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commanderquinn · 9 months

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Good Space Chapter 4: Ya Better Stop

! i dont! keep these posts! updated! like i do! ao3!

that means you're going to find typos and shit (and possibly minor detail changes) that don't match the ao3 version! that's because im not going to bother fixing the tumblr posts until i finish good space as a whole. im only uploading them here as a backup tbh

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master list / ao3 chapter link

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warnings: james buchanan barnes being james buchanan barnes (derogatory) (i HATE him sm u dont even know), theres a lab scene but no bad brain talk i promise

song: sinatra has arrived babes!!! it is time for the golden oldies to begin their invasion 🥰

ava gets first pov this time!! probably a repeating thing, all i know rn is i needed it for narrative flow. remember how i warned you way back that i am in No Rush? this chapter is one of those. no flashbacks, only extra flirting and pining 🤌

ALSO if u are a walker fan (look im not judging. but im not agreeing) im really really sorry but im abt to bully the everloving fuck out of him. i cant stand him. i cant. every possible chance to dunk on him that i find, i will take 👾

—

She hasn't seen Bucky in six days.

Ava isn't counting.

But she hasn't seen him in six days.

He's been away on another mission. His first extended one since she took on his case. She was told ahead of time, so she wasn't waiting around for his morning drop-in. JARVIS let her know it would be ongoing and that the sergeant would be unavailable due to the stealth designation. SHIELD has to be the go-between if there's anything that needs to get passed, just like when Paige gets assigned to them.

His mission status is listed right there in his file. The medical reports from the column marked completed aren't blacked out like they were before. She had to ask JARVIS to reset the file she keeps for Tony when her new settings cleared the privacy wall he keeps. That's how far the copy of Bucky's access extends.

SHIELD gave him everything. All of their records on known organizations, detailed reports on all globally known assets like the Winter Soldier, internal investigations of SHIELD itself after the near collapse of the organization, all of it. A nauseating amount of the HYDRA portion centers around Zola, unsurprisingly. She would resurrect the monster in a second if it meant giving Bucky some time alone in a room with him.

After her first night of reading until the tears overwhelmed her, she went to Steve for a debrief of sorts. He confirmed he was the driving force behind SHIELD's full disclosure to Bucky. Natasha was the backup he needed to convince Fury.

Ava managed to talk the captain into coming to her office for lunch with Paige, mainly as an apology for getting in his face. He's assured her repeatedly in the days since that it's the exact kind of moral standing he was looking for with the case. He doesn't begrudge her anger; he understands it entirely.

For days now, Ava's been trying not to let her eyes skim the vitals being submitted intermittently from the sergeant's ongoing mission. It makes the worry she isn't feeling get worse. In hindsight, setting herself as his primary in the tower might not have been such a great idea. She's been trying not to think about it.

All she's thinking about at the tipping point into his seventh day gone is her favorite Tove Lo album.

She spins around her lab on enthusiastic feet, dramatically shouting the bittersweet lyrics of stranger with abandon. Her head bangs to the beat, switching to exaggerated flips during the instrumentals. There's seemingly no end of perks when it comes to mortgaging her soul to her billionaire friend and the government organization he works for. Having a state-of-the-art lab to dance around alone in at midnight is pretty high on the list.

She still hasn't hit her coffee crash of the day, thanks to numerous refills, so she's bouncing by the time the final breakdown of the song hits. Her hair goes wild, her arms thrown up as she jumps to the rhythm. She stops when the music does, giving herself a moment to catch her breath between songs. Her fist is raised high and ready to swing to the beat of bitches as the opening blares, echoing off glass walls that would rattle if they weren't bulletproof.

Ava is elated as she swings her hips and steadies her head to sing. She fucking loves this song. It makes her feel good. Bubbly. More than a little powerful. The lines flow out of her like water, the words familiar and comforting on her tongue.

"Know your own love, I don't fuck with no glove," she proudly shouts one of her favorite lines. Her foot slams down on the floor, and she pivots herself around with the momentum of her hips. "So why complicate it? Let me be— "

In one of the most mortifying moments of her life, Ava spots Sergeant Barnes in his not-uniform, standing in the wide open door of her lab. Shock hits her before common sense does, and her first reaction is to cover her mouth. Not attempt to stop the song. The one now loudly carrying into the—god fucking willing—deserted hallway behind him.

—your guide when you eat my pussy out, Tove Lo's voice continues without her accompaniment.

Bucky was already watching her with glee, but the words make his head come forward with a shocked laugh. He doesn't bother hiding it, or his smile, behind his hand. Not the way she is with her horrified expression.

Ava's hand folds with an awkward jerk of her fingers, her eyes still locked with his. "JARVIS! Pause, please!"

—had one or two, even a few. Yeah, more than you.

"Oh really?" Bucky questions loudly in response to the lyrics, his eyes widening even further. She can barely hear him over the music. The smile he's got aimed at her—

"My apologies, Dr. Ryder," JARVIS cuts in without lowering the volume, "but as per your rules, any ongoing music in the lab—" There's joy sitting in the AI's voice; she can hear it. Pure, sadistic joy.

"Now is the worst time for revenge," Ava tries to reason with JARVIS.

"—cannot be changed without a majority vote. Seeing as you are no longer the majority—"

"JAR!"

"—Sergeant Barnes is now entitled to vote on the matter. Do let me know if you find you require a tiebreaker."

Bucky raises a hand to his chest with nothing but mischief in his eyes. That fucking grin. It's the one she's only seen in photos on Steve's desk. The one powered by a thousand watts that charmed its way through all five boroughs before the draft. It's threatening to knock the breath out of her all over again. "Is it my birthday? Did I get put in cryo on the way back without someone telling me?"

"Bucky Barnes! If you don't cut the shit—" She points an angry finger at him that does nothing to dissuade him.

"These weren't in your playlists. What's this one called? Maybe I haven't gotten to it—"

Huffing with embarrassed indignance, she gives up trying to pull mercy from either of them. She turns on her heel and heads for her desk to shut off the song manually. In one of JARVIS' oh-so-funny jokes, the window minimizes on the first try. He lets her hit the pause button without interruption on the second attempt.

"I'm pretty sure I'd remember something like that," Bucky continues in the silence that follows, coming into the lab with confident strides. He's the most impossibly smug bastard. A goddamn terror, that's what he is. She should testify to help throw his ass in jail, but not because of anything to do with Nazis.

"I locked all the dirty ones before I gave you those playlists; sorry to disappoint," she sasses back to regain some ground. "I didn't want to be responsible for giving a dinosaur a heart attack. I'm not sure who'd come after me first, the paleontologists or the cardiologists."

Bucky leans against the other side of the desk she's definitely not hiding behind. With him closing in like this, her nose is picking up the lingering remnants of burned gunpowder. "Mmm. Well. I'm not feeling any pain in my—You know, come to think of it." He glances down at his mechanical shoulder, his eyes taking a bored journey down the shiny metallic arm. The fact that his gear leaves it exposed— "That's probably not going to be a good way to tell anymore."

Her music library might not kill him, but his dry humor is absolutely going to be the end of her. She has to bite her lip for a long moment to hold back a laugh.

She lets it back out of her teeth. Her cheeks feel like they're on fire. "I'm starting to think you super soldiers have an inclination for ambushing unsuspecting doctors at night."

"It breaks my heart to tell you, it really does, but you got set up for this. And it wasn't even by me. I know. I'm as surprised as you are." His eyes glance down at her outfit while she looks at him in exasperation, the movement fast and deliberate. Mildly tame. More than a few steps up from not taking her bait in the early days of their appointments. "Gotta say, though, I'm enjoying being the linchpin here."

"Set up by who? Steve?" Though the captain had looked appeased after getting to trade shy laughter with Paige, Ava wouldn't be surprised to hear it at all. Given how hard she's been teasing the poor guy lately, she had something like this coming.

"I believe set up is an exaggeration," JARVIS says far too innocently, making Ava's eyes widen in shock. It reignites Bucky's smile.

"JAR!" She lets the feeling of betrayal surface in her voice. "How could you?"

"I have done nothing."

"After all we've been through!"

"I merely informed Sergeant Barnes that you were in the building upon his return. He was the one to decide on an early visit."

"Careful," Bucky warns with a chuckle. "She can go check for herself how much suggestion was involved; she's got log permissions now."

"And I'll be using them," Ava threatens with another stern point of her finger, first at the sergeant, then at the security camera mounted on the ceiling. "Don't you two forget that while you're plotting your next attack."

"I haven't plotted anything. Scout's honor." He raises his flesh hand in oath, then frowns, momentarily looking off to the side. When his eyes come back to hers, there's not an ounce of shame in them. Only trouble. The hand stays up. "Alright. I haven't plotted anything with JARVIS."

Ava crosses her arms over her chest, entirely unimpressed now that the shock is wearing off. Her cheeks are taking their sweet time cooling down. "Did you come here for actual medical care, or are you just here to wreak havoc?"

"Definitely the latter. You could probably talk me into the former; you're pretty good at doing that. Might take some effort to convince me this time. I'm fresh from the field—"

"Shut up and get that gun locker you call an outfit out of my way, Barnes."

"That'll work." Bucky has the nerve to wink at her as he pushes up from her desk. It makes her hide behind her hand while she circles back around. She hears his jacket land on the thick glass while she grabs a medkit, reminding her of the accuracy of her teasing.

"What the hell do you keep in that thing? Chainmail?" He doesn't have to jump to sit on the desk the way she does. It makes Ava want to shove him off of it for a split second. The nerve of this man to be that big. In her lab.

"I can take you on a tour if you want. Don't expect anything too flashy. I keep all the good shit in my end of the world go-bag."

There's a new bullet wound to be found over his collarbone when he gets his shirt off. She'd been expecting it, thanks to the updates in his files. Seeing flesh already scarred over in less than three days is still jarring.

He didn't need to come in for that field injury the other week. She already knew that from a logical, medical standpoint. Looking at the proof with her own eyes feels different, though. It makes the heat threaten to return to her cheeks.

"And how often does that one get brought out?"

"Only a few times a month, don't worry. Things have been pretty calm for a while." For the first time, he turns his head to watch her fingers check the outer edge of his cybernetic shoulder. She's expecting to see unease sitting in his eyes when she looks up. All she finds is peaceful interest.

"You missed me," Ava softly accuses before she can stop herself. It makes her eyes rush back down to focus on her work.

"Of course I did." Damn him; there's no hesitation in his answer. "It's been a week without bagels and lollipops. You wanna guess how many jokes I came up with for that ballsack roaming around your house?"

"His name is Oreo, and you will use it with respect."

"Yes, ma'am. The utmost respect for Oreo the Ba—"

"Watch it." She's already made it to his back, so she only gets a side view of the smirk he gives her in response. "In any case, he spends more time roaming around Paige's apartment than my house."

"She stole your cat?"

"No," she giggles at the seriousness in his voice. "I stay at her place most days of the week. Her dad has an auto shop about fifteen minutes from here, and her apartment is right above it. I live pretty far outside of the city. Even with the way I drive, it's like an eight-hour round trip. That's why I try to leave early on Fridays."

"You only spend three nights a week in your own house?"

"I did say try. Sometimes—alright, most times, it's less than that. Lucky for me, Oreo doesn't mind hanging out with the grease monkeys while I poke at gray matter."

"I can drop you off."

Ava blinks, her hands pausing while scraping a pick along his shoulder blade. "I—what?" Her brows pull in, trying to figure out where he's going with this latest hard turn. "At the shop? Don't worry about it. I like night drives—"

"No, your house. I can cut that round-trip down to a fuckin' blink whenever you want. The cat can come, too."

"I'm sorry, does the serum give you a roadrunner setting I don't know about?"

"God, no. I prefer to take my t—" The first sign of hesitation surfaces in him as he pauses for a split second. It makes her look up at the back of his head, right at the bun his hair is in. "I was talking about a Quinjet."

He's flirting with her, she realizes. And it's not just a throwaway line this time. He's also trying to offer her the fastest carpool on the damn planet.

"Hang on—back up a step for a minute." She watches his shoulders go stiff, and she panics. He thinks he overstepped, her mind throws at her. Fix it. "I'm still trying to get over the fact that someone gave you a license for a car. Now you're telling me someone lets you behind the controls of a jet?"

The tension is gone from his posture before she even finishes bullying him. "They threaten to revoke the driver's license a lot. Steve and I tend to scare the shit out of people when we get on motorcycles. They only complain about how I fly when I bump Sam mid-air."

"You do not try to—"

"Oh, there's no try about it. I never miss my mark, doc. It really pisses him off." The overwhelming pride in his voice makes her laugh, despite the nerve-wracking image in her head.

Ava swats at his right shoulder, trying to avoid a bruise from the metal one. She learned that lesson the hard way. "You hit your friends with jets?"

"Just that one. It's a love tap. He barely even feels anything. He's got a big fancy Stark suit these days; he'll be fine."

"Where's your big fancy Stark suit? Is Tony withholding it until you let him take you to Vegas?"

Bucky snorts loudly. "He pulled that shit with you, too?"

"Mhmm. There's a veteran's center in West Virginia that has a state-of-the-art walk-in clinic because I let that idiot keep me locked in Caesar's Palace for three days. I've never been so hungover in my life." She's pretty sure it was Pepper's suggestion. An effort to get her out of the house when things first turned rocky with Alec.

"He still hasn't managed to rope me into it. That particular string wasn't tied to the suit offer."

"So what made you pass on a shiny new Stark toy?"

"Have you watched those rackety things in action?" Bucky's head shakes with mild disgust. "No thanks. I prefer being able to control when people hear me."

"No shit," Ava mumbles with poorly restrained annoyance.

He chuckles and straightens his head up without her having to ask. She's guessing he memorized her path to his neck on the very first cleaning appointment. "You're distracting; you know that? I can't remember the last time I let someone talk me off my point. Which I'm circling back to now. How far's your house in miles?"

The question catches her off guard enough to make her stop again. "You don't know my address?"

"I—shit, I was going to try to assure you I don't know anything about your house that you haven't told me. But that's not... entirely honest."

"I don't mind you knowing the things in my file," she reminds him gently. "I wouldn't have given it to Steve otherwise."

He shifts on the desk slightly. "I might... know some other stuff about it."

The guarded tone makes her snort. She recognizes it well, having lived through a divorce to a Colonel. Gossip moves the fastest in the barracks and the lunches of wives left behind. "Like maybe who I used to live in it with?"

"Like maybe that. And that you've been busy redecorating."

"Mmm, I don't know that you can classify it as redecorating. I did manage to win a few fights about furniture before the divorce. Some of the house was built to my taste. Now all of it is."

"I'm picturing—" Bucky stops again, and she hears a surprised chuckle. "I used to think your deflection didn't work on me."

"I'm not deflecting!" She giggles along with him, trying to focus on where she's got the top of his spine open to the world. "Maybe you're the one throwing off my train of thought. Have you considered that?"

"Here I was thinking it's because no one's taught you the imperial system, and you were too embarrassed—"

"You do understand that the rest of the world makes fun of you guys for using that, correct?"

"You guys, she says. Are you still clinging to your motherland's meters? That's embarrassing, Ryder. Where's your national pride?"

"Take the moose out of Canada, et cetera, et cetera." Ava swaps out for the hydrating wipes she started stocking because of him to clean up her work. The motion reminds her that it's been a while since her last tattoo. It brings out the itch for a new one. "By the way, after I'm done with this, I'm going to walk you back into my office and show you a list of—"

"Here it comes."

"—allll my outrageously expensive degrees."

"Now, how did I guess?"

"That way, the next time you feel like bullying me—"

"I'm certainly starting to enjoy it."

"—you can remember that I'm actually way smarter than you."

"I don't doubt that for a second, doll."

The—petname makes her smile wide enough to hurt. The way his voice dips as he says it lights her cheeks on fire. Again. "Good. There's hope for you yet."

"So I've been told." He says it so nonchalantly. Usually, she can anticipate the gallow's humor reflex. Usually.

"You break my heart sometimes; you know that?" She moves her fingers over his flesh shoulder in sympathy. The fact that he can't feel anything in the mechanical one makes her irate.

"Sounds like someone had fun reading." With her hands safely off his neck, Bucky turns his head to give her a sideways look. "How many new questions did it bring?"

The look she gives him in return is almost sheepish. "Steve answered most of them; you don't have to worry about it."

"Most." Bucky's eyebrow raises momentarily. "Lay 'em on me. That's why I gave you the clearance."

Ava's trying very hard to respect the choice. She leans forward, her free hand coming up to brace on his other shoulder. There's something contemptible about getting this far into the man's personal space, especially while he's shirtless in an exam. But the idea of not offering up the human contact while he's tearing open a wound that raw—especially while he's shirtless in an exam—makes her sick to her stomach.

Bucky doesn't seem to mind the proximity. Or the touch.

"Okay," she replies gently, trying to avoid putting any rejection in her tone. "I think we should wait until a reasonable hour, though. Next appointment?"

He looks down at his lap. "I think that's a great idea. You look like you need sleep. How about we talk about it when I come to pick you up from your house tomorrow morning?"

Ava stutters around a laugh, backing up from him once again. "I haven't agreed to anything; nice try."

"I didn't say you did. I'm pushing for an answer to a question you deflected; there's a difference."

"I did not defl—why am I trying to argue with a spy."

"I don't know. It'd be a lot easier if you—"

"You're not picking me up for work in a jet, you lunatic. I like driving."

"Is it because it gives you extra time to listen to Lady Wood?" The smug bastard has the nerve to pause, giving her a chance to think of a response to his ambush. She is, unsurprisingly, unsuccessful. "Which one do you like better, phase one or phase two?"

"You said you didn't recognize them!"

"I didn't." His hand comes up over his shoulder, showing her his phone. There's a webpage open detailing Tove Lo's entire discography—her writing credits included. "Google did."

"Someone gave you internet privileges?"

Bucky turns enough to look her in the eyes, unbearably pleased with himself. "It's so helpful."

Finally giving in to the urge to remove him from her desk, Ava shoves at his naked shoulders. Six-and-a-half feet of super serum doesn't move unless it wants to, so he doesn't exactly go anywhere with the force of it. But it does make him laugh and stand back up, so she counts it as a half-win.

"You gonna answer my new question? Or do I have to do the diploma tour first?"

"Who says you'd even get the answer then?" She crosses her arms over her chest and smirks up at him. "I've been through a divorce. You'll have to try a lot harder than that for me to fall for a loophole."

The six-and-a-half feet of super serum actually turns bashful on her. Bucky's eyes take on a bit of guilt, and his grin loses most of the mischief. "Sorry. Professional hazard. I did warn you I'm fresh from the field. It takes a day or two to reset the headspace."

"You're lucky I don't mind it," she offers to try to reassure him. His heart is the last in the world that she would doubt. "I missed you, too, you goddamn terror."

That thousand fucking watt smile hits her at full force. Seeing it on Bucky's face is almost worth giving him the crushing amount of ego it takes to power it. "Show me those degrees you earned so I can get back to hearing about your music."

Ava rolls her eyes, returning to the medkit to clear it from her desk. "I'll text you the list; how about that?"

"You don't have to send me the playlist links again; you can just unlock the dirty ones. I'll find them from there."

"I meant the—" She stops to ball up one of the wrappers from the hydrating wipes and throws it at him. He catches it mid-air before it hits his bare chest. "I meant the degrees, you degenerate."

He scoffs. "Big talk for a woman dancing to pussy eating mu—"

"Is there something else you need?"she stresses with a nervous burst of laughter. He's awful. Horrendous. She missed him so much that it's ridiculous.

On his end, Bucky doesn't miss a beat. "Yeah, my lollipop. You know, I bet I can guess which album you like better. I bet I can guess your favorite song from each one, too."

She points a finger at him without looking up from the medkit. "If you say disco tits, I'm making you sit through post-McCarthy retrospective documentaries just to decondition you."

"I'd be alright with that. But you'll still have to look me in the eye knowing it's in your top three." Even if she can't see him, she can hear him smile when her finger goes back down. "That's what I thought."

"Maybe I'm just out of things to throw at you."

"Blue Lips was the album you had on. Great name, by the way. Let's start with your favorite from that, which we've already established isn't disco tits. If you tell me that it's one of the sad ones, you're gonna break my heart."

"You don't have any favorite sad songs?" She's not... entirely deflecting. The comment just sparked her interest.

"Plenty. But now I know that's not the real answer."

"Jesus," Ava mutters with a huff of laughter. "Remind me to shut my mouth if you ever suspect me of a crime."

"I'm usually the guy people call to break out of prison. Might wanna keep that in mind if this whole doctor thing doesn't work out. That said, it's adorable that you keep trying to pin law-abiding qualities on me. You shouldn't mention the theory around the Avengers; they will laugh you out of the room."

Ava bites her lip again. She's out of tasks to stall with. He caught her as she was technically packing up for the night, and the medkit never takes much to put away. Turning to face him, she puts one hand on her hip and leans on the desk with the other. "Some people would classify it as a sad song."

Bucky folds his arms, his legs adjusting to widen his stance. He wasn't kidding about the sergeant mode. "Your favorite from the second album? What do you classify it as?"

She hesitates. Giving him the first word that comes to mind would give away the song too easily. "I... I don't know. I don't find longing sad, personally." He doesn't immediately reply. Most of the mirth has faded, and he's watching her intently. "What? You're telling me the moody spy disagrees with the sentiment?"

He blinks and takes a deep breath in, shaking his head slightly. She catches sight of a hard swallow that makes her nervous, but then he smirks at her. So, one of his introspective moments, then. "No, I agree with it. Do you want me to wait until you hand over my lollipop to give you the answer?"

"You have not guessed it already."

"You're right; I haven't. I've already figured it out. But we can pretend I didn't for a little while to make you feel better."

Ducking her head to hide a smile, Ava turns to walk into her office. She barely resists the urge to point another accusing finger at him. "You're lucky I think your ego is charming. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to withhold the gift I got you."

"You got me a gift?" The surprise in his voice softens his tone.

"I did, so you should stop bullying me long enough to receive it."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm on my best behavior for the rest of the night. What'd you get me?" He wasn't following behind at first, but he is now, and he's closing in on her fast.

"Well, you said you liked my puns, so—"

"Now that's an outright lie. I've told you they're terrible—"

"Which means you really like them. I wanted to give you one to have whenever you want, wherever you want." Ava stretches over her desk, not bothering to walk all the way around it. It takes some digging in her top drawer to find the little blue box she painted. When she turns back to look at him, his eyes are moving around the office. "Here. Use it in good health."

Bucky looks back and takes the box into his hand, a small smile coming up. It stretches across his entire lower face as he gets it open and spots what's nestled inside. "This is the worst one yet."

"Thank you," she replies proudly. "It's one of my favorites."

His cybernetic hand reaches into the box and clinks against the miniature rectangle when he picks it up. He turns it around to look at the back and snorts. "It's a pin."

"Like I said. You get to put it wherever you want, whenever you want."

"So, you won't fly with me, but you'll fly with me—"

The words pull a startled laugh from her. "Oh my god, did you just try to make a pun?" He doesn't respond, looking down at the pin to smile at it some more. She folds her arms around herself, less in defense and more in comfort. "I didn't say I wouldn't fly with you. I really do like driving. It's soothing."

Bucky nods slowly. He walks over to her desk, getting in close while he puts the box down. Turning the pin over in his hands, he pulls the backing off. He tosses the gigantic tactical vest onto the glass surface, then tucks his hand under the dark leather to line up the tiny, glossy pun.

Right there. On his not-uniform. Just off to one shoulder. Toward the metal arm.

It almost brings tears to her eyes to watch. Her throat tightens up, but she can't bring herself to break the silence by trying to clear it.

"You're going to have to get me replacements when it gets shot off," he jokes quietly. She's pretty sure it's a joke.

"That's fine." Her voice isn't all the way steady. But it's most of the way there. She might have gotten away with playing it off if he wasn't the world's most well-trained assassin. "I put everything on the card Tony gave me for work, anyways. I'm hoping the accountants don't notice. Nobody really hands me a paycheck around here, so."

Bucky tugs his skin-tight undershirt back on. It makes the dork look like he's about to put on a scuba suit. "Have you seen what he buys? I think you're in the clear on that one." He leans down and thumbs at the pin now secured to his vest, making that soft metallic clink rise up again over and over. It sounds like the rhythm of a heartbeat. "Thanks, doll."

—

"Why am I looking at the file of a grunt?"

"He's not a grunt."

"He's a level four."

"He's in charge of away teams; that's not a grunt. Plus, he's got like two medals of honor or something."

"Three. What's that supposed to prove anyways? Every Howlie there ever was had one—me included—and we were a buncha drunk dipshits who couldn't tell our ass from a campfire most nights. SHIELD pulled this kid from the military to run errands. What are we doing here, Steve?"

"I didn't ask you to be here. You showed up. And I am handling a problem before it starts." He sees Steve frown out of the corner of his eye. "Responsibly. With facts, not assumptions."

"What problem? Miserable leadership reviews? He'll filter out on his own—"

"That's the kind of attitude that let HYDRA tarnish Peggy's legacy."

The unwavering tone makes Bucky look up from the file on his tablet long enough to give his friend a sidelong glare. "You're so full of shit."

Steve turns to face him in his signature cranky captain stomp. "You wanna run that by me again, asshole?"

"That might be the reason you're sinking your teeth into him, but that's not why we're here. You wanna fess up now or wait for me to find it myself?"

Steve turns back to the one-way glass in front of them and shifts his weight irritably. His arms flex where they're crossed over his chest. A century-old geezer, and he's pouting. "There's nothing to find. I'm doing my job as a level eight."

Bucky's head falls back, and his eyes roll with exaggeration. "Oh my god, if you ever get held hostage, we are so completely fucked. Every state secret this country has is gonna be up for grabs—"

"Once again, I don't remember asking you to be here."

"No, you asked Nat, which was your first mistake. She's even more suspicious, but she's not going to tell either of us what she's figured out in the last twelve hours. Not until it suits her." He looks back down at his tablet pointedly, his voice heading towards mockery. "So, if you don't mind, I'd like to get caught up before the show starts. I hate being distracted during her warm-up swings."

"Yeah, well. I don't care what Nat knows."

Bucky's laugh starts as a chuckle, building higher until it echoes off the glass. "Oh, maaan. So, it's something she's already made fun of you for, and you're gritting your teeth through it. Was he a dick to that lady at the cafeteria? The one who always gives you an extra dessert without charging you?"

"No. I don't know what he does in his down—" Steve pauses, another frown of reconsideration coming up. "JARVIS, can you forward me—"

"Agent Romanoff has already requested I evaluate the security footage of Agent Walker's public interactions within the tower," the AI responds calmly. "She did not find anything of to be of worthy note."

"Hey there, JARVIS. Long time no—hear. Exactly how many grudges are you focused on tonight?" With his head down at this angle, Bucky can see his new pin reflecting the light from the other room in his peripherals. Right next to his shoulder that just got cleaned by his favorite hippie. God, he's in a good fucking mood at the moment.

"I do not hold grudges. I am merely doing my job as a level JARVIS."

Bucky snorts loudly. Steve looks up at the ceiling in exasperation.

"Your jokes are getting worse," the captain accuses. "It's Banner's fault, isn't it?"

"I believe it is the influence of the tower's other pacifist, Dr. Ryder. Her humor is rather snappy, as Sergeant Barnes can attest."

