "eye for an eye"

Throwing in the towel

- "What if they lock our brother away"

Hood Turned Heroes

- "it was ponyboy and Johnny Cade I thought for sure those boys were dead."

-"Someone got robbed! Someone got mugged! Someone has a run in with the greaser hood!"

- "Hoods turned heroes" in unison

Little Brother

- when the ensemble comes in 😭

- "There's only one way out. I finally see that now. They took the only thing that mattered to me any how. That's why I'm standing no good to run away. That's all I ever done but how's the time for me to stay. Do it for all of us the faces in the crowd and when they try to shut you up they're screaming twice as loud. Do it for Cool Hand Luke do it for Jesse James do it for all the unsung heroes you don't know their names. Do it for Ponyboy do it for Johnny Cade don't leave a stone unterned don't leave a debt unpaid. Johnny I am coming home bout to take my final boyw I hope you saved a seat for me Johnny can you see me now."

Finale

- "Who can never win"

- "he was just too ---- good for growing old. And in his memory I'll stay gold."

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 30/04/2024

guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?

Season 2 Featured on: Haltmann's Highest Quality Video Game Rips

Ripped by alden wolf

Requested by eg_9371! (Request Form)

It's Gonna Be May!

Saying that SiIvaGunner has in-jokes is perhaps the most obvious statement of all time - it is an in-joke upon which the entire channel is built upon. Yet there's obviously always different LAYERS to each joke, how obvious each of them are - and even today, there are many running gags on the channel that fly over people's heads despite having followed along for so long. Indeed, such is the case today with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?, as requestee eg_9371 made me aware of a channel in-joke that's been running quietly in the background for the better part of seven years as of today. All of it built on one simple truth - tomorrow, it's gonna be may.

To reiterate - beyond the funny ha-ha memes we all know like Mr. Grand Dad and more, the SiIvaGunner channel is filled with little nods and gags that oft go overlooked. I of course covered 5 Nights of Snop Dog recently which is a great example of one, there's how rips like Kill & Learn (Recut Ver​.​) reference a running joke by long-time mashup artist Triple-Q about how Sonic Adventure 2 and Kill la Kill have an immeasurable amount of similarities, rips like Kermit in the Ocean being spiritual successors to very specific years-old rips on the channel - you get the jist. Some of these gags eventually get special attention on the channel through specific channel events, but such has not yet been the case with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?'s joke - it's a gag that's stayed in the background since its very beginnings, and is only being kept running by a select few rippers. If you're listening to the rip now and it still hasn't landed yet, you may need to be enlightened to the ways of hit boy band *NSYNC. Or, well, really the band itself matters very little compared to the song of choice - It's Gonna Be Me.

Boy band music has a pretty interesting track record on SiIva in general, honestly. One Direction, Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, *NSYNC - to me the typical audience that obsesses over these kinds of bands feels at odds with my image of the average SiIvaGunner fan, and yet whenever they're prominently pushed I get reminded of just how good their music can be when wielded by good rippers. We've had two explosively quality events focusing on two bands in particular, the Big Time Rush takeover of Season 5 with Famous Surprise and the One Direction day of Season 7 with Beautiful Dreamer. *NSYNC hasn't had the same explosion of notoriety, but It's Gonna Be Me in particular has stealthily appeared on the channel every year since 2017 on April 30th. The joke is originally an ancient Tumblr meme from 2012, based on the way singer Justin Timberlake (yes!) pronounces the titular line in the song as "It's gonna be May" - the joke writes itself, and so Tumblr users have annually celebrated the day-before-May in Timberlake's honor.

eg_9371 writes in his request for this post that he's actually one of the most active rippers in keeping this joke going on SiIva for all these years, which I find extremely commendable, and it all started in Season 2, with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?. It's a rearrangement of the song in the style of Donkey Kong Country 2's Mining Melancholy, a track most notable for its rhythmic percussion of steel drums sounding like steadily-working pickaxes deep in the mines. Its a fantastic track on its own, yet that percussion especially is a shockingly natural fit for the harpsichord(?) backing prominent throughout It's Gonna Be Me. Mining Melancholy's usual percussion and other parts of its melody stick around for large parts of the rip, making it more of a melody swap/mashup of the two than a full rearrangement a la Sog-Gee Ambiance - but it only serves to enhance the two tracks used, giving It's Gonna Be Me a more melancholic sound and Mining Melancholy a more self-assured feel in return, a super interesting blend of moods. I don't think the It's gonna be May bit would have worked nearly as well if the rip it was paired with wasn't of high quality, and guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​? clears that threshold effortlessly - its a great rip that's made me appreciate the quality in both songs used.

