#i can’t even remember buying those cds that’s how old they are

[hjbender]

Tonight I did something I haven't done in a decade

I used good old Winamp to burn an audio CD

I didn't bother with the track info since I was just testing my process on a very very old disc but... yeah. It did it.

#winamp #burning audio cds #analog #getting active on neocities has really ignited my nostalgia #and rekindled my audio obsession #i may start posting tutes on my neocities or something #i can’t even remember buying those cds that’s how old they are #ive got one left of what was probably a 25 pack

[nomorerww]

I made literally zero friends that first year. As the new girl, I was an easy target, and people mocked me for everything from my acne to one very traumatic accident involving my period, which I didn’t know was coming until it had seeped through to my cafeteria chair. Offering me a maxipad in public became kind of a running joke among some of the popular girls. I started to hate everybody, and I latched on to their outward appearances as a symbol of how terrible they were, not even realizing the obvious parallel between my attitude about them and theirs about me. In my teen-angst-riddled mind, their preppy, pastel-hued, homogenous clothing choices were expressions of their bland, homogenous psyches. At the time—this was 2000—I didn’t know there were blogs or internet communities where I could share my frustration with like-minded teenagers across the world. My parents were pretty strict, and I wasn’t allowed online, except occasionally for schoolwork. So I took my angst to the only hang-out spot available to a 15-year-old in Westerville: the mall.

I had never heard of Hot Topic before I saw that disobedient red font standing out among the sedate logos of all the other stores, daring me to walk through its sewer-pipe-style entrance.

I took up the challenge, and was immediately enchanted. First, there were the employees: to someone who couldn’t find even one other misfit at school to share my weirdness with, they were downright inspirational. I especially remember the manager, Jody, in all of her deathrock glory: artfully destroyed fishnet tights; platform boots with buckles numbering in the dozens; pin-thin, meticulously drawn on eyebrows. I aspired to dress—and live!—with that much creativity someday.

The next thing I noticed was the wall of officially licensed band tees that spanned genres from pop-punk to hip-hop to thrash metal, and they sold CDs and vinyl, too—it was literally a subculture supermarket, and in Westerville, that was nothing short of a miracle. Without internet access, it wasn’t easy for a sheltered suburban kid to discover a band like NOFX—I didn’t have an older sister to tell me about them, or an effortlessly cool friend, or a great local record store (I can’t even remember there being a record store, beyond Best Buy).

I was ecstatic about what I bought during that first excursion: a white button-up with a pre-attached red-and-black tie with safety pins in it. What did I know? I hadn’t even heard of thrifting, and anyway, I would never have thought to put those elements together myself. Hot Topic did the thinking for me, and I welcomed the help. The store was a guiding light, leading me through an assortment of options for my new, disgruntled identity.

Was I a punk? A week of listening to Punk-O-Rama: Vol. 6 quickly disabused me of that notion. Bad Religion’s “I Want to Conquer the World” is an objectively great song, but nothing about the music really resonated with me. (I loved compilation CDs—there was no better tool for figuring out what I liked.) Was I a metalhead? For a while, sure. I flipped through a magazine at the store—I can’t remember the name of it now, but it was like Tiger Beat for hard-rock enthusiasts, featuring interviews and pull-out photos of Otep and Korn. My late freshman/early sophomore years were spent plastering my bedroom walls with posters of Kittie and obsessively phoning Total Request Live to vote for “Falling Away From Me.” I wore giant band tees with wide-legged JNCO jeans, and a spiked necklace that I never took off, not even in the shower. During that period, the caustic rage of this music was my only solace from the loneliness and boredom I experienced in my school and my town; I headbanged alone in my room to “Paperdoll” and felt like Morgan Lander was speaking directly to me.

By junior year, though, not even lyrics like “Now her soul is dead / Now her body’s raw / WASH AWAY HER PAIN” could save me (nor, indeed, wash away my pain). My anger congealed into a dark depression, and even though by then I had a couple of friends at school and even a boyfriend, I struggled with self-loathing. My mom and I fought all the time. She didn’t approve of my wardrobe or my interests, and I suspected she might be reading my journal, which made me stop writing in it. Each day became just something to get through.

Maybe it sounds strange, but the only thing that made me feel better was finding a sartorial aesthetic that perfectly expressed my inner sadness. I figured if I was living with these feelings, I might as well revel in them. During my regular visits to Hot Topic, I was drawn to clothes that were comfortably confrontational, like Lip Service’s fishnet tops and corseted dresses and Tripp NYC’s bondage pants. I fell in love with a dress I wore to the homecoming dance—it was maroon with black lace, gesturing toward a romantic melancholy.

I didn’t realize that there was an entire cultural scene based on the kind of gloominess I was feeling—had been for decades, in fact. I don’t know how I came into possession of the Cure’s Disintegration—maybe I heard Marilyn Manson mention it in an interview, or found it among Hot Topic’s stash of Good Charlotte CDs, underneath the display of Joy Division T-shirts. But that album was exactly what I had been searching for. When Robert Smith desperately sang/shouted, “It’s easier for me to get closer to heaven / Than ever feel whole again,” I heard my intense longing for something in his voice. I immediately went to the record store in Columbus, of which Westerville is a suburb, to buy the Goth Box, which introduced me to bands like Christian Death and Alien Sex Fiend, and I grabbed hold of my new identity and ran with it. I wrote long poems on my LiveJournal, channeling my pain into gibberish that made sense only to me: “Tenderize the rarest bones and die / But let the grass grow where the flesh meets the sand.” I wore all black—black clothes, black nail polish, black eyeliner—and whenever I saw someone similarly attired we’d make eye contact for a split second, and it felt like a secret handshake, like I was less alone in the world.

When I turned 18, I started going to Outland, central Ohio’s biggest (only?) goth club, where I could dance all night to Sisters of Mercy, Queenadreena, New Order, Crüxshadows, and Adult, in a room full of poeple who looked and felt like I did. I had finally found a community. I made friends, I moved out of my parents’ house, and I felt less isolated and depressed.

Sometimes I’d run into Jody, the old Hot Topic manager, there. She remembered me from the store, and even though she probably knew I bought those clothes before I knew what they were trying to signify, I never felt like she judged me as a “poser.” Not everyone is savvy or self-assured enough, especially in high school, to know exactly who they want to be, nor how to be that person. I was, I don’t deny, an average suburban white kid looking for entry-level subversion, and Hot Topic supplied it. And for that I will be forever grateful.

#style and fashion #hot topic #mall goth #sociology

[kanyniablue]

watched newsies (1992); thought i might’ve seen it as a kid but i didn’t remember it at all.

it’s bad.  did i like it?  i’m not sure.  i kinda want to watch it again just to figure out if i did or not.

if i’d watched it 100 times as an eight year old it’d probably be a comfort movie for me.  i didn’t dislike it and i can tell that because i actually watched all 2 hours of it plus the ‘blood drips on newsies square’ movie the cast made (i genuinely laughed a few times and there was overwhelming nostalgia for the stupid movies my friends & i made as kids...if ‘stupid kids making a stupid horror movie’ is something you’d find entertaining, watch that).  i did have to pause repeatedly just because the cringe was too strong, but like i said, i started it again and kept watching; i can’t say the same thing about movies i genuinely dislike.

i like the songs.  i love the choreography, even if at times the sudden musical numbers and crowd dances broke even my musical-theater-loving suspension of disbelief.  king of new york was my favorite part of the movie despite the fact it’s one of the most random scenes.

i was going to praise some of the child actors but actually a lot of them were in their late teens-mid 20s so that’s past my cutoff for “you did a good job buddy!  get yourself an ice cream cup.”  (there’s looking young for your age and then there’s being cursed by a witch to be forever trapped in the body of a 6th grader; max casella, blink twice if we need to destroy any amulets or chant some latin before we throw water on the old hag.)  the actual adults playing actual adults are the worst actors by far; if you just took their scenes and compiled them you’d have a so-bad-it’s-hilarious movie.  the love interest girl was clearly shoved in at the last minute to be Love Interest Girl and even she doesn’t seem to want to be there.

the story’s a hot mess but there’s so much going on that it distracts from how much is going on.  the historical accuracy isn’t.  i found it interesting that no one in 1899 Child Labor City asked whether child labor is itself unethical, both because a) there were real anti-child labor movements at the time yet the characters in this story very clearly weren’t against child labor, just pro-child laborers having rights, and b) it’s a disney movie made in 1992, you’d expect some Very Upstanding Citizen character to bring it up just to mention that of course disney knows it’s wrong to profit off child labor!!!ignore those sweatshops, hail mickey and pass the novelty coke cup.  (sudden thought:  if it came out a few years later there’d have been a newsies game on CD-ROM...)

the technical aspects of like...putting a movie together are just all over the place; the sets and costumes clearly had love put in them (santa fe was one of the points i had to stop bc the cringe was overpowering but in terms of background details/’the show in the character’s mind’ it’s wonderful) but the actual shots have terrible continuity throughout the whole movie (especially the crowd shots, but like, that’s at least understandable--what about details like whether someone has already got a pile of newspapers in their hands when there’s a newspaper strike going on and they are supposedly waiting to decide if they’re going to buy any papers or not?) and there’s several points where they just picked the worst angle (”sleeper!” and yet you can’t actually see the guy they’re talking about until the end of the next shot...) or they play the same visual in reverse/repeat the same audio/very clearly dub audio over someone who’s not speaking...

it didn’t need to be 2 hours long.  no further comment on that.

there were missed opportunities i feel for things like...which newspapers aren’t being boycotted?  (the fact the sun is publishing stories about the newspaper strike means that at least the newsboys for the sun aren’t striking, yeah?  so what does that mean for the kids who are going without pay because they usually sell the world; why don’t they switch publishers, is that not actually an option before the sun stops as well?)  are the customers complaining about not getting the papers they want?  are the printers getting paid less because there’s less demand?  what do the other child laborers think about the newsboys’ strike affecting them (obviously everybody shows up for a triumphant climactic crowd scene, but like, you could’ve had them ask some questions in the first place, and also why would pulitzer have any authority over the non-newspaper strikers?)  90% of these questions came from me trying to justify Love Interest Girl’s presence beyond just being Love Interest Girl:  her brothers are out of school selling newspapers to support the family but are now striking and not getting paid; she mentions that she works as well but we never get an opinion on workers’ rights from her; she only shows up to the strike because...Love Interest (technically she helps print the flyer at the end, although mostly it’s just her being in the same room as everyone else).

anyway.  i know this one has a rabid fanbase so i’m not even touching that tag.

#reviews of old movies that no one cares about except the extremely dedicated fanbase that will not take kindly to this review

[nickgerlich]

No Static At All

I bought my first car in 1979. It was a two-door Toyota Corolla, and about as basic as it could be. With a four-on-the-floor (which is now a rarity!), a heater, defogger, and AM/FM radio, it got me where I needed to be. And like a lot of people back then, I bought an add-on cassette deck, and mounted it under the dash. Two speakers on the rear deck meant that I was riding in style.

Well, in my mind. I kept telling myself that.

Skip forward to the van I bought in 2020 during high COVID. I knew the rental car companies were in a world of hurt, and needed to sell off inventory to generate cash flow, which would be used to buy newer models. This meant fire sales across the country at their regional sales lots. I shopped online, and got a killer deal on a low-mileage 2019, and am still driving it.



I had owned it for a full year before I discovered there was a CD player hiding behind the LCD panel. I haven’t listened to CDs in years. I had signed up for SXM when I got the van, and that was all I ever listened to, ignoring AM/FM as relics of the past. And when I get bored with 150+ satellite stations, I sync my phone to the system, and tune in Spotify. I suspect I am no different from millions of other motorists.