"Don't let her hear you call it humor," Bucky argues with all the sincerity he can muster. "The last thing that woman needs is justification for her verbal crimes."

"What's that thing on your vest, then?"

The sound of Natasha's voice makes Steve jump. Bucky catches his reaction just in time to stop it.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Steve swears under his breath.

"Language, Rogers," Bucky and Natasha hit him with simultaneously. He's hoping jumping on it with her will distract her from—

"That little strip of tin and enamel sure looks like enabling behavior to me."

Damn. It was a long shot to begin with.

"Ava put something on your vest?" Steve's head is getting in his space now, trying to look around to find what Bucky definitely isn't angling to hide.

"I put it there," Bucky corrects briskly. "To shame her."

"Where is it?"

"Fuck off." He shoves at his best friend's hands as they come for his shoulders, trying to stop the effort to rotate him. He's unsuccessful.

"What is that—is that a pin? Quit struggling, shithead; just let me see. What's it say—oh my god."

"Shut up."

"I can't see it real well. Read it to me," Natasha requests calmly. Bucky can hear her blowing on a cup of coffee while he continues to struggle with his best friend.

"Shut the fuck up—"

"It says I bee leaf in you," Steve answers, his voice going obnoxiously high. The asshole is smiling from ear to ear. There's even moisture starting to build in his eyes. "With a little cartoon bee! And a leaf!"

Bucky knew this was coming. He knew it was coming. He was just hoping it would be during the next mission, not here in the tower. Somewhere he could shoot at both of them to make them shut up without having to go to HR for an incident report. Getting Ava's worst pun yet is, apparently, the only good thing the universe is going to grant him this week.

Alright. That new round of painful tactical analysis when she was bent over her own desk trying to find it for him was pretty nice, too. So was watching her dance like that. She's—distractingly nimble. Not much can kill him these days, but the sight of her without a lab coat on keeps coming pretty damn close.

"Now, isn't that precious?" The savage joy in Natasha's voice makes Bucky want to throw his tablet at her.

"I'm shaming her. Making her look at her crimes."

"Don't you go to her office in fatigues?"

"Are you gonna switch it to those when you go see her?" Steve's voice is still too high. He's close enough for Bucky to swing at, so he does, with a solid hook to his shoulder.

"No. I picked it for my gear. I'm not going to move it."

"You picked the spot?"

"Have you cleaned your ears this month? I'm shaming her—"

"Bucky, that's so—"

"Shut up. "

"—sweet. I can't believe—bee leaf!" The dumbass pauses, stumbling over his own stupid laughter. "She got you a pun pin. Did she paint this?"

"I—" Bucky freezes. He didn't think to ask. She'd been pretty choked up after he picked a spot by his left arm. He wanted to give her room, especially after hounding her about taking her home. "I don't know. She painted the box it came in, though."

"Did you keep it?"

He crosses his arms defensively. "Of course I did. She painted it for me. I'm not fucking rude."

"Can I see it?"

"Absolutely fucking not." He shoves at Steve's shoulders, forcing him back. "What's he hiding, Nat?"

She snorts, still not having moved an inch from the back wall. "What, you think I've finished with you?"

"You tell me. What sounds more fun—"

"I feel like this pin thing is pretty serious," Steve tries to argue.

"Trying to pry another reaction out of me or batting Stevie around—"

"Nat, come on, this is a big change—you agree with me—"

"—while you wait for Wakeman—"

"Walker," Natasha corrects before going for another sip of coffee.

"Poster Boy to finish sweating," Bucky finally gets out.

She takes her time enjoying her drink while they both watch her anxiously. When her eyes open back up, she looks tired but pleased. "You should check his away missions."

"Aww, come on—you're about to go in there and leave me to deal with him alone," Steve complains like the giant baby he is.

"Maybe if you bee leaf in him, he won't ridicule you."

"Shut up," Bucky grumbles, already pulling up Agent Walkman's recent away missions. He'll start there, then branch out. His best friend is being a lot more defensive than usual, so it's something good.

"Actually, check his eval for me. I haven't decided how hot I'm going in. Give me your read."

Without hesitation, Bucky does as she asked, opening up the errand boy's medical records to skim the psych evaluation. He gets why Natasha's asking. Sitting in the headspace of someone who breaks people without laying a finger on them gets loud sometimes. It can get hard to remember where the line is. He's not going to deny her the request for a check-in. Not ever. Not with how often she does it for him.

He shrugs at the end of his check, finding nothing out of the ordinary. "He's never been confronted with failure in his life. I'm assuming that's the play?"

"Mhm."

"Hammer it."

"No reservations?"

Bucky snorts. "What's your reservation? You worried about making a West Point brat cry?"

"Nah. Only wanted a second read of the land." He hears Natasha's back crack in a couple of places as she pushes off the wall, proving she's been there for a while. Little shit probably snuck in behind him when he came in and waited. "Thanks. Have fun, boys."

Steve waits until she shuts the door behind her to offer up a bribe. "I'll drop the pin commentary if you close that file."

"You make this too easy."

"I'm serious. I won't say another word about it."

"Yeah, you'll just wind Sam up to do it for you. Is it because his team got paired with Coulson's? Don't make me read through whole logs to find this. It's just going to make it worse when I do."

"You're going to be disappointed when this turns out to be nothing. I'm just doing my job, Buck."

On the other side of the one-way glass, the door to the interview room Waldorf is already sitting in opens. Natasha walks in, her head down and her eyes skimming over the file she definitely had memorized before she got here. It makes the level four who's been waiting on someone for—Bucky's eyes flick over to the timer kept on the wall to document interviews—two hours and nineteen minutes sit up in his chair.

"Agent Romanoff," Wilbur greets her. Bold choice, trying to start them off on equal footing. "Good to finally—"

"Name?" Natasha immediately knocks his dick in the dirt with.

"Oof," Steve mutters, sounding far too pleased. It raises Bucky's suspicion level another notch.

"Ah—John Walker," he answers, his posture shifting as the professional stick goes rigid in his ass. How so very boring.

Bucky's hoping Natasha provides some fireworks here because otherwise, he wasted the trip. The effort had mainly been about harassing Steve for a few minutes after a long week without having the chance to. He could be up in his room right now, bullshitting himself that he's a good enough man to not beat off to the thought of the good doctor again. For the half-dozenth time. The words she was singing at the top of her lungs sure as shit aren't going to help his efforts to be a gentleman tonight. At all.

"Right." Natasha drops the tablet on the table, letting it impact heavily. She leans over it to type in a few details as if adding him to a list. "Tell me why I'm here, Walker."

The agent hesitates. Strike two. "I'm not sure, to be honest with you. I got the call; I went where I was told."

Of course he did, Bucky thinks bitterly. That's what they taught us.

"How long have you been sitting here?"

"Well—I can't give you exact timing without checking in with JARVIS." He pauses again, no doubt waiting for the AI to take the opportunity to assist. When nothing follows, Watson's face falls, and he tries for a quick recovery. He pulls a recruiter-pamphlet-smile directly from his ass. "I know it's somewhere around the two-hour mark. Sorry, I was catching up on some paperwork. I wasn't paying much attention to the clock—"

"Do you normally have to catch up on paperwork?" She's still typing away while she lays her first trap, still refusing to sit. Lining the guy up on her razor's edge.

"I would hope it's as often as my fellow agents. Knowing my tendency to put it off, it's probably not as—"

"You don't know their work ethic enough to say definitively?"

Steep jump from competency to teamwork. Then there's the silent implication that he fucked up the competency question by going for the casual humor of someone being offered a job. That's a heavy floodlight she's pointing at his ego. Bucky is more than willing to count this as fireworks now.

"If we're talking about people I work with regularly, I absolutely do. But, no, I can't say that I know how I compare to—"

"I didn't ask how you compare. I asked if you know your teammates well enough to do so."

Whitman is trying his damndest to keep that smile on his face. There's frustration building behind it, and Bucky can spot the expectation of a test in his eyes. "In that case. I can only tell you about the people I work with the most often. They tend to be better at submitting their paperwork on time, ma'am."

"Romanoff or Agent Romanoff." Natasha's never given a shit about what title people use for her; Bucky knows that. But she sure does love to use it as a tool. "Tell me about these incident reports I'm looking at."

Some of the color drains from the agent's face. "Sorry, what incident reports are we—"

"The ones right here, from your first, second, and fourth deployment." Natasha looks up, finally making eye contact. "Why the radio silence during the third? Boring post?"

"I…. Those are—Nothing of any kind of significance has ever been on my record—"

"I don't need an official military record. SHIELD keeps the field notes from your former superiors." In a move she had to have pre-planned given how flawlessly it's executed, Natasha unzips the jacket she walked in wearing. She shakes off the heavy leather, showing the civies she's got on under it. No uniform, giving the implication that this late-night interview is out of the blue. And a personal favor. "You made quite a few friends on that ladder."

"A few." The confidence in Walter is wavering. The expectation of this being a lateral kind of test isn't front and center in the man's expression. He's trying to find a rock in quicksand.

"Tell me about them."

Bucky tunes out, looking back down at the tablet in his hands. She'll be hunting for ammunition for a while. People the kid respects, positions he was passed up for, grudges—professional or otherwise—to pick at, et cetra. Most of it she'll already know on her end. All of it she'll use against him.

After a minute of droning from the errand boy, he catches sight of Steve's arms unfolding from his chest, his hands tucking into his pants pockets. "So. A late appointment, huh? Was that Ava's request?"

"Nice try, asshole," Bucky grumbles. "I've been gone a week. I told JARVIS to let her know she could call me in whenever. He let me know she was still in the building." Shrugging, he skips to the next mission in Winston's history. "I went so she knows I'm taking this seriously. She offered. I accepted."

"And then she gave you a bee."

"And then she gave me a bee."

"A very cute bee."

"Shut. Up."

"Okay." He sees Steve rock back and forth from the corner of his eye. It makes him skim the mission details faster. He's gotta find the lead before— "Is it because she's divorced?"

"What?" He looks over at Steve in genuine shock. "Why the hell would that matter?"

"Maybe because of who she used to be married to."

"You think I'm intimidated?" Bucky scoffs, insulted. He could rise to that level of expectation—if he wanted to. And there's not a shot in hell that this Alec prick is any kind of a threat.

"By the idea of going out with a civilian woman who just left a career soldier?" The way Steve phrases it makes him freeze in place. "Yeah, Buck, I think that'd be a little intimidating."

Bucky, somewhat slowly, looks back at his tablet. That—it hadn't occurred to him. That particular angle. About Ava and—other expectations she might have when it comes to him.

You'll have to try a lot harder than that for me to fall for a loophole.

Bucky has a lot of self-awareness; he knows how hard he is to deal with. He tried backing off whenever it felt as if he was going too far in her office. She had picked up the other end of the bait every time, and everything seemed good. The Totalitarian jokes she throws at him are only jokes; she wouldn't give him the time of day if they weren't.

But it's not hard to figure out that they're rooted somewhere deep. Somewhere real. She's big on boundaries. She's gravely serious about consent. Those aren't the kind of qualities people hold that high without motivation. Personal motivation.

Giving her full access was the right call. Bucky's wholeheartedly convinced of it on multiple fronts.

"It's not like that," he assures, keeping his voice serious. "There's no plan here. No intentions, either. She puts up with me. I'm trying not to make that a miserable experience for her."

"Sure."

"Fuck off."

"Don't you mean buzz off?" There's no hesitation in Bucky's movements as he swings the tablet off to the side to nail his best friend in the arm with. "Oww!"

"You had it coming. Stop laughing before the grunt hears you, stupid."

The chuckles coming from Steve taper off until it's just snickering. "I think it's sweet."

"So you've said." Bucky tries to work up the nerve for his next question. It takes a few minutes of watching Natasha play with her food. "How pissed was he?"

The silence that followed Steve's snickering gets broken by his snort. "Well, his head didn't actually explode, but, you know, pretty damn pissed."

"Sorry."

"You don't have to be."

"It took a lot for you to—"

"Yes. It did. It took more than even you know, and Nat's made sure you'll never find out exactly how much." Steve looks over and doesn't say anything. Not until Bucky has the nads to meet his gaze. "And the whole point of it was to put it in your hands. That comes with the expectation that you'll use it as you see fit. It's not your problem that Fury likes to selectively forget he agreed to that."

"That doesn't mean it should have to be yours. I'm the one that handed it off to a civilian without asking for—"

"You shouldn't have to ask. That was the whole point." Bucky looks away, but Steve doesn't relent. "We wouldn't have put in the effort if we weren't willing to back it up over time."

"I can sit in for a meeting this time."

"I'm not going to tell you no." Of course he won't. Steve never does. Not when it's something like this. "But I am going to remind you that the two of you have conflicting buttons. More importantly, you don't need to."

"I know. I want to. It's not about—This isn't a challenge for me." He pauses, trying to decide on a way to phrase it. "I'm not looking to win a fight. I want to explain."

"Alright. Spending a week in the doghouse without complaint probably won you some leniency." There's pride sitting in Steve's voice.

It almost makes Bucky avoid bringing up the other thing eating him alive. He could handle it himself behind the scenes. He could even tell Ava to keep it to herself when he eventually fills her in.

But honesty is a two-way street.

"I got a question I gotta ask you," he starts off gently. It's the worst way—Steve's going to pick up on something being wrong and get worried. But Bucky can't think of an alternative.

"Shoot." Yeah. Yeah, there's the nerves surfacing in his voice.

"When you taught her the code—" His best friend's posture stiffens in his peripherals. It makes him switch to treating this like a bandage to rip off. "What language did you teach it to her in?"

Steve's head turns at a speed that looks dizzying, even for their equilibrium. "That only matters if she says it in the right—you're kidding. What the hell—what were you two even talking about that—"

"It wasn't like that," Bucky stresses, hearing the suspicion creeping in. "We were talking about music. She was telling me she doesn't find it sad."

"Jesus," Steve whispers. He follows it up with about a dozen other curses under his breath. "I'm sorry, Buck, I—"

"I know. I'm not looking to blame you. It's happened with other people before; you know that. And it's not like I suspect her of anything. I just—"

"Yeah, no, checking makes complete sense. No one would fault you for that. Did you talk to her about it yet?"

"I'm not planning on talking to her about any of it at the moment."

"Bucky. You can't just—she has to know, she's made that clear—I should have told her from the start—"

"I'm not saying I'm keeping her in the dark forever. I'm saying I'm not telling her right now."

Steve goes quiet again, and Bucky can practically hear the cogs turning in his brain. "I can talk to her about it."

"No."

"It's not like she'd have an issue with pretending it didn't happen—"

"I don't want to pretend it didn't happen." The words come out a lot more forceful than he intended.

"Okay." Steve's not being condescending. There's no dismissal in his tone. He reached a boundary Bucky's made and didn't take offense to it.

A year ago, Bucky wouldn't have been able to handle so much as bringing something like this up. He would have internalized every last part of it. Three years ago, Steve would have questioned him on a hard line like this being drawn. And then gone and done everything without asking, leaving Bucky to feel like an infant.

Not even a few weeks ago, Bucky would have bitten the head off of a level four analyst just because he can't get any decent sleep.

"I felt human again for a minute," he admits quietly. He curls his head in like a fucking coward, using his hair as a heavy curtain to block the view of his best friend. "She said it, and I got to come back down from it, and she didn't know. I'll tell her. I just want to wait until she's had long enough to forget she said it."

He doesn't want to give up how good it felt to flirt with Ava. To feel that warmth and hear that soothing melody. To sit in it all for a minute and let himself live. To be a bastard chasing after a girl way out of his league the way he used to, even if he knows it won't ever go anywhere. To forget, for just a handful of minutes, that he was ever made into a monster.

A couple more weeks of bothering her in the mornings. That'll be enough time for her to forget what words she used tonight. Then he'll have Steve give her the code in every language she speaks.

"That sounds like a good plan." The words don't sound like bullshit with the way Steve's voice stays rock fucking solid in its support. "You wanna... maybe talk about what led to it—"

Bucky straightens his head back up with a long inhale, moving his hair out of the way once again. "I don't know, Steve. Do you want me to try to go to bed for the next three hours, or do you want me to keep reading mission logs?"

"...I hope you get some good rest."

"That's what I thought."

"I'll see you in the morning. We've got that weapons brief—"

"I know."

"—so don't forget—yeah, okay, yup. You already know."

Locking his tablet and heading for the door, Bucky rolls his eyes. "When she comes in for a refill, remind her to run the mom test."

"Will do. Goodnight, Buck."

"Goodnight."

He's almost tempted to check in with JARVIS about Ava. Then he remembers that he doesn't have to do that.

Stepping onto the only elevator leading to the Avengers floor, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and opens their texts. He smiles down at the last picture of Ava's dumbass cat that she graced him with before he got sent out on punishment. There's a miniature, painted straw hat sitting on his bald little head.

Did the moose make it across the road okay? he types out. It takes three tries to force himself to hit send.

Bucky slides his phone back into his pocket. This is the latest he's ever sent her a message. God willing, she's got her ringer off. There's no way she's not in bed by now; it's nearly 0200. If he finds out this woke her up, he'll feel awful. He didn't exactly say he was going to be checking up on her.

Now he's worried he shouldn't have. Back in the day, it would have been second nature to make a quick call once he got back to his own place. He can't tell if that's the polite thing to do in this case or if it's too—

Bucky's phone vibrates against his left ass cheek not even thirty seconds after he put it there. He's got it back in his hand, held up to his face, in less than two.

see! you love my puns. and i am not currently roadkill! bonus points, reads her reply text.

He grins down at his phone like a fucking idiot. When Natasha eventually finds the security footage, and she will, he's not even going to be mad about being bullied for it.

Before he can type a reply, she hits him with another. dont g-men have bedtimes?

Yes, ma'am. The government just doesn't have the budget to implement them, he sends back.

This texting thing is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, he gets to talk to her without having to work up the nerve to call her. On the other, he can't see how much that made her smile.

Not having the face-to-face usually doesn't bother Bucky. Then again, he usually doesn't text outside of work, so that's probably got something to do with it.

She sends back a laughing emoji rapid fire, then those three little dots dance for a minute while she goes back to typing. are you even allowed to make those kinds of jokes? doesnt SHIELD pay your phone bill?

Probably. I haven't bothered asking.

about the permission or the bill?

Both.

He gets another laughing emoji. go to bed, idiot. you looked like you were ready to fall over in my office. believe it or not, your brain needs this funny thing called SLEEP.

Sleep well, doll. Bucky's finger hovers over the send button, but he doesn't hit it.

He used the word in her office. It slipped out on accident the first time. The second time had been a check-in that she didn't seem to scorn. That might have been because she was choked up. Having to read it now makes the word feel heavier. Too heavy.

He hits the backspace to change it out for doc instead at the last minute. The send button is a lot easier to hit after that. He's banking on the fact that the choice didn't take long to make. Maybe, just maybe, she didn't notice.

you too, she signs off with.

Bucky doesn't move as the elevator doors open in front of him. He keeps his eyes locked on his phone. Focused right on the little heart emoji she put after the last word.

A slow, shy smile starts to creep up on him. He steps off the elevator, walking distractedly to his room to try to catch a REM cycle or two. It's still there on his face as he strips out of his gear, thinking about the doctor. It doesn't fade, even as he tosses his comforter, blanket, and lone pillow onto the floor.

He manages to be a gentleman that night. Mainly because he falls asleep listening to her playlist titled chill sketching before his hand can find any trouble.

—

u wanna know why the howlies couldnt tell their ass from a campfire most nights? its bc their asses fell INTO the campfire most nights. god i fucking love those idiots. i REALLY wanna do some howlies fics at some point (and i kinda want it to be a biker!au if im honest. i could undo the trauma SoA put me through by making comfort fics abt big biker man and his lil doc 🥺)

anyways there IS a reason i go so hard on discount cap, its not just bc he smells and i hate him. i have a hc for bucky’s opinion on dudes like him thatll get brought up at some point, youll see. it got pretty heavily hinted at in this chapter

also, other quick hc, if natasha romanoff were to be given the big boy serum and a lil sippy sip from the fountain of youth, the galaxy would be safe literally forever. we wouldnt need any more super heroes, everyone could retire. no one can convince me otherwise 😤

im (kind of) up and running on tumblr!! same handle, i reserved it when i got this act. ignore how bare bones the chapter posts are, ill make fancy formatting and graphics later. the initial wave was a panic back up when i realized im not saving these anywhere after posting and ao3 shut down for a few days lmao

i WILL put in a real effort to go track down blogs to follow and add other stuff at some point, pinky promise!! if you wanna find me for mutual fandom screaming, thats where ill be babes 💖🥰 im 98% sure i remembered to set up all the anon stuff properly for anyone thats Shy ❤️ you are more than welcome to submit requests 💞 ill make a pinned post abt it at some point

#chapter update

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the-bau-quinjet · 3 years

Text

Seven Drinks

Bucky x f!reader

Summary: There's a reason Y/N has never had more than 3 drinks around the other avengers, and they're about to find out.

Warnings: depression, thoughts of suicide, panic attacks, angst (don't worry there's fluff too)

Word Count: 4322

a/n: This is inspired by that episode of Brooklyn 99 with 6 drink Amy (I adopted that concept!) and also Halsey's album Manic. :) I hope you like it. Anything in bold is a lyric from one of the songs on the album!

Please let me know if I messed up the trigger warning tags! I've never written anything like this before, so I just want to make sure I do it right.

Masterlist

"We're having a party tonight." Tony's announcement was met with the usual groans of annoyance at having to schmooze with the typical socialites that attended Tony's party. "You know, you are so ungrateful sometimes. here I am trying to throw you a party, and you're complaining!"

"Tony, we all appreciate the effort you go to, but- at least speaking for me- I don't like people." Y/N's response was effortless, swiftly calming Tony and explaining the reactions.

"That is why-" Tony stuttered when he actually registered the words you said. "That doesn't sound like you at all. And besides, this is a party for just us. It'll be more like team building, but without any pre-planned activities. No "smarmy, rich people" to deal with." He directed his last sentence at Bucky, Steve, and Sam.

The team actually seemed excited at the prospect, albeit skeptical of Tony's motivations.

Unsurprisingly, Nat worked up the courage to question him on it first, "what's the catch?"

"No catch. Just friends, food, and lots of alcohol." His grin quickly shifted into a smirk as the entire room turned to look at you.

You groaned slightly, not wanting all the attention. "Look, there is a reason I cap myself at 3 drinks." Holding up one finger, you started to explain, "One drink Y/N is barely any different from my sober self."

Wanda quickly cut you off, "not true! You get louder." She smirked, happy to have added that tidbit of information.

"Fine." With a laugh, you admitted she was right. "I might get the tiniest bit louder." You held up a second finger to continue your explanation, but were once again cut off.

"It's not a bad thing. It's just your happy, bubbly, and slightly louder than normal personality shining through!" Nat added, seeing an opportunity to tease you for being so positive all the time.

"Thanks Nat. Anyway," emphasizing the rudeness of being interrupted twice, you continued, "two drink Y/N is more touchy feely than normal. Not in a creepy way though!"

"I love two drink Y/N. She gives the best hugs!" Thor eagerly added to the conversation, glad to have dropped by when he did.

"Thanks Thor." With a small smile in his direction, you held up a third finger. "Three drink Y/N is the perfect amount of just past tipsy to have fun without doing anything extremely embarrassing. It makes the most sense to stop there." You finished her little speech with your typical smile and a resolute nod of your head.

"Seriously, you need to relax. Just let loose this one time!" Sam tried to encourage you. With the eyes of nearly every avenger set on you, your resolve didn't last very long.

"Fine! Maybe I'll have a fourth drink." You were met with cheers as you rose from your spot on the couch, trying to prepare for the night that was to come.

As soon as you stepped off the elevator, you had a drink in your hand. Clearly your friends were going to make sure you got a fourth drink. even Steve seemed excited when he saw you, although his golden boy personality didn't disappear completely.

"You sure about this? I don't want you to feel pressured!" Bucky nodded, weirdly enthusiastically, before adding, "Yeah doll, don't drink more than you want to."

"You two are too sweet. Sam's right, but don't tell him I said that." You winked at the two super soldiers, emphasizing the joke. "I should let myself relax sometimes. I'm in a safe place, with friends who won't let anything happen to me. What could a few more drinks really do?" You couldn't help but smile at how true that was. You were surrounded by people who care about you.

"Oh, so now it's a few more drinks? What are we talking here, six drink Y/N? Seven?" Bucky teased.

"You'll have to wait and see, Ducky." You teased right back, knowing how flustered he got at the pet name. Steve laughed at his friend as you walked away, ready for your second drink.

Before long, you had your fourth drink in your hand. It was slightly odd how literally everyone was staring at you, but your were three drink Y/N at the time, so you were drunk enough not to care.

You downed the fourth drink, unprepared for the consequences.

"So, Y/N... how do you feel?" Clint braved the waters, everyone eagerly awaiting your reaction.

"That is so nice of you to ask! I feel great! I don't think I've ever been this happy." You jumped up and down, hugging Clint with a huge smile on your face.

"How did you get even happier?" Tony chuckled, shaking his head slightly.

"Do you not like it?" Like a switch had been flipped, you were nearly crying.

"What?! No!" Tony was so taken aback at the tears pooling in your eyes, he froze, unsure how to fix it. He looked around the room for help, but everyone else was just as shocked as him.

"I'll fix it!" You were at the bar, fixing another drink before anyone fully comprehended your mood swing.

You walked back up to the group, sipping from your fifth drink as if nothing happened. "What?" You questioned the odd looks, but before receiving an answer you squealed, again jumping up and down. "Let's dance!" You turned around, ready to move to the more open area before looking back over your shoulder, "Wanda! Nat! Pepper! Come on!"

The women shared a look, ultimately shrugging before joining you on the makeshift dance floor.

"Bucky, you've been staring at her for 20 straight minutes. When are you finally gonna talk to her?" Steve couldn't help but pester him about his feelings.

"I can't help it. I've never seen her dance so much. I mean, I know she's always happy, but this is a whole new level." He didn't take his eyes off of you, even when he was responding. "I can't tell her tonight, though. This is the most she's had to drink in years."

He watched as you moved back over to the bar, needing another drink after dancing so much.

"Here we go, six drink Y/N." Bucky gestured to the bar. Steve shook his head, but allowed the change of topic.

About five minutes after your sixth drink, you were somehow bounding around with even more energy. You were nearly running around the room, trying to talk to everyone at once.

"Ducky! Have I ever told you I took gymnastics lessons for 7 years when I was younger?" You were bouncing with pent up energy, excited to be sharing more information about yourself.

"No, you've actually never mentioned that." He smiled, enraptured by your childlike enthusiasm, so enraptured that he didn't notice the mischief in your eyes.

"Well, I did! Watch this." You handed a confused Bucky your now empty glass, turning and throwing your arms up. Bucky realized two late what was happening, and with both yours and his glasses in his hands, he couldn't physically stop you.

"Y/N, wait!" His shout had everyone turn and look as you flawlessly executed two cartwheels in a row.

Bucky would swear your smile got even bigger as you turned around to look at him again.

"Normally I can do more, but" you hiccuped, then lowered your voice to a really terrible whisper, "I'm a little drunk." You leaned into him, laughing as if you just told a joke.

