#so i can make more unique playlists. i was literally telling someone a while ago that even though

[starswallowingsea]

speaking of character playlists, i am going to relisten to my rinne playlist

[emotions-ew]

A Collection of Queer Country Artists and Songs for anyone who doesn’t feel like there’s country music they can relate to...

There is this idea that country music is like just Republican men singing about beer, and trucks and also Jesus,  and that is kind of fair because loads of it is but there are some cool as hell queer/lgbtq+ country artists. Finding those and finding that representation in a genre of music I was literally raised on kind of changed my life in a tiny way and I wanted to share that.

(This is by no means a comprehensive list and also I’m basing the “Country” part of this sometimes on my subjective opinion/limited music knowledge so yuh please don’t hate me if I get some wrong)

Also link below for a Spotify playlist of my favourite gay/gayish country music, some mentioned in this post some not, (with a title that isn’t obviously gay for anyone who can’t openly listen to gay stuff on their public accounts for whatever reason) so feel free to skip the massive essay and just jump straight to that. And pretty please repost if I missed anyone/ any songs you love.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7KB6PmUxnpkU7lih8Bysvw

Artists To Follow:

Chely Wright

- Right off the bat, Chely Wright is a legend and I’m in love with her. So, in the 90′s Chely Wright was kind of a huge deal. She started her career as a singer/songwriter and released her first album in ‘94, which was critically acclaimed although never reached the commercial success of her later works. By ‘97 she was really hitting her stride, dropping her breakout hit “Shut up and Drive” (a personal favourite of mine) followed two years later by the biggest hit of her career “Single White Female”. Throughout all that Chely Wright was, to the world, a good old fashioned, heterosexual southern gal. Privately it was a bit of a different story. She had public relationships with male country artists, all while pursuing a secret decade long relationship with a woman. 

I hadn’t ever really heard a Chely Wright song until a few years ago so I never knew about her music or career pre-coming out but I do know that even though by the time she came out in 2010 she was by no means at the height of her fame Chely Wright is kind of one of the biggest names in country music to be out and proud (in my opinion) and I love her like an insane amount. I literally play her music in my car when I have passengers just so I can be like “fun fact this singer is actually gay-” and then subject them to a lengthy explanation of her entire career. She came out with an album and a memoir and the album is my favourite of her work because it’s so fucking raw and because I relate to most of it immensely. Anyways Chely Wright went fucking through it in her journey to being her authentic self and now she’s out and proud and married to a woman and they have a family together and I’m a fucking sucker for a happy ending and y’all should add her to every playlist you have. And on top of that her music is genuinely good. Coming out undoubtedly damaged her career but I think that

Brandi Carlile 

- As far as I can tell Brandi Carlile has been out her whole career. I feel like this list is just going to be me saying “I’m in love with her” about a bunch of women old enough to be my mother but in my defence, I am honestly in love with her. She’s been making music since she was like, seventeen, and has had a bunch of massive hits, as a singer, songwriter, and producer. If you want to cry kind of happy tears listen to her performance of “Bring my Flowers Now” with Tanya Tucker. She’s won Grammy’s and CMT awards and she’s done it all as an out Queer woman. She’s also a founding member of The Highwomen, an all-female country music group who released their first album in 2019, comprised of Carlile, Marren Morris, Natalie Hemby and Amanda Shires. I really love this band because they’re four artists who are immensely successfully in their own right collabing, much like the Highwaymen, and their music is phenomenal while also being a fuck you to mainstream country music and their inability to properly represent women in country music spaces. 

She’s been married to a woman (smoking hot and also brilliant) since 2012 and they have two kids together and if you want to cry (again) then you have to listen to her song “Mother” about her eldest daughter. A queer country artist absolutely worth adding to all your playlists. 

Brooke Eden

- As I understand it Eden came out publicly in January of this year. She’s engaged to Hilary Hoover, who she’s been dating since 2015 apparently. I can’t even imagine the pressure that must be on a person and how stressful it would be to keep a relationship secret from the whole world for years and personally I think they’re a cute as hell couple and I wish them literally all the happiness in the world. 

Brooke Eden has a few older songs that I think are really good, my favourite being “Act Like You Don’t”, and while her new stuff isn’t my usual country vibe I am a sucker for literally anything gay and it is legally my gay duty to stream any song that she releases to support my fellow queer. It’s quite different to anything Wright or Carlile sing but I actually kind of love that because it shows that country music of all different shapes and sizes and styles can be sung by queer artists. 

Amythyst Kiah

- Okay so I am a very new listener to Amythyst Kiah, but her music is literally so beautiful it would be a straight up sin to not include her on this list. Her music is country-blues-roots esq (more roots than country, I think?) and her voice is so unique. She grew up in Chattanooga and has been playing music since childhood. She recently made her Opry debut which is fucking awesome. She also belongs to a band called Our Native Daughters, described as “A supergroup of Black women in traditional music”. Their debut album “Songs of Our Native Daughters” did numbers and I haven’t listened to the whole thing but my favourite so far are “Black Myself” and “I Knew I Could Fly” so y’all add that to your playlists along with “Wild Turkey” by Amythyst Kiah because holy hell her voice on that will blow your mind.

Steve Grand

-        The first man to make this list, he should frankly be honoured. Grand has been an out and proud gay man making country music since like 2013, and I have so much respect for an artist who chose to simply never be in, choosing instead to simply write gay ass songs about being in love with men and letting the chips fall where they man. His music is always going to have a special place in my heart and, he’s cute so if you’re into men and music by men give him a google. add him to your playlists, his All-American Boy album is literally just a dozen songs that are perfect to yell-sing along to.

Katie Pruitt

-        Not hugely knowledgeable on Katie Pruitt but her music makes me feel crazy intense emotions and is absolutely gay

 Honorable Mention Artists I haven’t Really Listened to But Who I Know to be gay thanks to google and might be your thing so totally check them out:

Brandy Clark

Ty Herndon

Shelly Fairchild

Lavendar Country

Trixie Mattel

Cameron Hawthorn

Drop any other names of artists or songs you know of 

 Specific Songs That Make Me Fucking Cry or (in good and bad ways (but always in a gay way)) or basically are just gay as hell:

If She Ever Leaves Me; The Highwomen

- So, this album came out about a week before my first (and only) girlfriend broke up with me. The general gist of the song is a woman singing about how her loved isn’t ever going to leave her but if she does it sure as hell won’t be for a creepy man in a bar. A little ironic that I felt I related to it so intensely, considering she did in fact leave me. There’s this one lyric that goes “I’ve loved her in secret/I’ve lover here out loud/the sky hasn’t always been blue” and my girlfriend and I were crazy deep in the closet so I drew her a cute little picture of a grey cloud and on the back I wrote that lyric and I gave it to her and to me it was kind of a promise that one day I’d get a chance to love her out loud and even though I never actually did this song is forever going to make me cry because of the little bit of hope that lyric gave me and the way it’s inclusion on this overwhelmingly mainstream country album made me feel like acceptance was just that little bit closer. 

 All American Boy; Steve Grand

- Definitely one of the first gay country songs I ever heard, and Steve Grand didn’t once sacrifice a scrap of country for the gay. It’s beautiful, it’s a little sad, it’s hopeful. It’s forever going to hold a special place in my heart and the music videos is kind of one of my favourites ever. I found this song before I found myself and the way it made my heart warm should have been a stronger sign than I took it to be. 

Like Me; Chely Wright

- When you love someone you kind of make it your mission to know them in a way that no one else can. This song by Chely Wright is sort of an ode to that, and how even once you lost someone, you’re still going to know every little thing about them. On top of that it sort of speaks to the idea that all these things Wright learned about this woman, she learned in secret and she knew her and loved her in secret and now that they’re gone from each other she’s left with all of this knowledge and all of these questions and no one to answer them. I love the way it’s so slow and the melody and her voice, the way it’s low and a little raspy, make this one of my favourite Chely Wright songs.

The Mother; Brandi Carlile

-        Sorry but a song about being a mother by a queer woman is going to make me cry every time and actually I’m not that sorry. It’s quite a simple song, if any song written by Brandi Carlile can ever be described as ‘simple’, it’s an ode to her daughter. My favourite line is “you are not an accident/where no one thought it through” because it speaks to the fact that in order for queer women to have a kid together they have to want it so damn bad and also I just like the way her voice sounds on that line. This song is also the perfect thing to listen to if you ever for a second feel like being gay/queer is going to stand in the way of you having a family because it absolutely doesn’t have to and if that’s something you want, you can have it. Don’t let people try and convince you otherwise.

Loving Her; Katie Pruitt

-        Unapologetic gay love. Opening a song with “If loving hers a sin, I don’t wanna go to heaven” is a fucking baller move and she went there. The lyrics are beautiful, and her voice is phenomenal. It could be a sad song, about confronting religious repression and grappling with what that means for your love, but instead its triumphant. Katie Pruitt doesn’t give a fuck if you have a problem because she’s going to write songs for her lover.

Jesus From Texas; Semler

-        Not actually totally sure this is a country song, but it has the words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Texas’ in the title so I feel safe including it in this list. Honestly, I don’t really know why I relate so hard to this song. Like, I wasn’t really raised with religion, so I don’t know what it is about this funky little tune that makes me want to sob but there’s something about this tune that makes me want to do whatever the opposite of get up and dance is, but like, in a good way.

Lovin’ Again; Steve Grand

-        Breakup song that ends kind of positively? So good to sing along to at high, high volumes. The idea that losing someone doesn’t have to mean losing yourself and just because you can’t love them doesn’t mean you’re not ever going to love again. But also kind of about how it’s hard to get over someone, I don’t know it’s just good.

Cryin’ These Cocksucking Tears; Lavender Country

-        Jesus christ if this isn’t the coolest shit I’ve ever heard in my life. Sorry but a gay country group formed in 1972 who dropped possibly the first gay themed country album, and this was the title of one of the songs. God I am in love.

 Songs that (to me) are a little fruity or that I just relate to in a gay way:

Picket Fences; Chely Wright

-          Chely Wright is gay but this song came out long before she did and when she wrote it, it wasn’t supposed to be gay which is why it’s in this section and not the previous. The reason it’s included at all is because frankly ma’am, Mrs Wright, it’s a little fruity. And I feel a little bad for joking because honestly to me, the way I hear this song and knowing the context (that Wright was deeply closeted at the time she wrote and released it), it’s kind of just sad. The general gist of the song is Wright asking what’s so great about a traditional lifestyle anyways. It could be read as a woman genuinely questioning why we push that expectation that she’ll have two kids and a husband and a picket fence lifestyle, or even could be read as a woman who’s trying to deflect how much she does in fact want that, you have to listen and form your own opinion. But to me, it feels like a woman who’s desperately trying to justify why she doesn’t want that life not because she can’t have it, but she knows it will never be right for her. I don’t know it’s hard to explain I just feel like this song is a little bit gay even though I’m sure she didn’t intend that.

Sinning with You; Sam Hunt

-          Sorry but this song is gay. Sorry but you can’t write the lines “I never felt like I was sinning with you/Always felt like I could talk to God in the morning” and “if it’s so wrong why did it feel so right” and “But I never felt shame, never felt sorry/Never felt guilty touching your body” and not to mention the opening line of “raised in the first pew/praises for yeshua/case of a small town repression”, and expect to not sit in my car sobbing as I realised that while I never felt like what we did was a sin she absolutely did, and wishing I could have told her that I was sorry for making her carry the weight of both our souls but also that it wasn’t a sin and nothing in the world could feel that good and be that bad and it isn’t right that she had to be so ashamed of something that was just so good. Sam Hunt actually said after he wrote the song that while it was reflection on his own relationship with faith he genuinely hopes that people in the lgbtq community can like find comfort or whatever in his words and like go off king, we stan an ally.

  How do I Get There; Deana Carter

-          This ones easy, it’s about falling in love with your best friend and suddenly realising you want more than just friendship with them. Sorry Deana, that’s gay. In my Deana Carter of like Year 10 I played this song on repeat and screamed along to the lyrics as though singing it hard enough would make her like me back.

[littlemisslipbalm]

“You Get Me” Pt. 3 (famous!y/n x harry)

Aka “Kissy” 🥺

honestly its really just domestic harry bahaha and I added that they have a slight age gap ?but seriously I hope y’all enjoy the third and final installment of my first ever writings -  a little miniseries if you will. I loved writing this part sm, probably my favorite part yet. I linked a spotify playlist that was some inspo (I literally listened to your summer dream on repeat for one part that I wrote, that song is so beautiful) anyways - not really proofread and I tried to break it up more so it was less big chunks to read formatting wise

here’s part 3! read: part 1 | part 2

word count: 4.0k  | warnings: makeout sesh, shirtless harry!, nothing graphic tho (I think!)

tag list : @marauderswhisperer, @morgannope, @daddystevee, @kthemarsian, @bi-andready-tocry

playlist for the inspo✨

-

One Week Later

“Hey, Har...change of plans!” you exclaimed as you peaked through a door in Harry’s house.

You’d hung out together at your apartment once since your phone retrieval visit and the two of you had been texting constantly. You loved Harry’s company and Harry couldn’t get enough of you. Harry had called you late last night, ‘Want t’take you out tomorrow, love.’ his voice was groggy as if he was about to fall asleep. You’d instantly agreed and drove over to his house the next day. He was leaving back to London on Saturday, so it was your last day to see him for awhile.

Inside the door you had just opened, a beautiful vintage convertible sat. You had found the garage. “You are so driving this,” you turned to see the man who held your entire heart in his hands walking up beside you. Harry reluctantly agreed and leaned down to kiss your cheek.

“Ready?” he questioned, holding up the soft blanket he had retrieved for your coastal picnic. You nodded, proudly displaying the little picnic basket you had packed full with food. Simultaneously the two of you reach for each other’s free hands, clasping them together and walking out to the car.

“I’m on aux, you can focus on the road,” you told Harry when both of you went for the cassette device that functioned to allow you to play music from your phone despite the age of the car. Harry loved how assertive you were even if it meant he didn’t always get his way. That was one of the reasons he liked you so much, your strength, your ability to hold your own in any situation, even with him, opposite of how a lot of people treated him in the industry in bids to get in his good graces. You were his match, so similar, yet so unique.  

The pair of you started out on the road. Harry wore a white t-shirt with a blue bee slogan,  purple trousers, and some clean white vans. His rings and pearl necklace wrapped up the look. His tattooed arms starkly contrasting the crisp white of his shirt. His eyes on the road were covered by large sunglasses, but his hair flew out behind him as the wind rushed over the car. You had chosen high waisted mom jean style denim shorts and a lavender femme top with a mesh white floral overlay, it had ties on the shoulders and it complimented your skin color perfect, tanned in from your life in the golden state. You too had your rings on and a silver necklace with your first initial hidden in the pendant. Even your clothes complemented each other.  

The first song to play through the speakers was Joni Mitchell’s “California.” You looked over to see Harry smile and you two began to sing along. You didn’t talk much on the ride, staying silent other than singing along when you pleased, but you always made sure not to overpower the actual song, you didn’t like to do that if the music was there for ambiance. Harry would speak up a little when passing various things, just simply pointing them out. Then, after the first notes of “California Dreamin’” came on Harry couldn’t help buy say, “Y/N, seriously?  S’not like I don’t love these songs, but please tell me you didn’t just search up ‘California’ and are playing tha’?” All you did was shush him and tell him this was one of your favorite songs before singing along.

Then, as the Mamas and the Papas voices began to fade out, Harry started again, “This next song’s title better not be fuckin’ California or somethin’ with-” but he stopped as the light quick notes of “Golden” came through the speakers, followed by his own voice. You grinned and gave his shoulder a little push. You had just gotten on the PCH and you remembered his mention of it being the quintessential coastal drive song a couple years ago so you had queued just in time.

A grin spreads onto his features that had been in slight exasperation at your antics previously and shakes his head at you, does a little finger shake vaguely in your direction, “Y/N, Y/N, Y/N.”

You both burst out in song, practically yelling the first chorus, Harry taking little harmony parts that most wouldn’t even notice, but he notices them, he made them. You dance in your seat to the song, taking control of the background ‘da da da’s. Harry is in awe of how well your voice sounds with the track, when you sing along to the second verse, much more seriously than the first one you had screamed together. He glanced over at your moving figure that began to sway at the slowing of the song. You weren’t wearing sun glasses and you had your eyes closed, basking in the shining sun. You looked at peace, yet completely fulfilled and overjoyed. In that moment, Harry knew he wanted to keep making you feel the way you did right now every time you were together. The song ended and your playlist continued, random songs regarding California and the feeling you get with someone you care about - makes you feel sunkissed.

-

“You’re literally so corny,” Harry laughs to you when ‘California Girls’ by the Beach Boys came on. You throw side eyes at him, “What can I say, Brian Wilson knew, California girls are where it’s at,” you roll your lips into your mouth and then bite your bottom lip.

-

The drive continued with you giving a rousing rendition of ‘California Gurls’ with Harry as Katy Perry and you as Snoop Dogg as you had insisted. Harry even busted out some minimal dance moves while driving the car, honking the horn at the appropriate moment. You made Harry feel like he was 19 again.

Then, straight into ‘Canyon Moon,’ Harry really was in disbelief of the woman next to him. You got so into the “I’m goin’ home” part of the song. Harry said, “Really like tha’ one, I gather,” after it finished. It was your turn to look at him in disbelief, “It’s my favorite, Har, I remember listening to Fine Line the first time and loving it immediately. Still loved it even after everyone else barely talked about it. Deserved so much more, s’amazing.” You finished with a half smile slipping onto your face. Harry gave a quiet ‘thanks’ and returned the smile.

-

Harry was finally satisfied with where you had landed along the coast. There had been no set destination, just a plan to drive to a lookout for the picnic. Finding a small parking area, you two gathered your items and set out for the perfect spot. The California coast really is beautiful. You’d lived there your whole life, just further up north, moving down to Los Angeles when you started your music career. You ran ahead of Harry to seek out a little bluff you’d seen in the distance. “Oi!” Harry called, but didn’t run to catch up, he had taken the picnic basket and it had drinks that wouldn’t be great if they were all shaken up.

You were right, it was the perfect spot, a little ways up from the set path there was a flat surface on the edge of a cliff, it was safe, with wildflowers and tall grass around a more bare area. You layed out the large blanket, then stood and watched as Harry made his way to you. His hair was every which way due to the wind whipping through it during the car ride, you subconsciously ran your hands through your hair for that reason. He looks gorgeous, you thought.

When he arrived at your little patch, he sat down the basket and you threw your arms around his neck. You pulled yourself into him and basked in his glow, his warmth and scent. He held you and ran a hand through your hair. The pair of you could have silly fun, but you could also be extremely intimate. In these quiet moments you wished you could stop time and live here forever. To live in his arms would be a wonderful thing. “So happy right now, darling,” Harry whispered, the soft swish of grass and the distant crash of waves the only sounds he had to speak above. You said nothing, but pushed yourself even further into his body, a response in and of itself. In this moment, there was no one else, just you, Harry, and the beautiful nature you stood in. This moment was everything. And you didn’t want to set it free.

Eventually, the two of you parted and relaxed into the blanket. For once, neither of you played music, you talked and ate and listened to the ambient sounds of nature. The melodic waves carried the conversation, when neither of you felt the need to say words. After eating, you let Harry pop the bottle of champagne he had brought along, unbeknownst to you, nevertheless when you saw it you wanted to be the one to uncork it. Still, your protests fell on deaf ears. “Y’seem to be getting very used to getting everythin’ you want, huh? Already a spoiled princess after a couple months of fame,” Harry teased as he worked to open the bottle. You huffed at his teasing and your failed attempt to get the bottle from him, which had caused him to move off the blanket and have his shirt be stretched from you grabbing at the bottle and only getting fabric.

“Whatever, don’t act like you’re not a total diva sometimes, Styles.” You couldn’t deny that him calling you a ‘spoiled princess’ made you feel things, unholy things. Of course you found Harry unbelievably attractive, but this was your fourth time being with Harry and the two of you hadn’t done anything besides heavy makeout sessions. You loved the way he said your name, but you also loved his nicknames for you, but this was a new one that seemed to hold some meaning within it.

Harry liked to see you all worked up, but knew he could get the exact same way, upset when things don’t turn out the way you want them. Frustrating. Finally, he popped the cork and you both cheered for the golden bubbly liquid. You had spent almost about an hour on the road and an hour or two already on the cliff, so the sun was starting to make its farewells to this side of the earth. The sky was beginning to light up with pinks, oranges, and lavenders. You both sat back down on the blanket, this time with you sat up inside of Harry’s spread legs, reclining back onto his chest.

You continued to talk, about the view before you for a little, but then each other. Whenever you were together, the two of you gravitated to the topic of enjoying the other so much. Today was apparently Harry’s turn to share. “When we were in tha car, earlier,” he started as you twiddled your fingers on his thigh, drawing shapes. You looked up into his eyes to encourage him to continue. “Haven’t had tha’ much fun in awhile. You…” he hesitated again and averted his eyes from your stare. You whispered a little ‘yeah’. You really cared about Harry feeling comfortable with you and making him happy, so you knew encouragement was helpful when he was trying to gather his thoughts. “Y’make me feel young...tha’ sounds so dumb, but y’really do,” he finally got out as put his hand over your moving one on his thigh. The two of you didn’t talk about the fact that Harry was a bit older than you. He was famous when you were a puberty-stricken teenager. The age gap wasn’t really an issue, you were both adults, but his statement reminded you that he would be 30 soon and you were still in your early 20s.

You twisted around to sit on your knees and face Harry. You placed both of your hands on his face, cradling his jaw and cheeks on each side of his face. This forced him to look you right in the eyes. You appreciated the beauty of his piercing green eyes for a moment and then went to kiss his crows feet on the sides of his eyes, his forehead lines, his hairline, his five o’clock shadow, and his smile lines, that had cropped up as he giggled at you. You were making exaggerated kiss noises as you loved on his face. “First of all, you are young,” you finally said in audible words. You waited a beat, then you kissed his soft lips that were smiling up at you. He was still smiling when you kissed him so your lips hit a bit of a tooth and you both giggled. But, you stood strong, not pulling away to laugh. Harry kissed you back. He shifted and brought his hands up from the ground where they had been holding him up to cradle your body instead. The kiss stayed chaste, despite Harry’s protests when you pulled back.

“And second, you make me feel alive.” “Alive…” Harry echoed you slowly, “Tha’s a better way to put it. I am young,” He smirked and then winked at you. You moved your hands to sit on his upper chest and could feel his heart beating soft, but strong beneath his skin. You grabbed his arm and moved it from around you. Harry quirked a brow at you. Then you placed his hand above your left breast and below your collarbone. Now he could feel your heartbeat, too. Yours, you thought, was beating a bit faster than his, but you didn’t care. Touching like this, made you feel close to him. Like you could see inside each other.  

-

You finished off the bottle of champagne because Harry had to stop drinking to be able to drive the two of you home safely. You felt very warm from it, despite the sun setting a while ago and your bare arms and legs. Luckily, besides the slight buzz you had, it was summer in California, and the nights stayed relatively warm. You skipped to the car and bent over the convertible to put the picnic basket in the backseat. Harry was right behind you and gave your bum a light pat, you pulled yourself up and flipped around, giggling. You tugged Harry in by his shirt and demanded, “Kissy.” Harry snorted and obliged, but with an open mouthed kiss where his tongue basically slobbered over your lips, mouth, and a bit of your nose. You whined, “You’re fucking disgusting, Har.” “Ya’ love it,” he responded with a faux posh voice before giving you a quick peck to your lips and rounded the car, telling you to get in and buckle up.

The whole ride home, Harry had his hand on your thigh. With it there, you occupied yourself with twisting his rings and and dancing your hand around his fingertips. The champagne had made you quiet, but smiley. The music you played was softer on the ride back home, you knew Harry needed to focus with the dark road and you didn’t want the music to distract him.

One song that was of note was “Lavendar (Take 4)” by the Beach Boys. The recording is somewhat unpleasant, but the song is beautiful. It had reminded you of the clothes you and Harry had worn on your date, the wildflowers that had just surrounded you, and the color of the sky when the sun had set on the scene of you and Harry tenderly kissing each other. The Beach Boys are known for their California, Surf pop sounds, but this sound is soft and filled with lushious harmonies, an ode to lavender, maybe a girl named lavender, but nonetheless it was for lavender. Harry harmonized along with their voices, returning to his original state. It ended and went straight into Simon & Garfunkel’s “America.” Paul Simon’s voice passed through the speakers and whispered to us sweetly. Harry again hummed in appreciation for the song choice.

-

When you arrived at the house, you helped Harry clean up the dishes and trash in the picnic basket. Then you sat on the couch, it was around ten o’clock and Harry had offered to make a pot of tea. You looked over the back of the couch as he moved around his kitchen. He padded around, putting the kettle on, opening cupboards for mugs and tea choices. When the water was ready, he got the tea ready, choosing a loose-leaf blend he’d found at a fancy restaurant in Amsterdam. “No cream tonight,” you called, still watching him work his way around his home.

Admiration shown in your eyes as he nodded and finished up the tea, bringing it over to you at the couch. He chose your mug tonight. Different from the previous two, his and yours were a matching set with dark blue interiors with tiny cartoon sailboats. You loved his collection of fun mugs, it fit him so well. After handing it to you, he snuggled in beside you and you took a sip, then rested your head on top of his strong shoulder. You turned your head to give a light kiss to his shoulder, and then moved back to staring ahead of you.  

