#so yeah... I like this building style better than shitty single family homes 'from the low 300s'

[medicinemane]

"DIY tiny home you can build in weeks", ok... now lets see the cost

...seven and a half minutes later, the answer is $75k... so when you include land and all the rest of it, so basically nothing right?

This is my problem with tiny homes stuff, it's for rich people

[thesleepysphinx]

chp. 1: Whatever, hi

A/N: Here’s chapter 1! Let me know if I made any mistakes, I am super new to this! <3

Masterlist • Next

As you pull up to the historic university, you can’t help but gawk at the architecture and greenery surrounding it. Sure, you had visited her before on tours when deciding which university to attend, but you will never get over the beauty of the campus. You pull your car into the parking lot designated for students moving in and turn it off, draping the lanyard for your keys over the back of your neck to make sure you didn’t lose them. Before you even think about unloading anything from your car, you text your soon to be roommate, Mina. 

Hey, I just pulled up! Are you here yet?

You shove the phone in the pocket of your shorts immediately as you get out of the car, grabbing your backpack from the passenger seat. You get the bag situated on your shoulders and peer over towards your new dorm building. It was four stories tall and extremely wide, meant to house quite a number of the upperclassmen on campus. You sighed in relief knowing that you wouldn’t have to deal with 18 year olds who were being let loose for the first time in their lives. But you also sighed in annoyance remembering the dorm is co-op and you may have to deal with boisterous boys at all hours of the night. This should be interesting…

As you get lost in thought, still staring at the dorm and consequently the huge crowd of people forming in front of it, a buzz goes off in your pocket. You reach down and pull it out to see a response from Mina. 

Yeah I’m here!!!! There’s so many people! I’ll meet you at your car what does it look like??? Where are you parked???

After giving her a detailed description of your location and car, you lean against the back of it, observing the crowd. You notice there are a few other people hanging back, not wanting to get involved in the frenzy. So many people were so eager to move in all their belongings, but you just wanted to relax. After the two hour drive there, it felt good to just stand. But you wouldn’t be standing for long… Without warning, you’re tackled from the side and nearly fall to the ground, but you steady yourself with your sturdy car. Now draped over you is a pink haired and pink bodied girl in a similar outfit to yours, a black tank top with jean shorts. You recognize her from the selfies you’d sent back and forth. 

“Mina! You can’t kill me yet, we haven’t even moved in!” You laugh in feigned annoyance as you embrace her back. Though this is your first time meeting in person, the two of you had bonded a lot over text. She basically told you her entire life story, but it was all too much to digest. The most important details were that she was from Japan and came to the university with some friends from high school in a prestigious exchange student program. Apparently, she and her friends all excelled in different aspects of STEM fields and had worked on a large project together back in high school that earned them country-wide recognition. After she told you about all that, she wanted to add you into her group chat with her friends, but you declined, saying you’d rather meet them in person with her. She had responded to this with an “awww,” saying you were so sentimental and thoughtful. You were basically under the impression that she never has a negative thought at any moment of the day. 

After a few moments of squeezing the life out of you, Mina let’s go and excitedly starts talking. “I can’t believe I’m finally meeting you! And you’re even more adorable in person! And look! We have the same style, even!” She gestures to your basically matching outfits. 

You blush at her rushed compliment as you respond, “Normally I prefer leggings, but I didn’t want to be dying of heat stroke and drenched in sweat while we move our stuff in! Speaking of, where’s all your stuff?”

She points in a direction, and you follow her finger to a group of cars quite a ways out in the parking lot. There are five total cars all parked next to each other, with four people standing with them, the trunks of the cars open. 

“Oh, are those your friends?”

“You bet’cha! Come on! Come meet them!” She starts to pull you by the hand with all the might she can muster. You follow along, letting her drag you to the group. As you get closer, you can see that all of her friends are boys, with three of them standing while one sits on the tailgate of a truck. Mina yells out to them, “Hey, guys! This is her! This is Y/N!” 

Three of the boys wave, waiting till you get closer to actually say anything. Meanwhile the fourth one just glances at you, keeping one hand in his pocket while his other hand holds his phone, an earbud resting in one ear. Finally, Mina stops right in front of them and you come to a halt beside her, trying to catch your breath. 

As you wait to breathe normally, Mina speaks for you, “Everyone, this is my new roommate!” She presents you to them with enthusiasm, so much so that you almost feel like you’re supposed to be putting on some sort of show. 

You nervously lift a hand to wave to them and say, “Hey, guys! I’m Y/N, it’s nice to meet all of you! Mina told me a lot about you guys!” You can recognize their faces from pictures Mina sent of all of them together, but you were having a hard time remembering the names. You rub the back of your neck in embarrassment. “Sorry, but I didn’t learn your names from the pictures she sent very well!”

“Don’t worry about it!” A boy with spiked red hair pipes up. He scoots himself off the tailgate of the truck and walks straight up to you. He holds a hand out for you to shake as he says, “I’m Kirishima! But since we’re in America, you can call me by my first name Eijiro!”

His positive vibes rival Mina’s! You think to yourself. You take his hand and shake it enthusiastically. Before you can say anything, a boy with black hair steps up as well. 

“And I’m Hanta! It’s nice t-.” Before he can finish, he’s lightly shoved by a golden blond boy. 

The boy points to himself with a thumbs up as he says, “Denki Kaminari! Y’know, Mina never mentioned how cute you are!” He leans in closer, as if to get a better look. You shrink back a little bit at having your personal space invaded. 

Mina speaks up for you once again. “I never mentioned it cause I didn’t want you bein’ creepy! Cut it out before you scare her and she never talks to me again!”

You giggle at Mina’s overdramatic nature. If there was one thing you were sure about, it was that you and Mina would get along very well as roommates. But as you surveyed the new friends standing in front of you, you noticed someone was missing. You look over Hanta’s shoulder to see the boy with ash blond spiky hair still has one hand in his pocket and is acting like you don’t exist. 

Eijiro notices your gaze and follows it. “Oi, get over here Bakubro, stop being such a downer!”

The boy responds in an angry growl, “Don’t call me that, Shitty Hair.” Though his voice is angry, he doesn’t even look up from his phone. 

Eijiro crosses his arms at him. “Dude, come on, you know you’re being an asshole. Just say hi.”

He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from his screen, locking eyes with you. “Whatever, hi, name’s Bakugo.” His eyes instantly move back to his phone. “There, happy?”

You move your hand to cover your mouth a bit to whisper to Mina, “Is he like this all the time?”

Mina basically deflates at this question as she answers, “Everyday since the first day of high school… It grows on you…” 

You seriously doubt that, but you take her word for it. You’re broken out of your thoughts as Bakugo speaks up with annoyance, “Are we gonna check in or what?”

You look behind you to see that at this point the check in area is much less crowded. “Yeah, it looks a lot less chaotic now!” You turn over to Mina once again. “So, um… Do we grab our stuff right now or do we grab it later?” You feel stupid asking that question, but you’ve never moved into a dorm before. Before today, you’d always lived at home with your family. 

The boys stare at you a little dumbfounded. But out of all the people to speak up, it’s the one that you deem the resident asshole. “Aren’t you a third-year? Haven’t you done this shit before?”

You look down at the asphalt in front of your feet as you explain, “I am, but I just transferred here from another school that doesn’t have dorms, so this is all new to me… Sorry if my stupidness gets in your way.” 

You’re instantly met with different phrases of reassurance, all of them melding together so you couldn’t decipher a single one. The only one to not provide reassurance is Bakugo… How the hell are all these positive people friends with him?

“Jeez, Mina, did you pack a damn dumbbell in here? The box is heavier than all hell!” You strain out through your teeth.

She strains to speak as well as she jokes, “Haha! Kiri would be the one packing dumbbells! But no, all of this is - is makeup!” She grunts as the two of you set the box down finally in the center of your shared dorm room. You have to admit that it is much larger than you expected. You each have a full size bed and full sized dresser and desk, all supplied by the university. All you were really expecting was a twin sized bed with little to no closet space. This was more than a pleasant surprise. 

You and Mina had worked together to get all of your stuff up to your second floor dorm. Unfortunately, the building didn’t have an elevator. You really didn’t envy those living on the fourth floor. With the last box finally set in the room you step back outside the door to observe your new home. You look to the side of the door to see “Room 226” on a plaque above a whiteboard meant for you and Mina to draw on as you pleased. You were lucky to get a corner room, so you would only have one neighbor. But, lucky you, that neighbor happened to be an asshole.

As you stood there marvelling, a gruff voice took you out of your trance. “What’s with the dumbass look, extra?”

You don’t even have to look to know who it is. Instead, you cross your arms and respond, “What does it take for you to not be an ass?”

Mina looks up from her unpacking to see you standing in the doorway and you listen to her desperate attempt to get you out of his line of fire. “Hey! Y/N, come help me figure out how to organize all this!”

You clench your jaw before making any other move. As you start to walk back into your dorm, you glance at Bakugo to find that he’s glistening in sweat from carrying his belongings up and down stairs in the heat. You only see his face for half a second, but you almost think you see amusement in his grin. How the hell am I supposed to stand living next to a smug asshole like him? Finally inside, you shut the door behind you with a loud slam. 

“How in the hell are you friends with that gremlin?!” 

Mina obviously tries to hold in a laugh, but fails miserably as she erupts into laughter. You look on in confusion, trying to wrap your head around why this is so funny. Eventually, her laughs subside a bit to answer you. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just that normally when people meet him they just avoid him instead of calling him out. He’s pretty rough around the edges, but he’s a good friend.” She starts to organize her makeup onto a shelf as she continues on. “Honestly, the rest of us are pretty eccentric and make a lot of bad decisions. Bakugo is the one to chew us out when we fuck up and set us on the right track.”

You start to rummage through your own belongings, hanging up some shirts in the closet. “Well if you ask me, he doesn’t have to be an asshole about everything. I knew him for all of five seconds and he was a dick!”

Mina giggles at your words, finishing up her display of makeup. “To be honest, so far he’s been pretty tame. You should have seen the guy back in high school. Hell, even last semester he was worse! Maybe something happened over summer to mellow him out.” She reaches for another box of her belongings as you finish up putting all your clothes in the closet and dresser. 

You reach for your own box and find it’s the one containing your sheets and comforter for your new bed. As you uncrumple the fitted sheet and turn to the bed, you realize something pretty significant. 

“Oh crap, I might have to share a wall with him… Ugh, whatever.”

“I can always switch with you if you like?” Mina suggests. 

“It’s fine, I can deal with it.” You fit your fitted sheet to the bed and throw your regular sheet on top of it, smoothing it out. “Besides, maybe I can subtly annoy him if he happens to share the wall. I don’t mind being petty.” 

After going back and forth between boxes and in-dorm storage for an hour or two, you and Mina had completed your move in. You both sit carefully deconstructing the boxes for your eventual move out of the dorms. Might as well save the boxes to save the trouble later! With the last boxes folded and tucked underneath your beds, you both step back to the doorway to observe the now decorated room. Luckily, this dorm building allows things to be mounted to the wall. 

You are more than impressed. “I still can’t believe the dorm is this big! Are all the dorm buildings like this?”

“Most of them are a lot smaller, but upperclassmen are given bigger spaces. With all this room for activities, we could have huge sleepovers!” Mina reaches her arms up towards the ceiling in excitement as her smile beams. 

Just as Mina let her arms down, a knock comes at the door behind you, making you jump a bit in surprise. Mina opens it immediately and comes to face Eijiro. His smile is so big that it matches Mina’s almost exactly. 

“Hey girls! We’re gonna go grab some of the free food they have over in the quad, you wanna come?”

Even though you didn’t think it was possible, Mina’s smile grows even bigger. “Hell yeah, perfect timing! We just finished up here! Come on, Y/N!”

You swiftly grab your keys from your desk and clip them onto your lanyard before walking out the door to join Mina and Eijiro in the hallway. As you do, you see he is also waiting in the hallway. You avoid eye contact with him, instead opting to keep your attention on Mina as you walk down the hall towards the stairs. But as your attention stays on her as you walk down the stairs, you feel eye burning holes in the back of your head. You ignore it for now, knowing that Bakugo is trying to get under your skin. Instead of looking back, you allow your pettiness to show. 

“I can’t believe how fun today already is, Mina! All of your friends have been so nice to me! Well, almost all of them!” You make sure your voice is projecting enough for Bakugo to hear. 

It sounds like you succeeded as you hear a soft, “Tch,” comes from behind you. But another sound catches your attention. 

Eijiro starts laughing uncontrollably at the comment, tears clouding his eyesight. He starts to stumble on the steps, unable to fully see where he is. He looks back at Bakugo and says, “She’s calling you out, bro! That’s rare!”

“Shut the hell up, Shitty Hair. Like I give a shit.” He continues walking down the steps past everyone. As he steps past you, the space is tight so he has to brush against you. The skin of his arm is warm, but no longer sweaty from moving in like it was earlier. You also notice the rippling muscle under the warm skin, his form fitting tank top leaving them completely exposed. You scold yourself in your head. Why do the assholes have to be so hot?

You continue after him with Eijiro finally catching his breath and recovering his eyesight. Mina grabs your arm and loops her own through it. “Damn, you really don’t mind petty! I must admit, it’s funny to see someone get Bakugo pissed off like that. And the best part is that he’s stuck with you since you’re our friend!”

You laugh at her point, countering it with, “Well, if he kills me one of these days, he won’t be stuck with me anymore!”

Bakugo continues walking, reaching the bottom of the stairs, as he mumbles back just loud enough for you to hear, “Don’t push your luck, dumbass.”

With a plate of free pizza in hand, you walk towards a nearby empty table. The tables are all round and have a white tablecloth on them. As you sit down, Mina sits on your other side, filling up another one of the 6 chairs around the table. Then next to her is Eijiro… then Denki… and Hanta… until there is just one seat left next to you. Bakugo sits down without hesitation with a plate of grilled chicken and a salad. As you look around, you notice everyone else has followed your lead and gotten pizza. Bakugo notices this too, it seems. 

“What the hell are you doing eating that crap?” he says to no one in particular. 

Eijiro is the first to answer. “Come on man, you know I’m a health nut, but I can’t turn down pizza!”

Next to you, you hear a, “Tch,” no doubt that it is once again Bakugo. “Health nut my ass, you’ve never even touched a stove to make your own food.”

“That’s a great idea!” Mina yells immediately as she stands from her seat, hands planted on the table. “We should all cook our food together! It’ll be so much fun!”

Once again, Mina’s enthusiasm triumphs over all. 

Hanta speaks up to add to Mina’s vague plan. “It’ll be cheaper too. Might as well!”

Everyone nods in agreement, mouths full of their food. Except Bakugo. He just keeps eating with no response towards your friend. How apathetic can one person be?

[moeruhoshi]

kinda shitty but its for a school assignment and I think you’ll be into it tho tell me if there’s anything I should fix ~ 5k words

Lucy took deep and uneven breaths as she sat by herself in the bathroom, staring down at the third positive test she’d taken; she didn’t want to believe it. Her mind reeled uncomfortably and her stomach turned with nausea she had oddly been feeling the past couple of weeks. 

“Cana…” She spoke shakily into her phone, “I need you to come over...right now,”

“What’s going on, Lu?” Cana groaned as she pulled herself through her window, stumbling onto the bed and next to the blonde who sat curled in her comforter. “It has to be serious if ya didn’t let me in through the front, you’re just lucky I’ve had experience scaling walls,” The brunette went on as she sat herself up, her chatter faltering at the sight of Lucy’s tears. “Hey, really…what’s going on?”

“I’m pregnant, Cana,” She pushed out, throat groaning with hoarseness as she shoved the evidence toward her.

“Oh geez…” She said slowly as she stared at the sticks, eyes filled with worry as they turned to her friend. “How late are you?”

“Eight weeks. I just thought my cycle was irregular, it’s happened before so I wasn’t worried,” She sighed and sniffled before going on. “But I’ve been getting sick more often, so I figured I should be safe and check…and now...what the hell am I going to do? My dad will throw me out as soon as he finds out, and we’re still in school! And what am I supposed to tell Natsu? I can’t give him news like this, he’ll be so upset with me...”

“Hey, hey, slow down! One worry at a time, okay? If anything, you know my dad wouldn’t let you end up on the street, so you’d come live with us. Not that I doubt Natsu wouldn’t take you home with him. You should know better, he’d be thrilled! And would do anything to take care of you two,” Cana began as she laid Lucy in her lap, threading her fingers calmly through her hair. “We’re two months away from graduating, you’ll barely be showing by then. You can always take your first year off and take care of your kid, get a scholarship with all your smarts, and make a living like you always planned to. Adapting to the situation is the best thing you can do for yourself, so stop freakin’ out. All of us’ll be there for you two, too; babysitting, hospital bills, groceries and diapers, the works. You’re stupid if you think you’re in this alone, don’t you think?”

“Entirely,” Lucy mumbled from her place pressed against Cana’s stomach. “You always know how to calm me down,”

“Well no shit, I know how amazing I am,” She scoffed and laughed as she folded over and hugged the blonde. “…so when are we telling everyone else?”

“Not sure, but I have to tell Natsu first, or well, second,”

“Hehe, yeah, I always knew you liked me more than that pyro. I get the honor of namin’ the lil’ squirt too, don’t I?”

“I’m sorry but you’re the stupid one if you think I’d let you do that,”

Lucy felt her stomach knotting into twists as she took the following weekend to go visit her boyfriend, his home two trains away from her neighborhood. It was a thirty-minute ride that whisked by in what felt like thirty seconds which did not help her calm down in the slightest. 

There was time to think about how to approach the subject with Natsu, and Lucy planned to stop by his favorite bakery, getting some snacks that would act as a buffer for when he probably took the news as an unsettling shock.

Natsu loved her more than chili peppers, which was really saying something when it came to him and his spices. But his love for her was a fact that she knew well enough. She could practically see just how happy Cana was sure he would be, the image of her boyfriend jumping up and down and swinging her around playing through in its faux fantasy-style...She’d make sure to set down the things she bought in advance if such an occasion really occurred.

Even with all the worry concerning herself, Lucy could only think about Natsu’s situation. He worked late hours to provide for himself ever since the fateful day that suddenly ended the lives of his parents. Luckily enough he was left with their family home, otherwise, he’d surely be staying on Gray’s couch right about now.

He had school to pay for in the future and work always kept him so busy, she didn’t want to overload him with even more to worry about once she revealed the subject of her pregnancy.

Feeling the vibration of her phone in her pocket as she walked into his building, Lucy looked down at her screen to see a text pinging from Cana.

‘Quit stressing out and calm down already’

‘You’re not stalking me, are you? How’d you know?’

‘I know everything, remember. It’ll be okay, I promise, so just go for it!’

Yeah, everything was going to be okay…hopefully.

She continued to take deep breaths in attempts to steady her pulse as she rode the elevator higher and higher, feeling her legs near ready to give out as the door slid open to the floor of his condo. His door was soon staring down at her, the shadow of it overcasting her meek form and further intimidating her into panicked silence.

“Luce! Took ya long enough, I’ve been waiting all morning for you!” Natsu pulled open the door as her knuckle barely grazed the wooden surface, greeting her flinch with his wide grin. He wrapped his arms tightly around the girl before she could get even a single word out, practically dragging her indoors.

“I stopped by Clover Town to get us some cake,” She choked through his strong hold, heaving as he let her go, looking down at the bag in her hand.

“Nice! Nothin’ better than their chili chocolate cake, I’ll go make us some tea to go with it,” He said with a dramatic lick of his lips, taking the bag and walking deeper into his home as she was left at the door to slip off her shoes. Lucy made sure to greet the photos of his parents set on a bureau in the hall, waving to them as she passed by.

“You don’t have work later today do you?” Lucy asked as she took a seat on his couch, relieved as he shook his head from the kitchen adjacent of where she sat.

“Nope, not until tomorrow night. Wanna stay over?” She stifled a laugh as he wiggled a knowing brow at her, setting down the tea and plated cakes as he took a seat beside her.

“Sure, if you don’t mind,” Lucy giggled as he nuzzled his head into the crook of her neck, pecking light kisses against her cheek as he guffawed.

“‘Course I don’t mind! There’s nothin’ better I could ask for,” She sighed as he wrapped his arms around her midsection, suddenly feeling an onslaught of emotion that tore at her at the most random of times. “One of the old ladies next door gave me a bunch of vegetables so we can make somethin’ nice for dinner tonight.”

“…Natsu, we need to talk,” Lucy said as she sniffled and wiped away tears. The pink-haired boy was immediately not at all delighted to be hearing that phrase, feeling his stomach quickly begin to sink.

“It’s not your dad, is it? I know he doesn’t like me all that much but that’s no reason to—“

“Dumbass, I’m not breaking up with you,” She groaned and slapped his arm before he could continue to spiral. “I didn’t mean anything other than what I said, really, I just need to talk to you,”

“Geez, what is it, Luce? Don’t scare me with your cryin’ like that,” He pouted and wiped away the stray tears on her cheeks, settling a hand over hers for reassurance.

“I…I’m…Natsu, I’m…”

“Hey hey, calm down,” Natsu shifted himself to take her in his arms again as her chest stuttered with panic, able to feel her body shaking through his. “You’re okay, it’s okay, Luce...”

His heart dropped as he felt her begin to cry again, equally as overwhelmed by whatever the hell was going on to make her so upset.

“You don’t have to say it if it scares ya too much, I’m not gonna force you to say anything, just please tell me that you’re not sick,”

“I’m fine,” She hiccuped, tightening her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry...I didn’t think it’d be so hard to say. I feel like if I do, it’ll change everything and I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet,”

“Change is bound to happen, ya know that. It did when we started dating, when your mom and my parents…when I had to start working, things just happen, and we have to learn to live with the changes left behind, yeah? It might be hard at first or sometime in the future, but we’ll get through it together, we always do,”

“Yeah…yeah, you’re right,” Her teary eyes stared up into the ones showering her with love and reassurance, his lips tasting the saltiness of her tears as he pressed another kiss to her cheek. “I love you, Natsu.”

“I love ya too, Luce.”

“I’m pregnant,” She breathed out in quick words, pulling herself away from him to walk and grab a tissue from the kitchen. Natsu was virtually stone, as she entirely expected him to be, eyes wide and unmoving as he processed the news.

“...I’m about eight weeks late,” She began to explain the situation in further details, sitting next to him again as she reached over and carefully sipped her steaming cup of tea before setting it down. “I don’t have a bump yet, but I took a few tests and—“

“I love you so fucking much! Oh my god, so much! I’ll love you and our baby till the day I die, I promise!” Lucy squealed as Natsu glomped her with another monstrous hug, showering her cheeks with kiss upon kiss, refusing to let her go for even a moment.

“You’re crying, you know,” Lucy laughed as she could hear his quiet sobs through the onslaught of kisses.

“I’m so happy,” He mumbled against her cheek, voice watery as he spoke. “So happy, I mean it...I’m so happy.”

“I’m glad,” She smiled, thumbs wiping away his tears. “We’re about to start a family, how weird does that sound?”

“Not weird at all, you’ve been my family since the day I met you,” He confessed, kissing the center of her palm as his free hand wandered to lie against her belly.

“We’re gonna have a kid and you’re gonna be my wife, that’s pretty hot, don’t you think?” Lucy rolled her eyes and slapped his chest, Natsu snickering as he leaned against her collarbone. “Lucy Dragneel,”

“You mean Natsu Heartfilia,” She scoffed, wrapping her arms around his head softly. “I hope we have a girl.”

“A boy! A little Igneel, but Layla is a cute name,” He smiled at the thought of naming their kids after his father and her mother.

“I was thinking Nancy, or maybe Ryuu?”

“Ryuu! Definitely Ryuu. Ryuu works both ways, yeah? Dad would’ve liked that one,”

“Yeah, he would have,” She sighed with a delicate curve of her lips.

“Think we can invite the gang over for dinner tonight too? I don’t want to put off telling them,” Lucy asked, threading her fingers carefully through his hair.

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“...Aren’t you worried?” Lucy asked suddenly midst their calm embrace in an attempt to relieve her mind of the worry that still swarmed in murky purple waves.

“About what?” Natsu asked, his voice muttering as he spoke into the crook of her neck.

“School, money, what my dad will say,” She said, the pink-haired boy sighing as he lifted himself up.

“Oh yeah,” He frowned, tossing himself to her side, both of them staring up at the ceiling, sitting shoulder to shoulder. “Well, if he asks, or maybe before you tell him. Do you...want to get an abortion?”

“I couldn’t do that,” Lucy’s lips turned sour as she moved to hold her stomach. “I know that’s still an option for us and would be an easy resolution, but this isn’t a problem for me...it’s our child and I want our child, Natsu,”

“Me too,” He grinned, placing his hand over hers, leaning against the couch as he turned to face her once again.

“I’m sure he won’t be happy and Cana said she’d take me in if he throws me—“

“What?! You told Cana about this before you told me?!” He gasped and she rolled her eyes with an exhausted smile. 

“Of course I did, who do you think told me to tell you? I was honestly scared that you’d be mad about this,”

“Mad? No way! We’re always safe when we...but you never know. If anything, I’d be mad at myself for knockin’ you up,” She giggled at his phrasing as he pouted. “You can tell me anything and I’d never be mad at you,”

“Even if I kissed—“

“Say Gray and I won’t let you name our baby,”

“Okay, okay, sorry,” Lucy chuckled as she positioned to face Natsu who steamed over the thought of his best friend even trying to get near her.

“But you could come live with me if anything like that happens,” Natsu shrugged. “I should start takin’ care of you as soon as I can,”

“I thought about that, but you still work a lot. Between cramming for finals and future college classes, you’ll barely get any sleep. I won’t tell my dad until after we graduate, but I’ll still need a lot of looking after. I don’t want to stress you out with my health.”

“Do I really need to go to school, then? If you need taking care of then I––“

“Don’t even think about it,” Lucy glared as she flicked the tip of Natsu’s nose. “Your parents left you money for school, you’re going. How else do you think you’re going to take care of us when we’re older?”

“I guess so…” He grumbled and rubbed his nose. “But what about you?” 

“I don’t think I should start school until the baby is at least one, or maybe two...I’m not sure since I know we won’t have someone around to keep an eye on them. Maybe I’ll do online classes? ”

“I don’t mind ya bein’ a housewife, it’d be pretty awesome comin’ home to you makin’ dinner,” Natsu said with a satisfied nod, thinking of the enticing thought of the smell of her cooking filling the house with its warmth.

“I think you should start school whenever you’re ready, until then I know I can take care of us, I’ve been saving a lot and I can work and go to school, no problem.”

“But it’s college, I want you to have fun with everyone. It’d be a waste for you to worry about me when you could enjoy the time to go party and all that other college stuff,”

“Weirdo, don’t even joke about that kinda stuff. You’re my priority, I don’t care if I ever sleep again, I’m gonna do good by you and make sure you get everything you need.” Lucy found herself biting her bottom lip at the sight of Natsu’s serious gaze, she always loved that look in his eyes. Being able to speak freely about her worries with him put her mind at ease as well, Natsu really knew just what to say in any situation. Even if it was only a rough sketch of their future, Lucy was sure they’d do just fine. “There’s nothing more fun than us being together.”

“You’re what?!” Erza gasped as she and their friends sat around Natsu’s table. It was later in the day and about two hours since their all over the place conversation. Their friends had soon been called up for an invitation to join them for dinner, no one bothering to reject such an invitation when it came to Lucy’s culinary skills.

“Two months along,” Lucy grinned while Natsu laughed at everyone’s shocked faces. “I’m not showing yet but if you want to see the tes—“

“Lu-chan! Oh my goodness, Lu-chan, I’m so happy for you,” Levy said as she began to tear up, Juvia beside her and already in tears.

“J-Juvia has never been so happy for Lucy-san…” She blubbered, although Lucy was sure her happiness for them came from the true confirmation there was really no chance she felt anything for Gray. (Even though such a thing was obviously untrue, Juvia was just jealous of any other girl that happened to be close with the raven-haired boy.)

“I knew before the rest of y’all! I’m on a whole ‘nother tier!” Cana cackled at the sight of their blanched expressions, slapping her knee as she became hysterical with laughter.

“Happy? How are you guys not...scared?” Gray gulped, his skin suddenly clammy and pale as his spine shivered, unable to find the emotion that elated the two girls. “And how are you two not freaking out?”

“Luce and I talked it out, we’re alright,” Natsu said with a smile as he stared at the blonde currently squished between Levy and Juvia.

“Salamander as a dad…I can’t see something like that,” Gajeel shivered at the thought of his cousin holding a little bundle of joy. “His dumbass would drop it, I hope you know,”

“Oi! I would not!”

“Yeah, man,” Gray scoffed, the energy of a small scuffle subsiding the anxiety he felt toward the shocking news. “I’m pretty sure you would, you’ve got serious butterfingers.”

“I wouldn’t drop my own kid so shut it you freaks,” His throat rumbled with a growl as the two snickered and knocked fists together at the expense of pissing off their friend. 

“Saying things like that will just bring bad luck, so quit it.” Lucy sighed as Natsu was ready to climb over the table and rip into the two teasing him. 

“What...I mean what, what are you going to do? This is a big responsibility,” Erza asked, feeling genuine concern for the two who she thought were entirely underthinking what they supposed they were ready to take on.

“I’m going to tell my dad about it when we graduate, and we’ll take it from there for the most part,” Lucy began, her friends listening closely to the rough sketch of their prepared plans. “Natsu is going to go to school and work while I stay home to raise our baby,”

“Are you sure, Lu-chan? What about your plans to be a writer, and you already got into Magnolia U with the rest of us, can’t you still come?”

“I would if I could afford it, but I’m sure my dad’s going to cut me off as soon as I tell him,” THe group sighed with a bitter understanding, knowing the two were on pretty bad terms at the moment. “And I don’t mind having to put off my plans while we get things figured out,”

“I just, I don’t see how you can,” Erza frowned. “It feels like you two are going to be giving a lot up. I don’t want you to regret something like this if you’re not sure what you’re getting into.”

“I know we don’t know a lot,” Natsu began as he spoke up, looking to Lucy as he broke out a soft smile. “And I know it’s risky and we’ll have to grow up real quick if we’re gonna be doing this, but I want a family with Lucy. She’s giving me a family again, y’know? And I can’t say no to something I’ve been missin’ like crazy.”

“Hey, if you start crying, I just might and you know I never do,” Cana felt her bottom lip quivering as Natsu shed a couple of calm tears, the table of friends shyly crying together at the conclusion of his short speech.

“I’m sorry if I came off a bit harsh just now,” Erza mumbled as she dabbed her eyes with a napkin. “I’m worried is all, but I’ll respect your decision, one hundred percent. We all will.”

“I know,” Lucy smiled as she held the hand of the fiery redhead. “Thank you.”

“Welp, that decides it for the rest of us, doesn’t it?” Gray grinned as he leaned back in his seat. “We’ll be this kids family too, you guys can count on us if you need anything. I hear college parties are overrated anyway.”

“Can we eat already? I’m done with the sob fest, the center of attention should be that lasagna now,” Gajeel interjected, getting up from his seat to begin bringing in the plates and food still sitting idle on the kitchen counters. 

The two months before the small group's graduation steadily came upon them, signifying the day that was marked in Lucy’s calendar with red marker, the day she resolved to speak with her father.

Everyone was worried and already planning for the results that were sure to reveal themselves as Lucy being tossed out of her family home. I mean, what other way was there for a father to react. Especially when it was her father. 

Jude Heartfilia. A formerly warm-hearted man now colder than ice, having been this way ever since his wife died. 

Layla Heartfilia. She was the light of his life and Lucy’s, a woman whose kindness radiated in replication to the sun itself. He had been sure that even her smile was able to bring wilted flowers back to life. 

It was a tragic and unfortunate early end to her life when one day she became too ill and never got better. Since then, he behaved as though she had never existed, refusing to mention her name or even look at another picture of her. Nor did he want to look at Lucy, considering just how much of a resemblance to her mother she was. The spitting image of the older blonde, which only resulted to pain his heart even more. 

His coldness created a boundary between him and his daughter, their relationship soon reduced to nothing but passing conversations and usual strict parent notions that insisted she stay at the top of her class and aim for perfection in every setting. The pain of his loss resulted in the pain of her life, and the rift between them had grown too wide to ever find a way to come back together; at least in Lucy’s mind.

But now, here she was, sitting in his den on an entirely too uncomfortable leather couch as he sat across from her in his armchair. Natsu was beside her for moral support and planned to take the majority of the blame for the argument was sure to implode between them.

Just as she was about to speak, his phone rang at the large desk settled in the opposite corner of the room, postponing their discussion a moment further as the two now had to wait for his call to end. 