All of which causes me to ponder how much music consumption has changed through the years. We have gone digital, streaming either from satellites or cellular services, and in a fairly short amount of time. Spotify did not arrive in the US until 2011, and the original XM Radio in 2008.

The only time I have even used the old-school radio was last summer while crossing western Canada. I intentionally flipped over to FM, because I wanted to experience the Canadian Content law, which stipulates that at least 35% of the songs played must have some Canadian origins, either writer, performer, or production.

But for all the growth of digital music, companies like Spotify are still swimming in red ink. My students who were with me in MKT6356 last semester remember a huge end-of-semester assignment that involved watching a Netflix series about Spotify and the struggles it faced when it was founded. Their latest earnings report shows that, while listeners (both the free and subscriber kinds) rose significantly, things are not all that rosy. The firm slashed six-percent of its global workforce, or 600 employees.

And get this: Their shares popped yesterday. I guess that a growing listener base trumps losses and layoffs.

Spotify points to its aggressive moves into podcasting as the source of its woes. They dropped some major cash for exclusive rights, including $200 million for the Joe Rogan Experience. And some of those podcasts have not exactly performed at expected levels. Spotify relies on ears (unlike eyeballs for most other media), and if people are not listening (which they can track quite well), then advertising revenues will sag. Investors are bullish, though, and still see future profit potential.

In a related move, Ford just announced it was going to eliminate the AM radio in its new F-150 EVs. I’m not sure how or why they chose this model. While that move probably doesn’t ruffle the feathers of many EV drivers (or most people in general), it did upset one rural radio station owner who contends that farmers and other country folk need their AM radio to be able to get the latest wheat and cattle futures. That’s something you can’t do on FM, SXM, or Spotify.



I’ll let those people iron out that one, but for a guy who only used his broadcast radio for a few days in the last 2 1/2 years, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. I’ve got too many choices as it stands on my SXM and Spotify. I keep sending my money to both, and were even just one of them to go away, my drives would be a lot quieter. 



Kind of like in that ’79 Corolla whenever I drove out of signal range, and the cassette got stuck in the player. Oh, the humanity.

Dr “Turn It Up“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #Spotify #SXM #radio #streaming #digital #music

[abueverything]

Chapter 1 part 4

My connection with money goes back as far as I can remember. See I come from a family that believes in taking care of the young ones but once you hit eighteen you’re on your own. As much as I mom will never admit my grandmother played an important part in our lives as an extension or a life credit source especially in the years when my father moved out and my mom assumed the single mother role. My memories are faint but I do recall such words as thank you for helping and my mom having conversations how tough it is for her and she could use a little help. The elder at that time were many and didn’t mind helping the eldest daughter who gave birth to the eldest grandchild and eldest and only great newphew from my mothers side. The family is small now but at that time there was like three or four generations living at one time. I would receive money for my birthday, Christmas, school shopping and I would always make out like a fat rat when I went to New York to visit Grandma, Grandpa and all the family that was in New York. Sometimes I come back with like four to six hundred dollars. Those were the good old days. I learned about the value of a dollar quick because my financially savvy mother who worked while supporting me and my father worked at a bank so I had a bank account since like seven or eight or maybe even earlier. I remember day like saying lets order pizza and I’ll pay for I remember going half with her on a 38 or 40 9 inch tv which was like cool at the time (this was back in the nineties). When my father was around when I was much younger he had a good job because she was a smart man, an engineer to be exact. I remember him giving dollars bills for the hell of it and the value moved up to fives than tens then twenties. I thought I would get fifties but it never happened.

For school they always made sure I had money to go to school with mainly to eat and they would give me like five dollars day. Well when I wanted something I would go hungry so I could save and splurge on what I liked. I remember buying Tupac cd All Eyez On Me and Notorious B.I.G. Life After Death. Without the help of somebody teaching me I learned how to save and manage money so I didn’t blow it all at one time. That was truly my first hustle saving and managing my money. My second experiencing with hustling came in my junior year when I was in between a school transfer. I found out my coach was keeping letters from me and I had enough so I decided to corner my mom into transferring school explaining my basketball career was on the line. I ended up at a neighborhood school though it wasn’t my home school. I fell on hard times and decided to buy like 24 packs of soda sell a can for fifty cents. Hey I must have been doing something right because the kid who sat across from me started doing the same thing.

Now that I look back on those situations God was always preparing for the situation I’m in today. If you told me that I was going to end up in a state hospital barely escaping life in prison without the possibility of parole I would of told you what the hell are you smoking. My destiny was in the NBA on the bench or getting little minutes or at the least overseas getting a few millions. But you can’t escape God’s will and his plans if that is what he has in store for you. You see God is in everybody life but for some he is a little more active and I will take that because if he is not active in your life than you have no purpose and without him who will save you and come to your aid. Each situation between me and money was grooming me to become the business savvy individual I am today. Each situation was a learning tool and don’t think that I just live it than understood. No I had to reflect, meditate, contemplate all that stuff to truly understand how all that I went through hand was going to go through was business in its smallest form. Now I will get to my earlier street experiences in the street life in the next chapter, but it is important to see that your life is not just yolo (you only live once) or it means nothing. Life is about evolution and growing while learning. See you only take the wisdom you acquire with you to the next life and everything else falls to the waist side. So one may say what wisdom is there in business. Business itself is not he wisdom the wisdom is in the concepts and philosophy I acquired. You see people say there is no way to create a utopia society but I beg to differ. I could create a utopia and a thriving one all from business and commerce. I mean imagine a place where everybody eats, no one is starving and everybody can get what they need to survive while the government still functions and takes in money. I know you can’t imagine that because as of know they use business as a tool to control and discriminate and create wealth gaps. One of my many skills I acquired was I’m able to look at the structure of activity of the business and tell you how to duplicate what they are doing on a more efficient level, I can tell you how they are probably getting their money, or I can tell you how to undercut them. This wasn’t made possible doing business from a young age this was made possible by understanding the concepts, and practices that made up my business activities. I look at my life right now and as an adult I only had one mentor and that was only less than a year so everything that I got and acquired as far as understanding and comprehending came from doing than meditating on it and reflecting. Meditation is pretty strong in the right hands.

#abu everything #books #story #autobiography #book blog #tucson #arizona

[novemberhush]

three songs - 3, 11, 21

Hey, thanks for the ask, sweet anon! I love these questions you chose, btw!😘

3. three songs you were recently obsessed with

1) I Know You Know Me by Caroline Spence and Matt Berninger (yeah, the guy from The National!). I wouldn’t call this one an obsession, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Caroline Spence in general lately and this song is just so soothing. Also, it has total potential as a ‘ship’ song for those OTPs who just know each other like no one else knows them!

2) Speed Trap Town by Jason Isbell. Okay, yeah, this one’s an obsession! It’s just so good!! This man has such a way with a lyric, it’s easy to become obsessed with him. You should’ve seen my face when I was watching Killers of the Flower Moon and he popped up! I’d no idea he was going to be in it, and then suddenly there he was! I was like, That’s Jason Isbell! No one told me he was in this! And I was by myself at the cinema so I had no one to turn to and squee at about it!

3) Lying in Her Arms by Anderson East. Another I’m a bit obsessed with. I even wrote a fic inspired by it!

11. three favourite songs from movie or TV series soundtrack

1) Due South (the theme tune to the show of the same name) by Jay Semko. I hear this song and I’m instantly transported back to sitting in front of the telly on Saturday early evenings in the 1990s and crushing hard on Paul Gross (his surname’s a misnomer, if ever I heard one!) and shipping Fraser and Ray V. (Vecchio for life!) even harder.

2) I Know You Know (a.k.a. the theme tune to Psych) by The Friendly Indians. Just catchy as hell and perfectly suited to a show I love.

3) Big Empty by Stone Temple Pilots, from the soundtrack to The Crow. Yes, I was a teenager in the ‘90s, and, yes, I did wear a lot of black. How did you know?? The Crow soundtrack (and the movie) were a huge part of my teenage experience and this has brought back a lot of memories.

21. three songs of your childhood

1) Mickey by Toni Basil. I remember bopping around to this every time it came on the television when I was very young. I would only have been around 3 years old at the time, so it’s one of my earliest memories. My uncle, who’s only 9 years older than me, used some of his pocket money to buy me the single on record, bless him, so I could listen to it any time I wanted. Well, as long as there was someone there to put it on the record player for me! (And, yes, I’m old enough to remember record players, even if I never used ours myself because by the time I was buying music with my own pocket money everything was on cassette and then CDs.)

2) Rose Garden by Lynn Anderson. There was a lot of country music played in my house when I was growing up, but this one was a particular favourite of my mum’s. She was always singing it around the house (she still does sometimes) and so it’s indelibly linked with her (and my childhood) in my mind. I can’t hear it without thinking of her.

3) Going Underground by The Jam. I grew up in the same house as my aforementioned uncle and he was a big fan of The Jam as a teenager (he was a right little mod!) so I heard their music a lot as a child. This and A Town Called Malice are and were probably my favourites. And I’m picturing my uncle in his little mod outfit again!

Thanks so much again for your ask, and I’m sorry this got long! (This is actually the shortened version!) ❤️

[popmusicu]

We all love a good nostalgic song, right?

I was a huge Madonna fan when I was a little kid (since I was three years old). I remember I had a video album of ‘‘The Immaculate Collection’’, and I would listen to it non-stop until the CDs were all scratched up and useless, so my mom had to buy me the exact same album over and over again. Now I think I was probably obsessed, but I loved listening to Madonna sing, watching her dance and seeing her expressions, which I obviously thought were top peak acting skills. I even picked up some of the dance moves and asked my mom repeatedly to dress me up like her, so I could dance and sing in front of the TV. At that moment I felt fearless and wasn’t too shy to do that type of stuff although I was a shy kid.

I always feel nostalgic when I look back in those days and I can’t help but listen to all these songs that I loved as a kid (and I sill love). I feel like I have a connection with this album, like I can relate to it in so many levels even though I wasn’t even born yet. It helps me when I’m feeling blue or hopeless, when I think that I can’t handle life it transports myself back when I thought I could do anything, when I was unstoppable.

I think that there’s a lot of people that feel the same about an album or a song that existed way before that they did and can’t really explain why. Maybe it’s because it makes us feel nostalgic, and it’s true that it represents a specific time that we would love to go back to and the good moments that we had with that special song or album as a soundtrack, but it also symbolizes all the emotion that we felt, the process of growing up and realizing that even if you changed a lot over time, on the inside you are still that little child that can overcome its fears: it reminds you of that unstoppable nature that has always been in you.

And that’s what is so beautiful about music (specially the nostalgic one): how it transcends its time and move us no matter what time we are in or how old we are, and how it can encourage us and make us feel like we can do anything at any point of our lives. I think we can all agree that music can be fun to listen to, but it also works as a reminder that we are brave, and we can face whatever life throws at us.

Constanza Henríquez

[sweetspringlavender]

I was 11 when Born To Die was released. I vividly recall seeing the music video for its title-track and being in awe of this powerful singer bedecked in a flower crown, proudly seated atop a throne, and with a signature crimson pout. Her vocals were strange to me, unlike any I had heard or was used to hearing. From its instantly recognisable opening line (‘Feet don’t fail me now’) to its perfectly penned chorus, ‘Born To Die’ constitutes the ultimate album opener.