“Wanna stay?” Harry asked, his arm around your body, holding you close to him. “Can just drive ‘ome in the mornin’,” he continued. “That’d be really nice,” you sighed. This was so comfortable, how was in possible to be like this with someone you’d known for a little over a week? It didn’t matter to either of you how quick it had happened. But it happened, and it felt right, so you went with it. This, what you and Harry had, made you happy so there couldn’t really be anything wrong with that.

-

You two chatted a bit more - about your week of tour preparations, Harry’s flight time tomorrow, various random thoughts, - and you drank your tea. At about midnight, Harry suggested that you and he get ready for bed and then watch something on his laptop. You agreed and ventured into an unknown part of his home. You’d started to snoop earlier today when you had found the garage, but had only gotten that far because you got distracted by Harry’s car.

His house was beautiful and perfectly him. It was big, but his decor and things made it specifically Harry, even if he didn’t live here full time anymore. You reached the master bedroom, located in the back of his house, with french doors, identical to those in the sitting room, opening out to the grass in his backyard. His bed. His bed. It was a California King with tasteful bedding and a beautiful wooden headboard and frame.

You ran and jumped onto it, the bed sinking beneath you and the bedding fluffing around you. You snuggled and rolled around in the sheets, “This is so much nicer than my bed in the apartment, it’s only a full…” you trailed off. Harry leaned against the doorway of the room, smiling to himself as he watched you make yourself at home among this life. “You’ll be gettin’ a new place, soon, I reckon?” Harry asked and went to grab you both some clothes to sleep in from his closet. “Yeah, maybe!” you called out to him in the little room connected to the master that housed his clothes.

When Harry returned, he was only in boxers, but was holding two large t-shirts, a pair of sweatpants, and another pair of boxers. “D’ya mind if I sleep like this? I can put more clothes on if that makes you more comfortable?”

You couldn’t keep your jaw from dropping. You’d seen Harry shirtless before, everyone had, but to see him right in front of you, that was something else.

He noticed you staring at his body and smirked, but then threw a shirt and the pair of boxers your way, “Stop bein’ such a perv, love,” he teased. “Rude,” you muttered, “Was simply admiring...but if you don’t want me to look, you can sleep fully clothed,” you scratched your nose and then shrugged your shoulders.

As you worked to slide off the big bed, Harry crossed the room and trapped you on the edge, leaning over you with both his hands landing on either side of you on the bed. You scrunch your eyes and nose up as he tries to make eye contact with you. He goes to kiss you, but you turn your head and your cheek receives a kiss. He stays against your cheek, drags out your name and groans, “s’teasin’ you.” “I know, baby,” you respond and kiss his cheek now. You duck under his arm and run into his en suite bathroom, shutting the door to change. When you re-emerge, Harry’s in the bed, with the sheets pulled back, and his computer in his lap.

Harry calls out to you without looking up from his screen, “S’was thinkin’, y’know, since you’re always saying your apartment is tiny, y’could house sit ‘ere while I’m away?” You tilt you head as you approach the bed as you ponder the idea. “I mean, I guess ‘why not’? It would be a longer commute into the studio, but this place is gorgeous, and I’m gonna start traveling a lot anyway so I won’t need my apartment for much longer…” You continue to think on it as you climb back onto Harry’s bed and snuggle yourself into his body. Harry looks slightly down at you by his side, he’s put on his glasses, “Think you should, I’d also like knowin’ someone was ‘ere, keepin’ things running while I’m away.”

You nodded and move slightly to rest your head on Harry’s naked chest. His sunkissed tattooed body is mesmerizing, you reach your hand up and start tracing the various designs and running your hand along his collarbones and veins as well. Then you flattened a palm and smoothed it over his right pectoral. Harry hummed and pushed himself further down the bed. “Can we not watch anything actually, m’kinda tired,” you whisper up to Harry, your voice the only sound in the house besides the light clicking of a clock in a different room. Harry responds by closing the laptop and readjusting your position in the bed. You and Harry are a tangle of legs and bodies pressed against one another. Everything is calm and Harry says one word, “Kissy.” And you smile and let yourself pull slightly away from Harry to lean up and kiss him one more time before the two of you fall asleep in each other’s arms. It’s soft and chaste, completely closed mouths, but you linger in the kiss, feeling his warm nose brushing besides yours. A hand moves up to his hair and gives it one good run through and then you pull away, “Kissy,” you finalize. The two of you giggle and snuggle even further together.

Your bodies fit so well together and again you were struck with the feeling that you never wanted this to end, even if tomorrow he was flying away, to somewhere halfway across the world. The distance didn’t matter. You knew the two of you had what it took to be there for each other, even if you couldn’t touch or feel the other. Even if laughter over the phone had to suffice for awhile. What the two of you had was greater than all of those obstacles of space and proximity. It was powerful because you were both powerful. Powerful in the way you loved, in the way you worked, in the way you simply were. You fell asleep in Harry’s arms that night filled with contentment. Harry fell asleep with you in his arms that night filled with joy that he’d found someone to share everything with. Someone who was willing to give him all of themselves. Someone who was finally able to get all of him.

-

love y’all sm 🤍🤍 hope you enjoyed and have a nice day

[shimeiro]

1- Jean Jacket (Maxwell Lord x Fem!Reader

- Part 1 -  Maxwell Lord x Fem!Reader

┃Next Part┃- ┃Masterlist┃

( a / n : I don't know if it's my love for clothes in vintage thrift stores that made me create this story or just my love for that asshole Maxwell but ... Yeah, we'll all see how it goes I guess? (Alistair does not exist in this story so no Father Max sorryyyy) )

Warnings : None ? 

 Words : 2275

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Your life was rather quiet and pleasant, you like your job as a saleswoman in a big and quite famous second-hand store in the neighborhood, the vintage clothes are in good condition and the stock is renewed every day so new pieces from the 60's to the 90's make their appearance on the shelves and the hangers of the store full of clothes, Shoes, accessories... Your status as a saleswoman gives you the right to be one step ahead of the store's regulars to choose clothes you like for half the price and that alone makes your job so nice. Just yesterday you managed to find a real denim jacket from the 80's, and as everyone in this store knows: each piece is unique and when you manage to find something you like it becomes a bit of a treasure just for you because no one will find exactly the same thing in the whole store.

Today you decided to come to work with your new jacket, it's a little big for you but the oversize side is very fashionable at the moment, your work doesn't require a proper outfit and the boss himself wears very extravagant and colorful outfits, this man is adorable and full of life which makes the atmosphere at work great. So, your outfit of the day consisting of a black strapless crop top in fabric that holds your breasts does not leave much to the imagination because you are not wearing a bra underneath - necessarily a bustier. - but more and more women do not wear a bra and you're lucky that you don't have boobs that don't necessarily require a bra so you take advantage. 

But for some people it seems vulgar even though it's summer and the sun is scorching outside and yes women can wear crop tops and no bra, but with your jacket and your high waist jeans that hide your belly button make the outfit modern and vintage at the same time with your wedge ankle boots found a month ago at the bottom of a cardboard box in the store's reserve. But if this is really neccesary you can close your jacket if you feel that some men will become too... agressive in front of a bar when you come home tonight. Women life...

You feel especially pretty today thanks to your new jacket, the new clothes have the power to make you happy the first time you wear them so you walk confidently towards work while the soft air of the sunny summer morning makes a few strands of your hair twirl to the rhythm of your steps while the music in your headphones makes the street atmosphere you taking every day almost magical.

A strange feeling has been gripping your heart since you left home, it feels like some kind of strange nostalgia and you can't really understand why you suddenly feel this way for no apparent reason, maybe it's because when you left home and put your hand in the pocket of your new jacket you found a small piece of paper yellowed by the years, you immediately found it strange because normally when the clothes arrive at the store they are cleaned because most of the clothes come from people who give them to the store to resell them because they used to clutter up their parents' or grandparents' attics or garages sometimes. So finding a paper in a pocket of your jacket is surprising but not impossible.

But when you carefully unfold the little piece of paper it is the sentence written on it that stirred something in you, it's just a few words written with a black pen:

« Can't Take My Eyes off You. » It's the lyrics of an old song but you felt something strange while reading the paper, maybe it's because of your small - big - hypersensitivity and your romantic side but since reading this old paper - which was clearly meant for the former owner of the denim jacket - you feel this strange feeling. You get out of your thoughts when the music you are listening to ends and another one randomly launches from the playlist in your phone but the earphones start to sizzle in an unusual way, you sigh with annoyance because you bought them no more than two weeks ago, and having music while walking alone outside has become almost more of a necessity than a habit, Having music in your ears almost makes you feel like you're in another world when you're walking and it makes you forget your slight discomfort when you find yourself in crowded streets or a bus full of strangers invading your personal space.

Suddenly you feel a violent vertigo that forces you to stop walking and your earphones sizzle even louder so you have to quickly remove them from your ears before they pierce your eardrums or something like that.  You open your eyes gently and don't even notice that you closed them first, your head spins a little and you feel a little nauseous for a few more seconds and then the world stabilizes again and you look around you with incomprehension, you don't know at all the street you're on right now.

You look frantically from left to right hoping to find something familiar, a store, a café, a sign, anything that would help you find your way, but you find yourself in a big, completely unknown avenue that doesn't even look like an avenue that the city where you live might have. You feel your body warmth rise a notch when panic starts to creep into your mind when you realize that absolutely everything seems unknown, the cars are all old American cars, the people walking down the street all seem to be going out in old fashion stores from the 80's, even their hairstyles. 

You feel like you're in a movie.

Your brain rushes to try to rationalize the situation you're in to try to prevent you from having a panic attack in the middle of a street crowded with people looking at you weirdly, if only you had your headphones and relaxing music to make you think about something else ... But yes your phone! A wave of relief comes over you when you take your phone out of the back pocket of your jeans, just having it in your hands right now makes you want to cry with joy, you quickly retreat until your back is against the wall of a building and you are no longer in the passage of the street crowded with people who look at you as if you had a second head. You don't even look at the building you're leaning against and you quickly press the button on your phone to turn it on, but once the screen lights up he flashes frantically it's impossible to unlock it and call someone. 

« What the hell ... Please ..! » You whisper in a trembling voice as you feel your breath accelerating, the stupid phone has absolutely no mercy for you even though you desperately try to make it work properly by turning it on and off, You have a glimmer of hope when the image on your wallpaper - an adorable picture of Mando with his green baby from The Mandalorian series - stabilizes enough for you to unlock it and access your contacts, you were going to text your position to your colleague and friend Daisy to beg her to come and pick you up in car but suddenly the screen goes completely off and you can't turn it back on.

« No no no no no no no… » You swear that you can feel your heart stop beating for a few moments because of the black screen of your only hope in this nightmare. Yes nightmare, you must certainly be in full dream and you will wake up nice and warm in your bed and Roucky your long-haired red cat will come and purr in your ear for you to wake up and give him food and then ...  You are startled when you hear someone clearing their throat insistently right in front of you, it must have been a little while that person has been trying to get your attention and you hadn't even noticed their presence. You raise your head gently with a little smile on your lips to try to hide your internal panic, a salesperson reflex when you are lost in your thoughts while a customer wanted to attract your attention. But your smile fades when you finally see the person right in front of you with his arms crossed over a large chest dressed in a three-piece sky-blue suit, a smirk on his lips and an eyebrow raised in a questioning manner. Maxwell Lord.

Wait...

Maxwell Lord?!

What the fuck ?! 

He is literally a fictional character who is played by your favorite actor Pedro Pascal, and he is there in front of you and his deep brown eyes are staring at you with a kind of fun and curiosity not hidden, you it looks strongly like a dream but everything seems far too realistic in a same time, you can smell his masculine perfume and certainly the smell of his aftershave if he was even closer, you hear the noise of the passers-by behind him. Yeah It's really much too realistic. 

Instinctively you look down on the hand that is not holding your phone to observe the palm of your hand and your fingers, usually when you have a doubt in a dream about the reality of the situation you are in and if you are in a dream your hand will be anything but normal, a finger in addition or something else and after that you know that you are in a dream what leads you to make a lucid dream and thus to be able to control more or less the continuation of your dream, it is besides often amusing but there your hand is completely normal even if you fix it for a long time.

 « Mmh, it's the first time a woman has ignored me like this. »

You quickly raise your head and open your eyes, and Pedr-Maxwell still looks at you, but this time his hands are in his pants pockets.

« Oh- I'm sorry I'm... I'm... in need of sugar! So- I almost fainted so uh... I'm slowly coming to my senses? So... I'm gonna go buy a sugary drink and... I'll feel better. » 

You're aware your voice shakes at times when you tell your half lie to the beautiful man in front of you, you almost fainted when you... landed here. But you weren't going to tell him that you were technically from the future, were you? But this world doesn't really exist because it's from a movie but... Yeah...?

   You probably had to convince him with your lost and panicked look and his brown eyes seem to soften slightly he looks at you from top to bottom - maybe lingering too much on your black top - then he looks on your phone that you still hold in your right hand, he looks at it curiously but he doesn't say anything and then his eyes go back to your face, it's really weird to see her in front of you after the fanfictions you read about him when you haven't even seen the movie Wonder Woman 1984, in fact the whole situation is weird, you always laughed and said to yourself that if you were in the world of one of the characters you love and you met him you might try to be enterprising and enjoy the moment but right now you're just completely lost and scared.

« Need sugar huh? My assistant was going to get me a coffee, » He takes his left hand out of his pocket and makes a lazy wave with his hand, the gold rings on his fingers shine with the sun's rays, barely he make his gesture a beautiful blonde woman with curves worthy of the muse of an expensive lingerie brand appear next to him.

« Yes Mr. Lord? »

 « Usual coffee and something with sugar. »

Her assistant seems slightly irritated when she looks in your direction but she picks herself up when she looks at her boss again.

« What kind of sweet thing Mr. Lord? »

Her tone leaves a kind of innuendo, and you can imagine that as in some fanfictions you read Maxwell must fuck his assistants out of ease, and this beautiful woman with perfect breasts must surely be one of them, Maxwell doesn't pick up the innuendo and doesn't even look at her.

« You bring it back to my office in 5 minutes. »

She stutters a little: "Yes Mr. Lord" while throwing you a murderous look as if it was your fault that her boss was like that, but you are not irritated or hurt by the look of this assistant you are just still in the fog, maybe you really have something sweet finally to clear your mind a bit.

You feel knuckles brushing against your cheek, Maxwell freezes when you look up at his face and his eyes darken for a split second and then he clears his throat and quickly removes the hand that just brushed against your face.

« Follow me, I wouldn't want a young woman to pass out in front of the Lord Industry building. »

You hadn't even paid attention to the building right behind you in your panic to try to get out of this situation but now you've drawn Maxwell Lord's attention and you don't know if it's a good thing in the supernatural situation you're in.

[aliciameade]

To See The Sun With My Eyes Closed

Title: To See The Sun With My Eyes Closed Author: aliciameade Rating: M some hot and heavy kissing Pairing: Beca/Chloe Summary: Beca can't shake one thought from her mind after she meets Chloe. That all she wants is her body on her mattress. 

Inspiration via “Mattress” (Valley Girl Remix) feat. Allie X by Leland

(I don’t think I’ve ever written a mid-PP1 fic before??)

Also on AO3

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

I know it's getting close / To when the party ends / And everybody's hooking up And I hate it when you say I'm such a good friend / And that you call me when you're up Why do I always do this to myself / I let you go with someone else When all I want's my body on your mattress / Why do I always do this to myself I let you go with someone else When all I want's my body on your mattress

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“I’m soooo glad that I met you.” Chloe’s words, laden with alcohol, drift across Beca’s lips. She’s been pulled close—much too close for comfort—by this girl who, for a reason that Beca can’t quite ascertain, convinced her to audition for a lame singing group that she’s now a member of. “I think that we’re going to be really fast friends.”

“Well, you saw me naked, so…” she says with a wink. She’s still not sure what happened last week and why Chloe thought it was okay to burst into Beca’s shower, apparently lured by her voice like a siren. But, it had happened and while utterly mortified at the time, the encounter that remains seared on her brain is not one of embarrassment but intrigue smeared with lust.

After all, Chloe is an extremely attractive woman and the confidence she displayed (very literally) only added to her attractiveness.

They’re so close that she thinks Chloe might kiss her. It makes her heart race to imagine the possibility. She even considers being the one to initiate it. She struggles to keep her eyes off Chloe’s lips and she thinks she just might be bold enough to try it.

But before she musters enough courage, Chloe’s running her hands down Beca’s arms, declaring her need for a drink, slapping her own ass which she shakes at Beca, and is hopping down the stairs of the amphitheater to join her friends at a keg.

The exchange leaves Beca’s heart hammering in her chest just as it had a few days ago in the shower.

She spends the entirety of the event—“aca-initiation party” is a term she overhears more than once—avoiding socialization and nursing the beer that the annoying guy from her radio station internship pressed into her hand during a bout of uncomfortable flirtation. Her eyes (and thoughts) keep drifting to her new acquaintance, Chloe, and the company she was choosing to keep.

Chloe is a social butterfly; Beca isn’t surprised by that observation at all. She seems to flirt with almost everyone she crosses paths with; she’s not surprised by that either, though she’s maybe a touch disappointed that Chloe’s unprompted closeness isn’t unique to Beca.

A tall, handsome man becomes the final recipient of Chloe’s interest for the evening and Beca tries to not let her disdain be too apparent on her face when the pair begin making out a few rows away from her post. She thinks it might be the same guy who’d also joined her (and Chloe) in the shower, but it’s hard to tell.

She tries to ignore it and focus on the other embarrassing things happening at the party, but her eyes are repeatedly drawn to Chloe and the man attached to her face.

She walks back to her dorm as soon as she sees Chloe and her date sneak off, hand-in-hand, in the direction of the dorms.

When she crawls into bed, she can’t shake the singular thought rattling around in her brain: she wishes it was Chloe’s bed she was crawling into.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

A cappella nerds, as it turns out, like to party.

While she’s not convinced they’re not nerds, Beca is, at least, impressed with their propensity for alcohol-fueled fun.

Not that she particularly likes fun. Or fun with these people. Well, maybe there is one specific person she’s okay with.

She finds herself at a party in the backyard of the house belonging to their rival group, the Treblemakers, on a Friday night in early October. It’s already decorated for Halloween despite it being three weeks away and it takes precisely ten minutes for Beca to become irritated by the scream of the motion-activated ghost decoration hanging in a high-traffic area. It has yet to shut up since she arrived and she’s in the middle of devising a plan to kill it when something slams into her from behind, causing her to spill most of her drink onto the grass.

“What the—” She’s about to curse out the drunk who body-slammed her when she recognizes the patterned blouse covering the arms that are wrapped around her waist. “Dude!”

“Whatcha doing?”

Beca hopes the shiver that ripples up her spine at the way Chloe’s words hum past her ear isn’t noticed. She shifts a bit in time to the music to cover it up. It’s not easy to do, given Chloe’s hold on her, and if she hadn’t been busy trying to hide the way her body reacted to Chloe’s sudden embrace, she would have thought about the consequences of doing so.

“Oh, you’re dancing!” Chloe answers for her and she changes her hold on Beca from arms wrapped around her waist to hands on Beca’s hips, though her chin remains resting on Beca’s right shoulder. “Dance with me. You never dance with me.”

“We dance every day,” she says with an irritated sigh, though she starts to relax into their position and allows Chloe to lead from behind. “Aubrey has us in rehearsal three hours a day; or do you try to block it from your memory like me?”

There’s a rumbling, restrained laugh in her ear. “You knew what you were signing up for.”

“Did I, though?” she teases, though no, she didn’t know.

She hears Chloe’s response, a noncommittal hum that makes Beca smile with its unspoken admission of agreement. She finishes what little of her drink remains and tosses the plastic cup to the ever-growing pile on the ground and puts her hands over Chloe’s for a moment before settling into their dance. 

Chloe isn’t wrong, Beca realizes. They really haven’t danced with each other, not like this. Not with Chloe’s hands tugging on Beca’s hips as if she’ll drift away and not with Beca’s ass pressing back against Chloe. 

Their conversation—spoken, at least—fades in favor of the physical, dancing to the music blasting from giant speakers adorning the back of the house. When the song ends, Beca expects Chloe to move on, to go find a guy to dance with, but instead, she urges Beca to turn around and keep dancing as the playlist mixes into the next track.

Chloe smiles at her when she does it and adds a wink when she drapes her arms over Beca’s shoulders. It prevents too much distance between them and it makes Beca smile in return. This isn’t how Beca would dance with the other Bellas; that would happen in a group, with plenty of space separating her from them, and with attention paid to people outside that group.

This, though. Chloe’s attention is acutely on Beca and Beca’s is on Chloe. There is little distance separating them. When a guy shows up behind Chloe in an attempt to get her to dance, she shifts away from him and further into Beca’s space.

Beca’s mind begins to swim, to slip toward the thoughts she’s guiltily had a few late nights alone in bed. Thoughts of what it would be like to kiss her friend, of what she looks like beneath her clothes (though the sports bras and leggings Chloe often favors do most of the work for Beca), of what she might sound like when she whimpers or moans with pleasure.

“You’re staring.”

Beca blinks quickly and pulls back a few inches. She didn’t realize how close they’d become until she could no longer focus on Chloe’s face. They’re still dancing and her mind races with what to do, how to respond to Chloe’s call-out, a look of curious amusement on her face, when she hears it:

“Becaw!”

She grimaces and feels the moment between them evaporate.

“He likes you,” Chloe whispers with a wink before she extracts herself from Beca and leaves with a wave.

“No, wait—” but she’s already gone, and instead she has— 

“Jesse.”

“Becaw!” he repeats again, proud of the unwelcome nickname he’s given her, as he moves into the space Chloe just vacated, a red solo cup in each hand.

Beca takes a noticeable step backward, though, and to his credit, he doesn’t follow and crowd her.

“It’s not enough that we spend nine hours a week together at the station; you always have to find me at these dumb aca-parties, huh?” She frowns as she says it, more at her casual use of “aca-” as a prefix than anything.

“You’re just so charming. How can I resist that face?” He smiles as he says it, pointing out her frown and, Beca thinks, he’s not a terrible person. Not by a long shot. He’s a teddy bear, really, and even a cute one with a good voice, but he just feels...vanilla. Boring. Predictable.

She immediately schools her face into as neutral of a look as she can. “Wish I could say the same.” She glances at the two cups he brought, her own hands feeling very empty with no Chloe to be touching. “Is one of those for me?”

He pulls the cups inward protectively, shooting her a look. “You literally just insulted me.”

“And you interrupted the conversation I was having.”

Something like a conversation, anyway.

“Fine,” he says with a sigh, giving in way too easily and handing a cup to her. It’s a behavior Beca knows all too well; it’s how she ended up knowing the people at this party. “I saw that guy spill your drink.”

She doesn’t comment on the fact that it was at least fifteen minutes ago that that had happened, if not longer. The beer is still cold, though, so it at least he hasn’t been holding it for fifteen-plus minutes waiting to make a move. Or whatever he’s doing. “Thanks.”

“You know, I don’t live in the house yet, because I’m a freshman, but I’m allowed to go inside.” His words are stilted.

She just stares at him.

“They have a hot tub. I mean, we. We have a hot tub. I can use it.”

“Cool,” she says with a nod. She takes another sip from her cup and glances around to find an excuse to exit this conversation.

“I could show you,” he says, pointing toward the house.

She lifts her eyebrows at that; she hadn’t expected him to be quite so bold. “I know what a hot tub looks like.”

The nerves that were already evident in his movements double and his pointing hand jerks back to run through his hair. “No? Yeah, no, of course you know what a hot tub looks like. I was just—”

Her roaming eyes finally spot Chloe, her intended excuse to exit this uncomfortable conversation, but the tall guy from her first aca-party is with her—it’s definitely the same guy that Chloe’d had with her in the shower, they’re close enough that she recognizes him—and with his hand on her waist and leaning down, it’s evident they’re about to kiss.

“Okay,” she says quickly, forcing a smile and her eyes off of that and onto Jesse.

His surprise is obvious, and she doesn’t blame him. She was shooting him down pretty directly “W—wait, really?”

She has to take a long drink of her beer, nearly half of it, to be able to respond. “Yeah, sure. Give me the grand tour.”

“Cool, yeah.” He reminds Beca of a puppy with his thinly veiled excitement. It’s flattering, at least. “Uh, shall we?” He gestures toward the house and takes a step toward her, awkwardly offering his hand like he’s not really offering it, just in case she rejects it.

She accepts it, though, and follows him across the yard and into the Treble house.

She does spare one thought toward Aubrey’s draconian rule about not hooking up with any Treblemaker, but most of her thoughts are on what’s happening between Chloe and Shower Guy behind her and how quickly she can get it out of her thoughts.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

She doesn’t hook up with him.

Not for his not trying. 

By her count, Beca clocks him leaning in to try to kiss her three times during the tour of the house, each time happening in an empty bedroom (poor form on his part trying it while showing her the disgusting, smelly rooms belonging to college boys). He even made an attempt at suggesting there was no need for bathing suits to enjoy the hot tub situated oddly in the main room of the house.

