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quindolyn · 3 years

Note

hi can i request the maurauders going to see the reader do a musical like heathers or mean girls and they are just confused and turned on bc they didn't expect it to be this dirty (can lead to smut or not). luv you and hope you are taking care of yourself, if not go get something to eat, drink some water, take a nap, or do somthing you enjoy. or dont not trying to be pushy :)

Creature of the Night || Poly!Marauders

Word Count: 3029 (excluding song lyrics)

A/N: I think I liked how this turned out? I didn’t make it smut but it’s certainly suggestive, I went with Rocky Horror, I know that the musicals mentioned in the request are more modern but I fucking love Rocky Horror and I think it works with the request. When I first read this request I smiled so much because I love live theater, I don’t perform as much as I used to because as I progress with my education I’m focusing more on the stuff I can use to pad my resumes for college and stuff but I still love going to see productions. One of the worst parts of the pandemic for me has been not being able to go see shows, I miss it so much.

Warnings: theatre enthusiast reader, erections, suggestive material, song lyrics, slight teasing, wearing very little clothing in front of an audience, I believe that that is it

Masterlist

500 follower celebration

antici-

The magic of the stage was second to none. Sure, Hogwarts may have had witches and wizards, subjects like Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts, and ghosts that spent their time meandering about the halls but there was always a part of you that looked forward to the summer between your years at Hogwarts. Because no matter how magical Hogwarts was, the theater always made you feel completely and utterly alive.

Every summer since the one after your first year at what all of your muggle friends thought to be a very prestigious boarding school up in Scotland, you’d taken part in your local youth theater’s productions. Your parents both being muggles thought that it would be a great way for you to be able to stay in touch with your muggle origins.

The first year you’d been far too nervous to actually audition for a role, the very thought causing bile to churn in your stomach and threaten to make you sick all over your kitchen floor when your father first pitched the idea. So instead you’d done costumes and it was the most wonderful experience of your life.

Who needed drugs when you had live theater? The hustle and bustle behind the scenes was electrifying but after two summers of costuming, of quick changes in the wings, learning how to use the ancient sewing machines they stored in the depths of the storage rooms, and pulling pieces for the actors to try on you decided that you wanted to try something more.

The moment you had stepped onto the stage it was like you’d come to life and you cursed yourself for not taking the risk earlier. You belonged on the stage, with the harsh stage lights on you and pounds of makeup plastered onto your face you could feel the magic thrumming through your veins and it was addicting.

If it was possible, you were even more excited to perform this summer, the previous school year you’d finally gotten together with your long time best friends the Marauders, turning them from friends to your boyfriends.

When your mother had sent word of the production being put on this summer you’d squealed while seated next to James and across from Remus, who had Sirius hanging off of his side. After explaining to them, mostly Sirius and James really, just what live theater was their first reaction was to ask if they could come see you perform.

“I don’t even know if I’m going to be cast,” You had explained gently, not wanting to get their hopes up in case you weren’t cast this year.

“Bull shit of course you’re going to be the cast,” Sirius had contested through a mouthful of jam and toast, waving his hand theatrically through the air, watching him that day was not the first time you’d considered how the way he acted often reminded you of an over enthusiastic theatre major.

Remus, the only one with any knowledge on muggle theatre had snorted, wrapping an arm around Sirius’ waist to pull him closer to his body, “She’s not going to be the cast Pads, she’s going to be casted,” He’d corrected gently, pressing a kiss into his long, dark tresses.

“Whatever,” The smaller boy had grumbled, taking a sip of pumpkin juice.

Which brought you to where you were right now, five minutes to curtain touching up your make up in the mirror of the shared make-up room.

“Hey (L/N),” One of your cast mates called settling into the makeup chair next to you as she plucked a tube of dark red lipstick from the small canary colored makeup bag she had previously abandoned on the counter, “Your boyfriends coming tonight?” She asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.

“Yeah, they are,” You responded, applying mascara to your lashes.

“Excited to meet them, that photo you showed us,” She smiled, fanning her face with her hand, “Smoking,” She smiled, making eye contact with you in the mirror.

Rolling your eyes you ignored her comment, “It’s five minutes to curtain, you’re just now doing your make-up?” You chuckled, noticing her black face.

“Oh, shove it,” She laughed as you pushed yourself from your chair, traipsing out of the room, giving her the middle finger on your way out.

“Break a leg!” She called after you as the door latched shut.

You weren’t usually this nervous before a performance but knowing that your three boyfriends were sitting out there somewhere in the audience had you pacing back and forth backstage wondering what they were going to think of the whole production.

“Rocky Horror?” Sirius’ confusion evident in his voice as he plopped down in his seat next to Remus, throwing his arm around the werewolf’s shoulders, drumming his fingers on his clothed shoulder hidden behind his knitted cardigan.

“Yeah,” James collapsed into his chair on the other side of Remus, tucking one leg under his body, “No clue what it’s about but I’m sure our angel will be wonderful. Can you guys see her?” He straightened himself up in his seat, craning his neck in attempts to catch a glimpse of you.

Remus being the only one with any ties to the muggle world knew a bit about the show and had to do his very best to suppress a smirk from overtaking his face as he knew exactly what he and your other two boyfriends were getting themselves into.

“Just hush up you two, the show’s gonna start any moment,” He scolded, patting his large, scarred hand on James’ thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“Rem,” Sirius whined, puckering his lips and closing his eyes, signaling to his boyfriend that he wanted a kiss.

“My needy baby,” He crooned, leaning in to connect his lips with Sirius’ in a quick liplock before pulling back, allowing Sirius to drop his forehead to smear against his shoulder.

“That’s mean,” Sirius murmured discontentedly.

“Poor baby Pads,” James cooed mockingly.

“Both of you,” Remus hissed as the lights in the theatre dimmed, “The show’s about to start, be good for me and be quiet yeah?”

Their response came in their silence as the crowd started settling down and the music from the orchestra pit began a voice coming from somewhere out of sight as it was played through the speakers,

“Michael Rennie was ill

The day the earth stood still

But he told us where we stand”

Not 20 minutes into the show all three of them were as hard as rocks, James had already made Remus check the playbill for the name of the character you were playing, not being able to remember what you’d told them as all of his concentration was focused on a certain place.

Janet Weiss.

Remus couldn’t remember either, but he was almost certain that’s the name he could make out in the dark theatre, printed next to a picture of your smiling face.

When you’d stripped down to your underwear the boys could barely focus on the plot line of the show, only being able to watch the way your bare skin shone under the harsh light of the spotlights. Watching as sweat glistened on your skin, making you shine as you moved about the stage.

Enchanted by the melodic cadence of your voice they all felt a certain jealousy burning deep in the pits on their stomachs at the thought that there were dozens of other people packed into that theater, all observing you in your vulnerable state of under dress. Only they got to see you like that.

Sirius missed much of the first act glaring at members of the audience who he deemed as looking at you for too long for his liking, but if you were being honest a 4th year smiling at you in the hallway was sometimes too long for his liking.

It wasn’t like any of them had never seen you naked before, in fact they’d all seen you naked more than their fair share of times but something about you on that stage in a white bra with a matching slip was driving them all crazy.

Especially Remus, whose ultimate weakness was seeing you in anything white which was one of the reasons you’d been so excited to invite them in the first place, knowing that they would be horny messes the entire time.

On stage you did your very best not to look out into the audience looking for them, knowing that you wouldn’t be able to stop a ginormous grin from forming on your face and you couldn’t afford to break character. Not if you wanted the night to go your way.

As the opening notes to “Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me”, rose from the orchestra pit you had trouble stopping a small smirk from pulling at your lips as you opened them, inhaling deeply before singing the first words of the song,

“I was feeling done in, couldn't win

I'd only ever kissed before”

Despite yourself you caught a glimpse of long dark hair in the audience, quickly taking a glance at Sirius’ face, eyes glazed over in lust, legs shifting uncomfortably with his mouth hanging wide open.

Out of the corner of your eye you noticed another raven-haired boy’s mouth dropping as you shrugged off of your robe

“I thought there’s no use getting, into heavy petting

It only leads to trouble and, seat wetting

Now all I want to know, is how to go

I've tasted blood and I want more”

It was impossible to miss the way Remus’ jaw clenched as you laid your palm against Rocky’s chest, he was being played by your good friends who’d been working with the same theatre company as you since forever, he was like a brother to you. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t lay it on extra thick tonight with your boyfriends in the audience.

Tracing a dainty finger down Rocky’s chest you pushed your body against his singing out the next lyrics of the song,

“I've got an itch to scratch, I need assistance”

You turned you and your cast mate so that looking over his shoulder you were able to meet Remus’ eye, sending him a quick wink before focusing back in on Rocky.

“Toucha, toucha, toucha, touch me

I wanna be dirty

Thrill me, chill me, fulfill me

Creature of the night”

Pressing your back up against Rocky’s chest you guided his hands with yours to your breasts, squeezing them as you followed the choreography you knew by heart.

You ripped your slip from your body with the help of Rocky leaving you in only your white bra, matching panties and a pair of small heels as you paraded around stage, belting the suggestive lyrics into the theater.

“Then if anything grows, while you pose

I'll oil you up and rub you down (down, down, down)

And that’s just one small fraction, of the main attraction

You need a friendly hand, oh i need action”

You smirked, thinking about all of the action you’d be on the receiving end of later that night as you sunk to your knees in front of Rocky, your hands grasping his thighs. Deciding to tease them perhaps a little more than necessary as you went through the number, curling your leg around his and pressing your bodies together so that there was no space between your two questionably clothed bodies.

As the number was brought to a close it was impossible for you to ignore the excitement bubbling up inside of you as you continued your way through the show you kept throwing glances at your boyfriends, always finding their eyes already trained on you. More often than not, on some body part other than your face.

If your boyfriends thought that they had a bit of a problem before that song they were in a terrible predicament now.

Remus caught Sirius on multiple occasions trying to move the hand that he was holding to grope at his crotch as he tried to buck up into his boyfriend’s hand. And much to his own dismay, Remus would pull his hand away, thinking it probably wasn’t the best idea to give his boyfriend a hand job in a crowded theater. Knowing that he wouldn’t have to worry about James touching himself because he would never dream of disobeying him, Remus divided his attention between you on the stage and keeping Sirius in check.

Each of the boys were counting down the seconds until the show came to an end and they could get out of there and relieve some of their tension. As the curtains were pulled closed they all breathed a sigh of relief before they reopened, leaving all three of them bewildered and slightly annoyed, even more so when they noticed everyone around them standing as they applauded the actors.

Remus forced both of them up when you rushed to the front of the stage, curtsying as the crowd went wild, your boyfriends most notably. As you took your bow you blew a kiss to your boyfriends taking note of the uncomfortable way they all stood, trying to adjust their erections to make them less noticeable while simultaneously applauding you.

As you cleared the stage after curtain call you took your time, doddling towards the dressing rooms where you had left the clothes you’d arrived at the theater in along with a special outfit you’d brought for after the show. Usually you were one of the first actors to clear the theater after a show but tonight you took your time. Hanging up your costume with more care than anyone really should treat any garment with and certainly more than what it needed.

You smirked mischievously as you pulled the you’d brought outfit from your bag and shimmied it up your legs before slipping the delicate straps up your shoulders. You glimpsed yourself in the mirror, the red satin of the dress clinging to your curves in an attractive manner, short enough to display miles of legs and low cut enough to show off a decent amount of cleavage and perhaps a sighting of the matching red bra you were wearing beneath it.

Slinging the back of your black heels over the heel of your feet you snatched your purse from the armchair in your dressing room before striding out to go meet your boyfriends in the lobby, where you’d told them to wait for you.

Their heads all turned as they heard the clacking of your heels against the tile of the floor, “Boys,” You greeted as they unabashedly took in your new appearance.

As he most often was, Remus was the first one to collect himself, “Puppy, you were wonderful,” He praised, walking to meet you as you approached him, leaning down to smear a kiss against your cheek, “You did amazing up there, so proud of you,” He threw his arm around your waist as you walked towards Sirius and James.

“We got something for you,” He explained, his grip on your waist tightening, “Jamie give it to her, yeah?”

“Oh yeah,” The smaller boy grinned, remembering the bouquet he held cradled in his arms as he handed it over to you, “Here you go angel.”

“Thank you Jamie,” You said as you took it from him, closing your eyes as you buried your nose in the sweet smelling flora. As you opened your eyes you made eye contact with Sirius, who stood across from you, practically drooling as he took in your appearance without any shame, “They smell wonderful.”

“You okay Si?” You asked, looking up through your eyelashes, batting them innocently.

“Like you don’t know exactly what you did up there to us (Y/N/N),” Remus whispered in your ear, pressing his nose into your temple.

“You guys are the ones who wanted to come,” You lilted, rubbing one of the velvety petals between the pads of your thumb and forefinger.

“Could’ve warned us,” James mumbled, his eyes not leaving your thighs as he licked his lips, if it were anyone else you would’ve been uncomfortable but you couldn’t help but feel flattered whenever any of them ogled you.

“And what’s with the dress Pup?” Sirius nodded his head appreciatively towards your dress, obviously admiring the way it hung on your body.

“What, you don’t like it?” You asked with fake hurt in your voice, knowing that he more than liked it, he fucking loved it.

“S’not that,” Remus mumbled, nosing at your jugular, “Just that whole show, got us a little bit worked up. We didn’t expect it to be so sexual Puppy,” He nodded towards James and that’s when you noticed the erection he was still sporting.

“Got us really worked up, can we go home now?” James asked, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, trying to distract himself from his little problem.

“Jamie,” You whined, smiling wickedly, “I wanted to celebrate, I was thinking we could go eat somewhere, I was thinking maybe Thai food?”

You watched as Sirius ground his teeth, conflicted between needing to get home and not wanting to deny you from what you wanted.

“Having fun teasing us Bunny?” Remus asked you with a sly smirk, knowing exactly what you were doing.

“M’not teasing,” You insisted, turning indignantly to your other boyfriend.

“Sure you aren’t,” He chuckled, “Thai sounds great (Y/N), wanna talk with you about the show,” The idea of teasing Sirius and James even longer was very appealing to Remus and he was ready to make the sacrifice of being teased himself, knowing that he’d be able to get back at you later that night.

“But-” James began.

“You wanna argue with me Jamie?” Remus challenged, raising a singular eyebrow.

“No,” He moped, “Of course not.”

“Good,” Remus said, nodding his head approvingly, “We wouldn’t wanna deny our Princess would we?”

James shook his head, eyes pleading, desperately seeking Remus’ approval.

“Pads?” Remus challenged, turning his attention to the other raven haired man.

“What? Oh um, of course not,” He agreed distractedly, dragging his eyes from your form to meet Remus’, his reluctance evident in his voice.

“Good,” Remus said pointedly, his eyes cold, daring Sirius to question him. When he didn’t the werewolf continued, “Let’s get going then, there’s a nice little restaurant a couple blocks away yeah?”

As you all hummed your consent you made your way to the exit, “Ten galleons if you can make James cum in his pants at dinner,” Remus whispered in your ear quietly enough so that James and Sirius trailing behind you wouldn’t be able to hear you, you could hear the smirk in his voice as you exited the theatre.

“Deal.” This was going to be fun, you considered that you might have to invite them to come see the show again.

-pation

tagging: @randomoutsiders @weasleyposts @kittykylax @amourtentiaa @superbturtlemakerathlete

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blahkugo · 4 years

Text

Sleepless

Shouta Aizawa X Reader (BNHA)

Warnings: 18+, bondage, bratty rc, over-stimulation, umm it’s just pure filth sandwiched between some fluff

Word Count: 3.9k

A good night’s rest? You’ve never heard of her!

“At least take off your heels before you throw yourself into bed,” your boyfriend’s voice rings out, still deeply agitated from a long night of feigned smiles and interest. You know that tone well— the exasperated sigh typically saved for his students at U.A— but the room is spinning too fast for you to take heed of his reprimand.

“M’too tired,” you slur your words, face down against your mattress.

The two of you had been at a pro-hero gala, or as Shouta called it, a “gaudy show of riches for politicians and government dickheads.” It had taken almost all of your energy, and a lot of homemade dishes, to persuade him to accept the invitation; however, he had followed through. He behaved properly all night, smiled and socialized with every partygoer that approached you, and even ensured the vicious insults on the tip of his tongue were whispered into your ears only after each person had turned away. You deemed the night a success, despite waving off Shouta’s warnings about that fourth glass of champagne you downed.

“You’re going to get our covers dirty, idiot.” You can’t help but feel your heart flutter at that word— our. Be it the hundredth or thousandth time, you don’t think you’ll ever get over hearing him refer to the two of you as one. It had taken years for him to warm up to you, after all. While he considers it endearing now, you’re positive Shouta had initially found your constant laughter and positive nature unbearable, thinking of you as simply another nuisance to avoid; never had he met someone who reduced his usual threatening tone to something playful or entertaining. And little did either of you know, he would slowly come to adore the way his scolding amused you.

No amount of persuasion from his students or other heroes can convince you Shouta is actually intimidating. If anything, his constant stoicism only compels you to misbehave more. You love pressing his buttons, take pleasure in watching him get riled up and lose his calm demeanor. But as of this very moment, you’re simply too tired, and a bit too tipsy, to play along. You wave off his words with a flick of your wrist, only to feel a tug at your ankle.

“Wha–”

“Stop squirming. I’m trying to take them off,” he struggles with the straps woven intricately up your calves, “damned things are more tangled than my cloth.” When he finally removes them, you feel the pads of his fingertips graze your legs softly. Shocks travel your entire body as he pays special attention to the indents adorning your skin— drawbacks of the tight laces that are quite easy to disregard when they urge him to touch you so sweetly.

Shouta stalks away for a moment, only to return with a cotton pad and makeup remover. You’re surprised he even knows what products to use, though you know you shouldn’t be. He has spent countless minutes watching you complete your night routine intently, though usually his stare is paired with a sleepy grumble to hurry up and join him in bed.

He shifts you into a sitting position, wiping tenderly at your cheek while you pull off your false lashes.

“Those are fake?” He snorts, baffled.

“Mhhm, I’m prettier without them, right?” You poke fun at him, knowing he’ll ignore the cheesy question. A faint heat rises on his cheeks.

“Shut up and put this on,” he nudges one of his t-shirts into your arms before he slides your strapless dress down your body. Even with your eyes half-shut, you can feel his charged stare ogling every hill and valley of your naked form. His fingers barely skim you— a purposeful maneuver to focus on the task at hand— but your body jerks into his grasp, keen for more. Sleepy or not, you’d never waste an opportunity for a quickie. You know just how swiftly a few words and caresses on his part could have you bucking and sobbing, like putty in his han– “(Y/N), stop. You’re drunk and half-asleep.”

“Only tipsy and a quarter asleep, thank you very much.” Your eyes flutter open to see the beginnings of a smile touch his lips, but he just barely holds it back. He’s trying his damn hardest to remain stern, how cute. “Shou,” you mewl, elongating his name in the hopes that he’ll budge.

“Don’t pout at me,” he taps a chiding finger against your bottom lip, “the answer is no. I still have work to do.” Ignoring your whined protests, Shouta walks out of the bedroom. Seconds later, you hear his office door shut, a sign that he’ll be in there long into the night.

Any inkling of sleepiness your body possessed is gone without a trace, now feeling nothing but an intense heat coursing the skin your boyfriend brushed, and the alcohol left running through your veins only intensifies that warmth. You turn yourself over in bed, naively will yourself to succumb to sleep and deal with the ache tomorrow; however, your body has other plans. Your thighs press together on their own, desperate for any sort of relief to quell the throbbing between your legs, but it’s no use. Looks like you’re getting up.

With each step towards his office, you find yourself more impassioned. Who does Shou think he is anyways, leaving you alone in such a needy state? It’s not fair. He gives you the slightest taste of his touch and then cruelly rips it away. So if anything, it’s his fault that your body won’t rest until completely appeased— until he soothes the burn. Besides, you’ll be damned if you’re going to allow him the pleasure of hearing your moans through the thin walls knowing he goaded you into touching yourself.

Upon walking through the door of his workspace, you’re greeted with the sight of your boyfriend, the stealthy pro-hero, seated ever-so casually at his desk. He has a hand pressed adamantly against his temple and his hair up in a messy half-bun. So badly do you want to run your hands through it, tug the clip off so you can watch those beautiful, dark locks tumble down his shoulders. You always catch yourself silently hoping for a piece to fall in his eyes so that you can reach out and tuck it behind his ear, delighted when you have any excuse to stroke the soft waves between your fingertips.

“Shou,” you mumble, one hand rubbing at lidded eyes. The white glow of the computer screen washes over him as he turns to you, and you feel your breath hitch again at the Adonis in front of you.

He’s opted out of wearing any sort of top. Instead, gray joggers hang low on his hips, allowing you to feast your eyes on his lean chest and softly sculpted v-lines. A dark line of hair trails down into his pants, and you feel your mouth water at the idea of licking a long stripe up his navel.

“Can’t sleep.” You’re aware it comes out a whine, don’t care to correct your tone because it may just convince him to join you in bed. He rolls his eyes, your name flowing off his tongue with a low sigh— music to your ears.

“I have work to catch up on since somebody forced me to go to that stupid gala,” the accusation is probably sincere, but you smile anyways.

“Please,” there’s that whine again, “just five minutes.” This time your words are accompanied by a quick yank at the hem of your t-shirt. Your cleavage makes an appearance, and when you see his eyes wander up towards the supple globes— tongue just barely poking out to slide across his bottom lip— you know you’ve got him beat. He mutters under his breath, but the only words you catch are something along the lines of ‘pampered brat’.

Well, spoiled or not your methods work, and he’s the one indulging your whims anyways. Being curled up against Shouta’s sturdy chest, you find the fatigue of a long night creeping up on you once again. His close proximity is enough to relax you; all of your senses are engulfed in his presence, saturated with him. Your body gladly welcomes his scent with every inhale— clean laundry, aftershave, and something a bit woodier that can only be described as ‘Shouta’. Though he shaved this morning, newly grown stubble scruffs against you every time you nuzzle against his jaw. Slender fingers tangle in your hair, smoothing lazy circles into your scalp. And with your ear pressed to his chest, you realize the slow, steady drum of his heartbeat just might actually lull you into a deep sleep.

But that’s all before you hitch a leg around his hip to pull him closer. At the sensation of your heat nudged tightly against him, you feel his heartbeat rise rapidly. If any thoughts of sleep linger in your mind, the prospect of riling Shouta up— and perhaps securing an orgasm or two in the process— throws them out the window once again.

Your fingertips begin to caress his shoulders subtly, ear still pressed to his chest to listen for any jumps in his rhythm. The less he notices your movements, the easier it’ll be to overwhelm him all at once. When your fingers don’t incite any noticeable response, you run them through his hair instead. At the same time, you feign discomfort at the position you’re in and twist your hips slightly, making sure to press your core against him harder. You feel his breath hitch under you, and then your hair being jerked harshly.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he forces you to look up at his cloudy eyes, always ringed with darkness no matter how much rest he receives. Caught. You flash him your sweetest pout, gazing up at him through dainty lashes. A slight ‘hm?’ leaves your lips, but within seconds, they’re attached to his neck, shamelessly kissing and nibbling at the sweet spot near his jaw. “If you’re not going to behave on your own, I’ll make you.” Your thighs tighten around his hips, goosebumps trailing your arms at the clear-cut threat.

“Do it then,” you urge between kisses, now peppering them up his jaw. Your teeth kiss the shell of his ear before you whisper, “or I’ll just keep misbehaving, daddy.”

In an instant, your face is shoved into the mattress, arms crossed behind your back with Shouta’s cock straining against you through his pants. Rigid cotton brushes against your folds and you realize that perhaps he was expecting this turn of events more than he let on, because the fucker never bothered giving you a change of underwear.

“You’re such a needy slut,” he spits, heated breath fanning your neck while he tightens his grasp around your wrists. “Can’t go one night without getting me worked up, huh?” His free hand darts under your shirt, now kneading and pinching at your ass.

“Nope,” you bite back, always ecstatic to provide sassy retorts, especially when he’s seething like this.

A stinging pain travels your body when he slaps the globe of your ass. Once, twice, five times, each spanking invoking a louder gasp until tears prick the corners of your eyes.

“Are you done acting up?” Shouta’s tone is slow and composed, almost disinterested. If not for his heaving chest pressed against your back, you would believe him unaffected by the punishment.

You, on the other hand, are very obviously flustered. Tears stream down your face freely now, and you’re positive the spanking has left a blazing handprint on your cheek as a reminder for days to come. Shouta gives you a final, petty love tap to shake you out of your thoughts. “I don’t have all night.”

But you’re left unsatisfied, the throbbing between your thighs only worsened by his harsh welts and complete neglect of your clit. He hasn’t made a single motion towards your glistening cunt, probably won’t ever if you simply take his discipline lying down.

“What if I’m not?” The words leave your mouth hesitantly, face turning to stare back at him with wide, unblinking eyes. He doesn’t say a word, his own eyes narrowing and lips quivering into a disgusted scowl. Even though you’ve asked for this, know exactly what situation you’ve gotten yourself into, your heart quickens at the thrill of seeing your partner so worked up. He may not be outwardly angry— Shouta has always been a man who prefers quick, biting remarks over piercing screams and smashing glass— but his mannerisms tell you everything you need to know. It’s going to be a long, sleepless night.

You feel the tight, unforgiving fabric knotted around your body before you’re even aware of what’s happening. Nimble fingers quickly wrap your arms in place. Then, your legs are bent at the knees and tied securely to your wrists. Only your taut midriff and breasts touch the mattress, leaving your sopping core exposed, no way to flail or deny him entrance. You’re his to do whatever he pleases with.

“Behave.” He wraps your hair around his wide palm and yanks hard, a pained cry leaving you at the prickling in your scalp. His fingers graze your slit, but never touch you where you need him. It’s absolutely maddening. You buck into him to no avail— the cloth wraps too firmly around your limbs.

“Shou, I– I, please,” you’re practically sobbing, his name leaving your lips over and over like a prayer. But it doesn’t matter, you’ve angered him.

“Who said you could speak?” He tugs harder on your locks. The motion rocks your skull, all nerves standing on end. It fucking hurts, but the action has your slit quivering all the same. “Are you going to be a good little whore now?”

“Yes, Shou.” The response wins you a sharp slap to the ass, the sore cheek. You suppress a loud wail, correcting yourself quickly. “Y-Yes daddy, I’ll behave.” He doesn’t respond, only lets out a low growl and loosens his grip on your hair.

Then, his presence is gone. He’s moved off the bed, and your cunt pulsates at the number of delicious things he may do next.

A slam rings out from your bedside dresser and he’s back within seconds. Something foreign, hard and long, is pressed against your tight hole. No stretching, no warning, he simply sinks the toy into your slick cunt. After a few merciless thrusts you’re whimpering softly, choking back pleas. If he wanted you to beg, you’d know it.

“Is this what you wanted?” The dildo is driven into you faster. “Is this what you were grinding like a bitch in heat for?” His words are spit like venom, tone disappointed— appalled— with you, but it only fuels your steady ascension to orgasm. You’re teetering closer and closer to the edge, but you just need a bit more. His cock, a finger on your clit, anything.