Wanda walked up to you with a seventh drink, hoping seven drink Y/N had a little less energy, but happy to see you having so much fun. "Here ya go! One more of your favorites, just like you asked."

"Thank youuuuuu!" You shifted to hug Wanda, leaving Bucky to miss your added warmth.

You sipped your seventh drink slower than the rest, quickly running out of energy. Sliding the empty glass across the bar, you slipped out of the party unnoticed, making your way to the kitchen for some pickles- your favorite drunk food.

Your seventh drink hit you just after you opened the pickles. Gone was the happy, bubbly persona you showed the world. The mask slipped away, leaving you alone to contemplate your life choices.

You made your way to to the lounge just outside of the kitchen, choosing to lay on the floor behind the couch and stare out of the large floor to ceiling windows.

"Where's Y/N?" Bucky glanced around the room, an uneasy feeling in his stomach.

"Huh? Oh, she said she wanted a snack." A very drunk Wanda turned to look at where the food was set up, scrunching her face in confusion when she couldn't find you. "Weird. Maybe she went to the bathroom?"

Bucky, having noticed your absence 8 minutes ago, didn't think you left for a bathroom break. "Maybe." Plus, you always took the girls to the bathroom with you. His eyes flitted about the room, taking one more glance before deciding to go look for you.

He decided to head for the kitchen since Wanda said you wanted a snack. He laughed at the open jar of pickles, knowing you at least passed through this room. He put the pickles away before popping his head into the lounge area.

"Y/N?" He called out, figuring this was the most likely location for you to end up.

You hummed in response, not moving from your spot on the floor. Bucky walked further into the room, slightly confused as to why he could hear you but not see you. That is, until he realized you were laying on the floor behind the couch.

"Why are you on the floor?" He smiled when he found you.

"I'm just looking at the sky." Your voice held a melancholy air as it floated through the room. Bucky's smile faltered, not used to hearing you sad. In the three years he's known you, he's only ever seen you sad because of a movie or tv show. Otherwise, you were quite literally always happy.

"Why-" he faltered, unsure how to check on you. "Is everything okay?" he nearly choked the words out, feeling slightly stressed at your sudden gloominess.

"Yeah." You took a deep breath, slowly letting it out in a deep sigh. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just... I don't know." You sigh again, still looking at the sky.

Bucky chances another question, wanting to get you talking since you're acting so off. "How are you feeling?"

"I feel... so sorry." You words were so soft that Bucky could barely hear them.

"Sorry?" He tried to hide his confusion, matching your soft tone as he sat down a few feet away from you. "About what doll?"

"Just... because I feel so sad." Tears pooled in your eyes, but you didn't stop staring at the sky.

"What are you sad about?" It's taking everything in him for Bucky not to hold you right now. He doesn't want to make you even more upset, especially because he's never seen you like this.

"No one around me knows who I am..." He watched as a tear rolled down your cheek, shining in the light from the moon.

Bucky moves closer, just close enough for him to reach out and hold your hand. You squeeze it, instant relief flooding through him that he hasn't crossed any boundaries.

He goes to speak, but you cut him off. "I'm not breaking. I won't take it. And I won't ever feel this way again." Your voice is harder, as if your angry with yourself.

"Hey, hey, hey. It's okay to have feelings. You're allowed to feel like this. Don't push it away. Talk to me. Why don't you think anyone knows who you are? We're all here for you, Y/N." He rubs his thumb over the back of your hand, trying to convey how serious he is.

You let out a dry laugh, wiping the the tears from your cheek. "My self preservation..." Bucky can tell there's more to, choosing to wait for you to continue. "All of my reservations..." You sigh again, sitting up, you scoot closer until you can lean your forehead against his shoulder. "I bottle it up. I'm my own biggest enemy." You let out another dry laugh, shaking your head without moving it from its resting place on Bucky's shoulder.

Bucky wraps his arm around you and leans his cheek against your head. "Take your time. You can talk to me." He whispered, trying to keep you talking without getting mad at yourself again.

"Well, I'd like to tell you that my sky is not blue, it's violent rain." The sounds of your sniffles break his heart. "I just pretend everything's fine because that's what I had to do when I was younger." Rather then interrupting, Bucky continues to rub small circles on your hand and your back, encouraging you to continue when you're ready. "Can I tell you a story? I... I think it'll help explain some of it."

"Of course. Anything you need, doll." He curses himself for the pet name, not wanting you to think he's joking. He just can't help it when it comes to you.

"Thank you, ducky." You chuckle, but your words are just as sincere as his. "You know I have two sisters, and I love them with all my heart, but sometimes growing up with them was hard. My older sister, she put so much pressure on herself to succeed. And, she did. She was so good at everything she did, that I felt like I had to be just as perfect.

With my younger sister, it was like it was effortless. She put just as much, if not more pressure on herself. but, she could do anything she tried to, with almost no learning curve. I always felt this crazy amount of pressure to be just as good.

My parents, they didn't really help with that. I mean, they were so supportive and I'm so grateful to them, but it was a lot of pressure. The summer between my junior and senior year of college, I wanted to get an internship. Ya know, to get some experience. It would set me up better for getting a job after graduation.

I spent months looking and applying, but nothing was working out. So, I went home for the summer. My mom would come home everyday and ask me if I got a job yet.

I spent nearly every waking hour looking for a job, even just a part time one for the summer. So one day, when we sat down for dinner and she asked if I got a job yet..."

Bucky could feel how tense you were telling this story, but he knew you needed to get it out.

"I told her, 'no, not yet' and she just seemed so disappointed. She asked if I was even applying and I snapped.

I yelled at her, something that had never really happened before. I told her I was trying. I was doing everything I could. She yelled at me for yelling and said it wasn't unreasonable to ask for updates.

I yelled right back. I kept saying I spend all day everyday trying and just when I finally get a break, she walks in and brings it all up again. I was stressed enough without her constant reminders.

I ended up running away from the table, in tears. I hid in the bathroom, there... there was a pair of scissors on the counter and I really thought about killing myself that day."

The tears are pouring out of you at this point. Bucky threw caution to the wind. He picked you up, maneuvering you to sit across his lap and lean your head on his chest. He kept rubbing circles into your back, murmuring words of encouragement.

"My younger sister tried to check on me, but I wouldn't open the door. My mom stomped down the hallway to her bedroom. I was full on having a panic attack in the hallway bathroom. I think I stayed in there for an hour before I went back to the dinner table.

My dad was in the kitchen. He put my plate in the microwave to heat up dinner for me. I ate through near constant tears, it only got worse every time he tried to ask me what happened. Why I snapped like that.

I wanted to apologize to my mom for yelling, so after I ate I went to her room. I knocked, and when she told me to come in I opened the door. I just remember her looking so angry.

I apologized. I told her I was sorry for yelling. She said something about not being unreasonable again. I cried again. When she asked what was wrong, I told her I was scared.

I couldn't put it into words though, so when she asked me 'of what?' I just shrugged. Then, she asked me if I was on my period.

God. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell at her again, To make her understand 'I only wanna die some days. But if I decide to break, who will fill the empty space?' I decided that day that I would never try to tell anyone how I actually felt."

Bucky holds you as you cry. You're not sure how long it's been when you can finally breathe enough to talk again.

"I just, so many people have bigger problems then me. I grew up in a loving household. I went to college and made friends. I got a job after I graduated. So why am I so sad sometimes? I just wanna scream but what’s the use? At night, I lay awake and I stare at the door, I just can’t take it no more."

Bucky continues comforting you when he speaks again. "Just because other people have problems, doesn't mean yours are irrelevant. You are 100% allowed to feel however you feel, even if it seems like there's no reason for it. Have you ever thought about talking to someone about all of this? I know you just said you haven't told anyone how you actually feel for years, but I think it could help." He smiled nervously when you raised your head to look at him.

"I have actually. I joked about it a lot with my roommate right out of college. I always used to say 'everybody needs therapy' as a joke. Of course, I meant it. Most people probably do need therapy." You laughed, moving your arms around Bucky's neck to hug him. "Thank you for listening to me. I like talking to you."

Of course, Bucky noticed your smile didn't reach your eyes. He was confident in his words when he spoke again. "You can always talk to me. I'll always be there to listen." He followed that with a less confident "What's been bothering you today?"

"Oh, nothing that serious. It's just all pent up inside, ya know?" You smiled again, hiding your face so he couldn't see your lies.

Of course, he could still hear it in your voice. "Y/N, you can tell me. I want to be here for you."

"I... It's just, my insecurities are hurting me." You laughed at yourself. "Here we go with the fucking riddles, again. On the plus side, I think I've cried so much I'm back to one drink Y/N."

"Well, it has been 3 hours since I left to come find you." You were grateful for Bucky's joke, needing something to lift the mood a bit. "But, don't try and change the subject. I still want to know what's got you all sad." His words were light, but you knew how serious he was.

You took a deep breath, burying your head in his neck. "How could somebody ever love me?" You spoke into his shirt, not moving your head back even an inch.

"You know I can't understand you when you talk into my neck like that." Bucky tried joking, but even he knew it would do little to calm your fears.

You moved back, lips still grazing his skin when you repeated yourself, "how could somebody ever love me?"

Bucky wanted to scream. He wanted to tell you how much he loves you. He would gladly spend every day of his life loving you, but he didn't think this was the right time. Not when you just poured your heart out to him. So he settled for the almost truth.

"Anyone would be lucky to love you. You are selfless. You put everyone else first, no matter what. You always make sure everyone has a reason to smile, even when things aren't going right. You tell the best jokes. You're great at cuddling." He squeezes you closer to him, emphasizing the point. "You are beautiful, inside and out. Everyone who comes into contact with you automatically has a better day. You are incredibly strong and independent. I've never met anyone so incredibly good. Even Steve. Anyone would be lucky to be loved by you."

His words brought more tears to your eyes, pooling in the corners. "Then how come everyone that I’ve dated says they hate it cause they don’t know what to do with me? I feel broken."

"They were all idiots. You're not broken. Not even a little bit. You're learning how to express your feelings. You just need someone who would take it slow." He pressed a kiss to your forehead, struggling not to tell you everything.

"I wonder if you’d take it slow." Your eyes go wide when that slips out. You hadn't meant to make things uncomfortable. One look at Bucky's face has you freaking out. He looks stunned. "I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to say that. It just slipped out! Oh god, you've been there for me all night and I go and fuck it up by admitting I'm in love with you."

Your eyes grow even larger. You would move out of his lap, but his arms are still holding you in place. "Shit! Maybe I'm still drunk because apparently I have no filter." You say the last part more to yourself, but he can still hear you.

"Y/N?" Your name comes out of his mouth in a soft whisper.

"Yes?" You cringe internally at messing everything up.

"I would take it slow." He smiles, leaning his forehead against yours while he waits for you to absorb his words.

"Yeah?" You whisper back, a smile ghosting your lips.

"Yeah." You both lean in, exchanging soft, slow kisses and sleepy smiles.

The two of you ended up falling asleep leaning against the back of the couch. The sun streaming through the windows, combined with the noise of the other avengers in the kitchen, wakes you up.

You nudge Bucky, grinning when he pulls you closer.

"C'mon. Let's get some breakfast." He groans again, but eventually stands up.

The two of you walk into the nearly full kitchen, surprising everyone by coming from the lounge rather than the elevators. They share amused expressions, unaware of the emotional hurdles you jumped last night.

You head right for Sam, hugging him tightly before moving on to hug everyone else.

"I just wanted to thank you all. For encouraging me to live a little last night, but also for being there for me." Tears spring to your eyes again, shocking everyone but Bucky. "You're all like a family to me and I'm so glad I have you all to lean on." You made your way back to Bucky, leaning into his side while he poured both of you some cereal.

You smile when you look at him, kissing his cheek before sliding into the stool next to his.

As if broken out of a day dream, Sam sputters out a question. "What the hell did seven drink Y/N do last night?" Thrown off both by your behaviour with Bucky and the short emotional speech.

"Oh, seven drink Y/N is an emotional little bitch. I think I cried eight years of suppressed tears." You laughed, grinning at Bucky when he squeezed your hand. "Also, I think I need a therapist." Your casual admission has Tony spitting out his breakfast.

"What the hell happened last night after you disappeared from the party?" He guffaws, trying to put the pieces together.

"Also, why aren't you even a little bit hungover?" Nat chimed in, upset at missing out on seeing you anything but cheery.

"Well, to answer Nat first, I don't get hungover. Never have, even the one time I blackout out." You shrugged at everyone's slightly jealous expressions. "To answer Tony, I had an emotional breakthrough. Bucky helped me talk through it, something I never thought I'd be able to do. Long story short, i'm going to learn how to share my feelings instead of suppressing them all."

"Suppressing them? What are you talking about? I've literally never felt anything but happiness from you before?" Wanda questioned the new development.

"Well, that's because I'm really good at hiding how I feel. I'd rather not go through it all again, so just watch the security footage from the lounge last night, yeah? I want you all to know, even if it took seven drink Y/N to share it." You quickly finished eating, pulling Bucky to the doorway.

"While you do that, we're going out. Bye!" Before they could question anything else, you ran to the elevator, dragging a very willing Bucky behind you.

"We're going out?" He questioned when the elevator doors shut.

"Yep. Get dressed, I want to see all your favorite places in New York. Even if they're different now. Take me to all your favorite spots." You both smiled, sharing another soft kiss before parting to change for the day.

"Hey," Bucky called, causing you to turn over your shoulder, "I love you."

"I love you too."

#bucky x reader #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel fanfiction #bucky barnes angst #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes one shot #tw: suicide #tw: depression #tw: panic attack

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loving-all-for-loki · 3 years

Note

i really love your writing sm. could I maybe request something with Loki and reader being slow to realize that the feeling is mutual? if you dont mind <3

A/N: Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoy my writing, that makes me very happy to hear. I tried my best with this, I wasn’t really sure how to go about it, but I think I did a fun little twist to it. The italics are flashbacks. ALSO, you don’t need to know the song “Stuck In The Middle” to read this, but it will make this fic a little bit cuter if you do, so go stream it! It’s by Tai Verdes (actually just go listen to his whole album TV). I hope you enjoy this, nonnie.

Stuck In The Middle

Loki x reader

Word count: 2255

Warnings: fluff, maybe swearing I don't remember lol

Tony decided to throw another one of his giant parties, but no one is really sure why. There’s no holiday, no accomplishment to celebrate. All you know is that the tower is filled to the brim with high named people and well rounded faces. Music is blaring as people lounge around drinking or casually dancing. The Avengers are all around, scattered among the faces.

You on the other hand are leaning against a wall drinking some pop and trying to ignore the creepy men that hit on you. Parties are fine, you don’t mind them, but you don't go around gloating about your business or accomplishments. You watch Tony walk around getting praised by millionaires and celebrities with a smirk on your face. Shaking your head, you look down and give your glass of water more attention than the people.

“You really should get out there.”

Steve stands next to you with his little suit on that makes you laugh. You’re not used to seeing him all dressed up.

“I’m not a boaster. I’ll dance here and there, but conversation isn’t my forte.”

“You're having a conversation with me, so what does that say?” He laughs.

“I don’t need your technicalities, Cap,” you laugh as well.

“You don’t even have to talk to people you don’t know. We’re all here.”

“Fair enough.”

“Do you want me to stay here with you?”

“No, Steve. Go have fun.”

He smiles at you before returning to his seat at the bar by Bucky and Sam. You smile at the three of them. You do truly love your friends, even if they bother you during alone time.

“Why would you enjoy them if they bother you?”

“Loki, stop reading my mind.”

“I can’t. You’re quite loud,” he jokes.

You roll your eyes as you take another sip of your water.

“Do you not like these grand parties?” He asks.

“Eh, I don’t mind them. Just not a bragger.”

“Ah, yes. One night dedicated to gloating about your own accomplishments while putting down others.”

“No, that’s the Oscars,” you joke.

“Who is Oscar?”

“Never mind. Why you go out and dance? I bet you have some moves.”

“Not without a partner. I’m more of a partner dancer.”

“Well, there’s plenty of pretty girls around you to ask to dance.”

“Why dance with a pretty girl when I have the most beautiful one right here leaning against a wall and ignoring everyone? That’s more my style.”

“Loki, I’m flatter,” you laugh, “is this your way of asking me to dance?”

“Possibly. Thor has been bugging me to ‘get out there’ and I don’t like anyone here beside you.”

“Such a gentleman.”

Loki rolls his eyes as he takes your hand in his and leads you to the dance floor. The song changes into a fun chill song you recognize as “Stuck In The Middle”. You and Loki dance together as the two of you laugh. At some point, he pulls you into him, holding him at your chest.

“Remember when we first met?” He asks.

“Yeah, I do. You were arguing with Tony and Thor.”

“I want to return to Asgard and I will no matter what you say.”

“You’re a war criminal serving time here for your attacks. If you even attempted to go back, the American army would shoot you down.”

“And good luck to them.”

“My brother is a god, Man of Iron, do not forget.”

“Shut it, point break. You can try to leave if you want to die.”

Loki scoffs at Tony’s threat. As he goes to open his mouth, he sees a girl wander into the living area and scour the kitchen. The three watch her in silent and she opens every cabinet. Loki is curious by the girl with her long black hair and sweats on, clearing not caring about the argument happening. She finally turns around with her mouth filled with pretzels from shoving them in. She looks at the two gods and Tony with a wide eyed look, clearly asking “what” in her face and shrugging.

“Am I interrupting something?” She asks after swallowing.

Tony laughs and shakes his head, walking over to her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

“You’re fine, sweetheart. We’re just having a disagreement. Go enjoy your pretzels,” Tony chuckles.

Loki watches the way she submits to Tony and follows his lead, wondering who she is and why she listens to Tony without hesitation.

“I was so intrigued by you, this small little thing who looked so full of life. What happened to her?”

You laugh hard, “You got to know me, that’s what.”

Loki hadn’t seen the innocent girl in two weeks, wondering if she was even real. There had been some kind of glow to her so had he known better, he’d say she’s an angel.

Loki decided to coop himself up in the library while he was stuck on Midgard. Since he was stuck here, he thought he’d at least spend time doing something enjoyable. He’d spend hours in there until he had read every book and started to reread them. Then, as if the universe had heard him, the innocent girl had returned, putting a book away and getting a new one. She immediately walked out of the room and down to the tower’s elevator. Without hesitation, Loki got up and followed her at a quick pace, wanting to get in the elevator at the same time. As he walked in, they stood in silence next to each other and Loki realized he had no plan.

“I’m Loki. I don’t think we properly met.”

“Y/N.”

Loki feels his heart pound as she speaks to him with her heavenly tone. She sounds exactly like he thought she’d sound. It fits her so perfectly and he wants nothing more than to listen to her talk all day.

“I apologize for anything you heard the other day. Stark and I don’t see eye to eye.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she laughs, “He can strike a nerve sometimes.”

“That is an understatement,” Loki says, losing himself in his anger towards the billionaire.

You laugh at his comment which eases his anger. Loki is filled with joy knowing you find humor in his words, learning you’re not as stuck up as the other Midgardians.

“You read?”

“Yes, I love to.”

“What’s your favorite book?”

“Sense and Sensibility.”

“I don’t think I know that one.”

“It’s a Midgardian classic,” you say with some snark.

“I’ll have to read it. May I ask what you are doing for the rest of the day?”

The elevator opens and the two of you walk off, Loki still following you with awe.

“I’m going to spar with Steve for a little bit. You can join if you want.”

“I will not participate, but will not refuse to be of company.”

You smile at him as you walk towards the training room. Steve stands there getting ready and is surprised to see the stoic god behind you.

“Is he joining?”

“Just to watch.”

Loki sits down on the bench and leaves you to get changed and stretch. He can’t comprehend how something as sweet as you can be so willing to fight one of the super soldiers. He can’t even lie that he’s scared for you, but he’s soon proven wrong in seconds as you knock Steve down to the ground in a sweet kick. You and the super soldier go at it and you prove to be a worthy match for Steve. Loki is shocked by your swiftness and strength, clearly underestimating you.

“Well, I’m impressed.”

“I didn’t expect you to be as tough as you are.” “Wow, you underestimated me. I’m hurt, Loki,” you tease.

“I’ve learned to expect the unexpected with you.”

“How so?”

“I think we all remember your silly holiday ‘April fools’.”

April fools is one of your favorite holidays and now that the trickster god is living with you, all of the avengers are on high alert all day. No one realized he didn’t know about the special day, so Loki wondered why everyone seemed to ignore him more than usual. He walked into the living space to see you sitting on the couch with another book.

“Did I do something?” He asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m aware I’m not well liked, but it seems that I haven’t seen anyone all day except for you right now.”

“It’s because its’ April fools and they’re scared of you.”

A little ping of pride hits Loki.

“They’re scared of me? And what is April fools?”

“It’s a dumb holiday here where you prank people and they’re worried you’re going to pull something. After all, you are you.”

“You have a whole day dedicated to messing with people?”

“Yeah, usually it’s something simple like telling people you’re pregnant when you’re not or tying the spray nozzle on the sink together so everyone gets wet when they use it. Other people go big which is what they expected from you.”

“That doesn’t shock me,” he laughs.

“Yeah, I wanted to prank them, but I think they’ve left the building entirely.”

“You say we have the tower to the two of us?” Loki can think of a couple ways he’d spend alone time with you, but the idea of messing with the Avengers with your help is too tempting. He’ll have to put his other ideas to the side for the moment. “We can still do something.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not sure, but you could think of something, I’m sure.”

“We could glue everything down so you can use anything?”

“Like stick the together?”

“Exactly, but we could use your magic so we could reverse it later.”

“I like how you think.”

About two hours later, the Avengers return from wherever they had been throughout the day and run to their rooms to avoid Loki. As soon as they noticed the two of you relaxing on the couch, they tensed up and sprinted. You pretended to not have told Loki about anything and watched them get nervous, trying to hide your amusement.

It’s only minutes later when they all run back in yelling at you about how they can’t pick anything up or open drawers. Loki looks over to you among the chaos and smiles, seeing the wide proud smile across your face.

“That was a lot of fun. You surprised me in the past though, too.”

“Whatever do you mean?” He laughs.

You had gotten hurt on a mission and found yourself with a broken arm. Every day activities became 10x harder because you have to do it with your non-dominant hand and it’s started to get annoying. You’ve been attempting to make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for about 25 minutes now. Loki walked in to see you struggling with peanut butter all over your hand and a glob on the bread. There’s a giant tear in the middle of the piece you’re spreading it on and a frown on your face.

“You look like you’re struggling.”

“Thank you, captain obvious!” You exclaim in an angry tone, glaring daggers at the god.

“Do you need some help?”

“I would love some because clearly, I’m having some difficulty.”

Loki comes over and helps you finish making your sandwich. You sit down to eat but because of your bad mood, you don’t even want it now. Loki notices your distress and shakes it head, waving his hand by.

“You’re healed, now eat your sandwich.”

You look at him in confusion until you realize your arm doesn’t hurt as much when you move it. You rip off your cast and feel around to feel how your arm is completely healed.

“Thank you!”

“You can be very sweet sometimes.”

“Don’t let Stark hear that, he’ll think I have mind controlled you.”

The Avengers all sit around the bar and watch you and Loki dance. They have a big smile on their face as they see you two have fun, laughing and talking. Thor has never seen his brother look so relaxed and joyful before, it’s refreshing to see him happy. Steve and Tony don’t miss the way you look at Loki, it’s filled with more love than any friends would look at each with.

“You think there’s more there?” Thor asks.

Steve and Tony turn to look at him with confused yet amused faces. “Thor, you really are an idiot,” Tony laughs.

The song comes up to the last chorus and you and Loki have stopped talking. He swings you around and holds his body next to yours. The music get’s both of your attention.

Cause we’re stuck in the middle of lover and friends

And we’re losing every part of the benefits

You’ve hurt me more than I ever knew

But it’s shitty because I’m doing the same to you

As the lyrics set in, you remember all the things Loki has done for you. Making your PB&J, recommending books, keeping you company when the Avengers are away, dancing with you at New Years parties, giving you a hug when you return from missions, and not leaving your side when you’re hurt. Loki thinks of all the things that made you bearable. Your sense of humor, the smile on your face when you see him, the way you’ll reread books you love, the way you make fun of others with him, and how you defend him when they make fun of him.

“I think I like you,” you both say.

#loki fluff #loki fanfic #loki fan fiction #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #loki #loki x reader fluff #loki layfeyson x reader #loki oneshot #marvel x reader

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buckys-black-dress · 3 years

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stargazing (bucky barnes x fem!reader)

a/n: so this idea totally just came to me because this trope is honestly so cute and i love these and i need to get this out of my system. i listened to stargazing by the neighborhood while writing this and i LOVE this song, so i’d recommend listening while reading! (just listen to the whole album).

also-- happy new year! 2020 quite literally fucked us up but im so grateful this year was the one where i decided to come on here and share my work with yall. i love every single one of my readers, so THANK YOU! anyways, without further ado...

enjoy my dearies!!! -ali

wc: 2.8k

When you first became best friends with Rebecca Barnes in preschool, the last place you’d expected to end up was with a massive crush on her older brother.

James, or Bucky, as he likes to be called my his close friends, was basically the perfect guy for you. He was kind, witty, and didn’t treat you like a child. (Anymore).

Now that you had graduated high school and were in you first year of college, Bucky was in his second year. And things were getting rough.

You were a Cognitive Psychology major, and your main interest was in becoming an occupational therapist. You were attending Columbia University.

And of course, so was Bucky, studying English Literature. Rebecca was studying at FIT, her main interest being in fashion design. All three of you couldn’t bear to leave New York City, so you all decided to stay nearby.

Since all three of you were in the same area, more or less, you three remained close and tight-knit. Since you were still a freshman, you decided to dorm on campus, while Rebecca and Bucky did the same. Bucky was in a fraternity, so he had a place in the house, and you often found yourself hanging out in his room, having been introduced to most of his brothers.

Like today, it was Thursday night, and your classes were cancelled for tomorrow. You were in no rush to get back to your room, and your roommate was also out at her boyfriend’s. Rebecca thought you were finishing up an essay, though.

“Y/N, you’re crashing here tonight?” Bucky’s voice caused his chest to rumble under your place on it.

“Yeah, is that alright?” You asked, looking up at him.

“Of course, Y/N/N.” He smiled back down at you, trying to ignore the fluttering in his chest at your doe eyes.

She’s your sister’s best friend. Becca would hate you.

“I’m gonna wash up before I fall asleep, Buck.” You said with a yawn, lifting yourself off of Bucky’s warm, comfortable bed.

Bucky watched your form disappear out of his room to the bathroom next door, his chest deflating with a breath he didn’t know he was holding in.

I’m so fucked.

Making your short walk to the bathroom, your mind was filled with thoughts, and you really didn’t know what to do in this current situation.

You and Becca had been best friends since you were both in preschool.

And now you were pretty certain that you had the biggest crush known to humankind on her older brother.

Staring at your reflection in the mirror as you pat your face dry, you wondered what would happen if this went further.

What would happen if you told Bucky that you liked him?

What would Becca do if she knew you liked her brother?

Shaking your head at yourself, you knew you couldn’t do that to Becca. She’s been there for you through everything that’s happened to you. To just turn around and tell her that you’ve fallen for her brother- you don’t know if that would be the right thing to do.

But how could you just outwardly deny your feelings for Bucky?