She considers the proposition each time, but each time, she turns away or takes a step to put space between them. It just doesn’t feel right, even as a distraction or something out of spite.

She tells him she’s tired and needs rest before tomorrow’s seven-hour rehearsal after the hot tub invitation and to his credit, he doesn’t seem irritated. She knows most guys would have accused her of leading them on by now, and maybe she did at least a little bit. But instead of calling her a bitch or a tease when she glances back before stepping out of the house to go home, he waves at her wearing a dopey smile that makes Beca feel like he was happy just to spend time with her.

Her exit through the front door, so she can walk back to her dorm, doesn’t give her a final look at the party, but it’s still going strong. She doesn’t know if Chloe and Shower Guy are still there or still kissing, and she doesn’t really want to consider the possibility.

Or worse: that they’re not at the party because they went back to someone’s room.

Again.

She walks home alone (though not alone-alone; campus is crawling with students moving between parties and dorms) and is relieved that even Kimmy Jin seems to be out at an event of her own. It’s dark when she walks in and her roommate’s stark, clinically neat side of the room is empty.

“Thank God,” she says as she kicks off her shoes and strips down to her underwear to pull an old T-shirt over her head. She throws her bathrobe on and grabs her things to wash up before crawling into bed where she will definitely not be thinking about who might be in Chloe’s bed or whose bed Chloe might be in, and will definitely not be touching herself imagining it’s her, or her bed.

She hasn’t done that yet, crossed the line of fantasizing, but she’s just drunk, jealous, and irritated enough to do it.

Whatever energy that flowed between Chloe and her while they were dancing is also largely to blame.

So when she walks into the communal bathroom down the hall, she drops her toothpaste because Chloe’s at the sink washing her face.

It feels like the water Chloe’s splashing on her face is actually being dumped on Beca’s head and all her heat and annoyance rinse away to leave her feeling both ashamed and exposed.

Chloe glances her direction at the clatter of the tube of Colgate hitting the tile and then smiles in recognition. “Hey!” She turns off the faucet and reaches for the small towel draped over her shoulder to pat her face dry.

“Hey,” Beca says after clearing her throat while she stoops to grab her toothpaste. “Thought you’d still be at the party.” She hopes her tone is even and not betraying her earlier inappropriate thoughts or coming across as accusatory.

“And I thought you’d be doing the Walk of Shame tomorrow.” Chloe’s wearing a hint of a smirk as she says it and flips her towel back onto her shoulder. “I saw you sneak off into the house with Jesse.”

Beca huffs and walks to the sink next to Chloe’s to set down her things and start her pre-bedtime routine. “He wishes.”

“I bet he does.”

She glances sideways at Chloe to see her leaning against the sink casually, facing Beca. She hides the blush that she feels on her cheeks by ducking down to wash her face.

“You’re really trying to get under Aubrey’s skin, aren’t you?” Chloe continues. “She’s already texting me about it.”

“I’m not trying to do anything,” she says as she scrubs at her face before rinsing it. “And she’s not the boss of me. I can sleep with whoever I want.”

“So you slept with him?” Chloe’s question is spoken so quickly, Beca can barely register the words.

This time, her towel masks her reaction. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“So you slept with Shower Guy?” She tosses her towel onto the back of the sink and waits for an answer. 

“Shower Guy?” Chloe’s surprisingly fidgety. “Do you mean Tom?”

“If Tom is the guy you brought naked into my shower, then yes.”

Chloe glances away for a few seconds. “I didn’t sleep with him. I mean, not tonight.”

“Right,” Beca says, busying herself with her toothbrush and toothpaste.

“What do you care?” Chloe’s words are clipped and get Beca’s attention.

“What do you care if I slept with Jesse?” she counters and shoves her toothbrush into her mouth.

Chloe pushes off the sink with a nudge of her hip and drops her arms to her sides. “Who says I care?”

Beca just rolls her eyes. Their conversation is devolving into bickering, though she doesn’t know why. She does know that she wants to stop talking about Chloe sleeping with Tom and Beca sleeping with Jesse. “Good night, Chloe.”

She sees Chloe set her jaw and press her lips into a thin line before nodding. “Good night. See you at rehearsal. 9:00 am, sharp.”

She shoos Chloe away with her free hand in irritation and watches in the mirror as she grabs her personal items and walks out the door, head held high.

Beca’s shoulders slump as soon as Chloe’s gone and she stares at herself in the mirror, wondering what the hell just happened.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

She’s too irritated and confused by the tense words shared with Chloe to follow through with her nighttime plans.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Rehearsal is grueling. 

Aubrey is on her ass the moment she walks in not more than two minutes late about her “behavior” at the party. Beca refuses to say she didn’t sleep with Jesse, on pure principle. She owes Aubrey no explanation or information about her sex life. 

She doesn’t get kicked out, which is a surprise after what happened to Kori and Mary Elise. Instead, she and the entire group are subjected to an unfairly cruel marathon rehearsal and she’s certain she’s never sweat so much in her life. 

“We are a singing group, right?” she manages to snap as she runs past Aubrey. “Why are we training for a decathlon?”

All the comment earns her is five more laps around the rehearsal space.

Chloe seems like her normal self, being everyone’s cheerleader as they work. If she’s still bothered by the exchange she and Beca had the night before, she doesn’t show it, but Beca still makes it a point to catch her when they’re finally dismissed (fifteen minutes later than scheduled).

“That was brutal,” she starts, standing next to Chloe while they pack up their stuff. She only glances her direction briefly; Chloe was in her usual rehearsal garb of a sports bra and leggings, and she had sweat just as much as Beca had. It was highly distracting.

“I tried to warn you.”

Beca doesn’t think Chloe warned her; mostly she implied Beca was irritating Aubrey, not that Aubrey would inflict an entire day of physical torture upon her because she talked to a boy at a party. Instead of saying that, though, she zips her bag, puts it over her shoulder, and turns to face her. She studiously works to keep her eyes on neutral territory. “Wanna walk back to Baker together? Unless you have somewhere you need to be.”

Chloe looks up at her, wisps of curling red hair that escaped her bun with her exertion sticking up all over in a way that is unfairly pretty, and smiles. “Sure. I definitely need a shower.”

“No shit,” Beca says with a laugh, gesturing at herself to not imply that Chloe needs a shower. Chloe is perfect.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Beca’s really not surprised with herself that she’s dumping her gear and grabbing her shower stuff the second she gets back to her room after leaving Chloe at her own. Is she maybe affected by the idea that she and Chloe could possibly be showering at the same time, something that hasn’t [knowingly] occurred since the day they met?

Absolutely not.

To prove it to herself, she sits down and waits ten minutes before walking to the showers, but despite the attempt to wait it out, she hears Chloe’s voice singing a Britney Spears song (a cappella, of course) the moment she opens the door.

She irritatingly can’t help herself from claiming the stall right next to the one she knows Chloe’s in and once she’s settled under the steaming spray, she knocks on the divider between them to interrupt the new song that Beca hates that she knows.

She hears Chloe’s startled yelp and smiles. “Who sings that song?” she asks.

There’s a short laugh a few seconds later. “Taylor Swift, why?”

“Let’s keep it that way.”

There’s a gasp of offense that borders on being a shriek followed by a hard slap of a hand against the metal wall between them. “Beca Mitchell, you take that back!”

Beca laughs and grabs her shampoo. “You know I don’t mean it,” she says after a few more seconds, unable to leave Chloe in the lurch for too long.

“Meanie,” Chloe pouts.

Silence settles between them other than Chloe’s quiet humming and Beca’s nearing the end of her shower when she finally works up the nerve to bring up their tense conversation. “Um, about last night.” Chloe’s humming stops. “I’m sorry if I was weird.”

“‘Weird’ is one way of putting it.”

“This whole college thing is new to me, you know?” It’s a bad excuse, not to mention weak. Bringing up Shower Guy—Tom—had nothing to do with being new to college life and everything to do with...well, she doesn’t let herself think about that.

Chloe’s extended silence makes her think she’s not buying it, but if she doesn’t, she doesn’t push it. “Well, apology accepted. I’m sorry, too.”

“Cool.” She hears Chloe’s shower turn off and realizes she’s been so distracted with their conversation she’s failed to progress past working shampoo into her hair and hurries through the rest of it.

She’s not surprised when she finds Chloe waiting for her, sitting in a bathrobe on the bench where people wait for showers to free up when Beca exits her stall, wrapped in her own fluffy robe. Chloe looks fresh-faced and bright-eyed and Beca’s sure she looks like a drowned rat. It’s unfair, truly.

“What’s up?” Beca says as she tights the belt around her waist.

“Nothing,” Chloe shrugs. “Figured I’d wait for you.” She stands and joins Beca as they walk toward the bathroom exit.

“Doing anything fun tonight?” Beca asks, hoping her question comes across innocuous-enough after last night and their apologies.

“Yeah, I’m going out for a bit. What about you?”

Beca hums. “My roommate went home for the weekend so tonight’s agenda includes a Law & Order: SVU marathon and an entire bag of Doritos.”

They pause outside Chloe’s door. “Cool Ranch or nacho?” Chloe asks; she’s wearing a look of absolute seriousness as if Beca’s answer is of utmost importance and it stikes Beca with irrational fear.

“Uh, nacho?”

Chloe’s face screws into one of offense. “Terrible.”

“Nacho Doritos are not terrible!” Beca says, immediately on the defense of her favorite snack. “How dare you.”

“I only speak the truth,” Chloe says breezily as she reaches for her doorknob. “Enjoy your gross chips.”

“Yeah, well, enjoy your...night!” Beca’s comeback fails miserably and she can tell Chloe’s holding back laughter as she disappears into her room. “Whatever,” she grumbles to herself before turning to stalk down the hallway, mad about Chloe insulting her chips.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Beca’s on her third episode of SVU when there’s a knock on her door. She groans and slides off her bed, not in the mood for some kind of prank the other students on her floor find hilarious.

“What?” she barks as she swings it open, ready to berate immaturity only to be met with surprised, wide eyes. “Oh, hey. Sorry.”

“What was that for?” Chloe asks, still looking a bit shell-shocked.

“I thought it was the ding-dong-ditchers,” she says, knowing Chloe’s been a victim of it just as much as she has. “I thought you were going out tonight?”

Chloe shrugs and holds up the blue bag of Cool Ranch Doritos she’d been hiding behind her back. “It was going to be lame.”

Beca laughs and steps aside to let her into her room. “I can’t promise you that this will be any less lame.”

“I’m willing to take my chances.” Chloe winks as she says it and strolls into Beca’s room.

She’s never been there before, never past the door, and Beca can tell she’s trying to disguise the fact that she’s checking out her room which makes a smile tug at Beca’s lips. She’s climbing on to Beca’s bed moments later to get comfortable, right in the spot Beca had been occupying because it was the most comfortable.

“Make yourself at home,” she says as she closes the door. “Want anything to drink?”

“I’ll take a beer.”

“I’m 19; I can’t keep beer in my room.” She opens her mini-fridge to survey its meager contents. “Gotta keep my nose clean this year so I can get out of here and move to LA,” she explains. “I have Coke, Dr. Pepper, and water.”

“Sometimes I forget you’re a freshman. Dr. Pepper, please.”

Beca grabs two cans of soda and joins Chloe on the bed, having to rearrange bags of chips, blankets, and pillows so they can both sit comfortably.

They settle into their viewing party after that, quiet save for the TV and the periodic crunch of chips with an occasional debate about who the criminal is or isn’t.

It’s hard for Beca to ignore their physical closeness. There’s only so much room on her small twin-sized bed and though their marathon began with a good bit of space between them, Chloe has worked her way closer with each suspenseful, violent, or upsetting moment. It began with her grabbing Beca’s forearm at an unexpected twist. A tense hostage negotiation had her gripping Beca’s thigh for dear life (she’s not sure she won’t have bruises tomorrow). And, most recently, an unexpected gunshot made Chloe leap into Beca’s side to hide her face in Beca’s shoulder and beg to be told when it was over.

Chloe hadn’t moved back into her own spot after that. She’d stayed, her arm wrapped up with Beca’s and her head on her shoulder once Beca reassured her the gory part was over. 

It’s hard to ignore the way Chloe’s knee is hiked up a little, just enough so it can rest atop Beca’s with the way she’s curled into Beca’s side.

The closeness makes Beca’s heart race and she has to focus hard on the television screen in order to keep her breathing steady. It had been somewhat easy to ignore her crush on the woman to-date; their time together has, by and large, been spent with others: the Bellas, aca-nerds at parties, other students walking around campus. Rarely are they alone and secluded; not even in their moments in the communal showers.

The moment she lets the concept that they are, by the very definition, cuddling in her bed into her psyche she has to close her eyes and think about literally anything else. Sports. The Real Housewives. Her parents’ divorce.

She keeps them closed until she feels Chloe leaning against her more heavily, her breathing deep and even and Beca looks down to see Chloe’s fallen asleep.

It’s oddly calming even if it makes her heart pick up even more. She looks like an angel, long eyelashes resting against her cheeks, soft pink lips slightly parted, but most lovely of all is the way her hand is open, fingers slightly curved in a way that’s so inviting that Beca can’t resist fitting her own between them.

Chloe stirs at the touch though it’s little more than a brief squeeze of Beca’s hand and a shift of her head and then she’s once again still.

Beca’s at a loss as to what to do so she sits quietly, letting the television episode roll into the next though paying no attention to it. Chloe is warm against her and her slow, rhythmic breathing is so comforting that eventually, Beca’s nerves settle and she finds her own eyes growing heavy.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

She’s disoriented when she wakes. Her room isn’t dark; a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond is on the TV and it feels far too loud. She’s lying down and when she shifts, she’s met with resistance that for the briefest of moments strikes her with panic.

That is, until she discovers the resistance is caused by the arm draped over her waist and its owner who’s pressed closely against Beca’s back.

Then it’s panic of a different kind. The kind that makes her freeze and not move another muscle lest she wakes Chloe and bring to an end the embrace they somehow slipped into in their sleep.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

When she wakes again it’s early morning and though the arm is gone from her waist, she can feel it pressing against her back. The TV is dark but she doesn’t remember turning it off. She longs to drag the morning out as much as she can but she can’t ignore the need to use the restroom.

She eases away as slowly as she can until she’s standing and she can turn around to see Chloe, sound asleep in her bed. 

She sneaks out the door and is quick to return, only sparing a few extra seconds to deal with her disheveled morning appearance and rinse with a cup of mouthwash from the courtesy bottle.

To her relief, Chloe’s still there when she returns, but her sleepy eyes are open. “Morning,” she says as soon as Beca’s eyes land on her.

“Hey, good morning,” she replies and starts to cross the room and then stops when she realizes Chloe’s not making a move to get up and crawling back into bed with her, especially at this early hour, feels so very intimate. “Guess we fell asleep.”

Chloe nods and then she’s yawning, her body growing taut as she stretches and Beca can’t help but glance at how Chloe’s shirt rides up a few inches with the movement. “Come back to bed,” she says at the end of her yawn, voice squeaking in a way Beca wishes she didn’t find so cute.

It feels too casual, too normal for Chloe to say those words for how new their friendship is, to scoot backward to make more room for Beca in her small bed to further extend her invitation.

It’s that sensation of normalcy that gets her moving until she’s settling on her side, her back to Chloe again as they both get comfortable on the pillow they’re sharing.

“You’re all minty,” Chloe says after a minute or two, followed by a pinch to Beca’s side, right in the tender part, that makes her jump.

“Morning breath,” she says after swallowing.

Fingertips scrabble up her back. “Thinking about kissing me awake?”

Beca’s entire self feels like it ignites, heat rushing through her in a full-body blush. She just wasn’t wanting to make a bad first-morning impression. Such a thought hadn’t even entered her mind at the time, but it’s now the only thing she can think about.

She scoffs when she realizes she’s taking too long to reply. “What? Dude, no.”

There’s a quiet hum behind her and Chloe’s arm settles over her once again. Beca’s awake for it this time and the feeling of Chloe reaching to pull her close, intentionally holding her while they lay in bed together following that question, makes butterflies stir in her chest.

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Beca doesn’t understand why there are so many a cappella parties. She’d thought that after the winter break, the four groups would buckle down—whatever that means in a cappella terms—to focus on the impending semifinals, but no. It seems that as the stress of competition (not that she’s stressed about their dumb competition) increases, so does the need to release that stress.

To Beca, they’re an excuse to get free beer and hang out with Chloe in a safe (read: public), non-rehearsal environment.

By now, they’ve established a sort of routine at these parties. They arrive together. They part ways. One saves the other from an undesirable conversation when prompted with little more than a glance. They spend the rest of the night together, whether dancing, drinking, socializing, or once, swimming, until something brings the night to a close and they walk back to their dorm together.

Beca had taken notice as the weeks and months passed, that Chloe disappearing with Tom was occurring less and less frequently. It was a relief on multiple levels; not just because it meant Chloe wasn’t spending the night with Tom, but also because she wouldn’t have to spend time talking to Jesse until she found an excuse to leave. The boy had a special talent for finding Beca unaccompanied.

But above all, it meant that Beca and Chloe were spending the majority of their time together, whether rehearsing or not. And over the course of all those weeks, Beca’s noticed their dynamic changing, not by leaps and bounds daily but by tiny movements. Tiny movements that have added up to leaps and bounds, from Beca recoiling in horror the first time they met to Beca dropping everything to help, talk to, or otherwise spend time with Chloe.

And she’s noticed Chloe is quick to do just the same.

It’s confusing. She’s never connected with anyone so strongly before, and she continually finds herself wondering if what she feels is the kindred spirit of a best friend or if she wants something more.

Correction: she knows she wants Chloe; she doesn’t want to confess such a thing and lose a best friend. Not that she knows how to confess feelings anyway. She hates feelings. They’re gross. They make her feel vulnerable and weak.

Chloe makes her feel vulnerable, too. But it’s different. She maybe even feels strength in that vulnerability.

She just needs Chloe to make the first move if someone’s going to make one.

Beca thinks she’s given her ample opportunities to-date but nothing’s happened yet. It’s with that in mind that she resolves, at the pre-Spring Break bash, to open the metaphorical door so wide that if Chloe doesn’t cross its threshold, Beca will close it once and for all.

She’s terrified from the moment she makes the decision until she and Chloe are drinking shots of tequila in unison and everything melts away until the only thing that matters is simply being in Chloe’s orbit. 

Beca pulls Chloe by her hand onto the trampled grass of the Trebles’ backyard to dance, an action she knows thrills Chloe who always tells Beca how much she likes dancing with her. The liquid courage spurs Beca to pull Chloe close before they’ve even settled into the song.

“You’re in a mood,” Chloe says, the corner of her mouth turning upward.

Beca rests her arms around Chloe’s shoulders and makes eye contact with her. “You could say that.”

She sees Chloe arch an eyebrow but instead of pressing the matter, Chloe just falls into step and runs a hand through her hair in an unfairly sexy manner.

Beca considers the fact that what she’s doing could be considered throwing herself at Chloe, that is, if she didn’t hold on to that one last thread. Like letting her hands wander up and down Chloe’s back, but never below her waist. Like slipping her knee between Chloe’s thighs but not actually doing anything because, at face value, it just makes dancing close easier. Like having an extra button on her shirt undone and wearing her best bra that gives her amazing but natural-looking cleavage and her most flattering jeans.

It only takes a few seconds for Chloe’s hands to land where they always do: on Beca’s waist. 

Dancing with Chloe has come to be second nature to Beca, and she’s pretty sure Chloe would agree. She knows it helps that they work on actual choreography all the time for the Bellas, but they don’t choreograph the way they dance together at parties or in clubs. It feels like they have, though; it doesn’t require any conscious thought to know how Chloe is going to move and when. Beca doesn’t have to think about stepping to her left when Chloe is stepping to her right. 

It’s a cool evening but Beca’s warm. She’s warm from moving, warm from the way Chloe’s hands travel between her waist and her ribs, warm from the way Chloe’s eyes are on hers to stare with such intensity, she’s actually afraid to look away from them.

She’s warm from how close they are right now. She doesn’t know how many songs have passed, only that they’re so close and so aligned that she can feel Chloe’s thigh between her own, bumping her leg as they move which only makes her grow even warmer.

Chloe’s eyes slip for the quickest moment from Beca’s and she thinks maybe she glanced at her lips, or maybe even her cleavage. It was too quick to know and Beca doesn’t let on that she noticed. If Chloe wants to look, she wants her to look. She’s been inviting her to look all night. She does wet her lips after a few seconds; it’s a subconscious response but she’s aware of it happening and she catches Chloe’s gaze drift again. 

It’s difficult to be sure as Chloe’s amazingly long eyelashes are great at concealing where she’s looking when her eyes are cast down, so, running on instinct and adrenaline, Beca lets her teeth catch her bottom lip, just for a second or two.

Chloe’s eyes snap back to hers immediately and then she’s mirroring Beca, teeth pulling at her own bottom lip until it slips free and her tongue swipes over it.

Beca can’t keep her eyes off Chloe’s lips after that; she tries, glancing up now and then but Chloe’s eyes are no longer her focus. Chloe’s lips hold that now and she’s acutely aware and uncaring if Chloe notices. Maybe she wants her to notice.

She definitely wants her to notice.

She knows Chloe notices when she sees her teeth pull at her lip again the same moment her hands tighten around Beca’s waist.

They’re still dancing, but it’s an afterthought. There’s noise around them, and people, but it all sounds miles away. Her arms shift where they’ve been resting over Chloe’s shoulders; they push forward to loop around her neck. It also brings them even closer together.

Chloe’s head tilts, just a fraction, just enough for Beca to catch it. A tilt to the left. A slight lift of her chin. Enough to make Beca’s pulse start to race.

She mirrors the change and she sees Chloe’s lips twitch into the hint of a smile. It makes Beca’s hands unlock from holding her own wrists behind Chloe’s neck to push them into her hair. Chloe’s eyes flutter closed at the touch and after a few seconds of admiration, so do Beca’s.

“What are we doing?” Chloe says, little more than a mumble as Beca feels the heat of fingertips under the edge of her shirt, pressing into the bare skin of her lower back.

“Um…” Beca’s not sure she can answer that; their lips are so close that she felt the words.

“Bec?”

“Hmm?” She’s waiting for it, for the soft warmth of Chloe’s lips to follow the heat of her words when she senses Chloe pull back. Beca’s eyes flutter open to find Chloe watching her intently. It’s only then that she realizes they’ve stopped dancing.

When Chloe takes a step backward Beca feels the hot sting of rejection but Chloe’s hand catches hers before she’s out of reach and she has no choice but to follow. She doesn’t know where Chloe’s leading them; frankly, she doesn’t really care. She feels intoxicated but the tequila is long burned out of her system. This is something different, something that’s making her dizzy but not sick.

They’re walking along the hedge that runs next to the house when Chloe halts abruptly, causing Beca to stop just short of running into her. When Chloe turns, Beca expects her to say something, to explain why they’ve left the party, to repeat her question to Beca.

Instead, Chloe’s free hand plants itself in the center of Beca’s chest, against the bare skin of her boldly unbuttoned shirt, and pushes, making her stumble backward until her back hits the side of the house.

“Oh, my God,” escapes her mouth before she realizes the words could mean the action was unwelcome when it’s the exact opposite. She can’t figure out what words to use to clarify her outburst so instead, she squeezes the hand Chloe’s still holding and gives it a tug. If pulling Chloe closer now, here, after everything isn’t clear enough, then they’re both hopeless.

She pulls Chloe in until she’s so close, their chests grazing when either of them inhale and grabs Chloe’s hip with her free hand to keep her there. Even in the dark away from the lights of the party, she can see the color in Chloe’s cheeks, can see how heavy her eyes seem and Beca’s sure she must appear much the same. Her heart feels like it might pound right out of her body. She wonders if Chloe can hear it, or even feel it against her own chest.

Those dark eyes are on her own, their conversation unspoken and Beca knows Chloe finally understands what she’s been trying to make clear all night. Maybe what she’s been trying—with less conviction or confidence than tonight—to make clear for months.

The hand that had pushed her up against the house shifts down for the briefest of moments, the heel of Chloe’s hand dipping into the beginning of the valley between her breasts to make Beca’s breath catch before it moves north, fingertips dancing along Beca’s throat until they’re on the back of her neck, sneaking up into her hair.

She whimpers. Or she thinks she does; maybe it was Chloe. It could have been; her lips are parted when Beca glances down at them.

That’s when it happens.

Chloe surges forward, her lips finding Beca’s.

Beca knows for certain it’s herself she hears whimper then. The desperate force actually knocks her head back against the side of the house but there’s no pain. Nothing hurts now. Not as Chloe’s lips move against her own in a kiss Beca’s been waiting for since the day they met.

She shakes her hand loose from Chloe’s so she can use it, so she can bring it up to frame Chloe’s face. The knowledge that Chloe has wanted this—or at least wants it now—emboldens her to find a better angle and let her tongue brush Chloe’s bottom lip.

Chloe invites her in immediately and Beca shivers when Chloe’s tongue meets hers. Fingers slide further into her hair and Beca does the same, pushing through soft cinnamon curls as their kiss grows in intensity. 