“Geez, I think I might puke,” Lucy groaned in a quiet whisper, Natsu immediate to turn his attention to the mention of any sickness.  

“Really? You mean it? I’ll take you to the bathroom right now if you’re feeling morning si––”

“Oh my goodness, it’s because I’m nervous,” She spat at his over concern for her health. “You do this every time I barely mention feeling sick,”

“Hey, I’m allowed to be worried about you,” He shrugged, pouting as she rolled her eyes, but reluctantly gave up the topic before her annoyance with him built up and shot her into a mood. “I’m nervous too. Promise you’ll stop him if he tries to murder me?”

“Maybe,” She shrugged in a similar manner, hiding a smile as Natsu gasped dramatically, holding a hand over his heart at the shock of her words.

“I can’t believe you––”

“So? What is so important that you had to schedule a meeting with me?” Natsu snorted as he was interrupted a second time, finding it funny how Lucy had to schedule a legitimate meeting with her father for them to have this discussion. Sure, he was busy with running his business, but c’mon. Either way, he quickly zipped his lips as Jude gave him a sideways glance as he returned to his seat across from them.

“Well, dad…” Lucy started, subtly gripping Natsu’s hand as she took a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you that Natsu and I...well we’re...”

“Spit it out, hmm? I don’t have all day, the office just called and I have a meeting with some clients so if you could––”

“We’re having a baby,” Natsu said as he could see Lucy struggle to speak up against the natural glare her father cast upon them. “And we’re keeping it.”

“...What…?” Jude’s voice was a mixture of confusion and anger that escalated in vibrato and temperament, practically able to shake the books off the shelves behind them as he grew louder. “What is the meaning of this?! Pregnant?! When, what, why?! And you’re keeping it?!”

“Yes, we’re keeping it,” Lucy glared as her own voice began to rise against her father’s. “And nothing you can say is going to change that. We’re going to have a family, dad.”

“Do you even know what you’re talking about?! A family?” Jude groaned in aggravation, his body twitching, unsure if it should stand or stay seated, his fingernails pinching into the fabric of his armchair. “You’re a child, you’re both children, what––I cannot believe…!” 

“I know we are, sir,” Natsu cleared his throat as he took Lucy’s hand in his. “But we’re ready to do what it takes to start a family either way.”

“How could you be so stupid, Lucy? I’m honestly...so disappointed,” Jude frowned, his face falling into his hand as he hid his eyes and shook his head. “With this boy, of all people…”

“I wasn’t looking for your acceptance,” Lucy bit back her anger and frustrated tears as she spoke. “Of Natsu or our child. Things happen...we were safe and did everything right, but things happen, dad! I’m sooo sorry I couldn’t be perfect for you. Anyways...that was all I wanted to say. We’ll get going now,”

“This conversation isn––”

“I don’t need to hear anything else, I already know you’re going to throw me out. I’ll be staying with Cana, you don't need to––”

“My goodness, Lucy!” Jude’s voice boomed as he stood up from his chair, stopping the two who were about to leave the room. “You give a man two minutes to process something like this...I swear you can be so stubborn sometimes,”

“U-Um, w-well, I-I...”

“Could you leave us to talk, Natsu?” Her father asked, the pink-haired boy uneasy and slightly unwilling to do so, but agreed to comply. 

“I’ll wait downstairs,”

“I’m sorry,” He began as Lucy retook her seat, the frustrated frown upon her lips faltering her eyebrows rose to his words. “I shouldn’t have called you stupid,”

“I’m shocked,” He began, Lucy bringing her legs to rest under her chin as she listened to her father go on. “I don’t know how you could expect anyone to just take this kind of news as something anything other than immediately shocking,”

“Everyone else was pretty okay with it,” She mumbled as he let out a light laugh.

“You guys are kids,” He scoffed and shook his head, quickly finishing his sentence before she could interject again. “You may be having a kid and be willing to grow up for it, but you’re a kid, Lucy. Everything always seems easy in theory.”

“Mhm…” She sighed, twiddling her thumbs as she suddenly felt awkward with the calmness of the discussion, kind of confused as to why her father wasn’t throwing a massive tantrum.

“I’ve been too harsh,” Jude said, his voice becoming strained as he forced the words he’d been holding down for so long emerged. “When Layla...your mother...I should have been a better parent then. But she was the one who always knew what to do, and I didn’t after she died…”

“Why bring up mom now?” Lucy’s nose burned with a bitter blush as he went on.

“What happened afterward, with us…” His eyes drooped with a somber expression. “I know how terrible I’ve been, terrible enough to make you think that I would throw you out for getting pregnant.”

“You’re...not going to?”

“I said you were a child, didn’t I? I can’t let my child go out and act as though she were an adult any more than I’ve already let her do so. I neglected your time to be a child and now look at you. All ready to grow up and start a family without me. But I’ll have none of that.”

“This...this isn’t fair at all!” Lucy began to tear up as she gripped her fist tightly closed by her side. “You decide not to parent me until now? What is this?!”

“I can’t fix the past,” Jude let out a heavy breath as he stood up, walking around the coffee table that separated them to sit beside his daughter. “And nothing I can say now will ever fix what I’ve done, but...oh, how could I have not seen it before. My daughter who looks just like her mother...Layla would kill me if I didn’t take care of you now. Nor have I ever had any intention to leave you behind.”

Lucy boiled with anger as she looked to her father, looking at the face of a man who she hadn’t seen since she was ten. Her sharp look of disdain fell when she saw the face she remembered and missed when she felt relief wash over her when he declared she wouldn’t be forgotten from his life. Gosh, she really was just a kid.

[artificialqueens]

In Retrograde : Chapter Three (branjie) - Ephemerals

Synopsis: After spending months uninspired, Vanessa, a local reporter, becomes infatuated with writing a story surrounding the downfall of a police officer discharged after killing an innocent man.

When Brooke Lynn returns to her hometown after her life begins to fall apart, she doesn’t expect to find solace in the charismatic brunette who seems just a little too invested in uncovering all the secrets of her past.

It was just like any regular Tuesday night patrolling the streets of Toronto for Sergeant Hytes. In the passenger seat sat her partner, Constable Oddly, bored out of her mind. The pair made quite a duo, on and off the field. Over the years, Yvie had proven herself as Brooke’s only decent friend in Toronto. It did involve brazen nights out fuelled by binge drinking and drugs, but it was a nice change for her to be authenticity herself around someone. And honestly Yvie was unlike anyone she had ever met.

“Look, can’t we just ditch this and go back to my place and get stoned,” Yvie pleaded, Brooke shooting her a stern look in response. She impatiently tapped her fingers on the wheel as they aimless drove around.

“That seems like a one-way ticket to getting fired,” Her attention diverted back onto the road.

“The old Brooke would have done it,” groaned Yvie, playfully punching Brooke’s arm, “I miss that bitch.”

“That bitch had to clean up her act, remember.”

Brooke missed the old version of her too. Spontaneous and fun, she didn’t care what people think of her. Now, things were much different. She went to rehab (under the radar, of course), received a promotion and she was just months away from getting married. Brooke couldn’t be a party girl anymore. It was time to grow up. Luckily, Yvie understood what she had to do, but it didn’t mean she had to be happy with it.

“Yeah, you had to clean up your act for that fiancé of yours,” Yvie stated, “Who you don’t even like.”

Yvie was right and she knew it. The couple was doomed from the start. Brooke was much too independent and mostly unfazed by their relationship. During the time they had been friends, Yvie had seen Brooke engage in very brief affairs but she wasn’t one to stick around for long. It might be commitment issues, but Yvie honestly thought it ran deeper than that. So, the fact that Brooke has been with Luke for so long really was a surprise.

“He’s a good guy, Yves.”

“That’s not usually how people talk about their significant others,” Yvie smirked. Brooke just shrugged the comment off. It wasn’t the first time Yvie would make a comment like that, and it wouldn’t be the last time.

“So, are we getting stoned or what, Bee?”

“Shuga would kill us if she found out. Especially if something happens and we don’t report back.”

“That’s not a no,” Yvie playfully added. Brooke shook her head, “It’s a no.”

“I hate when you’re serious, bitch. Let’s hope there is some dumb crimes tonight to keep us busy.”

So, they drive. And just like any regular Tuesday, it’s uneventful. As time dragged on, both girls were awaiting some action. The streets were completely still, not a single soul embarking out into the nightlife.

Then, the radio goes off.

“Requiring backup for a domestic dispute at Wexford. Victim dead on arrival. Suspect armed and on the run. Caucasian, 6’2, slim build. Last seen wearing a burgundy t-shirt and grey sweatpants.”

Yvie beamed in anticipation, “Heading towards Wexford, over.”

…

Brooke is awoken by a violent pounding in her head. Instantly groaning at it’s appearance, too hungover to actually do something about it. It’s beating through her skull like a drum. Unsure how long she was out for, she glances at her phone. 10:27.Her mind wanders, memories of the night before foggy in her brain. That girl. What in the world was up with her?

After futilely trying to go back to sleep, Brooke eventually prys herself away from her bed in search of painkillers. She pads into the en-suite, disheartened by the completely empty medicine cabinet. While there, she washes last nights makeup and grime from her skin. She stares at her reflection for just a moment too long, before treading downstairs to scour the guest bathroom for drugs. Brooke passes her mother in the kitchen without a word, retrieves two ibuprofen capsules and swallows them down with a swig of tap water. Heading back towards her bedroom, she’s stopped in her tracks by her mother.

“Where were you last night?”

“I didn’t know I had to report to you,” Brooke wanders into the kitchen, her mother on her tail. It was easier to rip the bandage off, endure the conversation now rather than actively avoid her. She props herself up against a cupboard awaiting her mother’s scolding.

“While you live under my roof you do as I say,” her mother’s stare is icy cold. Arms folded, stern. For a second, Brooke is taken back to her teenage years, where she could do no right in her mother’s eyes. Her walls are up in preparation for a fight.

“I’m thirty-three, I’m sorry that I assumed I was allowed to be independent.”

“Well, you lost that privilege when you almost died during a cocaine binge, remember?” There’s a beat, Brooke’s mouth agape, “Someone has to babysit you since you constantly fail at taking care of yourself. I’ve booked you an appointment with your old therapist, no discussion.”

Brooke had to admit, she should have seen it coming. Her father wouldn’t have hinted at the idea unless her mother was devising a plan. Yesterday was a warning.

“What if I just don’t-“

“No discussion. The appointments at three.”

Brooke huffs as she storms off like an upset child. She marches up the stairs and climbs back under the covers of her bed. Her head continues throbbing despite the medication but she does her best to doze off, praying she sleeps through that three o’clock appointment.

…

“I don’t think I’m able to write this story, Ms Visage,” Vanessa meekly admits, standing before her editor. Deadlines fast approaching, Michelle sitting emotionless, scribbling on another reporter’s draft. The office is outdated, with wooden sliding and retro styled furnishing. If the budget allowed for it, the first thing Michelle would do is redesign the place but the reality of working for the local newspaper meant money was tight.

“And why is that?” Her gaze doesn’t wander from her work. Vanessa gulps, billions of excuses flying through her head. I’m unsure how to get close enough to her to get the story. She seems like a nice girl and I misjudged her. I almost knocked her over and she was super pretty and nice to me. I couldn’t even speak to her properly.

She could have had her story, but Vanessa ran straight in the opposite direction.

“I was too ambitious,” it’s a lie.

It peaks Michelle’s interest. She glances up above her glasses, unconvinced.

“Too ambitious? Go on.”

“I wanted to write an exposè, y’know. Deep dive into her life, find out how someone ends up killin’ a kid. Talk to her friends, family maybe.”

“That doesn’t sound ambitious, it sounds like journalism,” Michelle is absolutely unimpressed. She drops the pen from her hand and reclines in her chair. Vanessa stands still, waiting to be reprimanded for wasting her time.

“Miss Mateo, you are a very talented journalist. Much too talented to be writing for this newspaper all your life. You have a rare opportunity here to establish yourself as a reporter. I want you to write this story. Forget the deadline, hand in some shitty pieces about local events in the meantime. Don’t be afraid to pursue this. It’s the first interesting idea that has come my way in years.”

The response was the exact opposite of what Vanessa expected. She was ready for a slap on the wrist, to forget about the whole ordeal. Write an article about the local nursing home for the hundredth time. Stay content in her slump for a little longer.

There’s a story here begging to be shared to the world. A story like nothing Vanessa has written before. She’s not going to give up this time.

“Okay,” Vanessa is strangely inspired by the challenge, “I accept the challenge, Ms Visage.”

There’s a skip in her step as Vanessa leaves her editor’s office. Maybe this was her big break.

…

As three o’clock rolls around, Brooke nervously awaits her appointment with her phone glued to her hand. Her frantic texts to Nina receiving instant worried replies. Rightfully so, there was a pattern of Brooke’s self-destructive behaviour increasing after her visits with therapists over the years. Nina didn’t understand why exactly, since the point was to help improve her mental state. But having Brooke confront her feelings head on? It was a risky decision to say the least. A string of texts from Nina come through rapidly one after another.

n: you’ll be fine, b it’s only an hour of ur life i’m going out tonight w work girls u should come x

As much as Brooke would like to go out for another consecutive night, she couldn’t subject Nina to the consequences of her joining them. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if Nina was ostracised by her colleagues for being friends with a murderer. Nina deserved the entire world. Brooke had come to the conclusion that their friendship was one better off kept secret. For Nina’s sake.

b: don’t think i’ll be welcome

Almost immediately there’s a response:

n: they will love u besides u can’t turn down a drink x

Regardless if she was accompanied by Nina or not, both girls were aware of Brooke’s intentions for the night. As soon as she could possibly leave this building, she will, heading directly towards the closest alcohol vendor. It would be nice if she wasn’t alone while she did it.

b: fine, u have convinced me x

“Miss Hytes? Doctor Envy is ready to see you now.”

…

Tires skid on wet asphalt, blue and red lights flashing, sirens blaring through the city streets. A quarter of an hour had passed of their manhunt, the novelty was finally wearing thin. News gushes through the radio, reported sightings, updates, anything. Eyes glued to signs of movement, Yvie’s soaking up every miniscule detail of the city. Jobs like this one were the exact reason she joined the force. The adrenaline courses through her veins like a drug. Brooke’s extra few years on Yvie had caused her to become jaded. She was just waiting for the excitement to die down so she can clock off and indulge in a glass of wine at home. Of course she wanted the perpetrator to be caught and justice to be served, but pursuits like this were plain exhausting.

A call comes through and Brooke has her fingers crossed it’s home time. Her heart sank as Superintendent Cain’s voice bellowed through the speaks, “Any sightings yet girls?”

“It looks like the apocalypse has hit Toronto,” joked Yvie, “There’s not a single person out.”

“The guy’s Damon Carmichael. Been causing trouble for years,” Brooke recognised the name. She’d never dealt with him herself, but he had been a headache of her colleagues. There was a series of charges scattered all over the county in his name.

“There’s a dead woman rotting in his apartment. I don’t care if you bring back his corpse, I want him caught.”

The phone clicked off abruptly, the orders loud and clear. Brooke let out a sigh as drove down the same street for the umpteenth time. Streetlights dull, barely illuminating the empty road. She’s sure the neighbours are annoyed by them at this point. It was just another night on the job, keeping the country safe.

Out of the corner of her eye, Yvie swore she spotted something. Wound up on anticipation, Brooke just assumed paranoia had finally set in. However, Yvie’s adamant someone’s hiding by the church. Bringing the car to a halt, they decided to investigate. Gun firmly in hand, Yvie exited the car rushing directly into the darkness. Blood pumping, Brooke followed suit hand clutching the gun attached to her waist.

“Police!”

As Yvie announced their presence, something dashed away from them. It’s far too dim for them to work out what they can see. The younger girl is quick on her feet, Brooke in tow. A man emerged onto the dimly lit street. Burgundy sweatshirt, slim, young. A picture perfect match. Both women raised their guns in response.

“Freeze!” Brooke called. The man glanced back as he sprinted ahead. They picked up speed, trailing behind him. Yvie was just in reach, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt. An attempt to tackle him is thwarted as he shoves the younger girl backwards, toppling onto the pavement. He keeps running.

“I said freeze!”

Brooke knew what she had to do. In front, he’s losing traction. Panting heavily, feet battering the concrete. She’s caught up. So has Yvie, who had dusted herself off with more motivation than ever before. With Yvie ahead, Brooke comes to a stop.

I don’t care if you bring back his corpse, I want him caught.

Yvie grappled him around his neck, the man writhing in her grip. His fist flies up, the impact straight to the jaw. He continued to thrash around, Yvie unable to secure her restraint. Hands shaking, Brooke raised her gun. If Yvie tightens her grasp, she’d have a clear shot.

“Fucking bitches!” It’s spat straight onto Yvie’s face. Agitated, she raises her knee into his stomach. He brought his free hand to strike Yvie again.

“Didn’t you ever learn not to hit women,” she hissed directly into his ear. The arm around his neck constricts him just for a moment. He’s still flailing in her grasp, but he’s still enough for Brooke to fire. Finger to the trigger.

Bang.

Bang.

The echoing of the gunshots ring as blood pools at Yvie’s feet. She has let go, but he’s wailing, still squirming on the sidewalk. Two shots straight to the chest. Yvie fell to her knees, drenched in his blood. Streets of Toronto painted red. Everything’s blurry in Brooke’s head. The gun is still raised towards him. She’s frozen.

…

“It wasn’t your fault, Brooke Lynn. You were just doing your job,” Doctor Envy shifts in her seat uncomfortably. The last time Brooke was here, she was just a destructive addict. Miles away from her usual cases in this small town, but things were different now. Years of psychology classes couldn’t have prepared her to be face to face with a murder.

“I wish people would stop telling me that,” Brooke slumps into her chair, sulking. The conversation had run in circles for the first half of the session. Doctor Envy prying into the very few facts she had learnt from the past. Addiction. Self-Injury. Relapse. Usually after years of knowing a client, some walls have been broken down. But everything Doctor Envy knew about Brooke was from medical files and newspaper reports. The most significant information shared was about her relationship with Luke starting and ending. She hated predicting the future of her clients, but it was inevitable. Unless Brooke started opening up about her feelings, she was a lost cause.

Doctor Envy scrawls meaningless notes down on her clipboard, each stroke filling the empty silence. Brooke isn’t going to crack. Not today, not ever. Brooke intently watches the hands on the clock get closer to the moment she can leave.

“You aren’t evil, Brooke.” She says it out loud, her voice shaking slightly. She says because she thinks it’s what Brooke wants to hear. Needs to hear. Brooke acts like it is white noise. Unconvinced by her words, Doctor Envy repeats herself.

“You’re not evil.”

“You don’t know that,” Brooke interjects. Her stare is cold and uninviting. She adjusts her posture, leans forward, spits, “You don’t know anything about me.”

She’s tired of waiting for confessions to pour out. The truth is only going to reveal itself if she rips it out with her own hands. Tough love.

“I know enough. Sometimes, it’s what you don’t say that matters most. Everyone in your life can see that you are struggling and they want to help you. But only you can start that journey to recovery.”

Frustrated, Brooke stands up, “Thank you for your time.”

“Stop running from yourself, Brooke,” Doctor Envy adds. A bookend to a bad conversation.

The door slams shut.

…

Vanessa is dressed to the nines. She’s in a leather ensemble: tight skirt, sandals laced to her thighs, braids flowing down from the crown of her head. Silky is ecstatic with her handy work. Sitting on the floor of her apartment, the girls took swigs from a bottle of vodka. Everyone was ready on time (for once), their cab moments away.

When A’keria had invited them all out, Silky had insisted to makeover Vanessa. It wasn’t a new thing, the girls often took turns dolling each other up. But it was Silky and at times she could be violently enthusiastic. Especially since Vanessa had accidentally ignored them all week, devoted on this story. A story which she was avoiding telling them about, knowing how unimpressed they will be.

They head out to a club the next town over. Nightlife in their small town was lifeless, full of drunks and rowdy men. They preyed on the presence of a female. Vanessa had seen it the night before. She had been around enough that the locals left her alone, but they flocked towards the first sight of fresh meat. It was a more balanced playing field when the numbers were equal. And from what A’keria had said, their group tonight was larger than normal.

“I have something to tell you,” Vanessa shares as they step out of the car. Silky tosses the taxi driver a wad of cash, tells him to keep the change. As he drives off, the girls ask what it is.

“I’m writing a story, somethin’ interesting for a change.” The girls walk towards the end of the line. Vanessa rustles through her purse, pulls out her ID from her wallet. Patiently, A’keria and Silky wait for details.

“It’s about Brooke Lynn.”

Silky and A’keria burst into laughter. The line inches closer towards the door, but they haven’t yet realised. Vanessa raises her eyebrow in confusion.

“Told ya so,” Silky howls, “Knew you were keeping something from us, bitch.”

“Can’t stay away from those bad girls, huh?” A’keria smirks.

A bouncer checks their identification, lazily flipping the card over. He points for them to go past, Vanessa last in formation. A’keria’s on the lookout for her friends as they enter the crowd. Hoards of dancing girls surround them, unknowingly sloshing vodka sodas on the floor with each movement. Gesturing forward, A’keria pushes ahead. Strobe lights pulsate from the ceiling. Their group collides with the other. Vanessa recognises a few of the women. Nina. Honey. Brooke.

Even in the erratic lighting of the club, Vanessa could tell the blonde was staring right at her. Their eyes meet, gaze lingering as Nina tries to introduce them over the blaring music. Brooke pulls away first, coyly smiling. A layer of sweat coats Vanessa’s palms. This was the last thing she was expecting tonight.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