“Yes, yes, yes.” You can’t help the onslaught of moans that spill from your lips in between pants. His hands begin kneading at your ass again, right cheek still flaming with every touch. If he’d only remove the bindings, now digging tightly into your wrists and ankles, you’d be able to hump back onto the toy as you so desperately wish to.

He stills all at once, leaving you distraught and gasping. If you cry out, you’ll only be met with harsh reprimands. You want to sob— for his touch, for a break, for anything to soothe the ache in your core.

You hear it before you feel it.

A small buzzing noise as something is clicked on. Then, vibrations wracking your insides, your clit— a slew of pleasure as the dildo pulses. You sigh loudly, that stubborn itch finally being appeased by the pressure of the toy.

“Is my pretty little slut enjoying herself?” Shouta laughs behind you, voice still cold and filled with loathing. It’s as though he’s repulsed by your desire, your ceaseless need for him. You mewl loudly at the thought. “Mhm, and you’re going to continue enjoying yourself,” you feel the bed dip as he steps away, “until I finish my work.”

The fucking bastard. He’s leaving you tied up and helpless with a sex toy on the highest setting. He knows you’ll be a drooling mess for him, probably only half-conscious, by the time he’s back.

“N- no Shou, please.” Your protests do nothing to sway him. He simply snickers and walks out of the bedroom, leaving you to writhe and wail on your own. And God, does it feel good. Your stomach pulls taut as you rut against the bed like– like an animal. In a constant cycle of edging and ebbing, your orgasms build and build and build until you’re hit full force, only to begin all over again. It’s equal parts satisfying and unfulfilling, because fuck, do you just want your boyfriend’s cock inside you. It’s all you can think of— his warmth, his hands roaming your body, sweet, degrading nothings whispered into your ear while he pounds into you.

You lose track of time, aren’t even sure at this point whether your body is spasming or simply attempting to dispel the thick length inside you. The pleasure has turned to an entirely different ache, swollen clit now abused by the constant vibrations. Your voice is run hoarse, face carved into a permanent wince. And despite your attempts to stay quiet, chokes and gasps still rip through your throat. Even Shouta’s cloth is soaked through with the scorching sweat enveloping your body.

Though absolutely exhausted, you’re conscious enough to hear his quick steps as he makes his way to the bedroom. You can sense the smirk plastered across his face without even seeing it.

“Tired out?” Fingertips ghost over the cloth and across your painfully numb calves, nerves jumping at the feeling. “Ah’, you’ve soaked the bedspread.” A fierce blush runs across your skin, humiliated at the sight you must seem to him— a drooling, high-strung mess. He either doesn’t notice or chooses to ignore the way your body shakes at every prod.

All you can do is let out a meager ‘Mmph’, your brain too scrambled to form anything close to words, let alone coherent sentences. “If you use your words, I’ll consider taking the toy out.” Shouta’s ruthless; he knows every inch of your body, your reactions, like the back of his hand. Of course he’d ask you to use your words. He lives to watch you come undone, thrives off the pain etched onto your features.

“Please,” the request is drawn out— paused midway to let loose another gasp— and dripping in desperation. “I can’t– I just-” It’s all you can manage in your state.

“Seems you’ve been fucked stupid,” he chuckles darkly, though the vibrations wracking your cunt finally come to a halt and the dildo is swiftly removed. Your core clenches at the emptiness. “But I haven’t had the chance to stuff this tight little pussy full,” he slaps a harsh palm against your slit, making sure to wipe the slick that now coats his palm all across your cheek. If you weren’t aware of how soaked you were before, Shouta makes damn sure that you do now. The most you can work out in response is a feeble squeak.

One of Shouta’s hands strokes at your matted hair from behind, agile fingers tidying the disheveled strands. The other rubs harsh circles on your clit; you twitch incessantly, sparks running through every inch of your body. “There’s that pained little face I love,” he grabs at your cheeks roughly, forcing your lips into a ‘o’ while grinding into your calf. “Fuck.”

Your legs and arms slump onto the mattress as soon as the cloth is unbound. Every muscle in your body aches with overuse; numbness buzzes through the limbs that were strung together for God knows how long.

Your boyfriend— sadist that he fucking is— thrusts himself into you without warning. Sure, you’ve been stretched by the toy, but your poor slit is so overworked by previous orgasms that even the slightest hint of friction invokes senseless blubbering, your tongue lolling to the side in defeat. Wet, harsh slaps of skin against skin sweep the room, mixed with cries of ‘daddy,’ ‘please,’ and senseless nothings.

“Wanna see you cum.” It’s an order more than a request, grunted into the crook of your neck. His chest flattens against your back. It should feel suffocating, should feel disgusting, considering your body is gleaming with hours worth of perspiration, but you’re enamored with the warmth— engrossed by the way your skin sizzles at his touch. His fingers are secured at your hips, propping your ass in the air and pulling it against him with every piercing thrust.

“N- no, can’t,” cheek still buried into the mattress, you muster whatever strength you have left and grip at his slick bicep behind you. He simply swats your hand away, takes your wrist between his slender fingers, and presses it into the bed. His thumb caresses the marks left by the cloth, savoring the aftermath of the punishment he inflicted.

“You can and you will.” Despite the rasp in his voice, the command still holds authority over your forlorn frame and sends prickles down your spine. You feel yourself, yet again, creeping to the edge of an orgasm. “Cum for me.”

It’s those three, simple words that have you seeing white. Breathless, your brows scrunch together and lips open into a wide ‘o’, but no sound comes out. Your whole body tenses, all senses overwhelmed by this final tidal wave of pleasure, and then finally goes slack.

You’re officially done, body worked to the point of no return. A couple more snaps of his hips and Shouta follows, your name grunted loudly as he spills into you.

For a long time you simply lay together silently, chests heaving with his body still splayed over yours. You know that eventually he’ll roll out of bed and make sure you’re all cleaned up. You always revel in the way he pampers you, taking his time to ensure he doesn’t miss a single inch of skin. If you weren’t so exhausted, he’d probably run a bath as well.

Right now, the heat is finally proving too much for you, so you tap at his hip and he slides himself out of your raw core.

“Ouch,” you wince at the friction, the ability to speak returning to you at last. The whole bottom half of your body is tender. It’ll be a miracle if you’re able to sit comfortably for the next few days.

“Surprised you actually behaved,” he chuckles, flipping you over to hold you. His fingers rub lazy circles into your back and he presses a kiss to your forehead, “You were so good for me.”

“Not like you had me tied up or anything,” you poke a finger at his chest. “And to do paperwork at that.”

“Oh,” a slow, smug smile inches across his face, “I didn’t get any work done.” You might just slap him.

“Shouta,” your voice is even, but your eyes pierce his, narrowed in disbelief, “what do you mean you didn’t get any work done?” His laugh rumbles through his chest.

“Do you think I could really focus, hearing your screeching through the walls like that?”

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creativeashproductions · 3 years

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In the Beginning // Alive!Luke Patterson

Summary: Reggie (Rhodes)’s older sister is the epitome of cool in his, and his friends, eyes with her in a band. Pushed by a hazel eyed brunette with a huge crush on the eldest Rhodes teen the boys decide to start a band. While at first the band is for Luke’s dream of landing you he finds his passion with music.

Warning: Swearing, angst, fluff, dad!Luke

Words: 4.1k

A/N: I couldn’t resist writing another alive!Luke fic with Luke crushing on his band mate’s sister. Ugh, just imagine Luke suggesting a band to impress his crush only to fall in love with music instead. For my fics it will be Alex Mitchell and Reggie Rhodes until JATP reveals their canon names.

Masterlist

Los Angeles, 1992

The guitar case was a familiar heaviness as you walked into the home for the first time in months after a practice. You ached from the long travel, and all you wanted was your bed. The yawn came first, then the startled yell at the living room.

Four pairs of eyes met the girl standing in the entryway, surprised at a sleepover with her brother and his full friends. Eyebrows coming together you shook your head wondering why they had come here instead of the typical Patterson home.

“Hey!” Fourteen-year-old Reggie beamed towards his older sister excited she was back from her weekend band practice. Your eyes blinked at his usual upbeat personality before switching to the brown eyes from Bobby, too shy to full meet yours.

Spread around the living room watching a movie was Reggie’s best friends; the socially awkward Alex, the shy Bobby, and the Patterson boy Luke. The young typically spent their time at Luke’s place, so seeing them in your home was strange.

“Reg, what’s up?” You asked crouching to untie your shoes confused at the sharp audible gasp coming from Luke. Standing straight up, you saw Luke awkwardly looking away with bright red cheeks.

“How was practice?” Reggie inquired with the smile he got from your mom and his dark hair from your dad.

Reggie usually wasn’t interested in your band leading you to wonder what the hell was going on with them. Being sixteen you didn’t socialize with Reggie’s friends, thanks to the two year age gap, but you were happy he had good friends. Well, less than two years between you and Luke.

“It was good. Since when are you interested in Crimson Queen?” You questioned moving more into the room with the four young teens, “You haven’t even touched your bass in years.”

One eyebrow raised you individually looked at the boys in the room all with sheets of paper around them. From a distance, you couldn’t tell what was on them, but it couldn’t be homework. They all attended the same high school while you had done correspondence with the band and a tutor.

“Luke’s parents got him a guitar,” Reggie spoke gesturing to the decent brand new acoustic guitar on the floor beside the Patterson. Luke’s hazel eyes widening as you came closer to the group.

Your hand picking up the guitar to look it over finding it was decent for a beginner, but it was definitely not tuned. The sheer sound made you wince.

“So, you guys want to be a band?” You questioned sitting on the floor beside Luke. The boy shifting nervously, you weren’t blind that he got shy around girls, “Do you guys even play instruments?”

“I got the bass, Bobby can play rhythm guitar, Alex plays dru-“

“I wouldn’t call it proper drumming. It’s just something my therapist suggested with my anxiety and frustrations.” Alex raised his hand leading to everyone in the room looking at the tall male, recently had a growth spurt, with the backward black hat.

“And Luke will learn guitar as well.” You added, looking at the quiet, “How well can you play?”

“I don’t even know how to properly tune it,” Luke admitted playing with his fingers adorned with a ring.

Luke had chosen a cutoff shirt in an attempt to gain your attention to his arms he hoped had gotten more muscled. He had a massive crush on you but with the guys your own age he had step up; he started working out. He actually enjoyed it, but he’d enjoy it more if you were checking him out.

“You’ll need a place to practice.” You mumbled glancing out the window at the ocean waves thinking. The house was on the prime real estate edge of the beach all thanks to your well off parents; Dad, a doctor and Mom, an interior designer.

Your fingers tapped on the ripped blue jeans you had chosen that day with the flannel shirt opened over the black AC/DC t-shirt. You started standing up, grabbing Luke’s hand to pull him up as well; the boy’s cheeks grew pinker, and his heart fluttered.

“What?” Luke spluttered, staring at his hand, caught in yours in sheer awe.

“You’ll need a place to practice.” You answered, dropping is head to reach in your pocket for your key chain.

The key chain had a few keys on it: one for home, one for your car, one for the band van for gigs, one for the garage, and lastly one for the house the garage belonged to. The boys piled into the car, apprehensive for where you were taking them. The only sound was the radio playing local greatest hits, your foot slammed on the brake at the house of your bassist.

“Well Marty, this song has blown up on the charts. New band Crimson-“

“Holy shit.” You breathed staring at the radio. Your door opened as you sprinted down to the steps that led to the garage. The footsteps of the boys following.

The garage was open already with your band members lounging around the space filled with instruments and amps. Their heads swivelling as you frantic turned the radio on.

“Come on.” You mumbled, turning the radio station to the right one, “Guys listen!”

“-Crimson Queen is an LA-based band making waves in the LA Nightlife and hit the top ten with their newest song Sorry Now.” The radio host spoke, “If you haven’t heard the song before, this is the band’s new single.”

The song was blasted from the radio leading to the four girls screaming the song out dancing around the room. Euphoria was the only way you could call the feeling rising in the bodies of the girls in the place. The room burst into more screams as your drummer. Faith switched the radio station.

“Today history was made, Crimson Queen is an all-female rock band fronted by Y/N Rhodes. They started as a hobby at fifteen, but a year later at sixteen they’ve made waves.” A hit radio station, the second one so far, was talking about your band. Holy shit.

“Lucy, this band is going places. My daughter is seven years old, and she’s telling me this band is the talk of her school. I can’t tell how much Lucy listens to their demo.”

Your eyes saw Reggie having a meltdown of excitement for older sister and her band, and you were so unbelievably happy you should care the moment. You rushed over to Reggie to pull him into a hug.

“Girls…and boys.” Mrs Taylor spoke furrowing her brows at the young boys in the garage her daughter had begged to use for the band. Shaking her head, the middle-aged woman turned her attention to her daughter.

“Hey, Ma.” Dawn, your bassist, spoke spreading her pink painted lips to her perfectly straight teeth too hyped up on energy, “What’s up?”

“First congratulations on the single. Secondly, we’re gonna need to get a personal line for the band because our phone is blowing up.”

A sharp gasp from Dawn before the three of the four girls rushed to the house of the Taylor’s. You hung back to look at your brother and his band.

“So? What do you think?” You inquired with the group, “This idea of yours has to be one hundred percent what you want. It won’t be easy in LA, it will come with hardships, and Reggie Mom and Dad won’t let you drop out.”

The four boys nodded their heads because the excitement they saw in your big break was something they wanted. To be able to connect with people cemented their decision.

“Feel free to hang around.” You suggested glancing around the garage that started it all, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

The Orpheum, Los Angeles, 1995

The crowd screamed as Crimson Queen, the song that started this road played with the girl crouching to grasp the hand of fans. At the beat of the chorus, you stood up eating up the energy of the last show of the tour. You went jumped on the drum riser rocking on the guitar as Faith did her magic.

Dawn on her bass made her way to rock with your rhythm guitarist Sara sharing grins with you still feeling the euphoria of this success. As the song came to an end, your entire band went to the front of the stage.

“We’d like to thank our fans for the last nine months of our world tour. We started this band in LA in 1991, so we thought it fit to end our tour at The Orpheum.” You spoke to the crowd, feeding off the energy as the concert came to an end.

The road crew would load your instruments up in the van to take home after months of travelling. You were so excited to see Reggie, who would be seventeen now, having celebrated his birthday while you had been in Europe. Too excited were shocked as Reggie backstage.

“Reggie!” You exclaimed tugging the teen into your arms, leaning back to take him in, “Damn you grew!”

Reggie grinned not giving a shit you were coated in sweat from performing your setlist, but your eyes went over his shoulder. Standing close and just as excited was Reggie’s friends. Alex was taller, Bobby looked more confident, and Luke could meet your eyes. Luke also had changed, no longer baby faced.

“Sunset Curve.” You spoke, stepping back to look them over, “I haven’t seen you guys in months, how did you change so much!”

“That’s what happens when you go on tour for almost a year.” Luke teased tugging you into his arms for a tight hug.

It was odd seeing Luke taller and more muscled than when you left for tour, and the confidence was honestly hot. You had seen Luke as anything other than your brother’s friend, who tended to stare a little too long.

“You played the fucking Orpheum!” Alex screamed, holding your shoulders with a wrinkled nose at the damp red thin flannel shirt. The girls wandered up behind you each with a grin at the guys.

“Well if it isn’t Sunset Swerve,” Sara spoke swinging her arm over your shoulder with a teasing smirk plastered on her face. Her blonde hair swept up in a bun high on her head from a recent shower.

“Sunset Curve!” The male quartet snapped at the name before they fell back into a happy demeanour. Luke and you both staring at each other with a pink-hued face.

Faith was quieter in the group leaning closer to your band to whisper in your ear, “Jay scored us some drinks. But MJ got us into a party.” Faith’s textured hair tickling your neck.

Grins split the three girls at the suggestion each excited for the party with fellow musicians and plus ones. Sure, the parties had drugs and alcohol, but they were fun and part of the scene. Half of you wanted to go, but the other wanted to spend time with your brother.

“I’ll think I’ll pass.” You spoke up to the girls motioning to the guys, “I’ll head back with them. Meet you at the house later?”

Your black vans moving backwards as you moved to be closer to be flush against Reggie’s side grinning as he bumped his hip against you. Sara, Faith and Dawn each raising an eyebrow at your response since you often dragged them to parties.

“Orrr…we could each take one of them.” Faith cajoled mocha skin gleaming in the light with her hands, tugging her hair into a thick braid.

“You want me to take my seventeen-year-old brother and his friends-“

“-I’m like two weeks from being eighteen-” Luke cut into the conversation buzzing at the possible date, but not date, with the girl he had been crushing on for years. He was pretty sure he was in love with you at this point; he did date a little, but nothing stuck.

“-To a party in Hollywood.” You finished pinning your gaze on the three girls ahead each with mischievous grins. Your cheeks puffed as you breathed out, thinking of the positives and negatives.

Bobby was bouncing on his heels with Reggie leaving Alex shifting uncomfortably in his place. His partially relaxed when Luke squeezed his forearm through the distressed black jean jacket that bought his outfit together. Luke himself was apprehensive on your decision because either way, he got to spend time with you.

“Come on.” Dawn implored, pulling out the big guns with her ocean blue eyes widening into the puppy gaze that did you in each time. Her curtain of short dyed pink hair framing her heart-shaped face.

“I’m going to pass this time. Do some shots for me! Not tequila though, that was a huge mistake.” Faith’s grin widened at having you carry you out of the house in the early morning after a wicked party.

“Did you ever find your tho-“

“Faith!” You hissed turning a bright red at her revelation that you definitely didn’t want Reggie to know. The atmosphere turned awkward as everyone realized what the sentence would end with.

Okay so maybe you had hooked up with a few people over the last three years but nothing permanent. It was fun, drunk fun, but still fun and nothing had gone wrong. Your eyes avoided looking at Luke for a reason you couldn’t decipher.

“I’ll see you later.” You spoke motioning for the guys to follow you to the dressing room you had settled in early in the day. The corner of your lips quirked at the awe on each of the boys’ faces.

“I’m in the dressing where bands become legends.” Reggie gasped circling the room with wide-eyed interest. Alex was interested in the band posters on the walls from previous performers.

Luke, however, was more interested in your curves covered by your sweaty stage clothing that stuck to your form. His Adam’s apple gulped as you grabbed your shower bag moving towards the connected bathroom.

“I’ll grab a shower, and we can head out.” You supplied, “I’ll just need to stop at Rudy’s office for our portion of the concert.”

The guys mumbled a response finding a place to wait without hushed conversations of when they would get to play. Luke’s eyes found yours at the low call of his name from the bathroom; a crack opened he walked over.

“Do you have a sweater?” You mumbled at the taller teen with widening eyes as he realized that you were naked behind the door.

Luke stumbled over his feet, retrieving the black pullover Crimson Queen merch he had had for months now. He had saved up money to buy the merch to support the band. The door closed as you tugged the sweater in the bathroom momentarily before walking out.

“Thanks Lu. I forget to pack a shirt.” Luke awed as your nose scrunched up adorably to the amusement of his friends, “So, do you wanna hit the beach? Or maybe give me a concert in the garage?”

Luke intertwined his fingers in yours as he tugged you out of the room with your bag in hand. His heart fluttered as you held on to his hand even in the little office of the Orpheum’s management for the thick envelope of money.

“Thanks, Rudy!” You called over your shoulder at the short, stout man going over the financials and upcoming performances.

The smell of Sunset Boulevard brought a smile remembering the first time you performed and the small group that had waited outside. The first night of autographs and recognition.

“So, Reg how’s my car?” You questioned the teen who impishly grinned tugging the key chain from his black jeans. You had given him the keys when you revealed Crimson Queen had a world tour.

“Right there.” Reggie pointed leading the group of five to the car that would take them to the garage. Reggie drove with Alex in the passenger while you were crammed between Bobby and Luke; Luke was delighted in your warmth against his side.

While your band members partied, you got a first-row seating to Sunset Curve’s talent in the garage where you had started out. It was amazing to see how much they had accomplished in the three years since they started.

The sudden knock on the door had you flailing off the couch onto the floor with a sheet of paper stuck to your cheek. Your spine cracked as you sat up glancing at your watch, finding it was after midnight, only an hour of sleep after inspiration for a new song.

The door was knocked on once more and coming close the sound of crying could be heard, and you wondered if it was Luke. He had been over a few days in the night following a fight with his parents and needed to crash; helped you were giving dating a chance after his well-rehearsed speech.

Imagine your shock when it was Reggie sobbing, “Reggie.”

“C-can I stay here?” Reggie whimpered cuddling himself into the leather jacket he received at Christmas from you. You had inside in your arms in moments, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Are they fighting again?” You murmured to your younger brother content to hold him as he cried. Bringing him to the living room, you held him as he cried humming under your breath the first song you ever let him see.

“Yeah. The music doesn’t work anymore.” Reggie murmured leaning back to wipe his tears off, “Sorry for crashing. I can go stay with-“

“Here. Reginald, you can always stay here.” You soothed the seventeen-year-old boy with sad eyes and a sombre look. His sad eyes shattered your heart, knowing he had suffered the fighting for months alone, “This house is empty Reg. You can move in here.”

His lip quirked up, “Can we play country music?”

“And eat breakfast at night.” You teased him grinning as his lips pulled up into his trademark grin, “The guys can come over whenever they want. I’d actually prefer they know they can stay here, they deserve a safe place to stay.”

You knew that Alex endured living with his parents, who had gone out of their way to avoid him after he came out. Luke couch surfed at your old house, never at Alex’s home; after coming out, Alex didn’t feel comfortable bringing anyone over.

“Good, because they’re outside.” Reggie sheepishly admitted raising his thumbs-up, “Go thinking ahead!”

Snorting the human version of a golden retriever you opened the front door to the house finding two guys in strange positions. Alex was inspecting the light fixture, and Luke was leaning against the wall with his elbow, foot across the other.

“You guys need lessons in the art of pretending you weren’t eavesdropping.” The sigh fell stepping aside for the two to enter the home—each carrying a backpack and small duffle bag for wherever they would have crashed.

The male trio got comfortable in the living room curiously glancing at the mess of papers, sticky notes and pencils. While with good intentions, they didn’t follow boundaries well, even for Alex.

“Whatcha working on?” Luke inquired, leaning closer to a sheet of paper. His pout coming over his face when you quickly tidied up the papers.

“Nothing. I fell asleep on the couch. The label wants new songs.” You groaned rubbing your eyes, “I got inspired last night. Oh! Hey, I took a message for you guys.”

Jogging to your office studio for the band you quickly grabbed the envelope along with the note that you had been given.

“So, Rudy called me, and I had a meeting with him.” You started sitting on the coffee table in front of the trio. The trio leaned forward.

“Rudy?” Luke questioned, pursing his lips together at the male name. While you and Luke were dating it wasn’t official, he was just really nervous with his dream girl liking him back.

“He’s the management for a venue. He asked if our band was available for a concert, but we collectively decided to focus on songs and recording, which you can’t tell anyone about, but he’s in dire need. So, I might have given him something. Specifically a demo of yours and knowing your home situations I gave my information.”

“Okay…so?” Alex questioned, leaning forward. His eyes growing wide as you pushed the envelope in his hand.

Alex quickly opened the cream envelope finding inside a paper along with a mock-up promo poster with Sunset Curve. The squeal was shocking from the teenager as he read the letter and note out loud.

Y/N,

I gave the demo a listen, and we usually wouldn’t do this, but Crimson Queen has been gracious with us. Always mentioning where the band got its start and closing the tour here. To repay the favour, we would formally like to invite Sunset Curve to perform. In the envelope is a mock-up poster as an option for the promo. Get the Sunset Curve’s people to get in touch. I can get the word out to some friends from some labels to come for a listen. Get in touch as soon as possible.

Manager of The Orpheum in Los Angeles,

Rudy West.

“The Orpheum?” Luke screamed, yanking the paper from Alex to re-read it in complete shock, “We don’t have people!”

“But Crimson does.” You smirked, “On a temporary basis Crimson Queen formally offer our manager’s help.”

In his excitement, Luke lunged to pull you into a kiss freezing the room in shock.

“He got the girl.” Alex breathed elbowing Reggie in the side who’s mouth was open at his best friend kissing Reggie’s older sister. The older sister who was the driving force behind Luke wanting to form a band to impress her, “We need to tell Bobby!”

1995 was the best year for Luke Patterson. He got the girl, his band made it, his parents finally saw his dream was worth it.

The sound of music hypnotized the woman as she wandered down the hall to the open door of the large home. Nothing too over the top like Bobby’s mansion, but it was a nice size in a gated area. Your neighbours being Reggie on one side and Alex on the other side with his partner Willie; Willie had skated into Alex and into a love story pretty much.

Resting against the door edge of the designated home studio you saw Luke had moved a rocking recliner in. Softly playing in the room was a soft acoustic song recorded months previous as a surprise for you.

“When are the lessons starting?” You questioned bringing Luke’s attention to your soft smile and the love in your eyes. Luke’s grin widened glancing down at the miniature version of his love-filled eyes.

“Given her legendary parents, I think at two.” Luke chuckled shuffling the baby to the crook of his arm shifting, so you could curl into his side as well. Both eyes gazing at the little baby you had welcomed what felt like yesterday.

Stevie could fall asleep only to the lullaby her father had created during the pregnancy, and he had written. Stevie had Luke’s eyes, and so far her blonde hair had yet to darken so the question of if she’d take after your hair or his hair was unanswered.

“Hey sweetheart.” You whispered to your daughter falling asleep to the sound of her father’s voice in the room. An adorable yawn pulled from her little body as she nestled into Luke’s arms.

“She’s so gorgeous.” Luke breathed tears welling up as he could understand the reasoning behind his parents’ opinions in his teens. He truly felt terrible at hurting his mom now that he felt the love for his child.

“We did good Patterson.” You murmured back to the man who had held your heart since you were nineteen and back from tour. Your finger tracing Steve’s soft cheek, “I think she has your mom’s mouth.”

Luke’s lips lingered on your cheek heart full of love for his family with you and his little girl. He had known since his eleventh birthday he would marry you even if you were a year older. A year that made the difference when he was months older than his friends, so the year felt like two for you. At eighteen when was tentatively dating you, he knew he would marry you. He never anticipated the sheer amount of adoration for the little girl he would have at twenty-one.

God, he loved his life. He made up with his parents, his best friends, had the girl of his dreams, the most beautiful daughter and it all thanks to music. Can you see why he lives and breathes music?

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#luke patterson imagines #luke patterson x reader #dad!luke patterson #julie and the phantoms imagines #charlie gillespie imagines #alive!luke patterson #jatp luke #caitsy and ash productions #jatp au

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solarwonux · 3 years

Text

prince!wonwoo x witch!reader

w.c: 4.3k (I almost made it 5k but I stopped myself)

warnings: murder, death, alcohol, tarot cards, running away, witchy things if you squint, angst, smut, ropes.

note: special special thanks to my baby @starlightshua she named this beauty lmao. I re wrote this story so many times, literally the first draft of this was nothing like this and then I woke up at 5am today and rewrote the entire thing. I’m pretty proud so I hope you enjoy it. Also let me know if you want more of this, I have some ideas. Enjoy.x

Wonwoo pushes the tavern door open a little too hard. It hits the brick wall behind it, the sound erupting through the wasted and nearly wasted bodies that occupied the space. He doesn’t care, he needs a drink or many of them for that matter so he walks letting the door rattle obnoxiously behind him. The people eyeing him down like he just murdered their first born and not interrupted their nightly escapades.