I remember buying the CD and listening to it on car journeys – some of the songs were miserable and melancholic, others sultry and sensual.

The stripped-back simplicity of ‘Video Games’, with its fluttering piano notes, flourishing bell chimes, and unmistakeable vocal performance, all hinging on its evocative chorus (‘It’s you, it’s you. It’s all for you.’) It should be no surprise that Q Magazine named ‘Video Games’ the Song of the Decade in 2019.

The overnight success of its viral music video catapulted Elizabeth to stardom. It is a carefully constructed montage of visuals; video clips of skaters and swimmers, young couples and yellow taxi cabs are interspersed between shots of Lana singing directly into the camera, hair coifed into a bouffant, lips pouted.

It is, in some ways, a cinematic odyssey. The expertly executed music video for ‘National Anthem’, has Lana and then-boyfriend rapper A$AP Rocky assuming the roles of Jackie and John F. Kennedy. ‘Blue Jeans’ depicts her embracing a heavily tattooed lover in a pool, through a black and white hued lens.

It all reflects the album’s highly theatrical production. Think the bells on ‘Summertime Sadness’, the striking string arrangements of ‘Lolita’, the woozy Bond-esque ‘Million Dollar Man’, or the static distortion on tracks like ‘Radio’ and ‘This Is What Makes Us Girls.’

Inflections of trip-hop crop up on ‘Diet Mountain Dew’ and ‘Off To The Races’, a realm that will be further explored on subsequent albums like Lust For Life. The latter track with its slow-burning opening soon accelerates into a thrilling sung-spoken verse before its infectious sing-along chorus. ‘Off To The Races’ is also the most obviously indebted to Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, with the exception of its namesake song. Its pre-chorus refrain is borrowed from the book’s opening line ‘Light of my life, fire of my loins.’ One of the most notorious and controversial novels of the 20th century, Del Rey’s use of its imagery is of course intentional.

My personal favourite track on Born To Die was and remains ‘Radio’. Its crackly distorted beginning creates the impression that the needle has just been dropped onto a beloved old record. ‘Not even they can stop me now’ – her vocal kicks in, deep, hypnotic, determined – ‘Their heavy words can’t bring me down.’ As a teenage girl, I felt inspired, it imbued me with a sense of resilience. ‘Radio’ is a song about old acquaintances and ex-boyfriends coming back into Lana’s life now she is famous, with its sassy refrain ‘How do you like me now?’ figuratively sticking a middle finger up to those who doubted her.

Born To Die, as with other Del Rey records, offers a romanticised America, an idealised country, exuding Hollywood glamour, but also exposing its darker side. Abusive relationships, imbalances of power, and manipulative (often, older) men have been subjects of her songwriting, prompting controversy. The symbolism of location continues to pervade her work – with Ultraviolence’s ‘Brooklyn Baby’ and ‘West Coast’ tracing America’s expanse.

[temmes]

Who i want to be

All these recalls make me feel like Hannibal

When i was young i lived in a not so good household with my incompetent parents just like other southerners,but i was always happy and laughed.

Me as a kid in the 90s after walking in flip flops through wet alleys scattered with feces and trashes.sitting in a musty dusty room thinking,Japanese and American are having a good life,i want to be there, and Everything is possible.that’s probably my first false conclusion,but it kept me ignoring the harsh living condition and look forward.

maybe because kids don’t depress,of i think,it’s because I was new to the world,even though this slum sucks,but there are other places,Provences,countries that don’t,i still got hopes in my heart and smile on my face

And fast forward i feel like my value/belief evolves with the material world.

Super market and malls,fast food chains/big brand companies started to show up in the small town,primitive Video games and VCDs,players came with my cousins from Hong Kong,people came from different provinces became the main portion of this town’s population,i still remember walking on the side walk of the new,music blasting shopping streets breathing dusty air with my head down walking real fast.ford focus,Toyota crown and Peugeot 206 crawling on new two way concrete roads,people everywhere getting in my way from morning to night.

It sounds really cool,so many new shops and y2k goods like cheap anime stuffs,dog tags/long socks and knock off Korean school uniforms i could buy and dress up.so i should feel good and happy right?

No,not many novel things for teens that time,it’s still a backward place,even just carrying a guitar on your back will get every head turned.everything was so irritating to a sensitive person as me,I can’t wait go back to my slum playing anime CDs. people always forget the bad experience/pain they had been through,but I don’t.material increments didn’t make me feel better,i had McDonald and stuffed toys since i was kid.this capital game is not new to me.didn’t receive more benefit but drawbacks like many uncertainties,cold faces and scams right in front of me.facing the true color of humanity,for a pre teen, that’s too much,i started to get depressed,hatred toward this crazy society.rebel core has existed.

this small town is not far from a big commercial city with many types of transportations, rich businessmen always swung by,they brought lots of things here,both good and bad. My hometown was a good place to start for peasants.that’s why many people settled here,some just tried to make it in the outsider world just like what I’m doing.

and a lot of people did shady things,an ethnic minority old lady did street vending selling pocket knifes which is definitely illegal,i got one from there,and my father sneaked in,searched my drawer and stole it.prostitution was the elephant in the room to local gov,but was doing well under the desk,Chinese businessmen need feasts with crocodile/shark meet,gifts like a big jar of moonshine with a misshapen tiger cub in it.and exotic hookers to close the deals. those tall passengers with makeup flew past traffic gap on a 125cc bike were probably the first northern Chinese I’d seen in my life. one of a high school dropped out I know got herself a part time job for doing make ups for hookers in the bath center/clubs,told us the price was depended on the height.so everything added up,no made up.

I got side track into describing tangible things in my primitive experience with capitalism.This is probably the magic of it.it impacts our life profoundly.all i want to convey is,our minds are getting messed up by material things.enclosed by consumption and debts changed our ways of thinking.we getting more and more anxious,unsettled and depressed,we forgot how we used to think,like kids,with self reflection.

after the popularization of internet things are even worse,now we can see people showing off better products, status and achievements.we lost our original,true self.we forgot to wash hands before we eat,share toys with others,make friends and caring them.everyone is saying growing up is more and more vexing.but the world is still the same

if things got boiled down,they are similar to what we used to consume,enjoy,watch,the needs are still the same too.it’s just the ways of people’s thinking have changed.oh i love apples from the get go,but many different kinds of fruit to choose nowaday,all the people posting avocado on the net so i need to get some, well some random professor made a Video saying an imported organic fruit that I can’t pronounce it’s name is the fruit version of snake oil and now it’s on sale.i gotta get some,but all i need is just good old apples.things you need are still there,nothing has changed.what has changed is just the meaning,given by people.followed by people with no self reflection,critical thinking,forgot who they really are.

09/25/2022

#insights

[izukult]

what they get you / what kind of gift they get you for valentine’s day :D

idc ab valentine’s day whether i have a partner or not but i would geek ab it for these mfs

warnings: swearing!! fluff 🤢

characters: hinata, kageyama, oikawa, suga, tsukishima, bokuto, akaashi, iwaizumi, matsukawa, atsumu

hinata shoyo ♡

this ray of absolute sunshine would see smth from tiktok and be like: yup. perfect. he’d get you like the chocolate box of crystals !! and be like “look at how pretty they are- this one looks like my hair!” and he also gets you some homemade ring from etsy and makes this big deal ab how “HES NOT PROPOSING BUT HE WOULD BUT LIKE- LATER ON BUT HES NOT PROPOSING AT ALL ITS JUST A PRETTY RING” he gives me secondhand embarrassment sometimes. really tho gets so giddy seeing you wear anything he buys you and if anyone ever compliments the ring he loves hearing you say “thanks! my boyfriend got it for me for valentines:)”

kageyama tobio ♡

he gives you this ratty ass old ass volleyball and you are trying your best to give him a convincing smile, but you’re really, really confused? it wasn’t the fact that it was volleyball related, it was just the fact it was so old. he rolls his eyes and turns it in your hands to show the tape on the other side of it. ‘kageyama t. grade 4’ MF GAVE YOU HIS FIRST FUCKING VOLLEYBALL PLSSSS that’s so goddamn cute i’m gonna throw up. you cried idc

oikawa tooru ♡

oikawa tooru is an overcompensating bastard man. no matter what he’s doing, he feels the need to prove himself. he kind of goes too hard for valentines LMAO. flowers and chocolates? yea. a teddy bear? i wouldn’t be surprised. a jersey? you betcha. romantic picnic at night? if you want. a playlist? probably. a necklace? maybe so. your favorite part, though, is the little note he writes you talking about how grateful he is for you that he slipped in your (his) jacket pocket at the end of the night. neither of you bring it up tho- bc emotions 🤢

sugawara koushi ♡

old fashion sweetheart i sure do love this man. i’m sorry to be so vague for this one, but his gift is definitely some very niche, partially homemade idea of some inside joke of yours. he wants you to know it’s personal to him, that he really put a lot of thought into your gift and that he loves you. a cute little stay at home kinda date, and you two make dinner together as you listen to your favorite playlists and laugh. very good fella. love him sm.

tsukishima kei ♡

his gift is that he doesn’t insult u all day😁🤝 no. no it’s not. he still insults you you’re not fucking dying why wouldn’t he? he burns you a cd and then realizes that’s kinda not cool and so he just makes you a playlist. actually explains the reason for each song (not verbally, though) and he brings u strawberry short cake bc he is convinced it’s the pinnacle of desserts he does not care if you like smth more take the gesture.

bokuto kotaro ♡

this lil dummy is so doting. starts your day off by bringing you your favorite coffee or tea and a lil kiss. he buys you guys something matching LMAO like maybe some bracelets or smth and while i am not a big “matching” fanatic and i don’t think bokuto would necessarily be an avid bracelet wearer, but he will not take that bracelet off unless it’s like a tournament game. definitely takes you out to some fancy dinner and also probably gets you kicked out of the restaurant

akaashi keiji ♡

akaashi is very down to earth. so, he knows what you’re going to want. he also knows what he wants to give you. so let’s say you’re really really into smth he rly rly hates, he’ll listen to you talk about it absolutely, but he might not spend money on it? in his eyes, the gift would be just like your relationship— a mutual understanding where two separate people come together. i cant say what it would be specifically (i’m sorry D: if u want my generic answer it would be: a lamp), but it definitely is a representation of what the two of you are together.

iwaizumi hajime ♡

he gives you something disgustingly meaningful. like the kind of nice that makes you want to gag yknow? but you don’t really know how meaningful it is at first?? he gives you like this little “photo book” esque thing, and you KNOW oikawa gave him the idea LMAO. it’s already so cute but at the end there’s just a little piece of paper with a day on it and you’re like what? and he shrugs and goes “wonder what that is? hmm” and you know he’s teasing u so u kinda joke ab it but he won’t tell u. then at the end of your date when he’s dropping you home he kisses you and he’s like “oh yea, that paper??” and you’re like omg yes finally and he looks so nonchalant when he says “yea, kinda weird that i remember this, but that’s the day i fell in love with you🤢” and he nods and laughs and you’re just Staring. you are STARING loss for words but he fucking leaves before you can ask him ab it. this made me physically sick to write bye

matsukawa issei ♡

simpleton scrub. buys you a gag gift or pretends he doesn’t remember. starts breaking out laughing when you try to hide ur disappointed look (it’s ok to punch ppl sometimes😁‼️). his real gift is kinda cliche, but i feel like he really has no idea what he’s doing for like actual relationships even if he tries to hide it. he just gets you like one of those rectangle bar necklace, and he does get his initials on it bc he’s kind of a braggy fuck, but he only does it on one side so you can choose whether to show it or not.

miya atsumu ♡

this man is absolutely a perfectionist. he is so loving, absolutely, but he’s also kind of immature? so, he’s a little nervous to give you a gift because what if yours isn’t as good. LMAO it sounds rude, but he always wants to be pushed to be better and do better, and even tho this is a declaration of affection, he can’t help but attaching competition? so he buys you two gifts- a mediocre one and what he thinks is really good. the mediocre one is just like a stuffed animal and the really good one is personalized, and well thought out, and it just Screams that he loves you. it definitely centers on a passion of yours so i can’t get like a specific example but if you play guitar he like bought you a fucking case youve wanted for months kinda vibe LMAO. also, truth be told, bc he’s a sucker for you, no matter what u get him he’s gonna give u the “mediocre” gift and the other one as well.