🏰⚔️🐲 DMODT- 21 full draft

Annoyingly, Levi found he couldn't get a moment alone with Eren after their first night together. Eren was working hard with Historia on the festival, while Urklyn Reiss was in charge of giving them a tour of Draecia. There really wasn't much he was interested in, though the architecture was kind of nice. In the centre of the main city was a museum housing dragon relics, though it seemed more a shrine or altar than a museum, with fresh offerings left by the descendants of the dragon's within. It was all very prim and proper, not a single flower petal out of place, and Levi struggled to pay attention to it all... He just wanted to spend time with Eren before the festival began. He didn't know if Eren was coming back to Eldia once the festival was done, or if the omega intended to stay. He hoped Eren would be coming home, the castle wasn't nearly as full of life when he wasn't there, and he was still stuck with Petra living there. As usual Eren had been right. There was more to the story and Petra had a reason for wanting to marry into the royal family. Her father was ill and she couldn't afford the medicine, or that was what she said when he'd found her in his chambers, waiting for him. Thankfully, he hadn't walked into the room without the guard stationed at the doorway, or she may have tried to pull something even more brazen. Zeke had just about exploded with anger of him declining his engagement, and that Eren was no longer in Eldia. Demanding answers, Levi told Zeke to write to Draecia, and had heard through one of Historia's letters that the man had demanded to come and visit them. Her father didn't take well to demands, and Zeke had been denied entry. Levi had wished he could have seen the look on his face. He liked to imagine Zeke throwing a tantrum like a toddler, complete with throwing himself on the floor and screaming. First Eren had stopped him taking dragon relics, then Draecia had emptied the castle of the ones that could cause actual damage, and finally, the mage he'd wanted for his own was now gone. Levi couldn't deny disappointing Zeke had become the highlight of his life since Eren left. The omega had held up his end of things, writing regularly, but with each letter it grew harder to open them. He missed the shitty brat far more than he'd thought he would, or could. When the morning of the festival rolled round, Levi found himself sent up to the manor by Historia to prepare, as his military dress uniform wouldn't be enough for the opening ceremony. Everything that morning was over seen by maids, from bathing to dressing and eating. Not used to being fawned over so closely, Levi was forced to keep a tight rein in his emotions. These weren't the maids at the castle, they didn't know he could take care of himself and had accomplished dressing him over two and a half decades earlier. When he was adequately ready, he was lead through to a small sitting room, where Eren was waiting for him. Dressed in robes, Eren smiled as he walked in "You look perfect. And pissed. I take it you were well attended to" Walking over to the first plush chair, Levi threw himself down into it "You might say that" "If it makes you feel better, it's not just you who had to go through that, though Draecia's dragon riders are used to it. It's a purification ceremony thing. The water in the bath was blessed with spells, then herbs to keep the impurities away" "Blessings... right" "Don't knock the blessings. Especially not within Draecia, and nor within a house filled with dragons and riders" "I'm not knocking the blessings... but I'm nearly 30. I can dress myself" "I know you can, but you're not quite ready yet" Levi groaned. He didn't want to be poked at again. He was finally alone with Eren, he wanted to cuddle into his omega... or at least mess his robes up again "There's more?" "Just two more things..." Retrieving the box from the windowsill by him, Eren nodded to himself before continuing as he walked over to him "Because you're human, and not a born dragon rider" Placing the box in his hands, Eren stepped back. The omega smelling anxious about whatever was in there "Open it" Inside the box was a crown of scales. Each scale was various shades of green, and styled to mimic the natural scale structures dragon riders had. Levi was speechless... though not full dragon, the amount of scales in the box was enough for the teen to live a life of luxury "Eren... how?" "It's made with my scales, and will keep you safe while on my back. Let's just say, learning to fly was an experience that ended with me crashing repeatedly. Depth perception is hard when you're not used to having such strong eye sight or a body the size of a building" "Still... I don't know what to say" He really didn't. It made his small gifts seem stupid "Just put it on. Then I'll give you your second gift" "I don't know if I can accept a second one, not with a gift like this" "Stop making it more complicated than it is. You need protection while on my back, and I wasn't giving my scales to anyone other than you" Levi definitely didn't want anyone else having Eren's scales, but his mind was still blown over how incredible the crown was... Lifting it from its black box, Levi placed it on his head. Sliding down into place, it was a weird sensation. The crown he wore in Eldia was heavy with gold and gems, and didn't cover his face or ears. Instinctively, he wanted to push it up so it wasn't rubbing on his cheeks, but even without him there, Eren had managed to get every measurement correct "It's not that bad is it?" "No. It's different though" "It's the face bit, isn't it? I tried my best..." Eren looked disappointed in himself, and Levi didn't like it. The teen had gone to so much effort to create the crown, then imbue it with magic "Eren, I love it. I didn't mean to look disappointed, or annoyed. I'm just not used to having something constantly against my cheeks. Plus, I don't know how I look" He didn't want to look stupid in front of everyone. This was very important day for Eren, and his tiny stature meant he was the smallest dragon rider of the group "I'm still nervous. It took months to get it just right. Dragon scales are horribly sharp, and don't like being forced into shape with magic, even when it's your own. I'm relieved it didn't cut your ears off... that would have been really awkward" "I'm relieved my ears are still in place too. Do I wear this all day?" "Yep. It identifies you belonging with me, so no other dragons or riders will mess with you" Levi raised an eyebrow, he thought dragons were above such things "They'd mess with a prince?" "I totally wouldn't put it past them. Especially Ymir. She loves her practically jokes. One time, she put glue in Freya's face cream. Freya lost her shit over it" "And what about you? What trouble have you need in?" "Hmmm... my fair share. Mostly because I didn't want to talk about you. Anyway. Gift number two" "I still don't know why I'm receiving gifts" "Because I want to. And because I said so. And the crown is really more for protection, so I made you another gift" His second gift was in a much smaller box. Drawing it from his robes, Eren didn't seem as nervous with this gift. Handing him the box, he flipped it open. Inside was a stylised brooch, much like the silver one he'd gifted Eren. Circular in shape, one of Eren's scales was seated in a central gold moulding, with small diamonds in the rim "Eren... I thought you said no gold" "It's not pure gold, it's an alloy with copper and silver" "Still..." "Don't still me. I was testing the skills I've been taught about metal manipulation, by Freya. The diamonds are clouded, so they're not worth much, and the scale contains magic for a charm" "What's the charm?" "Basically the scale holds a small portion of my magic and life force. If you're hurt, my magic will come from the scale and heal you. As long as we're together, it'll stayed charged" "It's not going to hurt you, is it?" "Nope. But this doesn't mean you get to go hurt yourself" "I have no intention. It's beautiful, brat" "Sometimes I think you say beautiful too much" "I'm a simply man. If it's beautiful, I'll say so. Is it ok to wear it?" "That was the point of making it. Because I'm mostly human, my tears are cloudy" Levi paused in the process of taking it out the box "These are your tears?" "Yeah. My first time turning into a dragon was intense..." From what he could remember, Eren had said it was liberating. Though in saying that, he totally hadn't read and reread each of Eren's letters until they were memorised. Pinning the brooch to his shirt, he felt the pull of Eren's magic as it drew his natural aches pains from his body "Does it look alright?" "You look perfect. Now, I have to go. I have to be there for the before the ceremony bit" Levi's heart sank. He didn't know anything much about the ceremony, or what he was supposed to do... Maybe Eren was supposed to have explained it to him? Or maybe they'd all gotten so caught up in everything, they'd forgotten he knew nothing about the ceremony or festival "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do" "You don't have to do much of anything to begin with. Like with the tournament thing with Zeke, there's a huge arena. You'll be seated with the royal family, while we dragons fly over head. Then each of us gives a small demonstrations of our power, which is channeled into this massive dragon egg. It's not a real egg, but a statue thing, and as each of use channels power into it, it grows a scale to represent us. Like how I had to take my vow in Eldia, this is my vow not to abuse my dragon power like Obsydin did. This takes up most the day... tonight we go for a night flight, where you'll help serve dinner to us dragons. Though they'll probably get you to stay sitting because you're royalty" "And what happens after that?" "After that the festival is over for the day, so we spend the night together. Tomorrow, the arena will be gone, apart from the egg, and dragons open small stalls and such. It turns into a huge market place" Why would it turn into a market place? They all lived in the spot... he knew how a market worked, but they didn't farm massive crops, and couldn't they just magic for things? "Look. Let's just get through today? It's going to be pretty long" "So I just need to do what everyone else does" "Yep. Now give me a kiss" Levi was happy to oblige the demand. Eren giving him a small kiss before pulling back when he tried to deepen it "Let's save that for tonight, or I'm never going to make it to the festival and I'll be an insult. Last year, I only got to watch because I new" "You'll be great" "I hope so. At least there are plenty of other dragons there to fix up anything I might fuck up" "You're not going. Now go be a dragon" Eren gave him a firm nod "For Eldia" Levi wanted things to go smoothly for Eren's sake, not for Eldia's, but it was so like Eren to be putting the kingdom first. Smiling up at his omega, he nodded "For Eldia" * Sitting in the stadium, Historia was kind enough to sit at the end of her family so she was on the right side of him. Eren had come to her for advice on making a crown for him, but she hadn't seen the final product, the woman had gushed over the beauty of it, and how well it suited him. With her comments, he didn't feel quite so stupid, even when Erwin had raised a Fluffybrow at the crown. Eren had crafted it with love, just for him. And once he was out in the arena with all the other dragon riders he more or less blended in, while Erwin, Armin, Mikasa looked completely out of place as humans. There wasn't a formal opening to the ceremony, only a kind of wooshing and gathering of winds as the skies darkened. Slowly every party of the sky was covered with dragons in every colour of the world. Now Levi understood why the arena was decked in flowers, each flower seemed to match a dragon above them. It was an awe inspiring sight, from a military point of view it was clear that Draecia well and truly had the power to destroy the world if they chose. Leaning in, Historia whispered "It's amazing, isn't it? They'll do a few flight overs, then each dragon will bless the egg" "Can you see Eren?" "Yep. But I'm not going to point him out. You should be able to tell who he is the moment he gives his blessing, and he wanted to see if you could figure it out for yourself" "He's going to be ok, right?" "He'll be fine. He knows what to do" That was easy for her to say, despite all their colours, the blended together so he couldn't tell one green dragon from another, and he had no idea if Eren's Eldia magic would affect his blessing. Narrowing his eyes, he tried his hardest to focus on the green dragons, but that was assuming that Eren was actually green. His face and nape scales were a green-silver, but the crown was made from both green and silver scales that made it hard to guess what his main colour would be. Coming together, what seemed to be hundreds of dragons formed a larger one, that twisted and danced on the wind, before the group split to land along the top rails of the arena. Despite the fact that each dragon must weigh hundreds of kilograms, the arena took the weight with no signs of straining. It was slightly disconcerting to be surrounded by such powerful beasts "The royal dragons give their blessings first, so they can rest. Other than Ymir, they're all really old" "Can you say that about a dragon and not insult them?" "You can say it when you mean it with love. There's no real order after that, each dragon will give its blessings, then the next group will move in. Not all the dragon's of the world could attend, and some have chosen to live as humans instead. I think we only have about a hundred here" Only a hundred? He could have sword there were so many more than that "It seems like thousands" "It does when you see them up there. It's not as if they're small" "No. They're most definitely not. The only two you'll know is my "Ymir" and Freya's "Steege". Steege had to be that grey arsehole who didn't say a same thing, but glared the whole time the party had been Eldia. At least he had a name for him, though he'd probably forget it. Steege came before Ymir, the dragon circling the arena before opening its mouth and unleashing what Levi could only call grey fire. Beside him, Erwin clutched at the armrest of his chair, causing Historia to giggle "His magic lies in metal. None of the magic will hurt you. At the moment, he's drawn in the iron, copper, silver, and other metal dusts from air, which is why his breath looks grey" "That's his breath? It looks like fire" "A dragon's breath is all to do with the nature of its magic. Watch when Ymir comes up. Her magic will look like a white-yellow fire, which is the colour of our healing magic" "So you're saying all dragons have bad breath?" Historia's laughter stopped, her glare turning cold as she leaned forward to look at Erwin "Never insult a dragon's breath. Even if you are an outsider who meant no harm, it's an insult" Erwin squirmed uncomfortably "I am sorry. I meant no disrespect" "Good. Don't let it happen again" Leaning back, Historia moved to whisper into his ear "Most dragons have made the same joke, but he upset Eren. Forgive me?" Levi nodded quickly, not knowing when Erwin had upset his boyfriend again, but he deserved the awkward moment "Thanks" Ymir's breath had been beautiful. Historia hadn't mentioned it, but there was a kind of shimmer in it that looked like snowflakes. As her breath hit the egg, one of its scales glowed, turning her pink and white colouring, and once done, she lowered her head in a bow, before flying back up to perch on the arena railing again. Not all blessings and breaths were the same, Levi soon learned. Some dragons turned the sky red as they gave their blessings with fire, which was actually fire. Thank god for Historia's explanations. While others caused small amounts to snow. He could see why Eren liked the ice dragons, for the most part they were so white they had an otherworldly green glow. Their breath was pure white snow, or ice, and instead of a roaring sound accompanying their breath, it was a piercing and haunting sound, as if a soft flute was being played in the background. With each dragon taking a few minutes to perform their blessings, the whole ceremony took all day. Once one group of dragons had completed their blessings, they rose one by one, flying a loop around the arena before flying off as the next group took their place. One by one they gave their blessings and Levi began to grow worried he'd missed Eren, until a large grey-silver dragon flew up to give its blessing. With each move of its powerful body, its scales rippled, green flashing through their beasts body like tall grass blowing in a field. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew it had to be Eren. Sitting up straighter, goosebumps erupted across Levi's flesh, every hair on his body standing on air as the atmosphere filled with electricity. Holding his breath, he watched storm clouds gather over his boyfriend as sparks of lightening seemed to shoot from his body. Opening his mouth, a breath of cold wind hit the egg, when Levi squinted, he could see small sparks of fire and flakes of snow twirling in it "To be a storm dragon is to control all the elements. Without the storm, there's no new life. That's what makes them so grand, and causes such a strain on their bodies. Their lives are shorter than most dragons, but long for you humans" As Eren's breath continued, it changed to fire then to a green mist, before his blessing came to an end "Why the green mist?" "Nature. The life born after fire and rain. Isn't his magic gorgeous?" "It is" Looping the stadium Eren's storm gathered behind him, Eren made it look so easy to be so big, Levi's eyes followed his boyfriend's every move until he sat back upon the railing, looking almost a silvery-blue from the distance, while his storm disappeared entirely. How the fuck Historia had known him apart from all the other dragons, he had no idea "He did well. His blessings were accepted, so make sure to tell him so. It's important to honour this fact" "I will... so were his storms always his dragon magic?" "Indeed. Those and the sparks of fire from his fingers. He couldn't control his storms as he couldn't control his dragon magic" "And how's his studies gone?" "Excellent. Once we sorted out his magic for him. He put the hard work in, and he's finally at the start of his journey" Levi nodded, not trusting himself to speak as he looked upon the next dragon giving its blessings. If Eren was only at the start of his journey, then he wouldn't be coming home anytime soon. They could have talked about it that first night, but Eren was so sweet in his arms that they simply talked about what came to mind, in between bouts of sex. God. He was such an idiot... of course Eren had to stay. He needed to see his dream through... Levi had slipped into a depressed slump as he'd watched through the end of the ceremony. When it came to reuniting with Eren down on the field, he didn't know what he'd say. He wanted him to come home. He wanted to announce to the world he was his... but that was being him being selfish. Parting from his side, Historia ran off to Ymir, while Levi was left to find Eren alone. The teen's scales had appeared green, silver and blue... of course the teen couldn't just pick one colour. Eyeing the field of dragons, they all appeared regal as their riders climbed onto their shoulder, it wasn't until he was nudged in the back that he realised Eren hadn't even been in that direction. Straightening himself up, he turned to his omega, Eren giving a bottom wiggle like a cat preparing to pounce. Headbutting him again, if dragons could smile, he'd be sure Eren was smiling "Hey, brat. This is you, right? I'm not flirting with a random dragon" Sticking the tip of his tongue out, Eren licked his cheek "Ok! Ok! It's you... you look incredible, and your blessing was perfect" He didn't want to say beautiful again, and Historia had said to praise Eren... "I guess I'm supposed to climb on your back, but I have no idea how I'm supposed to do that..." He swore Eren huffed at him, his eyes were black, not the electric green he'd expected, but that didn't stop Eren from rolling them at him "Don't sass me. This is all a lot to take in" Lowering himself right down, Eren titled his head. It took Levi a few moments to figure it out. He could use Eren's two large horns like a ladder when combined with the ruffle of scales along Eren's nape "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I've never had to climb up on my own before" Eren moved his front foot, adding a lower level for him to first step up to "Ok. I'm short. You don't need to rub it in" Letting out a small growl, Levi glared at Eren "Don't you laugh at me. And I swear to god, if I fall off, I'm never going to forgive you" Approaching Eren's foot, his claws were as long as Levi was tall, by spreading his fingers? Levi was able to step onto the webbing then up onto the top of Eren's foot. Raising his foot up to give Levi less distance, the alpha mumbled a "thank you", Eren clearly loving how hard he had to work to get onto his back. Taking a firm hold on Eren's first horn, he felt moronic as he stepped up on the first ruffle. It was like a ladder, and a normal sized dragon rider would have no problems, but again, he only had short legs. Beneath him, Eren huffed "Look here, you little shit. I'm trying my hardest but you're so damn big! You're tall enough in your normal form" Eren's tail thudded against the ground as his whole body shook. His lover was definitely laughing at him. Getting himself seated, Eren straightened up, nearly undoing his hard work. Grasping both of Eren's horns, he found that there were two smaller ones that seemed to have only just become visible thanks to how his scales sat. Moving to take hold of them, Eren nodded his head "A head's up would have been nice. Just go slow... you don't have a harness on you, or a ladder and I'm old" The way he was sat, it was like he was in a saddle without stirrups... the thing he needed the most. Levi left his stomach on the ground as Eren lifted. Clutching Eren's horns tightly, the alpha hung on for dear life as he kept his eyes scrunched closed. As Eren evened out, Levi gradually opened his eyes to find himself far higher than he was expecting, the scales of the crown made by Eren really did indeed keep the wind from filling his ears. As long as he didn't look down, the feeling filling him was almost euphoric, like this was where he was meant to be. Nudging his heels into Eren's sides, his boyfriend twisted his body, arcing sharply and leaving him scrambling, but before he could stop Eren from whatever he had planned, the omega spiralled, mimicking dragons in front of them. Levi had been sure he was about to fall off, but as Eren spam upside down, he found he didn't leave his seat at all, nor did his crown fall. Coming out of the spiralling movement, Levi groaned. Flying he could deal with, aerial acrobatics apparently not so much. Beneath him, Eren dove downwards, Levi about to scold him until he realised all the other dragons were doing the same thing, their claws ghosting over the sea beneath them and Eldia appeared on the horizon. Everything was happening way too fast for Levi to keep up. A few of the dragons pulled from the flock? Was it a flock of dragons? He had no idea, but as they disappeared under the waves, he assumed they were water dragons. Reappearing with a burst of speed, droplets of water were sent flying into the sky, creating a rainbow for a moment before arching up to fly higher than the rest of them. If it wasn't for cats not liking water, he'd say they were all like playful kittens, especially with the way Eren had wriggled his arse. Completing a loop of the ocean, the group turned back, heading to one the tall peaks of Draecia. As dragon's landed, they shifted back to human form, walking with their riders into a sinister looking cave. Pulling up along side Ymir, on the small landing in front of the cave, Levi realised the cave was decorated with carved figures, and obviously important to Draecia's religious beliefs. Beneath him, Eren tilted his whole body sideways, letting Levi practically slide off, his leg feeling like jelly from the flight. Taking two steps, he landed on his arse, while Eren shifted back to his human form "Prince Erwin?" Shaking his head, he raised a hand to stop whatever Historia was going to say. Eren was laughing far too hard over everything. Wrapping her arm around Historia, Ymir peered down at him "I think he needs a moment. We could just leave him here" "We're not just leaving him. Eren, stop laughing" Dissolving into coughs, Eren jogged over to him, coughing into one hand as he shook his head "I'm sorry. I got a bit carried away" Reaching down, Eren pulled him to his feet "A bit? I thought I was going to die" "As if I'd let that happen. It wasn't too bad, was it?" "I think my stomach's back on the field... I don't think I'm up to all those tricks yet" "Well, its food time now" Wrapping his arm around Levi's waist, Eren kissed his cheek "And then we get to go for another fly" Food and flying?! What could possibly go wrong with that?! "Oh good. I can't wait" Ymir snickered "We could just leave you up here. There's no path down, and I'd like to see you last a year up here without found and water" "Ymir, don't pick on him" "Come on, Eren. I can smell you're upset because he didn't like the flight" "I'm not upset... I think he did very well for his time" Levi felt as if he was a child who's mother was awkwardly protecting his honour. He hadn't meant to hurt Eren. He just hadn't know what to expect "Whatever. Let's head in. You're lucky your a human" Falling back with Eren, he took his boyfriend's hand pulling away from the cavern entrance and towards the tiny bit of space available that was out of the way of the landing dragons. Looking back over his shoulder, Eren had a firm frown on his face "We're supposed to be heading in" "And we will. But I want to talk to you first" "About what?" "I. Look. I didn't mean to insult you, or upset you" Eren's head whipped around "Don't worry about it" "No. Look. What I meant to say is that I wasn't used to the feeling, but when you were soaring up there, it felt amazing. It was just the spiralling bit, but only because I'm not used to it. You did nothing wrong" "I... I didn't mean to upset you. It just looked like fun" "And I'm sure once we get used to it, together, it will be. I've never ridden without some kind of harness before. So just go easy on me?" "Alright. I guess I got caught up with it all" Eren still looked upset, biting his lip he looked away "Hey... come here" Pulling Eren to him, he kissed his boyfriend "You did nothing wrong, and it hasn't put me off you at all. I can't wait to explore what we can do together" "Ok. I was so nervous..." Nuzzling into Eren's face, Levi kissed him again "Don't be. You're incredible, and I'm so proud of you" "Tonight, can we find some time together?" "I'd like that" "Good... because I think you're going to have your hands full" "Oh?" "Yeah. The wine tonight is special, and uh... it's designed to make us horny" "What?!" "I won't drink it, but you should know" "No... no. Historia never warned me" "It's all about the bonds tonight. Today we gave our blessings, and tonight is about closeness. Dragons take their riders away somewhere private" "Do you now?" "Mhmm" Eren's kiss was less than innocent, a promise of what was to come. He just needed to survive dinner first "We better head in" "Yeah..." Levi found his seat beside Eren easily. It was the only one with padding, and once again he felt as if his small height was being judged. Just because he was a few centimetres shorter than Historia, meant nothing. Eren shook as he tried not to laugh at his cushioned seat, earning him a swift sideways kick the shin. One thing he was fast learning about Draecia is that they didn't have the annoying urge to announce everything happening, giving him time to observe his around. What he'd thought had been a cavern, was a temple carved into the mountain. After a short walk through a carved passage, it opened into a huge open aired space. Small lights, in every colour of the rainbow, like the ones Eren had summoned floated around the island in the centre of the space, where a lavish horseshoe shaped dining table was set up. None of the dragons or riders seemed to mind the inch or so of turquoise water that surrounded the island, though hesitant about stepping in, he found himself walking on it... He'd take it. It was so much nicer than wet boots. At the fair end of the space, two dragon reliefs had their front legs looped, holding a goblet between them. Around the outer edges, stalagmites and stalactites hard formed from years of water erosion and mineral deposits. With the night growing so dark, it was hard to make out the top of the deep space, even with the lightening. In the middle of the table was a small fountain, of what seemed to be a naked woman holding up and overflowing cup. Around the table, everyone else was dragons, their riders standing just behind them and slightly to the side, Levi felt as if he should be standing and attending to Eren, but Eren calmly took his hand, leaning over to whisper "They all know you're the prince of Eldia, and my rider. It's a dragon thing" "I feel like I should be serving you" "It's fine. Historia had to fight Rod so she could serve Ymir. That's why Freya isn't serving Steege, and why Rose isn't serving Urklyn..." Being on the opposite side of the table, Levi hadn't actually noticed it. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or not. Rod was kind of a selfish arsehole, and Levi really wasn't the prince... "Just relax, and smile" "I'm sorry. I'm actually nervous" "I can tell, but it's ok. You're safe and welcome here" "I don't want to fuck up and embarrass you" "Then I should probably tell you, that everyone in this space can hear you because you've stopped whispering" Levi swallowed hard as they all turned to look at him. He wanted to be there for Eren. He knew how important the night was to him. And the little shit hadn't told him he was making all of this into a public discussion "You could have told me" "No. It's sweet how much you care" "You're lucky you're the centre of my affections" "I know. I couldn't ask for a better rider" As the dragon's around them went back to their own conversations, Levi wanted to sink to the floor and hide. That had been far too intense for the old alpha's heart. Historia ended up serving both him and Eren, the princess proud to do so. As the wine started to flow, the intensity that Levi had felt slipped away. Dragons pulling their riders into their laps, feeding the fruit from their plates, or offering them sips of wine while sharing soft whispers. Levi wasn't sure about it all, until Eren moved to sit in his lap, pushing a hard kiss to his lips. The taste of the fruity wine they'd been enjoying, playing on their tongues, as their kiss turned to four, before Eren hid his face against his neck. Wrapping his arms around the teen, Eren purred "I'm so happy you came" "I think you're drunk" Raising his hand, Eren bopped him on the nose with his pointer finger "Doesn't make it any less true. I missed you, and heats really sucked" "Is that so?" "Mhmm... missed you so much" Tapping his shoulder, Ymir leaned in "We're all heading off now. You'll fly with us for a bit, before Eren will take you somewhere you can fuck" In her arms, Historia gasped "You didn't have to word it like that" Nipping at Historia's earlobe, Ymir tugged lightly "Why not? It's what every single person in this room is going to do tonight" "Still..." "Stop being so prim and proper, I'm going to drive you crazy tonight and we both know it" He didn't need to know that, especially while Eren was wriggling in his lap "Master, can we go?" "Yeah, are you going to be ok to fly?" "I'm fine! Totally sober-ish... kind of... I just want to fu-mmmph" Covering Eren's mouth, his boyfriend didn't need to announce how horny he was to the whole room. Licking his hand, Levi wrinkled his face as he pulled his hand away "That was revolting" "Ok, you two. Let's go. There's enough dragons that no ones gonna mind us slipping off first" "Ymir's right. I'd bet money that some couples won't even leave the cave" That was double gross. He didn't need to think about people fucking on the table they'd just eaten off of. Lifting Eren, the omega wrapped his legs around his waist, starting to lick and nip at Levi's neck. As much as he wanted to be buried in Eren, he still has to pretend he had some semblance of control left. Reaching the ledge, Ymir and Eren transformed. Eren dropping to his stomach and rubbing his head against the rocky outcrop while his tail thumped "Dragons like being scratched between the horns. Do you need a hand up?" "No. I think I've got this. I suppose I'll see you tomorrow" "Tomorrow mornings pretty cruisy. There's no rush to return to the manor grounds, but I'd say try to be back by lunch" "I think he's still going to be sleeping all of this off" "Then drag him home drunk... we'll see you then" "See you..." He wasn't about to say "have fun", when both couples knew they were off to have sex. Walking over to his omega, Eren sprung to his feet, running his tongue up Levi's whole front "Down boy. You need to fly us out of here first" Huffing, Eren nodded "Good. Now lower yourself down, otherwise I'm never getting up there" He was feeling the wine, it'd created a pleasant warm buzz through his body. Dropping down again, Eren rolled onto his side again. Climbing up was clumsy, Levi barely making into Eren's saddle?, before Eren was up on his feet, and leaping off the ledge. Suddenly flying a drunk dragon across the country seemed like a stupid idea. Eren couldn't even fly a straight line "Do you even know where you're going?" Letting out a huge fiery breath in response, Levi promptly shut his mouth. He'd just have to have faith that Eren did. After nearly crash landing, Eren shifted forms before Levi could climb off his back. Landing on the teen, Eren's hands were all over him, while Levi had no idea where they were. There'd been ocean waves at some point, and now there was a grassy field. Mouthing his neck, Eren's hands went to his pants "Eren... slow down" "Don't wanna. Need your thick dick... need you to fuck me" "And I will, just slow down" "Don't wanna. Want your big hard dick fucking my arse" Growling, Levi let out a surprised oof as Eren slipped them over, almost tearing his pants apart in his haste "Need you so fucking bad. I'm so wet... my pussy is dripping for you" He was drowning in Eren's aroused scent, but didn't want to hurt him.... or his "pussy". When Eren had his pants undone, the mage giggled as he summoned up small lights, before leaning up to push clumsy, drunk kisses to his lips between his words "You're so fucking gorgeous, master ... need to see it all" Dragging a finger down Levi's chest, Eren cut through his shirt and jacket, humming as he nodded. Eren would probably be furious if he knew how hard it was not to laugh "My alpha... fuck... I'm getting pregnant looking at you" "Is that so?" "Mhmm. Gonna fuck myself on that big dick of yours. Going to make you come. I'm going to be so good for you" Levi fought harder as he tried not to laugh. Eren continued his running commentary on how big Levi's dick was and how wet he was. Hiking up his robes, Eren tried to mount him, getting angry when Levi's erection slipped up against his arse thanks to how wet he was "Eren..." "Shhh..." "Just..." "Nope. I'm doing it. Watch me" Rearranging himself, Eren brought his legs up so he was on his feet rather than his knees, biting his lip adorably, Eren finally lowered himself down, barely breaching himself with the tip of Levi's dick before dropping down with his whole weight. Beaming, his omega looked smug "Told you!" "You did" Rising up and dropping, Eren moaned, starting to build a rhythm as a hand went to his dick. His young lover starting to jerk himself off "Mhmm... watch me" "I am" "Good. I like it when you watch me. Watch you fill me. Gonna get so big before morning. Big swollen belly, filled with your seed" Drunk Eren had no filter, nor did appreciate Levi's laughter over the things he was saying. Levi couldn't help himself. Ending up cuddled on the grass, Eren casting magic was a great idea, magicking up stick figures of the things he saw in the stars, some of them hilarious, but none came close to the howls of drunken laughter as Eren "found" Erwin's eyebrows, drawing them with his finger tip. Morphing his drawing into caterpillar cocoons, then butterflies, giggling out "be free!". Sitting up, Eren blew sloppily at his drawing making both butterflies flutter away, then collapsed down next to him. Eren's laughter was Levi's favourite sound. The alpha would happily spend forever in Eren's arms, if he could hear it everyday.

[foolscapper]

Exploding Head Syndrome: A MCU Post-IW Fanfic | Ch. 3

(READ IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.)

"I can promise you, it's no mistake — the Guardians and those who were behind on Titan, they will be arriving on Earth sooner than later," T'Challa later tells him, over the translucent feed glowing from the center island of his work space, and Tony's eyes flutter closed with overwhelming relief. Watching transfixed as the people he cared about reappeared in his life, sprouting like seeds after one hell of a metaphorical volcanic eruption? It was almost too much. He'd lived with the deaths of billions for far too long, and though the world is alight with celebration and confusion and everything in-between, the feeling hadn't settled between Tony's ribs until Sam Wilson walked his way into the room with a lopsided grin, or when doors parted and Wanda's furrowed brow and uncertain expression graced the halls of the headquarters. People were alive again, and all it cost Tony personally was a broken arm and leg and ribs and — okay, the healing process wasn't the best, but Wakanda sure did make it easier. Everyone had hoped the snap would be set straight the moment that purple bastard's blood bleached the ground, but not so — no, it took another month just to figure out how to reverse it, none of which would have been possible if not for Captain Marvel. She'd come and gone like an angel, and if Tony were a man toeing the line for an early grave, he'd offer a smooch of gratitude. Italian-style. He's got at least 10 or 20% in his bloodline somewhere. She'd taken the Power Stone and vanished into the stratosphere (too literally) with it. That leaves five stones that needed to be displaced securely. Thor would see to the Reality Stone. The Guardians wanted to return the Soul Stone. And of course Strange had a raging boner for the Time Stone. The Space Stone... The Mind Stone... who knows. Still working on it.

But Tony couldn't care less about those shiny bits of misery; he's given up enough of his time the last two fucking years (and then some) in a cold sweat about stones that he'd lob into the sun if he could. No, he wants to see Peter. That's the last piece, the thing that he tosses and turns over, the one good thing that came out of Germany that day — meeting this kid, but also damning him by proxy, and fuck if he didn't want to fix that. Once Peter is back home with his ridiculously attractive aunt, goofing off and building weird robots with his pal Fred, stammering about some girl that looked at him funny while he helps Tony in the lab... that's gonna be the real endgame. That's when it all actually ends and he can close his eyes and actually rest.

"I'm eager to finally meet this kid without a mask, after all proud parent talk," Steve says from the couch in the break room. He hadn't been able to stand for very long anymore after what Thanos had done to his knee a month back, but Tony's at least helped hook him up with a prototype brace he'd started way back when for Rhodey. It whirs a little when he straightens his leg out. Despite the new scars that grace them — one on the arm here, another on the forehead here, the imprint of a stab wound— Wait a goddamn minute. He glowers at Steve. "It's not 'proud parent talk'." "If it quacks like a duck," Sam says as he walks by with a cereal bowl, like he's drifting along on conveyor belt that dispenses wise cracks. "Begone, Wilson, you wretched creature," is the apt reply, as Tony wags a hand for him to leave (he already has). "And he's a — good kid, so yeah, maybe I talked up a big game for him so he starts off on the right foot. Someone has to prep you so his awkward puberty-stricken self doesn't ruin his credibility right off the bat." Steve just shakes his head, smiling at the ground. He looks so much younger than he had even just a couple months ago. But maybe that's all of them. There's a light in their eyes, a feeling of victory they hadn't felt in over two years. We've won. Vision would think so, too. Him and his stupid sweater vests, and his terrible cooking, and his scarring everyone else by ignoring doors. ... He'd be proud of them. Tony's sure of it.

  "Aaww, look at that... Proof that Tony Stark has a heart." And then, gone. Every night.

His heart is hammering in his chest when the Benatar touches down on the central landing pad, which is stupid and unprofessional; Tony Stark does not anxiously flutter around like a student worried about their test grades; he scores 101% every time. But now he's here, and his palms are sweating, and Pepper is telling him it's gonna be okay — "Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good." — and to relax before he sprouts a couple more gray hairs to add to the others — "I don't wanna go, please, sir, I don't wanna go...!" — and Rhodey grips his shoulder, tight enough to hurt. He blinks. "Hey," is all his friend says, but it grounds him. Tony nods. I'm alright. There are few people in the facility that are aware of the post, or traumatic, or stress. Pepper and Rhodey and Happy are his key confidants when he detaches from all common sense and loses himself to places like Kunar, or the emptiness of space, or — or places like Titan. It's gotten better, but only before it's gotten much worse, and the months that followed the dusting of half the universe he was hardly capable of handling standing on his own two feet, let alone moving to solve anything. "Hey, it's all good," he'd tell them at 3 a.m. in the lab, "I took a Xanax." Beside him, Rocket and Groot stand transfixed, and Tony can only imagine how much more wrecked Rocket is about all of this — it's been two years since he's seen his family alive. He honestly wasn't sure if they were going to be able to pull him away from the tree-kid when he'd been flown back in, and though the raccoon will never hearken back to that moment he'd cried into Groot's chest, it'll at least be a reminder that good things come to those who wait. And drink excessively.

The doors of the Benatar open to a field littered with curious Avengers and workers, and the first to step out is Drax and Mantis — well, more like rush out, and Groot and Rocket are running to meet them with outstretched arms, as you'd expect from sweet reunions; and yeah, Tony's glad, Tony's grinning. More good news playing out right in front of him, fruits of their overworked, overwrought labor. From where they all stand, they can crane their heads to the side and listen for Rocket's wobbly, teary berating: "You freaking morons! How dare you guys just go off and get yourselves killed — this is what happens when you're not being babysat by yours truly, you bastards, you — " Quill emerges from the shadows of the craft's interior soon after, a sad smile gracing his lips as he drops a hand on Groot's jagged scalp. Not quite a whole family. Tony can see that in the weary lines of Quill's face. And he hasn't forgotten the desperation he himself felt, knowing that the Star-Lord had been one step away from exploding on Thanos back on Titan... knowing there was no way to turn the tide in their favor, once the floodgates were smashed into chalky bits. Quill turns, locks eyes with Tony, and... something shifts in his expression. Something drops. Worse — Something is wrong. The thought occurs to Tony, the moment he realizes that nobody should've been leaping out of that ship before Peter Parker. That kid had a hell of a time on Titan, yes — that'd be an understatement. But he's Pete, the teenager who can't seem to sit still for five minutes, the plucky one with a five-mile long list of shower thoughts and embarrassing factoids, the pain in the ass who doesn't do a single thing he's told, because he's going through a super-teen rebellion phase. Tony's worked too closely with him the years before Thanos; he knows him too well; he'd be out here already like a lightning bolt, smiling like nothing's wrong and cashing in on a real hug for once (and Tony'd let him and pretend it was grudgingly, but everyone knows better)— (— nobody is listening, they just talk about their day and nobody is looking at this kid in this photograph: the kid with the curvy brown hair and pinching, smiling eyes and thin lips, he's only a kid, he's missing, does nobody see that? But Pepper just puts her hands up at the sides of her head and shrugs like he's out of his mind, and she's talking about being behind schedule —) He dreamed this, like he dreams everything. Quill steps toward Tony and away from the Guardians as they stand on the ship's ramp, one hand out, placating, brow furrowed. "Stark, man, I'm sorry; we didn't want to tell you over some shitty line, but there's something..." His voice tapers off as Strange and Peter walk out from the darkness. Peter isn't smiling, he isn't frowning, he isn't anything. He's just looking at Tony — through Tony — and the scarred hand on his shoulder is doing all the leading. What do they mean? Something's what? He's whole and healthy, isn't he? There's not a scratch on Parker's head, not like the scars the Avengers have collected the last couple of months. He's fine, he's safe— (No. No no no, look at him, why - why are you not looking at him?" Tony asks, curled fingers pecking over the shirt on his chest, right where his blue heart used to be, and he's so fucking angry that Happy said it Pepper said it Steve said it Everyone says it, the same thing, different voices: "It's a black box, Tony. It's just a black box. The picture's not developed. Something got screwed up, sorry.) "Tony, something went wrong," Strange starts, in rhythm with the pounding of Tony's heart. "He didn't come back with the rest of us." If he doesn't breathe right now, he won't stay upright for long. Peter's eyes are looking right through him, and his arms dangle at his sides, which doesn't make any sense, because that kid could never keep his arms still for five goddamn seconds— ("Could you not move while I adjust these? Lord, do you want to plummet to your doom because they jam?" "Oh, oop, sorry, Mr. Stark!") Morgan whines uncomfortably in Pepper's arms, tired of standing in the heat. "Mama, m'tired." Steve hobbles forward, and he's saying something, but Tony can't hear it anymore. Peter was the endgame. Tony's having a hard time remembering how he crossed the distance from the grassy knoll to Peter, and he can't really recollect how his hands ended up on either side of the kid's face, looking for any sign that things are actually messed up — but before he knows it, he's gripping the kid's shoulders just as tightly as Rhodey had gripped his own, his hands trembling. "Pete, kid, c'mon. Say something. If you don't say something I'm gonna seriously lose it here. Don't fucking do this." A pair of headphones rattle around Pete's neck. Tony's shaking him. Maybe he'll come to, like a half-drowned puppy you pull out of the gutter. Then just as suddenly he's not shaking him, because Quill is prying his hands back from the kid protectively, and Strange's palm is pushing Tony's shoulder to put some distance between him and the boy. Everyone knows Peter is a special case, for him. A special mission set aside to complete. He promised May. He promised Peter. He held him while he disintegrated. He washed him down a sink and apologized in multitudes. Someone seethes, "What do you mean, he didn't come back? What do you mean?" and he recognizes it belatedly as his own. "Tony, look at me," Strange orders, and usually Tony would tell someone like the good doctor to shove his orders up his own ass, but for once he listens. Quill and Strange stand like guards posted at a gate, safeguarding the unresponsive boy, and Tony's senses come back to him like eardrums popping on an airplane. Strange continues in that agonizingly calm way, "You're having a panic attack. You're no good to the kid like this." He takes a step back, eyes burning, tongue heavy in his mouth. Usually, he has a funny quip he can sling to defend himself, or some jagged-edged retort that's bitter enough to cut through just about anything. But he has nothing to offer, right now. He just stares blankly, remembers how to breathe again, and turns his head away. Focus. Focus. Okayokayokay, you're a billionaire genius with a complex full of smart-asses, you've got magical glowy rocks, you've got Wakanda on speed dial. "What happened?" Answers, he needs answers. "He is not in there," Mantis meekly replies. It's not the answer he's looking for. "Judging from what we've gathered," Strange clarifies, "His body has likely somehow resurrected — without his mind." "What does that mean, exactly?" Happy asks, voice edged with frustration, with disbelief (when did he get there? when did he end up standing beside Pete with his hand hovering so helplessly?). "How does that happen?" ("I don't feel so good.") "Get him in the medical wing. Now," Tony orders, cutting through the quiet. He is more than ready to bury the coiling, ugly panic brewing under the surface now, turning to Bruce — who stands sheepishly to the side, concern and sympathy casting shadows on his face. He's told him plenty of stories, told him how excited Peter was to ever get the chance to meet him. The kid loved Bruce Banner more than he loved the Hulk; Bruce was beyond happy to hear it, smiling down at his work. Thor's not here — he's not here yet. Pete wanted to meet Thor, too. He wanted to meet everyone, without the mask. And that 'everyone' is here now, looking at him with little else they can do (this isn't a battle, they can't fight this), and Tony grits his teeth and promises Peter one more thing: he's not gonna lose it right now, when he needs him the most. He turns and plants a firm hand on Pete's shoulder again, this time looking into his eyes and steeling himself for the way nobody looks back. He tells Bruce, "I'm gonna need your help again. If this little asshole thinks he can Casper out on us, he's got another fucking thing coming." He'll have to call a rain check on that whole concept of resting. Good to know his nightmares are as reliable as ever, though.

[ohnoitsgay]

Reunion: Be More Chill One Shot

This was the times that Jeremy hated. You see, normally you wouldn't think this would be a problem with the kind of father he grew up with since his father was from this family, but Jeremy’s extended family were extremely judgemental.

Jeremy’s father always let him be himself. This meant Jeremy’s entire closet was filled with dresses and skirts and he had long, well-kept hair that he spent hours and hours learning how to style. He wasn't trans, no, he just liked wearing this. Sure, it confused others and Michael was certain for a long time Jeremy was Trans as well, but it was just the clothing and style Jeremy liked.

But, back to his family. They haven't visited in a few years now, last time was before Jeremy told his father about liking ”girls” clothing, and he dressed was more masculine. But still, Jeremy k we how most of them would react, and this year it had been decided that the Heere family was visiting Jeremy’s house for a reunion dinner.

They had gotten out of it for the last few years, Jeremy and his dad. They’d just say they couldn't make it because they were busy and be done with it. But it seems like their family was done with that, so making them host the reunion was make them unbusy. Well, at least not busy with things other than their family.

”Come on Jeremy, you know you have to head home,” Michael said, nudging his friend that sat on a bean bag beside him. Jeremy had planned to get ready at Michael’s house for the dinner and was dressed in a clean, new dark blue sundress and had his bangs clipped out of his eyes with a dark blue bow clip. He thought it would be good to just step forward and meet them exactly how he presented himself every other day, but his little confidence he had had been slowly whittling away as the dinner approached.