He reaches the bar taking the worn out stool at the end and taps his fingers against the wooden counter. He was a regular and sadly had gotten used to the mustiness that was etched into the walls of the place and yet he still felt out of place.

“What does our royal guest of honor want tonight?” Mingyu rapped his fingers drumming in front of Wonwoo, grabbing his attention.

“Not royal, but bourbon please.”

Ever since he ran away from his Royal duties and somehow ended up in a tavern that existed harmoniously to bring two worlds together. Wonwoo had seen and witnessed things he had only grown up hearing during his mother’s bedtime stories. A secret language they shared when hidden behind the comfort of his bedroom. Away from the torturous hands of the King.

“As you wish your majesty.” Mingyu’s sarcastic drawl took him out of the spiral inside his head. He rolled his eyes obnoxiously as he watched Mingyu throw his head back in laughter, his fangs catching in the reflection of the dim light causing a chill to roll up his spine. “You’re so uptight tonight, relax a little Prince Charming.” He winked at Wonwoo before turning around and walking away from him.

No matter how hard he tried to leave the life he had behind, everyone here in this tavern that belonged neither here nor there, loved to remind him that he still had the king’s royal blood coursing through his veins. Usually, he didn’t mind, sometimes he would play into the character when he was drunk enough to earn a few laughs. But tonight on the final night of October, he didn’t want to be reminded of his true identity.

On Hallows Eve, three years ago his life had gone south. He was set to marry a princess from a neighboring kingdom and he couldn’t wait to meet her during the annual ball. He had woken up that morning with a jolt and skipped a step as he made his way to his mother and father’s private chamber. When he arrived, his heart, in his throat. He found his father the charming King beloved by his people with his hands around his mother’s throat and a murderous glimmer behind his soft eyes while she slowly turned a rough shade of blue.

Wonwoo felt his world crash onto the ground. his father didn’t stop no matter how hard he pleaded for him too. His tears fell onto the palace grounds creating tsunami’s as he witnessed his mother take her last breath.

He ran, ran to where his feet could carry him. Packed up anything that could fit in the tiny knapsack he used whenever he went to explore the forest behind the palace. And left, leaving behind the life he had only ever known.

He traveled for three days on foot without food nor rest, before he came across the tavern that smelled more like rotten feet than whiskey. He met Mingyu, who had recognized him right away and gave him the tavern’s royal treatment. Food, water and the rickety old room just above the tavern.

“It’s not satin or velvet or whatever you guys use over there, but it’s enough for you to sleep. Just pay me back by working here every odd day of the week.” Mingyu said, clapping his shoulder and leaving him behind to deal with his new reality.

That night was the night he was able to mourn his mother’s death and his own one as well. The king had come out publicly with fake tears in his eyes to say that his wife and his second born son had fallen ill to an illness and that when the royal physicians realized it, it had been too late. Though, everyone in the tavern knew the truth and he found comfort knowing that they hated the king just as much as he did.

“Penny for your thoughts my prince.” The angelic voice he had grown to love so much took him out of his thoughts. He lived in his head too much and he was thankful he had you —a witch he had met during one of his shifts over a year ago, to ground him back down onto Earth.

“Don’t call me that.” He smiled and grabbed hold of your hand and brought it up to his lips. He kissed it lightly keeping his eyes on yours as they burned holes of fire into them. You tensed up feeling the heat run up your body. It was laughable. You, a witch who could make anyone succumb and fall at her feet, was letting a runway prince pursue her and turn her into mush at his feet.

“You liked it when I said in bed once.”

“That was one time, princess.” He winked, enjoying the way your cheeks flushed. Your body reacted amorously to him and each time it bubbled an emotion deep inside of him that he wasn’t sure what it was. It scared him and excited him all at the same time.

Wonwoo stopped believing in love three years ago but every time you were nearby. He believed that he could again.

“One to many times Wonwoo.” You toyed as you took the empty seat next to him. Your hand still entrapped in his and you weren’t planning on letting go any time soon.

Mingyu rolled his eyes and placed Wonwoo’s drink in front of him, “Wonwoo has a prince kink?.” He mumbled his voice laced with disgust. “I should’ve known.” and leaned against the wooden table, shooting daggers at Wonwoo.

“Not a kink if that’s what he is Gyu.”

Wonwoo didn’t care that he still had royal blood in him, because whenever he found himself laughing at Mingyu’s poor attempts to flirt with nymphs. Or your presence next to him he forgot that he did. He wondered if his mother had led him here to this repulsive tavern in order to meet the two of you.

Although Wonwoo knew you were perfectly capable at defending yourself. He loved walking you home.

The two of you trailed down the dirt path hand in hand; chasing the blue light of the moon. Comfortable silence erupting between your bodies. Wonwoo never felt more at home then now.

“So what’s a witch like you doing with a commoner like me on Hallow’s Eve.” Wonwoo glanced at you his eyes sparkling like they held a million galaxies and you found yourself wanting to get lost in them. “Don’t you have rituals or cards to read, aren’t you the most powerful underneath a blue moon.” He edged on making you smile.

“Are you saying you want your cards read again?” You bumped your shoulder against his. His grip on your hand falters making you giggle.

Wonwoo’s eyes grew wider than the moon as he remembered the night you read his cards to him for the first time a few weeks ago and he blushed. “Last time you read my cards I ended tied up.”

“Well that’s cause you picked my sex deck Wonwoo, we’ve been over this.” You stopped walking and leaned up to kiss his cheek, leaving a plum lipstick mark behind. “Don’t act like you didn’t like it.” You whispered in his ear.

Wonwoo swallowed hard at your taunting tone. He knew you were right and he hated it. If you had asked him with that infamous bat of your eyelashes he would’ve done it again. “For once angel I want to see you tied up.” He blurted out, his cheeks turning a rough shade of red as he processed what he had said after he had said.

“Okay, but you’re going to have to catch me first.”

“Catch you, what a—.”

Before Wonwoo could finish his sentence you took off running. Wonwoo threw his head back in disbelief, his body coursing with exhaustion for a brief second before he took off as well. This is what he loved most, the adrenaline rush you brought to him. Although sometimes he thought you were too much he wouldn’t trade the moments he spent with you for anything in the world. Not even for his mother’s life and you had offered a few times, but he refused because with you he felt complete.

Your laughter rang through the howling branches of the trees surrounding the two of you. Wonwoo’s body felt like it was floating as he chased after you, the cool night air hitting his face as he ran with everything in him. It reminded him of the times he spent at the palace gardens chasing after his older brother, his mother’s voice ringing in his ears as she joined in halfway. It was these moments where he was the most carefree, that reminded him of his mother. That made him miss her with everything in his being. It was moments like these where the anger and resentment towards his father would surface and he wished he hadn’t had run away that day. But this was different because for the first time in his life he was running towards someone, a goal.

“Maybe you don’t want it enough Wonwoo. Are you even trying?” You teased, he could tell he was close from how loud your voice sounded. It only gave him motivation to run faster, so he did.

You faded into view, it felt like he was seeing you for the first time in his life. You were leaning against a tree, arms cockily crossed in front of you, waiting. He let his feet carry him like the wind around him and soon he was crashing into you like an ocean wave. You laughed silently. The impact, knocking the air out of your lungs making you feel lighter than a cloud.

Almost as if by instinct Wonwoo’s arms found their way around your body, his face morphing into one of concern. He didn’t mean to crash into you as hard as he did or at all, but sometimes when he was with you his body acted as if it were unattached to his brain. “I’m sorry are you okay?” He placed his fingers underneath your chin lifting your head up so your watery eyes locked with his.

You planted your hands on his chest, balling your fist wrinkling his starch white button down and nodded. “With-- y-you I’m always okay.” You gasped and closed the distance. Your lips were on his faster than he could blink and he felt himself melt.

In fairytales silver and water were a witches ' kryptonite. In this life you were Wonwoo’s.

Wonwoo didn’t win but he should’ve known you were going to give in to his desires. Despite your sneaky ways he knew he could always trust you but still it had caught him off guard when you had given him the onyx ropes upon entering your small cottage.

“You wanted to tie me up right? Now’s your chance.” The amount of trust that laid behind your eyes was overwhelming. And no one, not even his mother, had trusted him like you did.

He placed the ropes down on your old wooden bed and kissed you with everything in him.

When his mother would tell him the damsel in distress stories during bed time. She always described the ending kiss as if it were the most magical thing in the universe, with fireworks exploding and butterflies running mayhem in pits of stomachs. But you weren’t a damsel in distress and his mother’s description of a true love’s kiss didn’t do this kiss justice.

Wonwoo very much felt like he was thrown in the middle of space and was now dumbly floating around. His body felt lighter than air, but heavy at the same time. He didn’t feel fireworks nor the butterflies but he did feel the adrenaline dip in the mouth of his stomach and the strikes of lightning that raced through his veins. He felt brand new, and he was ready to give himself to you, just like he had many nights before but this time it felt different, important and special.

Maybe Wonwoo was finally releasing the lock he had around his heart, but if he didn’t know any better--and he didn’t. He was positive that what he was feeling for you in this moment of vulnerability was love.

“I want to take my time.” He whispered against your lips as your fingers toyed with the buttons of his shirt. “I want to be with you forever but I don’t know how.” He crushed the hem of your silk black shirt between his fingers. Your hands stopped their movements and you pulled away. They wandered up to his cheek, your index finger playing with the tiny sunspots that only you were able to see. He looked so small and scared and you were sure you mirrored his same expression because the grip he had on your shirt got tighter.

You had been in love once. Many lifetimes ago and they had been taken from you because of what you were. You promised yourself you would never love again and you spent years alone, until you found yourself in the odd old tavern.

For as long as you lived in the old supernatural town, you never once paid attention to that old tavern. Until one night during blue moon much like the one tonight, a little over a year ago you found yourself drawn to it. Your feet carried you there by themselves, your mind on autopilot and before you knew you were sitting in front of the bar, looking at a curious boy that resembled the prince you grew up hating, but that was impossible because he had been dead for years.

To your surprise he was the prince and he had spilled two strawberry margaritas on you ruining your new favorite shirt. You cursed him out, wondering why he wasn’t deader than dead as he apologized. He dropped everything before taking your hand in his and leading you up the rickety old stairs that led to the room above. Without a word he tore his poor excuse of a room apart until he found you a clean shirt and you put it on not after pushing him out of the room for some privacy.

If you had known that you would still keep that same shirt hidden deep in your closet you would’ve laughed because that was the first night you started to fall for him and every passing moment you were with him felt like you were being reborn again. Like a part of you didn’t die behind the flames of the burning fire as you watched your lover yell out for his life. That memory was buried deep in your mind and you had never told Wonwoo in fear that he would look at you differently. Like you weren’t his lifeline anymore, so, you kept it locked away inside of your heart just like the love you felt for him. One day you would tell him just not tonight. Tonight you wanted to keep your secret and instead be with him in every way possible.

“Take your time but tonight make me yours please.”

Wonwoo didn’t tie the ropes hard enough and it made you laugh at his shaking hands as they traveled down your flushed out body. You had assured him that you had suffered through worse than the burning of ropes against your skin. But he paid no attention to your statement as he finished his second and final loop on your bedpost.

He kissed his way down your body slowly, giving extra love the parts he knew would have you unraveling in no time.

This was one of the things you loved most about him, instead of getting what he wanted and leaving. He took his time getting to know your wants and needs. You’ve had many lovers in the past and none of them had felt nor treated you the way Wonwoo did.

With love.

“You feel so warm already.” He whispered against the skin of your stomach, slowly getting closer to where you wanted him most. His hands squeezed your thigh and prided them open as he kissed his way further down, hovering his mouth against your clothed core.

You whimpered, tugging at his roots in attempts to bring him closer, “Please Wonwoo please.” You let out an exasperated breath. “I need you close.”

Wonwoo smirked leaving an open mouthed kiss against your core, savoring your honeyduke sweetness that seeped through your panties. Your grip on his hair got tighter as he continued to tease you. Kissing you and humming like he was tasting his last meal. He lapped up once more groaning before hooking his thumbs against the waistband of your panties and pulled them down, sitting down on his knees and throwing them somewhere in your room, joining your already discarded clothes.

The coolness of the wind coming in from your open window made the goosebumps rise against your soft skin. Wonwoo sucked in a breath as he took in how wet you were and for him.

No matter how many times he found himself in this position, your body's reaction to him always left him floored. “Take a picture, it will last longer.” You joked, placing your leg against his shoulder and pulling him down towards you again. Catching him off guard, just like you always did.

“One day I will and then I won’t stop and by the end of it all, I’ll have my own private collection.” He winked laying down in between your legs again. He kissed up your thighs alternating between the two, taking his sweet time like he always did.

“I bet you’d like that...f-fuck.” Wonwoo lapped up your entrance and wrapped his perfect lips around your clit. He closed his eyes savoring your taste, his blunt nails digging into the skin of your thighs.

“Y-Your mouth was—ahh, your mouth was made from the h-heavens.” You arched your back, pushing his head closer with your legs entrapping him. Your hands grabbing on the ropes as you felt your orgasm approach.

A throaty groan fell out of his mouth, sending the vibration up your clit and through your body. The knot in your stomach starting to get tighter. Wonwoo’s index and middle finger swirls around in your pussy. Bathing in the wetness before he slowly inserts them. He always knew you were warm inside but today it felt like you were on fire and he couldn’t wait to devour you further.

He hums happily pulling away and sits up, your leg falling from his shoulder making you whine at the loss of his mouth. “Patience baby I’ll give you everything you want tonight.” He assures before pushing his fingers in even further, your heat entrapping him.

“Ah, f-fuck this feels better than my charms.

“You have sex charms?” He poses curiously. You were a book full of fairytales and he couldn’t wait to read you front in back until the last day of his life.

“I have charms for a lot of things.” You throw your head back in pleasure as he lets his fingers take control. “I-I can show them to you one day.” You let out a breath as you felt your orgasm nearing.

“Why not now?” He brought his thumb onto your clit and started rubbing figure eights circumoniously, while his fingers pistoned into you. If anyone were to ask him what his favorite pastime was he would cheekily answer that it was you falling apart because of him.

“Don’t need them...you make me cum.” You arched your back and pulled on your ropes as your orgasm flooded over you. You moaned Wonwoo’s name like an old incantation in your book of spells as he continued to help you ride out your orgasm.

You always looked beautiful to Wonwoo, like a goddess or an angel sent from above. But the way you looked when you fell apart underneath him, was breathtaking and he wanted to remember it forever.

“Did that feel good?” He takes his fingers out, his palm rubbing soothing circles against your thigh as he brings them up to his lips. Your spent pussy clenched over nothing as you watched him, eyes locked with yours savoring you.

You nod, “It was orgasmic.” You joked. Your weak attempt of a pun makes him laugh. You freed yourself from his poor attempt at binding you to the bed and sat up. Wonwoo watched you dreamily as you wrapped your arms around his neck planting a soft kiss to his wet lips.

“Make me cum again my prince.”

“I’ll make you cum until first light.”

Wonwoo kept true to his word, pulling four more orgasms from you. Each one more intense than the other and you found yourself craving for more, but he had stopped sensing your exhaustion.

He had been right earlier that night in the forest. You were strongest on Hallows Eve and underneath a blue moon, but when it came to Wonwoo you were weak. You didn’t mind it because it was to someone who would without a doubt catch you if you fell hard.

You had read it in his cards the first and only time you drew them for him. You didn’t voice it because his face when you had exposed his kinks was priceless. And because you feared that if you did you would lose him before you could tell him how you felt about him. You weren’t sure when you would but if he kept looking at you and holding you like you were his entire universe. You would without a doubt forget your fears and confess.

“I love you.” Wonwoo’s eyes got wide as he brought his hands up to his mouth covering it. “Sorry I—I fuck I-“

“I love you.” You copied his actions. The two of you letting the silence overcome your ragged breaths. Until he laughed, making you laugh as well. You grabbed his hand and brought it close to your body.

It was unbelievable how afraid the two of you had been when the two of you had unknowingly fallen for each other long ago. Wonwoo sat up on his elbows and moved so he was hovering over you again. “I’ve never once loved, and I’m sure I love you more than anything in this world.” He pecked your lips repeatedly before laying half of his body on yours carefully and putting his head against your chest humming happily.

“I once loved but I didn’t love them the way I love you Wonwoo.”

“That must mean I’m special princess.”

You rolled your eyes, your hands coming up to his shoulders and kneading out the tension that had formed over years of unnecessary stress. “Not a princess...but you’re more than special.”

“In my eyes you’ll always be my princess.” He left a chaste kiss against your collar bone. “But you’re more than special to me too baby, and since we’ve established that can you tell me what’s been bothering you all night.”

“Nothing’s bothering me, why are you asking?”

“You didn’t drink tonight and back when we were walking home you were spaced out half of the time.” He traced a finger up your side teasingly.

You sighed and stopped massaging his shoulders. He was right you had been distracted for half the night wondering how you should tell him the last secret you had. This one you couldn’t keep hidden away because it involved him and his biggest heartbreak.

“I drew a card from my deck this morning.”

He hummed and lifted his head, his eyebrows knitting together, “What was it, anything bad?”

You bit your lip, knitting your fingers into his hair. “The Empress, sometimes I read her as a fertility card an-“

“You’re pregnant?” Wonwoo sat up, your hand falling onto his chest. You giggled, shaking your head profusely. Your contraception charms were safer than any kind of contraception out there.

“God no Wonwoo, not now, but you told me your mom loved peonies right?”

“Yeah, the palace was always filled with them.”

“Okay well for days I’ve been seeing peonies pop up randomly around this place and I just thought it was a coincidence. When I drew my card this morning, The Empress was surrounded by peonies, but I really didn’t think anything of it. When I entered the tavern last night there were peonies in the flowerbed growing. And now that I think about it they were there too the night I met you.”

“What are you saying, that my mom is here somehow?” His voice was filled with hope and you tried hard not to cringe at the sound. The thought had crossed your mind a few times but you always had to remember that even though the supernatural existed peacefully in this world. That rule didn’t apply to the dead, they had strict rules on their side of the realm. If his mom was making an attempt to contact him he was sacrificing her chances at reincarnation.

“I’m saying that maybe your mom didn’t tell you who she really was.”

“Are you saying she was a witch like you?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt comfort. Everything about his childhood made sense. The random peonies that would appear in the garden during the mid of winter. The stories that didn’t feel like stories but more like memories. And her sudden death. He wasn’t sure if his father had known or if he had found out that morning, but whatever the case was he was positive that she had sent you to him. His greatest and last gift to him from her and had never felt more at peace.

“Yes.”

#seventeen imagines #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen fanfic #seventeen x reader #seventeen x you #seventeen x y/n #seventeen smut #seventeen fluff #seventeen wonwoo #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo x you #wonwoo imagines #wonwoo smut #wonwoo fluff

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libra-kirishima · 3 years

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Can u do nejire and her flower gf meeting her parents for the first time and she’s extremely nervous. Love ur work btw and stay safe x

I wasn't sure whose parents you were referring to, so I assumed it was Nejire's. I also included Mirio and Tamaki just because I felt like they deserved family hcs too. (They just don't have the flower quirk gf because in my heart she belongs to Nejire.)

I saw someone write headcanons that Tamaki lived with his grandparents and I loved them so much that I wrote something agreeing with that but now I can't find the original author. I'm going to keep searching but if you know them please tell me and I'll tag them.

💙 𝙉𝙚𝙟𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙃𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙪 💙

Your fingers drummed on the steering wheel nervously. The radio in your car's volume was lowered completely to cool your nerves but the silence hardly made you feel better. Nejire noticed your eyes flicker to her when you thought she wasn't looking and immediately tore them away when she caught you staring.

"Okay, I'll bite." She giggled. "What's wrong?"

"What if they don't like me?" You answered sincerely.

"Why wouldn't they?"

"Well, for starters-"

"No, actually, don't answer that!" She interrupted you. "There will be no negative self talk coming from you today!" Her hand pulled one of yours off the gear shift to hold in her own. "They're gonna love you. You know how I know they're gonna love you?"

"How do you know they're gonna love me?" You rolled your eyes. Her free hand poked your cheek with her index finger, hoping to wipe the frown off your face.

"Because they already do!" She answered. You quirked an eyebrow at her statement. "They love you!" She restated. "They always ask about you, they were super excited to watch you in the sports festival even after I lost, they were constantly bugging me about when I was going to bring you home to meet them..."

"Since when?" You laughed. She seriously pondered your question, tapping her cheek with her index finger as she thought.

"Well they first asked if they could meet you that night that I came out as a lesbian to them." She recalled. "But I asked them to wait until you were comfortable to do that." You felt warmth rush to your cheeks as she explained further. You had gotten it a while back, but let her continue anyways just to hear her sweet voice. Before you knew it you were nearly to the driveway of her parents house. "-Oh and my sister said that she really wished she could be there but she couldn't find anyone to cover for her at the hospital so she wants to see if we can go to lunch with her some time next week- oh we're here!"

"We're here." You laughed anxiously. You step halfway up the path to the front door before you start to panic again. "Oh God, should I have brought flowers? I should have brought flowers! Nejire, stand in front of me."

"Okay, why? Oh-" You pulled her closer to you before opening your jacket slightly and pulling your shirt down. "I hate watching you do this." She sighed as she watched flowers blossom between your breasts for you to pluck.

"It's either my chest or my hair, and I spent way too long making my hair look nice to ruin it over some roses." You argued while you assembled a small bouquet. "You wouldn't have ribbon on you, would you baby?"

"Actually, I do!" She answered excitedly, pulling a spool from her jacket. The same kind she used to tie her hair in the ponytail she was wearing. You cut a strand of the ribbon to wrap around the stems. Before you could state that you were ready to go, she put her hand in front of your chest to stop you. "Wait!!!" She gasped excitedly. Before you asked what she was talking about, she took the last of her ribbon and went around to tie it in your own hair. "Now we match!" You smiled at her softly, overwhelmed with how much you loved her. Her smile was brighter than the sun, and you couldn't help but feel content with the idea of staying there forever. She waved a hand in front of your face. "Helloooo, Earth to (Y/N), come in (Y/N)." You were snapped out of your trance by the sound of her voice calling your name. "We can go in now."

"Right! Sorry." You shook your head, bringing your attention back to meeting her parents. "Right yeah parents! Let's go!" You felt her gently elbow your side.

"Stop getting nervous!" She scolded.

"Thanks, I'm cured."

"Here, hold my hand." You slipped your fingers into yours without hesitation.

Almost as quickly as Nejire knocked on the door, her mother opened the door and engulfed both of you in a hug. "Mom, this is (Y/N). My girlfriend!"

"I'm sorry, (Y/N), I got a bit excited there." Her mother giggled. Getting a closer look at her features, she looked like a clone of Nejire. "It's so nice to finally meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too." You answered. "Oh! These are for you." Her mother's heart melted at that gesture and she engulfed you into another tight hug before taking them back to the kitchen. Nejire urges you to follow her in, walking to the kitchen of her childhood home with your hand still in hers. Her father greets you with the same excitement that her mother did, engulfing you in a warm hug to rival her mothers.

"See, it's not just me, we're a family of huggers." Nejire insisted as you sat down to eat dinner with her family.

You had a feeling the rest of the night was going to go well.

💛 𝙈𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙤 𝙏𝙤𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙖 💛

Meeting Mirio's dad was a complete accident.

Mirio expected his dad to be working late that night, so he planned a movie night for his friends. When Tamaki and Nejire pulled out at the last minute, Mirio shrugged and joked about this being planned and it being just the two of you that night. You were still watching movies but neither of you were seeing a thing.

Mirio's lips attached themselves to your neck with a frenzy while his hands slipped under your shirt to hold your waist tightly in his hands. You could feel his warm hands sliding up higher and higher, lifting your shirt with them. Just as he unhooked your bra and slid the straps off of you, you both heard the sound of the front door opening and closing.

"Mirio, I'm home." His dad called from the living room. Meanwhile, upstairs the two of you were scrambling to put your clothes back on before any suspicion arose.

"Where did you throw my shirt?" You whispered.

"I don't know just wear one of mine."

"Nothing says two friends innocently watching movies together like seeing me wear one of your son's shirts." You argued.

"No time for that, just put a shirt on!" He whispered back.

"Mirio?" His dad called.

"Be right there, dad!" He yelled back, shooting you a pointed glare to put on one of his shirts. You huffed in frustration and dug through his drawers for a shirt you haven't seen him wear before.

"I'm gonna go ahead of you, tell him you're here, but try to make it quick, okayyyyy-" His heart stopped at the sight of you in his clothes, tying a knot in the front of his shirt to make it look more like your own.

"No need, I'm ready, I can come with you."

Suddenly he was the nervous one. He sweat bullets the entire walk down the stairs and into his living room, nervously stealing glances at you when you weren't looking.

"Hey, dad. This is (Y/N)," He rubbed the back of his neck as the two of you became acquainted. "I invited her over to hang out! Sorry I didn't get the chance to tell you, I thought you were still working. Aha..."

"Hi! It's so nice to meet you." You added. Mirio's dad greets you warmly. Quickly the two of you fall into comfortable conversation about U.A. and work and your friendship with his son. "-and so instead of doing a work study in the traditional sense, I'm working with Present Mic as a T.A. during the days and we patrol together at night. You know, mostly sidekick work. I'm excited to start!"

"That's great!" His dad said. "Would you want to stay for dinner, (Y/N)?"

"That would be lovely, thank you." You answered with a wide grin. You excused yourself to use the restroom, and as soon as you were out of the room, Mirio's dad turns to his son.

"Is that the girl?" He whispered. Mirio shot his dad a confused look. "The girl that Amajiki said you were in l-" He cut his dad off before he could say anything further.

"Yes! Yep. That's her!" He laughed nervously, pink flush overtaking his cheeks.

"So tell her."

💜 𝙏𝙖𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙞 𝘼𝙢𝙖𝙟𝙞𝙠𝙞 💜

You thought you were supposed to be the one nervous to meet his grandparents, not the other way around. You joke as much to Tamaki after you're seated on the train together.

"Ah- no- I'm sorry, I'm just- no, I-" he stuttered, wringing his hands together in his lap. You slide one of your hands between his to lace your fingers together.

"Hey, it's gonna be okay, honey. I was just joking, I'm sorry." You heard him sigh in relief upon feeling your touch. "What are you so nervous about?"

"I don't know." He admitted. "What if you don't like them?"

"Why wouldn't I like them?" Your thumb began to soothingly rub the mound of his thumb. "I was worried that they wouldn't like me." You admitted.

"They do like you. You've met them before."

"I know but never as your girlfriend."

"Then that should mean that they'll like you more." He answered honestly, moving to rest his head on your shoulder. You instinctively rested your own head atop his.

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to be so nervous."