A knock on the bathroom door drew you out of your thoughts, letting whoever was knocking know that they could come in.

“Hey, Y/N, how ya been?” It was one of Bucky’s closest friends whom you also knew growing up, Steve Rogers.

“Hey Steve, I’m good. How ‘bout you?” You asked, getting ready to head back to Bucky’s room.

“Good, good, y’know, Peg’s keepin’ me on my toes.” He flashed you a smile, a blush creeping up on his face at the mention of his girlfriend.

“Aw, Stevie’s in loooove,” You sing-songed, pinching his cheek.

“Well, I think I could say the same for you, Y/N/N.” Steve scoffed back in retort, but your breath hitched at the words.

“Shut up, Steve...” You mumbled, twiddling your fingers.

“Y/N, I’m serious... You and Buck ‘ve been spending a lot of time together and I can tell. He’s my best friend, and I know when my best friend is taken for someone. Trust me, Y/N, your feelings aren’t one-sided.” And with that, he steps into the bathroom, leaving you reeling at his words.

Lost in your thought again, you walked back to Bucky’s room. You tucked yourself under his warm duvet, as you fell into a deep slumber with his arm wrapped around your waist, thinking about the weight of it around you as you fell asleep.

The next morning was... quiet... to say the least. After your encounter with Steve in the bathroom, you really didn’t know how to feel about your feelings towards Bucky. He felt the tenseness that was rolling off of you in waves, making him wonder if he did something to make you upset.

Bucky wondered if he was doing too much, wondering if he had caused you to be uncomfortable with him for some reason.

So naturally, he pulled back.

As the days went on and got colder, you found yourself spending more time in your dorm, or places that weren’t associated with Bucky in your mind.

And it was safe to say the both of you were losing it.

Bucky was slowly losing his composure, where he would participate the most in his seminar classes, he was quiet and folded in on himself, losing his confidence.

Where you were the most outspoken on certain topics in your classes, you became a bit of a hermit.

And almost everyone noticed.

Most notably, Becca and Steve.

When you returned from class at the end of a long week without Bucky, you invited Becca over to have take out in your room.

“So, how’s your week been?” She asks, reaching into your takeout box and grabbing a piece of garlic honey chicken.

Rolling your eyes, you say “Fine, same old. You? How’d that design project go?”

“It was awesome! My professor really loved my piece, she said it was one of the ‘most original takes’ on this project she’s seen!” Becca was ecstatic and you were so proud of her.

“That’s so awesome, Bec! One day you’re gonna have to make me something that I can wear, and when someone asks me where I got it, I’ll just say, ‘oh, sorry my best friend made it, you’ll have to wait ‘til it hits the runways to buy it.’” You laugh, pointing your chopsticks at her.

“Y/N, stop, you flatterer.” She smirked, looking back down at her food. “Hey, I’ve also been meaning to ask... have you noticed Bucky acting weird as of late, or anything? Is it just me or is he like... way more quiet than usual?” Becca asked inquisitively.

“Oh- uh, I actually have no idea. I haven’t really seen him that much this week. Just around campus here and there.” You shrug your shoulders, the pit in your stomach nagging at you.

“Really? You guys usually hang out more often...” She responds, and your face burns in embarrassment.

“Wh- How do you know how often your brother and I hang out?” Your voice didn’t even feel like your own as you spoke, quickly occupying it with food.

“Well, he does live with Steve... Apparently you’re around there pretty often.” Rebecca eyes you, seeing your body language and how uncomfortable you seem. “Y/N... If you like my brother, that’s okay. I think you guys would be cute together. And I can tell you like him, so don’t try to deny it.” Becca smiles, reaching to rest a hand on yours in comfort.

“Wh- You don’t care?” You ask in confusion, expecting a bit of a more dramatic reaction.

“Of course I care, I care about my two favorite people being happy. And if they’re happy together, then that’s even better!” She explains, and your head spins.

“I- I’m telling you this in confidence, Becca. You can’t tell anyone, not Steve, not Peggy, and absolutely not Bucky...” She nods, moving closer to you. “I...I do like Bucky. A lot. But I don’t think he likes me that way. I mean, just look at his exes. I’m not like Natasha, or those gorgeous girls. And what if he just sees me as his friend. Like a little sister?” You finish, your hands flailing around and out of breath.

“Y/N... I know my brother, but I can’t read his mind. If I had to take a wild guess... I’d say he likes you too. Based on what Steve tells me, based on how Bucky acts when you come up in conversation... his eyes light up, dude. I think you need to talk to him, face to face.” Rebecca explains, giving her best advice. “You both deserve to be happy, and I think you could both give that to each other.” She softly smiles.

“Thanks, Becca. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” You laugh, pulling her into a tight hug. “I’ll talk to him.”

In the frat house across the campus, Steve and Bucky were sitting in the living room amongst some of their other brothers.

“Buck, what’s been up with you this week?” Tony, a senior and president of the frat asks from the kitchen.

“Hm?” Bucky looks up, confused at the question.

“You’ve been... off all week long.” Sam chimes in from next to him on the couch, eyes leaving the football match on the TV.

“I’m fine, why?” Bucky deflects, taking a sip of his drink in hand.

“Whatever you say, but I have a feeling this has to do with Y/N... haven’t seen her around here at all this week.” Tony points out, plopping down on a futon.

Steve’s eyes widened, looking down at his phone that he’s been on all night.

Little did Bucky know, Rebecca was feeding him information about you to him directly, trying to make sense of his friend’s odd behavior this week.

His eyes shot to Bucky’s, trying to gauge his reaction to Tony’s mention of you.

“Yeah, she’s been.... busy, I guess. Haven’t really talked to her.” Bucky says nonchalantly.

“Why not? You two are basically attached at the hip... like, Friday nights are usually your thing together. I thought you’d man up and ask her out already.” Sam’s response caused a stillness in the room, everyone looking at Bucky for his next move.

But it was quiet.

“She’s... she��s my sister’s best friend... I don’t think Becca would appreciate me taking her best friend out to dinner.” Bucky said in a low voice, clearing his throat.

“Have you asked her how she feels about it?” Thor asks from his spot on the other couch. “Maybe she’s fine with it, she doesn’t seem to be too stuck up...” He suggests.

“My sister isn’t stuck up, man. Watch it.” He responds defensively.

“I wasn’t saying that! But you should talk to her about it, that’s all I’m saying!” Thor fights back.

“I just- I don’t know, last week when Y/N was here, she went to the bathroom to wash up at night, and when she came back she was acting totally different. She’s usually comfortable around me, but she was acting like... like she was uncomfortable around me. I thought I did something to make her feel that way, so I kinda backed off this week.” Bucky explains, trying to understand what went wrong.

“Well, did she say anything? Did she try to reach out this week?” Tony asks.

“I mean, she texted me a few times, but it was casual conversation. I can’t tell how she’s feeling. I like her, but I don’t want to make things weird for her and Becca, or Becca and I.”

And this is where Steve chimes in.

“I mean, come on Buck, it’s obvious she likes you too. I think you need to talk to her, because Becca wants you two to be happy. I don’t think she’d care that much, y’know?”

“But what if I make things awkward? Like, what if I read the signals wrong this whole time, and she doesn’t even really like me?” Bucky was now going into a deep spiral, and Steve needed to pull him out, fast.

“Buck, I don’t think so. You should talk to her, face to face.” Steve encouraged.

“You think so?” Bucky wasn’t so convinced.

“Yes!” A chorus of voices echoed in the house, causing Bucky to jump to his feet, ready to confront this head-on.

“Okay, yeah, yes, I’m gonna tell her how I feel. I got this, I’ll be fine-” But his pumping-up session was cut short from the doorbell ringing through the house.

Steve got up, “I got it.” He simply said, smirking mischievously as he turned to face the door and twisted the knob.

And of course, it was none other than you.

“Hey Buck? I think it’s for you!” Steve yells from the doorway, stepping out of the way and directing everyone in the living room to hide out of sight. Of course, they were all still eavesdropping and lurking about.

“Doll, what’re ya doin’ here?” Bucky was beyond confused, you timing was impeccable.

“I-I have some things I wanna talk about. I just, I think we need to talk.” You say, looking up at him.

“Y-Yeah, come inside, it’s freezing out. What’s up, doll?” He asks, pulling you into the house and into the living room, sitting down next to you on a couch, making sure to face you.

“Everything’s alright... but I need to get this off my chest before I go crazy-” You stop yourself from rambling further. “I was having dinner with Becca earlier, and we... talked... about some things. And apparently, someone was telling her about all the time we spend together.” Bucky was listening, but cursing Steve in his head, knowing he was behind it.

“And I know last week I was acting weird, but I promise, it wasn’t because of something you did. Well, it kinda was, b-but not something bad, y’know?” You explain, trying to get Bucky to understand how you feel.

“Whaddaya mean, doll? If I did something, tell me, because I would never want to hurt you-” He started, trying to pinpoint his actions.

“You made me like you! There, you happy?” You exclaim, hands covering your cherry red face. “I said it! I like you. And I totally understand if you don’t feel the same way, I’m just your little sister’s annoying friend, I get it-”

But instead of the feeling of rejection, you were met with Bucky’s lips on yours, his hands cupping your cheeks.

Bucky was kissing you.

Bucky was kissing you!

Holy fuck!

What. The. Fuck.

But before you could overthink anything, you heard loud whoops and cheers coming from all around you.

“What the hell? Steve?” You asked, looking around, trying to process the last minute.

“Finally! Took ya two idiots long enough! God, Becca and I didn’t know how much longer we’d have to be your freakin’ puppet masters.” He laughed from his spot in the kitchen.

“Come on doll, let’s go upstairs to talk, where we could have some privacy...” Bucky said pointedly, looking at his brothers as they kept cheering as you two made your way up the stairs.

Once the door closed behind you two, you were quite literally speechless.

“You kissed me.” You pointed out the obvious, since your mind was still reeling.

“I did.” Bucky simply answers.

“...Why?” You ask, like an idiot.

“Because, for the past three years I’ve had the biggest crush known to man on you... and I knew if I didn’t kiss you then, I never would. Kind of a life or death situation here, doll.” He jokes trying to gauge your mood.

“Bucky...” You sighed, walking closer to him, holding his face, “you can kiss me whenever you want.” And punctuated your sentence with a kiss.

“Well... then... can I call you my girlfriend?” He asks, looking into your twinkling eyes. Bucky’s large hands cover your waist, pulling you closer against him.

“Yeah... I think you can.” You answer, the sparkle never leaving your eyes.

“Hmmm... finally.” Bucky hums, closing the gap between your lips over and over again.

Your loud giggle fills the room as Bucky peppers kisses all over your face, trying to make up for lost time.

“Hey, make sure to use protection, kids!” someone’s voice comes from down the hall from’s Bucky’s room.

“Shut up, Sam!” You both yell in unison, resuming your previous activities.

And in this moment, there’s nowhere else either of you would rather be.

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shefanispeculator · 3 years

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I'm slightly disappointed to log onto Zoom and find Gwen Stefani in Los Angeles. I wanted to see the ranch. Stefani spent most of the pandemic in Oklahoma with her fiancé and fellow The Voice coach Blake Shelton, with whom she has recently collaborated on a string of country radio hits, alongside a kitsch Christmas song. For a ska-pop superstar, it's a pivot, but Stefani and Shelton are cute together — picture-perfect in their opposite attraction.

Country Gwen exists, her urban counterpart assures me, but on this particular MacBook she's nowhere to be seen. I'm not sure what crude regional stereotypes I was expecting (Stefani spitting sunflower seeds? Shelton line dancing in the background?) but I get Californian sunshine instead, illuminating a version of Stefani more familiar from my teenage years, when Love. Angel. Music. Baby and its follow-up The Sweet Escape spawned millions of fans, haters and imitators. She's platinum blonde, red lipsticked and wearing a black-and-white outfit that matches the decor. The checkerboard pattern can be traced back to an even earlier era, when Stefani and her No Doubt bandmates were '80s teenagers obsessed with two-tone acts like Madness and The Specials.

Cowboy boots wouldn't fit this picture, and nor would Stefani's glitzy showgirl outfits from The Voice, where she just wrapped another season as a celebrity coach. As she prepares to release her fourth solo record, and enters the fifth decade of an extraordinarily successful music career, Gwen Stefani is re-re-branding as... Gwen Stefani.

Top: Local Boogeyman, Pants: GCDS, Shoes: Valentino, Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own, Engagement ring: Gwen's own

"But what is that?" Stefani asks with seriousness, as we consider the possibility of some essential, inherent Gwen. "Everyone's interpretation of what I am and how I sing, I mean, that's what this era is about for me."

Said era kicked off late last year, with the music video for "Let Me Reintroduce Myself." It saw Stefani playfully revisit the wardrobes of album cycles past, from the ab-bearing tomboy tank tops of "Hollaback Girl" to the club kid blue hair mascara of '90s No Doubt. Her Harajuku Girls also make a return. The entire visual is a huge flex, not only for the sheer volume of iconic career moments recreated in dutiful detail, but the fact Stefani can still fit into the clothes originally worn during all of them. She looks eerily the same, frighteningly good, ageing in reverse at the same pace as her frequent collaborator Pharrell.

"It's really a blessing to be able to have such a long career, where there really is nothing to prove anymore."

Pop stars are expected to be young forever, in looks but also in their capacity to innovate new trends. Which makes the nostalgic music video a curious choice. Doesn't Stefani know by now that the cardinal rule of pop is to avoid repeating yourself? That even the hottest artists in the world are basically required by law to create completely new eras from scratch every six months in order to appease fans and maintain maximum TikTok-ready relevance?

Of course she does, but that doesn't mean she has to participate. Stefani isn't trying to chase down her contemporaries, despite clearly possessing the physical fitness required. "It's really a blessing to be able to have such a long career, where there really is nothing to prove anymore," she says. "It's a different energy. You know, it's really just about doing it to do it, as opposed to trying to make a statement or make a mark."

Corset: Ronald van der Kemp, Bracelets: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Engagement ring: Gwen's own

Even the Saweetie remix of her latest single "Slow Clap" happened on a whim, after the younger artist happened to post a video of herself vibing to Stefani's 2004 single "Luxurious" on Instagram Stories. They knocked out the song and accompanying video in a day. Neither seems bothered by the Old Navy meme. "It was just this little video that we did on the fly," Stefani says. "It just happened. It just feels good to put new stuff out there."

Stefani completed a two-year Vegas greatest hits residency in 2019, which gave her a sense of perspective on her own legacy. "You make a new record because that's what is exciting for you," she says. "But people really just want to hear the records after a while that were the backdrop to their lives, a 'Don't Speak' or a 'Just a Girl' or a 'Hollaback Girl,' or whatever it was for them. So, you know, it's hard — you can only be new when you're new, and that's just the truth, and I know that."

She says she was pleasantly surprised that "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" charted at all, and that she only found out it did when Shelton walked into the kitchen to show her the iTunes numbers. "I burst out crying with joy, because it was like, 'Whoa, really?' I think I'd set myself up to be quite realistic about where I'm at."

Stefani, endlessly polite and self-deprecating in conversation, which on her end mostly consists of endearingly earnest run-on monologues, says she still has "tons" of insecurities. I get the impression she has been trying harder to give herself credit lately. She recalls recently hearing Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on the car radio and finding herself in awe of the song's timeless catchiness.

Suit: Balmain, Earrings and choker: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own

"But then I started thinking," she says, in a goofy Cher Horowitz tone. "Like, I have a few of those myself." She talks of this realization as a genuine breakthrough, which is a little worrying for a woman who has sold 40 million records. No shit, she has a "few of those." More of them than Lauper, actually.

More new music is coming along slowly, but I've caught Stefani on a day when the horizon looks closer than usual, and while things haven't quite fallen into place yet, she's feeling more confident that they eventually will. "I'm at the end," she declares. "The idea of going for a session and not being with my kids or the idea of taking time away from Blake doesn't fuel my fire like it did two months ago. I need to decide, wrap it up, put out the project."

Crucially, there's no rush. The album will simply arrive sometime this year, tracklist and title currently undecided.

"You're talking to me at a weird transitional time," Stefani says repeatedly throughout our conversation, which sometimes takes on the cathartic tone of therapy. But having time in the first place is a new feeling.

Bracelet and choker: Dana Kemp (The Residency Experience), Obsession necklace: Lidow Archive, Gold necklaces: Gwen's own, Clothing: Blumarine, Boots: Philipp Plein

NO DOUBT WERE A BAND for nine years before getting on the radio. Enough time for Stefani and bassist Tony Kanal to be in a long term relationship then break up and write a whole hit album about it. All of the Fleetwood Mac drama was resolved pre-fame, which enabled the group to capitalize on the surprise success of Tragic Kingdom singles like "Don't Speak" and "Just a Girl" with a world tour that lasted almost three years. Three more albums followed, and Stefani has reinforced her household name status in every decade since, launching a solo career and multiple fashion lines while never totally cutting the cord from her original musical project.

In other words, record executives have been dictating Stefani's schedule since the mid-'90s. She even sings about it on Love. Angel. Music. Baby opener "What You Waiting For," in which her biological clock ticks like a metronome. Interscope Co-Founder Jimmy Iovine, who discovered No Doubt and continued to work with Stefani on her solo output, was quick to point out that his client's prime childbearing years were also her last opportunity to cross over into pop stardom. And after her first record went number one, it only made sense to lay down some new tracks straight away.

"Whether or not I get the response that I would hope to get — because that's what I'm used to, because I'm so damn spoiled and I've tasted the blood of success — I still got to do the creative journey."

"I had the baby, the first one, and it was only like eight weeks after I had him, that Jimmy was calling me saying, you've got to go in the studio with Akon," Stefani recalls cheerfully. "Like, Akon wants to work with you. Like, no, I'm nursing my baby. But then I couldn't say no." And then? "We wrote 'Sweet Escape.'" And then? "I went on a world tour." And then? "In the month that I got home from that one hundred and whatever shows it was, I got pregnant with Zuma. So then that was that." (It wasn't. Admittedly: "Then it was like, No Doubt, let's do another record.")

Things are different now: "You can just drop singles and you don't have to put a record out. But if you want to put a record out, you can work on it slowly." But even as she talks of slowing down, speculating that she might not even go on tour after the pandemic ends, in the next sentence Stefani's back to admitting that there's more work to be done, that she wants to write a couple more songs for her new record, "just to make sure."

Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience) Choker: Chanel, Necklaces: Gwen's own, Gloves: Laurel DeWitt, Top: Local Boogeyman

"The creation is the thing that fuels me so much," she says. "Whether or not I get the response that I would hope to get — because that's what I'm used to, because I'm so damn spoiled and I've tasted the blood of success — I still got to do the creative journey."

Like any good lyricist, she reaches out to her listener, hoping to convey a more universal point. "It's just probably the same for you as a writer," she guesses. "You know, it's the anticipation. You're in it now. You're getting the information. This is what you live for. You're doing the interview and then you're going to write it. And that's going to be the challenge."

GWEN STEFANI WAS PUTTING out diary entry pop when Olivia Rodrigo was still in diapers and Taylor Swift was but a humble Pennsylvania Christmas tree heiress. She struggles to pen lyrics that aren't confessional ("I'm not a creative writer when it comes to like, 'Oh, let's just write a sad song about something that didn't happen to me'"), and occasionally re-traumatizes herself when performing old hits. Return of Saturn deep cut "Dark Blue" triggers "crazy, just horrible" recollections of a past relationship. Even "Don't Speak" felt emotional onstage in Vegas.

But after releasing an excruciating divorce album, This Is What the Truth Feels Like, in 2016, Stefani is back to writing happy songs only. She's getting married, after all. She won't be releasing any of her trademark breakup anthems anytime soon. "Girl," she laughs, "I think I've had my fair share."

Bow: Laurel DeWitt, Earrings: Lana Jewelry (The Residency Experience), Bracelets: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Shirt: Vintage Archive, Dress: Erdem, Tights: Capezio, Shoes: Marc Jacobs (Lidow Archive)

Stefani and Shelton's relationship has puzzled some fans. Shelton, a country radio phenomenon, never endorsed Trump in the 2016 election, but he did come close. Earlier this year, he was criticized for releasing a song called "Minimum Wage," about finding small joys during periods of economic struggle, at the peak of a recession.

Is Gwen Stefani a Republican now? She's not offended by the question, or really anything I have to ask. She has been famous for so long that she expects and even embraces scrutiny. "If you're going to be a star, that's what you get," she says. "You know what I mean? You get what you get, and you don't get upset, at all."

As for her politics, it's read-between-the-lines."I can see how people would be curious, but I think it's pretty obvious who I am," she says. "I've been around forever. I started my band because we were really influenced by ska, which was a movement that happened in the late '70s, and it was really all about people coming together. The first song I ever wrote was a song called 'Different People,' which was on the Obama playlist, you know, a song about everyone being different and being the same and loving each other. The very first song I wrote."

One of very few multi-racial bands playing stadium shows for hoardes of American teenangers in the 1990s, No Doubt did very literally embody those second-wave ska principles of inclusion. Stefani even wore bindis and saris on stage as a symbol of cultural exchange with Kanal, who is Indian-American, briefly kickstarting a white girl facial jewelry trend that it's safe to say would not fly in 2021.

Rings (left): Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience)

"The Specials and The Selecter and all those groups, and what they were doing in the late '70s was this whole kind of anti-racism, we come together, Black and white ska movement," Stefani elaborates on the band's founding principles. "And we were sort of echoing that in the '80s when we did it, we were like the third generation of ska."

Ska she's always happy to discuss, but Stefani was brought up to keep her electoral preferences personal, and that rule has held for her entire career. "The whole point of voting, is you have this personal space to feel how you feel," she explains. "I use my platform to share my life story and to engage with people and to exchange whatever gift I was giving. I'm not a political science major. I am not that person. Everyone knows that. So why would I even talk about it?"

"I don't need to go on Instagram and say 'girl power.' I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me."

It never has been. Looking back, it's weird that "Just a Girl" is so integral to Gwen Stefani's brand. She's never written anything else with remotely the same message, and or publicly identified as a feminist. To Stefani, it's just a song about growing up, and "all of a sudden you realize your gender." It wasn't meant as a protest or anthem: in fact, being her breakout hit, she didn't think anyone other than her bandmates and some local fans would ever hear it.

"I don't even know if I knew what feminist at that time was," she says. "I was very sheltered growing up with my family. I wasn't political. I wasn't angry." Even now: "I don't need to go on Instagram and say 'girl power.' I just need to live and be a good person and leave a trail of greatness behind me. Stop talking about it and stop trying to bully everybody about it. Just do it. And that's how I feel like I've lived my life."

WHEN STEFANI WAS GROWING up in 1970s Anaheim, her father got a job doing market research for Yamaha, which required frequent business trips to Japan. He'd bring home Sanrio toys, as well as anecdotes about the Tokyo district of Harajuku, where teenagers were dressing like Elvis, and "taking all these American things and making them Japanese." His daughter was entranced. "He would be telling me these things my whole life, like my whole life. I had a deep fascination."

So when No Doubt played Japan in 1996, Stefani describes, "It was a pretty big deal for me." The tour was the first time she'd traveled outside of the United states, save one trip to Italy when she was 21. "I just was inspired," she recalls. "It's a world away. And at that time it was even further, because you couldn't see it on the internet. I don't think a younger generation can even imagine what it's like to not have access to the world."

From then on, Japan became one of Stefani's biggest career motivations, especially when it came to her solo albums. If she could just write more hits, she'd get to tour there again, see the street style, visit the vintage stores. "If you read the actual lyrics [in 'What You Waiting For?'], it talks about being a fan of Japan and how if I do good, I get to go back there," she says.

In the meantime, she decided she'd bring Japan to Los Angeles. "I never got to have dancers with No Doubt. I never got to change costumes. I never got to do all of those fun girl things that I always love to do. So I had this idea that I would have a posse of girls — because I never got to hang with girls — and they would be Japanese, Harajuku girls, because those are the girls that I love. Those are my homies. That's where I would be if I had my dream come true, I could go live there and I could go hang out in Harajuku."

Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience, Gold Necklaces: Gwen's own, Top: Local Boogeyman, Pants: GCDS, Shoes: Valentino

Dancers Maya Chino ("Love"), Jennifer Kita ("Angel"), Rino Nakasone ("Music") and Mayuko Kitayama ("Baby") would go on to accompany Stefani for her next two album cycles, dancing on stage and in her videos while also making silent, but very well-dressed, awards show appearances. Kita, who'd grown up in LA, visited Japan for the first time on Stefani's tour.

In a 2006 interview with Blender magazine, comedian Margaret Cho compared the Harajuku Girls to a minstrel show. The backlash against them has been consistent ever since. Stefani, to this day, disagrees.

"If we didn't buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn't have so much beauty, you know?" she says. "We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more."

Hello Kitty merch was harder to come by when she was a kid, but in other ways, life felt easier. "I think that we grew up in a time where we didn't have so many rules. We didn't have to follow a narrative that was being edited for us through social media, we just had so much more freedom."

Earrings, bracelets and rings: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Necklaces: Gwen's own, Dress: GCDS, Shirt: Faith Connexion, Tights: Capezio, Shoes: Marc Jacobs (Lidow Archive)

Stefani's penchant for rule breaking has always been apparent in her music as much as her aesthetic. Genre-wise, she's a randomista. The chart success of No Doubt's bouncing ska beats felt like an accidental post-grunge-era glitch in the matrix, and it's insane to this day that one of Stefani's biggest solo hits samples "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof, by way of '90s British dancehall duo Louchie Lou & Michie One. That another, "Wind It Up," features earnest Sound of Music yodeling.

"I just make up whatever comes out," Stefani says of her songwriting process. "I don't even know where it comes from. I feel like it just comes from the source. It's not trained, and it's not perfect, it's just real."

She looks back on the Love.Angel.Music.Baby era as unusually experimental and artistically fulfilling. "It was just a really incredible time, and a very creative time. I feel like it was just a really creative project."

STEFANI VIEWS HER CAREER success as mostly a matter of luck. Pop stardom is God-given and mysterious."Because the fact I made it, it doesn't make any sense," she reflects. "It's written in the stars. You know what I'm saying? I'm not the most talented. I'm not the most pretty. I'm not the most smart. None of those things. But I made it, right?"

Clothing: Blumarine, Bracelet and choker: Dena Kemp (The Residency Experience), Obsession necklace: Lidow Archive, Gold necklaces: Gwen's Own

Every week on The Voice she watches objectively gifted musicians fail at becoming artists. "I watched people that went through that without seeing their faces, without knowing what color they are. And I chose the ones that pulled my heartstrings. And even though they were so talented, none of them have had careers. It's made me look at myself and even feel even more amazed by the fact that anyone cared or cares."

If all of this is actually so out of her control, then Stefani feels safe stepping back a little bit. "I don't have that fuel in me like I used to, because I already won," she says. And now she has other victories in mind. "Being a good human, a good mother. I want to have a good marriage. I want to be a good wife. I want to win at finding peace. I want to win at finding other hobbies that I'm good at."

But at the same time? "If I'm inspired, I'm going to try to do something with that inspiration." That's the most fun part: whatever else comes after has always been an amazing bonus.

The "Let Me Reintroduce Myself" era, whatever form it may eventually take, isn't a desperate grab at former glory. It's Stefani refusing to evolve for the sake of it. She's poking fun at the whole idea of having to compete with past personas alongside current ones, while acknowledging the fact she's grateful to still be in the game at all.

