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path-of-my-childhood · 4 years

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Musicians On Musicians: Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift

By: Patrick Doyle for Rolling Stone Date: November 13th 2020

On songwriting secrets, making albums at home, and what they’ve learned during the pandemic.

Taylor Swift arrived early to Paul McCartney’s London office in October, “mask on, brimming with excitement.” “I mostly work from home these days,” she writes about that day, “and today feels like a rare school field trip that you actually want to go on.”

Swift showed up without a team, doing her own hair and makeup. In addition to being two of the most famous pop songwriters in the world, Swift and McCartney have spent the past year on similar journeys. McCartney, isolated at home in the U.K., recorded McCartney III. Like his first solo album, in 1970, he played nearly all of the instruments himself, resulting in some of his most wildly ambitious songs in a long time. Swift also took some new chances, writing over email with the National’s Aaron Dessner and recording the raw Folklore, which abandons arena pop entirely in favor of rich character songs. It’s the bestselling album of 2020.

Swift listened to McCartney III as she prepared for today’s conversation; McCartney delved into Folkore. Before the photo shoot, Swift caught up with his daughters Mary (who would be photographing them) and Stella (who designed Swift’s clothes; the two are close friends). “I’ve met Paul a few times, mostly onstage at parties, but we’ll get to that later,” Swift writes. “Soon he walks in with his wife, Nancy. They’re a sunny and playful pair, and I immediately feel like this will be a good day. During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. We walk into his office for a chat, and after I make a nervous request, Paul is kind enough to handwrite my favorite lyric of his and sign it. He makes a joke about me selling it, and I laugh because it’s something I know I’ll cherish for the rest of my life. That’s around the time when we start talking about music.”

Taylor Swift: I think it’s important to note that if this year had gone the way that we thought it was going to go, you and I would have played Glastonbury this year, and instead, you and I both made albums in isolation.

Paul McCartney: Yeah!

Swift: And I remember thinking it would have been so much fun because the times that I’ve run into you, I correlate with being some of the most fun nights of my life. I was at a party with you, when everybody just started playing music. And it was Dave Grohl playing, and you...

McCartney: You were playing one of his songs, weren’t you?

Swift: Yes, I was playing his song called “Best of You,” but I was playing it on piano, and he didn’t recognize it until about halfway through. I just remember thinking, “Are you the catalyst for the most fun times ever?” Is it your willingness to get up and play music that makes everyone feel like this is a thing that can happen tonight?

McCartney: I mean, I think it’s a bit of everything, isn’t it? I’ll tell you who was very... Reese Witherspoon was like, “Are you going to sing?” I said “Oh, I don’t know.” She said, “You’ve got to, yeah!” She’s bossing me around. So I said, “Whoa,” so it’s a bit of that.

Swift: I love that person, because the party does not turn musical without that person.

McCartney: Yeah, that’s true.

Swift: If nobody says, “Can you guys play music?” we’re not going to invite ourselves up onstage at whatever living-room party it is.

McCartney: I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing “Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, “I can do that better.” So I said, “Come on, move over, Woody.” So we’re both playing it. It was really nice... I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, “You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff.”

Swift: I listened to your new record. And I loved a lot of things about it, but it really did feel like kind of a flex to write, produce, and play every instrument on every track. To me, that’s like flexing a muscle and saying, “I can do all this on my own if I have to.”

McCartney: Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit. I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to “When I’m 64” when I was, you know, a teenager.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: When the Beatles went to Hamburg, there were always drum kits knocking around, so when there was a quiet moment, I’d say, “Do you mind if I have a knock around?” So I was able to practice, you know, without practicing. That’s why I play right-handed. Guitar was just the first instrument I got. Guitar turned to bass; it also turned into ukulele, mandolin. Suddenly, it’s like, “Wow,” but it’s really only two or three instruments.

Swift: Well, I think that’s downplaying it a little bit. In my mind, it came with a visual of you being in the country, kind of absorbing the sort of do-it-yourself [quality] that has had to come with the quarantine and this pandemic. I found that I’ve adapted a do-it-yourself mentality to a lot of things in my career that I used to outsource. I’m just wondering what a day of recording in the pandemic looked like for you.

McCartney: Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music - I had to do an instrumental for a film thing - so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, “Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?” [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.

Swift: That’s so cool.

McCartney: What about yours? You’re playing guitar and piano on yours.

Swift: Yeah, on some of it, but a lot of it was made with Aaron Dessner, who’s in a band called the National that I really love. And I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, “All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt, and he writes the top line.” I just remember thinking, “That is really efficient.” And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas... “Maybe one day I’ll do this.” I always had in my head: “Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.”

So when lockdown happened, I was in L.A., and we kind of got stuck there. It’s not a terrible place to be stuck. We were there for four months maybe, and during that time, I sent an email to Aaron Dessner and I said, “Do you think you would want to work during this time? Because my brain is all scrambled, and I need to make something, even if we’re just kind of making songs that we don’t know what will happen...”

McCartney: Yeah, that was the thing. You could do stuff - you didn’t really worry it was going to turn into anything.

Swift: Yeah, and it turned out he had been writing instrumental tracks to keep from absolutely going crazy during the pandemic as well, so he sends me this file of probably 30 instrumentals, and the first one I opened ended up being a song called “Cardigan,” and it really happened rapid-fire like that. He’d send me a track; he’d make new tracks, add to the folder; I would write the entire top line for a song, and he wouldn’t know what the song would be about, what it was going to be called, where I was going to put the chorus. I had originally thought, “Maybe I’ll make an album in the next year, and put it out in January or something,” but it ended up being done and we put it out in July. And I just thought there are no rules anymore, because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, “How will this song sound in a stadium? How will this song sound on radio?” If you take away all the parameters, what do you make? And I guess the answer is Folklore.

McCartney: And it’s more music for yourself than music that’s got to go do a job. My thing was similar to that: After having done this little bit of film music, I had a lot of stuff that I had been working on, but I’d said, “I’m just going home now,” and it’d be left half-finished. So I just started saying, “Well, what about that? I never finished that.” So we’d pull it out, and we said, “Oh, well, this could be good.” And because it didn’t have to amount to anything, I would say, “Ah, I really want to do tape loops. I don’t care if they fit on this song, I just want to do some.” So I go and make some tape loops, and put them in the song, just really trying to do stuff that I fancy.

I had no idea it would end up as an album; I may have been a bit less indulgent, but if a track was eight minutes long, to tell you the truth, what I thought was, “I’ll be taking it home tonight, Mary will be cooking, the grandkids will all be there running around, and someone, maybe Simon, Mary’s husband, is going to say, ‘What did you do today?’ And I’m going to go, ‘Oh,’ and then get my phone and play it for them.” So this became the ritual.

Swift: That’s the coziest thing I’ve ever heard.

McCartney: Well, it’s like eight minutes long, and I said, “I hate it when I’m playing someone something and it finishes after three minutes.” I kind of like that it just [continues] on.

Swift: You want to stay in the zone.

McCartney: It just keeps going on. I would just come home, “Well, what did you do today?” “Oh, well, I did this. I’m halfway through this,” or, “We finished this.”

Swift: I was wondering about the numerology element to McCartney III. McCartney I, II, and III have all come out on years with zeroes.

McCartney: Ends of decades.

Swift: Was that important?

McCartney: Yeah, well, this was being done in 2020, and I didn’t really think about it. I think everyone expected great things of 2020. “It’s gonna be great! Look at that number! 2020! Auspicious!” Then suddenly Covid hit, and it was like, “That’s gonna be auspicious all right, but maybe for the wrong reasons.” Someone said to me, “Well, you put out McCartney right after the Beatles broke up, and that was 1970, and then you did McCartney II in 1980.” And I said, “Oh, I’m going to release this in 2020 just for whatever you call it, the numerology...”

Swift: The numerology, the kind of look, the symbolism. I love numbers. Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13... 89 is a big one. I have a few others that I find...

McCartney: Thirteen is lucky for some.

Swift: Yeah, it’s lucky for me. It’s my birthday. It’s all these weird coincidences of good things that have happened. Now, when I see it places, I look at it as a sign that things are going the way they’re supposed to. They may not be good now, they could be painful now, but things are on a track. I don’t know, I love the numerology.

McCartney: It’s spooky, Taylor. It’s very spooky. Now wait a minute: Where’d you get 89?

Swift: That’s when I was born, in 1989, and so I see it in different places and I just think it’s...

McCartney: No, it’s good. I like that, where certain things you attach yourself to, and you get a good feeling off them. I think that’s great.

Swift: Yeah, one of my favorite artists, Bon Iver, he has this thing with the number 22. But I was also wondering: You have always kind of seeked out a band or a communal atmosphere with like, you know, the Beatles and Wings, and then Egypt Station. I thought it was interesting when I realized you had made a record with no one else. I just wondered, did that feel natural?

McCartney: It’s one of the things I’ve done. Like with McCartney, because the Beatles had broken up, there was no alternative but to get a drum kit at home, get a guitar, get an amp, get a bass, and just make something for myself. So on that album, which I didn’t really expect to do very well, I don’t think it did. But people sort of say, “I like that. It was a very casual album.” It didn’t really have to mean anything. So I’ve done that, the play-everything-myself thing. And then I discovered synths and stuff, and sequencers, so I had a few of those at home. I just thought I’m going to play around with this and record it, so that became McCartney II. But it’s a thing I do. Certain people can do it. Stevie Wonder can do it. Stevie Winwood, I believe, has done it. So there are certain people quite like that.

When you’re working with someone else, you have to worry about their variances. Whereas your own variance, you kind of know it. It’s just something I’ve grown to like. Once you can do it, it becomes a little bit addictive. I actually made some records under the name the Fireman.

Swift: Love a pseudonym.

McCartney: Yeah, for the fun! But, you know, let’s face it, you crave fame and attention when you’re young. And I just remembered the other day, I was the guy in the Beatles that would write to journalists and say [speaks in a formal voice]: “We are a semiprofessional rock combo, and I’d think you’d like [us]... We’ve written over 100 songs (which was a lie), my friend John and I. If you mention us in your newspaper...” You know, I was always, like, craving the attention.

Swift: The hustle! That’s so great, though.

McCartney: Well, yeah, you need that.

Swift: Yeah, I think, when a pseudonym comes in is when you still have a love for making the work and you don’t want the work to become overshadowed by this thing that’s been built around you, based on what people know about you. And that’s when it’s really fun to create fake names and write under them.

McCartney: Do you ever do that?

Swift: Oh, yeah.

McCartney: Oh, yeah? Oh, well, we didn’t know that! Is that a widely known fact?

Swift: I think it is now, but it wasn’t. I wrote under the name Nils Sjöberg because those are two of the most popular names of Swedish males. I wrote this song called “This Is What You Came For” that Rihanna ended up singing. And nobody knew for a while. I remembered always hearing that when Prince wrote “Manic Monday,” they didn’t reveal it for a couple of months.

McCartney: Yeah, it also proves you can do something without the fame tag. I did something for Peter and Gordon; my girlfriend’s brother and his mate were in a band called Peter and Gordon. And I used to write under the name Bernard Webb.

Swift: [Laughs.] That’s a good one! I love it.

McCartney: As Americans call it, Ber-nard Webb. I did the Fireman thing. I worked with a producer, a guy called Youth, who’s this real cool dude. We got along great. He did a mix for me early on, and we got friendly. I would just go into the studio, and he would say, “Hey, what about this groove?” and he’d just made me have a little groove going. He’d say, “You ought to put some bass on it. Put some drums on it.” I’d just spend the whole day putting stuff on it. And we’d make these tracks, and nobody knew who Fireman was for a while. We must have sold all of 15 copies.

Swift: Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

McCartney: And we didn’t mind, you know?

Swift: I think it’s so cool that you do projects that are just for you. Because I went with my family to see you in concert in 2010 or 2011, and the thing I took away from the show most was that it was the most selfless set list I had ever seen. It was completely geared toward what it would thrill us to hear. It had new stuff, but it had every hit we wanted to hear, every song we’d ever cried to, every song people had gotten married to, or been brokenhearted to. And I just remembered thinking, “I’ve got to remember that,” that you do that set list for your fans.

McCartney: You do that, do you?

Swift: I do now. I think that learning that lesson from you taught me at a really important stage in my career that if people want to hear “Love Story” and “Shake It Off,” and I’ve played them 300 million times, play them the 300-millionth-and-first time. I think there are times to be selfish in your career, and times to be selfless, and sometimes they line up.

McCartney: I always remembered going to concerts as a kid, completely before the Beatles, and I really hoped they would play the ones I loved. And if they didn’t, it was kind of disappointing. I had no money, and the family wasn’t wealthy. So this would be a big deal for me, to save up for months to afford the concert ticket.

Swift: Yeah, it feels like a bond. It feels like that person on the stage has given something, and it makes you as a crowd want to give even more back, in terms of applause, in terms of dedication. And I just remembered feeling that bond in the crowd, and thinking, “He’s up there playing these Beatles songs, my dad is crying, my mom is trying to figure out how to work her phone because her hands are shaking so much.” Because seeing the excitement course through not only me, but my family and the entire crowd in Nashville, it just was really special. I love learning lessons and not having to learn them the hard way. Like learning nice lessons I really value.

McCartney: Well, that’s great, and I’m glad that set you on that path. I understand people who don’t want to do that, and if you do, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s a jukebox show.” I hear what they’re saying. But I think it’s a bit of a cheat, because the people who come to our shows have spent a lot of money. We can afford to go to a couple of shows and it doesn’t make much difference. But a lot of ordinary working folks... it’s a big event in their life, and so I try and deliver. I also, like you say, try and put in a few weirdos.

Swift: That’s the best. I want to hear current things, too, to update me on where the artist is. I was wondering about lyrics, and where you were lyrically when you were making this record. Because when I was making Folklore, I went lyrically in a total direction of escapism and romanticism. And I wrote songs imagining I was, like, a pioneer woman in a forbidden love affair [laughs]. I was completely...

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

Swift: “Peace” is actually more rooted in my personal life. I know you have done a really excellent job of this in your personal life: carving out a human life within a public life, and how scary that can be when you do fall in love and you meet someone, especially if you’ve met someone who has a very grounded, normal way of living. I, oftentimes, in my anxieties, can control how I am as a person and how normal I act and rationalize things, but I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and what they do and if they follow our car and if they interrupt our lives. I can’t control if there’s going to be a fake weird headline about us in the news tomorrow.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture - the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

McCartney: Yeah, it was very important to us to try and keep their feet on the ground amongst the craziness.

Swift: She went to a regular school...

McCartney: Yeah, she did.

Swift: And you would go trick-or-treating with them, wearing masks.

McCartney: All of them did, yeah. It was important, but it worked pretty well, because when they kind of reached adulthood, they would meet other kids who might have gone to private schools, who were a little less grounded.

And they could be the budding mothers to [kids]. I remember Mary had a friend, Orlando. Not Bloom. She used to really counsel him. And it’s ’cause she’d gone through that. Obviously, they got made fun of, my kids. They’d come in the classroom and somebody would sing, “Na na na na,” you know, one of the songs. And they’d have to handle that. They’d have to front it out.

Swift: Did that give you a lot of anxiety when you had kids, when you felt like all this pressure that’s been put on me is spilling over onto them, that they didn’t sign up for it? Was that hard for you?

McCartney: Yeah, a little bit, but it wasn’t like it is now. You know, we were just living a kind of semi-hippie life, where we withdrew from a lot of stuff. The kids would be doing all the ordinary things, and their school friends would be coming up to the house and having parties, and it was just great. I remember one lovely evening when it was Stella’s birthday, and she brought a bunch of school kids up. And, you know, they’d all ignore me. It happens very quickly. At first they’re like, “Oh, yeah, he’s like a famous guy,” and then it’s like [yawns]. I like that. I go in the other room and suddenly I hear this music going on. And one of the kids, his name was Luke, and he’s doing break dancing.

Swift: Ohhh!

McCartney: He was a really good break dancer, so all the kids are hanging out. That allowed them to be kind of normal with those kids. The other thing is, I don’t live fancy. I really don’t. Sometimes it’s a little bit of an embarrassment, if I’ve got someone coming to visit me, or who I know…

Swift: Cares about that stuff?

McCartney: Who’s got a nice big house, you know. Quincy Jones came to see me and I’m, like, making him a veggie burger or something. I’m doing some cooking. This was after I’d lost Linda, in between there. But the point I’m making is that I’m very consciously thinking, “Oh, God, Quincy’s got to be thinking, ‘What is this guy on? He hasn’t got big things going on. It’s not a fancy house at all. And we’re eating in the kitchen! He’s not even got the dining room going,’” you know?

Swift: I think that sounds like a perfect day.

McCartney: But that’s me. I’m awkward like that. That’s my kind of thing. Maybe I should have, like, a big stately home. Maybe I should get a staff. But I think I couldn’t do that. I’d be so embarrassed. I’d want to walk around dressed as I want to walk around, or naked, if I wanted to.

Swift: That can’t happen in Downton Abbey.

McCartney: [Laughs.] Exactly.

Swift: I remember what I wanted to know about, which is lyrics. Like, when you’re in this kind of strange, unparalleled time, and you’re making this record, are lyrics first? Or is it when you get a little melodic idea?

McCartney: It was a bit of both. As it kind of always is with me. There’s no fixed way. People used to ask me and John, “Well, who does the words, who does the music?” I used to say, “We both do both.” We used to say we don’t have a formula, and we don’t want one. Because the minute we get a formula, we should rip it up. I will sometimes, as I did with a couple of songs on this album, sit down at the piano and just start noodling around, and I’ll get a little idea and start to fill that out. So the lyrics - for me, it’s following a trail. I’ll start [sings “Find My Way,” a song from “McCartney III”]: “I can find my way. I know my left from right, da da da.” And I’ll just sort of fill it in. Like, we know this song, and I’m trying to remember the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and...

Swift: Oh, I know that song - “The Kiss of Venus”?

McCartney: Yeah, “The Kiss of Venus.” And I just thought, “That’s a nice phrase.” So I was actually just taking phrases out of the book, harmonic sounds. And the book is talking about the maths of the universe, and how when things orbit around each other, and if you trace all the patterns, it becomes like a lotus flower.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: It’s very magical.