"It's nice to not be the only one this time." He admitted before changing the subject, hoping to calm both his nerves and yours. Sooner than you had thought, your conversation about Fatgum taking in Kirishima died as the shadow of his grandparents' townhouse loomed above you. A woman who could only be Tamaki's grandmother caught your eye from her spot on the small front porch and waved. You beamed back at her, waving as well.

"Maybe we were both nervous for no reason." You told your boyfriend softly before following him inside. She quickly invited you to join her for a cup of tea in her small garden, and you happily followed.

"Thank you for coming over, (Y/N)." Tamaki's grandmother said as she poured you a cup of tea. You almost didn't process the question at first, overwhelmed by the beautiful sights and sounds of the Amajikis garden. As your eyes tracked a butterfly fluttering from flower to flower, you silently wondered if this was where your boyfriend's interest in butterflies came from.

"Thank you for having me." You answered with a small smile. "Your garden is absolutely beautiful."

Tamaki's grandmother pulled him aside to whisper in his ear.

"Keep her."

#we're trying something new with the vintage anime edits i made as opposed to gifs #tell me what you think if you want to. do we like it better or worse?#bnha imagines #bnha x reader #mha imagines #mha x reader #hadou nejire x reader #hadou nejire #nejire hadou x reader #togata mirio #mirio x reader #mirio togata x reader #togata mirio x reader #tamaki x reader #amajiki tamaki x reader #amajiki tamaki #tamaki amajiki x reader #pronouns used: she/her/hers

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raendown · 3 years

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Pairing: MadaraTobirama Word count: 2255 Summary: The one where you feel aroused whenever your soulmate does

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

Chapter 223

Madara was halfway through the speech he’d spent hours preparing, in full view of the entire council of advisors, when his words stumbled and his entire body grew warm. From the other end of the table Hashirama and Izuna gave him looks of great concern. He avoided both of their gazes. After clearing his throat he cast around trying to pick up the threads of his carefully laid arguments and continue on but the stride had been broken, the careful build up he’d been relying on interrupted by an untimely wave of something he really didn’t want to think about in a room filled with stuffy clan heads.

“We’ll have to think on this matter a little more,” Yamanaka-san told him when he stuttered to a halt for the second time.

“Don’t give me that,” Madara snapped. He knew as well as everyone else in the room what that meant. It meant no. “I haven’t even gone over-”

The words failed on his tongue as another wave of heat washed over him. Whatever his soulmate was doing at the moment he hoped someone came along and interrupted their fun at just the wrong moment. If his day had to be ruined by their untimely lust then it was the least they deserved in return.

At the very least a careful look around the room showed that no one seemed to have noticed exactly what was bothering him. Hashirama’s gaze had already fallen back in to a bored, empty look. Izuna was frowning with open concern. Most of the advisors were either drumming their fingers with impatience as they waited for their own turn to speak or jotting notes down on the papers in front of them. Out of everyone in the room Tobirama was the most likely to notice, his eye for detail surpassed by very few, but the intensity of his gaze hadn’t changed in the slightest and despite how closely he’d been watching since Madara stood up from his chair the man’s expression hadn’t so much as twitched.

They weren’t exactly very close but Madara knew Tobirama well enough to know he would have at least some sort of reaction to seeing the head of the Uchiha clan grow hot with lust in the middle of addressing the council.

“I have a few thoughts on this matter myself,” Hyuga-san piped up and that was when Madara realized that he'd lost this argument. It didn’t matter whether the points he’d been trying to make were good or valid or benefited the village as a whole. The Hyuga clan head would always stand in opposition to him and somehow the man had wheedled himself in to better graces with the others than Madara would ever be able to with his naturally caustic personality. They would side with Hyuga-san as soon as he finished speaking. Just because he already knew it would happen, however, didn’t mean he had to like it.

For the rest of the meeting Madara slumped in his chair with arms crossed and jaw rigily set, doing his best to project as much insult and anger as he possibly could. Partly because he really was feeling that way and he wanted the rest of the council to understand how much he did not appreciate their favoritism. It was also partly to cover the gentle waves of arousal that continued to wash over him from time to time like the other half of his undiscovered bond were being continually distracted by something they found pleasing in all the right ways. If he wasn't so irritated he might have been grateful, actually. Shameful as it would have been to admit to anyone, Madara had been so busy lately that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a few minutes to take himself in hand let alone the last time he’d been able to seek out any form of relationship, temporary or not. Having the time to follow up on the echoes of someone else’s lust would have at least been a great stress relief.

Unfortunately the hardness inside his clothing did nothing to make the mountains of paperwork on his desk go away. Madara adjusted himself as discreetly as possible before standing up at the end of the meeting, stomping his way out of the room in the hopes he could turn the fire in his blood to a different kind of energy. It sort of worked. He always had been quick to anger, though it was difficult to stay truly angry now that his mind had been thoroughly distracted, supplying him with all sorts of interesting images from the last relationship he’d actually had time for. They hadn’t lasted very long but by all the gods that man could bend.

When he realized he was contemplating the risks of slipping down in to the archives and hoping no one would follow, Madara shook himself, determined to be productive. The village needed him to do his work and none of the papers on his desk were going to get done any faster if he was off somewhere indulging pointless bodily needs. He would have to soldier on.

The first thing on his to do list was to pick up the information packet he’d been too distracted to take with him after the meeting, necessary to have with him if he wanted to get anything done on the academy project. His nose wrinkled. Fetching that meant going down to Tobirama’s office since he was the one who’d been handing them out and he was the one who would have gathered up any left behind. Madara was grateful they’d been getting along better over the past few months - it was surprisingly difficult to remember when they’d last fallen in to one of them infamous screaming matches - but he really didn’t want Tobirama’s attention on him right now. Of all people to need something from, of course it had to be the one who always wanted to notice the whole room.

Several curses for bad luck were still spilling out of his mouth when Madara found himself pounding on the door. Tobirama’s voice rumbled from inside for him to come in, sounding entirely unsurprised. Either he’d sensed Madara coming or he’d made a note of who exactly left their info packet behind. Possibly both.

“Do I get three guesses for what you need?” Tobirama asked in lieu of a greeting. His tone was almost dry enough to cover the hints at humor underneath but it was there just enough to stoke Madara’s temper.

“Fuck you,” he snarled without thinking.

“Now, now, Uchiha, if you’re not polite to me then I don’t see why I should need to cooperate with you.”

“Fuck you with a sharp stick!”

Madara knew he had anger problems. Knew that he tended to let his emotions get the best of him with alarming frequency. Right now when his body was fighting off the heat of another’s thoughts was not the time to think about standing down and rethinking his approach. No, he was already too much on edge to even consider the idea of self control and as much as he would later very smugly point out that it all worked to his benefit, at the moment all he could feel was exasperation for himself when Tobirama lifted one of those perfect eyebrows and Madara heard his own voice explode.

Several months of good behavior went out the door all at once with one great roar of temper.

Contrary to most of the fights they typically engaged in, Tobirama didn’t seem very interested in fighting back. For some reason that only incensed Madara further, driving him to scream louder, as if the man had done him some terrible wrong by not providing him with a proper outlet for all this unwanted energy sizzling under his skin. No matter how he swore and raged and shouted Tobirama did nothing but sit with his chin resting on a cushion of long fingers woven together, mouth set in some enigmatic line, eyes dark and intense as they watched Madara’s every movement. It was almost creepy how closely he watched without ever engaging.

Yet worse than being stared at like some freakish zoo exhibit were the constant waves of increasing lust. Madara wished he could say that his anger was burning it away like he’d hoped but it only seemed to make it worse. The more he let himself get riled up the more his belly roiled with fire, body almost aching to be pressed against whatever hard surface was most convenient and fucked within an inch of his life. It really had been too long.

If he’d been allowed to run the course of his little temper tantrum and storm off immediately afterwards the way he normally did Madara wasn’t sure he ever would have figured it out. The vicious snarl he let out when someone opened the door unannounced was accompanied by a sharp spike of want that absolutely did not match the face that stared back at him in surprise. Izuna blinked at him once, spared his best friend the same baffled look, then looked at the door he was still holding open.

“Damn, I need you to add these seals to my office sometime. I didn’t hear a damn thing from out in the hall.”

Madara growled to have his beautifully crafted insults cut off when he was in the middle of a really good stride. His jaw opened to demand that Tobirama do no such thing only to snap shut when he caught sight of the man he’d just been abusing for who the hell knew how long. Of all the expressions he might have expected to see, shame was not one of them. He wouldn’t have guessed Tobirama even knew what shame felt like but there it was in the faint twist of lips and the guilty shifting of weight. It wasn’t until he realized one of Tobirama’s hands was out of sight under the desk that his brain made a leap from Point A to somewhere along the lines of Tab C, sub-paragraph ninety-eight, and then he was left standing just a little outside of his own body, entirely unaware of the world around him.

By the time his unsuspecting brain had finally accepted the idea that just occurred to him he came back to himself to realize the door was shut, Izuna was nowhere in sight, and Tobirama was staring at him again with something like faint worry hanging between the creases of his brow.

“Are you hot for me?” Madara demanded with every ounce of tack in his body - which was to say absolutely none.

“I...beg your pardon?”

“You were watching me just like that while I was making my presentation during the meeting.”

“Failing to make your presentation,” Tobirama corrected him.

And then he seemed to fall still in anticipation and Madara could only stare as the whole world crashed down around his ears.

“You do it on purpose,” he breathed. “You make me angry on purpose because you like it! You fucker!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tobirama protested. His voice was steady enough to give the words credence and it would have been entirely believable if not for the sudden bright red color staining his ears.

Madara stomped a little closer to slam both hands down on the desk and shove his face right up to the other man. “Don’t fucking lie to me. You’re hot for this disaster, I can feel it. Every time I get louder you get hornier.”

Watching Tobirama’s eyes blow wide was satisfying but seeing him drop his face in to both hands with the mortification of getting caught was pure gold. Madara enjoyed it very smugly even as he raced to catch up with the true meaning behind his own discovery. In an effort not to flail his way through a moment he’d been dreaming of since the day his mother explained the concept of soulmates to him as a wee little preteen, he cast about for something else to say.

“The only thing I don’t get is what got you hot in the meeting of a fucking council meeting.”

“I like your confidence,” Tobirama’s voice admitted from behind pale fingers. “It’s competent. And attractive.” He could not have sounded more strained if the words had been tortured out of him. Madara chewed that over for a minute before deciding he liked it. This he could definitely work with.

“Right. Well, I am going to get absolutely nothing done until I can think straight again so here’s what is going to happen. You want confidence? Good. Then you’re going to follow me home, you’re going to follow me in to my bedroom, and then you are going to follow every single order I give while you rail me in to the mattress. Are we in agreement?”

He’d never seen Tobirama move so fast in his entire life. One second they were separated by the very solid wood of a sturdy desk and the next he was standing in a six foot shadow blinking at surprisingly delicate collarbones. He grinned to see the blush revealed now that Tobirama wasn’t hiding behind his hands. It had been far too long but it wouldn’t be too much longer. Madara freely gave in to the urge to cackle as he led his soulmate away to go work off a little energy before they could talk about this with level heads.

#rae writes #soulmate collection #madatobi #madara #tobirama #fanfiction

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theeverlastingshade · 3 years

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Favorite Albums of the 10s

25. Shaking the Habitual- The Knife

The Knife made a name for themselves with their third and most celebrated LP, Silent Shout, but it’s their fourth LP, StH, that pushed their idiosyncratic blend of electroacoustic synth-pop to the furthest, most far-flung places that they’ve gone yet. The record deals with a diverse range of topics from the surveillance state, to fracking, pollution, gender discrimination, and unchecked greed with colorful, ketamine-fused candy cotton synth work and ritualistic percussion. There are long passages of ambience like the menacing build of “A Cherry on Top” dispersed between roaring apocalyptic dance numbers like the astonishing industrial eruption “Full of Fire” and the electro-acoustic freak out “Without You My Life Would Be Boring”. With the exception of the mid-album ambient epic “Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized” every song on StH justifies its length with consistently engrossing arrangements that sustain their momentum without compromising an ounce of their potency. Everything about the record lives up to its title, from its thematic ambitions, to the breadth of the sonics, pacing, and performances themselves. StH if the full manifestation of the darkness that was lurking beneath the surface of their music from as early as their breakout single “Heartbeats”, but thankfully the music never collapses under the weight of their thematic concerns. Their resilience remains inspiring all these years later, and if Karin and Olof never reunite for a fifth LP we couldn’t have asked for a better send off.

Essentials: “Full of Fire”, “A Tooth for an Eye”, “A Cherry on Top”

24. XXX- Danny Brown

Hip-hop grew to remarkable heights throughout the 10s, and yet there were few rappers that displayed the level of growth and consistency from record to record throughout this past decade quite like Danny Brown. The Detroit native spent the aughts hustling the mixtape circuit, finally catching a spark with 2010’s The Hybrid, his strong debut LP. But a year later Brown returned with his sophomore LP and magnum opus XXX, a twisted rap odyssey that ignited the blogs, and signaled that a new era of hip hop was beginning to emerge. XXX found Brown rapping over an assortment of wonky boom-bap instrumentals courtesy of Bruiser Brigade producer Skywalker that fused classic hip-hop, trap, baroque pop, and techno into shapes far more disorienting than the beats that the vast majority of his contemporaries were rapping over. While it was evident beforehand, XXX really cemented the notion that Brown could rap over anything. The beats here are generally extremely impressive, and there are plenty of singular stylistic touches like the slurring violin stabs of “Lie 4”, the menacing synth lurch of “Monopoly”, or the distorted brass loops of closer “30”, that really stand out, but the appeal is first and foremost Brown’s rapping. His voice alone is one of the most versatile and unpredictable instruments in hip-hop, but aside from his masterful vocal alteration, always perfectly synched to the tone of any given moment on any given song of his, he’s a naturally gifted writer, as thoughtful as he is straight up hilarious. Whether bragging about his destructive lifestyle (“Die Like a Rockstar”), describing how much he loves cunnilingus “I Will”, mourning the desolation around him “Party All the Time”, or reveling in his come-up “30”, Brown is a thoroughly engaging presence throughout the entire album. On XXX profanity and profundity march gleefully hand in hand with one another, casting Brown as one of the last decade’s most singular voices.

Essentials: “Die Like a Rockstar”, “Monopoly”, “30”

23. House of Sugar- Alex G

On Alex G’s latest LP, House of Sugar, his concoction of warm guitar pop and warped electronic production reached a new peak. The songs on HoS detail the misdeeds of various characters succumbing to their greed, and the vignettes that he paints are growing increasingly well-realized thanks to a continuously sharpening songwriting voice and a plethora of tasteful pitch-shifted vocals that help imbue his characters with color and personality. HoS opener “Walk Away” provides a reasonably sonic barometer for what’s to come before dropping us into a series of the most immediate pop songs that he’s ever penned. “Hope” and “Southern Sky” are nimble acoustic guitar pop songs that are almost disarming in their immediacy, and framed around references to the real life death of a friend of his due to opioids and a dream he had, respectively. By the time we reach acoustic guitar and sitar-drone of “Taking” the pitch-shifted vocals are at the forefront of the music and HoS shifts gears into its abstract middle section which owes a lot to the new-age beat deconstruction of avant-garde electronic producers, specifically Oneohtrix Point Never. On the instrumental “Sugar”, a sublime concoction of pitch-warped whispers, dissonant strings arpeggios, and creeping acoustic guitar plucks, HoS reaches the depths of its depravity. The next song, “In My Arms”, leads us to the suite of sublime acoustic reveries that close HoS, arguably peaking with the gorgeous acoustic love ballad “Cow”. The dramatic sonic left-turn that HoS takes midway through may leave some new listeners a little cold, but for most Alex G fans nothing about the eclecticism of HoS should come as a surprise. Nor should the overwhelming quality of the songs here. From Alex G’s debut, Race, in 2010 up through HoS, he released a remarkable catalog of some of the most eclectic, and vital indie rock of the century, and I have no reason to believe he won’t top HoS at some point.

Essentials: “Gretel”, “Sugar”, “Walk Away”

22. Sea When Absent- A Sunny Day in Glasgow

A Sunny Day in Glasgow may be one of the 21st century’s most underrated bands, but not even Pitchfork could resist the coveted BNM tag when it came time to review their fourth and strongest LP, Sea When Absent. Building off of their first three idiosyncratic LPs that superbly fused electronic pop with shoegaze and dream pop, A Sunny Day in Glasgow moved into decidedly more psychedelic territory with their fourth LP while still retaining the sharp melodic sensibility of those first three. Much of the shift is easy to credit to vocalist Jen Goma who joined the group on their third LP, Autumn Again, and here her soaring vocals deliver rich melodies that are more fleshed out and focused than anything on their past releases. SWA sidesteps the kaleidoscopic sprawl of their 22 song sophomore LP, Ashes Grammar, and instead delivers 11 tight, stargazing pop songs. Whereas on the prior records it more often than not felt like the band were throwing ideas at the wall to see what stuck (with primarily successful results) on SWA the band commit more thoroughly to their ideas, writing songs that are well within their wheelhouse but have never been so well-realized. “Byebye, Big Ocean (The End)” and “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)” erupt with a wall of dazzling distorted guitars that slowly build into engrossing melodic payoffs while “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))” and “The Body, It Bends” are sublime, soft spoken breathers that put a premium on texture and melody, and are among A Sunny Day in Glasgow’s most impressive songs yet. Even seemingly inconsequential moments like the “Double Dutch” interlude positively radiant with melodic warmth and joyous energy. Their strain of sun-kissed, jubilant dream pop tonally stands in stark contrast to much of the pop that’s dominated the airwaves this past decade, but their temperament doesn’t sound naïve so much as defiant. They have yet to follow up SWA with another LP, and I can’t blame them if they feel like they’ve said everything that they have to say with SWA.

Essentials: “The Body, It Bends”, “Never Nothing (It’s Alright (It’s Ok))”, “Boys Turn Into Girls (Initiation Rites)”

21. Strange Mercy- St. Vincent

Annie Clark has spent the past decade releasing music under her St. Vincent moniker, collaborating with the likes of David Byrne, producing for Sleater-Kinney, and appearing on the sketch comedy Portlandia. Although she began her solo career in earnest with her strong 2008 debut, Marry Me, in 2011 Clark released Strange Mercy, her third, and strongest record to date. Produced by John Congleton, SM is a compelling fusion of art rock/and chamber pop that often lands with a jarring, visceral impact, but is still imbued with a sense of grace that heightens the sentiments of her bewitching songwriting. Her first two records showcased her singular voice and tastefully, ornate baroque arrangements, but on SM Clark begins to let loose and lean into her virtuosic guitar playing. Songs like “Cruel” and “Northern Light” are propelled by her nimble riffs caked in distortion while strings rise and fall in a satisfying sweep all around her triumphant vocals. “Surgeon” brings the pace down to a crawl and gets a tone of mileage out of sensuous synth arrangements as Clark sings softly of depression and carnal desire “Stay in just to get along/Turn off the TV, wade in bed/A blue and a red/A little something to get along” before the song erupts into a furious storm of guitar distortion. The balance between fury and serenity animate the record from start to finish, and Clark seamlessly toggles these impulses from start to finish. On the title track, over a lumbering tom/kick drum rhythm, the incessant ping of a synth, and bluesy guitar licks Clark brilliantly sums up the record’s theme with a scene of police brutality “If I ever meet that dirty policeman that roughed you up/No, I, I don’t know what” that depicts the contraction inherent in the way justice is carried out by police in the west, and the way those contradictions bleed through to our understanding of morality on the whole. SM is a record full of these sorts of messy contradictions, and the music constantly reflected that perpetual sense of disarray with songs as colorful and chaotic as they were controlled.

Essentials: “Northern Lights”, “Surgeon”, “Strange Mercy”

20. A Moon Shaped Pool- Radiohead

Radiohead’s eighth LP, 2011’s solid but unremarkable King of Limbs seemed to cement the notion that while Radiohead may not have another game changer left in them, they were probably weren’t ever going to make a bad record. And with all of their various solo pursuits it seemed plausible that we may never get another Radiohead record, as underwhelming as capping off a career as thrilling as theirs with KoL would have been. Thankfully things didn’t pan out that way, and in 2016 Radiohead released their ninth LP, A Moon Shaped Pool; the platonic ideal of a master stroke from a legacy act. The album is partially composed of older songs re-worked into new forms, such as the tense string onslaught of opener “Burn the Witch” while a few of the newer songs like the gorgeous, ambient “Daydreaming” are string-laden compositions that are as eerie as they are radiant. For a band that’s been prophesizing the increasingly dismal state of the world that we now find ourselves in for the past several decades, they sound increasingly comfortable with their position in the world, and there’s no question that they’re in full command of their craft here. The production is sublime throughout the entire record, with a sense of encroaching doom bubbling just beneath the surface juxtaposed against rich baroque instrumentation. AMSP is the Radiohead album most informed by Johnny Greenwood’s work scoring films like There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, and as a result there’s a remarkable sense of immersion at work even for a Radiohead album.

So while there are some recognizable forms from records past, such as the brass-lead krautrock strut of “Ful Stop”, or the twitchy IDM drum work of “Identikit”, the spectral production heightens the potency of everything here. The compositions on AMSP are the most elegant, and nuanced of Radiohead’s to date, and Yorke’s voice continues to age superbly. Yorke’s lyrics touch on familiar topics, more relevant now than ever, such as climate change on “The Numbers” “The numbers don’t decide/The system is a lie/A river running dry/The wings of butterflies” the dangers of unchecked authority on “Burn the Witch” “Abandon all reason/Avoid all contact/Do not react/Shoot the messengers/This is a low-flying panic attack” and the broader, horrific realities of the world that we live in on “Ful Stop” “Why should I be good if you’re not?/This is a foul tasting medicine/A foul tasting medicine/To be trapped in your ful-stop”. What’s more unexpected are songs like the graceful string-led “Glass Eyes” and the devastating ambient closer “True Love Waits”, two songs that are poignant tributes to Yorke’s ex-wife, Rachel Owen, who passed away from cancer in late 2016. AMSP isn’t just a spectacular late-career gem that would make a superb swan song; it’s also the most human record that Radiohead have made yet.

Essentials: “True Love Waits”, “Daydreaming”, “Ful Stop”

19. Eye Contact- Gang Gang Dance

Few bands set the tone for the kind of cross-culture hybridization that would become the sonic norm for music throughout this decade quite like Gang Gang Dance. Throughout the early aughts they cut their teeth in the Brooklyn noise scene alongside bands like Animal Collective, Black Dice, and Exceptor blending noise, experimental rock, and worldbeat into blistering, unconventional shapes. As the years progressed Gang Gang Dance gradually began to open up their sound, folding elements of hip-hop, dance music, and psychedelic pop into a colorful concoction of rhythmically robust, delightfully manic pop music that was just as forward-thinking as it was infectious. The shift really began on their criminally underrated 2005 LP, God’s Money, but began notably on their terrific 2008 LP, Saint Dymphna. On the follow-up to SD, their remarkable fifth LP, Eye Contact, the sound of Gang Gang Dance crystallized into something more immediate and far-ranging than anything that they had done prior (or since so far). On EC, everything that the band had attempted throughout the course of their career (tribal rhythms, eastern melodies, shards of refracted noise) was gloriously combined into a hyper-saturated tapestry of progressive future pop. EC is the peak of Gang Gang Dance’s prior decade of sonic exploration, and nearly a decade later there’s still nothing that sounds anything like it.

Beginning with the astonishing slow-burn intro of “Glass Jar” that finds the band patiently building up what begins as a pent up ambient composition toward something more volatile that eventually rips open midway through, spilling into a calamitous, euphoric release into the song’s second half, EC is bursting with joyous energy and possibility. The melodies are some of the sharpest, and most direct that vocalist Lizzi Bougatsos has ever penned, providing a warm immediacy that cuts through even the most outre arrangements here, and they continually expand into shapes as the songs continue to progress. “Adult Goth” and “MindKilla” are bolstered considerably by Lizzi’s dynamic vocal performances, and the off-kilter, spellbinding synth arrangements of the band’s keyboardist Brian DeGraw, while “Romance Layers” provides an ideal mid-album psychedelic breather.. And on the album’s closer, “Thru and Thru”, the band deliver a send-off that succinctly sums up a prior decade’s worth of experimentation into a nearly six-minute song overflowing with eastern melodies, mesmerizing chants, and infectious tribal rhythms that congeal into a sound that couldn’t possibly be mistaken for anyone else. Although they’ve only graced us with the somewhat underwhelming 2018 record Kazuashita since, when Gang Gang Dance are firing on all cylinders, as they are on all of EC, there’s simply nothing like it.

Essentials: “Glass Jar”, “Adult Goth”, “Thru and Thru”

18. Shields- Grizzly Bear

Although the zeitgeist was already beginning to dramatically shift by the time that Grizzly Bear released their fourth LP, Shields, guaranteeing that it wouldn’t have the same immediate impact that they enjoyed with its predecessor, their 2009 breakout LP, Veckatimest, they still ended up releasing their magnum opus. Compared to Veckatimest’s approachable folk-pop leanings there are moments on Shields that sound downright prog, but the band never let these intricate baroque pop/psychedelic folk arrangements get away from themselves or compromise the remarkable melodic instincts that were undeniable on their terrific sophomore LP, Yellow House. The ten songs throughout Shields are perfectly paced, and there isn’t a single moment that overstays its welcome, but they each develop just as much as they need to. The band’s primary songwriters, Edward Droste and Daniel Rossen, were each peaking as singular songwriters in their own respective rights on Shields, and they both deliver a handful of the band’s strongest songs to date. Droste’s songs tend to creep in ethereal waltzes with delicate baroque instrumentation (“gun-shy”, “A Simple Answer”) unfolding patiently while sustaining a remarkable sense of tension while Rossen’s are jaunty folk rippers that unfurl in unpredictable, and thrilling cacophonies that still retain the grace that the ornate instrumentation demands (“Yet Again”, “Speak in Rounds”) but unfurl in far more complex structures than those on Veckatimest.

Grizzly Bear’s progression from Droste’s cozy lo-fi folk bedroom project to a knotty baroque folk juggernaut was one of the most quietly satisfying of any band from the past decade, and on Shields they hit a gorgeous peak. While Droste and Rossen had peaked as songwriters here, their contributions never overshadowed those of Chris Taylor or Chris Bear, and the chemistry on Shields is sharper than most bands ever come close to achieving. It’s easy to get lost admiring the sheer craft of their meticulous arrangements, crisp production, provoking but elusive songwriting, and the sharp interplay between Droste and Rossen each on their own individual merit, but on Shields everything that previously stood out about their artistry is amplified, and congealed in a way that’s approachable yet inimitable. On Shields Grizzly Bear umped the ante from Veckatimest on both fronts, and proved that they could grow more immediate and melodic while still dazzling with rich compositional complexity. Grizzly Bear followed it up with Painted Ruins in 2017, that while a perfectly good record in its own right is nowhere as cohesive, and most unfortunately, patient. And to be honest, I haven’t heard a baroque folk record released since Shields that’s as consistently engrossing, or one performed with such remarkable execution. Shields isn’t their most immediate, but it best distills their singular essence, and its generosity knows no bounds.