Chloe’s hips press against her and it makes her shift her stance so their legs fit together like when they dance. Her fingers pull at Chloe’s waist as if she could possibly get any closer until, on sheer instinct, her hand slides down over the curve of Chloe’s ass to grab it unabashedly and pull just as she bends her knee to lift and press her thigh against Chloe.

A sharp gasp breaks the relative silence as Chloe’s mouth twists away from Beca’s. Their eyes meet and for a moment, Beca thinks she may have done something wrong until Chloe’s fingers twist so harshly into Beca’s hair that she winces as Chloe pulls her head to the side. It exposes more of her neck and Beca lets her eyes close again as Chloe’s mouth drops to it. Lips and tongue and gentle teeth move along her skin and Beca can hear herself breathing, quick and shallow breaths that match Chloe’s as Chloe accepts the rhythm of Beca’s hand against her. The thought that Chloe likes it, is basically riding her thigh, makes her already damp underwear soak through. It makes her hips move, too, and Chloe’s leg isn’t nestled closely enough to give her anything but the barest of contact.

It’s maddening but she doesn’t want to do anything that will take away the pleasure she knows she’s giving Chloe. Instead, the hand not tangled in her hair doing little more than cradling her head as she attacks Beca’s neck travels up Chloe’s side until she feels the band of a bra through the fabric of her shirt. It’s too tempting and too easy to follow it until the backs of her fingers are grazing the edge of a curve. She hesitates there, soaking in the warmth she feels and letting a moan escape her lips when Chloe’s tongue is particularly gentle and teasing against her skin.

“Touch me.” The words are whispered but they ring in Beca’s ears loudly. Chloe’s hand finds Beca’s where it’s hesitating and guides it higher until it’s pressing Beca’s hand against her breast.

This time, it’s Chloe who moans but Beca echoes it. She wonders just how far this is going to go here, now, out in the open as Chloe’s mouth is on hers again. It’s more a curiosity than a concern; she really doesn’t care who sees them. But as the palm of her hand feels the stiff peak of Chloe’s breast, she has a desperate need to migrate elsewhere. It’s a need that grows exponentially when Chloe, with none of the hesitation Beca had shown, finds Beca’s left breast to squeeze it with urgency. Most of her fingertips are on bare skin where Beca’s shirt has shifted; heat follows everywhere her those fingertips go, from the swell of Beca’s breast to her throat, to the valley of her cleavage and to her other breast.

Chloe’s mouth leaves hers again and moves right to her ear, lips on her earlobe and tongue tracing the shell and over the piercings. “God, you’re so hot,” she breathes just as she presses her thigh forward against Beca.

So desperate for the contact, it almost makes Beca’s knees buckle which settles her more heavily astride Chloe, leg pressing the thick seam of Beca’s jeans against her in a way that makes her hips buck.

Chloe’s assault of her senses stops abruptly; she doesn’t pull back, she just...stops and it takes Beca several seconds until she can open her eyes.

Once she can focus, she sees that Chloe is staring at her, eyes wild, hair mussed, lips a dark pink and shining in the dim lighting.

“Are you okay?” Chloe asks, eyes searching Beca’s for something.

The question confuses her; why wouldn’t she be okay? “Yeah,” she says after swallowing. “Are you?” she adds, enough clarity seeping in to register Chloe’s checking on her and maybe she should do the same.

Chloe nods and leans in to kiss her again but this time it’s slow, and soft, and gentle and she pulls back too soon for Beca’s liking, but she forgives her quickly.

“Do you maybe want to go?” are Chloe’s next words and Beca feels dizzy again. Thankfully, Chloe still has her pinned against the house to keep her upright.

“Go where?” she asks; she wants Chloe to mean what she hopes she means and that she’s not suggesting they go back to the party.

Chloe’s hands are back on her waist, warm where they rest beneath Beca’s shirt. “Is your roommate home?” Chloe asks. 

Beca feels the back of her head connect with the house again, falling back to look down her nose at Chloe who’s waiting for her answer with as much anticipation as Beca feels. “I don’t know,” she says after searching her memory for any conversation that she may have had about her roommate’s plans tonight and finding nothing. “Is yours?”

“I don’t know,” Chloe answers, a whine entering her voice and the fact that Chloe is perhaps as desperate as she is rattles Beca. Her mind races, thinking of possibilities like the bedrooms in the Trebles’ house (gross), staying where they are (uncomfortable and not private), or going to Chloe’s car in the dorm parking lot.

It’s not the worst solution, all things considered.

“Okay,” she says, still working on catching her breath. “Okay, let’s just go see if they’re home or not.”

Her suggestion makes Chloe melt into her for another long, deep kiss until they’re detangling from each other. Beca has to tug at the legs of her jeans to bring them down from where they’ve ridden up and she watches Chloe do the same. It makes her crack up for some reason and Chloe’s quick to follow, both of them dissolving into fits of giggles of nervous excitement.

They start walking back toward Baker Hall, Beca’s arm around Chloe’s waist, and Beca notices Chloe tugging her phone out of her pocket and open up a new text.

“Why don’t you text Kimmy Jin and ask if she’s there,” Chloe says when she notices Beca’s curiosity.

“I don’t have her number.”

Chloe tsks at her and shoots off a text to, Beca assumes, her roommate.

A minute or two pass in silence until it becomes too heavy between them and Chloe breaks it. “Nothing has to happen, you know.”

Beca turns her head to look at her, though Chloe’s facing forward. Why Chloe thinks Beca might feel like she’s being pressured into something is beyond her, especially since Beca was the one laying the physical flirtation on thick all night. “I’m here, aren’t I?” she says, as if it should be obvious.

“I know,” Chloe says. Beca notices they’re only a few blocks from their dorm and her anticipation starts to grow again. “But we’ve been drinking.”

That’s a fair consideration. People do things they regret when they’ve been drinking, things they would never do sober. And that could be true, except that in Beca’s case, “I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

It’s Chloe’s turn to look over, and she’s wearing a bit of a smirk. “You have?”

Beca shrugs and tucks her fingertips into the front pocket of Chloe’s jeans, as though she’s making a point, though the prospect of having to talk about it in detail makes her self-conscious. “Shut up.”

“Beca.” Chloe’s voice is teasing and slow, like syrup.

“Don’t,” she says with a groan because she knows Chloe’s gearing up to tease her. “Can we just...can you just accept it and let it go?”

“Oh, I’ll happily accept it,” Chloe says with a proud toss of her hair. Then she’s rounding on Beca to stop right in front of her. “But I’m not going to let it go,” she finishes as she leans in to kiss her and Beca meets her halfway.

Beca pulls back when things are edging toward too hot and heavy for the sidewalk. “C’mon, let’s go.” She takes Chloe’s hand and leads for a few steps before catches up. “Did your roommate text you back?”

Chloe checks her phone while Beca opens the door to the lobby to let her pass first. Chloe makes a sound of excitement, a borderline squeal, and her pace picks up considerably as they stride toward the elevator. “She’s spending the night at her boyfriend’s.”

“Oh, thank God,” Beca exhales and follows Chloe into the elevator where she punches the button for their floor before turning right into the kiss she knows Chloe’s anticipating. “Mine’s probably home,” she says between kisses.

“We’d have found a place,” Chloe says, breath already quickening as their kisses grow in urgency.

“Thought about your car,” Beca says as her hands find Chloe’s ass again to tug her closer.

Chloe hums and then says, “I thought about the shower.”

Beca had somehow overlooked that particular option but the possibility, the very concept of it, moves through her like fire. “Fuck,” she says before kissing Chloe harder.

“Mmm, noted,” Chloe says with an evil smirk as she pulls away, grabbing Beca’s hand to yank her out of the elevator and down the hall toward Chloe’s room. “But I want you in my bed first.”

The End

[robrpatz]

Robert Pattinson new interview in Elle Magazine ( March 2020)

ELLE: You started acting when you were 18 years old, and in 15 years you’ve made 34 movies (and won eight awards…). Why do stay so active? What moves you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Now I have more fun making movies! The more I learn about how to do things, the more doors it opens to my mind. And the more comfortable you feel, the freer you’ll feel as well. I used to think in acting as a test, in which there was the possibility to fail. But when you stop thinking about the result…You never know if it will be good or bad, so the best thing is to enjoy it! And, as soon as you start behaving like that, everything becomes funnier.

ELLE: And, as you get older, maybe you can choose the roles you want to play and who you want to work with?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes. It happens when you get older and [you] do more projects. You can talk to the director. It’s more of creative collaboration. When you’re younger, you have that school mentality. Someone is telling you what to do and so you just feel like saying no all the time. But then you realize that they are all in the same boat. And that everyone wants to make a good movie!

ELLE: What would you say to the teachers who discouraged you from joining the theater club?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I’m glad they did. When I think about it now … At the time, I was so angry that I didn’t want to have anything to do with the arts at school. And then, I ended up getting an agent, which wouldn’t have happened if I had een a part of the school’s drama club. Sometimes having a little bit of resentment is pretty good. It gives you more fire [energy].”

ELLE: Do you really think that you managed to attract a more “male” audience, as some professionals in the field suggested after Cosmopolis?

ROBERT PATTINSON: To be honest, I never thought about an audience. But the first time I noticed that men accepted me better must have been with Good Time. And it was a little strange … But, again, it’s the same logic as the drama teacher. I liked it when the male audience said to me “Oh, you’re an idiot”, because it made me want to go to the fight! These things give you energy. What’s dangerous is not having enemies. We always need good enemy!

ELLE: Do you read reviews about you on the internet?

ROBERT PATTINSON: When a movie comes out? Yes.

ELLE: What about the bad ones, does it affect you or do you consider yourself strong enough to deal with it?

ROBERT PATTINSON: When I was younger, it affected me. But now … it’s a strangely addictive thing. Reading the bad reviews is more addictive than reading the good ones. You can read a hundred good ones and a bad and, I don’t know if that’s because of that, but now the bad ones don’t affect me anymore. Unless they involve someone else. If it’s just about me, I can take it.

ELLE: What if it’s about someone important to you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: It doesn’t happen much. And I think I can separate things well. It’s one of the advantages of not having an Instagram account. Access is cut off. I’ve always had a barrier and that’s why there’s no problem. It’s all just noise.

ELLE: You’re turning 34 soon and you’re going to be a part of the so-called Millennial. What does it mean to you? Do you recognize yourself as a member of that generation?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I think I’m another last stronghold of the previous generation. I don’t feel like a Millennial at all. Many of the things that people think are important, such as social networks … are not at all important to me. They annoy me. I don’t see what it is the reason to have, to publish, to take pictures of myself and put them online … It all seems crazy to me.

ELLE: You’ve made a lot of movies lately. Waiting for the Barbarians, The King (Netflix), The Devil All The Time, The Lighthouse and Tenet (currently being shot). How many scripts do you receive per month? It’s you who choose each role?

ROBERT PATTINSON: To be honest, I don’t receive that many scripts. Except when it comes to a director I really want to work with. When I’m not working, I read a lot of scripts, but right now… I find it very difficult to read a script when you’re working on another project. I cannot understand it completely. But I love to discover filmmakers that my agents don’t know about!

ELLE: And the movie you’re filming now, Tenet? Can you talk about it?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I can’t say anything about Tenet… nor about Batman! Anyways, I don’t know anything. I’m only starting Batman next year. We’re not even filming yet.

ELLE: After all the artistic films you’ve made, was it difficult for you to decide to be in a film like Batman?

ROBERT PATTINSON: No, I wanted to do it. In every new job, I’ve been trying to do the opposite of the previous one, to be able to surprise myself. And I don’t know why, but at the end of last year, I was thinking I really wanted to do a big movie. I hadn’t think about exactly what it could be, and then Chris Nolan and Tenet came in and Batman came out shortly after. I had been making small movies, I was already relatively comfortable in what I was doing for a while, I didn’t even get nervous anymore. Not even with Tenet, which is a great production. I think it was also because of the directors. I can totally trust Chris Nolan and Matt Reeves. They are very unique filmmakers to whom I would immediately say yes if I wanted to make a smaller film.

ELLE: Do you have to physically prepare to step into Batman’s shoes? Is that the reason why you’ve been running a lot lately?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes. As soon as I finish this job, I will immediately start intensive training. In fact, it is quite pleasant, because I have been doing so many hours in the Chris Nolan film that the idea of, for a few months, being really healthy, just doing physical exercise and sleeping seems like a real dream! I can’t wait! But yes, I’ve never been a big guy. So I have a certain curiosity about what it’s like to be.

ELLE: You’re the face of Dior Homme since five years ago. How did this colaboration started and what does it means to you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I think it was before that. I met them in 2012. I wasn’t thinking about doing anything like this. But when I met them, I liked the team very much, the three people who talked to me at the beginning. They’re really cool. And Dior is Dior!

ELLE: That was your first ad? Is it the only one until now?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes. The only one! Basically, I really liked the way they presented the project to me. At the beginning, I wanted to work with Romain Gavras. And, at the first meeting, I asked: “Can we do it with Romain?” And they said “Yes, it’s a great idea!”. It’s great to work with Dior. I never went to the shows in Paris before, and I never even thought about it. But now I look forward to them every year. With Dior, I have all the glamor of acting, but without the hardest part! When you’re making a movie, you work 20 hours a day, you’re exhausted all the time. This collaboration is fast and very funny. It’s the best job ever!

ELLE: Do you like to discover underground artists? How was it to shoot the new Dior Homme campaign with the french avant-guard duo, The Blaze (Guillaume and Jonathan Alrie)? Have you met them before?

ROBERT PATTINSON: It was great! I met them in Cannes in 2017* (they were DJs at the Good Time party) and I was talking to them about making a movie together because their films are so cool. They know what performance is. And when it came to Dior, I didn’t even have anything to do with it. When I heard it, I thought, “Oh, this is great, because it’s a big ad, and they are quite unknown. something like that! Their music is great.

ELLE: There is a dance moment in the ad. It seems to be “possessed”. Any preparation?

ROBERT PATTINSON: A shot of tequila and nothing else! I was literally in the dark. I couldn’t see anyone around me.

ELLE: Do you like dancing, in real life?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I was always very shy to dance, so when I did that, my thought was,”Oh, I broke the curse. Now I can dance in front of people!” About two weeks later, I went to a party, everyone was dancing and I threw myself on the dance floor and it was like “Yes, it’s okay. You just have to dance!”

ELLE: How do you feel when you see yourself in a Dior outdoor?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Actually, I’ve never seen any! I’m always walking around airports and thinking,“ How is Johnny Deep’s here and not mine?” It’s always Johnny Depp! [Laughs] ” What beauty care do you have? A diet, a routine? “Yes, now, at 30, I really think about what I eat. I didn’t try very hard, I ate pizza at three in the morning, but… if you don’t eat well – especially when you’re always working – you can’t even survive.

ELLE: What’s the best way to turn off and relax?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Probably, running. As soon as you get used to running, I think it’s better than anything else. It clears the mind so much! But what I really like nowadays is finding ways to sleep better. I’m obsessed with sleep masks, meditation apps, essential oils… I LOVE those things!

ELLE: Do you have any sleep disorder?

ROBERT PATTINSON: A bit. I don’t take pills to sleep. But I love that moment when you fall asleep! So, I got a good sleep mask that helps me fall asleep anywhere. On set, I sit on a chair, put the sleep mask and fall asleep quickly … in front of everyone.

ELLE: Are you narcoleptic?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Maybe! [Laughs]

ELLE: And talking about music, what’s on your playlist?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I’ll see … (opens Spotify on his phone) … what have I been listening to … Oh [Message on the screen] … I didn’t pay my last bill … [Laughs] … changing my credit card … I’ve been hear a lot of Aretha Franklin and that sort of classic stuff. When I can!

ELLE: How would you define your style?

ROBERT PATTINSON: It depends. You know what? There is this thing about sneakers. I use these Adidas from a collaboration with Palace, which were made in 2015. They are no longer produced. And I use different pairs… I have about 20 pairs of these sneakers in all colors and I use them every day! And when some go bad, it’s scary, because there are only a few left. I already called the company to see if they had any extra stock they didn’t sell.

ELLE: Are you a kind maniac?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes, with these shoes. I wear the same pair of shoes for five weeks in a row, and I have an alert on eBay. Whenever my size appears, I buy it immediately!

ELLE: Today you’re fully dressed in black, but we’ve already seen you wearing extravagant clothes on the red carpet such as capes.

ROBERT PATTINSON: I didn’t think much about what I’m wearing today, but I like to wear crazy things, and I think that if I didn’t work with Dior, I would be a little more shy about using more extravagant pieces. With the collection created by Kim Jones, now it makes even more sense (Note: Pattinson was also the first Dior Homme ready-to-wear ambassador).

ELLE: Would you wear a colour such as pink?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes, I like the contrast, although a few year ago, when I shaved my hair, wore a lot more pink. When you have you hair dyed blond, long, seems like you’re in Miami Vice. But yes, if I had my hair shaved, I’d definitely wear skirts and stuff like that.

ELLE: What would you never wear?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Hum… I don’t like serious and perfect things. But I’ll probably wear then at some point of my career.

ELLE: You confessed ELLE that you obsessed with Kate Moss and Jane Fonda when you were young. Have you met them?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I met Kate Moss and was with her a couple of times, doing things for Dior. And I haven’t met Jane Fonda yet, but I’m still a huge fan of her.

ELLE: She is an activist like you, Robert. You are collaborating directly with GO Campaign. What does this NGO do?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Go Campaign improves the lives of orphans and vulnerable children worldwide by creating local partnerships and solutions. All the children have the right to have opportunities, education, medical care, food, water… Two of my friends worked for them and told me to go to an event, five years ago or so. They made an auction and built a school in Cambodja. It is a completely transparent and very efficient non-profit organization. Over the past five years, it has become much bigger than it was when I started working with them.

ELLE: And now there’s a Robert Pattinson School?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Yes! And the school has been growing every year. I’m really proud of it.

ELLE: What keeps you alive and motivated in general?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Actually, I only do things to have fun. Your body tells you how to live your life if you listen to it carefully. There were bad times. I watched Amy Winehouse’ documentary a few years ago. And Tony Bennett said something that touched me, “Life shows how to live, if you live enough”, or something like that, I can’t remember the exact quote. As you get older, the more your body tells what to eat, what to do, tells you everything. If you listen to it and pay attention! And if you’re not having fun doing a certain thing, stop. As soon as you start living like that, you start to feel always well.

ELLE: Where do you see yourself in ten years?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I would love to have a production company. There’s a part of me that would like to record an album- but I don’t know if it will ever happen. I like to make long-term plans. That is the key of happiness. That’s it and having plans for the future – everything you build is towards a goal. And you have to have those plans!”

ELLE: What was the strangest thing that happened to you?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Become an actor! The strangest thing in my entire life! I really don’t know how it happened.

ELLE: What do you like the most about your friends?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Positive attitude. I don’t like people who like to complain. It’s really boring.

ELLE: Your biggest flaw?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Pfff, none [Laugh]. Actually, how do you say it? Procrastinate. I postpone everything, really everything, until the last minute.

ELLE: Your idea of happiness?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Being in very creative places. I’m very happy in the initial stage of the work of a creative project before the problems start. When everyone is very excited.

ELLE: Your idea of unhappiness?

ROBERT PATTINSON: When people that I love are worried about something and I can’t help them. And repetitive things. Like being stuck in a circle with the same things always happening. That’s unhappiness to me. Like in that Bill Murray’s movie, Groundhog Day.

ELLE: If you weren’t Robert Pattinson, who would you like to be?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Probably a dog. I think I’ll be one in my next like, almost certainly.

ELLE: The heroes of you’re life?

ROBERT PATTINSON: As I get older, the more my parents are. But when I was younger, were a lot of rappers. They were the first people I saw who didn’t care about what people would think about them. It looked like they were showing the middle finger to everyone.

ELLE: Favourite cult movie?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Probably Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

ELLE: Favourite series?

ROBERT PATTINSON: The Wire. It is a tv series about a policeman and criminals in Baltimore.

ELLE: A director that you admire?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Claire Denis. I admire her a lot.

ELLE: Favourite book?

ROBERT PATTINSON: I’ve been reading a lot of Batman comics lately. I’ve also read a very good book by Christopher Hitchens called Mortality.

ELLE: Favourite dish?

ROBERT PATTINSON: Any type of pasta. I’m really boring when it comes to food. Maybe Spaghetti bolognese. More pasta than burgers.

ELLE: Ideal holidays?

ROBERT PATTINSON: An extreme or the other. Doing something with lots of activities, like climbing or going to the beach and do absolutely nothing, with no one around me.

[morromasterofwind]

Rho Epsilon + The Ninjas

HI. SO THIS IS GONNA BE RLLY LONG. I’VE EXPANDED ON THE LORE OF MY OC, RHO. THANK U ALL FOR SHOWING HER SO MUCH LOVE! THIS IS A MASTERPOST OF HER BASIC INTRODUCTIONS/INTERACTIONS WITH ALL THE NINJAS. I HOPE YOU ENJOY?

Rho and Kai

She encounters Kai first out of the ninjas. Not while the group is on a mission or anything. She actually finds him in Skylor’s noodle shop, to nobody’s surprise.

They end up staring at one another from across the restaurant all throughout meal time. Rho is already fully aware that he’s one of the ninjas, as their identities aren’t exactly a secret. She’s just staring because he is and it is really weird.

Kai, on the other hand, is intrigued yet very suspicious. He asks Skylor who she is, and Skylor simply replies that she is a friend who stops by a lot. Since he knew Zane could help, Kai drags him out there one evening.

“She is just another Elemental Master. I detect no problems here. She is not causing any disturbances.” “Ya sure ok Zane w/e you say.”

Kai is 100% convinced Rho is hiding something for like the first month they know each other. This is ironic, as she ends up becoming one of the people he trusts most.

He often vents to her and discusses things he would probably not say otherwise. He’d never forgive her if he knew, but most of it at first was a result of her powers.

She wasn’t trying to pry or trick him into befriending her. She just noticed a lot of little things that were concerning. The way he’d trail off his sentences and leave them hanging during more serious chatter among the group. The rather foul and unfair things he’d mutter under his breath at himself. The way he’d stay up all night training after certain battles. It wasn’t a healthy outlet or way to cope! She thought that Wu may be the only other person who knew Kai did this.

For as vocal as he seems about what’s on his mind, there is an awful lot he keeps under lock and key. So it wasn’t exactly easy to get him to come out of his shell. It was even harder to use her powers on him subtly. She hasn’t used any means like that in a while, though. He still trusts her. She’s glad.

Rho and Zane

Zane was the one who decided to bring her to meet the other ninjas. Despite knowing the implications of her powers, he’s never had any misgivings about her.

Given that he is not technically living, it is much (much) harder and more complex for Rho to analyze his words. Because of this, Zane terrified her at first.

She respects Zane the most out of the ninjas. She takes his opinions very seriously.

There is something about him she is drawn to and can vibe with.

These two have tons of inside jokes.

She likes when he answers her questions about mechanics and tech. Jay and Nya are awful at explaining it.

The protagonist of one of the novels she’s written is inspired by Zane. She’d sooner die than admit it, though.

Rho and Jay

Easily her best friend. There is nothing she wouldn’t do for him.

On days he is feeling more down and out, she is sure to alter any quips the others try to make at his expense. Even if they are not intended seriously, in the wrong mood she knows he’ll perceive them that way. Zane usually frowns and gives her a look in response, because he can tell when she does it.

After figuring out what her power is, Jay repeatedly thinks to himself that he wishes she had been there when Nadakhan was around. What Jay does not know is that a previous Master of Language actually taught the djinn how to manipulate people’s words long ago. It was a very different time in history. Regardless, Rho would not have stood for Nadakhan at all if she knew of him. She would have been offended and found his actions a mockery of her family’s legacy. She would have been quick to remind him what that power should be used for.

Fun fact: Rho is head over heels for both Jay and Nya. It is a Big Problem and She Hates It but she is whipped.

Jay thinks it is priceless when Rho freaks out over the gadgets he and Nya make.

Their brands of humor combined are chaotic. They piss Nya and Cole off so much with their jokes. Kai and Zane are pretty indifferent. Lloyd finds them funny.

Rho and Cole

After meeting Cole, Rho pretty much can’t picture life without him.

She finds his presence extremely reassuring and comforting.

She actually enjoys his cooking? What? Girl are you okay? Don’t question it, I guess.

He asks her a lot about her powers and what she is able to do with them. He is also really interested in learning about languages that are no longer spoken.

SHE LOVES HEARING HIM SING. Or speak, for that matter. His voice is very unique, in her opinion.

They absolutely work out together. He’s even sent her his playlist.

While she really sees the others more as friends than family, Cole is definitely like a brother to her.

Rho and Nya

She’s the one who convinced Rho to stay with them. Nya even taught her how to pilot the Bounty in case of emergencies.

Rho is absolutely impressed by Nya and tries to be more like her in everything she does. Whether it be training harder, or even the way she conducts herself in the face of adversity. Nya would likely tell her it’d be more beneficial to find her own strengths rather than chase after someone else. And she’s right. But still…

She makes so many water puns while talking to Nya. Most of them actually go over Nya’s head.

She loves stealing Nya’s clothes and wearing them. They’re a bit too small for her, but no regrets. Yes, she always washes and returns them the day after. Yes, she is obsessed with Nya’s fashion sense. Mainly because she herself has none.