"You don't know what you're doing," she says, somehow both confident and resigned. "You're a cartoon of yourself at this point, and you don't know what people are thinking. They're wondering, what? Why are you still here? And I'm like, I don't know. They said I could be here. So I'm here!"

Photography: Jamie Nelson Styling: Nicola Formichetti Hair: Sami Knight Makeup: Michael Anthony Nails: Carolyn Orellana Wardrobe director: Marta Del Rio Production: Katrina Kudlick Digitatech: Sean MacGillivray Logo design: Luca Devinu Story: Kat Gillespie

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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imgoingtocrash · 3 years

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Made of Iron, Born of Fire: The Fanmix

by @imgoingtocrash

Listen on Spotify and 8tracks

Read the series on Ao3

AKA: A labor of love for @savvysass’s birthday!!!!

What can I say that hasn’t already been said because we’re both incredibly sappy people in our Author’s Notes? Writing this series with you has brought me so much joy in the last two years, and I never could have hit over 100k words without you. Here’s to whatever we write next in the series...and all of the WIPs we’re working on right now...and only god knows what’s next for us personally and professionally...and most importantly, to you on your Birthday. Thank you for being such a good friend, in both fandom and outside of it. I’m so, so thankful to know you and love you. 🥰

Director’s Cut Below, because we all know I love talking about this series, and yes, that does extend to why I picked these songs. (And also maybe because these song choices only make sense in my brain and hopefully Savannah’s?? Who knows! Feel free to ask questions if you want but let’s be honest this series and fanmix are most importantly for us, because we love the series so dang much.)

My Wildest Dreams by Ron Pope

I spoke in riddles and in rhymes, but my time with you has taught me to simplify, you’re not quite what I pictured you would be, you’re better than my wildest dreams.

We’ve talked about this one before, and I’LL TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN!!!! Ron Pope is so good imo, and this song wowowow the father-child feels, but especially with Tony and newborn Peter a la A Foreign Feeling and A First Time For Everything.

Big & Scared by Raleigh Ritchie

I want to be better for you, let me do that now, you’re my favorite human, so you should be prepared, I’ll help you get through it, when you’re big and scared

We’ve mentioned Tony’s thoughts about legacy multiple times by now, and I think this song really represents Tony looking forward to the person Peter could be become and that “breaking the cycle” mentality of supporting Peter even when he’s not a perfect father.

Legacy of Sadness by Ron Pope

irrational as it may seem I guess I’m sorry, even though I know that none of it’s my fault, it is easier for me to count my blessings, than to cry for every single thing we’ve lost

I have 0 shame putting these two songs by Ron Pope almost back to back because they’re the opening and closing of an album dedicated to his child like...it’s so perfect for Tony and this theme of reflection on who he is and who Peter will become/is becoming and all that entails.

this is me trying by Taylor Swift

They told me all of my cages were mental, so I got wasted like all my potential, and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad, I have a lot of regrets about that

I wrote something...very sad but also soft recently??? and this is for That it’s about pre-CW Pepperony being separated and the road to them trying to come back together including Tony working on himself and I love it!!! It hurts really good!!! This whole song is perfect for it and I can’t wait until people get to read it.

Be Good When I’m Gone by Four Year Strong

I'm sorry I can't stop to listen, but I've got so much to do and I've got some place to be, the house looks like the aftermath of a hurricane, I hope it stays that way

Tony being a busy parent but doing his best to make time for Peter in his life and making that time count has been something super important to illustrate to us, especially the transition from being a CEO to being a superhero and how that changes how Peter sees Tony’s absence over time.

I Won’t Back Down by Johnnyswim, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, and Penny and Sparrow

Tony puts on the original version by Tom Petty in Home Is Where The Heart Is, but I think this cover has a very slow, emotional undertone that’s really great too. The interludes, if you didn’t catch it, have all been featured in a fic previously.

Let It Matter by Johnnyswim

So if it matters let it matter, if your heart's breaking let it ache, catch those pieces as they scatter, know your hurt is not in vain

Pepper in Never Tell Me The Odds ALL DAYYYYY. She’s the emotional rock of that fic (and of our Ironfam TBH) and it’s all because she allows herself to feel her feelings and encourages the Stark boys to do so as well.

Simmer - Acoustic by Hayley Williams

And if my child, needed protection, from a fucker like that man, I’d sooner gut him, cause nothing cuts like a mother

Post-Home Is Where The Heart Is...y’all know Pepper’s not that mad about what happened to Obie. Also just Pepper when someone hurts her family?? I always write it as her sort of putting all of her emotion into something she can control and doing it well, so, this song is all about that.

Tightrope by Nia Hendricks

one step after another, keep holding on to each other, don’t look back, move on and let go, that’s how you walk on a tightrope

Pepperony trying to navigate their relationship and the insanity of superhero stuff and also co-parenting. It’s all excellent, I love them so much, I enjoy writing it so much!!!!

Dancing With Your Ghost by Sasha Sloan

Never got the chance, to say a last goodbye, I gotta move on, but it hurts to try, how do I love, how do I love again?

This song is tilted towards romance, but if you’ll remember, we’re a Pro-Tony Survives Endgame AU series, so it’s not about THAT...but well...Infinity War sure will hit something fierce for certain non-romantic relationships in this series, huh?

The Bones by Maren Morris

Call it dumb luck, but baby, you and I, can't even mess it up, although we both try, no, it don't always go the way we planned it, but the wolves came and went and we're still standing

Post-Endgame Ironfam!!! Tony and Pepper married with their kids, their family and HAPPY...THIS IS WHY WE DO ALL OF THE ANGST...FOR A FAMILY...WE LOVE THEM

Carry on Wayward Son by Kansas

Considered Pepper and Peter’s ‘song’, as it’s referenced multiple times in the series, and was one of the bigger solidifying moments of their mother-son relationship as a whole.

Mundane by Hardcastle

And I’ve been sinking into silence, dwelling on my thoughts, and in these months, I haven’t felt that most conversations have left me anything but blue

Peter’s selective mutism was something very special to us when we originally had the idea, and making sure we talk about it and utilize it in the right way is something we’re still working on, particularly with the Therapy Fic we’re brainstorming atm.

survivin’ (One Eyed Jack’s Session) by Bastille

What can I say? I'm survivin', crawling out these sheets to see another day, what can I say? I'm survivin', and I'm gonna be fine, I'm gonna be fine, I think I'll be fine

Spoiler Alert: Peter’s not fine, like, a decent amount of the time. But he’s sure trying, and we love him for that.

Jacob from the Bible by Jake Wesley Rogers

Mama, don't worry, it took me years, to say I'm sorry, to see your tears, Mama, forgive me, I grew up too fast, but it's not on you, it's in the past

Mostly part of Peter growing up to become a hero and realizing what his parents--particularly Pepper--have gone through for him to become the person he is today, but that sometimes he still doesn’t feel like he’s making them proud enough.

Compassion Is a German Word by To Kill A King

Don't be so arrogant, you ain't no different to anyone I've met, we're all the heroes in our own film, or maybe the villain in someone else's

Spider-Man being an excellent superhero boi!!! Being kind and good!!! We love it!! Also, I put a TKAK song on...a LOT of my playlists, because I think they’re great.

brutal by Olivia Rodrigo

And I'm so sick of seventeen, where's my fucking teenage dream?, if someone tells me one more time, "Enjoy your youth", I'm gonna cry

I mean...this song is such a Teenage Mood...I had to do it...

In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning by Frank Sinatra

So, I had this cute little scene in my head that went with this song for SO LONG but there wasn’t really anything for it to fit into so...yeah that’s part 2 of Savannah’s Birthday Gift, a little soft Baby Peter drabble. Fluffy Goop from top to bottom. That can be read here.

Home by Phillip Phillips

Just know you're not alone, 'Cause I'm gonna make this place your home

...I know it’s not original, okay? It’s found family, it’s great, I don’t care!

Comes and Goes (In Waves) by Greg Laswell

And this part was for her, and this part was for her, this part was for her, does she remember?

This song is good family angst in general BUT these specific lyrics made me think of Mary and that they never forget her in their lives despite the other stuff going on (because we refuse to let them).

I Have Made Mistakes by The Oh Hellos

I have made mistakes, I continue to make them, the promises I've made, I continue to break them, and all the doubts I've faced, I continue to face them, but nothing is a waste if you learn from it

No one in the Ironfam is perfect, but they all do their best to try and grow even when they’re scared they’ll never be able to. The ups and downs are all par for the course of this series to us.

Easy Days - Demo by Bastille

Cause I don’t wanna fall back again, back into the easy days, everything was so simple then, little fires burned away

Strife is a part of life, and the family in this fic growing through their loss and struggles and moving ahead as a unit to get to a better place is super central to making the fic what it is...but it’s easy for them to remember the old days before being superheroes and wishing it was simple again.

North by Sleeping At Last

Let the years we’re here be kind, be kind, let our hearts like doors open wide, open wide, settle our bones like wood over time, over time, give us bread, give us salt, give us wine

The way Tony went from feeling so alone to having an entire built family that’s so full of love and everything he never dreamed of...*screams into my pillow* I love this series so much thank you and good night!!!

#made of iron born of fire #irondad #ironfam #fanmix #savvysass #this series just makes me burst with content i can't describe it #also doing the graphics was a fun experiment!!!#mine #mine: marvel

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rainydawgradioblog · 3 years

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RDR Essentials - Hip-Hop/R&B (4/21)

RDR Essentials is a weekly newsletter of alternating genres that outlines key releases of the past month, upcoming events around Seattle and happenings in the specified music genre.

Made in collaboration between Rainy Dawg DJs and the Music Director.

Releases:

Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Haram

New York rap duo Armand Hammer have become known for their dreary, dense, and thought-provoking poetry, often paired with gloomy instrumentation and symbolic storytelling. Haram, the duo’s newest full-length album, marks billy woods and Elucid’s first collaboration with one producer for an entire record. The Alchemist lends his ear to the pair on this album, providing an eerie, haunting and emotive soundscape that still sounds like nothing the legendary producer has made in the past, pushing his own boundaries and proving that he is capable of evolution even after a career spanning two decades. Tracks like “Indian Summer” are laced with a menacing energy, while “Falling out the Sky” sounds almost summer-esque, like the sun peeking through an otherwise dark place, beginning with an abstract verse from Earl Sweatshirt, centered around mentions of the sky, space, and supernovas. This track starts a three-song run of the record’s only rap features, as well: “Wishing Bad” contains a furious verse from Curly Castro, transitioning with a more than menacing audio sample that forebodes in an echoing fashion: “There’s a lot of blood early on here”. This next track,“Chicharrones”, is one of the most fear-inducing beats the Alchemist has concocted thus far, and acts as an anger-fueled climax of the record. Quelle Chris delivers a seething verse, focusing on police brutality, not from a perspective of fear or sadness, but rather unrestrained rage, rife with references to George Orwell’s seminal Animal Farm but grounded in a clear disdain for the police. “If you off the pig/ Is you offin' pigs or offerin' figs?/ Oh, you big and bad?/ Blowin' hay and sticks, huffin' bricks” Quelle Chris chides in the chorus: “off the pig” likely refers to not eating pork as a convertee to Islam, in reference to the album’s title, “haram”, meaning “forbidden”, and the record’s stomach-churning cover art. The chorus seems to call out those who claim solidarity and yet “offer figs”, a phrase with roots in the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, who, in shame for their behavior, cover their genitals with fig leaves.

These guest features reinforce the record’s themes of drug abuse, class theory, racism, and the cultural ramifications of the “forbidden” in all its forms. Those who use the forbidden to cope, those who are able to get away with doing the forbidden, and everything in between seems to manifest within the record’s walls. As with every Armand Hammer release, however, it is the energy and poetry of these two MCs, seemingly almost psychically connected, that makes their staggeringly dense words so potent. At every turn, the two seem interlaced. Elucid brings invigoration to his verses, combined with sung choruses that sound as raw as can be, like on the solo track “Roaches Don’t Fly”, with soaring guitar riffs carrying an explosive verse (“My new name, colonizer’s can’t pronounce”) swelling to an enormous sung mantra: “You don’t gotta be here if you don’t wanna.” Elucid’s unique style of delivery often sees him, as many have noted, emphasizing unexpected syllables in his words, leaving his performances consistently engaging. Billy woods’ signature vignette-style storytelling and dry, dark humor are intact once again as well. The first verse of “Indian Summer” sees woods start a track as menacingly as one can (“I swore vengeance in the seventh grade/ Not on one man, the whole human race”), leading to a chilling tale of a man’s past in drug sales using a job cutting grass as cover, with detail to spare, painting a clear scene of “the stink of gas in the evening” and “the intoxication of counting cash in secret.” Highlight “Squeegee”, too, sees woods providing an unbelievable lesson in telling a full story in a short amount of time, chronicling a man’s attempt to turn his life around: eating healthy, working out before dawn, and barely smoking weed. Ultimately it’s all for naught, as paranoia takes over. He wonders if someone will follow him home, he wonders what his neighbors are doing, and it seems that old habits creep their way back in: ‘The taste in his mouth just like before.” It’s a chilling vignette, and undoubtedly one of woods’ best verses to date.

The album ends on an emotive high note; if “Chicharrones'' was the angry climax, “Stonefruit” is the album’s explosive and heart-wrenching finale. Elucid’s sorrowful chorus makes clear a turn inward, after an album focused so heavily on societal ills. “I don’t want to lose control” he repeats: “I’ve got so much left to undo.” Finally, billy woods delivers the album's most painful and emotive verse. Woods seemingly chronicles a rocky relationship perhaps interrupted by a sudden passing, a relationship filled with strife (“Said ‘OK’ to save face, but she never forgave”) that is yet anchored by an irrefutable love. The beautiful instrumental turns into a droning, and the euphoric emotional climax is once again drowned out by the ills it is surrounded by. This album is dense, difficult, and often a hard listen. But if one chooses to give it the attention it asks, it is more than rewarding enough, and once again proves billy woods, Elucid, and The Alchemist as three of the best artists we’ve ever seen.

- Casey Chamberlain

Kenny Mason - Angelic Hoodrat Supercut

Atlanta artist Kenny Mason is beginning to make a name for himself. After his impressive Angelic Hoodrat last year and a standout feature on Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats’ UNLOCKED 1.5 remix album, the 26 year old is back with a sequel project, Supercut, and continues to impress with his astounding mix of rock and rap. The project is a tightrope act that balances the genres, bringing trap beats, triplet flows, and bedroom guitar passages in equal measure. Rap cuts like the excellent “A+” featuring Denzel Curry see Kenny bringing technical flows and quick wit to the table, alongside standout “Much Money” which sees Freddie Gibbs making an appearance, bringing his signature swagger and Instagram-story quotables.

However, the most impressive aspects of the record are where things begin to change up, seeing Kenny swing more into rock and indie territory. “Play Ball” feels like a teenage anthem, accompanied by driving guitar riffs and bouncy drums and vocal mixing more reminiscent of a live performance at a house show than a recording booth. Opener “43”, too, immediately sets the tone, with a powerful sung chorus and heavy guitar rhythm and booming drums. Perhaps the biggest highlight, however, is the two-part “Pup”, which sees a low-key first half blend into a spacey and introspective second half. Not only is the production here at perhaps its most interesting of the record, combining gritty guitar and a pulsing trap beat, but Kenny’s songwriting stands out as well, with a strong emotive performance and personal lyrics highlighting insecurities. If there’s any critique to be had of this record, it would be that it most certainly feels like a part two of the first Angelic Hoodrat (in fact, the record’s title even makes it sound more like a deluxe than a separate album). Yet, Kenny’s style is most certainly exciting, reminiscent in equal measure of contemporaries across the musical spectrum, from Jean Dawson to JID. If refining his sound means putting out music as impressive as this, then Kenny Mason is on the right track, and is one to watch.

- Casey Chamberlain

Benny the Butcher & Harry Fraud - The Plugs I Met 2

Benny The Butcher has rocketed to heights previously unknown in the last year, with his full length project with Hit-Boy, Burden of Proof, being his biggest project yet, and seeing him steer into different sonic territory, moving away from the grimy Daringer and Alchemist production he had become known for on projects like Tana Talk 3. 2019’s The Plugs I Met was the epitome of that sound, and it’s perhaps inevitable that Benny would move past it at some point. Plugs I Met 2, however, feels like a marriage of those two sounds, sounding like a true sequel to the first project while still pushing into new territory and incorporating bigger features. There’s nothing as grimy here as the first album’s “Sunday School” or “Dirty Harry”, but tracks like “When Tony Met Sosa” and “Plug Talk” carry that same energy.

Highlights include “Overall” featuring Chinx, where the production feels like a brilliant mix of the street sounds and the lavish flashiness of Benny’s wordplay, alongside heavy drum kicks and incredibly dense production. Harry Fraud produced every track on the project, and this consistency shines. Each track sounds different from the last, but they fit neatly together. Even the tracks that tone down the energy feel just as lyrically impressive, such as “Live By It.” The features are mostly standout as well, with guest verse from 2 Chainz, Rick Hyde, and more. Overall, this is a solid project and logical sequel to the first Plugs I Met. Those who miss Benny’s grimy, TT3-era sound may be disappointed not to hear it return on every track here, but for those who remain impressed by Benny’s newfound flexibility, Plugs I Met 2 will no doubt remain a worthwhile addition to the Griselda catalog.

- Casey Chamberlain

Denzel Curry & Kenny Beats - UNLOCKED 1.5

Not content with waiting for the already-announced sequel to release, Kenny Beats and Denzel Curry return with a batch of remixes of tracks from last year’s excellent UNLOCKED with UNLOCKED 1.5. Featuring guest production and verses, this collection feels less like a full project on its own and more of a playful invitation to collaborators to make something brand new out of an already energetic album. The original UNLOCKED made clear its influence from MF DOOM, Madlib, and a host of others, seeing Kenny Beats branch out into new, cartoony territory and seeing Denzel Curry flex his lyrical prowess on a non-stop barrage of high-octane tracks. 1.5, in comparison, takes many of those rambunctious verses and places them over entirely new production. Standout “So.Incredible.pkg”, with production by the great Robert Glasper brings a jazzy and laid back energy, where Denzel still feels right at home, followed by an excellent and sly verse from Smino. “Cosmic.m4a [The Alchemist Version]” brings in the legendary producer for a brand new beat with beating drums and piano passages, alongside a vengeful, if not far too short, verse from Joey Bada$$. “Pyro” sees bouncy new production from Sango, with a witty and childlike feature from Kenny Mason. The highlight, however, has to be “DIET_” which, as the standout of the original project, with Denzel’s ferocious and guttural delivery inspired by the late DMX now enhanced by an effortless verse from Benny the Butcher, marking an unlikely but incredibly fulfilling appearance. The original UNLOCKED was a lighthearted project that showcased the talent of Denzel and Kenny Beats. 1.5, while not necessarily a fulfilling EP taken on its own, is something of a victory lap for the duo and their friends, a fun counterpart to the original project and a flexing of creative muscles.

- Casey Chamberlain

AG Club - Fuck Your Expectations PT. 1

When AG Club titled this album “Fuck Your Expectations”, they meant it. Fans, like me, who became hooked on AG Club after their debut melodic rap masterpiece Halfway Off the Porch, have been patiently awaiting a completed “Fuck Your Expectations” since its anticipated debut date in the summer of 2020. After months of waiting, with a few eclectic singles sprinkled in, AG Club decided to fuck our expectations once again by only giving fans part one, released April 2nd, with part two expected (I’m hesitant to use this word) on April 30th. Although it’s not the drop fans were expecting, it’s more than enough to tide us over. AG Club, now only composed of Jody Fontaine and Baby Boy on vocals, brings a fresh and exciting energy on this album that is more comparable to their early singles, like “Holy Shit” or “Ay, G”, than it is to their last full release. Tracks like “NOHO”, composed solely of bass and percussion, and “Columbia”, which features a blaring horn like they just brought the cavalry out, are the album’s “bangers”. AG Club hasn’t settled - they still have chips on their shoulders - and these songs prove that. To round the album out and further their pattern of genre-warping, tracks like “HOT PINK” and “A Bitch Curious” mix R&B, indie pop and rap to produce a completely new sound for the group. And just when you thought your expectations were certifiably fucked, the “A Bitch Curious” instrumental suddenly morphs into an EDM beat around three minutes in. Although it’s filled with an absurd amount of interludes for a nine track album, this project will still leave you saying: “Thank you AG Club, may I have another?”

- Charlie Darnall

BROCKHAMPTON - ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE

The visuals for BROCKHAMPTON’s latest record say a lot about it. The video for “BUZZCUT”, the album’s opener, is a glorious clusterfuck of outdated animation and strobing color. On Spotify, every song is accompanied by a video of each vocalist’s face slowly morphing into the next. The self-proclaimed boy band’s visuals, although abrasive at first, are full of depth; every scene in a video or clip has spot on color pallets, an energy that accurately mirrors the song and an attention grabbing theme. And ROADRUNNER is equally as dense. Sonically, the album can range from the aggressive, east coast rap inspired “BANKROLL” to the all acapella, gospel inspired “DEAR LORD”. Between these polar opposites, lie eleven eclectic, constantly morphing tracks. “WINDOWS” is an eerie, acoustic laced song about all the boys being “outside your window” (oh no!) Following it, however, is the accessible and breezy R&B/pop track “I’LL TAKE YOU ON” featuring the legendary Charlie Wilson. “DON’T SHOOT UP THE PARTY” contrasts a beat that could send an Ibiza nightclub into a frenzy with passionate lyrics about racial injustice and the media and government’s inability to condemn white mass shooters. In the spirit of a “new light”, BROCKHAMPTON decided to include features on this album - a first time for the boy band. In both popularity and sound, these features are equally as eclectic. Features range from industry titans, like A$AP Rocky, to smaller, indie pop artists like Baird. Amongst the album’s themes of religion, hedonism and new beginnings, you will find density, both instrumentally and lyrically.

- Charlie Darnall

Young Stoner Life - Slime Language 2

The second installment of Young Thug’s Slime Language series is undeniably essential. Young Thug and Gunna together are arguably two of the biggest figures in rap right now. Do you have a cousin or sibling in middle or high school? What about a friend in a fraternity? I’ll bet you $100 they’ve both heard a Young Thug or Gunna song in the past week. Both these Atlanta artists have transcended your average rap fan; their songs might be on your dad’s favorite radio station. And I think they’ve realized that. Out of the many things this album succeeds in, its greatest accomplishment is playing into the popularity its creators have achieved. Features include Drake, Lil Baby, Lil Uzi Vert, Travi$ Scott, Skepta, Kid Cudi and even the controversial YNW Melly. The beats are accessible and lend themselves to millions of streams. Tracks such as “I Like” and “Trance” model the more melodic side of Travi$ Scott’s sound with a low tempo and spacey synths. “That Go!” sounds like Playboi Carti had a beat to spare after finishing Whole Lotta Red. In terms of lyrics, there isn’t much to say. Gunna and Young Thug are still two of the biggest rappers alive, they’re still quite wealthy and they’ve made sure to mention that, although their lines seem to prioritize memorability. Every song is either hard enough to make a JV basketball team go nuts, melodic enough for late night drive or bouncy enough to make your mom go “oh, this is fun!” The album plays on many established themes and styles, but I asked myself two questions after I first listened and these are the answers I came to: Is it trying to be popular? Yes. Is that necessarily a bad thing? No.

- Charlie Darnall

Upcoming Releases:

MIKE- Disco! (6/21)

New York rapper MIKE has released a steady stream of incredible, personal, and beautiful records over the past few years, and it seems he is gearing up to release another project, titled Disco! this June. The rapper’s raw delivery and soulful production has brought him to the forefront of the burgeoning abstract hip-hop scene, and projects like 2019’s Tears of Joy and the seminal May God Bless Your Hustle have garnered not only critical acclaim but a fanbase of passionate fans. The lead single for the project, “Evil Eye” provides a gorgeous sample and instrumentation and a short but sweet verse, and is a perfect taste of what is sure to be another personal and important record from one of the best rappers currently working. Disco! arrives June 21st on MIKE’s label 10k.

- Casey Chamberlain

Paris Texas - “BOY ANONYMOUS” (5/14)

Compton-based duo Paris Texas have announced their debut EP, BOY ANONYMOUS. The group has made a splash with the project’s lead singles after dropping the explosive “HEAVY METAL” earlier this year. The group mixes rock and rap, and brings a ferocious energy to their music while staying introspective. The group’s name comes from the 1984 movie of the same title, often cited as Kurt Cobain’s favorite film. The duo has released two other tracks prior to the project’s release, “FORCE OF HABIT” and “SITUATIONS.” The eight-track EP is out May 14th.

- Casey Chamberlain

#rainy dawg radio #paris texas #mike #young stoner life #ysl #ag club #denzel curry #kenny beats #benny the butcher #harry fraud #kenny mason #armand hammer #the alchemist

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funigami-games · 3 years

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A dream come true! The Prince's Heart is getting a Voice Over

When we started The Prince's Heart, we never thought we'd find so many wonderful persons willing to collaborate on our project. Here we are now, a month later, with an entire crew of professional and aspiring Voice Actors willing to help us realize our Visual Novel!

Special thanks to our amazing Casting Director, Jacob Wilson, who directed the whole Voice Over process.

Let's meet the entire cast (in order of appearance in the game)!

Nick Chang as Edward (Protagonist)

I was born in Manhattan, but raised in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, where I currently reside. I also proudly identify as a 2nd generation Asian American (half Hong Kong via my mother, half Taiwanese via my father) and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community (gay and demisexual). Since childhood, I have had a distinct love of music and performance. Having played violin from 4th to 12th grade and sung for even longer, I used music as a primary means to express myself growing up. As I progressed from high school to college, I discovered online voice acting, but it was not until my time in graduate school that I formally decided to become an actor. My interest initially stemmed from a desire to help out in localization projects, but over the time I have spent voice acting, I have come to not only develop a great appreciation of the craft of acting, but also further deepen my love of music and rekindle my love of performance. With my singing experience as a basis to my unique perspectives, I hope to bring sensitivity, curiosity, and innovation to every project I work on!

Jacob Wilson as Adam

I’m a voice actor, Casting and voice director based in Dallas Texas. I’ve been working in this field for almost four years Now. It’s a journey that has taken me literally around the world and I’m so thankful for all I’m able to do and have accomplished. Being a part of amazing projects like this one are what fuel me to pursue my passions. I realized I was bisexual when I was 18. It’s a group in the LGBT+ community that continues to get flak from seemingly all over. But my faith in it and myself has always been unshaken. Outside of VO I am a drag artist in the making under the name “Twilight Stunning”, who I’m going to show more properly in the coming months! I’m so thankful I’m in the position I am, and I can’t wait to see what we have in store for y’all!

Bradley Gareth as Michael (Main Character)

Bradley was raised in Western Pennsylvania, learning piano from age 5 and taking up local community theater at age 10. He pursued the performing arts throughout high school, consistently participating in high school musicals and chorus festivals during his tenure there. At the end of high school, he also took multiple classes in musical composition and began doing online voiceover work.