Essentials: “gun-shy”, “Yet Again”, “The Hunt”

17. The Money Store- Death Grips

Anyone from future generations looking to hear a band that’s most emblematic of the 10s as a full decade probably couldn’t do better than Death Grips. The trio consisting of vocalist MC Ride, keyboardist/producer Flatlander, and drummer Zach Hill released their abrasive Ex-military tape in 2011, and right out of the gates the trio had a fully-formed sound that plucked unapologetically from west coast hip-hop, industrial, hardcore, and noise. Although far from the first band to draw equally upon genres like these, Death Grips stood out immediately thanks in no small part to MC Ride, who has since proved to be one of the last decade’s most compelling frontmen. His lyrics are cryptic, and intelligent yet visceral, with a deceptively wry edge. Although there’s quite a bit of variety to his delivery, it’s always propelled forth with an overwhelming intensity that can take some time to become accustomed to. Ex-military was received rapturously by critics and bloggers, but as exciting as group like them may have seemed at the time it would have been hard to predict any kind of real longevity for them. And their unrelentingly antagonistic streak (leaking No Love Deep Web, putting a picture of Zach Hill’s dick on the cover of said album, skipping performances or just playing recorded music instead of performing, trolling fans, faking a breakup) would have decimated the momentum of almost any other band, but Death Grips feed on this sort of chaos like a troupe of anarchist vampires. Their arc from Ex-military to 2018’s Year of the Snitch is one of the most rewarding streaks of any act throughout the 10s, and while most of these records are great, there isn’t one that better distills their essence than their 2012 debut LP, The Money Store.

While Ex-military presented them as an admittedly idiosyncratic, yet undeniable product of their environment, TMS blew their sound wide open proving that they had range far beyond sounds of their native state. Right from the bass arpeggios that jolt opener “Get Got” to life, it’s clear the fidelity has improved considerably, but they haven’t compromised an ounce of their fury. This still scans as music custom-tailored for little other than violently thrashing your limbs, and little else from the past decade as been anywhere near as effective at distilling that aesthetic so neatly across the run of a single record. But on TMS Death Grips were still writing actual songs, with memorable hooks, sticky melodies, and conventional structures that served to heighten the potency of their tantrums. Songs like “I’ve Seen Footage” and “Hacker” are shocking for how immediate and unthreatening the band sound despite MC Ride’s sour bark, while songs like “The Fever (Aye Aye)” and “The Cage” showcase early peaks for Flatlander’s immaculate, and underrated synth work. MC Ride is at his best here, whether talking shit and espousing authenticity (“Hustle Bones”), calling out doubters (“Bitch Please”), or just railing against general conformity, he delivers 13 career defining performances in neat succession. Death Grips have continued to relentlessly experiment on all their subsequent records, and while some have come close to matching the excellence of TMS, they’ve all fallen short. Thankfully, the immense exhilaration and urgency of TMS sound more potent with each successive year that we inhibit this desolate hellscape.

Essentials: “I’ve Seen Footage”, “The Fever (Aye Aye)”, “Hacker”

16. Twin Fantasy (Face to Face)- Car Seat Headrest

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that a re-recording of a devastatingly personal LP that Will Toledo recorded at 19, with better production, stronger arrangements, and cleaner vocals, would end up being his best record to date. What was surprising was that he decided to return to the record of his that’s most important to him, and give it the sort of justice that it deserves after having developed into a far more adept talent in the years following its release. And although I’m sure some of those songs (if not all of them) were painful to revisit, the discipline and audacity paid off enormously. Twin Fantasy centers entirely around falling in love with another man at 19, and the arc of their relationship from mourning the distance between them on the opening song “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” to the newfound acceptance of their relationship’s dissolution on closer “Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)”, detailing the highs and lows with unabashed sincerity. While the original still holds up fairly well, there’s no question that the re-arranging, cleaner vocals, and stronger fidelity overall just heightened the potency of what was already there without diminishing any aspect of the original record. Will’s cleverness, sense of humor, and dynamism as a bandleader elevate TF beyond a melancholic teen drama into a searing document of formative growth, demonstrating craft, ingenuity, and wisdom far beyond his years. More so than any other record released throughout the last decade, TF exemplifies just how potent indie rock still is.

This new version of TF is more of a “re-imagining” of the original record than anything else, and as such the thematic scope as it initially existed, along with the exact same track listing, is held perfectly intact. The record’s two epics, those being “Beach Life-In-Death” and “Famous Prophets (Stars)” are both even longer, and benefit more so than anything else here from their new arrangements. The fidelity has been cleaned up notably, but TF is still far from overproduced, and without any fuzz obscuring a lot of the detail you can hear just how crisp, and superbly layered these arrangements are. The new-wave outlier “Nervous Young Human” practically radiates with a newfound sheen, and is handedly the most radio-ready song the band have ever written, but it still folds seamlessly into the record’s mid-section between the anthemic, distortion-fueled peaks of “Sober to Death” and the record’s mid-album power-pop stunner, “Bodys”. Toledo’s drawing from a great deal here of different sub-genres here, and he manages to land on a remarkably uniform sound that belies the myriad of intricacies at work that prevent these compositions from being crushed underneath the weight of their own ambition. The album’s greatest achievement is how deftly Will manages to tell a story about the most profound event of his life coupled with music that’s as multi-faceted as the human experience being conveyed. TF may be proudly out of step with the current cultural zeitgeist from a sonic perspective, but the sentiments conveyed throughout are sublime missives from a distinctly millennial outlook. As far as concept albums about a single relationship are concerned, Toledo has set the bar this century with TF.

Essentials: “Famous Prophets (Stars)”, “Beach Life-In-Death”, “Bodys”

15. Modern Vampires of the City- Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend have come a long way from the indie afro-pop roots of their debut to their pastoral, jam band informed fourth LP, Father of the Bride, but on their third LP, Modern Vampires of the City the band refined their sound to a sublime strain of chamber music and art pop filled with Ezra Koenig’s strongest writing to date. Whereas their first two records were entirely produced by the band’s multi-instrumentalist and not-so-secret weapon Rostam Batmanliij, on MVotC Ariel Reitscheid, a producer known for working with acts like Charli XCX, Haim, Solange, etc joined the proceedings, and there’s a lighter feel to a lot of the arrangements, but everything has more dimension overall, and the low-end really pops on a lot of these in a way that it hadn’t really before. There are plenty of welcome production choices throughout, like the sprinkling of auto-tune on “Step”, or the blistering saxophone solo on “Worship You” that do a great deal to expand the parameters of the band’s sound without ever finding them really going out of their depth. Compared to their prior records there’s a fairly vast tonal gap on MVotC, with a heightened sense of existential dread and fixations on mortality, nostalgia, and faith. It’s weighty stuff without question, and the exceptional pacing goes a long towards helping evenly pack in the melancholic, languid compositions like “Everlasting Arms” and “Don’t Lie” with infectious up-tempo numbers like “Diane Young”, “Unbelievers”, and “Finger Back” that, while far from the best of what’s here are still as immediate as anything they’ve ever released and benefit from the same immaculate arrangement, production, and writing as everything else here even if they don’t break as much new ground. But the best of what’s here are without question among the best pop songs released so this far century.

Both opener “Obvious Bycycle” and “Step” are devastating looks at nostalgia that frame Ezra’s thoughtful character sketches in rich compositions that in the case of the former consist of soft wisps of grand piano, percussion that sounds like a stamp being punched, and surprisingly visceral bass, while in the case of the latter the band opt for gorgeous harpsichord arrangements, and a swaggering bassline. But “Hannah Hunt”, which is for the record the best VW song to date, is on another level entirely. It opens like the sun after the storm with field recording of a crowd of people clearing away for delicate grand piano and the gentle rumble of bass. Ezra sings of a relationship slowly starting to break apart as a couple travels the country together “A gardener told me some plants move/But I could not believe it/’Til me and Hannah Hunt/Saw crawling vines and weeping willows”. The song slowly builds into a rousing baroque pop crescendo over roaring keys as Ezra delivers one of his most devastating lines to date “If I can’t trust you then damn it Hannah/There’s no future, there’s no answer/Though we live on the US dollar/You and me we got our own sense of time”. Rostam left VW in 2016, and although their first record without him, the aforementioned 2019 comeback LP, FotB, his absence was sorely felt. On “Hudson” it almost sounds like Rostam is singing to Ezra, under that lens especially, it’s functions as a poignant, but fitting cap to VW’s first era. As great as FotB, Rostam’s 2017 debut Half-Light, and I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, his 2016 collaboration with Hamilton Leithauser of The Walkmen, I hope that MVotC isn’t the last time the two of them work on a full LP together.

Essentials: “Hannah Hunt”, “Step”, “Ya Hey”

14. Channel Orange- Frank Ocean

Few albums released throughout the last decade have brought about the sort of sweeping sea change that Frank Ocean’s sublime debut LP, Channel Orange, did. Ocean’s kaleidoscopic, self-released 2011 mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra established his artistry as something far beyond that of the go-to hook ghostwriter identity he cut his teeth establishing for himself. A year and a half later, amidst signing to Def Jam, collaborating extensively with Tyler, the Creator, Kanye West, and Jay-Z, and writing a now legendary tumblr post stating that his first love was for another man a few days before releasing his immensely anticipated debut LP, Frank Ocean released that album, and decided to call it Channel Orange. Like Ocean’s music itself, the narrative surrounding his ascension feels both timeless (moving to LA after Hurricane Katrina struck his hometown of New Orleans, ghostwriting and joining Tyler, the Creator’s hip-hop collective Odd Future before releasing his own music, which drew primarily from soul, classic r&b, and funk more than anything that was on the radio at the time) and modern (sampling extensively on N,U, having a few key co-signs that seemed to unlock all the right connections, leveraging the power of the internet along with the rest of Odd Future to build and sustain a fanbase) but none of it would matter if the music didn’t live up to the hype. But all of this is particularly interesting to consider when talking about CO, especially considering that it’s the best debut LP of the 10s, and an absolute master class in songwriting.

CO is a remarkably fully-formed debut LP that finds Ocean in complete control of his craft on all fronts. The instrumentation is a lush palette of analog keys, bass, and strings, and with the exception of a few fairly stripped down ballads, shows a keen command for maximalism that never sounds overwrought. Even a song like the colossal, mid-album change-up “Pyramids”, is saved from complete indulgence after the beat seamlessly shifts into a woozy down-tempo trap instrumental with plenty of space for Ocean’s falsetto to linger in. Ocean would shift gears dramatically with the 2016 visual album, Endless, and his second studio LP, Blonde, trading in the rich, dense analog soul and r&b for a minimal psychedelic soul sound. While the production on Blonde and Endless is more impressive than that of CO, neither record was quite able to match the lush immediacy that seemed to come to Ocean so naturally here. Ocean produced the record alongside the musicians Jonathon Ikpeazu, Malay, and Om’Mas Keith who all provided additional keys, drum programming, and/or guitars. Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler, the Creator, and Andre 3000 are the only guests that provide verses, and while each completely delivers, CO is Ocean’s record through and through. Regardless of whether Ocean is singing about the emptiness of privilege (“Super Rich Kids”), or depicting a tale of someone’s life falling apart due to crack addiction (“Crack Rock”) or delivering the closest thing he’ll likely ever come to a straight forward love song (“Thinkin’ Bout You”) his eye for detail, wit, intelligence, and empathy render the characters as rich, and multi-faceted regardless of what angle he’s coming at them from. The warmth and immediacy of the instrumentation and Ocean’s voice draws you in, but it’s the sheer strength of his songwriting that elevates CO from simply being another immensely promising debut to the classic that it is.

Essentials: “Crack Rock”, “Bad Religion”, “End / Golden Girl” ft. Tyler, the Creator

13. Sunbather- Deafheaven

Deafheaven were far from the first band to blend black metal, shoegaze, and post-rock, but on their stellar 2013 record Sunbather they distilled elements of these genres into a punishing, and breathtaking sound that’s unmistakably theirs. Their solid 2010 debut Roads to Judha showed tremendous promise, but their songwriting wasn’t on par with their ambitions yet. But on Sunbather, Deafheaven lived up to that early promise. Sunbather is primarily a blistering fusion of black metal drumming and shrieks engulfed in walls of shoegaze guitar that often give way to instrumental outros that shine with the radiance of Sigur Ros or Explosions in the Sky. George Clarke delivers the lyrics in an indecipherable shriek that either amplifies the intensity of the surrounding arrangements, or is used as a sublime juxtaposition to their fleeting moments of transcendent beauty. Sunbather is seven songs long, and superbly paced so that the band’s lengthier compositions are evenly split between songs that include a dreamy minimalist guitar/piano composition (“Irresistible”), a menacing baroque-noise march that congeals midway through into a jangly guitar conclusion (“Please Remember”), and an eerie collage of vocal samples and droning strings (“Windows”). This odd assortment of songs may seem random, but they do a nice job of breaking up the surrounding onslaught, and demonstrating the band’s range, while still adhering to the record’s searing aesthetic. It’s remarkably accessible music as far as metal is concerned, and if you can make it past the tone of Clarke’s voice there’s a lot to love about this album.

For all of Sunbather’s seemingly impenetrable harshness, there’s a great deal of beauty glistening just beneath the surface. On Sunbather, Deafheaven managed to strike a near perfect balance between beauty and chaos that, while greater heights were achieved later on, they never quite improved upon. The longer numbers here transition into moments of transcendent, cathartic beauty, and back into frenetic fury so subtly, and masterfully, that the juxtapositions quickly begin to seem less like extreme exercises in contrasting dynamics and tones so much as the fluid spectrum of Deafheaven’s multi-faceted artistry. And while the lyrics throughout Sunbather match the brutality of the corresponding arrangements, they also match their life-affirming, triumphant sense of urgency. Whether Clarke is reflecting on habitual patterns and habits that he just can’t shake “Lost in the patterns of youth/And the ghost of your aches comes back to haunt you/And the forging of change makes no difference” on “Vertigo” or ruing the alcoholism that he inherited from his father “In the hallways lit up brightly but couldn’t find myself/I laid drunk on the concrete on the day of your birth in celebration of all you were worth” on closer “The Pecan Tree”, his lyrics throughout Sunbather imbue his tortured yelps with a devastating poignancy rendered all the more morose by the band’s unflinching, formidable poise. It’s not hard to hear why Sunbather was the best reviewed album of 2013, and a game changer for black metal. Few records, metal or otherwise, have managed to convey such overwhelming emotional intensity through such ambitious composition. Its crushing beauty hasn’t lost an ounce of its potency in the years since.

Essentials: “Dream House”, “The Pecan Tree”, “Sunbather”

12. To Pimp a Butterfly- Kendrick Lamar

Kendrick Lamar caught the attention of the zeitgeist with his generation defining sophomore LP, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City, but that record’s follow-up, To Pimp a Butterfly, cemented his status as one of the definitive musical auteurs of his generation. Whereas the former record was a gripping street epic that seamlessly tucked a coming of age story into the larger fabric of a blockbuster west coast hip-hop record, the latter record blew open the history of black music and wove together a tapestry of disparate styles that congealed to express a more multi-faceted look at the black experience. The beats are composed of live instrumentation courtesy of Terrance Martin, Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, and a plethora of the west coast jazz elite, and they span the likes of jazz, r&b, soul, and funk alongside instrumental hip-hop without showing the seams. The music runs the gamut from uplifting anthems (“Alright”) to bouts of unbridled fury (“The Blacker the Berry”), and everywhere in-between, but thanks to Kendrick’s deft pacing and execution nothing sounds out of place, and there’s no mistaking these songs for the work of anyone else through sheer scope alone. Kendrick’s writing and rapping had increased considerably since GKMC, but throughout TPaB he spends less time trying to prove what a capable rapper he is, and far more time using his ability to explore the nuances of systemic racial issues through the lens of a plethora of different characters. TPaB couldn’t have possibly sounded more out of step with the zeitgeist upon its release, but in venturing beyond what hip-hop in the mid 10s sounded like, and exploring perspectives beyond those of himself, he was able to tap into something far more universally human.

Throughout the course of TPaB Kendrick tackles a wide plethora of topics with music that’s matches the breadth and scope of his thematic ambitions. The g-funk strut “King Kunta” is one of the most immediate songs in his career, and he juxtaposes the song’s infectious backdrop against verses that evoke the resilience of Kunta Kinte in the novel Roots as a through line for the jarring shift he experienced throughout his come-up after growing up in poverty. “u?” brilliantly distills the sort of tragic survivor’s guilt that Kendrick experienced in the wake of his success watching so many of his friends continue to succumb to the perils of systemic racism through harsh free-jazz arrangements, while “i” gains power within the context of the record as an uplifting neo-soul anthem of self-love after the preceding storm has subsided. The uplifting anthem “Alright” has become a canonical protest song in the wake of civil unrest as a result of excessive police brutality while the finale, “Mortal Man”, begins with some of his strongest verses to date before transitioning into a fabricated interview with 2Pac. There’s an absurd amount to unpack within the songs on TPaB, but the album never buckles under the weight of its ambition, and delivers performances that are striking at every turn. Kendrick never shies away from depicting the devastating realities throughout the history of the black American experience, but he finds reasons to persist through these tribulations in the power of community, god, and love.

Essentials: “The Blacker the Berry”, “u”, “Wesley’s Theory” ft. George Clinton

11. Lonerism- Tame Impala

On Tame Impala’s debut, Innerspeaker, the band proved adept at piecing together the finest moments from their record collections into strange, idiosyncratic new shapes, but on their sublime sophomore LP, Lonerism, they began to push their sound into the present moment. The flanged guitars, shuffling drum rhythms, and frontman Kevin Parker’s Lennon-esque falsetto are a hallmarks of classic psychedelic rock, but the spellbinding synth textures, evocative samples, and cavernous production showcase a definitively 21st century sensibility. There was no mistaking them for a pure homage act on Lonerism. With the exception of piano on a few tracks courtesy of Jay Watson, and a spoken word interlude courtesy of Melody Prochet, Lonerism was written, recorded, and produced entirely by Kevin Parker, and it helped signal a major shift from bands being the dominant artistic vehicle in indie music to the solo artist taking up that mantle. Lonerism is a perfectly paced album, and aside from a few breathers, and a few epics, it almost plays like a greatest hits set. There were signs of the disco-prog synth act that Tame Imapa developed into on a few of Lonerism’s more immediate moments, but this is still thoroughly steeped in the lineage of psychedelic rock, acid rock, and blues rock. With Lonerism, Parker began to show signs of the poptimist that he was all along, but he hadn’t yet compromised the instrumental ingenuity that he’s capable of for a strong melody, and so here you get the best of both worlds; the band’s sharpest hooks and most adventurous production. Lonerism is where Tame Impala evolved from a promising project with immense potential into one of the defining musical acts of Parker’s generation.

Lonerism is a record that completely lives up to its title as a concept record about isolation. Every song here finds Parker grappling with some aspect of self-imposed isolation set against hazy, psychedelic pop/rock instrumentation. Some songs like, the disarmingly immediate “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” spells out his anguish explicitly, with a love interest that he keeps falling for against his best judgement, while “Endors Toi” finds Parker rejecting the hardships of reality for the bliss that’s only possible when you’re literally dreaming. The lyrics rarely go deep, but on a record like this they’re entirely beside the point. Thankfully Parker’s writing works superbly within the context of the concept without detracting from the instrumentation and production. Parker wrote a few strong hooks on IS, but they were the exception, not the norm. On Lonerism, Parker’s melodic intuition had fully blossomed, and the hooks on songs like “Elephant”, “Why Won’t She Talk to Me”, and “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” were more immediate, and more memorable than anything on the top 40 at the time. The songs on Lonerism are bursting with sonic personality; whether we’re talking about the euphoric streaks of synth that send “Apocalypse Dreams” into the stratosphere, the phaser-smeared guitars and immersive samples that bring “Sun’s Coming Down” to its triumphant finale, or the propulsive drum fllls that propel “Endors Toi”, Lonerism is the most sonically rich record that Parker has ever released. Parker would achieve more audacious and unexpected heights on his superb 2015 follow-up, Currents, but he has yet to top Lonerism’s consistency, and near perfect balance between studio experimentation and pure pop craftsmanship.

Essentials: “Nothing That Has Happened So Far Has Been Anything We Could Control”, “Sun’s Coming Up”, “Apocalypse Dreams”

10. Flower Boy- Tyler, the Creator

Flower Boy may not have come as a surprise to those who closely followed Tyler Okonoma’s progression from the lo-fi hardcore hip-hop days of Bastard and early Odd Future through his chaotic, candy-coated third LP, Cherry Bomb, but for the casual listener it may have seemed like an unthinkable evolution. And no one could have predicted its consistency. The signs of Tyler progressing into melodic, psych-leaning neo-soul were on the wall as early as his terrific 2013 record, Wolf, but on FB his melodic sensibilities, compositional chops, and an increasingly empathetic outward writing perspective all coalesced into an idiosyncratic tapestry of vibrant sound and color unlike any hip hop record ever recorded. It’s the first time that Tyler’s chops had fully caught up with his ambition, allowing him to completely deliver on the promise of a truly genre-adverse opus that Cherry Bomb merely hinted at. The lyrics are somber, and reflective, demonstrating Tyler’s newfound sense of maturity that would have been unthinkable throughout the early OF days. The sincerity and vulnerability of the lyrics go a long way towards heightening the potency of his vibrant, melodically rich compositions. FB capitalizes on all the strange contradictions that have always been inherent in his music, while removing the adolescent excess that have bogged down each prior release. The result is a highwater mark for what hip-hop and neo-soul can sound like unbridled with concern for what music should sound like. That attention to detail and unrelenting creative spirit are what helped propel FB into being the classic record that it ended up being.

Eschewing the lo-fi Neptunes meets MF DOOM beats of his past records, Tyler landed on a perfect blend of neo-soul synths, jazz strings/horns, and drums that split the difference between classic boom-bap and mid-10s trap for FB. The music is bright and vibrant, with a wealth of detail tucked within each mix that rewards multiple listens. There are songs that are completely in Tyler’s wheelhouse, like the frantic, mid-album trap cut “I Ain’t Got Time!”, and a few like the show-stopping psychedelic soul ballad, “Garden Shed”, that dramatically expand the parameters of his sound, but they all cohere together superbly into a fully-realized kaleidoscope of sound. Even the songs like “Pothole” and “November” that seem like more run of the mill Tyler cuts showcase a renewed sense of focus and tight production that belie their simple construction. FB is a record that’s focused on unrequited love, and while themes of abandonment, disillusionment with fame, growing pains, and insecurity emerge as on past records, the bulk of the action is focused on Tyler coming to terms with both his bisexuality and the anguish of a missed connection. Rarely does heartbreak sound so unflinchingly, thrillingly alive. True to form, the music is never mopey or saccharine, but it’s always brimming with the intensity of young love. FB is the record that Tyler has always set out to make, and while I’m sure he’ll top it at some point, it currently stands at the definitive realization of his singular vision.

Essentials: “911 / Mr. Lonely” ft. Frank Ocean & Stevey Lacy, “Garden Shed” ft. Estelle, “See You Again” ft. Kali Uchis

9. Until the Quiet Comes- Flying Lotus

After Steve Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, dropped his masterful third LP, Cosmogramma, it seemed like he could take his sound anywhere, but doubling down and improving on the maximalist excess of Cosmogramma would have proved a near impossible task. Thankfully, on his stellar follow-up LP, Until the Quiet Comes, FlyLo swung all the way in the opposite direction, and despite it being the flavor of the decade minimalism rarely ended up sounding better on any other artist. UtQC is a minimalist electronic jazz/instrumental hip hop record with dreamy meditative arrangements that belie their complexity at every turn. The album is a concept record that finds FlyLo exploring the realms of human consciousness coupled with ambitious arrangements and immersive production that complements his thematic ambitions perfectly. FlyLo is still making beats in a traditional sense, but the compositions on this LP are more rich and varied than the entire discography of most producers, and the music he draws from spans the likes of ambient, psychedelia, r&b, post-rock, progressive rock, and meditative astral jazz as much as his usual instrumental hip hop, IDM, and free jazz touchstones. And so while UtQC is more insular, less immediate, and more likely to necessitate multiple listens than any other record of his, it’s the best showcase of FlyLo’s versatility, melodic intuition, and use of texture.

The compositions are short and sweet, and barely last longer than it takes for FlyLo to introduce an idea, tweak it, thwart expectations, and move on. Like on Cosmogramma, UtQC incorporates live instrumentation weaved throughout various compositions (Thundercat’s bass playing was cemented as a staple element of FlyLo’s sound here) as well as vocal features from the likes of Thundercat, Thom Yorke, Laura Darlington, and Niki Randa. The features are all utilized tastefully, and heighten the potency of the existing arrangements without detracting too much. There are songs like “All In” and “Yesterday/Corded” that just feature FlyLo alone constructing remarkable, lived-in soundscapes from his usual toolkit of drum machines, samplers, sequencers, and keys, while others like the title track and “DMT Song” that commit thoroughly to their minimalism, and coast effortlessly around strong melodies or guest vocal performances. Many of these songs retain the visceral low-end and celestial sweep of his best work, but they don’t serve to overwhelm and disorient as much as they sedate and mesmerize. “Getting There” hits the sweet spot, with and infectious, heavy-hitting low-end juxtaposed against Niki Randa’s sweeping falsetto. UtQC may not go for the jugular as FlyLo’s prior two records, but it’s just as captivating in its own quietly confident way.

And a few of the songs on the back half of the record are some of the most gorgeous that FlyLo has ever composed. The loose and dreamy “Only if You Wanna” provides a simple but sublime bridge from the drum and bass rush of “The Nightcrawler” into the droning r&b mirage with Yorke’s vocals wafting eerily through the crevices in the mix. From there the record moves into “Hunger” and “Phantasm”, two songs that skew the closest that FlyLo has ever veered toward straight up ambience, and they slowly unfurl into gorgeous, unpredictable string progressions as Niki Randa and Laura Darlington deliver understated, ethereal vocals, respectively. From there we’re led into “me Yesterday//Corded”, one of the strongest songs that FlyLo has released to date. It begins in the same somber, minor-key tone of the preceding songs before erupting into a cosmic drum and bass coda with a euphoric melody and pitch-shifted vocals. The final song, “Dream to Me” is a whirring synth and woodwind lullaby that brings everything full circle, leading us right back into the intro, “All In”. UtQC breezes by in nearly 47 minutes, but there’s another singular, self-contained universe of detail packed into this record’s spellbinding grooves.

Essentials: “yesterday//Corded”, “Electric Candyman ft. Thom Yorke”, “All In”

8. Carrie & Lowell- Sufjan Stevens

By the time that Sufjan Stevens released Carrie & Lowell he had already released several classic records and had undergone several stylistic change-ups, but nothing in his discography established the precedent for a masterwork quite like C&L. On C&L Sufjan returned to the sparse chamber folk sound of his superb fourth record, Seven Swans, but he replaced the short vignettes and character studies that peppered that record with an engrossing scope that centers around his tumultuous relationship with his late mother who suffered from substance addiction and schizophrenia. The music is hushed, and minimal, consisting of little more than finger plucked guitar, banjo, ukulele, and an assortment of strings underneath Sufjan’s tender delivery. His music has always radiated a sense of overwhelming empathy, and so when plumbing the depths of his psyche for memories of his mother the tone is often devastating and cathartic in equal measure, but never overly morose or self-pitying. With C&L Sufjan succeeded in honoring his mother’s memory as honestly and as faithfully as he could while his songwriting hit a new peak.