*NSYNC rips have, again, continued to show up in all the years since, always on the dot, often even deliberately placed as the LAST rip of April 30th to drive the joke home. I think it's really sweet that the joke has stuck with eg_9371 in particular, likely in part due to alden wolf's initial contribution to the bit - he's even made It's Gonna Be Me rips on dates completely unrelated to the beginning of May, just because its a genuinely fun song to listen to. There's tons of these "secret" gags left to find on the channel, reoccurring dates or rips that reference jokes from other rips that are years-old by now - and really, a huge part of the fun in running this blog is getting to discover so many turning gears of the channel that I'd never been made aware of. Keep an eye out for these gags yourself - and keep an eye out on SiIvaGunner channel itself later today, to see if It's Gonna Be May for yet one more year.

[indigofyrebird]

Dream Keeper

591 words

I liked my mini idea and wanted to expand it a little more.

Tech recorded their dreams. For research.

When they were small, he enjoyed his position of bedside confessor, offering cold comfort in his stiff presence. He allowed only so much, drawing the line when Hunter's nightmares had him clinging to Tech, small shoulders heaving with emotion. He would gently extricate himself from his brother's clutches, smoothing damp hair from their foreheads not unkindly before settling further down on the bunk to discuss the dream.

The human psyche fascinated him and he read all he could on dreams, wanting to understand what was behind each of his brother’s unconscious thoughts.

He knew their secret desires, their fears. He knew what horrors, what dark images lurked in each of his brother’s subconscious minds. He knew them, and he kept them secret. Many times he was asked to keep quiet about a certain dream, as if the dreamer had some kind of control over it and should be ashamed of the idea their mind had created while asleep. 

Tech, ever rational, would explain patiently that there was no need to be embarrassed, it was as natural as breathing. 

Nevertheless, he kept the dreams to himself.

He liked to interpret their dreams for them, to analyze them. His brothers found this comforting, most of the time, but occasionally they would stop him, a hand on his arm, eyes wide. There was only so far a person wanted to delve into the deepest parts of themselves and to share that with their brother. 

Hunter frequently dreamed of losing his entire squad, every last man. These dreams, when he was a cadet only increased after he was given the responsibility of Sergeant. He had grown out of the need to bury his face in Tech's stomach, to cling, but he still felt better if he could talk it through with his brother. He would dream that someone had roughly chopped his hair off with his own vibroknife, leaving it short and jagged, always so relieved when he woke. 

Wrecker dreamed of holding on to his brothers so tightly that he sometimes hurt them in his dreams, their bodies squished flat in his arms when he looked down, horrified. He dreamed of food. Tables overflowing with unlimited food.

Crosshair dreamed of judgement. In his sleep, he was always doing something wrong, his actions picked apart to the smallest minutiae. He dreamed of making the most impossible shots, his bullets curving unnaturally around corners. He dreamed once that a reg saved his life. He made Tech swear on the Marauder never to tell anyone about that dream.

Tech would never tell anyone of the whispered confessions in the middle of their sleep cycle. He listened and he analyzed, his mind making connections where the dreamer could not. 

Tech recorded his own dreams, sometimes waking in the night to speak into his datapad's recording device so he wouldn't forget. If he ever thought it would be beneficial to have someone like himself to talk through a particularly unusual dream, he quashed that idea at the thought of letting anyone see his most vulnerable inner self. He preferred being the dream keeper, never the dream giver.

Tech dreamed of flying, both in his ship and outside of it. He dreamed of beautiful, rare birds, species never before recorded, their songs so complex that he would run out of recording space trying to capture it all. He dreamed of the moon on Kamino, a sight not often seen. He dreamed of a heart full of thoughts and a tongue incapable of voicing them.

[hauntedhowlett-writes]

NOTE: NOT ALL FICS ARE AVAILABLE ON TUMBLR YET. Feel free to send me a message if there’s one in particular you want posted ASAP!

the satanic rites of eddie munson (wip) **cw: blood, violence, gore**

Summary: Eddie was just trying to have a normal Thursday when some band from out of town decides he’d make an excellent virgin sacrifice for their get-famous-quick plan. 

Except he’s not a virgin, and the ritual unleashes something much more sinister that lives in him now, hungry for flesh and possessive of you, the pretty cheerleader he’s always been drawn to.

Which means anyone that touches you? Needs to die.

Pairing: Demon!Eddie Munson/Female Cheerleader!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Word Count: 10,959

Chapters: 4/6

Tumblr | AO3

1. bat out of hell (complete) **cw: dubcon, violence, gore**

Summary: Convinced Eddie might still be alive, you travel to the Upside Down to find him. You weren’t expecting the monster that finds you instead.