During his time in college, Bradley participated in numerous professional and amateur voiceover productions both online and at the University of Pittsburgh's student radio station, WPTS Radio. While at WPTS, Bradley also began writing advertisements and online content for websites.

Now out of school, Bradley continues to lend his voice to multiple productions, dabble in musical composition, and provide content writing for WrightlySo.com.

Jared Prize as David (Main Character)

Singing provides me with some of the greatest joy in life. Outside of that, I love voice acting, hiking, and hanging with friends. My day job involves working with computers, so I like to find a bit of an escape into the creative-realm during my free time. My sexuality has always been a struggle, but I find comfort in not putting a label on it (at least for now). Mostly, I am very excited to be a part of an ambition team of lovely people. Working within a project like this brings excitement during the process, and even more-so while waiting for the final piece! I hope you enjoy what's to come xo

Marisa Duran as Lady Marie

Hey there, I’m Marisa Duran. I’m an actress working and living in Dallas, Texas.

I caught the "theatre bug" at a young age. My parents will tell you that it started when I was two years-old, dancing around to the Barney theme song. I agree wholeheartedly.

I grew up in a suburb on the east side of Dallas and was fortunate to have the opportunity to explore a city known for its rich culture and artistic influence. My passion for theatre was fueled by the many musicals that toured through town and I quickly decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life as a professional actor.

In 2016 I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas with my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre, emphasis in Acting. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of working with multiple professional theatre companies in the DFW area. I’ve also expanded my career into the worlds of film and voiceover, landing roles in short films, webseries, and commercials, and lending my voice to over a dozen anime titles at FUNimation.

Art has the power to heal, to change, and to empower. As an artist, I believe that my purpose on this earth is to tell stories, and through these stories I hope to make a positive impact and leave people better than I found them. I consider it an honor to be able to use my talents in such a profound way.

Whenever I’m not rehearsing or recording, you can usually find me at my day-time marketing job, playing video-games, or drinking coffee at a local coffeeshop.

Kiba Walker as Zachariah

Born Arthur Lee Walker III in Tacoma, Washington, Kiba Walker is an American actor, musician, director, writer, and performer based out of Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas.

Kiba trained under the likes of various industry professionals such as Shane Sparks, Donyelle Jones, Tony Oliver, Betty "Waters" Kennedy, Chuck Huber, Sonny Strait, Chris Rager, Justine Reyes, Lorette Spicer, Bill Quinby, Angie Irons, Dan Lorge, Holly Clark Lorge, Spencer Christian, and many others. With 16 years of collective industry knowledge, Kiba has performed with the likes of Alice Underground, The Stereo Killers, Frankly Fictitious, CRVSH, Grant Davis, Ashley Ann Farley, Steve "Warky" Nunez, BASH!, Ryland Lynch, Ross Lynch, Will Jay, and more.

Voice over came to Kiba in his later years, around the age of 18, when he found his love doing an ask blog for Tumblr. From there, he took the craft seriously and networked profusely with various actors and companies in the voice over realm. His first roles were as Boku Temagawa in "Love Games" and Mike Connelly in "Zoolaplex".

Since 2014, he's been cast in various other projects including MY HERO ACADEMIA, HORIMIYA, GENSHIN IMPACT, FRUITS BASKET, ONE PIECE, SAINT SEIYA (2019 Sentai Dub), BLACK CLOVER, BOFURI! I DON'T WANNA GET HURT SO I'LL MAX OUT MY DEFENSE, CAUTIOUS HERO: THE HERO IS OVERPOWERED BUT OVERLY CAUTIOUS, CASE FILE NO.221 KABUKICHO, CAMP BUDDY, FULL SERVICE, TO TRUST AN INCUBUS, TO LOVE RU, O MAIDENS IN YOUR SAVAGE SEASON, EARTHLOCK, POPUP DUNGEON, SOMETHING IN THE DARK, RADIANT, and many more!

He's also directed such titles as FULL SERVICE, IDUEL: BATTLE FOR STARDOM, ISHIDA & ASAKURA, THE TITAN'S BRIDE, and CAMP BUDDY.

As a musician now, Kiba currently has one album out, titled "XO", that released in May 2016. He runs a music channel called "KibaKovers", adapting anime and video game openings into English for a broader audience, as well as regular Top 40 covers. He is also one of the champions of the hit Fort Worth Drag Competition, The 3, as Salem Moon!

Mike Young as Sir Tiphis

Hello, I’m Mike Young. A dynamic, versatile and different British VP voice actor with gravitas, who can turn on various shades of Bristol, and run the spectrum of silky smooth, to warm and friendly.

Under the brilliant tutelage of Tanya Rich, my road to a professional voice acting career begin in 2018, having produced a wide variety of stories and audiobooks.

I lend my talent to a range of different projects:

Hard sell and soft sell commercial and corporate scripts

IVR for telephone systems and mobile apps

Instructional e-learning courses

Promotional adverts and trailers

Public service announcements

Character narration for video games, film, audio dramas and books

…and more!

I love it all, I do it all! And if you like what you hear, contact me! I’ll be sure to make your project gurt lush.

#visual novel #visual novels #yaoi #voiceactor

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damonalbarn · 4 years

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There was a group called Unsung Heroes, who had been on the Brotherhood album, and they suggested that I should meet Damon Albarn. Damon was coming from a British group called Blur. He was a complete discovery for me. The guys from Unsung Heroes suggested Damon because they used go to his parties when he was deejaying, and one of the records he always played was “Tony Allen Makes Me Dance”—that was the title of one of his own songs, even before we met! They played me some of his music, and I decided that I wanted him to come and sing on my album. So then they went to talk to him, and he was open to it.

We met at a bar there in London, and Damon was shelling us with drinks—you know, they say “shelling” in England, like in war. Even after the deal was made, we went to the studio to sing, and Damon came with two cases of champagne, about twelve bottles. We were all enjoying ourselves so much that we couldn’t work that day, because everybody was drunk! So he told me that he would take the music to his studio and deliver it later. Damon is a good writer, man. He’s a good lyrics writer, and he’s a good musician. You need to see him at work in the studio and you’ll know he’s a genius. When he came back with the track—fucking hell, man, it was my best track on my album! It’s called “Every Season,” it’s the first track on Home Cooking. That album came out in 2002.

After Damon got a taste from Home Cooking and “Every Season,” he wanted to try for a bit of Afrobeat style in his own music. And I told him that I was looking forward to the day when we can work up something together from the beginning, and maybe even do it in Nigeria. And he actually followed it up a year later, because we went twice to record in Nigeria. Nigeria’s not an easy place to work, but Damon is a rugged guy and he loves Lagos! He knows what is good there and what is bad. He and his guys go out in Lagos on their own, without anybody guiding them, and they manage. He gets on fine with the musicians there, and they get on fine with him too. He gave them a lot, things that they would never dream of in their life. We did two cds of material with Damon, but afterwards he couldn’t release all of it because he decided that it wasn’t going to be easy for him to go in concert with this sound. It was going to divert him from his own identity of being a British pop singer. Also, he felt that if we put the album out this way, we would need a big band to tour, and most of the musicians were in Nigeria. That means a lot of problems with visas and all that. But he told me that I should come to London so that we could keep writing new material together. That’s why we eventually did another record that they released as The Good, the Bad and the Queen. That one is a better mixture. Damon had to think about it properly because anything he touches turns to gold, man! Look at the Gorillaz project—they sold millions with that, and all of them are already millionaires now. Even their sound engineer had a hit single which went to number one. And Gorillaz is even bringing in more money in the States now. Meanwhile, I used the bread I made from The Good, the Bad and the Queen to finance Secret Agent, which came out in 2009 on World Circuit. I financed the whole thing, recorded it, and then I leased it to them. Everyone said it was a great album, so I felt good about that. Now we’re getting ready to do another project with Damon, myself, and Flea, the bass player from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Flea himself loves Afrobeat and I’m sure it’s gonna be great, man! The way Damon came into my life, it was kind of like it had been written. He turned out to be the most important one for me among all these projects. Meeting him was like meeting another Fela for me; it was really that important because not only did this guy make a big difference in my career, but we are also very good friends.

Tony Allen, Michael E. Veal 'Tony Allen: An Autobiography of the Master Drummer of Afrobeat' (2013)

#damon albarn #tony allen #books #quotes

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radramblog · 3 years

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Radiohead Retrospective Part 5: I forgot what I was gonna call this one

The previous few entries in this retrospective have had a big old lead-in, about where the band was and how the next album came to be. This gets somewhat awkward now, as we discuss Radiohead’s fifth album, Amnesiac.

The issue is, this tracks on this album were recorded in the same session as Kid A, and it was released just over half a year later, so there isn’t as much to talk about. Kid A was, obviously, huge, but its success wouldn’t affect Amnesiac that much. I guess it got a bunch of music videos? Like, Kid A didn’t have singles, so it didn’t have either those or B-sides.

Regardless, despite being recorded simultaneously, Amnesiac is not truly cut from the same cloth as Kid A. It’s a titch more traditional and less electronic, bringing in jazz influences and classical stuff in addition to the electronica the previous album debuted. It also apparently has krautrock influences, but I don’t really know what that means, so perhaps we should just dive into it and find out.

Much like Kid A and Everything In Its Right Place, Amnesiac opens on an electronic line, albeit one that is slightly less iconic. Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box (the spelling errors are not mine) is a substantially more muted introduction, driven by a scattered electronic percussion and a very low melody. The lyrics are pretty simple, but “I’m a reasonable man, get off my case” is kind of just a great, memeable line I’m sure people have had fun with.

Packt Like Sardines does unfortunately introduce us to a problem surrounding Amnesiac, and the discussion surrounding it. It is extremely often considered an outtakes album, a smattering of disconnected tracks, and I consider that completely unfair to the album’s design. However, Packt does inevitably invite comparisons to Everything, and it doesn’t compare favourably. I still really like the song, it’s soft and somehow comfortable in its coldness, but Everything is, well, everything.

This theme may continue.

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It is exceptionally frustrating that a higher-quality copy of this video isn’t available, because it’s really good.

There was a solid period where I considered Pyramid Song my favourite Radiohead track. It is impossibly deep, and beautiful, and above all else evocative. I have no idea why it’s called the way it is, a name echoing either geometry or the ancient past, but the little piano loop Pyramid Song is built upon is just…so much. The lyrics aren’t especially complex, but they manage to capture a very specific emotion of loss and grief, but of absolution, and just hnnng.

If you didn’t watch the video, by the way, go fucking do that. It might have the graphics of an early 00s video game cutscene, but it is genuinely as evocative and tragic as the song itself. Although according to the comments, Pyramid Song was apparently in Cyberpunk 2077, which on the one hand is cool it exposed a bunch of new people to this baller song, on the other hand it deserves so much better than being in that of all games.

I’m just going to say this ahead of time, I don’t think Radiohead captures beauty so well again until two albums from now.

We go from the utterly iconic Pyramid Song to the significantly less so Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors. I…really don’t know what there is to say about this one. It’s kind of an electronic soundscape more than a piece of music. It technically has lyrics, but they’re so heavily affected that it’s hard to see them as separate from the tune itself. I’ve spoken before about songs that are driving towards a point, that have a clear sense of forward motion from a repeating instrumental that feels like the consistent rattle of a train car. This song sort of has that, but without as much of the energy as those songs often have- it’s like a ride you have no control over. It’s basically fine, but I have no idea when I’d ever go out of my way to listen to this.

Also, what the fuck is a Pulk? That’s actually a word, I’m not getting a red underline like with Crushd, but I’m not sure if it’s an intentional misspelling or not.

The next song, You and Whose Army?, is something I remember as being way less subtle than it is. I mean the lyrics are very clearly directed at a person, and spoilers, it’s UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, but if you don’t know the period, or the band’s politics in general, it’s probably going to go right over your head.

It’s a song with two clear halves. One of them is quiet, muted even, subtle instrumentation over muffled vocals, and the second is swelling, and triumphant, powerful instrumentation over muffled vocals. The second half is a lot of fun, but it wouldn’t feel as paid off were it not for the first, so fair enough. I think I used to like this song a lot more than I do now, unfortunately.

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I Might Be Wrong is probably the most traditional song we’ve seen from this band in a minute, huh. A bass-driven track that is unquestionably a rock song, even with more electronic percussion and effects on it. Try listening to this with headphones, by the way- it’s extremely heavily panned, something I picked up on in high school since every pair of earphones I’d get would break in one ear eventually.

Despite the previous track’s eventual energy, I Might Be Wrong conveys the general mood of the album- that is, it’s pretty mellow? Even as the bluesy groove keeps going, the track never gets as intense as even say No Surprises. It’s a bit of a vibe, isn’t it? I especially enjoy the little Afterword the song has, it’s not much but I feel like it really adds to the track as a whole.

Wait how the fuck is You And Whose Army? more popular than this? What 23 million people pop that song on the reg? I don’t understand.

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Considering the subject matter of this song, and that I’d never watched it before, I was somewhat apprehensive clicking this music video. And…..yeah………..it sure is like that…..

Anyway so Knives Out is about eating people. Probably? That’s the text of it, the subtext is probably a fair bit deeper than that. Like taking advantage of what people leave behind in their absence in a more general, non-cannibalistic sense. Maybe.

I think this song is the most acoustic/least electronic song on the album? Save for one we’ll get to later, maybe. Its lyrics are kind of gross, but that’s allowed.

I’m somewhat frustrated by the lack of things I can think of to say, because I really like this song. It’s a lot like I Might Be Wrong, in that it’s a more chill rockier song than most of the album, but with a different sort of vibe. Uhh…yeah? Shrug? 8/10, would listen to again.

Anyway, we now hit Morning Bell/Amnesiac as track number 7, and it’s the least subtle reference to Kid A I guess you can think of. I mean, it’s a different version of the same song, much louder and more discordant. Bits of it sound like they could be comforting, but juxtaposed with some of the more distressing elements it’s a bit of a whirlwind.

I can comfortably say that Morning Bell/Amnesiac is A Good Song. However, I can’t really appreciate it as such, for a very silly reason. Since I thought the pun would be good, I had this track as my morning alarm for a very long time, and as a result, I cannot stand listening to it. Let this be a warning, never use a song you like to try and get out of bed, if you want to keep liking it.

Dollars and Cents is another sparse, low rock track that eventually builds into a bigger deal as it goes on. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to make out the instruments, a low cymbal line and loose guitar folding in on each other in the background. It, regrettably, doesn’t quite land on the same stick as many of the other tracks on the album, being basically fine but not really notable? And I think that’s the biggest difference between Amnesiac and Kid A, Amnesiac actually misses. Like, I always forget about In Limbo, but it’s unquestionably a good song. Between many of Amnesiac’s more experimental tracks not living quite up to snuff, and Dollars and Cents being largely okay, it’s no wonder why the album is often seen as the inferior follow-up.

This is not particularly helped by the ninth track, Hunting Bears, a loose guitar instrumental that doesn’t work nearly as well as Treefingers. It doesn’t have the vibe, and it doesn’t fit as cleanly in the middle of the album like that one does. It’s just, kind of, there. I genuinely usually skip it when I listen to this album, but I figured it wouldn’t be fair to do that here. It’s just, kind of, a miss. Pretty short, though- I could believe this originally having been part of Dollars and Cents, like a longer version of the end bit from I Might Be Wrong.

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While I know this is a video for both Pulk/Pull and Like Spinning Plates, I associate it more with the latter. Not only is the version of Pulk/Pull very different from the album, well, you’ll see why I think the LSP bit is more memorable.

I think Like Spinning Plates is extremely cool. If nothing else, it’s super interesting how they got this to work. The vocal effect for the first verse was achieved by getting Thom to sing the lyrics, reversing that recording, having him memorise how that sounded and perform that, and then reversing that into the final results. How cool is that? I think it’s cool. Also at some points in the second verse, they’re playing a forwards and backwards vocal track simultaneously, which is a really neat effect.

The instrumental is…hard to describe. Apparently, it was a result of trying to make I Will (which would release one album later), which they reversed and played with to get this track. If you’re very familiar with that song, I suppose you could hear that, but I can’t. I just sit back and appreciate the music.

Amnesiac’s final track is Life in a Glasshouse, easily its most bombastic and jazzy. This sounds like a cabaret closer, a swaggering tragedy, an exploratory rehearsal of a final track. It also kind of sounds like a mental breakdown, which, mood.

There’s like, a whole band on this thing. Horns and woodwinds, a piano and probably more than one percussion element. The clarinet (?) noodling on the song is incredibly fun, giving it an almost playful edge, undercutting the downtempo mood of the song, and keeping it from being such a dirge. Especially as the track builds towards its finale, it’s clear that there was a bit more fun going on here. Of course, it can’t end on such a climax, as that little stitch of paranoia that ends up being the album’s closing word manages to sneak through.

And that ends Amnesiac. Now, obviously, it isn’t as good as Kid A. It’s less consistent, it doesn’t have Idioteque, et cetera. But I don’t actually think the comparison is as one to one as often it appears people do. The styles of the albums are completely different- Kid A incorporating so much ambient and electronic noise while Amnesiac has more of the acoustic and jazzy stuff going on. The two albums may have released closely, and recorded even moreso, but they are extremely different beasts at the end of the day.

It’s far from my favourite album of Radiohead’s, but I wouldn’t fault anyone for having it as theirs, you know.

We’ll get to my favourite album next week, where we will also see if I can either defend or maintain that opinion. Hail to the Thief beckons.

#ramble #music #radiohead #amnesiac

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unsettledink · 3 years

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Back in the days of LJ, I used to try and do a post at the end of each year, looking back primarily at fandom and fic. I fell out of the habit when everything moved to tumblr, and then it seemed like I didn’t have anything to say since I wasn’t writing or really participating any.

But I always liked the idea of it, because I love to be overly reflective on stuff. And talk about my fic. Any excuse! I shuffled around some of the topics I used back then and added a few I’ve seen around that I liked. It got… long, because I TALK, so I split into two sections.

Your main fandom of the year?

Marvel (MCU) for sure. Primarily with characters from Spider-Man and Iron Man movies.

Your favorite film watched this year?

The Old Guard - I saw a couple trailers and everything about it looked like catnip. ‘It’s probably going to be so dumb, but I don’t even care,’ I thought. And then it was so good. It was so much fun and so much smarter than I expected and I loved each and every character and it just made me happy in so many ways.

Your favorite book read this year?

Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston - I read it twice this year actually. It’s so… cute isn’t the right world. Sweet and hopeful and soft and comforting and intense. I liked every single character which is pretty rare. I cried during the sad parts and then again at the happy ending, like straight up sobbed - both times. I already want to read it again.

Your favorite tv show watched this year?

Schitt’s Creek - I started it on a whim and because a lot of people had said it was good. The episodes were short so it wasn’t a huge time investment. The first season was a little rough, but there were enough funny moments that I hung on, and then… I kept getting fonder and fonder of these idiots as they grew. And THEN… it kept not disappointing me?

You grow to expect certain scripts, twists, jokes, especially in queer story lines. To wait for the bad thing to happen, because it always does. Instead, Schitt’s Creek kept going, ‘hey, here’s the set up for that! Guess what? We’re not doing it. Here’s the happy version instead.’ The relief of having that happen again and again - the last season I’ve watched (I’m sort of saving 6) I cried a bunch but it was always because I was happy.

Your favorite album or song to listen to this year?

1896 - I’ve been waiting for the new Steam Powered Giraffe album so eagerly for aaaaaages. Finally getting recordings of Zero’s songs! Lying Awake remains my favorite off the album, with Eat Your Heart and Bad Days on the Horizon high up there as well. I’m loving what Zero brings to the band.

Your best new fandom discovery of the year?

I don’t know if I really did discover that much? I stuck pretty closely to old fandoms and the ones I picked up in 2019. Maybe Zodiac? It was definitely inspiring, and I want to write and read more in it.

Maybe the couple discords I joined? I still really dislike discord and am not on there much, and mostly lurk when I am, but having somewhere vaguely like the comms I remember makes me feel a little less isolated. It’s the potential, that maybe if I said something I might make a friend, or someone might actually want to hear what I say.

Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?

The Watch - I mean, I knew it was going to be a disaster with every word said during pre production. I wasn’t ever going to be happy with it. And then it came out and was even worse and uglier and … disrespectful not just of the source material but of actual people connected to Terry. I’m beyond disappointed that this is what we got, and it’s probably going to be a long time before we get anything else.

Devil All the Time was terrible, but I didn’t have especially high hopes. It still didn’t manage to meet them. Yikes.

The most missed of your old fandoms?

Maybe MASH? Someone I follow started talking about it and I was reminded all over again of the wonderful fics in that fandom. I went looking and a lot are gone (still on my computer, lol, but not online), but rereading was such a trip. A slightly depressing trip, but still.

The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?

Hmm. I’ve kind of not had the energy to invest in other fandoms at the moment? When The Witcher was having it’s big moment back in January, I had a feeling I might enjoy it enough to fall headfirst into the fandom, so I avoided watching it. Ikr? I don’t have the time or the energy to actively seek anything out.

Your biggest fan anticipations for the New Year?

SO EXCITED about Winter’s Orbit. I mean, the third Spider-Man movie for sure, with worry. The second Venom movie, ugh yes. I have tentative hopes for Jungle Cruise? Jumanji was stellar and I always enjoy Dwayne. I have both hope and dread for the new Suicide Squad - I did love Birds of Prey, so if it’s along those lines, yay. The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard because it should be some fun garbage, my favorite kind. I don’t know how I feel about Dune, but, uh, I’m anticipating it. It seems highly unlikely it will actually happen, but The Wheel of Time TV series.

I want to be excited about Black Widow but it’s hard. It’s not the story I’ve been wanting to see, and I’m angry about Natasha not getting a movie until she’s dead.

You know. If any of it is released for real.

The Good:

I moved to a better place. I got a better paying, better benefits, better environment job that lets me work from home. The house acquired 3-7 more cats depending on the month. I was able to get some serious problems on my car fixed. I have insurance and was able to start on some health stuff. No one I know got sick or died. I wrote a LOT.

The Bad:

Aside from the obvious? Depression hitting extra hard during the winter. Having to put two kittens to sleep. Have my car be hit three times in our parking lot. Being driven INSANE by one of the cats for months while the vets were all closed. Kidney stone. Dealing with several health problems. Stalling for months on Gotcha.

The Indifferent:

Not leaving the house often or easily. Enjoying a new fandom but not doing great at making connections (still real awkward, bud). Raising kittens and saying goodbye. Need new tires. Reading a lot of fic but not a lot of books. Having more pay but more expenses as well (wth insurance??).

2020 fic stats

Number of stories: 39

Number of fandoms: 6? Or 2, if you cluster the others under mcu

Total number of words: 152049

Average word count per story: 4kish

Longest fic: Causality (18k, P/Q)

Shortest fic: Can’t, Won’t (1k, P/Q)

Most comments received: Sieche (49, T/P)

Fandom you wrote the most of: MCU Spider-Man - I only wrote TWO fics that didn’t feature that fandom, wow. And one of those was still MCU.

Fandom you wrote the least of: Zodiac (1!)

Events you participated in: Marvel Trumps Hate, Kinktober, IornspidersGeorg Exchange, Starker Festivals Exchange, MCU Secret Santa, Spiderio Big Bang

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you'd predicted?

SO MUCH MORE OMG. I mean, even just counting posted stuff! (I probably wrote a solid 300k of Gotcha this year.) I did not expect or plan on doing Kinktober, so that’s a whole 31 fics right there. I also wasn’t planning on doing any exchanges - I have a History - but then I did three? And beyond that, I did not expect for everything to get so LONG.

Topic you wrote that you would never have predicted in January:

Tony/Quentin. Goddammit @the-me09 They were like hey, they could be interesting! And while I agreed, I had no ideas for them. THEN they had to go and write Just Bodies That Collide and next thing I know, I’ve got ten fics featuring them and two-six series focused on them or Peter/Quentin/Tony. What the fuck.

Leitmotif of the year:

Vulnerability, I think. I had a bunch of things typed up and they all circle back to vulnerability in the end; sex, being seen, being wanted, sharing trauma, asking for help, trying something new. Offering a soft spot in the hopes it won’t be hurt.

Favorite character to write about:

Tony Stark, for sure. There are just a bunch of slightly different takes, and a lot of canon to work with (kind of frustrating too though). And I’m a sucker for emotionally damaged snarky traumatized characters that are viewed poorly both in universe and out.

Favorite kind of fic to write:

This year? Fluff and smut combined. Maybe that’s not the right term really. I keep looking for and writing, even in the angstiest fics, for those soft moments. Sure, maybe it’s a super smutty kink scene, but I want the affection to be obvious. Maybe everyone is consumed by guilt, but I want it to be based in caring too much. Maybe there’s no real love, just sex and even that’s messed up, but I want to find that tiny bit of fondness.

And I want happy endings. Or endings that look like they’re going to be happy, at least, even if there’s all the angst first. I don’t think I’ve killed anyone this year? Who AM I?

Biggest disappointment:

Not finishing the rough draft of Gotcha. I was making such good progress in 2019, from August to December. Even after the move, I basically finished part 6 in January. I fumbled around and fussed with 1 a lot, but that had already been given one draft, really, and I got through half of 4 before I slowed to a stop. I’ve barely gotten anything accomplished on it since June. Bits and pieces here and there, but nothing significant, not like I was doing. I can excuse October, due to 80k invested in Kinktober (yikes!), but aside from that… I’m sad. I’ll finish it eventually, but I really thought I could have the first draft done in a year. I’m sitting at about 480k out of what I’m almost certain will be 700k.

Biggest surprise:

Kinktober! It was kind of spur of the moment, decided just a week in advance. I’ve tried month long or even like, 20-25 day long challenges and I don’t think I’ve ever completed one. I thought there was a good chance I’d do so again, so I gave myself a little help and made my own list of prompts, things I knew I liked and hadn’t done much of yet. And it worked? I actually completed it, what the hell? Despite spending five days travelling near the end! Despite falling behind in getting ahead and writing a bunch of stories the day they were to be posted! Despite apparently forgetting how to do short form!

I, uh, could have done without the spawning of eleven series or sequels or continuations jfc WHY SELF.

Something you learned this year:

Ideas breed ideas. I swear to god, the second I sit down to think through a current idea, I wake up the next morning with three more.

Words need to be restocked. I need to consume new - not rereads, not fic - content every so often to refresh my word bank. It is astonishing how quickly writing goes again after I’ve done so.

I can write so much more than I thought I could. I can do so much more than I thought I could. Yes, I can complete challenges without dropping out early. Yes, I can do exchanges and not regret it. Yes, I can write more than 100k, more than 200k, more and more - and I can write 10k+ easily too. Though I wouldn’t mind if I could once again write less than 10k without feeling like I’ve cut off in the middle.

My time is shrinking, and if I want to write as much, I’m going to have to make the time. I can’t rely on three days off a week, on seven hours of uninterrupted overnight shifts, on hyper focused writing binges that leave everything else around me on fire.

Most memorable comment:

So, so many! I can’t pick one. I’ve been really lucky to get a bunch of really detailed, enthusiastic, analyzing comments across all different fics. One of the types that always sticks with me are the ones like ‘I didn’t think/know I liked this ship/kink/twist, but fuck, apparently I do? You made me, what the hell?’.

What, if anything, are you going to try to do differently in your writing in the new year?