C&L sustains an almost overwhelming poignancy throughout its duration, but it’s never a slog. The heaviness of the sentiments never really subsides, but these songs are each filled with strong hooks, sweeping melodies, and a disarming directness that he’s never quite managed on prior records. Songs like the opening cut “Death with Dignity”, “Should Have Known Better”, and “The Only Thing” soar with warm, infectious hooks and nimble guitar arrangements alongside a few electronic and orchestral embellishments, while songs like “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross” and “Fourth of July” bring the tempo to a crawl and bask in Sufjan’s falsetto and minor-key acoustic guitar arrangements. It all comes to a head on the devastating centerpiece “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, as Sufjan depicts the self-destructive behavior he engaged in right after his mother’s death “There’s blood on that blade/Fuck me, I’m falling apart/My assassin/Like Casper the ghost/There’s no shade in the shadow of the cross” just so that he could feel closer to her.

Essentials: “No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross”, “Death with Dignity”, “The Only Thing”

7. Some Rap Songs- Earl Sweatshirt

Earl Sweatshirt was arguably the greatest living rapper before dropping his magnum opus, Some Rap Songs, but since its release it’s become much harder to dispute. On SRS Earl runs through 15 songs in 22 minutes, delivering sometimes little more than a hook and a verse per song before transitioning into the next one. The songs operate according to their own logic, and forgo traditional song structure for a loop-based compositional approach. Earl produced the bulk of the record himself, and heavily opted for dusty, de-tuned pianos, shuffling, lo-fi percussion, and a plethora of discordant texture. Earl’s precision is remarkable, and what may initially scan as awkward or clumsy flows slowly reveal themselves to be masterfully sidestepping the rhythms entirely. But for all its challenging aspects, SRS is hardly a precious, posturing sort of record. It demands your full attention, but will reward it several times over.

The songs throughout SRS are bleak missives from a remarkable talent unpacking years of trauma. The record tackles many of the same themes of abandonment, drug abuse, and depression as his past records, but he’s cut out any lingering excess in his prose, distilling only what’s absolutely necessary into each bar. The rapping is lean, and virtuosic, but never showy, and the brevity of the songs themselves is indicative of how succinct and substantial the music there is. Songs like “Red Water” have just a single couplet that he repeats a few times as the ebb and flow of the instrumental sustains the onset momentum, while other songs like “The Mint” are closer to convention, but still unfold along unpredictable loops, and verses that zig zag in and out of the mix at irregular intervals. There are songs like “Cold Summers” and “The Bends” that are the closest that Earl comes to rapping accessibly, and there are those like “Playing Possums” and Peanuts" that owe more to tape loops, ambient, and noise music than anything resembling hip hop. SRS and it’s follow-up EP, Feet of Clay, are easily the most challenging, experimental, and divisive records that Earl has released to date, but they’re also singular masterworks that push hip hop into stranger, and more human realms.

Essentials: “Peanut”, “The Mint” ft. Navy Blue, “December 24”

6. New Bermuda- Deafheaven

After releasing their superb second LP, Sunbather, Deafheaven had become one of the most acclaimed metal bands of the century, and had achieved a level of popularity unprecedented for metal bands. Never mistaken by anyone as purists, Deafheaven began their career flirting with through lines between shoegaze, black metal, and post-rock before tastefully combining them on Sunbather. While they easily could have churned out another LP of post-rock/blackgaze of the same stripe, the band went deeper and darker, and re-emerged with their third LP, New Bermuda, the heaviest, and arguably most melodic, record of their career to date. Across five songs that collectively clock in around 46 minutes Deafheaven continue to expand their parameters of their sound, incorporating heavier tremelo guitars, incendiary blast beats, and sweeping post-rock passages that are more adventurous, expansive, and gorgeous, than what any other bands are doing today. NB may lean the furthest towards the brutality of classic black metal, but the band’s 2015 onslaught still amplifies an immense feeling of transcendence alongside the terror.

Opener “Brought to the Water” rustles to life with the ominous sway of church bells before its lead guitar riff kicks into gear, foreshadowing the premium they place on atmosphere with foreboding timbres. Throughout the next several minutes the band continue to build a scorched earth black metal composition bristling with distortion and rapid fire drumming that eventually slyly segues into a sugary breakdown reminiscent of “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer. It’s disarming, and unprecedented, but a perfectly logical evolution of their sound that reaffirms their status as the most versatile band at the vanguard of contemporary black metal. “Luna” and “Come Back” are two of the heaviest songs that Deafheaven have ever released, and get a ton of mileage out of their seismic guitar riffs and pummeling percussion, while “Luna” boasts one of the loveliest melodies they’ve ever penned, gliding alone a star-dusted, stratosphere-bound guitar riff. Closer “Gifts for the Earth” is a succinct culmination of the preceding 38 minutes, capped off with their most cathartic coda to date with jangly guitar and minor key piano softly swirling around Clarke’s feral shrieks. The warmth exuded beneath Clarke’s shrapnel-laced delivery posits Deafheaven as a band executing well-beyond the scope and limitations of metal.

Essentials: “Gifts for the Earth”, “Brought to the Water”, “Luna”

5. Halcyon Digest- Deerhunter

By the time that Deerhunter geared up to record their fifth LP, Halycon Digest, they already had a rich body of work behind them, but very little of their music set the kind of precedent for where they would go on HD. Here, Deerhunter tapered down their most avant-garde impulses in favor of cleaner guitar arrangements and big, bright melodies, unearthing the pop band they’ve always been at their core with poise and aplomb. The walls of guitar noise, ambient interludes, and studio effects that had defined their previous releases became relegated to marginal aspects of their song craft, and they began opening up their songs like never before. Thankfully, they didn’t dilute their sound, they just cleaned it up, and the 11 songs that make up HD are the most immediate, and richly produced (thanks to Ben Allen, who produced this record after nailing Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion a year prior) of Deerhunter’s career to date. Deerhunter’s shift towards accessibility only seemed to accentuate their inherent strangeness, and HD remains one of the most engaging and endlessly replayable indie pop records of the 21st century.

From the droning low-end thump that ignites opener “Earthquake” it’s clear something substantial has shifted. Allen’s biggest contribution was a heightened low-end that caused Josh Fauver’s bass to really pop without distracting too much from the rest of the arrangements. This extra oomph propels songs like “Don’t Cry” and “Coronado” well into infectious, anthemic territory while it helps ground more ambitious cuts like “Helicopter” and “Desire Lanes”. Frontman Bradford Cox had completely grown into his role as a charismatic, provocative frontman with the pipes and poetic disposition to back up the antics, and propel his band towards a stadium sized sound even if they would never end up touring them. Bradford’s vocal melodies on closer “…He Would Have Laughed” and centerpiece “Helicopter” are the strongest that the band ever penned, while he delivers two of his most impressive vocal performances on the lulling “Sailing” and the pensive “Earthquake”. The closer, a tribute to the late Jay Reatard, is perhaps Deerhunter’s finest moment to date, with Bradford spinning surreal couplets “I live on a farm, yeah/I never lived on a farm” around the band’s steady harpsichord pulse until the composition bursts with euphoria, and then slowly begins to fade out before cutting out abruptly. Deerhunter have never made a bad record, but HD was the last time they showed how simultaneously adventurous and immediate pop music can be.

Essentials: “He Would Have Laughed”, “Helicopter”, “Desire Lanes”

4. Black Messiah- D’Angelo & The Vanguard

In the years following D'Angelo’s spectacular second LP, Voodoo, it seemed increasingly likely that he would never release another record. But then in the twilight days of 2014 D'Angelo surprise dropped his 3rd and best LP to date, Black Messiah, with a new band supporting him called The Vanguard (which consisted of Questlove on drums, Pina Palladino on bass, Isaiah Sharkey on guitar, Roy Hargrove on horns, and a handful of other musicians). BM eschews the warm r&b/neo-soul solo singer-songwriter sound of the first two D'Angelo LPs in favor of a fiery cocktail of avant-garde soul, jazz funk, and psychedelic r&b that’s simultaneously more abrasive and experimental than anything he had done prior. D'Angelo still has a remarkably agile falsetto, but it’s been notably weathered by the years away, and it now has a grainier disposition that happens to be a much better fit for the songs throughout the record. The band’s chemistry is just remarkable, and it’s hard to believe that they weren’t all cutting records with each other for decades prior. Unlike most artists that come back with new work after a notable dry spell, D'Angelo has never sounded more human than he does on this latest LP of his. Thankfully, despite the years apart D’Angelo hasn’t lost an ounce of his remarkable talent, and brings a magnetic charisma, sublime range, and a much sharper point of view to songs that reflect the turmoil of the preceding years of unrelenting police violence, yet respond in a multitude of ways. The Vanguard prove to be an ideal backdrop for D’Angelo’s songwriting, and together they achieve a new standard for neo-soul.

Although it had been 14 years, D'Angelo’s return felt right on time in the immediate wake of the deaths of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and plenty of others at the hands of the police. While D'Angelo’s music has never shied away from political statements, BM is by far the most explicitly political record of his career. “1000 Deaths” opens to a sample of a Khalid Abdul Muhammed speech about Jesus being black and quickly gives way to a visceral, funk rock rhythm and red-lining guitars with D'Angelo dissecting the difference between courage and cowardice “Because a coward dies a thousand times/But a soldier just dies once”. On the following track, “The Charade”, D'Angelo opts for searing soul that builds into his most anthemic melody to date while he delivers devastating imagery of the cruelty still inflicted on black people all over the world “All we wanted was a chance to talk/‘Stead we only got outlined in chalk” while “'Til It’s Done” contains D'Angelo’s finest melody to date and finds him questioning the nature of our existence and whether we’re really reckoning with the way that capitalists are destroying our planet “Perilous dissidence evening up the score/Do we even know what we’re fighting for?”. He also delivers some of his best love songs to date, including the funky mid-tempo shuffle of “Sugah Daddy”, the tender soul ballad “Betray My Heart”, and the spellbinding centerpiece “Really Love”. These songs fold neatly within the larger fabric of the record as a whole, and complement the politically charged songs without breaking the greater aesthetic. D'Angelo’s conviction is palpable throughout it all, and the newfound wisdom that he accrued in the years since Voodoo enrich the perspective that he brings to the songs in such a generous, humble way. Even if D’Angelo never releases another record we couldn’t have asked for a better swan song from him.

Essentials: “’Til It’s Done”, “The Charade”, “Really Love”

3. MBV- My Bloody Valentine

Like D'Angelo, it didn’t seem likely that My Bloody Valentine would ever follow-up their masterful second LP, but 22 years after the release of Loveless, in the dead of February 2013, MBV, the third My Bloody Valentine, finally emerged. There are 9 songs here, and they can neatly divided into three sections that find the band progressing from an extension of what they were doing in the 90s to styles never associated with them. MBV picks up right where Loveless left off, beginning with expansive suite of shoegaze songs rendered with the kind of sublime texture and tone as we’ve come to expect from the group, and slowly but surely they branch out into psychedelic pop, ambient, and pure noise, realms they’ve teased in the past but have never quite committed to prior. You can hear the band straining against their limitations, and although seeking out perfection is a fools errand, they nearly achieve it.

There’s no mistaking MBV as the work of any other band, but here they’re painting in darker, bolder hues than they’ve used in the past. Beginning with the opening song, “She Found Now”, their sound is much richer, and more forlorn, than it’s ever sounded, with thick plumes of guitar washing over wispy androgynous vocals and faint, skeletal percussion. Even as the tempos increase and the melodies begin to peak out beneath the fuzz, that wistful, melancholic tone remains. “Only Tomorrow” amps up the tempo with a driving rhythm and scorching guitars perpetually firing into the red

while “In Another Way” is a bludgeoning slice of driving noise pop with a strong melody from guitarist Belinda Butcher. “Nothing Is” coasts off the hypnotic repetition of its bludgeoning guitars for 3.5 minutes, and perfectly segues into the glorious noise piece, “Wonder 2”, which closes the record on a note of whirring guitars that approximate the overwhelming euphoria of first wave shoegaze, but takes the listener to much stranger places.

The nine songs throughout MBV strike a perfect balance between updating the shoegaze style that they perfected on loveless while wading into new territory, but it all hangs together beautifully. Kevin Shields and Belinda Butcher still harmonize on the bulk of these songs, and they’re ethereal delivery is still the perfect counterbalance for the aggression of the guitars. The searing slow-burn of “Who Sees You” is the peak of their vocal interplay, while on the midsection pop numbers like “New You” and “In Another Way” Butcher takes the reins and delivers two of the band’s strongest melodies to date over driving percussion and sleigh bells. The relative immediacy of “New You” is new sound for the band, and they completely deliver on its hypnotic pop premise. “Is This and Yes” and “Nothing Is” are the two instrumentals at the polar ends of the band’s sound that perfectly balance out the more dynamic songs, and the aforementioned noise piece “Wonder 2” complements the opening song “She Found Now” perfectly in that it’s an exploration of what My Bloody Valentine might explore more of if they ever release a fourth LP. It’s a miracle that MBV even exists in the first place, so the fact that it’s this good is just icing.

Essentials: “Only Tomorrow”, “New You”, “In Another Way”

2. Blonde- Frank Ocean

After releasing his generation defining 2012 debut Channel Orange, it was hard to say where he was going to take his music next. A cryptic series of videos in mid-August 2016 featuring Frank building a ladder led to few clues, but at the end of this week we received an audio-visual album titled Endless. Before anyone could really acclimate themselves to sleek, genre-agnostic minimalism of Endless, the proper follow-up to CO, titled Blonde, released a day later. Whereas CO was the sound of a singular talent discovering what he can do, Blonde is the sound of that talent capitalizing on those gifts with unparalleled precision. On Blonde Frank opts for a striking minimalist palette of psychedelic pop, avant-garde soul, ambient, and jazz, that are off-kilter and adventurous without sacrificing the warmth of his past work. Like CO, Blonde primarily explores themes of nostalgia, heartbreak, identify, and the nature of human perception, and here his eye for detail and attention to detail remains unmatched by any songwriter of the last decade.

From the opening song “Nikes”, Blonde presents itself as a drastic stylist departure from what Frank was doing prior. The first half is a distorted r&b dreamscape with Frank crooning in a pitch-shifted higher register, and actually has him rapping a few verses, before returning to his normal register. Blonde is filled with strange, yet tasteful stylistic touches like this, from the distorted shrieks at the end of “Ivy”, to the collapsing, pitch-shifted orchestra that gives way to an eerie children’s choir’s on “Pretty Sweet”, the album rarely shifts into anything that scans as conventional. “Pink and White” is the most straight forward moment on the album, but the verses rarely stay grounded, and soon give way to a soaring chorus that slyly tucks Beyonce’s voice into the fold before the instruments dissolve from the mix entirely. “Skyline To” and “Godspeed” flirt with ambience and put a great deal of emphasis on exploring texture and negative space, while “Close to You” is a brief, glitchy cover of Stevie Wonder’s classic that provides a terrific segue from the “Facebook Story” interlude into the record’s devastating centerpiece, White Ferrari. The record covers a remarkable amount of ground sonically, but it coheres in a way that completely belies this scope.

“Nikes” sets the tone for the record on the whole as Frank watches his friends lose themselves to the spoils of his fame and begins to recognize himself as a placeholder for a partner’s lost love. “Self-Control” depicts the story of one of Frank’s relationship’s imploding “I’ll be the boyfriend in your set dreams tonight/Noses on a rail, little virgin wears the white” set to a mesmerizing neo-soul slow-burn that unfurls a gorgeous, understated melody while “Nights” juxtaposes the highs of the come-up “Oooh nani nani/This feel like a Quaalude” with a guitar pop/boom-bap instrumental and the perils of fame with a woozy, cloud-rap adjacent second half “Shut the fuck up I don’t want to hear your conversation/Rollin” marijuana that’s a cheap vacation". The record hits its peak with the spectacular ballad, “White Ferrari”, the strongest song of his career to date. Over warm acoustic guitar provided by Alex G Frank details the permanence of the love that he’ll have for someone that he’s no longer in a relationship with “I care for you still and I will forever/That was my part of the deal, honest/We got so familiar”. The humility and humanity of the moment is heartbreaking, and speaks volumes about the depths of Frank’s artistry. Blonde set a new benchmark for avant-garde pop, and is arguably the most influential album of the past decade.

Essentials: “White Ferrari”, “Nights”, “Self-Control”

1. Cosmogramma- Flying Lotus

After breaking through with his superb sophomore LP, Los Angeles (a singular blend of IDM, trip-hip, and woozy Dilla & Madlib-esque instrumental hip-hop) it would have been easy for Flying Lotus to continue mining the same sounds for successive records that were just slight variations on that singular template. But for FlyLo’s third LP, Cosmogramma, he blew his sound wide open, eschewing the quantized beat grid for a lusher, more sprawling sound that couldn’t be confined to standard rhythms. Cosmogramma is steeped in the lineage of instrumental hip hop and IDM like its predecessor, but it manages to juggle a wider palette of disparate styles such as four on the floor, drum and bass, jungle, free-jazz, and experimental bass while incorporating a wide variety of guest musicians that do a superb job of fleshing out his expansive compositions. Cosmogramma is a record that can barely contain its ambition, and despite having been released over a decade ago it still shines like a beacon illuminating the boundless possibilities of where music can go.

The sublime fusion of the live instrumentation, supplied by Thundercat on bass, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson contributing string arrangements, and Ravi Coltrane providing tenor saxophone, among many others coupled with FlyLo’s mind-warping production is what gives the album it’s compelling thrust. The first half primarily splits the difference between frantic drum and bass/synth-pop heaters and atmospheric cosmic-jazz interludes, and the pacing is just remarkable, with no moment overstaying it’s welcome and plenty of space to give each idea the space it needs to develop. Thom Yorke drops by for a wispy vocal performance on the agile IDM strut “And the World Laughs With You” while Thundercat delivers a formal career introduction on the tender ballad “MmmHmm” before the record shifts into the infectious four on the floor centerpiece, “Do the Astral Plane”. From here the record deploys the astral jazz and eastern influences in a more pronounced fashion on songs like “German Haircut” and “Dance of the Pseudo Nymph” respectively. The celestial ambience of “Table Tennis” featuring Laura Darlington is a welcome breather for the life-affirming synth surge of closer “Galaxy in Janaki”, ending the album on a somber, but ultimately uplifting note with Flylo sampling the ventilators that his mom was hooked up to on her death bed for a euphoric, synth-streaked send-off.

The enduring appeal lies in its function as ambition existing for the sake of ambition. The songs throughout Cosmogramma all vary in texture, tempo, and tone, and they all around great on their own, but it’s the journey from start to finish that Cosmogramma exemplifies as a spiritual experience. Cosmogamma was intended to function as a loose concept album of sorts about lucid-dreaming and out of body experiences influenced by the study of the universe, heaven, and hell, and it’s remarkable to hear just how much of that vision that he’s able to convey without the prevalence of vocals. Although electronic music has changed dramatically in the decade since Cosmogramma was released, the execution of FlyLo’s masterpiece hasn’t been in matched, in electronic music or anywhere where else. Cosmogramma is both the pinnacle of where music has been, and a glimpse at the possibilities of where it could go moving forward.

Essentials: “Galaxy in Janaki”, “Do the Astral Plane”, “MmmHmm” ft. Thundercat

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river-bottom-nightmare · 3 years

Text

Damijon Secret Santa

@woahjaybird happy holidays ris!!!!!!!!!! i admit, i was a bit confused, bc you signed up for a ship fic exchange and requested platonic bros, but whatever. i hope you like it!

To be honest, it was something Damian said a lot.

Jon heard those words practically every time Damian opened his mouth: in the middle of a mission, when they were baking pies with Ma Kent, during a stakeout, on a rooftop eating takeout.

They used to be annoying. God, sometimes Jon just wanted to drop his restraint and punch Damian in the face, full-force. Especially when he said those words, again and again and again. Over time, though, Jon grew used to them, and after a while, they just began to amused him.

You should be afraid of me.

Because Jon never understood those words. What was there to be scared of?

The two of them were sitting on a rooftop in Metropolis, Jon with his long legs dangling over the side of the building, Damian cross-legged next to him. Taking a long slurp of his smoothie, Jon glanced over at Damian, who was outlining their plan of attack for tomorrow-- a mission to take down an arms dealer who had been working out of Metropolis for months. With Dad stretched thin over League, international, and intergalactic affairs, criminals were becoming a little less hesitant to step foot into the city. Superboy and Robin would be taking care of that soon.

Jon was listening, he really was. The battle plans were definitely lodging themselves somewhere in Jon’s subconsciousness. But he had to admit, most of his attention was fixed firmly on Damian himself.

Jon remembered the days the prickly young boy would throw his nose up haughtily in the air, state he’d been intelligent enough to have a doctorate at seven years old, and miff at anyone who insinuated otherwise. It was a far sight from when Damian had curled himself up on Jon’s bed, and under the guise of watching a movie, told Jon about his acceptance into the most prestigious art schools in Gotham.

And that was the reason behind Jon’s inattention, wasn’t it? Damian was eighteen, now. Their age difference didn’t seem like much when they were ten and thirteen and going against the world with all the confidence of a couple boys playing pretend. Now, Damian had a weariness in his shoulders, but lips that quirked up into a smile far too often, skin layered in scars but hands gentler than Jon ever thought he was capable of. Jon himself was a fumbling, awkward fifteen year old with jeans that were always too short, hair that was always too messy. And Jon used to think he was over feeling inferior to his best friend.

He’d miss him. Jon would miss Damian so much. Sure, Damian would probably try and keep their visits somewhat consistent, but work would pile up, and a curator would probably see Damian’s talents and whisk him away to the world of the famous artists, and Damian would forget he ever had a friend named Jon and would go on to become a household name while Jon spent the rest of his life living in his parents’ house and updating his mediocre blog that he started because of a dare.

No, he wasn’t being dramatic, thank you very much.

Unfortunately, Damian seemed to catch onto his lack of attention and snapped his fingers underneath Jon’s nose, startling him back to focus.

Never one to sugarcoat, Damian said, “You look miserable.”

“What? No, I’m fine!” Jon didn��t know why he even tried to play it off, he’d never been able to lie to Damian.

“Right. My mistake. Someone who was fine would definitely spend the past hour drinking out of a smoothie cup that’s already empty.”

Huh. Jon hadn’t even realized he’d finished the drink. He put it to the side and shook his head. “Really, it’s not a pro-oblem.” Oh, goddamnit.

“Your voice cracks are ridiculous,” Damian informed him. Why had Jon ever thought he’d changed? That smug voice was as irritating as ever.

“Yeah, they’re hilarious, thanks.”

“I don’t understand why you’re upset.” Apparently, this matter was serious enough for Damian to put his map down. Wasn’t that comforting?

But Jon had never liked to keep things from his best friend. “That. That’s what’s bothering me.”

“Your voice cracks?” Now Damian just sounded confused.

“Yes! No, I don’t know. I just don’t like them.” Jon crossed his arms in frustration.

When he looked over at Damian, the other boy’s eyes were wide, and in that stupidly deep and non-cracking voice, he said, “This conversation has gone well past the point of understanding and I’m going to continue with the plan now.”

Jon sighed. “No, Damian, it’s not that.”

“Then?”

Searching for the right words, Jon drummed his fingers together. “You...you’re going off to that fancy art school soon. You’re all grown up. And here I am with my stupid video games and voice cracks.”

Jon wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting. Damian could never be called a master of social interaction, and his basic settings were sarcastic, condescending, or incredulous. Still, Jon expected something a bit kinder than:

“You’re such a moron, Jonathan.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Jon stared at Damian for a moment, blinking stupidly. “So I tell you about the problem that’s been eating me up for weeks, and all you say is that I’m a moron? Thank you so much for that.”

“I’m telling you you’re a moron because you’re worrying about something so inconsequential.”

“Oh please, do elaborate.”

Damian paused, then let out a tired sigh, turning to face Jon. This was going to be a serious conversation, then.

“Jonathan. I have told you time and time again. You should be scared of me-”

“Oh my god,” Jon interrupted. “This stuff, again?” He was laughing now. “I know, I know. You should be horrified, cower in terror underneath my ruthlessness, blah blah blah. You say it all the time, I get it. I should be scared of you.”

Damian stared at him. “Are you done?” he said with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m tired of you bringing up the same thing over and over, Damian.”

“And in saying that, you just proved my point.”

Jon frowned in confusion. “What?”

“I’ve always said that you should be afraid of me. But you never have been, not since the moment we met.”

“Like there’s anything to be scared of.”

“Yes, Jonathan. There is.” Damian looked Jon in the eye, his gaze sharp and serious.

Damian’s honesty was strange, something Jon wasn’t used to, so he tried to play it off with a laugh. “Yeah, yeah, assassin training’s tough-”

“When I was six years old, I murdered a man in front of his daughter.”

Jon fell silent.

“I used to command an entire legion in my grandfather’s army. We completely destroyed and took down three different countries.”

“Damian, I-”

“Once, Grandfather put me in a straightjacket and wrapped me in chains, surrounded by trained guards, with no instruction other than to escape. And I did.”

Hesitantly, Jon said, “I never knew.”

“Because I never told you. That, and so much more, is why everybody I ever know has been scared of me.”

“Even Nightwing?”

“Nightwing grew out of it eventually,” Damian admitted. “But everyone else. The rest of the bats. Father. Even Mother. There’s fear in their eyes when they look at me.”

“Oh. Uh,” Jon shrugged. “That sucks.”

“That sucks?” Damian said, dry but amused.

“I didn’t know what else to say!” Jon defended.

“See? That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

Jon furrowed his eyebrows. “You’ve been trying to tell me it sucks? Because I already knew it sucks.”

“Jonathan…” Damian trailed off, then grabbed Jon’s wrists with his own hands.

“Hey!” Jon protested, though only out of surprise. Because Damain’s hands were warm and his thumb was pressing down on Jon’s pulse point and Jon could honestly say he had no objection to this.

Damian’s face showed nothing but piercing intensity: brows furred and eyes locked on Jon’s own. “Jon. Look me in the eyes, and tell me you’re scared of me.”

“But I’m not?”

“I just told you things that would have grown men running away from me in terror. Tell me at least some of that scares you.”

“No,” Jon shook his head and gripped the other’s boy’s wrists back. “No. I’m not scared of you.”

Letting out a breath, Damian moved away. For a moment, Jon found himself chasing that warmth.

“You are the only person who’s ever thought that.” Damian turned, shifting to mirror Jon’s position. Staring out over the city, a billboard washed colours over Damian’s face. He looked like a work of art, and Jon had no idea how anybody could ever fear him.

“You’re my best friend, Damian.” Jon shrugged, despite the fact that Damian couldn’t see him. “I’ve seen you scream at a machine for losing at Cheese Viking. I’ve seen you befriend a little squirrel you found on Ma’s farm. So how exactly am I supposed to be afraid of you?”