#haikyuu #haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu x reader #hinata x reader #kageyama x reader #oikawa x reader #sugawara x reader #tsukishima x reader #bokuto x reader #akaashi x reader #iwaizumi x reader #matsukawa x reader #hinata hcs #kageyama hcs #oikawa hcs #sugawara hcs #tsukishima hcs #bokuto hcs #akaashi hcs #iwaizumi hcs #atsumu x reader #miya atsumu x reader #matsukawa hcs #atsumu hcs #haikyuu hcs #oikawa tooru x reader

[writersrealmbts]

Diamond Tears and Little Wings: Part 5

Description: You’re a fairy, taken in by BTS. You need lots of love and care, otherwise your light will fade and you turn to stone. Between the seven of them, you should never feel unloved. Right?

Warnings: N/A

Posted: 02/11/2021

Tags: bts x reader, ot7

Angst/Fluff/Angst: 3,846 words

A/N: Okay, I told you guys that I would be alternating between DTLW and Clearwater Springs, so here’s the proof. Anyway, two more parts after this!

Your fourth home in five years is what they told you this was. But you couldn’t remember any but this one.

So your heart was aching, and you always wanted to cry, but you never dared to do so. Something, someone’s, words, telling you that crying in front of strangers was dangerous kept echoing in your head. So you blinked away any tears that came, hugged your stuffed animal, and studied the area you would lived in.

It was a little cold, so you hugged your coat tighter to you. You’d been told by the other fairies that your coat was special, because it appeared to be designed exactly for your wings, which was rare. But none of them seemed to have any idea why you would have such a special coat, excepting the fact that maybe in the country you came from it was more normalized to have custom wing-slits.

It was completely normal to come away from a home with a stuffed animal, and clothing and jewelry that could shrink down. People liked dressing up fairies.

You played with your bracelet as you examined the cement floor, and the plain white walls, and the windows that weren’t quiet fully insulated but were full east and full west, respectively, and provided quite a bit of natural lighting. You had your own bathroom and kitchen area, and the laundry room was in the basement. The bed was a bit creaky, but the mattress seemed decent. You had a cute lamp on the side table, and they had a few books for you on a bookshelf that had the bottom shelf broken beside the side table.

There was shoebox bedroom on one of the shelves as well, very simple, with just a bed in it, but it was decorated carefully—though perhaps by their daughter. There was felt covering the floor and back wall, which would provide a little insulation for you. The outside was colored on, but you didn’t have a problem with that.

There was an old rug rolled off to one side that they said you could use, and a bar with some hangers already hanging on it and plastic drawers they said you could used for your clothing.

You looked at your suitcase, which was resting on the bed, then set your dog on top of it while you got the rug, unrolling it and placing it near your bed.

Your job there was to do their laundry and take care of the cat that their daughter wouldn’t let them get rid of, and to entertain their daughter now and then, and when you weren’t delivering the clean laundry or entertaining their daughter you were to stay in the basement bedroom. Simple enough.

The cat was a sweetheart and the laundry was quite simple with only three people to wash for. Laundry was tossed down the shoot daily and every Monday and Thursday you were to deliver their clean laundry before they awoke.

They weren’t cruel, or strict, just very structured and busy.

She was very kind and brought you groceries, even getting you exactly what you requested. You just had to leave a list with her laundry on Mondays, because Mondays were grocery days. She even spontaneously bought you a cake, and when you told her that the basement was a little cold for you, she found a nice heater for you that greatly improved things, and found some more blankets around the house for you. They were generally gone over the weekends, visiting a different set of grandparents each weekend, which left you and Cupcake, the cat, alone in the house to do as you pleased.

Those were the days you ventured down to the fairy market, which was a safe space for fairies and since you did get an allowance for doing the laundry, you could sometimes buy some special treats or things that you needed.

You weren’t a fan of the husband, which was fine, because he only seemed to come downstairs if he needed to check the water-heater (they were having issues with it and he was too stubborn to call whoever it was that professionally dealt with those things), or to ask you to do an emergency clean on a shirt or tie or slacks. It wasn’t that he was mean, or sleazy, or that he gave you bad vibes, he was just very grumpy and brisk. Cold.

And he hated the cat.

Plus you had the distinct feeling that if he found out about your diamond tears it would be a very bad thing. He was a greedy man, raising a greedy daughter.

But you had a CD player now, and you could find CD’s now and then at the fairy market, and the wife said you could use any CD’s you found in the basement.

Which was how you found your current favorite CD. You weren’t certain who the artists were because the disc hadn’t been in it’s proper case, but their songs were so nice. And you loved the one song.

So some days, when you had nothing to do but give the cat all the love it wanted, you just listened to that CD on repeat, singing words as though you’d known them before.

You did different crafts, and solved some of the abandoned puzzles from the storage room.

You improved your shoe-box, replacing the bed (it was a sponge, hard and weird to lay on) with a carefully arranged nest of fabrics and stuffing. Sometimes you stuck your stuffed dog into the shoebox and snuggled into that. The smells on it so familiar and foreign that it made you cry.

Which meant you had to find a place to hide your tears. Normally you just saved them and exchanged them at the fairy market—where the currency exchange fairy, Heidrun, just discretely nodded and added their value to your shopping card balance.

But one day she stopped you before you could leave, holding your hands. “You don’t look well, dear.”

“Fourth home,” You told her simply, shrugging. “It’s more of a job than a home. But I’m not…I’m not suffering. She always makes sure I have what I need and allows me a lot of freedom. I have the whole basement to myself, and I’m allowed in the side-yard at all times. She even encourages me to come here. And I have music to listen to. Actually, I found a CD I really like, but I don’t know what band they are because it doesn’t say on the disc.”

“Try Magnus, he knows everything going on in the music scene,” She told you, squeezing your hands. “And trying to hold onto whatever love you’ve got and are getting. It’s not healthy for our kind to go unloved.”

You nodded. “I’ll do that.”

Magnus did help you, granted, you had to sing a couple of the songs for him to find the right group, but once he did, he sent to you over to Frida with a request for BTS albums.

Frida nodded, pulling out several book-like things. “They’re super popular, but they’re also in a ton a magazines right now. They lost their fairy because of some scandal, and now they’re in a slump, but they’re also going on a world tour, so it can’t be that much of a slump. They’re actually coming to our stadium for a concert, which is cool. They’ve started putting up the posters already.”

You looked at the books, confused. “I thought you said they were albums?”

“They are. The CD’s are accompanied by a booklet of photos and the lyrics, photocards, and usually a poster.”

You blinked then picked up the biggest one, concerned and confused. “It’s…huge…and a box?”

She just snorted. “You want that one? It’s one of their more recent ones. Don’t have their newest yet, but I can see if I can get one for you.”

You nodded. “That’d be nice, but sure, I’ll…take this one for now.”

She nodded and swiped your card. “All yours, sweet-cheeks. Now, tell me how you get your hair that shiny.”

You grabbed your hair and shrugged. “I don’t know. I just wash it.”

“Not even fair,” She muttered, then turned to a new customer.

You went home after hitting a few more stalls, getting more craft things and some stuff for the kitty, hugging the album and wondering what awaited you inside.

Cupcake was waiting for you on your bed, sitting up and meowing loudly, stretching out a paw for you to take (which you did because why else teach him that trick) and then purring and arching into your hand.

“I know, I was gone for forever,” You scooped him up after successfully setting everything else down. “I bought some new music for us. You need a better name. A masculine name. You don’t respond to Cupcake anyway—not that I blame you. It’s a rather poor choice of a name for a cat, much less a tom.”

He just purred, climbing up onto your shoulders and riding there while you put away the few food items you had purchased and hopping onto the fridge while you started cooking your dinner.

You hummed as you tried to think of a different name for him, but after a moment you paused, wondering what song it was you were humming and why it was so familiar and yet so distant. So easy, but you couldn’t remember. You couldn’t remember the moment you stopped singing what the words were or how the song went, despite having reached the chorus. You could only remember the last words you sang.

You shook your head and went over, quickly opening the box to where the disc was in the album without seeing any sign of the pictures (Maybe a poster?) and then popping it into the player.

But it was worse than the first one, because you swore you knew each song. You had vague images in your head of people performing the songs. It hurt. It hurt to hear these songs because they were too familiar. Too familiar and yet so completely foreign that it was unfair.

The first one wasn’t too bad, but the second started really getting to you.

By the third song you were in tears.

By the chorus of the fourth song you were full-on sobbing on the bed.

The fifth song clashed so much with the sentiments of the previous two that it just broke you down further, and you had to turn it off before you started screaming at the empty space where the music should have come from.

You grabbed the photos from the album box after you had calmed down enough. Not bothering to try and remove the sticker, you slide the photos out and started flipping through the pages, horrified at the fact that they looked so achingly familiar and yet you had no idea who they were.

You tossed them back in the box and slammed it shut, eyes filled with tears.

But you must not have woken when someone came into the basement, because three days later the man was demanding to know where you got so many diamonds.

And fairies can’t lie.

Five days later you were staring out the window, a place you couldn’t go until you filled the box on your small counter space with diamonds. It wasn’t too large, but it was large enough that you were worried about whether you would ever fill it.

So you turned on the disc again, and cried. Cried until you were sick, and then collapsed into your bed. Exhaustedly petting the cat until you fell asleep, only to repeat it the next day. And the next.

When you finally filled it, you went straight to the market just to get some time away from the basement.

The shopkeepers from your regular stops came rushing up when they saw you, even Heidrun, all asking where you’d been and if you were okay and before you knew it you were sitting at one of the picnic tables with some soup and some tea and a bunch of worried fairies fussing over you.

Frida sat silently across from you, looking concerned but ultimately staring at the table.

Or so you thought, because she suddenly reached across the table and grabbed your bracelet. “Where did you get this?”

You blinked and tried to recoil, but couldn’t. “I don’t remember. I just figured it was from one of my previous homes.

Magnus frowned, looking at it. “It looks a lot like the one that…”

She nodded. “There’s something etched onto them. Fairy craftsmanship. Come over to my shop. Come on.”

You followed her, curious, and not wanting to let something you had a very strong attachment to out of your sight.

First she tried a jeweler’s eye loupe, then she wrinkled her nose and grabbed a flashlight, shining it through the gems and onto the table.

You stared down at it, confused.

“Something tells me your family didn’t give you up willingly,” Magnus said, voice a little tense.

Frida looked at you, as though she couldn’t believe it. “You’re the fairy that was taken away from BTS?”

You just looked back at her. “Um…is that what all of that means?”

“How did you like that album you bought?” She asked, eyes narrowed to slits.

You shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to think about how much you had used it to make yourself cry, because if you did then you knew she was right. And if she was right, then it would be even sadder.