Swift: That is magical. I definitely relate to needing to find magical things in this very not-magical time, needing to read more books and learn to sew, and watch movies that take place hundreds of years ago. In a time where, if you look at the news, you just want to have a panic attack - I really relate to the idea that you are thinking about stars and constellations.

McCartney: Did you do that on Folklore?

Swift: Yes. I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films.

McCartney: What stuff were you reading?

Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use - kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

McCartney: Exactly. So you’d see the word in a book and think, “I love that word”?

Swift: Yeah, I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.

McCartney: How about “marzipan”?

Swift: Love “marzipan.”

McCartney: The other day, I was remembering when we wrote “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: “kaleidoscope.”

Swift: “Kaleidoscope” is one of mine! I have a song on 1989, a song called “Welcome to New York,” that I put the word “kaleidoscope” in just because I’m obsessed with the word.

McCartney: I think a love of words is a great thing, particularly if you’re going to try to write a lyric, and for me, it’s like, “What is this going to say to that person?” I often feel like I’m writing to someone who is not doing so well. So I’m trying to write songs that might help. Not in a goody-goody, crusading kind of way, but just thinking there have been so many times in my life when I’ve heard a song and felt so much better. I think that’s the angle I want, that inspirational thing.

I remember once, a friend of mine from Liverpool, we were teenagers and we were going to a fairground. He was a schoolmate, and we had these jackets that had a little fleck in the material, which was the cool thing at the time.

Swift: We should have done matching jackets for this photo shoot.

McCartney: Find me a fleck, I’m in. But we went to the fair, and I just remember - this is what happens with songs - there was this girl at the fair. This is just a little Liverpool fair - it was in a place called Sefton Park - and there was this girl, who was so beautiful. She wasn’t a star. She was so beautiful. Everyone was following her, and it’s like, “Wow.” It’s like a magical scene, you know? But all this gave me a headache, so I ended up going back to his house - I didn’t normally get headaches. And we thought, “What can we do?” So we put on the Elvis song “All Shook Up.” By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, “That’s powerful.”

Swift: That really is powerful.

McCartney: I love that, when people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, I was going through an illness and I listened to a lot of your stuff, and I’m better now and it got me through,” or kids will say, “It got me through exams.” You know, they’re studying, they’re going crazy, but they put your music on. I’m sure it happens with a lot of your fans. It inspires them, you know?

Swift: Yeah, I definitely think about that as a goal. There’s so much stress everywhere you turn that I kind of wanted to make an album that felt sort of like a hug, or like your favorite sweater that makes you feel like you want to put it on.

McCartney: What, a “cardigan”?

Swift: Like a good cardigan, a good, worn-in cardigan. Or something that makes you reminisce on your childhood. I think sadness can be cozy. It can obviously be traumatic and stressful, too, but I kind of was trying to lean into sadness that feels like somehow enveloping in not such a scary way - like nostalgia and whimsy incorporated into a feeling like you’re not all right. Because I don’t think anybody was really feeling like they were in their prime this year. Isolation can mean escaping into your imagination in a way that’s kind of nice.

McCartney: I think a lot of people have found that. I would say to people, “I feel a bit guilty about saying I’m actually enjoying this quarantine thing,” and people go, “Yeah, I know, don’t say it to anyone.” A lot of people are really suffering.

Swift: Because there’s a lot in life that’s arbitrary. Completely and totally arbitrary. And [the quarantine] is really shining a light on that, and also a lot of things we have that we outsource that you can actually do yourself.

McCartney: I love that. This is why I said I live simply. That’s, like, at the core of it. With so many things, something goes wrong and you go, “Oh, I’ll get somebody to fix that.” And then it’s like, “No, let me have a look at it...”

Swift: Get a hammer and a nail.

McCartney: “Maybe I can put that picture up.” It’s not rocket science. The period after the Beatles, when we went to live in Scotland on a really - talk about dumpy - little farm. I mean, I see pictures of it now and I’m not ashamed, but I’m almost ashamed. Because it’s like, “God, nobody’s cleaned up around here.”

But it was really a relief. Because when I was with the Beatles, we’d formed Apple Records, and if I wanted a Christmas tree, someone would just buy it. And I thought, after a while, “No, you know what? I really would like to go and buy our Christmas tree. Because that’s what everyone does.” So you go down - “I’ll have that one” - and you carried it back. I mean, it’s little, but it’s huge at the same time.

I needed a table in Scotland and I was looking through a catalog and I thought, “I could make one. I did woodwork in school, so I know what a dovetail joint is.” So I just figured it out. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, and I’m whittling away at this wood and I made this little joint. There was no nail technology - it was glue. And I was scared to put it together. I said, “It’s not going to fit,” but one day, I got my woodwork glue and thought, “There’s no going back.” But it turned out to be a real nice little table I was very proud of. It was that sense of achievement.

The weird thing was, Stella went up to Scotland recently and I said, “Isn’t it there?” and she said, “No.” Anyway, I searched for it. Nobody remembered it. Somebody said, “Well, there’s a pile of wood in the corner of one of the barns, maybe that’s it. Maybe they used it for firewood.” I said, “No, it’s not firewood.” Anyway, we found it, and do you know how joyous that was for me? I was like, “You found my table?!” Somebody might say that’s a bit boring.

Swift: No, it’s cool!

McCartney: But it was a real sort of great thing for me to be able to do stuff for yourself. You were talking about sewing. I mean normally, in your position, you’ve got any amount of tailors.

Swift: Well, there’s been a bit of a baby boom recently; several of my friends have gotten pregnant.

McCartney: Oh, yeah, you’re at the age.

Swift: And I was just thinking, “I really want to spend time with my hands, making something for their children.” So I made this really cool flying-squirrel stuffed animal that I sent to one of my friends. I sent a teddy bear to another one, and I started making these little silk baby blankets with embroidery. It’s gotten pretty fancy. And I’ve been painting a lot.

McCartney: What do you paint? Watercolors?

Swift: Acrylic or oil. Whenever I do watercolor, all I paint is flowers. When I have oil, I really like to do landscapes. I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.

McCartney: It’s a bit of a romantic dream. I agree with you, though, I think you’ve got to have dreams, particularly this year. You’ve got to have something to escape to. When you say “escapism,” it sounds like a dirty word, but this year, it definitely wasn’t. And in the books you’re reading, you’ve gone into that world. That’s, I think, a great thing. Then you come back out. I normally will read a lot before I go to bed. So I’ll come back out, then I’ll go to sleep, so I think it really is nice to have those dreams that can be fantasies or stuff you want to achieve.

Swift: You’re creating characters. This was the first album where I ever created characters, or wrote about the life of a real-life person. There’s a song called “The Last Great American Dynasty” that’s about this real-life heiress who lived just an absolutely chaotic, hectic...

McCartney: She’s a fantasy character?

Swift: She’s a real person. Who lived in the house that I live in.

McCartney: She’s a real person? I listened to that and I thought, “Who is this?”

Swift: Her name was Rebekah Harkness. And she lived in the house that I ended up buying in Rhode Island. That’s how I learned about her. But she was a woman who was very, very talked about, and everything she did was scandalous. I found a connection in that. But I also was thinking about how you write “Eleanor Rigby” and go into that whole story about what all these people in this town are doing and how their lives intersect, and I hadn’t really done that in a very long time with my music. It had always been so microscope personal.

McCartney: Yeah, ’cause you were writing breakup songs like they were going out of style.

Swift: I was, before my luck changed [laughs]. I still write breakup songs. I love a good breakup song. Because somewhere in the world, I always have a friend going through a breakup, and that will make me write one.

McCartney: Yeah, this goes back to this thing of me and John: When you’ve got a formula, break it. I don’t have a formula. It’s the mood I’m in. So I love the idea of writing a character. And, you know, trying to think, “What am I basing this on?” So “Eleanor Rigby” was based on old ladies I knew as a kid. For some reason or other, I got great relationships with a couple of local old ladies. I was thinking the other day, I don’t know how I met them, it wasn’t like they were family. I’d just run into them, and I’d do their shopping for them.

Swift: That’s amazing.

McCartney: It just felt good to me. I would sit and talk, and they’d have amazing stories. That’s what I liked. They would have stories from the wartime - because I was born actually in the war - and so these old ladies, they were participating in the war. This one lady I used to sort of just hang out with, she had a crystal radio that I found very magical. In the war, a lot of people made their own radios - you’d make them out of crystals [sings “The Twilight Zone” theme].

Swift: How did I not know this? That sounds like something I would have tried to learn about.

McCartney: It’s interesting, because there is a lot of parallels with the virus and lockdowns and wartime. It happened to everyone. Like, this isn’t HIV, or SARS, or Avian flu, which happened to others, generally. This has happened to everyone, all around the world. That’s the defining thing about this particular virus. And, you know, my parents... it happened to everyone in Britain, including the queen and Churchill. War happened. So they were all part of this thing, and they all had to figure out a way through it. So you figured out Folklore. I figured out McCartney III.

Swift: And a lot of people have been baking sourdough bread. Whatever gets you through!

McCartney: Some people used to make radios. And they’d take a crystal - we should look it up, but it actually is a crystal. I thought, “Oh, no, they just called it a crystal radio,” but it’s actually crystals like we know and love.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: And somehow they get the radio waves - this crystal attracts them - they tune it in, and that’s how they used to get their news. Back to “Eleanor Rigby,” so I would think of her and think of what she’s doing and then just try to get lyrical, just try to bring poetry into it, words you love, just try to get images like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,” and Father McKenzie “is darning his socks in the night.” You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you know, “preparing his Bible,” which would have been more obvious. But “darning his socks” kind of says more about him. So you get into this lovely fantasy. And that’s the magic of songs, you know. It’s a black hole, and then you start doing this process, and then there’s this beautiful little flower that you’ve just made. So it is very like embroidery, making something.

Swift: Making a table.

McCartney: Making a table.

Swift: Wow, it would’ve been so fun to play Glastonbury for the 50th anniversary together.

McCartney: It would’ve been great, wouldn’t it? And I was going to be asking you to play with me.

Swift: Were you going to invite me? I was hoping that you would. I was going to ask you.

McCartney: I would’ve done “Shake It Off.”

Swift: Oh, my God, that would have been amazing.

McCartney: I know it, it’s in C!

Swift: One thing I just find so cool about you is that you really do seem to have the joy of it, still, just no matter what. You seem to have the purest sense of joy of playing an instrument and making music, and that’s just the best, I think.

McCartney: Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?

Swift: We’re really lucky.

McCartney: I don’t know if it ever happens to you, but with me, it’s like, “Oh, my god, I’ve ended up as a musician.”

Swift: Yeah, I can’t believe it’s my job.

McCartney: I must tell you a story I told Mary the other day, which is just one of my favorite little sort of Beatles stories. We were in a terrible, big blizzard, going from London to Liverpool, which we always did. We’d be working in London and then drive back in the van, just the four of us with our roadie, who would be driving. And this was a blizzard. You couldn’t see the road. At one point, it slid off and it went down an embankment. So it was “Ahhh,” a bunch of yelling. We ended up at the bottom. It didn’t flip, luckily, but so there we are, and then it’s like, “Oh, how are we going to get back up? We’re in a van. It’s snowing, and there’s no way.” We’re all standing around in a little circle, and thinking, “What are we going to do?” And one of us said, “Well, something will happen.” And I thought that was just the greatest. I love that, that’s a philosophy.

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: And it did. We sort of went up the bank, we thumbed a lift, we got the lorry driver to take us, and Mal, our roadie, sorted the van and everything. So that was kind of our career. And I suppose that’s like how I ended up being a musician and a songwriter: “Something will happen.”

Swift: That’s the best.

McCartney: It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. It’s great if you’re ever in that sort of panic attack: “Oh, my God,” or, “Ahhh, what am I going to do?”

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: All right then, thanks for doing this, and this was, you know, a lot of fun.

Swift: You’re the best. This was so awesome. Those were some quality stories!

#this just might be the longest post I have ever posted #I have so much work so I'll read and edit later #taylor swift #paul mccartney #Rolling Stone magazine #interview #folklore era

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loveazumane · 3 years

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— 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙮 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚.

summary: here’s a small head canon of how i think the karasuno team act when they’re in love

warnings: none. pure cavity giving fluff. gn!reader.

note: help, this was a pain in the butt to tag. anyway, this is based on how i view the guys. i hope u enjoyed reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it! <3

𝐃𝐀𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈. daichi’s very vocal and physical when he shows his love. in the morning, the first thought he has is to get ready so he can pick you up on your way to walk to school. he does the little things such as opening the doors for you, holding your bags, tying your shoes, and taking off a leaf that has fallen on your head. before you part, he kisses your cheek and tells you to have a nice day and he expresses how much he loves you. when you both meet again, he asks how your day was and if anything eventful has happened. most of all, he listens. he lets you speak no matter how long it is, and he can’t get enough of your voice. all the while, a soft smile is on his face and he finds tranquility with the way your eyes crease when you smile and go on about how wonderful your day was.

𝐒𝐔𝐆𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐀. suga does everything he can to show you that he loves you because he wants you to know. he doesn’t outright say it, but he does so much that makes it obvious. when you say you have back pain, he buys you massaging oils and pain killers and comes over to ease your muscles. when you say you’re thirsty and forgot your water bottle, from then on, he always brings an extra just in case you forget again. if you’re feeling cold because you didn’t get a sweater, suga gets you one and packs it in his bag in case you’re ever cold again. sugawara helps you with everything and anything, no matter how difficult it would be for him to achieve. the only time he really voices out he loves you is when you need to hear it from him, and he doesn’t mind at all because he has no shame in expressing how much he loves you.

𝐀𝐒𝐀𝐇𝐈. asahi treats you like you’re fragile, even though he knows you’re strong. when it’s raining out, he takes out an umbrella and holds it more over you than himself. when the sun is too hot, he takes out something to fan you so you don’t break a sweat. when you both walk out on the street, he’d nervously take your hand in his so he can have you close with him at all times. asahi, no matter how long you’ve been together, will always stutter or have a hushed voice when he tells you he loves you. at certain occasions, he’d get anxious about you falling out of love to which he begins to do things much more excessively. asahi services you more so than he does himself, and to express how much he cares about you, he loves to pamper you.

𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐊𝐀. tanaka would yell on top of a roof about how much he loves you. when he sees you, his heart races and it feels like it would jump out of his chest. he would sweep the floors you walk on, kiss you everywhere on the face, and protect you from anyone. he’d always have you close by your side, and when he gets very protective, he expresses that it’s because he wouldn’t know what to do if something bad happens. tanaka would never want to see you cry or frowning, and when he does, he does everything he can to cheer you up even if it makes himself look stupid in the process.

𝐍𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐘𝐀. just like tanaka, nishinoya would be very similar. however, he’d be much more boisterous and loud and express to everyone that you’re his beautiful lover. noya would express how much he loves you vocally without a limit. if you feel insecure about how you look, he’d immediately come to defense about how it was the most perfect and flawless part of you. he would kiss you in the places you hated, making sure that you’re reminded that every part of you is perfect the way it is. in his eyes, you’re the most beautiful being in the world, and nothing can change that.

𝐄𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐀. ennoshita is much more gentle with you once he’s in love. similar to daichi, before he parts with you, he bids you a good day and quickly kisses you on the lips, and once you meet again, he asks if your day has been well. ennoshita loves spending time more than anything else. he invites you to his place very often, or asks if you can go to his volleyball games/practices, just so he can be comforted by your presence. he enjoys the time he has with you and cherishes it as the most precious thing in the world. it could be as simple as sitting down in silence, watching a movie, and his heart is filled with glee. his love for you isn’t too obvious and he knows this. to cure your wondering mind if he was still infatuated with you, he’d write a little note and tuck it in your hand so when you walk away and read, you would smile at the words “i will always love you” written in neat handwriting.

𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐓𝐀. when kinoshita’s in love, he expresses it without outright saying it. he enjoys to cheer you on when you feel unmotivated. he enjoys to kiss you on your cheek and tell you that you’re doing great when you feel discouraged. he enjoys to help you with things such as homework, cleaning, and even paying for your meals. kinoshita always reassures you with anything, especially when it’s heavy on your mind. he could never let you be so negative, and when you can’t believe in yourself, you at least know that he would be there to believe in you.

𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀. narita, before loving you, was calm and collected and could never waver. however, when he’s in love, the simplest things he used to do became one of the most hardest things. greeting you hello felt simple, but now he’d flush and shyly say it. holding your hand always made his palms sweaty. kissing you always made his ears glow a bright red. he’s unsure why you have such an uncanny effect over him, but the only way it calms is when he says he loves you. saying it, no matter how many times, always felt so new to him. he adores you so much that it makes him anxious if he does something subtly wrong. he wants to impress you and he does so by stepping out of his comfort zone, and he often does it when you’re around.

𝐊𝐀𝐆𝐄𝐘𝐀𝐌𝐀. kageyama doesn’t really realize he’s in love with you until someone points it out, but gosh it’s so obvious that you can’t really help but wonder how he didn’t realize it himself in the first place. kageyama blushes when he hears your name called. his heart skips a beat when he sees you and he tenses up and stares in awe. tanaka has once or twice told him to close his mouth or he’ll catch flies whenever he’s gawking. once kageyama comes to the realization that he loves you, he tries to do things normally, but he can’t. he always gets so shaken up and nervous when he sees you cheering him on in the stands that he occasionally misses a serve. he always sweats profusely when you hold his arms as you walk down the street. most of the time, he isn’t conscious of the way he stares at you when you’re doing something as normal as eating. his expression is so dreamy whenever he looks at you that his eyes speak volumes when it comes to saying he loves you.

𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀. hinata, almost like kageyama, doesn’t realize he loves you. he just knows that you give him the same feeling volleyball does; excitement, determination, eagerness, passion, etc. he talks so much about you to everyone, even if it doesn’t correlate with you at all. someone could mention that they had carrots as snacks and hinata would blurt, “y/n had carrots as snacks this morning too!” even when he’s around you, he wants to let you know that he wants to see you support him when he plays volleyball. he goes on and on about how much he loves seeing you in the stands and how pretty you would look in his jersey. he can’t stop. amongst normal conversation, the words “i love you” would unintentionally slip up, but he doesn’t even realize it.