So with writing Gotcha but not posting until it’s done, my view of what I’ve written vs anyone else’s is extremely skewed. I’m sitting here thinking, hey I’m 400k in and got another 10k done today, so much writing! While anyone looking at my AO3 account (for most of the year) is like, you’re averaging three months between fics :(

All that to say I want to try and get something posted more frequently while I’m working on Gotcha.

Also, writing for kinktober was really interesting - pushing myself to write every single day, often for that day’s post, forced me to get back into shorter form fic. Which used to be all I did? But it was surprisingly hard to just stop and not write more. So I’d like to challenge myself to write more fics under 10k at least. Maybe even under 5k though that might be asking a lot lol. I might get there with the many continuations of those fics I’d like to do. Does that count?

Goals:

I want to hit 365 fics. :) I’m only 32 away!

Aside from writing -

I’ve really enjoyed the reading record sideblog I started this year. I’ve let it lapse a little the past month or so, but I’d like to keep it going strong.

I’d like to leave a lot more comments. I want to get better about allowing imperfection - I want to write The Best Comment, but in the end? Probably 90% of fic writers are going to be happier with a comment expressing enjoyment in any way over no comment at all.

And not just on fics, but on general posts as well. It’s hard not to feel… weird and stupid and invasive and rude leaving any sort of comment on someone’s post if I don’t know them at least a little. I have godawful rejection sensitive dysphoria and a lot of interactions that ended poorly; I’m really not good at people. But as dumb as it feels to say those things, I know I am thrilled and warmed and happier when there’s a reblog with tags or a note or a comment or an ask or just, any small interaction that shows someone out there notices and cares, at least a little. There’s no reason I can’t at least try to offer that to other people.

I’d like to make/run a couple challenges of my own, later in the year. I’m still figuring out what I want to do and what I could do. I’m really interested in doing something that’s not focused on creators, but the readers; some sort of comment or rec challenge maybe.

I want to find a cheerleader for Gotcha. I’m struggling to keep up my motivation to write it when it’s already in my head, where I can ‘read’ it any time. There’s a line between depending too much on external validation and trying to generate all your validation yourself, and I’m getting to a point where I think I need to ask for help (gasp! The hardest thing EVER).

(Part Two: Pick Some Fics)

#end of year #unsettled rambles

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divcs · 3 years

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⋮ 回 ♡ ━━ ❛ ℘𝙻𝙾𝚃 𝚆. 𝙳𝙸𝚅𝙸𝙽𝙰. ❜

HEY ! what’s up y’all ? since everyone is makin’ rounds for plots i guess it’s a good time to introduce myself and make my call so without further ado this is DIVINA THORNTON, known to most as just her first name. her prominence comes from being a members of a pop girl-group since 2010 but following their disbandment last year, she’s now a new member of CAPITOL RECORDS. falling under the modern southern belle trope, she has a sweet nature/feisty temper and is on the hunt for some connections. all basic connects are welcomed as well as collaborations ( literally anything/everything ) and i have some plots typed up as well. if interested, click the lil’ read more below and hit the lineee !!!

𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐄. — divina priscilla thornton

𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄. — normani

𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐓𝐄. — july 31st, 1997. ( 23 )

𝐙𝐎𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐂. — leo.

𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐘𝐏𝐄. — the queen. the diva.

𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐒. — leader. outgoing. confident. expressive. stubborn. passionate. down to earth. spontaneous. bad tempered.

𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘. — esfp.

𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐆𝐍𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓. — chaotic good.

𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓. — sanguine-choleric

𝐇𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐓𝐎𝐖𝐍. — savannah, georgia

𝐘𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐒 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄. — 2010-

𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒. — sashabelle. janet jackson. toni braxton. brandy. late 90′s/earlt 00s mariah carey. britney spears. paris hilton.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐋𝐒 — celia foote. jodie landon.

𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍. — despite her big and sometimes overwhelming personality, divina is trying her best to fit into the music industry that she’s always felt outcast in due to where she’s from and what she looks like. navigating through colorism in the industry, sabotage from some people she’s pissed off, shedding the girl group image and still trying to figure out where she wants to take her career in entertainment; divina has a lot on her plate. she’s grown discouraged in a music career after being overlooked in a group for years but is doing what is expected of her. all in all she wants what most of her peers do, fame, fortune and some real friends.

𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊 𝖑𝖎𝖊𝖘

ROMANTIC X MALE

Muse A has been an aspiring musician for years. They have finally hit it big; their music quickly climbing the charts, labels scrambling to sign them, screaming fans waiting outside venues. Muse A meets DIVINA at an industry event, and the two hit it off immediately. Muse A invites DIVINA out after the event, and they end up going home together afterward. As they continue to bump into one another at industry events over the next few weeks, the pair decides to act on their chemistry and try dating. It isn’t long before they start to fall for each other, but Muse A’s rising fame sweeps them up, leaving DIVINA, (who’s still stuck in her girl group contract) behind while Muse A travels the world. DIVINA does their best to deal with the distance and the insecurities that come along with dating a musician but, they finally reach their limit when a photo surfaces of Muse A kissing a fan after a show. Muse A expresses regret about the incident, but can’t promise that they’ll be 100% faithful while on tour. After a difficult talk, the two agree that they shouldn’t be together right now, and they’ll just have to see what happens when the tour is over. Now, the tour is over and when it’s time for Muse A to write their sophomore album, nothing is more inspiring than their relationship with DIVINA. Their first single is released and it’s a break-up song that’s all about missing Muse B. This doesn’t sit well with DIVINA, who’s now signed as a solo artist and doesn’t want their relationship tainting her new path of a career.

𝖉𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖜𝖎𝖙𝖍 𝖆 𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗

PLATONIC

DIVINA has recently signed her own solo deal and is on the cusp of breaking into the big time as a solo artist. She has her loyal following from the group that she loves dearly, but their lifelong dream has always been to be a major headliner and to see her name lit up on the marquis of the biggest venues. Muse B is a well-known artist who is also a talent manager, looking for a new artist to lend their skills and expertise to. Muse B attends one of DIVINA’s promotional shows one night and is absolutely blown away by their magnetism and raw talent. After the show, Muse B introduces themselves to DIVINA and makes it known that they are very interested in working with them. DIVINA isn’t sure at first. They don’t want to be constantly told what to do or play and Muse B doesn’t have the sharpest personal reputation. The pair spend time together, share a few stories, their dreams and aspirations and begin to hit it off really well. Muse B offers their services, but DIVINA is hesitant to accept, even though this may be what she really needs to establish herself outside of her girl group image. After a bit of persuading and a few more meetings, DIVINA finally agrees. Muse B utilizes every resource they have to propel DIVINA into stardom. As DIVINA gets closer and closer to achieving A-list status, Muse B steers her towards more questionable behaviors (alcohol, drugs, outbursts, etc.) in order to get additional publicity and headlines. When she refuses, she begins to see a more vile side of Muse B who threatens to completely derail her career if she doesn’t take their orders.

𝖜𝖆𝖛𝖊𝖘 / 𝖘𝖜𝖎𝖓𝖌

ROMANTIC X GROUP

Muse A and DIVINA are in a lowkey ‘situationship’. DIVINA is embarking on her first national tour as an opening act. Muse A has been close friends with DIVINA since she was seventeen and they’ve been one of her biggest supporters in the industry. The pair have decided to continue ‘talking’ despite DIVINA leaving to tour. Though they talk over video chat and text almost every day, it’s just not the same as them being in the same room together. After the first leg of apart, DIVINA’s chats are getting shorter and Muse A’s calls go to their voicemail more frequently. It makes Muse A curious, especially because of publicity showing DIVINA and MUSE C; another artist touring with DIVINA who has openly expressed being romantically interested in her, growing questionably closer. When one particular video of DIVINA and MUSE C cozied up together surfaces and Muse A can’t get in contact with with DIVINA for explanation; Muse A is deeply angered after assuming the worst. Enters Muse D, who is both DIVINA’s best friend and a collaborator of Muse A. When Muse D encounters Muse A, someone they’ve secretly cared for as more than friends, who is noticeably upset over DIVINA’s questionable behavior, Muse D takes the opportunity they’ve been waiting for. Muse D offers themselves as a confidant to Muse A, purposely fanning the flames of Muse A’s suspicion and hurt to encourage Muse A to forget about DIVINA and open their eyes to what’s right in front of them – a person who’d never do them how DIVINA was. Muse A gradually listens to Muse D and a relationship begins to blossom between the two of them. What happens when DIVINA has a break between tour dates and surprises Muse A back in L.A.?

𝖒𝖔𝖙𝖎𝖛𝖎𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓

ENEMY X FEMALE

DIVINA is offered a song by a prominent producer in the industry, the same song Muse A has already recorded and has prepared for their next release. DIVINA loves the song so much she decides to record it and prepare to release it as her lead. Once industry bugs begin getting to Muse A, they realize the song they had recorded is now about to pushed by a different artist. Of course, the producer does not disclose they offered DIVINA the song and Muse A believes DIVINA and her team made a shady business move and stole the song from under her. Muse A’s first instinct is to blast DIVINA on social media but she decides to simply record more music and put her lead out on the same date as DIVINA’s lead. The timing of the singles mean interviews, music videos and award show performances will all be align around the same team which ultimately turns into a social media feud assumption and a whole lot of comparisons as both songs compete for the higher Billboard position. When asked about this in an interview Muse A is noticeably passive-aggressive and shady towards DIVINA, who still isn’t aware of the issue. Things only boil swifter when DIVINA deliver’s a very shady acceptance speech when she wins an award over Muse A for the song.

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blackkudos · 4 years

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Lisa Lopes

Lisa Nicole Lopes (May 27, 1971 – April 25, 2002), better known by her stage name Left Eye, was an American rapper, singer, music producer, and dancer. Lopes was a member of the R&B girl group TLC, alongside Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozonda "Chilli" Thomas. Besides rapping and singing background vocals on TLC recordings, Lopes was one of the creative forces behind the group. She received more co-writing credits than the other members. She also designed the outfits and staging for the group and contributed to the group's image, album titles, artworks, and music videos. Through her work with TLC, Lopes won four Grammy Awards.

During her brief solo career, Lopes scored two US top 10 singles with "Not Tonight" and "U Know What's Up", as well as one UK number-one single with "Never Be the Same Again", the latter a collaboration with Melanie C of the British girl group Spice Girls. She also produced another girl group, Blaque, who scored a platinum album and two US top 10 hits. Lopes remains the only member of TLC to have released a solo album.

On April 25, 2002, Lopes was killed in a car crash while organizing charity work in Honduras. She swerved off the road to avoid hitting another vehicle, and was thrown from her car. She was working on a documentary at the time of her death, which was released as The Last Days of Left Eye and aired on VH1 in May 2007.

Life and career

1971–1990: Childhood

Lopes was born in 1971 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Wanda Denise (née Andino), a seamstress, and Ronald Lopes Sr., a US Army staff sergeant, who was of African-American descent. Lisa had a younger brother, Ronald Jr., and a younger sister, Raina Anitra (her nickname goes by Reigndrop). Lopes said her father was "very strict, very domineering" and that he treated the family like they were in "boot camp". He was also a "talented musician" who played the harmonica, clarinet, piano, and saxophone.

Lopes' parents separated when she was still in school, and she was raised by her paternal grandmother during the later years of her childhood. She began playing with a toy keyboard at 5 years old, and later composed her own songs. By age 10, she formed the musical trio The Lopes Kids with her siblings, with whom she sang gospel songs at local events and churches. She attended the Philadelphia High School for Girls.

1990–1998: TLC

In late 1990, having heard of an open casting call for a new girl group through her then-boyfriend, Lopes moved to Atlanta to audition. Originally starting as a female trio called 2nd Nature, the group was renamed TLC, derived from the first initials of its members at the time: Tionne Watkins, Lisa Lopes and Crystal Jones. Things did not work out with Jones, and TLC's manager Perri "Pebbles" Reid brought in Damian Dame backup dancer Rozonda Thomas as a third member of the group. To preserve the band's original name, Thomas needed a name starting with C, which is how she became "Chilli," a name chosen by Lopes. Watkins became T-Boz, derived from the first letter of her first name and "Boz" (slang for "boss"). Lopes was renamed "Left Eye" after a compliment from New Edition member Michael Bivins who once told her he was attracted to her because of her left eye, which was more slanted than the right eye. Lopes emphasized her nickname by wearing a pair of glasses with the right lens covered by a condom, in keeping with the group's support of safe sex, wearing a black stripe under her left eye, and eventually getting her left eyebrow pierced.

The group arrived on the music scene in 1992 with the album Ooooooohhh... On the TLC Tip. With four hit singles, it sold six million copies worldwide, leading to the group becoming a household name. Two years later CrazySexyCool was released, selling over 23 million copies worldwide. TLC's third album, FanMail, was released in 1999 and sold over 14 million copies worldwide. Its title was a tribute to TLC's loyal fans and the sleeve contained the names of hundreds of them as a "thank you".

During the recording of FanMail, a public conflict began amongst the members of the group. In the May 1999 issue of Vibemagazine, Lopes said, "I've graduated from this era. I cannot stand 100 percent behind this TLC project and the music that is supposed to represent me." In response to Lopes' comments, Watkins and Thomas stated to Entertainment Weekly that Lopes "doesn't respect the whole group" and "Left Eye is only concerned with Left Eye." In response, Lopes sent a reply through Entertainment Weekly issuing a "challenge" to Watkins and Thomas to release solo albums and let the public decide who was the "greatest" member of TLC:

I challenge Tionne Watkins (T-Boz) and Rozonda Thomas (Chilli) to an album entitled "The Challenge"... a 3-CD set that contains three solo albums. Each [album]... will be due to the record label by October 1, 2000... I also challenge Dallas 'The Manipulator' Austin to produce all of the material and do it at a fraction of his normal rate. As I think about it, I'm sure LaFace would not mind throwing in a $1.5 million prize for the winner.

T-Boz and Chilli declined to take up the challenge, though Lopes always maintained it was a great idea. Things were heated between the ladies for some time, with Thomas speaking out against Lopes, calling her antics "selfish", "evil", and "heartless". TLC then addressed these struggles by saying that they are very much like sisters who have their disagreements every now and then as Lopes explained, "It's deeper than a working relationship. We have feelings for each other, which is why we get so mad at each other. I usually say that you cannot hate someone unless you love them. So, we love each other. That's the problem."

1998–2002: Solo career

In 1998, Lopes hosted the short-lived MTV series, The Cut, in which a list of aspiring pop stars, rappers, and rock bands competed against each other in front of judges. The show's winner, which ended up being a male-female rap duo named Silky, was promised a record deal and funding to produce a music video, which would then enter MTV's heavy rotation. A then-unknown Anastacia finished in third place, but ended up securing a record deal after Lopes and the show's three judges were impressed by her performance.

After the release of FanMail, Lopes began to expand her solo career. She became a featured rapper on several singles, including Spice Girl Melanie C's "Never Be the Same Again", which topped the charts in 35 countries, including the United Kingdom. She was also featured on "U Know What's Up", the first single from Donell Jones' second album, Where I Wanna Be, and she rapped a verse in "Space Cowboy" with NSYNC on their 2000 album, No Strings Attached. On October 4, 2000, Lopes co-hosted the UK's MOBO Awards with Trevor Nelson, where she also performed "U Know What's Up" with Jones. She also collaborated on "Gimme Some" by Toni Braxton for her 2000 album The Heat. She had previously featured on Keith Sweat's song "How Do You Like It?". In 2001, she appeared in a commercial for the fashion brand Gap. In July 2001, Lopes appeared on the singers' edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire along with Joey McIntyre, Tyrese, Nick Lachey, and Lee Ann Womack. She dropped the $125,000 question and won $32,000 for her charity. After her death in 2002, the episode she appeared in was shown and was dedicated to her.

Lopes created Left Eye Productions to discover new talent. She mentored the R&B trio Blaque, and helped them secure a record deal with Columbia Records. Their self-titled debut album was executive-produced by Lopes, who also made a cameo appearance in their music video "808" and also rapped in their second music video "I Do". Lopes was also developing and promoting another new band called Egypt. They worked with Lopes on her second album under her new nickname, N.I.N.A., meaning New Identity Not Applicable.

In 1996, Lopes created the UNI Studios for the purpose of recording solo projects. Lopes' family opened the studio to the public. Her brother Ronald is the general manager of the studio. Lopes had a dream of making new artists able to record music at a low cost, in a high-end studio at her house. Her family continues to operate it and fill it with new equipment.

Supernova

Lopes spent much of her free time after the conclusion of TLC's first headlining tour, the FanMail Tour, recording her debut solo album, Supernova. It includes a song titled "A New Star is Born", which is dedicated to her late father. She told MTV News:

That track is dedicated to all those that have loved ones that have passed away. It's saying that there is no such thing as death. We can call it transforming for a lack of better words, but as scientists would say, 'Every atom that was once a star is now in you.' It's in your body. So, in the song I pretty much go along with that idea. ... I don't care what happens or what people think about death, it doesn't matter. We all share the same space.

Other tracks covered other personal issues, including her relationship with NFL football player Andre Rison. In 1994, before the start of Rison's fifth and final season with the Falcons, Lopes accidentally burned down Rison Atlanta mansion. Among the album's 13 tracks was also a posthumous duet with Tupac Shakur that was assembled from the large cache of unreleased recordings done prior to his murder in 1996. Initially scheduled for release on a date to coincide with the 11th anniversary of her grandfather's death, Arista Records decided to delay and then cancel the American release. The album was eventually released in August 2001 in different foreign countries. The Japan import includes a bonus track called "Friends", which would later be sampled for "Give It to Me While It's Hot" on TLC's fourth album 3D.

N.I.N.A.

After numerous talks with Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight, Lopes severed her solo deal with Arista (despite remaining signed to the label as a member of TLC) and signed with Knight's Death Row Records in January 2002, intending to record a second solo album under the pseudonym "N.I.N.A." (New Identity Not Applicable). She was recording with David Bowie for the project, whom she was also trying to get involved with the fourth TLC album. The project was also to include several songs recorded with Ray J along with close friend Missy Elliott. After Lopes' death in April 2002, Death Row Records still had plans to complete and release the album (unfinished at the time of Lopes' death) in October 2002, but the album was cancelled for unknown reasons. In 2011, some tracks from the album were uploaded onto YouTube featuring artists from Tha Row Records. Lopes's unreleased songs were also sampled by TLC for their fourth album 3Dafter she died. Another track, "Too Street 4 T.V" (featuring Danny Boy), was released on the soundtrack to the 2003 film Dysfunktional Family.

2008: Posthumous honorary album

In 2008, Lopes' family decided to work with producers at Surefire Music Group to create a posthumous album in her honor, Eye Legacy. Originally set to be released October 28, 2008, the release date was pushed back to November 11, then to January 27, 2009. The song 'Neva Will Eye Eva' and "Crank It", both feature and were co-produced by Lopes' sister Raina "Reigndrop" Lopes. The first official single from the album, "Let's Just Do It", was released on January 13, 2009 and features Missy Elliott and TLC. The second official single, "Block Party", features Lil Mama. The album largely consists of reworked versions of tracks from the Supernova album. In November 2009, Forever... The EP was released which contained international bonus tracks not used on the Eye Legacy album. The EP was only available to download. An unreleased track featuring Lopes was uploaded to SoundCloud on the eve of the 10-year anniversary of her death by Block Starz Music.

Personal life

Lopes was often vocal about her personal life and difficult past. She readily admitted that she had come from an abusive, alcoholic background and struggled with alcoholism herself. These issues became headline news in 1994, when she was arrested for setting fire to Andre Rison's sneakers in a bathtub, which ultimately spread to the mansion they shared and destroyed it. She claimed that Rison had beaten her after a night out, and she set fire to his shoes to get back at him but that burning down the house was an accident. Lopes later revealed that she did not have a lot of freedom within the relationship and that Rison abused her emotionally and physically; she said that she released her frustrations about the relationship on the night of the fire.

Lopes was sentenced to five years' probation and therapy at a halfway house, and was unable to shake the incident from her reputation. Her relationship with Rison continued to make headlines, with rumors of an imminent wedding, later debunked by People magazine. Lopes revealed on The Last Days of Left Eye documentary that her meeting with a struggling mother in rehab left a big impression on her. She subsequently adopted the woman's 8-year-old daughter. She had adopted a 12-year-old boy ten years prior.

Lopes had several tattoos. Most prominent was a large eagle on her left arm, which she said represented freedom. Later, she added the number "80" around the eagle, which was Rison's NFL number while in Atlanta. She also had a tattoo of a moon with a face on her foot in reference to Rison's nickname, "Bad Moon", Lopes later added the words "Love U 2" in the musical notes on her foot for Tupac Shakur. On her upper right arm was a large tattoo of the name "Parron" for her late step brother who died in a boating accident, arching over a large tattoo of a pierced heart. Her smallest tattoo was on her left earlobe and consisted of an arrow pointing to her left over the symbol of an eye, a reference to her nickname. Lopes struggled with self-harm and even carved the words "hate" and "love" into her arm with a razor.

Roughly two weeks before her own death, Lopes was a passenger in a traffic accident that resulted in the death of a 10-year-old Honduran boy. As reported in Philadelphia Weekly, "It is commonplace for people to walk the roads that wind through Honduras, and it's often difficult to see pedestrians." The boy, Bayron Isaul Fuentes Lopez, was following behind his brothers and sisters when he stepped off the median strip and was struck by a van driven by Stephanie, Lopes' personal assistant. Lopes' party stopped and loaded the boy into the car, and Lopes "cradled the dying boy's bleeding head in her arms" while "someone gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as they rushed him to a nearby hospital." He died the next day. Lopes paid approximately $3,700 for his medical expenses and funeral, and she gave the family around $925 for any extra costs, although it was apparently agreed upon by the authorities and the boy's family that his death was an "unforeseeable tragedy" and no blame was placed on the driver of the van or Lopes. In the documentary The Last Days of Left Eye, Lopes is shown choosing a casket for the child from a local funeral home. Earlier in the documentary, Lopes mentioned that she felt the presence of a "spirit" following her, and was struck by the fact that the child killed in the accident shared a similar last name, even thinking that the spirit may have made a mistake by taking his life instead of hers.

Death

On April 25, 2002, Lopes was driving a rented Mitsubishi Montero SUV in La Ceiba, Honduras, when she swerved slightly to avoid a truck (it is not clear if the truck was slow-moving or stationary) then immediately to the right as she tried to avoid an oncoming car. The vehicle rolled several times after hitting two trees, throwing Lopes and three others out of the windows, and finally coming to rest in a ditch at the side of the road. Lopes, at the age of 30, died instantly of "fracture of the base of the cranium" and "open cerebral trauma", and was the only person fatally injured in the accident. A cameraman in the front passenger seat was videotaping at the time, so the last seconds leading up to the swerve that resulted in the fatal accident were recorded on video. Victims of the accident were taken to Liverpool Royal Hospital. Her sister Reigndrop Lopes was in the vehicle and survived the collision.

Lopes' funeral was held at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia, on May 2, 2002. Thousands of people attended. Engraved upon her casket were the lyrics to her portion of "Waterfalls", stating "Dreams are hopeless aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you." Gospel duo Mary Mary sang their song "Shackles (Praise You)" at the funeral. Lopes was buried at Hillandale Memorial Gardens in Lithonia.

In a statement to MTV, producer Jermaine Dupri remembered Lopes: "She was determined to be something in life. She was a true rock star. She didn't care about no press. She was the rock star out of the group. She was the one that would curse on TV. She had the tattoos. You could expect the unexpected. When you see Lisa, you could expect something from her. That's the gift she carried."

Legacy

Lopes was in the process of setting up two educational centers for Honduran children. One was built on an 80-acre plot of land she called Camp YAC. The other center was called Creative Castle.

In 2003, shortly after Lopes' death, her family started the Lisa Lopes Foundation, a charitable group dedicated to providing neglected and abandoned youth with the resources necessary to increase their quality of life. Her spiritual motto was the one used for her foundation: "Energy never dies... it just transforms." Her foundation went into various underdeveloped villages and gave new clothes to poor children and their families. In August 2007, the foundation hosted a charity auction, selling items donated by celebrities. It raised approximately $5,000 for the Hogar de Amor ("Home of Love"), an orphanage in Honduras. In 2012, the foundation began hosting an annual music festival, known as "Left Eye Music Fest", in Decatur, Georgia.In the 2018 Boots Riley film Sorry to Bother You, members of a fictional activist group called "Left Eye" use as their symbol a stripe of eye black under the left eye, in an unmentioned reference to Lopes.

Posthumous documentary

A documentary showing the final 27 days of Lopes' life, titled The Last Days of Left Eye, premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival in April 2007, for an audience that included many of Lopes' contemporaries, including Monica, Ronnie DeVoe, 112, Big Boi, India.Arie, and Cee Lo Green. VH1 and VH1 Soul broadcast the documentary on May 19, 2007. Most of the footage was shot with a handheld camera, often in the form of diary entries filmed by Lopes while on a 30-day spiritual retreat in Honduras with sister Reigndrop, brother Ronald and members of the R&B group Egypt. In these entries, she reflected on her personal life and career. A calmer side of her personality was on display, showing interests in numerology and yoga. In January 2020, Lifetime aired an episode of Hopelessly In Love, a docuseries that captures the relationships of the rich and famous, about Lopes and Rison's tumultuous relationship. It showcased the complexity of their relationship and how she ended up with a felony arson charge for burning down Rison's Atlanta mansion.

#05/27 #04/25

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seblore · 3 years

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everyday i wake up and you still havent posted your evermore rant </3

there u go boo 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

GDBDNSKDJHHDDNDS GIRL................ ok so i very cleverly avoided ranking folklore because every song REALLY HIT and the whole album was just SO.. SO.. yeah. i can however rank miss evermore. i dont want to compare the two album i do not get the point in that. both give off really different vibes. now what i will say is with folklore, AS AN ALBUM, it is just a master masterpiece. The songs flowed amazingly with each other and really held you close the entire first listen. at least thats what I felt like <3 with evermore however, the individual songs are OMG!!! THERE IS LITERALLY NO SONG I DONT LIKE FROM ANY OF THE TWO ALBUMS. but as an album on the first listen i did feel a bit disconnected from evermore which didnt happen to me with folklore. why i think that might’ve happened is BECAUSE taylor is just so brilliant m8.... the MASSIVE contrasting emotions between the songs was too much for my little brain to handle.

Ok so now that’s out of the way dhsjsk time for rankings :) i have no idea where im going to put each song im just going to make it up as we go <3 ill ALSO give you my fave lyrics from each if I remember it <333 (oh and also you’ll notice marjorie isnt here. im sorry but i never listened to it after the first listen because it hits a little too close to home and i dont want to unpack all of that now im sorry! it is a beautiful song)

14. Closure: she popped off <3 she really said dont treat me like a situation that needs to be handled 💃🤙💯 a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics HOWEVER its the first song i couldnt connect with thus it’s down here BUT I STILL WOULD LISTEN TO IT ON REPEAT THO... the last in my ranking but still fucks 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️ thats taylor swift 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

13. long story short: i have never been in a relationship ever BUT GODDAMN ‘pushed from the precipice, clung to the nearest lips’ hdjsksksjjddjnBbdns jddd ubebs!:!?:?:$3&39383$hzjs WOAH.... and this bitch really summarized the full 2016 drama with long story short it was a bad time. HILARITY. yeah not much to say here tho this is just the ‘at least one mandatory song to shake your tits to on each ts album’ song of evermore <3 and always remember that if the shoe fits walk in it TILL YOUR HIGH HEELS BREAK WOOH ANDIFELLDOWNTHEPEDESTALRIGHTDOWNTHERA—

12: dorothea: making a lark of misery :D RENt free. i had to listen to ‘if youre tired of being known for who you know you know youll always know me’ 113 times to finally understand it tho 😐 some of us are stupid and illiterate have you ever thought about that miss swift???? anyways TINGTINGTINGINGINGING THE STARS IN YOUR EYES SHINED BRIGHTER IN TUPELO <33333 such an innocent feel good song I LOVE!!!!!