“Weren’t the one that said that they couldn’t have been too sad about losing their fairy to be going on a world tour? Why would I want to be her?”

“No, they talked about it…it’s because they’re trying to find her. Find you. They didn’t say it explicitly because they could get in trouble for that, but they’ve hinted at it and there are tons of reports and pictures of them visiting every fairy sanctuary they could without compromising their performances. It just took a while for it to hit the news for us. Y/n, they’re looking for you. And if this is any proof, I think they love you and you need love. You look like a skeleton with skin.”

Heidrun gently pulled you into her arms. “What changed? You were doing alright and then you were gone and you come back looking like a ghost.”

“They found my tears,” You whispered.

She inhaled sharply, not quite a gasp, and held you tighter. “You can’t stay there.”

“I can’t leave there either. Where would I go? I would just get arrested and brought back to them.”

Frida folded her arms. “Leave it to me. You go back, lay low. Maybe try to appeal to the lady of the house. I’ll have you out of there as soon as I can. In the meantime….”

“I’ve still got a backlog of your diamonds, come get them just in case he asks again.” Your arm was gently pulled toward the currency exchange station.

You took the bag, and the treats most of them packed up for you. If the love of other fairies was enough to sustain you, you never would have been in this mess. But fairies, while kind and caring, didn’t have enough love for other fairies to keep them alive, especially once exposed to the love of a family. Fairies were good, and kind, and helpful, but also emotionally unstable which made it hard to focus enough love into one another without a consistent source of outside love.

It was a miracle your species had survived as long as it had.

Cupcake greeted you, meowing pathetically and hopping into your arms.

You sat down on your bed with him. “Let’s think of a new name for you.”

Eventually you settled on Keyowo, which was close to his current name but meant friend and was just…it was better.

You then set to deep cleaning over the next week, shrinking your things and tucking them into your suitcase to keep them out of sight.

On Tuesday he beat you to tears because you weren’t producing tears fast enough.

The album caught your eye again on the next Friday.

You picked up, tracing the seven on the cover, and then opening it. You pulled out the poster and unfolded it.

They were in white, with feathers floating down and a hole in the floor. They all looked so good.

You touched the one on the far left, wearing the sweater. Slightly cat-like facial features. You felt like you knew what his hands looked like, even though you couldn’t see much of them in the picture. Slightly calloused, bony, but gentle and careful. Caring for everyone.

“Yoongi,” You whispered, choking up. Tearing up.

Your fingers traced over each of them, names a whisper in your mind. A whisper that turned into shouts, memories flooding your mind of each and every one of them. Your mind screaming for them because your throat was too tight to even whisper.

They were your boys.

They had to let you go.

You weren’t supposed to remember them.

They weren’t supposed to try and find you.

The next day you shoved everything into your bag, tucked the cat into your coat, left a note for the missus and headed straight back to the fairy market.

Frida looked surprised when she saw you. “Whoa, what happened? Is this the kitty your were telling me about?”

“They’re gone for the weekend, that means even if I stay nearby they’ll think I’ve had two days to run out on them. I need you to help me get me back to my family.” You teared up. “I need to find them.”

Frida nodded, glancing around and closing her shop. “Come on. You can stay with me.”

Frida’s family consisted of a pair of siblings.

The sister, Alena, was a fairy rights activist in her spare time, which is why Frida had so much freedom, and a huge music fan. She had a whole wall of CD’s and albums and posters. Stacks of magazines featuring musicians.

The brother, Agnar, was quiet, “just an accountant”, and very kind. And very affectionate toward Frida.

Frida was equally affectionate toward him, bringing a fake gag from Alena.

They helped you find an outfit that hid your fairy-ness, and he got you tickets to the concert, all of you hoping that it would get you close enough for them to see you and recognize that you were there. Also, it would help you health-wise to see them in person and the rush from the concert would be overwhelming, but also might revitalize you.

Then Alena forced you to sit in the bathroom with her while she applied a cloth to your face with epsom salts to try and reduce the bruising and swelling on your face. She told you about the fairy abuse responders, and how she would call them in the morning and tell them about your family.

Agnar totally stole your cat.

Frida let you sleep in her fairy-home (because it definitely wasn’t a dollhouse and it was awesome, of course).

Four days later, you were at the concert venue with Alena, taking a seat and soaking in the atmosphere. People were talking all around and some people were chanting the boys’ names. Another group was starting to sing the songs.

You listened nervously, wondering whether it was true or not that they were looking for you. What if they were just making a fuss to get back at the company a bit? What if the media was making things up? It wouldn’t be the first time a story was fabricated for magazines.

Then the concert started and you and Alena were cheering for your boys, but you wondered why you ever thought they’d be able to see you in this mess.

It wasn’t until the second half of the concert that you had hope.

The boys were in more casual outfits, having more fun.

And they were all wearing the jewelry that Namjoon had made from your diamonds.

Jimin was the one who saw you first, though he looked right over you and then seemed to try and pinpoint you again, but was unable to in the crowd. He stood there with a smile plastered on his face, acting as though he was studying each Army’s face when you knew he was searching for you.

So you stood still in the writhing mass that of the crowd, and studied him.

He had lost weight, and if it hadn’t been for the makeup, you bet he’d look fairly wrung-out.

All of them looked like they’d been sick enough to lose weight.

Taehyung came over and practically dragged him away (making it look playful).

But Jimin said something to Jin and Jungkook.

Jungkook was over there as casually as he could, totally looking at the camera and doing ‘fanservice’. But he obviously didn’t spot you.

Jin didn’t either.

But Yoongi did during the very last song and he stopped, staring, then he was crouched, hand over his mouth, just staring in your direction.

You waved, wondering if he actually was staring at you.

He smiled, but it also looked like he wanted to cry. He waved as well, then cautiously moved off, still keeping an eye on you.

You bit your lip, smiling.

Alena squealed and grabbed onto you, and the two of you did your best to fit in with the rest of the crowd.

Both of you lingered as long as you could afterward, her extremely hyped from the whole concert and talking a mile a minute, while you were feeling…exhausted? All of the emotions around you and finally seeing your boys again….

But you had no idea how you were going to get to them, or how they were going to get to you.

Until you saw Sejin, scanning the crowd.

The likelihood of him being on the side of the boys was pretty good.

You tugged on Alena’s arm, pulling her to a stop.

Sejin locked onto you and started moving, coming your way, waiting until the straggling fans that had been around you were gone before telling security to let you through.

You dipped your head to the security guards, then bowed slightly to Sejin. “Hello.”

Sejin smiled. “Hello, y/n.”

You bit your lip. “I remembered.”

He nodded. “I figured. We all figured. They’re waiting. They’re all waiting.”

You were practically vibrating.

“Come on, let’s get you back to them. Your friend can come but she needs to wait in the hallway for…security purposes.”

You nodded and relayed the information to Alena, then both of you were following back to the waiting room.

Sejin stopped by the waiting room. “Go on in.”

You nodded, putting your hand on the doorknob and then turning it and going in.

–

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Masterlist  -  ot7 Masterpost

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#fairy au #bts fic #bts ot7 #bts ot7 x reader #ot7 #ot7 x reader #fairy!reader #namjoon #jin #seokjin #yoongi #suga #hoseok #jhope #jimin #taehyung #v #jungkook

[imgonnapanic]

Third gym squad with a theater kid s/o:

Kuroo Tetsurou

Tbh, he knew what he was signing up for when he started dating you.

He’s just not used to it, because he doesn’t have many extroverted friends who aren’t annoying pieces of-

I can envision you both going on the hub to watch pirated musicals. Hamilton, Heathers, Dear Evan Hansen, you name it.

He loooves your singing voice, even if it’s your nervous purposely bad one.

You love the musicals that include allll the good stuff (trauma, death, tragedy, etc.)

Or the iconic ones. You can’t forget about those.

So you’re less-than-thrilled when your school chooses “Honk! The Musical” for this years play.

It’s a spin off of the ugly duckling that no one has heard of.

And when you come up to Kuroo sulking about this boring play you’re emotionally obliged to do, he can’t help but laugh a little.

But his laughter stops when he sees your eyes down at your shoes.

And then he shuts the fuck up because you’re actually upset.

After assuring that you will still be Broadway material even if you’re dressed up as a goose, you feel a little better.

In the two weeks leading up to auditions, Kuroo is starting to get caught humming “A Poultry Tale” at practice.

I mean, his Spotify feed went from Kendrick Lamar to Legally Blonde within one month of dating you, so cut the guy a break.

The day of auditions, you’re a bundle of nerves as you go over the dumb song again and again.

And Kuroo is like “calm down babe you’re gonna do great.”

That sure did a ton.

“Shut up Heather”

...

“Sorry Heather”

He’s also a bundle of nerves at practice, though. He just couldn’t let you see it.

By now, all of the Nekoma team knows you’re auditioning today, and the minute he walks in he just holds up a hand.

“They’re auditioning as we speak”

He’s not surprised when you get the lead.

He looks like the cat who ate the canary he’s a little amused when he figures out the lead is named “Ugly” but by now he has learned to keep it on the inside.

Your schedule is now jam packed, but that’s okay, because Nationals are also coming up for Kuroo and needs to put in some extra hours at the gym anyways.

You better believe two months later Kuroo is making his entire team buy a ticket.

Kuroo didn’t even get to see you on opening night because of dress rehearsals, but that’s okay.

He cleared his entire schedule that day and now has time to wallow in his own excitement and buy you some flowers.

He’s there with the squad team at 6PM sharp, dressed up, and trying to keep his dignity.

When you first walk on stage, the team snickers a little bit at your costume, but Kuroo was completely enraptured by your singing voice, your blocking, your makeup, everything.

This was much better than the demo CD that they had given you.

Afterwards, he gives you your flowers and is glued to your side for the rest of the night, babbling about how proud he was of you, and how talented you are, Nekoma team be damned.

Tsukishima Kei

Tsukki-poo already had a soft spot for the arts before he met you.

Not that he would tell anyone, ever.

When you started dating him though, it gave him an excuse to share his favorite soundtracks.

“you can hit that note, you know.”

*cue the arguing about how you aren’t Barbara Streisand*

When you two are walking through the hallway with him and you see the poster reading “Auditions for Karasuno High School’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ are open!” You start freaking out.

You love that movie! And Kei tolerates it!

Kei honestly thought you would be Ariel/Prince Eric when he first heard you singing “Part of Your World”

Like, you have the voice of a fucking lark. The directors have to be batshit crazy not to cast you.

In his humble opinion.

So he’s a bit taken aback when you get the role of Flounder, but he’s very proud anyways. Especially after you explain that there’s musical numbers that you’re in that aren’t in the movie.

He just hates your director for no reason now.

Practicing your lines with him in your free time becomes almost inevitable because you both have nothing else better to do.

And he can see how into it you are.

And let me just say that you are killing it.

Seriously. You have no problem getting into character, and Kei doesn’t say this much but-

It’s fucking adorable, okay? He has little goth moths in his stomach.

And he can’t wait to see the show, because then he can show you off.

That doesn’t mean he likes the other first years prying at your progress.

Hinata’s incessant questioning about theater anatomy and the memorization of your lines gets really annoying.

Even for someone with a normal temper like you-

“Yes it’s called the right wing. NOT wing spiker. Yes they’re off book. Now will you shut your trap already?”

Dress Rehearsals come, and you’re spinning around his room, face morphing from complete concentration to happy, go-lucky Flounder.

You, Kei, and Yamaguchi (your little third wheel-) all know the soundtrack pretty much up and down, left and right, backwards and inside out.