”I... Could just stay here?” He mumbled, looking up at Michael with a worried look on his face.

”You can't, I promised your dad I’d get you home ready for the dinner, you already missed the mingling beforehand,” Michael explained.

”I wish someone could come, I’d even enjoy Chloe’s company at this moment,” Jeremy whined, falling back onto Michael's bed.

”Damn, you really are desperate,” Michael laughed, sitting down beside Jeremy. ”It is time to go, though,” He added.

Jeremy let out a loud sigh, lifting his arms up so Michael could pull him to his feet. ”I'm ready, I guess,” He walked to the mirror and did one last spin, watching as the dressed danced in the air, a smile creeping on to his face.

”I bet Brooke would think you're beautiful right now,” Michael spoke, handing Jeremy his bag that held his clothes.

”I wish she was here,” Jeremy mumbled, picking at the straps of the bag.

”And all this time we thought you were gay,” Michael joked, causing Jeremy to push him away with a laughing, ”Screw off,” and a middle finger flipped in his direction. Jeremy quickly turned to exit the room.

”It’s my house Heere, you screw off,” Michael yelled down the hall as Jeremy giggled, his dress flowing behind him as he scampered down the stairs. He slipped on his flats and exited the house. Michael’s house and his were only separated by two houses so as soon as Jeremy opened the door, he could already hear the chatter of his family in the backyard. At least they were out of the house so he could go hide, and hopefully, he'd be forgotten during dinner and not have to go at all.

Now, his family wasn't the biggest, and obviously, not everyone would be at the house either. He’d expect about 15 people, but that was a scary number for people who didn't expect for him to look like he does.

Jeremy opened his house door quietly, his shoes off as he crept into the household. ”Jeremy, is that you?” He froze before processing that the voice was his father’s.

”Yeah, dad,” He called out, walking quickly to where his dad’s voice came from.

”Ah, there you are, dinner was just about to start,” His father said with a smile.

”Oh, good,” Jeremy mumbled, his eyes following his father as he went around the corner, hearing him call out for the family to come to the table. Jeremy stood still, some anxiety building up in his chest like a beast, wallowing in his gut as the voices travelled to inside the house.

Feet stomped on the wooden floor to the tables, having bought another one just for this occasion. His father reentered the kitchen, grabbing the last plate of food, ”It's showtime,” He said with an encouraging smile before disappearing back into the wall of sound.

Jeremy took a deep breath, closing his eyes before gently stepping towards the doorframe, peering into the room. Some cousins, his uncle, grandma, and more were all sitting around, piling food onto their china plates, a single spot left open beside his aunt, a spot for him. Another breath and Jeremy took a step into the room. Slowly, the room fell silent as their eyes fell upon him. Inaudible whispers started, and he attempted to stay confident, at least on the outside, and walk straight to his chair. He kept his eyes forward, not making eye contact with anyone yet he could feel their eyes burning into him.

Jeremy sat and started dealing out his own dinner as if he wasn't being watched, being judged, by the entire room. Slowly, the chatter’s volume began to rise again, but still never as loud as before. The first words spoke to Jeremy were from his aunt, who sat right beside him. Jeremy felt his father’s eye watch over their interaction from the head of the table, which was right beside Jeremy as well.

She just said, ”Hello... Jeremy... Do you remember me,” Her eyes burrowing into Jeremy as to try to pick apart things that weren't even there.

”Of course I do Aunty, you used to live just down the street. How could I forget,” Jeremy answered calmly, looking up at her with a forced smile, her judging eyes peering into him.

She just nodded, not making another attempt to speak until a few minutes later, this time to Jeremy’s dad. ”How could you let your son wear dresses like this?” She asked loudly, drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

Jeremy’s father put down his fork gently, wiping his mouth as he finished chewing and turned to Jeremy’s Aunt, locking in eye contact, ”I understand its hard sis, but you shouldn’t get upset just because he wears them so much better than you,”

Complete silence fell over the table except for Jeremy and few others, all attempting to stifle their laughter, looking up to point each other out as the others sat there in too much shock to react in any way. Maybe this reunion wasn't going to be as shitty as Jeremy thought it was going to be.

[citrus-feline]

good ideas for society dont work cuz there are people who will take advantage of the goodness in other people’s hearts. thats why i want to live on a small island with people who won’t be shitty and destroy everything through their selfishness. the problem of these concepts isn’t the concept itself but the people who take advantage of it. things would be so much easier if people were just nice and thought about others instead of just themselves. but that can’t work because of how so many people aren’t that way. the reason it goes to shit is because awful people do awful things knowing full well they are awful!!! its not a flaw of the concept its a flaw in the people involved!!! thats why we cant be fucking accepting of every single idea we hear. some go waaay too fucking far and that needs to be shut down or whomp whomp our government formed for peace and freedom is now taken over by shit heads calling for genocide. when ppl give communism shit i just wonder if they think that the problem is the thing itself. cuz most do. people think communism is evil and disgusting. thru like all of high school all i heard about it was “it looks good on paper but not in practice” okay? but why?? why can’t that translation be made? the answer is... SHITTY PEOPLE!!!!!! EVERYTHING WOULD BE BETTER IF THEY DIDN’T BE SHITTY BUT WOAH THERE THEY GO!!!!!!!! stuff goes to shit in history with that kinda thing because the original intentions for equality and fairness is kicked down by someone who can’t fathom being nice to anyone ever and cant stand the idea of being equal to others. people who go grabbing at power like that in a society where there isn’t SUPPOSED to be power are shitty, awful, disgusting people who ruin the entire concept. we should just go back to having villages, man. that’s so much easier to handle. you got big ass societies like this fuck hole and you can’t keep track of fucking anyone unless u r the big bad gobernment owo!!!!

theres too many fuckin people in every given place, dude. look at chicago. and even in such a dense place the contrast in people is so fucking noticeable. like homeless people out in the freezing cold begging for food money a block down from where a big ass fancy apartment building is that is sooo rich that it plays on that “futuristic” “totally clean” aesthetic. man fuck that. fuck that so much. some ppl confuse me so fuckin much with how they can’t fathom equality. how they are scared of it. how they think that the younger generations of today starting to move in that direction shows how “evil” they are. no! fuck off!! that’s the exact opposite of the intentions here!!!! is it so bad to want everyone to have a home and food on the table every night?!?! if u really feel the need to be better than others then cool good for fuckin you yknow how you do that? idk fuckin save up ur money to buy a cool car or something. fuckin whatever. as long as there arent people on the fucking streets and people going without food or healthcare. why is that such a fucking crazy concept to some of yall!!!!! humans are supposed to be kindhearted and look out for each other but so many of us have lost that to this competitive and toxic society we grew up in!!!!!!! just fuckin think about what it would be like to be in someone else’s shoes for a sec! like idk about u but i ask people in similar situations like me what they would do if they suddenly won the lottery and got tons of money and the answer 98% of the time is “help provide for people i care about and make their lives livable.” kind people exist dude!!! we are all fuckin here! rich people take advantage of others, if they acknowledge it  or not!! the system is bent and twisted so they can get to that completely different life style compared to everyone else!!! that shouldnt be a thing! that shouldnt be celebrated!!! even with the “good ones” that donate money, they are still fuckin up there. so it doesn’t maaatter. having differences in wages can be fine if its small differences and even the ppl at the bottom are able to live safely but thats not how it is rn. if those “good” rich ppl care sooo much about people in poverty rn then why are they still rich?? like im not even fucking kidding rn if i won the lottery or some shit i would try to provide a nice home for me and my boyfriend and it would be humble and comfy and enough that we wouldnt have to worry. the rest would go in savings and go to people who need it. the concept of so much excess money is so fucking stupid to me. savings are important but that isn’t savings thats sitting on a resource that people would kill each other for just so you can feel better than others. “look at all this money i have!!! oh? am i going to use it for anything? well. some things. but mostly just  having it so i feel better than everyone else”

augh

its annoying dude

i literally had a convo with my brother yesterday and he said his goal in life is to be able to provide for his family. that is so fucking kind and sweet?? he works two jobs and i dont really see him much cuz he works so much. and that’s his thoughts when he’s working. he has a tendency to blow things out of proportion and have expectations way too high and yet despite that he still has this capacity to be a kind person. hmm. perhaps thats how all people should be??? everyone should have room for kindness in their hearts even with differences in personality??? like why is it so stupid for me to say that!!! “oh niko ur ignoring how the real world is ooohhh ur just making things seem worse by wanting the best” FUCK OFF!!! i want the best for people because i think humanity has a capacity to be kind and help each other!!! yeah i obviously cant do fuckin anything about that with how i am rn cuz i have like $20 in my savings rn but come the fuck on!!! dude! why am i a radical for thinking people deserve things???? why am i suddenly a bad person for saying that i think people should be equal? like of course its not that easy for yall it has to become a long ass conversation about how im shitty because blah blah blah and in history blah blah blah okay but bitch!! you aren’t LISTENING to me!!! humans are creatures with needs!!! if we are a society the goal should be to meet those needs!!! i shouldnt be fucking scared of my government!!! i shouldnt be fucking scared of the system that is supposed to protect me!! and yet i am cuz i feel like im just a number to them!!!! that’s all i fuckin feel like i am!! i try to be a kind person and im not sure why im given so much shit for that!!! everyone deserves food and water and a home!!!!! why is that so weird to say?! im just frustrated how people can think that! im a bad person for wanting people to be better off?? okay???? but... how? because my ideals are similar to an outline that hasnt worked in the past due to BAD PEOPLE taking ADVANTAGE of the kindness that others give? wow! doesn’t really fuckin sound like its MY problem!!! sounds like its the shitty people who are the problem!!!!!!

>:/

[sapphicscholar]

Ok I know you're busy but please please please write whatever pairing you want for the post of the person who is advertising their services as being a terrible date to your family Thanksgiving dinner. No rush. Whenever you want. IF you want. Your life things absolutely come first

This has now been posted to AO3 here!

-Refers to this post  (text is there, but I changed to better match the situation/add in a joke or two)

A/N: This is set before the sort of reconciliation we get between Eliza and Alex (for reasons, even though other things have already happened that canonically take place post-reconciliation and really the timeline is all sorts of fucked but I’m beyond sleep-deprived), and since I’m writing from Alex’s POV, their relationship will sound pretty shitty, though it’s not the focus here. Also, this is pure crack–probably fairly terrible crack. In case anyone worried it would be serious….

Chapter Text

Knitting her eyebrows together in confusion, Alex reread at the vague subject line in her inbox: “Saw this, thought of you.” Knowing it was from Lucy already had her on high alert—the last time she’d unthinkingly opened a link from one of her emails at work, she’d ended up with the video for “Dick in a Box” playing at full volume to the surprise (and amusement) of her DEO recruits. But, since she was at home and more than a little curious, she clicked on the link, finding herself on a Craigslist ad that read:

“It’s Thanksgiving. Want to skip that long, insulting conversation about how youre still single? About how your parents really want more grand children? Well, look no further!

I am a 29 year old ex-con (long story, don’t worry, I’m plenty friendly!) with no family to worry about and a dirty pickup truck one year younger than me painted with some Scissor Sisters album cover artwork (there when I got it, but I like it too much to change it). I can play anywhere between the ages of 25 and 35 depending on hair and makeup. I’m a bartender and work late nights. If you’d like to have me as your strictly platonic date for Thanksgiving, but have me pretend to be in a very long or serious relationship with you, to torment your family, I’m game.

I can do these things, at your request: • Openly hit on other female guests while you act like you don’t notice• Start instigative discussions about politics and/or religion (I prefer to play the flaming liberal atheist, but can adapt depending on how promising the dessert selection will be and how much it would piss off your shitty family)• Propose to you in front of everyone (I’ve got a cheap ring and all)• Pretend to be really drunk as the evening goes on (sorry, I don’t really drink much anymore, but I used to. A lot. too much in fact… I know the drill)• Start an actual, physical fight with a family member, either inside or on the front lawn for all the neighbors to see (I require advance warning if I’m not to harm them in any real way or leave marks)

I require no pay but the free meal I will receive as a guest!”

Scowling, Alex switched over to email and sent back: “What the hell, Lane?”

Mere seconds later a reply came back in: “Morning to you too, Alex! You said you didn’t want to deal with your mom and your sister’s shitty boyfriend alone again so… voila! A solution—and it’s free.”

“I’m not going to hire an escort service,” Alex shot back.

“She says ‘strictly platonic,’ so it’s really not an escort service. And you’re not paying her, just feeding her. C’mon, think of all the joy those stories could bring to me, your dear friend, your oldest friend.”

“You arrested me for treason.”

“Hey look! Something you two have in common. You could totally bond about being ex-cons together.”

“Fuck off.”

“Do it!”

“No.”

Alex was ready to leave the conversation at that, but when she made it into the DEO, she found Lucy, a wide grin on her face and an extra coffee in her hand waiting for her in her lab. “So, I know you think it’s a bad idea, but here’s why you should do it.” She paused, waiting for Alex’s objections. When the woman just arched an eyebrow and glared, she kept going. “First of all, Eliza always wants to know why you don’t bring anyone home. You get the speech about how you went through all that effort to come out, and now you’re still single, Alexandra. Why? Second, Vas’s parents had to cancel last minute, so we’re gonna come crash the Danvers Thanksgiving extravaganza and would love to have some front row seats to this. Third, you know you’ve wanted to punch Mike since the moment he and Kara got together, and now someone is willing to do it for free. Do you understand how few things in life are genuinely free?”

“It won’t be free because you know the consequences will haunt me forever.”

“Danvers. Have I ever asked you for anything in my life?”

“So many things.”

“Hmm, I don’t recall those things. So you should say yes to this one.”

“Why are you so adamant?”

“No reason,” Lucy shrugged, a smirk playing at her lips as she feigned nonchalance, examining her perfectly manicured nails.

“Lucy,” Alex growled. “What did you do?”

“Nothing…I just, well, maybe I emailed her.”

“To say hello?”

“Yep, just emailed her to say hey.” A beat. “She can’t wait to meet you on Thursday!”

“Lucy!” Alex yelled, taking off after Lucy who had high-tailed it out of the lab. “Get your ass back in here!”

“Agent Danvers, is there a problem?” J’onn asked when Alex nearly collided with him.

“No, sir, nothing at all. I just have a few…follow up questions for Lucy.”

“It will have to wait. Supergirl just called in for backup on a situation developing downtown.”

With a nod, Alex resigned herself to waiting to exact her revenge on Lucy and cancel on whatever ex-con she’d found her for Thanksgiving. Of course, she reasoned, it might be amusing to see how her mother would react… Sure, she might not be able to compete with Kara, who could seemingly do no wrong, but surely she could be better than this internet chick. And bringing her would most definitely piss off her mother…

—

With a tumbler of top-shelf whiskey in front of her (courtesy of Lucy), Alex tilted her head to the side. “You’ll be there if anything goes horribly wrong?”

“I think you, Agent Badass, can more than handle it.” Lucy grinned at Alex over the rim of her own glass, far too excited about the prospect of her actually taking this mystery Craigslist woman to Thanksgiving dinner.

“Ah, but you forget I don’t really do family holidays sober. Still have a mean right hook, but it’d be nice to have backup.”

“Fine, yes, Vas and I will be there for you the whole day.”

“And you’ll take the blame if it goes horrifically wrong?”

“What? That wasn’t part of the agreement.”

“It is if you want me to actually agree this time.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Lucy finally nodded. “Alright, Danvers, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

“Fine,” Alex sighed, resigning herself to her fate. If nothing else, it would at least provide her with stories for years to come (and, if she were lucky, maybe even get her disinvited from future family holidays).

“Perfect, she’ll pick you up at 3.”

“Wait, you gave her my address?”

“Love ya too, Alex!” Lucy yelled, grabbing for her coat and making for the entrance before Alex could change her mind yet again.

—

2:50pm on Thanksgiving found Alex pacing back and forth in the lobby of her building. She hadn’t even wanted this woman—Maggie, apparently—to know where she lived, but since Lucy had already given up that information she was at least going to keep her from getting all the way up to her apartment. A ping from her phone finally drew her attention away from the door.

“Almost here. Is family there? Should I be a real dick and honk from the street?”

Smiling in spite of herself, Alex sent back: “No, just me. I’ll come outside.” Her smile soon vanished and her jaw dropped when she caught sight of Maggie’s truck rolling down her street. True to her word (though Alex might have conveniently forgotten that detail), it was emblazoned with a pair of women’s legs that morphed into scissors, a beam of light refracting through it and splitting off into a rainbow Pink Floyd-style.

“Your chariot awaits, m’lady!” the woman yelled after cranking down her windows, a smirk adorning her face that brought out dimples Alex might have fallen for if she didn’t know they belonged to some weirdo who would advertise her services on Craigslist.

With a nod and grunt of acknowledgment, Alex pulled herself up into the truck, rolling the window back up before turning to face her “girlfriend” for the day.

“So…you always this quiet?” Maggie asked, peeking over at Alex as they crawled their way through holiday traffic.

“No.”

“Cool, cool.” Eventually, tired of the quiet, Maggie spoke up again. “Anything you want me to do or not do today? Who all will be there?”

“Mom—Eliza. My sister Kara—technically foster sister, though she’s obviously the favorite child. Her jackass boyfriend, Mike, and her best friend Winn. I don’t think James is coming this year. Then Lucy and her girlfriend Vasquez.”

“Ah, yes, Lucy’s the one who wrote to me for you!”

“Mm, the very one,” Alex grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling at the traffic as though the sheer force of her glare could make it move faster.

“If you don’t mind my asking, why did you do this? You seem kinda…miserable about the whole ordeal.”

“Lucy.”

“If you’re really not up for it, I can just drop you off and head back home. I mean, okay, yeah, I don’t get my Thanksgiving meal, but I’m not gonna force my delightful company on you.”

“Thanks.” Maggie couldn’t help but notice it was the first time Alex had sounded sincere, and she almost seemed to relax—not quite, but a little. “I’m okay though.”

“Alright, well, you’ve got until the front door to make that decision.”

“No, no. You were promised a Thanksgiving meal, and you’ll get one.” She’d even warned Kara to cook the turkey beforehand lest she accidentally out herself as an alien to yet another person.

“Well, I appreciate it.”

“Yeah,” Alex dismissed the thanks with a shrug and a wave of her hand.

“So, what’s our deal for the day?”

“Oh, um, maybe we’ve been dating for a couple of months—wasn’t super serious at first and didn’t want to say anything just yet?”

“Okay, that works. So no proposal?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Roger that. Now, do you want me to be a total d-bag? Hit on your sister?”

“No! No, there’s no need to remind mom just how much better Kara is than me at everything, including, apparently, attracting my fake girlfriend’s attention.”

Maggie cocked her head to the side, wondering how in the world the gorgeous woman sitting next to her thought she would ever fail to hold someone’s attention. Sure, she could be a little bit of an ass, according to Lucy, but who wasn’t?

“Okay, so, eyes on you and only you. Want me to talk politics? Religion? My former conviction? My lack of career mobility?”

“I don’t know,” Alex sighed, rubbing at her temples and trying to remember why she had agreed to this. Perhaps she thought this woman might deflect attention away from her—be so unsuccessful that Alex’s failure to become a proper medical doctor might be overlooked for a change, be so unappealing as a date that her mom would stop pushing her into relationships, figuring singledom was better than the lowlifes Alex picked up. But this woman was…not quite what she had expected. Sure, she was loud and a little brash—and her pickup truck took both of those to the extreme—but she also seemed fairly considerate, and she was cuter than Alex had expected all dressed up in her holigay best plaid.

“How about we play it by ear? I’m very good at reading people, I’ll have you know.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhm. For instance you are feeling very stressed and wondering why you got into my truck and why you’re bringing some internet stranger to Thanksgiving dinner. I’d put money on the fact that you’re already thinking about how much you’ll regret it and planning ways to exact some revenge on Lucy.”

Alex just pursed her lips, unwilling to admit that it was all rather true.

Grinning at Alex’s silence, which she took as confirmation, Maggie pushed her luck. “Now you’re wondering, ‘However did she get so good at reading people?’ And how is such a gorgeous woman still single, without a line of women to go home with for the holidays.”

“Oh fuck off.”

“She speaks!” Maggie crowed, cackling at the scowl directed her way. “C’mon the whole point of this stunt is to have some fun. Family holidays suck more than just about anything. And this is my irreverent way of saying fuck you to the whole ordeal. Everyone knows the holidays are all about pushing your dirty laundry and your box of vibrators deep into the closet and pretending like you don’t hate each other and everything your conservative uncles stand for while you eat until you can’t taste the bitterness of regret for your life choices anymore, right?”

“That got really bleak, really fast.”

“It’s dark humor, get used to it.”

“Remind me where the joke is.”

“Because you’ll know that everything about today is fake. Having the fake girlfriend there just helps remind you that everyone else’s perfection is a big goddam charade too.”

Alex made a vague noise, still unsure about how she felt about all of this. Rather than contemplate any longer, she turned to Maggie. “So, tell me something about you.”

“Not like I know that much about you.”

“I’m a scientist; that’s all you need to know.” It wasn’t totally true, but it would be fine.

“I doubt it.”

“I like whiskey. And dogs, not that I have time for one. I’m a scientist, not the doctor my mother hoped for. Better?”

“A little. I prefer scotch myself on the rare occasion I splurge. Dogs are clearly superior to cats, so we’re in agreement there for our future dog, ya know, even though it’s only been a couple of months. And I hate doctors, so it’s better this way.”

“All doctors?”

“Doctors, dentists, orthodontists—all the sadists, ya know.”

“Mm, right, right.”

“Yep. So, according to Lucy’s directions, we’re getting close. Any last minute instructions or questions?”

“Uh…no?”

“You don’t sound so certain.”

“Sorry, I just, I hate family things. I know in theory that she loves me, but I just—god, I can’t do another one.”

“Want me to take you home? You can blame me—tell her I let my car insurance expire or something and we got pulled over. Or I got sent to prison again.”

“That’s sweet,” Alex said, “but no, I need to go.”

“Well, at least this year you have an ex-con on your arm.”

“Speak of which…what did you do?”

“Honest answer or the fun answer?”

“Why aren’t they the same?”

“Because it’s more fun for me if I let you think I killed a man and gave all of his money to charitable causes like a veritable 21st century Robin Hood.”

“So you didn’t kill a man?”

“Tragically, no.”

“You gonna tell me what you did?”

“Protesting mainly. So disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, that kind of shit. Not like I’ve got any felonies on the record. But I can if you want to freak out your mom. Or your sister’s boyfriend.”

“Well, if you don’t mind risking another arrest, by all means, please feel free to punch him in the face.”

“That bad?”

“Worse.”

“Yikes.”

Alex just nodded, wrapping her head around the slightly different image of Maggie that was emerging as she learned more and more about the woman. Of course, nothing excused the fact that she was in a tacky pickup truck—not even the dimples and the charm and the deep misanthropy that rivaled her own.

“We’re here,” Alex murmured, taking a deep breath and steeling herself for the inevitable shitshow.

—

“Alex!” Kara squealed, pulling her sister into a big hug like she hadn’t seen her just yesterday.

“Hey, Kara,” Alex laughed, squeezing her once before pulling back. “Maggie, this is my sister Kara. Kara, this is my girlfriend Maggie.”

The theatrical wink Kara shot in her direction had Alex ready to drop her head into her hands, but as her mom strolled across the room she realized it was too late to back out now.

“Did you say girlfriend, Alexandra? Why haven’t I heard anything?”

“Mom, this is Maggie. Maggie, this is my mom, Eliza Danvers.”

“Very nice to meet you—”

“Eliza is fine,” Eliza interjected, sensing the hesitation. “Alex, is it too much to ask that you call me every once in a while? I shouldn’t have to find out about a partner only because I happened to be in town.”

“I’ll do better,” Alex sighed, setting her coat down as her eyes scanned the apartment, looking for where Kara had hidden the good whiskey.

“Well hello there,” Lucy greeted from the doorway, grinning broadly at the sight of Alex standing next to the mystery Craigslist woman looking beyond uncomfortable under Eliza’s scrutiny.

“Lucy! Vasquez!” Kara yelled, running forward to take the mashed potatoes and rolls from their hands.

“I’m beginning to think the excitement was for the food and not for us,” Lucy pouted.

“Aww, you know I love you both equally.”

Rolling her eyes, Lucy turned her attention to Maggie. “Hey, Maggie, how’s it going?”

“So your friends have not only heard about her but met her too?” Eliza asked pointedly.

“Oh, that’s my fault. I’m not always so great at meeting the parents, so I asked her to hold off on saying something.”

Alex tried not to look surprised at the way Maggie had been so quick to stand up for her, forcing herself to nod along with the sentiment while Eliza eyed her curiously.

“Hey, Lucy,” Maggie waved, hoping to break the tension—or, better yet, ignore it entirely.

“This is Vasquez,” Lucy introduced, kicking the door shut behind them as they finally made their way into the apartment. “She really enjoyed your pickup truck—helps the neighborhood aesthetic so much,” Lucy teased.

Figuring Lucy could deal with Maggie now, Alex made her way into the kitchen to find the wine, already anticipating her mother’s comments about how much “fun” she was having.

“She’s cuter than I expected,” Kara whispered, cutting in with a glass before Alex could abscond with the whole bottle.

Alex let out a noncommittal noise while focusing her attention on pouring herself a generous glass.

“I’m just saying—it’s been a while since you dated anyone…”

“I am not going to pick someone up off of Craigslist,” Alex hissed, shaking her head and finally taking a sip of the wine she’d been eying since they walked in the door. “Much better. Now you can deal with mom and the ‘best pie in the galaxy’ while I go have an intimate moment alone with a glass of red.”

“Why don’t you wait for dinner to start drinking, Alex,” came Eliza’s voice. Alex gritted her teeth as she spun around.

“I was under the impression that dinner would be starting soon.”

“Mike’s just running a little late,” Kara explained, shooting Alex an apologetic glance as she made her way back toward the oven where they were keeping the turkey hot.

“So let’s wait to have your fun until then, hmm?”

“Aww, we always have fun, don’t we, babe,” Maggie chimed in, throwing an arm around Alex’s waist and beaming at her as though she hadn’t just stepped into the first of many tense moments to come between mother and daughter. Then again, Alex realized, she had signed up for exactly that. “C’mon, why don’t you give me the grand tour?”

“Yeah, okay,” Alex shrugged, letting herself be guided away from the kitchen and into the living room where Winn and Vasquez had set up some multi-player video game and were currently shoving at each other as they competed both in and out of the game.

“Um, this is the living room…” Alex gestured awkwardly around them before guiding Maggie off to the side. “There’s the bathroom. And through here is Kara’s bedroom.”

“It’s a nice room,” Maggie declared loudly, chuckling at Alex’s startled expression. “Gotta make sure everyone knows we’re just doing a tour, not sneaking off to fuck, ya know.”

Alex glared and shushed Maggie. “Why would anyone think that?”

“Um, cause we’re dating. And it’s boring. And there’s a bed right there.”

“And a room full of people right out there!”

“You hired me to piss off your mom or be the asshole that makes you look good. Do you really have room to judge?”

“Ugh, stop reminding me of what a failure I am.”

“Hey, no, I don’t think you’re a failure at all—that’s not what I said. In fact, I bet you’re anything but. You’re pretty, and you’ve gotta be smart and driven to be a scientist. Your sister looks at you like you’re her goddam hero. And you had a friend concerned enough about your well-being to reach out to some stranger on the internet and subject me to a rather thorough vetting before sending me your address.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, Lucy and Vasquez double-teamed me for some interrogation thing. I mean…I won’t lie, it was kinda hot. But also I felt like if I didn’t pass I maybe would’ve disappeared without a trace. I don’t know why, but I feel like they could do that…”

Alex shrugged; she wasn’t wrong. “How’d you get all of that in just a few moments?”

“I’m a bartender. I read people for a living.”

“I guess…”

“So, why don’t you fill in the details I missed?”

“Um, Kara works for CatCo as Cat Grant’s assistant.” Maggie whistled, looking impressed. “My mom’s a scientist as well, Dr. Danvers. So was my dad.”

“Divorce?” Maggie asked.

“Um, no, he died when I was younger.”

“Fuck, Alex, I’m sorry—I didn’t know.”

“It’s fine. Not caring about family is your whole schtick, right?”

“Not caring about my family is my thing. That’s—that’s different.”

“What happened to the whole families suck act from the truck?” Alex teased, trying to move away from the topic of her dad.

“Ah, well, most years I’ve done this, I’ve gone to families as shitty as mine. Sometimes with shitty people as my fake date too, so there’s that.”

“So how do I compare?”

“Significantly less shitty. I mean, your mom’s a little judge-y, but she did pull me aside to ask what my intentions were with you, so she clearly cares.”

“Got a funny way of showing it,” Alex snorted.

“Yeah, but at least she’s showing it at all.”

“What’s the deal with your family?” Alex asked, suddenly curious.

“I don’t have one. Got an aunt I go visit when I can afford it, but otherwise it’s just me.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Better off without them.” Seeing the clench to Maggie’s jaw, Alex didn’t push the issue, though she couldn’t help the instinctive anger she felt toward whatever kind of person had left the woman that jaded. She might not get along with her mother, but at the end of the day, at least she knew she was loved, even if it never seemed to come in the way she needed it.

A loud knock on the door pulled their attention away, and Alex sighed loudly as Mike waltzed in, pulling Kara in for a kiss that just seemed inappropriate in front of their friends, but Eliza looked pleased enough to see Kara giggling, so of course now it would be acceptable.

“The boyfriend?” Maggie checked.

“Yep.”

“Should we have put on a show like that?”

“What happened to platonic only?”

“That’s the rule. But I already dislike him enough that I think I could make an exception for a bit of one-upsmanship.”

Alex snickered. “You’re not so bad, you know that?”

“High praise.”

—

The group eventually settled into dinner after an awkward round of toasts that included Mike speaking at great length about what an excellent person he’d become knowing Kara, Alex refusing to speak, Kara attempting to keep the peace, and Maggie giving an effusive speech about how perfect Alex was, including the line: “Best yet, not only is she smokin’ hot, but she’s also really fucking smart,” that had Lucy choking on her wine as she let out a bark of a laugh.

“So, Mark, tell me about yourself,” Maggie said, turning to look at him.

“It’s Mike.”

“Right.”

“Um, I work as an intern at CatCo.”

“Hey, look, babe! Maggie called, patting at Alex’s hand. “I’m not the least impressive person at the table anymore! At least I have a salary!”

“I will have a salary,” Mike protested.

“Yeah, yeah, Matt, whatever you say.”

“It’s not Matt.”

“Right, sorry! Mark—I’ve got it now. Locked in my memory—good as a vault. Mark. Mark, Mark, Mark.” Kara glared. Vasquez bit back a laugh. Lucy snorted into her wine. And Alex slung an arm around the back of Maggie’s chair, thinking this might just be the best idea Lucy ever had. She was definitely enjoying Thanksgiving more than she ever thought was possible.

“So, Mark the intern, tell me more.”

Looking over to Kara for guidance, Mike finally turned back and rolled with it. “Well, I work with Kara.”

“Are you her intern?”

“No, I am not.”

“Gotcha. So is that how you met Kara.”

“Why don’t we talk about you instead,” Kara chimed in, glaring at Alex. She’d been willing to play along but didn’t need to see her boyfriend being attacked all dinner.

“Ah, yes, well, I’m a bartender.”

Kara looked at her expectantly, but Maggie just smiled.

“So how did you two meet?” Mike asked, glad to have the attention off of himself.

“Do you want to tell it or should I, babe?” Maggie asked, looking over at Alex. The panicked glance she got in return was all the answer she needed. “I’ll tell it this time. So, it’s a funny story, right. Cause the first time I see her isn’t quite how we started dating. But I’m driving downtown, and I see this one walking down the sidewalk looking fine as hell in a leather jacket. And I swear, I nearly rear-ended the guy in front of me she had me so love-struck at first sight. But I managed to hit the brakes—couldn’t bear it if something had happened to Gertie—that’s my truck, in case you didn’t get that. She’s a real beauty; you’ll all have to come see her before the night’s over. Anyhow, she probably could’ve survived the crash—really, I could probably hit pretty much anything and you’d never know it. Not that I do,” she added with an exaggerated wink. Alex finished her glass of wine, nearly tipping it completely upside down, while Vasquez dug her nails into Lucy’s thigh to keep her from bursting out in laughter.

“Anyway, I see that she’s going to this coffee shop, so I start popping in just in case—and boom, like an angel, she appears.” But as Maggie got ready to reach the high point of her story—it was gonna be a good one, she could just feel it—a bright flash appeared in the living room, bringing with it a new person, though Alex would bet money he wasn’t human.