11. ivy: the goddamn here and the hush of mirrorball ARE THE REASON IM STILL ALIVE 😽 another lyrical masterclass <3 ‘id live and die for moments that we stole on begged and borrowed time’ IS2G!!!!!!!!!!! anyways what if you cheated on your husband with me and i cheated on my husband with you and my pain fit in the palm of your freezing hands 😳 JK JK 😅 unless...... 🤪😏 hdjsks yeah this song is magnificently cursed and i am in love with it 🧎‍♀️

10. tis the damn season: this song is august but the other side of the coin. august but four months later. AUGUST SLIPPED AWAY LIKE A BOTTLE OF WINE- THE HOLIDAYS LINGER LIKE A BAD PERFUMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... she sounds so pretty goshhh! ‘time flies messy as the mud on your truck tires NOW IM MISSING YOUR SMILE hear me out we could just ride around and the road not taken looks real good now’ is on repeat in my mind. and as always the bridge ::::::::::::::.............:::::::::::::: how does she do this everytime. ‘and wonder about the only soul who can tell which smiles im faking’ 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️ after every ts song i listen my expectations about true love grows exponentially and my chances of finding true love falls exponentially simultaneously ADIEU.

9. willow: she really took the invisible string quartet and put it in huh..................... FUCKED IN THE HEADDDDDDDDDDDDDD. what can i say <3 its just such a pretty song <3 hashtag gorgeous hashtag i cant say anything to its face. WRECK MY PLANS!!!!!! WRECK IT BITCH!!! ‘wait for the signal and ill meet you after dark’ LOVE STORY WHIPLASH. also mate i cant even focus on the song she looks SO GOOD in the music video i—

8. happiness: !!!! what can i say.... one of the best songs of the album hands down. lyrical masterpiece AND musically rich. she really logged into tumblr dot com and typed out ‘THERE’LL BE HAPPINESS AFTER YOU’ AND ‘THERE WAS HAPPINESS BECAUSE OF YOU’ ARE IDEAS THAT CAN COEXIST and logged off...... h8 her and her insanity. the one word i have to describe this song is: picturesque. tis a picturesque song <3 oh and dfbhhffcbhDDVHHTRSDVJK when i heard ‘i hope she’ll be a beautiful fool who takes my spot next to you’ i audibly GASPED and then she says ‘no i didnt mean that sorry i cant see facts through all of my fury’................. i fell out of my chair. IT FELT LIKE AS IF SHE HEARD MY GASP AND TOLD ME SPECIFICALLY THAT NO SHE DIDNT MEAN IT LIKE THAT... anyways yeah. ill write an article one day named THE SWIFT DECEPTION OF TAYLOR about how she keeps writing songs with deceptive titles and this will be the opening case 😈🤙 also the fact that this is one of my faves and i put it in number 8 says a lot......

7. evermore: i havent recovered from ‘motion capture. put me in a bad light’. i mean come on the whole goddamn song is a lyrical masterpiece. ‘writing letters addressed to the fire’. IS SHE OK!????????????? i think tf not. beautiful song beautiful arrangement. iver sounded really good too. and lol lol rofl WOOFWOOFbarkbark ‘HEY DECEMBER GUESS IM FEELING UNMOORED’ unmoored definition from google dot com: no longer attached. she doesn’t go back to december anymore. about2 faint oml. long story short: i did not survive. THIS PAIN WOULD BE FOR EVERMORE........ what i felt with this song is that she took the quarantine sadness we all felt at least once this year and made it into a masterpiece of a song. couldve been easily the top song on any album except this. no i will not elaborate <3

6. no body no crime: i cannot believe. she teased us with a musical number. this woman teased us with. a musical number. I THINK SHE IS WRITING A MUSICAL BUT I JUST CANT PROVE IT! when she wins that tony 16 years later call me prophetic xoxo. anyways yeah she literally wrote this to flex her storytelling abilities. send tweet 🐥

5. cowboy like me: YEEEHAWWW I’LL BE HONEST WITH YOU I DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FULL SONG SOUNDS LIKE I JUST HAVE THE BRIDGE ON REPEAT!!!! OMFG!!! the skeletons in both our closets plotted hard to fuck this up. AAAA!! ??? STFU. IM NOT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE LYRICS MATE THE WAY ITS SUNG!!!!!!! GUT WRENCHING! the best bridge she has ever written musically. i cant stop listening to it. REALLYYY DID BELIEEEVE I WAS THE ONEEE. STORIESSS ABOUT WHEEEN YOU PASSSEDDD THROUGHH TOWN. y e l l. and then she hits me with ‘now you hang from my lips like the gardens of babylon.’ L ???? M !!!!! A $$$$$ O “”””” i had to pause it and sit there for 10 minutes to take in what i had just heard. case closed critical hit sustained yeedhawd.

4. tolerate it: i cried. the only reason it’s not 1 is because it hurt me too much. WHAT THE FUCK YOU MF YOU ASSUME IM FINE BUT WYD IF I BREAK FREE AND LEAVE US IN THE RUINS???? TOOK THIS DAGGER IN ME AND REMOV— m8 this physically hurts me everytime. if its all in my head TELL ME RN. aghhh aRghhhhhhh. pain. and lol she broke down sleep to its bare essentials ‘breathing with your eyes closed’.

3. ??? coney island: i know it’s a bit of a controversial top three but WHO CARES 🕴this is solely here for ‘AND IM SITTING ON A BENCH IN CONEY ISLAND wondering where did my BABYy GO’ im shaking. my bed is shaking. my body is shaking. my pupils are shaking. THE WAY SHE SINGS IT OH MY GOODNESS ME i have to lie down gimme a sec. ‘and if this is the long haul howd we get here so soon 😟’ SCREAM. and when i was hearing it for the first time and she said ‘sorry for not making you my centerfold’ i was like yeah and?? so what?? and then she hits me with ‘over and over’...... so she didnt make him/her/them her centerfold over and over !!!!!!! she is sorry she didnt do it over and over!!!!!! mannn.... the chorus.. i shall not speak. i am held at gunpoint i CANNOT SPEAK. the bridge tho dhdnsksksjsb I CAN SPEAK AND I SHALL SPEAK. BITCH WENT OFFFFFFFF. <3 this is the apology she deserved from her exes which she never got so she wrote it herself. podium. grey skies. birthday cake. ACCIDENT. im laughingggggggggggg <///3 and yeah so overall it is a really yummy song with yummy vocals and yummy arrangement 9/10 would recommend. also!! life lessons kids life lessons. disappointments? SIMPLY CLOSE YOUR EYES AND PRETEND YOU DO NOT SEE IT YAAAAAAAAAS

2. gold rush: ETHEREAL!!!!!! The last time i felt like this™️ whilst listening to a song was with mirrorball <3 the production of this song omg omg omg LOVE 💃 but what propelled it to number two status was the ‘i dont like slow motion double vision in ROSE BLUSH/ i dont like that falling feels like flying till the BONE CRUSH’ imagine how fucked in the head a person needs to be to rhyme rose blush with bone crush. yeah i have nothing more to say really this song is extremely gorgeous and ‘eyes like sinking ships on water so inviting i almost jumped in’ / ‘walk past quick brush’ ?:!:!&:8483 F A V E <33333 and the transition transmission transfusion from ‘... gray old tea cuz itll never be ᵍˡᵉᵃᵃᵃᵃᵐⁱⁿᵍ ᵗʷⁱⁿᵏˡⁱⁿᵍᵍᵍᵍ’ MADAME

1. champagne problems: are we surprised? ARE WE REALLY SURPRISED? when listening to new albums i normally listen to it at one go in order. i stick to that rule. HOWEVER after many years of my solid album listening self made rule tm i finally broke and immediately replayed this mf song after listening to it once. ‘you had a speech, youre speechless/ love slipped beyond your reaches’???? stfu???? VILE. PUNISHABLE. DEROGATORY. and welp the entire bridge ...... .... ........... what can i say. And the parallels to miss all too well??? WHAT WAS THE REASON???? your SISTER splashed out on the bottle- left my scarf there at your SISTER’s house 😐 she’ll patch up your tapestry that i SHRED- maybe this thing was a masterpiece till you TORE it all up 😐 your MOM’s ring in your pocket- your MOTHER’s telling stories bout you on the tee ball team 😐 November flush and your FLANNEL cure- PLAID shirt days and nights when you made me your own 😐 wHAT A SHAME SHE IS FUCKED IN THE HEAD IS2G........... and also why would she not rhyme POCKET with LOCKET?????? why with wallet???????????? slant rhyme why????????????? AND THE NOTE THIS MF SONG ENDS ON..... FUCKED IN THE HEAD

THATS IT. i really sat here and did this for the past 2 hours huh...... hhdjsms anyways LONG STORY SHORT: I HATE ONE INSANE WOMAN AND HER NAME IS TAYLOR ALISON SWIFT. GODSPEEED 🏃‍♀️

#obviously i have not listened to the two delux songs yet so yeah <3 #im sorry about this i have neither proofread this nor do i think this makes any sense </3 #also i just realized i swore alot in this.... its that kind of a year huh ;D #anyways tysm anon for your eagerness for MY rant on evermore <3 truly honored #have a great day ilyy #answered 🗣#evermore era

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heauxplesslydevoted · 5 years

Text

All I Have Is Memories (M!Raleigh x MC)

Summary: Raleigh isn’t handling the breakup well.

Word Count: 3.4K+ Honestly two thousand words longer than I originally anticipated. I have no self control.

A/N: My crybaby ass was in shambles writing it, so I hope you enjoy the fruits of my labor. All italicized parts are flashbacks, and my MC’s name is Cassandra Paige

Tag List: @x-kyne-x @paulfwesley @ramseyandrys @choicesobsessedd @a-i-n-a-a-s-h @furiouscloddonutpeanut @livedinawomansworld

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

“So tell me again what I’m doing tonight,” Raleigh orders, putting on his sunglasses.

“Just a simple club appearance,” Raleigh’s manager Mason answers. “Luxe in Midtown is hosting a launch party for some model’s Ciroc collab. I think it’s one of the Hadids or some other nepotism model or another.”

“Ciroc?” Raleigh grimaces. “I don’t even like vodka, especially that cheap shit.”

“I don’t care what you do with the Ciroc. Drink it, pour it down the drain, use it to start a fire for all I care. It’s 75 thousand dollars for a few hours of your time and as much vodka your liver can handle, and you don’t even have to perform.”

Raleigh doesn’t give a reply. The rest of the car ride is filled with silence, for which Raleigh is grateful. He doesn’t want to talk, especially about work. He really wants to close his eyes and take a little cat nap.

He’s been on a run, doing pop up shows and club appearances almost every night for the past month and a half. Mason was loving it. Raleigh’s popularity had somehow skyrocketed even more after his “breakup” with Cassandra, and Mason Bentley was always one to strike while the iron was hot. And in the beginning, Raleigh didn’t mind either. He needed the distraction, he needed his mind to be on anything other than Cassandra freaking Paige.

He had been in multiple fake relationships. He knew they had a shelf life of 6 months at maximum before TPTB stepped in and put an end to everything, but he didn’t think it would happen with her. He thought she was different, he thought they were different.

What started out as something fake had quickly turned into something real. It was less paparazzi runs, and more kisses when the fans and cameras weren’t around, late night sleepovers, hookups in bathrooms and coat closets at big industry events, and tiny moments of intimacy such as hand holding, her tracing nonsensical patterns into his chest after sex, and staying up late at night, swapping childhood stories.

It’s been two months since their split, and it’s still as fresh as ever in his mind.

They’re sitting at an outside cafe not too far from Central Park, He’s eating a bagel and people watching when Cassandra finally speaks up.

“So we’ve been at this for a few months now.” she starts. “And I think we’ve reached the end of the road with the fake relationship thing.”

Raleigh doesn’t say anything immediately. He honestly forgot the reason they were put together in the first place. He needed image rehab, and she needed publicity. “I think you and I stopped with the whole fake relationship thing a few months ago, Andy.”

“Yeah,” she agrees with a subtle nod.

She doesn’t speak again and Raleigh feels the hair on the back of his neck stand to attention. He sits up straighter and looks at Cassandra. He notes that she can’t look him in the eyes, opting to focus on her lap instead. “Cassandra, look at me. Just what are you trying to say?”

After a long while, she finally looks up at him. Her eyes are large and glossy, as if she’s on the verge of tears. “I think the real part of our relationship needs to come to an end too.”

In that moment it feels like all of the air has been pulled out of his lungs. Is he...being dumped?

“What?”

“If we’re ending things publicly, I think it’ll work out better if we severed everything,” Cassandra continues. “Things will be less messy.”

Raleigh’s jaw clenches. “Wow, did you just repeat verbatim some bullshit Fiona force fed you?”

“Raleigh-”

“What, I’m right, right? She’s putting you up to this?”

“Yes, but-”

“So don’t do it!”

“I’m not you, I can’t afford to blatantly disregard my manager and piss off the label. We can still be friends, but our arrangement snowballed into something different than what we intended.”

“But I don’t want to end this. I want you, I l-” He’s able to catch himself before he makes a bigger fool of himself, but it’s too late. They both know what he was about to say.

I love you.

Raleigh doesn’t have time to pivot and steer the conversation in a different direction because before he can open his mouth again, he spots a paparazzo taking pictures of them, barely hiding behind a bush. That’s when he gets angry. “Is that why we’re here? Why we’ve been in Central Park all fucking day, so these vultures can get a piece of the pie?”

He knows that this is how these types of things work. Things have to end with a bang, not a fizzle, but he doesn’t give a fuck. That was before. Before he actually gave a damn about the other person, before he actually felt something.

He composes himself though, closing his eyes. He isn’t going to give the tabloids the satisfaction of getting raw footage of Raleigh Carrera having a complete meltdown in public. “I thought you were different, you know. I thought you weren’t like the rest of these fake industry people.”

“I’m not!” Cassandra argues.

“I thought we had something real.”

“We do, we did. But I can’t just-”

“Whatever,” Raleigh interjects. He stands abruptly. “And for the record, no we can absolutely not still be friends after this.”

Raleigh is thankfully pulled out of his thoughts before he has to relive any more of that tragic day. He hates thinking about it, he hates being that vulnerable.

The limo he’s riding in comes to a screeching halt in front of Luxe, and he hops out, Mason not too far behind. They’ve gone all out for this party. Red carpet, tons of celebrities (though he’s clearly the biggest name there), and lots of press. Paparazzi is yelling, calling out his name, reporters are practically shoving each other in order to get closer to him, hoping to be the lucky SOB that gets to interview him.

Mason points Raleigh in the direction of a reporter from Charttopper. Raleigh plasters on his best industry smile and heads over.

“Raleigh, hi. Janet Carmichael from Charttopper News, thank you stopping to chat!”

“Oh, thank you for having me, Janet.”

“Can I just say that you are killing it right now!”

“Thank you.”

“Seriously, I mean. The start of your victory lap was your latest single, a sultry collab with fellow R&B crooner Bryson Tiller called Wrong. It’s been out for three weeks and it’s already gone platinum. How does it feel?”

“It feels great,” Raleigh says. “I’ve been in this industry since I was a kid, I’m just glad the people still enjoy my work.”

“That’s a complete understatement, we more than love it.”

“I’m glad.”

“Now tell me, the song is about a man expressing some angst and guilt over a relationship gone wrong.” Raleigh tenses. He already knows where this lady is going to go with her line of questioning. “You recently went through a breakup, with up and coming pop sensation, Cassandra Paige.”

“Yeah.”

“Was she the inspiration behind the ballad?”

“No,” Raleigh replies. “I had been working on that song long before Andy and I broke up.”

And that’s the truth. The song had been in the making for months. In fact, Cassandra sat in on a few of his sessions.

“You want to have a fake snowball fight with all of these pieces of paper,” Raleigh suggests, tossing a crumpled piece at Cassandra. She quickly bats it away before it can hit her forehead.

“You’re supposed to be writing, mister,” Cassandra teases with an eye roll.

“But I have writer's block.” The two of them have been locked up in the studio for hours, crumpled pieces of paper strewn about, Raleigh’s guitar haphazardly dangling from the back of a chair. He had sent the rest of his team—sound engineer, mixers, and producer—away a long time ago. “Nothing sounds right, and the label is being annoying, pressuring me. Raleigh Carrera doesn’t do well under pressure. Raleigh Carrera needs time and space.”

“You are such a dork.”

“Just don’t tell anyone,” Raleigh shoots back with a smirk.

“Your secret is safe with me.” Cassandra sits back on the comfortable sleeper sectional that takes up a lot of the studio space. “Come here, come sit with me.”

“Andy”

“I’m not taking no for an answer. Come sit.”

Raleigh obliges and sits next to Cassandra. She pulls him back further so his back is on her chest and she nuzzles her face into his neck, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders.

“What are we doing?” Raleigh asks.

“I’m hugging you,” Cassandra says simply. “Hugging is good for you, it lowers anxiety and stress levels. You were on the verge of spiraling.”

“You know how it is, releasing a buzz single to get hype for an album. They want something deep, something sad. Something that’ll make Toni Braxton’s music look cheery.”

“Yikes. Why so glum?”

“It’s a niche market that’s currently untapped. People miss the heartbreak of 90s R&B. The crying, the begging, the dramatic music videos. They need me to fill that void. They’re all but demanding it. I don’t work well with demands.”

“I know it’s easier said than done, but you need to relax.” Raleigh snorts at the suggestion. “I’m serious. Music can not be forced, it has to be felt. It has to flow.”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t write my own music. It’d be easier to have someone else do it and then head straight to the booth.”

“Let’s see if I can help you. Tell me what comes to mind when I say these words. Heartbreak?”

“Crush.”

“Loss?”

“Gain.”

“Pain?”

“Hurt.”

“Okay, so give me some bars,” Cassandra demands.

“What?”

“You heard me. Don’t think about it, just go. Start singing.”

“I can’t just—” Cassandra cuts Raleigh off by flicking his ear. “Hey! What was that for?”

Cassandra flicks his ear again. “You better get to singin’!”

Raleigh ponders the words. “I gave you my heart, all you did was give me pain. You played me like a fool, look at this mess you’ve made. I’m stuck with all of the memories, heartbreak’s my only gain. Caught in your web of love, I feel so ashamed.”

Cassandra smiles. “Look at you!”

“It still needs some fine tuning.”

“Yeah, but it sounds like you’re on your way to a bridge. It’s more than you had 10 minutes ago.”

“How are you so optimistic all the time?”

“I just am.”

Raleigh bends down to kiss Cassandra’s arm. “Thank you.”

“No problem.”

He turns around and lifts himself up so he’s hovering over Cassandra. “I feel like I should repay you in some way.”

“Mmmm, I’m pretty sure you can think of something,” Cassandra runs her hands through Raleigh’s hair. “I accept payment in the form of kisses.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Miss Paige, but I think I can manage.” Cassandra tilts her head up and presses her lips against his in a soft kiss that he instantly heats up.

Raleigh manages to flip them around so Cassandra is straddling him without breaking the kiss. If he wasn’t so wrapped up in what he was doing, he’d boast about it, but he’s too focused on the task at hand. His hands dig into the soft flesh of her thighs and he’s sure there will be marks there come morning time. Good. He wants her marked as his

He sits up, his back against the arm of the couch, pulling Cassandra in closer to him. His lips travel, planting kisses on her neck and collarbone, leaving goosebumps in their wake. His hands find the hem on the shirt she’s wearing and he tugs it up, yanking it off of her body. His hands roam her skin appreciatively. She’s soft, so soft it should be illegal. It was unfair for one person to be so perfect.

“Sh-shouldn’t we be working on your song?”

Raleigh quickly finds the class of her bra and he unhooks it expertly. “The song can wait, I have better things to do.”

“Aw, you have a nickname for her,” Janet coos.

“Huh?”

“Cassandra. You call her Andy.”

Raleigh mentally curses himself for letting it slip out. Everyone else refers to the singer as Cassandra or Cassie, but not him. She was his Andy. She’d joke that if she was Andy, he was her Woody. He’s mad at himself for exposing their private, intimate thing to the world. He just shrugs it off. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Speaking of Cassandra, have you spoken to her since the breakup?”

“No, I haven’t seen her, I haven’t spoken to her. But she’s killing it out here, and I’ll always be supportive of her and her career. Always.”

Raleigh can tell it wasn’t the soundbite she was expecting, and he has to hold back his smirk. He’d never trash her publicly, despite the messy media outlets and overzealous fans stoking the flames.

“Well thank you so much for stopping to talk to me. Enjoy the party!”

Raleigh doesn’t even respond. He just shuffles through the throngs of people until he’s inside the club. It’s packed and he can barely hear himself think. Before he can register what’s going on, someone is ushering him into a secluded VIP area, and handing him a drink, which he happily accepts.

A few hours go by, and Raleigh has never been more grateful for the passage of time. He’s no longer contractually obligated to be there and he can finally leave. All night long people are coming up to him left and right, posing for pictures, offering to get him food and drinks.

And the women are relentless with their flirting. Everyone wants a piece of him, and they make no qualms about it. Between the half naked bottle girls constantly circling the section and the fellow VIP party goers clinging onto him in hopes that they’ll be the lucky girl that he takes home, it’s overwhelming.

He never thought the day would come where he’s actually tired of clubbing, but it’s here. He’d rather be anywhere else. The only bright spot was the alcohol.

He stumbles into his Tribeca apartment a little after 1AM. He doesn’t even bother changing his clothes, he just collapses face first into his comforter.

His phone starts buzzing in his pocket and he groans. After pulling it out, he sees it’s just a Google Alert for an article about him.

‘Exclusive: Raleigh Carrera Opens Up About Singer Ex-Girlfriend for First Time Since Split!’

Underneath the title of the article is a picture of him and Cassandra together. She’s sitting on his lap and he’s whispering in her ear. Her head is thrown back and she’s laughing hysterically at whatever he’s saying. He can’t remember. The important thing is that he made her laugh.

Seeing that picture of them makes his heart thud wildly in his chest. He’d done a good job of blocking her out, for the most part. Skipping her songs on playlists because he wasn’t ready to hear her voice again, muting all of her social media account but never unfollowing or blocking her. He’s caught in a weird limbo of not wanting to see her and not wanting to let her go.

Before his heart or brain can object, his fingers are dialing her number. He knows the 10 digit sequence by heart.

After a few rings, the line in picked up. “Hello?”

“Cassandra?”

“Raleigh?” Her voice is deep, and Raleigh can surmise that she was asleep when he called.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you up? I didn’t even trip off of the time.”

“I was just up. I was catching up on all of the recorded shows taking up space on my DVR and I must’ve dozed.”

“If you were sleeping, don’t let me hold you up.”

“Is everything okay?”

What a loaded question.

“I don’t know, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

“What was streaming my songs not good enough?” He can tell that she’s teasing, her tone light.

“Nothing is better than the real deal, baby.”

“Well, since I’m on the phone, we might as well talk. How have you been? I heard your new single. It’s the one—”

“The one you forced me to start?” Raleigh finishes with a smirk. “Yeah.”

“I think I deserve a writing credit. I played a pivotal role in that song’s conception.”

“I’ll have my people call your people.”

“But seriously, you’ve been working like crazy. Good for you.”

“I hate it,” Raleigh confesses quietly. “I’m exhausted, completely burnt out. It feels like I’m running a race, but the finish line keeps getting pushed back. Or like I’m a hamster on a wheel.”

“Why don’t you stop?”

“Because I’m running from you.”

“Me?”

“I needed to stay busy. I needed to have always have something to look towards, because if I’d stop, I’d think of you. And I’d break.”

The line goes silent for a long time and Raleigh gets nervous. Did he say too much?

“So, what made you decide to call?”

“Because you’re all I can think about. You’ve consumed my thoughts all day, good, bad and in between. I was at the hottest event of the week and all I wanted to do was be with you. I wanted to be at your apartment, curled up in your blankets, binge watching It’s Always Sunny reruns.” Raleigh feels a lump form in his throat and he awkwardly coughs. “And how I wanted to smell the perfume of yours that I’m so obsessed with. And run my fingers through your pink hair. And you’d correct me and say it’s not pink, it’s rose gold, and I’d call it pink again just to annoy you.”

“It’s kinda sad. My latest single has received critical acclaim, it’s already certified, I’m getting early Grammy buzz. I just bought my parents the house of their dreams in San Juan, I made $75 thousand dollars tonight for a stupid appearance. Hell, I’m calling you from my multi-million dollar Tribeca condo, and I should be ecstatic. Raleigh Carrera is on top of the fucking world right now, and I hate to sound ungrateful, but I can’t bring myself to feel joy about any of it. I feel like my insides aren’t connected to my outsides, and my insides are just hollow. This celebrity shit is draining me. The appearances, the interviews, the fake relationships and feuds, all of it. Like I said before, I’m tired. And I just...really fucking miss you, Andy. You were the only real thing I had in this crowd of bullshit, the only person I cared about out here. I’m sorry for rambling, I’m kind of tipsy right now.”

“Oh god, are you going to wake up tomorrow and regret this entire conversation?”

“Of course not,” he says earnestly. “A drunk mind speaks sober thoughts, and all that jazz.”

“This hasn’t been the easiest for me either,” Cassandra admits, her voice shaking slightly. Raleigh frowns at the thought of her crying on the other end of the phone. “I really miss you too.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one struggling.” And he means it. Knowing she felt even slightly similar to him made all the difference.

“Not in the slightest.”

“So what do we do? Are we going to be slaves to our shitty contracts for the rest of our lives?” Raleigh asks rhetorically.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, I don’t know either.”

They sit in silence for a long time, not knowing what to say, but not wanting to the conversation to end either. They just listen to the sound of each other’s deep breathing.

“Hey, Cassandra?”

“Yes?”

“I’m really sleepy.”

Raleigh hears her giggle on the other line and his stomach flips. God, he’s missed that sound. “Go to sleep, superstar. It’s really late.”

“No,” he says stubbornly. “I want to keep hearing your voice. Stay on until I fall asleep.”

“And talk about what?”

“I don’t care. Whatever you want to talk about.”

Cassandra humors his request and launches into a mini rant about a fitting for some award show she’s scheduled to present at. She and Zadie aren’t seeing eye to eye on what she should wear at all, and they were in a stalemate.

He tries to keep up with her, interjecting with commentary and now and again, but after a few minutes, he stops responding all together.

“Raleigh?” She prods. “Raleigh are you sleeping?” He doesn’t say anything but she hears him breathing softly on the other line. He’s out like a light. “I love you too, Raleigh.”

And with that, she hangs up.

#choices: stories you play #playchoices #choices: platinum #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc

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