Most of the time, Rho and Nya will just sit in comfortable silence. Usually while Nya reads books that Rho has recommended her.

They definitely have the same taste in television shows.

Rho loves snuggling with Jay and Nya on the couch on cold days. She’ll be a jerk and slowly creep her way up there with them if she walks in and they’re watching movies or smth.

Rho and Lloyd

SHE IS OBSESSED WITH LLOYD. She always dotes on him. She’ll jokingly call him her little brother, even though she doesn’t really see him as a brother in the same light she sees Cole.

“Hey, look what my coOL LITTLE BRO DID TODAY! YEAH! HE DID THAT! MY BABY BRO!”

She’s called him “Lloyd Montgomery” rather than just “Lloyd” since hearing his middle name. Nobody really knows why.

He’s taught her so much? She wasn’t even expecting him to.

She was very shocked to find out he and Wu are related.

He plays pranks on her if she is in a bad mood. It usually cheers her up.

Her favorite person to play videogames with. The others get too salty. Lloyd is actually fun.

She appreciates his willingness to listen and heart that seeks to reach understanding with others. They’re some of his strongest traits to her, even if he struggles to stop seeing it as weakness.

Bonus: Rho and Wu

They meditate together often.

She soaks in any and all wisdom Wu has to offer. Even things she’d rather not have to hear.

Tea? Tea.

Both literal and metaphorical tea. The two enjoy each other’s company a lot? It is odd. A very odd duo.

Much like Zane, Wu will be very disapproving of her trying to use her powers on people aside from combatant purposes. No matter how slight or what the reason, Wu will always have a talk with her after.

He warns her of the dangers awaiting one who consistently bends people’s perspectives and words to their will. He confronts her by asking how she would grow if all she ever heard was the things she wanted to. He reiterates that it isn’t fair, and that there is freedom in being alive. Freedom to hold opinions and behave accordingly. He warns that he will stop her if she starts to impede on that freedom within others.

Even so, he believes strongly in her good nature. But, as we know, he also strongly believes in his experience with a certain student. He knows it is his responsibility to crush the seeds of evil before they can sprout.

[noisyquokka]

50 Questions Tag

I was tagged by @sapphirebluemt thank you lovely! 💛💕 I'm doing this while very tired (literally 5am) and on my phone, so uh... If I don't save draft and proof read beforehand please bear with me!

1. What takes too much of your time?

Day dreaming and worrying. So much worrying...

2. What makes your day better?

Knowing that I'm cared for and appreciated by someone who means a lot to me. And food 😅

3. What's the best thing that happened to you today?

One of the horses at our rescue followed me around the pasture the entire time I was out there and I'd be damned if I didn't melt! Mayhaps I really missed working on a farm 🤗

4. What fictional place would you like to go to?

Questions like these are hard cause I'm over here like okay the maze runner universe would be pretty dope, but what about shadow hunters! Oof wHat AboUt TeEN WoLf!! The possibilities are endless! :0

5. Are you good at giving advice?

Mm yeah, sometimes. Other times I feel like my advice is complete shit lmao.

6. Do you have any mental illness?

Depression and Anxiety, both diagnosed.

7. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?

Yeah, shit can be terrifying ngl! 😞

8. What musician inspired you the most?

I feel like Shawn Mendes really inspired me the most. I know there's a good handful of people that became famous from song covers on YouTube and all that, but I really like the way Shawn Mendes has stuck to him and his guitar for the most part, especially on tour. His voice is something relaxing and unique that I can get behind. And he's such a down to earth person, I'd love to meet him sometime and tell him he's doing amazing and how much he's helped me through his music!

9. Have you ever fallen in love?

Yeah, you know how it goes 😶

10. What's your dream date?

Honestly? Roadtripping to the desert or anywhere that's far from light pollution and spending a night under the stars. Just talking and tangled in each other, sometimes just staying silent and listening to the sounds of the night around us. Maybe our playlist is playing softly in the background and the campfire we started has burned out hours ago, while we lay on the trucks tailgate admiring the sky. Oof, I'm gonna cry I want this so bad 😭

11. What do others notice about you?

Weirdly, my nose? Literally everyone always talks about my nose! I don't know why but it's kinda weird. And my eyes.

12. What is an annoying habit you have?

Always thinking I'm not good enough. Annoys almost everyone I've met lmao!!!

13. Do you still talk to your first love?

Yeah, we talk almost every day! We're still great friends 😊

14. How many ex's do you have?

4. And number 4 was one hell of a joke, holy hell! So 5th times a charm? 🤣

15. How many songs are in your playlist?

Roughly 3200. I'm always adding new music!

16. What instruments can you play?

Guitar, violin (although it's been a while, I'm probably rusty as hell!), a bit of clarinet and a bit of piano. I was learning piano before I left for college, I wish I would've picked it up earlier :(

17. Who do you have the most pictures of?

Uhhh.... probably Hyunjin and Wonpil if I'm honest. My phone is just kpop boys n gals and I'm happy with myself 😁

18. Where would you like to go before you die?

Back to my roots! I'd love to go to Poland, Hungary, and Wales. And Iceland or Norway just because the landscapes are so beautiful there and I just wanna see it with my own eyes!

19. What is your zodiac?

Taurus 🐮

20. Do you relate to it?

Here and there, yeah. But I can't say I'm a Taurus through and through. Some of the traits that are tied to my sun sign aren't tied to me individually. As example, Possessive is one of them that I am not!

21. What is happiness to you?

To me, happiness is seeing someone else near and dear to your heart smiling and happy themselves. Even if it's not your doing. You're just happy to see them happy!

22. Are you going through anything right now?

A lot, yes. Partially why I haven't been as active on tumblr as I'd like to be.

23. What's the worst decision you've ever made?

Letting people walk all over me because I'm too nice sometimes.

24. What's your favorite store?

Vidlers! I used to go in there a lot when I was a kid and they had this popcorn maker that always made the store smell like fresh popcorn! Ahh that takes me home 😄

25. What's your opinion on abortion?

I think it all depends on the situation. If a young female is raped or wasn't educated properly about safe/protected sex, then I'd say she's more than free to go through with it. But of course, if you're gonna fool around yet know about protected sex, and not use a condom? I think that's your personal problem and you should experience what other mother's who have planned to have kids have gone through. But again, I personally think abortion depends on the situation and shouldn't be the easy way out.

26. Do you keep a bucket list?

Yeah! And the list gets longer and longer and longer....

27. Do you have a favorite album?

Nah, I've got too much music to have a specific favorite album!

28. What do you want for your birthday?

The jackpot 😂 or just to spend time with my parents and see my dogs again! It's been literal months 😣

29. What are most people's first impression of you?

Standoffish because I'm very shy and awkward as hell around strangers.

30. What age do you seem according to most people?

Everyone always thinks I'm older than I really am! I'll be 19 in May but everyone's gonna be like "are you 22?" NO why do you think that?! I FEEL LIKE IM STILL 14!

31. Where do you keep your phone while you're sleeping?

On my nightstand, otherwise I'd lose it between my mattress and headboard 😅

32. What word do you say the most?

I say "Like" so much! I don't even mean to!

33. What's the oldest age you would date?

See, being older doesn't bother me much. I'd probably date a 25 year old if I'm honest (5 years older). I guess I'd just have to feel comfortable enough around them!

34. What's the youngest age you would date?

Probably at lest 16? I don't know, younger is a hard one for me just cause age and bleh!! Maybe 17... two years is better for me personally...

35. What job/career do most people say would suit you?

All my friends know that I'm good with kids and so I'm instantly suited and qualified to be a teacher?! But I'd rather not cause kids today 😩 I'd probably end up hurting their ego in front of their classmates if they showed me any disrespect lmao. And almost everyone who has heard me sing (like really seriously sing, I'm also a huge dork and purposefully sing off key a lot) have said I could be a singer but I can't sing in front of large crowds so 🤷‍♀️

36. What's your favorite music genre?

Pop or Country, undecided here!

37. If you could live in any country in the world, where would it be?

Probably Norway or Hungary. I love beautiful landscapes!

38. What is your current favorite song?

Miroh or Boxer from Stray Kids' new album 🤙

39. How long have you had this blog for?

I started it in January, so just about 3 months!

40. What are you excited for?

The weekend, I go back to college classes today and tomorrow 😣

41. Are you a better talker or listener?

I'm 50/50

42. What is the last productive thing you did?

Washed the dishes.

43. What do you want for Christmas?

A parrot, lump sum of money, maybe a poodle. Smack me now I'm being greedy lmao

44. What classes do you get the best grades in?

Biochem and Lit

45. On a scale of 1-10, how are you feeling right now?

2; I want to sleep but can't. Someone just knock me out!

46. What can you see yourself doing in 10 years?

29 years old? Stable career, maybe building or buying a house, possibly married although I'm not really worried about that? Maybe in a happy healthy relationship, with a rescue dog or cat.

47. When did you first get your heartbreak?

Year and a half ago.

48. At what age do you want to get married?

As I said before, I don't really care if I marry or not. But if I did find someone I'd want to marry, generally speaking, around 30 would be a good age for me. I'd want to make sure I'm financially stable and happy where I am in my life before taking such a step like marriage.

49. What career did you want to have as a child?

First it was Figure skater, then I wanted to be an Equestrian. I stuck with the animal career cause I wanted to be a vet, and here I am in college for that exact reason!

50. What do you crave right now?

The sweet embrace of death, since sleep would rather screen my calls. That bitch! Insomnia's there for me more than sleep is 😑

Tagging: @janarine @sanflovver @ateeztiny @visualgiggles @jisunday and anyone else who'd like to do this!

[not-poignant]

Can I ask about your method of deciding your Spotify playlists for stories? Where do you look for songs? How do you decide which you want? How do you decide the order, esp for stories that have long arcs that you have yet to write? If a song has perfect lyrics, but the wrong mood, or vice-versa, would you still use it? What if a song perfectly fits a character, but you personally don't like to listen to it? Are the songs more for you as you write? (Sorry for so many questions!)

You don’t need to apologise for a lot of questions, anon! Anything that sort of enables me to ramble hugely is never a bad thing, heh. :D

Can I ask about your method of deciding your Spotify playlists for stories? Where do you look for songs?

...On Spotify. I mean I have like about 300 playlists, about 3,000 local tracks not actually on Spotify, and I’ve listened to easily over (actually I’m gonna go check last.fm to make this legit hang on) - okay so over the years I’ve listened to 15,000~ unique songs over 255,000 times, from 3,200~ different artists. I am what you would call an avid music listener who deliberately seeks and explores for new music (when I’m in the mood.)

This is actually a huge part of my life with Glen, who was at university doing film and journalism (I was at university doing media studies and mass communication and scriptwriting, and film analysis fell into that) and that was how we met. So like fifteen years later, and we have consumed an unbelievable amount of music both together and apart. Like, way back in the day, 15 years ago, I had to make sure my computer had a CD burner so I could make mix-tapes for the both of us like all the time (and he did the same), and they were constantly changing.

Generally speaking, before Spotify, I used to look for music via the ‘similar to’ section on Allmusic, and sometimes Pitchfork recommendations. These days Spotify does a lot of that which makes it super helpful (along with the Discovery weekly list and the Release Radar). I don’t look on places like Youtube. I also do a lot of ‘who is the lead singer of this band’ and finding them in Wikipedia, and then listening to their other projects. Or ‘who is the guitarist they sound talented’ and finding their other projects.

How do you decide which you want?

The most important thing actually is I need to be able to write while listening to it (which answers the last question), which means a lot of the harder shit I listen to (dubstep, clubstep, some of the indie rock, rock and emo) can’t actually go on story playlists. So even if I find great songs for characters, that doesn’t always mean I can set words to them. For example Gulvi’s playlist I think suits her as a character, but I can’t write while listening to it. So I’ll often listen to some of that before writing her, and then switch into a quieter playlist.

I mean I don’t make the playlists for others. It’s nice that other people can enjoy them but for the longest time they were all set on private until I realised people wanted to see/listen to them. I make them to help my ability to write, they’re not...intended to be shared in the same way that fanfiction or fiction is? Like they are shared, but if people don’t see the character in the playlist, that doesn’t bother me and I’d never change it, because it’s about how I feel/see that character and how I’ll write them or interact with them based on the music I’m listening to.

How do you decide the order, esp for stories that have long arcs that you have yet to write?

Usually by evolution/feel of what I’m aiming for, to a point. The playlists generally always end with the happier songs (unless I’ve added a bunch of new songs and haven’t set them in order yet, lmao), or songs indicating that love is being more freely expressed. Though that’s not universal. Sometimes the order of songs is even mildly spoilery, if a playlist - like Mikkel’s - is ending with songs about ‘he was a good man but now he’s gone’ - chances are high someone’s gonna die. Like the last song on Mikkel’s playlist is literally a song about how we all die in the end. It was a glaring spoiler for those who were looking for it. There are playlists like that for The Ice Plague too, which I’m like ‘haha, *laughs nervously* I’m sure glad no one has commented on these particular songs yet, they probably think they apply to like, past loss or something even though they’re at the end of the playlist...’

Like weirdly, depending on how you look at it, I’m probably boldest about story spoilers in my playlists. Because the songs are often arranged by story chronology or character growth chronology (which is convenient for me, I can listen to the beginning songs in the beginning, the end songs at the end).

In stories I haven’t written yet, it’s more aspirational, like ‘I think I’m headed in this direction.’ It’s actually an important part of playlist building, is finding songs that inspire growth or plot, and then locking those in to remember how I want the story to feel.

You can normally tell I’m feeling pretty serious about wanting to write a story if it has a playlist though. It’s not guaranteed that I’ll write it, but it bumps up the likelihood to like 90%.

If a song has perfect lyrics, but the wrong mood, or vice-versa, would you still use it?

No, because music is just as important as lyrics, and if it’s not right, it’ll jar me out of my writing zone. (Lyrics can make me like a song more, but not always). Likewise, sometimes songs that feel right but don’t have the right lyrics will make it onto the playlist. Though not always. Downtown by Majical Cloudz is a song that actually makes me think of a lot of my stories, but the lyrics are so obviously contemporary, that I’ve only put it on the new Detroit Become Human fic I’m going to write. I just sometimes sneak out of a character playlist and listen to it while writing, lmao.

Thankfully I literally have thousands of songs to choose from, so some songs not fitting isn’t a problem for me. In fact my biggest issue is normally ‘all ten of these songs suit, but I’m not going to use all ten right now.’ 

With the latest Detroit Become Human playlist, I wanted a certain kind of bluesy rock for some of Hank’s songs. And I have very strong ‘this song belongs to this character’ ‘this song belongs to this character’ feels (sometimes they belong to both characters, in which case you’ll find the same song on both playlists.)

What if a song perfectly fits a character, but you personally don't like to listen to it?

Then it won’t go on the playlist, with some exceptions - again, Gulvi’s features a lot of music I don’t normally listen to.

But yeah like...music and listening to music is a huge part of my life. This week alone I’ve listened to 161 songs, which actually isn’t a huge music week for me (a sign that I’ve been out of the house a lot lol with appts etc.) Though I did listen to Downtown 66 times in order to help me write the last chapter of The Ice Plague: Book One. (I’m not finished yet, but I’m much closer).

[hyungkyun]

(^:

HENLO!!! this is ur actual bday present, not that Gross thing i sent earlier lol. again, do whatever u want with it!! u dont have to post it or anything. it’s just easier to submit stuff like this than to, idk, send u an email like a señora lol.

ok so im doing this in bullet point format bc the last time I wrote a coherent, well-written paragraph was like 5 years ago or smth. anyway!! since u hated soooo much my beautiful, amazing, unique goths au im going with the loser couple au… which was also a college au of sorts?? dskjhksjdf this isn’t even an au, since y’all are already losers tbh (^: this also got out of hand…. this shit is eight pages long. idk enjoy bithc.

first of all, ck the kind of dude everyone’s lowkey scared of bc he’s silent and serious af. also he does seem kind of a weirdo, tbh?

youve seen him around, maybe you’re in the same dorms but u have absolutely no idea what he’s majoring in :o and u ask around but no one has any idea either!! oh wow a mystery~~

BUT he’s kinda cute hmmm (^: and u probably find the weirdo vibe interesting

however it’s so hard to get to talk to him. u always run into him when you’re out with friends or in a hurry to get to class so :///

but destiny works in mysterious ways~~~ and once u meet it’s rly. so unexpected.

actually, it’s awful since u get locked out of ur dorm sound familiar?? during winter break, rly late at night after a long study session at the library yes, the library, fight me. so u kinda just. sit down miserably outside ur room, since ur roommates are gone, cursing everything and everyone. u will eventually go looking for someone to help u out or smth but right now u need to Whine.

but oh my!! enter mister im changkyun!!! that weirdo who actually lives a couple of doors away from u (how come you never found out wtf???)

he sees u basking in ur misery and actually. finds u rly cute??? bc you’re pouting, cursing a little under ur breath, fumbling with ur phone. but u also look angry as fuck, ready to kill a man??? and yet you’re really fucking cute what the hell!!!!

so he comes up to u and asks u what’s wrong, to which u answer not so nicely without even looking up from ur phone, bc you’re rly so done with this situation ://

but then u look up and u See who it is fuck fuck fuck fuckfucbicvufkhkcfj

but since ck’s Nice and he understands that u must be having an awful time (and also bc he thinks youre cute) he offers to help u. you’re kind of skeptical since he’s just another student, what could he do???

until he tells u he knows how to pick locks lmaoaoaoaoa. that lil weirdo (‘:

anyway he saves ur night. but since he’s an annoying lil shit he’ll tease u abt it every time he runs into u for the rest of winter break.

since that day y'all basiclly become an old, bickering, married couple fnsdjdj

u never stop annoying each other…. you’re wearing a hoodie? he’ll probably pull the hood all the way down until it covers ur eyes, and u get him back by messing up his hair which, by the way,is so soft….. hmmmm

u call each other nerd and loser and dumbass all the time lmao. he’ll constantly bring up the way u met just to jokingly say that you’d be lost without him :/// he rly is a lil shit.

it’s funny bc everyone figures out u are falling for each other… except u two. and i rly do mean everyone. ur friends. his friends. ur roommates. ur cat. the janitor, too, probably. it’s so obvious it hurts.

one time someone implies u would be a cute couple and y'all literally go all ‘no???? haha me??? liking that loser??? pfft not in a million years’

it’s the biggest lie, of course (: and ever since that person suggested u would look good together, both of u kind of realize it’d be… nice. more than nice. actually, super nice.

but since both of u are dumb tsunderes,  as ive said before, u will literally be the embodiment of this scene… except it goes both ways. honestly u are so gone for each other it’s GROSS.

but we need some angst up in here so y'all dont get together for a reaaaaaaally long time :/ smh. the pining is Real. ppl come and go in ur lives, and each person u go out with sees that u already fell for someone else—and that’s why all potential relationships don’t last much–, but sdjkfhksjdhk!!! neither of u want to openly admit it.

it’s A Mess bc u are actually good friends and u tell each other abt ur dates and stuff—secretly hoping the other will do something—but y'all looove being dumb so u act like it’s all cool and be like ‘o rly!! good for u, i hope it works out’. right. :/

y’all keep dancing around each other for several months until one Merciful Soul gets tired of ur shit and forces u to sort things out. im talking abt locking u up in some room and not letting u out until u stop pretending u aren’t disgustingly in love with each other. or smthequally cheesy (: u know ilove cheese

((obviously everyone eavesdrops through the door bc cmon, theyve been waiting for this for sooooo long))

at first u two are just annoyed at the Merciful Soul betchait was minhyuk, and u spend ur time yelling and cursing them for doing this (all while claiming that this is pointless, since u have NO feelings for each other. none. nada!)

after a very long time, it’s ck the one that confesses first lmao. youve been whining and being grumpy the whole time youve been locked up together and it kinda reminded him of the way u met… damn. here come The Feelings.

he’s tired, and there’s nothing left to lose. so he tells u The Truth.

[suspenseful pause….. what’s going to happen next?? :OOOOO]……… tune in next year to find out, in the continuation of Cristina’s Cheesy Birthday Present!!!

jk, proceed to the next bullet point pls.

obviously u tell him u feel the same way [insert ppl crying in the background] and he’s actually shocked when u say u like him back…. and gosh, he does look cute when he’s surprised…

so yeah!!! it’s until then that u FINALLY go on a date during the weekend!!. hallelujah. thanks minhyuk,u beautiful soul.

so!!! ok!! first date!!! a rly cute fairground in the evening!!!

u try to be fake mean to each other like u used to but everything feels different~~~ (^:

so instead y’all act bashful as hell, and blush at everything jjdfghjfhd. hands brushing accidentally?? BLUSH. eyes meeting? BLUSH. BLUSH BLUSH BLUSH!!! u also laugh at everything bc both of u are so nervous oh gmhg fdknjjkdsfjoidf this is gross.

he’ll tell bad jokes to make u laugh and they’re rly so so so bad that he actually keeps u in stitches. if u look rly closely you’ll see his huge ass heart eyes bc !!!! he made u laugh!!!! and u look so pretty when u laugh omg!!!! dis-gos-tinnnnn

it’d be such a cute date tbh im crying just thinking abt it (‘’’’: obviously he’s a gentleman and he lets u choose what to eat, which ride to go to first, etc. u could literally tell him ‘hey let’s just sit down and do nothing’ and he’d say yes. he’s so gONe, ifmgfjdmf.

he’s kinda quiet and a lot shier than u wouldve expected but youre literally melting bc that’s a new side to him that you’d never thought you’d see.

u end up having so much fun (‘: u gross lil idiots, u.

oh and he’s def the type to ask if he can kiss u at the end of the night EYYYYYY

even if u find that incredibly endearing you’ll probably roll ur eyes with a huge ass smile on urlips lmaoaoaoao and call him a dummy for even asking when you’ve literally be in cloud nine since ur date started kjkhwjeqdkwjlk  

[hello, brief break to clarify that from this point i forgot this was actually a college au lmao, so the rest of the bullet points are literally just. random facts abt u two dating hhhhhh. We dont even know what ck’s major is odjfngnfdj]  

at first things are a lil awkward in ur relationship tbh

catch ck googling ‘how to relationship’ on a daily basis dnfndkfjdncn he is sort of clueless abt how to handle The Feelings. mostly bc this is Important and the last thing he wants is to mess it up )^:

that goes away eventually, tho!! he’ll start being his weird little self real fucking soon, so Get Ready

u still call each other nerd and all that stuff, but ur voices are dripping with fondness when u say it… literally everyone around u gets cavities from it, ew.

he’s not that big on planning dates but from time to time he’ll take u to rly cool, unexpected, interesting places :o  and eventually he’ll show u his favorite secret spots ((’:

study dates are a thing. i bet he’s that type of person that enjoys reading in weird ass positions… his legs are like, halfway off the couch and his arm is bent in a way that looks almost painful… what the hell….?? but it’s fine (: it goes so well with ur study methods, those that are Too Weird for the library, yeah?? (:

he will also stare at u a lot bc u look cute when you’re rly focused on smth that is, when u stop  whining abtstudying…

every time u catch him doing that you’ll go all ‘stop staring at me!!! wtf are u looking at u weirdo’ and he’ll answer ‘you’re so pretty~~~ ♥️♥️♥️’. you’ll blush like a lil idiot, naturally (^: hmmmm

and yea, yea. nap dates are a thing too :/// with sleepy forehead kisses and raspy voices and tangled limbs. all that sappy stuff. he’s a lil shit tho, so he’ll sometimes poke ur ribs to tickle u lmao.

buuuut he’ll also take a lot of pics of u sleeping bc he thinks youre cute )))): his faves always end up being his wallpaper for months.

he’ll get strange gifts for u, like rly bizarre plushies and rare books on topics he thinks u will like,  tacky anime memorabilia, etc. he’ll always give them to u at random times bc he just saw them and reminded him of u ♥️  

he makes a lot of playlists for u too!!! pls listen closely, he puts a lot more thought into them than he lets on.

u like his selfies??? well he’ll send u a lot of those. unfortunately, bc he’s a lil shit, he’ll mostly send double chins and weird ass faces from equally weird angles  

from time to time he’ll send u a Nice One tho ((((^: and u know, tongue selfies since youreSO fond of his(and I quote) “5ft tongue”. and oh gosh! is that a tongue piercing…??? eyyyyyy

if u want to take couple selfies then you’re gonna have a real hard time bc he’ll always be making weird faces and poses just to be annoying. eventually u will make dumb faces too tho (’: what a couple of losers

expect weird random texts: he loves telling u abt whatever is on his mind—probably aliens. he thinks a lot abt aliens and the universe. throw some conspiracy theories in there, too—. he’ll also send obscure memes. and a lot of russian cats!!

he’ll love ur cosplay hobbie. he thinks it’s super cool. he’ll call u a nerd but don’t be fooled! he totally brags abt it with his friends (^:

oh! and this is unrelated but at some point y'all will look like an emo goth couple. u won’t even realize that you’re both wearing black and looking Edgy, it’ll just happen spontaneously. tragic 😔

there are a lot of comfortable silences when u hang out, but late night deep convos are also fundamental :o!!! bc y'all are Smort.

he’ll act like f*cboi from time to time tbh?? he’ll tell lots of dirty jokes LMAO. u roll ur eyes at him a lot bc they’re rly. so bad.

if he winks or does Eyebrow Things then u can’t rly roll ur eyes and act like you’re annoyed bc (: u like it (: and u think it suits him (: and he knows it (: (: (:

u get back at him by telling him he’s cute tho, and he’ll get all shy and he’ll stutter and saying “noooooo” while also fighting back a smile

he will also howl or bark at u to annoy u jdfhkjdf. damn f*rry ://

on that note, he loves to embarrass u in front of ur friends bc he’s a lil shit :DD

But he’s also the sweetest??? whenever he sees you’re feeling down he’ll start doing weird shit to make u laugh. if that doesn’t work then he’ll hug u real tight without saying anything else, bc that’s Enough, u know?? (’:

ok time to get Domestic lads!!!