Within a moment, the majority of the room had produced guns, batons, and knives from nowhere and stood at the ready, weapons drawn, badges held high, and questions on their lips.

“I come in peace!” the creature yelled, looking beyond intimidated at the less than warm welcome. “But I bring a warning for Kara Zor-El, daughter of Krypton.”

As he turned to look at Kara, Alex swore under her breath, realizing she’d now have to get some random stranger willing to trade fake-dating services for free food on Craigslist to sign extensive nondisclosure agreements. But when she turned she found the woman pointing a gun and holding up a badge of her own.

“NCPD?” Alex hissed, while Kara and Mike moved with the visitor to the living room.

“Well who the hell is gonna let a Craigslist cop crash their Thanksgiving? That sounds like a sting operation if I’ve ever heard one. Besides, you’re not exactly the scientist you told me you were,” Maggie added, gesturing at the baton Alex had pulled from somewhere—where she was keeping it in jeans that skinny, she didn’t even want to guess.

“You’re gonna have some paperwork to fill out,” Alex grumbled.

“Is that about your sister being Supergirl?”

“How in the fuck—?”

“I’m a detective; I detect.”

“So you’re not just a bartender that’s great at reading people?”

“Nah, that was my gig in college, though, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It does not.”

“Fair enough. Anyway, if I’m gonna have to do paperwork, can I at least bring some of this dessert to go? I was promised a free meal…”

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS - SPRING 2020

It’s been a while since I’ve had to look at a blank Microsoft Word document and write these words but: welcome to REVIEWING THE CHARTS! 

This may or may not be a pretty long episode but this is also the start of a new edition of the show in which the format is changed pretty immensely. After a couple years of this chart show, I’m going to be honest: I got bored of doing it every week, so I simply stopped doing it. I reviewed songs in secret, wrote notes of future potential episodes, but never released anything. However, recently, I’ve decided that perhaps it would be smarter to not cancel the show but adopt a new format. Basically, I will not do an episode every week, rather every month, where I review each new arrival on the UK Top 40 during that month, without covering any of the nonsense that happened during that month outside of the new arrivals. I’ve actually been wanting to change the format to this for a while but after doing the BRITs special I’ve decided that this actually might be a more palatable workload. Hopefully this’ll work and I can get back into this chart thing and start enjoying looking out for new music again but we’ll see; potentially if I enjoy this I can get back to the weekly stuff. So, let’s start off the new format with a bunch of garbage from March, April AND May that I didn’t review, in chronological order, rounding up everything that I missed in these interim weeks. So, let’s start:

MARCH NE W ARRIVALS: 01/03

#40 – “Moral of the Story” – Ashe

Produced by FINNEAS and Noah Conrad

This is Ashe, a female singer-songwriter from California who got big on TikTok. This song, from the soundtrack of Netflix comedy To All the Boys (Haven’t watched it), is produced by FINNEAS, as he branches out from just producing for his sister Billie. Yup, that’s my pre-amble. The song is pretty cute, and I admit I quite like Ashe’s sing-songy, musical theatre style of singing, which is actually more of a spoken style in the verses. FINNNEAS’ production isn’t too bad, either, with an infectious and jaunty piano melody as well as some cool, explosive choir samples during the post-chorus that sound pretty cool. Admittedly, I’m not listening to this with my headphones (Not currently working because of course they’re not), so I can’t really tell about the mixing (which is something FINNEAS has gotten wrong a worrying number of times). For Ashe’s first UK Top 40 hit and first hit in general, it’s not a bad song at all. I’m not going to save it or praise it to high heavens, but for what it’s worth, I can’t complain. Decent track.

#39 – “City of Angels” - 24kGoldn

Produced by Neek and Omer Fedi

Speaking of people who got big off of TikTok and have their first UK Top 40 hit, here is 24kGoldn, a rapper-singer also from California. You probably know him from his breakout single, “Valentino”, but this other single from his debut EP, Dropped Outta College (Classy), seems to be the bigger hit worldwide. I hate “Valentino”, for the record, and I think it’s practically unlistenable garbage, so I don’t expect to like this. Also, fun fact: This trap-rap song about sex and drugs does not have any profanity. Kids these days with their clean, acceptable music. To be fair, I don’t actually hate this, mostly because of that catchy guitar line used as the main backing for what isn’t actually a trap-rap beat and instead kind of a power-pop type drum beat, with this Juice WRLD rip-off vocally riffing over it in a way that’s just disrespectful to the producers. Jokes aside, this is a good song, with a pretty catchy chorus, though admittedly an underdeveloped structure, with only one verse and two choruses. It’s kind of edgy nonsense but I could see an emo-pop band doing this justice, so I can appreciate it, actually; I do like the rough-around-the-edges vocal style in this context a lot more than “Valentino”. Also, this kid got a Fetty Wap feature on his EP. I’m jealous.

#34 – “Mice” – Aitch

Produced by LiTek and WhYJay

Ah, this guy, back again for more whitebread British trap, hey? Well, I guess I’ll give him another chance; the guy keeps coming back on the chart so there’s got to be some appeal to him, right? Well, nah, not really. This beat is kind of funky but it’s just his other big hit’s beat with less instruments anyway. It’s got the flute, it’s got the crow, it’s got this white dude talking over it. If you make a song that’s just one verse and has a standard beat, you should know that people expect BARS – if the focus is on Aitch, and not the minimalist beat, which didn’t need two producers, or the catchy club chorus and hook, then we need impressive flow or lyricism. You know, wordplay, cool punchlines, something. Aitch doesn’t even have bars. How are you going to make a song about bars when you don’t have bars? I mean, the flow does get impressive by the end and I’m astounded by how he just keeps going here, especially when he’s got nothing interesting to say, and he does ride the beat fine, until he literally gives up at the end. Like, come on, this is a lead single, not a SoundCloud loosie one-off. At least try.

#33 – “Dior” – Pop Smoke (featuring Gunna)

Produced by 808Melo

When this charted, the late Pop Smoke would have recently passed away as result of a shooting and home invasion. I was never a fan of Pop Smoke, and I won’t pretend to be like most of the people listening to his songs after his death. I can say that anyone who is murdered by cowardly thugs at age 20 deserves at least a respectful message and best wishes to his mourning family and close friends. May he rest in peace. You hear that, record labels? In peace. Don’t milk this guy’s unfinished material like you did X. At least be respectful with it like they did with Peep (mostly) and Mac. My feelings on the song are irrelevant at this point, and I feel like bringing them up would be almost disrespectful, but it is my obligation to say that I don’t like the song, his uninteresting cadence, his somewhat homophobic lyrics or the shitty Gunna guest verse on the remix. The beat admittedly does kind of bang but otherwise, I’m just not a fan; the rest of his posthumous album is actually quite a bit better. I personally really like “Snitching” and “Make it Rain”. Regardless, rest in peace, Pop Smoke, and I’ll stop the review here.

#21 – “On” – BTS (featuring Sia)

Produced by Pdogg and Mick Schultz

Oh, yeah, these Korean boys are back... kind of. I mean, they’re always gunning for a “comeback” but it does feel arbitrary to have comebacks every four months. I like BTS for the most part, and their songs do tend to grow on me a lot as time goes on. “Boy with Luv” is such a grower, as are “Fake Love” and “Make it Right”. However, I didn’t like the lead-off single from Map of the Soul: 7 (“Black Swan”) to be interested enough in this new album, so I haven’t listened to it and probably never will; I never actually listened to the last album. I was hoping that this new single wouldn’t fall into the trap a lot of K-pop does, and, oops, it does. There’s a chaotic structure that mixes tribal drumming intros with spacey trap drums, awkwardly Auto-Tuned bilingual singing and rapping from all of the boys, none of which sound particularly good here, not even in the chorus, which has a lot less groove than the other singles I like from them, with a pretty stiff, electronic drum beat. The flow isn’t particularly impressive and I don’t really buy in to the cute aesthetic of the music, so overall, this is just ear fluff that serves little purpose to me other than wasting my time. The Sia remix isn’t any better, either. Congratulations on the top five hit in the US, though, boys. I hope the record label isn’t treating you that bad, although they probably are, knowing the situation with some other overworked bands there. I won’t make any baseless assumptions, though. In terms of K-pop, I prefer YUMDDA. Check him out, I like “Flight” especially.

#20 – “After Hours” – the Weeknd

Produced by the Weeknd, DaHeala and Illangelo

By this time, the Weeknd has released his album, obviously, but at this time, it was a promotional single that came out of nowhere and surprised everyone with how non-single it was. Despite me loving the two lead singles, I didn’t listen to the album for whatever reason (I should probably get on that, actually, since it’s the Weeknd I’m probably missing some good stuff), so let’s hope the title track boasting a six-minute runtime and no discernible chorus gives me a good taste for the album. I mean, the production here is pretty sweet, for the most part, and I like the urgency given by the alarming synths in the intro, coupled with a pretty tight falsetto and grand vocal performance from the Weeknd as always (Can I call him Abel?). I can’t help but feel the song does drag on a bit, though, and I hope that’s not just my attention span but this does get a bit tedious, especially due to very little interesting development towards the climax in the intro, which means the drop feels abrupt and thus not satisfactory in the least, but it’s a pretty great beat admittedly. Actually, the song reminds me of one of my favourite songs of all time, “Instant Crush” by Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas, which is a similarly eerie robotic funk song with vocoder-mangled falsetto vocals. Whilst that song is constantly emotive and full of great hooks from each and every inch of the music, vocals and lyrics, this one feels completely aimless, and after four and a half minutes, it just meanders for a little bit, proving itself as a bit of a waste of time, frankly, even if the lyrics are very well-written albeit vague and perhaps not necessarily too profound or interesting, especially since this is building up a story presented throughout the album. I appreciate this for what it is, but it could have been a LOT better.

Conclusion

Best of the Week probably goes to “City of Angels” by 24kGoldn, which isn’t what I expected but it’s the only song I actually saved from this bunch. “After Hours” by the Weeknd gets the Honourable Mention, but just barely. Worst of the Week would be a bit of a dick move if it went to anyone else but Aitch for “Mice”, and there isn’t really anything worth a Dishonourable Mention here. Let’s move on.

NEW ARRIVALS: 08/03 #40 – “Blueberry Faygo” – Lil Mosey

Produced by Callan

Listen, I really didn’t want to like this stupid TikTok dance song that samples a cheesy 80s R&B track by Johnny Gill, but, man, this is just inescapably catchy. Lil Mosey is a pretty pathetic rapper on his own, so I didn’t expect him to hold himself in any capacity here, but he flows and rides the beat well enough, which is surprising considering his hot garbage fire of an XXL cypher verse. The real standout here for Lil Mosey’s first UK Top 40 hit is the beat from Callan. You just can’t resist the soulful sample and jovial vocal samples here, it’s such an addictive, fun track, and that’s without Li Mosey rapping a repetitive but infectious chorus that can’t get out of my head at all. Yes, he doesn’t talk about anything interesting here, at all, and he bites TAY-K of all people in the first verse, but the verses are short and they immediately transition back to that sweet, sweet chorus. I feel like this is the stuff Lil Yachty should still be making right now, but alas, he’s being Oprah, I think. Yeah, I love this type of cloud rap that just oozes sunshine and beachfronts. It’s not a great rap song and it’s not even a great song, but it’s impossible to resist that beat, and it’s not like this kid from Seattle who may or may not be able to say the N-word is ruining that for me.

#35 – “Death Bed” – Powfu featuring beabadoobee

Produced by Otterpop

Or, as it now wants me to call it, “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)”. It’s not often a song just straight-up renames itself but hey, it’s the streaming era. Anything can happen. Speaking of unpredictability, this is the first UK Top 40 hit single for both half-Filipino BRIT Award nominee beabadoobee as well as sadboi Canadian rapper Powfu, and the first UK Top 40 hit single for the genre of lo-fi hip hop beats to relax and study to. You love to see it: lo-fi hip hop in the charts. Honestly, this genre gets way too much slack and there are releases I adore from people like Jinsang and GentleBeatz, and if you look at it in a broader sense, you can look at stuff like MIKE, Navy Blue or the newer Earl Sweatshirt stuff, and I eat that stuff up now, so what I’m saying is: you can’t really go wrong with lo-fi hip hop... until you do. This song sucks. Powfu’s flow is cringeworthy at best, and the pitched-up beabadoobee sample runs through the whole song, becoming pretty irritating by the end of the song in all honesty, despite the original song being pretty sweet, in my opinion. This got big on TikTok, and listen: Powfu can’t sing and he can barely rap (This dude’s flow sounds like it came from Looperman.com), but I won’t complain about people digging the undeservedly maligned genre of lo-fi hip hop in 2020, so I’ll accept Powfu and I’ll accept Will Smith’s quarantine beats, if it makes people accept and appreciate the genre just a bit more.

#28 – “Boyfriend” – Mabel

Produced by Steve Mac

Mabel will not bring anything interesting to the Tabel. I can almost guarantee it. I don’t mind Mabel at all, I mean, Neneh Cherry’s daughter has got to have some talent, right, but relistening to her discography, I noticed it is plagued by bland and uninteresting R&B production. I love her voice and some of the songs are still pretty fun, especially “Don’t Call Me Up”, but overall, I find myself disappointed and the potential wasted. This song is actually pretty okay, to be fair, as most of her songs are, but mostly due to an interesting sample choice – “Remember Me” by house DJ Lex Blackmore, or Blue Boy. “Remember Me” was a massive hit for him, and in reality, the sample here is actually a sample of a sample (from “Woman of the Ghetto” by Marlena Shaw), but my favourite song of his is “Sandman”, which is an infectious and fantastic song that I think is quite underrated, despite performing somewhat well on the charts at the time. You should check it out, it’s amazing. This song, on the other hand, has no interesting characteristics other than said sample. Thanks, Mabel, very cool. Let’s move on to something interesting.

#5 – “Stupid Love” – Lady Gaga

Produced by Tchami and BloodPop

I mean, I hope this is interesting. It’s the big return for Lady Gaga onto the pop scene after A Star is Born practically saved her career, and with BloodPop behind the boards, it’s got to be at least interesting, right? Right? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. I actually like the sound of the chugging 80s synths here that remind me of the 2010s club boom, which of course was Lady Gaga’s heyday, and while I didn’t exactly expect lyrical depth from that era of Gaga, I expected some of the development in her music since to shine through here and it just hasn’t, making this song feel really shallow and empty, and dare I say, boring. Gaga’s vocals here are as good as ever, and in fact, quite unique in the pre-chorus, and I can definitely say the whole song is just one train of constant hooks playing on top of each other, but the transitions are shoddy and abrupt, the vocaloid drop is typical and whilst it sounds great and is well-implemented, strips the song of the character it could otherwise have, especially coming from one of the most interesting and engaging pop singers of the last decade. I can see why this underperformed, as this song is like a Simpsons rerun with all of the funny jokes cut out. Basically, it’s disappointing.

Conclusion

I don’t think there can be an Honourable or Dishonourable Mention here, but Best and Worst of the Week fall out pretty nicely. Best of the Week goes to, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, Lil Mosey for “Blueberry Faygo”, whilst Worst of the Week goes to “Death Bed (Coffee for Your Head)” by Powfu and beabadoobee, for just being the epitome of dullness. Again, let’s move on to something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 15/03 ALBUM BOMB: Eternal Atake – Lil Uzi Vert

Hey, an album I actually listened to – and liked! Lil Uzi Vert has always been hit or miss with me and whilst Eternal Atake is more of the same in that regard, its highest highs are incredible, especially in the middle third of the album, but overall, despite some filler and straight-up bad tracks sprinkled throughout, Uzi’s sophomore effort is very enjoyable, slightly more so than its pointless deluxe reissue (although I come back to “Bean (Kobe)” with Chief Keef a lot more than I’d like to admit). Now that I’ve praised the album, let’s talk about one of its worst songs, because, well, that’s how chart works.

#37 – “P2”

Produced by TM88

Should this really count as a new song? I mean, it’s a glorified “XO TOUR Llif3” remix, with the same producer, practically the same chorus and definitely the same premise, and whilst I didn’t like the original, I understand its purpose, story and appeal. Here, despite my respect of the continuation of the song’s narrative, I question the existence of the song. Did the original need a continuation? Not at all. Does this cheapen the original song’s impact, legacy and influence? I mean, not directly, but instead of being able to appreciate the original in the context of one-off hit single by charismatic emo-rapper, I know have to comprehend it as the disappointing sequel to a film that was never all that great in the first place. I’m not a film buff so I can’t think of an analogy that’ll work for that exactly, but you know how there was that old episode of SpongeBob with Bubble Buddy that was fun but overall pretty forgettable? Yeah, they tried to bring him back in season eight but the new episode was just bland and didn’t even promise what a sequel should promise, whilst also being pretty pointless as the original’s cliffhanger worked fine and added to the episode, as did the overall mystery of the Bubble Buddy character that had been dissolved with the creation of a new episode? Yeah, that’s my analogy, don’t care. Next song.

#36 – “Baby Pluto”

Produced by Cousin Vinny, Bugz Ronin, Brandon Finessin and Ike Beatz

Now THIS is the Uzi I like. Much like “Free Uzi”, which probably should have been on the album, this is Uzi spitting rapidly with a slippery flow that at times creeps into off-beat territory but isn’t noticeable because his energy level is astounding and rubs off on the listener. Lil Uzi’s charisma and tone is determined yet loose, and he switches from flow to flow and from topic to topic swiftly and without a care in the world. It helps that the beat from the Working on Dying collective is freaking incredible (Although not the best beat on the album), with sweet glistening piano loops and sci-fi sound effects dropped in for some reason or other. The beat is also genius in how it cuts off exactly where you’d expect it to drop, teasing you every time that Lil Uzi’s flow reaches the point where the beat should logically drop, until it finally does and it is so satisfying, especially when Uzi gets in his lower register and actually sounds intimidating. The term “Baby Pluto”, whilst being a nickname Uzi uses, isn’t even mentioned in the chorus, but there’s an equally iconic line here, “I turned to an addict, I bought me a Patek”, which is just poetry. I don’t know exactly why he’s going to war, either, but hey, it sounds cool, right? “I bought a G-wagon, that shit was the BRABUS”? I have no clue what the hell that means, but it sounds awesome. He’s so casual in how he goes from verse to verse and from flow to flow, it sounds effortless. Lyrically, it’s all over the place (But generally correlates to luxury) – his neck is “on squeegee”, he mentions Ouija boards because of course he does, he seemingly doesn’t understand the concept of blindness (Seriously, Uzi, Stevie Wonder couldn’t see THEM, not the other way around). In the second verse, he brags about being a pescatarian (In a pretty clever way) and moves states for again, seemingly no reason. And, of course, in the third verse, he says he is so sex-deprived that he’d even do it with your girlfriend in a Honda Accord. Sure, there are some filler lines (I don’t think any “icy wrist” pun can beat Future’s ridiculously blunt “I just put my whole damn arm in the fridge”), but they go by so quickly and so breezily you don’t notice them. This is a great song, and an incredible introduction to the album as a whole.

NE W ARRIVALS #39 – “Supalonely” – BENEE and Gus Dapperton

Produced by Josh Fountain and Gus Dapperton

A song by zoomers for zoomers which got big on TikTok. It’ll make sense in the context of this depressing pandemic, in fact all pop music seems like it’s having suicidal thoughts right now. I’ve heard of Gus Dapperton before; he was on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack with a vaguely 80s-sounding indie pop song that to be fair, I actually really liked! In fact, listening to it now, I think “Of Lacking Spectacle” should have actually been the big hit, but alas, we have “Supalonely” by BENEE, who I’ve never heard before. She’s from New Zealand but her biggest listening audience is Jakarta, Indonesia, for whatever reason, and I guess I should get onto the song... wow, this sure is a song. It’s like the groovy funk and disco pop without much groove or even funk – this song feels really staccato, especially due to that droning chorus, intentionally of course but accentuated by more sincere, Auto-Tuned inflections and ad-libs that add emotion and character that take this song from being “understandably boring and annoying due to its subject matter and hence better in that it reflects those emotions effectively” to being “wasted potential and perhaps just a failure at making a pop song”. I like to use the word “janky”, but so far, most of these songs have been too competent for my liking. Oh, and Gus Dapperton sucks here too. Have fun with your guitar lick you found on FL Studio, guys, but I’m not a fan.

#26 – “Self-Obsessed” – Da Beatfreakz featuring Krept & Konan, D-Block Europe and Deno

Produced by Da Beatfreakz

If you’re not British, you will statistically have no idea who these people are. If you’re British, you will statistically have no idea who most of these people are. Da Beatfreakz produce a lot of British trap and Afroswing hits, Krept & Konan are one of the biggest grime duos of all time, Deno was a guy who was vaguely funny on a song once so we kept him around, and D-Block Europe... well, they’re D-Block Europe. Just as I was talking about songs being too competent, we review this song, which will likely be a trainwreck. Firstly, let’s get it out of the way: what dumb shit does Young Adz say in this song? Well, it’s not initially clear who’s self-obsessed but he’s talking about a woman here, because we’ve got to love that sweet, sweet misogyny, which is even blunter and more disgusting in British rap for whatever reason. You know that if you already ate it in the Porsche, you’re not legally obliged to give her some more, right? You can just give who is assumingly  a prostitute a wad of cash and drive off, as you are big famous rapper man. In the chorus, he also says he sells crack but only smokes marijuana, which is reassuring I suppose, and that he plays chess on his Louis Vuitton bag because he is bored. Okay, he’s trying to say that he’s so rich he could deface designer fashion but playing chess isn’t exactly a messy activity, and I highly doubt this man knows how to strategically play it. Also, who are you playing chess with? The prostitute, or the other member of D-Block Europe, Dirtbike LB? Speaking of, his verse depicts the time where he was thinking about the... anatomy of the woman his best friend was... interacting with when he crashed that Porsche. Also, if this woman is so self-obsessed, why are you not letting her get a Louis bag before she sucks you off? I know it’s just flexing and rapper talk, but it’s painfully not self-aware. He also has an odd moment of feeling love for the woman but immediately retracts it after a one-line topic shift, because of course he does.

Girl, I hate it when that love’s feeling strange / Paid cash for the car, that’s the Range / If I ever said, “I love you”, then I think I’ve gone insane

Wait, how many cars do you have? Oh, and Young Adz comes in immediately afterwards.

Long story short, made a boy do the running man

Oh, and he’s actually kind of funny on purpose for once.

Three litres of blood, swapped it for a couple grand

Wait, wh—

Should have saw her face when I crushed a Xan

Huh?

Every bitch want to f*** a man

Somebody’s got to tell this dude about lesbians before it’s too late. This is all, in typical D-Block fashion, rapped awkwardly and stiffly with 17 layers of malfunctioning Auto-Tune and reverb coating the two until they’re indistinguishable over a beat that... admittedly, this one’s pretty good, but I swear it’s a fluke. Oh, and if you hadn’t had enough of Young Adz, his ad-libs are all over Konan and Deno’s verses. No-one else says anything interesting, by the way.

Said she want to F a drug dealer, but, baby, I wasn’t raised in the trap

Bro, then why are you on this song? Deno’s whole verse seemingly revolves around the fact he has never sold drugs and doesn’t use swear words. Yeah, this is tough, but exactly what I expected.

#3 – “Rain” – Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith

Produced by Tay Keith

Tay Keith’s beats are all the same. Aitch’s bars are all the same. It’s a perfect combination. At least AJ Tracey could be amusing here, and admittedly he is, with a catchy chorus and a pretty great verse, where not only does his flow stand out as particularly interesting but he throws a lot of funny pop culture references in there too, like Kenan Thompson, Bugs Bunny and the ridiculous “gyal on curry, neck McFlurry”, which he accentuates with a “bling-baow”? The first line is actually a reference to an obscure term for people from Manchester coined by Liam Gallagher, and Aitch is from Manchester, so, you know, it’s those nice little additional touches that count, and while AJ’s verse isn’t exactly flooded with wordplay, Aitch, come on, man, step your game up. Your flow and rhyme scheme is excellent but you have absolutely nothing to say. There’s a vague Blueface reference, I think, but that’s all. Ultimately, the song isn’t bad at all, and the beat is pretty menacing and slaps pretty hard, with both rappers riding it effectively, especially Aitch’s straightforward, intimidating triplet flow in the pre-chorus and AJ’s more rapid, free-flowing cadence, and, hell, I have a soft spot for that dumb eagle caw sound... but I mean, it’s just more of the same, and I can’t think of a way to restructure it that makes sense; without the chorus it’s too short and directionless, without Aitch it’s too staccato, and without AJ Tracey, it’s outright garbage, so, yeah, mixed feelings but I can listen to this with no issue. Oh, yeah, and this is Tay Keith’s first UK top 40 hit as a credited artist.

Conclusion

Best of the Week definitely goes to “Baby Pluto” by Lil Uzi Vert, with an Honourable Mention to Aitch, AJ Tracey and Tay Keith for “Rain” because, well, it’s somewhat entertaining, I guess. Worst of the Week goes to “Self-Obsessed” by whoever the hell with a Dishonourable Mention to “Supalonely” by BENEE and Gus Dapperton for existing simply without purpose. Let’s move onto something different.

NEW ARRIVALS: 22/03 #37 – “Papi Chulo” – Octavian and Skepta

Produced by Go Grizzly, YoungKio and BricksDaMane

Or something exactly the bloody same. This is Octavian’s first UK Top 40 hit. Welcome to the chart. As you can tell by the Skepta, this is a British rap song that might have some more quality to it than usual. So, it’s produced by the “Old Town Road” producer, YoungKio, and it’s got a Latin-flavoured guitar, as well as stupid falsetto skrrt ad-libs instead of a chorus, gross sex talk that is just unpleasant to listen to, misogyny for days, and Octavian sounding like Sean Paul on painkillers. Yeah, just absolutely disposable, exhaustingly dull garbage which I don’t have much to say about. Maybe doing this in bulk is getting to me.

#35 – “The Take” – Tory Lanez featuring C**** B****

Produced by Sergio R., Play Picasso, Papi Yerr, Tory Lanez, Alo905 and Rajah

There was a Drake interview where he said he squashed his beef with CB because it was “silly” and “girl stuff”... you know, like when he gruesomely and infamously assaulted Rihanna. Silly girl stuff. Yeah, I’m glad you and Ray William Johnson are on the same page, Drake – I hope at least someone gets that reference. I am not listening to CB, I am not helping CB, I am not funding his bail next time he kicks a woman in the face for not liking his new five-hour epic about having sex with your girlfriend. Tory Lanez, please don’t play as an enabler or apologist for this man anymore. I’ve heard your album, you know how to rap, don’t give any playtime to this sicko who barely knows how to function as a non-violent, law-abiding citizen. Thanks, Tory.

Edit: Fuck, nevermind. Both of these guys make me sick.

#34 – “Boss Bitch” – Doja Cat

Produced by Sky Adams and Imad Royal

Finally, someone talented this week. I don’t know why this song actually peaked and debuted this high though – I don’t know if the film it was attached to, DC’s Birds of Prey, did particularly well here in the UK, but I know the nation likes the Harley Quinn character enough for E4 to start airing the mediocre animated series to much appraisal, so I’d assume the song got popular off of that, maybe? Otherwise, Doja Cat’s a pretty big star now so it’s a good choice for the soundtrack, especially since she does give off the same vibe as a lot of the film. Yes, I did watch the movie, and it was, as most movies I have watched, vaguely tolerable. This song was in it, during a scene that I remember being colourful. What insight. Anyway, the main focus here is the song itself, and yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Sure, you can rip on how derivative of Nicki Minaj it is, and she does sound exactly like her here sometimes, especially with the Barbie references, but you can’t deny that infectious, simplistic mantra of a chorus, and the pure charisma diffusing out of the sassy lyrics and nasal, aggressive vocals from Doja, often resorting to yelling, as well as that noisy house-pop beat with chimes and screaming in the background. It is just a beautifully chaotic song, especially with the off-beat pitch-shifted vocal loops in the final chorus; hell, it doesn’t really work well as a pop song because it’s just so bloody all over the place, and, yeah, I can dig this. It’s pretty much a complete mess, but it takes you along for a ride with it, so I’ll endorse it.

#32 – “No Judgement” – Niall Horan

Produced by Tobias Jesso Jr. and Julian Bunetta

Before I write this section, I am going to take a break because I have written entries for a bunch of songs in the span of an hour and a half if that, including one or two that were very long, hence I am starting to grow tired of the chart music and also sound very cynical. I didn’t want to sound too cynical when talking about a pop song like this, which is frankly just existent and relatively inoffensive, even if its funky tropical guitar beat does feel dated and Niall Horan’s vocal presence is so small compared to “Nice to Meet You”, which is a really good song, and—Goddamn it, I’m reviewing the song anyway. Okay, well, let me just conclude this and then I’ll take a rest.

Conclusion

No Mentions of any sort here because there’s one garbage song, one awesome song, one song I cannot mathematically have an opinion on, and one which I do not want to listen to due to being morally righteous or something like that. So, yeah, obviously Best of the Week is Doja Cat’s “Boss Bitch” and Worst of the Week is “Papi Chulo” by Octavian and Skepta. See, this different format works out well because this would have been a short-ass episode otherwise. I’m barely awake now and actively feel myself nodding off every few sentences – sorry for any errors due to this but I can’t be bothered to fix them – so I’ll see you when I’ve rested, I hope.

NEW ARRIVALS: 29/03 #39 – “War” – Mastermind and Bandokay

Produced by LiTek

Just so you know, I had to check the Spotify credits for this song because there is seemingly no Genius lyrics page with all the details and such (as of my writing this). It exists, for sure, but it just lists the artists, the title and displays a “no lyrics available” message, with the cryptic song bio of “Mastermind X #OFB Bandokay”. I mean, sure. Well, I have no idea who these guys are, but their song kind of bangs. Well, at least the beat does, produced by LiTek, who I have also never heard of. That fluctuating flute paired with the pretty intense, exploding trap patterns make for a rap song that actually feels like it’s fulfilling the purpose trap should. I say that without taking into consideration that both of these guys can’t rap for squat and that most of the time, their high-pitched nasal Auto-Tuned whining – or “crooning”, if I’m being kind – is pretty aggravating and pretty derivative of their American contemporaries. British hip hop has never been particularly unique but with the pretty great drill beat here I expected at least some attempt to reflect its intensity in the vocals, but alas, this is just okay, if that.

Oh, apparently Bandokay was the son of the late Mark Duggan, who was killed by police, leading to the 2011 England riots. The more you know.

#36 – “Sunday Best” – Surfaces

Produced by Forrest and Colin Padalecki

I listened to this once without writing anything about it, and honestly, yeah, that’s enough. I should, hypothetically, love this song. Surfaces are two dudes with pretty alt-rock voices who decided to make a pretty, cute pink indie-pop song with a pretty nice trap skitter and simple piano chords, as well as a lot of robotic stuttering. This sounds like it should be some great, catchy stuff, but I actually found this pretty infectious in a different way, which may sound insensitive considering the current state of the world, but I don’t care, this song is garbage. These guys can’t sing, and they don’t want to attempt to hide that fact, instead obnoxiously sharing that with the world through their egregiously optimistic lyrics that seem pretty reassuring in these times, if you’re into shallow, vague rhymes and repetitive fluff that substitutes any kind of genuine, inspiring message or motive. I would say I’m disappointed, but I’m not entirely sure how low my expectations were in the first place.

#34 – “Flowers” – Nathan Dawe featuring Jaykae

Produced by Nathan Dawe

I assumed this would be another trap or grime song but actually this seems to be a DJ once again using uncredited female vocals for his electro house tune fused with dance-pop and a bit of UK garage. I am pretty intrigued by Jaykae’s feature though since he’s a rapper. The song focuses on the UK garage sample used, which is “Flowers” by Sweet Female Attitude and Cutfather, which was a pretty massive song for the genre in the year 2000 that seems to be pretty adored amongst British musicians. It’s been covered by Bastille, remixed by AJ Tracey and finally sampled by Nathan Dawe and Jaykae. I recognise the song – I don’t particularly like it but I respect in how it is a pioneer of the Vocaloid drop that became big in electropop, house and related genres like future and bubblegum bass decades afterwards. Nowadays, despite some pretty and surprisingly modern production at times – it definitely sounds like some bubblegum bass stuff from years later – it’s a pretty sloppy song, thanks to some unneeded complexity in the drop, and ends up sounding clunky as all hell. This new song uses the stems of the vocals – or perhaps a re-recording from the group themselves, or at least a pretty damn good impression – to create a pretty standard house tune that is nothing to write home about but is joyful enough and pretty club-ready. I like the vocodered “Whoa, baby” in the pre-chorus, but overall it just seems like a lazy flip of the original, especially since the drop is basically unchanged. Jaykae’s verse attempts to recreate the hype of a fun verse the DJ or a classic grime MC would add at a club and I do appreciate the new nostalgia for this type of music, but his verse is also kind of garbage. Also, despite his lyrics, this song is decidedly not the type of music you would sip lean to, but, sure, Jaykae, whatever you’re into.