𝐘𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐆𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐈. yamaguchi would be hopelessly in love. he’d do anything for you and treat you better than you could ever imagine. there’s not a chance that he’d leave your side, even if someone tried to pry him away. he enjoys listening to you talk, and whenever you both speak up at the same time, he encourages you to talk first. yamaguchi, when he’s in love with you, would constantly ask if you needed anything and come to your rescue when you did. he’d fix you a bento box without you asking, he’d buy you your favorite drink even when you didn’t want it, and he’d shower you with gifts at any chance he got. most of all, his expression brightens up whenever he sees you; his eyes twinkle and his smile grows—he just can’t contain the amount of serotonin that boils up in his body.

𝐓𝐒𝐔𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐀. tsukishima has a hard time expressing his love when it comes to talking, so it’s hard to tell whether or not he’s actually in love with you. however, though he won’t admit it, tsukishima would think about you constantly. sometimes, he’d daze off during practice and mess up because his mind is clogged with you. when he sees you, he loves to make snarky remarks, but doesn’t do too much that’ll hurt your feelings. to express his love, tsukishima creates a mix tape of songs that reminds him of you and he gifts it to you when it’s your birthday. he doesn’t say anything, only hands it over and says that’s all he can ever afford, but even thought it’s small, it means so much to him. rarely does he say he loves you, but when he does, he gets a bit flustered and red faced and says, “don’t let it get into your head too much, idiot,” and it’s enough to warm your heart.

𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙖 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙚: unknown

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jdrizzle15 · 3 years

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Her Second Return

Just like all of you, and especially my fellow Penny fans, I am absolutely devastated by the Volume 8 finale. I had been in quite a state these last few days, utterly heartbroken, and actually nauseous at times. It feels strange to me to be legitimately grieving a fictional character, but it’s not a bad thing to feel this way. To me, this just shows that CRWBY loves her just as much as us to have written her so well that we connect so completely with her, that it feels like we lost an actual piece of ourselves when she’s gone.

But as you can probably tell by the title, this mega post isn’t gonna be about accepting this end, not in the slightest! Today I want to share canon evidence that can point towards another return of our beloved quirky red headed cinnamon bun! I’m here to spread this hope that I and others in the Nuts & Dolts dolts Discord server have!

I have this separated into many different sections to keep these thoughts organized. With that said, here goes…

A Father’s Words:

In Episode 7 of Volume 7, ‘Worst Case Scenario’ we learn the origins of Penny’s aura, and thus her soul. We also learn that it takes more aura each time she’s brought back. This leaves open an option that could be used at a later point.

Many people theorized that Pietro could indeed revive Penny one more time, which he would absolutely do. But there also lies the possibility that someone else could donate some of theirs, I’m not sure about this as I feel like it’s akin to blood donation where compatibility matters or there's a high risk of altering her, but the possibility is definitely there.

Now, the conversation in Chapter 5 of Volume 8, ‘Amity’ that Pietro and Penny have is an important moment for both Father and Daughter. It was there to show how her death in PvP all that time ago really did have a heavy impact on him and is still affecting him to this day.

Instead of continuing to pretend that everything is A-okay, like he had done for most of Volume 7, he finally lets his true feelings about how it come out to Penny for what is quite likely the first time. Even going so far as to say "Are you asking me to go through that again?" when she offers to take the risk of trying to lift Amity with her power. He wants Penny to be able to live her life.

This entire scene with Pietro established “this is what will likely happen” even if circumstances are much different now, it doesn’t negate the fact that this is a key part of Penny’s story. Scenes like these have a purpose beyond simply making an eventual death all the more heart wrenching. Her never actually getting to live her life makes those scenes basically moot. It makes them effectively pointless from narrative point of view. Unless there's more to it.

Building Relationship:

The build up between Ruby and Penny the last two volumes has been absolutely phenomenal with a definite destination in mind, and this doesn’t feel like that destination. So much of the arc of this season was to help Penny. This girl that our main protagonist absolutely adores and treasures, it would just be awful to throw all of that out for what amounts to an avoidable end. Why use so much of their precious and very limited runtime on deliberately building up this relationship only to end it abruptly, and permanently, when they’re separated?

In my opinion, RT is definitely smarter now than to intentionally set up what was really looking like a budding gay relationship only to kill one of them for good. If N&D wasn't actually going in a romantic direction, why would they leave in all of the romance-adjacent stuff that they got, that's not how ‘just friends’ act. And that is not something you use such valuable time building up for absolutely no pay off whatsoever...

Representation of Hope:

At its core, RWBY has always been about hope. It’s not at the forefront the whole time, but there's been an underlying theme of hopefulness that has persisted since it began. Some describe the show as a Hopepunk, I personally find this to describe RWBY really well. This genre of storytelling is about caring for things deeply and the courage and strength it takes to do so. It’s about never submitting or accepting the way things are. Fighting for what you believe in and standing up for others. RWBY fits all of this extremely well. How does this relate to Penny? She has been shown to be a sign of hope for everyone, but especially for Ruby, the main main protagonist. A prerequisite for a Hopepunk story is the hope.

Her first death in V3 was something that fundamentally changed Ruby. For the first time in the series, we see our main character all but broken by this event. With the loss of Penny, immediately afterwards, Ruby’s hope followed. She made up for it through determination and force of will. We see it affect her multiple times throughout the journey to Volume 7. But upon her return in V7, Hope reached a high point for everyone, the sheer relief on Ruby’s face is plain to see!

In V8 chapter 5 ‘Amity’, Penny literally raises hope by lifting the arena into the sky so Ruby could spread her message. And when she falls, and Amity with her, the connection is lost and hope plummets again. From there things take a very negative turn with the hack begins to take Penny’s agency.

In chapter 11 ’Risk’ is the point in the arc where everyone is reunited for the moment, so two separate hero stories are no longer a thing at that point in time. For the time being focus seemed to be shifted to care about the characters and how they’re going to solve the current problems. This is also where Ruby reaches her lowest emotional point in the season.

It’s not huge, but it’s interesting how connected this is. Before Ruby and Yang share a good cry over learning the possible fate of Summer, Yang brings up restoring optimism and hope to Ruby after the younger sister storms out of the room in frustration. This is where Penny’s scenes take up the rest of the episode. Getting Penny back in control of her own body and safe again is what makes the ending of the episode much brighter, when just 5 minutes before Ruby had been distraught and scared. This then spills over into the group coming up with the plan to use the staff, putting the main group in a much better mood. Of all the things to go right, it’s interesting that it’s Penny.

Things go wrong with the plan in the end and Penny dies. I find it interesting that once again, Penny got them hopeful in their chances of doing something right. Given said plan succeeded but at the cost of Penny of all people, Penny is shown to be the beginning and end of hope for them

The highest and lowest points for hope seem to directly correlate to when Penny’s around. When she comes back again, hope will return too, just like it had before. And because she’ll likely be back for good this time, the second return will probably be close to when Ruby is nearing the complete abandonment of hope. This would be pretty par for the course of the show honestly.

A little aside, but in a sense, Penny also represents Unity. The CCT in Vale fell after her first death, knocking out global communications and the unifying connection it gave. When it was restored for the briefest moment, she was there. Her body connected so she could allow for its launch, her soul lighting the night to hold up Amity with every ounce of her strength. So of course when the Hack succeeds and she falls, she takes global comms down again with her. At a smaller scale - even at the Hack's second last attempt to control her, she draws everyone in the Schnee Manor together. At the start of the volume, Yang states the one thing that they all agree on is not surrendering Penny.

Unity seems appropriate for one whose first song and wish was for but one friend, who would go on to find so many more in the process, and permit for a moment the possibility of all Remnant becoming friends once more. Where she first died, the name of the episode devoted to her story - Amity, "friendship", from the Latin root amicus, "friend" - she almost lives and dies with the very possibility of a united Remnant. It's no wonder she's a priority target for Salem, the great divider, and it seems natural that her next restoration may very well allow the next bid to bring the world together.

The Void Screams:

Moments after Penny's death, we hear a weird scream in the void space. It was a guttural, pained, angry scream, almost like the void space itself was crying out. All the portals shuddered and flickered when it happened.

Some think that this scream was Salem returning, but that happens earlier than Penny’s death, her return is signaled with cinder's arm acting up. We know this because after the arm finished flailing uncontrollably, Cinder said triumphantly "she's back." If it were Salem screaming, it would have happened after she fixed herself, but it didn't.

And I doubt Cinder would have been surprised or unsettled by it considering she was happy Salem returned not long before it. And why would a Salem scream affect the portals anyway, she has no connection to the staff or it's magic.

Another thing to consider is the fact sound is not transmitted through the portals. Otherwise, they would've heard Oscar and the rest calling for them, or the screams of the citizens of Mantle and Atlas. This lowers the possibility of that scream being from Salem even further.

The sound really seems to be coming from something else entirely within the void, and that something is not at all happy. There’s also the fact that Penny was the only person who died in the void space, everyone else was just thrown out of it like Ruby and Co. The only logical cause to me is Penny. Her body was a product (or byproduct) of the same creation magic that made the void space, her blood seems to have been a trigger.

Now I can't be sure about it, but this makes me feel like Penny is almost a part of creation itself? For whatever this thing is to be so angry, that is the only explanation I can think of currently. But all of this could possibly relate to the Narnia allusion of 'the willing victim killed in a traitor's stead' that others have brought up, which will be covered next.

Narnia Parallels:

Atlas has several parallels and references to fictional places (putting aside real world ones like the United States). One of those is that of Narnia, both on the surface and on a deeper level. It is a land of winter year round, where people struggle to survive and there is a present divide between those loyal to the current Monarch and those who are not. James is a parallel to Jadis, the White Witch, a ruler whose thoughts and cares aren’t exactly centered around the actual well being of the people. The hologram table in Ironwood’s office is designed to look like stone, like the Stone Table which features prominently in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. He has a handpicked cadre of special agents/secret police, like how Maugrim and his wolves served Jadis. Another key parallel is how Jadis’s winter sets in to oppress and kill everyone in Narnia, but the Witch provides aid and protection to her loyal followers. She has all the power to spare harm to others, and uses it only for the loyal. As soon as Mantle splits from James and Atlas, no care is taken to protect them from the cold of Solitas even though he has every ability to turn the heating grid back on. His protection is only for the loyal.

Now that the parallel is established, let's look into the details. Starting with how James plays the role of Jadis.

"I had forgotten that you are only a common boy. How should you understand reasons of State? You must learn, child, that what would be wrong for you or for any of the common people is not wrong in a great Queen such as I. The weight of the world is on our shoulders. We must be freed from all rules. Ours is a high and lonely destiny." These are the words Jadis says in the Magician’s Nephew to justify the blood civil war she and her sister had waged for rulership of Charn, before she came to Narnia. She won that war, technically, but only after the last battle had been lost and her sister had marched right up to her so that they were face to face. Jadis’s troops were dead, her followers had surrendered, and the capital was under full control of her sister. But, she still had one card, one ultimate play to win and prove the throne of Charn was rightfully her. The Deplorable Word, a piece of old magic that killed everyone and everything except for her on Charn. It was monstrous, senseless, cruel beyond measure. But it got her that hollow victory. This mindset, the disregard for the people except as tools for her own will, the ultimate ‘aoe’ destructive move that no one had even considered her using, the unwillingness to stop even when by all practical measures the war is over, is a shocking parallel to James. In many ways, he is Jadis in mindset and deed.

Then there is the shared desire for A Thing that both James and Jadis have. For James it’s the Winter Maiden and control over her. For Jadis it’s the Silver Apples from the Tree of Youth. And funnily enough, the Maiden Powers parallel the Apples quiet well. These apples grant power and a life of eternal beauty, but should not be taken or eaten on one’s own initiative. They must be given, a gift granted by another, or only suffering will come from obtaining them. "For the fruit always works — it must work — but it does not work happily for any who pluck it at their own will. If any Narnian, unbidden, had stolen an apple and planted it here to protect Narnia, it would have protected Narnia. But it would have done so by making Narnia into another strong and cruel empire like Charn, not the kindly land I mean it to be.” Jadis’s immortality, and some of her power, come from the fact that she ate an Apple of her own will after stealing her way into the garden where the Tree of Youth had been planted. She gained the eternal life she had wanted and the power along with it, but she did so by taking it and was cursed because of it. Her skin turned pale and her lips blackened as if she were a frozen corpse given life. She will be trapped in a life of misery and hate according to Aslan- oh hey Cinder, how’s having stolen the Power you always wanted working out for you? Cinder had the power she wanted, but she only got hungrier, eager to claim more and increase her might. But in her pursuit she was defeated and humiliated by Raven, had to steal her way out of Mistral, and then suffered defeat after defeat while in Atlas. Only in the end, when she didn’t keep pursuing the Maiden Power, did she get any kind of victory.

The reason these parallels to Narnia are so important is one of the most famous events of the series. The cracking of the Stone Table and the rebirth of Aslan after his death. ‘When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.’ Well, the ‘Stone Table’ in James’s office has cracked, and Penny strikes me as a pretty willing victim. She has never actually committed any actual treachery or harm, as she was the Protector of Mantle, and fought for its and Atlas’s people until the very end. And because of her death, the actual traitor, Winter, who loyally served James until he had gone too far, was saved. Through Penny’s self sacrifice, Winter was saved. So now Death itself will start working backward.

(Major props to my friend @catontheweb for writing this section, I was getting nowhere with it, if they weren't there this part wouldn't exist!)

Norse Mythology:

The tree we see in the post credit scene gives off some serious Yggdrasil vibes. Also called the World Tree, it is essentially all of creation in Norse Mythology. It connects all nine realms, including the God realms of Asgard, the human realm of Midgard, and the underworld of Hel.

Humans are born from the branches of Yggdrasil. The web of Wyrd is woven for every person once they're born, and their path is set from there regardless of how many times the souls cycle over. But at the end, they're destined to end up in one of the worlds, for a myriad of reasons.

I believe Penny landed closest to this giant tree. She was on the center platform in the void space, so if that space is directly above the island(?) the tree is on, it makes sense for her to fall by the center nearest to the tree. This would not only open up all kinds of possibilities for the volume in general, but it would also create options for Penny.

The whole of Yggdrasil’s representations fit well into Penny’s story. Birth, growth, death and rebirth. We can count Penny’s appearance in V7 as birth for now, her growth is all her development in leaving =the military and becoming a Maiden, her death just happened, and her rebirth would be her revival. And this is a cycle she’s gone through before.

The Norse god Odin and Yggdrasil have quite a connection. In one story, Odin cut out one of his own eyes to gain knowledge from a pool underneath Yggdrasil. The only one that fell whose eyes alone are incredibly significant to the story was Ruby. So, they could choose to have her allude to Odin by having Ruby make some kind of deal with whatever entity likely rules over this magical place. An eye for Penny’s life.

There’s another story about Odin, Yggdrasil and the pursuit of knowledge. Odin so loved knowledge, that he sacrificed himself in a quest to learn the deeper magic of runes. It was believed one could only learn the magic spells from runes in death. So, Odin hung himself on Yggdrasil for nine days as an offering, and teetered between life and death. After he mastered the last spell on the ninth night, he ritually died and all light was extinguished from the world. Odin’s death lasted until midnight, when he was reborn and light returned to the world.

This story doesn’t fit Penny perfectly, but allusions often don’t. So If she really did land near the tree, she could be another loose representation of Odin’s story here. What she did wasn’t for knowledge, but to save her friends and keep Cinder from getting the Winter Maiden power. She believed it necessary that she sacrifice herself to achieve this end. As we established, Penny represents Hope, so her death means the loss of hope. This parallels Odin’s story of his death meaning the loss of light itself. So if this theory holds up, it would make this death temporary, until her rebirth and the return of Hope with her once again.

Alternatively, Ruby has the potential of loosely representing Odin in this story as well. Odin later uses the knowledge of the runes to do many things, but the most relevant one right now is awakening the dead. Both of these stories are about making a personal sacrifice to gain something that is desired. Ruby would absolutely make such sacrifices if it meant saving Penny.

It is said that Odin lived “according to his highest will unconditionally, accepting whatever hardships arise from that pursuit, and allowing nothing, not even death, to stand between him and the attainment of his goals." This sounds like Penny's arc of accepting the WM powers. This is more just a general connection between Penny and Odin, but I found it interesting.

Side Note: I encourage anyone who’s interested to look into RWBY connections to Norse Myth, there’s a surprising amount of things that feel eerily similar to the show. Likely just coincidental, but it’s fun to think about!

(If I got any of this wrong, I sincerely apologize by the way. I researched as best I could, but I admit it could have been lacking.)

Ambrosius and the Staff:

Ruby told Ambrosius "we kinda wanna keep her around longer than that" as part of her very specific instructions. Then Penny died about ten to fifteen minutes, at the absolute most thirty minutes later in-universe. I don’t know about you, but to me that seems very short to be considered ‘longer than that’. Technically it is, but when writing a story and a character says something like that, you typically don’t just kill the character they were referring to basically right away. It makes sense for a week-by-week watch, but in a volume binge, which many viewers do, it becomes ironic how fast Penny dies after being removed from her robotic body.

The first time we see the staff of creation being used, it's to save Penny. Using the staff of creation to help Penny is a sign of how incredibly important she is.

They’ve even got this entire transformation sequence for her, so it wouldn’t make sense for them to throw all that away two episodes later. In a meta context, it’s a massive waste of time and budget considering the asset creation for Penny.

Penny is a character who has already hopped bodies two times. And now we're supposed to just believe that this time it really is a final death? Just two episodes after we were explicitly told her body isn't what matters, that "Her soul is who she is" and that "the mechanical parts are just extra"? From a writing perspective, it feels strange, like your breaking a promise right after making it. And frankly, CRWBY is better than that, which makes me think this is not the actual end for her.

A possible connection between Penny, Ruby, and the Staff (thus Creation) can be seen in the intro. As Ruby is falling and being dragged down into the darkness, she is shown reaching for the staff. In the void space, Penny is the one with the relic. So with Penny having this strong connection to Creation, and the lyrics “fight for every life” playing as Ruby reaches for the staff, it’s a safe assumption to make, with the knowledge we now have, that the Staff of Creation represents Penny in this particular moment. Which could mean that V9 will be about, at least partially, fighting for Penny’s life.