Idk who the hell is going to cook bc y'all are a damn mess in the kitchen. u two try to cook Nice Meals sometimes. seven times out of ten u end up ordering takeout lmao.

be prepared: he sings in the shower, and he does so terribly. (he might do it a little louder and a little more off-key sometimes bc he knows it makes u laugh)

random kisses are a thing!!! he kisses ur cheek or ur shoulder or ur nape or literally. any body part he can get his lips on when u two are just hanging out, watching movies or smth. it’s so soft and cute )^: wtf im crying

but also stolen kisses!! he’ll kiss u at the most unexpected of times and it alwaysleaves u breathless

he’ll constantly put his head on ur shoulder and make this face at u (^:  

can’t sleep??? don’t worry!!! he’ll sing to u with that pretty, soothing voice of his

anyway. what I meant is that y’all would be such cute little idiots together this was long af. wow. im so sorry. happy birthday??? lmao

I HAD TO PUT THIS UNDER A READ MORE BC ITS SO FUCKING LONG NAT U DUMBASS ICB U DID THIS KFJSKFJSLKDJFLKJ THIS IS SO CHEESY AND GROSS and it also made me realize that u know too much shit abt me. what was that t*ngue part. im not talking to u ever again. aNYWAY U RLY ARE AN IDIOT I WAS SMILING SO BIG THRU THIS WHOLE THING MAYBE I SCREAMED A LITTLE?????????? FUCK U!!!!!!!! WHATS WITH ‘The Feelings’ PART I HATE THAT I ALMOST DIED FUCK OFF IM NOT LIKE THIS!!!!!!! I DONT HAVE FEELINGS!!!!!! U CANT DO THIS TO ME SKJFHSKJDHFKSLDJFH 

icb u rly did the fairground first date i rly fucking hate u why did i even tell u these things i knew it was gonna fire back im fjjgjkknknnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn ur ‘tragic 😔’ when we become a goth couple :/ u dont understand goth love

why the fuck did u make him howl. i wanna fucking die rn. what the fuck. he fucking would. fuck off.

i dont wanna talk abt all that domestic shit how did u even write all of that without dying i literally wanna rip all my limbs off i wont make any comment. i didnt need to know what that would be like but u looooove ruining my life so :)

i rly hate u ksdjfhskdjhfksjh icb u did this thank u i wanna die??????????? wtf nat !!!!! no but rly thank u :( u took the time to write this long ass college au (is it????? whats cks major tho rly :/ ) and just skdfjsjk u remembered all the weird shit i told u thats cute and also Really Bad what else do u know that i forgot i told u skdfksjh im literally always screaming at u abt this shit how did u !!! remember all of this!!!!! dldskfjshljhlakjsh this is so cute and horrible nat wtf how could u :( now im gonna cry :(

[fakesam]

Belated Black Panther Thoughts

Everything happening regarding Black Panther right now feels like a miracle. You can only congratulate a giant, increasingly powerful conglomerate so much for realizing black money runs the same as white money, but it is still a moment to be celebrated. Seeing a movie this proudly black in the limelight, with such a large budget and plenty of promotional backing, is delightfully paradoxical given the toxic whiteness infecting the national atmosphere from the top down. This movie dropped at the right time. The biggest individual piece of promo comes courtesy of Black Panther: The Album, curated by Kendrick Lamar and the rest of the Top Dawg Entertainment braintrust. Licensed movie soundtracks have experienced something like renaissance over the last couple years, a business maneuver congealing the interests of film studios looking for anything to boost social media traffic and musicians to get some extra exposure and a decent payday. The results of these partnerships has been mixed at best, even when the Best Rapper Alive is involved. Remember when Kendrick rapped over an overly macho remix of Tame Impala’s “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”? Most people don’t.

Even with this project, it was easy to develop some cynicism about the final results. Kendrick has become more and more intransigent about being the voice of the voiceless, but he’s hasn't been above easy mainstream pop dollars in the past. Man gave verses to Taylor Swift and Maroon 5, and performed with Imagine Dragons. “All The Stars”, the most successful single off The Album, is a pleasant enough pop-rap hit that struts perfectly over the end credits of a blockbuster, but it lacks the depth of feeling that has made Lamar the current Poet Laureate of Black America. There’s also “Pray For Me”, a Weeknd and Kendrick collab that sounds like it was salvaged off the Starboy cutting room floor. These songs are fine, but eminently forgettable. Thankfully, these tracks are clear outliers, the lone examples of mainstream genuflecting across the entire project. The uniqueness and specificity that makes Black Panther so appealing as a film is also apparent in the sprawling sonic odyssey of its soundtrack. It’s better than anyone could've hoped for.

The playlist era of album design, gives credence to the worst impulses of people just trying to get paid, narrative coherence be damned. Migos’ Culture II was ruined by an engorged tracklist that led to a runtime comparable to most of the nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars. Twenty-four songs was at least ten too many, but who needs an editor when the penalty for choosing quantity over quality is so minimal? But it’s the perfect format for a movie soundtrack.

Kendrick’s ability as a tastemaker has never really been a thing to consider until now. His albums are hermetically-sealed portraits of his psyche, exploring his personal tensions and how they’re informed by his personal history and the lineage of black strife in America. This intricate exploration of his inner self doesn’t leave much room for other voices - the featured artists welcomed into his world are brought in for a very specific purpose. Kendrick is also very selective about the songs of other artists he’s willing to jump on. Combine that with his social media reticence, and the lists of contemporaries that Kendrick listens to are tantalizingly vague. There’s an undeniable intrigue to learning who a near-consensus superstar genius deems worthy of the aux cord. Consciously leeching on to the burgeoning movements of younger rappers is a tactic that Drake has perfected over the years. The two current titans of hip-hop have been acting out a musical cold war for the last couple years, so it’s tempting in a sense to think of Black Panther: The Album as Kendrick running with Drake’s idea of a “playlist project” that he tried to make happen with the release of More Life.

But it’s much more tempting to talk about the sumptuous quality of this music on hand. The litany of artists brought together to assemble this album, a mix of established stars, burgeoning upstarts and total unknowns, bring disparate genres and musical approaches to the table, all cohesively strung together under the diasporic flag of black excellence.

It’s obvious in hindsight to see why Kendrick was so attracted to the project that he asked to oversee the entire soundtrack after watching snippets of the film during its production. The divide between T’Challa and Killmonger’s views on progress mirrors the internal strife that has Kendrick has been ruminating on his entire career. TDE took their role as gatekeepers seriously, drawing delineations between the conflicts of the movie and the endless struggle that is sadly inherent with the black experience. Black Panther could never have the intimate complexity of a solo Kendrick record, but it details the black experience with more nuance than many albums told from one perspective. The strokes are broad, but the completed painting is still worthy of admiration.

Most of TDE shows up in some form. SZA provides the hook on the aforementioned “All the Stars”, Schoolboy Q reminds us of his undeniable charisma on “X”. Ab-Soul puts together his first good verse since his 2012 album Control System on “Bloody Waters”. We even get a glimpse of the lesser seen, frivolous Kendrick on “Big Shot”, a bouncy, “New Freezer” interpolating Travis Scott collab that doubles as the latest entry in the “Dope Rap Songs built around a Flute Sample” pantheon. from rap to pop to heavily indebted house music from South Africa. But it’s the newer faces that making their formal introduction to larger audiences that makes this album genuinely exciting. SOB x RBE have received most of the acclaim for their scene-stealing performance on “Paramedic”, and that praise is warranted, but they’re not the only up and comers who killed it. Jorja Smith makes a war march sound like heaven on “I Am”, and South African artists Yugen Blakrok and Babes Wodumo make their case for international renown on “Opps” and the South African house jam “Redemption”. Kendrick is present on every song - his contributions ranging from being the best rapper alive to windy background vocalist - but he’s very much a secondary figure in the works of others.

It’s bears repeating how remarkable it is that this thing has been allowed to exist. That Future inhales a bunch of helium, interpolates Slick Rick, and asks for a blowjob with one absurdly entertaining turn of phrase. Someone at Marvel signed off on all of this. We should all be thankful for that man or woman or committee of persons. What could’ve been a simple cash grab for TDE becomes something much more stirring and exciting thanks to a commitment to take the source material seriously enough to use it as a launching point for work that is both evocative and entertaining. A perfect table setter for the main event.

As I sat in the chair of the theater waiting for the movie to start, I was slightly nervous about the quality of the movie. The hype cycle had spun into overdrive had built the movie to stratospheric heights. Black Panther stopped being a movie and became a religious communion. That’s a lot to live up to. Aside from the inescapable expectations created by fans, Marvel’s cinematic spell lost their power over me years ago, as the negative aspects of the “Movies as TV episodes” system became more glaring. Nothing of consequence ever happened and the action scenes were overwrought and anticlimactic, antiseptic, CGI-soaked action that put me to sleep. The last comic book movie I enjoyed without much reservation was the first Guardians of the Galaxy, way back in 2014, 87 years ago. Even Wonder Woman, one of the rare superhero films allowed to take some risks - as much as giving women the chance to be all-powerful warriors without the prompting of a man counts as a risk to some people - lost me during the third act when Gal Gadot fought a Bloodborne boss yelling corny “Give In To Evil and Join Me!!!!!!!” dialogue in the middle of a flaming airfield. When comic book movies go extremely comic book-y, I lose all interest. My expectations were middling despite the widespread adoration of the movie that compelled me to go see it in the first place. Not quite as cynical as I tend to be, but not wearing a T’Challa costume to the theater.

By the time the entire elite class of Wakanda was shimmying from on high while T’Challa fought for the throne of this Afro-futurist utopia (the first time this happens), I realized how wrong my assumptions were. I didn’t realize how much I needed this movie to exist. Just witnessing this much blackness - a proud, intelligent, secure version of blackness - actively enriched me while I was watching it. The power of representation isn’t lost on me, but I believed I was past the point where I would experience such gratification from a giant blockbuster. I underestimated how affirming it would be to see this much black prosperity on film. It’s amazing how impactful the casting of black actors in roles usually given to white people can be. I’m jealous of little kids who can look up to Shuri or T’Challa or Nakia and feel a little less ashamed of themselves at a young age. M’Baku’s capacity to be large and menacing and also capable of telling jokes about cannibalism is magical. I would watch all of these characters do anything for hours. Instant icons, all of them.  

Black Panther also solves the eternal villain problem that’s been flummoxing superhero films since Heath Ledger died. Killmonger is incredible. He is still a villain, since his endgame of choice is to start a literal race war, but his motivations and reasoning up to that point are totally understandable. From an outsider’s perspective, Wakanda is this hovel of selfish conservatism that does nothing to stop systemic oppression and kills anyone who whispers about their existence too loudly. Sitting pretty in their Vibranium-powered towers above the struggle. It’d be easy to resent Wakanda if you’ve never seen Shuri pranking T’Challa in her lab. The most logical emotion for him is anger. He went out like a G, too. That last line was perfect. I would have liked to see more of a conversation between Killmonger and T’Challa before he took over, but you can only hope for so much civil rights philosophizing in a blockbuster. It was enough to feel like the obligatory third act battle was had actual stakes. Black Panther finally made the Game of Thrones fandom sensible to me. Political maneuvering can be way more engaging than I realized. Blame George Lucas for that train of thought.

I find it hard to think about this movie in any critical sense because I’m so happy that it was allowed to exist in this form. After sleeping on it, I will concede that the South Korea sequence didn’t need to be that long. The “Andy Serkis is a Soundcloud rapper” goof was an airball. But anyone who would rather complain about about the scene’s usefulness as a plot device more so than celebrate the badassery of Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira is not to be trusted. Same goes for the fact that this movie has a sense of humor that can’t be reduced to just Tony Stark saying something snarky or tryhard quirkiness, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 style. They really let Ryan Coogler do that shit. Black Panther is the first Marvel movie that was clearly in the hands of an auteur, with a vision uncompromised by studio notes or the compulsion to tie itself to the rest of Marvel Cinematic Universe. This movie never feigns interest in the machinations of the Avengers or whatever wold-destroying portal they need to destroy, and thank god for that. The narrowness of the story lends itself to much more in-depth character development and a sense of place. It rarely feels or looks like other Marvel movies. Wakanda is too good for reality, but the open designs of the shopping areas and the impeccable fashion of the citizens tied into the history of African culture in a way that's easy to intuit. Shoutout to the Codeine Crazy-esque skyline in T’Challa’s first herb-induced vision. Shoutout to the guy with the giant disc in his mouth. Man had fits for days.

Even my mom loved it. I saw the movie with her and Danai Gurira’s performance was so good that she thought about shaving her own head in her honor. She also said she wanted braids like Angela Bassett’s character, but quickly decided against it because of the time commitment to getting such a hairstyle. But getting that level of inspiration from a Marvel movie spells out how special Black Panther is. I rarely watch movies with her anymore. Our tastes have mostly split as I’ve grown up. I haven’t seen her that giddy walking out of the theater since… ever? Her love of the movie really made it clear how special this moment is for the culture. I kinda hate that I said for the culture, but I don’t know how to end this.  Many thanks to Ryan Coogler and company for giving me that moment. Uhhhhhhhhhh bye.

[jswdmb1]

Video Killed The Radio Star

“We hear the playback 

and it seems so long ago

And you remember 

the jingles used to go”

- The Buggles

My mom asked me to help her set up an Apple TV a while back, and it made me realize how far we have come as far as entertainment options go.  I remember the day my dad came home and announced he saw that they were installing cable TV lines in the neighborhood.  He was about as excited as I have ever seen him.  It meant we increased our channel roster from about five to over thirty!  There was a network that played sports 24 hours a day!  We could watch movies at home uncut and uninterrupted.  I wanted my MTV and now I got it!  It may seem quaint to someone who wasn’t there at the time, but it was an incredibly cool and mind-blowing experience when you consider how our viewing experience exponentially changed with the installation of that little black cable.

As I was setting up the Apple TV, and all of the incredible options that come with it, I did not feel the same as that day in 1983 when I could now watch Nickelodeon and Australian rules football to my heart’s content.  Sure, the explosion of viewing options within cable and streaming services are just awesome, but sometimes it seems too much.  The immediate gratification of it all is disappointing as well.  The concept of binge watching seems to take away from the anticipation we used to have from the episode we waited all week for (or all summer for a cliffhanger).  That anticipation would start with the show’s theme song, which I feel is a real lost art.  Just the act of hearing that familiar tune along with credits and scenes of the stars of the show was almost as exciting as the show itself.  It may make me seem old and out-of-touch, but I really miss those days when we lived without DVRs and on demand viewing and got real theme songs to kick off your entertainment viewing experience.

But instead of rueing over days long lost, let’s celebrate some of those old shows (that ironically are all over Hulu and Netflix) that were not only great programs, but had the type of theme songs that really made you feel good when they came on.  It meant something that you waited for all week was about to arrive, and for an hour or two you could lose yourself in a world away from your own.  I now present to you my ten favorite tv theme songs and their shows, in no particular order:

1) All in the Family - In fall of 1973, CBS put forth what is considered the finest lineup on one night in television history. On Saturday nights, people stayed home for three straight hours of unparalleled entertainment. This was the start of it all at 7:00 (all times I give you are Central). There was no better lead off than Edith and Archie sitting at the piano singing “Those Were the Days”. How cool is it to have your lead actors sing the theme song live. All In the Family was so great it had a separate ending theme. You can read plenty elsewhere about the groundbreaking episodes that went on in between, but the theme music from this series gets us off and running.

2) Rockford Files - This show always opened with a unique montage of a client of Jim’s leaving a message on his answering machine. What followed was what I consider the best music composition on the list. Written by Mike Post, it is a funky, hard driving and timeless theme just like the Pontiac Firebird he drove. I like this song so much it is often in my normal rotation on many of my daily playlists. The program was great, for sure my favorite detective show of all time, but I would tune in just for this song.

3) Hill Street Blues - This is another Mike Poat theme, but couldn’t be more different than Rockford’s theme. Jazzy rather than funky and smooth versus hard driving, the piano of the song seemed to sum up everything this show was about. I recently caught up with some episodes on Hulu recently and forgot how ahead of its time this show was. Before Hill Street Blues, police dramas tended to tie things up neatly before the hour ended. This show, like life, didn’t always work out so well. The sadness of the lives in the people in the show is tinged throughout the theme. But, you also hear some hope in the final chords, and I think that what the show was all about. It told us that life could be a grind and full of despair, but there are also a lot of good people trying their best to ease suffering and make this world a better place. That’s a lot to pack into one theme song, but this one hits all the right notes.

4) M*A*S*H - This was in the 7:30 slot on the CBS Saturday lineup and was put there to boost its ratings in its second season. As hard as it is to believe in hindsight, the show struggled to find its audience in its first year. For many folks, the opening theme was their first introduction to this unique medical/war comedy/drama. Like the show, the theme (titled “Suicide is Painless”) was taken from the 1970 movie of the same name. The TV version dropped the lyrics and became one of the most instantly recognizable themes ever. The show that followed is very good too. I must confess that I am a bit of a M*A*S*H aficionado and the second season was one of their best (I’m partial to the McLean Stevenson/Wayne Rogers episodes). If you haven’t watched the show in a while, give a couple of episodes a spin (now on Hulu). I’ll bet dollars to donuts you are whistling the theme the rest of the day.

5) WKRP In Cincinnati - A terribly underrated show with an equally underrated theme, the quirky gang at WKRP were always good for some laughs and DJs spinning great records. While the theme song is fantastic (“...baby just think of me once in a while” is such a great line), the real soundtrack of the show was the late 70s/early 80s rock and roll in the background of each episode. Unfortunately, due to licensing issues, you don’t get those songs in the reruns, but the crazy storylines and big laughs that come with them still make this series worth your time. As a side note, the lyrics in the theme at the end are pure jibberish. The writer of the song used nonsense words as placeholders but the producers kept them in as a bit of an inside joke about how hard rock lyrics are to understand. I think that perfectly sums up what WKRP is all about.

6) Mary Tyler Moore Show - Who can turn the world on with a smile?  Mary no doubt did it every Saturday night at 8:00.  I have vague memories of this show the first time it came around as first run episodes, but found it later in reruns and discovered what a true gem it is.  The characters were quirky and unique without being oversimplified and the acting of the supporting cast was brilliant.  Any show with Ed Asner, Ted Knight and Betty White is going to end up being our gold.  As for the theme song, I think it is the most hopeful and happy on the surface, but it always struck a sad note with me.  There always seemed to be a back story with Mary in the show that we weren’t always getting that hinted of difficult times before she got to Minneapolis.  The song echos that and her throwing the hat up at the end seems to tell us that no matter how rough things were, or might end up, she’ll keep that smile on her face.  Not a bad lesson for all of us to follow.

7) Three’s Company - In the interest of full disclosure, I did not watch this show when it first aired.  It was banned from my house by my mother because it was “stupid”.  Once I left the house for college, I wanted to start trying new things and testing my independence in this world, so the first thing I did was devote every weeknight from 10:00 to 11:00 to the Three’s Company reruns on Channel 32.  What I saw was certainly a bit stupid but far from a  waste of time. Arguably, the show included some of the finest physical comedy of it’s day and was a great showcase for actors like John Ritter, Norman Fell (Mr. Roper) and Don Knotts.  Admittedly, the premise and some of the themes of the show have not aged well, but I never saw anything but an intent to have fun and provide a few laughs.  That was conveyed in the theme song which was as light and airy as the breeze coming off the Pacific while standing on the pier in Santa Monica.  For me, just the sound of that song brings back a memory of living in the college dorms and starting off an independent life full of promise and possibilities.  Each episode of this show felt the same even if each could have been solved in the first two minutes with a simple question or statement like “No, Mr. Furley, Jack is getting a Mexican pot to cook in, not the kind you smoke”.  I guess though, that wouldn’t have been all that funny.

8) Barney Miller - This one is on here purely for the bass line.  The notes are unmistakeable and leads into a full jazz combo with killer lead guitar.  The funk you hear in the theme follows along with the show.  The detectives at the precinct seemed to take what initially seemed to be mundane aspects of police work and turn every epsiode into a funky life lesson.  I read somewhere that real cops think this is the police show more true to life than any other they have seen.  I’m guessing it was because they drew up characters so real to the point where you would think of them as people first and not some exaggerated character as most police are drawn up on TV.  The whole thing just worked and really was quite funny.  The episodes hold up very well in reruns as well, so if you have never given it a try, I think you’ll find that it is as good as any other cop show you have seen recently.

9) Bob Newhart Show - Anchoring the CBS Saturday night 8:30 slot is another jazzy instrumental that is a great theme, but in this case the show behind it was the real gem.  Just like Barney Miller, The Bob Newhart Show took the fairly mundane aspects of life - whether it be at the office or at home - and mined them for laugh after laugh.  For those who are finds of Mr. Newhart (Loyola, Class of ‘52), this is no surprise.  Bob could literally turn a phone call into absolute hilarity.  His choice of profession on the show was perfect as well - for those who don’t know he played a psychologist. As someone who has spent a lot of time in the offices of mental health professionals, I can tell you first hand that the only portrayal that I have seen that is true-to-life is the one on this show.  The group therapy sessions are always the real gems and this show nails exactly what they are like.  I can’t it explain it much further, just go get a copy of the first season of this and watch it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.  Also, this show gets credit for one of the best wacky neighbors - Howard the pilot played by the incomparable Bill Daley.  Of all of the shows on this list, this is the one that I would recommend you check out before all others.  

10) The Love Boat - The show was pretty lame though I can be talked into watching anything that could have Sonny Bono, Vincent Price, and Chart as guest stars on the same night.  The theme, however, was a winner.  Sure it was cheesy, but it fit the series perfectly and always gave me the impression that I would know I made it in life if I could take a cruise on a boat like the Pacific Princess (I haven’t so I guess that I’m still waiting to make it).  Another reason that I love this show is that I have fond memories watching it with my Grandma when we would occasionally stay over at her house on Saturday nights.  Her smart comments about all of the washed up actors and how bad they looked or untalented they were was the real entertainment of the evening.  Plus, just the fact that she let us stay up late to watch it was a real treat in it of itself.  She would make us popcorn and let us have a soda and we could just live it up.  It’s funny how the most simple things in life end up being the most memorable.  I’d give anything right now for an hour again with her and that show.  Gosh, what fun.

Honorable mentions include the themes from Hawaii 5-0, The Golden Girls, Cheers, Sanford & Son, The Greatest America Hero, Good Times, The Odd Couple, Welcome Back Kotter, and Miami Vice

Now, I know that I’m being a real old-timer here by bringing out these ancient shows, but I will challenge you to a different binge-watching experience before passing judgment on my list.  Just You Tube the ten opening theme songs/credits that I list here and watch them in order.  You don’t even have to watch whole episodes of these shows (though if you the time you should). I guarantee that you will get a feel for what it was like when these shows were first on the tube.  Or, if that’s too much work, I made you a playlist with a few other favorites:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2J8rLlC3FIAvaCLmQg95vT?si=fpgJ8wYaSH-V0M0gP12rvA 

I am now at the ending point of this post.  It’s always hard for me to come up with a good finish to one of these.  I now realize that I need a good theme song.  I guess that is going to be hard to convey in written form and also because I don’t have one, but hum something catchy in your head and play it across images of the great times you just had reading this blog.  

Until next time....

Jim

P.S. - The last hour of “The Greatest Night in Television” on CBS was occupied by the Carol Burnett Show. A fantastic program, but not my favorite theme, so it did not make the list. Still worth checking out if you find it on somewhere if only to watch the cast crack up at Tim Conway’s antics.

[apirateslifeforme123]

Awww, you guys! Ok, I am going to answer these in the order of which the fic was written. I feel like there’s a progression here, lol. So, first off, for the lovely @princesspenelopenerfherder on With This Ring, Or Fate Intervenes:

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

I hadn’t written for the POTC genre in a while, and after binging on a bunch of fic old and new Sparrabeth I wanted to try my hand again. I had also been reading a lot of books about pirates at this point, doing some research for an original work that I’m still only 30,000 words into lol, and felt I had a better hold on the historical/nautical aspects than ten years ago when I first was writing for POTC. I read those fics now and literally want to bang my head onto the desk. The book Empire of Blue Water about Henry Morgan definitely inspired a great deal of it.

2: What scene did you first put down?

I had some other vague ideas first, but I think I actually wrote the island scenes first. Was definitely thinking about Jack and Lizzy on that island, lol, the ring exchange, and also my husband was watching a lot of naked and afraid at that point. I think it rubbed off on me haha.