Pairing: Kas!Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Word Count: 19,548

Chapters: 6/6

Tumblr | AO3

2. the mark you saw on my collarbone (part 2 - not to be read standalone)

Summary:  A snippet of life with your human and your monster.

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Word Count: 2,322

Tumblr | AO3

3. secret’s out (part 3 - not to be read standalone)

Summary: Dustin and Steve meet Kas. It goes about as well as you’d expect.

Rating: T

Word Count: 1,004

Tumblr | AO3

1. something perfect (complete)

Summary:  While your mom heads out on her grand honeymoon with her new husband, you find yourself spending your summer before senior year in the sleepy town of Hawkins, working at your dad's comic book shop. It's shaping up to be a pretty monotonous time until Eddie Munson enters your life.

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 26,269

Chapters: 9/9

Tumblr | AO3

2. something more (wip - limited updates)

Summary: Moments with Eddie through your senior year at Hawkins High. This is a part two to my work “something perfect”.

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 4,386

Chapters: 2/?

Tumblr | AO3

1. nothing else matters 

Summary: It’s been a few months since Corroded Coffin has played at The Hideout. Ever since recording an actual album and having one of their songs picked up on the radio, they’ve been securing actual shows, with actual crowds. 

But whenever they’re within fifty miles of good ol’ Hawkins, they drop into the grimy dive and put on a show. The crowds are bigger, with fans coming in from surrounding towns and cities, but there’s one constant he looks forward to every time.

The new bar owner. As of two years ago, crotchety old Hank finally sold the bar to the hottest woman he’s ever seen.

Pairing: Rockstar!Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 2,454

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

2. change your mind (connected to “nothing else matters”, can be read as a oneshot)

Summary: Five times Eddie Munson asks you to marry him, and the one time you say yes. This is a companion prequel to “nothing else matters”, but can be read as a standalone.

Pairing: Rockstar!Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 6,575

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

3. ‘til the sun burns out (connected to “nothing else matters”, can be read as a oneshot)

Summary: Your wedding night to one Eddie Munson. Part of the “nothing else matters” series, but can be read as a stand-alone.

Pairing: Rockstar!Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 3,069

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

4. we are the dreamers (you are the dream) **cw: pregnancy**

Summary: You pee on the stick as instructed and set it on the counter, staring at it as you bite your nails. “This is insane. There’s no way. There’s absolutely no—“

Two pink lines.

Well, fuck. Part of the “nothing else matters” universe. Can be read as a stand alone.

Pairing: Rockstar!Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

spilling our guts

Summary: Eddie Munson has been your best friend for years, and your secret crush for longer than you care to admit. When Chrissy Cunningham shows up at his house one day, you’re thrown for a loop, thinking they’re together.

Eddie proves to you just how wrong your assumption is.

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 3,701

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

demon’s are a girl’s best friend

Summary: Since returning from the Upside Down, something dark exists in Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson. Something that is satisfied by only one thing - sex. And they've set their sights on you.

Pairing: Incubus!Eddie Munson/Incubus!Steve Harrington/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 5,530

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

your name like a prayer

Summary:  The list of mistakes Eddie Munson has made in his life is not short, but he’s pretty sure “calling out your best friends name while fucking your girlfriend” has jumped straight to the top of the list.

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 4,899

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

blue jeans and leather (even better on the floor)

Summary: When Steve Harrington sees Eddie Munson for the first time in ten years, he’s not prepared for the feelings that resurface. But this time, he’s willing to see where they’ll take him.

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Steve Harrington

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 4,846

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

this is for real (this time i mean it)

Summary:  Five times your best friend Eddie Munson kissed you, plus the one time it meant more.

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI)

Word Count: 4,546

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3 

cruel summer [complete] **cw: age gap**

Summary: Joel takes a contracting job renovating a master bedroom and bathroom while the homeowners are away for the summer on a cruise.

He wasn’t expecting their twenty-three year old daughter and the thoughts he’d have about her.

Pairing: Joel Miller/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Chapters: 6/6

Tumblr | AO3

take care (complete)

Summary: Joel and Ellie stumble on a house they think is abandoned as they escape from Silver Lake.

Except it’s not, and Joel isn’t ready for another reason to lose sight of what he needs to do.

Pairing: Joel Miller/Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+, MDNI)

Word Count: 6,684

Chapters: 2/2

Tumblr | AO3

home

Summary: A snippet of a happy life in Jackson.

Pairing: Joel Miller/Female Reader

Rating: G [no warnings, just fluff]

Chapters: 1/1

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1. crimson red paint on my lips **cw: age gap; dark!Joel**

Summary: Joel Miller is an asshole.

You should have known better than to show up at his door with your lips painted red.