Musical Hints:

In terms of music, Friend, as a song for Penny, is very dissonant from the episode itself. The song is oddly cheerful for Penny’s recent untimely death, and it overall highlights the wrong parts of death. It’s simply too happy to be a song about losing one of the most, if not the most joyous characters in the entire show. The song also abruptly ends. There’s no outro, and while this could symbolize the fact that Penny died young, it could be that the song itself is unfinished in a story sense.

What do we hear just before the song finishes, though? A progression of notes that sounds eerily similar to the last line of the opening of Volume 8. The notes for “Fight for ev’ry life” and “Who fin’lly felt alive'' share a similar melodic structure, they aren’t perfect clones of each other, but they are incredibly similar, to the point where it seems intentional. Penny may very well be the life that the opening song is fighting for. It is also worth noting that the line “Fight for every life” comes just after “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall,” which is the exact wording used for the description in the Volume 8 finale. Team RWBY risked the fall, yet, strangely the opposite of fighting for every life happened with Penny’s sacrifice. Perhaps the time to fight for every life has yet to happen, and we will see it come Volume 9.

For another thing, the lyrics for Friend are entirely centered on Penny’s feelings for Ruby, to the point where they read very much like a bittersweet love song. The music itself is incredibly cheerful, as mentioned previously, creating a mood whiplash with the end of the volume. Why would we hear a song about Penny’s feelings for Ruby, sounding like a love song, if her death is supposed to be a tragic sacrifice akin to Pyrrha’s? The song may very well be giving a clue into its future use in the show proper.

If this was meant to be a good bye song, why make it so cheerful and romantic sounding? There's only one part about her dying and even then, it's just too accepting and goes right back into cheerfulness. The song is also pretty hopeful, telling Penny's story in a fairly chronological order. And the part where she talks about sacrifice is quite pointedly followed up by one about feeling alive. It also ends with the super cheerful chorus, the word "alive" being the last... (Remember the episode title: The Final Word)

(I want to thank my friend @shadow-0f-x for writing the majority of this section! I was struggling to choose how to tackle it as I am not well versed in music theory.)

What We Didn’t See:

It is likely that Penny understood Jaune's semblance better than him and figured something out about it’s abilities in the same way that she understood Ruby's semblance better than her. She had plenty of time to observe his semblance up close as he boosted her aura to stave off the virus. Because of that intentionally timed cutaway in the finale, we don’t get to hear her explain herself after her strained “Trust me.” All of that seems really suspicious to me.

Pyrrha Parallel:

Pyrrha and Penny both sacrificed themselves to stop or stall Cinder. Jaune tried to convince the both of them to stop. With Pyrrha, he failed, while with Penny he actively helped her sacrifice herself. Doesn’t make sense for the guy who was determined not to let anyone else do what Pyrrha did, unless of course Penny assured him she’d be alright.

The Moment:

RT including the suicide hotline in the description shows that they're aware that Penny basically committed assisted suicide, seeing it as a noble sacrifice worth doing to save her friends. They're aware, and I believe they're smart enough to condemn that decision to hell and back.

The best way to do that in my opinion is to pull her back into the land of the living and let her witness first hand the consequences of throwing her life away so freely. This would show Penny how her actions affected others so maybe she could learn to truly value herself. To not think herself expendable. It would be bold and unwise to portray this choice as something good, unless it was going to be called upon later and be pointed out for how horrible it really is.

On top of this, Penny was way too content with her death, happy even. There's no way team RWBY is letting her stay content with it. It’s almost as though we're supposed to join Ruby and Co. in calling bullshit on what Penny is saying and doing because no, Penny, this is not how things are meant to work. It's as if Penny was basically saying "I want to die for my friends" because most of the volume had been about everyone else making sure she didn't die. She knows it will hurt them. She knows.

At the peak of it all, a choice like this will totally destroy Ruby. It may very well be her breaking point for Volume 9. Curiously, the moment itself is written like it’s the first choice Penny’s ever made, yet the entire Volume shows this isn’t the case. However, this is the first choice that Penny’s made solely independently and it’s rather pertinent that the choice she makes is a mistake. Outside of giving Winter the Maiden gift and saving the day temporarily, this sacrifice will not have any lasting positive effects. Jaune will be saddled with the grief of killing Penny. Ruby will have to live with losing her best friend and not being able to protect her a second time, and Winter now has the burden of the Winter Maiden abilities, making her a target of Cinder. This is a bad thing, and Penny needs to see the long term consequences.

Transfer of Power:

As we all know, colors in RWBY are really important and get a lot of focus in the show. That means the yellow we see as Penny gives Winter the Maiden Powers was intentional and likely important, no matter how insignificant it may seem. It’s possible that the transfer effect being yellow could have something to do with Jaune’s semblance. When Fria gave the power to Penny, the effect was very much blue, so this transfer should have been green since she was the one giving it this time. The weirdness of this transfer and the focus on color in RWBY really makes it look like something’s up with how that went down.

A little off topic, but Penny saying "I won't be gone, I'll be part of you." makes me think... Winter is smart, so when she gets time to think about what Penny said, maybe she'll arrive at the same question many in the audience came to; if she's literally part of Winter, can they be separated again? If Winter starts questioning that, the possibility of Penny coming back just skyrockets.

Fria actually tells Penny "I'll be gone" before giving her powers up, which is an interesting contrast to Penny telling Winter "I won't be gone". She may have gotten that line from Winter be all philosophical in V7, saying Fria was now a part of Penny, but it hits differently coming from an actual Maiden. S5o it’s possible that Maidens usually actually will be gone, but Jaune's semblance did something to change that.

This could go well with the theory that they won't need to find an aura transfer machine, or build another one, because Jaune will have a semblance evolution allowing him to do the transfer instead. It might actually be that this evolution already happened and the golden light we saw was Jaune transferring penny's aura to Winter in some way?

An observation that I find interesting is when Penny gives winter the powers, not only is the aura yellow but penny completely glows yellow too, and she obviously starts to disappear, but she doesn’t seem to fully disappear, she just glows.

It's possibly a fading out effect and she does fully fade but animation makes bright light easier, and so we don't actually see her disappear because she's dead and not gone. But it does once again emphasize the color yellow here!

And the color is coming from Penny, it does go up Winter's arm a bit, but Penny is clearly the source. This transfer is so weird and I’m not really sure how to interpret it. There's just actually no reason that we are aware of to make the effect yellow here is the thing. Unless it has something to do with either Jaune or Ambrosius, or potentially a combination of both...

Jaune’s Aura:

The way we see Jaune's aura break in the finale is strange. His aura shouldn't be breaking here. It had been long enough since he was boosting Penny, he's had time to recharge, and it didn't look like it was a strain on him at all. Plus, we know he has a lot of aura, so there probably wasn't too much to recharge in the first place.

He has a massive amount of aura, it has never broken before as far as I remember. Even if it has though, that doesn’t make this occurrence any less odd. It should absolutely never be a one-hit KO. We didn't see anything that would've drained it, that should not have been enough to break his aura. Unless he did something - something that would require a huge amount of aura - that we just didn't see. That amount of aura drain is far more than just an attempt at healing would do, Jaune absolutely did something with his semblance that took up almost all of his aura.

Pinocchio Allusion:

As any Penny fan knows, her character allusion is Pinocchio, the puppet who became a real boy. Penny deviates from the allusion by having always been a real girl, as Ruby is quick to point out, but she shares many story beats with her original story including multiple deaths. In the original story, Pinocchio dies from being hung by his own strings due to his poor decision making and he dies. Sounds a little familiar, does it not? This is where his tale originally ended. Readers were unsatisfied with this ending however, so the author decided to change the story by reviving Pinocchio and teaching him to be more careful.

Unlike Pinocchio making all the wrong decisions, Penny often makes the right ones, or ones she thinks is right, when concerning others. While usually a good thing, this has meant Penny almost giving herself up multiple times during V8, her last attempt being successful. This is where Penny and Pinocchio begin to share similarities again. They are both very reckless when it concerns themselves. This carelessness comes from different places, but it ends with the same result of them endangering their lives and even sometimes losing them.

In the Disney movie, Pinocchio dies by drowning after going to rescue Geppetto and washes up on the shore (like the beach in V8’s post credit scene). His father is devastated and takes him home to grieve, but as a reward for his selflessness in rescuing his father, the Blue Fairy returns and brings him back to life, as well as granting him humanity. Penny sacrificed her life as well, and it stands to reason that she should be rewarded for it, much like her allusion was.

Penny got her maiden powers from someone with blue aura and then gave her powers to someone with blue aura. So it could be that not only Ambrosius, but Fria and Winter as well represent the Blue Fairy. It could be set up for Winter helping to bring Penny back to life once more. It’s an out there theory I admit, but it’s not outright impossible either. The Blue Fairy in Pinocchio saved him three times that I know of, so RWBY having three representations does make sense.

Geppetto wished for him to live as a real boy, but it depended on what path Pinocchio took. This is very reminiscent of Penny and Pietro. Pietro wants to see her live her life, and surely with him absent in V8C14 that didn't work, despite Penny choosing. Her father did not see her happy enough to live her life, and will only be able to learn her death through others. But Pinocchio's themes were life and being alive. So the likelihood that this is not her end yet is quite high!

A Girl That Fell Through the World:

Penny could be the girl who fell through the world. The girl in the story fled the consequences of a choice. The only person who chose her ultimate fate was Penny. The others were pushed into the void, but she chose to die. The consequence of her choice is Ruby’s grief first and foremost, which Penny won’t see. The girl who fell through the world does come back though, and the world will be changed severely with Penny’s absence. Alternatively, it could also be Penny coming back to Wonderland or wherever they currently are, as long as it’s unrecognizable to her.

What Returning Brings:

Others might say another return would have no story relevant purpose, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Penny gives a profoundly youthful, joyous, and wondrous outlook on the world and story that we hadn't seen since Ruby in Volumes 1-3(not the end), Penny returning would bring a much needed levity back in after the despair they will undoubtedly be going through. While not necessarily a huge thing in most other shows, for RWBY, a show largely about keeping up hope, an ounce of such relief is a necessity.

As much as I hate saying it, Penny’s death does actually make some narrative sense because she had to pass on the Maiden powers. (They could have done this in a number of ways, and I personally think they chose rather poorly, but I digress.) Throughout this whole volume, we can see Penny seemingly being set up to join the main cast, but would have been too strong with the powers. This also accomplishes ridding her of the burden of responsibility that comes with being a Maiden and lets her obtain the freedom that’s so important to her character.

Once she returns, seeing this grief that her actions caused, particularly to Ruby, will get her to realize more that her actions can have serious repercussions. She made a choice, but that choice hurt the people she loves. She must have known that it would but I’m not sure she ever realized just how much.

I didn’t want this post to be heavy in the shipping department, so I largely left it out, but I am going to say this one thing that could have an impact. If Nuts & Dolts is on its way to being canon, which this volume makes it feel highly likely, this could be a catalyst.

It could prompt an arc for the both of them in which Penny learns to live her life fighting for her loved ones, rather than sacrificing it for them. A relationship could potentially start from there. And Ruby seeing Penny learn these things may also help her to stop doing the occasional but very dangerous and reckless things she does. Ruby witnessing Penny coming to terms with what she did to the people that care about her would actually make her stop to think “wait, is this how everyone else would feel if I got myself killed?” That would be a very important moment of character growth for her.

I’m certain there are other significant things that Penny returning can bring to the show. And there are definitely more sections I could add to this. At this point though, assuming anyone even made it this far, I think I’ve been going long enough already. So let’s just roll into the outro!

As painful and hopeless as it seems, I'm choosing to trust them with this because there is absolutely no way they didn't see backlash coming. The way this finale went makes me think that they calculated for backlash and aren’t jumping into something they don’t have a plan to recover from. Whether this trust is unfounded or not remains to be seen, but I don’t think it is currently. I do think, however, that the cause of this backlash was a major misstep. Now that it has happened though, they have a chance to do something good with it.

I know for a lot of you, trust in CRWBY has been damaged, some even irreparably so. And for those that feel this way, I don’t blame you. My trust in them took a hit too, but isn’t broken completely yet. There are many ways that they can bring her back that would make sense with the narrative, they have the ability to make it right, and after going over all of the hints and general weirdness of things many times, I think they will.

I'm feeling pretty confident now and I really didn't expect that to happen at all to be honest. But discussing and theorizing with the discord server seriously helped get my hopes back up surprisingly fast! It’s actually thanks to all of them that this gigantic post even happened! So thanks a ton my fellow Dolts! And a special thanks to!!

@arcana-amicus

@catontheweb

@cosmokyrin

@gaydontmesswithme224

@jammatown919

@shadow-0f-x

They really helped get this thing across the finish line!

And thank YOU for reading all~ of this! I sincerely wish it gave you some of the hope and confidence that I now have!

#RWBY #rwby vol8 #rwby v8 #rwby spoilers #Penny Polendina #nuts and dolts #mechanical rose #a little #Essay #more like dissertation #I haven't written this much in #probably ever actually #Have HOPE people!

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sgt-paul · 4 years

Photo

MUSICIANS ON MUSICIANS: Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift

❝ During the shoot, Paul dances and takes almost none of it too seriously and sings along to Motown songs playing from the speakers. A few times Mary scolds, ‘Daaad, try to stand still!’ And it feels like a window into a pretty awesome family dynamic. ❞

interview below the cut:

Paul McCartney: Yeah!

McCartney: You were playing one of his songs, weren’t you?

McCartney: I mean, I think it’s a bit of everything, isn’t it? I’ll tell you who was very … Reese Witherspoon was like, “Are you going to sing?” I said “Oh, I don’t know.” She said, “You’ve got to, yeah!” She’s bossing me around. So I said, “Whoa,” so it’s a bit of that.

Swift: I love that person, because the party does not turn musical without that person.

McCartney: Yeah, that’s true.

Swift: If nobody says, “Can you guys play music?” we’re not going to invite ourselves up onstage at whatever living-room party it is.

McCartney: I seem to remember Woody Harrelson got on the piano, and he starts playing “Let It Be,” and I’m thinking, “I can do that better.” So I said, “Come on, move over, Woody.” So we’re both playing it. It was really nice.… I love people like Dan Aykroyd, who’s just full of energy and he loves his music so much, but he’s not necessarily a musician, but he just wanders around the room, just saying, “You got to get up, got to get up, do some stuff.”

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: Well, I’m very lucky because I have a studio that’s, like, 20 minutes away from where I live. We were in lockdown on a farm, a sheep farm with my daughter Mary and her four kids and her husband. So I had four of my grandkids, I had Mary, who’s a great cook, so I would just drive myself to the studio. And there were two other guys that could come in and we’d be very careful and distanced and everything: my engineer Steve, and then my equipment guy Keith. So the three of us made the record, and I just started off. I had to do a little bit of film music — I had to do an instrumental for a film thing — so I did that. And I just kept going, and that turned into the opening track on the album. I would just come in, say, “Oh, yeah, what are we gonna do?” [Then] have some sort of idea, and start doing it. Normally, I’d start with the instrument I wrote it on, either piano or guitar, and then probably add some drums and then a bit of bass till it started to sound like a record, and then just gradually layer it all up. It was fun.

Swift: That’s so cool.

McCartney: What about yours? You’re playing guitar and piano on yours.

Swift: Yeah, on some of it, but a lot of it was made with Aaron Dessner, who’s in a band called the National that I really love. And I had met him at a concert a year before, and I had a conversation with him, asking him how he writes. It’s my favorite thing to ask people who I’m a fan of. And he had an interesting answer. He said, “All the band members live in different parts of the world. So I make tracks. And I send them to our lead singer, Matt, and he writes the top line.” I just remember thinking, “That is really efficient.” And I kind of stored it in my brain as a future idea for a project. You know, how you have these ideas… “Maybe one day I’ll do this.” I always had in my head: “Maybe one day I’ll work with Aaron Dessner.”

McCartney: Yeah, that was the thing. You could do stuff — you didn’t really worry it was going to turn into anything.

Swift: That’s the coziest thing I’ve ever heard.

McCartney: Well, it’s like eight minutes long, and I said, “I hate it when I’m playing someone something and it finishes after three minutes.” I kind of like that it just [continues] on.

Swift: You want to stay in the zone.

McCartney: It just keeps going on. I would just come home, “Well, what did you do today?” “Oh, well, I did this. I’m halfway through this,” or, “We finished this.”

Swift: I was wondering about the numerology element to McCartney III. McCartney I, II, and III have all come out on years with zeroes.

McCartney: Ends of decades.

Swift: Was that important?

Swift: The numerology, the kind of look, the symbolism. I love numbers. Numbers kind of rule my whole world. The numbers 13 … 89 is a big one. I have a few others that I find…

McCartney: Thirteen is lucky for some.

McCartney: It’s spooky, Taylor. It’s very spooky. Now wait a minute: Where’d you get 89?

Swift: That’s when I was born, in 1989, and so I see it in different places and I just think it’s…

McCartney: No, it’s good. I like that, where certain things you attach yourself to, and you get a good feeling off them. I think that’s great.

Swift: Love a pseudonym.

McCartney: Yeah, for the fun! But, you know, let’s face it, you crave fame and attention when you’re young. And I just remembered the other day, I was the guy in the Beatles that would write to journalists and say [speaks in a formal voice]: “We are a semiprofessional rock combo, and I’d think you’d like [us].… We’ve written over 100 songs (which was a lie), my friend John and I. If you mention us in your newspaper…” You know, I was always, like, craving the attention.

Swift: The hustle! That’s so great, though.

McCartney: Well, yeah, you need that.

McCartney: Do you ever do that?

Swift: Oh, yeah.

McCartney: Oh, yeah? Oh, well, we didn’t know that! Is that a widely known fact?

Swift: [Laughs.] That’s a good one! I love it.

Swift: Thrilling, absolutely thrilling.

McCartney: And we didn’t mind, you know?

McCartney: You do that, do you?

McCartney: Well, that’s great, and I’m glad that set you on that path. I understand people who don’t want to do that, and if you do, they’ll say, “Oh, it’s a jukebox show.” I hear what they’re saying. But I think it’s a bit of a cheat, because the people who come to our shows have spent a lot of money. We can afford to go to a couple of shows and it doesn’t make much difference. But a lot of ordinary working folks … it’s a big event in their life, and so I try and deliver. I also, like you say, try and put in a few weirdos.