 3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

I guess I don’t have a favorite. I kind of oscillate between third person omniscient and third person limited through out the fic, depending what it felt it needed.

 4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

Oh gosh. I love so many. But Ok, when Jack and Lizzy are in the garden during the ball, and she’s furious and sad because Jack won’t tell her what he’s up to, and she thinks Jack is leaving without her, and he’s trying to assure her that he’s just putting things to rights.

 “And which side of the law will you be on?”

“The proper side for a rogue like me, that is to say, the wrong side, though balance will have been restored in a way the law always seems to fall short of.”

 5: What part was hardest to write?

It’s always that plateau leading up to the end action that ALWAYS snags me. Always, no matter what fic. I have a complex with finishing things or something, I don’t know.

 6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

It’s kind of unique in that Jack and Elizabeth have known each other since she was a child in this verse. And also that its set in Morgan’s time, c. 1680ish, as opposed to the canon POTC verse that could be anywhere from 1730-70. Lol. It was also fun to write Jack returning to the fold of society as a privateer. Writing him at dinner with Morgan and the Governor et al was a hoot, and Lizzy kicking him under the table. haha

 7: Where did the title come from?

The first vague idea I had of this fic was Jack and Lizzy during the mar-i-age scene in DMC. I was thinking that it would be funny if he tricked her into thinking they were “pirate married” if he gave her one of his cool rings. And somehow, it evolved out into the island instead, and all the rest with it. I had rings on the brain...and the rest sounded like poetry. ;)

 8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

LOL and to elaborate on the above, I suppose I was thinking about cool pirate rings because I work in antiques, and sometimes we get those awesome Georgian gold skull rings with the steely rose cut diamonds. JFC they are COOL. I can never afford to keep them tho, so I guess I thought I’d write about it instead. Vicarious collecting, as it were.

 9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Plenty of alternate scenes, I’m sure. I keep a file of scraps and ideas, and it’s always like a graveyard for things that don’t quite make the cut.

 10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

I know I write a lot of Norribeth too now, but Sparrabeth is my original fav, and I still feel like Sparrabeth was the OTP that really *should* have happened in the movie. The fact that it didn’t was just the worst writing ever. ::glares at T & T::

 11: What do you like best about this fic?

I think it was pretty original, and a bit epic, in length at least, lol. I liked the time frame being different, and Jack having sailed with Morgan and getting screwed over by him and Barbossa on one of their raids, rather than the Becket drama as his backstory. I love thinking up different back stories for Jack, there are so many ways he could have turned out the way he is.

 12: What do you like least about this fic?

Oh god. The way I skewered James Norrington’s character, it’s sooo OoC. He’s a great antagonist in this one, Jack’s rival and all, but I look back on it now and totally face palm. I confess I really didn’t properly understand him at the time. I hadn’t seen COTBP in a while, and for some reason I remembered James being the one who demanded he make the rescue of Will a wedding present to Elizabeth. Which is so not right, lol, because actually ELIZABETH is the manipulator in that scene. But…so I thought he was the stick in the mud Navy officer who didn’t really see Elizabeth for who she was, though he does truly, twistedly, love her in this fic. It would be interesting to write a version of this in which James isn’t so out of character, it would be waaaay more complicated emotionally. This fic is pretty black and white.

 13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

I have all kinds of ridiculous playlists for fics, though I don’t listen to music when I write, only when I’m thinking about a fic, if that makes sense. At this period I suspect the playlist involved Jack Johnson and some Kenny Chesney beach tunes lol. Probably some Jimmy Buffet too…

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

I guess the thing I want people to take away from all my fics is that girls should be strong and true to themselves, and that a man who truly loves you will never try to make you into something you’re not. Hard won lessons on my part, so maybe someone else’s journey will be less painful for reading this? Or not.

 15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

I learned a lot doing research about pirates, the Caribbean at this time, boats and sailing. I’m always learning new things when I write, it’s a good way to explore a subject and really get a proper understanding of it.

[thunder-star-has-doom-pickles]

all questions you can't let any be sad and unanswered

Okay anon here we go! 

1.Who was the last person you held hands with? I honestly have no idea. I’m not a very hand-holdy person. Best guess would be @thegoinbetweens whilst being annoying/weird, haha. 2. Are you outgoing or shy? I’d err more on outgoing, at least in small groups of people. But out going in a more being-generally-friendly sense, more than grand gestures of extroversion, haha. 3. Who are you looking forward to seeing? I’m really looking forward to seeing my family at the end of the month. :34. Are you easy to get along with? I’d like to think so, if you mean just casually getting along. I can be hard to genuinely get to know. 5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you? Not sure I really *like* anyone right now. But, I’m sure my rather small number of previous interests would, given they’ve all been decent human beings, and taking care of an intoxicated friend is kinda just basic human decency. 6. What kind of people are you attracted to? *See question 38 I suppose.*7. Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? Highly unlikely. But I’m open to being proven otherwise. ;) ;) ;) (lolwat)8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind? Not really anyone right now. Romantically, anyway. 9. Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? Depends on who I’m talking about it with to be honest. 10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? Nicci. 11. What does the most recent text that you sent say? “We should go through that 36 Questions list thing that you sent me ages ago. So I’m kicking it off with #1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?”12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now? My friend made me a playlist last spring/summer, so 5 (and more) songs from that. But I’d like to keep that playlist for me because it is special and ~yay good friendship~ :313. Do you like it when people play with your hair? Yeeeeesssss~~~ I don’t really like a lot of touching but massages and hair playing o m g sign me up. 14. Do you believe in luck and miracles? In a way, yes. 15. What good thing happened this summer? Philly trip in May was a great time. 16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again? Haven’t kissed anyone, so I got nothin’ for ya. 17. Do you think there is life on other planets? Probably. 18. Do you still talk to your first crush? Nope. 19. Do you like bubble baths? Only on the Most Extreme Rare™ occasion.  20. Do you like your neighbors? Back in my hometown, yes. 21. What are you bad habits? Tapping/touching/holding/moving/playing with literally all objects in front of my without really thinking about it.  22. Where would you like to travel? I’d love to go to Australia or New Zealand! 23. Do you have trust issues? Yeah, tbh. 24. Favorite part of your daily routine? Taking off my bra at night and putting on PJs, like w o w ultimate stress relief man. 25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? My upper arms. 26. What do you do when you wake up? Internally crying at the sound of my alarm. What is this godawful time? Why are the birds so happy? Why is there light; harsh, cruel, agonizing light? Why must I toil away through the void of monotonous daily existence when instead I could be cozy and warm? 27. Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? It’s fine where it is? 28. Who are you most comfortable around? Again, Nicci. Also probably my sister. 29. Have any of your ex’s told you they regret breaking up? Never had an ex so.30. Do you ever want to get married? I’d like to, yes. 31. If your hair long enough for a pony tail? Yup. 32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with? None. Sorry. I’m boring. 33. Spell your name with your chin. al,dex 34. Do you play sports? What sports? What are sporps? 35. Would you rather live without TV or music? Hrm. Though I’m more invested in TV than I am in music, probably TV. 36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them? Ahahahahhahaha it me. 37. What do you say during awkward silences? Usually something that just makes it more awkward. 38. Describe your dream girl/guy? Artistically/musically/etc talented. Quiet and contemplative but also just kind of a friendly doof. Like looks kinda broody on first impression, is actually just a cinnamon roll nerd. Also a little impulsive, to be honest. Has a handful of unique interests that he’d get stupidly passionate when talking about them, even if no-one else really cares, and because of this would give anyone else endless hours to talk about their own silly passions. Enjoys walking through quiet areas at night, talking. Good taste in music because I have useless music taste and would want to mooch off of his, haha. Moves hands a lot while talking. Direct and honest in his interests/intentions. I dunno if this is an actual ‘dream-guy’ so much as it is a list of qualities I find myself more drawn to, haha. 39. What are your favorite stores to shop in? Does it sell tea? If so, keep me away from it or I will spend all of my money. 40. What do you want to do after high school? Well. Here I am. In the world of after high school. It’s okay. I’m doing some stuff. College is a good time. 41. Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? /Everyone/? No. Many? Yes. 42. If your being extremely quiet what does it mean? I’m thinking about things. Could range from running through potential questions to worrying about pointless future outcomes and irrational fears to contemplating the plot of a book to considering my present emotional state. I wouldn’t say there is one direct meaning to my silence. 43. Do you smile at strangers? Not usually. but sometimes I make awkward eye contact and don’t know what to do so I look around awkwardly and then look back at them and uncomfortably smile and it’s a mess. 44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean? Ocean. Got some cool fish down there man. 45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning? Sheer willpower and the realization that I have responsibilities and need to be a functioning human. 46. What are you paranoid about? Literally everything. My favorite irrational fear to dwell on is a giant piece of something very heavy falling out of the sky and crushing me without warning. So that’s fun. 47. Have you ever been high? Nope, don’t really want to. 48. Have you ever been drunk? Tipsy, yeah. Properly drunk, I don’t think so. 49. Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? Well I made a birthday gift for a friend so let’s keep that a surprise until it is time to give it to her.50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore? I’m wearing one now!!! It is green~~~~~51. Ever wished you were someone else? Yeah, and also no? Like I value the perspective I have on life and wouldn’t necessarily want to give that up to forever be someone else who sees the world completely differently. But it would also be really cool just to live a day through someone else’s experience and perceptions and way of being. 52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself? I’d be nice to be less focused on negative things sometimes. ^^53. Favourite makeup brand? Not sure I really have one tbh. Don’t use it often enough. Mom got me some bareminerals stuff though and that’s p nice I guess. 54. Favourite store? Anything with tea. 55. Favourite blog? Not sure I have a favorite right now to be honest. 56. Favourite colour? Purple! 57. Favourite food? Apple pie. oDo58. Last thing you ate? A brownie~59. First thing you ate this morning? A sandwich for lunch because what is time for breakfast?60. Ever won a competition? For what? I got first place in my school’s intense science fair thing (even though all my worms died?!!??) which was annoying because I was a senior already and had no interest in continuing this project at further competitions. >.>61. Been suspended/expelled? For what? Nope. 62. Been arrested? For what? Nope. 63. Ever been in love? Definitely friendship love! 64. Tell us the story of your first kiss? I have no tale to tell. 65. Are you hungry right now? Nah. 66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends? A lot of my tumblr friends are my real friends so it’s pretty equal man. 67. Facebook or Twitter? Facebook?68. Twitter or Tumblr? Tumblr.69. Are you watching tv right now? Nope. 70. Names of your bestfriends? Nicci, Annie, Morgan, Ariel, Ashleigh, Caitlin, Kylie, Ryan, Laura, Kristen, Marisa, Rebecca71. Craving something? What? Meaning in life lolololol.72. What colour are your towels? Blue! 72. How many pillows do you sleep with? SO MANY. 73. Do you sleep with stuffed animals? Nope, but so many pillows. 74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have? At home? Like so many. Here at school? Like 5. 75. Favourite animal? Bats, leopards, newts~76. What colour is your underwear? Grey, presently. 77. Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla, but with caramel~78. Favourite ice cream flavour? Cookies and cream is a steady fave. 79. What colour shirt are you wearing? Green~80. What colour pants? Navy PJ pants with snow-flakes on them! 81. Favourite tv show? Avatar: The Last Airbender82. Favourite movie? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind83. Mean Girls or Mean Girls 2? Mean Girls. 84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street? Mean Girls. 85. Favourite character from Mean Girls? Janice was cool.86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo? Dory?87. First person you talked to today? My roommate. 88. Last person you talked to today? It’ll probably end up being my roommate too haha. 89. Name a person you hate? My freaking behind the wheel driving instructor  from 5ever ago ugh. 90. Name a person you love? My sister~91. Is there anyone you want to punch in the face right now? That I’d actually have the ability to do? No?92. In a fight with someone? No?93. How many sweatpants do you have? I dunno like three?94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have? SO MANY. TOO MANY. CANNOT COUNT. It is ideal. 95. Last movie you watched? A documentary called Who Took Johnny.96. Favourite actress? Tatiana Maslany is p cool. 97. Favourite actor? I’m not sure right now? Used to be Tom Hiddleston so I guess him still but I haven’t considered it recently. 98. Do you tan a lot? Nope I burn like a flammable object. 99. Have any pets? 1 doggo! Also some farm cats because I think they count~100. How are you feeling? Alright. Enjoying these questions! A little sad, a little worried, but that’s p standard. 101. Do you type fast? Yes? 102. Do you regret anything from your past? Yuuuuuuup. 103. Can you spell well? Vocally, no, I’m crap. Visually (typing/paper) I’m not terrible, but I wouldn’t say I’m super duper. 104. Do you miss anyone from your past? I miss the way my mom’s side of the family used to be. Lots of drama has happened and it’s ruined a lot of relationships. 105. Ever been to a bonfire party? Yeeeees! They are fun. 106. Ever broken someone’s heart? I’d be shocked if I had. 107. Have you ever been on a horse? Yep! 108. What should you be doing? Homework and readings probably haha. 109. Is something irritating you right now? The current state of the world lulz.110. Have you ever liked someone so much it hurt? Ye. 111. Do you have trust issues? Did we already ask this? But, ye, I think I do. 112. Who was the last person you cried in front of? Hrrrrmmmmmm. Either Nicci via phone or Fort Bees, not sure of order of events. 113. What was your childhood nickname? Scooter. 114. Have you ever been out of your province/state? Yes~115. Do you play the Wii? No. 116. Are you listening to music right now? Not at the moment. 117. Do you like chicken noodle soup? Yeeess~~118. Do you like Chinese food? Yep! 119. Favourite book? I’m really a fan of Cloud Atlas right now. 120. Are you afraid of the dark? Definitely not. The dark is superior. 121. Are you mean? I try not to be, but I can be. 122. Is cheating ever okay? Short answer: No. 123. Can you keep white shoes clean? Probably not. XD124. Do you believe in love at first sight? No. 125. Do you believe in true love? Yes!126. Are you currently bored? I feel more neutral at the moment than I do actively bored. Plus I like answering questions haha. 127. What makes you happy? Tea. Watching the stars on a clear night. Long genuine conversations. Traveling and seeing places in the world. Pushing Daisies hehe. 128. Would you change your name? I’ve considered changing my full first name  (Alexandra) to just Alex. So. Yes I would, but I don’t know if I actual will. 129. What your zodiac sign? Aquarius. 130. Do you like subway? It’s fine.  131. Your bestfriend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? That position is currently held by Ryan, who is currently in a v committed relationship, so I’d have some strong concerns. 132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? Nicci. 133. Favourite lyrics right now? I dunno man that’s so much work. 134. Can you count to one million? CAN I? It is possible. Will I or do I want to? No. 135. Dumbest lie you ever told? Ugh so I got overwhelmed once and made everyone I went to middle school with think I was allergic to peanut butter because I was afraid that I might be because my brother is allergic to it but I’d never been tested or had a severe reaction to it but I didn’t want peanuts on my chocolate cake so I asserted that I was very allergic and this lie has followed me to this day and I don’t know what to do because it’s very dumb and I was a useless middle schooler. 136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed? Closed. What kind of heathen sleeps with them open!?137. How tall are you? 5′1.5138. Curly or Straight hair? Straight. 139. Brunette or Blonde? Brunette.140. Summer or Winter? Already answered141. Night or Day? already answered142. Favourite month? already answered143. Are you a vegetarian? No. 144. Dark, milk or white chocolate? ALL CHOCOLATE~145. Tea or Coffee? Tea~~~~~146. Was today a good day? It was alright. Pretty standard. WizMug was fun~147. Mars or Snickers? Mars. 148. What’s your favourite quote? My roommate once got flustered with people giving her compliments and was trying to saw ‘Aw you guys are buttering me up!’ but ended up saying ‘You guys are greasing me up like a butter ball!’ and I think that’s hilarious. 149. Do you believe in ghosts? I’m open minded, but not convinced. 150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line It’s dark, roommate is sleeping, so alas I cannot do this right now. 

Wow that took a while!  

#interesting ponders 

[soundsgoodfeelsgood]

Thursday 14th may, day 66

NOTE: i actually wrote this as a presentation letter to a guy on Slowly, but i really liked how it turned out so i thought “hm, might as well post this”. Here you go.

So here are 10 maybe-not-that-interesting facts about me. 

1. My name in italian literally means "clear" and yet i have the same expression capability of a 5-year-old. It takes me forever to express myself in my native langue and I find it easier to speak in english, which can be quite a challenge when talking to my friends as you can imagine. Actually nobody calls me by my name, people usually refer to me by my surname, even my closest friends. (that's Cili if you where wondering, like red hot chili pepper) 

2. In just a month i'll be graduating from high school and in september i'm going to start med school. I don't actually know why i'll be attending it since the very last thing i want to be when i grow up is a doctor. I have really, really low empathy so i don't think i could ever pull that off. Whant i want to be when i grow up is a resercher in neurosciences. There is nothing more fascinating then the human brain. I find utterly...disarming how everything we are, everything we do, all of our thought and movements are decided by how some tiny-iny particles of living matter interact with each other. The human body is the most beautiful of mysteries and everything it does is the result of a tiny miracle. I worship science. I love to find all the science that surrounds me and learn about it. And while i'm quite a thinker the subject i hate the most is philosophy. The only two authors i ever sincerely liked are Plato and Popper. The rest is garbage. 

3. I have quite a memory. I perfectly remember stuff that has happened to me over 10 years ago. Like that one time when i was 8 and i was angry at my friend Dave so i started to throw comic books at him. Or how i used to go around my grandma's garden with my cousins dressed up in Sandocan costumes looking for pinecones that we would later smash in order to eat the pine nuts inside them. And how could I not mention when at 10 my friends and I organised a whole funeral for a ladybug that had drowned in their pool? we made this little raft out of a plastic plate, put the ladybug on it with some flowers and plants and then had a full celtic-like ceremony (we even wrote a eulogy). But the thing i remember the easiest are songs. I know hundres of thousands of song lyrics by heart. My playlist has over 600 songs and i can recognise any of them within 5 seconds (no kidding). Also i have the weirdest music taste. I like Queen as much as One Direction as much as early-2000s pop rock as much as indie as much as musicals. I believe music to be the expression of one's soul. Like, there are some songs that literally speak to the deepest part of me and if i didn't know any better i'd think they were written especially for me. 

4. I'm an INTJ like Christopher Nolan, Elon Musk and Moriarty from Sherlock Holmes. I'm also a Ravenclaw even though Pottermore keeps putting me in Hufflepuff.  As for the zodiac (in which i don't believe in but still read) i'm technically a scorpio but because i was born on the first day of scorpio at five past midnight, my zodiac-obsessed friend keeps telling me i'm a cusp which is something i had no idea existed until she pointed that out. As they say, you never stop learning. 

5. I can solve rubik's cube in under a minute. My friend from robotics clubs tought me. Also, i'm in my schools robotics club. Last year we built a piano-playing robot and we're currently second in italy and forth in europe in our category.  This year we were planning on going to the international competitions but then coronavirus happened so...yeah. Still, robotics is one of the best thing that has ever happened to me. Not for the club itself but for the people I met and for all the beautiful experiences and for that one time in october when we sneaked wine into our hotel room and the next morning i was so hungover i slept the whole day while tecnically competing. 

6. I have a thing for alpacas. I don't know why, i think they're cute. I have a mug with an alpaca on it where i store my markers (i also have a thing for markers). One of my dreams is to see them in Machu Pichu (the alpacas, not the markers). I loooooooove travelling. It's the one thing i could never get tired of. I have an endless list of places i want to visit. My goal is to visit every continent before i turn 30 (the earlier, the better). So far i've been to North America (the USA, twice), Africa (Morocco and Egypt) and i've visited most european capital cities (London, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Luxemburg, Bruxelles, and many other). As of right now there's Singapore on top of my list, immediatly followed by Peru. Travellig is such a unique experience. Every where you go there's always something new to learn and to discover. Different culture, different food, different languages. I adore languages of all kind. I'm fluent in italian (duh) and english (even tho i make tons of mistakes - i'm sorry), advanced in french and currently learning spanish. 

7. I'm writing a book. Let me rephrase that - I'm writing a trilogy. It's actually a little more complicated than that to be honest. When i started high school i started writing this fairly awful teen-fiction-like novel and than i though to myself: why not make another book where i write the same exact story but from a different point of view and with a totally different style with no reason whatsoever? Five years later, i'm still not even halfway done with a first draft of any of the three books. I mostly use them as a creative outlet, something i do when i'm bored, just for the fun of it. But as stupid as they can be, they're still my creatures and i love them. Even though i'm sort of embarassed of them - no one i know has ever read them. I once tried to show the first few chapters to a group of friends and they still make fun of me for it (but they do it in that friend way that doesn't really offend, you know what i mean?). I just love words so much. I even have a list of favourite words written in my journal. Some exemples are "scrosciare", which is the italian word for the noise of heavy rain falling, and words that are what they mean, like obsolete and cacophonic.

8. if i were to write this last year, i'd tell you i don't believe in friendship. Now, my mind hasn't change that much, i still believe to have no friends in the way i consider a friend is supposed to be. And i know i talked about my friends quite s few times throughout this letter but i usually use this word in absence of something that better explains what i really feel. I'll try to make this as clear as i can. I struggle to make a connection with people. i always feel like people click with each other in misterious ways i have yet to understand. Most of those i identify as my friends are just the people i hang out with. There is no...spiritual connection? It's a little complicated to explain. As if at the beginning of times we were handed some instruction booklets on "human interaction and realtionships" and i lost mine, while everyone else carfully guarded theirs. The word that best describes what i think of most people is afecionado. I don't know where i read it but it pretty much explains it all - someone i feel affection for, but nothing else. I do have a best friend tho. I mean, best friend is quite a big word. I have a human being i feel more connected with in comparison to others. I’ve known him since forever and i hate him. I dont hate hate him as in i want him dead. I love him as a friend, he's a great friend. but i hate him as a human being. He's so goddam perfect it bothers me so much. Have you ever met someone that is just so annoingly good at any thing? well that's him. 

9. I have never fallen in love. Not once. The last time i had a crush i was 11. This is what happens when you are an hopeless romantic who grew up reading love stories and at the same time a creepingly logical human. You have incredibly high expectations. And the only time i kissed someone it was more of a lips-touching-for-a-second kind of experience and we were both very much drunk (it was actually the first out of the three times in my life i ever got drunk, the third being the wine experience in october) When i first met said best friend everyone we knew shipped up ("shipped" as in the fandom term meaning two people should date) and there was a moment this summer when i thought i was developping feelings for him but it was just a second. And i may or may not have dreamed of dating this french guy i saw twice at a drama festival. 

10. I love quotes. I think it's part of the memorising thing - learning quotes by heart. Songs, books, speeches, vines, stand up comedians. I also have a very weird sense of humor, basically anything makes my laugh like bad puns and dank memes. Anyway, i have this thing on my door where i write all the quotes i like. Mostly they're from songs, but i also have two from Dante's Divine Comedy. In italy we study it our third year of high school and my teacher is so obsessed with it that she made us learn over 200 verses by heart. 

[ecotone99]

[OT] Old school party

playlist

Where does this story belong? Instagram (not on that). Twitter (seems too long, and I don't tweet). Blogger (who blogs these days?). Snapchat? (please, i'm not 13). Whatsapp (I don't even know what that is). Facebook? (no good pictures and too long)... a story i wrote 25 years ago, and updated in 2007. Does this short story stand the test of time? I'll let you decide. But I did snap the playlist that was saved from the Saturday morning cleanup... and somehow I saved it for the last 30 years in my nostalgia bin. good times. "I wish there was a way to know you're in the 'good old days' before you've actually left them" - Andy Bernard. Excuse any typos. I don't feel like correcting any of them at this late moment.