He still shivers remembering the time you just walked into his house not registering that Flounder’s makeup looks kind of scary up close-

All of his pride was sacrificed that day. All of it.

On the morning of opening night, Kei was walking you to the school, pretending to be bitchy about it being on a Saturday.

“C’mon, what am I supposed to do all day?”

As luck would have it, he’s stuck sitting next to one Hinata Shoyo. Lovely.

So he sat down next to him, and ignored him the whole show. I mean, it worked, he shut up after thirty seconds.

After the show, Kei has to wait a bit for you to take your makeup off, but when you come running out, he can’t hold back a tiny grin.

“That was good. I’m proud of you.”

And then he took you to dinner because singing makes a bad bleep hungry 😌

Bokuto Kotarou

Listen, you’re loud, Bokuto’s loud-

So basically you two are on a mission to not annoy Akaashi for as long as you can before inevitably getting yelled at for your affection and love and shit.

Now, both of you would love for this to be possible.

But the Frozen soundtrack makes it too difficult.

Especially when you can edit the lyrics just to piss off Konoha.

“Turn away and slAm the door *on Konoha”

“The wind is howling like the storm inside *of Konoha”

The possibilities are endless, really.

The game changer is when you two are belting out the song where Elsa and Anna are arguing.

And you accidentally hit the “I-i-I CANNNNT”

Akaashi is like for the love of GOD just audition for the play.

He quickly realizes that his suggestion was not a good idea.

Since guess what the musical is.

You’re auditioning as a joke, okay? You love Frozen, but this is a Fukurōdani Academy level play.

You didn’t expect to land the role of Olaf.

Your director sat you down and bluntly told you that he thought that you had the charisma and energy to be Olaf, but he knew that you were auditioning for a joke.

He needed you to be committed.

And hell yeah, you were gonna be committed.

At first, Bokuto was super proud of you! His s/o as a lead role? So impressive!

You even taught Bokuto your choreography for “In Summer”

He only retained half of it, but eh.

He’s a volleyball player. He tried.

As rehearsal times became longer and longer, Bokuto was a little upset at himself because he didn’t realize how committed you were until it hit him in the face.

Akaashi is there to get him out of his funk when you aren’t, though.

“They feel the same way when you need to be in the gym longer. It’s just a part of having a passion. Just utilize your time with them wisely.”

This bitch knows full well Bokuto doesn’t do ‘wise’ though, so he also sets to him a little more.

Dress rehearsals start, and Bokuto is always waiting for you to come out of the auditorium to ride the bus home.

You’re just bubbling over with stories about the magic of being on stage.

The lights, the microphones, the costumes, just talking about it makes you nostalgic already.

On opening night, Bokuto and Akaashi are there in the front row, going through the program.

“There’s y/n!!!!”

And you can’t see him because of the blinding spotlight, but you can hear Bokuto cheering for you after you finish “In Summer”

Afterwards he gives you a big hug, and you guys go home and watch Frozen.

Akaashi Keiji

When you start dating Akaashi in your second year at Fukurōdani, you’ve been on stage for the last ten years of your life.

Singing, acting, dancing, you love it all.

You’re even considering making it your career.

Akaashi doesn’t know much about theater at all, but he makes sure to do his research since it’s such a big part of your life.

The company you take acting classes with is having their winter show soon, and you couldn’t be happier when you figure out it’s ‘Into the Woods.’

Akaashi makes the mistake of asking the plot of the story.

“So basically there are these two infertile bakers with dead parents and there’s this witch that’s old and wrinkly and she comes to their house because fifty years ago the bakers dad stole her veggies and took the magic beans that made her look old and wrinkly-“

(A/n: this isn’t even half the plot)

He decides he’ll figure it out when he sees the play.

Akaashi knows that it’s a difficult one, though.

Sondheim doesn’t fuck around.

So you shouldn’t be beating yourself up about cracking on some of the high notes and screaming into your pillow.

He feels like an idiot every time you ask him to give you constructive criticism.

He doesn’t know what to say. “That was good” is obviously not what you want to hear.

When the date of your audition rolls around, he has early morning practice.

So he sends you a text saying how far you’ve come already and he’ll be proud even if you end up being a tree and break a leg (he’s very proud of that part. Theater lingo with Akaashi 101)

He’s very pleased to hear through your extremely fast and animated chattering that you killed it.

You were going to be Jack from “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

He’s still not sure how that correlates with infertile bakers, but he’ll go with it.

You also have a notoriously hard solo, “Giants in the sky.”

Akaashi is very impressed.

All you two do is practice that song, until Akaashi is half sure he could sing the song if he really gave an effort.

(He tries seriously one time. He can’t sing. To save his life. Sorry Keiji and RIP y/n’s ears.)

“Maybe you’re just not a soprano?”

“I’ll leave the limelight to you.”

Rehearsals always leave you drained. There are so many dance numbers in the play that you have to go over.

And songs, oh god, the songs are pieces of work.

But you wouldn’t trade it for the world, so Keiji stays close, and is endlessly supportive.

You sent him a picture of your Jack costume, and Keiji is like that is kind of adorable ngl-

He walks into the auditorium you’re performing in, and even he’s nervous to be in there. It’s huge.

But when you walk on the stage, and start belting, all the breath leaves his lungs.

Oh. Ohhhhhhh. He understands the plot now.

#kuroo #haikyuu headcannons #tsukishima #akaashi #bokuto #kuroo x reader #tsukishima x reader #akaashi x reader #bokuto x reader #kuroo headcanons #tsukishima headcanons #akaashi headcanons #bokuto headcannons #haikyuu

[nickgerlich]

At The Movies

If you live long enough, you get to witness many tech revolutions. It’s also how your house becomes littered with obsolete junk. I guess that’s the price of Progress.

All of my students today have been witness to the arrival of streaming music and video. These advances are truly revolutionary, in that we no longer need tangible products to listen or watch, other than some kind of device to capture wifi. Ownership is out, rentership is in.

And we are now witnessing the slow, painful death of legacy media like CDs and DVDs. Who among us still has stacks of these laying around though? I bet you also have a CD and DVD player somewhere, although it may not be attached to speakers, amplifier, or a TV.

Best Buy is the latest to tap nails in the coffin of the DVD. They plan to phase out all discs by early 2024, but promise to continue stocking them through the holidays if you just have to have a few more.I remember when the DVD debuted in the US in March 1997. They were available in Japan in November 1996, and I had seen them in Taiwan at Christmas 1995. They were a revolution, and quickly replaced VHS, which had been the mainstay for roughly two decades.

The DVD was the logical extension of the CD, which arrived in 1982. While CDs quickly replaced vinyl records and cassette tapes, they are well on their way to an unceremonious death. To put things into perspective for both tangible music and video, only 33.4 million CDs were sold in 2022, while at the same time, 41 million vinyl records were sold. Score one point for nostalgia! CDs peaked in 2000, and sales have dropped 95% since then. DVDs are in a nosedive these days as well, peaking at 6.1 billion in 2011. Wired Magazine predicted sales of only 300 million units in 2022.

I confess to having stacks of both, but I couldn’t tell you the last time I listened to a CD or watched a DVD movie. My legacy DVD player sits forlornly on the TV stand, in dire need of an HDMI cable. I don’t see myself connecting it any time soon.

Best Buy is wise to clear out remaining stock, because it will allow for better use of its selling space. In fact, one of the KPIs that retailers use is sales per square foot. If you’re using space to display products that are barely selling, you’re not doing your best. Sure, one might argue that someone needs to take care of the dwindling niche market that still wants DVD quality in their home theatre, but I suspect that business will be left to an online firm like Amazon who can service those customers from one central inventory.

And that’s for as long as it is viable for them to do so, depending on both customer demand as well as movie studios continuing to produce discs.

Revolutions like this take no prisoners; they take victims. Sometimes it takes a while for the revolution to take hold, but it does so eventually. Sure, there will always be a few who choose not to adopt the new way, but they do so at their own peril. Unless there is a revival—think vinyl records—the old way will be buried. How long it will be remembered is debatable.

Lastly, consider this. Inventory is a two-edged sword. You can’t make money without inventory, but too much of it can become the bane of your existence. And when you remember that the task of the retailer is to have the right stuff at the right price, in the right place and at the right time, you see what a balancing act inventory management is.

Kudos to Best Buy for a wise decision, even if it will pain some customers in the process. We barely had DVDs for a quarter century, and already they are on death’s door. That’s the nature of tech revolutions.I just have to wonder what will replace streaming, because right now, it seems unfathomable. I bet there are some futurists already scheming its replacement, though. And I hope I’m around long enough for one more revolution.

Dr “Keep The Wheels Turning” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #DVD #Best Buy #movies

[power-chords]

My father and I were having a heart-to-heart right before the new year, and I don’t even remember what the original subject was but we got to talking about music. Shocking, I know. And I said, Dad, do you remember how old I was when you hooked up the CD player and stereo system in my bedroom? I must have been eight or nine years old and I had, like, speakers and a subwoofer that could have been in a respectable living room theater setup. In fact I’m pretty sure it was a hand-me-down from the living room, which meant that it was up to my tech nerd father’s standards.

I’ll bet it’s something he doesn’t think all that much about having done, like it was a cute and generous gesture for a kid who knew fuck all about handling nice gadgets properly (how do you think I taught myself how to type like a bastard??? With supervision???), but to me it was the keys to the kingdom. Long before I started buying CDs, I just raided my parents’ collection. Hundreds of jewel cases, so I could just wander into the living room, pick one that looked interesting, and borrow it* from the library down the hall. And I just sat around all day on weekends, listening to CDs and drawing on the floor.

Would I have developed the kind of connection that I have to music otherwise? I don’t know. I’m sure it would still be a significant part of my life, but I can’t help but think that spending all those hours immersed in a safe creative space, guided purely by curiosity and the means with which to indulge it, is responsible for some critical wiring. It’s not, like, “I enjoy this stuff a lot, so I’m going to play it during my commute or while I review contracts and try to listen to at as often as possible.” It’s, “My soul will wither and die unless I have consistent access to this, it’s my most vital spiritual refuge, without it my sense of time and space becomes unmoored.” I don’t think this is a super uncommon phenomenon with music, but the intensity of it is nevertheless kind of shocking. It’s an anchor, it’s a temple, it’s a guiding star. It has brought me so much happiness, and more importantly than that, it is the way I make sense of the world.

*I stole so many. Dad bought me my own copy of Ten because he got fed up with the amount of times it disappeared.

[staceysonier]

Those That Go Bump (MxF) NSFW

*Toy Box Monster Boyfriend!*

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

I was my mother's only child. And with being the only child, I was spoiled rotten, getting everything I wanted and could ever possibly need, within her parameters, of course.

She was a single mother, after all, and she worked her fingers to the bone to keep me happy but she just wasn't there as often as I would've liked.

I was often left with a teenaged babysitter who kept me locked in my playroom because she wanted her boyfriend and friends to come over--not that I ever minded. I had a pretty big imagination as a child so I could sit in a room and play by myself all day, never growing bored.

It also helped that I had a large number of toys to chose from in a wooden toy box. The toy boxes lid was slanted so when I lifted it up, it slid into the box until I pulled it back down. The toy box itself always seemed to be so big to me as a child and any and every small piece from a toy that I put in there always seemed to get lost.

And then, one day when my babysitter locked me in my playroom, I saw that all of the small parts to the toys I thought I lost appeared in a pile on my rainbow rug beside the toy box.