McCartney: Was this “I want to give you a child”? Is that one of the lines?

Swift: Oh, that’s a song called “Peace.”

McCartney: “Peace,” I like that one.

McCartney: So how does that go? Does your partner sympathize with that and understand?

Swift: Oh, absolutely.

McCartney: They have to, don’t they?

Swift: But I think that in knowing him and being in the relationship I am in now, I have definitely made decisions that have made my life feel more like a real life and less like just a storyline to be commented on in tabloids. Whether that’s deciding where to live, who to hang out with, when to not take a picture — the idea of privacy feels so strange to try to explain, but it’s really just trying to find bits of normalcy. That’s what that song “Peace” is talking about. Like, would it be enough if I could never fully achieve the normalcy that we both crave? Stella always tells me that she had as normal a childhood as she could ever hope for under the circumstances.

McCartney: Yeah, it was very important to us to try and keep their feet on the ground amongst the craziness.

Swift: She went to a regular school .…

McCartney: Yeah, she did.

Swift: And you would go trick-or-treating with them, wearing masks.

Swift: Ohhh!

Swift: Cares about that stuff?

Swift: I think that sounds like a perfect day.

Swift: That can’t happen in Downton Abbey.

McCartney: [Laughs.] Exactly.

McCartney: It was a bit of both. As it kind of always is with me. There’s no fixed way. People used to ask me and John, “Well, who does the words, who does the music?” I used to say, “We both do both.” We used to say we don’t have a formula, and we don’t want one. Because the minute we get a formula, we should rip it up. I will sometimes, as I did with a couple of songs on this album, sit down at the piano and just start noodling around, and I’ll get a little idea and start to fill that out. So the lyrics — for me, it’s following a trail. I’ll start [sings “Find My Way,” a song from “McCartney III”]: “I can find my way. I know my left from right, da da da.” And I’ll just sort of fill it in. Like, we know this song, and I’m trying to remember the lyrics. Sometimes I’ll just be inspired by something. I had a little book which was all about the constellations and the stars and the orbits of Venus and.…

Swift: Oh, I know that song — “The Kiss of Venus”?

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: It’s very magical.

Swift: That is magical. I definitely relate to needing to find magical things in this very not-magical time, needing to read more books and learn to sew, and watch movies that take place hundreds of years ago. In a time where, if you look at the news, you just want to have a panic attack — I really relate to the idea that you are thinking about stars and constellations.

McCartney: Did you do that on Folklore?

Swift: Yes. I was reading so much more than I ever did, and watching so many more films.

McCartney: What stuff were you reading?

Swift: I was reading, you know, books like Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier, which I highly recommend, and books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. I was also using words I always wanted to use — kind of bigger, flowerier, prettier words, like “epiphany,” in songs. I always thought, “Well, that’ll never track on pop radio,” but when I was making this record, I thought, “What tracks? Nothing makes sense anymore. If there’s chaos everywhere, why don’t I just use the damn word I want to use in the song?”

McCartney: Exactly. So you’d see the word in a book and think, “I love that word”?

Swift: Yeah, I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.

McCartney: How about “marzipan”?

Swift: Love “marzipan.”

McCartney: The other day, I was remembering when we wrote “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”: “kaleidoscope.”

Swift: “Kaleidoscope” is one of mine! I have a song on 1989, a song called “Welcome to New York,” that I put the word “kaleidoscope” in just because I’m obsessed with the word.

Swift: We should have done matching jackets for this photo shoot.

McCartney: Find me a fleck, I’m in. But we went to the fair, and I just remember — this is what happens with songs — there was this girl at the fair. This is just a little Liverpool fair — it was in a place called Sefton Park — and there was this girl, who was so beautiful. She wasn’t a star. She was so beautiful. Everyone was following her, and it’s like, “Wow.” It’s like a magical scene, you know? But all this gave me a headache, so I ended up going back to his house — I didn’t normally get headaches. And we thought, “What can we do?” So we put on the Elvis song “All Shook Up.” By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, “That’s powerful.”

Swift: That really is powerful.

McCartney: What, a “cardigan”?

Swift: Like a good cardigan, a good, worn-in cardigan. Or something that makes you reminisce on your childhood. I think sadness can be cozy. It can obviously be traumatic and stressful, too, but I kind of was trying to lean into sadness that feels like somehow enveloping in not such a scary way — like nostalgia and whimsy incorporated into a feeling like you’re not all right. Because I don’t think anybody was really feeling like they were in their prime this year. Isolation can mean escaping into your imagination in a way that’s kind of nice.

Swift: Get a hammer and a nail.

McCartney: “Maybe I can put that picture up.” It’s not rocket science. The period after the Beatles, when we went to live in Scotland on a really — talk about dumpy — little farm. I mean, I see pictures of it now and I’m not ashamed, but I’m almost ashamed. Because it’s like, “God, nobody’s cleaned up around here.”

But it was really a relief. Because when I was with the Beatles, we’d formed Apple Records, and if I wanted a Christmas tree, someone would just buy it. And I thought, after a while, “No, you know what? I really would like to go and buy our Christmas tree. Because that’s what everyone does.” So you go down — “I’ll have that one” — and you carried it back. I mean, it’s little, but it’s huge at the same time.

I needed a table in Scotland and I was looking through a catalog and I thought, “I could make one. I did woodwork in school, so I know what a dovetail joint is.” So I just figured it out. I’m just sitting in the kitchen, and I’m whittling away at this wood and I made this little joint. There was no nail technology — it was glue. And I was scared to put it together. I said, “It’s not going to fit,” but one day, I got my woodwork glue and thought, “There’s no going back.” But it turned out to be a real nice little table I was very proud of. It was that sense of achievement.

Swift: No, it’s cool!

McCartney: But it was a real sort of great thing for me to be able to do stuff for yourself. You were talking about sewing. I mean normally, in your position, you’ve got any amount of tailors.

Swift: Well, there’s been a bit of a baby boom recently; several of my friends have gotten pregnant.

McCartney: Oh, yeah, you’re at the age.

McCartney: What do you paint? Watercolors?

Swift: Acrylic or oil. Whenever I do watercolor, all I paint is flowers. When I have oil, I really like to do landscapes. I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.

McCartney: She’s a fantasy character?

Swift: She’s a real person. Who lived in the house that I live in.

McCartney: She’s a real person? I listened to that and I thought, “Who is this?”

McCartney: Yeah, ’cause you were writing breakup songs like they were going out of style.

Swift: That’s amazing.

McCartney: It just felt good to me. I would sit and talk, and they’d have amazing stories. That’s what I liked. They would have stories from the wartime — because I was born actually in the war — and so these old ladies, they were participating in the war. This one lady I used to sort of just hang out with, she had a crystal radio that I found very magical. In the war, a lot of people made their own radios — you’d make them out of crystals [sings “The Twilight Zone” theme].

Swift: How did I not know this? That sounds like something I would have tried to learn about.

McCartney: It’s interesting, because there is a lot of parallels with the virus and lockdowns and wartime. It happened to everyone. Like, this isn’t HIV, or SARS, or Avian flu, which happened to others, generally. This has happened to everyone, all around the world. That’s the defining thing about this particular virus. And, you know, my parents … it happened to everyone in Britain, including the queen and Churchill. War happened. So they were all part of this thing, and they all had to figure out a way through it. So you figured out Folklore. I figured out McCartney III.

Swift: And a lot of people have been baking sourdough bread. Whatever gets you through!

McCartney: Some people used to make radios. And they’d take a crystal — we should look it up, but it actually is a crystal. I thought, “Oh, no, they just called it a crystal radio,” but it’s actually crystals like we know and love.

Swift: Wow.

McCartney: And somehow they get the radio waves — this crystal attracts them — they tune it in, and that’s how they used to get their news. Back to “Eleanor Rigby,” so I would think of her and think of what she’s doing and then just try to get lyrical, just try to bring poetry into it, words you love, just try to get images like “picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,” and Father McKenzie “is darning his socks in the night.” You know, he’s a religious man, so I could’ve said, you know, “preparing his Bible,” which would have been more obvious. But “darning his socks” kind of says more about him. So you get into this lovely fantasy. And that’s the magic of songs, you know. It’s a black hole, and then you start doing this process, and then there’s this beautiful little flower that you’ve just made. So it is very like embroidery, making something.

Swift: Making a table.

McCartney: Making a table.

Swift: Wow, it would’ve been so fun to play Glastonbury for the 50th anniversary together.

McCartney: It would’ve been great, wouldn’t it? And I was going to be asking you to play with me.

Swift: Were you going to invite me? I was hoping that you would. I was going to ask you.

McCartney: I would’ve done “Shake It Off.”

Swift: Oh, my God, that would have been amazing.

McCartney: I know it, it’s in C!

McCartney: Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?

Swift: We’re really lucky.

McCartney: I don’t know if it ever happens to you, but with me, it’s like, “Oh, my god, I’ve ended up as a musician.”

Swift: Yeah, I can’t believe it’s my job.

Swift: “Something will happen.”

Swift: That’s the best.

McCartney: It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. It’s great if you’re ever in that sort of panic attack: “Oh, my God,” or, “Ahhh, what am I going to do?”

Swift: “Something will happen.”

McCartney: All right then, thanks for doing this, and this was, you know, a lot of fun.

Swift: You’re the best. This was so awesome. Those were some quality stories!

#paul mccartney #old paul #taylor swift #*m #💖#grandpaul #silver stubble #(aahh king)#(I LOVE HIM SO MUCH F*CK OFF EVERYONE)#(the thumbs lads. its always about the thumbs)

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lexcat-11 · 3 years

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Logan has never been fully accepted (a theory)

Joan has said that they never intended Logan’s name reveal to be angsty, and with its early placement in the series that makes sense. However, I think there is a lot of potential with the fact that Logan never gave his own name.

Consider, when one of the sides gives their name, it’s confirmed by Thomas to be 1. Character Thomas accepting the side and 2. Character Thomas recognizing the side as more than just their initial function that they were first introduced as (morality, creativity, etc.)

Roman is passion, pride/ego, and creativity, Janus is denial, deceit, and self-preservation (in a societal sense), Patton is morality, a portion of emotions, and nostalgia, you get the point. But Logan has always been Logic, nothing else. And he refuses to be anything else. But he is, or could be more.

Logan might represent curiosity.

Let me explain. Logan fears being useless and being afraid, and those fears tie into his greater fear of the unknown. We know this first because of his answer in the first episode when asked about his greatest fear which was, “What exactly is at the bottom of the ocean?” He does not know, and that is frightening. Furthermore, we know of this correlation because of his lovely monologue in CLBG, “If you are afraid, seek knowledge. It is our greatest weapon and our greatest defense.” And if that wasn’t enough, in Embarassing Phases, he also says “I am fearless and therefore powerful,” not to mention his entire response to Remus in Intrusive Thoughts, so there is a definite connection between Logan’s fear and his knowledge.

But with the unknown comes the one area Logan fails to understand: his emotions. There is a look of shock and complete fear on his face after he lashes out at Roman in Learning New Things About Ourselves. His first reaction is apologizing and admitting “I don’t know what that was.” He straight up panics because he does not understand his own behavior. But, what does this have to do with Logan being curiosity? Well, it tells us why he isn’t curiosity yet.

Curiosity is vulnerability. It is asking questions that one does not yet know the answer to and being content with exploring the unknown despite risk. It’s wonder, wondering what could be with what is. It’s nerding out about interests and looking up at the stars and geeking out over that cool fact you learned. And Logan was described as this from the very start! He’s “every fact [Thomas] has ever learned,” and Thomas right after states how he was “...quite the nerd in school.” Logan embodies so much more than logic— he’s the awesome, nerdy interests Thomas has, his passions to persue chemical engineering and to save the environment. Curiosity is the side of Logan that he has been repressing with his emotions for the fear of being vulnerable— of losing control and therefore being useless.

Logan’s been smiling increasingly less in the series, and it’s no secret that he’s been shut down a numerous amount of times. It’s getting to him. He thinks he’s being “invasive” and so he takes the form of Logan’s Lowdown in Putting Others First and becomes a neutral moderator. He’s abandoning taking a stance of his own, abandoning his own opinions and personal contributions! He’s stripping himself down to his most basic, simple function of logic because that is familiar and there is no risk there. If he does his job and does not feel, he cannot be exposed to emotions, and therefore he can not lose control in an emotional situation he is unable to grasp. If he only does what he needs to, then maybe he’ll be respected enough to stick around. He won’t have to leave Thomas alone and defenseless, he’ll be exactly what they need and not some kind of joke.

Logan did not give his own name himself because that would mean accepting and embracing that he exists as more. By telling Thomas Logan’s name, Patton created the impression that the others accepted Logan before he accepted himself. But until Logan is validated and feels secure enough to not have to pretend to be this perfect, robotic, emotionless shell of himself, he is only logic to himself. He does not yet know how much he is loved not only by Patton, but by everyone.

I leave you with this quote from the philosopher Alan Watts which can be found in the song Medicine on Logan’s Playlist:

“Because as Aristotle says, the beginning of philosophy is wonder. Philosophy is man’s expression of curiosity about everything. His attempt to make sense of the world primarily through his intellect; that is to say his faculty for thinking.

#sanders sides #sanders sides theory #I hope this isn’t too confusing!#just wrote this on a whim #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #Janus sanders #Logan angst #ts logan #sanders sides angst #Logan sanders theory #ts logan theory #ts theory #Thomas sanders #curiosity!logan #ts patton #ts roman #ts janus

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gr0vndz3ro · 4 years

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Hypnosis

Cop!Bakugou x Villain!Reader(NSFW)

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, Cursing, forced sub!bakugou, dom! reader, dub con, bondage because if you think im writing a cop au and not use hand cuffs youre dead wrong, choking, degradation, spit, oral, overstimulation, gagging, hair pulling, unprotected sex

Word count: 3973

A/N: Me and @1-800-callmekatsuki were thirsting over bakugou for hours and I HAD to write this. I ended up getting really into this so it ended up being a little longer than I expected but I hope y’all enjoy. Also this is the photo that got this whole fic started. The art is not mine.

*PSA*

A little side note I’ve gotten a few comments in regards to the current situation going on in the US and trust me I get it, but this blog is just a place for me to personally escape the things going on irl. I wasn’t writing this in correlation to anything going on and I’m sorry if people think this is bad timing but this story is free of any personal opinion and just something fun for people to read. I want my blog to be for other people what it is for me, just something to enjoy. If for any reason this story bothers you I’m really sorry🥺🥺 I’m just a horny girl who just want to write smut and I think fbi/ cop bakugou is hot 😭 If reading anything in regards to a cop (even when not negative) is something that bothers you then please feel free to keep scrolling. I don’t take any offense to people not liking this, but I did work hard on this and for those of you do read it I hope you guys enjoy it. ❤️

Arms crossed against his broad chest, Katsuki scoffed at the briefing he was just given by his chief. The criminal that the precinct had just managed to catch was believed to be tied to the League of Villains. Y/N Y/L/N, her quirk was called Sirens Song. She’s able to control men with just the sound of her voice. She had been caught trying to smuggle weapons, thought to be for the L.O.V, in a boat that she stole from two unfortunate men that happened to cross her path.

This whole thing was a waste of his time, he could be out there trying to find the actual threats. Instead he was in this meeting, listening to the description of just another wannabe villain. When the chief had finished with the case details, Katsuki got up from the chair, ready to go back to his patrol when the man spoke up again.

“We are going to be keeping her in holding for a few days to try to get as much information we can get out of her to see if she’s the connection to the League that we’ve been looking for. On the screen you will see a list of the interrogation times and who goes when, as well as who will be covering what over night watch shift. After you have checked for your name you are free to go.”

Rolling his eyes, the blond walks over to the board and sees he is set as the over night guard for tonight. He clenches his jaw, instead of being able to go home after a long day, he’s forced to work all night. Watching some criminal trying to pass as a real target. He whips his head to his boss, stomping over.

“Oi, what the hell is this supposed to be huh?! You got me working for 24 hours, ain’t that illegal or some shit?” Not being able to control his anger at the situation.

“Officer Bakugou I see that you’ve taken a look at the board. Don’t worry about the work load, you’ve been assigned to a fairly peaceful district so there shouldn’t be to much strain on you. If there any other problems you have I would recommend biting your tongue. You’re already on thin ice this week due to you run in with Officer Midoriya. Be grateful you are involved in this case in anyway. Now if that will be all.” The chief says not allowing Katsuki the time to interject, leaving afterwards to go to his office.

Left there grinding his teeth, he holds back his dying urge to curse the man out and leaves the building to start his “easy” patrol. He hated easy days, it wasn’t what he had joined for. He wanted to hunt down bad guys and make them suffer for what they did. He wanted to put away thugs and criminals, not right a ticket for an unpaid parking meter. I’m to good of a cop to be a fucking meter maid. His jaw firm as he thinks about the cases other stations were working on. The good that he could be doing if he wasn’t here, having his talent go to waste. Saving people was what he wanted to do, be the hero that saves the day. But all because of his temper, he now had the “easy” shift.

He pulled back into the station at 10 pm to start the over night watch. mostly everyone had gone home, except for the few stragglers finishing up their last amounts of paperwork for the week. He heads to the break room to grab something quick to eat when the chief walked into the room.

“There is a few things I wanted to tell you about your shift tonight and about the situation at hand. The suspect quirk is very powerful, while the room they’re in cancels quirks, the effects of hers can still be felt to some degree. They are no where near her normal strength and more of a temptation that most are able to snap out of after a few seconds. Do not under estimate her Bakugou, do you hear me? I will not be filling a missing suspect report because you are to arrogant to follow commands.” The chief explain to him, belittling him the process. If the anger he felt could be seen physically, everything in the room would have been exploded.

“Yeah, yeah I hear you loud and clear. The idiot isn’t gonna be a problem.. sir.” His attitude barely peaking out at the end of his sentence, a slight smirk on his lips. With that response, his boss leaves for the night, officially leaving Katsuki alone in the station to start his second shift of the day.