#17 – “In Your Eyes” – the Weeknd

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and the Weeknd

It’s the Weeknd’s 22nd UK Top 40 hit: the double A-side with “Heartless” was released oddly, with “Blinding Lights” here being released days after and about a week after, was finally accompanied by a music video that’s really just an advertisement for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Neither single got to experience their best possible tracking week in full, but nonetheless, both are still pretty high because it’s the Weeknd, and I’m actually somewhat excited for this. I’ve heard that it interpolates A-ha’s cheesy 80s synthpop classic “Take on Me”, and it wouldn’t be the first rendition I’ve heard of the song in 2019. That would be Weezer’s hilarious cover on both the Jimmy Fallon show (Where they played it with kids’ toys) and their “Teal Album”. Sorry, I bring Weezer up too much. Is the song good? Hell, yes. It starts with an overwhelming wave of ominous distortion before retro 80s synths quickly come in and an iconic, reverb-heavy drum pattern comes in that sounds awfully familiar – it’s probably also from “Take on Me”. The synth riff, as typical with 1980s synthpop, is hilariously grandiose and egregious, but the Weeknd kills it here as well, not letting the instrumental or even the freaking bongos playing during the verse shine over him or put him off. He blends in with the airy synth painting in the chorus, and it is gorgeous, it really is. I wish this was a tad catchier but that definitely will be a possibility for it to grow on me later on (Which hopefully it does, it’s already perfectly qualified for my best of 2020 list). The Weeknd’s vocals on the bridge are oddly powerful, and that last moment in the penultimate chorus where there is this epic beeping synth that rises until the synth riff drops once again is awesome. The pre-chorus is probably my favourite part, though, especially when the synths cut out for it to just be the Weeknd over the drums, right before the chorus kicks in. I love this so much, unexpectedly so, and I’m so glad it charted so high. I hope it survives the Christmas songs, though.

Okay, all jokes aside, this is a good song, albeit safe as all hell. I feel like I’ve heard this song a bunch of times before, not just in “Blinding Lights”, and Abel can perform, sing and even produce better than this, so I’m left with little to no original insight. I’ve grown to like the Weeknd more when he’s on his depressed trap-R&B style as well, so this is even less appealing to me now. Oh, yeah, and the Doja Cat remix is cool, in fact I might prefer her verse to the original song. She flows pretty well. Oh, and I figured I should specify the Doja Cat stuff would have been written before the whole ‘oops, she’s racist’ scandal. I don’t defend her on that really. In fact, due to a lot of this being written in bulk at different periods of time (Half of this review is from January, the other half being from both May and July), some things may be pretty dated or currently untrue.

Conclusion

The only good song here is Abel’s, so I guess Best of the Week is going to “In Your Eyes” by the Weeknd and Worst of the Week goes to Surfaces’ “Sunday Best”. Nothing else here is all that good or bad, or even worthy of a mention, so next month?

APRIL NEW ARRIVALS: 05/04 ALBUM BOMB: Insomnia – Skepta, Chip and Young Adz

No, I didn’t listen to this album either. What, you think I’d listen to an album by a guy called Young Adz? The Guardian gave it four stars because it had Skepta on it, if you’re interested. Let’s just listen to the songs and get this over with. It’s Young Adz so it’ll have some funny lyrics at least.

#32 – “Mains”

Produced by Skepta

Oh, no, I like this song. This beat, produced by Skepta, is actually pretty incredible, with a very catchy, joyful flute loop smoothly placed under a pretty hard trap beat, which sounds really cutesy, kind of like some Lil Yachty stuff. And Skepta, of course, being Skepta, pretty much kills it – in a good way, that is. His flow is impeccable and I mean, how can’t you ride a beat you produced? Young Adz is actually fine here, and I’d argue his ad-libs actually add to the experience here rather than subtract from it as usual. I’m actually starting to like this guy’s zany charm. He’s much better than Chip, who sounds rusty as hell here, with some badly-fitting Auto-Tune and an off-beat flow. The whole song is one verse between a chorus, with all three rappers sharing the verse pretty much equally. Young Adz kills his second verse in a way I never expected him to, and I love how his ad-libs are implemented into the beat and his “WHAT?! SKEET!” yells are honestly really charming. Yeah, this is pretty good, but it’s Young Adz so...

I’mma whip that crack like banana pudding again / When I step in the bando, fiends and the workers act like Vladimir Putin just came

Got a little three-two concealed in my boxers, call that fire in the mains

You know, now that this guy has improved, these ridiculous non-sequiturs start to sound more like a genuinely funny guy rather than just... an idiot. Also, this:

Come in her p****, a lava lamp

That’s just gross, man.

#18 – “Waze”

Produced by Cardo

I hope this one is good, I mean, I’ve never liked Cardo as a producer, but trap has always been dependent on the vocalists anyway, and Skepta and Adz have both never been ones to disappoint, each in their unique ways. The music video for this is rather pretentiously subtitled “the movie” for whatever reason, by the way. The song, despite the beat coming in via a fade out, which is an odd decision, is pretty okay beat-wise, albeit uninteresting. Young Adz decides to be a lot slower and whinier here so he’s pretty boring and much worse than when he goes on his speedy, rapid, ad-lib-a-plenty verses. Chip tries to be badass but ends up sounding pretty dull, although his verse about rappers claiming they’re the best when they’re the only people in the room is kind of funny, unlike Adz here, who isn’t even humorous here. Skepta is just as bad as Chip, arguably worse, with a really short verse, so, yeah, this album is looking pretty inconsistent so far, just from two tracks. The album’s actually pretty short so I might listen later.

NEW ARRIVALS #38 – “If the World Was Ending” – JP Saxe and Julia Michaels

Produced by FINNEAS

I don’t know who JP Saxe is, I assume he’s some industry playlist singer. Julia Michaels we know, I assume, and FINNEAS is, of course, the producer of Billie Eilish’s hits and her brother. However, most of the time, his other productions don’t end up being nearly as interesting, unique or really anything like his work with Billie. Maybe that’s a good thing, maybe that’s a bad thing, I, however, do not care, because frankly, nothing he produces outside of his solo work and with Billie ends up being all that noteworthy. His voice is just a typical white-guy-with-an-acoustic-guitar voice, the instrumentation is minimal and generic (I swear I’ve heard that same piano sound hundreds of times before). This song has been contextualised to relate to the whole COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences but that is arguably as ridiculous as the whole 5G garbage. Speaking of garbage, this song. Music criticism, everybody.

#28 – “Savage” – Megan Thee Stallion (featuring Beyoncé)

Produced by J. White Did It

I haven’t listened to a Megan Thee Stallion project but what I’ve heard ranges from tolerable to pretty damn great. I particularly really enjoy her breakout single “Big Ole Freak” and of course, I applauded “Hot Girl Summer” with Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla $ign on this show before. On the other hand, songs like “Captain Hook” or “Cash Shit” with DaBaby, where Meg boasts about her prowess in both the bank and bedroom over a pretty simple bass-heavy trap beat are just dull to me, regardless of how funny her wordplay is or how occasionally impressive her flows happen to be. “Captain Hook” especially, I mean, at least “Cash Shit” had the DaBaby verse, splashy percussion and sound effects and some pretty memorable bars, as well as the iconic profanity-laden chorus. I haven’t listened to the Suga EP but I did like the lead single, “B.I.T.C.H.”, with the pretty nice 2Pac sample flip. Given that and the other songs I like from her, she may be at her best when she’s rapping over a soulful, early-2000s-esque R&B beat with a helpful pattering of trap skitters. Considering this is produced by J. White Did It, whose discography consists of cheap pianos, stiff trap drum patterns and blocky 808s, he sells off to mostly female rappers like Cardi B or Iggy Koopa, I’m not expecting that, I’m expecting a boring brag-rap song that Megan sounds way too good to be on, and, yeah, pretty much. To be fair to J. White Did It, this beat is pretty nice with the smooth keys and the driving beat behind Megan who kills it with the sass here in the verses, even with an overly repetitive chorus. I especially like the opening verse where she’s the hood Mona Lisa and breaks a [gnarly dude] to pieces, although the second verse has its equal share of notable and funny lines.

I keep a knot, I keep a watch, I keep a whip, ooh / Let's play a game, Simon says I'm still that bitch, ayy

A while ago, I made SpongeBob say the second verse using artificial intelligence and that was funny. Again, music criticism, everybody. Beyoncé isn’t out of place on the remix but I still think she’s not intriguing as a rapper, and I personally prefer her trailing ad-libs in the chorus. I do appreciate Megan adding like three new verses, which is pretty unprecedented, but the two do not have chemistry and it just feels like Beyoncé singing along to the original song sometimes, although her second verse is a lot better. I still prefer the original, though, it’s just more concise. Oh, and there’s an official chopped-and-screwed remix of this, and it’s pretty good, although it doesn’t give me the same ethereal vibe DJ Screw does. The whole “Say So” vs. “Savage” thing was a bunch of malarkey, by the way. No malarkey in Bikini Bottom, please.

#12 – “Believe It” – PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna

Produced by NinetyFour, Cardiak and Bizness Boi

I still can’t tell if PARTYNEXTDOOR is a parody of alt-R&B yet. As with most of Drake’s OVO signees, he makes most sense as a backing vocalist for Drake. I like him ooohing on “Ratchet Happy Birthday”, which is a ridiculous joke song in itself, and his crooning on “Loyal” is just hilariously awful, so he’s just Drake’s friend who decided he could be funny and sing R&B songs, right? So. how did this dude get Rihanna? Okay, I’m half-joking, he’s a serious R&B singer, he just happens to be bad at it. We’ll talk more about Drake in a bit, so let’s listen to the single from PARTY’s most recent album... PARTYMOBILE. Come on, this has to be satire. Anyway, this collaboration is a perfect fit, mostly because PARTY wrote a bunch of Rihanna’s recent songs, but the song itself is a pretty soulless washed-out guitar lick under some inconsistently intricate vocal layering, a gross chipmunk vocal sample, a boring trap skitter and barely any Rihanna.

You got the power, p***y power

I can’t be the only one who thinks this guy is joking, right?

#9 – “Break Up Song” – Little Mix

Produced by Goldfingers and KAMILLE

Little Mix are a girl group practically formed by a talent show that have had more longevity than anyone would have expected but after leaving their awful label management under Simon Cowell, they’ve pretty much consistently flopped. They have these high debuts and drop off pretty quick, whilst Cowell is making cameos in sub-par Scooby-Doo movies. The whole team isn’t doing well after their decade of success, really, and one of them’s hosting a show on MTV or something? I don’t know, I keep getting adverts for it. This is not a good song. It is a vaguely EDM-fused pop song with some reverb-heavy 80s-esque drums. It sounds a bit like “Blinding Lights” production-wise. The lyrics are a remnant of the Industrial Revolution, the melodies could rebuild the Berlin wall, and the song has about as much worthwhile content as the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has Jews. That sounds a lot better than it is, but trust me, this song is just empty and void of anything. It makes his three-minute runtime feel like a Star Wars VHS, complete with grain.

#6 – “Break My Heart” – Dua Lipa

Produced by The Monsters & Strangerz and watt

Now THIS is some good nostalgic dance-pop. I loved the album, it was full of energetic, perfectly-constructed and excellently written bops, although it was slightly knocked down a few points by some filler, which sounds weird saying about a 37-minute record, so it’s a lot more or a bit less noticeable than a longer effort, if that makes sense. In this case, I was jamming out to the infectious hooks so much I didn’t even notice that two or three of the tracks were samey and boring... including the second single, for some reason. I still think “Physical” is pretty mediocre. This song, however, is one of the highlights of the album. The groove here is undeniable and Dua’s voice compliments the at-times minimalist production perfectly, especially in the intro where it’s just her and the bassline before it abruptly transitions into a dreamy pre-chorus full of strings... and then drops back into the pure funk for the chorus, full with strings and horns that despite sounding particularly 90s are effectively timeless. Is this anything that impressive production-wise? Well, no, it is a pretty simple track which is admittedly at times kind of sloppy and rushed, especially in said chorus, but the little touches like the spitter-spatter of 808s in the first few bars of the chorus before it truly drops are there, and they are pretty sweet. The bridge is my only real complaint because I don’t really see the point in its existence since it just repeats a line from the chorus in a really short string break and it seems kind of messy overall, kind of dampening an already fragile structure. Okay, well, it’s not a perfect song, and its flaws are evident towards the end of the song, but I can’t say that detracts from the experience for me overall. Oh, yeah, and I don’t usually watch the videos for these songs when or before I review them but, oh, my God, Dua Lipa in this video is so--

Conclusion

Okay, so Best of the Week is actually pretty much a toss-up here because there are two great songs with pretty obvious flaws that debuted this week, but I’ll give it to Dua Lipa’s “Break My Heart”, with Honourable Mention going to “Mains” by Skepta, Chip and Young Adz. Worst of the Week is also pretty difficult to plot, but I think I’ll give it to “Believe It” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Rihanna for just being a joke of an R&B track, with a Dishonourable Mention to “Break Up Song” by Little Mix. Moving on...

NEW ARRIVALS: 12/04 #39 – “This City” – Sam Fischer

Produced by Jimmy Robbins

Am I the only one who thinks Jimmy Robbins is a funny name? No? Okay, well, let us discuss this next song then. Who’s Sam Fischer, you ask? Well, I  had no idea either so I looked him up and found out that he was some R&B singer from Sydney, Australia, and this song is a single he released in January of 2018 that happened to get big on TikTok – so big in fact that RCA Records slid in his DMs and signed him to re-release the song. So surely there must be something in this song to make it memorable to the average TikTok viewer, and hopefully something good. Before I talk about the song though, the Genius page at the time I’m reading it and writing this is hilarious and kind of heartwarming. Seemingly, this guy communicates with his fans via poorly-written Genius annotations, and there’s specifically this one person in the comments, Genius user “Sechser”, who is lonely, or “lonley”, during quarantine, and she wishes to express this on this Genius lyrics page for whatever reason, leading to someone else asking if they were on Instagram so they could talk. That’s nice and friendly, unlike my reaction to the person who said the song was underrated when it had four Goddamn remixes, including some from Anne-Marie and Kane Brown. While I’m on Genius, I might as well explain what the song is about: being exhausted and tired by the city you live in, and becoming disillusioned by everything going on around you, but not in Sydney, Australia. No, instead, this is a diss track towards Los Angeles, California. Clearly a cultural and economic hub that happens not be the capital of one of the biggest and wealthiest English-speaking countries in the world wasn’t good enough for him, so he moved to another one that fit the exact same description. Oh, and the song? It’s kind of boring. It’s just a white guy with an oddly-mixed acoustic guitar and vocal chords as generic as the plastic finger snaps that suck the power out of this power ballad. If this were the only pop music I knew existed, I’d say pop is dead. Let’s move on.

#34 – “Thank You Baked Potato” – Matt Lucas

Produced by Kevan Frost

Okay, so at this point, the UK is on full quarantine COVID-19 lockdown mode, and I am forced to talk about this in this episode because of this unfunny racist Anthony Fantano-looking motherf—

Okay, so back story: Matt Lucas is a comedian who got big off of the comedy show Little Britain with David Walliams and as a connoisseur of the Dave television channel, I conclude that he’s not very funny. Due to the fact that he portrayed iconic British stereotypes of the 90s and 2000s, such as the disabled guy (?), homophobic homosexual (Wait--) and... okay, so I don’t know how he got so loved by the British public, but he’s a bald guy who people found funny and now he’s making charity singles, not the first time he’s done so either. He also lent his voice to Gnomeo and Juliet because, well, of course, and fittingly this is a children’s song. In the early stages of the pandemic, Europe was asking everyone to wash their hands and stuff like that, focusing on the hygiene ethics that you should follow every day to prevent spread of the virus. So he adapted this song he wrote on some comedy show a couple years ago to fit with the ongoing pandemic, and it’s going to help the NHS workers. It’s a valuable cause for a guy who is ‘very sorry’ but also ‘very willing’ to bring back the blackface from not the 1920s but the mid-2000s, and also really eager to defend Israel’s breach of international law only when Black Lives Matter starts to comment on the situation in the occupied territories. He has also been rather cryptically tweeting videos daily despite his pinned Tweet claiming he has been taking a break from the platform, seemingly to hide his gross-out jokes and gross-out politics in case anyone realises that no, this man isn’t as much of a CBeebies-friendly happy chap with a bald shiny head and enthusiasm as you could have suggested. He’s still got the bald head I suppose but that’s beside the point. The song is (vaguely) listenable despite being completely irrelevant to the cause and also completely bad because he puts on this nasal annoying voice for half of it, when he can’t sing anyway. It’s almost like he’s making a mockery of the pandemic. Regardless of the song’s contents and history, we can all agree it’s a children’s song with a runtime of barely a single minute, hence it shouldn’t be in the UK Top 40, or even the charts at all. At least the guy who made “Baby Shark” wasn’t racist. Free Palestine. Anyway: Drake.

#2 – “Toosie Slide” – Drake

Produced by OZ

You know, I didn’t like “Nonstop”. In fact, I really hated “Nonstop” – but there was at least some charm in it, intentional or not. You know, the Tay Keith beat kind of bangs for what it’s worth, and some of the lyrics are really that bad that they cycle all the way back to being really funny again. “I just took it left like I’m ambidex’”, “Yeah, I’m light-skinned but I’m still a dark [gnarly dude]”, “Bills so big, I call ‘em Williams, for real”? Only Drake could make up garbage this humiliating for both him and the listener, and kind of get away with it. Surely, he can replicate that in “Toosie Slide”, his new drab, dry trap banger with a pretty audible lack of colour, especially in this time of depressing quarantine and lockdown and... yeah, no, this song just doesn’t work in any context. It was propelled by TikTok and is effectively and by all intentions, a dance song much like “Watch Me” or “Crank That Soulja Boy”. Unlike “Crank That”, however, it is not a song you can use in a mash-up or DJ mix, it is not a song you can exploit or have fun with, or even really dance to, despite the cynical, unabashed trend-hopping on display here. Maybe that’s the point, right? I mean, in the video, he’s dancing by himself in his massive mansion where he keeps art of Chairman Mao (Relatable) with a ski mask on, so maybe this intends to reflect the current lockdown period... but I can’t even stretch that far enough, and I tend to stretch the meanings of songs a lot on this show. Sure, musically, with its ambient synths and piano loops, it works as a parallel to real-life, and I guess how easy and depressingly boring the dance is also reflects that, but the rest of the song is completely irrelevant to both the lockdown and dance.

Black leather gloves, no sequins

Oh, thanks for specifying that you have no sequins, Drake, I appreciate that, it really helps create the imagery of a dull white void or a single balloon in the wind, drifting into thin air.

It goes: Right foot up, left foot slide, left foot up, right foot slide

Alright, so that’s a pretty simple set of instructions, I mean, I could do—

Basically, I’m saying, “Either way, we ‘bout to slide”, ayy

So the last instruction was not an instruction but just a recommendation? I just have to slide and that counts as a Toosie Slide?

Can’t let this one slide

So you are prohibiting any form of sliding. Got it.

Don’t you want to dance with me? No? I could dance like Michael Jack... son / I could give you thug pass... ion / It’s a Thriller in the trap... where we from

Okay, first of all, you cannot dance like Michael Jackson, secondly other than “Smooth Criminal” and I guess, “Bad”, he had very little thug passion. Thirdly, this is just lazy and Goddamn unbearably so. He mumbles to himself in a single, droning Auto-Tuned vocal layer, with little to no dynamics in the vocal at all, and clearly an obscene lack of effort that is just despicably abusive of the platform Drake has. He built his career through connections and a universal, likeable charisma, and he is doing a solo song where he shows absolutely no unique charisma at all. After not long ago reviewing “Baby Pluto”, where Lil Uzi masterfully creates a burst of character through rapping about being vapid, materialistic, and having as little character as possible, this is just shockingly bad, honestly. How are you going to make a simple, fun dance for children sound this grading and colourless? It’s almost impressive, honestly, which makes a nice contrast for the non-existent but nonetheless pathetic bars on this track. “It’s a Thriller in the trap where we from”? Bro, he said the Michael Jackson album and he just compared himself to Michael Jackson! This guy’s a genius? Oh, and he said this trap house he most likely did not grow up in or participate to the extent of having any detailed memories about that would constitute a rap verse was as scary as Michael Jackson! Wow, Drake, how many millionaire kiddy-fiddlers were in your meth labs? Jesus Christ, this is just deplorable, honestly. I try not to get upset or mad at songs anymore on this show because it’s just sounds at the end of the day, but this may just be the worst song I’ve reviewed this year so far. Usually I can put up with Drake’s nonsensical garbling or misogynistic rambles but without anything to sugarcoat Drake’s questionable morality and ethics, we can just see a pure-bred Aubrey Graham doing what he does best: being an absolutely miserable man in his thirties surrounded by yes-men and drunk on star power. It doesn’t even have an insensitive and nonsensical reference to Osama bin Laden like the other big Drake singles completely lacking in structure that were released this year, “Life is Good” and “Oprah’s Bank Account”, which by the way are both pretty great songs.

I could give you satisfac... tion

That’s not even a freaking Michael Jackson song—you know what, let’s just conclude this. I’m sick of this.

Conclusion

Oh, I wonder who will be getting Worst of the Week. Yeah, it’s obviously “Toosie Slide” by Drake, and I haven’t even written the reviews for the other songs while I’m writing this one, so make of that what you will; I will be more opinionated on the rest of the songs by the next sentence.

I wish I wasn’t. Both of those songs were garbage. No Best of the Week.

NEW ARRIVALS: 19/04 #39 – “Skechers” – DripReport

Produced by Ouhboy

This is a TikTok meme in which the Indian YouTuber talks about a woman being attractive because of her light-up Skechers. That is the song. That is the joke. Let’s move on.

No, but seriously, while I don’t find the song funny I appreciate it being some kind of lighthearted fun in what seems like a dour pop scene. The trap beat here is freaking pathetic though, and don’t get me started on the Tyga remix; seriously, I’m surprised his verse didn’t make Skechers cease-and-desist Tyga for defamation. The Badshah guy on the other remix kind of kills it though. Oh, and the actual Skechers gave away like a million face masks because of this song so I guess I do respect this stupid freaking song for its... cultural impact. Yeah, shawty bad with the Skechers. It’s a movement.

#24 – “Rover” – S1mba featuring DTG (DejiTheGamer)

Produced by RELYT

S1mba is a Zimbabwean musician who spent his first nine years under Mugabe before moving to Swindon, England, where he started listening to gospel music. DTG is a YouTuber from Croydon. Naturally, their big breakthrough single is a trap-Afroswing song about cars, or specifically the women that young British men can potentially attract with said cars... and somehow it is pretty good. That chorus is undeniably infectious and S1mba is a pretty damn charismatic guy who honestly sounds pretty good singing in the pre-chorus. DTG is considerably less impressive, Auto-crooning repeated lyrics several times with very little effort put into the inflections or cadences. The pianos here are pretty solid and I particularly like the strings in the outro. Also, the build-up to the third chorus is pretty epic. There are also four remixes of this song, including big names like ZieZie, Joel Corry and Lil Tecca, accumulating about 10 people across five songs. I listened to them all and here are my opinions: On the first remix, Poundz sounds kind of awkward as an auto-crooner, ZieZie sounds pretty great – I don’t really know why his verse is bilingual but sure, why not – and Ivorian Doll, who I assume is rather fittingly from Cote d’Ivoire, sounds great rapping but her stuttered singing is less than impressive. S1mba provides a new verse here and it’s pretty mediocre. The Lil Tecca remix is pretty great actually, with Tecca riding the beat effortlessly. Maybe the song can have some popularity stateside because of this? I mean, Young T & Bugsey did it with “Don’t Rush”, which I was surprised to see. Tecca sounds great on the outro, too. Oh, and there’s an Australian remix, too, because Aussie drill is a thing, apparently. The Youngn Lipz guy wastes time, and is not really sounding very Australian unlike the thickly-accented Hooligan Hefs who provides a pretty good verse which is kind of tonally out of place, which is the same with the Hooks guy. And finally, the house remix with Joel Corry, which is censored for some reason but I imagine is getting a lot of radio play despite being a lot less interesting and joyful than the original. It’s a pretty danceable, club-ready banger but you can’t really just get a song’s isolated vocals and put it on an unrelated house beat and expect the best... okay, well maybe Imanbek can, but that’s not the point. Joel Corry just does his thing here, and his thing is pretty freaking boring. Also, I’d like to point out that this is only the remix with DTG on it, and is hence not one of the best remixes. I’d put this above the Aussie remix and the first remix with Poundz and ZieZie (which ZieZie kind of carries), but below the original and the Tecca remix, which is my personal favourite and the one I’ll be saving. I really hope this remix trend continues to be a thing because I’m getting so much more writing out of this. Also, apparently this song is about a specific Range Rover – the 2019 Land Rover Evoque. Great.

Conclusion

“Skechers” by DripReport is Worst of the Week. I know it’s harmless and ultimately just a fun time but that Tyga remix is a crime against humanity, so “Rover” by S1mba featuring DTG and eight other dudes is Best of the Week. I mean, there’s only two songs so you could probably infer this conclusion.

NEW ARRIVALS: 26/04 #39 – “Where We’re Going” – Gerry Cinnamon

Produced by ???

Yeah, neither Genius or Spotify knows who produced this. I assume it’s the artist, Gerry Cinnamon, but that’s just my best guess. He’s an acoustic guitarist from Scotland, which is a bad sign, but this is actually a pretty damn good song. It’s a new wave-ish post-punk song with a fast-paced folkish riff that reminds me of The Cure, specifically a slightly more depressive “Just Like Heaven” came into mind immediately. Cinnamon isn’t a bad vocalist but his performance here is kind of sub-par and lyrically the song suffers from la-la-la syndrome but it makes perfect sense in the profanity-laden, careless tone of the lyrics and the song itself, which relies on the oddly profound hook of “Where we’re going this shit don’t matter”. Whilst I like this song a lot, I am slightly turned off by its dreariness which would work if the song weren’t four minutes, which is perhaps a couple choruses too long, but yeah, this is pretty good for what it is. I’m surprised it’s here in the UK Top 40, but this guy has been big in Scotland for a while so I guess this is his big single. He seems like more of an album artist, anyway. I need to listen to this guy’s album, perhaps.

#29 – “Rockstar” – DaBaby featuring Roddy Ricch

Produced by SethInTheKitchen

It’s funny how two songs can be so different yet so similar. At its core, both this and “Where We’re Going” are profane, carefree and reckless pop songs with acoustic guitar as a focal instrument and a pretty bleak-sounding atmosphere to it all, which is fitting with the world being bricks and all. The main difference between the songs is that DaBaby is not a Scottish punk singer, and, last time I checked, neither was Roddy RIcch, although things change pretty fast in the music industry, and Taylor Swift just released her overhyped indie folk album as I’m writing this, so who knows? It’s not even her best album. I stand by reputation being her best but I don’t think I should elaborate on that hot take until “cardigan” inevitably debuts at #1. This is the second #1 hit trap song in the US to be a duet between two rappers about being a rockstar (this one is stylised in uppercase rather than lowercase, though). DaBaby also made a song about being a “Pop Star”, which Drake and DJ Khaled did a couple weeks ago. Trap-rappers are really original, I swear. Anyway, the acoustic plucking here courtesy of SethInTheKitchen is pretty funky here, but the drums do feel pretty stiff here. I love the Auto-Tuned “Oooooooh” that I think Roddy provides; again, the second #1 this guy has had with a vocal gimmick. DaBaby flows impressively in his first verse, where he recounts when he killed a man in front of his daughter and that he’d do it again. As you do. Roddy isn’t particularly interesting here but his Young Thug impression hasn’t worn off on me yet, so, yeah, pretty okay, decent song. Not many lyrics to analyse here, either.

Brand new Lamborghini, f*** a cop car / With a pistol on my hip like I’m a cop

This line in the chorus inspired DaBaby to release a “Black Lives Matter” remix of the song, and whilst it’s not as good as the original, simply because the beat doesn’t drop or hit as hard due to the extended intro and the song’s brevity is kind of its main saving point for me, I really respect his introductory verse on the remix where he raps viciously without a beat about police brutality, even referring to personal experiences he’s had with systematic racism in the United States. Also, in both versions, the sudden and brazen “SETHINTHEKITCHEN” producer tag never fails to get a chuckle out of me. Now that we’ve listened to two pretty respectable pieces of art, how about some manufactured plastic-wrapped garbage made in a factory by television producers?

#25 – “You Taught Me What Love Is (Britain’s Got Talent Live Recording)” – Beth Porch

Produced by Matt Banks, Charlie Irwin and Paul Jones

Those are the producers of Britain’s Got Talent, if you’re wondering. Spotify doesn’t list any producer credits because of course, they don’t. This is not really a typical pop song rather it is Simon Cowell’s attempt at replicating an indie-girl songwriter with an acoustic guitar and typical indie-girl voice, and, man, I don’t like half of those artists and Porch here can sing, but come on, this is just pathetic and desperate. I remember when Cowell started the talent shows, he didn’t have to directly replicate other trends really because he was making and defining the sound of British pop music in a way. It wasn’t very good but you can remember some of his signatures that are still present in remnants of pop music on the island today, especially this song, which has the skyscraper chorus and crowd cheering at the end, but God, this is just sad. I’m glad we’ve moved past the need for singer-songwriters, boy bands and girl groups created by reality television for the sake of putting more money in old rich white guys’ pockets. If I were doing this show any earlier than 2015, I feel like it would have been plagued by this stuff. Thank God for the streaming era, I suppose.

#20 – “I’m Ready” – Sam Smith and Demi Lovato

Produced by ILYA

This is a Sam Smith song featuring guest vocals from Demi Lovato. They are both good vocalists. The production from ILYA is not very interesting. Okay, I take it back, the production here is kind of cool, because it’s half an intimidating dated trap song and half a piano-based power ballad, and neither of these guys are convincing on a deep sliding 808 or rattling hi-hats. Oh, yeah, and the trap beat sucks. Like what’s with that snare? Yeah, this is garbage. I’m not sure why I expected otherwise, to be honest. If this is motivational to you, all respect to you but to me, this is pure cremation.

#5 – “Times Like These (BBC Radio 1 Stay Home Live Lounge)” – Live Lounge Allstars

Produced by Fraser T. Smith

“Times Like These” is actually my favourite Foo Fighters song; I’ve never been a big fan of the band but they have some incredible songs that I love very dearly and “Times Like These” is one of them. I guess it’s a fitting song for the current situation but I’m not expecting the Live Lounge Allstars to bring anything other than a washed-out, dry and bland cover of this classic. Who are the Allstars? Well, BBC Radio 1 has a series called Live Lounge where artists perform covers live or something to that effect – I don’t watch/listen to it – and this song features a lot of artists from that show who are more relevant, commercially viable or connected to Foo Fighters genre-wise, including Simon Neil, Zara Larsson, Sam Fender, Rita Ora, Rag’n’Bone Man, Paloma Faith, Mabel, Hailee Steinfeld, Grace Carter, Coldplay, Celeste, Biffy Clyro, Anne-Marie, AJ Tracey (Wha—), 5 Seconds of Summer, Dermot Kennedy, Sean Paul (Because of course), YUNGBLUD, Sigrid, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Bastille, Ellie Goulding, Jess Glynne, and of course, the only Foo Fighters present, Dave Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins. I’m not going to pretend this song doesn’t have potential (I love Royal Blood and Dua Lipa, hell, a cover of this song with just those guys – or even Bastille – could work pretty damn well) but this is over-flooded with completely random artists, other than a couple rock bands picked out so they could replicate some sense of vague guitarism, whatever that means. Anyway, let’s remind ourselves why “Times Like These” works in the first place: it’s a lighthearted adult alternative song with a real message to learn from mistakes and to always think about the decisions you make before you hurt feelings or you feel guilty. It’s got a maddeningly infectious chorus, an iconic guitar riff and a so bad it’s good music video. It’s what the Foo Fighters are good at making, but it’s warmer and perhaps more intimate than usual, being based on actual events and internal drama within the band. It’s almost a diss track Dave Grohl wrote to himself, but in the most jovial tone possible with metaphors that are just odd and creative enough to be memorable to the listener. In the song, he beats himself up for being indecisive, ignorant and confused, before reassuring us and himself that he will learn from these lessons and become a better person, even if he has to drill the mantra into our heads. It’s just a great song... and it doesn’t really work in the context of this pandemic. Sure, the whole vague idea of becoming a better person in the new normal following lockdown, and how the lockdown will be troubling for the mental health of the British public, but otherwise, I mean, it’s a song that specifically refers to an event in Dave Grohl’s life, and has the typical, sludgy post-grunge vocals and some charmingly janky production choices (There, I said it), such as that echoing vocal in the verses. It all makes sense in the context of the song, though; here, it just feels impersonal. Sure, Grohl himself wrote off on it and contributed to the song, but there’s a certain lack of sincerity to the vocals here that makes the song’s profound lyrics feel cheap. I’m not going to say they disrespected a classic anthem. After all, “Times Like These” isn’t a brilliantly written song in the first place and it’s not like it’s influential or held in high regard. These singers are generally pretty talented, albeit not showing their best performances here. Despite that, with the slow, acoustic trod of this new cover, the shadow of dullness that looms over the whole song, and some outright garbage vocal performances from Simon Neil and YUNGBLUD, it doesn’t hold up to the original in any way. I wish this wasn’t acoustic either; again, Bastille, Royal Blood, Dua Lipa, Biffy Clyro and Coldplay could all do great covers of this song with some electric backing and some actual Goddamn energy. As is, it’s just a shoddily made charity single that misses the point of the original song completely. Oh, yeah, and the AJ Tracey guest rap verse is freaking AWFUL, and so out of place. It’s about making a wicked pasta bake, seemingly, and is capped off by Sean Paul giving the best performance out of any of the singers here, because, well, of course, he does. It’s Sean Paul. Big up the dude on the glockenspiel as well.