Pairing: Mean Smuggler!Joel Miller/Smuggler!Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI - significant content warnings available on post)

Chapters: 1/1

Tumblr | AO3

2. me and the devil **cw: age gap, dark!Joel**

Summary: Joel doesn’t take kindly to the attention you’ve been receiving from a FEDRA agent.

Pairing: Mean Smuggler!Joel Miller/Smuggler!Female Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ MDNI - significant content warnings available on post)

Chapters: 1/1

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[magickcandie]

Brian May x Fem!Reader

Brian May was a talented songwriter. He wrote many songs for Queen, but there was always something so melancholy and sad. That was until he met a woman that became his muse, his inspiration, the love of his life; Y/N L/N.

On many occasions, Brian wrote a song about you. The first time, he went to his band mates during the making of Sheer Heart Attack.

“I’ve written a new song!”

“Sing it for us!” Freddie said, eager to hear the music.

You were in the studio that day. He pulled out a guitar and started to sing.

I love she makes me She is my heart She is my love She is my love

I know you're jealous of her She makes me need She is my love She is my love

You overheard conversation about it yesterday among the rest of the band. Firstly, they decided Brian should sing the song on the record. Secondly, they were talking about interpretations.

“Sounds entirely fictional. Maybe some sad war story.” Roger shrugged.

“Sounds sad. Maybe it wrote it about death when he was in the hospital.” Freddie said.

“I think it’s about Y/N.” John said. You looked up at him. “Maybe he uses the death and war feel to make it about if he died and leaving her.”

You frowned but not at John’s statement which was beautiful. Just the thought of Brian dying was scary.

He had written the song when he had gotten Hepatitis, but the fear of Brian’s death was terrifying beyond measure.

In 1978, you had fought with Brian. It was really surface level, but you and Brian were both to stubborn to apologize. So you had broken up. But it didn’t change the fact that Brian still loves you and decided to write a sad (and slightly backhanded) song about you.

It was Roger that called you just to hand the phone to Brian. They all knew you’d hang up if you heard his voice first.

“Hey, Y/N.” He said ever so quietly.

You could imagine the frown and sad eyes he wore so comfortably. “Brian.” You didn’t mean to sound as exasperated as you did.

“I wrote a new song about you. It’s going to be on the Jazz record. If you decide to listen to it, it’ll be called Dreamer’s Ball.”

It took some time for Jazz to reach your record store but once you saw it, you were quick to purchase it. It was a lovely album.

I used to be your baby Used to be your pride and joy You used to take me dancing Just like any other boy But now you've found another partner You’ve left me like a broken toy

It's someone else you're taking Someone else you're playing to Honey, though I'm aching Just know what I have to do If I can't have you when I'm waking I'll go to sleep and dream I'm with you

So take me, take me, take me to the dreamer's ball I'll be right on time and I'll dress so fine You'll love me when you see me, I won't have to worry Take me, take me, promise not to wake me When I'm singing it's all been true

‘What d’you say about that, hey, honey? You got to take me to that dreamers ball I’d like that’

It was lovely. That next morning you were calling Brian, praising him for the song (and the album) and apologizing over and over and the same about him. Brian came over later and spoke of how the song came to be.

You enjoyed doing things with each Queen member. With John, you loved to go to discos with him. And what better than to drag Brian with you.

John had disappeared somewhere in the crowd, dancing. You swayed next to Brian who sat by the bar.

“Please, Bri. Come dance with me.”

“I’m not much of a dancer, love. Go find Deacy, and dance with him. I’m better off here, not spoiling your night.”

You tried to convince him with an opened mouth kiss, before taking his hands into yours and taking him to the dance floor.

You smiled wide at him, putting his own hands on your hips and dancing along with him. You kept him distracted by kissing him and whispering in his ear.

It was the next week that you stumbled across the song. You could tell if was still a work on progress but it was about your night out with him.

I'm not invited to the party Been sitting here all night I'm all alone at the party I don't feel alright Ain't got no black coat Ain't got no tie I gotta shape up now Come on baby you gotta know why

Take off! Dancer, dancer I can't live with it, I'm gonna die without it Dancer, dancer Ain't no doubt about it Dancer, dancer Why don't you kick off your dancing shoes And come and ride with me? Cool.

You're the life and soul of the 'funktion' It took me all night To get hold of the right introduction Blew me out of sight I taste your lipstick I look in your eyes You feel fantastic My body cries

What you didn’t expect was Brian to present the song to the band. John was just accepting that Brian was willing to write music for Hot Space in general. Roger just said “I like it.” Freddie went on to tease Brian and yourself.

“I love you, Y/N L/N. You’re my inspiration, my light, my life. I’d do anything for you.”

“And I you, Brian May.”