Coffee. If there was any way that he was going to get through this night it was going to be with lots of coffee. He goes to the coffee pot and makes himself a small pot. With a mug in his hand he starts his walk over to the holding cells. He turned the corner and sees you sitting there in the cell. His eye widen subtly, Damn she’s hot. Maybe he wouldn’t need coffee after all. He took his seat near your cell so keep an eye on you. There wasn’t much he could really do. There was no way for you to get out. Basically he was just there to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself until the detectives come back to investigate you more. As he sat there he got a good look at you. Your clothes were dirty a torn from you chase from the cops, rips on you pants exposing parts of your thighs, and the rip on you shirt showed just enough of your abdomen to leave him dirty thoughts. Thoughts of how soft your skin is, how it would feel under his calloused fingers. How you would react to his touch, goosebumps covering your skin. He looks up to your face. Small scratches liter it but that does nothing to hide how beautiful you are. The way your eyes catch the light and how pieces of your hair fall out of your pony tail framing you face. Your hair slightly a mess, probably due to running yet all he could think about was how much he wanted to mess it up even more. You run his hands through it and just yank your head back with a fist full of your locks. The two of you hadn’t even exchanged words to each other but he knew he wanted you. You’re eyes met his after he was done checking you out.

“Do you like what you see?...” Your eye brow raised in amusement as you caught his wandering eyes. You take this time to check out the officer who you assumed would be watching you tonight. His uniform and vest highlighting how broad his chest is, the sleeves tight around his arms due to the amount of muscle it was trying to contain. His pants tightened around his thighs. Blond hair slightly covering his eyes. He clenches his jaw and you swear that thing could cut diamonds. This man was hot and you cant help but smirk at the fact he was checking you out. You look back down to his chest to see his name tag, Bakugou. “...Officer Bakugou” His face immediately pulls into a scowl in defense.

“Oh you fucking wish” He pulls his eyes away from you and rest his head on the back of his seat. He shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable, finding it impossible as this chair was a piece of shit. So he stands up and starts looking around trying to find something else to focus on. You break him out of his thoughts.

“Do you have anything else that I could wear? These clothes are ruined and I’d like to be in proper clothing.” You say in reference to your tattered clothes, ruined by jumping over fences and having them get caught and rip. You hear a ‘tsk’ and see him start to walk off. Rolling your eyes at the mans action, you sit down on the chair in your cell seeing as he walked off without giving you a response.

“Here” you look up to see him sliding a shirt and pair of pant in through the bars. You walk over and grab them from his hands, running your finger tips across his skin in the process. He yanks his hand back before you can try to touch him again. You wanted more. Frowning, you walk back near the chair and set your clothes down on it, your hands go to the edge of you shirt but you stop feeling a burning gaze on your back. You turn around to see him staring at you.

“Do you mind?” Raising your eye brow at him.

“I have to watch you to make sure you don’t attempt to do anything that could cause harm to yourself.” He says coldly, as if he wasn’t dying at the opportunity to see what was under your clothes.

“Okay then suit yourself.” With a smirk on your lips you pull you shirt off over your head, making sure that he could see everything. You slowly fold it and move down to you pants, your finger lingering at the zipper for a moment before pulling it down. Your hands make there way to waist band and tug them down, shimming out of the tight pants, making you butt sway infront of him. If he was going to watch you, you were going to make sure he got a good show out of it. Hands linger around your curves as you snake the fabric down your legs at an agonizingly slow pace. Katsuki could feel his pants tightening at the sight, his breath catching in his throat. A smirk across your face as you see his flustered reaction to your stripping. Activating your quirk you slowly walk over to the bars separating the two of you.

“Why don’t you get in here” Your words putting the man in a trance as he struggles against your suggestion. Starting to get ticked of he isn’t already subdued you speak up again, “Don’t make me repeat myself, you wont like the consequences.” He feels himself start moving towards your cell against his better judgement. He fights against the feeling in his chest pulling him forward, but before he knows it he’s infront of you inside of the cell. A sinister shine in your eyes as you step closer to the blond, closing the distance, Katsuki could feel the room getting hotter. Your hands make its way to his chest, paralyzing him underneath your touch.

“Look at you, now go be good boy for me and sit down.” His face burns red at the demand, no one talks to him like this, so why was it turning him on so much. He stays in his place as his last attempt at keeping his dominance over the situation. Your hand travels up to his jaw, fingers roughly grasping either side as you growl into his ear, your patience being tested “Do not test me pretty boy, do what you’re told.”

You see him struggling against your command feeling conflicted at the switch of power. You put both of you hands on his chest and push him down onto the chair. His eyes wide unable to stop you as you reach down into his pouch grabbing his cuffs. Quickly, you rip off his vest and shirt leaving his torso bare. You walk behind him in the chair, your hands on his shoulders running down his arms, a burning trail left where ever your nails lightly scratch, until your hands make it his wrists. Roughly grabbing them and yanking them behind his back, cuffing his wrist to the chair, permanently securing him in place to allow you to do whatever you please. He assumed you were just going to take advantage of the situation and leave, but he was sorely mistaken. You travel to the front of him leaning forward to kiss his jaw, traveling down to his neck. You roam his neck, searching for his pulse, kissing it once you find it. A groan rips out past his lips, unable to stop it at the sudden pleasure coursing through him. The noise sending a wave over power over you as you start kissing more harshly, sucking and biting at the spot, desperately wanting to hear the noise again.

Once satisfied with the mark now on his neck, you back up standing in front of him, your hands moving down to his pants as you start undoing them. His eyes widen as you pull down his pants and underwear down in one swift movement, his raging boner slapping against his abdomen as he sucks in a harsh breath at the release from the tight confinement. A whine leaves his lips as your hands leave burning trails all over his body, purposely avoiding where he was starting to crave your touch most. Desperate to know how your soft touches would feel against him, the anticipation of whether you’d be gentle or not was starting to eat him alive.

“Did I hear a whine baby? Are you that desperate for me. Look at you, rock hard and I haven’t even done anything yet, absolutely disgusting.” Your words like venom. He twitches as your hand grasps the base of his cock, a deep gasp coming out at your sudden touch. Your other hand goes to his hip pushing him down. Your mouth goes to his ear, “If you fucking move again, I will stop do you understand?” Katsuki swallows hard, suddenly unable to find any words. He hisses as you hand leaves his dick to his throat, choking the man. “Answer me Bakugou”

“Yes princess” He couldn’t help it anymore. He was under your trance but he could care less, all he knew was he needed you. That evil smirk crosses your face once again at his submission.

“Good boy” You release his neck and trail back down to his throbbing dick. Your thumb brushes over his tip collecting all of the precum oozing out of it. You slowly pump him in your hand, his breath catching in his throat. You gather the excess saliva in your mouth and spit it onto his hard cock. His eyes shoot to yours as the cool liquid meets his burning hot member.

Your hand starts a steady past as you move up and down, making sure to add pressure to the prominent vein on the underside of his shaft. Your hand twisting every time you get to his tip earning a deep groan from his throat. He gets lost in ecstasy as you start picking up the pace, giving extra attention to his tip. He’s so caught up in it that when you replace your hand with your mouth he lets out a moan. You make him bottom out inside your mouth and the noises coming from the man infront of you make you let out a moan yourself, the vibrations only bringing him further pleasure.

“Fuck princess that- ugh- feels sooo good” your tongue presses deeply into the vein all the way up to his tip, you make sure to give extra attention to the sensitive swollen head. Relaxing your throat, you take him all the way in, him pressing down your throat. But it was completely worth is for the look on his face. Eyebrows furrowed and his head thrown back in pure bliss. You move you head back up adding your hand in to meet his balls as you start massaging them. Katsuki is a moaning mess under your touch and wants nothing more than to run his hands through your hair and fuck into your mouth relentlessly. Watch as you start tearing up at the lack of air as he just gets off. But being completely under your control instead turned him on to no end. The added pleasure from your hand in combination with your mouth was sending him over board. He throws his head back as a deep groan leaves his lips along with several profanities as he shoots hot white ropes into your mouth, His orgasm taking over him with no warning. Surprised by his sudden release you swallow all of his seed, yet continue your movements. When he notice that you show no sign of stopping he lets out a whine at how sensitive he was. He tried moving away but your free hand grips his thigh, fingernails digging in as he hisses at the pain.

“Wha-what are you doing? I cant-” his voice uneasy from a mix of coming down from his high and the sensitivity he felt. You release his dick with a loud pop.

“You see I never said you could finish, but you decided to be a selfish little whore and finish anyways.” You stand up, releasing your grip from both his balls and thighs. You push his knees together and then move your hands to the clip of your bra and undo it, letting it drop to the ground. Your hands shoot to your breasts as you give them a rough squeeze, Katsuki drinking in the sight, whimpering as his sensitive cock twitches. His eyes glued to your hands as the travel down your body to the waistband of your matching underwear. Your fingers toying with the band, slightly dipping it and bringing it back up, loving how Bakugou reacted to your every move. His face flushed from the hormones rushing through his body, his dick painfully hard at the beautiful image infront of him. You pull the underwear down your thighs, strings of slick connect to the lacy clothing. Saying that everything that had been happening wasn’t turning you on severely would be dead wrong. Every moan that left his mouth sent a jolt straight to your core and you wanted, no needed, something, and you knew exactly what you were going to do.

You bring you legs on either side of one of his massive thigh and lower yourself onto him. His eyes widen as you grind yourself against him, throwing your head back as pleasure courses through you at the friction. His eyes shoot to where you were seated and watched as you shamelessly got yourself off on him. He watched as your juices drip down his leg, his cock twitches as he wanted nothing more than to be buried deep within your walls, slamming into you. He wines as you let out a loud moan, the friction feeling so good against your swollen clit.

“Please princess- fuck- let me make you feel go-” You stop his talking by shoving the lace into his mouth and grab his jaw roughly.

“All you deserve right now is to be my pretty little fuck toy okay. If you can behave then maybe ill let you fuck me.” You purr into his ear, your hot breath fanning across his neck as you move your hips grinding against him. You moan at the feeling, continuing to expertly move your hips back and forth. As you feel yourself getting close you reach your hand up to your nipples and starts tugging at them sending waves of pleasure into your core, giving you just the boost you needed. Your hand shoots to the back of Kastuki’s head tugging on his soft hair as you chaise your release. He watches your every move as you cum all over his thigh, his cock throbbing at the sight of your orgasm. Your eyes closed, eyebrows furrowed as you bit your lip, failing your attempt to hold back your moans. Once you come down from your high you move your legs so that you are no longer straddling his thigh, but now his waist, your soaking core pressed against his dick. A muffled moan attempts to leave his lips at the much needed pressure. Your hand goes to his mouth and you retrieve the now soaked pair of undies, a trail of saliva following. “Do you want to fuck me baby?”

“Yes, please Y/N. please let me fill you up.” he groans as you move your hips to grind against him.

“Do you think you deserve to touch me?” You ask the desperate man, a smile on your face at how eager he is.

“Fuck yes, let me make you feel so good” You lean down to wear his pants were grabbing the key, reaching behind him pushing the key into the cuff unlocking them. His hand immediately go to your body assaulting everything he could touch. Firmly grasping your breasts moving his hands across your body down to your hips as you lift yourself to allow him to slip into you. A moan escapes both of you as he bottoms out due to how slick you were. Your walls clench around him holding him like a vice. He trusts into you holding onto your hips and you place your hands onto each of his shoulders, letting you stabilize yourself as he rutts into you.

Each of his thrusts hit all of the right spots, rubbing against your walls deep inside of you. You’ve never felt this filled. You lean down and your lips meet with a fiery passion. Tongues fight for dominance as he speeds up his movements. You eventually win, not wanting him to forget his place. You break away from the kiss, a mix of both of you spit dripping from your mouth and you let it drip onto his glistening chest. You look down at his lustful face.

“You fill me up so good Bakugou, hitting every spot with your massive cock. Are you close baby?” Your hands making their way back to his hair, tugging at the blond locks as you feel the familiar feeling building in your core as he slams into your g-spot.

“uughh yes. I can feel how close you are, So fucking tight- god, fuck- let me cum with you princess.” His words enough to start the overwhelming feeling so you lean into his ear.

“Then cum with me baby” He sends a rough thrust into you and you come undone, a white flash taking over at the intensity of this second orgasm. You yank on the locks of hair in your fingers. Katsuki groans feeling you clench around him, trusting into you haphazardly as his own orgasm takes over, completely filling you with his hot cum.

He slows his movements, riding out both of your highs, until he comes to a stop still deep inside of you. You both stay there catching your breath as you rest you head on his shoulder trying to regain your senses. After a few moments you lift yourself off of him, immediately missing the fullness. You move off of his lap and allow him to stand up to grab his clothes. He bends over grabbing his pants and pulling them back on. While fumbling with the button he is suddenly interrupted by a hard hit to the head causing him to fall to the floor. You frown slightly at him as you place the chair back on the ground. You slip on your clothes and drag him to the cell wall and sit him against the bars. You clip the cuffs in place securing him to the bar as you back up slightly, pushing the fallen hair out of his face.

“Its nothing personal I promise” You stand up and walk away from the unconscious man toward to door, key in hand. You unlock the cell door and walk out, not before turning back to him one final time.

“Plus I don’t think this is the last time we will be meeting.”

A/N: AAAAAAAAA im sORRY. If you guys enjoy this one I can do a part two were the tables are turned??? because im a slut for dom! bakugou

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sendmyresignation · 4 years

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In Defense of Teenagers:

Ok so. There seems to be a general consensus that Teenagers doesn’t fit on the black parade or that it ruins the trajectory of the album or that the song order of bp needs to be changed to fit the b-sides and drop Teenagers, or it should have just been a single- basically any option other than its inclusion between Sleep and Disenchanted would have been better. now, i’m not here to tell anyone that they’re wrong- i just want to offer an alternative perspective because i truly believe Teenagers is right where it belongs and that its inclusion on that album is, in my opinion, completely necessary to the album’s narrative arc. I want to focus on the way Teenagers builds into the foundation of the Concept Record, the way it bridges the gap between Sleep and Disenchanted so as not to delegitimize Disenchanted’s impact, and the fact that no other available material fits into the struggle the Patient endures at the end of the narrative (sorry this got LONG here’s a read more)

So, before we get into the meat of Teenager’s narrative significance, i wanted to briefly mention the way it makes Black Parade a more cohesive whole in relation to the material it is mimicking. Like Black Parade as an album is structured very differently from Pink Floyd’s The Wall- but it takes a lot of the same beats and recontextualizes them for a new purpose. Both records use war and relationship troubles and school and drugs to create an atmosphere that leads to disillusionment. In The Wall, this is quite literally the protagonist, Pink, building up “bricks in the wall” that isolates him from the rest of society and lead to a downward spiral into cynicism and hate. But Black Parade uses the same tools that The Wall does to say something different- things, specifically the actions you've made or the trauma you've endured, haunts you and makes your life seem insignificant in the face of what happens to you and those regrets are what causes the Patient to fall into a cycle of damnation and cynicism. This is representative of the Patient's descent through the afterlife- each new "layer" of the Patient's exploration is equivalent to a brick in The Wall's metaphor. Additionally, in this new context, this song in particular takes The Wall’s discussions of adolescence and the vice-grip control older generations attempt to force on teens and the disillusionment with the future and retells it from a new perspective- both literally in the fact the song is now more reflective of the 2000s post-9/11 and post-columbine culture, but its also literally from the perspective of the Patient as an adult. Teenagers, as a result, becomes a necessary piece of that puzzle- it is the refraction of Another Brick in the Wall repurposed to mean something new entirely- it’s no longer about kids being forced into complacency by a cruel education system from their own perspective (the children’s choir allows them to speak for themselves) but about the ways in which adults see those kids and why they decide to enact actions similar to those within The Wall. I mean even the imagery used in the song’s music video is purposely almost plagiarizing The Wall- it feeds into a separate analysis of the video and song outside the narrative as well- which i don’t have time right now to get into, its just very interesting that the band is bodily removed from their instruments at the end of the video and the teenagers in the audience have rendered them incapacitated (“they’re looking for a rockstar to kill” anyone?) it's the metaphorical tearing down of the wall from a completely different perspective. Anyway, the work Teenagers does for the narrative is it fits the album into the Concept Record Cinematic Universe- it is a piece that evokes the material it is influenced by to build off of the old to create the new- without it, the connections to The Wall would still be there, sure, but it wouldn’t be as complete- you cannot recontextualize the album without the foundation of Teenagers.

Teenagers is also, at its core, a subtle subversion of genre- using the blueprint of a specific kind of song to center the song within the timeline/narrative. In this case, the same way I Don’t Love You mimics and exaggerates the emotive and plaintive 80s rock ballad, Teenagers twists the classic rock of a bygone era to specifically call back on the stadium rock anthem. Black Parade, on the whole, does this quite frequently- most of its songs take pre-existing genre cues and subverts them in ways that play off of the expected tapestry of a concept record to create individual sounding songs that seamlessly transition into one another yet remain entirely separate. It maintains their presence as scenes in a larger tapestry- specifically the fabric of the Black Parade being a morality play. This serves two purposes, it allows for this exaggeration of genre to become a motif within the work (see mama, cancer, house of wolves, i don’t love you, wttbp -> they all play with a different, varied song type/structure that is distinct from each other) and it plays off of existing genre-stereotypes in ways that contribute to the songs overall function. I Don’t Love You, for example, undermines the fundamental purposes of sappy power ballads- to express one of the two dualities of love songs: the cheesy unconditional “i will love you forever” types or the plaintive, melancholic end-of-relationship song by instead focusing on the complexity of a not-quite-finished relationship. The ballad then shifts from an expression of love to one of human loss- and the loss is less about the individual speaking, but moreso about what the other character has become - it’s a mourning not for the relationship, but for the person themselves, who they used to be in a way. It shifts from the one-dimensional view of what a ballad can achieve and instead infuses the anger, the resignation, the drama, the transformation- it humanizes a very stock genre full of platitudes and uses our expectations to create something more interesting. Similarly, Teenagers takes a tired genre and utilizes the working mechanisms of its typical song structure to subvert and repurpose those into commentary- its literally a stadium rock song that devolves into a chant. Looking at the loud drumbeat that resonates in your chest, the all together now as a command that lures the listener into singing along, the addition of more chorus vocals at the end like a crowd is shouting along, the screaming and the solo on after another like the song is falling apart a little bit, all of these elements build into a song literally meant to be infectious and replicated by the audience. Herein lies one of the songs many interpretations- humans can be easily influenced by the media they consume, the perspectives they are fed. What happens when the view that we have of adolescence is cloaked in mistrust and violence? This aspect of the song is less about the band reconciling teenagers being moved to committing acts of violence and more in analyzing how an audience can be persuaded into believing the erroneous view of teens as fundamentally destructive- are you not repeating the chorus? do teenagers not “scare the shit out of you”? Obviously the band doesn’t want you to believe this but it does what you to think about why this perspective is so common. It's a cultural subliminal message that is present in songs and tv and books that we simply do not question- it is a chant we cannot help but join in on. Teenagers is a replication of that process, but is clearly just subversive enough (both as a piece of genre and just as a song in general terms) that the listener knows its commentary and not itself propagating that viewpoint. Every song on Black Parade does this kind of “genre-bending” to make a point in some way or another, so it's a significant reason Teenagers fits into the albums cohesion.