Damian nodded, as if that solidified something. “If you really think that I would leave the only person that isn’t scared of me, if you think that I would stop being friends with someone who has always thought of me as a human first and a weapon second just because I’m going to a university, then you are the biggest moron to ever walk the face of the earth.”

Stunned, Jon moved to sit next to Damian. “Oh.”

Jon had always been aware of their height difference, made plenty of jokes about it, but it really struck him how much smaller Damian was when the older boy turned to look up and smile at him. “So stop worrying, okay Kent? It’s unbecoming.”

“Whatever you say,” Jon acquiesced.

Damian wasn’t leaving for good. Damian, with his burning green eyes and molten beauty, still wanted to be friends with him.

With a smile on his face, Jon turned to look out at the city, letting the quiet wash over him. At his side, Damian did the same. A huge thank you to @iamwhelmed for organizing the secret santa this year!!

tag list: @woahjaybird @birdy-bat-writes @elles-shitposts-personified @subtleappreciation @screennamealreadyused @pricetagofficial @catxsnow @iconbicon

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the-girl-in-the-box · 3 years

Text

Not Today XIV

A/N: I don't know why the chapters that are the hardest to start end up being the longest, but here we are again?? Last update before I'm out of town- but I have chapters for Wednesday and Saturday already drafted, and ready to be posted even while I'm away! So, enjoy the relationship development and Tension in this chapter, and update will be on schedule as always! Skål!

Summary: When Ivar takes the throne of Kattegat, Lagertha flees to Wessex along with Björn, Ubbe, Torvi, and the Bishop Heahmund. There, they seek the aid of King Alfred. This aid comes in the form of his sister, Aethelind, who agrees to travel to Kattegat and try to reason Ivar, who she spent some time with during their youth, when her grandfather King Ecbert hosted Ragnar Lothbrok in their castle. Now, she is the only hope for Lagertha and her supporters to retake Kattegat from Ivar the Boneless.

Masterlist

In hindsight, Aethelind was beginning to wonder if promising her loyalty to Ivar was a horrible idea. He was about to hold a Þing, the concept of which Hvitserk had explained to Aethelind as something of a meeting of the whole town, where they discuss things what needed doing around the town. So, curious about this, she had agreed to attend with Hvitserk and his… lover? Thora wasn’t his wife, but their relationship was what Aethelind would have called marriage, had there just been a wedding. She’d only met the woman a few times, but she’d always rather liked her.

Aethelind now stood on Hvitserk’s other side, in the darkened Great Hall, as the Þing was about to start. There was a large curtain up, hiding where the thrones sat, and as the drums stopped beating, it was pulled back to reveal Ivar and Freydis.

“I didn’t realize he was one for such theatrics,” she commented, and Hvitserk let out something of a small chuckle.

“I didn’t either,” he answered.

A silence fell over the gathered people as the fires at the sides of the thrones were lit, and Ivar shifted in his seat. Aethelind recognized this as how he moved right before he spoke, and she was correct.

“My people,” he began. “You are all welcome to the Þing. It is important to us that everyone here feels involved in the life of our great town. Kattegat has grown. It is now a huge trading station, the greatest trading station in Scandinavia. Kattegat has changed since my father’s time.”

Hvitserk’s eyes narrowed a bit, and Aethelind noticed she could almost feel the concern and unease radiating off of him. He didn’t like where Ivar was going with this at all, and truthfully, she wasn’t quite sure of it either.

“In those days, he knew everyone,” Ivar continued. “And he was happy to share his power with those he knew, and trusted, of course.” Oh, no. The Princess shared a look with the Prince, the two of them now clearly unnerved. “My father gave me this responsibility.” As if to back up this claim of his, Ivar pulled off one of the two arm rings he wore- the one Aethelind had learned once belonged to Ragnar Lothbrok himself- and held it up. “And our father, Odin, gave me this responsibility. I have accepted it, and I ask you to trust me.”

Aethelind swallowed uncomfortably and shifted her weight a little, a subconscious movement toward Hvitserk. When Ivar continued again, a dread settled in her stomach.

“We cannot allow everyone to vote on everything which affects our Kingdom. We have a duty to protect it! I have a duty to protect it.” He waved a hand to signal the men on the sides, and they put out a few of the fires. “So… We have to change the rules. People I trust will vote on land issues, matrimonial matters, murder inquiries, things that you do not need to worry about. Because I will take care of you. I will lead you! No, what is truly important is to know who we are! And who is with us, and who is against us. And we know who we are, don’t we?”

There was a resounding cry of affirmation from the crowd, though Hvitserk, Aethelind, and Thora didn’t answer Ivar’s call. Maybe it wasn’t her place, but Aethelind already had some very choice words for him, once all this was through.

Ivar grinned at the reaction from the crowd, and agreed with them. “Yes, we do! So now, it is time to find out those who threaten us, who is against us. Maybe it is your neighbor.” A sick feeling settled in the pit of Aethelind’s stomach. Perhaps an argument could be made for a different form of government, due to Kattegat’s size, but this… this was something else entirely. And he didn’t even stop at that, continuing to suggest, “Perhaps it is someone you know. A family member. A brother.”

She didn’t miss the way he looked Hvitserk dead in the eyes. Her own gaze turned to Hvitserk, confusion and concern evident in it. Clearly, there was something going on between the two that she had been left out of. But it was bad, and likely played into what he had told her, wanting to send Hvitserk to speak with his new ally.

As he continued, her heart was pounding, listening to the way he added, “A son. They talk about me. They whisper that I am the enemy. But, of course, they are the enemy. They want to destroy our Kingdom. They want to encourage our enemies to attack us and invade us! Is that what you want?” The crowd dissented vocally, cheering Ivar on, and a feeling almost like panic began to bubble up in Aethelind. “Do you want me to protect you?” Not like this. The crowd cheered him again. “Do you want me to destroy them?” Don’t destroy anyone, please, Ivar. Again, they cheered.

As he stood, the crowd descended into chants of his name, as well as that of Odin, and he looked Hvitserk in the eye with a dark smirk.

It wasn’t for a few hours after the Þing that Aethelind finally found Ivar, and was able to talk to him about what was done there. He grinned when he saw her, and greeted her happily, only to be stunned by her immediate demand of, “Are you out of your mind?!”

His eyes widened, and that startled duck look returned. “What are you talking about, hm?” he asked her.

“The Þing,” she answered sharply. “What are you thinking, Ivar?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and she huffed, crossing her arms.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” she snapped. “You’re turning your people against each other! Do you not realize how horrible of an idea that is? You turn them against each other, they’ll realize you’re the enemy in the end."

“How am I the enemy?” he questioned. “I ask for this information from my people to protect them. If there are those who wish to turn against me, then I need to know these things. The people need to know I will take any threats seriously, even those which come from the inside."

“There wouldn’t be threats, the sort you speak of, if you didn’t invite them in this way,” she argued. “Ivar, dissent is natural. People disagreeing with you is natural!”

“I did not say-”

“I saw you look at Hvitserk today,” she cut him off. His eyes hardened a little as he watched her. “He disagrees with you, but he has never once spoken of treason.”

“Not to you,” he said. “But he must think of it.”

“Why, because he disagrees? Can’t you see this is madness?” Her eyes were almost pleading as she looked up at him, and he found he couldn’t meet them when she stepped closer, and put her hand on his arm. “Ivar, dissent from a trusted voice is guidance, not betrayal. Only a foolish man would hear disagreement from someone he trusts, and call it treason. A foolish man, or a madman.”

“And who says I trust every voice which is disagreeing with me?” he finally said, looking down toward her.

“Surely you must understand that we have your best interest in mind. We want to see you succeed as King. We want to see you thrive, and do well for your people. But they are all your people, and they have minds to agree or disagree with you! You cannot erase their thoughts. And a King who divides his people will turn them against himself. If you’re worried about them turning against you already, ask yourself why.”

“I have heard the whispers,” he told her.

“And why do you think they’re talking?” she asked. “They’re afraid. You need to make them love you, not make them fear you.”

Ivar looked at her with a strange look, one she couldn’t quite read. “I don’t know if I want that,” he confessed to her.

“A King that is feared will inspire rebellion, but one who is loved will never give his people cause to rebel. You will have their loyalty. Just as you have mine.”

Finally, something in him snapped, and a rage she hadn’t seen in him yet filled his eyes. “Do I have your loyalty?” he asked. “Or does Lagertha?”

Time almost froze for Aethelind, and the shock in her eyes as she looked up at Ivar revealed one thing- he had hit a nerve. He had been right about her, about her connections with his brothers and Lagertha. But to what extent… That was what he needed to know.

“I swore my loyalty to you, Ivar,” she said. “This is why I disagree with you to your face, why I confront you with it. My loyalty to you means I wish to see you succeed, but I don’t feel I am serving you best if I just blindly agree with everything you say or do.”

Ivar laughed and stepped away from her a bit, shaking his head. “Do you know how badly I want to trust you?” he asked, and his eyes finally turned back to her. “I thought your arrival was a gift from the gods- my fellow gods.”

Aethelind gave a short huff of disbelief. “Ivar, you’re not a god,” she said. “I don’t know who told you that, but you aren’t.”

“You do not believe in our gods as it is,” he pointed out. “You are a Christian. You’re blinded by your bias toward your one God that you do not see the truth of ours.”

“I’d be willing to wager half this town doesn’t believe you’re a god,” she said. “And I’m not a betting woman.”

“Then why have they put up a statue to me? Hm?” He gestured in the vague direction of the large statue of him that stood in the center if the town, and Aethelind chuckled bitterly, shaking her head.

“Because they’re afraid of you!” she answered. “This is madness, can’t you see that? I’ve already told you the way to inspire loyalty in them is to be good to them, to earn their love first. Fear never creates loyalty, it destroys it.”

Ivar rolled his eyes and stood a little straighter- a clear sign he was very irritated. “You sound like Freydis, questioning and criticizing my judgment.”

“So two voices you trust agree, and you still believe we’re in the wrong?” she pointed out. “Surely you must see the fallacy in your logic.”

“No, the fallacy is in having trusted you,” he said. “Freydis and I disagree, or… Or have you turned her mind against what I know to be best for Kattegat?”

Aethelind gave a roll of her eyes and shook her head. “This is paranoia, Ivar,” she said. “This is fear beyond reason, that we want to turn against you and betray you.”

“Will you not? You came here from being with Lagertha!”

“Yes! Lagertha was in Wessex! Along with Björn, and Ubbe, and Torvi. Bishop Heahmund took them after you defeated them here, but he was killed in the battle against King Harald, the same one Lagertha disappeared in.”

That stopped Ivar in his tracks. “Lagertha has disappeared?” he questioned, and the Princess nodded.

“They searched for her, but they couldn’t find her after. Björn left for York when they couldn’t find her.”

She watched as the anger seemed to drain out of him, and his mind turned toward strategy. “What would he want with York?” he asked her.

“I can’t say for certain, but… Harald did come from the north,” she answered.

“He is stationed in York,” he clarified. “But why would my brother wish to go and visit him? Unless…”

Ivar’s eyes widened in a way that told Aethelind he was becoming angry again. She swallowed nervously and made her way toward him. It was easy to tell he was working himself up, and so she put her hands on his upper arms, and looked up into his face.

“We don’t know he’s plotting against you,” she said gently. “They just fought Harald, and Lagertha has disappeared. There’s a very good chance he’s gone to see if they took her prisoner.”

Ivar seemed to calm down a little, or at least begin to, and he nodded. “And Harald is loyal to me, Björn would have to turn him against me before anything could be done.”

“And you aren’t a man many want to betray, I don’t imagine.” She moved her hand to his chest, and gave it a small pat. “You are right, in thinking that fear can keep people in line, you know.” The look on his face as he looked down into her eyes was one of confusion, and something else she couldn’t quite read. Not with the way his eyes seemed to search hers, the way his brow drew together just so, and his mouth hung slightly open.

Aethelind suddenly became acutely aware of the lack of distance between herself and Ivar, and her eyes widened a little. Her own mouth opened slightly, suddenly feeling as if she were caught in some sort of trance. “But… fear isn’t the only reliable way,” she continued. She spoke slower now, her words more precise. “With fear, they will always want to be free from you. Eventually, they’ll find a way, and they’ll become brave enough to stand up. But if they love you… They’ll never have any reason to try and flee.”

Her words faded away into silence then, especially as his hand came up to cover hers that still rested over his heart. “Princess…” he said softly. The way he said her title, her heart began to beat faster and harder.

“Ivar..?” she whispered to him.

She noticed she could feel his heart beating beneath her hand, noticed how it was almost hammering in his chest- just as her own was- and her eyes dropped to their hands, clasped together.

“You have a heart,” she said, and rested her forehead against his chest, eyes slipping shut. “Please. Use it as well as your mind.”

In that moment, Ivar found he couldn’t help but trust her. If she was lying, if she meant to betray him, then she deserved to do so, because this would have been the best lie he’d ever seen told. There was something too vulnerable in the way she spoke, too gentle and too real in her actions. He found himself stabbing his crutch into the ground, and lifting his now free hand to cradle the back of her head.

Gods, if someone were to find him with her that way, Ivar knew it would look bad. He was outright embracing her, unashamedly, and it didn’t exactly look like a strictly platonic embrace. It didn’t feel like one, either. If he found another man holding Freydis this way, he’d kill him. Perhaps it was hypocritical of him not to let go of Aethelind, knowing this, but when had he ever claimed not to be a hypocrite?

“Aethelind,” he eventually whispered, and she tilted her head up to look at him. He needed something to stop this. He didn’t know if he could. “I need to know… Do you truly give me your loyalty? Freely, and entirely?”

She brought her other hand to his chest then, and nodded. “I do,” she confirmed. “You have my loyalty, Ivar. If you will listen to me. I swear to you, I will never try to steer you wrong. If you listen, and disagree, then you will still have my support. I only ask that you at least listen.”

He nodded in response to this. “I will listen to you,” he promised. “You have my word.”

Something formed between them that day, some kind of solidarity, as they looked into each other. It’s said that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and just then, their souls were laid bare for the other. There was no lie, no pretence between them then. If anything, it was like a whispered promise between the two as people. He was not King Ivar the Boneless, nor yet Ivar the God, as he made this vow to her, as she was not Princess Aethelind of Wessex, sister of the King of All England as she made her vow to him. They were, simply, Ivar and Aethelind. In the days of their youth, they had been friends, but in their adult years, something deeper had formed.

Whatever it was, it drew Ivar to take a step closer to her, until no space remained between them. If he were anyone else, she would have backed away, but he was intoxicating. There was no way she could pull herself from his hold, even if she’d wanted to. But why should she? Why would she? She felt happy here.

Unfortunately, his legs had another thing in mind for him. He had abandoned his crutch in pursuit of her, and his prayers for a way to say no to this were answered when one of his legs began to buckle, breaking whatever trance they had seemingly entered as he started toward the ground. Aethelind managed to grab onto his arms and ease him down, but that didn’t stop the deep pain that pulled a growl from deep in his throat.

“Ivar, what is it?” she asked, and immediately knelt at his side.

Whatever he’d seen in her eyes before, it was immediately replaced with a deep concern for him, as she looked to his legs. It had been the left that gave out, not the one in the heavier bracings, and she reached across his body as if to touch him.

“It just hurts,” he said, and caught her hand in his. He didn’t want her to feel how broken he was. With the crutch and braces, he could move nearly as well as any man. But that didn’t mean he felt the same, to the touch. He didn’t want Aethelind to know that.

Her hand turned so that it was holding his, and she turned her eyes back to his face, silently pleading with him. When that didn’t work, she sighed. “Please, let me help you,” she said. “Do you think you’ve broken anything?”

He huffed. She was a very stubborn woman, he realized. Or, at least, he was perceiving this as stubbornness. In truth, she cared, cared for him, and wanted to ensure he was alright. She had learned during her escape with her family how to tend to many forms of injuries, and broken bones had been one of those. If this was irony, it was not lost on her.

“No,” he said. “Nothing is broken. It’s just pain.”

Ivar wasn’t entirely certain that was the truth, and he knew Aethelind could tell from the pointed look she gave him. “Then I’ll be done checking you quickly,” she said.

Finally, with another huff and a glare, he let go of her hand. Aethelind moved around to his other side so she could work more comfortably, and let her hands work slowly down the length of his leg. She kept her touch gentle, yet firm enough to really get a feel for him. Since she wasn’t looking at his face, she missed the way his cheeks turned red, and he turned to look anywhere but at her. As she finally got to his shin, he hissed, and she knew she’d found something.

“Does it hurt more there than anywhere else?” He nodded in confirmation. “I need to see if it’s swollen there, or if it feels too warm. Can I pull your pants up just a bit there?”

Ivar squirmed slightly from where he was sitting, but waved his hand in such a way he was clearly giving his permission. She undid the straps of his braces around the bottom half of his leg, and pulled his pants up toward his knee so she could see. “No swelling,” she commented, and when her fingers touched his skin, she thought it must have hurt horribly from the way he jumped. “Is it that bad?” Her eyes looked up at him, worried she had hurt him.

Ivar shook his head a little. “It doesn’t hurt worse than anything else,” he said. She offered him an encouraging smile, and nodded.

“Cold hands then,” she said, not intending to call him on the anxiety he clearly felt at this. “Sorry about that. They’re going to be cold again, but I need to check and be sure there’s no heat coming from your leg. One moment.”

He felt her pressing her hands against his skin again, and this time, he did sneak a look at her. There was no disgust on her face, he realized, as she touched him. And he knew how scarred his skin was, how twisted his bones were, from years of breaking them and not letting anyone fix them properly. Aside from a healer if it was bad enough, no one since Margrethe had seen his legs.

The only reason he could give that he’d let Aethelind do this was how caught off guard by this whole thing he was. The moment they’d shared followed by his fall had certainly been enough to scramble his judgement. That, and he’d promised to listen to her. In a way, that had been promising her his trust. So, if there was anyone he let do this…

He supposed it may as well be her.

“Good news,” she eventually said, pulling his pants back down around his leg and fixing the straps back over it. “No break that I can feel. If anything, you could have a small fracture, but we’ll know that based on if you can stand.”

Ivar nodded a little, and dragged himself over to his crutch. Using it, he managed to get to his feet, and stand. She could tell he felt some pain from bearing weight on it, but if it wasn’t enough to be debilitating entirely…

“Looks like you’re alright,” she said. “At least from what I can tell.” The curt nod he gave and the way he started off made her chuckle softly, and move to catch up to him. “Hey.” Her hand came up to gently touch his jaw, turning his face back toward her. “You did well. Thank you for trusting me.”

He gave her another curt nod, his eyes not quite meeting hers, and went on.

Aethelind sighed as she watched him go, and gave a small shake of her head. Ivar the Boneless was an enigma, and yet, she found he was one she rather looked forward to solving.

Taglist: @youbloodymadgenius, @wilhelmyna, @katfett, @fangirl-nonsense, @zuzus-sun, @heavenly1927, @pomegranates-and-blood

If you want to be added to the taglist, feel free to reach out either by commenting, reblogging, DMing me, or sending an ask, and I’ll be more than happy to add you!

#ivar the boneless #ivar x oc #vikings #vikings history #history channel vikings #not today #chapter fourteen #ivar's heathen army #ivar ragnarsson #ivar #alex hogh andersen #ivar x ofc #ivar x original female character #ivar x christian!oc

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jaskiers-sweetkiss · 3 years

Text

Moody

Pairing: Julie & Alex (platonic), implied juke

Word Count: 913

Request: alex and julie bonding pls...something unexpected

Warnings: none?

A/N: @vioislit i really hope you like this!! Thank you for the request!! The coming out stuff is based on my own experiences so don’t like,, come for me or anything lol.

Masterlist

___

Julie had been… moody lately.

Alex wasn’t sure that that was the right word for it but it was the word Luke and Reggie kept using. Maybe it was accurate, after all, she had become more distant and she was prone to snapping at them whenever they were doing something even mildly idiotic. Of course, Luke had been quick to point the blame at “girl stuff” (to which Reggie had nodded sagely and Alex had rolled his eyes) but Alex wasn’t entirely sure that was the case.

He worried that there was something going on at school. Maybe Carrie was being especially harsh again or Nick had decided to stop being super cool about being rejected and now was being a massive jerk to her. Alex hadn’t known Julie that long, but she’d quickly carved out a place for herself in his heart and he really couldn’t stand the idea of her being hurt.

Still, he’d kinda proven that, despite his own issues, he was exactly the softest touch in the group so he’d decided to give her some space. If he was being honest, he hoped that Flynn or one of the guys would do something so that he didn’t have to. It wasn’t until after a particularly bad band practice that Alex decided to say something.

They’d been working on a new song but after yelling at them for not taking anything seriously, Julie had stormed off, effectively ending practice early.

Alex didn’t even wait for the inevitable silent conversation they’d have, instead just following after her. Getting himself out from behind his drum set and not tripping over all of Luke and Reggie’s cords took a considerable amount of time (he knew he could’ve just poofed out but he really preferred moving around the normal way and maybe he was stalling a little bit) so when he finally caught up to Julie she had already slammed her bedroom door shut.

“Julie?” He called softly through the door, knocking twice to alert her of his presence first.

“Are Luke and Reggie with you?”

“No, they’re still in the studio.”

Moments later Julie was pulling the door open and silently gesturing him inside.

“You’ve been kinda… off lately. Do you wanna talk at all?”

Julie sighed, flopping down on her bed while Alex stood awkwardly in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot. When she noticed him, she patted the bed next to her, silently signaling that she wanted him to join her. Alex closed the door behind him before padding over and silently laying on the bed next to her.

“You know how Flynn came out?” She spoke, finally breaking the silence that had consumed them, eyes never leaving the ceiling.

Alex nodded. Flynn had come out as gay to them all a week or two ago.

“Well, just, the way she talked about everything…” Julie took a deep breath to steel herself for what she was going to say but she didn’t have to.

“Jules, are you questioning your sexuality?” Alex asked, sparing her from having to find the words to say it herself.

“I- yeah.”

“Hey,” Alex began, propping himself up on one arm and placing his other hand over top of hers, grateful for whatever magic Julie had that allowed them to touch now. “It’s okay to question.”

“I know it’s just-“ she sighed again, shaking her head before sitting up fully and pulling her knees to her chest.

She looked over at him for the first time since letting him in and suddenly he knew what was eating at her.

“You’re worried about Luke.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you... not into guys?” Alex cringed at his own words. For someone who went through this himself when he was coming to terms with his own sexuality, he should not be this awkward.

“No! I am! I just think I might also be into girls.”

“And you’re worried Luke won’t be okay with that,” Alex finished her thought with a sigh.

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence before Julie opened her mouth, words spilling out.

“I know Luke’s a good guy- a great guy. He’s amazing. And I don’t really think he’d have a problem with it because I mean he’s been nothing but supportive to you and to Flynn but I’m still- I’m so scared Alex.”

Alex finally sat up at that, scooting over on the bed so that he could pull Julie into him, tugging her into his chest.

“I know it’s scary,” he sighed. “It doesn’t ever really stop being scary- coming out, I mean. It’s always scary, no matter how many times or who you come out to.”

“Wow, what a great pep talk Mercer,” Julie said dryly.

“Shut up!” Alex threw back and she snorted. “Anyways, it’s gonna be scary but I can promise you that Luke will be nothing short of accepting and supportive.”

Julie nodded into his chest.

“How did you know you were gay?” She asked, changing the subject slightly and Alex exhaled loudly.

“That’s a- that’s a question.” Alex laughed, retracting his arm so that he could adjust so that he was sitting across from her.

They spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, the conversation flowing from sexuality, to school, to what Luke was like back in the 90s and whatever else they could think of. And when Julie eventually came out as bi to the band and Flynn, they were nothing short of accepting and supportive, just as Alex had promised.

___

JATP Taglist: @meangirlsx @morganayenneferburnham @n0wornever @bright-molina @reg-peters @calamitykaty @sunsetcurvecuddles @dream-a-little-bigger-x

#jatp #jatp fic #julie and the phantoms #julie and the phantoms fic #alex mercer #julie molina #luke patterson #bi!julie #juke

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iturbide · 3 years

Note

*makes grabby hands* gimme protective Claude parents please and thank you (I LOVE the idea of them treating Edelgard's messenger very kindly and then sending them back with a venomous snake for Edelgard)

okay look this was going to be short and then it just stopped being that so please accept this text wall ft. Outsider Perspective on Almyra

The city Chelle’s Almyran escorts guided her through was overwhelming, chaotic, bustling with people who seemed to be constantly shouting over one another. It made her head ache, and all the more for the dizzying colors and scents of perfume and incense and spices hanging so thick in the noisy air that she could barely breathe. Enbarr might not have smelled like a rose most of the time, but at least it didn’t leave her feeling like her chest was full of wool every time she inhaled. But she dutifully followed the guards through the markets and the plazas, up and down a winding maze of streets, making their way (as best she could tell) toward the mesa towering over the city; she’d noticed the wyverns circling overhead when they first arrived, but as they drew closer she could see them appearing and disappearing from somewhere high up on the cliff face, though exactly where they were coming or going from was invisible even when she shaded her eyes against the sun.

It seemed odd that they were going toward the wyvern roost. “I need to go to the palace,” she repeated insistently, clutching her case slightly tighter. “I need to speak with Almyra’s leader.”

“Yes, yes,” one of the men sighed, “we heard you the first eight times.”

She frowned, but said no more, drumming her fingers on the graven wood instead. With every step, the mesa drew closer, the streets wider, and soon enough she could hear the dragons calling overhead, their cries and growls echoing off the crags to her ear…

A final turn, and her trepidation evaporated into awe. Through the cluttered sprawl of the city, she’d caught no sight of anything even remotely resembling a castle -- but here the rest of the buildings fell away before a grand plaza, deeply graven stones depicting heated battles leading to a grand arch carved directly into the stone of the cliff. She glanced at the carvings while she walked, picking out images of great knights, wyvern riders, myrmidons, snipers, and far more that she couldn’t identify before they passed beneath the gate and entered the mesa itself. Crossing the grand foyer, they wound their way up a wide flight of stairs, climbing until the sun vanished entirely, its light replaced by torches burning steadily within their sconces on the wall; by the time they reached the top of the steps, they had turned all the way around, and she spent a moment staring at the grand braziers burning on either side of the wooden doors, each carved with strikingly detailed wyverns in flight.

Her escorts did not so much as knock: instead they each pulled one of the doors open, casting pointed glances at her until she stepped through.

The room itself had clearly been carved directly into the native stone, just like the stairs and the foyer and the arch now far below them; this room, though, had honeycomb lattices etched through the far wall to allow the sunlight in, casting a warm glow across the brightly colored trappings and tapestries and shining bright across the golden thread adorning the four people at the center of the room.

None rose when their guest arrived, but only glanced up from where they lounged in a loose half-circle. Judging by their hair and features, the two men were clearly Almyran, while the women looked dubiously Fódlani: despite their tan complexions, one had far lighter brown hair than any Almyran she’d seen (and green eyes on top of it), while the other could have been a Goneril bastard given her shockingly pink features.