#1 – “You’ll Never Walk Alone” – Michael Ball, Captain Tom Moore and the NHS Voices of Care Choir

Produced by Nick Patrick

Reviewing this song misses the point of the song, as this isn’t a song for you to listen to, really. This is a song for you to appreciate and respect the charitable cause it represents. Captain Tom Moore is an army veteran who is 100 years old, making him the oldest person to ever get a #1 on the chart. He served in India and Burma during the Second World War, and 70-odd years later, he started walking laps around his garden to raise charity for NHS workers, and, naturally, he garnered media attention and attracted more than £30 million in donations. This song in particular is pretty special to a lot of Britons because of its attachment to the Liverpool football team (it’s been a crowd chant for a while after it was originally written by Rogers-Hammerstein in 1945 and further covered by Gerry and the Peacemakers in 1963). Even The Weeknd, who was #1 at the time, asked his fans to give him the #1 instead. Several people were inspired by Moore and practiced similar fundraising efforts that also raised millions for similar causes. After the song was released, Queen Elizabeth II, who is also approaching 100, knighted Moore, so, yes, he is Captain Sir Thomas Moore. I have nothing but respect for the man and his service to the country. To many people in the United Kingdom, especially elderly people who have had particular struggles during the pandemic and increased loneliness, especially without the otherwise regular family visits, he is a hero, and I completely understand that. I mean, the guy was on Blankety Blank once in 1983, so you’ve at least got to respect him for that. If you have the time, read up on the man’s life story, because as one would expect, he’s been through a hell of a lot in 100 years.

Conclusion

I can’t give Worst of the Week to charity singles, I’m sorry, I don’t have it in me. Sure, the Allstars butchered a great Foo Fighters classic, but if it helps people in these trying times, then I can’t say the song is worthy of my bile, really. So Worst of the Week goes to “I’m Ready” by Sam Smith and Demi Lovato, and Best of the Week goes to “Where We’re Going” by Gerry Cinnamon. Next month.

MAY NEW ARRIVALS: 03/05 #39 – “Kings & Queens” – Ava Max

Produced by Cirkut and RedOne

I just today found out that Cirkut ISN’T Dr. Luke. For some reason I always assumed so. Anyways, Ava Max is back to prove she’s not a one-hit wonder by making her one hit another time. Man, I’m just so bored of this. One of the reasons I stopped bothering or trying to make these blogs and music review list type things is that I gravitate less than ever towards music reviewing and journalism. I would love to use this hobby and passion for some good at some point and maybe make a career out of it but as an Internet music critic who reviews nearly exclusively chart music, this shit is just boring – and 2020’s supposed to be a really cool, unique interesting year for the charts. I’m kind of disillusioned with the whole cinematic top 10 build-up and this massive, melodramatic aggravated assault on the #1 worst song, when in reality everything is subjective and it’s not worth doing that. I mean, as well as I rested my case about “Taki Taki”, it doesn’t remove the song from existence or the charts. People won’t stop liking the song, it’s just my measly opinion, and, yes, while I think the whole idea of reviewing art is futile and at times counterproductive or toxic, it is completely fair to say your opinion on something, otherwise I wouldn’t be still writing this months after this song had first charted. I just don’t get the idea of a pop music reviewing community or whatever, which obviously does exist, and you’re probably a part of it if you’re reading this in all honesty, if you even got  this far. In the bluntest way possible, they just argue with each other. I don’t know, maybe I’m thinking way too much into this, it’s just a bit of fun but I just don’t care for the whole slog of reviewing five songs every week when I know I won’t like half of them. I feel like when I started, I viewed myself as one of those music-reviewing YouTubers with Pokémon avatars and top 20 rankings, and yeah, I don’t get that anymore from doing this. I just get apathy, although when I do feel happy and productive, which isn’t often nowadays, this is one of the first things I start thinking of and start doing so that should show that maybe chipping at this brick wall of Top 40 singles every couple months is fun? I don’t know. I decided today that I’ll release this block as the first part of this wall of sound, no pun intended, and I don’t know how good that’ll make me feel after releasing it. It’s definitely a relief, I guess. Anyway, Ava Max, I guess.

If all of the kings had the queens on the throne / We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Wait, sorry what was that?

We would pop champagne and raise a toast

Sorry, could you clarify that first part?

We would pop champagne

No. NO.

Pop champagne

#38 – “Don’t Need Love” – 220 KID and GRACEY

Produced by Will Graydon, Sam Brennan and Mark Ralph

Okay, back from mental trauma, is this song good? I don’t know, man, I don’t know who these guys are. 220 KID is a self-proclaimed “fizzy pop” artist from the UK, and GRACEY is a singer from Brighton who at some point lost her voice. Sure. This is their breakthrough song, I assume because of TikTok since they both don’t have an album yet, and I haven’t heard anything about them or their other singles, but I’m probably just ignorant. I mean, this is 220 KID’s debut single so they might just be a great, upcoming artist. I wouldn’t be able to tell because this is just really a mediocre house-pop song in theory. I mean, it has the exact same robotic, distorted and echoey vocal production, similarly thumping bassy beats, a stitched-up vocal drop, but something about this sounds cold. Maybe it’s the weak albeit bouncy production and snapping, maybe it’s the odd amount of dead space, maybe it’s the admittedly cool-sounding synth pads, but really, I think it’s just that non-existent drop. It doesn’t feel climactic, it doesn’t feel like anything, it just feels like someone ate the charting dance-pop singles from the past three years and regurgitated it. GRACEY sounds really nice in the falsetto towards the end now, and I like the melodies in the verse, I suppose. It’s not all bad, not that it was bad in the first place, just sonically void of personality. Also, there are way too many remixes and different releases but I still listened to all of them. The acoustic version is really sweet, and I think I actually really like how this song is written when hearing it stripped-down, but her desperate moaning in the chorus of the acoustic version feels a lot more genuine than the pitch-shifted garbage we get on the official, not that it doesn’t sound awkward on all versions. The Majestic remix is kind of nuts and I like the UK garage production but it’s way too long, and the TCTS remix is just the original with annoying beeping.

#26 – “Righteous” – Juice WRLD

Produced by Charlie Handsome and Nick Mira

I’m still pretty hurt that Juice passed. To be only 21 and die so suddenly after such a successful albeit brief career, at a moment where Juice seemed to be on top of the world more or less, is a tragic reality and Juice seemed like a nice, genuine guy from interviews so it was pretty shocking to hear the news, to say the least. Now, this gets awkward, like Pop Smoke from earlier, in the case that I was not a fan of Juice WRLD, and I’m still not. I think he was a very talented songwriter who attracted a fanbase due to a pretty unique 2000s emo-pop-inspired brand of trap, and he wrote some of my favourite emo rap songs ever, like “Lean wit Me” or “Robbery”, which is a damn excellent song and one of my favourites of last year. It even was in the top five of my Spotify Rewind 2019 playlist, I love that song to bits. However, most of his music had not appealed to me, and to be honest, I haven’t listened to that posthumous album, Legends Never Die, and probably never will because of that. I don’t want to dislike an album that serves as a genuine tribute to a good person, and I also am not sure if I’d be able to get through the entirety of the album, to be honest, mostly because of this song, which impacts me emotionally in a way not many songs do. The instrumental consists of a pretty sparse, spacey and minimal guitar-based trap skitter that is just a perfect base for Juice to pour his emotions onto in a way that feels eerie and sad but also pretty accepting, which makes the lyrics feel haunting, especially because the topics he discusses are mostly centred around how he thinks death for him is imminent. The first lines of the chorus already hit so hard with how he pictures himself as a “righteous” angel figure in his all-white Gucci suit and says, “I know that the truth is so hard to digest”. Then Juice continues to talk about the sheer quantity of drugs he’s consuming, which is just harrowing. This song feels like Juice was introducing someone to his lifestyle and realising how depressing and draining it was as he goes, especially in the first verse, where by the end he starts reassuring someone, who could be his girlfriend, his audience and fanbase, but most dauntingly, himself, that he’ll get out of this addiction and lifestyle at some point, when, in reality, he passed before he could even try, and he passed as a consequence of this lifestyle. In the second verse, he parallels how he died in his lyrics, saying and almost threatening to his inner demons, who he characterises as people he knows (but they “don’t know [him] like that”), that he will “take a pill for the thrill, have a relapse” and “crash”. The fact that this song is sprinkled with the silly, melodramatic metaphors not atypical to Juice, makes this song feel directly personal and not a retelling of the same line a lot of emo-rappers have sang and sadly, some have fallen victim to, about taking copius amounts of Xanax and codeine. Much like “Robbery” and a lot of his other work, Juice adopts a longing and nasal cadence and vocal delivery, but it feels much more trained and tuneful here, especially among the subtle vocal samples in the verse, and it is used sparingly in turn with a more muted delivery, particularly prominent in the chorus and the second verse, which connotes Juice’s lethargic acceptance with a lifestyle that he fell victim to. I don’t react emotionally that much to music, and I think that’s the same with a lot of people, but those first two lines in the chorus hit like a dagger and sound so great while doing so. Rest in peace Jared Higgins, and may the beauty of this song reflect on your talent.

#14 – “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” – The 1975

Produced by Jonathan Gilmore, George Daniel and Matthew Healy

I really loved “Me & You Together Song” but I find it hard to get behind anything else these guys made, really. They actually released an 80-minute album this May featuring backing vocals from Greta Thunberg, because of course, they did. I feel like if they started making music that was more natural and organic and didn’t try to make Pitchfork-bait political statements or whatever, I would appreciate them more. Not that I’m against political statements in songs – I’m definitely not, in fact, I’m sad “The Bigger Picture” by Lil Baby missed the top 40 this year – but the 1975, particularly Matt Healy, have never commented on pop culture in a way that’s not incoherent, preachy and frankly kind of stupid and obnoxious. Thankfully, this song, their biggest so far, is just about meeting a girl on FaceTime so you know, it makes me much more optimistic. The intro is really pleasant ambiance, but that awkward main guitar/bass riff makes it sound a lot less serene and more chaotic, even with FKA twigs providing some choral background vocals. Then the steady drums and 80s synths drown it out and once again, it suddenly becomes a fun, catchy song, even if Healy sounds really annoying with some inflections and notes that just sound... kind of horrific, especially with the multi-tracking that makes him even more irritating. He sounds even worse on the pre-chorus, but the cheesy and unabashed chorus where he says “Maybe I would like you better if you take off your clothes” followed by this corny, clearly synthesised horn riff, is just incredible. I kind of have to embrace Healy’s incompetence here because I can’t help myself but chuckle hearing him shout over 80’s beats in a way I guess isn’t too dissimilar to bands like Duran Duran, and hey, I love Duran Duran, and this is a good replica of a post-new wave 80’s synthpop track, even with a Goddamn saxophone solo. Is it too long? Yes, but so were those 80’s songs, and they just awkwardly faded out afterwards, and there is a shorter edit without the intro that cuts a whole minute off the track, meaning it starts just as awkwardly as it finishes, but that’s kind of the charm. Yeah, this is a pretty fun track, and maybe that Notes on a Conditional Form album is worth checking out. Maybe I give the 1975 too much flack. Wait, nevermind, no, I don’t, they’re called the 1975.

#11 – “The Scotts” – THE SCOTTS (Travis Scott and Kid Cudi)

Produced by Dot da Genius, Plain Pat and Take a Daytrip

Whoever decided to call this song “THE SCOTTS” is a brilliant mind and intellectual. Not only do I laugh every time I see this song title, just on pure absurdity alone, but it’s also by The Scotts. No one will proudly say, “Yeah, I’m listening to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS.” It’s also in all caps as if it’s this monumental, groundbreaking track, or at least an important, interesting one, but it’s actually just because all Travis Scott songs will be TITLED LIKE THIS NOW, ever since ASTROWORLD. It also amuses me that this makes absolutely no sense if you tell someone that this is actually a collaborative project between Kid Cudi and Jacques Webster. Travis Scott’s name isn’t even Scott, and Kid Cudi’s never used it in his name, although admittedly, in a lot of songs – and many I adore and remember fondly – he does say his name, Scott Mescudi, or some shortened variation of it. He doesn’t do it here, but Travis does say “You lettin’ THE SCOTTS outside”, as if it’s dangerous to let THE SCOTTS outside of their zone or outside of their cage or whatever. This song was also performed and premiered live on Fortnite, has like ten different vinyl editions to bump up its sales (It went #1 on the Hot 100 in the US in fact), and, man, the very idea of this song and everything surrounding it is just funny to me. Too bad the song’s not. I really like the keys loop used here coupled with some great-sounding drum fills but it is just destroyed by this ugly, slow bassy trap skitter and really gross-sounding Travis Scott vocals. He just uses this one lethargic flow, and switches it briefly in less of a technical or interesting way than Cudi does later in the song, delivering a really great verse, but my issue is that it sounds like a Travis Scott verse. He even tries to do his ad-libs. Then there’s this chiptune outro that sounds like a Mike Dean idea, mostly because it sounds kind of cool but doesn’t go anywhere and doesn’t do anything to improve this shoddy song and its messy, dare I say, janky structure. “Baptized in Fire” is a much better collaboration from these two, and it’s telling that that one doesn’t have a verse from Travis at all. Rodeo is still amazing, but this guy has been disappointing and underwhelming for such a long time now. Maybe he’s lost his charm, but even with ASTROWORLD, where his experimental production shines and he is the most energetic he is in recent years, he just sounds tired and lazy. And Cudi, well, he’s Cudi. He’s made some of my favourite songs of all time, and some of the most confusing garbage I’ve ever heard. The duality of man.

#6 – “Houdini” – KSI featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne

Produced by AjProductions and Jacob Manson

Hey, this mildly amusing but definitely not my thing YouTuber got two of my favourites of the recent crop of British Afroswing and drill rappers on the same track. That’s something, right? I mean, yes, this is something, because this beat is AWESOME. It’s so full of joy and energy, even with the dark 808 tones and sparse vocal tones. I just love the bouncy, funky production on this thing and Swarmz kills it on the chorus with his typical happy nasal tone. Stormzy also kind of kills it, at least for the first half where he flows really swiftly and with a lot of smooth swagger, before he starts listing things and saying “Check” afterwards, for whatever reason. Tion Wayne delivers the clumsy fun he usually does, and whilst neither him or anyone here really brings any interesting lines or wordplay with them to the track, except a really awful corny line from KSI where he says his fourth letter is getting bigger in the alphabet, the track still feels really fun and cheerful, and most importantly full. Even when there’s literally silence, or no-one’s saying anything, it never feels like there’s dead space because the beat is always doing something cool. This is notable especially when Tion Wayne starts flowing really awkwardly and even when the beat cuts out for a really odd, nothing line, it still feels kind of worth it. Not much to say about this song other than it bangs, and a lot more than I’d expect from a guy like KSI.

Conclusion

I actually have pretty positive feelings on this week, which is good to go out on, I suppose. Best of the Week is obviously and undeniably going to the late Juice WRLD’s “Righteous”, with tied Honourable Mentions to the 1975’s “If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)” and, yes, KSI’s “Houdini” featuring Swarmz and Tion Wayne. There’s not much to complain about here, so Worst of the Week goes to “Kings & Queens” by Ava Max for the kind of vapid nothingness I can’t even bring myself to stay on topic to talk about and Dishonourable Mention to “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS because it’s “THE SCOTTS” by THE SCOTTS, and I don’t know about you but to me, that’s just laughable. See you in the next year, hopefully.

[coquuin]

really LONG CHARACTER SURVEY. RULES. repost ,   don’t  reblog  !  good  luck  !

TAGGED. i stole it from Kiki!! TAGGING. whoever wants to do it!!

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Ezekiel Axel Ruiz Rosario

NICKNAME: Zeke

AGE: (Verse dependent) anywhere from 19 to 25! most often tho, i usually make him 25.

BIRTHDAY: November 15 (self given bc he doesnt know his real birthday)

ETHNIC GROUP: Puerto Rican / Latino

NATIONALITY: British-American

LANGUAGE(S): English, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Latin, Romanian, some Russian, and some Chinese! he likes to study languages a lot....

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Demi-Pansexual

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Demi-Panromantic

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Hes multiship boiiii

CLASS: Upper class, though he really doesnt have very expensive tastes or anything. Seems like he’d be lower class, but. yknow, he is a celebrity so.

HOMETOWN / AREA: London, England

CURRENT HOME: A very small and shitty apartment. Yeah, he could get a much better home bc he does have the money, but... hes weird and likes a more slightly cramped space. dont question Ezekiel, he has weird preferences.

PROFESSION: Guitarist of the rock band Rogue! also used to work at a music shop when he was like 17, but that was back in London.

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Very curly and messy black hair! He hardly bothers to take care of it. its prolly greasy bc hes a fucking gremlin pls make him take a shower. stinky boye

EYES: BIG OL FUCKIN EYES. they’re brown! a little sunken, and has massive bags under them--rather than the bags being from lack of sleep, though, theyre actually a result of too much sleep! Ezekiel can and WILL fall asleep wherever and whenever he wants. you cant stop him. his eyes are pretty big actually, and very expressive!

NOSE: the bitch looks like its been broken like ten times. he got a weird ass nose. its a little big, but not terribly so!

FACE: scrawny as FUCK. motherfucker’s head shape looks like a fuckin crescent moon. you know that one tiktok meme with the girl who has the weird ass moon lookin head? bitch looks like that a little bit. croissant lookin ass head.

LIPS: very thin! pls get him some chapstick

COMPLEXION: bitch looks like he hasnt gone out in the sun in over 20 years! which, actually, isnt entirely wrong bc he pretty much hasn’t. pale as fuck! his skin looks gray, like a fucking corpse. he looks like a zombie, but i swear to god hes a plain ass human i think

BLEMISHES: a lot! mostly on his body tho, especially on his back.

SCARS: A  L O T!!! his back is literally covered in a shit ton of scars in the shape of upside down crosses, and he has a lot on the rest of his body as well, and several on his left wrist. yeah he, uh... he aint okay

TATTOOS: None! hes way too terrified to get one and hates the idea of one being stuck on his body for like the rest of his life rip

HEIGHT: 6′ 3″ / 190.05cm

WEIGHT: about like... 98lbs?? which is. fUCKING TERRIBLE FOR HOW TALL HE IS!!! LIKE HOLY SHIT EZEKIEL ARE YOU GOOD??? HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?!?!?! EZEKIEL?!?!?!?! FUCKING EAT SOMETHING PL EASE

BUILD: SCRAWNY AS SHIT. HE IS SO SKINNY HOLY SHIT. OH MY GOD GET THIS BOY A FUCKING BURGER OR SOMETHING BEFORE HE DIES JESUS CHRIST!!!!

ALLERGIES: Dandelions! He’ll just sneeze a lot around them

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: The bangs are kiiiinda kept to the side sorta just so its not falling in his eyes, but other than that, he doesnt really bother to like, style it or anything. its just curly and messy. although! when he was a child all the way to his teens, he did have a stupid ass bowlcut! but that wasnt his own choice, so he cant really be blamed for it :(

USUAL FACE LOOK: motherfucker has the WORST case of resting bitch face you will ever fucking see. even when hes happy he still looks angery sometimes!!! but thats literally just his fucking face!!!!

USUAL CLOTHING: a looot of slightly baggy clothing. lots of hoodies! especially wears a lot of black and red, mostly black. also wears mostly boots or sneakers, usually the ladder. he just doesnt really give two shits about fashion, as he’s more concerned with just sorta.. hiding his body. hes very insecure! save him

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR(S): "the devil”, getting close to anyone, performing in front of people, people in general, cats, knives & other sharp objects, the sight of his own blood

ASPIRATION(S): "to escape the Devil’s wrath,” as he phrases it. of course, the whole ‘THE DEVIL IS OUT TO KILL EVERYONE I LOVE AND THEN HE’LL KILL ME NEXT’ thing is obviously just in Ezekiel’s head, but it feels very real to him! he basically just wants to be free of the “demons” in his head. aside from that, he also really really reeaaally wants to own an orphanage someday! basically take in orphan kids and help give them a much better life than he had. but as for right now, he fully realizes he’s not ready for that at all, so he’s currently more focused on his music career and getting better mentally, though the ladder is a slow process.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Patient, simple, humble

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Rude, temperamental, paranoid

ZODIAC: Scorpio!

TEMPERAMENT: uhhhh fuck idk i just took a quiz for this and ezekiel got like a tie between phlegmatic and melancholic--but if i had to guess, i’d say melancholic!

SOUL TYPE(S): Spiritualist!

ANIMALS: i always associate Ezekiel with dogs bc. he literally just acts like a fuckin angery dog. and an angery snake or something. bUT MOSTLY DOGS. he will literally bark at people, because he’s a fucking weirdo who doesnt know how to behave like a normal fucking human being

VICE  HABIT(S): uhhh drugs and alcohol are a big thing he does!! and generally pushing everyone away so he doesnt get close to anyone! and also acting like a gotdam ANIMAL. SOMEONE PLS MAKE EZEKIEL STOP FUCKING BARKING AND HISSING AT PEOPLE!!!

FAITH: Christian! his religion is very important to him too!

GHOSTS?: Yes!

AFTERLIFE?: Yes!

REINCARNATION?: He isn’t really sure about reincarnation, but wants to believe it exists.

ALIENS?: Yes.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: fuck if he knows. ezekiel could not give less of a shit about politics and hardly knows anything about it bc he really doesnt keep up with anything.

SOCIO POLITICAL POSITION: he doesnt give a fuck

EDUCATION LEVEL: None. he never even went to school, fun fact!

FAMILY.

FATHER: Dead!

MOTHER: Dead!

SIBLINGS: None!

EXTENDED FAMILY: None!

NAME MEANING(S): Ezekiel means “God will strengthen”! I have no idea what Rosario means sadly bc i cant find anything good on it on google :(

HISTORICAL CONNECTION?: None that he knows of.

FAVORITES.

BOOK: He couldn’t possibly pick a single favorite book--he loves a lot! but he loves mostly romance genres! which is so fucking ironic considering he’s fucking terrified of getting into relationships. and even more ironically? he doesnt read any horror genres bc it scares him too much!

MOVIE: he doesn’t know.

5 SONGS: While My Guitar Gently Weeps - the Beatles; Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd; Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin; Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen; Don’t Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult.

DEITY: God, Jesus

HOLIDAY: Christmas! everyone expects Ezekiel to be like the grinch or something and hate Christmas, but nope! He surprisingly loves it!

MONTH: March

SEASON: Fall

PLACE: His bed

WEATHER: Preferably a little cold, but not too much, bc he just cant stand being hot--and completely dark outside!

SOUND: Gentle guitar strums.

SCENT(S): Ivory

TASTE(S): Anything thats like. Meat. hes very picky tho

FEEL(S): Skin. As in, like, being affectionate with someone else! He’s just very touch starved rip

ANIMAL(S): Yknow, oddly enough, despite acting like a fuckin wild animal a lot, he doesnt like animals much. but definitely dogs are his favorite!

NUMBER: 20

COLORS: Red and black--though he likes blue as well, especially dark blue.

EXTRA.

TALENTS: Music--especially with guitar! And painting, writing, literature.

BAD AT: Anything to do with math or science and stuff like that; anything that requires physical work. hes p much bad at like.. most things tbh.

TURN ONS: Just like.. be soft and gentle with him... also probably has a lowkey praise kink--if you could call it much of a kink i guess? hes pretty vanilla tbh. hes just soft.....

TURN OFFS: If you go rough on him at all he WILL cry. Also anything that, like, restricts him like ropes or some shit will literally make him panic so fucking bad. basically hes just vanilla as fuck, just be gentle with him pls

HOBBIES: Writing / playing music, writing in general, painting, watching random ass movies on TV until he falls asleep, sleeping, avoiding his problems like the fuckin wind

TROPES: man fuck if i know

AESTHETIC TAGS: literally all of Aurelio Voltaire’s songs; shit you’d see in Halloween (which is funny bc Ezekiel fucking hates Halloween); vampires; satanic symbolism. which is all ironic, bc Ezekiel doesnt actually like spooky shit! but it all sure does give big Ezekiel vibes anyway

GPOY  QUOTES: huh

FC INFO.

MAIN  FC(S): Jack the ripper from, well, Oyasumi Jack the Ripper!

ALT FC(S): None!

OLDER FC(S): None!

YOUNGER  FC(S): None rip

VOICE CLAIM(S): Murdoc Niccals from Gorillaz

GENDERBENT FC(S): iiiiii dont really do genderbends pretty much so none

MUN QUESTIONS.

Q1: IF YOU COULD WRITE YOUR CHARACTER YOUR WAY IN THEIR OWN MOVIE, WHAT WOULD IT BE CALLED, WHAT STYLE WOULD IT BE FILMED IN, AND WHAT WOULD IT BE ABOUT?:

Honestly probably something like the movie Sybil??? like basically just delving deep into his whole psychology and mindset and whatnot and why he acts the way he acts. those are always like my FAVORITE type of movies, and Ezekiel would honestly be fucking perfect for something like that bc literally every single aspect of his entire personality has been molded in some way shape or form by some event in his life, especially to do with the cult he was raised in, and it hONESTLY IS SO INTERESTING TO JUST LIKE.. STUDY WHAT EZEKIELS BRAIN IS LIKE BASICALLY. AT LEAST FOR ME ANYWAY BC I AM HIS MUN AND ALL BUT.

Q2: WHAT WOULD THEIR SOUNDTRACK / SCORE SOUND LIKE?:

for some reason i always kinda associate him with like edgy violin and piano music?? i mean hey rock stars can be classy too fuck u

Q3: WHY DID YOU START WRITING THIS CHARACTER?:

WELL ORIGINALLY WHEN I FIRST CREATED HIM HE WAS JUST BASED OFF MURDOC NICCALS BC, YALL ALREADY KNOW DAMN WELL IM OBSESSED WITH THAT PICKLE MAN, BUT. Now, however, he’s WAAAAAAAAY different and i just love writing him so much bc like. basically like what i said in the movie question!! he is SO fucking interesting to delve into psychology wise. like, yeah he has an edgy ass tragic backstory, but whats neat about that is you can absolutely see how said edgy backstory ties into his mindset and individual habits and how the memories of it still affects his everyday life despite the fact that he’s escaped it a long time ago now. even in the small things he does, chances are is that every single thing that he does is either something he does to soothe and comfort himself for his own safety, or something that has just been fucking drilled into his mind by the cult members and whatnot, if any of that makes sense? LIKE YALL DONT UNDERSTAND I HAVE LITERALLY WATCHED LIKE HOURS LONG DOCUMENTARIES ON ORPHANAGES AND SATANIC CULTS AND PSYCHOLOGY AND HOW TRAUMA LIKE WHAT EZEKIEL EXPERIENCED CAN FUCK SOMEONE UP, JUST FOR THE SAKE OF WRITING HIM CORRECTLY AND REALISTICALLY. LIKE HE STARTED OFF AS SOME MURDOC NICCALS REJECT WHEN I MADE HIM IN LIKE?? 2015 MAYBE??? BUT NOW, MY MAIN INTEREST IN HIM IS LIKE, HOW FASCINATING HIS FUCKING MIND IS IN A WAY. idk im a big psychology nerd but.

Q4: WHAT FIRST ATTRACTED YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?:

Murdoc

Q5: DESCRIBE THE BIGGEST THING YOU DISLIKE ABOUT YOUR MUSE:

him pushing everyone away! like its one thing to have a self-defense mechanism like where you just generally act kinda mean to drive people off, but Ezekiel can really take it to a whole new level and he really can be like.. a hUGE ASSHOLE BC OF IT. its mostly when he realizes that he may be starting to become close with anyone that it really gets to a bad point and he becomes all the more self-destructive. THIS IS GONNA BE VERY UNSANITARY SO WARNING BUT hes literally told someone in an rp once like “YOURE GOING TO FORCE ME TO EAT YOUR SHIT OR DRINK YOUR FUCKING URINE JUST LIKE THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE IN THE ORPHANAGE DID, ARENT YOU???? IS THAT WHAT YOU FUCKING WANT FROM ME?? TO USE ME, HURT ME, CUT ME, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT??? WE ARE NEVER GOING TO BE FUCKING FRIENDS YOU GODDAMN IDIOT!!! WHAT THE HELL MADE YOU THINK WE HAD ANYTHING IN COMMON??” AND ITS JUST KINDA.. YIKES SCOOB! but basically hes willing to say just about anything to push people away so he can avoid getting close to anyone

Q6: WHAT DO YOU HAVE IN COMMON WITH YOUR MUSE?:

WE BOTH FEAR AND AVOID ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS LIKE THE FUCKIN WIND. also when i was younger i definitely had a tendency to try and make people hate me just to push people away like Ezekiel does but im not like that anymore thankfully!!

Q7: HOW DOES YOUR MUSE FEEL ABOUT YOU?:

oh hed probably try to fucking kill me lol

Q8: WHAT CHARACTERS DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE INTERESTING INTERACTIONS WITH?

HONESTLY LIKE.. P MUCH EVERY INTERACTION EZEKIEL HAS IS SO GOOD. Ezekiel is one of those characters where its very hard to have a boring rp bc he just does so much shit, so like no matter who i rp him with, its bound to be amazing. ALTHOUGH I DO NEED TO MAKE HIM INTERACT WITH MORE PEOPLE TBH!!! the only problem i have when writing him sometimes is actually making him talk to new people, bc of his extreme shut-in attitude and whatnot, so he literally just never starts conversations with anyone he barely knows.

Q9: WHAT GIVES YOU INSPIRATION TO WRITE YOUR MUSE?:

listening to any music that reminds me of him! but otherwise, it usually just comes pretty naturally to me tbh. just some days ill be in the mood for him all day--same with a lot of my characters actually.

Q10: HOW LONG DID THIS TAKE YOU TO COMPLETE?:

A LONG ASS TIME

[moss-brain-blog]

Interview with Jake Brown Transcript

What's your background?

With art? Or just in general?

Just in general, yeah.

Fuckin’ yeah, raised in a shitty mining town, surrounded by people with no prospects for life. From a very working class family. Always raised in the way of y'know, "you go to school, you go to work and you die."

*Both laugh* I feel it. [We're from the same place]

Nowt special really.

So... what is it that you're aiming to do?

Me, my ideal goal is to become a tattoo artist. Like, that's my ultimate end-goal. I also wanna’ like be good as well, I don't just wanna’ be like... yknow?

Yeah.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I could ever settle for just being a tattoo artist. I see that as another level. If I were to ever have an end-goal with it, it'd be to be award-winning. Be able to travel over the world doing it. That'd be really fucking good for me. I'd love that.

What ways are you going about achieving this goal?

For me, at the minute, it's just drawing constantly. I never did art at school, I never did art at college. It was always like- I suppose it just feeds back to that family thing of "you work..." Art's never been considered a career or never was considered a career at a young age. I never really thought about it when I was young because I was never given the opportunity to think about it like that. It was like, you either play sport and become a famous rugby player or football player, or you work a 9-5 job or a shift job.

Off the back of that, I didn't write this one down but do you feel that not being in formal art education has impacted your work?