But,Teenagers isn’t just important to the album in its sound- it lyrically parallels Disenchanted in a way that effectively moves on from Sleep without losing the album’s emotional momentum. Sleep, conceptually and lyrically, is a very heavy track- its influence from the Dune soundtrack’s Final Dream turn a cinematic, swelling piece of instrumentation into an oppressive blanket of noise that bears down on the listener and the lyrics are referential to the patient believing themselves to be irredeemable and monstrous. It's also inspired directly from Gerard’s vivid and violent night terrors during his stay at the paramour- including a recording of Gerard’s recollection of those dreams, that mentions being choked, seeing loved ones die, burning alive, etc. To transition directly from such a dark, personal subject into a reflective acoustic number about the narrator’s adolescence would be tonally inappropriate and almost laughable- it would stop the progression in its tracks, while also doing a disservice to Disenchanted. Having a break is necessary! And it's even more appropriate for that break to be a song about teenagers considering Disenchanted is so nostalgic. Additionally, Teenagers brings up a really interesting narrative thread about the Patient becoming disenchanted with the youth that then directly transitions into a song about him losing faith in his values and sense of self- they are directly correlated conceptually. Looking deeper, Disenchanted is a punk song. sort of. more specifically, it is the foundation of a punk song that becomes a ballad through narrative framing- it takes punk cliches (running from the cops, the crowds, the imagery of guillotining traitorous rich celebrities) and turns them wistful and sad because the Patient is looking back at something they no longer understand or identify with, it allows the narrative to illustrate how the Patient feels like their life was worthless and didn’t amount to much and they’re just another stupid punk kid who grew up and didn’t achieve anything. and you can’t get to this point from Sleep because it would weaken Disenchanted’s impact, make it seem insignificant and petulant in the face of Sleep’s heavy and grand sorrow. Lyrically, you need Teenagers to bridge the gap between the war metaphors and the visualizations of hell and the all-encompassing nature of cancer in order to redirect the focus to the Patient and limit the scope of the narrative at the end of the album. Teenagers, within the story, then functions as the Patient reflecting on the nature of youth and, in the wake of Mama’s “we all go to hell” rhetoric, comes to the conclusion that teenagers are wholly violent, easily manipulated, and unsympathetic. It's another step in the Patient removing his own agency and viewing his life as predestined at the same time it allows the “plot” to focus back on the more nostalgic and mundane aspects of the patient’s life. Doing so makes Famous Last Words so much more significant because it forces the Patient to reconcile with his past before he can move forward (whether that's living or dying its still applicable). so, Teenagers is very important to the overall “plot” of Black Parade- it is fundamentally necessary for the pieces to fit together.

Another larger aspect of Teenagers' importance is that it introduces the fate versus free will internal debate central to the ending fourth of the record. The song lays the foundation for this thematic idea by being about the fated violence of the youth and how they cannot help but to respond to their world with anger and cruelty. This realization about adolescence by the Patient leads to him perceiving his own youth as destructive and worthless and in following the themes of guilt/regret and damnation it's this violence that began his path to hell or his current state of suffering. In that vein, Teenagers leads into the idea that your life is predetermined or that there is a destiny that we all have (in the Patient’s case its the absence of a future, or “a lifelong wait for a hospital stay”) and no matter what, you cannot fight that. While Mama gives a blanket statement about how "we all go to hell", Disenchanted centers the Patient's specific destiny by saying his whole life has led up to his illness and, looking further, there is the implication that life before that was retrospectively pointless. So, as previously mentioned, Disenchanted begins, structurally and lyrically, as a punk song- this sort of expression of youthful existence that, in any other song or under another faster instrumentation, would fit on some basement demo from 1986. But it doesn't stay that way, instead it actively subverts the genre it's cliches are lifted from- thinking specifically about “we ran from the cops” and the “roar of the crowd” that is juxtaposed with the change in structure or theme. Namely, punk songs (speaking generally here) aren’t wistful because there isn't really a sense of legacy in punk music. There's history yes, but most songs are about the immediacy of emotion, not existential questioning. The retrospective nature and the shift into a ballad structure are elements reflective of a change in the main character brought on by the disillusionment present in teenagers from a punk kid to a dying young man looking back on the banality of youth and the hypocrisy, the trauma and the lack of agency. It's so much easier to think that nothing matters and the perspective makes it so much easier to give up.

This build from Teenagers into Disenchanted regarding the Patient's fate allows Famous Last Words to become an even stronger end because it's in direct opposition to that perspective. Famous Last Words is a song that screams fuck fate and fuck the past- the only thing that matters is moving forward. The image of the Patient keeping on whether he’s walking into the afterlife or continuing to stay alive as long as possible becomes something difficult, something he had to fight to achieve - he had to struggle to find a new understanding. That he can't be "afraid to keep living" or "going home" and that these are concrete actions, a use of free will. And that free will is very specifically defiant. Regardless of how you view the Patient's end, he makes the conscious decision to accept the present and move forward. We are not fated to die alone, nor is life worthless. Black Parade proves that the opposite is true, that we must grow to accept the value of life, and it's so much stronger having the Patient actively reject nihilism and apathy. Ultimately, Teenagers introduces the main thread of the final songs and without it, those songs would be narrative incomplete.

So, Teenagers has a valued place on the album sonically and within the narrative whole, that much is clear. But another reason that the album order of Sleep, Teenagers and Disenchanted is important is that none of the other material written for the album comes close to filling its place. In this case, I am going to be specifically talking about the b-sides since the demos are incomplete and we have no idea what the final version would have sounded like (but I would contend they don’t fit either). Beginning with the easiest song to discard from the narrative- My Way Home Is Through You has its moments in the lyrics but it's completely out of place musically- plus the tone is a little too hopeful for this point in the album which does not gel with Disenchanted’s hopelessness. It's also incongruent with the album since Disenchanted is effective as the only “punk” song on a record that plays with and explores genre and having this come before it would ruin the previously mentioned motif of each of the songs being individual and unique in form. Also, it really adds nothing to the fate vs free will theme- meaning its placement would weaken the disenchanted/flw combo ending. Moving forward, Kill All Your Friends seems to fit, considering its cynicism and nostalgia, but the bridge (“you’ll never get me alive, you’ll never take me alive, do what it takes to survive and I'm still here") doesn’t fit the Patient’s slow decent into apathy at all and contradicts Disenchanted’s loss of faith in the idea of living- it's too hopeful and centers survival and resilience in a way that makes it an ineffective substitute for Teenagers as a bridge song. And finally, Heaven Help Us is too religiously centered- it would refocus the fate vs free will discussion in the context of god/angels when that isn’t a theme in the album up to this point (hell is the grounded point of the album- the protagonist has already accepted their fate by Mama- having a reconciliation with a lack of faith or the absence of God seems completely out of left field when its just not an established part of the narrative) Black Parade is actually one of the mcr albums with the least references to god/angels in the heavenly religious sense- more centered around the human struggle against determinism: the usage of damnation is Catholic inspired but divorced from the division of hell vs heaven and is instead about guilt and worthiness and agency. The presence of angels or god or any divinity would simply weaken the narrative by expanding the album's focus outside its own limitations. Also, the Patient isn't ever a martyred figure, if anything he is purposely pathetic. Including any comparison of the Patient to Christ ("give you all the nails you need") or a saint unravels the key feature of the Patient's character: that he is insignificant. His insignificance and his struggles with his past actions make him a character who must find the strength to live through the guilt and pain to prove that everyone is worthy of life. The overarching purpose of Black Parade is emphasizing that no matter what we've done and how dirty we feel, we can move forward and either accept our afterlife or we can find value in being alive. Because of this contradiction, Heaven Help Us destroys the central theme of the entire album if it is included. With all of this in mind, it seems to me that the b-sides are their own nebulous thing- they don’t tonally fit on Black Parade (though I do think they fit together and are interconnected thematically) but any of them would break the flow since they seem angrier and gritter in a way that is noticeably absent and would be at odds with from a lot of Parade’s resignation. They also just do not complete the narrative, they are simple not as good as Teenagers at bringing all the pieces together.

If I still haven’t convinced you, a bonus reason Teenagers is a valuable memeber of the Black Parade tracklist, Ray was the only one who believed in the song- he called it genius (x) so listen to mr chemical romance himself telling you the song is Good and Important :)

anyway now you should, at the very least respect teenagers based on a couple thematic ideas expressed here, if not also understand why it’s imperative to black parade as an album, as well as the narrative itself. <3

#here she is. my teenagers manifesto. months in the making :')#this is the equivalent of getting on my biggest soapbox and screaming for hours please enjoy <33 #my posts #mcr assigned reading #my chemical romance #mcr #black parade

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chimtaera · 4 years

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imagine barista taehyung.

ok first things first.

taehyung runs the most aesthetic, atmospheric, coffee shop of all time.

doesn’t matter if he doesn’t own the place, he’s gonna decorate.

paintings of the walls by local artist and van gogh alike.

boardgames and puzzles on the shelves for rainy days.

will play uno with you on slow days.

and you know the playlist is gonna be on point.

also the most experimental with his drinks.

like he’s gotten in trouble for experimenting with people’s orders, so now he gives away his frankendrinks for free.

and outgoing as he is he’s on first name basis with everyone who’s visited more than twice.

he won’t remember your order, but he’ll remember your name, and/or give you a nickname, and/or draw you a correlating doodle on your to-go cup.

you’re probably a tired student in need of a quiet place to read and/or write your assignments.

you’re gonna need caffeine too, so you might as well camp out in a coffee shop.

taehyung is chatty and wants to know what you’re studying for, what assignment you’re working on, and will you try his iced pumpkin-spice dirty chai latte with cinnamon?

and this being a perfect opportunity to procrastinate, so you strike up a friendship with the barista.

thus you end up being designated test-subject for his new and exciting concoctions.

dw they’re only undrinkable 2% of the time. you’ll be fine.

taehyung thinks ur cute, but u r kinda clueless.

cue montage of taehyung trying to hint that he’s into you and you completely missing out because you’re either buried in your work or just think he’s being nice:

hearts in all your drinks, in the foam, in the sprinkles, in the whipped cream, even in the chocolate sauce. but that doesn’t have to mean anything right?? that’s just what baristas do, he’s just practicing his craft, right??

brings you pastries and cookies for free, making excuses that there’s something wrong with it so he was gonna throw it out anyway.

“this cookie has too many chocolate chips, you can have it”

“is this pastry too sweet? you decide.”

“we can’t sell this, it’s on fire. here you go.”

“a time traveller licked this one.”

but he’s just trying to cheer you up because he sees how hard you’re studying, right???

dedicates chat baker songs to you, but he’s just being silly haha right ???

gazes longingly at you while he’s steaming the milk until it’s ruined, lmao he’s so easily distracted. totally not in love with you hahaha ha ha h a right???

except he totally is.

and you totally are in love with him too, but you don’t wanna seem like you’re assuming things or make him uncomfortable at his place of work because he’s a service worker yanno, he’s paid to be nice.

but one evening you’ve got an assignment due that night, and you were up all of last night writing, and you’re so exhausted no amount of coffee can keep awake and oopsy daisy you’ve fallen asleep at your table in the coffee shop.

and you won’t know this, but taehyung switches playlists to something quieter and tries to steam milk as quietly as possible which isn’t very that shit is noisy, but it’s the thought that counts yanno.

anyway it’s late, and eventually he has to close the shop and so he wakes you, with coffee of course.

and you panic because you only have an hour until you have to turn in your paper and it’ll take you half that time to get home.

taehyung is quick to comfort you though, it takes him about an hour to close up shop, and you’re more than welcome to stay until then.

this is lowkey a lie, it takes taehyung only half an hour to close up, but he wants to help you out and also just wants to be around you.

and you’re still sleepy and so grateful you blurt some nonsense along the lines of “omg thank you let me buy you coffee some time!!”

and he laughs and you blush because obviously he has more than enough coffee.

but, to your surprise he accepts. “as long as it’s not here”, he says. and he may be blushing a little too.

so he takes his time, cleans extra thoroughly, goes through some of the routines that are only necessary once a week, humming along to some soft jazz.

and the sleep has done you good, so you manage to tie up all your loose ends and complete your paper, with enough time spare to read through it once and correct some spelling. truly a miracle.

and imagine, as you leave together and he locks up your jacket gets caught in the door and he has to help you get it loose and oops he’s really close now

so close you can count his eyelashes and you can’t breathe he’s so pretty!!?!?!? and he smells like freshly ground coffee beans and cookies still warm from the oven, honestly he’s mouthwatering.

and he’s like “hey, actually, neither of us has eaten, you wanna get dinner right now instead of coffee later?” and hells yes you do, suddenly reminded that you are absolutely starving.

so you agree but he’s still so close, like all up in your personal space and you don’t mind exactly, but it makes your heart beat out of control and you’re pretty sure you’re blushing so hard you’re radiating heat.

and then he asks “so, do i have to wait until after the date to kiss you or..?”

and you choke on nothing because, “wait, we’re going on a date?”

“yes, i just decided.” and he steps impossibly closer. “i wanna date you, do you wanna date me?”

“i mean, yes, yeah, of course, i-”

“okay, then i’m just gonna kiss you now.”

and he does, and it’s just a sweet and gentle press of lips against yours, but he’s so close and warm and smells so nice it’s pretty much heavenly.

and after dinner he walk you home and kisses you some more before ushering you inside to get some much needed rest.

needless to say, studying at the coffee shop is a little more distracting after that.

taehyung will straight up push your books out of your lap and sit on you to pepper you with kisses, at least once a day.

and you finally notice the hearts in all your drinks, that are meant especially for you.

but also a lot more enjoyable!!

anyway, nsfw under the cut.

taehyung more like tae-HUNG (sorry.)

i feel like taehyung would be a lot of fun in bed.

he’s confident, he’s fun, he’s adventurous, inventive, and a little weird, and i think those things all play out pretty well in the bedroom.

or, yanno, shower, bathroom floor, hallway mirror, storage closet, in a boat, with a goat, etc.

best of all he’s very attentive, he’ll pay so close attention to you, very intense at times.

every time you have a reaction he likes he will grin and chuckle to himself and do whatever he did again and again and again until you’re begging him to cum.

also gets really horny at like the weirdest and most inconvenient times and will get really whiny and clingy and subtly rub up against you until you can sneak away somewhere and get each other off.

imagine his as soon as he has a break from work giving you a look like “now.” and ur like “now??” and he’s like “nOW.”

don’t tell his boss but he will go down on you in the storage closet if you let him.

relieve some stress, you know, you’re studying so hard you deserve it!!

he’s very convincing.

like i said, pretty adventurous. so he’ll want to try out new positions and stuff all the time.

not because regular sex is boring, but because it’s fun to explore!

he’s more than happy to just sit back and let you ride him on the sofa.

he’s pretty verbal too, and you can expect a lot of praise.

bottom line taehyung is hot as hell, and sex with him would be too.

lucky you!

#taehyung smut #bts smut #kpop smut #taehyung imagine #bts imagines #kpop imagines #barista taehyung #taehyung scenarios #taehyung #bts scenarios #BTS au #bts fluff #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff #bts taehyung

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catxsnow · 4 years

Note

hiii can you do fluff alphabets for jaybird? :)

Jason deserves all the softness

A = Attractive (What do they find attractive about the other?)

Jason loves your hands. He can't get over how much more soft and delicate they are compared to his own rough calloused ones. There's nothing better than coming home from a long day to you dragging your hands on him or playing with his hair. B = Baby (Do they want a family? Why/Why not?)

Jason fully believes that he's not capable of being a good father. He had a terrible one growing up and Bruce wasn't much better. However, when you bring up the idea to him, he doesn't realize how much his heart aches to have kids with you. He's still very hesitant at the idea of it all.

C = Cuddle (How do they cuddle?)

Jason is completely exhausted nearly every night he comes home. He'll lie flat on his back with you cuddled into his side and that's the perfect way for him to end his night. D = Dates (What are dates with them like?)

Jason loves to go the family owned businesses in whatever town he's in. Whether it's a restaurant or cafe, or even a boutique, those are his favourite places to go with you. It's always something new and different and you never get tired of it. Not to mention that he likes to support the families because Jason is the most caring man in the world. E = Everything (You are my ____ (e.g. my life, my world...))

You are my heart and soul F = Feelings (When did they know they were in love?)

Jason knew he was in love when you asked to meet his family. He tried to keep them away from you for so long because he knew how crazy and judgmental they could be against him - he couldn't drag you into that either. However, you promised him that you would never judge him based off his family - you were dating him, not them. Jason knew that he was in love with you at that point - anyone crazy enough to want to meet his family had to be special. G = Gentle (Are they gentle? If so, how?)

Jason is rough around the edges. He tries to contain it around you and 95% of the time he does. However, when he comes home from a mission gone bad, he tries not to let his anger out on you but sometimes he ends up yelling at you and he knows you don't deserve it. Jason always feels bad about it instantly. He always makes it up to you, but you understand. His life is insane and he bottles things up until he explodes. The two of you had been working on that together for a while now. H = Hands (How do they like to hold hands?)