The older man shifted to beckon her closer, and she realized with a shock that he only had one arm. “You would be the envoy from Fódlan, yes?” he asked. “State your business here.”

“A-are you the chief of Almyra?” she asked, carefully shifting the case out of view and trying not to stare at where his empty sleeve had been rolled and pinned just below his shoulder.

His eyebrows went up. The brown-haired woman next to him scoffed, while the younger man didn’t bother trying to cover up his snort. “Wow, the Empire sure did their research,” he muttered, not even bothering to speak under his breath so she might not hear.

“Yes, I am the king of Almyra, Kemal al-Kader,” the older man said at last, gesturing to the woman beside him. “This is my partner, the queen of Almyra, Adara al-Kader. I will not ask again: state your business here.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Chelle chirped, scrambling forward and tearing her attention guiltily away from where the man’s right arm should have been to unlatch her messenger’s case. “My name Chelle Skeates, I’m a messenger from the Adrestian Empire, here on behalf of Empress Edelgard von Hresvelg to deliver a diplomatic treaty for your review and approval. The Empire--”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think we’ve discussed any treaty with Adrestia before, have we?” the younger man asked, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles while he sprawled back in the sunlight. “Doesn’t it seem a little strange that Edelgard’s sending a treaty for approval without any kind of discussion beforehand?”

“Empress Edelgard,” Chelle snapped.

“I am quite certain I would have remembered past dealings with Adrestians,” the king agreed.

“I bet they’d have remembered dealing with you, too,” the younger man grinned.

Chelle huffed, “the Empress wished me to relay her deepest respect and admiration to you, the rulers of Almyra, and her hope that our two great nations might establish a peaceful and mutually prosperous rela--”

“Peaceful!” the younger man howled, pounding his fist against his knee. “I don’t think she knows the meaning of the word!”

“And how,” the pink-haired woman chimed in.

“And just who are you supposed to be?” Chelle demanded, looking between the two.

“This is Tariq,” the king cut in smoothly, gesturing to the young man. “He is my advisor -- my right hand, if you will.”

The young man smirked. “You did that on purpose.”

The king smiled but did not respond; instead, it was the queen who spoke up, gesturing to the young woman at her side. “And this is Tahmina, my aide and guard.”

“Not that you really need a bodyguard,” the pink-haired woman giggled. “Your reputation scares off more people than I could with an axe.”

“Yes, well,” Chelle sniffed. “If I might continue: Empress Edelgard hopes that our two great nations might establish a peaceful and mutually prosperous relationship, and has done all in her power to craft a fair and equitable proposal for your review and approval. Fódlan’s Throat has been too long held closed by those of blind faith, so--”

“Wow, that old excuse?” Tariq muttered. “I’m almost surprised she didn’t try harder to butter you up, but...well, I guess I can’t fault her for getting comfortable with the rhetoric that got her where she is.”

“Your majesties, perhaps we could proceed with this in private?” Chelle pleaded.

The king raised a brow again. “Did I not hear that you are a messenger? Is it not your duty to carry messages back as well as forth?”

“W-well, yes, but--”

“It is not solely the response to your Empress’ treaty that you will be relaying back, then, is it?” he pointed out. “It is your mission to deliver all messages, including our words in response to those she sent herself. The points Tariq makes are sound ones, from what we know of how Fódlan came under your Empress’ rule. You would do well remembering them when you return to her.”

“So...Tariq speaks for you, then, Your Majesty?” she ventured.

“Not for me, no.” The man waved the words away, sharing a brief glance with his advisor. “But I value his speech, and consider his words when the time comes to choose my own. That is the purpose of an advisor, is it not? To advise.”

“It seems more like your advisor is trying to pick a fight with me,” Chelle protested.

“Not you,” Tariq replied. “Not really. My problem is with the person who sent you. Since I can’t argue with her directly, I just have to pick apart the words she put in your mouth and in your hands.”

“Speaking of.” The king held out his hand and gestured to Chelle, who obediently opened her case and removed the heavy vellum emblazoned with the gilt crest of the Hresvelg family. Fanning the pages out before him, the man braced his bearded chin against his fist, paying no mind to the three others who crowded in to see the flowing script. “Have you read this?”

It took her a moment to understand the words, and it was only when his gaze flicked up to meet hers that she realized the question had been directed to her. “Oh! No, sir, Your Majesty, this is the first time I’ve seen it, I swear…”

The answer did not seem to please him. Instead he made a thin noise, shifting to free his hand and wave her away while his attention returned to the parchment. “We will need several days to review and prepare our response. And you have had a long journey: take this time to rest before you set off again.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she mumbled, bowing deeply and backing toward the open doors. He didn’t acknowledge the address, nor even her departure; her last glimpse of the king was of a one-armed man with traces of silver in his dark hair and neat beard, his head bowed over the papers she had brought and a scowl carved across his face.

-----

Chelle was used to long missions and short breaks. Weeks of travel from Enbarr to the far corners of the Adrestian Empire, perhaps a day or two of rest before heading either back or elsewhere. It was the life she’d come to expect as a messenger.

Six days. She was certain this was the most time off she’d had in almost two years on the job, and all because the king had asked for time to prepare a suitable response to Adrestia’s treaty. The Almyrans were surprisingly considerate hosts, providing not only room and board and meals, but an escort to show her around. After a few days the chaos of the Almyran city began to feel almost pleasant, though she couldn’t hope to navigate it alone, its sights and scents growing more intriguing the more time she spent there. Her guide one day had even bought her a trinket from the market: an antler carved in the likeness of a leaping deer, which she described as a totem favored by scouts and couriers for swift journeys and safe passage.

She thought she might miss this, when she made her trip back to the Locket. The noise, the bustle, the colors and patterns everywhere she looked...even the constant presence of wyverns no longer surprised her, and she wondered if it would be strange not hearing their occasional keening in the night or the sound of wingbeats overhead as they circled the mesa and its surrounding city. But if nothing else, she’d have one final memory to take home with her: a grand send-off feast, complete with dancing around fires that blazed nearly as tall as she stood, men and women carousing regardless of how much they’d drunk. She felt warm and contented watching it all, well-fed and nursing her second cup of spicy-sweet wine…

“Have you been enjoying yourself?”

She jumped, whirling so fast she nearly spilled her drink. Tariq grinned sidelong at her, swirling his own cup while she sputtered and scrabbled for words. “Y-y...you!!”

“Me?” he asked innocently, touching his chest with one hand.

“What are you doing here!?”

“Checking on you,” he chuckled. “It’s your last night, and all--”

“After how you tried to make a fool of me in front of the king!?”

“When did I do that?” he protested, seeming genuinely surprised.

“I couldn’t get two words out without you making some...some snide comment about it!”

“Well, to be fair, they weren’t your words I was commenting on, they were Edelgard’s--”

“Empress Edelgard,” she corrected.

“Edelgard’s,” he repeated stubbornly. “It really wasn’t anything against you.”

“It was...it was so rude!” she huffed, stomping her foot adamantly on the stones.

“Maybe in the Empire it is, but that’s just how things work here,” he shrugged. “Gotta get your words in edgewise while you’ve got the chance.”

“So I should have just talked over you?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” he agreed.

“That’s even more rude!”

“Again, maybe in the Empire, not here.”

Fuming, she threw back the last of her wine, shivering as it burned its way down her throat. “What do you have against Empress Edelgard, anyway?”

“More than you can imagine,” he muttered.

“Then tell me,” she insisted.

He looked at her, and she noticed for the first time that despite his clearly Almyran features and complexion, his eyes were a curious shade of green. “You’re on...what, your second cup? Third?”

“Second,” she confirmed.

“Let’s get you another.”

Chelle groaned, stomping off after the man weaving his way effortlessly through the dancers. She lost him somewhere in the crush of bodies, and finally gave up, squirming her way out to a quieter corner to catch her breath and try to pick him out of the crowd…

Someone tapped her cup with the mouth of a wineskin. “Sure,” she muttered, holding it out.

“Good, because ‘no’ wasn’t really an option.”

She jumped, nearly dropping her newly-refilled drink as she whirled on Tariq. “Where did you go!?” she demanded.

“To get more wine, like I said?” He shrugged, topping off her cup and his own before tying the bag and tucking it under his arm. “So. You want to know what I have against Edelgard?”

“Empress Edelgard,” she corrected automatically.

“You never read that treaty she sent.”

“I was directed to bring it to the rulers of Almyra. Why would I read it, when I’m not the recipient?”

“Do you want to read it?”

She squinted at him, taking another sip of her drink. “Is this a trick?”

“No? Why would I try to trick you?”

“Because you’re rude,” she mumbled.

“I’m telling you, that’s just how it works here,” he chuckled. “But do you want to read it?”

“...I’m just a courier. I won’t really know what it says.”

“I can translate it for you,” he grinned. “It’s what I’ve spent the past four days doing, after all.”

“I can’t speak Almyran, either!”

“Why would it be in Almy--wait, no, not that kind of translation!” His laughter sounded completely different from the jeering she’d heard when she arrived: it seemed warm and even kind, and she sheepishly took another sip of wine as she watched him. “The whole thing’s written in Fódlani, no need to worry about that. I was just getting down to what it really meant, under all the fancy language they used to make it sound official.”

Well...that didn’t sound so bad, really. “...I guess it could be interesting to see it,” she agreed.

“Follow me, then.” He grinned, striding off into the dark -- but this time he avoided the boisterous dance, skirting around the edges of the fire until he found the king and queen laughing and carousing among a group of hardened-looking warriors. Tariq called something out in Almyran, which caught the older man’s attention; he glanced at Chelle in the next moment, smiling and nodding before returning his attention to the people around him.

From there they left the plaza, passing beneath the arch and into the Almyran palace, up the torchlit stairs...then off down another hallway, rather than into the room she’d first delivered the treaty to; up another narrow set of steps carved into the native stone, down the hall, and through another door that opened on a comfortable, well-lit room occupied by a table surrounded by empty chairs and strewn with open books and scrolls. Dropping into one of the seats, he gestured to another, waiting for Chelle to sit before fanning the vellum pages out before her; she fidgeted for a moment, glancing at him while he propped his chin in his hand...and finally turning her eyes to the words on the page.

It became very clear very quickly why he’d spent so long ‘translating,’ as he put it. Not only was it a long document with dense writing, but the words themselves made her head spin; for a moment she wondered if the wine was to blame, but two cups couldn’t explain how much of her own language made no sense to her. She was aware of the man sitting next to her, reading the same words she did without apparent struggle...and when she fidgeted and glanced in his direction, he tore his gaze from the page, raising a brow in silent invitation.

“...please?” she mumbled.

“Of course,” he nodded. “So, a lot of this stuff at the beginning is trade details -- the Empire’s offering some nice exchange terms on major exports with a slight bias in Almyra’s favor, not enough to raise suspicions but certainly tempting.” He moved a few pages off to the side, running his fingertip down the parchment. “Diplomatic terms. These are balanced, mostly: stuff about equality in the alliance, mutual aid, so on and so on...and then there’s this.”

He moved another page aside and tapped a passage partway down; she leaned in, squinting as though that would help her parse the words better. “Military alliance,” she read. “In the event that one of our two nations should come under threat from without or within, the other shall furnish soldiers and armaments suitable for the defense of the endangered territory or to maintain peace therein, adhering to the law of whatever land they have been deployed to protect.”

“Do you know what that means?”

“That...if something happens to you, we’ll come help, and the other way around?” she ventured.

“On the surface, that’s what it implies,” he agreed. “But this is where the danger is. It looks like nothing to worry about, that we’ll each help each other if something goes wrong...but then there’s that phrase, ‘threat from without or within.’ That means that if there’s civil unrest -- like, say, forcibly conquered territories rebelling to reclaim their independence -- Edelgard could call on Almyra and use this agreement to force us to send soldiers to maintain her control over those territories. There’s nothing in here about what provisions the Empire would provide to those forces they call in, either: Almyra’s still expected to feed and supply their own forces, even though they’re in Imperial territory enforcing Imperial law.”

“That can’t be right,” Chelle protested, flipping through the rest of the pages.

“I read this whole thing through at least eight times,” he muttered. “The king and queen went at it at least three, themselves. If it was in here, one of us would have caught it.”

“Then...then it must have been a mistake. It was meant to be in there and...maybe a page got left out, it can be noted and addressed in your response…”

“It was intentional.”

“You can’t know that!” she protested.

“You’re right: I can’t be completely sure. But I think the implications are pretty clear from this.”

He set aside a few more pages and tapped another passage, this one near the end of the page, and she leaned in close to read the words. “Extradition clause: should it become known that entities who pose a threat to the peace or sovereignty of one of our two nations have sought refuge within the other, either the nation housing them will detain and transport them to face trial and punishment within the nation where their crimes were committed, or the offended nation will be granted freedom to enter allied territories for the purposes of tracking and securing the criminal for transport to trial.” She looked at him again, trying to release some of the tension furrowing her brow. “What’s so bad about that? Isn’t it saying that if a criminal tries to get away across the border, they won’t be able to escape?” She might not have understood all the words, but that seemed like the general message…

“On the surface, yes,” he agreed, “that’s what it implies. But there’s nothing in here to say what would be considered ‘criminal acts.’ There’s just that thing about ‘posing a threat to the peace and sovereignty of the nation.’ So, for instance: if worshippers of Seiros fled across the border into Almyra seeking asylum, Edelgard could -- theoretically -- declare that their faith makes them enemies of Adrestia, and either force Almyra to round them up and send them back to face trial for the crime of having faith in a religion she hates, or she could use it as an excuse to send Imperial soldiers into Almyra, and they could -- again, theoretically -- round up any other refugees from conquered Fódlan territories on similar charges.”

“How could they do that without some cause for it?”

“They could claim cause simply from the fact that they fled the Empire,” he shrugged. “If they had nothing to hide or had committed no crimes, why wouldn’t they have stayed?”

“Wouldn’t they need proof? Or...or wouldn’t they need to say who they’re looking for, and why, when they come in to search?” she insisted.

“Those conditions might help,” he agreed, “if they were in here. Which they’re not. Again: after eight reads, I’m pretty sure I’d have spotted it.”

“That’s...it’s not…”

“Possible?” he offered. “Fair? Reasonable?” She shook her head fiercely, setting her mostly full cup aside to avoid spilling it and squeezing her trembling hands together. “...right?” he suggested. She nodded, staring again at the words written in such a careful hand, willing them to change even though she knew they wouldn’t. “Yeah. It’s not. It’s dangerous, and it’s all hidden in the middle of this block of text to try and get it past us: the end is just more pleasantries, again biased on Almyra’s favor, like someone was expecting us to check the beginning and the end and get lulled into a false sense of security by the good terms there: they hid all the damning stuff in the middle and banked on it getting glossed over or missed by inattentive diplomats. My money’s on Hubert setting it up this way: it has his greasy fingerprints all over it.”

“Why?” she choked out.

“I couldn’t say for sure,” Tariq sighed. “But I can give you my guess, if you want.” He waited, and only when she nodded did he draw another breath. “The Empire conquered Fódlan. Formerly independent territories, like the Kingdom of Faerghus and the Leicester Alliance, had their freedom stripped away, and more than likely had their autonomy taken with it: even the Alliance, where there was a pro-Imperial faction, fell under the jurisdiction of an Empire-born noble, didn’t it?” She nodded slightly, biting her lip and tightening her fingers until she began to lose feeling in them. “Generally, that kind of treatment isn’t likely to win her friends and allies, or endear her to the ones she had. Unrest isn’t just a possibility in those conquered territories, it’s almost a guarantee -- and after spending five years at war, the Imperial Army’s probably not doing so great: her forces are stretched thin keeping the peace in her forcefully annexed new territories, and she needs help to maintain control over her ‘united’ Fódlan. So she thought she’d try to get someone on her side to help her in that, give them something she could part with and get what she needed more than anything else: military aid. The extradition portion is icing on the cake for when she gets things under better control and can divide her attention again.”

“...you’re not going to accept it, are you?” Chelle whispered.

“Not a chance,” he agreed, patting her back. “Even if we wanted to, there are too many problems with this treaty as it stands: we’d need to send over a full-fledged diplomatic party to iron out the details to everyone’s satisfaction. Edelgard sent a messenger -- someone who wouldn’t understand the underlying message of the document she was charged with transporting, and who wouldn’t have the authority to make changes even if the problems were pointed out to her.”

“It’s not my fault!” she cried.

His hand tightened comfortingly on her shoulder. “I know. And I’m not blaming you: you were just doing your job; everybody here understands that. We blame Edelgard for this, because what she’s implying by doing this -- sending this treaty, worded and constructed this way, with a courier that has no political authority over the document -- is that she thinks this is reasonable and fair, and wants us to accept it as it is.”

Sniffling thickly, Chelle swiped at her blurry eyes. “Why keep me here so long, then?”

“To give you a break. You deserved a rest, and we needed to get our response ready.”

“I thought you were just going to say ‘no,” she mumbled.

“The message they want to send back is a little more...pointed,” he replied. “...sorry to spoil the party for you.”

“...it’s okay,” she sighed. “I...didn’t know about this. It’s a lot to take in.” He nodded as he rose from his seat, offering a hand to help her up; picking up her cup almost as an afterthought, he made his way back out of the room, closing the doors behind them and starting back the way they’d come. “...that...extradition clause. And how it could ‘theoretically’ be used to arrest anyone. Is...would Tahmina be at risk from it?”

Tariq glanced over at her, quirking one eyebrow. “Yes,” he agreed.

“Because she’s related to the Gonerils?”

“Something like that,” he chuckled. “Almyra’s not perfect. There’s still a lot of anti-Fódlan sentiment around -- there’s a lot of history there, not much of it good -- but I’m doing my best to make it safer here for refugees and asylum seekers. Edelgard’s ‘United Adrestian Empire’ isn’t helping anyone but her, just like her war: lots of big talk, but in the end it’s the common people who end up suffering for her decisions and her actions. Even if it’s something small, in the grand scheme of things...I want to help the people who have been hit hardest by all this. If that means turning down Edelgard’s treaty...well, that’s a small price to pay.”

After spending so much time in the softer lamplight, the bonfires in the plaza nearly blinded her, and she had to rely for a moment on Tariq’s guidance to make sure she didn’t either run into anyone or trip and fall onto a pyre. Once her vision cleared, he offered her cup back, which she took without much interest. “Don’t let it get you too down, alright?” he chuckled, giving her shoulder another pat. “Enjoy the party while it lasts. Give dancing a try -- I’ll show you the trick to it if you want.”

Chelle made a non-committal noise, lifting her drink in a silent parting gesture while he walked off. She caught sight of Tahmina in the crowd, watched her wave and call out to Tariq, and saw him beam and hurry to join her in the circle of dancers, seeming entirely carefree in spite of their grave conversation. How he could bounce back so fast was a mystery to her, like so many other things here in Almyra; she didn’t imagine she’d be in any shape to join the festivities for a while yet.

But, like Tariq had said: it was her last night here. Soon enough she would be going back to the Empire -- back home. And then she could see for herself whether Tariq was right or not about the Empress’ motives.

Downing the rest of her wine, she put her cup aside and waded into the chaos. One dance wouldn’t hurt.

---

Chelle decided it was for the best that she’d stopped at three cups of wine. That had already given her a hangover the likes of which she’d never experienced before, and in the end Tariq (seeming mostly amused by the whole thing) fetched her something to take the edge off her migraine, which at least got her out of bed in time for a light breakfast before she had to leave. Her head was still a little sore and fuzzy by the time she made her way up to the room where the Almyran rulers had met her when she first arrived; they were both standing this time, though, and as Tariq took his place at the king’s side Chelle bowed deeply before them.

“Thank you for having me, Your Majesties,” she said. “It’s been an honor to meet with you, and I’m grateful for your hospitality and your kindness.”

“We are pleased to hear it, and hope that you enjoyed your time here,” the older man nodded. “We have prepared our response to your Empress, and would have you deliver it upon your return.”

She bowed again, unlatching her case and preparing to take the document...though, when she looked again, she realized that his hand was empty. The queen held a box, but its lid was open and Chelle could see that there was nothing in that, either, except for some dried grass lining the bottom…

The king looked past her, gesturing to someone in the doorway. Curious, she turned to see -- and jumped aside as a woman approached, one hand gripping the head of a snake while her other arm supported the rest of its body. “A horned viper,” the man remarked casually, watching the handler maneuver the serpent into the box his wife held (and Chelle caught a glimpse of rough-textured scales, horn-like growths above its slit eyes, and wicked fangs poised to strike in the instant before the lid snapped closed). “They hide in sandy places among the rocks and scrub, and their color and pattern make them quite elusive; it took five days to locate and snare this one. They are also exceptionally deadly: their bite is often fatal, and those that do survive frequently lose the bitten limb.”

She wondered if the king spoke from experience as her gaze flicked unbidden to the empty sleeve pinned at his shoulder.

The queen moved toward her, and it took every ounce of Chelle’s willpower to stand still and let her approach with the snake in its box. “Don’t worry, you’re not in danger,” the woman chuckled. “We made sure to give it a good meal, so it shouldn’t cause trouble for you, and the latch has a safety so it won’t open unless someone is trying to get into it.” She demonstrated without opening the lid (which Chelle was profoundly grateful for), unfolding the double-hinged latch before securing it in place and locking it with a satisfying snap. It didn’t make her feel terribly much better about handling it, though, especially now that she was close enough to see the fine latticework openings in the lid -- a lovely touch of artistry, to be sure, but clearly functional given the contents; thankfully, the queen didn’t seem to mind when Chelle opened her case and invited her to fit the box inside, securing the clasp herself and gingerly settling it against her side.

“When you arrived, you came with a message from your Empress to go with her treaty,” the king mused, stroking his neatly trimmed beard. “We would ask you to deliver words on our behalf, as well.”

“O-of course,” Chelle nodded. “I’ll be sure to relay them -- what is your message, sir?”

A thin smile cut across his face, and a chill crawled down her spine. “This box is much like the treaty your messenger carried to us: carefully crafted of fine materials -- and concealing within something fatal to those who would rush to accept on appearances alone. Yet the viper bites only to hunt or defend itself from harm; your terms stand as proof of how deep your cruelty runs in service to yourself. We received your messenger, and treated her with the honor and hospitality befitting her service, for we in Almyra bear no ill will toward those who bring such words to us: our grudge is with the one who ordered her to speak them.”

Despite how cool the room was, Chelle could feel sweat pouring down her face as she repeated the words back, aware of every stumble and pause but seeming unable to make her tongue behave...though the king still nodded in apparent satisfaction when she finished. “Thank you,” he said, resting his fist over his heart as he bowed. “Should your Empress decide to use a messenger again, rather than speak herself, know you are welcome here.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty, sir,” she replied, tripping over the words as she ducked her head. “A-and thank you again for your hospitality.”

Turning smartly on her heel, she hurried out the door and down the stairs, keeping a tight grip on her case and trying to convince herself that the snake in it was secure, that she wouldn’t get bitten, that she wasn’t going to die on her way back home--

“You okay?”

Chelle almost tripped on the last few stairs; the hand on her elbow thankfully kept her from falling -- but as soon as she found her balance again she yanked her arm away, glaring over her shoulder at Tariq as he held his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m carrying a fucking viper how am I supposed to be ‘okay’!?”

“...that’s a fair point,” he admitted. “I probably should have warned you about that, huh.”

“You THINK?” she hissed. Hurrying down the last of the stairs, she stormed toward the arch, her thoughts still reeling over everything that had happened in the past few minutes. “A snake! He’s sending a snake back! Who does that!?”

“Almyrans,” Tariq replied almost cheerfully.

“With no antidote!”

“Nope.”

“How is this not seen as murder? Am -- am I party to an assassination attempt?”

“I guess if you don’t warn Edelgard of what it is, then...maybe?”

“Of course I’m going to warn her, what do you take me for!?” Chelle snapped. “A fucking snake, he’s replying with a...a-and he said it took days to track it down? Is that why I was waiting here so long?”

“That...may have been the other part of it, yes,” Tariq admitted.

“That means...they had to have sent people out looking the day I arrived!”

“Technically they sent people out looking as soon as they heard an Imperial messenger was coming. The speech was a nice touch, though, he really outdid himself there--”

“They never intended to consider the treaty?”

“Afraid not. They’ve got some sizeable grievances against the Empress, so I don’t want to say it was a wasted trip, but...yeah, there was never any chance--”

She whirled around, clutching her case tight as though desperate to keep it sealed shut. “How are you so calm about this!?”

“Take a breath, Chelle.” He mimed a few, himself, and she grudgingly followed suit. “This kind of thing might seem crazy--”

“Because it is,” she insisted.

“...but it’s not uncommon in Almyra. Especially to get a message across: sending a snake has a lot of implications.”

“This place is insane.” He’d mentioned anti-Fódlan sentiment, but she never would have expected this.

“Almyrans feel the same way about all the rules you’ve got in Fódlan,” he chuckled. “Call it a cultural difference.”

Stepping out into the sunshine beyond the arch, Chelle threw a hand up to shade her eyes as the dull ache in her head spiked; by the time her vision came back into focus, Tariq had walked past her, and stood waiting in the center of the plaza...beside a white wyvern, its ornamented tack shimmering in the light while the dragon tilted its head into the man’s attention. He grinned at her, gesturing her closer while continuing to scratch the wyvern’s chin with his free hand. “Need a ride back to the Locket? Or, well, the outskirts, at least -- I’d rather not have them raining arrows down on us, if I can help it.”

“Is this your wyvern?” she asked, edging closer.

“She is,” he agreed, rubbing the dragon’s horns while it pressed its head against his chest.

“I’ve...never seen a white one before.” She’d only ever heard of one, in fact, and then only as rumors from those who’d been at Derdriu when the Empress marched to the heart of the Alliance…

“They’re rare,” Tariq confirmed, “and here in Almyra they’re considered good luck. They always end up going to important people because of it: beloved kings, exceptional generals…”

“Then how did an advisor end up with one?” she scoffed.

“Having the king and queen for parents has perks.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it…”

She’d intended to brush off whatever excuse he made, but as the words sank in she trailed off, staring slack-jawed at him while he continued to lavish affection on the white wyvern. “You -- you’re a prince?”

“Technically,” he shrugged.

“The king introduced you as his advisor!”

“Well, right now I am: with things as they are now, I can’t achieve what I want, so I didn’t see a point in challenging him for the throne. My counsel is the most useful thing for Almyra, given the state of things in Fódlan, so...it just seemed like the sensible thing to do.” Slinging his arm over the dragon’s neck, he turned a cheery smile on Chelle, leaning his weight against the wyvern’s side. “So: about that ride.”

“...sure,” she agreed. “Why not?” It would certainly save her time, after all -- and the less time she had to worry about carrying a snake, the better.

#answered #anonymous #fire emblem: three houses #fanfiction #bad end au #snippets #i love outsider perspective okay #chelle is great and very loyal to the empire and empress edelgard #but she has a lot to look out for now on her way back #i'm still so attached to almyrans sending snakes to people they don't like #it's a very clear message that's for sure #also claude remains a treasure #and hilda's going by an almyran name for cover purposes #edelgard has no idea they're still alive #and won't until claude comes knocking in about a decade #boy that'll be an exciting way to realize her mistakes

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