Yeah, definitely. I think if I could have been introduced to the things that I know now a lot earlier I think I’d be leaps and bounds better than what I am now. It's only in the last 6 months that I've discovered watercolor and like, digital art, sort of that I can do it. If I’d have had access to this kind of stuff at an earlier age, I’d be a lot better. I suppose it's the same with anything really. You give a guitar to say a 3-year-old that’s interested in it then y’know.

Can you tell me a bit about your creative process? How you go about seeing a piece through, start to finish.

So, I mean, at the moment it's flash that I’m doing so I’ve got to draw roses. so if say for example I’m doing an A3 flash of about 15 roses at the minute. I get my sketchbook any chance, any spare time that I have I’m doodling away. Like, straight away, just sketching roses all the time. I spend all my time looking on Instagram, looking at photos of roses, looking at a lot of other people's work, see how they do things. Take that, and mold my own stuff to it. But if it's for something else, say, that I personally want to do, I get inspiration at the most random times. Usually when I'm at work just doing the worst stuff possible, I'll think of a great idea. So, it'll be a case of whichever medium I want to do it, whether it be like watercolour, Promarker, pencil, digital.

You don't feel yourself restricted to just one thing?

No... No. Just sorta’ go with what I'm feeling at that time. So I’ll always just grab the nearest piece of paper- say I’m at work I’ll write it down then I’ll go home and I'll do a really rough sketch of it. Really, really basic rough sketch., Or if like I’m doing it digitally, for example with the print that I did, I got a really basic photograph of a skull, then a photograph of a mace, then a photograph of a chain. Then like, crudely photoshopped it all together and then just sketched over the top.

Building your own references?

Yeah, then just build my own line-work and style over the top of that. Yeah, I tend to put like, a lot of stages to what I do. I put a lot of planning into each piece, a lot more than I think people realise.

How do you go about choosing the subject matter for your work?

For me at the minute it’s looking at the most popular or most reoccurring thing with the tattoo industry. so like y’know back to roses and skulls and daggers and panthers and pinups it's all basic stuff that you see every day. but you’ve gotta’ learn the basics before you start pulling out your own stuff.

 I understand you use both traditional and digital media fairly equal-handed within your work. What advantages and disadvantages do you personally see in both for the kind of work you do?

I think for me like, with traditional media, I don’t have the patience for it. If I'm doing like, a really big piece- I can have all my line-work down perfect, the slightest thing goes wrong with the colouring and I lose it. Say, once I've ruined a large watercolour piece with the slightest thing I don't really wanna’ go back to it. I'd rather just jump back to digital. I think my only sorta’ issue with digital is that I rely on it too much at times. But then is it really a bad thing, I guess?

Was gonna’ say, do you see that as a problem?

Sometimes, because I’d like to be able to have more options. Like, I do have a fair few options open to me but I don't wanna’ rely on the same thing every time. I'd like to be able to do a bit of this, a bit of that.

Is personal expression important to your work? Or has it been in the past?

No, never. For me, I mean... interpret this how you want but for me with art you should always just do what you want to do. But I think using art to force an agenda or an opinion is just- it's mistreating it. And I think it ruins a lot of- like there's so many people out there that could be amazing artists but they're too busy trying to push this agenda or this idea that it just pulls away from what they could be producing.

Yeah, definitely. I really like that answer. Who are your biggest influences, creatively?

I'm currently just doing a massive list. [He must have seen this one coming]. I would say definitely number one is a guy called Manuel Mendoza, his Instagram is @sacred_crow. He's just a neo-trad’ artist but I forget- he's based in the US; he's just moved shops. But his style is like it's really- the dark colours but he's using like greens and blues and yellows. So he'll do like skulls- a lot of skulls a lot of birds but they're all like, really deformed in a way. They're all stretched out and exaggerated, I find it amazing the way his line work is. It's absolutely amazing. But if I pick someone that's not a tattoo artist, that's always been a big artist it's gotta’ be French[@funeralfrench], every time. Definitely. So I've just finished up- here's a list of about five.

 @sacred_crow

@funeralfrench

@mattcurzon

@grindesign_tattoo

@tdonaire

I think I should also add on like, definitely John Baizley and Richey Beckett. I really love their stuff. I think that sums it up. They're definitely my biggest inspirations.

Name something unusual that inspires you.

Satanism. Definitely.

Hell yeah.

Seeing stuff like old photos from rituals and stuff.

Yeah, Occultism.

Yeah, just all that stuff in general. Like, from the Electric Wizard vinyl I recently got, there's loads of stuff on the inside of that. I dunno’ just summat’ about it, it's just the grim darkness of it all just fascinates me.

The overwhelming sense of dread. Does that appeal to you?

Definitely... definitely.

What ways do you keep up to date with the tattoo industry?

Instagram... and I occasionally will buy magazines. I visit the local studio quite often, stay in touch with all them. I keep up with a lot of the main websites and magazines online. I even follow a lot of product companies like the companies that make [tattoo] machines or like, inks. Just to find out what's new and keep up with what people are up to in that world as well. Like, looking at the business side of things.

Yeah, so you're not just looking at the artist aspect of it you're looking forwards to y’know?

Yeah, every aspect of it. All the way.

How important is social media to your personal practice?

It's everything. Without social media I've got no outlet to share my artwork. I mean, I 've just hit a hundred followers. That's taken a long time to get to. Without the social media side of things... I don't even know where I'd begin to start sharing my work, to be honest.

Gives you a platform, right?

Yeah definitely.

Can you recall the single defining piece of work or a moment where you turned around and had the realisation that this was the kind of thing you want to pursue?

When I first- hmm. I'd say I've got two points. First being at a really young age and seeing my dad's tattoos for the first time. Just being fascinated that that was... there. Just like, what it was. Once it got explained to me, I found it fascinating. So from like maybe age 4 or 5 I used to just draw up and down my arms all the time. So that really sparked something. And then I'd probably say the first time I got tattooed was the moment of realisation where I was like, "Oh, maybe I could do this." I mean, that was a fair few years back now like but that was the first spark of "I could do this, if I really put my mind to it." I mean I suppose a lot of depression and anxiety and a lot of stuff that's happened has really held me back over the years. But yeah, I think my defining moments of realisation are those two. Definitely.

Name something you hate about art.

People who put no effort in, no time in. Get ten times more recognition than somebody that's put hours and hours and hours into their craft. Learning every piece of what they do, say learning anatomy, learning the tools they want to use. Just, really putting the time and love in for what they want to do. Then you get some snot-nosed little kid that's- well, it's not kids but snotty stuck-up teenagers. They'll whip out a sharpie, scribble summat’ down and just put summat’ with no effort whatsoever, no care for what they're doing. They just knock summat’ out in 5 minutes maximum and it gets so much recognition and so much more praise than somebody who is putting the hours in.

So you care about the craft?

Yeah.

Name something you love about art.

That like, people- anyone can do it, if you put the time in. Anyone can produce summat’ that looks great if you put the time in. And it's for everybody that's willing to give it a chance, definitely.

What was the last piece of art you bought?

Bought... I mean I suppose I recently bought a coat just because of the print of the back. I've also bought a few vinyls mostly because like- I accept music as an art-form as well, also the album artwork.

Oh, definitely.

Like, the main reason I got the Crack the Skye album was because of the artwork on it. As for prints, I tend not to buy prints. I suppose the last proper piece of art was either a pin that I got of French's Heatseeker magazine.

Last question, how many toddlers do you think you could take in a fight?

Just line em up. I'll just keep going.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

🏰⚔️ DMODT - 21 start

Annoyingly, Levi found he couldn't get a moment alone with Eren after their first night together. Eren was working hard with Historia on the festival, while Urklyn Reiss was in charge of giving them a tour of Draecia. There really wasn't much he was interested in, though the architecture was kind of nice. In the centre of the main city was a museum housing dragon relics, though it seemed more a shrine or altar than a museum, with fresh offerings left by the descendants of the dragon's within. It was all very prim and proper, not a single flower petal out of place, and Levi struggled to pay attention to it all... He just wanted to spend time with Eren before the festival began. He didn't know if Eren was coming back to Eldia once the festival was done, or if the omega intended to stay. He hoped Eren would be coming home, the castle wasn't nearly as full of life when he wasn't there, and he was still stuck with Petra living there. As usual Eren had been right. There was more to the story and Petra had a reason for wanting to marry into the royal family. Her father was ill and she couldn't afford the medicine, or that was what she said when he'd found her in his chambers, waiting for him. Thankfully, he hadn't walked into the room without the guard stationed at the doorway, or she may have tried to pull something even more brazen. Zeke had just about exploded with anger of him declining his engagement, and that Eren was no longer in Eldia. Demanding answers, Levi told Zeke to write to Draecia, and had heard through one of Historia's letters that the man had demanded to come and visit them. Her father didn't take well to demands, and Zeke had been denied entry. Levi had wished he could have seen the look on his face. He liked to imagine Zeke throwing a tantrum like a toddler, complete with throwing himself on the floor and screaming. First Eren had stopped him taking dragon relics, then Draecia had emptied the castle of the ones that could cause actual damage, and finally, the mage he'd wanted for his own was now gone. Levi couldn't deny disappointing Zeke had become the highlight of his life since Eren left. The omega had held up his end of things, writing regularly, but with each letter it grew harder to open them. He missed the shitty brat far more than he'd thought he would, or could. When the morning of the festival rolled round, Levi found himself sent up to the manor by Historia to prepare, as his military dress uniform wouldn't be enough for the opening ceremony. Everything that morning was over seen by maids, from bathing to dressing and eating. Not used to being fawned over so closely, Levi was forced to keep a tight rein in his emotions. These weren't the maids at the castle, they didn't know he could take care of himself and had accomplished dressing him over two and a half decades earlier. When he was adequately ready, he was lead through to a small sitting room, where Eren was waiting for him. Dressed in robes, Eren smiled as he walked in "You look perfect. And pissed. I take it you were well attended to" Walking over to the first plush chair, Levi threw himself down into it "You might say that" "If it makes you feel better, it's not just you who had to go through that, though Draecia's dragon riders are used to it. It's a purification ceremony thing. The water in the bath was blessed with spells, then herbs to keep the impurities away" "Blessings... right" "Don't knock the blessings. Especially not within Draecia, and nor within a house filled with dragons and riders" "I'm not knocking the blessings... but I'm nearly 30. I can dress myself" "I know you can, but you're not quite ready yet" Levi groaned. He didn't want to be poked at again. He was finally alone with Eren, he wanted to cuddle into his omega... or at least mess his robes up again "There's more?" "Just two more things..." Retrieving the box from the windowsill by him, Eren nodded to himself before continuing as he walked over to him "Because you're human, and not a born dragon rider" Placing the box in his hands, Eren stepped back. The omega smelling anxious about whatever was in there "Open it" Inside the box was a crown of scales. Each scale was various shades of green, and styled to mimic the natural scale structures dragon riders had. Levi was speechless... though not full dragon, the amount of scales in the box was enough for the teen to live a life of luxury "Eren... how?" "It's made with my scales, and will keep you safe while on my back. Let's just say, learning to fly was an experience that ended with me crashing repeatedly. Depth perception is hard when you're not used to having such strong eye sight or a body the size of a building" "Still... I don't know what to say" He really didn't. It made his small gifts seem stupid "Just put it on. Then I'll give you your second gift" "I don't know if I can accept a second one, not with a gift like this" "Stop making it more complicated than it is. You need protection while on my back, and I wasn't giving my scales to anyone other than you" Levi definitely didn't want anyone else having Eren's scales, but his mind was still blown over how incredible the crown was... Lifting it from its black box, Levi placed it on his head. Sliding down into place, it was a weird sensation. The crown he wore in Eldia was heavy with gold and gems, and didn't cover his face or ears. Instinctively, he wanted to push it up so it wasn't rubbing on his cheeks, but even without him there, Eren had managed to get every measurement correct "It's not that bad is it?" "No. It's different though" "It's the face bit, isn't it? I tried my best..." Eren looked disappointed in himself, and Levi didn't like it. The teen had gone to so much effort to create the crown, then imbue it with magic "Eren, I love it. I didn't mean to look disappointed, or annoyed. I'm just not used to having something constantly against my cheeks. Plus, I don't know how I look" He didn't want to look stupid in front of everyone. This was very important day for Eren, and his tiny stature meant he was the smallest dragon rider of the group "I'm still nervous. It took months to get it just right. Dragon scales are horribly sharp, and don't like being forced into shape with magic, even when it's your own. I'm relieved it didn't cut your ears off... that would have been really awkward" "I'm relieved my ears are still in place too. Do I wear this all day?" "Yep. It identifies you belonging with me, so no other dragons or riders will mess with you" Levi raised an eyebrow, he thought dragons were above such things "They'd mess with a prince?" "I totally wouldn't put it past them. Especially Ymir. She loves her practically jokes. One time, she put glue in Freya's face cream. Freya lost her shit over it" "And what about you? What trouble have you need in?" "Hmmm... my fair share. Mostly because I didn't want to talk about you. Anyway. Gift number two" "I still don't know why I'm receiving gifts" "Because I want to. And because I said so. And the crown is really more for protection, so I made you another gift" His second gift was in a much smaller box. Drawing it from his robes, Eren didn't seem as nervous with this gift. Handing him the box, he flipped it open. Inside was a stylised brooch, much like the silver one he'd gifted Eren. Circular in shape, one of Eren's scales was seated in a central gold moulding, with small diamonds in the rim "Eren... I thought you said no gold" "It's not pure gold, it's an alloy with copper and silver" "Still..." "Don't still me. I was testing the skills I've been taught about metal manipulation, by Freya. The diamonds are clouded, so they're not worth much, and the scale contains magic for a charm" "What's the charm?" "Basically the scale holds a small portion of my magic and life force. If you're hurt, my magic will come from the scale and heal you. As long as we're together, it'll stayed charged" "It's not going to hurt you, is it?" "Nope. But this doesn't mean you get to go hurt yourself" "I have no intention. It's beautiful, brat" "Sometimes I think you say beautiful too much" "I'm a simply man. If it's beautiful, I'll say so. Is it ok to wear it?" "That was the point of making it. Because I'm mostly human, my tears are cloudy" Levi paused in the process of taking it out the box "These are your tears?" "Yeah. My first time turning into a dragon was intense..." From what he could remember, Eren had said it was liberating. Though in saying that, he totally hadn't read and reread each of Eren's letters until they were memorised. Pinning the brooch to his shirt, he felt the pull of Eren's magic as it drew his natural aches pains from his body "Does it look alright?" "You look perfect. Now, I have to go. I have to be there for the before the ceremony bit" Levi's heart sank. He didn't know anything much about the ceremony, or what he was supposed to do... Maybe Eren was supposed to have explained it to him? Or maybe they'd all gotten so caught up in everything, they'd forgotten he knew nothing about the ceremony or festival "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do"

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

🏰⚔️🐲 DMODT - 21 update

Annoyingly, Levi found he couldn't get a moment alone with Eren after their first night together. Eren was working hard with Historia on the festival, while Urklyn Reiss was in charge of giving them a tour of Draecia. There really wasn't much he was interested in, though the architecture was kind of nice. In the centre of the main city was a museum housing dragon relics, though it seemed more a shrine or altar than a museum, with fresh offerings left by the descendants of the dragon's within. It was all very prim and proper, not a single flower petal out of place, and Levi struggled to pay attention to it all... He just wanted to spend time with Eren before the festival began. He didn't know if Eren was coming back to Eldia once the festival was done, or if the omega intended to stay. He hoped Eren would be coming home, the castle wasn't nearly as full of life when he wasn't there, and he was still stuck with Petra living there. As usual Eren had been right. There was more to the story and Petra had a reason for wanting to marry into the royal family. Her father was ill and she couldn't afford the medicine, or that was what she said when he'd found her in his chambers, waiting for him. Thankfully, he hadn't walked into the room without the guard stationed at the doorway, or she may have tried to pull something even more brazen. Zeke had just about exploded with anger of him declining his engagement, and that Eren was no longer in Eldia. Demanding answers, Levi told Zeke to write to Draecia, and had heard through one of Historia's letters that the man had demanded to come and visit them. Her father didn't take well to demands, and Zeke had been denied entry. Levi had wished he could have seen the look on his face. He liked to imagine Zeke throwing a tantrum like a toddler, complete with throwing himself on the floor and screaming. First Eren had stopped him taking dragon relics, then Draecia had emptied the castle of the ones that could cause actual damage, and finally, the mage he'd wanted for his own was now gone. Levi couldn't deny disappointing Zeke had become the highlight of his life since Eren left. The omega had held up his end of things, writing regularly, but with each letter it grew harder to open them. He missed the shitty brat far more than he'd thought he would, or could. When the morning of the festival rolled round, Levi found himself sent up to the manor by Historia to prepare, as his military dress uniform wouldn't be enough for the opening ceremony. Everything that morning was over seen by maids, from bathing to dressing and eating. Not used to being fawned over so closely, Levi was forced to keep a tight rein in his emotions. These weren't the maids at the castle, they didn't know he could take care of himself and had accomplished dressing him over two and a half decades earlier. When he was adequately ready, he was lead through to a small sitting room, where Eren was waiting for him. Dressed in robes, Eren smiled as he walked in "You look perfect. And pissed. I take it you were well attended to" Walking over to the first plush chair, Levi threw himself down into it "You might say that" "If it makes you feel better, it's not just you who had to go through that, though Draecia's dragon riders are used to it. It's a purification ceremony thing. The water in the bath was blessed with spells, then herbs to keep the impurities away" "Blessings... right" "Don't knock the blessings. Especially not within Draecia, and nor within a house filled with dragons and riders" "I'm not knocking the blessings... but I'm nearly 30. I can dress myself" "I know you can, but you're not quite ready yet" Levi groaned. He didn't want to be poked at again. He was finally alone with Eren, he wanted to cuddle into his omega... or at least mess his robes up again "There's more?" "Just two more things..." Retrieving the box from the windowsill by him, Eren nodded to himself before continuing as he walked over to him "Because you're human, and not a born dragon rider" Placing the box in his hands, Eren stepped back. The omega smelling anxious about whatever was in there "Open it" Inside the box was a crown of scales. Each scale was various shades of green, and styled to mimic the natural scale structures dragon riders had. Levi was speechless... though not full dragon, the amount of scales in the box was enough for the teen to live a life of luxury "Eren... how?" "It's made with my scales, and will keep you safe while on my back. Let's just say, learning to fly was an experience that ended with me crashing repeatedly. Depth perception is hard when you're not used to having such strong eye sight or a body the size of a building" "Still... I don't know what to say" He really didn't. It made his small gifts seem stupid "Just put it on. Then I'll give you your second gift" "I don't know if I can accept a second one, not with a gift like this" "Stop making it more complicated than it is. You need protection while on my back, and I wasn't giving my scales to anyone other than you" Levi definitely didn't want anyone else having Eren's scales, but his mind was still blown over how incredible the crown was... Lifting it from its black box, Levi placed it on his head. Sliding down into place, it was a weird sensation. The crown he wore in Eldia was heavy with gold and gems, and didn't cover his face or ears. Instinctively, he wanted to push it up so it wasn't rubbing on his cheeks, but even without him there, Eren had managed to get every measurement correct "It's not that bad is it?" "No. It's different though" "It's the face bit, isn't it? I tried my best..." Eren looked disappointed in himself, and Levi didn't like it. The teen had gone to so much effort to create the crown, then imbue it with magic "Eren, I love it. I didn't mean to look disappointed, or annoyed. I'm just not used to having something constantly against my cheeks. Plus, I don't know how I look" He didn't want to look stupid in front of everyone. This was very important day for Eren, and his tiny stature meant he was the smallest dragon rider of the group "I'm still nervous. It took months to get it just right. Dragon scales are horribly sharp, and don't like being forced into shape with magic, even when it's your own. I'm relieved it didn't cut your ears off... that would have been really awkward" "I'm relieved my ears are still in place too. Do I wear this all day?" "Yep. It identifies you belonging with me, so no other dragons or riders will mess with you" Levi raised an eyebrow, he thought dragons were above such things "They'd mess with a prince?" "I totally wouldn't put it past them. Especially Ymir. She loves her practically jokes. One time, she put glue in Freya's face cream. Freya lost her shit over it" "And what about you? What trouble have you need in?" "Hmmm... my fair share. Mostly because I didn't want to talk about you. Anyway. Gift number two" "I still don't know why I'm receiving gifts" "Because I want to. And because I said so. And the crown is really more for protection, so I made you another gift" His second gift was in a much smaller box. Drawing it from his robes, Eren didn't seem as nervous with this gift. Handing him the box, he flipped it open. Inside was a stylised brooch, much like the silver one he'd gifted Eren. Circular in shape, one of Eren's scales was seated in a central gold moulding, with small diamonds in the rim "Eren... I thought you said no gold" "It's not pure gold, it's an alloy with copper and silver" "Still..." "Don't still me. I was testing the skills I've been taught about metal manipulation, by Freya. The diamonds are clouded, so they're not worth much, and the scale contains magic for a charm" "What's the charm?" "Basically the scale holds a small portion of my magic and life force. If you're hurt, my magic will come from the scale and heal you. As long as we're together, it'll stayed charged" "It's not going to hurt you, is it?" "Nope. But this doesn't mean you get to go hurt yourself" "I have no intention. It's beautiful, brat" "Sometimes I think you say beautiful too much" "I'm a simply man. If it's beautiful, I'll say so. Is it ok to wear it?" "That was the point of making it. Because I'm mostly human, my tears are cloudy" Levi paused in the process of taking it out the box "These are your tears?" "Yeah. My first time turning into a dragon was intense..." From what he could remember, Eren had said it was liberating. Though in saying that, he totally hadn't read and reread each of Eren's letters until they were memorised. Pinning the brooch to his shirt, he felt the pull of Eren's magic as it drew his natural aches pains from his body "Does it look alright?" "You look perfect. Now, I have to go. I have to be there for the before the ceremony bit" Levi's heart sank. He didn't know anything much about the ceremony, or what he was supposed to do... Maybe Eren was supposed to have explained it to him? Or maybe they'd all gotten so caught up in everything, they'd forgotten he knew nothing about the ceremony or festival "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do" "You don't have to do much of anything to begin with. Like with the tournament thing with Zeke, there's a huge arena. You'll be seated with the royal family, while we dragons fly over head. Then each of us gives a small demonstrations of our power, which is channeled into this massive dragon egg. It's not a real egg, but a statue thing, and as each of use channels power into it, it grows a scale to represent us. Like how I had to take my vow in Eldia, this is my vow not to abuse my dragon power like Obsydin did. This takes up most the day... tonight we go for a night flight, where you'll help serve dinner to us dragons. Though they'll probably get you to stay sitting because you're royalty" "And what happens after that?" "After that the festival is over for the day, so we spend the night together. Tomorrow, the arena will be gone, apart from the egg, and dragons open small stalls and such. It turns into a huge market place" Why would it turn into a market place? They all lived in the spot... he knew how a market worked, but they didn't farm massive crops, and couldn't they just magic for things? "Look. Let's just get through today? It's going to be pretty long" "So I just need to do what everyone else does" "Yep. Now give me a kiss" Levi was happy to oblige the demand. Eren giving him a small kiss before pulling back when he tried to deepen it "Let's save that for tonight, or I'm never going to make it to the festival and I'll be an insult. Last year, I only got to watch because I new" "You'll be great" "I hope so. At least there are plenty of other dragons there to fix up anything I might fuck up" "You're not going. Now go be a dragon" Eren gave him a firm nod "For Eldia" Levi wanted things to go smoothly for Eren's sake, not for Eldia's, but it was so like Eren to be putting the kingdom first. Smiling up at his omega, he nodded "For Eldia" * Sitting in the stadium, Historia was kind enough to sit at the end of her family so she was on the right side of him. Eren had come to her for advice on making a crown for him, but she hadn't seen the final product, the woman had gushed over the beauty of it, and how well it suited him. With her comments, he didn't feel quite so stupid, even when Erwin had raised a Fluffybrow at the crown. Eren had crafted it with love, just for him. And once he was out in the arena with all the other dragon riders he more or less blended in, while Erwin, Armin, Mikasa looked completely out of place as humans. There wasn't a formal opening to the ceremony, only a kind of wooshing and gathering of winds as the skies darkened. Slowly every party of the sky was covered with dragons in every colour of the world. Now Levi understood why the arena was decked in flowers, each flower seemed to match a dragon above them. It was an awe inspiring sight, from a military point of view it was clear that Draecia well and truly had the power to destroy the world if they chose. Leaning in, Historia whispered "It's amazing, isn't it? They'll do a few flight overs, then each dragon will bless the egg" "Can you see Eren?" "Yep. But I'm not going to point him out. You should be able to tell who he is the moment he gives his blessing, and he wanted to see if you could figure it out for yourself" "He's going to be ok, right?" "He'll be fine. He knows what to do" That was easy for her to say, despite all their colours, the blended together so he couldn't tell one green dragon from another, and he had no idea if Eren's Eldia magic would affect his blessing. Narrowing his eyes, he tried his hardest to focus on the green dragons, but that was assuming that Eren was actually green. His face and nape scales were a green-silver, but the crown was made from both green and silver scales that made it hard to guess what his main colour would be. Coming together, what seemed to be hundreds of dragons formed a larger one, that twisted and danced on the wind, before the group split to land along the top rails of the arena. Despite the fact that each dragon must weigh hundreds of kilograms, the arena took the weight with no signs of straining. It was slightly disconcerting to be surrounded by such powerful beasts "The royal dragons give their blessings first, so they can rest. Other than Ymir, they're all really old" "Can you say that about a dragon and not insult them?" "You can say it when you mean it with love. There's no real order after that, each dragon will give its blessings, then the next group will move in. Not all the dragon's of the world could attend, and some have chosen to live as humans instead. I think we only have about a hundred here" Only a hundred? He could have sword there were so many more than that "It seems like thousands" "It does when you see them up there. It's not as if they're small" "No. They're most definitely not. The only two you'll know is my "Ymir" and Freya's "Steege". Steege had to be that grey arsehole who didn't say a same thing, but glared the whole time the party had been Eldia. At least he had a name for him, though he'd probably forget it. Steege came before Ymir, the dragon circling the arena before opening its mouth and unleashing what Levi could only call grey fire. Beside him, Erwin clutched at the armrest of his chair, causing Historia to giggle "His magic lies in metal. None of the magic will hurt you. At the moment, he's drawn in the iron, copper, silver, and other metal dusts from air, which is why his breath looks grey" "That's his breath? It looks like fire" "A dragon's breath is all to do with the nature of its magic. Watch when Ymir comes up. Her magic will look like a white-yellow fire, which is the colour of our healing magic" "So you're saying all dragons have bad breath?" Historia's laughter stopped, her glare turning cold as she leaned forward to look at Erwin "Never insult a dragon's breath. Even if you are an outsider who meant no harm, it's an insult" Erwin squirmed uncomfortably "I am sorry. I meant no disrespect" "Good. Don't let it happen again" Leaning back, Historia moved to whisper into his ear "Most dragons have made the same joke, but he upset Eren. Forgive me?" Levi nodded quickly, not knowing when Erwin had upset his boyfriend again, but he deserved the awkward moment "Thanks" Ymir's breath had been beautiful. Historia hadn't mentioned it, but there was a kind of shimmer in it that looked like snowflakes. As her breath hit the egg, one of its scales glowed, turning her pink and white colouring, and once done, she lowered her head in a bow, before flying back up to perch on the arena railing again. Not all blessings and breaths were the same, Levi soon learned. Some dragons turned the sky red as they gave their blessings with fire, which was actually fire. Thank god for Historia's explanations. While others caused small amounts to snow. He could see why Eren liked the ice dragons, for the most part they were so white they had an otherworldly green glow. Their breath was pure white snow, or ice, and instead of a roaring sound accompanying their breath, it was a piercing and haunting sound, as if a soft flute was being played in the background. With each dragon taking a few minutes to perform their blessings, the whole ceremony took all day. Once one group of dragons had completed their blessings, they rose one by one, flying a loop around the arena before flying off as the next group took their place. One by one they gave their blessings and Levi began to grow worried he'd missed Eren, until a large grey-silver dragon flew up to give its blessing. With each move of its powerful body, its scales rippled, green flashing through their beasts body like tall grass blowing in a field. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew it had to be Eren. Sitting up straighter, goosebumps erupted across Levi's flesh, every hair on his body standing on air as the atmosphere filled with electricity. Holding his breath, he watched storm clouds gather over his boyfriend as sparks of lightening seemed to shoot from his body. Opening his mouth, a breath of cold wind hit the egg, when Levi squinted, he could see small sparks of fire and flakes of snow twirling in it "To be a storm dragon is to control all the elements. Without the storm, there's no new life. That's what makes them so grand, and causes such a strain on their bodies. Their lives are shorter than most dragons, but long for you humans" As Eren's breath continued, it changed to fire then to a green mist, before his blessing came to an end "Why the green mist?" "Nature. The life born after fire and rain. Isn't his magic gorgeous?" "It is" Looping the stadium Eren's storm gathered behind him, Eren made it look so easy to be so big, Levi's eyes followed his boyfriend's every move until he sat back upon the railing, looking almost a silvery-blue from the distance, while his storm disappeared entirely. How the fuck Historia had known him apart from all the other dragons, he had no idea "He did well. His blessings were accepted, so make sure to tell him so. It's important to honour this fact" "I will... so were his storms always his dragon magic?" "Indeed. Those and the sparks of fire from his fingers. He couldn't control his storms as he couldn't control his dragon magic" "And how's his studies gone?" "Excellent. Once we sorted out his magic for him. He put the hard work in, and he's finally at the start of his journey" Levi nodded, not trusting himself to speak as he looked upon the next dragon giving its blessings. If Eren was only at the start of his journey, then he wouldn't be coming home anytime soon. They could have talked about it that first night, but Eren was so sweet in his arms that they simply talked about what came to mind, in between bouts of sex. God. He was such an idiot... of course Eren had to stay. He needed to see his dream through... Levi had slipped into a depressed slump as he'd watched through the end of the ceremony. When it came to reuniting with Eren down on the field, he didn't know what he'd say. He wanted him to come home. He wanted to announce to the world he was his... but that was being him being selfish. Parting from his side, Historia ran off to Ymir, while Levi was left to find Eren alone. The teen's scales had appeared green, silver and blue... of course the teen couldn't just pick one colour. Eyeing the field of dragons, they all appeared regal as their riders climbed onto their shoulder, it wasn't until he was nudged in the back that he realised Eren hadn't even been in that direction. Straightening himself up, he turned to his omega, Eren giving a bottom wiggle like a cat preparing to pounce. Headbutting him again, if dragons could smile, he'd be sure Eren was smiling "Hey, brat. This is you, right? I'm not flirting with a random dragon" Sticking the tip of his tongue out, Eren licked his cheek "Ok! Ok! It's you... you look incredible, and your blessing was perfect" He didn't want to say beautiful again, and Historia had said to praise Eren... "I guess I'm supposed to climb on your back, but I have no idea how I'm supposed to do that..." He swore Eren huffed at him, his eyes were black, not the electric green he'd expected, but that didn't stop Eren from rolling them at him "Don't sass me. This is all a lot to take in" Lowering himself right down, Eren titled his head. It took Levi a few moments to figure it out. He could use Eren's two large horns like a ladder when combined with the ruffle of scales along Eren's nape "I'm sorry if I hurt you. I've never had to climb up on my own before" Eren moved his front foot, adding a lower level for him to first step up to "Ok. I'm short. You don't need to rub it in" Letting out a small growl, Levi glared at Eren "Don't you laugh at me. And I swear to god, if I fall off, I'm never going to forgive you" Approaching Eren's foot, his claws were as long as Levi was tall, by spreading his fingers? Levi was able to step onto the webbing then up onto the top of Eren's foot. Raising his foot up to give Levi less distance, the alpha mumbled a "thank you", Eren clearly loving how hard he had to work to get onto his back. Taking a firm hold on Eren's first horn, he felt moronic as he stepped up on the first ruffle. It was like a ladder, and a normal sized dragon rider would have no problems, but again, he only had short legs. Beneath him, Eren huffed "Look here, you little shit. I'm trying my hardest but you're so damn big! You're tall enough in your normal form" Eren's tail thudded against the ground as his whole body shook. His lover was definitely laughing at him. Getting himself seated, Eren straightened up, nearly undoing his hard work. Grasping both of Eren's horns, he found that there were two smaller ones that seemed to have only just become visible thanks to how his scales sat. Moving to take hold of them, Eren nodded his head "A head's up would have been nice. Just go slow... you don't have a harness on you, or a ladder and I'm old" The way he was sat, it was like he was in a saddle without stirrups... the thing he needed the most.