Being a child, I never thought to question it--until I touched something furry deep within the toy box.

I knew then that it couldn't have been a stuffed animal because I kept all of them in my old baby crib so, using my small hand, I felt around, patting at the fur until I touched what felt like skin and heard a giggle.

Pulling my hand out of the toy box and gasping, I sat down, trying to look inside but it was so dark where the light from my ceiling fan never reached, and the darkness seemed to go on for infinity.

"Hello," I whispered into the toy box.

Little me was not ready for the whispered, "Hello," I got back.

I slammed the lid shut and didn't open it for a week. I told my mom about it and she just laughed and said she loved how endless my imagination was.

Being terrified of the thing, the monster that lived in my toy box was an issue for me as all of my favorite toys were in there!

So, I was grateful for when I and my mother were walking down the sidewalk in town one day, a man in a long dark coat stopped us and opened one of the sides of his coat.

"You need this monster spray, kid? You look like you do."

My mother was trying to pull me around him but I dug my heels in.

"Mommy, I need the monster spray for the monster in my toy box! Remember? Please, please, please!"

Her face fell as she realized she was defeated and asked the man how much the spray bottle was.

"For the kid? I'll let you have it for ten dollars."

I watched as my moms' eyes bugged but I figured it was a good price.

"Ten dollars? Are you insane? Ten dollars for a bottle full of what appears to be water? No, definitely not."

She then tried to move around him again but I grabbed her coat.

"Mommy please," I begged and gave her my saddest puppy eyes.

In the end, the man instructed that I give two sprays into any of the dark parts of my room, every night. I should see results after a few days.

My mother grumbled but when we got home, she smelled the contents of the bottle and when she figured it was safe enough for me to play with, she sent me on my way to play while she made dinner.

I started with my room first, having no idea if the toy box monster could somehow get out and move around.

I sprayed under my bed, in my closet, behind my dresser as it was against a corner of the room.

I then moved onto my playroom, lifting the lid and spraying the mist into the toy box. I might've overdid it then but all I knew was I wanted my toys back.

A few days of this and I was finally ready to begin playing with my toys again.

My mom also bought me a new doll when we were in town and she made me put it in the toy box after I used my monster spray, saying that there was no way the monster would take my doll with how much I sprayed.

But when I went to go grab my doll from the toy box, I couldn't see it anywhere.

It was my favorite toy at the time and I wasn't going to let some monster take it without a fight!

So, grabbing my spray bottle, I climbed into the toy box and began crawling over all the toys. I felt like I had been crawling for a while but I was getting further and further away from the light in my playroom until the only light I could see what in front of me, where I was heading to.

I crawled and crawled and crawled until I was finally at the edge of another toy box, one exactly like mine, and when I looked out into the room, It was just like mine except everything seemed to be darker here, like there was a bad storm outside and the light in the room wasn't on--everything just seemed dull, even to me as a child.

As I climbed out of the toy box and stepped onto the dull rainbow rug, I saw my doll laying on the door and then heard a whimper and then a soft cry and turned to the noise.

I noticed something that looked like a large stuffed animal curled up on the baby crib.

As I got closer, I could hear its soft cries and whimpers clearer and to my child's self, it hurt to hear it crying.

"Are you okay," I asked it softly, keeping my distance as I did with our neighbor's cat who used to strike at me when I got too close.

"Why do you care," came a soft and small voice, "You wanted me to stay away and I have been."

It sniffled and then it whimpered again and I moved closer.

"I was just scared," I explained softly, "I'm sorry if I upset you."

"You upset me, alright. You also blinded me," it whimpered again and then sat up before turning to me.

I gasped as I saw its face and the first thing I noticed was its white eyes and the fur around its eyes was white.

I then saw the two horns coming out of its head, one on either side and they seemed to curl back. Its nose looked like a pugs nose and it had two large and spiky teeth jutting out from its bottom lip.

"I...I blinded you? How," I asked quietly and my tummy started hurting.

It sniffled again and cast its head down, "Whatever you sprayed. It got into my eyes and now I can't see out of them anymore. My mom and dad said I can't come to play with you anymore because you hurt me. I told them you obviously didn't want me to play with you anyway."

When I left that room and went back to my own, I washed every toy in my toy box by hand with hot water and soap, making sure that whatever was in it, washed down the drain. I also threw that bottle away and cleaned every possible place I used the spray at, even my own room.

I hadn't meant to hurt the monster, I just wanted it to stay away, but after going back to its room a few time and talking and playing with it, I found that it was really fun to be around.

I found out that he had a name--Kerolath, Kero for short--and he was the same age as me.

I didn't mind being locked in my playroom before but once I knew there was a whole other world inside of my toy box, I wanted in even when the door unlocked and my mom came home.

When I met Kerolaths parents when I got older, I apologized for accidentally blinding him. I knew nothing would ever make up for it but I think telling them that I really meant him no harm was what they wanted to hear.

Kero was able to come back to my room and play with me and my toys after that but I always helped him back home when he had to go back.

As we got older, our rooms changed but I begged my mother to let me keep the toybox, even when I threw out and donated all my old toys.

"What would you even keep it for, Shae," she had asked but I just shrugged and told her that it meant too much for me to get rid of.

She had laughed then, telling me that there was a point in time when I was terrified of the toy box.

I laughed as well and acted like I couldn't remember.

Kero came through my toy box when I came home from school and my mom was still at work, sometimes he'd be there waiting when I opened the door.

We were both 15 almost 16 so the room had changed from one of princesses and makeup stations and stuffed animals and toys to one of video games and gaming consoles, a cd player and various books on bookshelves.

He'd be lying on the rainbow rug, seemingly asleep with the light turned off but as I stepped into the room and turned on the light, he'd grin and sit up.

"Learn anything new," he'd ask.

His voice had gotten deep and husky throughout the years. He grew with me until he outgrew me. He had to duck when close to the ceiling fan for fear he'd take out another of the blades with his horns.

That had been a fun one to explain away.

Kero didn't just grow taller either, he bulked out, but his fur remained the same raven color it had always been, with the patches around his eyes still stained white.

He was so big and had so much muscle and smelt so good that he often had my cheeks burning as my teenage hormones went haywire.

I gave myself my first orgasm on the rainbow rug when I turned 16 to the thought of my toy box monster. And the 'amazing smell' Kero asked about the next day had me blushing as I told him I had no idea what he was talking about. I had been grateful in the moment that he couldn't see how red my cheeks had been.

I pulled myself out of my thoughts and had moved through the room to fall down into one of the giant bean bag chairs I had and, having felt a draft, turned around to see that my dress had flown up as I fell and my rear had been on display.

I was experimenting with thongs at this time, buying them without my mother for fear of what she'd say... And I just so happened to be wearing one that day.

Blushing, I had pushed my dress down and was again grateful that he hadn't seen what happened. I then watched as his face shifted and his tongue lulled out of his mouth.

"There it is again," he whispered huskily, "That smell."

I had pinched my thighs together as I watched him move closer but then his tongue moved back into his mouth and he cleared his throat.

"Sorry, I caught a whiff of something that smelled delicious again. Are you sure your mom isn't home and making dinner?"

I let out a shuddering breathed and shook my head, "No, she's at work. You must be having phantom smells again or something, Kero."

After that, I was careful of what I wore around him, trying my hardest to mask my scent but it was the times that he moved in closer, whispered into my ear, or touched a certain spot on my neck--even if all of this was with innocent intent--that he would get another whiff and get that dazed look on his face, his tongue lulling out.

After I graduated high school, I went straight into the workforce, getting a job at the company my mother worked at and I eventually moved out, taking my toy box with me.

I had a two-bedroom house so I put the toy box in the second room and kept it open for Kero to come through when he wanted, which was almost always.

You could say we roomed together now as he was always in my world more than he was in his.

He would say he hated how dull his world was after having seen mine and when I moved, he just stopped going back through the toy box when he didn't have to.

I eventually got another bed and he made the second bedroom his, only going home on Sundays to visit his family.

It was on these Sundays that I got the house to myself so I'd use it to my full advantage.

Even though I knew Kero couldn't see, he still had a remarkable sense of hearing and smell.

So, Sundays were the only days I'd walk around the house naked. I'd take long bathes and masturbate as many times as I wanted without Kero sniffing around.

"You still going to your families tomorrow," I asked one Saturday night.

We had been in the kitchen with me at the stove making dinner, him at the table reading. I had asked him one day how he read if he was blind and he told me his kind, where he was from, they had a different way of doing things. For humans, we read with our eyes and our fingers but for him, it was more of a feeling.

I still never quite understood what he meant but I went with it.

"Yeah, you know it's a thing with my parents. They want all their kids to come back on Sunday so...I have no choice."

I nodded though I knew he couldn't see it.

"All of your siblings visit your parents," I asked as I stirred the pot of chili.

"Yep. Vornes, Bazzegazon, Tagegazon, and Tigrame, though Baz and Tag try to get out every time because their girlfriend doesn't like being without them for a whole day. If only our parents cared," he snickered.

"When will you be leaving and when will you be coming back," I asked as I grabbed two bowls from the cabinet.

"Well," he sighed, "Time works differently but I'm sure I'll be gone well before you wake up and well after you fall asleep."

I turned around looked at him, "But you'll be here Monday when I get home from work...right?"

He set the book down then and sent a smirk my way, "My dear Shae-be...are you going to...miss me?"

I turned around a scoffed, "Don't call me that. And you're my best friend, Kero."

For being such a big guy, he moved quieter than even a mouse.

"You can still miss your best friend," his warm breath whispered against my neck, his hands on my hips and my heart was sent racing.

"Kero," I panted and shuddered and felt him move back.

I heard him chuckle before I heard the creak of the chair as he sat down again.

"You're so ticklish," he said as he picked up the book again.

***

I woke up the next day and made myself a big breakfast. I had a big day ahead of me, after all.

After eating, I took a shower so that I was nice and clean and once my body and my hair were dry enough, I dropped the towel into the laundry hamper and went to my bedroom to grab my toy from my bedside table drawer.

I then went into the living room and made sure all the curtains were closed tight so that no one could peek in and then I sat on the couch and pulled the coffee table closer.

Pulling the laptop from the bottom shelf of the coffee table, I powered it up and searched up a certain website.

After typing in what I was looking for, I turned up the volume just loud enough so that I could hear and spread my thighs before placing my feet on the edge of the table.

I loved watching the small women as they got pounded into by a big bulking guy. Those were my favorite--watching his monster cock ram in and out of her small hole, watching the fucked out expression on her face as she came around him...

Placing the toy to my lips, I swirled my tongue around the tip and then down the sides, wetting it before sliding it into my mouth just as the woman in the video was.

With my other hand, I first squeezed my breasts. I genuinely enjoyed that they were small and perky and could easily fit my hand. I pinched my nipples hard as the man on the screen pinched the woman's nipples, feeling her pleasure with her.

I was still sucking on the silicone cock in my mouth as my other hand traveled down my stomach and my fingers then found my mound.

Letting my fingers travel further, I got to feel just how wet I was. I was well lubricated as I ran my fingers through the slick mess and up to my clitoris before rubbing gentle circles at first.

I then brought the toy down to my lower lips as the man on the screen lined himself up with the woman's slit.

And when he rammed himself inside of her, I rammed the toy inside of myself, gasping at the feeling of the large toy inside of me and my fingers swirling my clitoris.

I came three times, having to take a small ten-minute break between each time in order to lose a bit of the sensitivity, and then fell asleep.

***

I woke up to hot air being puffed against my sex.