308 stanton last updated: 20-jul-07

so it was decided. we would indeed throw a party at our house. we’d kicked the idea around for months prior, but nobody championed the idea, so it never came together. this time, we still didn’t have a champion for the effort, but we all kind of came to a zen-like calmness about the decision to go thru w/ it. while waiting in some incredibly long beer lines (really, more like beer circles, with the keg at the center of the concentric circles of folks waving their plastic beer cups) at the Green House, only 5 short blocks away from our house, we finally told each other enough times that we were sick of waiting in other people’s houses, while the beer-gods up front w/ the taps decide who drinks right away (young, good looking women who are friendly, and whoever lives there), and who waits (all males who aren’t actually living at the house or from the house guys’ hometowns).

there were a few party houses that had developed nicknames and that didn’t need directions or street names to go along w/ them. kind of like the ‘cher’, ‘prince’ and ‘madonna’s of the iowa state university campustown houses. we had the ‘gamma Gs’ (a fake frat / party house on lincoln ave). we had the green house (a mint green party house on knapp). we had the ‘pink house’. and we had ‘230 campus’ (a collection of apartments w/ loose keg policies, and plenty of opportunities for crashing parties). we had others, too, but they already have slipped away from my mind forever. the real question was: could we compete w/ the old established houses and get anyone to come to this new location? (‘old, established’ is relative, of course. in real years, their reputations were about 3 years old. but in ‘college time’, tho, it was like 2 generations, like 40-college-years. an eternity. legendary) what if we threw a party and nobody came? we had egos to protect. and our pocketbooks (stupid name... let’s just call em wallets) and we had so many unknowns that could ruin the event (a blizzard, a potentially mega-huge competing party, possible ‘barn dances’ the same night [but that’s another whole story there, the infamous isu ‘barn dances’. pay your $5, get on an old yellow school bus, get driven 15 miles out to the boonies to some guys barn, drink your guts in, puke your guts out, make the rounds and hit on all the women (who make up a HUGE 15% of the party, jump on a bus that leaves every 15 minutes back to campus, stagger home… yack in the bushes a few times if need be. well, i guess that doesn’t require a whole new story, just thick brackets] ).

so, we picked a friday 2 weeks out. it was the dead of winter, early on in the new semester, w/ only a cyclone basketball game as the only known conflict. 308 stanton avenue, ames, ia, 50012 had keggers before, but outside ones, in the summer, where the house can be locked down. this would need to be an entirely inside party (feb in iowa). and this would be a ‘blow-out’ party. or at least we planned for that. not just one (or maybe 2) kegs and an invite list of close friends and neighbors (no lockdown needed. no duct taping cupboards, couches in front of bedroom doors, turnaround the tv, hide the remotes and CDs, tape the fridge shut, etc. this would be a take no prisoners (unless they pony up the $3) kind. totally open to whoever moseyed by. we had connections to a ‘band’ (i knew a band member from honors program, who lived in the ‘pink house’ (cory S). roach (my roommate), knew another band member from same band from his hometown. yup, need quotes around that ‘band’ word. 4 guys who all had instruments. and different instruments! that’s all you need to be called a band. erik, corey, zit, and ?. they agreed to play for our party. that was a good thing. i either forget their band name, or they didn’t have one (yet). nirvana or some such. i’m sure they didn’t amount to anything. but who knows? this was unique enough that strangers would be tempted to go to a house party w/ an actual live band playing. at least we hoped. we reached a point of no return when we reserved the kegs on the monday before. how many to buy? and how many to put on reserve? we settled on getting 3 up front, and 3 on reserve. had to put down some ‘serious’ money for them, and for the tap deposit, and the keg deposit. we had to scrape the money together, tapping out atm cards and bringing back cans/bottles for nickel apiece, etc (pry about $150 which of course now doesn’t seem as much as back then, when we were all about 2-4 years into paying out w/out ever receiving anything back yet).

so, we all worked our contacts all week. we stopped by our old dorm floors to tell everyone to come, and have them announce it at their weekly floor meetings. we even (or at least i did, can’t speak for my roommates) put up signs in the bathrooms and hallway and den on the old floor, to make sure the message got out. told all my classmates in every class (even the ones who normally don’t party hop, which was most of them. chemical engineers just don’t party. even at college. at least most of em). on the engineers side of campus (the ugly, male-dominated side. all the good looking co-eds in education stayed on the opposite side of campus, safely away from us), after 3 years, its amazing how many people you recognize by just walking around between buildings, even at a huge school of 25,000. we were like jehovas witnesses or magazine sellers, we would tell everybody we knew (either by their names, or maybe just their faces) about friday’s party. by the end of the week (thursday), most people i told about the party would say, “i know, i know, i heard about it like 20 times now”. that was a good sign. but i took that to mean that my roommates and me had just told them about it 5 times each.

we over prepared for it, that’s for sure. i blew off friday afternoon classes (but i made it to my 8:00 AM p-chem) we cleaned the house up. big time. in the old forgotten corners, we found and cleaned out magazines and unopened mail that were 10 years old. we put away everything valuable or breakable. we duct taped our kitchen cabinets shut, which included our very valuable raman noodles and assorted tupperware for storing leftover pizza, as well as glass-glasses. we duct-taped the fridge. we decided to barricade the bedroom doors w/ couches. (our house had one big, open room, full of old couches, and bedrooms shooting off of it, so it wasn’t difficult to do it. of course, we kept finding reasons to need to go into the bedrooms, so we constantly kept ‘sealing’ and ‘unsealing’ all the bedroom doors all afternoon. we totally cleaned out the bathroom of everything but one lil roll of toilet paper. moved all CDs, tvs, remotes, anything we could move, we moved, to bedrooms. we picked up the 3 kegs, putting 2 in the basement, and tapped one for upstairs. that was just for convenience and until folks (hopefully) started showing up. then we’d move that to the basement, too. the basement was the darkest, stinkiest, mustiest, mildewy-est, centipede over-ran hole in the ground (literally) i’ve ever seen. perfect for the dispensing of beer. we actually had someone voluntarily live down there. doug, who was only charged $50/month (we all paid $112) for some unknown reason, agreed to those living conditions. he laid down industrial strength plastic over the cracked, crumbling, dirty cement / cement dirt, put in some clothes lines for hanging all the clothes he owned, and put a mattress directly on the floor. he would always be bringing up to show us the biggest, most disgusting bugs/millipedes/centipedes/roaches that he found in his sheets. and he always smelled ‘musty’ when he first put on a new shirt and came up from down the dungeon. but the smell eventually wore off, or at least we got used to it. how HE got used to it is beyond me.

by 4:00, we were ‘ready’. the house looked so different.. so… clean. it put us in a goofy mood. a nervous mood. we had put the tv away, so the only thing we could do is listen to the stereo, play some darts, and wait. and drink. and wait. we were sitting on 3 full, cold kegs, slowly warming up. but we all just kinda sipped. it was gonna be a long night. even roach sipped. didn’t think that was possible for him to do. gotta pace ourselves. the band showed up, w/ their stuff. that was cool. it was one of their first ‘official’ gigs. they were playing for free, which was worked out beforehand. they were just glad to get top-(and only)-billing. and they told all of THEIR friends and ‘groupies’ to come, too, i assumed, or at least hoped. they found the most sturdy part of our floor to set up (which was a challenge. the floor was mushy, uneven, and spongy to the step almost everywhere. their amps and speakers were damn heavy, and they didn’t care about damaging our floor, they just didn’t want their expensive (rented?) things getting hurt as they fell thru the floor and landing on doug’s bed, or at least tipping over.

earlier in the week, we had recruited what we called (and in our defense, what everyone else in our world at ISU called), the ‘beer wench’. pry the most important person at the party. the pivot person. the go-to woman. except for any cops that may show up. the beer wench doled out the glasses, acted as a ‘bouncer’ to keep out high-school lookin kids, made sure nobody brought in their own glasses, but most importantly, collected the money. 3 for guys, 2 bucks for women. NO EXCEPTIONS. we knew if we had tried to collect the money ourselves, a few things would happen. we’d lose interest, we wouldn’t get beer in a timely manner ourselves, we’d get sweet-talked by our girl – friends (not just girlfriends, but … oh, i’m sure you understand) to not have to pay, and we wouldn’t be able to ‘mingle’. i can’t believe i forgot her name already… it’s only been 10 short years. cherry? lampy? i’ll come back to the name.. i’m sure i’ll wake up tonite at 3:00 AM shouting “April! April!” good thing the wife is in tampa. the B.W. was tough as nails, actually enjoyed being a *itch. and loved being in charge. getting her to help was the key, in hindsight, to a good party.

i remember the 5 of us (burk, woody, roach, doug, and me (aka homie – a name carried over from the dorm floor days of tone loc, when everybody was “me and my homies”) {scrappy and rebar minus doug would be the next generation to live there w/ us, but weren’t quite yet} standing in our empty house, nervously asking each other if we thought anyone will show up. we had no idea. oh, sure, we hoped, and we estimated, but what if only 17 folks showed up. hope they’re thirsty. and rich. we were a jangle of nerves, even tho we all tried hiding it.

luckily, at around 6, some folks started trickling in. some old dorm friends, duke and shu, came waaaay too early. i was the one who named duke, duke, back in the dorm days, cuz his name was john wayne H. that name stuck; John Wayne, The Duke. nobody knew him as john, and even as i write this, john sounds goofy… he was duke. wonder if that name stuck to him after college? pry not. folks like fuzzy from the roommates’ hometowns, and girlfriends, and some more stragglers started arriving, who we told to come early to drink before it got too crowded. and then, at about 7:30, the floodgates opened! this wasn’t new york city, where you went out at a stylish 11:00. here, you ate, then put on and up your party hair (for the flock of seagulls-type women), got together and started the night ASAP. in fact, you pry started right after classes on friday (F.A.C. Friday After Class drink specials. did any other campus have FAC bar parties?) like dime-a-tap-beer specials, the kind the city cops were always complaining about.

a crush of people started showing up, flowing in like a river. we moved the 3rd keg to the basement. the money started flowing in, and the beer flowing out. the volume picked up. we had achieved CPM. (critical party mass). the only thing that could extinguish CPM was running out of beer, or a visit from one of ames’ finest. plenty of beer was available, and the police stayed away all night. it was a sweet feeling being the giver of one of these, finally. barging to the front of the beer line (circle), and commandeering the tap. being able to fill up the young, nubile women’s glasses ahead of the obnoxious guys who i didn’t know. it was taken for granted that one must yield the power of the tapper to the owner of the house or his designated delegate upon request. all that power in one guys thumb. it was intoxicating. (or maybe it was just the beer. ok, it was definitely just the beer). the Beast. Milwaukee’s Best. cheapest stuff available. the basement, for the first time ever, actually was getting hot in the dead of winter. usually, our house stayed at about 65 degrees during day, and pry 50 or 55 at night (some mornings, and i don’t think i’m remembering this wrong, i could actually see my breath <insert bad breath jokes here>) doug had barricaded his ‘room’ off w/ his mattress and rope. it was still holding.

the band wanted to start warming up. the public enemy on the stereo was killed. it wasn’t like the opening of a U2 concert, let me tell ya. it just kind of ramped up… slowly.. so slowly.. guitarist tuning and playing some licks that were maybe recognizable. mic checks. random drumming. then, no friendly banter from the lead singer erik, welcoming us, or saying it was great to be at 308 stanton, ames. just the start of their first song of their first set of their first gig ever. and maybe it was just the beer (ok, most likely), but they sounded okay. i recognized their songs. they had the place rockin. people were actually dancing to them, and everyone was facing them. it was cool. i’m sure the band was into it, jammed into our corner, the throng pressing in on them.

during their first break, roach convinced me to help him w/ a ‘beer-ee-oaky’ song. put loud public enemy back on the stereo, and we would help chuck D belt out the verses using the band’s sound system. trust me, it sounds better when i type it than it sounded. i think we were unceremoniously escorted away from the mics by erik, to much applause.

i took a break to go across the street to 307 stanton. (aside: while co-op-ing (interning) at quantum chemical in lil old clinton/camanche, iowa, i looked for some off-campus housing for my return to State, i hooked up w/ roach, et. al who had found the house available at 308 stanton ave. unbeknownst to me, the future wife to be, B, had also been house hunting w/ some of her grrrrls. when she told me she found a house at 307 stanton, i thought she was pulling my leg (or pulling something). but nope. either she did some great detective work to find out where i was gonna live, and made sure she was close enough to be able to harass me, or it was serendipity. of the 25,000 student living quarters in ames, she picked the one 100 ft away. anyway, that led to “us” directly. 307 vs. 308. goofy how life works out. had she picked 230 campus ave who knows? i may be w/ one of becky’s roommates (hopefully not the goth i hate men patchouli wearin’ black dressin’ greasy hair unwashin’ coppin’ attitude liberal, pasty, pierced scary one w/ the 2 cats). anyway, becky (nee rebecca) was planning on being fashionably late to our party, and she was putting the finishing touches on her ‘party hair’ / peacock / bend over, hair spray your bangs, stand up. repeat, along w/ her friends/roommates maria and kelly. while at her house, at the upstairs windows, it was the perfect vantage point to take it all in over at 308. folks streaming up the sidewalks in waves, nay, armadas, from all directions, some carrying glasses (hope the BW confiscated em) and every time our front door opened, a huge plume of steam/smoke just poured out into the february night. really billowed out, like there was a fire inside. most of it was just hot, sweaty, humid air hitting the feb. cold, cuz there wasn’t many smokers there. it was somethin. wasn’t many cars out front, just a smattering (everyone lived walking distance to everything. one block off main campus street, in between everything, was 308). i loved that scene. was anxious to get back in the middle of it.

the peacock finally ready. getting back to the party, fighting our way thru the folks milling or waiting or getting cooled off or yacking or relieving or whatever, katie (kate! katie! the bw’s name! too lazy to correct it up there in the story, tho) was at the door, doing the her job better than anyone in the business. in fact, when i came back in, she was in distress. she looked relieved to see me. she immediately moved a couch and pulled me into the barricaded room (witte’s room) right by the door. i wondered why. here’s why: she then started pulling money out from every pocket and fold and sock and who knows where else. it was unbelievable. mostly crumpled ones, but a few fives and tens. damn! and she said that roach and burk had already cleaned her out a few times already. wow, a bed full of money... several inches high. i rolled it all up like the big shots do in the casino movies. ended up as a thick can-sized wad. and stashed it in witte’s backpack. never to be seen again. (nah, we all pooled all the money together in the ‘morning after’). thanked kate for her services, but told her it was only 10:00 and people still want glasses. went to the basement to freshen up the glass. some folks were relieving themselves in the way back corner. i started yelling at them, until i realized doug was back there, too, and it’s his room, so who was i to stop em? “hey! doug SLEEPS there! oh, hi, doug... nevermind. carry on”

near the beer, along w/ the countless plastic cups being held up, this one guy was actually holding up a sandwich tupperware, jockeying for position towards the tap. he had been drinking out of THAT. after working my way over to him, and trying to make him feel as stupid as he looked, i kindly suggested that he go buy a cup from kate and put back our favorite tuna sandwich tupperware. he was trying to tell me that that’s what they gave him at the door. i don’t think so. however, everybody’s attention quickly turned to the old 2 X 8 wood planks without railings that made up our stairs. roach was bounding down them, backwards, loudly, w/ a full keg tumbling right behind him. he was trying to hoist it down gently, but lost his footing. the keg landed on his left leg at the bottom of the steps, snapping his bone right at the upper ankle. ouch. first, he thought he’d drink thru the pain, and sat upstairs having folks beer him, sitting like a mafia don w/ his captains. finally, the wuss went to the hospital, got it set and casted, and actually made it back before the party was over. now THAT’s dedication. true anecdote.... actually, everything here is true... at least through the beer fogs of time. was too passé to have anyone sign the cast, but just put his casted leg up on a table, and folks kept his glass full.

upstairs, the band was working through their set list for the second (third?) time, but nobody cared. the game was to try to figure out the song first. sometimes, it took a few seconds (or minutes). burk then brought out his snake, Monty, the python. a big ball python about 7 feet long. coiled it around his neck, chomping on a big stogy ala schwartenagger. big guy was burke. played football as a freshman, i think. gave it up (or it gave him up) chicks dug the snake. and he passed it around to em. the snake loved squeezing necks. it was a huge, heavy thing, but always very sedate and nice. the heat inside the house was intense. crammed shoulder to shoulder absolutely everywhere. must’ve been 300 folks there. more kegs needed. someone already had picked up the 3 reserves, but we needed more. i enlisted duke and shu, along w/ becky (‘rebecca’ wouldn’t be born for another 5 yrs). <sermon time. yes, i realized i shouldn’t’ve been driving, but of the bunch, i was in the best condition. sorry as i was>. also, luckily, it wasn’t too far away. about a mile on slow city roads, w/ stop signs or lights every block. so, w/ 2 kegs in the trunk, and a few more in back seat, and w/ them sitting on em, and the back end almost riding on the tires, it was a precarious voyage back. had to break off some of the benjamins (oh, wait... i mean jeffersons and lincolns in cold cash, homie!) but we received a hero’s welcome back at 308. well, ‘we’ didn’t, i guess, but the beer did. hundreds of dry coeds and guys, having only drunk 1.50 worth, or 0.0 worth, or 5.0 worth, but still! a dry house! oh, the horrors. we had borrowed a second tap from someone earlier in the night, so the beer was disappearing quick. almost too quick.

a gaggle of chemE’s even showed up, and were off in a corner, in a tight group, looking shell-shocked, sipping their beers. maybe this shouldn’t have been the first party to invite them to, because everything was to the extreme. not for the timid. we (roommates/me) worked the crowd w/ pitchers of beer, whenever we got the chance or felt altruistic. i always started in that chemE corner w/ a pitcher and worked out from there, so they wouldn’t have to fight their way downstairs into the most aggressive beer circle i’d ever seen. tempers usually didn’t flare up, tho, even tho folks got spilled on, pushed, crushed, stepped on, because it was just par for the course. expected. and most everyone knew everyone else, or at least knew somebody who knew somebody else. no beer-rage here.

finally, the band wrapped things up (no encores, thankfully). they did an impressive job, and certainly didn’t embarrass themselves or our fine house’s reputation. back to the stereo, back to public enemy and other old school hiphop (and for roach: milli vanilli, who still liked that damnable trashy cd even after they were discredited as pop-induced lip synchers). and his milli vanilli posters and milli vanilli do-rags and ripped t-shirts and autographed 8x10 glossies? oh, c’mon! well, not really. he was more into new kids on the block. some young lil freshman-like girls thought nothing could be better than some garth brooks and some ac/dc, and that new rap *hit had to go. they kept trying to break into roach’s room to change the music. bad idea. they were escorted out. really annoying. “no! we want garth! not this rap sh**!”

after cleaning out katie (the BW) one more time, i made an executive decision. (actually, i think i ran it by whoever roommates i could find, just to make sure they agreed) i gave the band some playing money. 20 bucks apiece. of course, they weren’t insulted by the paltry sum. rather, they were thrilled at the unexpected windfall, which looked bigger than it actually was, via the delivery method of handing them crumpled, uneven, mismatched fists of cash. this was their first paying gig. they stuck around to see if any ‘groupies’ appeared, but nope, just the same friends they always party with. the band was always high on my pitcher refill list, too, right behind the circle of cowering chemEs.

people started filing out after 11-12ish. not a mad rush, but the direction was certainly out, not in. some pizzas should have been ordered w/ part of the windfall, but nobody got around to it. katie gave up the glasses job. we insisted that she take 20, or 40, or whatever a handful of wet, badly folded, mismatched bills was worth, because w/out her diligence, we would have not cleared half of what we did.

i didn’t have the energy or incentive to un-barricade my room, and chose instead the quiet, warm, dry, smoke-free puke-free, noise-free environs of 307 to crash for the night. i guess the fact that becky-the-big-party-haired-woman was there may have had something to do w/ that decision, too, tho, in retrospect, but actually not too much. even if sister ezekiel (a short, warted, mean nun in full nun-wearables) from my from 2nd grade teacher/nun had been in 307 instead of becky, i STILL would have went there.

the next morning was a bit surreal. walking back over to 308 mid-morning, still in a groggy/drunk mode, i couldn’t help but notice a few things. someone had written a big “NO BEER” with lipstick, on our house siding, right by the front door. kind of like a scarlet letter, scaring away would-be late partiers who heard about a great party too late. or maybe someone from inside kept getting woken up by folks wanting to ‘party’, and thought that sign would keep them from knocking. the front and side yard (and i’ll try not to be too graphic here) was a mixture of melted snow, and plenty of once-ran-through beer remains, as well as ample evidence of mass-indigestion. the bottoms of our house and nearby cars had all the salt and mud washed off them, many times over, in nice little ‘golden arches’. mcdonalds would be proud.

that was just a inkling of what the inside of the house had in store. in fact, it was worse than outside. the green matted shag carpet was barely visible under the broken plastic cups, cigarette and cigar butts, ripped up posters, overturned couches and cushions, some random bottles folks had brought in to tie (tide?) them over until the keg glasses could be filled, some wet rugs and pillows, muddied papers / newspapers and whatever else we didn’t lock up. the rug (that was visible) was soaked w/ melted snow, mud and spilled beer. witte was sleeping on a chair – apparently, he didn’t feel up to breaking thru his bedroom-barricade, either. as he was still waking up, tho, he was worried, and was mumbling about monty. the last thing he knew or remembered from last night, he had the snake, monty. and now, he no longer had the snake, and the snake wasn’t in its cage, and nobody has seen it after witte. so, ever so gently, we started digging for Monty. the snake needed to be found. somewhere. thankfully, he finally turned up in a couch, underneath the cushions, and no worse for wear (at least that we could see). we unwound him from the “C” wire cushion bottoms and returned him to his safe, warm glass cage. he needed to see a snake-therapist for months after this episode.

someone had tried running through a wall by the front door. they made it about half way through. if only i had the tools and know-how of sheetrocking then that i have now, i coulda done magic on that wall. however, a big, free poster for Bud (the bud girls.. remember them, in their ‘bud’ bathing suits written across 3 buxom babes and their underlying bud towel?) hid the hole just at good, and was a lot quicker, too. also, we had no running water. also, someone smashed the natural gas meters in the basement (why, we still wonder). also, the toilet was clogged and broken. the sink was clogged. the hot water heater wouldn’t re-light (someone must have saw it as a convenient ‘watering hole’ and of course every self-respecting guy needs to have a target in mind or have a watering post to help the flow). the main table we used for whatever (newspapers, phone messages, backpacks, groceries) was missing a leg.

but, oh, well, on the positive note, the party was a smashing success. literally. everyone slowly got up, and started putting the house back together. no radio. no tv. no stereo. no loud noises, period. the basement beer mud was thick, and smelly? damn! we all collected the money’s we had squirreled away (pockets, backpacks, hiding spots) and put it into a big pile. a very impressive pile. a foot tall, few feet across. wow. settled up the costs for the extra kegs, and tried to recount how much was given away, and to whom. i forget how much we each cleared, but it was a helleva lot more than we ever thought it would be. about 50 future keggor fees, i think. but we didn’t do it for the money. we did it just for the sake of doing it. with much of the proceeds, we set up a very healthy toilet paper / paper towel endowment fund for the house.. and we were the foundation chairs for this endowment. usually, we just traded in cans/bottles at a nickel a pop when we were way past desperate in the toilet paper arena. but now, we were now rich w/ paper! a whole semesters worth of no-worry bathroom visits.

roach’s leg healed no problem. (altho his car antennae got bent off, too, pry by someone steadying themselves against his car. shoulda got a portapotty out front). the plumber was called. gas company was called. the old pipes were used so much that rust had been shaken free and clogged it all up (or maybe all that bass from the band loosened it. the gas company guy (a young guy not too far out of college himself, or at least college-aged) took pity on us and installed all new natural gas meters for free. becky actually helped clean up, too. i remember that because she pulled the band’s song list out from the garbage and told me i should keep it. it was taped to the floor by the band so they would know the order of the songs, and could segue easier. it was written using a red marks-a-lot smeary, wet, torn, burned, but still barely readable. in fact, i think i’ll dig thru old college notes and memorabilia box under the ol’ steps and try to find that bad boy. too bad that band didn’t make it to the big time, i could auction off that piece of paper on e-bay for a fortune.

i had an interview w/ koch in wichita for that next monday, and had to leave sunday morning for the airport. i still wasn’t quite ‘regular’ and fully over the carnage from friday, but apparently i did okay anyway. i got the koch internship which led me to a full time koch job which then led me to 3m. so i credit that party a decade ago w/ putting me on the road to professional success. i highly recommend a similar career path for every collegiate. but just don’t agree to sleep in any basements, no matter how reasonable the rent. the top-dwellers paid $112 each. doug paid $50 in the basement cave. 4 bedroom + basement. 3 blocks from campus, 1 block from campus-town. house completely trashed when moved in. no security deposit needed. no lease terms. perfect house. we were last ones to live there. it was condemned and tore down the summer after we graduated. rebuilt an apartment complex on our old home. progress? i think not.

we had other parties after that first big blowout, but none were as big, crazy, fun, crowded, or as memorable as that first one was. we realized smaller parties w/ mostly people we all knew had lots fewer headaches than the free-for-all trash-the-house kind. Monty the python finally succumbed to the cold and unfriendly climate of a badly insulated house in the middle of iowa winters, and even though he had a heating lamp and rock, he didn’t survive the year. found him dead and cold and coiled up one morning. we had a snake wake in his honor, tho, where he would come out of his permanent storage location of our freezer, all coiled up, frozen stiff, right between the totino party pizzas, and grace the party goers w/ his presence. that was another good party. the snake-wake party. but all the rest run together. monty slowly degraded in the freezer due to all the handling and shuffling, parts of his skin shedding and peeling off into the freezer. and finally burk had to find a more permanent home for him besides intermingled in the pile of pizzas. (4 totino party pizzas for $3 at value-save-more-hy-vee grocery or whatever it was called)

prologue: about a year after graduating, i stopped by the old house on stanton ave, to see if i knew anybody anymore, and to see what they had done to our place (palace!). everybody was gone, a ‘condemned’ notice on the front door. weeds growing over all the sidewalks and driveway. that made me feel bad. what a waste of a perfectly good party house. they tore it down shortly after, and put up a new building in its place. so it goes. progress. moral of this story? is none. lessons learned? are none. when you’re living thru the middle of a crazy time like college, you take a lot of it for granted, and don’t even realize that it’s out of the ordinary to invite 300 total strangers into your house, have 6 hours worth of fun w/ them, and then they leave, never to see you again. and then the next week, you do the same exact thing at someone else’s house/apartment w/out thinking anything of it. what a time. gone by. gone forever. condemned to the dustbin of memories.

submitted by /u/62302154065198762349 [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ReUeMC