Jason doesn't like to intertwine fingers, he just likes a classic hand hold. You asked him why early on in your relationship and he responded with his ability for quicker reflexes. Jason always wanted to be as fast as he could if anything were to ever happen while you were together. His priority was to keep you safe at all times. I = Impression (What was their first impression?)

He thought you were the most breath-taking person in the room. The second that he saw you he knew that he needed to get to know you. J = Jealousy (Do they get jealous?)

yepyepyep Jason does get jealous - especially with his brothers. Dick loves to flirt with you and you and Tim were close friends. He hated it, a lot. However the worst time? You met Roy and he was instantly attracted to you. Jay was so mad that Roy tried to pull moves on you that he had to be held back from fighting his best friend. K = Kiss (How do they kiss? Who initiated the first kiss?)

(did this one already so I just copied from the original post)

Jason initiated the first kiss. My man is a COCKY BASTARD and just went in for it without evening thinking twice.

I think Jason is very a rushed kisser. He can't get enough of you and he just constantly needs more. So, behind closed doors Jason is trying compact all of his desire into a short amount of time. Living on the streets for part of his life left him not to dwell and take his time.

L = Love (Who says 'I love you' first?)

You do. It was just after you found out that he was Red Hood and you were taking care of a fresh wound from that night. He didn't understand why you were crying until you confessed that you loved him and were scared to see him get hurt badly. M = Memory (What's their favourite memory together?)

Jason's favourite memory of you is the time that you punched Roy in the face. He was being an ass and you had enough of it. Jason couldn't stop laughing at Roy's reaction and he fell in love with you even more that day.

His favourite memory of you together, was the first time you trained together. After finding out that he was Red Hood you asked if he could teach you a little bit. When you showed up in your cute little outfit all excited to learn how to fight he felt giddy inside. You were so determined and excited to be there. Jason was so in love with you as you tried to throw punches as hard as him. N = Nickel (Do they spoil? Do they buy the person they love everything?)

Jason doesn't buy a lot of things for himself, but he buys lots for you. He spoils you with flowers constantly. O = Orange (What colour reminds them of their other half?)

White. Jason's life is anything but pure and you're the only exception. He correlates you with innocence and purity in this gruesome life of his. P = Pet names (What pet names do they use?)

Princess is by far his favourite. He uses babe a lot to. One time as a joke you called him a peasant and now you guys call each other by it all the time. Q = Quaint (What is their favourite non-modern thing?)

Old literature. Jason loves the classics and he'll read them again and again. R = Rainy Day (What do they like to do on a rainy day?)

Jason loves to have baths with you. He'll fill up the tub and you guys will hand out in there until the water is too cold. Before that during the day, he just wants to laze in bed with you for hours and hours. The two of you will just talk, read, watch movies, cuddle, it's just what he needs for his day off. S = Sad (How do they cheer themselves/others up?)

Jason bottles everything. He doesn't like talking about it and he certainly doesn't want to burden you with how he feels. You have to beg him to talk about it and when he finally does, it's like a waterfall of hidden emotions. As vulnerable as he feels with you, he also feels a hell of a lot better as well.

Jason cheers you up with a drive. He takes you anywhere you want without a destination in mind. The two of you chat about what's going on with you until you finally feel better and have a more level headed mind with his advice. Will also 10/10 buy you food before going back home. T = Talking (What do they like to talk about?)

his death

Jason loves literature. He used to read books constantly and he loves having debates about them with you. He's always interested to see his readings in a different perspective. U = Unencumbered (What helps them relax?)

Cooking. Jason will be stressed out and you'll come home to a five course meal and six dozen cookies. He loves to cook and he's good at it too. It always seems to take his mind off of what's bothering him. V = Vaunt (What do they like to show off? What are they proud of?)

How well he's doing without Bruce. Jason always despises that he's leaned off of Bruce for so many years. He loves to see how much he's accomplished without his help and without his ridiculous moral code. W = Wedding (When, how, where do they propose?)

Jason doesn't really propose. You're the one to bring up marriage to him and he's says if you want to then he's game. Otherwise, it's not a big priority. X = Xylophone (What's their song?)

Over My Dead Body by Drake. Y = Yes (Do they ever think of getting married/proposing?)

It's never really been a thought for Jason. He loves you and he's never going to stop loving you whether or not you're married. Z = Zebra (If they wanted a pet, what would they get?)

He's pretty basic and just wants a dog. It's gotta be a big one like a Saint Bernard.

#jason todd #jason todd imagine #jason todd x reader #jason todd fluff #fluff #dc imagine #dc #dc fluff #fluff alphabet

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nitw · 4 years

Text

book 3′s theme of growing up vs escapism, and what that says about grace and simon’s fates

infinity train book 3 is as much about empathy and morality as it is about maturity. grace and simon deal with the same obstacles in very different ways, and with the last 2 episodes coming out soon, i wanna make an analysis of what we’ve seen so far, and how that might correlate to the ending of each of their arcs. this is gonna be a LOOOOONG post.

the way the first episode opens up blows my mind every time i watch it. implementing the “when i look at you, i see me” song jesse mentioned in book 2, which is all about accepting each other’s differences, in contrast to the chaos of the apex onscreen? amazing. keep in mind that this was a kids’ song that jesse was taught in school, which makes it even better/worse considering the apex is full of small children.

this is where we get our first proper looks at grace and simon this season. let’s talk about grace first:

grace herself was probably the one who turned the fitting room into her personal throne. she dances around cheerfully as she gears up for her mission. it’s already obvious at this point that grace has quite the superiority complex, but to quote the cat much later on; “she’s very full of herself”.

we get a deeper insight on this in episode 3, when she talks to hazel about her loneliness due to difficulty making friends as a kid.

grace tends to pin the blame on others for her problems to ignore how insecure she really feels, which is likely one of the reasons she ended up on the train, and leading the apex sure didn’t help.

she’s also shown to be very manipulative. she’s a smooth talker who knows how to twist her words to make her seem more trustworthy, and can be very controlling of others to get what she wants. as the leader of the apex, she’s learned how to talk to kids, especially.

now let’s get to simon. THESE are the first shots we see of him:

in contrast to grace sitting proudly in her throne room under spotlights, simon spends his time alone in a small, poorly lit toy store which he’s revamped into a workshop for his miniature figures.

this whole opening sequence shows us, in a short amount of time and without dialogue, how different grace and simon really are. initially, grace feels on top of the world and wants everyone else to view her like that too. while simon isolates himself from the apex to focus on his own little hobbies when he’s not going on missions. he doesn’t feel the need to flaunt himself, because he doesn’t have the highest number and he’s not the leader, that’s grace. their individual surroundings paint a good picture of how they feel about themselves.

so what is there to say about simon? for starters, he’s very hot-headed and loses his temper easily when things don’t go his way...

... he has major trust/abandonment issues...

... and he collects miniatures.

why is that last part important? because from the very first shot of him and then several times throughout the season, simon is painted as the more immature and childlike of the duo.

let’s get a few things straight:

grace and simon are both 18 years old, the oldest members of the apex. 18 is usually considered the confusing midpoint of adolescence, not REALLY a kid anymore but not REALLY an adult just yet. but according to themselves, they don’t feel like adults (”never trust an adult passenger”).

they both arrived on the train when they were around 10, aka they’ve been stuck here for roughly 8 years.

IN those years, they’ve been totally misguided and didn’t know the true purpose of the train, which led them to their “this is our personal playground, and if you don’t play along, you’re weak” mentality. this is why they don’t trust denizens/nulls, they don’t see them as anything other than toys.

what i’ve talked about so far is pretty much how we’re introduced to the two: one has a superiority complex, the other has an inferiority complex, but they’re both equally willing players in the apex’s childish game of chaos and destruction.

... and then hazel and tuba happens.

this is in the second episode. what’s the first thing grace does when she initially meets the two? she acknowledges hazel’s bond with tuba and greets them both, despite her dislike towards nulls. she knows she’s good with kids and uses this to her advantage, because she doesn’t want to lose a potential addition to the apex, but the point is that she treats tuba with respect out of consideration for hazel.

meanwhile, in comparison, simon wants absolutely nothing to do with tuba. he doesn’t speak to her once in this scene and only comments on it to grace. the only thing holding him back from fighting tuba is his fear of losing.

this conflict goes on between them for several episodes. grace wants to get rid of tuba as much as simon, but she wants to take the most harmless approach possible for the sake of hazel’s feelings, while simon couldn’t care less about anyone’s feelings but his own:

but as grace naturally begins to question everything she thought she knew, and grows fond of both hazel AND tuba...

... simon becomes more frustrated and impatient, and lets his blind rage overpower him.

and simon knows this.

aside from fear of abandonment, there’s nothing he fears and hates more than being underestimated.

being looked down upon.

being ignored.

being treated like a child.

every season of infinity train is about change, personal development and self-reflection. book 3 is the season of coming to terms with adulthood and maturity, and this goes for both grace AND simon. they’re just on opposite ends of the scale.

grace’s number is high. it’ll take a long time before she manages to leave the train. but she’s made an active decision to be the bigger person, to open up to and trust even what she doesn’t fully understand. and now she’s finally headed in the right direction.

simon isn’t stuck on square 1. he’s falling further and further behind, because he’s too stubborn to grow up and accept the reality of his circumstances.

this show doesn’t really have any heroes, because the goal of our protagonists is to save themselves. but simon is too self-destructive AND destructive towards others, and the path he’s taken is leading him to the closest thing we have to a villain...

... and the events of the most recent episode may have been the last straw.

#leo.txt #long post #grace monroe #simon laurent #inftrain #infinity train #infinity train spoilers

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hopelesshawks · 3 years

Text

Physical Fatality Part 13- Icarus

18+ Hawks x fem, pro hero!reader

Summary: You’re a rising star in All Might’s agency. Hawks is the darling of Endeavor’s. By virtue of your job descriptions, the two of you are supposed to hate each other, or at the very least be cautiously neutral. For a long time that’s exactly what the two of you did. You stayed out of each other’s way and formed little opinion of the other. One fateful night at an HPSC gala changes all that. Based on the album Hopeless Fountain Kingdom by Halsey.

If you don’t want to see Physical Fatality content blacklist #hopelesspf

This story will have multiple NSFW parts so it is 18+ ONLY minors dni

Warning for very slight suicidal themes this fic has a happy ending I swear

Masterlist

Agony.

Losing you is agony.

Endeavor is lecturing him for pulling the stunt with Bakugo earlier that day but he can’t hear or really process any of it when all he can think about is the fact you’ve blocked his number and seem to want nothing to do with him. He vaguely registers words of “I told you so” and “I warned you” and even a word or two about a demotion but none of it matters. Hawks doesn’t know how to do anything but be a hero. It’s been the driving force behind a lot of the choices he’s made in your relationship and he knows it’s the same for you, but that doesn’t make any of this easier.

“You’re going to have to work really hard to earn my trust back Hawks and the trust of your coworkers,” Endeavor warns. “Understood,” Hawks replies, his voice almost detached. It seems to disconcert Endeavor, the other man being far more accustomed to the snarky Hawks persona than the serious man in front of him now. “Hawks, uhm, do you,” Endeavor stutters suddenly unsure. He coughs to cover his discomfort and clears his throat before resuming. “Do you need to talk about what happened between you and Artemis?” he finally manages to ask. He looks so deeply uncomfortable potentially talking about the subject and his discomfort only grows when Hawks continues to give him nothing back. “That won’t be necessary,” Hawks replies before turning and walking out of the office. If Hawks doesn’t know how to live without hero work, Keigo doesn’t know how to live without you. So his only option is to abandon Keigo until the pain stops.

He can’t have slept more than a handful of hours that night but he still wakes up early the next morning to run an extra patrol before his normally scheduled one. He files paperwork, even revisits old cases, all in a bid to keep you off his mind. Of course it’s not enough to stop his coworkers from whispering. Typically he ignores the gossip of the lower ranking heroes but it’s hard when he knows they’re speculating about you and him. It certainly doesn’t help that your break up was so public and now it feels like nearly all of Japan has watched the video of it happening. Hawks used to be the darling of Endeavor’s agency, beloved by all of his coworkers. Now he’s practically a pariah.

His new outcast status is only made more obvious at the cocktail party later that day. He’d wanted to skip it entirely, the fact you were supposed to be his plus one to the event made it all the more unappealing, but he’s already skating on thin ice and had no legitimate excuse to justify his absence. So instead he watches the other heroes talk and drink and laugh about things while he hides in the corner, too exhausted and heartbroken to put up the persona necessary to maintain conversation. No one seems to ask about him anyway or even care what he thinks despite the fact it’s his personal life that’s become the hottest topic in all of Japan. He wonders if this is how Icarus felt as he plummeted to the earth. Hawks had flown too close to your light and warmth and now he’s fallen from grace. He wonders if it’s true that Icarus laughed as he fell. If so he can empathize. As painful as this fall is, he would live it over and over if it meant he could catch even a glimpse of you again.

When Shoto comes to join him it’s literally the first genuine interaction he’s had all day. “You look like shit,” Shoto comments by way of greeting. “Thanks. Feel like it too,” Hawks replies. He doesn’t have to pretend with Shoto and for that he’s grateful. “Are you ok?” Shoto asks. “Even though I’ve always hated these things I was always so good at them,” Hawks starts in response. “I’d talk, drink, laugh just like everyone’s doing, be the center of attention, play the part of the charming number two hero. And look at me now. I’m so fucking anxious about what they’ll say about me, about her, about us and what happened that I can’t have a proper fucking conversation. I used to be on fire and now I’m standing in the ashes of who I used to be and I’m just fading away. Without her I’m fading away. I’m just as pathetic as she said,” Keigo confesses and it’s a weight off but it also makes the hollow space behind his ribs where you used to live feel all the more prominent. “This right here is kind of pathetic,” Shoto starts, earning him a shocked almost laugh from the other man, “but you are not pathetic Hawks. I think (y/n) knows that, she’s just hurting. Rightfully so. The bullshit with the others in the agency will get better too.” “I don’t know about that one.” “You’re not the only one who’s done dumb or bad shit. Not by a long shot.” “Really?” “You know Iida?” Shoto asks, pointing to the man in question as he obliviously continues his conversation with one of the others present. “Yea. Your year at UA, stickler for the rules. What about him?” Hawks asks. “He chose his internship our first year with the sole intention of trying to hunt down and kill Stain to avenge his brother.” “Really? That guy?” “Yep. My dad isn’t so innocent either: quirk marriage, child abuse, oh the stories I could tell you.” “Jesus Christ.” “Exactly. Everyone has their own shit Hawks. This will pass and hopefully you and (y/n) can find your ways back to each other when it does.”

Shortly after Todoroki finishes speaking his phone rings and he frowns down in confusion when he notices it’s Bakugo calling him. “I didn’t think we had task force business today,” Shoto says as he answers the phone. “We don’t. Is Hawks there with you?” Bakugo asks, his tone betraying his worry. “Yea he is.” “Shit.” “What’s going on Bakugo?” “It’s about (y/n),” Bakugo admits and Shoto’s eyes widen. He casts a look at Hawks before finally deciding to drag the other man with him to an empty office on the floor they’re currently on. He locks the door behind them and then pops his phone on speaker. “Ok you’re on speaker with me and Hawks what’s going on with (y/n)?” Shoto asks, his voice remaining calm. “All Might fired her last night so she was supposed to come in this morning and collect her stuff except instead she pretty much just threw everything away. I came back to patrol and found out she’d left Midoriya and I little gifts on our desk which was weird, so I hit up her roommates and apparently she never went home after she swung by here. I thought she and Hawks may have run off together but if he’s with you...” Bakugo explains. “Maybe she’s just clearing her head or something,” Shoto suggests. “No way. The whole of Japan is gossiping about her right now, the last thing she’d want is to be out in public,” Bakugo quickly refutes. “Was there anything else off about your desks? Drawers opened?” Hawks asks. “Maybe, I wasn’t paying that much attention. Why?” Bakugo asks. “Your task force notes still there?” Hawks asks in lieu of an answer. Hawks and Shoto wait with baited breath as they hear the sound of Bakugo moving around and then opening a desk drawer. “Nope, they’re gone,” Bakugo finally reports back. “Thought so. (Y/n) wouldn’t just roll over and kiss her career goodbye, she’s probably trying to take out the terrorist cell herself and use it as leverage to get her job back,” Hawks deduces. “Alone? That’s a suicide mission,” Shoto says. “Hence the gifts on the desks,” Hawks replies grimly. “Most of our notes are over there with you guys though,” Bakugo points out. As if on cue an alarm starts blaring overhead warning of an intruder. “That’s gotta be her,” Hawks says. “I’m on my way, hold her there so we can talk some sense into that idiot,” Bakugo tells them before promptly hanging up the phone.

Hawks has to give credit where credit is due. As foolhardy as your plan is, it’s incredibly well executed. As a former member of the guest list, you would’ve known everyone would be occupied with the cocktail party on one of the lower floors, far away from where the files you need are. The elevators will take forever with so many people trying to all get upstairs which only leaves the stairs, which are marginally better but still relatively slow. You must have spent most of the night planning this out. That thought fills Hawks with a certain amount of dread. You’re probably emotional and sleep deprived on your way to take on an entire villain group yourself all in a desperate bid to save your career. It almost sounds ludicrous. Yet, as Hawks races to the top floor in hopes of catching you, all he can think of is something you’d once told him during happier times, late at night as you two were wrapped up in each other:

“Honestly Kei? I’d rather die a hero than live long enough to prove those stupid reporters right about me.”

Author’s Note: Does this still count as a double update if I’m posting the second one after midnight 💀 anyway I can’t believe how quickly I was able to get this chapter out. The image of Hawks standing in the corner of a massive company party feeling like a shell of himself is actually a large part of what sold me on writing this fic for him. The song this chapter correlates to just felt so right for his character that I knew it couldn’t be anyone else. I thought about waiting to post this until later tomorrow today? but I’m ✨impatient✨ so instead y’all get it now

Taglist [open]: @akkaso @cathy8taffy @eeppff @iikillerkitteh @pixelwisp @pokesosa @lildockel @bread0nhead @lavender-moon13

#hopelesspf #hawks #wing hero hawks #hawks x reader #hawks x y/n #cw suicide mention #tw suicide mention

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