And when I finally opened my eyes, I saw Kero between my legs.

He had pushed the coffee table out of the way and hooked my knees over his shoulders.

His tongue was lulled out and he had a dazed look on his face.

"You were the smell the whole time," he whispered and his hot breathed against me had me shuddering.

"Kero," I whimpered and tried to push away but he held fast before smirking, "You're home early."

"The smell was faint when I came into your world but now that I'm here...it's stronger just now. Is it me, Shae? You get aroused by me?"

I watched as he blew cold air against me and I shivered, my knees unconsciously tensing and bringing him closer.

I whimpered again at how close he was, at how close his tongue was and the grin on his face.

"I can practically taste you, Shae," he whispered huskily and licked his lips and I was panting as I brought my hand down and spread my lower lips with my fingers.

I watched as he inhaled deeply, "You're teasing me. You've been teasing me since we were teenagers, haven't you? You got off on the rug in your playroom when you could've in your room."

My heart was beating faster than I thought humanly possible as his very large hands skimmed up my stomach and around to hold my sides, careful not to touch my breasts.

"And it was me you got off to, wasn't it? I heard you whispering, panting, and gasping my name, Shae. Your sweet voice was like a bright light and I was a moth drawn to you. I listened as you came that night and I came after you left the room. I wrapped myself in your smell and came into my fist. Will you make me again...tonight?"

My voice seemed non-existent at the moment and all I could do was scoot closer to his face and gasp as his sharp bottom canines touched on either side of my folds.

"Please, Kero," I whimpered and watched as his warm and wet tongue touched my wet and needy folds, parting them and then diving deep inside.

Gasping, I grasped onto his horns and kept him close as his big tongue slithered all over. First inside, deep inside, hitting spots I had no idea even existed, and then outside, circling my clitoris and making me pant.

I listened to him slurp me up, taking his fill of me as I got closer and closer to the edge of my climax.

"Kero, Kero, Kero, yes," I kept chanting as I used his horns to guide him to where I needed him most.

But then when his tongue moved south and I felt it run over my back hole, I shivered and whimpered again.

He kept licking over it before I felt him push in.

"Kero, wait--" I tried but my voice choked off as his tongue dove deep and wriggled inside.

I moaned for him and watched as he backed away before picking up the toy that I suction cupped to the coffee table.

"This had your scent the strongest. It was what drew me in. Let's see you draw it in."

He rubbed it around my slippery folds and then rolled his tongue all over it, tasting me on it, and watching Kero lick a huge cock had me more excited than I ever thought it would.

He then smirked as he rubbed it around my back hole, somewhere that I had never had anything before, especially not that big of a toy.

"Wait, Kero, it's too bi--"

But he was already pushing it forward, shushing me as his fingers pressing on my tongue.

I whimpered around his fingers as I took the toy and stretched around it.

"That's my good girl," he whispered as he pushed it all in and let it sit while I got used to the size.

It hurt but once the pain subsided and he began moving it within me, I was moaning for him to go faster, to give me more.

"You want more," he asked with a grin and stood up.

And what I saw dangling between his thighs was one of the biggest cocks I had ever seen.

It was black, the color of his fur, and had a huge knot at the end and came to a blunt tip.

I must've been staring because the next thing I know, his finger is under my chin, lifting my eyes to his face to get my attention.

"You want it," he asked with a smirk, "Beg for it, Shae. Beg me to fuck you."

Reaching up, I placed my hand at the back of his neck and pulled him down, feeling his hands go on either side of my head on the back of the couch as he bent down to me.

"Please," I breathed against his lips, "Please fuck me, Kero. Please fuck me, please," I begged and kissed him.

I heard him groan as he pressed his lips to mine and then licked my lips before lining himself at my entrance.

"Please," I whimpered as I felt the head of his cock push past my lower lips.

"Shae, fuck," he gasped as he pushed in further until his knot was at my lips.

I felt so full with the huge toy in my ass and his monster cock in my pussy. I was in heaven as he began to move and pulled the toy out with him, thrusting him and the toy in at the same time, causing me to gasp.

"Only," he groaned as he fucked me, "In my wildest dreams, Shae, have I ever," he groaned again, "Fucked your tiny, wet pussy."

"Harder, Kero," I begged and instantly got what I wanted as he began pounding into me. Leaving the toy all the way in to the hilt, he fucked me hard, moving the couch back with each powerful thrust.

"Kero," I cried, "Please!"

"What, my love? What would you like," he asked me sweetly, his hand on the side of my neck, stroking one of my sensitive spots.

I began to push him away, causing his face to move into an expression of confusion.

"Did I hurt you, Shae," he asked but backed away.

I turned over so that my ass was out to him and my chest was against the back of the couch before I grabbed one of his hands and placed it on my hip.

"Fuck me hard, Kero," I asked and I felt him move closer until he was pushing into me again.

And the first push in was heaven but as he put one of his knees on the couch and rammed into me, I was out of my body with pleasure.

This was everything I had ever wanted. It was Kero and it was him being rough like the men that I loved watching on that website.

"Shae, so tight around me. I might go early," he chuckled low in my ear and I shook my head. I wanted him all night long.

But it was, in fact, me who came early.

It was only a few of his powerful thrusts into me in this position that I came around him, causing him to gasp and shudder and then hold my hips tightly in his large hands.

"Fuck, Shae. I nearly--," his pounding into me sent aftershocks electrifying my body and causing me to squeeze around him tightly.

He jerked and pushed his knot into me, making me gasp as he stretched me further and locked himself into place with a choking gasp.

Kero doubled over, holding me tightly around my waist as he rocked within me. I listened to his whimpers and chuckled through my haze.

"Too much," I asked slowly, still feeling the effects of my earth-shattering orgasm.

"Too tight," he squeezed my hip, "too sensitive," he breathed out.

After his knot shrunk and he was able to pull himself and the toy in my ass out, he hauled me into the shower and rinsed me off, and when his fingers went in between my thighs, I grasped his arm and shuddered, listening to his chuckle.

"I made a mess down here," he whispered into my ear and licked my neck, leaving his scent.

"You can make a mess down there anytime," I promised as I pulled his lips to mine.

He pulled back and smile down at me.

"I love you," he said gently, rubbing the pad of his thumb over my lips.

"I love you too, Kero. I always have," I replied and put my arms around his large frame.

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

HI! Want more monster love? Find me on Wattpad and Inkitt! I’m under the same name! 

#lemon #monster boyfriend #exophilia #my writing #monster x reader #terato

[bright-molina]

ok wait this is the anon asking about how the buckley-mercers came about and I read Emergency Contact again and realized it was a reader insert and I cannot help but think that the reader has to have some form of trauma they are literally a buckley and now I can’t stop thinking about what it could be? I JUST ADORE YOUR WORK SO MUCH

ONCE AGAIN ANON YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY AN ANGEL!!!!!

I'm so glad you like this little world as much as me and @biqherosix do oh my gosh 🥺

[I'm gonna use she/her pronouns for this one but if anyone would prefer any others just let me know!]

Ahh okay SO

Short answer: poor Baby Buckley has had it rough. Absent parents and both her siblings leaving her alone left her with her fair share of abandonment issues and quite a bit of emotional detachment.

Long answer:

Baby Buckley is Alex’s age, they met when they were young a couple times during family reunions and whatnot and the last time they exchanged numbers and they talk all the time, calls, texting, facetime, everything (this will be relevant in a little bit)

We all know Maddie practically raised Buck herself and the two of them are the ones who raised Y/N

But still, it isn’t the same as having parents. If they paid little attention to Buck, they paid even less attention to y/n, there were a lot of times when their parents forgot there were kids in the house at all

Buck is 11 years older so when he was out doing something it was y/n fending for herself, a child barely old enough to read with no one there, that’s just how it was

So she learned to keep to herself, she could never keep her parents' attention no matter how hard she tried, and she tried practically everything. They always looked past her so she learned quickly to keep every single thing locked inside cause there was no one there to pay attention either way

It was always different with Maddie and Buck though, she let her guard down then because they were always there. She could trust them. Then Maddie left. She knew nothing about what was going on, all she saw was someone else leaving her alone. So she distanced herself. They both did.

Then one night Buck mentioned wanting to leave, promising y/n he’d take her with

But when he found the letter from Maddie telling him she couldn’t go with them he didn’t know what to do. Without her guiding him to do the right thing he was lost, fully believing he couldn’t do it. So he left.

He took a page out of Maddie’s book and left y/n a letter, promising he’d keep her updated and visit her soon

And for a while she believed him. She waited by the door every day after school, collected his postcards and hung them on her wall, smiling as she read the stories he told over and over again.

But days turned to weeks then months then a year had gone by and nothing

He still sent postcards and gifts on birthdays but it wasn’t the same as having him there

The postcards and pictures became bitter reminders that he was out living his life, happy as could be, without her. So she took them down and stuffed them deep inside an old backpack out of sight. Every new one he sent joined the pile unread.

Maddie stopped answering her calls and it became more obvious that they had both moved on without her

So there she was, alone at home, with two parents who preferred to pretend she didn’t exist

They were absent at best, most days were spent alone in her room, either sitting in silence or blasting old cd’s as loud as she could but never letting herself think of either of her siblings

She was never too good at remembering to do things herself, it was just easier to forget anything and everything, easier to not say a single word

Her only relief came when Alex called, he’d relay everything about how his band was doing, play her their newest songs, and sometimes when he could tell she was having a rough time he’d sing to her

That brief period of feeling okay, of feeling like there was someone there, meant everything. As they got older the phone calls turned to texts and even those became more sporadic until they stopped all together for a brief period of time.

I’m actually gonna elaborate on the rest of this in another short fic I’m working on now but essentially:

One day Y/N gets a call from Alex’s phone but it’s not actually Alex. It’s Reggie, Luke, and Bobby looking for him, he was missing and they thought she’d know where he could be

It’s not him, it doesn't sound like something he'd do and she can tell something is wrong. So naturally, she uses the debit card Buck left her to buy herself a ticket to LA telling them “No one will miss me here anyway.”

Y/N is 15 when she decides to stay in LA. Permanently.

The five of them practically live in Bobby’s garage together, it’s just safer and better for them given everything they have to deal with at their respective houses. They’re there for each other and that’s all they need, they’re convinced of it.

She has no clue Buck is also in LA. The postcards were at the bottom of one of the only bags she took with but they’re still left unread. She doesn’t answer the calls from him or Maddie and the first time her dad calls she loses it, breaks down in angry tears and throws the phone across the room because why now?

It’s months later, her and Luke, who are the quickest, are at a grocery store, one of the big ones that can afford to lose a little money, with their bags and sublty sneaking whatever they need into the pockets. Everything happens fast and next thing they know there’s a scream, a lot of yelling, and upon closer examination, an accident.

Despite everything, Y/N picked some stuff up from Maddie and she’s the first to rush to the scene, telling Luke to call 911

She makes friends, hesitant ones, with the paramedics who responded to the call. The one who helped her, Chimney as he introduced himself, doesn’t tell anyone about the things stuffed in her bag. He does however promise that if she ever needs anything to come down to the 118 and ask for him and his friend, Hen.

Eventually, she does and as promised, they're both there. She’s tense and on edge the entire time she follows them around the place but it’s not until she gets to the second floor that she realizes she made a mistake going there in the first place.

The very first person she lays eyes on is her brother. Evan Buckley himself.

And she runs.

#i just am obsessed okay #i don't know whether to start adding tags to these little hc's but anyway #jatp #911 #buckley mercer universe #lovely anons